Through Glass Darkly: Episode Two (8 page)

The test was a fairly straight-forward process that was probably reminiscent of a trip to the opticians for many of the men and women being tested, but with over a hundred volunteers to get through it would take a day or so to complete.

In order to get through the numbers I started with a relatively simple test, intended to weed out those candidates who had absolutely no aptitude for the use of lenses. Typically they’d last for less than ten minutes of the initial thirty minute test before developing a headache or starting to feel nauseous. This eliminated just over half of the volunteers, which was consistent with the percentage of the adult population which would normally be expected to have no tolerance.

The next phase was intended to identify those at the other end of the scale, like Agent Fraser, who could probably cope with wearing the lenses for extended periods of time. This was typically only two percent of the general populace, but I pitched the test at a slightly easier level than was used normally, as it was unlikely that any of these candidates would need to be able to tolerate being exposed to the more extreme sections of the electro-magnetic spectrum. I was hoping this would give us at least six good candidates, but was pleasantly surprised when we actually managed to identify a full dozen individuals who could probably tolerate wearing the lensing rigs being developed all day if needed.

While the Captain had been able to spare the time to help out with well over half of the first round testing, I was expecting to have to complete the entire second stage by myself, but to my surprise both Fraser and Hughes popped down to see me and help out, which meant we just about managed to complete the testing of all the candidates in a single day.

It was still late by the time we’d finished writing up all the details, and if it hadn’t been for the fact I hadn’t eaten yet, I’d have been happy to head straight for my bunk.

I was expecting Hughes and Fraser to head off in their own directions once we reached the point in the ship where they could take one of the cradles down to the ground, and I half turned to thank them for their help again before I turned my own steps toward Bradbury’s refectory to try and find a bite to eat. But it seemed they’d both got other ideas, and instead of heading off to the cradle they steered me toward one of the officers mess areas, where it appeared Hughes had arranged for a chef to come and prepare a meal for the three of us.

They were both kind enough to wait until we’d all finished our first course of some delicious roasted tomato and sweet red pepper soup before they gave any hint that they might have an ulterior motive.

‘I’m sorry Ashton,’ began Fraser sincerely. ‘I know we’ve been pushing and pulling you in all directions over the past few days, but we need to update you on a few things, starting with the creature.

‘We think the wreckage at the railyard should’ve cooled down enough by now to start sifting through it to see if there’s any sign of the thing that attacked our search teams, so we’ve asked your Captain to take another flight over there first thing in the morning.’

‘Yes of course,’ I said, not realising why they were being this elicit and talking in such a solemn tone.

‘There’s more I’m afraid,’ added Fraser, just as a lovely looking fish course was served to us.

As we ate the two men took it in turns to explain that earlier on that afternoon a report had been received of some unusual sightings in the sewers beneath the city on the lower east side of Manhattan Island. It might’ve gone un-reported ordinarily but for the fact that someone in Platt’s staff had apparently had the presence of mind to alert the city’s sanitation department that their staff should take extra precautions for the foreseeable future and report anything unusual no matter how trivial or insignificant it might seem.

Apparently in response the sanitation department had given strict instructions for all sewer workers to work and travel in pairs at all times, and that at least two crews should attend every job so that one crew could support the other if needed.

Nothing significant had been noticed in the morning, but then in the early afternoon several crews had started to report unusual numbers of dead and eviscerated rats being found, dozens in fact, often left in small piles.

Another crew found the remains of a number of young alligators, finally putting an end to the popular urban legend about ‘gators in the sewers’.

And finally, one crew working beneath Delancey Street near the Williamsburg bridge reported seeing the ghost of a young woman in the sewers.

‘A ghost?’ I asked incredulously.

‘Yes,’ replied Fraser, with a smile on his face. ‘When I interviewed the sewer workers further, they both confirmed they’d seen what looked like a pale young woman who was almost see-through. Though they could only see half of her because one side of her face and body was just a mass of what they thought looked like the bubbling black tar they use on roads.’

That stopped me in my tracks with a fork of food half-way to my mouth.

‘Of course!’ I said as the penny dropped. ‘You must’ve landed a good hit with the Arc Cannon, and the creature is trying to heal the damage by feeding off the sewer creatures, but while it’s hurt it can’t fully turn itself invisible, so it appears only partially transparent . . . like a ghost.

‘We should get after it, while it’s still hurt and vulnerable,’ I suggested, feeling that smouldering ember of rage inside me flicker again into flame.

‘We thought you’d say that,’ commented Hughes. ‘Which is why I thought we’d best get a decent meal inside you tonight!’

‘We’re going to have to do it the hard way,’ explained Fraser. ‘The tracking dogs can’t be used in the sewers for obvious reasons, so we’re planning to enter the sewers along the length of the Bowery, down the middle of the Island, and then drive Eastwards until we reach the river. If this creature is injured and hiding anywhere in that bit of the city we’ll either corner it or drive it into the river.’

It sounded good. With luck the thing wouldn’t have moved too far, and while it was healing it wouldn’t be able to move very fast or turn invisible. But it was a big city and if the sewer workers had disturbed it while it was feeling vulnerable I didn’t know what it would do.

CHAPTER 25 - TRACKS

I slept a deep and dreamless sleep that night back in my own bunk, and awoke early the following morning refreshed and ready for the day.

Even with the sighting from the sewers, the plan was still to fly out to the railyard at the western end of Long Island, just to make sure the creature wasn’t somehow still using it as a base or fall back point.

If it was still using that site, it would mean the creature was a lot more mobile than we’d anticipated, and had probably also found a fairly safe route through the underground sewer and rail tunnels between the railyard and the river. A route it could follow without feeling threatened even its injured state.

