The Chaos Code

by Justin Richards

  ‘It’s like he has a whole collection of voodoo dolls. And he can work it all using the discs,’ Robin said.

  ‘One of which Harper now has,’ Venture pointed out. There was no hint of blame in his voice, but Robin and Matt exchanged guilty glances. ‘There is a mechanism,’ Venture went on, not noticing as he continued to pretend to talk with Matt’s father. ‘The discs are slotted into the floor down by the stage, then turned to define the time and the place. Not that Harper knows that.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to, though,’ Matt’s dad said quietly. ‘He’s copied the data into his computers. He doesn’t have the geographical data, but he can work out the format for that easily enough now that he knows how the time disc works.’

  ‘So where is the geographical disc?’ Matt asked. ‘We know you made a fake for Harper to find, one that wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Kept him guessing for a bit,’ Dad said with evident satisfaction. ‘But he’s worked it out now, I’m afraid. The original is quite safe.’ He glanced down at the shadows where Matt was crouched. ‘It’s in my pocket,’ he said, patting his jacket.

  ‘Didn’t they search you?’ Robin asked in amazement.

  ‘Only for weapons. Harper wasn’t there, wouldn’t dirty his hands. And he had no reason to tell them to look for a disc. Not that it matters much now.’

  ‘So what’s all this stuff for?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Harper is preparing to compile and run his model, his code,’ Venture said. ‘It may be realised within the silicon of the computer rather than the rock and sand of this theatre, but the location is still important. As I said, this place like several others around the world was well chosen, it’s location is critical. That’s how Harper found it, of course – because it is on such an obvious gathering of lines of power and influence. Now he thinks that running his computer code, his model, on systems based here – directly above us at the same longitude and latitude, on the same lines of power – will be advantageous.’ Venture clicked his tongue. ‘Disastrous, more like. We have to stop him.’

  ‘But how?’ Robin asked.

  ‘It looks like he’s almost ready,’ Matt said.

  ‘You need to stop him from compiling his code and creating the model,’ Venture told them. ‘Once he runs the model, he’ll have control of everything – even us. It will be like the whole world is a simulation inside his computer that he can manipulate like a child can a computer game – building, guiding, destroying whatever he likes. Except whatever he does in this game will actually happen. He can find a person and make that person do what he likes. If he sets a monster loose in London, then a monster will indeed run riot through the city.’

  ‘A monster created out of earth, air, fire and water,’ Matt realised. ‘He can do whatever he wants.’

  ‘And nothing can stop him then,’ Venture said. ‘You have to destroy the supercomputers in the pyramid. Can you do that?’

  ‘We have no choice,’ Robin said.

  ‘If we can get to them,’ Matt added.

  ‘You need a diversion,’ his dad told him. ‘I think Julius and I can probably arrange that for you.’

  When the lights went out, Matt and Robin were ready. The guards had been grateful for Julius Venture’s enthusiastic help connecting the computers. They were less impressed when the way he did it overloaded the circuit.

  Matt could hear men shouting, Venture apologising, his father laughing, and the angry cries of people plunged into sudden darkness. In fact, the amphitheatre was not in total darkness – it was only one section of the lighting that had failed. But it was enough.

  Matt was grateful for the warmth of Robin’s hand holding his as they ran together across the uneven ground and up the steep steps. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. Unlike Matt, she did not trip or catch her feet on the debris scattered across the ruins. Unlike Matt, she didn’t seem worried by the guards – vague, dark shapes – running past them to find out what had happened.

  Into the short passageway up to the entrance to the pyramid. The lights here were flickering – on and off, then on again. Sending shadows dancing like firelight on the rough walls.

  There was a guard at the end of the passage, standing by the open door. Matt hesitated as the guard turned towards them, but Robin pulled him onwards.

  ‘Thank heavens,’ she gasped. ‘They need you, back there.’ She pointed down the passageway.

