S.O.S
Authors: Will James
Will James
Wordebite
Other works by Will James
The Word
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Wordebite Ltd.
Copyright © Will James 2012
The right of Will James to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-78301-267-1
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in the publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER 8 - Sunan International Airport, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
CHAPTER 9 - Grosser Tiegarten, Berlin
CHAPTER 12 - Berliner Flaughafen, Berlin
CHAPTER 15 - A remote area of North Korea
CHAPTER 16 - A remote area of North Korea
The walk from school was quite a distance, but Chris, even at thirteen didn't complain about it. Most days, except when he had cricket, he walked from his comprehensive to the primary school where he met his mum and his sister, Sophie, and often he gave Sophie, who was eight, a piggy back ride the rest of the way. He was good-natured, a good kid; his parents knew they were lucky.
Tonight though, was different. He was making his own way home because he'd stayed late at school for science club and was going down to the rec with his mates for some football. They'd got it all organised, two teams of seven-a-side and his team was going to wop Alec's team. His team were awesome; the best.
As he approached the park he heard shouting and waved at a few of the lads who were already there practising. They waved back and then suddenly something whistled past his ear. He saw a football bounce into the road as a shout came from behind.
“Get that for us will ya Chris?!”
Chris was quick; he didn't need to be asked. “Gottit!” he shouted back. He darted out from behind a parked car into the road.
It happened in a heartbeat.
His mates, standing at the fence saw and heard what Chris would never see and hear: the screech; a car skidding sideways; a shouted warning bursting from their lips, too late. The horn of the car broken as it smashed into another parked car so that it went on and on and on.
And at that moment the world simply stopped. They knew that he was gone.
Dev Pathmajaren sat at his desk as the clock showed eleven, feverishly scribbling his calculations on the paper that littered his bedroom. All along one wall, sheet upon sheet of complex mathematics was tacked up with masking tape, the sort of calculations that should have been beyond a boy of seventeen, the sort more suited to PhD students and celebrated professors. But Dev Pathmajaren was not an average seventeen year old; he was a borderline genius. Borderline because, apart from school, which had long since given up trying to keep pace with his learning, no-one knew just how clever he was; borderline because his genius was not confirmed.
His shelves were stacked with Newton's
Principia Mathematica
and Euclid's
Elements
which jostled for space with volumes by Einstein, Feynman, Faraday and Hawking. The great manuals, dog-eared from use, watched in silence as the tall boy, bent over his formulae, suddenly stopped and stared at what he had just written down. Dev gazed at his work in astonishment and was gripped by a sudden fear, the initial triumph of completing his theory long forgotten.
As he considered his discovery, a bead of sweat broke out on his forehead and trickled down the bridge of his nose to be wiped away as he rubbed his face vigorously with his now damp palms. It had to be a mistake, it just had to be, he thought desperately as he rifled through the pages of calculation. But even as he did so, he knew it was a pointless exercise because so far, he had never been wrong. And, as he searched, he found that his maths, as it always had been, was perfect.
He sat there, an icy pool flooding his stomach as he thought about what his discovery could mean. He smoothed his hair with his hand. What to do, what to do? For the very first time in his life Dev Pathmajaren didn't know the answer. It was a frightening feeling. He stood up and paced for a while then sat down again and re-checked his calculations one more time. Yes, he was right and this time the answer had fatal consequences, not just for him but for the entire world.
He snatched up his mobile and called The Royal Institution. The line connected.
“Hi, yes, please, extension 623 please.” He waited to hear the familiar ring tone and imagined the office â covered in papers, empty coffee cups, books, calculations. He could see Professor Wilkins searching for the phone under a pile of discarded notes.
“Yello!”
Typical Wilkins, Dev thought, yes and hello merged into one for immediacy. He didn't do small talk â his brain didn't have room for it.
“Hi Prof, it's Dev.”
“Mr Pathmajaren. How are you since I saw you last, what two hours ago?”
“Fine, fine. I've erm... I've finished my theory.”
“Ah. Have you?” A sudden wariness had crept into the professor's voice.
Dev listened and thought he heard voices in the background. “Yes, yes and Professor Wilkins, I think I've found...-”
“Dev, Dev, Dev,” Wilkins began, “I know what you think you've found but I have to be frank with you, it's not what you think it is. I don't think you're correct.”
“But Professor, you said that you thought...-”
“I know what I said Dev!” The professor's voice had taken on an edge of aggression. He didn't like to be challenged. Ever. “But I've had time to reflect and I don't think that you're right. Something in your calculations is wrong. They don't add up.”
