by Andy Briggs
Dev stared at his feet. “My uncle looked like he hated me. As if all of this was my fault. He seemed to think the Collector was using him as bait to get to me. I think … I know this sounds crazy … but I get the impression they think I am linked to the Iron Fist. One of the guys asked me about it.”
Lot frowned. “How is that possible? You hadn’t even heard about it before today.”
“I wish we could plug into Eema; then I might be able to find out more or at least send a message to the rescue team.”
“What rescue team?” said Mason sharply.
“The World Consortium has sent a task force. They’ve secured the farm above but can’t get down here. They’re using ELFs.”
Lot giggled. “Are you trying to tell me elves and leprechauns are real too?”
Dev laughed. “ELFs – Extremely Low Frequency radio waves. That’s what we use here when my uncle needs to talk to me.” He waved his wrist where his watch used to be. “They can transmit data through water and rock.”
Lot stood up, suddenly excited. “So if they are trying to talk to whoever’s down here we can respond, right?”
Dev sighed. “Only if we had an ELF transmitter. Without my watch…” He shrugged.
Lot clipped him across the head.
“OW! What did you do that for?”
“For a genius you are really dumb sometimes. I mean, I’m thinking if there was just some place we could get parts to put an ELF receiver together.” She extended her arms, gesturing to the room. “Come on! You’re smarter than me and even I can work this one out.”
Dev looked around the room. The scrap room was filled with everything he would need. He stood up, suddenly excited.
“I’m not smarter than you,” he said with a growing smile. “I just know lots more useless things. And I take being dumb to a whole new level.”
Private Gamble sat at a large ELF radio control panel that was covered in touchscreens and images of flowing waveforms that were broadcasting ELF signals. He was listening for the faintest reply. Rather than connect to a transmitter aerial or an array of satellite dishes, cables had been set up to run to several large domes bolted into the snowy ground. They were the powerful resonators that created signals so low the human ear was incapable of hearing them. Some animals could, and Gamble smiled at an encounter he’d had in Africa. Dozing off one night while using the ELF array, he had awoken to find himself surrounded by dozens of curious elephants.
As Gamble watched the last of the prisoners being loaded on to a Chinook, his headset burst noisily to life. He clamped his headphones in place and listened intently. There was an unmistakable series of long and short tones – Morse code.
Somebody was broadcasting an SOS from below.
Dev watched as Lot tapped carefully on the computer touchpad. He had hardwired it to an old transmitter he’d taken from an unusual industrial machine they had uncovered among the junk. The front of the machine was a large pointed drilling bit attached to a yellow cylindrical body in which two people could sit. Dev thought it had been designed by some eccentric maverick to try and reach the earth’s core. Most importantly, though, it had a 1940s Bakelite radio that he was able to cannibalize.
He made a quick repair to a set of giant speakers, presumably discarded from a rock concert, and connected everything together using slivers of the empty foil wrap from his chewing gum pack and a soldering iron. It was a low-tech solution to the problem, but he was confident that his improvised ELF radio would work.
Lot continued her repetitive tapping. Three short taps followed by three slower taps and ending with three more rapid taps. Over and over. The Morse code letters for SOS – the international Save Our Souls signal used by those in peril around the world.
Dev was impressed. “You know Morse code?”
“My dad made me go to groups like the Girl Guides and the Air Training Corps. You pick up all kinds of useless stuff.”
“Useless stuff that may just save our lives.”
“What about you? It looks like you can fix anything. Who does that?”
Mason laughed. “I would love you to come to my house. The amount of broken junk we have … you could fix it all and I could make a fortune on eBay.”
Dev felt embarrassed; he’d never been lavished with this much praise before.
“My uncle taught me the basics…” he mumbled. He didn’t really know how to explain his gift, so any excuse would have to do.
“You talk a lot about your uncle,” Lot said with as much tact as she could muster. “What about your parents?”
