The Shades Read online

  Copyright Amy Cross, All Rights Reserved

  Published by ACBT Books

  First published: October 2013

  This edition first published: May 2014

  Kindle edition

  With thanks to Linda Hare

  http://amycrossbooks.wordpress.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. If you enjoy it and wish to share it with others, please consider buying them their own copy. Feedback is always welcome. The author reserves all rights in respect of this work.

  This book's front cover incorporates elements licensed from the Bigstock photo site.

  Table of Contents

  Part One: Landfall

  Part Two: The Station

  Part Three: Countdown

  Part Four: The Experiment

  The Shades

  Part One

  Landfall

  Dr. Stef Grant

  Today

  Sutton is the first to see land. Just after dawn, with the ship's navigation systems spinning like crazy, he calls out like some kind of eighteenth century sailor, his voice sounding cold and brittle in the early morning mist.

  "Land!"

  The rest of us immediately head up to the front of the ship and stare out at the distant smudge on the horizon. We don't say anything, but that's because each of us has been dreading this moment. Sure, we've joked about it during the journey, and none of us would ever admit to being scared, but there's no doubt about it. We've each got our own private theories about what's happened, and about what we might find when set go ashore, but I guess we each also hope that somehow it'll turn out that there's been a simple misunderstanding. After all, isn't there a chance that when we reach our destination, we'll find that everything's fine and there was no reason to worry?

  "I always wanted to visit New York," says Lacey, forcing a nervous smile as she turns to me. "Course, I always thought it'd be for shopping and stuff. Like, a proper vacation." She pauses, waiting for me to say something, and it's clear that she's nervous. "How about you, Stef? You ever dreamed of coming here?"

  I nod, unable to stop staring at the land ahead as our boat speeds through the choppy gray waters. I'm not in the mood for smalltalk, and as I squint, I manage to make out the distant skyscrapers of the city. At least they're still standing. I was half expecting to get here and find the entire city had been flattened, but no: from where we are right now, a few miles from shore, New York looks pretty normal.

  "Still," Lacey continues, "maybe there'll be time for that some other time."

  "Listen to the pair of you," Gretchen Maloney says from the other side of the boat. "Talking like this isn't the most fucked-up shit in the world."

  "Landfall in thirty minutes," says Cooper gruffly, turning and grabbing a backpack. "I don't care how long you all wanna stand and gawp, but I want everyone ready on time. We've got a schedule."

  Grabbing a pair of binoculars, I hurry to the very front of the boat and try to get a better look at the city. With the boat pushing on through the waves, it's hard to get a steady view, but I'm eventually able to focus on the shoreline. Everything looks so gray and vague, as if the mist is intentionally obscuring the view. With a heavy heart, however, I realize that although the city looks normal, there's no movement. As I scan the shoreline, I see nothing but buildings. No people. No cars. Looking up, I see no planes. Suddenly those skyscrapers look like huge tombstones.

  "You see anything?" Lacey asks, sidling over to me.

  I shake my head.

  "That's okay," she continues. "It's kind of how I expected. I mean, there's not exactly gonna be a welcoming committee, is there? Whatever happened, it's probably knocked everything out." She pauses. "No birds, either."

  Looking up, I realize that she's right. As we get closer and closer to the shore, there should be gulls in the area, but there's nothing in the air apart from a chill wind and the first light spattering of rain.

  "It's started," mutters Gretchen as she unfolds a map. "I knew this'd happen."

  "What?" I ask.

  "Seeing patterns that aren't there," she continues. "Coming up with superstitious crap. If there are no birds, it's because the human habitat has changed and the local wildlife has headed off to find somewhere else. Gulls congregate near human settlements in order to consume the scraps. When those settlements stop producing scraps, the gulls move on. It's not rocket science, and there's no fucking mystery about the whole thing."

  "Final bets?" Lacey asks with a nervous grin.

  "On what?" I reply.

