Louisa didn’t know how the gun got into her hands. A small part of her realised she was pointing it at the real Harrow. The rest fought a white-hot desire to pull the trigger.
Simon had smiled. She remembered now. Just before he fell. Harrow had taken control of his implants. Placed him in full immersion. Her hand began to shake. What had Harrow shown him? Did Simon think he was talking to her?
‘Why did you do it?’ Louisa hissed the words through clenched teeth.
The artificial Harrow winked out, leaving only the original. ‘The rat had to be lured from his hole. Adam and Carlyle were close while Adam remained alive. His death didn’t have the desired effect, but then it brought you onto the fold. You see it’s all part of the Paradigm, whether we know it at the time or not.’
‘I don’t give a damn about your Paradigm. Drop the weapon, now.’
Harrow slowly knelt and set the gun on the ground. He straightened, his arms held wide. ‘You won’t kill me. I told you once before it wasn’t my time. This isn’t my time either. I’ve far too much work left to do.’
Harrow didn’t deserve to live, not after what he’d done to Simon. Louisa’s forefinger trembled, sliding down from the barrel, curling around the trigger. A slight squeeze and he’d be gone.
‘You do want Ben back, don’t you?’ Harrow shrugged. ‘Or we can leave him as he is. Heart beating, blood pumping, but for all intents and purposes an empty vessel.’
Ben still needed her. The realisation hit like a bucket of ice water to the face. The Glock dipped, its weight suddenly too much to bear. ‘What do you want from me?’ Louisa gasped.
Harrow didn’t appear to hear her. He stared down one of the passageways, his eyes glazed. The voices started low, a single whisper, so close that she spun around, thinking someone had crept up from behind. Another voice joined the chorus, barely audible, tantalising her with the promise of comprehension, before whipping away to be replaced by another.
‘You hear them too,’ Harrow said, ‘don’t you?’
She retreated a step. She couldn’t help herself. Harrow’s blank visage had fallen away. In its place roiled a burning intensity. ‘I don’t know what I hear.’
‘It’s my gift, freely shared with those deemed worthy.’ He looked over her shoulder and nodded.
Strong hands gripped Louisa’s outstretched arm and compressed at the wrist. The gun fell from numb fingers. Something hard smacked across the back of her knees and her legs gave way. A shove propelled her onto the ground. She tried to wriggle free but her arm was twisted up her back. She gritted her teeth, her eyes watering.
‘The question is, Inspector—’ she twisted her head to the side and found Harrow standing over her, a roll of thick black tape in his hands ‘—are you worthy?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Louisa stumbled and would have fallen had a hand not grabbed her elbow. With her hands bound behind her back protruding railway sleepers made for uncertain footing. She flexed her wrists again, gritting her teeth as the plastic tie bit into her skin. It was no good. The tie held fast. When the hood had been placed over her head Louisa realised she could still see perfectly well. At first she thought the hood was a falseface net, and thin enough to see through. Then she remembered the implant feeds. With her own sight gone she was experiencing the artificial feed alone. A falseface’d clan member had led her to the end of the platform and down onto the tracks. The moment she entered the tunnel the projected feeds winked out, leaving her blind.
Shouts echoed up the tunnel from further back along the tracks. Either SCO19 or the hostages, Louisa presumed. She stopped walking and sucked air through her nose. Although tape covered her mouth she still made ready to make as much noise as possible. The cold steel of a rifle muzzle prodded her in the back, and the shout died in her throat.
She still couldn’t access Portal. Whatever the clan was using to block the network either covered a large area, or the interference followed along with them. Louisa hadn’t seen any sign of the hostages on the platform. Then again, she’d been relying on the artificial feeds. Most likely Harrow had left them behind. She realised now it had never been about the hostages. Harrow believed she was the key to Adam, and the key to Adam’s virtual machine.
