The Triumph Spitfire rounded the woodland, headlights on full beam, roof folded back, and Frank sat behind the wheel. Moonlight glinted off the barrel of his extended revolver as the car skidded in front of the barn, splattering the craft with a sheet of muddy water, before he gave a long blast of the horn.
Moments later, Helen walked out and joined Frank. The rotorcraft’s door opened and a cop without a visible weapon clambered down the stairs and ambled toward her without a hint of caution or urgency.
Luke nudged Maria and advanced.
The cop shook Helen’s hand and introduced himself. She led him to the dead body and empty shell cases scattered on the ground before they returned to the front of the sandbags, all the while continuing their conversation.
Frank stayed a few feet back and glanced around the quiet parkland. He caught sight of Luke and Maria and raised his pistol.
“You need to eat more carrots,” Luke shouted. “Nice wheels, by the way.”
Helen and the cop spun toward him. Frank lowered his weapon and grinned. Luke slung his rifle, in the spirit of the calm he had witnessed, and joined them at the defensive position.
“This is Captain Williamson,” Helen said. “He’s second-in-command at the Birmingham PCC and flew to meet the rest of the squadron after hearing our message.”
Williamson, a stocky, bald man wearing a crisp, navy uniform, gave Luke a firm nod. “So you’re the man who orchestrated the coup?”
“It was a team effort and coup suggests an illegal seizure of power,” Luke said. “Helen’s the rightful owner of Timetronic.”
“Call it what you want; we’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up.”
Helen moved to Luke’s side. “Relax. Remember when I told you in the tavern? Other pools weren’t as strict as London. Birmingham rarely uses claycops.”
“Only to keep up appearances when Lynch or one of his team visit,” Williamson said. “We engaged to come here, but you won’t find many in the West Midlands moaning about a positive change, especially if it moves away from Meakin’s management style.”
“Did you find him?” Frank asked.
“Meakin?” Luke said. “He’s stunned in a garage outside the gamekeeper’s house. I’d like him arrested for the multiple murders at the London Eye and torture.”
“Luke has my full backing,” Helen added. “Take anything he requests as if it were directly from me.”
A broad smile stretched across Williamson’s face. “I’ll send a team right away. I’ve also assigned two of my craft carrying real cops to stay for your protection; Helen requested they accompany you to the Transport Management Facility later today.”
“What about Lynch?” Maria asked. “Are you arresting him?”
“We captured footage of him behind the gun. Taking down our claytronic squadron vanguard is enough for an eight-hundred-year stretch in prison, according to the law he forced through parliament, but it’s not what your boss wants.”
“I’ve sent for a non-emergency medicraft,” Helen said. “Frank’s escorting him to a secure wing of Zone Seven’s hospital where he’ll see out the rest of his short natural life. I'm not risking any comeback from a transport system.”
“And then it’s straight to The Halfway for a pint to celebrate,” Frank said.
Williamson raised his smart-strap. “Tango-five, this is Falcon Two. Land at the Gamekeeper's house, arrest David Meakin, and take him back to our cells. This is authorized by Helen Penshaw, the president of Timetronic. Over.”
“Roger. Out,” a tinny voice replied.
“What about Lynch’s inner circle?” Luke asked.
“When they hear about this I expect they won’t show up for work,” Williamson said. “Don’t worry; we know who they are, and they'll be in custody before nightfall.”
“So that’s it? You just accept the change and move on without question?”
“That’s it. The real Lynch mob is him and his cronies, and they’ve pushed this country in the wrong direction for too long. We were making secret plans to topple him with the northern pools and planned on reaching out to the supposed terrorists, but the problem was nobody dared act out of fear of being crushed. London was too powerful until you came along.”
“I’m declaring a company-wide amnesty,” Helen said. “Employees can accept it and we’ll move forward, regardless of the injustices of the last few decades, or they’re free to leave without charge.”
