“What the...”
“Lean into the fall,” says Sattva “Quickly, now.”
It’s spreading into my torso, this tingling heat, dissolving what’s left of me, consuming my chest, inching closer to my neck, and I lift my chin, my muscles straining to stop me drowning in nothing until it takes my face... I can’t do it!
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I hear Aiyana’s voice at the same time as I feel the push between my shoulder blades, and I’m falling.
A rush of light consumes me, a roaring in my ears, and then the chime, clear and steady, the only sound.
Something flaps on either side of me and the ground falls away. The rooftop shrinks beneath and the streets diminish. Now the wind is the only sound, rushing with each beat of wings. Banking to the left, a tower block looms, then withdraws, the thermals bring the dome of the sky closer, darker now that the sun’s gone, sprinkled with a few diamond stars. Below, the world is sharper, still as far away, but I can see the details like I never could before. It’s easy. It’s effortless. I’m free.
See? says Curiosity. I told you.
Fuck you, says Logic.
“YOU PUSHED ME!” It’s the first thing that comes out when I touch down, as soon as I’ve established that I’m back in my own skin.
“You’d still be dithering if it weren’t for me. I did you a favour.” Aiyana turns to Sattva. “Now can we get on with it?”
“I’d like to hear what Robert made of his experience first.”
“Yeah, how was it, Robert?” Casimir’s eyes are wide with anticipation, as though he’s been waiting to ask me this for a long time.
“I... it was incredible.”
“Any fear?” asks Sattva.
“No, it was... it was like I’ve always known how.”
“That’s good,” says Sattva. “Then you’re ready.”
He glances up as the stars begin to show themselves.
“Are you happy that you know what you’re going to do when you get there?” asks Balaquai.
“Yes.” I’ve been rehearsing the programming in my mind.
“We’ll give you any help you need.”
“Robert,” says Sattva, “do you still have Cora’s goblet?”
I reach into the pocket of my jeans and take out the small box. My thumb glances the foil as I click it open. With no warning, it hits me again, that sudden flash of light inside my brain – this time her hands are tied awkwardly behind her, her face shrouded by her hair. She lifts her head slowly, almost as if she knows I can see her, but something’s changed. Her eyes aren’t pleading. They look like they’ve lost the fight – they’re resigned. Her lids close and she drops her head.
I find myself on all fours, retching, and feel a hand on my back. Distant voices speak above me.
“Did you see it, Sattva?” It’s Balaquai.
“Yes,” replies Sattva. “They must be on the move. Go with Robert to ORB. Arcos and I will try to find them.”
It brings me to my senses. “No. I’m going with you.” I stumble to my feet, my legs still trembling.
“Robert,” says Sattva gently, his hand grasping his glowing amulet, “we don’t have much time. Cora’s signal has too much interference and we have only a small window. Even now, it’s fading. You’re not strong enough yet. You deal with ORB. We’ll do what we can to find them.”
“But...”
There’s a flash of blue-white light and a small spiral of dust whips up from the place where Sattva stood.
I feel gored by the image in my head. Impotent.
“Robert,” says Casimir. “We need to go.” He helps me to my feet like I’m an old man; the irony isn’t lost on me.
“Aiyana,” says Balaquai. “Do you have the photograph?”
She walks towards us, reaching into her back pocket, her eyes lingering on the picture as she hands it to Balaquai.
“How do we get there?”
“Just like you did before,” says Balaquai. “Let the bird take you.” He stares at the picture for a moment then hands it to me. “Ready?”
He leans from the edge and disappears in a flare of blue-white light.
Chapter Seventeen
WE BREAK THROUGH the clouds above an empty field. The air rushes at me as I head towards the flash of light on the ground where Balaquai has transformed, and then I’m standing there next to him. Within seconds, Aiyana and Casimir are by our sides. The birds flap off into the sky. A concrete bunker sits in the corner of the field surrounded by an electric fence.
“Where are we?” asks Casimir.
