The Chaos Code (33 page)

‘Oh, Mum,' Matt said quietly.

Harper led the way. By the time they reached the lift at the end of the corridor, they could all hear sounds from outside.

‘Is that thunder?' Matt's mother wondered.

But even as she spoke, there came the sound of a staccato burst of gunfire.

‘That's Mr Smith,' Robin told her.

Klein had his hand to his ear and was talking quietly but urgently into a microphone on his lapel.

‘What's going on?' Harper demanded.

‘Some sort of raid,' Klein said. ‘They're armed and they know their business. We won't be able to hold them off for long.'

Harper pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. On its screen Matt could see the red thermometer showing the progress of his code. ‘You don't have to hold them off for long,' Harper snapped. ‘Just a few minutes.'

‘That may not be possible. I don't have many men. Not enough to withstand a full-scale assault.'

‘Then we'll get you some reinforcements,' Harper said. ‘Come on. We'll take the stairs.'

The sound of explosions and gunfire was louder as they hurried down the narrow, winding staircase with Klein waving his gun to encourage them.

‘Who are they?' Matt asked Robin.

She shrugged. ‘CIA, SAS, whoever he could find and persuade to help.'

‘I should have stayed at school,' Matt muttered. But even when they paused at the ground floor, and a bullet ripped past Matt's ear and took a chunk out of the stonework behind him, he didn't mean it.

Klein let loose a burst of machine-gun fire in return, and then they were off again – almost falling down the stairs in their enforced haste.

‘What is going on, Matthew?' his mother asked. She sounded like she believed it was all his fault.

‘I don't have a clue,' he lied. ‘Ask Dad.'

His mother grunted, stumbling down another step in her stiletto heels. ‘Might have known he'd be behind the problem,' she said. But to Matt's surprise, she added wistfully: ‘I do hope he's all right.'

The young guard that Robin and Matt had bluffed their way past was back at the doorway. He glared at them, and Robin winked at him. Klein stopped to give him new orders, then continued to herd Matt, his mother and Robin through into the amphitheatre.

‘Well, I never knew this was here,' Matt's mum said as they emerged into the bright artificial light at the end of the passage. ‘Probably why your father came,' she
confided to Matt before being prodded forward by Klein's gun. She glared at the skull-faced man. ‘I never liked you,' she told him.

‘Mum,' Matt said. Despite everything, she was embarrassing him – how did she manage to do that? Even here, even now?

Dad seemed rather more surprised to see his ex-wife than he had been to see Matt. She glared at him, but only for a moment, then they embraced. Matt looked away.

‘Just good friends?' Robin asked quietly.

‘Oh they love each other,' he told her. It hadn't occurred to him till then, but now it seemed so obvious. ‘They just can't live together, that's all. They get on each other's nerves' so much.'

‘Can't believe that,' she said, watching as Matt's parents disentangled themselves and his dad introduced his mum quickly to Julius Venture.

Harper ignored them. He clapped his hands together like a pianist about to give his greatest ever concert and seated himself at one of the computers. ‘Now then,' he declared.

The huge plasma screen dominated the small area to the side of the amphitheatre. It flickered into life. On it, the progress bar inched its way along. It was almost half way now. In the background, the rattle of gunfire was getting closer.

‘Stop this now,' Venture said loudly. His voice was
full of authority, but Harper seemed not to hear. Venture stepped closer, but two of the guards pulled him away before he could reach Harper.

Klein was again listening to the reports coming in through his earpiece. ‘If you really can get us reinforcements,' he told Harper urgently, ‘then we need them now!'

‘And you shall have them.' The slowly filling progress bar shrank to a smaller version, in a window at the top corner of the screen. The rest of the screen was now taken up with the familiar wire-frame model of the pyramid. ‘Though in just a few minutes when the code is fully compiled so it can be run, and the model is complete, I shall be able to call off your assailants.' At the click of a control, figures appeared in the pyramid. ‘Your guards, Mr Klein,' Harper said. ‘And …' he clicked on another control, ‘your attackers.'

