Authors: Gary Gibson
“Two seizures in one day?”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry, Kendrick.” She looked confused. “I had no idea. I . . .” She trailed off, her features wreathed in blue smoke. He studied the faint, raised lines in her
flesh just barely visible where the top buttons of her shirt had been left undone. When she was out in public, habit made her keep the shirt buttoned up. Behind her, he could see the city’s
rooftops under a moonlit sky.
He could almost read Caroline’s thoughts. They were both of them Labrats, and what was happening to him could happen to her too, any time. She was probably scared because there was every
chance she would end up the same.
Going to a regular hospital for medical treatment was out of the question, and they both knew it. What they carried within their bodies was, by definition, unpredictable. That was a good enough
reason for many of the Labrats to be locked away without trial for the rest of their short lives, as soon as their augs showed signs of turning rogue. If you went to the wrong country and they
found out you were a Labrat, they just shot you and burned your corpse.
Caroline appeared to make up her mind about something. She stubbed out the remains of her cigarette and stood. “You can stay here tonight on the couch,” she said briskly.
“I’ll get some stuff for you.” She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a couple of blankets and a pillow.
As she went back into the bedroom, Kendrick stared morosely after her. Then he turned to the window, not wanting to get absorbed in some maudlin reflection about something that was long
finished. He stared out over the slate rooftops of the city. Beyond them the vague bulk of the Castle loomed high over everything else. The tarmac far below was grey and shiny in the freezing rain
that had begun to slant down.
Tomorrow he would have to go back to Hardenbrooke’s Clinic. He had no choice, really, as Hardenbrooke was the only one who might help him.
Kendrick spoke quietly into the air to find if Caroline had changed the voice-access code on her window-screen software. Then he stepped back as the sheet of glass became opaque, the Edinburgh
skyline disappearing behind a corporate logo that rushed towards him on a swell of electronic music.
He heard her step back into the room behind him.
“That logo . . .”
“The TransAfrica Corporation,” she replied. “I’m sure you remember.”
“So you’ve been doing all right?”
She arched one eyebrow, reading between the lines:
Without you, you mean?
“Better than okay. You know how much time I spent on this stuff.” Kendrick switched his attention
back to the screen, where an image of a spinning globe had now replaced the logo.
Caroline had won the design contract for the TransAfrica project only a few months before she had abruptly ended their relationship, without explanation, a few months after his seizures had
first manifested. Feeling abruptly uncomfortable, Kendrick sat down on the couch. So she was doing better than okay? He watched the show, glad for the distraction from everything that had happened
so far in a single evening.
The animated globe resolved itself into a recognizable image of the Earth as seen from near-orbit space, this viewpoint spinning rapidly downwards, through dense clouds until the continent of
Africa became visible below. As this viewpoint now shifted, the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula became visible above the North African coast. Then a thin, glistening line connecting both
continents appeared, zooming in yet closer until this line resolved itself into a huge bridge.
The main part of its span consisted of four great pylons, the middle two bedded in the watery depths of the Straits of Gibraltar. The sea around the pylons became suddenly transparent, like
blue-tinted glass, and a voice-over began to explain the engineering difficulties of trying to construct something so huge. All that was impossible, of course, without the lessons learned from the
construction of the
Archimedes Orbital
.
He turned to Caroline.
“What do you think?” she asked him.
“I’m impressed. You’ve done good work. I’m really impressed.” He turned back to the images unfolding on the screen.
The
Archimedes Orbital
– Max Draeger’s great white elephant, his downfall – still up there somewhere, far above the Earth. Kendrick stared at the images, his thoughts
far away.
Caroline left Kendrick alone to make up his bed on her couch. He was trying to ignore the misery washing over him now that he was back in a place he’d never thought
he’d see again. He hadn’t even told her about Peter McCowan, or his meeting with Whitsett.
She had a right to know, but in some way he wasn’t ready to talk. He still couldn’t quite believe he was in any kind of real danger. Perhaps Whitsett was just some lone crank who had
constructed this fable on the spur of the moment, inspired by the events in the Saint an hour or so before.
