Inkers (17 page)

“No – there’s a massive amount of data throughput at the moment, like thousands of reality–quality VR streams massive, I can’t get anything through the noise. Something must be going on, some huge meeting or something. Although – there’s nothing in the departmental calendars…”

“Something is definitely going on, I think they’re going to kill him. Keep trying. Exit me and undim the windows.”

Amber tore her VR suit off. She ran to the window where the drone had become a permanent, immobile fixture, and banged hard on the glass. It didn’t move.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Hey! We’ve got a serious problem here!” The drone didn’t flinch.

“What the fuck is going on?” Amber said. “Why isn’t it calling someone? Are we locked in?”

“Everyone appears to be – everyone seems to be busy. And yes, afraid so, the door’s locked.” Emily said.

“No way out?”

“A fire alarm might do it,” Emily said after a moment. “That drone might kill us if we try to leave the meet–up area in the car park, though. There’s a chance it’ll kill us if we leave the room, it’s not very sophisticated. Should hopefully recognise a fire alarm though.”

“What are that couple doing? Has Rowntree noticed them?”

“No, he’s turned around but he’s just staring at the crowd brainlessly. I’ve lost that drone, got another three coming but they’re two minutes away. The woman was still fiddling with the camera, the man said something to her but I couldn’t pick it up, just a couple of words.”

Amber ran into the kitchen area and then stopped.

“Show me again. Keep trying everything you can.”

“Doing so.”

The kitchen disappeared abruptly and Amber was watching from a different angle – high above. The temple looked small, the visitors microscopic.

“Traffic drone,” Emily said.

“Zoom in,” Amber said.

The woman lifted her camera and pointed it straight at Rowntree.

“I,” Amber said, and then there was an explosion of light that overwhelmed the sensors of the high–altitude drone to complete white, and Amber’s mental blink reflex fired off painfully.

“Emily!” Amber shouted. Then she was in another camera, and people were running, and there was the sound of screaming voices and thundering feet. Thousands of people were pouring away from the top of the temple.

“Can you —“ Amber said, and they switched again, once to an image tilted on its side, showing dust and running feet and then suddenly darkness, and then to the view from a high–fidelity drone rushing over the treetops towards the temple. Where the balcony had been was now only a smoking hole in the top of the cliff–face, belching dust and smoke out over the tree–tops.

“Rowntree?”

“Extremely dead,” Emily said. “He disintegrated. Sorry, I should have been quicker. We’re so locked down.”

“Oh Christ,” Amber said. “Not your fault,” she said, and then chided herself mentally for factoring in the feelings of a machine. “Out of VR. ITSA can’t have missed that.”

The kitchen reappeared, and Amber sat down heavily on a stool.

“Do me a favour,” she said, “Check the other feeds, everyone on duty. Look for anything suspicious, anyone following them.”

“Already doing it,” Emily said. “I don’t think – oh fuck, someone else, Ellison just got jumped by some men, she’s gone offline. And there’s – Rodriguez and Hamilton are shooting at a gang that’s been following them for half an hour and tried to run them over.”

“It’s a fucking coup,” Amber said. She leapt to her feet. “That data is a DDOS attack on the office. It’s the Chinese. They’ll come here!”

“Wait, got a communication coming through from Command,” Emily said. “There.” The room disappeared again.

It was Dryer, standing in his office. At first she thought he was looking directly at her, and she flinched. “ITSA Nepal,” he began, and she realised that it was a general communication, probably meant for all ITSA personnel in the country.

“The contents of this message are to be considered absolutely top secret,” he continued, “although rumours containing parts of the information I am about to relate to you have been spreading in certain circles from mid–February onwards, and key stakeholders in all major national governments are fully aware of what I am about to tell you. Forty days ago, ITSA telescope drones working as part of the effort to find the GSE picked up a massive and sustained burst of infra–red energy from the gas giant, Jupiter. It rapidly became clear that an irregularity was developing in the orbit of the planet. Within a week there was no doubt. Jupiter has left its ancient orbit and begun to spiral more deeply into the solar system, bringing it in towards the inner planets, including Earth. It is steadily accelerating, a feat that is requiring, I am informed, an energy output equivalent to that of a small star.”