  The guard looked not much older than Matt. He was staring at them open-mouthed, his hand hesitant and nervous on his gun. ‘Who are you?’ he asked in heavily accented English.

  ‘Never mind us, get going now!’ Robin said urgently. ‘Can’t you see the lights are failing. The generator’s exploded, there are casualties, people injured. They need you, now.’

  The guard frowned. ‘Generator?’

  ‘Just go,’ Matt told him. ‘We’ll find Mr Harper. You’d better not still be here when he arrives.’ He didn’t wait to see what effect this had. They pushed past the young guard, and hurried up the narrow stairs into the Waterfall Pyramid.

  ‘You think they know we’re here?’ Matt asked as they stepped out from the stairs into the passageway leading to the computer suite.

  ‘I hope not. Probably think it’s just Dad trying to cause trouble.

  ‘Dads,’ Matt corrected her. ‘My dad can cause trouble too.’

  ‘And you are so like him,’ Robin said.

  ‘Better believe it.’

  The flickering, fake torchlight gave the corridor an eerie feel as they hurried to the door. Robin keyed in the code, and the door clicked open.

  ‘So far, so good,’ she said quietly.

  They stepped carefully into the computer room. It was exactly as Matt remembered it, except that the bank of screens across from the door were not showing the spinning H symbol. They all showed the same picture, but it was the wire-frame model of the pyramid. And sitting at one of the screens was the broad, unmistakeable form of Atticus Harper himself.

  Matt put his finger to his lips, warning Robin to keep quiet. Harper seemed engrossed in the images on the screen. They would have to sneak past him, down to where the supercomputers were crunching their numbers, creating the model.

  The door slammed shut behind them, like a gunshot over the gentle hum of the air conditioning. Matt spun round – to find Klein standing there. He had been behind the door when they came in, and he had a machine pistol pointing straight at them.

  ‘Do come in, my young friends,’ Harper called, still without looking round. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Look.’

  He pointed to the screen, and Matt and Robin were close enough now to see that there were two tiny figures standing in the pyramid. The image zoomed in on them – a man and woman. Or rather, a boy and a girl. Colours and textures filled in as they watched and it was now unmistakably a crude computer rendition of Matt and Robin.

  ‘I have it keyed to you,’ Harper said. ‘I’ve been watching you all the way from downstairs. I must say, you took your time. I expected you several minutes ago. But never mind, when my model is complete, I’ll be able to predict you precisely. All I need to do is watch the representations of you on my model, my simulation, and wind forward in time to see what you are about to do. Like watching a video. Then I can decide whether to let you do it, or whether to change your actions and make you do something else entirely.’

  He swung round in the chair, his face one enormous smile of satisfaction and victory.

  ‘You’ll never make it work,’ Robin said calmly.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘It’d take a genius to create a computer model like that,’ Matt told him. ‘I doubt you could configure the systems or create the code.’

  Harper sighed. ‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘But I have reverse-engineered the disc you so kindly provided. And from that I’ve managed to extrapolate the geographical information I need. All that remains now is to compile the various components of the model into a complete simulation. B
ut, as you say, I needed expert help. I could not have done it all on my own.’

  Somewhere at the back of the room, a door banged shut.

  ‘Which is why I employ the very best people,’ Harper was saying.

  Footsteps across the floor, the click of high heels.

  ‘Plus, of course, it gave me an added advantage when dealing with your father. An extra incentive for him, shall we say?’

  A figure stepped out from between the rows of computer drives and storage systems. A woman.

  ‘She’s not been with us long, but I think you already know my head of computing,’ Harper said.

  Matt barely heard him. He was looking in silent astonishment at the woman who was staring back at him, equally amazed.

  ‘What are you doing here, Matt?’ his mother asked.

  Chapter 19

  The black dots on the horizon resolved themselves into shapes, identifiable by the noise they made before they became properly visible. The massive, throbbing sound of the engines preceded them across the rain forest. Mechanical and alien.

