Gravity

by Andy Briggs

  Also by Andy Briggs:

  The Inventory: Iron Fist

  SAB – A TRUE WONDER OF THE WORLD

  AND TO CRUMBS… AN EMPTIER

  PLACE WITHOUT YOU…

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  THE BIG CRUSH

  MAN OF ACTION

  THRILL SEEKER

  COMPLAINT PROCEDURE

  THE VAULT

  JUST ANOTHER DAY

  AS WE PLANNED

  TOKYO CALLING

  A DARING PLAN

  PREPARATION

  WHAT GOES UP. . .

  TOPSY-TURVY

  RETRIEVAL

  DOUBLE DEAL

  DEBRIEF

  ENTER THE HELIX

  EAVESDROPPING

  THE NEED TO KNOW

  DROPPING IN

  TRAPPED!

  ON THE RUN!

  NO SAFE HAVEN

  RISK ASSESSMENT

  INTERROGATION

  TRIGGER EFFECT

  DISSOLUTION PROTOCOL

  FOLLOW MY LEADER

  STRANGE TIMES

  NOT SO TOTAL RECALL

  COLLISION COURSE

  THE DISSOLUTION PROTOCOL

  A CASE OF NEED

  THE ART OF ESCAPE

  PRISONER EXCHANGE

  AN IDIOT’S GUIDE TO WORLD DOMINATION

  DRONING ON

  NEVERMIND

  FACE OFF

  ENHANCEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  Kardach tickled the Ducati motorbike’s throttle, the powerful engine wanting to go faster, but the rider had no desire to be pulled over by the cops.

  Kardach glanced at the clock projected on his helmet’s visor. He was running late; no surprise there. He eased off the interstate and turned on to a wide boulevard. He was wrapped in thick biker leathers, and a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. He couldn’t wait to take the claustrophobic helmet off.

  Not much further. Ahead lay the aging multistorey car park where he was meeting his contact. Kardach indicated his turn, then carefully pulled off the boulevard. He took a ticket from the gate and patiently waited for the barrier to rise. Then he calmly accelerated up the ramp, heading for the fifth floor. No point in drawing attention, he reminded himself.

  His contact, a muscular South African man named Christen Sandberg, was impatiently pacing around his huge Cadillac Escalade, and he made a show of looking at his watch when Kardach appeared at the top of the ramp. Christen – more commonly known by a string of murderous nicknames – had been told to come alone. So naturally he came with three shades-wearing bodyguards.

  Kardach revved the engine as he pulled up in front of them, the bike’s roar echoing around the otherwise empty car park. Kardach cut the engine, climbed off and kicked out the bike’s support stand.

  “You better have a very good reason for keeping me waiting,” snarled Christen in his thick Afrikaans accent.

  Kardach pulled off his helmet and sucked in a deep breath to cool himself. He ignored Christen’s expectant look. He pulled the case off his bike and lowered it to the floor, the weight almost pulling his arms from their sockets. The metal made a loud thud.

  Christen exchanged a puzzled look with his men. “I don’t think he can hear me. Are you deaf, man?”

  Kardach opened the case and revealed several olive-green plastic parts nestled in foam trays. With practised speed he assembled the components, each sliding into the other with a delicate click. Within seconds he had assembled something that looked like a rifle. He took great care to lock the final component in place: an orb that hung under the barrel.

  Christen broke into peals of laughter. “That’s it? That’s what all the secrecy was about? It looks like a kiddie’s water pistol!”

  His henchmen joined in his laughter. Kardach grinned and hoisted the plastic rifle with both hands. He pushed the stock against his shoulder, and it took all his strength just to hold the weapon level. Then he playfully aimed it at the laughing thugs.

  “I think you have been wasting my time,” Kardach said. “I was told your organization was a serious one. Into serious business.”

  Kardach flipped a switch on the weapon, and it hummed to life. He winked at the South African. Then he pulled the trigger.

  He felt the bass wave vibrate his hand, then his shoulder, passing through to his feet before the concrete floor around them shuddered so fiercely that fine cracks snaked out from under him. Still, Kardach stood firm. He knew what to expect.

