by Sam Nash
“What year was this? When did you go to Iceland?” Mary looked stern. The rainfall was steadily increasing, chilling her skin and dampening her clothes.
“Erm… it would have been… 2001. We were lucky. The tour that left a couple of hours before us had a terrible time. We found out later that some little kid had collapsed during the blackout with seizures. Poor mite.” Dan stood, pulled his trousers up by the belt loops and faced his sister.
“That little kid, Dan,” Mary said to her silhouetted brother. “Was me.” Thousands of synapses popped and fizzled in their brains, connecting all the pieces of their histories into one inescapable conclusion. The one factor that both siblings had in common other than their shared genetic configuration. Both were present during the same explosive discharge of solar particles. Had they been genetically predisposed to their new abilities? Did the electromagnetic radiation cause a mutation in their DNA? Did Grampy know about their condition all along? They shared the collaborative thought progression telepathically.
Mary asked Dan to keep the revelation a secret, even from Parth. A part of her wanted to protect his professional integrity, after his years of searching for the trigger leading him to artificial chemical inducement. Another part of her agreed with Dan’s initial thoughts, that these gifts were too dangerous to unleash on a wider population.
Mary had visions of Alexi subjecting the Hive Mind Operatives to increasingly more hazardous levels of ionising radiation in an attempt to secure Mary’s limitless powers. She also feared that Parth would start a new research study funded by the British Government. One that began with Dan and Mary restrained and sedated in a medical laboratory.
“Hey, guys!” Muscles yelled. “Getting wet over here. You done?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The storm discharged a torrent of rain just as they had made it back to the foyer of the building. Parth was pacing up and down the lab when they arrived. “Mary, darling. How’s your head? Are you feeling okay?” He rushed to embrace his wife, planting an unwelcome peck on her wet forehead. “Are you in any pain at all?”
“Fine, thanks. What’s the matter with you?” She disengaged herself from his arms, pushing him away.
“I got the pathologist to crack open the Hive Operatives skull and dissect the brain. It was riddled with tumours, particularly on the pineal gland. We won’t know for sure if they were malignant till the tests are concluded. Same with tox screens, but it’s safe to say that habitual use of high doses of the chemical concoctions poured into that man’s veins, overloaded his limbic system. I suspect that his liver will show signs of strain or damage too.”
The wakeful nights and heavy workload had paid a toll on Parth. The deep furrows in his face remained visible even after his expression changed to relief upon hearing that his wife felt physically well. Mary took a peek inside his mind. She couldn’t help herself. Where she expected to find regimented order and constraint, she discovered a maelstrom of fright and disarray. His thoughts were a clamouring mess of chaos and anxiety. The video image of the Hive Operatives cancerous brain swam through his mind. It alternated with a vision of Mary lying on the pathologist’s slab, her skull sawn open for examination and her eyes milky with the cataract of death.
Parth gestured to a side table laden with pump action thermos flasks of hot water, canisters of dried coffee, teabags and a plate of biscuits. “You should keep well hydrated, love. I got you some ginger cookies. Would you like one now?” His eternal care for her was habitual, but mildly endearing. She dialled back her recent terse manner.
“You know I hate ginger, Parth. Are you feeling okay?” She turned to Dan, distracted by his sniggering. Dan held an apologetic hand aloft. Mary squinted suspicion towards her brother. She projected a message telepathically. “Did you do something to his memory?” Dan couldn’t help but laugh and nod. Parth was blinking at an unnatural rate and scratching his scalp.
The driver returned, dispensing with the formality of knocking, he barged into the lab. “Yelena wants you all in Tactical.” Dan held the door for Mary, then waited for Parth to come to his senses and follow on behind.
Flynn spun around in his seat as they entered the darkened room, raising his index finger to his mouth and then pointing towards the seating area. Yelena was mid video conference with an irate U.S. military man, dressed head to toe in beige uniform. The screen definition picked out the pock marks and faded scars in his skin, each one a talisman marking the trauma he had witnessed. Attached to his blazer were tiny rectangles of coloured cloth sewn in strips. He seemed intent on making them the focal point of his impassioned speech, jabbing his thumb at them repeatedly.
