I returned to the stair lobby and headed upwards, following the lights. The stair twisted and turned on itself and passed through yet more blast doors, before a final straight stretch led to another steel door which looked newer than the rest. I tried the handle – it was locked. I looked down and saw a knob below the handle. I turned it and pushed, and the heavy door slowly opened. A cold autumn wind whipped around the door, reminding me that I was still only wearing my swimming shorts, but at first I could see little; it was dark outside. I stepped out onto bare earth, with a sparse covering of what felt like dead grass. I closed the door behind me and looked around as my versatile eyes rapidly adjusted for the darkness. A half-moon provided some light through a layer of cloud. The silo entrance stuck up from the ground, like a sentry box with a sloping back. As far as I could see, the ground was flat, covered with rough grass and with a few scattered, leafless trees. A track led away from the entrance so I decided to follow it, as there was no obvious alternative destination.
First, though, I had to sever my mental link with the security system. I had already stretched it as far as I could, which was much further than I would have believed possible before the days of practice I had put in while lying in my cell. I took a deep breath, and released the camera lock: the cameras would now be showing an empty cell. I hoped that the watchmen, knowing I had settled down for what they assumed was my usual long “sleep”, would not be paying much attention to their monitors. I began to run, thinking of UCAVs, thermal imaging cameras and guided missiles; the landscape was depressingly devoid of cover.
The track led to a new-looking fence with some locked gates, which I vaulted. This area seemed to be entirely farmland, big square fields lying dormant after the harvest. A few miles away, I could see fast-moving lights – it had to be a road. I increased my pace and reached the road half an hour later. The occasional vehicle sped past, giving me no chance to climb on board, and I judged that thumbing a lift might be unwise. I tossed a mental coin, turned to the right and started running parallel to the road, keeping out of range of vehicle headlights. I settled to the steady rhythm I had got used to in my travels across northern Europe, and switched onto autopilot as I began to think about my next move.
My luck held for a remarkably long time; an uneventful hour and a half after leaving the silo a glow of light ahead revealed civilisation, which manifested itself as a truck stop and trailer park. I loved the words “truck stop”; they announced my free and secret transport system around the country. It took me only a few minutes to get on board a likely-looking vehicle by mentally overriding the electronic switch which controlled the tailgate; I blessed the spread of advanced technology. I chose one with a warm engine in the hope that the driver was only making a brief stop. Indeed she was, as a few minutes later I sensed a woman approaching. She climbed into the cab, started the engine and moved off.
I began to relax a little. I didn’t really care where I went, as long as it was far away from the vicinity of the silo, as quickly as possible. I judged that the worst of the danger was over, unless my captors had the clout to start throwing road-blocks around a wide area. My next move would be difficult. I needed to get hold of some essentials – most urgently, the materials for another home-made headnet – but at the same time had to avoid being spotted. To complicate matters further, dawn was breaking. I decided to stay with the truck and see what happened.
The truck was a delivery vehicle, loaded with cardboard boxes. I assumed that it had been loaded rationally, with the first deliveries at the back, and buried myself at the front in a nest of boxes. As the light improved and glowed through the translucent roof, I read some of the addresses. There were all for Kansas, with the rearmost showing a Wichita address. Shortly afterwards, I sensed that driver was preparing to stop. The vehicle slowed and pulled up, and an electrical buzz announced the lowering of the tailgate. The driver climbed into the back and heaved out some boxes. I took a quick look and saw that we were in a built-up area – no chance of escape there, in broad daylight.
After several more drops the driver stopped, evidently for lunch judging by the sensations of hunger I was picking up. There weren’t many boxes left and I sensed from her mind that she wasn’t far from the end of her journey; I would probably get no better chance to leave. I waited until I could scan no-one within range, then let myself out. I was at another truck stop, surrounded by massive vehicles. I quickly scouted the view from the sides of the truck park, and saw that we were at the edge of a town. It was still a basically flat, farm country, but there was a small copse of bare trees next to the truck stop. Some undergrowth promised minimal cover, so I did a final sweep to check that no-one was looking, and headed for the copse.
I waited long after dusk, until the early hours when nothing stirred, to make my raid on the town’s unsuspecting electrical merchant. I stayed in the building, having mentally overridden the security system – now a matter of reflex rather than effort – and borrowed an electric soldering iron to create the headnet. As soon as I put it on I held Freya’s signature in my mind and cast around for her, without response. I tried the saurians and Tertia’s presence washed around my mind.
‘Where have you been? We have lost you for two weeks!’
‘Otherwise engaged. Where’s Freya?’
‘We don’t know. We saw that you were pulled out of the water and brought to the land. Then Freya was tracked by that unmanned aeroplane and captured by the troops. You were both then taken by helicopter to Keflavik, where you were transferred to a private jet. This flew to a small airfield near Washington, where you were transferred to different vehicles. So far, we were able to track you visually. But then you were put into different vans, which went into warehouses from which several similar vans emerged simultaneously. We were not able to see which vans either of you was put in, so we lost both of you.’
‘Was Freya OK?’
‘We think so. You were both drugged by the time you arrived at Keflavik. We haven’t had any contact with her since; they must have found and removed her headnet.’
I thought about this for a moment. My first priority had to be to find and release Freya – for both personal and more strategic reasons. I could think of only one person who might be able to help. Fortunately, I found a digital phone by the service desk.
‘Can you patch through a call for me?’
‘Of course.’
I gave Tertia the number and waited, calculating time differences. It should be about mid-morning….
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning Richards, nice to speak with you again.’
A brief silence, but he recovered quickly. ‘Where have you been?’
‘In a silo. I need to find Freya. She was taken at the same time and is almost certainly somewhere in the States.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘It’s still very early here, so I don’t expect you’ll discover much for a while. I’ll call you back in a few hours.’
I broke the call and looked out of the window. The sky was beginning to lighten. I left the shop with a mental apology to the shop owners, taking the phone handset with me.