The Chaos Code (28 page)

And out into the hall again. The stairs were on fire. A trail of flame led down and across the hall to the front door. As they watched, the door blistered and smoked. A curl of flame from the wood panelling. Then suddenly the whole door was a raging mass of orange and yellow. A section of the fire seemed to coalesce, and an orangered figure stepped out of the inferno and into the hallway in front of them, as if it was stepping through the door from outside. But it was made of fire – a blazing, raging mass of flame in roughly the shape of a man.

After it, came another. The door was almost gone already, and Matt could see the darkness beyond. Blue flashing lights. Faint shapes of figures running forward.

More fire demons coming down the stairs.

Matt and Robin huddled together in the middle of the hall, as walking walls of flames closed in around them.

Then suddenly, Matt was cold – freezing cold. And wet. He staggered back as the water from the firemen's
hoses outside ripped through the burning door and splashed over him and Robin. He was laughing, yelling with delight as the water scythed through the fire creatures by the door. The figures collapsed into pools of fire, dwindling and dying as the water splashed over them.

The creatures on the stairs hesitated. Water from the hoses was running across the hall floor. A jet of water dowsed the bottom of the staircase, sending up steam instead of smoke. Matt was almost jumping for joy.

But Robin wasn't. She held Matt's arm tight, pulling him back. ‘We need to get to the main circuit boards and stuff for the fire alarms – through there.' She was pointing to a door on the other side of the hall.

‘Why?' They could get out now. ‘Let's get out of here!'

‘Water,' she said.

Matt didn't need to ask her what she meant. He could see it now. The water from the hoses was running across the hall floor. Pooling at the foot of the stairs. rising up into the shape of a figure. In the doorway in front of them, the jets from the hoses seemed to stop. Water was still pouring in, but now it seemed to be filling huge, crudely shaped moulds, building massive figures of water that sloshed across the floor towards Matt and Robin.

‘At least they can't burn us,' Matt said.

‘They don't need to,' Robin told him.

Wet figures reached out for them from all directions.

A hand closed on Matt's face, and it was like his head had been stuck in a bucket of water. He choked and coughed. His vision blurred. He felt himself sinking deep, deep into the water …

Drowning.

Robin's shoulder crashed into Matt's chest, sending him staggering. His head emerged from the bubble of water, breaking out. He was gasping and retching. Behind him, water splashed to the floor, the surface tension broken.

‘Can't you swim?' Robin yelled. ‘It's water, not fire. We can get through!' She was thrashing out at the creature that was trying to hold her. It was like she was fighting a mirror – Matt could see Robin's face reflected in the drops and drips and curves of the thing as it fought back. Her arm was encased in water, her whole body being sucked in.

Matt grabbed the nearest thing – the small table with the phone on it. The phone clattered to the floor. He slammed the table into the side of the creature holding Robin. The creature exploded into a million droplets, raining down. Robin flicked her wet hair out of her eyes.

Together they ran at the water creatures between them and the door into the main part of the house.

Shoulders down, they smacked into the wet wall – like diving into the swimming pool. One of the creatures shattered like wet glass. The other managed to stay intact, but Robin and Matt were through it, landing in a soaking tumble on the floor.

Robin was up at once, heaving the door open, racing through. Her feet slapped on the floor. Matt was close behind her.

The main electrical board was in a cupboard in a small storeroom off the corridor beyond. Matt could see at once that something was wrong – the cover was cracked open and wires had been pulled out.

‘This was deliberate,' he said.

‘Thank you, Einstein.' Robin's fingers were a blur as she sorted through the mess, pulling at wires and twisting their ends together.

‘You know what you're doing?'

‘I understand simple electronics, thanks.'

‘And helicopters,' he said. ‘I heard a helicopter, just before… Someone started the fire, then escaped in a helicopter.'

Matt could smell burning again. Smoke was drifting between them. ‘I don't know what good you think this will do, but you might want to hurry,' he told her. He ran to the door and looked out.

A figure was lurching along the corridor. A figure made of fire. It crackled and hissed angrily, black smoke wreathing the red flames. A high-pitched wail echoed
down the corridor after it – the alarms were working again.

