by Andy Briggs
“How can they see us?”
Dev looked back at the camera feed on the monitor and saw that lots of people were looking directly up at them. He touched the control bank and closed his eyes in order to communicate with the system.
“The cloaking device is busted,” he said, remembering the damage they’d sustained from the prison escape. Now that he could sense the ebb and flow of the Avro’s systems, it was clear the damage was in the area that housed the stealth technology. The gravity wave must have been the final straw for its delicate electronics.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we shouldn’t hang around,” said Mason.
Dev didn’t need to be told twice. He accelerated the disc as fast as he could, away from Hong Kong and out over the open ocean. He just hoped that Lot was safe, wherever she was.
A chill passed through Lot’s body, shuddering her awake. Opening her eyes felt like more effort than it was worth because when she did, everything was blurry.
The last thing she remembered was seeing Dev and Kardach dive for Newton’s Arrow. There was a piercing scream – she wasn’t sure whose – then a blast of energy that sent her weightlessly spinning. She caught a fleeting glimpse of Mason, flailing as he soared away from her at speed. Then something hit her head and she blacked out.
She tried to scratch an annoying itch on her chin, but her hand didn’t move. Was she paralysed? She fought the urge to panic and instead took a deep breath and waited for her vision to clear.
Little by little, the room around her came into sharp relief. And it wasn’t a familiar one. It was white, mostly, save the occasional flakes of rust that indicated the walls were metal. A deep hum resonated through the chair she sat in, vibrating her bones. No, not sat in, was strapped in. Her hands and feet were bound with crude Velcro straps, which was why she was unable to move.
Prisoner. The word rattled through her mind, and again she fought the urge to panic. The question was, a prisoner of whom? The Hong Kong police? The World Consortium? Or Shadow Helix?
She called out. “Hello?” She strained to listen for a reply, for any sign of movement. “Hell-o-o!” she said louder. “This is your friendly prisoner here who would like very much to go the toilet!” She didn’t need to, but thought it was as good a way of gaining attention as any other.
At the top of her lungs, she began to sing a new chart song she’d heard recently on the radio. She didn’t know all the lyrics, so she filled in the blanks with the rudest words she knew. With the little movement she had, she stomped her feet on the floor for added effect. They gave a dull thud that sounded almost hollow.
After several long moments the door opened and a cloaked, hunched figure appeared, dragging its right foot behind as it entered. She could hear raspy breathing from beneath the hood.
“Stop singing!” the figure yelled, and a deformed, slender hand reached up to pull away the hood.
Lot stopped straight away. She couldn’t take her eyes off the hideous creature beneath the hood. She also couldn’t stop herself from screaming.
Charles Parker couldn’t pull his eyes away from the numerous monitors on the bunker wall, all showing the same thing: news footage of a flying saucer hovering over a half-destroyed Hong Kong. He knew exactly what had happened, but he found little mirth in listening to international reports talking about an alien invasion.
“How did they find Professor Liu?” Charles demanded.
Eema spoke over the computer system. “Apparently Devon is more resourceful than you gave him credit for. He took the files before he left. Unless you are referring to Shadow Helix – in which case, I believe you yourself gave the Collector everything he needed.”
“Oh, go and delete yourself!” snapped Charles.
“I am unable to comply.”
“Is there any sign of Liu?”
“I have searched hospital records and found no trace of Professor Liu.”
“We need to know what he told Devon. What if he told him the location of the second case? We were never told its location. Can you trace the Avro?”
“I am unable to do so. It was last seen heading due east over the Pacific Ocean. Satellite recon has detected nothing, and they are not transmitting any flight data. We will only find them if they show up on camera or if the public reports another sighting.”
“Then they’re as good as invisible. They won’t make the same mistake twice.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Charles, the Consortium is demanding answers. This is the biggest tech disaster to date.”
Since its formation, the World Consortium had worked with governments and the United Nations in keeping history-changing inventions a secret. The explosion over Tunguska, Siberia in June 1908 was seen across most of northern hemisphere. It was blamed on a meteor strike, rather than the experimental antimatter engine that a Russian scientist was testing. The 2012 blackout in India, which affected six hundred and twenty million people, was in fact caused by a small gizmo that was designed to deflect rain over cities, to prevent flooding. These and many more inventions were deemed either too unstable or vulnerable to be used for completely wrong, and deadly, other purposes. The public was kept in the dark to prevent both general panic and further research into areas of science that should be left alone.
In every instance they had been able to cover up the real causes. But now, with worldwide media showing a UFO hovering over a localized gravity distortion, facts couldn’t be concealed. But Charles knew the truth could. As unpalatable as it sounded, he was going to have to allow the public to think this was an act of alien sabotage.
“What are we to do about Devon?” said Eema.
“Do you really think he has gone rogue?”
“His rap sheet now includes assaulting several Consortium guards, stealing technology, freeing a prisoner, evading capture, possibly assassinating Professor Liu and most definitely destroying Hong Kong. If these are not deliberate acts, then he must be the clumsiest person in the world. Why else would he do this?”
