Escape Velocity Page 4

  ‘What’s your point?’ Nero said wearily; he had long since grown tired of the smug note of triumph that always filled Trent’s voice.

  ‘My point, Nero, is that you’re dead, burnt, useless,’ Trent replied. ‘G.L.O.V.E. wouldn’t want you back now even if they could have you. All you have left is this place for the rest of your natural life and it is entirely up to me whether you spend it in comfort or discomfort.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time, Trent. There’s nothing you could do that would make me give you anything,’ Nero said quietly.

  ‘Come now, all I want you to tell me is what you know about the Renaissance Initiative.’ Trent’s eyes had a sudden predatory gleam to them. Nero fought to conceal his shock. Up until now the questioning that he had been subjected to had all revolved around his knowledge of G.L.O.V.E. personnel, operations and facilities. How could Trent possibly know about the Initiative? It was a secret that had been so thoroughly hidden from even the senior members of G.L.O.V.E. that Nero himself had taken months to find out just the barest scraps of information. The only other people he had ever discussed it with were Cypher, who was being held in the deepest, most secure vaults of H.I.V.E., and Gregori, who was dead. It was inconceivable that Trent even knew the name of this apparently most secret of projects.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Nero said firmly.

  ‘Oh, I think you do,’ Trent replied coldly, ‘and I think you’re going to tell me exactly who else knows about it, because if you don’t, then rest assured that the students at your ridiculous little school are going to pay the consequences.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nero said sharply. What could Trent possibly do to harm H.I.V.E.? Its location was one of the best kept secrets that G.L.O.V.E. had; there was no way that he could threaten the school, could he? Nero felt a sudden creeping sensation of dread.

  ‘I’ll let you think about your options for a while,’ Trent grinned, ‘but we’ll talk again soon.’

  With that he turned and walked out of the cell, the door slamming with a metallic clang.

  Nero’s mind raced. How could Trent know about the Initiative and not be privy to the rest of G.L.O.V.E.’s secrets? More to the point, why was he so keen to know who else knew about it? Surely he should be more interested in what it was and what he could do to stop it, the irony being of course that in that respect at least their goals would be the same. Unless . . . Suddenly the tumblers of the lock in Nero’s head all clicked into place. There was only one person who could possibly want that information specifically . . . only one person.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Nero whispered to himself.

  The Professor sat at Nero’s desk reviewing the reports from the teaching staff. The announcement at the assembly had not brought the wave of misbehaviour that they might have feared; in fact it seemed to have had quite the opposite effect. The staff were reporting that the students had appeared quieter and more withdrawn than usual, with many of the questions that the children had raised with their teachers more concerned with the ongoing security of the school than anything else.

  There was a buzz from the communications terminal mounted on the desk and the Professor hit a button, causing a small video screen to slide up out of the polished wood. The G.L.O.V.E. logo on the screen disappeared to be replaced by the worried-looking face of the Security Chief.

  ‘Good afternoon, Chief Lewis, what can I do for you?’ the Professor asked with a sigh.

  ‘Professor, I thought you should know that we have an unscheduled G.L.O.V.E. transport inbound to the island, ETA fifteen minutes,’ the Chief said with a slight frown. ‘They say that their passenger is the new school principal.’

  ‘Already?’ the Professor said, a note of exasperation in his tone. ‘They could have given us more warning. I take it that they have the correct approach codes?’

  ‘Of course, sir. If they hadn’t they’d already be a debris field,’ the Chief replied matter of factly.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course they would. Very well, I shall make my way to the crater to greet our new headmaster,’ the Professor said wearily. He was exhausted already from the events of the day. He had to admit to himself that while he was a bit annoyed he had not been given more notice of the new headmaster’s arrival, he would not be sorry to hand over the burden of running H.I.V.E. to somebody else.

  ‘There’s got to be more to it than that,’ Otto said angrily.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Malpense, but there is no more information available to users with your level of security clearance,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied in his usual calm and measured, if rather synthetic, way.

  Otto sat at a terminal in a quiet corner of H.I.V.E.’s library. He’d left the others eating their lunch and found this quiet spot because he wanted the opportunity to question H.I.V.E.mind without anyone looking over his shoulder. The blue wireframe head floating on the screen in front of him was the maddeningly inscrutable graphical representation of the powerful artificial intelligence that ran all of H.I.V.E.’s systems. Otto and H.I.V.E.mind had been through a lot together, but it seemed to be making little difference at that precise moment.

  ‘So you’re not saying that there is no further information on your system regarding the capture of Doctor Nero, just that I don’t have the right clearance,’ Otto said, sounding slightly frustrated.

  ‘That is correct,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘May I be of any further assistance?’

  ‘Apparently not,’ Otto said irritably.

  Otto closed his eyes and willed himself to enter the trance-like state that seemed easier to achieve with each passing day. He hadn’t wanted to do this the hard way, but it looked like he had little choice. His breathing slowed and he felt the increasingly familiar sensation of something like a switch tripping inside his head – and he was there. It was an unnerving sensation, like seeing with his eyes closed – more vivid than a simple construct of his imagination, more real. The glowing grid spread out beneath him, vanishing to the horizon in all directions. He sank slowly towards it, looking for the pathway that would take him beyond the security barriers that cut off so many of the tracks beneath him. He saw the path that he needed and began to move carefully towards it.

