The Secret Bunker Trilogy: Part One: Darkness Falls (16 page)

Even though she’d left the Military not long after that terrible event,
she’d still kept in touch with Roachie. Nothing that could be traced of course.
After the mission debriefing, they’d been warned
threatened
to be
more accurate - never to discuss the events that had taken place that
day.
They weren’t direct threats of course.
But it was made
very
clear that this really was Top Secret stuff.
She hadn’t even been allowed to visit Roachie. They’d given her regular updates about his progress, made sure that
she knew he was okay.
But they were forbidden from ever discussing
that
exercise together.
They were monitored for a while - phones, emails and meetings - but
she’d shown every sign of being relieved that she was away from
military operations. Like she knew herself that she was well clear of it all.
Not long afterwards she’d met a man called Mike in her civilian life
and they’d married very soon after that.
They stopped monitoring her after the wedding.
They’d wrongly assumed that she’d put it all behind her.

But she knew how to play the waiting game, and when the time was
right, six years later, she reached out to Roachie.
Via a disposable mobile phone and a bit on online research.
DIY espionage kits now available via your home PC.
He was delighted that she’d contacted him again and they met up
when he was on leave.
On a train, where
they
would never even think to monitor.

It was a snatched conversation.
It started with a hug.
She was so sorry for what she’d done to him, but so utterly relieved
that he was okay.
A hug from him too.
And congratulations about the twins.
He didn’t know about the lasting damage that he’d done to her, but he
too was relieved to see her standing there, alive.
They’d never really known what had happened that day.
They’d thought they were on a routine mission together.
They’d even taken a photo of themselves together just before they’d
been deployed.
It was the one on Roachie’s desk in the bunker, though she’d never got
a copy as it had been on his camera.
Probably best that Mike and the kids never knew.
They understood that the mission was a little unusual.

But what had
really
happened that day?
How did they get out? Their gamble had certainly paid off as far as
they
were concerned, but
when they had come round, they’d both been led to believe that they’d
been ‘extracted’. Rescued in other words.
There really wasn’t a lot that they could agree on about that day.
Only that there were a lot of worried faces around at that time.
Somebody
had got into serious trouble over their injuries.
And it was very clear to her that they couldn’t get rid of her quick
enough when the redundancy notice came through.
It
felt
like a cover up, as if somebody had had to do some serious
smoothing over.

They were both agreed on one thing though.
Whatever the source of that voice that had demanded a response from
them, it was like
nothing
they’d ever heard before. The voice that had compelled them in that desperate situation to make
an impossible choice.
It was at once commanding, threatening, urgent … and definitely not
of this world.

I know straight away that the alarms are connected to whatever I just
left going on in the bunker entrance.
I wonder what Kate will say if Mum is waiting there.
In a different set of clothes to the image that she has just shown me on
her screen.
Now
that
would take some explaining!
Kate moves instantly, I hadn’t considered it before, but she seems to
be pretty well in charge of this place.
She isn’t shouting orders or anything like that, and in fact I’ve found it
pretty hard to detect
any
hierarchy here so far.
But it’s fair to say that she knows exactly what’s going on, and as she
leaves the Control Room, she is joined - as if it has been rehearsed
beforehand - by four armed guards.

Nobody has placed her in charge, but let’s put it this way.
They’re following
her
.
I run along behind, anxious to see what’s going on here.

The bunker doors are securely shut and the wonderful colours of the
protective shield, no longer required, disappear as fast as they had
started.
James rushes towards two figures, who are blinking madly and
rubbing their eyes, desperately trying to acclimatise to the light levels
inside the bunker. ‘Come with me!’ says James, his tone suggesting that this is not up for
discussion.
He grabs the arm of the woman and as he does so something drops
from her pocket.
There is no time to investigate, the alarms are ringing, he must have
made a mistake, they know that he is here.
The bunker staff know that
somebody
is here, but they do not know
who
.
If they can make it to the end of this corridor, they may yet be able to
go undetected.
At this moment, the blue lights in the necks of the woman and the man
stop pulsating.
They are at rest.
This part of the mission is completed, they are safely in the bunker.

Whoever is controlling these devices knows that this man and this
woman can now avoid detection better on their own, without the
assistance of the devices. Their thoughts and memories of what has been taking place in the
past half hour are restored.
As the pulsing stops, recognition dawns on them both at once.
‘Roachie’ she exclaims.
‘Amy’ he replies.
This is not unlike a situation that they found themselves in many years
beforehand.
A sudden crisis situation.
Limited data from which to make fast decisions.
Whoever was controlling those blue devices knows that these two are
best when they work together, under conditions of extreme stress,
and without interference from the devices in their necks. A unique 0.01% of a test sample.
They’re being left to get on with it on their own.
And it doesn’t matter now that they recognise each other.
In fact, that’s exactly how it needs to be.
For this part of their mission, they will need to rely on their innate
skills and judgement.
She is slightly ahead of him, just as it was all those years ago.
As partners, they are perfectly in tune in situations like this.
There are few options.

The alarms are sounding.
The alert has been raised.
This is not
necessarily
a hostile situation. Very soon, they will be met by guards or some sort.
Hostile or not, it will result in questions and probably, some form of
detention.
You don’t have alarms like this unless something serious is going on.
Whatever is going on outside, it has something to do with this place.
And there’s this additional information that only
she
can digest and he
has no knowledge of.
Most people would display huge extremities of emotion when
confronted with the sight of this child in front of her.
The blue device had suppressed that recognition so far, now there is
no doubt about it.
But this pair are one of only 0.01%, they don’t do what
other people
would do.