Charles sighed. He had been trying to work that out himself. “I don’t know what goes on inside the boy’s mind; it’s the one place I can’t see.”
“I think it’s time to activate the Dissolution Protocol.” When Charles didn’t respond, she prompted him again. “I said, it’s time to activate the Dissolution Protocol.”
He nodded grimly. His eyes scanned across the screens one last time. He was gravely disappointed that yet another one of his projects had gone so wrong . . . and this time he felt a pang of something unfamiliar: sorrow.
“Time is against us,” said Dev, after thoughtful consideration. “And going back to search for Lot is not going to be quick or easy.” He held Mason’s gaze. “We have to continue on.”
Mason nodded, but his jaw clenched. “Just so we’re clear. If I go missing, then you wouldn’t come back and look for me either?”
“It would depend on the circumstances. But, well, no. I wouldn’t. Just like now.”
“Well, at least I know where I stand.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
Tension grew in the silence that followed. Dev concentrated on flying the Avro, a task that Lot was much better at. Finally Mason broke the silence.
“If I’d twisted my ankle and was slowing us down—”
“Get ready for landing,” Dev cut in, determined to blank him.
Mason peered out of the viewport. In the distance the horizon was filled with imposing mountains, but below there was nothing but an unremarkable patchwork of fields dusted with snow. Dev steered away from an airfield, and they landed with a bone-jarring bump in a clearing amid a copse of fir trees.
They set about gathering fallen branches and tossing them on to the Avro in an attempt to camouflage the craft, now that the cloaking device was broken. It wasn’t working very well, and it soon started to snow. Mason blew into his hands to fend off the cold; he wasn’t dressed for the biting chill.
“Where are we?”
&nb
sp; “Échenevex,” Dev said.
Mason gave him a blank look.
“France,” he added.
Mason looked around at the empty fields doubtfully. “And Professor Liu hid the case in, like, a bank vault around here? He certainly picked someplace random.”
Dev couldn’t elaborate on the details of the telepathic imprint he had received from Professor Liu. He had just suddenly known the information, like digging up an old memory. It was as if the memory had been downloaded into his head, and he just had to “remember” it. That meant he didn’t know what lay ahead, exactly, and he didn’t know if there was more to “remember”. He just had to go with what he knew and hope he’d be able to come up with more information as he went along.
He absently patted his pocket to check that Professor Liu’s telepathic ear clip was still there. Sure enough, it was, next to the translator he had put there when the battery had started to fade.
“It’s not in a bank vault, exactly.”
“Then where? In a gigantic hole? Ooh, or maybe inside a massive baguette?” said Mason.
Dev tried to recall the foreign memory. “I think it’s more of a time capsule.” He sounded puzzled by his own statement.
They studied their attempt at hiding the Avro. It was pretty appalling, but they hoped it would throw off the casual passer-by. Not that anyone was likely to be walking by here.
Dev hauled the kitbag over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
It was a short walk through the trees before they reached a field of cows. The animals didn’t look pleased to be out in the snow, and Dev tried to ignore their suspicious bovine stares as the boys climbed the wooden fence.
A group of buildings lay ahead. They could see a large sign on the side of one of the buildings. Dev stopped as he suddenly “remembered” in greater detail where Professor Liu’s time capsule was buried. But if Professor Liu had a plan on how to retrieve the case, he hadn’t shared it with Dev.
“CERN?” said Mason with a frown as he read the sign. “Why does that sound familiar?”
Dev knelt to rummage through his kitbag. “It’s a scientific research place. Here, clip this on.”
Mason looked at the round pin-badge Dev had handed him. There was no picture on the front, just a series of curved lines engraved into the metal surface, which reflected a hue of colours when angled in the light.
“What is it?”
“A BlurBadge.”
Dev called up the Inventory catalogue entry, the display hovering over his watch. It was a copy of an old instruction paper, written in a font that must have seemed futuristic in the 1980s.
Fool your friends with the BlurBadge™! Strap it on and nobody will know who you are! Your friends’ muddled brains will fill in the blanks. Why not rob a bank today?
“I can see why it was banned,” said Mason.
“Yeah. Things were weird in the eighties. When we get inside, just act confident, as if we belong in there.”
Mason pinned the badge on – a tricky manoeuvre with his cold, large fingers – and looked back at the sign on the building. “Hold on. Isn’t this the place with the Large Haggis Collider?”
“Large Hadron Collider,” Dev corrected him. He saw the look of panic cross Mason’s face.
“Isn’t that the thing that people are worried will destroy the world?’
Dev shrugged and zipped the kitbag back up. “I hope not. But then again, knowing our luck. . .”
He activated his BlurBadge and trudged across the field towards the main gates, Mason reluctantly following behind.
Théo had been a guard at CERN for three decades. He loved working at this facility. It was here that the internet was birthed, the existence of the Higgs-Boson particle confirmed and other reality-shaking discoveries were still being made. He knew every one of the two thousand, two hundred members of staff – or their first names, at least.
