Déjà Vu: A Technothriller (36 page)

“What?”

David said, “The little flying robots. As we speak, each of our cubicles is full of them. They act like large molecules. They can mimic are surface. They can mimic any temperature. This isn’t good.”

She imagined tiny robots creating temporary platforms beneath her feet. She stepped backwards again. The heat diminished. “But why is it happening?”

Another spectral figure appeared. It shimmered like a signpost on a desert road. It began to walk closer.

Frank did not feel well. His head hurt and he could not shake the ringing noise from his ears. He remembered nothing after leaning into Saskia’s car. She must have overpowered him somehow. She might have hit him with a rock. Crafty cow.

His orders were clear. Bring back Saskia for re-programming or, failing that, kill her. It would be a shame to lose Saskia’s body, but Frank knew all about orders. If he disobeyed, there would be another Frank Stone, from another FIB office, who could kill and dispose of him in the same manner.

He could not remember how he got inside the computer, but he had impressions of ghosts in the corridors, people ignoring him, and violence. He only knew that he was here. Inside the computer. It was a game. A computer game. His orders were to win. Saskia and her friends had to lose.

Frank hummed a Europop tune from the previous summer. It was called Yeah, Baby. He had heard it first on the radio when he drove out of Poland after his fishing trip. Loose ends. Had to tidy them up. Yeah, Baby.

David reached towards his headset and but it was blocked by an invisible shield. He prodded it systematically. Impenetrable. Whoever had activated the microbots had programmed some additional measures to stop him – and presumably the rest of them

– from leaving Asgard. The hairs rose on his neck. The fourth figure came closer. “What do you want?” David asked. Far away, so quiet it might have been a memory, he heard a man hum a tune.

The figure halted. They might die without even seeing the face of their killer. The microbots could mimic any surface from rocks to spears to boiling oil.

“What do you want?” he asked again. He looked Saskia and Jennifer. They were struggling uselessly against their headsets. Bruce was drawing in the shingle with his spear. Still, the new figure remained motionless.

The humming stopped.

Bruce shouted, “Computer, this is Heimdall. Password: Rebirth.”

The ground shook and they were thrown into the air. David saw the riverbed rush away. He clutched at it. He whispered, “This is not real, this is not real,” but as he reached apogee, and tumbled, and fell, it was real, it was real.

The ground charged towards him.

No, he thought, the microbots can’t mimic a surface at that speed.

He crashed feet-first into a cold lake. He dropped, barely conscious, until his feet found the single bottom once more. It was restful and silent. He kicked once and rose like a balloon.

David saw a huge white disc in the sky. It radiated moonlight. He saw two anonymous, spectral figures treading water nearby. Further up the ravine, a sodden Bruce sat on the roof of his log cabin. It had become an island. He typed on a large white tile, which hung unsupported in the air before him. It was a virtual computer console. At that sight, David’s confusion cleared. The intruder had somehow tossed them in the air. Bruce had countered with this water for protection and the new moon for light. David was astounded by his calm. Bruce would have written the commands while falling to his death.

David treaded water. Some entered his mouth. He coughed. The water was really a bag-like constellation of microbots. This water could never drown him, but he could suffocate.

“Jennifer!” he called.

“Here,” she replied. One of the two bobbing figures raised an arm.

“Saskia? Is that you?”

“Yes,” she said. The other figure waved.

David rotated. He searched the skies and the horizon for the intruder. It was possible that their opponent had deactivated the microbots for his own cubicle, which would allow him free movement through water and rock.

“Jennifer, do you still have access?” David asked.

“No,” she replied. She was panting heavily. “I tried. The computer doesn’t recognise my voice.”

“He must have deleted your account somehow.”

“Where is he, Dad?” she asked.

David felt a protective tug. He searched again. The canyon walls were far away and empty. The roof of the cabin was occupied by Bruce alone.

Then he looked down. The water was murky. He could see his virtual legs paddling. Two metres below him was the rocky bed. Further away, the surface became reflective, impenetrable. “Jennifer, is there any way you can get us out of here?”

“I don’t know,” she said fearfully.

“Not to worry. I’ll think of something.”

“No, wait,” Jennifer replied. “Mikey!” she shouted. “Groove! Help!” Her amplified voice was painfully loud. “They might be able to hear us from the other room,” she explained. She took up the call again.

