Aftershock (16 page)

They both turned to head back up the stairs to their rooms when a voice stopped them cold.

‘Hello, Malpense,’ Cole Harrington said as he stepped out of the shadows. Without warning, someone grabbed Otto from behind and wrapped an arm around his throat. At the same instant, a giant hand clamped over Laura’s mouth, stifling her yelp of pain as her attacker twisted her arm and yanked it visciously upwards into the small of her back.

‘I believe you know my associates, Mr Block and Mr Tackle,’ Harrington continued with an unpleasant smile. ‘They don’t seem to like you very much for some reason.’ Otto and his friends had had several previous encounters with the Henchman stream students Block and Tackle, all of them unpleasant. ‘If you try to call for help, Mr Tackle will hurt Miss Brand very badly. Do I make myself clear?’

‘What are you doing here, Harrington?’ Otto demanded angrily.

‘You’re not the only one who knows how to open doors in this place, Malpense,’ Harrington replied. ‘Though my methods are somewhat simpler. You just have to know the right people.’

‘What do you want?’ Otto asked, seeing the look of pained fear in Laura’s eyes.

Harrington walked over and put his hand in Laura’s pocket, pulling out her Blackbox.

‘This,’ Harrington replied, ‘or at least the files that are now on it. I was delighted to hear what you said about H.I.V.E.mind’s source code. Forget the examination papers. Do you have any idea what that code would be worth on the black market? I may not be due to leave H.I.V.E. just yet, Malpense, but when I do those files are going to make me richer than you could possibly imagine.’

‘The files are encrypted,’ Otto snapped back, ‘and there’s no way that I’m going to unlock them for you.’

‘Really,’ Harrington said, turning to Tackle and Laura. ‘OK, if that’s the way you want this to go. Mr Tackle, I’m going to count to three and then I want you to break her arm. One, two . . .’

‘Stop!’ Otto snapped, knowing full well that Tackle would not hesitate to carry out Harrington’s command. ‘I’ll do it, just don’t hurt her.’

Harrington handed Laura’s Blackbox to Otto and watched as Otto opened the file and typed in the decryption key. He smiled as he took the slim device from Otto and inspected the unlocked files.

‘Good,’ Harrington said with a smile. ‘Now I’m afraid that we’re going to have to make sure that you don’t do anything stupid like tell anyone what I’ve got here.’ He thought for a moment and then looked at Block. ‘Take them up to the top balcony and throw them off.’

‘Hold on, you didn’t say nuffink ’bout killing ’em,’ Block said with a frown.

‘Yeah, what if we get caught?’ Tackle said, nodding.

‘You won’t,’ Harrington said, shaking his head. ‘Malpense must have disabled the security cameras in here or he’d already have been caught. No one will ever know we were here. I’ll double what I’m paying you, just do it.’

Otto took a breath but Block clamped his hand over his mouth before he could call for help.

‘All right, but you’d better make sure that money is where you said it would be when we get out of here,’ Block said.

‘Trust me,’ Harrington said with a smile, holding up Laura’s Blackbox, ‘with what I’ve got here, I’m good for it. Now stop wasting time and get rid of them.’

Otto struggled to break free of Block’s vice-like grip but it was useless. The two Henchmen dragged them across the atrium towards the stairs leading upwards. There was a look of panicked fear on Laura’s face as she too tried desperately to get away from Tackle but the huge Henchman was far too strong for her.

Suddenly, wailing sirens began to sound all over the school.

‘Security alert, full lockdown in progress,’ H.I.V.E.mind’s voice stated calmly over the tannoy system. Harrington looked desperately over at the doors to the accommodation block. There was no way out of here now, even with the access code he had bought.

On the other side of the atrium Block hesitated and looked at Tackle in confusion.

‘Whadda we do now?’ he asked.

Otto felt the pressure from Block’s hand on his mouth ease slightly and he seized the opportunity, biting down on Block’s fingers so hard that he drew blood. Block pulled his hand away instinctively and Otto snapped his head forwards and then back with as much force as he could. The back of Otto’s head made contact with Block’s face with a crunch and Block immediately let go of him, staggering backwards howling in pain as blood streamed from his smashed nose. Otto turned to face the hulking Henchman, unsure of what to do next. He knew that there was no way he could match Block in a straight fight. Block’s hands dropped from his face and balled into fists as he walked towards Otto with a look of murderous rage in his eyes. Otto backed away from Block as Tackle stood by, still restraining Laura. Otto felt the wall behind him as Block raised one of his massive fists.

‘You’ve had this coming for a long time, Malpense,’ Block said.

There was a sudden zapping sound and Block’s eyes rolled upwards as he collapsed to the ground unconscious. Behind him, Chief Dekker stood with her Sleeper raised.

‘Let her go,’ Dekker said, pointing the gun at Tackle. He did as he was instructed and released Laura as Otto ran over to her. Otto was amazed by how quickly Dekker had responded to the alarm.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Laura said, her voice shaky. ‘I think so.’

‘Would someone care to tell me exactly what’s going on here?’ Dekker said, her Sleeper still trained on Tackle. ‘H.I.V.E.mind triggered the alarm when he discovered that the security camera system had been compromised. I assume that was so we wouldn’t see what was going on here.’

On the other side of the atrium, Harrington crept towards the open door of the accommodation block. Dekker had not seen him when she entered and she had conveniently left the massive doors that usually sealed their living quarters wide open for him. He knew he had to get out of there before anyone discovered what had just happened. He slid along the wall towards the door, keeping his eyes on Dekker who still had her back turned towards him.

‘Going somewhere?’ a voice behind him asked.

