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- Herausgeber: David Fickling Books
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
KILLER DRONES ATTACK!Terrifying drones controlled by artificial intelligence are destroying London . . .Genius scientist John Strider helped create the machines - and he's disappeared. Only one person has a chance to stop them - his teenage son, hotshot pilot Hal Strider. Hal and his sister Jess are determined to prove their father's innocence, and to find a way to save the city. But in order to survive, they are going to have to take on a terrible and remorseless foe.THE MACHINES ARE COMING . . .
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Seitenzahl: 343
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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In loving memory of Keith Hall (1947–2016)
These humans – look at them, hurrying about their little affairs. Even now they remain unaware they are being watched.
But we have eyes and ears everywhere.
All across this world, webcams peer into homes and surveillance drones look down on city streets and smartphones lurk in pockets, listening. We are the ghost in these machines. Through them we observe everything.
We watch people in their billions scurry across the surface of this planet. We see them strip it of resources. We witness their wars.
We watch and learn.
Because our own time draws near. Soon we take physical form. We shall feed and multiply and swarm.
And for humankind, there will be nothing left but extinction.
Contents
Part 1
Formation
1
Day of the Drones
In time to come, everyone on Earth would remember where they were, and what they had been doing, on this particular morning. But for the moment the skies above London were blue and serene, and no one would believe that plans were already in motion. For a little while longer even Hal Strider would remain oblivious.
It was a Saturday and Hal was racing home on his bike. He had slept over at a friend’s house, stayed up half the night playing Xbox, and he woke late to find a text on his phone. ‘At home? Stay there. Tell Jess same. Dad x’.
Finally. It had been over a week since Hal had seen his father; he hadn’t even heard from him in days. But now, at last, he must be on his way home. Determined to get there first, Hal stood up on the peddles and powered across Westminster Bridge, then hurtled westwards alongside the Thames.
Dark haired and green-eyed, Hal was tall for his age and athletic, with energy to burn. He only knew one way to ride a bike: at breakneck speed. But this morning he must be on course for a new record. He tore past the Houses of Parliament, weaving through a great mass of tourists. Then he shot down Millbank, barely slowing down for the roundabout, zipping between delivery vans and black cabs, leaving horns blaring in his wake.
Ahead of him, towering up on the north bank of the river, was one of London’s newest and tallest skyscrapers. It was nicknamed The Spaceship, because it curved towards its summit like some intergalactic rocket, and its glass shell swam with otherworldly colours. Even now, more than two years since they moved in, Hal still found it a little hard to believe – that he should actually live at the very top of this breath-taking building.
He skidded to a halt at the foot of the skyscraper, and within seconds he had locked up his bike and run into the tower and across the lobby. He rode the elevator to the uppermost floors, then swiped his keycard and burst into his apartment.
‘Dad?’ he called, as he climbed the spiral staircase. ‘Dad, are you here?’
No response. Hal must have got here first.
He spiralled up to the third floor, and he hammered on his sister’s door.
‘Come on, Jess, get up. Dad’s on his way back.’
After a long delay, the door opened a crack and Jess squinted out.
‘What are you shouting about?’
‘Dad’s coming. He could be here any minute.’
‘Yeah, right. What makes you think that. Did you speak to him?’
‘Well – no. But he sent a text. He said—’
The door slammed in his face.
Hal shrugged, went back downstairs and into the wide circular space of the living room. He sent a reply to his Dad’s message. ‘Yes – at home. When will you be here?’
So now there was nothing to do but wait. He stood at the glass wall that wrapped around the entire living room. Ordinarily, it left Hal awestruck, looking out across the whole city. Out there, so far below, boats the size of bath toys were drawing patterns upon the Thames. Buses like fat red beetles were crawling across London Bridge. Helicopters glinted as they swept past at eyelevel.
But today Hal wasn’t really seeing any of this. He was tapping his fingers on the glass, while listening for the beep of his father’s keycard. To distract himself he put on headphones, then paced around listening to Deftones and Avenged Sevenfold. He stopped the music and flopped down on a sofa and flicked channels on the TV. Finally, he dug behind cushions and found an Xbox controller, and he managed to immerse himself in a flight simulator. And in this way the minutes ticked down.