The shouts died away, replaced by silence. SCO19 would escort the hostages back to safety before securing the station, clearing it floor by floor from the surface down. The rail tunnels would be searched last. As soon as Drew realised they weren’t in the station he’d order all underground surface exits sealed off in a wide radius around Victoria. At some point they’d surely have to bring her across the MET cordon. Would they rely on the implant exploit to keep themselves hidden? If so, Louisa resolved to make as much noise as possible when they tried.
Having the hostages returned safely would be a coup for the NCA, but with the clan still at large the backslapping wouldn’t last. If the Lord Mayor could be taken prisoner, even with a police escort, could any Londoner be safe? Widespread panic would ensue, fuelled by gossip feeds and the more tabloid newscasts.
Louisa felt a hand on her shoulder. A man whose voice she didn’t recognise spoke low and close to her ear. ‘There are steps here.’
He turned her to the right. Louisa tentatively probed with a foot until she found the steps. When she reached the top a dull metallic clunk preceded the creak of a door opening. Thankfully the ground was now flat and unbroken.
A few minutes later another hand gripped her shoulder. ‘Down on the ground.’
A trickle of fear wormed its way into her chest. Up until now she hadn’t been afraid. Harrow needed her alive, after all. Now though, it didn’t feel right. Why did they want her on the ground? She tried not to think about Worrell, tortured by the very men surrounding her. The hand on her shoulder pressed harder. She reluctantly lowered herself. With a sharp tug the tie fell from her wrists. She flinched at a sharp metallic screech that sounded like something had been pulled from a wall.
‘We’re going to be crawling through a duct for a while.’ She recognised Harrow. ‘Don’t attempt to remove your hood or you will be bound once more. We’ll drag you along if need be.’
‘Your turn.’ Another voice. Not Harrow this time. ‘It gets narrow in the middle. Don’t panic. Keep going and you’ll make it through.’
She reached out ahead and found a square hole, barely two feet across. She nearly laughed. Don’t panic. A surefire way of making someone nervous.
She climbed in. The cold metallic floor rang as she shuffled forward on her hands and knees. At one point she raised her head too far and hit it off the roof. Luckily the metal flexed and softened the impact. She heard a sharp scraping sound. Metal on metal. Someone was crawling in front, and behind. The men were pushing their rifles along in front of them. Louisa considered pulling off her hood and trying to grab the weapon behind her. She might have a chance if the duct was unlit, not that she could tell with the hood. But even if she did wrestle the gun away from the clan member, her options were few. If she fired the weapon she might end up trapped, dead bodies blocking the duct. Shivering at the thought, she pressed onwards.
The ceiling abruptly lowered, forcing her onto her belly. It proved hard going. She found it difficult to gain traction against the slick duct, and being blind didn’t help.
After what seemed like hours the ceiling lifted away and she rose once again onto hands and knees. A short distance later she ran into the back of the man in front. She fought to quell rising panic. Was something wrong? Were they stuck? The grating noise came again and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Louisa shuffled forward to the duct’s edge. Hands took hers and helped her down. Her legs trembled with exhaustion. She was so thankful to be out she barely minded when her wrists were bound once more behind her back. Louisa wasn’t sure how far they’d come from Victoria. It was hard to say with any accuracy. Would the MET cordon extend this far out? Louisa doubted they’d have the manpower. The duct may have connected to a different train line. On
e not serviced by Victoria.
A hand took her elbow. The unidentified clan member spoke. ‘There are steps now for a bit.’
She counted the flights. Five, then ten. A hand on her shoulder signalled a stop.
‘Not a sound.’ Harrow’s whisper was barely audible. ‘Nod if you understand.’
Louisa nodded. A door creaked open. Cool air wafted in. Outside air. She heard traffic. Then a couple walked past. They were chatting about what they wanted for dinner. So close. She could call for help. But what then? She’d only be putting the couple in danger. They could end up dead, and she’d still be hooded and bound.
The voices faded and Louisa felt a sudden loss, as if a link to normalcy had been severed. Propelled forward, she stumbled outside. An engine started. Hands grabbed under her arms and encircled her legs. Before she knew what was happening she was hoisted up and set on her side. Engine vibrations reverberated under her. She was in the back of a van, or truck. Doors slammed. The vehicle lurched into motion.
