CHAPTER 32
‘Hello, Farley,’ Lear said, as Jackson warily connected to the MeX handset, which he had never expected to ring again. ‘My, how you’ve let your standards slide. And where exactly did you get hold of that piece of farmyard machinery you’re driving? I’m sorry, were driving. Don’t tell me … it’s one of J.P.’s inventions. I guess I should be impressed that you both made it here. Miss English, does your esteemed father know you have borrowed his flying trash cans?’
‘Bite me!’ replied Brooke, furious that Punk had now joined Tug and was lying greasy side up at the edge of the compound.
‘Rotor blades!’ said Lear. ‘How quaint! And what about those spikes? Do they do anything, or are they merely for effect?’
‘Why don’t you reveal yourself and I can show you!’ the young American shot back through clenched teeth.
A glassy disc appeared in front of one of Lear’s big rigs, the outline of a MeX saucer, but with a shimmering crystalline skin in place of the slate-grey of the MEX1s that Brooke and Jackson had piloted. It was easy to see how the Cloaker worked as the image of the truck’s black tyres and chrome hubcaps slowly faded from the smooth skin on which they had been synthesized. It wasn’t so much invisibility as blending in. Now that Jackson knew where it was hovering, it would no longer be able to blend in quite so effectively, like a picture of a stick insect after someone has pointed out that one of the sticks has legs. Jackson could also make out the mouth of a gun barrel, which he knew had launched the projectile that had downed Tug.
‘Big deal! So you strapped a TV to the outside of one of your flying soup bowls,’ said Brooke nonchalantly. ‘But you won’t be invisible to the authorities once we release the evidence we’ve gathered. Of course, you could make it easier on yourself by telling us where you’ve hidden the twins.’
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Lear replied.
‘What I don’t understand is why,’ Brooke continued. ‘Aren’t you rich enough?’
‘To dare is to do.’ Lear sighed heavily. ‘Oh, come now – is what we’re doing here so different from what our governments are doing with oil, with gold, with diamonds? It’s endearing that the two of you see things so simply – as either good or evil. But really … when you both get a little older you’ll understand – there are two sides to everything.’
‘Tell that to Mr Mobius,’ said Jackson. It was a phrase his mother used to say. It referred to the Mobius Strip, a simple band of paper given a twist and then joined at its ends. It was a mathematical peculiarity and, in Jackson’s mind at least, proof that something that appears to be two-sided can also be one-sided.
‘Ideological and a maths bore – what an unfortunate combination,’ sneered Lear.
‘Try evil and slightly balding,’ Brooke quipped. Devlin Lear was silent, failing to hide his embarrassment at being trumped.
‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t chat. As you’ve noticed, I am a little busy right now. So, if you don’t want to witness Dragos and his hardy band of hangers-on blown to smithereens by my Cloaker’s bullets, I suggest you give me exclusive access to whatever server you’ve stored all your surveillance data on. Thirty seconds should give you enough time to send me the login details – but not long enough for you to copy the files – if you get my drift.’
‘And what makes you think we’ll just roll over?’ Jackson wasn’t entirely sure how his argument came across, given his machine was lying on its back with part of its wing missing.
‘Perhaps this will help persuade you …’ Two more Cloakers revealed themselves, hovering a metre or so above the ground on either side of Lear’s MeX3.
‘Say hello to the twins! They’ve been helping me to keep an eye on you ever since I was informed of your arrival.’
Jackson was gutted. He couldn’t believe what Lear was telling him. He’d spent so many days and nights worrying about the fate of his ex-teammates, only to be faced with this. Was it really them?
Brooke was apparently convinced. ‘Tell them from me they’re owned!’ she spat.
‘Oh, they can hear you … they just choose to ignore you,’ said Lear.
The two glistening discs hung in the air with the Kojimas’ distinctive stacked formation – one on top of the other. As they moved slowly off towards the mountainside, their luminous skins morphed into shimmering outlines before vanishing altogether against the dark escarpment.
