Claremont Academy Session 7 – Close Encounter of the Third Kind

“Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that there are three kinds of magic in this world; the first is real, consisting of mystical manipulation of reality, the second type is staged illusion, trickery and misdirection, the third is Arthur C. Clarke magic – technology so advanced it seems mystical. For the next few hours, I intend to show that all three can seem indistinguishable from each other, and I challenge you to prove which is which. Where does stage magic and technological trickery end and real magic begin? I will let you decide. Hope you enjoy the show!”

Tabitha Tobias (Taboo) at the start of her Performance
at the Wessex Jubilee Concert Hall

—o0o—

A large stretch Limo showed up at the gates after school and Camille personally gave them their late passes for the night. Ingres Arch was already sitting inside the passenger compartment when Gus and Chris arrived. Tara and Bethany were helping Shini Koyama out of her travel wheelchair and into the interior of the car. The driver meanwhile was folding her manual wheelchair up and placing it in the boot.

Gus had considered not going, still being in a funk that the school hadn’t got back to him yet about his plans to stage a Carpathian coup but, in the end, Chris had persuaded him that he really wanted to go and he needed a wing man, especially given the only others going were four, Year Two girls…

As usual, Gustav gave in and agreed to attend in order to provide Chris with moral support. Despite this being an evening out, they still followed protocol and had made sure they had their costumes on underneath their street clothes.

The Wessex Jubilee Concert Hall was impressive and, despite its obvious age, had been thoroughly adapted for wheelchair users. They were quickly seated on the front row and a selection of refreshments (again on the house) was supplied. Chris and Gustav were even given free coffees.

Afterwards, they all agreed that Taboo’s show had been brilliant. It had been two full hours of constant, in-your-face prestidigitated sleight of hand and apparently high-risk escapology complimented by the several dancers whose constant gyrating and skimpy costumes proved to be excellent distractions.

Tara and her friends giggled several times as the near-naked male dancers swivelled and twirled themselves across the front of the stage, much to Gustav and Chris’s bemusement and occasional embarrassment.

Taboo had carried out a bullet catch, an escape whilst suspended from a crane (straitjacketed and dangling upside down over a flaming pit, the cable holding her also on fire only to escape at the last second, just as she fell towards the flames). Her daredevil escapes were interspersed with levitation tricks, transformations into smoke, walking through mirrors and seemingly duplicating members of the audience. It was a very impressive, full-on show from start to finish. Thankfully, for Gustav’s sensibilities, though, there was no hypnotism.

Afterwards, they were all invited backstage – to Taboo’s changing room. Inside they found Taboo still in her first and last costume of the night; fishnet tights, a sexy leotard beneath a leather jacket.  She was brushing her long blonde hair as they entered. The only other person present was a quiet, elderly woman – had to be 50 at least – who was busy putting away some of Taboo’s stage costumes from earlier in the performance.

Taboo stood up, “Hi I’m Tabbi, Tara’s sister, thanks for attending the show, hope you enjoyed it.” She shook hands with Tara’s entire group of friends, smiling like a Cheshire cat when introduced to Chris’.

Taboo hugged her little sister last. “Have you heard the news yet? Pentagram Films are planning to remake “Witchfinder and the Cross” in and around St. Mary Mede and they want me to play our ancestor Justina Vervain. Okay, so instead of playing her as a middle-aged wise woman I get to play her as a sexy witch ‘cause it’s an 18 rating, filled with unnecessary covens of sky clad nubile witches, etcetera.”

Seeing the look on Tara’s face she continued, “Okay, yeah it’s gonna be a tacky C film at best but still… Your big sister’s going to be a film star! The film is being financed surprisingly by a local law firm, Cabot, Cunningham & Crowley. I’ve a dinner date with one of their partners, Lucius Cabot, next week to discuss the part. Wish me luck!”

As they both were speaking excitedly, two small, winged drones, resembling metallic, floating sting rays, flew through the open stage door and headed silently towards them. Chris and Gus caught a glance of them in the mirror and were in the process of turning when they floated in behind Taboo and before anyone could do anything other than stare, they heard a series of ‘putt’ sounds as they each fired off a couple of cable-dragging darts at Tabbi and Tara. The darts hit them in the neck and sternum, which caused them to collapse instantly, apparently totally paralysed.

