The Lucifer Code (23 page)

*

The black sector conference room.

One hour later

'The test will happen tonight,' Soames said with a triumphant smile.

Knight turned towards him from her seat at the conference table. 'Fleming's delivered?' she asked. 'Already?'

'I saw it,' confirmed Carvelli beside her.

Soames nodded. 'The NeuroTranslator is there, fully calibrated, complete with all the communication modifications necessary to link up with the soul-capture hardware. We're ready to go.'

'Tonight?' Accosta said, still not believing it. Progress on the project seemed to be accelerating as the end of his life drew nearer - as if God was speeding him on. From his seat beside Monsignor Diageo he looked through the two-way mirror into the laboratory. Two orderlies were preparing the bed and the glass head-sphere.

'Tonight,' Soames confirmed. He turned to Knight. 'We have a test candidate from the hospices?'

Knight hesitated. 'Since Amber we've cut back on collecting terminal subjects,' she said. 'As you know, one terminal patient is stored in a life-support casket in the green sector, but she was brought here for a different reason.'

'There's no real reason why she can't be a candidate, though, is there?' demanded Soames. 'I mean, she fits most, if not all, of the usual criteria, doesn't she?'

Knight nodded reluctantly. 'Yes, I suppose so, but are-'

'There's no time for buts, Virginia. We'll use her.'

'How soon can we do this, then?' Accosta asked.

Soames checked his watch. 'Tripp and Bukowski should be ready in six hours.'

Six hours. Reaching for the mobile oxygen station Accosta felt a rush of anxiety. His destiny rested on this experiment. If it was a success, the future was virtually assured. Everything he had been working towards, every sacrifice and every ruthless decision he had made would be vindicated. He was so close to the culmination of all his dreams that it was almost unbearable. All the disappointments of the past were as nothing compared to his anxiety now. Despair required little more than stoic acceptance. Hope, with all its tantali2ing promise, was far crueller.

He calmed himself and turned to Soames. Once again, the scientist had been true to his word, recruiting Fleming to the cause without the Englishman even being aware of it. For all his reservations he had to admit that Soames had delivered everything he had promised. 'You have done well, Bradley. Thank you.'

'Don't thank me yet, Your Holiness. Not till after the experiment. But I'm confident.'

Accosta turned to Carvelli. 'And if it works?'

Pulling up his sleeves, Carvelli leant forward on the table. 'Well, Your Holiness, all the multimedia equipment has been set up on the Red Ark. You've seen the plans and the layout for the cathedral, which should give maximum impact on camera. The seating also allows those physically attending the event to be close enough to verify the authenticity of what they witness.'

'What about the other equipment?' Accosta asked, retrieving a white handkerchief from his pocket.

'That's not a problem. We've already delivered duplicates of most of the soul-capture hardware to the Red Ark. Assuming that this experiment is a success, when it's over specially commissioned freight aircraft will transport the additional apparatus.'

Accosta wheezed and coughed into his handkerchief, then folded it into his hand without looking at the bloody contents. Wordlessly Monsignor Diageo leant across, took it from him and handed him a fresh one. Accosta smiled his thanks and turned back to Carvelli. 'Assuming this experiment is a success, how long before we can hold the event?'

'Thirty-six hours.'

'Is that all? What about publicity? It's vital that the Day of the Soul Truth is seen by as many people as possible.'

Carvelli smiled and ran a manicured hand over his unnaturally black hair. 'Trust me, Your Holiness, publicity isn't a problem. With all the uncertainty about your health there's already huge interest in you - and not just from your followers. Even as we speak my contacts in the media are waiting for a press release. As soon as we know this experiment has been a success I'll announce the event.'

He paused. 'Rest assured, Your Holiness, this is going to be everything you need it to be. Bigger than any media event in history. When people learn what the Day of the Soul Truth is, I doubt that anyone - whoever they are or whatever they believe - will choose to miss it.'

*

The white sector

Sleep wouldn't come. Lying on his bed, Fleming's eyes stung with fatigue and his head ached, but he couldn't calm his thoughts. After a bath and an early supper he had dozed, only to wake even more restless. It was now ten o'clock in the evening and he couldn't sleep, even though he hadn't enjoyed a proper night's rest since he left San Francisco.

Without Amber he couldn't go further, but his mind continued to mull over the data he had seen in the NeuroTranslator files. Perhaps he'd missed something. Overlooked some small aspect of the soul wavelength that would help explain it as nothing more than the temporary anomaly he believed, and wanted, it to be.

The more he thought about it, the more he knew the truth of what he intended to prove. The dying of the mind was a fleeting moment of nature - dewdrops in the morning sunlight evaporating into a steamy mist before finally disappearing into the warm air. Rob's frightened words after death were little more than that same mist, signifying nothing but the stressful transition from life to oblivion. If only he could be sure of this, though, he could put his fear for Rob out of his mind and return home to Jake with a clear conscience.

Again, he told himself to relax. He could do no more until Soames contacted Amber. But however many times he rolled over in bed and told himself to go to sleep, he couldn't. His mind nagged at him. And not just about Rob.

He thought about Bukowski, listened for noises outside his door, then returned to Amber - as a patient who needed to be cured, as the key to laying Rob to rest, and as an attractive woman - and Rob, the NeuroTranslator and the soul wavelength.

Taking deep breaths he tried to clear his mind of everything: after a good night's sleep everything would fall into place.

'Goddamnit.' He sat up. There was no point in lying there, tossing and turning. He had learnt from bitter experience that the only cure for insomnia was to work, until he either solved his problem or convinced himself that he couldn't.

