Skyfall (26 page)

‘Port North Central, DGAP hub. Also authorising Mann, Larinan to same destination.'

The reader chimed and Lari followed his father to the maglift waiting area, the two of them attracting more than the usual number of sideways glances from their fellow commuters. Fortunately, his father's priority level meant that the wait was less than two minutes. They shared the lift with five or six other DGAP scientists, and most of the ride was spent in silence until they were getting close to their destination, when his father spoke in a low murmur.

‘Did you manage to get any sleep at all last night, Larinan?'

‘A little.'

‘Good. You'll need your energy today.'

‘Why?'

‘Have you had a think about what I said last night?'

‘What about it?'

‘It's time to make a decision, Larinan. Now you know what Janil and I are hoping to achieve, you need to decide, once and for all, whether you're in or out.'

‘I thought I didn't have a choice.'

‘There's always a choice. I can force your placement at DGAP, but I can't force you to help us. If we're going to have any chance of achieving our goals, I need you on board of your own free will.'

‘What about Janil?'

‘He'll cope. Your brother is nothing if not pragmatic, and deep inside he knows you're as valuable to us now as that girl.'

The only sound in the lift was the whine of the resonators and the quiet babble of the newspanel. Lari watched it absently, his mind a million miles away from the report currently screening, which was attributing the explosions in Port North Central the previous day to faulty power capacitors.

‘Larinan?' his father prompted.

Lari thought about his mother. She'd died for this. For him. His life was her legacy, whether he liked it or not. Besides, there was no point hating a ghost. There were already enough people in his family who couldn't – or wouldn't – get out from under his mother's shadow.

‘Fine. I'm in.'

A rare smile crinkled at the edges of Dernan Mann's eyes.

‘Good lad.' The maglift switched to vertical and climbed towards the DGAP hub. ‘Now we can get to work.'

Janil was waiting in the research office. ‘About time you two arrived.'

His brother's nose was bright red and slightly twisted. Lari had to stifle a grin.

‘What's so funny, copygen?'

‘Nothing.'

Janil's eyes narrowed. ‘You got in a lucky shot yesterday, little brother. Try it again and see what happens, eh?'

‘That'll do.' Back in the surrounds of DGAP, Dernan Mann reverted back to his usual authoritarian self. ‘Larinan has decided to assist us properly, so I think it's high time we got to work. Proper work.'

‘What do you have in mind?'

‘I think we should make contact.'

‘Face to face?'

‘Within reason. But we need to try and reach her before she becomes overly traumatised.'

Janil turned and pulled up a couple of screens on his terminal.

‘She's been cleared by the quarantine scans – she's free of all major viral and bacterial infections. Her respiratory and digestive systems are functioning within acceptable parameters. Brain activity is minimal, but she's been kept tranqued since we brought her in, so that means nothing. Should I start bringing her round?'

‘I think so. Drop the sedative out and let's go pay her a visit.'

Janil punched in several commands. ‘Done.'

The three of them made their way to obs.

‘She'll be disoriented and scared. Don't let it get to you, okay?' Janil said. ‘Just try and keep a scientific outlook, whatever happens.'

Lari ignored him and went across to the window. Already the girl was stirring. Once again, Lari was struck by how small she seemed, how vulnerable. In the harsh white light she looked alien, as her thin, dark limbs started to twitch.

‘It'll take a few minutes until the sedative wears off completely, and there might be some side effects.'

‘Like what?' Lari asked.

‘Vomiting, mild diarrhoea. Depends on the subject.'

‘How many subjects have woken up down there?'

Janil glanced at his father before replying.

‘Not many. Not in our lifetime, anyway. A few.'

‘How many exactly?'

‘We couldn't say offhand, Larinan. We'd have to look it up.'

The girl was definitely awake now, slowly stretching and twitching as feeling returned to her limbs. Lari watched as she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, drawing her knees and legs under her until she was crouching on the podium. Groaning, she held a hand to her head as she shielded her eyes from the intense light.

‘She's in pain.'

‘It's normal. Adjustment takes some time.'

‘Can't we dim the lights and make it more comfortable for her?'

‘No. The lighting is designed to simulate natural light levels in the field. If we drop them it defeats the purpose of bringing her in.'

‘A few minutes isn't going to make any difference.'

‘Neither will dropping the lights,' Janil snapped. ‘She's just come out of several days of induced coma. She's going to have a headache no matter what we do.'

Below, the girl groaned again and muttered softly.

‘What did she say?' his father asked. ‘Did you get it, Janil?'

‘No. She's still half asleep, it could be anything.'

‘She said “Jani”,' Lari told them quietly, remembering the unconscious girl being dragged from her hut on the vid.

‘Of course! Well spotted, Larinan.'

‘She wants her mother.'

‘Don't we all?' Janil snapped peevishly, provoking an uncomfortable silence.

In the white room the girl lifted her head and, still shielding her eyes, looked around, taking in the bare white walls and the high ceiling.

‘Do you think she realises we're watching?' Lari asked.

‘Who knows?' Janil answered. ‘I doubt it, given their reasoning skills.'

‘So she thinks she's alone.'

Hello?

Through the pickup loop, the girl's voice sounded distant, as though she was calling from a long way off over a bad comlink.

Hello?

‘So, what do you think?' Janil turned to his father. ‘Time to suit up?'

‘Yes.' Dernan Mann nodded. ‘But not you, Janil. Larinan.'

‘What!'

