The Overlord Protocol

by Mark Walden

  ‘Can we get close enough to get on board without being detected?’ Raven said with a frown. ‘We have to stop Cypher before he has a chance to launch an attack.’

  ‘It may be too late for that,’ Otto said, looking up from a screen displaying a zoomed-in image of Cypher’s ship. Multiple launch tubes could be seen rising from the deck and swivelling into firing positions, all pointing straight at H.I.V.E. Moments later the first salvo was launched. A barrage of missiles streaked away from the launchers, impacting on the side of the island’s central volcanic peak only seconds later. Curiously, there were no explosions, just small clouds of dust where each missile had landed. Otto manipulated the surveillance camera mounted in the nose of the Shroud to focus on one of the impact sites. As the dust cleared the long white body of the missile could be clearly seen, lying still intact amongst the rocks.

  Suddenly a panel on the missile was blown off and a familiar black shape climbed from the shell. It was one of Cypher’s robotic assassins. Otto quickly focused on another one of the impact sites, where exactly the same thing was happening, the missile disgorging its lethal passenger. At the same time another wave of missiles was launched from the ship, impacting all over the nearest face of the island. The first wave of robots was already scaling the sides of the volcano like ants, heading upwards at frightening speed towards the crater entrance.

  ‘Forget the ship,’ Raven said, a grim look on her face. ‘We’ve got to get inside H.I.V.E. now.’

  The Chief looked at the guard to his left, the worry tinged with fear on his face summing up the feelings of the other guards positioned around the crater. As soon as Cypher’s ship had appeared Nero had given the order for all security teams to protect H.I.V.E.’s points of entry. The Contessa had sealed all of the conventional weapons lockers so they had little more than the Sleepers that units on patrol had been carrying to defend themselves. The Chief just hoped it would be enough. There were only a couple of external cameras that were functional so they had little idea what Cypher was going to throw at them, but he was determined that nothing was going to make it past him and his men.

  The Chief looked up at the bright circle of daylight overhead formed by the crater’s edge. For a fleeting moment he thought that he could detect movement but it may just have been a trick of the light. He reached for the tiny pair of binoculars that were attached to his equipment harness and quickly focused on the rocks far overhead. There were definitely several people up there, gathering at the lip of the crater. They were dressed all in black and they moved with a surprising speed and agility. He thought back to Raven’s report on the attack on the Tokyo safe house and quickly realised that these must be more of the same ninjas that had attacked her there. Well, they were ready for them this time and the assassins would find that H.I.V.E. itself was a considerably harder target than some local safe house. The assassins were going to have to rappel down to the landing pad from the top of the volcano and that would make them sitting ducks for him and his men.

  Suddenly, one of the black figures far overhead seemed to simply leap into the void, tumbling down towards the Chief and his men. He must have slipped and fallen, the Chief thought to himself as he watched the man drop. At least that was one less of them to worry about. The Chief looked away as the assassin hit the hard steel of the landing deck; he’d seen many disturbing things in his lifetime but a drop from that height was never a pretty sight. Then he heard a couple of gasps and half-yelled comments from his men as the assassin who had hit the ground simply stood up from the crouch in which he had landed and slowly surveyed the room. It was impossible. The Chief had known some well-trained operatives over the years, but no one could survive a fall from that height, no one. He looked more closely at the armoured assassin and it quickly became clear that they were not dealing with any normal assault here. The assassin was a machine, its design way in advance of anything else he had seen.

  ‘Open fire!’ the Chief yelled, and was immediately drowned out by the loud zapping reports of multiple Sleepers being fired all around him. To say that the Sleeper pulses were ineffective would have been something of an understatement – the assassin didn’t even falter, just slowly surveyed its surroundings, the glowing red sensory array on the front of its insectile face taking in every detail.

  The Chief knew a scout when he saw one and also knew that this robot was probably just reporting back to the others above on the positions and strength of the defenders.

  ‘What do we do, Chief?’ the man to his left yelled desperately above the sounds of Sleepers firing. ‘That thing’s not even slowing down; the Sleepers aren’t working.’

