by T. C. Edge
“So…why aren’t we going anywhere but up!” said Chloe. “Mikel’s getting away…”
“He’s gone, Chloe,” said Ragan matter-of-factly. “He’s had enough of a head start. We’ll never be able to track him.”
“What! You’re giving up? What about the data?”
His eyes worked straight to hers, dazzling and resolute.
“Giving up?” he growled. “Oh no, I’m not giving up. I’m going to hunt that thing down, Chloe, if it’s the last thing I do. I got you out, and that’s half my job. Now, I’m going after the other half.”
“Got me out,” Chloe repeated through a whisper.
She smiled, and leaned across, planting her lips to Ragan’s cheek.
“You saved me. You set me free.”
He shrugged, glancing over, trying to keep hold of his composure.
“It was nothing,” he said. “Just a promise kept.”
“No, Ragan, it was everything. Everything to me, and to Remus. I…I said I’d never be able to make it up to you. But…let me try.” She drew a breath and looked out over the cloudy skies. “If you’re going after Mikel, then I am too. I’ve had enough of running and hiding. I think it’s time I did some hunting of my own for a change.”
Ragan’s glorious smile grew.
“Well you know what that means, don’t you?” he asked
Chloe shrugged.
“What?”
“It means you’re one of us now, Chloe Phantom.” He dropped a wink, turned the jet west, and began zooming through the air. “Welcome to Project Dawn,” he said. “Welcome to the Crimson Corps.”
THE END.
The Phantom Chronicles will continue in book 2 - Phantom Hunter!
BOOK TWO - PHANTOM HUNTER
31
The face that greeted Chloe, as she stepped into the room, was a formation of furious, craggy lines, like a volcano simmering and set to erupt.
Standing behind a sturdy oak desk, in a well appointed office within the old military base adopted by Project Dawn, Colonel Jeremiah Slattery was a picture of suppressed rage.
His eyes were narrow and refusing to blink. His forehead was decorated with a thick, pulsing vein that throbbed with every beat of his hurrying heart. His hands, gripping the edge of his desk, were white at the knuckles, fingers - both biological and bionic - all but digging into the wood.
He was, it was safe to say, a rather unhappy man.
And, quite mercifully for Chloe, that rage was being directed at the young soldier to her side.
She stood next to Ragan, within the office of the base commander, barely half a day having passed since they absconded the previous night. For that, and everything that had followed, Chloe couldn’t surely be blamed. She’d been stolen away by Ragan, with the help of Martha Mitchell, and everything that had happened since was, well, beyond her jurisdiction.
It seemed that Colonel Slattery was quite aware of this, his eyes set on Ragan, and Ragan alone. His feelings were as clear as a bright, cloudless sky.
This wasn’t going to be a pleasant meeting.
Drawing a deep breath into his lungs, the Colonel eased his fingers off the table and stood to his full height. As with all military men, he managed to adopt a posture that maximised his vertical limits, back stiff and straight, shoulders perfectly lined up.
The man, Chloe imagined, would never slouch. At least, not when in company.
“Agent Hunt,” his voice came. It was a growl. Low and threatening. “Would you like to explain to me, nice and clearly, just what you’ve been up to these last few hours?”
Chloe glanced at Ragan, who held his form, resolute.
In truth, everything had already been relayed to the Colonel en route back to the base. Ragan had, quite smartly as Chloe saw it, seen fit to update the Council of Project Dawn on what had happened as they flew from New York.
“Best give them a few hours to calm down,” Ragan had told Chloe. “I’d rather not inform the likes of Colonel Slattery face to face. And this news isn’t going to go down well.”
He had, therefore, chosen to call in as soon as they managed to get free of New York, rising up into the clouds and activating the jet’s anti-scanning, cloaking technology to ensure their retreat was hidden. It was Martha whom Ragan had spoken to directly, happy to take on the burden and relay the information to the others.
