by Andy Briggs
“Yes?”
There was a pause, then a hopeful voice. “Pizza?”
Mason wagged his finger at Dev. “See? That’s how it’s done!”
Dev shuffled anxiously from one foot to the other; he recognized Kardach’s voice. “We have to leave now.”
Professor Liu shook his head. “No. You have to leave now. Now that you share my knowledge, you are just as useful to them as I am.” Mason and Lot exchanged bewildered glances.
Dev hesitated – long enough for the elevator to ping as the car descended to the lobby. The bad guys were in the building.
Lot pulled Dev aside. “Dev, if they have Newton’s Arrow with them, this is the closest we’ve been. We could take it, and end all this right now.”
Kardach tried to sense what lay ahead, but his gifts were still drawing a blank. He was helped by Christen, who stood behind him, assembling the Newton’s Arrow and humming a tune to himself as if it were his very own action soundtrack.
“Do you mind?” snapped Kardach.
The theme tune died on Christen’s lips. He hoisted up the complete gravity gun and activated the power. Almost immediately it began to increase in mass – and for a second Kardach was worried that the elevator car would slow down and they wouldn’t make it to the top floor.
But his fears were unfounded. With a soft bing, the doors opened and he was suddenly swamped by a rush of colours and sound that buzzed around his mind’s eye and drew his attention straight towards Professor Liu, sitting in his wheelchair with his boulder-like robot behind. The friendly emoji head was now a fierce scowl, the serving arms replaced with glowing energy cannons.
With a single wave of his hand, Kardach wirelessly infiltrated the robot’s circuits and deactivated it. The holographic head spluttered – the eyes briefly replaced with crosses before it faded. The cannons instantly powered down and the spherical hulk rolled across the floor like a discarded ball, until it gently bumped to a halt against the wall.
“Professor Liu, there was no need for such an aggressive reception. I merely want some information from you.”
The old Chinese man tilted his head defiantly. “You are unworthy to receive it. Whoever you are.”
Christen raised the gravity gun menacingly. Instead of being intimidated, Professor Liu laughed. “And what am I supposed to do? Plead for my life? I am too old for that. Do your worst.”
Kardach looked at Christen and raised his eyebrows. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. Kardach puffed his cheeks and exhaled a long sigh.
“OK. Have it your way.”
The electric motor on Professor Liu’s wheelchair suddenly whined to life with such ferocity that the wheels spun before gaining traction on the smooth floor. The old man was propelled backwards, almost falling out on to the floor. The wheelchair struck the panoramic window with great force, sending massive cracks zigzagging across the surface of the glass.
Enjoying the show, Christen carefully lowered Newton’s Arrow to the floor. It had grown too heavy to hold comfortably. He stretched his back and flexed his arm to get some sensation back.
“Still not ready to talk?”
Professor Liu sneered. Before he could reply, Kardach shot the chair forward, then violently back again, an action so severe that Liu was tossed around like a rag doll.
The wheelchair struck the window once more, and this time it shattered. Huge shards of glass sheared off and fell to the street below. Professor Liu’s chair stopped, the back wheel precariously balanced on the edge. A strong wind blew in from the shattered window.
Kardach took a menacing step forward. With a simple gesture, he made the chair tilt backwards – then forward just before it could fall.
“You’re making life so difficult for yourself,” he teased.
Professor Liu just smiled. “Kill me and you don’t get any answers. I wonder what your boss would think of that?”
Christen was about to volunteer to extract the information, but he only got as far as opening his mouth before something whacked him across the back of the head. He stumbled to his knees and, as he lost consciousness, saw Dev standing over him wielding one of the heavy metal sculptures.
At the sound of the scuffle, Kardach spun around in time to see Dev hoist up the Newton’s Arrow – which took every ounce of strength he possessed.
Dev took great pleasure in the surprised expression on the villain’s face. “This is the end,” he wheezed. He had hoped to sound like an action-movie hero, but the weight of the gun had taken his breath.
