Downtime - Marc Platt [84]
It transpired that Desmond Pennington MP, the Education Secretary, had been concerned about New World University for some time. Although initially enthusiastic for these ground-breaking computerized developments in further education, he had been disturbed by the behaviour of some of New World’s luminaries. In particular their Marketing Facilitator, a grasping young man with a penchant for power and pullovers like knitted migraines. Pennington had spent an unnecessary but fascinating amount of time discovering just how far Christopher Rice’s ambition extended. He reckoned he was nowhere near the limit, when events, the computer virus and the threat of being beaten to the post by the hot-air-powered Clive Kirkham, decided that action must be taken.
There were also increasing numbers of accusations about computerized brainwashing cults and the general appearance and behaviour of the Chillys, as the tabloids had dubbed them.
Such things were fine restricted to California, but not in the government’s own backyard. Pennington, an old Brendonian, had been MoD liaison with UNIT before the last reshuffle but one, and had spent time studying the organization’s classified reports. He had been much bemused to discover the part played in UNIT’s origins by his former maths master.
He had already revealed most of this when he realized that Sarah, who was sitting in on the conference, was a working journalist. Crichton had to vouch for her security clearance, before the minister was prepared to continue.
Pennington had no chance of consultation with the Defence Secretary, who was on vacation on Mauritius. The PM was on holiday on the Isle of Wight. No one even knew where the Home Secretary was. The UN was incommunicado. Every possible communications channel had been knocked out by the virus. Pennington therefore took it on his own back and promised Crichton the carte blanche mauve card for Extraordinary Peacetime Operations. Someone, he said, had to make a move.
Crichton was following laid-down contingencies for socio-and techno-disintegration scenarios. He immediately rounded up the few troops he had to hand and sent his own adjutant to call out support platoons from UNIT’s green-field HQ near Guildford. Leading the sortie himself, he and the convoy set off for New World with Sarah in pursuit.
They were travelling along the emergency lane of Westway when the lights in the sky started. Pencils of green and white light were shooting up into the cloud base. They seemed to be coming from somewhere north of Ealing – Alperton or Perivale. The direction of New World University.
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart watched the flashes in the sky from the window of the Mananda. She could hear the booms like approaching thunder. Her head couldn’t begin to cope with what had happened, let alone believe what she had seen. Her dad had brought chaos into her home. Her emotions were all over the place. The only thing that had helped was the sudden unearthing of the secret she had kept hidden far too long. But now she felt deep remorse for having kept her dad in the dark all this time. Gordy would have to meet his grandfather one day, except that his grandfather was mixed up in something inexplicable that she had to protect her son from.
That made up her mind. For better or worse, she would not see her dad again.
She started to clear up the mess, picking up strewn books and the overturned photo of Grandad, who lived on the shelf.
The frame was broken and the glass cracked.
The thunder was getting louder. She sat on the bed and looked out of the window. To the west, the clouds were being churned. The sky was boiling. Fingers of light were shooting upwards from somewhere close, north-west of the canal.
Directly above that point, something was forming in the sky –
a glaze of grey-silver light hanging in the air that glittered malevolently.
Kate wanted to take the boat home now. She pulled away from the window and knocked a cushion off the bed.
The gun had been under the cushion. It lay on the blanket,