“Yes, principal,” Wilbur said, wanting nothing more than to be released from the awkward conversation. “Right away.”
He turned and keyed his radio, heading back along the red-shot corridor.
•••
Cipher levitated gently eight feet off the ground, her face inches from the glassy black lens of the security camera. Despite the fact that she was staring straight into it, she knew the image it was recording back on the security room’s monitors would be entirely unremarkable – grainy black-and-white feedback of the Institute’s hangar bay, including the long, sleek length of the Blackbird, the school’s S-70 aerial training and rapid response aircraft.
The surveillance cam was Institute-standard – a 960H IC with a 4.6mm lens and thirty-six LEDs for night vision, protected from prying and tampering by an IP66 tempered metal housing and a non-stick glass cover. It was not, however, Alisa-proof.
She reached into it with an invisible hand, solidifying her fingertips and unplugging both the signal and the power cables within their protective coupling. The faint electric current playing through her fingers vanished. Another dead camera.
Phase four had now begun.
She willed herself through the hangar and up into the control blister overlooking the main floor. The systems room was locked, but she’d already phased in and activated the basic controls earlier. She checked the flight coordinator screen before looking down through the blister at the hangar spread out below her. The S-70 sat on its flight platform, sleek and angular, like a black-fledged bird of prey waiting to take flight.
The doors to the east stairwell opened. She triggered the speaker mic and spoke into it.
“The cameras are dead,” she said, her voice ringing out through the hangar below. “I’ve input the remote coordinates you wanted.”
Victor was a shadow, passing between the doors and the S-70. He was still color-shifted, though his rucksack was visible – during the confusion of the alarms Cipher had left it for him at the bottom of the east stairwell. He stopped at the S-70’s cockpit ladder and waved up at her, dropping his chameleon trick. She stayed invisible.
“Hurry,” she urged over the speakers.
Victor scaled the black flank of the aircraft, dropping in through the cockpit’s rear hatch. Cipher saw instrumentation light up within, mirrored by the systems before her. A series of large thumps indicated the automatic activation of the illumination beams around the flight platform, lighting the Blackbird from beneath. The hangar was waking up.
She sat in the primary command chair and pulled on a set of headphones before tapping the transmission stud on the control panel, linking with the S-70’s cockpit. “I’m reading engine capacity at just over thirty percent,” she said into the mic. “Seems she wasn’t recharged after Santo’s trip.”
“It’ll be enough,” Vic’s voice crackled back at her. “Just give me a sec. Still familiarizing myself with the layout.”
She could hear the nervousness in his voice. This was the part of the plan they’d been the most unsure about. Cipher had already completed her basic S-70 flight course, scoring an A+, but Victor had only passed his theory – he still had to take the final test. Back in the dorm he’d claimed he was more than comfortable using the Blackbird as a means of escape, but Cipher had picked up on his uncertainty. She suspected that without the driving imperative to make good his escape and find his father, undertaking a solo flying operation in the dead of night would have been the last thing he’d have agreed to.
“The air route between here and Eastville will be clear for the next hour,” she said, doing her best to reassure him. “You’ll have plenty of time. Just take it steady.”
“Easy for you to say,” Vic replied, his nerves beginning to show through. “Which one’s the ‘on’ switch again?”
Cipher didn’t reply. She assumed he was joking.
•••
Wilbur sat down heavily in the control room chair and let out a long, slow breath. What a night. He looked down at his hands and realized they were both shaking. Grimacing, he planted them flat on the desk, forcing them to be still.
There was going to be hell to pay tomorrow, he could already tell. The principal would be furious, and God only knew how Miss Frost would react when she returned to the Institute. He had no doubt there’d be an inquiry, probably followed by a full security overhaul. The days of quiet nights in the control room ranking up his game scores would soon be a thing of the past.
