David stood and panted. He was out of shape. His eyes caught the sparkling orbs of the old colonel. As dust trickled down between them, David saw those orbs narrow.
“I suppose you know this place pretty well.”
A groan came from above their heads.
“I suppose I do. I worked here. So did you.”
McWhirter stepped forward. He was much taller. “The bombers knew this place well.”
“Agreed,” said David. “It was an inside job.”
The colonel ignored him. “They knew where to set the charges. They knew when the scientists would be in the hall, away from danger. And they knew precisely which project to bomb.”
David held his gaze. Behind his own, blood was rushing. “Aren’t you a bit old to be playing games, Colonel?”
The colonel pointed his torch at David’s face. The world went white. “Now tell me, laddie. Just between us. Did you do it?”
There was another noise from the ceiling. Neither man dared to check it. David said, “My wife died in the explosion. My Helen. I’ve been haunted by her death for twenty years. If I ever saw the man who did it, I would kill him. Now forget about it. It’s not my fault you were caught napping.”
The torch light did not move. David kept his stare fixed, though he could see nothing. McWhirter moved the torch. The whiteness vanished, replaced by an enormous afterimage that was equally blinding.
“Let’s go.”
As David was about to step forward, to follow McWhirter, he heard a splintering sound. He looked up and saw the ceiling bulge. The walls quivered and dust rained. David spat and coughed. He scrambled forward, tripped, and knocked his head against a rocklike protuberance of reinforced concrete. His hardhat saved his life, but the world rolled from side to side and he couldn’t stand. Dizzily, he guessed that he was about to die, and at that moment hands grabbed the hood of his coat and hauled him across the floor. There was a booming rumble as masonry fell into the corridor behind him. It missed his toes by inches.
In the silence, the air was thick with dust and a pungent odour. David coughed and groped about. He couldn’t open his eyes.
“Colonel?” he called out. “Colonel!”
He stood and the blood drained from his head. He nearly fainted. For support, he leaned forward on something dark. It felt like a shoulder. He whipped away his hand and, carefully, opened his eyes. It was McWhirter. The colonel had fallen backwards in the shape of a star. He had tripped after pulling David clear. Emerging from his abdomen and chest were three fingers of rusty steel. That explained the smell. The steel protuded from a large block of reinforced concrete.
“Oh God.”
There was no reply. Blood dribbled from the colonel’s mouth. His eyes were dry. David stared at him. There was no sense of panic. Just utter unreality. Eventually, his stupor was broken by the pop of McWhirter’s torch as it fell from his relaxing fingers and broke on the floor. The corridor became black. David pulled out his walkie-talkie.
“Hello?” he whispered. There was no reply. He tried to remain calm. Touching the walkie-talkie revealed that the antenna had snapped. He needed to replace it. He pulled open the case and touched the antenna wire. It was bare. With the wire held against the bare metal protruding from McWhirter, he tried again. “Hello? Any person please reply. I need help. McWhirter’s dead. Hello?”
Very faintly, a voice answered.
David sighed with relief. “Say again, over.”
The voice belonged to a young man. He said: “Repeat, identify yourself. Over.”
“My name is David Proctor. Professor David Proctor. I was with Colonel McWhirter. I need some help. Over.”
“Say again? Where’s the colonel?”
“He’s dead.”
There was a pause. “What happened?”
“There was a cave-in. The corridor is blocked. I don’t have a torch. I’m at the junction of D-corridor, on the lowest level.”
“OK, David, keep calm. Is the roof stable now?”
David scowled. “I’m perfectly calm. The roof has stopped making noises, which is a good sign.”
“Sit tight.” The voice added, “And don’t speak too loudly. Out.”
David stared in disgust at his fingers. They were wet with visceral material. He sat on the floor, contemplating the swiftness of the disaster, and what would be happening if he had rejected McWhirter’s summons that morning, or if McWhirter had managed to stay alive, or a thousand things. After a long, lonely moment he heard a bleep in his ear.
“Not now, Ego,” he whispered.
“But I have an idea.”
On the same level as David, only thirty metres away, a young woman put down her walkie-talkie. In front of her was a large object that resembled an aquarium. Through its transparent panels she could see something akin to the coloured gases of Jupiter. During her briefing, McWhirter had told her that it was a prototype liquid memory storage device, capable of holding more than the sum of mankind’s knowledge a billion times over. Light from its exotic interior cast patterns on the walls.
She noticed a glow, like moonlight, in the corridor outside.
She lay prone along one flank of the storage device. She trained her rifle on the doorway. In the relative brightness of the room she saw little of the corridor.
The glow became brighter. Everything was silent. She wondered if the research centre had ghosts.
She called, “Stop. Identify yourself.”
A man emerged and stood on the threshold. In his leading hand he held a flat object, which she guessed was an infra-red camera. “I said halt,” she repeated. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?”
“I asked first.”
“Professor David Proctor. I’ve just come from McWhirter. He’s dead.”
“I told you to wait at the scene.”
“And I continued to my old laboratory to find you here. There, summarized.”
She regarded him blankly. He was an unremarkable, middle-aged man. He was exhausted and dusty but impressed with himself. He had been issued with standard equipment and even wore a hard-hat, albeit at a foppish angle. His appearance and his story
