The Covert Academy (26 page)

‘That
might be running on an automated remote script,’ Sarah said.

Joshua looked blankly at her.

‘Controlled from another location,’ she clarified.

He nodded. ‘Well try anyway. What
can
you do with this terminal?’ he asked Will.

‘Wor-king...’ Will said in a fretful
singsong tone. He punched buttons on several of the keyboards. Nothing happened. He ran around the back of the terminal on his little legs. The others heard several clicks, punches and a gonging kick to the base of the computer, then a “whoa” from Will’s girlish voice.

‘
Whoa what?’ Joshua asked, pressing in. Will ran back to the front and flicked one more switch. The monitors glowed to life as the machine booted up in seconds.

‘Oh,’ he said, as though he’d forgotten the question already. ‘Check out the sweet rig behind the terminal.’

Joshua followed after the girls, cautiously walking around the back of the computer. Kayla and Elayne gave a shrug, but Sarah gasped. Without their iPCs’ night vision, Joshua had to throw a flare to be able to see the giant device shaped like a jet engine, tapering down to a precision laser on one end.

‘I’ve seen this before,’ Joshua said.

‘Above the pit in the Colonnade,’ Sarah added. ‘Above all those people.’

Will barely heard them. He was in his element on one of the world’s most powerful computers, as he typed away furiously on the keyboard. He brought up a graphic display on the monitors, showing a cross-section of a person. It had various markers indicating body parts and the links of neurotransmitters back to the brain.

Will focused the image on one link in particular. It was a new growth. Something foreign. It ran alongside the optic nerve at first. But instead of connecting the eye to the optic chiasm, then continuing as axons carrying electrical impulses from neurons to the visual cortex part of the brain, this one was attached directly to the motor cortex.

It was sending a signal.

‘Hey check this out,’ Will said, pointing at the screen. Joshua and Sarah turned back to him.

At that moment, Marcas hit the floor and the paralysing effect of the Dangler gun finally wore off. He untangled himself
and awkwardly stood up. His eye still glowed an unnatural red. In the flickery light of the orange flares, he could have been a demon.

Elayne screamed as Marcas charged at Joshua from behind.

Will frantically hit buttons on the keyboard at random.

Marcas froze mid-stride, like a puppet on a string.

‘Tell me that was you,’ Joshua said, keeping the panic out of his voice.

Will glanced at the computer monitor. It had several command windows opened
in a jumble. He shook his head.

Marcas blinked, and his lips tried to move. Then he managed to form words, slowly at first, with increasing proficiency.

But it wasn’t Marcas’ voice that came out.

‘Ah I see you’ve found one of my new bio-ID devices. Not as elegant as the General’s to be sure. But it served my purpose. Those maintenance men couldn’t help but play with it. Did you have fun with them?’

That voice chilled Joshua to the bone. He knew exactly who it was. He walked up to Marcas’ motionless body.

‘Simeon Warner.’

Marcas was helpless. Simeon allowed him to blink and breathe, but otherwise he kept complete control over his every action.

There were far too many people
under the effect of the bio-ID for Simeon to control by himself, so he kept them on a preprogrammed script depending on the tasks required of them. Most were free to wander where they willed, as long as they remained on the digital leash. He enjoyed messing with random people when they least suspected it. He would jump in and out of other people’s consciousness like a possessive spirit. His favourite was to jump in during the most private and intimate moments. He could live a thousand lives from the safety and comfort of his office at the top of the Tower.

When he assumed direct control over a subject, a curious side effect of the electrical signal transmitted between the iPCs’ link tried to mirror Simeon’s actions. This caused Marcas’ vocal folds to stretch and distort, which changed the frequency and pitch.

The resulting effect was that when Simeon spoke, his voice seemed to echo out of Marcas’ mouth.

‘I was wondering when I would see you again,’ Simeon said. ‘You can’t imagine my surprise when you of all people picked up General Withers’ iPC.’

Through the banks of monitors on the office wall in the Tower above the Colonnade, Simeon watched Joshua jump out of his skin.

‘What’s so special about me?’ Joshua demanded. ‘You have been watching me? Since when?
How?’

Marcas’ throat made a hideous gargling sound, in
a constricted imitation of Simeon’s gleeful laugh.

Ah well close enough
, thought Simeon. It still had the desired effect on the group of kids. They looked horrified at the sound. One of them, the youngest sitting at the computer, turned away and threw up.

‘You don’t ho
nestly think I’d let control of the bio-ID slip out of my grasp that easily do you?’ Simeon taunted them. He was enjoying this. ‘Sweet naïve Joshua. Surely you remember the General’s iPC scanning you when you pulled it from his head?’

Simeon watched through Marcas’ eyes as underst
anding finally dawned on Joshua and his mouth dropped open in shock. Simeon grinned, but Joshua recovered and stormed up to Marcas until he stood nose to nose with him. Simeon felt a trifling bit uncomfortable with the boy’s face now filling his office walls.

‘S
o you had control of the bio-ID the entire time,’ Joshua snarled. ‘Why haven’t you turned me into one these things?’

Simeon sighed. This had been fun, but he was getting tired of the exchange. He had an invasion to manage after all.

‘Think it through, boy,’ he snapped.

In the dropship, one of Joshua’s flares snuffed out. He reached for another to light, but stopped. He couldn’t see in the dark without-

‘I don’t have an iPC,’ Joshua said.

‘Bingo genius!’ Simeon jeered.

‘So you couldn’t control me, you just watched through the General’s iPC...’

Sarah stepped forward. ‘He would have seen our first meeting in Chicago, the Nyctalopia.... then you gave the iPC to Prewett...’

‘That’s why he asked me to get Brock?’ Joshua asked, confused. ‘Did Simeon have control over Prewett from day one at the Academy? No. No, That doesn’t make any sense...’

