CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
Tuesday May 18th
Barbara and I had decided to make the most of my morning off by having a stroll around the shops and then an early light lunch. I wasn't due back until one thirty so we planned to pick out some new curtains for the bedroom and then go to the cafe.
It was a pleasant day, not too warm, and I was very much enjoying the relaxation of having a bit of normality after all the chaos of last year. Fortunately, Barbara had been very understanding about the circumstances of my American adventure and in fact we were now closer than ever.
We were chatting about some friends we were going to see that weekend. Just as we entered the soft-furnishings department, my implant caused me to stop in my tracks. At first I thought that I was picking up some sort of radio signal or interference from someone's phone, although that shouldn't be technically possible.
I quickly realised that something else was causing the noises in my head.
Barbara and I were holding hands and she winced as I inadvertently dug my nails into her palm.
“Sorry,” I said brusquely, “something's very wrong.”
Before she could utter even the first word of her question I felt her hand go limp and as I turned towards her she seemed to be in a dead faint. I felt a microsecond of dizziness myself but it passed and I managed to catch her before she fell.
It was only after I'd carried her over to a sofa and put her down that I looked around and realised that everyone else in the vicinity had also fainted. In its own clever multi-tasking manner my implant was already alerting me to the fact that it had just counteracted a dangerous electrical signal.
Glancing again at Barbara I ran towards the escalator, slowing down only sightly to take out my phone.
“I have a code purple in John Lewis,” I blurted out to A1, not having time to appreciate the absurdity of the sentence. Purple was our code for a serious public event of as yet unexplained origin.
I ran down the escalator as fast as I could without tripping over and saw that everyone on this floor had also passed out.
“Hang on,” said A1, “we're picking up some emergency calls. Any immediate danger in your vicinity?”
“No, everyone's just dropped to the floor.”
I paused by a young salesman who was slumped in front of his counter.
“I'm checking someone now. He's breathing... pulse normal.”
I looked around. “Everyone seems to have just fallen where they were standing.”
“Except you.”
“I felt something odd for a moment but my implant counteracted it. Details are already being sent to Agent 7 for analysis.”
“Good. Oh shit, this is bad. It seems to have happened over an area roughly one square mile. I'm monitoring police and ambulance calls from witnesses on the edge of... whatever the fuck this is.”
“Oh dear,” I said as I walked further along the electrical department.
“Don't tell me something else is happening?”
“No, it's an elderly woman, seems to have hit her head on something, there's a lot of blood.”
“You were with Barbara, weren't you? Is she alright?”
“Yes, luckily I stopped her falling. I've left her on a sofa. Hang on, I think somebody is coming round.”
A scraping noise behind me had alerted me that the young man I'd just examined was trying to get up. I rushed over to him.
“Be careful. It's okay, you just fainted.”
He gave me a strange look then staggered to his feet, picked up the nearest heavy object and made as if to throw it at me. He was barely strong enough to lift the television and he slumped back to the floor, dropping it with a crash that sounded apocalyptic in the eerie silence.
“What was that?” cried White.
“I don't know. Some kid woke up and... I think he tried to attack me but didn't have the strength. Now he's collapsed again. Shit! Barbara.”
I raced back towards the escalator, reasoning that it would be quicker to run up the one I'd just come down than waste time finding the other one.
“By the way,” said White, “you'd better disable any CCTV cameras you've appeared on.”
“Of course,” I puffed, making my painful way up the recalcitrant stairs, “I'll take care of that in a second.”
I made it to the top and slowed my pace in case others were also waking up but nobody had moved. I checked Barbara's pulse and breathing then saw to the cameras on these two floors.
“I'm patched in to cameras in the street where you are,” said White, “People seem to be waking up in a sort of pattern.”
“Pattern?”
“Yes, sort of... as if they're doing it in sequence, like a flock of birds taking off.”
“Hang on a second,” I said, focusing my attention and my microphone zoom. I picked up noise from outside, then the ground floor of the shop, then the floor below, then the floor I was on, each quickly but systematically following the other. I relayed this puzzling information to A1 then attended to Barbara.
“Well,” said 45, “this is all a bit bloody sci-fi, isn't it?”
“Unfortunately it's all too real,” said A1 grimly.
The chief members of T14 had all gathered at base camp in order that Agent 10 could be involved, violating our new rules within eight days.
“I'm bloody glad I got the boot now,” he said, trying to bring some much needed levity to the situation.
I became aware that A1 was looking at me impatiently.
“Just another couple of minutes,” I said, “and we'll have coordinated all my data with that of the emergency services.”
“This was a test run, wasn't it?” said 45. Her inflection was more that of a statement than a question.
“Probably,” said A1.
“It must have been,” said 37, “there's no possible reason why anyone would want to attack a random selection of the public in this manner. If they wanted to cause mayhem or kill they would have chosen a different location.”
