Urban Outlaws (5 page)

Obi was convinced the US government had captured an alien spacecraft at Roswell, back in the nineteen-forties, and they had been reverse-engineering it ever since. He watched countless documentaries on the subject, and belonged to a few online forums. Jack was surprised by how many people like Obi there were in the world.

So, they’d all had this argument with Obi a million times and it always went the same way: Obi would start out insisting something was real. Everyone would tell him it wasn’t. He’d get upset. Charlie would comfort him . . . It was beyond predictable.

It suddenly occurred to Jack that Obi might start arguments just to get some attention from Charlie. It wouldn’t surprise him.

Time to say what he usually did at this moment. No point denying Obi the few minutes of Charlie’s time. ‘Proteus is a myth, mate.’

‘It
isn’t
,’ Obi said with conviction.

Nothing new there.

Slink threw his hands up in a dramatic gesture and walked away. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘I’m
not
crazy.’

Slink spun back, folded his arms, and gave Obi a look as if to say,
Oh, really?

‘Obi, sweetie,’ Charlie said in a soft tone.

Here it comes
, Jack thought.

‘Proteus is –’ She took a breath. ‘It isn’t real.’

‘What’s Proteus?’

All eyes moved to Wren. She was chewing on strawberry liquorice and looking at them in complete bewilderment.

‘It’s a quantum computer,’ Obi said, as if this would make things clear for her.

Wren screwed her face up. ‘What’s that?’

Jack said in a monotone voice, ‘A computer that uses quantum physics and the power of atoms to run calculations. Therefore, far outperforming any current technology.’

This was greeted by a blank expression and silence.

Charlie whispered in Jack’s ear, ‘You read that on Wikipedia, Einstein?’

‘Very funny.’

Charlie looked at Wren. ‘What Captain Physics and his overeating sidekick are trying to say is it’s a very powerful computer that hasn’t been invented yet.’

Obi frowned. ‘It has been invented. It’s –’

Jack held up a hand, interrupting him. ‘Proteus is a rumour spread among naive script kiddies.’

Wren blinked. ‘Script kiddies?’

Jack gave a dismissive wave. ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He turned back to Obi. ‘Please just get to the point, so we can go back to what we were doing,’ he said, even though Jack had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of the evening.

‘Fine.’ Obi spun a trackerball mounted to his chair and the main monitor in front of him sprang to life. It showed a black-and-white CCTV image of the alleyway Jack and Charlie were in earlier. ‘I was going through the footage trying to work out why they changed the lock, and I found this.’

A white van backed into the alleyway and three men jumped out. One unlocked the building’s roller door while the other two removed a crate from the back of the van. The men struggled to carry it into the building and vanished from view.

Jack looked at the others. Like him, so far they seemed unimpressed.

Obi sped the recording forward fifteen minutes and the men came back out of the building, still carrying the crate, though it was clearly a lot lighter and empty now.

The men locked up, slid the crate into the back of the van and drove off.

Obi turned to the group with a triumphant smile. ‘See?’

Everyone was frowning.

‘See what exactly?’ Charlie said.

Obi huffed as if they were all blind. He sped the recording back to the moment the men were carrying the crate to the van and paused the image. ‘
There
.’

They leant in.

‘What are we looking for?’ Jack said.

‘Come on, guys.’ Obi zoomed in on the image to the side of the crate. There was a logo burnt into the wood. It was a number one shaped like a sword.

‘Wait a minute.’ Jack couldn’t disguise the large measure of dubiousness in his voice. ‘You’re saying that’s Proteus?’

‘That’s
exactly
what I’m saying,’ Obi said with an equally large measure of defiance.

He typed swift commands into the keyboard in front of him and images flashed up on the screens. They all contained the same sword logo.

Obi did a fast commentary as the images went past. ‘Proteus – first talked about six months ago on the Cerberus forums. Next, two weeks later and word of components being ordered.’ He pointed at copies of scanned receipts. ‘Gyro then managed to get a picture of this.’ Obi clicked the trackerball and a blueprint popped up. It was part of a design for a cooling system. In the top right-hand corner was the sword logo with the word
PROTEUS
written underneath. Obi let out a breath and looked at them. ‘Well?’

Charlie shook her head. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’

‘What?’

She pointed at the blueprint. ‘If they really had a quantum computer, it would fill a room, need all sorts of – well, more than that.’

‘Lasers,’ Slink said. ‘That stuff always has lasers.’

‘Whatever,’ Charlie said. ‘Look, Obi, my point is two men would not be carrying a quantum computer in a crate. That’s nuts.’

Obi sighed. ‘Why does no one get it?’ He glanced between them. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’

‘I think it’s weird,’ Wren said. They looked at her. She blushed. ‘Just saying.’

‘And they changed the lock, remember?’ Obi said.

Charlie frowned. ‘So what?’

‘No,’ Jack said in sudden realisation. ‘Obi’s right.’ He hadn’t yet had time to work out what that really meant. He had to hand it to Obi for putting it all together.

Slink leant against the back of the sofa and yawned. ‘Can you explain it to the rest of us?’

‘Well,’ Jack said, ‘there was also a security guard where there wasn’t one before.’

‘And,’ Charlie said, catching on, ‘he had a gun.’

Jack nodded. ‘Exactly. Which means they were protecting something. Something big.’

‘So,’ Charlie glanced at the screens, ‘whatever that is –’

‘Proteus,’ Obi said under his breath.

Charlie scowled at him. ‘Whatever was in that crate, it must be important. And those guys don’t look legit.’

‘Especially if they have guns,’ Wren said.

Charlie looked at Jack and her eyes mirrored his excitement. ‘What do you think?’

Jack smiled and a renewed surge of hope and determination flowed through him.

