Hard Return

by Rosie Claverton

  The next person hauled up by the agents was another prisoner – P3, one of the enhanced men. A personal friend of Lewis, from what she'd seen on the tapes. She wondered if Jason knew. She wondered what he would say. She wanted him to say it, so she could hear it, so she could tease him about his small town mind and his endless heart. She wanted him here.

  Finally, Jason was handed up through the hatch – mostly unconscious, covered in blood, but alive. They needed an airlift, reinforcements. Would Frieda still not send anyone? Though right now the building was not secured, the area a potential minefield. She couldn’t introduce civilians to this place without making it safe.

  Civilians. She was turning into one of them. See how she hadn’t run over to Jason as soon as she'd seen him. Instead, she sat at the computer, awaiting the all-clear. Doing her job. Keeping the mask in place.

  ‘The fire door is closed,’ Twofer said, a little out of breath. ‘We didn’t see any other hostiles.’

  She ignored the word and merely nodded her acknowledgement, wincing as her headache intensified. She had restored power to limited systems, such as the video monitoring and processing, but now she needed to take one out again. Using her administrator privileges, Amy shut down the air supply to the Eye Room.

  There was still plenty of oxygen to burn in there, but it was now finite. Eventually, the fire would burn itself out and the bunker would remain. She hoped the other prisoners had fled, but they might be safer down there. At least there weren’t armed security trying to shoot them in the bunker.

  Cerys and Catriona had filled her in, Owain silent throughout. He hadn’t tried to take command or interfere with what she was doing, but she could sense his unhappiness. He was here to be the conquering hero, but she already had it under control. Or, at least, the illusion of control.

  She flicked to another computer, where Twofer was logged in and she could see all the surveillance cameras in the bunker. The ones they had never known were there. It turned out the security agents did watch the watchers – not to keep detailed records, but to make sure they were behaving, reporting any funny business directly to Frieda. To his credit, Twofer had seemed genuinely surprised she knew nothing about it.

  The agents who had taken out P3 had immediately decided to leave with their other colleagues and make straight for the farm-side of the woods. Travelling slowly and in a large group, they hoped the guards wouldn’t mistake them for prisoners. Amy had been at the point of ordering them to stay, when the fire had been discovered.

  There were two people in the dormitories, one in each, but one of them was Roshan’s corpse. The other would likely need retrieval. The other prisoners were nowhere to be found on the bunker feeds, so Amy switched to the compound video.

  Behind her, she heard Cerys making a fuss of Jason and telling him to keep his mask on. She still wasn’t entirely clear on what Owain, Cerys, and Catriona were doing here, but here they were. They had been instrumental in rescuing and tending to the prisoners. The prisoners. So impersonal, so cold. Amy suddenly experienced a spike of fear – was the Frieda mask fusing with her face, changing her from the outside in? Would she still be able to take it off after this?

  Checking the feeds from the last half hour, Amy saw that the agents had followed her advice and stayed outside the compound building. Cerys had said as much when they came in, but Amy wanted to be sure there were no stragglers.

  Amy suddenly realised what she was looking at. This was a perfect night vision shot of the front of the compound and she could see agents moving at a distance from the building. On 5th March, this camera would’ve given a perfect view of Mole’s murderer disposing of the body.

  She looked over at Twofer. His eyes were bright with a mania she hadn’t seen before, eager to get involved in the mess outside. And with her. She wasn’t sure if the sickness she felt was from her concussion or from the man’s creepy, manipulative attention.

  ‘You know who killed Mole,’ she said.

  He looked uncomfortable, looked away.

  ‘Is that really a priority, ma’am?’

  ‘If you were involved in a cover-up…’ His head shot up. ‘Then, it is a priority, yes. Can I trust you, SN2?’

  Every cell in her body screamed that she couldn’t, but she wasn’t talking about trusting him with her, with her body. She was trying to focus purely on the moment, on the night they had before them. She had to know if Twofer was running a different agenda.

