The London Project (Portal Book 1)

by Mark J Maxwell

  ‘Too much detail, Ed,’ Louisa cut in. ‘The highlights only, please.’

  ‘Huh, okay. Let’s see…the Vanstone Institute was the first lab to successfully create a synthetic genome and later to implant the genome within a living cell. The experiment brought them some serious attention and four years ago they were bought outright by FMC Scientific, based in Switzerland. It’s a subsidiary of an umbrella group called Lenkman Holdings. They control a number of smaller scientific labs and their major shareholder is—drum roll—Portal Services Limited.’

  ‘Portal,’ Louisa said. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?

  ‘Portal kept him on as a research consultant when they took over the Vanstone Institute. He’s based in a research facility at King’s Cross Central.’

  ‘Wait, there’s a Portal facility near where Claire died?’

  ‘Well, his lab is located there, but don’t get too excited. We went over the sense logs from the whole area, remember? We established a sense perimeter around the railway tracks and found no trace of her.’

  It all comes back to Portal. She thought again about Simon’s reaction when he saw the wound on Claire’s neck. Had Simon been playing her? Bringing her down to Portal’s head office. Warning her that Portal were looking into her but implying he was on her side. She felt her face flush in a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Was she really that much of a fool to be taken in by a handsome face and a cute smile?

  Louisa shook her head. ‘I don’t care about the sense logs. She was in the professor’s research lab before she ended up on the railway tracks. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Even if that’s the case—the lab is ultra high security. Good luck getting in without a search warrant.’

  What judge in his right mind would hand over a search warrant for Portal property without definitive evidence a crime had been committed there? She needed to speak to the professor. If he could implicate Portal in Claire’s death, even indirectly, she might get the warrant.

  ‘Add his name to Claire’s case file,’ Louisa said. ‘Let’s see what CADET comes up with.’

  ‘I’m way ahead of you. It found nothing. He has a clean record and has no obvious links to Claire.’

  CADET could only do so much, of course. She needed a history graph if she was going to dig deeper into what the professor was up to. ‘Are the emergency CSCA powers still active for the civil disturbances?’

  ‘I think so. The riots are over, but we haven’t received the official word yet to rescind the protocols.’

  ‘Run a history graph analysis on the professor. Link it to the case file.’

  ‘Are you sure? That’s a little…risky, isn’t it?’

  Ed was right, of course. If the case were reviewed she’d have to answer some hard questions on why she ordered the graph on someone who wasn’t involved in the riots. Marking him as a suspect in Claire’s death would be a stretch, legally speaking. Just because he created the artificial cells didn’t mean he was directly involved in her death. It would be like blaming a weapons manufacturer for a shooting.

  ‘I’ll take full responsibility,’ Louisa said. ‘Do it.’

  Ed paused. ’The graph is coming up…now. From his most recent activity the professor appears to have left his home in Knightsbridge and is now driving west.

  ‘What’s his destination?’

  ‘Heathrow. He’s got an eleven a.m. flight to Ecuador.’

  ‘When is he returning?’

  ‘His ticket is one-way.’

  ‘One-way. Could he be fleeing the country?’

  ‘Well…Ecuador doesn’t have a UK extradition treaty so, yeah, he could be.’

  Louisa brought up the history graph herself. She tapped on the professor’s location and a map appeared, indicating the professor had turned onto the A4.

  ‘City traffic is practically gridlocked,’ Louisa said as she accessed the latest Traffic Subnet data. ‘Everyone must be making up for staying in during the riots. I might be able to catch him.’

  ‘Can’t you alert Aviation Security? They could hold him until you get there.’

  Louisa shook her head. ‘We’d have to make an official request which would draw too much attention down onto the case. Plus, if he’s held at the airport there’s a good chance Portal’s lawyers will get involved before I get a chance to speak privately with him. Thanks for your help, Ed, I’ll take it from here.’

  Her car was still parked at SCD7’s HQ. She’d never make it over there in time to catch the professor before he made it to the airport.

  A chiming sound announced that someone had requested access from the lobby. Louisa checked her terminal. The requestor ID was DC Ives. Her SCD7 protection detail had arrived.

  ‘Gather your things, kids,’ Louisa said, ‘You’re paying Dad and Auntie Abigail a visit.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Louisa studied the London street map on her terminal, trying to identify the least congested route that would allow her to intercept Professor Keenan. She was in an automated taxi capsule she’d requested after the kids left with the SCD7 DC.

  Ives hadn’t been keen on ferrying the kids to John’s house. He’d looked quite distraught, in fact, but she hadn’t really given him a choice. She almost felt sorry for him. DI Lenihan wouldn’t be happy when he found out Ives had left her alone.