  With a sonorous boom, a wave of blue lights cycled through the plastic barrel. The air shimmered like a heat haze as a stream of clear energy encompassed the car and three thugs. A high-pitched sound could barely be heard as the car began to twist, as if melting. But it wasn’t melting; it was constricting in on itself as the atoms forming the car pulled together with unstoppable force.

  Within seconds the car crushed itself into a bit of heavy metal the size of a marble. It dropped to the floor with a thud, forming a crater in the concrete.

  Kardach deactivated the gun and laid it on the floor to ease his aching arms. Christen stared at what remained of his car in disbelief. It took a few more moments for him to realize that his three bodyguards had vanished.

  “Where are my men?”

  “They didn’t feel a thing. The gravity wave crushed them almost instantly. Your car put up a bit more of a struggle.”

  Christen tried to pick up his crushed car. It refused to move.

  Kardach smirked. “That marble still weighs the same as your car did. It’s just super-dense.”

  Christen regarded Kardach for a moment. Well-built with dark shoulder-length hair framing a lean face, he didn’t look overly unusual. However, there was an emptiness in his eyes, and Christen couldn’t maintain eye contact for long. He moved his greedy gaze to the weapon on the floor.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “That doesn’t matter. My employer just told me to pass it on to you.” Kardach watched Christen walk over and hesitate before crouching to run his hand across the rifle’s plastic casing. “And to ensure you follow instructions.”

  Christen’s head snapped up. “What instructions?”

  Kardach tossed him a small earpiece. Christen caught it on reflex.

  “You’ll get them in due time. In the meantime, I’ll show you how to use that.” He nodded towards the weapon. “They call it Newton’s Arrow. The casing is a gravity-resistant polychro-compound. Whatever that means. I just know it’s tough stuff. The selector at the side allows you to set the strength of graviton flow—”

  “What instructions?” Christen was now standing and looking at Kardach with suspicion. “I thought this was a gift.”

  Kardach smiled. “Think of it as a trade. You get a shiny new toy and all you have to do is a few favours.”

  Christen looked at the crushed car thoughtfully before he spoke again. “This boss of yours, Double Helix. What’s he like?”

  “Not the kind of person you should mess with. And not a name you should mention. Stick to ‘Shadow Helix’; that’s the name of the organization. The only name you need to know.”

  Christen nodded. He struggled to pick up the heavy rifle – Newton’s Arrow – huffing with the effort. He weighed it in his hands.

  “You better show me how to use it, then,” he grinned.

  “Ready?” asked Lot, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

  Dev smiled and grunted in response. The smile was fake, and he hoped Lot couldn’t see his nervousness beneath. As the entire aircraft cabin shook around them, his smile dropped, but Lot’s just broadened.

  “Ten seconds!” yelled Sergeant Wade from the cockpit.

  The turbulence was turning Mason’s stomach, and he hardly had the strength to hold out the Iron Fist gauntlet, waiting for Dev
to slip his hand in.

  What a nightmare their first mission was turning out to be. Mason had spent most of the flight hunched over the cramped toilet being violently ill. Dev had been anxious as he replayed Eema’s simulations over and over in his head. And Lot, well, as the daughter of an air force test pilot, she had been bouncing with excitement since they’d first set foot aboard the Eiodolon Drop Fighter.

  A warning bell squawked through the aircraft, and seconds later hydraulic pistons lowered the tail ramp. They all jolted from the sudden rush of air. The Eiodolon was slowing down, but it was still flying faster than the speed of sound. Lot and Mason were connected to the ceiling with safety cords, but Dev wasn’t, and could feel himself being pulled towards the ramp.

  He quickly slid his hand into the Iron Fist gauntlet. He sorely wanted to activate the mech combat suit immediately, but Sergeant Wade had repeatedly warned him to wait until he was outside the plane. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t had a chance to empty his jacket pockets. He had been planning to prank Mason with “Hard-As-Air”, a small can of . . . something he had nicked from the Inventory; a quick read of the label made it sound like the kind of fun that would annoy his friend.

