A woman aged about twenty-five with short black hair and round-rimmed glasses suddenly appeared. She wore a neat, blue office suit and flat shoes.
‘You are looking for Mister Floyd?’ she said. ‘Your names are—?’
‘Axel,’ I said. ‘And Chad.’
She nodded. ‘Follow me.’
Leading us through the heart of the office, we reached a barrier, and I abruptly realized the entire office was a mezzanine area. Beyond it lay an even larger room, hundreds of feet in length. At the far end was a massive video display made up of small screened television sets. Dozens of different channels played at once. Filling the room were a myriad of desks where people sat, typed or spoke over hands-free phones.
It reminded me of The Cavern back at The Agency, where we had met Mister Jones and the others.
‘Wow,’ said Chad.
You’re right about that, I thought. Super-wow.
A man weaved his way through the maze of desks toward us. He was tall, cleanly shaven with short-cropped brown hair, a gray suit, and shiny black shoes.
‘Hello,’ he greeted us. ‘I’m Mister Floyd.’
We introduced ourselves.
‘Mister Jones told me you might be in contact with us,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you took the initiative.’
‘Actually, the initiative was taken away from us,’ I said. ‘We were attacked last night by—’
He held up a hand. ‘Let’s find a meeting room first.’
We followed him and the woman in silence through the back wall. Beyond it lay another sunken area where more people were working at desks inputting information and speaking on phones.
My mind was whirling. All of this is taking place beneath Las Vegas. In fact, it was taking place directly underneath the Hound Dog Wedding Chapel. I was dying to ask him a million questions but now wasn’t the time. He led us into a meeting room containing a large oval desk surrounded by about twenty chairs. A screen hung from the wall in front of the desk. Mister Floyd indicated chairs to us while the woman in the suit closed the door behind us.
‘I don’t know if you’ve been introduced to Agent Palmer,’ Mister Floyd said.
We nodded greetings to her.
‘Okay,’ said Mister Floyd. ‘Tell it from the top.’
Between the two of us, we spent the next fifteen minutes describing the events of the last twenty-four hours. Chad even brought my fading superpowers into the discussion, which I wished he’d kept to himself. Finally, we told them about making our way back into town and arriving at the Hound Dog Wedding Chapel.
Mister Floyd nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. We picked up a news story earlier about your house in the desert. The fire department was called out there after motorists on the interstate saw a glow in the sky.
‘They found the whole place had burnt to the ground.’ He paused. ‘Regarding your powers, Axel, I’m not sure what to make of that. I know very little about The Alpha Project. Are there any scientists remaining from the original program?’
I was surprised. I expected him to know more than me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so. I think they were killed, and the research destroyed.’
He thought for a moment. ‘Twelve’s actions are infamous,’ he said. ‘He brought an enormous amount of disrepute to The Agency.’
Chad and I didn’t say anything in response to this.
Mister Floyd continued. ‘I do have some thoughts about the group that attacked you. From your descriptions, they sound like a group of vampires that call themselves Wormwood. They’ve been active in this part of the country for years.’
‘Vampires,’ Chad repeated the word as if Mister Floyd had said something in a foreign language. ‘We’re talking real vampires.’
‘Of course,’ he confirmed. ‘Vampires have existed for centuries. They prospered until Bram Stoker wrote Dracula. When that book was released, they realized they had to keep a low profile. They’ve remained underground while the view of their fictional selves has propagated.’
‘What would they want with Brodie and the others?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ Mister Floyd said. ‘Wormwood is a group of bounty hunters. People pay them to carry out tasks and duties like a Special Forces team. They would have been under the employ of someone else.’
‘So someone else hired them,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’
‘So where do we go from here?’ Chad asked. ‘We need to get our friends back.’
‘And we want to help you,’ Mister Floyd said. ‘But we’re going to need an assurance from you.’
‘What sort of assurance?’ I asked.
‘That you are prepared to be affiliated with The Agency,’ he said. ‘We need—’
‘No way,’ Chad interrupted. ‘I’m not working for you people. Especially after what you did to us.’
Mister Floyd held up his hand. ‘Please hear me out,’ he said. ‘Try to think of the arrangement as being not so much working for The Agency, but with The Agency. We have mutual aims. You want your people back. We want them safe too.’
‘What’s your interest in this?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘There’s a change in the air,’ said Mister Floyd. ‘I can’t say what that is, but I can tell you this: you’ll soon have to make up your mind as to what side you’re on.’
What does all this mean?
‘What sort of change?’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’
Agent Palmer stepped forward. ‘We’re not at liberty to say,’ she said. ‘All we can say is that times are changing. Whether you like it or not, you’re going to be part of that change. We’re prepared to help you get your friends back, but we need you to be on side for us too.’
‘I can’t speak for the others—’
‘I don’t expect you to,’ Mister Floyd said. ‘But you can speak for yourselves. We want you onside after all this is over. If you can’t agree to that, then…’
‘Then what?’ Chad asked.
Mister Floyd inclined his head. ‘The door is that way.’
