by Andy Briggs
After the Collector’s initial escape from the Inventory, Charles had been instructed to make a fail-safe device that would mean no other biological asset could ever escape and turn on its creators.
Unlike the Collector, or even Kardach, he had not accelerated Dev’s growth, meaning the boy had had a regular upbringing. Try as he might, Charles had attempted to stay emotionally distant, but it had been almost impossible. Every night he tucked Dev in bed he had tried to remind himself he wasn’t a real boy, he was just a biological asset. A fake.
A fake with a personality. That began to make Charles question exactly what it was to be human. When he started work on Kardach he vowed to speed-grow the asset and not engage with its personality at all.
But Dev had been different. In many ways the prototype of what Kardach would become, but he also had his own unique abilities too. And within him Charles and Eema had together created the Dissolution Protocol as the final backstop should things go wrong. He had considered activating Kardach’s, but the assets were too precious to wantonly destroy, and the evidence against him was nowhere near as damning as the catalogue of destruction following Dev. Charles tapped the screen, calling up the Protocol activation screen. Through the combination of a sixteen-digit passcode, he traced a complicated pattern across the screen, enabling him to access the system. The panel on the control desk before him liquefied, the metal morphing into a new batch of controls.
“Protocol sequence activated,” said Eema’s disembodied voice.
Reluctantly, Charles places his palm on a smooth metal plate. He felt a series of pinpricks as it took samples of his DNA. When creating Dev he had started by using parts of himself – his very own DNA. They were more closely related than Dev realized.
“Target match confirmed,” purred Eema without any emotion. “Do you wish to activate?”
Again, Charles hesitated. Once triggered, there was no going back. The device would send out a low-frequency signal that would trigger a biological self-destruct switch that was built into Dev. He would literally melt apart from the inside out. Terminated.
The World Consortium had warned Charles that one more mistake would end the asset’s usefulness, and Dev’s actions had added up to several major mistakes.
“Activate the trigger pulse,” whispered Charles, the words barely forming on his lips.
The screens before him tinged red to indicate the process was under way. They didn’t have to, but the whizz-kid software programmer at the World Consortium who wrote the code had a flair for the dramatic.
“Dissolution Protocol activated,” said Eema. Then, as if sensing Charles’s delicate emotional state, she added, “Would you like me to get you a cup of tea?” Then, “There is an incoming transmission from Sergeant Wade.”
“On screen,” commanded Charles.
Wade appeared on-screen, the surface buildings of CERN behind her. “They found the case and then escaped through a service tunnel. Oh, and they’ve broken the Large Hadron Collider.” She waited for Charles’s volcanic reply, but instead he just gravely bowed his head.
Wade continued. “Dev insisted that they have been set up, and that Lot was being held against her will. They’re planning to use the case to negotiate for her release. If you want my opinion, I believe them.”
Charles’s gaze bore into the machine in front of him. What if she was right? He had activated the Protocol already. He had just signed Dev’s death warrant. And there was no taking it back.
Mason strained to open the case as he balanced it on the side of the Avro’s control panel. In his struggles he managed to knock the two recharging BlurBadges to the floor and slam the case against his thumbnail, which then started to turn black, but still failed to open the case. He shook it, but couldn’t hear anything move inside.
“Will you stop that?” said Dev. “You could blow us up! Or break something on the Avro, and I don’t fancy hitch-hiking around the planet.”
Mason froze; that hadn’t occurred to him. Since they had fled from CERN and had taken flight in the Avro, he had been attempting to prise the case open. He gently placed it on the floor and they both stared at it.
Mason was the first to break the silence. “You still don’t have any idea what’s inside this, or inside the blue one?”
“Liu said negative gravity, but I have the feeling that’s not the whole answer.”
Mason shook his head. “Whatever it is, it’s something so important that they’ve torn up three cities to get it. So it isn’t money. But . . . what?”
The Collector’s words echoed in Dev’s mind – Double Helix was always several steps ahead. Something troubled him. “What if we’re looking at this all wrong? To get the first case, he used Newton’s Arrow.”
Mason gave him blank look.
“But he didn’t need it, did he? He could’ve found another way of breaking in,” said Dev. “He stole a ton of stuff from the Inventory, but it’s Newton’s Arrow that he’s chosen to use to go after these cases. What if the cases and the gravity gun are linked somehow?”
Mason shrugged. “I’m more bothered about how we use this to get Lot back. Are we really gonna hand it over? It doesn’t feel right.”
Dev looked at him in surprise. “Wait a minute, what happened to all this you can’t leave a man behind rubbish?”
“That was when you actually did! It’s different now that we know she’s safe—”
“Safe? She’s a hostage!” Dev nearly shouted.
Mason looked down, saying nothing.
“This isn’t the time to be thinking about double-crossing Double Helix. Let’s free her first, and then worry about how to get it back. If we don’t manage to get it back, well, the World Consortium might believe our story at the very least.”
Dev knew that he was being used by Double Helix, and he hated it, but he could see no other way of rescuing Lot.
“So how are we supposed to find him to do the exchange?” Mason finally asked.
“I wouldn’t worry about that. He’ll know we have it by now. He’ll contact us.”
