The Sons of Scarlatti. John McNally

The lung breathed in. The lung breathed out. And for a moment his heart swelled with nostalgia as he was transported back nearly twenty years to a Cambridge University of scarves and bicycles, lectures and tutorials, girls to fall in love with and limitless early promise… before, inevitably, his mind went to his moment of glory.

      Why Does Grass Grow In Clumps?

      A General Theory on the Development of Super-organisms

      A lecture by D.A.P. Kaparis

      St Stephen’s Hall, 10am, Wed 4th May 1993

       And to how it was stolen from him.

       In front of everybody.

       In front of her.

       And, as quickly as it had swollen, Kaparis’s heart emptied of blood and once more beat acid revenge.

      “Our proposal,” said King, “is this – one: shrink a tracking device and fit it to the American Scarlatti and release it to find its missing clone.

      “Two: shrink an attack helicopter and its crew…”

      Eyes popped around the world.

      “…all their equipment, including all tracking, transport, communications and weaponry…”

      “Woah! Shrink people! Weapons?”

      “…to the scale 150 to 1…” continued King.

      “One hundred and fifty times!?”

      “…and three…”

      “Hang fire! Why not just shrink the tracking device and track the thing? Why shrink people?” asked General Jackman.

      “Without going into too much classified detail,” said Al, “it’s to do with changes in waveform when you collapse the electromagnetic spectrum. A nano-transmitter produces a nano-signal that can only be picked up on a nano-receiver with a very limited range, perhaps 800 metres at the most. You can’t just amplify the signal in the normal sense. That’s why we’ll need a hunter crew at nano-level as well. Their transport can be fitted with a tiny ‘full-scale’ radio for communication, although again it will have a very limited range and we can’t bank on constant contact.”

      The General looked like his brain ached.

      King continued. “And three: the crew are to pursue the second Scarlatti to the first, then destroy both adults and any eggs or nymphs they find.”

      “Whatever else it is, this whole scheme is crazy! At the very least untested. The risks to any participants must surely be suicidal,” said the American Chief Scientist, shaking her head.

      “We have to measure the risks against what’s at stake, and against the only viable alternative,” said King.

      “Which is?” asked the German Chancellor.

      “Go nuclear. Displace a million people. Lay waste to part of London for generations to come.”

      There was a long pause.

      Finn suddenly realised something and looked back at the map that King had marked up earlier. The area of destruction included the village of Langmere.

      “Grandma’s?” Finn said.

      “I know,” said Al. “It’s personal.”

      The US President was incredulous.

      “And who’s going to take on this mission?”

      “Given the unknown physiological risks, we propose just a three-man team led by Captain Kelly from our informal military cohort. Captain Kelly and Engineer Stubbs – both with nano-experience – plus a pilot.”

      “Wait! Nano-experience? You’ve done this before?” asked Finn.

      “Roll the film,” said Al.

      Up on the screen appeared some scrappy, hand-held digital footage of a goat on a lead. At the other end of the lead was Al. Both looked like they’d been partying for three days straight. A time code ticked over along the bottom.

      Captain Kelly walked into shot and spray-painted ‘Good luck’ on the goat’s hide.

      The image cut to the Fat Doughnut Accelerator operating with a loud hum. Outside, Engineer Stubbs sat at a desk crammed with laptops. Al tethered the goat in the centre of the Fat Doughnut.

      The time code jumped forward a few minutes to a more distant shot of the accelerator. The camera zoomed in on the goat as it became increasingly disturbed. Wheeling around its tether until… the screen went suddenly and completely white.

      The camera pulled out to reveal the Fat Doughnut now contained a ball of perfect, intense white light. It seemed to ripple and spin for a few seconds before it faded, leaving behind a party of blinking observers and… no goat.

      Al ran into the centre of the Fat Doughnut. On hands and knees he searched for something. Kelly and Stubbs crowded in.

      Very carefully, Al picked something up. The camera zoomed in on his hand. Trying to focus. All blurry, unfocused skin tone. And then – finally, shakily – in the rivulets of Al’s skin, in the lifeline, stood a rather confused, silently-bleating, 4.5mm goat.

      “Me next,” said Kelly off-camera. “I’m next!”

      “Hey! Who did all the work?” protested Stubbs.

      “Back away!”

      The argument raged. The goat didn’t join in. It was all way over its head.

      DAY ONE 14:19 (BST). Willard’s Copse, Berkshire

       Lay lay lay lay…

       Smallpox had laid waste to the badger and left its corpse a wretched thing, barely identifiable, pustulated and leaking the gall the Scarlatti found so conducive.

       For fifteen hours more the Scarlatti would continue to produce fat white eggs from its abdomen, straining to evacuate them, planting each one carefully in the decaying flesh, its insides a furnace of reproduction.

       In each egg a primitive nymph was forming. In less than six hours, such was the furious rate of growth, the first of them would begin to consume the remaining contents of its egg sac before bursting out to feast upon the corpse in turn.

      Someone whispered something in the US President’s ear. He made his decision and nodded.

      “You want our Scarlatti, you got it,” he said simply.

      “And further accelerator capacity from CERN, Monsieur le Président? Frau Chancellor?”

      “Oui.”

      “Ja.”

      Commander James Clayton-King loved it when a plan came together.

      Then the American President raised a finger. “One condition. We supply the pilot. I want a man onboard.”

      King raised an eyebrow in protest.

      There was another whisper in the President’s ear.

      “Make that a woman.”

      DAY ONE 15:17 (BST). Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, USA

      A Variant T Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor taxied out of the restricted M3 hangar.

      Delta Salazar knew nothing yet of the mission she was being asked to undertake, only that it was priority number one: transit to RAF Northolt outside London at maximum speed,