The Stone Man - A Science Fiction Thriller (24 page)

“He’s not our friend, Brigadier Straub,” I said, shrugging slightly, but realising as I processed her words further that we seemed to have acclimatised slightly to being this close to Patrick. Whether it was prolonged, close range exposure that was helping us to adapt, or just having the last few hours to just sit for a while, I realised in that moment that the physical stress wasn't quite as bad as it had been. Either that, or we’d just gotten used to it. Even so, we still looked bad enough for her to notice. “We’ve never met him before today, and even then it was brief before … well, before this. But I think it would be better to keep an eye on him, yes.”

“Agreed,” said Straub, turning to the three soldiers behind her. “Privates, take this man inside and put him in the sitting room. Then you can return to the vehicle and wait for further instructions.” As they got to work, Straub turned back to us and gestured towards the house. “Let’s have us a quick talk then, gents, and I can decide what happens next.”

***

Once we were back in the living room, Patrick was laid out on the carpet; Paul and I sat down on the sofa, whilst Brigadier Straub took the armchair. Two armed soldiers stood quietly by the door, watching us.

“Right, I’ll get to the point,” said Straub, leaning forward and lacing her fingers together. It was clear already what had helped her to advance so far in the military, overcoming whatever old-school bigotry might have attempted to block her path; she had an air of total confidence and efficiency. Already, she had no doubt that she would get what she wanted from us. She was probably right. “The gentleman in Coventry, the one you saw that first made active physical contact, we refer to as C.I. One, contact incident one. The policemen are referred to as C.I.s Two and Three, and will continue to be so for the time being. Eventually, we’ll release their details, but you know that for now it’s prudent to keep a lid on that side of things. Understand?” We nodded.

Straub nodded back, then held out a hand.

“Can I see the camera please?”

Paul and I exchanged a glance, after which I shrugged and handed it over. What else could I do? The two bruisers with the rifles looked more than capable of dealing with me, and probably with Paul, too. Plus we wanted to get on their good side. Straub took the camera, and had a quick flick through the photos. Everyone was silent whilst she did so. When she finished, she looked up.

“I’m going to keep this. All right?” It wasn’t said in a threatening or intimidating manner. She was simply doing me the courtesy of the illusion of choice. I nodded again, dumbly. She held it out to one of the soldiers by the door, who took it and pocketed it. “Do you have any other recording equipment about your person? Either of you, camera phones, anything like that?”

Paul pulled out his old Nokia and showed it to Straub. “This thing doesn’t even take pictures. Look,” he added, turning it to show her the lack of a camera. Straub nodded after a second, seemingly satisfied, and then turned to me. “And you, Mr Pointer? Anything else?” There was something different in her tone and her stare, and as ever, it took me a moment to get it. Then it clicked.

She knew what I did for a living. They’d already run background checks on the names, and our jobs, and knew there was no way I’d be in a situation like this with just a camera. I considered lying for a second, but I’d already taken too long.

“You, your bag and your vehicle will be searched later, Mr Pointer,” she said. “Best just be honest.” I sighed heavily, and handed over my iPhone and my Dictaphone. As she passed them to the soldiers, I felt as if she was discarding the best opportunities of my career.

“Okay,” she said, the previous task already forgotten as she moved onto the next immediately. “What I’d like to happen now is for you two to tell me your story so far, and I need you to keep it under five minutes. That’s very important. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Paul.

“Just Brigadier to civilians,” said Straub, holding up a hand, “I’m not the Queen, but thank you.” It was a light-hearted remark, but her serious expression didn’t change. She had business to take care of. “Right, off you go, and leave nothing out. Don’t worry about anything illegal that might be in there, this is off the record for now. I just need the truth, most importantly.”

We did as we were told, even though I did most of the talking because Paul didn’t come into proceedings until later on, joining in when he had to explain his side of events before I arrived. Once we got onto the journey to Sheffield, Paul took over, with me adding bits to his story wherever they were appropriate. He was a more natural storyteller, which is embarrassing for a writer to admit. We ended with Patrick making a run for it, and our subsequent failed attempt to take him towards the Stone Man. They didn’t need any details of the time after that; they knew what had happened from there. The whole thing, in our potted version, took only slightly longer than five minutes. Throughout our recap—even during the parts about psychic visions and following an unseen pull across the country to a specific house in Barnsley—Straub’s expression didn’t change. I could imagine how having a good poker face might help in an advanced military career.

Once we’d finished, Straub leant back, and rested her forearms on the chair’s armrests. She let out a small breath of air, and seemed to be inspecting her knees. We waited patiently, feeling like schoolchildren wondering if
It was like that when I got here
was a convincing excuse. Eventually, Straub drummed her fingers on the armrest, and then spoke.

“Here’s the thing,” she said, holding up a hand in a gentle chopping motion from the wrist. “There’s parts of your story that I
know
are probably true, based on information we have, parts that I
don’t
know are true but sound as if they add up … and slightly shaky bits that you could well be making up to stay on the inside of an international-level mystery. And no offence to you, Mr Winter and Mr Pointer—”

“Just Paul and Andy to brigadiers, Brigadier, we’re not royalty,” interrupted Paul, giving her a wink. Straub didn’t smile, but did raise an eyebrow as she continued, and there might have been the briefest of twitches around the corners of her mouth.

“No offence to you, Mr Winter and Mr Pointer, but the last thing in the world I need right now are unnecessary and untrained civilians that may mean well but who, if they cause something to go wrong, can bring a ton of crap down on me and my superiors. So I need you to convince me of certain things, and quickly. Here’s what I know about your story.” She extended a finger on her left hand, and touched it with the fingertip of her right.