Amber’s heart was racing so quickly that she thought it might stop.

“The meaning of this is clear. The GSE, or whatever it has become in the intervening eleven years, has colonized Jupiter and begun to move towards the earth. We have absolutely no hope of stopping a singularity the size of Jupiter using either conventional or unconventional weaponry. The masses and energies involved will, if Jupiter comes close to us, crush this planet like a tiny bug.”

Dryer paused. He looked very tired, she noticed suddenly. He looked down at his desk and seemed to collect himself before he continued.

“Going by the timings involved, we have to assume that this catastrophic development is directly related to the signal observed on the eleventh of November of last year. Now: it goes without saying that this information must be kept from the public at all costs. At all costs, including taking human life. We now have only one choice. We must find the source of the signal which has called the GSE home, and we must destroy it. That is the only hope we know of.

This communication was based on a text from ITSA High Command in Earth orbit: I felt it would be better that you heard it straight from me. Now is not the time for panic. Now will be our finest hour. We are the defenders of the earth, and protecting our home from the GSE has always been our mission. This is what we have trained for. I have absolute faith that each and every employee of ITSA will give everything they have and continue to fight, if necessary, until the very end. I will hold an emergency meeting at seventeen–hundred hours this evening in the office, with all personnel of rank trainee commander or higher required to attend. All holiday passes are revoked. Good luck, and I will speak to you later. This was General Dryer, speaking on behalf of ITSA High Command, on the fifteenth of March 2038.”

The message disappeared and the kitchen returned.

“They’re all dying,” Emily said.

“
What?
” Amber said.

Emily showed Amber a wall made of hundreds of moving images.

“That message was recorded over an hour ago. It was top priority, it wouldn’t let me butt in. Look, the feeds.”

Amber zoomed in on one of the screens. It showed a woman in an ITSA uniform lying in a pool of blood on a street. Amber zoomed out, tried another —the screen showed three ITSA troopers cornered in an alleyway, under heavy fire from a huge black drone. As she watched one of the troopers fell in a spray of blood.

“Where the fuck are the drones?” Amber said.

“They’re all out, but there are hostiles everywhere. I’m getting maydays from implants all over the world. It’s not just here.”

“Get me back in my body.”

Back in the kitchen, Amber ran to the electric stove and turned it to full heat. “Blackout that window,” she said, and the room plunged into darkness for half a second before the lights came on. She tore off her sweater and pressed it to the rapidly warming stovetop.

“Where’s the fire detector?” she said.

“All over the ceiling,” Emily said.

Acrid smoke began pouring from the sweater. Amber shoved it up towards the ceiling and the alarm went off almost instantly, an intense and high–pitched beeping. Amber threw the sweater to the floor and stamped on it.

“That done it?” she said.

“The door’s unlocked,” Emily said.

Amber ran for the door, leaving her smouldering sweater on the tiles of the kitchen floor. She grabbed the bag by the door. It contained clothes and toiletries, and had been waiting by the door for the investigation summons for weeks. She ran out into a hallway filled with milling and frightened people.

She fought her way downstairs through the panicky crowd, turning her eyes black so that people could see she had implants and would get out of her way, if the grey skin were not enough.

“The drone’s off the window,” Emily said. “Going downstairs to meet us.”

“Is there a back door?” Amber said.

“We can try,” Emily said, “But I think it’s too fast, it’ll just go high until it spots us again.”

“Tell me where to go,” Amber said. “And get a taxi, the toughest one you can find.”

“Doing so,” Emily said. “It’s a mess out there, though, could be difficult. Down all the stairs and then through the door at the bottom onto the second floor.”

Amber clattered down the stairs and found herself in a long corridor, more people rushing out of apartment doors with their handbags or their kids, locking the doors behind them, hurrying towards Amber and the main stairwell, staring at her as they rushed past.

“Down to the end,” Emily said. “Fast as you can, last door on the right.”

