Black Knight

by Andy Briggs

  But he was slowing as his landing zone came into sharp relief.

  The oil rig.

  “Oh, nuts…” he whimpered.

  Kilometres of descending cable had already coiled over the teetering rig, pushing it further over in the water. From this altitude he could see a small lifeboat bobbing to the side as Lee’s technicians abandoned ship.

  Dev hit the sloping deck with a reverberating clang – and was rebounded at an angle off the edge of the rig and into the cold ocean.

  The mech protected him from the impact with the water, but the weight of the suit was dragging him down. Forced to deactivate the suit, Dev tried to kick to the surface in just his jeans and T-shirt, but he was still being dragged down by the heavy Iron Fist gauntlet. His lungs were burning. With regret, he threw Iron Fist aside and kicked for the surface.

  He broke the water and greedily gulped air. He watched as the oil rig overturned in front of him with a titanic splash. Weighed down by the still-falling cables, he watched the barnacle-encrusted pontoons breach the surface like whales – before disappearing back under the surface.

  And still the cables fell.

  Right on to the lifeboat as Dougal tried to flee the scene of the crime.

  Several miles away, Dev saw the flaming wreckage of Black Knight slam into the ocean, kicking up a colossal mushroom cloud of steam and water.

  After several minutes the last of the cabling stopped splashing down and an uneasy sense of calm returned to the ocean.

  Dev bobbed on the heavy waves and looked around for any sign of rescue…

  School was reopened with the sports hall temporarily repurposed as a dining hall while the previous canteen was being rebuilt. Other than that, nothing much had changed. Nobody seemed any the wiser about the giant space elevator and civilization’s close call with the Stone Age, and, as usual, Dev was being ignored.

  His one ray of light had been the moment he’d seen Lot dump Nathan Fielder in the yard. When she tried to walk away, Nathan had grabbed her arm to stop her. That was a bad mistake. In a graceful move, Lot used his arm as a pivot point and slammed him hard against the ground, where he lay catching his breath and enduring the hyena-like laughter from the rest of the school who had gathered around to watch.

  Life had returned to its default setting of absolute normal.

  They walked back to the Inventory together that afternoon. Dev kept a tactful silence about the Fielder incident. Partly to preserve Lot’s feelings, and partly because he was afraid she’d beat him up.

  “What did the world look like from space?” she asked.

  When Dev had finally been recovered by the Avro and debriefed, Lot had listened with an expression bordering on envy about his adventure on Black Knight. Her parents often took her on extreme sports adventures, and she had parachuted more than once, but Dev had gone beyond all of that. He decided to milk the opportunity for all it was worth.

  “Unbelievable.” He arced his hands through the air. “You could see the curve of the planet, and it felt if you just reached out…” He extended a finger towards her nose. “You could tap any country below.” He tapped her nose and was relieved to see her laugh.

  “You should check it out yourself sometime.”

  “Sure, like I’ll get the chance to do that.”

  “You never know what’s around the corner. Interesting things happen all the time.”

  He caught her looking sidelong at him, and for some reason that made him blush.

  Dev and Lot continued talking about the highs and lows of their recent adventure. Back at the Inventory, Charles Parker attempted to tie up all the loose ends. He had even showed them a small pot of anti-grav paint they had stored in the Inventory. It was the highly valuable mixture that had been applied to Black Knight all those years ago to raise it into orbit, and Charles lamented that the formula had been lost in some Victorian archive. Several drops were enough to lift a chair with Mason sitting on it.

  Eventually, Dev wasn’t sure how, the conversation steered on to Nathan Fielder and his deliciously public humiliation. Lot shrugged, unwilling to divulge too much.

  “So you saw that?” she asked nonchalantly.

  “Yeah. But I’ve seen you beat up fully grown mercenaries. He was hardly a challenge. I just wondered why you did it. He seemed like a nice guy.” Dev winced at such a blatant lie, and in the corner of his eye he could see Lot staring at him. He tried not to pay attention to her.

  “Like I said, he was a jerk. He kept telling me I should stop you guys from offering to walk me home. He knew we spent time together after school. He thought it was a study group.” She shook her head. “He’s an idiot,” she added softly.

  It was all Dev could do to stop himself from cheering loudly. He had been jealous of Dev! At least, in part. That made Dev smile.

  Lot didn’t notice as she stared at her feet. “Besides, I like somebody else.”

  Dev felt a tingle in his stomach and wasn’t sure if he was going to throw up. He was about to ask who, but his mouth felt dry. By the time he composed himself, she moved the conversation on. “That was a crazy thing about Wan-Soo.”

  Both Wade and Charles Parker had been reluctant to discuss the Wan-Soo situation any further. One of them had messed up by allowing a mole into their midst. It was clear that he had been recruited by Lee long before he’d become a professional gamer. That was just a cover story that had taken on a life of its own.

