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

by Nick Jones

  ‘We’ve paid our money,’ Nathan barked. ‘When will she be ready?’

  The American composed himself and calmed his men.

  ‘Okay, okay, relax.’ He looked over at a young man, who walked to the replicator and began tapping away at an attached console. After a few seconds he said, ‘She’ll be ready in fifty-two minutes.’

  ‘And once you start’ – the American’s lips pinched in a bitter grin – ‘you have about ten minutes to load her up. After that, she wakes and you better pray you did it right, cause it isn’t pretty otherwise.’ He sniffed again and spat a large globule of green gunk onto the floor. ‘Fucking deserts man, I hate them.’ He barked at his men. ‘Let’s give the faggot-lovers some time alone.’

  The men laughed and were gone as quickly as they had appeared. The American paused for a moment and eyed them with fierce suspicion. ‘I don’t know what the hell you are up to, but this had better run like fucking clockwork. You understand?’

  ‘We just want to get this done and then get out of here,’ Nathan said.

  ‘Good.’ The American nodded at the replicator. ‘That thing has already drawn enough power to light Oman for a week.’ He smacked George’s shoulder and winked. ‘If you screw this up it will be a waste of damn good flesh. I mean she’s hot, man, really hot.’

  Chapter 57

  Zitagi had arrived in Dubai the previous afternoon, checked into a cash-only hotel and immediately begun the task of shaking down known local contacts. Criminal influence ran like venom through the blood of the city, but her initial investigations had come up short. Not surprising. Whoever had used the Histeridae recently – and she still suspected that to be George Mohanty – they weren’t necessarily connected to the criminal world. She thought of him, the scientist who had slipped through their net, the last surviving member of the Histeridae project. It had to be him.

  She zipped up her black combat jacket and slid various knives and weapons into concealed pockets and holsters. She spun a throwing knife deftly between her hands, the blade catching the light. It had been a few years since she had killed anyone using a knife, but the speed and silent nature appealed to her.

  Her room was a cheap hovel with suspect stains and a bed that smelt like a stable. It didn’t matter. She was taking clarity enhancers and wouldn’t need to sleep for a week. Sometimes modern medicine was wonderful.

  She checked her active contacts, picking up three heat signatures in the adjacent room; ambient temperature, distance targeting, all seemed to be working perfectly. She laid out an assortment of weapons on a long table. She would be going in alone and that would require stealth. A silenced tranquilliser called out to her.

  Also on the table was a slim metal tube around twelve inches long. It projected a solid-looking screen above and a keyboard of light onto the surface of the table. An alert sounded and a map zoomed quickly to a location. Red circles pulsed over satellite imagery of a large construction. Zitagi frowned and leaned in. The Histeridae’s signal was very weak compared to the one received in the desert, but she knew what she was looking for and this was a clear, triangulated reading.

  She smiled. She felt like an athlete, a sprinter kneeling in the blocks waiting for the starter’s gun, and Mohanty had just fired.

  She burst from the building into the searing afternoon sun and sprinted towards the roof. A single-seater aircraft was stored there, concealed under a tarpaulin. She pulled the cover, slipped inside and fired up its engines. Her augmentation calculated the journey time to the desalination plant in Oman, advising her that the flight would take twenty minutes. As she took to the air she aimed to make it in ten.

  Chapter 58

  Dust drifted through the long shafts of light like silt on an ocean floor. Nathan approached the chamber, sending tiny particles dancing through the air. The replicator, battered and patched together, no longer existed. All he could see was Jen. After four years apart he was struggling to comprehend the few inches of space between them.

  The glass inside the chamber was beaded with condensation. Jen looked beautiful and peaceful inside the pod, exactly as she had before he’d lost her. Seeing her again was wonderful but it also threatened to revive the nightmares, the ones where her eyes would flash open, as dark as space itself. He shook them away, pressing his forehead to the thick glass. He felt the replicator’s gentle vibration.

