by Sam Nash
“Captain Thirty-Four?”
“Da? Yes, Ma’am?”
“Tell me a little about yourself.”
“What would you like to know, Ma’am?”
“Are you married, Captain?” Mary tried to keep her thoughts neutral. Any emotional outburst could destabilise the men. She needed them to trust her. The sight of their comatose states kept floating back into her mind. She swiped at them with a metaphorical hand.
“I am, Ma’am. We had five wonderful years together before this mission.”
“Any children?”
“We had a boy, Ma’am, but he didn’t pull through from…” Thirty-Four struggled to find the English words for a childhood disease. Mary didn’t wait to prolong the agony.
“I am very sorry to hear of your loss, Captain. Are many of you family men?”
“Quite a few, yes Ma’am. There are a few women amongst us too. Not many though.” The other voices were silent, but still listening intently. Of that she was sure. Had she provoked a dangerous level of introspection? Perhaps she should change the subject. Focus the Hive back on military matters and steer away from personal queries.
“Can you tell me what you know of the mission, Captain?”
“Our orders are to influence and infiltrate, Ma’am.”
“Infiltrate what exactly?” This was it. Thirty-Four was going to give her the exact nature of Visser’s plan.
“Whatever Colonel Visser commands us to do, Ma’am.”
“Such as…?”
“There is a smaller group who have infiltrated areas of global stock markets, Ma’am, but the majority of us direct our energies into whatever Colonel Visser is working on at the time.”
“Stock markets? How are they influencing them?”
“Our strongest team can persuade weak minded capitalists to sell shares at a time that benefits Colonel Visser. His agents then buy them at a fraction of the cost.”
“So Visser is a common thief?”
“Ma’am, you cannot slander the Colonel. He is a war hero, a legend.”
“Hmm, if you say so. Has the Colonel given you orders regarding me, Captain?”
“Yes Ma’am. We are to channel all energy into your conscious stream. Would you like us to begin now?”
“Gosh, no. Not yet. Let me get back to you. At ease, gentlemen.” Mary brought herself to full consciousness and drank her cooling tea. So, this is how Visser is funding this operation. Making a killing on the stock market suddenly had new meaning.
“They understand what to do, yes?” Alexi clicked his mouse, bringing Google Earth up on his screen. He grabbed the globe and dragged it until it showed the furthest reaches of Russia and the west coast of Alaska. “Come, look.” Mary got to her feet and ambled across the lab. This was where it got real. The sense of menace weighted her limbs, a deep sea diver running out of oxygen and hope. She perched herself on the lab stool at Alexi’s side. He zoomed in on an area in the south of Alaska, bordered by snow-capped national parks and gigantic winding rivers.
The entire area looked to Mary, like a transverse section of the brain, the peninsula and islands forming the brainstem, the glaciers branching like arteries and veins. Alexi kept zooming. In the central point of the Alaskan brain, at the site of its imaginary pineal gland, was an almost perfect square.
“You see this? Da? It is American research facility.” Alexi jabbed at the screen, making the surface bow and leaving a dent where his fingertip had been. “It emits big, big waves. Sends up into atmosphere.”
“O-kay.”
“You make it switch on. Hive will help you. You direct wave. Hit certain part of atmosphere.” He continued to prod the monitor.
“Can’t you just ask them if you can borrow it? Or hack into their mainframe or something?” Mary yawned. “This seems an awful lot of bother just to use a research gizmo.”
Alexi turned to face her. His eyes burned into hers. It was the first time he had looked directly at her since her standoff with Visser in her cell. “You do as told.” His voice rose along with his temper.
“Okay, I was only asking.” She moved away from him. This was a side of Alexi he had kept well hidden.
“Hack can be traced. Important that no one knows who is controlling beam. Time for experiment.” Alexi continued to growl. “Deadline very soon.” He twisted back on his stool and keyed in a series of calculations, his typing rapid and his concentration intense.
Mary sat by his side, watching his keystrokes and trying to decipher their meaning, without success. “Alexi? I don’t want to upset you, but why do you need me to do this when Visser has been working with the Hive all this time?”