“The ORB helipad. I thought it would have taken us to Banks’s house.”
“He must have come this way recently,” says Balaquai. “How do we get in?”
I lead them to the trapdoor inside the bunker and kneel down, opening the cover on the electronic keypad beside it. “I don’t know the code.”
“You don’t need the code,” says Balaquai. He steps through the trapdoor and disappears. Aiyana follows.
“Remember, you’re mostly empty space,” Casimir says. “Supersymmetric particles, okay?”
Empty space, that’s all. Empty space. I press my hand against the metal, and feel a change in its substance, a springiness that wasn’t there before. I push my foot through its fabric with a feeling like squelching through soft putty. A wave of nausea washes over me as the rest of me follows. It subsides when I get through to the other side.
“Make sure you’re unseen,” says Balaquai.
We’re standing in a white corridor. Me and three other ghosts. I can just see their forms like the shadow of steam on a wall.
“Which way, Robert?” asks Casimir.
“Wait. I can still make you out.”
Balaquai’s shadow turns to me. “It’s alright. No one else can.”
We make our way along the empty corridors to the main atrium.
“Where now?” asks Casimir.
I head for the corridor marked A Sector.
Aiyana lingers by the C Sector entrance, clutching her photograph. “I think Banks is down here somewhere.”
“I need you with me, Aiyana,” I say.
“Why?”
“You’re my distraction.”
“We’ll look for Banks,” says Balaquai, taking the photograph from Aiyana. “You can come for him when you’re done.”
Casimir and Balaquai disappear into C Sector, and we’re on our own.
I HOLD MY breath as we pass through the door into Mr Y’s office. What if he sleeps here? Reggie’s brown and golden scales are just visible at the bottom of the tank, but there’s no sign of his weirdo owner.
“A snake?” whispers Aiyana.
“I know.”
I walk over to the security drawer and reach inside, feeling for the edges of the foam base, the top right corner, and retrieve the USB stick next to it.
There’s a rustling as Reggie slithers through the leaves at the bottom of his tank. Aiyana takes a step back. I turn the USB stick over to read its label. Canadian Crippler. Bingo.
“Let’s go.”
On the way out, I toss a couple of cola bottles into the tank for Reggie. He hisses as he slithers towards them.
We make our way back to D Sector, pausing as a buggy hums past us; the driver shows no sign of seeing us. I catch Aiyana by the arm as we approach the Hub corridor. “Okay. Here’s what I need you to do.”
WE PASS THROUGH the glass partition leading to the Hub, pausing half way along. Voices come from inside.
“You can inform the others, but not Robert Strong.” Dana Bishop.
“I told him I’d update him.” Luke’s voice.
“And I’m telling you not to. Nothing changes until I get confirmation that we have access control. Understood?”
We press ourselves into the wall as Dana exits the Hub. She touches the earpiece of her headset. “Get Banks to my office in thirty minutes. He has some explaining to do.”
I feel a warm ripple in my arm as she walks thought it, an
d catch the scent of her perfume breezing past. Her pace slows as she reaches the partition at the end of the corridor. She glances back, her hand hovering on the release button for the door for a moment that goes on too long. I freeze as her eyes narrow. She punches the button, the door slides open and she walks out. I exhale a long breath.
“We’ll get to Banks.” I breathe. “Remember, seven minutes.”
Aiyana steps forward to the Hub entrance, fully visible. “Excuse me?”
Lambert looks up from his console.
“Hi. Sorry to interrupt, but could you help me?”
“How did you get in here?”
“Eh, through the door.”
“D’you have clearance for this project?”
“Your scanner let me in. I’m trying to get back to Area 9 – it’s my first day here. Can you show me where it is?”
“Well, I can’t leave my station, but I can tell you how to get there.”
“Would you mind just showing me? We’re in the middle of something and they expected me back fifteen minutes ago. I’ve already got lost twice and I don’t want to screw up on my first day.” She bites her lower lip a little and inclines her head. “Please?”
