“When what?” Od prompted. “Come on, you were about to spill the beans on the Big Plan. You can tell me. What am I going to do about it? I’m just a kid. How are T-Cell going to bring about this new, better, fairer world of yours? I’m all ears. Dying to know. Bet it involves murdering a whole bunch of people.”
“Your insolence borders on insult, Odysseus Fitch,” d’Arc snapped. “Do not provoke me. It would be fatally foolish if you did. However…” He relaxed a little. His oily smoothness returned. “I don’t see the harm in outlining the basics to you. You and your father won’t be leaving this sub any time soon. Yes, conflict is a part of it. The old ways need to be cast aside – forcibly. The existing order must be overthrown. Governments must be toppled, the apparatus of state dismantled. A fresh start must be made, and conflict is the means to that end. The only possible means.”
“Destroy civilisation and – ”
“And rebuild it.”
“In the way you decide it needs to be rebuilt.”
“The right way. With an equal share of everything among everyone. No more instability. A bright, technology-enriched future for all.”
“With you in charge, lording it over everyone else.”
“Someone has to be the figurehead and inspiration. It might as well be someone as deserving and qualified as me.”
“Never mind that it’ll take a bloodbath to achieve this magic happyland future of yours.”
“In olden times, in some societies, it was believed that bathing in blood was a cleansing process,” said d’Arc. “It could cure diseases.”
“Nice.”
Before d’Arc could respond, the trigger transmitter on his chest let out a beep. “Ah,” he said, inspecting it. The diode had gone out. “That means the capsule is out of your father. All’s well.” He plucked the trigger off and tossed it aside. Then he frowned at Od.
“What were you just doing?”
“Nothing,” said Od. He quickly raised his hand from where it had been, loitering beside his jeans pocket.
“You’re looking shifty.”
“I, er…” Od fumbled for an excuse. “I just caught sight of your eye. I – I didn’t want to stare, that’s all. In case you’re, you know, self-conscious about it.”
“My eye? You’re referring to my red spot. Yes, unusual, isn’t it? Interestingly, that’s how I came by my given name. My father noticed the spot when I was born and it reminded him of the famous Great Red Spot on the face of the planet Jupiter. He was something of an astronomy buff, my old man. I hated it when I was little. I got teased about it. Now, rather than a disfigurement, I regard it as a unique distinguishing feature.”
The T-Cell leader mused for a moment, glancing at the image of himself reflected on the shiny surface of a console. He seemed to like what he saw there.
“Where was I?” he said. “Oh yes. Bloodbaths. I would much prefer to keep civilian casualties to a minimum. But strength and superior firepower are essential to success. Here on the Lux Aurorae, and at a number of other secret locations, I have amassed fleets of extraordinary combat vehicles. They have been designed by brilliant minds from across the planet, men and women who share my goals and vision. We stand, together, on the brink of bringing our dream to fruition. The Warsuit interface will provide the finishing touch, the last element we need to make our forces invincible. Would that your father had been willing to share his genius freely. It became clear as soon as we had him in our possession that he wasn’t going to play along. Hence we had to resort to drastic measures, ultimately involving you. I sincerely regret that. Children should not have to suffer for their parents’ mistakes.”
“The only mistake my dad made, as I see it, was starting in on the Warsuit project in the first place.”
“Ah well, he didn’t have much of a choice there.”
Od frowned. “No choice? You’re saying he was blackmailed into it?”
“Not blackmailed. No, I’m afraid I’m responsible, in a roundabout way, for your father’s decision to throw in his lot with the British government. You see, Odysseus, it was as a direct consequence of T-Cell activity that Professor Fitch switched professions, abandoning the academic life to become a weaponsmith. An act of technological liberation went awry, alas, and the result was – ”
“Sir?”
“Yes?” D’Arc turned. Addressing him was a grizzled woman in her sixties who had hair the colour of a battleship. “What is it, Captain Marquez?”
“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a message for you from the hangar. Chief Engineer Fortgang would like a word. Urgently.”
