by Andy Briggs
In his mind, Dev could hop from camera to camera and see different views throughout the museum complex. He found the camera overlooking the staircase and saw the guard slowly walking up it, a torch combing through the darkness ahead. He was about to warn the others, but then his synaesthesia flagged up a problem. He snatched his hand away and jumped off the chair to join his team. In the gloom they couldn’t clearly see his expression, but the concern in his voice was evident.
“We have a problem. We’re not alone,” he whispered.
Mason looked back down the corridor. “How many guards?”
“Just two. But that’s not what I meant. The computer system told me…” He saw the curious look the recruits were giving him. He swallowed and continued. “It told me that the security system was already tampered with when we arrived.”
Lot was the first to understand, her voice almost rising above a whisper. “So when we turned it off … we actually turned it back on?”
“No, it’s definitely off now, but somebody else is here.” He ignored the huff of astonishment from Aaron’s lips.
“I thought you guys were supposed to be professionals?”
Dev licked his lips and reached a decision. “We stick to the plan. We’re about forty seconds ahead of the patrolling guard. We bust in there, grab the tech and exit, leaving the thief for the guard to deal with. Ready?” Everybody tensed and nodded. “Let’s do this.”
The team circled around their target, who they still couldn’t see in the darkness, but Dev’s HUD assured them was there. Without knowing exactly what stolen tech the thief was using, Dev had opted for the direct approach. He boldly stepped out to confront the thief.
“You’re out of luck, pal!”
But there was nobody there. Just a pedestal, the glass cover of which had been melted open – exposing a piece of tarnished metal beneath. Dev looked around in confusion.
“There’s nothing but a piece of scrap metal here!”
The others stepped from the darkness and looked around. Mason prodded the metal with his finger.
“Why would he swap a lump of junk for whatever was supposed to be in here?” Then he noticed a circular design etched on the metal itself; it resembled a large cog. He leaned closer to examine it.
“So where’s the tech?” said Aaron grumpily.
Dev looked around. According to his HUD the tech was right in front of him, but there was clearly nothing there.
Then everything happened at once. The guard appeared in the doorway, his torch falling on the youths. He opened his mouth to shout, his free hand reaching for the stun-gun holstered on his belt.
At that exact moment, the metal chunk on display rose from the case – and struck Mason across the face. He reeled backwards into an exquisite statue of the Greek God Zeus, which had been positioned to look down at the display.
The statute teetered on its plinth – the same moment the guard’s stun-gun was drawn. Dev watched as the chunk of metal impossibly floated away from them across the gallery. Then he understood.
“He’s invisible!”
CRASH! The ancient marble statue shattered on the floor, breaking into hundreds of pieces, going from priceless to worthless in seconds.
The same moment the guard raised his weapon to fire, Wan-Soo jumped from the shadows in front of him. His usual calm countenance was now what the others could only later describe as “intense insanity”. With a war cry, Wan-Soo kicked the stun-gun from the guard’s hand and threw the startled man over his shoulder and into the wall.
Lot didn’t even wait until the unconscious guard had slid down the wall before she raced in pursuit of the invisible thief.
“Lot, wait!” cried Dev, but she had already disappeared into the darkness of the far corridor.
Lot looked around. The only ambient light came from the tall windows that overlooked a private courtyard below. There was no sign of the metal. She stopped and listened.
There was not a sound … just the hammering of rain on the windows and the kerfuffle of the others in the room behind her. Yet she knew the thief was here, relying on invisibility to keep himself hidden.
She slowly reached for her utility belt, fearing any sudden moves would startle her prey. She pulled a pair of shades off her belt and slipped them on. Her vision was suddenly filled with blue and red tones as the Thermal-Shades highlighted the temperature differences around her.
She slowly turned to scan the room, deliberately ignoring the obvious red-hued shape of a man crouched behind a display case close to her. She raised her hand to stop the others as they came running in.
“He got away,” she said. “He was too fast for us.”
