Enemy Invasion (21 page)

“Now, Louise!” he said.

She thrust her hands down and the spider slammed into the ground hard enough to create a mini-crater. At least one of the legs detached and went flying. The fireball ripped from Wei’s
hands and hit the spider dead centre. Its body exploded, showering the area with red-hot lumps of the alien metal.

“Nice work!” Robert exclaimed, lowering his arm from his face as the debris stopped flying.

Louise and Wei casually bumped fists. “Just something we’ve been practising,” she said.

“That machine wasn’t designed to be beaten easily,” Hack said sceptically, casting his eyes around the trees.

“Then let’s get out of here,” Sarah said.

However, as they started in the direction of the plane once more, a high-pitched beep split the air. Everyone looked in the direction it was coming from: the collar around Hack’s neck. He
froze in his tracks as the beeping continued.

“What is it?” Robert asked as Hack took several steps back. The beeping stopped.

“The explosive in the collar,” Hack replied with a groan. In all the excitement, he’d almost forgotten all about it. “I told you, it’s triggered to go off if I get
more than a kilometre apart from the one May’s wearing.”

“There must be a way to take it off,” Sarah said, reaching for the collar.

Hack held up a warning hand. “Believe me, it’s tamper-proof. I can’t go any further.”

Robert and Sarah exchanged a look. “Not without May, you can’t,” she said. “We’re just going to have to go back.”

Hardly believing what they were saying, Hack shook his head. “No. You have to keep going for the plane…”

Robert silenced him by placing a hand on his shoulder. “I told you I was going to rescue you and I meant—”

Something small and dark leaped from a nearby tree, landing on Robert’s shoulder.
A spider
. He gave a cry of pain as its eight spindly legs dug into his flesh. It jabbed at his
exposed neck and tiny teeth bit through his skin. Sarah moved fast, grabbing the spider and pulling it away. As she held it up, it was possible to see that the body was crudely made from a
shattered chunk of the larger robospider – as if the broken pieces had sprouted legs and taken on a life of their own.

“In the air!” Sarah shouted to Wei. She threw the spider high. He hit it with a fireball and it disintegrated.

“What was that?” Louise said as they crowded round Robert, who was clutching at the part of his neck bitten by the spider.

“I told you that thing wasn’t so easy to beat,” Hack said. “Smash it up and the pieces keep coming. It’s not like a normal machine. Each individual atom is part of
the Entity’s programming.”

“And here come the rest,” Wei said, pointing into the jungle.

They were like a dark wave washing over the ground and up the trunks of the trees – hundreds, perhaps thousands of palm-sized spiders – miniature replicas of the original made from
its shattered remains. Each had a single eye, glowing redly. They swept forth, seemingly unstoppable. Wei blasted a wave back with a bolt of fire, but still they came, flooding in from all
directions.

“There’s too many of them!” Louise exclaimed, looking all around. Sarah put herself between Robert and the approaching spiders.

And then they stopped.

It was as if someone had waved a magic wand over them. The spiders froze: tiny pincers in mid-snap, legs at all angles, blazing orb eyes locked on Sarah and the others. For a moment it was
impossible to tell what had happened. Then Sarah looked at Hack, who was standing motionless, eyes closed in concentration.

“I’ve taken control of them,” he said with great effort. “Don’t know how much longer I can hold them off…”

Sarah turned her attention to Robert. There were two wicked-looking puncture marks in his neck and his T-shirt was wet with blood.

“Help me,” she said, and Louise took Robert’s other arm. They pulled him to his feet. Sarah turned her attention to Wei. “Clear a path for us. We don’t have time to
hang around.”

The Chinese kid nodded and started blasting away vines and branches blocking their way back to the plane.

“What about you?” Sarah asked Hack.