“Put him on speakerphone.”
“Aye aye.” Captain Marquez relayed the order to the communications officer.
“Mr Fortgang,” said d’Arc, pressing a button on a microphone. “How may I help?”
“Sir,” said the chief engineer’s disembodied voice, “we… er… we appear to have a slight problem.”
“What sort of problem?”
“The Warsuit. It – it’s started to behave erratically.”
D’Arc’s eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened at the corners. “Erratically how? Elucidate, Fortgang. Be precise.”
“It’s… Well, I suppose you could say it’s not co-operating. You really need to come and see for yourself, Mr d’Arc.”
“Very well. I shall.” D’Arc switched the mike off and spun round to glare at Od. “Is this your doing? It is, isn’t it?”
“Not me,” Od said, all innocence.
“Don’t lie, boy. Don’t even try.” D’Arc was doing everything he could to keep his cool. He wasn’t succeeding. “What have you done? Have you sabotaged the suit in some way? You’d better not have, both for your sake and your father’s.”
“Honest, I haven’t sabotaged anything.”
“Come with me.” D’Arc signalled curtly to the two T-Cellers who had accompanied him and Od to the bridge. They grabbed Od by the scruff of the neck and frogmarched him out, following in their leader’s wake.
Od knew that the next few minutes were crucial. If he didn’t get everything right, it would be curtains for him and his dad. And the outlook for the rest of humankind wouldn’t be any too rosy either.
Chapter Fifteen
A handful of T-Cell engineers were gathered on the hangar catwalk. They were keeping their distance from Warsuit 1.0, and with good reason. The suit was spinning the barrels on its right arm, stopping every so often to select one, then spinning them again. Flaps opened and shut, revealing the bombs and defensive devices that were stashed all over its body.
The T-Cellers muttered amongst themselves in consternation. They feared the seven-metre-tall machine was going to go on the attack at any moment.
“What’s all this?” d’Arc boomed as he arrived on the scene with Od in tow. “Why are you all cowering like that? Fortgang! An explanation, if you please.”
“Sir,” said the Chief Engineer nervously. “As you can see, the suit seems to be in threat assessment mode. It just started a few minutes ago. Nobody had even touched it yet. I think it’s trying to choose a weapon. Which is bizarre. From what I understand, it can’t be active because there’s nobody inside. It should still be dormant.”
“Precisely! Use your head, man. The suit can’t function without a pilot.”
“Some kind of software glitch, then,” Fortgang hazarded. “A bug in the system.”
“Or – ” d’Arc glared at Od “ – deceit. How did you manage it, boy?”
“I’m sorry, I – ”
Od didn’t get to finish the sentence. D’Arc slapped him across the cheek, not hard but sharply enough to sting.
“Next time it’ll be a punch. Answer me. None of your tomfoolery, now.”
Od was going to ask what tomfoolery was, as he’d never heard the word before, but he thought better of it. Instead he said, “OK, it’s a fair cop.” He drew his phone out of his pocket. “I’m sending Wes a voice message I recorded beforehand, on constant repeat. It’s telling him
to select barrels and initiate then cancel weapons. I set it all up just before I climbed out, and I hit Send when we were on the bridge, once I knew the bomb was safely out of my dad.”
“Oh, very ingenious.” D’Arc snatched the phone out of Od’s hand. “But I don’t see the point. All I have to do is press Disconnect and the suit goes inert again. What on earth could you hope to gain from your little prank?”
Od shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“But not good enough.” D’Arc poised his thumb over the phone. “Let’s put an end to this nonsense.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Od warned.
D’Arc glanced at him, sneered, and brought his thumb down on the cut-off button.
Warsuit 1.0 immediately fell still.
“There,” d’Arc said. “You know, you’ve gone down in my estimation, lad. All you’ve done here is waste time. You seem quite bright, and yet this is so… petty. I hope you’re pleased with yourself, because no one else is.”
“Oh, I am,” said Od. “Because I also instructed Wes to do something as soon as the messages stop coming.”
