Colour Coded: The Black Bullet

by Katy Jordan

  “How long?”

  “Ten minutes tops. You want me in there?”

  “It might be our last choice,” Bullet confirmed.

  “I’ll get on it,” Gecko replied, and left for his quarters.

  Bullet looked at Sparrow, who was unusually quiet and studying his tablet intently.

  She watched him suspiciously, before turning her attention to the monitor with Sparrow’s live drone footage, looking to see what he was examining so closely.

  She noticed two vans had arrived, and something was being offloaded to Prismatic, but they couldn’t see properly.

  “Can you move the drone, Sparrow?” Bullet requested.

  “I’ve tried every angle, it’s either blocked by the building or by the van doors. I can’t see properly without attracting attention.”

  “There’s a crap heap of people taking part in the delivery,” Youth acknowledged.

  “Or the pick-up,” Sparrow offered, catching their attention, “I wasn’t exaggerating, I can’t see what it is they’re handling, nor if they’re loading or unloading the vans.”

  “Bullet, Jack’s heading outside with Neon!” Youth expressed in a frenzy.

  Bullet’s head snapped towards Jack’s camera footage, showing him behind Neon climbing stairs and heading outside.

  Sparrow came over to join them in watching.

  “Jack, I know things haven’t gone to plan, but please try and get a look into those vans and see what’s going on,” Bullet reached out to Jack.

  Jack quite clearly wandered away from Neon towards the busy people at the vans. His camera turned suddenly, showing Neon waving him away from the commotion, agitation written all over his face.

  “Oh, sorry, I assumed this is what we were coming out to deal with,” they heard Jack shout to Neon as he turned away from the vans to continue following him.

  As Jack turned, Sparrow clocked something.

  “Youth! Screengrab!”

  It seemed as though Youth just smacked the keyboard, and a picture loaded on the fifth monitor.

  “Zoom in there,”

  Youth followed his lead and closed in.

  They stared in horror and confusion at what they saw.

  “Is that… blocks of cocaine?” Youth asked.

  “That’s what it looks like to me,” Sparrow agreed.

  “Well, I hope that’s what it is,” Bullet added.

  Sparrow and Youth looked at each other perplexedly before turning to Bullet for elaboration.

  She met their lost gaze.

  “Either that, or it’s C4,”

  They all looked back to the screen grab.

  “That would be a worrying amount of C4…” Youth whispered in horror, his eyes wide like an owl.

  “Uhh… Bullet,” Sparrow said, breaking the silence, “you might wanna look at Jack’s camera.”

  Bullet turned her attention to Jack’s footage, which was lying sideways against the gravel land with black shoes facing it. The feet turn and walk away, leaving the view of a cigarette butt and some bushes.

  “Jack?”

  Bullet closed her eyes, praying for an answer.

  “JACK?”

  “Did you guys hear anything? I didn’t hear him go down,” Sparrow asked.

  “JACK!”

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing,” Youth replied.

  “Goddammit, Jack! Answer me!” Bullet screamed.

  The silence was unbearable.

  Soul destroying.

  Endless.

  “How the hell did we miss this?” she roared.

  “We were looking at the vans, Bullet!” Youth defended.

  “There’s three of us! Did it really take three of us to watch one monitor?”

  “Bullet?”

  “For God’s sake, Jack’s hurt!”

  “Bullet.”

  “WHAT?” she yelled, spinning round putting her face in Sparrow’s, who merely looked terrified.

  “Umm… that wasn’t me, love,” he quivered.

  “Bullet! Are you there?”

  “Jack? Jack, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. This is the first chance I got alone.”

  “Dude, why did you take your jacket off?” Youth asked. “We have no way of keeping tabs on you.”

  “More importantly… why the fuck did you say the Black Bullet was missing?” Sparrow growled through the radio.

  “Something occurred to me when I was in there,” Jack explained, “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t the plan, and I can’t go into a lot of detail right now; he’ll be back any minute.”

