Gary Gibson - Final Days

Something above and beyond the sheer preposterousness of that thing growing in the Pacific niggled at him, until he realized, with a cold clenching in his gut, that it wasn’t located so very far from the shores of Taiwan.

SEVENTEEN

Arcorex Facility, Omaha, 4 February 2235

The Arcorex facility was located in a business park just outside the Omaha city limits, and consisted of half a dozen three- and four-storey buildings gathered around manicured lawns and picnic areas, their pale walls now gleaming dully in the moonlight.

‘Their tags claim they’re a toy manufacturer,’ muttered Mitchell, frowning, as he peered through the forward windscreen. They were parked on the opposite side of the road, only a short distance from the main gate.

Jeff shook his head. ‘Trust me when I say they aren’t.’ He removed the fake contacts Mitchell had given him, the corporate logos floating above the buildings vanishing from sight for a few moments while he swapped them for his own. He would need to have access to his own Ubiquitous Profile if he was going to have any chance at all of getting past building security.

‘You ready?’ asked Mitchell, as Jeff blinked his contacts into place.

Jeff shrugged and gave him a look that said ready as I’ll ever be .

Mitchell touched the dashboard, which lit up beneath his fingers, and the van started to move back out on to the road. They drove straight on past the Arcorex lot before turning off into a car park adjacent to it.

Jeff stared out at his old workplace as they came to a halt once more. ‘I’m still struggling to get my head around everything you’ve told me,’ he said, ‘but I guess you know that.’

‘I do.’ Mitchell nodded towards Arcorex. ‘By the way, I didn’t get a chance to thank you for helping me.’

‘For what – listening to your insane plan? Remind me again why you’re so sure it’s even going to work.’

‘It already did work, or I wouldn’t be sitting here with you right now. And you’re the one who got me out of there.’

Jeff gave a laugh, but it came out half-strangled. ‘You mean will get you out of there.’

&uoI swear, it’s going to be fine.’ Mitchell gave him a look that was undoubtedly meant to be reassuring, then pushed the van’s door open and jumped down. ‘We’ll drop him off at the motel, and he’ll make his own way to the Moon,’ he said, looking back up at Jeff. ‘And then we—’

‘Stop.’ Jeff put out a hand. Two Mitchells? It was almost more than his mind could deal with. ‘No more. I’m doing it.’ His skin felt slick with sweat, despite the cool February air.

‘Okay.’ Mitchell stepped back and glanced around. ‘Time to find a new ride out of here. Maybe that one.’ He gestured towards a four-door sedan quietly grazing on some bales of biomass towards the far end of the car park.

‘Good luck,’ said Jeff.

Mitchell silently nodded, then slammed the passenger door shut. Shuffling sideways into the driver’s seat, Jeff took manual control, guiding the van back out of the car park. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, to see Mitchell making his way over to the sedan.

Jeff parked alongside the gates, just next to the short driveway leading up to Arcorex’s main entrance. He got out and walked the rest of the way, trying not to think about the gasoline canisters Mitchell had wired up in the back of the van. Floating in the air before him, a message appeared as he approached the entrance, warning him to comply at all times or risk facing unspecified countermeasures. His contacts chose the same moment to let him know he was being remotely scanned. Jeff tried hard to relax, to avoid looking as scared as he felt, but in truth he was rigid with fear.

Another message appeared, telling him he was clear to go forward. He felt his shoulders sag with relief, and he walked on at a brisker pace. He really hadn’t believed until that moment that he would still be listed as an active member of staff.

Just then he saw a beam of light flicker between two buildings as Arcorex’s armed security made their regular patrol. He wondered if anyone from the neighbouring businesses had ever paused to wonder just why a toy manufacturer needed countermeasure warnings and guards armed with Cobras.

He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and pushed on through the entrance. At least it was the kind of operation where people often put in very irregular hours, which meant being here so late at night did not, in itself, imply suspicious activity.

Jeff had spent much of the last four days helping Mitchell prepare his elaborate plan. Whatever time hadn’t been spent sleeping or hiding in the back of whichever van, car or truck they’d stolen that day had been spent driving around Omaha, trying to locate supplies and looking for what Mitchell called the ‘right’ motel.

‘That’s it, right there,’ Mitchell had gestured through the windscreen towards a nondescript two-storey building set back on the other side of a wide lawn.

‘You’re sure that’s where we took you?’

‘Yeah,’ Mitchell nodded, still staring out at the motel. After a moment, his shoulders lifted and he let out a heavy sigh. ‘That’s the place, all right. I remember it distinctly.’

‘Has it occurred to you,’ asked Jeff, ‘that you’re caught up in a temporal loop?’

‘How do you mean?’ Mitchell had asked, as he guided them to a stop.

‘We’re about to help the other you escape from Arcorex, so he can make his way to the Moon, where he’ll get caught. Except – if I’ve got this right – he’ll escape, and wind up putting himself in cryogenic suspension, until a team from Tau Ceti arrives through a wormhole link sometime in the near-future. Yes?’

Mitchell had nodded. ‘Right so far.’

‘That team brought him – and by him, I mean you – back through the gates, back through time to the present, and now there’s two of you. And now you’re trying to make sure the Mitch I knew from Site 17 makes it to the Moon, so he can escape to that same cryogenics lab and become you. It’s just . . . mind-boggling.’

Mitchell nodded, his expression distracted, as he walked around to the rear of the van. He had opened it and lifted out a couple of shopping bags full of clothes that had been stowed in next to the cans of gasoline they’d purchased at such exorbitant cost.

‘Shouldn’t you book the room first?’ Jeff had enquired.

‘Did it right there, while you were talking,’ Mitchell replied, slamming the doors shut again.

The motel was self-service, and had therefore scanned their UPs before allowing them access to the vestibule. Directions appeared in the air; they followed them up a stairwell and along a cramped corridor. The door of the room Mitchell had booked swung open at their approach.

A TriView opposite the single tiny bed came alive as they entered. It was tuned to a news feed revealing how more growths had been detected, in the Antarctic and North Atlantic respectively, a long, long way from where the first of their kind had appeared.

They two men had glanced at each other wordlessly, then Jeff fell into a chair to watch the rest of the report, while Mitchell ripped open several vacuum-wrapped packs of freshly fabbed clothing, before dumping them on top of a cheap dresser.

‘I already kept an eye on the news while you were sleeping on the way here,’ Mitchell had explained, after glancing briefly up at the screen. ‘There’ve been a lot more bad quakes occurring in the Asian Pacific.’

‘Are those growths the reason?’ asked Jeff.

‘Not exactly,’ Mitchell replied. ‘More of a side-effect.’

‘Side-effect of what, exactly?’