The Embers of Hope: A science-fiction thriller (Hibernation Series Book 2)

by Nick Jones

  Nathan spoke slowly and clearly. ‘Fowler is alive and well. He’s living the good life, and I bet that burns you up, doesn’t it? I bet that just eats you up. I heard you spent millions looking for him.’

  It was true. Fowler had been Lynch’s right-hand man. His betrayal had been absolute and Lynch had spent eight years behind bars. Fowler had disappeared and Lynch had been searching ever since, throwing endless resources at finding him and never getting anywhere.

  Lynch appeared to calm down for a moment, as if someone had whispered something in his ear that made it all okay. ‘You found Fowler’s location at the vault, didn’t you? You were working with Logan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You guys blew that shit to pieces.’ Lynch raised his eyes and shrugged. ‘Nice bloody job, actually.’ It was almost as if he had forgotten the entire previous conversation. Nathan knew he hadn’t. In fact, he was just starting to get the measure of the man. Lynch’s mood seemed to sway like a pendulum across two stages. Stage left, a comedy show with an entertained and energetic crowd; stage right, an execution with Nathan’s neck in the noose.

  ‘I’m splintering,’ Nathan said. ‘In the late stages. The minute you start torturing me or even attempt a mind extraction, I’ll die and take Fowler’s location with me.’

  ‘Late stages?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lynch stared at him, stared for a very long time. ‘You’re right,’ he said eventually. ‘Knowing Conrad is still alive, that he’s out there, burns me up like the worst bout of clap you’ve ever known. But here’s the problem. How do I know you have him, I mean really have what I need to get to him?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Nathan said. ‘But I can tell you this: he’s in witness protection, living the life.’

  ‘Jesus wept.’

  Nathan leant in. ‘I have what you want. Get me my drugs and I will give you Fowler, but you need to do it now.’

  ‘And why’s that?’ Lynch hissed.

  ‘Because in a week there’s a good chance I will be in a padded cell blubbering like a baby, or worse – for you anyway – I’ll be dead.’

  ‘You don’t look like you’re splintering,’ Lynch huffed.

  Nathan shrugged, sullenly. ‘You’ve caught me on a good day. It won’t last.’

  Lynch looked like he knew all about the limits of drugs. He nodded and then began to rub his eyes so hard Nathan became convinced they would pop. When Lynch looked at him again his sockets were dark circles, like the surface of a dead volcano. ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said, ‘But on one condition.’

  ‘Yeah, and what’s that?’

  ‘You finish your drink. It’s fucking rude not to.’

  Chapter 33

  Three days after the assassination, Victor Reyland requested her company, explaining that she should dress for dinner. Zitagi applied her makeup in delicate strokes, with the patience and precision of an artist. Above her eyes she applied an oyster-like sheen, below, a thin sliver of eyeliner. She evened out the tones of her pale skin to perfection and pulled her platinum hair – which was longer than usual – up and back over her head, where it hung in a neat line just above her shoulders. She slipped into a pepper-white kimono and attached one of her grandmother’s brooches to the fold of material between her breasts and stared at herself for a long time before leaving her apartment.

  It was just after 7pm and the sun, low in the sky, bathed everything in its warm tangerine glow. Her limo drifted through the early evening traffic, accelerating and dodging like a squid through dark water. She passed a huge billboard advertising a television show called Just Visiting, which involved a comedic family looking after an alien stranded on earth. The alien – humanoid and friendly – turned out to be an ambassador charged with deciding the fate of the entire human race. The clip showed a fancy dress party where the alien finally got to mingle with humans and ended up drinking too much. The commercial wrapped up with the father offering a disapproving look.

  Often the world seemed a strange place to Zido. It was harsh and cruel, yet somehow innocent and naively likeable. She turned away. Jameson’s final words were still playing on her mind.