“Urban myth. Never heard such nonsense in all my long distinguished career.” His elongated vowel sounds pinned him to the Mississippi flag. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but these scares come along every once in a while, and nothing ever comes of it. Every whack job and nutter west of Georgia has a conspiracy theory that threatens mankind. There ain’t been a quake in Utah since before the early settlers and there ain’t a goddamn shred of evidence to suggest that mankind can start one either.” He adjusted his cap, the hatband sticking to his sweat greased forehead.
“With respect, general, you are wrong.” Yelena’s lazy eyelids were the only indicator of frustration in her perfectly composed demeanour. This latest mask of British Official, did not sit well with her. “Under specific controlled conditions, high frequency pulses are amplified by the ionosphere and reflected to precise locations across the globe. At the correct frequency, the waves can cause damaging resonance within the ground rock. We have solid intel that points to such an attack on the Wasatch fault, specifically the Salt Lake section. We believe that The Data Centre at Fort Williams is the target.”
The general removed his cap altogether and blew air through his teeth. “Well, ma’am. I will take that warning under advisement and get back to you should the need occur.” He swiped his thumb across his neck, his forehead dropped into a scowl. The Tactical screen went black as the feed was cut.
“Arsehole.” Yelena muttered, then turned to face the audience. She gave Flynn the nod.
“We have an all ports warning out on the tail number for Visser’s private charter. Without access to the flight plans, all we can do is wait till they land and scramble all tech to trace their whereabouts.” Flynn shot a millisecond glance at the Defence Minister who was sitting in the back row with a sour look. “Mary, is there anything else that you can remember that could help us to locate them? Anything at all.”
Dan leaned over to Mary and whispered. “They spend billions of tax payers’ money on a Big Brother that snatches away personal freedom and anonymity and yet they are still reliant on a Brighton born university lab tech to solve their crisis. Bloody typical.” Mary rolled her eyes, then caught Yelena staring icily at her. She needed to keep her on side. Give the illusion of humility. It felt all too reminiscent of her experience with Alexi. Project one persona but hide the reality. Make them believe that they hold all the cards. The minister shifted uneasily in his chair, straining to observe the movements and body language of those gathered.
Mary sent her rebuke straight into Dan’s mind. “Be compliant. Don’t give them an excuse to confine us.” She pretended to be in deep thought, pinching her chin between her thumb and side of her index finger and resting her elbow on her knee. “Alexi told me that Visser’s gifts are relatively weak. To communicate with the Hive Mind, he has to be physically close to them and he tires easily. If he is to infiltrate the minds of those controlling Ionospheric Heaters, he might need to move the Hive closer to the research facility they plan to use. Wouldn’t it be wise to monitor the incoming flights at airports close to those research facilities? I would definitely be looking at Fairbanks Airport in Alaska.”
Flynn gave Yelena a ‘told-you-so’ look, then swivelled his chair round to face his computer terminal, tapping and clicking his way round software applications at a phenomenal speed.
Y
elena ignored him. “And it was their intention for you to replace Visser in this infiltration, Mary?”
“Yes. Alexi was attempting to train me to collaborate with the Hive. They threatened to torture and kill Parth if I refused to cooperate.” Mary laid her hand on her husband’s wrist, tightening her grip.
“But why did they need you, if Visser can direct the Hive Operatives?” Still Yelena bore no telling expression. Her chiselled face remained motionless.
Mary choked. She had been avoiding this discussion, the one that spelled out her full capabilities and her ability to use a combination of her gifts as a unified power. To be able to send her consciousness to unlimited destinations, take control of a targeted person’s mind and feel every synaptic transmission from their senses. Visser achieved this power using a cluster of minds. As far as she could tell, Mary was the only one who possessed the talent of emitting electromagnetic pulses. She saw no indication that any from the Hive could do the same. That made her uniquely valuable.
