Gravity

by Andy Briggs

  Charles Parker’s voice came over the audio: “Devon, you need—”

  Dev had no desire for a lecture, so he muted both the incoming transmission and the irritating alarms. The moose-masked thief who’d shot him was now doubling back, eager to see the results of his handiwork. Dev guessed that the weapon was another object stolen from the Inventory. A quick check revealed that all his systems were functioning, so no real harm done.

  Dev played dead, biding his time as his attacker came closer. Then he sprang. The mech moved so swiftly that the thief had no chance to react as Dev flipped to his feet in a single smooth move. At the same time, he swiped the gun from the man’s hand with such force that the weapon shattered into several pieces – and probably his hand too.

  The thief shot straight into the air, but Dev reached out and snagged his foot, bringing the man to a complete stop. Mega Moose howled in pain as the jetpack tried to push him upwards – but his leg stretched as if tied to a medieval rack.

  “Going down,” snarled Dev as he yanked the rocket pack from the man’s back. The guy fell, splashing into an ornate fountain. He was no longer Dev’s problem; the cops could deal with him.

  Dev locked the second jetpack next to the other on his back. Almost immediately he felt the mech lift; just as he’d hoped, two rocket packs together were powerful enough to carry the suit. His uncle had explained that Dev’s abilities also allowed him to make totally different gadgets communicate and work with one another, essentially reprogramming them with just a thought, meaning he was able to create new inventions on the go. It was an unexpected side effect of his condition that he was only now learning to master.

  Dev looked around for the final rocketeer, Dandy Duck. He spotted the jetpack’s telltale contrail curving upwards between two high-rises. With a quick mental command, Dev’s rocket packs burst to life and he was suddenly soaring upwards.

  The suit was not very aerodynamic, but as long as he didn’t look straight down, he could handle his fear of heights . . . sort of. He could just imagine the look of delight on Lot’s face if she were able to do this.

  He took a corner a little too wide and scraped along the side of a tower clock, leaving a diagonal scar of broken glass and masonry.

  “Sorry!” he yelled.

  The jet trails looped through the sky like a roller coaster. He resisted the urge to pull a loop-the-loop; he wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t crash, and he had no desire to throw up in the mech’s cramped interior.

  Dev didn’t have to follow the trail to see where the remaining thief was. Ahead was the CN Tower, a slender needle of concrete and steel that had a UFO-like observation deck three-quarters of the way up. It was the highest point in the city, and the thief stood on the edge of the uppermost observation deck. He was holding a trembling woman in his arms.

  She wore a bright orange boiler suit. Dev was puzzled as to how the woman had got there in the first place; he knew the jetpacks didn’t have the lift capability to carry her from the ground. Then he noticed several other figures a few metres further down the observation deck, dressed in similar orange suits, and he understood. The CN Tower allowed thrill seekers to walk around the outer edge, tethered by a single cable. The thief must have snatched her from the group as a hostage.

  Dev orbited the tower, unsure what to do. He could blast Dandy Duck off the tower, but he was pretty sure the thief would take the woman with him. She might be a thrill seeker, but free-falling without a parachute was probably not something she’d had in mind.

  He landed on the roof, several metres away from them. When Dev spoke, the mech amplified his voice in harsh, aggressive tones. “Let the woman go!”

  “I will, man!” The thief’s voice wavered. “Straight off the edge. Four hundred and fifty metres straight down! You want that on your conscience, man? ’Cause I’ll do it!” To emphasize his point, he pushed the woman closer to the edge. It was a small gesture, but enough for her to shriek in terror.

  Dev’s blood ran cold. He was no hostage negotiator, and now a person’s life was in his hands. Behind them he could see the Eiodolon hovering at a discreet distance over the vast expanse of Lake Ontario.

  Even though he had superior strength and several weapons at his disposal, Dev was out of options. He only had one weapon left – the truth.