Kendrick switched off the light, but sleep wouldn’t come easily. There was just too much to think about. It wasn’t only that he’d spoken to a ghost, but that this ghost, this
hallucination, had told him something that he would never have found out otherwise.
That was too much to think about. He spoke quietly into the air again, reactivating the windowscreen, but kept the sound off this time, aware of Caroline sleeping in the next room.
The presentation she had long worked on doubled as an interactive environment so that, once the logo had faded away, he was able to cause the viewpoint to zoom away from Earth and out into
space. It didn’t take long for him to locate the
Archimedes
. It had been there all the time, but now, seeing the enormous space station there on the screen, Kendrick remembered
something.
As the great cylinder of the
Archimedes
hove into view, studded with lights that twinkled in a touch that had more to do with artistic flourish than reality, a half-formed idea began
tingling in the back of his mind.
He directed the windowscreen to zoom in closer to the computer-generated image, and recalled all the stories, all the speculation. A lot had happened up there.
Although it was only reasonable to assume that Caroline would have spent some time on programming the
Archimedes
into its environment, Kendrick could not fail to notice the remarkable
attention to detail. Perhaps this was purely down to her professionalism, but Kendrick found himself wondering. After all, although undoubtedly Draeger’s greatest engineering achievement, it
was far better known as a catastrophic failure. And although it clearly contributed to the project Caroline was now peripherally involved in, why would she spend so much time getting the
Archimedes
so correct in every detail?
Exhaustion began to overcome curiosity, however, and Kendrick felt sleep finally overtaking him. As he lay in the dark, he grew aware that he was frightened to close his eyes; frightened he
might wake up to find his body changed in some less-than-subtle manner – thick ropes of half-sentient machinery, with its own unfathomable desires, burrowing under his flesh like eels.
Anything was possible, and Kendrick had long since discovered that there was nothing so terrifying as the unknown, the unpredictable.
10 October 2096
Angkor Wat
The heat seemed even more unforgiving than usual as Marlin Smeby ascended a short flight of ancient stone steps before stepping, with considerable gratitude, into the
air-conditioned reception area. He stopped to savour the chill before moving on. After a nod to the security guard sitting at the main desk, he continued onwards to Max Draeger’s private
elevator.
Less than a minute later he entered Draeger’s office, registering the vast stone-built mural that took up most of one wall. His gaze then moved on to the teeming jungle visible through the
panoramic windows that formed the wall opposite. Draeger was standing there, hands in his pockets, staring out across the jungle and beyond. With his bleached hair and leathery copper skin, he
looked the perfect image of the tanned Californian billionaire.
An air projector displayed an image above the smooth expanse of Draeger’s desk, and Marlin recognized it instantly as the
Archimedes
, a dull grey tube that belied the reality of the
space habitat’s enormous size.
“Marlin, welcome. I hope your journey was comfortable.” Draeger followed Smeby’s gaze to the image of the
Archimedes
.
“The journey was fine, sir.” Smeby took a seat by the long obsidian desk, removing an eepsheet from his jacket pocket and placing it on the polished surface between them.
“This is everything I’ve been able to find out about the inmates of Ward Seventeen.” Draeger removed one hand from a pocket and placed it, fingertips down, on the desk. As
Smeby scooted the eepsheet across the slick desktop, Draeger halted its progress. His fingers danced briefly across the document and reams of information scrolled rapidly under his hand.
Draeger nodded as if satisfied, and tapped at a coloured panel. The edges of the sheet strobed red in response, indicating that its contents were currently being uploaded to a data bank
contained within the databand bracelet that Draeger wore.
“Very interesting, this. Los Muertos have clearly established the link between the surviving Labrats and the
Archimedes
.” Smeby waited in silence as Draeger’s fingers
thoughtfully tapped out a light rhythm on the desk. “Interesting, but not quite as satisfying as I had hoped.”
“There have been difficulties.”