D’Arc looked towards the Warsuit, then back at Od. His lips pursed, betraying just the tiniest hint of concern. “Instructed it to do what?”
“You put the idea in my head with that trigger thing of yours. No more signal equals detonation. Same principle here, only with a different kind of result.”
“What have you done? Ordered the suit to self-destruct?”
“Wouldn’t know how.”
D’Arc seized Od by the shoulders and shook him. “Then what?” he bellowed. Flecks of spittle hit Od’s face.
“That,” Od said quietly, pointing.
From an aperture in Warsuit 1.0’s chest, two nozzles protruded. Twin streams of liquid began to jet out, one of them clear, the other chalky white. Where the liquids met and mingled on the catwalk floor, the metal began to sizzle and steam.
“Carborane superacid,” said Od. “A million times more corrosive than sulphuric acid. Wes told me it can eat through anything. I’d say we have about fifteen seconds before this catwalk splits in two and we all slide off. And it’s a pretty long drop, isn’t it?”
Already holes were appearing in the centimetre-thick steel floor. The acrid stench of acid vapour filled the air. The T-Cell engineers started to back away, murmuring anxiously. Several turned and took to their heels. The two inert substances that combined to form the acid, solvent and catalyst, continued to spout from the Warsuit.
“I can’t believe you’d do such a thing,” d’Arc hissed. “You wretched little – ”
Od twisted out of his grasp and broke into a run. The engineers were making for the far end, where the catwalk was attached to the gallery that ran round the rim of the hangar. They would be safe there. Od, however, went in the opposite direction, towards the centre of the catwalk, where the Warsuit stood.
“Get him!” d’Arc yelled. “Shoot the brat!”
But the two T-Cell paramilitaries were retreating also. The catwalk was letting out groans and squeals and shuddering violently. It was losing structural integrity and felt ready to give way at any moment.
Od leapt over the puddle of acid and the widening, ragged gap it was creating. Globs of melted metal dropped off the edge of it as he landed heavily on the other side. Without pause, he clambered up the back of the Warsuit, finding handholds and toeholds in its vents and knee joints, and swung himself inside.
“Wes!”
The catwalk let out a grinding shriek and broke partly in half, sagging over at an angle. Warsuit 1.0 lurched sideways but stayed upright, just.
“Od, nice to have you back,” said Wes. “The ruse worked, I see.”
“Yeah, yeah, no time for back-patting,” said Od. “The catwalk’s about to go. We need to go too.”
“Firing thrusters in three, two – ”
The catwalk couldn’t stay up any longer. The acid had dissolved it all the way across. It snapped in half, and neither end could support its own weight. Both halves broke free from their moorings and fell. They plunged, tumbling end over end, into the pit of the hangar, where they landed with a tremendous, ringing double clang that sounded like a pair of gigantic gongs being struck.
Warsuit 1.0, however, did not fall with them. It hovered on its thrusters, which had ignited the very same instant the catwalk collapsed.
“Yes!” hissed Od.
He’d half hoped that Jupiter d’Arc would be still on the catwalk when it collapsed, but no such luck. D’Arc’s sense of self-preservation had kicked in and he had scrambled to safety like all the other T-Cellers. He was with them now on the gallery, and he looked, to say the least, pretty cheesed off.
“What now, Od?” Wes enquired.
“Now, my friend,” Od said, “we bring a little Warsuit-style mayhem!”
Chapter Six
The magnetised nano-thermite charge clunked into place on the underside of the hangar hatch. Wes had done the calculations. The hatch doors were half a metre thick. The nano-thermite, powerful as it was, could not blow a hole clean through. But if positioned just right, at the seam where they joined, it would cause enough damage to spring a leak.
And a leak on a submarine was the worst thing that could happen, an undersea sailor’s nightmare.
Warsuit 1.0 flew back from the hatch, retreating to a safe distance.
“Let’s hope we’ve worked this out right,” Od said.
“I’m confident,” said Wes.