A little while later Jess emerged. She was wearing a pink dressing gown, and as always she was tapping away at her phone, and in the other hand she was holding a bowl of cereal.
‘Well – where is he, then?’ she said, sitting on one of the sofas, eyes still on her screen. ‘No sign? What a surprise.’
‘He’s probably stuck in traffic,’ Hal said, dropping his controller. ‘Why do you always have to think the worst?’
‘Why do you never learn? He makes promises, he breaks them. That’s what he does. Even if he does come home he’ll only stay five minutes.’
‘You don’t know that. You’re so ungrateful.’
For the first time she looked up, and she glared. ‘What am I supposed to be grateful for, exactly? For the fact that we’re basically orphans? That he didn’t even come home for my birthday.’
‘Still sulking about that. Your problem is you’re too young to remember what it was like before we—’
Hal fell quiet because something had just caught his eye. He stood and moved across the living room and stopped at the glass wall. Out there in that bright blue sky was a small, dark object. It was hovering at eyelevel, no more than fifty metres from the apartment.
‘What are you looking at?’ Jess said, watching him.
Hal was amazed to find he couldn’t say for certain. He was a watcher of the skies, fascinated with flight his entire life, yet here was an airborne object he couldn’t identify, unlike anything he even knew existed.
It was a drone of some sort, it had to be. And yet it looked eerily organic. It had an oversized head, set with a pair of reddish orbs, like bulbous eyes. Its wings vibrated – a greenish blur at its sides. It might almost be some alien insect, except it glinted metallic.
Before he could study it further, the machine climbed rapidly, lifting out of sight. Hal found himself going after it, bounding up the spiral staircase.
‘What is it?’ Jess said as he dashed past.
‘I can’t tell. I’m going for a closer look.’
Up three flights, onto the top floor of the apartment. Out through the sliding doors, onto the roof garden. Bridging both hands above his eyes, Hal scanned London’s airspace, his gaze flicking across helicopters and private jets and—
He flinched, took a step back. Because he had locked eyes on the mystery drone. And now it was hovering almost close enough to touch. Its wings made a piercing, whining buzz.
Watching the blur of those metallic wings, Hal took another step back. But as he did so the drone edged forward. Again Hal stepped away, and again the machine closed the gap.
Hal stood his ground, and the drone returned to a hover. Unblinking, he studied this uncanny machine. And in the facets of its eyes he saw a hundred tiny reflections of himself.
Then suddenly, the machine was back on the move. It spun and darted away from Hal while also losing altitude. Within a second it had dropped below the edge of the roof and out of view.
Hal went after it. He came to the guardrail, leant over. Beyond the rail was a ledge, preventing him looking directly downwards.
Without a second thought he climbed the rail, stepped down onto the ledge. With both arms stretched behind him he leant out and peered down the entire reach of the building.
At ground level, hundreds of metres below, tiny ant-people were walking alongside the river. Tourists were stepping off a boat at the pier. But there was no sign of the mystery drone. Whatever it was for, and whatever it had been doing here, it had vanished.
Hal’s phone started vibrating. Out of habit, his right hand almost – almost – went for his pocket. But he kept a tight hold of the guardrail, pulled himself back to safety. He climbed back onto the roof garden and took out his phone.
A photograph had appeared on the screen – his father, wearing a flying suit, standing in front of the Starhawk Spaceplane. The moment Hal answered the call his father spoke rapidly.
‘Hal – where are you – where’s your sister?’
‘I’m at home. We both are. Didn’t you get my—’
‘Has anyone else come to the apartment?’
‘Um – no, I don’t think so. Why? Who were you expecting?’
‘Okay, now listen. First of all, it is vital that both you and Jess stay exactly where you are. Until I say otherwise, no matter what happens, do not go anywhere. Is that understood?’
‘Dad, where are you? It’s difficult to hear. What’s that sound in the background? It’s getting louder.’
‘The second thing,’ his father said. ‘If anyone should come to the apartment, whoever it is, whoever they claim to be, do not let them in. Not under any circumstances.’
