Enemy Invasion (10 page)

“Are you okay?” she asked Robert and looked relieved when he nodded. “It was only a matter of time before Major Bright reared his ugly head.”

“I placed a tracker on Hack,” Robert said urgently. “We have to use it to find him.”

A figure stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room, looking out of place in an immaculate grey suit and blue tie – everyone else was either in HIDRA uniform or dressed in combat
trousers and T-shirts. David Wisher. He cast an unimpressed look over Sarah and Robert, little piggy eyes glinting behind round glasses.

“Excuse me, Colonel,” Wisher said, rounding on Rachel. “Is it necessary to have these children in the war room during a crisis situation?”

Rachel Andersen’s voice was extremely measured as she replied, and Sarah sensed that she was working hard to keep herself under control. “Robert and Sarah have been involved in a
mission to retrieve a boy we think is intimately involved in the crisis. It’s entirely appropriate that they’re here, in my opinion. Do you have an issue with that, Mr.
Wisher?”

The man held up his hands. “I’m just an observer, Colonel. Don’t let me stop you from running things as you see fit. I’ll be sure to note it all down in my final
report.”

Sarah sensed Rachel controlling her anger, but also her anxiety about the man. Wisher might look like a pipsqueak alongside the HIDRA personnel, but he clearly had the power to make
everyone’s lives difficult. She sensed he even had the power to have Rachel removed from command if she did the wrong thing.

“Thank you,” Rachel replied, casting a quick glance at Commander Craig. Her second-in-command exuded hatred towards Wisher.

“What about Hack?” Robert said again. “We have to find him fast!”

Rachel nodded. “We’re on that. Right now, there’s a more serious issue at hand.”

“But his life is in danger! Who knows what Bright has planned!”

Sarah placed a restraining hand on her brother’s shoulder.
It’s okay,
she reassured, aware of Wisher’s scrutiny.
Let’s hear what they have to say.

Robert looked like he was going to protest further, but Sarah gave him a warning look and spoke to him telepathically.
Do you want to get us thrown out?

He folded his arms in a semi-sulk, but kept his mouth shut. All eyes turned towards the colonel.

“Judging from what Robert has reported about Hack’s skill with computers,” Rachel said, “he’s connected to our other crisis.” She nodded to her assistant, Lt.
Kaminski, who stepped up to the table.

“Someone infiltrated the HIDRA global network four hours ago,” Kaminski explained. “A significant amount of data was stolen. They knew what they were looking for.”

“How was this possible?” Commander Craig said. “We’re supposed to have better encryption than the CIA.”

Kaminski shrugged. “I’m sorry, sir. It seems there’s someone better out there.”

He tapped the tabletop computer screen. A new image opened up – a red line bouncing around a world map.

“They walked right through every firewall and server we have. We traced the origin to this point.” The screen zoomed into a location in the Pacific, east of China.
“There’s nothing there but ocean.”

“It has to be Hack,” Robert said.

Kaminski nodded. “The signal corresponds to the path of the tracking device you placed on the kid.”

“So,” Rachel said, “what did they get?”

“The target was the superhumans database,” Kaminski replied. “They managed to download a significant amount of information before we locked down the network.”

Sarah placed her hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward. “You’re joking, right? I thought that data was supposed to be safe!”

Rachel held up a hand. “Let’s try to stay calm here.”

“I’ve spent half a year contacting those kids! We’ve collected their names, their locations—”

“And for all we know that information
is
still safe,” Rachel interrupted.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like it,” Sarah fumed, no longer worrying about how they appeared in front of the HIDRA personnel. “We promised them anonymity! Protection! We
should have just published their names in the paper and have done with it.”

“And if we hadn’t collected those details,” Rachel countered, “the American or the Chinese governments would have done it instead.” She walked round the table and
faced Sarah. “We’ll get the data back, I promise. It sounds as if this kid from Hong Kong—”

“His name’s Hack,” Robert interjected.

“It sounds as if he’s involved in the data theft. This explains Major Bright’s interest. The tracking device Robert planted is going to lead us right to him.”

