The Eidolon (33 page)

“Rene, where’s Professor Von Clerk?”

“He must be up in his office – he’ll be here any minute.”

Shit.
I fight my way back through the crowd.

A few stragglers make their way into the control room from the corridor, leaving it empty. I run past the offices, scanning the names. A voice comes from the next corridor and I follow it to the office next to Florence’s.

“No-one’s seen him. I tried calling yesterday, but got no answer. Okay. Let me know if you hear anything.” He puts down the phone as I open the door.

“Professor...” I begin.

“Robert, this isn’t a good time.” He glances at his watch.

“This is important.”

“I’m sorry, it will have to wait. We’re about to launch.”

I step in front of him as he moves towards the door. “Listen to me, Professor. The Grid’s infected. Romfield Labs have picked up a problem with their system overnight. They think it came from the Grid, so they may not be the only ones.”

“Why didn’t they inform us? They know the protocols...”

“I don’t know. But if you stay connected to the Grid, you could wipe out the data gathering mainframe.”

“We can’t afford another failed launch...”

“Share the data later. You don’t have to stop the experiments, but don’t run them live with the Grid. How are you going to explain to the CERN Council that you knew there was a threat, and they have to reinstall an entire mainframe?”

His eyes hold mine, unblinking, and I can see the thoughts churning in his head. Behind him, the clock notches up another minute. He lets out a long breath, his lips a tight line, and picks up his phone.

“Albert, it’s Jorgen. We have information that there’s a security risk with the Grid – disconnect all external Grid users immediately. No live Grid connections, understand? Send me confirmation when it’s done. And find the source.” He drops the phone on the desk.

“How long will it take to disconnect?”

“A few minutes.” He opens the door. “You’d better be right about this.”

I step aside, letting out a long breath as his footsteps fade down the corridor. I reach for the amulet round my neck – cold and heavy, an ordinary stone – put it back into my T-shirt and head for my dad’s office.

Silence descends on the control room as I push open the office door.

“Not watching the fireworks, Robert?”

I freeze. Victor Amos is sitting in the armchair.

Chapter Nineteen

A
MOS CLOSES A
book, entitled
In Search of Dark Matter,
puts it on the desk. “I’m disappointed.”

“Really.”

“I reunited you with your father. I gave you the chance to be part of history. Yet you chose to squander it all. And for what? To satisfy an insatiable scientific curiosity?”

I say nothing.

“Some things are better left unknown, Robert.”

“Where are they?”

“We made a deal.”

“Taking them hostage wasn’t part of that.”

“And neither was your failure to deliver your end of the bargain.” Cracks appear in his composure; something threatening lies beneath. “You left me with no choice. But that’s irrelevant now.” He glances at the clock on the wall. “Our security specialists have rectified the problem.”

“Then you’ve got what you wanted. Tell me where they are.”

Slowly, he gets to his feet and crosses the floor towards me, but it’s not the movement of an ordinary man. It’s like he glides rather than walks. The door closes.

He leans in towards my right ear and somewhere underneath the cologne, I catch the stench of singed flesh on his breath. His eyes blaze, but he speaks softly. “Do you really want to know?” Another sound, a faint whispering, slithering beyond the words.

My vision shatters. The world around me splinters and suddenly I’m somewhere else, lost in a grey mist, before me colourless trees, gnarled and leafless, people tied to the trunks; and, among them, Cora Martin and Elliot Strong. The sun is a black, writhing orb on the horizon, mining my core for its spirit. Through the haze is a small church, with an overgrown cemetery. I crumple to my knees on the floor of the office as the world realigns.

“Ah.” Amos closes his eyes and inhales, as though relishing the scent. “You see it, don’t you? You’re a Sentient?”

“Just let them go. Do what you want with me, just let them go.”

I feel his eyes stray over my face as he draws near, his voice no more than a whisper. “You don’t understand, do you? I gain far more from your suffering in life than I ever would from your death. I
need
your suffering.” He leans closer still until I feel his breath on my cheek. Fear seizes me, chaining me to the spot. A hot, clammy tongue slides slowly from my jaw to my temple. Amos closes his eyes, savouring. “I can already taste it.”

