‘A benefactor?’
He gave a cold smile. ‘I was hired by a rogue sorceress, who tracked me down to confirm whether the rumours about the “Auckland weapon” were true. Whether it still existed. She wishes to obtain the Red Sky Virus as a sort of insurance. There’s a price on her head from both Teranis and HELIX, and she feels that obtaining such a weapon might buy her some leniency.’
I froze.
A rogue sorceress … a price on her head …
‘The Spider,’ I whispered. ‘You’re talking about the Spider, aren’t you?’
The twitch in Dippy’s face was enough to confirm it. The world seemed to contract around me, the air tightening, my lungs compressing.
I thought of my mother, in the guise of the Spider: blonde hair, crimson lipstick, and a conniving smile. An assassin on the run, always ready with a lie. I imagined her here in New Zealand, wheedling her way into Dippy’s confidence, planting the seeds of betrayal in his mind …
Did Dippy know I was the Spider’s daughter? Surely not. Otherwise he would be trying to win me over, not pointing a torpefier at my face.
‘Is she here?’ I managed, fighting to keep my voice steady. ‘The Spider … is she here on the island?’
‘Of course not,’ Dippy said. ‘She’s not even in New Zealand. She isn’t foolish enough to stay in the same place for too long – not with half the sorcerers in the world trying to hunt her down.’
‘Then how …’ I drew a shaky breath. ‘How are you making the trade?’
‘It’s my job to prepare the virus,’ Dippy said. ‘I have to test it, of course, to ensure it’s working – and devise a means to deploy it against HELIX. In exchange, she’ll pay me enough to leave HELIX behind, and to buy a life of luxury for me and my sister.’
His final words curled into a snarl. ‘After all we’ve given to this organisation, I’d say we’ve earned a nice retirement.’
‘You’re sick!’ I said, unable to stop myself. ‘You can’t think you’ll get away with this. HELIX will send agents after you, and then –’
Dippy gave a cold laugh. ‘Why should I fear a few brainless field agents? A dying man has nothing to fear.’
‘Dying?’ Orbit said, startled.
‘This job killed me decades ago,’ Dippy said, and his face was suddenly bitter. ‘It was Mariner who signed my death warrant. After the Auckland job, he assigned me to inspect the facility where the Inductors had created the vials.’
As he spoke, I remembered what Dragon had told us at HQ. Back in 1984, HELIX had sent a gadgeteer to inspect the Inductors’ laboratory, and to catalogue their experiments.
‘That building was a death trap,’ Dippy hissed. ‘The Inductors had spilt their supply of powders and chemicals, contaminating the air. The lab was laced with sorcerous gasses, toxic leakages, twisted strands of quintessic circuitry …’ He shook his head. ‘My hazmat suit wasn’t anywhere near strong enough for those chemicals. I knew I was a dead man walking. It was only a matter of time.’
Dippy scoffed. ‘Of course, Mariner tried to cast a decontamination circuit on me, but it backfired. All he did was consolidate the toxins in my veins. Why do you think he was so afraid of medical magic?’
I stared at him, mouth dry.
‘Year by year, I have grown weaker. It has been painful. It has taken decades for the worst of the symptoms to show – but finally, those poisons are catching up with me. My body is slowing down. My organs are starting to fail.’ Dippy paused. ‘Eventually, I started stealing quintessence to bolster my strength. At first, it was merely to keep myself alive. Then, as it got easier, it became a method of vengeance.’
Silence.
‘I have perhaps a year left,’ Dippy said. ‘Two, at most. But I fully intend to live those years in wealth and luxury. I deserve a happy ending, don’t I? I’ve earned it. And finally, the organisation that killed me will know how it feels to be poisoned by one of their own.’
Orbit shook his head. ‘It was the Inductors who –’
‘Mariner ordered me into that lab, knowing the dangers!’ Dippy’s voice rose in pitch. ‘He did it on behalf of HELIX, and they called him a hero for it! It was Mariner who killed me, and I had every right to return the favour.’
‘So you killed him,’ I said hoarsely. ‘You killed him, and you made his death look like an accident.’
‘Oh, it was almost too easy,’ Dippy said. ‘A tricky medical circuit, a foolish slip of the fingers … Almost poetic, really.’ He smiled. ‘Did I tell you about my cousin, who works in the medical office at HQ?’
