by Gary Gibson
‘I don’t care what you think,’ I snapped, my voice husky. I immediately regretted the words. They sounded unpleasantly like an admission of guilt.
Damian nodded and stood. ‘Let me be clear about this, Katya: you tried to save Elena’s life on Delta Twenty-Five, and that’s why I’m here talking to you instead of just waiting for the Americans to come here and arrest you.’ He tapped a finger on the table. ‘If this really is a misunderstanding, explain it to me. Show me how you came up with that proof, and I’ll believe everything you say from now on. Or, if you prefer, I can take you to the transfer hangar straight away. I can pull strings that will make sure you’re back home and on a plane to Moscow before midnight.’
‘I-I thought the hangar was all locked up?’
‘Not any more, no. They opened it back up early this morning. But whatever you decide, it’s going to have to be fast.’
‘Okay. If you’ll excuse me . . . I would like to go upstairs and get some of my things first.’
‘You want to go back to Moscow?’
I nodded. ‘I think it’s best.’
‘I see.’ He nodded stiffly, looking less than pleased. I had essentially just admitted to being a spy. ‘I’ll wait for you here, then, if you don’t mind.’
I bobbed my head and gave Boris one last glance. He had sat unmoving throughout this entire exchange, but when I tried to catch his eye, he looked away.
‘One other thing,’ Damian called after me, as I made for the stairs. ‘Have you seen Borodin?’
I turned back at him. ‘No, I haven’t. Why?’
‘There hasn’t been sight or sound of him since yesterday morning,’ he said.
I nodded, then hurried upstairs.
I grabbed hold of the wooden box, checked the beads were still inside, then threw it into my rucksack. Then I pulled on my jacket, stepped over to the window and looked outside. There was no one else in sight.
I carefully eased the window open and looked down. There was a drop of a couple of metres to the overgrown garden below. I lowered the rucksack down first, then climbed out onto the window ledge. The grass and weeds looked thick enough to cushion me; I took a deep breath, then pushed myself into the air.
I did my best to roll when I hit the ground, but the force of the impact still drove all the air from my lungs. I lay there for several seconds, winded and in pain, but it didn’t feel as if I had broken anything.
I staggered upright and grabbed up my rucksack before climbing over a low wooden fence that separated the house from an adjacent property. I made my way around the side of another house that had mostly collapsed and then I started to run, soon picking up speed.
Just as I reached the street, I heard Damian shout my name from back the way I had come. I ducked around a corner and kept going.
At least now I knew where to find Jerry. All I could do was pray that this time, he was actually at home.
I almost cried with relief when I turned into his street ten minutes later and saw him standing at his kitchen window with his back to me. I went up to the door and rapped on it hard. A moment later he pulled it open and darted a look at the road behind me.
‘Anybody see you come here?’
‘No,’ I said, puzzled.
‘Good,’ he said, and stepped to the side, taking another glance up the road. ‘Get inside.’
He led me through to the kitchen, where I found Nadia leaning against a counter. She blinked in surprise when she saw me.
I gave Jerry a questioning look. ‘Nadia knows everything you told me,’ he said. ‘You can trust her.’
Nadia nodded, her eyes fixed on me like a hawk. ‘That’s one heck of a story I heard about you. Can’t say I’m having an easy time believing it.’
‘I just found out that the Authority are asking questions about me,’ I said, ignoring her. ‘Damian warned me they’re on the verge of arresting me on suspicion of being a spy. They know I’m not who I’m supposed to be. I . . . didn’t know what else to do, so I came here.’
‘And we’ve been looking for Borodin,’ said Jerry. ‘Did you know he’s pulled a disappearing act?’
I blinked in surprise. ‘No, no I didn’t – although Damian did ask if I’d seen him. He said nobody’s seen him at all since yesterday.’
‘He’s a slippery bastard, that’s for sure,’ said Nadia. ‘Me and Rozalia have been keeping an eye on him ever since Jerry told me about your conversation back on Delta Twenty-Five. He vanished right after we discovered his little bomb factory.’
I thought I might have misheard her. ‘His what?’
‘Some chemical supplies went missing from the main compound a couple of days ago,’ she explained. ‘We spotted him sneaking around one night and decided to follow him to see where he went. Turns out he’s got a regular little production line set up in the basement of one of the derelict houses.’
‘Do you have any idea why he’s been doing this?’ Jerry asked me.
I shook my head. ‘I swear, hand on heart, I don’t know. I had no idea. I’ve asked him more than once what he’s been up to since we got here, but he didn’t mention anything about this.’
‘Well,’ said Jerry, ‘he’s got to be somewhere on this island. It’s only so big.’
‘But why would he disappear out of sight like that?’
‘I figure we did something that tipped him off,’ said Nadia. ‘Maybe disturbed something when we went searching around that basement. There’s a million ways he could figure out we were onto him.’
‘It’s lucky you came here when you did,’ said Jerry.
I gave him a withering look. ‘I’ve been trying to find you for days.’
He shrugged amiably. ‘It couldn’t be helped. But here’s our plan: find Borodin, get him to give us the coordinates for this place your father is being held . . . ?’
