He gasped.
This is it! It’s here!
The very same glyphs as the ones they’d encountered on the surface of that vast cylinder in the jungle. Somewhere beyond that smooth wall, it had to be there. Just like that transmitter, hidden beneath the ground. Whoever it was that had built those things had specifically chosen locations that were embedded deep beneath the most protected, most sacred, most unlikely places to be explored or probed by archaeologists or tomb-raiders.
Clever. Very clever. Hidden as it was beneath the holiest of holy places in the Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions. A place forbidden to anyone to enter. A place with its own cleverly established mythology. Perhaps the engineers of this construct had seeded those very ideas with the antecedents who’d been living here, ideas that would inform the Judaean faith, then later Christianity and Islam. An idea designed simply to ensure this location would eternally be considered the most sacred, most protected and most unexplored location on the planet.
Liam decided he’d gone far enough. This was more than enough proof that they’d come to the right location. It was right down there. Somewhere beyond that glass-smooth wall.
‘Right. OK … I’m done here.’
He wondered how long he’d been scrabbling around beneath the temple. Ten minutes? Twenty?
God knows what havoc’s going on up there now.
He decided he’d better make his way back up before whatever riotous distraction Bob was causing above ground ran its course. Time to get the hell out, regroup and maybe head back to London. Maddy was surely back from her fact-finding by now and they could figure out together what they were going to do next.
He put his pen and diary back in his bag. Pulled the priests’ heavy robes back on over his head, grabbed the torch and started to make his way back up the passage, hoping that when he finally emerged in the temple he wasn’t going to find himself staring bleary-eyed at a welcoming committee of irate temple priests.
CHAPTER 28
2070, Denver
5 days to Kosong-ni
‘… reports of mounting casualties as the conflict in the region continues to escalate. Mixed units of soldiers and artificial combat personnel from the Pacific Union reportedly engaged with a regiment of the North Korean People’s Army, the Republican Guard, supported by combat droids, five miles north of Chongjin. The death toll, in what many are now calling a full-blown war, has now been confirmed as twenty-seven thousand civilian and military fatalities …’
‘Becks, why are those people fighting?’ asked Charley.
Becks and the little girl were sitting on the middle bunk, their legs dangling over the side, swinging freely as they idly watched one of the big news screens on the ceiling.
‘They are fighting over something neither side wants to share with the other.’
‘What?’
‘Oil.’
She looked up at the support unit. ‘Is that the black gooey stuff everyone used to make things go?’
‘Yes.’
She frowned. ‘But I thought that was just in the old, old times?’
‘Oil is used primarily as a raw material for producing plastics and polymers. But some nations, even in the present, rely on hydrocarbons to generate their power.’ She shook her head sternly. ‘This is a flawed and short-sighted energy strategy.’
‘Wrong?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Becks cocked a brow and looked at her. ‘They are relying on a nearly depleted resource.’
Charley narrowed her eyes as she tried to get her head round that. She gave up on it after a minute and pulled a face. ‘Why do you always talk so funny?’
Becks looked down at her again. ‘Was my answer not clear?’
‘You use lots of long words.’
‘What is wrong with long words?’
Charley hunched her shoulders. ‘I’m nine?’
Becks nodded slowly. She managed to play the most appropriate smile in her database across her lips. ‘I’m sorry, Charley.’
They watched the news for a while: a montage of grainy, shaky on-the-ground footage transmitted from battlefield cams – the worst glimpses of bloody carnage blurred out by the digi-channel. They saw grey-brown skies slashed by streaks of phosphor and tracers spewing from the bellies of swooping drone fighters. Dazzling explosions that caused screen white-out and left behind billowing mushroom clouds that rolled into an already smudged sky. A mountainous battlefield littered mostly by the ragged bodies of poorly equipped North Korean soldiers.
‘Becks?’
‘Yes, Charley?’
‘Will all that fighting be coming over here?’