  The taxi, a one-seater sleek sliver ovoid, was another Portal innovation. The capsules came in various sizes but the one-seater was Louisa’s best bet for catching the professor. It was sized and shaped specifically for slipping in and out of heavy traffic with ease. The vehicle only had two wheels but it was gyroscopically balanced so it was practically impossible to knock over. Inside it was almost as immersive as the sense booth Louisa had used in the SCD7 HQ. Apart from the seat the curved interior was one large Portal screen which wrapped completely around the passenger. As soon as the journey started you were bombarded with Portal advertisements and after a while they became strangely mesmeric—almost like a form of sensory deprivation. Your perception of the world around you became limited solely to whatever concepts the advertising companies dreamed up. Tourists had been known to ride around for hours in the taxis watching the never-ending stream of messages, especially after a few minutes when their faces had been scanned and they started appearing in the adverts themselves. Louisa had transferred across a few extra quid as soon as she got in to stop the advertising onslaught.

  She sent a new destination instruction to the taxi’s Portal interface from her terminal and it chirped an acceptance. She was attempting to skirt the worst of the traffic jam. The taxi’s integration with the Traffic Subnet would normally allow it to provide her with the most expedient route to a destination but coping with a moving target like the professor’s car was beyond its capabilities. Luckily, the congestion showed no signs of clearing any time soon. The Traffic Subnet worked best when it had control over the majority of London’s vehicles. It could then collectively reduce journey times for all users because it had visibility on their destinations. When traffic built up, some users believed they could find a faster route through the traffic themselves and they switched VANS off. By doing so they invariably made the congestion much worse for everyone.

  If she’d been in her own car it would have been a relatively simple job to catch up with the professor. Her car was registered with the Traffic Subnet as an emergency response vehicle. Once the subnet was informed she was in pursuit of a suspected criminal it would have opened up a route to the professor’s car. Stuck in the taxi capsule she didn’t have that luxury, but she could at least make use of the bus lanes. That advantage alone was allowing her to gradually gain ground on the professor, but she was running out of time. He was nearing the end of the A4, after which the road switched to a motorway. The taxi capsule was agile enough in traffic but with a top speed of thirty miles per hour she hadn’t a hope of catching him once he joined the M4. Louisa checked along the professor’s route. He was two junctions from the motorway, but as luck would
have it, the final stretch of the A4 was gridlocked. Roadworks had reduced the three-lane road down to one. He’d have to crawl along there. But she couldn’t see any alternate route to intercept him. She was going to be stuck on the same stretch of road, and he had half a mile of a head start.

  The taxi capsule slowed to a stop. She’d joined the end of the tailback. She put up a sense-representation of the exterior of the taxi on its screen. The Traffic Subnet was merging the three lanes of cars up ahead but it was making slow progress.

  Louisa considered her options. She didn’t have much of a choice. If she stayed where she was she would lose him. She pocketed her terminal, hopped out of the taxi and started running up the road in between the stationary traffic towards the roadworks.

  She kept her eyes peeled for the professor’s car—a light silver Ford saloon. The road crew was resurfacing the left-hand lanes. Two of the crew were levelling out steaming tarmac and when she shot past them they looked up, startled.

  Ahead was the final set of traffic lights. He has to be close. There were less than twenty cars left. Her heart sank, fearful he’d already gone through the lights. Then she saw a silver car stopped at the head of the queue. The muscles in her legs were protesting but Louisa shoved the discomfort to the back of her mind and picked up the pace.

  Louisa was only three car lengths away when the traffic lights showed amber, then turned to green. The professor’s car started to move.

  She could still make it—the windows were blacked out so he had VANS active. If she managed to touch the car it would trigger VANS’ collision detection and the system would bring the car to a stop. That’s if he didn’t switch to manual and accelerate off. It was worth a try.

  Louisa’s lungs were burning as she sprinted into the junction.

  Nearly there! She was only a few yards behind the car.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouted. ‘Hey!’

  She stretched out and thumped the boot of the car with her hand. At first nothing happened, but then the car’s brake lights flashed red. It had worked! The car decelerated.

  A thundering horn blast erupted to Louisa’s left and she snapped her head around. An impossibly large, fast-moving shape was bearing down on her. She tried to stop, or even slow down, but she was running too fast. Her legs might as well have been on auto themselves. They kept on pumping, propelling her forward.

  The truck slammed into the professor’s car with an earsplitting screech of metal and shattering glass. Something smacked her hip and a bright flash traced a line of fire across her forehead. She grunted as the air was sucked from her lungs.

  She was suddenly weightless, floating through the air. She could see the sky above, the sun momentarily blinding through a gap in the clouds. Floating turned to falling—a sick, sinking feeling in her stomach. A sense of panic gripped her. She tried to scream but a tightness in her chest prevented her from drawing a breath. Her head cracked something hard and her vision flared white for a brief moment, then everything went dark.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Louisa opened her eyes to blue sky and squinted against the brightness. She tried to sit up.

  A woman’s voice yelled from somewhere. ‘Don’t move, you’re not supposed to move!’

  More shouting from around her.

  A hand gripped her arm and she shook it off. An elderly man stood over her, grandfatherly countenance marred by concern.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Louisa said. He mumbled something inaudible and wandered off.

  Why am I lying on the ground? And why is everyone acting so strange?

  Then she remembered. She sat up fast, then froze as her vision blurred and her head swam. She bent forward, arms crossed over her knees while she waited for the world to stop spinning. Something red dripped onto the ground between her legs. Am I bleeding? There was a throbbing above her right eye. She probed the area with her fingers and winced at the stinging pain. Her fingertips came away red. Fumbling in a pocket, she took out a tissue and pressed it against the wound. She felt a lump on the back of her head, but it wasn’t bleeding.

