Inside were several computer stations, and one that looked like some kind of satellite or radar display. The noise didn’t lessen any once we were inside, either. The tent was filled with the constant chatter of personnel (mainly civilian-dress types) along with the many large industrial fans that were placed here and there to keep the computer equipment cool and working at maximum efficiency, as well as various computer alerts, update notifications and sat-phone calls ringing and pinging away. Despite the noise being so chaotic, the hurried activity going on within the tent was anything but; everyone seemed to be going about their business at pace, but with ruthless efficiency. It was impressive, to say the least.
I spotted Straub over at one long console, standing behind a seated row of three civilian-dress types. Next to her, as before, were her two superiors. We were led over to them, our guards saluting her and the other two men in dress uniform as they turned.
“Here they are,” she said to the other officers, who simply nodded silently in response. Straub then addressed us. “It’s almost time, gentlemen. You must be excited; particularly you, Mr Pointer,” she said, without smiling. I considered the question; in a way, I still was, but now that I thought about it, I found myself feeling scared. Now the moment was here, the one I’d been waiting for that would give me the answers I so desperately wanted … I suddenly found myself thinking about the word Patrick had used. Disaster. To dismiss it entirely would obviously be foolish, even if it was the word of a terrified, hysterical man, because we knew nothing about the situation here. He wouldn’t be scared for no reason, would he?
“More nervous than anything, to be honest,” I said. I waited for an introduction to the other two men, but none came.
“Who are these two then?” asked Paul, as if reading my mind and applying his own unique brand of subtlety. Straub held up a hand.
“Question time is over, remember, Mr Winter,” she said, “we are now in the field and the operation is under way, and so you are expected to do nothing but give us your complete cooperation. I will say, however, that I hope you appreciate why we had to put you under observation for the time being. There are so many unknowns in this situation that we are going in rather blind … apart from, it seems, any insight that can be gleaned from you two. Therefore, we couldn’t take any risks. You understand.”
“Apart from the one you’re taking with that man’s life,” said Paul, a tight little fake smile on his lips. Fortunately, a civilian-dress member of staff with a tablet computer in her hand ran over to show the device to the three people in charge. They looked at it, nodded, and then Straub dismissed the staff member with a wave of her hand.
“Please don’t be self-righteous, Mr Winter,” answered Straub, as calm and unfazed as ever, “I have given you room to provide an alternative solution to the problem, and unless I’m mistaken, you haven’t managed to do so; if all you have to offer are criticisms on the people making the decisions, without being able to offer any better decisions yourself, then I suggest you reserve your judgement.” I looked at Paul, and mentally winced as I waited for an angry response. To my surprise, he just looked away after a moment, seething. Straub simply nodded, concluding that the matter was done, and moved on.
“In any event, at its current rate of progress, Caementum should be here within ten minutes, and past the boundary of the contained zone within eight. We need you here, inside the command tent, from now on. Any changes, anything that you might notice from now on, you are to pass on to me, directly and immediately. Understood?”
I nodded, and as I looked at Paul to see his response, I realised that we were being watched by several of the civilian types. They were still working—the situation was far too pressurised to stop—but I caught several of them sneaking furtive glances over their shoulders, looking away from their workstations to get a glimpse of the two men who had a supposed link to the Stone Man. They’d heard about us, then; I wondered which of them were military personnel and which of them were drafted-in scientists. I thought then, as I do now, that they must have been dying to get their hands on us. If time had permitted, I’m sure that they would have.
When Paul didn’t respond or turn around, Straub addressed him directly.
“Mr Winter? Is that understood?” Paul looked off into space, like an admonished teenager.
“Yes,” he spat. To my absolute amazement, Straub stepped forward, reached up, and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Mr Winter,” she said, and when Paul didn’t respond, she said it again. Slowly, he turned his head around and down to look into her face. When she spoke, it was still with that same stern, no-nonsense manner, but her voice had softened.
“Please understand. It’s good that you care. If we had another choice, I would take it in a heartbeat. I look at that man and think how I would feel if that was my husband, and I thank God that he isn’t. I thank God mine’s away on a bloody golfing stag weekend with his idiot friends. I know that’s a human being, and I know it’s a life. But there isn’t another choice. People are dying, and I need to know that I can trust you to help us. Can I trust you?” She stared into his eyes, and Paul stood there dumbly, completely disarmed. He nodded briefly, quickly, looking down.
“Thank you,” said Straub, and then instantly the brigadier was back, running the show. She turned to me. “Now, tell us; can you feel it now?”
We could. It was, of course, stronger than ever, and I knew that if I tried, I could jump into its head again and see which corner of suburbia was about to be reduced to rubble, destroyed as the Stone Man made its relentless way here. Even at that moment, there was another distant, heavy crash, this one slightly louder than before. The officers exchanged glances.
“Yes,” I said, answering both for myself and Paul. “There’s nothing different about that, though.” I half-considered making something up to cement my and Paul’s position on the inside, but thought better of it. I actually shuddered a little inside when I suddenly thought of the damage that I might have potentially caused by speaking without thinking first. It had been a foolish thought. We were pretty solid here, and they wanted us as observers, even if it turned out that we had nothing useful for them in the end.
