Aftershock (5 page)

‘Ten minutes till lockdown,’ Shelby replied glancing at her Blackbox PDA, ‘and I for one do not want to end up being escorted to my room by security.’

‘Yeah, let’s just try and stay underneath Dekker’s radar as much as possible for the moment, shall we? I doubt that she’d be happy to find out what we’ve been working on,’ Otto said as he opened one of the desk drawers and lifted out the false bottom that he had recently installed. He placed the device inside the hidden compartment along with the various tools that they had managed to acquire from around the school.

‘You are, of course, assuming she doesn’t already know,’ Wing said with a slight frown.

‘Hey, look on the bright side, big guy,’ Shelby said, quickly kissing him on the cheek, ‘if she does know, at least we’d be locked up together.’

‘Hmmm,’ Wing replied, still frowning.

‘Come on, Shel,’ Laura said, trying hard not to laugh at the expression on Wing’s face. ‘Let’s leave these two to get their beauty sleep. Heaven knows they need it.’

‘Funny,’ Otto replied. ‘No really, you’re funny. Look at me laughing.’

‘Awww, did she hurt your feelings?’ Shelby said as Laura walked out of the boys’ room. ‘Don’t worry, we love you really. Even with that face.’

‘Missing you already,’ Otto said as Shelby hurried after Laura. ‘Or it might just be stomach cramps, it’s hard to tell, to be honest.’

Otto put the rest of the contents of the desk drawer back in place, making sure that the hidden compartment was properly concealed.

‘Are you sure that this is wise?’ Wing asked, gesturing towards the drawer. ‘Especially if Chief Dekker is watching us as closely as you believe she is.’

‘Probably not,’ Otto replied, ‘but let’s face it, it’s hardly the first time that we’ve done something that was a bit risky.’

‘I suppose,’ Wing replied, ‘but I have actually been quite enjoying the fact that the past few months have had a lower than average amount of mortal peril. Indeed, I am almost at the point where I have forgotten what it is like to be afraid for my life or those of the people I care about.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Otto replied with a smile. ‘I’m sure that something spectacularly dangerous will happen soon enough. We wouldn’t want life to get boring, now would we?’

‘I like boring,’ Wing said, raising an eyebrow. ‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am becoming a genuine fan of boring.’

‘I’ll be sure to let Shelby know just how boring you think the past few months have been,’ Otto said, grinning. ‘I’m sure she won’t mind.’ Otto never liked to miss a chance to tease his best friend about his relationship with Shelby and this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Wing said, the tiniest smile appearing on his face. ‘I am still training her in the art of self-defence and our sparring sessions are quite painful enough as it is, thank you.’

‘You guys are still getting on OK, I assume?’ Otto asked as he pulled his Blackbox out of his pocket and placed it on his bedside table.

‘Yes, though it is occasionally puzzling,’ Wing said with a slight frown. ‘It sometimes appears that what Shelby says she wants and what she actually wants are two entirely different things. It can sometimes lead to . . . confusion.’

‘I really hate to tell you this, Wing,’ Otto said with a grin, ‘but I think that’s actually the way it’s supposed to work.’

Dr Nero looked up from the tablet display he had been studying as Raven walked into his office. He nodded towards the seat on the other side of his desk.

‘I’ve received word from other members of the new ruling council,’ Nero said as Raven sat down. ‘There were assassination attempts on several of them at exactly the time that we were attacked in London. Two were successful. Jacobs and Milton are dead.’

‘Damn it,’ Raven said softly. ‘Why did we not see this coming?’

‘To be honest, I did,’ Nero replied, ‘but there was still a part of me that was hoping it would not come to this. The former council members may not be a part of G.L.O.V.E. any longer but they still have considerable resources at their disposal and they are of course intimately familiar with the way in which our organisation operates. They will have operatives within G.L.O.V.E. who are still loyal to them and I would expect them to ruthlessly exploit any weakness that those informants expose. There could hardly be a more dangerous enemy.’

‘I could try to root out any traitors who are feeding them information,’ Raven suggested.

‘No,’ Nero replied, ‘the last thing we need just now is a witch hunt. That’s exactly what they want, us turning inwards and fighting amongst ourselves. We just need to be doubly cautious and ensure that we control precisely who has access to sensitive information at the moment. Speaking of which, I’ve just been reviewing the dossiers of the latest intake of students.’ Some of them have great potential.’

‘You still want to go ahead with the retrieval of the new intake under the circumstances?’ Raven asked.

‘Yes,’ Nero replied. ‘I will not let this disrupt the normal running of H.I.V.E. The new intake proceeds as planned.’

‘Understood. The retrieval teams are all on standby,’ Raven answered with a nod. ‘Just give the word and we can begin the operation.’

‘Good,’ Nero said. ‘I trust that you don’t foresee any particular problems.’

‘No, a couple of the targets have proven to be somewhat . . . elusive, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Of course,’ Nero replied. He had learnt over the years that there were very few problems that the woman sat opposite him could not resolve. ‘And preparations for the Hunt?’

