by Sean Cullen
The defence secretary, one of the most powerful men in the government of the most powerful country in the world, swallowed hard. He wasn’t used to being called to account, especially in his own bailiwick.18 He looked down the long table, casting his eye over the generals, admirals, and colonels who were his advisers and who studiously avoided his gaze. At last, he gulped and cleared his throat. “Of course, we have been thorough but we have not tracked an object of the configuration you described, Mr. Candy. All our assets are being focused on the task but so far … nothing.”
The Situation Room in the basement of the White House in Washington, D.C., is usually a very busy, noisy place. Today, it was tensely quiet. The sound of computers humming and the faint purr of phones served to underline the silence as Mr. Candy and Mr. Sweet stood at the end of the long table, tall and cadaverous as they stared down the collected commanders of the United States Armed Forces. On any given day these men and women could decide the fate of the world, move nations, command vast numbers of troops and a massive arsenal. Today they fidgeted like schoolchildren under the gaze of the mysterious Grey Agents.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” Mr. Sweet said, cocking his head to the side. “We have been of considerable assistance to the government of the United States over the years, providing our boundless mechanical and electronic expertise in return for your … cooperation. Now, at last, we need you to perform one simple task using the technology we have greatly assisted in providing. And you can’t seem to give us any satisfaction.”
One of the younger generals, new to the job and appalled by the intrusion of these strange men into the hallowed corridors of power, decided that he’d heard quite enough. He stood up and faced Mr. Sweet. “Who the blazes do you think you are?” Everyone around the table collectively gasped.
“John!” the defence secretary snapped. “Sit down.”
The young general would not be stopped. “I’m ashamed of you all.” He looked around the table at the sheepish faces of the general staff. He turned back to the agents. “You can’t just waltz in here and start making demands of the American military. This is a democracy! We don’t answer to anyone but the American president, and he answers to the American people.”
Mr. Sweet turned to face the young general. “What a quaint little speech. You, sir, do not know the truth of things. The ODA has provided many services for which the American government can never possibly repay us. In turn, we may use your resources as we see fit. Your president won his office using money from our coffers and he answers to us. These men are ours to command as we wish.”
The young general’s face reddened. “I won’t stand for it! Do you hear me? I’m going to tell the world.”
Mr. Candy stepped in close to the young military man. He said softly, “You will tell no one anything.” Fast as a striking snake, he whipped off his glove and pressed his open palm to the man’s face. “And you needn’t stand.” From the grey, clammy palm of the agent’s bare hand millions of wormlike filaments sprouted and burrowed into the flesh of the general’s face. The man screamed briefly and then went silent. His entire body went rigid, and as if a switch had been flipped, he slumped back into his chair. Mr. Candy removed his hand from the man’s face.
Where the general’s eyes had once held intelligence and emotion, they now stared blankly at the ceiling. Drool slid from the corner of his mouth to collect on the lapel of his uniform. The faces of his colleagues around the table were frozen in shock and horror.
Mr. Candy replaced his glove. The agents looked around the table at the fear they had inspired. They nodded in unison.
“Well, then,” Mr. Sweet said briskly. “We require results.”
“You may contact us through the normal channels,” Mr. Candy added, and the two agents strode from the room, leaving silence in their wake.
“I hate those guys,” the defence secretary snarled when he was sure the agents were well out of range.
“Guh,” the general barked. A rear admiral seated to his left used her handkerchief to wipe the drool from his chin.
“Get him out of here,” the secretary said. “What am I going to tell the president?”
THE BLACK ODA HELICOPTER lifted off from the White House lawn and swung out over the Potomac. Mr. Candy aimed the craft north and they set off for Providence, Rhode Island, and the Orphan Disposal Agency Headquarters.
“This is a very disturbing development, Mr. Candy.”
“Indeed, Mr. Sweet. Indeed.” The two agents flew on in silence as the midday sun struggled unsuccessfully to force its way through the heavy clouds. The windscreen of the helicopter was streaming with rain.