Jackson recognized the twins’ machines by their distinctive flying style and knew it was all over. He didn’t need to question Brooke – he knew she’d give up the files rather than see the General and his men slaughtered. She’s right, he told himself. Dragos will die. Lear will worm his way out. We are no match for this man. We never were. He shook his head to force out the fearful thoughts, and they were immediately replaced with something else. The voice of Willard from the chess club. I know you can think, Farley – the question is, can you fight?
He wanted to fight, but this man was a cold-blooded murderer.
‘Nothing to say?’ sneered Lear. ‘What is it exactly you need to prove, Farley? Do you really think you’ll ever climb as high as that pedestal you put your dead mother on?’
Lear’s words startled Jackson. What did he mean by bringing his mother into it? He’d shown he had access to information about the recruits, Jackson even imagined he’d revelled in spying on them, but this was low even for Lear.
‘You know nothing about my mother!’ snarled Jackson. At the same moment, he let his index finger slide on to the metal bead at the top of the lightsabre that sat heavy in his hand. No sooner had Jackson engaged the SHUNT, than Tug shot forward. Still upended, the robot scraped across the ground, sparks arcing from the metal edges of his fuselage as he rocketed towards Lear’s machine. Before Lear had time to react, Tug had collided with his MeX3, flipping it up and over the juggernaut like a huge coin.
‘What are you doing?’ yelled Brooke.
‘Just follow me. We have to head off the twins before they reach Dragos.’
Tug tore away, Jackson flipping the robot right side up and compensating for the missing wing tip by holding his controller at a right angle. Brooke wavered for a beat. Jackson’s decision had taken her by surprise. It was foolhardy and potentially lethal for the men on the hill. The imminent arrival of her father through the door and the fact that both her robots were perilously low on power had weakened her resolve. But she loathed the fact that Lear had outfoxed them. What was all this for if Lear’s crimes didn’t end up being laid bare? Brooke snapped her joystick forward and committed Punk to the chase.
‘How we gonna head off something we can’t see?’ It was a stumbling block all right. They were chasing two of the most advanced dot.robots, built for the fight. The Kojimas hopelessly outgunned them and Brooke suspected there was a good chance Lear’s machine would soon be joining the fray.
‘Just keep on Tug’s tail,’ said Jackson. ‘I’ve think I know how to uncloak them!’
Tug’s handling had been seriously impaired by the MeX3’s explosive bullet, and the robot whipsawed from side to side as he joined Punk to crest the ridge a few hundred metres below the General’s position. All that stood between them and Dragos was the thin coating of mist, which had thickened since their arrival. The screens of both pilots whited out for a few seconds as Tug and Punk disappeared inside the fog band that surrounded the mountain. Jackson was relieved to see Dragos and his companions lowering their guns when they recognized the outline of his damaged machine as the one that had helped them earlier. Their reaction to Punk was less welcoming, but something about the slip-shod spiked ball told the villagers this wasn’t one of Lear’s creations.
‘Keep your eyes on the fog,’ Jackson warned Brooke. ‘They’ll have seen us on their spider displays and they’ll be coming.’ The rudimentary navigation display that J.P. had given his two mining bots was designed for nothing more testing than their Mojave demonstration. They had no infrared, and their radar was designed to give a simple outline o
f the terrain so they could locate or avoid large rock formations. Jackson knew from experience that the MeX craft had a full spectrum of navigation and object-detection systems at their disposal; if nothing else, they would have caught their heat signals as they’d passed through the mist.
Jackson put his face close to the monitor, searching for a sign in the ghostly fog. Then he noticed a break in the milky wall, as if someone had cut out a porthole in the cloud of water vapour. The Cloaker was doing its job, mimicking the dense white cloud that its panoramic camera saw all around it – but its intricate electronics couldn’t account for the fact that the saucer-shaped object had cut a path through the fog.
