Extinction

1

Umbebe looked gravely into the camcorder held by one of his loyal followers, ensconced now in the main control room of the Ionospheric Research Array. The video of his speech — as well as a visual tour of the captured facility to prove his words — would be put out on the web, and would be picked up by news agencies around the world in seconds. Within the hour, Umbebe was confident that almost every man, woman and child on the globe would know about it.

The assault had gone perfectly, and his team of crack international commandos had met little resistance. The head of base security, Colonel Anderson, wasn’t even there to help organize a cohesive defence, and so the facility fell with ease — almost as if it was meant to be, Umbebe had mused as he received the word from his team leaders that the complex was secure.

But now was the time for his final message to the world, and he settled himself. His entire life had led him to this single point, and he truly believed that it was his destiny. What he wanted to achieve today was no less than the desire of the universe itself.

‘Extinction,’ Umbebe intoned in his deeply melodious voice, ‘is inevitable. It always has been, ever since the dawn of time. It is the very nature of things.

‘There have been seven such extinction events over the course of our planet’s history, great upheavals which have resulted in catastrophic loss of life. My own order has charted these events with scientific rigour over the past thousand years, and we have discerned a pattern amidst the apparent chaos. It shows that the world is a living organism, expanding and contracting. Sometimes life on this planet explodes and we are faced with a multitude of new and incredibly diverse species; at other times, life is expunged. Think of it like a lung. What happens if air keeps filling the lung? It cannot expand forever, and without contraction, the organism will die.

‘This is what is happening on our planet. We are continually expanding, with no checks and balances. We are going to kill the organism before long.

‘Believe me, my brothers and sisters around the world, we are about to enter a very necessary period of contraction. Just as our order’s scientists have predicted, our time here on earth is at an end. We have pushed it out as far as we can with our technological perversion of the environment, but we cannot let it continue any longer. The time has come for the great sacrifice, which we must make together.

‘This broadcast comes to you from a government installation known as the High-frequency Ionospheric Research Project, based up near the Arctic Circle. The communications and navigation technology it purports to research is merely a cover. The real purpose of this facility is something called Spectrum Nine.

‘Spectrum Nine is what has been causing the strange phenomena you have been experiencing in recent weeks, aberrant behaviour across the natural world. Even the moving statue was but a side effect of the weapon’s testing process. It is a weapon of truly epic proportions. Evidence of its power is came a few days ago when that small island was completely destroyed.’

Umbebe paused, to let his words sink in. ‘Yes, brothers and sisters, Spectrum Nine destroyed that island. And it can do much more than that. By manipulating sound waves within the recently discovered, so-called ninth spectrum, whoever controls the weapon can control the weather. And whoever controls the weather can create disaster.’ Umbebe raised his arms to the camera, hands wide open as if he was conjuring the disasters himself. ‘Earthquakes, tidal waves, typhoons, volcanic explosions, floods, storms, death and destruction on an unimaginable scale — Spectrum Nine can create it all.

‘And now, my brothers and sisters, the weapon is in the hands of the Order of Planetary Renewal. We attacked the facility earlier today, and have complete control of the entire system. Some of you may wonder what we are after; in other words, what do we want? What will make us refrain from using the device? My answer to you all is, nothing. There is nothing that will stop us. We did not capture the weapon to negotiate. We captured the weapon in order to use it. And use it we will.

‘We will unleash Spectrum Nine, and the result will be the annihilation of life on earth as we presently know it. This must now be accepted as cold, hard fact.

‘I make this broadcast not to terrify, but to inform. There is no going back, nothing that can be done to save you. What happens after the weapon has been unleashed is up to fate. Will humanity survive, perhaps in small isolated pockets? It is possible, of course. Unlikely, but possible. Who knows how the planet will restructure itself after its cleansing? But cleanse it we must,’ Umbebe said forcefully. ‘And we, the true faithful of the Order of Planetary Renewal, are proud to be the instrument of the universe’s will.

‘I give you notice so that you may ready yourselves. The road will not be easy, but accept it you must. Six hours from now, the world as you know it will come to an end.’

