Exodus Code (25 page)

‘This design is amazing; I’m impressed. The algorithms are bril iant,’ said Vlad staring at the code, and every few beats glancing up at Shel ey smiling next to him. ‘You’ve morphed her in a way that I didn’t think we – I mean our governments – had the capability to do yet with artificial intel igence.’

Eva had pul ed her chair up next to Vlad. ‘This is some serious cutting-edge restructuring. I read about this code-layering in a paper once, but it was based on some sophisticated theories, pretty sci-fi level design.’

‘Exactly,’ said Jack.

They both paused in their analysis of the program. ‘Where did you get this?

Are we going to have the men in black chasing us?’

Jack shook his head. ‘The few people who know of its existence are gone or deeply sedated or no longer care. I needed a secure home for my program and your system, your Shel ey, seemed as good a place as any to be that home. For now, anyway.’

‘I’m gratified and honoured, Captain,’ said Shel ey. ‘Torchwood and I are enjoying each other immensely.’

Vlad was taking furious notes, unable to draw his eyes from his computer screens. ‘This shit is amazing!’

Jack put his hand on Vlad’s shoulder. ‘You’l have plenty of time to enjoy Shel ey to her ful est later. Right now, I need to have her do a little work.’

‘SHELLEY,’ SAID VLAD, ‘show us what you’ve learned about the eruptions and the geysers from your analysis of our deep-water data, including their current activity and the order in which they occurred.’

‘It would be my pleasure, Vlad.’

‘What do you mean current activity?’ asked Cash, as he walked into the comms centre.

‘None of the underwater events are on expected plate boundaries, and none runs along traditional fault lines,’ explained Vlad. ‘But here’s the even stranger thing – each one is stil active, low level right now, but active nonetheless.’

‘According to the data, Captain,’ said Shel ey, ‘these tremors are not the result of earthquakes but of volcanic eruptions causing a number of hydrothermal vents to crack through the ocean floor.’ She was tapping her fountain pen on her journal. As she did so, aspects of the map were highlighted on the screen, red pulsing lights representing the epicentres.

‘These vents are similar to the one that has already risen through the surface in Wales and one or two other deep water sites’.’

‘What exactly is a hydrothermal vent?’ asked Vlad.

‘Essential y an underwater geyser.’

‘And the order of these disturbances?’ asked Jack, fitting this data into his own theories.

‘Eva has a hunch,’ cut in Vlad, ‘that these deep water events are synchronised in some way.’

‘The geysers beginning to erupt above the surface that the
Ice Maiden’s
probes are detecting,’ continued Shel ey, ‘is a primary consequence of these hydrothermal vents. The first was off the coast of southern Peru, fol owed exactly one minute later by deep-water eruptions off the coast of Wales, Scotland, New Zealand and Indonesia. And, Captain, these hydrothermal vents are not registering on any of our traditional measurement scales. Currently, according to my data, only one other source is monitoring these vents.’

‘Who?’ asked Jack.

‘The information is being downloaded from a UK government satel ite to an office in Thames House, London.’

‘Christ,’ said Vlad, ‘that’s MI5. I thought you said this software and this mission weren’t going to bring the men in black on us.’

‘This particular man in black is on our side,’ said Jack. ‘And although Shel ey can monitor what they’re doing, they cannot–’ Vlad rol ed his eyes. ‘Trust me.

They’ve no idea what we’re doing, and I have my friend’s word, that we’l be al owed some freedom. For now, anyway. He’s holding Big Brother and Big Sister at bay.’

Eva was only half-listening to Jack and Vlad. She was much more interested in the unusual discovery that the ocean had a number of new hydrothermal vents erupting from deep within the Earth’s core. More than she’d tracked yesterday. As a scientist this was thril ing. Right now, it also helped her to suppress the desire for Vlad that was not far beneath her surface. Her desire was not helped one bit by the fact that the Captain, in a more refined and imposing way, was pretty gorgeous too.

Focus, she thought. Focus.

‘According to my calculations,’ continued Shel ey, ‘a highly unusual energy field from the first eruption is creating the ongoing tremors. They are not, in fact, the result of any shifting of tectonic plates as Eva and Vlad had original y speculated from the data.’

