by Rob Aspinall
Wow, this is really, really happening.
It wasn’t a dream, a phantom memory, an LSD hallucination or an orange with a crappy face drawn on.
It was with a boy, too. The most wonderfully terrifying moment of my entire life. And it made all the running, shooting, fighting and killing worth it.
Me and Alex.
Alex and me.
We had a connection that no one and nothing could break.
Except maybe a cough. We stopped mid-kiss. I turned to see Inge standing in the doorway.
“Sorry,” she said, pulling an awkward face.
“Inge,” I said. “We were just—”
Why was I apologising? She wasn’t my mum. And I was a grown woman now. That's what Mum said.
“You kids can do whatever you like,” Inge said. “But there’s something you need to see.”
“Now?” I asked.
“Right now,” Inge said.
“Can’t it wait?” I said.
“Depends,” she said. “You still want to save the world?”
28
Second Chance
Alex held my hand as we walked down the stairs.
I’d never held hands with anyone other than Mum, Dad and Auntie Claire.
And that's when I was little.
The others were gathered in the living room.
My instinct was to break the hand-hold, but Alex tightened his grip.
“Bloody hell,” Zak said. “Everyone’s pairing up tonight.” He leaned over to Ling, sat next to him on the sofa. “Maybe we should buddy up, too.”
Ling flashed him a single finger.
Roni had her laptop synchronised with the giant TV on the wall.
“So what’s the deal?” I asked.
“We’ve got ourselves a chink of light,” Roni said.
“How's that possible?” I asked. “Thought you said we didn’t have anything new.”
“It’s possible because Roni’s a genius,” Giles said, rubbing a hand up and down her back.
Roni almost blushed. “While the white hats were trying to shut us down during the hack, I piggy-backed their ride, all the way into their systems. I’ve been moving around in there ever since, seeing what I can find . . . Didn’t find much, but I found this,” she said, pointing at the screen.
“Why didn’t you say something before?” Inge said.
“Didn’t wanna get anyone’s hopes up. The file only decrypted twenty minutes ago.”
“So what are we looking at?” Zak asked.
“During Roni’s hack, she found new information on X21,” Inge said, motioning to the TV.
It showed an image of a document. I let go of Alex’s hand and walked towards the screen. The document outlined the specifics of the virus. A lot of sciency techno-fluff that flew right over my head. “How do we know this isn’t just another set of false info?” I said.
“We don’t,” Inge said. “We have to assume they didn’t let Roni in.”
“Trust me, they didn’t,” Roni said. “Besides, anyone got anything better to go off?”
I shrugged and read the document on the screen. “What does remote-activated blah-blah thingy mean?”
“You mean remote-activated nano-biomolecular diffusion?” Zak said. “It means it can be turned off.”
We all looked at Zak, every one of us in shock.
Zak held up his hands. “Hey, I'm not just a pretty face.”
“You can turn off a virus?” Alex said. “Like a tap?”
Inge clicked her fingers. “Exactly like a tap.”
“But here’s something I don’t get,” Zak said. “Why would they build in an off-switch?”
“So they can cap the damage,” I said. “It’s part of the JPAC grand plan.”
“Then why not leave them to it?” Zak said. “They’ll shut off the virus soon. All we have to do is ride out the storm.”
“And let another few billion die in the meantime?” Giles said. “Jesus man, are you totally fucking empty?”
“Easy bro, I was just sayin.”
“There’s gotta be a catch,” I said, returning to Alex’s side. “It’s never this easy.”
“It isn’t—and there is,” said Inge.
Roni tapped a key on her laptop and the image on the TV changed. Coordinates and schematics of some kind. “These are the plans for the control facility.”
“Great,” I said. “Then we find the facility and bam-sham-a-lam.”
“Except it's a remote location,” Inge said.
“And thousands of miles away,” Giles said.
“With a billion foamers between,” Roni said.
“And with only two guns and a pair of old swords,” I said. “Fab.”
“Maybe I can help you guys with that,” Alex said.
Alex led me, Ling and Inge into a basement. Unlike the rest of the house it was dusty and cold and smelled of engine oil.
“I’d totally forgotten about this place,” Alex said, flicking on the lights.
Beyond a bunch of junk like old lawn mowers and surfboards, paint pots and stepladders, was a solid metal door with a keypad. Alex jabbed in a code and the door opened. Inside was a hi-tech panic room. It had a bed, a phone, laptop, fridge, a bank of CCTV cameras and a toilet and sink in the far corner. Alex pushed a button on a near wall. A hidden panel slid open, revealing a whole arsenal of guns, grenades and ammo.
“The one thing about Dad’s vacations,” Alex said. “He never packed light.”
Inge nodded in approval. Ling picked up an automatic rifle almost as big as her. She checked the sight and smiled.
29
The Hidden Fortress
Our journey started with a semi-tearful goodbye. I waved to Alex one last time through the rear windscreen of the BMW. We took off through the winding roads of Portofino, my heart sinking, wondering if we’d ever see each other again.
Signs of the FM Virus were everywhere. Crashed cars. An overturned bus. Shops with smashed windows. Discarded, bloody clothes. Smoke billowing out of a burning hotel. A little girl in foamer mode breaking across the path of the car.