  The Chief suddenly understood why the Contessa had only sealed the conventional weapons lockers when she had overridden the security system. Cypher’s forces clearly had nothing to fear from Sleepers.

  ‘What I wouldn’t give for a good old-fashioned grenade right now,’ the Chief muttered to himself.

  There was another sudden thunderous clanging sound as half a dozen more of the assassins landed on the steel decking. The moment they landed they unleashed a blizzard of whirring shuriken, the deadly throwing stars finding their targets unerringly, sending several of the Chief’s men toppling to the ground. The Chief felt a cold dread descending over him. They were hopelessly outgunned, but they couldn’t let these things take the crater; if they did there would be no stopping them.

  A sudden wind seemed to rise from nowhere and the Chief quickly glanced out past the rock behind which he had taken cover to see what was happening. The assassins still stood in a tight circle in the centre of the landing pad, launching the occasional shuriken at any of the H.I.V.E. guards who were unfortunate enough to find themselves in an exposed position. One of the assassins head’s snapped round and focused on the Chief, its arm rising to launch a throwing star at him.

  It never got the chance.

  Suddenly the group of robots seemed to crumple as if a huge weight was crushing them to the ground. In just a split second they were reduced to a sparking pile of crushed and mangled components, the occasional twitching servo the only indication of any life. There was a shimmer in the air and the huge black shape of a Shroud materialised directly on top of the ruined attackers. The hatch at the back of the aircraft blew off with a loud bang, flying across the cavern, and Raven stepped out.

  ‘Chief, pull your men back now. You don’t have a chance against these things,’ Raven yelled as Otto Malpense and the Shroud’s pilot leapt down from the aircraft behind her.

  ‘Nero said we had to hold the crater at all costs,’ the Chief said quickly as Raven approached.

  ‘Nero hasn’t gone toe-to-toe with one of these things,’ Raven replied impatiently. ‘If you stay here you die, simple as that.’

  The Chief knew better than to argue with Raven’s tactical appraisal of a situation. Besides he may not have wanted to admit it, but he knew she was right. He looked up and saw more tiny black figures massing on the edge of the crater above. They were out of options.

  ‘Fall back!’ the Chief yelled, ordering his men back through the enormous blast doors that were the only way into or out of the crater. They did not need to be told twice – the sight of these invulnerable assassins cutting down their team mates with such apparent ease had been enough to persuade most of them of the wisdom of a tactical withdrawal.

  ‘Can we seal the doors?’ Raven asked as they dashed towards the exit.

  ‘There’s enough charge in the back-up batteries to close them, but once they’re closed they’re staying closed. There won’t be enough juice to open them again, thanks to the Contessa,’ the Chief replied.

  ‘What do you mean, thanks to the Contessa?’ Raven asked quickly.

  ‘I think you need to speak to Nero,’ the Chief replied as they passed through the doorway and the huge steel doors slowly rumbled shut.

  The assassin robot shoved Laura hard in the back, propelling her forward into the dingy cell. Shelby was right behind her, falling to the deck a
s she too was pushed inside, the heavy door swinging shut with a worryingly solid clunk. They watched through the bars as the two mechanical henchmen walked silently away, leaving them alone.

  ‘Well, this isn’t good,’ Laura said with a sigh, surveying the cramped, featureless cell.

  ‘Laura Brand, the world’s greatest master of understatement, ladies and gentlemen,’ Shelby replied sarcastically, sitting down on one of the cell’s two tiny beds.

  ‘I can’t believe the Contessa’s involved with this,’ Laura said gloomily as she sat down on the bed opposite Shelby.

  ‘Well, she is,’ Shelby replied, staring at the cell door.

  ‘Aye,’ Laura replied sadly. ‘She fooled everybody: us, Nero, and by the looks of it Francisco too.’

  ‘Yeah, it looks like the Colonel didn’t have much say in the whole “helping the Contessa” thing,’ Shelby said, sounding slightly distracted.

