Helix Nexus by Chris Lofts (read e books online free .TXT) 📕

Helix Nexus

Chris Lofts

Nathan Helix Thriller Series

Book Two

2021

HELIX NEXUS

By Chris Lofts

Copyright ©2021 Chris Lofts

All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Produced and published in 2021 (R1.0)

Paperback ISBN 9798704670759

For Capt. Sir Tom Moore.

Also dedicated to the thousands of front line workers who served tirelessly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1

Helix spun around on the escalator. ‘Move, move, move!’ he shouted, elbowing his way against the flow of commuters being carried towards the westbound platform of London Bridge hyperloop station. ‘Talk to me, Bruv,’ he snapped. A sea of disgruntled faces stared back at him as he fought to outrun the escalator’s descent.

‘His vital signs are going off the chart,’ Ethan replied via the cochlea implant in Helix’s right ear. ‘Something’s not right. It’s as if—’

‘As if what?’ Helix said, wading into the tide of humanity surging out of the rain, across the plaza towards the station entrance. ‘Call security, get someone up there.’

‘They’re on their way. His biometric profile is more akin to close quarters combat, not someone returning home after a busy day behind their desk.’

Helix wiped the rain from his face. His augmented ocular prothesis displayed the distance. 140 yards. At a height of six feet four inches, weighing 240 pounds, it should take him 20 seconds. Factoring in the self-driving buses, taxis and other Autonomous Vehicles, or AVs, between him and the entrance lobby of the Ministry of Home Defence, it was going to take twice that. He bolted, barging through a holo-ad, ignoring whatever product it was claiming had been tailored specifically for him. ‘Hold a lift in the lobby for me, Ethan,’ he said, leading with his left arm, sweeping bodies aside, deaf to complaints and protests. ‘I don’t fancy 55 flights of stairs.’

Approaching the ranks of taxis and buses he paused. ‘What the fu—’ Glass shards cascaded from the leaden sky, rebounding and scattering off the photo-voltaic roof of a taxi, peppering the patient queue of passengers.

Helix sheltered his eyes from the rain as he craned his neck upwards into the dark. The rain fell as green-white streaks in his night vision as he changed modes and scanned the grey exterior of the building towering above him, its summit lost in the low clouds. ‘Ethan? What’s—’

‘He’s falling. That can’t be—’

A shadowy mass expanded in his Helix’s vision, black against the grey clouds.

Commuters scattered and stumbled from the taxi as its windows exploded under the impact. Helix sprinted forwards. The shuffle towards the station entrance erupted into a mêlée of confusion as people scattered to put as much distance between them and what they assumed to be an explosion.

Screams echoed around the plaza as realisation swept over those closest to the horror. Helix blinked through the rain, his eyes fixed on the twisted form half-hanging from the taxi roof. He pushed through the crowd. Was that a breath? A sign of life? Adrenalin and impossible hope drove him forward. Nobody could have survived that fall. Helix didn’t believe in God, heaven or the afterlife, but had he just witnessed the soul of his commanding officer, mentor and friend departing his body?

He crouched beside the taxi. An epaulette, bearing a crossed sword and scabbard, a single star and a crown, lay amongst the glass and rain. The angry scar across the right cheek and missing earlobe of the body on the taxi roof confirmed the truth. General Yawlander was dead.

2

Helix pressed his thumb to the lift’s control panel and selected the 55th floor. He drew his Sig Sauer P226 from under his left arm and chambered a smart round. His chosen combination of old and new technologies gave him the reassurance of knowing that if all else failed at least the gun would fire when he pulled the trigger. He was still the best shot in the department without all the electronics. ‘Anything from the security detail, Ethan?’

‘Hold on.’

Ethan hadn’t said and Helix hadn’t asked if General Yawlander was already dead when he plummeted from the 55th floor. He ran the scenarios. Suicide – unlikely. Accident – improbable. Murder – possible. If the latter were true, the perpetrator may still be on site. Yawlander refused to have cameras in his private quarters so it would be impossible to get a replay of what may have transpired. Helix flexed his knees as the lift slowed toward the top of its ascent. ‘What am I about to walk into, Ethan?’

‘Neither of the security detail are responding. All comms are down.’

Helix dropped to his knee, his P226 held firm in a double-handed grip. The doors slid open. He scanned left and right before standing and stepping into the softly-lit corridor. The door to Yawlander’s apartment stood ajar. It was dark inside. With his right shoulder pressed against the wood panelled wall, Helix stepped forward on the plush magenta carpet. The door swung back and forth on its hinges. He paused. Tilting his head, he listened. A howl of wind from inside carried a distressed metallic rattle. He edged closer, seeing the sole of a military issue boot through the gap in the door. Dabbing the micro-switch at the base of his left molar with his tongue, he activated the Thought Control comms interface.

‘Man down, Ethan,’ he said inside his head. ‘Get a medical team up here.’

‘On it,’ Ethan replied.

Switching to night vision, the wind greeted him as he slid through the gap. The