Kardach smiled, pitying Dev. “No. This is the beginning.” With one mental gesture the wheelchair’s motor squealed – and Professor Liu shot backwards through the window.
Dev didn’t think. He just acted on instinct. His synaesthesia told the weapon exactly what he wanted to achieve – and he pulled the trigger before Kardach could stop him.
Energy streamers lashed out around Professor Liu’s wheelchair as he soared a metre away from the window and towards certain doom. The energy formed a bubble around the chair, suspending it high above the ground. The safety bubble even remained when Kardach extended his hand, palm out, towards Newton’s Arrow.
Dev was the only one who saw a huge flash and felt as if pins were pushing into his skull as Kardach’s wireless powers conflicted directly with his synaesthesia – almost overriding his senses.
Howling in pain, Dev dropped the weapon. It thudded against the marble, shattering several tiles. Dev dropped to his knees, clutching his head.
Kardach advanced towards him. “I am surprised. I thought you and your little cohorts had all been buried alive. Not that it matters. When will you learn? You’re looking at Mark Two, right here, the second generation of you. I am superior in every way.”
“Not in every way,” said Mason, emerging from a side room. Kardach hadn’t been expecting that. “For one, you talk way more than he does.”
“And Dev has better hair,” said Lot, stepping from a room on the other side, brandishing one of the more pointy sculptures in Liu’s collection.
Mason placed both hands on the robot husk, which was taller than he was, ready to push. Kardach extended his hand towards him, firing his synaesthesia power.
“Um, what is that supposed to do?” sniggered Mason. “Or are you just planning on breaking my watch?” He glanced at his watch. It had stopped. “You git!” he roared, and used all his weight to launch the defunct robot at Kardach.
The metal boulder rolled straight for him. Kardach threw himself over a couch, overturning it in his haste to escape. The robot rolled straight past and shattered another panel of glass as it plummeted to the street below.
Mason grimaced, imagining the damage that was going to cause. “I was always rubbish at bowling.”
Lot slashed the sculpture through the air in a menacing manner; several of its protruding blades glinted in the light, the sharp edges giving Kardach no doubt that it would hurt or even kill him. “I, on the other hand, have always been very good at hitting my targets.”
Kardach took a few steps back, then raised his hands in a show of surrender. “OK, OK. You’ve got me.”
Dev stood, feeling woozy as he rubbed his head. His attention was drawn to Professor Liu, who was still floating outside, his arms waving frantically. The professor was being carried further away by the wind.
“Professor Liu!” Dev realized then that Liu wasn’t just trying to get his attention; he was pointing. He turned and saw Christen holding Newton’s Arrow. Dev made a mental note: next time, hit the bad guy over the head harder.
With a leer, Christen aimed the weapon at Dev.
“I’m gonna enjoy this.”
“Go ahead!” Kardach shouted. “I’ve unblocked it!”
The weapon hummed to life – but Christen’s mocking laughter was quickly cut short when the weapon made a peculiar crackling sound.
The orb suspended under the barrel – the graviton pod, Dev recalled from his brief communication with the weapon �
� glowed from within, as before. But now there was also light seeping through a widening crack in the casing. The damage must have been sustained when he’d dropped the weapon and Dev could now see a kaleidoscope of swirling particles inside, pivoting around a miniature black hole.
“It’s going into overload!” Kardach exclaimed in horror.
Christen replied with a scream that became a brief gurgle as his entire body stretched like strands of spaghetti – and he was sucked into the centimetre-wide crack.
With no Christen to hold the gun, it dropped to the floor for a second time. This time the pod split in two with a bass heavy boom that rattled Dev’s fillings.
An opaque energy orb shot out from the broken graviton pod – first in one direction towards the shattered window, before the pod peeled apart, spilling gravitons in every direction – and with it utter chaos followed.
Dev felt himself falling. The wind was knocked out of him as he crashed to the floor. Confused, he looked around to get his bearings – he was lying on the ceiling. Kardach was lying on one vertical wall, while Lot was lying on another, perpendicular to Kardach. Mason was almost annoyed to realize he was the only one standing normally on the floor.
