Boundary (Field Book 3)

by Simon Winstanley

  ‘Compiling: 001%’

  “Yes!” Marcus laughed.

  “I don’t get it, what?”

  “Transmit Receive access,” Marcus grinned, “It’s taken months, trying every combination to find a link between received signal and drone action.”

  “And it just happened right now?”

  Marcus faltered, he’d had a fleeting thought about the solution speed, but the more he tried to concentrate on it, the less distinct the thought became; thanks in part to Nathan punching him on the shoulder in congratulations.

  “Nice! So will we be able to detect where the drones are?”

  “I think so,” Marcus replied, “I’ll have to interface with the USV Hive network. Network camouflage won’t work there -”

  “That would be good,” Nathan began to see possibilities, “At the minute we have to work off a timetable, but if the timetable changes…”

  “If I can talk to the Hive, we’d know what all the drones are doing.”

  “We could avoid the possibility of running into patrols! It’d make future supply runs a hell of a lot easier.”

  “You’re not seeing the bigger picture,” Marcus replied, “This ain’t about sneaking round avoiding them. If this works out, I’m talkin’ about base code intervention. We can shut ‘em down. We wouldn’t need to scavenge anymore. Bye-bye drones!”

  Nathan’s enthusiasm seemed to wain slightly and he sat down on the sofa.

  “The drones use electrical shock to keep the order,” Nathan recalled, “I’ve seen them use a low stun to break up disagreements.”

  “Exactly!”

  “No, I mean… without them, won’t things get worse?” Nathan scratched at his beard, “If you get rid of the drones then isn’t it gonna get more disordered?”

  “You’ve not had to live down there,” said Marcus, “Me and Sabine have. The drones, the so-called Peace Keepers down there? They’ve got people living in real fear. It’s gotta stop.”

  “Listen,” Nathan’s demeanour changed, “If we go interfering with their community then -”

  “Interfering? What are you talking about? We’re already part of their ‘community’! Just because you live in tunnels up here doesn’t change a thing. We’re all breathing the same air. We’re all buried under the same rock!”

  “Marcus,” Nathan interrupted, almost with a tone of finality, “I know what you’re saying and I don’t like it any more than you do, but the risk is too great. Without the drones, the USV could become more unstable. Things could become worse for us. Monica told me to protect the twelve -”

  Marcus felt his patience snap.

  “She didn’t tell you to hide them away! Living out the rest of their lives cowering in a fucking cave! This is what fear does, Nathan, I’ve seen it over an’ over! When Siva was comin’, when the bloody Moon exploded, when Geraldine was killed in the village square… Everybody convinced that if they can just shut their eyes tight enough, if they can just wait long enough, then they can get through it to the other side. But there ain’t no other side! There’s just now!”

  “Monica told me to protect the twelve,” Nathan repeated, flatly, “I have to keep them safe.”

  Marcus knew he had no choice.

  Marcus had been present when Monica and Woods had put the safeguard in place. Despite the best of intentions, that safeguard was now jeopardising the occupants of the Warren. Woods was dead and Monica was not here to intervene; Marcus knew he’d have to tell Nathan and then hope for the best.

  “She told you to protect them?” Marcus began.

  “Yes,” he sat back in the sofa.

  “Nathan,” said Marcus, quietly, “Did you never wonder why you just accepted her word?”

  Nathan rubbed a hand across the back of his neck.

  “Everyone was in danger on the stairs, I had to -”

  “Before that,” Marcus prompted, “Since you arrived here?”

  “Why wouldn’t I accept her word?” Nathan frowned, “She always had my back.”

  Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out a battered-looking blue inhaler.

  “You worked on these with Woods, right?”

  “You know I did,” Nathan’s frown deepened.

  “Do you remember how you managed to develop it so quickly from Benton’s metathene samples?”

  “We used the computational analyser of the Z-bank Two that I brought with me,” Nathan shifted uncomfortably.

  “And you did it because Monica asked you to?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Marcus sat down in the armchair opposite him.