  “Wait,” he said, trying to rummage with his free hand. “I have—”

  “This is it! Coming to a stop!” yelled Wade from the cramped cockpit.

  Everybody jerked as the Eiodolon came to a sudden stop, the aircraft’s inertia dampers kicking in to stop them from splattering against the hull. Dev was still trying to remember the simulation, so he wasn’t expecting Lot to push him towards the ramp.

  “Go! Go!” she hollered.

  Dev turned his head and caught her expression of delight, quickly followed by Mason giving him a weak thumbs up. Followed by a firm kick to the bum.

  Dev stumbled down the tail ramp. Tripped, but didn’t hit the ground . . . at least, not yet. That was because they were hovering a hundred storeys above Toronto’s busy streets.

  The wind was deafening as Dev fell to earth. He felt a wave of panic overcome him: would his combat suit protect him, or would he splatter against the ground? Then more irrational thoughts crept in: would the Hard-As-Air can burst with the change in air pressure and blow his leg off? Would he have a chance to finish his maths homework?

  His brain was desperately trying to distract Dev from the real fear: heights.

  Free-falling certainly wasn’t this terrifying in the combat simulations he’d practised back in the Inventory, where the worst thing that could happen was him “dying”, then removing his helmet and going off to school. There was no simulation for the terror now coursing through his body, or the intensifying feeling of butterflies in his stomach. Or should that be wasps? It felt horrid enough.

  Dev’s fingers bunched into a fist, and he had just enough presence of mind to focus his unique form of synaesthesia – a power he possessed that allowed him to control machinery. The Iron Fist gauntlet didn’t let him down. Within seconds a rush of expanding hexagonal plates covered his body, cocooning him in the comfortable exo-armour and completely sealing off the roar of the wind.

  The helmet illuminated with a complete view of the outside world, as if his head were in a glass bubble. The scene was overlaid with information that was projected straight into his eyeballs, corresponding to his fixed range of vision, so he could see all the data wherever he looked.

  Such as the altimeter’s reading, which was rapidly descending.

  It was at that point that Dev sighed, wishing that the World Consortium had developed the mech suit further. Twisting wildly as he plummeted towards earth, he thought it was a real shame that the Iron Fist couldn’t fly. Nor did it have a workable parachute.

  Margery Steinbeck knew that today was going to be an unusual day. It began with a vivid dream in which her recently deceased budgie had told her the winning lottery numbers. She went to the shop to buy her lottery ticket, and on her way there a futuristic dart-shaped aircraft suddenly appeared overhead with a thunderous boom. That was swiftly followed by the unexpected alarm bell of the bank she was passing. The weirdness escalated when a four-and-a-half-metre-tall robot fell from the sky and landed face down in the road with such force it formed a crater.

  She waited, but the robot didn’t move.

  It was lucky that she had stopped to watch the spectacle; otherwise she would have been flattened by three cartoon characters barrelling from the bank – a frog, a moose and a duck. The trio of masked figures were carrying large bags, and they stopped short when they saw the giant robot lying face down in the street. Then they turned their heads simultaneously and saw five police cars skidding around the corner, sirens screaming.

  That was when Margery noticed that the thieves appeared to be wearing jetpacks. Flames shot from the packs and the bank robbers were propelled into the air and along the street, limbs flailing, and with the occasional flurry of banknotes dropping from their bags.

  Margery wondered why her budgie hadn’t mentioned any of that. Still, she hurried to the shop, thinking it was all a good omen to try those lottery numbers.

  Dev groaned. Not that the impact hurt him; the suit’s remarkable outer shell had absorbed the impact, but it had still jarred him inside.

  “Devon, you’re wasting time.” The voice was that of Uncle Parker, transmitted from the bunker back in the Inventory. As usual it carried with it tones of both impatience and disappointment.

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” said Dev as he checked all systems were still working. He was supposed to have landed on his feet, action-hero style, but that was more difficult than it looked.

  “One needs to improvise. Especially as your targets are getting away. So less self-pity, and get on your feet.”