‘Is it morphic resonance?’ asked Jack.

‘I’ve been monitoring the morphic fields,’ said Vlad. ‘It’s one of my areas of interest – was, that is, until my funding was stolen. I’ve not noticed anything unusual.’

Shel ey continued. ‘The data also suggests that the water around each of the vents has a considerably higher measure of carbon, iron and sulphur than is normal. I’m also detecting traces of something else. I’l need more time for analysis.’

‘The ocean floor always has measurable carbonic acid,’ said Eva. ‘It’s part of the carbon cycle and part of the Earth’s natural waste disposal system.’

She was graphing the data onto another screen as Shel ey presented it.

Vlad was watching Shel ey, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, Eva, but although you’re accurate in your assessment that the ocean is part of the carbon cycle, the amounts of carbonic acid I’m detecting surrounding each of the hydrothermal vents is much higher than what is considered normal, and, along with the water temperature, the levels are rising significantly on a daily basis.’

Shel ey drew her pen across her leather journal and projected her numbers onto Eva’s graph, showing that the carbon levels in the areas around each of the underwater geysers were more than a thousand times greater than other parts of the ocean. ‘I’m also detecting many of the vents are forming vent chimneys.’

‘We must have a malfunction in our probes,’ said Eva, shocked by the data.

‘That’s not possible in such a short period of time. Vent chimneys take thousands and thousands of years to form.’ She looked at Vlad. ‘We dropped the probes at al the places where there had been tremors initial y, but something must be wrong. That data doesn’t make sense. Shel ey, can we activate the cameras on the probes that have them?’

‘Activating cameras to the screen.’

Vlad stood and walked across the passageway to the mess, returning with four beers, passing one each to Jack, Eva and Cash. Looking across the room at Shel ey, he held up his bottle.

‘That function is sadly not yet operational either.’

Vlad took a long pul of his beer, as the live feed from three probes miles beneath the ocean appeared on the large screen. ‘Al of our probes can’t be malfunctioning, Eva. I’l run a diagnostic on the others, but for al of them to fail, at the same time? Not gonna happen.’

Eva peered at the video images on the screen. ‘I don’t believe it. It’s like I’m watching a mil ion years of the Earth’s evolution in seconds. What’s going on?’

‘What exactly are we looking at?’ asked Jack, standing behind the two analysts.

Eva pointed to one of the vents where a beehive like structure was forming around the underwater geyser. ‘These craters or cracks in the ocean’s floor vent a complex combination of superheated chemicals and gases. The only thing that keeps them from actual y boiling the water is the pressure from the ocean. In al of these cases, what’s known as a vent chimney can be seen rising up out of the ocean, surrounding each of the geysers. Shel ey, can you bring up a clearer picture of a vent chimney?’

In the space next to Shel ey, an image appeared that took Jack’s breath away. He leant against Eva’s chair, a wave of images crashing through his mind, one after another – a man, a kiss, a plane, a mountain, a fight, then fal ing, fal ing, the ground opening up and swal owing him. A beautiful woman kissing him deeply, passionately, longingly, a sleek, lithe, midnight black-eyed puma. The fierce familiarity of the images shook Jack to his core.

He stared again at the picture that Shel ey had thrown up, aware that something had shifted in his mind.

‘This,’ said Eva, ‘is a vent chimney, a massive tower of oxidized iron, zinc and rock rising out of the ocean floor.’

The chimney was spewing black smoke.

And suddenly Jack knew where he’d seen the chimney before. Inside a mountain many years ago.

‘Jack, are you OK?’ asked Vlad, offering Jack his chair. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘Not a ghost… a sliver from my past,’ said Jack, sitting down, calming his racing heart. Jack final y understood that, for whatever reason, his brain was rebuilding a gap in his memory, a void that had been there for a long time, putting pieces together that long ago something or someone had split apart, sending its shards boomeranging across his consciousness. And now they were final y returning.

