The Iron Fist

by Andy Briggs

  There was no air to breathe.

  But breathing wasn’t their biggest problem. Dev knew what happened to astronauts if their pressurized suits tore in the vacuum of space.

  They exploded.

  His eyes felt strange, as if a pressure was building from behind. His skin began to prickle as, without any air pressure against him, the blood vessels across his body began to expand.

  There wasn’t a moment to lose.

  Dev ran for the nearest mobile phone. He needed some light to open the door once he found it. His whole body felt as if needles were stabbing him, and his legs trembled as he stooped to pick up the phone.

  He turned around and almost bumped into Lot. He screamed – but no sound came out. Lot’s face was beginning to swell – her eyes bulging from their sockets.

  Judging by her reaction, he must have looked equally dreadful. He pushed past her and ran towards where the door should be. In order to maintain a vacuum, the doors had to close with precision, so were almost invisible from either side of the tunnel.

  Dev tried to close his eyes and focus, but his eyelids were unable to cover his swelling eyeballs. He ran his hands across the wall and saw a swirling cloud of colours. He hoped it was from his gift rather than his brain playing tricks due to lack of oxygen.

  His peculiar sixth sense told him he was touching the door. He held up the phone and, in the pale light, he could just make out the mechanism that automatically opened the door when a pod arrived. It was a simple mechanical switch the Vacuum-Pod turned when it ran over it at speed. Dev frantically kicked it – but he lacked the strength to move it. It hadn’t been used for so long it had seized in position.

  Just to the side was an access panel with a clear glass window showing the emergency-open button behind it. All he had to do was break the glass and push it.

  Dev mustered his strength and punched the glass. He was so weak he delivered it with all the force of a pensioner. Each strike was weaker than the last as his strength ebbed.

  His mind was fogging. He needed to focus on the problem. He shone the phone around for something to break the glass with. There was nothing.

  Except the phone.

  Dev put all his weight behind the phone and used its corner to strike the glass. The emergency glass fractured just enough for him to worm a finger inside.

  With fading vision he pushed the emergency release button.

  Nothing happened.

  He pressed it again and again.

  Still the door didn’t open.

  Now his lungs burned and he felt light-headed due to the lack of oxygen. He was vaguely aware of Mason slumping to the floor, but tried to ignore him. Dev placed his finger, swollen and red as the blood vessels inside had expanded, and concentrated on the circuits beyond the switch. Components that had started to corrode with age … but there was still some spark left in them.

  The silence was suddenly punctured by a roar as the door unlocked and was violently jolted inwards from the air pressure outside. It thudded against a groove around the doorway and Lot was able to slide it open. Air rapidly flooded inside the tunnel with similar hurricane force as before. Their eyes stung and they clung to the wall to prevent themselves from being blown away.

  In seconds the air pressure equalized, popping their ears once more, and they staggered from the tube, dropping to their knees as they gulped the air.

  Dev marvelled just how thick the air tasted in his mouth; it was as if he were breathing water. Still slumped in the tunnel, Mason stirred as he sucked in huge lungfuls of air. It took a few minutes for everything to feel normal. Only then did they risk looking at one another. Their swollen faces had settled back down, although their eyes were bloodshot. Their skin was red, as if they had terrible sunburns.

  Lot began to giggle.

  Mason crawled from the tunnel to join them. “What’s so funny?”

  “That was the worst feeling I have ever experienced,” she said between fits of giggles. The other two broke into laughter, drunk on oxygen.

  It took another minute or so before they could catch their breath and wipe the tears from their eyes, by which time the redness of their faces had dulled away.

  “Remind me again why we’re doing this?” said Mason, rubbing his temples. “Instead of just hiding and letting somebody else deal with the problem.”

  “What if they get to the Iron Fist before help arrives?” said Lot.

  “What if no help’s coming?” Dev sombrely added. He immediately regretted saying it. “Come on. The only way is forward.”

