by Mark Walden
The girl’s face fell and she slumped back in her chair, arms folded.
A pretty red-haired girl with a Scottish accent on the opposite side of the table had a question. ‘What’s a stream? You mentioned it just now.’ Otto seemed to remember wanting to ask the same question himself, but he was still feeling oddly confused after speaking to the Contessa.
‘Well, the school is split into different streams that specialise in the teaching and training of certain disciplines. You, for example, are from the Alpha stream, which specialises in leadership and strategy training. There are three other streams within H.I.V.E. – the Henchman stream, the Technical stream and the Political/Financial stream. Many classes are taught to all streams but there are some that are reserved specifically for students from certain groups. All streams are identified by the colouring of their uniforms – black for you, the Alpha students, blue for the henchmen, white for the technical and grey for the political/financial. I know that this may seem a little complicated now, but rest assured that after a few weeks here it will all be second nature to you.’
Another hand went up, this time belonging to a fat blond-haired boy who seemed to wheeze slightly as he spoke.
‘Will we be eating soon?’ he asked, a slight note of desperation in his voice. ‘I feel that I am becoming weaker.’ He had a strong German accent.
The Contessa beamed a smile at him. ‘You must be Heinrich Argentblum’s son, you remind me very much of him when he was your age.’
The boy’s tiny eyes lit up at this. ‘Ja, I am Franz Argentblum. You are knowing my father?’ he asked excitedly.
‘Indeed. He is a former pupil of H.I.V.E., but he left before we moved the school to its current location. So you are to continue in your father’s line of work, then?’ the Contessa asked.
‘Ja, we are now the largest manufacturer of chocolate in all of Europe.’ He smiled happily.
What he did not realise was that his father was not just a chocolate magnate, but also one of the most powerful criminal masterminds in all of Europe. Franz was clearly going to be kept as far away from the chocolate side of the business as possible. In fact it would probably be best to just keep him as far away from chocolate as possible, full stop.
‘I am sure you will prove to be an excellent student,’ the Contessa replied.
As long as the gym teacher knows CPR, thought Otto.
‘In answer to your question,’ she continued, ‘you will all join the rest of the students for lunch in two hours. Today you will be given your introductory tour and receive your uniforms.’ Judging by the dismayed expression on Franz’s face, two hours might as well be two years.
‘Anyway, enough questions for now. Let’s see if we cannot find you all some more suitable attire.’ The Contessa rose from her chair, her magnificent hair making her seem taller than she actually was. She indicated another door at the back of the room. ‘Please follow me to the Quartermaster, where you shall receive your uniforms.’
As they moved towards the exit. Otto was finally starting to think clearly again. He had never felt such an unusual sensation of confusion – almost like amnesia and it was not a feeling that he had any desire to experience again. Wing stood up slowly next to him, rubbing his temples.
‘A most unpleasant sensation.’ Wing looked unsettled for the first time since the two of them had met. ‘I feel almost as if I have just woken from a deep sleep.’
‘It’s obviously not a good idea to ask too many of the wrong kinds of questions around here,’ Otto replied. He had little doubt that he and Wing had both been the victims of the same sudden loss of memory, and he was sure that the Contessa was responsible. He just didn’t know how she had done it. ‘Perhaps we should just keep our eyes open and our mouths shut for now. We don’t want someone deciding to press our mental reset buttons again.’ He glanced over towards the exit and noticed that the Contessa was watching both of them carefully. Smiling, she walked towards them as the rest of the group assembled by the doors.
‘Come along, you two. We haven’t got all day. You both look rather confused. Is all of this a little overwhelming for you?’
Otto looked her straight in the eye. ‘Yes,’ he said smiling. ‘You seem to have taken the words right out of my mouth, Contessa.’
