by John McNally
Why’s he looking after me so well? she wondered.
But there were cameras too and, as the girls left, she heard the suck and click of a heavy lock.
She thought about having a short cry, then decided not to let the side down.
She very carefully removed her hairgrips, leaving the nPhone, barely the size of a pea, against the lead of a lamp.
Then she settled down to knit and think.
Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one …
DAY THREE 20:49 (Local GMT+8). Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong.
Time.
Finn had spent the afternoon biding his time and playing it safe. After he’d managed to clean himself up in the hotel he’d found a tourist information map and headed straight to the concert venue. His strategy: to hide in the auditorium until the start of the concert.
He had thought about trying to find a friendly embassy. He had even thought about hiding in the hills with some exotic praying mantis. But anywhere in the open meant the Tyros could find him using their nano-radar.
Better to wait for Carla. At least she knew his voice, even if she didn’t know he was only 9mm tall …
Once Finn made it into the venue he had hidden behind a light fitting above the stage. When at last he heard the concert start (with the theme tune from Superman) he emerged from his hiding place to watch the show.
He spotted Carla at once among the pristine members of the orchestra – kooky and pretty with hair and clothes that looked like they’d dropped out of the sky and just sort of landed on her.
He felt a wave of relief. She looked how he always thought she would – fun.
She sat in the second row of strings, scraping the hell out of her cello, and gave Superman everything she’d got.
The evening wore on and he even lost himself in the music once or twice, briefly forgetting the situation he found himself in.
But the relief was short-lived.
When the show came to an end, the conductress collapsed into a deep bow and the audience erupted. Then slowly the auditorium began to clear.
Finn waited for his big moment.
The musicians were packing up. Carla was putting things in her backpack and a side pocket lay open. When she put it down to help someone with a trombone, Finn hit one quick burst of thrust and dropped right into it.
DAY THREE 22:02 (Local GMT+8). Song Island, Taiwan (disputed).
An alarm sounded.
“We’ve got something. Sector Four,” reported Li Jun from her terminals.
Kaparis felt a tingle of excitement. The search matrix in Hong Kong had finally got a bite.
A voice babbled in Mandarin. Li Jun translated. “Hum Hong district. Just a flash. Possibly aboard a coach. They’re trying to track it through the traffic.”
“Contain it. Investigate,” ordered Kaparis. He watched the live video feeds, seeing Spike and Scar sprinting down a crowded, neon-lit city street, barging pedestrians aside and dancing through traffic.
On the ECG monitor his pulse quickened.
DAY THREE 23:01 (Local GMT+8). Harbour Grand Hotel, Hong Kong.
“Oh, hey Carla!” Finn rehearsed and paced. “Whatever you do, DON’T FREAK OUT, but it’s me. Finn. Infinity Drake. I …”
He dried up. This was going to be hard. How do you to explain to someone you are 9mm tall?
Finn had flown the Bug out of the backpack and was hiding behind a marble bowl of potpourri in Carla’s hotel room as she pulled a brush through her hair. As soon as she settled down, he would fly to her bedside table then, very calmly, make the speech of his life. That was the plan, anyway.
Carla put down her hairbrush and climbed into bed. As Finn got back on the Bug, he saw her check her phone.
Is she going to make a call? he wondered, then she plugged in her earphones and switched off the light. Oh great, she’s listening to music. Now how am I supposed to …?
Then another thought struck him – screen-lock!
Quick as a flash, he fired the Bug across the room, dismounting as he hissed to a halt beside the smartphone. He jumped up and skidded across its touch-sensitive surface just before the screen-lock kicked in and it lit up beneath him like a dance floor.
He felt butterflies battle in his stomach. Before him lay a girl 150 times his size. If he got this wrong, she could swat him in a moment. How could he talk to her through the earphones? Finn moonwalked across the screen, scrolling the apps until he found an answer – the Voice Recorder.
