Fractured Light Read online

  Fractured Light

  Book One in the Fractured Light Trilogy

  Nick Cook

  For Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, for fuelling the furnace of my imagination and my lifelong love affair with science and science fiction.

  ‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.’

  Albert Einstein

  Copyright 2018 © Nicholas P Cook

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published worldwide by Voice from the Clouds Ltd.

  www.voicefromtheclouds.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Afterword

  About Nick Cook

  Chapter One

  Maybe if I’d known how that night would impact my life and the lives of those of everyone I knew – not to mention the fate of the entire world – I would have turned round and headed straight back to college. Maybe I would have kept my head down, got on with my studies, and tried my best to avoid any involvement. Or maybe, and much more likely, I would have done exactly what I did…

  The winter rain had already soaked through my jeans, making the cold wet denim stick to my legs. I trudged home from my late-night study session at college along the quiet side street, feet sending ripples out across the flooded pavement. Christmas tree lights reflected on the windows of several of the houses as I passed them. Everyone else seemed to have taken the warnings seriously and were already tucked up safely inside their homes from the disaster that might have their name on it.

  Of course, the Stoneham Stalker as he – presumably it was a he – was becoming known might also have something to do with the lack of people out and about. However, I, the odd one out like always, had my whole attention focused skywards on the rolling clouds and hint of stars in the breaks in between.

  And I’d been counting the days down to tonight for weeks, despite my growing sense of foreboding.

  The news reports had been filled with hardly anything else: Varuna, the rogue Indian weather satellite that had gone out of control and was headed for an uncontrolled crash-landing somewhere over England tonight. The erratic flight of the satellite hadn’t helped the panic either, with the authorities, and even NASA, having no idea of exactly when or where the satellite would make eventual landfall. The emergency services had already been mobilised by the new prime minister, Alexander Langton, a man who’d seized power in a coup that made a political thriller look like a Disney movie complete with fluffy animals. But he’d made all the right reassuring noises over the last week, saying that statistically the satellite would probably crash harmlessly somewhere in an unpopulated part of the countryside.

  Thanks to the disaster-movie-type reporting by the tabloids – including the now infamous ‘We Are All Going to Die!’ headline – people’s apocalypse paranoia had been well and truly fuelled. Supermarket shelves had been stripped bare, even including Christmas crackers and the mixed nuts that normally no one bothered with. Now everyone was holding their breath for the metal hammer about to be dropped by the sky gods on to their heads.

  It seemed even I wasn’t immune. For the last five days, I’d had the same recurring dream about the satellite rushing towards me. As my flesh had been boiled away by the impact blast I’d woken in a cold sweat. Those twenty-four-hour news channels with their constant analysis about the potential huge loss of life had a lot to answer for.

  Despite that, and unlike most of the population, my uncle Allan and I could both see past the mass hysteria, and rather than prep for the end of the world we had made other plans for tonight.

  I quickened my pace for Celestial Skies, the telescope shop that Allan owned and ran, and which we lived over in our cramped flat. We’d already agreed to head up to Ravens Hill, with its unrestricted views of the sky, to try to spot the satellite burning up on its return later tonight. This was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I wasn’t going to miss the chance of a brief glimpse of the crashing satellite, however awful the weather.

  A tell-tale hacking cough snagged my ears and my attention snapped back to the dreary, rain-soaked world around me.

  Gavin. I’d recognise his asthma cigarette-fuelled cough anywhere.

  I pulled my hoody up over my head, a vague attempt at a thin disguise. I could certainly do without any fresh agro from him. Maybe I’d get lucky and he wouldn’t notice me. After all, melting into the background was something I’d had enough practice in. But as I approached the corner my heart began to race and adrenalin made my blood sing. Under the glow of the streetlight ahead I saw a curl of cigarette smoke rise from the broadest and tallest of the group.

  The unmistakable profile of Gavin.

  Then I spotted Chloe hanging back from the group, sitting on a brick wall sheltering from the rain under a tree. She had her red Beat headphones on, denim jacket wrapped round her, face glowing like a ghost’s from the illumination of her trademark laptop that was balanced on her lap. The cool college geek who could hack her grades and who’d once been my best friend… And as much I tried to convince myself otherwise there was still a Chloe-shaped hole in my life.

  Chloe watched Gavin over the top of her laptop screen with the narrow-eyed expression of a wary cat, her gaze flicking past him towards the kid in the middle of the group, who must have been all of twelve.

  Gavin was famed for this sort of thing – hooking youngsters in to do his dirty work. The rumour going around town was that his gang had been responsible for the mini crime wave that had hit Stoneham over the last year, with Gavin pulling all the strings.