Aaron gave a dry laugh. “Wow, you guys really suck.”
“Why don’t you shut up?” suggested Mason.
“I like to think of myself as your personal narrator. Like in those animal documentaries.”
“I think you’re a moron,” Mason muttered back. Dev nodded in agreement.
As the boys squabbled, Lot made a pretence of walking around the cases and staring through the window. She walked past the crouching invisible figure without acknowledging he was there. She turned to Wan-Soo as casually as she could.
“That was some move you pulled back there.” Wan-Soo bowed his head to accept the compliment. “I’ve done some judo before, but haven’t seen anything like that.”
“Kuk Sool,” he explained with a slight smile. “It is Korean.”
Lot nodded. “Very cool. It reminds me a bit of this…”
Her sudden movement startled the others. She spun around, sliding both legs around the invisible thief’s neck to choke him. They all heard the gasp and watched as the plinth next to Lot was kicked over by the invisible figure as she herself was bucked around, without any obvious cause. Another antique smashed to the floor.
“Help me!” said Lot – then she was pushed aside and sent sprawling on the floor.
Without thinking Riya leapt for the invisible assailant. Luck was with her and she struck him as he was standing. She spun on her back – her feet lashing out and sending the invisible crook into the wall. In a single revolution, Riya went from her back to her feet and grabbed the thief. Her hands raked across his body, hoping to pull off whatever tech he was using.
Riya hit lucky, pulling a cap off his head, which became visible in her hand, as did the man gasping for breath. Riya backed off as the others surrounded him.
Mason looked at Riya with admiration. “That was like deadly breakdancing.”
“Capoeira,” she said with grin.
“You gotta teach me that!” he said, rubbing the side of his face where he’d been struck by the metal object.
The thief held up his hand and sucked in a deep breath. “Please no,” he said in a German accent. “I surrender.”
Lot put her shades away as Mason retrieved the artefact and examined it.
Dev picked up the man’s discarded cap. “So you steal our tech, then use it to steal a piece of scrap?” He looked at the man and hesitated, as he felt an odd jolt of déjà-vu. The guy looked familiar, yet there was not a flicker of recognition in return.
The man took a moment to regain his breath. Thin and dressed all in black, he looked to be in his forties. Sporting an aquiline Roman nose, he was heavily stubbled, and his greasy, shoulder-length black hair was tied in a ponytail. He wore the expression of a trapped animal as he looked at the kids.
“Your tech?” He indicated to Lot’s shades. “Thermal imaging, yes? Very smart.”
Dev scanned the cap with his phone, and the Inventory database immediately identified it. “An Invisi-Cap. It was stolen from our warehouse. Where did you get it?”
The man looked away, not wanting to answer. He stared at the floor, then seemed to decide silence wasn’t going to help him. “I purchased it online from the dark web. Of course I thought it was a joke or perhaps a scam like so many others. But this time it turned out to be true.” His eyes fell on Dev and there was a sudden g
leam of curiosity. “I suspected it must be stolen from somewhere.” He studied the team with increasing curiosity. “So you are the guardians, yes? Which means it must be true, there really is a depot where they hide such wonders.”
Dev tensed. They were all aware they shouldn’t say anything that confirmed the man’s suspicions. The Inventory and the World Consortium were ultra-secret. Only the nefarious Shadow Helix organization knew of their existence, yet this man didn’t seem to fit the profile as one of their recruits.
The man suddenly smiled. Evidently, Dev’s silence was all the confirmation he needed. “I would very much like to see this place of yours one day.”
“When that guard wakes up, all you’re going to see is in the inside of a prison cell,” said Lot. “I hope you think nicking a piece of junk was worth it.”
