The Strike Trilogy

by Charlie Wood

  “Okay,” Strike said, “let me just do this…”

  Strike pried open the man’s eye with his finger and then placed the man’s face against the eye scanner.

  “Access granted,” the computer said in a woman’s voice. “Thank you.”

  The doors to the Space Travel Research labs slid open.

  “You know,” Orion said, “I’m sure we could have figured out another way.”

  Strike placed the unconscious guard back on the ground and underneath his desk. “Hey, we got in, didn’t we?”

  They walked through the open doors.

  “Yes. But let’s just hope Scatterbolt got the security cameras turned off in time before you did that.”

  “Oh yeah,” Strike said. “Probably should have checked on that first, huh?”

  “Probably.”

  Keplar and Scatterbolt carefully made their way down the sterile, white-walled hallway of the basement. Luckily, thanks to the party upstairs, they hadn’t passed a single person, but they both knew that wouldn’t last.

  “We gotta get where we need to be fast, SB. Even in our disguises, people are gonna be awfully suspicious if they see some mom and her kid down in the computer mainframe.”

  “I know,” Scatterbolt said. “Only problem is, look.”

  Scatterbolt pointed ahead. A security guard was standing in front of a closed door.

  “That’s the room we need to get into,” Scatterbolt said.

  “Okay. We figured this might happen. Hit him with the Sleeping Spider.”

  “You sure? Is anybody else around?”

  Keplar looked down the hall toward the elevator. “I don’t know, but like you said, we don’t have much time. We gotta deal with this now.”

  “Okay. Here goes.”

  Scatterbolt gripped his left hand with his right hand and began to unscrew it. Soon, his left hand popped off at the wrist and became detached. Crouching down, he placed the detached left hand on the floor and let it go. Suddenly, the hand’s fingers straightened out, and it stood up like a spider. After the spider-hand scanned the hallways, it skittered across the floor and crawled up the nearby wall, eventually reaching the ceiling. Clinging by its sticky fingers, the hand dashed toward the guard’s location, upside down, and when it was directly above him, it let go of the ceiling and dropped to the floor.

  Hearing the clinking of metal, the guard looked down and saw a detached, moving, crawling, robotic hand near his feet.

  “What the hell...?”

  As the guard reached for his gun, the spider-hand reared back on its palm and spread out its fingers. In a red flash, a dart zipped out from each one of its fingertips, flew through the air, and stuck into the guard’s neck.

  The guard quickly grabbed at the darts, but it was too late. Like a scarecrow made of hay, his legs went out from underneath him and he dropped to the floor, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

  Keplar and Scatterbolt dashed to the guard.

  “Nighty-night, security man,” Keplar said, as he lifted the man by his arms. “How long is he gonna be out?”

  “A few hours or so,” Scatterbolt said, quickly scanning the hallway. “I’m not worried about that, I’m worried about where we’re gonna put him while I hack into the mainframe computer system.”

  “We’ll have to bring him in with us.”

  Scatterbolt grabbed a card from the man’s belt. “Okay. We’ll need his key card to get in.”

  “Okay, let me see,” Keplar said, taking the card and sliding it into the door’s lock. A message popped up on a screen near the door: KEY ACCEPTED. PLEASE SCAN PALM.

  “Son of a bremshaw.”

  “Now we gotta scan his palm,” Scatterbolt said. “Come on, we gotta hurry.”

  “Okay. Help me stand him up.”

  With Keplar holding him by his arms, the dog and the robot placed the guard on his rubbery legs and attempted to get him propped up. Reaching forward, Keplar awkwardly grabbed the guard’s hand and placed it against the scanner.

  However, before the scanner could read the man’s hand, a second security guard came around the corner and stopped in his tracks, directly in front of the door to the computer mainframe.

  Of course, this guard didn’t see Keplar and Scatterbolt. Instead, he saw a 300-pound blonde woman in a pink-and-yellow dress helping her adorable nine-year-old son prop up an unconscious security guard next to the palm scanner.

  “What the…?” the second guard asked.

  “Hi,” the 300-pound woman said, her hands still tucked under the unconscious guard’s armpits. “We are just...not doing anything suspicious at all.”

  “Nope,” her son said. “Not at all.”

  The guard reached for his walkie-talkie.

  “Krandor,” Keplar said. He let go of the unconscious guard, walked across the hallway, reared back, and punched the second security guard in his face. Before he could alert anyone, the second guard dropped to the floor, knocked out, with his walkie-talkie skittering across the hall.

  “You do realize,” Scatterbolt said, “that as far as that guy knows, he was just punched in the face by a very large woman?”

  “You’re damn right he was,” Keplar said, rubbing his knuckles. “Anything you can do, a woman can do better. Now let’s drag this sorry son of a bremshaw in there with his friend.”

