Invisible Armies

by Jon Evans

  The air in her lungs right now has been compressed to one-eighth its normal volume by the pressure of seventy metres of ocean. This same air will expand like a balloon as she goes up. If it expands too slowly, she will use all the air and run out of breath; if too quickly, her lungs will rupture from the pressure; but if Danielle is careful, if she breathes out constantly but very slowly, if she ascends at exactly the same speed as the air bubbles rising around her, this single breath can last for more than a minute, replenishing itself by growing as the pressure decreases.

  She makes a sound in the back of her throat, to ensure that she keeps her airway open at all times. She wants to breathe, she has never before gone two minutes without breathing, but she realizes halfway up that she doesn’t really need to, it is habit alone that makes her desperate to inhale. She doesn’t time it quite right. She runs out of oxygen forty feet beneath the surface and spends the last fifteen seconds of her ascent gagging for breath, forcing herself with iron discipline not to kick for the surface.

  When she emerges from water into air, it is a rebirth. She takes what feels like her very first breath. The salt air tastes like nectar of the gods.

  The lifeboat is nearby. Danielle treads water, shaking her head, coming back to where she is and what she’s doing, to reality, to life. She realizes that her whole desperate underwater battle with Laurent, and her epic single-breath ascent, occupied fewer than five minutes of her life. A life which looks as if it will continue for some time. Keiran is already in the lifeboat. He helps her aboard. Sophia lies on the floor, pale and weak, coughing and twitching. Vijay’s body is nowhere to be seen, Keiran must have pushed it overboard.

  “Smoke inhalation,” Keiran says. “He pushed her out. I saw it. She needs a doctor.”

  Danielle nods. “I might too.” Typically the bends take up to 24 hours to manifest. “Let’s hope your SOS got to someone.”

  Keiran paddles. Danielle spends a few minutes in the prow, watching the waves around her with a careful eye, but their smooth patterns remain unbroken. No sign of Laurent. Of course he could stay down there for a good hour, maybe more, with two tanks at his disposal. But wounded as he is, with a spear through his leg, in the middle of the North Pacific – he won’t make it. Except it is terribly easy to believe that he might.

  Then Danielle sees something break the water, something that makes her smile with relief and triumphant revenge. Not Laurent. A dorsal fin. A shark. A big one if she is any judge.

  “The strong inevitably eat the weak,” she murmurs to herself. “Isn’t that right?”

  “What?” Keiran asks.

  “Nothing,” she says. “Paddle us home.”

  But they don’t make it to the Oregon coast. It only takes an hour for the Coast Guard helicopters to show up. By that time, a steady cleansing rain has blown in, and agonizing pains have already begin to stab at Danielle’s knee and shoulder joints.

  Chapter 43

  Once on board the Coast Guard cutter, Keiran strips off his wet suit and greedily wraps himself in the blankets the sailors provide him. He is mostly ignored at first, compared to the two critical medical cases that accompany him. Sophia is given an oxygen mask; her spasmodic coughs are so violent that they have to strap it on to her so tightly that the straps leave marks in her pale skin. Danielle lies on deck, weeping with pain, her limbs contorted as if doing yoga again. It takes Keiran and the sailors several minutes to pull off her wet suit. The bends, Keiran knows, get their name from the pretzel shapes its victims assume, because doing so slightly lessens the excruciating agony in all of their joints. He knows intellectually that she will be OK, they have been rescued in time to save her, but it is almost unbearable to watch her sobbing and writhing in pain, and being unable to do anything about it. Keiran has to be pulled away from Danielle’s side by two sailors before he realizes that his presence is impeding more than helping matters.