  “What’s happening right now?” Bullet probed.

  “He asked me to fix his electrical system. He’s been working on an underground bunker for months, and it’s ready now. But, they’re struggling with the electrical supply. I didn’t even think, I took my jacket off, sorry.”

  Bullet sighed with relief.

  “A bunker?” Youth turned to Bullet.

  “Sounding a lot more like C4 now, isn’t it?” she replied. “Jack, was that C4 they were loading on to that van?”

  “Opposite,” Jack replied, “it was C4 he was having delivered. I don’t know why yet.”

  “Shit. Keep us in the loop, man,” said Sparrow, “and put your jacket back on!”

  Jack’s camera started to move and thrash around while he put his jacket on. As Gecko came back into the room in his newly made Prismatic uniform.

  “So, he’s okay, then?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” said Youth.

  “Still want me in there?”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Bullet replied.

  “Sure thing. I’ll go grab Rocket to take me there,” he said, as he left once more, for a time frame unknown to everyone.

  The whole time, Jack has been audibly grunting and moaning, using colourful vocabulary trying to work out the wiring.

  “Having fun there, Jack?” Sparrow mocked.

  “Yeahhh… this sure is an old building. I don’t think this power box has been touched for years,” he replied. “How old is this warehouse?”

  Youth started tapping on the keyboard and within seconds loaded up articles with information.

  “The warehouse was built in 1919 for agricultural purposes; the company sold farming goods and so on. They were shut down during the Second World War due to rations, and the warehouse was then used for manufacturing bullets and other ammunition. It then moved on to be a warehouse for retailers in 1946, before it was condemned and shut down in 1968. So, yeah… old building,” Youth explained.

  “Wow… it was a rhetorical question. But, thanks,” Jack chuckled.

  “Jack, Gecko is on his way to back you up, he’s going to blend in wearing the uniform they all have,” Bullet informed him.

  “Thank God. I don’t think I can do this on my own. I gotta quit talking, he’s coming back.”

  Jack turned around to see Neon approaching him.

  “Well, can you do it?” Neon asked him.

  “Yeah, getting an electricity supply to the bunker shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just going to take me a while.”

  “How long?”

  “A month. At least. The wiring for the warehouse itself is old, it needs renewed before I can do anything with the bunker.”

  Neon started to pace, looking anxious.

  “Is there a problem?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, I need it done in a couple weeks. Can you not just cable up the bunker and leave rewiring the warehouse?”

  “Well, I suppose, yeah, but if I do that, the wiring of the warehouse won’t last long.”

  “That’s fine, doesn’t matter. Just make sure I have a supply in the bunker,” Neon walked away from him towards the delivery-taking place.

  “So, you’re not bothered about the warehouse anymore, then? The bunker should be my main priority?” Jack shouted after him.

  “Spot on, Jacky boy!” he replied without turning around.

  Jack began re-jigging all the cables and puttin
g the panel back on the electricity unit.

  “Well, sounds to me like he’s planning on blowing up that warehouse and keeping himself safe,” Jack uttered, continuing to fiddle with the electric panel.

  “Yeah, me too, but… why build a bunker? Why not just go somewhere else entirely?” Bullet pondered.

  “I don’t know, hopefully I’ll know more soon. I’m gonna head back to my room soon so we can talk better then.”

  Jack started heading back towards the warehouse but went through the delivery entrance instead.

  He walked in amongst stacks of C4.

  “Are you guys seeing this?” Jack muttered, as one of the van doors slammed shut, causing him to turn and look. The other van was being loaded, also with C4. “What the hell?”

  “He’s unloading from one van and loading into another?” Youth questioned.

  “I have no idea,” Bullet admitted.

  Jack quickly turned and navigated his way through the corridors, hallways and doors, until he reached his room.

  The room was small, a dark shade of green, navy blue carpet, a metal-framed single bed still made, his case at the bottom sat in the corner. On the wall at the bottom of the bed, hung a mirror. Jack stood in front of the mirror, knowing everyone would then be able to see him.

