by Andy Briggs
The others nodded. Mason gripped one edge of the door and Lot the other. On a silent count of three, they both heaved it open. Dev dropped the AttentionGrabber, the blue light flashing hypnotically into the room. He took a deep breath and dropped down.
The attack went wrong even before it really got started.
Dev dropped from the elevator door – which was now effectively in the ceiling of the room beyond. A mound of furniture, that had piled up on the floor when the building moved, broke his fall.
The instant Dev hit the furniture, Lot threw in a smoke bomb, which detonated with a bang. The sound took Dev completely by surprise; he had missed the explosive part of the smoke release when he had speed-read the item’s description in the Inventory computer. The second mismanaged thing was that Lot had dropped the smoker without knowing where their bad guy was standing, so it landed on the wrong side of the room. And, to cap it off, the AttentionGrabber’s hypnotic flashing light was enveloped by thick smoke.
Dev spun around to see Christen had Newton’s Arrow slung over one shoulder; he had been hauling desks, leather sofas and other pieces of office furniture to position them underneath a large vault door that was built into the wall – which in this instance was the ceiling. The man had stopped and was coughing from the smoke. He did a double take when he recognized Dev.
“You? You’re persistent, kid, I’ll give you that.”
“The game’s over, Christen.” Dev warily crept forward and pointed to the rifle. “That belongs to me.”
Christen gave a pitying laugh and trained the gravity gun on the vault door in the ceiling above Dev. “And just how do you plan to get it off me?”
He fiddled with the rifle’s selector controls and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
Christen irritably thumped the side of the weapon with his palm – and the power light blinked awake. He fired again.
A graviton pulse spat at the door. Christen had set the device for a specific task and, just as the battery died, it performed it admirably. The door began to creak as the gravity within it intensified, its atoms pulling on one another.
Dev took his chance to run for the gun once again. He needed physical contact with the device in order for his synaesthesia to work. But he had barely moved when there was an ear-splitting crack from the vault. The door only needed to contract by a centimetre for the lock and hinges to smash apart. The mini gravitational force was simply too powerful for mere steel. A second later the door buckled and fell down into the room with a heavy thud – and the contents of the vault cascaded out with it.
Dev rolled aside as the heavy door smashed down millimetres from his head. He was half buried in a wave of thick stacks of money as they rained down from the vault entrance, interspersed with notebooks, hard drives, paper files, boxes and other items.
Christen wasted no time in hunting through the safe’s contents. He ignored the money and instead went straight for an unremarkable blue plastic box about the size of a large laptop. He snatched it up and shoved it into the knapsack he was wearing.
Mason and Lot dropped into the room with a battle cry, startling Christen, who had been focused on the task at hand.
“Drop everything!” bellowed Mason, holding up the BubbleBrella – the only thing in the kitbag that could possibly resemble a weapon. According to the Inventory database, it was really an energy shield designed to be used for protection in industrial environments by projecting a repulsive cone to prevent things from falling on to a worker’s head. At first glance it looked just like any other telescopic umbrella Mason’s mother would carry, which he had often pretended was a gun – at least when nobody else was around.
“What is this? A school trip?” snorted Christen. He turned his back on them and now started making his way towards a solid square metal box, about halfway up the mountain of money, the kind used to carry expensive electronic items.
Lot threw another smoke bomb – this one hit Christen square in the back. He yelped loudly as it exploded, enveloping him in a cloud of smoke.
“Great! Now we can’t see him,” hissed Mason.
Lot didn’t care; it meant he couldn’t see them, either. She rushed to find Dev. When the door had fallen, it looked as if it had crushed him, at least from her point of view in the ceiling’s elevator shaft. She found him curled up on the floor.
“You’re all right!” she said with relief.
Dev forced a smile and nodded, although he was shaken from the near miss.
“You brats just don’t know when to quit, do you?” snarled Christen as he stepped from the smoke. In one hand he held the open flight case as the other extracted a slender battery pack. He discarded the case. “I was warned that someone would probably come and interfere, but they didn’t tell me it would be kids.” He slid the battery into an empty slot in Newton’s Arrow. It came to life with a whine. “And I was instructed that if anyone were to turn up, to deal with them however I saw fit.”
Dev, Lot and Mason were open targets. Mason waved the energy umbrella in what he hoped was a menacing way, but it did nothing to deter Christen.
“Now, I wouldn’t normally bother with kids. But you three need to be taught a lesson.”
He selected a setting on the gravity gun and aimed at the trio. He flashed a toothy grin, watching them tremble . . . then aimed the gun at the ceiling and fired.
The graviton pulse passed through the wall and to the other side of the building – moving through the walls, floors and ceilings. The moment it reached the exact distance Christen had programmed, the graviton stream imploded.
The effect was immediate. With a deafening noise, the entire building began to shake. Metal groaned and concrete dust poured down in waves. Then, as its centre of gravity shifted, the entire building began to roll.
Everything in the room began to tumble towards one wall – as it fast became the floor. Dev slipped as his current floor rolled to become a wall – and caught a brief glimpse of Christen laughing as he disappeared through a door.