  Mohanty spoke, quietly and with reverence, as though this space had become a kind of temple. ‘Once the growth deceleration kicks in there’s only a short amount of time to get the job done.’

  Nathan turned to Mohanty, overcome with gratitude. ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming back, George.’ His voice cracked. ‘I don’t know what I would have done.’

  George stood beside him. ‘She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?’ he whispered. Nathan agreed and they remained like that for a while, taking in the strange, hypnotic life force of a body yet to receive a soul.

  ‘How does it work?’ Nathan asked. ‘How do you bring her back?’

  Mohanty was looking at the empty chamber to their left. ‘Normally, the donor would go in there and their mind would be transferred into the host.’

  ‘But that’s not going to work for us.’

  ‘No, I just need to be close to her.’

  Nathan walked over to the empty chamber. ‘They’ll probably need to go through the motions, though, right?’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know.’

  A voice interrupted them. ‘What are you talking about?’

  They turned. It was the technician. He stared at them, thin arms pushed deep into his trouser pockets, his jaw working on some gum. Nathan realised he was no more than a kid.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ Mohanty demanded.

  The tech smiled playfully. ‘Long enough to know you are about to waste this fine specimen.’ He pushed a thick layer of hair up over his head. ‘How the hell are you planning to do this without getting in there?’ He pointed at the empty pod, but his tone wasn’t aggressive. If anything he seemed genuinely interested.

  ‘When the time comes, you just need to open her chamber,’ said Nathan.

  The tech continued to chew his gum, eyes wide and shiny. ‘Sure.’ He walked to the replicator’s console. ‘I can do that, but it won’t work.’

  Nathan joined him. ‘Listen, I know you probably think we’re crazy, but you need to do exactly as we say.’

  The kid looked up at him. ‘Buddy, I’ve done four of these. Three went like clockwork, the other –’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Nathan said, sharply.

  The kid stared at the screen and then back at him. ‘All I’m saying is if you don’t follow procedure…’ He shook his head and whispered, ‘Jeez, I’m trying to help you guys.’

  Nathan considered the technician. Why wouldn’t he want things to work? Surely it wasn’t in anyone’s interest to see a fresh host – especially one as beautiful as Jen – fall from one of those chambers like a rag doll, just an empty shell, void of life.

  Nathan decided to tell him the truth because in less than an hour it wouldn’t matter anymore; none of this would. ‘Her mind is stored in a device,’ he said, ‘and George is going to channel it back into her body.’

  The kid blinked rapidly for a few seconds. ‘Sounds like some kind of seance or something.’

  George tutted and shook his head.

  The kid considered things for a moment longer and then, with a smile that radiated confidence, said, ‘I am totally in.’

  Chapter 59

  Zitagi was twenty thousand feet up and just over a mile from the plant. Although she felt it was unlikely anyone would be scanning the skies, she took no chances. She plugged in a suitable automated landing spot, well away from the plant. The cockpit opened, her craft tipped forward and Zitagi unbuckled, jumping headfirst towards the ground. She tilted forward and relaxed into a controlled free fall.

  Below her, the perimeter fence glowed like a ring of fire. In its centre a target
appeared, the highest rooftop. As she broke a thousand feet her backpack popped open and twin, transparent sails formed behind her. She landed gracefully and silently in the centre of the rooftop. The canopy drifted a little and then disintegrated, like a million silver insects on the wind.

  She crouched and took in her surroundings, felt the pounding of energy from the machinery below working up though her body. Other than that it was quiet; no one had come running. Water scarcity meant that desalination plants were potential terrorist targets, but her expectation of an organised, armed response was low.

  She jogged to the edge of the building, lay flat on her stomach and surveyed the area. The location of the Histeridae pulse was nearby, inside one of the blue hangars ahead. Her on-board computer went to work calculating the best point of entry. It offered two options: a stairwell or a venting duct. She chose the latter and was up and running.

