They headed back towards the main entrance.
Swain didn’t dare move until the sounds of the footsteps had faded off into the night.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
He was in the rotunda, on the stage. He looked at his wristband:
2:21
2:20
2:19
‘Why don’t you take your time next time, boys?’ he said aloud. He couldn’t believe it had taken only four minutes. It had felt like an eternity.
But now he only had two minutes left. He had to move.
Fast.
With a final look through the white lattice handrail of the rotunda stage, Swain leapt to his feet, and ran down the stairs.
2:05
Into the treeline, and he stopped beneath one of the heavy oaks.
He reached up and grabbed a thick low-hanging branch and snapped it from the tree. Then he ran out onto open ground again, toward the library building.
1:51
1:50
1:49
In the shadows of the southern wall, Swain came to the ground-level window he had seen before and dropped to his knees. He tightened his grip on the long thick branch and prayed to God that this would work.
He swung the branch down hard at the window. The small window shattered instantly. Glass exploded everywhere.
Instantly, however, a crackling grid of silver-blue electricity burst to life across the width of the window.
Swain’s eyes went wide with dismay.
Oh, no. Oh . . . no.
1:36
Swain swallowed.
He hadn’t thought that that would happen. He had hoped that the gap would be too wide, that the electricity would not be able to jump the width of the small window.
But the window was too small.
And now he was left with a wall of jagged, criss-crossing lines of pure electricity in front of him.
1:20
1:19
1:18
Only a minute left.
Think, Swain! Think! There has to be a way! There has to be!
But his mind was now a blur of panic and incredulity. To have got so far, and to end it all like this . . .
Images of the night flashed across his mind.
Reese in the Stack. Meeting Hawkins. The parking lot. Balthazar. Up to the First Floor. Bellos and the hoods and the Konda in the atrium . . .
1:01
1:00
0:59
. . . the Internet Facility and the handcuffs on the door. Up to the Third Floor. The janitor’s room. The Karanadon. The elevator shaft. Back down to the Stack. The small red door. Falling through the door with the hoods.
Outside. In the tunnel. The subway train.
0:48
0:47
0:46
Wait.
There was something there.
Something he had missed. Something that said there was a way in.
0:37
0:36
0:35
What was it? Shit! Why couldn’t he remember? Okay, slow down. Think. Where did it happen?
Downstairs? No. Upstairs? No. Somewhere in between.
The First Floor.
What had happened on the First Floor?
They had seen Bellos, seen the hoods attack the Konda. Then Balthazar had thrown a knife and pinned one of them to the railing . . .
0:29
0:28
0:27
Then Holly had pressed the elevator button and they had run into the Internet room.
Holly . . .
Then the door. And the handcuffs.
0:20
0:19
0:18
What was it?
Holly . . .
It was there! Somewhere in the back of his mind. A way in! Why couldn’t he remember it?
0:14
0:13
0:12
Think, Goddamn it, think!
0:11
0:10
Swain pursed his lips, frowning.
0:09
He swung his head from right to left. No other windows. Nowhere else to go.
0:08
Think back. First Floor. Bellos. Hoods.
0:07
Balthazar. Knife.
0:06
Elevator. Holly pressing the button. Holly . . .
0:05
Holly? Something about Holly.
0:04
Something Holly said?.
0:03
Something Holly did?
0:02
And with the expiration of the countdown came the horror of the realisation.
Stephen Swain was dead.
FIFTH MOVEMENT
30 November, 8:56 p.m.
In the janitor’s room on the Third Floor, Paul Hawkins sat down against the wall beside Balthazar, and nodded, satisfied.
Across the floor from him, in front of the open doorway of the room, lay a large puddle of highly flammable methylated spirits—and next to him, a box of old-fashioned phosphorus-tipped matches. He had been pleasantly surprised at what he had been able to find on the shelves of the old janitor’s room.
He felt a little safer now. Any unwanted guests passing through that doorway would be in for a big—
And then, abruptly, he heard it.
The windows above him rattled slightly, while the floor shook gently.
Hawkins couldn’t quite guess what it was.
But it sounded like a muffled explosion.
Selexin and Holly stopped at the top of the stairwell as the wooden banister beside them began to shudder.
‘Did you hear that?’ Selexin asked nervously.
‘I felt it,’ Holly said. ‘What do you think it was?’
‘It sounded like a blast of some sort. An explosion. From somewhere outside—’
He cut himself off.
‘Oh no . . .’
‘Clear!’ ‘Commander’ Harry Quaid called again.
Marshall ducked behind the wall at the top of the ramp as Quaid rounded the corner and joined him.
The second blast rushed outward from the bottom of the concrete entry ramp. A billowing cloud of grey smoke raced up the ramp and shot out onto the street, thundering past Marshall and Quaid.
Fragments of metal—the remnants of what had been the steel grating that closed off the library’s parking lot—clattered loudly to the ground.
The smoke cleared and Marshall, Quaid and a small cohort of NSA agents made their way down the charred ramp, stepping over the gnarled pieces of steel that now littered the slope.
Marshall stopped at the bottom of the ramp and stared in awe at the sight before him.