“Please...”

“I let you live, Robert Strong, so that you can watch her breathe but never hear her voice again; look on her, but know she does not know your name; think of her and appreciate what you made her sacrifice. And you will know where she really is. Where her mind and her spirit will reside forever.”

“No...”

He straightens to his full height, taller than he seemed before, inclining his head to one side. His eyes close again. The black sun flashes in front of me, obliterating the room. I blink and gasp, and it vanishes. Amos is gone.

I
TEAR FROM
the office, past the entrance to the control room, as cheers erupt from inside. They’ve launched. The first particles are on course for collision. The amulet grows warm on my neck, but I already know where she is.

Crowley is not outside and I can’t tunnel without him. Cursing, I go back inside, pushing through the control room crowd until I find Rene.

“I need your bike, Rene.”

“What? We’re just getting started –”

“Please, it’s an emergency. Just give me the fucking keys.”

T
HE BIKE ROARS
from the car park, scattering a crowd of students, and out onto the highway. It’s raining and the road has a sheen on it that threatens to slide the bike as I push through ninety. I cut out past a truck, narrowly missing an oncoming tanker. Horns and angry gestures from the driver are just background distractions.

My amulet burns in the hollow of my neck, a hot spot against the cold rain driving at me. The turnoff is ahead, on the right, the single track road. The back wheel slides out as I brake to make the turn, and the bike leans low towards the ground in the spin, billowing a cloud of dust. A few hard revs and it regains its grip on the track, clods of dirt scuffing up from the earth. Ahead is the church, where I last saw my dad. His car is still parked outside, abandoned where he left it. I pick up speed. The fence posts whip past, the fields a green blur and something else at the edge of my vision. Glancing sideways, I see an eagle, soaring level with me, its enormous wings rigid. It’s there as I bounce over the potholes in the road, always just a little ahead, leading the way. It veers off to the left, over a grass track, and I follow it, past the low stone wall surrounding the small cemetery behind the church.

Ahead is the wood. Balaquai and the others are standing there as I dismount. A flash of blue-white light announces Sattva’s transformation, and he’s there next to me as I run towards them. Casimir is crouching down next to the base of one of the trees.

Sattva catches my arm. “Robert. We found them, but not in time. I’m... I’m sorry.”

Casimir looks up at me as I approach, his eyes like Sattva’s, full of pity and pain. My pace slows. An arm is wrapped awkwardly round the trunk. A slender, pale arm, a hand with a silver thumb ring. Another step and I see her auburn hair, straggled down over her face, her head drooping towards the ground, where she’s kneeling on the dirt.
Oh, God, Cora, what has he done to you?

I’m on my knees, my hands clasping her head, lifting it, sweeping the red strands away from her face. Her eyes open, and she looks at me. She’s alive. “Cora... I’m so sorry.” I press my lips against hers, but she doesn’t respond. “Cora? It’s me.” Her eyes stare out, but there’s nothing inside them. Just blank hollow pits.

“They won’t recognise you, Robert,” says Balaquai. He’s crouched by my dad, who’s kneeling by another tree in the same awkward position, his hands tethered behind him, like he’s waiting for the guillotine.

Why are they just standing there? “Cut them loose!”

“There are no ties, Robert,” Sattva says. “They’re free to leave.”

“Well, help me get them up!” I reach under Cora’s arms and try to lift her, but she’s a dead weight, her arms still stretched behind her, clinging to the tree. Sattva and Balaquai exchange glances, but don’t move. “Do something!”

Sattva crouches down beside me and steadies my hand as he meets my eye. “Robert, we can’t reach them. They’re inside Mindscape.”

