Spiral

by Andy Remic

  Hell, it could probably cook chicken.

  Jessica Rade reached forward, then stopped. She glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see a Nex with a sub-machine gun.

  But - she was alone.

  Jessica had found a small rucksack; she dropped the disk - this most expensive of artefacts - into the bag and turned ... Only then did she see the small black box attached to one of the many server units.

  There was a red, flashing light.

  Her mind worked quickly; the Nex had been annihilating many of the members of staff deemed ‘expendable’, apparently overseen by Feuchter himself, her boss. There was a small flashing device in a small black box. It had to be a bomb. Fucking had to be. Was it unreasonable of her to expect them not to totally destroy the Rub al’Khali HQ? Jessica was Grade-A SecClear. She had access to most of the information that flew around Spiral_Q; and she knew. Knew that the QIII processor was designed to be one of a kind - all-powerful; all-knowing. In complete control.

  She knew that if the QIII was stolen, or if the people in charge did not want a copy made, then destroying the Spiral_Q base would set back other competitive developers by at least ten years. To destroy the ability to create another QIII would be to destroy Spiral_Q. To exterminate the placenta, the womb, the mother - leaving the babe intact, unharmed, and in complete control.

  Jessica swallowed hard.

  Shit, she thought.

  She wiped the sweat from her hand across her pyjamas.

  Jessica turned, then sprinted low across the lab. Her feet slapped against the cool tiles; she bypassed several security doors and returned to the corridor and the vent.

  She hauled herself up into its confines.

  That was when she heard the gunshots.

  Jessica crawled fast. The shots echoed through the ventilation system and she wondered just what the hell was going on. She crawled faster than she had ever thought possible, knees and elbows sore from friction and banging against the aluminium walls, sweat soaking her thin cotton pyjamas. Finally, she reached the spot -and, spinning around on her bottom, kicked free the vent.

  She dropped down into one of the underground kitchens she used to frequent on her midnight jaunts. She ran, panting like a hunted animal, past sacks of dirty linen that would never again be washed; never again be needed. She passed huge banks of stationary silent washers and driers, and felt their accusatory gazes against her sweat-drenched back.

  She reached the heavy vaultlike door of the exit. Fished free her key. Overrode the electronic protection... and stepped out into the desert night.

  A gentle breeze washed across her body, and her soul.

  The fear-sweat cooled and she shivered.

  Jessica ran, fuelled now by fear of the Nex killers, fuelled by the guilt of her theft, pushed on by the concept of a huge bomb squatting only feet behind her. She left deep footprints in the sand; indelible, as in fast-drying cement.

  Reaching the corner of the building, some primeval part of her soul forced her to halt, to peer around the steel column. She saw a vehicle: Feuchter’s Land Rover.

  She crept, as low as her considerable agility allowed. She peered inside, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the dead driver and splattered blood. Glancing quickly around, she opened the door and dragged the body down onto the sand.

  She climbed in.

  Closed the door gently.

  Placed the stolen pirated QIII schematics on the seat beside her.

  Jessica grabbed the steering wheel, recoiling at the blood she found there. Then, uttering the incantation ‘Please start please start’ and trying hard to ignore the hole in the windscreen at face height, she turned the key...

  ‘... She is one of us, Mr Carter. Natasha Molyneux is Gol’s daughter and she is on our side’

  Several things happened at once—

  Outside, an engine fired up hard, revving high and mad; Feuchter’s Land Rover reversed into view and sped off into the darkness, tail lights glowing—

  Carter turned back to Feuchter and saw the ‘O’ of shock on his face—

  The crack of the Glock 9mm echoed across the reception area. The Nex crumpled to the ground, relieving Carter’s head from the pressure of the gun barrel.

  Carter licked his lips slowly. He looked up and around. Into Natasha’s hooded eyes.

  ‘You trying to kill me?’ he asked softly. ‘His gun could have gone off!’

  ‘That’s because Natasha is one of us,’ said Feuchter again, his words low, hypnotic.

  ‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Natasha, her stare fixed on Carter. ‘I just saved your life.’

  Carter turned fully towards her. ‘Who are you going to shoot now? Me or him? Nats - your gun is still pointing at me...’

  ‘Drop your weapon, my sweetness.’

  They both turned. The Nex had tossed Feuchter a small black pistol that nestled evilly in the German’s large hand.

  Natasha kicked the Glock across the floor.

  ‘You have one and a half minutes to say your goodbyes. Truly, a romantic and fitting end to this act. Shakespeare couldn’t have penned a tragedy so fitting! So perfect! So complete and whole!’

  ‘Let me,’ soothed Kade.

  ‘Not now!’

  ‘Now is the right time the good time the only time …’

  Feuchter checked his watch and smiled. Carter looked sideways at Natasha whose face was unreadable; he swallowed as time seemed to slow, to melt away into a treacle infinity and he felt Kade there at the back of his mind, waiting watching timing listening and then pushing pushing hard pushing—

  Kade opened his eyes ...

  Staring at the actors on the stage in beautiful and simple black and white. He dropped to his knees and rolled - the Glock slid neatly into his hand as if the two were perfectly machined complementary parts, oiled, gleaming, lovers ready for action—

  Kade rolled rapidly, came up.

  He came up fast to see—

  Feuchter, his small black gun wavering, pointing in the wrong direction because Kade had moved so fast and the Glock snapped up and Feuchter just had time to register surprise and fear as Kade pulled the trigger hard and six bullets slammed into Feuchter’s chest, ripping holes in the man’s exposed torso, spitting up globules of crimson to spin in the air and splatter like a viscous waterfall across the tiled floor.

  Feuchter’s head dropped down over his ruined gaping chest, staring down into his own glistening slick organs. Very slowly, he toppled sideways onto the couch and lay still.

  ‘That makes a stimulating and unexpected change,’ said Kade sweetly, his voice laced with sarcasm. He rounded on Natasha, the Glock trained on her face. ‘You make a false move, you die. You say the wrong thing, you die. You fucking fart, girl, and you fucking die. Get outside and get the bike...’

  Natasha vanished.

  Kade, exhilarated, put another bullet in Feuchter’s slumped body. Then another. He moved to Feuchter and grabbed the dead man’s chin. He stared into the lifeless eyes. He kissed the dead man’s lips, then licked the transferred blood from his own with a smile. Releasing his grip on the slack corpse, he ran across the room, collected the Browning and the Barrett rifle, muttering, ‘Can’t let good workmanship go to waste,’ and sprinted for the doors—

  Natasha had heaved the heavy bike into view, and Kade took hold of the machine, a huge smile across his face. Natasha clambered onto the back and Kade fired up the engine and, spinning sand, hammered away from the time bomb that was Spiral_Q ... Headlights cut slices from the night as they sped away from Spiral’s Rub al’Khali development and research facility, up the smooth dirt track towards the gate and the desert beyond ...

  Neither saw the figure crawling out of the shattered entrance behind them.

  A pause, an eternity of seconds—

  There came a single, tiny, metallic click.

  An insanely deep ground-shaking subsonic boom rumbled.

  A huge ball of HighJ purple fire and gases blossomed; fire roared and screa
med upwards and outwards; huge fifty-metre chunks of concrete and stone and glass and iron were spat up high into the night; energies rushed screaming and bellowing and burning out across the desert—

  ‘Hold on!’ barked Kade in excited delight.

  The BMW rocked on sudden bursts of high-fury HighJ explosive ...

  And then the fire came—

  —As the BMW crested the steep rise, front wheel high in the air, and loomed out over the darkness beyond it. Then it was thumped heavily and violently from behind by the fist of the explosion. The BMW’s wheels sliced air as energy screamed all around it, an insane release of power, a behemoth screaming curses in ultimate anger and fury and madness ...

  The desert-bike landed roughly and they veered sideways, the machine slewing and scything through the sand, riders and bike parting company, the bike toppling, the riders rolling madly to a halt against a low dune—

  Purple fire roared overhead.

