‘What the hell?’ Darkdoom said, stabbing quickly at the communications console on his desk, but it too was dead.
A sudden tiny flicker caught Raven’s eye, the briefest flash of bright red light flaring on the glass behind Darkdoom. She acted without hesitation, diving across Darkdoom’s desk and knocking him to one side as the window pane behind him exploded. Diabolus grunted as the bullet struck him just below the shoulder blade, exiting through the front of his chest and spraying Raven’s face with a fine mist of blood.
‘Sniper!’ Raven yelled at Nero. ‘Get down!’
Nero dived for cover just as another bullet tore into the seat behind him. Raven hooked her arms under Darkdoom’s shoulders and he gave a low moan of pain as she crawled towards the door, struggling to drag his limp body.
‘Get out of here!’ Raven yelled as a bullet struck the wall half a metre above her head.
‘Not without you,’ Nero said.
He crawled across the floor towards her and helped her drag Darkdoom the last few metres to the door. As Nero reached up and turned the door handle, another shot hit the door frame centimetres from his hand. Together he and Raven helped to haul Darkdoom out through the door just as a security guard came running down the corridor outside.
‘Darkdoom’s been hit,’ Nero yelled as the man in body armour approached.
‘We’ve lost the security system building-wide,’ the guard reported. ‘It just shut down. No warning.’
Nero had a horrible feeling that he knew what might have caused that to happen. ‘We have to get out of here NOW!’ he snapped. ‘Natalya, take point. You –’ he jabbed a finger at the guard – ‘help me with him.’
The guard helped Nero lift Darkdoom groaning to his feet, one of the injured man’s arms over each of their shoulders.
‘We need to get to the roof,’ Raven said, looking down the corridor.
‘The hangar bay is locked down,’ the guard replied. ‘The only way out is at ground level.’
The corridor was suddenly filled with a blood-red glow as the emergency lighting kicked in.
‘No, that’s where they want us,’ Raven said quickly. ‘We have to get to the Shroud.’
‘I just told you, it’s sealed tight,’ the guard said, looking confused. ‘We can’t get in.’
‘I’ll find a way,’ said Raven, drawing the crackling purple blades from the twin sheaths on her back. ‘Where are the stairs?’
‘That way,’ the guard said, pointing down the corridor.
They set off, Raven in the lead, Nero and the guard behind, carrying Darkdoom between them.
As they passed the elevators the guard noticed that the call buttons beside the doors were illuminated.
‘We can take the elevator,’ the guard said. ‘It’d be quicker.’
‘Trust me,’ Raven said, shaking her head slightly, ‘not a good idea.’
Otto walked into the security control centre on the ground floor of the building flanked by two men in full body armour and carrying assault rifles. Their chests displayed an image of an angel flying upwards with a sword held aloft in its outstretched hand. The symbol of H.O.P.E..
The leader of the three-man team that had gone into the room before them pushed the dead body of the G.L.O.V.E. security technician out of his chair in front of the numerous security monitors. Otto walked over, sat in the recently vacated seat and began to study the displays.
He could see G.L.O.V.E. security guards hurrying to their positions throughout the upper floors of the building, but they weren’t what he was looking for. He eventually spotted movement on a monitor in the upper left corner of the array and realised that he’d found his targets. Captured on the screen were several familiar faces. He reached for the transmit button on his comms unit and was about to relay the position of the fleeing group when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. He sucked a quick involuntary breath through his teeth as the pain intensified. He knew that he had to report the position of the targets, but something was stopping him from speaking. He fought against the block, knowing what he was supposed to do, but still he couldn’t speak. It was as if somewhere inside his head a tiny voice was screaming at him to ignore orders, to let them get away. He took a long deep breath and forced himself to focus. Then he pressed the button and spoke.
‘All units, targets are heading to the roof via the east stairwell.’
‘Roger that,’ Ghost’s voice said in his earpiece. ‘Moving to intercept.’