Then a tsunami of furniture cascaded over the remaining trio as the room revolved around them.
At first the assembled crowd couldn’t work out what was happening as the building began to roll. Their confusion soon gave way to utter panic as the oval-shaped tower impossibly rolled out of the moat that had been cradling it as its newly shifted centre of gravity toppled it over. The crowds gathered in the public gardens ran for their lives as the oval building lolloped like an enormous egg towards them. Cars and fire engines were effortlessly crushed, and trees splintered like twigs as the building ground through the thick ancient wall surrounding the Imperial Palace gardens. It crushed the last surviving samurai guardhouses in the gardens as well as the gift shop as the Cocoon rolled a full turn. Just as it seemed about to stop, it teetered . . . before its newly displaced centre of gravity propelled it into yet another rolling cycle, like a rugby ball flipping end-over-end.
They would be crushed to death. Dev had little doubt about that.
The room swirled around them. A massive office desk slammed down over them, briefly sheltering them and taking the brunt of other furniture that would have flattened them. Their moment of safety was brief, as the room continued to roll and they were suddenly sliding towards the far wall, which had been their ceiling moments earlier.
And every item in the room coasted with them; furniture splintered and screeched as it moved. The building itself groaned and shrieked as it began to fall apart. It was a cacophony of destruction.
It was a miracle that Mason was still clutching the energy umbrella. Lot yelled to him, but the noise around them drowned her words. She reached over and plucked it from Mason’s hand. Gripped the middle and twisted the lower section.
Dev’s ears popped as a clear shield completely surrounded them in a sphere, projected from the pole in Lot’s hand. She held it aloft, straining as items bounced heavily against the shield, but it didn’t stop their bubble from ricocheting around the room in the building’s t
umble.
It was like being trapped in a hamster ball, stuck in a washing machine.
No heights had ever made Dev feel this ill.
Glass, chunks of concrete and shredded steel tore away from the Cocoon Tower as it rolled from the gardens – over the shallow moat on the opposite side of the palace – and across the street, leaving a deep rut in the earth and crushing traffic. The building sheared in two, unable to take the pressures exerted on it. Both halves rolled to an almost instant stop.
The moment the building fell silent, Dev and his friends pushed against the energy shield, knocking away debris pinning them down. Lights from the city outside could be seen through gigantic cracks in the wall.
Dev patted Lot on the back. “That was quick thinking.”
Lot held up the device so that Mason could see the logo etched on the side. “Learn to read!” she snapped at him.
“BubbleBrella?” he read. “How am I supposed to know what that does?”
“Guess!”
“And what if I guessed wrong?”
“Mase, when we’re about to be killed, I think you can afford to take that chance.”
Mason blushed; he didn’t like being shouted at. He was the one with the fearsome image in school, but in reality he was a pushover when anybody stood up to him. Dev was even beginning to feel sorry for him . . . but assumed that was just a side effect from the motion sickness he was feeling.
Dev tapped his watch, sending instructions for the Avro to descend and pick them up.
They made their way through the office contents, most of which were now nothing more than unidentifiable pieces of broken wood and crushed metal. There was no way they should have survived that. They passed through a huge fissure in the wall and clambered down to the road below.
They had barely jumped on to the torn-up tarmac when the air next to them shimmered and a ramp extended seemingly from mid-air. They leapt aboard the Avro and flopped, exhausted, into their seats.
“Eema, take us home,” said Dev with a heavy sigh. They had failed the mission, and part of downtown Tokyo was destroyed in the process. He would have to face his uncle’s disappointment – again.
Lot folded her arms and sat back in her chair. “Why were we given the world’s naffest gadgets to stop him with? If we had had the Iron Fist mech, none of this would have happened.”
Her anger was directed at the disembodied Eema, and Dev found himself nodding in agreement. There was a pause before Eema replied.
“Charles Parker judged that the mech suit should remain in the Red Zone like all other retrieved items posing such danger. He deems the suit to be of great value.”
The silence that descended on the room was so intense that Dev thought he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He was angry enough for it to pump harder.
“But our lives are not?” he snapped back.
Eema’s silence was all the confirmation he needed.
Christen closed his eyes and breathed in the clear sea air as the yacht raced across Tokyo harbour. It blew away the dust clinging to his face. A flute of champagne was pushed into his hand.
“Congratulations.”
Christen took the glass and studied Kardach, noticing that he wasn’t drinking. Kardach was watching the receding city lights, and Christen took the opportunity to discreetly toss the sparkling liquid over the side, just in case his host was not happy about how things had turned out. Champagne with a few drops of poison: that was how the criminal underclass rolled.
“It was not my fault the weapon’s stupid battery chose that moment to die.”
Kardach shrugged. “Nobody said it was. No need to be so defensive.” He smiled when he saw Christen scowl. “Perhaps you had one too many practice shots? Who knows?” Christen’s eyes narrowed as Kardach tried to pass the blame. “However, you certainly made a statement back there. And that is all for the good.”
“What was the statement, exactly?”
