Spiral

by Andy Remic

  Dump the vehicle.

  Find a disguise.

  The engine stuttered, half-heard. Jessica felt a vibration on the accelerator pedal. Her eyes flickered to the dash and the orange light that indicated she was out of... fuel.

  ‘What? You bitch,’ she muttered. ‘How is that possible?’

  The engine stuttered again, and then stalled. She coasted to a halt on the dirt track, tyres crunching on small stones. She opened the door - and could immediately smell petrol.

  ‘Shit. Shit!’

  She looked around the inside of the car for anything that might be of use to her. There was nothing. She pulled the key from the ignition and, her feet jabbing painfully against stones, she moved to the back of the car and opened the boot. There was a canister. She unscrewed the top and sniffed: water.

  ‘At least I won’t die of dehydration,’ Jessica muttered sourly, slamming the boot shut. Grabbing her small rucksack, and pausing for a moment to take several deep breaths and brush a few specks of fluff from her pyjamas, she bit the bullet of panic and set off down the road. Stones stabbed her toes again and she cursed herself for her disorganisation, her bad luck and, most of all, for choosing to work for fucking Spiral_Q Division in the first fucking place.

  Carter returned from the outcropping of rocks, the Barrett in one hand, a canteen of water in the other. He yawned.

  ‘How you feeling?’

  Carter smiled, wincing at pain from a variety of locations. He glanced at Natasha; over the last few days she seemed to have aged incredibly. Lines and deep bruises of exhaustion circled her eyes. Her mouth had lost its customary upturned corners. Her body seemed ... Carter searched for a word.

  Deflated.

  Pushed beyond the boundaries of normal human endurance.

  ‘I feel like a camel danced on my head for an hour. What about you? You look wasted, girl.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ She smiled weakly at him. ‘I need this break.’

  ‘Me too. It’s been a tough few days.’

  ‘You could say that,’ sighed Natasha.

  After a brief break, and having made sure that they were not being pursued after the destruction of Spiral_Q, they climbed wearily back onto the BMW desert-bike and once again set off across the sand and stones. They travelled for an hour, until Natasha spotted something and tapped Carter on the arm, pointing.

  ‘You see it?’

  Carter glanced up. ‘That’s Feuchter’s vehicle,’ he said. ‘The Land Rover I took out with the rifle ...’

  ‘Wonder who nicked it?’ said Natasha. They exchanged glances, and both reached for their guns as the desert-bike crunched to a halt a few feet away from the stationary vehicle. They did not say the word Nex but the possibility was at the forefront of both their minds.

  Carter climbed warily from the bike, eyes scanning the deserted horizon and the sand-blown vicinity. He moved around the Land Rover and saw the key in the boot. There was nothing inside on the seats and floor; he checked the boot. Also empty.

  ‘Can you smell fuel?’

  Natasha nodded. ‘You think a Nex took it?’ she said finally.

  Carter glanced around. Natasha noted that now - in a possible conflict situation - he gave no sign that he was injured: all pain had been shunted aside, all agony wiped clear by adrenalin for the moment.

  ‘Not sure,’ muttered Carter, still scanning, the familiar heft of the Browning giving him little reassurance. ‘But I don’t like it out here - it’s too open and we’re still too far from Langan.’

  ‘Come on, then.’

  Carter jumped back onto the BMW and they crawled past the Land Rover, tyres growling on the dirt road. Carter kept the Browning in his hand and stayed vigilant as they set off down the desert track.

  They drove with heightened awareness for the next hour as the sun climbed steeply up the sky and smashed its rays down on them. They passed no traffic in that time, and saw no other living being. It was like being on the moon... albeit with a much warmer climate.

  It was Carter who spotted her.

  ‘Look. To the right, following a line parallel to the road.’

  The woman hunkered down behind a small outcropping of rock when she spotted the BMW desert-bike. But by then it was too late - Carter’s sharp piercing eyes had spotted her.

  They halted and climbed from the bike.

  Carter moved out onto the sand. ‘Show yourself.’ he called.

  Nothing moved...

  Carter pointed the gun at the rocks. ‘If you piss me off by making me come in after you, I guarantee you a slow execution. You have three seconds. Three, two, one ...’