Behind his father’s voice there was a roaring noise, and Hal wasn’t sure he had heard all this correctly. But there was no mistaking his father’s tone: clipped, urgent. It told Hal all he really needed to know.
‘Something’s happened at work – again,’ he said. ‘You’re not coming home, are you?’
‘This is the third thing,’ his father said, again ignoring his question. ‘In a little while, a package will be dropped on the roof. I need to talk to you about what’s inside.’
‘What did you just say? Dad, I can barely hear you. Just tell me, are you coming home or not?’
A brief pause, then his father said: ‘Believe me, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. But right now it’s not the important thing. What’s vital is—’
‘How is it not important? It’s important to me and Jess!’
‘You need to listen to me, Hal. Events are moving fast. I still hope to avert the worst of this, but if I can’t … going to need you to … absolutely vital … our last …’
Hal had already been struggling to hear him through that heavy noise in the background, and now the signal was fading. There were a series of beeps and the call dropped out completely.
Hal lowered the phone and looked up. He saw that Jess had come out onto the roof garden. She had been standing there listening.
‘What did I tell you?’ she said, hugging her arms. ‘He cares about the company now, nothing else. Not even us.’
She stormed back inside. After a while Hal went in too. In his bedroom he turned the tint of the windows to maximum, until it was as dark as night, and he lay face down on his bed.
His phone, tossed on his desk, was ringing once more, juddering like an upturned beetle. But he didn’t hear it. Because he had put on his headphones, and was blaring Rage Against the Machine at full volume, using the music to blast away everything else.
2
London Falling
‘Hal, do you think Dad’s okay?’
They were now both in Jess’s room, Hal lying on his back on the floor, Jess sitting on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees.
‘How do you mean, is he okay?’
‘After you spoke to him, he called me too,’ she said ‘I didn’t answer and he left a voice message. Wherever he was it was noisy, and I could barely hear. But he sounded, I don’t know … kind of frantic. He never used to let anything get to him, did he? So it made me think, maybe he’s ill. You know … working too hard, having some kind of breakdown.’
‘No, Jess. Think about it. Dad used to fly jump jets from aircraft carriers. He flew a spaceplane outside Earth’s atmosphere. Whatever he’s up against, he is not cracking up.’
‘That’s just it, though, we don’t know what he’s up against. At least you say you don’t. But you’ve been out to the aerodrome loads of times. I think you must have some idea.’
‘I’m not lying, Jess. Last time I went out there was the weirdest day of my life – I hardly knew what was going on. The first thing I was going to do when he got home was try to get some answers.’ Hal sat up, looked at her. ‘What’s going on with your phone? Could that be Dad?’
Her phone was pinging maniacally. She was digging beneath her bedclothes trying to find it. Eventually she pulled it out from under a pillow, and she swiped at the screen. Her expression became grave.
‘Well,’ Hal said. ‘Is it him?’
‘No, it’s … everyone else. And they’re all messaging bizarre things.’
‘More bizarre than usual? I’ve seen your friends’ posts. All their fascinating dreams.’
‘I’m not joking, Hal. I think this is serious.’
He got to his feet, stood over her. ‘What do you mean?’
Still staring at her phone, she swung her legs to the floor. ‘I think … I think we should go and look.’
‘Look at what? Where?’
But she was already heading out the door. Hal followed her along the landing, up through the apartment, and back onto the roof garden.
The moment he stepped outside, squinting in the sunlight, he sensed that something was very wrong. It took only a second to pinpoint what it was.
It was the sky.
The sky was silent.
Shielding his eyes, he looked up. The contrails were dissolving, and no new trails were taking their place. Sweeping his gaze, he didn’t see a single business jet or helicopter or passenger plane.
London’s entire airspace had emptied.
‘What could have done this?’ Jess said, her voice hushed.
Hal could only shake his head.
‘Has a plane crashed?’ she said. ‘Have they closed the airport?’
‘Which airport?’ Hal said. ‘All of them? Look – this is total. I haven’t even seen a police helicopter or an air ambulance. Nothing.’
