The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2)

by Donaldson, Casey

She had him there. Boulder didn’t say anything but simply walked past her and sat down in an obscure spot that was unlikely to get in the Lieutenant’s way.

  The Captain had gone down the flight of steps after the girl. The Lieutenant leant casually against the railing, watching them, his hand never far away from his revolver. Sarah walked around the outside of the boat, feeling the Lieutenant’s eyes on her as she went. She wasn’t worried though. Where exactly did he think she would be able to go? She leaned over the edge of the railing and took in their surroundings. It looked like they weren’t too far out of the city. In fact, Sarah thought she could make out some of the city walls through the trees lining the water. The ground was littered with rubble and old building material, but nature, especially tall, brown grass, had mostly taken over. It had probably been a residential area once, she decided, the streets lined with nice houses and gardens, but then the war came, they built the city walls, and the once-nice residential area slowly decayed with the help of a few bombs. Now all that was left was that dilapidated shed that the girl had been leaning against when they came up out of the tunnel. Even the river itself, Sarah realised belatedly, looked to be manmade. Its walls were smooth concrete. She wondered if there had used to be a dam nearby. The boat rumbled beneath her and after a moment it took off from the pier. She stayed there for a moment longer and then walked back to the others.

  Finn was talking to the Lieutenant. “Where are we going?”

  “We are going,” said the Lieutenant, “to find the Hourglass Group.” He nodded towards Sarah. “And she’s going to help us.”

  The others turned to look at her.

  “And how exactly am I meant to do that?” asked Sarah, now quite annoyed. “I already told the Captain, I don’t know anything.”

  “He seems to think otherwise.”

  “But I don’t,” repeated Sarah, as if somehow that could make him understand.

  “You better hope you do,” replied the Lieutenant, obviously a bit annoyed now himself, “because you and you’re friends aren’t of any use to us if you don’t.”

  Sarah clenched her fists, frustrated. She wanted to point out the obvious problem, that no matter how much they threatened her, she couldn’t help them find something she didn’t remember, but at the same time she didn’t want to get shot in the head and tossed overboard, so she kept her mouth shut.

  The Captain came back up the steps. He tossed them each a tin of soup. “Settle in,” he advised, “we’re going to be travelling for a while.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Travelling for a while turned out to be three days. The Captain and Lieutenant spent most of their time below decks, hunched over a map and muttering to each other about their plan to find the Hourglass Group. The girl, whose name they found out was Clara, guided them through a series of linked waterways with impressive skill, especially considering that their way was often partially obstructed by other grounded vessels and bits of building that had been discarded or had collapsed into the river. They arrived at their destination on the morning of the third day. To Sarah’s surprised, they arrived at the gates of a bustling town. She had expected them to be looking for some hidden facility out in the wilderness somewhere. It was almost a let-down. The town’s walls extended over the river by a set of hydraulic gates. Clara brought them to a halt just outside while they waited for the guard in the watchtower to come down. Any thoughts Sarah might have had regarding declaring that they had been kidnapped disappeared the moment the guard left the tower. He was an Accord guard. Both the Captain and Lieutenant had changed out of their uniforms and into civilian clothes a few days ago. Sarah had guessed that they wanted to go unnoticed, but she didn’t think they would succeed. Despite the fact that their clothes were missing any military insignia, their clothes were still obviously military cut, and of the kind of quality that you just didn’t see many ordinary citizens wearing. Obviously the town guard thought so too, because as soon as the Captain and Lieutenant appeared on deck he saluted them. The Captain waved a slightly embarrassed hand in response.

  “At ease, soldier.”

  The soldier relaxed and jumped nimbly aboard their vessel. “Morning, Sirs,” he said respectfully. “Papers please.”

  The Lieutenant pulled out a few slips of paper which the guard accepted. He flicked through them quickly.