“I’m already aware of those.” Draeger took his seat across from Smeby and studied him, one hand half-covering his mouth. “How are your treatments progressing?”
That could have been an innocuous question but, in the several months since he had entered Draeger’s employ – or, rather, since Draeger had paid the bribes necessary to extricate
Smeby from the Chinese jail in which he had been languishing – Smeby had learned to sense the inherent threat in every such discussion they had. Smeby nodded carefully, keeping his features
deliberately neutral as he framed his reply.
“The spurts of growth in my augmentations appear to have been stopped, but it may be too early to decide if this is permanent.” He swallowed. “I’ll need further
treatments, further observation, and Dr Xian thinks it’ll be a while before they’ll know for sure if I’m in the clear.”
Draeger nodded. Smeby had fully expected to die in that Chinese jail. He’d had his augmentations surgically implanted only a few years before, in a Bangkok clinic that took only cash
– anything but US dollars. For some reason it had felt like a good idea at the time. It had been getting harder, a lot harder, to find mercenary work without possessing that extra edge. And
if you didn’t take that one vital step further, maybe you’d find yourself caught in a mountain pass while some guy who could see in the dark, and with reflexes three times as fast as
your own, crept up behind you with a knife. With odds like that, the surgery had seemed a reasonable gamble – for a while.
Draeger nodded towards the
Archimedes
image, still hanging in the air. “Tell me, Marlin, what you know about the station.”
“Only what I’ve read up on it over the past several days, sir.”
Draeger waved a hand. “So tell me what you’ve found out.”
“The original project was handled by three of your subsidiary orbital development firms, working in tandem with the United States government – while there still was a United
States.” Smeby shrugged briefly. “The work on it started in the early 2080s, and it was intended to demonstrate the scientific superiority of the United States at a time when it was
coming under almost constant attack by unknown forces utilizing biological or genetic weapons. This was at the same time that President Wilber instituted the Emergency Government, suspending the
Constitution. And discontinuing the electoral process.”
“But there were other reasons too for building the station, Marlin?”
Smeby cast him an appraising look before continuing. “Yes, there were. I am a religious man, Mr Draeger, and I think Wilber was wrong. He believed that he could reach out to God by using
the
Archimedes
– a sin of pride. God sundered the United States and scattered its people with plagues and fire. That was our punishment for our hubris. Now the
Archimedes
itself
is inaccessible.”
Draeger’s expression remained serene. While Smeby was speaking, he had been staring again out over the treetops rising beyond the ancient temples. “You were there, weren’t you,
Marlin? At the end?”
“Excuse me, sir?”
Draeger turned back to him. “During Wilber’s flight, you were one of his . . . they called you the God Squad, didn’t they?” Smeby could feel his face redden. The term
that Draeger had used was uncomplimentary at best. “You were there, trying to smuggle him out of the White House before the Senate could have him arrested.” Draeger touched his data
bracelet and the edges of the eepsheet flashed again. Smeby could see new information displayed there now, and didn’t need to look too close to know what it would be.
Draeger turned the eepsheet around and slid it back over to Smeby, who ignored it. “Don’t you remember your old name?” asked Draeger. “Or does that stir up too many bad
memories?”
“Lots of bad memories, sir. But what’s the point of this? You’ve already got me working for you.”
“I want you to understand how much is at stake here . . . your plastic surgery is excellent, by the way. What I’m about to tell you is intended for only a few people’s ears, so
you should feel privileged that I’ve decided to share it with you. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the risks otherwise.”
Oh, I do
, Smeby thought to himself sourly.
Draeger continued: “Much of the research carried out on board the
Archimedes
primarily involved molecular engineering. The station itself is partly a result of nanotech, using
materials farmed from robot lunar mining operations. Some of that research, particularly into developing bio-organic technologies that could fuse with living bodies, was later developed still
further through covert military experimentation.” Draeger smiled, but Smeby could see no humour in the other man’s eyes. “Research which included experimenting on members of the
American public.”