My eyes are drawn back to Cora’s face, to its emptiness. A sudden flash of grey disconnects the world again, like a strobe in a nightclub that dislocates reality into segments, only this segment is different and it lasts. I’m still where I am, crouching next to Cora, and she’s still tied to a tree, like my dad, but the space in between has changed. There’s no colour. None at all, only shades of grey and black. Where there was grass, there’s only dry dusty earth. The tree she’s tied to is dead, blackened, its gnarled branches reaching up to the grey sky. A mist the colour of lead hangs low in the air, despite the incessant howling of the wind. It clears momentarily to reveal a man tethered to the tree next to my dad. He lifts his face – it’s Abrams. The mist closes around him, but beyond, dark shapes emerge from the grey, strewn across the colourless earth like an endless dead crop. They look like crosses. No, not crosses;they’re trees, their lifeless branches black against the ashen sky. People are tied to each of them, arms clinging to the trunks. Jesus, there are thousands of them. Cora lifts her head, her eyes staring past me, and I follow her gaze towards the horizon, towards the dark orb that seethes in the place where the sun should be. Like a black hole, it sucks any memory of hope from me. I feel like my core has turned black.

I
N A WHITE
room deep underground, Dana Bishop is watching a screen over Luke Lambert’s left shoulder. She picks up a headset. “Get me Jo Trench.” She pauses while they connect. “This is Dana Bishop, Director of Operations. What the fuck is going on?”

“Surrey’s been disconnected from the Grid.”

“What? You told me our backdoor was safe.”

“It is – it’s not coming from this end. CERN must have switched off the Grid.”

She turns to Luke Lambert. “Find a way round it. Now.”

She lights a cigarette with a trembling hand, narrowing her eyes against the grey smoke. Luke Lambert taps on the keys of his console, pulling up the firewall programs. He hesitates as the screen goes blank and the room goes quiet. Five seconds later, the word ‘UNLUCKY’ runs across the screen. He glances round. It’s on every screen in the Hub.

Dana Bishop breathes into the headset. “Get me Mr Y.”

“Ms Bishop,” says a woman carrying a mobile. “Mr Amos wants to speak to you.”

Without looking up, Bishop draws deeply on her cigarette and grinds it out on the corner of Lambert’s desk.

“R
OBERT
!” S
ATTVA SHAKES
me and I stumble back on the green grass as his face comes into focus.

“I saw it... what they see...”

“You saw it?”

“Amos... he wants me to know. He let me in.”

“What did you see?”

“They’re tied to dead trees – Cora, my dad, Abrams and thousands of others.”

Crowley’s eyes flicker across the forest then he crouches down beside me. “There’s more than Cora and your dad?” He glances at Sattva, who’s standing very still, watching me.

“What’s happening, Sattva? What was that place?”

Crowley turns to Sattva. “He’s linking their consciousness.”

“What?” I ask.

“He’s harvesting their collective fear and incubating them inside it. He’s making his own Field.”

“What do you mean?”

“It means, Robert,” says Crowley, “he’s creating Hell.”

“What? But you told me they weren’t dead!”

“They’re not. Hell isn’t a place; it’s a state of mind. You don’t get there by dying. You get there by living it. To be in that place means you’ve forgotten you can choose.”

“When are the first collisions, Robert?” says Balaquai.

I glance at my watch. “Four minutes.”

Sattva is staring at the middle distance, realisation dawning in his eyes. “The collisions recreate the beginnings of the universe, the first particles in existence, is that right?”

“Yes, but –”

“That’s what he’s afraid of.”

“Of course,” says Crowley. “Why didn’t we see this before?”

“What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

Sattva turns to me. “The basis of creation is thought. Amos is afraid that that the energy released from the collisions will create new consciousness that will disrupt his Mindscape.”

“So it should release them?”

“It’s the best chance they have, but they will still have to choose. And for that, they need a reason to hope. Do you think you can get back in?”

I glance down at Cora. A flash of dark mist splinters my vision. “Yes.”

“And what if he gets stuck there?” Crowley interrupts. “Do we just leave him? It’s too risky, Sattva.”

“I’ll do it,” I say.

Sattva hesitates.“Alright. There will be a focal point in there somewhere, something that drains your spirit.” I nod. The black sun. “It will take all your effort, but whatever you do, don’t look at it. Not if you want to come back.”

I feel a hand on my arm. Casimir is standing next to me. “Be careful, Robert. I’m counting on you coming back.”

“Remember,” says Sattva, “you can choose. Keep hold of your hope, no matter what.”

Two minutes to go. I look into Cora’s blank eyes, seeing through to the inside, to that place where she’s suffering. The world I know shatters and becomes her Hell.