Department 19: Zero Hour (9 page)

You did this,
whispered a voice at the back of his mind.
You failed them both. You can’t even protect them from each other.

A loud beep finally broke the silence. Jamie pulled his console from his belt, thumbed the screen, and smiled.

“Well, how about that?” he said, his voice light and cheerful. “Another one of my desperate surrogate father figures wants to see me. I’d better not keep him waiting, in case he grounds me or takes my PlayStation away.”

Jamie strolled through the barrier without a backward glance and disappeared down the corridor. Frankenstein was too shocked to speak; he simply could not convince his throat to form words. He looked at Marie Carpenter, and felt his heart lurch in his chest. She was staring in the direction her son had gone, the glow in her eyes slowly fading away to nothing. When she did find her voice, it was small and full of sadness.

“I don’t think that went very well,” she said.

Click.

“I’m bored, mate.”

“Me too. Fag?”

Click.

“Just had one. Coffee?”

“Yeah, why not? I’ll go.”

“No bother, I’ll get them.”

Click.

“I offered first, mate. I’ll be back in ten. Unless the queue is bad, which, you know, this time of day it might be. If it’s bad, I might be half an hour.”

“I won’t hold my breath then.”

“Probably for the best.”

Click.

Justin Wallace grinned at his colleague, flicked him a casual V with the fingers of his right hand, then returned his attention to his screen as Simon let the door of the computer lab slam shut behind him. They had been cooped up in the small, airless room for almost a month, grinding through the project that was contributing a small amount towards their student debts, and any chance to step outside, even for a minute or two, was grabbed with both hands. They had prepared themselves for boring, perhaps even
very
boring, but neither of them had been ready for how interminably, soul-destroyingly tedious the job had actually turned out to be.

A small software start-up was preparing to launch the first iteration of their mapping software, and had employed Justin, Simon and two dozen other students around the country to select and collate the images that were required. They had bought several million from a company that provided photographs to many of the bigger, more established mapping services, taken once a second from a height of three hundred and ninety miles by a satellite called RapidEye 4 as it criss-crossed the globe in a series of orbits that had taken months to complete, and it was the job of Justin and Simon to wade through them all. Neither of them could see any reason why this new software would challenge the established companies in the sector, but the money was half-decent, if nothing else.

Click.

Justin was working his way through East Anglia, the swathe of flat farmland and forest that fitted snugly around the Wash, the large estuary that made it look as though some vast creature had taken a bite out of the eastern coastline of England. The satellite images came in sets of three, and Justin’s job was simply to select the best one from each almost identical set and forward it to the compilers, where it would form one minuscule part of the giant high-definition map that was being constructed. He quickly examined three images of a nondescript patch of brown and green, selected one of them, and reached out to load the next set.

Click.

Justin frowned. The new images theoretically showed the same section of forest, an area of no notable interest thirty miles from the sea. But whereas the first showed the expected canopy of trees, the second and third were obscured by circles of bright purple light, slightly larger in the third image than the second. Justin pulled up his glitch folder from the toolbar at the bottom of his monitor, intending to select the first image for use and add the others to his error document, a running list of images that were over- or underexposed, or in some cases merely black squares where the image had failed to record. But something made him pause.

They’re different sizes,
he thought.
If they’re errors, why are they different sizes?

He reached out and loaded the next set of images. The first had been taken a second after the third image of the previous set, and the purple light was nowhere to be seen. But there
was
something in the corner of the photo; something that didn’t look quite right. Justin dragged the image into his photo editor and magnified it, centring on the same area that was obscured in two of the previous set.

What the hell?
he wondered, and leant in closer to the screen.

At 100× magnification, the canopy of trees appeared insubstantial, as though it had been superimposed over a second image. Beneath it
,
he could see a faint tracery of curving roads surrounding something long and straight, something that looked an awful lot like a—

“Who’re you spying on?”

Justin clutched at his chest as he spun round in his chair. Simon was peering down at the screen, two steaming coffees in his hands and an expression of mild curiosity on his face.

“Jesus Christ,” said Justin, his heart pounding in his chest. “Creep up on me, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, mate,” said Simon, without taking his eyes from the magnified image. “What have you got here? Glitch?”

“I don’t know,” said Justin, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “I thought so, but it’s weird. Tell me what you see.”

Simon set the coffees down on the desk and leant in closer, a frown furrowing his brow. “Looks like there’s something under the trees,” he said, after a second or two. “Double exposure?”

“Probably,” said Justin. “It’s gone in the next image. But it follows directly on from these two.” He reopened the images containing the purple circles.

Simon’s frown deepened. “What the hell are they?”

“I don’t know,” said Justin. “It’s like …”

Simon turned to look at him. “Spit it out, mate. It’s like what?”

“Like there’s something wrong with that bit of the forest,” said Justin. He spoke slowly, trying not to let his mouth outrun the idea that was beginning to form in his mind. “Like something happened, whatever that purple light is, and it took a second or two to reset.”

“Reset what?”

“I don’t know,” said Justin. “A shield, or some kind of camouflage. I don’t know. But that looks like a runway to me, which means planes. There’s no reason to hide an airport, no reason to even put an airport in the middle of a forest in the first place. So, if it’s not an airport, what else has a runway?”

“An air-force base,” said Simon.

“Right,” said Justin. “Most of East Anglia is owned by the government. The RAF fought the Battle of Britain from about thirty miles south of where we’re looking at, and Bomber Command flew from all over this bit of the country. This is British military heartland. So I don’t know what it is. But I don’t think it’s a glitch.”