In the Tower, Simeon sat back at his desk while the children tried to figure it all out. So typical of these rebels to be stuck thinking of the past. Simeon was more concerned with the future. His own destiny would be smooth sailing once the Academy’s future was wiped away, very soon.

How lucky he had seen
the iPC feed of Marcas the Latin-American boy, appear in his spreadsheet of infected subjects.

He switched the monitors to a tactical view of the dropship’s flight over the Pacific ocean. The Confederacy had fielded all 52 of their military-grade dropships for this assault, after Simeon had informed the other High Council members that he had learned
of the Academy’s location. They knew as well as he did the threat the Academy posed to their regime.

What they didn’t know was that Simeon had placed one of the giant bio-ID computers that Brock had created on a dropship. Simeon couldn’t trust the maintenance men not to desert their jobs once they landed on the island paradise of O’ahu. It had just been a matter of time before the device infected every worker on board. Then he had complete control over them.

He flicked the display through various areas in Chicago, as easily as leafing through a book. Every little corner of the city was uncovered to him. No one could hide now that the people from the pit had been unleashed. The bio-ID influence was spreading like a plague.

My beautiful plague
, Simeon thought with a wicked smile.

He flicked the display back to the 52 dropships flying in a delta “V” formation over the ocean. A small blip of an energy signature flared for a moment on the far edge of the display, back at the refuelling station on O’ahu. Simeon ignored it. Too small to worry about.

His victory was almost at hand. He concentrated on making sure the dropship with the stowaway kids on board led the charge from the front of the formation. They’d be the first to hit the Academy.

Destroyed by their friends
.
How poetic
, thought Simeon.

They were almost to Wake Island n
ow. It wouldn’t be much longer. He flicked the monitors back to the scene in the dropship, looking out through the Brazilian boy’s eyes.

Joshua was mulling over the implications of the bio-ID having been active all those months.

‘Prewett must have been too str
ong for the bio-ID to take effect,’ he said.

‘Tha
t’s silly, no one with an iPC could resist it,’ Sarah argued. ‘But he was a smart guy, maybe he found a way to disable it.’

Joshua nodded. ‘
So Prewett had avoided the bio-ID effect, but before he gave it to-’ He stopped and looked at Sarah. She stared back. They had the same sinking thought.

‘Casey,’ they said in unison.

‘It was Casey who was being watched!’ Joshua said. ‘Simeon or... or, maybe even Meyrick could predict his every move. They knew exactly how to manipulate him for their own goals.’

‘That’s crazy,’ said Kayla.

‘He was the one who helped Ryan escape with Prewett on the Nyctalopia,’ Joshua said, turning to her.

‘He let Prewett into Brock’s cell just before they both died,’ Will added.

‘Could have mentioned that earlier,’ Kayla snapped. Will looked at his feet.

‘All this just to force Brock to find and betray our location in the Pacific,’ Sarah said, shaking her head.

Joshua strode back to Marcas where he knew Simeon was listening. ‘It wasn’t Brock’s fault. Simeon had him possessed. Just like he has Marcas now. Like those men that killed Eddie.’ He waved a hand on front of Marcas’ eyes. ‘You bastard.’

‘Oh are you still there?’ Simeon said. ‘I wasn’t listening, honest.’ He made the disturbing laughing noise through Marcas’ throat again.

‘We’re still here,’ Joshua said, grinding his teeth. ‘Any time you want to come out to play, we’ll be waiting.’

‘Thank you kindly for the offer, but I think i
t’s past your bedtime young man,’ Simeon said condescendingly. ‘I’m sure you’d like to get home now. But where is the home of a street brat like you? Chicago? Or is it the Academy now?’

Joshua didn’t reply. He just stared back into Marcas’ eyes, filling the walls of monitors in Simeon’s office.

‘Perhaps you’ll find someone special waiting for you there,’ Simeon said. ‘She’s been making great progress with the Fletchers. In fact you might say she is a natural leader. You two may already be familiar?’

Joshua remained closed up.

‘Ah yes. Your sister,’ Simeon finished, driving the knife home.

Joshua roared.

Marcas came suddenly to life.

He grabbed Joshua’s arm and twisted it
to breaking point. Joshua squawked and twisted away. The Dangler gun was ripped from his forearm. Marcas swung a massive arm around and clipped Joshua over the ear, leaving him dazed.

Sarah drew her sword and rushed in. Marcas had his back to her. She rotated her wrist backward and flicked her sword up his calf muscle. The sword bit through the jumpsuit into flesh and bone. Marcas roared in agony and dropped to one knee. But he kept attacking like an angry wounded bear. He swung a massive fist up into Sarah’s belly, winding her.

Kayla stepped up to Marcas while he focussed on Sarah. She activated her suit’s strength mode and with one finger, punched down on his sternum between the collarbones. Marcas instantly doubled over, choking and coughing. Kayla followed up with a shot to the temple above his eye socket, whip-lashing his head around. Marcas fell unconscious to the deck. Simeon’s connection to him was now useless.

In the Tower, Simeon slammed a hand down on his desk in a fury. He switched the now static filled monitors back to the tactical display of the dropships. He calmed down, but for only a second. As the ships closed to within ten kilometres of Wake Island, their energy signatures dropped off one by one. Simeon stared at the board. The Academy was jamming his connection. He was apoplectic with rage.

The bulk of his forces had slipped out of his control. Now he had no idea what the drones were doing. He could still track their position, but he couldn’t command them until he entered the Academy’s signal jamming radius.

Simeon quickly sent a general order throughout the Colonnade to assemble at his gigantic luxury cruiser. Every active drone and Confederate soldier in the region responded instantly and without question.