He didn’t look up from his keyboard. “Visser not powerful, he gets tired before mission complete. He is not accurate.” She mouthed an ‘Oh, I see.’ Silently. It made her smile. Alexi thought her to be more powerful than Lars Visser. A dose of dopamine dribbled into her bloodstream, fuelling a little mind tickle in the reward centres of the brain.
“Here. You must memorise these coordinates, this frequency and the face of this man.” Alexi was all business-like. The mantle of kindness he had shown her all but gone. He collected a colour printout from the machine on a nearby bench and handed it to Mary. In the top corner of the page was a fair haired man, approximately forty five years old, with rimless glasses resting on the bridge of his squat nose. “This is the man you will synchronise with. He controls the IRI.” Mary lowered an eyebrow. “It’s the Ionospheric Research Instrument. High powered radio frequency transmitter.” She glanced again at the man’s picture. He looked a kind soul. He had freckles on his cheekbones.
“When you have synchronised your brain waves to his, you will command him to enter those coordinates and frequency settings into the terminal on his desk. The Hive will boost your power over him. Then you tell him to activate the IRI.”
“And then what?” Mary looked into the paper face. She was about to try and take over this man’s mind, to force him to participate in an unlawful act. This was not an attack on some faceless bureaucrat or massive conglomerate. This was a personal invasion. Her stomach bubbled and eddied. She blew out a slow palliative breath.
“And then we wait.” There was a long pause while Mary processed the information. A part of her was beginning to think that Alexi has lost his grasp on reality. Another, more sinister part of her, hoped that the experiment was a success. She returned to the padded seat and wriggled till she felt comfortable. The page of figures and the man’s photo rested in her lap. Once again, she slowed her breathing and relaxed.
“Captain?” I can do this, I can do this. She steadied her nerves.
“Yes, Ma’am. Awaiting your orders.”
“I’d like you all to help me reach this man in Alaska.” Mary recollected the image from the page, displaying him in her mind for the Hive to concentrate on. “We need to make him fire a beam of radio waves at these coordinates and on this frequency.” She presented the digits for the Hive. The captain repeated her command in Russian, to allow those without the ability to speak English to catch up. “Is everyone ready?” A great chorus of different pitches, voiced their assent.
The sensation was exhilarating. Her supercharged entity reacted immediately to her directives. Mary’s mind rushed out of her body, travelling at tremendous speed over land and seas to the subarctic landmass, cocooned in a bubble of energy. She slowed above a massive, almost square field. There, standing sixty feet above the icy ground, were one hundred and eighty aerials, each supporting a web of cables, parallel to the sky. They looked like umbrella frames, equally spaced, their waterproof fabric torn and blown away to the furthest reaches of the tundra.
Mary’s mind travelled along the service road, whizzing through walls and floors and alighting inside the research facility, over four thousand miles from her body. Her consciousness rose and fell through each floor, scanning for her target.
Mary caught sight of the fair haired man. She hovered near the ceiling above his comput
er terminal. He sat scratching his nose and readjusting his glasses, updating his status on Facebook. He lingered on a photograph of a woman wearing an ivory dress, dancing with her dark and handsome groom. A colleague walked past his desk, prompting him to minimise the window and grasp a plastic ring binder of notes from a tray.
“Okay, how do I synchronise with him?” Mary muttered it absently to herself, forgetting her connection to the Hive.
“Try looking into his eyes, Ma’am.”
“Oh, right. Good idea. Thank you.” In effortless flight, the Hive’s energy maintained her buoyancy close to the man’s face. Looking into his unsuspecting blue eyes, she tried to see his thoughts. She drifted closer and closer, until all went dark. Eyelids opened and the light poured in once again, but they were not her eyes. She had fused herself with the man’s mind. Her consciousness had entered his.
Automatically, her brain informed the motor functions to lift an arm. Mary analysed the man’s soft hands, his clean finger nails, and the wedding ring. She relayed a neural transmission to the right arm, to put the folder down and hold the computer mouse.