“We are certain that somebody did this on purpose?” said 61. “I mean that it wasn't some kind of... I don't know, electrical storm, chemical leak?”
“The area seems to have been too well defined for that,” said A1, “the pattern of people affected and not affected is too neat. A chemical leak would have spread on the wind, this didn't.”
“Okay, we're ready,” said 7. Usually he was confined to the lab back at base, dealing with my implant and other tech matters, but since the death of 22 he'd taken over some of his work, us being thus far unable to find a permanent replacement for John's eccentric collection of skills.
Everyone gathered around the three computer screens on which 7 had arranged a variety of information sources.
“This is the chronology from the implant,” he began. “Eleven fourteen and twenty seconds it detects an anomalous electrical signal at a distance of seven hundred and twenty metres, give or take. Even I'm impressed at the efficiency of 4's device, because it would have taken two seconds for the sound waves to reach him, and the processing occurred less than four seconds after this happened.”
He picked up his pointer and touched one of the screens. A still picture became a three second clip of CCTV footage. Everyone watched intently as, next to a small lorry parked in a side street, a number of people were seen to clutch their heads simultaneously. One man managed to scold himself with the polystyrene bucket of coffee he was carrying, while other people dropped bags or stumbled slightly.
“That lorry is the source,” I said, “the company details on the side and the number plates are both fake.”
We let the clip run a few times before stopping it.
“After a high frequency burst of sound that nobody could hear but obviously felt, which lasted just over two seconds, there followed one second of silence punctuated by some kind of echo from the signal. Then after another three seconds, give or take, a lower pitched but still ultrasonic to human ears burst lasts for around ten seconds. This burst rendered everyone
into a sort of blackout state. It's also interesting that some people fainted while others appeared to loose consciousness but remain on their feet.”
He tapped another screen and we all watched footage from another street where dozens of people fainted just like Barbara and fell to the floor, but three people just stopped in their tracks.
“Can we zoom in close enough to see if those three have their eyes open?” asked 45.
“I'm afraid not,” said 7. “Based in our initial estimate from six randomly chosen cameras it seems that between one and four percent didn't fall over, but that's a rough estimate only. It'll take some time to go through all the footage. The lorry appears to be at the centre of an area of just under one square mile. There was no effect at all beyond that and people within the periphery merely stumbled initially but remained on their feet and conscious.”
“Latest casualty figures?” asked Agent 10.
A1 pushed a few buttons on his laptop.
“Nowhere near as bad as eleven years ago, but still we're looking at hundreds of injuries, maybe a few dozen fatalities. A lot of traffic was grid locked but at least three buses crashed. Hang on... Steve, have you got live footage from that camera by the lorry.”
7 clicked a few buttons and tapped a screen.
“There you... bloody hell!”
“I thought so,” shouted A1, “the fucking thing's still there. Arthur, quickest way to get me to that street?”
I rummaged through the map in my head.
“With the rush hour traffic now and all the chaos it's much quicker to wait here for the helicopter.”
“Thanks,” said A1 turning to his phone. “Pick me up from base camp now, priority one,” he barked. “Well drag him off the fucking toilet and tell him to bring a bucket with him!”
I caught 45's eye as she stifled a laugh.
“They should be starting the cobra meeting about now,” he said, pressing some more buttons on his phone. “Hello? This is Bill White, is the Chief Superintendent there? I need to speak to him urgently regarding today's incident.” He tapped his foot impatiently. “Is everybody on the fucking toilet... hello, Alan, Bill White. I need you to seal off...” he looked over at me and clicked his fingers.
Having just looked at the map the name of the street was fresh in my mind.
“Fallow Lane, W2”
“... Fallow Lane, W2. There's a lorry there we believe to be responsible for the incident, you must seal the street and keep your distance until I get there. Because you can't deal with it and we can. Look, Alan...”
A1 continued to argue the toss and I used my initiative and my implant to locate the helicopter and display it's progress on one of the screens. I nudged his arm.
“Hang on. Yes?”
“He should be here in eight minutes, you'll have to land on a roof and leg it down the stairs. I'm checking roof access now, initial estimate you'll be on the ground in twenty three minutes.”
“I'll be there in twenty three minutes, Alan, get the fuck on with it.” He put his phone away and took a deep breath. “Well done, Arthur.” he said, patting my shoulder. “Right, you and... Adam, no Jen, you and Jen are coming with me. Arthur, I'll need you to scan the lorry, see if there are people or booby traps in it, and Jen if there are people in there I'll need you to beat the confessions out of them. Adam, you stay here and take charge of gathering new info and liasing with me.”
“Covert or tooled up?” asked 45.
“I think we're past covering this up and it's a matter of principle that we're more tooled up than Mr Plod.”
“Come on, Hannah, tool me up,” grinned 45.