  The thief watched, astonished, as the tiles forming the mech suit partially peeled away, revealing Dev standing inside. The sight of a fourteen-year-old boy shocked both the adults.

  The thief peeled his Dandy Duck mask off and renewed his grip on the woman. “Is this a joke?”

  Dev jumped down from the suit and held his hands up to show he was unarmed. He tried to ignore the strong wind that could easily blow him over the edge. His legs trembled at the mere thought of how high they were. “No joke. It’s just me. So you really don’t need a hostage, do you? I mean, against a kid?”

  The thief looked frantically around, expecting a surprise attack – but there was nobody else.

  “You’ve got a bag of money” – Dev pointed to the bag in the man’s free hand – “and a rocket pack. I’d say that’s all you need for a really good time. You don’t need to hurt anybody.”

  The thief squinted in thought, and he glanced sidelong at his hostage with a look of regret. “I reckon you’ve got a point, kid. Things get out of control real fast. I didn’t want anyone gettin’ hurt.” He nodded at the mech. “Where d’you get that thing?”

  “It’s from the same place as your rocket pack.”

  The man’s brow knitted into a frown.

  Dev realized that the man didn’t know where the packs were from. “So . . . did someone give that pack to you?”

  Dev was surprised to see the bafflement on the man’s face as he tried to remember. He looked at the bag of money as if for the first time. “I don’t—”

  The man suddenly dropped to his knees, releasing the woman and the bag of money, and clutched his head. He howled in pain.

  The woman started to run towards Dev.

  Then several things happened at once.

  The man’s eyes were wide, his face pulled in a rictus of agony as he yelled through gritted teeth. “Leave me alone!”

  A gust of wind blew the bag over, the money erupting from it in a cloud of banknotes that blinded the woman. The next thing Dev knew, she had tumbled to the floor, and both the man and the woman were rolling towards the edge.

  “NO!” Dev lunged for them – remembering too late that he was out of the mech suit, and had no jetpack to save his life.

  Both the thief and woman rolled over the edge with a screech. And Dev couldn’t stop himself from following. . .

  In the cockpit of the Eiodolon, Sergeant Wade squinted as she watched the distant figures. She wished the craft had been fitted with surveillance cameras, as had originally been intended, but as it was just a prototype that had been consigned to the shelves of the Inventory, nobody had bothered. She hadn’t dared get too close, worrying that the aircraft’s presence would spook the thief.

  “What the heck is he doing?”

  The cockpit was just big enough for a pilot, so Lot was forced to peer over Wade’s shoulder. She had a headset on and had been repeatedly trying to contact Dev.

  “He’s out of the suit! No wonder he’s not answering the radio!”

  Mason shoved his head through the narrow gap over Wade’s other shoulder. “Wow! Look at that! If he’s not careful he’ll fall. No, wait . . . he’s fallen.”

  Wade’s left hand was already pulling the throttle backwards with such force that both Lot and Mason were thrown to the back of the craft before the inertia dampers were able to kick in. Wade wasn’t exactly sure what she could do to save all three of them, so she prayed that a solution would present itself in the next twenty seconds, before they had a rather gory meeting with the ground.

  It was at times like this that Dev was glad he didn’t listen to his uncle’s boring rules. Especially about not taking things out of the Inventory wi
thout authorization. Not that there was a massive amount left on the shelves since the break-in, but what there was could still be useful, in the right situation. He hoped this was one such case.

  Even as his feet cartwheeled over his head and, for the third time that day, his stomach lurched, Dev’s fingers closed over the small can in his jacket pocket.

  As he dropped he could hear nothing but the wind screaming against his ears. With both hands he pointed the Hard-As-Air can towards the ground and thumbed the button on top.

  Here goes nothing, he thought.

  The can gave a slight vibration as the pavement swept up to meet them. The air around him felt increasingly thick, as if he was now travelling through water, then feathers. Just metres from the ground the three of them came to a gentle stop as the air beneath them became so dense it was like falling into a duvet. Breathing became impossible for a few moments, the air like gulping thick soup, but soon the density dissipated.

