Quake (58 page)

To leave a mass of pulped flesh in its wake.

Delhi, India

The Red Fort of Delhi, quarried and built in 1648 from the local deep red sandstone and once serving as the imperial palace of the Mughal Emperors, started to shake. The Lahore Gate and the Delhi Gate started to rattle against their ancient iron hinges, and stonework began to crumble around sand-blasted fixings. The two-and-a-half-kilometre defensive wall began to buckle, writhing like a huge red snake in its death throes, and all around people stared up in wonder - and horror - as the ground trembled beneath their feet.

The huge and beautiful Great Mosque - the
Jama Masjid -
was shuddering as if some great hand had taken the tapering minarets and rounded bulbous domes and was shaking them. Several minarets toppled to the ground far below, scattering debris like a child’s abused building blocks under the fists of a tantrum-screaming toddler ...

The River Yamuna shook as if in the grip of a fit; it sloshed up its banks, smashing boats and overturning several small ferries. A huge wave washed up, over, dragging people and barking dogs from the banks and away in a sudden deep swell of flood waters ... In the suburbs surrounding the city people came outside to stand in the street, staring up into the sky or over towards the crumbling Red Fort, which dominated the skyline and seemed to
shimmer.

And twelve million people watched in muted terror as the quake made its presence felt, smashing, stomping and branding its presence into the brain of every screaming human who endured its buckling stampeding smashing
torturing
onslaught...

‘Is it done?’ asked Jam through twisted jaws.

Durell shook his head. ‘No, my boy, it is not yet done.’ His eyes stared down at the screen, at the swirl of colours, at the scattered flickering images of destruction being relayed back to him via thousands of satellite eyes around and above the globe.

He reached down beside the screen where a small black box sat, its lights flickering softly. He glanced down, a curious smile etching his face within the folds of the dark hood. Frost coated the box - the QuakeHub - and with blackened claws Durell flicked open the lid to reveal a dark cube squatting at the heart of this terrible weapon that was wreaking such havoc across the world.

Jam peered closer.

‘What exactly is it?’

‘The heart of the QuakeHub. It is a processor, Jam. The most advanced military processor ever designed. It is controlling the earthquakes, and it is controlling the world ... watch closely, for no more will we offer ultimatums, no more will we bow under the onslaught of world powers and world armies and the slime that is Spiral ... we will control
everything
because, my friend, as you can quite clearly see, the QIV processor, the QIV military-organic-cubic processor is now fully operational and permanently on-line.’

The Nex poured out in their thousands from hidden bunkers - cold-storage facilities, secret subterranean chambers - across the globe.

As satellites became blind and governments and army leaders panicked, appalled at their sudden terrifying loss of control, the Nex attacked targets that had no idea of what was coming.

In Germany, armies clashed in the streets as civilians fled, screaming, to be machine-gunned in the back. In Sweden, the Nex landed in swarms of black helicopters, storming airfields and army and naval bases, taking them in minutes. With stumbling leaders blind, oblivious to the fact that they were even under attack, nuclear power stations were overrun and complete control was taken of poorly defended nuclear missile silos - from Russia to America to China.

The Nex - thanks to the QIV military processor - had control of digital locks, satellite navigation, world finances. In certain high-tech army barracks hundreds of thousands of men were simply locked in. No need for bloody warfare in such cases, no need for hand-to-hand combat in the streets - the Nex could prevail with far inferior numbers due to technological and digital superiority.

The power base across the surface of the globe began to shift.

Durell stood over the QIV processor, revelling in his supremacy, revelling in his power, his apotheosis - and he turned, throwing back his hood as his glittering eyes surveyed Jam. He placed a claw on Jam’s shoulder and smiled. There was a taste on his lips like ...
revenge.

‘Carter is coming,’ said Jam softly.

‘I care not.’

‘And Spiral, with their TankSquads.’

‘I care not.’

‘We should leave this place.’

‘No, Jam. This Carter, he must die. By coming to us he simply makes this game easier ... he cannot stand against you, and he cannot stand against
us.
It is too late, the game is in play, the world is toppling even as we speak, we blink, we breathe. The time for running is over.’

‘Is the QIV processor blind to Carter? Like the QIII before it?’

‘It is.’

‘Why?’ asked Jam. ‘Why can it not see him?’

‘Carter is an anomaly in the system. A bug in the software. A virus in the code. He needs to be ironed out; he needs to be quarantined; he needs to be
eliminated.’

‘I will do this,’ said Jam softly.

‘Good,’ whispered Durell, nodding with satisfaction, and he turned back to the screen which rippled like mercury. His hands moved deftly over the controls as thousands of images flickered across it, showing scenes of battle and death.

And all the while they could hear the deep and distant rumbling of the quake.

The huge hospital car park on the outskirts of London was dark and rainswept, filled with shadows. Sections of it were packed with cars gleaming glossy under the downpour; several spaces provided nothing more than raindrops dancing on tarmac. A soft noise echoed through the darkness at the perimeter fence - where a single Sleeper Nex stood, water gleaming on its shell. It turned copper eyes within its triangular head, left, then right, and dropped to all fours like a huge cat. Muscles bunched and its whole body quivered. It seemed to scent the air - then, eyes glinting eerily, it turned its nose towards the Accident & Emergency neon sign and the bright glare of strip lights inside. An ambulance had just pulled up, blue lights flickering.

The entity sniffed again and, head dropping, its claws raked the tarmac as it headed towards the bright entrance and the heavy stifling stink of the people within.

Earthquakes had ravaged London. Most wounded had been airlifted away because the capital was said to be still unstable, at best - with the threat of more quakes to come. People were leaving the capital in their thousands -or, rather, sitting on motorways, crawling along bumper to bumper.

