Eye of the Storm (9 page)

Authors: Mark Robson

‘You would?’ David asked, his frown deepening. ‘Why? What’s your interest in flight?’

‘Personally, I’d like to use it to find a way home,’ Sam replied. ‘We saw your flying machine outside the city. It looked very impressive.’

‘Did you cross in an aircraft?’ David asked eagerly, his eyes lighting up at the prospect.

‘No, we were on a boat.’

‘Shame,’ he said, clearly disappointed. ‘I’d love to get my hands on a flying machine from your world. My work is a starting point, but it’s nothing like the
machines that my grandmother flew and I know from the other human scientists here that aviation has progressed a lot in your world since then.’

‘From what I saw, it’s more than just a start. You’re a pioneer, just like she was. If you come with us, we can help you develop it and take you with us into a world where
flying machines have developed far beyond anything even your grandmother dreamed of.’

‘Jet aircraft,’ David said, his eyes going distant. ‘I’ve heard about them of course – planes that can travel several times faster than the monorail trains. It
doesn’t seem possible.’

‘But it is. Imagine flying through the air, as you do in your machine, but so fast that not even a bullet fired from a gun could catch up with you.’

‘I don’t fly in my machine,’ David spat, his eyes still flicking between Sam and Sherri, trying to determine who was the greater threat.

‘What?’ Sam asked, genuinely surprised. ‘Why not? Don’t you want to fly the machine you created?’

‘I do,’ he said instantly, his eyes suddenly burning with an inner fire as his passion came to the fore. ‘But the raptors won’t let me. They say I’m too fragile and
too important to risk.’

‘Come with us then,’ Sam urged. ‘Help us replicate your machine and you’ll get to fly your creation, I promise.’

Nipper barked a low warning from the doorway.

‘We’re out of time, Sam,’ Sherri gasped. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. Someone’s coming.’

In a flash, Sam whipped his left leg up into a crescent kick that swept the knife from David’s hand and sent it clattering across the room. Without pause, he stepped in, grabbed
David’s wrist with a hooking motion and twisted his arm behind his back.

‘Please don’t try to fight,’ Sam urged. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but if you make this difficult for us, then I will. Now, let’s go!’

‘Nice move,’ Sherri observed. ‘You’ll have to show me how you did that sometime.’

She pulled her pistol from the holster at the small of her back and ran to the door.

Sam steered David after her, pushing him forward as fast as he could without losing control. Nipper took over from there, picking David up and tucking him under his arm, much as he had done with
Sam on the day they had first met. Raptors were approaching at speed along the corridor behind them. Nipper was too encumbered by David to fight, so running was the only option.

Sherri aimed and fired a quick volley of shots down the corridor at the approaching raptors. One went down, but the rest barely hesitated in their charge.

Nipper led the way, sprinting the few steps along the corridor to the room they had entered through. Sam ducked inside after him with Sherri close behind. Sam slammed the door behind her and
wedged it shut with a nearby stool. It wouldn’t hold for more than a second or two, but he hoped that would be enough to allow a clean getaway. Sherri grabbed Nipper’s inertia reel and
clipped it on to his harness.

‘Put me down!’ David protested. ‘I don’t want to go with you. Leave me alone!’

‘If I were you, I’d pray that Nipper doesn’t drop you,’ Sam said, grabbing his own reel. ‘It’s a long way down.’

‘What the? What are you doing? Arghhhhh!’

David’s cry faded as Nipper leapt out through the window and dropped from sight. There was a loud bang and the door shuddered as
someone tried to open it.

‘Go!’ Sherri ordered Sam. ‘Get out now!’

With a last check to ensure his rope was properly connected, Sam ran to the opening in the wall and jumped into space after
Nipper. This time he actually enjoyed the falling sensation. The wind rush and the heart-stopping rate of descent lasted no more than a second or two before the retarding action of the arresting
gear kicked in and he swung back towards the wall of the building. The high-pitched screaming protest of the rope through the inertia reel gradually died as his plummeting descent slowed. He kicked
off from the wall once . . . twice, slowing each time. The ground rose up to meet him, but to his surprise, it did not stop rising as he expected. He impacted the pavement, still travelling faster
than he would have liked.

Legs buckling under the impact, the shock of hitting the ground took Sam’s breath away. Lying flat on his back, he watched Sherri’s descent. She was slowing faster than he had and
Sam suddenly realised what had happened. In their rush to escape, he and Sherri had grabbed the wrong reels. The one he had clipped to his harness had been set for Sherri’s diminutive form,
so it hadn’t slowed him as much as he expected. Sherri had the opposite problem. The one she was now attached to was set for his heavier weight and she had slowed to a stop some five metres
above the pavement. There was nothing he could do to help. She was stuck.

Sherri twisted and turned in the air, trying to disconnect from her harness for several seconds. Then, without warning, she dropped and the rope dropped with her. Sherri twisted in the air like
a cat and landed on all fours, rolling to her right on impact. The rope continued to drop, snaking down into a pile all around her. It was then Sam realised it had been cut. Raptor faces were
looking out through the hole they had sliced in the side of the building, but they were far too high up for even a raptor to consider jumping to follow.

Sherri was on her feet in a flash.

