Conscious

by Vic Grout

  *

  “This way, guys.”

  A combination of lights, arms and hands guided them towards the dim shape of the shed. One of the figures held open a rickety door and they entered. Inside there was nothing except a wooden screen – in the same poor condition as the exterior – partitioning the half in which they stood from the other. This also had a flimsy door, through which they passed into an even deeper darkness.

  “Now, watch your step, guys.”

  They stood for a few moments as their eyes adapted to the light: the hand-held illumination caused a confusion of shadows but failed to make much impact on their surroundings. This section was similarly empty with the exception of what appeared, at first, to be a shoulder-high rack of metal shelves in the far corner. Slowly they realised this to be the top of a set of steps, protruding from a square hole in the ground.

  “Down there, guys. Two of us, then you four, then two more of us.”

  They climbed slowly down the steps into the deepening black. Aisha was barely more disoriented than the others in the darkness; in fact, Andy’s leg gave him the most trouble. Their hands and feet felt their way over about twenty rungs before their guides’ touch and instructions indicated solid ground.

  “Last step; you’re there; you can let go.” Repeated for the four of them.

  They were led, completely blind now, away from the steps. They heard a door open and had the impression of entering through it. When they had all passed, it clicked shut behind them.

  “Mind your eyes, guys: bright light,” came the warning. Aisha snorted at the irony.

  A switch snapped on somewhere and their world was suddenly bathed in white; even Aisha had a slight impression of it through closed eyelids and bandages. The other three blinked in shock. They were in a small, bare – but clean and well-maintained – underground room, empty save for the door by which they had presumably entered and a set of steps leading down to another on the opposite side. It was obviously a transit space: nothing more. They now descended the steps, opened and passed through the second door, then gazed in wonder. The sight that offered itself to them could not have been more different to the one they had left behind on the surface a few minutes earlier.

  They were at the brightly illuminated end of a long, straight tunnel. The domed chamber in which they stood was circular and wider than the tunnel itself, which stretched away from them – lit at intervals – into the distance, apparently without end. Two sets of metal rails – tracks of sorts – ran the length of the tunnel, as far as they could see, flanked by walkways on each side. Two armed guards, dressed as their rescuers from the plane had been, stood facing them at the entrance to each walkway. Somewhat incongruously with the precision of their surroundings, a number of not-quite-so-new buggies – not unlike golf carts – were huddled together on the other side of the room. Each had two rows of two seats. A group of men and women – probably technicians – in protective clothing sat around in readiness. For a few seconds, they wondered if the facility might be RFS-free but some random flickering of distant tunnel lights quickly indicated that it was not.

  At last they could take stock of their greeting party; all four were men between about five-foot-ten and six feet tall. In dress there was little to choose between them: they all wore white shirts, various colours of jackets that matched their individual trousers but no ties. Their apparent leader was bald; one was a redhead; another was grey, and the last was dark-haired. Andy was subconsciously devising a new naming system when his work was supplanted by some – by now, unexpected – introductions.

  The bald man in charge was Donald, or ‘Don’ Bell. He described his affiliation simply as ‘Security’, which they interpreted to mean ‘security services’, but said no more. He introduced his colleagues in a similarly business-like manner. The man with the grey hair was Jerry Austin (‘Communications’); the redhead, Larry Washington, and the dark-haired man, Scott Lopez. Jerry appeared to answer to Don but have some authority over the other two.

  “You guys OK?” asked Don, quickly once the formalities were complete. “Ready to go?”

  “Where?” asked Aisha.

  “How?” asked Bob.

  “To the OI, of course,” Don laughed. “The operational installation. That’s where you’re needed, isn’t it. You’re not much use to the world here!”

  “Down there?” Andy suggested warily, pointing towards the tunnel.

  “That’s right, fella: nowhere else to go!”

  “How?” repeated Bob.

