Apocalypse (16 page)

The judge slammed a hammer down and glared up at the old lady, who Katherine recognized as Jala Uhungu, the matriarch of the family.

‘Ma’am, may I remind you that this is a court. If I hear any further interruptions I will have the session dissolved and continue this case in private, is that clear?’

Jala Uhungu trembled with suppressed rage and tears quivered in her eyes, but she obeyed the judge and sat back down. Katherine watched as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and wondered at
her audacity: that she could act so enraged and deprived when just years before she had been found by IRIS’s representatives delirious with fever on a dusty street in Mogadishu, surrounded by
her starving grandchildren.

‘You may continue,’ the Chief Justice said.

Katherine changed tack and turned the outburst to her advantage.

‘It is not beyond our capacity as human beings to realize that, whilst one family has been saved, many others still suffer, and that this supposed injustice can create considerable outrage
amongst those with a voice and a means to make themselves heard. But IRIS is just one company, and even were it to donate its entire assets it would be unable to make any noticeable difference to
the sheer weight of suffering in the world. Contrary to the prosecution’s claims, IRIS’s charter is not designed to bring impoverished families from foreign countries back into the
United States – such acts only occur spontaneously when it is clear that the suffering of those families is such that they cannot possibly survive their predicament. Such was the case with
the Uhungu family.’

Katherine paused, glancing down at her notes.

‘IRIS’s chief objective, as laid out in its charter, is to use government funds to enable the people of foreign countries to help
themselves
, to give them the tools and the
resources to build their own future. In this, IRIS has been spectacularly successful. In ten years of operations, IRIS has committed over one hundred million dollars to rebuilding programs across
Africa, the Middle and Far East and the Malay Archipelago. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved by vaccination programs, freshwater wells, family-planning and contraception initiatives
and grain supplies organized and delivered by IRIS.’ Katherine looked directly at the Uhungu family. ‘I apologize, on behalf of the company, if you somehow feel as though your extended
family have been cheated in life by our work, or even if the burden of regret you feel for having been liberated in preference to others who still suffer seems too heavy. But IRIS is not to blame
for the ills of countless countries across the world. It is a force for good, and I say again, with the deepest respect, that without it, none of you would be sitting here today.’

Katherine stood back from the bar and walked quietly across to her seat. She had barely sat down when Macy Lieberman’s petite voice tinkled across the court.

‘An emotive performance, Mrs Abell,’ she said, ‘delivered with all the conviction of a woman married to the owner of IRIS himself.’

A ripple of laughs fluttered across the public gallery. Katherine did not react and simply read through her notes. Macy Lieberman’s voice might dance lightly through the court but her
words stung like a hornet.

‘However, we have proof that of the 117 million dollars provided by government in approved contracts over the last five years, just twelve million dollars have reached the people who
needed it most. The rest, it would appear, has simply vanished.’

Katherine sat bolt upright and looked directly at Macy.

‘Where on earth did you drag that rubbish from?’

Macy Lieberman smiled and held up a slim blue folder.

‘It would appear, Mrs Abell, that somebody in your company does not want Joaquin Abell’s little operation to continue unchallenged any longer. Our prosecution has in the past been
repeatedly blocked and hindered by IRIS’s determination to prevent public access to its accounts despite considerable evidence on the ground in foreign countries of its failure to use those
taxpayer funds for their assigned purpose. These extremely detailed files were received yesterday morning at my office, sent by UPS. They reveal the
true
extent of IRIS’s fraudulent
use of state money and provide the evidence we need to bring the company down.’

Katherine leapt from her seat, a weakness trembling in her knees as she stared at the blue file.

‘Veracity?!’ she demanded.

‘They were provided, and signed, by a former employee of IRIS,’ Macy smiled. ‘A man you may even know. His name is Charles Purcell.’

June 28, 11:12

Dennis Aubrey stood beside the control panel and watched as two security guards, their assault rifles strapped to their backs, opened the door to a chamber adjoined to the
containment sphere. Joaquin stood to one side and directed their movements. One of the guards turned and picked up a robust-looking remote-control arm from the floor beside him and attached it to
two rails secured to the floor of the chamber. The robotic arm carried a video camera attached just below a grappling claw at its head. The security guards closed the chamber’s outer door and
sealed it.