Raven looked down the gap between the guard rails around the concrete staircase as she heard the sound of raised voices from several floors below. Heavily armed men were pouring into the stairwell, a couple of them looking upwards to spot their fleeing quarry.
‘Keep moving,’ she hissed at Nero and the lone G.L.O.V.E. guard, who were struggling to carry their injured burden towards the door at the top of the stairs. As they approached the door Raven pushed past them and opened it, popping her head through the doorway to check that the corridor beyond was clear. Seeing nothing, she beckoned the other two forward.
‘Get to the hangar doors. I’ll be right behind you,’ she said quickly. As the door closed behind the two men she looked back down the stairwell. Their pursuers were now just a couple of floors below her. Too close. She detached one of the two small cylinders that were strapped to the tactical webbing on the left side of her chest, popped off the small protective cap with her thumb and pressed the stud on top. She waited for two interminable seconds and then dropped the metal tube, already turning to run as it tumbled through the seemingly bottomless void in the centre of the stairwell. As it passed the level of the pursuing H.O.P.E. assault team it detonated with an enormous bang and a bright white flash of light. The few men on the stairs who had been wearing night vision goggles were blinded instantly, perhaps permanently. The others were stunned by the concussive force of the explosion and sent reeling, their hands covering their damaged ears.
As Raven ran down the corridor towards the hangar doors she knew that she had only bought them thirty seconds, a minute at most. More worrying was the fact that Darkdoom was no longer even groaning. He had gone silent and his skin was pale and clammy. If they could get him to the Shroud she could try to stabilise him, but he was losing too much blood. She only needed to look at the crimson trail that he was leaving on the ground to see that.
They reached the heavy steel doors that sealed off the hangar, and Raven stabbed at the button that would normally open them, unsurprised by the lack of response. She hit the switch on the hilt of one of her swords and configured the variable geometry force field along its blade to the sharpest possible cutting edge. She pressed the tip of the blade to the cold metal of the door and pushed, the crackling point of the sword sinking into the toughened metal with ease. She pulled downwards firmly, the blade sliding through the steel with a hum, the metal of the door glowing white hot along the thin line she was carving. Raven finished the first cut and proceeded to make another one, forming a low rectangle. She pulled the sword out again, sliding it into the scabbard on her back, and gave the door a solid kick. The weakened section fell into the room beyond with a loud clang and Raven watched as Nero and the security guard carefully manoeuvred Darkdoom through. She glanced back down the corridor as she followed them and saw the H.O.P.E. assault team pouring out of the stairwell and into the corridor just thirty metres away.
‘Go! Get to the Shroud,’ she yelled to Nero, pulling the last flash-bang grenade from her harness and tossing it back through the hole in the door. She heard it detonate as she ran across the hangar towards the waiting Shroud, the drop ship’s engines spinning up with a high-pitched whine. Above her was nothing but the dark night sky; clearly whatever had disabled the security system had also deactivated the holographic field concealing the landing pad.
Suddenly a masked figure in gleaming white body armour dropped to the hangar floor from somewhere overhead, blocking Raven’s route to the Shroud.
‘Going somewhere?’ Ghost aske
d.
‘Yes, through you,’ Raven replied, drawing the twin swords from her back.
‘I’ve been waiting a long time for this,’ Ghost said.
Raven struck, aiming a sweeping blow at the other woman’s head, but Ghost blocked the blow with her forearm. The sword struck the armour plate with a crackle, but did no damage. Ghost struck back, the straight edge of her hand snaking out and hitting Raven in the wrist, paralysing her hand so that the sword dropped from her numb fingers. Ghost followed up with a flat-palmed blow to Raven’s chest that sent her staggering backwards. Raven fought to take a breath while ignoring the sharp pain. The last time she had been hit that hard and that fast had been when she’d been fighting Cypher’s robotic assassins.
‘I’m going to take you apart piece by piece,’ Ghost said. It was impossible to tell through her smooth white faceplate, but Raven felt sure that the other woman was smiling. Ghost flicked her wrists, and triangular black blades shot out from beneath the armour on her forearms.