  ‘I swear it,’ he said. ‘And…uh, after all this, I’ll name him. To you.’

  It would have to do. Amy nodded her acceptance and started cycling through the main camera views using both computers. She couldn’t afford to miss a single thing. The only person she could trust right now was herself.

  About five minutes after the fire started, four men emerged out of the blind spot in the corridor and made their way to the mess. Their body language was tense, and she had caught them in the middle of an argument. She recognised Anchor and Pansy from their recent encounters, but the other two weren’t big players in the compound drama. She wouldn’t have picked these four men to be the last ones standing or thought any of them could be a twisted fire-starter.

  Supposing that the unconscious man in the dormitory was Nikolai, that left two people unaccounted for. One was Dreadlock – and the other was Martin.

  She tried not to think about him, but his presence was still there, itching at the inside of her skull. She could feel pressure on her neck when she tried not to think about him. Amy cleared her throat. He was nothing to be afraid of. She was the one with the power now.

  Let’s give those cowboys outside some work to do.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She only realised she'd spoken aloud when Twofer answered her.

  ‘We need to evacuate the agents from inside the fence. Tell SD1 that the remaining active hostiles are inside the compound building and he should…hold a perimeter.’

  The look Twofer gave her echoed her own thoughts. SD1 would not hold a perimeter, not when he knew his targets were fish in a barrel. He would charge in there and start shooting. Was she really okay with that?

  ‘The evacuation is the priority,’ she told Twofer, and herself.

  The ends and the means and all that. So, why did it all feel like shit?

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and left her post to go to Jason.

  Chapter 54: Short Circuit

  Jason’s head throbbed. His skin burned. He had never been this thirsty in his life. And Amy was…

  Her hand slipped into his, and he closed his fingers over hers in relief, even though it stung.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he asked drowsily.

  ‘I’ve been working. What happened to you?’

  ‘Fire. Lots and lots of fire.’

  ‘It looked like a Molotov cocktail,’ Amy said, matter-of-factly. As if it was an everyday occurrence, a casually chucked bomb or two.

  ‘Who the fuck is carrying those around?’ Lewis chimed in, from somewhere to Jason’s left

  ‘More importantly, why are they throwing them at you?’ Cerys asked, popping into his field of vision. The ‘what have you done now?’ was silent.

  ‘This is an escalation,’ Amy said, cool and efficient and detached. ‘We need to find out who’s responsible for the assaults. We need to assess the danger to the agents.’

  ‘Mole and Bo and Roshan,’ Lewis said, sounding like he was counting off on his fingers. ‘You and me and Ben. Why them? Why us? Nothing ties us all together.’

  ‘Do you think one person is responsible for all the attacks?’ Amy asked.

  One person.

  All the attacks.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Jason said. ‘We already know someone else pushed me off the roof.’

  ‘Yes, and who was that?’ Amy said, her tone acid and fire.

  ‘Anyway,’ Jason said, firmly,
determined to keep going. ‘What if they’re not all related? These latest ones have all been very close together, all over one week. But Mole was two weeks ago. Joe said…well, he said he knows who killed Mole. But he said it definitely couldn’t have been the person who killed Roshan.’

  ‘I’ve still got Joe’s watch, if that helps,’ Lewis said.

  Jason could’ve kissed him. If he were that way inclined. Which he wasn’t.

  ‘Here, let me,’ Catriona said.

  Jason saw the edge of her shoulder as she leaned over him to take the watch from Lewis. Within seconds, a quiet tinny voice started playing from the speakers. Jason didn’t recognise the man, so he assumed it was Mole.

  ‘Andy says he can do it. Told everyone, he did.’

  ‘Do you think he can?’ Martin’s voice, quietly confident.

  ‘I don’t know. But a lot of the others are excited. Gareth and Bo, mainly, and Bo’s never excited about nothing.’

  ‘Thank you, Mole.’

  ‘Welcome, guv.’

  The sound of a door closing. The shuffling of papers.