Information that, for the members of Project Dawn, was disastrous…
The data was gone. Stolen by Mikel. And no one, it seemed, knew just who the nano-vamp was working for.
Now, standing before the Colonel, Ragan drew a breath and steadied his voice.
“Sir, I believe you have already been fully updated on what has happened by Councillor Mitchell?”
His words were, perhaps, inadvisable.
“Updated,” growled Slattery, nodding. He lifted his left, bionic hand, and squeezed the metal fingers tight. “Oh, I have been fully updated, Agent Hunt. I just wanted to hear it from your own mouth.”
He continued to stare Ragan down, eyes like shards of flint.
“Well, sir, I can understand your frustration. I myself am devastated by what happened…”
“Devastated!” roared Slattery. “Please don’t tell me that you are devastated, Agent Hunt! You disobeyed the ruling of the council, you stole Miss Phantom from our base, you transported her to New York, and you…” He took a breath, hardly able to speak the words. “You…you have given the data away! The key to the future has been handed to a goddamned nano-vamp!”
Chloe felt herself sinking an inch or two away from him at the force of his words. She appeared to be nothing but a bystander, and an entirely awkward one at that. It was a strange sensation, really, knowing that the data had been stolen, and yet being free of it at the same time. She was worried, yes, by what Mikel would do with it, but at the same time…she’d been saved.
“Sir, technically I wasn’t the one to hand the data to Mikel,” said Ragan. “That was Doc, over at the CID. And it was forced from his grasp…”
“Are you…kidding me right now, Hunt! Are you being a wise-ass, at a time like this!”
“No, sir, just stating the facts,” said Ragan. “Mikel came out of nowhere, Colonel. Aside from his interruption, my plan would have gone without a hitch.” He looked at Chloe. “Miss Phantom has been cured of this evil, and has committed to helping hunt the data down. I assure you, Colonel Slattery, that we will track it. I am not lying to you when I tell you I am devastated by this loss. You know full well how devoted I have been to this cause. The things I have done for it.”
Colonel Slattery worked a long breath into his lungs, releasing some of his anger as he blew it out. He seemed to blink for the first time, his eyes diverting away for a moment. He shook his head several times, brushing his bionic fingers through his short crop of grey hair.
“I cannot deny that, Agent Hunt,” he finally admitted. “And yet your actions this morning have led to the data disc falling into enemy hands. And worst of all, we don’t know which enemy we’re dealing with. Whatever your intentions about saving Miss Phantom, and destroying the data at the same time, you have caused this organisation a great deal of harm.”
“Harm that I am going to make up for, sir,” said Ragan immediately. “I do not disagree with you. I never, ever expected things to go as they did. I am…happy,” he said, glancing to Chloe again, “to have saved this girl. But I didn’t intend this, Colonel. I will make it up to Project Dawn, to the council. I will find Mikel, and retrieve the data. That is a promise…”
“An empty promise,” returned Slattery, not to be so easily won over. He reached to a drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch, pouring a quick glass and gulping it down. He slammed it into the desk, hard. “You have lost your cover with the CID. You spent nearly three years finding Chloe, bringing us to this moment. And now, you have merely thrown it all away. How can you expect to find this data when you don’t even know where to start?”
His voice halted, th
e question hanging. Without taking his eyes off Ragan, he refilled his glass.
And still, Chloe went unnoticed, just a spectator at the heart of something far, far bigger than she’d ever faced. Sure, she had the data inside her, hidden in her nanites, but until the previous day, she didn’t know anything about it. This was all happening rather fast for her.
Yet what she’d told Ragan in the jet held true. He’d saved her, kept to his promise, and now she had a promise of her own to keep.
I will find Mikel, she thought to herself. I will help Ragan, however I can…
“I will do what I have always done, Colonel Slattery,” said Ragan. “I don’t need the CID…”
“Yes you do!” Slattery’s voice was building once more. “The CID provided you with so much intel, Ragan, in hunting Miss Phantom down. And still, it took you years to find her. For all we know, Mikel has taken the data to his employer, whoever it is. It could be stored away safely by now, out of our reach. Technicians might already be decoding it, putting together its secrets. What if this nano-vamp’s been working for the WSA? What then, Agent Hunt?”