“I didn’t know my dad, and my mum vanished a long time ago.”
“Vanished?”
“My uncle says she just left with no explanation. He doesn’t really talk about it.” Dev looked into the middle distance, trying to recall any fragment about his mother he could. “I vaguely remember her, but sometimes it’s like a dream. I can’t really make out her face … or even the sound of her voice… Maybe it’s just my imagination.” He lapsed into silence.
“Surely he has some family pictures,” pressed Lot. “So you can see what she looks like?”
“He’s not the most sentimental man in the world. I don’t think he does photos.”
“Hey,” Mason interrupted. “The line is freaking out.”
He pointed to the circular green screen of the ancient oscilloscope Dev had mounted on the radio. The line, which had been steadily flat, was now wobbling in a series of jagged peaks and troughs.
Dev nudged Lot excitedly. “Somebody’s responding to us!” He twisted the volume up, but it was already on maximum. “Why aren’t we hearing them?”
With steady fingers, he traced his improvised wiring. Everything seemed to be in place – until he discovered a pair of wires he had twisted together had come undone. He reattached them, getting a mild electric shock. It was worth it, as a faint woman’s voice, wreathed in static, now came from the speakers.
“Come in. Repeat. This is Sergeant Wade from the World Consortium task force to whoever is transmitting the SOS; please come in.”
Lot handed Dev the microphone, salvaged from a battered walkie-talkie Mason had found.
“Sergeant Wade, we hear you.” Dev’s voice trembled with excitement.
“Devon? Is that you?” came the voice.
Dev frowned. “How do you know my name?”
Wade laughed with relief. “We know all about you and your uncle, Devon. Part of our mission has been to watch over the Inventory.”
“Well, we’re glad to hear you! And by the way, it’s Dev, not Devon.”
“Dev it is. Is your uncle with you?”
“No. I’m with Lot and Mason, two fr … friends from school.” The word friend felt alien on his tongue. “We made it to the scrap room.”
“Is your uncle still alive?”
Dev hesitated. He hoped so. He couldn’t live with himself otherwise. “Yes. They have him as a hostage.”
“It’s imperative that you keep away from the thieves. Understand?”
“That’s what we’re trying to do. But they’re armed. They’ve taken down Eema and have already broken into the Blue Zone. They’re after the Iron Fist.”
The tone of Wade’s voice changed. “What do you know about Iron Fist?”
“Only what I need to – which is naff all!” snapped Dev. “Eema told me to stop them from getting it.”
“That’s exactly what you must do.”
Before Dev could reply, Mason spoke up. “Wait a minute. Us? Aren’t you the hotshot soldiers? Why aren’t you swooping down here and saving us from the mess?”
“I assume that’s Mason Kermit McDermott?”
Dev and Lot couldn’t suppress smiles. Kermit?
Mason scowled at them. “My mum liked the name.”
“No wonder you have anger issues,” sniggered Dev.
Wade continued. “Well, Mason, it’s simple. We can’t get in. The Shadow Helix team have been very thorough about that. But you can get ou
t, and that means using—”
“The teleporter in the Red Zone,” finished Dev.
“Exactly,” said Wade.
Dev sighed. That was typical Inventory logic – you had to go deeper into danger in order to get out.
Wade continued. “Look at it this way: you are already in the scrap room. The Red Zone is one of the rooms connected to that. Once you’re in there, out you come.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Dev replied drily.
Wade hesitated before continuing. “There are just a couple of hurdles.” Dev closed his eyes and remained silent. “We need you to find the Iron Fist and bring it out with you. It is imperative that the thieves don’t get their hands on it.”
“How hard can that be?” said Lot brightly. She was relieved their ordeal was almost over.
“You’ll be surprised,” Dev muttered under his breath.
Wade continued. “It is important that you don’t activate Iron Fist, no matter what happens. Just bring it out with you. And don’t touch anything else in there. Items in the Red Zone are considered dangerous for a reason.”