“You’re saying this is some secret RAF base?” asked Simon, his voice rising with excitement. “That’s awesome, mate.”

“I don’t know,” repeated Justin. “Maybe. But if so, what’s that purple light?”

Simon became very still, and Justin realised with a rush of relief that the possibility blaring insistently in his mind had now occurred to his friend. It was so ludicrous that he had not wanted to say it out loud; instead, he had tried to make his colleague see it for himself. Simon grabbed the mouse and clicked open a new browser window; his fingers sped across the keyboard, finishing with a heavy thump on ENTER. A website burst on to the screen, a primary-coloured collection of images and text that assaulted the eyes.

UKVAMPIRES.COM

THE SITE THEY TRIED TO BAN!!!

THE TRUTH THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!

The main panel of the page was a long list of vampire stories, sightings, encounters, rumours and anecdotes. To the right was a black and white photo of a man looking to camera with a serious expression on his face, above two short lines of black text.

KEVIN McKENNA

NEVER FORGOTTEN

After his death, and the publication of the unauthorised copies of
The Globe
that now stood as his legacy, Kevin McKenna had been attacked by the tabloid press with such self-preserving viciousness that a pro-McKenna movement had formed almost immediately. The press accused him of being mentally ill, an attention-seeking fantasist, a dangerous criminal who had terrified an innocent public with a cruel practical joke, then killed himself rather than face the music, and a great many people, almost certainly the majority, were happy to accept that depiction.

But there were many who refused to believe what they were told, who had come to see McKenna as a hero, a man who had dared to speak truth to power and been murdered for doing so. These were the people who reprinted and reblogged his last words again and again, despite warnings and takedown notices. And there were more of them every day. In death, McKenna had become what he had never been in life: a touchstone, a rallying point.

A legend.

Beneath his photo were two prominent links, one in bright dripping red, the other in gleaming metallic silver.

VAMPIRES – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

THE MEN IN BLACK – THE TRUTH BEHIND THE VISORS

Simon clicked the second link, filling the screen with a feverish list of alleged facts about the men in black, the classified anti-vampire branch of the military that Kevin McKenna had referred to in his final story as Blacklight. Simon scrolled down, and hovered the cursor over the penultimate line of text.

“There,” he said, his voice low.

Justin leant forward and read.

THE MEN IN BLACK USE ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT TO DESTROY VAMPIRES. THIS LIGHT APPEARS PURPLE WHEN SEEN BY HUMAN EYES.

“Jesus,” said Justin, his eyes locked on the screen. He took the mouse from Simon’s hand and clicked back to the images he had so nearly dismissed as glitches. The purple circles filled the screen, now seeming sinister, almost menacing.

“This is big,” said Simon. “If we’re right, then this is huge, mate. It’s the kind of thing we could get in real trouble for.”

Justin rolled his eyes, trying to show his friend how ridiculous that sounded. But in the centre of his chest, a cold sliver of fear had appeared.

Will they be monitoring this?
he wondered. Can
they monitor this? Do they know who I am?

Trying to ignore the ice that had settled round his heart, he copied the coordinates from the image header and opened a new browser window. His fingers flew across the keys, bringing up the website for the Land Registry, the government body responsible for recording ownership of every square metre of the United Kingdom. Justin pasted the coordinates into the search field at the top of the page and watched as the results were returned almost instantly.

REGISTERED TO:
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (UK) TERRITORIAL LIST

ACQUIRED:
12.4.52

PREVIOUS REGISTRAR:
LUX E TENEBRIS FOUNDATION (REG. CHARITY 23494583)

NOTES:
NONE

“MOD,” breathed Simon, his eyes glued to the screen.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” said Justin, copying the number of the charity to his clipboard. “I told you they own most of East Anglia.”

“I know, but …”

“Just hang on, all right. Let me do this.”

Simon fell silent as Justin pasted the number into a search engine and hit ENTER. The results were minimal; the Lux E Tenebris Foundation was apparently concerned with architectural preservation, was indeed a listed charity, and had a registered address on Piccadilly in Central London. There was nothing else – no website, no contact information. Justin took the Piccadilly address back to the Land Registry and hit SEARCH.

“Holy shit,” said Simon.

“Bingo,” said Justin.

REGISTERED TO:
LUX E TENEBRIS FOUNDATION (REG. CHARITY 23494583)

ACQUIRED:
5.7.24

PREVIOUS REGISTRAR:
ESTATE OF ARTHUR HOLMWOOD, LORD GODALMING

NOTES:
NONE

“Arthur Holmwood,” said Simon. “He was in
Dracula
. Supposedly Bram Stoker knew him. McKenna named him in his article, mate. Said he was one of the founders of Blacklight.”

“See the name of the charity?”

“
Light out of darkness,
” translated Simon.

“Right. Fits, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Simon. “Makes sense, mate. If McKenna was right, and they’ve been keeping this whole thing a secret since the nineteenth century, then why wouldn’t that be how they see it? Them in the light, the rest of us in the dark.”

“Like kids,” said Justin, his voice low. “Like children who can’t think for ourselves. Who need
them
to look after us.”

“Well, screw that,” said Simon, and grinned at his friend. “Let’s send this to a few people. Then we’ll see how in control of everything they really are. Because, if
they’re
real, then that means there’s a good chance everything else McKenna wrote was true as well. Which means vampires, mate. Actual vampires, out there right now.”