The four passengers watched Umbebe’s video together in the helicopter’s cabin, their differences momentarily forgotten.

It was Anderson who recovered his composure first. ‘It doesn’t matter any more anyway,’ he said. ‘We might as well kill them now. Two less witnesses when this comes to court.’ He raised his gun towards Alyssa and Jack.

‘He’s right in a way,’ Tomkin agreed. ‘Whatever evidence you have on you is moot now anyway. Our involvement will be front-page news by tomorrow. So fewer witnesses are a good thing.’

‘If there is a tomorrow,’ Jack shot back. ‘What was the answer when you asked about available assets on the phone earlier?’ Jack saw the look on Tomkin’s face and nodded his head. ‘Exactly. There are no assets available, because everyone’s tied up with the civil unrest. So why don’t you tell us your plans for recapturing the base?’

‘Watch your tongue, Murray,’ snapped Anderson.

‘They’re not going to use the weapon,’ Tomkin said. ‘Terrorists don’t follow through with threats like that. They want to negotiate, despite their words. They want something. People always do.’

‘You must be crazy,’ Alyssa said. ‘Did you hear the man? He’s probably been the one instigating the riots right from the start. His people have been everywhere since this whole thing began. And you don’t think he’s going to use it? I’ve read the plans,’ she said accusingly, fixing Tomkin with an icy stare. ‘If you were going to use it, why won’t they?’

‘We were going to use it selectively,’ Tomkin said instantly. ‘Our enemies would die, and we would win. What does he win if he destroys the whole world? He’d die too. What would it get him?’

‘Can’t you see?’ Alyssa said. ‘He believes what he’s doing is right. And whether he’s insane or not, he now has control of the world’s most powerful weapon. So what can we do to stop him?’

‘Tactical missile strike,’ Anderson said, his attention at last turning away from Alyssa and Jack to grasp the enormity of the situation. ‘We take the base out completely.’

Tomkin shook his head. ‘Can you imagine the chaos erupting around the President right now?’ he asked. ‘What is this weapon? Why didn’t I know about it? I mean, it’ll be hours before it’s even confirmed that there is such a weapon. And then authorizing such a strike, on our own soil, would take even longer. We have thousands of our own citizens there! The President would have to be one hundred per cent convinced that the threat was real. The problem is that there is no precedent for this, no protocol for him to follow. And even if an order was given in time, there are other complications. HIRP is probably the world’s most isolated research base. Submarines are out of range, our carrier fleets have been diverted to Asia and the Middle East, and it would take hours to arm and fuel our long-range bombers.’

‘Do we have any special operations forces in the area?’ Anderson asked.

‘None. Most of them are preparing for deployment to those same countries where the carrier groups are headed. In fact, many have got their feet covertly on the ground for reconnaissance already. There’s no way we can pull them back in time to launch an operation on the other side of the world.’

‘Other countries?’ Anderson persisted.

‘I’m not sure. Most are involved in their own civil crises, some are providing disaster relief and others are joining our own troops in the wrong part of the world. And it would take forever to sort through the red tape for such an operation, even if there were forces available.’ Tomkin squared his shoulders, seeming to come to a conclusion. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘have you got men on that chopper back at the DoD?’

Anderson nodded. ‘Yes, sir, six of my best.’

Tomkin nodded. ‘Get them rerouted to the air base, have them meet us there. We’ve got a plane ready and fuelled, with a flight plan filed. We’re going to spend the next few minutes calling all our contacts here in the city. Anybody trained, we want them with us. The plane will hold sixty, so let’s see what we can do. We started this thing, and it’s our responsibility to finish it. Let’s call in all our favours and get that plane filled.’ Tomkin looked at Anderson. ‘Colonel, you know that base better than anyone. With you leading the party, we might have a chance of retaking it.’

‘Sir,’ Anderson protested, ‘we have no idea how many people they have, where they’re posted, what kind of weapons we’ll be facing, and we’re only going to have a one-hour window to launch the counter-attack when we get there.’

Tomkin just stared at him. ‘What other options do we have?’