  The old man had stood for many things, but for most people, he was – had been, she corrected herself – a symbol of hope. Hibernation was his baby, as far as an ignorant world knew, anyway, and many called him its father. He had been the poster boy back then and now he was dead. Murdered. A kill ordered by the very agency he had created. Killed because he had made the age-old mistake of putting his own legacy under a microscope.

  You never do that, Zido thought, analyse your life and question every decision, not if you work in politics. You take the good with the bad and you never, ever look back.

  To her left she saw Big Ben and the Thames and the tiny lights of transports streaming all around. Her navigation system informed her they were close, and as the craft banked around she spotted the Harrison tower, one of London’s tallest. Her ship descended slowly towards the landing platform.

  Zitagi disembarked and walked to the entrance, which was marked by steel pipes that licked flames high into the air. She passed by a couple of security guards, who nodded as she entered the restaurant.

  It was small, twenty tables at most, and Zitagi consumed the details quickly. Fine dining. Quiet music. Middle-age clientele. Expensive. She was guided to a table where Victor Reyland greeted her warmly. He was alone.

  ‘It’s good to see you.’ He gestured for her to sit and waited until she did so before sitting back down. ‘It will be just the two of us this evening.’

  Zitagi nodded and smiled politely. She had attended many dinners, lunches and events with him. Some were to oil the wheels of his career; others were opportunities to discuss missions, projects and occasionally targets, but it was rare for them to dine alone this way.

  Reyland’s eyes sparkled and she noticed – not for the first time – how they seemed younger than the rest of him. His hair was thinning now, and his neck showed the lines of age, but he looked good and strong. When he spoke you could feel his life force taking control of those around him. Such was his gift. She suspected he would look tough as an ox, even on his deathbed.

  ‘You’re wondering what we’re doing here,’ he suggested.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied. ‘Not that it’s unpleasant.’

  ‘You’re wondering why there was no pre-brief.’

  Damn, he’s good.

  ‘It had crossed my mind, Sir.’

  He smiled again. The waiter arrived and Reyland ordered wine without consultation. ‘This is an important evening, Zido. One I have waited decades for.’ He paused and sipped from a tall glass of water. ‘For now, though, let’s enjoy dinner. Colleagues eating together, simple as that.’

  Zitagi blinked and pursed her lips. She wanted to say, ‘It’s never as simple as that,’ but managed instead to say, ‘Okay, then I will enjoy it.’

  The main course arrived and they ate, the conversation formal, the food excellent. When they finished, Zitagi folded her napkin on the table and said, ‘Sir, may I ask the reason you have bought me here tonight?’

  His patented stone exterior shifted a little and a concerned expression fell over him. ‘You are the best agent I’ve ever produced, Zido, do you know that?’ She didn’t reply. ‘The time has come for that to be recognised.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  He looked out across the city. The restaurant was rotating slowly and the view was a little different now. ‘We have a long evening ahead of us; it will all become clear. I want to tell you everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes, all of it. The reason we have been doing this for all these years. The truth, Zido, it’s time you knew the truth.’

  Sitting opposite Victor Reyland – the man she had idolised for so many years – Zitagi felt strangely lost. The truth? About what? Her heart was pounding and a heat was building in her core. She glanced quickly and carefully around the room. ‘You want to talk here?�
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  ‘No,’ Reyland said, eyes as blue and clear as morning, voice firm and efficient. ‘I have somewhere in mind.’

  Reyland escorted her out onto a veranda, where the stunning panoramic view offered an uninterrupted infinity view of London that was as impressive as it was vertigo-inducing. There were no railings, just the gentle shimmer of a force field, the only thing between them and a kilometre long fall. In the centre of the rooftop was a bar, with seating and lowlights. It was deserted. The moon shared the sky with the last of the sunset, high above them in a blue haze that would soon be black and pricked with stars. A gentle breeze meant the air was cool but pleasantly so.

  ‘You have been loyal, Zido,’ Reyland began, his voice cutting through the tranquillity of the scene. ‘You have never once faltered or questioned an order. Your last mission was the ultimate expression of that.’ He looked up at the moon. ‘Do you ever think about the past, about how we arrived at this point?’

