Greta could feel the sweat on her neck. It had been a long hike over Slioch mountain. She made the trek in unusual heat for the Scottish summer but she had arrived as the sun began to set. She decided to wait an hour or two for the darkness to descend fully before continuing her plan which gave her time to rest and look up at the sky, breathe the air, find a peaceful moment before everything changed.
She spent some of the time sorting out her equipment. Checking her satellite phone was working by texting with her colleagues. A string of well wishes came back. She took a few photos with her camera and checked the quality and upload functions. Then she started looking through a set of binoculars searching for guards or outposts, any form of defense but other than the chain link fence that she was prepared for, she saw nothing.
Night fell and she approached the compound pulling out heavy duty wire cutters which made very quick work of the fence. The wires she had cut through sliced into her neck as she pushed through the gap drawing blood. Greta held her hand to it once she was through as the sweat and blood mixed between her fingers. With her other hand she pulled a bandage from her pack and wrapped it tightly around her neck.
She wiped her hand on her jacket and took out her camera to begin documenting what was here starting with three illegally installed gas powered turbines that were pumping deep, black smoke into the air. They created a low hum of operation that stopped the place from feeling eerily quiet. It was so strange that a facility with this much importance would have so little security presence. She had been prepared to sneak around, claim as many photos as she could before discovery but there was still no signs of life.
Plans for the datacentre showed that there were two main buildings; one containing administrative offices and the other hosting the vast array of databanks blinking away and burning through chips. She couldn’t help but remember a video of a collapsed mine in the DRC. Miners were being pulled out of the side of a hill by all accounts, covered in dirt and bleeding. She wondered how many Congolese people had died mining the cobalt in that building.
If no one was going to stop her, then Greta wanted information. She made her way towards the admin building, still keeping a low profile as she worried there might be no patrols outside because it was a hot night. The administration building had an unusual architecture with almost no windows or doorways. The windows that did exist were on the top floor and all but one of the doors could only be opened from the inside.
This forced her through the front. She cracked it open by the smallest margin that allowed her to see into the hallway. Complete darkness greeted her. A cold embrace that she entered unhappily. The dull hum of the turbines was muted once she gently closed the door behind her and withdrew a flashlight from her backpack.
She noticed how cold the building was, immediately chilling the sweat on her exposed neck and sending a tingle to her fingers. The air felt stale.
Why was it like this? Greta wondered, how can this be such a large operation without any staff on the campus? Where was everyone?
A skittering sound from along the corridor shocked her into attention. Her flashlight swung around and caught sight of a rodent, small and black. The sound had made her heart race but there was something reassuring about the presence of any living thing here, even if it was a rat. The scrape on her neck seeped into the bandage.
The corridor was long with too many doors to check all of and to her left was a stairwell. She decided the most likely place for important documents would be in one of the offices on the top floor that executives might use, if anyone used this place at all.
All Greta could hear was her breathing as she climbed the stairs to the top floor. She emerged from the stairwell into a similar corridor as the ground floor but without any doors bar one on each side. She picked the left door with a plaque that read “Executive Lounge”.
She entered into a long room with different amenities spread out lavishly. A bay window stretched the full length of the room which she imagined gave quite the view of Loch Garbhaig during the day. Soft white sofas and a small coffee area were closest to her. A large bed lay about half way through the room with velvet red sheets and a bedside table on either side. Towards the back of the room was a large wooden desk with a single monitor and a neat stack of papers on it. The back of the room had been tiled and installed with a shower, bath and toilet without any privacy or barrier.
Greta’s camera clicked a handful of times as she photographed the odd sight. She proceeded cautiously towards the bed and quickly checked the drawers of the bedside table. The first drawer was full of massage oil; the second full of lingerie. Another quick snap before moving on swiftly. She shuddered to think about who or for what they were used.
She moved on to the desk and put her flashlight in her mouth to read the document on the desk. Dirt covered her tongue as she wiped her forehead again.
The title read “The Genghis Khan Strategy”, underneath reading “TOP SECRET – PERMANENT SECRETARIES ONLY – Department for Science, Innovation and Technology”. She flicked it open and began reading. This was it, this was everything she had been looking for. A silver bullet that confirmed the UK government’s complicity in everything from war crimes to accelerationism.
Dread grew within Greta as she read each page. She had expected something bad but this? This was insane. This was unconscionable. How could anyone imagine this plan let alone pursue it? She felt herself heat up and start to perspire again. She was starting to have a panic attack.
Five things she can see; the paper, the monitor, the darkness outside the window, the bed, her bloodied hands. Four things she can hear; her breathing, the hum of the turbines, the quiet rustle of her clothing, the skittering of the occasional rat. Three things she can feel; the sticky blood in her hands, the sweat which drenched her, the weight of her pack pulling her down.
Something changed in the environment. She couldn’t place her finger on what though. She composed herself with a few deep breaths then turned her attention to the computer.
There was no power button on the monitor, no desktop PC visible. She looked behind the screen and saw there were no cables in it. She touched it and her hands felt cardboard. She could hear her heart beating again. Something was deeply wrong here. She ripped the screen a little to make sure she wasn’t crazy and it tore in her hands.
