by Tony Batton
Finally his father spoke. "Where did you get that?"
"You're not going to ask what it is?"
"It's a CERUS prototype. Archived. Almost nobody had access. How did you--?"
"Peter Marron planted it on the Phoenix Reborn to kill you."
Bern reached his hand out, then withdrew it. "I upset him more than I realised."
"He said he was returning a favour."
"You spoke with him? Did the US capture him?"
"No, he kind of captured me."
"And then let you go?"
"He also gave me the codes." Tom flipped open a control panel on the cube to reveal a timer display. It read ten minutes, but the counter was static.
"Why would he do that?"
"I persuaded him that it was unfair to kill everybody on board, which is why I engineered things to bring the bomb on the helicopter, safely away from the fleet. Here there'll be no collateral damage."
Bern froze. "Why would there be any kind of damage?"
One Hundred Seventeen
BERN SHOOK HIS HEAD. "YOU would commit suicide?"
Tom narrowed his eyes. "I'm dead already, after what you did to me. But now you're dead too. There's a kind of poetic justice to it."
"And that's your plan? To give up?"
"It's one of my options, but first I thought I'd ask you about my mother."
Bern swallowed. "You already know she was a CERUS employee: that's how we met. There's nothing else to tell."
"I want to know what really happened to her."
"And if I tell you?"
"Then I'll let you go. I give you my word. And I'm a lawyer."
"You're not really that any more."
"If that's right, it's your doing."
Bern frowned. "You can have the truth, but you might not like it. Your mother betrayed me. She joined CERUS with the sole intention of stealing our research and selling it to the highest bidder. And that's exactly what she did. She seduced me to get access to the technology. She got what she wanted and left."
"And what did she take?"
"Early-stage nano research: one of our most sensitive projects."
"The Accumulator?"
"That's right."
"So you knew she took it and you had her arrested?"
Bern hesitated. "We made a judgement call to keep the theft confidential."
"I don't believe that's the full story for a second."
"It's the truth. I had some suspicions and had her followed. That was when we found out she was pregnant. What's the value in locking up a young mother?"
"You actually expect me to believe in your humanity? That you thought of her welfare or mine?" Tom shook his head. "You wanted her to take the tech."
"Why would I want that?"
"You needed someone to act as the go between, to unwittingly deliver the goods. I bet you chose her specifically - headhunted her to join CERUS. Just as you did with me. You wanted her to take something to them. How did that help you?"
"In my experience, the Americans only ever help themselves."
"So you made it look like they were helping themselves when really you were stuck. You had an item of tech with a problem that you couldn't solve, so you farmed it out to another research organisation: one that would be only too delighted to work on it, provided they didn't suspect they were being set up."
"Very clever." Bern ground his teeth. "So you wanted to bring me here to gloat?"
"I wanted to see if you would tell the truth. As usual, you came up short."
"Well, that's great. But you seem to be forgetting one thing: I also have an Interface and I have a lot more power behind mine. I also understand the inventions my company has built better than you ever could." Bern turned to the cube and closed his eyes. There was a popping hiss and a burning smell. The LED display turned brown. "I've deactivated the trigger circuits. The bomb cannot be detonated." Bern struck out hard, knocking Tom to the ground. "So this game is over."
One Hundred Eighteen
TOM FELL TO THE GROUND, scrabbling among the rocks. With a growl he found his feet and lunged at Bern. He collided with Bern's chest, but it was like hitting steel and, with a crunch, Tom fell to one side. All he had to do was get close enough to make a connection. Somehow he had to find enough strength to do it.
"What are you trying to do?" Bern said, staring down at Tom, sprawled at his feet. "You must know you can't hurt me in this suit."
Tom rose, gripping Bern's shoulders. He closed his eyes and tried to reach out: to feel the suit that his father wore and the power source within its web.
Bern struck him with the flat of his hand
Tom fell back, gasping. "So what now?"
"I'm going to leave you here."
"Too much of a coward to kill me yourself, and nobody here to do it for you?"
Bern tipped his head to one side. "You're a fool. Just like your mother. That video shown in the lab was right - whoever the hell ran it, I have no idea - but Amelia came to me four years ago to ask for a cure? I said I couldn't help her."
"If she couldn't give you anything you wanted, why would you?"
"The thing is, she just laughed. She said she wanted to see if I'd changed. She said I wasn't the only person with experimental treatments under development and she would find a way." A smile flickered over his face. "That obviously worked out for her."
Tom lurched forward again, feigned a trip and staggered against Bern, holding onto him as if for balance, hoping not to get pushed away. The suit was like a firewall, protecting the Accumulator. He didn't have the strength to break through. He needed more power, but the only source was beyond the barrier.
"It's over. I don't know what you're trying, but it's futile. Accept this."
Tom slipped back to sit on the ground, next to the useless bomb. He needed to get more energy. There had to be a way.
And suddenly he knew that there was a way – if it didn't kill him.