Their trip back from Windcity had been arduous and humiliating. The ODA had exerted its influence over the Canadian government to divert a military jet to the remote location and extract the bedraggled agents. After a long flight, they were met at the Theodore Francis Green Airport that served Providence.
A limousine, driven by a junior agent named Miss Taffy, had met them on the runway and whisked them back to the little house on Angell Street that served as headquarters for the sinister ODA. After donning fresh clothing and undergoing a thorough diagnostic treatment, the search for Hamish X and his companions began in earnest, culminating in the fruitless trip to the White House.
The agents were quite annoyed (or at least as annoyed as they could ever be, which was only slightly by our standards). Hamish X seemed to have completely disappeared. “Shall we contact headquarters and see if any progress has been made?”
“Indeed, Mr. Sweet.” Mr. Candy tapped a button on the control console. “Mother?” Mr. Candy addressed the empty air.
A faint glow flared in the space between the agents, hovering a few centimetres above the console. A cool, feminine voice filled the cockpit. “Mother is listening. What can Mother do for you?”
“Has there been any progress in determining the location of Hamish X?” Mr. Sweet demanded.
“None. I have been searching databases and coordinating with NATO, the Russians, and the Chinese. They have been very cooperative.”
“They should be,” Mr. Candy said. “They know better than to cross us.”
“Still, utilizing all their detection systems, I am unable to contact his locator beacon.”
“It must have been disabled in the Electromagnetic Pulse blast. The one called Parveen is quite clever. I would greatly enjoy dismantling his mind,” Mr. Sweet said, as if a mind were a wind-up toy or a clock radio.19
“Mother, give me a map of the world with Windcity as the focal point.”
Instantly, the hovering glow altered itself into a globe, tiny and intricate. The globe spun until a red dot blinked to show the location of Windcity. Landmasses and oceans were illustrated in three-dimensional detail. Mountains, valleys, rivers, and oceans were startlingly clear.
“Excellent. We must assume the children are travelling by zeppelin. Given the speed of the zeppelin from existing data, represent the possible distance traversed by the fugitives up to this point.” A green circle centred on Windcity appeared. The area of the circle covered roughly half the surface of the earth. “Mr. Sweet, I had no idea an airship could cover so much ground in such a short time. This doesn’t really narrow down our search parameters.”
“No, Mr. Candy. We must have more information.” Mr. Sweet thought for a moment, his head cocked to the side. “Mother, have there been any reported sightings of unidentified craft matching the description of the pirate airship?”
“Checking … Three hundred reports of unidentified craft. None with specific reference to airships.”
“This is getting us nowhere, Mr. Candy. The number of possible locations is too great. I believe we must initiate a remote reboot.”
“But, Mr. Sweet, Hamish X will be outside our control when he is restarted. His brain functions may be impaired. We don’t know how he will react. He may do damage to himself. The results might be catastrophic.”
“Nonetheless, the asset must be ret
urned immediately and the only way we can retrieve it is to find it. The integration is approaching. We must restart the unit. The locator beacon will tell us where he is. It was for situations like this, when he is beyond our direct control, that we embedded the remote Mother program in his mind. The voice will prompt him to return to us. As soon as we know where he is, we will move with all speed and force to retrieve the asset. There is no other way.”
The only sound was the thrupping of the rotor blades above as the Grey Agents pondered their decision. Finally, Mr. Candy ducked his head once in agreement. “Mother, initiate remote restart sequence.”
Chapter 4
Mrs. Francis couldn’t sleep. She lay on her bunk and stared up at the wooden planking of the ceiling. Whenever she closed her eyes, images of the attack on Windcity filled her tired mind. She imagined the bird machines approaching out of the darkness, spraying fire over the airship.