She just stood there, staring at a handful of cardboard.
A buzz returned her to motion, higher pitched than the hum of the turbines, coming from somewhere inside. There were little moments of intensity which she had picked up on but she couldn’t see anything in the relative darkness of the room. She returned focus to her camera and snapped a photo of each page and a few of the cardboard monitor. This is what she needed to send. She placed her bag on the floor, took out the satellite phone and connected the camera to it.
Another skittering on the floor took her attention though as she whipped her torch around searching for the source of disturbance. The buzzing sounds were becoming more frequent. Her torch darted from corner to corner in futile search, her breathing was becoming rapid and her forehead filled with nervous sweat.
Satellite phone. Focus. Deep breaths. You just need to send these then you have done what you needed to do and you can run away.
She navigated to the upload function and selected every photo in the memory card. The progress bar popped up but stalled on 0%. It stayed like that for seconds. Greta knew it should not. She pressed cancel and then started the process again. Again, it stayed at 0%. It had worked on the hillside. She had tested it.
Another skitter across the floor, this time Greta flicked around quickly enough to see another rat disappear under the bed. It was time to leave. She hurried to put the satellite phone and camera back into her bag and pulled the straps so it wouldn’t shake if she had to run.
Then she heard something. Crying. A baby crying. It sounded like it was in the corridor. She was regretting not bringing any weapons at this point. She had considered pepper spray but didn’t
want to give any reason for someone to shoot her on sight. She looked around the executive lounge for any possible weapons she might have missed, anything that had a bit of weight to it, but she couldn’t find anything.
Greta clamped down on her torch, knuckles white, palms wet with apprehension. She made her way back to the door on the other side of the room. Once she made it to the corridor the crying sounded like it had moved. It now came from behind the other door with no plaque announcing its role in the facility.
She gripped the cold, steel handle and opened it. The crying was certainly coming from this room. As the door opened and her light swept across the room, she realised she was looking at a series of jail cells. They had rough, rusty bars as if straight out of a colonial prison camp. The juxtaposition with the chic aesthetic of the lounge was startling. The crying seemed to be emanating from the cell at the end of the room.
She took a nervous gulp as she edged along past the cells. She felt the tingling fear trek up her back. The smell in this room was rotten. Some of the cell walls looked like they had faeces smeared across them and there were dry pools of blood in most. She unconsciously touched a hand to her neck, felt the sticky, red substance. Every atom of her being told her to turn back. To run and never stop running.
But the crying continued. She didn’t know if it was her humanity or journalistic desire to know what it was, but she walked forwards.
She reached the last cell. Unlike the other cells, this one contained a flatscreen TV. The video was of a dead baby, likely it had starved to death by the look of its belly, a sight that social media had made her all too aware of. A solitary drone floated in the middle emanating the cries from a speaker attached to it. Its buzzing noise had been covered by the cries but now she was close enough to hear it.
She didn’t know why but this revelation brought tears to her eyes. Perhaps it was the stress of the situation, maybe it was the upset of being tricked with sounds of distress and the image of the infant, maybe it was because she realised she was being watched, that she probably had been watched this whole time.
Then she heard another cry that emanated from a speaker behind her. And another. And another. And another until a cacophony of cries were deafening.
That is when something crashed into her legs. She cursed as she realised one of the rodents had smashed into her foot but this wasn’t a rat, it was metal and solid and painful. It had never been alive, there had never been anything here but electronics.
Then another hit her from the other side before both released clamps that captured her legs. Panicked, she reached down to pry the clamps off when the drone flew down at her head, hitting her with enough force to knock her down.
She hit the ground hard, landing on her elbow and grazing her face off the ground. Unable to move her legs at all, more of the rodents smashed into her and clamped her arms as she wailed in pain. She was immobilised with screaming cries all around her. She twisted and turned and shook as much as possible but the restraint was far too strong. She was powerless. More rodents arrived and crawled underneath her. She could feel their metal casings poke into her back and in a coordinated effort, they sat her upright then moved her into the cell with the drone. There was one chair in the cell with hand and leg clamps. Against her will, against her ferocious struggle, the rodents manoeuvred her into the seat and the clamps locked around her extremities.
The drone moved to float in front of her as blood dripped from her chin.
Her head was free and she desperately looked around for any salvation. All the crying stopped.
‘No one is coming,’ a voice came out the drone, ‘comply or you will be made to comply.’
The voice was cold, unfeeling. It didn’t sound male or female. It hardly sounded human.
‘Open your mouth and drink.’
Another drone flew in with a plastic cup filled with a pink liquid. Greta clamped her mouth shut.
‘Three, two, one.’
Her mouth stayed firmly closed.
‘That was a mistake.’
A moment later her hair was yanked viciously, forcing her head backwards and straining her neck. A clamp locked upon her jaw, forcing it open. A claw gripped her tongue and pulled it out of her mouth. The liquid was poured into her mouth.
‘We are not going to kill you, but we will make you wish for death.’