She pondered how to answer that. As a matter of fact, the indirect effect of this war was coming their way imminently – a biological doomsday weapon that was soon to be deployed, almost certainly by the side that was losing this short sharp war: North Korea.
Lying was still a technique she had trouble with. It jarred with every line of software in her head to say something that was … was not. But, on the other hand, reassuring misdirection? What Liam might call a ‘little white lie’? That was something she was beginning to get the hang of as she cared for the girl.
‘Don’t worry, Charley. Everything is going to be just fine. We are safe here.’
Just then they heard a commotion. Below the lines of laundry strung from one row of beds to the next, making the dormitory hall look like some kind of Far Eastern bazaar, they heard the slapping of hasty feet approaching, barked excuse-mes and apologetic I’m-really-sorrys and I-just-need-to-get-bys.
Their bunk frame vibrated and the bed springs above creaked as Heywood stirred. His grizzly face appeared over the edge of the frame. ‘What’s the guddamn commotion?’
‘I hear Maddy approaching,’ answered Becks. She cocked her head and listened to Maddy’s impatient voice barking at someone to get out of her frikkin’ way. ‘There must be some news.’
A moment later, Maddy staggered into their space, wheezing for air and grasping the bed frame for support. ‘Everyone get dressed,’ she said. ‘We’re being released! Rashim finally came through for us.’
Rashim was waiting for them in the processing hall. He watched as they were each issued with ID cards and a week’s ration credit, and their backpacks and contents were returned – minus their confiscated antique guns, of course. Finally, an official waved them through, the paperwork done.
‘Five days!’ was the first thing Maddy said to him as they joined him. ‘We’ve got just five frikkin’ days left! The Pacific Union’s invasion of North Korea started two days ago!’
He looked hurt. ‘No “thank you very much for pulling strings and getting us out of here, Rashim”?’
‘OK, thanks, but … Jeez, we’ve got to get moving.’ She grabbed his shoulder. ‘Please tell us you know exactly where we have to go.’
He nodded. ‘W.G. Systems Research Campus. I have the precise location entered into my wrist-pad,’ he replied, tapping the personal organizer on his arm.
‘So we’re good to go? Like, now?’
Rashim handed out some face masks. ‘These are only cheap ones. But you will all need them for outside; the air quality in Denver is very poor today. Once we get out of the city, the air should get better.’
‘OK.’ She turned to Heywood. ‘Well … I guess you and us, we’re all square now. You guided us safely to the Median Line and we got you through, so …’
The old man nodded. ‘This is where you ditch the old fella?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite as bluntly as that. But …’ She shrugged. ‘This is where you wanted to get to. This was the deal, right?’
‘So I can die of –’ he lowered his voice so Charley, standing a few feet away and holding Becks’s hand, wouldn’t hear him – ‘so I can die of that virus like everyone else in a few days’ time?’
‘Not necessarily.’ She glanced at Rashim. ‘Who knows what the future’s going to be?’
‘G
reat.’ He sighed. ‘So, in a few days’ time, either I’m gonna die, or I’m gonna vanish in a puff of air?’
Maddy shot him a cautionary frown. ‘Maybe this isn’t the best place for us to be discussing this?’
‘An’ what about this girl? Don’t tell me you just leavin’ her with me?’
She looked at Charley. That was kind of what she’d assumed would happen once they got out of the internment camp. ‘I … well, there must be some place you can take her to. Some home for orphans or something.’
‘Look … why don’t you let us come with you?’ Heywood shrugged. ‘Me an’ the girl won’t be a burden. Maybe we can help somehow?’
Rashim nodded. ‘They might be of help.’
‘Oh, great … Thanks a bunch for that, Rashim.’
‘I can take responsibility for the girl,’ said Becks. ‘She will not be a burden.’
‘Seriously?’ She turned to Becks. ‘You’re choosing now to get all maternal?’
Becks cocked her head. ‘I don’t underst–’
‘OK … didn’t want to get all scratchy on you, but you leave us behind,’ said Heywood, ‘an’ I’ll tell everyone what’s goin’ on.’
