by Mark Walden
‘Stay down,’ Nero said to Otto and Wing, steering the truck towards the gap in the secure cordon that a police officer was guarding. As the truck rumbled towards the exit the cop walked over to the driver’s side and tapped on the window, which Nero dutifully wound down.
‘You all done here?’ the officer asked, looking confused.
‘Nah, the chief wants me to head down the station and pick up a coupla spare oxygen tanks. We ain’t got enough,’ Nero said in a flawless New York accent.
‘OK, see you later,’ the cop replied and waved the truck through the perimeter. Nero stepped on the gas and steered the truck carefully through the opening and turned on to the adjoining street. As he saw the police car vanish from sight in his rear-view mirror, he took off the helmet and put it on the seat next to him.
‘Not bad,’ Otto said, climbing up from the seat well where he’d been hiding.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve had to hot-wire a vehicle,’ Nero said with a smile, ‘but I suppose one just never forgets certain things. Such are the benefits of a misspent youth.’
Nero didn’t notice the black van parked on the side of the road as they passed it but the driver of the van certainly noticed Nero. He started the engine and performed a U-turn into traffic, a few cars behind the fire truck. He picked up a radio handset and spoke quickly into it.
‘Retrieval team to control,’ the man said, ‘I have a positive ID on Nero. He’s heading west driving a New York Fire Department vehicle.’
‘Repeat, please, retrieval team,’ a voice crackled back over the radio. ‘Did you just say he was driving a fire truck?’
‘Roger that, control,’ the man said with a slight frown. ‘I’m on his tail. Should I engage now?’
‘Hold for drone support, retrieval team,’ the voice on the radio replied. ‘Hunters are inbound to your location.’
Shelby studied the bulky shackles securing her wrists as she walked slowly along behind Raven. These were unlike any she had seen before and the lack of a keyhole meant they were obviously locked and unlocked by some kind of remote device. There was no way that even Shelby was going to be able to get them off, not without all her tools anyway. Raven was limping quite badly and was clearly in some pain. The beating she had taken at the hands of the retrieval team had continued after she had regained consciousness. The H.I.V.E. students had watched on in horror as the soldiers had taken turns, paying particular attention to the bullet wound in her thigh. Horrific as her treatment had been, she had not given them the satisfaction of crying out in pain even once, something that Shelby could not help but admire. The six of them were herded into an abandoned train yard and lined up next to an old carriage. Two of the soldiers kept their weapons trained on Raven and the others while their squad leader walked far enough away not to be overheard as he talked into his radio.
‘Anyone got any bright ideas about how we get out of this?’ Laura whispered.
‘Nero, Otto and Wing are still out there,’ Nigel said quietly. ‘They’ll find us. Don’t worry.’
‘Hey, kid, what part of total silence you having a hard part understanding?’ the nearest soldier said aggressively, walking towards Nigel.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Nigel said firmly.
‘Oh really?’ the guard said. ‘Let’s see if we can’t do something about that.’ Without warning he hit Nigel hard in the stomach with the butt of his rifle and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.
‘Leave him alone!’ Franz yelled, taking a couple of steps towards the man.
‘You want some too, fat boy?’ the guard sneered and backhanded him hard across the face, dropping him to his knees next to Nigel.
‘Hey! You piece of dirt,’ Raven spat, ‘why don’t you pick on someone your own size?’
The guard walked over to her with a vicious grin on his face.
‘What, you haven’t had enough already?’ The man laughed and kicked the wound in her thigh. Raven sank to one knee, breath hissing between her teeth.
‘Anything else to say?’ the guard said, leaning over her.
Raven powered upwards, the top of her head smashing into the middle of the guard’s face. He didn’t even make a noise, just collapsed backwards like a felled tree. Raven stepped forward and spat on the fallen man just as the other guard came running over and jammed a taser into her rib cage. She collapsed to the ground, convulsing as the guard reached down and shook his comrade. There was no response from the fallen man and he quickly pressed his fingers to the man’s neck, feeling for a pulse. There was none. A look of fury appeared on the soldier’s face and he stepped towards Raven, raising his rifle.