  After a brief conversation between a medic and a pilot, it is decided that the Coast Guard helicopters no longer have enough fuel to reach the mainland, they will have to sail her in. Danielle is put in a cot next to Sophia and hooked up to an IV drip that seems to dull her pain. The initial frenzy of the rescue begins to dissipate. Sailors start clearing up wet suit parts from the rain-drenched deck. The cutter, a vessel maybe half the size of the now-drowned Lazarus, with two small helicopters and a crew of about thirty, throbs as its engines drive them east towards Oregon at maximum speed. Keiran retreats inside, to a tiny room with a Formica table, plastic stools bolted to the floor, and a coffee machine. Sailors pass in and out; several of them look at him, realize they don’t know what to do with him, and visibly decide to ignore his presence. He is sitting on one of the stools, wrapped in blankets and sipping bad coffee, when a small blond woman with officer insignia on her shoulders. The name ELLIS is sewn into the front of her white uniform.

  “Julian O’Toole?” she asks.

  It takes Keiran a moment to remember that this is the false name he adopted at Mulligan’s place in Los Angeles, what feels like a century ago. He nods. The woman snaps a sharp salute.

  “Sir,” she says. “Are you sure there’s no one else out there?”

  Keiran, slightly confused, thinks of Laurent, somewhere in the water.

  “No,” he says. “Just us.”

  She nods. “I understand you can’t say much about what happened out there.”

  Keiran looks at her. Some sort of response seems to be called for, so he nods.

  “My brother is in the Special Forces,” Lieutenant Ellis says meaningfully.

  Increasingly perplexed, Keiran nods again.

  “We’ve been in touch with your unit commander. Once we get in range we’ll be helicoptering you straight to the Portland VA Medical Center. There’s a hyperbaric facility there where we can recompress your soldier with the bends.”

  “Unit commander?” Keiran asks faintly, wondering if he heard correctly.

  “Colonel Mulligan.”

  Keiran covers his laughter with an improvised coughing fit. Lieutenant Ellis looks at him worriedly. “Were you exposed to smoke too, sir?” she demands.

  “No,” Keiran says, smiling indulgently. “No, that’s quite all right, Lieutenant, just a little salt water down the wrong pipe.”

  Mulligan, you bastard, he thinks. You never told me you hacked the military.

  * * *

  “Sir?” the nurse asks.

  Keiran opens his eyes and the nurse, about to shake him awake, stops with her arm in mid-prod. The nurse, a slender middle-aged black woman, speaks in a near-whisper, although there is no one else visible in the hall. “Your soldier is awake, sir. She seems to have fully recovered.”

  Keiran remembers where he is and who he is supposed to be. He swings his arms over the side of the cot and follows the nurse to Danielle’s room, trying to look military. He checks the Danger hiptop, which arrived at the hospital via FedEx only an hour after he did, through which he communicates to Mulligan. There is no news, which is good news. Keiran is still half-amazed that their ruse has not yet been discovered. But then how would it be revealed? He managed to tell both Sophia and Danielle to keep their mouths shut on the helicopter ride over. If they were to stay long enough in the military world, they would eventually be discovered – probably – but by the time the cracks in their story appear, they will be long gone.

  There is another nurse by Danielle’s bed, a tiny Filipino woman. The room smells, as all hospitals do, of medicine and cleaning supplies. Danielle’s eyes are open and she manages to smile weakly at Keiran. Her broken finger has been set, and her other hand, which she impaled on the spear she shot Keiran with, is thickly bandaged. Salved burns are visible on her wrists and her face, around her mouth and forehead. Keiran knows exactly how they feel; he has similar burns. There is an IV hooked up to her arm. Outside the night is a dark that Keiran now recognizes as city dark, not the utter blackness of the moonless Pacific.

  “I need to speak to her alone,” Keiran say
s.

  “Sir,” the senior nurse says, “we’re supposed to monitor her condition –”

  “Alone,” he repeats, and then says the magic word: “Security.”

  The nurses look at one another and depart.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  “How are you?”

  “I guess I’m OK.” She winces, remembering. “The bends are really awful. Everything else, the burns and broken finger and shit, they’re like a walk in the park by comparison. But they say I’m OK. No permanent damage. I can go diving again, no problem. Sometimes you can’t.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “They fixed your nose.”

