Survival Game

by Gary Gibson

  ‘The coordinates for Alpha Zero are already stored here,’ he explained. ‘Just remember – even if I get away with the Hypersphere, you’re on your own with at least two imperial guards.’

  I nodded, then glanced back the way we had come. I saw Podolski with his back to the window. He looked to be keeping a careful eye on the Pathfinders. He turned to glance briefly towards us, then looked away again.

  Borodin took a final glance upwards at the sky, then ran forward and onto the stage, throwing himself into the back of the truck. I saw him lean over the caged Hypersphere, the slip of blue paper gripped in one hand.

  Any second now, and Podolski would look back out the window and see Borodin wasn’t beside me any more.

  I got to work powering up the stage, and then had a sudden, sobering thought: there was nothing to prevent me sending Borodin, the truck, and the Hypersphere to a null sequence. No need to wait until he had his hands on the Hypersphere – in one stroke, I could send Tomas’ murderer into oblivion, and eliminate any threat to the Empire.

  I reached for the keyboard, and quickly input a set of random coordinates. The stage was primed: all I had to do was hit the activation button, and seconds later they would be gone.

  My hand hovered over the button, but for some reason I could not bring myself to press it.

  I heard angry shouting, and looked around to see Sergei standing at the open door of an elevator across the courtyard, staring towards the truck.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted at Borodin, and ran towards the stage with his machine gun at the ready.

  Borodin had not yet finished entering the code. He glanced over at Sergei, running towards him, then continued working.

  Sergei fired a burst into the air above the truck, afraid, I assumed, of hitting the Hypersphere. ‘Sergeant! Ensel!’ he bellowed. ‘For God’s sake, stop him!’

  Podolski emerged from the doorway, shouting angrily. Casey rushed up behind him and the two men began to grapple. I heard a brief rattle of fire as Podolski managed to twist free, pieces of cobblestone kicking up around his feet.

  Casey ran back inside, and slammed the door shut.

  I ducked down low, so Podolski couldn’t see me. He ran towards the stage, shouting Ensel’s name.

  Now, I thought. Borodin was still leaning over the Hypersphere in the rear of the truck. End it now.

  I still couldn’t do it. No matter how many times I had imagined killing him in the past, I simply could not act.

  Ensel, finally hearing the Sergeant’s shouts, jumped down from the front cabin and ran around to the back of the truck. At first, he didn’t see Borodin, instead staring towards Sergei.

  ‘Sergei!’ he screamed, pointing into the air. ‘For pity’s sake, look out!’

  Too late, Sergei looked up as one of the black-winged shapes swooped down over him. He yelled with horror, the broad wings obscuring him momentarily from sight.

  Then it flew back upwards, sailing lazily into the air above the stage. There was no sign of Sergei, as if he had simply been erased from existence.

  Ensel gaped for a moment, then did a double-take when he realized Borodin was in the back of the truck. He got in and fought with Borodin, trying to pull him back from the Hypersphere just as its cage finally hissed open.

  Borodin fought hard, but Ensel was younger and, I suspected, a lot stronger. Podolski, who had come to a halt when Sergei was swept away, ran forward again, slinging his gun back over his shoulder before also climbing into the back of the truck.

  I knew, then, that I had no choice but to act or it would be too late. I somehow found the strength to bring my hand slamming down, triggering the null sequence.

  The truck was enveloped by light, making it hard to see the men fighting in the back. Podolski and Ensel were still grappling with Borodin, but in the last instant before the truck vanished, I thought I saw Borodin lunge towards the exposed Hypersphere, throwing himself on top of it.

  A second light joined that of the transfer stage: I closed my eyes from the overwhelming brilliance and looked away, dark spots dancing before my eyes.

  When I was next able to look, the light had faded and the stage was empty.

  The Pathfinders came running out of the doorway towards me. ‘Katya!’ Nadia shouted. ‘What happened? Where did they go?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I had stood back up without realizing it. Had Borodin got away? He might have, but I didn’t know. Nor, most likely, would I ever find out.

