Acolyte (20 page)

‘And now,' said Stephanie Graves, ‘I would like to allow our key benefactor a chance to take us through some of the additional details of the project and its aims.'

She nodded ahead of her, clearly to a person sitting off screen. The picture cut to a shot that encompassed the whole room, viewed from a camera right at the back. Someone in the audience stood at the left side of the front row and made their way around to the empty seat beside Stephanie. The room was suddenly filled with an excited murmur, and as the man took his seat, the picture cut back to a close shot of him.

Jonah stared at the face that appeared on screen. A face that belonged to someone who should be dead, a face he'd watched
burn
, hair on fire and skin blackening in the flame. Yet there it was, the face now pristine, uninjured.

Smiling.

‘That's impossible,' said Never. He looked at Jonah, his expression a mixture of outrage and fear. ‘That's
impossible.
'

Feeling numb, Jonah listened to what the impossible face said, not wanting to miss a single word. And as he listened, he sent another text to Annabel.

Three words.

Andreas is alive.

Andreas held up a hand and waited for the murmur of the audience to settle. ‘Rumours of my demise –' he said, then paused as a ripple of laughter spread through the room. He smiled, then his expression grew serious. ‘A year and a half ago, one of my research facilities was targeted by a group of terrorists claiming to be affiliated to the Afterlifers. In the resulting fire many good people died. It has been the official position that I was among the dead. As you can see, that was not true. Luckily, I was not at the facility that night. This good fortune saved my life. However, the security forces that keep our country safe – those who protect us each day without fanfare or glory – advised me that the danger was not gone.' He paused, and smiled in a reassuring way, a paternal way.

‘But the terrorists behind the attack did not truly represent the beliefs of Afterlifers. Far from it. The Afterlifer cause is an expression of reasonable concern for the use of a power we do not yet understand. It simply counsels caution. I have always taken the position that this caution is unwarranted, but in this great country we are free to disagree. The original Revival Baseline Research Group was brought to a premature end, before the truth about revival could be found. Now it is time for us to put aside our differences and to give full backing to this new venture in understanding. We seek nothing less than the truth about death, and what lies beyond. I believe that the truth is within our grasp. And when we find that truth –' Andreas paused, held the moment. He knew how
to play to an audience. ‘When we find that truth, we will share it with the world. And it will be the most important day in human history.'

The room broke into applause. Andreas smiled, ignoring the shouted questions from gathered journalists.

Looking vaguely shell-shocked, Never turned to Jonah. ‘So,' he said. ‘Are you still planning on signing up?'

*

After the press conference ended, Jonah went to his PC with Never close behind. He found the attachment to Annabel's previous mail. ‘This is what Annabel sent me before.'

Shooing Jonah out of the way, Never took the seat and looked through what was there, bringing up the unofficial floor plan showing the original buildings and the rough layout of the extensions.

‘Up until now it's been a cryogenic storage facility,' said Jonah. ‘Annabel's notes have plenty on it. Top of the range, all their, um, clients are kept at most two degrees above absolute zero.'

‘Cosy,' said Never. He opened Google Maps and hunted for Winnerden Flats. It wasn't marked, but eventually he found the location in a scan of an older map of Nevada, and zoomed down into the satellite imagery. ‘Looks like it's on the fucking moon,' he said. It was isolated, surrounded by vast desolation. There were buildings around a central courtyard, a few roads, and a clear perimeter fence much further out. ‘I'm guessing this is before they started any of the new work.' He brought up the extension plans they had, the outline of the original buildings matching perfectly. ‘This place has been there for a while, right?'

‘Originally built nineteen years ago,' said Jonah. ‘Seven years before revival emerged.'

‘Did her notes say how many clients they currently have?'

‘There was something from the original brochure … hang on … there. The storage capacity is four hundred full-body and
one thousand partial. I guess that means just the head. Neither option was cheap.'

An annoying jingle started to come from Never's pocket. He took out his phone and looked. ‘Annabel,' he said.