Anderson looked out through the window at the blue, clear sky. Eventually, he made a decision. ‘I can get some men rounded up,’ he confirmed. ‘We can plan and rehearse on the plane while we’re flying. We can get all the schematics of the base, I can identify likely points for the enemy to be stationed. We’ll look at worst-case scenarios and take it from there.’

Tomkin inclined his head, glad to have Anderson back on board.

‘But I’ll need something else too,’ Anderson said stiffly, and Alyssa wondered what it was. Surely he wasn’t going to ask for permission to shoot them, was he?

‘What’s that, Colonel?’ Tomkin asked.

Anderson nodded at Jack. ‘I’ll need Murray with me, sir,’ he said. ‘He knows the base security systems better than anybody. With him, we just might succeed.’

2

The flight north was long but over all too quickly for Alyssa.

After the decision had been made to launch a counter-attack, Tomkin and Anderson had been on their phones all the way to the airport, contacting everyone they knew in the area. By the time the plane was ready to take off half an hour later, it was nearly full with fifty-four grim-faced soldiers, and a cargo-hold full of arms.

Alyssa was on board too, although held separately. She was being taken as insurance, in a way. Jack appeared keen to help but Anderson, ever suspicious, decided that he might need a bit more inducement. Alyssa was therefore being taken along as a hostage.

She spent the flight looking across the plane at Jack, locked in conversation with Anderson. It was clear that, despite the circumstances, he was in his element, lecturing the colonel and the other team leaders on HIRP’s security protocols. For a lot of the journey, Jack was also entering information on to a powerful laptop computer, and Alyssa wondered if he was able to access the security systems remotely. Was he already creating the conditions that would enable the shock troops to get close to the base without being seen? She remembered how he had created that invisible corridor, unwatched by security cameras, when they had climbed the roof of the main control building and they had first kissed; only days ago, but it seemed a lifetime.

She was sorry — so achingly sorry — that she couldn’t spend the hours of the flight together with Jack. They had been through so much together in such a short time; the intensity of their experience was like nothing she had felt in her life before. Other experiences had been intensely bad — the long, drawn-out and painful death of her husband, the shocking, all-too-sudden death of her daughter — but this had been intensely good, despite everything. It had all been worth it, to find Jack.

And as she watched him across the plane for hours — as the soldiers ripped out chairs to give themselves room to rehearse their team procedures, as they gathered around a mock-up scale model of the base, as they cleaned and prepared their personal equipment — she knew in her heart of hearts how she felt.

She was in love with Jack Murray.

‘Alyssa,’ Jack breathed softly, her head buried in the warm skin of his neck. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He held her hands, kissed them. ‘I have to go.’

Tears welled up in her eyes, although she tried to stop them. ‘I know,’ she whispered weakly. ‘I know.’

Jack would be accompanying the preliminary assault party, leading them into the base with Anderson. He had apparently already adjusted part of the system remotely, but the closer he got, the more he would be able to do. As Anderson had hoped, he would be able to make them invisible.

When the aircraft landed, Alyssa was surprised by Tomkin’s humanity when he allowed them a few brief moments together before Jack left. Tomkin, too old now for such an assault, would remain with Alyssa to keep an eye on her.

She knew she was unlikely to ever see Jack again, which made these last few moments so especially painful.

She pulled him close, looking into his deep blue eyes. ‘But I want you to know, whatever happens… I love you.’

And with that, she kissed him once on the lips and turned back inside the aircraft, not waiting to hear his answer.

It would have been too painful to bear.

During the flight, Anderson had been in touch with the director of Allenburg Airport. Upon landing, the entire team and their equipment were transferred to helicopters, which landed in hidden clearings in the forest just outside the base perimeter.

A control tent was set up in one of the clearings, where Tomkin took command of the radio communications equipment, enabling him to give direction from afar.

Alyssa was secured to a chair, and the soldiers received their final mission briefings and disappeared into the forest like silent wraiths, Jack right next to Colonel Anderson.

Alyssa’s face burned in the cold night air. All she could do now was sit and listen to the counter-attack as it unfolded live over the radio.

