скачать книгу бесплатно
Grandma appeared over Al’s shoulder, eyes filling for all three of them. “Before he could walk or talk your Uncle Al could work a television remote control. He’ll find a way to fix things.”
Al paused. “You are precious to us, see … And we’re never going to put you at risk again.”
Finn bowed his head, resigned. While they loved him he was their prisoner; that’s just the way it was with families.
“And stop behaving as if it’s the end of the world,” insisted Grandma. “This is not an ‘end of the world’ situation – it’s term time.”
When it came time for goodbyes it was all a bit of a rush.
“Happy birthday, kiddo,” said Kelly and scuffed Finn’s hair, offering his great block of a fist to bump – an action that usually deteriorated into a punch to the side of Finn’s head as Kelly pretended to forget how to do it. “Sorry you’re not coming with us.”
“No you’re not,” said Finn, taking the punch.
“True,” Kelly lied. “But someone has to stay at mission control.”
“Think yourself lucky,” said Stubbs. “I don’t travel well at all.”
“We’re supposed to be a team!” said Finn.
“And you’re supposed to be thirteen years old,” said Delta, hugging him. “What matters most is you staying in one piece.”
Finn watched them climb aboard a model train bound for the CFAC exit.
“We’ll be back before you know it!” said Delta.
“I’m not going to think about any of you!” Finn called as they pulled away. “I’ve got Yo-yo, I know he loves me!”
“Yo-yo doesn’t love you,” came Al’s voice from on high, “he’s just the dumbest connection of nerve endings, protein and hair ever thrown together by a random universe.”
Al saluted and winked.
“Text me updates – and Skype as well – and bring me back a kung-fu mantis, not just a green one but something special! And don’t you dare have any fun!” Finn yelled.
“Moi?” grinned Al, all innocent.
“Sir, the Commander is waiting,” called a technician.
Al’s last words were, “Look after Grandma!”
Then Finn watched his uncle disappear.
Up on a monitor he saw him getting hurried across the CFAC to a waiting chopper. Soon they’d all be on an overnight flight to Shanghai. Power was leaking from the building.
At least he and Hudson could spend the rest of his birthday repeatedly blasting their way through successive digital war zones while consuming snack food. It would give him time to process his emotions and the events of the day. There are limits on everything when you’re thirteen years old, he thought … A thought immediately interrupted by—
WHUMP! The sides of the biosphere shook.
“Hey. Birthday greetings,” said Hudson.
Without fail, and despite repeated warnings about vibration, Hudson would chuck down his school bag whenever he came into the lab, sending a minor shockwave through the nano-compound that could shake Finn clean out of bed.
Hudson collapsed into the beanbag next to the compound, fringe flopping over the top of his glasses as he emitted the latest playground gossip. “Guess what? Skeggy’s older sister took him to get a tattoo of a phoenix but his mum found out and stopped it halfway so now it just looks like a chicken with worms coming out of its butt.”
He stopped at the sound of the helicopters overhead.
“Hey, where’s everybody going?”
“Secret mission. Can’t say or I’d have to kill you,” said Finn.
“I thought we were meant to be a team?” said Hudson, indignant.
“Tell me about it,” said Finn.
“We are a team!” said Grandma, catching the end of the exchange as she bustled into the lab, dragging Hudson’s sack of sleepover bedding after her. “We’re the three musketeers! It’s me, you and Hudson!”
Yap! added Yo-yo, bouncing in her wake.
“And Yo-yo. And guess what I’ve got tickets for?” Grandma looked very pleased with herself.
“What?” Finn hardly dared ask.
“Bulb Expo! Tomorrow!”
“Bulb Expo?” said Finn.
“Turns out Commander King is very senior in the Royal Horticultural Society and he’s given me three tickets. We’ll have a marvellous time!”
“Is it a light show?” asked Hudson
“No, silly,” said Grandma, “it’s garden bulbs! Like The X Factor for flowers.”
Garden bulbs? Finn felt something snap inside.
“I am not going to a poxy flower show!” he yelled.
“Nonsense. I can’t just go with Hudson. We can’t be two musketeers, we must be three!”
“Yes you can – he can tell you about his butt worms.”
“Goodness. Have you got worms, Hudson?” asked Grandma.
Hudson looked stricken.
“Not me!” cried Hudson. “Skeggy!”
“Who on earth is ‘Skeggy’?”
Hudson regarded her in terror, knowing he was about to undergo ruthless cross-examination.
Finn was about to storm back to his quarters when suddenly he was struck by a brilliant idea.
“Hold on,” said Finn. “Grandma, where exactly is this flower show?”
“Chelsea.”
He was going to do it …
Because he had learned a lesson after all today – you have to take your chances …
Kaparis received intelligence reports of helicopters heading north from Hook Hall towards Heathrow and the holding of a China Airlines flight.