The smile slid from his face. “Junk? You really don’t know what that is?” His tone became increasingly passionate, and with it, his head jerked nervously around with paranoia. “It is not trash – they seldom put that on display in the Louvre. The Tate, perhaps, but … this is the Antikythera Mechanism.” He seemed more surprised at their uncomprehending looks. He sat upright, causing Wan-Soo and Mason to tense, ready for a fight. The man held up a shaking hand. “I do not wish to fight children. Especially ones who could beat me up. Please, let me explain—”
With a tremendous bang, the row of windows imploded and swept everybody off their feet. Their reactions were honed, but Aaron and Riya still suffered scratches to their faces as fragments of the toughened glass struck them. To Lot, the wave of air pressure felt as if somebody had painfully struck her across both ears.
“They found me! Run, children!” screamed the man as four figures dressed in the sort-of heavy black combat armour usually worn by SWAT teams abseiled into the room on thin nylon ropes fastened to the roof outside. Lot recognized the distinctive symbol on their shoulder patches.
“Shadow Helix!” she yelled.
The men strafed the room with heavy-duty assault weapons. Cabinets and glass display cases were demolished around them, forcing everybody to crouch low.
The lead intruder stalked straight towards Mason, who was still clutching the metal block. “Give that to me!” the man demanded, his voice indistinct beneath his black gas mask.
Mason scowled defiantly – then disappeared. The man hesitated, unaware that Dev had slid the Invisi-Cap on Mason’s head as he stood up, waving his arms to distract the thug.
“Don’t you Helix losers ever learn?”
The man snarled as he lunged for Dev – and immediately tripped over Mason, who had crawled in front of him. Dev toppled a heavy pedestal, and the marble figurine on top cracked across the man’s head.
Lot and Riya pulled the German thief to his feet as the other Helix troops moved in. One soldier didn’t see Wan-Soo dash in front of him, clutching the end of the nylon rope the man had abseiled in with. Wan-Soo had fastened the other end around a heavy statue that he then tossed out of the window. The rope pulled taunt, sweeping across the man’s chest and yanking him backward with a scream.
As the soldier shot past, he snagged Aaron’s arm in an effort to halt himself – but only succeeded in pulling the boy to the floor as they were inexorably dragged towards the window.
With his trainers squeaking on the polished floor, Aaron squeezed the soldier’s fingers to prise him off. His other hand flailed at the man’s arm, easily tearing the Helix logo from his sleeve.
The window drew closer, and desperation struck. With all his strength, Aaron sank his fingernails into the man’s wrist. The soldier howled, released him, and was immediately pulled through the window at speed.
Aaron peeked out to see the solider groaning in the courtyard below, his leg broken underneath him.
The other two troops raised their guns. Dev’s hand snapped out and punched the fire alarm. The bell rang and his synaesthesia overwhelmed the sensors and triggered the sprinkler system. The fat water droplets covered the trooper’s masks, obscuring their view.
“Go!” yelled Dev.
The team’s hydrophobic boots activated and they skated at speed back the way they came, Lot and Riya hoisting the wiry German between them. The sound of gunshots receded behind them as they slid towards the staircase, jumping down the steps and gaining momentum.
All except Mason, who, weighed down by the mechanism, stumbled and rolled painfully down the staircase. He yelled as something cracked inside him, the metal fragment and Invisi-Cap tumbling from his grasp and down the last few remaining steps.
“Mase!” Lot let go of the German and skated back to her friend. “Are you hurt?”
“I think I broke a rib,” he wailed, tears stinging his eyes.
Dev slid to their side – then noticed the German was scrambling on all-fours towards the mechanism. “Riya! Stop him!”
Riya dived at the man as he scooped up the cap and mechanism, then shot Dev an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry, but that cap was not the only thing I purchased.”
With a pop, he and the metal chunk vanished, and Riya sprawled across the floor he had occupied a millisecond before.
Dev gritted his teeth, containing his anger. There was no point in hanging around now, they had spectacularly failed their mission and had to evacuate.
Lee’s aircraft carrier was too big to dock with the huge oil rig. One large wave would have sent the two behemoths colliding. Instead, Lee took a chopper from the ship and landed on the deck of the rig that sat twenty storeys above the gently rolling ocean.
