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Back Final Days Save as PDF
Chapters (32)
  1. ONE
  2. TWO
  3. THREE
  4. FOUR
  5. FIVE
  6. SIX
  7. SEVEN
  8. EIGHT
  9. NINE
  10. TEN
  11. ELEVEN
  12. TWELVE
  13. THIRTEEN
  14. FOURTEEN
  15. FIFTEEN
  16. SIXTEEN
  17. SEVENTEEN
  18. EIGHTEEN
  19. NINETEEN
  20. TWENTY
  21. TWENTY-ONE
  22. TWENTY-TWO
  23. TWENTY-THREE
  24. TWENTY-FOUR
  25. TWENTY-FIVE
  26. TWENTY-SIX
  27. TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. TWENTY-NINE
  30. THIRTY
  31. THIRTY-ONE
  32. THIRTY-TWO

‘Do you remember when me and Saul did that space-dive? All the way down from near-Earth orbit just in glider-suits? You were the one who put me in touch with the company that runs the flights, I seem to recall.’

‘Yeah,’ Jeff nodded, ‘what about it?’

Mitchell studied him for a moment. ‘Something bothering you?’

‘Apart from the fact that I have no idea why you’re bringing this up, no.’

‘Bullshit.’ The other man gave him a knowing look. ‘It’s because I mentioned Saul, right?’

Jeff made a sound of irritation. ‘For Christ’s sake, Mitchell. The guy had an affair with my wife, is all.’

‘Your ex-wife,’ Mitchell reminded him. ‘And it’s still bothering you?’

‘Maybe not so much recently,’ said Jeff, knowing that it was a lie. ‘It was a long time ago but, ever since me and Olivia got back together . . .’

Future-Mitchell nodded like he understood. ‘Sure.’

Jeff sucked in air, then expelled it in a rush. ‘Anyway, what about the space-dive?’

‘Your friends at the company, they also run flights to the Moon for rich idiots, am I right?’

‘Sure, on replicas of the original Apollo rockets, that kind of thing, along with the standard VASIMRs.’

‘“VASIMRs”?’

‘Variable impulse plasma ships,’ Jeff explained. ‘They can get to the Moon an awful lot faster than . . .’ Jeff paused, his eyes widening. ‘Fuck me, are you suggesting what I think you are?’

Mitchell nodded. ‘You need to get in touch with them right away, find out if they’re willing to take us up to Copernicus on board one of their ships.’ He stepped over to the door and pulled it open. ‘We might not get ourselves to the Moon the same wa as most people, but we sure as hell can fly there if we want to.’

EIGHTEEN

En Route to Florida Array, 4 February 2235

By the time Saul’s car made its way out of the hopper’s belly and joined a networked convoy heading for Florida, the news feeds were running rumours that what people were starting to call ‘the Pacific growths’ had been imported to Earth through the Array. There were also fresh satellite images of thermal activity on the deep ocean floor, while the hastily recruited oceanographers from Woods Hole, brought in to try and explain it all, soon sounded like they were way out of their depth.

The ‘Pacific’ prefix became less and less apt as more growths were discovered at further and further removes from the first one. The booming sound produced by that first growth had now been linked to seed-like projectiles fired from its apex, rising on long, curving trajectories that carried them close to the very edge of space before dropping back down at least several hundreds of kilometres distant.