  They stood up on shaking legs and looked around the new warehouse they had entered.

  Dev knew he must have been here before but he didn’t recognize any of it. He guessed the new layout that greeted them was due to the security lockdown, but he had no idea how they were going to get through it.

  Lot shook her head in wonder. “At least I know why it’s called the Blue Zone.”

  Sergeant Wade gripped the hanging strap as the Chinook banked sharply. The strap was all that kept her inside the aircraft now that the tail ramp was down. The ground rolled past four hundred metres below – and the missile they were avoiding roared past on a column of flame and smoke.

  “Alpha team – deploy now!” she bellowed.

  The eight soldiers with her didn’t hesitate. They ran full speed along the ramp and leapt from the helicopter. Once they were clear, Wade readied herself to jump, pausing only to watch as one of her Chinooks was struck by another missile from below, the aircraft’s fuselage cracking in two. With a rotor apiece, the two halves spun in different directions as they plummeted to the fields below. She hoped that the troopers inside had managed to evacuate.

  With no time for regret, Wade dived head first out of the aircraft.

  The ground raced up to greet her, but she controlled her descent by extending her legs and arms, fully opening the wingsuit she wore. It was a more sophisticated version of the method that Dev, Lot and Mason had attempted far underground. The fabric wings that extended between her arms, legs and body had been precision engineered.

  The World Consortium team descended like hawks, nimbly banking between strands of laser fire from below. Wade was forced to barrel roll to avoid another missile and her whole body shook violently as she flew through the searing contrail.

  Recovering quickly, Wade landed gracefully within the farm. She joined the rest of her team as they took cover behind one of the few barns still standing.

  Securing the farm was going to be more difficult than she had anticipated. The enemy were armed with a hoard of exotic weaponry: de-atomizer lasers, X-ray grenades and smart bullets. Items that should be prohibited and locked in the Inventory, but had somehow bypassed being confiscated.

  Wade couldn’t help but wonder what was going on underground. She glanced at her troops. None of them suspected that there was somebody below that she deeply cared for. She hoped they would escape unscathed.

  “Is it always like this?” asked Mason, rubbing the life back into his cheeks, still numb from the vacuum ordeal.

  Almost the entire warehouse ahead of them was flooded, save the elevated section they stood on and another, three hundred metres away, from which a pier stretched out across the mirror-calm water, ending in steps that descended beneath the surface.

  “I’ve never seen it like this before,” said Dev thoughtfully. “It must be a security feature. Most of this storage area is a dry dock for ships, subs, that kind of thing. But the whole area must have been lowered and flooded to stop people getting into the Red Zone.”

  “So how do we get there?”

  Dev pointed towards a far-off featureless wall and lowered his hand below the water line. “The door is around there.” Neither Mason nor Lot responded. “Or we could go back through the tube system,” he added, hoping they didn’t think that was a good idea.

  There was a duet of protest. Nobody wanted to experience the horrors of the vacuum tube again.

  Ever.


  Lot peered into the water, cupping her hands either side of her eyes to shield them from the lights above. “How deep do you think it is?”

  “About two or three storeys,” said Dev.

  Mason scowled. “This is ridiculous! All I see is that you’re dragging us deeper and deeper into some dangerously stupid scrapyard! Those people back there were shooting at us. Shooting! Then you nearly kill us with your crazy escape plan –” he pointed at the tube “– and now you expect us to drown? This has nothing to do with me! This is your mess!” In frustration he kicked the wall behind him.

  Dev wanted to shout back, to unleash the frustration he felt inside, but he knew it would serve no purpose. To his surprise his voice came out low and even. “Fine. Stay here. I don’t care. I never invited you here anyway. You can sit down and wait for the angry soldiers with the energy weapons to turn up.” He glanced at Lot as he added, “Both of you.”

  Mason looked away. The idea of waiting to be captured didn’t appeal to him either.

  Dev’s gaze bored into Mason. “You know, I keep on thinking that it was all very convenient that you were hanging around the farm just as they turn up.”