David wasn’t so sure, but Jennifer’s moment of fear had passed and he would say nothing to bring it back. He had heard a man humming a tune: their opponent was in the spare cubicle. If Groove or Mikey were around, they had either collaborated or died.

Movement.

He blinked, checked again. He saw a spectral figure pass through the visible area below his feet. “There he is,” he said quietly.

“Where?” Jennifer asked.

David regretted his words immediately. The intruder had access to their voice communications too, and he proved it with a chuckle. He said, “It’s a bit wet down here.”

David thought: English, native speaker, southern England, London.

Saskia and Jennifer both said, “Frank?” Saskia sounded weary, Jennifer incredulous. Saskia’s tone told David everything. Frank was a policeman but there would be no arrest.

Saskia continued, “Frank, this is a mistake.”

“What is?”

“Killing us.”

Laughter.

David willed her on. More talking meant more time, though fighting Frank was like fighting God. He had total control of the environment. Bruce’s countermeasures, though they had worked so far, were doomed because he could be killed. The microbots in Frank’s cubicle were not activated. He was a ghost. David tried to remove his headset once more. The microbots formed a protective shield. He swore, took a breath, and head-butted the cubicle wall. There was nausea before the pain. The world became dark. Then the pain – a searing, crackling super-headache – began to spread from his forehead to his temples. The pain roused him. The world became floodlit.

His plan was to damage the microbots. Though they were small and strong, they were still machines, and they still had to absorb the energy of an impact. If he could destroy enough then he could remove the headset.

Jennifer said. “I knew as soon we met this morning that you were a brainless type.

Good, keep him talking.

“Show me some respect. I’m your new God.”

Frank’s spectre flew towards the moon. He beckoned the river. It rose in a foaming tower, miles high, and David could almost see its boiling pinnacle. The water level began to drop.

“Call Jobanique,” Saskia said. “Verify your orders.”

“I know exactly what they are,” said a voice in their ears.

David flung his skull at the wall. He gasped, but quietly. His vision thinned. He stumbled and heard splashes. He looked down. The river had vanished. Looked up. The tower of water too.

“Keep him talking,” Bruce said from the cabin roof. He was still typing furiously.

Frank flew like a dragonfly. He was a blur one moment, frozen the next. He zigzagged down to the cabin and stopped inches from Bruce’s nose. David was sleepy with pain but he willed Bruce to finish his spell. “Too late,” Frank said, and pointed. Bruce raised his arms but the fire dashed through them and through his chest. It scorched the cabin behind him. He fell lifelessly from the roof.

Jennifer whispered, “Oh, you bastard.”

David crouched and watched his hands claw the shingle. He vomited. Moments passed in darkness. Not Bruce. Not again. Bruce had poisoned his science teacher’s coffee with copper sulphate. He had been blinded by diabetes. He had taken up archery for comic effect. Now, all of that was gone.

Saskia said awkwardly, “Jennifer, it’s OK.”

David opened his eyes. There was a tapping sound. He was slow to discover its source. Vomit was dripping onto his knuckles. That could not be. He patted the shield around his head. Yes, there was triangular section missing. His last head-butt had been successful. Gingerly, because the edges were sharper than a razor, he hooked a finger around the headset and flicked. The world disappeared. David was back in his cubicle.

He could hear the buzz of the microbots as they began to deactivate and return to their slots in the ceiling. The computer had automatically cut his connection with Asgard as the headset was removed. It was not a safety feature, merely a convenience, and because it was mechanical it could not be deactivated by a malicious programmer. David let the headset drop to the floor. While he waited for the cubicle door to open, he wiped his shirt sleeve across his forehead. It came back bloody.

The heavy door swung open and he stepped out. Jennifer’s cubicle was next to his own. He threw his shoulder against her door. The shoulder cracked; the door did nothing. Desperately, he watched her. She was suspended a few centimetres from the floor.

She was running. David looked over at Saskia. She was running too.

He staggered from the room.

In the main laboratory David found a man tapping at a keyboard. The sight was an unsettling echo of Bruce’s frantic programming only seconds before. “Turn that fucking computer off,” he shouted.

“I’m trying,” said the man. He glanced up briefly. “You don’t look too good.”