As he contemplated the night’s chaos and how best to work around his own part in it, he glanced up at the monitor screen. The cams in Lower North were still offline. Whatever that student had done to them, they’d presumably needed more than a system reboot to fix. They weren’t the only displays that had gone blank though. With a horrible sinking feeling, Wilbur realized that another set of four panels – the ones covering the upper hangar bay – had also switched off at some point.
“Seriously?” he snapped and fumbled again for his radio.
•••
“Opening hangar doors,” Cipher said into her headset’s mic, setting to work on the remote eVTOL takeoff protocols. With a steady hydraulic hum, the domed roof of the hangar began to lever back, gradually exposing a cloudless, starry night sky above.
“Automatic copilot is activated,” Vic said. “All systems are go. I think.”
“You’ll be fine,” Cipher reiterated as the dome finished retracting, a perfect sphere of silver-shot darkness yawning now above the Blackbird. She wasn’t sure what else to say – she hated trying to give out this sort of motivation.
“I’ll guide you out for as long as I can,” she said. “You’ve flown to Eastville airfield before though.”
“Once,” Vic said. “OK. Engaging vertical thrust.”
“Thrust engaged,” Cipher confirmed as the monitoring lights on her dashboard lit up. Most of the Blackbird’s systems shared remote links with the control blister’s boards, allowing flight trainers to monitor their pupils. Cipher would be able to act as a virtual copilot, but only as long as she was still in the control blister.
Beneath her the Blackbird began to rise. The reinforced glass that separated her from the hangar thrummed, the pitch of the two F-4A hybrid engines rising to a piercing whine. The glossy, hard black carapace of the aircraft seemed to shimmer, melding with the darkening sky as it climbed vertically up out of the bay.
“Looking good,” she said. Anything more was interrupted by a hard banging sound from the blister’s rear door. She didn’t turn. “Sounds like I’ve got company,” she carried on into the mic. “Doubt I’ll be able to copilot you for much longer. Take a bearing thirty degrees south-east.”
“Open this door!” shouted a voice from beyond the blister’s entrance. “Or we’re breaking it down! You’ve got five seconds.”
“I assume they’ll be taking our communicators,” Cipher said calmly, continuing to ignore the banging. “So don’t worry if you don’t hear from us. Just focus on the data I’ve transferred and go find your dad.”
“Thanks, Ci,” Vic’s voice came back. “I owe you. Gray too. Look after him. Tell Cyclops if he goes too hard on you, he’ll have me to answer to.”
“Will do, lizard boy,” Cipher said, as the control blister door came crashing in behind her.
Chapter Nineteen
The Blackbird was coming in hard, and there wasn’t a whole lot Vic could do about it.
He fought with the controls and tried his best not to worry about the nodes and messages lighting up the cockpit display. Ahead of him Eastville runway was a ladder of lights guiding him through the night and towards the ground.
He was going to overshoot it. That was partly accidental, but also partly by design. As he’d banked towards the small private airstrip, he’d spotted a gaggle of figures, illuminated by flashlights, spilling from the control tower and adjacent building
s towards the runway. Eastville belonged to the Institute and was used to help train students undergoing their flying courses. Vic had flown out of it once before and had hoped that at such a late hour there’d only be a couple of staff on security.
Apparently, that wasn’t the case. Cyclops had clearly gotten the word out. Touch down on the runway and he’d be taken the moment he popped the cockpit hatch.
So Vic was going to overshoot. He’d dragged the flight stick back up, jaw clenched with effort and concentration. The S-70 complained fiercely, the cockpit’s vectoring, altitude and stall warnings blinking and pinging. He didn’t look at them, keeping his eyes fixed on those strip lights as they surged up to meet him with disconcerting speed.
Just a standard emergency landing, he told himself. Absolutely nothing to worry about.
The Blackbird’s extended wheels hit the asphalt. The impact jarred Vic, bouncing him against his seat constraints. He battled to keep his grip on the flight stick. The engines screamed in his ears. The landing strip lights were on either side of him now, whipping past at a furious pace. Up ahead, they came to an end with the runway’s finishing point marked by a timber X barrier. Beyond, it was nothing but darkness.