3

The sounds of violence that penetrated the cool mountain air were horrific.

Over the radio, Alyssa heard the screams of dying men alongside gunshots, explosions, and the shriek of tortured metal. Some of the same noises came to them through the surrounding trees too, echoing strangely. She heard the shouts of men issuing orders, fire commands, positions. She heard Colonel Anderson shouting at Jack, telling him to get the cameras sorted, how they were walking into a trap, an ambush…

Tomkin listened too, helplessly. He tried to issue orders over the radio, but to no avail. It was too hard to keep track of what was happening; there were too many people who had never worked with each other, following section leaders they had never met, putting into action a battle plan created on the run, against a completely unknown enemy force. It had been a recipe for disaster right from the start. But it had been all they had, and the first few minutes — after the teams had reached the perimeter and entered the base without sounding the alarm — looked positive. It seemed the electronic surveillance was on their side, and they might have some sort of chance.

Then the explosions had sounded, and Alyssa had seen the night sky light up through the trees. But it was too early to be their own troops, and Alyssa and Tomkin both realized that the teams had been compromised.

The firefight that subsequently broke out was terrifying in its intensity, and Alyssa shook with horror as she thought about Jack, there in the middle of it all without even a simple pistol to defend himself.

‘Come on, Jack!’ she heard Anderson shout over the live network. ‘Get that computer over here now!’

As he waited — presumably for Jack to get to him — Anderson reported back to Tomkin. ‘We’ve been ambushed, sir,’ he said desperately. ‘We’ve already lost most of our men. They must have known we were coming.’ He breathed heavily, and gunfire momentarily interrupted the transmission. ‘But I’ve made it as far as the radar array. I’ve still got two men and Jack with me. I— Jack! Jack!’ Anderson called, his report forgotten.

Alyssa’s heart stopped as explosions and gunfire drowned out Anderson’s screams, leaving only silence at the other end of the radio.

‘I’m going,’ Alyssa said.

Tomkin shook his head. ‘It’s out of the question. They’ve been defeated. We’ve lost them. The best thing we can do now is find some place to take cover. Even if they do use the weapon, this is going to be the last place to go, so we’ve got time. And what are you going to do anyway? Fifty men have just failed.’

Alyssa stood her ground, adamant. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I know he’s in there. I know he’s still alive.’

‘Murray?’ Tomkin asked in disbelief. ‘Not a chance. He didn’t even have a gun.’ He looked at Alyssa. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.’

‘Look, General,’ Alyssa said. ‘You give up if you want to. What do you care now what I do? Just untie me and let me try.’

Tomkin sat back and considered her words, then leant forward and cut her restraints. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter to me what you do. I’ve got more important things to worry about.’

Alyssa inclined her head in thanks, about to race into the woods, but Tomkin put a hand to her chest to stop her. ‘But please,’ he said, holding a pistol out towards her, ‘at least take my gun.’

Twenty minutes later, Alyssa wondered what the hell she was doing.

She had remembered the cliff from her previous visit, how she had been told that it was all but unclimbable, and how guards didn’t even bother to patrol that section of the fence line.

She knew that the assault teams had not chosen this route but tried to enter from the three flat sides. She wasn’t surprised — time was of the essence, and such a climb could only be made by an expert. They couldn’t have taken the chance of losing people before they’d even made it to the base. But she had decided it was worth a shot, and she’d raced through the forest that encircled the facility, following the trails down in a wide, sloping arc to the foot of the cliff.

She gazed up at it now with foreboding. It looked treacherous as hell. She rotated her head, her neck clicking, then shook her entire body, getting the blood pumping, the adrenalin flowing. She knew adrenalin would be her friend on the cliff face.

But she found it hard to move, hard to take those first few tentative steps. Scenes from the past flashed before her eyes — falling in the tractor from the top of the cliff just a few days before; another cliff, the one she had been climbing that day long ago, in other mountains; her race up the ladder to the chair lift cables; Anna’s death scream filling the valley.

