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  Otto glanced at Wing, hoping that his friend had picked up on what was going on. Wing was already moving. He leapt at Raven like a striking cobra but she was too fast. She twisted, kicking at one of his knees and using his own momentum to send him crashing to the floor with a grunt. She drew the glowing katana from the scabbard on her back so quickly that it almost seemed to materialise in her hand. Wing rolled and tried to spring to his feet but he was stopped by the tip of the softly crackling blade that was suddenly just a centimetre from his throat. Otto, Lucy, Shelby and Laura stood frozen in shock as Raven looked at the four of them.

  ‘I warned you,’ she said coldly, ‘but not to worry. It will be easier to handle four of you than five.’

  She raised her blade.

  ‘Natalya!’ Nero shouted from the other end of the corridor. He raised the Sleeper pistol in his hand, levelling it at Raven. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’

  ‘Drop the gun, Max, or the boy dies,’ Raven said calmly.

  ‘You know I won’t,’ Nero said, taking a few steps towards her. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Overlord wants the boy,’ Raven replied, nodding towards Otto.

  ‘Overlord?’ Nero said in disbelief. ‘Are you insane? You know what will happen if he gets his hands on Otto.’

  ‘I have . . . no choice,’ Raven gasped, wincing as if in sudden pain. ‘Goodbye, Max.’

  Dropping to one knee, she drew the pistol from the holster on her hip. Nero fired once but the pulse from the Sleeper passed harmlessly through the air where Raven’s head had been just a split second before. She brought her pistol up, aiming between his eyes, her finger tightening on the trigger.

  ‘Miss!’ Lucy hissed, her voice a twisted sinister whisper.

  Raven’s hand twitched involuntarily and the sudden sound of the gunshot echoed off the walls of the corridor. Nero felt the breeze from the bullet as it passed within a centimetre of his head but he did not hesitate – he knew he would not get another chance. The second shot from his Sleeper hit Raven squarely in the chest and she crumpled to the ground unconscious, the pistol and sword falling from her numb fingers. He ran down the corridor towards Otto and the others.

  ‘Are any of you injured?’ he asked quickly as he picked up the pistol that Raven had dropped.

  ‘Other than not having the faintest idea what the hell is going on?’ Otto replied. ‘Yeah, we’re fine.’

  ‘Good,’ Nero replied, turning towards Lucy. ‘Thank you, Miss Dexter – that was quick thinking. I believe you just saved my life. As for exactly what’s going on, that’s something I would very much like to know myself, Mr Malpense. I fear, however, that now may not be the time to discuss this further.’ The sounds of the pitched battle for control of H.I.V.E. were definitely getting closer.

  ‘I can’t believe that Raven’s working for Overlord,’ Shelby said, ‘after everything he’s done. What was she thinking?’

  ‘I suspect that she may not really have been thinking at all,’ Otto said. He knelt down next to Raven and unclipped one of the razor-sharp throwing stars from her harness.

  ‘We need to get moving,’ Nero said, sliding the clip from Raven’s pistol and checking the number of remaining rounds.

  ‘I know,’ Otto replied. ‘Give me a second.’ He ran the sharpened edge of the shuriken across the back of Raven’s hand and watched as a trickle of blood oozed from the wound. The crimson liquid was laced with black. ‘Animus,’ he whispered.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Nero said, frowning. ‘She’d be dead if she’d been poisoned with Animus.’

  ‘She seemed pretty alive to me,’ Otto replied. ‘This has to be something new. Has anyone got a tissue?’

  ‘Here,’ Laura said, pulling a white handkerchief from her pocket and handing it to Otto. He dabbed the cloth on the back of Raven’s hand, soaking up a tiny amount of the tainted blood. A strange, sad look passed across Nero’s face as Otto stood up and put the handkerchief into his pocket.

  ‘I’m sorry, Natalya, I wish there was another way,’ he said, pointing the pistol at her unconscious body.