  The woman stood, slowly, arms above her head. She wore pyjamas and carried a small rucksack. Carter gestured with the Browning. ‘Over there, where I can see you clearly.’

  Carter moved closer, checking to see if she was alone.

  The woman had long, curly brown hair and bright young eyes. She looked frightened, terrified even, and licked her lips nervously. ‘Don’t shoot me, please,’ she said as Carter came closer.

  He stopped, looking her up and down.

  ‘How the hell did you get out here dressed like that?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ she said, smiling weakly. Slowly she lowered her arms, but Carter waved them up again. He stepped in close and checked her for weapons, sweat beading on his forehead under the sun’s intense glare.

  He stepped back. ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Jessica opened the rucksack; she showed him the inside which was indeed empty.

  ‘What about the front pocket?’

  Jessica unzipped the pocket. Slowly she withdrew a small silver disk and instantly Carter aimed the Browning 9mm at her face and her eyes went wide. Tears started to roll down her cheeks.

  ‘Here, take it.’

  ‘What the fuck is it?’ barked Carter.

  ‘So you’re not from Spiral_Q?’

  Carter smiled grimly. ‘Well, we had a brief association with a man called Feuchter.’

  Jessica jumped at the name. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Dead. Are you going to answer my question?’

  ‘It’s the schematics for the QIII processor. So you’re not here to kill me?’

  ‘Don’t even know who you are, love. Come on, walk over to the bike, you look like you’re suffering from heat exhaustion.’

  Jessica walked, with Carter a few paces behind her, a predator checking warily all around. When she reached the BMW Natasha smiled warmly, and Jessica was finally allowed to lower her hands.

  ‘She’s got the schematics for the QIII processor,’ said Carter.

  Natasha’s eyes widened. ‘You’re fucking joking!’

  ‘No.’ Turning to Jessica, he said, ‘I assume you worked there?’

  Jessica nodded. ‘Feuchter had a large section of the workforce murdered. I managed to escape ... I took the processor schematics hostage. So you’re really not from Spiral_Q?’

  ‘If I was going to kill you,’ said Carter softly, ‘we wouldn’t be talking. ‘Come on, squeeze on the bike. I assume you need a ride out of here?’

  Jessica nodded, and climbed up behind Carter, followed by Natasha, squeezing onto the tail-end of the bike, beside the stealth-exhaust pipes.

  Carter fired up the engine.

  ‘Where do you want dropping? Or alternatively, you can have this bike in about two hours ...’

  ‘Just get me out of Rub al’Khali,’ Jessica said wearily.

  ‘See what we can do,’ said Natasha, smiling kindly.

  They had paused for a break from the searing sun, shadowed by a low plateau of rounded rocks that had been smoothed by the blasting sand of the desert. Carter sat, head back, allowing a cool trickle of water to moisten his lips.

  ‘We’re running out.’

  ‘Langan isn’t far away,’ said Natasha softly.

  Carter nodded.

  Jessica was seated some way off, staring out across the
sand. Her pyjamas were stained, torn, and looked a sorrowful sight. Carter caught her attention and she moved over to him, accepting his canteen with a smile of thanks.

  ‘How is it that you know about the QIII processor? It’s a top top secret project,’ she said, lips glistening with water.

  Carter shrugged. ‘Long story, love, and believe me, we don’t really want to burden you with the information. Feuchter was the man with the answers and now he’s cat meat. Fried cat meat.’

  ‘So the building blew?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Carter, smiling nastily. ‘Tell me, does the QIII thing really work?’

  ‘The QIII? Oh yes. It works all right. It is awesome in what it can do, what it can predict.’

  Feuchter’s words came back to Carter.

  ‘The QIII. It is so powerful, so incredibly powerful - the WorldCode threw up a list of names that could compromise the very existence of the processor. It used probability equations, worked out which of the DemolSquads was the most dangerous and who we should take out. Your name was on the list.’

  Carter started to get a crystal-clear picture: Feuchter and this other man Durell were acting as renegades against Spiral on information thrown up by a future-predicting processor in order to give itself longevity and them power and command. The Nex were sent in to kill him, and to kill other DemolSquad members who were considered a threat by Feuchter and Durell. They tried to take out Gol because he had the schematics for the QIII processor - and so could replicate this military device and fight them with a copy of their own weapon. And they had got to Gol; murdered him. Murdered lots of others in their quest for power ...