More figures appeared – outnumbering the first. The new figures were shown in blue, Klein's men in green. It was like watching an old ‘shoot ‘em up' computer game as the blue figures slowly forced back their green opponents, moving slowly but steadily through the pyramid. Green bodies were lying on the ground, blue figures stepping over them as they advanced.

‘Now then,' Harper said again, ‘let's see if we can even up the odds, shall we?' He reached for the mouse, and the image moved, panning down to the amphitheatre below the pyramid.

In the window at the top of the screen, the progress bar inched closer and closer to completion.

The rock walls at the edge of the cavern – the sides of the huge cave itself – began to bulge and ripple. The solid rock was like the sea. Shapes were forming, just below the surface, pushing themselves out through the walls of the cave as if they were elastic. The cave walls stretched and burst. Figures made of earth and stone – crude, lumpy, misshapen creatures – forced their way out.

The ground burst. An earthen fist punched through the sandy floor. It rose upwards – an arm, then a whole body growing up out of the ground. A forest of arms followed by more and more of the creatures, rising like divers from a swamp …

As one, they turned slowly in the direction of the passageway leading into the main pyramid and started to walk slowly, stiffly, inexorably towards it.

The progress bar was two-thirds of the way across the screen now.

‘We should be able to start very soon,' Harper said. He seemed to be talking to the screen itself as he watched the red line edge slowly along. ‘You know, I call the core code, the main program, my chaos engine. But in fact it is the opposite. It understands chaos, but I shall use that understanding to eliminate the chaos and bring order and method to the world. The weak-minded will
be affected first. We don't need to run the whole model to be able to control them. But soon, the only mind capable of independent thought, will be mine.'

Behind him, Venture struggled desperately with the two guards holding him. Klein was covering Matt's parents with his machine pistol. The other guards were standing with him, all of them glancing nervously towards the line of lumpen figures marching slowly through the upper tiers of the amphitheatre.

‘Now or never,' Matt said quietly to Robin. No one seemed to be paying them much attention. Two kids whose parents were already under guard and held hostage.

‘The main computers?' Robin murmured.

‘The main computers,' he agreed almost under his breath.

Across from them, Venture stopped struggling, just for a moment. He was looking at them and Matt knew that – somehow – he could tell what they were saying. Venture nodded grimly. There was a guard holding each of his arms, and suddenly, with an almighty yell, Venture dragged them together.

The guards collided – head to head – with a crack. Both slumped to the ground, and Venture leaped at Harper.

Klein turned quickly, bringing up his gun.

Matt's father kicked out at Klein, his foot connecting with the side of the gun and knocking the spray of bullets
wild – into a computer and its screen. The screen exploded sending glass fragments flying. The computer popped and sizzled.

More guards ran to grab Venture, to drag him away from Harper's keyboard even as he reached out for it.

Matt and Robin did not stay to watch what happened. They were already running as fast as they could, desperate to reach the passageway to the pyramid before the earthy elemental creatures that were almost there. If they didn't make it, they'd be trapped in the amphitheatre and then nothing could stop Harper.

But it was like running through treacle. Like a nightmare where your feet don't work. Matt was forcing himself onwards, but his body didn't seem to want to know. Beside him, Robin was slowing too.

‘It's Harper's code,' she gasped. ‘The model. It's affecting us already. He hasn't …' She had almost stopped. ‘He hasn't given us orders to move, so we can't.'

‘We have to …' Matt gasped. ‘Have to keep going …' He forced himself onwards.

Black-clad figures rushed through from the passageway ahead – driving a group of Harper's khaki-uniformed guards ahead of them. A rattle of gunfire felled one of Harper's guards, sending him careering backwards into the wall.

Matt watched in disbelief through muzzy eyes. The figures were slowing – Harper's guards seemed sluggish. But the attackers, like Matt and Robin, were almost still.
Some of them were forcing their way onwards, like they were battling against a hurricane. Others had stopped dead.