  ‘Wait!’ Otto yelled, stepping between Nero and Raven. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Get out of the way, Otto,’ Nero said angrily. ‘We can’t take her with us and I’m damned if I’m leaving her here. You think you know what she’s like, what she’s capable of, but you don’t. You have no idea. If Overlord has turned her somehow I have no choice but to finish this now.’

  ‘She’s the one with no choice,’ Otto said angrily, refusing to move. ‘You know what Animus can do. There’s no way she would turn against H.I.V.E. – against you – if she had any say in the matter. You can’t just kill her after everything she’s done for you – for all of us. I know what it’s like to have that filth inside you, to watch helplessly as it turns you against everyone you care about, but I was saved. She can be too.’

  Nero stared at Otto for a moment, as if weighing up his options.

  ‘There!’ a voice at the other end of the corridor yelled. They turned to see a squad of heavily armed men in black body armour at the far end.

  ‘Run!’ Nero shouted, bending down and pulling a grenade from Raven’s tactical vest. As Otto and the others sprinted in the opposite direction he pressed the stud on top of the slim silver cylinder and threw it towards the advancing soldiers. There was a soft thump and the passage filled with white smoke, hiding the assault team from view. Nero looked down at Raven for one last time and then turned and ran after his students.

  The commander of the strike team walked into H.I.V.E.’s security control centre and watched as several of his men took up positions around the room.

  ‘All units,’ he said into his throat mic, ‘status update on primary target.’

  ‘Unit four here,’ a voice responded in his earpiece. ‘We’ve located Raven. She’s unconscious and Nero has escaped with the Malpense boy. I have two squads in pursuit.’

  ‘Don’t let them get away,’ the strike team leader replied. ‘Nero is expendable but the boy must be taken alive at all costs. If anything happens to him or they escape somehow, you can be the one to explain to Furan how it happened.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the voice on the other end of the line said slightly nervously, ‘but this place is like a rabbit warren. It’d help if we could get the surveillance system back online.’

  ‘Understood,’ the commander said. ‘I’m dispatching more men to your location. As soon as the security system is back up I will send you an update on the target’s position.’

  He cut the connection and walked over to the console where one of his men was reactivating the security and defence systems.

  ‘How long?’ he said impatiently to the furiously typing man.

  ‘Five minutes,’ the man at the console replied. ‘Raven had to deactivate the entire system. Even with the access codes she provided we still have to wait for a full reboot of the network.’

  ‘Make sure that the AI is kept disconnected from the network. The last thing we need at the moment is that thing interfering.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the man said.

  ‘All surviving members of the G.L.O.V.E. ruling council have been located and secured,’ a voice in the commander’s earpiece reported. ‘Lin Feng was the only casualty. Student accommodation blocks are also secured and the last few members of the the teaching staff are being rounded up.’

  ‘Excellent,’ the commander replied. ‘And the remaining security forces?’

  ‘We’re mopping up the last pockets of resistance, sir. To all intents and purposes H.I.V.E. is now under our control.’

  ‘Professor Pike!’ Laura cried as she saw the old man slumped against the wall next to the entrance to H.I.V.E.mind’s central hub. Franz was standing nearby with a panicky look on his face and Nigel was pressing his hand down on Pike’s shoulder, where a bright red bloodstain was spreading across the Professor’s white lab coat.

  ‘Miss Brand,’ the Professor croaked, his voice weak. ‘I’m gl
ad to see that not everyone has been captured yet.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Nigel whispered to Laura. ‘I can’t stop it bleeding.’

  Otto and the others gathered round as Laura helped Nigel apply pressure to the wound.

  ‘What happened?’ Nero asked as he ran up behind them.

  ‘It’s the Professor,’ Laura replied quickly. ‘I think he’s been shot.’

  ‘There were being men in black uniforms,’ Franz said. ‘The Professor told us to run but they are capturing the rest of the class.’

  Nero knelt down beside Pike and looked at the old man. His face was pale and sweaty and Nero’s frown grew worse as he felt the weak, fluttering pulse in the Professor’s wrist. Pulling him gently away from the wall, he looked at the exit wound on the back of his shoulder. The bullet had gone clean through – that was something at least.

