Dark Rising

TWENTY

Ahmad Al Janaddi looked with a critical eye through the four-inch-thick lead-plated glass window at the Jamshid II facility’s main testing floor. Images from every section of the room were displayed on multiple screens, the recordings taken in a continuous loop. Sophisticated computer programs allowed him to pass much of the control of the experiment over to the electronic equipment, and the high-speed drives would capture images of the event down to the micro-millisecond. Further data on atmospheric density, thermal, infrared and other spectrum wavelengths would also be collected. Nothing would be missed this time.

The reinforced concrete chamber with its lead-lined panelling was both awe-inspiring and intimidating. The sleek and gleaming silver globe sat at its centre, surrounded by walls studded and spiked by hundreds of different sensors and lenses that would observe the creation of a perforation into the very matter of the universe. It could have been a small spaceship that had landed and was preparing to disgorge creatures from another planet.

A thick white line circled the floor around the unearthly shimmering sphere. This was where the president’s ‘volunteers’ would stand during the event – the ‘opening of Allah’s Gateway’ as he liked to call it. Al Janaddi remembered the screams of anguish that had shrieked from the speakers the last time the sphere had been activated. These men and women may as well be stepping into a furnace, he thought. He just hoped the waist-high black steel cylinders covered in lenses and sensitive recording equipment that also stood on the line would be able to withstand whatever occurred; at least then they would obtain a basic understanding of how, when and where the subjects went. The sooner they knew that, the less likely the president would demand that more people ‘volunteer’.

With the current design, the experiment could be repeated as many times as they wished. But it took time: the concrete had to dry, the lead panelling had to be moulded into place and the sphere repositioned. The president was growing more impatient by the day, and it was not uncommon for Al Janaddi to receive calls in the morning and the evening to discuss progress.

He looked up as the volunteers were led in – eight villagers, a few local clerics, and a young couple, a man and a woman, who looked out of place amongst the elderly group. This small gathering was the ‘lucky’ pious – men and women who had begged to be given the opportunity to stand before their God.

Al Janaddi studied the youthful couple for a moment. They both wore the uniform of the young conservative: he, a cheaply cut blue suit with stiff white shirt and no tie; and the girl, a black manteau – the heavy overcoat that buttoned from the collar to below the knee. Her only personal touch – whether as a small sign of individuality or rebellion – was her scarf, which was royal blue with small golden tulips and intricate crimson scrolling reminiscent of Persian calligraphy. It framed her beautiful face with its perfect milk and honey complexion.

The couple turned to each other, their hands clasped in prayer, just the tips of their small fingers touching. What are they doing here? Al Janaddi thought as he watched the attending technicians prepare them for the event.

The head-to-toe, fully lead-impregnated protective suits, each weighing around one hundred pounds, were finished with regular sunglasses. The president had suggested that each martyr should have an automated homing beacon with global satellite positioning implanted under the skin, which would act like a mini black box device. As he had said to Al Janaddi: ‘As long as we get one of the boxes back, then the surrounding flesh doesn’t matter.’

Once the volunteers were in place, one of the clerics led them in prayer. The haunting sound stretched and bounced around the enormous chamber and it was hard not to feel touched by the melodious chanting. The cleric explained that some of them would be martyred, that they would stand before God to be judged and, if they were pure, would be exalted and given eternal sanctuary in Jannah for themselves and all their relatives.

The young couple looked at each other and their hands met. She took hold of his fingertips and smiled shyly. Al Janaddi looked down at his slightly scuffed shoes and wondered what it was like to have such an unwavering faith. Perhaps if these poor, brave, foolish souls knew they had little chance of surviving, they may have prayed for something very different.

He gave the order for all the technicians to exit the chamber, then, over the speaker, bade the volunteers to go with God. He noticed a puddle of urine at the feet of one of the older villagers and felt a pang of sympathy for the ragged little carpet weaver – perhaps not all of them expected to find heaven after all. Allah keep you all safe, he thought.

He turned to his command centre, where every scientist and technician was hunched over the banks of monitoring equipment. He raised his voice slightly: ‘Green light in sixty seconds.’ He was greeted by an array of thumbs ups and a few Allahu Akbars.

‘Countdown in ten seconds,’ he said. His heart sped up in anticipation and he continued the count: ‘Five… four… three

… two… one…’ He switched on the homing beacons and initiated the particle acceleration lasers. The lights dimmed.

They were all returning now. Al Janaddi thought it like a conjuror’s trick – one minute the international grid screen showed all twelve of the beacons clustered around the sphere in the Arak facility, then in the next moment they disappeared. Then, almost magically, they began to reappear on the grid, scattered all over the globe – some high in mountains or below the ground, some deep beneath the oceans. Al Janaddi counted: Five… eight… eleven… one short.

Many of the beacons faded quickly, perhaps crushed by deep-sea pressure or melted by volcanic flow beneath a mountain range. But a few continued to deliver their electronic signal loud and clear. Now Al Janaddi needed to retrieve those bodies before anyone else.

He reached for the phone and spoke quickly to Commander Bhakazarri, who would mobilise the recovery forces, retrieval teams for the bodies still in the Middle East and using agents or local sympathisers when the ‘packages’ were in less accessible countries.

While Al Janaddi was providing the exact longitude and latitude locations of the homing beacons, his eyes widened. One of the beacons was on the move – slowly, but definitely shifting from where it had first arrived.

One of the test subjects had returned alive.