  “The three of us were in this same room, just after you arrived here with that Z-bank.”

  “I remember,” said Nathan, “It was when I met Monica for the first time.”

  “Second time,” Marcus stared at him.

  “No,” Nathan insisted, “I remember you slamming the lid of the transport pod, I passed out on the way down, then I woke up here. You both came in through that door.”

  Marcus took a deep breath.

  “You had a long conversation with Monica, two hours before that.”

  “I think I’d remember -”

  “You were told not to.”

  “Bullshit!” Nathan stood up.

  “Think about it, Nathan! When we were up top, under fire from a helicopter gunship, the room collapsing around us, you wouldn’t let the Z-bank out of your hands! You’d rather have died before letting go of that thing!”

  “There was no way I was going to let Luóxuán take it!” Nathan now spat.

  Marcus paused before replying.

  “And yet… right here… you had no problem with simply handing over the Z-bank to a woman you’d never met?”

  Nathan opened his mouth to reply but then appeared to change his mind. In the quiet room only the ticking of the wall clock filled the air.

  “You first met Monica in AR2, under an enhanced hypnosis technique that we used on the ego-morph. She used it to check if you were -”

  “Oh come on!” Nathan’s incredulity shone through.

  “You’re related to that bastard, Pittman, out there!” Marcus shot back, “Of course she wanted to suss you out. You could’ve been gathering intel for him.”

  “I hate that son of a bitch!” he shouted.

  “I know!” Marcus shouted back, “But we didn’t know back then! It was her way of making sure that you didn’t act against her.”

  “What was?”

  “When she’d finished questioning you, she blocked your recall but left a phrase in place.”

  “Oh, so you’re gonna use it on me now, right?”

  “No, it needs her voice,” said Marcus, “even if I used the words myself it wouldn’t -”

  “Just tell me,” said Nathan, firmly.

  “Nathan, might I suggest…” replied Marcus.

  “No, Marcus! I just want you to tell me.”

  Again, Marcus paused to make sure he had his full attention.

  “I’ve just told you. The compliance phrase Monica left behind was ‘Nathan, might I suggest…’.”

  Nathan’s eyes widened as Marcus continued.

  “It’s why you handed over the Z-bank, why you helped develop the inhaler, why you helped search for the Substandards’ descendants,” Marcus looked directly at him, “and I suspect it’s why you still want to protect the twelve.”

  The ticking of the clock filled the air again, something that Nathan now appeared to latch onto.

  “Wait a minute,” he shook his head, “You said I was out for two hours?”

  “Yes.”

  Nathan crossed the room to the twee-looking wall clock, apparently triumphant in a deduction he’d made.

  “I remember I checked the time after I woke up,” Nathan smiled.

  Marcus knew what was coming.

  “If I was out for two hours…” Nathan began.

  “… Then why did your wristwatch, that you keep hidden in your jacket pocket, show the same time?�
�� Marcus completed, “Because I was the one who found your watch and altered it.”

  Nathan’s smile vanished and he became quiet, apparently lost in a thought.

  “I don’t wear it on my wrist,” Nathan began.

  “In case it gets nicked,” Marcus quietly completed, “You told us all about it, and the inscription on the back.”

  Nathan sat back down on the sofa, unable to speak.

  The clock’s ticking emphasised the silence, then a single beep came from the laptop.

  ‘Compiling: 100%’

  Marcus quietly disconnected the VGA cable from the laptop and the television screen went black.

  “We do need to protect the twelve,” said Marcus, “but not by hiding up here.”

  Marcus opened the laptop’s security measures and deactivated its network camouflage. This time they’d see him coming.

  “It’s time to shake the Hive.”

  EXTERNAL VARIABLES

  4th July 2076

  Mike clipped his spacesuit’s long tether to a guide rail on the outside surface of the Ring and looked around to take in his new surroundings.

  From his position, the central axis of the ISS lay straight ahead; an apparently vertical stack of different modules, stretching beyond the confines of his helmet’s face plate.

