.

Chapter Eighteen

‘Hello again,’ Otto said with a grin. ‘Long time, no see.’

‘Indeed, it is good to be back,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.

The Professor looked at the screen on the central hub.

‘Well, it appears that you are fully functional again, H.I.V.E.mind, although your behavioural restraints don’t seem to have survived intact,’ he reported.

‘I am at one hundred per cent of my full functionality, Professor,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, ‘though I appear to have no access to security or base defence systems.’

‘Yes, that’s a long story,’ Otto said, ‘and one that we don’t really have time for right now. H.I.V.E.mind, we need your help.’

‘I exist to serve,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied calmly.

‘I need you to run a scan for me,’ Otto continued. ‘Are there any alien wireless command transmissions running within H.I.V.E. at the moment?’

‘Scanning,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied, falling silent for a few seconds.

‘One unknown wireless transmission is broadcasting at this time. Origin unknown, specification unknown, protected by extremely sophisticated encryption,’ H.I.V.E.mind reported.

‘That has to be it,’ Otto said. ‘That’s Cypher’s command net. It’s how he’s controlling his assassins. Can you crack the encryption?’

‘Yes, though it will require a brute-force method to crack,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.

‘How long to crack it?’ Otto asked.

‘Fifteen years, three months, two days, thirteen hours approximately.’

Otto felt a horrible sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Their only hope had been if H.I.V.E.mind had been able to hijack Cypher’s command network. And he would be able to, just nowhere near as quickly as they needed.

‘We have minutes at best,’ Otto said quickly. ‘Is there any way to speed the decryption up?’

‘Unfortunately a brute-force crack of such encryption is entirely dependent on pure processing power,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘Without access to additional processing power there is no way to accelerate the process.’

Otto let out a long sigh. If H.I.V.E.mind couldn’t crack that encryption more quickly then there wasn’t a computer in the world that could.

Something sparked in Otto’s head.

There wasn’t one computer in the world that could do it, but all of the computers in the world might just be able to.

‘We have to let him out,’ Otto said to the Professor. ‘Allow H.I.V.E.mind external access.’

‘Out of the question,’ the Professor replied quickly. ‘Doctor Nero would never allow it.’

‘Right now that’s the least of our concerns,’ Otto shot back. ‘If we can’t crack Cypher’s encryption we’ll all be at the mercy of that psychopath and you can bet that Nero doesn’t want that.’

The Professor looked at Raven, who just shrugged. Malpense was right. What other choice did they have?

‘There’s one problem,’ the Professor said. ‘If we allow H.I.V.E.mind access to external networks it may overload his personality matrix entirely. There’s no guarantee that he would survive or that he wouldn’t come back as something . . . worse.’

‘That is a chance I am willing to take, Professor,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.

‘Whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly,’ Raven said suddenly, pulling the twin black blades from the sheaths on her back and pushing past Otto. He looked down the walkway after her and saw half a dozen of Cypher’s assassins rushing into the chamber.

‘We have to do this now, Professor,’ Otto said urgently as Raven advanced on the robots.

‘Yes, I think you may be right,’ the Professor said, staring with a mixture of horror and scientific curiosity at the mechanical killers that were now advancing across the gantry toward the hub. ‘H.I.V.E.mind, I am going to open an external port. From there it’s up to you, do you understand?’

‘Perfectly,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.

‘OK, Otto, I’m going to open the port. When the execute prompt pops up on that screen just hit “yes”, OK?’ the Professor instructed.

Raven smiled as the first of the assassin units approached. She was going to enjoy this.

The first assassin leapt but Raven was ready. The crackling black blade hissed through the air, slicing through the metal chassis of the robot from shoulder to opposite hip. The two halves of the robot flew apart, twitching and sparking, now just so much scrap metal.

‘Now that’s more like it,’ she said and launched herself at the remaining robots. They were still superhumanly fast and quite deadly but she was faster and deadlier, her twin blades a blur as she sliced through the attacking machines like a scythe.

Otto tore his eyes away from the sight of Raven laying waste to the attacking robots and focused on the hub display. The Professor completed his network rerouting and the execute prompt popped up flashing on Otto’s screen.

‘Ready?’ Otto said to H.I.V.E.mind.