  Louisa tried to look around, but her view was blocked by people walking back and forth. She gingerly levered herself onto her feet, groaning as a spike of pain shot from her hip down through her left leg. She tentatively stepped forward, her breath hissing through her teeth as another jolt of fire flashed in her hip. She could walk, nothing appeared to be broken, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  The truck that had smashed into the professor’s car was about fifteen feet away. There were people everywhere, but to the right of the truck she made out the remains of the professor’s car strewn across the tarmac—a mangled jumble of shredded metal. The door to the truck’s cab was open and a man, the driver Louisa assumed, stood beside it, rubbing the back of his neck and gaping at the scene.

  ‘I wasn’t driving.’ He grabbed the arm of another man who was heading towards the car’s wreckage. ‘I was using VANS. I wasn’t driving!’

  She headed for the group crowded around the wreckage and craned her neck, trying to see around them. She caught a glimpse of dripping blood, a mass of gore, and then the professor’s sightless stare. His head lay on the dashboard, completely severed from his body. She whirled away.

  A siren grew louder. An ambulance or the fire brigade. Louisa hoped no-one had been injured apart from the professor, then laughed as she realised she was injured. The ambulance might be coming for her!

  She continued to laugh. People were staring at her oddly. She tried to stop and clamped a hand over her mouth but her shoulders continued to shake in silent mirth.

  A vivid flashback of the truck hurtling towards her made her shudder and her amusement evaporated. Her mouth filled with saliva and she closed her eyes tight, trying to bring her churning stomach under control.

  If both the truck and the car were using VANS how could they have collided? It didn’t make any sense. Her head spun again and she snapped open her eyes, convinced she was falling.

  I need to sit down.

  She limped towards a curb and then stopped. A man stood on the other side of the junction, talking on his terminal. That man. I know him. There was something strange about his manner. The flat, emotionless expression on his face was in stark contrast to everyone around him who were babbling to each other, shaking their heads, and covering their mouths in shock.

  He isn’t looking at the accident like everyone else. How did she know him? The ramrod-stiff stance, feet planted slightly apart. It was so familiar…

  The Portal headquarters. It was the man Simon Carlyle had been arguing with. What was he doing here?

  Louisa stumbled towards him, but had to pause to let some people pass. It was getting more and more crowded in the junction. She lost sight of him. She moved left and right, squeezing her way through as best she could, then she was clear.

  He was gone.

  Louisa twisted around. He can’t have just disappeared!

  A bout of dizziness made her stumble and she bent over, hands on her knees. Her legs trembled and, as she lowered herself to the ground they gave way, dumping her unceremoniously on her rear.

  *

  The paramedic shone a penlight into Louisa’s eyes. She blinked away the fluorescent trail that snaked across her vision.

  Another blast from the penlight.

  The truck hurtled towards her, its massive bulk ploughing into the professor’s car-

  Louisa shuddered and closed her eyes tight. She firmly grabbed hold of the memory, imagined it being squeezed up into a ball, and shoved it away to the back of her mind before it could play out any further.

  She was in the back of an ambulance. The paramedics had found her sitting on the tarmac, the cut above her eye bleeding profusely despite her attempts to stem the flow. She protested she was fine, that there must be other people they could see to, but it turned out she was the only one with any physical injuries. The driver of the truck was in shock, and the professor…

  No! Don’t think about it now
.

  They wanted to bring her to a hospital. They had been quite insistent in fact, but she’d refused—she needed to get back to the office, to find out what had caused the accident. Or who…

  Did she know her name? Yes. Stupid question. Did she black out or lose consciousness at all? No, she lied, knowing it was something they’d be on the lookout for, and then they’d insist on admitting her to a hospital overnight. She continued to reassure them she was fine. Just a sore hip and a bang on the back of the head. When it didn’t work she said she was a police detective, that she had to get back to work, but the excuse didn’t carry any weight either. Finally, after more probing questions intended to ensure she wasn’t concussed, they appeared to satisfy themselves she wasn’t in any immediate danger of dropping dead as soon as she left the ambulance.

  ‘You’ll need a couple of stitches for the cut above your eye,’ the paramedic said. ‘They should be done by a plastic surgeon so I’m going to apply closure strips as a temporary measure. You’ll need to get professional attention soon, okay?’

  Louisa nodded. ‘That’s fine.’ She bit her lip as he wiped the wound with antiseptic. He was none too gentle about it. Probably offended by my refusal to go with them.

  After he finished applying the strips, he made her thumb a form on his terminal absolving the local care trust of any responsibility from her refusing further treatment. Then she was free to go.

  She thanked them and gingerly climbed from the back of the ambulance. The pain in her hip had diminished to a dull ache but she still couldn’t put her full weight on her left leg. They watched her hobble off, concern clear on their faces. Louisa felt a twinge of guilt for the paramedics then. She’d been a nightmare patient, she realised. She sure hadn’t made their jobs any easier.