  In the quiet, dimly lit Space Travel Research Department, Strike followed Orion toward the end of a hallway.

  “Do we know which room we are looking for?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, according to my contact, I believe it’s...this one.”

  Orion pointed to a closed door.

  “How are we going to get in?” Strike asked.

  “We hope they let us in.”

  “That’s it? That’s your plan?”

  “That’s about it. It’s like I always tell you: sometimes simple is best.”

  “Orion, that works with a grilled cheese recipe, I’m not sure it applies here.”

  Orion knocked on the door. “We also have to hope someone is working in there tonight.”

  “Even better. Remind me to team up with Scatterbolt next time.”

  The door opened, and a green-skinned man in glasses opened the door.

  “Oh, hey, Clark,” the man said.

  “Hey there,” Orion replied. “Do you think you could let us in? My nephew really wanted to see the lab, but I forgot my key card.”

  “Yeah, sure. Come in, I was just heading out.”

  The green-skinned scientist stepped aside and let Orion and Strike walk in.

  “See?” Orion said with a smile. “Simple is best.”

  Strike shook his head. “Clark, you’re a genius.”

  As soon as the green-skinned scientist left them alone in the Space Travel Research Lab, Strike and Orion scanned the room. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be much to see: only several computers, long tables, and various blueprints taped up on the walls of the scientists’ cubicles.

  “Okay, this is where I work,” Orion said. “Well, it’s where Clark Peterson works, anyway. There should be plenty of information in here, if we just know where to find it. Start looking around the desks, while I’ll try Clark’s computer with one of Scatterbolt’s hacker cards.”

  Orion reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, yellow card with a drawing of Scatterbolt’s face on it. When Orion slid the card into a port on the side of the computer, it only took a few seconds for the computer to bypass the password screen and grant him access.

  “With all this network activity,” Orion said, “and everything Scatterbolt is going to be doing in the mainframe, someone is bound to notice sooner or later. We need to keep moving. Find anything?”

  “I don�
��t know.” At the other end of the lab, Strike was standing in front of a large map on the wall. “But I’m pretty sure I did.” The map showed the world of Capricious as seen from outer space, and all around the empty space surrounding the planet there were scrawled math problems and equations. “Look for any kind of large image on that computer. Some kind of large image file with a map. Do you need my help? Can you do that?”

  “Of course I can,” Orion replied, studying the screen and typing on the keyboard. “You know, when I was a superhero with your father, I was the computer genius of the group. I know my way around machinery like this.”

  “Geez, don’t be insulted. It’s not like I called you old and clueless or anything.”

  “You kind of did.”

  “Okay, I kind of did.”

  As Strike stepped closer to the wall, he inspected the map. It was covered by tiny dots, marking locations all over Capricious.

  “What do you think all these markers are? There must be thousands of them.”

  “I’m not sure. But look at this.”

  Strike walked over and looked at the computer screen.

  “This is the same map of Capricious that’s on the wall, right?” Orion asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, look at this.”

  Orion opened another file; it contained a map of Earth from outer space. The map of Earth was also covered in thousands of circular markings.

  “That’s Earth,” Strike said.

  “Yup. And it has all of the same markings as the map of Capricious. If you lay them on top of each other, the markings are in the exact identical spots.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But it can’t be good.”

  In the lowest level of the skyscraper, far underneath the party, Keplar watched as Scatterbolt attempted to hack into the building’s computer mainframe.

  “Are you making any progress?” the dog asked. “Can’t you just use one of your hacker cards?”

  “No, not on a computer like this. Not on one with this much security. My hacker cards are only useful on people’s own personal computers.”

  “Oh.” Keplar thought it over. “You never used one of those on my computer, did you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “Why, are you afraid of what I’d fine?”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  Keplar watched as Scatterbolt continued to hack.

  “Hey, when we get back,” the dog said, “can you show me how to, like, erase everything on my computer and all the history and everything?”

  On the tenth floor, the party was still in full swing. Taking a break from his awkward mingling and socializing, Rigel stood at the bar with a glass of seltzer water, watching the celebration from afar.

  A green-skinned, thirty-year-old man named Lyle—one of Rigel’s many assistants—approached him.

  “Rigel, sir, how is everything going?”

  “Fine. Do you have a security update for me? Is everything going smoothly on your end?”

  Lyle looked down at his tablet. “Yes, no major incidents to report. The only thing that was flagged was that a waiter saw a woman and her son heading down to the lower levels in the elevator, but I’m sure it was nothing.”

  “A woman and her son?”

  “I assume it was a woman and her son. It says it was a woman and a small boy. I’m sure they just got lost on their way to the restroom or maybe to the coatroom. Other than that, there haven’t been—”

  “They were heading down where?”