‘Stop!’ the squad leader yelled, striding towards them, his radio conversation finished. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Drake wants them all alive.’
‘This witch just killed Karl,’ the soldier spat, his rifle still levelled at the stunned Raven. ‘She gets a bullet. I don’t answer to Drake, only Furan, and he’d put her down like the rabid dog she is.’
‘Fine,’ the other man said, ‘go ahead, as long as you don’t mind explaining to Furan how you contravened a direct order. You know how well he responds to that.’
The other man said nothing for a few seconds and then lowered his rifle. All of Furan’s men had seen or at least heard about what happened to those who disobeyed orders. It was, quite literally, a fate worse than death.
‘Don’t worry,’ the squad leader said, ‘she’ll get what she deserves.’
There was a sudden rush of wind and a cloud of dust thirty metres away and a Shroud uncloaked, its rear loading ramp lowering to the ground. It looked more like a military aircraft than one of H.I.V.E.’s dropships, with a multi-barrelled cannon under its nose and twin missile pods on either side of the fuselage.
‘You deal with Karl,’ the commander said, ‘I’ll get the prisoners loaded.’
The soldier gestured with the barrel of his rifle for the H.I.V.E. students to get on board and they grudgingly complied. They had little choice, after all. Two more soldiers ran from the Shroud towards the squad leader.
‘Take her on board,’ the soldier ordered, pointing at Raven.
‘What happened to Karl?’ one of the men from the Shroud asked.
The squad leader nodded at Raven’s unconscious body.
‘She did.’
‘We seem to have acquired a tail,’ Nero said as he turned the massive truck down another street. The black van that had been a permanent feature in the rear-view mirror for the past few minutes dutifully followed them on to the new road. The driver had always kept a couple of cars between himself and Nero’s vehicle, but it was never further away than that. Nero made another unnecessary turn and yet again the van stuck with them.
‘Who are they?’ Otto asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Nero replied. ‘Not the police, that much is certain.’
‘The truck may well have been reported stolen by now,’ Wing said.
‘True, but if it was the police they would have just pulled us over long ago. Whoever’s in that van seems happy just to follow us for the moment.’ Nero felt a growing sense of unease. If his gut was right and it was Drake’s people behind them, he couldn’t afford to lead them back to the safe house, but he still had to warn Raven that there were hostile operatives hunting them in the city. He pulled a slim silver phone from his inside pocket and punched in the number for the safe house. He let it ring for nearly a minute before hanging up.
‘The safe house has been compromised,’ Nero said, putting the phone back in his pocket with a frown.
‘Are the others OK?’ Otto asked, sounding worried.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ Nero said quickly, running through the scenarios in his head. Raven might have abandoned the safe house but he was sure she would have found some way of letting him know if that was what she had been forced to do. Given that she had five other H.I.V.E. students with her, she would only try to relocate them all if they were under direct threat. Th
ere was one other obvious option, of course, but Nero didn’t want to think about that for the moment.
‘Are you both strapped in?’ Nero asked, studying the traffic on the road ahead. ‘I’m almost ashamed to admit it but I’ve wanted to do this since I was five years old.’ He flicked two big switches on the control panel mounted on the cab roof and the truck’s sirens wailed into life and the red and white lights on the roof started to flash. Nero floored the accelerator as the cars on the road began dutifully to pull out of the way. Nero glanced in the rear-view mirror; the black van had pulled out from behind the cars that separated them and was roaring after them in pursuit.
‘Look out!’ Otto yelled as another drone, identical to the ones that had attacked them at the Drake Industries building, dropped out of the sky ahead of them and opened fire. Nero swerved as the machine-gun bullets tore into the body of the truck, just behind the cab. The truck side-swiped several cars that had pulled out of the way in front of them as it drunkenly rocked from side to side before coming back under control. The drone shot nimbly aside just moments before the truck would have ploughed into it and set off in pursuit of the speeding vehicle.