  The woman gasped for breath, then looked around in astonishment, then burst into tears of relief. The thief was unconscious, having fainted from fear.

  A shadow covered them all as the Eiodolon approached. Dev smiled, feeling quite pleased with himself. All things considered, for a first mission, he would rate it a success.

  Although he’d had it with heights. No matter what the next mission was, he was going to keep his feet firmly on the ground, just where gravity wanted them to be.

  “That was a complete disaster!” said Charles Parker as he paced the Inventory canteen.

  A few World Consortium technicians sat at far tables, assiduously minding their own business. Dev remembered when the underground rooms and corridors of the Inventory used to be empty, just home to him, his uncle and the spherical automated defence robot called Eema. He had the run of the place, but since the heist the World Consortium had all but moved in. The corridors and warehouses teemed with serious people everywhere, all performing very serious tasks very seriously as they reorganized the remaining artefacts and worked with Charles Parker to track down the many missing ones.

  “We got all three rocket packs back,” Dev pointed out. “Mission accomplished!”

  “And he didn’t destroy that much,” Mason added – but quickly fell silent under Charles’s icy gaze. Charles may have been Dev’s uncle, but he was also Mason’s boss.

  Lot was sitting on a table next to Mason, her feet swinging, and behind them stood Sergeant Wade, who avoided looking Charles in the eye.

  Charles pointed to Mason, Lot and Sergeant Wade. “You three, fine. There was little you could have done. But you, Dev. . . This was supposed to be a stealth mission. And you never, ever leave the Iron Fist suit. What if he had stolen that?”

  Dev shrugged. “He wouldn’t have been able to use it.”

  “That’s not a chance I am willing to take. You destroyed several vehicles, took a chunk out of a building, and almost got an innocent bystander killed! We’re supposed to be a secret organization!”

  Dev’s anger rose. “Well, that’s easy for you to say, you weren’t even there! You just watched everything from here, making unhelpful comments!”

  “At least the DigiJam worked,” Wade cut in, hoping to ease the tension.

  Charles nodded, a thin smile of pride pulling at his cheeks. Using the digital jammer had been his idea. It prevented any cameras in the area from recording, so there would be no video footage of the mech suit, rocket packs or advanced fighter jets, and, as usual, tales of such things would become urban myths circulating the internet that are soon forgotten.

  “Lucky for us it did,” Charles said.

  “So, mission accomplished,” said Dev, standing up and stretching.

  His uncle raised an eyebrow. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Dev motioned towards Lot and Mason. “We’re getting out of here and finding something fun to do.”

  His uncle gave a humourless laugh. “Of course you are. Although I fear you may have got a little mixed up with all the travelling.” He tapped his watch. “It’s now morning, which means you better hurry or you’ll be late for school.”

  “School?” Mason spat the word out. Watching Dev all day had been tiring work, and he’d been looking forward to doing nothing more than returning home and sleeping.

  “We need to keep up appearances,” said Wade. “Plus your education is important. Dismissed.”

  They filed out of the room, but before Dev exited, his uncle stopped him, placing a hand on his shoulder and turning him around. His other hand was extended.

  With a sigh, Dev handed over the Hard-As-Air can.

  “What have I told you about taking things from the Inventory?”

  “I was just messing with it,” Dev mumbled.

  Charles shook his head, rubbing his tired eyes. Dev thought he looked far older than the fifty-something he was and suspected the stress of the job was getting to him. Charles held the can up. “How many times do I need to say this: until we know where the rest of the inventions are, and what the Collector had planned to do with them, we can’t afford to take any chances.”

  Dev nodded. He didn’t look him in the eye, though. He didn’t trust him. Dev was still angry about learning he hadn’t actually been born; he had been artificially created, to guard the Inventory. A task his “uncle” was continually pointing out that he’d failed at.

