by Phil Cocker
casually strolled into the room. “Where is my portable transporter?”
Harrap was carrying a roughly hewn sandwich from the adjacent kitchen area, it’s live contents wriggling frantically, trying to escape before being devoured. He was chewing slowly as he raised his arm and pointed to the far left corner of the room, and looked at the empty computer work station. “But…” He said through a full mouth, spitting particles of sandwich as he looked at the empty desk. Harrap glanced around the others, then to the large slab table in the centre of the room where his teenage human subject had been lying only minutes before. “But…” His eyes darted back around the people and places as his brain worked. “But…”
Eklan marched over, picked up the lead scientist by the throat, thrust him back through the automatic doors and slammed him into the wall at the far side of the corridor. “But nothing.” She fumed. “Your little scientific experiment has gone and woken up, then took my portable transporter and beamed himself off the ship.”
Harrap choked under her grip.
“So, not only did you tell me this morning that he wasn’t the right boy I was looking for, after weeks of tests and waiting for the results of The Original getting to us out here in the far reaches of this desolate universe.” Her nostrils flared out as she breathed, “You then start to do other experiments on him, this…”
Harrap tried to speak, but Eklan’s grip was too strong. His voice came out like a rasping cough.
Eklan dropped him to the floor, hearing her mentor’s voice finally sink in through the red fog of anger “You get few answers from them when they’re dead!”
Harrap coughed a couple of times, spitting the mouthful of sandwich out, as he rubbed his throat. “Sorry Commander, but it’s been difficult getting the information out of the Rexon medical computers to test this Tom boy.
“Tom, yes, Tom.” Eklan repeated sounding like she was trying to use his name as a method of calming herself down as she paced up and down the corridor.
“We were attempting to see how fast the latest set of virus samples would infiltrate the nervous system, but needed the subject to be nearer the normal state of consciousness to get accurate timings. Their dormant state is too slow to judge,” Harrap tried to explain, stopping to move the muscles in his throat for a second, as he attempted to relieve the pain. “And while my team were slowly bringing him out of stasis, I decided we had enough time to go and grab some food.”
Eklan’s pacing up and down the corridor made the doors into the laboratory slide open and close on each pass. Inside, the scientists huddled together, trying to piece together the conversation that was being held outside in the corridor from the rhythmical snippets they heard every time the doors opened.
“And then when I returned.” Harrap continued, “Well, the human was gone, and you were here.”
“Excellent deduction for a scientist, I’m amazed you’re not on the Council with such a keen mind.” Eklan gripped her pointed teeth together and took a long slow breath as she tried to keep more of the venomous sarcasm at bay. “You were supposed to be checking my transporter and servicing it, not letting some worthless human take it for a test flight.”
“I know, I know, but all I did was leave the room for a few seconds, and…” He waved his arm at the opened door.
All the scientists in the laboratory took a half step back as their team leader pointed towards them.
Eklan turned back to Harrap. “YOU are in charge, YOU are the one I gave my transporter to, YOU are the one running these new experiments.” She closed in, taking a step nearer as she made each point, until she was now in his face once again, a finger jammed under his chin. “YOU had better find out where he’s gone.” Eklan gripped his collar and dragged him back into the laboratory.
Everyone stepped as far back as they could, trying to work out which way Eklan would turn next, so that they could be out of her range of anger.
“So, who is your second in command in here?”
Harrap didn’t want to speak, as he knew what would happen, yet as hard as he tried to control his body, his mind gave the command and his eyes glanced sideways to Crough.
That was all it took.
Eklan whipped her gun out and fired once at the unsuspecting scientist. A plastic paintball splattered against his chest. Crough stood shocked, his mouth wide open. It took a few seconds before he realised what had happened, and smiled, looking around his colleagues and letting out a few short laughs, looking at the splatter of paint on his lab coat.
“No, no, no.” Eklan waggled a finger at him. “I wouldn’t be smiling and laughing if I was you.”
