Terror Byte

by Park, J. R.

  ‘No use trying to hide now,’ she said as they reached street level.

  To Norton’s surprise Orchid ran towards the police car, not away. He tried to call her to stop but had learnt that asking Orchid what she was doing was a question that would mostly be treated with contempt. He ran after her thinking it was too late now to split up; they were well and truly in this together.

  PC Andrews had got out of his car and gripped his canister of PAVA spray as Orchid and Detective Norton came charging towards him. She was as pretty in real life as the photo they’d all been given yesterday in the brief, but that wasn’t any comfort when he was alone and faced two of the cities most wanted people.

  Orchid ran towards him; Andrews held his PAVA and sprayed but missed her completely. Orchid had leapt on to the bonnet of his squad Hyundai and vaulted over his head in a somersault avoiding the incapacitating spray. She landed behind him and with a swift kick to the back of his knees PC Andrews was brought to the ground with a cry of pain.

  Norton caught up with the pair to find Orchid holding a knife to the police constable’s throat.

  ‘I’m sorry Andrews,’ the detective sounded genuinely apologetic in his tone, ‘give me the keys and we’ll be on our way.’

  Andrews nodded gently and with a hand trembling in fear, he took the keys to the Hyundai from his pocket and handed them to Norton. The big detective took the keys as the sound of rotor blades began to thunder through the air. Looking up they saw a police helicopter hovering above them.

  ‘Damn it,’ shouted Norton over the noise as he jumped into the car, ‘let’s go.’

  Orchid got into the passenger side and Norton fired up the engine. As he pulled away he could hear the sound of sirens coming up the road from behind. He turned the sirens on in their car hoping to draw the others off their scent with some confusion but he knew it wouldn’t work against the astute cops. They would be taking intel from the helicopter that was watching their every move.

  ‘Where are we going?’ it was Orchid’s turn to ask the questions.

  ‘I don’t know,’ came the uncomforting response.

  They drove through the city weaving in and out of the traffic as their pursers began to gain on them. The radio in the car had been full of details about their chase when something else caught Norton’s ear.

  ‘There have been reports of two pile-ups in the centre. Both seem to be connected with malfunctioning traffic lights,’ the radio announced.

  The police cars drew ever closer as Norton shouted across to Orchid, ‘Didn’t Jon say something about the Death’s Head program controlling all the systems? It’s messing up the traffic lights. It’s trying to build road blocks to trap us.’

  Another police car appeared in front of them from a side road, attempting to obstruct their path. Norton violently turned the car a sharp left, the tyres screeched as they struggled to keep their grip on the tarmac.

  ‘They’re gaining on us Norton, we’ve got to get off this road,’ Orchid looked out the back window at the police cars as one of them came close and nudged their bumper causing them to lurch forward. ‘That chopper has us pinned even if we shake this lot.’

  The nudge had made them swerve violently; losing speed, two squad cars were able to catch them and drove side by side with Norton and Orchid; keeping them contained in a vehicle sandwich. Norton swung his car to the left, then to the right, trying to knock them off their path and give himself some room but they did not budge and resolutely held their line. They approached a crossroads, three lanes each way, controlled by traffic lights. He hoped the traffic lights would hold them up and force the other two away from his sides but the traffic started to move freely. Instantly Norton could see what was happening but was powerless to do anything about it. The traffic lights from all directions had switched to green, presumably by the Death’s Head program in an attempt to kill them in an accident, or at the very least stop them. The traffic all drove forward heading towards each other. Norton was surrounded by police cars with no possible way to deviate from his forward path. To stop would mean immediate capture. He would have to roll the dice this time and see where his luck lay.

  ‘Hold on tight,’ he warned Orchid as he continued driving into the crossroads.

