Escape Velocity

by Mark Walden

  ‘You’re going to pay for this, Trent,’ Nero said coldly, looking his captor straight in the eye.

  ‘Somehow I doubt that,’ Trent said with a grin. ‘In fact I suspect it will be you that is going to be doing all of the suffering for what few short hours remain of your pitiful life. There’s someone who would very much like to talk to you.’ Trent hit a switch on one of the nearby command consoles and one of the wall-sized screens went black. A few moments later the screen filled with a chillingly familiar silhouette.

  ‘Hello, Max,’ Number One said, no hint of emotion in his voice. ‘I see that you have served your purpose well. How does it feel to have acted as bait in the trap?’

  ‘So, you finally have the courage to show yourself, do you?’ Nero said angrily, staring straight back at the shadowy figure on the screen. ‘I thought, perhaps, you might want to stay hidden behind your real allies.’ Nero gestured at Trent and the twins.

  ‘Say what you like, Max, these people have served me more loyally than you have and they shall be rewarded for that. You, however, must be punished for your betrayal, as must all those who have assisted you.’

  ‘You have betrayed us all,’ Darkdoom said, coming to stand alongside Nero. ‘You and your precious Renaissance Initiative. Once the G.L.O.V.E. ruling council learns of your treachery they will turn on you in an instant.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Diabolus; the council will learn exactly what has transpired here today,’ Number One replied. ‘They will learn that a proven traitor colluded with other members of a breakaway faction in an attempt to destroy G.L.O.V.E. Tragically I was not able to stop you before you could carry out your horrifying plan to execute hundreds of children at H.I.V.E., but they can rest assured that I have seen to it that all those responsible have paid the ultimate price for this unspeakable crime.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Nero said, feeling a horrible creeping sense of unease.

  ‘It’s quite simple, Max,’ Number One replied. ‘You see, I had no idea of the lengths that you would go to to destabilise G.L.O.V.E., no inkling that you would do something as despicable as to place a canister of a lethal nerve gas within one of the accommodation blocks of your school that would kill hundreds of your own pupils. Who could have guessed that the great Maximilian Nero would stoop to such depths in a desperate attempt to save his own skin? Tragically I could only stop you after you had already carried out part of your plan, after you had mercilessly ordered the slaughter of the entire Alpha stream at H.I.V.E. It will be a great tragedy, but perhaps with my firm hand on the rudder, G.L.O.V.E. will be able to survive this trauma and rebuild. Don’t worry, Max, I won’t allow your name to be forgotten – quite the opposite. It shall live in infamy for ever.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Darkdoom said quietly, his eyes filling with a dawning horrified understanding of what Number One was going to do.

  ‘No more insane, Darkdoom, than a man who having escaped the punishment that was due for his initial betrayal of G.L.O.V.E. then teamed up with other traitors to carry out a plot that will end with the tragic death of his own son. It’s almost Shakespearean really.’

  ‘Why . . . why would you do this?’ Laura asked, fear in her eyes as she stared at the anonymous man on the giant screen.

  ‘Simple, Miss Brand. The very fact that you and your friends are here points to how much of a liability Nero and his pupils, especially the Alphas, have become. It is time that a line was drawn under this sorry period in G.L.O.V.E.’s history and that H.I.V.E. was reborn in a form of my choosing. I can think of no better punishment for your betrayal than for you all to die knowing that the blood of your classmates, your friends, your family is on your own hands.’

  ‘No one will believe this,’ Nero said, the tension clear in his voice. ‘The council members know me well enough to know that I would not do anything to harm H.I.V.E.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so naive, Max,’ Number One spat. ‘History is written by the victor, you know that. The council will believe whatever I choose to tell them. You will go down in history as a traitor and mass murderer of children and there will be no dissenting voices to contradict that version of events. This is over, Nero. You’ve lost.’

  ‘Very well,’ Nero said angrily. ‘Kill me if you have to, but leave H.I.V.E. out of this. Punish me for whatever it is you think I’ve done, but don’t harm my students.’