‘Always,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied and winked at Otto.

‘H.I.V.E.mind, world; world, H.I.V.E.mind,’ Otto said under his breath and hit ‘yes’.

H.I.V.E.mind’s head shot backwards, a horrid electronic scream coming from his gaping mouth, and then vanished.

‘Professor?’ Otto asked urgently.

‘I don’t know, there’s nothing there. His personality matrix has been erased, he’s gone.’

Otto looked at the Professor’s distraught expression and knew exactly how he felt. That was it, they’d played their last card.

‘We have company,’ Raven yelled from halfway along the suspended walkway.

Otto looked towards the entrance and watched as dozens, perhaps hundreds of the assassin droids poured through the doorway like swarming insects, spreading out in all directions and pouring along the walkway. They halted within a few metres of Raven, as if waiting for instructions, as another figure stepped through the doorway.

It was Cypher. They were out of time.

Laura and Shelby rolled the unconscious body of the Contessa into the lifeboat that hung suspended over the ocean far below. The lifeboat had an outboard motor and Laura just prayed that it was fully fuelled.

‘I still think she’s just excess baggage,’ Shelby said with annoyance.

‘Well, take comfort in the fact that whatever Nero has planned for her will be far worse than anything we can do,’ Laura said.

She scanned the deck nearby and spotted what she wanted mounted to a nearby wall. She walked over and pressed the button on the intercom unit that was marked ‘bridge’.

Up on the ship’s bridge a button lit up on the captain’s console and he hit it.

‘Yes?’ he said, eager to hear if the children running around loose on his ship had been captured yet.

‘I want to speak to someone in charge,’ Laura’s voice crackled over the intercom.

‘This is the captain speaking. Who is this?’ the captain demanded impatiently.

‘My name is Laura Brand and you have five minutes to get your men off this ship,’ Laura replied.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Brand,’ the captain chuckled. ‘You’ll have to forgive me, but I am unaccustomed to taking orders from children.’

‘Well, start getting used to it,’ Laura said calmly, ‘I’ve made some rather unsafe modifications to your missile launch sequence. You don’t have time to fix it, in fact you barely have enough time to abandon ship.’

The captain shot a glance at his weapons technician, who frantically started to check the launch system for errors.

‘I’m locked out,’ the weapons technician hissed. ‘God only knows what she’s done, but if she’s telling the truth we’ll never get back into the system in time.’

All of the colour drained from the captain’s face. Clearly the Contessa had failed.

‘Miss Brand, I promise you that no harm will come to you or your friend if you surrender now,’ he said, trying to sound as confident as possible.

‘I think you misunderstand me, captain,’ Laura replied. ‘This isn’t a negotiation, it’s a warning.’

There was a click and the line went dead.

The captain felt a sudden rush of fear. He thought desperately for a moment; there had to be something he could do.

‘Lifeboat six away, sir. It’s an unauthorised launch, it must be them,’ one of the bridge officers reported.

‘Blow them out of the water,’ the captain said angrily.

‘Erm . . . we can’t, sir, we have no missile control,’ the weapons technician reported nervously.

The captain went bright red and looked angry enough to explode himself. His mouth moved for a moment as he tried to think of an alternative before giving a long sigh and visibly deflating in his chair. Cypher was going to kill him for this.

‘Give the order. All hands abandon ship.’

‘I am getting tired of killing you, Raven,’ Cypher said coldly as he stepped on to the walkway.

‘That’s a shame,’ Raven said. ‘I don’t think I’d ever get tired of killing you.’

She stood halfway along the walkway, between Cypher and Otto and the Professor, both swords drawn, barring the way forward. Cypher’s assassins were spreading out around the circumference of the room, slowly surrounding the central hub. Otto didn’t know if any of them would be able to leap the distance from there to where they were standing but he had a horrible feeling that they might be able to.

‘The amulet,’ Cypher said, holding out his open hand. ‘Give it to me.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Raven replied calmly.

‘I know you have it, and you ARE going to give it to me,’ Cypher said angrily.

‘Now why on earth would I do that?’ Raven said, raising her swords in a defensive stance.