Tedious, he thought and felt a tingle of irritation.
They must have spotted Baptiste was one of his and decided to act. They would be too late, of course.
Should he bring bot distribution forward? He had the time. He would soon have the numbers.
Or maybe he just needed to create a little distraction?
To muddy the waters and give Allenby a shock he would never forget?
“Prepare a Viper squad,” he ordered Li Jun.
Two and a half hours later, Dr Allenby, Commander King and the thirty-three other members of the Hook Hall detachment were cruising at 35,000 feet in a Boeing 747 bound for Shanghai. The evening meal had been served and the cabin lights had been dimmed.
The flight would take eleven hours and they would move seven hours forward in time. Al was reading The Art of War by the ancient Chinese warrior, Sun Tzu, to get into the right mood. “The General who wins makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought,” he informed anyone who’d listen.
Out of the window the endless night passed, deep with secrets.
DAY TWO 07:00 (LOCAL GMT+8). Cash Till#3, Kung Fu Noodles, The Forbidden City, Shanghai. Nano-Botmass:*25765
SEE VECTOR RUN …
Sparks flew as carbon was fed into spark gaps at one end of the production suite. It was consumed, worked and transformed as it was drawn along an assembly line.
*25766 …
An instruction from an XE.CUTE bot at the head of each suite determined which of the fifty-two types of bot would be replicated.
*25767 …
There were now forty-three production suites fixed like leeches to the electronic innards of the cash till, each a miniature factory, each running at full capacity. Eleven more were partially constructed across cash tills #2 and #3.
*25768 …
Bots crawled and flew through the three cash tills and constantly swapped data and power through long whip-like antennae, bots of every kind and colour, waiting to slot into place to form a new production suite on the crammed motherboards.
*25769 …
Desperate to replicate.
The PRIME XE.CUTE sat at the head of suite #1. Like every other XE.CUTE in the botmass it passed on the photonic light of life as each new bot emerged. With a quantum kiss.
It was endless.
*25770 …
*25771 …
*25772 …
*25773 …
*25774 …
(#ulink_e3731983-806a-50ef-8f1c-bc858f134302)
DAY TWO 17:43 (Local GMT+8). Shanghai, China.
The late afternoon sun threw itself off the glass cliff face of a hundred skyscrapers and a twenty-first century metropolis spread out before them like a cloth of gold.
Shanghai. The Pearl of the Orient. The largest city on earth.
Gold, King noted, because sunlight was filtering through a haze of airborne pollutants, through a haze of energy and effort. A city of a thousand cranes, of a million cars, millions more bicycles and countless busy people – yeast in the global economic dough.
The Hook Hall team were transferring from Pudong International Airport into the city aboard twin Z-15 PLA helicopters. From parks and green spaces, tethered dragons curved up towards them, extraordinary stacks of multi-coloured box kites, part of an annual festival. Looking south the team saw the Forbidden City industrial complex laid out before them, a crazy dartboard of radial roads and white-walled factories.
Bo Zhang, who had welcomed them with a faultless snap of a salute, explained that at the centre of the Forbidden City, where security was tightest, were the government and military research institutes and cutting-edge companies such as Qin Research.
“We will establish ourselves at our headquarters and then go to the city,” Bo Zhang explained, and the helicopters banked to fly into the heart of Shanghai.
“Wow …” said Al.
It was clear the Chinese were going to look after them.
The spanking new Siam Towers Hotel was a bejewelled stalagmite: ninety-nine stories of luxury (including a helipad). The top three floors of the hotel had been turned over to the G&T, including the five-star Roof of the World restaurant, which had been transformed into an operational centre that was already up and running. Feeds to world leaders connected on one screen array. On another live CCTV and intelligence feeds from across the city were at their disposal. A huge central table had been set up for the most important players.
There was more to come as they were shown their rooms.
Commander King hated hotel rooms, thought them vulgar, and relied on handmade silk pyjamas for a sense of quality and comfort whenever he was travelling, but even they seemed cheap in the suite he’d been assigned.
Al loved hotel rooms. The minibar, gadgets and gizmos, the complimentary snacks and toiletries. His suite on the ninety-eighth floor did not disappoint. It was fitted out for the super-rich, with three dazzling rooms that boasted an interconnecting tropical fish tank – who could live without one? – and a bed the size of a tax haven from which he could look down on the Shanghai Bund riverfront. The cityscape that bloomed beyond looked like something out of a comic book. It looked like the future.
He must tell Finn. He took a picture, adding:
View from the top – Shanghai. Wish you were here, kiddo.
Then he focused on a little food van parked on a street corner, below. There was a queue. What was it selling? Dim sum? Ice cream?
