by Greg Krojac
Buzz liked the sound of that. He followed her closely for a couple of minutes until they arrived at a small clearing. Michelle stood looking at something that wasn’t there.
“What are you looking at Michelle? I can’t see anything.”
“This.”
She pressed a button on a small cigarette packet sized unit on her belt, and the space in front of her shimmered, revealing an off-road motorcycle. Buzz was impressed.
“Wow! That’s cool. I want one.”
“You’ll have to grow up a bit first.”
Michelle mounted the machine and stared at Buzz, who was still awestruck by what he had just seen.
“Are you staying here or coming with me?”
Buzz didn’t need asking twice. He trotted over to the motorbike and clambered aboard. He’d never been on a motorbike before; this was already a great adventure. He’d ridden horses, driven carriages, even driven a tank in past lives. He didn’t really know how he’d managed to pass through so many lives without ever having ridden a motorcycle. Michelle passed him a crash helmet before putting her own on.
“Press the button under the chin protector.”
Buzz did as he was told and sat astride the motorbike, wide-eyed, as the helmet shrunk to fit his head. He was having a whale of a time and they hadn’t even gone anywhere yet.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
Michelle pulled a small wheelie, just enough to add to the thrill of the ride but not enough to pitch her pillion passenger off the vehicle, and the motorbike threaded its way through the undergrowth. Buzz was confused.
“Michelle, won’t people hear or see us?”
“No. Don’t worry about that. This is a very special motorbike. It’s got the latest camouflaging technology, VACS. That stands for Visual and Audial Camouflage System. We’re kind of inside a pocket projector. The system creates a bubble around us which videos our surrounding environment and projects an image of it onto the bubble. So anyone who looks at us will simply see what he or she expects to see. For example, if we were parked in front of a building, then people wouldn’t see us. They’d just see the building. As if we weren’t there. It covers us 360 degrees so no matter where you’re looking from, you see what you would expect to see if we weren’t there.”
“Neat. What about the engine noise? Even though it’s electric wouldn’t people hear us?”
“The system’s soundproof too.”
“Wicked!”
Buzz was having the thrill of his life – well, this life anyway. He had never experienced anything quite like it. The wind was buffeting his face but he didn’t care. He determined to buy a motorbike as soon as he was old enough. He hoped that the journey wouldn’t be over too quick.
“Michelle, where are we going?”
“Salisbury.”
“Is it far?”
“Far enough.”
“Brilliant!”
***
Back at the ONP installation, all three groups had reached their individual destinations, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind them. A fourth group, the diminutive assailants Tommy, Philip and Jenny were making their way along another corridor when they suddenly saw a three man patrol in the distance. Tommy whispered to his friends.
“Quick. Get out of sight. Go back round the corner. And keep quiet.”
The three of them ducked out of sight. They just sat there for a few seconds before Jenny voiced what everyone was thinking.
“What do we do now?”
Tommy scanned his surroundings. He looked up and saw the solution.
“They never learn, do they?”
“Who never learns?”
“They. Everybody. You’d think by now that they wouldn’t leave air vents laying around where anybody small enough could climb in and bypass security. What do you think, Phil?”
Philip closed his eyes and let the blue-prints of the building enter his mind. He mentally scanned the plans and then opened his eyes.
“Yep. There’s a vent just by the vault door. Seeing as I’m the tallest I’m assuming that you two want a hand getting up there?”
He stood underneath the vent, whilst Tommy clambered up his body. The vent cover was a bit stiff but two good shoves with the heel of his hand did the trick, and Tommy slid the cover into the air-duct. He scrambled inside and turned round to help Jenny, who scampered up Philip like a mountain goat, almost leaping into the vent, causing Tommy to hastily shuffle backwards.
“Didn’t expect that, did you, Tommy?”
Philip whispered as loud as he could.
“What about me, Tommy?”
“I’ll lower my arms, you can jump up and I’ll grab you and haul you up.”
Jenny wasn’t convinced.
“You reckon?”
“Jenny. You’re a girl. You’re not strong enough.”
“You’d be surprised. I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was five years old. I take part in competitions, and I win some of them. I’m probably stronger than you. And I have technique. You can grab my ankles so I don’t slide out of the vent. Watch and learn.”
Tommy thought she must be crazy but he did as he was told and gripped Jenny’s ankles tight. Jenny leant forward and let her arms hang down from the vent.
“OK, Phil. Jump up and grab my wrists.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure. Trust me.”
Philip made a half-hearted leap towards the vent and landed back on the ground.
“What do you call that, Philip Armstrong?”
“A jump?”
“Do it again, but put your back into it this time. Imagine you’re trying to jump directly into the air vent.”
“You sure?”
The look on Jenny’s face told Philip not to ask again. This time he made a determined leap towards the vent and Jenny’s and his hands locked together. She pulled her arms up with all her might until Philip was able to manoeuvre himself inside the ducting. Philip replaced the cover and turned to Tommy.
“Shall I go first? I mean, I know the way.”
“Lead on MacDuff.”