  Lot’s gaze was on the pavement as she continued. “But if he was working for Lee and the Company, that still doesn’t explain how Helix eventually found us at the oil rig. Or even who is running the Company.”

  Dev was still trying to make sense of Wan-Soo’s treachery, and Lot’s comments made him wonder: how had Helix known their location? Could there be a second mole?

  They reached Lot’s house and said their awkward goodbyes. He didn’t know what it was, but the atmosphere between them just wasn’t the same as it used to be, and he wondered if it ever would be.

  “Hey, I was thinking…” Dev nervously wrung his hands. “Do you want to come back to the Inventory? There’s something we still need to do.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips. “I’m not helping you steal any more artefacts.”

  Dev hesitated. “I was thinking of you helping me cross-examine Klaus Tyker and unlock a secret zone to see what’s there.”

  Lot pouted thoughtfully, then gave a casual shrug. “Sure. Whatever. Sounds about normal.” As they walked on to the farm she added, “You know, you’re pretty unique, Dev.”

  Dev decided to take that as a compliment.

  Klaus Tyker had become an unofficial guest in the Inventory as Wade and Charles struggled to decide what to do with him.

  Tyker seemed at ease at the Inventory, even if he spent most of his days in the crew quarters or above ground on the farm. He was never allowed to set foot in the giant display halls. It was all carefully coordinated so he never ran into Charles Parker, who continued to be anxious not to be identified. But since Dev knew Tyker and Liu had spent time together on Black Knight, he assumed that his uncle feared Tyker would recognize him too. And Dev was all too aware that the truth was an unwelcome guest in the Inventory.

  Dev and Lot found Tyker eating in the canteen. Wade had obviously been talking with him as she left, crossing Dev’s path at the door.

  “What’s going to happen with him?” Dev asked.

  Wade looked sadly at Tyker. “Well, we were going to have to erase his memories of all of this. But in his current mental condition, who knows what that will do to him?”

  “You can erase memories?” said Lot incredulously.

  “We do it quite often. Take Eryl Stoker, for example. He’s so much of a loudmouth he’d never keep a secret. We wiped his memory, planted a false one and he woke up thinking that the Osprey had exploded on the launch pad.”

  “Convenient. Have you ever done it to one of us?”

  Wade met Lot’s gaz
e for a moment and smiled. “I can’t remember.” Then she left.

  They sat with Tyker, who was pleased to see them. He had been left out of the official debriefings, so it was the first time he had heard Dev’s story. Dev wasn’t sure if he was supposed to tell him the details, but he no longer cared. He hoped that the descriptions would jog some more of Tyker’s repressed memories.

  Tyker listened in silence, nodding as Dev filled him in on this history of the Company. As he had been with his uncle, Dev had been careful to edit any references to the memories he had experienced, but as he spoke his hand squeezed the TelePath in his pocket.

  When he had finished, Dev leaned back in his chair. “So what do you think?”

  Tyker smiled. “At times it felt as if I was there.”

  Dev drummed his fingers on the table, then exchanged a look with Lot. She gave a slight nod of agreement and Dev turned back to the German. “Would you like to see inside the Inventory?”

  Tyker’s eyes lit up and he nodded, cautiously glancing at the staff spread around him taking a break. He leaned in close, lowering his voice.

  “But your uncle said I was not allowed.”

  Dev leaned closer. “But my uncle’s not here.” He knew that Charles was scheduled to leave with Wade around now to coordinate the search for the Iron Fist gauntlet, which Dev had unfortunately dropped in very deep water. That meant they only had Eema with deal with.

  It was a shame to have to hurry Tyker through the massive Inventory space. He wanted to stop and look at everything, but Dev knew they had a very limited window of opportunity.

  With Lot, they hurried to the Blue Zone. On their way there, he had confided with Lot about the Black Zone. She had initially been annoyed that he had been keeping even more secrets from her, but she soon forgot about that as she drifted deeper into the layers of intrigue.

  They reached the wall where Dev had recalled the door. The chunk of concrete he’d knocked free was still missing.

  “Are you ready for this?”

  Lot nodded. Tyker held up his hand.

  “Forgive me. I am touched by your trust … but I do not understand why you are showing me this.”

  “Because you showed me it first.”

  Dev chuckled to himself when he saw the baffled expressions on their faces. Sliding his fingers in the wall dint where the access panel had once opened the door, he touched the wire and sensed there was still power flowing to it. He let his synaesthesia do its work.

  At first nothing seemed to happen. Then, with a simple thud, the concrete cracked, forming the perfect outline of a door trying to open. He used his gift again, increasing the power. This time the concrete trembled and rolled backwards with a hiss. Once it cleared the wall, the door rumbled aside, revealing a dark portal beyond.

  As if waking from a deep slumber, lights slowly flickered to life, revealing a hexagonal corridor sloping away.