“Now, Ma’am. Type in the coordinates.”
Mary looked at the bottom toolbar on the screen for minimised programmes. She steered the man’s hand on the mouse to open each one until a complex looking interface popped up. An I.R.I. logo appeared at the top of the window and empty white boxes with formal scientific labels filled the screen. Scanning down the list of variables, she typed the coordinates and frequency settings into the most probable boxes and hit the ‘OK’ button. The following pop up window, asked for an authorisation code.
“His access code will be on the back of his ID card - round his neck, Ma’am.”
“I wish you would stop calling me that. My name is Mary.” She located the card, his code and typed the numbers into the computer. Another window, more coded instructions required. “I don’t know what to put in this bit. Alexi only gave me the information I have already put in.”
“One moment Ma’am. One of our operatives worked at Sura in Vasilsursk.”
“I don’t understand.” The note of panic, reverberated in her consciousness. For a second, she lost control of the man’s arms and they crashed onto the keyboard, wrists first. The clattering noise jolted her composure further still, anticipating discovery from the man’s co-workers.
“Remain calm, Ma’am. Mary. These are the numbers you must type.” Captain Thirty-Four soothed Mary, his serene voice modulating her biorhythms, helping her to regain her poise. She could feel his strength of character supporting her, his fierce intelligence and courage. A confidence that only combat experience of a tightly connected military team could forge, all at her disposal. She directed the man’s fingers onto the keyboard and punched in the remaining figures.
“Now what?”
“You hit the big green button, Ma’am.”
The man’s finger pressed the mouse button, activating the antennae array with a high frequency beam into the upper atmosphere. The sound was deafening. The radio waves connected with the Ionosphere, some seventy kilometres above the Earth’s surface. There was a roar as it broke through the sound barrier, then a crescendo of acoustic feedback similar to the end of a Jimmy Hendrix concert, as he smashed his electric guitar through an amplifier on stage. The discordant squeal and trumpeting eased, then pulsed again with renewed intensity.
Men and women across the base looked skyward, recognising the unmistakable noise of the I.R.I. beam. Some made frenzied telecommunication calls with colleagues or ran into the offices of superiors to ascertain the cause of an unscheduled use of the instrument.
“All done, Ma’am. We can leave.” Captain Thirty-Four gave her consciousness a verbal nudge. Mary released the man’s nervous system and floated back towards the ceiling, observing the pandemonium in the office building. The bespectacled man beneath her nebulous form, fluttered his eyelids and peered at his screen in puzzlement.
“Poor chap. He’ll probably lose his job for this, or worse.” Mary felt the Hive’s energy, cushioning her psyche and transporting it back over the tundra, across seas and mountains, delivering it safely back to her body.
When Mary came to, Alexi was standing over her, watching her features. Detached from the Hive Mind, Mary felt an acute separation. Her brief interaction, released large quantities of endorphins into her bloodstream. A natural high that could easily become addictive. The subsequent crash left her with an emptiness in knowing that alone she would have to rely solely on her own wits. To keep her own counsel and make decisions based purely on self-preservation. The rapid attachment to the Hive surprised her. She was bereft of their company. Now she understood Visser’s pride in his Hive Mind.
Alexi had a variety of snack foods waiting and the kettle was boiling. He removed her neural activity cap and touched his hand to her forehead, testing her temperature. “Headache? Nausea? How do you feel?”
“Starving.”
“Remarkable. Here…eat, eat.” He returned to his lab stool and clicked away at the images of her brain on his monitor. His fascination of her cerebral cortex reminded her of Parth. He should be the one looking at those images of her brain, not Alexi. She reached over to the tray and selected a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. If Parth could see what I can do now, he would be so proud of me.
“How will we know if the experiment was a success?” She opened her mouth wide to receive an oversized golden crisp.
“Visser has agents all over world. Should get a text very soon.” Alexi removed his mobile phone from his top pocket, slid the button back from the mute position and laid it on the bench. They both looked at it expectantly. As if by command, it beeped. Alexi opened the text and read it.
