The Iron Fist

by Andy Briggs

  “That was easy,” said Lot.

  “When I was on the network before, I instructed the computer to let me in.” Dev smiled. “Why make things any more difficult than they have to be?”

  “Wow,” said Mason for the umpteenth time that day as they entered the Yellow Zone.

  The space was huge. A curved roof spanned some four storeys above them, while lines of shelving formed many avenues that obscured the distant walls.

  Lot was impressed. “It looks like the world’s biggest DIY store.”

  Mason’s foot tapped the wide coloured stripes painted on the floor, fanning out in separate directions. “Where do these go?”

  “The colours indicate different sections within this zone and then lead on to even bigger zones, each more secure than the last. Even I can’t get into some of them. Not that we have to because we’re going to hide right here. This is the minimum-security vault. It’s all category one stuff in here.”

  Lot ran across to the nearest shelf and pulled down a large bell jar. It was filled with multicoloured balls. She read the label. “Hyperballs?”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Dev snapped.

  Lot already had her hand in the jar and pulled out a red ball. “Relax,” she sighed. “What do you take me for? And I was starting to think you were cool.”

  The comment threw Dev for a moment. Nobody had ever called him cool. He reached for the ball, but Lot pulled away tutting.

  “Be careful! It’s hyper-inertia perpetual silicon,” he exclaimed.

  Lot blinked. “Wow. Geek-speak overload.” She bounced it on the floor.

  Dev lunged forward to stop her – but missed. “NO!”

  The ball bounced from the floor at an angle and instantly gained speed. It ricocheted from a supporting shelf, now travelling twice as fast. It rebounded from another shelf and whooshed between Dev and Lot with the sound of a bullet, forcing them to recoil.

  Lot watched in astonishment as the ball poinged from surface to surface, each time building momentum. They eventually lost track of it down the maze of aisles.

  “Sorry,” Lot said with her best don’t-hate-me smile.

  Dev gently took the jar from her hands and placed it back on the shelf. “Each bounce increases its velocity, building it to a critical mass. Then it’s like a wrecking ball. That’s why they were banned in 1963 when a kid threw a whole box out of a window and demolished a skyscraper.”

  “I never heard about that,” said Lot, trying to keep her voice sounding apologetic.

  “Exactly. Everything in here was banned, confiscated or hidden for a reason. And a lot of serious people with very serious attitudes spent a lot of serious money to keep it all quiet. Everything is dangerous.”

  A huge clatter made them spin around. Mason had accidentally knocked over a pile of metal sheets. He looked pale, frozen to the spot, as if he expected them to explode.

  “It was an accident!” he yelped, starting back. “What are these things?” His eyes searched the smooth metal surface for any clue.

  Dev rolled his eyes. “They’re spare shelves, genius. Now will you two…” He trailed off as a harsh buzz sounded from the door behind.

  “What was that?” asked Mason, backing towards Dev, his eyes trained on the door.

  “Somebody’s trying to get in,” whispered Dev.

  “Can they?” asked Lot in a low voice.

  The textbook answer was no way, but the infiltrators had already entered the complex itself, which was supposed to be impossible.

  Impossible … so how had they done it?

  Dev studied Lot and Mason. “Why did you come to the farm today?”

  Both Lot and Mason exchanged a look, unsure which of them Dev was addressing. An uncomfortable moment passed by before either of them spoke.

  Lot shrugged. “I wanted to spend more time with you. Get to know you.”

  “After years of ignoring me in school?”

  Lot folded her arms, her chin tilting up defiantly. “You ignored me – get it right.”

  Dev had no comeback to that. Instead he nodded to Mason. “And you?”

  “I told you. I wanted … I wanted to pick on you.” He continued quickly when he saw Dev’s eyes narrow. “You’re an easy target. Makes me look good.” He hung his head in shame. “I was being an idiot, OK?”

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t just leave you behind,” said Dev.

  “Dev!” Lot gasped.

  Dev kept his eyes locked with Mason’s, searching for any hint of hostility. “Why not? He’d do the same to me.”

