Dark Rising

FORTY

Ahmad Al Janaddi swore in Farsi as he looked at the security console. Warning lights flashed and alarms screamed all over the complex – intruder alerts, motion sensor activity in areas that should have been empty, fires burning in level five and now level two. Too much noise, he thought. He flicked off as many alarms as he could control from his console, and gradually the clamour receded and the pulsing red lights returned to green.

The scientist stood back from the desk, narrowing his eyes as his mind worked. It would be best if the president remained unaware of what was going on until the Americans had things under control. And if they somehow managed to capture the president, then no one would dare to attack them. Al Janaddi smiled; he could actually be living in America soon. The thought made him tingle from his chest all the way down to his toes.

He was turning away from the console when his face fell. What if it isn’t the Americans? What if it’s the Israelis? They’ll kill us all.

He reached for the phone on his desk and spoke rapidly, slamming the receiver down when he had finished. He had instructed his security detail to report to him immediately when they sighted the infiltrators. If they were Americans, he would guide them right into the sphere room. If they weren’t, he’d simply resecure the facility and trap them on one of the floors where they would be taken care of by the Jamshid II security personnel or the fanatical Takavaran.

President Moshaddam was touching down in fifteen minutes and Al Janaddi anticipated they would need at least an hour to run the Judgment Event demonstration and complete the president’s tour. Allah, give me speed. He needed more time, but dared not try to stall the president. The man seemed able to look into one’s very soul and smell deception. There was nothing he could do now but pray he had made the right choice.

Al Janaddi walked slowly to a white cabinet set into the wall and pulled open one of the lower drawers. He knew that if he had made the wrong choice, he was finished. If he chose right… well, best to be prepared. Keeping his back to the room, he reached in and selected a small thin device the size of his thumb, which he had in the palm of his hand. He stood and pushed his fists into his coat pockets, then sauntered back to his console with stiff legs. Calm down, he thought. He pushed the mass storage device into the master console’s port. A dialogue box, Save Y/N, appeared on his screen. He half-turned, his right eye straining to use its peripheral vision. Satisfied that no one was watching, he turned back and clicked ‘Y’. A bar appeared on the screen and started to climb like a thermometer left out in the summer sunshine.

It took only a few minutes, but to the little scientist it was as if time had slowed and the screen was screaming out his deceit in phosphorescent green.

‘Oh, merciful Allah, watch over me,’ he whispered softly as the data save completed. He quickly pulled the device from the console and pushed it back into his pocket.

Al Janaddi straightened his back. He felt a little unsteady on his feet, and as he swallowed he tasted bile in the back of his throat. He turned slowly, trying to appear as normal as he could, and met the eyes of one of his technicians. He froze and stared. The man nodded and made a thumbs up gesture. Al Janaddi returned the gesture and leaned against the desk behind him, lest his trembling knees throw him to the floor.

He sucked in an enormous breath. Stay calm. Things must appear normal, he told himself. The president must be fully occupied; everyone must be fully occupied. He watched the technicians putting the finishing touches to the sphere room and undertaking the final checks to ensure all was ready in time for the president’s arrival. Each time a Judgment Event was undertaken, the damage was an almost perfect circle over 500 feet in diameter. Each time they rebuilt, they learned new ways to speed up the reconstruction process. Rather than refill the hole, they simply built across it, suspending the flooring of the vast chamber on replaceable metal beams covered by wooden planking with a thin layer of spray-on concrete for additional strength. A rubberised sealant was then applied, giving it the appearance of permanent flooring. The new structure had more than enough strength to take the weight of the sphere and the lead capsule, and was now replaceable within twenty-four hours. The laser-enhancement spheres were now pre-constructed and could simply be attached and reintegrated with the supporting electronics each time. Al Janaddi gave a half-smile. It was a fully disposable laboratory – just add some martyrs and a few billion rials and you were ready to go.

A new lead capsule was already in place, constructed according to the president’s design. The exterior had been decorated with Persian prayers and the names of the prophets, all swirling in beautiful calligraphy over every inch of the capsule. Inside was the homing beacon and communication equipment, although Al Janaddi doubted they would ever be of use. There was one more special addition to this particular capsule – a shoebox-sized padded container for an as yet unknown item. The president had inferred that he would be bringing a guest with him who would be travelling in the capsule. Oh, lucky man, thought the scientist.

He pursed his lips as he thought of the result of their first test, locked away in the containment room. Once the president had gone, he would have the poor thing put out of its misery and its remains cremated. He shuddered at the thought of the creature and marvelled at how it managed to keep on surviving when its organs and body were so grotesquely distorted. He didn’t understand why the president wanted it kept alive. It would be best to have that mistake well and truly dealt with before his Nobel Prize. Ahhh, life will be good then. If he could only get through this one final demonstration to his fanatical president.

The creature followed the thermal traces of the HAWCs’ footsteps across the cold sub-basement ground and quickly found the doorway to the stairwell. It needed to compress its segmented exoskeleton to fit through the frame as its broad, flattened body was not made for the tall and narrow structures these smaller animals seemed to favour. Its eyestalks swivelled to take in the small space and the stairs to the next levels. It sensed danger, but couldn’t detect any movement or sound from the stairwell.

It moved forward warily, and had just placed one sharp leg on the bottom step to test its purchase when two small boxes fell upon it.

The explosive spiders had been placed high on either side of the doorframe, and had been activated by the creature’s movement. In a microsecond they scanned their catalogue of friendly signatures and didn’t find a match – unsurprising, as the creature’s strange physical signature could not have been categorised by any but the most demented of military programmers. The spiders leapt from their ambush placement to land on the flattened, heavily armoured back.

For a being that weighed several tons, the creature moved with an unnatural swiftness – perhaps due to the lighter gravity of earth, or to an exoskeleton that allowed more surface area for muscle attachment. It lashed out at the little boxes faster than any human eye could follow, crushed one as if it was no more than silver foil.

The second exploded on its back carapace, causing it to wheel around in anger then rear up in defence. The small explosive charge created little damage to the creature’s hardened procuticle – it had evolved under a different sun and was suited to conditions far more arduous than those of this benign planet. But there was a consequence of the charge, and not one the HAWCs could have expected. It ignited in the monster a primal fury that would not be satisfied by merely feeding on the small creatures it searched for. Now it wanted to rend them to shreds.

Five flights up, the subsonic scream of rage smashed into Alex’s brain like a spike. He winced and shook his head to clear away the blinding fog of pain. They were about to be squeezed, and he for one preferred the potential human danger behind the door to what was about to climb those steps.

The sound of the explosion caused the team to halt and look to Alex.

‘Sam, Rocky, get us through that door – now,’ he ordered.

He peered over the railing; smoke was still billowing around the bottom of the stairwell five flights below and he could see nothing moving in the hot fog of the explosion.

‘Irish, watch our backs.’

O’Riordan nodded, stepped down a few stairs and looked over the railing. He smiled; the redheaded HAWC seemed to be looking forward to the coming battle.