Aftershock (7 page)

Raven watched from the monitoring station in the belly of the Shroud as retrieval teams all around the world provided constant status updates on their operations. She was not the sort of person to suffer from stress but this was the one occasion every year which, she conceded, she found slightly worrying. Part of it was that there was no way that she could be there for each retrieval operation personally but the other part was that she knew how important it was to Nero that every one of these children be retrieved successfully. She had stopped worrying about the rights and wrongs of recruiting H.I.V.E.’s new students in this way many years ago. They were being saved from lives of mediocrity and being given the sort of opportunity that would change their lives for the better for ever. Besides which, all of them had done something to earn their place at H.I.V.E. None of them were angels.

She continued to scan the reports coming in. She wasn’t worried about the legacy student retrievals. They were simple since they occurred with the full knowledge of the parents or guardians of the children involved. No, the tricky ones were the other students, the children who had earned their place through merit, if that was really the right word under the circumstances. Those were the operations that Raven watched most closely.

‘Team nine, retrieval complete,’ a voice crackled over the comms system. Team nine, Brazilian girl, ran a team of pickpockets in the favela. Exceptional leadership skills, master of stealth and evasion, highly adept thief. Alpha stream candidate.

‘Team seventeen, retrieval complete,’ another voice reported. Team seventeen, American boy, son of a wealthy banker. Siphoned nearly a million dollars from the accounts of his father and his golf club buddies by cloning their credit cards while they were out on the fairways. Politics and Finance stream candidate.

‘Team twenty-nine, retrieval complete.’ Russian boy, assassin for the mob. Used age as cover to get close to targets. Highly skilled with pistols and knives. Henchman stream candidate. That was one she’d been worried about.

And so the reports continued to roll in. No problems so far but there was plenty of time yet.

‘We’re over the target area,’ a voice in her earpiece said.

‘Roger that,’ Raven replied, pulling the black mask over her head. The black lenses activated, giving her perfect twenty-twenty, full-colour night vision. She walked towards the rear of the passenger compartment and checked her equipment rig one last time. Satisfied that everything was in place she slapped the hatch release and stepped out on to the ramp. The ground was only a couple of metres below and she jumped down and landed silently.

‘Raven down,’ she reported. ‘Clear and stay on station.’

‘Roger,’ the pilot of the Shroud replied as the hatch whirred shut and the Shroud climbed silently to a holding altitude.

Raven checked her surroundings. The surveillance team had reported that her targets had entered the underground parking garage just a few minutes earlier. Targets, plural – that was why she was here. Double retrievals were unusual and difficult. She ran down the ramp and scanned the garage, her lenses instantly adjusting to compensate for the fluorescent strip lighting overhead. She heard the roar of a powerful engine from one of the lower floors and flattened herself against one of the support columns next to the exit ramp. She peered round the column’s edge just in time to see an expensive Italian sports car power-sliding round the corner at the far end of the garage. Raven took a deep breath and stepped out into the middle of the exit ramp.

The driver of the car instinctively swerved to avoid the black-clad figure that suddenly stepped out into the road in front of him. As the car shot past her Raven’s swords flashed and the front right wheel disintegrated. The car went out of control and drove straight into another vehicle parked beside the ramp with a crunch. Both the air bags in the car deployed with a bang and Raven ran for the driver’s door, pulling the Sleeper pistol from the holster on her thigh. The driver was halfway out of the car when there was a zapping sound and the Sleeper’s neural shock pulse dropped him unconscious to the floor.

Raven moved quickly round the car and saw that the passenger door was already open. Suddenly a girl with bright pink hair popped up from behind the car that the sports car had driven into. There was something in her hand. Raven twisted instinctively as there was a popping sound and two darts, trailing wires, shot from the object the girl was holding. The darts struck Raven in the shoulder, triggering the taser’s massive electrical discharge, sending Raven to her knees. She cursed under her breath in Russian as she fought to stay conscious, reaching slowly for the two wires that trailed from the darts embedded in her skin. Fighting to control her convulsing muscles she took a firm hold of the wires, gritted her teeth and pulled. The young girl watched in wide-eyed astonishment as Raven threw the darts to the ground and slowly got to her feet.

‘That hurt,’ Raven said, raising the Sleeper.

chapter four

Otto sat down next to Laura, placing his tray on the table. She was reading a book filled with circuit diagrams and technical schematics.

‘Any good jokes in that?’ Otto asked with a smile.

‘Oh yeah,’ Laura replied. ‘Intercontinental ballistic missile guidance systems are a real laugh fest.’

‘I can imagine,’ Otto said, sticking a fork into the food on his plate. The dining room was bustling with lunchtime activity. All around them students from each of H.I.V.E.’s streams were eating and chatting. It was one of the few times that the streams mixed like this but even now most of the tables arranged around the giant cavern were occupied by groups from just one stream. Nearby a group of Henchman students in their distinctive blue jumpsuits were sitting round a table having a noisy argument about exactly who had achieved the most kills in their latest holographic combat training session. Next to them was a table filled with students from the Science and Technology stream who were having a much quieter discussion about the differing properties of various forms of thermal shielding for reactor cores. They all wore white jumpsuits and would occasionally glance nervously at the Henchman students at the next table. Otto didn’t blame them for feeling slightly uncomfortable. The members of the Henchman stream were notorious for their constant bullying of students from the other groups. They had an unpleasant habit of picking on the SciTech students in particular or as they called them, ‘the nerd stream’. Otto sometimes wondered why Dr Nero tolerated the aggressive behaviour of the Henchman students. He supposed there had to be a reason – with Nero there seemed to always be a reason for everything.