‘The Crag,’ I reminded him.
He nodded. ‘Right. In the meantime, we need some idea what to expect when we go there – what the place looks like, for a start, the layout . . .’
‘Hang on,’ said Nadia, looking alarmed. ‘You’re taking her story at face value. How do you know you wouldn’t be walking into some kind of a trap?’
‘We can get access to a drone if we really need to, can’t we?’ he said. ‘We can send it over first to scope the place out.’
Nadia gave me a sharp look. ‘That’s something, but I still feel that we need solid proof that anything she says is true.’
‘All the proof you need,’ I said levelly, ‘is right there on Delta Twenty-Five, in one of those sheds. You can use one of your drones, perhaps, to retrieve it. If you bring my father and the others here, I swear to you that we will do everything – everything – in our power to help you find a safe alternate. Would that be enough?’
‘So what do we do with her for now, anyway?’ asked Nadia.
Jerry shrugged. ‘She can stay here.’
Nadia shook her head. ‘No. You heard what she said. Blodel knows there’s something up with her. If he sends people out to look for her, especially now she’s on the run like Borodin, you’re not going to be able to stop him coming in here if he wants to. Same goes for anywhere else on this island.’
He rubbed his chin. ‘That leaves us with just one other option.’
Nadia nodded slowly. ‘Fishing trip?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked, but they ignored me.
‘Go find out from Roz if she’s heard anything new,’ Jerry said to Nadia. ‘I’ll take Katya up north in one of the jeeps.’
Nadia stepped towards the kitchen door, then paused. ‘Got a particular destination in mind?’
‘I figure we can maybe rendezvous at Beta Two-One-Five Orange. It’s relatively low-risk, and there won’t be anyone around.’
‘Wait,’ I said, looking between them. ‘Are you talking about taking me to some other alternate? Won’t it be dangerous walking into the transfer hangar if they’re looking for me?’
Jerry smiled. ‘Just wait and
see. It’s like Nadia says – as long as you’re here, on this alternate, Blodel can find you.’ He pulled a drawer open and lifted out his notebook, pushing it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘And until we know just where Borodin is, we need to make very sure that he can’t find you either.’
Jerry went in search of a jeep while Nadia headed home. I sat waiting in his kitchen for the longest fifteen minutes of my life until I heard the rumble of an engine from outside, then grabbed my rucksack and ran out to join him.
We drove north along the west coast, towards the truly uninhabited stretches of the island. The coast road ringed the whole island, but where was there to go, on this tiny smear of land, inhabited only by ghosts and ancient megaliths?
After a while, we reached the island’s northernmost point. To my surprise, Jerry kept going, turning the wheel until we were driving back south along the east coast. Off in the distance I saw some of the moai, the island’s ancient statues, looming over the land as they had done for centuries.
Then, all of a sudden, he guided the jeep off the road and over bumpy grass, parking it next to a copse of palms, where it was entirely hidden from view of the road.
‘Come on,’ he said, getting out. They were the first words he had said since we got in the jeep.
I followed him down a gravelly slope to the edge of the ocean. He stepped around a boulder the size of a small house, and when I followed, I saw a small rowing boat pulled up onto the pebbles, entirely hidden from the sight of anyone driving along the road. He grabbed hold of the boat’s prow and, with a grunt, dragged it down towards the water.
I watched, utterly mystified as to what was going on.
Once the boat was in the water he climbed in, taking the oars and pushing the tips of their blades down into the seabed to keep the boat from floating away from shore.
‘Get in,’ he called over.
I nodded towards the ocean. ‘What are you going to do, row us all the way to South America?’
He twisted on the rowing boat’s wooden bench and pointed towards a stub of rock, easily the size of the island’s transfer stage hangar, rising out of the water twenty or thirty metres from shore. ‘Nope. Just to there.’
‘I’m not sure I . . .’
‘Katya,’ he said impatiently, ‘I swear I’ll explain everything, but please hurry up and get in the damn boat.’
Despite my misgivings, I climbed into the boat and took a seat on a bench facing him. ‘I do not greatly like water,’ I muttered, as the boat rocked alarmingly beneath me.
‘You and me both,’ he said, pushing off from the shore with a grunt.
Several minutes later we rounded the islet. I saw to my surprise that its ocean-facing side was covered over with a large tarpaulin, held in place by steel cleats hammered into the rock. From the way the tarpaulin billowed in the stiff breeze, it was obvious that a hollow space lay behind it.
Jerry tied one end of a rope attached to the boat’s prow to a spare cleat just above water level, then he leaned out, unhooking the bottom edge of the tarpaulin. He stood, balancing expertly, and climbed under the tarpaulin and out of sight. He reappeared a moment later, sticking his head out and reaching down to me with one hand. ‘Your turn. Stand carefully, so you don’t capsize the boat.’
I stood, feeling far from steady, and took his hand. His grip was strong, and with his help I managed to get a foothold before pulling myself forward and beneath the tarpaulin. I found myself standing inside a shallow cave no more than a few metres deep, and perhaps as many high. There was just enough room to accommodate a wooden platform erected on top of the uneven stone floor, on which rested a portable transfer stage.