“What? Like, by text?” said Mason, glancing at his phone – noticing for the first time there was a text on it. He bolted upright in his seat. “Hey! It’s from Lot!” He held up the message for Dev to see. It was a string of numbers. “Mean anything to you?”
Dev had seen something like them before. He typed the numbers into the Avro’s computer system. The screen turned blue.
“Uhh . . . did you just break the screen?”
It took a moment for Dev to work out what they were looking at. “No. These are longitude and latitude coordinates. Look, it’s the ocean. The Pacific.”
He zoomed the map out until he could see the closest land mass, Australia – and that was still pretty far.
“At least there won’t be any innocent people around to get hurt this time.”
“And no place to hide in the open water,” said Dev ominously. Still they had no choice but to follow the trail.
And if they were going to survive the encounter, Dev thought, then they were going to play their enemy at his own game. “We’ll need backup.”
Mason wagged his phone and said sarcastically, “Shall I just text Sergeant Wade and tell her?”
“Yes.” Mason waited for the punchline, but Dev was serious. “We’re going to be there in half an hour. This might be the last chance we have to call for help.”
Mason nodded and punched in a text to Wade’s number.
Dev noticed the troubled look on his face. “What’s the matter?”
It took Mason several moments to find the words. His thumb hovered over the phone entry marked “Home”. “When you said this could be the last chance, just now. . . I just wondered what my parents would think if I didn’t return home. Or Lot’s parents . . . if something happened to us.”
The idea that Lot and Mason had lives of their own, with parents and siblings, holidays and silly traditions – Dev hadn’t really appreciated that until now. With no fami
ly of his own, he could only imagine what was going on in their minds. It occurred to him that with loving homes to return to, they had a lot more to lose than he did. Perhaps that was exactly what Charles Parker was trying to protect him from? A life that was simple and uncluttered; one with no emotional attachments or responsibilities to others made life easier . . . and very lonely. Dev didn’t have any answers, and he had even less time to have a heart-to-heart with Mason.
“Don’t think about it.” It was a callous thing to say, he knew, but he really needed Mason to keep his focus. “Mason, nothing bad is going to happen. Trust me. We’re going to walk away from this – Lot, too – and it’ll all go back to normal. Or at least as normal as Inventory life can be.”
That’s all the assurance Mason needed to hear. He forced a smile and slipped the phone into his pocket. Then he looked at Dev and frowned.
“Hey, why is your nose bleeding?”
Charles was alone in the Inventory command bunker. The screens were still playing news reports about Hong Kong, and the “alien attack” was being wildly speculated about by so-called experts. It was all laughable, but Charles had blocked out the media feed; his eyes were unfocused, thinking about his time in the Inventory and how the last few months had turned the place upside down.
Perhaps it was time to retire, he mused. Could he really put up with any more emotional roller-coaster rides?
“Incoming transmission from Sergeant Wade,” said Eema. When Charles didn’t stir, she spoke up again. “I detect from your body functions that you are neither sleeping nor dead, Charles. I said you have an incoming—”
“Remind me to check the programming in your sarcasm module,” he cut in. “Put it on-screen.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look at the image of Wade. “Charles, we have been sent GPS coordinates from Mason. They’re for a location in the Pacific Ocean.”
Charles steepled his fingers across his nose. “Why would the lad have sent that information to you?”
“It’s either a trap to lure us in, or it could be the rendezvous with Double Helix. Depending on which side they’re really on.”
The options swirled around Charles’s head. “Eema, cancel the Dissolution Protocol.”
“You know I cannot do that. You designed it as an enclosed system. There is no off button. The trigger pulse has already been sent.”
It was a low-frequency pulse that would take a little time to travel the globe, but it would eventually reach its target. Charles closed his eyes. It was now just a matter of time before Dev was terminally shut down.
“Charles?” Wade’s voice dragged him out of his malaise. “What should we do?”
What should he do? Charles stood and paced the room. He always thought best on his feet. The pulse had been sent, but in theory it could take days to activate. The Protocol had never been tested; its effects were undocumented.
Then a thought struck him. Biological asset . . . there was another solution.
“Wade. Deploy every naval asset the Consortium has and head to the location immediately. Find Dev and bring him back home.”
Lot adored roller coasters, aeroplanes and any kind of turbulence, yet the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of the boat made her stomach churn and her legs shake. Her knuckles were white from clinging to the ship’s steel gunwale.
Despite the ship’s motion, the weather was calm and she could see clearly to the horizon in every direction.
“What’s going on?” she asked Kardach, who was keeping close by as he watched grey-clad Shadow Helix technicians prepare the raised helicopter landing pad located amidships. “There’s nothing out here!”
“Not yet. But there soon will be,” Kardach assured her. “Have you heard of the legend of Atlantis?”
Lot’s eyes widened as she looked back out across the ocean. “Are you telling me there’s a sunken city down there?”
“Not quite, but . . . you’ll see.”
“I hate to tell you this, but I need the bathroom.” Kardach shot her a suspicious look. “Seriously this time. Look, even evil master plans need to include a few toilet breaks.”