  ‘See to it, would you?’ Martin, again. Sounding a little strained this time.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The speech was brief but the speaker was instantly recognisable: Dreadlock.

  ‘If they’re the only two people in the room—’ Amy began.

  ‘One of them is in charge of the recording,’ Jason finished.

  ‘There’s no reason for Martin to record himself, not when he’s the one doing…whatever he’s doing.’ Amy looked at the watch as if it would open out like a flower and give her answers.

  ‘Planning a takedown,’ Lewis said. ‘I’ve heard of this Andy bloke. Gareth was saying he was the closest they’d come to escaping, but then Bo found out he was a racist, and he was voted out before he was torn to shreds.’

  ‘Why would Martin want to stop everyone escaping? Isn’t that the point of the experiment? Why exactly would Dreadlock want to record it?’

  Amy was wearing her thinking face, which Jason now realised was unbearably sexy. He'd always thought it was professional admiration and pride that made him warm when she looked like this, but it was mostly good old-fashioned libido. This was going to make working together very interesting. And very unprofessional.

  ‘He’s the king, isn’t he?’

  Stoker’s voice was slurred, sounding like he'd just woken up from a long hibernation. Jason could hear Lewis fussing over him and Stoker shrugging him off.

  ‘He is that,’ Jason said, distracting himself from the scene Lewis was making. ‘What’s he got on the outside? Nothing. Inside, he’s got a kingdom to rule.’

  ‘Dreadlock wanted them to get out then,’ Cerys said. ‘He wanted to escape.’

  ‘He’s an undercover,’ Owain said, suddenly. ‘He’s there to make sure the experiment keeps running as it should.’

  Suddenly, it all slid into place. The reason there was a communication shaft installed, the way Dreadlock had reacted to Anchor becoming elite, and the obsession with gathering evidence instead of settling matters with his fists. Dreadlock was an NCA agent.

  ‘But Joe said that the watch and the killer were related,’ Lewis said. ‘Isn’t that what you said, Jay?’

  ‘It’s not like NCA agents are good people,’ Catriona said, bitterness evident in her voice.

  ‘We draw the line at murder,’ Owain said, harshly.

  ‘Maybe some of us don’t,’ Amy said.

  Some of us. She was still an NCA agent, like it or not. Still one of them, one of Frieda’s minions. They were still working for Frieda now, clearing up her mess.

  ‘Where is he now?’ Amy asked. ‘Why can’t we find him?’

  ‘Agent Lane,’ Twofer called from the desk. ‘Something’s wrong with the monitors.’

  Amy left Jason’s field of vision. With great effort, Jason lurched upright and grabbed hold of the nearest object – his sister – to haul himself up onto the sofa. Amy was standing at the computer terminal, frowning at the screen.

  ‘It’s not the display – it’s the application. I’ve never known it to run so slowly. I can’t access anything. Even the folder system isn’t retrieving all the files…’

  She trailed off and stopped. After a long moment, she sprang to life, clicking impatiently with her mouse as she brought up a new screen.

  ‘Twofer, who is this?’

  ‘I don’t know that login.’ Twofer said, leaning a little too close to Amy for Jason’s comfort. ‘But you'd know better than me.’

  ‘It should only be the two of us logged in right now. It’s not that the folder system isn’t fetching files – it’s that the files are gone. He’s deleting the evidence.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why the application isn’t working.’

  ‘The fire,’ Owain said. ‘The server is literally melting down.’

  ‘That’s where he is,’ Jason and Amy said together.

  Then, the gunfire started.

  Chapter 55: Ground Control to SD1

  Cerys leapt to her feet, Catriona half a second behind her. Running into danger was her job now.

  Owain was already heading for a metal locker in the corner, opening it out to reveal a truly terrifying number of guns.

  ‘Arm yourselves. I am taking command.’

  ‘I’m staying with the wounded,’ Amy said.

  Cerys didn’t believe her and clearly neither did Owain, but they didn’t have time to argue.