  The first lot of cars that were pulling away from stationary positions were able to see each other and stop before a collision, sounding a tirade of abusive horns and hand signals. The following cars behind were not so lucky; arriving at a greater speed it was harder to stop and they careered into the blockage of traffic ahead. Each car slammed into the next as glass showered across the street. Norton collided with the car in front, coming to an immediate halt and felt the police cars that were on either side smash against his left and right. They had both taken an impact from cars coming in other directions on the crossroads. Luck had been on his side; the two police cars had absorbed the impact of the oncoming traffic, protecting him and his companion. The two officers were dazed but did not look badly hurt. Norton looked over to Orchid who seemed a little shaken but not in any pain. She gave a thumbs up, signaling she was okay, before ejecting her seat belt.

  They both climbed out of the wreckage and into the carnage around them.

  In a state of blind panic they ran across the road to see police car after police car arrive on the scene. Diving into the nearest building for cover they caught their breath and a strange sense of déjà vu hit them.

  ‘Happy anniversary,’ Orchid said between gasps.

  ‘Huh?’ Norton quizzed.

  ‘We are back where we first met,’ she pointed out. ‘This is the Areas building.’

  Mayhem reigned outside the Areas building. Fire engines arrived to cut survivors from the wreckage of their cars whilst ambulances waited to treat the injured. Sirens sounded and lights flashed red and blue against the scene of the accident. A number of police cars had pulled up outside the building and were ignoring the scene behind them; they had matters to deal with inside. The police officers stood outside in a group discussing what had just happened whilst the helicopter hovered overhead. Three black BMWs pulled up alongside them. From the cars, out stepped men dressed in well tailored suits.

  ‘Stand down blue,’ said Royal to the police as he got out of one of the cars, ‘this is ours. Keep a perimeter. Let no one in.’

  Norton looked around the lobby and recognised it. Orchid was right. He noticed the security camera on the wall was pointed directly at them. They moved towards the lifts and the camera moved too, following them as they walked.

  ‘Don’t take the lifts,’ he warned, ‘it looks like the Death’s Head program is here.’

  The lights flickered and went down, leaving the lobby dimly lit with only the overcast day as illumination. A monitor by the lifts began to flicker and the usual display of the lobby area via the security camera began to disappear in static. The image throbbed on the screen until it twisted itself into a skull made of the same hissing static. The display then began to flash in near blinding bright strobes.

  ‘Don’t look at it,’ Orchid said as she took a knife from her pocket and threw it at the monitor. The blade flew through the air with confident precision and pierced the glass; the display spluttered for a moment then disappeared.

  As the picture faded a high-pitched noise began to emit from the monitor’s speakers. The frequency seemed to seep into their brains and they both held their ears in pain. Norton motioned toward a door and they ran through it, finding themselves in a stairwell. The stairwell was devoid of electronic equipment and the door offered some protection from the deadly sound. For the moment they were safe but they knew it wouldn’t last.

  ‘Here,’ said Orchid passing Norton some ear plugs she took from a pouch on her belt, ‘they won’t offer much protection, but something is better than nothing.’

  He put them in his pocket as they ran up the stairs. The ground floor door burst open amid a fury of gunfire that just missed them. Royal’s men had arrived and were giving chase.


  Orchid and Norton exited the stairwell onto the next floor and into a busy office. The workers all stopped to look at the two as they burst through the door.

  ‘I’m a cop,’ screamed Norton, ‘get out of here now, your lives are in danger.’

  The office panicked as the sound of gunshots echoed from the stairwell. The crowd of workers ran through the doors like a herd of scared cows, blindly running to any exit. Gunshots sounded in the office as an MI5 agent fought through the terrified crowd that were fleeing down the stairs and burst through the door. Diving behind desks for cover the wanted pair hid from the agent and his searching gun.

  Norton crouched behind a desk, his big frame barely hidden by the furniture. Orchid was hiding behind another desk across the office.

  Getting her attention Norton looked to her and whispered, ‘Get that drive into a computer.’

  Orchid took the Flame out of her pocket and put her head above the desktop to find the computer terminal. A shot fired off making a hole in the computer and narrowly missing Orchid. She instantly ducked back down for cover.

  She turned to Norton, ‘I can’t!’

  The screens began to flicker and the same evil, static skull they had seen before appeared on all the monitors in the office. A high-pitched whine started to sound from the speakers of the computers, sending the mercenary, the detective and the MI5 agent to floor in agony. They rolled around trying to block the sound with their hands and find a way out of the room.