  “If you don’t mind?” asked the guard, pointing down the steps to below deck. The Lieutenant waved him through impatiently. The guard disappeared for a few seconds and then bounced back up the stairs.

  “Just a moment,” he said, jumping off the boat and going quickly back into the watch tower. They waited for about a minute before the guard returned. He handed the papers back to the Lieutenant.

  “All seems to be in order Sir,” said the guard. “I just need to record evidence of your guests,” he nodded slightly to Sarah, Finn and Boulder, “and you can be on your way.”

  For a moment Sarah thought the Captain was going to refuse. “Quickly, soldier. We are busy people.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The guard hurried over to Sarah, Finn and Boulder. He pulled out a small, pinprick device. “Your hand, please,” he asked Boulder. Boulder held out his hand and the soldier pricked his finger, the machine sucking up the piece of blood that appeared. The machine beeped. The guard looked down at the data it displayed and frowned.

  “They are political prisoners,” said the Captain, pre-empting the guard’s questions. “Hurry up and record their details so we can get moving.”

  “Ah, yes Sir,” said the guard, a tad more nervously. He moved on to Finn and Sarah and repeated the procedure.

  “Sir, I will need to check with my senior about them,” said the guard. “They aren’t part of the pass stipulated by your papers.”

  “Soldier,” said the Captain, taking a threatening step towards the man, “I am on a time sensitive mission approved by General Pitcher himself. You will not obstruct me any further. Open the gates.”

  The soldier only hesitated for a moment, and then his shoulders drooped and his gaze shifted down to the floor. The Captain smirked. He knew he had won.

  “Sorry Sir, it’s just that we’ve had reports of a rebel group, independents, if you can believe it. They’ve been sneaking into towns and causing all sorts of mischief. We’ve had to be careful. You can go ahead.” He turned around and left the boat.

  Sarah glanced at Finn, who raised his eyebrows at her. Was it possible that they were talking about Harmony and Marland’s group? Sarah hoped so. It sounded like they were doing some good work. Marland would have been thrilled to have heard that she was officially regarded as a rebel.

  “Soldier!” called out the Lieutenant unexpectedly. The guard stopped and half-turned around, obviously not wanting to get any more involved.

  “Sir?”

  “I want you to send those DNA details to me,” he ordered. “Lieutenant Wong,” he supplied, almost as an afterthought. So the man has a name after all, thought Sarah dryly. Somehow it made him seem more human, although not by far.

  “Yes, Sir, Lieutenant Wong,” said the soldier, clearly relieved that they weren’t asking him to do anything more illegal. He turned away again and rapidly returned to the tower, signalling another person as he went to open the gates.

  The Captain raised an eyebrow at Lieutenant Wong as the boat started to trundle forward.

  “We absorb most of our captured prisoners into our own army, right?” said Lieutenant Wong, “we may as well make them Accord Privates, seeing as they’re technically working for us, and it will stop this rubbish happening again.”

  The Captain gave him a tight smile and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man.”

  Sarah blinked. So they just used the prisoners to fight for their side instead? So much for the stories about sending them all to the mines.

  “Do you think that’s what they’ll do with Hutch?” she asked the two boys as soon as Wong and the Captain moved out of earshot.

  Boulder snorted. “Th
ey might try, but Hutch would escape the first chance he got, get back to the Covenant, reenlist and tell them everything he learnt.”

  “Or he’ll join the Accord, advance with Honours to the very top, and somehow manage to feed information back to the Covenant the whole time,” added Finn. “And then blow up some important general.”

  “Either way, the guy’s gonna make sure the Accord regret fixing him up,” said Boulder.

  “He’s probably already started a secret diary of enemy stats and statistics from his hospital bed,” joked Finn.

  “Probably keeps it stuffed up his arse,” replied Boulder.

  The boys laughed.

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “That’s gross,” she said, stifling a laugh of her own.

