Run! - Hold On! Season 3

by Peter Darley

  The car pulled up and Jacobson turned off the engine. Drake heard the front door close, and then the back door opened.

  “You can come out now, Brandon.”

  Drake threw the sheet off him and climbed out of the car.

  “Stay close to the wall.” Jacobson pointed to a rooftop camera. “You need to stay out of range of that camera.”

  As the professor used his key card to open the rear entrance door, Drake glanced around him and gained a sense of the magnitude of Mach Industries. He estimated it covered at least a quarter of a square mile.

  Jacobson quietly said, “We’re in. Come on.”

  Drake lowered his head and followed him. His eyes rose in a sinister glare as he prepared himself to acquire an arsenal of the most advanced weaponry in existence.

  Twenty

  Mach Industries

  Drake followed Jacobson along a corridor of lights that seemed to extend far into the complex.

  Eventually, they stopped at an electronic chrome door. Jacobson slipped another key card into a reader. The door opened from the center to reveal a lattice of formerly-invisible, curved components, which retracted back into a flush break either side. Blue electronic lights lined the inner margins. Drake was stunned, never having borne witness to technology such as this. At least, not that he could remember.

  They stepped inside and the door sealed itself shut with dazzling speed. Ahead was a studio the size of a large, car showroom. Everything about it was pristine and sterile in appearance. The ceiling was thirty feet above them, and the room was bare, save for a strange black craft, approximately the size of a Mercedes. However, that was where the comparison ended. It was set upon a platform a mere twelve inches above the ground within a shining, circular base.

  “I wanted to show you this, Brandon,” Jacobson said, “just to see if it triggered anything.”

  “What is it?”

  “This is how far we’ve taken Turbo Swan technology since you left.” He gestured to the strange craft before them. “This is the TS-3. The third generation of the original Turbo Swan. Come and take a look.”

  Drake followed him over to the craft, and Jacobson lightly touched the underside of the right door handle. The door rose upwards to reveal a technological spectacle within. It appeared extremely shallow inside, which explained the necessity for reclined seats. The dashboard was at the front of the inner-roof and lit up the moment the door was opened.

  “It flies as a VTOL aircraft, and the controls are touch-sensitive.” Jacobson pointed to the digital control panel. “It’s larger than the original Turbo Swan because we’re gradually increasing the weight that can be taken by the miniature engines. We’ve also corrected some of its vulnerabilities.”

  “What do you mean?” Drake said.

  “The alloy shell is still the same. It can withstand the concussive force of bullets and a detonating incendiary, but the original had an Achilles Heel. You went down in Los Angeles because one of the engines was struck by a rocket.”

  “And this one?”

  “The engines are shielded by precision-angled, alloy guarding.”

  Drake gazed upon the TS-3, fascinated, but he could sense Jacobson looking at him.

  “Is anything about this familiar to you, Brandon?”

  “I . . . I feel as though it is, but I just can’t remember.” Drake looked around the vast room and soon realized there was nothing like an opening. It was completely sealed. “Is this the place I took the Turbo Swan from?”

  “Yes it is. Can you remember that?”

  “Not really. I just can’t figure out how I would have gotten it out. I mean, we’re boxed in here.”

  Jacobson smiled shrewdly. “Let me show you.” He walked across to a chromium wall at the far side of the room measuring approximately fifty feet in width and twenty feet in height. He punched in a code on a touch-sensitive keypad beside it. The wall broke apart in the center, the same way the entrance door had, and retracted into itself, vanishing within a second. A runway appeared beyond it, leading to a forest in the distance. “Remember that?”

  Drake shook his head.

  Jacobson came closer to him excitedly. “Then I think I should show you where you spent most of your time. The look of it really hasn’t changed.”

  “You lead the way, Professor.”

  Jacobson headed toward another one of the strange, wall-like doors at the side of the room.

  Drake glanced at the gaping exit Jacobson had left open in his eagerness, and a broad grin crept from the corners of his lips.

  Another electronic door opened. He followed Jacobson along a corridor, which led to two flights of steps down to the lower floors. Everything about the place was futuristic, with a spotless, luminescent appearance.

  They came to the bottom and Jacobson led him through a glass door. A series of laboratories separated by windows and further glass doors came into view. The same sterile ‘whiteness’ persisted, varied only by shelves and tables containing an array of extraordinary gadgetry.

  Jacobson turned to him. “Do you remember it, Brandon? You worked here every day for a year.”

  Drake looked around him, trying to recall any of it, but there was nothing there. “No.”

  “Well, let me show you around. You never know. Something might spark a memory.”

  Drake stepped toward a strange, circular table with a transparent, Perspex screen on the top. He looked down at it and noticed some kind of projector beneath the screen. “What’s this?”

  Jacobson touched a sensor on the side and a ghostly vision formed above the table. It was the image of a man wearing some kind of silver armor with black epaulettes, and a matching midsection. The helmet was black and silver with a bizarre arrangement of seven blue lights positioned in the center of the mask. Two were set in the position of the eyes.

  “What the hell is that?” Drake said with sincere awe.