“Oh, these children. I must keep them safe somehow,” she whispered to the darkness. With a heavy sigh, she gave up trying to sleep and sat up, twisting the knob on the bedside light. Blinking in the sudden glare, she swung her plump legs over the side of the bunk and slipped her feet into the fuzzy pink slippers that were her favourite. They were a little worse for wear after the stint in the pirates’ custody and the escape from Windcity, but they were still serviceable. Wrapping her pink dressing gown around her chubby body, she stepped out the door.
The corridor was deserted. All the children were sleeping in their bunks, snug and warm. Mrs. Francis had made sure of that, soothing and whispering reassurances to frightened toddlers. She loved them all as if they were her own children. She dreaded the thought of anything happening to any one of them. Taking special care to make no noise, she crept down the corridor, pausing at each open hatch to look in and make sure each child was asleep.
After the last cabin was checked, she stepped into the galley20 to find Mr. Kipling slumped at the table, a cold cup of tea at his elbow and his chin resting on his fist. He snored softly. Mrs. Francis went to him and kissed him gently on the forehead. He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“Just resting my eyes.”
“Of course, dear.” She wrapped her little arms around his bony shoulders and squeezed.
He winced. “Ribs are still a little tender, dear.”
“Sorry.” She released him.
“Not at all.” He looked at his watch. “Why are you prowling about at this hour? Are the children all right?”
“There’s nothing wrong. The children are fine. I just couldn’t sleep. My mind won’t stop. I’m so worried about Hamish X. And the children. And … Oh I’m just worried about everything!” She raised her hands to her face and began to sob.
Mr. Kipling took her hand and squeezed it in his own. “You mustn’t cry, dear. It makes me extremely anxious. We all need you to be strong.” He offered her a handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose loudly.
“I know. I just get so worried sometimes.”
“I understand. I do too. But things will be all right. You’ll see.”
“Where are Parveen and Mimi?”
“Outside keeping a watch.”
“I’ll make some fresh tea.”
“Lovely, dear.” Kipling smiled a rare smile. “Excellent idea.”
MIMI AND PARVEEN sat on the ramp in the cool evening air. The moon was a sliver in the sky, casting only a faint light. Mimi stared up into the sky while Parveen read the airship’s engine manual with the aid of a small flashlight, making notes in the margin with his pencil.
“Never seen so many stars.”
Parveen glanced up for a second. “Less smog. Higher altitude. Lack of light pollution.”
“Whatever. It’s just nice is all.” Mimi was quiet for a moment. “What if nobody comes?”
Parveen didn’t look up from his reading. “They’ll come.”
“Yeah, but what if they doesn’t? What’ll we do then? We ain’t got nowhere to go.”
Parveen lowered his book and turned the flashlight on Mimi’s face. She blinked and blocked the beam with her outstretched hand.
“Mimi, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. The world is extremely large. We will find somewhere to hide. Why don’t you find something to do and let me read this manual?”
He turned the beam back onto his book, put the pencil back behind his ear, and continued to read. Mimi frowned. “That ain’t what you do with a flashlight on a dark night when yer campin’.” She suddenly reached out and grabbed the flashlight and held it below her chin. Her face was outlined eerily. “It’s time for a ghost story.”
“Give me back my flashlight, please.”
“C’mon, Mr. Bookworm. Just one scary story.”
Parveen sighed and crossed his arms. “Fine. Although I must tell you, I do not believe in ghosts or the supernatural. I believe all phenomena will one day be explained by science.”
“Wow, that sounds like a lot o’ fun. In the meantime, I’ll tell ya a great story about the man with a hook fer a head …”
Parveen sighed again. “This seems already implausible to me.”
Mimi ignored him and began her story.
“It were a dark night, sumthin’ similar to tonight, in fact. There weren’t no moon and two young kids, we’ll call ’em Parveen and Mimi just fer simplicity’s sake. Anyway, they was out walkin’ in the woods and they was lost …”
“Did they have a flashlight?”
