The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (8 page)

  
“About an hour.”

  
It was a brief hour all things considered, with the music on low – a range of
European stations – and chat as the group slowly got to know each other. But
soon they were driving down a long road, with a thick wall of trees alongside.

  
“Pull over here,” Nazir instructed, and they came to a halt. “According to this
map we’re right outside, and there’s an electric fence a gnat’s cock beyond the
lovely green trees.”

  
“Electric?” Joe queried.

  
“Yes, now, just give me a second…right, we’re close to the buildings, and the
fuckers have got their internal wi-fi in range.”

  
“But password protected surely?”

  
“Oh Joe, I have much to teach you. Nothing is ever really password protected.”

  
Twenty minutes now passed of Nazir tapping away at his own, custom laptop,
while the rest had a discussion about how the machine may, or may not, actually
be working. Finally there was a “Huzzah!” and they turned expectantly.

  
“I’ve cracked in. The fence is off, we can climb over and go in.”

  
“It’s not razor wired?”

  
“No. The fence is mostly for show and insurance purposes. They leave the fierce
internal security system to handle arseholes like us. Every door is
controlled.”

  
Dee grinned. “And you’re now in command of that system?”

  
“Oh yes.”

  
This was how four people came to be scaling a ring fence, dashing over a
moonlit piece of grass, and getting to a heavy door. Which, at the tap of a
laptop button, slid open.

  
“Well fuck me,” Dee said, and the group vanished inside.

  
“Does that thing have plans too?” Pohl asked.

  
“Yes.”

  
“I don’t suppose they’ve labelled a cell?”

  
“No, but I have thought ahead and there’s two possibilities, here,” and he
pointed at the screen, “and here.”

  
“Right, ladies versus men then,” Dee winked, took Pohl’s arm, and led her away.

  
Pohl had considered doing many things in her fifties, but they were mostly
publishing targets and theatre trips. What she hadn’t expected to be doing was
flattening herself against a wall with a girl young enough to be her daughter,
- but of course still in regular contact so not her daughter - with her hands
in fists. But the security guard didn’t look down the passage, and passed them
by.

  
“Shame we can’t get those turned off,” Pohl whispered.

  
“Where’s the futuristic robot security when you need it,” Dee came back.

  
They continued down the passage, got to the target door, and examined it.

  
“Looks like some sort of cold storage area,” Dee said as she activated the
switch. Already hacked by Nizar, the door slid open and the women went in.

  
Pohl soon wished she hadn’t, as on a table in front of them was a white sheet
covering something. Something suspiciously human looking.

  
“Do you want to look or shall I?”

  
“No Dee, I’ll do it.”

  
Joe and Nizar activated their target door, and walked into a lab space which
looked much like the one back in Britain. Tables, equipment, workstations, all
sorts. But this one had something which grabbed all the attention.

  
“Is that what I think it is?” Nizar asked, more to his god than to Joe.

  
“Err, yes. We are officially looking at a cliché.”

  
They were standing in front of a machine, which was fine, but there was a large
glass orb, filled with a thick liquid, and inside this was a brain. An actual
human brain.

  
“Any ideas?” Nazir asked.

  
“None at all.”

  
“I thought you were a cutting edge scientist.”

  
“We don’t use animals!”

  
Nazir turned to the more acceptable metal parts, and saw it was connected to a
workstation, so he pulled the keyboard out, fired the PC up and… “Err, Joe,
this PC is talking to me.”

  
“Yes?”

  
“No, talking as in speaking, words are coming up. Something is communicating.”

  
Joe came over, and discovered it was more bizarre than he’d been expecting.

  
“Hello, is anyone there? Anyone?”

  
“Tell it hi.”

  
Nazir typed this, and the got an answer. “Thank Christ. I can’t see anything,
or feel anything, I was beginning to think I was paralysed. But I can speak at
least.”

  
“Should we tell him?”

  
“No. But ask who it is.”

  
“My name’s Doctor Scott.”

  
“Oh fuck.”

  
“Hang on, this thing has an aural unit I can turn on,” and Nazir flicked a
switch. “Can you hear us now?” he said out loud.

  
“I’ve always been able to hear you” barked the speaker.

  
“Scott’s dead”, came an anguished voice from behind them, as Pohl and Dee came
in, but they were stopped in their tracks when the disembodied voice explained
“I’m very much alive.”

  
“Have you got the machine on?” Pohl asked.

  
It took a minute for the men to explain what they’d found, and Pohl had managed
to look even more upset than before.

  
“Do you know what you are?” Joe asked.

  
“No, and isn’t that you Joe?”

  
“It’s me, and you’re in Belgium.”

  
“I gathered that. What’s happened to me?”

  
“There’s another brain over here,” Dee said, looking at a device which appeared
more worn, older. “Maybe this knows what’s going on.” Nazir came over to
activate the device as best they knew how, but turned and said “I think this is
already on.”

  
“It is” came the voice.

  
“And why have you been spying on us?” Dee asked. By now they were all around
it.

  
“I have very little else to do. I take it you’re from this British rival?”

  
“I wouldn’t say rival,” Joe said. “What’s happening here?”

  
“This laboratory is building the world’s greatest super computer, but they
aren’t doing it by digging into the quantum field. They’re using biology. Human
brains are vast and complex and very powerful, offering a whole different world
of thinking. So they’re developing an array of brains to create a massive
device.”