  Norton and Orchid rammed their earplugs into their ears. As Orchid had suggested it didn’t block the noise out completely but it offered some level of protection against the higher end of the frequencies. The MI5 agent was not so prepared and lay on the floor screaming in pain, his sounds of anguish drowned out by the sonic attack of the Death’s Head program. He began to convulse and spasm as blood trickled from his ear. As he fitted on the floor death was not far away.

  Orchid rolled against a wall and noticed a printer next to her. Crawling towards the large grey contraption she opened a drawer in its base and pulled out sheets of paper. Scrunching them into balls she took a lighter from her pocket and set them on fire. The paper ignited quickly, producing a large orange flame. The heat and smoke wafted to the ceiling, setting off the fire sensors. A loud alarm rang over the top of the din and water rained down on the office from the sprinklers above. The water soaked everything in the office as the sprinklers released their liquid load. An electrical spark ignited from one of the plug sockets, its bright flash lit the room up for a moment then all of a sudden everything went dark. The alarm continued to ring but the pain had stopped in their heads; the sonic attack had ceased.

  ‘It can’t touch us when there is no electricity,’ Orchid smiled.

  They ran out of the office into the first floor lift lobby. The electricity was still working out here but the lights flickered as if the building itself was mortally wounded. Shots fired again as Royal and one of his men emerged from the stairwell. Instinctively they bolted in the other direction.

  ‘No,’ Norton shouted, ‘we’re in the lift, we have to get out of here!’

  In their panic to avoid the gunshots they had dived into one of the lift cars! A static hiss came over the speakers and the doors began to close. They both made a dash to escape the possessed car but were knocked back by one of Royal’s men. He was damned if he was going to let them get away. His over eagerness did not pay off as the closing doors caught him, trapped halfway. Unable to move he was stuck between the doors, pinched by two metal panels. Normally the lift sensors would have detected a blockage and opened again but this lift was not following its normal operating procedure, it was under the control of the Death’s Head program. The doors began to squeeze together, harder and harder like a vice. The agent screamed in pain as slowly he was crushed, the sound of his bones snapping echoed in the confines of the lift car.

  ‘Going up,’ came the recorded voice over the tannoy.

  Realising what was happening the agent screamed louder, begging for help. The lift began to move gradually upwards pulling the agent with it. Norton and Orchid reached out toward the agent and tried to pull him free but the doors held him too tightly. The car ascended and his head hit the ceiling of floor one as he tried desperately, but unsuccessfully, to escape. His head and neck were pushed, inch-by-inch closer together whilst the bones of his legs broke at the knees as he tried in vain to stand tall against the force of the lift. Cartilage tore with a horrifying sound and bone ripped the skin, protruding from his thigh amid a spray of blood. His body seemed to compact down, as one by one his ribs were crushed together. Like a tube of toothpaste his body was squeezed from the bottom up. They heard his neck snap. His head hung lifeless as his internal organs began to flow from his mouth, being forced out by the moving car. Within a few minutes all that was left was a pinkish pile of broken bones, blood and guts. The lift doors were free to close and a puddle of gore sloshed on the car floor.

  The lift continued up for a while longer then it stopped.

  They looked at each other, sprayed in blood and stunned from the scenes they had witnessed.

  Norton broke their shocked silence, ‘We must be at the top of the building.’

  Slowly they felt themselves began to descend. The lift car shook and shuddered as it began to pick up speed. Faster and faster the lift traveled as it plummeted downwards. Norton had seen the mess this had made to an unlucky couple earlier in the week and held out no hope for survival. All ideas escaped him except one. He leaned forward and put his arms round Orchid pulling her close to him. Her arms reciprocated the tender action as they held each other; eyes closed tight, waiting for the moment of impact.

  The moment of impact never came. At least, not like they thought it would. The lift car jolted and suddenly stopped. Everything went black and they fell to the gore soaked floor, but despite a bit of bruising they were uninjured.