Across the wide rectangular opening of the parking lot—filling the exploded round hole in the middle of the steel grating—was an enormous grid of bright blue electricity, crackling and sizzling, lashing out every few seconds with long fingers of high-voltage lightning.
Marshall folded his arms as Quaid stood beside him, gazing at the criss-crossing grid of light before them.
‘We knew it,’ Quaid said, not taking his eyes off the wall of blue light.
‘We did indeed,’ Marshall said. ‘So. They electrify the whole building, cutting it off, sealing it so that nothing can get in or out . . .’
‘Right.’
‘So, why have they done it?’ Marshall asked. ‘What the hell is going on inside this building that we’re not supposed to see?’
Holly tapped her foot impatiently as she waited on the Third Floor landing of the stairwell. Selexin was peering around the open fire door into the study hall.
The room was a mess.
An absolute mess.
A diagonal line of pure destruction ran all the way across the study hall—from the doorway to the janitor’s room in the far corner, right up to the stairwell door. Desks crushed beneath the weight of the Karanadon lay in splinters, strewn all over the floor.
In the dim blue city light, Selexin could just make out the doorway to the janitor’s room
on the far side of the room. There didn’t seem to be anybody there at the moment. In a dark corner of his mind, Selexin wondered what had happened to Hawkins and Balth—
Suddenly a shadow cut across his view of the janitor’s room.
A dark shape, barely distinguishable in the hazy blue darkness, about the size of a man, but much, much thinner, moving stealthily between the desks of the study hall, heading toward the janitor’s room.
Selexin ducked back behind the stairwell door, hoping that it hadn’t seen him.
Then he grabbed Holly’s hand and they began to descend the stairs.
In the janitor’s room, Hawkins leaned back wearily against the concrete wall. He was watching Balthazar walk gingerly around the room.
Now that his eyes were clear of Reese’s saliva and his vision seemingly restored, Balthazar seemed to be getting his strength back. A few minutes before, he had managed to stand up on his own. Now he was walking.
Hawkins looked out through the doorway—over the wide puddle of methylated spirits he had poured—into the study hall.
Everything was silent.
Nobody was out there.
He turned back to watch Balthazar pace awkwardly around the room, and as he did so, he failed to notice a sharp triangular head loop itself smoothly and silently around the doorway.
It looked inside, slowly tilting its head from side to side, alternating between Balthazar and Hawkins.
It never made a sound.
Hawkins turned idly and saw it. He stopped cold.
The head was a long, sharp, flat isosceles triangle, pointing downwards. No eyes. No ears. No mouth. Just a flat, black triangle, slightly larger than a man’s head.
And it just hovered there, in the doorway.
The body was still out of view, but Hawkins could clearly see its long thin, ‘neck’.
Now, inasmuch as everything he had seen so far was basically, ’animal’—with eyes, limbs and skin—this thing, whatever it was, was totally alien.
Its, ‘neck’ was like a string of white pearls flowing down from the flat, two-dimensional triangular head. Presumably it flowed into a body that was still out of his sight.
Hawkins continued to stare at the creature—just as it seemed to stare curiously back at him.
And then Balthazar spoke. A deep, husky voice.
‘Codex.’
‘What?’ Hawkins said. ‘What did you say?’
Balthazar pointed at the alien. ‘Codex.’
The Codex moved forward—effortlessly, smoothly—floating through the air.
It crossed the threshold of the room and Hawkins saw that it had no body at all. The string of pearls that formed its neck was, in fact, about five feet long. And it dangled down from the head, curling upward at the tip, never touching the ground.
And at the tip of the tail, burning brightly, was a green light that glowed from a tight grey metal band. The Codex was another contestant.
The tail slithered back and forth like a snake’s, hovering upright, one foot above the ground.
‘Oh man,’ Hawkins grabbed the matchbox and pulled out a phosphorus-tipped match. He struck it on the floor.
The flare of white light made the Codex hesitate. It stopped above the pool of methylated spirits.
Hawkins held the match aloft, the flame slowly burning its way down the white wood of the matchstick, blackening it.
He swallowed.
‘Aw, what the hell,’ he said. And he dropped the match into the pool.
Levine was standing out in front of the library when his radio sputtered to life.
‘Sir! Sir! We have a light! I repeat: we have a light! Looks like a fire. Third floor. North-east corner.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Levine said. He switched channels on his radio. ‘Sir?’
‘What is it, Levine?’ James Marshall sounded irritated by the interruption.
‘Sir,’ Levine said, ‘we have confirmation of activity inside the library. I repeat, confirmation of activity inside the library.’
‘Where?’
‘North-east corner. Third Floor.’
Marshall said, ‘Get over there. We’re on our way.’
The walls of the janitor’s room flared bright yellow as a curtain of fire burst upward from the pool of methylated spirits, engulfing the Codex.
Hawkins and Balthazar stepped back from the flames, shielding their eyes. The Codex could not be seen through the blazing wall of fire.
And then it emerged.
Floating forward. Through the flames. Oblivious to the heat.
It moved inside the janitor’s room, clear of the fire.