Ragan didn’t seem to have much of an answer. It was clearly a very serious concern.
“It’ll take time, though, won’t it?” asked Chloe suddenly. Both men turned to her.
“Time?” barked Slattery.
“Er, time to decode the data?” said Chloe. She looked at Ragan. “Didn’t you say that, on the way back in the jet?”
Ragan nodded, then looked to Colonel Slattery.
“It’s true, sir,” he said. “As the data was being extracted by Doc, he was explaining how much of it was coded, and would take time to decipher. Chloe’s dad clearly set a few traps in there so it wouldn’t be easy. So…even if the WSA have it, we should have some time to…”
“To what, Ragan?” grunted Slattery. “We hardly have the resources to go up against the WSA.”
“But what about you, Colonel?” queried Chloe, finding her voice again. “Weren’t you once part of the WSA military? Do you not have any old contacts who might know if Mikel was employed by them?”
“Good point, Chloe,” smiled Ragan. “She’s right, sir. We have people all over. We need to put out feelers immediately, see if we can find who Mikel’s employer is. That’ll at least narrow down the search.”
“It’s already being done,” said Slattery. “What, you think I’ve just been sitting on this while you’ve been flying back from New York? Ridiculous. We are gathering possible leads as we speak, but I have little hope of anything turning up.”
“Um, that’s a little defeatist, Colonel, if you don’t mind me saying,” said Chloe. Slattery’s eyes narrowed again and shot right for her. “And by that,” she quickly said, backtracking, “I just mean to say that…there’s no harm in being optimistic.”
Slattery smiled sarcastically.
“Well, thank you for your fine input, Miss Phantom, but I think I’m rather more qualified to speak on these matters than you.”
Well, that put me in my place, thought Chloe, sinking away again.
“Suffice it to say,” went on Slattery, “whoever Mikel is working for is sure to have kept the circle extremely tight, as the CID was doing. The chances of any of our contacts having knowledge of Mikel’s employer are, I’m afraid to say, low.”
Ragan nodded, somewhat despondently.
“Mikel didn’t seem to know what was on the data disc,” he said, “when he took it from Doc. If he doesn’t even know, then the likely trail back to his employer will be extremely thin…”
“And yet here you are, telling me - nay, assuring and promising me - that you will retrieve the data,” accused Slattery. “It’s hard to trust such optimism when you turn around, a moment later, and admit that the trail is likely to be cold.”
“I’m just…balancing things,” said Ragan. “Just thinking out loud, sir.”
“Well your thoughts seem to be all over the place, Hunt. I have half a mind to remand you here in the cells, to lock you up and throw away the damn key!” He puffed loudly and shook his head, exasperated. “But…unfortunately, we do need you. Priority one, as it’s always been, is in getting this data. And now, it’s more desperate than ever.”
He shook his head again, running his hand across his face, and then glanced up at Chloe.
“You seem a nice girl, Miss Phantom,” he said. “But your death would have made all of this much more simple.”
Chloe stiffened at his words, and her blue eyes flashed.
The tips of her fingers threatened to do the same, several sparks of electricity zapping between them.
“Well, I’m sorry for wanting to live, Colonel,” she said bluntly. “I merely went along with the plan.”
Slattery dropped his eyes momentarily, looking at Chloe’s hands as they briefly fizzed and sparked.
“I…apologise,” he said. “That was ungracious of me. I don’t blame you, Chloe. This isn’t your fault, but that of Mr Hunt here, and Councillor Mitchell. It’s only regrettable that I can do nothing to punish them,” he said through gritted teeth, dark eyes swimming for Ragan’s once more.
