by Nick Cook
‘But how do we work out what it is?’ Steve asked.
‘I think I have an idea of how to narrow it down,’ I replied. ‘Sentinel, is it something we can do now from within this control room?’
Green triangle.
I turned to Steve. ‘That was another yes.’
‘OK, let’s see if we can figure this out,’ he said. ‘Sentinel is an AI who has just downloaded himself into that computer. And then…’ His eyes widened.
My mind raced to where Steve was headed with this line of reasoning. ‘John sandboxed Sentinel on the MI5 computer when he thought he was a virus. And he did that by cutting Sentinel’s ability to contact the outside world.’
‘Which also made it easier for John to secure Sentinel for his employers.’
‘So following on from that train of thought, Sentinel can’t complete his mission until we set him free.’
Our gazes snapped to the network rack where the blue cables had been ripped out by John to isolate Sentinel’s code.
I brought my face closer to the camera. ‘You want us to plug you back in to the internet, don’t you, Sentinel?’
A huge green triangle pulsed in my vision and I gave Steve an excited nod.
With a crack of glass a bullet punched a hole through the control-room window and thudded into the rear wall.
‘Keep your heads down!’ Kiera shouted. ‘They must have a sniper hiding somewhere up on Lovell.’ She threw a last chair at the top of her and Graham’s makeshift barricade.
Steve and I flung ourselves flat to the floor as the others started crawling towards us.
‘Sentinel needs access to the internet to complete his mission,’ I said.
‘But they cut the lines to the outside world,’ Steve replied.
‘Actually there may be another way,’ Graham said as he and Kiera reached us. ‘There’s an old wired connection to the phone exchange that was left in place as a backup, before our connection was upgraded to an optical one to increase bandwidth. They may know enough about the optical connection to cut it, but I bet they don’t know about the older line that runs to a different exchange.’
‘Fantastic – so how do we use it?’ Steve asked.
‘Plug into any of the old grey Ethernet sockets. There’s one under the main control desk below the window.’
‘So what are we waiting for?’ I said.
Kiera frowned at me. ‘But we still have no way of knowing what Sentinel’s going to do if we let him loose.’
‘Will you listen to yourself, Kiera?’ Steve said. ‘Everything that Sentinel has done so far hasn’t been hostile. And if I’m certain of anything, it’s that he’s capable of giving us more grief that we could ever handle, if he had hostile intentions. So as far as I’m concerned this alien AI really has come in peace and is here to help humanity.’
‘Steve’s right,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to see sense here, Kiera. Yes, I know it’s a risk letting him out on to the internet, but it’s also a calculated risk. We need to do this, because the alternative could be so much worse: letting him fall into their hands.’
The static roared up again and a green triangle flared into existence in my vision. ‘And Sentinel agrees too,’ I added.
Kiera peered at me. ‘You’re asking me to make a huge leap of faith here.’
‘Please trust me on this. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.’ And somehow I really was.
Kiera stared at the ceiling, an MI5 operative in an impossible situation. What would I do in her place if asked to make this kind of decision?
She finally shook her head. ‘I just can’t allow you to do that.’
Before I could answer, a spray of bullets shattered the control-room window and drummed into the wall, destroying several framed prints of deep space subjects.
Kiera reacted instantly, popping up and returning gunfire through the remnants of the window. As she started to duck down again she yelped as a spray of blood erupted from her left shoulder. She crumpled to the ground.
Graham, keeping his head down, opened her jacket to reveal a large red bloodstain soaking her white shirt over the area of her shoulder. ‘You’ve been wounded, Kiera.’
She looked up at him through slitted eyes. ‘No shit, Sherlock!’ She winced and gritted her teeth as she grabbed Graham’s arm. ‘Listen to me. Whatever you do, make sure that Sentinel doesn’t fall into their hands. You must destroy our computer that contains his core code.’ She gestured towards her gun. ‘Take my gun – you’re going to have to defend yourselves against the people who are about to storm this place.’