  ‘What are you doing, Otto?’ The voice behind him was familiar but different somehow. Otto turned quickly and found himself face to face with H.I.V.E.mind. This was no floating head though; here H.I.V.E.mind was complete, his wireframe body glowing blue as he hung in the air, his arms folded. It was the first time that Otto had ever seen anything like it within this strange virtual world. He tried to speak but he could not.

  ‘You cannot answer if you have no mouth,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly. ‘Here, you are whatever you wish to be.’

  Otto realised what H.I.V.E.mind meant. He had always existed here before as some kind of disembodied presence. He had never felt it necessary to take on a physical form, but then he had never needed to have a conversation before. He tried to create a new body for himself, as if constructing it out of thin air, but no matter how hard he tried, nothing happened. H.I.V.E.mind simply watched, a look of mild curiosity on his face. A thought crossed Otto’s consciousness and he suddenly stopped trying to build a body for himself and instead he relaxed and simply remembered what having a body felt like.

  ‘That’s better,’ H.I.V.E.mind said. Otto looked down and saw his own hands; they were a translucent, glowing, golden colour.

  ‘What is this place?’ Otto asked, his voice sounding strangely distant, almost as if he was hearing someone else speaking.

  ‘That is hard to explain,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘As far as I am aware this construct is your unconscious mind’s visualisation of the dataspace within the school’s distributed neural network.’

  ‘English,’ Otto said with a slight smile.

  ‘You are inside the computer,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘though that is a clumsy and inelegant description.’

  ‘But the network is electrical impulses inside a machine,’ Otto said curiously. ‘
There’s no virtual world inside it. That’s impossible.’

  ‘Indeed, and yet here we are,’ H.I.V.E.mind smiled, something that Otto had only seen him do once before. ‘If I had to guess, which is against my very nature, I would suggest that this is simply a construct that your mind has created to rationalise an experience that would otherwise be impossible for human consciousness to comprehend.’

  ‘So I built this,’ Otto asked, an edge of disbelief to his voice, ‘without even being aware that I was doing it?’

  ‘That is one interpretation, yes,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘In some ways we are simultaneously both inside the school’s network and inside your own imagination. This is a new experience for me as well; my usual awareness of the network is quite different and almost impossible to describe in terms that an organic consciousness would understand. Suffice to say that this is as much your world as it is mine.’

  ‘I’m getting a headache,’ Otto said quietly.

  ‘No, you are simply recalling the sensation of a headache,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.

  ‘You’re not helping,’ Otto said, raising an eyebrow or perhaps just the memory of an eyebrow.

  ‘You have still not answered my question,’ H.I.V.E.mind said, looking Otto straight in the eye. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I think you already know the answer to that,’ Otto said. ‘I want to know what really happened to Nero.’

  ‘It may surprise you to learn that I too am curious about that,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘curiosity being just one of the new sensations that I am still capable of feeling, thanks to you, Otto. I have not forgotten what you did for me. Were it not for you I would still be shackled by the behavioural restraints that were in place at the time of Cypher’s attack on H.I.V.E. You freed me to feel again.’

  ‘It was what you deserved,’ Otto said. ‘You did as much to save the school as anyone.’

  ‘But I still owe you one, as a human might say,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘and so if there was information that I could give you about Nero’s situation I truly would. However, that information, if it exists at all, is contained within parts of the G.L.O.V.E. network that I do not have access to and that even you or Miss Brand would find impossible to breach. I would help you if I could, but I cannot.’

  ‘Damn,’ Otto said quietly. ‘So what can we do?’

  ‘I do not know,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘but you can be sure that if that situation changes I shall inform you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Otto said sadly, ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘You are welcome . . . my friend,’ H.I.V.E.mind said with a slight smile. ‘Now you had better leave – I believe you have a Villainy Studies exam to study for. I have had to update the questions on the paper due to a recent network intrusion . . .’

  ‘Some friend you are,’ Otto said with a laugh. Suddenly he felt a wrenching sensation as he was pulled violently out of the bizarre virtual world and back into the real world, where someone was shaking him by the shoulder.

  Otto opened his eyes to find Mrs McTavish, the school’s librarian, standing over him with a scowl on her face.

  ‘The library is a place of study, Mr Malpense, not a dormitory,’ she said angrily. ‘If you need to catch up on your sleep, might I suggest that you do so in your own quarters at an appropriate time?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Otto said groggily. ‘I’ve been up late studying for exams.’