Jackson fired his thruster for the final time and Tug’s potent fuel cell drained the last dregs of energy into the engine. The robot surged forward so quickly that he corkscrewed around his roll axis. Tug’s chisel-shaped nose struck the MeX3 with enough force to crack open its thermoplastic casing and send it rolling down the hillside. The force also caused Tug to somersault on to the ground, digging himself a rut in the soft soil. Suddenly the second of the twins’ machines punctured the fog. Punk shot towards the disc-shaped apparition, his rotor-blades retracting just before his metal body hit the MeX3 like a spiked wrecking ball. Several of the little robot’s sharp metal spikes pierced the plastic airframe of the Cloaker and Brooke engaged what she affectionately called Punk’s cattle prod. It wasn’t a prod as such, but a means of sending a high-voltage electric charge through all of Punk’s sharp spines at once. The Kojimas’ machine was consumed in a blinding blue-and-white flash that lit up the edges of the fog. The defeated dot. robot dropped lifelessly to the ground, with Punk still attached.
‘And that’s what you call a slam-dunk!’ shouted Brooke triumphantly.
For a moment Jackson felt numb. Had it been that easy? He opened his mouth to speak to Brooke when suddenly Tug was snatched away by what seemed like a mighty gust of wind. One moment the two asteroid-mining machines were hovering before Dragos and their comrades in arms, the next they were dashed against the rocks behind. As Dragos and his men dived for cover, a familiar shape loomed out of the mist. It was Lear’s MeX3, uncloaked and spitting sparks from its ruptured Optical Skin, but flying straight and steady. And it was clear from the effects of the Bass Bomb that had just hit Tug and Punk that its weapons were functioning perfectly.
‘Login details … Now!’ the Englishman’s voice boomed. An intense greenish-blue light erupted from the centre of Lear’s machine. It made Jackson wince and look away from his screen. His eyeballs felt like they’d been flash-fried. But his discomfort was little compared to the men whose cries he could hear all around him.
‘The next dose from my Dazzler will blind them permanently. Login details. Now!’
‘OK … OK …’ said Brooke.
Tug was beaten. Jackson could see his robot’s battery indicator had bottomed out and when he tried to move the battered robot, the electric fan let out a sickly splutter. There was a large crack across the centre of the sideways view that the broken machine was offering Jackson, but the video feed was clear enough for him to make out the two machines controlled by the Kojimas coming into view through the fog. Even if Punk had another round left in him, Jackson knew the fight was over.
‘The username is “scumbag” … I kinda named that one after you,’ said Brooke. As she spoke, Jackson was amazed to see the two machines piloted by the twins arriving either side of Lear’s. After everything he and Brooke had thrown at the twins’ MeX3s, they were battered but clearly still functioning.
‘And the password …’ Brooke was about to hand over the final key to all that they had on the maniacal billionaire when the two machines flanking him suddenly exploded. In a fraction of a second the twins’ machines were incinerated and Lear’s was engulfed in flames.
Brooke was so amazed at what her screen was showing that she failed to notice the figures of her father, his breathless assistant and the elfin launch director standing behind her, the door having finally succumbed to their assault.
‘Two birds … one stone.’ It was the voice of Master Kojima.
‘I don’t understand …’ said Brooke into the MeX handset through which she’d just heard his voice. But before she could finish her sentence, the line went dead.
‘I guess MeX is offline! I think the great Devlin Lear just ran out of things to say,’ said Jackson.
No one said a word. Not J.P., his baffled colleagues or the two roboteers, as they stared into the monitors watching the five warriors gather one by one round the burning shell of Lear’s Cloaker. Dragos fired one round from a pistol into the flames and his men followed suit, emptying their weapons into the fiery remains and then beating the ground with their rifle butts. And in the flames and the silhouettes that seemed to dance around them like ancient warriors, there was something majestic and meaningful.
CHAPTER 33
It was raining, again. Jackson could see a globule of water forming on his window sill, feeding a tiny stream that flowed along a crack in the paintwork that sent rhythmic drips into his waste-paper basket, so each splat sounded like the tick of a clock. How can I adjust the flow of water from the gap in my window so that the interval between ‘ticks’ is precisely one second? Short of building his own Cloudbuster, an actual invention he’d read about that claimed to offer its user the ability to control clouds, Jackson couldn’t see how his ‘rain-clock’ equation would work. In any case, he probably wouldn’t see the calculations through. He’d found it hard to focus on anything in the week or so since the ‘Moldovan Hoedown’ as his American friend kept referring to it.