The Contessa looked hard at Otto, eyes narrowed, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘Oh, I can do much worse than that, Mr Malpense, believe me.’ They stood staring at each other for a couple of seconds before the smile magically reappeared on her face and she turned back to the rest of the group. ‘Come along, children. As usual at H.I.V.E. we have much to do and not enough time.’ And with that she opened the doors and swept out of the room.
Wing watched her leave and turned to Otto. ‘My father once told me that only the foolish man pulls on the tiger’s tail as it dangles from the tree.’ It was the first time that Otto had seen him smile.
Otto grinned at Wing. ‘True, but how else do you find out if it’s a tiger at all?’
They walked out on to a wide catwalk that curved off into the distance around the walls of another enormous floodlit cavern. Far below them, the cavern floor was covered by an octagonal-glass-panelled dome which appeared to be filled with hundreds of rows of different plants and trees. Above them, an ancient formation of huge stalactites hung from the cavern ceiling like an upside-down forest, glittering in the floodlights.
‘H.I.V.E. is an almost entirely self-sufficient facility,’ the Contessa explained, gesturing to the strange structure below. ‘The Hydroponics facility you can see here is used to grow many different kinds of plants, some of which are used to satisfy our own food requirements and some of which have different, more . . . exotic properties.’
She moved off along the catwalk, the group in tow. Otto realised that there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the island, and surely not all of their food supplies could be produced here. Which meant that there must be some way of secretly ferrying large shipments of supplies to the island, even if they hadn’t seen it yet.
The Contessa continued along the catwalk, her heels clicking on the metal, the group dutifully following along behind her.
‘I wonder how it was possible to build such a facility without attracting the attention of others?’ Wing asked, looking around the interior of the cavern. ‘Such construction would surely require many hundreds of workers. How could such a project be kept secret?’
‘Perhaps they never left the island when construction was complete,’ Otto replied.
Wing raised an eyebrow. ‘A true job for life.’
‘Or a life for a job,’ Otto countered. He wouldn’t be at all surprised, given the emphasis on total secrecy, if H.I.V.E. offered an ‘aggressive’ retirement package for lower level employees. Here, being fired was probably a term that was taken a little too literally.
They turned into a corridor that branched off from the catwalk, burrowing into the rock. They were descending now and it was not long before they came out into another smaller cave that seemed to serve as a junction with corridors leading from it in all directions. As they moved towards the centre of the cave a bizarre sound blared out, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
MWAH, MWAAAAH, MWAH!!!! It sounded like three notes being played on a trumpet, very loudly.
And then all hell broke loose.
Children started to stream out of the corridors, chattering and laughing. They all wore the colour-coded jumpsuits that the Contessa had talked about but that was the only thing uniform about them. Dr. Nero had said that the students came from all over the world, and he was not exaggerating. Every skin tone, hairstyle, shape and size seemed to be represented in the crowd, and the range of different accents that Otto could make out was staggering. The snatches of conversation that he could overhear were not particularly normal either.
‘. . . why we need to learn lockpicking when we have plastic explosives . . .’
‘. . . and he says ‘‘Plutonium?’’ and we all started laughin
g . . .’
‘. . . a sub-orbital trajectory should be sufficient . . .’
‘. . . push him in the tank myself one day . . .’
‘. . . and he said my laugh wasn’t evil enough, so I said . . .’
Otto’s bewildered group could do nothing but huddle together in the centre of the junction, a tiny stunned island, as the H.I.V.E. pupils swept around them like a river.
Wide-eyed and without uniforms, they attracted the interest of some of the passing students. Some just pointed, nudging their friends and laughing, some smiled and a couple even waved as they passed. However, most of the passing throng seemed oblivious to their presence and soon, just as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. In less then a minute silence had returned. The Contessa turned to address the group.
‘As you can see, punctuality is something that is taken seriously at H.I.V.E. There is no room for tardiness. Besides, you would not want to be caught by the hall monitors without a pass.’ As if on cue, a troop of guards marched through the cave, eyeing the group with suspicion.
