First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books in 2015
HarperCollins Childrenâs Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins website address is: www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © John McNally 2015
Cover illustration © Paul Young
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers 2015
John McNally asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007521654
Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780007521647
Version: 2015-05-27
And the Lord said unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the land, that it may become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. And they did so; for Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.
Exodus 8:16-19
Carbon will take over.
Mildred Dresselhaus
September 28 23:58 (GMT+1). Hook Hall, Surrey, UK.
Midnight in the heart of England. The witching hour. In the woods an owl screeched, then ripped through a mouse, beak blood-wet in the moonlight.
The great old house of Hook Hall stood empty. It had not been used as a home since the day it had been requisitioned by Her Majestyâs Government to become the top secret headquarters of the Global Non-governmental Threat Response Committee>fn1. It lay now at the heart of a complex of modern laboratories and military installations that spread around it in the darkness like the still, silent courtiers of a grand old lady.
The silence did not last. A low hum penetrated the dark and along the great drive the largest of the buildings began to glow.
Inside the cathedral-like space, the massive Central Field Analysis Chamber (CFAC), power surged and a great stone circle of particle accelerators, each the size of a shipping container, came to life.
âMy Henge,â as Dr Al Allenby, the dishevelled genius behind the machine, called it. âEveryone should have a Henge.â
From the windows of a laboratory overlooking the henge a very small boy sent up a mad private prayer.
Finn (full name Infinity Drake) was about to turn thirteen. He had sand-coloured hair that grew in several directions at once (like his fatherâs) and deep blue eyes (like his motherâs). He had been orphaned two years before. He was into gaming, mad science and most lethal pastimes, like any other boy. But unlike any other boy, thanks to getting caught up in Operation Scarlatti>fn2 the previous spring, Finn was now only 9. 8mm tall.
With a deafening electrostatic crack and hum, white lightning began to spin like candyfloss around the core, the hoop of accelerators whipping up a cyclone of pure energy. With one last push they would form a perfect subatomic magnetic field.
Perched above the Henge, crammed into his cockpit command pod, Dr Allenby (known to all as Al), recited the snatch of poetry he used to remember the crucial sequencing equations he kept secret from the world â