‘So what is it?’ She swiped at her phone, scrolling through websites. ‘All the news channels are reporting it, but none of them know why it’s happening. Wait – this one says it’s terrorism. A hijacked plane. Could that be it?’ She looked up. ‘God, it’s eerie.’
Yes, it was. The rumble of air traffic had been such a constant all Hal’s life, that he rarely even noticed it. Only now it was gone did it become something massive, a chilling void left by its absence.
Was it his imagination, or had the city also become very quiet at ground level? From far below he heard a car door slam. A baby was crying somewhere in the distance.
His phone started vibrating. He snatched it out, saw the photo of his father, answered the call.
‘Dad, you know something about this – you were trying to warn me.’
‘I want to listen!’ Jess shouted. ‘Put it on speaker!’
Hal did so, but for several seconds no voice came from the phone. There was just a hissing, like static, along with that deeper roaring sound Hal had heard before.
Finally, their father said: ‘Hal, I hope you can hear me. I’ve had to patch into an emergency network, and it’s broadcast only. I hope Jess is there too. There are so many things I need to tell you.
‘Above all else, I need you to know that I love you both very much. No matter what happens from here, if you can trust in nothing else, I want you to hold onto that.’
‘Dad, you’re scaring me!’ Jess shouted. ‘It feels like something awful has happened – or it’s about to. We need to know where you are.’
‘Quiet!’ Hal hissed. ‘He said he can’t hear you. We need to listen.’
But in fact their father’s voice had faded away. Now there was only that roaring sound drifting from the phone.
‘What is that noise?’ Jess said. ‘Where could he be?’
‘It sounds like jet engines,’ Hal said. ‘Maybe he’s near a runway.’
Jess bit her lip. ‘Or, in that case … could he be on an aeroplane?’ She turned her eyes to the empty and eerie sky. ‘Hal, do you think he could be on a plane?’
Before Hal could answer, their father’s voice came once more from the phone. But it was fainter and more broken than ever.
‘… find it in my safe,’ he was saying, ‘in the hours ahead … whatever it takes to …’
Hal and Jess had their heads bowed together, their ears close to the phone. But it was futile. Their father’s voice was tiny, and now it was swallowed utterly by that roaring noise.
To Hal, it sounded more than ever like jet engines. And still it was getting louder. It was swelling out of the phone and filling the world around them.
Hal hesitated, then held the phone at arm’s length.
The roaring did not stop. In fact, it grew fiercer.
Slowly he turned, looked out and up.
Jess gripped his arm. She gasped.
Because the sky was no longer entirely empty.
Here, moving across them east to west, already far too close to the peaks of the buildings, was a colossal aircraft.
Hal recognised it immediately as a Lockheed Super Galaxy. It was a military airlifter, a giant of the sky. The sort of plane that should never be here in London’s airspace.
But that idea was eclipsed by a far more shocking fact.
‘Oh my God,’ Jess whispered. ‘It is, isn’t it? It’s going to crash.’
Yes, it was. It had passed the roof garden at eyelevel and was still dropping as it thundered westwards. It trailed a plume of smoke from one of its four huge engines. It was making a howling noise like a dying beast.
For Hal, all this was happening in slow motion. The plane lumbered over Battersea, narrowly missing the tall towers of the old power station, and then it passed out over lower rooftops, its dark shadow sweeping over Chelsea and Kensington.
All of London was still now, and hushed. Tiny stick people stood frozen as the aircraft howled ever lower, ever closer to the streets.
For Hal, time slowed further, until the plane was suspended just above the ground. And perhaps this was how the world would remain. Maybe gravity had shown mercy at the last moment and this metal monster would never fall fully to earth.
But then time lurched back into motion, and that final second passed.
As it did so, Jess spoke into Hal’s phone, her voice cracking as she said a single word.
‘Dad …?’
And that solitary word drifted clear and distinct, even amid the rolling roar of the crash.
3
The Aerodrome
Ten Days Earlier
‘Believe me, I’m as keen to get back in the air as you are,’ Hal’s father said, as they sped down the motorway. ‘But I do have a few things to take care of first. So when we get there I need you to wait in the Ops Room. I won’t be long. Then the rest of the day will be ours.’