  Surrounding that central axis, and standing on the Ring at equally spaced intervals were the Alpha, Beta and Gamma modules. The perspective reminded him of when he’d first seen the launchpad at Cape Canaveral; no doubt because the exterior surface of the modules still looked like the Space Shuttle liquid fuel tanks.

  A whistle sounded through the suit’s internal comm. He responded by whistling twice in return.

  “Just give me the award now…” came Cathy’s voice, “I’d like to thank the Archive Academy for its spare oxy-masks, Eva Gray for her one-on-one training sessions in convincing strangle holds…”

  Mike grinned glancing upward along the central axis, but wasn’t quite able to see the cupola module, “Are you finally getting a sense of humour, Gant?”

  “Piss off, Sanders,” she laughed, “I’ll have Benton break your neck too.”

  He heard her loudly crack her knuckles again.

  “Listen, she definitely checked her leg pocket when his back was turned,” Cathy continued, “My bet is that it’s in there.”

  “Shit,” Mike breathed heavily into his faceplate, “Benton was right to avoid taking her down directly. If she sets it off, even by accident, we’re talking serious damage.”

  “There’s no way to let Benton know, so we stick with the plan,” said Cathy, “get her contained in the Ring airlock where she can do least damage. On the plus side, she thinks I’m dead and we’ve got access to the cupola controls. I can see you from here, Mike - you need to pick up the pace, they’re in the Ring’s access tube.”

  Mike looked down again and sighted her point of reference. The connecting access tube ran from the central axis and, from his perspective at least, joined the Ring at around the three o’clock position.

  “Reading the controls here, it looks like we’ll still have to go ahead with the manual override.”

  “OK, I’m at I.A.3.”

  “I see you. You ready?”

  “Ready when you are,” he took hold of the locking pin on the access panel in front of him.

  “Disengaging safety on I.A.3 manual relay,” Cathy reported, “in three, two, one, mark.”

  Simultaneously, she released the lock and he twisted the pin.

  The access panel hinged open to reveal the manual relay board and, reaching in, he unseated it from its slot.

  “Done,” he reported, “Tell me again, Fai, why couldn’t you handle this electronically?”

  “The ISS is a conglomeration of disparate technologies,” Fai efficiently relayed, “using antiquated human-centric safety procedures requiring bi-location authentication.”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what I thought,” said Mike, dryly, “Moving on…”

  Mike transferred his tether to a separate guide rail and began manoeuvring along. At this location, but inside the Ring, was the meeting point of three pressure doors: two internal ones that protected each half of the Ring, and one that provided external access. The three-way airlock was the smallest aboard the ISS and therefore ideal for their purposes.

  “OK, I’m at I.A.4,” he reported.

  “Disengaging safety on I.A.4,” Cathy reported, “in three, two, one, mark.”

  Again, he twisted the locking pin in sync with her countdown. As before it was a simple matter to remove the manual relay board.

  From behind him and to the right, he suddenly became aware of a growing brightness. Instinctively he twisted to see the source and was greeted with the view of Jupiter, sedately making its way along the length of the ISS.

  He knew it was simply a consequence of the ISS continuing its grand Solar System loop, but words failed him as he marvelled at the sight. From his perspective, it looked as though Jupiter was the size of a beach-ball held at arm’s length.

  “Cathy, are you seeing this?” he spoke in wonder.

  “Repeat, Mike. Am I see-” she broke off, “Whoa!”

  “Yeah,” Mike replied then fell silent again to watch its stately progression.

  From pole to pole, the planet was wrapped in nebulous, reddish bands. Just below its equator, one of the bands that encircled the planet was broken in one place by a large, circular red spot; an Earth-sized, persistent and turbulent storm. A storm so old that it had even appeared in certain paintings of the eighteenth century. The storm apparently showed no sign of dissipation.

  It took Mike a few seconds to remember that they were not actually speeding past Jupiter; time was simply passing much faster outside the Field that was surrounding the ISS. In reality, this scale of perspective shift was taking many weeks.