  The group had knotted itself around a monstrous white BMW four-by-four that shouted new and expensive. The gang kept glancing up and down the street. It didn’t take a genius to work out what was about to happen next.

  My mind raced ahead. If Gavin spotted me doubling back the way I’d come, he’d know he’d psyched me. And weakness of any kind was something he fed on. Nope, that wasn’t an option. I stepped out, tension spreading across my shoulders. But Gavin and his gang were so intent on what they were doing none of them even cast a glance in my direction. Not wanting to press my luck, I got ready to cross the street to skirt past the group. Gavin pushed a hammer into boy’s hand and shoved him towards the car. The way the boy looked at him pinched at me, his face uncertain; a line was about to be crossed that would change the rest of his life for ever…

  Don’t, Jake…

  I glanced back along the street. There was no one else. Who’d stop this if I walked past and pretended I hadn’t seen anything? That was what most people would do. I didn’t even know the boy, so why was I even thinking about doing something so insane?

  Just don’t…


  And then Chloe was on her feet, headphones off, shaking her head at Gavin, hand cradled protectively over the boy’s shoulder. No one ever did this…ever. Disagreeing with Gavin was something you just didn’t do, even if you were his girlfriend.

  The speed of Gavin’s reaction was shocking: the uncaged fury of a wild animal released and all focused on Chloe. He slapped her so hard across the side of the face that it sent her laptop flying from her hand and skittering away over the puddle-soaked pavements, its screen going dark. And I knew, everyone knew, that laptop was Chloe’s whole world.

  But Chloe didn’t back away; she didn’t even waste a glance at her broken laptop. Instead she narrowed her cat-like gaze on Gavin. The boy stared between them as if they were his parents having a fight. He glanced down at the hammer in his hand gleaming under the lamplight. The street theatre was building to its grand finale.

  A chink of light appeared in one of the windows opposite, but the curtain settled again. Probably a cat fussing with them.

  Gavin’s mouth had become a tight line and he pulled the boy away from Chloe and shoved him towards the car.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted, surprising even myself.

  Gavin noticed me for the first time and a slow thin smile filled his face, like a wolf spotting its prey. I could handle his hate for me, was well used to it, but it was the unreadable look that Chloe gave me that pierced my emotional armour like nothing else could.

  My heart accelerated way beyond max, but I was committed.

  ‘Let him go, Gavin,’ I called out.

  ‘Well, miracles of miracles – Jake Stevens, the mute, can actually speak,’ Gavin replied.

  Around him his gang laughed like a pack of hyenas sharing a particularly bad joke.

  But the boy’s eyes hung on to mine, his face pleading. I’d no choice. Not really.

  As if I was on some sort of autopilot, I started to speed up. I was less than ten paces away when Gavin bent down and whispered into the lad’s ear. The boy’s expression hollowed out and he drew the hammer back.

  Chloe tried to reach the boy but one of the gang blocked her way, a blond razor-cut guy, all smirks and swagger.

  I was running, but the young lad was already swinging the hammer forward. Time seemed to slow as it smashed into the BMW’s window, shattering it into a rainstorm of glass. The alarm’s cry barked out into the night and the hazard lights started to flash.

  I reached the boy and pulled him round to look at me, no longer caring about the consequences. ‘Why?’

  He gestured towards Gavin, face pale. ‘He said he’d break my arm if I didn’t.’

  I swivelled round to pierce Gavin with my stare, but his gang had already surrounded me. Chloe’s mouth twisted as she watched me with those crystal blue eyes that always seemed to judge. I stood before them, picked out by the stage-like spotlight of the lamp post.

  Gavin sneered. ‘You shouldn’t be sticking your nose into my business, Stevens, not if you don’t want to have it carved off.’

  My shoulders rose, fists clenching. The familiar knot of anxiety pulsed inside me.

  The curtain in the window opposite was pulled back, revealing an old grey-haired lady watching me with spectacled eyes, a phone in her hand. At that same moment a police car sped round the bend and headed towards us, siren off, but lights strobing, turning the street nightclub-blue.

  Gavin leant in close, finger poking me on the chest, his hot breath on my face. ‘Next time, Stevens, next time.’ He nodded to the rest of his gang and a moment later they were off running down the street.

  Chloe, someone who never usually maintained eye contact, stared at me for the longest moment, feet rooted to the pavement, her expression unreadable.

  ‘Chloe?’ I said.

  ‘Come on, you silly bitch,’ Gavin shouted back at her.

  She blinked at me and chewed her lip. Then with a slight headshake, she was away and running after the others.

  What had happened to the girl I’d once known…the girl who’d shoved pencils up her nose to make me laugh and danced with me in the puddles?