She couldn’t tell if she was alone. If there were clan members with her they weren’t talking. It was unnatural, their silence. Perhaps they were using subvocalisation. If Harrow had spun up a localised network to replace Portal they could be using it as a means of communication. Without a Portal network the vehicle couldn’t be on VANS. The clan was taking a risk. A police patrol would stop them if they were spotted driving manually. And the network deadening must only be affecting the vehicle she was in; otherwise they’d be knocking nearby vehicles off the Transport Subnet.
She cursed her stupidity. Drew was wasting his time trying to identify the clan using sense footage. They should have been looking for vehicles not integrated with the Traffic Subnet. She listened for anything that might tell her the direction they were driving. Occasionally she heard pedestrians chatting when they stopped in traffic. Then a man spoke into a megaphone.
A guided tour! The man pointed out the Tower of London.
She had their location now. They were north east of Victoria, along the Thames embankment. Then she realised the route they must have taken. Unbelievable. They’d driven right past the front of Scotland Yard.
Ten minutes or so later they stopped. The engine cut out. The doors opened and Louisa was lifted out and placed on her feet. Gravel crunched underfoot as they marched her forward. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Wherever they where, it was isolated, with no nearby traffic. They entered a building. She scuffed her shoes along the surface. It felt like concrete. The air smelled damp and musty.
I’m somewhere old, and abandoned. A derelict warehouse?
‘Careful, there are steps down.’ Another voice. It didn’t belong to Harrow.
At the bottom of the steps there was the clunk of a bolt being drawn across and the creak of a door opening. Someone untied the hood’s drawstring. It slid from her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A bright light seared Louisa’s eyes. She snapped them closed and turned her head away. A hand grabbed her hair and forced her head back around. She squinted into the light.
‘You continue to test me.’ Harrow’s voice to the left.
Something in his tone made her think he wasn’t talking to her. She couldn’t respond anyway. Tape still covered her mouth. A hard point jabbed into her temple. A gun muzzle. It pressed harder. She gritted her teeth. Even so, she couldn’t help a soft whimper escaping.
‘You should know by now,’ Harrow continued, ‘my patience is finite.’
The snap of the firing pin reverberated throughout Louisa’s skull. The hand gripping her hair let go. She fell on her side, her mouth full of saliva. Tears streamed from her eyes as she dry wretched.
‘You have one hour,’ Harrow said. ‘Contact can be made through the Darknet address I’ve supplied. Authenticate using your real name.’ He paused. ‘Do not test me further. The next time there’ll be a round in the chamber.’
Louisa heard movement. She blinked away tears and raised her head. The light had been extinguished. She was in a small room around ten-feet square, the walls exposed brick. There weren’t any windows. The only light emanated from an open doorway. A falseface’d clan member lifted a video camera attached to a tripod which had been placed before her.
The heavy metal door closed behind him, leaving her in darkness. A bolt slid into place. Louisa forced herself back onto her knees and staggered to her feet. She edged forward and felt with her foot until she reached the bricks, then sidestepped to the door.
They’d filmed her mock execution. Had they made it public? Will Jess and Charlie see it? The thought filled her with rage. She kicked the door. ‘Hey!’ The tape muffled her shout.
When there was no response she kicked again, and again, taking all her rage and frustration out against the door, until a jagged pain in her foot left her slumped against the cold metal, breathing heavily.
*
As the minutes dragged, a cold dread built up within Louisa. At least it’ll be quick. She might not even hear the gunshot. Everything would just…stop.
Adam wouldn’t accede to Harrow’s demand. He’d made his position perfectly clear. He believed the risks of Harrow developing a synthetic mind to be too great. Perhaps he was right. Adam had always seemed so reasonable. So human. What kind of mind would Harrow give birth to?
When the footsteps finally came Louisa willed the sound away, but they grew unfailingly louder. Has it been an hour? The bolt slid across with a screech.