‘But even if we destroy your computer, there’s every chance they’ll still be able to retrieve the code to reconstruct him,’ Steve said.
‘There’s no other alternative,’ Kiera replied.
‘You know there is,’ I said.
Kiera stared up at me, a dozen emotions passing through her expression, as Graham threw open a first-aid box and began to bandage her shoulder.
I could now only hear a single pistol outside, responding to the continuing blasts of automatic fire. One single MI5 agent couldn’t hold out much longer against that sort of opposition.
And then Kiera nodded. ‘They’re going to sack me anyway for cocking this mission up, so go ahead and pray that this is the right call, Lauren.’
‘I’m certain of it,’ I replied.
‘OK, the one thing we must do the moment you get us online again is call for backup,’ Kiera replied.
‘You’ve got it.’
I edged across to the network rack and took hold of the dangling blue cable that John had ripped out. I crawled under the desk and spotted a dusty grey socket. With everything mentally crossed, I plugged the wire in.
When I emerged back out from beneath the control desk, I saw the others staring at the screens. The scrolling numbers had vanished from every one of them.
Steve had his hands on his head as Graham plugged a laptop into the rack and placed it into Kiera’s lap.
‘Come on, Sentinel, get on with whatever it is you have to do,’ Steve said,
The monitors all blanked and I held my breath. Then different webpages suddenly filled every display in the control room.
Graham stared at the monitor nearest him. ‘That looks like the website for the Pentagon.’
Steve gawped at the large screen in the middle of the room. ‘And that’s the Russian Ministry of Defence site.’
All the screens blinked again as they reloaded with fresh pages, this time with websites for power utility companies. That was followed by the details of research papers, from space projects to obscure branches of quantum physics. Countless sites of every description began to accelerate past.
Steve whistled. ‘Now that’s what I call an internet search.’
We watched as hundreds of websites flashed across the monitors at an impossible speed despite the old connection to the exchange. Occasionally a screen would slow long enough for me to be able to almost read it. I started to spot top-secret banners across many of the pages, most of which were filled with complex-looking diagrams, each stamped with the insignias of Russia, America, Great Britain, China or other countries.
‘I’m as sure as I can be that’s Sentinel accessing highly classified data,’ Kiera said through clenched teeth as she typed on the laptop. ‘And for that to happen means Sentinel has hacked past the highest levels of government encryption. So I just hope you’re right about his intentions, Lauren.’
‘I’m certain of it.’
Steve pointed at a monitor. ‘Holy shit, will you look at this?’
Diagrams for what could only be described as UFOs, varying from classic disc-shaped crafts to V-shaped delta flying wings, sped past.
If I’d had my phone on me I could have taken pictures to analyse later… ‘Steve, where’s the camera we use for the publicity shots?’
‘In my desk.’ He crawled over to it, reached up and rifled through his drawer. He withdrew a compact Sony camera and l
obbed it over to me. ‘Knock yourself out.’
I powered the camera on and began taking photos as quickly as I could, capturing dozens of craft. It wasn’t long before I realised that one in particular kept cropping up, a design I hadn’t seen anywhere in the movies or anywhere else for that matter. All the shots were blurry images of an inverted tetrahedron, a three sided pyramid shape. According to the location stamps on the images, these had been taken from a dozen sites around the world.
‘This is a conspiracist’s wet dream,’ Steve said, shaking his head.
‘The truth is quite literally out there,’ I replied.
‘Oh bloody hell,’ Kiera said, staring at her laptop’s screen.
‘What now?’ I asked.
‘It looks as though John was busy before he died. It seems as if he released a worm virus that has taken MI5’s systems offline. And that means I can’t communicate with Control through the normal channels.’
‘But there must be another way of getting a message to your people? Or to anyone who could help us?’
‘What do you want me to do, call 999?’
