S.O.S (20 page)

*

Panmumgak – the Joint Security Zone between North and South Korea

Zack sat forward as the jeep drove through the North Korean border of the joint security area and into the South Korean area. He could hardly believe where he was. It was morning - they had been travelling all night - and brilliant sunshine lit the buildings, shining off the glass and stone. This place was completely different to anything he had seen so far.

“Home sweet home,” the driver of the UN jeep said as they drove through the wide streets, passing a tourist party already out sightseeing. “We headed to the UNC duty office sir?”

The officer in the back – who Zack sat next to – and who had been dozing for an hour or so, sat forward and rubbed his hands over his face. “I think we need to report and debrief right away sergeant. We'll get back to base after that.”

“Yes sir,” the driver said. He turned down a wide street and stopped at the lights. A party of Japanese tourists, who they had seen earlier, their guide holding a KORYO tours sign with an image of the Japanese flag under it passed the jeep and several of them took photos.

“Give me a minute will you Sergeant?”

The sergeant pulled on the hand brake and the officer climbed out of the car.

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen,” he said loudly, “Hello, excuse me? It is not permitted to take photographs of the United Nations Command Security Battalion. I'm sorry, no photos!”

With the back door open, Zack jumped out of the car and joined the party at the back. He watched the officer smile and bow at the Japanese tourists once their guide had translated his request and then get back into the jeep. As the vehicle drove off, Zack saluted him. He was out of there on the tail end of a tour. Next stop the airport and home.

The sharp rap of knuckles on the glass panel in the front door made Dev sit up from his cushy armchair. It was the middle of the morning and he was watching a news report on weapons in North Korea. The UN had searched and found nothing again, but they were convinced that something was there. He wasn't really paying attention though; he had drifted off into a daze. His mum was out and he'd been thinking about Molly. He hadn't seen her for over twenty four hours, she wasn't answering his texts and he was worried.

Dev moved slowly through to the hallway, expecting the postman and suddenly saw a familiar outline through the clouded glass panel in the door. Smiling he opened up.

“Hey Molly! Where've you been?”

Molly smiled back. “Long story,” she said. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course!” Dev was really pleased to see her. He stepped aside and she came into the hall, bringing a gust of cold air with her. She rubbed her hands together and blew on them. Dev stood and looked at her and then realised that he was still grinning like a loon.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

Molly nodded. She seemed on edge; tightly wound up like a spring.

“Are you OK?” he asked. She didn't answer him, just shrugged. “Well let's get some tea and go up to my room. I've got some new calculations to show you.”

Molly smiled. “Great. You sure know how to impress a girl. New calcs, eh?”

Dev grinned. “Good to have you back Molly,” he said.

Just as he was about to shut the door, Molly turned and suddenly the tension and anxiety in her face vanished. It lit up.

“Molly?”

Molly stepped back outside and beamed as she recognised the figure of Zack strolling towards the house.

“Molly?” he tried again.

“It's Zack!” she announced. The energy seemed to bounce off her in waves. “Zack's here! I haven't seen him for days!” Molly turned away from him and seemed to be smiling at the air. Dev, as ever unable to see Zack, took her word for it. She began talking to nothing and Dev glanced up the road to check no-one was looking.

As he approached them, Zack wished with all his might that he was physical. When he saw Molly he wanted to hug her; her face was exactly as he'd imagined it all those times in North Korea. She cared about him, not in any way other than simple friendship, but she was his first friend and the sense of that was both joyful and painful to him. If only he were alive.

He grinned at Molly as he came nearer and she grinned back.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she replied. “I am pleased to see you Zack. I was worried about you.”

Zack, still grinning shrugged. “Why? What could happen? I'm dead.” He moved a little closer. “But listen, I've got something really important to tell you and I need you to tell Dev. OK?” His face had changed now and he looked anxious and afraid. “I'm not sure I've got it right, but if I have we need to do something...”

Molly frowned. She had something really important to tell him too. “I wanted to...”

“Molly,” Dev interrupted, “shall we go up to my room?”

“Sure.” She looked at Zack. “Come on, we can talk better up there.”

Dev stepped aside to allow them both to pass him and thought how bizarre this would look to an outsider. They trooped up the stairs to his room, each wondering about the other. Dev was puzzled by Molly's attitude, she seemed so excited when she saw Zack, but he didn't want to ask questions; knowing how he felt about Molly, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answers she might have for him. Molly for her part was staggered by the change in Zack. He had gone from the surly, morose boy to someone almost bursting with a nervous energy and he looked pleased to see her. She couldn't wait to tell him what she'd found out and now she was beginning to think that it would be met with the same awe and delight that she had felt herself. Zack followed Molly and watched how Dev looked at her over his shoulder and how she looked back at him and he wondered what their relationship was. He hoped it was what he thought, because he knew now that more than anything else, he wanted Molly to be happy.

They reached the top of the staircase and Dev turned right towards his room. He stopped when he saw that she wasn't following him.

“What's the matter?” he asked her.

“Nothing,” Molly said, “I just want a word with Zack in private, that's all. Can you leave us outside for a moment?”

Dev opened the door to his room. He glanced back at Molly.

Zack said; “Molly, can't it wait? I really do have something important to say. I've discovered something that you both really need to hear.”

Molly shrugged. “OK.” She glanced at Dev, covering her disappointment and followed him into the room.

In the room, Dev settled himself into a chair; Molly sat on the edge of the bed – fiddling with the hem of her jumper, tense with unexplained anxiety - and Zack remained standing, taking centre stage and pacing the room, his progress followed only by Molly. Slowly, nervously at first but then with more conviction borne of mounting confidence, he began to tell them both all that he had seen and heard.

