Vigil

by Saunders, Craig

  You could hide one underground, but to build one in secret? All that material lowered deep underground. Thousands of people working on the project - People would have known. Contractors. The scientific community. The materials, the equipment; all had to be highly visible. It just couldn’t be done.

  But perhaps it had. If anyone could pull off the greatest vanishing trick in history, it was John Fallon.

  John Fallon had been a man with many secrets and untold power.

  Tom and the others had searched for weeks now, deep into the bowels of the complex. But nobody knew what to look for. How could they? For such a vast secret surely there would be an equally impressive hiding place for the entrance.

  Some of those searching had already given up. Many believed it was hopeless. The majority believed it was fool’s gold. Tom was just an old crackpot. They only joined the search because Jean had ordered it. People respected Jean. Tom’s words held little sway.

  And the fact that they held no sway was no one's fault but his own. He knew that. He was too quick to anger, too quick to patronise. Tom lacked what Marie called 'people skills'.

  But for the first time in many years, Tom had purpose. Just a short time ago he had been ready to give in. Ready to die. Now he wanted to live.

  So he walked, Marie by his side. He walked each level, time and time again. He checked each room on every floor. It was the last sweep of the day.

  ‘Just one more look down corridor 16E,’ he told Marie. She was the one member of their community he was never short with.

  ‘Just one more look, Tom.’

  Tom smiled and gently moved her hair from her face like a father would to a daughter. ‘I know it’s down here, Marie. I’m not going crazy. I promise.’

  ‘I believe you, Tom. You knew your father better than anyone else.’

  ‘That may be true, but only because nobody else knew him at all. But this is just pure logic. Flawed, perhaps, but it’s all we have to go on. The Hadron Collider would have to be below us. The entrance would be somewhere on the lower levels.’

  Marie sighed. Tom didn’t think she’d realised she made the noise. He understood she was tired. She didn’t believe they would ever find it. She didn’t think it was really there. It was just one more wild goose chase but Marie would never say that. For that, he was thankful. He needed someone to believe in him, even if only on the surface of things. If he stood alone in the complex he might begin to convince himself the search was pure folly. Should that happen the risk of destruction was all too real.

  They searched for another thirty minutes until Marie took Tom’s arm. He stopped with a smile.

  ‘We’re wasting our time, are we?’

  ‘No, Tom, I don’t think that. It’s just that we’re going over the same old ground. We’re not doing anything new.’

  ‘I guess I know that. I just can’t think what else we can do. We have to go over and over the whole complex. Go back to the plans, look for inconsistencies. Look for things that are out of place. We need to search harder. They’re going to come for us, Marie. And we need to find some way of stopping them, or we’ll all die down here.’

  ‘But we’re not doing anything new, Tom. Just stop a minute. Where would he hide something? His office is the smart place to look.’

  ‘We’ve gone over his office with a fine tooth comb. There’s nothing there. The entrance wouldn’t be close to him. He wasn’t sentimental.’

  ‘Well, then, think! What do you know about your father? I think that’s the key.’

  ‘I’ve told you already, time and time again, I barely knew him. I worked here, sure, before the fall, but I didn’t know him as a man.’

  ‘Start with what you do know.’

  ‘Jesus, Marie. Now who’s going over the same old ground?’

  ‘We tried your way. Try mine.’

  ‘Fine. Come on, we might as well be comfortable.’

  He pulled a door open and peered inside. It was an office. Just standard fare.

  Untouched since the fall, an old coffee cup sat on the desk. It was not furred with bacteria. There were no bacterium in the complex but those brought in from the outside. Every room was on independent purifiers, and the complex had been sealed after it had been deserted. It was only open now because some of those who had fled the initial cataclysm had returned to the one place they knew well and knew was safe. The older people that had set up this community, the ones who had worked here and survived, had understood that this was a safe haven from the vampires.

  ‘Pull up a chair,’ said Tom with a smile. ‘Grill away.’

  ‘I’m serious, Tom. Tell me, what did John like?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, what sort of things did he have in his house?’

  ‘All sorts of things. Artwork, sculptures. Lots of old books. He had a huge library. He collected first editions. But all of that was just a hobby, I think. I don’t think I ever saw him reading anything but manuals and files and articles in scientific journals. He read a lot of reports. He was always working. I think the rest of it he didn’t care about.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the kind of thing. What was important to him?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘You always told me that when you were thinking of a password, trying to hack a computer, that you should understand something about the person. We need to understand him. Get into his mind. You’re not helping.’

  ‘I’m telling you everything I know!’

  ‘Did he have one thing…you know, one thing. Did he have anything personal, anything at all?’

  ‘I don’t know, Marie. I just don’t know. We weren’t close.’

  ‘What about in his house?’

  ‘I stayed there, sure, but I was away most of the time.’

  ‘Well, try to remember.’

  Tom stared into the distance for a long time. Neither spoke. Marie watched his eyes. Finally the light returned.