  Mason met his gaze … then shrugged. “I can’t think of a reason,” he said miserably.

  “Dev, we’re wasting time!” snapped Lot.

  Dev expected a thrill for finally pulling one over on Mason, but instead he felt guilty. He refused to meet Lot’s gaze and turned his attention instead to the nearby shelves. “Can you guys skateboard?”

  “Sure,” said Lot.

  Mason didn’t look so confident. “I have. I mean, y’know, when I was younger.”

  Dev dashed to the shelf and pulled three skateboards off it. He flicked a switch on each and they clattered to the floor in a row.

  Mason regarded them with suspicion. “I don’t know, man. There seem to be a few wheels missing.”

  He was right. Instead of the traditional four wheels, there was just one big orb poking through the centre of the board, with footpads at the front and back. Dev had tossed them carelessly to the floor, but the boards remained perfectly level.

  “OmniBoards,” explained Dev. “Just like a Segway – it’s almost impossible to fall off.” He saw their expressions. “You have ridden Segways before, right?”

  Lot and Mason exchanged a look and shrugged.

  BOOM! The vault door suddenly trembled as it was struck from behind. Dev watched in fascination as the metal started to turn white at the centre. Frost. The cold slowly radiated outwards with a cracking sound.

  Dev jumped on to a board and stood, perfectly balanced. “Just lean in whichever direction you want to travel. It’s time we—”

  Another bang resounded through the hangar as the super-chilled surface of the vault door suddenly shattered like glass as it was hammered from behind. Soldiers, led by a powerfully built woman with red hair, began scrambling through the gap and spotted them immediately.

  “There they are!”

  Lot and Mason didn’t need telling twice. They jumped on to their boards, arms windmilling crazily to keep their balance – not that they needed to; the boards immediately corrected for their weight and remained stationary.

  Mason leaned forward, propelling his board towards a shelf with a surprising turn of speed. He yelled, arms covering his face as he instinctively tried to lean away from the collision. The board’s single-orb wheel responded instantly and he swerved aside, travelling ninety degrees in the opposite direction. He screamed with delight, his arms extended like a tightrope walker to keep his balance.

  Dev and Lot drifted either side of him. Despite the present danger, they couldn’t wipe the grins off their faces.

  There was a bass-heavy pulsing noise, then a bolt of shimmering air passed their heads and struck a shelf close to them, which exploded with a hollow boom.

  “Sonic weapons!” yelled Dev, instantly recognizing the technology. He glanced behind to see two of their pursuers tracking them with their weapons.

  More shots followed in rapid succession. Dev swerved out of the way of one, colliding into Mason, who veered sideways as he flailed for balance. It was a manoeuvre that saved his life, as the second sonic blast detonated just in front of him.

  “Come on!” Dev led the way down an aisle that took them out of the line of fire. As he did so, he noticed the other attackers running forward, the soles of their boots glowing with each step until they were suddenly lifted centimetres off the ground and were moving as if on ice. They were closing in fast.

  The frictionless boots were way better than the clunky HoverBoots
, thought Dev. It took all his concentration to pull his gaze from the impressive technology and take in the pursers themselves.

  One was a grim-faced man with the muscular build of a professional soldier. The other was the woman with long red hair and a mean-looking metallic exoskeleton, more advanced than Dev had ever seen before.

  “Follow me,” he urged the others. A volley of sonic bolts overhead forced him to duck. One was so close that his ears popped.

  “They’re catching up,” yelled Lot as she risked a look behind.

  They took a corner at speed, boxes crashing from the shelves in their wake. Dozens of banned handheld gadgets cascaded across the floor. The pursuing mercenaries swerved aside.

  Dev cursed under his breath. He wished he had a pack of Prism-Buddies; they were exactly what he needed right now. But unlike secret agents in the movies, who conveniently always had the right gadget to hand, Dev was surrounded by everything he didn’t need.

  Still…

  He veered closer to the shelf unit and randomly swiped a box as he passed. A military stencil across the lid warned: CAUTION! PORTABLE HOLE.

