Warhead (41 page)

The group of Spiral agents and REBS had stopped at an intersection.

‘Looks like they were in a rush to finish something,’ said Baze, gun barrel weaving in a constant arc as he searched for Nex enemies.

‘That’s what worries me,’ growled Jam. ‘Can you locate the centre? The old reactor? That is where
I
would put the labs; it would offer a central power source, a core for cabling and piping and any local networks. It would also be the most secure location available here. The easiest to guard.’

A squeal of rubber against the gleaming vinyl floor alerted the group. They turned to stare at a tall, thin, balding man, clutching a PDA the size of a clipboard, his long white coat flapping around his Arran sweater and grey chinos. His brown flip-flops slapped to a halt as he stared at the group and their weapons.

He frowned. ‘Are you with the Nex?’ he asked. Suddenly Jam leapt forward, a blur of glistening black, his Steyr TMP’s muzzle pressing up under the man’s chin. The man swallowed, slowly.

‘Can I help you?’ he finally managed to squeak.

‘Take us to the K-Labs,’ said Jam.

‘I... I... I’m just a technician. That area is restricted.’

‘I’ll fucking restrict your breathing.’

‘OK, OK, but you need codes ...’

‘You want me to
persuade
you to remember them?’ Jam lifted his free hand, and huge armoured spikes slid free of his forearm. The serrated chitin prongs gleamed like oiled steel in the yellow globe-light of the dim corridor.

‘I... I... I’m sure I could find the codes.’

‘Good boy.’

Oz moved forward, prodding his own gun into the man’s face. ‘Why is this place so deserted? Where are all the fucking Nex?’

‘They have finished here,’ stammered the technician. ‘Most of them have left. They have been called back for—well, for something. I don’t know what. I just service the machines.’

‘Machines?’

The technician went pale. ‘For the production. You’d better follow me. You’re not going to shoot me, are you? I just service ProdK machinery, make sure we keep production levels at a sufficient output.’

‘Lead the fucking way. Before I get really angry.’ As Jam spoke, a curious smile crossed his armoured ScorpNex face ... a hint of some distant memory, some private joke. ‘You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,’ he said. He pushed the technician forward. The man stumbled and righted himself. Then, with many nervous glances over his shoulder, he led them through a maze of yellow corridors. They passed several ceiling-mounted gun emplacements; but the guns were pointing uselessly at the ceiling.

Oz shook his head. ‘Some defensive system!’ He snorted with derision.

A minute after the group had passed, a tiny amber light flickered on the side of the first mounted gun. It turned smoothly in full circle, quad barrels lowering and aiming at the last point of exit for the group. And inside the tiny AI chip, algorithms clicked and flickered as the defensive systems linked together, instructions flowing through the gun network like fire through a tinder-dry forest. As the group passed each gun, so it came to life in their wake. The defensive systems knew, in their simple machine-intelligence way, that it was one thing to let an enemy in.

It was quite another to let them out again.

The technician halted outside a pair of huge alloy doors. A code pad lay to the right, hidden among the metal panels, the myriad pipes, the thick clusters of cabling. ‘This is the old reactor,’ said the technician softly. ‘This is where the K-Labs are sited. But there’s nothing left—they have been stripped. You’re wasting your time.’

Jam’s face moved in close, slitted copper eyes observing the tall man closely. ‘You’re lying about something. You’re holding out on us. Something is not right—smells bad.’ His gun pressed against the side of the man’s head. ‘Open the doors.’

‘High radiation levels,’ observed Oz, studying his ECube.

‘In thirty-six hours, it ain’t going to fucking matter,’ said Sonia J, coming forward to stand beside Jam. ‘Come on, we need to get in.’

Jam tilted his head to look at her. She smiled and nodded, and Jam gave a small nod in return, acknowledging her bravery and her willingness to get to work.