‘Stand back, gentlemen.’ The two guards backed away, and Joaquin looked up at Aubrey on the control platform.

‘Over to you, Dennis.’

Aubrey took a deep breath and turned to his control panel. There, a television screen showed the view from the front of the remote-control arm. Aubrey checked the instruments and then pressed a
button on the console before him. Instantly, the chamber’s inner door whined open. Aubrey saw the air rush through the hatch in a whorl of vapor, ice crystals glistening in mid-air as they
were whipped away into the main chamber, and then the plunging sphere of blackness within appeared on the screen, its attendant writhing coils of electrical energy snapping between the walls of the
chamber.

‘Chamber’s open,’ Aubrey announced. ‘Advancing inside.’

He pressed forward on a simple joystick, and the robotic arm travelled along on the rails that prevented it from being hauled into the terrifying heart of the chamber. Slowly, the arm trundled
along around the edge of the chamber, passing in front of the mounted cameras within.

‘Camera number five,’ Joaquin reminded him.

Aubrey considered reminding Joaquin that he could count for himself, but for some reason he feared any reprisal his new employer might concoct. Instead, Aubrey obediently guided the robotic arm
to stand in front of camera five.

This camera, Aubrey had learned from Joaquin, was different from the others, in that it did not look at a televised newsfeed. Instead it watched a screen that showed the view from a small buoy
bobbing on the surface of the ocean. There was no land visible nearby, nothing to betray where the camera was located.

Carefully, Aubrey used the arm’s specially shaped grapple to dismount the camera from its base, and then placed the camera in a storage box on the arm’s platform. Then, he picked up
the spare camera and secured it to the mount within the chamber before turning it on.

‘Well done,’ Joaquin clapped. ‘Now, let’s bring it out shall we?’

Patiently, Aubrey guided the robotic arm along the rails and out of the chamber, making sure to wait for the automatic seal on the inner hatch to activate. As the camera waited in the entrance
chamber, jets of steam hissed and enveloped the entire device in thick water vapor that poured onto the floor and drained away into narrow grilles. A precautionary measure, to wash away any
particles irradiated by the immense energy within the chamber.

‘Clear!’ called one of the guards, who was monitoring a Geiger counter.

‘Open the chamber!’ Joaquin ordered.

The outer doors were opened and Aubrey guided the arm out. Immediately the camera was grabbed by Joaquin, who hurried up to the control panel alongside Aubrey and opened the device, handing him
the USB hard drive within.

‘Play it,’ he ordered.

Aubrey slipped the drive into a player on the console before him, and watched as a pixilated image of the ocean far above appeared on the screen. Flares of white noise from the bursts of
electrical energy within the chamber distorted the serene image of rolling waves beneath a cloud-specked blue sky.

‘Fast forward,’ Joaquin snapped. ‘One hundred and twenty times faster.’

Aubrey obeyed, a swift mental calculation informing him that an hour on the camera’s accelerated timeline would now pass every fifteen seconds. The rolling sea wobbled and bobbed crazily
and the clouds above raced past as the sun arced through the sky. Day turned to night and then the sun returned again. Several minutes had passed before suddenly a white boat zipped into view and
quivered on the waves in the center of the viewfinder.

Joaquin hit the ‘Play’ button. Aubrey watched as a small fishing vessel, maybe forty feet long, sat on the surface of the ocean with its anchor chain taut. He realized that the
images were still moving at double speed, the same rate at which the camera recorded time passing outside of the chamber. Several figures milled rapidly about on the deck, and then quite suddenly
two of them dropped overboard into the rolling blue waves.

They were wearing diving gear, Aubrey realized.

‘Damn!’

Joaquin slammed a fist against the console and whirled to look at Aubrey.

‘When will this happen?’ he demanded.

Aubrey blinked, caught completely off guard by Joaquin’s sudden agitation. ‘When was the camera inserted into the chamber?’

‘Twenty-four hours ago!’ Joaquin raged. ‘You’re the physicist, do the math! Shall I fetch you a fucking abacus?’

