Doomsday Game

  Gary Gibson

  Doomsday Game

  First published by Gary Gibson 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Gary Gibson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Gary Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Art and Design by Ben Baldwin (www.benbaldwin.co.uk).

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  I. A CHOICE OF CATASTROPHES

  Kip

  Katya

  Randall

  Kip

  Rozalia

  II. RAGGEDY MEN

  Rozalia

  Kip

  Nadia

  Kip

  Rozalia

  III. THE OTHER SELWYN

  Nadia

  Randall

  Kip

  Rozalia

  Randall

  IV. THE LONG FALL

  Nadia

  Rozalia

  Nadia

  Randall

  Rozalia

  V. DOOMSDAY GAME

  Randall

  Randall

  Jerry

  Randall

  Jerry

  Randall

  Jerry

  VI. EIGHT YEARS LATER

  Nadia

  About Gary Gibson

  I

  A Choice of Catastrophes

  Kip

  Easter Island, Alternate Alpha Zero

  Everywhere Kip looked, dead seagulls lay scattered across the headland in their hundreds. Soldiers in hazmat suits moved amongst them, scooping up their small limp bodies with thick padded gloves and depositing them into heavy plastic sacks. A mound of sacks, every last one filled to capacity, had been steadily growing next to the coast road since dawn. One of Major Howes’ men, equipped with a flamethrower, stood waiting next to the mound with a bored expression.

  Kip nudged a seagull with the tip of one shoe. A wing lifted briefly, caught by an ocean breeze, then fell again. He picked out a handkerchief and kneeled down, carefully wiping the patent leather clean. He stood again, moving to replace the handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit, then hesitated. At last he gestured to a soldier wielding a sack to come closer, depositing the crumpled silk into the sack as the soldier held it open for him.

  Stepping up to the edge of the cliff that marked the end of the headland, he looked down at the shore below. Yet more dead birds lay scattered across a pebbled beach. When he lifted his eyes to look out across the Pacific, he saw that the water had a deep red hue to it, as if the rising sun had suffered a mortal wound and had bled its essence into the ocean.

  ‘A “red tide”, one of the marine biologists called it,’ said Major Howes, stepping up beside him. ‘Something to do with algae and neurotoxins in the water.’

  Kip felt a dull ache in his right cheek and reached up to touch it: the bruise had been livid when he woke that morning. ‘Remarkable to think,’ he said, ‘that something so small could wipe out an entire civilisation.’

  Howes shrugged. ‘Unrestricted pollution will do that.’

  They both turned inland on hearing the sound of an engine approaching. Past the coast road, a row of Moai—statues built long ago by the island’s original inhabitants—regarded them with what Kip imagined to be faint disapproval. A jeep came rolling across the grass towards them with Preston Merritt, Kip’s new second-in-command, at the wheel.

  Merritt got out of the jeep and walked towards them. A thin moustache clung to the man’s upper lip in an attempt at gravitas entirely at odds with his boyishly plump face. He gazed briefly at the multitude of avian corpses, then nodded to Kip. ‘Director.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be back in Washington?’ asked Kip.

  ‘I would,’ said Merritt, ‘if my stage privileges hadn’t suddenly been rescinded for reasons that entirely escape me. I cannot do my job, Director Mayer, if I’m required to file a travel plan every time I want to use a transfer stage!’

  ‘Someone’s been taking unauthorised trips to off-limits alternates, and we need to put a stop to it,’ Kip replied coolly. Something that started as soon as I was forced to accept you as my second-in-command, as a matter of fact. ‘Until we figure out who’s doing it, that’s the way it has to be.’ He glanced at Major Howes, his face as blank as any one of the ancient statues. ‘We can’t risk some idiot on a cross-universe joyride carrying killer bugs or doomsday devices back to our home alternate.’ He favoured Merritt with a brittle smile. ‘But if it’s affecting your work,’ he added, ‘then of course I’ll look into it.’

  He caught a hint of malice in Merritt’s gaze, there and gone in an instant. ‘Thank you,’ Merritt replied. He glanced around, as if seeing the dead gulls for the first time. ‘If your hands are full, I could take charge of the investigation myself.’

  ‘Major Howes here is already looking into it. What I do need you to do is to take charge of the curfew. Some of our people don’t take the weather here as seriously as they should.’

  ‘Four of my men were hospitalised last night,’ said Howes.

  Merritt glanced towards him. ‘They got caught in the rain?’

  ‘A sudden squall,’ said Kip. ‘They were unprotected, unfortunately.’

  Merritt stared at Kip’s face. ‘Your…’

  Kip reached up to touch the bruise. ‘One of the men broke free from his restraints and assaulted me when I visited the clinic yesterday evening. He died earlier this morning and he probably won’t be the last.’

  ‘We need to be extra vigilant from now on,’ said Howes. ‘Lives are at risk.’

