Hunters: A Trilogy (22 page)

George nodded apologetically in affirmation to his query.

Ken was furious. ‘How in hell did you guys allow that to happen?’ he said, angrily. ‘Jesus Christ, help us!’ His eyes burned with frustration, head pounding to some unseen beat. In disbelief, he asked, ‘So, seriously, George – how did he get away with the most important piece of kit that your people have ever made?’

George replied with a livid, verbal brutality. ‘He took our own advanced naivety, took our self-righteous honesty and used it against us! He used us to coerce ourselves. We were so pleased, so enamoured with the idea that we were going to see our plans bear fruit. We were so blinded by joy that we were unable see further than our own inflated egos!’ He physically grimaced at his own painful, self-derogatory words. He snarled, ‘We were twisted around the fingers of a master puppeteer – that prick, Red, cleaned us out and we asked for it!’ He ended his clipped summary with a grimace, which only served to contort his features even further.

For a moment, the old man appeared almost demonic in his fury.

It was the second time Ken had seen the steel in George, the lifted mask revealing his disguised underbelly once again. The anger in his lined face bubbled forth in a blaze of flashing blue eyes and white-hot determination. It was like an unseen lesion of maggots appearing under the skin of a juicy peach, his transformation was totally unexpected and out of context in the extreme.

George became Grandma with an Uzi and wrinkled tights – standing over your semolina and shoving the snub-nosed machinegun into your face. ‘You will eat that fucking pudding, boy!’ The unexpected tone and that shining violence, no longer hidden by her warm soapy smell, would cause a sudden and desperate squirt of warmth to flood the crotch. He (she) scared the wits out of Ken. Right there and then, seated upon the red couch, he felt scared. His transfixed gaze was released by Mike’s calm, yet evenly paced question.

‘What did he do, George, what, how did he twist you?’

The old man whispered: ‘On the last day, on that final morning, our friend, Red, simply walked into the building with some of the early ones, the robe-wearers, and stole the device from under our very noses!’ With a terrible expression upon his face, George then proceeded to give them all the ghastly details of Red’s horrific deeds.

Upon hearing the tale of Jonathon’s terrible ordeal, and quickly recognising the link between it and the scenes that Mike had so vividly described – the men outside the SD House, and their death at the hand of a malicious, red-haired demon – Ken and Mike looked at George in horror. Both men had the same question in their eyes: How had George’s people have been so stupid? In God’s name, how?

George nodded in recognition of their unspoken accusation. He was weary and it showed. He said, ‘Yes, we were so stupid, very much so! We can travel between atoms, we can move from one parallel to the next with ease, we have no cancer, we need no oil,’ his face crumpled. ‘We can do all of these things and yet...and yet we did not realise that they had no intention of allowing us to take their riches away,’ he said, with a sigh, shaking his head in a very frustrated and distressed manner.

After a moment of silent contemplation, he continued. ‘But the joke is on them,’ he said, ‘because our information says that Red is working to his own agenda. Yes, he took the device on their behalf, but he has disappeared with it and now they, the Hyenas, everyone, are no more – there is just him and his little band of cronies – and, of course, you!’ George looked pointedly at Ken.

Mike asked: ‘How did you know he’d taken it?’

George nodded, leaning forwards to explain. ‘Jonathon entered a distress code into the keypad. That code has only one meaning. Its message is indelibly simple; it was the emergency code and signalled the total and irreversible failure of the mission!’ He explained that once that particular message was received there would be no other questions left to ask, no more talking.

‘They had deceived us for years,’ he said. ‘There was never any real interest in alternative fuel, none whatsoever! No, all they wanted from us was the technology, they wanted the Light Maker and they wanted its power for themselves – all they wanted was the power it produces. If they had their way, it would be turned into a weapon as soon as possible, having its technology would give them ultimate power! They sent Red to get it, he was their man!’ George shuddered with fury once more.