They had spoken to the Kojimas. Lear had made them believe that Jackson and Brooke had both left MeX – that after seeing the Ukrainian villagers, they’d decided they couldn’t do it any more. The twins had known nothing of the information Jackson had uncovered or of Brooke’s kidnapping and were still waiting for the next mission that Miss Kojima had so wistfully asked about when they were last together. When they’d realized what was happening during the last mission, they had instantly decided to trust their old teammates and had emerged through the fog in an attempt to signal their alliance.
Brooke and Jackson laughed as they recalled the beating Tug and Punk had dished out to the twins’ machines, when all they’d been trying to do was join forces – Punk springing on to the robot twice his size and Tug bringing down a superior piece of technology with his own brand of headbutt. Still, the actions of the Japanese brother and sister had confirmed Jackson’s belief that he had three loyal and brilliant friends, despite the whole MeX disaster.
He wanted to return to his old life as if nothing had changed. But the list of things that had seemed so important before – chess club, Tyler Hughes, Whisper – felt somehow trivial. Lear had been right about one thing – MeX had filled a gap in his life. And thoughts of the billionaire still haunted Jackson. He shivered uncomfortably. Lear was wrong. Jackson wasn’t like him. He wasn’t.
OK, strike Whisper from that list, he told himself. His computer was already on and he fired up the game. WizardZombie was curled up beside the cinders of his campfire. Jackson directed him to stand and he dutifully picked up his longbow and slung a cloth pouch over his back. Jackson let his character stand a while and the two of them took in a beautiful sunset.
They were ready for their next adventure.
CHAPTER 34
The bistro owed a debt of gratitude to the private hospital that had recently been constructed across the street. Where once the Paraguayan afternoon sun was hot enough to cook the salads they served on their terrace, the arrival of the tallest building in this part of town had cast a broad shadow over just about all of their outdoor tables. They’d been fully booked ever since.
A waiter had just seated a customer he’d come to refer to as ‘El Capitan’. The smart-looking gentleman had arrived at the restaurant several days ago and after the keen young waiter had served him several courses he politely asked what he did fo
r a living. The man, who was dressed in an immaculate white linen suit, red polka-dot cravat and panama hat, had answered in perfect Spanish, with only the tiniest hint of an English accent. ‘What do you think I do for a living?’
The young man had thought for a moment and said, in his native tongue, ‘I believe you are a sailor. The captain of a tall ship!’
‘You are not wrong,’ the smart man had said. And indeed he did own a rather impressive yacht, which was moored about five kilometres along the coast.
The waiter liked El Capitan. He wasn’t ignorant like most foreigners. He spoke the language and he gave the most generous tips he’d ever received. And anyway, he felt sorry for him. He wanted to know what terrible accident must have befallen him, that both his hands should be bandaged and his face too. He imagined that he might have an allergy to the sun, or have been slashed by one of the machete-wielding pirate gangs that in recent years had hung around the ports like bacterial cultures. But he had decided it would be impolite to ask.
The smart man found the heat of the sun made the skin under his bandages itch. But then it itched like mad anyway, especially near his ears where the roughest of his stitches were, and on his fingertips where the skin had been taken off. There was no way round it – getting a new identity was a painful process.
It was bright enough for him to read his newspaper without taking off his sunglasses. He studied the headline story on the front of The Paraguay Post.
LEAR FEARED DEAD
Coastguards are giving up their search for Internet pioneer Devlin Lear whose yacht disappeared in a storm earlier this week. Billionaire Lear is believed to have a fleet of several luxurious floating homes anchored around the world. Friends and colleagues have expressed surprise that the experienced sailor got into trouble in what the local weather service described as ‘moderate storm conditions’. In a further twist to the story, Mr Lear is wanted for questioning over video and phone recordings that point to his involvement in shady water rights dealings in Eastern Europe. Videos and photographs of alleged illicit activities involving ‘the friendly face of computing’, as he has become known, have been appearing on websites, posted by an anonymous source. Lear Corporation legal teams have been attempting to embargo the uploads, but so far have been unable to prevent the material from appearing on the Internet.
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