The black van was right behind them now and its driver swerved from side to side, trying to spot a gap in the traffic that would allow it to get ahead of the truck. Nero cursed under his breath as he saw the red lights ahead. Traffic was stationary leading up to the junction and cars were flowing across the road from the other direction. Nero pulled over on to the wrong side of the road, spinning the steering wheel violently as he swerved to avoid the incoming traffic that was racing towards them with horns sounding and headlights flashing. The truck flew through the intersection at terrifying speed, clipping the rear of one of the city’s distinctive bright yellow cabs and sending it spinning as the other traffic swerved in all directions, desperately trying to avoid further collisions.
The black van was still with them and was now drawing alongside the truck, the panel door in its side sliding open. Nero steered towards the van, trying to side-swipe it, but the driver reacted quickly and swerved away. At the same moment, a soldier in black body armour leapt from the doorway in the side of the van and caught hold of the short ladder that led up to the controls for the truck’s main ladder. A moment later a second man made the same leap, his feet dragging along the road for a moment before he hauled himself up on to the back of the truck.
‘We have unwanted passengers,’ Nero yelled, as he jerked the wheel to one side to avoid a taxi that had pulled out in front of them.
‘Leave them to me,’ Wing said, unbuckling his lap belt. He opened the rear door and climbed carefully up on to the roof of the truck, trying to ignore the other vehicles that were whistling past just a couple of metres away. Nero kept the truck as steady as possible, but New York traffic was not designed for travelling at high speed in a vehicle that size. Wing looked back down the truck and saw the first of the two soldiers who had boarded the vehicle climbing up on to the main ladder that ran along its back. Wing too climbed up on to the ladder and began to crawl towards the middle of the truck. The soldier reached for the holster on his hip, drawing his pistol and aiming at Wing. He squeezed the trigger and the first round hit the metalwork of the ladder just in front of Wing with a metallic spang.
The hunter drone zipped past, heading for the truck’s cab, quickly drawing level with it. Nero saw it at the last moment and swerved towards it just as the machine opened fire. Bullets tore through the cab as the drone ducked out of the way once again. Nero groaned and slumped sideways in the driver’s seat.
Up on the ladder the sudden lurch caught the soldier who was aiming at Wing by surprise and he rolled off, flailing for a handhold, letting go of his pistol, which bounced off the truck’s bodywork and vanished over the side. Wing battled to hang on as the truck swerved wildly from side to side. Inside the cab Otto released his seatbelt and dived forward to grab the steering wheel as Nero collapsed on to the passenger seat. He fought to bring the truck under control, pushing his headmaster aside as gently as he could as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Otto jammed his foot back down on the accelerator and glanced over at Nero. There was a large gash on his forehead where a bullet had grazed his skull; he was out cold.
Wing scrambled along the ladder towards the soldier who was trying to climb back up on to it. Just as the man hauled himself up, Wing reached him and punched him squarely in the jaw. The man grunted and let go of the ladder, bouncing once on the truck’s roof before rolling off and falling over the side. The black van swerved back behind the truck to avoid driving over the fallen man as his limp body hit the road. Wing saw the other soldier who had climbed on to the truck appear at the end of the ladder a couple of metres away, standing on the control platform. The man drew his pistol and began to raise it. Wing half ran, half dived along the last few metres of the ladder, grabbing one of the raised handholds on either side. He locked his arms and momentum did the rest, his body swinging forward, his legs kicking out and hitting the man square in the chest just as he fired his gun. Wing heard the bullet buzz past his head as the soldier sailed backwards off the truck, arms flailing wildly in the air. He hit the black van’s windscreen and went straight through it, smashing into the driver and sending the vehicle veering wildly off to the right before it speared into a parked car at the side of the road, with an almighty crunch.