  Keiran touches a finger to his bandaged broken nose. “Yes.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “I guess they picked us up about a day and a half ago. They want to keep you here for another couple days. Under observation.”

  “Where are we? What’s going on? Are they going to arrest us?”

  Keiran explains Mulligan’s military deception. Danielle’s mouth falls open.

  “I’m supposed to be a Navy SEAL?” she asks incredulously.

  “Actually I’m not sure what you are,” Keiran admits. “But nobody around here cares. At least not yet. Mulligan sent us Department of Defense ID cards today, here’s yours,” he puts the plastic smart card on Danielle’s pillow, “that’s all you’ll need to check out. There’s holes in the story, but it’s not like anyone’s seriously investigating. The ship went down in international waters. Shadbold doesn’t know anyone survived. Mulligan thinks we’ve got a few days yet before anyone starts asking awkward questions.”

  “This is insane. So what are we supposed to do now? Go on the run for the rest of our lives?”

  “You won’t need to. You remember how Laurent said you’d be safe? He wasn’t lying. They’ve issued an official statement that you are no longer a person of interest to the investigation. I guess he really was planning to let you go. Shadbold must have people in the FBI.”

  “So they’re not after me?”

  “They’re not after you. How’s it feel to be unwanted?”

  Danielle smiles. “Pretty damn good. But wait a minute. Why didn’t you just take me and Sophia to a regular hospital?”

  Keiran doesn’t give her the real answer, which is, Because Mulligan wanted to show off; he doesn’t think she’d see the appeal of using military medical facilities just because they can; not in her current state, maybe not ever. “They’re still after me,” he says. “Not for the bombing, for a whole bunch of other things, Sophia must have gotten them to connect me with LoTek’s colourful history. I have to disappear now, before they start asking questions and taking fingerprints.”

  “Huh.”

  “Sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in all at once.”

  “No kidding.” Danielle thinks a minute. Then she asks, “What about Sophia?”

  “She’s next door. They said she’ll mostly recover. But be effectively asthmatic for the rest of her life.”

  “Shit.”

  Keiran shrugs. “She’s not the queen of evil, but she made her own bed.”

  “What about Jayalitha?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about her yet.”

  “Find her,” Danielle says. She’s illegal here too. Find her and take care of her.”

  He nods. “I will. Very soon. But right now, I have to move.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to be a new man. Literally. Trurl’s picking me up, he’s come to get me out of here.”

  “You’re going to spend the rest of your life on the run?”

  “It’s not that bad. New identity, new life, no problem. Beats dying on that ship.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So. I came to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye? But – where are you going exactly?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he says. “But. Listen.” He swallows. “Not now, you have to stay here for now, but in a little while, when you get out, do you want to come with me?”

  She looks at him.

  “I mean, as in,” he stops, words failing him, and takes her hand lightly in his. “Hell and damnation. You know what I mean. Come live with me. Try sharing our lives again.”

  “Be the girlfriend of the romantic hacker on the run?”

  “Not like that sounds. But be with me. Yes. That’s what I want.”

  Slowly, Danielle shakes her head.

  “Shit,” Keiran says dully.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t be someone else’s adjunct any more.”

  “That’s not, you wouldn’t be, Christ, Danielle, no, not at all, that’s not what I meant.”

  “I know. I’m explaining it badly. But whatever I’m doing next, I have to figure it out on my own, okay? I don’t mean I want you to just disappear. You better call me as soon as you can. You better not just vanish. Or I’ll find you and kick your ass. But I can’t, I don’t want to run away with you. I’m sorry. I want to run away with myself this time. I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

  Keiran looks at her thoughtfully. After a moment he says, “You’d be surprised.”

  “Maybe when the world starts making sense again I can come visit. I’m not promising anything beyond that. But I’d like to visit.”

  He smiles. “I’d like that too.”

  “Good.”

  They stare at each other.

  “You should go,” she says quietly.

  He nods, then lowers his head and kisses her. They share a long, slow, deep kiss. Then he stands. “Goodbye,” he says breathlessly. “I’m going to miss you.”