Wish I was, Od thought.
“Detonate charge?”
“Go on. Do it.”
The charge went off, a burst of blinding yellow followed by billowing clouds of thick black smoke.
As the smoke cleared, Od studied the result.
Nothing. Just a white star-shaped scar on the doors. The metal was distorted but hardly so as you’d notice.
“Oh well. So much for that.” Od was vaguely relieved. The plan he and Wes had concocted was an extremely high-risk strategy. It was as likely to cause catastrophe as save the day.
Then a trickle of water appeared, dribbling down. It spread, strengthened, and rapidly became a gushing spurt.
Instantly, alarms blared throughout the Lux Aurorae. Emergency lights whirled and a loud recorded voice intoned, “Hull breach. All personnel to life pods. Hull breach. All personnel to life pods. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
On the bridge a grim-faced Captain Marquez did what she had to. “Blow ballast in the saddle tanks,” she ordered. “Forward all engines, flank speed. Hydroplanes to vertical fore and aft. Rise! Rise! Rise!”
The Lux Aurorae charged upwards from the depths, propellers churning. The great submarine was canted at a shallow angle and making 20 knots, an incredible speed for a craft so huge. Her hull groaned. Bulkheads strained. Rivets popped. Throughout her length it was panic stations as people sprinted to the evacuation assembly points. They collided with one another, sometimes trampling over one another in their desperation. The busy efficiency of moments ago had given way to total frenzy. These were no longer T-Cellers. They were ordinary, terrified men and women who didn’t care about their shared cause any more, only about getting out of the sub alive. Their overriding impulse wasn’t creating a better world, it was avoiding being drowned.
Only one among them was focused on something other than saving himself. That was Jupiter d’Arc. While everyone else crammed into the life pods and braced themselves for being jettisoned into the water, d’Arc shinned down a ladder and ran to one of the Hexaflyers. He climbed in through the hold, hurried past the benches that could hold up to twenty operatives, and shinned up a ladder to the cockpit.
Normally a Hexaflyer carried a three-strong crew – pilot, co-pilot and navigator – but the extra pilot was simply a precaution in case the main pilot suddenly fell ill mid-journey and the navigator was a luxury to free up the other two so they could concentrate on flying. The aircraft could be flown solo, and th
at was what d’Arc intended to do.
He slipped on the radio headset and hit the ignition switches. The vanes in the six propulsion units began to turn. He grasped the joystick and eased the throttle handle towards him to increase power. The gunship rose, folded its undercarriage and glided slowly forwards. Through the cockpit canopy d’Arc spied Warsuit 1.0, hovering aloft as water continued to pour in through the damaged hatch. He bared his teeth and started throwing switches, arming every weapon the Hexaflyer carried.
Odysseus Fitch, d’Arc thought. You think you’re so smart. You think you’ve thwarted my plans. We’ll just see about that.
“Od…”
“Spotted it, Wes. That Hexaflyer that’s lifting off. Zoom in on the pilot.”
“Jupiter d’Arc.”
“Yeah, thought as much. Doesn’t look too amused, does he?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Wes.
D’Arc’s voice over the radio confirmed it. “I know you can hear me, Odysseus, so listen, and listen well. You do not do this, not to me, Jupiter d’Arc. You do not endanger the lives of my people and imperil my ship and think you won’t somehow have to pay the price. The Lux Aurorae is going to have to surface now, and the moment she does, she’ll show up on every spy satellite in the region. Something her size will be impossible to miss. She’ll be hidden from prying eyes no longer, every government in the world will know where she is, and her usefulness will therefore be at an end. No doubt that was your intention. But in doing so, you’ve seriously interfered with everything I’ve been working towards, and for that you must die.”
“Hey, you started it, not me,” Od answered. “You’ve only got yourself to blame. If you hadn’t kidnapped my dad, none of this would have happened.”
“I hope you’ve enjoyed your life, short as it’s been,” d’Arc snarled. “It’s just about to come to a premature end.”
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