Grimacing, he said, ‘However, they have no idea as to the true magnitude and abilities of the substance within the device – it is not possible for it to be safely used without proper installation! Should it ever be ignited outside of a proper generator, well, that would truly have been the end for all of us – we simply would not allow that to happen!’ He stared at the two men, and without so much as a blink, told them that with no other options left, the decision to wipe the face of the planet clean was taken. With total calmness in his voice, he said, ‘Better to begin all over again rather than to face the unknown catastrophic events that the detonation of a stolen Light Maker would undoubtedly bring…’

And so, upon receiving their orders from mission control, George and his crew had fired the end-game sequence like a starting gun, the resultant effects of which had broken the winning tape in seconds. There would be no restart to this particular race – that much was certain. Ken and Mike sat in screaming silence whilst George stared at them. The old man seemed spent as he lowered himself into the deep red caress of the couch’s large arms.

‘You started the real storm!’ Mike’s whispered sentence danced, like a hippopotamus, through the elegant room. Although they both knew, had known all along, what the inevitable outcome would be, its arrival still shattered them.

‘One question if I may, George?’ Ken said, looking straight at his Guide.

George raised his eyebrows, beckoning the query.

‘Why the hell didn’t you simply kill Red and his gang, kill them with the storm – just wipe them off the face of the planet along with everyone else?’ Ken asked.

George looked him in the eye and answered. ‘The Light Maker was with them and we are not sure which vehicle it went with. It is inherently unstable and we have no idea what the effect of the storm upon such a device would be – we were not willing to take the risk! If it explodes in this parallel there will be catastrophic ramifications, for not only the whole dimension, but also for everything else. As I have said – time is not a singular thing, you should think of a house of cards, or maybe a long run of dominoes. Remove one card, knock one domino over and...well, you can guess the rest.’

It was a more than just a fair point; Ken guessed, but he also guessed that his brain was probably fully-cooked by now. Then, and obviously seeing those imaginary juices pouring out of Ken’s ears, George looked at them and suggested that perhaps they should take a break, maybe go for a walk and stretch their legs for a while. It sounded great to Ken, he was starting to feel as though he’d been in that opulent place for too long and was beginning to understand what a graduation student sitting their final exams for insanity would be experiencing. Yes, a change of scenery would suit him just fine, and by the expression on his face, Mike felt the same way. They both nodded in agreement.

George said, ‘Right, well...follow me then if you will, my boys! Let the show begin!’

George had taken to using those words quite a lot of late. Ken didn’t mind, even though he had witnessed a darker side to George, the anger; he liked the old guy, liked him a lot, and didn’t mind being one of George’s ‘boys’ at all. He grinned to himself and tagged along with Mike to follow George through the door. Mike turned around and gleefully said, ‘Yes, now you’ll see some gear, Kenny – now we get to play with some big boys’ toys!’ He laughed and slapped Ken’s shoulder.

With a shake of the head, Ken followed the two men walking in front of him, his lazy thoughts drifting in an unorganised chaos as he walked along in a trance, gently wondering what was coming next in this crazy place. After turning several corners and meandering down endless corridors, George eventually stopped and turned to his right. Ken, pulling up next to him, looked at the wall and saw that there was a door, its design so clever that it was almost invisible amongst the surrounding canvas of the corridor’s walls.

George reached out and placed the palm of his hand against the surface of the hidden entrance. Immediately the door illuminated, it was made of solid glass with beautiful carvings etched into its crystal surface. There was a slight whispering noise and the glass door slid upwards to reveal an empty lift behind. They walked in and turned around to face the entrance, watching the door as it slid downwards and closed with a soft clunk.

‘Cavern, please…’

George’s words sent them hurtling downwards. The lift did not make a sound, no mechanical whining or banging, it merely dropped like a stone. The floors rocketed past the glass door, melding into one long, flashing blur of light, which sent shadows flickering into the lift’s interior. Ken felt a strange lightness in his stomach, and he knew that wherever it was they were going, they were going there at speed. His feet had started to feel as though they were about to come unstuck and Ken knew it wouldn’t be too long before he started to float, float around in the lift.

