by Rob May
Jason pushed past him and entered the mausoleum. The inside was floor-to-ceiling steel. Some metal stairs descended into darkness. As Jason started down, strip lighting came on automatically and illuminated his descent. Before he followed, Brandon went back to pick up his bike. It had cost him too much time and money to build to leave outside, even chained up. He carried it down the steps.
Brandon found Jason about thirty metres underground, in front of another solid-looking door. This one slid open in two halves like a lift door as he approached. As it did so, he could see that it was at least thirty centimetres thick.
The two boys entered a large underground chamber that had a stone floor and a metal ceiling that was supported by massive beams, also metal. Steel, maybe even titanium, Brandon thought. The space was partitioned into smaller areas by glass walls. There were lots of machines and computers that looked like they had been left on standby. The opposite wall was hidden in darkness.
The staircase that they had come down had turned back on itself several times, but Brandon had been keeping track and calculated that the vast space before them was directly under the cemetery. He was amazed; he had thought that his mum’s lab was nearer the hospital.
‘What does your mum do here?’ Jason demanded to know.
‘She’s a doctor. But she doesn’t treat patients much. She does medical research down here all day, I guess. Something to do with genetics. I don’t really know—’
‘And what’s so important that you have to get it today of all days?’
‘I’m not sure. I didn’t ask,’ Brandon said. Why didn’t he even ask?
Jason rolled his eyes.
Kat came down the steps behind them. ‘Wow! This place looks like it would be safe from a nuclear bomb, never mind an asteroid.’
‘Actually a big enough meteor could release as much energy as a nuclear explosion,’ Brandon informed her. ‘A meteor is a shooting star: a falling meteoroid. An asteroid is bigger …’
Brandon trailed off as Jason glowered at him.
Kat gave Brandon an apologetic smile. Jason started off into the lab and more strip lights flickered on as he explored.
Brandon checked his map on his phone and headed off in a different direction: to where he assumed his mother’s office was. Kat loitered by the door; she seemed more interested in admiring Brandon’s bike where he had left it propped against the wall.
As he walked around, Brandon wondered again exactly what it was his mother did down here. Not all of the equipment in the various different sections looked medical. Pinned to the glass walls were blueprints of what looked like industrial or military armoured vehicles. There were also a lot of maps too: detailed plans of complex cities or road networks, Brandon couldn’t tell which.
There were experimental stations loaded with chemistry apparatus, but a lot more space was devoted to computers and servers. There was a worktop that was home to an array of handheld gadgets; another workstation had a large magnifying glass positioned in a frame above the surface of the desk. Brandon peered in as he passed—there was a microchip under the lens.
The spot that Brandon’s map on his phone directed him to wasn’t an office or a desk, but a locker on one of the side walls. Like everything else here, his mother had somehow set it to open as he approached. He looked inside …
There was a loud bang and Brandon staggered back. The floor shook and lots of things around the chamber crashed to the ground. The ceiling lights went out and an instant later low-level red lights came on. He heard Jason shout, ‘Kat!’ and Kat shout, ‘Jason!’
Brandon grabbed what was in the locker—a metal cylinder that looked like a lightsaber handle—and ran back through the lab to the entrance. His phone buzzed as he got there. It was his mother.
‘You found it.’
‘Mum, I think a meteor just hit!’
‘Good grief! Brandon, get out of there! The place won’t withstand more than two direct strikes.’
More than two strikes? Why would any place get hit twice? Brandon had an awful sense of foreboding. ‘Mum, I—’
‘Go, Brandon, but don’t go home. Bring the cylinder to—’ There was a crash and a buzz and the line went dead.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Brandon told Kat. Jason came running over from wherever he had been exploring. The door that they had come in through had closed and Brandon stood in front of it, waving desperately for it to recognise him again.
‘We’re not going anywhere!’ Jason argued. ‘This is exactly where we need to be!’
Kat nodded in agreement.
‘We’re going to get hit again,’ Brandon said urgently.
