Fading Light

by Nick Cook

  An eternally long minute later, our white canvas jib sail billowed in the screaming wind.

  ‘Impressive stuff, Jake,’ Allan shouted. ‘I can see Kelly has trained you well.’

  I gave her a thumbs up. ‘She’s a great teacher.’

  ‘Oh, you sweet talker,’ Kelly called back.

  ‘Anything else that I can do?’ I replied.

  She smiled at me. ‘No, you go and give your dad a hand setting up Waverider. And can you tell him to shift his arse? In less than two minutes we’ll be hitting the rough water.’

  ‘You’ve got it.’ I ducked into the cabin.

  Chloe was lying motionless on a bunk under a blanket, her face pale. Nearby, Dad was tightening the last of four big bolts on to Waverider as he fastened it to the deck.

  Clarke tried to hide his grimace of pain as he settled himself on to the other bunk.

  ‘Kelly says we need to get a move on.’

  ‘We’re on it,’ Dad said. He connected two large wires from Waverider to a neatly stacked set of large batteries, which had also been lashed down with a rope net.

  I raised my chin towards them. ‘Are those really going to be enough to power that thing?’

  Dad scratched the back of his neck. ‘I’ve wired them up in sequence so it should supply all the volts it needs.’

  Sentinel’s micro-mind voice, far more synthetic than his normal one, came from one of the multiple open laptops. ‘I monitored Waverider’s systems before we crated it up and everything checked out. But don’t forget that it’s your Awoken ability that will be doing the heavy lifting here.’

  I cast a glance at the unconscious Chloe. ‘No pressure as usual.’

  Dad smiled at me. ‘This will be a walk in the park for you compared to the other things you’ve been asked to do recently.’

  ‘Yes, I know…’ I drummed my foot on the deck as Dad tightened the final nut over the bare red wire.

  The pounding waves thundered on the hull and Moon Dancer leant hard over. We each grabbed something to hang on to, Dad holding Chloe down in her bunk as Clarke eyed the angry sea rolling past the starboard portholes.

  ‘OK, we’re good to go,’ Dad said. ‘Are you ready, Jake?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  ‘Then here goes nothing.’ He pressed a green button on Waverider.

  The machine hummed into life and its dials flicked over. The wind started to scream as the boat pitched even further to one side. I didn’t need to be an experienced sailor to know that if we tipped much more than this, we’d capsize. And none of us would last long in this sort of sea.

  Dad braced himself as his eyes ran over one of the laptop displays. ‘All good from my side. Time to do your stuff, Jake.’

  If this doesn’t work… I thought. My heart pounding, I reached over and placed a hand on to the polished sphere.

  At once a shimmering curtain of orange light erupted from Waverider and shot out through the cabin walls. In a split second, the roar of the wind died away and the yacht began to right itself again.

  Cheers came from Kelly and Allan outside as light blazed in through the portals, bathing the cabin in warm light.

  The silence hung for a moment and then everyone whooped and clapped.

  ‘We are the champions,’ played through every set of speakers.

  ‘Nice song choice, Sentinel,’ I said.

  ‘I thought so,’ he replied.

  The cabin door opened and Kelly leant in, her face drenched with sea spray. ‘You might want to come and see your handiwork, guys.’

  I looked down at the sphere, my hand still fastened to it. ‘I’ll have to make do with looking out of a porthole for now.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ She disappeared back through the door.

  Dad slapped me on the back as he headed out to have a look for himself.

  ‘Good job, that man,’ Clarke said, lowering his head back on to the pillow.

  ‘I try my best.’ I stretched my arm so that I could keep my hand on the sphere and sat on the end of Chloe’s bunk. With my free hand, I squeezed her motionless one.

  I raised my eyes to the porthole nearest me. Moon Dancer now sat in the middle of a patch of calm water, a circle of blue sky right above us. However, all around, only a mile out, storm waves crashed and boiled in silent fury against an invisible wall – a wall that I was creating with my Awoken gift. It was an awe-inspiring thought.

