He had started working at Selston Tor a mere two months after the funeral. He had uprooted himself and Od from all they knew and were used to. He had dragged them hundreds of miles across the country, away from the university town where he had been a lecturer and research fellow and Od had had friends and attended a good school and been doing well, coming top in his year in almost every subject. He had relocated them to the dreary moors, a place where the skies were constantly overcast and nothing of any importance happened.
In a brooding landscape, Tremaine Fitch had brooded. In a place of distances, he had become distant.
And all along, at the nuclear research installation that wasn’t really a nuclear research installation, he had been hard at work building Warsuit 1.0. He had thrown himself, heart and soul, into the project. He had given it his all.
Making a war machine that was uniquely powerful and lethal.
Out of anger? A desire for revenge? Hatred for a world that had robbed him of his true love?
“Od?”
“Yeah, Wes?”
“I’ve no wish to intrude, but you may like to know that I’ve picked up the Hexaflyer’s radar signature again. It’s approximately fifty miles south of us, bearing due west. It’s travelling at a fair old lick, just sub-Mach. I think we can safely assume it’s returning to base, wherever base is.”
“Can we follow it?”
“I’m already plotting a flight path to intercept.”
“They’ve got to be going where Dad is.”
“It’s likely, isn’t it? It’s a lead, at any rate.”
Od felt the Warsuit tip to the left as Wes altered course.
His head was full of misgivings and suspicions.
His heart, by contrast, was empty of everything but certainty.
Chapter Eleven
Within minutes Warsuit 1.0 was behind Hexaflyer Bravo Tango, matching its course and its ground-speed of 650 mph but keeping a good distance between them. They had left the coast of Britain behind and were over the Atlantic. The ocean, illuminated by a breathtaking sunrise, glittered gold, ruby and sapphire, a blanket of treasures.
Od wasn’t in the mood for appreciating the view, however. All his attention was focused on the far-off dot on the horizon that was the T-Cell gunship. He wondered what its destination was, where it was leading him to out in this vast desert of seawater.
“There are no islands anywhere around here.” Wes illustrated the remark by putting a map up on a screen. Blue, blue, nothing but blue. “The Azores and the Canaries will pass well to the south of us if we maintain this heading, and that thing doesn’t look to me like it has the fuel capacity to go all the way to north America. It’d need to be a lot larger.”
“Maybe this is a suicide run,” said Od. “They didn’t manage to capture or destroy the suit, and they’d rather kill themselves than go back and face the wrath of Jupiter d’Arc.”
Wes chuckled.
“I’m only half joking.”
“I know.”
“D’Arc,” Od mused. “That can’t be his real name, can it? As in night-time? No light? It sounds like a magician’s stage name.”
“You’re thinking it’s spelled D-A-R-K.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. D-apostrophe-A-R-C. Same as Jeanne d’Arc – Joan of Arc.”
“Ohhh. Don’t suppose he’s a descendant of hers.”
“Maybe.”
“He doesn’t have a French accent, though. Do we know anything about him at all?”
“Let me dig around in a couple of databases,” said Wes. “Precious little coming up. I’ve got a date of birth. December the twenty-fifth, 1965. That’s unfortunate timing, Birthday and Christmas on the same day. Born and raised in London, resident there till 1987. After that, nothing. He drops off the grid entirely.”
“Any family?”
“Just parents. Both killed in a house fire. That was in 1987 too, not long before he disappeared. Police suspected arson but nothing was proved. D’Arc himself was away at university at the time, so it can’t have been him who set the fire, if that’s what you’re thinking. His alibi is cast-iron.”
“So for a quarter of a century the guy’s been an invisible man,” said Od. “He hasn’t officially existed.”
“No bank accounts. No driving licence. Not a trace of him anywhere in the system. No internet presence. He hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket.”
“Facebook page, surely.”
Wes laughed. “As if.”
“How do you do that nowadays? Vanish? Everybody leaves an electronic paper-trail. It’s just not feasible.”
“Yet somehow he’s managed it, and in the meantime become head honcho at T-Cell.”