  ‘Of course. All the time. The past defines us, shapes who we are.’

  He turned and looked at her. ‘Spoken like a true philosopher.’

  ‘You said you wanted to tell me the truth?’

  ‘Yes, and I will, but it is very important to me that you understand how we – or rather I – arrived here.’ He walked slowly towards the edge and then strolled. Zitagi joined him, the gentle buzz of the force field a welcome reminder that a deadly fall would not be allowed to happen. ‘There is a process to understanding, one that takes time,’ he continued. ‘Mankind once thought the Earth was only a few hundred million years old. Top scientists of the day argued and jostled to become the definitive authority. Even now, I’m not sure we will ever really know. We have our theories, of course, but history has shown that just when we think we know, we realise we’ve got it all wrong.’ He walked, his gaze drifting. ‘One of my favourites is continental drift. Alfred Wegener. It seems ludicrous now that anyone doubted his theories. You only have to look at the shape of the continents and how they line up, for God’s sake.’ He shook his head, laughing through his nose. ‘It seems so obvious. Yet for years, the finest brains on our planet ignored him.’

  ‘Sir, why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I want you to remember that even when we think we are sure, when we absolutely believe we have it right…’ He paused a beat. ‘Sometimes we don’t, sometimes something comes along and changes everything.’ He stopped and stared at the moon. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Zitagi replied simply.

  ‘We’ve been pulling Helium 3 from it for decades. Piping it down and feeding this hungry planet of ours.’

  Zitagi’s mind and heart were racing faster still. Where was he going with this? The Helium 3 moon program had started way back in 2070, not long after the world had been zoned. The Spacelift program had received massive funding and been updated to enable huge amounts of the rich energy source to be shipped down to Earth. The safe zones had a viable, long-term energy solution that wouldn’t run out. It was almost entirely pollution-free.

  ‘It’s a success story,’ she offered.

  ‘A success story indeed,’ Reyland mused. ‘And that’s all it is, Zido, a story, the first of many lies.’

  ‘Lies? What do you mean?’

  He frowned. ‘For the past thirty years we have shipped crates down.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Thousands of them, and nearly every shipment empty.’

  ‘Empty?’ She gasped. ‘Why would we do that?’

  Reyland stared at her with an intensity beyond his usual cold gaze. ‘Listen to me. We have been mining Helium 3 for thirty years, but it hasn’t been coming down.’

  ‘Then what have we been doing with it?’

  ‘That is what I want to show you.’

  Chapter 34

  Nathan ripped open the silver packaging and swallowed one of the large, coated pills. His head was spinning; sounds and voices screamed in his mind, his heart banged its irregular rhythm like a broken engine. He took a long shaking breath, in through his nostrils and back out through his mouth, praying for the drugs to kick in, knowing he couldn’t stand it if they didn’t work.

  He felt their clarifying effects almost immediately, the medication somehow gluing the remaining strands of his sanity together. He sighed loudly, a massive wave of relief crashing through him, cold sweat chilling his body. He was going to need this clarity to get the job done.

  It was early evening when he arrived at the pub. It was quiet, just a few old men reading papers and glancing up at muted horseracing. Behind the bar, a stern ruddy-cheeked man nodded at Nathan’s request for a coffee. ‘Take a seat,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring it over.’

  Nathan found a good position tucked away near the back of the pub. He flipped open his terminal and paused for a moment, glancing up at the barman who stood at a chrome-plated coffee machine heating a jug of milk. He hadn’t looked at Nathan twice, had no reason to, didn’t care who he was or what his story might be. Nathan knew he should be relieved, considering the state he had been in earlier, but it left him strangely saddened. Even when the drugs did their work, and he was given the chance to be normal for a while, his identity was a lie, borrowed and subsequently stolen from David Shaw. Nathan was walking around in his body, living in his skin. He shrugged and sighed. Identity was such a fragile thing, hard to define and even harder to truly know.