Squeals and sounds of commotion came from the corridor outside. A shout. He heard a woman say, “Excuse me, young man!”
It suddenly occurred to Finn that it might be trouble. That it might be Tyros. He had to be quick. In a two-step shimmy, he paused what Carla was listening to and lit up the Voice Recorder.
“Hey, Carla! It’s me,” Finn said into the phone mic.
Her huge head turned in confusion.
“What …?” she said.
“Sorry to interrupt. It’s a military thing,” he said, thinking on his feet. “You can jump someone’s phone without them answering. Crazy, huh?”
Carla sat up looking supremely puzzled. He dived off the screen and prayed she didn’t notice him before he was good and ready.
“You’re kidding?! People have rights!”
“That’s what I said.”
“I was almost asleep. Is it Delt? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. It’s … me.”
“What’s wrong?”
There was more commotion in the corridor.
“I’ve got to tell you something, Carla, and it’s pretty freaky so I want you to promise to stay calm,” said Finn.
“What?” she almost spat, suspicious.
“No sudden movements even – OK?”
She looked like she was ready to kill.
“OK … Tell me.”
“It’s like this. Me and Delta and some others … What you think has happened to us – that she’s doing some research and I’m some kid off the base? – that’s not exactly true.”
Carla gasped and sat up. “I knew it! I knew you were lying to me!”
“Only because something has happened to us that is so unbelievable you wouldn’t have believed it even if we had told you the truth. But right now you’re going to have to cope, because I’m in big trouble and you’re the only one who can help me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“See, I’m right here. With you. Now. I can hear those noises out in the corridor, I can see Hong Kong out the window, everything.”
Her face was a picture of concerned incomprehension.
“We had our atomic structure altered. We were reduced.”
“What?!”
“Have you ever seen Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?”
“Oh, ha, ha! You think that’s funny? You know what my sister does? You know how much we worry?”
“I AM NOT JOKING – we had our atomic structure altered. I know it’s hard to believe, but the distance between the nucleus and the electrons in every atom of us was shrunk. I’m just over 9mm tall, Delta’s just over ten and, if you look to your left, I’m standing on your phone … right now …”
Finn held his breath and climbed back up on to the screen. It came to life, revealing him in a pool of AMOLEDfn1 phone screen light.
Carla held her head absolutely steady. She glanced over. Just once. Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. And then …
“ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!”
Finn had heard the term ‘hit the roof’ many times in his life but he had never actually seen it happen.
He did now.
Carla shot up out of bed with a scream any siren would be proud of.
“NO!” Finn shouted, but instantly found himself spinning through the air as the phone was yanked upwards by the earphones.
By the time he hit the bedside table again – “Oooof!” – there was a hammering at the door.
Finn leapt on to the Bug, like a cowboy mounti
ng a horse, and shot it straight back into the open backpack, just as the door burst open.
“GET ME A DOCTOR!” Carla yelled.
There was a lot more yelling before any sense could be made of the situation. Ms Kampinsky – the orchestra’s conductor and tour manager – was yelling about some unknown teens breaking into people’s rooms, while Carla was yelling about having been seized by what she would only describe as “a medical emergency”.
After a tennis rally of firm enquiry versus hysteric insistence, Ms Kampinsky decided that Carla did indeed need to see a doctor. Carla dressed and picked up her bag, but refused to bring her phone when it was offered, claiming it was “possessed”.
Then at around 11:24pm Carla, Ms Kampinsky, two Chinese Cultural Officials and Finn (still hiding in the backpack) left the hotel in the back of the ambulance, arriving at the Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre four minutes later.
Within another ten minutes Ms Kampinsky and the officials were filling out forms and making calls while Carla, much recovered and thinking herself quite sane again, waited on a bed in a private room to see a psychiatric registrar.
Finn left as long as he dared before emerging again. He hadn’t actually seen Scar or Spike in the hotel, but from what Ms Kampinsky had been saying, he was convinced the ‘unknown teens’ were Tyros searching the hotel for him. He had to get through to Carla.
