BISENTIENT, page 24
BRABERSON TOYED WITH his mobile, turning it over and over in his hand while he looked blankly at the opposite wall of his office. It had surprised him when Zach had absconded from the Suffolk lab. Braberson assumed that Zach had discovered the implant and this had made him want to run. On reflection, perhaps that had been unnecessary. Zach’s scores in the tests to find suitable test subjects had been unremarkable, as had almost all the staff. However, the effects of the STZ3798-2 chip had been so far beyond projections that it had been decided to test it on subjects outside the original specifications. If it proved as effective as simulations predicted, then it could work for anyone. This would revolutionise clandestine operations. It would change everything.
Braberson’s desk comms device bleeped and flashed.
“Yes.”
“Dr Robinson is here.”
“Send him in.”
A slightly built, greying man slipped into Braberson’s office and hesitated near the door.
“Dr Robinson, please, come in and take a seat.” said Braberson, indicating one of the chairs facing his desk. Dr Robinson sat, a pensive look on his face.
“I know this is a little unusual.” began Braberson, reaching for a manilla folder and opening it in front of him. “I spoke to Mr Andrews and said that I wanted to borrow you for a while, I hope that’s alright ?”
“Er, yes of course.” said Dr Robinson, adjusting his position in the chair awkwardly “I’m not sure how I can help?”
“I see you have been taking an interest in instantaneous energy production?” continued Braberson, reading from a page in the folder “That’s a little tangential to your normal field isn’t it?”
Dr Robinson looked visibly uncomfortable.
“I was just checking some technical details. A friend showed me some technical drawings of an unusual device and I wanted to check if my suspicions were correct.”
“A friend?” asked Braberson looking up from the page.
“An old University friend actually, not a scientist himself, on the arts side.”
“How did this ‘friend’ come to possess this diagram?”
“He didn’t say.” said Dr Robinson, feeling himself starting to blush a little. “Is there a problem?”
“More of an interest really.” said Braberson looking up again from the folder and smiling “Would you have contact details for your friend? We’d like to see where this diagram came from, it might be an important find and we wouldn’t want it to get lost.”
“Right, yes, of course.” said Dr Robinson, visibly relieved. He knew of Braberson by reputation. Always the one to manage projects on the very fringes of accepted science. Not someone to mess with by all accounts. Dr Robinson gladly sent Braberson the contact details from his phone for a Raymond Bartholomew of Walberswick, Suffolk, an antiquarian book dealer and esotericist. As he left Braberson’s office he wondered if he should call or text Raymond to let him know that others were becoming interested. He decided against it as he didn’t want to get involved.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that device won’t work in here.” said the tall young man standing rather stiffly by the door.
Raymond Bartholomew was trying to make a call from his mobile phone, but the young man was right, there was no signal inside the windowless room. He was sitting one side of a table, with two chairs on the opposite side, the only other furniture.
“How much longer am I going to be kept here?” asked Bartholomew, summoning as much authority as he could in the circumstances.
“Just stay calm sir, would you like a drink ? Tea? Coffee? Some water?”
Bartholomew did need a drink as his mouth was very dry. He reckoned it had been about two hours since this apparently charming young man and his partner had entered Bartholomew’s shop. They had made it pretty clear that Bartholomew had no choice but to accompany them. They had Home Office identification. He had been taken at some speed through the Suffolk countryside to a place he didn’t know that looked like a small holding but for the absence of farm machinery and what looked like an electricity substation in the grounds.
“A cup of tea would be nice.” said Bartholomew.
The young man opened the door to reveal his partner on the outside. He whispered a few words then closed the door, resuming his silent vigil.
“You still haven’t told me why I’m here.” began Bartholomew. “What is all this about?”
“All in good time sir, there’ll be someone coming to speak to you shortly.”
Just as he said that the door opened and a well-groomed man in a dark suit and a woman carrying a laptop came in and sat down opposite Bartholomew. The woman smiled and opened the laptop.
“Good afternoon Mr Bartholomew.” said the man, sitting opposite him. “My name is Braberson, I work for the Home Office.”
“Good afternoon.” said Bartholomew briskly. “Are you going to explain why I was taken from my home just now?”
“I’m sure Mr Wilson was the epitome of charm and politeness.” said Braberson glancing round at the young man by the door. “In any case you weren’t taken from your home, you were simply asked to come for a chat.”
“Do you know this man?” said the woman, turning the laptop round so Bartholomew could see the face of Dr Bruce Robinson, his longtime friend from University.
“Yes, that’s Bruce Robinson. We both attended St Andrews. What is this about? Has something happened to Bruce?”
“Oh no, nothing like that.” said Braberson. “We understand that you showed Dr Robinson a schematic of a device? Asked his opinion on what it might be used for?”
“Yes.” said Bartholomew, rapidly weighing up how much he should say.
“Excellent.” said Braberson. “It turns out that this diagram has some very interesting features so we were hoping you could tell us where you got it.”
Bartholomew was panicking.
“Well.” began Bartholomew, but no sensible explanation came to his mind.