Every window in the building had exploded from the pressure of the gravity wave – and each particle had fallen in its own direction. Up, down, sideways – forming a cloud of spinning glass shards.
The entire skyscraper groaned as every surface took on its own gravity – some walls and floors strained as they pulled together; others were repelled as gravity was scrambled.
Dev noticed the gun still on the floor – or rather, from his perspective, the ceiling. It was still activated, churning out even more gravitons. He strained to reach for it – but couldn’t.
“Kardach! Turn it off or it’ll kill us all!”
Kardach was no fool. He knew this was no time to fight. He strained to extend his power . . . but nothing happened.
“I can’t! The gravity field must be disrupting my signal!”
“I’ll do it!” yelled Mason. He ran for the gun.
“Mase, no!” Dev warned, but it was too late.
Mason vaulted over the couch – and found himself suddenly falling up to the ceiling, where he landed with a thud next to Dev. Disoriented, he looked around. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Lot’s gaze met with Kardach’s. Their eyes narrowed – and they both sprinted for the gun, running on opposite walls around the apartment.
“Don’t go near it,” Dev cautioned, fearing Lot would suffer the same fate as Christen.
But she wasn’t listening. There was a ninety-degree corner ahead of her. Gritting her teeth, she made the leap. Incredibly, she soared through the two gravity fields and landed on the new section of wall. She was so surprised that the move worked, she stumbled to her knees, buying Kardach more time to perform a similar move on to the opposite end of the very same wall, bringing him closer to the malfunctioning gun.
Dev crossed to Mason, noticing that amongst the debris cast across the ceiling was Liu’s telepathic ear clip. It must have fallen off Liu when he was hurled out of the window, Dev thought. He pocketed it and nudged Mason with his foot. “Give me a boost up . . . down . . . whatever.”
Mason rose unsteadily, inverted as he was on the ceiling. Dev placed his foot in Mason’s cupped hand. “Ready?”
“GO!” yelled Dev.
Mason heaved the same moment Dev jumped. It was the ultimate boost. Dev sailed into the centre of the room. Without changing direction, he felt his stomach twist as he came under the influence of the floor’s opposite gravity field. It was as if he were on a high-speed roller coaster. Mid-fall, Dev flipped over and landed perfectly on the real floor. He lunged for Newton’s Arrow—
At the same time, Kardach leapt from the wall and arced face-first to the floor as the rules of gravity switched around him. He landed unceremoniously on a smoked-glass coffee table, which shattered under his weight. He blindly reached out and touched the weapon the exact moment Dev did the same.
Their duel synaesthesia power soared through the device, both commanding the weapon to shut down. Everything happened in milliseconds, although in the world of enhanced vision, Dev experienced it as if time had slowed.
Their combined powers sent an overload of instructions surging through the weapon – causing it to turn off and on in a furious series of rapid pulses. With each wave, the reaction in the fractured graviton pod was pushed closer to critical mass.
Dev yanked his hand away from the gun the moment the graviton pod exploded, spewing a mighty gravityquake.
It was like being hit by a soft inflatable wall that expanded – and showed no signs of stopping. Dev and half the furniture were thrust through another window, which exploded around him. The shattered particles of glass flowed outwards with him rather than falling to the ground dozens of storeys below – and Dev reflected that he was yet again having to endure his fear of heights. No, it was no longer a fear – it was a hatred. Mason cartwheeled next to him, moving wildly out of control.
The two boys were carried in a straight line – towards another building. Again windows imploded as the gravity wave struck, a second before Dev, Mason and a ton of junk were carried through. Still their journey did not stop. Desks, internal walls and support columns all ripped away as the wave continued. Office employees were swept up and carried with them – yet nobody was struck by the millions of pieces of debris floating around them, being deflected from one another in their own private gravity fields. Everything seemed to be gently orbiting something else, like a dizzying array of miniature solar systems.