Orbit’s eyes widened. ‘The one who sent you the lab equipment?’
‘Exactly,’ Dippy said. ‘He works as a forensic pathologist and was sent down to investigate. He reported Mariner’s death as an accident and no one even batted an eye. Shows how little they knew the man, really. Mariner was a reckless old fool, but he’d never gamble his life on medical magic – not after the Auckland job.’
‘The pathologist lied?’ Orbit said, horrified. ‘On a death report?’
‘Oh yes,’ Dippy said. ‘Gadgeteers aren’t the only HELIX workers who feel neglected, you know. My dear cousin was very willing to help. In fact, he even stuck around to help us take down Nephrite. Got himself injured, mind you, but family loyalty was enough to keep him quiet.’ Dippy paused. ‘That, and a share in the profit.’
Orbit stepped forward. With a start, I remembered that he still possessed a hidden gadget. The button on his sleeve contained a portable lethargy circuit and fog simulator, but it wouldn’t work unless it was touching Dippy’s skin …
‘Stay back!’ Dippy snapped. ‘One more step and your friend dies!’
Orbit froze.
‘What does the Spider want the virus for?’ I demanded. ‘It can’t protect her from the Inductors! They know she betrayed them, they’re hunting her down …’
‘She wants back in, you fool!’ Dippy said. ‘She’s tired of living on the run. She’s used to a certain lifestyle. Fancy hotels, five-star restaurants … not hiding out in dirty slums and hovels, sleeping with one eye open. And what better way to prove herself than to destroy HELIX once and for all?’
‘She going to use the virus,’ I whispered. ‘She’ll destroy HELIX to show her loyalty to Teranis …’
With a cold smile, Dippy reached into his pocket and produced a tiny mechanical sparrow. It had been painted brown and white, with glass eyes and a realistic flutter in its wings.
‘My deployment mechanism,’ Dippy said, with a hint of pride. ‘My robotic creatures will scurry around the doorways of HQ buildings around the world, carrying the virus in their beaks and claws.’
He didn’t need to elaborate. Any agent who stepped in or out of those buildings would be infected. Soon enough, they would spread the infection to their friends and colleagues. It would mean the deaths of thousands, and the end of HELIX.
My mother would be a hero to the Inductors. Teranis would welcome her back into the fold, and she could resume her lifestyle of power and comfort. The Spider would crawl back into her web, travelling the world to dole out murder and misery …
My hands were shaking. Had I really thought that her good side might win out? My mother had always been a liar. She had always known how to betray, how to manipulate my emotions. I’d been a fool to think otherwise.
Orbit was still quivering, harder than ever. ‘Your sister …’ he whispered. ‘Was she in on it too? Is Pickles a traitor as well?’
‘Traitor?’ Dippy raised an eyebrow. ‘You call us traitors, do you? It’s HELIX who betrayed us. We’re just taking our overdue reward for everything we’ve sacrificed.’
‘But your sister …’
Dippy gave a tight smile. ‘After Mariner’s death, our camp security guard grew suspicious. Sadly, we were forced to dispose of him. Who do you think has been playing his role ever since?’
I closed my eyes. Too late, I realised I had never seen the security guard and Pickles in the same room. They were the
same height, and both had heavy figures. But the guard had been a fabrication this entire time: a false shell to disguise the real traitor.
Piece by piece, the puzzle began to click together. When we’d first arrived at camp, Orbit had told us excitedly about Pickles’ credentials. ‘Pickles is a genius with computer systems. She helped design the HQ security firewalls …’
If she had designed HELIX’s tech security, Pickles would know how to hack the system. She must have deleted Nephrite from the quintessic ID database, leaving her alone and vulnerable.
Pickles knew how to lead, how to socialise, how to run the campsite efficiently. It was easy to picture her planning, and plotting, and scheming. But Dippy was just her ditzy brother, with his head lost in the clouds. I’d underestimated him, again and again, dismissing him as just a silly gadgeteer. Awkward and clumsy, never a threat to anyone …
And that, of course, was his entire point.