Vic had no time to savor the irony. He’d extended the flaps, hit the brakes and baffles, and could do nothing now bar hold on and try not to scream. The last landing lights darted past him, and the Blackbird’s sleek nose ploughed into the timber barrier. Vic barely felt the impact as the wood exploded into pieces before he got a split-second impression of a high wire perimeter fence, looking out of the darkness beyond.
The Blackbird slammed into it. The second impact rattled Vic as badly as the initial touchdown. The fence crumpled, scouring the Blackbird’s prow and cracking the cockpit’s visor. The aircraft bounced and rolled as it passed out beyond the landing field’s perimeter, and Vic was convinced it was going to capsize or dash itself to pieces against a boulder or some other immovable object. The Blackbird slowed, and the pitch of its engines dropped as it continued its unsteady deceleration. Vic saw nothing ahead, only the night. He didn’t dare search the airfield through the rear cams.
Finally, the airplane came to a complete stop. Vic gripped the control stick with both hands so tight it hurt. He forced himself to let go, took a deep breath, and killed a flurry of control panel switches. He was down, and he was alive. The Blackbird was even pretty much in one piece. That had to count for something, right?
He unbuckled himself and checked the flight compass, orienting with the direction of the landing. Then he undid the cockpit latch and dropped down onto the ground below.
He landed in long grass, dry and brittle. If memory served open plains surrounded Eastville but the closest highway wasn’t far, just due east.
He turned in the direction the flight compass had pointed and took a moment to steady himself. Since leaving his dorm room in the Institute he’d been operating on sharp wits and adrenaline. Until now he hadn’t stopped to consider what might be waiting for him beyond the Institute, or what he was leaving behind. As far as he knew, no one had defied the principal to this degree before. What would Summers do to Cipher and Gray? Would he have them expelled? If so, how could Vic hope to pay them back for such a sacrifice? The future ahead was as dark and unknowable as the night-shrouded plains surrounding him.
Part of him felt even more determined now that he was out and committed to finding his dad. For the first time since getting back to the Institute he was taking positive action. He just had to hold onto his courage and keep going.
He slipped out from beneath the Blackbird, risking a glance in the direction of the airfield. The landing strip lights and the control tower backlit the crumpled remains of the fence and the ferocious furrows ploughed up by the Blackbird’s landing. Shapes moved indistinctly towards the opening, the illumination of their flashlights oscillating in the dark. Vic caught the sound of shouting voices, growing louder.
It was time to go. He threw his backpack over his shoulders, turned and ran out into the night.
Chapter Twenty
Absolution.
The thought of it brought him deep, mental agony. Why did it elude him? Why was everything he did never enough? Would he ever be worthy of it? Would he ever know peace?
Prophet Xodus attempted to quieten his mind by raising his head and cracking it back down on the cold stone floor. The stab of pain through his skull brought welcome clarity. How dare he demand absolution in this sacred space? One such as he, a worthless wretch, seeking divine forgiveness while the world was still overrun, tainted, infested by mutant filth? The thought made him shiver. He struck his head on the flagstones again.
The second blow brought peace. Something ran from his forehead down the side of his face. He lifted his head again and opened his eyes to find a few droplets of blood falling from his scalp and down to the white slabs beneath him. It looked so red, so vital against the flagstones.
Xodus had been lying spread-eagled on the cold floor since the early morning, letting the ache of the unyielding stone work its way into his bones. It did him good to be back in a consecrated space once more. It felt as though he had been on the road for months, locked in a perpetual crusade across the continent. He welcomed that work, but his soul craved sanctity. It needed absolution, like a man stranded in the desert heat needed water. He hated such weakness, but he could not deny it.