  Merritt’s eyes narrowed. ‘It had been my understanding before I was transferred here that we were safe on this island.’

  Kip shook his head. ‘We were safe,’ he explained, ‘due to some peculiarity in this alternate’s ocean currents. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.’ He nodded at dark clouds edging the horizon. ‘There’s a storm coming. We need to tighten the curfew. That means nobody allowed to venture outside unless it’s on essential business, and then only with appropriate protective clothing.’

  They both turned at a loud whoosh and watched as the soldier wielding the flamethrower torched the mound of plastic bags. Tendrils of black, oily smoke rose quickly into the morning sky. Kip wrinkled his nose at the scent of roasting flesh.

  ‘I expect you can take care of the details of the curfew, Mr Merritt,’ Kip added without looking at him. And maybe it’ll keep you too busy to go on any more unauthorised excursions.

  ‘Of course.’ Merritt nodded to Kip and to the Major. ‘You’re sure I can’t persuade you to make an exception regarding the stage permits?’

  ‘I can make arrangements to process your requests more quickly,’ said Major Howes. ‘But the rules have to apply to everyone.’

  Merritt’s mouth worked for a moment, then he turned and stalked back over to his jeep without saying another word. Kip watched as he performed a half-turn before driving back onto the coast road. Kip didn’t speak until he was entirely out of sight.

  ‘When Senator Bramnik was last here,’ said Kip, ‘he mentioned that the people responsible for hoisting Merritt on us are the same ones advocating we sea
rch for another Hypersphere.’

  ‘We’re watching him closely, sir,’ said Howes. ‘Randall Pimms and Oskar Boche are already on Delta Twenty-Five. If Merritt really is taking any unauthorised trips there, we’ll know about it soon enough.’

  ‘Good.’ Kip adjusted his tie and nodded to the Major. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

  Howes nodded. ‘Sir.’

  Kip got back in his own jeep and guided it onto the coast road, driving south. His hands tightened on the wheel: that anyone in Washington could be so idiotic as to want to retrieve another Hypersphere…! The thought alone was enough to chill his blood, and further proof, were it needed, that there were forces back on his home alternate willing to risk everything in order to acquire one of the devices.

  Before long, he entered the island’s single town, most of it as abandoned and ramshackle as the day explorers from his own universe had found it. The low, dark slopes of Rano Kau rose above the rooftops, while the corrugated iron roof of the main transfer hangar was just visible past the old air strip. Closer to hand stood the original research station built for Katya Orlova, now superseded by the far larger facility on the Authority’s home alternate.

  Strange as it was, Kip had come to regard this island, as desolate as it was, as his home. It tore at his heart to think of finally abandoning it, even though the increasing number of red tides showed that, soon enough, they must. As for Randall, Oskar and the rest of the Pathfinders, rendered largely obsolete by Orlova and her stage-building nous, he couldn’t help but fear what might become of them once the settlement of Nova Terra began in earnest.

  He drove past dusty palm trees lining roads half-overgrown with weeds and dropped the jeep off at a carpool near the docks. He began to walk to Government House, a small, two-story building in a nearby street which had once served as the island’s political centre, then stopped beside a jetty. The waves at the island’s south-western tip weren’t red, but they sparkled as if reflecting starlight—which was strange, given that it was now late in the morning.

  Kip stepped onto the jetty to take a closer look. Rather than stars, he realised with horror, the ocean was filled with uncountable dead fish, their iridescent scales reflecting the light of the rising sun.

  Katya

  Experimental Transfer and EM Storage Facility, Old Horse Springs, Authority Home Alternate

  Katya watched from the relative comfort of the arrivals building as the Sikorsky dropped onto the facility’s helipad. Colonel Armington, apparently oblivious to the freezing temperatures in his light uniform, stepped up towards the helicopter, holding onto his cap with one hand to keep it from being torn loose by the rotor wash.

  Once the ground crew were out of the way, the Colonel greeted each member of the congressional committee and their associated advisors as they disembarked. Apart from the inevitable secret service agents—identifiable not only by their dark suits, but by the way their gazes drank in every detail of their surroundings—Katya noted the presence of several Senators. Typically, she observed with distaste, there was not a single woman amongst them.

  Damian Kuzakova, standing next to Katya, pulled his thick wool coat closer around his shoulders and shivered. ‘It would be nice,’ the physicist said in Russian, ‘if you could spare a little of that immense budget of yours on central heating. I feel like my feet are submerged in ice-water.’

  Katya glanced sideways at him. ‘Some Russian you are,’ she replied in English.

  Damian made a brrr sound. ‘Give me sunny days and stupidly elaborate cocktails any day. I still miss that island.’ There was a touch of wistfulness to his voice. ‘I was never cold once when we were stationed there.’

