Blackout

by Peter Jay Black

  Jack lowered his voice to barely a whisper. ‘While we’re on that, Obi, have you found anything on Hector’s background?’

  ‘Looks clean, so far.’

  ‘OK, keep digging and let me know if –’

  ‘Get off me!’

  Jack spun around.

  Connor was grasping Slink’s throat. ‘One false move and I’ll break his neck.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jack stood in stunned silence, watching Connor squeeze Slink’s throat.

  Slink was starting to turn blue and, for the first time in his life, Jack couldn’t think of a way to help him.

  ‘Keep still,’ Connor growled in Slink’s ear, ‘and you might live through this.’

  ‘Get off him.’ Wren went to step forward, but Jack grabbed her arm. He looked around the alleyway, but still couldn’t see a way to save Slink.

  ‘Stand in front of me,’ Hector whispered to Charlie. ‘Block his view.’ He slipped the backpack off his shoulders.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jack hissed through the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Keep him distracted.’

  Connor said something and Jack looked at him.

  ‘We haven’t got the virus,’ Charlie said, defiant.

  Connor’s eyes were mere slits. ‘Of course you have. Give it to me.’

  Slink tried to twist his body free.

  ‘Careful, boy,’ Connor snarled and dug his fingers in. He looked at Jack. ‘The virus.’

  ‘We’ve told you – we don’t have it.’

  ‘I’m not falling for your tricks again,’ Connor said, redoubling his grip on Slink’s neck and making him grimace. With his free hand, Connor reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.

  Obviously, he was calling Monday and Cloud for backup.

  ‘Leave this to me,’ Hector whispered.

  Jack glanced at him and then did a double take.

  Hector was wearing some kind of gauntlet. It was black and had plastic cylinders moulded to the back of it. Cables ran from the cylinders and down the fingers, ending in silver pads on the tips.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Jack mumbled. ‘What is that?’

  Suddenly, Hector burst forward, springing past Jack, Charlie and Wren and leaping towards Connor.

  Connor started to react, but he was too slow – Hector rammed into him, knocking him backwards.

  Just as Slink twisted free, Hector reached out and touched Connor’s arm with the gloved hand.

  There was a loud crack and Connor crumpled to the floor.

  Hector spun around. ‘Run,’ he shouted.

  They sprinted down the alleyway just as Noble’s blue campervan pulled to the kerb.

  Jack slid open the side door and they all clambered in.

  ‘Go,’ Jack shouted.

  Noble stamped his foot on the accelerator and pulled away.

  Half a mile down the road, he said, ‘What just happened?’

  ‘Connor,’ Jack said, pulling back the curtains and checking the cars behind them. Satisfied no one was following, he sat down and allowed himself to relax.

  ‘I owe you one, mate,’ Slink said to Hector.

  Hector waved him off. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘You were amazing,’ Wren said.

  Jack winced inside. He felt bad that it hadn’t been him who’d got Slink out of that mess.

  Charlie nodded at Hector’s gauntlet. ‘Is that a stun glove?’

  ‘Yes. It delivers three-hundred thousand volts.’ Hector slipped it off and stuffed it back into his bag.

  ‘Did you build it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Impressive.’

  Jack let out a slow breath and looked around.

  The interior of Noble’s campervan was kitted out with a leather chair surrounded by monitors and computers. Noble called the van his mobile command centre.

  At the back was a bench where Jack, Charlie and Hector sat. Wren and Slink sat cross-legged on the floor.

  Noble parked, climbed out of the driver’s seat and dropped into the chair.

  Jack turned to Hector. ‘So you reckon you can find where the Nexus is?’

  ‘An access point,’ Charlie corrected.

  ‘Right,’ Jack said. ‘Access point.’ He looked at Hector again. ‘Can you find it or not?’

  Hector nodded. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Do it.’

  Hector pulled the laptop out of his bag, opened it, and started typing and clicking.

  Jack watched over his shoulder as he worked. ‘I know a quicker way of doing that,’ he said. ‘If you route through the –’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Hector said. ‘This cuts out the need for extra proxies and spoofing my mac address.’ He brought up a dialog box. ‘Watch this, you might learn something.’

