After Life (Power Reads Book 2)

by Dean Crawford

  A woman appeared on the other side of the street, pushing a child in a pushchair concealed by a clear plastic cover. She wore a T–Shirt emblazoned with the legend: There are only two certainties in life: death and…. Oh, crap. Anti–holosap sentiment was rife in the city, another coal in the fire of resentment that seethed through the populace. They knew about the big referendum moving through parliament, the Bill of Rights that would see humans consigned to second class citizenry and the un–dead elevated to rule.

  It was like a bizarre nightmare made real by man’s dabbling in technology’s dark arts, conjuring the unthinkable.

  Arianna kept her head down and made no attempt at eye contact with the woman. She turned onto another street, heard the whisper of live current humming through the elevated train line above her head as she climbed the steps up onto the platform. The rain gusted a little as she saw the line snaking its way through the city blocks, swinging east toward Westminster. Shafts of sunlight broke through clouds out that way, glistening off the Thames in a bright flare that made her squint.

  Several other people stood waiting for the train, most in business suits and sheltering beneath umbrellas. She found herself examining them, shielding her scrutiny beneath the rim of her umbrella. Everything is normal. You are not a target despite what Alexei said. It’s not like he’s a government agent or something. He’s a businessman and he’s technically dead. Get over it.

  A glint of light on glass heralded the appearance of the train as it glided to a halt in a station barely half a mile away down the line, where it followed the embankment.

  A man walked up onto the platform nearby. Middle aged but slim, dressed in casual clothes and a bulky jacket against the chill air. No umbrella, despite the rain. Even as she saw him, another pair of men appeared on the opposite end of the platform, both dressed in casual clothes and moving down the platform toward her.

  Needles of concern tingled down her spine and sent a hot flush through Arianna’s belly. They’re nothing to do with you, she told herself. You’re being paranoid, reflecting the worst case scenario back onto yourself. Alexei was murdered. But there’s absolutely nothing in the world that anybody could need from you. You have no money, no family and no future but for the implant stuck up your bloody nose.

  The implant.

  Arianna sighed. It had taken a train of thought like this to reduce her to realising just how utterly insignificant she had become. The only thing of value she possessed was something that had never really belonged to her and she would gladly have removed. She truly did have nothing, and the realisation cut her deeply. I’m on my own.

  Winter jacket guy had moved closer to her, but then the train was coming and people were naturally edging closer to the platform edge. The other two guys were also closer, still walking idly in her general direction. Arianna realised that she was at the far right of the platform, the two men already past the centre. Why would they walk all the way down here when the train was already moving alongside them?

  ‘Miss Volkov?’

  The voice snapped through her awareness like a bolt of electricity and she whipped her head around to see the man in the bulky jacket standing right alongside her.

  ‘Yes?’ she managed to say.

  The man discreetly flashed a police badge at her. ‘Officer Stewart. You’re in great danger. Detective Han Reeves sent me.’

  Arianna was about to ask Stewart what on earth he was talking about when the officer’s eyes widened as he looked past her. Arianna turned to see the two men walking fast in her direction, their expressions hard and uncompromising.

  ‘Come on, now!’

  Stewart grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the platform exit as the two men broke into a run. Arianna glimpsed one of them reaching below his jacket to produce a heavy looking pistol before she was hauled out of sight through the exit.

  Officer Stewart barged past a queue of people queuing for tickets and plunged down the exit steps with Arianna struggling to keep up.

  ‘Who are they?’ she yelled at Stewart.

  ‘I wish we knew!’ he shouted back. ‘They’ve been watching you, that’s all I know!’

  Stewart reached the bottom of the stairs first and whirled, a pistol held double–handed as he aimed it at her. Arianna’s heart almost stopped in her chest as Stewart shouted and leaped to one side.

  ‘Down, now!’

  A gunshot cracked over her head and Arianna dropped into a crouch as a deafening blast and a spurt of flame flared before her as Stewart fired up the staircase. She glimpsed the two men leap back out of sight at the top, heard screams of alarm from queuing passengers as they stampeded away from the noise.

  Stewart grabbed Arianna and together they ran across the street, staying under the rail line as he led her down a trash strewn alley. The odour of puddles of stale water and decaying garbage assaulted Arianna’s senses as they ran, their footfalls echoing through the alley.

  ‘Where’s Han?’ she shouted.

  ‘On his way!’

  She burst out of the alley behind Stewart and looked over her shoulder to see their pursuers entering the alley at a run.

  ‘This way,’ Stewart snapped.

  Arianna followed him down a side street between damp brick walls. She heard the sound of a car engine racing down the street ahead. Stewart turned in the alley and waved her past as he raised the pistol to point back at their pursuers. Arianna burst out of the alley and onto the street as a glossy black car screeched to a halt and a crescendo of gunshots shattered the air.

  A door flew open before her and a suited man inside gestured frantically for her to get in. Arianna ducked and flinched as bullets zipped off the car’s metal fenders and nicked masonry shrapnel off the walls.

  ‘Get in!’ the man bellowed.