  ‘Get up on the stage,’ I shouted over at them. ‘I’ll set it to take us back to the Authority.’

  ‘Then hurry up,’ Chloe shouted back, pointing upwards. ‘There are more of those things on the way.’

  I nodded and worked quickly as the others gathered on the stage. I glanced up, feeling a freezing moment of terror as a black-winged shape dropped towards me.

  ‘Katya!’ someone shouted. ‘Get up on the stage!’

  I hit the activation switch and ran towards the platform. The others shouted to me to move, their faces making it quite evident just what was closing on me from behind. I narrowed my eyes against the growing brightness as I hurled myself up onto the platform.

  Nadia gaped, her eyes wide with terror as she pointed right behind me. I didn’t think: I threw myself down flat on the platform just as a great black shadow seemed to flow over me . . .

  . . . And was gone.

  Hands pulled me up, and I staggered upright, gasping for air. We were in the main hangar back on the island, back on Alternate Alpha Zero.

  My legs gave out from under me and Randall caught me. ‘She’s hurt,’ he shouted. ‘She needs help. Hey! Get someone!’

  I heard voices shouting, saw people come running in from outside to stare at us. A technician stood open-mouthed by the control rig, while soldiers shouted to each other.

  Nadia helped Randall guide me down the ramp. ‘Did you see it?’ she exclaimed. ‘I swear, Katya, I thought you were a goner for sure. Whoosh! Right overhead! Just one more second . . .’

  ‘Did he make it?’ asked Randall, as he helped me to sit on the ramp. ‘Borodin. Do you think he got away?’

  I shook my head tiredly. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I saw him reach out for the Hypersphere, but – there was so much light . . .’

  ‘Where did you send them to, Katya?’ asked Nadia. ‘You never told me.’

  I just looked at her and she nodded slowly. ‘Null sequence, right?’

  ‘It seemed the only way to be sure.’

  ‘Maybe he got what he deserved,’ she said.

  I saw Jerry being led down the ramp by Chloe, where he was greeted by medical orderlies from the compound hospital. Two more came towards me with a stretcher.

  ‘What happens now?’ I asked Nadia, as I was lifted onto the stretcher.

  ‘I don’t know, Katya. I’m guessing you’re stuck with us after all. I don’t think they’d welcome you back wherever you call home.’

  A tremendous weight seemed to pull my head down against the stretcher. I realized I was still alive, which seemed tremendously unlikely. But then, in an infinite universe, all things, no matter how improbable, may occur at least once . . .

  The last thing I saw before they carried me outside and across the compound was Casey, still standing on the stage, staring out past me through the open doors with a faraway expression.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Easter Island Forward Base, Alternate Alpha Zero

  Three Weeks Later

  The sky above the island was grey: winter was coming, and with it, damp, cool winds. I watched as the excavator’s driver worked his twin joysticks so that the blade slid deep into the grassy soil. He drove forward, operating the machine with expert ease. The blade lifted up a crumbling slice of topsoil, widening the hole already dug. The excavator rolled back, its cabin rotating to deposit the soil on a growing mound of dirt.

  A line of pegs marked out the dimensions of what would soon be one of several new buildings next to the island’s crumbling runway. Th
e blade dipped again, lifting more soil. I found it strangely calming to watch.

  I turned at the sound of an approaching jeep. It pulled up next to one of the temporary buildings I had asked to be erected until the permanent facilities were finished. Jerry and Nadia climbed out, and for a moment they watched as soldiers unloaded furniture and lab equipment from a truck, before carrying it inside the nearest building.

  Jerry turned to see me as I stepped towards them. ‘I’m impressed,’ he said with a grin. ‘Hardly a month since we got back, and already you’ve got them running around doing all this for you.’ He looked around, taking in the whole building site. ‘And it’s going to be big. No wonder we’ve hardly seen sight or sound of you.’

  I nodded. ‘They’re giving me everything I asked for. All the equipment, the resources . . . even the staff I wanted.’