She snapped out of it, forcing herself to look at her watch. Just half an hour to go before Spectrum Nine would be switched on. For a horrifying second, she vividly recalled the radar array blasting that beam of concentrated energy up into the sky just a few short days before, a reversed bolt of lightning that had presaged the destruction of an entire island and many thousands of people.

And then she set off up the sheer, icy rock surface, her face set in grim determination.

4

For the next twenty minutes, Alyssa climbed like she had never climbed before. Barely daring to breathe for fear the passage of air would push her off the treacherous surface, she traced her hands along the icy rock to pick out tiny fissures, small imperfections in the wall which would have been unnoticeable to most other people. On any other occasion they may well have been unnoticeable to her; but tonight, she was filled with a startling clarity of vision. Indeed, it was as if her very fingers could see, and her feet too. She was almost becoming one with the cliff face, as if she had climbed it every day of her life, she knew it so well.

As she climbed higher and higher, she barely noticed the cold wind that whipped at her and threatened to rip her off the rock wall; she was unaware when the first signs of frostbite started to attack her shredded fingertips. All she could see was the wall, disappearing beneath her as she devoured it step by step.

Jack, she repeated in her head like a mantra. Jack.

Before she realized what she had done she was at the top, pulling herself onto the rocky precipice.

She paused only momentarily to get her breath, her mind focused entirely now on getting to the base. Getting to Jack. Together, she was sure they could stop this thing.

Keeping low, she crept along the grass of the cliff top towards the seven-foot-high barbed-wire fence. The radar array was directly on the other side. She looked at her watch again; less than ten minutes to go.

She checked that her pistol was secure in her belt and raced towards the fence; there was no time for anything more subtle. She leapt high as she reached it, hands reaching out for the top. She grasped the barbed wire, ignoring the pain which shot through her cold-numbed hands, and pulled herself up and over.

The barbs caught in her stomach as she pulled herself across, cutting through her jacket and lacerating her flesh. One of the barbs caught deeply, and she moaned, pushing herself back to free it, blood running down into her trousers as she dropped heavily to the ground on the other side, her hands ripped to shreds.

Undeterred, she moved on, legs pumping as she skirted the inner wire fences of the huge radars, heading for the site’s main control room.

She could make out roving patrols of guards, and kept close to the shadows to avoid them. If they had night-vision goggles, her tactics might still be foiled, but none of the guards seemed interested in looking in her direction. They would have been briefed that the cliff-side area was impassable, and would keep their attention focused on the other side.

As she moved down past the rows of giant radars, she felt the ground shake as a powerful humming sound started to emanate from the array.

She increased her pace, her head down low, watching with horror as the vanes at the tops of the radar posts started to buzz with electricity. No, she thought. Please no.

Sounds of gunfire erupted from over the hill, towards the central control room at the front entrance. Glad that some of the good guys were still alive at least, she watched as the remaining guards moved to help their comrades, and took her chance, sprinting the remaining distance to the now unprotected cabin that housed the radar array’s command centre.

She had to step over a mangled, dead body on her way in and paused for a moment, shocked as she recognized Colonel Anderson, half of his face blown away. But where was Jack? Had he managed to escape? Had he made it inside, only to be killed?

Pulling Tomkin’s pistol from her belt, her frozen, ripped hands struggling to get a grip on it, she threw the doors open and entered the nerve centre.

5

In front of her lay the complex machinery of the radar array’s control room, completely empty except for dead bodies. She gasped as she recognized Niall Breisner and Martin King among them.

Then a door opened at the far end and a man came through.

Their eyes met, and in that split second the man began to raise his assault rifle. But Alyssa’s gun was already up, and she fired once, twice, hitting the soldier in the chest; she watched in horror as he slumped to the floor, knowing he was dead.

She had never killed anyone before, but she knew she had to quell the feelings of sick, fierce guilt that burned through her; there was no time for it.

She raced for the door the man had come through and pulled it open, wondering where it led, and if anyone had heard the shots. As she pushed through the doorway, she noticed it was a small room, like a pressure chamber. And, like a pressure chamber, there was a hatch in the floor.