The Defence Minister cleared his throat. They were impatient for her answer. Only she and one other knew that Alexi outranked Visser. Dan had been her subconscious passenger during her out of body travels back to the disused hospital. He had witnessed the scene through Mary when Alexi ordered Visser to shoot her former boss in the head. Could she use this information to deflect attention? Mary tried her luck. “Perhaps Alexi had grown tired of Visser’s incompetence.”
Yelena drew a sharp breath, her eyes dilated. Every person present noticed the breach in her serene outer shell. For a moment, Yelena was speechless. Flynn carried her.
“Mary. Do you think you could try and uplink with Visser’s brain? Take direct control?” He rose from his seat and took centre stage in front of the viewing area.
“I’m not a computer, Flynn.” Mary said, shaking her head. “I can’t just tap in an IP Address and plug myself into a network.” Even the idea of being inside Visser’s sinister head again made her heave.
“But the Hive is a like a wireless network, is it not? It relies on convergent frequencies that are being broadcast.” He was waving a biro towards her and getting into his stride.
“In a way, I suppose. Providing Visser is travelling with them. But it is a shielded network. Unless they switch off their solenoids, I cannot detect them. And that assumes that the Hive Operatives are all together in the same place or set of vehicles. Captain Thirty-Four…” She paused, taking in the looks of disbelief, “Yes, that was his designated name. The Captain told me that there was a segregated group of operatives devoted to infiltrating the minds of city bankers and such. I got the impression that they were physically separate too.”
Flynn’s computer made a beeping noise. He returned to his terminal swiftly and was opening applications before his rear had made contact with his seat.
“What is it?” Yelena said, regaining her equilibrium. Flynn did not answer. He repositioned his monitor and opened a command prompt window. Typing in script, he launched a small application that he had designed and written for himself. It sent a message directly to the destination servers, requesting a single ping back, confirming that all was fully functional. “Flynn?” Yelena urged.
The Tactical Room fell silent, all movement ceased, barring the key strikes beneath Flynn’s hands. “It’s not good.” He said in earnest. “Fairbanks Airport servers are offline.”
“But…wha’…what, ahem.” The Defence Minister rose and stomped down the steps at the side of the viewing area. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that Fairbanks Airport has no air traffic control, no security barriers or cameras, no heating, no runway lighting…I could go on.” Flynn looked in desperation at Yelena. She was at a loss for words.
“Well get them back online, man. What are you waiting for?” The minister huffed, gesticulating wildly at Flynn’s computer.
“Sir. I cannot remote access a powered down server. Someone there will need to physically power up the machines and allow them time to reconfigure the systems check before launching software.”
“English, man, English!” All but the minister had grasped the repercussions of what Flynn had announced. Mary listed all the computer controlled aspects of landing multiple aircraft on different runways in her head. Even if they had some warning of system failure, it was doubtful that they could risk attempting to sequence flights manually. The inevitability of casualties smothered their hope.
In slow, overly enunciated words, Flynn said; “There is nothing I can do, sir.”
“Don’t they have some kind of emergency power supply to prevent this from happening? Jeez, even hospitals have back-up generators for surgical units and life support.” His limp bottom lip flapped as he blustered, sending globules of spittle into the air.
“Yes, they do. High capacity power packs ensure that servers aren’t exposed to fluctuations in current. It’s standard procedure. It does suggest that someone has deliberately shut them down.” Flynn faced Mary.
“Visser.” Mary whispered. She massaged her temples. Flynn nodded.
“Put up a satellite feed on the main screen there. I want to see what is going on.” The minister made a circling motion with his finger towards the Tactical Room wall. “I should really appraise the PM on events, but she is locked in talks all night at Ditchley.”
“Sir, I haven’t got that level of clearance.” Flynn was still looking at Mary. Her grey pallor seemed to leech the life out of her.
“Bugger clearance, man! Can you do it, yes or no?” More tapping and clicking his computer terminal and a satellite feed flickered up on the screen.