Maddy’s jaw snapped shut.
‘I’ll tell people who the hell you are … what you can do. I’ll tell them where you’re guddamn well headed.’
Rashim bit his lip. ‘He knows everything, Maddy. With … “my project” going on right now, the first mention of time travel and we will have FSA agents descending on us from all directions.’
‘Guddamn right,’ said Heywood, nodding. He turned to her apologetically. ‘Look … strength in numbers, right?’
She closed her eyes and sighed. Waldstein, if they did find him, was going to throw a fit. She already knew how paranoid he was about being discovered contravening the strict international protocol he’d been instrumental in establishing. However, it was Waldstein who’d broken radio silence, who had extended an invitation to the team to come to him … who’d decided to part with caution.
‘Extra pair of hands,’ added Heywood. ‘You know … in case we run into any trouble? I can handle myself.’
‘Why not?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘The more the merrier.’
CHAPTER 29
2070, Denver
Sheesh … This is the future?
Maddy gazed up through the spattering drops of rain at the tower blocks around them, fading into a brown haze, then disappearing into the low-hanging clouds. She could see few people, though. She’d expected the rain-slick streets to be full of life and colour. But they were deserted. Rashim explained that the rain, more like a persistent drizzle, was corrosive – a diluted form of hydrochloric acid that gradually ate its way through anything not coated in polyethylene plastic. On some days, it was concentrated enough to cause irritation and rashes and minor burns on exposed skin. The overcrowded inhabitants of Denver preferred to stay indoors when the weather was like this.
They were wearing plastic macs, goggles and air-filtration masks as they skirted the perimeter of an old shopping plaza that was now host to an encrustation of unofficial housing: a shanty town of prefabricated habitation modules stacked on top of each other, four, five, six cabins high, creating unstable-looking improvised tower blocks surrounded by cages of scaffolding. Loops of power and data cables dangled from pipes and stretched tautly from one cabin tower block to the next like strands of webbing, as if some vast species of arachnid had started to make a web and left it half finished.
Rashim’s accommodation tower overlooked the shanty town. They entered a small foyer and squeezed into an elevator that took them up fifty-four floors. They emerged into a dimly lit, threadbare-carpeted hallway that he led them down until they came to his apartment.
‘Home sweet home,’ he said as he pressed his thumb against a dimple beside the door handle. A lock clacked and he pushed the door open.
‘It is a bit messy, I’m afraid,’ he cautioned.
Maddy stepped over some clothes on the floor. ‘Just a bit.’
He ushered them all in, then closed the door after them. They were standing in a rectangular room, about twenty feet long and twelve wide. The walls were covered in a dark chocolate-coloured wallpaper designed to mimic mahogany panelling. It looked like what it was, cheap and cheerless. Several spotlights in the low ceiling picked out hazy circles on the cord carpet. At the far end was a small workstation and roller chair in front of a three-foot-wide floor-to-ceiling window. To their left, recessed into the wall, was a pull-down bed; to their right, a narrow counter with wall units and a sink.
Maddy looked at the mucky plates piled up in murky dishwater. ‘Your mom would be so proud of you.’
‘I have been busy getting you out,’ he replied defensively.
‘This place is tiny.’ Maddy stepped across the small living room. ‘And this is the kind of place someone important with influence is supposed to live in?’
‘It’s a single-unit. Not very many people get assigned one of these. Most people have to share. So, yes … this is privileged accommodation.’
She made her way across to the tall window, sat down in the chair, spun it round and looked out through the spits and spats of dirty rain running down the glass at the shanty town below.
Sheesh, the future really is grim.
Even here in the capital city of this re-formed, consolidated version of America, a place that desperate millions were camping outside to get into … Even here, it had the feel of a world that had given up and was just waiting for the executioner’s blade to fall – a monochrome world of sick yellows and dying browns. She’d hoped for so much more than this. Hoped for a futuristic New York. Hoped for a dazzling carnival of neon lights and busy, criss-crossed skies. But no … from what she’d witnessed thus far it was a permanently dark and damp metropolis of empty streets and tower blocks dotted with dim interior lights and pale faces staring out at the jaundiced sky.