  Jack sat back and crossed his arms.

  A minute later, Hector said, ‘OK, they’ve left a direct trail. Doesn’t even look like they tried to hide their footprints.’ He looked at Jack with a smug expression. ‘I’ve got the location.’

  Noble pulled a keyboard towards him and Hector relayed the GPS coordinates. Noble then angled a monitor so the rest of them could see.

  ‘According to Hector’s information, the Nexus access point is located in a bookshop on Marylebone High Street.’

  ‘A bookshop?’ Jack said, incredulous. ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘Why not?’ Hector said. ‘Could be hidden under it.’

  ‘I tend to agree.’ Noble looked thoughtful. ‘It’s a good place to hide an access point – somewhere semi-public.’ He looked at Hector. ‘Quite clever, really. Well done on finding it. That can’t have been easy.’

  Hector smiled at him. ‘Thanks.’

  Jack clenched his fists. ‘Any ideas on how to break in?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves,’ Noble said. ‘Also, you will need a special piece of equipment to connect to the Nexus access point once you’re inside.’

  ‘What equipment?’ Hector said. ‘How do we get it?’

  Jack glanced at him, annoyed. What was with all this “We”?

  Noble cleared his throat. ‘It just so happens, I acquired a set a while back.’

  ‘Acquired?’ Charlie said, aiming a wry grin in his direction.

  Noble winked at her.

  ‘OK,’ Jack said. ‘So, we break into the Nexus access point under the bookshop and find a way to extract the virus.’

  As if it was going to be that easy.

  Charlie looked at him. ‘Sounds like this might be fun.’

  Noble drove the five of them to London Docklands.

  ‘Are we going to your house?’ Wren asked Noble.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, we’re not,’ Jack said. ‘Drop him off here.’ He glanced at Hector. ‘We’ll pick you up when we’re done.’

  ‘Jack,’ Charlie said, frowning. ‘Hector just saved Slink’s life. Show him some respect.’

  ‘Respect?’ Jack said, incredulous. ‘Are you kidding? You do remember he stole the virus from us?’

  Charlie shot him a stern look.

  ‘Whatever,’ Jack muttered.

  But they did have a problem – if they ditched Hector, he might try to break into the Nexus on his own, or worse, tell other people about what they were trying to do. Not to mention the fact that Connor could get hold of him.

  Jack ground his teeth. Charlie was right – they had to keep Hector with them. They had no choice.

  Besides, he thought, there is a saying about keeping your enemies close.

  He glanced at the others. Why did they trust Hector so much? They’d been in worse situations and Jack had got them out before. He would’ve thought of a way to save Slink, if he’d just been given the chance.

  Jack took a deep breath and tried to relax.

  The time would come when the others would agree with him. They’d let Hector go and it would be just the five of them again. Back to normal.

  Hector gazed out of the windo
w, oblivious to Jack’s burning stare. He was looking at the old and new buildings mixed together, lining the Thames. ‘What are we doing here?’

  Slink pointed through the windscreen at a huge Georgian brick warehouse.

  They drove down a side road and headed to the rear of the building. On the back wall was an enormous faded poster of a painted image of Titanic, surrounded by a fancy rope border. Strangely enough, it advertised something called “toilet soap”.

  Noble turned the campervan and drove straight towards the sign.

  Hector tensed visibly.

  Wren smiled at him. ‘Watch this,’ she said.

  When they were a few metres from the wall, the entire sign rose up into the air, revealing an archway beyond.

  Noble drove through, parked the campervan inside the building and they all climbed out as the sign lowered back into place.

  They were now standing in a room filled with antique cars, motorbikes and bicycles. There was an old boxy Ford car with wooden wheels, a two-seater Triumph, a silver Aston Martin and even a pink and white ice-cream van.

  There were also around twenty or so motorbikes of various makes and ages lined up in a neat row. Only Charlie and Noble knew all of their names.