She nodded to Commander Craig, who brought up a map showing the path of the tracking device from Hong Kong to a point in the middle of the Philippine Sea.

“The tracker stopped less than an hour ago,” he said. “An island called Oshino. It’s about ten kilometres across, owned by the Japanese government and supposedly
uninhabited. However, one of our spy satellites picked up these images.”

He tapped the screen. A black-and-white shot of the island appeared, showing a highlighted set of buildings and a landing strip.

“A base.”

Rachel said, “It looks like Bright’s assembling his own little army.” She pointed to some cross-shaped objects on the screen. “Correct me if I’m wrong, commander,
but aren’t those helicopters?”

“Black Hawks, I’d say,” he agreed and indicated other points of interest. “Looks like he’s also got a couple of tanks, some troop carriers and two C-17 military
cargo planes. That’s about a billion dollars’ worth of hardware right there.”

“Someone’s funding him,” Rachel said.

“Someone rich,” Sarah added. “This doesn’t make any sense. If he’s been hiding out in this region, I should have been able to detect his presence using my psychic
ability. I’ve been searching for him ever since those photos confirmed he was alive, but found nothing…”

David Wisher rolled his eyes. “Here we go with the
psychic
mumbo-jumbo...”

“Who knows with Bright?” Rachel said, ignoring the comment. “The main thing is we have his location. And this time he isn’t getting away. What’s our current status,
commander?”

“The
Ulysses
has altered course for the island, sir,” Craig said. “Our ETA is thirty hours, but we’ll be in drone attack range within eighteen. The crew is on
alert for the primary strike. They’ve been waiting for another crack at Bright ever since we found out he didn’t die in the Spire collapse.”

“Good work,” Rachel said. “We already have permission from the Japanese to attack the island.”

“What about Hack?” Robert asked. “Aren’t we sending a rescue team for him?”

Rachel and Commander Craig met one another’s eyes, but said nothing.

“Well?” Robert persisted.

Unexpectedly, it was Wisher who spoke next. “At present we have the advantage of surprise. We can’t risk alerting Bright to our presence by sending in a commando team. I speak for
General Wellman and the HIDRA high command when I say that Bright is to be taken out and the base destroyed at any cost. A rescue mission is just too dangerous. We can’t jeopardize the lives
of HIDRA personnel.”

Robert said quietly, “But I promised Hack we’d protect him.”

“The evidence suggests this kid was behind the data theft,” Wisher said. “For all we know, he’s in league with Bright.”

“Bright forced him to break into the database!”

“We don’t know that,” Wisher said. “Didn’t you rescue him in the middle of robbing an office building? What kind of kid gives himself a name like
Hack
,
anyway? It’s practically an admission of juvenile delinquency.”

Robert opened his mouth to argue more, but was clearly baffled by the man’s logic. He turned instead to Rachel. “I thought you were supposed to be in charge here. Make them rescue
Hack!”

“Robert, it’s not that simple,” she said. “I can’t just bypass orders from—”

The boy ignored her and looked to Sarah. “Make them do it. I know you can. Make them do what you want—”

Robert!
Sarah snapped.
Stop it. Stop it right now. You’re making us both look stupid…

Well, I wouldn’t want to do that.

With that, Robert pushed past her and ran out of the room.

“Ridiculous behaviour,” Wisher said with no little satisfaction. He turned to Rachel. “Colonel, could we please have the war room cleared of non-essential personnel so we can
have a proper strategy meeting?”

Rachel looked at Sarah, who was already heading for the door after her brother.

“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” she said. “There’s a bad smell in this room.”

He’s mad at you,
Wei informed her. He was a round-faced Chinese kid with dark hair and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of sci-fi T-shirts. Today:
Battlestar Galactica
.
Beside him, Louise brushed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes and backed him up with a nod of her head. The two of them were inseparable and, with Wei’s ability to control fire and
Louise’s ever-strengthening telekinetic powers, quite a team.

I never would have guessed,
Sarah replied with a slight smile.

Robert lost his last life in a tinny explosion from the speakers of the machine and gave the controls a final bash, before turning to face Sarah.