As they crashed out of the side of the building, Dev was spun around as if he were floating in the current of a river. He looked back at the skyscraper they had passed through, and couldn’t believe his eyes. It was splitting apart in every direction, and doing it in a slow ballet. Professor Liu’s building beyond had been similarly torn into several chunks that were dispersing across the city and colliding with other tall buildings, which broke apart in turn. The entire penthouse they had been standing in was still almost intact as it spun lazily skyward.
Dev suddenly felt branches whipping at his face; he and Mason were hitting the forested slopes of the peak. The duo, now out of the graviton influence, crashed to the sharply inclined earth with bone-jarring thuds. The office workers swept up in the wave were similarly cast through the trees. They, too, looked back at the bewildering spectacle behind them.
A circular chunk of the city had been hit by the gravityquake. The centre point of devastation was a mass of particles floating and spinning in zero G.
Further out from this dense mass, the destruction of buildings lessened. Instead, entire skyscrapers had been plucked up and were lazily spinning through the air. Dev could see people still inside, pounding the windows in panic as they gently rotated. Numerous vehicles drifted past, some with drivers still behind the wheel as they soared upside-down fifty metres above the ground, occasionally being deflected from one another, wrapped in their own gravitational comfort blankets.
As the gravityquake’s effects ebbed away, it was business as usual in the rest of the city, beyond the blast zone.
Mason laid a hand on Dev’s shoulder. “Mate, I think we just broke Hong Kong. I reckon we get out of here as soon as possible and never mention we were ever here.”
Dev nodded, then looked around. He felt a growing sense of panic.
“Mason . . . where the heck is Lot?”
Getting out of Hong Kong was tricky. With the destruction still floating in place, it was clear that gravity wasn’t going to return to normal any time soon. Every street was gridlocked, every pavement crammed with people filming on their phones. The likelihood of finding Lot or Professor Liu in the chaos was remote at best.
Instead Dev and Mason clambered back up the Peak, and Dev used his phone to summon the Avro. They were able to board unseen and hover over the city.
“She’d call us if she cou
ld,” Mason pointed out.
Dev knew that, and the fact that she hadn’t made him feel sick.
“Maybe she’s, y’know, d—”
“Don’t say it!” snapped Dev. He had always believed that problems could be overcome by breaking them down into smaller tasks. From tracking down the jetpack thieves to breaking into the Collector’s prison. However, Lot being dead . . . that was a problem that couldn’t be overcome.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Mason, his head in his hands. “We don’t leave a man behind, right? Or a girl,” he added with a weak smile.
“We might have to,” muttered Dev.
“Dev, no—”
Dev looked up, feeling sick as he spoke. “If she’s alive, she’s smart enough to find help. If she’s dead. . .” He couldn’t continue. He focused back on the controls and instructed the Avro’s sensors to search for Newton’s Arrow. It drew a blank.
“Nothing?” In frustration, he slammed his fists against the controls. Dev wondered if the mass gravity fluxes were interfering with the sensors. Did the graviton orb destroy the weapon, or did Kardach manage to grab it and slip away?
“Looking for the gun is more important than looking for Lot?”
Dev looked up. “If Kardach got away with Newton’s Arrow, then we can’t waste time here. More lives are at stake.”
“Finding Lot is not a waste of time,” Mason snapped. “We aren’t leaving without her.” He pushed Dev aside and switched to the disc’s camera system, which was capable of reading the fine print on a crisp packet from forty thousand feet. Using the simple touchscreen, he programmed Lot’s image into the computer and let it run facial recognition on the millions of people below. If she was there, it would get a hit. Eventually.
Dev nudged him. “Mason.”
Mason didn’t look up. “Give me a minute.”
“MASE!” This time Dev held Mason’s jaw and forced him to look up.
The Avro’s viewport was filled by a military helicopter directly facing them. The port’s on-screen graphics helpfully identified it as a CAIC Z-10 attack helicopter and went on to point out the thirty-millimetre cannon. With a wholly inappropriate thumbs-up icon, it also confirmed that the HJ-10 missiles under the stubby wings were locked on them. The only thing the perky computer hadn’t highlighted was the slack-jawed look on the pilot’s face.