He threw on a pair of jeans and a VenTec T-shirt, slipped into his shoes and left the room. The corridors were deserted and the lights were even lower than usual. Careful to tread quietly, he left the residential quarters, passed the restaurant and cinema, turned left towards the green sector, and reached the square hall outside the red sector elevator. He had no idea what he expected to find by re-analysing the NeuroTranslator data but it had to be better than doing nothing. As he put his hand into his pocket for the access disk he heard a noise and voices. Then the door to the elevator slid open. Instinctively he stepped back against the wall.

'Careful,' he heard Tripp hiss at two orderlies. Fleming recognized the apparatus on the trolley they were pushing. Why was the NeuroTranslator being moved at this time of night?

He almost stepped out to challenge Tripp, but stopped himself when he saw the party turn down the curving corridor that led towards the black sector. Despite his natural curiosity he had been so consumed with getting the new NeuroTranslator operational that he hadn't given any more thought to the mysterious black sector. But now, hungry for answers, he was intrigued.

He waited for them to disappear round the corner, then stepped out of the shadows and followed.

As he stole down the dimly lit corridor Fleming was acutely aware that not only was he alone in this isolated mountain complex but no one even knew he was there. Not his family, not Barley Hall, no one. His heart beat faster in his chest.

'Come on,' Tripp muttered, ahead of him. 'Dr Soames is waiting.'

Keeping close to the wall, Fleming peered round the curving walls and saw Tripp insert a disk into the access slot of the black sector door. It hissed open and all three men passed through it with the trolley. When they had disappeared, the door stayed open and Fleming ran towards it. As he got there it hissed shut. In desperation he inserted his own disk in the slot but the light by the handle remained red.

'Shit,' he said and retreated back into the shadows, wondering what to do next.

Moments earlier, in her secure suite in the black sector, Amber had also been restless. The male guard assigned to her appeared to have a set pattern. Each evening at six he delivered her supper. Then, at some time before eleven, he would knock softly on the door. If Amber responded he would enter and take away the meal tray, but if she remained silent he would wait until morning.

She had spent the whole day trying to find a weapon but everything in the featureless room was screwed down or harmless. Eventually she had gone to the towel rail in the bathroom and gradually prised apart the fittings, releasing the hollow chrome bar.

After her meal had arrived she had quelled her nervousness, eaten what she could and placed the tray by the bed, which she made up to look as though she was lying in it. Then she retreated to the bathroom, holding the chrome bar like a baseball bat.

She waited in the gloom, her shaven reflection staring out at her from the mirror. Every time she checked her watch, only a few minutes had passed. Then, just when she'd thought he wasn't going to come, she heard the knock on the door.

'I've done here,' she said.

She heard the lock click and the door opened.

First the subdued light from the corridor leaked into the room, then the guard followed. For a moment she lost her nerve, convinced she couldn't hit him in cold blood. Then she thought of her abduction, everything she had undergone subsequently, and gripped the bar tighter.

'You enjoy the fish?' the man said, walking towards the bed, his back to the bathroom. Amber stepped behind him and, with all her strength, brought the bar down on his head. It buckled with the first blow so she hit him again.

'Not much,' she said, as she watched him grunt and fall to the floor.

Within two minutes she had him on the bed, gagged with one of the pillowcases, his hands tied behind his back with the other. Then she pulled the covers over him, checked that she had his black access disk and left the room, hoping she had a few hours before he was discovered.

She had no real plan for getting out of the Foundation. Short of commandeering a helicopter there was no way off the mountain - she was all too aware of its isolation. Her appearance was so altered by her shaven head that she doubted anyone would recognize her, but even if she managed to alert people in the white sector about her abduction she wasn't sure that they would help her escape. This was Soames's kingdom. People here depended on him for everything. Her only hope was to reach a satellite phone in one of the communication rooms and call someone on the outside. Someone she trusted, like Papa Pete Riga.

In the corridor she followed the signs for the black sector exit until she heard voices. She waited, and watched three men approach with a piece of apparatus on a trolley. To her relief they turned right in the direction of the main laboratory. Hugging the walls and staying alert for any other noise she eventually reached the exit door. She inserted the guard's disk, and it slid open. She stepped out into the corridor and tried to decide whether to follow the white chevrons to the left or the right.

Then a man moved out of the shadows and whispered her name.

Fleming didn't recognize the shaven-haired figure at first. Not until he saw the eyes. He'd have known those eyes anywhere. She looked as startled as he felt. They stared at each other, not sure what to do.

'What the fuck are you doing here?' she hissed.

'Trying to get in there so I can find out what Bradley Soames is up to with my NeuroTranslator. What are you doing here?'

'Trying to get out.'

Before he could ask her why, he heard footsteps to his left. He reached for her, pulled her towards him and backed into a dark recess. He could hear her breathing, feel her heart beating. He watched three figures approach from the direction of the green sector. This time he recognized Bukowski, and he could tell from the way Amber tensed beside him that she recognized her too. Bukowski was escorting two men pushing a gurney. On it was a white coffin.

One of the men slipped and banged the coffin against the far wall.

'Whoa,' whispered Bukowski, almost laughing, 'the old bird's not dead yet. Can't have her croaking before we're ready.'

Bukowski opened the door to the black sector and Fleming's mouth dried.

He recognized the motif stamped on the coffin, the stylized red ark with the cruciform mast. Even in the dim light he could just make out the wording beneath it: Church of Soul Truth Hospice.

In that instant, as she watched the coffin, with its distinctive logo, being wheeled into the black sector, all thoughts of escape left Amber. All she cared about was stifling the hideous fear uncoiling in her belly.

It couldn't be. It simply couldn't.

Clutching the smart disk she stepped out into the corridor and headed back to the black sector. Silently, Miles Fleming followed her.

*

The black sector conference room