by Nick M Lloyd
Chapter 17
Jack stood in his kitchen looking out over the back garden. Although it was past lunchtime, he was still dressed in his pyjama bottoms and t-shirt. He nursed his fourth coffee of the day. He was desperate to drive away the constant feeling of exhaustion; the doctors had told him it would take time to get over the trauma. Am I traumatised? Or just tired?
It had only been two weeks since the crash, but it seemed to Jack he’d already spent a lifetime in hospital taking part in physical and mental assessments. He knew he’d been emotionally shaken by the crash, obviously, but he also felt, somehow, physically changed by it. Outside he could see the sun shining brightly, low in clear blue late autumn skies. His memory returned to the crash, and he felt panic rise. Remembering his treatment, he concentrated on his breathing. In for a count of five then exhale and count to ten—then repeat.
Jack moved to the kitchen table and finished his coffee, sitting in silent reflection. Oh, Sarah! He was tired, and put his arms and head down on the table. You were all I ever wanted. I can still see your sleeping face, serene and beautiful, as I was dragged out of the car. Dragged out and saved. Why was I… But before he could finish the thought, the doorbell rang.
Jack’s head came up abruptly. He turned in the direction of the front door. In the same movement he put the cup down on the table, or at least he thought he had. It wasn’t until he was a pace away from the table he instinctively thought about the cup; he hadn’t put it securely down on the table. He turned and watched the mug teeter precariously on the edge of the table. As he started to turn back towards the table, it fell.
Time slowed and Jack watched for what seemed like an age as the mug tumbled downwards through the air. A myriad of concurrent thoughts flitted around his subconscious and, here and there, a few pushed forwards for consideration.
Damn, a broken mug.
Sarah bought it for me at John Lewis.
It’s certain to smash now.
It might not.
Yes, it will.
Jack’s consciousness seemed to detach slightly and in the tiny instant between the cup almost hitting the floor and it actually hitting the floor, he worried about when, where and how he could get a replacement; as well as blaming himself for putting it down incorrectly.
I won’t be able to get a replacement until Saturday.
I‘ll park behind the chemist.
Jack took stock of the situation and at the moment of impact he was convinced it would break, but it didn’t. The cup landed on one of its corners and did not smash, it just bounced a few times, rolled a little bit and then it came to rest in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Jack let out his long held breath. Lucky break…lucky no-break
He picked the cup up, returned it to the table, and then went to answer the door.
Chapter 18
Aytch lay on his bunk trying to sleep, but he was restless. He wondered if he was really ready to take an equal role to Justio in managing an Emergence on Earth. It had been different when they’d just arrived, he hadn’t expected to be an equal partner and Justio had made all the calls. But now…now he was determined to make a meaningful contribution. He rolled over on his bunk and lay staring at the wall, then he rolled over and looked at the other wall. Vantch! We’re going to be under such scrutiny to get it right on Earth.
Sleep wasn’t coming, and Aytch had already done his meditation trance; also he was reticent to take any drugs—a sign of weakness. He got up and started to pace the corridors. As he passed the main crew room he looked in. The walls were showing real-time feeds of the main news channels from around Earth, with no sound. Justio was working away on his communications tablet. Aytch paused at the doorway to say something but shook his head and walked on.
Pulling out his own communications tablet, he browsed some of his revision notes on counter-terrorism associated with Gadium control of Full Emergences. The Gadium definition of terrorism was pretty broad, encompassing anything going against the point-in-time Gadium view on any particular situation. In some cases it could just be a host species uprising against Gadium in the name of independence and self-determinism. In other cases it was a local group who simply had more to lose from the entire host population becoming Triple Alphas as part of the Full Emergence. Occasionally it was interference from within the Gadium ranks itself—Gadium First.
Aytch had some experience of GF; one of his ancestors had joined in an era when membership of Gadium First was not illegal, but a legitimate political party, and membership was only distasteful. The ancestor had claimed it was a reasoned personal protest against Gadium oppression of a particular planet he’d been connected with. However, the official position, and the family position, was that he’d unfortunately suffered animustosis—soul death. Aytch remembered questioning Sharnia on the subject. She had gone on about the difference between absolute truth and relative truth. Aytch couldn’t remember the details but her position was clear, this ancestor had flipped out. Well, I’d better make sure I know my enemy. Aytch pulled up the summary on the GF.
Chapter 11.1.3.A—Gadium First Tenets
Overview
The Gadium First (GF) believes fervently that Gadium must play no part in the wider Galactic civilisation. Their reasons are varied and typically each member of GF will align to one of the principal tenets. The tenets are (in the generally accepted order of popular moral acceptability):
1. Emergence monitoring and support activity proved by Gadium individuals greatly interfere with their own social responsibilities (marriage, parenthood, etc.) due to the significant amount of travel and time in stasis.
2. Helping species evolve into a fully emergent state interferes with the natural order which would tend to slow the Emergence of some species and halt others; more species (perhaps unworthy ones) get through with Gadium assistance.
3. The Gadium people were the first species to fully emerge and have a prominent position in the galaxy. As more species join Gadium in Full Emergence the preeminent position will weaken.