One of the black-clad attackers who had stopped turned slowly around. He was at the front of the group. Matt could see the concentration and fear etched on his face. His gun was coming up. He screamed – a defiant, throaty sound that might have been ‘No!'

Then he was firing the gun. At his own comrades.

Others were turning too.

Some of the attackers at the back seemed to come to their senses, and started to retreat, letting off sluggish bursts of machine-gun fire as they went.

Bullets smacked into the rock and earth and sand without effect. The rock and earth and sand that had formed into crude figures were walking into the passageway, pursuing the attackers relentlessly back into the pyramid.

Robin and Matt were frozen, caught in mid-step, almost at the entrance to the passageway. Unable to move.

Behind them, a tall figure made its way easily up the tiers of the amphitheatre towards them.

Colour and texture poured into the wire-frame model like liquid into a glass container. Harper watched the detail etch into place, watched the figures fill out and gain features. Figures standing motionless, waiting for orders.

‘This facility is complete,' he said quietly. ‘The code is running. The rest of the world can follow soon enough. It's a start. From here my control ripples out as the code is completed …'

He paused, realising that no one was listening. Klein stood behind him, staring emptily into space. Harper laughed and clapped his hands together. ‘I think perhaps I can trust a few of you with your own free will,' he decided, working the mouse and keyboard.

Klein blinked and took a step backwards. ‘What …? What happened?'

Around him, his guards were also looking bewildered and confused. Only Matt's parents still stood motionless and blank-faced, staring unseeing into the
distance. Harper watched them, smiling with satisfaction. Then the smile froze on his face.

‘Where is Venture?' he said.

Matt was underwater. His vision was misty and blurred, and the voice he could hear was echoing, faint, distorted. He tried to turn his head, but he couldn't. Tried to move his eyes, but couldn't.

The man moved and now Matt could see him – the dark hair and the blue eyes. Julius Venture, speaking urgently to Matt and Robin. He struggled to work out what the man was saying.

‘Try to concentrate …' Venture's words were faint, but Matt could hear them now. ‘Harper is trying to control your mind using the model. So far he's only beginning to scratch the surface of what it can do. The effects are localised and he doesn't yet understand it. It even affected his own guards for a while. It's difficult, I know. I can feel it too – reaching into my being, my soul.'

Venture was walking round them, talking to each of them in turn, but his words were meant for them both – Matt and Robin. Matt could see that Robin was moving – turning her head just a fraction. If she could do it, then so could he …

‘You can resist it,' Venture said again. ‘The model is powerful, but it isn't complete. It can't be, can it, Matt? He's modelling the real world on a computer. And we know that can't work, can't be perfect, can never be exact.
Don't we? There will be flaws, imperfections, inaccuracies. Enough to invalidate parts of the model.'

His deep blue eyes were staring into Matt's. Matt felt himself blink. Remembered his first meeting with Venture, and knew he could do it. Harper hadn't won – not yet.

‘Digital.' His voice was a rasp, barely more than a whisper. But Matt had managed it. ‘Computer is digital' he said, stronger and more confident with every word. ‘Ones and zeroes. The real world isn't like that.'

‘You're right,' Venture encouraged him. He took Matt by the shoulders, shaking him gently. ‘Think about pi – think about every circle ever drawn, and how no computer can ever understand any of them. How could it?'

‘Yes.' It was Robin speaking. She sounded drained and tired, but she was speaking. Moving – lifting her arm and watching her fingers flex. ‘Get … out… of … my … mind …' she croaked. She closed her eyes. And when she opened them again, she seemed almost herself once more. ‘That's better,' she said. ‘Thank you.'

Matt struggled to reassert himself within his own mind. He could feel the clouds drifting away – like condensation on a car windscreen slowly clearing to reveal the wintry road beyond. He could see. He could hear. He could move.

‘Easy as pi,' he said.

‘Well done.' Venture was smiling at them. He nodded as if to tell them he'd known all along they could do it.
‘Now, we haven't much time. And there's lots to do. We can't let Harper get control. We can't allow him to use his world model.'