Raven backed away. She could hear the rest of the H.O.P.E. soldiers pouring into the hangar somewhere behind her. Ghost raised a single hand, ordering them to hold position as she advanced towards Raven again. She struck impossibly quickly. Raven barely had time to raise a katana to block the killing blow aimed at her neck, deflecting Ghost’s wrist-blade just enough that it only opened a gash in her shoulder. Raven winced and struck back, but her blade bounced ineffectually off her opponent’s armoured chest plate.
‘You can’t win,’ Ghost said, and kicked at Raven’s thigh. Raven gasped in pain, dropping to one knee and raising her sword to block Ghost’s blade as it swung towards her again. Ghost pushed downwards, forcing Raven’s sparking blade back towards her own face. Raven pushed with all her strength, but the other woman was impossibly strong and she could feel the power draining from her arm as the blade moved closer and closer.
‘Hey!’
Raven glanced past Ghost and saw Nero standing at the bottom of the Shroud’s loading ramp, a large pistol levelled straight at Ghost. Raven felt the pressure on her sword ease the tiniest amount as Ghost turned her head to face the Shroud. Nero pulled the trigger and the flare gun fired, the hissing red ball of fire shooting across the hangar and striking Ghost’s faceplate. Ghost staggered backwards and Raven leapt to her feet, running for the drop ship.
‘Kill them!’ Ghost yelled at the H.O.P.E. assault team, her hands covering her face.
Raven ignored the bullets that whizzed past her as she raced up the ramp into the Shroud’s cargo bay.
‘GO!’ Nero yelled over his shoulder as he slapped at the button that closed the boarding ramp. Up on the flight deck the pilot maxed out the throttle, the Shroud’s engines roaring as it shot up out of the hangar.
Ghost watched from the hangar floor as the Shroud lifted up into the night sky.
‘Targets are in flight,’ she said calmly.
Otto looked up from the pavement outside the G.L.O.V.E. building, watching the Shroud climbing into the sky.
‘Now, Malpense,’ Trent’s voice crackled in his ear, ‘bring them down.’
Otto reached out with his senses, feeling for the flight control computers on board the fleeing aircraft. He could feel the systems he wanted, and he did not need long. He twitched his head slightly and the Shroud veered off course, straight towards a nearby building, its manual controls locked out and throttle jammed at full thrust.
The sudden pain in Otto’s head came from nowhere, a searing agony that broke his concentration and released the systems on board the Shroud. Otto dropped to his knees, screaming and clutching his head as black Animus fluid trickled from his nose. He gave one final gasp and then tipped forwards, hitting the pavement with a thud, unconscious.
On board the Shroud the pilot swore under his breath and wrenched at the controls, pulling on the joystick and banking the Shroud hard to the right. The left engine housing smashed through the plate glass of one of the corner offices in the building that they had been on a direct collision course with just seconds earlier, the Shroud bucking with the impact. The pilot fought to bring the aircraft back under control, levelling out and scanning his control panel for warning lights before steering towards clear sky and engaging the cloaking field with a relieved sigh.
‘What happened there?’ Nero asked as he climbed up to the flight deck.
‘I have no idea,’ the pilot said, his face a mix of confusion and relief. ‘I had a dead stick for a few seconds and we almost hit a building. I’ve never seen anything like it – it was like the damn thing was trying to crash itself.’
Nero thought back to the fate that had met Jonas Steiner’s private jet and realised he knew what might have caused that to happen.
‘Get us back to H.I.V.E. as fast as possible,’ he said. ‘We have to get Darkdoom to the medical facility.’ Nero knew that there were hospitals closer than H.I.V.E., but taking Darkdoom to one of them would be suicide. H.O.P.E. was sure to be watching and waiting for them to do exactly that.
‘ETA is just under two hours from now,’ the pilot said, ‘and that’s red-lining it all the way.’
‘Understood,’ Nero replied. He just prayed that would be fast enough.
He climbed back down into the Shroud’s passenger compartment where Raven was fighting to stabilise Darkdoom’s condition. Her hands were covered in blood and she was struggling to get an IV line into the wounded man’s arm.