Dippy gave me a tight smile, as if he knew what I was thinking. ‘It’s true, I was a bumbling cadet,’ he said. ‘But I outgrew my awkward phase years ago. Still, it was a handy pretence to maintain. If you play the role that folks expect of you, they overlook you. They trust you. They never suspect any guile or trickery.’
His voice sharpened. ‘It’s so easy to overlook us, isn’t it, cadet? But gadgeteers built this organisation, and gadgeteers can break it down.’
‘We don’t work for the prestige!’ Orbit shook his head ferociously, his voice trembling. ‘We do it to help people, to save them. There’s honour in that, regardless of whether it’s rewarded with medals.’
Before Dippy could retort, there was a loud bang on the door. A moment later, the security guard stepped inside. The bearded man looked rumpled, with a nasty gash across his face, and one of his sleeves was torn. He thrust Phoenix and Riff before him, gagged and bound, with a torpefier pressed to Riff’s cheek. Riff was slumping, barely conscious, as if he’d been hit by a lethargy circuit.
Phoenix looked murderous. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. She had tried to fight the guard – but when he had shot down Riff, it had all been over. To save Riff’s life, Phoenix had been forced to surrender.
When she recognised Dippy, her eyes widened in shock. She opened her mouth to cry out in surprise, but the gag muffled her voice. She clenched her fists, straining against her bonds, but the guard pressed his weapon closer to Riff’s skull.
Phoenix stopped struggling.
The guard pulled down his Spectral mask, revealing a familiar face: plump and red-cheeked, with a feminine curve. In place of Pickles’ usual jolly smile, her mouth was a cold line.
‘Good evening, cadets,’ she said.
Dippy sheathed his torpefier. Now that his sister was here, with her weapon pointed at Riff’s skull, he knew he had us under control.
‘Why even bother with the masks?’ I spat. ‘Down in the caves, and here on the island … You couldn’t have known we were watching you.’
‘We weren’t about to take any risks with this assignment, cadet,’ Dippy said. ‘When we realised Nephrite was back in the area, we knew she’d have brought allies. It wasn’t hard to identify you lot, loitering around the camp fences, always plotting and whispering. When I followed you to Mariner’s cottage, I knew you’d un covered his clues.’
He paused. ‘A good gadgeteer is always careful. Careful, and clever. Isn’t that right, Orbit?’ He ran his fingers down his chin. ‘We always follow the safety protocols, and we don’t take unnecessary risks.’
‘And now?’ Orbit whispered.
‘You have seen our faces,’ Dippy said, inclining his head. ‘But now, of course, you will never have a chance to share that information.’
He walked over to the cupboard at the end of the aisle, where HELIX stored mission kits and emergency equipment, and returned with a box full of handcuffs.
Two minutes later, Riff, Phoenix, Orbit and I were all cuffed to the metal legs of the aircraft seats. Orbit had reached for his sleeve button, briefly, when Dippy had come close enough to make skin contact – but with Pickles still aiming at Riff, it had been too risky to try anything. His face was strained with pain now, with a handcuff latched around his bandaged wrist. We were truly out of options.
‘It isn’t too late to back out!’ I blurted. ‘There’s still time to change your minds. You’re trapped here, you know – but if you let us go, and give us the vials, Dragon might show you leniency …’
‘Trapped?’ Pickles raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think so, cadet. Have you missed the part where you’re sitting in an airplane?’
I hesitated, my heartbeat thudding. Right now, the secret of our sabotage was our final, valuable advantage. Yet if Pickles and Dippy knew they were truly trapped here, with no means of escape, perhaps they would reconsider their plan …
‘We trashed your engine,’ Phoenix spat triumphantly, making the decision for me. ‘And we set our boat adrift. You’re stuck here and Dragon will find us! If you had half a brain, you’d let us go and hope she’s feeling generous.’
Dippy’s smirk faded for a moment, but he quickly plastered it back across his face. ‘No matter,’ he said. ‘It will take us some time to repair, no doubt, but no one knows the Chameleon’s engine better than we do. After all, we’re the ones who invented her.’
‘I threw away the synthesiser crystal,’ Orbit said.
Pickles wasn’t fazed. ‘I can craft a replacement,’ she said. ‘I have the necessary equipment here to produce a synthetic crystal.’
‘That will take days!’