Kardach indicated she should follow him, and he started walking towards the bridge tower towards the stern. After several steps he noticed Lot wasn’t following him. She stood with her arms stubbornly crossed.
“I think you can get one of your hench-ladies to show me where it is.”
With an irritated snarl, Kardach called to one of the grey-suited technicians. Close up, Lot saw the technician was a pretty young woman with her hair tied in a ponytail.
“Show the prisoner to the bathroom and don’t let her out of your sight.”
The woman nodded, drew a small taser from her belt, then indicated Lot should walk in front.
“And get her back here as soon as possible!” Kardach snapped as they walked away.
Lot allowed her minder to guide her to a bathroom on the deck level of the command tower. She went through the motions in the toilet while the guard stood outside the stall.
Lot flushed the toilet, then crossed to the sink and filled the basin. She splashed her face, allowing the cool water to soothe the motion sickness.
“Hurry up,” growled the girl, who, despite her delicate looks, had a voice that could melt lead.
“I’m not feeling too good,” said Lot, stalling for time as she filled her cupped hands with water and splashed her face again.
Impatient, the guard, taser still in one hand, strode over and grabbed Lot’s elbow. That was what Lot was hoping for. She moved with startling speed and spun around, her elbow slamming down on the girl’s hand so hard she heard it break.
But the guard was no shrinking violet. She thrust the taser at Lot – who was still spinning and able to deflect the weapon by striking the girl’s wrist with the open palm of her hand.
Lot was filled with so much adrenaline that everything seemed to happen in a slow-motion ballet. Off balance, the guard couldn’t stop plunging the taser into the sink. Lot darted backwards as the falling woman’s motion caused her finger to pull the trigger, and several thousand volts exploded in the water as she shocked herself unconscious.
The woman dropped like a sack. Lot didn’t waste any time in dragging her into the stall and then using the woman’s belt to bind her legs and hands to the pipework. She then ensured the guard was tightly gagged with a cloth towel hanging from the basins, so she wouldn’t be able to raise the alarm when she regained consciousness.
Only then did Lot search her. There was an ID card that probably worked as a key card too. From the LED display, the taser still held a decent charge. Lot pocketed it.
She considered disguising herself with the guard’s uniform and escaping into the bowels of the ship, but it would only be a matter of time before she was found, and with nowhere to go in any direction she had little choice but to play the role of prisoner.
But with a taser and an ID card, she had a hidden advantage. She retraced her steps to the deck. Kardach didn’t notice her until she was by his side. He didn’t comment on the guard’s whereabouts; why should he? She had returned, so he assumed the guard had simply gone back to her duties on the deck.
Lot followed Kardach’s gaze skyward as the Avro, looking scratched and battered, slowly descended through the few fluffy clouds above. Lot was thankful she had returned on time; this could be her one chance off this ship. She rubbed her cold hands, then put them in her jacket pockets – her fingers resting on the taser tucked inside.
Dev had broken into a sweat. Trying to keep the Avro hovering over the moving freighter was tough enough, especially as a brisk wind was blowing from the side, continually forcing him to correct his course. As a result, the aircraft wobbled in every direction. Hardly the imposing entrance he’d hoped to make.
Plus he was feeling nauseous. He’d managed to stem the nosebleed with his sleeve, but it had been replaced with a headache and an uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach. Now wasn’t the time to be coming down wit
h the flu.
Mason pointed at the screen. “There’s Lot!”
Dev gritted his teeth and nodded. He was relieved to see her, but he had to keep all his attention on flying. Every landing he’d made so far had been bumpy, and that was on to solid, non-moving earth. Attempting to get the Avro on the helipad would be challenging, to say the least.
“What is that thing with her?” exclaimed Mason in disgust. “Looks like some kind of monster. . .” He trailed off as they drew closer. “It’s Kardach! Wow. . . Look at his face!”
Desperate not to be distracted despite Mason’s outbursts, Dev bit his lip as the deck inched closer. The aircraft swayed over the helipad like some kind of drunkard.
Mason’s narration continued as he studied the dozens of identically suited Shadow Helix cronies below. “None of them look armed. In fact, I don’t see any weapons on deck at all.”
“They don’t want to scare us off,” said Dev slowly as the helipad wobbled beneath them. “But I bet you a million quid there are at least a dozen weapons trained on us right now.” The Avro’s threat detection system hadn’t picked anything up, but Dev assumed that was one of the many broken things on the aircraft.
“You don’t have a million quid,” Mason said, then shot him a quizzical look. “Do you?”
The landing was so hard that Dev thought he’d dented the helipad. Certainly the sound of something cracking echoed through the ship. On-screen he saw Lot grimace in sympathy and, next to him, Mason spat out a filling.
“Look what you did!” he said, holding it up.
Dev closed his eyes as the room rotated around him. He pulled himself together and saw Mason regarding him with concern.
“I’m all right,” he said dismissively. “Are you ready for this?”
Mason studied the viewport. Dozens of hostile faces watching the craft expectantly. The bleak ocean around them. And Lot, standing expressionless – an indication that she had something up her sleeve.
Mason stood up and picked the red case off the floor.
“Let’s get her back.”