  The world seemed - suddenly - to have ended.

  Everything was chaos.

  Natasha gazed up through tears at a vision of Hell raging above them ...

  Then the fire was suddenly sucked back to reveal—

  The dark night sky.

  Stars twinkled.

  Everything was strangely calm.

  ‘Whoooo!’ cried Kade from where he had fallen and now lay gazing skywards. ‘That was some fuuuuucking bang!’ He leaped up, waving the Glock, and sprinted for the rise, his boots churning the dark sand. Then he stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at the insane scatter of burning debris littering the recently vacated Spiral_Q site.

  Natasha approached him from behind.

  ‘You feeling OK, Carter?’

  Kade whirled, so fast that Natasha blinked, taking an involuntary step back. Only then did she see the Glock pointed at her.

  Kade smiled. A wide grin.

  ‘You fancy nipping down there and getting us a hunk of toasty Feuchter meat to celebrate with?’

  ‘Carter, you’re acting very strange—’

  ‘Don’t talk!’ he suddenly screamed. ‘Don’t fucking talk to me, just get back to the fucking bike before I remind you of the sweet traitorous words Feuchter spoke - you little bitch.’

  ‘He was lying,’ she whispered softly.

  The Glock pressed against her forehead.

  ‘Get to the fucking bike, I said.’

  Natasha turned and strode down through the sand. Kade smiled suddenly, his hand reaching out towards the flames. ‘Toasty toasty,’ he hummed to himself, then turned dark glittering eyes to watch Natasha’s swaying hips. ‘Hmmm, hmm, Carter - you do pick a fine succulent woman, I must say.’

  He turned back to admire the crackling greyscale fires in and around the devastated crater that had once been Spiral_Q - he admired the stage, the scene of destruction, the vision of beautiful devastation. His gaze took in the huge torn blocks of building, the tom bent scorched monoliths of twisted steel, the sea of broken melted fused glass.

  He nodded in approval, eyes glittering reflections from the fire.

  ‘Yeah,’ he muttered brightly. ‘Fucking cool.’

  He licked his lips.

  He revelled in his freedom.

  He closed his inner ears to Carter’s scream of fury and pain and angry angry frustration - but it would not go away, and he could feel his control slipping, could feel Carter getting stronger and stronger and he fell to his knees on that cold dark sand with the burning fires strobing his eyes and he fought, fought with every ounce of energy that was left in his dark demon soul...

  But, with a bitter snarl, he allowed Carter his freedom—

  And his life—

  Once more.

  The night cold descended. Flames burned low, crackling softly, the only sound against the bleakness of the desert night. Creeping across the desert dunes, across scarred and blackened stumps of concrete, softly glowing metal, fused glass, away from the crater, in darkness lit briefly by glowing embers, something moved.

  It crawled, a blackened husk, crimson glistening in blood-filled shallow cavities. It crawled, then slumped. It rolled to its back and cold eyes stared up at the star-filled bleakness of the void.

  And, with the QIII processor clutched in a blackened hand, Count Feuchter screamed.

  Spiral_Memo8

  Transcript of recent news incident

  CodeRed_Z;

  unorthodox incident scan 522825

  The Hub of the United States military was plunged into chaos as its entire satellite network was severely disrupted. Contact was lost with ground, air and naval forces around the globe as US computer and military experts battled to get the Hub - ironically named ‘Indestructible’ - back on-line.

  At a home-user level, satellite TV was also seriously disrupted, along with satellite Internet services and a variety of other digital communication systems.

  There are serious implications for national defence, and experts are blaming freak solar activity, possibly in the form of a subsonic or stratospheric radiation that has never before been detected by military sensors.>>#

  CHAPTER 20

  SCHEMA

  Carter opened his eyes.

  Natasha was smiling down at him, pressing a cold cloth against his head, dabbing at the coagulating sluggish flow of blood from his recently broken nose. He looked up into her eyes and saw the understanding there.

  ‘I am sorry ...’ he whispered.