  Arianna dove into the back seat of the car. The man reached over her and yanked it shut, wafting cheap cologne in her face as he did so. Arianna felt the car lurch forwards as though the tinted windows she saw Officer Stewart hit in the shoulder by a bullet and collapse writhing onto the sidewalk.

  ‘He’s been hit!’ she shouted.

  The man beside her said nothing. The two men up front said nothing.

  ‘An officer’s down,’ she repeated.

  ‘He’s not an officer,’ said the man beside her.

  The vehicle doors clicked as the locks closed.

  ‘Who are you?’ Arianna hissed at the man beside her. ‘Let me out.’

  ‘I can’t do that Miss Volkov,’ said the man. ‘But I can assure you that you are safe and that you’ll understand why in just a few minutes.’

  ‘This is abduction.’

  ‘This is a bloody rescue,’ the man shot back at her. ‘Perhaps you’d rather be back there and have a bullet in you right now?’

  Arianna stared at him for a long moment. ‘Who was chasing me?’

  The car cruised swiftly through the streets, swerving to avoid the worst of the potholes and cracks as it headed for the glittering waters of the Thames.

  ‘The police,’ said the man next to her. ‘They want you dead.’

  ***

  15

  Re–Volution Headquarters

  Centre Point Tower

  London

  ‘When did this happen?’

  Kieran Beck sat behind a broad mahogany desk, his back to windows that looked out over the rolling green waters of the Thames less than a mile away. So high was the tower that on a good day it was said you could see the south coast of England.

  Before him on a projection platform inside his office stood a holosap, Dr Reed.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon local time,’ Reed replied. ‘They’re sleeping now.’

  Kieran Beck leaned back in his chair, a slender gold pen held in one hand. The office surrounding them was vast, the entire top floor reserved for Beck as an office with an adjoining conference room. The three floors below were used by him as a living quarters, reducing his need for travel outside of the building.

  �
�This changes everything,’ Beck said finally. ‘How sure are your researchers that their conclusions are valid and replicable?’

  ‘There is some excitement here,’ Reed said. ‘So far, we have only a single live specimen that is able to resist the effects of Apophysomyces, but it is a very good start. Repeat experiments are underway and given the fast acting nature of the disease we’re likely to have confirmation of the results within hours rather than days.’

  Kieran looked at his pen thoughtfully. A cure for the disease, however unlikely, would bring about a true change in the policies he intended to be put in place by parliament. It was not impossible that millions of lives might be saved in cities across the globe, the last bastions of mankind suddenly freed from their rotting and sewage laden metropolis to once again venture out into the world. Other species, their DNA preserved in frozen stasis, might be reintroduced into the wild. Farms could once again work without being surrounded by electric fences, the farmers themselves no longer demanding danger money in order to provide what meagre supplies they could for the starving citizens of London, New York, Moscow and many other besieged cities.

  ‘This is an historic moment,’ Beck said as he looked up once more at Reed. ‘The question is how do we prevent it from happening?’

  Dr Reed stared back at Kieran but he said nothing. Beck smiled briefly, rueing the apparent humour of fate itself that now, at the moment of mankind’s final elevation to greatness, a pair of anonymous scientists working half a world away had discovered genes that could erase the results of a lifetime’s work in a single public announcement.

  ‘What resources do we have in the gulf?’ he asked.

  Reed shrugged, his hands in his pockets, which was bizarre because there was no need. He didn’t really have any hands, or pockets for that matter.

  ‘None,’ Reed replied. ‘The outpost is close to what we believe was Ground Zero, and the infection rates there were so high that it was one of the first locations to be abandoned. Most of the population succumbed to the disease. American troops deployed the compound for us, but they haven’t been back since and aren’t likely to be in a hurry. They lost two out of three men to The Falling.’

  ‘Good,’ Beck replied. ‘We’ll let your researchers know that their work is greatly appreciated, that they’ll probably win Nobel prizes or whatever the hell it is that these people expect, and that should keep them quiet. Once we’ve got the formula, elixir or whatever it’s called…’

  ‘Antidote,’ Reed cut in helpfully, ‘or vaccination.’

  ‘… antidote, we’ll replicate enough of it to fulfil our requirements and lock the rest of it away, understood?’

  Reed seemed uncertain.

  ‘They’ll be looking for news reports,’ he pointed out. ‘They’ll get suspicious if the news hasn’t spread within a day or two.’

  ‘A day or two is all we need,’ Beck replied. ‘Once parliament passes the holosap’s bill of rights and access is granted to the political, economic and military sphere, it won’t matter what your people say. Nobody that matters will be listening.’

  ‘Sir, with all due respect I think that we should consider the possibility that other research stations around the world will eventually stumble across the same mutation. If either Kerry or Marcus were able to…’

  ‘Fine,’ Beck snapped as a light started flashing for attention on his desk’s surface. ‘I’ll talk to a few people at Broadcasting House and ensure that all communications regarding this matter are blocked.’

  ‘They’re not idiots,’ Reed smiled without warmth. ‘One slip, one tiny inconsistency in any deception and they’ll be likely to spot it. It’s what they’re trained to do.’

  ‘What are you saying, Doctor Reed?’

  ‘That any delay or hubris now could cause havoc later on,’ he replied. ‘To be sure, all witnesses should be silenced permanently.’

