The Chosen Seed (9 page)
I
n the basement of the Centre for National Security, two floors lower than most of Commander David Fletcher’s colleagues were allowed and one floor beyond where most thought the building actually finished, the head of the Anti-Terror Division stood back and watched as the team of scientists and data analysts huddled over the various monitors and whispered quietly among themselves. Fletcher wasn’t sure they actually needed to whisper – hospitals, libraries and churches: these were the only places that people needed to lower their voices, and this place was none of those. Perhaps it was simply that the whole nature of the project was to eavesdrop, and on some subconscious level people thought their presence might be detected if they spoke too loudly.
Or maybe he was just tired, and overthinking things. Fletcher didn’t pretend to understand how this department worked – and he didn’t really care, as long as he was presented with all relevant information in a timely fashion. Satellites, both stationary and mobile, watched the world and all their information (from those the UK owned, at any rate) was fed back and sifted through these computers. Everyone was watching everyone these days. Near-Earth space was full of junk, and they were all running around like headless chickens trying to keep track
of it, although, hopefully, not for much longer.
In the far corner of the room, a muscular man studied a bank of screens before scurrying over to one station and whispering into an ear. He was tanned, despite having worked all his adult life in facilities like this one. He looked like an athlete rather than a number cruncher, but his personality veered towards the autistic. Fletcher felt unsettled just being around him, though the two had never even had a face-to-face conversation. People that clever were unnerving. There was something fundamentally wrong with genius, he’d decided long ago. It wasn’t natural.
The door opened behind him and Arnold James, the Defence Secretary, came in holding a mug of coffee. His visit was low-key, and, thus far at least, appeared to have gone unnoticed. The new Prime Minister, Lucius Dawson, was eager to know immediately if the project had worked, but he also needed to make sure that the satellite’s launch wasn’t considered anything unusual – to the rest of the world it should look like nothing more than an ordinary defence upgrade.
‘All well?’ James’ eyes always looked unhappy, regardless of whether he was smiling or angry. Fletcher wondered if it was fall-out from all the political back-stabbing of the past few months. McDonnell had been sent packing to the back benches after her party’s revolution, but at least they still had a grip on the country, even if it wasn’t as firm as it should be.
‘Launched perfectly from South Korea,’ Fletcher said. ‘It should be in position to activate in the next thirty minutes or so.
Then
we’ll see. Our super-scientist doesn’t appear concerned, so I’ll take that as a good sign.’
They both looked over at the dark-haired foreigner who was studying the array of large screens on the wall.
‘Who is he?’ Fletcher asked. ‘What’s his history?’
‘Classified, I’m afraid.’
‘Even from me?’ Fletcher almost smiled. ‘Christ, now he really
does
scare me.’
‘What I can tell you is that he’s a number genius, codes, programming, astro-physics, you name it. There’s no one else who comes close – not even
nearly
close. He’s worked at all the top space facilities, but it’s hard to pin down where he started, even for us. He was involved with the Gaia deep space telescope production and launch. He still monitors it, in his spare time, as it were. Our new baby, SkyCall 1, was virtually designed by him alone. I’m not sure the rest of his team even understands it. He uses them like monkeys, telling them exactly what to do, but they can’t keep up. Not in here.’ Arnold tapped the side of his head. ‘Still, if it does everything he claims, then who cares? It’ll be up there for a hundred years before it starts to decay.’
‘And of course, if it doesn’t,’ Fletcher mused, ‘then we may well have brought Armageddon down on our heads.’
‘You need to have more faith.’ Arnold James’ mouth smiled, even if his sad eyes didn’t.
‘People that clever disturb me.’
‘Don’t worry, he’ll be back in Harwell by the morning. That’s his current base, though I don’t really understand why he wants to be researching there. He must be worth a fortune – he could probably buy the government out of here if he wanted to.’
Fletcher turned his back on the quiet hubbub and led the politician back out into the corridor and upstairs to the less oppressive atmosphere of his private offices. Nothing would be happening in the next half an hour or so, and he hated standing around feeling redundant.
His assistant brought them coffee and he sipped his as James stared out of the large windows.
‘Anything else I need to report on when I go back?’
