Day of Rebellion Read Online Free PDF

outside – see?”
    “You’re right…” Jack’s eyes squinted as he stared at the monitors. “But it’s weird, maybe the colour isn’t right or something… looks to me like outside, well, it’s difficult to make anything out. It’s just white.”
    “Maybe we should go outside and see what’s up there?”
    “Worth a try.”
    They entered the lift and Jack pressed the button that said ‘Top Exit – Rock’. The contraption groaned and started to shake its way up through the shaft. After a few minutes it slowed.
    “You ready?” Angus said.
    The lift ground to a halt at the top of the shaft.
    “There’s some sort of access hatch through there.”
    They clambered up through the hatch into a short passage.
    “Over there – a door.”
    “Solid. We’re not going to get through that.” Angus said.
    “Unless…” In his pocket Jack still had the access device which had opened the door from the Tantallon side. Taking it out he pointed it at the door and pressed.
    “Works – nice one.”
    It opened and they were suddenly hit with an icy blast of air.
    “Geez – that’s cold!” Angus said. “Look – more stairs over there.”
    They climbed up and stepped out in a strange room with curved walls. Ahead was a spiral staircase.
    Jack reached out and ran his finger along the wall.
    “I think I know where we’ve come out,” he said. “You remember when we were standing at the castle and looking out at the Bass Rock? I think we’re inside the lighthouse that we saw built on the rock. Those steps must go right up to the top. Up there we should get a view of everything around. Come on.”
    They crept forward and slowly climbed the spiral staircase. They could hear nothing except for an occasional breath of wind that caressed the outside of the lighthouse. They reached a door at the top. Jack threw it open and gasped at the sight before them.
    A few hours before, Jack and Angus had looked out from Tantallon Castle across the mainland, onto a glistening blue-grey sea. It had been a bright summer’s day. Now, the view was quite, quite different. They were standing above a desolate landscape of ice and rock. The sea that surrounded the island, and which extended off to the horizon and to the land masses on either side of the Firth of Forth, was completely frozen. It was as if they were looking straight down onto a vast glacier. There was ice and snow everywhere.
    The sun blazed out strongly from a cloudless sky and Jack had to squint and then shield his eyes. He stared in disbelief, and then looked at Angus who wore the same expression of shock.
    He felt himself starting to panic. “Angus – I don’t get it – it was summer when we left, I know we’re forty years in the future… but everything’s changed… it’s like there’s been a new ice age or something. The whole world’s changed – what’s happened?”

The Rig
    I n the distance, far across the smooth landscape of ice, there was a single sign of life. It was a huge steel platform. The structure was supported by pillars, but tilted so that half the platform was buried in the surrounding ice.
    “What is it?” Jack said. He shivered.
    “It looks like some sort of oil rig.”
    “Yeah, you’re right. But I can’t see if there’s anyone on it. Maybe they have a telescope or something inside the lighthouse.”
    They climbed into the large room which held the huge old light. The windows were broken, the fittings were rusted up and all the paint had peeled away from years of exposure.
    “What about this?” Angus scratched inside an old cupboard and pulled out a pair of old binoculars.
    “Brilliant.” Jack took the binoculars and rested them on the frame of one of the broken panes. He pointed them in the direction of the wrecked rig.
    “See anything?”
    “It’s definitely an oil rig. Completely messed up. Looks like there may have been a fire or something.” Jack adjusted the focus. “Absolutely zero sign of life…”
    Angus stood