The Eidolon (32 page)

Footsteps echo in the corridor. I rearrange the pages as the dots keep circling...

Lambert crosses the threshold of the room.
Fuck
.

He passes his console, walks to the umbrella plant and tips in a cup of water.

The dots disappear as he throws the cup in the bin. I tease the memory stick from the port and silently slide out of the chair.

B
ALAQUAI IS WAITING
when I reach the atrium, studying Aiyana’s photograph.

“Well?” he asks.

“It’s done.”

“No sign of Banks.” Casimir’s shadow appears beside us.

Balaquai glances at the photograph again. “This Imprint should take us right to him. He’s nearby, but it’s as if something’s scrambling the link here.”

“Never mind. I know where he’ll be in twenty minutes. He’s meeting Dana Bishop in her office.”

“You know where that is?” asks Casimir.

“Yes.”

“Where’s Aiyana?” asks Balaquai.

“What, she’s not back yet?” I start back the way I came. “We’d better find her.”

T
HE CORRIDOR TO
Area 9 is as I remember it – dim, grey, sinister. The whispers strike up as we pass through the glass partition. Balaquai and Casimir freeze.

“Something’s very wrong here,” Balaquai breathes.

There’s no sign of Aiyana. We move towards the metal door at the end of the corridor, pausing outside before passing through it.

Inside is large dark open space. In the middle is the transparent cylindrical tank reaching from beneath the floor to beyond the ceiling. Grey mist spins around a beam of light that seems to come from deeper underground. Surrounding the tank at intervals on the floor, are blue domes of varying sizes. Their surfaces swirl and shimmer, glimmering with a peculiar inner light. Aiyana is standing staring into one of the domes. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her.

“What are they doing here?” Casimir whispers.

Aiyana doesn’t take her eyes off what’s inside. Beyond the murk is a rat, sitting perfectly still and blinking rapidly. I walk between the domes. Another rat, a dog, three monkeys, all unmoving, some staring ahead, others blinking. Beside each dome is a console displaying data: heart rate, respiratory rate, serum norepinephrine, serum cortisol, neutrophil function...

“Stress responses,” whispers Aiyana.

Balaquai walks to the rear of the vast room, behind the tank. We follow him towards a dome much larger than the others. Inside is a man; naked, lying on his side, staring ahead. His ribcage is moving rapidly; making it uncomfortable to watch it. I crouch down, eye level with his gaze. A jolt of recognition hits me: it’s Abrams, the aircraft engineer. I can tell from his eyes that he’s suffering. I reach for the surface of the dome and I become aware of something pushing back, like an unseen force repelling my palm. I glance up at Balaquai. “It impenetrable.”

Balaquai’s shadow-hand hovers over the dome but does not pass through. “I can’t sense him.”

Casimir moves closer. “Neither can I.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I can see him, but I can’t sense his mind. The dome is some kind of shield. It’s blocking the signature of his consciousness in the Field; cutting him off.”

“We have to get him out,” says Aiyana.

“No. It would jeopardise Robert’s efforts,” Balaquai says.

Behind us, a door opens. A man in scrubs and a facemask walks in carrying a digital tablet. He stops beside Abrams’ monitor; Abrams’ stress responses are in the red. I move behind him until I can see the screen of his tablet over his shoulder. The title ‘MINDSCAPE’ heads the pages as he scrolls through the data. I feel Balaquai’s hand on my arm, pulling me back. Silently, we leave the room.

W
E REACH THE
corridor of G Sector just before Peter Banks strides down it. Aiyana bristles as he passes. He walks into Dana Bishop’s office and we filter in silently behind him.

“Don’t you knock?” Dana is sitting at her desk, her fingers poised above the keyboard of a laptop.

Banks ignores her and takes a seat at the other side of the desk. “What do you want, Dana?”

“One of our Californian sources informs me that police are investigating the murder of a Ms Aiyana Wolfe.”

“And?”

“Did you kill her?”

“She’d have talked if I didn’t.”

Aiyana edges towards Banks. “Not yet,” I breathe in her ear.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Peter.” Dana lights up a cigarette. “It’s messy.”

“Messy? She was a smart little bitch. I got you what you needed, plus insurance that she’ll stay silent. That’s a clean outcome. It’s what Amos would want, given what’s at stake.”