“Well?” She said, through globs of wet crisp.
“It was successful. Very good. On schedule too.” He replaced the phone back in his pocket.
“So, what happened?” She paused her crisp munching.
“Earthquake in New Zealand, North Island.”
Chapter Fifteen
Congestion in Mary’s sinuses made her breathe through her mouth. It rendered her tongue dry. She ran the corner of the bath towel under the cold water tap and dabbed at the raw lids of her eyes. Her reward for obeying Alexi’s commands and inducing an Earthquake in New Zealand, was a new television on which she could view the devastation in the comfort of her prison cell. Her first reaction to Alexi’s statement had been laughter. How could she have initiated an Earthquake with radio waves? That was absurd.
When the national news bulletin announced the quake, it was the top story. The people of New Zealand were fully prepared and more than used to frequent tremors. What had made the headlines was the strange noises that preceded the Earthquake. Witnesses described the oscillating screeches as being like a rock band tuning up and adjusting the acoustic feedback. As if to confirm Mary’s worst fears, a New Zealander had captured a video recording of the deafening sounds on his smartphone. The BBC obliged their audience and played the footage.
At this point, Mary stopped watching the antipodean video showing back yard swimming pools sloshing around like a massive invisible hand was swilling brandy around its glass, and made a dash to the bathroom to vomit. The tears flowed shortly after when the newscaster announced the deaths of ten people, killed during the quake, mostly due to falling objects and vehicular accidents.
All those years campaigning against cruelty to animals, the struggles to maintain protein in her vegetarian diet and nightly preponderances trying to justify the consumption of dairy products and the purchase and wearing of leather. The day she cried herself to sleep after an argument over whether King Prawns would be self-aware following a mouthful of her friend’s Thai prawn curry. All blanched into insignificance in the light of her being responsible for the deaths of ten innocent human beings and the slaughter of one brutal guard.
She was a murderer. She had ended their lives, destroyed families, their hopes and their dreams. Mary could rationalis
e killing the guard, to a certain extent. His ruthless treatment and intentions towards her had incited actions in self-defence. She felt no remorse for his loss of life, but ten decent, hardworking people, were mortally wounded as a direct result of her activities.
Mary squeezed more toothpaste onto her brush and scrubbed her tongue and teeth. The stomach acid seemed determined to loiter on her taste buds. She looked at the shadows beneath her eyes in the mirror. She counted at least eleven more crow’s feet, a wrinkle for every death she had caused.
If Visser and the Hive had been responsible for all the other recent Earthquakes, the death toll was incalculable and set to increase further still. So many lives in danger. There was more at stake than Parth’s safety. She had to escape and warn the authorities, even if that meant killing another guard or two.
Alexi would be coming in soon, to check on her phantom migraine that she claimed to be suffering. She demanded a rest after her expedition with the Hive. Mary needed breathing space, time to think. Alexi wanted to forge on, muttering half Russian, half English sentences regarding timescales and schedules. She needed to fake her illness for long enough to formulate a plan to prevent Alexi forcing her to hurt others. Mary ached to go home, but that was not an option. That would be the first place Visser would look to hunt her down.
Muting the television, she lay on the bed and put the damp towel across her eyes. It was an effective blackout, albeit rather humid. She figured that Alexi would have ordered the guards to switch the solenoids that surrounded the hospital wards back on. The electromagnetic charge from those, would effectively shield the Hive Mind from any detection device. It would also shield her mind from theirs, allowing her an opportunity to snoop.
Oh come on… relax. This is never going to work if you can’t slow your breathing and heart rate down. The pep talk failed. Her short, rapid breaths continued. Try singing again, that worked before. In an almost imperceptible whisper, she began. The hum at the back of her voice box, reverberated her backbone, the waves travelling up to her skull and modulating the soft tissues within. By the second chorus, Mary was tranquil, in harmony with alpha waves produced by her brain and the resonant frequency of our much beleaguered planet.