Finn flew the Bug up to a spot just above her right ear.
“What did I say about not freaking out?” he said.
Carla wanted to scream again, but realised that she was in a ‘Safe Place’ now. She just needed to stay calm until the doctor arrived.
“I’m not listening,” Carla whispered. “You’re not real.”
“Carla, this is real,” said Finn, “and what’s more, there are people after me, people called Tyros, those teenagers Ms Kamp—”
“Not listening!” insisted Carla.
“You’re not crazy. You’ve been confronted with something very, very unusual and you’re trying to figure it out. You need time, but I’m sorry, there isn’t any. My grandma has been taken hostage and a bunch of people are trying to kill me! You have to alert someone who can get a message to the British authorities – to Delta and my Uncle Al.”
“You think the psychiatrist is going to believe me?” she said.
Finn brought the Bug round to hover just in front of her face and looked her straight in the eye.
“Carla. I need your help.”
She was looking past him. Then back again. Testing her senses. Finally her eyes fixed on him.
“Is it really you?” she whispered.
A wave of relief was just about to wash over Finn when –
SHHHHHHHHHCT! – the curtains round the bed suddenly flew back.
On one side stood Scar.
On the other stood Spike.
Cruelty in double exposure.
“RUN!” Finn screamed.
Too late. Twin hands – kung fu swift – snatched out: Scar plucking Finn and the Bug out of the air and Spike slapping a hand over Carla’s mouth.
Finn just managed to reach the fire button of the Minimi as the world closed around him – DRTDRTDRTDRTDRT!
The giant hand was stung open. Finn found himself falling in the Bug towards the tiled floor. He reached the controls just in time and pulled the Bug round to corkscrew back up towards the Tyros’ heads, finger on the fire button all the way – DRTDRTDRTDRTDRT!
Pinprick bullets struck Scar’s face, raked Spike’s neck, causing squeals of protest. Carla sprang out of Spike’s hands and in a split second was off the bed and across the room, bursting through the doors, checking behind her for Finn, who was following in the Bug, surfing her slipstream.
She was as quick on the ground as her big sister was in the air, feet barely skimming the hospital floor as she shot down the corridor followed by the staccato slap and squeak of Tyro sneakers as Scar gave chase, Spike a moment behind, screeching into a phone.
At the end of the corridor were two sets of double doors. One left. One right.
“Which way?!” screamed Carla.
“Left!” called Finn, trying to remember, and BANG – through they went.
Bad call. No exit, just another empty corridor. Mean girls closing in fast.
Finn reversed the Bug’s thrusters, turned 180 degrees and fired – DRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR!
Spike and Scar protected their eyes from the bullets, but barely slowed.
A porter appeared ahead of Carla pushing a trolley with a patient aboard.
“HELP!” she screeched, but the porter spoke no English, so BANG – on they flew through the next set of doors. This lead into a wider corridor, open stairwell and …
“People!” called Finn, hoping they might be safe, but as soon as he did he realised they weren’t the kind you would want to meet in an alleyway on a dark night.
A dozen-strong gang of gritty, hooded Triads.
Spike screamed in Mandarin at them and they moved as one straight at them.
“LEFT AGAIN!” yelled Finn, lighting the Bug up as bright as Tinkerbell so Carla could track him.
They entered a stairwell. Finn whizzed ahead, Carla followed. Round and round and down and down the stairs they went, falling like Alice, until they flew through the doors at the bottom to arrive in …
The basement. Deserted, but for themselves and the incoming Triad hoods. For a moment it seemed like the end. Footsteps boomed down the stairs behind them. Then Finn spotted what looked like an emergency door at the far end. “OVER THERE!” he yelled, leading the way, and in a dozen strides Carla hit the release bar and was out into the tropical night.