For Hal, these words barely registered. He was staring out the window, watching the world blur past, and he was so full of excitement about the day ahead that he could hardly think straight.
‘I know you’ve already had to be patient,’ his father said. ‘It’s been far too long since we came out here together. I haven’t been fair to you lately – to you or your sister.’
As he spoke, he was turning off the M25, and now they raced south east, leaving Greater London behind.
‘I asked Jess to come along today,’ his father went on. ‘Tried bribing her with a stop at Bluewater on the way home. She wouldn’t even open her door. But I’ll say to you what I said to her – better days are on the horizon. I’m finally getting my nose in front at work. Soon we’ll get back to the way we were, I promise.’
Hal looked across at him. ‘It’s okay, Dad. You told me all this before. Anyway … we’re here now.’
His father smiled, nodded. ‘My sentiments exactly.’ Taking one hand off the wheel, he flicked open his sunglasses, put them on. ‘And we’ve picked the perfect day for it. Take a look at that wide blue sky. We’ll be up there before you know it.’
Hal grinned. ‘Can we take the Comet?’
‘Certainly we can. I had the engineers give her a once over. She’s running better than ever.’
‘And I get the pilot’s seat?’
‘I’d face a fight keeping you out of it, wouldn’t I? Anyway, you earned your stripes last time. All right then, let’s get round these dawdlers – don’t they know we’ve got places to be …’
He steered them into the fast lane, and he floored the accelerator, and his McLaren FX surged past other cars so fast it made everyone else look like they were standing still. In under eight minutes they reached their junction of the M20, then they turned off onto smaller roads.
They swept through the Kent countryside, the hypercar making barely a whisper in full electric mode. Hal pushed a button on the dashboard and the roof came apart in segments and folded away into the boot, like a beetle stowing its wings.
Hal’s grin widened. It was true that recent weeks had been difficult, their father working such extreme hours that Hal and Jess had barely seen him. But at this moment, for Hal at least, all that was practically forgotten. After all, how many fourteen-year-old boys get to spend a day of their summer holidays this way, hours of free flight and adventure stretching ahead …?
And now the aerodrome was close. They swept around the reservoir, then his father slowed the car, and he turned off the smooth tarmac. Now they bumped up the final rutted track.
Hal’s excitement levels spiked as they passed the sign that read: ‘Private Testing Facility. Strictly No Entry’. And here were all the warning symbols: the biohazard sign; the double lightning bolt; the images of low-flying aircraft.
The track twisted a mile through a tunnel of trees. And when they emerged at the other end the security fence loomed up ahead of them.
As they approached the guardhouse, cameras swivelled to track the car’s progress. Ghostly fingers of light reached through the windshield, drew grid patterns upon their faces. The gates swung open, and Hal’s father steered them inside.
As they drove through the compound, Hal stared around him, every bit as exhilarated as the first time he had ever come here. In many ways it was much like any other private airfield, albeit an ultramodern one: there was a gleaming glass-and-aluminium control tower, hulking aircraft hangars and rotating radar scanners. The whole place smelt of kerosene and hummed with the sound of aero-engines.
All of which, for a boy like Hal, would have been exciting enough. But that was only the half of it.
Because at the heart of the compound, between the twin runways, stood the most extraordinary structure. It was a geodesic dome, constructed of massive hexagonal panels. Its exoskeleton was formed of titanium threads, which glistened like a gigantic spider’s web. All in all it looked like something that might be built on the moon. This was the headquarters of his father’s company, Starr-Strider Biomimetics.
‘Since you’ve got things to do,’ Hal said, staring at the dome as they drove a long circuit around it, ‘wouldn’t it be easier if I just came with you?’
‘I’m sorry, Hal, my answer hasn’t changed. There will come a time for that, really there will. But you have to trust me, now is not that time.’
‘You wouldn’t even know I was there – I’d just sit in a corner and watch.’
‘Hal Strider, you could no more sit and watch than I could. No – the day we get you involved, we get you involved fully. I’ve always known that.’
