A nurse appeared. She asked him if wanted some breakfast.
“There’s a Japanese man down there. Has he been brought up yet?”
She shook her head.
Within half an hour, a doctor had checked his condition. “All clear,” she said. “I think Colonel Garrel would like to talk with you.”
He began to dress. He found his earpiece in his trouser pocket. A taciturn soldier joined him and they walked out. On the floor near the doorway was a black body bag. It was probably Caroline. Outside the tent an early-morning drizzle had set in. The sky was the colour of steel. David took a breath and realised that he loved Scotland. He should have come back sooner. The trees hissed. The wind blew rain from their leaves. The hotel, too, seemed to bend in the wind.
David and the guard walked around the northern side of the hotel towards the south lawn, where the rescue shaft had been sunk the day before. At the bottom lay the corridor outside his old laboratory. Bruce was still down there in body, though his spirit was elsewhere.
David turned to the guard and gestured towards the site. “Could I go to the demolition site? Where you dug down for me yesterday?”
The guard’s eyes narrowed. As with most of the on-site personnel, his uniform had a number of non-regulation additions. He wore a baseball cap. David wondered whether these people were real soldiers. The guard tugged on his cap and glanced back towards the tent. He wanted help, so David gave it to him. “To pay my last respects to my friend. I’m feeling a bit weak. You know, from the radiation?”
“Alright,” said the guard slowly. “But we’ll make it quick.”
“Too kind.”
They walked further down the hill. The trees closed in. The large white tent that covered the excavation shaft came into view. They entered and drew a few glances. The guard waved his hand to dismiss them. They returned to their work, which appeared to be data analysis.
David approached the hole in a weak shuffle, still helping the guard, and knelt before the yellow barrier tape. He made the sign of the cross and tapped his earpiece. It had been mistaken for a common hearing aid and placed in his locker. In prayer, he whispered: “Ego, are you there?” The earpiece picked up the vibrations in his jawbone and transmitted them dutifully. They were received in a discarded pair of trousers twenty metres below.
“Yes, David. I am here.”
David Proctor rose awkwardly and walked back to the medical tent. He expected to hear the siren within two minutes. In the event, it was nearly five. People began to overtake them while the guard spoke gruffly on his walkie-talkie. David glanced back. Black smoke billowed from the tent. He smiled. The fire would lead to an immediate evacuation before a fire crew could be sent down.
The guard told him to stay put and ran towards the hospital tent. David sat on the wet, morning grass and waited.
Twenty metres below him, black smoke had replaced the air. Ego lay on the floor near the ruined immersion chamber where David had entered New World. It interfaced once more with the military’s radio network. It cracked the encryption and checked the status of the situation. The research centre was fully evacuated. Soon the soldiers would return. Ego cut the connection to the radio network and turned its attention to the New World computer.
Five minutes before, it had connected to the same computer and given the instruction to deactivate its legion of cooling fans. The ensuing heat had started a small dust fire, which had spread, feeding on the flammable debris.
Now it was time for the second phase. Ego began to count backwards from ten.
On the surface, David gazed across the lawn, down the valley, where the morning mist had collected in the damp air near the valley floor. Sunlight reflected from its apparent surface. He checked his watch.
In New World, Bruce Shimoda reached the summit of a hill and stopped sprinting. He sagged, hands on knees, and let the thin air into his lungs. Fifty metres away, the pursuing metadillo stopped too. It turned its head towards the darkening sky. Bruce did the same. He wondered what this would feel like.
Ego said, “Three, two, one, zero,” and detonated.
Bruce saw the sky tear in two. He took a final look at the valley and vanished, deleted.
David was bounced by the concussive force. There were shouts of surprise. Smoke ran like black water from the cracks in the tent and personnel spilled out. They choked and shouted. The ground vibrated once more and then was still. Everything was still.
It was over.
Again.
A Talk with Garrel
His interrogator was Colonel Andrew Garrel. He had given David drugs. Personally. The drugs led to nightmares but the nightmares helped. He knew who the enemy was. It was Garrel. He smoked constantly.
They were alone together. There was a tape recorder. At least, David thought of it as a tape recorder. It was probably a digital recorder of some kind. He watched it. It did not move. It had no spools. There was no sense of time.
“How long have I been in here?” he asked.
Touch now meant pain. The drugs had somehow heightened his senses. Noises were too loud, the chair too hard, the smoke almost unbearably acrid.
Garrel leaned on the desk. He sucked on his cigarette and David saw the end glow for long time. Was time wrong, or was he? Then Garrel let out a breath that billowed blue-white and stank. David’s eyes watered.
“Not long enough, sunshine.”
“You should let me go,” David said. It was an effort. The words would not come fast enough. “I should have a lawyer.”
Garrel laughed. “Do you even know where you are?”
“No. Where am I?”
“You’re in deep, twenty-four carat shite.”
David put his hands on the
