by Rob May
Gem was tending to James, who had collapsed in the corner with blood all down his shirt. She examined his arm, which looked like it had been broken in the fall. Then she glanced at her phone, and threw it to the ground in frustration.
‘No special access anymore?’ Brandon asked.
‘Not up here,’ Gem confirmed. James held up his wrist; Gem held hers up to his and Brandon noticed that she was wearing a smaller version of her boyfriend’s watch. She rotated the bezel and both watches’ faces lit up. ‘Time Trackers are working,’ she said. ‘MI Zero gadgets,’ she explained, seeing Brandon’s curious expression.
How involved was his sister in MI Zero? Brandon realised that his mother had been right not to trust anybody with the secrets of her work, not even her own family. Still … what difference did it all make now? He sat back against the cold wall and felt all the excitement of the last few days drain from his body, leaving a gut-wrenching emptiness in its place. They had been taken by the enemy, having lost the alien cylinder—the very thing that they had fought so hard to protect. It was all as good as over.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said aloud, to the room in general. ‘It’s all gone wrong.’
Gem came over and put her arms around him. ‘It’s alright, Bro. Don’t be sorry. I’m just glad that we found you before the aliens got us. If everyone’s going to die, we might as well all die together. You couldn’t run forever.’
Brandon tried to blink away stinging tears. Why did his sister have to be so brave?
‘I wasn’t running, Gem; I found out where Mum was.’
‘You found Mum?’ Gem was surprised. ‘In Brighton?’
‘Yes. There was another lab. She’s dead, Gem.’
Gem was silent for a few moments. Was she thinking about their mother’s death, or about the second lab?
‘I found Dad,’ she said at last. ‘We managed to contact the gallery and he was there. He was a bit peeved because they were using the gallery to sleep people whose homes had been destroyed. You know what he was like when people breathed near the paintings. He said that we should all meet him there when I’d found you.
‘He was still there when the final meteor destroyed London.’
Brandon broke down completely. His world had fallen apart. Both his parents were dead. The only thing that had been motivating him all day—the mystery of the cylinder—had been denied him just at the moment when he thought that he’d started to figure it out. He had been hoping to find the final lab; finish what his mother and this Talem guy had started; save the world, maybe even the universe …
Now all he could see in his future was a horrible death.
The door clicked and swung open.
Three brutes stepped in. James lurched to his feet and made a valiant attempt to fight all three off. One of the brutes made a high-pitched grunting noise that may have been a laugh, picked James up and pitched him over its shoulder. They carried him out and pulled the door shut behind them. It was over in seconds.
‘Oh no,’ Gem sobbed. ‘James!’
They heard a shout from the other side of the door. ‘Gem!’ James called. ‘I’ll be back!’
The footsteps retreated. Then there was silence.
Eventually Jason said: ‘He won’t be back.’
Brandon gently patted his sister on the back in a pathetic attempt to console her. Was this how it was going to go down? Each of them dragged off one at a time? He looked around at his friends: Kat, Jason, Gem. As he did so he noticed something new: something that hadn’t been there moments before when the brutes had come to take James.
Someone was standing in the corner of the room.
A tall figure, humanoid but not quite human. Not a brute like all the aliens they had seen so far, but definitely alien … at least as far as Brandon could tell.
‘Hello,’ Brandon said cautiously. Gem, Jason and Kat all turned to look at the newcomer.
The stranger stepped forward gracefully. He was slim but his muscles were clearly defined beneath his close-fitting shirt. His clothes were black—black shirt, black trousers and black knee-high boots—as was his long hair. His face was pale though, his eyes a gleaming amber. His ears were slightly pointed, but other than that he had no obvious alien feature or appendages; but rather his whole presence was otherworldly. Even his voice, though it spoke English, had a unique mellifluous tone that none of them had ever heard the like of before.
‘Brandon Walker?’ he said. ‘At last we meet. Interesting that it should be here.’
‘Do I know you?’ Brandon asked. He had a sudden flash of inspiration: The alien that could pass for human. ‘Are you … Talem?’