The trio headed off into the labyrinth of passages, Philip ticking off each junction passed on the map in his mind.
***
Elsewhere, the entrance to the control centre was half-blocked by the three dead bodies of the men who had moments earlier stood between the One Life group and its objective. Inside, Danielle, Dave and Matt were packing anything that looked useful into their rucksacks. Equipment that was too big or too heavy to carry was fried with a pulse gun. Dave looked concerned.
“Where’s Michelle? She was supposed to meet up with us here. She might be in trouble.”
Danielle tried to pacify him.
“I’m sure she’s fine. Don’t worry about her.”
“But she’s in charge of the mission. She should be here. She might be hurt or something. Or dead even.”
Of course, Danielle knew exactly where Michelle was, but she couldn’t tell these two. They were both unimaginative types and followed rules to the letter. That’s why neither of them would ever be entrusted with a position of authority over others. They were followers and would do whatever their superiors told them to do, without question. Unless they thought that they were disobeying an order that came from higher up in the hierarchy. Leaders needed flexibility and to see solutions where others saw only problems. Having stuffed their backpacks to the gills, the three made their way back towards the main entrance. They renegotiated the Instabridge, and once across the gap, they disassembled it and bagged it up. Matt, normally quite quiet, spoke up.
“Why do you think this place is so poorly guarded, Danielle? I mean, it’s supposed to be their headquarters, isn’t it?”
“Complacency. They have state of the art intruder detection and destruction equipment. I imagine they didn’t expect anyone to get anywhere near the door. More fool them.”
Danielle suddenly noticed something glistening on the floor. It was
Michelle’s vital signs and location transmitter. Each member of the team had one. Danielle tried to move in front of it, hoping that her colleagues wouldn’t notice it, but she was too slow. Dave pushed past her and picked it up.
“’Ere, what’s this?”
He turned it over.
“It’s Michelle’s ViLoc transmitter. She must have chucked it away. Why would she do that?”
He looked at Matt.
“She’s done a bunk. She’s done a runner.”
“What? Like deserted?”
“Exactly like deserted.”
“Nah. She wouldn’t do that. Would she?”
“Well, she’s not here is she? She’s supposed to be here.”
Call it in, Dave. It’s your duty.”
“Yeah. I think I will.”
Danielle reached behind her back and wrapped her right hand around the grip of an ONP pulse-pistol that she had surreptitiously taken from one of the three dead bodies that lay in front of the control centre entrance. She had hoped she wouldn’t have to use it.
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation, guys. Maybe we’d better wait until we know what’s actually happened to her before we do anything.”
Dave was adamant. Rules are rules and Michelle shouldn’t have deserted.
“Nah. She’s done a runner.”
“She’s a decorated heroine. She’s led countless missions, risked her life countless times.”
“Nah. Maybe they got to her.”
“Who?”
“This lot. The Illuminati or ONP or whatever they want to call themselves.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Rules is rules. I’m going to call it in.”
“You don’t want to do that Dave”
“I don’t want to. But I have to.”
“You’re definitely going to call it in?”
“Yes. It’s the rules. You can’t stop me.”
Danielle looked at Matt.
“Are you with him or with me?”
Matt was on the horns of a dilemma. Danielle was the senior ranking officer but he’d grown up with Dave. They’d been to school together, scraped knees together, they’d always had each other’s backs.
“Sorry, Danielle. Dave’s me best mate. I’ve got to go along with him;”
“That’s a pity.”
Danielle couldn’t let Michelle’s name be tarnished. She whipped the weapon out of the back of her jeans and fired two fatal shots, right between the eyes of the two friends. She threw the pistol onto the floor, by the two agent’s dead bodies.
“You two may have been best friends, but I love Michelle.”
***
Meanwhile, the three Recarn children were getting closer to their objective. This establishment really seemed to be understaffed, but as they got nearer to the vault where their previous Pindar’s soul was being kept, the security presence started to increase. It was hardly surprising; the capsule within the vault had a priceless cargo. Finally, they arrived at the vent overlooking the entrance to the vault, knees a little sore but otherwise in good spirits. Tommy peered through the vent.
“I can see six heavily armed security guards.”
Jenny shuffled forwards to take a look.
“How are we going to get past them? Even with pulse pistols, we can only take out three at a time. Once we shoot the first three the other three will return fire. One of us is bound to get shot.”
Philip tapped Tommy on the shoulder.
“I’ve got an idea. How many of those disruptor grenades do you have?”
“Five.”
“Well, we won’t need five to get through the vault doors.”
“Hopefully.”
“Well, how about lobbing a grenade into the middle of those defenders? With a short fuse, of course.”
“What if we need all the grenades to get into the vault?”
“If we can’t get past those defenders we’re not going anywhere.”
“Okay. What timer do you suggest?”
“Three seconds? But make sure you throw it well. Any longer a fuse and they’ll be able to kick it away.”