“We had a vote,” he said. “We’re going after Hack whether HIDRA likes it or not.”

“You had a vote.” Sarah looked at Wei, who couldn’t meet her gaze, and then Louise, who shrugged as if it didn’t really matter to her one way or the other. Sarah turned
back to Robert. “And how do you intend to do that?”

“Using the stealth jet you stole from Makarov,” Robert said. “It’s still sitting in Bay 3, right? They keep it flight ready?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, “but we don’t have permission—”

Robert interrupted, “Since when did we need
permission
to do anything? We made a deal with HIDRA that we can leave any time we want. And that jet is ours.”

“He’s right, Sarah,” Louise said. “That was the deal they gave us after we beat Makarov for them.”

Sarah kept her eyes on Robert. “It’s not that simple.”

“Are you one of them now?”

Sarah was taken aback by his question. “What do you mean?”

“We’re supposed to be a team,” Robert replied. “Not you and HIDRA. You and us.”

Both Louise and Wei nodded. Sarah suddenly felt as ganged up on as she had in the war room. “You don’t understand what’s going on here. Rachel is in a really difficult
position. She can’t just send us running off on some suicide mission.”

“If Alex and Nestor were here, they’d help.”

Louise nodded in agreement. “Even Octavio would.”

“Well, they’re not here,” she said sharply. “They were the ones who wanted to leave, remember?” She took a deep breath, thinking how she was sick of hearing about
Alex and the other two.

Up till recently the boys had been part of their team… Alex had helped them escape from the clutches of Major Bright in Melbourne and she’d fought alongside him in the wastes of
eastern Russia. The twins, Nestor and Octavio, had been with them since the very beginning, when they had first discovered their new powers in the Australian outback and had taken on a rogue HIDRA
colonel. Despite the fact they’d been on the verge of killing one another half of the time (particularly Nestor and Octavio, who had a strained sibling relationship, to say the least),
they’d always managed to come through for each other in the end. And after their return to HIDRA, Sarah had begun to realize that, along with the younger kids, the boys were the closest thing
to a family she’d had for a long time. The world had become a dangerous place for kids like them, but at least they had each other to rely on…

And Sarah had become particularly close to Alex – perhaps because of their experience together in Russia, when they’d had to flee into the Arctic waste together, facing death above
and below the ice. Which had made his desire to leave so hard to accept. To her, the return to HIDRA was the chance to put an end to the fighting – to concentrate on helping Rachel Andersen
and the scientists find a cure for the fall virus and bring their families back. But following their battle against Makarov, Alex had wanted more freedom, more excitement – more opportunities
to get them into trouble. When the information came through that Major Bright had been spotted in Europe, he’d wanted to take the others and go running off after him. With Bright still alive,
it was only a matter of time before he came after them again, Alex reasoned. Sarah had disagreed – hadn’t they all had enough fighting? They were safe. HIDRA could take care of the
major…

But Alex was determined to carry on the fight against Bright and, to Sarah’s surprise, so were the twins Nestor and Octavio (who could usually be relied upon not to agree on anything at
all). After several heated arguments all around the ship, Rachel Andersen had stepped in and moderated a solution: Alex, Nestor and Octavio would transfer to the HIDRA base in England, where they
would have the chance to see some duty in the field – maybe even against Major Bright, when he was found. Sarah would stay with the younger members of the team on the
Ulysses
and
continue her work tracking down virus-altered kids in the region. That had been almost six months ago and although she’d had occasional video calls with both Nestor and Octavio, Sarah
hadn’t spoken to Alex since.

Sarah rounded on her brother. “Perhaps you should have run away with them to England. It would have been easier for me. Do you think I want to be in charge all the time?”

Immediately Sarah regretted her words, seeing the hurt look in her brother’s eyes. She took a step towards him, but he backed away.

“So you’re not going to help us then?”

“Robert, I can’t—”

He disappeared…teleporting away to some other part of the ship. With a frustrated sigh, Sarah turned to Louise and Wei, who looked at one another. Some silent understanding passed between
them and they walked towards the exit.