Jack’s brain needed more time to process what he was no longer forgetting, time to let his memory fil the blank spaces as if it were rebuilding a damaged track on a hard drive.

‘SHELLEY,’ SAID JACK, gulping most of his beer. ‘How many hydrothermal chimneys have the
Ice Maiden
’s deep-water probes detected in the past, say, two weeks?’

‘Including the one now forming off the coast of Wales, Captain, seven.’

‘What!’ said Eva. ‘That’s impossible. It’s just impossible. It takes at least a mil ion years for that kind of geologic phenomenon to happen. The Atlantis Massif is at least two mil ion years old.’

‘What the hel is the Atlantis Massif? Sounds like a breed of dog,’ said Cash, feeling more out of his league every minute of this conversation.

‘Shal I explain?’ asked Shel ey.

‘Please,’ said Jack, giving Vlad back his chair. Jack stood in front of the screen, watching al the vent chimneys flashing on the map. Crossing his arms, he stared at it, his jaw clenching and unclenching in sync with the pulsing lights.

‘The Atlantis Massif, named after the lost city of Atlantis,’ explained Shel ey, ‘is a submarine mountain in the North Atlantic approximately twelve miles under the sea, rising at its peak approximately 14,000 feet. It can be found off the northern coast of Africa and east of the Mid-Atlantic mountain range.’ With a wave of her hand Shel ey brought up a computerised image of the underwater mountain in the space between her and Jack. ‘Eva is correct. This massif is 2.5 mil ion years old.’

‘And,’ interrupted Eva, ‘the two or three other core complexes on the ocean floor like this one that have been discovered are at least that old too. The Earth simply does not respond to change that quickly.’

‘So, Shel ey,’ said Cash, ‘let me see if I understand this correctly.’

‘I can talk more slowly, Cash, if that wil help.’ Shel ey giggled.

Despite her growing anxiety, Eva laughed too. Jack shrugged as if a sense of humour was exactly what you’d expect from a Torchwood program.

‘These tremors are creating hydrothermal vents and they in turn are forming chimneys like this one,’ Cash said, ignoring them. He pointed to the growing conical structures they were seeing from their underwater probes.

‘That is correct.’

‘And these geological phenomena are happening at a speed of evolution that’s impossible,’ Cash caught Jack’s eye, ‘at least by the rules as we know them?’

‘Also correct.’

‘If al that’s true,’ said Eva, final y regaining some composure. ‘Then what’s causing the eruptions in the first place?’

For the first time since he and Eva had started monitoring these deep-water events two weeks earlier, Vlad was beginning to worry that something pretty bad was happening underneath the sea.

‘Have you ever heard of the Gaia theory?’ asked Jack.

‘Yeah,’ said Eva, ‘but it’s a theory with only a few disparate threads to prove it.’

‘Oh, there’s a few more threads stil to be found,’ said Jack.

‘How do you know?’

‘Trust me.’

‘Gaia is one of the ancient names given to the goddess of the Earth,’ said Shel ey. ‘The Gaia theory was named after her and it maintains that al living organisms, including the Earth itself, are part of a complex process of self-regulation that strives for balance and sustainability. This stability, this balance, is dependent on three important functions: the salinity in the oceans, the oxygen in the atmosphere and keeping deformation and destruction caused by the human population in balance with both of those things.’

‘Otherwise,’ asked Vlad, ‘what happens?’

‘The balance is disrupted,’ said Jack, ‘and the Earth can no longer sustain life as we know it.’

‘And?’

‘Listen,’ said Jack, ‘We know that global warming is out of control, that the Earth’s atmosphere is already damaged, maybe beyond repair, and we know that global warming is affecting everything from weather to crops to species extinction. If we now have hydrothermal chimneys suddenly flooding the oceans with metal sulphides, then we’re wel on the way to desalinating the oceans and completely disrupting the Earth’s ability to self-regulate.’

Eva was poring over the data that Shel ey had summarised, using a series of calculations and simulations that would have taken her and Vlad months to complete.

‘Jack, you need to look at this,’ Eva said. ‘We now have a comparison of al the dates and times of the deep-water events with the reported synaesthesia incidents in the world.’