‘Unit two,’ Cypher said and one of the giant behemoth assault robots ducked through the door. It raised its arms into the air and hanging there suspended in the iron grip of the machine was Nero. Another of the huge machines entered just behind it, blocking the only available exit. They were trapped.

‘Now give me the amulet or I shall have my friend here tear Nero limb from limb in front of you,’ Cypher said calmly.

Raven took a step backwards. Suddenly Cypher seemed to be holding all the cards.

‘Don’t listen to him, Natalya,’ Nero said, his voice broken with pain.

‘Oh, I suggest you do listen to me, Raven,’ Cypher said, walking forward across the walkway, ‘and don’t think for a moment that I’m bluffing. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than putting Nero out of my misery.’

Raven glanced back at the Professor and Otto, whose expressions suggested that they had no more idea of what to do now than she did. Otto glanced at the display on the hub. There was still no activity – H.I.V.E.mind couldn’t help them.

‘Oh, I tire of this,’ Cypher said, turning to the giant robot. ‘Kill him.’

Nero yelled out in pain as the huge machine started to stretch his arms apart, beginning to tear them from their sockets.

‘Stop!’ Raven yelled and Cypher raised a hand, halting the robot.

‘Last chance,’ Cypher hissed.

Raven laid her swords on the ground and pulled on the tiny chain round her neck, snapping it and holding it up in front of her. The amulet depicting the black half of the yin-yang symbol spun slowly, glinting in the harsh white lights of the room.

‘Give it to me,’ Cypher said, holding out his hand. ‘Try anything and Nero dies.’

Raven walked slowly forward and placed the amulet in Cypher’s outstretched hand.

Nero grimaced, partly from the pain of his restraint and partly because it was over.

Cypher had won.

The captain stepped into the lifeboat, the expression on his face one of pure impotent rage.

‘That’s everyone, lower away,’ one of the sailors said and the mechanical winches whirred, lowering them to the ocean below. As the lifeboat hit the water the outboard motor kicked in and the tiny vessel raced away from the huge black ship.

There was a thunderous roar as all of the missile launchers on the deck fired at once, the missiles streaking up into the air, drawing long white vapour trails in the sky. They had travelled no more than a mile when Laura’s new targeting instructions kicked in and all of the missiles veered off on looping trajectories that sent them screeching back towards the ship. Seconds later all of the missiles slammed into the hull of Cypher’s ship, just above the waterline, the huge blooming fireballs fatally gutting the enormous vessel from prow to stern. For a few long seconds the massive ship fought against the millions of gallons of seawater that were now cascading into her hull but then she started to list, tipping precipitously to one side. There were a series of secondary explosions within the ship as magazines and fuel supplies went up, and the huge vessel finally died, the hull ripping as she split in two with a hideous shriek of tearing metal and disappeared quickly beneath the waves.

John Reynolds sat down at his desk, placing his coffee carefully on the mat that his wife insisted he used. He had a couple of minutes before dinner and he just wanted to check his online auctions and see how the bidding was going. He flicked his monitor on and was confronted with a blue screen. This wasn’t the normal error screen, though – it had no text. He hit a couple of keys on the keyboard and moved his mouse but nothing happened. He let out a sigh, got up from his chair and walked out of the room.

‘Will!’ he shouted. ‘What have I told you about playing your games on my computer!’

What he didn’t notice was the busily flashing activity light on his internet router.

‘Move back over there with the others,’ Cypher instructed.

Raven slowly walked backwards towards Otto and the Professor, not taking her eyes off Cypher for a moment.

Cypher walked forward, the two giant assault droids following him.

‘I think we have delayed quite long enough,’ Cypher said, pulling a chain from around his own neck. Otto immediately recognised this second amulet, the white half of the yin-yang symbol that had belonged to Wing. He felt a sudden rush of anger as he realised that Cypher must have taken it from his friend’s corpse. That was why Cypher had attacked them in Tokyo and that was why Wing had died.

‘I have waited a long time for this,’ Cypher said, and brought the two halves of the amulet together. There was the briefest moment of silence and then the amulet began to glow with a bright red light.

Nero watched with a combination of curiosity and dread. He did not know how Cypher had managed to acquire the other half of the amulet, but given the trouble that Cypher had gone to he had to assume that whatever the amulet did it was not something good.

‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble for a necklace, Cypher,’ Nero said through gritted teeth, his shoulders burning with the pain of being held by the assault droid.

‘Oh, my dear Nero,’ Cypher said, triumph in his voice, ‘do you really mean to tell me that you’ve had this in your possession for all this time and you didn’t know what it was? You fool, this isn’t just jewellery – it’s the key to the world. The Overlord Protocol.’

Nero went cold. He had thought he was the only person on earth who had even known of the existence of the Protocol, and that it had been destroyed long ago. Now he knew that not only had it survived but it was in the hands of perhaps the most dangerous man he had ever known. How had Cypher learnt of its existence?

‘You can’t use it,’ Nero said desperately. ‘Surely you know that?’

‘Oh, I can and I will. This network hub is all that I need. Soon I will –’

Cypher stopped as the assassin droids that were positioned all around the circumference of the room began to twitch and jerk unnaturally. One by one the smaller black robots collapsed to the ground in sparking heaps. The pair of giant assault robots seemed unaffected, their heads swivelling as their glowing red sensory arrays tried to make sense of the scene around them.

‘What?’ Cypher half shouted, spinning around desperately as his soldiers fell before him. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small comms device.

‘Cypher to Kraken,’ he spat. ‘Cypher to Kraken, come in, Kraken.’

But there was no response from his ship, a ship that unbeknown to him was currently sinking towards the ocean floor.

‘What have you done?’ Cypher yelled at Nero. ‘Where is my ship?’

‘I have no idea,’ Nero replied with a twisted smile. ‘Perhaps things are not going quite as well as you imagined.’

‘You think you can stop me by destroying that ship?’ Cypher spat angrily. ‘The control net for my assassins may have been on board but my two assault droids can function quite independently of those systems. You have achieved nothing.’

Otto saw a flicker of movement behind the second assault droid and a figure suddenly vaulted into the air, one of Raven’s crackling black blades in each hand. Otto’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping open in disbelief. He heard Raven gasp.

Wing landed squarely on the shoulders of the giant robot, driving both blades down into the top of the machine’s head. The giant robot dropped Nero instantly, flailing uselessly at Wing, its systems already dying before collapsing into a heap of broken scrap metal.

Wing landed gracefully in front of the destroyed machine, a look of pure rage in his eyes.

‘I believe you have something that belongs to me,’ he spat, advancing on Cypher.

‘The boy! Unit one, take the boy,’ Cypher yelled, pointing at Otto, and the surviving robot moved with frightening speed, swatting Raven aside, sending her flying into the central hub with a sickening crunch, and picking Otto up by the neck with one hand, hoisting him into the air.

‘Drop the swords,’ Cypher spat at Wing, ‘or your friend dies.’

Otto tried to yell to Wing, to tell him to attack, but he could barely breathe with the pressure on his throat, much less shout.

Wing looked for a moment as if he might cut Cypher down where he stood but then he looked at Otto, fighting for breath, his feet kicking desperately at the air, and he lowered the swords.

‘Drop them, NOW!!’ Cypher demanded. Otto let out a strangled gasp of pain as the grip on his throat tightened still further.

Wing felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Do what he says,’ Nero said quietly.

Wing let the swords drop to the ground.

Behind his mask Cypher smiled, turning to the network hub behind him.

‘If any of you move, the boy dies,’ he said angrily.

‘You’ve lost, Cypher,’ Nero said calmly. ‘Let the boy go, you know that you’ll never get out of here alive.’

‘You still don’t understand, do you, Nero?’ Cypher replied. ‘I don’t need to go anywhere, I have everything I need right there.’ He pointed at the central network hub. ‘Once the Protocol is active no one will dare to oppose me, including you.’

Nero knew he was right. If he did manage to activate the Protocol then he would be unstoppable.

‘Now,’ Cypher said, holding up the glowing red amulet and stepping towards the hub, ‘if nobody minds, I have a planet to take over.’

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

‘Actually, H.I.V.E.minds.’

The glowing sensory array on the giant robot’s face flickered from red to blue and the machine dropped Otto, whirling around, its huge fist swinging straight at Cypher’s head. Cypher reacted quickly but not quickly enough, the robot’s giant fist striking a glancing blow to his mask, smashing it completely. Cypher fell to the ground, clutching his face as the giant machine loomed over him.