But all in all, it was eerily quiet.
There just weren’t enough people around to fill out the place.
The motorways were much the same. Every car deserted, with doors left open. Some people dead from their injuries. A couple more lurching from car to car, looking for someone to bite.
But otherwise, the infected seemed to have wandered off the motorway in search of civilisation.
We skirted around most of the carnage using the hard shoulder, driving fast.
Alex’s private jet was waiting for us at the airfield, fuelled up and ready to go. Alex had called the pilot. He was hiding out somewhere, unwilling to fly the plane—even for a small fortune.
But Inge and Ling were both qualified pilots capable of flying jet fighters. A Gulfstream would be easy.
As it turned out, the airways were clear. Not only were all commercial airliners grounded. GEMA had suspended no-fly zones for the free movement of emergency aid. And GEMA were so busy dealing with the mess on the ground—or pretending to, as Giles reckoned—that we didn’t need permission to land in Alberta, Canada.
Inge brought the plane in to a smooth landing. I woke up from a snooze and got ready.
The airstrip was civilian. We found an aviation company. It had a hangar with space to park the jet. A grey Mazda saloon outside with the key fob left in a tray on a desk inside the offices.
A couple of foamers in oily blue overalls hung around the hangar. But we dealt with them quick and quiet.
The Mazda had sat nav. Ling had the two samurai swords sheathed and strapped to her back—‘just for fun’, she’d said.
We took the rural highways where there were no signs of foamers, police roadblocks or GEMA containment.
The scenery was epic. Long, sweeping roads. Vast, unspoilt stretches of giant fir trees and snowcapped mountains in the distance. Inge turned off the highway and drove as far as the road would tak
e us. We got out and moved fast on foot, until we came to a clearing in the forest.
It was empty.
“You sure this is the right place?” I asked.
Inge checked her GPS watch. “According to the coordinates.”
Inge and Ling split left and right. I walked on ahead. There was nothing but a wall of trees, the calls of birds and the smell of fresh pine. I turned and backed up. “I don’t see any sign of—” My heels bumped up against something solid. I turned around.
WTF?
There was nothing there.
I reached out. My hand felt . . . A wall? Wow, it was freaky. “Hey, over here,” I said.
Inge and Ling hurried over.
I rapped my knuckles on the wall—solid steel. “What the hell?”
Ling turned to Inge. “Quantum Stealth.”
Inge nodded. “Light bending technology. The military have been experimenting with it.”
“So what’s the betting JPAC have mastered it?” I said.
Inge stepped up to the invisible wall. She ran her hands over it, stepping to her right. She knocked one way and the other. Each time a solid tap—bone on steel.
Then came a lighter thud. She felt around, grabbed a handful of fresh nothing and twisted it clockwise. A thick grey door opened—only the inside visible. The nothingness a handle. We followed her in, the door closing behind us.
It was cold and dark inside.
Looked as if we’d come in the back way.
We came up against a locked door with keypad access. Ling prised the front panel off the keypad and went to work. In seconds the wires sparked and the door opened.
We stepped into a clean white space. It was silent. Well, silent except for the sound of distant, running guard boots.
I looked overhead. A tiny blue light flashing in the ceiling.
At the end of the corridor ahead of us, there was a blind left turn.
“Get ready,” Inge said, aiming her rifle at the turn. “Start shooting before they round the corner.”
Me and Ling aimed our weapons, making up a line of three. But something was off with those boots.
They didn’t sound . . . Human.
30
Outgunned
As the guards came running and blasting around the corner, we were already blasting back.
The problem was, the guards weren’t made of flesh and blood. They were seven feet tall and made of some kind of dark-grey plastic, like stormtroopers on steroids.
We fell back along the corridor and into a huge, empty lab. We took up positions behind counters, staying low, shooting when we could.
There were three of them. My guess was they came from the same factory as the dogs me and Philippe had run into at the farmhouse. Only they were faster, smoother and far more advanced. They moved like real people. It was freaky. And scary.
They pinned us down, splitting up and moving around the lab in front of us.
Inge pulled the ring from a grenade and tossed it over the counter. The drone whirled around and shot it mid-air. We took cover. When I peeped over the counter, the drone was untouched.
“Grenades aren’t gonna cut it,” I said.
“Neither are rifles,” Inge said.
“Cover me,” Ling said, drawing one of those antique swords from her back.
Me and Inge drew the drones’ fire, scurrying to the right of the lab. We slid behind the next counters along. Inge returned fire over the top. Me, round the side of a counter. All three drones were on us. I saw Ling ghost out across the lab. The drone closest to her turned to blast her to bits. The blade of a sword flashed through the air and sliced the wires attached to its neck struts. The drone went crazy, jerking and dancing on the spot.
As a second drone turned to engage her, Ling threw the sword like an arrow.
The drone wasn’t quick enough to shoot it down. The point of the sword pierced the gap between its head and chest plate.
It staggered in circles, unloading ammo into the floor.
