The Weapon (The Hourglass Series Book 2) (13 page)

Lieutenant
Wong pulled up the vehicle outside a deserted building. It was on the very edge
of town, situated flush against the town wall. Unlike most towns, which were
usually crammed full of people in even the most remote corners, there was only
a small amount of activity occurring along the wall edge.

“Move
it,” ordered Lieutenant Wong as he jumped out of the car.

They
all climbed out after him. The building was square, two stories high and made
of concrete. The entrance had large dirty glass panes on either side of the
main door, boarded up against intruders. Lieutenant Wong turned the doorknob;
it was unlocked. He pushed it but it stuck a quarter of the way open, so he
shoved his shoulder into it, forcing it the rest of the way. A plume of dust
was kicked up at their entrance, making them cough. It smelt like mould had
crept into the building. Sarah blinked as she went inside, her eyes adjusting
from the glare outside to the gloom inside. In front of them was a large
reception desk. It would have looked impressive in its day, Sarah thought, all
gleaming metal and tiles. Now it looked stained and a little creepy. Lieutenant
Wong walked past it without a second glance and strode with purpose to one of
the doors on either side of the desk.

“This
way, Sir,” he said to the Captain.

“How
does he know where to go?” asked Clara.

“Because
he used to work here,” said the Captain. “He was a mechanic. He used to
maintain the machines. It’s why I promoted him.” The Captain looked a little
smug as followed Lieutenant Wong. He grabbed Sarah’s arm. “We wouldn’t want you
slipping away now, would we?” he asked her.

Sarah
didn’t deign to reply. The Captain scowled and then signalled with his head for
Finn and Boulder to go ahead of him. “You too, boys.” They all passed through
the door, but Lieutenant Wong was nowhere to be seen. The Captain stopped,
holding Sarah in place. Finn and Boulder hovered uncertainly in front of them.

“Lieutenant?”
called the Captain. They were in a short corridor, with three doors lining both
sides and a door at the end. Two of the doors had fallen completely off their
hinges. Suddenly the form of a man erupted from one of the broken doors,
landing against the wall near Sarah. She jumped backwards, startled. The man
lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, his long coat dirty and threadbare. His
hair was straggly and unkempt. A small trickle of blood was trailing down his
head from where he had collided with the wall. Sarah thought he was dead until
she made out that his thin chest still rose and fell as he breathed. She tore
her gaze upwards as Lieutenant Wong strode out of the room the man had come
from, dusting off his hands.

“Squatter,”
explained Lieutenant Wong. “He wouldn’t leave voluntarily.”

The
Captain nodded and stepped over the man. Sarah had bent down towards the
squatter but the Captain pulled her upwards and forwards, after Lieutenant Wong
who was now heading towards the door on the far end. Sarah twisted around to
find Clara behind her. Clara had knelt down next to the man and was rummaging
in her bag. Sarah hoped that she was trying to find a bandage.

Lieutenant
Wong quickly poked his head through each door before they got to the end.

“The
offices,” he explained. “They’ve been completely stripped though. We won’t find
anything there.” Finally he reached the end door, pushing it open. It swung
easily on its hinges. They followed Lieutenant Wong through to a huge room with
high ceilings and high set windows, from which filtered dusty streams of light.
Lining the room were work benches. There were pieces of rusted, abandoned
equipment scattered haphazardly around the room. Occasional scraps of plastic
and paper littered the floor. A thick layer of dust lay over everything. Lieutenant
Wong strode forward, doing a quick sweep of the room, making sure it was empty
of any more uninvited guests. He got to the door at the far end and gave it a
heavy tug. It was locked tight.  It was the only other exit from the room.

“Well?”
the Captain asked, giving Sarah’s arm a little shake.

Sarah
shook her head in the negative. Nothing about this was even the slightest bit
familiar.

