Nano Read online

  ‘We’ve reached the intersection, Tom.’

  ‘Excellent. I’ve got Sangatte to open the doors automatically. I’ll send over a schematic of the connection tunnel. I would like to give you images of what to expect on the other side but I can’t get anything of use from BigEye. It’s just too far down.’

  ‘Understood,’ Pete said quietly. ‘We’ll soon see for ourselves.’

  ‘Check in every 10 minutes.’

  The schematic arrived a few seconds after Mai had signed off. It showed that the connecting passage between the tunnels was about 80 metres long and 5 wide.

  The doors opened on cue and after they were inside, Pete punched the manual control to close them. Ahead lay a featureless corridor, the walls and floor painted stark white. From far off they could hear a faint whirr.

  ‘Must be the air turbines,’ Mai commented. ‘I should think they’re pretty heavy-duty to keep this place aerated.’

  They could see the doors at the far end that led onto the London-bound tunnel. They made a final check on their suits and called in to Base One.

  ‘Tom, we’re about to go in. We’ve done a systems check on our suits here. Could you do a remote check for us? Particularly suit integrity.’

  ‘Sure.’ They could hear Tom talking to Sybil. He came back on the line. ‘I have your suit schematics on screen. Sybil’s done a thorough check. Everything looks A1. Air and water supplies and suit integrity all check out. Comms are a bit iffy – only 83 per cent efficient, even with the Pram’s booster. But considering how far down you are, that’s pretty damn good. I suspect that as you move further from the Pram, signal level will drop significantly. We may even lose comms altogether before you reach the survivors.’

  Pete opened the door into the tunnel. It swung back silently on well-oiled hinges. The first thing that struck them was the light. It was dim, about a quarter of the power of the Paris-bound tunnel.

  ‘Emergency lighting,’ Pete commented. ‘The explosion must’ve knocked out the primary system, or else a recent fire has burned through the circuitry.’ They put on their helmet lights.

  Turning to their left, southeast towards Paris, they could see along a straight stretch of tunnel to where the incident had occurred almost an hour earlier. Just short of a bend, about 80 metres away, the huge tunnel was lit up with a sinister red glow. In the hazy light they could make out the confused shape of twisted metal. Closer to stood a carriage that looked untouched by the blast. Another, further on, had tipped onto its side. Beyond that, in among the red light, flames still played over a mess of tangled wreckage. Pete checked his monitor. The air contained an acrid blend of rubber, burning fuel and charred organic material. The filters on their cybersuits cut everything out.

  Pete surveyed the scene and picked out details that anyone other than a member of E-Force could not have seen. When the team had been recruited about a year earlier they had each undergone intense training but had also subjected themselves to some seriously invasive surgery. These included brain implants to help them interact with the machines they used, cochlear enhancements to greatly improve their hearing and retinal vision boosters to dramatically increase their visual range both in distance and spectrum. Thanks to this last modification, Pete could see bodies, charred luggage, pieces of seating and dozens of small fires dotted randomly around the shattered Eurostar.

  They picked their way slowly along the tunnel towards the wreckage. Mai stopped and stared at her wrist screen. ‘Detecting bio-agent,’ she said urgently.

  Pete raised his own arm and studied the data. It came up in the form of a bar chart, a row of coloured columns of differing size. ‘Yeah, as we suspected, a type of Sarin – definite signature.’

  ‘But slightly modified,’ Mai observed. ‘Quicker acting, I reckon. There’s an enhanced bio-feedback catalyst in there. See the red bar on the component’s graph?’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘It’s still at extremely toxic levels.’

  As they walked towards the wreckage, Pete kept one eye on his wrist monitor, studying a spectroscopic profile. He was an explosives expert by training and, before joining E-Force, had run his own demolition business called Globex. Before that, he had spent eight years as an NCO in the British Army, specialising in bomb disposal with experience in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. He knew his explosives and the effects they produced. He could tell simply by looking at a flame what type of material had been used and what mixture of gases the fires were now feeding on.

  ‘HMX,’ he said. ‘Probably a hybrid, though, with HMX as the main ingredient. Definitely a nitroamine explosive.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have needed much of it.’

  ‘No, but there’s no telling what could happen next,’ Pete responded.

  Mai knew exactly what he meant. If there were fires around in a confined space and there had already been one explosion, it was quite possible there could be another at any second. ‘Let’s check out the wreckage as quickly as possible, then head straight for the Maintenance Hub. I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ Mai said.

  They found the first bodies in the rear carriages – frozen, contorted forms. The scene reminded them immediately of the dead of Halabja, the town in Iraqi Kurdistan that had been attacked by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1988.

  The bodies laid scattered randomly. A few of the victims had suffered head injuries, but most of them seemed untouched and there was very little blood around considering the number of dead. Only their stiffened poses and the blue hue to their faces marked them as deceased. Some had collapsed over others, limbs twisted, heads in imposs- ible positions for the living. Many were well-dressed business people – men in suits and women wearing smart twin sets.

  The worst sight was the dead children. Mai counted five small corpses, a mother clutching a baby, a couple of toddlers and two older children, one sprawled, face down on top of the other.