Otto saw a sign at the side of the road and he spun the steering wheel, sending the fire truck down a new street with a howling screech of protest from the tyres. Wing clung desperately on to the ladder control platform at the back of the truck as it tore around the corner, the wheels on one side almost leaving the ground. He heard a siren and two NYPD patrol cars shot out into the road behind them, the lights on their roofs flashing.
‘Oh great,’ Otto groaned as he spotted the police cars behind them. There was no way that the truck could outrun them. At that precise moment though, he had other things to worry about, as the hunter drone shot past Wing, along the length of the truck and out in front of the cab, the twin machine guns mounted beneath it swivelling around on their mounts to point backwards, directly at Otto. He dived beneath the dashboard as the drone opened fire, bullets tearing through the seat where his head had been just an instant before. The drone disappeared from view again as Otto popped back up. Ahead of them loomed the cavernous openings of the Queens Midtown tunnel, but the entrance for vehicles from this side of the East River was blocked by stationary traffic. He had to get into that tunnel – it might be the only way to shake off the drone before it killed them.
Otto took a deep breath as he steered the battered fire truck across to the other lane, straight into oncoming traffic. The vehicles speeding towards him did their best to get out of the way but within the narrow confines of the tunnel there was little room for manoeuvre. Otto cursed as the hunter drone appeared in his wing mirror again. He had hoped that the signal from whoever was controlling the deadly machine would not be able to penetrate the tunnel. Either they were not yet far enough inside or the systems controlling the drone were significantly more advanced than he had assumed.
Alongside, the drone drew level with the truck’s right front wheel arch and opened fire. The machine-gun rounds ripped the speeding truck’s heavy tyre to shreds in an instant and Otto felt the truck swerve violently, the steering wheel spinning wildly through his hands. He gasped as the truck tipped on to its side with a deafening bang and his world turned into a tumbling chaos of screeching metal and shattering glass. The stricken fire truck slid along the road in a shower of sparks before grinding to a shuddering halt. The other vehicles in the tunnel had nowhere to go. The wrecked truck blocked both lanes of the tunnel and drivers lost control as they tried vainly to stop their vehicles in time. First one car and then another slid sideways into the top of the truck with the sound of crunching metal.
It was a scene of chaos in the tunnel as Otto came to with a groan. At least one of the cars that had crashed into the truck had ca
ught fire, its driver staggering away as the tunnel began to fill with dark smoke. Otto put his arms under Nero’s armpits and, with a groan of exertion, began to drag the man’s limp body out of the truck’s shattered cab. He knew that he had to move quickly before the fire really caught hold, but his battered body was exhausted and Nero seemed impossibly heavy all of a sudden. He was halfway out of the cab with Nero when a horribly familiar black metallic shape appeared from over the top of the wrecked vehicle. The drone hovered in the air for a moment, scanning its surroundings, before drifting downwards, its guns rotating towards them. With an animal yell, Wing leapt from the top of the wreckage, swinging a bright red fire axe with every fibre of his strength. The axe hit the drone in one of its turbine pods, sending it spinning as Wing wrenched the axe free and swung it again, smashing into the middle of the drone’s body and destroying the cameras and sensitive electronics that controlled it. The drone spun out of control, thrusting straight up into the tunnel ceiling before crashing back down again into the burning wreckage of the car that had hit the truck. Wing collapsed to his knees, and let the axe fall from his hands. He had a vicious graze that covered one side of his torso and he was bleeding from multiple lacerations.
‘You look like someone threw you from a moving vehicle,’ Otto said with a pained smile.
‘Not an experience I’m in a hurry to repeat,’ he replied. ‘Is he alive?’ He asked, pointing at Nero.
‘Yeah,’ Otto said. ‘Can you help me carry him? We’ve got to get out of here.’
Wing nodded and slowly got to his feet. He and Otto lifted Nero up between them and slowly walked away from the wreckage, joining the hundreds of people making their way out of the tunnel and towards daylight.