Colony by Benjamin Cross (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

watch. The last shift would’ve left on the hour. The standard operating procedure was for the replacement shift to turn up first. But there was complacency amongst the on-board Special Forces contingent, again, just as Finback had predicted.

Over the last few weeks he had observed the replacement shift arrive consistently ten to fifteen minutes after the previous shift had departed. No doubt they’d review a portion of the CCTV footage that they had missed and then consider everything to be rosy. After all, what could possibly go wrong out here? Well, tonight Ptarmigan was going to show them and show them good. That extra hand-job they were giving each other when they should have been on duty was going to cost them their lives.

He punched in the code and entered.

2

“Cut the engine!”

The growling of the outboard gurgled out as Darya released the accelerator and brought the craft to a stop. “What is it?”

“It’s no use,” Callum replied. “Look.”

They had barely left the cove, but already visibility was less than half a metre. Harmsworth was gone. The Albanov was gone. The sky itself was gone. It was as if the whole world had shrivelled up and retreated into the canoe. “I say we head back to shore before we lose our bearings completely.”

“You want for me to turn around now?”

“If you’re sure you know where you’re going then carry on,” he said, waving his hand through the murk and trying not to sound either sarcastic or on the verge of panic. “Otherwise, yes, I think we should turn around. We haven’t gone that far. We can set up a shelter and wait for it to lift.”

There was a long silence before the engine roared back to life and the canoe began to turn.

Mist. Distance meant nothing. They could have been two metres or two miles from the shoreline and the world ahead would have been the same unyielding grey swirl.

Callum’s eyes were watering. “The sea smoke will find the weak points,” Lungkaju had told him. And he was right. It clung to his face like a mask, and he could feel an intense cold around his wrist and neck lines.

After a burst of speed, Darya had cut the engine once more and allowed them to drift. “I will let the current take us from here,” she said. “Otherwise we might crash into the rocks.”

They sat in silence as the canoe rocked and the water stirred around them, barely visible through the billowing grey.

“Do you hate me?” she asked suddenly.

The mist swirling past her shoulders made her look ghostlike, as if she were apparating before him. The intense green of her eyes pierced through the vapour and he could see that her cheeks were wet with tears.

He took her hands in his. “Of course not. Why would I hate you?”

“For bringing you out here when you should be safe on the ship. Now you are lost and in trouble.”

He squeezed her still-clenched knuckles and smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Look, I don’t know where I am at the best of times and I’m always in trouble.”

Her fists began to loosen. “You are always joking.”

“If only people found me funny.”

“Can you be serious for a second?”

He pretended to think about it. “No.”

Her hands slipped fully into his. He watched as she smoothed her thumbs over the top of his knuckles, then he looked back up into her eyes. “I—”

There was a sudden impact. The canoe shook as the prow ground against rock.

Callum dipped his paddle into the water. It felt thick, more like soup than brine, but as he moved the oar around he realised that it was strands of kelp tangling around the blade. He pushed down through them and hit the underlying shingle.

“It’s the shoreline.” He lowered a leg carefully over the side, feeling the bite of the icy water at his shin. Then he waited as Darya clambered after him, and together they dragged the canoe back out of the surf.

The scattering of pebbles underfoot, and the crackle of driftwood, told him that they were on a beach. Otherwise, they might have been anywhere on earth. The world beyond was nothing but a ghostly glow.

“Should we call for help?” Darya asked. “I am wearing my wristband.” She pulled back the sleeve on her jacket and exposed her emergency locator.

Callum’s gut reaction was to say: Yes, for God’s sake press the button and get us the hell out of here! But his feet were back on dry land and his initial sense of panic was beginning to wane. “If you want to call then that’s okay.”

“But you do not?”

“The way I see it, we’re both okay, we know where we are… sort of. I don’t think we actually qualify as needing help. Not just yet. Do we?”

She smiled. “I see. You mean you would prefer that nobody knows you ignore the rules and go for midnight boat trip without an escort?”

He cleared his throat. “If possible.”

“This is fine. I would prefer it this way also.”

“Then we wait it out,” Callum said. “Me and Lungkaju have been caught out a couple of times. You just have to sit tight and wait.”

“So you are pro then?”

“I wouldn’t say pro exactly. But I know there’s no need to panic. If we’re lucky, we’ll be out of here in a couple of hours.”

“In this case follow me. I know a place where we can shelter.”

“You know where we are?”

She bent down and stroked her fingers across a patch of yellow-green moss. “There is only one place on Harmsworth where I have seen this species in this colour. This is Konrad Cove. There is a ledge not far away, where I have seal hide. Come on, we will be safe there.”

She set off inland at her usual athletic pace.

“Konrad Cove, of course it is,” Callum whispered to himself. Then he crunched after her up the shore.

3

The observation room was cluttered and dark. As anticipated, it was also empty. Two high-backed chairs faced a