Jonah immediately felt like a poor relation. ‘Why's she calling
you
?'

‘She's using a secure calling app she told us about. I'm guessing you didn't bother installing it?'

Jonah felt his face redden. No, he hadn't. In the first months following the fire at Reese-Farthing, Annabel had put together a suite of secure communication apps, something Jonah had resisted, desperate to believe that there was no reason to worry. Any talk of covert communication flew in the face of that and made him very uncomfortable.

The phone was still ringing, Never looking at the screen as if it was something contagious. Jonah could see in Never's face the same reluctance he felt himself. In the space of a few minutes, things had changed completely. Answering the call felt like another step away from their old lives.

Finally, Never answered. ‘Hi, Annabel,' he said. He put the phone on speaker. ‘I assume you saw the press conference.'

‘I saw. Is Jonah with you?'

‘Right here,' said Jonah. ‘Are you OK?'

She paused. ‘No,' she said, and Jonah knew exactly what she meant.

*

They shared their news in detail. Jonah told her about Mary Connart and Blake Torrance; about the shadows lurking, and his previous assumption that they were left-overs, stragglers abandoned by their defeated master. Not now, with Andreas alive.

And, of course, he told her about his invitation to join the research.

In turn, Annabel told them what had happened at her latest
meeting, and the new information about Winnerden Flats. ‘Given the timings with your Torrance case,' she said, ‘it might have been the theft of these documents that had Torrance on edge about the name Winnerden. I think we have to assume the alternative site plan is the real one. The question is, what are they hiding?'

‘I don't know how they could expect to hide anything,' said Jonah. ‘Stephanie Graves is in the process of assembling her team of researchers, and they're taking revivers from around the country and beyond. There's no way they can keep something big from all those people, surely?'

There was silence.

‘Jonah,' said Annabel, ‘your invitation to join the project: does it say how soon people will be going?'

‘It'll be ready to take people within the next few days. They want the facility fully up and running in two to four weeks.'

‘Maybe you should consider it,' she said. ‘Being inside the facility would be a great place to find out what was going on.'

‘Come on, Annabel,' said Jonah. ‘The only reason I got invited is because it would be conspicuous if I wasn't. There's no way Andreas would want me there. I'd guess he would rather we weren't
anywhere.
Right now all I want to do is get as much cash as I can lay my hands on and vanish before he decides to do something about that.'

‘Jonah,' she said, ‘if Andreas cared what we thought, he would have done something about us long before now. He's had plenty of opportunity. If we don't seem like a threat to him, he mustn't care. You think we have to run to be safe, but running would do exactly the opposite. It would make us look dangerous.'

‘Please, Annabel,' said Jonah. ‘We can just go somewhere. Vanish. Together.'

‘We don't know what's going on,' she said. ‘Maybe Andreas is trying to get people with these shadows into useful positions, political and civil. Maybe it's a long-term goal, and he's just rounding up the best revivers to keep them from seeing the shadows the way
you can, and revealing their existence. Winnerden Flats could be a decoy. If we run, we're not in a position to find out what's going on. And then we're defeated.'

‘I still say we should run,' said Jonah. ‘We're sitting ducks. Last time we were caught up in this we nearly died, but if we'd been safe at home that night? Nothing in our lives would have changed. We would've been blissfully unaware of it all. I want to go somewhere and forget about everything.'

‘Nothing would have been different?' said Annabel. ‘Tess would be dead, for a start.'

Jonah said nothing.

‘What about you, Never?' said Annabel. ‘If we run, we all have to do it at the same time. We need to agree, and the votes are one for, one against.'

‘Oh great, deciding vote,' said Never. ‘Well, I agree about the risk of drawing attention to ourselves if we panic. And I suppose I can keep my ear to the ground at work. The FRS will be a way to hear what's happening in Baseline, and there's something else: Stacy and Jason were invited to Winnerden Flats too. I need to warn them off before I'd even consider running.'

‘They could prove useful as contacts,' said Annabel.