  Getting to his feet Norton assessed the situation. ‘We didn’t pick up enough speed or drop far enough. We never hit the bottom,’ his voice elated with joy to have survived, ‘the power’s gone out in the lift shaft. The sprinklers must have shorted it. Death’s Head can’t get to us.’

  ‘But where are we?’ asked Orchid.

  ‘Somewhere between floors, if I can just get the door open,’ Norton answered as he took hold of the edge of one door panel.

  With his foot against the wall to help as leverage Norton used his brute strength to prise the door open. It was slow going but inch-by-inch he managed to pull it apart, enough for them to climb out. He got to his knees and looked down the gloomy shaft.

  ‘I can see some light a few feet down,’ he said peering between the car and the shaft wall. ‘It looks like the doors have been opened. If we can climb down we should be able to swing across.’

  They hadn’t decided who was going to try their luck first when a thud came from above them. The car rocked from side to side throwing them against the walls. When the rocking died down they heard knocking above their heads. Were they footsteps?

  ‘Like a pair of sitting ducks!’ Royal’s voice came booming through the shaft as he paced the roof of the lift car. ‘You captured yourselves! Perfect!’

  He laughed hysterically, his voice sounded ragged, like a man on the edge. The confines of the lift shaft amplified his speech giving him the menace of a vengeful god. He drew his gun and wildly shot through the ceiling, forcing the captive pair to cower.

  ‘Having fun in there?’ Royal shrieked like a mad man.

  ‘Royal you crazy fool!’ Norton shouted back.

  More shots fired down through the ceiling. Orchid yelled in pain as a bullet hit her calf muscle, tearing a hole clean through the flesh and out the other side. She fell to floor clutching her leg and gritted her teeth. The MI5 man was right; they were like sitting ducks in there.

  ‘I’m not playing around!’ Royal screamed in anger.

  He opened a hatch in the ceiling and looked down at his prey. Orchid lay on the floo
r holding her bleeding leg whilst Norton knelt beside her. They both looked up to see the wild, staring eyes of Royal. Gone was the cool, calmness Norton had witnessed in the blood soaked flat of George the unlucky IT worker. The control with which Royal conducted himself had seemed frightening with its efficiency but this had been replaced by an altogether more terrifying mania. Royal paced backwards and forwards on the roof of their makeshift cell, never once taking his eyes off his two prisoners.

  ‘I went looking for you,’ he shouted down with his gun trained on them both. ‘I went to your dead girlfriend’s house. I found a lot of unpleasant dust and smashed plastic in the garage. Just enough to be a smashed up flash drive. Don’t tell me you’ve destroyed it Norton?’ He continued with his speech, not caring for an answer, ‘I wanted that stick. That was going to set me up for life. Do you know how hard it was for me to get that smuggled out of the agency? Do you?!’

  He stopped pacing and squatted down next to the edge of the hatch, fixing them with a crazy grin.

  ‘Everything is locked down so tightly at the agency that it took a year of planning to smuggle that out. I was so careful, so meticulous. If you did smash it up and you no longer have it,’ he shrugged, ‘I’m going to have to kill you.’

  ‘We couldn’t throw away something so valuable,’ Norton lied. ‘I have it here.’

  ‘Good,’ Royal almost purred his words with happiness, ‘I don’t want to lose it again.’

  Like Jon Newman, Royal seemed to be happy to talk and wandered off track as if he had been desperate to tell someone of his successes and woes. To share tales that had been pent up inside for so long.

  ‘I lost it before; so stupid. How carefully one sets up a meeting and plans for every eventuality, every possible mishap. Except the common mugger. He took me by surprise; left me out cold on the floor and took my bag; he took the flash drive.’ Royal looked up along the darkened lift shaft and continued his monologue to his captive audience. ‘An unfortunate fellow that mugger, he had no idea of the value of that flash drive. He just threw it away. Of course we didn’t know at the time. I had him followed. We questioned him but he didn’t let on about its whereabouts. I thought he was bluffing, but I needed to be sure so I pushed him. He was a criminal, sure, but he wasn’t mad, not until I sent the Death’s Head after him. I thought if we got him scared he’d come running to us for help and give me back that which he stole.