  ‘A picture. Of a woman. He kept it in his bedroom. It faced the bed. It would have been the first thing he saw when he woke. The last thing he saw when he went to sleep. It was always there. I only ever went into his bedroom when I was a very small child and once when I grew up. But the picture was there. The same picture for twenty years or so? I think that’s it. That’s the only thing I can think of. I don’t see how that helps us, though.’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got. We have to go there.’

  ‘No, we don’t,' said Tom, shaking his head. 'He had a reproduction made. He wouldn’t let the original leave the house. But he had a copy made. The artist worked out at the house. I think he wanted to make sure that if anything happened the picture would survive.’

  ‘Where would he keep the copy? Just in case?’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’

  ‘Like where?’

  Tom smiled. ‘You’re good at this, Marie. You could have been a policewoman. Where would be safer than here? This place was designed to withstand Armageddon. It did, after all. I think it’s here. He’d want it somewhere he could look at it whenever he wanted to.

  ‘His office.’

  ‘It’s not there, Tom. We’ve looked. This is a dead end.’

  ‘Ah, Marie. Are you going to give up so easily, after badgering me so hard? No harm in looking one last time, is there?’

  Marie shrugged. ‘Why not? It’s not like we have anything better to do.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the spirit that made this world great. The greatest scientific minds of the world, sitting around and thinking ‘I’ve got nothing better to do, I know, I’ll create a plague to wipe the slate clean'.’

  ‘Don’t get yourself started, Tom.’

  Tom grinned and took a walkie talkie from his belt.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, you’re the only one willing to listen to an old man ramble.’

  ‘That because I know I won’t have to put up with it much longer.’

  ‘Ouch.’ He depressed a button and buzzed Jean. ‘Jean, we’ve had an idea. Meet us in Jo
hn’s office. Out.’

  ‘You know, people might like you more if you said ‘please’ from time to time.’

  ‘Sorry. Now,’ he said, holding out a hand, ‘Please can we get going?’

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  John Fallon’s Office

  Third Floor

  Tom stood in the centre of his father’s office, looking around, feeling a vague sense of sadness, as he had done so many times over the years.

  The office was larger than was strictly necessary, but then as one of the most powerful men in the western world there was such a thing as image.

  His father had maintained three homes in different countries, a huge yacht, cars beyond count and his own fleet of jets. His research and development foundation, Fallon Corporation, was worth billions at the time of the fall. It wasn’t really strange that he had such a vast office.

  But then, Tom thought, he spent most of the time reading reports. All he had really needed was a comfortable chair and good light. Perhaps when he had been younger he would have had need for all the trappings of wealth, but when Tom had known him, as an old man, he lived for his work. It had been an obsession. Even when he was in his eighties he worked long hours, dealing with many issues that he hadn’t needed to. He never let the corporation run away with him.

  The office wasn’t important. It was the chair. The placement of the chair. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

  Because he was getting on. The old brain cells had taken a few knocks over the years. He just wasn’t as sharp as he used to be.

  Jean, Marie, and Samson were all watching him.

  Tom paced the room slowly, then sat in his father’s chair. It was extremely comfortable. It didn’t feel like stepping into a dead man’s shoes. It had been vacant for decades. There were no echoes of the dead in this room, but one…he hoped.

  ‘What is it, Tom? We’re all busy.’

  He smiled at them, but Marie was the only one who returned his smile, and hers held more hope than warmth.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’

  ‘That’s what you’re supposed to be telling us,’ said Samson.

  ‘The picture, Sam. The picture. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before. My father faced his desk, but the picture is on the wall behind us. He would never have looked at it. What’s the point of a picture if you never see it?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s camouflage. It’s just there as dressing. My father didn’t need any dressing. He was a straightforward man. But if there was something he wanted to hide I’ve no doubt that he could. But the picture is stupid. It’s not even a very good picture. For a man worth billions, why would have a lacklustre picture in his office?’

  Tom held his hands up to stall Jean’s question.

  ‘Why would he put a picture in his office for other people?’ Tom asked the others. They shrugged.

  ‘To make them ignore the real one. The one that was for him. He had one picture he loved. An old painting. A simple picture. Just a painting of a woman.’

  Tom stood and examined the picture on the wall behind the desk.

  He began feeling around the edges. He had done it all before, when he first began to suspect that there might be something hidden in the research complex.

  There was nothing there. The frame was unremarkable. As expected. He hadn’t missed anything obvious.

  Jean was getting impatient. Tom didn’t blame him. He was more than a little worried himself. He felt like a magician trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, not knowing if it was really in there himself.

  Nothing. Nothing at all. He tried lifting the painting but it was firmly fixed to the wall. Like it was never expected to move. Now what would the point of that be?

  He pushed on the frame. Nothing happened. No click. No revolving wall.

  ‘Do we really need to be here to watch this, Tom? I’m sure you think that you have something, but we’ve been over this room time and time again. I think it’s time we admit what we all know but you, Tom.’