  
“That’s pretty spectacularly illegal,” Pohl protested.

  
“So why us? Why Scott?”

  
“They had data saying you were on the verge of making a quantum brain, had
succeeded, had done it. You were suddenly a rival, and a source of
development.”

  
“Not quite,” Joe said closing his eyes.

  
“Hang on,” came Scott’s voice, “are you saying I’m a brain in an array?”

  
“We found your body,” Pohl whispered, “and your brain isn’t in it.”

  
Further conversation was halted by a gasp from the entrance, and all four
turned to find an older woman in a white coat frozen halfway through the door.

  
“Hello?” Joe tried, but the woman slammed the door shut.

  
“Grab her!” Nazir said, “she’ll set off the alarm,” and Dee dived for the door.
As she got there alarms rang, and as she opened it a security guard with his
gun drawn turned the corner and saw her.

   “Bastards
with guns,” she informed the group as she slammed the door and pressed herself
against it.

  
“Just give me a second,” Nazir said as he tapped at the laptop, and then Dee
heard a mechanism locking behind her. “Right, I’ve put this place in lockdown,
security will have to crack open every door individually. We’re safe for a
while. And we can watch their progress on the security cameras. Look, armed
people are massing in the foyer.”

  
He looked pleased at his deft fingers, but wasn’t that pleased when Pohl looked
over from her brother’s brain and asked “so how do we get out?”

  
“Err… fuck.” They were trapped.

  
“We could…” but Joe had nothing as he looked around.

  
Now over by the older machine, Dee asked it “is there an emergency exit?”

  
“I don’t know, I’m a brain in a jar.”

  
“Fair enough.”

  
“But I have an idea.” Everyone turned to the brain. “Through the door on the
other wall is the Array. The most powerful computer on earth, well, when it
wants to work, why not ask it?”

  
“We don’t have any other ideas,” Joe added.

  
Dee led the way, putting her hand on the switch as Nazir activated it through
the laptop. This door slid back into the wall, and Dee and Joe were able to
walk right in.

  
“Well spunk on my tits” Dee said in awe.

  
There was another room the same size as the previous lab, but this one had rows
and rows of brains, all connected with cables, all on a metal support system.
The array must have had two hundred, if not three hundred brains, stretching
down the length in long rows. It was both awe inspiring and sickening, and the
pair had to walk through the warm corridor left down the centre to get to a
computer.

  
“Do we type our question?”

  
“You can speak, I can hear you.” This voice, although still digital, was deeper
than any other they’d encountered recently.

  
“We’re trapped in the labs, and we need to escape. Do you have any ideas?”

  
“Let me access the laboratory’s information,” the machine replied to Dee, then
added “I have studied your situation and have found a solution. I will contact
the two authorities I believe are best placed to help you.”

  
“And they are?”

  
Steven Warricker was taking a nighttime briefing deep within the MI5
headquarters in London when the computer in the corner suddenly displayed a
video message screen.

  
“Hello,” came a woman’s voice he’d never heard before.

  
The three people in the room, which included the head of MI5 in Warricker,
turned in surprise.

  
“Hello?” Warricker tried.

  
“We’re British citizens under attack in a Belgium laboratory, and we’ve just
discovered an illegal operation using dead bodies to create the world’s most
powerful computer.” Dee finished, hoping that didn’t sound totally stupid.

  
Many people would have dismissed this as the hoax it sounded, but Warricker
turned to the other two people in the room with a question.

  
“Exactly how difficult is it for someone to hack into the personal computer on
my desk?”

  
“I’d have thought impossible given our security.”

  
“That’s what I thought, and yet they’ve done it. Does that suggest a hugely
powerful computer at their end to you?”

  
Dee turned to the group. “I think he believes us!” It was then a matter of
giving their location and situation to Warricker, and letting him know the
situation in more detail, aided by the Array sending over files filled with
maps and breakdowns.

  
“We’ll speak to Belgium and have someone there as soon as possible,” he
confirmed.

  
“What do we do now?”

  
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and hope the doors hold up.”

  
There now followed a period where the group stood nervously round Nazir’s
laptop and followed the progress of security as they went from door to door,
cracking each open. It was slow, but inexorable, and time was ticking away.
However, the growing sense of doom only affected three of the group. One had
other matters to occupy her.

  
“What do we do with my brother? Can they put his brain back into his body?”

  
“I’m afraid not,” the other device explained, “it’s a one way process. There
just isn’t the technology for what’s effectively a brain transplant.”

  
“So he’s stuck as a brain in a jar?”

  
“I’m afraid so.”

  
“No, no I refuse. I will not be a brain in a jar. I’d rather die. I am dead.”

  
“Please, we can…” but Pohl realised she didn’t have the words.

  
“You’ll have to kill me.”

  
“We can’t kill…” but Pohl trailed off.

  
“Okay, they’re almost here,” Nazir interrupted.

  
“What’s Belgium for if you step through the door we start breaking shit?”

  
Nazir looked over at Dee and nodded. “Worth a try.” The message was soon sent.

  
“And?”

  
“They’re having a discussion. Guns still out.”

  
“Can you hear a helicopter?”

  
Everyone stopped and listened to the new noise, then they started to hear deep
popping sounds. “Is that gunfire?” Dee asked.

  
“Oh that’s gunfire” Nazir confirmed. “The rescue party is here.”