  "On what happened." She grabs the binoculars and takes a look. "I'm gonna go with the plague. Something heavy and tough that just hit real hard and wiped everyone out. It's the only thing that makes sense. Some kind of virus just swept through the place and killed everyone." She lowers the binoculars. "Kinda gross, if you think about it."

  "It can't have been a virus," I reply. "Whatever happened, it was more sudden."

  "A virus can be sudden," she points out.

  "Not this sudden," I remind her. "This was more like someone just flicked a switch." It's true. Two weeks ago, on September 1st, the United States of America just seemed to vanish. The day before, everything had seemed perfectly normal. Then, on the stroke of midnight, the USA just... stopped. All network traffic in and out of the country was cut off. All servers on US soil stopped responding. Telecommunications stopped dead, and US-controlled satellites shut down completely. Attempts to make contact with someone, anyone, on US soil failed completely. It was as if somebody had just scooped the entire country up and made it disappear, and I can't shake the feeling that the whole incident was extremely well organized. After all, attempts to use satellites to monitor the ground have been disrupted by some kind of interference, while a couple of military vessels sent to check on the situation were shut down by some kind of power failure.

  And then there's the barrier, which mysteriously appeared on the US borders with Canada and Mexico. So far, no-one has been able to work out exactly how the barrier works, but it's invisible and so far it has resisted all attempts to get past, and no-one has managed to get under or over. It also seems to be responsible for the disruption that's preventing satellites from seeing what's happening on the ground. Sure, a virus could knock out the majority of the population, but a virus can't build a barrier. A barrier requires resources and planning, and it indicates intelligence. Someone did this on purpose, or at least they knew it was coming.

  "Everyone wears a full suit," Cooper calls out from the other end of the boat. "We're not taking any chances!"

  "It's not a virus!" I shout back at him.

  "I don't give a damn!" he replies, already removing four protective suits from the locker. "Until we're certain, we all wear one. Anyway, there's also a danger of radiation." He grabs a hand-held monitor and checks the screen. "Nothing yet, but we're still a mile or so out. I want to be over-cautious here."

  "There's no radiation," I say, turning to Lacey as the boat hits a particularly big wave, sending spray onto the deck. "There'd be radiation after an accident, but this wasn't an accident."

  "You think someone turned everything off neatly?" she replies, raising an eyebrow.

  "I think whatever happened was controlled and orderly," I say, holding onto the handrail as I make my way around past the cabin and over to where Cooper has laid out the protective suits. Bright yellow with large clear hoods and breathing apparatus, these things are designed to keep us completely isolated from the world, and they each come with oxygen tanks that should last roughly six hours. They'll restrict our mobility, but Cooper's right: we can't just go blundering into this situation without any protection.

  "Everyone's got a theory," Cooper mutters, "but we're not making our decisions based on theories, okay? We're
making our decisions based on science and logic. Above all, we're going to be cautious at every turn." He pauses for a moment as he starts climbing into his suit. "If in doubt," he continues eventually, "you stop and wait. This isn't a competition. No-one gets extra points or kudos for storming ahead and taking risks. If I see anyone trying to play the hero, I'll have you back on this fucking boat before you know what hit you."

  As I start getting into my own suit, I glance back toward the front of the boat and see the city getting closer and closer. The fog has started to clear a little, which means that the skyscrapers are looming higher and higher in the gray early morning sky. It's been eighteen days since we left Spain, and I've played this moment over and over again in my mind, anticipating what it'd be like to make landfall. Now that the moment is almost here, however, I'm filled with anticipation and a certain amount of dread. I know that officially this mission is a rescue and reconnaissance operation, but I can't help feeling that our main task is going to be picking over the remains of whatever's left.

