CHAPTER 74

2001, en route to New Chelmsford

Liam wiped sweat from his face. The morning had started out so chilly. Now, midday, with the sky a rich blue and the sun hanging high, it was a summer’s day come late.

Traipsing across field after field punctuated by the occasional meadow … and now finally in an apple orchard that seemed endless, they were exhausted.

‘Five minutes,’ gasped Liam. ‘I’ve got a stitch in me side.’ He slumped against the trunk of an apple tree. ‘Five minutes’ rest here, then we’ll carry on.’

Lincoln slid down beside him, equally spent and grumbling about blisters on his feet.

Sal didn’t want to sit. She knew if she did she’d not want to get up again. Anyway, more pressing matters.

‘I need to, uh … to go and …’

Liam waved her off. ‘Don’t wander too far.’

‘OK.’

She turned away and ducked down under the low-hanging branches of the nearest tree. She could still see them which meant they could see her. She walked a little further from them, between rows of trees, through grass tall enough to tickle her fingers. She ducked down again, under another cluster of apple-laden branches and found herself on the edge of a clearing.

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.’