  Jean’s voice was kind. It riled Tom more than harsh words. It was the voice people used for their elderly relatives. Tom had used it himself a time or two with his own father.

  ‘No, Jean, I don’t think it’s time we admit anything.’ He stood back and stared at the painting. Then he stepped closer, peering intently at the point of the subject’s eye. The pupil on the left eye was slightly discoloured. It was an old painting. It could just be the painting’s age. But Tom didn’t think so.

  He pushed on the eye with the tip of his finger. There was a soft click.

  A section of steel flooring slid smoothly to one side. A panel rose from the floor. The painting of the woman was there. It rose to eye height for someone sitting in this chair, facing the desk.

  ‘Oh,’ said Jean. He wheeled himself closer to the painting and stared at the woman.

  She was beautiful, but not in the classical sense. Her skin was dark, her hair almost jet black although there was some fading. Her eyes had a slightly absent quality, like she was staring off into the distance at something just out of reach. It added to the mysterious nature of the subject.

  Tom imagined that very few people had ever known of the existence of the painting. There was no signature on the painting. He had no idea if the artist was famous or not. It was a good quality painting, but the artist himself wasn’t technically proficient, but he had managed to convey a haunting quality in the subject.

  The forger who had painted the copy had somehow managed to reproduce it exactly, even down to the cracking in the oil paints. Tom imagined that the artist had even gone as far as recreating the oils used and the canvas. John Fallon could afford the best.

  ‘My father’s favourite painting,’ Tom told them. ‘I think we’re one step closer.’

  He walked across the office and stood in front of the painting. Seeing it now, after all these years, he understood its allure.

  But there was no time to sit and stare at the painting. He could not tell if it was the original or the reproduction, but he guessed that his father would have kept the original close by. It was too important to him to let it leave his sight for long. The original would be at his home, perhaps destroyed by now, perhaps hanging, facing his father as he died.

  Tom stepped up to the painting and tried to lift it from the raised panel. That didn’t work so he pulled down on it and it shifted. The door to the office clicked locked and the glass turned opaque. The floor began to rise. Jean was forced to wheel his chair back swiftly or he would have fallen.

  An elevator rose up. Tom looked at the three people waiting for him and risked a smile.

  ‘Good start,’ granted Samson.

  Tom stifled a laugh. Samson had no sense of humour.

  ‘Shall we?’ he said.

  The doors opened and they stepped in.

  The mechanism that slid the door shut was silent. Even after all these years everything in the complex was in perfect working order.

  There was a slight sense of movement. It only lasted for a moment. Nobody spoke. There were no buttons in the elevator. It would go to only one floor.

  The doors slid open before they had realised that the elevator had stopped.

  Tom stepped out first. The lights clicked on with his motion, and he took a deep breath.

  He didn’t need to say anything. There were three paths from a central hub. One was labelled Genetic Research. One was labelled Nanotechnology. The other bore the simple acronym LHC.

  The Large Hadron Collider.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sub-levels

  Fallon Corp.

  Jean wheeled himself forward and a voice rang out through speakers above their head.

  ‘Hub online. Please identify.’

  He turned in his chair and looked at Tom. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tom. ‘Who are you?’ he asked the voice.

  ‘Hub One. Identif
ication, please. Comply.’

  ‘Tom Fallon, Jean Aralle, Samson Baker, Marie Cantel.’

  ‘Tom Fallon. Analysing voice print…recognised. Hello, Tom. Would you like your companions added to your guest register?’

  Tom shrugged and at Jean. ‘Yes, I would.’

  ‘Your entitlement is now four. Welcome, Jean, Samson, Marie.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Identification: Hub One overseer. Personality Version 6.13. Duties include advanced guide and maintenance of Hub and level 23 facilities. Further duties specified as classified under protocol 3.’

  Jean turned to face Tom. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘I think it’s designed to protect this facility.’

  ‘That assessment is correct. Other functions are available at this time.’

  ‘Thanks, Hub One. Can you tell us about this facility?’

  ‘Yes, Tom. This is the central hub of project seven.’

  ‘What is project seven?’

  ‘Project Seven Mandate: To study and understand the moment of creation of the universe. Recreation of the moment of inception. To quantify the nature of creation.’

  ‘Do you mean the big bang?’

  ‘Big Bang: Match 97.5 percent. That theory is largely correct. Contextual error.’

  ‘What am I getting wrong?’

  ‘Big bang is a theory. The Hub Gateway research is to create an infinite point of density.’

  ‘Whoa, Tom. I don’t know about this. What the hell is it talking about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what I should be asking.’

  Marie took Tom’s hand. ‘Hub One. Did John Fallon have any records that we could look through? An office?’

  ‘Yes. I will show you. Please follow the lights.’

  The floor lit up, leading them down the Nanotechnology path. They headed off in that direction.

  They came to the door marked John Fallon. There was a hand scanner beside the door.

  ‘Hub One. What is this?’

  ‘Scanner. Security measure. John Fallon’s office is designated highest security. Level Five.’