  ‘You still don’t understand, do you?’ Number One replied coldly. ‘They’re not your students any more. H.I.V.E. is no longer your school. In fact, I think you should meet the new headmistress.’

  The giant screen split and another familiar face appeared alongside Number One’s silhouette.

  ‘Hello, Max,’ the Contessa said, looking pale and tired.

  ‘I should have killed you when I had the chance,’ Nero said coldly.

  ‘Come now, Nero, you should show a little more respect for your successor,’ Number One said quickly. ‘She has proven to be a far more trustworthy custodian of H.I.V.E. than you ever were. I take it that everything is ready, Contessa?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Contessa replied, staring down at her desk, apparently unable to look Nero in the eye. ‘The package is in position.’

  ‘Excellent. Proceed with the operation immediately,’ Number One instructed. ‘Inform me once the Alpha stream has been eliminated.’

  ‘Understood,’ the Contessa said quietly.

  ‘Maria, don’t do this,’ Nero pleaded. ‘This is madness. You can’t just murder hundreds –’

  ‘I’m sorry, Max,’ the Contessa said quickly, cutting him off, ‘I really am.’

  Her half of the screen went black.

  Otto looked at Nero. Over the past year or so he had seen many different expressions on his face but never the cold, hard fury that burnt in his eyes now. Otto glanced over at his friends. Shelby had her arm around Laura, who was crying quietly, and Wing looked as if he would leap through the screen and snap Number One’s neck with his bare hands if only he could. For his own part Otto had never felt so helpless. He tried not to imagine what was happening at H.I.V.E. at that precise moment. It was too horrible.

  ‘What do you want me to do with these traitors?’ Trent asked, stepping forward.

  ‘Send Nero and the Malpense boy to me. Kill the others. They have outworn their usefulness,’ Number One said with no hint of emotion.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Trent replied. ‘What shall I tell the rest of the Initiative?’

  ‘Tell them that the hour of rebirth is at hand,’ Number One replied calmly, ‘and their loyalty shall soon be rewarded.’

  With that the screen went dark. Trent turned around and pressed a button on the desk next to him. The doors to the room opened and a squad of H.O.P.E. guards walked in.

  ‘Commander, please take Doctor Nero and the boy to the transport embarkation area,’ he instructed. ‘Prepare them for immediate dispatch.’

  The Commander nodded and shoved Otto and Nero roughly towards the exit. Trent watched them leave and then beckoned the twins over to him.

  ‘Please dispose of the others,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Where shall we take them?’ Constance asked Trent, a happy smile on her face as she looked at the prisoners.

  ‘I don’t care, just don’t do it here,’ Trent replied. ‘Take them to one of the storage areas . . . and Constance,’ he said as the twins walked over to the condemned captives.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied.

  ‘Make it quick.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Max, I really am,’ the Contessa said and jabbed at the button to cut communications. She stopped for a moment, staring off into space before sighing and opening her desk drawer. She pulled out a small silver control unit, stood up and walked over to Phalanx One.

  ‘The canister is in position and armed,’ Phalanx One said efficiently. ‘You just have to press the button.’

  The Contessa looked down at the control unit she held and the large red button in its centre. She thought about what would happen when she p
ressed it. She had been assured that it would at least be painless for all of the Alpha students sealed up inside the accommodation block, but that was small comfort now. She looked back up at Phalanx One as a frown appeared on his face.

  ‘No,’ the Contessa whispered, staring at him, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I thought you might say that,’ Phalanx One replied coldly and pulled the pistol from his shoulder holster, pointing it straight at her head. ‘I knew you weren’t strong enough to do what had to be done. Give the trigger to me.’

  The Contessa opened her mouth to speak.

  ‘Not one word,’ Phalanx One snapped. ‘You’re not using your voodoo on me. A single whisper from you and I pull this trigger. Now give me the control.’

  The Contessa stared back at him. She had no doubt that he would kill her but there was no way that she was going to let him murder the entire Alpha stream.