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly while I thought about what he’d said. We were being offered a way forward, a way to help our friends, but there was a cost. I’m not sure there’s anything else we can do. We had no money. No home. No car. Nothing. Only the clothes on our backs. The Agency could change all that instantly.
Chad seemed to be having the same thoughts. He looked across at me glumly. I know he hated the idea, but there was little else we could do. Chad might happily abandon me and Dan and the others, but Ebony was his sister. He wouldn’t leave her in a million years.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Count me in.’
‘Me too,’ I added.
Agent Palmer nodded. ‘There are some details we need to work out,’ she said. ‘We’ll be supplying standard contracts to you—’
‘Contracts?’ I interrupted.
‘—but we don’t need to worry about those yet,’ she concluded. ‘First, we need to find your friends. The paperwork can come later.’
‘In the meantime,’ Mister Floyd said, ‘you boys need some food and sleep. We’ll get someone to show you to a room. Hopefully, we’ll have a lead for you by morning.’
Both Mister Floyd and Agent Palmer left the chamber. I was slightly relieved to note that the door closed but wasn’t locked after their departure. Chad looked over at me and slowly shook his head.
‘It looks like we’re back,’ he said. ‘For better—’
‘—or for worse.’
Yep, I thought. A marriage of convenience…
Chapter Sixteen
‘The good news is we believe your friends are alive and well,’ Mister Floyd began. ‘The bad news is we think they’re being held by a man named Jeremiah Stead.’
It was the next day. We were sitting in a meeting room in another part of The Agency. Chad and I had spent the night in a hotel called The Windsor Arms. It was located above The Agency as well, but down the stree
t from The Hound Dog Wedding Chapel. An elevator took us from the offices to the hotel.
The entire place seemed to be strictly reserved for Agency personnel. Our room was on the third floor and had a view across the great urban sprawl of west Las Vegas. It wasn’t the most fantastic view, but we weren’t there to look out the window.
Agent Palmer had collected us before eight o’clock and taken us to a cafeteria in the hotel. After that, she took us down an elevator and through a maze of corridors to where Mister Floyd was waiting.
‘Who is Jeremiah Stead?’ I asked.
‘I believe you’ve already had a discussion about him with Mister Jones,’ Mister Floyd said.
I stared at him blankly.
‘Jeremiah Stead is the man responsible for the theft of the Doomsday virus from the Germans,’ Mister Floyd explained. ‘Possibly that rings a bell.’
Uh oh.
More than a bell. It was more like a long and disturbing toll of doom.
‘How does all this fit together?’ Chad asked.
‘You may have heard of the rise of militia groups in the United States over recent years,’ Mister Floyd said. ‘They are isolated groups, very often numbering less than a few dozen individuals who band together against the government.’
‘Why are they against the government?’ I asked.
‘They share a belief that the government is working against them, and they have to take up arms to protect themselves.’
‘Where would they get that idea?’ Chad asked sarcastically.
Mister Floyd ignored him. ‘Most of these groups are harmless, although some have turned to violence over the years. As they break laws, the government is required to step in and bring them to justice.’
‘I saw something on television about the Freeman movement,’ I said.
Mister Floyd nodded. ‘They were one of the more violent groups. There have been others. Confrontations between the FBI and these groups have resulted in shoot outs and deaths.’
‘I still don’t see what this has to do with Ebony and the others,’ Chad said.
‘We believe that your sister and the others were collateral damage,’ Agent Palmer said. ‘We think your friend Ferdy was their real target.’
‘Ferdy?’ Chad said. ‘He can barely tie his shoelace. Why would they want him?’
‘Ferdy is challenged,’ Agent Palmer agreed. ‘But he’s far from stupid. Before leaving The Agency, his IQ was measured at three hundred and ten.’
‘Three hundred and ten?’ I said. ‘Isn’t the average around one hundred?’
‘It is indeed,’ Mister Floyd confirmed. ‘Ferdy not only has a staggering ability to remember information, but he also has a unique ability to work with numbers and patterns.’
I was finding this a little hard to believe. We’d grown to accept Ferdy as one of us over the last few months. Especially since he’d been so badly treated by The Agency, we’d made a point of making sure he felt a part of our odd little family. In that time, however, apart from his extraordinary abilities to single-handedly wipe the Trivial Pursuit board with us or toss a car thirty feet, he’d displayed little in the way of survival skills.
He could barely change channels on the television without our help, and Chad’s comment about his inability to tie his shoelace wasn’t far off the mark. I’d persevered in helping him carry out typical day-to-day tasks, but it had been a long battle. I’d seen improvements, but it had made me sometimes wonder if he wouldn’t be better off in some sort of institution.
An IQ of three hundred and ten?
Wow.
‘Assuming you’re right,’ I said. ‘Why do they want Ferdy?’
Agent Palmer continued. ‘Doomsday is sealed within a tube constructed from T5K,’ she said. ‘It’s an incredibly dense metal only recently developed by the British government. It’s unlikely that even a nuclear blast could break it open.
‘A sophisticated locking mechanism keeps Doomsday contained. The code that operates that mechanism is called Barricade. It has some two hundred billion unique combinations. We believe it’s unbreakable, even by the world’s most sophisticated system.’