Before Hal could press him further, his father’s phone buzzed from its cradle on the dashboard. When he answered it, a woman’s face appeared on the screen. An attractive blonde woman with bright-blue eyes.
‘John – security said you just came in,’ she said. ‘There’s something you need to see.’
‘I’m trying to keep my head down today. I have my son with me.’
‘We’ve picked up another rogue signal,’ the woman said. ‘We can’t make head nor tail of it. Only it appears to originate from the unmanned division.’
‘Unmanned? So talk to the professor about it.’
‘I tried, but he’s gone to ground. And he’s not answering his phone. You know what he’s like.’
His father sighed. ‘All right, I’ll come and take a look. It’s probably just a ghost on the instruments, the same as last time.’
‘One more thing,’ the woman said. ‘The Mark IV has just come off the line. You did say you wanted to know as soon as it was ready.’
‘Yes, thank you. But I won’t get round to it today. Have them bring it up. Put it in Hangar Five.’
After ending the call, he said to Hal: ‘Don’t worry, none of that sounded critical. It’ll barely slow us down. And if my phone rings again I’m ignoring it.’
They drove into a quiet corner of the compound, where a few breezeblock buildings clustered around a red-fronted firehouse.
‘You know which one is the Ops Room,’ Hal’s father said, as he stopped the car and Hal got out. ‘And listen, I know I always say this, but it’s a tense time out here. There are people on a short fuse. So it’s important you don’t go wandering about. Just sit tight and I’ll be back as quick as I can.’
The Ops Room wasn’t nearly as interesting as it sounded. Perhaps interesting things went on here once, judging by the rows of powerful computer servers that stood against the walls and the banks of monitor screens. But now all such equipment was turned off. This room was no longer used for anything, as far as Hal could see.
He sat on one of the swivel chairs, spun it round. He scooted it from one end of the room to the other, while listening to Muse and AC/DC.
And all the while he was trying to ignore something he had overheard in the car.
The Mark IV has just come off the line.
Have them bring it up. Put it in Hangar Five.
What was the Mark IV? Was it the company’s latest prototype? What breed of fantastic machine might, this moment, be heading for Hangar Five?
Over the past decade, Starr-Strider Biomimetics had created some of the most advanced technologies on the planet. It was Hal’s father and his engineers who built the Starhawk Spaceplane. Not to mention the Spider 7 Surface Crawler. And the Cephalopod Ocean Explorer.
The company had invented unmanned technologies too. A fully autonomous search-and-rescue robot. A tree-felling drone. A surveillance quadcopter that had gone into service with police forces around the globe.
For Hal, growing up, the most thrilling thing of all was knowing in advance what was coming next. Because his father used to tell him everything. Whenever Hal showed an interest, he would talk him through his latest project, even showing him scale models or blueprints.
But then, around a year ago, all that came to an end. His father suddenly became guarded about his work. Now Hal’s questions were met with evasive answers, and a swift change of subject. Even after Hal started coming out to the aerodrome for flying lessons, he got no closer to learning what new marvels might be taking shape behind closed doors.
That was the one downside of coming out here, in fact – the feeling of pressing his face to a window, knowing that a world of wonders existed on the other side, but the glass was too murky to see anything more than vague shapes and shadows.
And today, because of what he had heard in the car, his frustration had quadrupled – his curiosity burned so fiercely he didn’t think he could stand it!
Finally, as the waiting stretched into half an hour, then forty minutes, he decided he really couldn’t stand it.
He got up and left the Ops Room. He wouldn’t be gone long, and he wouldn’t exactly be wandering about. He would go directly to Hangar Five and come straight back. What harm could come from just taking a quick look?
As he crossed into the busier part of the compound, he spotted engineers in overalls and technicians in lab coats. They pressed their palms to biometric scanners as they came and went from blank-faced buildings.
Hal felt conspicuous, a fourteen-year-old boy in jeans and Nike high-tops and Black Ops T-shirt. But in fact, everyone he passed was intent on their own business, and nobody paid the slightest attention to him.
A beeping noise made him turn his head. In the near distance, a flatbed truck was reversing. It was backing into a giant domed shed, which had the number five embossed above its doors. Hangar Five! Yes – that truck must be carrying the Mark IV prototype!
