Earth Fall, Page 2

  Sam suddenly felt a cold pit open up in his stomach as he stared into the woman’s blank eyes.

  ‘Tell me this isn’t the Vore,’ Sam said. ‘Tell me they’re not changing.’

  The Servant walked over and placed a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  ‘I detect no trace of the Illuminate weapon that created the Vore,’ the Servant replied.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Sam asked. They couldn’t afford to make a mistake. The Vore had completely overrun Edinburgh and only a tiny handful of people had escaped. A single bite from those creatures was enough to spread the infection and start the victim’s inevitable transformation into one of the Vore. If the same thing happened in London . . .

  ‘Yes,’ the Servant replied, ‘though I can offer no explanation as to what is affecting these humans in this way.’

  ‘Whatever it is, we have to assume it is more than an autonomous response,’ Stirling said, gesturing over to one of the other beds where a man was lying, clawing at the air. Attached to his scalp was a grid of adhesive pads with wires trailing from them. These wires were plugged into a complicated-looking machine on a trolley.

  ‘I had this patient hooked up to the EEG machine so that I could monitor his brain activity,’ Stirling said. He typed something on the keyboard below the monitor and tapped the waveforms that appeared on the screen. ‘This is the normal activity we saw in the Sleepers until just a few minutes ago. This is similar to the activity one might see in a coma victim or someone under the effects of a general anaesthetic. This,’ he said, pulling up another window, ‘is this man’s current brain activity.’ The gentle waves that had been displayed a moment before were gone, replaced by a jagged saw-tooth pattern. ‘This is the sort of activity one would normally associate with a fully conscious person who is experiencing extreme trauma.’

  ‘So they’re awake?’ Sam asked, looking down at the man’s agonised expression. There was no hint that he had any awareness of his surroundings.

  ‘Not in the traditional sense,’ Stirling replied. ‘Their brains are experiencing the nearest thing to consciousness that I have seen since the invasion, but exactly what they’re experiencing . . . I have no idea.’

  ‘So this could be happening everywhere?’ Sam asked. ‘I mean, all over the world?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stirling said. ‘The Servant lost her connection to the rest of the Voidborn consciousness when you assumed control of the first Mothership. The only way to know for sure is to see for ourselves.’

  ‘Then we should go and take a look,’ Sam said. ‘We need to know if this is a localised attack or part of something bigger. We also need to know if there’s anything we can do to help the Sleepers in the meantime. We may not understand what’s happening to them, but you only have to look at them to see it’s something horrible. Is there anything you can do right now? Maybe put them back to sleep somehow?’

  ‘I can’t risk sedation,’ Stirling replied. ‘If I try to return them to their previous resting state without knowing what’s happening to them, I risk doing more harm than good. Neurological conditions, as a rule, do not lend themselves to quick fixes, I’m afraid.’

  ‘OK, do what you can,’ Sam said, feeling a creeping sense of dread as he stared at the figures lying on their beds, writhing in silent agony. ‘We can’t leave them like this, that’s for sure, and I don’t even want to think about what might happen if all seventy million frightened Sleepers woke up at once.’

  ‘Of course,’ Stirling replied with a nod. ‘I will inform you of any progress that I make in my investigations.’

  ‘Stay here and give Doctor Stirling whatever help he needs,’ Sam said, turning to the Servant. ‘I’ll go and fill the others in on the situation.’

  ‘Understood,’ the Servant replied.

  Sam hurried back through the curtain and out of the lab building, feeling an all-too-familiar sense of frustration at the fact that they were still no closer to comprehending exactly what it was the Voidborn were doing here on Earth. The alien creatures had seemed content to leave London unmolested since Sam had taken control of the first Mothership during an intense battle in the skies above the city. Sam and the others had breathed a huge sigh of relief, but he still couldn’t shake a nagging feeling that they weren’t so much being avoided as ignored. They had no clue what the alien invaders were doing anywhere else in the world and, truthfully, the Voidborn forces under Sam’s control in London were no match for the fleet of ships their enemy still had stationed across the rest of the planet. Sam knew that they couldn’t afford to lose hope, but there were times when the scale of the task that confronted them seemed too vast to comprehend.