‘No more than the usual,’ Fletcher said. ‘We always have a variety of threats coming in, but none that we think rate any particular attention. Still too many to lower the alert level, obviously.’
‘Obviously.’ There was a pause. ‘This spread of the bug …’
Fletcher should his head. ‘No, no takers on that. As far as we can tell, this is a lone crazy, and unless he’s politically affiliated, that makes him not my problem.’
‘Still, they tell me that the virus attacks far more quickly in these victims. You don’t think that’s odd?’
‘It’s a virus – by its very nature, it mutates. We know that from the emergence of Strain II itself. The labs tell me they can’t find any evidence to suggest it’s manmade.’
‘I’m not sure whether that should reassure us or alarm us,’ the Defence Secretary said, his sadness creeping from his eyes and into his soft smile.
Fletcher changed the subject and they talked inanely about politics and sport and things that could change with the breeze and not really affect the workings of the world, while watching the minutes tick away until someone came to tell them whether SkyCall 1 was going to be everything it had promised. He thought about the scientists down below: they might be clever, but he and the man standing next to him: they were the big-picture thinkers. They were decision-makers. And they were the ones who had to know how to live with the consequences of those decisions. The number crunchers uncovered the information, but it was people like Fletcher who had to decide how to act on it. They decided who lived and who died, and they had to carry that.
Eventually the knock came, and the man in the white
coat who stood there had to shuffle from foot to foot to contain his bubbling excitement. ‘She’s up and the virus is sent,’ he said. ‘And she’s working.’
Fletcher’s heart picked up – not entirely from excitement – and he hoped that the satellite that was now spying on everyone else’s satellites really had been registered through enough companies to hide the trail. Because if any other nation realised that all their information was being routed through the small, barely noticeable addition to the space junk, then the UK was going to be truly fucked.
M
r Dublin’s London home, situated in the heart of the South Bank, was an ocean of sleek white and chrome, a vast open-plan arrangement that looked endless. Everything from the shutters to the front door operated smoothly and silently at the press of a button; even the furnishings reflected the innate calm that their owner liked to present to the world.
Mr Dublin’s main home and responsibilities lay in the Far East, and he had always favoured natives of those areas when selecting his servants. His London home was no exception. The man who had welcomed Mr Craven with a curt nod and then disappeared was of that origin, and it was clear from Mr Dublin’s home and appearance – always dressed in cool, pale linens – that there was something about the supposed Zen of that continent that appealed to him.
Mr Craven found it all a touch affected, as if Mr Dublin’s style choices revealed a sense of spiritual superiority, if such a thing even existed. He peered out of the bank of tall windows that presented a breathtaking view of the river and the city beyond. He smiled a little. Mr Dublin wasn’t so different from the rest of them. They all chose to live as close to the sky as possible.
He sighed into the silence. Hopefully, this meeting wouldn’t take long. He was tired and he needed to sleep.
His bones ached. He didn’t have energy to spare, and he had very little inclination to spend time among the healthy of his kind. Over the past few days he’d started to
feel
this illness that had no place in his body. Until then, he’d been impressed with his control over his own fear, but as the pains in his chest grew worse, and the fevers that came suddenly upon him left him weak and sweaty, he realised that all he’d been feeling before was denial. The fear had come with the exhaustion. He could understand how Mr Bellew, now just a poor, gibbering fool, had gathered so much support among the dying for his attempted coup. Any hope would do.
He turned away from the window and his eye caught on a pale vase, an Eastern antique – hundreds of years old, and priceless, no doubt. He had a feeling it would be sitting on that shelf long after he was gone. His gut twisted with a now-familiar blend of tired rage and fear. He badly wanted to smash it.
Soft footsteps tapped down the large spiral staircase and the expressionless servant gestured. Mr Craven followed him up and when they reached the top the man disappeared into a side-room, leaving him outside the closed door of Mr Dublin’s office. Mr Craven took a deep breath. He found, to his dismay, that he needed one after the climb. When his hands and legs were steady, he opened the door without bothering to knock.