  But what next? Where would they go next?

  What was their ultimate aim?

  Fuckers, he thought sourly.

  ‘I wonder if you could tell us something about the Nex,’ muttered Carter, rubbing at his tired eyes.

  ‘The Nex? You mean the people with the copper-coloured eyes?’

  Carter licked his lips, focusing on Jessica. ‘You know about them?’

  She shook her head. ‘They were the ones sent to kill the Spiral_Q staff.’

  ‘Really...’ Carter scratched at his heavy stubble; it was making him itch bad and he could smell his own stink. Gods, for a decent basic toilet! And a shower! And a cold beer! Or sweet Lagavulin ...

  ‘Holy shit,’ hissed Natasha, scrambling at her pocket and leaping to her feet. She pulled free the ECube.

  They all stared at it.

  ‘It bite you or something?’ snapped Carter. ‘You made me fucking jump, woman. Spilled my water all down my shirt!’

  ‘It’s vibrating,’ said Natasha.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘It’s a receiver and it’s receiving now.’

  ‘Shit,’ agreed Carter. He peered warily into the distance, and checked the skies. ‘So whoever is sending knows exactly where we are?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘I thought the Spiral mainframes had been destroyed?’

  ‘They have, but someone must be routing through another ECube. They can work like that, independent of main servers in case the impossible happened and Spiral London HQ was destroyed - which it was.’

  Carter ducked his head, looking warily around the nearby desert and scrub. He could see nothing very suspicious but that did not mean it wasn’t there. ‘Well then, you going to answer it?’ he said as Natasha continued to stare at the little machine.

  Natasha squeezed the ECube. It came to life with soft blue digits. Nats squinted at the tiny data stream. It read:

  CLASSIFIED FUS100176510/ ENCRYPTED SIU

  SEND: MOLYNEUX, G, SIU23446

  REC: MOLYNEUX, N, SIU42880

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Natasha softly. ‘It’s from Gol.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Carter softly, wearily. ‘We all saw what happened in Kenya.’

  ‘Wait - think about it, Carter. If this was coming from the enemy, the Nex or whoever, then we would be dead now, yeah? We wouldn’t be reading a fucking ECube transmission. We’d be fighting for our lives...’ There was hope in her voice, and her eyes had become suddenly bright. The deflation he had witnessed earlier had gone, like dew burned off by the sun.

  Carter looked suspiciously at the ECube, then at Natasha.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ he said.

  ‘And you think I do?’

  Carter said nothing, merely gestured with the Browning for Natasha to read the message. She read:

  I KNOW YOU THINK I AM DEAD: I AM NOT. I SURVIVED, SAVED BY SPIRAL AT THE LAST MOMENT; BUT THE DISK WITH THE QIII SCHEMATICS WAS LOST TO ME.

  I AM IN LOS ANGELES, CAN MEET YOU AT FOLLOWING CO-ORDS 034.626.555 CALIFORNIA IN 48 HOURS SPIRAL_F STILL LIVES!

  I KNOW YOU WILL THINK THIS A TRAP. IF CARTER STILL LIVES TELL HIM ABOUT OUR CONVERSATION, IN AFRICA, WHEN WE SHARED CIGARETTES UNDER THE ORANGE TREES; TELL HIM I SAID I FORGAVE HIM BECAUSE OF HIS LOVE FOR MY DAUGHTER. IF YOU MAKE IT TO THE MEET, ASK FOR A MESSAGE FOR CARTER AT THE DESK// OUT //.

  ‘He said he forgave you?’

  Carter nodded. He walked up a nearby sand dune and stood in the BMW’s tyre tracks, staring out across the barren hot wilderness. Cigarettes. He scratched his stubble. Damn, he thought, what I would give for a cigarette right now ... trust a fucking ECube to remind me at the wrong fucking time.

  Natasha moved up behind him. She took his arm.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe.’

  ‘It’s a trap, right? Gol is dead. We saw him jump.’

  Carter nodded, looking down into Natasha’s eyes; and he saw it, the desperation, the need for her father still to be alive. And yet ... could Gol be alive? Could he have survived that terrible fall into the river? Could he have been rescued by Spiral at the last moment and even now be on the trail of the traitors to Spiral’s cause?