  Beck watched the holosap for a long moment before he replied.

  ‘I admire your candour, doctor, and I agree with your assessment. I have the ear of the defence minister. I’ll ask him to talk to our counterparts in the US and assign a suitable team to the task. Now, if you’ll excuse me?’

  Dr Reed’s image blinked out, and Beck pressed a button on a touch screen counter–sunk into the polished surface of his desk.

  ‘What is it, Madeline?’

  The voice of his secretary spoke through speakers concealed in the desk. ‘Commissioner Raymond Forrester is here to see you, sir.’

  ‘He’s here?’ Beck repeated, somewhat alarmed. ‘Not via transmission?’

  ‘He’s waiting for you.’

  Reed sucked in a deep breath. ‘Fine, send him in.’

  The door opened and Police Commissioner Forrester strode in. A tall, black man in his early fifties, he exuded the same kind of confidence and charm that Kieran Beck prided himself on. The big difference was that Forrester was as straight as an arrow and one of the most respected men in the city. His approval ratings made Beck’s look pitiful – not that he gave a shit. No sensible man was in this game for the kudos. This was survival of the fittest and the smartest.

  ‘Kieran.’

  ‘Raymond.’

  A firm handshake and a winning smile reflected back at each of them, both men knowing that neither contained any warmth whatsoever.

  ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ Beck asked, perching on the edge of his desk because Forrester never sat down in this office.

  ‘The hit on the Re–Volution buildings yesterday,’ Forrester began. ‘I want to know what you have learned about the event.’

  Beck smiled. ‘I wish we knew more, commissioner. Don’t we all?’

  ‘Don’t piss me about,’ Forrester said. ‘Re–Volution have funded just about every political campaign the Prime Minister has been involved in and he’s one of your biggest shareholders. Just because your status as an international company prevents law enforcement from searching the building doesn’t mean that I won’t figure out what’s going on in here.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Beck replied, ‘although of course if that were entirely true you wouldn’t be standing here. I take it that this has put enough of a rocket up your arse to honour me with a real visit instead of using the projectors?’

  Kieran Beck gestured to the holographic projector, which was just as capable of beaming fully three dimensional images of living humans as holosaps.

  Forrester’s shoulders slumped slightly and he exhaled. Seeing the commissioner holding his cap beneath his arm made it seem like he was almost begging, like some modern day Oliver Twist, and the realisation pleased Beck immensely.

  ‘Can we bury the political power hatchet just for a moment?’ Forrester asked him. ‘Several people have died as a result of the blast, not to mention over a hundred holosaps, and right now I have detectives trying to figure out who was behind it. There are lives at stake here Kieran, because whoever did this is likely to be bolstered by their success and will almost certainly try it again.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Answers,’ Forrester urged. ‘What does Re–Volution know about the attack?’

  ‘That it was likely the work of religious objectors,’ Beck replied without hesitation. ‘They’ve been targeting holosap facilities here and across the world for years. You’d think that they’d have learned by now to let go of their so–called faith and accept that the world has moved on from gods and prayers.’

  ‘And now the real information, please,’ the commissioner replied with a tight grin. ‘Fact is that we know that every major religious objector with the means and the will to have conducted these attacks has alibied out. They weren’t behind this one, and that makes me wonder about some of the other attacks too.’

  Beck stood up from his desk, his eyes levelled with Forrester’s. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’

  ‘Are you hiding anything? I thought I was asking you what you knew, not what you’ve done.’

  Beck held the commissioner’s st
eady gaze for a few seconds and then turned away. He walked to the window and stared out across the city.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, commissioner, but you’re failing.’

  Beck watched Forrester put his cap back on as he replied. ‘I’m trying to think of noble reasons for why you would conceal evidence from the police investigators, and you’re right, I’m failing.’

  ‘Even if I could let you in, what would you be looking for?’

  ‘I’d be looking for justice,’ Forrester replied as he turned for the door. ‘That’s why I’ve failed to find it here.’

  The office door opened and closed behind the commissioner, leaving Kieran Beck in contemplative silence. He looked out across the river for a few moments and then turned to his desk and opened a drawer.

  He took out a sheet of electrofilm, the glossy translucent paper glowing into life at his touch and stiffening automatically, as he preferred. Beck swept a finger across the surface of the paper, shifting through files until he found the one he wanted.

  An image of a woman appeared, in her thirties with long brown hair and clear green eyes that seemed both mysterious and sad. The name Volkov hovered beneath the image.

  Kieran Beck stared at the image and then looked out through the windows at the distant forests to the south.

  ‘It is almost time for us to finally meet, Arianna,’, he whispered. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’

  ***

  16

  Arianna tried to contain her terror in her chest, where it chased back and forth as though trying to beat its way out.

  She had been driven to a dock on the embankment several miles to the east of Westminster, and there forced to board a small boat which was mostly concealed beneath the waves like a tiny breaching submarine. Locked inside the hull, which was powered by the physical effort of four hooded men using chains, pulleys, gears and sheer physical effort, she was transported across the river and alighted at gunpoint into the abandoned wasteland of south London.