I stared at it with amazement. ‘Does Blodel know about this? And where did you get it?’
‘Never you mind,’ he said, stepping towards a laptop computer plugged into one of the field-pillars. ‘And where it came from is a long story.’ He opened the computer and the screen sprang to life, revealing a standard transfer control interface. ‘Just consider yourself privileged even to know about it,’ he added, before pulling out his notebook. ‘Right. I should have the coordinates I need here . . .’
A sudden thought occurred to me. ‘I wonder,’ I asked him, ‘if we could possibly visit another alternate first?’
FIFTEEN
A few minutes later, we arrived back on Sigma Seventy-Three – the caverns where I had first encountered the memory beads.
This time, there was an absolute absence of light. My heart fluttered with momentary panic and I gulped down air, feeling almost as if I were drowning in darkness. It was also freezing cold; we had come unprepared, straight from a semi-tropical island and without the heavy arctic-style gear worn on our previous visit.
I heard a click; light suddenly flared. I blinked and saw Jerry had a torch in one hand. Its beam passed over the field-pillars surrounding us in a ring.
‘Hang on,’ he grunted, stepping away from me. ‘I’ll get us something to wear before we freeze to death.’
I wrapped my arms around my shoulders and watched the light from his torch roving across crates and equipment piled near the stage. The huge statue of Jesus slowly revealed itself in silhouette as my eyes adjusted to the near-total darkness, outlined by the faint glow of bacteria clinging to the cavern ceiling.
‘Got it,’ Jerry muttered.
A generator grumbled into life, and I squeezed my eyes shut against a sudden flood of brilliance. When I next looked, the pole-mounted arc lights were back on, illuminating the cavern’s depths.
‘Hurry up,’ I shouted.
‘One second,’ he yelled back. He rooted around inside a plastic silo before uttering a cry of triumph and pulling out items of clothing.
His own teeth were chattering hard as he handed me a heavy coat and thick, fur-lined gloves. I pulled them on quickly, burying my mouth and nose in the coat’s thick collar and feeling some of the chill loosen its grip on me.
‘I don’t know why the hell I let you persuade me to come here,’ he said, his own coat pulled tight around him, ‘but it had better be really good. You know, this whole place is about to fall down.’
‘You did mention that, the first time we came here.’
‘Yeah, well, it’s getting worse, you should know. They’re sending in collection teams to make a final sortie of this place, and after that, we’re not coming back. It’s just too risky.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t insist on coming here without a very good reason.’ I reached into my rucksack and pulled out the wooden box.
He looked at it sceptically. ‘What the hell is that?’
I opened it so he could see the tiny beads inside. ‘I found these,’ I explained, ‘the first time we were brought here.’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘And you didn’t tell anyone? Why?’
‘I’m telling you now,’ I snapped. ‘And . . . I guess I didn’t quite realize their significance at first.’
He frowned. ‘They just look like beads.’
‘They are beads – until you touch them.’
He darted another doubtful look at me. ‘You’re not about to try and whack me over the head again, are you?’
‘There were many more beads,’ I explained patiently. ‘Along with this box. I saw them lying in the dust around that building that nearly fell on us when we were last here. They could only have belonged to one of the Stage-Builders. Just pick up the grey one with your bare fingers and see what happens.’
He sucked at his lips, thinking, then pulled off a glove and reached into the box, folding his fingers around the grey bead. He cupped it in his hand and became quite still, his gaze unfocused in precisely the same way that Borodin’s had been. And, as with Borodin, the objective experience lasted barely more than a few seconds.
He blinked and swallowed, staring down at the tiny bead in the palm of his hand. ‘What the hell . . . ?’
‘A way of recording one’s memories, is my guess. What did you see?’
�
�A girl.’
I nodded. ‘Now try the other one. But be warned – it’s quite different.’
He put the first bead back and picked up the second. When he next became aware of his surroundings, his face was ashen.
‘I don’t know what the hell I just saw,’ he muttered, ‘but it frightened the fucking life out of me. What was that thing, falling out of the sky?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘But maybe if we can find the rest of those beads, we can find out.’
We followed the arc lights past the statue and over the bridge. I hadn’t quite understood just how much the rate of collapse had accelerated until we were most of the way to our destination; many of the buildings I saw, and which I felt sure had been intact on my first visit, had by now fallen in on themselves.
When the pillars supporting the roof of the artificial sea finally came back into view, I could see huge, gaping cracks in many of them I also felt quite sure hadn’t been there on my last visit. To my dismay, much of the vast ceiling mural had also crumbled and fallen.
We passed the site where the first body had been found, but it was gone, along with the ancient transfer stage. It had all, Jerry explained, been transported back to the island at last.
We soon reached the crumbled remains of the building where I had found the beads. ‘Here,’ I said, looking all around as I shone Jerry’s torch onto the dust-shrouded cobblestones. I felt a rising sense of panic when I couldn’t see them. ‘They were right here, I swear!’
‘Take it easy,’ said Jerry, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘They’ll be around somewhere. If the retrieval teams had found those beads, sure as shit I’d have heard about it. We just need to take our time and look carefully.’