  Around the edges of the room were fifty or so bicycles. One Jack did recognise was called a Raleigh Chopper. It had high, sweeping handlebars, a curved seat and a gear stick on the main crossbars.

  Above all the bikes, metal signs filled every available wall space, advertising oil, petrol, even Hot Coffee.

  The round pillars that held up the ceiling were covered in car badges and old tax discs.

  Hector stared at the complete scene, dumbfounded. ‘It’s like a museum in here.’

  ‘Noble,’ Charlie said, hurrying over to a red Formula One car in the corner of the room by the ice-cream van. ‘When did you get this?’ She walked slowly around it, her eyes wide.

  ‘A couple of months ago,’ Noble said with half a smile.

  ‘It’s a two thousand and five, Team Ferrari, F1.’ Charlie looked up at him. ‘How did you get it?’

  Noble shrugged. ‘An auction.’

  ‘Must have cost you a fortune.’

  Noble cleared his throat. ‘It was an online auction.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Jack said. ‘By some miracle, you were the only one who bid on it because the other bidders mysteriously vanished?’

  Noble shrugged. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I want a Ferrari,’ Wren said.

  ‘That’s more your speed.’ Slink pointed at a bicycle with a ginormous front wheel.

  ‘Penny-farthing.’ Noble walked to the far wall, pulled up a wooden shutter and stepped into a lift. The others followed him inside. Charlie reluctantly tore her eyes from the Ferrari and hurried over to them. When she was in, Noble was about to pull down the shutter, but Jack stopped him.

  He turned to Hector. ‘Wait by the van.’

  ‘Jack,’ Charlie said. ‘Are you serious?’

  Slink and Wren frowned at him too.

  Jack ignored them and pointed at a camera high on the wall. ‘We’ll be watching you.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Hector said to the others. ‘I’m cool with it.’ But the nasty look he gave Jack said otherwise.

  Hector stepped out of the lift.

  Noble pulled down the shutter and hit the button on the wall.

  Jack felt the others staring at him, but he ignored them.

  The entire first level of the warehouse was open-plan and divided into various living areas, each filled with a mixture of gadgets and antiques. The old and the new were stacked together, with barely space to walk between them.

  Starting in the top left corner was Noble’s living area with a sofa made out of a Volkswagen Beetle with the main cabin and roof removed. Above it was a huge crystal chandelier.

  The right-hand side of the warehouse was divided into a kitchen and dining room like the Outlaws’ bunker.

  Back on the left side of the warehouse, next to Noble’s lounge, was a work area with shelves cram­med full of books, and in the middle was a metal desk with Noble’s computer station. It was a lot neater than Obi’s, with a PC case made from transparent acrylic, wireless keyboard and trackpad, and three high-resolution twenty-seven-inch screens, all next to a window that overlooked the River Thames.

  The only other item on Noble’s desk was a photo of Serene. Serene was Noble’s sister. She lived in America, but came over from time to time to help with missions. She had a degree in chemistry, another in physics and one in business studies. She was clever. Very clever, and Jack missed her.

  Noble hung his coat up on a stand made from old light fittings welded together and strode to his work area. Under the window were oak cupboards and drawers that matched the kitchen. Noble opened one cupboard, removed a metal briefcase and laid it on a table. ‘Come and take a look at what I have here.’

  They gathered around him as he undid the clasps and opened the case.

  Jack leant forward and peered inside. Protected in black, cut-out foam was a set of video glasses, a pair of gloves covered in sensors and wires and a metal box with connections on the back. ‘What’s that?’

  Noble pursed his lips. ‘It’s the equipment you need to connect to the Nexus.’

  ‘They use some sort of virtual-reality gear for this?’ Charlie said. ‘Plug themselves in?’ Her eyes glistened at the prospect of another gadget she could take apart and examine.

  Noble nodded. ‘As you can imagine, it was extremely hard to get this.’

  Charlie’s shoulders slumped as she realised she wouldn’t be dismantling these.

  ‘As far as I can tell,’ Noble continued, ‘they’ve only made a limited number of them.’ He pointed at a number eight on a small brass plaque on the arm of the glasses.