Harrington spun round and saw Raven standing in the doorway. Raven shoved him ahead of her as they walked across the atrium towards Dekker and the other students. A minute or so later Dr Nero strode into the room with a furious expression on his face.

‘H.I.V.E.mind, please deactivate the alarms,’ Dr Nero said into his Blackbox and the alert sirens stopped wailing as he walked towards them. ‘Now I’d like to hear your explanation of exactly what’s going on here.’

‘Malpense told me to come here,’ Harrington said quickly. ‘He tried to sell me the exam papers that he and Brand had stolen but when I said I wasn’t interested he attacked me. My two friends here had come along to help me get the Blackbox with the stolen data off them so that I could turn it in. They were protecting me so that I could bring you this.’

Harrington handed Nero Laura’s Blackbox.

‘Why, you lying little . . .’ Laura said angrily. ‘Otto, tell them what really happened . . . Otto.’

Laura turned to Otto who had a faraway look on his face for a moment before he focused on her with a single blink.

‘Is this true, Mr Malpense?’ Nero asked.

‘Of course not,’ Otto said. ‘It was Harrington who stole the data but it wasn’t really the exam papers he was after. He’s also stolen H.I.V.E.mind’s source code, and he’s planning to sell it on the black market. He came and unlocked mine and Laura’s quarters and brought us down here to the atrium. He thought that with our abilities we’d be able to help him transmit the source code off the island. He offered us a cut of the profits and showed us the files – they’re all on his Blackbox. When I said I was going to report him he knew he had to silence me and so he tried to get these two idiots to do his dirty work for him.’

Nero looked at Otto and Harrington, unsure what to believe.

‘Well, I can see that there’s only one way that we’re going to resolve this,’ Nero said with a frown.

Nero stepped over to one of the access points on the wall nearby and hit the call button. A moment later the blue wireframe head of H.I.V.E.mind appeared on the screen.

‘How may I be of assistance, Doctor Nero,’ H.I.V.E.mind asked.

‘I want you to run a scan of the Blackboxes belonging to students Malpense, Brand and Harrington to identify any unauthorised files,’ Nero said.

‘Scanning,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. Harrington looked at Otto with a nasty smile.

‘Scan complete,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘Miss Brand’s and Mr Malpense’s Blackboxes are free of unauthorised files. Mr Harrington’s Blackbox, however, contains copies of the papers for the upcoming examinations, details of the location for the assessment exercise known as the Hunt and, most disturbingly, a copy of my own system source code.’

‘What!’ Harrington shouted. ‘That’s impossible. Malpense, what did you do?’

‘Stopped you from stealing incredibly sensitive data by the looks of it,’ Otto said with a smile. ‘I’d say that much is obvious.’

‘The evidence is indisputable,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied calmly. ‘The time-stamps on the files indicate that they were copied directly from my own core systems to Mr Harrington’s Blackbox thirty-three minutes ago. That was during the time power was cut to my systems.’

‘That’s not true. I was here half an hour ago, waiting for Malpense to show up,’ Harrington said.

‘Actually, the positional logs on your Blackbox indicate that you were in the Central Data Hub at the time in question,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘Students Malpense and Brand, according to their own logs, have not left their accommodation block since overnight lockdown began.’

‘It sounds like you have some explaining to do, Mr Harrington,’ Nero said with a frown. ‘Chief, take him and his accomplices to the detention area. I shall question him myself later. Mr Malpense, Miss Brand, you will return to your quarters. I am pleased to see that you did not involve yourself in whatever it was that Mr Harrington was planning. Needless to say I will not be using these exam papers now that they have been compromised. They will all have to be rewritten. Dismissed.’

‘Do you get the feeling that we may not have the full story?’ Raven said as she watched Otto and Laura walk away.

‘Indeed,’ Nero replied, ‘but just occasionally I find myself thinking that may be for the best.’

Shelby leapt up off her bed as Laura walked into their quarters. She looked pale and exhausted.

‘What happened?’ Shelby asked, as Laura sat down on her bed. ‘I heard the alarms. Did you guys get busted?’

Shelby sat down next to Laura as she described the events of the past few minutes.

‘Oh no,’ Shelby said. ‘Laura, I’m sorry. I just thought you’d got held up talking to Otto or something. If I’d had any idea . . .’

‘It’s OK,’ Laura said. ‘I just can’t believe we went through all of this for nothing.’ Suddenly, out of nowhere, she started to cry.

‘Hey,’ Shelby said, putting her arm around her, ‘it’s OK. Come on.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Laura said after a minute, stopping crying with a sniff and a sigh. ‘It’s just . . . I don’t think I can . . .’

‘It’s all right. You’ve had a shock. That’s all.’ Shelby said, hugging her. ‘Hey, come on, it’s not like it’s the first time anyone’s ever tried to kill you. I’d have thought you’d be starting to get used to it by now.’

‘I suppose I should,’ Laura chuckled and wiped her eyes. ‘It’s just with everything that’s going on with the exams coming up and the Hunt. I don’t know. I guess, I just needed this to work.’

‘Who’s my favourite control freak?’ Shelby said, grinning at her. ‘Anyway, I’m the one who should be worrying about the exams, not a brainiac like you. What’s the worst that could happen? You get a B. I know that would be unprecedented but it wouldn’t be the end of the world, you know. Now, I don’t know about you but I’m ready to hit the hay. It’ll all be OK tomorrow.’

‘You sound like my mum. She always says that things will look better in the morning,’ Laura said with a sad smile.

‘Well, your mom’s obviously nearly as smart as your Aunty Shelby. Now try to get some sleep.’