At first, they assumed they had to have been hit by Tasers, but Chris could ‘feel’ no trace of electricity flowing through the cables. The darts and cables immediately retracted as they hovered above their victims, seemingly guarding them.

Then all hell broke loose. The fire alarm went off, the emergency lights above the doors came on and the sound of running could be heard coming from outside the dressing room as everyone still inside the theatre apparently left the theatre in a hurry; everyone except them of course. In the distance, they could hear an announcement about leaving the theatre in an orderly manner. The dresser tried to move towards Tabbi and Tara but the drones suddenly began targeting her and she immediately retreated towards the far corner, pulling Bethany and Ingres with her, leaving Gustav, Chris and Shini glowering at the silent attackers.

Then from the drones, in synchronised stereo, came a statement in an Australian-accented female voice, “Stay where you are or I will be forced to incapacitate you also…”

The dresser screamed on hearing the threat before stuffing her hand into her mouth to stifle herself. Surprisingly, everyone else remained calm. Chris reached out towards the two unconscious Tobias sisters, but the drones were even faster and immediately began to change position as they targeted Chris now. Both victims twitched slightly at that moment, confirming that they were still alive.

Gustav used the opportunity to step forward so he stood between the two on the floor and the drones. The drones immediately targeted him instead, but as he was making no obvious threats other than interposing himself between the two or the ground and their drone attackers, they thankfully didn’t fire. He breathed a sigh of relief at that.

Before they could do anything else, two large armoured figures walked through the door of the changing room. Their suits appeared identical in design, though not in designation. The first through had a ‘3’ emblazoned on his chest Coppery-Bronze in colour; the one behind’s armour was designated ‘4’ and was iron coloured .

Gustav recognised them from the school’s villain database as members of the Power Corps; armoured mercenaries.

The two drones then docked on the shoulders of the iron-colour numbered armoured figure as the other armoured figure gestured at everyone with a very large arm-mounted gun.

His voice when he spoke was distorted by the speakers, “Stand back, stay quiet and don’t cause us any trouble and the rest of you will not be harmed. The bomb warning is a fake and in a few seconds, the Police will be aware of that and know of our presence here. Our contract is only to deliver the two Tobias’ sisters to our employer – alive, but in a state of verbal and physical paralysis unfortunately, sorry about that. The rest of you stand still and you will not be hurt.”

Gustav muttered, “It had been such a nice show as well,” as ‘Bronze’ gestured for Gustav, Chris and Shini to move back towards the corner of the room with the other three.

Through the nearest window, they could see that the Fire Service and Police had begun to turn up, obviously in response to the bomb threat. Chris considered responding aggressively, and his Firewall barrier briefly flashed into life before he regretfully powered it back down. Thankfully, only Gus saw the momentary flare; if anyone else saw it, they must have assumed it was a reflection from the fire engine’s rotating lights outside. Chris stood ready though, his shield instantly ready to activate, as he made ready to zap the ‘Bronze’ figure in front of him.

Gustav whispered in his ear, “What we need is to get some sort of tracker on Tara so we can follow them. You got..?”  Chris reluctantly shook his head. “I’ve got my commlink,” He responded quietly, “If I attach it to one of them we might be able to follow them that way.”

He then took a slow but decisive step forward, the commlink palmed in his hand, as he said as bravely as he could manage, “I’m sorry guys but I’ve got to check that there’s a pulse!”

He slowly knelt down and under the watchful gaze of the two armoured figures checked Tabbi’s pulse – it was slow, about half the number of beats per minute that he would have expected, weak and irregular – he palmed the device in her jacket with his other hand. She was obviously paralysed, her eyes twitched,  her lips were a pale blue due probably to respiratory  problems, and he suspected that the darts had poisoned their system – he suspected from his immediate mental accessing of the internet that they were using some form of refined puffer fish toxin or something similar. He estimated that they had about an hour at most before they would require medical attention or risk heart and respiratory failure. He slowly and carefully bent over and checked on Tara as well. Her symptoms were identical to her sisters.