“Should we be impressed?”
“I think maybe we should, a little.”
“What about T-Cell itself? What’s their game?”
“Again, I’m drawing almost a complete blank,” said Wes. “Every scrap of information the government has on them is Restricted Access. Highly classified stuff, stored behind brick-thick firewalls and massively encrypted. I could probably plough my way through, given a day or so, but really, the levels of security are fortress-like. It’s all I can do just to lurk at the edges without tripping any of a dozen intruder alarms. The public, clearly, is not supposed to ever hear about T-Cell.”
“The bare bones. Snippets. Anything. I need some idea of what we’re facing.”
“They’ve been operating for a little over a decade, that I can tell you,” said Wes. “They claim to have peaceful intentions. Their objective is the liberation of technology. They’re against the suppression of inventions and scientific advances that can improve the state of humankind. I’m getting this from a manifesto posted on some ancient, forgotten website that everyone else appears to have overlooked. The location is so obscure, most search engines give it a four-oh-four Not Found error code.”
“You’re saying they’re idealists. They want all technology to be shared fairly among the masses.”
“More or less.”
“Funny way of going about it. They shot those soldiers and tried to blow up this suit and me with it. I mean, what’s idealistic about that?”
“They regard themselves as freedom fighters. Anything’s justified if you feel your cause is just. Even murder. The name T-Cell…”
“I recognise the word,” said Od. “From my mum’s cancer. The doctors were always going on about her ‘T-cell count’ being high or low or whatever. T-cells are lymphocytes, white blood cells, part of the body’s immune system. They help fight viruses and such.”
“And T-Cell, the organisation, believe there’s a disease at the heart of society, a sickness that it’s their sworn duty to combat and defeat. By whatever means necessary.”
“Nice. So they’re not just fanatics, they’re delusional fanatics. And these are the people who’ve nabbed Dad. They’re not going to give him back if we just ask nicely, are they?”
“I suspect it’ll take a bit more than ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”
“Bunch of lousy…” Od let loose with some juicy words to describe his feelings about T-Cell.
“Language!” Wes scolded.
“Oi, just because you talk like my father, doesn’t mean you have to act like him as well.”
“Sorry, Od. Can’t help myself. It’s just one of the subroutines Professor Fitch installed.”
“Well, can it be uninstalled?”
“Let’s see. Yes. Proceed?”
“Picture me hitting the Enter key.” Od swore again, experimentally. There was no reaction from Wes. He grinned. “Hey, I’ve just customised you.”
“And you’re welcome to keep the customisations coming,” said Wes. “It’s my job to adapt my functions to my pilot’s personality and habits. The smoother the interface between pilot and suit, the more effective we are as a team.”
A team.
Od had never considered himself a team player. In school sports, he could barely summon up
the enthusiasm to take part. Football, athletics, cricket, you name it, he would loiter on the sidelines and involve himself as little as he could without the teacher noticing. Even online, in multi-player games, he seldom hooked up with other people’s bands of roaming avatars. He kept aloof in the digital world as well as the actual. He didn’t necessarily prefer it that way. It just seemed to be the role he was fated for.
But now…?
“Hexaflyer Bravo Tango has started to descend,” Wes informed him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was getting ready to land.”
“But there’s nowhere to land,” said Od, scanning the empty seascape around them. “Unless it’s going underwater. Is it amphibious?”
“With those jets? Unlikely. Your suicide run theory’s looking more and more plausible.”
“I don’t suppose you’re getting any clues from their comms.”
“None. The crew are observing complete radio silence.”
“Hey, what’s that?” Od had spied a disturbance in the water’s surface, a speck of white amid the endless blue. “See? There. Dead ahead.”
“Magnifying,” said Wes. “Zooming in. Enhancing resolution.”
The image enlarged in stages, blurring then sharpening with each leap of magnification. The whiteness had a distinct spiral shape, like a galaxy, and it was steadily spreading and deepening.
“A…whirlpool?” said Od, bemused.
“No other word for it.”
