Enemy Invasion (30 page)

Offensive systems online,
Sarah ordered the jet and immediately began to get a stream of data. The jet had been reloaded with heat-seeking missiles and enough machine-gun ammo to tear the
city in half.

“How’s it looking down there?” she asked, seeing Alex scanning satellite data of the city being fed through to the cockpit.

“It looks as if there are five major swarms in operation,” he replied. “The spiders have formed a perimeter around inner London, trapping everything inside.”

“What about the military response?”

“The land-based forces are concentrating on the evacuation efforts. All local emergency services have been knocked out or aren’t responding. Reports out of HIDRA are that a battalion
of marines sent in to retake the northern bank of the Thames has lost radio contact.”

“Taken by the spiders.”

Alex nodded. “And two more fighter squadrons just dropped out of the sky during a flyover. The whole city has been designated a no-fly zone until they know what’s happening, even for
the RAF.”

Sarah glanced at the time on one of the control displays. Shortly before midday. How long had it been since the first attacks in the capital? Less than an hour for the Entity’s machines to
take control of an entire city. How long would it take for them to subjugate the world? Months? Weeks? And could they really be fought?

As if to answer her question, Dr. Fincher’s face appeared on a section of the HUD. Sarah tapped the display to accept audio.

“Sarah, what’s your status?” he asked, sounding urgent and to the point as always.

“We’re on the approach to the power station.”

“Very good,” the doctor said. “I’m making progress with a way to shut down these machines. We managed to reactivate a small portion of one of the spiders that escaped the
lab and are planning to upload a clonebot to the nanite stream.”

“A clonebot?” Alex said.

“It’s like a computer virus,” Fincher explained, “but one adapted to attack the microscopic machines from the hypersphere. The clonebot orders a nanite to replicate its
program, which is to shut itself down, but not before it’s passed on the same instruction to its neighbours. This sets off a chain reaction of nanites going terminally inactive. Think of it
as mass suicide for microscopic robots.”

“Does it work?” Sarah asked.

“In theory. The spiders should literally crumble to pieces without the nanites holding them together. They won’t be able to maintain their structure. There’s just one
problem…”

Sarah sighed. “Which is?”

“The delivery method. Uploading the virus to a single spider could prove very difficult – let alone to millions of them.”

Sarah thought of Hack – what she’d seen herself and what Robert had recounted of the kid’s abilities. “Don’t worry about that, doctor. Just send us
the…uh…”

“Clonebot,” Alex helped out.

“Send that as soon as you’ve perfected it. We’ll have the delivery method.”

As she killed the video feed, a warning light flashed on the control panel.
Unidentified airborne objects,
the jet rang in her head.
Multiple targets inbound.

“Look!” Alex exclaimed, pointing to one of the spider swarms on the bank of the river. It seemed to split, as it had when they’d watched the Typhoons attack, and rise into the
air to meet them. The HUD automatically magnified a section, revealing that the spiders had transformed – sprouting silver, mosquito-like wings. They flew into the path of the stealth jet
with alarming speed.

Everyone hold on back there!
Sarah warned as she sent the jet into an evasive turn. The swarm was too fast and agile, however. Suddenly, it was like being in a car driving through a mass
of locusts. Metal bodies smashed against the cockpit windows. Sarah pressed the fire button on the joystick and the forward machine guns blasted through the objects flying into them.

“What are they doing?” Alex said as Sarah sent the jet in another violent turn over the city. “They can’t get in. Can they?”

There was a tearing sound from the outside of the jet. Alert signals began to flash all over the HUD.

“Sarah!” Louise yelled from the back. “They’re ripping open the walls!”

The jet rocked violently and Sarah struggled to control the stick. “We’re losing pressurization!” she said as a holo-image of the jet appeared showing multiple fracture points
in the fuselage. One of the machines found purchase on the windows. Sarah and Alex watched helplessly as the mosquito began to drill into the thickened glass with a thin attachment from its jaws.
On the other side of the cockpit, two more were doing the same.

“They’re going to break through!” Sarah said.