  Know thyself, he mused, deciding he didn’t anymore, and this left him with a profound sense of displacement. He wondered if this was what it might feel like to be a ghost, transparent, like it wouldn’t matter if the pub collapsed because the rubble would just fall through him.

  The barman broke his daydream. He placed a large coffee on the table and held out a scanner. Nathan exhaled; it flashed red.

  ‘Can I pay cash?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Yeah, about ten years ago.’ The barman’s voice sounded like he had been gargling tar. He tipped his head at the coffee. ‘You want this or not?’

  ‘Give me five minutes,’ Nathan said. ‘I just need to move some credits around.’

  The barman scoffed, flipped his hands in the air and walked away.

  Keeping David Shaw current and legal was an endless struggle and Nathan had become complacent. Passkeys and licenses required constant attention. This was punishment for not maintaining the authenticity of his fake identity, but Nathan realised the ghostlike feeling that had come over him was actually a creeping sense of loss. Paying for the coffee was the least of his worries, and it wasn’t a collapsing building that he should be worried about either; it was his own identity, his real one, the one that was crumbling away, eroding like layers of skin. If he wasn’t David Shaw and was losing Nathan O’Brien to splintering, then who the hell was he?

  He drank his coffee in three gulps and then did his best to stitch his virtual identity back into a useable state. It took longer than usual but he managed to get something workable. Public transport and basic outlets would still accept him, but his other options, like a series of doorways, were being locked at an alarming rate. Travelling out of the UK would be impossible and anywhere with a decent amount of security was also off limits.

  There was nothing more he could do for David Shaw. He transferred a small, safe amount of credits and then moved onto the business of Jen’s DNA and the man who was going to give it to him.

  Colin P. Blake had worked for the Metropolitan Police since leaving college. His résumé was beautifully predictable. Thirty-four years’ service, the last seven spent at the records office in East Greenwich. The previous evening Nathan had followed him to a bar, not dissimilar to the one he found himself in now. There, Colin P. Blake had enjoyed a few drinks with friends, eaten fish and chips, paid his bill and gone home. His cutlery and beer glass had given Nathan enough to get started. It was ironic, he thought, the idea of using DNA to catch DNA.

  He logged into the Greenwich database, searched out the date and requested a DNA file from the trap that had
ensnared Jen. A series of checks, passwords and scans confirmed that senior records officer C. P. Blake had the required authority for this request. Nathan couldn’t help but smile when the file appeared. For so long the idea of finding Jen’s DNA had seemed impossible, almost laughable, and yet, it had been easy. Something had actually gone right for once; a huge, difficult thing had ended up being so simple. He smiled, logged out of the system and approached the bar.

  ‘A pint, please,’ he said, hopping up onto a stool. ‘Something local.’

  The barman raised an eyebrow and pushed the scanner towards him again. This time the small light flashed green.

  When Nathan took a sip of beer he felt human again, a rare moment of normality. In his possession was one of the most complicated forms of information known to man: a double helix, everything required to stitch together a perfect copy of Jennifer Logan. Of course, it would be flesh and bone only – the mind and memory were entirely different – but it was something. He now needed a replicator, and although that still felt like a mountain compared to his recent triumphs, he felt he deserved a moment of reflection, a moment of celebration.

  He raised his glass and made a silent toast.

  To Colin P. Blake, a decent and no doubt extremely boring civil servant who would never know the good he did for others.

  Chapter 35

  Reyland stood on the very edge of the building and looked down. Zitagi could see the crackle of the safety shield gently bouncing against him, rocking him like a baby in its arms. He turned to her. ‘Technology is amazing, isn’t it?’

  She inched forward, the cool air stronger here, a threat, waiting to push her at any moment. She didn’t want to show fear – not to Reyland – so joined him at the edge and looked down on the life below and then confidently across at the erupted high-rise buildings of London.