‘What? Why?’ Kat said. ‘Lightning never strikes twice. Nor do asteroids … meteors … whatever you call them …’
There was another bang and they all fell over. This time all the lights went out and a whooping siren started up. Several of the glass partition walls cracked loudly.
Jason turned on a Maglite that he must have picked up somewhere in the lab. He turned the beam on the door and Brandon could see that Kat had stuck her iron stick in the gap before it had sealed completely. He and Jason each grabbed one half of the door and pulled it open, and Kat wedged her stick horizontally across the gap. It bent under the pressure as they all ducked under it, and snapped in two when they were halfway up the stairs.
‘Let’s hope the door at the top isn’t shut too,’ Jason said.
‘It isn’t,’ Kat said emphatically.
When they reached the top Brandon groaned. While they had been exploring the lab, somebody had carried his top-of-the-range dual-suspension mountain bike back up the stairs and stuck it in the doorframe. As they stepped over it he could see that it was mangled beyond repair.
‘Good thinking, Kat,’ Jason said. ‘Always watching my back.’
‘Yeah,’ Kat said. ‘Somebody has to. Sorry, Brandon.’
Brandon was about to reply, but the scene that greeted them back in the cemetery stunned them into silence. Trees were split and on fire, and a thick cloud of brown dust blocked out the sun. Gravestones had been ripped out of the ground and were strewn all around; tombs and monuments had collapsed. Behind them, the metal superstructure covering the staircase had been stripped of the marble mausoleum that hid it. And in front of them …
A crater half a kilometre wide had been punched into the centre of Highgate Cemetery by the two small but amazingly accurate meteors. There was nothing but a great pit full of rock, dirt and smoke. Flashes of metal showed where the top of the roof of the hidden laboratory was.
They paused only for a moment. ‘Keep running!’ Brandon urged.
They ran away from the crater, heading for the distant shelter of the trees and tombs that were still standing by the cemetery wall. A third meteor flashed down from the sky and into the crater, finishing the job that the first two had started. The blast sent Brandon, Kat and Jason flying through the air. They landed in an ancient grove in a tangle of arms, legs, nettles and ivy. Brandon hit his head on a gravestone. His vision blurred and he tasted blood.
It was Kat who pulled them both, dazed and bruised, to their feet. ‘Come on!’ she urged. ‘This isn’t the time to rest in peace!’
They scaled the wall, left the cemetery and ran through the nearby roads without any destination in mind, wordlessly agreeing to simply put some distance between themselves and the crater. More meteors were falling out of the sky all over London. They could hear the impact explosions and could feel the ground shake. People were running about shouting and crying. They passed police cars, fire trucks and ambulances all heading in different directions.
Eventually they emerged on Hampstead Heath and collapsed on the dry grass of the park at the foot of Parliament Hill. Jason and Kat were staring in shock at the clouds of smoke that were rising on every horizon. Brandon tried to call his mother back: no reply. He called his father; the line connected, and then …
He saw it clearly this time: a hot white fireball speeding out of t
he clear blue sky. It crashed to Earth less than two kilometres away. Brandon didn’t feel the heat or the shockwave this time, but he felt a much more violent reaction in his gut.
‘No,’ he gasped. ‘Dad …’
The meteor had hit home: Brandon’s home.
Brandon sank to his knees. All around him more and more meteors were falling over London, but he could hardly hear them. His mind, usually so sharp and clear, was clouded with shock and grief. He couldn’t make sense of why his whole world had been turned upside down.
His phone was buzzing urgently in his pocket. He fumbled for it: it was his sister Gem calling.
‘Brandon, where are you?’
‘I’m … it’s …’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’m on the Heath.’
‘Listen to me, Bran, we’re in big trouble. These meteors … they’re not random; they’re targeting our family! They hit Mum’s lab three times! They also took out some army and communications stuff too. This isn’t a natural meteor shower—it’s some sort of attack!’