‘Yes, that’ll be good, floating around the lift...yeah, and then my stupid head will probably explode with fear, won’t it?’ He kept the thoughts to himself and held on tight. Fortunately, the strange sensation didn’t last too long and with a gentle braking motion, they soon came to a halt somewhere a long way below where they had embarked.

George called out: ‘7712-32A.’

The lift door once again slipped upwards and open. Stepping out, he beckoned the men to follow him. Ken and Mike gladly obliged and strode into the huge workshop to stand upon a highly-polished, non-slip floor. With open mouth, Ken stood and looked around the cavernous room. It was like the best kept Formula One workshop, stainless-steel shelves adorned every wall, strange tools hung upon glistening metal hooks, whilst more familiar tools...hammers, pliers and suchlike...took their places alongside. Large metal toolboxes on castors stood towering sullenly in the corners. The air smelt clean and sterilised and the whole place gave off the aura of an operating theatre.

Over to the left, Ken saw another, separate, room with darkened windows and a single door, upon which glowed the familiar spearhead design. The ceiling in the workshop, the Cavern, was high and illuminated by dozens of long, slim, light bulbs that caused bright light to cascade over the entire area. High in the middle of the ceiling was a cluster of lamps, exactly like you would see in that operating theatre. The huge room was immaculate in every respect and was crowned by two, strangely-familiar vehicles that stood in silent menace in the centre. They looked very similar to Nissan Patrols, or some kind of Land Rover.

However, these two looked as though they were right in the middle of a serious steroid addiction. They must have stood at about nine or ten feet in height, their weight being supported by the most enormous tyres Ken had ever seen this side of a Monster Truck, they weren’t as ridiculously oversized as those things, but they were huge, about five feet high with a width of at least three more. The heavily treaded tyres carried no markings at all and were nestled tightly upon black wheel rims.

The dull gleam from the vehicles’ metal flanks was of the same, silvery-green colour that Ken had seen before. It wasn’t really a colour as such but merely seemed to emanate a fluid hue, one that made him feel as though it
was
the colour. Ken walked over to examine the awesome machines, it’s what any small boy would have done, and right then it was exactly what he felt like, a small boy who had recently stumbled into his comic book superhero’s secret underground lair. He stood and stared at the vehicles. All the windows were of the deepest green, nearly black, and had a similar appearance to the lift door. The glass looked to be very thick and also extremely solid. Walking around one of the monsters, Ken saw there were no door handles, aerials, radiator grilles or lights. A sheer, purposefully-flowing flank was all he saw. Form and function blended together in perfect harmony. It looked the business.

He turned to Mike, saying: ‘That is a mean pair of wagons, Mikey, what the hell are they?’

Mike laughed and said, ‘Believe it or not, these guys call them Spears!’ He nodded toward George in reference. ‘Now,
that
is more than a coincidence, eh? I was having a little play with them the other day. Wait until you see, it’s barking mad!’ He grinned and Ken failed to prevent a small laugh of his own.

‘Please do not touch the vehicle, Kenneth!’ George’s warning cut through the air. ‘It is not prepared for you yet.’ He gave Ken a ‘come hither’ wave of the hand and turned toward the room with the darkened windows.

Following George, Ken entered the separate room, watching the door welcome him with a mechanical whine as it opened inwards. It was a small office with several desks and a sloping table that sported a glass top. George told him to place his hand upon the glass, palm side down. As he did so, Ken felt the surface under his fingers liquefy, become almost gelatinous. It quivered and then he felt a coldness course up and down the length of his hand. There was a slight suction effect at the same time. Looking down, Ken saw that his hand was almost submerged into the glass. Then the sensation stopped abruptly and his hand was once more simply resting upon the dark exterior of a now completely solid surface.

George stepped up next to him and waited whilst a small keypad slid out of the machine. When it had, he said, ‘7712-32A’ and then waited whilst the keypad illuminated briefly, before tapping in some more numbers and letters. The table under Ken’s hand glowed. George said, ‘There we go, Kenneth. Welcome, welcome to the Team, my dear fellow!’

Ken lifted his hand and looked at it – there were no marks and he felt no pain. ‘What the hell was that, some sort of fingerprinting device?’ he asked.