Deadlock (15 page)

‘How is that possible?’ Darkdoom asked angrily. ‘There’s no way that anyone could possibly have breached her network security and I am certain of the loyalty of the crew. What the hell happened?’

‘We don’t know yet, sir,’ the crewman replied. ‘We may have a better idea when the ROVs complete their survey of the wreckage.’

‘Let me know the moment you have the initial report,’ Darkdoom said, turning to Otto, Raven and Nathaniel. ‘We’re going back to H.I.V.E.. We need to brief Nero and plan our next move. Nathaniel, we need your help. We need to know where Furan’s facility is located and what it will take to get our people out.’

‘I’ll help in any way I can, Diabolus,’ Nathaniel said, ‘but you must understand that I merely designed the facility. I had no part in its construction. I have no idea where it’s located.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Otto said, pulling the Disciple communicator that they had taken from Gretchen out of his pocket, ‘I think we might just have that covered.’

‘OK, here he comes,’ Laura said, spotting one of the maintenance technicians doing his regular round of checks on the camera drones on the far side of the pit. He was flanked, as normal, by two guards with assault rifles, their faces hidden behind their black Plexiglas masks.

‘How long are you going to need?’ Tom asked Laura quietly as the pair of them walked along one of the circular balconies surrounding the pit, heading for the first training session of the day.

‘I’m not sure,’ Laura said. ‘Two minutes maybe.’

‘OK,’ Tom said with a nod. ‘You’re sure Nigel’s OK with this?’

‘As OK as you could expect him to be under the circumstances,’ Laura replied. ‘More to the point, are you sure you’re OK with it?’ Laura knew that Tom was going to be taking perhaps the greatest risk of all.

‘Yeah, what you said before was right. We can’t let this place beat the fight out of us.’ Tom spotted Nigel further along the balcony and they exchanged a quick glance. ‘Oh well, I suppose there’s no time like the present.’

Tom strode towards Nigel, a sudden look of anger on his face.

‘Darkdoom!’ Tom yelled as he approached the startled-looking Nigel. ‘I’m going to kill you.’

Tom got to within a couple of metres of Nigel, cocked his arm back and punched him squarely in the face. Nigel staggered backwards with a yelp, his hands rising to his face and clutching his nose. The two guards began to run along the balcony towards the boys as the maintenance technician and the other students all turned to look at the fight that had just broken out. Laura began to walk away from the fight and around the balcony in the other direction. Tom slammed Nigel against the concrete wall that ran around the balcony, grabbing him by the throat and forcing him backwards over the barrier until he was hanging over the fifty-metre drop to the open-air training area at the bottom of the pit. Unseen by anyone, Penny walked past the maintenance technician, whose attention was firmly focused on the unfolding drama and in a quick, fluid movement lifted the PDA from the pouch on his belt. She kept walking, quickly passing the PDA to Laura who shoved it into the pocket of her combat trousers, before ducking back into her cell. She pressed her back against the wall, taking cover behind the door frame and activated the PDA, her thumbs dancing across the touch-sensitive keyboard on the screen in a blur.

Outside, the guards slowed as they approached Tom and he pushed Nigel further out over the lethal drop to the ground below. Nigel had a look of fear on his face, both hands clinging on to Tom’s wrist as the other boy held his throat in a vice-like grip.

‘Stay away from me,’ Tom yelled at the guards. ‘One more step and he’s gone. I mean it.’

‘OK, kid,’ one of the guards said. ‘No one needs to do anything stupid.’

The camera drones that had been watching the trainees on that level make their way to lessons, all now hovered with their lenses focused on Tom and Nigel as their operators in the glass control tower, hanging from the ceiling above, analysed the developing situation. No one noticed as the light on the bottom of one of the hovering drones flickered from green to red.

Laura worked at blinding speed, working through the tools that were installed on the technician’s device. She found what she needed – a basic scripting tool for composing diagnostic subroutines – and she started to code, almost falling into a trance as she typed line after line of code, never having to pause for thought. To her, English was her second language; the lines of instructions that scrolled up the screen were written in her true mother tongue and it had been too long since she had been able to speak it.

Meanwhile, guards were now flanking Tom and Nigel on both sides. Tom looked at them as they slowly advanced.

‘Keep back,’ Tom screamed, ‘or he’s dead. I want to speak to Furan.’

One of the guards turned away, raising his hand to his ear as he received a transmission inside his helmet. The guard turned back towards Tom.

‘You should be careful what you wish for, kid,’ the guard said. A few moments later the watching crowd parted and Furan, flanked by more guards, strode through the crowd. She stopped ten metres away from Tom, glaring at him with an expression that was a mixture of anger and contempt.

‘What are you doing?’ Furan growled.

‘I want out,’ Tom said, a slight tremor in his voice. ‘Let me go or I swear to God I’ll kill him. I know who his father is and how important he is to you. Let me go and I’ll vanish – no one will ever hear from me again, I swear.’