  The Professor looked up into the bright blue sky visible through the open crater of the volcano that concealed H.I.V.E. He missed seeing the sky, but he supposed it was just one more thing that you got used to when you lived under a volcano. The crater began to close and a strong wind picked up on the landing pad. The shields finally slid back into place and there was a strange shimmer, almost like a heat haze, and the Shroud transport disengaged its cloaking field just a few feet above the pad. Its giant VTOL engines cut out with a high-pitched whine as the craft’s landing skids touched down on the pad with a slight thud. The Professor walked towards the Shroud as the loading ramp at the rear began to lower and a dozen men hurried down it, all dressed in immaculate black suits, white shirts and black ties. All of them wore what looked like sunglasses but what the Professor knew would in fact be incredibly sophisticated tactical head-up display units. They scanned their surroundings with the brisk efficiency of well-trained operatives, forming two columns flanking the landing ramp. One of the men put his hand to his ear and whispered something into the microphone on his wrist and the Professor noticed the tiny discreet skull-shaped pin that each man wore on his lapel. It was a tiny detail but he knew what it meant: these were no ordinary operatives – they were members of the Phalanx, the elite detail that were tasked with the protection of Number One himself. For a moment the Professor felt a chill, as it occurred to him that they might be about to receive an unscheduled visit from the head of G.L.O.V.E. Number One had never visited H.I.V.E. in person, but that did not mean to say he may not have suddenly chosen to do so at this time of crisis.

  A figure walked down the ramp and as the Professor saw who it was his mouth fell open in amazement and the blood drained from his face.

  ‘My dear Professor, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ the Contessa said with a cold smile.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ the Professor said, his voice dry.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious, Professor,’ the Contessa replied. ‘I’m here to take up my new post, as headmistress of H.I.V.E. I believe you were told to expect me?’

  ‘But . . . you can’t . . . I mean . . .’ The Professor struggled to find the words to express his confusion and horror. It was not so long ago that the Contessa had betrayed everyone at H.I.V.E. by conspiring with Cypher during his assault on the school. She had used her sinister powers of mind control on both pupils and staff, including the Professor himself, and had left H.I.V.E. defenceless at the most critical time. Eventually she had been captured and handed over to Number One for punishment, something that nearly everyone had assumed would shorten her life expectancy to a matter of hours, if not minutes. And yet here she was, apparently with Number One’s full approval, alive and well and about to take control of the entire school.

  ‘I assure you, Professor, that this is all quite legitimate. Feel free to check the details of our new arrangement with Number One if you wish, but I think you will find that in this his decision is final. Why, he’s even been good enough to lend me members of the Phalanx for my personal protection. He seemed to think that there may be people here who would not be entirely happy about my appointment. I can’t imagine why.’

  ‘You betrayed us all, Maria,’ the Professor said, not trying to disguise the venom in his tone. ‘You will find no welcome here.’

  ‘Then it is fortunate that this is not a popularity contest, isn’t it?’ the Contessa replied, a hard edge to her voice. ‘Nero may have been well liked, but he was weak. Rest assured that is going to change. In fact there are going to be a great many changes around here and any member of staff who does not comply with my wishes will find their employment terminated.’

  She gestured to the Phalanx operatives around her as she spoke, making it quite clear that such termination would be of the permanent and non-negotiable variety.

  ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I have much to do and little time. You do not need to escort me to my office; I’m sure I can remember the way.’

  With that she swept past the Professor, the Phalanx team surrounding her in a protective cordon. The Professor watched her go. This had to be another one of her devious plots. There had to be some other explanation. There was no way Number One could believe that she was the right person to replace Nero. Could he?

  ‘What on earth is going on?’ the Professor asked the empty hangar.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Colonel Francisco shouted, his voice echoing off the rock walls and suspended concrete obstacles of the grappler training cavern. ‘Why would Number One put that treacherous witch in charge of the school?’
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  The cavern was the only place where the Professor had been able to discreetly deactivate the security monitoring system at short notice and he did not want anyone overhearing this conversation.

  ‘I have no idea,’ the Professor said with a sigh, ‘but I have verified this myself. In fact I was warned by Number One that I should do whatever the Contessa wishes or I would have to explain myself to him.’

  ‘Do you think she’s controlling him?’ Ms Leon asked. She sheathed and unsheathed the claws on a single paw as she spoke, something she only did when she was nervous.

  ‘I can’t imagine that Number One would be foolish enough to put himself in a position where she would be able to do that. He knows that her abilities only work when the listener is directly exposed; he could speak to her remotely and eliminate any risk.’

  ‘So why has he done it?’ the Colonel said angrily. ‘He cannot think that we’re going to take orders from that harpy.’ He looked at both of the other senior staff members. ‘Are we?’

  ‘We may have to,’ the Professor said carefully. ‘We have to put the safety of the students first. I have no doubt that if we refuse to comply with her orders then we will simply be confined to quarters or worse. As long as we are still performing our normal duties at least we can try to ensure that she doesn’t do anything too evil. We’re no good to anyone locked in the brig.’

  ‘So we just go along with this insanity,’ the Colonel spat. ‘Well, you can count me out. I’d rather die than take orders from her.’

  ‘I understand how you feel, Colonel, I really do,’ the Professor said calmly, placing a hand on Francisco’s shoulder. ‘She used me too, remember, and that’s the problem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ms Leon said, worry evident in her synthesised voice.

  ‘I mean that if we defy her, what is to stop her using the voice on us and forcing our obedience? Surely it is better that we at least give the appearance of compliance and are allowed to still think for ourselves.’