Crough looked back down and noticed the paint had changed shape, shrinking and seeping through his clothes. He looked bemused at the change, and opened his lab coat to see where it was going. The paint was now seeping through his shirt, and onto his skin, tickling him. He giggled for a second, before he stopped sharply, a look of horror on his face, no sound being uttered as the shock gripped all the way down to his soul.
A small hole appeared in the centre of his chest, the edges burning and melting as it grew from a tiny point to the size of a golf ball in a few seconds.
Crough leant back against the workstations behind him, a puzzled look on his face. He brought his hand up and touched the edge of the slowly expanding hole, which was now the size of a tennis ball.
“I wouldn’t if I was you.” Eklan glanced over at the melting scientist. “Oops, too late.”
Crough’s fingers dabbed the edge, and he brought them up to his face as they started to burn and melt.
“I did warn you.” Eklan huffed. “As you can see, this new toy fires a small plastic encased blob of liquid, in which there are suspended thousands of microscopic Nano robots.” She glanced at the end of the gun, puffing away the imaginary smoke before holstering it once more. “They sense the heat coming from the nearest body and will quickly source it out, but in doing so, as they get nearer to the warmth, they start to move faster and faster.” She looked over at the now stricken scientist.
The others were also transfixed by the scene, a mixture of disgust and scientific curiosity on their faces as their colleague melted from the centre out.
The nearest took a step away from their colleague.
“Don’t worry, they use the body’s heat to build up their momentum, but they still only have a limited range, so can’t spread to more than one life form at a time, unless you actually make contact with them, but even then, it could be limited to just losing the ends of your fingers.” She waggled hers in the air. “Fascinating don’t you think?” She asked no one in particular. “It’s a wonderful invention from the Council’s military laboratory. It’s a wonderful means of getting those last few answers out of a subject, or a way to make them suffer.”
The hole was now the size of a melon, and Crough’s legs started to buckle and give way. He gripped the worktop for support, but his strength faded as his heart was melted, and he collapsed onto the floor. The glow around the edge of the hole diminished and faded to nothing.
“There, all done.” Eklan turned back to Harrap. “And the same will happen to you and the rest of your colleagues if you don’t get me everything back.” Eklan held her gaze on the frightened Lead scientist for a few seconds before she turned and left.
As the door opened Harrap coughed to clear his throat.
“What?” Eklan stopped in the open doorway.
A thought came to him. “The transporters system was locked, and the only destination on it would be the last one you’d used.”
“So you’re saying he went home?” Eklan let out a laugh. “Excellent.” She continued out of the door, but changed direction to go to the main hangar on the lower deck of her ship.
Watchful Eye
Major Ian Jackson sat in a leather faced desk chair in the front bedroom of number 57 Steelgate Drive. He had a relatively clear view, through the window, and from the bank of monitors t
hat were sat below the window of the target residence. Their viewpoint wasn’t directly opposite Eric Peterson’s house, but it was close enough to be able to see almost all activity in and around the house. They’d set up perimeter cameras in the overgrown cooking apple tree that was in the garden behind Eric’s house, at either the end of the alleyway that ran down the side of Eric’s house, and on the house next door. This gave them sight of almost every point of entry that anyone could use, bar someone tunnelling up from underground, although they had seismic sensors in the midst of their wealth of equipment that would check for just that scenario.
The bedroom and lounge windows had had a special screen fitted on the inside. This allowed full view for anyone on the inside of the house, while creating the illusion of someone living there to any passer-by. A series of cameras and projectors produced an image of curtains being drawn, television reflections, movements in front of room lights, and even a cat would come and sit at the window every so often.
Ian’s phone buzzed as the late Freddie Mercury’s voice started to whisper-sing the first line of the lesser known Queen hit, “I’m the Invisible Man.” He glanced at the caller ID on his standard issue 5 inch screen smart-phone “Excellent, you got my text Sir.” He sat upright in his chair, the automatic response of his 22 years of military discipline. It had been a