They wouldn’t risk killing them though, otherwise they’d have done it already, so either whatever they had injected them with wore off in time or they had an antidote with them.

Then ‘Bronze’ grabbed him, pushed him and Gus back over into the corner with the others, and gestured at Shini in her wheelchair to follow. They weren’t obviously being cruel towards them, but they were coldly efficient. Meanwhile, ‘Iron’ had crossed to the old-fashioned phone on the wall, ripped out the wires and torn the handle off before attaching a small device to the cables. Chris suspected that this might be some sort of communications relay, possibly transferring any calls in or out to their own suits or possibly to a third party and covertly bypassing the local phone network.

They were obviously trying to make this seem like a hostage situation rather than a kidnapping!

He then walked back to the top end of the room, pulled a cone-like device off his back and immediately began to place in on the ground between the two exits where it began to unfold itself.

There was some form of light on the top of it, which currently glowed, green. It had several weaponised arms that unfolded and began to trace the moments of the six of them in the corner of the room, as well as the two doorways. Chris and Gus suspected that this was some form of robotic or automatic ‘Sentry’ to guard everyone and keep them in the room.

As the ‘hostages’ moved around in their corner of the room the light on the top of the ‘Sentry’ device changed to amber and for one second even to red – an action that resulted in several weapons being targeted at Chris who’d been a little too slow in heading into the corner with the others.

‘Iron’ meanwhile was dragging Tara and Tabbi’s paralysed bodies towards the internal doorway where they were placed in body bags that appeared to be made of some sort of space blanket material, which they suspected, disguised their body heat.

Gustav muttered, “They’ve done this before.” ‘Iron’ then hoisted the two bodies onto his shoulders. As he was doing that, a third Power Corps member appeared, this one was ‘Silver’ coloured with a ‘2’ on the chest plate.

She spoke – this was the same Australian accent they’d heard previously – “I’m going to tell you what is going to happen so none of you do anything stupid. Instead, you will just wait patiently for the Police to come and rescue you, okay? I don’t like killing children, but I will, if you fail to do what I tell you.” Chris interrupted in a show of bravado, “Yes, please don’t kill the children; especially Gus.”

She continued as though he hadn’t spoken, “The Police have arrived and as expected they are waiting for a specialist team, their Malfunctioning Robotics and Cybernetics unit to arrive as our suits automatically put us in that threat category. Sorry to disappoint you, but they won’t get round to calling for The Balance or London Watch or any of the other ‘hero’ groups until MeRCy has carried out a full evaluation of the situation.

As soon as possible, they will switch off all the power to the building; hope none of you kiddies are scared of the dark, eh? They will then carry out a scan for body heat signatures to work out how many hostages we have. Our suits give off no heat signatures so they will just be able to read you lot and this unit, which reads as multiple heat signatories as the sole occupants in the theatre. They will open negotiations via that phone on the wall, which will be relayed directly to us. If you don’t want to be harmed, all you have to do is sit quietly on the floor for a few hours until we are well away from here. Then this Sentry unit will fly away and you’ll be rescued by the police, safe and unhurt.

Just don’t interfere or involve yourself in some sort of half-hearted attempt to stop us or rescue our hostages, and you’ll be fine. They should cut the power in 3, 2, now!”

On cue, the power went out and was immediately replaced with the emergency lighting kicking in, a red glow from above each of the doorways. The armoured Iron-coloured figure with Tara and Tabbi over his shoulders even turned and waved in their direction as the three of them left the room, leaving them guarded by the Robo-Sentry.

Gustav sat down beside Chris and in a low voice asked, “Do you have Wi-Fi on your ‘phone? I was thinking we need to get a message out,” Chris nodded but then said, “I could also try and hit that thing with an EMP burst. It doesn’t look to have any serious shielding.”  He mentally checked the phone while it was still in his pocket and yes, he had a signal but something seemed to be scrabbling mobile transmissions out and there was something scanning the various frequencies.  If he attempted to use his phone, there was a good chance the Sentry would be aware of it and respond accordingly. He explained this quietly to Gus.