If those men were protecting something, that meant it was valuable. If it was valuable, Jack and the others might be able to sell it, or at the very least stop whatever bad things they were up to.

‘I’ve no idea what’s in that crate,’ Jack said, ‘but I want to find out.’ The smile turned into a huge grin. ‘Let’s see what toys they’ve got.’

•   •   •

By eight o’clock the next night, the group’s initial enthusiasm had long since worn off. All apart from Obi’s, of course – he was beside himself with excitement that they were going to check it out because he was still convinced he was right.

With any job, the first thing they did was tap into the nearby surveillance cameras and monitor the comings and goings. Obi had that all set up from the previous night, so he didn’t have much to do apart from watch. So far, nothing had happened.

Jack wondered if their recent excursion had frightened off whoever from whatever it was they were doing.

He pondered this while he was in the kitchen making dinner. Today’s delicacy was ham and sweetcorn pizza with a side order of cheesy puffs, followed by chocolate chip ice cream with liberal amounts of sprinkles.

Obi kept glancing over and smacking his lips.

‘That’s yours.’ Jack pointed to a bowl of salad.

Obi screwed up his nose. ‘I’m not eating any more of that rubbish.’

‘You promised her you’d lose ten pounds.’

Obi groaned, seeming to remember the conversation with Charlie. If it was anyone else but her, Obi would have made some suggestions as to where they could shove the salad.

Jack pulled the two pizzas from the oven and set them on chopping boards. He called Slink over. ‘Cut these up, would ya?’ he said, and glanced at the clock on the wall. Charlie had been missing for the past three hours and there was only one place she’d be. He left the kitchen and walked down a corridor.

Apart from the main communal area, the bunker had a further eleven smaller rooms, comprising of six bedrooms, the generator room, the electrical room – which was no bigger than a cupboard – a bathroom and separate toilet, and lastly Charlie’s workshop.

The workshop itself was three metres wide and ten long. Halogen lights hung from the ceiling, illuminating the room in overlapping bands of light. Benches ran down each side, and the left one held all manner of electronics: circuit boards, salvaged parts out of old radios, TVs, computers. In the middle of the mayhem was a soldering station under a spotlamp.

The bench on the right was a jumble of metalwork, with vices, saws, drills and a whole range of tools hanging on the wall. There was even an electric wheelchair that Charlie was ‘modifying’.

To the untrained eye, the workshop looked like a disordered mess. Charlie insisted it was organised chaos.

Jack had a basic understanding of what everything in here did, but he was a thinker rather than a builder.

Electronics and making stuff was Charlie’s thing.

Charlie’s mother had died giving birth to her. Jack had once caught a glimpse of a picture of her mum that she kept in a drawer, and seen where Charlie got her jet black hair and Asian looks from, but she rarely talked about her.

Her striking jade eyes were just like her German father’s, but she had inherited much more from him. He had been a mechanic, so she’d grown up with cars and motorcycles. As soon as Charlie was old enough to hold a screwdriver, she’d taken stuff apart: engines, bikes, televisions. Several times her dad had saved her from electrocution, burning or decapitation.

Jack knew Charlie missed him because every time she mentioned her dad she got a distant look in her eyes, as if she were back in his workshop with him, or he with her, and she’d turn away if even a hint of a tear formed.

Jack walked to the end of the room where Charlie was sitting hunched over a desk.

He dropped into the chair next to her. ‘Whatcha doing?’

Charlie started. ‘Jack, knock next time, will ya?’ She looked guilty about something.

Jack frowned at the laptop in front of her. Charlie had a website open – the Dr Benjamin Foundation for Missing Children. ‘You do know that my mum and dad are dead, right?’ he said.

‘I’m not looking for
you
.’ Charlie turned back to the laptop and continued to scroll down the list of kids and families.

‘Then who are you looking for?’

Charlie hesitated and glanced at the door.

‘Let me guess,’ Jack said. ‘Wren. You’re looking for her parents, aren’t you?’

Charlie returned her attention to the laptop.

Jack said, ‘I thought they were dead.’

‘Only one of them.’ Charlie scrolled down the list.

Now it was Jack who was glancing at the door. He lowered his voice. ‘She told you her story?’

‘Bits.’

There was a long silence as Charlie seemed to be weighing up whether to tell him or not. Eventually, she let out a breath and turned in her chair to face him. ‘Wren’s mum and dad broke up before she was born. Her mum banned him from ever seeing Wren. Said she wanted him to have nothing to do with her or the baby.’

‘Sounds harsh.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘We’ve all had to deal with our own stuff.’

That was true. Charlie’s dad had been murdered by an unhappy customer with a gun. He hadn’t stood a chance.

As for Jack? Well, his own parents died in a car accident when he was three. He was in the car with them at the time, but had no memory of it.

‘So,’ he said, ‘how did Wren wind up on the streets?’

‘She came home from school one day and found her mum on the sofa, not breathing. There was nothing Wren could do for her.’

Jack grimaced, imagining the scene.

Charlie leant back in her chair. ‘Social services came, did their usual bit and tried to trace her dad.’

‘They didn’t find him?’

Charlie shook her head. ‘Wren’s mum left no details on the guy. The birth certificate even had a made up name on it.’

Jack frowned. ‘Why?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘No idea.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, social services put Wren into care. No one wanted to take her on. Blah, blah.’

‘OK.’ There must’ve been more to the story. A cute kid like Wren not finding foster parents?

‘There was an older girl . . . Hmm, Tracey something. Anyway, she used to bully Wren. Y’know?’

Jack nodded. He knew all too well. Growing up in a children’s home was tough. Understandably, a lot of the kids had serious issues. ‘So she ran away?’