“No, they got caught unawares and din’t know they would need one,” Mimi said.
“Why would we go out walking in the woods on a moonless night with no light source?”
“It’s just a story.”
“I find it unlikely that I would venture out on such a trek without even pausing to make sure I would be able to see adequately.”
“All right! All right!” Mimi rolled her eyes. “Fine. We got a flashlight. Happy?”
“Not happy; it merely seems more likely.”
“Whatever. Mimi and Parveen out in the woods. They’re walkin’ along and they’re lost. They can’t see a thing—”
“I thought we had a—”
“The batteries wore out! We’re walkin’ along and we hear a sound like somebody is followin’ us, but every time we stop … it stops.”
Mimi took on a serious expression and pushed up imaginary glasses. “‘Maybe it’s an echo of some description. Or perhaps these woods are haunted.’” It was a quite passable impersonation of Parveen.
“That doesn’t really sound like me.”
“I think it does.”
“Well, I would never say that.”
“Quiet,” Mimi snapped. “And Mimi says, ‘Yeah, they’re haunted all right: by the ghost o’ that guy who killed people with a big hook. He eventually got his head chopped off by an angry lumberjack but now he wanders these woods lookin’ fer his lost head. He’s got a hook on his shoulders where his head used ta be.’”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Quiet. My story! Get it? Okay, anyway … Parveen says, ‘Oh Mimi, I am experiencing such fear. Please protect me.’”
“Oh, this is completely unendurable …”
“‘Don’t worry, Parveen. I’ll pretect ya.’ Just then, they heard a twig snap …”
“Ridiculous.”
Out in the night an owl hooted, causing them both to jump.
Mimi crowed and pointed at Parveen. “See! Ya are scared! Ha!”
“Not in the least.”
HAMISH X DREAMED.
Bright lights shone down, burning through his closed eyelids. He moaned. Voices spoke nearby.
“He’s stirring,” Mr. Candy’s voice announced. “Increase the dose of sedative.”
“It’s already dangerously high.” The Professor sounded worried. “We don’t want to lose another one.”
“There are more boys where this one came from,” said Mr. Sweet. “Increase the dosage, Professor.”
A shuddering sigh. “As you wish.”
/> Hamish felt the pain lessen slightly, fading to a throbbing ache that emanated from his legs.
“Excellent. Now apply the interface units, Professor. Then the process is complete.”
“As you wish,” the Professor said again, sounding resigned. “Applying now.”
There was a pause, then a strange sensation: a cool, slick substance surrounded Hamish’s feet. He murmured softly.
“The interface units are in place.”
“Excellent. Activate.”
“Mr. Sweet, shouldn’t we wait until I’ve run more tests—” the Professor began.
“Do as you’re told, Professor. Consider this the only test you will have the opportunity to run.”
“But—”
“Remember your dear mother, Professor.”
“Activating.”
The cool sensation surrounding his feet and shins suddenly bloomed into white-hot pain. The sensation was bizarre and horrible—as if hundreds, thousands of tiny worms with heads as sharp as pins were burrowing into his flesh. He screamed and opened his eyes, staring down at his feet. They were encased in huge black boots, slick and shiny in the white light beaming down over the operating table where he lay. Two men in grey surgical gowns stood on either side of the table. In place of eyes, black goggles glittered in the harsh light. Between them stood the Professor, his eyes watery, swimming behind thick glasses. The Professor held a small black box in his hands.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Hamish whimpered. “Why?”
“Why?” Mr. Sweet tilted his head and looked at the boy on the table. “Why? The world is going to change and you are the instrument, the conduit, and the key! As to why you? Just unlucky I guess.”
“Dear God,” the Professor whispered.
The grey men looked at each other. “Hamish X,” one of them said. The other nodded. “The tenth time’s the charm.” The man reached out, extending a disturbingly long finger, and pressed a button on the Professor’s black box. The pain in Hamish’s legs increased.