  I looked down again at my friend. ‘We’re coming for you, Chloe.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Backed by the soft soundtrack of gently flapping canvas and humming rigging, the day of eerie calm had stretched on towards night. Through the porthole, the first stars had started to appear in the clear circle of sky made by Waverider’s energy field.

  I moved a strand of red hair out of Chloe’s face. Only the shallow rise and fall of her breath indicated that we hadn’t already lost her. I checked her drip bag for the hundredth time, making sure it didn’t need replacing.

  In one of the other bunks, Clarke had his eyes shut, mouth open, his occasional snore vibrating through the cabin. And that was fine with me – the guy had more than earned some serious R & R.

  Dad gazed at one of the laptop screens.

  My palm tingled and arm ached from being latched on to the sphere. ‘How’s it going, Dad?’

  ‘Better than I could have hoped for,’ he replied.

  ‘And you’re doing a wonderful job keeping the field stable, Jake,’ Sentinel added.

  A question had been growing in the back of my mind over the last few hours, and now seemed like a good time to ask it. ‘I was wondering about something, Dad.’

  He glanced across at me. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I know you designed Waverider to collapse a portal opened by a DEC, but how come it’s affecting a storm like this?’

  ‘What do you think, Jake? Do you have any theories?’

  I sighed. As always, he was getting me to do my own heavy mental lifting, pushing me to do better.

  I ran my tongue over the back of my teeth as I gathered my thoughts. ‘You designed Waverider to disperse dark energy, so based on what’s happening outside, I’m guessing the machine is creating some sort of force field, which is affecting the storm. But I don’t get how…’

  ‘This is no ordinary storm, Jake. We know from our experience back at the science park that a DEC can start to affect the weather patterns.’

  ‘But we’ve seen nothing on this scale before.’

  ‘Do you mind if I jump in here, Martin?’ Sentinel asked.

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘The size of this storm may indicate that the Shade’s new DEC in London is much bigger than the one they created back at Hopworth Science Park. If my suspicion is correct, then their new DEC has been designed to create a very large portal to the Void and will be able to achieve critical mass much more quickly. Based on that assumption, my latest estimate is that we may have thirty-six hours at best to locate and shut down their new DEC before it’s too late.’

  My stomach flipped over. ‘But that’s hardly any time.’

  ‘Which is, no doubt, precisely the Shade’s plan. If nothing else, they are excellent at learning from their past mistakes and will be attempting to reduce the window of opportunity that we have to stop it achieving critical mass.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ I stretched my fingers over Waveriders metal sphere.

  Dad peered at my hand. ‘Cramp?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t live with.’

  ‘At some point I will try to develop a wireless wrist-device that channels your self-healing ability to cope with that,’ Sentinel said.

  ‘That would be really great.’

  The cabin door opened and Allan ducked in, wearing yellow waterproofs.

  ‘How much further?’ I asked.

  Allan nodded towards the porthole as he crossed to the galley. ‘See for yourself.’

  I looked out at the massive waves still surrounding us. In the distance, I could see a
darkened coastline twinkling with faint lights.

  ‘Is that England?’ I asked.

  Allan had started making some coffee in the galley. ‘Yes. The Thames Estuary to be precise.’

  ‘It looks as if they still have power,’ Dad said, looking out at the points of light.

  ‘This whole area, along with London, seems to have been spared the worst of the storm,’ Allan replied. ‘With this wind behind us, we should make the city in around four hours.’

  I stifled a yawn. ‘That’s good news—’

  Dad gasped, cutting me off. He stared at the screen, his hands on his head. ‘No, no, no!’

  I sat up straighter. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There’s a major fluctuation in the power supply, which means—’

  A loud crackling came from the pile of batteries, and sparks burst from one of them, quickly erupting into flames. Waverider’s lights died and immediately the growl of distant waves grew louder.

  Dad grabbed a spanner. ‘The battery has shorted. I’m going to have to rewire it.’

  The flames were already spreading to a second battery pack.

  As there was no point keeping my hand on the sphere now, I grabbed a fire extinguisher mounted above the galley kitchen. I ripped the red safety tab, pulled the trigger and directed the shower of foam on to the flames, extinguishing them instantly.

