Deadlock (11 page)

‘I knew he wasn’t just lying on a beach somewhere,’ Shelby said with a grin as she, Wing and Franz read the report on the screen in front of them. It detailed Otto and Raven’s efforts to track down and interrogate the senior members of the Disciples. ‘Although, with his complexion, lying on a beach for more than about thirty seconds would potentially be just as dangerous as what he’s been getting up to. He’s been working with Raven all this time.’

‘It would appear so,’ Wing said, ‘though they do not appear to have made an enormous amount of progress.’ A note of frustration was clearly evident in some of the latest reports. The last update detailed the accidental death of a senior Disciple commander in London while he was being pursued by Raven. Shelby pulled up the accompanying photographs.

‘Ewwww,’ she said, before hurriedly closing the pictures again. ‘Train one, bad guy nil.’

‘Yes,’ Wing said, ‘most unpleasant, but that was several weeks ago. This file is not up to date.’

‘Well, at least we are knowing that Otto is OK,’ Franz said. ‘That’s something, isn’t it?’

‘Hmmm,’ Wing said, walking across the room and sitting down on the edge of what had once been Laura’s bed, with an unhappy look on his face.

‘Hey, you want to give us a minute, Franz?’ Shelby said quietly, looking slightly worried.

Franz saw her expression and gave a quick nod before heading out of the room.

‘You OK, big guy?’ Shelby asked as the door hissed shut behind Franz.

‘No, not really,’ Wing replied.

‘What’s up?’ she asked, putting her arm around his shoulders.

‘I hate this,’ Wing replied, shaking his head and staring at the floor. ‘Hard as it was when Otto told us that he had been expelled from H.I.V.E., at least we had the consolation of knowing that he would not be in any further danger. But this,’ he gestured towards the text on the screen across the room, ‘knowing what he’s doing out there makes being stuck here unable to help worse. Otto is more than just my friend, Shelby, he is my brother and I cannot stand the thought of him risking his life trying to find Laura, Nigel and the others without my . . . without our help.’ He let out a long sigh.

‘Hey, it’s OK,’ Shelby said, hugging him. ‘I understand, you know. You think there’s an hour that goes by without me thinking about Laura? Wondering if she or Nigel are still alive? What Furan did to us . . . it hurts, but we can’t . . . we mustn’t give up hope.’

‘I know that, but I just want to help somehow. I’m sick of sitting here, not knowing what’s happening. I thought that knowing what progress was being made to find the others would help, but it doesn’t. If anything, it just makes it harder.’

‘Well,’ Shelby said with a crooked smile, ‘look at it this way. If you’re a member of the Disciples right now, you have Otto tracking you down and Raven coming after you when he does.’

‘Actually,’ Wing said, ‘when you put it like that, I almost . . .
almost
. . . feel sorry for them.’

Furan slowly flexed her hand in front of her, examining the silver metal that was now fused with her flesh and bone. The procedure had been quick, but excruciating, just as she had been warned it would be. It didn’t matter, she had experienced worse.

‘Mobility seems good,’ Dr Ross said, examining the screens nearby. ‘You should find that your grip strength is actually higher than it was before your injury.’

‘Excellent work, Doctor,’ Furan said, ‘thank you. Now if there is nothing else I have pressing matters to attend to.’

‘No,’ Ross replied, ‘just let me know if you experience any problems with fine motor control.’

Furan nodded and walked out of the room and into the main laboratory area. She headed towards the rear of the room and examined the large Plexiglas cube. The robotic arm was now immobile, folded into its rest position, and the vapour that had previously filled the room was gone, revealing the empty metal table bolted to the floor in its centre. Furan heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Dr Klein approaching, looking tired but satisfied.

‘I assume the prototype is in transit?’ Furan asked, glancing over her shoulder at the empty cube.

‘Yes,’ Klein replied, ‘the transport left over an hour ago. It should be at the target area in less than three hours.’

‘Good,’ Furan replied, ‘and the kill-switch is armed? I want to be able to destroy it if we lose control for any reason.’

‘Of course,’ Klein replied, ‘armed and keyed to your biometric data as requested. Let’s hope that we don’t have to use it though.’

‘Indeed, Doctor, let us hope not, for your sake.’

Klein swallowed nervously.

‘Assuming that this trial goes as planned you may begin the transfer of your equipment and staff over to the main facility,’ Furan said. ‘If the prototype is a success, I see no reason to delay Absalom any further.’

‘As you wish,’ Klein replied with a nod. ‘I shall make the necessary preparations immediately.’

‘Otto,’ Raven said, shaking him gently by the shoulder. ‘Otto, wake up.’

Otto groaned softly and then opened his eyes. He had a slight headache and his mouth was dry, but other than that he didn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects from whatever drug it was that they had been forced to take.

‘Can anyone tell me what exactly would have been wrong with a good old-fashioned blindfold?’ Otto asked.