‘No matter,’ Dippy said, strolling towards me. ‘We have all the time in the world. No one knows we’re here, do they? We were careful to dispose of Nephrite’s Converator. Dragon will have to search the whole of New Zealand.’
I began to retort, but Dippy yanked a gag around my mouth and tied it tightly at the back of my head, muffling my voice. We couldn’t fight. We couldn’t struggle. If we even tried to yank our hands free, Pickles would fire a nightbead straight into Riff’s head.
And this time, it wouldn’t just be a lethargy circuit.
‘Very good,’ Pickles said, when we were all secure. ‘Of course, the scientific testing process is always easier when the lab rats don’t fight back.’
I stiffened.
Dippy’s smile grew cruel. ‘You didn’t think we’d just let you sit here for days while we fixed the jet, did you? That would be a foolish waste of time. As I see it, you’ve given us the opportunity to run some very important tests. After all, how can we sell the virus to our benefactor without proving first that it works?’
A couple of my friends shouted curses, or tried to cry out, but all they managed was a gargle of incoherent noises through their gags.
Pickles threw her brother an amused look. ‘Of course, sometimes the rats do squeak a bit, don’t they?’
Dippy looked down at us. There was not a single shred of mercy in his gaze.
‘Not for long,’ he said.
Pickles placed a glass canister on an aircraft tray table. It had a sealed lid, but a narrow tube fed through a tiny hole at its top, providing a means to fill the canister. Beside her, Dippy lined up three identical metal cases.
From the first case, he produced a tiny glass vial, filled with shimmering crimson liquid. The Sunset Vial.
Carefully, he injected a needle through the stopper in the top of the vial, and then pressed the plunger to suck out two thirds of the liquid. He injected it into the tube, squirting the liquid into the canister.
‘We’ll keep a small amount of each vial for ourselves, of course,’ he said, placing the Sunset Vial back into its box. ‘Just as an insurance policy, in case the Spider tries to renege on our deal.’
As he spoke, Pickles opened the second case. It contained the vial we had glimpsed in the caves, filled with black liquid. The Midnight Vial.
She repeated the process with the needle and the tube, adding two thirds of the vial’s contents to the canister. Black a
nd red liquid swirled together, mixing slowly. The colours spun and shifted, twisting like a vortex in the canister.
Dippy opened the final case. The Sunrise Vial.
The liquid inside was pure gold, the colour of dawn upon the sea. It glimmered and shone, winking and sparkling, as tiny bubbles popped and fizzed inside the vial. Dippy sucked up two thirds of the liquid with his needle, and added it to the canister. As soon as he was done, he sealed the end of the tube, preventing any vapour from escaping.
Inside the canister, the liquid turned red.
I had half-expected an explosion of light, or bubbles, or an ethereal glow. Instead, all I saw was a curling sea of carmine ink, frothing and rubbing at the edges of the canister, curling and sharpening itself on the glass. It looked alive.
It looked lethal.
With a shaking hand, Dippy held the canister up to the light. ‘We did it!’ he breathed. ‘The Red Sky Virus … we really did it.’
Pickles cast her eyes across the rest of us. She seemed to be making up her mind about something, like a farmer selecting which chicken to slaughter. ‘We can’t waste too much of the virus on tests,’ she said, in a warning tone. ‘The Spider expects a decent quantity.’
‘We only need to use it on one of them,’ Dippy said, still staring in awe at the canister in his hands. ‘The cockpit is airtight, lock one of them in there and pump in a bit of the virus. It’s a perfect quarantine laboratory.’
‘Which one?’ Pickles asked.
‘The boy from the caves,’ Dippy said. ‘When he arrived at camp, I overheard him saying some very disrespectful things about gadgeteers.’ He surveyed Steel’s cowering body. ‘Besides, he was the first one to interfere with our plans. He should be the first to die.’
‘And the others?’ Pickles said.
‘After ten minutes, we’ll send in the next one, to test if it’s contagious. And once they’re both dead, we’ll send in the next one, to ensure the virus can survive in dead hosts …’
Silence.
Dippy cast his eyes across us, one by one. ‘You know, I tried to warn you away. I even painted an X on your cabin door. I followed you to the old fool’s cottage, and tried again to scare you off … but you wouldn’t be deterred.
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