Vigil (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sub-levels

Fallon Corp.

Jean wheeled himself forward and a voice rang out through speakers above their head.

‘Hub online. Please identify.’

He turned in his chair and looked at Tom. ‘What’s this?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tom. ‘Who are you?’ he asked the voice.

‘Hub One. Identification, please. Comply.’

‘Tom Fallon, Jean Aralle, Samson Baker, Marie Cantel.’

‘Tom Fallon. Analysing voice print…recognised. Hello, Tom. Would you like your companions added to your guest register?’

Tom shrugged and at Jean. ‘Yes, I would.’

‘Your entitlement is now four. Welcome, Jean, Samson, Marie.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Identification: Hub One overseer. Personality Version 6.13. Duties include advanced guide and maintenance of Hub and level 23 facilities. Further duties specified as classified under protocol
3.’

Jean turned to face Tom. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘I think it’s designed to protect this facility.’

‘That assessment is correct. Other functions are available at this time.’

‘Thanks, Hub One. Can you tell us about this facility?’

‘Yes, Tom. This is the central hub of project seven.’

‘What is project seven?’

‘Project Seven Mandate: To study and understand the moment of creation of the universe. Recreation of the moment of inception. To quantify the nature of creation.’

‘Do you mean the big bang?’

‘Big Bang: Match 97.5 percent. That theory is largely correct. Contextual error.’

‘What am I getting wrong?’

‘Big bang is a theory. The Hub Gateway research is to create an infinite point of density.’

‘Whoa, Tom. I don’t know about this. What the hell is it talking about?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what I should be asking.’

Marie took Tom’s hand.
‘Hub One. Did John Fallon have any records that we could look through? An office?’

‘Yes. I will show you. Please follow the lights.’

The floor lit up, leading them down the Nanotechnology path. They headed off in that direction.

They came to the door marked John Fallon. There was a hand scanner beside the door.

‘Hub One. What is this?’

‘
Scanner. Security measure. John Fallon’s office is designated highest security. Level Five.’

‘Can you let us in?’

‘Negative, Tom. I cannot override security.’

‘But he’s dead, Hub One. Do you know what has happened above?’

‘I am aware. Release among general population of solution FE612.’

‘What is that?’

‘Restricted. I am unable to answer, Tom.’

‘How can we find out?’

‘Override procedure protocol resides with John Fallon.’

‘But he’s dead!
What hell are we supposed to do?’

‘Rhetorical question: Please redefine.’

Tom resisted the urge to swear. Jean answered for him. ‘How can we override, Hub One?’

‘John Fallon keeps override codes.’

‘In his office?’

‘Correct.’

‘Which is locked?’ said Tom, sarcasm dripping.

‘Correct.’

'How does it open, Hub One?'

'Finger and voice analysis.'

‘Perhaps we can blow it?’ said Samson.

‘Explosive devices are not allowed in this facility due to the nature of research.’

‘You’re a guardian right?’

‘Correct.’

‘If we did try to blow it, what would happen?’

‘I would take measures to ensure that did not happen. It is my duty to protect this facility.’

‘But we need to get into John’s office, Hub One.’

‘Reasoning function unavailable. Degradation of circuits. Repair?’

              ‘What do you think?’ Tom asked the others.

             
‘Can’t hurt.’

             
‘Will that damage anything else?’

             
‘Yes, Tom. It will damage memory banks.’

             
Jean shook his head. ‘I think we’ll need to know what it knows first.’

             
‘I agree.’

             
‘Hold off on that, Hub One.’

             
'Understood, Tom.'

             
‘Well, how are we going to get in here?’ said Samson.

             
‘Hub, what will happen if the attempt to open the door does not work?’

             
‘Lock out for thirty minutes on first try. Notification of security detail. Lockdown on second abortive attempt. Expulsion from facility. Terminal response upon reentry.’

             
‘Damn,’ said Tom. ‘I don’t know.’

             
‘Try it, Tom,’ said Marie.

             
‘Jean?’

             
‘Do it. We don’t have the time to wait.’

             
Tom took a breath and placed his hand on the scanner.

             
‘Tom Fallon, recognised. Please confirm with voice print.’

             
‘I’m Tom,’ he said, bewildered.

             
'What the hell?' said Marie.

             
Tom shrugged. 'I don't know...' he said. The door clicked, then hissed open. A rush of stale air came out.

             
A mummified corpse waited for them behind the desk.

*

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The man at the desk had obviously starved to death. He had got into the room, but he hadn’t been able to get out again. There was faecal matter in the corner and the carpet was stained. The corpse itself was largely unchanged. Decomposition could not take place in such an environment.

             
It seemed the man in the chair had just given up. When he became too weak to hope for escape he sat in the chair and waited for the end.

