All Fall Down (15 page)

“This is the end of the main lab area. You're right, we are susceptible. But then we have the highly advanced work on cancer treatments, tissue regeneration, that sort of thing. It gives us opportunities.”

Opportunities. Consequences. “You've given me much to think about. Could I see some of the tissue regeneration research?”

“Certainly.”

They moved on, and while Masjid talked, Kate mused on the consequences of this classified research. What else might it be used for? If they had this technology and these advances, what else might they be doing?

A dry, metallic tick-tock noise echoed around the Colony’s hangar. On Win’s left arm a holographic clockwork watch face appeared, dissembled into small cogs above his wrist, resolving finally into Djembe’s face.

           
In the Research Facility, Kate’s arm warmed as a weak glow escaped the cuff of her uniform sleeve. She pulled the sleeve back whilst moving away from Masjid to a secluded area.

Both in their respective locations looked down at their wrists, where Djembe looked back, along with the face of the other one not present, “We are at one hour. I have interfaced the comms system after some distraction. I’ve been querying the system’s communications relays, Kate. There’s no obvious traffic in or out of here for the past two days or during the incident that references it. Only the encoded messages to MI, which match the reports we have on file. Traffic before the incident appears clean, and there’s nothing immediately obvious in comms storage. There are some side issues for team discussion.”

“Thank you Djembe. Win, how about you?”

           
“I am back in the hangar. I have been to the surface. Environmental monitoring is complete. I couldn’t find any trace of biological remains. I also have something to discuss, but it can wait for our team meeting.”

           
“Thank you, boys. I've met the Research Director and reviewed the biological research. Nothing untoward so far. Please proceed to phase two. Win, arrange for a pilot to take you into orbit. Look for ion trails, evidence of ship passage, any tech that doesn’t belong there. Just in case it wasn't exposure and the vendetta rumour has any truth to it. Djembe, continue with comms architecture mapping, look for coded messages or hidden files. Check everything is locked down, and filters are in place for when comms eventually re-open. Lock things down first and ask permission later, on my authority. How long is the next phase?”

“Four hours.”

Win's holo highlighted, “No sign of illicit biological research then? Murder?”

“No. But it's early days, too soon to call it a wild goose chase.”

“Well, if we are finished, I would like to get up into space. If that's OK?”

“Certainly. Djembe, can you give us a one hour warning before the end of phase two? Mark the time please.”

           
“Phase one ends at standard time ten forty two. Phase two starts at ten forty four. Breaking link.”

           
Kate’s arm cooled, the wrist panel dimmed. She pulled the sleeve down, turned off her private sound screen, and re-joined Masjid, “Doctor, can we talk a little more about Huriko's surface work?”

           
In the hangar Win watched Djembe’s face change back to a clock face. He smiled as the illusion faded, looked around the hangar for a pilot, quietly talking to himself as he did, “Now we look to the skies!”

           
Around the ships, small robots scurried after the hangar crew, helping prepare ships and aircars and equipment. Win walked towards them.

Chapter 7 – Bestiola Ex Machina

Deep beneath the Colony Doctor Masjid Currie stood in the gloom, grunting as he closed the tunnel's heavy security door. When its clamps locked into place, deep satisfying thuds whumped through the rock.

           
The only light came from a maglev car, activated by its proximity sensors. He stepped into the maglev, its gull wing door chiming as it closed to his back. He wondered how long he could stay down here before someone noticed his absence. The MI team especially may want to see him at a moment's notice, though he thought he should be safe for at least an hour after the meeting with General Leland.

           
When he'd been with the General, he'd received a message from Peter. It was written in code; innocuous words to an observer, but they hinted that something significant was happening in the hidden lab area. Masjid needed to see for himself what it was.

           
The maglev sped down the mostly lightless track. The tunnel had been bored in secret while the Colony was still being built; it didn't feature on any map. The tunnel door was marked as a storage room entrance in the Colony schematics, which in a way, Masjid thought, was true enough. The maglev track had been ripped from a collapsed mining tunnel linked to the original Colony during the confusion that followed its destruction. Masjid ran his fingers over his seat as the car accelerated into the dark. It was covered with a smooth velvet, which here and there was starting to clump. The wear and tear of serving the Colony’s secret was starting to show.

           
Occasionally a safety light streaked by, dividing the distance to his destination. In the dark beyond the car’s windows, Masjid knew lay the hulks of the machines used to carve the tunnels. As far as he knew the machines were still operable. He kept them here in case the tunnel needed reinforcing or extending. Though they waited unseen in the waiting dark, just knowing they were there calmed him. He was nervous of this hidden darkness, moving away from the Colony’s contained comfort to the murky light that lay at journey’s end. The machines’ solidity, their hidden curved and angular weight, gave some imagined structure to the otherwise featureless dark. If the specimens ever escaped or the tunnel collapsed, Masjid comforted himself with the thought that he could defend himself or dig his way out with them. If there was ever an incident down here, whoever was caught in it would be left to die; for how could Daoud acknowledge the tunnel or the need for a large scale rescue operation?