He tensed his outstretched arms, feeling the dull ache that had settled in them. He had lost track of time. His children knew better than to disturb him while he was before the altar. He permitted himself to look up at the graven stone, draped with the black-and-white Standards of Purification. This church, small but gothic, had been surrendered by its priest to the Purifiers several months earlier. Its congregation had been barred and the priest himself ejected – his parish would serve a higher purpose. Now its iconography bore alongside it the cross-and-circle and its arched, vaulted ceiling resounded with the purity oaths of the true faithful. It was one of a dozen such rallying places Xodus had established. In these sanctified houses of training, worship, and mental preparation could be used to further expand the hunt for the unclean.
The sight of the Purifier altar brought him some consolation. Progress had been made. The crusade was reaching farther, cutting deeper, than it had done for many years. And yet, Xodus remained troubled. Like everything, success came with a price. The holy work done by the faithful risked being sullied by their consorting with sin. He had prayed on this troubling matter night and day for weeks, but no answer had been forthcoming. The crusade’s successes would have to be answer enough. The alliance of necessity he had subjected himself to was still the work of the divine, even if the allies in question were less than pure.
He looked back down from the altar. The blood beneath him had spread, running in small, crimson traces along the cracks between the flagstones. The side of his face was wet.
He heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching down the church nave, echoing back from the stonework around them. He fought to suppress a pulse of anger. He had been expecting this.
The footsteps slowed, faltered and stopped at the edge of the chancel where Xodus lay. Silence returned to the church.
“Speak,” he growled.
“My prophet,” said a voice, breathy and nervous. “We have a visitor. I told him to await you in the sacristy.”
Xodus grunted. He didn’t ask who the visitor was. He had been awaiting him for several days now. He closed his eyes, mouthed a swift, silent prayer, and rose.
His body seemed to take a moment to obey him. Joints cracked as he stretched and flexed, working the dullness out of them. In his youth he had lain upon flagstones in penance for a day or more, and still sprung up at the end of it, filled with vigor. He was getting old.
He genuflected towards the altar and turned to glare down at the one who’d dared disturb him. The two white-robed Choris
ters attending him averted their black-masked faces, as did the lowly novitiate who had brought news of the visitor’s arrival. Without taking his eyes off the youth, Xodus held out his hand for the Chorister on his left to pass him a square of white cloth. He raised and clutched it to his brow, catching the blood running down his scarred cheek. The motion brought a fresh pulse of pain to his scalp. He ignored it this time. The pain had nothing more to tell him today. He had duties to perform.
“Return to our visitor,” he ordered the novitiate. “Bid him welcome and lead him to the confessional.”
The Purifier bowed and hurried off. Xodus watched him go before handing the bloody cloth to the Chorister on his left and holding his hand out to the one on his right. The silent, white-clad figure carefully placed Xodus’s golden mask into his fingers. Both attendants then took a step back as the prophet fastened it over his face.
“Clean this,” he ordered them both, pointing at the bloodstain on the floor, before striding past it and down from the chancel.
The confessional boxes awaited, small stalls carved from ash wood, their flanks fashioned into the likeness of soaring cherubim. Xodus stepped into one and turned, having to stoop in the small space. He closed and latched the door before sitting down, waiting in silence.
The creak of the neighboring stall and the sound of a second latch announced the visitor’s arrival. The head-height partition separating the two stalls was removed, leaving just a wooden latticework between Xodus and his guest.
He didn’t look round, continuing to gaze straight ahead.
“You have taken the confessant’s box, rather than the confessor’s,” the visitor said to him from behind the lattice. His voice was smooth like silk, soft as sin. “You wish to confide your wrongs to me, prophet?”
“I am not worthy enough to absolve wrongs,” Xodus pointed out, his mask’s vocalizer changing his voice to a low, electronic growl.
“But I am,” the visitor answered. “So, tell me yours. I have heard… all manner of troubling reports in the past few days.”
First Team Page 14