  ‘She must have been using him for months,’ Laura said, ‘to implant commands so deeply that he carries them out without question. We’ve both felt what it’s like to have the Contessa hijack your brainstem, but it fades quickly after she’s gone. She must have spent a long time preparing him for this.’

  ‘I don’t understand what that old witch does but I’ll tell you one thing, it’s going to take a whole lot more than a few words to stop me from punching her lights out the next time I see her,’ Shelby replied, picking at the toe of her shoe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Laura asked, watching in bemusement as Shelby tugged at a loose flap of rubber on the toe of her shoe.

  ‘We’re getting out of here,’ Shelby said quietly.

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Laura, ‘but something tells me we’re going to need more than the old one of us falling ill trick to get us out of here.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Shelby replied with a smile, ‘that’s a classic. Never fails.’

  ‘I take it you have a plan, then?’ Laura replied curiously.

  ‘Better than that,’ Shelby said with a grin, peeling the sole off her right shoe. ‘I have a key.’

  Inside the sole of Shelby’s shoe was a full set of tiny tools and lockpicks. Laura knew she really shouldn’t be surprised; after all Shelby had been the Wraith – the world’s most notorious and successful jewel thief before being forcibly inducted into H.I.V.E.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you walk round all day with that lot in your shoe,’ Laura said with a chuckle.

  ‘Don’t leave home without it,’ Shelby replied with a broad grin.

  Shelby walked up to the bars at the front of the cell and quickly glanced down the corridor leading to the cells. Seeing no one there she turned her attention to the lock and after a few seconds let out a long sigh.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Laura asked anxiously.

  ‘This is a Johnson and Fort, floating barrel, nine pin, spring-leaf security lock,’ Shelby said quietly. ‘Almost impossible to bypass.’

  ‘Great,’ Laura said as Shelby turned back to the lock. ‘So now what are we going to do? There’s no other way out of here and I for one don’t just want to sit here and wait for Cypher’s scheme to play out, whatever he’s –’

  There was a tiny click and the cell door swung open.

  ‘I only said almost impossible,’ Shelby grinned.

  ‘OK,’ Laura said in amazement, ‘the next time they serve chocolate ice cream at dinner, you can have mine too.’

  ‘You say that now, Brand, but it’ll be a different story when the time comes,’ Shelby said, slipping her hidden tools into her pocket.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, this time you’ve really earned it,’ Laura said, grinning.

  Shelby stepped silently into the corridor. There were no signs of any guards – Cypher obviously thought the brig was a lot more secure than it actually was.

  ‘Coast is clear,’ Shelby whispered. ‘Let’s go.’

  The two girls crept down the corridor. They were just passing the other cell door when Laura suddenly stopped.

  ‘There’s somebody in there,’ Laura whispered. Lying cuffed to the bed in the cell was a figure wearing simple black pyjamas with a hood over its head.

  ‘So?’ Shelby replied. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed we’re trying to escape here.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Laura said quietly. ‘If Cypher’s locked them up in here we should help them – the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.’

  ‘Right, but what if they’re locked up for a good reason?’ Shelby replied. ‘The last thing we need is another murderous psychopath running around on the loose.’

  ‘It can’t hurt to talk to them,’ Laura said quickly. ‘Look, they’re cuffed to the bed. Worst comes to worst we just leave them there.’

  ‘OK, OK, but if that’s Hannibal Lecter in there I’m holding you responsible,’ Shelby said with a sigh. She pulled her tools back out of her pocket and quickly bypassed the lock on the cell, the door swinging open with a creak.

  Laura walked up to the figure shackled to the bed and hesitated for a moment. Shelby might be right, this could be just someone that Cypher considered dangerous. Then she took a deep breath and scolded herself for being so timid. It couldn’t hurt to see what they looked like at any rate. She reached down and pulled the black hood off the prisoner’s head.

  Laura gasped, the hood falling from her limp fingers.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Shelby hissed. ‘Wing!’

  Lying there on the bed was their friend who they had both so recently grieved for. Laura looked as if she had, quite literally, seen a ghost. Shelby reached down and placed her hand on Wing’s chest, feeling it rise and fall, with tears in her eyes.