Aytch shuddered. Except for the last tenet, they all seemed so reasonable. However, Aytch knew the GF had been responsible for devastating activity over the previous few hundred thousand years. He read on.
Chapter 11.1.3.D—Gadium First
Professor Harkin Commentary
‘Their goal is bring about a retrenchment of Gadium through realigned political and moral will of the population. In general they do this by secretly sabotaging Gadium missions to make the cost of intervention seem prohibitively high.’
‘The best result for a GF is when a Full Emergence appears to be mismanaged by the Gadium mission. This allows for GF sympathisers to create popular momentum against the general Gadium approach for intervention. Over the hundreds of thousands of years in which Gadium has been active, there have been substantial periods where GF pressure has effectively stopped all Gadium missions.’
‘It should be noted that, statistically, civilisations do fare better with a Gadium support during an Emergence. The GF doctrine openly acknowledges this but says Gadium bears an unacceptable price for this.’
Rubbing his temples, Aytch tried to get his thinking straight; nothing could justify some of those GF reported actions. Unfortunately, events like Trogia meant pro-GF sentiment always factored in Gadium politics. He shook his head. I’m stuck here, and at home they’re not even united I should be here at all.
Aytch’s walk took him down to the stasis room where he double-checked the instrumentation before returning to his cabin. As he passed the crew room, Justio was still immersed in his work. It seemed unlikely Justio had any GF tendencies, although he did remember Justio had bemoaned the loss of Gadium family values. And Justio had once said Gadium interventions were becoming less considerate of the host population’s lives as a result of the general breakdown in Gadium empathy. But Aytch was sure Justio had only meant the comment as a gentle reminder to stay sympathetic toward
s Earth. Justio’s been doing this longer than most other Gadium personnel. He’d hardly do so much if he didn’t truly believe.
As he lay on his bunk, Aytch stretched his limbs, working through the major muscle groups. After twenty minutes he stopped. The exercise had helped clear his mind. He had his duty, which was to help all other species, through their own Emergences, become full members of the overall galactic civilisation. It’s all for the best.
As Aytch drifted off to sleep, a small voice sounded from the depths of his subconscious. Best for whom?
Chapter 19
Jeremy Benedict got up Saturday morning very happily. He was on a handsome retainer from Merrily Associates. The phone rang in his flat. It was his old school friend, double-checking he was going to make their usual golf game later.
‘Sorry, but I’m working today; chasing down cheating husbands and wives. It’s my best client and they need it by Monday.’
Jeremy sat on his sofa and reviewed the email requesting him to investigate Jack Bullage. He hadn’t been able to start his investigation earlier in the week due to other work conflicts and he was running out of time to meet the deadline.
His first approach was the various social networks. Within a few hours he had built a reasonable picture of Jack Bullage’s circle. There clearly was a relationship of some type with Sarah Dukes, who had perished in the same crash which Jack had escaped from. But Sarah was single—never married. It’s unlikely to have been her…who else, then?
Jeremy expanded his search. The name Louise Harding came up a few times. Firstly, on the web-site for the Daily Record, where she had written some incredibly damming pieces about Glowview, and Jack Bullage in particular. Secondly, on a recent archive of the local county court where she had been the subject of a civil suit from Bullage on the grounds of intimidation and stalking. There were also conflicting reports about an attack with a brick: with one paper intimating a premeditated personal attack, while another played the whole affair as vandalism gone wrong. Louise Harding was married, but her behaviour towards Bullage made it an unlikely affair—unless they were creating the mother of all smokescreens.
Jeremy decided to do a site visit. He wasn’t sure what he’d get, but he thought he always benefited from looking his quarry directly in the eyes—to see what he could see.
Remembering Louise Harding’s news articles, Jeremy arrived at Jack’s street in Chiswick half-expecting to find a house wreathed in flame with a driveway lined by victims encased in medieval torture equipment. As it was, Jeremy found a very non-descript semi-detached house in a quiet looking street with neighbourhood watch stickers, and a small well-tended front garden.
There seemed to be lights so Jeremy took a clipboard from his rucksack and walked up to the front door of a house a few doors down the street. He knocked and politely performed a short retail shopping survey on the person who answered. Then he moved down the road on to the next property. After ten minutes or so, he knocked on Jack’s door and Jack answered.
Jeremy held out an identification badge indicating he worked for John Lewis. ‘Hi there, my name is John Rivers; I’m a retail marketer. I’m surveying this neighbourhood. I’ve got a good number of responses, I was hoping you could give me a clean sweep.’
Jack shrugged. ‘Sure, if it’s quick.’
Jeremy pulled out a new survey. ‘It will be no more than five minutes of your time—and you’ll be entered into a free draw to win vouchers.’
The survey consisted of 15 questions to determine buying patterns. Jeremy meticulously wrote down Jack’s answers and associated comments. ‘The initial responses to our questions indicates you are a fairly instinctive purchaser; has this always been the case?’
Jack shook his head. ‘I’m not sure really. Up to fairly recently I would have said I was a careful purchaser. Lately…things have been a little more volatile.’