  “Jack, before you speak, take out the laser pen and check for bugs,” Youth instructed.

  Scoffing at the fact that he forgot, Jack rummaged in his bag and took out the laser pen, shining it around the room.

  “Remember, things like the clock, the bed, corners of the room,” Youth instructed again.

  Jack pointed the laser everywhere Youth told him to and everywhere else he could think of, but it didn’t turn green.

  He threw it into his bag and flopped down on to the bed, exhausted.

  “They’re doing something with that C4 and then shipping it off. I just can’t think what he’d be doing,” Jack said openly.

  “Jack… explain the cover story. Why’d you change it without telling us?” Bullet asked.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to tell you, because it only occurred to me about two seconds before I said it,” he explained, “but, my thoughts were: if I say you were missing, rather than you’re dead, it gives me a chance to lead him on a wild goose chase, rather than start gunning for the rest of you.”

  Bullet sat back, surprised.

  That was a rather good plan.

  “And it’s just as well, because now it gives us an open opportunity to get Colour Coded in here without him lurking around.”

  “Jack, I’m impressed,” Bullet admitted, “not because you went against your objectives that we gave you, but your reasoning makes a lot of sense. I’ll read in The Spectrum later tonight. Jack… take a load off. Try and get some sleep, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best, Bullet. Can I take my earpiece out?”

  “Sure,” Youth answered, “but keep it on you just in case. We can’t hear you until it’s in your ear anyway.”

  Jack took the earpiece out and dropped it on to the small bedside table before taking off his jacket and folding it on to the floor, making sure to aim the camera towards the door. He shuffled into the small bathroom in the corner of his room and ran the tap, splashing his face with cold water. Something occurred to him.

  He leaned back into the doorway and looked at the time.

  Five past six in the evening.

  It was Friday.

  Neon would be away playing poker with his friends.

  Then again, with everything going on, he might have given up that luxury.

  Although, it was his only vice. Something Neon did to switch off and relax. Jack had no earpiece, no camera, no one to tell him not to go to Neon’s office.

  He dried his face and re-shuffled his jacket to aim the camera elsewhere before leaving the room.

  He tried to remember where the entrance to the bunker was and began taking turns and doors until he jogged his memory.

  And then it hit him: at the back of the loading bay.

  Jack made his way out of the warehouse and walked around the back, knowing there would be less people there, but still kept an eye out for anyone watching him. He opened a side door into the main hall and took a sharp right to the door he was thinking of.

  Jack went down the stairs, making his way along the flame-lit stone corridor until he reached the door at the end.

  Slowly, he wrapped his sweaty palm around the doorknob and twisted but to no avail. It was a good thing he put the knife/ lock-pick in his pocket before he went to see Neon before. He pulled it out of the leg pocket of his canvas trousers, looking behind him cautiously, before beginning to pick the lock.

  “Come on, Jack,” he whispered to himself, “you’ve never done this before, but it doesn’t mean you can’t, there’s a first time for everything so just give it a little wiggle around in there and hope…” he stopped dead when the door unlocked.

  “YES!”

  In a frenzy, he scrambled to his feet and opened the door, forcing it back over the stone floor that it rumbled across earlier.

  The room was pitch black; he couldn’t see a thing.

  Jack went back out to lift a torch from the wall and went back into the office, leaving the door ajar behind him. Hurriedly, he went straight to Neon’s desk and began to rummage. He found papers on the C4 shipments; a man named John Smith.

  Typical.

  Jack took a picture on his phone and put the paper back where he found it. He went through the drawers of his desk.

  The top drawer was stationary stuff, but the second drawer made him freeze.

  A handgun lay in there, alone, with only a clear plastic box of bullets for the company. The bullets were black.

  “The Black Bullet,” Jack breathed to himself.

  He took another picture on his phone and went to the third and last drawer.

  It was a filing cabinet.

  He flicked through the folders looking at the labels and found nothing titled Colour Coded, but he clocked something very odd.