The
Captain let go of her arm and gave her a little shove forward. He stayed next
to the door, blocking their only way out. “Go have a look around. Something
will jog your memory.”
Sarah stumbled forward slowly. She took her time as she circled the room,
making sure that she walked up and down each bench, touching any remaining
equipment. She felt the gaze of the Captain on her the whole way. The feeling
of lead in her stomach grew as she made her way across the room. None of this
was familiar. What was he going to do when she couldn’t tell him anything?
Would he just kill her? Would he hurt the boys? She passed Lieutenant Wong
staring off at a bulky machine with a small frown across his face. He didn’t
even glance at her as she passed. Finally, sensing that if she wasted any more
time the Captain was going to snap in any case, she turned to face him.

“I’m
sorry, but I don’t know. None of this is familiar. I don’t know what you want
me to do. And how do you know that they don’t just move every two weeks or
something? They could be anywhere!”

“It
would be too disruptive to their work. They would have found one place that
works and stayed there,” he said dismissively. “Think harder,” he ordered.

Sarah
took another look at the room, but only because she could think of nothing else
to do.

“I’m
sorry,” she repeated. “I can’t remember whatever it is you want.” The Captain’s
hand slowly travelled down to his revolver. Finn and Boulder took a wary step
away from him. “I would tell you,” said Sarah earnestly, begging him to believe
her. “If any of this triggered even the smallest memory you would be the first
to know. I don’t know these Hourglass people. If they killed a woman, I don’t
know why I should try and protect them either. I have nothing to hide.” The
Captain stared at her, holding her gaze.

“Captain,”
interrupted Lieutenant Wong, “I might have found something.”

The
Captain’s hand dropped back down and he hurried over to Lieutenant Wong’s side.
“You,” he ordered Sarah, “come here.”

Sarah
followed him over to where Lieutenant Wong was. He was crouched next to the bulky
machine she had seen him staring at earlier.

Lieutenant
Wong turned to face them. “This was one of the machines I used to run
maintenance on,” he explained. “The scientists used it all the time. It helped
them analyse their data.”

“And?”
prompted the Captain, trying to get him to the point.

“And
wherever they went, they probably needed another one of these. It’s a big
machine, too bulky and big to have moved in a rush. Nah, they would have had to
relocate somewhere where they had access to another one.”

“There
are probably thousands of these things out there,” said the Captain dubiously.

Lieutenant
Wong shook his head, smiling. “That’s the thing. This beast used to break down
all the time, pissing the scientists off to no end. This meant that I got to know
every dealer, supplier and other in-use machines in the surrounding area. There
aren’t as many of them as you would think.”

“So
you think you know where they would have gone?” asked the Captain, a note of
excitement creeping into his voice.

Lieutenant
Wong nodded. “I could wager a good guess. There’s another Hourglass facility a
few hundred kilometres west of here. Most people don’t know about it because it
was abandoned about eight years before this one was, in favour of a newer lab.
They did the same thing as these people and left this machine behind. I was
going to go out one day and strip it down for spare parts, but never got around
to it. Good thing, right?” Lieutenant Wong grinned.

The
Captain slapped his in a friendly way on the shoulder. “I knew you would earn
your promotion,” he said.

“Alright,
let’s move,” he ordered the room. “Better luck next time, yes?” he said to
Sarah, his eyebrows raised. Sarah nodded. What else could she do?

The
jeep had remained untouched while they were inside and was therefore still
waiting for them as they came out of the building. Clara sped up her pace a
little and jumped into the driver’s seat before Lieutenant Wong could. Lieutenant
Wong laughed.

“Get
out.”

“No
way, I’m driving.”

“Really?”
he replied disbelievingly. “Do you even know how?”

This
was a fair question, even if it did have the effect of Clara scowling at him.
As most people lived in overcrowded cities where there was no room for personal
cars, hardly anyone could drive.

“Who
was it who piloted the boat for three days straight without misshape? And who
rescued you all from that city? Me, that’s who. I’m driving.”

Lieutenant
Wong looked towards the Captain for back-up. The Captain shrugged, unbothered.

“Let
her drive.”

“Sir,”
acknowledged Lieutenant Wong, but under his breath, just audible to Clara and
Sara, who were closest, was “you’ll regret this.”