The alien laughed casually. ‘No. My name is Dravid Karkor. But I knew Talem; We were friends back on our home planet. In fact, he’s the reason that I’m risking my life by sneaking into your cell. I don’t want to see Talem’s legacy falling into the wrong hands.’
Brandon shook his head. ‘Well, you’re too late. The alien king took the last prototype and destroyed it.’
‘But well done with all the risking and the sneaking!’ Kat said positively. ‘Now perhaps you can get us all out of here!’
Karkor smiled. ‘I might be able to help with that. I can’t be found out though—even though I’m not locked up, I’m as much a prisoner here as you are. But I can help you make your own escape. And I can get you your prototype back.’
Brandon suddenly came alive. ‘It hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘No. The balak king might be strong, brutal and violent, but he’s also weak-minded and easily manipulated. I persuaded him that it might be advantageous to hold on to the technology, dangerous as it is.’
‘Dangerous?’ Brandon questioned. ‘It’s not a weapon.’
Karkor knelt down in front of Brandon. ‘It can be. It’s the most powerful weapon in the galaxy right now. To protect it, Talem configured it to be deadly to both balaks and our kind alike. But I know that he hoped to put it to better uses than that, so I need you to take it away from here and find out how to control its power. I believe that the key to that is still on this strange planet of yours.’
Brandon nodded. He thought so too. His head was full of so many other questions though: ‘Those aliens are called balaks? So what are you? You’re from the same planet as them?’
Jason was getting anxious. ‘Who cares! Can we talk about how we’re going to escape already?’
Karkor seemed quite unflustered. ‘Yes we are from the same planet, but two quite distinct species. Sworn enemies, if you like. We call them balaks. We call ourselves zelfs.’
Kat looked suspicious. ‘How come everyone here speaks English?’
‘English? I don’t know what that is? Oh, your language? I’m certainly not speaking it. I imagine the ship’s translation systems are doing the work. It’s a nicely-fitted out craft. Our design of course; the balaks can barely sail a ship on a lake, let alone through space.’
‘They stole your ship to come here?’ Jason asked him. He was looking at the slim alien suspiciously.
‘Something like that,’ Karkor said evasively.
‘Why do I get the feeling,’ Brandon said, ‘that we’re getting mixed up in some alien war. Who’s Zaal?’
‘Zaal is a god,’ Karkor said. ‘He’s very good at starting alien wars.’
‘What are they going to do to James?’ Gem asked in a low voice.
Karkor looked serious for the first time. ‘It might be too late for your friend,’ he said, ‘but I can make sure that the rest of you all leave together. That’s if you trust me.’
‘Do we have a choice?’ Brandon asked pointedly.
‘Not if you want to live. Now here’s what you have to do …’
The minutes stretched interminably. Gem’s concern for James was written all over her face. She sat staring at her watch, watching the lights flash around its face. There was nothing they could do except wait for the balak guards to return. Dravid Karkor waited nonchalantly by the wall beside the door. The rest o
f them sat nervously on the floor. The only sound was Kat humming a tune under her breath.
‘Kat, shhh,’ Jason warned her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kat said. ‘I hum when I’m excited.’
Brandon had nothing to add to that conversation. Thinking back over his mum’s message, he remembered that he needed to check a map. He picked up Gem’s phone from where she had thrown it. There was no internet access, but there was just enough of Google Maps saved in memory for Brandon to work out where they needed to go next … if they managed to escape.
He pocketed the phone. If Gem wanted it back then she could ask for it.
‘These aliens?’ Kat wondered aloud. ‘Why do they have arms and legs and heads … I mean, why do they look almost human and not have tentacles and eyes on stalks?’
Karkor smiled. Jason looked across at Brandon. ‘He’ll know.’
‘Wings evolved convergently in birds and bats,’ Brandon said mysteriously.
‘What?’