‘I’ve been thinking about our plan,’ Otto said quietly. ‘I think we should do it sooner rather than later. I’m getting nervous about the special attention we’re getting from Dekker.’

‘Aye,’ Laura replied, ‘I know what you mean. If we’re going to do this we’d better do it before she puts us all under lockdown.’

‘I’m thinking tomorrow night,’ Otto said. ‘Do you think you’ll have finished the new code for the device by then?’

‘There’s just a couple of bugs to be worked out,’ Laura replied, glancing around to make sure that they were not being eavesdropped on. ‘We can’t risk hooking it up until we’re one hundred per cent sure that Big Blue won’t feel it.’

Big Blue was Laura’s affectionate nickname for H.I.V.E.mind. He was much more than just a piece of software, acting as he did as a digital guardian, protecting and securing the entire school. He had also become a friend to Otto and the others, saving all of their lives on more than one occasion.

‘Yeah, well, we wouldn’t have to be bothering with all of this if he’d just been a little bit more cooperative,’ Otto said.

‘Oh, come on, Otto, you didn’t really expect him to just give you the exam papers because you asked him nicely, did you?’

‘It was worth a try. He still owes me,’ Otto replied.

‘You know he can’t ignore a direct command from Nero,’ Laura said. ‘It’s not his fault.’

‘I know,’ Otto said with a sigh. ‘Now we’re just going to have to do it the hard way.’

‘I think it’s been more fun this way actually,’ Laura replied with a smile. ‘I’ve really enjoyed us working on the device together. I mean . . . the intellectual challenge of it . . . you know.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ Otto said. ‘It’s been fun doing it the old-fashioned way.’

‘What do you mean
old fashioned
?’ Laura said with mock indignation. ‘I’ll have you know that this is cutting-edge stuff we’ve been working on.’

‘Cutting edge for
you
maybe . . .’ Otto said with a grin.

‘Right, that’s it, no more soldering for you, my boy,’ Laura said, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. ‘I’m revoking your tinkering privileges.’

‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ a voice with an American accent asked from behind Otto.

Otto turned round and saw a tall boy with neatly trimmed brown hair standing behind him. His grey jumpsuit marked him out as a student from the Politics and Finance stream and the pips in his collar indicated that he was in his fifth year at the H.I.V.E. Otto had seen him around on occasion but he had no idea who he was.

‘Hi,’ the boy said with a smile, extending his hand. ‘I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Cole Harrington and you must be the infamous Otto Malpense. Mind if I join you?’

‘Actually we were just having a conversation,’ Otto said, glancing back at Laura.

‘It’s fine,’ Laura said, putting her book in her backpack and picking up her lunch tray. ‘I need to go and do some revision anyway. I’ll catch up with you later, Otto.’ She glanced over at Harrington who was sitting down in the seat opposite Otto and raised a quizzical eyebrow as she left.

‘It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person,’ Harrington said, still smiling. ‘I’ve heard a lot of stories about you.’

‘Most of them not true, I’m sure,’ Otto replied. There were comparatively few people at H.I.V.E. who really knew the precise details of the incidents that Otto had been involved in since his arrival at H.I.V.E. and so the rumour mill had filled in the blanks with little regard for accuracy. If Otto had actually done half of the things that he was supposed to have done then he would have either been expelled or executed long before now. Although, in fairness, at H.I.V.E. they were often essentially the same thing.

‘Maybe, but my sources tell me that you’re still a very useful person to know,’ Cole said, ‘especially with the exams coming up, if you know what I mean.’

‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about,’ Otto said, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable.

‘Of course you don’t. Humour me for a moment though and just pretend that you do. Let’s just imagine that actually you have some sort of plan for getting hold of the exam questions. And then, having imagined that, let’s also imagine that there was someone who might be able to reward you handsomely for sharing that information with him. Can you imagine that, Otto?’

‘Oh, I have a very active imagination,’ Otto replied, ‘but what makes you think that I would be interested in sharing any such information with my new imaginary friend? It’s not like there’s anything he could offer that I really need. Not while I’m stuck here at least.’

‘That’s just where you’re wrong,’ Harrington said. ‘There are all sorts of ways that a person’s life at H.I.V.E. can be made easier.’ He paused for a moment, the previous friendly warmth in his expression suddenly vanishing, replaced by something much colder and harder. ‘Just as there are all sorts of ways that a person’s life at H.I.V.E. can be made much, much harder.’

‘Are you threatening me?’ Otto asked, looking Harrington straight in the eye.

‘Of course not,’ Harrington replied, the broad smile returning. ‘I’m just clarifying your options for you.’

‘Good,’ Otto replied, ‘because it would have been really,
really
stupid of you to threaten me.’

‘Is everything OK here?’ Wing asked as he approached the table and noticed the expression on Otto’s face.

‘Everything’s fine,’ Harrington said as he stood up. ‘We were just discussing a little business. Do let me know what you decide, Otto. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.’

‘Who was that?’ Wing asked as he watched Harrington walk away.

‘A future President of the United States,’ Otto replied with a frown, ‘and just possibly a really big problem.’