‘Fuck that,' said Never. ‘I'd rather my friends weren't stranded out in the middle of nowhere with Andreas for company.'

Jonah nodded. ‘Agreed,' he said. ‘But you can't tell them outright. You'd sound crazy. Play to their loyalty to the FRS, maybe.'

‘That I can do,' said Never. ‘As for my vote … I don't know. Not yet.'

‘OK,' said Annabel. ‘Let's say we take forty-eight hours to think about it. Pack a bag in case anything happens. If it does, we alert each other securely and vanish. We can survive, Jonah. Maybe long enough to find Andreas's weakness.'

‘If you're right about Andreas not caring what we do,' said Jonah, ‘then maybe he has no weaknesses.'

Once they'd ended the call, Jonah gave Never his phone so he could install the suite of secure communication apps.

‘Seriously?' said Never, looking at Jonah's cell phone as if it was a slice of cold sick. ‘You really use this? I thought you upgraded.'

‘I didn't see the point. I only use it for voice calls and browsing.'

‘Well,' said Never, with what could only be pity in his eyes, ‘you need to go out and buy yourself a decent no-contract phone. If we do end up running, we'd have to ditch our old phones anyway. Even if they couldn't decrypt the calls themselves, they'd still be able to track us on them. I'll give you a list to pick from and the link you need for the app suite. Pay cash for the phone, too. And don't just buy it down the street, OK?'

He agreed, and Never headed back to work.

*

Jonah spent some of that night and most of the following morning getting a small backpack ready. He kept it light, making sure the damn thing didn't look like it was ready to burst. It had to appear casual, day-to-day. He had a few hundred dollars in there, some spare clothes. Hardly anything else would be coming with him.

If they ran.

It felt unreal, like some kind of training exercise. The events of the days before already had the quality of a bad dream, and he
kept catching himself doubting the sense of Annabel's plan either way. Running seemed crazy. Waiting seemed equally insane.

He heard from Never mid-morning, a matter-of-fact phone call about the gradual flow of information reaching the FRS about Baseline. Stacy and Jason both had rest days, so Never hadn't been able to talk to them yet, something he wanted to do in person. Jonah felt his gut twist at the thought of Stacy, and even at the thought of Jason, being co-opted for Andreas's research plans. He hoped that it was all part of some kind of front or distraction; or even, as Annabel had suggested, an effort from Andreas to tie up the best revivers around. To simply keep them out of the way, in case they could see the shadows just as Jonah could.

Yet even if Never could talk Stacy and Jason out of joining the research, there would be many others who would go eagerly.
Hell
, Jonah thought,
I would have been one of them, if I didn't know any better.

Late afternoon, Jonah took his backpack, got into his car, and headed out to get that new cell phone. Before he went, he spoke with his neighbour, making sure she still had a spare key and would check in on his cat if …

If something came up.

He took the fifteen-minute drive from his apartment to the mall near Huguenot Park. He'd been there with Annabel when she'd visited the previous spring – she'd dragged him there and made him buy more clothes in one day than he'd bought in the last five years. With the shopping done they'd settled down for a long, leisurely coffee upstairs in a small cafe that Jonah had appreciated, because even though they were beside a large window, he'd felt himself able to people-watch without feeling visible. It had been one of those simple, perfect afternoons, Annabel feeling so close to him and a whole new world opening up.

He'd been back on his own a few times since then, taking comfort from the memory as things between the two of them changed and drifted. It was something to warm himself by.

After buying his new phone, he went to the same cafe and found that the table by the window was empty. He sat and began to configure the phone with all the bells and whistles Annabel and Never insisted on.

He looked down to the mall below, finding himself tensing.

Because, apart from the memory of that afternoon, there was another reason he'd come here: to people-watch again, this time with a very specific purpose in mind.

The thought had come to him the night before. The darkness he had seen on Blake Torrance's shoulder had been invisible at first; by the end, it was irrefutable. Being able to see it had felt like a new skill, a new ability forged.