“This isn’t just some random phenomenon. Can’t be. It must be manmade.”
“Agreed. And the Hexaflyer’s making a beeline for it.”
The whirlpool grew bigger and still bigger. Soon it was at least a hundred metres across, and revolving at dizzying speed. A perfect round hole had yawned in the ocean, and at its heart a glistening, water-walled shaft tunnelled straight down.
Hexaflyer Bravo Tango came to a halt directly above this huge vortex, suspending itself on six jets of air. Its propulsion units revolved in sequence, turning upside down. Then it shot vertically downwards, plunging into the whirlpool’s maw.
“Follow?” asked Wes.
“I think we have to. They’ll get away from us if we don’t. Keep your distance, though. Don’t want to get spotted.”
Warsuit 1.0 went into a steep swoop, diving head first towards the liquid vortex.
What lay in store below? What was the Hexaflyer heading for? Was the Warsuit even watertight?
These and other questions crowded into Od’s brain.
No point wondering. He’d find out soon enough.
Chapter Twelve
The Warsuit shuddered and jolted as it entered the maelstrom. Winds whipped up by the whirlpool’s revolutions pummelled the suit. Ropes of water snaked out from the whirlpool’s sides and lashed it violently. The roar of swirling, churning ocean was tremendous. Even cocooned within his metal shell, Od was deafened. The noise was so loud it almost drowned his thoughts. Hanging upside down, with the blood rushing to his head, he focused on the sleek silver Hexaflyer far below. The T-Cell gunship, with its thirty-metre wingspan, was bigger and heavier than Warsuit 1.0. Its crew had evidently made this trip into the whirlpool before. If they could manage it safely, Od reasoned, so could the Warsuit.
Several metres below the surface the Warsuit passed through a gigantic metal hoop. Bladeless suction fans within the hoop were responsible for the titanic centrifugal forces generating the whirlpool. A second, narrower hoop, connected to the first by huge, sturdy cables, was situated a short way further down. There was a third below that, its diameter smaller still, and a fourth. Od could see the hoops descending into the darkness of the depths. Each was playing its part in creating the vortex, this watery gateway to somewhere.
Way down at the whirlpool’s base Od glimpsed a vast shadow.
“What is that?” He had to shout to be heard over the whirlpool’s turmoil. “Is it one of those ocean trenches?”
“No,” Wes replied. “The seabed is much further down. Whatever that is, it has mass. Some kind of vessel. I’m registering engine noise – propeller cavitation – and heat from a nuclear power source.”
“But it looks like it’s about a mile long.”
“I know. I keep thinking my sensors must be misreading. But they’re not.”
“You’re telling me someone’s built a submarine one mile long?”
“I’m telling you that’s the only thing it can be. And look.”
A circle of brightness had opened up at the bottom of the whirlpool. The Hexaflyer was briefly silhouetted against it like a bat against the moon, and then the brightness swallowed the gunship up. A second later, the circle began to narrow on either side, like some kind of double eclipse.
“A hatch,” said Wes. “The Hexaflyer’s gone in.”
“Then so should we,” Od said with resolve. At that moment he became aware of a kind of weird, sinking, groaning sound. “What’s that?”
“The hoops. Their mechanisms are shutting down.”
“But if they’re shutting down, that means…”
“The whirlpool’s going to shut down too.”
“Move!”
Warsuit 1.0 poured on speed. The massive cables that joined the hoops together were reeling them swiftly downwards to the submarine. Meanwhile the walls of the whirlpool were losing shape, becoming sloppier, less stable. Sheets of water began cascading from above like storm rain, hammering down on the suit. One screen showed that the hole at the top of the whirlpool had sealed itself, shutting out the distant bright dot of sky. Bit by bit, downwards, the rest of the vortex was doing the same, closing, like a wound healing.
And, below, the hatch itself was very nearly shut.
“Hurry!” Od urged Wes.