  ‘Have it your way,’ Phalanx One said with a sneer and squeezed the trigger.

  Ms Leon leapt at Phalanx One’s inner thigh, burying every tooth and claw deep into the soft, sensitive flesh. Phalanx One let out a shriek of sheer agony, his pistol firing wildly, just missing the Contessa. He clawed desperately at the cat attached to his leg, gasping in pain through gritted teeth. The Contessa struck quickly, swatting the pistol from his hand and grabbing his head with both hands. She pulled his ear towards her lips and spoke with a thousand whispering voices intertwined with her own.

  ‘Sleep,’ she said, and for a fleeting moment a look of surprise shot across Phalanx One’s face before his eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Ms Leon leapt away from his toppling body and spun to face the Contessa as she walked over to Phalanx One’s fallen pistol.

  ‘Are you going to kill me now?’ Ms Leon said as the Contessa picked up the gun.

  ‘No,’ the Contessa said. ‘I know that you have absolutely no reason to trust me, but right now we have slightly more important things to worry about, starting with how we stop Number One from murdering the entire Alpha stream.’

  The guard shoved Otto hard in the back, sending him staggering across the bustling transport control room towards a heavy steel door. Otto felt numb. All of their efforts had been for nothing and now the plan that he himself had been largely responsible for was going to get his friends killed. He tried not to think about what was happening at H.I.V.E.; it was too much to take in. Number One had snuffed the entire Alpha stream out of existence without a moment’s hesitation. He had always known that G.L.O.V.E.’s leader had a reputation for utter ruthlessness, but until now he had not fully appreciated just how far he was prepared to go. He tried not to imagine what was happening to Wing, Laura and Shelby.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Nero said quietly, shaking his head. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Shut it,’ the H.O.P.E. guard barked and shoved Nero roughly towards the door, which slid open as they approached. On the other side a narrow metal gantry led to a sleek black craft hanging in the middle of an enormous tunnel that curved away into the distance in both directions. There was no visible structure supporting the black ship – it just hovered motionless in the air. Otto glanced at the walls of the tunnel and saw that it was lined with giant electromagnets; he deduced that they must be what was holding the shining black dart aloft.

  The guards ushered Nero and Otto down the gantry and a hatch opened in the glossy skin of the ship. The guards forced them inside, where half a dozen heavily padded seats filled a cramped cabin. One of the guards pushed Otto into a seat and undid his handcuffs. Otto had the briefest moment to rub at his sore wrists before the guard forced his arms down on to the armrests and a pair of metal clamps snapped shut, shackling him to his seat. Otto looked across the narrow aisle at Nero and sighed as the guards filed back out of the cabin, leaving the pair of them alone.

  ‘Do you know why he wants to see us?’ Otto said quietly.

  ‘No, but I suspect that we won’t have to wait long to find out,’ Nero said with a frown. He did not mention that no one had ever met Number One face to face and lived to tell the tale.

  ‘Where does this tunnel go?’ Otto asked.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Nero said honestly. ‘The location of Number One’s headquarters is his best kept secret; no one has ever been able to track him down.’

  ‘Do you think he really did what he said he did to the other Alphas?’ Otto asked, fearing that he already knew the answer to that particular question.

  ‘Yes,’ Nero said, staring at the floor, a look of terrible sadness on his face. ‘You need to understand, Otto, if I get the chance, even if it costs us both our lives, I’m going to kill him.’

  ‘If you don’t, I will,’ Otto said calmly.

  Behind them the hatch slid shut and the cabin was filled with a deep mechanical thrumming sound. The gantry slid back from the craft and into the wall. Inside the transport control room there was a frantic bustle of activity as H.O.P.E. technicians made their final preparations for launch. Technicians yelled status reports from their workstations all over the room.

  ‘Induction coils online!’

  ‘Payload inertial damping and artificial gravity systems active!’

  ‘We are at go/no-go for launch!’

  The chief technician scanned the system readouts in front of him and flipped open the plastic cover on a large red button.

