The Sons of Scarlatti. John McNally

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       NINE

      DAY TWO 05:32 (BST). Hook Hall, Surrey

      It was nearing dawn as King watched the fully armed Apache helicopter being lowered by crane into the centre of the accelerator.

      In the time lapse of his memory, the chaos had peaked at around 4am and was ebbing fast. The lifting gear and forklifts had cleared, and the new Large Accelerator looked as if it had always been there.

      The original pieces of Al’s Fat Doughnut had been repositioned and adapted to form four equidistant parts of a much bigger ring of particle accelerators. The nano-dimensional field – or ‘hot area’ – at the centre would be about the size of a classroom and demand so much power it would draw on the national grids of both the UK and France.

      Allenby would be controlling it all from a specially constructed command pod – his cockpit – on the floor of the CFAC.

      A formidable range of military hardware was lined up on a conveyor system that ran the length of the CFAC, with more supplies in the loading bay waiting to go on – all of which would have to be fed into the hot area in three minutes flat.

      Speed was of the essence. As soon as reduction was complete, the nano-dimensional crew and their nano-equipment would be transported, along with the Beta Scarlatti (the new American Scarlatti being named this to distinguish it from the original Alpha Scarlatti), to the release site thirty-six miles north in a full-scale Merlin transport helicopter – which currently waited on the tarmac outside the CFAC.

      Given that a minimum of twenty-four hours would be needed to evacuate the population at large should the mission fail, the team would have a mission window of less than twelve hours before the authorities had to go public and declare a state of emergency. As no one could say for certain if the Large Accelerator would be ready to rescale the crew immediately the mission was complete, a refrigerated container with a two-week supply of food and water also waited in the loading bay to be reduced as a precaution.¹

      Worryingly little progress had been made in the search for Dr Cooper-Hastings. Every contact had been questioned and every possible lead followed up; every international security organisation was on alert. But they’d turned up nothing. Dr Cooper-Hastings was an unremarkable scientist who lived alone. The assumption had to be that he had gone quietly bananas and released the Scarlatti during some kind of breakdown. For King this was too simple. As zero hour approached, he had doubled the security presence onsite as well as tripled all electronic surveillance.

      King looked down from the gantry and saw young Finn hurry to and fro, busy and integral, now joining the entomologists making their way to the reanimation suite.

      It had become his opinion over the course of the night that Finn was the most important person on the project, not just as kin and comfort for Allenby, but as sounding board, test bed and “asker of bloody awkward questions” throughout – his tireless good humour and sense of adventure a tonic to all.

      His plea to join the entomology team had been something of a classic. When Professor Lomax had pointed out his lack of correct qualifications, Finn had said, “Yeah, but there’s this friend of mine at school, Hudson, who can’t go on school trips over, say, twelve hours because he can’t go for a poo on any toilet but his own – he doesn’t say so, but there’s a note from his mum in the register – so he’s always left behind, and yet he’s the only kid really interested in glacial geology or the Horrible Histories show or stuff like that. Instead everyone else goes and all they do is mess about.”

      Professor Lomax’s face had been a picture of confusion and distaste.

      Young Dr Spiro had touched knuckles with Finn in a gesture that King believed was meant to denote ‘respect’.

      The only glitch had been Finn’s scheduled 9pm ‘call to Grandma’ (her monitoring regime was admirably simple: she expected reports morning, noon and night) during which she had asked to say goodnight to the dog. Finn had claimed the animal was “out chasing bats” which was far from acceptable. A team had to be scrambled and despatched to the vicarage in Langmere where the dog was briefly kidnapped and secret recordings made of its barks, snuffles and other noises for the requested call back. The vicar, a Christabel Coles, remained glued to Celebrity Come Dine With Me throughout.

      Upstairs in the control gallery, dignitaries and politicians were arriving from across the globe, in person or onscreen.

      Downstairs the excitement was about to begin.

      Shortly King would have to go up and make polite conversation, answer pointed questions.

      He almost wished he was twelve years old.

      DAY TWO 05:46 (BST). Hook Hall, Surrey

      A dry, translucent husk. A sudden movement within. The husk cracks to reveal a wet, thousand-celled eye.

      The fight for life had begun.

      Through heavily gloved hands and behind the thick glass of an isolation tank, Dr Spiro worked on the nascent Beta Scarlatti, with Finn in support holding a heat lamp, and Al right on the shoulders of both. Using tweezers and other instruments, Spiro picked away the husk that had been the Scarlatti’s final skin at the nymph stage. Tiny 400mA electric shocks sent through instruments were bringing the Scarlatti back to life after thirty years in cold storage.

      Professor Lomax glowered at them over his glasses from the sterile transfer trolley. The trolley was essentially a life-support system for the Scarlatti, one that would keep it isolated as well as subdued, allowing Lomax to glue the nano-scale tracking device on to exactly the right thorax plate following miniaturisation.

      Beyond, other scientists and technicians fanned out. Those gathered in the control gallery watched onscreen.

      Waiting for the newborn Scarlatti was a titanium harness – a sausage-shaped cage – that would muzzle the beast’s wings and stings to allow the attachment of the miniaturised tracking device to its thorax.

      Once harnessed, the Beta would be transferred to the loading bay ready to СКАЧАТЬ