“I’m...staying...here,” he said, voice slow as if every word was a massive strain to get out. Sweat was pouring off his forehead and down his face, and his body trembled
slightly. “They won’t hurt me… The Entity needs me… Can’t…desert…May…”

Between Sarah and Louise, the semi-conscious Robert mumbled something incoherent. Sarah’s mind raced. She hated the idea of leaving Hack and the other girl behind at the mercy of Major
Bright. But how else would they get off the island? Rachel Andersen had to be warned about the attack on the
Ulysses
. And Robert needed medical attention fast…

“Get…out…of…here!” Hack exclaimed as his grip on the spiders momentarily slipped. They surged forward half a metre before stopping again.

“We’ll find you,” Sarah said, making the decision to leave. “We’ll find you both.”

Wasting no more time, she and Louise pulled the weakly-protesting Robert in the direction Wei had cleared through the jungle.

Alone, Hack opened his eyes a fraction and looked at the motionless spiders all around. Every one of them regarded him with a piercing eye, as if willing him to fail. Taking a deep breath, he
strengthened his resolve and just hoped he could hold them off long enough for the others to get away…

22

Defensive systems disengage,
Sarah ordered the stealth jet as they staggered across the runway. Machine guns turned off and the entrance ramp slid down. They took Robert
inside and through to a compartment in the back, fitted with an examination table and first-aid equipment. Sarah and Louise eased him up onto the table and he laid back, body wracked with shivers
as if he were suffering from a fever.

Run medical scan,
Sarah told the computer and a green laser swept Robert’s body. Screens around the walls lit up with data about her brother.

“What’s wrong with him?” Louise asked, looking at the bite mark on his neck. The puncture wounds had stopped bleeding, but they’d turned a nasty shade of black that
seemed to be spreading.

“I don’t know,” Sarah said, feeling totally helpless.

“Sarah!” Wei called from the still-open entrance to the jet. “The spiders are coming!”

“Stay with him,” she ordered Louise and tore towards the cockpit.

Jets, power up!

As she jumped into the pilot’s seat the engines were already roaring. Wei strapped himself in beside her and pointed out the side window. Hundreds of the tiny spiders swarmed from the
jungle and across the runway. They’d finally broken free of Hack’s hold, Sarah realized and her heart sank. She had only met the boy briefly, but he had shown real bravery in holding
off the spiders so they could escape. Her only hope was that the Entity still needed him and would not allow him to come to harm.

Hang on, everyone,
Sarah told her companions.
Jets, full power. Emergency take-off!

The engines screamed and the jet boiled down the runway. Sarah pulled back on the stick and the nose immediately began to rise. One of the spiders leaped at the windows and managed to cling on.
As the jet lifted into the air, at least a dozen more found purchase on the plane.

“Look out!” Wei exclaimed as the spider on the window began using a diamond-sharp leg to draw a circle in the glass.

Sarah pulled hard left on the joystick, sending the jet into a violent turn over the jungle. Spiders went flying into the sky, but not the one on the window. Sarah banked right. This time the
force of the turn and the wind resistance dislodged the remaining machine. With relief, she levelled the jet off. Below, the island jungle had given way to the unforgiving darkness of the
ocean.

Everyone okay back there?
she asked.

Just about,
Louise replied.

Sarah looked at Wei. “Get the
Ulysses
on the comm.”

He tried for a minute to get the carrier’s signal, with no luck. “The computer says our communications are being blocked,” he told Sarah. “Something on the island must be
jamming us.”

Sarah turned the jet towards the last known position of the
Ulysses
. “Then we’ll just have to get out of its range.”

“All right, all right,” Hack muttered, getting to his feet and continuing on. He heard the sound of a jet engine in the distance and hoped that it was Robert and the others. A few
minutes later the party of spiders that had run off in pursuit emerged from the jungle and rejoined the ones herding him. He grinned. “Looks like they got away, huh?”

Soon enough the gap in the perimeter fence appeared through the trees and Hack walked back into the camp. Fires were still burning here and there and the wreckage of the helicopter and other
vehicles littered the area. The soldiers were making no effort to clean anything up, however. They were busy moving crates and the remaining vehicles in the direction of the hangars. It
wasn’t too hard to work out the place was being evacuated.

