Enemy Invasion (12 page)

“It took us months just to find the kid in Hong Kong,” Bright replied. “They’ve saved us a lot of time.”

Marlon Good rose from the chair and approached the computer. “Are you talking to me?”

Bright ignored him and continued to scan through the files.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Good asked.

“Certainly,” Bright said.

“Who are these kids? What’s so important about them?”

Bright looked round at Marlon Good and smiled a smile so cold, it actually made the American shiver a little.

“When we take over the world, these are the ones who need to die first.”

11

“Go ahead, Sarah. Use your power. I’ll understand. You don’t have to prove anything here.”

She gritted her teeth against her gumshield and flexed her fingers in the sparring gloves. Commander Craig stood a few metres away on the other side of the training mats, also dressed in a gi
and a full set of sparring pads for their weekly karate session. Despite her protests (she was in no mood for a lesson after her altercation with Robert), he was insistent the session go ahead.
Karate stops for no man – not even Major Bright.
Now Craig taunted her with a grin, exposing his bright red gumshield.

“I mean, why bother learning to defend yourself physically—”

Sarah moved in fast, feinting with a strike at Craig’s head, then spinning round and delivering a leg sweep to the back of his knees as he raised his hands. The kick turned out
ineffectual. Craig punished her with a back-handed strike to the side of the head that sent her staggering away across the mat.

“Nice idea, poor execution,” he said as he began to circle to the right. “You’ll have to hit harder than that if you want to take me down.”

“You’re really starting to annoy me,” Sarah hissed through her shield. She circled also, guard up, keeping a constant two metres between them.

Craig grinned. “Really? Then why not use your psychic abilities on me? Eh?”

“Because I want to kick your butt the old-fashioned way.”

She moved faster this time, aiming a kick at Craig’s stomach, which he blocked easily. Her follow-up move was unexpected, however: a direct punch at his face. The commander had to hustle
to block it, by which time she was aiming a chop at his kidneys with her left hand. She made contact and Craig expelled a little air.

Sarah knew the right thing to do next – back off, reassess, strike again if there was an opening. But her blood was up.
What had happened in the war room, Wisher, the argument with
Robert...
She wanted to take it out on someone and had decided that the commander would do just fine… Spinning, she angled her body round to deliver a roundhouse kick to his upper
body…

Craig caught her leg and yanked her off balance.
Stupid
, Sarah thought as she was pulled round. The commander threw her with more force than normal for one of their sparring sessions.
With a cry of surprise and a little pain, Sarah tumbled across the mat and hit her spine against one of the wooden benches that lined the edge of the unarmed combat classroom.

Groaning, Sarah spat her gumshield into her hand and rubbed her lower back. She got to her feet and turned to where Craig was standing…

He wasn’t where he’d been a second ago. Momentarily confused, Sarah looked left, towards the exit…

And that’s all Craig needed. He moved in low from the right, locked his left arm around her throat and squeezed. Helpless, Sarah placed her hands against his forearm and tried to pull it
away. No use. He increased the pressure in response. Craig was stronger than her, plain and simple.
But you don’t have to be the strongest to win a fight
, she reminded herself of his
words from a hundred combat sessions.
Just stay focused.

“You’re hurting me,” Sarah said as he dragged her back towards the centre of the mats, all the while keeping his arm locked around her throat. “I can’t
breathe.”

“Then do something about it,” Craig said. There was a hardness to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. “I thought you wanted to kick my butt.”

“Let me go and I will.”

Craig laughed harshly. “That’s not the way it’s going to be today.”

Her eyes widened as he brought his right hand up, revealing a ten-centimetre-long combat knife clutched in his fist. Where he’d got it from, she didn’t know. Training sessions never
involved real weapons. Her heart raced. Craig shifted his left arm around her throat slightly, exposing her windpipe as he brought the blade closer.

“Just how fast are you, Sarah? Think you can control my mind before I cut your throat? Can you do it when you’re panicking?”