  Gol had been a very resourceful man. Maybe he had landed on a rocky outcropping; or used some sort of grappling device? And Natasha, Carter thought sombrely. If Feuchter was telling the truth; if you really do work for the enemies of Spiral - the ‘traitors’ - then you’re a fucking good actress.

  ‘We will go.’

  Natasha squeezed his arm. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t get your hopes up - and we’ll do it my way. You understand?’

  ‘Carter, I know you think I—’

  ‘Shh.’ He placed a finger against her lips. ‘Feuchter was lying, I know. But I’ve got a bad feeling about this -and yet, if Gol still does live, if the mad motherfucker survived that fall and managed to escape the Nex and reformed with other Spiral_F members ... well, they’re just about the only allies we’ve got. It’s not as if Feuchter was any great enlightenment... all we got from him was a name: Durell.’

  Jessica had come up behind the two and Carter whirled, his gun in her face. He smiled weakly. ‘Sorry, force of habit.’

  Jessica waved his apology away. ‘You said a name then, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, Durell. He is - was - a Spiral top dog; originally based in Austria, near the German border, he was some kind of scientist researching genetics and medicines. His link with the QIII is probably on the semi-organic side -have you heard of him?’

  Jessica nodded. ‘Heard of him, met him, turned down an offer of sex with the slimy reptile. Thought I was going to get fired.’ She laughed softly. ‘Wish I had now.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Very little. He visited the Spiral_Q Division on numerous occasions. He was a taut little cockroach of a man. Tough, rough and hardy - but you should see his eyes.’

  ‘Sounds like a nice guy,’ said Carter, staring away over the sand again.

  ‘You want to know the other amazing coincidence?’

  Carter met Jessica’s gaze. She smiled gently. ‘Sorry, I’ve been eaves-dropping. But I think you’d like to know this ... Durell, well, several times when he visited us, I overheard conversations with Feuchter - said he’d come straight from the US.’

  ‘California
, by any chance?’ said Natasha, frowning.

  ‘LA,’ said Jessica.

  ‘What a coincidence,’ said Carter grimly.

  ‘So what now?’ asked Natasha; Carter could see it in her face. She knew the dangers, knew the odds, knew the possibility of the whole thing being a set-up, a trap, a plot to ensnare them. But she wanted - needed - to know if her father was still alive.

  The bait was laid.

  And the carrot was a juicy one.

  They’re either extremely clever and manipulative bastards, thought Carter. Or Gol is onto Durell... he’s alive, and onto the leader of those dedicated to bringing down Spiral...

  Decision time.

  Decisions.

  He scratched his stubble. He patted Natasha’s arm.

  ‘We’ll go,’ he said softly. And smiled. ‘I have a lot of friends in LA.’

  Night was falling as the BMW desert-bike reached the rendezvous. Langan was there and had lit the smallest of small fires, his almost trademark pan of coffee bubbling gently over the flames.

  ‘Hey Carter, you break your nose again?’

  ‘Long story,’ said Carter with a glance at Natasha. ‘Is there any of that coffee going? I think we could all do with a caffeine fix.’ Langan nodded, and dished out three mugs.

  He raised his gaze in Jessica’s direction, and winked at Carter. ‘You been a saucy devil, eh?’

  ‘Hmm. Langan, can you fly us to America?’

  ‘You want my gold fillings as well, Carter?’

  ‘I can pay you. As much as you want, whatever it takes.’

  ‘I work for Spiral; Gol wanted you helped, and so help you I will. I don’t need your money, Carter.’

  ‘You’re in luck, then,’ said Carter softly, his gaze meeting the pilot’s. ‘We’ve had a message from Gol. He’s in LA. He wants to meet.’ Carter watched Langan’s face closely. The man looked a little shocked.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned - that tough fucking insect.’

  ‘Can you confirm this? Through your Spiral_F contacts?’

  ‘I can try,’ said Langan softly. ‘But the whole Spiral_F network has been off-line, smashed along with the main Spiral grid. I think we can assume that security has been breached, yeah? The idea now is this: Spiral_F will contact me with updates and further missions when they think it safe, unless superseded by Spiral when they get their shit back on-line. Believe me, there’s a lot of pissed-off people back in London ... those that survived the explosion.