“Just get a bloody move on.”

He limped towards the middle of the room and leaned against the storage device for a rest. The floor seemed to tilt. Walking had become as difficult as skateboarding. He wiped his forehead. More blood. He remembered that there had been a man, Groove, who had a welding torch. He could use the torch.

He stepped with the deliberation of a drunk. His shoe snagged on something. It was Groove. He was unconscious.

The hard kernel of David’s mind – the part that had counselled him against hypothermia in Belford, and had kept him safe while fleeing on the motorcycle – told him that he was in no position to light a welding torch. His hands were oily with blood and sweat. He could barely walk. And, if he lost concentration, he might faint.

He looked at the torch.

Not the torch, said the voice. It sounded like a mixture of his mother, his daughter and God. It was irresistible. The cable. Follow it.

His head traced the path of the welding cable. Back to the cylinder. The cylinder.

That’s right.

The cylinder was a metre high. Three quarters of it was blue and the rest yellow. It rested on a trolley. He managed to get around the back of it without falling over and grabbed the two handles. He pushed. It rolled forward like a wheelchair. The welding torch trailed alongside.

Go.

He fell into the tiny cubicle room and managed to keep his balance only through sheer speed and a glancing impact with the far wall. He screamed with berserk rage and hoisted the welding bottle above his head. For a moment he tottered backwards but the wall was there again – this time to save him – and he swaggered towards Frank Stone’s back. The cylinder glanced off the middle of the pane and left a large white star. Frank turned.

Jennifer and Saskia sprinted faster than a thrown stone. Behind them, where they did not dare to look, they heard laugher and thunder. Frank was coming after them. It was impossible, thought Saskia, to outrun a god in His own universe.

“Must run a bit faster,” she heard Jennifer say.

“I’ve never run this fast in my life,” Saskia called back.

They were heading for a rocky crag. It was nothing more than a blue edge, sparkling in the false moonlight. “That’s because,” Jennifer panted, “we’re not really running. We’re running on the spot. Less fatigue.”

“Can we make it?” Saskia pointed to the crag.

Jennifer – an anonymous will-o’-the-wisp – shook her head. “No. Even if we did, there wouldn’t be any protection.”

The thunder rolled and Saskia felt heat on her back. The planet shook beneath them. Finally, unbelievably, they reached the crag and jumped into its shadow. They crouched, breathing heavily. Saskia looked over the top of the spur.

Frank was flying through the air. Except he wasn’t really flying…he bounded, as though gravity held him in the gentlest of grips. Red, not blue, forks of electricity cracked connected the ground with the sky. The edges of the canyon began to crumble.

“Watch out,” Jennifer said. Saskia was pulled deeper into the crag. Pebbles dashed upon the rock she had crouched behind. “What’s happening?” Jennifer asked. Her arm was still on Saskia’s shoulder. It would not let go, even when Saskia shrugged.

“It seems that Frank is fighting an adversary.”

“Is it Dad?”

“I cannot tell. We don’t know that he is still alive.”

Jennifer’s hand, which was not a hand, but a legion of microbots, gripped her hard. “Of course he’s alive. He’s outside the computer. He’ll help us.”

Some fist-sized rocks thumped into the ground nearby. Saskia hugged Jennifer roughly. “Be careful. I think those can kill.”

“Of course they can,” Jennifer said petulantly. Then she added, “Thanks.”

There was a roar. Saskia peeked out. Frank was flitting to avoid the red bursts of lightning. She realised that the lightning was following him. Frank stopped on a cliff-edge. The moon hung behind him. “Who are you?” he shouted to the sky.

Thunder pealed like the bell of some final battle.

Mikey shifted in his seat. He typed ‘lightning.at.user4 = 1’ and checked again the little box on the screen that contained the text, ‘Status User 4: Present, Full Privileges’. The text did not change. Frank - or User 4 - had avoided the bolt. Mikey slammed his palm into the monitor. He would have given his life for Jennifer, but he was he was checked at every turn: it would take too long to run into the interaction chamber and manually remove her; it would take too long to write an automatic script for the computer to fight Frank on his behalf; everything would take too long. His one last hope was the stranger who had emerged from the chamber only seconds before. That man was in a bad way, but he was fighting for Jennifer too. They both were.