“Stop,” she said, trying to control her breathing. “I want to stop this right now.”

“If you want it to stop, take me out.”

He touched the cool blade against her skin and then held it away, but still at the ready. Sarah wanted to cry out or protest that he’d gone too far – but she could tell the commander
would not listen. Whatever point he was trying to make, she wouldn’t get out of it like that. Clearly this was some kind of graduation lesson.

Or maybe he really had gone crazy.

She tried to make contact with his mind, but the commander seemed to sense this, because he tightened his grip around her throat yet again.

“That’s not going to work, Sarah. You’ve got one second before I finish you. Let’s see—”

Sarah rammed her heel down on Craig’s right foot – hard enough to cause him some pain. His grip slackened just fractionally, giving her some wriggle room. She jerked her head back
violently, away from the blade, and made contact with his face. There was a crunch of cartilage as the back of her skull crushed his nose. Sarah made her body go loose. She slipped down, out of his
arms, and rolled forward and round into a defensive crouch. The commander almost stumbled, but kept his balance. She’d hurt him.
Good
, thought Sarah.

“Are we finished?” she said as Craig wiped at his bloodied nose with his left hand.

“Not by a long shot.”

The commander moved with alarming speed, swinging the blade at her. Sarah had anticipated the attack, however, flipping backwards and rising to her feet. As Craig swung and missed, she kicked
him in the back of the leg – with enough force to drive him down to one knee. This time she backed off, expecting him to swing at her with the knife, which is exactly what he did. She
retreated, keeping her guard up. With a yell, Craig ran at her, trying to break her composure by swiping the knife before him as he came. Sarah sidestepped his wild attack and danced back across
the mats. The commander lurched round and the blade whistled through the air just centimetres from her face.

Enough of this
, she thought. Craig lunged again…

“Stop!”

Sarah held up her hand. The commander carried on moving in her direction for just a second before his entire body locked up. He stopped, still as a statue, knife held out before him. His body
was frozen – his mind completely under her control. A single drop of blood fell from his injured nose and hit the mat between his feet. Sarah took a few deep breaths, slowing her heart rate,
trying to ease the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

“Are we finished?” she said again.

Craig spoke with some effort. “It’s not over…until I say…it’s over.”

Infuriated, Sarah considered walking out of the training room and leaving him like that – frozen like a statue. It was as much as he deserved for the stunt with the knife. But she wanted
to beat him. She concentrated again.

Against his will, Commander Craig began to move his knife arm, bringing the weapon round towards his own throat. Veins on his forehead bulged and Sarah could tell he was resisting her with all
his might – but it was no use. She stopped his hand when the blade was just a centimetre from his throat.

“Are we finished?”

The corners of Craig’s mouth twitched as he tried to grin. “You’d…better…kill me.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow. “Sure you really mean that?”

She made him move the knife so the blade was actually making contact with his neck, just to prove her point.

“You…won’t…do it…”

The blade pressed into his throat. Sarah felt him fighting back, but wouldn’t let him off. However, she sensed if she pressed any harder, she would really injure him.

A thin line of blood appeared at the edge of the blade and trickled along the metal…

“Relent!” Craig said.

Sarah released him immediately. The commander dropped the weapon from his neck and staggered forward, although he managed to keep his balance. He touched a hand to his throat.

“Did I hurt you?” Sarah asked with real concern.

Breathing deeply, Craig shook his head. “Barely a paper cut.”

Sarah was relieved to see his tone of voice and expression had returned to normal: the cool, always-in-control teacher she recognized from their training sessions. But that didn’t make her
any less angry – whatever point there was in bringing a real knife to a lesson, she didn’t see it. Sarah ripped off her sparring gloves and threw them at her feet. “I don’t
want any more sessions if that’s the way you intend to run them. What was that with the knife?”