Amber sprinted down the corridor. The door was marked
Staff only, no entry
in English and Nepali – Amber barged through and entered a narrow concrete stairwell.

“Down two flights, take the door, taxi ETA is fifteen seconds.”

Amber took them two at a time and burst out into a loading area filled with bins. A large black taxi shot round the corner at speed and skidded to a halt in front of her, the passenger door already open. She jumped in.

“The office, now,” Amber said. “What’s that drone doing?”

“Trying to get into your implants. I’m confusing it with a fake feed.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The taxi pulled away.

“Um, when did you learn to do that?”

“Off the darknet when that watch was still working. I talked to some pretty interesting AIs. You give me far too much freedom.”

Amber grinned. “Debatable,” she said.

“So, plan?” Emily said. “You going to offer your services to Dryer?”

“No,” Amber said. “But I’m gonna try to convince him about the girl.”

“You believe it?”

Amber looked out the window. “I think so,” she said.

“Wish I’d seen that photo. And you’ve got nothing to show Dryer, no proof. Plus, doesn’t he want you dead?”

Amber didn’t answer, just watched the shops of Kathmandu rushing past outside. People were running through the streets. She could see black columns of smoke rising from two separate locations over the buildings of the city.

“Could you darken the windows?” Amber said.

“Yeah, sorry,” Emily said. The windows went black, and then thinned a little so that she could see out.

“Is the news about Jupiter out already?” she said.

“No,” Emily said. “They’re just scared about the attacks. There’s talk on the net about a People’s Liberation Army battalion crossing the border, coming down the Araniko Highway.”

Despite what Emily had said there was not much road traffic and they crossed Kathmandu quickly. Amber realised that the thicker of the columns of smoke that she had seen was rising directly from the office.

“What’s happening?” Amber said.

“A siege,” Emily said. “Here, an area commander in the office–” and Amber was inside, firing an automatic weapon out of a smashed window down towards a smaller building. Shots blazed back in response far below.

“Pain off!” Amber shouted, but she still felt a good part of it as the bullets hit home in the groin, torso and face and the commander’s body fell backwards, implants fizzing out. The feed went dead.

“Sorry!” Emily said.

“Take us round the back,” Amber said, touching her face gently. They skidded to a halt in a small parking lot. She ran into the rear of the building unopposed, up flights of stairs until she was gasping for breath, and burst into the office, coming face to face with Dryer, who was holding a large machine–gun in bared metal prosthetic arms and bellowing orders. His face was red. Almost all of the windows surrounding the wide open–plan part of the office were smashed. Several workers were cowering together in the centre. A few commanders in uniform were crouched around the edges, firing down periodically out of the windows. Amber saw several bodies.

Dryer stared at Amber, clearly unable to comprehend her presence. Then he raised his weapon and pointed it at her.

Amber threw her hands up.

“It’s loaded,” Emily said quickly.

“You on our side?” he bellowed.

“Yes!” she shouted.

He stared at her for a second and then nodded and lowered his weapon.

“Grab a gun, then,” he said, waving in the direction of his office and walking off towards the windows. “We’re about to be overrun,” he continued to nobody in particular.

“Sir!” she said, running after him. “I know where the signal’s coming from!”

“Yeah, so do we,” he called back. “Beijing’s a long way away,” he said, bending out of a smashed window, aiming, and blazing away with his gun. He stopped firing, leapt back and bullets thumped into the ceiling above where he had just been stood, spraying dust and chunks of powder down on them both.

“No, sir,” Amber said, backing away again. “I think it’s in Scotland, I saw a photo on the darknet!”

At that he turned to her, his face incredulous.

“For god’s sake, what is
wrong
with you?” he said. “Forget the fucking darknet and either get a gun or hide! If you come near me again I swear to god I’ll shoot you dead.” He shoved past her with his huge metal arm, knocking her onto the floor, and stalked across towards the other side of the office.

She scrambled to her feet and watched him walk away. “Are there any working computers around here?”

“One in an office upstairs,” Emily said. “It’s still connected. Troops are getting in downstairs, hostiles by the look of it, you might want to move fast.”