             
The dead man stared at the computer on the desk, which dominated the room. The walls were devoid of distractions. This was where John Fallon had come to oversee his most secret research, research that his own son had been unaware of.

             
But at some point Tom’s father had expected his son to come down here. Tom wondered about that. Had his father specifically updated the scanner and the Hub computer to allow Tom down here? When had he decided to let Tom in on his research?

At the end, John Fallon had been too far gone to tell his son anything. The last time Tom had seen him he was on his death bed, unable to speak or move, just a corpse that didn’t know it was dead. The finest doctors had attended his sick bed, but none could do anything for him. John Fallon had avoided death for many years, survived heart attacks and a horrific car accident, but you could not extend a man’s life when all his systems began failing with old age. Doctors were not God.

             
Tom stared at the man in the chair. Who was he? How had he managed to gain entry into this room?

             
As he walked around the room he noticed that there was a sheet of paper on the floor. He stooped, his knees creaking and protesting, and picked the paper up.

             
It was covered in a tight script, written in French. Tom sat on the edge of the desk and began to read.

             
When he had finished his heart was pounding in his chest. He was sweating and his skin felt clammy. He thought he might already have had a heart attack and he didn’t want another one. He had a family history of heart problems, after all. He took some deep breaths and tried to calm himself.

             
‘Tom, are you OK?’ asked Marie.

             
‘Fine. I just need to catch my breath,’ he told her, forcing a smile. She pulled the dead man out of the chair. Tom checked it before he sat in it. Even if there had been dead flesh on the chair he probably would have still sat down. He really did need to get off his feet.

             
‘Listen to this,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s a note from the guy in the chair.’

             
‘I am getting weaker now,’ he began, translating automatically as he spoke. ‘Hub One will not let me out of this room, and there is no one else left alive in the facility to free me. I have no way of contacting anyone as all communications have been cut off. I fear I will die here, but rather that than be cured. There’s so much to say. If anyone should come, hope you can get into the wall safe. I think it’s all there. John kept records on everything. I will keep it short, because I want to die and there is nothing I can do to stop what we have set in motion. I think this is how the world ends. With what should have been its salvation.

             
‘Unknown Subject One was the source. Nobody here knows where he came from, but I believe John knows. If he does, he has never told anyone. What we did to that man was unforgivable. I will be glad when death claims me. For the sins against that man alone I deserve to die. Was the plague of my doing, too? I cannot claim that burden, although I played my part.

             
‘UnSub One was remarkable in every sense. He had regenerative capabilities that were simple unnatural. You can imagine the tests we ran…perhaps you can’t. I hope that is the case. It was torture by any other name. If we cut him, he healed. At first we restricted our tests to minor wounds. Eventually things progressed. When we amputated his finger and it grew back, we advanced our tests. We cut off his arm and it returned. Although the flesh was paler it was a perfect facsimile of the original apart from the fingerprints, which for some reason changed each time we did the experiment. Both arms were pale when he was discovered, his fingerprints ill-defined. For this reason we were never able to identify him. He did not know his own name, although he was intelligent and conversant on many topics. He spoke many languages well, and had no trouble in both English and French. We tested his memory but he had no idea of where he came from. This was all, of course, before we began the vivisection. Understandably, he did not speak much then.

             
‘At first he fought our experiments, but we were able to subdue him with strong restraints. He was never freed during his captivity. He was immensely strong and immune to all anaesthetics. We could not risk his breaking free. He was our prize, you see? We justified it in the name of research. We could cure all disease, extend life beyond imagination…it was the cure for mankind.

             
‘But there was a problem. The regeneration required blood. The more serious injuries, such as amputation, required huge amounts of blood, and only human blood would do. We fed him in order to keep him alive.

             
‘He was kept in isolation, too. Did I mention that? I’m not sure I did. He was contagious, you see, and the hunger made people mad. He always hungered, although he could control it. He seemed immune to the rages that took those he infected, but we soon learned just how dangerous his blood and his saliva was. After the first infection we learned very well.’

             
Tom turned over the page, his heart still pounding from the shock of what he was reading. He didn’t need to look at the others. He could imagine their reactions.

             
‘We isolated his blood and analysed it,’ he continued. ‘It was the cure, but the price was too high. We worked on it and discovered that the blood contained nanoparticles. They had the properties of a virus. They lived in the blood, but could not survive for long without constant input. It was the blood that drove the hunger. It used vast amounts of energy.

             
‘It took nearly twenty years of study and experimentation, but eventually we managed to create a serum with the isolated viral components. Can you imagine the life of that man? Twenty years of torture. I ask not for forgiveness. That is denied me.

             
‘In the end, we still did not understand it fully. I think that was the problem. We knew how dangerous it was, but John was obsessed.

             
‘Toward the end John worked on nothing else. I worked closely with him and I think he was becoming mad before his collapse.

