Chapter 14: Live and Let Spy.
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Chloe, Max, Josh, Janice and the husky had squeezed into a car and were speeding towards London. They were going to a special place for lost dead people. Every now and then someone was recorded as being dead without a body being present. It could be a soldier missing in action, an old man falling down a well or a little child, becoming lost. Sometimes but not always they stayed lost, even if they were found. This was one of those times. There is a place in London with no particular address that houses the lost children called Exploratores which meant spies in Latin but Max called them the lost boys. It was a fitting name as it was mainly boys who agreed to be trained as spies. There are spies and intelligence agencies around the world but there are very few that have agents who are not known to their enemies. Max knew that the easiest way to examine everyone without suspicion was to induct them into MI6. Who in the world has got a dog on their spy team; he reasoned. This brought him to his next problem. He needed to discover what the public had been told about the forty or so people who had died. He would find out soon enough. In the meantime he had agents charged with removing the machines and transporting them to London. Something bothered Max: the technology the machines used seemed far more futuristic than he could have imagined. Once a year He was, of course, trained in any technological breakthroughs and MI6 were kept informed of all new developments as a matter of course. He knew that any steps forward were always global. No country was going to complain about breaches to patents when it came to spying. The machine technology however was brand-new and the integrated circuits and superfast semiconductors they used weren't everyday technology. The team checking the machines would correlate information and come to their conclusions hopefully within a week. Max had phoned his boss and been told to take everyone to Exploratores for induction as he had thought.
The drive didn't take long. It was straight down the M1 onto the North circular through London and then into an underground lair that seemed to go down and down for miles. Josh thought that they must be below the underground stations or on a similar level. It must have been built years before when the underground was being developed, the builders seizing the opportunity to create an even layer that know one knew about.
Max thought through what he was going to say before he started to explain where they were and what they were doing. He explained that their length of stay at the MI6 training facility zero, zero one was not determined by MI6 but by the people who went through it. If they felt they needed training or instruction in any area they were entitled to go and get it. If they felt the need to fly a Harrier jump jet then they would be trained for the Harrier jump jet. However they would be expected to give exemplary performances in the field and risk their own lives, even to give it all up for their country.
“While you're here,” Max continued, “ you will learn to excel in a minimum of four basic areas The first is in developing skills at arms: basic weapon craft including gaining expertise in using British Army and police force weapons such as pistols, submachine guns and rifles as well as self defence and unarmed combat. The next main category is to understand world politics and social change,” he continued, “you may think is silly but if you find yourself in the wrong country at the wrong time you could wind up dead. There is an espionage aspect to this course but the thing that makes it interesting is to look objectively at the espionage methods, training and equipment of major countries. The training school offers fitness and health training to keep its agents in tiptop condition. You’ll learn survival in a variety of environments; desert, forest and meadow and finally jungle fitness. The last main section of training will be in technology. This explains all the spying kits ever used right up to the latest and most modern developments in espionage such as microwave guns. These are flawed because nobody has them, not even terrorists, so they would be an obvious giveaway for a spy.”
Josh looked excited but Max could see that under his buoyant exterior he was also feeling worried. He explained that they would all be tested to see what they knew already before training began and that their physical and mental fitness would be checked so that they had a benchmark to work from. Just as he finished speaking the car drew to a halt and Max opened the doors letting everyone out. The husky jumped down and immediately brushed up against Chloe.
"Maddy wants to know what you are going to do with her," Chloe translated.
"She’ll have the same training as everybody else, with a few obvious exceptions." Max smiled.
"What about our families?" Josh asked.
"We’re going to take care of the evil ones. While your families don't know about you they're not at risk." Max could see that this was not the answer Josh had wanted.
Chloe, head to one side, looked lost in thought. After a moment she stood up straight and looked at Josh before gently stroking Maddy. Her eyes told them that no one they knew would be hurt. Chloe still retained memories from her host and the feelings that went with them. Reassured, Josh took in his surroundings. They were in a large underground garage containing several hundred cars. Max led them over to a door with a flashing scanner mounted at eye level. Max looked straight at the scanner, allowing it to read his iris before a hand shaped reader slid from the frame. Max put his hand down, carefully ensuring his digits were on the metal marks. “Just taking my thumb reading and a DNA sample,” Max told his curious companions as a slim needle pricked his finger. Five minutes later the door slid silently open.
"You’re stuffed if you want to get in quickly," Josh remarked rather sarcastically.
"You should never enter a base whilst being pursued or followed," Max explained.
Josh was quite excited by the prospect of training to be a spy, of doing what his dad had done. He took in as much of his surroundings as he could as they walked through the open door into a large square expanse with doors strangely positioned in all corners. He saw a rifle range to his right full of people firing silenced guns. Josh recognised the guns as MP fives. The shooters were of all ages. There was a grandmotherly looking woman at one end and a small child of about eleven years old in the firing stall next to her. On the left-hand side a large wall was covered in gadgets. A sign above them showed the history of their use in the espionage game. A small room was built into the corner with a blast shield covering the front entrance and a large extractor fan above it. The door had a huge indentation. Adjacent to this on the other wall was a cafeteria full of a mix of all sorts of interesting looking people. Max led along them to their right, alongside the firing range and through a set of double doors. Josh felt they had been walking for a very very long time. His legs were killing, muscles screaming, hurting because they hadn't been used for a while. He could see from Chloe’s expression that she felt much the same. The corridor curved around and seemed to go on forever.
"How much further?” asked Chloe “My legs hurt."