  Suddenly the boat's engine changes down a gear, and I realize that we're starting to coast toward the shore. We're heading past Manhattan Beach, and the plan is to head past Staten Island and go straight for Manhattan itself. On the way here, we discussed our plan endlessly, and eventually we figured that if we had any hope of finding survivors, the best place to go would be Manhattan. The others still think that there's a chance we might find people alive here, and that those people can tell us exactly what happened. I wish I believed the same, but the truth is, I'm not expecting to find anyone alive. I can't explain it, but I just have this very strong sense that the place is going to be empty.

  "Everyone takes a gun," Cooper says as we all finish getting into our suits.

  "Are you sure that's necessary?" I ask, glancing over at Lacey and seeing the worried look on her face.

  "We might need to protect ourselves," Cooper replies. "I don't like it any more than you do, but we're not taking any risks. No matter what happened here, there are bound to be at least a few survivors, and they might not be..." He pauses for a moment, as if he's not quite sure how to finish the sentence.

  "Human?" I ask.

  "If resources are low," he continues, "people might be reduced to desperate measures. If there are people here, we can't expect to be welcomed with open arms. They might have been driven insane by hunger. There could be disease, and people will do anything if they're scared. They could see us as an enemy. I know it's hard, but if we're in danger, we have no option but to use force and retreat." He pauses. "I'm guessing neither of you have ever killed anyone before."

  Lacey shakes her head.

  "Stef?" Cooper asks.

  I nod.

  "You've used a gun?"

  I nod again.

  "On someone?"

  "It was in a very different situation," I tell him. I can see the look of shock in Lacey's eyes, but I really don't want to discuss this right now. "So are these things already loaded?" I ask, hoping to change the subject as I look down at the handguns. "Do they have safety catches?"

  As Cooper hands out the guns and gives us brief instructions about how to operate them, I can't help thinking that this is pointless. He and the others are still working on the assumption that there's been some kind of accident, and that we're going to come across a few stumbling, ragged survivors. I don't think that's what happened at all. I think that whatever went down in the US on September 1st, it was much more controlled, which means that the outcome is likely to be much more ordered. Turning and looking past the bow of the boat, I see that we're fast approaching Manhattan. We're going to be the first people to set foot on US soil since this whole mess started, and without any means of communicating our findings back to our base, our main aim is just to take a look around, get some idea of what happened, and then leave. Something tells me, however, that it's not going to be quite so simple.

  Caroline Jones

  Fifteen days ago

  "Has anyone seen Lydecker?"

  Keeping my eyes on the monitor, I can't hide a faint smirk as Mendez hurries through the office in his customary panic. I swear to God, that guy is constantly running around like his pants are on fire. The day he's calm and serene is the day I start to worry, and probably the day when the bank collapses and we're all out of a job.

  "Has anyone seen Lydecker?" he shouts again, sounding as if he might be about to have a heart attack. Stopping next to my desk, he huffs and puffs for a moment before, finally, I realize he's staring intently at me. "Jones," he says eventually. "Have you seen Lydecker?"

  I shake my head, still frantically typing as I keep my eyes on the screen.

  "Has he been in at all today?"

  I shrug.

  "Caroline, can you stop for a moment and help me out here?"

  Sighing, I stop typing and turn to him. "I don't know where John Lydecker is," I say, making sure to stay as calm as possible. "I never know where he is, and if I did know, I'd be making a special effort to forget. As long as he's not here, bugging me, I'm happy." With that, I start typing again; after all, these advisory notes to my clients aren't going to write themselves.

  "He was supposed to be in a meeting at 8am," Mendez continues, clearly not impressed by my answer. "The guy's missed three meetings in two days. As far as I can tell, he hasn't even been to his terminal, and IT say he hasn't logged into his account from home. Seriously, it's like he's just completely vanished."

  "Have you tried calling him?" I ask.

  "Believe it or not," he replies, "yes, I have. No fucking answer. I've sent him emails until my fingers started to bleed. I've tried pinging his phone. I've done everything short of go down to the precinct and report him missing. He's nowhere to be found."

  "Maybe that's a good thing," I reply. "I mean, he's kind of annoying."

  "Did he say anything to you about being busy?" he asks.

