Bluebook Session 17k – Gun Wars

Inspired by Patrick Ball’s adventure: ‘Gang War’

Friday Night, in the basement of the Regal Hotel, Wessex

Colin sidestepped a punch and slammed the heel of his hand hard into his attackers’ jaw in response. As he did so, a bullet whistled past his temple, causing him to duck even as he stepped back again and unintentionally sat down on the edge of a nearby chair. A second suit-wearing thug used the opportunity to rush him. Colin tilted the chair back onto its rear legs, lifted his feet up and kicked this attacker in the throat. The move caused the front legs of the chair to slam down hard on the first guys’ ankle. He screamed in agony and tried to clutch his injured leg. Colin immediately pushed himself up from the chair, swung his body into a handstand on the arms of the chair, straightening his legs before he pushed himself into the air and onto the man’s bent torso so his feet collided with the gut of the pistol-wielding thug standing just behind him. He went flying, his pistol firing aimlessly into the arched roof of the room, even as Colin vaulted off and spun round, his hands raised. Blood was dripping down the front of his dress shirt, though whether it was his own or from one of his attackers, he wasn’t quite sure.

A few metres away a dyed red-haired, middle-aged woman in an expensive green evening dress applauded, “Well done Mr Duncan, seems your mother trained you well. What was it she used to call you..? Her little Prince of death? Pity, all that training and effort will be for nothing…”

Earlier that day at Claremont Academy

Crazy at Claremont had just got that bit crazier, impossible as that might seem. In addition to that, the latest ‘squib’ newcomer to arrive at Claremont was a slender black kid with dreadlocks, who introduced himself in a strong Irish accent to all and sundry as Scath.¹

He was currently standing in the middle of the playground his arms outspread, with the biggest possible smile on his face, which was currently raised towards the sky absorbing in the sun. Colin had never seen someone so happy to enjoy the sunshine. He was completely oblivious to everything going on around him or the funny looks the other students were giving this ardent sun worshipper.

Ces’ and a couple of his cronies walked past the kid whispering and sniggering to each other, and Colin saw Ces’ risk a sly punch to Scath’s ribs. Colin tensed, ready to jump in, but was caught by surprise when the kid failed to react in any way. Ces’ wasn’t so lucky, he shouted out in pain as he pulled his now bleeding fist back and stared at the kid in stunned surprise. Scath however was either completely oblivious of the attack or elected to ignore it.

Colin smiled; he had to be another special curriculum student. He was about to walk over when he heard screaming and saw a couple of kids standing by the entrance jump into the air. He glanced over then ran towards them as he realised that they were being surrounded by dozens of curious, grey rats scuttering out from one of the drains. This sudden invasion of rodents seemed more inquisitive than intent on causing injury or trying to escape. It was yet another sign something was wrong on the campus.

Colin and a couple of the other students ran over and began trying to chase the rats away as he tried to make sense of everything.

It had first started just after the Pryde students had arrived at campus, when one of the oak trees in the woods had turned completely white overnight. It was as if something had drained all the colour from the tree, even from the bark, while not killing or causing it to drop any of its bleached leaves. The pupils had quickly renamed it the Ghost Tree, especially given it had been found like that next morning surrounded by a menagerie of stray black cats and ravens apparently co-existing in harmony – for that moment at least. Initially, he’d thought the Pryde student they called Winter had been responsible, though no evidence was found to back that theory. Anyway, why would a cold blast cause the animals to gather and act so unusually, and why had it not killed the tree?

Then there had been the unusual localised weather over the last week; lightning strikes out of clear skies, rainbow coloured fog in the early mornings and strangely scented showers of rain.  This had been followed by young Nikki Reilly falling into a coma two days ago and having to be rushed to Hospital. No one knew why she had fallen ill but the school rumour mill had immediately claimed she had been drugged and as always when drugs were mentioned, all eyes immediately turned to Gabriel Freespirit… Colin doubted that he was responsible, though. Gab’ might smoke a bit of weed with his parents now and again but he didn’t deal and especially not in other pharmaceuticals and anyway Colin had overheard Nurse Joy say that there had been no unusual or unexpected substances found in Nikki’s toxicology reports.

Then over the last two days, a series of stupid pranks had unfolded across the school. First, someone had swapped everyone’s gym shoes over in their lockers so everyone had either two right or two left shoes… Then schoolbooks started going missing from the student’s lockers. Unsurprisingly, rumours abounded about it being either the Pryde students or possibly the school’s own Schadenfreude Society that were behind it.

