Free Department 19: Zero Hour by Will Hill

through East Anglia, the swathe of flat farmland and forest that fitted snugly around the Wash, the large estuary that made it look as though some vast creature had taken a bite out of the eastern coastline of England. The satellite images came in sets of three, and Justin’s job was simply to select the best one from each almost identical set and forward it to the compilers, where it would form one minuscule part of the giant high-definition map that was being constructed. He quickly examined three images of a nondescript patch of brown and green, selected one of them, and reached out to load the next set.
    Click.
    Justin frowned. The new images theoretically showed the same section of forest, an area of no notable interest thirty miles from the sea. But whereas the first showed the expected canopy of trees, the second and third were obscured by circles of bright purple light, slightly larger in the third image than the second. Justin pulled up his glitch folder from the toolbar at the bottom of his monitor, intending to select the first image for use and add the others to his error document, a running list of images that were over- or underexposed, or in some cases merely black squares where the image had failed to record. But something made him pause.
    They’re different sizes,
he thought.
If they’re errors, why are they different sizes?
    He reached out and loaded the next set of images. The first had been taken a second after the third image of the previous set, and the purple light was nowhere to be seen. But there
was
something in the corner of the photo; something that didn’t look quite right. Justin dragged the image into his photo editor and magnified it, centring on the same area that was obscured in two of the previous set.
    What the hell?
he wondered, and leant in closer to the screen.
    At 100× magnification, the canopy of trees appeared insubstantial, as though it had been superimposed over a second image. Beneath it
,
he could see a faint tracery of curving roads surrounding something long and straight, something that looked an awful lot like a—
    “Who’re you spying on?”
    Justin clutched at his chest as he spun round in his chair. Simon was peering down at the screen, two steaming coffees in his hands and an expression of mild curiosity on his face.
    “Jesus Christ,” said Justin, his heart pounding in his chest. “Creep up on me, why don’t you?”
    “Sorry, mate,” said Simon, without taking his eyes from the magnified image. “What have you got here? Glitch?”
    “I don’t know,” said Justin, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “I thought so, but it’s weird. Tell me what you see.”
    Simon set the coffees down on the desk and leant in closer, a frown furrowing his brow. “Looks like there’s something under the trees,” he said, after a second or two. “Double exposure?”
    “Probably,” said Justin. “It’s gone in the next image. But it follows directly on from these two.” He reopened the images containing the purple circles.
    Simon’s frown deepened. “What the hell are they?”
    “I don’t know,” said Justin. “It’s like …”
    Simon turned to look at him. “Spit it out, mate. It’s like what?”
    “Like there’s something wrong with that bit of the forest,” said Justin. He spoke slowly, trying not to let his mouth outrun the idea that was beginning to form in his mind. “Like something happened, whatever that purple light is, and it took a second or two to reset.”
    “Reset what?”
    “I don’t know,” said Justin. “A shield, or some kind of camouflage. I don’t know. But that looks like a runway to me, which means planes. There’s no reason to hide an airport, no reason to even put an airport in the middle of a forest in the first place. So, if it’s not an airport, what else has a runway?”
    “An air-force base,” said Simon.
    “Right,” said Justin. “Most of East Anglia is owned by the government. The RAF fought the