The technician punched in the entry-code digits on the doors, and slowly, ponderously, they slid back on well greased rails ... to reveal a huge chamber, easily as large as a football stadium and split into three levels. The group were entering on the central level, and ramps led off below and above them. The whole chamber was visible in a gloomy half-light, despite its three-tier layout: floors were built from galvanised mesh panels, support struts were narrow lengths of steel, and huge swathes of clustered cables ran everywhere, across floors, walls, hanging in loops from ceiling struts. Towards the centre of the chamber the lower level housed a huge pool containing a sparkling green liquid through which could be seen two huge cylinders whose lower parts disappeared into darkness.

‘That’s the reactor core, and the fuel assembly,’ observed Jam, taking a step forward onto the overhanging metal gantry. Above the glittering lake of coolant were huge rails, and assemblies of lifting gantries and cranes. The coolant pool filled the whole of the mammoth chamber with a soft green glow, and the total effect was one of immense eeriness. This was a dangerous place; this was where controlled nuclear reactions had once occurred.

The technician was silent. He seemed to be looking for something.

‘What are you not telling us?’

‘N-nothing! Look, the computer systems are over there. The K-Lab research benches, all lining the sides of the upper level—what used to be the reactor-monitoring equipment.’

‘Jam, it’s
really
dangerous in here,’ said Oz. ‘The levels of rad are real high.’

‘You wait outside with the others. Guard the doors. Make sure we don’t get any nasty surprises.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Sonia.

‘You heard the man. The rad levels are toxic. I am ScorpNex; I have increased resistance, improved genetic tolerance. You, however—you are human, Sonia. You can die as easily as all the other humans here.’

‘You need me,’ said Sonia defiantly. Jam moved forward, his gaze locked to hers and she stared back at him. ‘You need me to access the computer systems. You need me to access HIVE archives. Without me, you are screwed.’

‘Oz, get her a gun.’

Oz passed Sonia an Uzi, which she looked at in distaste, and a small hand-held comm. ‘We’ll keep in touch, yeah? Jam can’t use it—because of his claws.’ Oz turned, and the group of men moved back into the wide corridor.

The technician made as if to follow them but Jam nudged him with his gun. ‘I think you would be
safer
with us.’ Jam pushed the technician out onto the gantry, and then stepped out himself. The structure rattled under his weight. They moved slowly up the nearest ramp which rose gently towards the top level of the K-Labs, providing an even more expansive view of the huge chamber. Below, the coolant rippled in its house-sized container. The green light seemed to seep into every corner, every crevice.

Creaks and rattles echoed through the vast space. The ambient temperature was cool, with a breeze flowing down from wide ceiling ventilation pipes. Sonia followed Jam up the long ramp, and then along another suspended walkway that veered left, opening onto a platform set out with big benches and a host of complicated glass mechanisms. Tubes and vials sat in racks, scattered amongst computers and metal tools, laboratory ovens, microscopes, centrifuge machines and several industrial cubic autoclaves. Racks held trays of Petri-dishes, slides and thousands of bottles of chemicals.

‘K-Labs,’ said the technician, simply.

Jam’s eyes were scanning. He could not believe that nobody was there, that their group had, in fact, arrived too late. The Nex had packed up and left—which meant only one thing. EDEN was definitely ready. The biological agent had been produced, probably on a mass scale. And now it was on the move. The Priest had been right.

Durell was ready for his onslaught against mankind ...

Jam moved towards the computers, with Sonia beside him. They switched on the machines and light spat from twenty screens. HIVE logos flowed across monitors and Sonia moved forward, resting her hands on a keyboard.

» HIVE MEDIA SYSTEMS

.. LOG-ON KL SYSTEMS INITIATED

.. ALL SYSTEMS PRIMED

.. TESTING MEMORY SECTORS –

.. TESTING MULTI-POINT PROCESSOR UNITS

.. TESTING ZERO-K ALGORITHMS

.. EDEN/K-LAB SYSTEMS © HIVE MEDIA SYSTEMS

» PLEASE ENTER EMPLOYEE ACCESS CODES NOW – []

Sonia accessed the terminal with a few deft keystrokes. Filing systems flowed across the screens and Sonia’s jaw fell open. ‘I do not believe it,’ she said, voice soft, face glow-lit by the monitors. ‘Why would they
still
give me access? And here, of all places?’