“Come now Mr Bartholomew, it’s a simple enough question.” said Braberson, fixing Bartholomew with an appraising stare.
Moments seemed like minutes to Bartholomew but try as he might he could not conjure anything that might sound plausible. In the end he thought it best to try and sound like a well-meaning fantasist and hope they sent him home.
“It’s a difficult thing to describe.” he began. “It may sound ridiculous, fantastical even.”
Bartholomew looked down at his hands on the table. He clasped them together and then unclasped, placing them palm downwards. Braberson and the woman were almost leaning forward in anticipation.
Almost an hour later and with a second cup of tea in front of him Bartholomew completed his edited version of the truth about how the schematic had come into his possession. He had left out any mention of Gail and had not mentioned Plater by name. He would have been surprised to learn that much of what he tried to describe, such as the existence of an alternate reality in which people could communicate, did not shock his audience. The most shocking aspects to Braberson were the apparent existence of several people with this ability and the prospect of others who were in conflict. Could this be proof that other countries were also experimenting, similar to the work in Suffolk? The innovations in the schematic suggested a foreign state with considerable resources and highly skilled scientists. According to one throwaway remark when the schematic was analysed by Home Office scientists there was more than one Nobel Prize wrapped up in the multi-page diagram.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
“DO WE EVER go outside?” asked Molly as she helped Victor carry the black box he had been testing back to the trolley.
“No.” said Victor, scooping wires onto the trolley and pushing it back towards his workshop “Between working and eating there isn’t much time.”
“Don’t people get a bit antsy being shut away down here?”
Victor thought about his wife, for the first time in a few days and the children playing in the garden of their home.
“Yes, I suppose some will.” he said, still with the image in his mind. “But our work is almost done, we have the combined test tomorrow and if all is within acceptable limits we may get some time for ourselves.”
“So, they’re going to fire the whole thing up tomorrow? Like when the engineer disappeared?”
Victor hesitated, the sounds from that day echoing briefly in his head.
“Yes, there have been some safety improvements and the power supply has been considerably smoothed I understand.”
Molly helped Victor unload the black box in his workshop.
“Is the test first thing tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yes, straight after breakfast.” replied Victor. “Giving us the rest of the shift to analyse the results.”
Molly smiled and nodded then returned to her room. The shift was over and there was about half an hour before dinner. She knew she had to find a signal and get a message to Plater, Erik and Kathleen. She slipped out of her room and walked the fifty yards or so to the toilet block. Inside a cubicle she extracted the phone and peeled off the prophylactic sleeve. She powered it on and was relieved to see it still worked and had 99% battery. She had paid careful attention to all the maps placed around the complex and noticed some large pipes which Victor had explained were part of the air intake and circulation system. Surely, she reasoned, these pipes must have access to the outside. She had seen one such large pipe in a small recess at the corner of a corridor that led away from the main hall, where the device squatted. From the toilet block she managed to reach the recess without meeting anyone else. Everyone was in their rooms having a brief rest before dinner. The pipe terminated close to the floor, turned at a right angle and capped with a grill. Placing her hand on the grill Molly could feel cool air being pushed out. She glanced around, walked back a few paces and checked around the corner, but there was no-one.
She unclipped three of the four retaining clips on the grill, lifted it and ducked inside the pipe, closing the grill as best she could after her. The diameter was about eighty centimetres and the ribs where sections of the pipe were joined provided good hand and footholds as she began to climb. At what she guessed was ceiling height the pipe branched three ways, left, right and upwards at a slight angle. Molly chose the pipe that went up and was able to make faster progress. A few minutes later Molly came to the end of the pipe and found a small room on one side of which a huge fan rotated languidly behind another grill. The fan must have been more than three metres across with three wide blades casting shadows on the walls. Light was coming in from behind the blades and as Molly peered through the grill she could see that the opening angled up through some roughhewn rock to blue sky. She pulled out the phone but there was no signal. The grill in front of the fan had a latch on one side, Molly unlatched it and pulled but the grill didn’t move. She pulled harder and there was a slight rubbing noise but little movement. She lay on the floor and braced her feet on the rocky wall and clasping the grill with both hands heaved backwards as hard as she could, pushing with her legs. Amid loud squeaking and grinding the grill moved, enough to allow Molly to get behind it.
The fan slowly turned, drawing air from the outside and pushing it towards the pipes. Molly felt the breeze ruffling her hair. She stared at the mechanism as it tumbled. She could do it. She counted as each blade passed her, if she timed it just right she could rush through the gap between the blades. The blades were heavy, steel construction and if she got the timing wrong, she could be picked up and tossed aside. She had to get to where she could send the message. Molly picked a single blade of the three and watched it circle. The rhythm settled in her head. She clenched her fists, rocking gently back and forth, picking up the rhythm of the fan. She lurched forwards and dived as the blade passed in front of her. She felt a stabbing pain in her left ankle as the next blade caught it as she sailed through the gap. There was a small gash but more graze than cut and Molly began to climb the sloping tunnel to the light.