A wave of exhaustion, along with the realization they had completed their mission, engulfed Luke, and he flopped against the sandbags. The adrenalin that had pumped around his body for the last forty hours, keeping him alert and focused on the team’s objectives, had ebbed away from his weary body.
A notification alert beeped on Williamson’s strap, and he checked the message. “Speak of the devil. We’ll smooth things over with the London PCC while executing Helen’s order to shut down the clay-servers and ground all drones until further notice.”
“While you’re talking,” Helen said. “Order the release of three of our team and repatriate the bodies of Walter, Emma, and Perry to Zone Seven.”
“I’ll make it a priority,” Williamson said and looked over his shoulder at Lynch’s last victim. “We’ll deal with this poor chap. Anything else before we start creating a better country?”
“I want the media at the facility this morning, and a meeting arranged with the heads of the other four corporations in the afternoon.”
“You’re a fast mover.”
“We need to shine a light on Lynch’s activity,” Helen said. “I’d like his abuses to hit the lunchtime news.”
“Consider it done, and I’ll confirm the meeting time and location with your protection detail. For now, you all look like you could do with some sleep. Keep in touch.”
“Thank you. I won’t forget it.”
“I’m just doing my job, or the job we should’ve been doing…”
“One last thing,” Luke said. “Send whoever fired the drone missile at the PCC carriers to the facility. I want to meet them in person.”
Williamson frowned. “Now isn’t the time for revenge.”
“I want to look them in the eye. Nothing more.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Williamson returned to his craft, the door closed, and its twin rotors spun to a blur. As it took to the sky and headed west, two of the squadron descended toward the hall, and another in the direction of the gamekeeper’s house.
Luke observed his team as they watched the actions of the Birmingham squadron confirm Lynch’s rule was over. Frank’s mouth hung open, Helen had a fierce determination etched across her face, and when he met Maria’s eyes, she gave him a lottery-winning smile.
“We’ve got a long day ahead,” Helen said. “The medicraft isn’t arriving ‘til seven so let’s make the most of the next five hours and grab a little shut-eye.”
“I’ll guard Lynch,” Luke said. “You guys grab Lucy and go back to the hall.”
“I’m staying,” Maria said. “We’ll take it in shifts.”
“Get some sleep and bring me breakfast at sunrise. Make sure it’s not that blended crap.”
Luke turned and entered the barn before anyone replied. He lacked the energy to argue, wanted Maria, Frank, and Helen to have some well-earned rest, and doubted the prospect of any last minute attempts to rescue Lynch. When the news of the mad doctor’s demise filtered through the corporation, he guessed it was more likely that people would distance themselves from the corrupt regime rather than attempt to defend it. Human nature always tended to back the winning horse.
He passed through the remains of the shattered security door, stood in front of the lab doors, and they parted with a hiss. Claudia spun from the monitors and watched him enter the room and sat on a swivel chair next to the life support machine. Lynch bared his teeth and slowly balled his fists in what appeared to be a pointless act of defiance.
“Did you ever imagine spending your last night of fre
edom with me?” Luke asked. “In a few hours, I’m unplugging all of your grubby little secrets.”
Lynch snorted and turned away. Luke relaxed back and finally allowed himself to believe he was free.
Chapter 35
A monitor pinged on the far side of the former lab. Luke opened his eyes, straightened in his chair, and focused on data streaming across one of the screens. During the last four hours, he had drifted in and out of sleep, disturbed by Claudia attending to Lynch every thirty minutes, but to his surprise, never once by Cairo invading his dreams.
The first signs of daylight brightened the opaque doors. He rose to his feet with a groan, stretched his arms, and headed past the life support machine and bed toward the desk. Lynch’s beady eyes followed him, and he attempted to say something but only produced a weak croak.
“Save your energy,” Luke said. “I’m not interested.”
Maria had sent a message from the hall’s dining room. The medicraft was due to arrive in five minutes, and the team was on their way to the barn with sausage baguettes and coffee. Luke’s mouth watered at the prospect, and he made his way outside to meet them.