“Point one,” she said, “about your man here bolting for the street—”

“Do you know his name?” asked Paul, interrupting again.

“Yes, if this is his house,” said Straub, and carried on without addressing the subject further. “If you really wanted to know that badly, gentlemen, you could have rooted around for some documents or something of the kind. I assume you didn’t feel the need to know that much.” I bristled slightly at the statement, but she was right; once we knew that he didn’t really know anything, what good would a name have done? We already called him Blondie at the time; that was enough for us. Straub continued talking.

“He bolted for the street and had some sort of physical attack, and ended up exactly the same as C.I.s One, Two and Three. You may not know this, but I’m told that the speed and unending nature of this speech pattern they’re producing is impossible for the average human, without some sort of thorough cyclical breathing training. It’s used by Gregorian monks and the like for their chanting. Neither any of the C.I.s, or this man here, were the type of people to be involved in that kind of thing, based on what we know. It takes extensive classical training. Regardless, you say that was a result of what happened when he tried to leave the area around the house. Correct?”

“Correct,” I said. I wondered if this was going to be one of the points she thought was true, or if she was about to try to catch us out on one of the other parts. We hadn’t even told any real lies. Yet.

“You gave the time of this incident as being approximately sixteen hundred hours?”

“About 4:00 p.m., yes,” I said, and didn’t know what to make of it when Straub nodded again slowly, not taking her eyes off mine.

“Something you won’t know is that we’ve been monitoring certain aspects of Caementum since yesterday—”

“Aspects of what?” asked Paul, confused.

“Sorry,” said Straub, “the Stone Man, you call it the Stone Man. Just the name the research team gave it at first. Latin. We’ve been monitoring certain aspects—the few that we can—such as radiation.”

“It’s radioactive?” I asked, suddenly thinking of all the time I’d spent close by it in Coventry.

“Very slightly, but only at a level that you would need some major exposure to if you wanted to have any issues caused as a result. I’m talking about hours and hours, Mr Pointer, and you couldn’t have been near it in Coventry for more than two; it wasn’t there long enough. Don’t worry. That’s not the issue here. The fact is that at 3:56 p.m., our men logged a comparatively huge spike in its rad levels, and one considerably higher than the other two spikes we’d seen before then. We theorise these were some kind of broadcast or signal boost, although we don’t fully understand their purpose or how they work. But the time of that last spike adds up with your version, and you couldn’t know that.” I thought about the other two previous spikes she’d just mentioned, and thought about my passing out on the flyover bridge and fitting at Shaun and Laura’s, but I said nothing. Paul and I exchanged another glance.

“All that,” Straub continued, “plus the fact that no footage of the C.I.s has been leaked online yet—along with this man here having the exact same post-incident catatonia and appearance—says to me that he
is
probably connected with Caementum to some degree. How useful he may be to us is one thing, especially as he’s a civilian and not currently one who can make his own decisions in the eyes of the law.”

“Okay, so that’s the good news,” said Paul. “What’s next?”

“The next bit is that yours are not the first reports of psychic visions and the like.”

My jaw dropped, but Paul snorted slightly.

“Not surprised to hear it,” he said, “I can only imagine some of the bullshit that’s come out of the woodwork. But I assume you mean reports that actually check out.”

“Yes,” admitted Straub, “about five or six that have been accurate enough, and detailed enough, to warrant further investigation, but none that have actually led anywhere. But these people did know things that they couldn’t have done by conventional means; someone in Scotland describing a victim that hasn’t even been declared dead yet, and the exact manner and time in which they died. One person in Cornwall, and another in Newcastle, knowing—but only once—where the Stone Man would be passing through at a certain time, and knowing it
ahead
of time. Both of those referred to two separate incidents; both were visited after their report was proved correct and asked to reproduce it. They couldn’t. The most interesting one, to us at least, was someone in Wolverhampton phoning the police three days ago and saying they were certain something terrible was going to happen in Coventry, and then spread north. They were adamant. We have him in custody now, but we think we’re going to let him go. He knows nothing. But these have all been little flashes, people picking up little glimpses and finding themselves unable to do it again. But you two are the only ones with
any
kind of credibility and evidence to claim to have done it consistently and continuously … and believe me, the evidence here is the important point with regard to me believing you in any way. Plus background, telephone and e-mail checks have shown it to be unlikely that you two have any prior knowledge of each other before today.”

This time Paul’s jaw dropped, and neither of us said a word. I thought I might have noticed that little mouth twitch again on Straub’s face. She then continued.

“Basically, gentlemen, as you’ve probably guessed, what I need from you before we can continue is some kind of proof of this … ability of yours. Let’s be honest; you have the photos. You were there at the start, no doubt, and therefore probably saw C.I. One, at least. You wouldn’t be the only one. And this house’s resident is obviously connected to Caementum; again, there’s pretty much no doubt about that. You two could have worked out its trajectory more accurately than others have; there’s probably only one amongst the hundreds already online that’s absolutely accurate, they just don’t know it for certain. But it
is
feasible that you found your own way here through simple maths, and then somehow met Mr …” she paused as she caught herself, “this man here, and then watched him have his incident, and put it together with C.I. One in Coventry and realised that you were onto something big. Why, you could have gone from house to still-standing house along the parts of the trajectory not yet evacuated until you found someone who was linked to it. It would have been an effort, but you’ve had twenty-four hours, after all. Other have tried it already, we know, they just haven’t had the correct, specific line to follow. You wouldn’t be the only newsman who realised what this could do for their career, Mr Pointer.”