“Fair enough. Take position by the partition over there,” said Straub, gesturing to the clear panel across the front opening of the tent. “I’ll be with you shortly, but I’ll be coming and going; there’s a lot to be done here. However, if you get a sense of anything at all, let us know immediately. It could be extremely important. In the meantime, however, I’ll have to ask you to be quiet. We’ll be giving C.I. Four his adrenaline in a few minutes, over in the medical tent. I don’t know if that will affect things for you, but I’ll give you a radio update the second that it’s administered so that you can stay informed. These men will be on hand if you need anything,” she said, nodding at our former guards who now seemed to be our gophers. I looked at the bulk of the guard nearest to me, and thought it better not to push my luck.
We walked over to the partition, the guards/gophers following, and stared out into the road. I felt an odd sense of importance, standing there; all of the underlings inside the tent had jobs to do, even the superiors, and yet we were the only ones stood looking out into the street, the only ones able to watch the all-important view for now. I had a feeling that when it became time for the Stone Man to show, it would only be myself, Paul—the ‘essential personnel’, no less—Straub, and her superiors in the viewing position. Everyone else would be frantically busy.
I wanted to reach out and touch the clear partition, but, after seeing some of the state-of-the-art tech inside the tent I decided against it. They hadn’t told us not to touch it, but there was so much going on that I thought they might have forgotten to give the dumbass civilians the knowledge all the staff took for granted, i.e. the plastic thing is electrified/the plastic thing is alarmed/the plastic thing renders you sterile. It all seemed possible.
Instead, I satisfied myself with looking out into the street
, as Paul stood next to me and shifted from foot to foot impatiently. By comparison to the hive of activity that was the tent, the street looked like a ghost town, albeit one with a pathway made of heavily armed soldiers in the middle of it. I could see the helicopters above us from this angle; Apache-looking things, heavily (and pointlessly) armed. One nearby, one slightly farther off, and another slightly farther than that. With a pang of regret, I wished that I still had my camera, but consoled myself by thinking it was a worthy sacrifice that helped us get to this point.
After a few minutes, the tension began to get unbearable. The distant crashes were becoming steadily louder, and now we could see that any new trails of smoke were coming from relatively close by. I realised that I would soon be seeing the Stone Man in the flesh, or stone, for only the second time. It was an odd feeling. Despite it being a day since I’d been in its presence I felt as if I hadn’t stopped seeing it.
Straub came over to us, flanked this time not by men in dress uniform but some of the civilian staff. She quickly asked if we had any news, and then some civvies appeared out of nowhere to take both our blood info, pressures and samples. Just as quickly, they were gone, and the waiting began again. It felt like the Stone Man should already be walking over us by now; a check of the watch told me that only three minutes had passed. It was insane. Another brief moment of excitement arrived when the alert came over the radio—passed on to us by Corporal Taylor—that Patrick had been given the adrenaline. Paul and I looked anxiously through the panel, to try and see what he looked like when led outside, but he didn’t appear. I looked at my watch. Roughly seven minutes, according to Straub’s figures, until the Stone Man was mere feet away from me once more. Surely they should be bringing him out by now?
I caught myself; bringing him out by now? What the hell was he, a Christian to be thrown to the lions? Bring out the condemned. Patrick may have been a stranger, and insane upon introduction, but I had to remind myself of what both Paul and Straub had said. He was a human being. And to my eternal shame, even with that reminder, I couldn’t help but feel deeply impatient that he wasn’t being brought out already, that the bait wasn’t in position.
A hard poke on my shoulder brought me out of my thoughts. I turned to see Paul staring at me, eyebrows raised. Again, the face of a young boy, caught in a moment of electricity. When he had my eye, he jabbed a finger in my direction, and then made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, raising his eyebrows again. I nodded back, and gave him a thumbs-up of my own along with a forced smile. Yes, I was okay … I then tapped my head and made a dismissive gesture with my hand. Just thinking.
Paul nodded, and then held up his hand at eye height for me to see, palm flat, fingers splayed. He was showing me that his hand was trembling.
Once the message had sunk in, he let out a sigh and began to lower his hand, but then stopped and slapped me on the chest. He’d spotted something. Paul pointed at the medical tent several feet away, as a group consisting of three rifle-toting soldiers and two civilian women emerged from the rear of it. The front of the tent, again, had a clear covering, the same as the one that we were inside. We couldn’t quite see from where we were, but it looked very much like Patrick was in the centre of this group of people. They made their way over from the opposite side of the street until they reached the middle of the road, the soldiers leading Patrick by the shoulders whilst the civilian women carried bags containing some kind of technical equipment.