  “I thought you’d like it,” Jacobson said excitedly. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve daydreamed you were still alive and working with me, just so that I could show you this.”

  “But . . . what is it?”

  “It’s a hologram, naturally. A design for the potential soldier of the future. The technology doesn’t exist yet. We’re twenty, maybe twenty-five years away from it.” The professor’s eyes lowered in sadness. “I very much doubt I’ll live to see it happen.”

  “Well . . . what’s it supposed to do? What are those blue light things on the helmet?”

  “As you know, infrared and thermal imaging has been in existence for almost a century. As an aid to night vision, it’s served the military extremely well. Unfortunately, it only offers images in two tones, or in a form of red and yellow negative.” He gestured to the blue lights on the hologram helmet. “We’re developing a new system that will enable the wearer to see in pitch darkness and in full color, as though it were daylight. Those blue lights will be the photo-generators that enable it.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “The armor will be fully mechanized and constructed from the same alloy the Turbo Swan and TS-3 are made with. It’s lightweight and not only bullet-proof, but incendiary-proof. It’ll contain its own built-in weaponry, which will spare soldiers the burden of carrying heavy artillery across a battlefield. It’ll also enable whomever to cross the chasm between two skyscrapers without the use of a spider cable and power-glider.” He winked at Drake mischievously.

  “Incredible.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have a fully functioning breastplate right here.” Jacobson moved over to a mannequin in the corner of the lab, which bore a breastplate identical to the one on the hologram, extending from collarbone to waistline. “The sections connect electronically and can be released with this.” He took a small, remote control device from a metallic pocket fixed to the side of the mannequin.

  Drake kept an opportunistic eye on the breastplate and remote control.

  “I think the best thing to do would be to retrace y
our steps,” Jacobson said. “You took considerable materials from the lab when you took off, and concealed them in two attaché cases.” He took one of the cases from a shelf. “Look familiar?”

  Drake shook his head again, far less interested in remembering than in what was on offer. “What did I take?”

  Jacobson began to collect samples of equipment from the shelves. The first items he placed on the counter were what looked like small, golden paper weights, and a radio receiver. “You took a few of these. They’re bugging transmitters, resistant to all known detection devices.”

  Always useful.

  More items appeared on the counter—an original spider cable launcher, an EG-9 wire glider, a portable laser torch, a sonic force emitter and power charger, a diamond-laced glass cutter finger pad, sachets of corrosive putty, digital macro-binoculars, magnetic long-range homing devices, and a sat-scrambler phone. The latter was the only item with which Drake was familiar. “I took all of this stuff?”

  “Yes. Still nothing?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t apologize, Brandon. It’s not your fault.”

  Drake turned around to the breastplate mannequin again. On a shelf beside, some kind of rifle in a larger case caught his eye. At least a hundred rounds were set in individual sponge cut-outs in the top half of the case. “What’s this, Professor?”

  “That’s an MZ-five-oh-seven. It’s a high-powered rifle with a thermal imaging sight that can detect the enemy through mortar. The bullets are an advanced titanium design. They can take out the enemy at long range, and through the same mortar.”

  Drake’s heart quickened. He’d never even imagined the possibility of a rifle so powerful.

  Jacobson turned back to the items on the counter. “If only I could figure out some way of helping you to remember.”

  With Jacobson’s back turned to him, Drake seized the moment. He took off his hooded top and shirt, and hurriedly took the breastplate from the mannequin. After dropping it over his head, he sealed the magnetized sections together, marveling at how lightweight it was.

  Jacobson froze at the sound of the breastplate clicking together, his thoughts racing. Something was very wrong, and he was afraid to turn around. Brandon had no reason to steal from the facility this time.

  And then he remembered the strange darkness in Brandon’s eyes—the darkness he’d forced himself to ignore in his euphoria that his dear friend had returned from the dead. It was the same joy that had caused him to act with such recklessness, throughout. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you, Brandon?”

  “I have no choice. You’ve seen me.”

  Finally, the professor turned around. Drake was pulling his hooded top back over his head. Jacobson watched as he took the rifle from the case and quickly figured out how to load one of the bullets into it.

  “Why, Brandon? Why?” Jacobson said, his voice choked with devastation.

  Drake trained the rifle on him with maniacal rage in his eyes. “You wanna know what really happened, Jacobson? Do you?”

  “Yes. Please, Brandon. Tell me. Let me help you.”

  “Nobody can help me. When I was sent here, I’d been brainwashed. New memories. New personality. Everything about me had been erased. The person you knew wasn’t me. They then faked my death and brought me back to who I always was. After that, the bastards tried to kill me!”

  “Then let me help you find justice.”

  “There is no justice. I am justice. All my life people have tried to control me, abuse me, and drive me into the ground. No more. I hate this fucking world, old man, and now I’m gonna start a war!”

  “Don’t do this, Brandon.”

  “I have to.” Drake’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  “I love you, Brandon.”

  The pain shot through Drake’s head again. He dropped the rifle and fell to the floor, screaming.

  “Brandon, what’s wrong?” Jacobson said.

  Voices from nowhere echoed in Drake’s mind:

  How did you find Sergeant Drake as a person?