A shaky voice piped up from the back of the group from a small, nervous-looking bald boy with thick glasses.
‘Why do the guards have guns?’ he asked timidly.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t worry.’ The Contessa gave him a reassuring smile. ‘They are here for your protection – you have nothing to fear from them.’ She paused. ‘As long as you don’t break school rules, of course. Besides, they aren’t normal side arms. Observe . . .’
She turned to the passing squad of guards.
‘You there.’ She pointed to the guard at the head of the group, who stopped, bringing the rest of the squad to a halt. ‘Give me your weapon.’
Otto noticed that the guard suddenly looked very nervous. He marched over to the Contessa, opening his holster, and passed her what looked like a very large pistol, with an unusually fat barrel.
‘Thank you.’ The Contessa smiled at the guard. ‘You may go and draw another weapon from the stores at the end of your patrol.’
The guard, who was clearly relieved at this dismissal, turned and marched smartly back towards his squad. Without warning, the Contessa raised the gun, pointed it at the back of the retreating guard and pulled the trigger. Simultaneously there was a flash, a zapping sound and a small shockwave that seemed to distort the air, hitting the guard square in the back. He fell to the ground like a puppet that had had its strings cut, completely limp. Several of the children gave startled cries and Otto noticed the other guards edging nervously away from their fallen comrade.
‘This is a phased stun pulse weapon or, as the guards prefer to call them, a sleeper. It fires an energy pulse that causes no lasting physical harm to the target but renders them instantly and completely unconscious for up to eight hours. This technology was developed recently by H.I.V.E.’s own scientists in order to replace the rather outdated tranquiliser dart guns which the guards used to carry. The sleeper is much more reliable, and I am told that the only adverse side effect is a rather nasty headache. They are even designed so they cannot be fired by someone who does not have clearance to do so. So you see, you have nothing to be afraid of.’
Oh no, thought Otto, just squads of hired goons wandering around with experimental energy weapons. Nothing to be afraid of at all. He noticed Wing eyeing the weapon warily, frowning slightly.
‘What’s wrong?’ Otto whispered.
‘I encountered men carrying those weapons shortly before I was brought here. You do not wish to be shot with one, believe me.’ Wing’s frown deepened.
‘I think I already have been,’ Otto replied. ‘At least that zapping sound is the last thing I remember before waking up on the helicopter.’ The splitting headache he’d had when he’d woken up also seemed to support this theory.
The Contessa gestured casually to the crumpled figure of the unconscious guard.
‘Take him back to his quarters, and when he wakes be sure to thank him on my behalf for providing such an effective demonstration.’ Two guards stepped forward, picked up their fallen squad-mate and, supporting him between them, chased after the rest of their squad, who were marching out of the cave rather more quickly than they had marched into it.
‘Now, we really must hurry to the Quartermaster and get you all dressed more appropriately. Come along.’ The Contessa set off along one of the corridors with the group in pursuit.
.
Chapter Three
As they continued on their way they passed several classrooms with windows on to the corridor. Peering inside Otto could only make out a few details of the classes being taught within. In one there was a white-coated teacher drawing a complicated circuit diagram on the whiteboard. The assortment of different coloured uniforms that the students were wearing suggested that this class was made up of several different streams. In another the students were all wearing blue uniforms and the teacher, who was wearing camouflaged military fatigues, was moving tiny figures around on a highly detailed model of an oil rig, occasionally turning to the class as if to explain a particular point.
While they walked Otto was taking careful note of the signs that were on display everywhere. Most of them seemed to be giving directions to other parts of the facility: ‘DEATH RAY TEST RANGE’, ‘THE MAZE’, ‘CENTRAL OPERATIONS’, ‘SICK BAY’, ‘DETENTION FACILITIES’, ‘TEST TRACK’ and so on. One sign in particular caught Otto’s attention – ‘SUBMARINE PEN’. This would perhaps explain how the island was supplied in secret. Otto memorised all of the names and used the signs’ directions to expand the three-dimensional map of H.I.V.E. that he had already started to build in his head.