The rig floated on two massive submerged pontoons that were partially filled with seawater to help stabilize it. It had previously been used to drill for oil in the Caribbean, but once it had been decommissioned, the Company of Merchant Adventurers had repositioned it on the equator in the Atlantic, eighty miles off the coast of Brazil.
The deck was busy with workmen who were building another steel gantry tower to the side of the rig. This tower stretched an extra thirty metres into the air.
Lee was approached by a foreman wearing a yellow hard hat and a bright green high-visibility jacket, just like all the other workers. Even clandestine operations needed health and safety rules.
“Dougal!” The man was surprised when Lee tried to high-five him. After three embarrassing attempts, the men finally connected. “How’s the schedule holding up?” Lee said, already anticipating the answer from the man’s nervous expression.
“We’re two days behind,” said Dougal in a thick Scottish accent. He wrung his hands and spoke quickly. “We had a lot of technical issues to resolve. All the weight on one side could—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lee said impatiently. “We’ve lost two days. Relax, Dougal. This isn’t Helix, where they go executing vital employees just because they’ve missed a deadline. Those dark days are behind us. If we do it, it’s for proper reasons.” He patted Dougal on the shoulder. “And it’s usually a quick death. We’re late, it can’t be helped.” He patted his satchel. “But we have a very narrow window that can’t be moved, understand?”
Dougal nodded, unsure if Lee was serious or not, but decided there was nothing to be gained by arguing with him. He pointed to Lee’s satchel.
“So you really have it?” Dougal’s excitement was barely contained.
Lee patted the bag again and nodded. “Yup. Cool, huh?”
“The communications room is ready.” He indicated to an array of satellite dishes fixed to the highest tower on the rig. Like all satellite dishes on the equator, they were pointed straight upwards to the geostationary satellites in orbit above. “This way.” He led Lee across the platform past several steel staircases that led below decks. They reached a metal caged elevator. Once inside, he drew the door closed.
“The boy’ll be glad to finally get this show rolling.”
Every inch of wall space was crammed with large monitors, several of which even covered the windows. Dozens of computers filled the room, each keyboard posed to de
al with a different task during the operation. Lee was impressed that it looked every inch a serious mission control … at least if he ignored the black gaffer tape holding bundles of wires in place as they snaked across and through the floor down to a powerful qubit quantum-server that was housed below the waterline just to keep it cool.
A pair of thirty-something technicians, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, sat idly around. One played Call of Duty on the largest monitor, the other surfed the net at a blisteringly fast speed. Dougal gave a warning cough, which went unheeded.
“Hey, boys! Playtime’s over,” Lee shouted.
Hugo, the guy on the internet, lazily looked around – double-taking when he saw Lee and his browser was immediately closed.
“Fletch,” he hissed urgently at his companion.
“In a minute.”
“Fletch!”
Lee approached, snatching the mouse from Fletch’s hand.
“I said over!” snapped Lee.
Fletch whirled around with wide eyes and stammered when he recognized Lee. “I-I’m s-sorry – I was just so close to finishing that mission…”
Lee gave Dougal a stern look. “I want you to tie his feet together and throw him off the deck!”
“No!” Fletch squealed, looking to his companions for help. As one they all inched away from him in a universal sign that he was on his own.
Lee suddenly burst into laughter. “Fletcher! You should see your face! Classic!” He punched the man’s hard on the arm. “I’m just messing with you. We’ve got some work to do, boys.” He pulled the Teslator from his satchel and placed it on a desk. “Here it is.”
Everybody appraised it with fascinated expressions. They knew what it was. Their whole operation had been built around retrieving it.
Dougal angled his head to take the entire device in. “Does it really work after all this?”
“It does,” said Lee softly. “I want you guys to isolate the signal and wire it through our network … then we’ll open the line to Black Knight.”
The excitement in the room was palpable.