  Allan held the cabin door open to let the smoke drift out.

  ‘Brace yourselves,’ Kelly shouted from outside.

  Through the porthole, I saw a wall of water rushing towards us.

  ‘This is going to hurt like hell,’ Allan said, grabbing hold of the door frame.

  I threw myself over Chloe to protect her as waves smashed into Moon Dancer. The yacht groaned and listed hard over. Allan’s tin coffee mug flew from the galley into the bulkhead, throwing its contents across the top bunk. Clarke’s eyes shot open as he was thrown on to the wall from his bunk.

  Dad had already started to work one of the terminals loose from the burnt-out battery pack, but would he be fast enough to save us?

  Kelly shouted from outside. ‘I need the mainsail dropping, right now!’

  ‘That’s us,’ Allan said to me.

  ‘But I can’t leave Chloe.’

  ‘I’ll make sure she doesn’t come to any harm, lad,’ Clarke said. I helped him to lower himself from the top bunk, and he pinned Chloe down with a groan as Dad worked frantically on the machine.

  I heaved myself towards the exit and had to push the door open against the wind. With Allan right behind me, I was instantly hit in the face by a wall of spray.

  ‘We’ll sink, guys, if we don’t lose some canvas!’ Kelly shouted.

  ‘Leave it to us,’ Allan called back.

  We both clipped our safety lines on to the railing. I began to battle my way towards the sail as waves crashed over us. The rigging whined above us like a chorus of harps.

  Allan headed to the winch and grabbed hold of the handle.

  I heaved myself into position at the bottom of the mast. ‘Ready, ready, ready!’

  Allan held up his thumb and spun the winch handle as fast as he could. The sail began to slide down and I grabbed handfuls of flapping wet canvas, using my whole body to hold it down. Slowly, Moon Dancer was righting herself.

  ‘OK, I’m pointing her into the wind,’ Kelly shouted. She spun the wheel hard over and the yacht began to turn. Then she stared past us, her pupils huge as a shadow fell across the boat.

  Kelly leant harder on the wheel. ‘Watch out!’

  I turned to see a wave the height of a tower block rushing towards us.

  ‘Brace yourself!’ Allan cried out.

  I grabbed the boom with both hands as the enormous wave reared over us, a rock face of churning black sea.

  As the wave broke over the yacht, my world transformed into a whirling underwater maelstrom. Rushing water filled my ears as my body was pummelled by the tons of water that slipped over the yacht. Through it all, with my lungs burning, I hung on to that railing. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, my ears emptied and were filled with the roar of the storm again.

  I gulped in the spray-filled air and staggered to my feet to see the massive wave rolling away from us.

  I whooped. ‘We’ve made it, guys!’

  No one answered.

  I turned to see Kelly staring at the winch where Allan had been a moment before. I spotted the broken safety clip on the railing, its wire flapping uselessly in the wind.

  My legs hollowed out. ‘Allan!’ I screamed into the storm.

  Only the shriek of the wind cried back at me.

  ‘He won’t stand a chance in this,’ Kelly shouted, already starting to bring Moon Dancer round.

  But hadn’t I saved Clarke when everything had seemed hopeless? If I could do it then, I could do it now.

  Ignoring the howling storm, I shut my eyes and threw my consciousness out into the hurricane. At once, my insides turned to liquid fire, and just like that, I was speeding out over the waves and away from the boat.

  I scanned the boiling sea, looking for Allan bobbing on the surface. I spotted his fluorescent life jacket floating free and I shifted to the Light Web to focus on the energy patterns pulsing beneath the waves.

  A dimming white aura the size of a person was disappearing into the depths. I dived in after it like a plummeting gannet hitting the sea. The water offered no resistance to my projected consciousness as I sped down towards the aura of light beneath me.

  At last I reached Allan, but his energy field was dimming fast, his mouth wide open as his hands clawed the water. I wrapped my consciousness around my uncle, pulling him up, up, up…until we broke the surface. My mind burned with effort as I tore upwards like a missile, heading for Moon Dancer.