  Mai looked away and took a deep breath. It was always the worst thing about the job. She would never get used to it, never wanted to. Her only consolation was that by doing what she did, what all the team did, they were able to reduce the number of children killed in accidents or in heinous terror attacks such as this.

  ‘Come on,’ Pete whispered into his comms. He was close to Mai’s side.

  The further on they went, the more obvious was the damage. Halfway along the train there were only body parts and charred remains.

  Pete noticed the door in the side of the tunnel. ‘This must be what Josh described.’ He checked his wrist and sensors were able to pick out the beginnings of the corridor leading off to the Maintenance Hub. ‘This is it . . .’ he began and froze. ‘What was that?’ he turned, looking towards the rear of the train, his cochlear implants working hard to interpret the sound.

  Mai was staring in the same direction. ‘Don’t know.’

  It came again. This time it was clearer – a muffled voice calling for help.

  46

  Floor 202, Cloud Tower, Dubai

  Chloe and Steph made their way back to the centre of the floor, where water and mud sloshed almost up to their ankles and the wind blew in stronger than ever through the shattered windows of the south-facing side. Chloe had the puppy, Lucky, in the crook of her right arm. He was still whimpering.

  Steph ran a gloved finger under his chin and the dog looked up at her with mournful eyes. ‘Don’t worry, little chap,’ she said. ‘You’ll soon be out of here.’

  ‘I’ll see you back on 199,’ Chloe said and turned towards the opening she and Steph had made earlier with the Sonic Drill.

  Steph paced over to the nearest shop, its rear window facing out towards the sand and beyond that a distant, featureless horizon. The store had once been a designer clothes outlet, top-end. Plain, minimalist suits now lay in scrappy piles on the floor. Steph saw a mound of dresses and shirts and noticed a few labels. Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Armani, and the incongruous thought struck her that she was staring at perhaps 100,000 euros worth of mess.r />
  The shop was all concrete and steel but the racks that had supported a few choice items had collapsed, the concrete chewed up. A large stone block that had served as a post-modern counter had snapped in two. A flat-screen monitor lay face up, the glass shattered. An alarm was blaring and the back of the store was bathed in a pulsating red glow from a utilitarian security light among some piping high up in the ceiling.

  Steph walked slowly over to the window. The wind was very strong here and she had to brace herself against it using the frame of the window to anchor herself. She checked her wrist monitor, measuring the wind force, then tapped the screen, her suit linked up with the mainframe on Tintara to calculate the parameters she need to set up the Hopjet. The figures came back in under a second and she began to prep the device.

  This was the first time she had used the machine in the field and she couldn’t help thinking back to the hours of practice she had endured at Base One. It was a remarkable piece of equipment – yet another wonder from CARPA – a short-range jetpack that could transport a trained user a distance of up to 1 kilometre. It weighed in at under 10 kilograms and fitted into a specially designed unit that rested against the backpack of a cybersuit. But she had always struggled with it, just as she had struggled with the Silverbacks and other aircraft. She was a doctor by training and, she knew, a damn fine one. She could offer E-Force a great deal but her Achilles heel was her piloting skills. She was definitely not a natural born aviator, not like Chloe, the ex-French Air Force pilot, or Mai, the former NASA astronaut.

  This weakness made her the brunt of many a joke among the team as they each learned how to use the Hopjet. She had turned out to be the runt of the litter when it came to mastering it and had garnered the nickname Buzz Lightyear. Ironic then, that here she was the first to try it out in the field.

  A nozzle flipped out from the rear of the Hopjet – the exhaust of a tiny but extremely powerful retro rocket propulsion system. Its energy came from a solar-powered motor the size of a mobile phone that could provide in excess of 500 horsepower, equivalent to a Ferrari.

  Steph keyed in her comms to Tom at Base One. ‘Hey, Tom,’ she said.

  ‘Steph, Mark tells me you’re going to use the Hopjet.’

  ‘Yeah okay, get the jokes out of the way, cyberboy.’ She could hear Tom snigger down the line and imagined him raising his hands in defence.

  ‘No Steph. Really, no. I’m sure you’ll be just –’

  ‘All right,’ Steph interrupted. ‘I need some data. It’s particularly tricky because the wind coming off the desert is . . . well . . . significant. I think I’ve worked out the thrust settings but could you confirm, please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Steph tightened her utility belt and cleared her wrist monitor, then Tom’s voice came over the line. ‘Okay, Steph. Set thrust to Level 6.3, Direction 123.77 degrees.’

  ‘Thanks Tom. Wish me luck!’

  ‘God! Don’t worry, I do!’

  She clicked off the comms and set the parameters. Taking a step towards the window, she tapped her wrist computer and the control for the Hopjet appeared. With her forefinger she stabbed the ‘go’ symbol.

  47

  Steph shot through the window directly into the head wind. But the powerful retro rocket propelled her through the air almost effortlessly. She glanced down and a kilometre beneath her lay the streets of Dubai.

  It was an exhilarating feeling but Steph would have been the first to admit it was also terrifying. The only thing that kept her calm was the absolute confidence she had in the equipment and she knew she could pilot this thing even if she was not the team’s star aviator.

