Read Online The Secret Bunker Trilogy: Part One: Darkness Falls by Paul Teague - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Paul Teague
Ads: Link
pretty bad anyway in the last few days, but this was really something. Still, it must just be the Scottish weather.
As fierce as the midges.
She made for the car, which wasn’t too far away from the entrance and
fumbled for the remote in her pocket. As she looked up towards the car, ready to point the keys at the door
like she was some sort of harmless gun-slinger, she thought she saw …
no, she was positive, there was a kid in the car.
About the same height as Dan, same age or thereabouts she thought.
Had she had slightly more time she might have experienced a glimmer
of recognition as she moved up closer to the car to investigate what
was going on. But at that precise moment, where indignant anger had kicked in and
she’d begun to march towards this youngster like a bad tempered bull,
a blue light, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, had begun to glow
beneath the skin of her neck, and that momentary spark of recognition
was extinguished in the gathering darkness overhead.
Training
For a task of this size and importance, absolute security was a ‘must’. That’s why those chosen had to pass over one hundred psychometric
tests before they even became a contender. And they didn’t even know they were doing these tests.
We so casually accept the role of the web and the internet in everyday
life … A Facebook ad here, a Google promo there, a ‘please tell us how we
did’ survey popping up out of nowhere … online lives could so easily
be hijacked and nobody was any the wiser. Most people got excited about data sharing and privacy issues.
If they only knew what his organisation was doing - with full global
consent - the occasional highly targeted advert from Amazon would be
the least of their worries.
So it was that he’d managed to invisibly deliver thousands of
psychometric evaluations and thus target his specialist team.
These people had to be very carefully chosen.
They weren’t the strongest, the fastest, the cleverest or the wisest. All of the things that society generally applauded or celebrated had no
currency when assembling this team. And there certainly weren’t any celebrities in there either.
Test after test had shown that the most remarkable people were often
the most ordinary people.
Sports stars excel at sport, film stars excel at acting, Professors excel
at being clever and heroes excel at heroism. But in the grave matter of saving the whole of humanity, it was a very
carefully selected group of ordinary people who were going to make
the final cut.
Two Figures
If it weren’t for the pulsing device buried beneath the skin on his neck,
he’d normally be inquisitive about these two lifeforms just outside the
blast doors. But instead, he calmly runs through a series of routines, just as he was
taught to do in training.
He is not an automaton in this task.
While he’s carrying it out, he still thinks about Trudie and the kids.
He is aware of his surroundings and he hears in the background the
‘getting to know you’ conversations of a team who are just getting
used to their new environment. They don’t know what their mission is yet, but their workstations are
familiar, just like it was in their training and orientation.
It is almost as if certain memories, feelings or emotions are
suppressed. As if a deft puppeteer were pulling his strings so subtly that you are
barely aware that it is actually a toy before your eyes.
So he just watches the life-forms on his screen and switches to
camera. Just blackness. Night vision mode.
Still blackness.
Penetration mode. There they are!
Two figures.
If he’d have looked a little closer, if the camera had given little more
definition in that terrible, dark blackness - and particularly if that
implant hadn’t been pulsing away madly, he might have realised that
he already knew that woman whose face was currently taking up half
of his screen.
Chapter Seven
News
I’m stunned by what Kate just told me.
I’m a kid,
As fierce as the midges.
She made for the car, which wasn’t too far away from the entrance and
fumbled for the remote in her pocket. As she looked up towards the car, ready to point the keys at the door
like she was some sort of harmless gun-slinger, she thought she saw …
no, she was positive, there was a kid in the car.
About the same height as Dan, same age or thereabouts she thought.
Had she had slightly more time she might have experienced a glimmer
of recognition as she moved up closer to the car to investigate what
was going on. But at that precise moment, where indignant anger had kicked in and
she’d begun to march towards this youngster like a bad tempered bull,
a blue light, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, had begun to glow
beneath the skin of her neck, and that momentary spark of recognition
was extinguished in the gathering darkness overhead.
Training
For a task of this size and importance, absolute security was a ‘must’. That’s why those chosen had to pass over one hundred psychometric
tests before they even became a contender. And they didn’t even know they were doing these tests.
We so casually accept the role of the web and the internet in everyday
life … A Facebook ad here, a Google promo there, a ‘please tell us how we
did’ survey popping up out of nowhere … online lives could so easily
be hijacked and nobody was any the wiser. Most people got excited about data sharing and privacy issues.
If they only knew what his organisation was doing - with full global
consent - the occasional highly targeted advert from Amazon would be
the least of their worries.
So it was that he’d managed to invisibly deliver thousands of
psychometric evaluations and thus target his specialist team.
These people had to be very carefully chosen.
They weren’t the strongest, the fastest, the cleverest or the wisest. All of the things that society generally applauded or celebrated had no
currency when assembling this team. And there certainly weren’t any celebrities in there either.
Test after test had shown that the most remarkable people were often
the most ordinary people.
Sports stars excel at sport, film stars excel at acting, Professors excel
at being clever and heroes excel at heroism. But in the grave matter of saving the whole of humanity, it was a very
carefully selected group of ordinary people who were going to make
the final cut.
Two Figures
If it weren’t for the pulsing device buried beneath the skin on his neck,
he’d normally be inquisitive about these two lifeforms just outside the
blast doors. But instead, he calmly runs through a series of routines, just as he was
taught to do in training.
He is not an automaton in this task.
While he’s carrying it out, he still thinks about Trudie and the kids.
He is aware of his surroundings and he hears in the background the
‘getting to know you’ conversations of a team who are just getting
used to their new environment. They don’t know what their mission is yet, but their workstations are
familiar, just like it was in their training and orientation.
It is almost as if certain memories, feelings or emotions are
suppressed. As if a deft puppeteer were pulling his strings so subtly that you are
barely aware that it is actually a toy before your eyes.
So he just watches the life-forms on his screen and switches to
camera. Just blackness. Night vision mode.
Still blackness.
Penetration mode. There they are!
Two figures.
If he’d have looked a little closer, if the camera had given little more
definition in that terrible, dark blackness - and particularly if that
implant hadn’t been pulsing away madly, he might have realised that
he already knew that woman whose face was currently taking up half
of his screen.
Chapter Seven
News
I’m stunned by what Kate just told me.
I’m a kid,
Similar Books
