A glance backwards. She couldn’t see them any more, although she could hear the gentle rumble of Bob’s voice.
Good enough for modesty.
She turned back and was about to step round the back of the tree trunk beside her and into the clearing when she spotted it. Almost yelping with shock as she immediately ducked down into the long grass.
A eugenic.
It was sitting on the edge of the clearing. Huge. One of the ape-like ones, a tiny head almost an afterthought emerging as little more than a lump from its huge shoulders. She froze where she was, petrified that if she moved again she might attract its attention.
She peered more closely at it. It looked a size larger than the apes, half as big again, even more top heavy with muscle-mass. But it was the creature’s face that struck her.
No mouth. Or, rather, where a mouth should have been a short length of pipe emerged, sealed at the end. It also appeared to be wearing a skullcap of some kind. She watched it for a good minute before suspecting it was quite dead.
Liam squatted down in front of it and peered closely at its small face. Its eyes were open, dilated and glazed. They could hear it breathing, air that rustled in through the slits of its nose and wheezed out like a blacksmith’s bellows.
‘Well, it’s not dead; I can tell that much.’
‘The creature is in a stupor,’ said Lincoln.
Sal reached out and touched its ape-like face, pale skin as smooth and as hairless as a baby’s. The cap she thought it had been wearing, a leather one, seemed to be attached. Fixed in place to a band round its forehead by a pair of clips. She looked at Liam. ‘It comes off, maybe?’
He nodded. ‘Go on … I don’t think this brute’s going to mind.’
Carefully, she undid one clip and then the other, and gently eased the cap up off the band.
‘Oh, that’s just gross!’
Beneath a scuffed glass cover, they could see its skull had been scooped empty of brain. In the cranial cavity, through the scratched glass, they could see something grey and ribbed, the size, shape and texture of a walnut. It was penetrated by half a dozen small brass rods, linked by wires to a control box that blinked an amber light.
‘Information,’ said Bob. ‘Electronic impulses sent through the rods to the organic tissue stimulate brain activity. A much simpler version of the silicon — organic interface in my head.’
Liam puffed a queasy breath out. ‘McManus said they were controlling their creatures much better now. So this is how: they scoop the poor thing’s brains out and shove in whatever that is instead.’
‘It is a brain, isn’t it?’ said Sal.
‘Aye … but a tiny one. Like a rat’s or something.’
Sal made a face.
‘Or maybe they grow these things without brains now,’ said Liam. That somehow seemed a more palatable idea. Better than growing smart creatures and then lobotomizing them like this.
They heard a distant whistle sounding.
‘What was that?’ asked Lincoln.
Men’s voices echoed through the orchard. They heard the clatter of machinery firing up.
Liam shrugged. ‘Maybe that was the end of a lunch break.’
The light on the box suddenly changed from amber to green.
Sal tilted her head. ‘Does that mean it’s just turned itself “on”?’
Liam looked at the others. ‘Uhh … who thinks we better go?’
Sal nodded. She popped the leather cap back on and managed to snap one of the clips in place before the eugenic stirred. Its small eyes twitched and flickered and then focused on Sal for a moment.
‘Oh Jay-zus!’ whispered Liam. ‘It’s woken up!’ Liam pulled Sal back and stood in front of her. ‘Easy … there, big fella …’ His voice trembled.
The creature slowly pulled itself to its feet and stood erect for a moment, easily two foot taller than Bob. Its all-black eyes, small and glistening like a spider’s, seemed to be studying them without the tiniest hint of curiosity. Then without any warning it turned round and pushed its way through the gap between the nearest two apple trees.
Liam ducked down low under the branches and peered out after it to see the creature push through another row of trees into an area of the orchard busy being harvested. He saw a dozen others like it, leviathan-sized eugenics assembling around one end of what appeared to be some sort of combine-harvester.
In the sky half a mile away, he saw a sky vessel was slowly approaching, descending. Just like the farming operation they’d seen in action a week ago.
He looked back at the enormous eugenic workers. The sheer size of this particular type … they made Bob look pitifully small. ‘We’ve not seen this kind before,’ said Liam.
‘We should proceed,’ said Bob, hunkering down beside Liam. ‘We have twenty-one miles to the rendezvous location.’
Liam nodded. ‘You’re right.’
CHAPTER 75. 2001, New York
Maddy spat grit out of her mouth. ‘Oh my God, that was close!’
The artillery barrage began several hours after the British had arrived, just as Colonel Devereau had said it would. With every percussive thump of a shell landing on this side of the river, the archway seemed to shower on them more dust and particles of brick. They were partly protected from a direct hit by the mangled remains of the bridge overhanging them … but the way their roof seemed to be shedding pieces, she had no doubt a near enough miss would do as good a job as a direct hit.
She picked up the computer keyboard in front of her and turned it over, pouring dust and grit out from between the keys on to the desk.
‘Jeeez … I’m surprised anything’s still working in here!’
Her words were lost beneath another nearby thump that unleashed a shower of debris from above. Ten minutes of this bombardment so far and already Maddy’s nerves were jangling.
One hit … just one … and I’m going to be entombed beneath an avalanche of bricks.
She had half a mind to leave the archway and stand outside in the trenches. At least she’d not die by being crushed. Becks was sitting beside the displacement machine, protecting the rack of circuit boards from falling fragments. The computer keyboard in front of her might still work with nuggets of brick lodged inside it, thought Maddy, but she doubted the fragile electronics of the displacement machine would be quite so forgiving.
And what about the antennae array, outside? If it got knocked, they’d have to reset it. Go outside, stand on the crumbling roof and recalibrate it, or God knows how off-target their window was going to be.
Worst still. What about a hit on that old rust-bucket tank outside, still loyally chugging away? No tank, no power. They’d be as good as dead in the water.
‘Becks!’
‘Yes, Maddy?’
‘There’s no way we’re going to survive two days of this!’ Another heavy thump deposited a shower of debris on Maddy’s head. She spat out grit and shook her head, sending another smaller shower of dust out of her hair and on to her lap.
‘We need to open the window now!’
‘We can’t do that, Maddy. They may not be at the rendezvous coordinates yet.’
Becks — Queen of the Freakin’ Obvious.
‘I know that … I know that … but … we’ve got to do something before we get hit!’
Both Becks and Bob had a local wireless range, but neither of them could transmit a message to each other across more than a mile or two at best.