There had been a lot of trouble over what they’d done all those years
previously. But that was
why
they needed to be here.
Together, in
this
bunker, at
this
time.
James had been scheduled to be here already.
Amy had had to be lured here at the last moment, when events had
taken a sudden turn. Over 30 years in the planning, and nobody could have foreseen this.
In an instant the decision is made. All those years ago, it was about buying more time, creating a different
option, an alternative outcome when it seemed that none were
possible.

James knew in that instant that if Amy was here it had to be connected
with those events years earlier.
This crazy darkness outside, the secrecy, the planning, the Military
overtones of the entire affair.
She realised the same, it must all be connected, but with the child here
too, inexplicably, they must be at the centre of this somehow. Most people would have waited, like rabbits frozen in the headlamps,
so much in panic that they couldn’t even see what options were
available to them.
They knew that they had to buy more time for explanation, to figure
out what was going on here.
‘Sorry Roachie,’ Amy said as she took her laptop out of her bag and
smacked James firmly on the head.

She didn’t notice the phone that had fallen to the ground to her side.
She grabbed the child’s hand, and they ran for their lives as Roachie
slumped bloodied to the ground.

He thought that he was going to be taken off the project after the nearfatal injuries, but by the skin of his teeth he had managed to salvage
his role. After all, with so much energy and expertise invested already, and
with time running out for the planet, this was really no time for an
impromptu change of personnel. He was uniquely qualified for this job, above everybody else
on the
planet
, so a bit of collateral damage was easily explained.

The Military were furious, calling him incompetent for allowing live
rounds of ammunition during the simulations, wanting his head on a
plate because their two soldiers had been exposed to so much real
danger. They’d been assured that the worst case scenario was a bad headache
and temporary unconsciousness from the lasers, which would be set
to stun. But with both Zero-97/4 and Zero-98/4 sustaining life threatening
injuries, this was becoming uncomfortable.
It didn’t take too long for the posturing and temper tantrums to die
down and the assertions of rank to cease.
Once it had been passed up and down the command chain a few times,
it was agreed that the situation should just be ‘contained’.

She was to be exited from her Military role, with immediate effect.
They’d call it redundancy, move her on without a fuss. He would be given the best care and support possible, then allowed to
continue his long and exemplary career.
For him that was the course of least resistance, he was a Military man,
easier to keep him where he was most comfortable, but no more
special missions for
him
.
They would be forbidden to communicate and this would be
monitored to ensure full compliance. Besides, he had a strong interest in how they’d both performed that
day.
Results like those could come in useful, he
wanted
them out of
everybody else’s sight.
But he wanted them where
he
could see them.
He
had known about the meeting on the train, he knew that there was
a lifelong connection there.
Honestly, a disposable mobile phone?
It was easily traced back to her.
Nobody else knew about their meeting and he certainly had not
shared that information.

The research and tests continued, the furore settled down and he
continued at the forefront of the project, working from his base in the
UK. A role sanctioned by the Global Consortium.
But ultimately controlled by a much higher power.

However, slumped against the wall with a fresh trickle of blood from a
nasty wound on his head is the man I’d been watching only a short
time beforehand.
The bunker doors are firmly shut, the wonderful blanket of light
across the entrance has disappeared and there is no sign of anybody
else. Kate is clearly a little taken aback by this.
‘James,’ she says, ‘What happened here?’
It’s strange to see her refer to James’ name badge on his uniform. Here were were in a hi-tech installation, yet all the people here were
only just getting to know each other and still had to resort to what
were effectively supermarket name badges to figure out who they
were talking to. Like she is about to ask him where the cabbages are.

James rubs his head melodramatically and gives the appearance of
being dazed.
I’ve seen acting skills like that before.
In fact, I’m the Master of them!
‘I was running a routine inspection of the doors and cameras,’ James
explains, ‘And I think I must have hit my head on the panel here.’
Kate looks uncertain and turns to the security team for guidance, but
there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot to say here. ‘We’d had a problem with the cameras,’ James continues, ‘I’m sorry, I
should have flagged it in the Control Room, I just put it down to
routine teething problems.’

‘At least I managed to sound the alarm to get your attention,’ he adds,
almost pleadingly.
Kate appears hesitant, but reasonably convinced by this. What he was saying seemed unlikely, yet only hours earlier she’d had
to send a team to retrieve me from this very area, so it’s certainly not
impossible that another problem has occurred here.
They’d used biohazard suits when they came for me because they
didn’t know that the area was fully clear from the darkness outside at
that stage.
I decide to help this James guy out.
I can see through his bad acting, and I want to get a chance to talk with
him in private.
‘Kate, that head wound looks pretty bad, I wonder if he should get that
looked at?’ I propose. With nothing else to suggest, Kate nods agreement, then asks one of
the security team to check system records to make sure that James’
story checks out.

James is escorted away from the area, towards the MedLab, to get the
head wound looked at.
The security guys make sure that the control panel is secured, then
leave the area.
I am lurking, and nobody seems to have noticed.
I hoped that they wouldn’t spot what I’d just seen hidden away in a
shadowy edge of the corridor.
It’s my phone.
Mum
had
been here.
And James
was
covering something up.
As the security team start to head off down the corridor I grab the
phone and tap the screen to force it back into life.
The battery is
really
low. They can power a fluffy pink rabbit with a cymbal for several days in
those TV adverts but they
still
can’t make a mobile phone stay charged
for any decent length of time.