Apocalypse (15 page)

Aubrey guessed that it would have taken at least fifteen years to build the underwater facility, under the guise of an IRIS charter to create a wildlife refuge and deep-sea coral-research
outpost. The original central dome in which they stood was dominated by the revolutionary spherical tokamak chamber built by Joaquin’s father during the Cold War, a device used to contain
immense plasma energy and generate intense pressures and temperatures.

Aubrey turned on his heel and looked out at the huge television screens mounted on the interior walls of the dome. The news feeds showed anchors from a dozen different networks revealing the
latest events from around the world.

‘This is how you did it,’ he realized, and turned to the metallic sphere behind him, wherein the slow-running clock ticked. ‘This is how you look into the future. Your father
built this facility to generate nuclear fusion, but you’ve taken his work far further than he ever intended. You realize that what you have in there is not a star, Joaquin, and it is not of
this earth?’

‘This is the only place on earth where the present and the future coexist in perfect harmony,’ Joaquin confirmed. ‘This single device is worth more than all of the money on
earth, and were it known that I possessed such a machine, every government on the planet would send its armies here to take it away from me.’

Aubrey looked at Joaquin and saw the radical glitter back in his eyes. The younger man was not a scientist, and would almost certainly be unaware of the immense power caged just a few yards from
where they stood. Like a wayward god idly toying with lightning bolts, Joaquin was unwittingly treading a fine line between power and oblivion. All at once Aubrey realized that the tycoon was
telling him something more than just the monetary value of his elaborate contraption.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Ensure that no government, and nobody else, ever dares challenge me,’ Joaquin replied.

Aubrey glanced at the nearby sphere and shook his head.

‘This is dangerous, Joaquin. Do you know what you’ve actually got in there, the kind of power you’re trying to wield? Nobody can control that kind of—’

‘It’s under control, Dennis,’ Joaquin growled. ‘Everything, and everyone, is under control. Do you understand?’

Aubrey stood his ground. ‘If you detonated all of the weapons in the United States nuclear arsenal, it would not generate as much energy as you have contained in that one single chamber.
You need help with this, Joaquin.’

‘Indeed I do,’ Joaquin replied. ‘And you are my help. Agreed?’

Aubrey’s features sagged as he realized that he no longer had any choice.

‘Why have you done this?’ he asked.

‘Because, my friend, if you know the future then you can command the present. This is the key to my success, to our success. Trust me, Dennis, there’s no news like tomorrow’s
news, and we’re going to know all of it.’

Aubrey’s face grew a shade paler.

‘Do you have any idea just how much power that device can generate?’

‘I do indeed,’ Joaquin replied. ‘And we’re going to unleash some of that power into the world around us.’

Aubrey suddenly felt cold as he digested what Joaquin was suggesting.

‘You’re going to use it as a weapon,’ he uttered, his throat dry.

‘Soon,’ Joaquin replied. ‘But right now, we’re going to take a look into the future.’

June 28, 11:03

The cameras started flashing the moment Katherine Abell stepped from the chauffeur-driven car, surrounded by four heavyweight minders and her husband’s security chief,
Olaf Jorgenson. The towering court building was opposite the Dade County Pretrial Detention Center, both of them large and imposing buildings connected by an overhead walkway that spanned the
entire street and was used to transport inmates from the cells to the courthouse. Hordes of television cameras jostled for position around Katherine as a barrage of questions washed over her.

‘Mrs Abell, is it true that IRIS is being investigated by the United Nations for alleged atrocities by its security forces during charitable operations in Somalia?’

‘Mrs Abell, do you have any comment on the discrepancies between government-funded IRIS programs in Africa and the Middle East and the reports from people on the ground that the money
never gets through?’

‘Mrs Abell, do you represent a charity or a business?’

Before the hacks could get too close, the four IRIS bodyguards formed a human cordon around her and strode unstoppably toward the court building. The crowds of reporters stumbled away as
Katherine Abell and her human cordon climbed the steps toward the entrance, where they were ushered into the relative peace within the building.