So when two short men approached the gates, he wondered why he couldn’t recall their names, and why he was starting to get a headache.
He put his phone down and rubbed his suddenly tired eyes. He squinted at the men as they drew closer. They were complete blurs, although, oddly, everything around them was in focus. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with something; there always seemed to be at least one illness going around.
As the newcomers drew closer, their faces seemed to shift into vaguely recognizable ones – but even those seemed to alter from one person to another. The men held up ID badges as they walked past and smiled, both offering a cheery “Bonjour” in terrible French accents.
“Good morning, Mr . . . er . . . and Mr . . . um. . .” stuttered Théo, feeling a flush of embarrassment for forgetting their names.
As Mr Er and Mr Um casually walked into the complex, Théo sat back down and rubbed his eyes again. The terrible headache suddenly vanished as quickly as it had come. He’d have a baguette for lunch, he decided, not realizing how much Mr Um would approve of that decision.
“Wow,” breathed Mason as they walked out of view of the guard, behind one of the buildings, and stopped at a large statue. It was difficult to look at each other with their BlurBadges activated, but very slowly their features came into sharp relief for both.
“Um, Dev. . .”
“I know.” Dev took his badge off. Just by touch his power notified him it needed recharging. “Well, at least they got us this far.”
“That was weird. I really didn’t think it would work. He looked at us as if he knew us!” Mason looked at the old fast food loyalty card he had used as an ID. The BlurBadge had made it unreadable while the security guard’s brain had filled in the required details. “Knew this would come in handy one day! Two more stamps and I get a free cheeseburger too.”
Dev frowned at the statue looming over them. He didn’t know what it was, but Liu’s memory of it surfaced. It was a dancing image of the four-armed Hindu deity Shiva. “The cosmic dance of creation and destruction. . .” whispered Dev. He noticed Mason’s odd look. “Just something I was remembering.”
Mason looked around. “So which building is this thing in?”
Dev knew it was here, somewhere. It was just the details that evaded him. . .
Then it came to him. A slow awareness as the memory pushed through his mental fog. He looked down at his feet.
“We have to dig for it?” asked Mason, following his gaze.
“Sort of,” said Dev.
One hundred and fifty metres below their feet was the collider tunnel. A massive circle, twenty-seven kilometres in circumference, and the place where particles were smashed together at almost the speed of light.
And that’s where he remembered Professor Liu had hidden the case.
In the end, Lot was left to scream until her dry throat went hoarse. Then she sat in embarrassed silence when it became apparent that the crooked figure before her hadn’t made any move to harm her.
She looked a little more carefully at the man’s hands. One was normal, but the right one was too thin; the fingers were twice as long as they should be. The same problem continued down that side of his body. The foot that looked as if it had been run through a mangle; the chin and entire side of the head that was prised away from the skull, making it look as if a crescent moon had collided with his face, leaving the left-hand side normal and completely recognizable.
“K-Kardach? What happened?”
Kardach’s harsh breathing quickened for a moment. “The graviton leakage did this to me.” He touched his warped face. “A split second is all it took.”
Lot recalled how Christen had been sucked into the miniature black hole at the centre of the Newton’s Arrow graviton pod. For him, it was all over in the blink of an eye; for Kardach, she could see the pain on his face with every movement he made.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. She meant it too. He may be the enemy, but her father had taught her to respect people, even those who meant her harm. She just hoped that he felt the same.
Kardach scowled as
if the thought of sympathy was a physical strike across his twisted cheek. He wheezed, dragging his foot as he limped closer.
“You have been summoned.” He unfastened the straps binding her to the chair and indicated to the door.
“What? No handcuffs?” said Lot in surprise.
Kardach growled, or it may have been a laugh. Lot tried not to smile. Obviously he didn’t think she would put up much of a fight. What a terrible mistake for him, she thought as she was led down the metal-walled corridor.
They reached an elevator and headed up. By the time they arrived, Lot’s suspicions about her location were confirmed.
The elevator doors opened on to the bridge of a cargo freighter. Massive windows offered a view across a calm, blue ocean. The deck of the ship itself extended out the length of several soccer pitches, and it was bare, save for dozens of lifeboats hanging over the edges, suspended on winches.
Two uniformed crewmen on the bridge didn’t look away from their instruments as Kardach and Lot entered.
“This is Shadow Helix’s base?” said Lot.
A voice chuckled from the far end of the bridge. “This? No, child. Merely a transport that will take us to our destination.”
Lot turned to the speaker. He was an average-sized man, with unremarkable looks, the kind of person who would blend in in any crowd. When Lot glanced to Kardach and back, she was aware that she’d already forgotten what he looked like. He was memorable for being utterly forgettable.
“Please forgive us for tying you up, but you have a track record of being difficult. Drink?”
Lot shook her head. Once again she glanced at Kardach. She marvelled that he seemed to actually be afraid of this unassuming man.
“You must be Double Helix?”