  He was a joy to work with. He was a true pioneer, a unique individual, and the most unlikely candidate for such brilliance. I grew close to him in the year that I worked with him and . . . I loved him like a son.

  Tears ran down Drake’s face. The sadness was overpowering. The voices sounded like Jacobson and Captain Hugo Arrowsmith. He subconsciously knew he was remembering something from his trial at Fort Bragg.

  I loved him like a son.

  “In-ter-cep-tor. P-please, don’t . . .” He felt Jacobson’s hands cradling his face and looked up into the man’s compassionate eyes. He was losing the will to fight, but clenched his fists in desperation.

  “It’s all right, Brandon. I’m here. Let me help you.”

  Everything was turning black, and he began to feel so different. The rage had abated so quickly. What he was feeling was alien to him. He gently touched Jacobson’s face. “A-Abraham?”

  Twenty-One

  Last Flight

  Drake faced The Interceptor in the darkness and leaped into the air, twisting and kicking his heel toward his adversary’s helmet. The Interceptor instantly vanished. He looked around, but there was no sign of him.

  He sensed a hand on his shoulder and spun around. Roaring, he lunged forward, but The Interceptor disappeared and instantly appeared behind him again.

  “I thought you were supposed to be hot shit, Scorp,” The Interceptor said tauntingly. “Must’ve been a lot of hype.”

  Drake punched toward the helmet but struck only an empty vacuum.

  “Come on, Scorp. Catch me if you can.”

  The battle continued for what seemed like an eternity. Drake relentlessly struck out at the figure in the black combat fatigues, only for him to vanish and appear behind him, like a cat chasing its own tail.

  Finally, he spun around, but The Interceptor had disappeared completely. “Where are you, you goddamn pussy?” There was no response. He continued to spin around in the void trying to catch sight of him. But he was alone, stranded, with nothing other than his own, gnawing frustration. “Interceptor!”

  Brandon, I’m here. Stay with me, Brandon.

  He looked ahead in the direction of the echoed voice and could make out Jacobson’s face gazing down at him.

  And then he was no longer in the void. He could feel the hard, cold floor of the lab beneath him. Looking up at Jacobson, he pressed his fists into the floor, summoning every iota of strength he had to stand. “S-stay away from me.”

  “Brandon, you remembered me. I could see it in your eyes. You called me Abraham. You were the only assistant I ever had who called me that. We were that close, Son.”

  Without a word, Drake gripped the rifle and got to his feet.

  “Brandon, please.”

  Struggling to gather his thoughts, he staggered over to the mannequin and took the armor-release control mechanism. What do I need? What do I need?

  He saw the bullets in a sponge cut-out strip that filled the top half of the rifle’s case, but the case itself would present an unnecessary burden. He removed the strip of bullets, took it to the attaché case on the counter, and threw it inside. He then crudely cast all of the devices Jacobson had shown him on top of the bullets.

  “Brandon, stop!” Jacobson said.

  Drake looked behind the counter and noticed a display of familiar, palm-sized silver spheres. Each sphere was circled by an indentation, which housed activation lights. Bracing the rifle under his armpit, he took all eight of the spheres and threw them into the case.

  “Please, Brandon, I’m begging you. Those are not grenades,” Jacobson said. “They’re thermo-neutron detonators. They’re devastating.”

  Drake clasped the case shut. “I know what they are.”

  “You could be killed, Brandon.”

  “I’ve been dead once. It’s not as bad as you think.” He took Jacobson’s access key card from the counter, then the rifle and attaché case, and h
eading out of the lab.

  “Don’t take the TS-3, Brandon. Please.”

  Drake paused in mid-stride and turned to Jacobson one last time. “I have no choice. It’s the last flight out of here.” Staggering with the pain in his head, he exited the lab and headed up the steps.

  He came to the corridor at the top and headed toward the electronic door at the end. Every step was an ordeal. His temples pounded, and his emotions consumed him with confusion and inconsistency.

  He arrived at the door, placed the attaché case on the floor, and slid Jacobson’s key card into the reader. Once the door opened, he picked up the case and staggered across to the TS-3.

  Halfway to the craft, he was startled by the deafening sound of sirens all around him. Clearly, Jacobson had sounded the alarm.

  Quickening his pace as much as possible, he reached the TS-3. With its side door still raised, he threw the attaché case and rifle over the seats into the back.

  He climbed inside and pulled the door down. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus. The Interceptor had flown something very similar, but he had no conscious memory of doing so. The Interceptor’s memories came to him only as fleeting feelings.

  He opened his eyes again and stared at the control panel above him. Jacobson said it was a VTOL aircraft, but nothing inside the craft resembled one. Second-guessing the design, he scanned the digital display and his right hand rose, almost by instinct. His forefinger gravitated toward an illuminated red and yellow touch sensor bearing the letter ‘S’. That has to be Start. With a light touch of the sensor, the engines fired up. Immediately, he could feel the craft rising. How do I fly it out of here?

  A squad of security guards appeared in the open exit with their rifles trained on the craft. One of the guards was heading for the code pad, and Drake’s heart pounded. If they closed the door, he’d be trapped inside.