by Andy Briggs
The resulting explosion shook the freighter once again. Dev, Lot and Mason didn’t dare turn around, dreading what they’d see. Instead, Dev directed them towards the nearest lifeboat. They tumbled inside.
Dev stretched out for the crane control, and his power leeched through the simple computer system, ordering it to drop the boat.
The brakes on the crane’s cable immediately released, and the boat dropped down the side of the freighter. The movement was so sudden that his hand had been snatched away before he had time to instruct the crane to slow down to a stop before they reached the bottom. Dev braced himself for a violent splashdown.
It didn’t come. He’d misjudged that too. This section of the freighter was docked against the city. Smoke streamed from the winch on the deck, the friction of which was the only thing slowing the lifeboat down as it slammed into the city’s quay.
The impact caused the small boat to bounce and roll multiple times – its passengers clinging on to the seats for their lives – before the craft slid to a halt in a stream of sparks.
Dev’s head was spinning as he sat up. His vision blurred, and his hand automatically went to his nose because he could smell the iron scent of blood. He was bleeding, and he guessed it wasn’t from the impact.
How much time did Dev have left before his uncle’s assassination worked? He didn’t know; part of him no longer cared. He just wanted to prove his friends’ innocence and stop Double Helix in his tracks. Beyond that, nothing else mattered.
Lot’s voice cut through his thoughts. “They’re still coming!”
Dev rubbed his eyes. His focus slowly came back, enough to see Lot and Mason standing at the prow of the stricken lifeboat, pointing to an ominous black cloud of killer drones that descended from the freighter.
A sense of panic seized Dev as he stumbled to his feet. “Run!”
He vaulted over the side of the boat, the others close behind him, and sprinted into the city streets. He had a vague notion of trying to lose the drones amongst the labyrinth of buildings, but he wasn’t sure how.
He rounded a corner, then glanced behind as the swarm buzzed into view, rapidly catching up. Within moments they’d be within firing range, and Dev was out of options. Out in the open, in the middle of the street, they were sitting ducks.
“Do something!” yelled Lot with rising panic.
Dev stopped and threw the kitbag down in frustration. “There’s nothing but rubbish in here! I mean, we can throw a drink at them?”
Mason’s face lit up. “Brilliant!” He rummaged through the bag. “Remember the soup!”
Lot shook her head, confused. “Mase, stop messing about! They’re getting closer.”
Mason pulled out the EverFrost flask, wound up his arm, then hurled it in a perfect rugby spin throw. The flask shot through the air straight and true.
“That’s not going to do anything—” Dev began, expecting a couple of drones to be knocked from the sky, at best. Instead the swarm reacted by shooting the incoming projectile out of the way.
The tiny missile struck its target. The flask exploded in a blizzard of rapidly expanding frozen particles that froze in a huge cloud of fluffy ice – snagging the swarm in a frozen death grip.
Then the whole cloud came crashing down, crumpling apart like a snowball and crushing the drones with it.
Lot and Mason whooped loudly – jumping up and down, victorious. Mason pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah! Iced them!” he yelled.
Their moment of jubilation was punctured when Dev was yet again overcome with dizziness and dropped to his hands and knees. Lot and Mason ran to his side.
“Mate! Talk to me.”
Dev felt his chest constricting. His throat felt dry, and he struggled to find the words. “Mason . . . that was smart thinking.”
Mason looked at Lot with concern. “I think we’re losing him. He just complimented me.”
Dev shoved Mason away and placed his palms on the floor, this time not for balance, but because he sensed something as he fell. He was vaguely aware that Lot was talking with concern, but he tuned her out as his synaesthesia reacted to the floor. It was the first time it had ever triggered with no conscious effort from himself. It was a different sensation than usual, and he wondered if this was a side effect from his impending doom.
He spread his fingers and closed his eyes. An aurora of power resonated not just through the floor, but the entire city. Every building and every surface was alive with pulses of energy.