‘He's the closest to her age. He'll be less threatening. We want this girl to trust us and Larinan has the best chance of achieving that.'

‘He hasn't been trained in field protocols. He's never been in a closed suit.'

‘She's a Darklander, Janil. And a child. She's never seen someone her own age, so at least Larinan will have curiosity working for him.'

‘This is a huge mistake, Father.'

‘Janil, I know you think this should be your role, and a week ago it would have been. But things have changed. We're going to need Lari and this girl to work together, so it should be him that makes the initial contact.'

‘We don't need them to work together. We just need their DNA to align in the right places.'

‘No, Janil. We need more than that from her. We need her knowledge. Being able to survive out there is no good to us if we don't know how to. And as it will most likely fall to Larinan to eventually apply what we learn, it would be best if he forms a connection with her from the outset.'

Janil returned his stare to the girl. ‘It's not fair,' he muttered.

Lari thought he sounded like a four-year-old child, but when their father spoke his voice was soft, almost regretful.

‘I know it's not fair, son. I know you're the one who's given your whole life to this project and Larinan hasn't. I can understand how that must hurt. But the entropy scenario is accelerating already. We saw that yesterday. And if it's accelerating, then we have to move our plans forward, too, faster than we'd intended. And that means desperate measures.'

‘Yesterday?' Lari interjected. ‘What about yesterday?'

‘You should know,
copygen!
You were in the middle of it, you little shi.'

‘That's unfair, Janil.'

‘What do the explosions have to do with anything? They said it was the power capacitors—'

‘Yeah. And the webs are such reliable sources of information.'

‘Then what? You think the explosions were deliberate?'

Janil snorted. ‘No. I'm saying it was the first catastrophic accident in a thousand years and it just happened with no warning, with no cascade of minor events preceding it. Use your brain.'

Lari stared at his brother. Even at his worst, he'd never seen Janil this bitter.

‘Anyway,' Janil continued, ‘deliberate or not, it makes no difference.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because either way, the explosions are symptoms of the system breaking down. If they were caused by overloaded capacitors then it's just like the breakdowns in the minor systems, only more extreme and probably the first of many to come.'

‘And if they were deliberate?'

‘That's worse. That's social breakdown. That's the race starting to consume itself, and in a society as delicately balanced as ours that's a surefire way to disaster. Just that one event yesterday will have disrupted the stability of the city in fundamental ways that we have no idea about yet.'

‘How?'

‘Do you think equal numbers of men and women died in those explosions? Of course not. Nor people from the same age demographics. So right away the gender and age ratios of the largest dome in the North Port City are out of balance. Sure, it's only one dome out of thousands, but what about the next one? And the one after that? It'll add up, and how's the Prelature going to deal with it then? Change the reproduction laws that have kept things stable for a millennium? Make exemptions? We all know how well that works out. Do that and before you know it you'll have jealousy, resentment, riots. No, copygen, what happened yesterday is just the beginning. Even though you probably don't believe a word I say, you can trust me on that.'

With a sigh, Janil leaned his forehead against the cold clearcrete window and stared down again at the girl, who was still crouched in a small ball in the middle of her sleeping platform, rocking slightly. For a long time nobody spoke, until Janil finally turned back to Lari and their father.

‘And that, of course, is why you're right, Father. You don't have to say it.'

‘I wasn't going to. Will you suit Larinan up and take him through the appropriate protocols?'

‘Yeah. Come on, copygen.'

Janil nodded towards the far end of obs, where an unmarked door led to a flight of stairs. Lari followed his older brother down and into a locker room similar to the one on the flight level. Three of the walls were lined with lockers and storage tubs, and the fourth, facing onto the exposure chamber, was filled by a large sealed door.

‘Over here.'

Janil crossed to a locker and began pulling out a suit which looked similar to the field suit Lari had worn in the flyer.

‘It'll be too big, but you'll manage.'

He slung it at Lari and the weight took him by surprise.

‘It's heavy.'

‘It has to be. It's a daysuit. Made with heavy-grade protection to give you fifty-five minutes of exposure in full external daylight, which is what the light levels in the subject chamber are set at. Corns, life support and breathing filters are built in, so you don't need to wear an external pack.'

‘What happens after fifty-five minutes?'

‘You max out. Don't worry, though. We'll have you out long before you're even close to the exposure envelope.' A hint of bitterness crept back into his voice. ‘I'm sure Father wouldn't have it any other way.'

Janil helped Lari shrug himself into the suit. The fabric was heavy and stiff and as the neck seal tightened around his throat a wave of panic swept over him.

‘I can barely breathe!'

‘You'll get used to it.'

‘I can't believe we need all this just to shield us.'

‘Believe it, copygen. Why do you think we only do fieldwork at night? Not only have we not kept up with the outside world, we've managed to evolve ourselves backwards. This suit is twice as heavy as the ones they were using three or four hundred years ago. Here …'

Janil retrieved a helmet from another locker. ‘This'll be heavy too, okay.'

Lari stood still as his brother jammed the helmet over his head and locked it against the neck seal. There was a slight ‘hiss' and Lari's ears popped as the pressure inside the suit equalised.

‘Can you hear me?' Janil's voice filtered through the helmet's earpieces.

‘Yeah.'

‘Good. Now listen carefully. Father and I will be monitoring everything you say, but if you need to speak just to us without the subject hearing there's a toggle in the left-hand side of your helmet. Bump your head sideways to activate it and again to shut it off. Give it a try now.'