‘But if a computer can’t break it—’ Chad began.
‘How can a human?’ Agent Palmer allowed the question to hang for a moment. ‘The human brain has between eighty and one hundred and twenty billion neurons. For most of us, those neurons are sitting dormant while we carry out essential tasks like watching TV or eating pizza.’ She paused. ‘But Ferdy’s brain is different. He’s able to focus his brain solely on a problem until he comes up with a solution. He can make leaps in thinking far beyond any computer and perceive patterns that the rest of us don’t see.’
‘So you think Ferdy can crack this code?’ I asked.
‘We think so,’ Mister Floyd confirmed. ‘Apparently, so does Jeremiah Stead.’
‘So where is Stead?’ I asked. ‘And where are our friends?’
‘We believe they’re holed up in a place they call Sanctuary Compound. It’s located somewhere in Montana, but we don’t know its exact location.’ Mister Floyd paused. ‘We believe they’ll want Ferdy to break Barricade’s encryption and release Doomsday into the environment.’
‘So how do we find out the location of the compound?’ Chad asked.
‘Jeremiah Stead’s brother—Zachary—is being held by the North Koreans in a jail called Yodak Prison. The jail contains two types of prisoners—humans and mods. We believe North Korea will agree to a prisoner exchange. While they wouldn’t agree to release Zachary, we believe they’ll accept two mods in exchange for two non-modified Americans being held at the jail.’
Agent Palmer continued. ‘We think they’ll see the deal as being highly advantageous to them,’ she said. ‘So advantageous, they can’t say no.’
‘What mods are you—’ I started.
Of course.
Us.
‘The mods would be you and Chad,’ Palmer confirmed. ‘Once within Yodak Prison, you’d need to make contact with Zachary and then break out. Upon reaching the coast, you can make use of a vessel to enable your escape from North Korea.’
‘Obviously,’ Mister Floyd said, ‘you can’t tell Zachary that you’re with The Agency. You have to pretend to be on his side. That you share the same beliefs about government conspiracies and the like. After you escape, we believe he’ll lead you straight to the Compound.’
‘I’ve just one question,’ Chad said. ‘This Yodak jail. Has anyone ever escaped from it?’
Mister Floyd sighed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But there’s a first time for everything.’
Chapter Seventeen
Brodie was relieved to see that conditions had relaxed enough to allow her and Ebony to leave their cell and mingle with the main population of the Sanctuary Compound. Jeremiah Stead had told them they could move about freely as long as they didn’t cause any violence. Brodie thought that was laughable, considering they were the ones who’d been kidnapped.
‘What’s to stop us from leaving?’ Brodie had asked.
‘Nothing,’ Jeremiah said. ‘But then I would be forced to take measures against your friends Dan and Ferdy.’
‘What kind of measures?’ she asked.
‘Extreme measures.’
Whatever that meant.
Dan was still recovering from his illness and remained in his bunk. At least his condition was improving since the doctor’s ministrations. This gave Brodie and Ebony a chance to get a lay of the land and understand where they were.
The Sanctuary complex turned out to be a massive concrete structure buried under the earth among a forest of spruce trees. There appeared to be only one exit point, and even this was hidden under foliage. Brodie doubted it could ever be seen from the air.
They were allowed outside of the bunker. It was autumn, and the weather was starting to turn cold, but Brodie didn’t mind. They had spent a whole day underground, and fresh air was almost as welcome as freedom.
While it was impossible to deter
mine the size of the place, there were clearly a lot of people living there. Almost two hundred including children, she estimated. How they had ever built it in the first place was beyond her.
Jason was enthusiastic about how well they hid their operations. Some distance away, there was a camp above ground inhabited by another twenty or so people.
‘That’s so we can get supplies delivered,’ he explained. ‘But the suppliers don’t speak to each other, so they don’t know how much really gets delivered.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got everything worked out,’ she said without enthusiasm.
‘My father is a brilliant man,’ Jason said.
‘Your father?’
‘Jeremiah Stead,’ he said.
Brodie could hardly keep the expression of amazement from her face. ‘And your father is convinced the end of the world is coming?’ she said.
‘Absolutely.’
‘What makes you so sure he’s right?’
‘He’s studied hundreds of books about the end times,’ Jason said. ‘He foretold the rise of The New World Order, and now that prophecy is coming to pass.’
‘Who is the New World Order?’ Ebony asked.
‘It’s an organization controlled by the United Nations,’ Jason said. ‘The NWO is designed to create a single, one-world government. No person who loves liberty could stand for such a thing.’
Just sounds like another conspiracy theory, Brodie thought.
‘I don’t really know anything about it,’ she said.
‘I’ll teach you. You’ll need to know anyway because you’ll be staying here.’
Brodie exchanged looks with Ebony but didn’t reply.
Temporary breakfast tables with seating were lined up under the spruce trees. Bowls were filled with porridge, and plastic cups containing orange cordial were passed out to everyone.
Everything’s all very efficient.
Whatever could be said for these wacko people, they were good at what they did.
It’s a shame they’re so misguided.
Teen Superheroes Box Set | Books 1-7 Page 22