Gary Gibson - Final Days

TWENTY-SIX

Dorican Hotel, near the Florida Array, 8 February 2235

By the time Saul reached the Dorican, it was clear that the hotel had been caught at the centre of a riot. A fire truck had been rammed through the polished glass and plate steel of the hotel’s entrance, and what at first appeared to be bundles of rags turned out to be huddled corpses afloat on a sea of debris and torn-up carpeting.

He headed across the lobby, his stomach reduced to a tight knot of hunger and his feet a spider-web of painful blisters. He wondered if he was foolhardy to hope that Hanover might still be there, but just then he spotted the man himself sitting on a sofa at the far side of the lobby. He was facing away from Saul, towards a pair of sliding glass doors through which the Array was clearly visible in the distance.

Hanover looked up with a start as Saul approached him, glass crunching under his feet, then nodded almost as if he’d been expecting him. There was a raincoat draped across his lap, as if in readiness to go somewhere.

‘I suppose you’ve come to finish the job,’ he said, as Saul halted before him.

‘You mean kill you? Why would I do that?’

‘Good question,’ Hanover replied. ‘Because it would be pretty pointless under present circumstances, don’t you think?’

‘Why are you still here?’ Saul nodded towards the Array. ‘I’d have thought you’d have fled with all the rest of them by now.’

‘Hardly.’ Hanover laughed. ‘Who sent you? Donohue? Or did Fowler decide to get his hands dirty for once?’

Saul shook his head. ‘Neither. I think it’s fair to say I don’t work for the ASI any more.’

‘Really?’ Hanover regarded him with mild surprise. ‘So what did you do to piss them off?’

Saul thought about it for a moment. ‘I asked too many questions.’

Hanover nodded. ‘Never a good career move. So if you’re not here to kill me, what in God’s name are you doing here?’

‘I’ve learned quite a few things since Taiwan. I’ve seen video footage of Copernicus City recorded from a few years into the future, and it offers pretty conclusive evidence that whatever’s going to wipe out life here on Earth is going to do the same up there. And the only way it could have got there that I know of is through the Florida Array.’

Hanover nodded. ‘That’s the general consensus. So what’s your point?’

‘If it can reach the Moon from here, what’s to stop it getting all the way to the colonies as well? The only way to stop that happening is to shut down the entire Lunar Array. I might just have a chance of doing that, if I can get hold of a set of EDP codes.’

‘What makes you think just such an eventuality hasn’t already been carefully planned for?’

‘Has it?’

‘Of course it has,’ Hanover barked irritably.

‘Then what the hell happened to Copernicus City, in those videos from the future?’ Saul demanded. ‘If they couldn’t shut down the Florida–Copernicus gate in time, how can you be sure they’ll manage to shut down any of the rest?’

Hanover let the raincoat slide off his lap, revealing the Agnessa concealed beneath. His fingers were already gripping the trigger mechanism.

‘Tell me,’ asked Hanover, ‘why do you feel you have to be the one to do this?’

Saul took a step back, his eyes fixed on the gun. ‘Because somebody has to.’

‘You’re talking about an act of gross terrorism. Do you really want to be responsible for something as serious as that?’

Saul ran his tongue around a dehydrated mouth. ‘I’ve thought this through, every which way. I’ve explained my reasoning to you. What would you do?’

Hanover shook his head. ‘What would I do? I don’t exactly have a golden track record for making the correct decisions, son, so if you really want advice, you’re better off getting it from someone else.’

Saul tried a different tack. ‘If I don’t do this, the colonies are finished – and the whole human race along with them. Surely you can understand the logic in what I’m saying?’

Hanover nodded fractionally, his eyes turning down towards the gun in his hand. ‘I suppose I can,’ he replied, so faintly that Saul struggled to hear him.

‘So you’ll give me the codes?’

Hanover aimed the Agnessa towards Saul. ‘I know a few things about you, Dumont. I’ve read your psych-eval, and you’re loaded to the gills with resentment and self-pity, not to mention a barrel-load of self-destructive tendencies. If it were up to me, you’d have been kicked out of the ASI a long time ago. Maybe you’ve gotten it into your head that you can become a big hero, and kick your former employers in the balls at the same time.’

Saul felt his face grow hot. ‘You’re saying my motivation is suspect. Fine, shoot me then. Put me out of my fucking misery. What the hell do you owe them, anyway?’

Hanover stared at him silently for a good twenty seconds, then lowered the gun back towards his lap.

‘Fuck it,’ he said, ‘maybe you’re right. Besides, I don’t have enough bullets in this gun for you as well, even if I did decide to shoot you.’

Saul frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Hanover raised his eyes towards the ceiling. ‘My family are upstairs. Cassie and both the kids, that makes four of us. There isn’t a fifth bullet for you.’

Saul felt a hollow sensation in his gut. ‘You’re going to kill them?’

Hanover smiled bitterly. ‘They’re not allowed passage through the Array. I am, but not them. That’s my punishment, apparently. If they’d killed me, or ordered me to stay behind, I could have accepted that after everything that’s happened, but . . .’ He shook his head and began to weep. ‘But this is cruel.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Saul. Somehow the words seemed far from adequate.

‘I don’t know how long it’s going to take – if it’s going to be sudden or slow, painful or just like going to sleep. Do you understand me?’

Saul shook his head. ‘Not really.’

‘We don’t know what’s going to happen,’ Hanover rasped. ‘All we know is that everything’s going to end. The means aren’t clear.’

The Agnessa slipped from Hanover’s grasp, and clattered to the floor next to him.

‘Here,’ he said, and a moment later, Saul’s contacts flagged him regarding the arrival of a string of letters and numbers.

‘What’s this?’ he demanded.

‘An access code,’ replied Hanover. ‘You need to head straight for the ASI offices up in the Lunar Array. Soon as you’re in range of the localized security network, activate it. It’ll log you into a restricted network, and guide you to where you can get a keycard that’ll trigger the entire process.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘More or less. There’s a terminal room from where you can use the keycards to then trigger a manual shutdown. Its exact location’s kept secret from everyone but the director of the ASI, but assuming the restricted network accepts your authorization, it’ll guide you there as well.’

‘And then?’

‘And then, assuming you’re operating under normal circumstances, there’ll need to be two of you, with separate authorization and one keycard each, before the system will respond. You have to activate two separate terminals at exactly the same time, or nothing will happen.’

‘There’s no way to trigger the process remotely?’

‘Of course not. The security risk would be preposterous.’

‘Then just the one access code isn’t any use, unless I’m sure of someone being there to help me. Is there any way I can get hold of another?’

‘I said “under normal circumstances”,’ Hanover replied. ‘There are measures, however, in case only the one person is available.’