On the plus side, having woken up early I had the time to have a good look around the ship to see how the repairs were coming along before we set off.

With the frame of the ship now almost whole again and the gas cells on the damaged side of the ship once more in place, if not fully filled, the ship was obviously well on the road to be being fully operational again, but with all the late night or early morning coming and going I hadn’t realised just how many areas of the ship Bradbury and his men must’ve been working on simultaneously.

I’d noticed the glass in the bridge had been replaced and a couple of the malfunctioning engines had been brought back on line, but now as I walked around the ship I also noticed that many of the heavily damaged weapons arms which had either been seriously buckled or completely torn from their moorings had now been re-attached or re-constructed.

To say that some of these freshly constructed weapon arms were crudely constructed would have been unfair, as when I walked over to inspect one of them it was clearly manufactured in a precise and robust way. It just wasn’t as elegantly done as the originals with their tapering and curved support girders, as opposed to Bradbury’s functional but angular versions.

Work even seemed to be ongoing on some of the weapon systems as well, though much of this must’ve required advice and guidance form the Captain, as many of the technologies would’ve been completely unknown to Bradbury or his men.

I knew we carried spares for each of the major weapon systems: Arc cannons, energised matter accelerators, projected flame throwers, subsonic mortars, not to mention the usual array of heavy machine guns, flechette throwers, and explosive or electro-static rockets, all sat serviced and ready in the hold of the ship, ready to be swapped out as and when needed, while the weapon systems they replaced were taken back into the hold to be serviced and repaired.

We’d needed to do this quite a lot in the previous six months in order to keep all the arms working at their best, and in theory there were enough spares to enable the Captain to radically change the mix of weapons deployed if we’d found some systems just didn’t work too well in the Expanse, but in the end this hadn’t been necessary.

I could’ve happily walked around the ship talking to Bradbury and his men for hours, but I knew we’d need to be casting-off before too much longer, so headed back to the bridge.

In what seemed like just a few minutes we were leaving our impromptu lakeside mooring again and heading south-east toward Long Island. Jenkins and Hughes had once again volunteered their services on the bridge while Fraser had returned to the gunnery arm which housed the Arc Cannon emplacement.

With the site now clear of smoke and dust I could see a lot more of the area that Fraser had bombarded with the Arc cannons, and he had without doubt created a truly surreal landscape of twisted and molten metal with the shots he’d rained down.

In some areas there were the recognisable remains of the various carriages, tenders and boxcars which made up some of the yards rolling stock, while in other areas there was now only a series of pools of melted glass, steel and other metal alloys.

Thankfully while some of the larger pools were clearly still very hot, they were at least all solid rather than still molten, which meant we should at least be able move around the place without too much of a hazard.

Fraser and Hughes had decided to come down to look around with me, while the Captain and Jenkins stayed on the bridge to keep a look out. They also took the precaution of raising the cradle back up to the ship just to make sure the creature couldn’t try to sneak aboard.

The railway had wisely decided to re-deploy their workers to another site until the Police had given them the all-clear to return, so the area was exactly as we’d left it. The circular barricade of oil drums and pallets which had been made by the search teams was still where we’d left it, as were a few of the odd items that nobody had bothered to take with them, a thermos flask, an empty medical kit, a tobacco tin and lots and lots of spent bullet casings.

We moved quickly over to the area where the Arc cannons had hit, now a solid pool of melted remains from the railway carriages, boxcars and the rails upon which they’d stood. I’d already scanned the site from the air through my lenses to make sure there was no obvious sign of the creature, and I lowered my lenses back into place again now and set them cycling through a slightly wider section of the UV spectrum as we approached the melted wreckage.

As strange as the scene appeared to the naked eye it was doubly so when viewed through the wider prism of the combined spectrum, the heat and other stored energy signatures of the solidified pools of metal and glass was breathtakingly beautiful in places, all the more so because of its stark counterpoint with the twisted girders and other debris that had withstood the blisteringly high temperatures.

In places it almost looked as though some great structure was trying to emerge from the tranquil pools of previously molten material, while in others there was no mistaking the fact that the process had actually been the other way around.

It was of course around the periphery of the canon impacts that things survived more completely, creating an even stranger effect. A carriage that was completely dissolved at one end had survived well enough at the other to still be hitched to its neighbour which seemed completely untouched.

We walked carefully through the scene, the soles of our boots hissing occasionally as we stepped on things that were still very hot. It was a fairly easy trail to follow, Fraser’s shots having followed the line the creature took as it attempted to flee, but he’d lost it a couple of times where it had cut sideways through or beneath the cover provided by the carriages, only for him to spot it again when it appeared back in the open. He’d also fired the occasional wild shot off to the side of where he’d last seen the creature, thinking it might be hiding, and had at least once managed to drive it from its cover.

As we examined the scene, trying to find the point where the creature had managed to get away, it was difficult to imagine where it could’ve finally found shelter from the onslaught of the canons, but then we stumbled across something that looked promising.

It was clearly an area of the yard that had been used to periodically wash down and clean the outside of the commuter carriages.

Located on the edge of one of Fraser’s wild shots, off to the side of where he’d seen the creature last were the remains of the carriage washing equipment, which had survived in places despite being made of softer metal, presumably because of the pressurised water feeding through it. The entire apparatus was now leaking in a hundred different places, spraying the area with water, but despite having been running for a couple of days non-stop the area hadn’t flooded.

Hughes was clearly thinking the same.

‘There must be a drain around here somewhere,’ he commented. ‘Perhaps one big enough to provide the creature with access to the sewer.’