  Mason held up his hand, indicating that he had said all he had to say on the matter.

  Dev was struck by a detail he had overlooked and his thoughts came tumbling out. “It’s odd. Eema’s security systems are so sensitive that they picked up on Lot climbing over the gate. In the past they have stopped dozens of intruders who knew the security systems were there. But you … you didn’t know any of that and yet you managed to walk straight into a restricted barn without Eema detecting you.” He looked levelly at Mason. “I’m really interested in how you achieved that, Mason.”

  Mason looked away, his cheeks flushing with guilt.

  Lot’s eye narrowed as she studied his face. In the rush of events it hadn’t occurred to her that Mason’s appearance had been suspicious. “Why were you really there, Mase?” she asked. She didn’t want to believe he had anything to do with the attack, but the way he avoided looking at her fuelled her suspicions.

  When Mason finally spoke up, his words were heavy. “Some guy … he offered me fifty quid if I just came here and hung around with you.”

  Dev moved to a panel in the wall, marked with a small emergency triangle. “What guy?”

  Mason shook his head. “He didn’t give me a name. When I asked why, he just told me that they thought you were into something bad. He didn’t say what.” Angry as he was, Dev saw the regret in Mason’s face. “I just thought if it got you into trouble then I was happy to help out. Especially after what you did to me at the party.”

  Dev pressed the panel. It opened with a hiss. He reached inside the storage box beyond. “The party? You deserved that. You’re the one who set me up to go there, after all.”

  Mason looked puzzled. “I didn’t set you up. You just came along…” He flinched as he saw Dev pull something long and thin from the box.

  Dev saw him flinch and laughed. “It’s not a gun, if that’s what you’re thinking.” It was not a very enthusiastic laugh; the seriousness of the situation was too much for that. He had found his mole.

  “You’re a traitor, Mase. You led them in here and you knew it.” He took a step closer to Mason.

  Lot held up her hands to separate them. “Wait a second. Why? Why does you being here make any difference?”

  Mason pulled the small pack of chewing gum from his pocket and held it up as evidence. “This. They told me once I was inside to chew a piece and stick it to the side of a computer. That was all.”

  Dev snatched the pack. It looked normal. He extracted the last piece of gum. It was still wrapped in silver foil. He examined it carefully. “You idiot…” Now Eema’s inability to handle the intruders made sense.

  “It’s just gum. Tastes a little metallic, but…”

  Dev ran his fingers across the gun, his eyes closed. “It’s not just gum. It’s a bio-virus.”

  He pulled a microchip from inside the wrapper. It was about the size of a pea. “And this is a portable cloaking device. That’s why Eema couldn’t see you.”

  He noticed Lot was looking at him with a now-familiar curious expression. “You know all this just by touching it?” she asked.

  Dev nodded. He dropped the cloaking chip in the water and pocketed the pack of gum. He looked at Mason. “You know what a computer virus does, right? Well, our systems here are impossible to break into from outside. But inside … that’s a little easier. You’ve been used as a stooge. We have a whole section here dealing with bioengineering. Forget horror novels, what they created in there … it’s real creepy stuff. There’s a real virus in the gum that’s half alive, half machine. Synthesized life, they call it.”

  “Man-made life,” said Lot. “Wow…”

  “Your saliva activates the synth-life, then you put the gum on the computer. The virus finds a way into the system through the circuit board, bypassing any virus checkers – then it hacks the computer from the inside. It doesn’t need complicated commands. All it needs to do is switch off our security systems temporarily to allow them time to get inside and do it properly.” He held the incriminating stick of gum up for Lot to see. “This is how they bypassed Eema. Because of him!”

  “I didn’t know! I swear … I didn’t know!” babbled Mason.

  Dev tossed the long object he had been holding at Mason. Mason caught it out of instinct, but then reeled back, expecting it to be something harmful. He was ready to throw it into the water when Dev handed Lot another one.