  I stood with the young lad, us both staring after them as the sound of the approaching police car grew behind our backs. I grabbed the hammer the boy was still holding.

  ‘Get out of here and do yourself a favour – have nothing more to do with Gavin and his crew from now on. OK?’

  His eyes beaded with tears. ‘I will. Thanks, Jake.’

  I felt the usual surge of surprise that a stranger knew my name, but then, of course, everyone in Stoneham did, for all the wrong reasons. And with that the boy was gone too, racing away.

  Distant laughter and whoops from Gavin and the others echoed between the buildings.

  I dropped the hammer behind my back as the police car screeched to halt. Two uniformed police officers leapt out and the taller policeman’s eyes narrowed at mine.

  ‘But it wasn’t me,’ I said, knowing just how lame that must have sounded.

  The other officer stared at the hammer at my feet and then at the broken glass on the pavement by the BMW. ‘Of course it wasn’t, lad.’

  Before I could move he pulled my hands behind my back and steel-cold cuffs clamped round my wrists.

  The other policeman crouched down to examine the hammer. ‘Tut, tut, tut.’

  I didn’t resist as the tall officer shoved me into the back of the car. I wouldn’t have believed me either.

  I still felt an echo of the heat in my blood from when Chloe had squared up to Gavin and he’d hit her. Even though we hadn’t spoken in years, of course I still cared about her. But that wasn’t the reason I’d stepped in tonight. There’d been something about that haunted look in the boy’s eyes that had snared me. Walking past was never going to happen.

  That lost and frightened boy reminded me of myself at that age.

  I gazed at my own reflection in the window and saw a confused eighteen-year-old teenager frowning back. I slumped back into the seat and listened to the rain drumming down on to the car’s roof as we pulled away.

  Chapter Two

  I sat in a white-walled room with a small barred window and a battered desk in the middle. The faint scent of locker-room sweat added a really homely feel to the place. Nice.

  The tall police officer who’d arrested me fiddled with the buttons on a recording device on the desk.

  I’d had enough time in the patrol car to work out how I was going to play this – the only way I could – to plead ignorance and keep Gavin and the others out of it. Anything else would mean my life would be as good as over in Stoneham.

  A woman’s voice drifted through from outside. ‘It’s just been confirmed by his wife: Jason Stone never returned home from work tonight.’

  ‘But that’s the third person to go missing this month,’ a man’s voice replied. It was followed by a long sigh. ‘All right, let’s give it the standard twenty-four hours and hope the guy has just run off with his secretary before everyone starts panicking.’

  ‘OK, sir.’

  Another disappearance. That was only going to throw fuel on the fire of the Stoneham Stalker rumour. The door swung open and a guy walked in with grey hair and a matching beard. Although it had been six years, and he’d darker hair back then and had been clean-shaven, I still recognised Inspector Clarke immediately – the officer who’d broken the news of Dad’s death to me.

  I slumped into the seat as Clarke took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair before he sat down.

  My gaze skated over the hammer in the clear plastic bag.

  He fixed me with his piercing steel-grey eyes. ‘Hello, Jake, long time no see. Just a shame it’s not under better circumstances, hey?’

  I gave him a faint nod.

  ‘Just so you know, we have contacted your uncle, Allan Stevens, and he’s on his way.’

  ‘Right…’ I cringed inside. Allan was no longer my legal guardian since I’d turned eighteen, but he was still a father figure to me. He was one of the few who’d stood by
me as the rest had either drifted or, as in Chloe’s case, been pushed away.

  I glanced at Clarke. ‘Shouldn’t I have a solicitor in here or something?’

  ‘No, this is just going to be a friendly chat, nothing more at this stage.’

  The policeman frowned at Clarke and dropped his hand away from the recording machine. It looked like they weren’t on the same page about how to deal with this delinquent, but I guessed the inspector got the casting vote.

  My neck muscles loosened a fraction. ‘OK…’

  The inspector pointed to the hammer. ‘Would you care to explain this to us, Jake?’

  I focused hard on the chipped white wall beyond him. ‘It isn’t mine. It was just lying on the pavement.’ Pretending ignorance might be an awful defence but it was all that I could come up with.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ the tall policeman said. ‘So if we checked it for prints we wouldn’t find yours plastered all over it?’

  ‘Yes, you would. I saw it lying in the street and picked it up. I was going to drop it off at the police station. Then I panicked and dropped it when you guys turned up.’

  ‘How very community-spirited of you.’ The policeman rolled his eyes at Clarke before he leant forward. ‘So you’re seriously trying to tell us that you didn’t use this to break into that vehicle you were loitering beside?’

  ‘I wasn’t loitering, just walking past on my way back from college.’