“Dev?” said Lot. “Get up.”
“You can’t see it. . .” Dev finally managed. “But this . . . all of this. . . It’s not a city.” He stood up, regarding the buildings around them with fresh eyes.
“Looks like a city to me,” said Mason doubtfully. “A really freaky one, but. . .”
“It’s a machine. All of it. One giant machine.” With the revelation came a knowledge rising from deep within his mind. But it wasn’t his own memory – and he was starting to wonder just how many memories Professor Liu had implanted.
As they approached the stadium structure, the name of the building popped into Dev’s memory.
“The synchro-cogitron,” he said, with a hint of annoyance. Remembering the name was very different from knowing how it worked. “They called this place Project Nevermind. . .”
Suddenly, a loud crump echoed across the city, as if a giant switch had been thrown, and a slow whirling noise rose from the synchro-cogitron.
There were no doors or windows on the building, only a single tunnel entrance. “That looks like the only way in,” said Lot, pointing to it.
“Looks like a trap to me,” said Mason. “Tell me the old man had a plan for this that he zapped into your brain?”
Dev also hoped Professor Liu had a plan on how to stop Double Helix, but right now his memory wasn’t sharing it. “I’m sure I’ll remember things as things happen.” It wasn’t the assurance the others wanted, and he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it either, but they had no choice but to move forward.
As they drew near, the air began to smell of electricity and sparks shot along the top of the stadium walls, each with the short snap of an embarrassed thunderclap.
“Look at that!” exclaimed Mason, his head cranked upwards.
A green aurora rose from the stadium, reaching for the clear sky. As it stretched higher, the colours began to change to purples and reds. The pulsing tone from within the synchro-cogitron increased, and so did the intensity of the lights.
Dev hurried them into the tunnel. He’d never been to a football ground before, but he’d seen footage on TV of the players emerging into a floodlit stadium.
It was very much like that, except the interior of this stadium didn’t have a pitch. Instead, it had a central platform with five curving towers stretching upwards from it like a claw. It was from the “fingers” that the aurora energy was discharging.
Pipes and cables covered the floor like cooked spaghetti, connecting to a massive circular machine that ran around them, where Dev imagined the stadium seating should be. Unlike the simple linearity of the Large Hadron Collider, this machine had dozens of pipes, curled and twisted over one another in a complex knot.
The three figures on the platform didn’t spot Dev, Lot and Mason, who hid behind a chunk of machinery. They risked poking their heads up for a better look as the entire structure around them began to vibrate.
Double Helix stood at the centre of the platform, a metal crown around his head. This wasn’t one of gold and diamonds, but of rare elements and twisted engineering. As Dev watched, more memories flooded into his conscious.
“It’s tapping into his thoughts. . . The synchrocogitron amplifies them.” He saw the look Lot was giving him. “Professor Liu helped make this. . .”
Mason was confused. “Wait, I thought he was one of the good guys, working for the Inventory? Wasn’t this owned by Dr What’s-his-face?”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Lot urgently. “We’ve got to stop
. . . whatever it is he’s doing.”
“The synchro-cogitron implants thoughts.” Dev’s hand touched the TelePath in his pocket; it was the little brother of the monster in front of them. But the synchro-cogitron had a more nefarious purpose than simply allowing short-range telepathic communication. “It converts his thoughts into energy pulses that bounce off the ionosphere and seep into people’s minds.”
“So they think what he thinks?”
“Not quite. Imagine dispersing a single idea, such as ‘obey me’ – and people will just do it without question. Without knowing why.”
“Conquering the world and still nobody will be any the wiser,” said Lot.
“And nobody will even think of stopping him.”
“So do you happen to remember where the off button is?”
Dev peeked again. The aurora intensity had dramatically increased. Above them, the kaleidoscope of energy was now spreading in every direction as it struck the ionosphere. On the platform, the Collector was intently watching dials and oscilloscopes on a control panel, while Kardach craned his neck upwards in awe.