Mr Dublin was alone, which came as something of a surprise. Mr Craven had expected to see Mr Bright with him. The discovery of the First to be a drooling idiot had certainly and surely sealed his fate, but Mr Craven had expected Mr Dublin, always cool and precise by nature, to be slower in withdrawing his support. If Mr Bright wasn’t here, then perhaps the purpose of this meeting might be to
plot his removal and form a new Inner Cohort.
He almost smiled at Mr Dublin, but the newspaper that slammed down onto the round table between them wiped the expression from his face. He stared at the headline: ANGEL OF DEATH STALKS LONDON. Next to it was a computer-generated image that clearly showed his own features.
‘I don’t think they’ve done me justice,’ he said, drily. ‘I’m far more handsome in the flesh, wouldn’t you say?’
‘So you admit that this is you?’
‘Does it matter?’ He stared at Mr Dublin, with his healthy skin and blond hair. Why did he care?
‘Of
course
it matters! Just as it mattered when Mr Solomon was killing them.’
‘But Mr Solomon was insane.’ He smiled.
‘And this isn’t?’ Mr Dublin pointed a well-manicured finger at the paper.
‘I suppose it’s just a matter of perspective. Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee? Or are you worried you might catch something?’
‘You find this amusing.’ Mr Dublin’s voice was still cool as an Alpine stream, but his pale eyes were flints.
‘I find that it makes me feel better.’ The words were surprisingly honest. ‘And yes, I suppose it does amuse me. The irony of it all.’
‘This is the word of your
God
?’
‘Oh, they mention that, do they?’ Mr Craven’s smile was brittle as he looked down at the paper. ‘You took the time to read it. I feel flattered.’
‘This isn’t funny, Mr Craven.’
‘No, it certainly isn’t. I’m dying.
They’re
all dying, and they always have been. If that isn’t the cruel word of their God, then what is?’
‘Everything is unstable enough without this – the situation with the First, the emissary being here, the problems finding the Walkways. All of our unsettled feelings are affecting the world, don’t you see? We
can’t
add to it. We need to be restoring calm and order.’
‘What I’m doing doesn’t affect that. A little fear doesn’t hurt them.’
‘Fear has never brought out the best in anyone.’ Mr Dublin leaned forward, his hands on the table. ‘It clearly hasn’t brought out the best in you – although I’ve never been entirely sure that your best was good enough.’
‘Don’t lecture me on fear, Mr Dublin. And I’ve never cared for your high-horse attitude. Even in the old days you were all about the greater good. Let me remind you, this wasn’t about the greater good. It was about power and freedom.’
‘For you, perhaps.’ Mr Dublin let out a small, disgusted snort. ‘We have always turned a blind eye to your cruel hobbies. We all have our weaknesses. But this is too much. You’ve broken the boundaries. I won’t punish you – you’re dying – and from the look and smell of you, I’d say quite quickly. But I’m removing you from the Inner Council.’
‘What?’ The bark of laughter burst from him. ‘
You
won’t punish me? And who are you suddenly? The great Mr Bright? Does he even know about this?’
‘Of course.’ Mr Dublin smiled. ‘Mr Bright had other business to attend to and so asked me to do this. I may be many things, Mr Craven, but I am not a fool.’
‘But he must be if he doesn’t see the changes coming.’ His blood boiled with rage. How
dare
they cut him out like this? How
dare
Mr Bright dismiss him?
‘Whatever changes there may or may not be coming are no longer your affair. You’ve become a liability. I can’t stop you infecting them, not without compromising my own
values. Go and live out whatever time you have left. I shall need you to return to us all Inner Cohort possessions.’ Mr Dublin nodded at Mr Craven’s neck. ‘Starting with that.’
As Mr Craven undid the top buttons of his shirt, his smile was genuine. His neck was bare. ‘I seem to have forgotten to bring it.’ He wasn’t a fool either. ‘I’m presuming you’re about to freeze all my accounts. I remember how this worked with Mr Solomon. As soon as I’ve withdrawn what I consider a reasonable amount, I’ll make sure everything gets back to you.’
‘Make sure that you do.’
‘You needn’t worry, Mr Dublin.’ Mr Craven swallowed his rage, hiding it deep within. ‘I’m still one of us. My loyalties have always been with us.’