  The duct was large but the metal thin, and after a small amount of laser cutting she was inside. It tapered down into a square metal tunnel just big enough for her to travel but not to turn around. Her beacon advised her she was only a few hundred feet away but the duct didn’t line up in that exact direction. She hadn’t had time to download the blueprints but her computer was busy running a simulation. In her experience, they were usually accurate enough to get the job done. A route appeared and she crawled silently forward.

  Minutes later she stopped, directly above the beacon, a green circle lighting the back of her retina. She picked up multiple heat signatures, some distant and weak but three below that were clear and active. She calculated that if she cut here, the drop would be too far.

  She crawled further and slid down into a larger section of ducting, a junction, splitting off in multiple directions. Her sonar revealed a walkway directly below. She cut a hole in the thin metal and peeled it back, the edges glowing white-hot. After checking for anyone nearby she jumped down, her boots hitting the metal with a bang. Loud, whirring machinery concealed the noise.

  She looked up at the smouldering hole in the ducting and considered her options. How often do you really look up? Not enough to worry, she decided. She continued to scan the area and crept to a nearby door, peering through its circular window into a large open hangar filled with green and blue machinery. She spotted the men next to a large machine but couldn’t see it clearly.

  Gingerly, she pulled the handle of the door; locked, as expected. She pressed her face to the glass and enhanced the image, her retinal contact whirring as tiny machines increased the image by a factor of ten. Her heart tightened and then pumped quickly. It felt as though time had stopped for a moment, the past suddenly cascading through her mind.

  Of all the scenarios she had imagined, she could never have conceived of this one. The machine was a replicator, and inside was Jennifer Logan and somehow, God only knew how, these men were planning to bring her back.

  Chapter 60

  George was kneeling, preparing himself as if in meditation. The Histeridae glowed brighter with each beat of his heart, as if swelling with anticipation. He inhaled through his nose and then exhaled slowly from his mouth, attempting to clear his mind. Somehow he knew what was coming, and as the memory filled him, one of the most vivid from his childhood, George knew he was powerless to fight it.

  He was seven years old, and after days of relentless pressure his parents had finally agreed to take him to a traditional circus touring the local villages and towns. There was only one act George wanted to see, the reason he wanted to go. The trapeze.

  A packed crowd hushed as spotlights settled on two shapes, a man and a woman climbing thin wooden steps that seemed endless. Up they climbed into the roof of the big top. The pair transferred to their respective bars and began swinging, gathering momentum. The woman was beaming a wide ‘for the crowd’ smile. The man was stern, his lithe body taut and muscular.

  While everyone else was looking up, George stared at the ground, where twenty minutes earlier horses had been galloping and clowns cartwheeling. It was covered in a thin layer of sawdust. There was no safety net.

  There were fearful gasps from the crowd. George looked up. The man – who looked so small now as to be a toy – was hanging by his knees, facing the ground and swinging back and forth. The woman was gripping the bar of her swing with both hands, hanging straight and moving in unison with him, pushing her legs forward to gain speed. Each time the pair approached and nearly touched in the middle, the crowd gasped in anticipation. George understood what was going to happen and squeezed his mother’s hand tightly, so hard that she glanced down at him with a concerned frown.

  The lady released and time stood still, and George knew she was going to fall. For a split second, when her hands connected with her partner and the dry slap of chalk puffed in a cloud around them, he thought he might be wrong. But then, as their momentum continued and her fingers slid down his forearms, he knew. With a single shout – one that haunted little George, and probably everyone else, in the years that followed – she began her fall. She passed a searchlight, silhouetted like a diving bird, and the crowd swelled into a terrible roar of fear, shock and disbelief. The woman managed one more, shrill cry before striking the ground with a dull thud and a sickening crunch of bone. People ran and pushed, knocking into him, but through those shifting bodies George saw her. She was twisted and broken, her head turned awkwardly.

  Seeing her like that sent a shivering coldness through him. The screaming panic of the crowd was all around him but it was when he saw her blink, just once, that George realised a truth about the world. It wasn’t enough that she be dead; that would be almost too easy, too fair. Although her body was contorted into grotesque and impossible angles, her head was facing the roof of the big top, ensuring she could see her partner and the beautiful heights she would never reach again. Some things are worse than death.

