Equinox - the adventure continues

Equinox

Chapter Two

***

‘Ready.’ Arkady moved away quickly.

With the ugly clatter of crashing gears abused by a learner driver, the rotors started to spin. Two at the end snarled together and sparks flew.

‘Stop! Hit the blue button.’

With a quick jab, Arkady did so and the rotors slowed.

‘Hang on.’ Yakov had located a toolbox. With a slim screwdriver, he prised the rotors apart, then straightened out the teeth using pliers. ‘Try again.’

Arkady took a deep breath and depressed the red button. There was a crack of lightning outside. The crump of thunder. A short silence, then with a soft whir, the machine stirred and the rotors span. The keys flew at the printer paper forming a line of red capitals.

‘AUTUMN CROCUS,’ queried Arkady after a few seconds, frowning. ‘That’s silly. There’s no such thing.’

‘You never been to a botanical garden?’

‘No.’

Yakov sighed threw up his hands with an indulgent expression. He didn’t even have to say ‘the youth of today’.

‘A font of knowledge, those places,’ he said. ‘The autumn crocus is a fine purple flower. In bloom now, of course. Being late September and all.’

‘But what’s significant about it?’

‘Well, it’s poisonous, but I’m guessing the boffins upstairs aren’t planning to poison the US army in its entirety, so I suppose the words are a code for some nasty little secret project. Yeah, yeah. I have a suspicious mind.’

Arkady turned back to the machine, noticing a printed tag attached to the handle. ‘That design looks like a crocus to me.’

The caretaker joined him. ‘You’re right.’ He flipped it over. ‘From the fourth floor. That figures.’

‘The boffins?’

‘And all their secret stuff. They even have their own cleaners on a separate rota. Won’t let me near anything. Not that I’m interested, of course.’

Arkady raised an eyebrow. ‘Wait. I have an idea. Back in a minute.’ He pulled out Yakov’s torch and hurried out of the room before sprinting back up the stairs. A moment later, he returned, carrying a brown box that had a large rectangular dial on the front. ‘Here we go.’ He switched it on.

Yakov’s eyes widened. ‘A Geiger counter? You’ve even more suspicious than I am.’

Arkady grinned, but his smile faded when he put the probe next the Enigma machine. The hands on the dial bounced and the clicking became frenetic.

‘Jesus.’ Yakov stared at him. ‘They’re using uranium up there?’

‘Maybe they’re testing to see if the code machines will work in a nuclear zone?’

Yakov narrowed his eyes.

‘Right.’ Arkady thought furiously. ‘I wonder if there’s anything else in here with that design? Might give us a clue...’ His voice trailed.

‘Double check the safe,’ suggested Yakov. ‘And you never know. We might even find something of value to rescue your career.’

‘Ha ha.’ Arkady rummaged inside. ‘Just a strand of a shredded document. Nothing much on it.’

‘Hmm. Let’s take a look around.’ In the stale heat of the basement, they began to search, picking over the sundry items. Broken desk lamps, twisted padlocks, frayed telephone cabling, cracked plastic in-trays. ‘So much for that physics revision,’ muttered Arkady. He spotted a black bin tucked into a corner. He picked it up and turned it over. The crocus motif was scratched onto the base. ‘Now then.’ He looked at the metal handle on one side. ‘This is a shredder, isn’t it?’

Yakov nodded, a quirky smile on his lips.

Arkady yanked off the lid and together they peered at paper strips lying at the bottom in a dusty mound. ‘Abracadabra?’ He tipped them out onto a table.

Yakov let out a sharp laugh. ‘The ones who think they are the most intelligent are definitely the most stupid. Otherwise, the human race would never evolve.’ He rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘All we need now is a piece of glass.’

Arkady gave the caretaker a quizzical look and nodded at a framed portrait of Stalin on the wall behind them, moustaches bristling. ‘That do?’

‘May as well put him to good use.’ Yakov lifted it off the wall and prised off the backing before easing out the glass. He placed it on table and began to sort through the slim strips of paper, weighing them down with the glass as he went.

Arkady began to help. ‘Another old trick from the war?’

‘After that.’

‘What were you? A spy?’

‘It was the only way to get out of the mines.’

‘You became a spy?’ repeated Arkady, stunned. ‘I was joking.’

‘For a bit, but it didn’t suit me. Never was one for taking orders, so I got out. Changed my name and well, here I am. All for the peaceful life now.’