Patrick looked the same as before—sunken eyes wide open, twitching hands and face still in slight motion—but it looked like his verbal, Morse code barrage might have stopped slightly. His mouth was still moving rapidly, but his lips were relaxed and the up-and-down movement of his jaw was only slight. It seemed very much that although the adrenaline had made him mobile, it had also affected whatever speech skills that he had left. It didn’t make any sense, but Patrick’s brain had clearly been rewired in ways that I didn’t understand. He stood there, swaying slightly on his feet, as the soldiers kept him gently upright. They weren’t being rough, I noticed; that was good, even if he wouldn’t be aware of the difference. Although we’d only seen ever him in rant mode or his current catatonic state, I watched him as he stood helpless and surrounded by strangers and I felt the first true stab of pity. He was a specimen now, part of an experiment, with no apparent hope that he could ever be fixed, and all of that was of no concern to anyone. They had a larger problem to worry about. For the first time—if only briefly—I wanted to be wrong, to watch the Stone Man wander straight by without incident and for Patrick to be miraculously healed. The thought didn’t last long, but it is still of some small comfort to myself to know that it was at least there.
The soldier not holding Patrick’s shoulders stepped back and let the civilian women step in, who promptly set about attaching small pieces of equipment to Patrick’s body with straps. There were three devices in total, one on his arm, one on his chest, and one on his head. To this day I have no idea what they were for. Two crashes—the loudest yet—sounded in quick succession, and with the exception of Patrick, all of the people there—even the soldiers—jumped slightly, before quickly refocusing and carrying on. The civilians added some fresh data into their tablet PCs and then headed back to the tent, escorted by the third soldier, leaving Patrick stood in front of his house with his two remaining attendants. Six minutes. Two more trails of smoke were in the sky by now, and the radio chatter inside our tent had increased considerably.
The street before us seemed to become very still. Everything was in place, it seemed, as far as the military were concerned, and the activity outside had stopped. As the seconds passed, time seemed to slow to a crawl, especially when all we could do to relieve the tension was watch the bait stand there in catatonic ignorance of whatever fate was smashing its way towards him. I wondered why the hell the soldiers forming the path to the house were even lined up like that, if Patrick wasn’t inside the building anymore. A last minute precaution, perhaps, against anyone who might somehow have managed to get inside the secure zone? The thought seemed unlikely to me, but I supposed that they weren’t taking any chances. Three more crashes, loud and close enough for us to hear the details of them—two of them were the sound of rubble collapsing upon itself in two, and the other was that of rending metal—sounded out across the clear summer evening. The sun was beginning its final descent now, but there was light and time enough yet for us to know that we would have a clear view of whatever was about to happen, despite the close smoke that was beginning to fill more and more of the sky. Three minutes. One of the helicopters hovering above moved slowly sideways, then stopped.
One of Patrick’s attendants picked up his walkie-talkie and listened to it, then returned a message of his own. At this point the distant noises seemed to be fairly constant; smaller crunches and bangs, with only the larger, booming sounds—buildings collapsing, presumably—standing out in the silence. The soldiers in the line stood firm, staring straight ahead, but the soldiers with Patrick—who had been given more free rein, I assumed—looked in the distance of the sounds. There was the loudest bang yet, loud enough for me to wince (I’ve always been protective of my hearing) and Patrick’s attendants exchanged words, shifting on their feet. I wondered if that movement was from nerves. I’d have been nervous if I were in their shoes, although terrified would have been more appropriate. The only thing in the same league as being the bait was being the guy holding the bait. I looked around for Straub, and saw her standing farther back in the tent, overseeing the largest workstation with her two superiors and giving out orders. She looked very tense, nervous herself even; she stood bent at the waist, getting a closer look at the monitors with one hand on the back of the chair in front of her, but still seeming utterly in control. She was a professional. There was another deafening bang, and then we were inside two minutes.
“This is it,” whispered a voice in my ear, and I jumped slightly. Paul was looking at me, wide eyed; those child eyes were back,
but this time they weren’t excited. They were scared, but not for Paul Winter’s well-being. My own heart was racing beyond measure now as well, almost like it had during the crazy, lightning adrenaline that we’d been subjected to before Patrick’s collapse and subsequent removal. I could do nothing but nod at Paul, and show him my own shaking hand. There was another explosive crash, and suddenly I was blinded by dust.
It was strange, because the dust was everywhere and yet it didn’t seem to be getting into my eyes. It cleared as I moved through it, and then I was out, and could see another house in front of me, getting closer. I wasn’t slowing down either, and it became clear I was going to hit it. Now these few seconds had passed, I’d had time to come to my senses and realise that something had happened, that I wasn’t in the command tent at all somehow, but back on the streets we’d driven through earlier today. As I crossed the street, still aiming at the house ahead, close enough now to be inside its shadow, I realised that I was back inside the Stone Man, looking out, and even through the shock of that revelation I heard a familiar sound. No, not a familiar sound; a familiar rhythm. A low level, pulsing staccato rhythm, like Morse code being played on a down-tuned bass guitar. As I smashed through the fence around the back garden, in my panic I wildly wondered how I hadn’t heard that when I’d been inside the Stone Man before, and why I could hear it now, but already I was abandoning that thought in my desperation to get out, to get back in my own, and with that I was suddenly looking through a plastic screen once more.
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