Tommy took one of the grenades out of his pocket and set the timer to three seconds, to vaporise anything that was within range of the grenade. He also set the radius to one metre, hoping that it would be sufficient to kill all six. He silently eased open the vent cover, just allowing himself enough time to lob the grenade at the target. He pressed the red button that armed the grenade and threw it at the group of defenders. The three children watched as the grenade adhered itself to the floor, right in the middle of the group, and the six figures dissolved. It wasn’t an unequivocal success; where there had previously been six men there were now two severed arms and three severed legs. Parts of the defenders’ bodies had been outside of the kill - radius. The most macabre reminder that there had once been humans at that spot was half a human head, cleaved diagonally and rocking on the floor. The owner had been bending down to fasten his bootlaces and his face and the top of his head had protruded outside of the kill radius.
The three children slid out of the air vent, Philip being the last to drop down. In front of them stood a large red vault door, with a forty-eight number combination lock set in it. Tommy looked it over.
“That Marcus is such an arrogant bastard. He can’t have imagined that anyone could have produced a technology to beat this lock. We don’t even have to try to crack the code. Several of my mothers told me that pride comes before a fall and they were right. Watch this, guys.”
Tommy placed a disruptor grenade on the door, close to the combination mechanism. He set the kill-zone to a radius of one metre.
“Stand back guys. I’ve set the radius to one metre. It should be enough to vaporise the door and any booby-trap that Marcus has set up. Any more and I might take us out as well.”
He pressed the red button and darted back to a safe distance. The grenade went off and part of the door disappeared, just as most of the guards had. He trotted forwards and gave the remainder of the door a tug. It opened really easily. Jenny felt that she had to point out the obvious.
“You do realise that you didn’t have to open the door. You’ve dissolved a large part of it. We can walk straight through it.”
“Good point. I didn’t think of that. Come on then. What are you waiting for?”
The children walked inside the vault. It was empty, except for a smaller safe at the back of the room. Tommy stood beside the safe.
“This my friends is why we’re here. Inside this safe is the Pindar – the true Pindar. I think this deserves a bit of ceremony. When I attach the grenade, we’ll all press the red button and then run like fuck to the other side of the room. We don’t want to get vaporised with the door.”
One thing that Tommy failed to mention was that if the canister holding Nathan’s soul was too close to the front of the safe, it would be disintegrated too. Nathan’s soul would still be released but they would have no control over where it ended up. As one of his fathers had often said, there are two chances; either something works or it doesn’t work. There was a 50/50 chance. He attached the grenade to the door, right by the locking mechanism, before crossing the fingers of one hand and placing the index finger of his other hand above the red button. His colleagues rested their index fingers upon his. They pressed the button and sprinted to the other side of the room where they watched the door disintegrate. Jenny gave Tommy a punch on the shoulder.
The trio shuffled over to the safe and peered inside. Inside was a canister, and inside the canister was Érica’s soul, oblivious to the efforts that were being made to release her. Tommy picked up the capsule and held it up with both hands as if he had just accepted the trophy for winning a cup final.
“This, my friends, is what we came here for. This is Nathan.”
Jenny interrupted him.
“No, it’s Érica.”
Now it was Philip’s turn.
“Actually it’s the Pindar. He or
she won’t have a name until he or she has a new body.”
“Whatever we call him or her, we’d better make a move. We can’t hang around here patting ourselves on the back. Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
05:11 Monday 28 October 2069
It was still dark as the invisible and inaudible motorcycle pulled up about a mile from the prison. The lights of HMP666 were glistening in the cool night air. Michelle guided the motorbike into some adjoining woodland and once she and Buzz had dismounted, lifted it onto its stand. Buzz, as always, was full of questions.
“Why couldn’t we leave it on the road?”
Michelle looked at him like a teacher would look at a pupil who has just asked a foolish question.
“Just because it’s invisible it doesn’t mean it’s not there. All it takes is for a truck to smash into it and we’re stranded here.”
She gestured towards the prison.
“That’s where we’re going. You’re going to help me rescue my sister.”
“Cool! So what’s your plan?”
This was the point when Michelle had to admit to herself that she didn’t really have much of a plan. She didn’t know how she was going to get into the prison – or out again for that matter. Essentially she was winging it. She had a comms device in her ear that she could use to communicate with Adam back in Portsmouth, but that hadn’t been entirely thought through either. There were so many things that could go wrong. There might be no viable way of getting into the prison. She might lose communication with Adam who, in turn, might be discovered to be using his computer in an unauthorized manner. She might not be able to find Caitlin, in which case she would have risked her life and career for nothing. Worse than that, she had a ten year old boy along with her; what if he got killed?
“Buzz. I could really use your help but I have to be honest with you. What we’re going to do is dangerous. There’s an outside chance you and I could be killed. If you want to stay here, I’ll understand.”
“What? And miss all the fun? Don’t worry about me, Michelle. I’ve been killed before. It doesn’t worry me that much. I just think of every life as an adventure. That’s probably why I’ve lived more lives than the average person. I don’t mind taking risks, especially for a good cause. I was a bomb disposal expert in the Second World War and an active member of the SAS during the Falklands War in 1982. I live for adventure, me. And quite often I die for it too.”