  He walked through the doors leading to the accommodation area and followed the corridor beyond to the common room. His friends, the last free humans on Earth – at least as far as they knew – were sitting around the room. Anne and Will sat on one side studying a printed circuit diagram spread out on the table in front of them. Will was looking slightly confused as Anne ran a finger over the drawing and explained something quietly to him. Liz and Nat were on the other side of the room, chatting to each other as they busily cleaned the components of the field-stripped assault rifles that lay on a cloth on the low table. The two best friends were as inseparable as ever. Jack and Jay were sitting on one of the motley assortment of scavenged sofas arranged in the centre of the room. Jack punched Jay gently in the arm and laughed as he finished telling him yet another of his terrible, slightly smutty jokes.

  Sam stood for a moment and listened to them talking and laughing with the easy familiarity of people who had been through hell together and lived to tell the tale. It was hard to believe that he had only met them all just over a year ago; now they felt like his brothers and sisters.

  ‘Everyone’s here,’ Jay said, standing up and walking towards him.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sam said. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about this before. It’s just . . . well . . . it’s difficult.’

  ‘Ah, don’t worry about it,’ Jay said with a crooked smile. ‘I might have overreacted a bit. I’m just worried about you. At first I thought you were upset about what happened to Rachel. I know how close you were. I loved her too. But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?’

  ‘I’ll explain everything in a minute, I promise,’ Sam said, ‘but something else is happening that we need to talk about first.’

  ‘Something bad?’ Jay asked.

  ‘It’s definitely looking that way. Come on.’

  Sam walked over to the middle of the room and waited a few seconds for the others to fall silent.

  ‘Morning, guys,’ he said. ‘I’ve just spoken to Doctor Stirling and –’

  Sam stopped and gave a startled gasp, his eyes widening and his head tipping back as he dropped to his knees, his arms going limp at his sides. His mouth flew open and an unearthly howl of agony burst forth. His eyes flared with a bright blue light that spread like a web, first across his face and then down his neck. The others looked on in horror as Sam tipped forward and fell to the ground face first. Jay rushed over to him and gently rolled him over. The bright blue light was fading from Sam’s unconscious, vacant eyes. His hair was completely gone, replaced by a pattern of thick cranial ridges covered with glowing blue lines that ran all the way back from the corners of his eyes and over the sides of his pale-skinned skull.

  ‘What the hell is happening?’ Will stared down at Sam as the others, still in shock, gathered around their friend’s prone body.

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ Jay said, fear creeping into his voice. ‘Somebody needs to go and get Stirling, NOW!’

  Nat sprinted out of the room as Anne knelt beside Jay and looked into Sam’s eyes. She turned her head to one side and put her cheek just above his open mouth.

  ‘Oh God, he’s not breathing,’ she said, her hands flying to Sam’s limp wrist. ‘I’ve got no pulse either. Will, start compressions.’

  Anne placed her mouth over Sam’s as Will pushed Jay
aside and dropped to his knees, lacing his fingers together over the centre of Sam’s chest. He began to count rhythmically while he pressed down hard on Sam’s sternum. Jay backed away, giving Anne and Will room to work. Of all the people in the room they were the ones that Stirling had given the most extensive medical training to; there was nothing Jay could do for Sam right now that they couldn’t do better.

  ‘Still nothing,’ Anne said after thirty seconds, an unmistakeable note of panic in her voice. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘Why does he look like that?’ Jack asked, staring at Sam with a bewildered expression. ‘What’s happened to him?’

  ‘Yeah, Mag.’ Jay turned towards her, his features twisted. ‘Any idea why Sam suddenly looks just like one of the Illuminate? Is this what he was going to tell us? Is this the secret you’ve been keeping?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mag said quietly. ‘It happened in Tokyo when we were fighting Talon. He made me promise not to tell anyone.’

