Extinction Game (33 page)

This was when Wallace learned that Casey had a secret of his own. He was covertly working for the Patriots, just like I’m now secretly working for Mort Bramnik.

Casey explained that just a few months before, Greenbrooke had approached him about carrying out some kind of work for the Patriots. Greenbrooke tried to get Casey on side by saying how much
Casey’s outlook and philosophy reflected his own. You know how Casey’s a big fan of Ayn Rand? Well, Greenbrooke apparently presented Casey with – get this – a
signed
copy
of
Atlas Shrugged
, from the Authority’s own alternate. In return for working clandestinely for the Patriots, Greenbrooke told Casey, he would be handsomely rewarded. Not
only with early retirement to the alternate of his choosing, but also with enough material wealth sourced from other extinct alternates to set him up for life, wherever he wound up.

Casey bit. The nature of all this clandestine activity? Nothing less than sabotage. Greenbrooke explained he wanted to hurt both Bramnik and his civilian administration, which Casey himself,
after all, had never been afraid to criticize at length. If enough things went wrong, Greenbrooke suggested, the Patriots would be able to make a case for taking over operations on the island. In
order for Casey to carry out his work, they would provide him with a portable transfer stage that he could use to make his own trips – but with a limited set of coordinates.

In one respect, I think Greenbrooke judged Casey correctly; they shared the same love for tradition, for the military, for rugged individualism.

But in other respects, Greenbrooke got Casey all wrong. Greenbrooke forgot that a man like Casey never likes having to kowtow to anyone else, whatever their similarities otherwise. More than
that, Wallace explained to me, Casey smelled a rat. He figured that, instead of letting him retire, Greenbrooke was more likely to order his men to put a bullet in the back of Casey’s head
and dump his body in the sea. That’s what Casey would have done had the roles been reversed.

Your next question might be, Why did Casey tell all of this to Wallace?

After Wallace told him everything he knew about the security keys and the transfer coordinates, Casey had a brainwave. He knew that a mission was coming up in which Mort Bramnik, along with
other high-ranking types visiting from the Authority, were due to get a tour of the island and of a recently opened alternate. And since Bramnik carried a copy of this high-security document
everywhere with him, maybe there could be an opportunity to steal it – at this point, Bramnik just wasn’t around that much, having to deal with politics ‘back home’. Then,
with the private transfer stage provided by Greenbrooke, Casey and Wallace would be able to make their own escape without waiting for the Authority’s permission. They even talked about
sharing that information with the rest of us, in case we also felt like lighting out.

So Casey and Wallace started planning a supreme act of sabotage – one that had nothing to do with Greenbrooke’s plans for taking over the Pathfinder project. Their plan was to
disrupt the mission enough that Bramnik, along with everyone else, would be forced to evacuate back to the island at short notice. Somewhere in the chaos, Casey would try and find an opportunity to
separate Bramnik from his briefcase.

Their plan worked, although Casey wasn’t able to get his hands on the briefcase at the time. Instead he returned to the Howler alternate a day or two later and hunted around until he
found the abandoned case. He brought it back and gave it to Wallace who, when he next returned to the base compound to make use of the computers there, was able to gain root access to otherwise
secure networks. There, he could find out which specific coordinates related to which alternates.

By the time Wallace told me all this, some hours had passed, and it was well into the early hours of the morning. I could see a hint of dawn light gleaming through a narrow gap between the
window frame and the sheet of black card covering it.

I asked Wallace the next, obvious, question: if he and Casey had the means to leave forever, why hadn’t they done so already?

At about this time Wallace started to lose his nerve and didn’t want to talk any more, however much I promised him I’d help protect him from Casey and also from the Patriots. He
was never a strong-willed man. I knew most of what he’d done had been at Casey’s instigation. But I could tell he was still holding something back – something that clearly
terrified him.

When I pushed, the poor bastard actually started crying. Finally, he told me Casey had a new goal: he wanted to find a way to destroy the Authority. Literally to obliterate them, wipe them
out of existence. Why, I didn’t know, but it seemed to have something to do with whatever Wallace found after he wormed his way inside all those encrypted files.