Aubrey flushed red, as a sickening mixture of fear and anger swilled through his guts. His earlier ominous instinct about Joaquin’s intentions now flared grotesquely. Joaquin had brought
him down here along with ten armed guards. There was no escape except via the submersible. He was trapped. Aubrey’s sense of self-preservation barged its way into his thoughts.
Humor the
guy, keep yourself out of trouble, and then get the hell out of here as soon as you can.

He looked at the camera image, his mind racing with numbers. The camera had been installed twenty-four hours earlier. The Schwarschild Radius of the object in the chamber and its attendant time
dilation of one hour for every hour that passed meant that the camera had therefore seen a total of twenty-four hours into the future. They had then sped forward the first few hours before seeing
the boat appear on the screen.

‘It’ll happen within an hour,’ Aubrey said, before looking at Joaquin. ‘Where is the camera that took this film?’

Joaquin did not respond. Instead, he turned to his security team.

‘Get out there. I want those people gone before they can find anything, understood?’

The security guards dashed away, un-slinging their rifles as they ran. Aubrey watched them go and then turned to Joaquin. He mastered his revulsion and fear, his vocal cords tight as he
spoke.

‘Joaquin, if you want me to control this device of yours and do an effective job, then you need to tell me what the hell’s going on here.’

‘You’re on a need-to-know basis,’ Joaquin retorted as he walked away.

‘You’re looking into the future but you don’t know what you’re seeing!’ Aubrey shot back, and for a brief instant was surprised at the force of his own
outburst.

Joaquin turned slowly back to face Aubrey. ‘What do you mean?’

For a moment, Aubrey wondered whether he should tell Joaquin anything. The arrogant fool was playing a dangerous game that could have far greater consequences than his narcissistic little mind
could ever imagine. But then an image of Katherine and the two children popped into Aubrey’s mind and he realized that he had no choice. Somehow, he had to get word out about what was
happening.

‘Time,’ he said slowly, ‘is not fixed. It can change.’

Joaquin’s face twisted into a scowl of outrage and he leapt forward, grabbed Aubrey by the throat and pinned him against the console. Aubrey smelled a waft of expensive cologne as
Joaquin’s soft hands squeezed tightly around his throat and he leaned in close, a madman cloaked in the finery of a king.

‘You think I have time for this? I know that time isn’t fixed! Purcell explained it all to me!’

Aubrey, his skin sheened with sweat, decided not to tell Joaquin what Charles Purcell had clearly omitted. Instead, a plan began to form in his mind as he struggled to speak.

‘I need more access to what these cameras are seeing!’ he gargled. ‘One image of the future means nothing. What if those people on that screen are just holidaymakers? You send
your people in there with guns they’ll do nothing but expose your operation!’

Joaquin, his grip still fixed on Aubrey’s neck, peered sideways at the screen showing the boat on the ocean.

‘They’re not day-trippers,’ he uttered. ‘They’re diving on a barren sandbar miles out to sea. There’s nothing there.’

Aubrey managed to speak.

‘Yes there is, and whatever it is you don’t want it found, do you?’

Joaquin’s gaze moved back to Aubrey. The anger in his eyes mutated into something new, a look of bemusement. Aubrey felt the vice around his neck slacken and he coughed to clear his
throat. He heard Joaquin’s voice above his own labored breathing.

‘You surprise me, Dennis. For a while I believed that you were
entirely
spineless.’

Aubrey slid off the console onto his feet and staggered as he put one hand out to balance himself. With the other, he massaged his neck. Joaquin’s grip had been tight, but not
that
tight. Aubrey faked another cough and stared at the deck as he considered what was on the screen. Joaquin’s mention of Charles Purcell had sparked a flood of revelations in Aubrey’s
mind, none of them good. Purcell had been the previous chief scientist at IRIS’s supposed coral-reef conservation project, and as a former NASA physicist with a history of studies into time
itself, it didn’t take much application of Aubrey’s prodigious intellect for him to realize that Purcell had in fact been stationed here at Deep Blue. The fact that Purcell had recently
vanished and that his family were dead suggested that his fate was less to do with a tragic mental breakdown and more to do with Joaquin Abell.