  She doesn’t speak. He backs out of the room and closes the door behind him, bathing her once again in darkness.

  * * *

  “So what are you going to do?” Danielle asks Sophia.

  Danielle is dressed in street clothes. She has officially been discharged from the hospital. Her parents are flying in tonight. She isn’t sure how she feels about that. But she knows that whatever she feels when they meet, no part of it will be shame or insecurity.

  Sophia reaches for the oxygen mask that hangs by her bed and takes a few long, shuddering breathes before answering.

  “They gave me a laptop yesterday,” she says.

  Danielle blinks at the apparent subject change.

  “I did some research. You were right. There were lots of parents of whiz kids who got sick or died that same summer that my dad got cancer.”

  “I figured.”

  “I did some more research. I didn’t really understand all the medical terms. But I definitely understand that Shadbold’s doctors have been lying through their fucking teeth every time they talk to me. My dad’s cancer isn’t as extreme as Shadbold. The existing drugs, I mean Shadbold’s existing drugs, should have been much more effective on him than they have been. Than they apparently have been.”

  “They’ve been keeping him sick,” Danielle says.

  “They’ve been keeping my dad sick so I’d perform. Like I’m some kind of fucking circus animal.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Keiran could have shut down Shazam. Taken away my access. He didn’t. Any idea why?”

  Danielle shrugs. “He liked you,” she lies.

  “Did he really?”

  “Well. No. But he respected you.”

  “Yeah. He and I are the only ones now, who have both Shazam and the military attack suite. Makes both of us pretty much unstoppable. Do whatever we want.”

  “For the third time,” Danielle said, a little exasperated now, “what are you going to do?”

  “First I’m going to fix my father’s treatment. Then I’m going to hack Shadbold’s system. It’ll be easy enough. I built its security. I’m going to hack it, and I’m going to change Mr. Shadbold’s prescription just a tiny bit. Not that he’ll notice. Oh no. The labels on the syringes will say that all the right things
are in them. Just like Kishkinda’s vaccination needles. The labels will be fine.”

  Danielle stares at her. “What are you going to do to him?”

  “First I’m going to rewrite his will. Then he’s going to take some very bad medicine. Then I’m going to publish all his results and shut down everything that’s left of his operation.”

  “Just you.”

  “Miss Leaf,” Sophia says, baring her teeth like an animal, “you have no idea what I’m capable of. Give me time and motivation and I’ll bring down governments.”

  Danielle looks at her and wonders whether the world would be a safer place if Sophia had not survived the Pacific shipwreck. But at least what she is doing is the right thing. For now. And at least Keiran is out there as a counterweight to her, if need be.

  “Goodbye, Sophia,” Danielle says. “Be good.” It is a warning.

  She stands, walks out of the room, takes the elevator down the ground floor and the waiting taxi. As it pulls away from the hospital she exhales and sinks back into the seat. She is tired. But there is much to do. She thinks of Angus, his eyes flashing with rage, and of the little children in Kishkinda, poisoned by Shadbold. She wonders if she should go back to finish law school first, whether she should join an existing organization or start a new one. Details. The important thing is that she believes in her destination. Which road she takes there hardly seems to matter.

  “Where to?” the driver asks.

  Danielle smiles. “A better world.”

  He gives her a perplexed look. “I don’t think I know that place.”

  “No? Take me to the airport,” Danielle says. “We’ll start there.”

  Part 7

  Coda

  Shadbold, Jack – inventor, billionaire, philanthropist. On 15 August 2005, after a long battle with cancer.

  Born to a poor family in Durban, South Africa, in 1933, Jack Shadbold worked in the Kimberley diamond mines before emigrating to Australia in 1952, where he acquired a degree from the University of Adelaide’s School of Electrical Engineering. His extraordinary technical gifts quickly became apparent, and after publishing several groundbreaking papers, in 1958 he moved to California to take up a position with Fairchild Semiconductor.