‘If that’s what it bloody takes. Use an online email account – anything you have to get us help.’
Kiera scowled but started typing again.
The websites racing past on the screens started to slow and I began to see the same phrase across multiple pages: ‘Dark Energy’.
‘Looks as if Sentinel is closing in on the scent of whatever he’s after,’ Steve said.
Then the images slowed to a stop, and each and every monitor had exactly the same page on it:
‘Engineering plans for the Dark Energy Collector (DEC). Prototype design by Professor Martin Stevens.’
My heart caught and I peered at the camera. ‘Is this it, Sentinel? Is this what you were looking for?’
A green triangle blossomed like a firework in my sight.
I leant back in my chair. ‘This is it, everyone.’ I took a final photo and then slipped the memory card out from the camera and under the strap of my woven leather bracelet.
Kiera gave me a questioning look as she continued to type.
‘If we die at least there’s a chance that someone else will learn what Sentinel has been searching for and maybe do something about it,’ I said.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,’ she replied.
Steve peered at the schematics of the DEC experiment – it consisted of a sphere surrounded by electrodes. ‘This looks like some sort of experimental system designed to detect dark energy.’
A fresh spray of bullets peppered the room.
Kiera handed her gun to Graham. ‘You need to return fire.’
‘Me, since when?’
‘Somebody needs to.’
‘OK.’
Graham closed his eyes as he raised his hand over the lip of the window and fired the pistol until he’d emptied the clip. He breathed hard as bullets riddled the control room, taking out the large screen in a shower of sparks.
‘Good man,’ Kiera said as she closed the laptop.
‘How did you get on with calling the cavalry?’ Steve asked.
‘I’ve just sent an email to a secure server. It should take around thirty minutes for backup to get here.’
‘That sounds like a hell of a long time to me in our current situation,’ Graham said.
‘Well, that’s how long we have to hold out for,’ Kiera said. Grimacing, she took the gun from him, reloaded it and handed it back.
Every screen in the room blinked again and large numbers appeared on each display.
100
99
98…
‘Is this some sort of countdown?’ I said.
Steve peered up at the network rack. ‘That thing lit up like a Christmas tree suggests a large amount of data is being uploaded…’
I looked back at the webcam. ‘You’re uploading yourself and going after this DEC experiment, aren’t you, Sentinel?’
Green triangle.
I nodded to the others.
‘So when the timer gets to zero there’ll be nothing left for those guys out there to grab,’ Steve said.
‘So we just need to keep them out of here for a little bit longer,’ Kiera said.
Graham sent another volley of shots over the window ledge with the reloaded gun.
The gunfire fell silent outside.
‘Either you’re the luckiest shot on the planet, Graham, or that’s not a good sign at all,’ Steve said.
‘The latter, I’m afraid,’ said Kiera. ‘It sounds as if the last of my colleagues have been taken out, which almost certainly means they’re going to attempt to storm this control room next.’
I looked at the people around me. In a few minutes we could all be dead. OK, so I could just accept that, or I could try to do something to swing the odds a fraction in our favour.
I crossed to John’s body, keeping low, and picked up his pistol, which was lying beside him.
Half the lights on the network tower blinked out as the timer became stuck at thirty-one.
Steve hissed. ‘That looks as if they just discovered our old internet connection.’
‘So that’s it? Sentinel is stuck in here with us?’ I asked.
‘It looks like it,’ Kiera said.
‘And there is no way backup will get here in time now,’ Graham said.
Kiera gestured towards the MI5 computer system. ‘Pull the hard disks out of that thing and do your best to destroy them.’ She began to reload the pistol with a fresh clip.
Steve gave me a grim look as he grabbed a screwdriver and crossed to the MI5 computers.
Tears beaded my eyes. We were about to destroy a sentient being that had come to our world to help humanity. Quite the welcome mat. ‘Please don’t do this, Steve.’