  “Hey,” said Boulder, “a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They docked at what was obviously the only port in town. It was a small but bustling town, and nearly all commerce seemed to be based around the river. There were a huge number of warehouses lining the banks, most with people bustling in and out and moving large crates on forklifts. Most of the crates were stamped with the Accord military logo. Clara saw them looking. They hadn’t seen much of her since their first meeting outside the tunnel, as she had spent all of her time below, piloting the boat.

  “This town is a way-station for a lot of military supplies,” she informed them.

  “What kind of supplies?” asked Sarah, interested.

  “Food, weapons, medicines… everything.”

  “Clara,” warned Lieutenant Wong, obviously not happy with her giving away so much information.

  “What?” asked Clara defensively. “Who exactly are they going to tell?”

  “No one,” assured Boulder, more for the sake of Lieutenant Wong than to support Clara. “We’re not important enough for anyone to listen to anyway,” he added, just to make sure Lieutenant Wong didn’t start viewing them as a potential threat. As if to justify his presence he picked up a bunch of supplies they had brought up to the deck. At the same time the Captain came up from below deck and they stepped off the boat. Finn, Sarah and Clara picked up the remaining bags and followed them. The rest of the town wasn’t at all like Sarah had pictured. They had been told stories of how cities belonging to the Accord were brimming with disease and filth. There had even been rumours that some of the zoonosis infections that had wiped out so much of the world’s population in the past had even been found in some people on the Accord side. Instead the place looked like a smaller, possibly even cleaner version of Sarah’s home city. It was almost a letdown.

  “So, this is what we’ve been fighting against?” muttered Finn, echoing her thoughts.

  “Left here, Sir,” said Lieutenant Wong, peering ahead. “We may as well stay on base, since they know it’s us.”

  “No,” replied the Captain. “I won’t wait another day. We go to the facility now.”

  Lieutenant Wong gave a half shrug. “Ok, this way then.”

  They trudged forward until the Captain got frustrated and ordered some young soldiers out of a passing car and commandeered it. As Lieutenant Wong drove them through the streets the Captain turned around and faced them.

  “How much do you know about the Hourglass Group?” he asked Sarah.

  “Not much,” said Sarah warily. “I know that they created a lot of the weapons we currently use, including the berserker drug. I know that they experiment on people.” She felt Finn and Boulder’s gaze on her. “And I know that some time ago a small faction split off from the main group, and that they’re meant to be dangerous.”

  The Captain chuckled dryly. “Yes, I suppose dangerous is the word for it, but probably not in the way you’re thinking.” The Captain paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “The Hourglass Group was established shortly after the first mutated zoonoses infections started decimating the population. Its aim, like many new scientific endeavours back then, was to find a way to cure the disease and stop the spread. They were given billions in funding, allowed to set up labs all over the country, spend whatever they liked. Then the war broke out and, as you can probably imagine, the military pays good money for products to advance their cause. The objective of the group slowly began to shift towards military purposes.”

  “Didn’t any of the scientists object?” asked Sarah, who had trouble picturing a pharmacologist dedicated to eradicating disease suddenly jumping on the bandwagon to infect others with something just as bad.

  The Captain shrugged. “It was a slow shift, and the money the military from both sides paid them was simply stupendous, allowing them to finance and continue their medical research with resources they could never have afforded before. There wasn’t as much outrage as you might have thought.”

  “But what’s the point of paying someone who is also giving away your weapons to the other side?” asked Finn, also wrapped up in the story. “That way no one gets ahead.”

  “Catch22,” replied the Captain. He appeared to be in an unusually chatty mood. “The Hourglass Group makes the best, the most advanced weapons. You either pay them and stay in the game, or you don’t and the other side get all the advances, and you lose.”

  “And the money keeps on coming,” added in Boulder.