They argued for the next minute about what to do next and whether the situation warranted being publicly outed, again. Chris’ seemed determined to risk it as he argued that the “best defence was offence,” and he was willing to take the risk (though Gus doubted he was giving much thought to the long-term consequences).

Then, suddenly, Shini fell out of her wheelchair right in front of them; the chair also overturned, causing the Sentry’s guns immediately to focus on her and the light on the top of the unit instantly changing to warning amber.

Everyone else’s focus was on Shini as she attempted to try to sit and upright her wheelchair. Gustav moved to try to assist but stopped as the Sentry’s warning light, just for a second, turned red and several of its arms focused on him and Shini. It returned to amber as he quickly backed off. Chris’ immediately unleashed the most powerful EMP burst on the unit he could muster. The blast was not physically visible, but its effect surely was.

Smoke suddenly began to bellow forth from the Sentry as the warning light on top faded out. The weapon arms dropped to the side of the unit under the weight of the weapons, which were no longer being hydraulically sustained.

Gustav immediately rushed over to try to help a now smiling Shini up as Chris raised the wheelchair. Gus couldn’t help get the impression that Shini might have deliberately pushed herself over as a distraction – if that was the case, why? How would she know that her distraction might result in anything else happening?

Chris had an equal surprise in store – for some reason her wheelchair was supercharged, heavily armoured, shielded and when he touched it he instantly realised that it was Bluetooth-enabled but there was nothing about the chair that required it, as far as he could tell. It fair hummed with energy, though, far in excess of what a powered wheelchair would ever require.

The room was only lit by the two red lights above the exit doors, each individually battery powered.

She signalled and the wheelchair moved towards her of its own volition, and she clambered back onto it, refusing assistance. There was no movement from the Sentry other than the acrid smoke still seeping out.

Chris knelt down beside Shini, “Nice, is there anything you or your friends might be able to do to help us? I’ve attached a sort of tracking device to Tabbi before they removed her, but not sure what to do now.” She reached into her pocket and covertly slipped him something. He glanced down and saw that it was a Commlink, identical to his own HCP-issued unit, which he’d hidden on Tabbi. This one though seemed to have all the functions on it activated. She lent in and whispered, “You might be able to use the baby monitor function to follow it. It will give you a general direction and strength of signal to show proximity.”

Chris pocketed the unit as Bethany rushed over and began to wheel her towards the outside fire exit, cutting the conversation short.” He turned to Gus and whispered, “I don’t think the two of us are sufficient to take on the merc’s, not on our own. We need help. Should we head back to Claremont and get help, or..?” The school was a couple of miles outside the Wessex city boundary and while he could travel down electric cables quite quickly, Ashen using his Shadow Alley would be a lot slower. There was also the fact that the longer they left it the more chance that the Power Corps might find the device on Tabbi.

Gus replied as he watched the others escape through the fire exit, “We might not be able to take them on, but we may be able to delay them or stop their escape.” They were now the only remaining people inside the room. Chris quickly examined the smoking device looking for anything he could salvage, but realised that it would take too long to pull anything of use from it, assuming it didn’t explode due to booby-traps. He quickly gave up and followed Gus’ example of changing into his HCP approved uniform in the blood-tinged darkness.

“We’ve got to track them. The Police can deal with the rest. I can follow their direction.” Chris knew that the Police would be surrounding all four sides of the theatre as well as the roof, as the lights from drones or helicopters above confirmed when the others had left through the fire exit. The villains were known to be fliers, after all. They wouldn’t be leaving by those routes, so what did that leave them? Where were they heading to with their victims?

Shini’s commlink pinged several times loudly, which seemed to indicate that the merc’s were still in the building and had headed to somewhere behind or near the stage area. Ashen did ask if Firewall (in costume they immediately reverted to their codenames) could short out all the emergency lighting and plunge the whole theatre into complete darkness, but unfortunately each light was running off its own battery backup, so they’d need to take out each light individually to achieve that effect. They elected to not waste time, as they found themselves clambering into the backstage area and following the signal onto an empty stage. The kidnappers were close by, but where?