‘Everything’s in place,’ Raven said with a slight smile. ‘I’ve reconnoitred the operational area and it’s all clear. I’ll be ready to run the first assessment exercise as soon as the new student recruitment is complete. You know, in a strange way I’m actually quite looking forward to spending some time in that part of the world. It’s really quite beautiful, you know. It will almost be like a holiday.’

‘Remind me to never let you select my vacation destinations,’ Nero replied.

‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were getting soft, Max,’ Raven said with a wry smile. ‘You should come along and monitor the Hunt in person. Get out from behind that desk for a while.’

‘I’m quite happy behind this desk, thank you,’ Nero replied, raising an eyebrow slightly. ‘And I’ll be perfectly content to track the progress of the Hunt from a secure and more importantly
warm
monitoring station.’

‘Definitely getting soft,’ Raven said, her grin widening as she stood up to leave. ‘So, do you want me to launch the retrieval operations?’

‘Yes, but make sure that the catch squads understand the need for caution at the moment, Natalya,’ Nero said. ‘There are quite enough ruffled feathers out there already without us adding any more fuel to the fire.’

Nero was particularly keen to make sure that the operation to forcibly recruit the latest crop of students for H.I.V.E. went smoothly. The school needed new blood now more than ever. Events surrounding the demise of Overlord had led to him taking the highly controversial decision to disband the ruling council of G.L.O.V.E., the Global League of Villainous Enterprise. To say that decision had caused chaos amongst the ranks of the world’s villains was an understatement. A few of the members of the council had agreed with his reasoning and were cooperating with his plan to rebuild G.L.O.V.E. as a more stable organisation, without the treachery and deceit that had run like a cancer through the old league. Most, however, had argued that what he was attempting was little more than a massive
coup d’état
and that he was simply trying to consolidate his own power base. He had to concede that he could understand why some people would see it that way. He may have known that his motives were genuine but it had proven impossible to convince many of G.L.O.V.E.’s former leaders that that was the case. One of the side effects of all of this was that H.I.V.E. had lost a significant number of students. While many of the children at the school were recruited against their will after displaying some particular talent for villainy, some were what Nero referred to as legacy students. They were the students whose parents were already part of the global villain community and had elected to send their offspring to H.I.V.E. so that they could be prepared for entry into the family business. A significant number of those students had been withdrawn from the school in protest at Nero’s decision to disband the council. The last thing he needed at the moment were any further complications.

‘Trust me,’ Raven replied, ‘no one will ever know we were there.’

‘Observe!’ Professor Pike yelled over the high-pitched whine from the generator. ‘The beam is quite capable of cutting through a foot of stainless steel and yet the refractive coating on this backplate renders it completely harmless. This allows friendly units to be protected against the effects of the weapon without requiring heavy armour plating.’

The bright green beam from the massive projector at the far end of the Science and Technology department laboratory lit the entire room with an eerie glow. The Alpha students who were watching the demonstration stood with their backs pressed against the opposite wall, as far away from the device as humanly possible. They had learnt from bitter, often painful, experience that it was never wise to stand too close to one of Professor Pike’s experimental devices. Waiting for eyebrows to grow back was an inconvenience but waiting for limbs to grow back was another matter altogether.

‘Once in orbit, the weapon can be used for precise strikes on specific targets,’ the Professor continued, ‘minimising the need for messy collateral damage. Mr Argentblum, would you be so kind as to dim the lights please so that I can demonstrate the importance of a precise refraction index.’

Franz nervously slid along the wall towards the light switch by the laboratory door. He flicked the switch and the room darkened, the powerful beam of laser light now providing the only illumination. Franz started to slide back along the wall towards the other Alpha students. Suddenly he felt his foot catch on something and he stumbled over one of the trailing cables that lay across the laboratory floor. The cable went tight and pulled one of the instruments monitoring the beam over, sending it falling sideways and knocking the edge of the frame that held the refractive shielding plate in position. For what seemed like a very long time the stand wobbled back and forth before it tipped slowly backwards with a crash.

‘Take cover!’ Professor Pike screamed, diving behind one of the nearby workbenches as the other Alpha students scattered, trying to shield themselves behind the most solid objects they could find. The beam punched straight through the laboratory wall in a cloud of vapour and alarm klaxons started wailing all over the school. Professor Pike scrambled across the floor towards the bundle of thick power cables that led to the super-laser, pulling them from the back of the machine and extinguishing the bright green beam.

‘Oops,’ Franz said as the emergency lighting kicked in and the rest of the Alphas slowly emerged from their hiding places. At the back of the room there was a perfectly circular, twenty-centimetre hole in the wall surrounded by scorch marks. ‘I am thinking that this is not being good.’

Otto walked cautiously up to the smouldering hole, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the beam emitter that was making a gentle clicking sound as it cooled down.

‘Woah,’ he said as he peered into the hole. Clearly visible were a series of further holes beyond that got smaller and smaller with perspective. Dimly visible at the far end was what could only be a small circle of bright daylight.