The sun hadn’t yet appeared on the horizon but enhanced, distant, pink clouds floated in the early dawn sky. Two rotorcrafts climbed above the hall and thundered over the parkland. Both banked over the barn’s roof, landed on the opposite side of the dirt track, and their doors opened. Helen and Frank disembarked one, Maria and Lucy the other.
The hint of shampoo drifted on the breeze and made Luke conscious of his unclean state. With a semblance of normality restored, trivial issues once again became slightly more important, and he decided to shower and change at the first opportunity.
Helen, Frank, and Lucy trudged toward the barn’s entrance, probably out of morbid curiosity, and mumbled tired greetings as they passed. Maria handed Luke a warm, foil-wrapped baguette and a plastic cup of black coffee.
“Cheers,” he said. “It’s a bit extravagant using the crafts for a short trip.”
“Helen received the go-ahead to make a start at the facility, and they're preparing for our arrival. As soon as we’ve seen off Lynch, we’re heading out.”
“Anything happen back at the hall?”
“Not really. I sat with Helen most of the night. She’s pretty cut up about Walter, Emma, and Perry. How was guarding Lynch?”
“Like babysitting a goldfish. It’s weird to think how technology allowed his twisted mind to reach into the world and maintain power. If I were Helen, I’d shut down any brain uploading research.”
“Same here. You better eat.”
Luke nodded, tore open the foil, and took repeated ravenous bites, savoring the combination of the crispy bread, melted butter, fried pork, and sage. He washed it down with the tepid coffee while a large craft approached from the south.
“Any thoughts about what you’re doing after this?” Maria asked.
“Haven’t had time.”
“I bet you’d prefer to live in Zone Seven.”
“At the moment, I don’t want to be anywhere near an urban pool.”
“You once asked me what I wanted to do with my life…”
The incoming craft, brilliant white in color with a large red cross on its side, passed over the boundary wall and swooped toward the barn.
Luke knew Maria was probing him for something, and he wanted to invite her to be part of his plans, but he couldn’t find the words. Taking out a terrorist, launching a strike against a superior force, and days of surveillance in rat-infested dumps weren’t a problem. Expressing himself to a fellow human on an emotional level was an entirely different matter, and as liberating as the last few days had been, they hadn’t managed to rid him of this particular mind-forged manacle.
“Let’s talk after we finish at the facility,” Luke said.
The craft descended forty meters away, blasting Luke and Maria with a fresh wind, and landed in a clearing. A ramp lowered from its back, and a man and woman, dressed in green coveralls, followed an electric gurney down to the track.
Luke waited for them to close in and gestured to the barn’s open entrance. “Second set of doors on your right.”
“This is the Gideon Lynch, right?” the woman asked.
“Correct.”
The man checked his strap. “He’s going to the Zone Seven secure wing under the escort of Frank Tweedle?”
“Correct again. It’s there or prison.”
The paramedics looked at each other for a brief moment as if confirming their suspicions, though the location should have made it obvious, and they continued inside. Luke stood at the end of the corridor and watched the gurney’s wheels crunch over fragments of shattered glass as the paramedics guided it forward and into the lab.
“See the look on their faces?” Maria asked.
“Wouldn’t you be surprised without prior knowledge?”
“Yep, and it’ll be the same for the whole country after they watch the news.”
A couple of minutes later, Frank and the paramedics escorted the gurney back along the corridor with Lynch’s thin frame secured to it with thick black straps. Tubes ran from his wrists into lower compartments; a mask covered his nose and mouth, and a small screen above his head displayed his vital measurements.
“Good luck, Frank,” Luke said.
“You’re always welcome for a beer at The Halfway. Maria knows the place.”
“I’ll take you up on that one day.”
“Make sure you do. You won’t have to pay for a drop.”
Helen and Lucy followed outside and stood with Luke and Maria as the weird procession scaled the craft’s ramp. Frank turned and waved his chrome-plated pistol before disappearing behind a bank of computers.