  The helicopters swept in low over the canopy of trees. They hovered over the ruins of the city, ropes dropping from their open doors. Dark-suited figures slid down the ropes with well-rehearsed ease and dropped to the ground below. Immediately they were up again, running, guns at the ready.

  The helicopters moved away, searching for suitable flat landing spaces in amongst the ruins further off. They rested heavily on their wheels, rotors slowing to a lazy, drooping halt. A rather portly figure climbed clumsily down from one helicopter and looked up at the huge majesty of the waterfall through small, round, dark glasses.

  • • •

  It was one of the few times – possibly the only time – that Matt had seen his mother lost for words. Her initial surprise had given way to anger and disbelief as Harper told Klein to take the three of them at gunpoint down to the amphitheatre.

  ‘You can establish a link to the servers,’ he told Matt’s mum. ‘And then we can compile the final code so it is ready to run and the model will be complete.’

  ‘You can do that from here, and route the results to the other screens,’ Matt’s mother told Harper irritably. Even with a gun pointing at her, she had to do things properly.

  ‘Mum – don’t!’ Matt warned. ‘Don’t help him.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Klein told him, swinging his gun at Matt.

  Robin stepped forward and blocked the gun with her arm. ‘Leave him alone.’

  Klein was grinning. ‘Or what?’ he demanded. But he lowered the gun.

  ‘Do it,’ Harper told Matt’s mum. ‘If you value you son’s life. And your husband’s too. Oh yes, he is here as well.’

  Without comment, Matt’s mother pulled a keyboard towards her across the workstation. She typed away for a moment, clicked on a button with the mouse pointer. Then she turned to stare sternly at Harper. ‘That’s “ex-husband,” if you don’t mind,’ she told him.

  On every screen that Matt could see, a thin red progress bar appeared. Code Compilation in Progress, the text beneath it said. The bar started to stretch slowly across the screen as the computers set to work putting all the different computer programs that formed Harper’s model into a single piece of computer code ready to be run.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Matt said quietly.

  Harper led the way. By the time they reached the lift at the end of the corridor, they could all hear sounds from outside.

  ‘Is that thunder?’ Matt’s mother wondered.

  But even as she spoke, there came the sound of a staccato burst of gunfire.

  ‘That’s Mr Smith,’ Robin told her.

  Klein had his hand to his ear and was talking quietly but urgently into a microphone on his lapel.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Harper demanded.

  ‘Some sort of raid,’ Klein said. ‘They’re armed and they know their business. We won’t be able to hold them off for long.’

  Harper pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. On its screen Matt could see the red thermometer showing the progress of his code. ‘You don’t have to hold them off for long,’ Harper snapped. ‘Just a few minutes.’

  ‘That may not be possible. I don’t have many men. Not enough to withstand a full-scale assault.’

  ‘Then we’ll get you some reinforcements,’ Harper said. ‘Come on. We’ll take the stairs.’

  The sound of explosions and gunfire was louder as they hurried down the narrow, winding staircase with Klein waving his gun to encourage them.

  ‘Who are they?’ Matt asked Robin.

  She shrugged. ‘CIA, SAS, whoever he could find and persuade to help.’

  ‘I should have stayed at school,’ Matt muttered. But even when they paused at the ground floor, and a bullet ripped past Matt’s ear and took a chunk out of the stonework behind him, he didn’t mean it.

  Klein let loose a burst of machine-gun fire in return, and then they were off again – almost falling down the stairs in their enforced haste.

  ‘What is going on, Matthew?’ his mother asked. She sounded like she believed it was all his fault.

  ‘I don’t have a clue,’ he lied. ‘Ask Dad.’

  His mother grunted, stumbling down another step in her stiletto heels. ‘Might have known he’d be behind the problem,’ she said. But to Matt’s surprise, she added wistfully: ‘I do hope he’s all right.’