  ‘I show green across the board,’ he said efficiently. ‘We are go for launch in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . launch.’

  The technician hit the large red button and inside the tunnel the polished black craft began to move forwards on a cushion of electromagnetic fields. As it passed the next giant ring of electromagnets they pulsed in sequence, accelerating the craft. The rings started to fly by faster and faster as each one fired in perfect synchronisation, pushing the ship along the tunnel with ever increasing speed. The rings became a blur as the craft rocketed along the curved tunnel, faster than a bullet now.

  Inside the control room the chief technician checked the telemetry from the tunnel. Everything seemed fine; the payload had been slightly heavier than he was expecting but otherwise all of the readouts were in the green.

  ‘Escape velocity in thirty seconds,’ another technician behind him reported. ‘Inertial damping system operating within acceptable parameters.’

  It was a good job it was, the chief technician thought to himself, or Nero and the boy would be a thin red paste spread all over the rear wall of the cabin. The g-forces at the speed they were now travelling would be instantly lethal.

  ‘Launch hatch open!’

  ‘Escape velocity achieved. Switching to launch track! Go for trans-orbital injection!’

  Far above them a section of the mountainside slid back and a tiny black dart shot from the dark hole in the sheer rock face, rocketing into the dawn sky fast enough to break the hold of the Earth’s gravity.

  ‘Wake up, Commander,’ the Contessa breathed in Phalanx One’s ear, sinister whispers filling her voice.

  Phalanx One awoke to find himself taped firmly to the chair behind the Contessa’s desk.

  ‘Number One will have your heart for this,’ he spat angrily.

  ‘Haven’t you heard, Commander?’ the Contessa said with a vicious smile. ‘I haven’t got one. Now read this.’

  She slid a sheet of paper in front of him and despite fighting her instruction with every fibre of his being he heard himself begin to read the words written there.

  ‘This is Phalanx One to all Phalanx units,’ he said with unspoken fury in his eyes, ‘report to the grappler training cavern immediately. This is a level one emergency. Repeat, all units are to report to the grappler training cavern immediately.’

  The Contessa pressed a button on the communications console on her desk and smiled.

  ‘Thank you, Commander, you’ve been a great help. Now why don’t you just go back to sleep.’

  The last thing Phalanx One saw as he fell unconscio
us was the Contessa and Ms Leon hurrying out of the room.

  Colonel Francisco watched as the last of the twenty or so Phalanx operatives filed into the cavern.

  ‘Is that all of them?’ Chief Lewis’s voice whispered in his earpiece.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s it,’ the Colonel whispered into his throat mic.

  ‘Can we trust her?’ the Chief asked.

  ‘No, but we don’t have any other choice at this point,’ the Colonel said quietly. He didn’t like this plan – he didn’t like it at all. Ms Leon had called him just a few minutes earlier to explain what she had planned and at first he had thought she had lost her mind. On the other hand he also knew that they would not get another gold-plated opportunity like this.

  Right on cue, the Contessa walked into the cavern and the Phalanx operatives turned to face her.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ the Contessa said. ‘Is everybody here?’

  ‘Yes, Contessa,’ one of the Phalanx men replied. ‘But where’s the Commander? If this is a level one emergency he should be here.’

  ‘I’m afraid that the Commander has been unavoidably detained. You see, there have been some unexpected developments . . .’

  ‘Go!’ Francisco whispered quickly; that was their cue.

  Behind the distracted Phalanx operatives, Francisco, Chief Lewis and a dozen H.I.V.E. security guards descended silently on their grappler lines from their hiding places among the suspended concrete obstacles. They levelled their Sleepers at the backs of the unsuspecting men.

  ‘Now!’ Francisco yelled and they all opened fire.

  A couple of the Phalanx men with really good reaction times almost managed to draw their weapons as the cavern was filled with the relentless zap of Sleeper fire. Moments later the entire Phalanx team lay unconscious.

  Francisco swung on to the platform and reeled in his grappler line. He bent down and picked up one of the fallen men’s pistols and pointed it straight at the Contessa.