After a few minutes, they found a crocus motif that seemed to fit on a top right-hand corner, then slowly and painstakingly, they matched up words and paragraphs. The strips all came from a single page and soon the text began to appear. Arkady handed Yakov the final batch. ‘I like jigsaws.’ He flapped his shirt off his perspiring body.

‘Good.’ Yakov slid them into place and stepped back. ‘Jesus.’

‘What?’ Arkady peered down, having a horrible intimation but wanted Yakov to voice his fears. He turned and faced his new friend.

Yakov mopped his brow. ‘Nuclear protocols.’

‘What!’

‘’Fraid so. “Operation Autumn Crocus” is a list of instructions and caveats on how to release a bomb in extreme circumstances. A very big bomb.’

‘Like the ones the Yanks dropped Japan?’

‘Bigger and even more deadly. And when I say big, I mean gigantic. Enough to take out the other half of the world.’

Arkady flopped onto a stool.

Yakov folded his arms. ‘The Americans are working on it at the moment. With Polish help, I hear, of course. They could never do it on their own.’ A harsh laugh. ‘Those Poles are clever bastards.’

For the first time since last winter, Arkady felt chilled. ‘So that’s what they’re up to on the fourth floor? The nuclear program? Is that what this whole institute is all about?’ He gazed around. ‘I thought it was all about the space programme. I don’t think I approve.’

Yakov patted his arm in sympathy and blew out a plume of smoke. They remained silent for a moment.

A hissing noise interrupted their dark reverie. ‘Must be the rain. Place leaks like a sieve,’ grumbled Arkady. ‘I get a flood in the stores every time the heavens open ...’ Then he stopped. The surface of the Enigma machine shimmered as a reddish mist encased it, swirling like semi-opaque chiffon. Then with a watery squelch, it curdled into a viscous grey puddle, spreading out across the workbench and over the edge to the floor. The red mist dissipated.

Yakov grimaced. ‘That was even quicker than before.’

They both eyed the sticky mess as it fizzed and disintegrated, letting off a bitter odour.

Yakov shook his head. ‘You know all these degrees I have?’ He pointed at the remains of the machine. ‘That simply defies the laws of science.’

‘Professor Understatement delivers his latest lecture.’

They both laughed, but Yakov stopped. ‘Watch out!’ he cried, pointing.

Arkady stared. The machine’s cable had been lying in a sticky heap but it was now writhing like a serpent trying to escape from a trap. It thrashed around on the bench, then undulated back to where it was plugged into the wall socket. A shower of purple sparks shot into the air and the plug caught fire.

Yakov beat at the flames with an asbestos mat. The remains smouldered, smelling foul.

‘Look.’ Arkady pointed to the thick cabling above the plug. The scarlet mist had reappeared, sheathing it completely and it strained at the wall brackets like a living thing. Chunks of masonry broke away and smashed on the floor. ‘Better get upstairs. What’s above us?’

Yakov was already at the door. ‘Storage rooms. Electrical stuff, mainly.’

‘What about all this mess here?’

‘I’ll deal with it later. Might even draw devil’s horns on the portrait, if I’ve time. Come on.’ He flipped the light switches and swore. ‘Blown.’ Arkady pulled out the torch, switched it on and hurried up the stairs, Yakov at his heels.

The older man was wheezing by the time they reached halfway, their shoes echoing on the scuffed linoleum. As they continued to the first floor, heavy rain lashed against the windows of the stairwell, blotting out the lights of the city. ‘Which room, do you think?’

A thin line of red light flashed along a cable that ran along a skirting board beside them, before dissipating into a socket next to a set of double doors a few yards away. A bitter aroma reached their nostrils. They glanced at each other and moved towards the doors. ‘What if they’re locked? Oh.’ Arkady stopped sheepishly as Yakov fished out a giant set of keys, flipping through them quickly and letting them in. He tried the strip light. It came on and they glanced around, grimacing at the strange smell.

It was a long, narrow storeroom, with shelves on opposite sides. On one side lay reels of films in metal containers, huge cameras with protruding lenses and tripods. Across the narrow aisle were boxes of a cables and half a dozen television monitors. ‘What’s all this kit for?’

Yakov picked up one of the reel containers. ‘“Experiment #365”,’ he read aloud. ‘Perhaps they film certain procedures?’

‘Actually, that’s true, I believe. Especially when dealing with radioactive experiments. They use mechanical arms in a sealed room. Stuff like that.’

‘Of course they do.’ Yakov sniffed.