“The most important lesson you can learn,” Craig replied. “Outside this room, there are no rules. No backing down. You want to fight men like Major Bright, you’d better
be prepared to go all the way.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Sarah said petulantly. Craig’s words reminded her of the argument she’d had with Robert – and she didn’t like it.
“I’ve fought and beaten Bright before. And Makarov. I saved your life in the process, I might add.”

She strode past him on the way to the door.

“Going to sit in the dark again, Sarah?” Craig called after her. “Hide out in Bay 6?”

She stopped and turned back to him.

“It’s time to make up your mind what you’re doing here, Sarah. Are you in the fight or sitting it out? There’s no middle ground.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody’s asking anything of you, Sarah. You want a normal life? You want to be a normal kid? Fine. Say the word, and we’ll have you shipped out to a place where you’ll
never have to worry about Bright or the Entity or HIDRA ever again.” He turned the knife over in his hand and then threw it at the floor. It embedded itself, point first, in the mat between
his feet. “But if you’re going to be here, you’d better be prepared to finish the fight. Simple enough for you?”

Sarah reddened – partly from embarrassment, partly from anger at Craig’s words.

“Why do you need us anyway?” she asked. “My brother is eleven years old. Can’t HIDRA fight its own battles?”

Craig wiped the blood from his nose. “I saw what Bright could do in Russia. And I saw what you kids can do as well. We can’t fight him with guns and hovercopters alone. We need you.
And if you don’t get involved in the fight, the whole world is going to suffer.” He walked forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I know you want to protect Robert and the
others, but if our enemies aren’t stopped, none of you will be safe. You have to lead your team, Sarah—”

“What about Alex,” she interrupted. “He was the one who wanted to join the action—”

“
You’re
the leader, Sarah,” Craig said emphatically. “It’s time you started acting like one – for all of us.”

As the commander’s words sank in, Sarah once again felt the terrible responsibility that had been put on her and her friends. They hadn’t asked for their powers, but now they had
them it was time to decide once and for all how they were going to use them. And as much as she hated to admit it, Craig was right: she was the leader. Alex had never really wanted to go to England
– all he’d wanted was to fight alongside her, but she’d driven him away, thinking that he was putting them in danger. Well, it seemed like danger had found them once again.

“I’ll think about it,” she said and turned swiftly. She made the end of the corridor, threw open the hatch and ran into the next, almost knocking down a red-suited technician
as she went. Then she ran, down corridor after corridor, until she stopped, breathless, against a locked hatch. Craig’s words echoed in her mind.

You’re the leader. It’s time you started acting like one. For all of us.

Sarah took a deep breath. For some time she just stood, getting control again.

Robert
, she thought, casting her mind towards his cabin, where she sensed him sitting on the bed with a book in his lap.

There was just a second before her brother responded.
What do you want?

Get Louise and Wei
, Sarah responded.
We’ve got work to do.

12

Her name was May. Hack had learned that from what little information he’d been able to extract from his cellmate. She was an Australian, born of Chinese parents who had
emigrated there before she was born. She’d been snatched by Major Bright’s men from the street right outside her house, but she wasn’t sure how long ago that had been. Weeks?
Months? When Hack tried to press her for information she became quickly irritable and then confused, before falling into a kind of stupor that left her incapable of answering any more
questions.

As she half-slept against the cell wall, Hack kneeled before the girl and assessed her physical condition with concern. In addition to her unwashed appearance, she seemed to be suffering from
dehydration – no surprise given the heat in the cell. Hack wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Already he was beginning to feel weak from the loss of fluids. The guards had provided no
water. Clearly this was what lay in store for him if he didn’t escape or get rescued.

Something caught his eye on May’s right arm and he carefully lifted the sleeve of her T-shirt. The skin above her elbow was bruised black and purple – rough circular patterns, as if
something had been pressed into her flesh repeatedly and with force.

“Oww,” May said as he accidentally brushed her damaged skin. The pain seemed to bring her round a little, because her eyes focused and flashed with an intelligence that Hack
hadn’t seen before.