Dana puffs out a ring of smoke and holds up a red memory stick. “This is the only one you found?” She slots it into the USB port.

“That’s all. Do you think she was onto Mindscape?”

Dana studies the screen. “No. I think she stumbled on the side-effect of the medium, that’s all. The electromagnetic fluctuations are a by-product, but I doubt she would know what they really represent.”

“You look tired, Dana. When did you last get some sleep?”

She snorts. “Sleep’s not an option until this is over.”

“When will that be?”

“In just a few hours. Lambert’s team have cracked admin access to CERN. We’re just waiting for Trench to run some final checks on Surrey’s firewalls to make sure they won’t interfere, but he’s confident we’ll be ready before CERN launch. Relying on Strong was always a gamble, but we had no other option until now.”

“I thought he’d have caved when we took his family.”

“Would you?”

“Probably.”

“Are they secured?” she asks.

“I’m told they are.”

Dana’s headset bleeps and she picks it up. “I’ll be right there.” She takes a drag and stubs out her cigarette, pausing as she passes him. “I won’t be long.”

“Take your time.” He runs a hand down the side of her thigh. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He leans back in the leather chair, his hands clasped behind his head as Dana closes the door behind her.

Aiyana leans forwards and breathes out a long slow breath on the back of Banks’s neck. He springs forward, staring over his shoulder, then snorts and settles back in the seat. Aiyana grips the chair and spins it hard. Banks yelps and stumbles to his knees.

“Who’s there?” He scrambles to his feet.

Aiyana takes the photograph from Balaquai and tosses it onto the floor, where it becomes fully visible.

Banks mumbles something, his face the colour of wet clay, and darts for the door.

Aiyana pulls the memory stick from the laptop before following Banks out of the room.

He’s in one of the washrooms at the end of the corridor, his face in his cupped hands over the sink, water dripping through his fingers. Casimir guards the door as Aiyana’s shadow turns on the hot tap. Steam rises and settles on the mirror above. She draws her finger across its surface. Banks glances up, his gaze fixed in the letters emerging through the steam. ‘YOU’VE BEEN BAD.’

“Who’s there?” Banks is quivering.

Letters write themselves in front of him. ‘SMART LITTLE BITCH.’

Beads of sweat prickle on Banks’s forehead. His knees crumple beneath him and he grasps the edge of the sink.

Aiyana leans closer and whispers, “What is Mindscape?”

Banks shakes his head. I grab the back of his shirt as he tries to get to his feet, pulling it tight across his throat and throwing him off balance and onto his knees again. Aiyana strikes him in the face.

“We can do this forever,” she says. “What is Mindscape?”

“A Thought Management Project. It identifies perceived fears in subjects and enhances them.”

“Why does CERN have to do with it?” asks Balaquai.

Banks jumps at the new voice. “I... I don’t know the details.”

Aiyana strikes him again and he whimpers.

“Something to do with the scatter from the collisions disrupting Mindscape. That’s all I know. Please...”

“Where are the hostages?” I whisper.

He swallows and my grip tightens making him gag. “Geneva, somewhere on the outskirts. Amos had them moved. I don’t know where. Honestly.”

I twist his shirt collar and Banks’ arms flail. “Who does?” I whisper.

His face is purpling. “A... Amos.”

I relax my grip a little but pull him back towards me. “Go home, Peter Banks,” I whisper. “Breathe a word of this to anyone,
anyone,
and we’ll know. We’ll find you and your little girl. We’re watching.”

Aiyana kicks him hard in the groin. He groans and crumples to the floor, striking his chin on the sink on the way down.

“Are we going watch him?” asks Aiyana as we steal back to the field exit.

“No. But he doesn’t know that.”

“Q
UIET,
”
SAYS
B
ALAQUAI.
He pauses at door of the concrete bunker leading to the field. Light that wasn’t there when we arrived spills in under the door. Silently, we pass through to the outside.

A helicopter is sitting in the field and a tall man in a long black coat is walking towards it. He pauses as he approaches the cab door and glances back.

I shrink back into the shadow of the bunker. As Amos studies the building, I hear Casimir draw breath.