  ‘Who are you getting?’ asked Nadia.

  ‘The Soviets.’ They both looked at me in surprise. ‘I couldn’t ask for better people,’ I explained, ‘and most of them are happy to come back here and work with me. Although it’s going to take a little explaining about who I really am.’

  ‘And Blodel’s . . . okay with them coming back here?’ asked Jerry.

  I gave him a crooked smile. ‘He’s anything but “okay” with it. Senator Bramnik didn’t give him any choice, however.’

  I had received confirmation that same morning, delivered to me at my new home on the island by one of Major Howes’ men. Nor did the Soviet authorities have much of a say in the matter: they had initially demanded my repatriation, perhaps not quite understanding that, although Russian, I was nonetheless the citizen of a quite different Russia from the one they knew. They were soon persuaded to back down once it was explained to them just how much I had to contribute.

  ‘I can’t even guess what half this stuff is,’ said Nadia, looking around. She nodded towards the half-finished transfer stage, its pillars already towering over the prefabricated buildings surrounding it. ‘Is that thing functional?’

  I nodded. ‘It is. Come on and I’ll give you the tour.’

  I showed them where the permanent research lab would be built, and the containment facility where exotic forms of matter, essential to powering the transfer stages, would be stored in special magnetic containment devices. Another building would house the computer systems responsible for generating the coordinates of viable alternates.

  ‘Really,’ I explained, ‘my work is twofold. On the one hand, the Authority want me to find alternates suitable for them to colonize. On the other, their transfer stages are too small and too few in number for a mass global evacuation.’

  I stopped next to a building for which the foundations were still being laid. ‘Once this is finished,’ I explained, ‘it’ll function as a training centre. First, I will train the Soviets as well as the Authority’s own scientists in the construction, maintenance and operation of transfer stages, and they in turn will train others to do the same. Before long, they’ll be able to begin the mass construction of new stages in preparation for a staged evacuation.’

  ‘Got some news for you,’ said Jerry, once I had finished. ‘They finally called off the search for Casey. We found the EV truck he stole about two hundred kilometres south-east of Site A. But he’s long gone. We’ll never find him.’

  ‘So he did go back to Delta Twenty-Five,’ I said. I still had nightmares about being chased by invisible monsters through that alternate’s forests. ‘How can he even survive in such a place for long?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Jerry toed a pebble into a pit recently dug by one of the excavators. ‘He stole enough supplies to keep him alive for a good long time. He must have packed that truck with water filtration systems, sampling and testing kits, long-life protein packs – you name it. They found some of it cached in a hole in the ground not far from where they discovered the truck. By now the rest of it’s squirreled away in all kinds of corners.’

  ‘If he’s on Delta Twenty-Five,’ I said, ‘the only possible reason is that he’s looking for another Hypersphere.’

  Nadia, standing next to Jerry, pushed her hands in her pockets and shrugged. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. Whether he finds one or not, he’s out of our hair for good. Even Blodel’s not dumb enough to try and retrieve another Casey.’

  A light rain began to fall, and I pulled the collar of my jacket up close around my neck, seeing something in both their faces. ‘You didn’t both come all the way out here just to tell me this, did you?’

  They exchanged a look. ‘Well . . . now that you mention it,’ said Nadia, ‘I’ve been wanting to apologize for a while. Not just on my behalf – for all of us. You came back here from the Crag looking for our help, and we tried to stop you. It was . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what it was, but the more I think about it, the more I think that what we did wasn’t right.’

  I reached out and touched her forearm. ‘We were all trying to save people that mattered to us, Nadia. It’s all in the past now.’

  The rain started to fall with more intensity and the two of them shared another, conspiratorial look.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Is there something else?’

  ‘I have an umbrella back in my jeep,’ said Nadia, casting a significant glance at some workers pouring concrete nearby. ‘And maybe we can talk in private,’ she added, lowering her voice.

  I took the hint and followed them back over to their jeep. The truck had departed, and we were alone for the moment.