  Keeping his eyes on the path ahead – and ducking as another blast shot overhead – Dev’s fingers gouged open the cardboard. He pulled out a large gel pack that felt squidgy in his hand. Suspended between the transparent layers was a large black circle.

  “Seriously weird,” said Dev.

  Steadying his balance, he peeled the gel layer off and, careful not to touch the device itself, threw the black disc behind him.

  The disc seemed to expand as it soared into the path of his pursuers. They were travelling so fast that two of them were unable to avoid it and simply vanished through the vertical hole. The hole then folded up on itself and disappeared with a tiny pop. Dev tore his gaze away. It was best not to ponder too much on the fate of the soldiers. It was more important that they escaped – and that meant out-thinking the remaining mercenaries.

  “Next right!” commanded Dev.

  In this section the shelves suddenly petered out, replaced by barrels and long tubes, all part of some colossal spider-like machine that dated back to the 1800s. Dev had never quite figured out why some madman had invented it in the first place.

  “There’s no cover here, you idiot!” Mason barked.

  “Wanna bet?” said Dev – and veered suddenly into a long tube that had formed a monstrous mechanical leg. Lot and Mason only just managed to follow. Mason ducked to avoid cracking his head on the side of the pipe.

  Both of the skating pursuers rolled in after them.

  The tube was twice Dev’s height – perfect for what he had in mind. “Just do what I do,” he said. He crouched, then angled his body. Lot and Mason followed suit – just as their pursuers opened fire again.

  Dev led the way as they corkscrewed up one side of the tube, across the ceiling and down the other.

  “Kwolek! Shoot the boards!” the man yelled. Sonic bolts tore holes in the side of the tube as their pursuers followed in a similar corkscrew motion.

  “No!” Kwolek screamed.

  It was too late. Kwolek managed to avoid the hole that her colleague had created, but the man couldn’t deviate from his spiralling path and slipped straight through it. His momentum was so great that he soared from the tube a full ten metres before slamming hard into a shelf with a splat they could all hear.

  The towering shelving unit wobbled precariously, then came crashing down on top of the mercenary, dozens of gizmos pinning him to the floor.

  The three children shot from the other end of tube at speed.

  Dev led his companions in another tight turn, returning to the cover offered by more tall shelves.

  Lot glanced behind as she drew alongside him. “I can’t see her. Do you think she’s given up?”

  An explosion tore the ground just ahead of them. Leaning into their OmniBoards, the three kids veered aside just in time. Dev turned and saw the snarling woman was gaining on them.

  “I think it’s time we caught some air!” Dev leaned his entire weight forward, pushing the OmniBoard for every jot of speed. Lot and Mason saw where Dev was leading them, and their mouths sagged open in shock.

  “No way!” screamed Mason.

  A wild volley of sonic bolts blasted around them. Luckily Kwolek couldn’t steady her aim as she skated. She was too engrossed in her targets to notice what lay beyond them—

  A four-storey drop.

  At the bottom of the vertical drop was an area populated by even bigger shelves that held a series of aircraft and vehicles.

  Dev, Lot and Mason rolled over the black-and-yellow hazard marking on the margin of the pit and soared off the edge.

  There was nothing they could do. A fall from this height and speed would easily kill them.

  But Dev’s aim had been perfect. They landed on the top of a shelving rack teetering precariously four storeys above the hangar floor. While his aim was good, his landing wasn’t. He stumbled and the OmniBoard slipped from under his feet and shot off the ledge.

  Dev rolled helplessly across the shelf and felt a sharp pain as Lot, then Mason, both barrelled into him. They too were pitched off their boards and slid to a halt, crushed against him.

  Dev sat upright in time to see Kwolek skid to a halt at the edge of the pit. She tracked the noise of the OmniBoards clattering to the ground below, before her gaze snapped back up to see her targets scrambling around the fuselage of a helicopter, one of several, stacked on the shelving unit that had saved them. She fired her sonic rifle at them, but the shots merely tore holes in the side of a chopper as the trio ducked out of sight.