He suddenly looked up and smiled. On the roof of the school, someone had graffitied in bright red paint the words, “I’m BORED!” How had they managed to access the roof, he wondered?

Cadet had had enough. Today was Friday and he had managed to obtain a two-day ‘passport’ to leave the grounds after school and stay away until Sunday night – admittedly, it stated that it was to allow him to work with the London Watch. Unbeknown to the school, though, the Watch had been told he would be unable to attend because he was visiting his mother for the weekend. Neither was true.

Last weekend he had met up with his old mate Malone who had warned him that since the arrest of the Black Rose Syndicate, another attempt was being made to unite the various gangs and criminal organisations across the South of England, though this offer was aimed at a better class of criminal, apparently.

This time, someone was trying to gather the top leaders of England’s criminal underworld under one roof and negotiate a deal that would be beneficial to each other. According to Malone’s source, the person behind this ‘deal’ was trying to convince the different crime syndicates to more or less collude on the market and support each other, thereby maximising profits without so much collateral and human damage. Apparently, resource allocation and market collaboration were to become the new approach to criminal activity. Although sceptical at first, it seemed that most of the major crime families and gangs had agreed to at least meet and discuss it.

Trouble was, he didn’t know when or where this meeting would be happening.

What Malone had discovered was that Mystery herself would be attending a party tonight at the Regal Hotel close to the Wessex Museum, which was being held to smooch potential donors and benefactors of the museum and to show off a recently uncovered treasure-trove of pre-Minoan artefacts before it went on tour around the country.

None other than Victoria Pryde herself, CEO of Siren Beauty, was sponsoring the party and exhibit; an organisation, which specialised in body grafts, extreme plastic surgery, genetic therapy and cosmetics, etc. Colin’s mum was a big fan of their products and procedures.

Siren Beauty also attempted to control fashion-trends around the world. Modelling, acting, plastic surgery, music stars, fashion magazines, advertising, Siren Beauty did it all. What really interested him though was that Victoria Pryde was also the founder of the Pryde Foundation for Gifted Children; the PITT, the school for Metas that was currently under investigation.

To add to the mix, there was a rumour on the dark web that someone was considering pimping out their Meta-human ‘resources’ as a way to unite the criminal syndicates, including to the rival Tongs of London’s Soho and Wessex’s Dragon’s Gate. Could that be the missing PITT students?

The guest list that Malone had obtained for the party included Wing Chao tong’s Dragon Head, William Shihu Yuan who rarely left the safety of London and Kuang Ma, the Choy Lok On tong leader of Wessex’s Dragon’s Gate, who hadn’t been seen in public since the apparent ‘disappearance’ of his son Joey.

Colin was one of the few people who knew what had really happened to him.²

So, at least three leaders of major criminal organisations would be together in one room. Colin smiled, not sure what he could do to disrupt any negotiations, but he also really wanted to get eyes on Mystery’s latest prodigy, who would also be in attendance. Gianni Royale, a sixteen-year-old genius recently charged with managing Mystery’s casinos. He’d been accepted for University aged 13, completed his master’s in business studies two years later and was now in charge of a gambling empire covering over a dozen casinos across Europe thought to be Mystery’s main money laundering enterprise.

To his surprise, Malone had managed to obtain an invitation for him to the Regal Hotel’s party. Colin’s father had left them millions when he’d been murdered so as a rich if relatively unknown socialite, his father’s money was able to open doors that were otherwise barred to Cadet.

It was a formal black-tie affair, so he needed to make sure he looked the part – he had his tailored dinner jacket, matching trousers, shirt and bow tie hanging up in his room with his roommate Ryan sworn to secrecy… His biggest problem was transport to the party. He could hardly travel on his bike while wearing an evening suit, or could he?

The bell sounded and he was about to enter now that the break had finished when something bumped him hard in the shoulder, but there was no one there… Trusting his instinct, he immediately turned and grabbed at the mid-air. His fingers connected around an invisible limb, thin and scraggly. Just for a second an inhuman creature materialised; his eyes big and totally black around pupils like burning embers, his mouth inhumanly wide with an excess of sharp, triangular teeth set in a perpetual grin and a pair of long pointy ears set either side of a pumpkin-shaped face like something straight from a fairy tale book. It spread its bat-like wings, then it again vanished as the inhuman creature snarled and pulled its arm free. Gremlin, it had looked exactly as he would have expected a flying gremlin to look like. What was going on?