‘And here we are.’ The Contessa stopped in front of a set of large metal doors. ‘This is the Quartermaster. Inside you will be issued with your uniforms and have measurements taken for any more specialised equipment that you may require in the future. I shall also introduce you to H.I.V.E.mind, who you will come to rely on, as we all will, over the coming years.’ She turned back to the closed doors and said, ‘H.I.V.E.mind, this is the Contessa. I have a new intake of students with me and they need their new uniforms. May we come in?’
A soft, measured voice replied, ‘Welcome, Contessa. Access granted.’
The doors slid apart and they followed the Contessa into the room. It was almost painfully bright, the walls, floor and ceiling all covered in white tiles and lit by bright lights positioned all around. Strangely, the room also appeared to be completely empty, just a big bright white box.
The Contessa walked to the centre of the room and said, ‘H.I.V.E.mind, please introduce yourself to the new students.’
There was a whirring sound and a white cylinder slid up from the floor of the room, next to the Contessa. Suddenly a beam of blue laser light shot from the top of the cylinder, its pencil-thin beam spreading, forming a shape in the air. The strange blue blob quickly sharpened until it took on the shape of a wire-frame face hanging in front of the astonished children. The hovering blue head spoke in the same soothing voice they had heard outside the door.
‘Greetings, Alpha stream intake. My name is H.I.V.E.mind – my function is to serve. How may I be of assistance to you today?’
The Contessa addressed the group. ‘H.I.V.E.mind is a first-generation artificially intelligent entity. He controls the main security network and controls many of the facility’s day-to-day operations. Do any of you have any questions for him?’
They all looked from one to another, unsure of what they should ask this strange apparition suspended before them. Otto noticed that the red-haired Scottish girl seemed to be transfixed by the floating blue face. As he watched she slowly raised her hand.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, and the face turned towards her.
‘How may I be of assistance, Miss Brand?’ Clearly no introductions would be necessary here.
The girl smiled. ‘It’s OK, you can call me Laura.’
‘How may I be of assistance, Laura?’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.
‘We
ll, it’s just that I know a bit about computers and I’ve never seen anything like you before. Are you new?’ Laura asked, tilting her head to one side slightly.
‘I was brought on-line four months, three weeks, two days, four hours, thirty-seven minutes and three seconds ago. Is this new?’ H.I.V.E.mind tilted its head to one side, seeming to mimic Laura’s mannerism.
‘Oh yes, that’s quite new. You must be very sophisticated to run a facility like this all on your own.’ Laura seemed quite at ease talking to H.I.V.E.mind, apparently unconcerned that it was, after all, just a machine.
‘My computational resources are more than adequate to ensure the smooth running of this facility. For example, this is just one of forty-two conversations that I am conducting throughout the facility at this time.’
Impressive, Otto thought. That would require a computer that was much more powerful than any existing system that he was aware of. More worryingly, it meant that the supervision of H.I.V.E.’s security system would not be prone to any human error and that would make avoiding detection or surveillance very difficult, if not impossible.
‘Where are you? I mean, where is your central processing unit located? Is it here?’ Laura asked.
‘I am a distributed neural network. In other words, I could be said to occupy all parts of the facility simultaneously. The location of my central processing hub is classified,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.
‘And really none of your concern, my dear,’ the Contessa added, frowning slightly at Laura. ‘Anyone else?’
Otto raised his hand. ‘Yes, I’d like to ask something.’
H.I.V.E.mind turned in his direction. ‘How may I be of assistance, Mr Malpense?’
‘I was just wondering, if your job is to make sure that H.I.V.E. runs smoothly, you must have to keep an eye on everything and everybody,’ Otto suggested. He was keen to see if H.I.V.E.mind’s systems for monitoring the comings and goings of H.I.V.E.’s inhabitants were as efficient as he feared that they might be.