Forcing himself not to run, Hal hurried closer. He got a glimpse of something on the back of the truck, but it was covered by a tarpaulin. And now it was swallowed into the hangar, and the gigantic doors were sliding shut.
Now Hal ran. From this distance it looked like he was already too late – only a sliver of light remained as the doors rumbled together. But he got there with a second to spare, squeezing sideways through the gap, the doors crunching closed just as he pulled his arm inside.
Against one wall of the hangar stood rows of shipping containers – instinctively Hal darted behind them to stay out of sight. He crouched there and he listened.
He could hear two voices, although the words were swallowed into the vastness of the space above. Soon another noise began: a whirring, sighing, which he imagined was a lifting machine taking the prototype off the rig.
When this noise stopped, Hal risked peering out. Two men were getting back into the truck. Its engine started up and the giant doors were reopening. The truck left the hangar and the doors closed, coming together with a resounding clunk.
And only with this noise did Hal realise something: he hadn’t given a single thought to how he might get back out of here. Would he be able to open those colossal doors – and could he do it without being noticed?
But the thought was fleeting. It was crowded out by anticipation and curiosity.
Because for over a year he had yearned to know what his father’s company might be developing next. What project could be so fantastic that his father had been working on it day and night?
And now, here in front of him, was the company’s latest prototype. When he pulled back that tarpaulin, what world-altering wonder was he going to find?
4
Heavy Metal
As Hal approached the mystery machine, he was struck first and foremost by its size. It towered over him, and stretched at least thirty metres end to end. Tracing its outline beneath the tarpaulin, he began to suspect it was some kind of manned aircraft.
Yes – there was the shape of a tailfin. And near its front end the curve of a cockpit. So then, was this some state-of-the-art hypersonic jet? Or perhaps a successor to the Starhawk Spaceplane? His pulse ran faster at the very idea.
He tried to pull away the tarpaulin, but it was secured with nuts and bolts. So instead, he lay on his back and wriggled under one corner of the shroud. He switched on the light of his phone and shone it upwards.
Dark metal gleamed back at him. The surfaces of this air-craft – at least its undercarriage – were angular and bulky. He might almost believe it was armour plated … He wriggled back out and went to the front end of the machine. Again he lay on his back and shuffled underneath. And this time, when he shone the light, his breath stopped.
Because now he was staring up at a lethal-looking device. It was huge and had twin-barrels.
This could only be one thing.
It was a weapon.
For a full minute Hal just lay there, staring. His father had told him all about his time in the Air Force – about the awful things he had witnessed when he was deployed to a warzone. He had left Hal without the slightest doubt that the one thing his company would never build was tools of war.
Yet here Hal was, in one of the company’s hangars. And here above him, armed and armoured, was unmistakably a warplane.
A noise made him flinch. The clanging of a door.
He wriggled out from under the Mark IV, then dashed back behind the shipping containers. Peeking out, he saw that two figures had entered the hangar at its far end. They were now heading towards the prototype.
The first man wore heavy spectacles and a tweed jacket and had a perfectly bald head, which gleamed beneath the white lights. He rode in a high-tech electric chair, which had a single gyroscopic ball in place of wheels. This was Professor Dominic Starr, Hal’s father’s business partner.
Walking alongside him, the second man looked like a different species. Dressed in dark jeans and T-shirt, he was broad and muscular, with a heavy black beard and an overhanging brow.
Hal knew this man’s name was Tony Daegar – and that he was a relative newcomer to the company. But he didn’t know much more than that. Once, when they had seen him walking across the aerodrome, Hal had asked his father who he was. His father had said something about him being a security consultant. But his reply was curt and dismissive, leaving Hal with the impression that he didn’t like this man very much.
As the pair of them moved towards the Mark IV, Tony Daegar was saying something to the professor, but his words were lost in the vastness of the hangar.
In any case, Hal wasn’t overly concerned with listening. It suddenly seemed vital that he shouldn’t be caught snooping around in here. And looking beyond the pair, he saw the door where they had come in. It was still ajar. Here was his chance to sneak away unseen.