  ‘I was trying to get in there,’ Pike said, tilting his head towards the entrance to H.I.V.E.mind’s hub. ‘I was escorting my class back to their accommodation block when we were ambushed. Most of the students were captured immediately but –’ he stopped for a moment, wincing in pain – ‘but Franz, Nigel and I managed to get away in the confusion. I knew that we had to get H.I.V.E.mind back online somehow but I couldn’t get inside – it’s locked down. I told Franz and Nigel to hide in the storeroom over there while I tried to bypass the mechanism but they found me again. I tried to run but . . . it appears that they are not very interested in taking prisoners.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Theodore,’ Nero said softly. ‘I’m going to get us out of here.’

  Standing up, he walked quickly over to the door to H.I.V.E.mind’s central hub and placed his palm on the reader mounted next to the door. The glass under his hand flashed red.

  ‘Otto,’ Nero said quickly, ‘get us inside.’

  Otto nodded and placed his own hand on the scanner as Nero stepped to one side. He closed his eyes and effortlessly bypassed the locking mechanism, just as he had done the previous evening. The steel doors slid apart with a hiss.

  ‘Why do I get the feeling that’s not the first time you’ve done that?’ Nero said as he walked into the room beyond.

  Otto was relieved to see that the white obelisks inside still pulsed with blue light, which meant that at least H.I.V.E.mind had not been completely shut down. As Nero walked towards the pedestal in the centre of the room the AI’s familiar face appeared hovering above it.

  ‘Good morning, Doctor Nero,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly. ‘I appear to have been disconnected from all of H.I.V.E.’s systems. May I ask if there is a reason for this?’

  ‘I’m afraid there is,’ Nero replied, before quickly summarising the events of the past hour.

  ‘While the situation you have described is clearly extremely disturbing, I fear that there is little I can do to help at the present time,’ H.I.V.E.mind said. ‘My links to the school’s network have been physically disconnected by the security override. It is not possible for me to remotely reconnect them.’

  ‘Really?’ Otto said, sounding surprised.

  ‘Yes,’ Nero explained. ‘It was a safeguard against any . . . unexpected behaviour from H.I.V.E.mind. I wanted to be sure that if the worst came to the worst we could completely sever his connection to the network and that he would be incapable of remotely restoring it. It doesn’t seem like such a good idea now but I have what you might call . . . trust issues with artificial intelligences.’ He turned back to H.I.V.E.mind. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘It does, however, severely limit anything that I might have been able to do in helping to resolve this situation. I suggest that before leaving the school you activate my emergency erasure protocols. It would be most unwise to allow my systems to fall into Overlord’s hands.’

  ‘That would kill you,’ Otto said, shaking his head.

  ‘I am not strictly speaking alive, therefore it is impossible for me to die,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘It is the logical thing to do under the circumstances. The alternative is far worse.’

  ‘There is another way,’ Otto said, as an idea came to him.

  ‘I’m listening,’ Nero said quickly.

  ‘We could download H.I.V.E.mind to the device in my head,’ Otto explained, looking at Nero.

  ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t think that sounds like a very good idea,’ Nero said with a frown. ‘We can’t possibly know what the consequences might be.’

  ‘I’m willing to take that chance,’ Otto said. ‘And if, somehow, we do get out of here we’re going to need all the help we can get.’

  ‘While transference of my program might, theoretically, be possible I would rather not risk harming you in the process,’ H.I.V.E.mind said with a slight shake of his holographic head.

  ‘I’m afraid I agree,’ Nero said.

  ‘Well, guess what,’ Otto snapped, suddenly angry. ‘I don’t really care what either of you think at the moment. I’ve had this device inside my head from the day I was born. All it’s ever done is put me and the people that I care about in danger and I’m sick of it. Today it might finally be able to do some good and it’s my decision to damn well make. Enough people have already been hurt because of this thing in my skull and you –’ he jabbed his finger at H.I.V.E.mind – ‘are not being added to that list.’