‘Ah, well, life is strange. You never know what’s going to happen next.’
Jack chuckled amiably. ‘That’s the truth.’
Jeremy tried to discretely look past Jack to get a clue of the inside of the house, and therefore another view on Jack’s personality. The hallway was mostly obstructed by Jack, but Jeremy could see the trappings of reasonably ostentatious wealth. It wasn’t solid gold toilet territory, but the telephone on Jack’s hall table was clearly a top of the range designer item. There was also what appeared to be an original abstract oil painting hanging on the corridor wall. Jeremy couldn’t see any further into the house.
Jeremy made a few more notes and took a record of Jack’s email for the prize draw. Then he left, noticing Jack’s sports car, before continuing his charade by moving down the street to survey some of Jack’s other neighbours.
Way above Jack’s house, Aytch received confirmation the mini-bots had detached themselves from Jeremy Benedict and had headed for their pre-assigned stations. He set up the computer to suck in and perform basic analysis on all the data the mini-bots would be sending.
Within a few hours, the mini-bots had infiltrated Jack’s landline, mobile phone, laptop and internet. Additionally, they had set up small monitoring stations in every room and calibrated themselves to measure a host of standard day-to-day activities Jack would be involved in.
Chapter 20
On Monday morning James Chambers walked into a small unmarked office block in a sleepy backstreet of Basildon. He was wearing his standard office clothes: jeans, black t-shirt and black trainers. He walked down a few corridors until he reached an unremarkable door with the sign ‘G60’ embossed on a small brass plate.
James fumbled in his pockets for various keys and security passes. The office contained space for about four people to work in relative comfort but, in practice, there were two of them living like kings. Looking around, James saw his workmate.
‘Hey, Max. How did the weekend shift go?’
Max glanced up from his monitor. ‘Nothing much. Just sifting the data. I’m a bit tired of it all, really.’ He stood up and started to pack up. ‘I’ll be off now.’
James flopped down into his seat and booted up. ‘Well, it suits me fine. A cosy job close to my home, and I get to read Sci-Fi magazines as genuine research.’
There were a few standard department-wide MOD reports in James’ inbox and he skimmed them. Although he was in a very minor department of only two people, technically he was a Department Head and so was kept abreast of security matters. Nothing interesting. The next item was a budget submission reminder. That would take a bit longer. James needed to come up with plausible reasons why he should keep the budget as high as it was. He started to jot down some corporate nonsense when his eye caught on an unusual email.
Interesting. There was an email addressed to the ‘G60 Department Head’. It highlighted a General Crowley had made an internal search on the subject of Project Hedgehog. James had been responsible for some G60 cataloguing a few years previously. He remembered Project Hedgehog—it had been shrouded in secrecy.
James accessed the archives and brought back the summary.
Project Hedgehog 1962 - 1965: Ultra Black. Experimental tests to determine existence of psychic powers. Closed down after notable disappearances. Tests were universally unsuccessful.
In fact, the summary was the total sum of everything James knew about Project Hedgehog.
There was no specific action allocated to G60, but he couldn’t let it go. He picked up the phone and, after referencing an internal directory, put a call into the MOD Internal Affairs team. ‘Hi, this is James Chambers. I’d like to speak to someone about a recent alert referenced to G60.’
He went through the various security protocols and, once cleared, a senior risk officer related to him the story about General Crowley and Louise Harding. An investigative reporter on a fishing trip.
This was suddenly feeling more risky. MOD Generals could be trusted to be discreet, but investigative reporters could not. Logging on to the MOD mainframe, James set up
an extended search of Louise Harding. Then he went to the kitchenette to make himself a cup of tea while the computer whirred on in the background. When he returned to his desk a few matches had been collated.
Louise Harding
Swindon County Court (Nov 2011) — Trespass
Blackfriars Crown Court (Feb 2013) — Harassment
MOD (Nov 2015) — Security Breach
A door slammed and James was snapped out of his line of thinking. He looked up. ‘Hi Max, why are you back?’
‘Forgot my keys.’ Max walked over to his desk and started rummaging. ‘What’re you up to?’
‘A bit weird.’ James paused. ‘There’s a security alert about a reporter who’s been looking into Project Hedgehog.’
Max looked blank. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘It was something we ran in the 1960s, secret and unusual. I’m going to have to make a report to the controller. It’s too close to budget season to allow for loose ends.’
James had regular contact with his MOD controller. Every month (for the past five years) he had sent a one-line report stating nothing unusual found. He’d always got a one word response; acknowledged. He’d met the controller once, and was reasonably sure the man hadn’t a clue who he was. But in large bureaucracies this was not unusual. Frankly James got what he needed: his monthly pay cheque, access to ground-breaking technology, and every Friday afternoon off—so he didn’t ask questions of the government system.
Max turned back. ‘Well, my bed is calling me. If you need me to do anything on the night shift then leave me a note.’
‘Or send you an email?’
‘Not as secure as leaving a note under my keyboard.’
‘Cleaners?’
‘They don’t read our stuff.’ And, with a chuckle, Max left the office.