New memories flooded into Dev’s mind. “There is no way of powering it down. That’s why this place was shrunk in the first place. We need that.” He pointed at the Newton’s Arrow strapped to Kardach’s back.
Kardach knew the basics of the plan. He understood that a simple suggestive nudge could send people’s lives in one direction, or even make them do things they never would. Like Christen Sandberg, they had to be weak-minded fools.
Then another thought nagged him: had Helix and the Collector used such technology on him?
Impossible. He cast that notion aside.
He thought he saw movement in the machinery at the edge of the platform. Staring at the bright aurora above had made his eyes water, so he wasn’t sure whether it was just a trick of the eyes. . .
No – there it was again. The brats were surely out of action by now, back on the freighter. Could it be a crewman? They had been ordered to stay on the ship, and nobody would dare disobey an order from Double Helix . . . would they?
Double Helix had his eyes tightly closed as the synchro-cogitron sucked thoughts from his brain. From his expression, it was a painful process.
The Collector was staring intently at the controls, so Kardach didn’t dare disturb him.
Curious, Kardach stepped off the platform. Yes, there was a crewman standing to attention in the shadows.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see if there was anything you needed, sir.”
Kardach frowned, his suspicion rising. The crewman seemed uncertain. In fact, the closer he got, the more the man seemed to blur. Kardach rubbed his eyes; staring at the aurora had really affected his vision. When he looked up again, the image of the crewman fizzled, his features resolving into those of a young boy. . .
“Dammit!” said Mason, frantically tapping his BlurBadge as it struggled to function amid interference from the powerful machinery nearby.
Kardach tensed, poised to lunge for the boy – when he felt a terrible stabbing pain in his side. Lot had emerged from the shadows, discharging the taser in his rib cage. Kardach was unconscious before he struck the ground.
Dev slipped in behind Lot and stooped over Kardach, retrieving Newton’s Arrow with a grunt.
“Try and Wi-Fi me now,” Dev taunted under his breath, checking they hadn’t been spotted as he placed the strap over his neck and took a moment to savour his success in retrieving it.
He connected to the weapon again, exploring its inner workings, coaxing the gadget to reveal its secrets. Unlike last time, he received more information – likely in combination with hidden memories that Professor Liu had planted. After all, the old man had designed the weapon. He of all people should know what it was capable of.
Dev activated Newton’s Arrow. He felt the power tremble through the weapon as the gravitons spooled up in the repaired graviton pod, increasing the mass of the weapon. He turned the gun towards the platform and considered yelling some sort of warning, so they would know all too well who would defeat them, but the devil on his shoulder told him, why bother? All the pain, heartache and his rapidly approaching death were all due to the two figures standing before him. He didn’t owe them anything.
He pulled the trigger.
The recoil in the rifle was more than Dev had anticipated. The gravity stream shot out at an angle, striking the control desk. The Collector back-pedalled as the entire control panel began to fold into itself. As nothing else around it was shrinking, the controls tore themselves away from the surrounding platform in a shower of sparks – followed by a huge explosion that tunnelled down into the platform. One of the five extended metal fingers was engulfed in flame and came crashing down, close to Double Helix.
Double Helix screamed in pain, yanking the crown off. Where it had rested on his head was now a band of burnt flesh and hair. The moment the connection was broken, the aurora above popped and faded from view. Double Helix’s eyes were wild as he took in first the destroyed control panel, then Dev readying another gravity blast.
“NO!” bellowed Double Helix – but Dev was in no mood to listen.
Double Helix ducked as the pulse struck a second tower. The metal screeched as it began to fold in on itself.
“Stop, Dev! Don’t do this. I can give you whatever you want,” he cried.
“I know you can,” called out Dev, straining under the rifle’s weight, “because one of the things I want is you out of my life!”
Dev increased the charge on the Arrow. He knew what he had to do next; Professor Liu had planted it in his mind already.