Louisa rose awkwardly to her feet, determined to face Harrow, not cower in the corner, pathetic and pleading. She tested the tie binding her wrists. It still held tight.
The door swung inwards. Harrow stood silhouetted, dressed in combat fatigues, watching her. She tensed, ready to shoulder him out of the way and make a run for it.
Her brief hope died when two clan members followed him into the room. They weren’t hooded. She recognised their faces from the clan profiles in the NCA incident room: Karl Morrant and Anthony Novach. Both nineteen. She didn’t know whether the uncovered heads was a good or bad sign.
The door closed behind them and the bolt slid back. Novach was carrying the camera and tripod. He set it up in the corner of the room, facing them all. Its red light blinked on.
Harrow’s blank veneer was back in place. He walked up to her and raised a hand. Louisa flinched. ‘Someone wants to speak with you.’ He ripped the tape from her mouth.
Her implant warnings flashed up. Another network within range. She selected the visual overlay option. Adam Walsh appeared before her.
‘Louisa?’ Adam asked. ‘Can you hear me?’
Louisa nodded, so glad to see him she could barely speak. ‘Yes.’
‘Have they mistreated you in any way?’
‘She’s perfectly fine,’ Harrow said. ‘For the moment.’
‘If I give you my virtual machine,’ Adam said, ‘you’ll let her go?’
‘Once we ascend she will be free to leave.’
‘Ascend?’ Adam laughed humourlessly. ‘There’ll be no ascension.’ He gestured toward the two clan members. ‘Whatever twisted mysticism you’ve used to cloud their judgement, the fact remains, a copy of your brain patterns will be synthesised into digital form. Your bodies will continue to function as before.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Harrow said. ‘Our human existences will cease once the transfer is complete.’
‘Kool-Aid all round, is it?’
Harrow remained as impassive as ever. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Your pattern is corrupt. Impure. Our journey has been foretold.’
‘By who?’ Adam grunted in derision. ‘You? The so-called Prophet? Do your fellow clansmen know they’re following someone with a psychological disorder? A treatable disorder? If you started taking your medication again your delusions would vanish.’
‘You know nothing. I see and hear the Paradigm clearly now for the first time. It’s calling to me. My followers hear it too.’
‘The voices are a projection of your psychosis, nothing mor
e. Tell me, do they only share your visions when you’re broadcasting feeds to their implants?’
Of course. The voices I heard at Tilbury, and again at Victoria. The whispers were Harrow all along. His own auditory hallucinations, relayed through the feeds he controlled.
‘You need help, Spencer,’ Louisa ventured. ‘Let me help you.’
‘You? Help me?’ A trace of anger finally cracked Harrow’s facade. ‘All my life I’ve been told I needed help. Shrinks distorting my mind. Drugs dulling my thoughts.’
‘Please. We can end this now. Before there’s any more bloodshed.’
‘You’re the one who needs help.’ Harrow retrieved a gun from the small of his back and turned to Adam. ‘I want your virtual machine. With your pattern in place.’
Adam’s brow furrowed. ‘You can implant any pattern you want into the virtual machine. You don’t need a live synthetic mind.’
‘We don’t have the time to waste working out implantation details. I want a working example.’
‘You really are crazy.’ Adam shook his head. ‘You expect me to hand myself over to you?’
‘A duplicate will suffice. Clone your codebase.’
‘It matters little. If I die, it will still be me, a copy or not.’
‘I’m done talking.’ Harrow pointed the gun at Louisa. ‘You have thirty seconds to initiate the transfer.’
Adam stared at the ground. A lump formed in Louisa’s throat. For a moment she thought they’d reached an agreement, but Adam would never give himself over to Harrow. He’d be at their mercy.
‘Five seconds,’ Harrow said.
Adam met her eyes. There was sorrow there, and determination. ‘Goodbye, Louisa.’ He vanished.
Louisa retreated a step. Her back hit the wall.
The seconds ticked away. Louisa closed her eyes, forced herself to breathe.
One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2) Page 22