  With a further grumble, Dev stood up. All he had to do was move normally and the suit obeyed. He drew himself to his full height—

  And felt something slam into him from behind. A missile strike?

  As he stumbled, three police cars veered sharply around him. Dev realized the fourth must have collided straight into him. That was confirmed a fraction of a second later when the car corkscrewed over his head, using his back as a ramp.

  On instinct, Dev plucked the car out of the air to keep it from crashing and injuring the two policemen inside. He could see their shocked faces as he gently lowered the car back on its wheels.

  “There you go, fellas.”

  The moment Dev released the car, the still-spinning tyres screamed and the car accelerated straight through a clothing-store window. Dev hadn’t appreciated that the shocked driver hadn’t had the chance to remove his foot from the accelerator pedal.

  Dev could hear his uncle sigh over the radio. “Devon, please stop playing with the police and get after the thieves.”

  Dev bounded over the second police car that had stopped to gawp at the giant robot, and sprinted after the other two vehicles pursuing the jetpacks.

  The Iron Fist mech suit’s powerful strides allowed Dev to get back into the chase with just a few dozen bounds. Ahead, his targeting computer highlighted the three fleeing jetpack thieves, who were keeping low to the ground, evidently unused to flying the packs.

  Meanwhile, the Inventory’s computer matched the jetpacks to three prototypes that had been stolen by the Collector. The Inventory was a massive underground warehouse where the World Consortium had been hiding the world’s greatest inventions for centuries. Dev and his uncle had been tasked to look after the collection until . . . it had all gone spectacularly wrong.

  “OK, Devon, this should be easy. I suggest you use the mech’s magnetic impulse.”

  The Iron Fist was a high-tech shell originally designed by wild inventor Nikola Tesla, but before it had reached its full potential, the suit had been mothballed and stored in the Inventory. The Collector hadn’t managed to pilfer the suit in his raid on the Inventory, so Consortium scientists had studied it and added a few modifications. Dev didn’t need to push switches or talk; he simply used his special ab
ility to feel his way through the computer system, which looked, in his mind’s eye, like a labyrinth of glowing corridors, musical tones and pulsing lights – all a side effect of his synaesthesia.

  Dev activated the MagImpulse and saw the hexagonal plates on his forearm bulge as the material reconfigured itself into the weapon. He aimed at the closest thief, the frog, and fired.

  There was no bang, no flash of light. Nothing visible at all. An invisible magnetic pulse struck the jetpack, and the thief was yanked backwards as if a bungee cord were attached to him, stolen hundred-dollar banknotes spewing from his bag. Dev caught him and ripped the jetpack from the man’s back. The thief dropped, landing on the bonnet of a police car below.

  Dev was surprised how easy it was. “That’s one.” He attached the jetpack to a clip on his back and sprinted after the remaining two robbers as they sharply banked down another street of towering skyscrapers.

  “Devon?”

  “I know, I know,” Dev snapped back. His uncle was watching his every move as it was relayed by a satellite miles above his head.

  Dev quickened his pace as the second jetpacker came into view. The thief, still wearing his Mega-Moose mask, flipped on to his back as easily as if he were swimming through water and raised a gun. Dev wasn’t too concerned; he knew from experience that the Iron Fist suit was bulletproof.

  Charles Parker’s warning came again. “Devon!”

  “I see it!” Dev snapped back. “Please stop talking and let me do this.”

  The man fired, and Dev made no attempt to avoid the shot, expecting it to ricochet off him.

  But it was no bullet.

  A glob of plasma stuck to the side of Dev’s suit, and he felt a surge of electricity ripple through the mech with such intensity that he heard a flood of voices. His veins felt as if they were on fire – and he blacked out.

  A harsh chorus of alarms roused Dev back to consciousness. It took a moment for him to assess the situation. He was still encased in the suit, but he was lying in the middle of the road. The plasma blast had somehow short-circuited the mech, and he had stumbled backwards . . . and had tripped over a postal truck, judging by the envelopes blowing around him.