  Lyle checked his tablet again. “Well, they got into the elevator and went down five floors below the main level, but they weren’t seen again on any cameras, so I’m sure they just—”

  Rigel headed toward the exit of the ballroom. “Come with me to the security center.”

  “Sir, I’m sure it was nothing. You should enjoy yourself and—”

  The red giant turned around, his yellow eyes fixed on Lyle. “Come with me.”

  Two floors below the ballroom, the young Rytonian men and women working in the Trident security center were startled as Rigel stormed into the room, followed by Lyle.

  “Where is the feed for the basement?” Rigel asked, looking up at the wall in front of him. It was made up of dozens of surveillance screens, all of which showed security camera feeds from all over the skyscraper. “Someone show me the feed for the basement.”

  Lyle pointed to one of the lower monitors. “Right here, sir.” The monitor showed an empty basement hallway. “See? Everything looks normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. I don’t want you to be worried if—”

  “Did you send someone down there?” Rigel asked.

  “Yes, on the way up to see you, I had one of our men go down there to check it out. But I don’t think—”

  “Call him.”

  Lyle grabbed a walkie-talkie from his belt and spoke into it. “Garth? Are you there?”

  “Yes, sir,” Garth said through the walkie-talkie. “I just arrived in the basement. Nothing to report, sir. One of the guards is missing from his post, but I’ll find him right away. That’s not unusual for this time of night.”

  “But you don’t see anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  Lyle turned to Rigel. “See, sir? Everything is fine. You can leave everything up to us. Our security is as tight as a drum. You can go back to the party and enjoy your—”

  “Where is Garth?” Rigel asked, staring at the screen. “The man you sent down there, Garth. Where is he?”

  “Right in the main computer center.”

  “Give me that.” Rigel took the walkie-talkie from Lyle’s hand. “Garth. This is Rigel. Are you in the main computer center?”

  “Yes, sir. Right now.”

  “What door are you near?”

  “Um...door number 78.”

  “Please go stand near door number 71.”

  The room waited to hear from Garth.

  “Okay,” Garth said after a moment. “I’m there.”

  “You’re standing in front of door number 71?” Rigel asked.

  “Yes,” Garth replied.

  Rigel turned to one of the technicians manning the security screens. “You. Which room is your camera fixed on?”

  “Room number 71.”

  Everyone looked to the man’s screen. There was nobody on it.

  “Oh, no,” Lyle said, with his eyes wide.

  “The feeds are on a loop, you morons,” Rigel growled. “We need to immediately shut down everything and—”

  A buzzing came from Lyle’s phone. He looked at it. His face went white.

  “I just got another security alert,” Lyle said. “There’s a family of four trying to get into the party, but the bouncer says he already let them in twenty minutes ago.”

  Rigel stared at the screen showing the basement. “Shut it down. Shut everything down. All computers, electronics, everything. And put the entire building on lockdown. I don’t want anybody going in or out until I say so.”

  Rigel turned to leave the room.

  “Where—where are you going?” Lyle asked.

  “I’m going to update Nova on the situation,” Rigel replied, as the door to the security room closed and he disappeared into the hallway.

  It was quiet for a moment. One of the security technicians looked up at Lyle. “We’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In Clark Peterson’s office on the 105th floor, Strike and Orion carefully inspected the two maps of Earth and Capricious on the computer screen in front of them.

  “Can you make out anything else?” Strike asked. “What are all those mar
kings?”

  “I’m not sure. But I don’t think they actually mark things on the ground. I think they may mark spots where something is in the sky, or maybe even—”

  The computer screen turned off.

  “What did you do?” Strike asked.

  Orion sat back with his hands in the air. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Did you just turn it off? I thought you said you were some kind of computer genius?”

  “I didn’t turn it off, I—”

  The lights in the room went out, sending Strike and Orion into darkness. A red light near the entrance of the room began flashing, and an announcement was made over the skyscraper intercom system.

  “Attention, please. At this time, we are asking everyone to please stay where you are. Due to a power outage, we are asking everyone to stay inside the Trident. For your safety, please do not leave. A security official will be around shortly to lead you outside. In the meantime, please stay exactly where you are. Repeat: at this time, we are asking everyone…”

  The announcement repeated from the beginning. Strike looked to Orion.

  “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “Krandor,” Orion snapped. “We’ve been caught. We need to get out of here, now.”

  “What about Scatterbolt and Keplar?”

  “We’ll alert them right away, but I’m sure they’ve heard the announcement. Grab anything you can and let’s get out of here.”

  In the darkness, and with only the flashing, red emergency light to guide them, Strike and Orion began grabbing boxes of papers and hard drives from the computers. From outside the room, Strike heard the muffled footsteps and voices of scientists.

  “What’s going on?” one of them asked.

  “I’m not sure, some kind of power outage,” another answered. “We’re supposed to stay where we are.”

  “Dammit,” Orion said. “They’re right outside our door.”