He sat up and took in his surroundings. He was sitting on a battered leather couch that was on one side of an enormous red-brick structure like a warehouse. The walls of the vast space were covered in hundreds of architectural drawings and technical diagrams. On every flat surface were scale models of buildings, or pieces of machinery. Otto spotted one model that was suspended in mid-air and realised that he had seen it before. He got up and walked towards the dangling miniature and inspected it more closely.

‘This is the orbital platform that Number One . . . that Overlord took me and Nero to,’ Otto said, eyes wide.

‘Orbital platform?’ a voice behind Otto said. ‘Call it what it is, boy, a space station.’

Otto turned to see an old man with a cane walking towards him. He had long white hair tied back in a ponytail and a neatly trimmed but full beard and piercing blue eyes. It was hard to tell his precise age, but he was clearly very old, though any physical infirmity that age had brought did not extend to the fire of intelligence that Otto could see dancing behind his eyes.

‘A space station, yeah, sorry,’ Otto said.

‘That’s the problem with villains these days – always afraid to do something with a bit of imagination. Everything has to be
grounded in reality
, no ambition, I tell you. One of your lot,’ he gestured at Darkdoom with his cane, ‘even told me last year that he didn’t want an undersea base because it was . . . and I quote . . . unrealistic. Unrealistic! I told him that if he wanted realism he should have hired Norman bloody Foster. No imagination.’

The old man stood next to Otto and pointed up at the model of Overlord’s space station with his cane.

‘One of my most challenging projects actually,’ the man said. ‘The design wasn’t that hard, but getting an orbital construction crew together was murder. Zero G construction isn’t something that it’s easy to get a lot of experience in. Thank God for the collapse of the Russian space programme, that’s all I can say. Shame you had to go and destroy it, young man, but that’s the way with these things, I suppose. Tell me though – did it explode well? It’s very important that a villain’s base should explode well, that’s the main thing.’

‘Erm . . . spectacularly well,’ Otto replied, looking slightly bewildered.

‘Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know all about you, Mr Malpense,’ the man said. ‘Quite the reputation you’ve made for yourself over the past couple of years. You just keep blowing up those bases, young man. It keeps me in work. Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. I’m the Architect, which is a slightly pompous title that gives me a bit of dramatic mystique, so you can call me Nathaniel.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Otto said, still somewhat taken aback.

‘And you,’ Nathaniel said, pointing his cane at her, ‘must be the infamous Raven. You don’t look so frightening to me, quite attractive actually. If only I was a half-century younger, eh?’ He gave her a knowing wink and Otto only realised later that it was the first time he’d ever seen Raven blush.

‘You may not have realised it at the time, my dear, but you actually did me a favour a while ago when you killed that hack Nazim Khan,’ Nathaniel said, patting Raven on the shoulder. ‘Tried to set himself up as competition, built a couple of bases. Total amateur.’

‘Actually Sebastian Trent killed him,’ Raven replied, ‘to stop him telling me where the secret facility he had built for him was.’

‘Never did like that Trent fellow,’ Nathaniel said, shaking his head dismissively. ‘Don’t approve of that whole being a villain but pretending to be one of the good guys thing. Doesn’t sit right with me. That’s why I refused to build his base for him. That and the fact that he wanted to hide it behind a waterfall. I mean, honestly, what a lack of imagination. I blame video games.’

‘Hello, Nathaniel,’ Darkdoom said, a broad smile on his face. ‘It’s good to see you again, old friend.’

‘And you too, Diabolus,’ Nathaniel said, smiling back at him. ‘Lost all the hair now, I see. Not to worry, bald villains never go out of fashion.’ He turned back to Otto. ‘Now Diabolus here is a villain after my own heart, my boy, bit of style. You won’t find many better role models these days.’

‘Thank you, Nathaniel,’ Darkdoom said, ‘but we do have pressing business we need to discuss.’

‘We can discuss it over dinner,’ Nathaniel said, ‘like civilised human beings. I’ll speak to Gretchen and see what she could rustle up. Wonderful girl, very bright, don’t know what I’d do without her really.’

With that he turned and walked out of the room, leaving Otto, Darkdoom and Raven feeling like they’d just been the victims of a charming, if slightly rude, whirlwind.

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Raven said quietly as she watched him leave.

‘Well, we’re going to have make time,’ Darkdoom replied, ‘because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about him over the years it’s that he can be as stubborn as a mule if he wants to be. We can’t rush this. If he decides he’s not going to help us then we may never find whatever rock Furan has crawled under.’

Otto walked over to the far side of the room and examined some of the pictures on the wall. Some of the blueprints were forty years old.

‘I’m assuming you know exactly where we are,’ Otto said quietly.

Oh yes
, H.I.V.E.mind replied inside his head,
and I think you might be surprised to hear what was discussed while you were unconscious. It was really quite interesting.

‘Tell me everything,’ Otto whispered with a smile.