  ‘Guess we shouldn’t break it then.’ Slink reached in and hefted the glasses. ‘Heavy.’

  Noble eyed him. ‘Care would be advisable.’

  Jack took the glasses from Slink, lowered them back into the case and looked at Noble. ‘Why do we need to use them?’

  ‘It’s the only way in,’ Noble said. ‘There are no other interfaces.’

  Charlie looked confused. ‘No keyboards, mice, displays?’

  Noble shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just the glasses and gloves.’ His eyes moved to Jack. ‘You’ll have to go into the Nexus and look for the virus.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Noble shrugged. ‘Find a way to extract it. As I said, I don’t know what the final design looks like because my contract ended before the Nexus was completed. You’ll have to work it out when you get there.’

  Jack pointed at the wires and connections. ‘Think you could patch into that?’ he said to Charlie.

  She stared for a moment, then understood what he was getting at. ‘Yeah. But why do you want to do that? What if the virus leaks to the internet again?’

  ‘It won’t,’ Jack said. ‘We’ll use our phones to create a direct link with the bunker’s computers.’ He pressed a finger to his ear. ‘Obi?’

  ‘I heard,’ Obi said. ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Outlaw World.’

  ‘That’s brilliant.’ Jack glanced at Charlie – she was grinning. ‘Obi, how long will it take you to set that up?’

  ‘Not long. I have it all ready, just need to create a secure route via the phones.’

  Jack closed the lid on the case, fastened the clasps and looked at Noble. ‘Is there anything else we need to know?’

  Noble considered this. ‘I’m not sure what security you’ll encounter, but the bookshop itself is in an old building.’

  Jack smiled at Charlie, Slink and Wren. ‘That’s their first mistake.’

  They beamed back at him.

  Later that afternoon, Jack, Charlie, Hector, Slink and Wren sat at a table by the window in Vivaldi café, across the road from an old-fashioned bookshop with green wooden window frames and thick uneven glass. It was strange
ly fascinating and very few people could walk past the shop without taking a quick look inside.

  The others explained to Hector why they were there, despite Jack’s obvious unease about telling him too much.

  ‘Here,’ Charlie said to Hector. ‘Wear this.’ She pulled a headset from her bag and passed it to him. ‘Say hi to Obi.’

  Hector stuffed the earpiece in. ‘Who’s Obi?’

  ‘I’m Obi.’

  ‘He’s back at the bunker,’ Wren said.

  ‘You live in a bunker?’ Hector said. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Wren,’ Jack snapped.

  Her brow furrowed. ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘Because it does.’ Jack didn’t have time to explain.

  ‘That’s cool,’ Hector muttered. ‘I’d love to see it one day.’

  Jack huffed. The others were being infuriating.

  Slink leant over the table to Hector. ‘You wanna know why he’s called Obi?’

  Hector nodded.

  ‘It’s short for Obi-Wan Kenobi,’ Obi said. ‘Obi-Wan was –’

  ‘No it’s not,’ Slink interrupted. ‘Obi’s short for Oafish Blundering Idiot.’

  Obi started swearing over Slink’s laughs.

  A waiter approached the table. He looked between them all and didn’t seem very pleased that five kids were in the café unsupervised. ‘What do you want?’ he said in a haughty Italian accent.

  ‘Five lemonades,’ Slink said, grinning at him.

  The waiter nodded and scribbled in his order pad. ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘Just the lemonade.’

  The waiter’s eyes narrowed. He spun on his heels and marched away.

  Jack refocused on the bookshop across the street.

  A few minutes passed and the waiter returned with a tray of drinks. He set the lemonades down and shuffled off.

  Charlie said, ‘While we wait, can we play the “Jack” game?’

  Jack glanced at her. ‘No.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I said no.’

  Hector looked puzzled. ‘What’s the “Jack” game?’

  Slink said, ‘Hi . . . Jack.’

  Charlie suppressed a smile. ‘Carjack.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘You know this is childish, right?’

  ‘Lumberjack,’ Obi said in his ear.