The idea that Casey wanted to do any such thing sent a chill through me, precisely because it was plausible, whatever the motivation. We’ve all seen any number of alternates where
human life was extinguished by a staggering variety of extinction events. With your own private transfer stage, and access to enough of those worlds, you’d have no trouble tracking down
something you could use to wipe out some other alternate. Including that of the Authority, should you happen to have access to their transfer coordinates.

By this point I was angry and frightened enough myself that I went over and slapped Wallace hard across the face, demanding he tell me the truth. He kept repeating again and again that Casey
wanted revenge, but the stupid bastard kept refusing to tell me
why.

If I’d just had more time, I know I could have got the truth out of him. But that’s when I heard someone hammering on Wallace’s front door, and Casey yelling my name. I
near as damn jumped out of my skin.

My guess is that Casey had returned through the transfer stage hidden in the abandoned house and came looking for Wallace. He must have heard me shouting at Wallace when I lost my temper, or
maybe he’d been listening in by the window for longer than that. Either way, the front door slammed open a second later, and Casey came charging in on us, gun drawn.

He told me to get out. I stood my ground and asked him why the hell I should. Casey was all keyed up, eyes filled with rage, and I wondered if he’d really shoot me as he was
threatening to do. But if he did, someone would hear it, and there would be too many questions were I suddenly to disappear right there on the island. I could see from Casey’s face that he
knew it as well as I did.

I gave Wallace one last look before I walked past Casey and back out of the house. I think, now that I’ve had time to consider it, than Wallace is frightened of Casey. Perhaps even
more frightened of him than of the Patriots. Maybe if I’d had more time I could have persuaded Wallace to turn against him, to stop whatever it is he’s planning. But I knew all I needed
to do was bide my time until Bramnik got back from the Authority and I could set the facts out for him. In the meantime, there would, I felt sure, be other opportunities to speak with Wallace, to
try to persuade him to my side.

Eventually the date came when Bramnik had told me he’d back, except he never appeared. I made up an excuse to go and ask for him at the base compound and, as is often the case, I got
nothing like a straight answer
. Plus ça change,
right?

So I figured I could wait if Bramnik was late getting back. Except he didn’t show up the next day, or the next. And at the time of writing, it’s been weeks, and still no word of
when he’s getting back.

Worse, I haven’t seen sight or sound of either Casey or Wallace in all that time. The morning after confronting Wallace, I asked around and discovered that both he and Casey had been
volunteered at short notice for a long-term mission.

I went looking for Casey’s portable transfer stage with an eye to packing it up, but they had been there already. It was gone, disappeared from that house.

I thought, then, about calling a meeting with the other Pathfinders to tell them what I knew. But at the same time I knew now that we would be going up against the Patriots. If they could
make all this happen right under Bramnik’s nose, who knew what might happen to us if the Patriots decided we were a serious threat to them? Particularly when the man supposedly in charge of
us was constantly absent from the island. Or maybe Greenbrooke had recruited moles other than Casey.

It was only yesterday that I finally realized that I had not in fact been nearly paranoid enough. Someone had been in our home, Chloe. They’d done a good job of hiding it, but I could
tell. A couple of things weren’t quite where I’d left them. Some of my diaries weren’t in the right order; that’s when I knew that the Patriots were watching me, that Casey
had told them I was a threat.

I came so close to telling you what I know, Chloe. But I couldn’t take the risk. It’s been so long now that I don’t know if Bramnik’s ever coming back, and who the
hell knows who might end up in charge around here? The idea of Greenbrooke running things makes me break out in a sweat.

Yes, I thought about talking to Kip Mayer, except he hardly steps out of his office apart from trips back to the Authority, and every time he does that it’s a Patriot agent behind the
wheel of the jeep. I took a chance anyway and went to the compound and asked to speak to Mayer, and as soon as she saw me the woman manning the desk got up and disappeared. I waited around for a
minute or two, until a Patriot agent came out through the same door and asked me what I wanted.