He knew he had to brief Donna and Serena about what had just occurred to see if they had any ideas. Later, he had enough on his mind for now.

That night, he placed his Cadet outfit in a sealed carrier while under his leathers he wore his evening wear with his illegally patched earpiece with its unofficial connection to Trouble Alert and Dispatch thanks to Firewall, sitting securely in his ear. Colin then set off for the Museum, a visit with PITTs founder, Victoria Pryde and the crime lord (or should that be lady?) Mystery also known as Moira Moriarty…

He wasn’t quite sure what he hoped to achieve, but he also knew that while Cadet wouldn’t be welcomed, the Exiled Prince of Crime that was Colin’s parental legacy would.

8.30pm, Central Wessex

Colin elected to approach the hotel discretely, riding in quietly to the rear of the hotel and parking his bike out of sight next to the refuse bins in the car park.  He kept his helmet on as he spotted the CCTV cameras that monitored the area. Across the street, a large, well-built man with a shaved head and a sharp suit was acting as a bouncer on the front door of the Two Aces Casino. A queue of well-dressed and obviously moneyed people were lined up waiting to enter. Colin smiled. That was convenient; one of Mystery’s Casinos was located just across the road from the hotel.

He walked into the street and noticed that the smartly dressed bouncer opposite contrasted well with the uniformed doormen currently examining invitations to the Hotel reception suite on his side of the street. Unfortunately, Colin wouldn’t be allowed to enter the hotel dressed in his leathers, so he needed to find some place to change. He spotted off to one side of the casino a narrow, dark alley that led to one of the club’s fire exits. Perfect. He stepped into the shadows and stripped off his leathers to reveal his slightly crumpled evening suit. Now he just had to decide whether to leave them with the helmet and bag containing his costume beneath the bins and hope he wasn’t spotted by the cameras or..?

Colin smiled, took a deep breath and straightened his fancy duds as best he could. He had done his best to stash his rebreather and a few handy pellets in the pockets as well as his escrima sticks about his person, hopefully without spoiling the lines of his suit. Helmet in hand and leathers tossed nonchalantly like a raincoat over one arm, and with an air of jauntiness, he joined the small queue of movers and shakers waiting to present their invitations at the door to the hotel’s conference centre. He nodded politely at a couple sneering at his helmet and waited his turn to present his invitation. He had to give the hotel their due, the doormen didn’t even blink at him as he was checked in then directed to the cloakroom to deposit his helmet, leathers and bag.

He handed over his gear, noting carefully where the young woman put them, in case he needed to make a quick getaway, and collected his cloakroom tickets before entering the party.

He glanced around the room, taking in the several large displays of photos of the dig site on Crete and of the various exhibits the archaeologists had discovered there that were being presented on the various display boards. A large display screen was showing the history and importance of the discovery, while the centrepiece was a millennia’s-old black stone altar in the middle of the conference room, shaped like a flat-backed ornate bull. There was about a hundred people present, only a few of whom he recognised. He immediately spotted the Mayor and his current wife talking with that Humanity First party MP, what was his name now? Reichman?

A waiter approached him with a tray of champagne. He took a glass and sipped it. It was a better vintage than he’d expected. Presumably, the cheaper stuff would be brought out later in the evening, when the patron’s palettes would no longer be quite so discerning. He quickly spotted at least a dozen people around the room who displayed an uncharacteristic bulge in their jackets that would seem to indicate that they were armed. Not all of them were employed by the same people, though going by the suspicious looks several of them gave each other. Four of them were of Asian ancestry. Did this mean Wing Chao tong’s William Yuan and Kuang Ma, leader of the Choy Lok On were already here?

The sense of threat around his present undertaking was finally sufficient to eclipse the distraction and bafflement generated by all the recent weird events back at the school.  

Ignoring the waiters with their trays of canapés and even more glasses of plonk, Colin wandered around the hall, nodding amicably to the other, much older guests, taking in the displays and admiring the black altar with its ornate carvings all the while trying to appear affable but not high-profile. He circulated, responding to friendly overtures with a modicum of small talk before finding an excuse to quietly move on, eavesdropping when he could.  It seemed that the two tong leaders or Mystery for that matter, if present at the hotel, were not currently in attendance at the party.

He carried his original glass of champagne but (ever suspicious) gradually emptied it by tipping micro-amounts away into handy receptacles as he passed, miming sips the rest of the time.  After all, he doesn’t want his senses and reactions in any way dulled.