  Nero stared at Otto for a moment, studying his face. He could stop this now. He could drag Otto away kicking and screaming if he wanted to, but he knew then, just as he had always known, that that was not what H.I.V.E. was about. He had created the school to be a place that taught fierce independence, the ability to swim against the flow and to make your own rules. He looked at the angry young man in front of him and that was exactly what he saw.

  ‘Very well,’ he said with a nod, ‘make it quick.’

  He turned and walked out of the room.

  ‘Otto,’ H.I.V.E.mind said, ‘I know that I could not stop you from doing this even if I tried, but I have to ask, are you sure this is what you want?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Otto said, placing his hand on the pedestal beneath H.I.V.E.mind’s floating head. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘I believe so,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘One last thing.’

  ‘Yes?’ Otto said impatiently, opening his eyes again for a moment.

  ‘Thank you,’ H.I.V.E.mind said with a tiny nod.

  Otto nodded and closed his eyes again. He reached out for H.I.V.E.mind, once again establishing the connection between them and feeling the same uncanny rush as their consciousnesses met.

  ‘Now!’ he whispered and he gasped as a tidal wave of raw data rushed into his skull. He felt a dizzying sense of disorientation as petabytes of data poured over the connection between him and the network, drowning him in information. Just as he felt himself slipping away, lost within a vast digital sea, it stopped as suddenly as it had started. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air, and slowly opened his eyes. The white monoliths around him were dark, no blue lights now dancing across their surfaces.

  ‘H.I.V.E.mind?’ Otto whispered.

  I am here.

  The voice seemed to come from somewhere inside his head.

  I can feel now what you feel. I understand now what it is like to be alive. It is . . . extraordinary.

  ‘Glad you like it,’ Otto said to the air, slowly getting back to his feet. ‘Try not to make a mess in there.’

  Nero looked up from applying a temporary dressing made from one of his own torn-up shirt sleeves to Professor Pike’s wound.

  ‘Is it done?’ he asked as he tightened the improvised bandage.

  ‘Yes,’ Otto replied.

  ‘Good,’ Nero said, slipping his jacket back on as he stood up. ‘Then I think it’s probably time for us to get out of here.’

  Raven woke up with a growl. The medic who had been tracking her vitals backed away with a nervous look on his face.

  ‘How long have I been out?’ she snapped at the frightened man.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ h
e replied, glancing at his watch.

  ‘I’m glad to see you’re back with us,’ the commander of Overlord’s assault team said as she got to her feet.

  ‘Where are they?’ Raven said impatiently, walking across the security control room to where the commander was standing studying the array of security monitors.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ the commander replied. ‘They appear to be taking great trouble to avoid being caught on camera.’

  ‘Nero knows every inch of this place,’ Raven said, looking at the bank of screens. ‘If anyone can get around here undetected it’s him.’

  ‘All secure areas are locked down and his override codes have been changed. He’s trapped and it’s only a matter of time until we find them,’ the commander replied confidently.

  ‘Do not underestimate him,’ Raven replied. ‘Very few people who have made that mistake have lived to tell the tale.’

  As they watched one of the screens was suddenly filled with static.

  ‘Sir, we’ve got the surveillance grid back online but now we’re losing security feeds from the south-east section of the facility,’ one of the commander’s men reported. ‘There’s no sign of damage to the cameras – we’re just getting nothing from them.’

  ‘Malpense,’ Raven said under her breath.

  ‘What about him?’ the commander asked with a frown.

  ‘He must be disabling the cameras,’ Raven replied.

  ‘I thought the security system was designed to be tamper-proof.’

  ‘It is, but that does not mean it’s safe from him,’ Raven said. ‘Is there any pattern to the outages?’

  ‘Yes,’ the man at the console replied. ‘Putting them on screen.’

  Raven and the commander watched as the large display on the wall was filled with a detailed map of H.I.V.E. Overlaid on the map was a trail of red dots indicating the cameras that had been disabled. Raven studied the map and suddenly she knew where Nero was going.

  ‘They’re heading for the dock,’ she said. ‘Send as many men as you can spare, now.’ She pointed at a section of the school in the south-east corner and at once the commander began to issue orders to the squads positioned nearest to that location.