"We’re here,” Max had stopped in front of a huge slab of rock, “this is the medical lab," he explained as he pressed a button and was scanned again. They could barely see the door. The corridor had been channeled from solid rock and the door had, in a rather gimmicky way, been concealed. Max explained that this was just for fun and that students tended to do things like this. Max was trying to hide that he too was a little puffed from the walk as they entered the room and were greeted by the medical team including doctors and a vet who had been waiting to examine them. The walk to the medical laboratory was designed to challenge fitness and to give the examiners an accurate reading of their blood pressures. The medicals were extreme. Max had one, much to his discomfiture, as he had lost fitness. They gave blood and urine and were in return given x-rays and MRI scans. Of course, they checked the scanners weren't connected to any other systems and, to Josh’s amazement; apparently they weren't on the Internet down there either. It was all part of being super secretive. Josh was apprehensive about being scanned again and of the life forces of Chloe, Maddy and Janice being assessed. No-one had managed to assess
any of the living subjects who contained contagions before and the results would take a while to compile. Max couldn’t wait to see what they found there. Finally they were allowed a break and Max led them all to the food court where they obviously drew a lot of attention due to the amount the girls ate. People surreptitiously glanced at their table in awe as they ploughed through three starters and six main courses each before starting on the dessert trolley. Max finished his meal quickly as his boss came over. The slight dark haired man with serious intelligent eyes introduced himself as Reginald Fuller before whisking him away. Reginald pulled him over to the firing range out of earshot of the others
"We have some very interesting results from the scans," Reginald explained.
"What have you found?" Max asked.
"Chloe and the husky don't have the fibrous network that we found in the others," Reginald explained.
"But we knew Chloe wasn't the same as Janice’s people," Max was puzzled.
"There’s something else,” explained Reginald “The fibrous network is a change in the persons DNA, not a growth,".
"What about Chloe then?" Max asked.
"Chloe's brain has been altered and she’s using a massive amount of it. We’re guessing maybe as much as 50%. This is where Chloe's contagion, let's say, lives," Reginald cut his explanation short as he saw the others watching them. He was feeling paranoid. They knew so little of the capabilities of the strange women that he wondered if they actually could lip read from fifty metres away.
"Right, finish their induction but keep an eye on them. I'll talk to you later," he said abruptly, turning away from Max before making eye contact with the range instructor. He stopped to exchange a word with him before leaving the huge room.
The instructor approached Max. "Sir, your party is ready I believe."
"Yes, I believe they are," replied Max, looking over to the canteen as he gestured for the others to join him. Josh came straight over while the girls and dog quickly polished off the remnants of their huge meal before they hurried over to Max. There were ten firing points in the range which appeared to be about a hundred meters long with targets of varying sizes going down the length. The instructor asked them to demonstrate their abilities, if any, with the weapons which lay before him on the table. Josh looked at the options. There were pistols, machine guns, shotguns and rifles. Janice was the first to pick up a gun. She picked the Browning 9 mm pistol. She loaded pistol with clear expertise and turned to the range firing point. She hit the target repeatedly in the bull's-eye with no problem at all and put one in the paper targets head. She returned and repeated the process with every weapon on the table. Everyone looked really shocked.
This instructor was longing to ask Janice where she learnt how to shoot so well but he knew he wasn't at liberty to ask so instead asked if anyone else had any gun skills. Chloe explained she knew how to shoot all those weapons and more but that she never tried. She asked if she could have a go and looked really excited when the instructor gave her permission. She immediately picked up the Browning 9 mm and went to a different firing point with fresh targets. Chloe fired off her rounds. She seemed to be flinching with every shot she fired but was smiling and clearly enjoying trying a completely new thing. She pulled in the target to demonstrate her handiwork. There was just one bullet hole in the whole target. The Instructor was pleased that he could at least teach this pupil and commented that she had the theory and could load her weapon but he could teach how to shoot more accurately as she had only the target once. Chloe looked disturbed and annoyed with instructor. She insisted that she was a perfect shot and that she would do it again. She reset the targets on the range and put ten bullets in the Browning. With a look of intense concentration Chloe sprinted ran along the range, holding the Browning with one hand, and popped a round off at each station. The instructor walked along with his mouth hanging open. She had hit the bull's-eye on every target. Josh, of course, explained that he couldn't shoot to save his life, but, he smiled, that's why he had bodyguards. The instructor showed him how to safely load, fire and shoot the pistol. Josh enjoyed it and managed to hit the target with no problems, but he wasn't scoring bull's-eyes. It didn't matter to him as he could now defend himself. Pistol practice over, they returned to their interrupted meal for coffee and desserts. Max handed them tablets loaded with political questionnaires and assessments to look out while they finished their drinks. The assessments were scheduled to last for two hours and then it would be time to find quarters and obtain passwords to access the systems. The girls took the tablets, Maddy holding hers gently in her mouth before placing it on the floor in front of her. Instantly their questionnaires were complete, totally aced of course. This gave Max an idea. He made a phone call and set his team working on a list of questions, technological and anthropological, that the girls could answer. It would save a lot of time and they had shown they had the ability to enter answers in an instant. After several coffees and chocolate muffins Josh finished the boring questionnaire and Max took them through the door on the left. They hadn’t been there up to now and saw there were another three doors. One door was labeled as the Barracks and there was quite a bit of traffic going in and out. Max took them through the second door which was marked as Registration. Their pictures were taken, their eyes scanned and their DNA profiled. Alternative recognition passwords with security access level limitations were set. They were given a level V, which was enough to get them in and out of the building. Level four was allocated to regular employees, level III to supervisors and level II to those working in internal intelligence. Only six people held a level I; one was the Prime Minister, the other five people were those stationed just below her. This process took time and when their security ratings were finally set it was getting late. Max found them each a room and issued them with tablets to use to order appropriate clothing for themselves. The night shift would go shopping for them and everything they wanted would be provided.