  Dev heard her bellow with rage. He risked peeking from his cover. Kwolek was sucking in a deep breath to yell an insult just as the Hyperball Lot had thrown ricocheted from a shelving stack and struck her in the chest with such force that she was hurled backwards against a rack. Her head lolled as she fell unconscious.

  Lee’s fist slammed down on the computer keyboard. The force of the blow still didn’t change the flashing warning box on the screen.

  ACCESS DENIED!

  He turned to Charles Parker. “There must be an override password.”

  “There is,” Charles replied casually. He raised his cuffs, indicating he needed them relaxed. Lee used an app on his phone to weaken the electromagnetic force between the handcuffs, allowing Charles to stretch his arms.

  “Ah, much better.” Charles typed a lengthy password, a combination of numbers, letters both upper and lower case, and a host of punctuation symbols. He hit enter and the message flashed:

  PASSWORD EXPIRED.

  Charles Parker shrugged. “I did warn you. Once the alarm system is triggered, majestic level passwords are automatically scrambled. It takes days to reset them.”

  Lee studied the screen – the entry for IRON FIST was visible, but the contents of the file remained tantalizingly out of reach.

  Charles Parker leaned over his shoulder. “So that’s what the Collector is after?”

  Before Lee could reply, an apprehensive mercenary entered the room. “We have a small problem.”

  “You can’t find the kids?”

  “Well, actually we did find them. But they escaped. We have three men down and Kwolek was knocked out.”

  “Kids took three of your guys down?” said Lee incredulously.

  “They were hiding in the Yellow Zone and things … just got out of hand. The rest of the team have pushed through the zone and are proceeding to up the Blue Zone.”

  Lee raised his arm and reached for his watch, but a thought made him hesitate.

  “I wonder what your boss will say when he discovers a bunch of children have outsmarted you,” said Charles Parker in his best mocking tones.

  Lee lowered his arm. “Send a couple of men to sweep the warehouse for those brats. You have them cornered, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “Yes, sir.” The soldier nodded and exited.

  Lee wagged a finger at the monitors. “If
you had cameras in the main zones you would have made my life a whole lot easier.”

  Charles shrugged. “Why would I want to do that?”

  Lee shook his head and turned back to his laptop. A window displayed lines of dense coding which he began to trawl through.

  “I got no idea why he wanted you kept alive,” Lee muttered.

  If Charles Parker responded, Lee didn’t hear – he had suddenly noticed something in the code. “Well, I’ll be deleted … what do we have here?”

  He spun the screen so Charles could see. “This is deep in Eema’s security algorithms.” He highlighted a section of the code. It took him a moment to realize that Charles Parker had no clue what he was looking at. “This code shouldn’t be here. It’s malware – a Trojan. Y’know, like a virus?”

  “Impossible!” snapped Charles. “These systems are protected from the outside world and run on a completely new type of computer code. They are immune from viruses, worms and Trojans.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Lee with a smirk. “You’re looking at one right here. It’s a real doozy. It tells the cameras to ignore whatever image is held on the three encrypted pictures stored within the Trojan itself. I can’t access them, but I bet they’re photographs of the kids taken on their phones. As soon as the security cameras identify them, this Trojan code paints them out of the image in real time! That’s why we couldn’t see them when I played back the footage from the canteen! Genius! It means they could be standing in front of any camera right now and we wouldn’t see them.”

  “Devon!” Charles exclaimed, shaking his head. “I could never work out how he bypassed Eema and sneaked around the complex.”

  “Your kid’s a first-rate coder,” said Lee, genuinely impressed. “He even fooled Eema’s artificial intelligence.”

  “He’s not my kid,” Charles said on a low voice. For a moment his eyes drifted away from the code on the screen and he seemed to be thinking about something else entirely. He caught Lee looking at him curiously and snapped out of his reverie. He stretched his arms to get the blood circulating again. “Three children have outwitted not only your finest troops, but you too. Such a shame.”