Lambert blushes. “Oh, okay. It’s not far.
“So what do you do in Area 9?” he asks as they walk past me.
She smiles mischievously. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
The partition slides closed behind them.
I minimise the pages on Lambert’s screen, pull up the Grid programs and begin the changes. I slide the Canadian Crippler into the USB port and link it to the trigger – the detection of Linux Scientific software uploading to the Grid. It’s cutting it fine, but will buy the most time for Cora. The scene unfolds as it has done in my mind over countless rehearsals. Haste will cost me time and mistakes, so I’m methodical, focused. A circle of dots chases itself on the screen.
Footsteps echo in the corridor. I rearrange the pages as the dots keep circling...
Lambert crosses the threshold of the room. Fuck.
He passes his console, walks to the umbrella plant and tips in a cup of water.
The dots disappear as he throws the cup in the bin. I tease the memory stick from the port and silently slide out of the chair.
BALAQUAI IS WAITING when I reach the atrium, studying Aiyana’s photograph.
“Well?” he asks.
“It’s done.”
“No sign of Banks.” Casimir’s shadow appears beside us.
Balaquai glances at the photograph again. “This Imprint should take us right to him. He’s nearby, but it’s as if something’s scrambling the link here.”
“Never mind. I know where he’ll be in twenty minutes. He’s meeting Dana Bishop in her office.”
“You know where that is?” asks Casimir.
“Yes.”
“Where’s Aiyana?” asks Balaquai.
“What, she’s not back yet?” I start back the way I came. “We’d better find her.”
THE CORRIDOR TO Area 9 is as I remember it – dim, grey, sinister. The whispers strike up as we pass through the glass partition. Balaquai and Casimir freeze.
“Something’s very wrong here,” Balaquai breathes.
There’s no sign of Aiyana. We move towards the metal door at the end of the corridor, pausing outside before passing through it.
Inside is large dark open space. In the middle is the transparent cylindrical tank reaching from beneath the floor to beyond the ceiling. Grey mist spins around a beam of light that seems to come from deeper underground. Surrounding the tank at intervals on the floor, are blue domes of varying sizes. Their surfaces swirl and shimmer, glimmering with a peculiar inner light. Aiyana is standing staring into one of the domes. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her.
“What are they doing here?” Casimir whispers.
Aiyana doesn’t take her eyes off what’s inside. Beyond the murk is a rat, sitting perfectly still and blinking rapidly. I walk between the domes. Another rat, a dog, three monkeys, all unmoving, some staring ahead, others blinking. Beside each dome is a console displaying data: heart rate, respiratory rate, serum norepinephrine, serum cortisol, neutrophil function...
“Stress responses,” whispers Aiyana.
Balaquai walks to the rear of the vast room, behind the tank. We follow him towards a dome much larger than the others. Inside is a man; naked, lying on his side, staring ahead. His ribcage is moving rapidly; making it uncomfortable to watch it. I crouch down, eye level with his gaze. A jolt of recognition hits me: it’s Abrams, the aircraft engineer. I can tell from his eyes that he’s suffering. I reach for the surface of the dome and I become aware of something pushing back, like an unseen force repelling my palm. I glance up at Balaquai. “It impenetrable.”
Balaquai’s shadow-hand hovers over the dome but does not pass through. “I can’t sense him.”
Casimir moves closer. “Neither can I.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I can see him, but I can’t sense his mind. The dome is some kind of shield. It’s blocking the signature of his consciousness in the Field; cutting him off.”
“We have to get him out,” says Aiyana.
“No. It would jeopardise Robert’s efforts,” Balaquai says.
Behind us, a door opens. A man in scrubs and a facemask walks in carrying a digital tablet. He stops beside Abrams’ monitor; Abrams’ stress responses are in the red. I move behind him until I can see the screen of his tablet over his shoulder. The title ‘MINDSCAPE’ heads the pages as he scrolls through the data. I feel Balaquai’s hand on my arm, pulling me back. Silently, we leave the room.
