by Jack Heath
'I know,' Doug said. 'Guys in police uniforms were searching near the cave. I can't go back there.'
'Where's Priya?'
'When I woke up, she was gone. I assumed she'd ignored your journalist friend's advice and gone looking for the cops. Reynolds didn't mention her?'
'No,' Jarli said. 'But if she'd found the pólice, I think Reynolds would have heard about it.'
'So Viper must have caught her,' Doug said grimly.
'What is this place?' Jarli asked.
'My parents' storage unit.' Doug flicked a switch. Neon bulbs stuttered to life, illuminating the inside of the unit. It was mostly empty. Plastic crates were lined up on skeletal metal shelves. A skin of dust covered everything.
'I was hoping Mum and Dad might be here,' Doug said. 'Maybe they'd forgotten about meeting me at the underpass, or maybe they were there while I was looking for Priya with you.'
'Any sign that they've been here?' Jarli asked.
'No.' Doug looked tired and moved like he was sore. Life on the run was hard—he wondered how much longer they could last.
Jarli scanned the storage unit. The plastic crates had transparent sides. Inside there were clothes, bandages, radios and new phones still in their boxes.
'Did Reynolds give you anything useful?' Doug asked finally.
'She said Viper had collected the laser device from the Magnotech factory near Kelton. She thought there might be footage of him on the surveillance cameras.' He was about to tell Doug that Nurse Eaton had also mentioned the factory, but he had promised not to tell anyone about the secret tunnel out of her office. So he said nothing.
'Let's grab a bite to eat and then check it out,' Doug said. He pulled one of the new phones out of the box and started setting it up. Tll get the address.'
'We can't go now,' Jarli said. 'Those guys are looking for us.'
'You just said Viper was listening in on your phone call, right?'
'I think so. The helicopter started chasing me pretty much as soon as I started talking.'
'So Viper knows that we know about the factory,' he said.
Jarli saw what Doug was getting at. 'You think he'll try to get there first? Destroy the evidence?'
'Yes. If we don't break into the factory soon, there'll be nothing to find.'
'Break into the factory?' Jarli could barely believe what he was hearing. 'We're kids. The police are looking for us. And I don't know how to steal video from a security camera. Do you?'
Doug was peering down at the phone. 'I have the address,' he announced. He opened one of the plastic crates. Inside were tan stockings, rolls of duct tape, gloves, a pair of bolt cutters and something which looked like a garage door remote. His parents clearly had a broad definition of 'emergency supplies'.
Doug pulled one of the stockings over his face. It smoothed his features, making him look like a shop-window mannequin. His serious eyes stared at Jarli through the fabric.
'You think we can do this?' Jarli asked.
'I think we don't have a choice,' Doug said. 'Let's go.'
The sun was getting low, stretching shadows across the streets of the industrial district. The air temperature had plummeted. A washed-out moon was already visible in the pink sky.
They were in a hurry, but they had to move carefully. The helicopter was still around. Jarli could hear it searching the streets on the other side of a nearby warehouse.
Doug unlocked the main gate of the storage facility and slipped out into the street. Jarli followed him up past the alley with the skip bin. He wondered if his phone was still there, or if the bad guys had found it already. They ran uphill past a tyre shop, a takeaway restaurant and a funeral home. All looked abandoned. None of the billboards on the street had current advertisers; they all said things like YOUR AD COULD BE HERE! and GET YOUR BUSINESS NOTICED!
At the top of the hill was a steel bench which might once have been a bus stop. Transparent plástic barriers on either side protected it from the wind, and the bolts at the top suggested there might once have been a roof. As they were running past it, Doug hissed 'Get down!' and pulled Jarli off his feet.
Jarli hit the concrete and scrabbled under the bench. 'What is it?'
'Look.' Doug pointed down the other side of the hill. At the bottom was a large, white building with round walls and a flat top. Chimneys dotted the roof like candles on a birthday cake. A sign on one wall said MAGNOTECH.