  Jay thought back to the final battle between them and the insane Illuminate warrior. In the last moments of the fight, something had happened to Sam and he had transformed briefly into the cloud state that the Illuminate could choose to shift into. Jay had asked Sam about it afterwards, but Sam had insisted it was just a one-time thing, some strange power his father, the only other living member of the Illuminate race, had passed on to him at the moment of his death. Clearly, whatever it was that Suran had given him, the transfer had been more permanent than Sam had been prepared to admit.

  ‘God damn it, where’s Stirling?’ Jay hissed, seeing a panicked glance pass between Anne and Will as they fought to save his best friend’s life.

  It wasn’t until nearly a minute later that the doors to the common room flew open and Stirling and Nat sprinted through. Stirling ran over and placed the large plastic case he’d been carrying on the floor next to Sam’s body. His frown deepened as he saw the transformation Sam had undergone.

  ‘Anything?’ Stirling asked as he popped the clasps on the case. Anne just shook her head in reply.

  ‘OK, everyone stand back,’ Stirling barked, pulling the defibrillator paddles from the case, which gave a high-pitched whine as the machine began its brief charging cycle.

  ‘Clear!’ Stirling yelled as he placed the paddles in what he hoped was the correct position on Sam’s chest. If the physical change he’d undergone had affected his internal organs in any way, there was no guarantee that the shock wouldn’t do more harm than good, but they were fast running out of options. Anne and Will leapt back from Sam, and Stirling pulled the triggers on the handles. Sam’s body jerked, his back arching up off the floor as the machine tried to shock his heart back into its normal rhythm. Anne quickly grabbed Sam’s wrist again while Stirling pulled the paddles clear.

  ‘No pulse,’ Anne said, her voice cracking with emotion.

  Stirling gave a nod and glanced at the display inside the case, silently willing the machine to recharge more quickly.

  ‘Charging . . . charging . . . charging . . . clear!’

  Sam’s body convulsed again.

  ‘Nothing,’ Anne said, tears welling up in her eyes as once again she vainly searched for any sign of a pulse.

  ‘Come on, Sam,’ Stirling muttered under his breath as the defibrillator ran through its charging cycle yet again. ‘Not after everything you’ve been through, not like this.’

  The charging display lit up.

  ‘Clear!’

  There was a sudden explosion of blue light and a concussive wave that plunged the room into darkness and blew everything away from Sam’s body, people and furniture flying through the air. Seconds later the room was bright blue, lit by the glow of an energy field that cocooned Sam within a crackling dome. Jay was the first to his feet and he ran back towards Sam, the crackling of the field intensifying as he approached.

  ‘Jacob! No!’ Stirling yelled.

  Jay was two metres away when a bolt of energy shot from the dome’s surface and struck him squarely in the centre of his chest, hurling him backwards with a crunch on to the splintered remains of a chair. Mag ran over to where he had landed, being sure to stay a safe distance from the shimmering dome in the centre of the room. Jay gave a pained groan as the others began picking themselves up off the ground.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mag asked, squatting beside him.

  ‘That really hurt,’ Jay croaked, sitting up. He looked slightly pale, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  ‘Is everyone else OK?’ Stirling yelled as the others slowly got to their feet. They all appeared to be relatively unharmed, barring some scratches and bruises. Stirling cautiously approached the humming energy field, listening carefully as, once again, the crackling sound started to rise in pitch.

  ‘Right, so that’s near enough, is it?’ Stirling muttered to himself, before turning and addressing the others. ‘Nobody get any closer to this thing. You all saw what happened to Jacob.’

  Stirling peered through the translucent surface of the glowing bubble. He watched for several long seconds and was finally relieved to see Sam’s chest rise just a fraction and then fall again. His breathing was shallow, but at least he was breathing.

  ‘What is that thing?’ Jack asked, his face lit up by the glow from the field.

  Without warning, the Servant appeared from thin air, her body simply materialising from within a swirling golden cloud of Voidborn nanites. She walked towards the field and it discharged again, sending a bright blue arc lancing between the surface of the glowing dome and her chest. The Servant continued to advance, the coruscating beam of energy dancing across her torso as she placed a single hand on the field, apparently unconcerned by the assault. A few seconds later she removed her hand from the field and walked back towards Stirling.