“Now we know what happened to the fighter jets,” Alex said as there was a crash from the back of the plane, followed by an explosive blast.
What was that?

Wei just took care of some machines that got inside,
Louise replied.

And now we’re on fire,
Nestor added. This was accompanied by the sound of a CO
₂
extinguisher being triggered.

Sarah and Alex looked at one another. “Great,” she said.
Everyone brace for landing. I’m going to ditch before we fall out of the sky.

“Ditch?” Alex asked. “Where?”

“Where do you think?” she said, sending the jet into a dive towards the Thames.

“Great,” Alex muttered as he fastened his safety harness around his body. “This mission is working out real great.”

“I thought you craved excitement,” Sarah said through gritted teeth as she pulled back on the stick, evening out the dive at the last moment. The machine on the window finished its
drilling and drew back a slender leg, driving it forwards. The window shattered. Wind billowed into the cockpit, filling the air with tiny shards of glass and taking the breath from their
mouths—

Whoooosh...

The jet hit the Thames, skidded off the surface once, and then ploughed into the water nose-first. Following the jarring impact, freezing water poured in through the broken cockpit window.

Sarah wasted no time in unlocking her safety harness and grabbing Alex’s arm. “Come on!” she yelled above the noise of the rushing water as she dragged him to the cockpit door.
“There’s an escape hatch in the cabin.”

The others were already on their feet in the back. Water was blasting in through multiple tears in the walls of the jet.

“At least the fire’s out,” Octavio said, holding onto the side of the jet as the floor listed to one side.

Ignoring him, Sarah moved to the exit door and ripped open a concealed panel on the wall. Beneath the panel was a handle with a warning above it:
Danger – Explosive Bolts, Emergency
Exit Only
.

“Wait!” Nestor said as she gripped the handle. “Those machines are out there.”

“Would you rather sink with the jet?” Sarah snapped back, pulling free. She looked around the others, who were standing knee-deep in water now. “When I blow the hatch, hold on
and wait for the water to stop flooding in. Then swim for it. Understand? Everyone get back from the door, it’s going to fly!”

Octavio winked at Alex. “Getting bossed around. Just like old times.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex said, gripping the side of a chair as Sarah pulled down hard on the handle.

The explosive bolts triggered, blasting the exit door outwards. For a moment nobody moved as the dank, dirty river poured into the jet. Within seconds it had half-filled the cabin.

Everyone go!
Sarah’s voice rang in their heads as the water raced to the ceiling.

They swam for the opening, straining to see through the cloudy water. The jet itself began to tilt around, but Louise and Wei managed to swim through the door, closely followed by Nestor and
Octavio. As Alex swam through, Sarah pushed herself off the wall and followed. Although her lungs were bursting for air, she looked back at the stealth jet – the plane that had saved their
lives on more than one occasion. In the water it looked like a shark descending to the bottom to die.

Goodbye,
she thought, before breaking the surface.

“Sarah!” Alex called, swimming over.

“I’m okay,” she said and looked at the others bobbing in the water. Mercifully, the mosquito machines that had brought the jet down seemed to have followed it to the bottom of
the river. She looked to the nearest bank and saw they had crashed just short of the Houses of Parliament. The London Eye and the Millennium Pier were just a few metres’ swim away.

“We’ve got company!” Nestor called, pointing to the other side of the river. A giant swarm of spiders surged over the top of Parliament, their sleek, metallic bodies obscuring
the aged stonework of the building – almost as if they were burying it. They poured down the side and splashed into the Thames, making the water churn.

“Go!” Sarah cried and they swam for their lives.

31

Sarah hauled herself over the side of the Millennium Pier, the metal-clad mooring area for tourist boats stopping at the London Eye. Alex pulled himself out of the river behind
her and she turned to help him up, looking over his shoulder at the Thames. The river looked like a carp pool at feeding time – the surface bubbling wildly as thousands of spiders clawed
their way across towards them. Here and there it was possible to see the machines, their bodies morphing and transforming to allow them passage through the water. They scrambled over the top of one
another, forming a kind of moving bridge.

“How do we stop them?” Alex said, looking round at the others.