That’s when I knew that Greenbrooke was just waiting for some excuse to get rid of me. I decided the best thing I could do was to find some mission that would take me away from
everything for a good long while in the hope that this all blows over, or Bramnik comes back, whichever comes first. I know they’re watching me, and that means they’re watching you too.
The farther away I am from you, the safer you are.

If you’re reading this, Chloe, you know that I love you. I never really felt alive until I came to this place and found you. This, I realize now, is my home.

Now maybe you understand why I had to go to such elaborate lengths to hide these pages. I still don’t know what Wallace might have been about to tell me that night, but if Casey really
means to hurt the Authority, it’s going to be just as bad for us as it is for them.

If anything happens to me, and you find this, the rest is up to you and the others. Maybe I should have told you anyway; I don’t know. But I couldn’t ever bear the thought of you
being hurt by them.

I put the last page down. Chloe was twisted around in her seat, staring towards the window and the ocean beyond. She glanced towards me, and hurriedly wiped at her eyes with one sleeve.

For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant when people said they’d had the wind knocked out of them. I felt like a deflated balloon, limp and empty, my mind reeling. The
three of us just sat there for a good minute before I finally found the gumption to say anything.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I guess that’s it. We’ll take all this to Bramnik and he can figure the rest of this whole mess out. I don’t think we’ll need to worry
about the Patriots once the dust settles.’ I glanced towards the window and caught a glimpse of the moon shining dully through the storm clouds. ‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Not much past midnight,’ said Rozalia. She blinked tiredly. The window rattled fiercely, gusting rain against the panes.

‘I don’t think that storm’s in any hurry to be gone,’ she said.

‘We can wait it out,’ I said. ‘My mind’s whirling as it is.’ I nodded towards the stove. ‘Is there any coffee left?’

‘You can have it,’ said Chloe. ‘I think those pills are starting to wear off already. I’m going to try and sleep for a little while.’

She pulled herself to her feet and lay down on the narrow cot, her coat pulled up around her shoulders, much as she’d had it on the drive up. She closed her eyes, and within moments seemed
to have slipped off into a deep sleep, her shoulders rising and falling with a steady rhythm.

Rozalia glanced at her, then back at me. ‘Hell of a lot for anyone to take in,’ she said quietly, and moved in closer to me. ‘So Casey wanted revenge. Any ideas why?’

‘Beats me,’ I said. ‘Maybe we should go and ask Wallace ourselves.’ I got up and poured myself some more coffee.

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Rozalia. ‘Much as I hate to admit it, I’m starting to feel some sympathy for Bramnik, if Greenbrooke’s gunning for him this
hard.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry about taking my frustration out on you after Kip Mayer talked to us all at the Mauna Loa.’ I’d been more than a little upset over
the revelations of domestic violence in my predecessor’s diary and had taken it out on Rozalia, believing the entries to be true.

She shook her head. ‘And more than a little hungover, maybe?’

‘Yeah.’ I scratched my chin, suddenly embarrassed. ‘That, too.’

Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh. ‘You know, you weren’t entirely wrong in what you said. No apologies are necessary. You were right – we
should
have ignored the
pencil-necks and just told you the damn truth at the start. I know I’m not the only one who regrets playing along with them.’

‘I’m sorry, anyway,’ I said. ‘I lost my temper.’

‘So would anyone, with the same information at hand.’ She cocked her head to one side and gave me a quizzical smile. ‘So we’re good, right?’

I nodded and sipped at the warm liquid, my own head buzzing from fatigue and caffeine. ‘We’re good,’ I said.

‘Then there’s one other thing I want to be clear about,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my own reasons for wanting to find Casey’s secret transfer stage. With Nadia
gone, there’s no damn reason for me to stick around here any more, because that girl was the one thing that made life here bearable for me. If Casey’s really got hold of all of our
retirement coordinates, then I’m out of here, the moment I have them. Are we clear on that too?’