  ‘He’s alive,’ Shelby whispered.

  ‘Wing!’ Laura said urgently. ‘Wake up!’

  Wing did not stir even when she shook his shoulder. This was no natural sleep; he’d been sedated.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Shelby said, disbelief still evident in her voice. ‘It’s not like we can carry him out of here.’ She quickly set to work on the cuffs holding him to the bed; they were child’s play to her and she had released them within seconds.

  ‘Wing!’ Laura shouted, shaking him again, suddenly not caring if anyone could hear them.

  ‘Here, let me try,’ Shelby said, gently pushing Laura to one side.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ she said softly to Wing and slapped him hard across the face.

  Wing stirred for the briefest of moments, mumbling something, and then settled back into his previous state of unconsciousness.

  ‘Come on, big guy,’ Shelby said quietly. ‘Don’t make me do that again.’

  Wing showed no further signs of waking and Shelby raised her hand, swinging it down to slap his face again. Wing’s hand moved in a blur, snapping into the air like a striking snake and catching Shelby’s wrist a split second before she made contact with his cheek. Laura gasped, and Shelby almost jumped out of her skin.

  ‘If I am dreaming, why does my face hurt so much?’ Wing said croakily.

  Shelby gave a tiny sob and hugged Wing hard. The grief that had still been so fresh and raw fell away, replaced with a joy deeper than she had ever felt before. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she clung on to him, fearing that he might vanish in a puff of smoke if she ever let him go.

  .

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nero’s expression changed from one of deep concern to relief as Otto and Raven entered the command centre with the Chief. There had been precious little in the way of good news over the past few hours and seeing the pair of them alive, if slightly ragged, made a welcome change.

  ‘Natalya,’ Nero said with a nod, ‘it’s good to have you back, and I see that you even managed to get Malpense back in one piece. I wish I could welcome you both back under more auspicious circumstances.’

  ‘The guards don’t stand a chance against Cypher’s forces, Max,’ Raven replied. ‘They’re robots, quite unlike anything I have seen before, unstoppable and lethal.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nero re
plied – that much had been obvious from the short and decidedly one-sided battle in the crater – ‘but we have to stop them. Cypher cannot be allowed to take control of this facility. What’s your assessment, Chief?’

  ‘It’s not good, sir,’ the Chief said quickly. ‘We’ve sealed the external blast doors but that’s pretty much all we could do. It’ll slow them down, but not much more than that. The Contessa’s override has left us with almost no control over the security and defence systems.’

  ‘The Contessa?’ Raven asked. ‘What has she done?’

  Nero quickly explained the depths of the Contessa’s betrayal to Raven, how she had not only handed them to Cypher in Tokyo but also left the school defenceless against his current assault.

  ‘Leave her to me,’ Raven said coldly.

  ‘Once this is all over, Natalya, you may feel free to hunt her to the ends of the earth, but for now we have far more pressing concerns. I’m not interested in just slowing Cypher’s forces down, I want them driven back into the sea,’ Nero said firmly.

  ‘Max, I found it extremely hard to defeat one of those things in a straight fight,’ Raven said, ‘and Cypher has an army of them. We can’t hope to just drive them back, it’s impossible.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true,’ Otto said quietly.

  ‘You have something in mind, Mr Malpense?’ Nero said.

  ‘It’s just an idea,’ Otto replied, ‘but I need to speak to the Professor first.’

  ‘Very well,’ Nero said with a sigh, ‘I don’t suppose it can do any harm at this point. Raven, would you be so good as to escort Mr Malpense to the science and technology department, the Professor is there trying to bring H.I.V.E.mind back online at the moment. Oh, before you go, Natalya, there is one more thing . . .’

  Nero ushered Raven to a quiet corner of the command centre and they had a brief conversation before Nero put something in her hand. Raven looked at Nero for a moment and then nodded. The pair of them walked back towards Otto, Raven gesturing for him to follow her out of the room.