There was an image of the Alaskan brain mounted in pixels for all to see, the white permafrost, decorating the mountain ranges and forming the outer edges of the organ. The glacial ravines picking out the cerebral fissures and the peninsula forming the brain stem, Mary thought it was beautiful.
The minister huffed. “I don’t think you fully understand, Flynn. If those Soviet bastards…forgive me Yelena… get their way, there won’t be a need for clearance levels. There won’t be a satellite feed for you to access. Cripple Stoneghost and we will not have a leg to stand on. No internet trawls, no telephone transmissions, email surveillance… nothing. We will be utterly blind.”
Flynn ignored the minister’s rant and zoomed the satellite imagery along a large winding river above the brain shape to the Alaskan city of Fairbanks. The twisted ribbons of muddy river courses forked and split between the sandbanks and smaller deltas beneath the airport; so much water and lush vegetation. He panned upwards, closer to the landing strip.
An odd assortment of aeroplanes taxied in a growing queue adjacent to the runway, waiting their instructions from the tower. Huge aeroplanes carrying passengers, some of cargo while other smaller jets nudged forwards as impatient as their wealthy owners. A Boeing 747 reached the front of the line, sweeping in a great ark to the foot of the runway, crawling ever forwards.
From the edge of the satellite range, the afternoon sun shone on the wings of an executive jet making its final approach just as the 747 rolled into its flightpath. Mary held her breath as the glinting jet tried to pull up, lifting the undercarriage clear of the passenger plane’s fuselage. It failed.
The wheels tore into the curved roof panels of the 747, yanking the jet’s nose down and crushing the cockpit into the first class cabin section. As the jet toppled, it smashed into the Boeing’s wing, snapping it clean if half and rupturing the fuel tanks. An orange ball of flames erupted from the mangled shards of metal, partly shrouded in a massive plume of black smoke. Silver and white fragments of a hot aluminium littered the asphalt along with pools of flaming aviator fuel.
“Oh, God.” The minister stood transfixed. The staggered refresh rate of satellite images delivered the devastating carnage in a juddered series, each frame engraving itself in their memories. Mary calculated the potential death toll in her head and shuddered. An inflatable slide appeared from the rear exit of the 747 like a gia
nt party blower, just as the remaining fuel tank ignited. The explosion filled the Tactical Room wall. “Jesus wept.” Billowing smoke obscured over half the screen. Fire trucks encroaching from every direction, suddenly stopped. Nothing could be done. “I’ve seen enough. Shut it off.” The minister swallowed hard.
Flynn blocked all emotion and concentrated on his manual and intellectual dexterity, his keystrokes a continuous clatter in an otherwise hushed room. “I sent another ping. Their servers are back online. I’ll try and access their site wide security cameras, but don’t hold your breath. It’ll take time but I should be able to get into Fairbanks traffic surveillance. Their coverage is extremely limited, though.”
“I’ll get onto the HAARP Research facility in Gakoma – see if they can isolate access to the software controlling their Ionospheric Heater. Maybe they can disconnect their electrical source.” Yelena pushed an agent from his computer terminal and took over, donning a communications headset as she sat down.
The Secretary of State for Defence turned and loomed over Mary. The violence of his conviction manifested in a visible tightening of muscles in his neck and fists. He chewed at his slack lower lip and inhaled a noisy breath through his nose.
“Mary. I want you to get inside that bastard’s head and make him eat a couple of bullets. Do whatever it takes. D’you hear me? I want him dead.” Mary, Dan and Parth exchanged glances. There was a brief second in silent contemplation between them. Parth stepped up to the challenge.
“Wait just one minute. You cannot order my wife to kill another human being. I understand fully what is at stake here and I can see that you feel you have no other choice. Mary is not military personnel, you have no authority over her. To expect her to infiltrate and murder whomever you demand makes you no better than the terrorists she escaped from. Whatever happened to twelve good men and true in a proper trial? What makes you the supreme judge and jury? You are putting her in the exact position that you claim has made her a threat to national security. In effect, you are forcing her to tie a noose around her own neck.”