‘Birds and bats—they don’t share a common winged ancestor. They both evolved wings independently. So—’
‘Oh, I get it!’ Kat said cheerfully. ‘Alien planets can have human-like people too—it doesn’t mean that they made us, or that they evolved from us … or that they’re future humans come back through a time tunnel to visit us.’
‘The simplest explanation’s usually the best,’ Brandon agreed. ‘I’m sure that there are aliens out there with tentacles, six legs and faces on their bums … but they’re not the ones best suited to building and flying spaceships.’
‘Listen,’ Gem said. ‘They’re coming back.’
‘Okay. Everyone get ready,’ Brandon said.
The door opened. The same three balak guards stepped into the room, but this time Brandon and his friends were ready for them. They all ganged up on the leading balak and wrestled it to the ground. The other aliens attempted to separate them, and soon everyone was pulling and shoving and kicking. One of the balaks lifted Kat by the belt of her jeans and flung her hard against the wall. Together, Brandon and Jason pulled the brute to the ground by its legs.
Gem rolled out of the scrum and leaped to her feet to face another of the aliens. The balak made a grab for her, but she deflected both its arms away with confident inside-forearm blocks. Then she feigned a step backwards and ducked to the side, sticking her leg out to trip her opponent as it pressed forward.
Brandon saw it all. Where had she learned to do that? But he also saw the next threat before Gem did: the other balak had moved behind her and grabbed her in a bear-hug around the waist. Brandon and Jason’s opponent had finally got to its feet and shrugged the two boys away. The one that Gem had tripped eventually got up too, rubbing its ugly nose where it had smashed it on the floor.
‘That’s for James!’ she spat.
The three aliens moved backwards out of the room, taking Gem with them, and leaving Brandon, Jason and Kat in a breathless heap on the floor. Gem gave them one last desperate, but hopeful, look and then the door slammed shut.
Brandon rubbed a bruised elbow. ‘Everyone alright?’
‘Great place for a fight,’ Kat complained. ‘I don’t know what hurt more: the aliens or the wall.’
‘We almost had them,’ Jason said. ‘Your sister can kick ass.’
‘We were never going to beat them,’ Brandon said. He looked around the small room: the mysterious Dravid Karkor had gone. The fight had just been a distraction to buy him some time to sabotage the door mechanism on his way out.
Brandon went up to it and pushed.
It opened.
They stepped out into a narrow service corridor that curved away to the left and right. A twisted network of pipes and cables covered the ceiling. Brandon took a closer look, hoping for some insights into alien technology. Did everyone in the galaxy use electricity for power? He supposed that they must: after all, it wasn’t as if the laws of physics were different from one side of the galaxy to the other. Electrons move along conductors, no matter what planet you’re on.
‘Stop admiring the scenery,’ Jason said. ‘Which way do we go?’
Brandon looked left and right ‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ he said. ‘Either way, we’ll be circling the ship; as long as we take the next passage that leads towards the centre then we’ll be heading in the right direction.’
Jason grunted. ‘And what did your new friend say we should do if we come across any alien patrols on the way?’
‘He’s not my friend. And he didn’t say. We’ll have to improvise until we find Gem and James.’ He noticed something shiny on the floor: Gem’s watch. She must have dropped it for them to find. Brandon picked it up. It was a women’s diver’s watch with a metal bracelet. On the inside of the bezel though there was a ring of LEDs. Three were lit up blue at the twelve o’clock position, but as he turned around, they moved to six o’clock. He tilted the watch and they moved to three o’clock. Could be useful, he thought. He strapped it to his right wrist.
Brandon started off following the corridor in an anticlockwise direction. They took the first turning on the left—an even narrower tunnel with warm piping covering the walls—setting them on course for the centre of the mothership. They moved as fast and as quiet as they could, listening out for danger. The only sound was a soft background hum.
‘So who is this Dravid guy?’ Jason whispered. ‘Come on, Bright Eyes, don’t keep all your thoughts to yourself.’
‘He claims he was friends with Talem—the alien that my mum knew—but he’s also gotten himself mixed up with those balak creatures. I can understand it if they want to destroy what they think is a terrible weapon, but I can only guess what this Dravid Karkor wants with it. I don’t trust him. I just hope he really can get us out of here.’