Laura finished typing. There was no time for fixing bugs or checking her code, it had to be right first time. She hit the transmit button and the new subroutine was uploaded wirelessly to one of the camera drones hovering just outside. A moment later the light on its belly flicked back from red to green. She shut down the PDA and walked back outside, passing the device to Penny as she walked past her. Penny kept walking, watching Tom’s confrontation with Furan nervously as she approached the technician who was still watching the drama on the other side of the central chamber. She slipped the device back into the pouch on the man’s belt as she passed and he never noticed a thing. The distraction had worked.

‘Give me your sidearm,’ Furan said to one of the guards and the man pulled the pistol from the holster on his hip and handed it to her. She turned back towards Tom.

‘Did you really imagine, even for one second, that I was going to let you just walk out of here?’ Furan asked Tom, approaching him.

‘If you don’t, he dies,’ Tom said, sounding desperate.

‘I’m afraid, young man,’ Furan said, raising the pistol, ‘that you’ve seriously overestimated the strength of your negotiating position.’

She pulled the trigger and the gun bucked in her hand just once. Tom gasped, his eyes wide with shock, as the bullet struck him in the centre of his chest. His grip on Nigel went slack as his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground. Nigel clawed at the air frantically as he tipped backwards and fell over the balcony wall.

‘No,’ Laura whispered as she saw Tom topple over and Nigel begin to fall. Nigel’s arms flailed as he fell, only a thin strangled scream escaping his lips. Ten metres below him there was the sound of an explosive release of pneumatic pressure and a catch net shot out from the wall of the pit, directly beneath him. Nigel hit the net and lay there gasping for breath, his face a mask of fear and shock. Penny ran towards where Tom was lying on the ground, but a guard grabbed her and roughly shoved her back against the wall where she stood sobbing, tears rolling down her face as she watched another pair of guards grab her best friend’s arms and drag his lifeless body away.

‘Clear the area,’ Furan said, handing the pistol back to the guard. ‘I believe that this particular lesson is complete.’

The Leviathan slowly descended into H.I.V.E.’s crater landing bay, the giant aircraft filling the entire area as it settled with a thud on to its landing gear. The loading ramp at the rear of the dropship lowered with a whirring sound and Darkdoom, Otto and Raven made their way down the ramp with Nathaniel following behind.

‘Impressive,’ Nathaniel said, looking up at the giant hangar doors that were sliding shut far above them, concealing the hangar hidden within the volcano that was home to H.I.V.E.

‘Welcome back,’ Colonel Francisco, head of H.I.V.E.’s tactical training department, said as he walked towards them. ‘Doctor Nero sends his apologies for not being here in person to welcome you, but he’s in the middle of briefing the G.L.O.V.E. ruling council on the latest developments. Diabolus, he asked if you would join him in the conference room? The meeting is already in progress.’

Darkdoom gave a quick nod and walked briskly towards the exit.

‘Nero will meet the rest of you in his office as soon as the briefing is complete. Raven, would you be good enough to escort our guest there?’

‘Of course, this way please,’ Raven gestured for Nathaniel to follow her. ‘You too, Otto.’

The three of them walked towards the hangar exit as Francisco supervised the ground crews refuelling and rearming the Leviathan.

‘Mind if we stop by block seven on the way?’ Otto asked as the three of them walked up the stairs.

‘Maybe later,’ Raven said. ‘You’ll have to ask Nero.’

They walked through the empty corridors of the school, seeing no one but the familiar security guards in their distinctive orange jumpsuits, patrolling the hallways for stray students while lessons were in progress. Otto couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different about the place. The guards eyed them with suspicion as they passed, despite Raven’s presence. There was a subtle tension in the air, almost as if H.I.V.E. was on a war footing, bracing itself for the next attack. He supposed that was not entirely surprising under the circumstances. The attack on the Hunt had been a massive hammer blow to the school after all, and the people who were responsible were still very much a threat.

‘I have to confess that I was always rather sceptical about Maximilian’s ability to construct this facility,’ Nathaniel said as they walked past a window looking down into one of the tactical training caverns where, far below them, a group of Henchman students in their blue uniform jumpsuits were storming a large concrete building. Instructors stood around barking instructions at them as they practised breaching and clearing the structure. ‘We had something of a bitter falling out over it to be honest. I told him it was a foolish notion to build inside an active volcano and I wanted no part of it. He always insisted that it was viable though. It appears I may have rather underestimated him.’ He pointed his walking stick up at the lights in the ceiling. ‘I assume that the whole facility runs on geothermal power?’

‘Yes,’ a familiar voice said behind them, ‘the hardest part was controlling the pressure in the magma chamber actually.’

They turned to see Professor Pike walking down the corridor towards them, a broad smile on his face.

‘Theodore!’ Nathaniel said, grinning. ‘How are you, old friend?’

The two old men embraced, clapping each other on the back.

‘I’m very well thank you, Nathaniel,’ the Professor replied, still smiling, ‘other than the usual inconveniences of our ever increasing years, of course.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ Nathaniel said with a chuckle. ‘It seems like a new and interesting part of my body starts hurting every morning.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Pike said. ‘We still have it where it counts though.’ He tapped the side of his head.

‘Even if you still can’t beat me at chess,’ Nathaniel replied with a wry smile. ‘Knight to queen’s bishop three. Checkmate.’