  Nadia lifted a particoloured golf umbrella out of the rear of the vehicle and put it up. ‘We thought you ought to know that the Authority are discussing whether or not to send more expeditions back to Delta Twenty-Five.’

  ‘For what? To look for Casey? I thought you said . . .’

  Jerry shook his head tightly. ‘Not Casey.’

  I swallowed. ‘Please tell me they’re not going looking for another Hypersphere.’

  ‘Katya . . .’

  I leaned against the side of the jeep, suddenly dizzy, and put a hand over my mouth.

  ‘They’re calling it a contingency plan,’ said Jerry. ‘In case your search for viable alternates doesn’t work out.’

  ‘Of all the stupid, ignorant . . . !’ I shouted. ‘How could they even consider such a plan of action? Contingency plan? Contingency against what? Do you support this madness?’

  ‘No,’ Jerry said heatedly. ‘Of course we don’t – none of us does.’ He meant the Pathfinders, of course. ‘And I’ve been in touch with Senator Bramnik as well. He says it’s unlikely to happen, but . . .’

  ‘But there’s only so much he can do,’ Nadia finished. ‘Besides, you won’t fail – we all know that. As soon as they realized how much you could do for them, you became the Big Kahuna around here, remember?’

  ‘Or perhaps,’ I ranted, ‘they’ll set a time limit. Give us a viable alternate within six months, they might say, Or we’ll go looking for another Hypersphere. Or perhaps they won’t wait that long,’ I continued, feeling my anger grow. ‘Perhaps they’ll go looking for a Hypersphere right now! And perhaps if they find one, they’ll run their own secret research programme to figure out how it works . . . just as a contingency, of course.’

  I slid down against the side of the jeep until I was sitting on damp soil. I felt drained, exhausted.

  ‘I should have known better,’ I continued, clasping my hands over my knees. ‘Once people know such a thing exists, they will do everything in their power to acquire it, even if they end up cutting their own throats. And I . . . I will be right back where I was, in the service of madmen.’

  Jerry stared towards the horizon, and I had the sense he was choosing his next words carefully. ‘We never did tell you why we had that secret stage hidden offshore, did we?’ he said at last.

  I looked between them. ‘No, you didn’t.’

  It hadn’t taken long for the Authority to realize that the Pathfinders had access to a stage of their own. There had already been qu
estions after the disappearance of Borodin, myself, and Jerry, but within hours of our appearing on the main stage they had finally managed to locate and confiscate it.

  ‘That stage they built for you,’ said Nadia, nodding back the way we had come. ‘You said it’s operational?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then there’s something we’d like to show you,’ she continued. ‘But we’re going to have to use your stage to get to it. And we’re also going to have to ask you to keep the coordinates of our destination a secret.’

  I stood back up, feeling a faint tingle in my spine. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Nadia, then turned and walked towards the stage.

  I stared after her, then gave Jerry a questioning look.

  ‘After you,’ he said.

  I stepped over churned soil and around piles of bricks waiting to be laid as I followed the Pathfinder, knowing that in that same moment I had slipped back into subterfuge and secrets. Perhaps, I thought, it would always be this way.

  The control rig for the new stage was unmanned for the moment. Nadia pulled out her own notebook, and read out a sequence of letters and numbers, which I dutifully entered into the machine.

  I followed the two Pathfinders onto the stage just as it began to fill with light, and a moment later we were somewhere new.

  I looked around, seeing a deserted street. A circle of field-pillars surrounded us. Towering buildings rose up on one side of me, while trees grew behind a rusted iron fence on the other. Beyond the fence I saw what might once have been a park, half-gone to wilderness. Along the street lay the ruined shells of cars, clearly abandoned for decades, while a faded advertisement hoarding read Welcome to New York. Here and there, wildflowers and saplings pushed through the broken tarmac.

  ‘Which alternate is this?’ I asked.

  ‘Nowhere special,’ said Jerry, stepping out of the circle. ‘It’s a fairly standard post-apocalyptic. We bagged and tagged this reality a long time ago.’