All he had to do was force his opponent to act. Behind Bern he saw the helicopter and, with a thrust of his thoughts, he connected to its controls. Immediately the rotors started to spin.
Bern jerked around, alarmed. "Stop!" He lunged forward and placed a hand on Tom's chest, electricity crackling. Tom felt the energy flow into him, driven from the Accumulator, shaped by Bern's suit. His body fought and shook.
A normal person would have been paralysed, but instead the nanites drew the energy in hungrily. Tom reached out, following the flow back to its source. He could feel the incredible energy within the Accumulator. He placed his other hand on the bomb. Its energy was different and yet similar, designed to be channelled and controlled, then released in one terrible moment of destruction: derived from the same principles, built by the same process, just one tiny divergence in configuration, producing a hugely different outcome.
Tom felt the energy flow from the Accumulator. He didn't really need it. He just needed access. He felt the bomb. And he did what only he could do. He reached out and made a change. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, he made another, but the energy did not stop. Bern's hand was still on his chest. His heart was going to burst...
Shrieking, he flung himself backwards, his hair steaming.
Bern shook his head. "Goodbye, Tom."
Then he turned and climbed into the helicopter.
One Hundred Nineteen
BERN CLIMBED ON BOARD THE helicopter and let his mind merge with the control systems. Already he was becoming more adept at working the Interface. In moments he was airborne, heading south west. There were many islands he could touch down on and refuel: islands where money would trump any theoretical formalities. After that, the world was his oyster.
Nothing could stand in his way.
His thoughts flickered briefly back to the island he had just left. Could he perhaps reactivate the nano bomb and leave not even a trace of Tom on this earth? He could feel the device in his mind as it sat on the boulder. Should he be humane and spare the boy some suffering, o
r should he let him die slowly? He was just weighing up the decision when something occurred to him.
Reactivating the bomb was possible, so why hadn't Tom done it? Bern had assumed his son's Interface wasn't working – at least fully, but the last moments of the island had shown otherwise. And if it was working, and Tom had wanted to blow them up, wouldn't he have done that, even after Bern had destroyed the detonator? It didn't add up. If Tom hadn't meant to die, what had been his plan?
And then he realised what Tom had done.
His mind shook in horror. It was such a delicate manoeuvre: a tweak here, and a tweak there. A masterful application of the Interface by somebody far more adept at manipulating it.
The nano bomb had become an Accumulator, repurposed into something intended to release energy far more slowly.
And the Accumulator housed in his suit had been through the reverse process.
It had become a bomb.
He could feel it all now. Once it reached a specified distance from Tom's newly created Accumulator it would detonate. The helicopter was turning as sharply as he could bring it round, even as he felt the trigger breach.
And he knew it was too late. There was nothing even he, with all his abilities, could do.
At the base of his spine he felt warmth turn to heat, turn to incandescent fury: so much energy – if only he could find some way to do something with it. If only he could guide the nanites appropriately, anything would be possible.
But there was no time. Suddenly everything was light and dark at once, and he was being gripped by something impossibly strong. Desperately he tried to resist, as around him reality tore apart.
And there was pain.
So much pain.
Tom lay on the rocks watching the helicopter fly away. Was this the right thing to do? Despite everything, he couldn't feel good about it.
Then the explosion blossomed: a white flare of purest light, almost blinding him before he could turn away. At last, a death his father could not have faked.
He thought of his mother. She had reached out to Bern and he had turned her away - her words about there being an alternative were surely just a futile, angry response. Tom could only imagine what it must have taken for her to approach the man she hated most in the world – and for nothing. Just as Croft's daughter would receive no miracle.
And he would die on this island. His father knew that and still he left him.
There was no food or water. He almost screamed at the irony. To have done so much, but to be foiled by a basic human need as old as time. No life without food or water, because without them there was no energy for life.
Then he felt a spark, and his eyes fell on the former bomb.
He had his own Accumulator filled with energy. So much energy.
Perhaps it was not over after all. He closed his eyes and let his mind reach out.
Far, far out.
One Hundred Twenty
LENTZ SAT IN THE BRIEFING room on board the USS Inimitable, glaring at Truman. "I don't have anything more to tell you, Deputy Director."
He ran a tired hand through his greying hair. "Well, I suggest you try, Ms Lentz, because my instructions are to shake the tree until something falls out."
"I hear Bern's man Brody already defected to your team. Ask him."
"You know who we need to speak to. You know why."
"Tom saved you." Lentz slammed the table. "Or don't you remember?"
"Did he? Or did he deceive us? We have no way of knowing, seeing as how he disconnected the satellites. Look you can tell me or you can tell Director Banetti. He'll be here very shortly."
Lentz raised an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to intimidate me? I don't care if you wheel in your President, it won't make any difference to what information I have."
A loud phone ringtone rang around the room. Truman looked around, confused. "Do we have a phone in here?"
The ringing stopped and was replaced by a loud, slightly metallic voice. "Hello, Dominique. Hello, Mr Truman."
"Tom!" shouted Lentz, looking around. "Are you OK?"