  “Ah, good question,” admitted Larry. “The bullet tramcar’s been taken off: too much RFS interference.” He indicated the buggies. “We’ve been using these instead lately. Battery-electric, no comms links, fairly reliable and our tech guys have souped them up a bit. We can get close to fifty miles per hour out of them now – only half the speed of the bullet but we’ll get there!”

  “Although one did blow up when we were charging it this morning,” Scott volunteered.

  “Let’s go, shall we?” suggested Jerry, ignoring him.

  *

  The eight of them, divided between two golf carts, hurtling along a walkway not conceived for anything like this purpose, made an odd spectacle. At first, the pace was alarming: the buggies felt less than completely stable and steering was clearly not entirely simple at that speed. However, some fortunate and largely unplanned aspects of the tunnel’s design helped. Firstly, there were no obstructions: lights and suchlike were above head-height and the walkways were smooth and continuous for emergency evacuation purposes. Secondly, the width between the closest point of the tunnel’s sloping wall and the continuous rail, which separated them from the tramcar tracks, was just a few inches more than that of the carts themselves and formed an effective tube for them to glide through. If a buggy did happen to brush against either side (which actually happened rather a lot), while it made a considerable noise, it could not do so at more than the slightest of angles. Similarly, it could not be deflected significantly. Although their exteriors had become badly scuffed very quickly, and similar marks could be seen on the walls in places along their route, there was really nowhere for them to go. Protected inside the carbon-fibre shells, and behind sturdy Perspex, they were safe. After the initial concern, the journey was actually quite exhilarating: a linear roller-coaster.

  The gradual settling of their nerves and the unexpected warmth of their unusual welcome eventually made conversation possible. Jenny was sitting in the rear of their buggy, next to Larry Washington.

  “So, how long to the OI?”

  “Less than an hour with any luck,” Larry answered, clearly under the impression that this was good.

  “An hour!” She was tired and could not disguise the disappointment. “How far is it then?”

  “About forty-five miles, less what we’ve already covered.”

  “Forty-five miles? And is this the only way in?”

  “No, there are six of these, er …,” he started, then paused, thinking. “How good’s your mental geometry?” he asked, smiling.

  “Pretty good.”

  “OK, try to picture this, then,” he began, using a finger to trace an imaginary map in the air before them.

  “The central OI isn’t big: just a few dozen labs and other rooms; but it’s top-secret. It’s not on any public maps and it’s mostly underground. We don’t want people just stumbling across it so it’s as inconspicuous as we can make it. Obviously, it’s as remote as possible too. There are no roads leading directly to it and even the track that passes by it isn’t properly linked to it: you have to walk several hundred yards across open ground. We rarely take equipment or large numbers of personnel in that way (no more than three people at a time): we use these tunnels instead. So it’s hidden from view but doesn’t arouse suspicion by being a huge patch of open desert!

  “So, think of the OI itself as being at the centre of a circle – not a perfect circle, but close – of about ninety miles in diameter. Now imagine there t
o be eight rough compass points on that circle. There’s nothing at the northwest or south points but, at the other six, there’s a tunnel like this, leading from the outside to the middle. We’re now on the northeast radius.

  “At the outer end of each tunnel, there’s some hidden way to access it: a bit like the cabin we just climbed down from – but they’re all different in that respect, depending on local geography. This is one of the ‘low-throughput’ ones. Somewhere a bit further outside that, I think it’s twelve miles on our northeast road, there’s a small town or village. Four of them were there already, in one form or another; the other two we kinda ‘put there’ to look good. You may have seen the smallest of them on your way through?” Jenny nodded, astonished.

  “But, driving in from the towns, beyond the tunnel entry points,” Larry continued, “the roads just carry on. No-one takes any notice of a few abandoned buildings so all they see is six settlements connected by three fairly straight roads. One runs west-east; another north to southeast; and the one that’s above us at the moment runs northeast to southwest. If you think about it, they don’t all join in the same place either: this one and the west-east road meet close to the OI itself but the other crossings are northeast and east of the centre. No-one really uses the roads themselves much anyway; in fact, the north to southeast road goes over hills and isn’t even passable this time of year. But everything looks distinctly rural, even from the air.”

