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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

‘I hope to hell you’re right,’ she grumbled. ‘There’s nothing else you can give me to go on before I go looking?’

‘I’m afraid not. I don’t know the exact time the shipment disappeared off the radar, or the precise coordinates, but I’m hoping that it might not be restricted data. Maybe you won’t risk setting off so many alarms this time.’

‘You were lucky this man Hanover turned out to be so close at hand,’ she said. ‘But I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for this time.’ She paused. ‘Unless you think I should just go find Mitchell and ask him?’

Saul thought of that video footage he’d seen of Mitchell’s suit disintegrating in some vast alien vault, then of him being lifted naked on to a stretcher. He remembered the medical reports he’d read suggesting that Mitchell had died and come back to life.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Don’t do that. Just see what you can find out, if anything.’

He stared over towards the Dorican, wondering if he might be better off not knowing just what it was Donohue had been trying to tell him earlier.

TWENTY-FIVE

Off the coast of Guam, 8 February 2235

By sheer good fortune, their ferry departed Tumon Bay on the afternoon of the 6th, just hours before a bad storm struck the west coast of Guam, setting the sky above the island ablaze with a lightning storm the likes of which Thomas Fowler had never seen. There was something about the sight that inspired a near-religious terror in his heart, as if he were witnessing the retribution of an angry god. He stood at the starboard rail alongside Amanda and the rest of the passengers, watching this eerie display until the coast faded to a thin smear of green sandwiched between ocean and sky. He overheard someone saying that the same lightning was now wreaking havoc on Yona and Mangilao on the island’s east coast, both setting towns ablaze and killing dozens unlucky enough to be caught outside when it struck.

As she pressed closer against him, he slid one hand arou Amanda’s waist. ‘Have you seen the rust on the hydrofoils?’ she asked, gesturing over the rail towards the foaming waters below. ‘And the hull’s so patched-up, it doesn’t look like it could survive a squall, let alone a thunderstorm.’

‘It’ll make it,’ he said confidently, glancing back at the brightly lit windows of the restaurant deck, as rain began to patter down. Above the restaurant entrance, some of the crew had strung a banner that read ‘END OF THE WORLD CRUISE’, the letters hand-painted in bright rainbow colours. ‘Maybe we should head inside.’