  ‘Please do not approach me,’ the Servant said calmly. ‘The outer shell of this configuration is currently at a temperature of seven hundred and forty-nine kelvin.’

  She was standing several metres away from him, but Stirling could indeed feel the heat radiating off her body.

  ‘I detected a surge of unprecedented power with an unknown quantum signature,’ the Servant said calmly. ‘The energy field currently surrounding the Illuminate would appear to be responsible.’

  The Servant had referred to Sam as the Illuminate since they had first encountered her, but this was the first time that the name appeared to be a true match for his physical form.

  ‘Unknown signature?’ Stirling asked, frowning. ‘So this isn’t something created by Illuminate technology?’

  ‘I no longer have access to any of the Voidborn data archives on Illuminate technology. I cannot tell you whether or not this is a phenomenon that the Voidborn had encountered prior to the point at which I was severed from their collective consciousness.’

  ‘In other words, you have no idea,’ Anne said, staring at the glowing bubble.

  ‘That is correct,’ the Servant replied. ‘I do know that none of the technology on board either of the vessels under the Illuminate’s control is capable of breaching a force field of this power.’

  ‘So we’re not getting in there any time soon,’ Jay said. ‘There’s something I need you to tell me: do you know what happened to Sam in Tokyo too? Why he looks that way?’

  ‘I am forbidden from discussing that subject with you,’ the Servant replied.

  ‘Forbidden?’ Jack said. ‘Forbidden by who exactly?’

  ‘The Illuminate,’ the Servant replied calmly.

  ‘There’s no point trying to get anything out of you, then,’ Jay said, as he stood up with a wary glance at the crackling energy field surrounding his friend. He turned and pointed at Mag. ‘So it looks like it’s up to you to fill us in.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know much more than you do,’ Mag said, holding her hands up in front of herself defensively. ‘I knew something had happened to him in Tokyo. I could smell it on him. It’s hard to explain really, but I knew that something was different about him.’

  ‘She�
€™s right, Jay,’ Nat said. ‘We all saw it. Sam wasn’t the same when he came back from Japan. He didn’t talk to anyone as much as he used to and he started spending a lot more time on his own. I just put it down to what happened to Rachel and finding out the truth about his dad, but . . . well . . . looks like there might have been a bit more to it than that.’

  ‘Well, we all knew he had absorbed some of the Illuminate abilities from his father in Tokyo,’ Stirling said. ‘He told us that was ultimately how he was able to defeat Talon, but he insisted he had lost all access to those abilities as soon as that fight was won. I gave him a thorough physical examination when he returned and he appeared completely normal. It’s starting to look like he may have retained access to those abilities after all.’

  ‘I ended up following him when he left the compound a couple of weeks ago,’ Mag said. ‘He told me he was going out on a scouting run to check on a couple of the Sleeper dormitories on the other side of the river, but I could tell he was lying. I was worried about him, so I followed him to a warehouse a few miles away and caught him without his mask on, so to speak. He made me promise not to tell anyone. He didn’t understand what was happening to him and he was scared of how you might all react if you saw him like this.’ She waved a hand towards the energy bubble. ‘I know what it’s like to feel like that, so I agreed. He knew he couldn’t keep it a secret from you guys for ever, in fact he was about to tell all of you about what had happened to him. That’s why he wanted to get everyone together, but then this thing with the Doc, whatever it was, came up and he never got the chance.’

  ‘You should have told us,’ Jay said angrily, ‘both of you. I don’t like being lied to, especially by people I thought I could trust. We might have been able to help him, to stop this from happening if we’d known, but now it’s too late, isn’t it?’

  ‘I told him that,’ Mag replied. ‘I didn’t make the decision not to tell anyone, so don’t make this my fault.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see anyone else to blame round here,’ Jay said with a nasty edge in his voice. ‘Unless there is someone else who’s responsible, but you’ve decided to keep it a secret from us. Who knows?’