The engine whines to life and Amos climbs on board.

We watch the aircraft take off, it’s lights diminishing into the night sky.

“Let’s go,” says Balaquai.

Casimir doesn’t move. “It’s him.”

Chapter Eighteen

I
FOLLOW CASIMIR
as he walks across the empty rooftop of La Caverne. The darkness is thick now that cloud obscures the moon.

“What did you mean back there?” I ask.

He stares out over the city towards the neon fountain. The only sound is the occasional swish of a passing car and the breath of the breeze. “It was a long time ago.”

“What was?”

“When I was eleven years old, I lived in Michigan with my parents. A man visited a few times, discussing things with my father. I heard them talking through the crack in my bedroom door. One night, just after he left, another man came in. He shot my parents in the head.”

“What? I never knew any of this.”

“I tried to forget. I managed to forgive the man who shot them, but not the man who gave the order. I saw that man tonight, for the first time in seventy-one years.” He turns towards me. “He hasn’t aged a day.”

“Amos?” I let it sink in. A man who doesn’t age. Not really a man at all. “Why did he kill your parents?”

“My father was a journalist. He was about to go public with a piece that highlighted corruption in the media industry. It would have been the end of his career and he knew it, but it was too important for him to bury. He claimed that journalists were pawns for the government, that the whole thing was rotten from the top down. All the public were getting was what the politicians wanted them to believe.”

“And who do you think persuades the politicians?” says Balaquai.

“Is that why you came to Scotland?” I ask.

Casimir nods. “I was sent to stay with my grandparents. It was a different generation. When I asked them about it, all they said was that it was God’s will. You just had to accept it and one day it would make sense.” He stares out over the rooftops. “I wonder if they ever figured out that man’s will and God’s will are the same thing.”

A dog barks in the next street as a flash of blue draws my eye skyward. Two birds soar down, wings outstretched, their talons reaching for solid ground, and as they strike, Sattva and Crowley stride towards us. Their faces tell me it’s not good news.

“They’re close, Robert,” Sattva says. He hands me the small box with Cora’s foil goblet. I stare down at it, feeling like someone who’s been handed their wife’s wedding ring when they get bad news. It’s all that’s left. “We know they’re alive, but we can’t pinpoint their location.”

“Now we know why,” I reply. “Mindscape.”

“Mindscape?” Crowley frowns.

“It’s a project Amos is developing at ORB. They’re mining people’s fears.”

“Incubating them,” Balaquai continues, “inside some kind of shield that isolates them from the Field. They’re afraid that the CERN collisions will disrupt Mindscape.”

“That’s what doesn’t make sense,” I say. “The scatter’s minimal. Any particles created shouldn’t escape the detector.”

“Unless,” Sattva begins, “they’re referring to a particle that we cannot yet detect.”

“There’s something else,” says Aiyana. She’s sitting on her own, turning the red memory key over in her fingers. “They said that what I found was a medium for Mindscape.”

“Medium?” Sattva glances at Crowley. “He’s incubating fear and now he’s found a way of dispersing it?”

“Your work uncovered clusters, Aiyana,” says Crowley. “Around densely populated areas, is that right?”

Aiyana nods.

Sattva walks to the edge of the rooftop. “This is worse than we imagined.”

“Robert,” says Crowley, “are you certain that ORB cannot release their worm? Because those experiments may be our only way of finding Cora and your father.”

I’ve already decided. “I’m not leaving anything to chance. I’m going back to CERN.”

I
TRANSFORM AS
I touch down in an empty patch of ground behind a service building at the back of ATLAS. Crowley is just ahead me; I’m not practised enough to tunnel on my own.

“You’d better give me Cora’s goblet.”

“Just...” The words swell up in my throat as I hand over the box.

“We’ll do everything we can, Robert. Do you still have your amulet?”

I pull down the neck of my T-shirt to show the oval stone.

“Then you’ll know if we find them. I’ll be back for you. Good luck.” There’s a brief flash of light and he’s gone. I glance up to the buzzard circling overhead.

The ALTAS car park is full and Rene’s bike is beside the entrance. He probably slept here last night.

The control room is buzzing. People are sitting on the floor, on the desks, standing in the spaces in between. All in the way. I push through the crowd.