But that wasn't what Doug was pointing at. He had spotted two of the soldiers from the helicopter walking up the slope towards them, away from the building. Their steps were quiet and stealthy. One of them had holstered his machine gun, but the other kept hers raised. Both were slowly turning their heads from side to side, like clown statues in a carnival game.
Looking for us, Jarli thought.
'We have to go back,' he whispered. But when he turned, he saw the helicopter hovering above the storage facility. If they went back, they'd be spotted.
Jarli looked around, increasingly frantic. A wall to the right, an alley to the left—but the alley was a dead end. They were trapped.
'Hide in the alley until they go past,' Jarli whispered.
'They'll see us.'
'There's no other way.'
Doug was digging through his bag. He pulled out a black plastic square with a single rubber button—the object Jarli had thought was a garage door remote. The words on the side read PERSONAL SAFETY ALARM.
'Block your ears,' Doug whispered. Then he pushed the button, hurled the device down the alleyway and crouched back down under the bench.
Jarli barely had time to clap his palms over his ears before a piercing shriek filled the air. It sounded like a smoke alarm. Even through his hands, the volume made it hard to think.
The shrieking alarm faded and the pitch seemed to descend as the device soared through the air, bounced on the concrete and skittered out of sight down the alley.
The soldiers reacted fast, clomping up the hill towards the entrance to the alleyway. They probably thought the noise was a car alarm. But it wouldn't take them long to realise that there were no cars, and the alley was a dead end.
As soon as the soldiers entered the alley, Doug nudged Jarli. They both crawled out from behind the bench and raced down the hill towards the factory.
The driveway was blocked by a heavy steel gate. The rest of the building was surrounded by a chain-link fence protected by thick bollards. It was designed to withstand attacks by large vehicles, but not teenagers with bolt cutters. Doug snipped through the links, and he and Jarli slipped through the gap.
Breaking and entering. Jarli could almost hear Constable Blanco saying the words. It was one thing to muck around with computer viruses or duck under police tape, but slicing through a fence to access private property felt much more criminal.
Before, Jarli had only worried about what would happen if they failed. Now he wondered what would happen if they succeeded. Even if they identified Viper without getting caught by his secret army, wouldn't they still get in trouble with the police?
Doug didn't seem worried. 'Come on,' he whispered.
Beyond the fence was a solar array—a huge network of shiny panels bolted to a grid of metal pipes. Jarli and Doug made their way through, stepping o ver pipes and cables. Jarli felt like an ant crawling across a microchip. The panels were so densely clustered that the fence was soon out of sight. At least the soldiers wouldn't see them from the top of the hill.
'Nice to see that this evil mega-corporation uses renewable energy,' Jarli said as they wove through the network of panels.
'Magnotech isn't evil,' Doug said.
'Didn't they make the laser which shot down the plane?'
'Yeah, but they didn't know how it was going to be used. Viper is the real bad guy.'
Jarli wondered if Doug was being defensive because his mother had worked for Magnotech. But any company which made weapons without asking questions sounded pretty evil to Jarli.
'Those aren't solar panels, thoug
h,' Doug added. 'They're mirrors.'
'Mirrors?' Jarli peered around the side of one. A curved version of his own face stared back.
'Yeah. When we first moved here, I looked up the satellite feed over Kelton. There was a bright white spot over the industrial district. Now I know what it was. These mirrors reflect the sunlight back up into the sky, too bright for passing satellites to see through.'
Jarli didn't have time to ask why a non-evil would be worried about satellite surveillance. The conversation was interrupted by a humming sound like a small lawnmower.
'A drone,' Doug whispered. 'Hide!'
They ducked under the nearest mirror. As the humming got louder and louder, the mirror started to swivel. Jarli had to crab-walk to stay under it. All the other mirrors turned in unison.
The humming stayed loud and close. It sounded like the drone was hovering right above them.