She bent down and hauled the hatch open. An access tunnel, with a ladder attached to its side, descended deep into the bowels of the earth. Outside, she heard the hum and vibration as more and more radar units powered up. Steeling herself, she entered the vertical tunnel, knowing it might be the last thing she ever did.

6

At the bottom of the ladder Alyssa paused, breathing hard, one bleeding hand gripped round her gun, the other on the handle of the lower access hatch.

Summoning all her self-control, all of her considerable willpower, she pulled the door open and strode out into the brightly lit room, pistol raised in front of her.

The room was large, much like a nuclear bunker hidden deep underground. She ignored the people around the room, her eyes fixed on the man behind the computer console.

She recognized him from the television: Oswald Umbebe, the high priest of the OPR. If she could kill him, there might still be a chance.

Maybe Jack was still alive somewhere in the grounds, and when this whole thing was finished, he would be found and saved. But for now, Alyssa could only see Umbebe.

The large, impressive man turned in his chair to look at her, and for a moment she was frozen by the look of utter calm in his eyes. It was the look of a man who knew he couldn’t be stopped.

And then she noticed a shadow move on the tiled floor beside her feet, and knew with a sickening feeling that someone was standing right behind her.

7

‘Jack!’ Alyssa cried. ‘You’re OK!’ She opened her arms, so happy to see him in one piece that she all but forgot about Umbebe sitting in the chair behind her, hands on the controls of Spectrum Nine. How had Jack done it? But it didn’t matter, he was here, and together they could—

She froze. Jack was holding a gun and he was pointing it at her. ‘Jack?’

‘Alyssa…’ he said softly, almost regretfully, and, although his eyes looked sad, the gun never wavered from her chest.

‘Jack works for me,’ Umbebe’s deep baritone broke in from behind, and Alyssa’s head snapped towards him, disbelief across her face.

‘You’re a liar!’ she screamed at him, her own gun raised once more. ‘Tell me he’s wrong,’ she said to Jack pleadingly.

‘Tell her, Jack,’ the deep voice commanded.

‘Drop the gun, Alyssa,’ he said sadly. ‘It’s true.’

‘Jack,’ she said weakly. ‘I don’t understand…’

‘I work for Umbebe,’ Jack said. ‘I’m a believer.’

Alyssa’s mind seemed to buckle, along with her body.

‘I’ve been with Oswald since I was a boy,’ Jack explained. ‘My parents died, I had nothing, I was bounced from one orphange to another. Then he found me, took me in, gave me a home, taught me about the world, the universe. What he says, what the order believes in — what I believe in — it’s true.’

‘But why did you help me?’ Alyssa asked, so bewildered she did not notice the bustling activity in the operations room around her.

‘What choice did I have?’ Jack responded. ‘I’d been in place for years, feeding Oswald information. I’d found out about Spectrum Nine when it was still in its infancy, and Oswald saw the potential right away.’ He shook his head. ‘I was supposed to be here when the attack took place, help them by sabotaging the security systems. It was only sheer chance that I ended up back here anyway.’ Jack smiled wryly. ‘Anderson brought me here himself, and he never realized that instead of helping, I was feeding information to the order.

‘I was also supposed to get the access codes from the secure computers here. But when Anderson saw me with you, the plan changed. I had to escape with you, or else I might have been killed, and then I couldn’t have helped at all. After we split up, when we escaped from the motel, I managed to let Oswald know what was happening, and he told me to keep trying to get the codes. But I’d already decided to do that anyway.’

‘Is that why you came to meet me in the station café?’ Alyssa asked.

‘Yes,’ Jack replied levelly. ‘I knew you had information from the base on that flash drive, and I wanted to see if the codes were on there. But that wasn’t the only reason. I know you won’t believe me, but I wanted to see you again. I knew the world was going to be destroyed anyway, and I wanted to spend my last few hours with you.’

Alyssa tried to ignore this last statement. ‘So you weren’t trying to get the information out to the media at all?’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, I was never trying to get the information out, I just wanted the codes. As it happens, the codes weren’t on the disk anyway. That’s why I came up with the plan to break into the DoD.’