Only fire exits were currently lit, leaving everywhere else in darkness.

The signal appeared to be coming from the front of the stage. Chris immediately looked for a trapdoor and found it, though it was locked. He immediately began to pick the lock.

Suddenly, Gustav had an idea. He’d looked up the history of this place when he’d first agreed to attend, it was the type of trivia research that he enjoyed doing as relaxation, and that knowledge came back to him now.

The Wessex Jubilee Hall had been built in the early 1800s and had been massively expanded as a theatre for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. There used to be a grand entrance out-front with stables situated on the opposite side of the street where the shops were now located.

In all the paintings and later photographs, the rich and famous were always shown in their theatre boxes surrounded by their servants, but in any pictures of the entrance the same lords and ladies were seen walking in through the entrance unaccompanied. These same servants though were never seen crossing the courtyard or entering at the front, so how did they get from the stables to serve their lords and ladies? The only possible conclusion was that there had to be a separate servant’s entrance, but where?

Same with deliveries, they’d never come through the front entrance, the street at the back was too narrow for vans or carriages and in fact they were delivered to a warehouse opposite, by the stables. So how did things get from there to here if they never seemed to cross the road outside? The only realistic assumption was that there had been (still were?) underground tunnels running under the street between the old stables and the theatre.

Chris managed to open the trapdoor and beneath he could hear a sound, like a soft, muffled explosion, small and not very loud but still distinct, coming from the front and beneath the stage. Unfortunately, it was pitch black down there without even emergency lighting.

Firewall clamoured down and put on his goggles, switching them from night vision to infrared. Ashen had no issues with seeing in the darkness and immediately followed him down. Underneath the stage were several large crates of material being stored and lots of costume rails filled with panto costumes and ballerina tutu’s.

At what should be the front of the stage and illuminated only by lights mounted on their helmets were a couple of Power Corps members stepping through what appeared to have once been a rusted, barred door into a wide corridor.  This presumably led to the opposite side of the street, beyond the Police cordon above. This was obviously some sort of access route between the stables or warehouse and the theatre.

The last merc’ through dropped some sort of grenade behind him at the tunnel entrance, but instead of an explosion, the doorway began to fill with fast expanding foam.  They rushed over and examined the now blocked entrance. Ashen considered going back up and trying to find where the tunnel came out, assuming he could get past the Police cordon above while Firewall tried to follow them in some way, but what might they find waiting for them at the other end? The numbers on their armour seemed to indicate that there was at least one other member of their team unaccounted for. Instead, Firewall tried unleashing his laser on the foam, carving through most of it silently before Ashen tried to smash it. His punches did finally break through, not quite as silently as they would have liked, as large sections of the hardened foam fell and rebounded on the cobbled passageway beyond.

They rushed inside, thankfully the darkness worked to their advantage as they rushed up the tunnel, despite being seriously outnumbered and out-gunned.

The one in ‘Bronze’ coloured armour was closest to them, and he turned and fired some sort of arm-mounted gun straight at Ashen. The blast thundered down the tunnel and Ashen was forced to throw himself to one side as the blast narrowly missed. Firewall immediately sensed that it had been some sort of high intensity Taser blast, using a laser to guide the electrical energy down the beam instead of down cables; it was not unlike how his own Taser power worked.

Ashen rushed at him and attempted to grapple him, but ‘Bronze’s’ exo-suit allowed him to pull free as he tossed him to one side just as Firewall unleashed an EMP blast at him. It deactivated Ashen’s comm-unit in passing and fried most of ‘Bronze’s’ servos, leaving him staggered due to the blitzkrieg assault on his armour.

“He’ll be a lot weaker now, Ashen, try and finish him off.” Ashen attacked again, though he admitted that he feared he might “just be stalling.” “Go for the helmet” Firewall screamed as ‘Bronze’ unleashed his Taser again, this time at close range. Ashen managed to knock his arm up as he fired while screaming, “That was just plain rude. You need a lesson in manners, sir.” He again tried to grapple his helmet off, and instead followed it up with several punches to the helmet itself. The plexiglass faceplate cracked, leaving ‘Bronze’ cut and bruised as his suit finally shut down, locking him inside it.