“Don’t you have any final words for him?” Helen asked.
“For Lynch?” Luke said. “I wouldn’t waste my breath.”
“You might not see him again.”
“That’ll do me just fine. I’ve had enough of him to last me a lifetime.”
The ramp raised and thudded shut. The medicraft’s engines increased in pitch and it lifted off. Luke remembered Lynch offering a casual salute before their first meeting fifty years ago, close to where he had just departed for his final destination. He thought the mad doctor’s inglorious fate was a fitting punishment for a man who craved eternal power and didn’t care who he trampled on to achieve it. In the space of a few hours, the world had undoubtedly transformed to a brighter place.
“He deserves prison like Meakin,” Lucy said.
“I doubt he’d live long enough to last through a trial,” Luke said. “I thought Meakin might end up in hospital after you finished with him.”
“I wouldn’t sink to his level and use his tools; the threat of it was enough to make him cry like a baby. They’re plugging him in solitary this morning.”
“Talking of transport systems,” Helen said. “The media arrive at the facility in an hour. Let’s go.”
Luke followed Maria, boarded one of the waiting rotorcrafts, and sat between six stony-faced cops. The door rotated shut, and they thrust into the pale blue sky.
After twenty minutes of Luke telling Maria about the raid on the London PCC, drawing regular looks of amazement from the surrounding cops, the facility came into view through the porthole window. Even now, it was hard to imagine over a couple of thousand chilled bodies lying inside the massive sunlit structure.
“That’s where I lived,” Maria said, nodding down at a cluster of apartment blocks surrounding a lake. “It’s better than London if you want a bit more space.”
“Lived?”
“I can’t stay here; not after the last few days. Lynch and Meakin were going to plug me under a false name. The whole place gives me the creeps.”
“But you suspected it before?”
“Suspecting and knowing are two different things. The consequences of losing your job is enough to lead any thoughts away from what really happens here.”
“We’ll
find out soon enough.”
They flew past the rotorport, lowered over a smaller landing strip in front of the facility’s corporate entrance, and bumped against the ground. The other craft touched down shortly after.
“Need any help, sir?” one of the cops asked.
"We’ll be okay. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
The side door swiveled open. Luke and Maria climbed down the steps and met up with Helen and Lucy outside the facility’s tinted glass doors.
“How would you handle this, Maria?” Helen asked.
“Message all off-duty staff ordering them to help in the recovery zone. I’ll handle the unplugs from operations.”
“How do we know who’s legit?”
“I’ll correlate patient names to man-machine interface usage, visitor files, payment schedules, and I’m reasonably sure some will stick out like a sore thumb. Luke had nothing attached when he was TS03.”
Helen dragged open the door, headed straight for the reception desk, and Luke followed closely behind.
A security guard rose from his chair. “You’re Helen Penshaw?”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said and shook his hand. “I believe you’ve been preparing for our arrival?”
He reached below his desk and placed four smart-straps on the counter. “These are yours. Maria Casola’s and Lucy McKeown’s are configured to their last back-up. You’re free to access all areas.”
“Excellent,” she said and handed out the devices. “Message all off-duty staff and tell them they’re required in the recovery zone.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call me Helen.”
“This way,” Maria said and led the group through the marble-floored reception area to an elevator. “I know this place like the back of my hand.”
They squeezed into the car, whizzed up past two floors, and the door folded open at the end of a long corridor. Luke slipped on his strap, took three steps forward, and stared through a transparent wall at the cavernous space beyond. Hundreds of transport systems lined the sides and back of the storage area, housed in massive steel racks; thousands of thick multi-colored cables disappeared into the floor below them. A dormant platform, with a sturdy mechanical arm at one end, sat on a set of rails next to a conveyor belt that disappeared into a dark rectangular tunnel.
FAST FORWARD: A Science Fiction Thriller Page 26