Jarli held his breath, wondering what would happen if it spotted them. Would it shoot? Did it have weapons? He couldn't risk peeking. Maybe it was just a flying camera, one that could summon the soldiers.
The sound faded. The drone was moving away. The mirrors shifted back into place.
'Mid-flight recharge,' Doug said. 'Clever.'
Jarli's heart was still racing. 'What?'
'When the mirrors realigned, I'm pretty sure they were all pointed at the drone. It must use concentrated bursts of sunlight to recharge the batteries so it can keep flying around this building forever without landing. I've heard of laser recharging, but never solar. Pretty cool, really.'
'So it wasn't looking for us?' Jarli asked. 'You think it's just guarding this facility?'
'Right,' Doug said. 'Like a surveillance camera that can move around.'
Jarli was feeling worse and worse about sneaking into this facility, which was invisible from the air and protected by flying robots. But it was too late to turn back.
'We should keep moving,' he said.
'OK, but keep an ear out. I doubt they only built one drone.'
Uneasily, Jarli followed Doug towards the building.
'So you know about this stuff?' he said. 'Machines and technology?'
'Yeah. I used to do competitions back home. Robot fights, you know? Two robots try to smash each other. I was building a really cool robot, but I had to leave it behind when I moved. You ever do anything like that?'
Jarli shook his head. 'No. I'm no good at hardware—only software. I can write the code to make a computer do just about anything, but I can't build the computer itself.'
'I'm the opposite,' Doug said. 'It's a pity we didn't know one another back home. We could have made a good team. Rebecca's robot would have been toast.'
'Who's Rebecca?' Jarli asked. But Doug didn't respond, because they had reached the edge of the solar array.
The building had two doors. One was polished glass in a steel frame, facing a car park. Jarli guessed this was the door customers entered through, but it was after five o'clock, so the doors were locked. The lights inside were off, making the glass like a mirror.
The other door turned out to be hidden around the curved side of the building. It was a square of painted metal on hydraulic hinges, big enough to drive a truck through. There didn't seem to be a way to open the big square door. No keyhole, no keypad, no handle. Maybe it could only be opened from inside.
While they were scoping out the place, Jarli noticed something. The helicopter noise had stopped. He peeked between the solar panels. No sign of the aircraft. Maybe it had landed. Perhaps it was refuelling. Maybe the soldiers had given up. They went back around to the front, where the glass door was.
'We'll have to smash the glass,' Doug was saying.
'Won't the alarms go off?'
'Yeah, but all the lights are out. And didn't you say it was an unmanned factory? I reckon no-one's here. They wouldn't have drones and security guards, would they?'
'The alarm will summon somebody,' Jarli said. 'Like an offsite security team. When they see the smashed door, they'll search the building.'
'Then we'll have to grab what we need and get out before they arrive.'
That sounded like a bad plan to Jarli. He wasn't even sure they'd be able to find the computer with the video files on it, let alone get the files off it somehow. They needed more time.
'I have a better idea,' he said. 'See that blinking light?'
Doug looked. They couldn't see much through the glass doors, but there was a single red light somewhere up high.
'I bet that's a smoke alarm,' Jarli said. 'And I bet if it goes off, the doors will unlock. That's the law, right?'
'Yeah, but someone will turn up. Like you said.'
'It will be the fire department though. Not a security team. They'll look around, make sure there's no fire and then leave. After that we'll have as much time as we need.'
'The door looks airtight,' Doug said. 'How can we set off the smoke alarm if we can't get to it?'
'With these.' Jarli grabbed one of the big mirrors and swivelled it. A shaft of fading sunlight fell across the door. 'A concentrated burst of sunlight, right at the smoke alarm. Or at the carpet underneath it, or something.'
A smile spread across Doug's face. 'Ooh, that's clever. I like that.'
'Help me with the mirrors,' Jarli said. 'We don't have much time—the sun will set soon.'
They worked as quickly as they could, swivelling mirrors to face the doorway. The foyer with the smoke alarm became brighter as more and more sunlight was focused on it. Soon they couldn't see it at all—the glass door was too bright to look at.