  The young guard that Robin and Matt had bluffed their way past was back at the doorway. He glared at them, and Robin winked at him. Klein stopped to give him new orders, then continued to herd Matt, his mother and Robin through into the amphitheatre.

  ‘Well, I never knew this was here,’ Matt’s mum said as they emerged into the bright artificial light at the end of the passage. ‘Probably why your father came,’ she confided to Matt before being prodded forward by Klein’s gun. She glared at the skull-faced man. ‘I never liked you,’ she told him.

  ‘Mum,’ Matt said. Despite everything, she was embarrassing him – how did she manage to do that? Even here, even now?

  Dad seemed rather more surprised to see his ex-wife than he had been to see Matt. She glared at him, but only for a moment, then they embraced. Matt looked away.

  ‘Just good friends?’ Robin asked quietly.

  ‘Oh they love each other,’ he told her. It hadn’t occurred to him till then, but now it seemed so obvious. ‘They just can’t live together, that’s all. They get on each other’s nerves’ so much.’

  ‘Can’t believe that,’ she said, watching as Matt’s parents disentangled themselves and his dad introduced his mum quickly to Julius Venture.

  Harper ignored them. He clapped his hands together like a pianist about to give his greatest ever concert and seated himself at one of the computers. ‘Now then,’ he declared.

  The huge plasma screen dominated the small area to the side of the amphitheatre. It flickered into life. On it, the progress bar inched its way along. It was almost half way now. In the background, the rattle of gunfire was getting closer.

  ‘Stop this now,’ Venture said loudly. His voice was full of authority, but Harper seemed not to hear. Venture stepped closer, but two of the guards pulled him away before he could reach Harper.

  Klein was again listening to the reports coming in through his earpiece. ‘If you really can get us reinforcements,’ he told Harper urgently, ‘then we need them now!’

  ‘And you shall have them.’ The slowly filling progress bar shrank to a smaller version, in a window at the top corner of the screen. The rest of the screen was now taken up with the familiar wire-frame model of the pyramid. ‘Though in just a few minutes when the code is fully compiled so it can be run, and the model is complete, I shall be able to call off your assailants.’ At the click of a control, figures appeared in the pyramid. ‘Your guards, Mr Klein,’ Harper said. ‘And …’ he clicked on another control, ‘your attackers.’

  More figures appeared – outnumbering the first. The new figures were shown in blue, Klein’s men in green.
It was like watching an old ‘shoot ‘em up’ computer game as the blue figures slowly forced back their green opponents, moving slowly but steadily through the pyramid. Green bodies were lying on the ground, blue figures stepping over them as they advanced.

  ‘Now then,’ Harper said again, ‘let’s see if we can even up the odds, shall we?’ He reached for the mouse, and the image moved, panning down to the amphitheatre below the pyramid.

  In the window at the top of the screen, the progress bar inched closer and closer to completion.

  The rock walls at the edge of the cavern – the sides of the huge cave itself – began to bulge and ripple. The solid rock was like the sea. Shapes were forming, just below the surface, pushing themselves out through the walls of the cave as if they were elastic. The cave walls stretched and burst. Figures made of earth and stone – crude, lumpy, misshapen creatures – forced their way out.

  The ground burst. An earthen fist punched through the sandy floor. It rose upwards – an arm, then a whole body growing up out of the ground. A forest of arms followed by more and more of the creatures, rising like divers from a swamp …

  As one, they turned slowly in the direction of the passageway leading into the main pyramid and started to walk slowly, stiffly, inexorably towards it.

  The progress bar was two-thirds of the way across the screen now.

  ‘We should be able to start very soon,’ Harper said. He seemed to be talking to the screen itself as he watched the red line edge slowly along. ‘You know, I call the core code, the main program, my chaos engine. But in fact it is the opposite. It understands chaos, but I shall use that understanding to eliminate the chaos and bring order and method to the world. The weak-minded will be affected first. We don’t need to run the whole model to be able to control them. But soon, the only mind capable of independent thought, will be mine.’