  “The Black Zone,” breathed Dev.

  He led them inside.

  It was cooler in here, and Lot pointed out that it looked rather clean for a supposedly disused area. Their footsteps clanked on the sloping metal floor grating, and it felt as if they were walking down another three or four levels.

  They reached a junction with a corridor branching from the left. Something in Dev’s memory stirred.

  “Which way?” asked Lot, but Dev was already walking down the branching corridor. With a sigh, she followed him.

  The short corridor ended at another door. Dev had seen this before too. He took the TelePath from his pocket and showed it to Lot.

  “This is the last secret, I promise. I kept this – it’s from Professor Liu. You have heard me talk telepathically with it before, but more importantly, it stores memories and allows me to play them back as if I were there myself.”

  “Wow, cool,” said Lot poking it in Dev’s palm.

  “No, not cool. Freaky. They showed me where all this was. I have seen this door before. I assumed they were Professor Liu’s memories that kept messing around with my head. But they’re not.” He handed the TelePath to a startled Tyker. “They’re yours. You have been on Black Knight before. I saw you there, arguing with Liu.”

  Tyler couldn’t find his voice.

  Dev used his gift to unlock the door. It opened with an asthmatic hiss.

  Motion-activated lights switched on as the trio entered a large room. Pipes and cables ran across the ceiling, and wisps of white smoke occasionally seeped from conduits along the walls. The pipes all led to three sets of pods, each the size of a sunbed, that hung in bunches from the ceiling. Each pod resembled a curving capsule with a glass canopy that was obscured by condensation.

  Lot wiped the condensation away from one pod – and jumped, startled to see the face of a woman inside, an assortment of cables and sensors attached to her. She couldn’t tell if the woman was alive or dead, until Lot peered closer and saw the gentle rise and fall of her chest.

  “She’s alive. Why would the Inventory store people?”

  “Cryogenic suspension,” Dev said quietly. “Frozen so they don’t age, don’t die.”

  One of the pods was already open, revealing what looked like a contoured mattress inside and dozens of cables that had been once attached to the occupant. Dev felt uneasy.

  Lot moved in for a closer inspection. There was a small red LED screen to the side which came to life when she tapped it. A name scrolled across the screen.

  “Stephan Ebert. Ring any bells?”

  “Never heard of him,” said Dev. “You?”

  He turned to Tyker who looked pale and was clutching his ear. He regarding Dev with an odd look as he staggered, supporting himself against a pod.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lot.

  Tyker moved his hand away and they could now see he had clipped the TelePath behind his ear.

  “I… I think I remember…” he said in a husky voice. His legs were shaking as he shuffled over to the empty pod and leaned on it for support, slowly running a hand inside. “I was here.”

  “Why?” said Lot.

  “He was part of the main Inventory team, like Professor Liu and my uncle. That’s why my uncle’s avoiding you, isn’t it? He doesn’t want to trigger any memories they may have failed to erase.”

  Lot looked around at the other slumbering cryogenic pods. “But why erase your mind? What did you know that they didn’t want anybody else to find out? For that matter, why freeze you in the first place?”

  Tyker slowly shook his head. “I can still only recall moments … with your uncle…” His eyes widened, “and Liu!” He gasped out loud. “I have been on-board Black Knight!”

  Lot was surprised, but Dev nodded encouragingly. “That’s right. Wade said you were an expert on it.”

  “And I remember a dog. Pippin!” Lot and Dev exchanged a puzzled look, but didn’t want to interrupt his flow of thoughts. “It is like they are slowly seeping back into my brain. I will need time…”

  He stopped and wobbled, clutching his head with one hand and supporting himself against the pod with the other.

  “Are you OK?” asked Lot with concern.

  Tyker looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “My name is Stephan Ebert.” He looked at them in astonishment. “I was born in Prussia in September, 1874.”

  Lot could barely speak. “That’s impossible.”

  Tyker tapped his forehead. “I can see images… It was I who created Black Knight’s EMP… I was an expert on solar flares. The Company employed me. I remember an old man, Sir William…”

  Both Dev and Lot tensed, wondering if they had made a dreadful mistake leading Tyker down here.

  His head snapped up again and his gaze shot to one of two far doors. As if walking in a dream, Tyker approached the left hand door and put his hand against it.

  He turned and looked at Dev. “You need to see what is beyond this.”

  Dev licked his lips and, with an encouraging nod from Lot, approached the door. It was sealed with an alpha-numeric keyp
ad, but the security melted away under his synaesthesia and the door opened to a dark space beyond.

  Tyker laid a hand on Dev’s shoulder before he entered. “Remember when I called you the boy who could not die?”

  Dev nodded.

  “Now I know why.”

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  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2017

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2017

  Text copyright © Andy Briggs, 2017

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  author of this work has been asserted by him.

  eISBN 978 1407 18054 0

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