‘But what were the chances of that being successful?’ Alyssa asked. ‘We did it, but the odds were against us. What if you hadn’t got the codes?’

‘The back-up plan was for Oswald’s men to torture Breisner and King until they gave them up,’ Jack said. ‘But that would have taken time so it was never the preferred method. Oswald would have found a way to work the system one way or another. My way was just a lot cleaner. And besides, it was worth risking my life for. We’re all going to die anyway, remember?’

‘Why didn’t you just meet up with Umbebe and join the team? Get the codes here at the base like you’d originally planned?’

‘Oswald had already left; he was with the assault team up here where they were making their final preparations. I’d spent too long escaping from up here, and it would have taken forever to get back. And with everyone looking for me, there was no way I could have travelled by plane. And I meant what I said earlier,’ he said seriously. ‘I wanted to spend my last few hours with you.’

Alyssa shook her head. ‘But you were never helping me to get evidence.’

‘No,’ Jack admitted. ‘I hacked into Tomkin’s computer to get the codes for Spectrum Nine. But I knew you wouldn’t have long to live anyway, so I thought I may as well let you have the evidence, at least give you hope in your final hours.’ He paused, looked straight into her eyes. ‘You mean a lot to me.’

Alyssa’s mind spun. Who was this man in front of her? Not the man she’d thought he was, that much was certain, and the betrayal hit her like a spike through her heart. And yet, under the pressure of the chase, when their lives were at stake, she had genuinely felt that Jack loved her; she had felt it.

‘Jack,’ she pleaded, ‘don’t let him do this. This isn’t you. He’s manipulated you, used you, don’t you see? We can’t let the world end this way. Who are we to decide?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not we who decide. It’s the universe itself. It’s written in the stars, Alyssa, don’t you understand? It’s inevitable.’

‘He’s right,’ Umbebe’s voice boomed. ‘The codes have been inputted, and there is no time left. It’s all over. Embrace it, Ms Durham. It is our destiny.’

‘It doesn’t have to be,’ she said, her eyes still fixed on Jack, her mind made up. It was the only thing left that she could do. ‘Please don’t try and stop me.’

‘No!’ Jack said as she turned and raised her gun towards Umbebe.

Alyssa saw the look of surprise on Umbebe’s face as the barrel tracked towards his face.

‘Damn it, Alyssa, don’t do it!’ Jack shouted.

Umbebe’s hands came up in front of him in an instinctive gesture of protection, but Alyssa didn’t hesitate. Her finger depressed the trigger of Tomkin’s gun, and three shots hit Umbebe in the stomach, shaking him violently in his chair. His eyes went wide with shock and pain and, even more terribly, the fear of defeat and failure — before closing in death.

But Alyssa never saw the eyes close, and would never know what would happen to the world, as Jack unloaded his pistol into the back of her head, his anguished cries the last thing she ever heard.

8

Jack sagged, the impact of the last thirty seconds overwhelming him. He stared at Alyssa’s dead body on the floor, blood spilling across the tiles.

The truth was, he really had loved her, the first time he had genuinely felt the emotion for another human being; at least since his father, who had first taught him about the nature and purpose of life and death.

But he loved the planet more, and in his heart of hearts he knew Umbebe was right. The maths, the science, it was all perfect; the earth was due to be cleansed according to the great cosmic programme, and only human technology stood in its way. Flood warning systems, early earthquake detection, weapons which could knock incoming meteorites out of their trajectory with the earth — what chance did nature have? And so it was right, so absolutely right, to have the earth’s ritual cleansing brought about by the same technology that was protecting it from natural destruction.

Umbebe’s plan had been perfect. It was just a shame Alyssa had had to become involved, a shame he had let his feelings develop the way they had.

Jack walked forward, stepping over Alyssa’s body. He bent towards Umbebe and pulled him out of his chair, toppling him to the floor next to Alyssa.

His mentor had wanted to initiate the destruction of the earth, but his chance had gone.

Jack sat down in the chair and cracked his fingers. He would just have to do it himself.

9

James Rushton felt the ground shaking beneath him.