  ‘Sit tight,’ Owain said, knowing she wouldn’t.

  ‘Good luck out there,’ Amy replied.

  Cerys took a semi-automatic pistol from the locker. She wanted to be considered for the Armed Response Unit eventually, so she'd started practicing at a range. She was getting good. But that was shooting a stationary target in a well-lit gun range, not shooting rogue agents in the dark.

  Catriona still had her shotgun. Owain had picked up an assault rifle, as had Twofer. Lewis wasn’t going to be left out, so he picked up a semi-automatic pistol – even though Cerys knew his only experience with guns had been messing around with that old revolver of her father’s.

  Owain led them out, the gunfire intermittent, punctuated with cries of panic. The evacuation wasn’t going to plan. Nothing was going to plan.

  ‘Our objective is to neutralise SD1,’ Owain said, a harsh bite of command in his tone. ‘Cut off the head of the snake.’

  ‘Description?’ Catriona asked.

  ‘Tall, blond buzzcut, red reflective armband on his right side.’

  ‘We are so fucked,’ Lewis muttered.

  ‘Questions?’ Owain said.

  ‘What if the others don’t stand down?’ Catriona asked.

  ‘Then we neutralise them too,’ Owain said, as if he were talking about the weather.

  Cerys found it hard to imagine that she had ever loved him, this cold unemotional killing machine. Did she really believe her Owain had been replaced with this? Or was it merely a front? Was he trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince them? She'd heard the same tone come out of Amy’s mouth. Maybe this was just what Frieda did to people.

  They advanced through the deep, dark wood, the moon still in hiding and the creatures of the night all gone quiet. Owain was at the front and Twofer at the back, with Cerys, Catriona, and Lewis huddling together in the middle. They weren’t moving fast enough, everyone would be dead by the time they arrived – Cerys could see them in her mind’s eye, like a horror movie finale, blood on contorted, screaming faces.

  ‘The gates are open,’ Owain said. ‘No agents or prisoners sighted.’

  Cerys could see a faint glimmer of light off the metal of the gates, the beam stretching from the torch mounted on Owain’s gun. They were being lit up like a beacon, an obvious, shambling target for anyone who wanted to take a po
p. She felt a tightening in her throat. Was it pressure on her neck wounds, or was she starting to panic? She had never panicked before.

  Catriona stumbled slightly into Cerys. ‘Stop.’

  She leaned down and plucked something up from the ground. Lewis shined a light from his fancy watch on it.

  ‘It’s a spent cartridge,’ Catriona said. ‘They were shooting from here.’

  ‘Let’s continue,’ Owain said.

  They were close to the gates now. The whole place was silent as a snowy graveyard, the night swallowing all sound, the aftermath of the gunfire echoing in their ears. Now there was nothing. No crying, no shooting, no running. Just…nothing.

  ‘Twofer, what is the protocol for the agents in an active shooter situation?’

  ‘Unarmed agents to retreat to cover and remain concealed. Armed agents to form a perimeter around them.’

  ‘If they didn’t retreat into the building,’ Lewis said, ‘they would’ve gone round the back into the garden.’

  ‘Why?’ Catriona said.

  ‘We took out the cameras and the lights. They’d know that, because they watched us – didn’t they?’

  The silence turned awkward. But that didn’t deter Owain, who forged ahead – and through the gates. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Cerys felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong.

  The moon came out from behind a cloud – and there they were. Six armed agents lying in a shallow pool of water in front of the main doors to the compound, bodies twitching, dead or dying. Waiting to be found, to be witnessed.

  ‘We need to get them out!’ Twofer shouted, lurching towards the victims.

  ‘No!’ Lewis grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back.

  Twofer twisted in his grip, ready to punch him, but Lewis shook him hard.

  ‘It’s live!’ he said. ‘The water is fucking electric.’

  Lewis pushed the torch on Twofer’s gun towards the door, where a black length of wire was submerged in the puddle.