A crackling sounded from somewhere inside the walls and they jumped as a flurry of purple sparks shot out and into the back of the television nearest them. For a second, its grey screen stared back at them blankly, then a jagged streak flickered across the glass and the speakers began to hiss. The strip light dimmed and fizzled out.

Arkady froze in horror. He didn’t possess a television set and he gazed at the dials in confusion, wondering how to switch it off. Streams of symbols began to flash across the screen, glowing in the dark, making him blink. ‘What the hell -?’ he whispered, although he didn’t know why he spoke quietly.

Yakov edged towards the television and reached for the largest dial. Arkady watched, half-expecting to see the television burst into flames, but instead, there was a faint hum and all the other sets stirred into life.

They pulled back, staring transfixed, as the symbols accelerated, finally blurring into a dark nothingness. Arkady felt his jaw dropping as a stars, planets, nebulae, asteroids and comets began to drift across in lazy orbits. It was like a window into the heavens.

Is that what cosmonauts would see when they finally sent a man into space?

Arkady suppressed a child-like gasp as a multi-coloured nebula proceeded sedately across the inky blackness, then it grew larger until he could make individual planets. Then, the camera seemed to zoom in further until a single planet hung centre-screen, the light of a sun shining upon it. One half was dazzling bone white, the other ink black. It span around the sun in perfect circles, the light effect unchanging.

‘The light doesn’t change,’ Arkady muttered. ‘One half’s always in light and the other in shade.’

Yakov cleared his throat. ‘No seasons at all,’ he agreed, his gaze fixed on the orbiting planet. ‘A constant state of equinox.’

He nodded. ‘Just day or night, depending on which half you fetch up in.’

‘Some people feel the same way about the East and the West.’

‘Ha.’ Arkady didn’t smile.

The glowing sun began to fade.

‘It’s dying.’ Arkady held his breath.

Yakov pointed. ‘In more ways than one.’

A swarm of vessels erupted out of the light side, pouring towards to the dark, a shower of silver explosions in their wake. A few seconds later, a cloud of spacecraft emerged from the dark side of the planet and streamed over the light half, leaving grim, grey clouds of destruction that draped across the surface like loose bandages.

‘It’s at war, with itself. Light versus dark.’

As they watched, a long, silver vessel, larger by far than the others emerged from the light side and moved with stealth into a distant orbit. With a swish, the perspective shifted and they seemed to be viewing the destruction from behind a console underneath a black screen.

‘Are we viewing this from inside the big space ship?’ Arkady wondered.

Yakov nodded. ‘Look on the screen. There are those strange symbols that we saw at the start.’

They both gazed at the mysterious patterns as they constantly replaced each other in a shimmering waterfall of greens and blues. Beyond, lay the equinox-trapped planet, besieged by the terrible and desperate war.

‘What’s happening?’ Arkady dragged his gaze from the mesmerising symbols.

Ashen-faced, Yakov shrugged. ‘Some form of communication ship, perhaps?’

The symbols then stopped and a pencil-thin beam of light shot out and down towards a fleet of ships that was pulling away from the dark side. It struck the first one, but the dark vessel didn’t explode as Arkady feared.

It was much worse.

Instead, it glowed a familiar red, slowed, turned and then fired on its neighbouring ship. It turned to the others, fired at each one in controlled bursts. In deadly sequence, they were consumed by flames and fell back to the planet, vanishing silently. A series of red explosions bubbled up on the surface. As the last one fell, the first ship glowed again, then dived into the flames and vanished.

‘Jesus. What was that beam of light? A message?’

‘Battle orders, perhaps?’

‘But it sent it to the enemy.’

Yakov massaged his temples. ‘False orders, then. Perhaps the silver guys had found out how the dark ships communicated—and piggy-backed on their systems and simply told them to destroy themselves.’

‘So the silver ship is some sort of intergalactic sabotage?’

‘But instead of sending bombs, it corrupts communications?’ Arkady turned to Yakov, feeling shaky.

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ Yakov’s face was grim.

All of a sudden, the planet juddered. ‘Oh, no. It’s imploding. They planned to win the war, but in the end, they destroyed everything.’ They watched as the planet crumpled in on itself, then a dark shimmering band shot out into space in a widening circle. The view on the television monitor lurched.

‘What’s that?’

‘Shock wave?’