“Slowing them down would be a start,” Nestor said. He held his hands out and immediately a powerful blast of air emanated out across the Thames. Sarah stepped back as the air became
ice-cold – colder than anything she had experienced before, even in the sub-zero temperatures of eastern Russia. The water began to freeze across the surface under the extreme chill of the
wind. Within seconds the entire river for a hundred metres in either direction was frozen solid. Here and there the spiders could be seen – trapped in the ice, stuck in
mid-transformation.

“Cool,” Octavio said at his brother’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“I don’t tell you everything,” Nestor replied. “And it won’t hold them for long.”

Sarah nodded. “We need to get mobile. We’re still over three kilometres from the power station, so we’ll need vehicles.”

They ran along the covered walkway linking the pier to the Embankment. Even as they jumped the barrier at the end of the walkway, the sound of ice smashing and the clatter of metal feet against
the edge of the pier could be heard. The spiders were coming.

“My god,” Alex said, looking down the wide pathway along the river. It was strewn with the comatose bodies of people caught in the swarm. He kneeled beside a woman and touched two
fingers to her neck. “She’s alive,” he confirmed to the others, before pointing out bite marks and a spreading discolouration on her shoulder. “Infected with the fall
virus.”

“All of them are,” Louise said. “How can we help them?”

“By getting to Bright and shutting down the hypersphere,” Sarah said firmly. Behind them the spiders were beginning to surge along the walkway. Sarah looked up at the London Eye
towering over them and then at the pier. “Wei, light up the walkway. Octavio and Louise, see if you can bring that down.”

Louise grinned as she looked at the giant supports at the base of the Eye. “Finally, some destruction. Think you can manage it, Octavio?”

“Just try to keep up, huh?” he said, concentrating on the metal supports as well.

Wei threw out a hand and the roof of the pier became a blazing inferno, engulfing the first wave of spiders coming at them. A shearing sound split the air and all four legs of the London Eye
ripped free of the concrete in a massive show of psionic force by Louise and Octavio. The wheel swayed and one of the glass-walled pods detached, crashing into the Thames.

“Push it, Octavio!” Louise yelled and the Eye tilted in the direction of the river. A second later, gravity took hold and the structure collapsed across the pier, driving it down
under the water. Amidst the flames and twisting metal, spiders were pushed down too. For good measure, Nestor gave the mess another blast of freezing air, locking the swarm temporarily in place
again.

“This is great!” Alex said breathlessly as they fled down the nearest street, putting as much distance between themselves and the river as possible. “I’ve always wanted
to see London… Destroy a few famous landmarks…”

“And I’m just getting started,” Louise replied.

“Check the cars,” Sarah said as they passed parked vehicles. “Look for anything with a set of keys left in the ignition.”

Alex laughed. “You clearly haven’t spent much time in London recently.”

“Let’s take one of these!” Nestor exclaimed, pointing as they approached an intersection. Here the traffic was stopped dead, some of the engines still running – drivers
and passengers slumped in their seats, doors open, windows smashed. He led them to a jeep stalled across the junction. Its windows were intact, but the door was open – a middle-aged man
sprawled half-in, half-out of the vehicle.

“Sorry,” Nestor said, pulling the driver out. As he dragged him to the pavement and laid him down, the man’s eyes snapped open. Nestor gave a cry of shock as the man grabbed
his arm.

“I SEE YOU!” the man hissed, eyes bulging out of their sockets. Nestor desperately tried to pull free as the man repeated, “I SEE YOU!”

“I see you too!” Octavio said, placing a foot on the man’s shoulder and pushing him back down to the ground.

“What was that?” Nestor said, staggering back towards the jeep with his brother.

“Bad news,” said Octavio, looking around the street. Around the pavements and in the road it was possible to sense a change in the atmosphere – almost like the coming of a
storm. Over by the shattered front of a coffee shop an old woman sat bolt upright. She pointed a wizened finger directly at them.

“I SEE YOU!”

“It’s the Entity,” Sarah said as she ushered Louise and Wei into the back of the jeep. “It’s taking control of the infected. We have to get moving. Nestor, take the
wheel.”