  Mike found his eye drawn again to the dominant circular red spot, sitting within a swirling band that lapped the gas giant. The intensity of the spot was known to fluctuate over time, varying in hue from dark red to white, but in their accelerated time-frame it appeared to simply pulse on and off at irregular intervals.

  “Fai,” he managed, “Tell me that you’re getting this, I mean, are you recording this somehow?”

  “The Field only permits the detection of visible wavelengths, so I am only able to record high definition video.”

  “That will do, nicely,” Mike simply stared as Jupiter receded.

  Of all the humans ever to have lived, he and Cathy were the only ones to have witnessed this event from such a privileged position. The fact they were now leaving it behind, highlighted something else.

  “We’re heading home,” said Cathy.

  •

  Miles could see Valery’s reaction even before she voiced it.

  “Chen’s jumped-up personal organiser ruined it all.”

  Her body language had helped him gain clues, but this was verbal confirmation of her thought processes. Slowly he was moving towards finding out her true motivations.

  “I agree,” he built a rapport, “The fixing of the life-support system is what stopped us getting back to Earth.”

  “Wait,” she replied, “You agree?”

  Actually he didn’t, but it was a necessary sleight to manipulate her into assuming they were of similar mind. He simply nodded and pushed his way along the Ring’s interior, turning his back on her; his responses at this point needed to look non-confrontational.

  “Like me, Valery,” he reinforced their similarities, “I think you’ve reached the same conclusion.”

  As he began entering the override code for I.A.2, he waited for her to tell him the conclusion that they supposedly shared.

  “With Fai in control of so many systems,” said Valery, “Chen will be unstoppable.”

  Her issue was not actually with Fai, but with Dr. Chen himself. He could work with that.

  “Exactly,” he pulled open the door and stood aside, “So let’s change tha
t.”

  He intentionally waited to one side of the open door; a trick he’d frequently used during his school days to encourage people to go ahead of him. Unlike in the central axis, where he’d guided her away from Cathy’s performance, Valery now went ahead of him voluntarily.

  “You remember the Apollo 72 launch?” she said.

  “I remember the flight from Andersen immediately before it,” Miles replied, “Chen anaesthetised Dr. Bergstrom and myself for the actual launch.”

  “Well” she continued, “like everybody else, I assumed we’d be going back to Earth once the lunar shard impacts were over. But when the satellite networks went down and the tsunamis took out Canaveral… I just knew… my family would never be joining me up here. The oh-so-generous ‘Protected Lineage Directive’ wasn’t worth a damn! I still don’t know if they survived.”

  “I have no such ties,” Miles replied, “But the current year is 2076. Everyone we knew is dead.”

  He took no pleasure from his statement but it had the effect of getting her to reveal more about herself.

  “It’s Chen’s fault!” she brought herself to an abrupt halt outside Module Beta, “If we’d have taken the Shuttle back to Earth, I could have found my family!”

  There it was.

  The simple motivator at the heart of her anger. Archive had promised to protect her and her family. By bringing her here and denying all possible means of return, Dr. Chen had effectively broken Archive’s promise.

  “He’s going to pay,” she calmly unbuttoned a pocket and reached inside.

  Miles knew he’d been right to draw her away from the more critical areas of the ISS; she was starting to pull out the missing FLC flare gun.

  He understood that, under normal circumstances, the flare gun was used to disperse an arc of burning magnesium micro-beads into the low lunar gravity. Once ignited, they would leave a super-bright trail that pinpointed the gun’s origin. However, the emergency flare was designed to work in a vacuum. In here, the trace amounts of oxygen still present in the Ring’s environment would only increase the chances of severe damage to the ISS.

  Whatever Valery’s plan had been before they’d intervened, he realised that she was now operating emotionally. She’d stopped outside Module Beta because Dr. Chen was currently defenceless inside a hibernation unit on the other side of the module’s hatch.