‘I'm reconnecting the sprinklers now,' Robin said.

‘So we swap fire demons for waterspray monsters, great.'

‘Not quite.' She was working furiously, fumbling for the next wire, pulling it over to reconnect. ‘How long have we got?'

Fire spilled into the room. The creature seemed to gather itself, and Matt saw with horror that it was going to leap at them.

‘Not long,' he said, and his voice was shrill and shaking.

Robin grabbed another wire.

The fire filled the doorway. It surged forward as if catapulted across the room. Sparks flew through the air and bit at Matt's face. There was a sudden hiss like angry snakes as Matt's whole vision was one of flames and smoke.

‘That's it,' he heard Robin say through the fireball.

And then the wailing and hissing seemed to combine into a cry of anguish and fury. And the fire was gone.

‘What happened – where's the water?' Matt said.

The wailing faded in response to a press of a button, and Robin closed up the cupboard doors. ‘There's no water,' she said. ‘That would ruin everything. As bad as fire.'

‘Then what?'

‘Can't you hear it?'

There was still the hissing sound, even though Robin had shut off the alarms. ‘Gas?' He was finding it hard to breath.

‘Inert gas. Starves the fire of oxygen. Us too, if we aren't careful. We should get out and stop the firemen using their hoses.'

‘Yeah – they'll just make more water creatures.'

Robin sighed, as if he was missing the point. ‘They'll ruin Dad's books.'

They picked their way through the mess and debris in the gathering morning light. The last fire engines had gone, the experts having declared that the house was structurally intact. They implied that after the fire, it didn't deserve to be.

‘It wasn't the house the fire was trying to burn,' Robin told them.

Several of the upstairs rooms were burned out, and the whole place stank of smoke. The carpet down the main stairs was a damp, charred mess. The corridors were blackened and discoloured.

Katherine was gone. Her room was a blackened ruin, but there was no sign of a body. ‘You think she escaped?' Matt asked.

‘I'm sure she did,' Robin replied shortly. ‘In Dad's helicopter.'

‘But she can't –' Matt broke off. ‘Oh, right. She started the fire. She was playing along with us.'

‘She thought you knew something useful about the disc,' Robin reminded him. ‘She wanted to know what it was. And then last night I said I thought Dad would be able to decipher the symbols on the disc easily. She didn't need us any more. Simple as that.'

‘Bitch,' Aunt Jane said. They both looked at her. ‘Forget I said that,' she told them. She put her hand to her mouth as she thought: ‘She probably never called Mr Smith. I left her to it. She said she'd spoken to him. That… woman.'

Something had occurred to Matt too. ‘I bet she's taken the other disc,' he said. ‘It was in the library, on the table. While I was asleep, I bet she took it.' He ran to check.

The wood panelling lining the passageway from the hall to the library had warped in the heat. The glass on several of the pictures was cracked and discoloured. One of the paintings had burned almost away, leaving just the heads of two girls staring out from history – one dark-haired and blue-eyed like Robin, the other fair-haired with smudged green eyes.

The library was in surprisingly good shape. The water hadn't reached it, but several bookcases on the gallery were a charred mass. A ragged black line ran down the stairs and across to the door. But the fire had followed Matt and Robin, and hadn't stopped to burn the books.

The table was as Matt had left it. His drawing of the
symbols from the disc had curled in the heat, but it was intact. The books were where Robin had left them. And, as Matt had expected, the wooden box containing the metal disc was gone. Only Dad's clay copy of the disc from Valdeholm was still there. Katherine Feather had not wanted to risk disturbing him by taking it from under his hand, Matt guessed.

Matt found Robin and Aunt Jane in the passage. Robin was holding the blistered remains of the burned canvas. She had been crying – smears running down through the dark grime on her cheeks. Aunt Jane was comforting her – hand on the girl's shoulder.

‘There are others,' Jane was saying.

‘Poor Lisa,' Robin murmured. Then she saw Matt, and she forced a smile. ‘The picture got burned,' she said.

‘Tell him,' Jane said to Robin. ‘You should tell him.'

But Robin did not answer. She took the burned fragment of canvas and walked slowly back to the library. The picture, the portrait of the fair-haired woman, was back on the side table.