  Dev turned and quickly left the room. Even school would be better than spending another minute with Charles Parker.

  The light was a special kind of light. The bulb gave a constant high-pitched trill that grated the patience of anybody unfortunate enough to have to sit at the table for too long.

  Right now there was only one person seated there. One hand lay over the other, and his eyes were closed. He ignored the headache throbbing in his temples. He wore a one-piece blue prison uniform, and his hair was shaved so short that a network of scars across his scalp was visible.

  He didn’t react as the only door to the circular room hissed open and Charles Parker entered.

  Charles waited for the door to close and for the transparent screen separating him from the prisoner to be raised into the ceiling. Only then did he sit at the table.

  “Hello again,” said Charles.

  The man smiled and opened his eyes. They were pupil-less, completely white, and shot with thin red blood vessels, yet to Charles it felt as if the man was looking directly at him.

  “What? No good morning? Or is it afternoon?”

  Charles smiled. “Ah, so you are still unable to peer beyond these walls?” He gestured towards the light. “That’s because of the lights we have developed. They work on a very specific wavelength that ensures you can’t see too far.”

  The prisoner, known only as the Collector, leaned back in his chair. His special vision usually allowed him to see through the whole spectrum of light – from X-rays to ultraviolet. It would give him an advantage if he could see through the walls of his prison and work out exactly where he was being held. The lights here only allowed him to see a distance of three metres; anything further was just a black void.

  The Collector tilted his head. “Coming here to gloat is not your usual style, father.” He let the last word drag out, dripping with venom. For, like Dev, the Collector was not born but artificially created in a laboratory. Although he looked to be in his thirties, his real age was far younger. The project had been one of many developed by the World Consortium to push the limits of science into new areas – including unethical ones.

  Charles was unperturbed. He’d heard it all before, having endured for years a daily barrage of insults from Dev.

  “Helix,” said Charles.

  “Shadow Helix is the name of the organization that employed my services. I have told you this on several occasions. They paid me. They supplied the people and equipment, and I carried out the work.”

  “But that’s not entirely true, is it?”

  The Collector’s face remained expressionless.

  Charle
s leaned across the desk. “I know you were Double Helix’s right-hand man. I know he trusted you.”

  The Collector smiled. “If he trusted me as you say, then why would I tell you anything about him?”

  “Indeed.” Charles sat back, his eyes fixed on the prisoner. “OK, then, let’s talk about you. The Collector. Quite a fitting name: you did well collecting a huge number of our . . . items and extracting them before being caught yourself.”

  The Collector shrugged. “I tried my best.”

  “I had assumed that your new stolen ‘collection’ would stay together. I would have thought Double Helix would want all that technology for his own personal use.”

  The Collector remained silent.

  Charles propped both elbows on the table and leaned forward. “So I find it somewhat baffling that some items have shown up in various locations around the world, in the hands of petty criminals. Some of your men, Lee and the others, still remain at large. Yet what they took seems to appear in the most surprising of places.”

  The Collector sighed dramatically and said, “Those items probably just . . . slipped through the cracks. My men can be so absent-minded.”

  “Not that absent-minded. Those items have been deliberately handed over. I just fail to see why. And Double Helix never does anything without a plan.”

  “Ordinarily I would agree with you. However, if he has such ideas, then he didn’t share them with me. In fact, I must not be as valuable to him as you say. If that were true, I would have hoped he would try to get me out of here. Yet here I am.”

  Silence gripped the room as Charles tensed. For a moment he half expected the walls to explode and the Collector to be rescued . . . but nothing happened.

  The Collector sighed again. “Alas, I am not any wiser to Double Helix’s plans.” A thoughtful look passed across his face. “Perhaps if you were to give me the details of where and with whom you have found the Inventory stock, I could assist you?”

  Charles was surprised. “You would work against your boss?”