WE REACH THE corridor of G Sector just before Peter Banks strides down it. Aiyana bristles as he passes. He walks into Dana Bishop’s office and we filter in silently behind him.
“Don’t you knock?” Dana is sitting at her desk, her fingers poised above the keyboard of a laptop.
Banks ignores her and takes a seat at the other side of the desk. “What do you want, Dana?”
“One of our Californian sources informs me that police are investigating the murder of a Ms Aiyana Wolfe.”
“And?”
“Did you kill her?”
“She’d have talked if I didn’t.”
Aiyana edges towards Banks. “Not yet,” I breathe in her ear.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Peter.” Dana lights up a cigarette. “It’s messy.”
“Messy? She was a smart little bitch. I got you what you needed, plus insurance that she’ll stay silent. That’s a clean outcome. It’s what Amos would want, given what’s at stake.”
Dana puffs out a ring of smoke and holds up a red memory stick. “This is the only one you found?” She slots it into the USB port.
“That’s all. Do you think she was onto Mindscape?”
Dana studies the screen. “No. I think she stumbled on the side-effect of the medium, that’s all. The electromagnetic fluctuations are a by-product, but I doubt she would know what they really represent.”
“You look tired, Dana. When did you last get some sleep?”
She snorts. “Sleep’s not an option until this is over.”
“When will that be?”
“In just a few hours. Lambert’s team have cracked admin access to CERN. We’re just waiting for Trench to run some final checks on Surrey’s firewalls to make sure they won’t interfere, but he’s confident we’ll be ready before CERN launch. Relying on Strong was always a gamble, but we had no other option until now.”
“I thought he’d have caved when we took his family.”
“Would you?”
“Probably.”
“Are they secured?” she asks.
“I’m told they are.”
Dana’s headset bleeps and she picks it up. “I’ll be right there.” She takes a drag and stubs out her cigarette, pausing as she passes him. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” He runs a hand down the side of her thigh.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He leans back in the leather chair, his hands clasped behind his head as Dana closes the door behind her.
Aiyana leans forwards and breathes out a long slow breath on the back of Banks’s neck. He springs forward, staring over his shoulder, then snorts and settles back in the seat. Aiyana grips the chair and spins it hard. Banks yelps and stumbles to his knees.
“Who’s there?” He scrambles to his feet.
Aiyana takes the photograph from Balaquai and tosses it onto the floor, where it becomes fully visible.
Banks mumbles something, his face the colour of wet clay, and darts for the door.
Aiyana pulls the memory stick from the laptop before following Banks out of the room.
He’s in one of the washrooms at the end of the corridor, his face in his cupped hands over the sink, water dripping through his fingers. Casimir guards the door as Aiyana’s shadow turns on the hot tap. Steam rises and settles on the mirror above. She draws her finger across its surface. Banks glances up, his gaze fixed in the letters emerging through the steam. ‘YOU’VE BEEN BAD.’
“Who’s there?” Banks is quivering.
Letters write themselves in front of him. ‘SMART LITTLE BITCH.’
Beads of sweat prickle on Banks’s forehead. His knees crumple beneath him and he grasps the edge of the sink.
Aiyana leans closer and whispers, “What is Mindscape?”
Banks shakes his head. I grab the back of his shirt as he tries to get to his feet, pulling it tight across his throat and throwing him off balance and onto his knees again. Aiyana strikes him in the face.
“We can do this forever,” she says. “What is Mindscape?”
“A Thought Management Project. It identifies perceived fears in subjects and enhances them.”
“Why does CERN have to do with it?” asks Balaquai.
Banks jumps at the new voice. “I... I don’t know the details.”
Aiyana strikes him again and he whimpers.
“Something to do with the scatter from the collisions disrupting Mindscape. That’s all I know. Please...”
The Eidolon Page 25