Arkady nodded, feeling dizzy, imagining himself inside the silver craft as it span giddily through the universe. It twisted and turned in a confusing blur. Then all of a sudden, a familiar solar system swung into view. A blue and green sphere seemed to draw the craft’s attention and it rushed down towards it, the image clarifying. A second later, the expanse of Mother Russia was laid out before them as the craft descended behind a line of craggy mountains. A shrill screech made them block their ears, then the all the televisions screen went black.

‘So.’ Yakov blinked as silence returned. ‘Now this war-mongering device has reached Earth. Russia, to be precise. I know those mountains.’ His eyes clouded. ‘Kyrgyzstan.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘That’s where I was sent, yes.’

Arkady slapped his forehead. ‘KG,’ he muttered. ‘The letters on the crate. It came from Kyrgyzstan. But what about the U?’

‘Uranium,’ Yakov replied.

‘Jesus.’ Arkady rubbed his face. ‘So it landed in the mines, and then it got dug up and brought here.’

Yakov took a breath. ‘And now the bastard thing has come to life …’

‘Perhaps attracted to electrical forms of communication. The typewriter, the Enigma machine, the televisions ...’

‘Yes. It’s using electrical cabling to travel from one to the next.’

‘But what does it intend to do?’ Arkady was talking more to himself.

‘I dread to think.’ Yakov scowled.

At this point, the first television burst into flames. They backed away, Yakov yanking a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed it with water. The flames weakened, but a noxious red miasma reappeared from inside the cathode ray tube and the flames surged higher.

‘Be like that,’ said Yakov with a snarl and grabbed a different coloured extinguisher. He inverted it and foam erupted. He sprayed it over the flames, but still they burned.

Forearm fending off the heat, Arkady backed to the door, finding it hard to breathe as the bitter smell intensified. ‘Yakov. Time to leave.’

‘One last go.’ Yakov aimed the fire extinguisher at the blaze, but the nozzle fizzled. The foam had run out.

They reached the doors. Something else caught Arkady’s eye. ‘Not good.’ He pointed to a length of cable that lay coiled behind the televisions. A shimmering blood-red haze drifted back along its length and into the wall socket. It stirred, flicking itself into the smoke-filled air. A second later, some feet above, the wall seemed to simmer as if coming to the boil, sections bubbling up in turn as the mysterious haze drifted upwards.

Arkady grabbed the torch and the two of them flung themselves back into the corridor. Arkady stumbled against the wall, dropping the torch. It smashed on the floor and they were in darkness once again. He heard Yakov relock the doors and felt himself being hauled to his feet. He could smell smoke already and see the encroaching red miasma in his mind’s eye.

‘It’s on the move again,’ Yakov gasped, voice husky. ‘Almost as if it’s alive. Seeking something...’

‘What’s above here?’ Arkady felt his way to the stairs, coughing. His eyes were stinging.

‘Executive offices, mainly.’

‘Time to get help. Come on. Look.’ He thumped at a row of switches. ‘The lights at the top are still working.’

‘We’ll have to be quick. It’s moving fast.’

They hurried up the next flight, until, out of breath, they reached the next floor and turned into the main second-floor corridor. Arkady slowed, skidding on a river of grey sludge that was oozing from under the nearest door. ‘Oh-oh.’

Yakov stood on tiptoe and peered in through the safety glass. He moved away to let Arkady see and eyed the chaotic scene with horror. The remains of several telephones were disintegrating into sticky puddles on desks. The walls and partitions were disintegrating as built-in cabling surged and wriggled. A copying machine was little more than slops, dripping down table legs. ‘So much for phoning security.’

Yakov grimaced. ‘Not that I trust the buggers. All ex-Red Army thugs who’d blame this mess on us.’

‘Come on. Let us regroup.’

As they edged back towards the stairwell, the sludge built up against a cupboard, causing it to topple over. Half a dozen tape recorders, and a sticky mass of wires, microphones and speakers fell out, catching Arkady a glancing blow on his left shoulder. Wincing, he rubbed at it, noticing that one speaker was still intact. It crackled and emitted an ear-splitting series of electronic clicks and whirs. The sounds then shifted into what could have been words, but some mysterious language that caused them both to shrug in mystification. Then it changed again. Into Russian.

‘What the hell ...’

‘Sh.’

Arkady listened aghast. ‘ “...state of maximum readiness. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill. The US has launched a bombing campaign against all major Soviet cities. We must now deploy all our nuclear weapons as the only suitable response. Direct orders from Stalin. This is not a drill. ”’ 

They watched in horror as the speaker slowly dissolved.

***

Chapter Three will be published tomorrow.