  As had happened back at the harbour, the world faded around me. I was slipping into unconsciousness again, with the deck speeding towards us. I slowed just in time, dropping Allan safely to the deck as Kelly ran towards him and the night rushed in.

  I forced my eyelids open as a dull pain throbbed at the back of my head. Chloe was still lying unconscious in the bunk opposite. Dad was standing over me, something strange in his expression, which I couldn’t quite read. Then I noticed the lit buildings sliding past the yacht’s portholes.

  He turned, following my gaze. ‘Yes, we’ve made it to the Thames…’ His voice trailed away as he looked at me for the longest moment.

  ‘How is Allan doing?’ I asked, as everything that’d happened flooded back.

  ‘He’s…’ Dad gestured to the bunk bed above Chloe’s. My insides froze as I took in the outline of a person covered by a sheet.

  Dad cradled my shoulders. ‘You did everything you could, Jake – more than anyone else could have.’

  I stared blankly back at him. Even though part of my brain knew what Dad was trying to tell me, a bigger part of me was refusing to believe it. Allan couldn’t be…

  Dad’s eyes tried to hold on to mine, but instead I stared at the sheet.

  ‘Kelly and I tried to resuscitate him for over an hour,’ Dad said.

  I stared into Dad’s face, watching his mouth as if he were speaking a foreign language. But the problem was that he wasn’t. Every word he was saying felt like a dagger being driven through my heart.

  Kelly appeared in the doorway. ‘I thought I heard voices. I’ve left Clarke steering the boat.’ Her gaze travelled to Allan’s body and her nostrils flared. ‘How are you doing, Jake?’

  How was I doing? I was standing on the edge of a very tall cliff, peering down at a bottomless pit. I’d lost someone who’d always been there for me. There weren’t enough words in the dictionary to tell Kelly how I felt.

  Instead, I cradled Chloe’s frozen hand in mine. If she ever recovered, Allan’s death would shatter her into a million pieces too.

  Dad shook his head at Kelly.

  She nodded and headed back out on to the deck.

  The backs of my eyes stung as I thought of the
man who’d welcomed me into his shop and his life. He had been a dad to me when mine had been lost. The astronomer who’d done his best to keep the flame of my interest in the stars alive. The lone person who’d made sense in my life when nothing else had. Allan, the man with a twenty-four-carat heart of solid gold, was gone.

  Something broke inside me like a dam wall falling. The tears I’d been trying to hold back started sliding down my face.

  Without saying a word, Dad crossed to me, his eyes glittering, and pulled me into a tight hug.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Everyone looked broken up about Allan, but it seemed none of us could begin to talk about it yet. Yet, despite the pain roaring inside me, I knew that we couldn’t halt our mission, however deep our grief was. Too many lives depended on what we did when we reached London.

  A clear head and buried emotions had to be my mantra from now on. And if the best way to honour Allan’s memory was to saved Chloe and stop the Shade’s latest DEC experiment, then that was exactly what I’d do.

  Clarke was still up on deck with Kelly, continuing to take turns with her to steer the boat. He’d insisted he needed to do something when he’d discovered what had happened, despite his injuries. I’d stayed below, trying my best to ignore Allan’s body by doing what I could to help Dad and Sentinel fix Waverider.

  I gazed at Dad and saw the pain he was trying to hide behind his eyes. I wasn’t the only one who’d thrown themselves into work to avoid being overwhelmed by emotional pain.

  Dad sat back and groaned. ‘It looks as if that shorted battery caused more damage than I first realised. The power surge has fried some of the circuitry as well.’

  ‘Can it be mended in time?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but I’m going to need to get some spares for the motherboard.’

  ‘Where do we get hold of those?’

  ‘That’s the tricky thing. Some of the parts are too specialist to be able to pick them up from an electronics shop.’

  ‘I’ve got that covered for you,’ Sentinel said. ‘As soon as we came back into mobile network coverage, I took the step of contacting Professor Claire Baxter for you.’