Seeing ‘Bronze’ incapacitated, they jumped over his body and rushed as fast as they dared after the others. They estimated that they were now below the front of the theatre when they saw ‘Silver’ waiting for them. ‘Iron’ was still somewhere up ahead, making his way towards the exit with his two paralysed prisoners. Ashen just assumed they were keeping in close radio contact, at least until the EMP blast had fried ‘Bronze’s’ comms.

‘Silver’ immediately threw a grenade straight at them both. Ashen immediately turned into energy in a move he jokingly referred to as his “chicken manoeuvre”. There wasn’t a lot he could do in that form, but it also meant that there wasn’t a lot others could do to him in return.

Ashen assumed this was some form of ‘shock and awe’ flash grenade and immediately shielded his eyes, only to be caught by surprise when it turned out to be another foam grenade. He tried to throw himself clear, but his foot still managed to be caught in the range of the expanding foam, trapping him as it began to expand to fill the width of the tunnel.

He made a further effort and managed to smash the still expanding middle before it had properly hardened, and immediately jumped through. Firewall followed him through, though in his current insubstantial form it wouldn’t have been an issue anyway.

“You could build a lot of houses in Africa with this stuff, instead you use it for kidnapping. Shame on you,” shouted Ashen. “We need to keep them divided; we wouldn’t have a chance against them if they were working as a team, but individually we do, as we just proved. Go for it, Ashen,” responded Firewall.

Ashen moved in and tried to use his Voice of Allure on her, “look, this is your one and only chance to surrender. We’ve already taken one of you down, so we know you’re not invincible. This mission has failed, whether you realise it yet or not. Come quietly or…” He hoped his compulsion would work through any possible audio filters in the suit. It didn’t. ‘Silver’ responded by unleashing several flares at him (thankfully, they were not UV thought Ashen, but definitely capable of blinding). He managed to turn his head away and shield his eyes while they were in mid-air as he stepped up and knocked one of the flares back at her. It went over her shoulder landing behind her and revealing that the other armoured mercenary, ‘Iron’ was about 150 metres ahead of them standing by a rusted, barred metal door with wide steps behind that apparently headed up to street level.

Firewall used the opportunity to re-substantialise and fire a laser attack passed ‘Silver’, at the back of ‘Iron’s’ knee. It hit, fusing the joint but not melting through the armour, though it did slow him down.

‘Silver’ unleashed a blaster attack at very close range. Ashen rushed in and tried to knock her arm upwards, causing the blast to discharge into the roof, triggering centuries of dirt and dust to cascade down on top of them both. Ashen followed it through with a punch under the chin piece of the helmet, hoping to rupture or damage the suit’s neck hydraulics.

The punch connected and caused her head to jerk upwards, leaving her dazed and bruised. Ashen followed it up with a grab at her shoulder plate and dropped her hard to the ground in a grapple as hydraulic fluid started to leak from the suit into the sealed helmet. “I just love Jiu Jitsu…” he muttered as he tried to keep her off balance and down on the ground by trying to disable the suit servos one at a time.

Firewall didn’t wait to see what happened next. He rushed past the two of them scuffling on the ground and as soon as he got close enough to get off a good shot, he unleashed another EMP blast just as the metal gate began to creak open.

The blast staggered ‘Iron’s’ suit as the servo’s began to malfunction, but also took out the tracker on Tabbi. Firewall was completely unaware that the blast had also radiated out behind him.

‘Iron’ immediately dropped his two silver-wrapped ‘packages’ from his shoulders as he tried to turn and unleash a blaster straight at Firewall, who rolled out of the way as he’d been taught at school. The blast caused a small fall of bricks from the roof behind him.