  She flew horizontally a little over 100 metres, watching the concrete and tarmac of the city flash before her eyes. From here she could see far out across the desert. Turning her head slightly, she took in most of the sprawling city. Banking around, she hovered in the air and faced the building. The glass and steel of the Cloud Tower shimmered in the hot, late-morning sun. She could smell the fires and see the black smoke billowing still from the great hole in the building – the smashed-up levels they had dubbed the Chasm. Beyond the tower, peaceful and quiet, stretched the ocean, the Arabian Gulf and the world famous man-made complex of islands: the Palm Deira, the World Islands and the Palm Jumeirah.

  Steph tapped at her wrist and guided the Hopjet back to the tower. She descended three floors to bring her directly level with the shattered windows leading onto 199. An almost imperceptible nudge on the thrust control took her forwards slowly and a moment later she was at the window of another devastated shop, three storeys below the ruin she had left on 202. From outside the window she could see the floor of the shop was strewn with debris. A dead woman lay spreadeagled on her back. She was covered with dust, making her look like a petrified two-thousand-year-old corpse from Pompeii. Steph could see nothing moving, nothing alive.

  Ascending a metre, she nudged forwards and then flew slowly through the window, feet first, landing on the ravaged floor. Once she had steadied herself, she cut the power to the retro rocket and deactivated the Hopjet. Feeling quite proud of her efforts, she stepped forwards into the expanse of the shop.

  ‘Tom, I’m on 199,’ she announced into her comms.

  ‘Well done, girl!’

  She checked her monitor. ‘By my reckoning, we have under 57 minutes to get survivors out. Is that right?’

  Tom was silent for a second. ‘Sybil’s latest estimate is 56 minutes 16 seconds.’

  ‘Right. Where’s Chloe? Has she reached the roof yet?’

  ‘Nothing yet from Mark . . . Hang on.’ A short silence. ‘Just picked her up with the BigEye. She’s making her way to the roof and the Big Mac is coming down readying the Cage.’

  ‘Great. I’ll be in touch soon.’

  She turned back to the wrist monitor and altered the settings so she could run a thermal scan across Floor 199. This would be the best way to find survivors. She began with the far corner and did a slow sweep clockwise, from the furthest point of the tower close to where she was standing just inside the south-facing wall.

  Halfway across the sweep she had still found nothing and felt a wave of disappointment. She knew there had been survivors on 199 but that was maybe 30 minutes earlier. Some nasty things could have happened in that time. She pushed the dread thought aside and pressed on, slowly, carefully searching for signs of life.

  Three-quarters of the way across the sweep all she had were the thermal signatures of almost 100 dead bodies. She took a deep breath and kept the scanner steady. Then it started to bleep. Six red dots appeared on the screen, one of them some way from the other five. She was just lowering her wrist and had turned in the direction of the signals when her comms crackled to life and a voice broke in.

  ‘Help us. Please help us. We’re trapped in the Cloud Tower, Floor 199.’

  48

  Steph dashed out of the shop and into the main body of the mall, speaking urgently into her comms as she went. ‘Hello?’ she was saying. ‘Who is this? Where are you on Floor 199?’

  Only silence at the end of the line.

  ‘Repeat. Where are you exactly? This is Stephanie Buchanan, E-Force. I’m on Floor 199.’

  For several more seconds, nothing. Then a crackle and a small voice. ‘Hi . . . er, hello.’

  Steph stopped for a second, surveying the open space, the devastation and the piles of wreckage. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  Nothing again. A loud rasp of static. The filters cut in to stop Steph’s ears from being damaged. Then the small voice began again. ‘My name is Abu. Abu Al-Rashid. I’m outside Cloud Electrics.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Er . . . not far from the north corner, about, um . . . six, seven shops back towards the southeast emergency stairs.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a few minutes. Please stay where you are.’

  ‘Er . . . okay.’

  Steph turned to her right. A large steel beam had collapsed and lay across the centre o
f the walkway, crumbled marble all around it. She passed around the end of the beam and could see the north corner of the building directly ahead. She counted six mangled bodies on the ground and another draped grotesquely over the top of a door leading into a shop. Blood had pooled in the white dust under the person’s smashed head. Passing around a huge mound of masonry, scattered furniture and twisted clothes-rails, Steph emerged onto the walkway running from the southeast corner to the north corner of the building. And there, 20 metres ahead, stood a small boy waving his arms, a grave look on his face.

  49

  Chloe struggled through the hole she had punched out earlier with the Sonic Drill. Some of the material around it had shifted, partially blocking the opening and she had to grapple with some hefty chunks of concrete one-handed while she held Lucky with the other. But from then on it was clear-going, up half a dozen steps to the first landing, then the flight of stairs leading to the long corridor that took her onto the roof. She stepped out into the smoke-filled air, the morning sun obscured by grey haze.

  Looking up as she heard the Big Mac descending to a position about 50 metres above the top of the Cloud Tower, she saw a tiny burst of orange emerge from the engines on the underside of the enormous craft.

  ‘Hey Chloe.’ Mark Harrison’s voice came through her comms. ‘We’re sending down a makeshift pickup for the puppy.’