‘Come on!’ she urged. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Sam groaned as he forced himself to his feet and unclipped his carabiner. He could already feel where he was going to have some impressive bruises later. Even as he stumbled away, his rope began
to fall into a pile behind him. They had cut that, too.

Nipper and Newton were already aboard one of the high-speed unmanned cabs that served as the city’s primary transportation system. From previous experience, Sam knew to expect a
hair-raising ride through the city in the box-like contraption. Nipper was holding David, who was protesting and struggling in vain to escape Nipper’s iron grip. Sherri leapt on board, with
Sam hard on her heels. No sooner was he in through the door than Newton slammed it shut and the car accelerated away so quickly that Sam had no time to find any sort of balance. He stumbled and
fell, landing in a crumpled heap on the floor at the back, adding more bruises to his rapidly growing collection.

‘Owwww!’ he groaned, struggling to find his feet.

Sherri had been more prepared. As she had entered, she had grabbed for a handhold and managed to retain her balance. Even as the car zoomed away from the science labs, she pulled a cloth from an
inner pocket and clamped it over David’s mouth and nose. He struggled for a few more seconds and then slumped, unconscious.

‘I should have done that to begin with,’ she muttered. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Nothing broken,’ Sam groaned, rubbing at his back where it had smacked into the rear seating. He recovered his balance enough to climb into a seat and gain a solid handhold for
balance. The car seemed even more manic in its headlong race through the city than the last one Sam had ridden and he rocked as the cab flung them through the streets and on to the madcap racetrack
that was the main thoroughfare through the city.

‘So why didn’t you use your knockout stuff earlier?’ he asked. ‘Or your gun? David would have been a lot easier to handle if he’d been out cold, or looking down the
barrel of your pistol.’

‘I hoped he might join us willingly,’ she replied. ‘My mistake – sorry. He’ll be out for a while and he’ll probably have a nasty headache when he wakes
up.’

Sam nodded and looked out through the back window of the cab. ‘Do you think we’ll be followed?’

‘It’s possible, but unlikely,’ said Sherri. ‘I think we took them so much by surprise that they’ll have problems tracing us. While we were looking for David, Newton
made some quick modifications to this car to make sure it’s not easy to follow. We’ll ditch it in a minute and send it on around the city. When they finally do work out how to follow
it, the car should lead them on a merry wild goose chase while we take to the under-city tunnels.’

Sam nodded. Despite a few unforeseen glitches, the operation had worked almost exactly as they had planned. He felt like a secret agent, or a member of an elite squad like the SAS. All he was
lacking was a gun and if he could convince his mum he was responsible enough, he might be allowed to have one of those soon. Although he was hurting in several places, he felt a rush of elation
unlike anything he had ever felt before.

If I’d known being an eco-warrior could be this much fun, I’d have signed up to Miss Turner’s Go Green Club years ago,
he thought, clinging on to his handhold as the cab
swerved right without warning
. But somehow I can’t see Miss Turner organising the school’s Go Green Club to leap off buildings and kidnap scientists. It’s a shame – she
would probably get a lot more members if she did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The approaching wail of a siren woke Niamh from deep sleep with a start. Hurling off the duvet, she began scrambling into her clothes, eyes searching for her footwear and the
nearest escape route. Why hadn’t she thought to plan for this before she went to sleep? Fumbling with the button on her shorts, she barged through the bedroom door and all but fell into the
hallway even as the sound of the siren passed the house and began to recede into the distance.

Heart pounding and breath rasping, she leaned against the wall for a moment and slowly sucked in a shuddering, chest-filling breath of air as she fought to regain some composure.

‘Mornin’, Niamh. You OK? You look like you just saw a ghost or somethin’.’

As far as Niamh could tell, Carrie had not even noticed the siren. She did her best to give Carrie a smile, but she could feel that her face wasn’t responding.

‘Just feeling a bit jumpy,’ she admitted.

‘Come on through to the kitchen and I’ll get you a cup of tea. That’s what you Brits like to drink in the mornin’, isn’t it?’

‘Tea would be lovely,’ Niamh agreed.

A few minutes and half a cup of tea later, Niamh was sitting at the breakfast bar eagerly tapping at the keys on Carrie’s laptop and feeling worlds better.

‘She’s online,’ Niamh announced excitedly. She clicked on Beth’s name and a chat window opened at the bottom of the screen. With quick finger strokes, she typed a
greeting.

Morning, Beth. You OK?

There was a slight pause and an answer appeared with a gentle popping sound.

Afternoon! Great thanks. You?

Then underneath appeared:

What’s so urgent? Boy news?!

Niamh thought for a moment. Beth lived just across the road from her and the girls spent all their free time together. In other circumstances, after not having spoken to Beth for so long, Niamh
would have been dying to fill her in on her kiss with Tony, but sitting next to Carrie, on her bed and using her laptop, it didn’t seem appropriate to chat openly with Beth on Facebook about
her brother. Besides, now wasn’t really the time for boy talk; she needed to get Beth to get the notes from her dad’s computer.

‘Tell her you need her to get your Dad’s notes,’ Carrie urged.

As it happens, there might be . . .
But before I tell you about that, I need a favour. You busy today?