Darkest Hour (Age of Misrule, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

them. It’s their job, all that Defence of the Realm stuff.”
    “What are they going to do if we don’t meet the deadline? Shoot us?”
    Nelson’s expression suggested he thought this wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility.
    “I just never expected to be doing my job at gunpoint. If the powers that be don’t trust us, why should we trust them?”

    “Desperate times, Dick.”
    McShay looked at Nelson suspiciously. “I hope you’re on our side, William.”
    “There aren’t any sides, are there?”
    A rotating red light suddenly began whirling in the room outside, intermittently bathing them in a hellish glow. A droning alarm pitched at an irritating level filled the complex. The Special Forces troops were instantly on the move.
    “Shit!” McShay closed his eyes in irritation; it was a breach of a security zone. “What the fuck is it now?”
    Nelson was already on the phone. As he listened, McShay watched incomprehension flicker across his face.
    “Give me the damage,” McShay said wearily when Nelson replaced the phone.
    Nelson stared at him blankly for a moment before he said, “There’s an intruder-“
    “I know! It’s the fucking intruder alarm!”
    “-in the reactor core.”
    McShay returned the blank stare and then replied, “You’re insane.” He picked up the phone and listened to the stuttering report before running out of the room, Nelson close behind him.
    The inherent farcical nature of a group of over-armed troops pointing their guns at the door to an area where no human could possibly survive wasn’t lost on McShay, but the techies remained convinced someone was inside. He pushed his way past the troops on the perimeter to the control array where Rex Moulding looked about as uncomfortable as any man could get.
    Moulding motioned to the soldiers as McShay approached. “What are this lot doing here? This isn’t a military establishment.”
    McShay brushed his question aside with an irritated flap of his hand. “You’re a month late for practical jokes, Rex.”
    “It’s no joke. Look here.” Moulding pointed to the bank of monitors.
    McShay examined each screen in turn. They showed various views of the most secure and dangerous areas around the reactor. “There’s nothing there,” he said eventually.
    “Keep watching.”
    McShay sighed and attempted to maintain his vigilance. A second later a blur flashed across one of the screens. “What’s that?”
    The fogginess flickered on one of the other screens. “It’s almost like the cameras can’t get a lock on it,” Moulding noted.
    “What do you mean?”

    There was a long pause. “I don’t know what I mean.”
    “Is it a glitch?”
    “No, there’s definitely someone in there. You can hear the noises it makes through the walls.”
    McShay’s expression dared Moulding not to say the wrong thing. “It?”
    Moulding winced. “Bob Pruett claims to have seen it before it went in there-“
    “Where is he?” McShay snapped.
    As he glanced around, a thickset man in his fifties wearing a sheepish expression pushed his way through the military.
    “Well?” McShay said uncompromisingly.
    “I saw it,” Pruett replied in a thick Scots drawl. He looked at Moulding for support.
    “You better tell him,” Moulding said.
    “Look, I know this sounds bloody ridiculous, but it’s what I saw. It had antlers coming out like this.” He spread his fingers on either side of his head; McShay looked at him as if he had gone insane. “But it was a man. I mean, it walked like a man. It looked like a man-two arms, two legs. But its face didn’t look human, know what I mean? It had red eyes. And fur, or leaves-“
    “Which one?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Fur, or leaves. Which one?”
    “Well, both. They looked like they were growing out of each other, all over its body.”
    McShay searched Pruett’s face, feeling uncomfortable when he saw no sign of contrition; in fact, there was shock and disbelief there, and that made him feel