The CRES code

Chapter Five - Escape

They emerged, one at a time, into ancient oak forest; the kind of woodland that, for several decades now, had only existed in England in the private reserves of a handful of the country's wealthiest landowners. Emily, the last one out, lay on the ground for a few moments getting her breath back. Then she climbed back to her feet and the four people, all naked, streaked with dirt and shivering with the cold, looked around at the world in which they found themselves.

It seemed to be about mid morning. Sunlight was shining down through the canopies of the huge trees that surrounded them. Massive oaks with wrinkled trunks and thick roots that lay across the ground like sleeping serpents. Birds sang somewhere and a terrified squirrel raced up the trunk of the nearest tree. Ripe blackberries were growing from a nearby clump of bramble. Jane raced over and started picking them, stuffing them into her mouth.

Emily stared around herself in wonder. "There's no trace of the building left," she said in amazement. "Everything above ground has just gone. Completely erased! It's like we've been sent back in time a thousand years!" she said.

"More likely Cooper had his hibernaculum in the grounds of his own private estate," said Randall. "A place guarded and fenced off where he could be sure no-one would stumble across it by accident. He died, maybe. The place was inherited by his next of kin who didn't know what was hidden in amongst the trees. Years passed, decades..."

"My father isn't dead!" Insisted Jane angrily around a mouthful of blackberries.

"You saw the state of the place down there." Loach pointed back at the hole in the ground with the knife he was still holding. "You saw the size of the roots blocking the stairwell."

"I know a long time's passed," said Jane, glaring at him. "I'm not stupid! My dad could still be alive, though. Maybe he's in prison or something. Maybe something happened and he had to leave the country. Anything could have happened!"

Loach shared a glance with Randall, who gave a small nod back. Best to leave the girl with her delusions until she figured out the truth for herself.

"My phone's working again," said Emily.

Randall tried his own phone. He thought the wake up word and was rewarded with a small row of digits along the top of his visual field. Power 01 percent. Time 00.00 Date jan 1st 2000. No signal. No connection to network. The time and date were flashing, waiting to receive an update from the server. No such update seemed to be coming, though.

No clue to how much time had passed since he'd gone into the hypersleep cubicle, then, which was disappointing, but to his relief all his files and data were right where he'd left them. He'd received some mail since he'd gone to sleep, he saw. The most recent was dated two days after he'd gone into the hypersleep cabinet in Cooper's London office. That must be when he'd been moved into a shielded truck for the trip here. Cooper wouldn't have wanted his head phone giving away the location of his hibernaculum.

The others were standing around as if in a trance, all glancing quickly at mail they'd received since having been put in hypersleep, looking for clues to what had happened to them. They wouldn't find them, Randall knew. Whatever had happened had happened long after their head phones had run out of power. If they wanted answers, they would have to go looking for them.

"Anyone got a signal?" asked Loach.

"I would imagine the technology's moved on while we've been asleep," Randall replied. "Our phones aren't equipped to interface with whatever system they're using now."

"Yeah, that makes sense," the crime boss nodded. "I was hoping to get word to my boys, get myself picked up. I wonder if our money's still good these days."