  The Captain nodded. “But this is all academic,” he waved a dismissive hand. “What matters is that seven years ago a small group of Hourglass Group scientists were said to have started work on something that could end the war. Of course, this wasn’t the first time that such a thing had been promised, but only an idiot would ignore the claim. Both the Accord and the Covenant sent out emissaries to investigate the claim, but by the time they had arrived the research team and all their equipment had vanished. They had erased any evidence of their work before they left.” There was a pause as they all thought about what could be so huge as to end the war. “Nothing was heard from them for about five years, and then one of them resurfaced.”

  “What did they say?” asked Sarah, mesmerised.

  “Nothing, she was dead,” replied the Captain bluntly.

  “Oh. How did she die?”

  “She was shot. Her body was left in an abandoned lab, but there was evidence that it had been inhabited recently.”

  “They murdered her?” asked Sarah, mortified.

  The Captain waved a dismissive hand. “There was some suggestion that someone tried to save her, but that’s not really the point, is it?”

  Isn’t it? thought Sarah. She rather thought that life was the point.

  “The point,” continued the Captain, when she didn’t reply, “is that the group was still active. They were still working on the weapon.” He paused to let it sink in. “I was on the team that was originally sent out to confirm the original rumour. I’ve been after that weapon for seven years. And now,” he gave Sarah a hungry look, “we’re going to find it.”

  Sarah stared at him. She had never been more frustrated. Did he think she worked as some sort of spiritual GPS because someone burnt her with the Hourglass symbol? She wanted to slap him in the face. Unfortunately he was bat shit insane and had a gun, so that was out of the question. Instead she settled for taking a large, calming breath and asking a question.

  “What, exactly,” asked Sarah, “are you expecting me to do once we get there? I’ve already told you everything I know.”

  “You remembered more under pressure. I’m sure that in a familiar environment from the past you will remember even more. Ideally, you will remember a word, or a phrase, or maybe even an image that will give you a better idea of where they have gone.”

  “What if nothing is familiar?”

  “It will be,” said the Captain, no doubt at all in his voice.

  “What if they didn’t talk about their plans in front of me?”

  “People let things slip without even knowing it,” he assured her. There will be something that can help us.”

  “And if there’s not?” continued Sarah doggedly, who thou
ght that it was far more likely that there would be no such memory stashed inside her head somewhere.

  “I’ll get it from you one way or the other.” He gave her a cold smile.

  “I don’t think memory works that way,” said Finn. “You can’t force someone to remember something that they were never exposed to.”

  “Speak again and I’ll cut out your tongue,” snarled the Captain.

  Finn blinked. That escalated quickly. He shut up. Nobody spoke for the rest of the trip.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lieutenant Wong pulled up the vehicle outside a deserted building. It was on the very edge of town, situated flush against the town wall. Unlike most towns, which were usually crammed full of people in even the most remote corners, there was only a small amount of activity occurring along the wall edge.

  “Move it,” ordered Lieutenant Wong as he jumped out of the car.

  They all climbed out after him. The building was square, two stories high and made of concrete. The entrance had large dirty glass panes on either side of the main door, boarded up against intruders. Lieutenant Wong turned the doorknob; it was unlocked. He pushed it but it stuck a quarter of the way open, so he shoved his shoulder into it, forcing it the rest of the way. A plume of dust was kicked up at their entrance, making them cough. It smelt like mould had crept into the building. Sarah blinked as she went inside, her eyes adjusting from the glare outside to the gloom inside. In front of them was a large reception desk. It would have looked impressive in its day, Sarah thought, all gleaming metal and tiles. Now it looked stained and a little creepy. Lieutenant Wong walked past it without a second glance and strode with purpose to one of the doors on either side of the desk.

  “This way, Sir,” he said to the Captain.

  “How does he know where to go?” asked Clara.

  “Because he used to work here,” said the Captain. “He was a mechanic. He used to maintain the machines. It’s why I promoted him.” The Captain looked a little smug as followed Lieutenant Wong. He grabbed Sarah’s arm. “We wouldn’t want you slipping away now, would we?” he asked her.