‘But we have to, Lauren,’ he replied. ‘It’s the only play left open to us.’
Graham reached out to take the reloaded gun from Kiera, but she gritted her teeth and waved him away. ‘I’ll take it from here.’ She gazed at all of us. ‘OK, listen up. This is how it will probably work out from here. I’m certain we’re dealing with highly trained individuals. Their mission will be to retrieve Sentinel intact, which means they will lob a flashbang in here first to disorientate us. The effects of that will last around fifteen seconds, but try not to look directly at the flash and cover your ears when it detonates. Even so, we will still be affected, to a certain extent, and they’ll attack the control room whilst we’re recovering.’ She rested the pistol on her knee and aimed it at the door.
Even with Kiera in here with us, and although she hadn’t said it, I knew we didn’t stand a chance against the highly trained soldiers out there.
Steve, his hands shaking, began to unscrew the retaining rail of the MI5 rack computer.
I raised John’s gun and pointed it towards the door as acid swirled through my stomach.
Whether we lived or died would all come down to this.
Chapter Eleven
I tried to ignore the drumbeat of my own fear as I held on to that gun. A frozen moment in time, waiting for the end of all my dreams, all my everythings. When the black metal canister finally tumbled through the shattered control-room window and bounced across the floor, it almost felt like a relief.
‘Flashbang!’ Kiera shouted.
My adrenalin spiked and I flew myself flat, bringing up my hands to cover my ears, but I closed my eyes a fraction too late.
A pulse of light blazed through the room, searing my vision to white, and was accompanied by a deafening bang. A stinging concussion wave slapped into my face. As an afterglow sun flooded my vision, my ears rang with a squealing pitch.
I tried to push myself up, but the floor swayed under me, the blast affecting my balance. Yet even as my head throbbed with a migraine-level headache my hearing started to return.
A clonking noise was coming from somewhere. I turned towards the source of the sound as it was answered by the crack of pistol fire. My vision sl
owly started to return too, and I began to make out the control-room door being slammed into one of the desks of our makeshift barricade.
A hand appeared round the door and Kiera squeezed off another shot. The hand snatched back.
But how were the others doing?
I scanned the room, every muscle in my neck aching, to see Graham gasping for breath. Nearby, Steve had vomited over the floor and was wiping the corner of his mouth with his hand. Then I spotted a dark shape beyond them, climbing through the shattered window. The man raised his semi-automatic weapon towards Kiera, whose attention was still focused on the door.
I fumbled for my own gun, which I’d dropped, found it and raised my shaking hand to aim it at the intruder as his green laser dot danced across Kiera’s back. The pistol kicked in my hand and a sickening spray of blood erupted from his head. With a muffled grunt the guy pitched backwards out of the window.
An overwhelming feeling of nausea came over me and I dropped the gun, driving my fingernails into my palm as tears instantly filled my eyes. What the hell had I done?
Kiera spun round and stared at the smoking gun in front of me and then at the window. ‘Keep it together, Lauren – I need your backup.’
I managed a vague nod in return.
The door banged against the barricade, but far harder this time. The pile of desks and chairs began to squeal backwards over the floor and two figures wearing balaclavas squeezed through the gap in the door. Kiera’s pistol cried out to meet them.
Steve crossed to me and picked up the gun. ‘Do you want me to take over, Lauren?’
‘No, I’ve got this.’
He nodded, no argument, and, maybe understanding me better than I did myself at this precise moment, handed me the pistol.
My body numb, I raised the gun and aimed at one of the two guys. I breathed out and fired.
A bullet hole appeared in the wall just over the lead guy’s head as he ducked and swept automatic weapon fire towards me.
Steve and I dropped flat to the floor as the hailstorm of bullets ricocheted off the filing cabinets and flew into the ceiling, showering us in plaster dust.
Graham hunkered down behind the network rack and shot me a wide-eyed look, his lips pulled back over his teeth. He looked as terrified as I felt.