‘You’re an employee of HIVE. You have an A-rate clearance. They never would have thought in a billion years you would go anywhere near a K-Lab production unit. How could they? You present TV programmes. You only ever connect to Media-Systems. But they are all networked by the same password laws—the same huge server mechanisms. Mad, eh?’

‘Yes, but the Nex also tagged me as a REB.’

‘Yes,’ said Jam, ‘and they also condemned you to death. Things are moving too fast, Sonia J, Media Queen—I think Durell has more things to worry about than a tiny little rogue TV presenter ...’

Jam moved closer to the central console and squinted, looking over the folders which appeared to be in a strange archaic language. They spread out in glowing spirals of data.

‘I don’t understand it,’ said Sonia slowly.

‘It’s encrypted. It uses a Nex conversion system.’

‘And you can convert it? In real time? In your head?’

‘Yes.’

‘What does it say?’

‘There are lists of figures. Most of them don’t mean anything to me. Scroll down there.’ Sonia obeyed, and Jam was silent for a while.

‘You see anything?’

’The EDEN production has definitely finished. A million barrels have been shipped over the previous two months. Here!’ Jam pointed. ‘Print that section.’

‘What is it?’

‘Shipping destinations. A hundred and twenty locations around the globe where EDEN has been transported; much of it airlifted, some by trucks, some by cargo ship. Durell has been planning this for a considerable time. Unfortunately, we’ve discovered his game too late.’

‘We still don’t know if EDEN is the biological poison it’s supposed to be.’

‘It is,’ said Jam softly. Sonia moved through various folders until an image flickered onto the screen. An incredibly complex series of molecular structures rotated, then merged to create a new chemical—which in turn spun softly. ‘That is EDEN. It is a poison. It has one purpose: to shut down the human organism as quickly as possible. Durell uses his media empire to string the population along. According to the propaganda, EDEN is the cure to all their ills. It will remove a toxin called HATE from the fucking air and give them back their liberty ... that way, Durell’s plans are virtually unobstructed. Last thing he fucking needs is the
truth
leaking out, the people of the world rising up in their millions against his new regime; against the Nex.’

‘But we could do that,’ said Sonia softly.

‘How?’

‘If I could get back on TV. I could tell the people what is really happening. I could get them to rise against the Nex! The people think I am dead, because Durell transmitted a faked execution after I was rescued. My appearance on a global network would cause chaos. If nothing else, it would show that his whole system is based on lies.’

‘Maybe. If nothing else, it could buy us time,’ said Jam softly, considering her point. ‘And time is something that is very precious at the moment. If you could expose this on TV, it might make the world finally see the truth. To look beyond their TV screens at the reality around them. I suppose that in itself would be a miracle.’

‘Are you two OK?’ came the crackle of Oz’s voice.

‘Yes, we’ll be down there soon.’ Sonia turned, and realised with a sinking feeling that the tall, bald technician had gone. ‘Oz, that guy we picked up has done a runner. He might be coming your way.’

‘I’ll see if we can introduce him to a bullet,’ said Oz. ‘Out.’

‘Put a disk in, over there,’ said Jam. ‘We need this information. There are video test clips—there, yes, the .vdx extensions—they show the effects of what EDEN is capable of doing, and where it is being stored. Then we need to get this data to Carter, so the ECW can be programmed with the EDEN depots. I just hope this fucking Warhead is capable of taking out so many targets! I just hope it’s as good as everybody thinks it is ... because without it, we are lost, we are a dead race.’

Oz killed the comm. ‘That little maggot we picked up is on his way down here. We should be ready.’

Rekalavich, smoking another of his Bogatiri
papirosi
cigarettes, was seated against the wall. He was nursing his stomach, quite obviously in some pain from his recently stapled stomach wound. ‘Just point your gun at the door. Little fucker won’t know what hit him.’