Double Helix’s voice rose with an edge of hysteria. “I can stop the Dissolution Protocol, Dev. I can help you to live!”
“Impossible.” His uncle had created the system; it was a one-way process. That’s what he had been told. But he had been lied to before. “You told me that.”
“Your uncle created it . . . but I know how. And I can reverse it.”
Dev’s finger hesitated over the trigger. The chance for life. . . How could he refuse such an offer? He glanced around and saw Lot and Mason watching him carefully. Then he noticed that the Collector had vanished, like a coward.
Double Helix raised his hands in surrender. “I told you, never believe your eyes, Dev.” Double Helix took a step forward, but stopped when Dev raised the weapon menacingly. “When people look at me they only see what they want to see.”
Double Helix looked at Mason, who was standing back, a few metres beyond Dev. “What colour is my hair?”
“Black,” replied Mason, slightly puzzled.
Dev threw a look at Mason, but didn’t divert his aim on Double Helix. “Are you colour-blind or something? He’s blond!”
“No, he’s bald,” Lot chimed in.
The three of them exchanged confused looks, then turned their attention to Double Helix once again.
Helix pointed to Mason. “A BlurBadge. Very good. There are better methods of changing your appearance.” He held up his wrist, which had a thin bracelet hanging around it. “A Janus bracelet. Named after a Roman god. Very useful. Think of it as a cloaking shield, like the one on your aircraft. It makes you appear however it is you want others to see you, however they interpret the message. In my case, it’s anonymity. Only one other person knows my true appearance.”
“And I bet you killed them?”
“No.” Helix moved his other hand slowly and deliberately. He tapped on the wristband, and lights flickered over its narrow surface as it deactivated.
Dev lowered the gun in surprise. The man standing before him was—
“Charles Parker?” Mason exclaimed in shock.
One moment Helix had looked like a normal, nondescript man, then he suddenly looked like Charles. There was no transition, no morphing of features, just a sharp switch.
“It’s a trick,” said Lot. “He’s stalling for time.”
“It’s not a trick. D
ouble Helix . . . you never questioned the name?”
Dev shook his head in response.
“Charles and I were twins. Conjoined twins, to be precise. When we were born, Charles was the more fully formed. I was fused to his back like a parasite.” Double Helix bent his knee and rolled up his trouser leg, revealing the skin beneath. “I was surgically removed. Your uncle kept the important things, like his own limbs. I had only one arm and a single leg.”
He tore the skin from his shin away. It was nothing more than silicone. Beneath it was a cybernetic limb crafted from sleek, polished metal.
“I was discarded in the trash. I would have been incinerated, but I refused to die. While your uncle went on to have an illustrious career, I was cast to the shadows.” He gestured to the synchro-cogitron around him. “This was my revenge on the world. With the technology I stole from under my brother’s nose, I would be able to run the world. Why enslave people when they could still go about their mundane lives – making money and paying their taxes, all of which eventually goes to the rich businessmen who pull the population’s strings. Whereas I pull the strings of the elite.”
“All that to prove you’re just as worthy as my uncle?”
Double Helix laughed. “No. All of that just for fun. Watching Charles’s life collapse as I take everything from him – that’s my revenge.” He extended his hand in a friendly gesture. “You hate him as much as I. He passed a death sentence on you. Did I do such a thing? No. Did I harm your friends? No. Think, Dev, who is your real enemy in all of this?”
Dev looked at Lot and Mason – then tossed Newton’s Arrow to the floor.
Lot was horrified. “Dev! No! What are you doing?”
Dev’s smile was so ruthless and calculating that he noticed Lot take a step backwards in fear.
“What am I doing? I’m taking a leaf out of his book.” He pointed to Double Helix. The villain smiled and lowered his hands.
“I knew you would see sense, Devon.”
Devon continued talking to Lot. “And in Double Helix’s book there is one major rule – always plan a step ahead.” He turned to Double Helix. “And don’t ever call me Devon.”