  “And no-one has a clue what’s going on underneath it all?” suggested Jenny, thoroughly impressed.

  “The public don’t,” called Jerry Austin over his shoulder, having listened in, “but most foreign intelligence groups probably do!” She noticed Don Bell scowling a little at this.

  “So the rest of them, in the, er … lorry,” she asked, with a growing sense of understanding, “they just carried on along the road?”

  “That’s right,” confirmed Don. “They’ll go right across the area.” He looked towards the roof of the tunnel. “In fact, they’re going to be somewhere above us now. They’ll go almost over the top of the OI, then past the southwest tunnel point, through another town, and then on towards a bigger city. We needed to get you guys here as quick as we could. But they’ll get home eventually – and without looking suspicious!”

  The buggy glanced off the guardrail with a squeal but they carried on.

  *

  Bob and Scott Lopez sat in the front of the other buggy, Aisha and Andy behind. After a period of thinking his own thoughts, Bob asked,

  “So, what exactly is the OI?”

  Scott gave the question, or at least his answer, some thought.

  “Its main function isn’t that different to the facility you’ve been working on in Brussels,” he eventually replied. “Bigger in terms of what it does; but not as impressive to look at – not as flash, if you like.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you guys much,” mumbled Andy, but was ignored. Scott continued.

  “The OI is mainly just for technical staff, at least on the top level. There’s no auditorium, no fifty-meter screen. Apart from a couple of central control rooms – and they’re not much more than offices, it’s really all kit.”

  “On the top level?” Bob asked. Scott had thrown that in rather quickly. He smiled in answering.

  “Yes, the main level: the first level under the ground. That’s where all the work is done.”

  “But there’s something below that?”

  Scott hesitated. “Yes, there’s accommodation below that – for the guys who have to stay there. There are apartments and living quarters. You’ll stay there too.”

  “And is that all?” Bob’s intuition had kicked in.

  Scott smiled. “Ah, no … OK, there’s stuff a long, long way under that.”

  “Nuclear bunkers?”

  “Yes, that sort of thing. Obviously, a facility this remote has massive potential so it has a dual purpose. There are some ‘safe sites’ far below the main part of the OI.”

  “And are they beginning to be used at the moment – with all the problems?”

  Scott hesitated once more. “Ah, yes they are. I’m only telling you this because the OI isn’t a large place and you’re likely to meet people there who obviously aren’t part of the technical team – and they won’t want to stay hundreds of feet underground all the time. But, yes, some ‘senior people’ are beginning to converge on the OI. It is one of the best, safest places we have – but not one of the most obvious.” His voice lightened. “But you don’t need to worry about that. Apart from ‘The Hole’, as it’s called, the OI’s still essentially a technical facility: all the work that’s done there is to do with network analysis – your sort of stuff, buddy.”

  Bob considered. “So, is it a sort of newer Room 641A?” he asked. “That sort of thing?”

  Scott smiled again. “Well, kinda, I suppose; but Room 641A, and all the other sites like it, is pretty old hat these days: not secret at all – you can even look it up on Wikipedia!”

  “I know. But the OI is still essentially a covert monitoring station?”

  “A bit more than that: it’s an upgraded 641A. It’s a control and monitoring site – like the one you’ve been at in Brussels, only way bigger. There are seven other installations across the USA that do the same kind of thing, and eight more across the world (Brussels is one of those), but the OI we’re headed for is the biggest and most powerful. If we use our full muscle here, we can access or divert close to an eighth of all global Internet traffic through our hands.”

  “But, officially, it doesn’t exist?”

  “Correct; it’s probably the biggest single Internet data node in the world but it’s not there!”