Dev, unable to see or hear Zack kept glancing over at Molly, who gasped and looked appalled as Zack unveiled each new piece of information – and she had to relay back to Dev each new detail that Zack told her. Zack moved through everything bit by bit; the terrifying revelation that the North Koreans were building a bomb from dark matter, his second near death experience where he was almost sucked into some kind of strange device – both drew horrified gasps and looks from Dev and Molly – how he was saved by thinking about Molly; which drew a mystified look from Dev, but a spark of recognition from Molly.

When he had finished, Molly said; “What does this all mean? How can the Koreans make a bomb out of this dark matter stuff, how is that possible?”

Dev, who had been deep in troubled thought, suddenly became animated.

“My God, I can see how it's not impossible!” he exclaimed. “It makes sense, if all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. He stood and went to the desk for a pad of post it notes and began scribbling numbers down. He was completely absorbed for some time and Molly and Zack watched silently.

Finally, he looked up and, choosing his words carefully so that his audience would understand, he said; “We don't exactly know what dark matter actually is – its emitted radiation is undetectable – we only know it's there due to the gravitational pull it has on visible matter. In theory it could be reacted with matter to produce an explosion.” The others looked at him, and he shrugged.

Zack decided to step in. “Anyway, there's one thing that we know for certain, whatever they're doing they don't want the rest of the world to know because it was all hidden underground. Also, there's one more thing that is interesting. There is some kind of light that interferes with this dark matter, a light a bit like the one that priest described. Whatever that is, the North Koreans are very worried about it.”

Molly relayed all this to Dev who directed a question straight at Zack.

“Why?” he asked him, scratching his head. “What significance does the light have?”

“I don't know, but I think that it makes it disappear.” Zack said. He shut his eyes in an attempt to remember the conversation he heard. “I don't think they said how...”

“This light then,” Molly said, “seems to make dark matter disappear. I wonder if it's the same light as the one that we've been looking at Dev...” She turned to Dev, but he was writing furiously.

“Dev?”

Suddenly Dev jumped up. He began striding towards the door.

“Dev? Where are you going?”

It was as if he had completely forgotten that they were both there. He looked back.

“Oh, I have to go and check that this all makes scientific sense,” he said, turning for a moment. “Let yourselves out. OK?”

Molly stared at him but he hardly saw her; his mind was somewhere else. He left the door open and disappeared. They heard his feet on the stairs, the opening and closing of the front door and moments later he was gone.

Molly looked at Zack.

“What now?”

Zack was thinking. “Now,” he began, “we need to get onto a PC and start searching.”

“Searching for what?”

“For any information, anything at all linked to what the light is. What it means.” He looked right back at her, “And how it could possibly be connected to dark matter.”

“Easy,” Molly said. She stood and pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands.

“Easy?”

She smiled. “Just kidding. Come on, let's get out of here. I don't think Mrs Pathmajaren is going to be too happy to find me here talking to a dead person.” She held out her hand and with a huge effort, Zack willed himself to take it. Molly felt a gust of cold air and then she shivered. She looked down and with his hand in hers, they left the room.

*

Dev raced his way through London, running down to the tube, jumping on and off trains and hurrying up the steps of Green Park onto Piccadilly and then down Old Bond Street. As he ran, he turned everything he had heard over and over in his mind. Regardless of whether it was true or not, he needed to be sure that it was scientifically sound before he could believe further. With that in mind he headed for the Royal Institute of Great Britain – a place he had once revered, now tainted in his memory. It was here that he had come to first with his theory, and it was here that he had been laughed off and humiliated. Yet he didn't know where else to go. If what Zack said was going to be viable, he would be able to find out here. He needed answers and he needed them quickly.

He strode up the steps of the grand building with its magnificent classical columns, pushed through the doors, through reception, flashing his old pass at the security guard and hurried up the staircases. He traced the familiar route to the research facility, trying to compose an argument in his head that would seem plausible to the established scientists that he was about to confront. He didn't rate his chances too highly. There was one thing in his favour; it was nearly lunchtime and the place may, if he was lucky, have emptied for lunch. Approaching the lab, he slowed and, using his pass again to enter, he pushed open the heavy oak doors as the lock release went and walked in.

It took him a moment to glance round and see that the place was empty; he had judged it right. He made his way quickly across to the bank of computers and sat down. He entered his user name and pass word, but within seconds his access had been denied. That wasn't a problem; he'd been here often enough to know that a few of the more careless scientists left their work open when they took a break. He moved onto the second PC, it was off and then darted across the lab towards three other PCs on the far side. The first one, one he recognised belonged to a young Oxford PhD student, had been left on. Dev sat, opened the system up and began to trawl back through the files he had left on the shared drive on dark matter. He opened the PhD student's email account and began loading the files onto an email to himself. He heard a movement in the lab next door and froze. There were footsteps and the interconnecting door swung open.

“Pearson?”

Dev remained absolutely still. It was Professor Wilkins; he knew the voice without having to turn around. His hands on the keyboard started to tremble. He pressed send.

“Where the devil has that bloody man got to?” The footsteps came closer. “Excuse me? You haven't seen...” Wilkins stopped. “Dev?”

Dev turned and faced the Professor. The man he had so admired and respected looked at Dev with a mixture of initial pleasure, quickly superseded by fear.

“Dev, what are you doing here?”

“I needed some files, Sir.” Dev closed the internet window and turned. “I couldn't find them.”

“I thought I'd told you that you weren't welcome here Dev. You've had your internship here revoked; you do understand that, don't you? You are not allowed to come onto the premises and certainly not allowed to...”