Mason looked at the others in surprise. “You mean the rest of the stuff isn’t?”
“And finally.” Wade’s voice dropped a little. “The intruders neutralized Eema so she wouldn’t get in their way. That means once you are in the Red Zone, the husk will be nothing more than an automated attack dog. No AI, no reasoning with it; the Inventory’s basic security system will assume you’re the enemy and she won’t be around to put it straight. If you are in the Red Zone – you will be destroyed.”
As soon as the transmission was over, Dev and Lot set to work combing through the scrap room, gathering items that they could use, or, rather, assemble into something useful.
Lot watched in awed silence as Dev laid the various components on the ground and, after looking at them for a minute or so, began pulling pieces off and slotting them into one another. His hands moved swiftly and he didn’t appear to need to think about what he was doing.
“I’m not stupid, Dev,” she finally said. “There’s no way your uncle could have taught you to do that.” She remembered the way he’d run his fingers across the door lock in the canteen. “There’s something more. When you touch things … you control them.”
Dev stopped what he was doing. “No, not control them. I can sense how they work. Synaesthesia.”
She shook her head. “Never heard of them. What kind of music do they play?”
Dev made a face. “It’s a neurological condition I have. It kinda mixes your senses up so you hear sounds when you touch something, or see things when you hear a noise.” Lot looked at him as if expecting a punch line to a joke. Dev sighed. “Some people can look at numbers and see colours flashing in their mind. They find doing maths as easy as mixing the colours together. They’re capable of doing massive equations in their head without thinking about it.”
“Far out,” said Lot, although it was clear she didn’t fully understand.
“Others can feel a shape or a texture and they hear a sound. So instead of touching a toy car and thinking it’s kinda square with round wheels, they hear a series of tones that, to them, perfectly describe the shape.”
He laughed when he saw Lot staring at him. “I know. It sounds totally bonkers, but it’s true. My condition is a little of both. I look at electronics or mechanics and I see colours and hear tones. Almost like music. If the colours are jarring or the music sounds off-key, then I know the device is broken. If I get the colours and sounds to work in harmony then I can fix it.”
“I don’t want to say that sounds weird, but…”
“I know. It took me years to realize that it wasn’t normal. Basically that’s why I can figure out how things work and fix them. I just feel my way along, which is how I can make things like this.” He held up the device he had been working on while talking. It was long, like a bazooka, and both ends were wide like funnels. “It’s a non-lethal weapon, of course.” He balanced it on Lot’s shoulder.
“What does it do?” Lot aimed it at Mason, who had his back to them as he prodded a piece of wreckage.
Dev angled the barrel away from Mason. “I said non-lethal, but I’m pretty sure it will hurt. It’s an AirCannon.” He pointed to the rear end. “Air is sucked through here at high speed.” He ran his hand down to the middle. “It’s compressed in a chamber here. And when you pull the trigger—”
Lot pulled the trigger. It sounded like a champagne cork popping, only much bassier. A shimmering sphere of compressed air shot across the scrap until it hit the remains of an old four-by-four and exploded with a bang, flipping the vehicle on to its roof.
Mason jumped to his feet and looked accusingly at Lot.
“Wow,” she said with a grin. “That was neat.”
“I got the idea from their sonic guns. With any luck we won’t have to use it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
They joined Mason and together gazed across the massive space. It was so cavernous that the humidity had created its own microclimate – one of a foggy haze that almost shrouded the far wall from view and hung like low cloud. They could just make out the dark smudge of another circular doorway so large that it could swallow a building.
“That’s the Red Zone.”
“And you’ve never been there before?” said Mason.
“Never.”
“So you don’t know what will be waiting for us?”
“Nope.”
“Or how to get in?”
“Not a clue.”
Lot and Mason exchanged a resigned look. “Then what are we waiting for?” Lot said. “Let’s break into the most secure vault in the most secure building in the world.”