For hours now, he had heard the constant blare of car engines, horns and sirens in the streets outside. He had seen the people who worked in this building fleeing across the plaza, though nobody ever came to unlock his cell door.

And so he felt the tremors, and watched through his cell window as buildings started to fall, and the entire plaza disappeared into a giant crater as the earth ate it up whole.

He had only seconds to register the fact that he was witnessing one of the most powerful earthquakes the world had ever seen, titanic forces of nature wreaking utter destruction.

And he watched in mute fascination as the walls of his own cell collapsed, the floor giving way just as the ceiling above him disintegrated and his body was lost forever amidst three million tons of rubble.

It was what he deserved, John Jeffries realized as he stared out across the wide city boulevard. He and his colleagues had meddled with powers they shouldn’t have, and this was the result.

The President and most other members of the cabinet had been moved to secure bunkers, but Jeffries had refused. He knew the futility of such a gesture, because he knew the power of the weapon.

It was over for him almost before it began. The colossal wall of water from the tsunami moved towards him down the avenue, swallowing building after building, carrying cars, people and broken brickwork in its titanic wall.

And then it hit him, and for a glorious moment he was a part of that wall. And then he was gone, and the tidal wave continued on its unconscious mission to destroy every single thing in its path.

The snowstorm was increasing in intensity. General David Tomkin shivered as he backed away into the small cave.

He had fled the camp area with food, weapons and supplies, wandering the forest for as long as he could before he had to find shelter, somewhere to hole up until this whole damn thing was over.

But as he retreated into the cave, he realized it was already over. Snow simply didn’t fall like this naturally, and he had to respect whoever was controlling the device, for they must know that by covering the area with such a deep, impenetrable layer of snow, they would be ultimately killing themselves too.

He looked on in dismay as the snow drifted up past the entrance to his cave, so unnaturally thick and cloying that he knew he would never escape, never again set foot outside, never again breathe fresh air.

He shook his head sadly and sat down on the bags of supplies he had dragged through the forest.

Humming a tune to himself, he started to load the shotgun he had brought with him from the camp, knowing now that there would be no chance to hunt with it like he had intended. Not in this life, at any rate.

And then, saying a prayer for the salvation of his soul, he put the shotgun’s double barrels in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

10

Jack sighed as he sat back in the chair, eyes dark, his body collapsing. He had been sitting alone in the small room for two days now, controlling the end of the world from his computer station. It had been too much for the other technicians down there, and they had all fled eventually, ultimately unwilling to commit to the final responsibility.

And now it was all over.

Across the world, devastation was raging. Earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions; all had been sent to destroy the earth, by his own hand.

The base itself lay under a field of snow some twenty metres deep.

So much destruction, in so short a time. But, he thought with satisfaction, the world would endure. It would be reborn to start anew, afresh. He wondered what sort of world it would be.

He had read somewhere once that such wide-scale disasters might even cause a so-called ‘polar shift’, the entire crust of the earth shifting round the molten lava of the magma layer beneath like the skin of an orange pulled round the fruit.

What would the world look like when it was finished? He shook his head, dazed from his vigil at the computer. He would never know.

He looked across the blood-slick floor at Oswald Umbebe, his father figure for so many years.

And next to him, the body of Alyssa Durham, so lovely even in death. She was such a driven woman, surely she would have understood his own single-minded determination.

A tear came to his eye as he realized he would never know.

The days dragged on and Jack’s food and water supplies finally ran out; he was also struggling to breathe. The pressure of the snow, or some other, unknown force — he had long ago lost contact with the outside world — had caused the internal air-conditioning system to malfunction.

With a feeling he could only identify as relief, he understood that he would asphyxiate before he died of starvation or thirst.

As the last of the oxygen left the control room and the lights started to dim, Jack thought again of what the new world would be like.

He looked at the body of Alyssa, dead by his own hand. Would there be love in this new world, as she had displayed?

He hoped so.

And then the lights went out completely, and Jack’s last painful breaths took place in the pitch black of space; the same, he told himself, as eternal creation.

And then… nothing.