The
Captain definitely regretted it. Clara drove like a madman. Sarah was confident
that they were going to die on at least three separate occasions. When it
finally got too dark for them to drive any further on the dangerous roads, the
Captain ordered her to pull over. Everyone piled out of the car quickly,
instinctively trying to get as far away from it as possible. Clara, who had
just had the time of her life and was now seriously considering a career as a
pro-driver, beamed at them all uncomprehendingly. After taking a moment to
appreciate solid ground beneath her feet, Sarah glanced around. They were in
the middle of nowhere. All she could see was long, dry grass for miles. One or
two trees and the remaining two walls of a collapsed building just off the road
was all that broke up the monotony.

“Alright,”
said the Captain, “set-up camp over there.” He pointed to the destroyed building.

Clara,
who had jumped back into the jeep and was sorting through the bags, threw two
of the bags towards Finn, Boulder and Sarah before jumping down from the truck
with a third bag over her shoulder.

“Those
contain sleeping bags and cooking utensils,” she said. “I’ve got the food.”

The
food turned out to be protein bars and cubes of rice that could be cooked in
two minutes in boiling water. As the four of them set up camp and prepared
dinner, the Captain and Lieutenant stayed over near the jeep, poring over maps
and muttering to each other.

“What
do you think they’re talking about?” asked Sarah. “Surely they would have
plotted the route by now?”

“They're
probably working out the minutiae of their evil plan. Maybe trying to calculate
if they have time to fit in a few innocent deaths along the way,” replied Finn
sarcastically.

“Hey!”
cried Clara indignantly, “they’re not evil! They’re trying to end the war.”

“They’re
trying to destroy the other side,” said Finn. “There’s a difference. They also
kidnapped us and are constantly threatening to harm us if Sarah doesn’t perform
like some magical divining stick, which apparently everyone else here is ok
with.”

Clara
looked strained. “Ok,” she finally muttered, making sure that the Captain and Lieutenant
Wong couldn’t hear her, “so maybe that part is not ok, but they’re looking at
the bigger picture. And they haven’t actually hurt any of you yet. They’re
trying to do good.”

“Yeah
well it’s a blood funny way to show it,” replied Finn, entirely unconvinced.

Clara
didn’t reply, instead she turned on her heels and walked over to the small
outdoor kitchen they had set up ten metres away. She started pulling out the
rice cubes in a determined way.

“Finally,”
muttered Boulder. He turned to face the others, first checking that the Captain
and Lieutenant were still out of earshot. “I’m making a run for it tonight,” he
said. “You bugger can come or stay. Either way, I’m going.”

Sarah
nodded. “Yup,” she agreed, “we’ve got to take every opportunity we can to get
out of here. I’m not coming up with the goods, and even if I did I doubt they’d
want to keep us around afterwards. We need to run.”

Boulder
gaped at her, surprised. “Oh. Kind of through that there would be some internal
struggle ending in you two kissing or something.”

“You’re
an idiot,” said Finn. “Which way should we go?”

“Not
across the fields, it’ll make too much noise. There’s too much crap underfoot,”
said Boulder. “We head back down the road, at least until we get out of
eyesight and earshot.”

“Agreed,”
said Sarah.

“Now
we just have to hope they all sleep soundly.”

“It’s
a pity we’re not cooking, we could have drugged the food,” said Finn wistfully.

“We’d
need drugs first,” pointed out Sarah.

“Don’t
ruin my fantasy!”

Sarah
rolled her eyes in response. “We’ll wait until we’re sure they’re asleep,” she
said more seriously, “and then twenty minutes more. Then we sneak out. Agreed?”

The
others nodded.

Sarah
felt her stomach flip over. They had a plan. A terrible, incomplete plan, but a
plan nonetheless.

Dinner
was a fairly silent affair, and as the light was attracting bugs they packed up
fairly quickly after eating and went to bed. For Sarah it seemed like it took
hours for the Captain, Lieutenant and Clara to fall asleep. Despite this, and
that she was tense and on-edge, she could still feel her eyelids closing
against her will. It turns out that getting threatened and forced to remember
something that she couldn’t was exhausting. Without even realising it, she fell
sleep.