She rolled a heavy bin across the door to slow their pursuers, then gritted her teeth and ran and ran at full pelt, arms pumping back and forth, back and forth – a sprinter following a firefly.
But however fast Carla ran, the Tyros and the Triads kept up the chase, catching up to twenty, fifteen, ten metres behind.
Up ahead loomed a large building. Carla passed a sign reading WEST KOWLOON XTR – PERSONNEL ONLY and ran into the service area of a brand new railway station. One or two bemused railwaymen looked up as she leapt the barriers, but were too distracted by the strange twins and gang of Triad hoodlums in her wake to try and stop her.
Carla ran on, reaching the main concourse. Up ahead, a train was pulling away from a platform. As she and the Bug sped towards it, an electric luggage cart pulled out across their path.
“WATCH OUT!” yelled Finn, but Carla was way ahead of him, leaping and vaulting the piled luggage like an Olympic gymnast, hitting the platform on the other side.
Spike and Scar and the Triad gang tried to follow but the cart slowed them and protests rang out from station staff around them, whistles blowing.
Carla ran on. The back of the train was retreating, accelerating away. With a final lung-bursting dash she ran alongside and reached for the last carriage door. Her hand caught the handle. For a split second it opened before – SLAM – the rushing air shut it again.
Flying parallel, Finn urged, “AGAIN!”
Again Carla grabbed at the handle, opening the door the merest crack. Again the air pressure resisted – but Finn and the Bug, giving it all the power they’d got, drove themselves into it with thrust enough to hold the door open just long enough and just wide enough for Carla to leap like a salmon through the gap – SLAM – and land in a heap on the carriage floor …
Finn flew up to the window and watched as the last Triads giving chase ran out of platform, features snarling as they disappeared from view.
Hardly believing their luck, Finn floated back down to Carla as she panted it all out.
“Wow. You’re good. Not for a girl or anything … Just good,” said Finn managing to ruin the compliment.
A moment further ruined as they heard the chilling words –
“Tickets, please!”
DAY FOUR 00:23 (Local GMT+8). Hong Kong-Shanghai Sleeper Express.
Diddly-dee did
dly-daa, diddly-dee diddly-daa …
The 23:55 non-stop XLR overnight train to Shanghai headed relentlessly north at never less than 165mph. As swift as it was luxurious, it was also the newest sleeper rail service in China. It had twenty coaches with each coach containing eight cabins. Beautifully designed and fitted to the highest specification, demand was high – even at RMB1900 (around £200) a berth – and foreign passengers had to book in advance to pass all security and transit checks. For their trouble, they could expect to arrive in downtown Shanghai for lunch the next day, completely refreshed.
Diddly-dee diddly-daa, diddly-dee diddly-daa …
Carla and Finn held their breath.
A rotund, uniformed attendant finished checking the bathroom at the end of the last carriage for stowaways and made his way to his own guard’s compartment. The cleaners must have left the door open again. He shook his head, then paused in the doorway to check his phone. He was expecting a message from his wife regarding his daughter’s exam results.
Nothing yet.
From her position on the luggage rack 20cm above his head, Carla was so close she could see his protruding eyebrows and generous belly. She tried desperately to control her breathing.
The attendant stepped inside. It was a simple office, with a messy desk, a CCTV screen and a digital graphic that displayed the status of each of the cabins in the five carriages he covered. Before he could sit down, a buzzer sounded. Cabin 6 in Car 3 lit up on the display. The attendant sighed, then opened a cupboard and hung a key with a yellow metallic fob on to one of many empty hooks. Then he left, locking the door behind him as he made his way back down the train to Car 3.
Carla gasped. Finn, hidden deep in the thicket of her black hair shouted: “Go!”
She leapt down from the rack.
“What did he put in the cupboard?” asked Finn.
She opened it and looked inside. There was only one key. It read ‘2:2’.
“Car 2, Cabin 2 … it must be empty!” said Finn. “Come on! Take the key. We can lock ourselves in before he gets back.”