Doug turned the last available mirror. 'Do you think it's working?' he asked.
'I don't know.' Jarli walked towards the glass door and then hurriedly jumped back as the beam of sunlight scorched his skin. It was worse than going outside on a 45-degree day. He couldn't get close enough to see into the foyer.
'We just have to wait, I guess,' he said, still smarting from the sunburn.
And then the steel gates started to squeak open in the distance. Someone was here.
INTO THE DARK
Jarli and Doug froze. They couldn't see the gates through the forest of mirrors, but they could hear tyres coming up the driveway.
'The security team is here,' Jarli hissed. 'The drone must have spotted us.'
'Get back to the fence,' Doug said. 'Quick!'
They ran back into the forest of mirrors. But then the humming sound returned. They both stopped dead. The drone was right overhead. If they emerged from under this mirror, they would be spotted.
'We're trapped,' Jarli whispered.
The car—or van, or whatever it was—stopped in the carpark. Someone jumped out. Two people, it sounded like.
'Forget the drone,' Doug said quietly. 'If it sees us, it sees us. We have to get out of here, now.'
'Wait,' Jarli said.
'But we—'
'Just wait.' Jarli could hear the two men running, but not towards the solar array.
They were headed for the building.
'If the drone saw us,' Jarli said, 'why are they going towards the building?'
'Maybe they think we're inside.'
'Or maybe they're not the security team.'
The drone noise faded away to nothing. Jarli leaned over, peeking out from behind the mirror panel. Two people were fiddling with the glass door. They didn't seem to have noticed the concentrated sunlight—
Because they were both wearing hazmat suits.
'Viper's men are here,' Jarli hissed. 'To destroy the evidence, like you said. They'll be removing the footage of him from the cameras.'
Doug's eyes widened. 'We're too late!'
'Maybe not.'
'What do you mean?'
The two men had unlocked the door somehow. One of them must have had a code or a key card. The glass slid open with a hiss, and they slipped through into the darkness.
Jarli crept out from under the mirror. He could see the black van in the car park, the same one from the cra
sh site. The driver's seat was empty. And the drone still hadn't come back. No-one would notice him.
'Jarli!' Doug whispered. 'What are you doing?'
The glass door was already starting to close. Jarli ran across the car park towards it. No time to be careful or quiet. His feet pounded the concrete. His own breaths were deafening in his ears.
The door was almost completely shut. When Jarli was two or three metres from it, he hit the blazing beam of sunlight and bit back a scream. Dropping to the ground, he threw himself under the light and slid feet-first towards the doorway, the ground scraping his back through his clothes.
He managed to get one foot inside the building just before the door fully closed. The door pressed his shoe against the frame, hard. For a split second Jarli thought it was going to cut half his foot off. Then the door registered the blockage and backed off.
Jarli peered through into the dark. No sign of the two men in hazmat suits. But he didn't want to risk calling out to Doug. He just beckoned instead.
Doug was already swivelling mirrors back the other way, dispersing the sunlight. When he was done, he ran over.
'You're crazy!' he said. But he was grinning.
'I'm crazy?' Jarli demanded. 'You're crazy! This whole thing was your idea.'
'Well, yeah. But anyway, I'm glad that you're with me.'
It was the nicest thing Jarli had ever heard Doug say. 'Thanks, Doug.'
'My real name's Terence.'
Jarli was surprised. 'You don't look like a Terence.'
Doug—Terence—looked uncomfortable. 'Come on. We've got to get that surveillance footage before Viper's guys destroy it.'
They slipped into the building.
PART THREE:
THE LEIDENFROST:
EFFECT
For a long time, the polygraph machine was the gold standard in lie detection. It measured skin conductivity, blood pressure and other things. It was good at determining if the subject was nervous–but liars aren't always nervous, and nervous people aren't always lying.
—Documentation from Truth, version 2.3