  A folder with the header: “Old Prismatic”.

  He pulled it out, bubbling with curiosity and nerves at the thought of being caught. He opened it.

  And there it was.

  A poly pocket labelled The Black Bullet.

  One for The Red Rocket.

  One for The Fuschia Flare.

  One was missing; there were only three, and there should have been four.

  There was nothing on The Lavender Lab, The Green Gecko, The Silver Sparrow, The Teal Tide or The Yellow Youth.

  Maybe Neon kept them somewhere else?

  Or perhaps he didn’t know anything about them?

  But, who was the fourth member of the original Prismatic? One was definitely missing.

  Without even attempting to read them as a means of boosting his speed, Jack started pulling out all the papers and took pictures of as many as he could.

  Something caused Jack to freeze.

  Noise. The bunker door opened.

  Someone was coming.

  Frantically, Jack stuffed everything back into the poly pockets and threw it into the drawer. He waved the torch around like a maniac trying to put it out, but nothing was working.

  As he darted for the door, he noticed a hook on the wall next to the doorway. He stuffed the torch into it and held himself to the wall behind the door, being as stiff and still as possible. The person about to join him stopped at the entrance, their shadow stretching into the room before them.

  Jack hunched up, trying not to touch the door and give himself away.

  Someone took the same torch Jack had used and walked into the room, shining it around.

  They had on the Prismatic one-piece suit, short black spiky hair, glasses, and a tattoo of the yin yang symbol in a ball of flames on their neck.

  Jack shut his eyes tight and held his head up, the sweat devilishly tickling the side of his face as it trickled from his sideburns and down his neck. The man walked around the
room, holding the torch out far in front of him.

  Jack was now suspicious.

  He didn’t seem to be used to this place. He didn’t seem like he had even been in the bunker before.

  Jack decided to sneak out of his hiding place, slip out quickly and lock him in. Just as he was making his way around the door, a voice had him jump out of his skin.

  “Jack?”

  He slowly turned around to face a very amused Gecko standing in front of him.

  “Aw man, I nearly shat myself.”

  “Didn’t you know I was coming?”

  “Well, yeah, I knew you were coming, but I didn’t think I’d bump into you in Neon’s bunker!” Jack defended.

  “Find anything useful?”

  “No, nothing. I think Neon knows better than to keep his prized possessions in the one place everyone knows he is regularly,” Jack fibbed.

  “Fair enough. Let’s get out of here before someone sees us.”

  Jack didn’t want to lie to him. But, he wanted to find out a little more about the people he was working for before he continued on this endeavour.

  He tried to ask them, but no one said anything.

  Unfortunately, deception was the only way.

  Chapter Seven

  Bullet was sitting in the hospital wing with Flare, Tide and Lab. They were chatting and laughing. It was nice for Bullet to see Flare smile like old times. She had been through a lot.

  Then again, so had Bullet.

  But, Flare was the one she was most concerned with.

  “I think you should just tell us, Lab. Come on, you know you want to,” Tide teased.

  “Oh, blimey… the last boyfriend I had was short and stout, just like yours truly, and he worked for a newsagent.”

  “A newsagent? What a catch! Did he own it?” Tide pried.

  “Nope. He was the paperboy. Used to go out on his bike at five a.m. every morning and deliver the free paper to the village.”

  “Seriously?” Tide scoffed.

  “Yup.”

  “What age was he?” Flare probed further.

  “Well, he was two years older than me at the time so he’ll be… forty-eight, forty-nine now?” Lab admitted, her cheeks going a bright shade of red with embarrassment.

  “Oh, my God!” Tide exclaimed, entering an endless fit of the giggles.

  “Wonder why that ended,” Flare joked.

  “Actually, it ended because of me. I wasn’t ready to settle down with anyone. I didn’t want to string him along,” Lab reflected. “But, you know what, at the end of the day, he did that one thing that made him happy. Like I do now with my beautiful little family.”