Thrusters flaring, Warsuit 1.0 accelerated even faster. The second hoop was now firmly nestled within the top hoop, and both of those were closing in on the third hoop down. The Warsuit was racing to beat them to the sub. The cone of air around it was rapidly shrinking. A readout gauge told Od that they were at a depth of 550 fathoms. Once the whirlpool dissolved completely, the suit would be submerged a kilometre below the surface.
He didn’t know whether it could survive the crushing pressures so far down, and he wouldn’t have asked Wes even if there’d been time to. He had a feeling the answer would be not the one he was hoping for.
The first three hoops were fitted snugly together and drawing almost level with the fourth. There was hardly any of the whirlpool left, just a small pocket of air that was shrinking fast, the water around it rotating only through its own inertia.
The gap between the hatch doors was reduced to just a sliver. It looked like the Warsuit wasn’t going to make it. Od held his breath and gritted his teeth and prayed.
Then – bump, scrape – the Warsuit slid between the doors, with barely a millimetre to spare on either side. The hatch closed tight shut. Next instant, water slammed down onto the doors with a tumultuous WHUMP as the whirlpool finally imploded and cancelled itself out of existence, becoming nothing but a sizzling froth of bubbles.
Od let out a whoop of triumph. Wes, meanwhile, braked and turned the right way up using various different thrusters. Warsuit 1.0 came to rest gently on its feet on a broad metal catwalk.
Once Od’s heart rate had calmed to normal – it had been the narrowest of narrow squeaks – he took stock of his surroundings. The screens showed floors descending in tiers, like layers of a cake. Hexaflyers were parked on several of them, alongside other aircraft the likes of which Od had never seen. There were things that resembled helicopters but were knife-thin and had room in their cockpits for just a single crew member. There were planes that put him in mind of a Harrier jump jet spliced with a Challenger tank. There were even disc-shaped craft very reminiscent of UFOs.
He was in a hangar full of, it seemed, sci-fi movie flying machines.
“Whoa,” he said. “This is – ”
“Odysseus Fitch!”
The voice came from outside. Od had he
ard it before, just the once. He recognised it only too well.
A tall man was standing at the end of the catwalk. He wore a tailored double-breasted suit and had immaculate, side-swept hair. He carried himself with an air of swaggering authority, one hand in jacket pocket, nose ever so slightly up-turned. His smile was wide and welcoming and, to Od’s eyes, supremely false.
“That is you in there, isn’t it, Odysseus?” the man continued. “Please allow me to introduce myself. The name’s Jupiter d’Arc.”
Immediately Od raised his right arm. Wes obligingly selected a medium-sized barrel.
“Come, come,” said d’Arc. “There’s no call for such belligerent posturing. Look at me.” He spread out his hands. “I’m unarmed. I’m no threat to you. I come in peace.”
Od’s reply was to have Wes ratchet the barrels round to the next largest in calibre.
“Very well, young man. I take the point. Quite a specimen of military hardware you’ve got there. I behold and marvel. And, really, how thoughtful of you to bring it to me. Delivering it right to my doorstep, so to speak. You’ve saved me a great deal of time and trouble. Here I was thinking you’d never be so unwary as to fall for my trap, and yet you did. Hook, line and sinker.”
“Trap?” said Od to Wes. “We shadowed the Hexaflyer the whole way here. The crew had no idea there was anyone following them. He’s just trying to make out that I’m stupid and he’s smart, that’s all. Right?”
“I instructed Hexaflyer Bravo Tango to act as a lure,” d’Arc explained. “I had it dangle itself in front of your nose, knowing you’d be unable to resist taking the bait. The crew did their jobs perfectly. They’ve more than redeemed themselves for missing their chance to eliminate you in that quarry.”
“Come to think of it,” Wes said, “it did seem a bit convenient, the Hexaflyer coming into radar range like that. But the fact remains that we’re here now, face to face with d’Arc, and we have a Warsuit and he doesn’t.”
“Good point.” To d’Arc, over the external speaker, Od said, “All right, you got me. It was a cunning trick and I fell for it. So what? Doesn’t change anything as far as I’m concerned. I’ve come for Professor Fitch. I want him back, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get him.”
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