His thoughts turned to Huriko. Everything that she was had been obliterated. Physically by the alien; by the approaching footnotes of history where she would be lucky to be recorded if first contact was revealed; and by the first interspecies murder. She was dead, too, when she chose her assignment on Fall, leaving behind her birth name and everything that went with that; an obliteration by identity. And now the MI team had reduced her to a tick box on a mission creation form; an ignominious death; a bureaucratic obliteration.

Guilt cloaked him in a shroud, like the dark around his car. How could he have become involved in an experiment on a human? A colleague, someone he had hand picked for the Colony. It had long occurred to him that Daoud was a master of manipulation. Of creating situations where his desired outcome seemed the most logical. And he'd done it with Huriko. With the pods inactive these last decades and resistant to research, he'd wanted, he said, a similar blastocyst grown in a human host. And whilst in there, the host's biology would hopefully make the hybrid open to genetic manipulation. And if that was the case, then they had a perfect test subject for further biological research. Something not human, a chimera with exotic DNA, on which they could refine their major research. They could give it cancer, watch it take hold of the human DNA, and test their advanced cures. Radiation burns, amputation. The ethics had become easier the more he'd looked at the pods. They were mindless lumps of DNA. Daoud had presented a seductive case. And with the memory wipe procedures, Compound X and Sophie's knowledge of suggestive language, the process had looked fool proof.

A distance-marking light flashed by.

Practical matters crept in to his mind. How would he replace Huriko? It took over six standard months for applicants to complete the testing required to work on classified programmes. Then there was a further six months to a year to dismantle their previous life and ensure their new identity was in place. That gave him a standard year to wait in the best case. Undoubtedly there were already people going through the programme, ready to be assigned to different classified projects, but there was no guarantee his science programmes would get the recognition he thought they deserved. Or that the candidates were of the right calibre and background.

           
The car stopped in front of the scarred rock at the tunnel’s end, next to a second car. The cold steel of a door glowed almost in defiance of the single poor light above it. The massive bolts and clamps which fixed it into the wall suggested the door's weight and thickness. He pressed his hand to a security device next to the door and spoke his name and an access number. The air was chilly. He shivered.

Masjid waited for the door to open. Peter would have to follow a strict protocol for securing the inner facility first, before entering the airlock to the outer door. Masjid looked at the two maglev cars crouched in the gloom. He thought about the maglevs he’d taken before coming to Fall, the last one on Deneb III, on a track that strode out beyond the capital city. He remembered the upturned faces in the fields below, which the people worked by hand. Bicycles and carts pulled by animals wound through its roads. Life in many parts of the Settled Quarters had become simpler since The Singularity, when the first AI had come online.

           
Masjid’s voice echoed quietly, “Come on Peter, where are you? You should’ve opened up by now.” He pressed his palm to the security device again. A minute passed, then two. Masjid tamped his feet into the dusty floor, “Bloody cold,” too quietly for an echo. Eventually a light on the security device changed from red to yellow, “That’s better.” Masjid looked around the tunnel whilst he waited for the door to open. He put out his hand to the rock surface. How different from the laboratory and the AI environment he used to review the cellular mechanics his researchers developed. Finally the security light turned green. Clamps pulled back in muffled thuds, felt through the skin more than heard. The door clicked, popped open a few centimetres.

           
A wheezing escaped through the gap. “Peter?” He pulled the heavy door. On the floor of the airlock Doctor Peter Cassel was collapsed against the inner door. Masjid saw raw burns on his face and other patches of exposed skin, glistening, starting to weep. Peter's lab uniform was torn and blackened.

           
Panicked, Masjid dropped next to Peter, inspecting his injuries. “What's happened? Let’s get you to MedWing.”

Peter opened his eyes, struggled with a breath, “Don’t go in,” shook his head carefully. “Is the facility secure?” His breath rasped, an awful, terminal sound.

           
Masjid glanced up at the security panel. “The enhanced shielding is in place. Let me help you up.”

           
Peter put up a blackened hand to Masjid’s shoulder, “Bury this place, Masjid. Please. Trust me.”

           
“Peter, we’re going back to the MedWing.”

           
Peter grimaced and looked at Masjid from under pained eyelids, face tensed, drawn with pain. “Shouldn't have sent the code,” he coughed and wheezed a few times, “...our plan. Sophie...” Then his cheeks relaxed, his irises dilated and Masjid felt Peter's hand drop from his shoulder. Masjid forced out a breath, put his fingers to Peter's eyes, lowered them to sleep. Despite his years and experience, the panic stayed in his chest, roared in his mind. He looked at the inner door, wondering what had happened behind it. What had the pods done? What were they now capable of? It wasn't clear if Peter's injuries were from a chemical attack or an energy discharge, though by the blackened areas on his lab uniform Masjid thought energy discharges more likely. Which would mean the pods, apart from being able to float – to fly, he guessed, if the cells weren't so secure, and if the creature on the surface was anything to go by – were also able to forcibly defend themselves. That made them weapons. Twenty three alien bio-weapons.

           
And what he meant by mentioning Sophie? To warn her?