Truman signalled to one of his aides. "Trace that, er, signal." He looked up at the air. "Tom, you're OK. Where are you? We need you to come back to us. Is Bern with you?"
"I can't come back to you or tell you where I am. I don't trust you. And even if I did, I don't trust the people with you. The world isn't ready for this tech."
"I'm not sure we can accept that. As I was just saying to Dr Lentz--"
"Let me be very clear, Deputy Director Truman, if you don't immediately let all my friends go, I'm going to notify the Canadian Government of what has been taking place in their territory. I have the Canadian Prime Minister's private number right here."
"How could you possibly--"
"I'm calling a US navy ship on a disavowed mission: not only that, I've called you in a room that doesn't even have a phone. And you think I can't get the Canadian PM's private number?"
Truman blinked rapidly. "Are you threatening me?"
"Yes, Deputy Director Truman, I am threatening you. Also, to be upfront about things, I'm afraid I can't return your helicopter. It was destroyed in a very large explosion, as your satellites will likely confirm in about forty-eight hours' time. Apologies but I've had to glitch their processing in case you try to work out where I am."
"What about Bern and the Accumulator?"
"They were closely involved with the very large explosion. Check the data when you receive it. It seems you were right to worry the Accumulator could be converted into a bomb."
Truman shook his head. "We're going to come out of this with nothing, aren't we?"
"That's for you to decide. Some would say coming out of this situation alive is something."
Truman slapped his hands on the desk, looking across at Lentz. "So what happens next, Tom?"
"After you've done what I've asked, then you never hear from me again."
"Banetti wants to talk to you."
There was a moment's silence, then Tom laughed. "Why would I do that?"
"I don't know. It's not like he shares anything with me. Except blame. And I probably mean 'passing' rather than 'sharing'."
"That's what I thought. In the time I have, he won't be a priority."
Lentz cleared her throat loudly. "Are you OK, Tom? Are you hurt?"
There was a pause. "I'm... There are some things I need to do. Some questions I need to answer." He paused for a moment. "Don't look for me. If you do, I can't promise what you will find."
One Hundred Twenty-One
One Week Later
KATE SAT in her apartment in North London, a large glass of Rioja in hand, as she stared at the screen of her laptop. On it was her letter of resignation, giving the required one month's notice. She wasn't sure what she was going to do next, but whatever it was, she wouldn't be doing it at CERUS.
She stood up and walked over to the window, staring down at the street below - a light drizzle was falling, misting the glow from the street lamps. So many people had died, although there were few she would miss. Sharp, of course, killed in his prison cell - which had meant it was safe for her to return home. Leskov - who had hired the killer - cut to pieces and thrown on the jetty near the ruins of the CERUS beta site. Fabienne or Felicia or Fiona - or whatever her real name was - had not yet been found. Her body was most likely buried deep in the rubble of the Dome, probably never to be recovered - broken, like so much of everything touched by CERUS.
But the greatest of all those deaths - in terms of impact - was William Bern. Tom had confirmed it - or rather, she corrected herself, Lentz had confirmed that Tom had confirmed it. From Tom, Kate had heard nothing. She had risked her life to go and rescue him, and he hadn't cared. In fact, worse than that, he seemed to have some bizarre connection with Alex. It was clear that the Tom she had known a year ago didn't exist any more.
She shrugged, walked back to her laptop, and emailed her letter to Lentz. She didn't care any more. That episode of her life was o
ver. She was moving on. She was fed up sitting in the shadows, and she was fed up with putting herself out for people who didn't care.
She wanted to do something for herself. Something that would make a difference. Even without knowledge of her resignation, she'd received a number of approaches from recruiters - one pushing a senior role at Glifzenko, the huge Pharma company. It was not where she saw herself going next. She felt the tingling in her palm, and permitted herself a small smile. She would persuade. She would change the world. Whatever she wanted, she was just going to ask for it.
Kate hesitated. There was a shift in the air. Or was that just subjective impression - was the shift in her. She could sense... she could sense...
She span to face the door.
Tom stood watching her. He brushed hair away from his face. He looked... different. Older. His voice, when he spoke, seemed to reverberate: "I wanted to apologise."
"For what?"
"For everything. For walking out when we had dinner. For never communicating. For being so... obtuse. I've not been myself. You and Lentz came to rescue me. That was no small thing."
"Just returning a favour. What happened to you? You looked like you were going to die. Now you seem... OK."
"I feel OK. I was in a pretty bad way. But I came back from the brink. I think I can keep things under control."
"That's good to hear."
He nodded. "And I've been less than gracious. After all the information you dug up."
"You were right, it's still my thing." She folded her arms. "Do you want to dig further?"
"I want to do something. There are so many things I could do. But I can't do them alone. I don't want to do them alone."
"You want my help?"
"I want to collaborate. I want to learn."
"From me?"
"I know I'm not the only one who's changed."
She held up her hand, rippling her fingers. "I'm still not sure where this will take me."