‘Mum and Dad, Gem, they’re …’
‘I don’t know, Brandon. I’ve no idea where Mum is, but Dad left the house just after you did. He said he was going to the gallery to move his precious paintings, so hopefully he’s okay. I’m in the chopper with James. You have to get somewhere safe until all this is over, okay?’
‘Okay,’ he agreed, relieved, but still bewildered. Gem obviously had no idea that he had just been to the lab.
‘Gem, what do you think this—’
He stopped mid-sentence and involuntarily ducked as another meteor streaked overhead at an unnaturally low angle. It landed about four kilometres away, smashing the top off the British Telecom Tower as it went by.
‘Gem?’
There was no reply; his connection had been lost. Jason was looking at his phone like he’d been cut off mid-call as well. Kat’s fingers were moving around her phone’s touchscreen. ‘Internet’s down too,’ she reported.
The barrage of meteors started to slow down. Plumes of smoke were rising all over London. There was a haze of dust in the summer sky. Then one more meteor flashed across the horizon; this one exploded in mid-air as a missile came up to meet it. It looked like a defence of sorts had finally been mustered.
‘We need to get somewhere safe,’ Brandon said. ‘Somewhere that’ll survive a meteor strike.’
Kat nodded in agreement. ‘An underground tube station?’
Jason shook his head. ‘Everyone in London will have the same idea. We’ll never get out in time if the place gets hit more than once, which it might do if we keep hanging round with this loser.’
He meant Brandon, of course. Brandon ignored him, although his point was a good one. ‘We want somewhere with a deep cellar; somewhere that won’t be full of people … What about your place?’ he asked the twins.
‘Get lost!’ Jason snorted. ‘Our parents are on holiday—the south of France. Lucky for them!—but they’d kill us if they got back and the house had been flattened.’
Kat sighed. ‘I know a place,’ she said reluctantly. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her keychain. She held up one of the keys on it for them all to see.
‘What’s that for?’ Jason asked. ‘Some kind of secret underground bunker? If you’ve got a key to a safe place, then what were we doing earlier trying to break into a crypt?’
‘It’s my secret place,’ Kat said. ‘Come on!’ She walked off across the heath.
Jason looked at Brandon, who just shrugged.
‘Who keeps secrets from their twin?’ Jason muttered darkly, then followed after Kat.
‘Are you alright, Brandon?’
‘Yes. Well, no, obviously; I’m worried about my mum. But I’ll keep it together for now if I can. We have to focus on staying alive.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Kat said. ‘You’re tougher than I thought.’
‘If you’re so tough, Bright Eyes,’ Jason grunted, ‘then maybe you could give us a hand ripping the bottom out of this fence.’
They were trying to break into the grounds of their school, Highgate Academy. Brandon helped Jason pull back some wooden planks until they snapped off, then they all squeezed through the gap. They headed over the football pitch toward the looming three-storey buildings.
It was mid-afternoon. In the past hour, no more meteors had fallen. The city was subdued; the only sound was the wail of distant sirens.
‘Head towards B Block,’ Kat said. ‘There’s a door there to the cellar boiler room. That’s what the key’s for.’
‘I don’t remember being issued with a boiler room key on induction day,’ Jason remarked sarcastically.
‘Ha! I nabbed it off the caretaker’s key chain. He’s always leaving it in the lock. Handy place to hide when I want to skip double maths.’
‘You should have let me know,’ Jason said. He was in a lower maths set. ‘I could have joined you. What I wouldn’t give to have a place to escape double maths, let alone killer asteroids.’
Kat didn’t reply. She looked slightly uncomfortable.
They made it to the main doors. Jason kicked them in and the three of them entered Highgate Academy, a modern privately-funded school with a mix of new buildings and older ones from the sixties. The Latin motto on the crest over the door read: Docendo Discimus. By Teaching, We Learn.
Jason caught Brandon’s eye. ‘I guess that now that we’re back here, it means that the holidays are definitely over.’