  ‘Shh.’ She placed a finger against his lips. ‘Don’t speak.’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’

  ‘I know, Carter, I know ...’

  Carter smiled weakly. Then he flinched as pain smashed through the centre of his skull and the wound in his side, through his ribs and his nose and his broken finger and his whole battered bruised frame—

  He gasped.

  And swam on a sea of pain.

  Natasha looked suddenly worried. ‘Carter?’ She shook him. ‘Carter, what’s wrong?’

  He opened his eyes.

  He smiled up at her, squinting.

  ‘Kade must have been taking away - absorbing – my pain. That’s why we’ve got as far as we have. Now the bastard has given it back; all of it.’ He coughed, writhing in agony for a moment. ‘Fuck, that hurts. Have you any painkillers?’

  ‘Sorry, Carter.’

  ‘That’s OK. We need to get to Langan for the meet.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She helped Carter to his feet, and he stood panting for a moment in the dawn light.

  Then, with a great effort of will, he grunted, lifted the BMW and climbed aboard. Natasha jumped on behind him and he fired up the engine, closing his eyes for a moment as he composed himself - not just for the journey ahead, but for the realisation that Feuchter was dead: and that the quest, as it was, the fucked-up journey he had to make—

  It was not over.

  It was far from over.

  The BMW moved off, bumping along the dirt road and then punching out across the rolling sand dimes and towards the narrow dirt road that fed Spiral_Q ...

  ‘Durell,’ muttered Carter. And, grimacing, he screwed the throttle round viciously.

  Jessica Rade drove hard and fast. The Land Rover had a powerful motor and sped through the darkness, the suspension absorbing the bumps with ease, the headlights scything the pre-dawn desert.

  I’ve done it, she thought triumphantly.

  I’ve got away.

  With the QIII schematics. The ability to create another QuanTech Edition 3 Cubic Processor; to copy the only working model in existence. The only model just recently uploaded with WorldCode Data.

  Jessica Rade smiled; and then decided that she might be being followed and the smile fell from her face as she checked her mirrors. But only blackness swept across the desert behind her, deep and impenetrable. Before her, blood smears on the glass did nothing to calm her fluttering heart.

  Jessica wiped her sweating hand on her pyjamas; and then remembered the blood. She glanced down at the crimson streaks
and her stomach turned. And then she remembered her friends and colleagues from Spiral_Q who had been murdered and loaded into trucks and helicopters, and her stomach did a triple flip. She swallowed her fear.

  She was free.

  She could make a difference ...

  She could flood the world with the schematics, with designs of how to construct and set up the QIII; she could reveal how WorldCode worked; she could reveal how it could predict the future using pure mathematics, formulae, code. She could blow the secret.

  Spiral_Q would be stung, and stung bad.

  Jessica needed to get to a powerful mainframe, and she realised the danger of her predicament. She was going to ruin their plans; they would want her dead ... but then they wanted her dead anyway, right? Did they realise she had the QIII schematics? She doubted it - after all, they had been about to blow the building - and surely that had been the purpose of the bomb. To halt any possibility of pirating the cubic chip. But then, she could not rely on that, she could not rely on anything... she had to assume that they knew she had copies of the schematics.

  But something confused Jessica. Why should Spiral -who she had always thought of as a brilliant organisation to work for - why would they kill a large group of their own employees? And why would they destroy their own building? Why would they blow up the QIII operation?

  Something in the reasoning was flawed. Something was not quite right - like Feuchter planting the bombs, like the Nex assassins walking the Spiral_Q corridors.

  She could not understand why Spiral would do such a thing.

  Unless Spiral had been betrayed!

  Jessica rubbed at her eyes and moved closer to the windscreen and the bullet hole that reminded her of how serious these people were - whoever they were. They knew that she was alive; they would have the airports covered for sure ... so how could she get out of Rub al’Khali? She knew that Spiral_Q had the backing of the Saudi regime and that meant untold resources if they really needed to find her—

  She racked her brains. What to do?

  Prioritise, focus, she thought.

  Get away from the Spiral_Q facility.