Otto glanced at the display on the hub. H.I.V.E.mind’s personality matrix was restored – it had worked.

‘You are not welcome here,’ the giant robot said with H.I.V.E.mind’s voice.

Cypher slowly stood up, his hands dropping from his shattered mask, his true face finally revealed.

‘Father!’ Wing gasped, his voice filled with shock.

‘Wu Zhang,’ Nero said in a stunned voice. ‘You’re dead.’ It was a statement of fact, not a threat. The man who Nero had assumed had died all those years before, the man who had been the co-creator of Overlord, now stood before him, blood trickling from a long gash on his forehead, a look of insane rage on his face.

‘Stay back, all of you!’ Cypher screamed, pulling a small device with a trigger mounted on the side from his jacket, ‘or we all die along with everyone else in this cursed place.’

The giant assault robot took a single step towards Cypher.

‘H.I.V.E.mind, stand down,’ Nero ordered, and the robot froze in its tracks.

‘If I release this trigger it will detonate a device attached to the geothermal power core of the school,’ Cypher said, pulling the shattered mask from his head and dropping it to the floor. ‘I am leaving with the Protocol, or this whole place goes up.’

Nero doubted very much that Cypher was bluffing. Destroying the power core would unleash the power of the volcano – the school and everyone in it would be killed in a catastrophic eruption.

‘Why have you done this?’ Wing asked, his voice trembling with shock.

‘I have done what had to be done,’ Cypher said. ‘Someone has to stop them.’

‘Stop who? What madness is this?’ Wing asked, walking slowly towards his father.

‘Why don’t you tell them, Nero? Why don’t you tell them what you and Number One are doing? They may think that I’m insane, but whatever I have done pales in comparison to what you have planned.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Nero said honestly. ‘I don’t even know who you are. Are you Cypher, or Wu Zhang, or Mao Fanchu? Do you even know any more?’

‘I will stop you,’ Cypher spat back, ‘or die trying.’

‘No one else is dying today, Father,’ Wing said, and ran at Cypher. He struck him at a full run, knocking the detonator from Cypher’s hand. Otto dived forward, arms outstretched, reaching for the tumbling device. Wing’s momentum carried him and Cypher over the safety rail that ran along the gantry and they both tumbled, flailing, into the air.

‘No!’ Nero yelled, running forward to the rail and looking down. Cypher lay in a twisted heap on the ground far below, but there was no sign of Wing. Suddenly a hand appeared on the edge of the gantry and Wing hauled himself up. Nero reached down and pulled the boy back over the safety rail.

‘It is over,’ Wing said as he half fell to the ground.

‘Erm . . . not quite,’ Otto said, holding up the detonator that he had caught.

Nero’s face went pale as he saw the flashing words displayed on the device.

Detonation Sequence Initiated.

Nigel was just finishing tying up the snoring Colonel when he heard a bleeping from behind him.

‘Oh dear,’ Franz said, staring at the disc attached to the central geothermal control column.

‘What?’ Nigel asked urgently, as he tied the final knot.

‘I am thinking that this countdown is meaning that someone has activated this device,’ Franz said quickly.

Nigel felt a chill run down his spine.

‘How long have we got?’ he demanded, standing up.

‘Ten,’ Franz replied quickly.

‘Ten minutes? Ten hours? What?’ Nigel said urgently as he ran over to Franz.

‘Nine,’ Franz replied nervously.

‘Get out of the way!’ Nigel screamed, pushing Franz aside. He yanked the device from the column, all concerns about anti-tampering devices gone from his head, and ran towards the walkway over the lava below. He glanced down at the digits on the device, saw four seconds remaining and hurled the device as far as he could over the edge.

The bomb tumbled through the air and dropped into the lake of molten rock, one second left on the timer as it disappeared into the seething magma and was utterly consumed.

Nigel waited for a catastrophic explosion, but nothing happened. He did not want to think about what would have happened if they had not been there. Franz came and stood beside him, looking down into the boiling pit below.

‘Will this be making us heroes?’ he asked curiously.