‘I have not just been sitting on my arse. I managed to get in some supplies for us while I have been waiting for your application to clear,’ said Rashim. ‘It’s not like I have been doing nothing. Look! Packets of freeze-dried algae protein and soyo pasta. Bottles of water and water-purification tablets. Some meds. Look, I also managed to get my hands on three ex-police tasers.’
Maddy turned and looked at the supplies stacked in the corner. ‘OK, I apologize. You’ve done good.’
‘Most of this is black market. Very expensive. I emptied my credit account to get my hands on these supplies.’ He spread his arms. ‘I am now, officially, completely broke.’
‘If you folks are right about things, money’s gonna be worth less’n spit on a sidewalk pretty soon. Even here in the city,’ said Heywood. He looked at the pile of supplies and nodded approvingly. ‘Water, food and weapons is what’s gonna get you by.’
‘What’s munny?’ asked Charley.
‘Exactly, miss.’ Heywood smiled and ruffled the hair on her head. ‘There ya go. This little girl got by her whole life not needin’ a single dollar.’
‘So how far away is Waldstein’s place?’ asked Maddy. ‘Is this another hike on foot?’
‘It’s about seventy miles south-west of Denver. We can take Route 87 most of the way down, then we have to head west into the Rockies. And, yes, it is going to be on foot most of the way, I would say.’
‘We’ve got five days, Rashim; is that going to be enough time to get us there?’
‘Where does this plague of yours start?’ asked Heywood.
Maddy glanced at Charley. Her head was cocked, listening to the adults. She’s going to find out soon enough. Might as well be now.
‘The Kosong-ni kicks off someplace out east,’ Maddy replied. ‘North Korea. At a place called Kosong-ni … hence the name.’
‘So, we got time,’ said Heywood. ‘Virus gonna take a few weeks to get from over there to over here, right?’
‘I don’t know how fast something like this can spread.’
‘Very fas
t,’ said Rashim. ‘If it is airborne. If it has an undetectable incubation period, it could be transmitted to various places. If it is an engineered pathogen, it could already be widely spread but in a dormant state, waiting for a chemical signal.’
‘If this plague is as terrifyin’ as you told me, then the sooner we’re out in the wilderness, away from other guddamn people, the better.’
‘Plague?’ Charley looked up at Becks. She was still holding her hand. ‘Becks? Are we all going to die now?’
Maddy sighed and looked at her. ‘Becks, maybe you and me better explain the situation to her.’
‘Yes, Maddy.’
‘Sensitively … OK?’
‘Yes, Maddy. I will follow your lead.’
She turned to the others. ‘I guess you two can start packing this stuff up, then we’ll head out?’
‘I suggest tomorrow morning,’ said Rashim. ‘The air is much clearer in the mornings.’
‘OK, then we’ll pack this stuff up now, get some sleep, and head out first thing.’
‘Everyone is going to die?’
They were standing beside the window, looking out at the dim cityscape as Rashim and Heywood worked at stowing away their supplies. Maddy wondered how much truth to pass into the hands of this little girl.
She nodded slowly. ‘Almost everyone, Charley. It’s a nasty disease that some bad men made as a kind of weapon.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Are we … are we going to escape the disease?’
‘We’re heading to a safe place up in the mountains, aren’t we, Becks?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. A safe place.’
Charley pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘OK.’ Then, after a moment, she added, ‘And is that the place where the walrus man lives? The one you been trying to find?’
Maddy couldn’t help snorting a dry laugh at that: the walrus man. She’d kind of got his name half right. She wondered how much this little girl had heard them muttering to each other over the last few weeks and months when they thought she was fast asleep or zoned out. How much she’d quietly ingested and been puzzling over.