Tunnels 06 - Terminal

pronounced without emotion, gripping the man’s chin to turn his head. ‘Don’t suppose either of you feel like administering CPR to bring him back?’ he asked, half glancing at his Limiter guards, who were hovering behind him.
    ‘No, thought not,’ he answered himself, as they didn’t respond. Danforth scrutinised the expired man’s face, which had dark bruises under the eyes and was coated in a sheen of sweat. ‘Cardiac arrest due to extreme exhaustion and dehydration, I would hazard,’ he said, as he indicated the man’s blue lips to his Limiters. ‘Get him out of here, will you?’
    Straightening up, Danforth rubbed his hands distastefully together as if removing the man’s sweat from them.
    ‘What is it?’ the Old Styx asked, as he appeared beside the two Limiters.
    Danforth glanced at the dead man’s desk, at a picture of two young children playing in the cerulean waters of some tropical sea. They were obviously his children. ‘These people are only human,’ Danforth said dispassionately. ‘We’ve hotwired their simple little brains with the Dark Lights and they’re performing their tasks adequately, but we’re pushing them beyond their physical limits.’
    ‘Out of necessity. We need results,’ the Old Styx said, but without antagonism. He had a grudging respect for Danforth, who was assisting them in realms of technology that would have been out of reach without his expertise.
    And where they were now, just south of London in a government communications substation where electronic traffic could be monitored, it was proving to be a real boon to the Styx as they continued to strike at key targets. Of course, most forms of communication such as landlines, mobile phones, any radio or television broadcasts and the internet, had long since been shut down. But more specialist communications used by the military or via satellite link couldn’t be stopped or jammed, and that’s where Danforth came in.
    He wasn’t just another of the Darklit automatons who did only as they were instructed – his expertise meant that the Styx could keep one step ahead of the limited military resistance that they were encountering from time to time.
    Danforth was proving to be valuable, which was fortunate for him or otherwise they would have dispensed with him many weeks ago.
    And he’d also directed the Styx in which radar surveillance installations should be destroyed or kept in operation so that any interference from the international community could be detected early on and headed off. The Styx certainly didn’t want a multinational task force throwing a spanner in the works as they systematically dismantled the country.
    ‘Well, we’ve got a limited asset here, then,’ Danforth said, glancing around at the silent, drawn faces lit by their screens. ‘Many of these operators won’t last much longer than a day or two without rest and some proper food.’
    The Old Styx nodded. ‘Then let the important ones have abreak. The rest, doing less skilled tasks, can work until they drop.’
    ‘Very good,’ Danforth said, although the Old Styx had just passed the death sentence on the majority of the humans present in the room. ‘And I want to show you something.’ He led the Old Styx back to the screen where a signal had been detected. Pushing aside the woman who’d been at the monitor, he leant over the keyboard and typed rapidly on it. A list of numbers scrolled up over the screen. ‘It may be nothing, but someone’s intermittently using analogue equipment at this location.’ As he hit a key, a map came up with a pulsing circle. ‘The signal is originating from here.’ Danforth sent the coordinates to print, snatching the page as it came out and handing it to the Old Styx. ‘Worth sending a patrol to investigate, don’t you think?’
    ‘Yes, we’ll despatch one immediately,’ the Old Styx confirmed.
    Danforth looked up at him. ‘And it’s very close to where I advised you that we should be right now. It’s on one of the main feeder routes to GCHQ Cheltenham.’ Danforth indicated all the operators in the room with a sweep of his hand. ‘Sure, we can detect and pinpoint transmissions from here, but the equipment they have in that installation – in the Doughnut, as it’s called – is second to none. I know because I designed a hunk of it when the place was built. And with that equipment at your disposal, you can get inside the signals – even satellite-bound traffic – and eavesdrop