The closer they came to the vault door, the further Mason and Lot hung back. Like the other portals, this door was circular, but it was far larger – so large that the top was hidden in the humid mist. A small hand scanner was mounted to the right of the door. Dev studied it, but didn’t dare touch it.
“Surely it’s worth trying your palm print?” Mason suggested.
Dev shook his head. “My uncle made it very clear that I was never to go in here, no matter what. At best, I touch that scanner and the Collector will know exactly where we are.”
Lot looked nervous. “And the worst-case scenario is…?”
“Eema has been overridden so we become targets.”
Mason forced a laugh, although it sounded more than a little fearful. “So what? We beat those goons back there. We can beat your souped-up tin can.”
“But in this case it will be a tin can armed with weapons so terrible that the World Consortium decreed no military could ever use them.”
“That’s one tin can with attitude,” said Lot.
Dev saw Mason’s face pale, his bravado slipping away. “So why are we doing this again? Shouldn’t we just hide? I mean, who’s going to blame us if we can’t stop them getting the Iron Fist?”
“We’re doing it because no matter how scary things have been so far, Iron Fist is supposed to be far worse.”
A deep boom suddenly resonated across the hangar. They turned around and peered into in the distant haze.
“That was the door to the Blue Zone,” whispered Dev. “They’re in here.”
“Can you use your synaesthesia power to open this door?” said Lot, turning back to the portal.
“It’s not a superpower,” Dev said. “I can’t hack into computers with my mind.”
A thought struck him. He began to back away from the door so he could see the whole thing.
“What are you doing?” Lot hissed. “It’s not going to take them that long to get over here!”
“I’m taking a step back to see the whole problem,” said Dev. “My uncle sorts through all this trash on his own. Do you know how he does it?”
Dev peered up to the ceiling, which was a cloud of haze with powerful spotlights puncturing through like miniature suns.
“No idea,” said Lot.
>
Dev smiled. “Then let me show you.”
Lee stared at the Red Zone door and let out a low whistle. “That’s one big sucker. It makes you wonder what’s really behind it.” He turned to look at the team around him. Everybody had gathered to enter the final portal, but they were all keeping a wary distance.
Charles Parker shrugged. “The most powerful items ever created. Although looks can be deceiving.”
Lee thumbed his watch; the image of the Collector instantly appeared. “Sir, we’re at the final door.”
The Collector sounded impatient. “At last. And the children?”
For the first time Lee felt a cold sweat trickle down his back, and he hesitated. “They are … out of the way.”
The Collector’s silence was threatening. Lee continued nervously, “Once we are through, the team was wondering exactly how we are expected to complete the final phase.”
“Find Iron Fist and have it brought to me. We shall rendezvous outside. After that, everything will take care of itself.”
The Collector vanished. Lee took a deep breath and noticed that Charles Parker was looking at him with the faintest hint of a smile.
“What’re you smirking at?” snarled Lee. He jerked his thumb at the door. “Open it up.”
Fermi stepped in front of the palm scanner. The innocuous black metal plate offered no instructions. She pulled a small box from her backpack, about the size of a shoebox.
“OK, Pops.” She gestured Charles Parker forward. “Come here.”
Charles knew it was pointless to resist. With a bemused look, he joined her. She placed his hand in a circular hole at one end of the box. “Just relax.”
There was a blue flash from within the box and Charles rapidly withdrew his hand. A pinkish puddle formed in a tray on top of the box. It took a moment for Charles to realize that it was a patch of human skin. “You are making a 3D printout of my hand?”
“Every fingerprint, scar, ridge and whorl,” Fermi confirmed. “But not just a scan…”
They watched as an entire human hand formed from the top of the machine, the wrist nothing more than a curved lump of flesh. Fermi picked it up, and used it to wave at Charles. The fingers flexed and moved. He was impressed – and it took a lot to impress Charles Parker.