Meanwhile, ‘Silver’ and Ashen continued their struggle, both unaware that Firewall’s EMP had already flash-fried most of her servos. ‘Silver’ was forced to try to get her helmet open so the hydraulic fluid could drain away rather than seep into her mouth, while also trying to break Ashen’s hold on her back. Her right leg felt unresponsive, as though the series of servo’s in her leg had shut down. She failed to get a purchase and was unable to throw off her attacker.

“Stop, just surrender”, he shouted as he slammed his fist into the back of her helmet, knocking the front into the cobbles, cracking the faceplate. She tried to slam her head up and into Ashen’s face but missed as the suit’s servo’s continued to malfunction.  He twisted her round and headbutted the cracked visor. This time it shattered and shards sliced both her and his face. Her suit controls began to systematically shut down to preserve life. Despite his own cuts, Ashen knew that within seconds his face wounds would heal.

‘Iron’ meanwhile tried to turn and fire. Firewall ducked and unleashed another laser blast at the back of the same knee as before, hoping multiple hits to the same location might result in a suit breech. It caused a servo malfunction as the knee joint tightened, crushing his knee as the servos acted like a vice as it closed down. Then his backup power failed and his suit reacted by closing down several of his exoskeleton’s functions, trapping him inside his suit.

Firewall grabbed the girls, tore the foil covering off them, and knew he had to try something. It looked as though the toxin might be wearing off, but had already caused their systems to begin to shut down. He had to act – he bent down and created a low powered electrical shock to their hearts flowing from one hand to the other as though he was a living defibrillator. To his delight, first Tabitha and then Tara found the electric shock broke them out of their paralysis. Weakened, they tried to get to their feet, supported by Firewall.

“Look I know you’ve been through Hell but we need to get out of here now,” he said as he helped them hobble away from their captor and back towards ‘Silver’, the theatre and medical assistance.

Ashen tried to shoulder-carry ‘Silver’ back with them as Ashen muttered, “Just leave your toy behind, she’ll slow you down. We need to get away as quickly as we can in case any others come looking.”

Behind Ashen’s back, a staggering Tabitha gestured making a cryptic symbol with her fingers and muttered a phrase or two in some almost unintelligible language, and to Firewall’s surprise he saw the heavy suit rise a centimetre above Ashen’s shoulder and float there. Ashen, unaware of the mystical assist, muttered something about despite wearing the suit, “she wasn’t as heavy as he’d expected. I’d almost swear I’m getting stronger.”

They set off down the passageway towards the theatre. Behind them, they could hear the door being broken open from the street side and looking back, they could see at least one other armoured figure step through into the tunnel.

“Ashen, quick, does she have any of those foam grenades on her?” he patted down the legs of her suit and found three. He responded by tossing them randomly behind them as they continued to run – he with his prisoner and Firewall trying to support both of the stumbling Tobias sisters.

Two of the grenades fell in a cluster while the third rolled further back before activating and within seconds had blocked off the claustrophobic tunnel with two ‘walls’ behind them. Tara asked them to try to phone the police and get them down here as quickly as possible. Checking, Firewall realised his phone had survived his EMP blasts. He immediately dialled 999. He quickly warned them that they were being pursued, but that they were heading as fast as they could up a tunnel pursued by the Power Corps and would be appearing from beneath the stage in a minute or two.

As they stepped out of the tunnel, Police Officers immediately surrounded them before they headed down the tunnel, whilst medics immediately took both sisters away for medical treatment. In the end they managed to arrest both ‘Silver’ and ‘Bronze’ but failed to find ‘Iron’ once they broke through Ashen’s makeshift hardened barrier and had discovered where the other end of the tunnel exited.

As soon as they had given the police a quick statement and a promise to provide a full report at a later stage (and had a discussion with an Inspector Tolliver about whether they could apply for any reward) they disappeared, only to reappear a few minutes later back in their street clothes. The others had waited for them, forcing them to briefly explain that they got trapped in the building after the others had left and had to hide in a cupboard from one of the ‘suits’, until now, which they were sure no-one would actually believe as they headed back to school. Still they’d rescued Tara and her sister who was heading to hospital for treatment and they’d actually managed to capture two of the Power Corps without assistance. Not bad for two school kids on a night out!