She breathed a sigh of relief, feeling more comfortable once inside, despite the hustle and bustle of lawyers, police officers, inmates and members of the public shuffling to and fro. The
Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida, serving Miami-Dade County, was the largest in the state and the fourth largest trial court in the nation, with over a hundred judges serving some two million
citizens.

‘Please wait here, Mrs Abell.’

An usher directed Katherine and her bodyguards to a wood-paneled waiting room, replete with worn leather seats. As her escorts silently took up positions inside and outside the room, Katherine
moved to stand beside a window that looked out across the ocean of television cameras.

Melancholy weighed down on her shoulders as she saw protesters holding placards bearing angry messages. ‘IRIS: PROVOKING POVERTY FOR PROFIT’; ‘IRIS: THE BIG DECEPTION’;
‘IRIS: CHARITY STARTS AT JOAQUIN ABELL’S HOME’
.

The Justice Building was the location of the latest legal challenge to IRIS programs, brought by immigrants from East Africa who had obtained US citizenship through the company’s
free-transport-to-America initiative, and had then promptly sued IRIS for breaches of their human rights. Katherine’s heart sank as she thought of Joaquin’s efforts to bring comfort to
thousands of otherwise-doomed people, to bring them out of a medieval darkness of suffering and starvation and into the light of a modern democratic nation, only for them to turn the might of that
nation’s laws against him. She could scarcely believe that these people, liberated from a life spent on their knees groveling for scraps on the dusty plains of failed states, could so easily
turn against their savior.

A lawyer before she had met Joaquin, she had watched as the company faced more of these suits every year, brought by those who had once hovered on the brink of death and who now looked forward
to hundreds of thousands of dollars of
compensation
for their affronted human rights. This time, she intended to defend IRIS, and Joaquin, herself.

‘Mrs Abell?’ Katherine turned to see Peter Hamill approaching her. ‘The court is ready.’

Peter, her assistant, was in his forties, with wispy blond hair, pale skin and a soft, unassuming voice that made him seem more like a choirboy than a successful lawyer in his own right. His wan
appearance belied a sharp and inquisitive mind.

‘Let’s go and see what they have to say then,’ she said, and gestured for Peter to lead the way.

Katherine strode out of the waiting room and followed Peter into an elevator for the trip up to a court on the seventh floor.

The public gallery faced a broad mahogany-paneled bar, behind which was a leather seat that would be occupied by the judge. An ornate curtained door in the wall behind the bar allowed easy
access for the judge, avoiding the public entrance to the court. The door was flanked by the Stars and Stripes on the left and the court’s emblem on the right.

Katherine strode confidently into the court and immediately heard a torrent of whispers from the gallery as the public recognized her. She sat down, and moments later the court rose as the judge
glided in through the curtained door and took her seat behind the bar. She wasted no time in beginning as the court settled back down.

‘The court is to hear opening arguments for Uhungu versus IRIS. Will the prosecution stand?’

Katherine watched as the chief prosecutor, Macy Lieberman, took the stand. Macy was an African American and a bleeding-heart liberal from California, who built many of her cases on her supposed
personal
understanding of immigration issues: her ancestors had been shipped to America in 1854 aboard a slaver from the Ivory Coast. Only four out of seventeen had survived, a story she
never stopped telling anybody who hadn’t already heard it. The fact that virtually every African American living in the continental United States could trace their ancestry back to slaves
seemed to have escaped her, along with the fact that the Union they both now served had risen from the ashen battlefields of a Civil War fought to liberate those same slaves.

Macy Lieberman knew how to swing a jury, or a judge, with her sob stories. Katherine steeled herself as Macy addressed the court.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your honor,’ she began in her sweet voice, flashing a bright smile. ‘This case is being brought by a family who have been deeply wronged by a
government-funded charity that serves not the people it purports to protect, but the people who own it. My clients, the Uhungu family, did not wish to bring this case to the courts, preferring
instead to deal directly with IRIS itself. However, after two years of having their questions and concerns rebuffed, they feel that they have no choice but to bring their case into the judicial
system.’