  Not many cocktails around here, thought Katya. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on Easter Island—or rather, the Easter Island that existed on Alternate Alpha Zero, base of operations for the Pathfinder Project. She decided not to remind Damian that her own time there had been markedly less positive and considerably more dramatic.

  ‘What do we know about them?’ asked Damian.

  ‘According to Senator Bramnik, we need to keep an eye on Kinnison and Holmes in particular.’ She pointed each one out in turn. ‘Holmes hates Russians—he assumes we’re all spies until proven otherwise. He chairs the congressional oversight committee. Kinnison will act the fool, but he’s dangerous.’

  A pager on her hip beeped loudly just then. ‘More problems?’ asked Damian.

  Katya suppressed a sigh and glanced around. ‘If I can find a phone, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I’ll check it out,’ said Damian, turning away. ‘You have work to do.’

  He headed for a wall-phone as Armington guided the delegation in through the entrance. They talked and chattered as they came in from the cold, stamping their feet while their breath misted white. Even though the facility was technically a civilian operation, Katya had quickly found such visits went better if Colonel Armington, who commanded the facility’s security deployment, was on hand to greet arrivals.

  Katya stepped towards the gaggle of visitors, who were still talking amongst themselves and with Armington. She cleared her throat loudly enough that most of them looked her way. ‘I’d like to welcome you all to the Old Horse Springs Experimental Transfer and EM Storage Facility.’ She gestured towards Damian, still talking quietly on a phone. ‘Over there is my colleague and chief engineer, Damian Kuzakova.’ She flashed them all a practised smile. ‘And I am Katya Orlova. I know you’re all very busy, so I’ll be brief. We’ll take a tour of the facilities, then break for lunch. After that, if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them as best I can.’

  A man with thinning hair carefully arranged over his bald patch regarded her through thick-rimmed glasses: Senator Kinnison. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and gestured towards Damian. ‘But if you could rustle up some coffee while we talk to your boss, I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Damian, turning to look at them with one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, ‘Katya is the Director of Operations for this entire facility. Without her, it wouldn’t exist.’

  Kinnison chuckled with apparent disbelief. ‘Well, that can’t be true.’ He looked around at his fellow visitors as if seeking their support. ‘This little girl can’t be out of her twenties!’ He turned back to Katya. ‘All I’m saying,’ he said in the voice of an elderly uncle talking to a child, ‘is that it’s an awful lot of responsibility for someone so young. If we had someone more senior in charge…’

  Katya felt a sudden warmth flow up her neck and into her cheeks. ‘I assure you,’ she said, carefully brushing down the sleeves of her jacket, ‘that I am the only one qualified to be in charge of this facility.’

  Kinnison chuckled and shook his head, and she saw smirks on the faces of several others. She opened her mouth to make a retort, then felt Damian’s hand close over her arm. ‘Perhaps,’ he said to the gathered dignitaries, ‘we should get started.’

  * * *

  Katya let Armington take the lead, guiding the oversight committee towards a bank of elevators. She let herself fall to the rear with Damian at her side.

  ‘I really thought you were going to lose your temper there,’ Damian said quietly. ‘I see what you mean about Kinnison. The man is a snake.’

  ‘Just tell me what the phone call was about,’ she said, still seething.

  ‘It seems the South-West Quadrant containment systems suffered a near-breach overnight,’ Damian explained, drawing a startled look from Katya. ‘Our backup generators took over in time, but if not, the result could have been very nasty indeed. As soon as we’re done here, I want to run a full analysis and safety review on all our storage facilities. Something isn’t right.’

  A near-breach. Katya shuddered at the thought: just one-thousandth of a gram of stored anti-matter was sufficient to power a transfer stage for a year—but were it to come into contact with ordinary matter, the result would be devastating.

  ‘We should look into it imme
diately,’ she said, then nodded at the cluster of men up ahead. ‘Perhaps that would be a good excuse to cancel this visit.’ She started to move towards Armington—it would be better if such news came from him—but Damian caught her arm again and pulled her back.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘You don’t want them thinking anything’s gone wrong.’

  She regarded him with confusion. ‘Things are going wrong.’

  ‘And wouldn’t that be just the excuse they’re obviously looking for to take all this away from you?’

  She laughed under her breath. ‘Idiots. Kretin. I’d like to see them try to run this place without me!’

  ‘Katya, please.’ Damian was unable to hide his exasperation. ‘Your engineers are entirely capable of dealing with whatever happened, so go ahead and give these people their grand tour so they can be out of our hair that much sooner.’

  They started walking again. ‘So many of our integral systems are not up to the required standards,’ she said. ‘And do you know why?’

  ‘Yes,’ Damian nodded wearily. ‘You have said this many times. They insist on giving construction and design contracts to the—’

  ‘The lowest bidders,’ she hissed. ‘Can you believe these people sent men to the moon on board a craft built by contractors who provided them with the lowest bids? And we wonder why our systems fail so often, or turn out to be junk! Why, I—’