‘And if we do escape? Then what?’
‘I think I know where to go to activate this cylinder thing. But I can’t say where right now. Not until we get off this ship.’
‘Fine, but when we’re out of here, you’ve got to tell us everything you know or think you know. Me and Kat, we’ve got to decide if we’re going to see this thing through with you, or cut our losses and get out before you get us both killed.’
‘Alright,’ Brandon said.
‘Seriously,’ Jason insisted. ‘Kat thinks this is a great adventure and all that, but someone else should be taking on an alien invasion force, not us!’
‘Okay, I get it!’ Brandon hissed. ‘Do you think I woke up this morning—yesterday morning—and thought, I know, I’ll take Jason and Kat Brown on an exciting tour of a flying saucer!’
Kat had followed close enough to hear the last part. ‘You’re the best tour guide ever!’ she said breathlessly. She was documenting their adventure by taking photos with her phone.
Brandon held up his hand to signal a halt. The tunnel they were following ended at the entrance to a vast hangar. It looked much like the one that the helicopter had been dragged into, except this one was full of rows and rows of parked spacecraft: saucers twenty metres in diameter, the same as the ones that they had seen fighting over Brighton.
The airlock for this hangar was in the floor. Brandon figured that they must be near the bottom level of the mothership. They would need to climb to reach their destination, the top of the reactor room. There was a pair of vertical tubular structures across the hangar that looked like lifts. Brandon pointed them out to the others.
‘Looks deserted,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
Jason eyed-up the access ramp to one of the saucers. ‘Or we could take one of these UFOs and quit this place,’ he said.
‘Go if you think you can fly one,’ Brandon snapped. He started off across the hangar floor, not looking back to see if the other two were following. When he arrived at the lift, however, they were close behind. Once inside, Brandon scanned the panel of lights on the inner wall.
‘I never saw anyone worry about which button to press in Star Wars,’ he complained.
As his finger hovered over
the top button, the one below changed colour and the lift doors slid smoothly shut. They began to rise.
‘Someone must have called it,’ Kat said.
‘We’ll get off a few floors below then,’ Brandon decided, pressing one of the lower buttons. He hoped that they’d still be in time to rescue Gem. He checked the Time Tracker: five LEDs were lit now. They must be getting closer.
The lift slowed and opened and they got out. The large space that they entered took them all by surprise.
‘Wow,’ Kat said.
This was more like it. This was what Brandon had expected to see aboard an alien mothership: strangeness; otherworldliness; vats and tubes and fluids and twisted organic shapes. The long room they had entered was like a cross between an art installation and a biology lab. Weird creatures suspended in fluid in glass tanks were arranged in rows on either side of a raised central walkway. The tanks—and the things inside them—increased in size further on down the hall.
‘What are these?’ Brandon said, examining a featherless bird-like creature floating in a thick green gel.
‘Who cares,’ Jason said. ‘We must be getting closer to the centre. Let’s keep going.’
‘They’re moving!’ Kat exclaimed, snapping away with her phone. ‘They must be growing things in these tanks.’
There was a computer console next to one of the tanks. The text on the screen was alien, but the images were unmistakable: planet Earth, slowly rotating, and in another window an animated double helix. ‘This is some kind of … DNA scanner,’ Brandon guessed. ‘Well, I think it is. It would be amazing if they could do that: scan and sequence the genomes of creatures on other planets, and grow their own versions here!’
Jason was halfway down the hall, between two tanks, each containing large animals that twitched and twisted as if they were asleep but dreaming. ‘Guys, come on,’ he urged. ‘This place freaks me out.’
Brandon couldn’t help but agree. The thing in the tank next to Jason looked almost like a carnivorous dinosaur, with a snaking tail and a mouth full of sharp teeth—except that its forearms were too long, too humanoid. These weren’t creatures from Earth … unless they were some kind of hybrid mash-up of different species.