  “It’s an aqualung so you can breathe underwater.”

  The gizmo looked like a harmonica. One side had a series of holes; the other was a clip that could be gripped between the teeth.

  “You suck in water.” Dev pointed to the holes at the front. “The oxygen is removed for you to breathe and the liquid is pushed from the sides.” He indicated a pair of holes at the end of the aqualung.

  Lot placed hers in her mouth and spoke as if she had a mouth full of marbles. “’is is sho neat!” she mumbled.

  Dev stood at the edge of the platform. “They don’t process nearly enough air from the water, so breathing is difficult. You’ll be constantly out of breath, like being at high altitude. But at least it will keep you alive.”

  Dev stared at the water, then looked at Mason and Lot in turn. “I never asked you to come this far, but I need to find this Iron Fist – and whatever Eema said, I also need to rescue my uncle. You can stay here and hide, or come with me.”

  Mason hesitated. “I’m not a very strong swimmer.”

  “You don’t need to swim. You just need to be able to sink.” Dev slipped the aqualung into his mouth and leapt into the water.

  White bubbles foamed around Dev as he sank. The cold water was a pleasant contrast to the horrors of the vacuum tube. He took a few experimental breaths through the aqualung and was relieved to discover he was sucking in cool air. The chill seeping through his body made him shiver, which in turn caused him to suck in several deep breaths. He was already struggling to breathe.

  Two more splashes close by alerted him that Lot and Mason had taken the plunge too. As the curtain of bubbles cleared, he saw a range of emotions cross their faces in rapid succession – apprehension, fear, panic, then, finally, acceptance.

  Of the two of them, Lot looked the more relaxed. Dev remembered an English lesson after one summer when she had written about scuba diving with her parents. Mason was the picture of uncertainty.

  The water around them was as clear as glass. Two enormous black objects lay ahead and below. They were so huge that even in the crystal-clear water, the far ends disappeared in a distant blue haze. Dev motioned for the others to follow as he swam towards them.

  Eventually the objects resolved themselves into a pair of huge submarines, seated on gigantic cradles that would have been in a dry dock before the security measures had activated. One of the subs resembled a dart, with the side panels forming sharp a
ngles like a stealth fighter. The other was even bigger; the top of it was flat, and as they got closer, they could make out that they were swimming over a runway. The submarine was also an aircraft carrier.

  Dev had seen both subs from the ground, when the chamber wasn’t flooded, and viewing them from this new angle made them all the more impressive. He led the way between the two massive crafts. He remembered that they were oriented towards the doors leading to the next section. With any luck they would make it through before the Collector’s thugs had had chance to get wet.

  Dev’s chest was already aching with the effort of breathing underwater. The aqualungs had been developed by the British navy. During their initial tests, divers had passed out through sheer exhaustion and subsequently drowned. Dev hadn’t shared this last titbit with the others. He hoped they could pass through the next section before that became an issue.

  He paused to catch his breath, hanging in the water and enjoying the sense of weightlessness. Lot caught him up and he saw a gleam of pleasure in her eyes.

  Mason was several metres further back, swimming with an awkward doggy paddle. When he finally reached them, Dev pointed ahead. The tails of both subs could clearly be seen now, and so could the wall beyond. They had almost reached the far side of the chamber. Dev indicated that the door to the next zone lay to the left, out of sight.

  Suddenly two shafts of light pierced through the water from above. A pair of small single-person submarines had sneaked behind them, using the vast stealth submarine for cover. The mini-subs were the size and shape of a sleek sports car and Dev recalled last seeing them stored on a shelf. He had never seen how gracefully they moved through the water.

  Squinting against the light, Dev could see a grinning mercenary behind the controls of the nearest sub. A torpedo pod slid from the side of his craft, and the thug smirked, then mimed an explosion.

  Kwolek was behind the waterproof canopy of the second vehicle. As Dev watched, a pair of mechanical arms unfolded from the craft and reached for him.