  “Cool!”

  *

  By the time they arrived at the OI, the journey’s novelty – and The Desk’s appetite for excitement and conversation – were diminishing. Whatever time of day it was where they were, it was even later where they had come from: they were all desperately tired – yet they still had a job to do. Their reducing speed, and the appearance of a slightly larger, brighter glow in the distance, were welcome indications that they were approaching their destination. As the buggies slowed towards a stop, they emerged from the tunnel into a domed terminal room quite similar to that they had left at the hidden entry point forty-five miles, and fifty-five minutes, previously. Additional guards stood on duty and more technicians, in protective clothing, were on hand to deal with RFS: these, however, appeared busier – a lot was going wrong. Another huddle of modified golf-cart-like vehicles clustered on one side.

  They stepped out of the buggies and watched them being taken to join the rest of the group to charge. As they were being connected, another caught fire and was quickly extinguished and removed. There was no time to take in any further detail. Don and Jerry led the party through the exit door and they emerged suddenly (and somewhat disappointingly) into the end of a modern, but unexceptional office corridor. This quickly connected to another and then led, passing several laboratories with huge racks of networking equipment along the way, to a central space with three elevator doors. Everything was artificially lit so the occasional RFS failure was inevitable.

  There had been no discussion of the matter during the journey but each of The Desk had formed a similar assumption that, on arrival, they would meet – be introduced to – whoever was in charge of the OI, or at least to someone in high authority. Their realisation that their welcoming party at the shed and these expected senior hosts were one (or four) and the same, was a gradual, unsynchronised, process for them all. But these men were the top flight, it appeared. As various personnel, both uniformed and suited, passed them along their way, the rank of their new colleagues slowly became increasingly apparent. Strategic and technical updates were received and orders were barked in quick succession. Eventually, however, their understanding was complete – and shared. Don Bell appeared to be in overall control of the OI, Jerry Austin perhaps a close deputy; Larry Washington and Scott Lopez w
ere in almost as high esteem. More particularly, as it emerged, Don was the OI’s security chief (a principle that clearly eclipsed all else) with Jerry in charge of internal and external communications. Scott and Larry had technical responsibilities for the actual operation of the OI and had better networking experience.

  Two of the three lifts had prominent numeric security key pads and slots for pass cards. They entered the third, which had only a simple card reader; inside, it had but two control buttons, marked ‘-1’ and ‘-2’. Larry pressed ‘-2’.

  “We’re taking you straight down to the accommodation floor,” Scott explained to Andy. “There’s a hospital there. Your colleague,” he indicated Aisha, “needs a medical examination quickly.”

  “I can still hear you!” Aisha snapped.

  “Apologies, Ma’am. We’ll get you looked at as soon as possible.”

  The lift descended briefly and they emerged into a larger space, not unlike a respectable hotel foyer. Large, comfortable-looking chairs were dotted around and there were arrows to a canteen and bar. Other signs indicated room numbers on long corridors leading away from them and one pointed to ‘Medical Centre’. Larry and Scott quickly moved to take Aisha in that direction and Andy followed. Before they had taken three steps, however, Don issued a further command: it sounded almost like a reminder.

  “Straight to Dr. Barbara, guys, yes?” The other two nodded. Jerry glanced at Don; his eyebrows lifted an angstrom.

  There were a number of the golf-cart-like buggies in the foyer. These were unmodified and this appeared to be their original home – and purpose. The accommodation floor was obviously considerably larger than the OI itself above. Andy helped Aisha into the back seat of the nearest cart with Larry and Scott taking the front. The four of them left at an altogether more leisurely pace than they had travelled in the tunnel above; Don, Jerry, Jenny and Bob remained in the foyer.

  “Is the medical centre going be open this time of night?” asked Bob. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is,” Jerry confirmed. “With all the RFS now, it’s running like a 24-hour emergency department. Some people are having to stay there.”