Macy Lieberman let the court digest this information before she continued.

‘This is not the first time such a case has been brought against a major company. It has, in recent years, emerged that there is a trend within modern Western government to devise means by
which to prevent the development of Third-World nations, in order that the military and economic superiority of the aforementioned Western nations is maintained.’

Katherine’s eyes widened and before she could stop herself she was on her feet.

‘Conjecture, your honor. Unspecified accusations beyond the scope of this case.’

‘Upheld,’ the chief justice agreed.

Macy Lieberman shot a sideways glance of irritation at Katherine, but she composed herself and went on.

‘Then allow me to rephrase the point in hand,’ she purred. ‘In recent years, almost all government programs used to rebuild foreign countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and so
on have been placed in the hands of private companies which use funds provided by the taxpayer to help those in greater need. The problem is that they withhold the vast majority of those funds,
usually blaming terrorist or insurgent activity for the lack of progress. Rebuilding comes to a halt, troop numbers are reduced after years of fighting and the companies then cite security concerns
before pulling out, taking the majority of the rebuilding funds with them. It is a fact that before the US military went into Iraq it required little rebuilding at all. Billions of dollars were
provided to restructure the country, but only a fraction of that funding reached the populace.’

Macy gestured behind her.

‘This family was rescued from certain death by IRIS from the streets of Mogadishu. They have absolutely nothing but the utmost respect for what the company did for them.’ She looked
across at Katherine. ‘What they cannot believe is that they are almost entirely alone: that their friends and families have known no such support from IRIS, a fact deliberately avoided in
IRIS press releases which give the impression that hundreds have been liberated from squalor and conflict around the world. In fact, as far as we are aware, the Uhungu family is the only family
ever
to have been liberated by IRIS from East Africa in the last five years, to great media applause and propaganda generated by IRIS itself. It is our contention that IRIS has
misappropriated taxpayers’ funds in the same manner as so many other corporations over the last decade, in a never-ending cycle of palm-greasing and corruption.’

Katherine’s eyes narrowed. There was no telling where Lieberman might have gotten such an idea: it might even be true, as IRIS’s main focus was on providing the resources for the
survival
of native populations, not spiriting individual families overseas to new lives. Most Africans did not want to live in another country, but rather wanted their own countries to have
the same quality of life as those in the West.

‘The court was persuaded to hear this case,’ Macy went on, ‘based on documents collected by the Uhungu family proving that IRIS claims of liberating countless lives in Somalia
were falsified: that the monies provided by the taxpayer to IRIS has instead apparently vanished into thin air, and that IRIS has steadfastly refused to provide accounts that they claim show where
the money was spent.’

With that, Macy Lieberman sat down.

The chief justice glanced across at Katherine.

‘Will the defense stand?’

Katherine stood up and opened her casebook. Although she knew the case inside out, it was always good practice to have everything to hand. In the past some litigators she had faced had taken
this as a sign of weakness. They had soon regretted it.

She cleared her throat, and began.

‘Uhungu versus IRIS is a case built around the charge that the aforementioned company has failed in principle to uphold its duty of care to the extended family of the Uhungus, who were
transported from East Africa to the United States. It is the position of my client, and the position that I intend to defend, that without the intervention of IRIS in the first place, these
individuals would have no case to bring, as they would have neither the means nor the legal structure to do so.’ Katherine let her gaze fall on the families in the gallery who had brought the
case. ‘In short, your honor, the complainants are lucky to be alive at all, and can only bring this case to the courts because of IRIS’s generosity in saving their lives in the first
place.’

‘That’s bullcrap!’ A flabby, gray-haired old lady leapt up out of her seat and pointed a finger at Katherine. ‘We din’ wanna bring no case at all, but you forced us
into it!’