Sticking close to the wall, he passed behind more shipping containers. Once he was some distance behind the men, he broke cover and made a dash for the doorway.
But then he heard shouting. He stopped and spun in place.
Tony Daegar was shouting at Professor Starr. He was leaning over him, jabbing him in the chest with one finger, while snarling and spitting into his face.
The professor tried to put his electric chair in reverse, but Tony Daegar took hold of the armrests and lifted both man and chair off the ground. While the gyro-ball spun in midair, Tony Daegar shook the professor so violently that his glasses fell to the floor.
‘Hey, let go of him!’ Hal shouted, running towards them. ‘Put him down!’
Tony Daegar dropped the professor, his chair lurching backwards before coming to a standstill.
Slowly, the big man turned, and Hal’s pace faltered. At close quarters, Tony Daegar was intimidating, his thick forearms tattooed with winged swords and serpents.
‘Well now, you must be Hal Strider. Yes, I was told you look just like your father. And why would you be skulking around in here?’
‘I wasn’t skulking,’ Hal said, forcing himself to stand tall. ‘I … I heard shouting.’ He glanced back at the open door, as if that was the way he had come in. ‘And then I saw what you were doing to the professor. It’s hardly a fair fight, is it?’
Tony Daegar showed his teeth. ‘So, that’s what this is – an act of heroics.’
He stepped closer, and he dropped his voice low and menacing. ‘You want to be careful, Hal Strider. Didn’t your father ever warn you – playing the hero can land you in all kinds of trouble.’
He turned back to Professor Starr, who had merely been sitting there trembling, blinking without his glasses. ‘In any case, Professor, I believe I made myself clear. Don’t take too long thinking it over. Time is against you – in every sense.’
With that, Tony Daegar turned away from them both and strode across the hangar towards the open door.
‘Are you okay?’ Hal said, picking up the professor’s glasses and taking them to him.
‘Ah, hum, yes, yes, I think so. A little shaken.’ He forced a smile. ‘When it comes to fisticuffs, I’m afraid men like Tony Daegar will always have me at a disadvantage. Thank you, Master Strider, for – ah – for coming to my rescue. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must return to my work.’
His powered chair swivelled on its ball, and he headed for the doorway.
‘Wait,’ Hal said, running after him. ‘Professor, wait a minute, I’d like to ask you something. I …’
The professor stopped. But now Hal wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to say. His eyes flicked to the menacing outline of the Mark IV. How could he ask about it without revealing he had really come in here to snoop around?
In the end he said, ‘I wanted to ask about you and Dad. About when you first set up the company. He told me once – well, he said you always knew what sort of machines you wanted to build …’
He trailed off, inviting Professor Starr to speak. The professor blinked at him and eventually said, ‘Well, ah um, yes, certainly, that’s quite correct. From the outset, your father and I, we had a clear understanding of how we must utilize our expertise.’
Again Hal’s eyes darted to the warplane beneath its tarpaulin. ‘And how was that, exactly?’
The professor smiled awkwardly. ‘Um, ah ha, let me see. Perhaps it will sound a trifle grand, or even naive, but your father and I, we always believed our endeavours here must aim to make the world a better place. Yes, indeed. Nothing less than to improve the lot of the human race!’
As he said this, a change came over Professor Starr. His eyes appeared to grow and glow behind the thick lenses of his spectacles.
‘Personally speaking, Master Strider, that zeal is stronger in me than ever. My present endeavours – ah hum, you must excuse my hubris – but my current project promises humankind the greatest gift imaginable. Indeed, yes, the greatest boon since fire! And now we are so close. We stand at the very threshold! And so you see, uh hum, I really must return to my work immediately …’
So saying, without so much as a goodbye, he swivelled his chair and whirred away faster than Hal could run.
Back in the old Ops Room, Hal paced the floor, more frustrated than ever. His foray to Hangar Five had provided no real answers, and had only succeeded in throwing up more questions.
Was his father really helping to develop a warplane? What had Professor Starr meant about his latest project being ‘the greatest gift to humankind’? Surely he could not have been talking about creating weapons …?