Kardach smiled. “Don’t mess with us. I think that’s was pretty clear. And you got what we needed.”
“Spares for the gun, and this. . .” He held up the blue case. Kardach reached for it – and Christen instinctively pulled it from his grasp. Kardach reached again, and the killer look on Kardach’s face ensured Christen didn’t try pulling away a second time. “So what’s so important about that?”
“That is not the concern of either you or me.”
“Ah, your big bad boss man. . .”
“A boss man who is very happy with you for the moment.” Kardach said it with a smile, but Christen was smart enough to understand the underlying threat: for the moment.
“And those kids. . .? I told ya I don’t like harming kids. Usually,” he added as an afterthought.
Kardach waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about them. They deserved what they got. Besides, they walked away unharmed.” He ignored the curious look on the gangster’s face and continued. “We have another proposition for you. One the boss man would like to explain face to face.”
Christen’s eyes widened. “I get to meet Double Helix himself?”
Kardach nodded. “You are invited to officially join Shadow Helix. The universe’s greatest treasures await you. All you have to do is say yes.”
Kardach extended his hand. Christen looked at it for a moment. Shadow Helix, one of the world’s most notorious and secretive criminal organizations. No, one of history’s, he corrected himself. All he had to do was shake hands and he would be welcomed into the fold. He had never before known anybody who had joined those ranks.
And that in itself should have raised alarm bells for him. . .
Dev slouched back in his chair and ran through the recent events in his mind.
Their lives had been risked for nothing. Christen was no normal thug, he was sure of that. He was surprised that such a powerful weapon had not been properly catalogued by his uncle, a man who noticed the slightest thing Dev put out of place in the miles of Inventory shelving. He was also bothered by the reaction he had experienced when he had touched the weapon. It was quite unlike anything he had experienced before. What had caused it?
Again his focus shifted to what Christen had been searching for in the vault – the blue plastic case. What was in it? A thought danced on the edge of Dev’s mind, one he couldn’t quite grasp. . .
They were seated in the Inventory canteen as his uncle listened to Lot’s telling of their tale. Mason had devoured a burger and was now slurping on a strawberry milkshake. Lot had requested green tea, which Dev thought was rather sophisticated. He had a cola, but he had yet to take a sip and it was already becoming a flat, syrupy mess.
“If we’d had the Iron Fist mech, it would have been easier—” Dev began.
Charles Parker sighed to cut him off and gently drummed his fingers on the table, a habit that signalled that he was stressed. “Eema selected a range of easy-to-carry devices that could help if used . . . creatively.”
“But—”
“The mech is too powerful an artefact, Dev. You already proved that in Canada. If it fell into the wrong hands. . .” He shook his head. “It’s safer here. Plus, if you had damaged it. . .”
“What if we had been damaged?” Mason piped up. He looked away when Charles fixed him with an icy stare.
Growing up in the Inventory, Dev had learned to parse his uncle’s use of unofficial terms referring to the items. Artefacts were his most precious exhibits, devices had specific uses, and gadgets tended to be smaller, could serve multiple functions and were, in his uncle’s opinion, less impressive. Items branded gizmos tended to be things his uncle didn’t see the point of, such as fun toys.
“Well, it’s a good job we’re creative,” said Lot quietly. “Otherwise we’d have been squished.”
Charles smiled and nodded, completely missing the bitterness in her voice. “Exactly. It shows that you are the right people for this job after all. Trust me, there are many soldiers under Sergeant Wade’s command who would have crumbled un
der the pressure. You didn’t.”
Lot looked away. She enjoyed the compliment, but refused to show it.
Dev leaned forward, determined not to be swayed by his uncle’s unexpected compliments. “Now you know what we’re up against. Newton’s Arrow. Just give me the Iron Fist mech, and we can get it back.”
“Yeah,” said Mason, finishing the last of his milkshake with a loud slurp. “It’s not as though we can cause more damage than what just happened. And if you happen to have a second suit . . . I wouldn’t mind. . .” he added hopefully, but trailed off when he saw Charles Parker’s face pinch.
“The suit has no protection against a gravity weapon.”
“Neither do we,” said Dev pointedly. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to hear his uncle admit that he cared more about his precious Inventory items than he did them.
Charles pushed a tablet computer to the middle of the table. A holographic image of the Newton’s Arrow rifle floated over the screen.
“First designed in 1968, by a friend of the World Consortium: Professor Haun Liu. An amazing engineer, he founded NiGen Labs in Hong Kong. He understood technology like no one else.” Charles shook his head, his voice lowering with a level of respect that Dev had never heard from him before.
“Hero-worship alarm,” muttered Mason, and Lot giggled.
Charles ignored them, continuing, “Newton’s Arrow harnesses gravitons, a fundamental weak force that mainstream science has yet to accept.”
Lot frowned. “Weak force? I thought gravity kept us stuck to the planet and made the solar system orbit the sun. That’s hardly weak.”
“And what about black holes?” added Mason. “They destroy everything.”
Charles Parker stood. “Let me demonstrate how easy it is to break the entire planet’s gravity field. Are you ready?”