He stepped over to the window, and Chloe felt Ragan’s hand take a soft hold of her arm. She looked up into his deep blue eyes.
“Calm down,” he whispered, gesturing to her hands. “You need to learn to control that.”
She closed her fists. He was probably right.
Over by the window, Colonel Slattery looked out into the bright sunshine, spilling down into the central courtyard of the base. Chloe could see a hive of activity down there, dozens of soldiers moving about as if mobilising for combat. She imagined the place would be on high alert now, the Crimson Corps ready, should some tip come in, to surge into action and go hunting for the data.
“OK, Agent Hunt,” said Slattery, his voice now subdued, calm. “I have nothing else to say to you. Get to work, and keep to your damn promise. Now…get the hell out of my sight.”
Ragan’s hand, still lightly holding Chloe’s arm, gripped a little tighter. Now it was her turn to reach over to calm him. She reached out and took his fingers, Ragan bristling slightly at the Colonel’s words.
Ragan stood his ground for a second or two, before finally turning. And with Chloe hurrying behind him, he stormed straight for the door.
32
“Well, that went all right…all things considered.”
Chloe had just caught up with Ragan as he marched down the corridor, descending through the central building of the base and out into the morning sun. Outside, the many soldiers were milling about, some on patrol, others doing drills or training routines. They all wore the same military fatigues, standard issue combat gear with a red patch upon their shoulders.
From where Chloe stood, the patch appeared to be an insignia - a blood red sun, rising over a barren world. Clearly, it was meant to signify that key tenet of Project Dawn. Of the crimson sunrise over the wasteland. Of the rising of a new day, a new world, replacing that which went before.
“So, are these all the soldiers you guys have?” she asked, the two stopping briefly in the wide courtyard.
Ragan shook his head.
“Oh no, this is only part of it. These groups are primarily task force teams, kill squads, sabotage units, things like that.”
“And are they all nanotech soldiers like you?”
“Some are,” said Ragan. “Some are like me, former special forces members of the Panther Force, or Spectre Squad. Others are highly trained, but not augmented in the same way. They’re all heavily vetted before they join, and paid well for their service.”
“Paid well? And here was me thinking this was some sort of non-profit organisation,” said Chloe. “You know, all volunteers for this fight against technology.”
“Volunteers still need to eat. They’re risking their lives, betraying their countries. Many are wanted men and women, just like you. And…me now, I guess. This is our new nation. We all believe in it, and are fighting to hold back
the storm.”
Ragan drew a breath and shook his head, his eyes dipping to the floor.
“I really screwed this one up. I should have known Mikel would…”
“Would what, Ragan? No one could have expected him to turn up like that.”
“Yeah, but he did.”
“Exactly. So we work from there, right?” said Chloe. “He must have known where you were taking me. Could his employer be inside the CID itself? Could there be another spy in there, working for someone else?”
“Maybe,” agreed Ragan, trying to stay positive. “Mikel knew I was a CID agent, and he would have known the protocol I’d follow after taking you in. He was probably lying in wait, preparing for us to arrive. But…for him to sneak in like that, get inside. Yeah, it’s quite possible he had help.”
“Any ideas on who, then?”
Ragan thought for a moment, looking up towards the blue sky.
“Off the top of my head, no. We kept things really tight at the CID, Chloe. Very few people were aware of what was going on. Very few even knew about the data in your nanites. Whatever the case, you can be sure that the CID are investigating it right now.”
“And what about your commander?” Chloe asked.
“Wexley?”
“Yeah, him. Could he betray the CID?”
Ragan’s face drew together in denial, his head shaking.
“No, Richard Wexley is an honourable man. And, why would he have Mikel go through all that? He could have quite easily taken the disc for himself and left.”
“To keep his cover,” said Chloe, shrugging. “If you can be a spy in their midst for so long, why can’t he? It would be easier for the head of the CID…”
“Chloe, no. Your mind’s getting ahead of itself here. Rampant speculation will do us no good.”