             
‘The rest is guess work. On January 4
th
2025 we created an inhibitor, IH237. John had been unconscious since early December. He was dying. I think the nurses injected him before we created the inhibitor. I think they injected him with FE612, the compound we isolated from UnSub One. I think that is where the plague began.

             
‘I don’t know much else, but if anyone is reading this, they need to know why such a risk was taken. It’s because of the Dimension Project. The particle collider that John built in secret. I worked in Nanotechnology and it wasn’t my area, but people talked. It was a doorway. A doorway to another dimension. They sent things through, but nothing living could survive.

             
‘I can only guess at John’s obsession with the collider, and the cure, but I think he wanted the cure so that he could continue with his work. It drove him. I believe the only reason John lived so long was because of his work. A normal man would have died years before.

             
‘Only John knew the full applications of the collider. Maybe they took the risk because they needed what he knew. He kept so much in his head.

             
‘That is supposition. What I do know is that the cure proved to be the end of the world, and that the collider is dangerous. More dangerous than we can imagine. We toyed with things we didn’t understand, and like Pandora we have unleashed unimaginable evil on the world.

             
‘The collider is a doorway. Sometimes I wonder what is on the other side. I don’t think its heaven.

             
‘I’m tired now. I have made some notations on files on John’s computer. There isn’t much there. The bulk of his files are in the safe. He does not keep copies.

             
‘Part of me hopes that no one will ever read this. Then it means that the collider is forgotten. If you do read this, beware. Tread lightly. Take the inhibitor and use it, but I beg you, leave the collider to rot and be forgotten.

             
Tom put the letter down. ‘It is signed “Pierre Dupont,” at the end he wrote ‘please forgive me.’

             
‘Jesus, Tom. This is unbelievable. What the hell is this place?’

             
‘Pandora’s box. This is where it all came from.’ Tom laughed. He did not like the sound of that laugh on his lips.

             
‘My father destroyed the world.’

             
‘Perhaps it’s not too late, Tom,’ said Jean. ‘We can still do something. There’s an inhibitor. We need to test it.’

             
‘No. We can’t afford to rush in. There are over two hundred people here, and we must be careful. So careful. We don’t understand these things any more than my father, and we do not have the benefits of years of education. We need to read those files.’

             
‘Here,’ said Marie. There was a safe set into the wall, with a hand scanner on the front of it.

             
Tom knew they needed those files, but was it worth the risk? Should they just blow the entire level and be done with it? Was there anything to gain from opening Pandora’s Box again? But then, wasn’t there hope, right there at the very bottom? Or was hope just the lure that lead to destruction?

             
Jean and Marie were looking at him expectantly. Samson was just standing there. He didn’t care either way. That, more than anything, urged him on. Indifference was the enemy here. It was the enemy within him. It could get them all killed.

             
‘Here goes nothing,’ said Tom, pushing himself wearily to his feet. He put his hand into the scanner. He was rewarded with a beep as his print was verified from the sweat on his palms. The lock released and the door swung open.

             
The safe contained only files. Tom pulled them out and set them on the desk. Everyone gathered round and read the titles as he fanned them out. He glanced through the titles on the covers. All but one concerned genetic research. There was one in a red folder, entitled ‘Dimension Physics’.

             
It was a new discipline that Tom had never heard of.

             
He decided to read it last, mainly because he knew he would understand little of it. He was not a physicist.

             
Underneath the pile was a plastic sheet containing codes.

             
‘Get a team down here. I’m going to stay and read these.’

             
‘OK, Tom. Come on,’ said Jean. With a final look at Tom they left him in the cold glare of the overhead lights. He did not look up.

             
Before he left Tom spoke with the Hub One computer and overrode the codes controlling it, so that the team could work unhindered.

             
He read for thirty minutes or so, working his way through the files on the UnSub’s blood and the search for an inhibitor. It was hard reading. It detailed the tests they had carried out on the man. A man on whom anaesthetics had no effect.

             
The woefully undereducated science detail came and Tom directed them into each of the rooms, splitting them into teams. He passed the files he had finished to the head of each team. Before they left he spent a final minute warning them to stay away from the LHC.

             
He almost wished he could keep them out of this level. It was dangerous. He was in no doubt about that. There was knowledge here that should never see the light of day, but necessity dictated that they make the attempt. The damage had already been done. Now, perhaps, they could find a way to save themselves.

             
Is hope the last thing on a man’s mind as he dies? He thought that maybe it was.

             
But there was no avoiding it. There was much to decipher in this secret level, and he was not egotistical enough to believe that he could cover all the ground necessary himself. He had to trust people. It was a long time since he had put his trust in people.

             
When he had finished the genetics and nanotechnology files he passed these on, too. Then he sat in the cold light of his father’s office, in the dead man’s chair, and read the file on Dimension Physics from cover to cover.