Even the little room off the library where Matt had used the computer smelled of smoke, though it was otherwise undamaged. It was in here he had first met Julius Venture, Matt thought – it seemed such a long time ago, but it was only a few days.

Robin had her father's notes – a sheaf of papers covered with small, neat handwriting and what looked like
mind maps. Matt had done some mind maps at school – boxes of ideas linked together with a web of lines showing connections between them. She set the notes down on the table and switched on the computer.

‘Let's take stock,' Aunt Jane said. ‘We still have Arnold's copy of the disc, but we've lost the other one. We know that it shows a map of some sort, probably Antarctica, and possibly it gives the location of Atlantis. But with Katherine gone, we know nothing that Harper won't now know.'

‘Not true,' Robin said without looking up from the screen as the system loaded. ‘At least, we know more than Harper thinks we do. Dad's notes and what we've seen for ourselves confirm it.'

‘What do you mean?' Matt asked.

‘I mean that we know what he's up to. Look.' She gestured to the screen and Matt and Aunt Jane came round the table to see.

It showed a map of the world, a simple outline of the continents and landmasses. But overlaid on it was a series of dots. As Matt watched, the dots were joined by a series of thin lines arcing down and across the map.

‘Looks like what Harper had in his computer system. Showing ancient sites,' he said.

‘I was afraid you'd say that. This is something Dad worked out ages ago.'

‘And what are the lines?' Aunt Jane asked. ‘Flight paths or something?'

‘They are significant lines of longitude and latitude round the earth's surface,' Robin said. ‘Now watch.'

She worked the mouse, and more lines appeared. The new lines were not as regular. Some were straight, others ran in gentle curves. But all of them went through several or more of the dots.

‘Ley lines, and lines of magnetic force,' Robin said.

‘Ley lines? You mean that people claim to find by dowsing and stuff?' Matt said, remembering.

‘Tracks or paths connecting ancient sites,' Aunt Jane said. ‘That's right. Ancient connections.'

‘And what does this tell us?' Matt wondered.

‘These are all sites that adhere to the blueprint we talked about,' Robin said. ‘They are all interconnected. You can see, they're all linked in a vast web. They are all in significant locations. And they are all on Harper's model.'

‘You think.'

‘I know. I saw it. I remember.'

‘You've got a better sort of memory than me then,' Matt told her.

‘I've got a different sort of memory from you,' Robin shot back. ‘But there's another thing too. All these sites are themselves models of the real world in some way. And that's what Dad's notes told me. That's what he was afraid Harper was up to. He's defining the linkages between the sites, he's putting the overall
model
back together. Each of these sites is just a small part of
the whole. Harper's been researching them for years, remember – looking for more and more of these significant ancient sites. Put them all together, and it gives you a single, unified, overarching model.'

‘You mean like a computer model? Some sort of simulation?' Aunt Jane asked.

‘Like his model of the pyramid and the amphitheatre?' Matt asked. ‘Like the way we think he controls these elemental creatures of his?'

‘Exactly like that. They're all tiny parts of the overall blueprint we talked about. Bits of what he's up to. Pieces of information he needs to complete his overall plan.'

‘Which is what?'

Robin stood up. She walked across the room, head down in thought. Then she turned to look at them. ‘Don't interrupt till I've finished,' she said. ‘Then you can ask me questions about it, but hear me out first, all right?' She seemed suddenly older, more serious than Matt had seen her before. Like a concentrated version of herself.

‘All right,' he said. ‘Go on.'

‘The ancient sites that Harper has marked, the sites on
his
blueprint, if you like, form a network as you can see. Each of them in some way mirrors the world and the heavens – time and space. You know that the pyramids and their relationship to the Nile mirror the major stars and the Milky Way. We talked about the Nazca Lines in Southern Peru too. Well, each of these ancient
sites has some property or aspect that mirrors the real world. It's size, or shape, or alignment – whatever. So, for example, Stonehenge is a giant clock that calculates and echoes how the sun moves. The Great Pyramid at Giza has dimensions that are based on the size of the earth itself and actually models the northern hemisphere. The temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia is an even more accurate definition of time. Have you ever been there?'