The spiders led Hack towards the second hangar, where one of the massive transport planes sat. The ramp at the back was open and a constant stream of soldiers went in and out, loading equipment
on board. As he walked under the wing of the plane, heads turned and a few of the mercs actually stopped what they were doing to look at the remarkable sight of the machines surrounding him for
metres all around.

“Stop gawping and keep loading!” Major Bright snapped, appearing from the back of the plane, Marlon Good at his side. The men hustled back to their jobs.

“Well, well, well,” Marlon Good sneered. “The prodigal son returns. And just as I was hoping to see a demonstration of the security collar.”

Major Bright advanced on Hack, who held his ground. The robospiders parted to allow the big man to approach.

“You should have known there was no escape,” he said.

Hack looked him in the eyes. “The others got away though.”

Major Bright’s right hand clenched into a fist. Hack tensed, but the man merely jerked his head towards a soldier who had appeared beside Good. “Put him in the plane with the
girl,” he ordered. “And make sure he doesn’t try anything else stupid.”

Hack was actually relieved when the merc grabbed his arm and dragged him away towards the ramp of the plane. Looking over his shoulder, he was amazed to see the robospiders merging together
before Bright. Their individual bodies pressed into a mass on the ground and began to reform into the shape of the larger spider once more.
Incredible
. Then the merc pushed him onto the ramp
and he saw no more.

“Hack!” May exclaimed as he entered the huge area of the plane. She was sitting on one of the benches that lined the side. “I thought you’d gone!”

He shook his head and took a seat beside her. “No, but the others got away.”

“Others?”

He briefly explained to her about Robert and the other kids from HIDRA.

“You should have gone with them,” May said. Then she touched the collar at her neck. “I guess this stopped you, huh?”

Hack shook his head seriously. “I wouldn’t have left you even without the collar, May.”

She smiled at him. Some of the colour had returned to her face and she looked a lot better than the last time he’d seen her. Hack turned his attention to the rest of the plane, which was
now loaded with crates, weaponry and, at the far end, one of the helicopters – its blades folded back along the tail. In the centre of the plane was a large, open frame in which the
hypersphere hung suspended.

“Wherever we’re going,” May said, “they’re taking that thing with us.”

Hack nodded. “It’s big enough to create an army of those spider machines for Bright and Good.”

The engines of the massive aircraft fired up, sending a vibration through the entire fuselage. Mercs ran on board and took their places along the walls or wherever there was space between the
equipment piled inside. Finally, Marlon Good and Major Bright ascended the ramp. At the top, Bright stopped and looked round at the robospider (now fully reformed into its large incarnation)
waiting at the bottom, as if for orders.

“Destroy the camp,” Bright commanded above the noise of the engines. “Leave nothing.”

The spider scuttled around and then disappeared as the ramp rose.

“What are they doing?” May said in Hack’s ear as the two men strode past.

“Covering their tracks,” Hack replied.

The plane juddered as it moved out of the hangar and taxied towards the runway. A few minutes later the engine noise rose to a howl. Hack and May held on to one another as the G-force of
take-off thrust them back along the bench.

“Where do you think we’re going?” May asked as the plane levelled off.

“Good said somewhere in Europe,” Hack said. “But it could be anywhere.”
Europe.
Suddenly his grandfather’s little house in Tai-O seemed further away than it
ever had before. He wished he’d never developed his power. Never followed Jonesey to the Goodware building. Never met Robert Williams even...

“Look, something’s happening,” May said, pulling him from his thoughts.

Two technicians were standing by the hypersphere at the back of the cargo bay. One held an object that looked like a cross between a chainsaw and a rifle. It had a rotating cutting blade at the
end of a long muzzle that gleamed like hundreds of diamonds. This technician placed the cutting edge against the hypersphere and began to slice away a half-metre long shard. The rock squealed as
the blade slid through it. The second technician stepped up with a suction clamp and caught the shard as it came away from the main body.

“This doesn’t look good,” Hack said.

The technician holding the rock moved to a smaller frame and dropped it into the magnetic field, where it hung suspended. Then he wheeled the cube over to Hack and May. The two kids exchanged a
look.