Dev couldn't believe he was hearing this. “But...” He was going to remind the professor that he had said Dev was right, had encouraged him all along to consider the theory and now, now he'd changed his mind? Dev felt a sickness claw at the pit of his stomach.
“While you're on Dev, I ought to tell you that what with budget cuts and the rest, we need to make some changes here at the Institute. I'm afraid we're not going to have room to take in young physicists like yourself without funding from the right channels, Dev. We're not going to be able to let you come and go as you have been doing. I'm sorry.”
Dev held the phone tightly. He'd been going to the Royal Institution ever since his parents had written to them about him, ever since he'd finished all the physics and maths exams at school, for years in fact. He felt the blow almost physically. He loved the place â it was the heart of physics.
“I really am sorry,” Professor Wilkins said, this time more gently and Dev believed him. Whatever was going on there, Wilkins had always supported Dev.
“If you want my advice Dev, just forget this theory and focus on another aspect of physics. Bide your time until you go up to Cambridge next autumn.”
“Yes, yes of course, I...” Dev was lost for words; he felt crushed. “Thank you Professor, for everything that you've...” He swallowed hard, but he didn't get to finish what he wanted to say. The line had gone dead.
*
Molly Sharp lay on her bed, curled up on her side with her headphones on. It was 3am and the music rebounded in her head as she drifted in and out of sleep. Tonight was bad.
She had shut both the windows even though she liked the cold, fresh air in her room while she slept and she'd closed the curtains - pulling down the blackout blind she'd insisted her mother get for her - which sometimes helped, but not tonight. Tonight it felt like they were louder than ever. Incessant. Tonight even the headphones and the pumping beat couldn't drown them out. The cat sat outside her door and wouldn't come in. A bad sign.
At 4am, Molly got up. She took the headphones off. She stood in the middle of her room; a tall, thin girl of sixteen with a flame of dark red hair, graceful, lovely and she shook her head.
“For God's sake!” she cried, “Why don't you all just shut up?! Shut up for one minute will you and let me sleep!” She stopped. There seemed to be a moment of silence and she let out a sigh. Then it disappeared, lost in the swell of voices that rose up out of the darkness.
“GO AWAY!” she cried, much louder this time, “Will you please just all go AWAY!”
In the bedroom next to her, Sandra, Molly's mum, also lay awake in the dark and listened to her daughter's cry. She had been asleep when she heard Molly call out and woke with a start. The shout was loud enough to hear her voice, but not loud enough to hear the words, so as always, Sandra's imagination ran riot. What was her daughter shouting about at 4am? What had woken her? Was she in trouble? What could it be that made her sound so anguished and in pain?
Sandra sat up and switched on the bedside light. Climbing out of bed, she padded to the door and opened it, listening for any more sound from Molly's room. There was nothing. She went out and knocked on Molly's door.
“Molly?” She waited. “Are you okay?”
There was no answer. She cracked open the door and peered into the darkness. Molly was in bed, under the covers with her head phones on. She was asleep.
Sandra went back to bed. She switched the light off and lay in the dark, listening to the silence underpinned by the distant hum of traffic on the main road. Perhaps it was a dream, she thought, a nightmare? She consoled herself with that thought as she closed her eyes and tried to get back to sleep. But whatever it was she thought, drifting off, it was getting more and more frequent.
*
A remote area of North Korea
Somewhere within the P'unggye-yoke area of North East Korea there is place that people have heard of, but know nothing about.
Until 2003 it did not officially exist and even today the government gives nothing away. Its function is described by them as simply an operating base for the Air Force. No one is known to work there; there are lawyers, engineers, insurance brokers but officially they don't exist. Their life is secret.
The Colonel allowed himself a small smile as he thought what would happen if the conspiracy theorists really knew what was going on; fact, he thought wryly, was often stranger than the fiction.
He sat at his desk and looked through the four inch plate glass that separated his office from the rest of the huge, underground expanse that made up their work area. He watched the scientists mingle with members of the army and government agents; people hurrying along neon lit corridors with files; white coats, suits and grey uniforms. They were occupied; busy. The people here had a purpose and that pleased him.
A knock upon the door disturbed his thoughts. It was not the usual smart rap but a frantic hammering. He called the order to enter and the head scientist, Dr Johann Stamn, spilled through the doorway in a flurry of limbs, flushed and sweating. The Colonel allowed him to catch his breath. He turned and eased his gaze from the window to Dr Stamn. His eyes were cold and calculating.