We kept firing to distract the third drone. Ling got behind it and tore a panel off the gun on its right arm. She pushed her thumb inside. It fired heavy rounds at its drone compadres, wasting them in seconds.
She angled the arm gun to the drone’s own head and blew its robot brains out. All three drones lay smoking and sparking on the floor. Ling stood over drone number two and pulled the samurai sword from its neck.
She sheathed the blade on her back as we rose out of our hiding positions.
“Where did you find her?” I asked Inge.
Inge smiled. “Everyone needs a Ling.”
With the drones down and out, we hauled booty through the complex. The place was deserted. Lots of long corridors and labs scrubbed clean behind plexiglass doors and windows. At first I thought it was remotely guarded, but we soon came to an open space with a huge transparent divide. On the other side was a control station with a giant screen, a command desk and a row of computer monitors below.
On the monitors were charts and data. On the giant screen, a map of the world with flashing pins and numbers and colour-coded activity. And at the controls, three soldiers in dark-green fatigues with pistols on their hips.
Inge let off a round at the glass. Not even a scratch.
The soldiers were young. They laughed and gave us the finger.
But Ling had cut an RPG unit off one of the drone’s shoulders. She heaved it up. It looked small on the drone, but huge on her petite frame.
The soldiers cottoned on quick. But not quick enough to take cover. As me and Inge backed off either side, Ling depressed a switch and launched a tiny black rocket at the divide,
I turned my back and covered my ears. Felt a huge rocking blast rise up through my body. A wave of heat against my back and tiny glass fragments sprinkling over my shoulders.
I straightened up and saw the divide in tiny pieces on the floor. Smoke melted away, the three soldiers down on the floor, coughing and spluttering. We stepped through the empty frame, boots crunching over shattered glass.
One of the guards drew his weapon. Inge disarmed him with a single hand. Delivered a rabbit punch to his jaw. Grabbed him by the collar and put her gun to his face. “Where’s the off-switch?”
“What off-switch?” he said.
Inge let him go. She shot him in the head. Grabbed the next guy and repeated the process.
The third guy talked. “It’s not a switch. It’s a process,” he said.
“Then start the process,” I said.
The soldier shook his head. “It takes two operators.”
“Who else is authorised?” Inge said.
“The two men you just killed,” he said.
Inge looked at the two bodies on the floor and tutted. “Typical.”
“How does it work?” I asked.
“Double retinal scan," he said.
Inge looked at the bodies, then at me. “You know what to do," she said.
“I do?”
Inge gave me the look—the pissed-off parent look
“Can’t Ling do it?” I said.
“She’s on point.”
I turned around. Saw Ling guarding the entrance with a rifle in hand, her back to the action as she watched the corridor.
“Another million people just died, Lorna,” Inge said.
The guilt-tripping cow. I really, really, really didn’t want to do what I was about to do.
31
Eye Contact
I hope you never have to do this.
I looked at the two soldiers. “Maybe we can hold one of them up,” I said.
“Two hundred pounds of dead weight,” Inge said, shaking her head.
“Okay then,” I said, noticing a spoon left in a half-eaten yoghurt pot. I grabbed it and sucked off the yoghurt.
Mm, strawberry.
I picked the soldier with the biggest, most bulbous eyes. I took a knife from my belt and knelt down with spoon and blade. I prised open the top and bottom lids of his right eye and dug the
scoop underneath the eyeball, deep into the socket.
I gagged once, twice, three times . . .
“Get on with it,” Inge said.
“Er, have you ever done this?” I said.
“Yes,” Inge and Ling said in chorus.
“Oh right,” I said, gagging again. I swallowed it down and breathed deep. I lifted the eyeball up and out enough to see the attaching chord. It was gooey and bloody and gristly. I dug the serrated edge the blade in and began sawing.
I was so close to vomming all over the soldier’s face. But I held it in. The eyeball came loose and I teased it out on the end of the spoon.
Inge pushed the soldier into a chair to the left of the control desk. I hurried over to the right.
“Make it happen,” Inge said, pushing the barrel of her pistol into the back of the man’s neck.
As the soldier typed in a command on the keyboard, I got a better look at the screen. The world map was full of red hot spots, where the number of infected people was higher.
The monitor in front of me changed to a black screen with two blue buttons on. One said scan and the other confirm.
There was a scan panel the size of a smartphone screen to the right of the monitor.
“Click on scan,” the soldier said. “in three, two, one . . .”
I clicked on scan in tandem with the soldier. As he put his right eye in front of his scan panel, I held up the eyeball between finger and thumb.
It was disgusting. But both retinas scanned. The screen flashed green with a message that read: identity authorised.
Then another message flashed up.
Are you sure you want to deactivate X21?
“Hit yes,” the soldier said.
“Well duh,” I said, clicking on YES.
“Get ready to tandem confirm,” the soldier said. “In three, two, one . . .”
We clicked at the same time.
“One more step,” the soldier said. “You’ll need a key.” He held up a key on a chain attached to his hip.
I swung around in the chair. Saw the same deal on the belt of the soldier I’d just eye-scooped. I detached the key and stood on the opposite side of the desk to the soldier, in front of a keyhole on the panel.
