Gary Gibson - Final Days

‘Right before you tracked me down at Harry’s, I was helping to track down an ASI shipment hijacked out of Florida. According to Donohue, it was loaded with Founder artefacts, but it wound up sinking to the bottom of the Pacific at the exact same location the first of the growths appeared.’

‘I remember hearing about a hijack on the news, but I’d no idea they were in any way connected.’

‘Nobody did, at least not then. But I think Donohue was trying to tell me that the plane going down, when it did, was connected with Mitchell in some way. What that connection might be, I can’t even begin to guess.’

‘But you think there’s something in that?’

‘After the past couple of days, Olivia, I’m prepared to believe pretty much anything.’ He hesitated. ‘This means I’m going to need to ask you for at least one thing more.’

‘What exactly?’

‘That’s kid of hard to define,’ he admitted. ‘I thought if there was anything significant, then maybe it would be buried in the ASI’s own databases.’

‘You’re asking me to break into their records again ?’

‘If you can.’

‘I could end up attracting a lot of unwanted attention if I keep doing things like this, you know that, right?’

‘Even if they realize what you’re up to, they’re not going to come after you, not this late in the day. All their resources seem to be going towards protecting the Array.’

‘I hope to hell you’re right,’ she grumbled. ‘There’s nothing else you can give me to go on before I go looking?’

‘I’m afraid not. I don’t know the exact time the shipment disappeared off the radar, or the precise coordinates, but I’m hoping that it might not be restricted data. Maybe you won’t risk setting off so many alarms this time.’

‘You were lucky this man Hanover turned out to be so close at hand,’ she said. ‘But I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for this time.’ She paused. ‘Unless you think I should just go find Mitchell and ask him?’

Saul thought of that video footage he’d seen of Mitchell’s suit disintegrating in some vast alien vault, then of him being lifted naked on to a stretcher. He remembered the medical reports he’d read suggesting that Mitchell had died and come back to life.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Don’t do that. Just see what you can find out, if anything.’

He stared over towards the Dorican, wondering if he might be better off not knowing just what it was Donohue had been trying to tell him earlier.

TWENTY-FIVE

Off the coast of Guam, 8 February 2235

By sheer good fortune, their ferry departed Tumon Bay on the afternoon of the 6th, just hours before a bad storm struck the west coast of Guam, setting the sky above the island ablaze with a lightning storm the likes of which Thomas Fowler had never seen. There was something about the sight that inspired a near-religious terror in his heart, as if he were witnessing the retribution of an angry god. He stood at the starboard rail alongside Amanda and the rest of the passengers, watching this eerie display until the coast faded to a thin smear of green sandwiched between ocean and sky. He overheard someone saying that the same lightning was now wreaking havoc on Yona and Mangilao on the island’s east coast, both setting towns ablaze and killing dozens unlucky enough to be caught outside when it struck.

As she pressed closer against him, he slid one hand arou Amanda’s waist. ‘Have you seen the rust on the hydrofoils?’ she asked, gesturing over the rail towards the foaming waters below. ‘And the hull’s so patched-up, it doesn’t look like it could survive a squall, let alone a thunderstorm.’

‘It’ll make it,’ he said confidently, glancing back at the brightly lit windows of the restaurant deck, as rain began to patter down. Above the restaurant entrance, some of the crew had strung a banner that read ‘END OF THE WORLD CRUISE’, the letters hand-painted in bright rainbow colours. ‘Maybe we should head inside.’

They found the restaurant mostly deserted but for a small group of men and women huddled around a lengthy table, playing cards. These were the geophysicists from Tokyo University, whom they’d met on arriving in Guam, and one of them now waved at them to come over.

‘Jason,’ remarked Fowler, approaching the table, ‘you’re up pretty late.’

‘Never too late for gambling,’ replied Jason, tapping a spread of cards lying face down on the table before him. ‘Care to join us?’

‘Thanks, but not this time.’ Fowler took a seat along with Amanda. ‘We won’t be sticking around for long. It’s been a long enough night as it is.’

Jason turned towards him, resting one elbow on the back of Fowler’s chair, the Minnesota University t-shirt stretched taut over his not inconsiderable belly. ‘Some show, huh? Tesla would have been proud of it.’

‘Tesla?’ asked Amanda.

‘He means Tesla’s earthquake machine,’ said an older Japanese man, his accent by way of Southern California. ‘Resonant frequency, that kind of thing. He reckons those growths are going to shake the world to bits, and that tonight’s lightning storm is the prelude.’

Some of the others around the table chuckled at this suggestion, then carried on with their own separate conversations.

‘Just because it sounds crazy doesn’t mean it can’t be true,’ Jason huffed.

‘I heard someone say the growths were disrupting the normal flow of magma deep beneath the crust,’ said Fowler, recalling one pet theory that had circulated amongst his own scientific staff. ‘Something like that would be more than enough to trigger the kind of seismic activity we’ve been seeing.’

A middle-aged man, with dark features, laid down his cards and sighed. ‘I will tell you exactly what is happening,’ he said. ‘The slate is being wiped clean.’

‘Then you’re a bigger nut than Jase is, Nick,’ someone else pointed out.

‘If anyone – or any thing – really wanted to destroy our world,’ Nick continued, ‘tre are far, far easier ways to go about it. Like triggering a solar flare, or dropping a black hole into the Earth’s core.’ He gestured towards the north-west, in the same direction they were sailing. ‘It seems to me that whatever created those things out in the ocean, their intention was clearly not to destroy our world.’

‘Then what do they want?’ asked Amanda, clearly fascinated.

The man called Nick smiled, placing his cards face-down on the table. ‘I can only hazard a guess, I fear. Perhaps the growths are a means of sterilizing this world in preparation for implanting an entirely alien flora and fauna for the benefit of forthcoming invaders. Or perhaps the reason is something entirely alien and unimaginable to us. What is clear, however,’ he continued, fixing his gaze on Fowler, ‘is that they could only have found their way here through the Array.’

Fowler felt Amanda’s hand reach out to take hold of his own under the table. ‘That’s hardly an original observation,’ he replied.

Nick smiled. ‘Imagine, if you would, that out there amongst the stars, we found something that we did not understand. Perhaps we would study it carefully, even bring it back here to Earth for closer scrutiny. Does that not seem like a reasonable conjecture?’

‘Sure, if you subscribe to the kind of news feed that runs items about two-headed babies and biblical visions,’ Fowler replied, doing his best to ignore the fear clutching at his heart. All the same, his comment elicited a few smiles from the rest of the table.

‘Oh man, conspiracy theories,’ said Jason. ‘I love conspiracy theories.’