  "No," I reply, barely able to stifle a laugh at the idea that John Lydecker and I would ever have a casual conversation. Given the stench of Lydecker's breath, I usually make sure to keep at least a couple of meters from him at all times. "I really don't know him outside of the office. He's not really my type. I don't know if you've noticed, but he's not very social."

  "He's the best analyst we have," Mendez replies humorlessly. "I don't see you pulling in the big clients, Jones. Maybe when you're at Lydecker's level, you can start passing comment on him. Until then, maybe you should keep your mouth closed and try to learn a little more from your colleagues. Without the big-hitters, I'd have to let go of the small-fry, and trust me, that situation would not be to your advantage."

  I open my mouth to reply, but it's clear that there's no point. Mendez thinks the sun shines out of Lydecker's backside, purely because the guy's able to smarm the big names in New York's banking industry. Seriously, John Lydecker is the greasiest, most obsequious little toad I've ever met, and on a personal level I wouldn't care if I never saw the bastard again. Then again, on a professional level, I guess I know deep down that he's good at his job. "I don't know where he is," I say eventually, making sure to remain calm, "but I hope you find him soon."

  "I need you to go to his apartment," Mendez says, fixing me with a determined stare.

  "Ha," I reply, staring back at him. "Very funny."

  "It's not a joke," he continues. "Get his address from the system and go to his place. It's somewhere down near Battery Park. Go knock on his door. Break the damn thing down if you have to. Talk to his neighbors, go through his trash, camp out opposite the building until you spot him. I don't care how you do it, just find out where the hell he's got to, and get his ass back here!"

  "You're not serious!" I reply.

  "Deadly!"

  "I've got work to do!" I protest. "I've got six deadlines today! The Meldrew account alone is going to take all morning!"

  "Someone else can deal with the Meldrew account," he replies.

  "I've built up a very strong relationship with Mr. Meldrew," I point o
ut. "I just -"

  "Someone else," he says again, more firmly this time, "can deal with the Meldrew account. Your job, whether you like it or not, is to go and find Lydecker."

  "But -"

  "I'm your boss," Mendez says firmly. "Right now, the best use of your time, from my perspective, would be for you to get your ass down to John Lydecker's apartment next to Battery Park and find out what the hell's going on with that guy. Whatever else you're doing, it can wait. You'll just have to stay late." He stares at me, as if he's waiting for me to acquiesce to his insane demand. "Don't take this the wrong way, Jones," he continues eventually, "but this bank will survive for a morning, even a full day, without your presence. John Lydecker, on the other hand, is fucking essential. So go find him!"

  Sighing, I realize that he's totally serious. He actually expects me to spend my morning trying to track down our errant office genius. To be honest, this is kind of the biggest slap in the face I've ever experienced since I started working here. Sure, I know I'm at the bottom of the ladder in terms of experience and authority, but I never expected to be treated as a glorified gopher. I'm starting to think that maybe there's no hope for me to ever get out of this damn place with any respect. I should just quit and go back home to Minnesota, and work in my mother's thimble shop.

  "You're still in your chair," Mendez says after a moment. "You need to get going, Jones. I don't care if you have to drag him by the collar, I want John Lydecker back in this office by lunchtime. The only excuse I'll accept is that the guy's stone cold dead, and if that's the case, I want photos of the corpse as proof. Either that, or cut off his head and bring it to me."

  Once he's walked away, I'm left feeling pretty damn angry. Of all the people in the office, Mendez chose to send me to track Lydecker down, which clearly means that he doesn't really value me. As I switch my computer off and grab my coat, I can't shake the impression that I've just been well and truly put in my place. Unfortunately, I clearly lack the firepower to stand my ground, so I've got no choice other than to go and do as I'm told. Seriously, though, I can't wait for the day when I'm able to turn down such dumb assignments. If John Lydecker can't be bothered to come to work, I don't see why it should be my problem. After all, it's hardly the end of the world.