  Breathe, George, he commanded his shaking body, in through the nose and out through the mouth.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Nathan’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  Mohanty opened his eyes. He was kneeling in front of the replicator, the Histeridae on the floor beside him. He looked at Nathan and managed a weak smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, lying as best he could. ‘I’m nearly ready.’

  Nathan nodded back confidently. George knew Nathan believed in him. Why wouldn’t he? George had told him that they could do this, that he could do this, and at times had even believed it himself. But now, with minutes to go, he was wracked with doubt. He was about to enter the Histeridae, and his inner demons had chosen to throw a party and invite the falling trapeze artist as guest of honour. Bringing that kind of baggage into the Histeridae was dangerous. He needed to focus and quickly. He glanced at the technician, who was staring into his screen with intense concentration.

  The American returned. ‘Didn’t miss the party, did I?’ he shouted.

  ‘Nope, you’re just in time,’ the tech replied.

  George winced. Concentrate. You can do this.

  But his subconscious whispered sweet, cruel nothings in his ear and George was filled with doubt. He saw the trapeze artist falling and hitting the ground over and over, her face shifting from her own grotesque grin to Theo’s and back again.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ the American hollered, wiping food from his mouth with a napkin and staring at Mohanty. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘We’re not doing it the usual way,’ Nathan replied.

  ‘No shit!’ The American laughed, his voice deliberately high for maximum effect. He pointed at George and then the empty chamber. ‘You are supposed to go in there!’

  The technician raised both hands in the air and shouted, ‘However you’re planning to do this, you need to start now. Growth deceleration is complete. I’m starting the timer.’ He keyed the screen and then spun it to face the group. Ten minutes became 9:59. He wiped his brow with his sleeve. ‘She’s all yours.’

  George felt Nathan’s hand on his shoulder and heard him say, ‘Good luck, I beli
eve in you, you can do this.’ But the voice was distant and thin. He grabbed at Nathan’s hand and it slipped from his own, which was wet with perspiration. He shifted his mind to Jacob, his friend, and tried to calm his pounding heart. He stared up at the chamber, at Jennifer Logan in all her lifeless beauty and then down at the Histeridae. The lozenge, usually a deep, glossy black, was alive with colour. Every thought George channelled its way – good or bad – sent flickering red sparks bursting from its core like fireworks of blood.

  Previously, when using the Histeridae, George had thought of himself as the conductor, orchestrating the device. Now the Histeridae wanted to use him, to play through him. He closed his eyes and gave himself to it and everything around him disappeared.

  Chapter 61

  Zitagi watched, perched above them in the shadows like a bird of prey waiting to strike. Her mission was to retrieve the Histeridae but now she was reeling. Jennifer Logan was a ghost, one Zitagi had buried a long time ago.

  Logan’s death had been unfortunate but now, with her newfound knowledge, it came with a chorus of questions. The chance that Logan could be brought back was interesting. Her mind was processing at speed but her next move wasn’t clear. She decided to watch and wait.

  The group were six in total: three near the replicator, another three, armed with pistols, dotted below. She attempted an identity scan but the nearby machinery was scrambling her systems. It didn’t matter. She recognised George Mohanty from her briefing documents and smiled. She was right after all.

  He was kneeling in front of the replicator in what appeared to be some kind of prayer. The man next to him spoke – she couldn’t hear what he said – and after that the one who looked like a lab technician set a timer.

  What followed was a period of inactivity that initially made no sense at all. Why go to all the trouble of a replication when there was no host? The answer, which had been dancing at the edge of her mind all along, revealed itself at almost exactly the same time the Histeridae began to glow. Like a beacon of crimson light it bathed the room blood-red. A sheen of fresh sweat broke across her back and it all made sense. They didn’t need a host, they had somehow stored Logan inside the Histeridae, and George Mohanty was guiding her back.