The tunnel opened onto a small ledge and the view was breathtaking. Rocky valleys and jagged outcrops spread out below. Molly grabbed the phone and saw a single bar on the signal strength. It had been agreed that the best way to communicate was by message as this would not require a great signal. Molly had already prepared a long message which she hurriedly copied to the messaging app and hit send. There was a tense few moments as the phone struggled to send the lengthy text but the reassuring ‘sent’ indicator appeared and a tone sounded. She hadn’t mentioned that she had met Dawn. She didn’t want to build up Kathleen’s hopes until she’d had a chance to talk more with Dawn. She didn’t know if she’d be able to help with getting her out or whether by letting Dawn know that she knew her mother Dawn might tell the Church and Molly would be in worse trouble. She had to focus on the original goal. Now it was up to Mason.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
SENTINEL DID NOT appear on Raymond Bartholomew’s mobile phone as an installed app. This was Sentinel’s principal selling point. Once installed, it monitored all activities. It had been installed as a result of Bartholomew viewing his emails on his mobile, something he did daily as most of his book sales now happened online. Such was the sophistication of the Sentinel code that it only required Bartholomew to open his email app and not specifically the rogue email from a Mr. Jones enquiring as to the availability of a particular book. The Sentinel code then inserted itself into the depths of the phone’s operating system. The only way to detect the presence of Sentinel was a forensic examination of the device, beyond the skills of Bartholomew.
Call records, text messages and contact details along with copies of emails, cached passwords for email, online banking and other websites were all soon in the possession of Braberson’s security team. Within a few minutes Braberson had profiles of Mason Plater, Molly James, Raymond Bartholomew, Erik Nordstrom and Kathleen Moran jostling for screen space on his laptop. Within half an hour Braberson had called the Home Secretary on his secure mobile and brought him up to speed on these new developments.
A group of people working independently had managed to make the connection between the Church of the Reclamation and the seismic event detected on the mainland United States before any intelligence organisations. This same group of people were also connected to activities around non-verbal communication over extended distances, similar to what Braberson’s project was investigating. This appeared to change the game significantly. James Carver insisted on a meeting with Braberson at the Suffolk facility. Braberson checked his watch, it was 0407 hours and Carver would be arriving any minute. Gate security had been alerted so hopefully none of them would be asleep as the motorcade arrived.
Plater lay back onto his bedroll. The camping conditions in the mountains near Redemption were not as comfortable as those outside Gunnison. The 4x4 was hidden behind some boulders with branches and a camouflage net trying to make it invisible from above. Rather than erect tents which would be more visible they were using bivvy bags, effectively solo tents that had a very low profile.
Plater was very worried about Molly; his imagination was doing him no favours by conjuring up any number of ways in which her deception might be noticed. He knew that he needed to go over some things with Bartholomew and Gail, but he was finding it hard to slip into sleep and cross over. Since his life had taken this weird turn, this was the first time he could remember finding it hard to drop into sleep and take up his other life. The frustration he was feeling only made it less likely that he could sleep.
He tried to recall what Bartholomew had said to him about controlling his access to and from the Realm.
“In the same way that you are able to return from the Realm through a conscious technique, the visualisation of your surroundings in the physical world, so you can develop ways to enter the Realm without needing to rely on falling asleep.” Bartholomew had explained. “You will need to practice, as to move directly from consciousness to the Realm is an advanced skill that hardly anyone has mastered. Some occultists and religious explorers are able to enter what seems to be a trance state and transition that way. How many of them do this is not well understood and almost certainly involves a lot of irrelevant mysticism and extraneous ritual. Technically, it should be possible to fix your thoughts on a location within the Realm that you know well and transition in a similar way to when you return the physical.”
Plater had tried this technique, but it had only worked once. He had chosen the cabin aboard the pirate ship to be his target and worked hard to set in his memory all the details he could of that room. Only once did he directly enter the cabin from an apparent state of wakefulness. At other times, he either didn’t enter the Realm at all or found himself on the deck of the ship or even in the water, with no idea where he was or why he was there. He had been so panicked by the experience that he had immediately woken again and returned to the physical world. On one occasion he had been so disturbed he had vomited.
He had to get to the Realm. With his head poking out of the end of the sleeping bag he could see the stars in the cool night sky. At the periphery of his vision, he caught the flash of a shooting star against the inky blackness. As he had been taught Plater closed his eyes and focused on relaxing each part of his body in turn. Beginning from his feet and moving up his body. As he began to focus on his chest and breathing he also pictured the cabin of the pirate ship. His breathing slowed. As the muscles of his face loosened, he felt the familiar lurch and found himself in the creaking confines of the old wooden ship.
He had only stood by the stern windows for a few moments when he heard Bartholomew’s voice.
“I’m glad I have found you.” said Bartholomew, as he swung the cabin door closed behind him. “There have been…developments.”
“You mean with Molly?” asked Plater facing Bartholomew.
“No, but it seems there are others interested in what the Church of the Reclamation are doing.”