Hidden in the shadow of a bank of lockers under B Block’s main stairwell was a small cellar door. Kat opened it with her key. They went down two flights of narrow stairs into the underground boiler room.
Kat found a light switch. The bare bulb that hung from a wire lit a gloomy brick-lined space that was criss-crossed with a maze of pipe work. In the centre stood two massive iron soot-stained tubular boilers. Between them there was an old table and four plastic classroom chairs.
Jason was carrying an armful of booty that he had gotten from smashing open a vending machine. He and Kat sat down on the plastic chairs and started to feast on chewy toffee bars, chocolate, crisps and fizzy pop.
Brandon got out the cylinder from the lab. It was his first opportunity to take a closer look. It was about sixteen centimetres long and four centimetres in diameter, and made of smooth, polished metal; maybe steel or aluminium. The ends were slightly wider, but they didn’t appear to unscrew; the whole cylinder looked like it was machine-tooled from one piece of metal.
And yet …
As he weighed the cylinder in his hand, Brandon could feel a strange sensation, as if the centre of gravity of this seemingly solid object was almost imperceptibly shifting as he rolled it in his palm. The more he concentrated on the feeling, the more it seemed that the very atomic structure of the metal was responding to his thoughts.
But how could it?
Jason belched loudly and snapped Brandon’s focus. ‘Aren’t you going to eat any of this delicious meal that I prepared?’ Jason asked. Brandon craved savoury food and grabbed a couple of packets of cheese and onion crisps. Kat was downing multi-coloured sugar-coated chocolate drops like an addict.
Jason leaned back in his chair and stretched. ‘So who’s throwing these meteors at us then if they’re not randomly flying in from space? Are there terrorists up in a space station now, catching asteroids and then aiming them at us?’
‘Or maybe … aliens!’ Kat said excitedly. ‘Aliens could do it. I saw a film once where aliens flung alien meteors at Earth from their alien homeworld!’
‘You can’t just fling a meteor from one planet to another,’ Brandon argued. ‘And anyway, you can’t be so quick to blame it on aliens. Jason’s probably closer to the truth: it’s more likely to be terrorists. Have you heard of the Drake equation?’
Jason rolled his eyes. ‘Of course not.’
‘It’s a formula for estimating the number of alien civilisations that might be out there in the galaxy, within contact distance,’ Brandon told them. ‘The re
sult usually comes out somewhere between one and zero. But nearer zero.’
Jason wasn’t listening. He had picked up a black school pullover that had fallen off the back of his chair. ‘Is this yours, Sis? Oh, hang on, there’s actually a name tag in it!’
‘It is mine!’ Kat said, making a grab for it ‘Give it here.’
‘No, it’s not. The tag says … Xander Jones?’
Kat’s face was bright red.
‘Wait a minute! Is this why you kept this place secret? You meet your secret boyfriend down here? Xander Jones? That posh fool?’
‘He’s head boy!’
‘He’s a sleazebag! You do know he’s officially dating the head girl?’
Brandon decided to leave the twins to it. ‘I’m going to risk heading up to the computer lab,’ he said. ‘The mobile network is still out, but the internet might still be coming through the cables. I want to see what the rest of the world is saying about these meteor strikes.’
They ignored him and continued bickering, so he left the boiler room and went back above ground.
The school was eerie and quiet. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows through the tall glass windows, and Brandon found himself turning corners carefully, as if there might be someone or something lying in wait around them. Blame Kat and her talk of aliens!
He passed the science labs, where a great deal of the equipment had been provided by technology companies that his mother had links with. Brandon and Gem’s parents could have sent their kids to Highgate’s historic private school, but instead saw that their money and influence could be better used to equip the Highgate Academy with state-of-the-art facilities.
He walked through the extensive library on the third floor and went into the computer lab. The computers had all been turned off for the summer, but Brandon knew the set-up and went about hitting all the switches that booted up a desktop PC and all its peripherals.