‘Is he going to survive?’ Nero asked.
‘I’ve done all I can here,’ Raven replied, shaking her head slightly. ‘It doesn’t look good, Max.’
‘We’ll be back at H.I.V.E. in less than two hours,’ Nero said. ‘The medical team will be waiting on the pad.’
‘I’m not sure he has that long.’ She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood.’
‘He’s strong, Natalya,’ Nero said, placing a hand on her arm. ‘If anyone has the sheer will to survive, it’s him. How are you?’ Nero asked, gesturing at the deep gash in her shoulder.
‘I’ll live,’ Raven replied. ‘Whoever that woman was, she is as capable as anyone I’ve ever encountered. I don’t think I could have stopped her without your help. Her armour was immune to my blades and . . . well . . . I just wasn’t strong enough.’
‘You have been on a tough assignment for weeks and just survived an assassination attempt,’ Nero said, shaking his head. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘That is no excuse,’ Raven said, frowning. ‘Next time I will be better prepared.’
‘Regardless, that is not our most serious problem,’ Nero said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The failure of the security system, the hijacking of the Shroud’s flight control systems, the very fact that H.O.P.E. knew exactly when and where to hit us . . . I’m afraid it all points to one thing.’
‘Otto,’ Raven said quietly. ‘You think he was there.’
‘I’m sure of it,’ Nero said, sounding suddenly tired. ‘I’m afraid it just highlights what a danger to us he has become.’
‘It still does not justify what Diabolus did,’ Raven replied. ‘You know as well as I do that the order he gave cannot be countermanded. Every G.L.O.V.E. kill team on the planet will be looking for him now.’
‘Which is why we have to find him first,’ Nero said with a sigh.
.
Chapter Four
Laura stared at the display on the desk. Shelby had gone to bed an hour ago, but Laura knew she’d find it impossible to sleep with the mystery of what was causing the systems malfunctions rattling around inside her head. It made no sense that the network’s storage capacity was dropping but that no new data was taking up that space. She tapped at the keyboard, pulling up another screen of diagnostics. She knew that the strange events had started a few months ago, so she started to run a byte by byte comparison of all the files on the system from that approximate date forward. She was not surprised to find that many of the file sizes had chang
ed over that period, but suddenly something struck her as odd. Of the huge numbers of archived files that she did not have the right permissions to access, at least some were showing file size mismatches that made no sense. These were old files, files that had apparently not been called up in years, and yet some of them were showing tiny increases in size. These were the ones that caught her attention. All she could do was pull the dates on which they’d last been modified. Almost immediately she started to see a pattern emerge. The tiny increases in file size had happened at the exact same times as the system glitches. She checked again, wanting to be sure of what she’d found.
Laura got up and hit the button to leave the room, but the buzz from the door quickly reminded her that the accommodation blocks were in night-time lockdown. She pulled her Blackbox communicator from the pocket of her jumpsuit and placed a call to Professor Pike. The screen flashed the single word ‘connecting’ for a few seconds and then the Professor’s face appeared on the screen. From what she could see of the background, he was still in the computer core.
‘It’s very late, Miss Brand. I hope this is something important,’ the Professor said.
‘Aye, Professor, I think it might be,’ Laura said. ‘I think I know where our phantom data is hiding.’
The Shroud touched down in H.I.V.E.’s crater landing bay, and the medical team that had been waiting at the edge of the pad rushed forward as the engines spun to a halt. Nero hurried down the landing ramp at the rear of the aircraft and ushered the team inside. Barely a minute later the medics wheeled a gurney back down the ramp with Darkdoom’s pale, unconscious body on it. Dr Scott, H.I.V.E.’s chief medical officer, walked alongside the stretcher, looking at a portable screen which was displaying the wounded man’s vitals. Judging by his face, the doctor was not happy with what he saw.
‘Prep him for immediate surgery,’ he said.
Nero walked back down the Shroud’s ramp and watched the medical team leave, knowing that now was not the time to interfere.