It had been suggested by the hospital authorities that Natasha should be removed along with other patients, airlifted to a quieter hospital by military Chinook, to a city that had not been savaged by the fury of the earthquake, such as nearby Oxford or Coventry. Nicky had made it plain to the doctors that Natasha would be going nowhere and had sat at her friend’s bedside for long hours, holding the cool flesh of Natasha’s hand.

Nicky came awake with a start.

The steady beep-beep-beep of the monitors soothed her suddenly racing heart and adrenalin kicked her system into wakefulness. She glanced at Natasha.

What woke me? she thought.

She tilted her head, listening.

Something felt wrong. Out of place.

She tied back her hair, pulled tight the laces of her boots and lifted free her Smith & Wesson 11mm pistol, checking the 24-round ‘compact-shell’ magazine and flicking free the safety.

Tiny hairs prickled across the nape of her neck.

A distant shout echoed from the depths of the hospital. Nicky glanced at Natasha’s recumbent form, and moved quietly to the door.

Somewhere, distantly, a woman gave a muffled scream.

There came a crack.

What’s going on? she thought, blood nightmares raging in her skull.

Nex?

Mercs, even?

The return of the quake?

She tugged free her ECube and paused for a moment -Spiral were already stretched to full capacity ... and beyond. The last thing they needed was some jumpy bitch sending in an Urgent Request for Heavy Back-up - just because a locally anaesthetised patient on a cold operating slab was being sliced open by a careless doctor.

She toyed with the tiny black alloy cube for a moment.

Then pocketed it.

Pull yourself together, girl, she thought with a long blink and a deep breath.

Clutching the S&W pistol tightly, she moved down the corridor and then stopped, listening, head tilted slightly, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Nothing.

‘See? Panic for nothing ...’ she muttered to the stagnant air.

She moved towards the double swing door, boots squeaking a little on the sterile tiles of the hospital corridor. A man screamed - a long low animal sound, full of pain and horror and ending with a savage nasty gurgle.

Nicky paused then—

A real pause.

As a fist of fear punched her in the brain.

She started to reach for her ECube, thinking
Fuck it, they can send me some of the boys -
when something rounded the corner at the end of the corridor, about twenty metres directly ahead of her. Something big and black, heavily armoured and moving stealthily like a large cat. Thick armoured legs supported a wide stocky chest and a triangular head, with tiny copper eyes. Claws raked the ground and the head snapped up, around, a blur of movement. She saw blood dripping from twisted jaws.

Twin copper eyes focused on Nicky.

There was recognition there, in that bright copper-eyed gaze. It
knew
her. Dropping its head it started to pound towards her, leaving trails of blood from its claws against the white tiles ... she could see strips of flesh flapping from its twisted maw ...

And she realised—

For whatever reason, it had come for Natasha ...

Come to murder Natasha ...

And any one else from Spiral who got in its way.

Gritting her teeth, Nicky fired off five deafening shots, then heeled back through the double doors and began to sprint towards Natasha’s room. In her pocket, she stabbed a PB on the ECube and let out a little gasp of fear, glancing over her shoulder as the huge black gleaming monstrosity hammered through the doors, wrenching them from their hinges.

Nicky slammed through into Natasha’s private room, kicked shut the door and slid the bolts into place - gun up and pressing against her cheek as the pounding claws suddenly halted and silence flooded the corridor.

Nicky backed away from the door.

Fear beat a tattoo within her chest.

And she watched in horror as the triangular head, twisted jaws drooling and trailing strings of human meat, lifted - slowly, purposefully - and those tiny copper eyes tilted and stared in at her through the rectangular frame of wire-mesh glass.

Nicky lifted her gun and took slow and careful aim.

A
fter a hurried desert landing to allow Mongrel to hop from the MiG 8-40, Carter gave a small salute with blood-encrusted fingers and urged the jet over the hard-packed desert rock, aviation-shocks pissing oil from their abused suspension. Leaving a huge dust trail in its wake, the tortured war machine climbed from the ground and powered hungrily into the vast blue bowl of the sky.

Carter flew the fighter north - skirting Cairo in a wide arc and heading out over the Mediterranean Sea.

The sun was high, and climbing to an altitude of

23,000 feet Carter breathed the crisp oxygen-recyc of the cabin and stared out over a cloud-carpeted world. Below, Durell had somehow managed to gain control of the Earth, and the savage fury of its earthquakes. Both Carter’s and Mongrel’s ECubes had been screaming -reports, intelligence, damage information, casualty figures, panic calls, mission briefings - the tiny alloy devices had never been so much in need.

Carter hit the wide expanse of the shimmering sea and found himself focusing, calming his heart and mind. Kade squatted, silent and dark and sullen in the back of his brain, refusing to speak and refusing to share his pain. This suited Carter just fine.

The MiG banked as he headed north and west. Behind him, quad engines thundered and Carter took the time to familiarise himself with the weapons systems. He watched in horror as Russian script flowed across the control monitor. Carter used his limited knowledge of languages to translate some of the instructions from Russian, some from Arabic and fill in the rest through context. Still, he wasn’t happy.

After a half-hour, alarms sprang to life.

‘What now?’ he muttered.

‘You have company
,’ said Kade.

‘And how the fuck would you know?’

‘I just do. I read Arabic better than you, I think. The MiG has identified the aircraft - Lockheed choppers and five British-made Sea Harriers. They have Sea Cat missiles, and they’re piloted by Nex.
‘

‘You sure?’

25mm cannons roared, and shells screamed past the fighter, several thumping home as Carter banked the fighter sharply, cursing. Engines howled, the System5 thrust vectoring channels kicking in, and Carter lifted the machine, nose up, peering intently at his scanners as the sky spun.