‘Oh, man,’ Hawkins said, edging backwards.
Balthazar spoke—again, just one word in a flat monotone.
‘Go.’
Hawkins said, ‘What?’
Balthazar was staring intently at the Codex. ‘Go,’ he repeated solemnly.
Hawkins didn’t know what to do. The Codex was hovering right in front of them. And even if he got past it, he still had to get through the fire—the fire that he had set up to keep intruders out. It had never occurred to him that that same fire might serve to keep him in.
There was no way out. There was nowhere to go.
Balthazar turned to Hawkins and looked him squarely in the eye. ‘Go . . . now!’
And with that Balthazar launched himself at the Codex.
Hawkins watched in astonishment as the Codex leapt forward at the same moment and coiled its thin body three times around Balthazar’s throat.
With both hands, the big man pulled desperately at the Codex’s stranglehold around his neck. He stumbled backwards into the remains of the cyclone fence that divided the room, tripped, and fell to the floor beneath the shelves packed with detergents and cleaning agents.
Hawkins was still just standing there, stunned, watching the battle in awe, when Balthazar cried, ‘Go!’
Hawkins blinked and turned immediately. He saw the fire, spreading across the room, creeping across the floor toward him. He saw the dusty methylated spirits bottle he had used, lying on the floor, inches away from the approaching flames.
Too late.
The flames devoured the bottle as Hawkins dived over the nearest pile of wooden boxes.
Under the intense heat, the glass bottle—still half full—exploded like a Molotov cocktail, shooting out missiles of glass and fire in every direction.
Beyond the cyclone fence, Balthazar was back on his feet again, struggling with the Codex.
He fell back heavily against the wooden shelves and they collapsed under him. Glass spirit bottles, plastic detergent bottles and a dozen aerosol spray cans crashed to the floor.
Hawkins saw the shelves collapse, saw all the bottles hit the floor—cleaning agents and detergents that carried conspicuous red warning signs: DO NOT MIX WITH DETERGENTS OR OTHER CHEMICALS, and highly flammable aerosols with their own glaring warning labels.
The fire moved inexorably forward, across the room.
‘Oh my God,’ Hawkins’ eyes darted from the fire on the floor to the chemicals lying in its path.
Behind the cyclone fence, the Codex’s body was still coiled tightly around Balthazar’s throat. Balthazar’s face was twisted in a tight grimace, his cheeks beetroot red.
Hawkins spun to warn him about the fire and in that instant their eyes met, and Balthazar, staring intently at Hawkins, tightened his grip on the Codex’s snake-like body.
Hawkins saw it in the big man’s eyes. Balthazar knew what was going to happen. The fire. The chemicals. He was going to stay in the room. And keep the Codex with him.
‘No!’ Hawkins cried, realising. ‘You can’t!’
‘Go,’ Balthazar gasped.
‘But you’ll—’ Hawkins saw the flames creeping steadily across the floor. He had to make a decision fast.
‘Go!’ Balthazar yelled.
Hawkins gave up. There was no more time. Balthazar was right. He had to go.
He turned back to face the f
ast-approaching wall of fire, and, with a final glance back at Balthazar—locked in battle with the Codex—Hawkins said softly, ‘Thank you.’
Then he covered his face with his forearm and plunged into the fire.
Levine arrived at the north-east corner of the library building just as Quaid and Marshall came running up. The agent in charge of the perimeter, Higgs, was there waiting.
‘Up there,’ Higgs said, pointing at two long rectangular windows up on the third floor, just below the overhang of the library’s roof.
The two windows glowed bright yellow, with the occasional flash of orange flames.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Marshall shook his head. ‘The god-damn building is on fire. That’s just what I need.’
‘What do we do?’ Levine said.
‘We get inside,’ Harry Quaid said flatly, gazing up at the glowing windows. ‘Before there’s nothing left.’
‘Right,’ Marshall scowled, thinking. ‘Damn it. Damn it!’ Then he said, ‘Levine.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Call the fire department. But when they get here, tell them to hold off. We don’t want them going in there until we’ve had a good look inside. I just want them here in case that fire gets out of con—’
‘Hey. Hold on a minute . . .’ Quaid called. He had wandered off down the side of the building and was now standing at the south-eastern corner.
‘What is it?’ Marshall said.
‘What the fuck . . . ?’ Quaid disappeared down the southern side of the building.
‘What is it?’ Marshall followed, rounding the corner after Quaid.
Quaid was thirty yards down the southern wall, almost at the south-western corner of the building. He called back to the group. ‘Special Agent Higgs, you in charge of surveillance tonight?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me, did you find anybody around here earlier? Anybody near this wall?’
Higgs didn’t understand what was going on. Quaid was peering at the base of the wall, at what appeared to be a small window down near the ground.
‘Well—uh—yes, sir. Yes, we did,’ Higgs said. ‘We found a drunken bum asleep up against this wall not long ago.’
‘Was he down near this corner? Near the window down here?’ Quaid asked.
‘Uh, yes. Yes he was, sir.’
‘And where is this drunken bum now, Higgs?’ Quaid asked, kneeling on the grass, still looking at the base of the building.