A young woman, possibly the youngest non-serving staff member in attendance, approached him as he ‘admired’ a photograph of a ceremonial funeral urn. In reality, he was trying to recognise the language being spoken by the two middle-aged men on the opposite side of the display… There were some familiarities with Polish, but there were also some Russian words he ‘recognised’… Were they speaking Belarusian or Ukrainian, possibly?

His thought processes were interrupted as the young woman leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Hello, I’m Catherine Heather, one of the museum curators. I must admit I’m surprised to see you here, Mr Duncan. Your mother isn’t exactly renowned for her interest in antiquities, at least of the non-sparkly variety.” As she spoke, she took Colin’s arm and began to walk with him away from the display and his eavesdropping, back towards the altar. “You’ll find this interesting, this altar dates to about 3,500 BC, a thousand years before the Minoan civilisation on Crete was previously believed to have originated. It completely transforms our understanding of the whole culture. It seems likely that before the city of Knossos was built that an advanced civilisation had already occupied the island before some disaster befell it, resulting in the original city on that site being demolished only to be rebuilt again a thousand years later. The real fascination is the relief work on the altar around the base, which depicts human sacrifices to a God of darkness and death, which may have been the original Nyx of Greek mythology.” As she pointed this out to him, she spotted a couple of people having a heated discussion and immediately steered Duncan towards them. He recognised one of them immediately as Marcus Moore.

Until recently he had been the CEO and personality behind the weapon manufacturers Omnitech and had been the man posing inside the Omniweapon suit of armour until a hostile takeover had resulted in the company being purchased and asset stripped by Dalton Technologies. Moore was currently still fighting the acquisition, claiming several of his board members had been coerced, a legal battle that was likely to go on for years. Meanwhile, Dalton was demolishing and requisitioning the company assets. The woman he was talking to was Victoria Pryde. Ms Heather introduced everyone, then quickly drifted away, possibly in search of someone with a chequebook open and a willingness to donate.

Ms Pryde had to be in her fifties, but she had the face and figure of a supermodel in her early twenties. Only the hardness, the hunger in her eyes betrayed that impression.

Whatever they had been discussing previously, the conversation instantly turned to Colin and why he was there, especially as the invites had cost five hundred pounds a go. He smiled self-indulgently and quickly turned the subject to how wonderful he thought the Omniweapon suit was; a subject that Moore obviously loved to talk about whenever he had a willing audience, and Colin was certainly that, for the moment.

Ms Pryde wandered off a few minutes later to greet three recently arrived guests, two elderly Chinese gentlemen and a middle-aged redhead in a flattering green dress; the latter glowered at him. Moira Moriarty better known to the London underworld as Mystery had arrived with the two tong leaders in tow. They quickly headed through the exhibition, shadowed at all times by the armed men he’d identified earlier, and were joined a few minutes later by one of the men he’d overheard speaking in a foreign language. They stood on a balcony above the exhibition, drinking and talking, seemingly amicably.

Feigning interest as Moore explained how his father, Edward, had lost control of Spartan Armaments, which had led to his creating OmniTech and then designing the armoured suit he wore when he wanted publicity and recognition. Colin looked attentive as he covertly observed that Moira was joined by the only other person in the room as young as he, presumably Gianni Royale.

As soon as he was able, Colin made his apologies and headed over to stand near some pillars where he had clear sight of the group gathering on the balcony, memorising their faces. It was clear that Gianni considered himself their equal, not that the others all appeared to agree with that assessment.

That meant that the Eastern European with them was probably Yuri Gregorov, head of the Ukrainian Malina. Between the four of them, they controlled over 75% of the organised crime in London and Wessex. As he watched, they headed off towards a set of stairs leading down and away from the hall.

He had to find a way to follow, but the stairs were extremely well guarded. Then he had an idea. He quickly headed towards the kitchen area, removing his jacket as he did so. He now had a white shirt just like the wait staff, his jacket he folded and wore like a makeshift apron. He knew that if anyone actually looked, they would not be fooled, but this called for bravado, and that he had in spades. There was a tray of hor d’oeuvres that one of the guests had relieved one of the waitresses of earlier. Colin walked over, tilted the remaining food onto the tablecloth even as he picked up the tray and proceeded to place empty champagne flutes on the tray which he then carried towards the kitchen face high. No one really notices the waiting staff, not even the other staff, if you appeared competent. It was likely that in a facility this large and this old that the washing up facilities were separate from the kitchen, and he hoped that meant in a building of this size located in the basement. He walked into the kitchen and saw his waiter from earlier turn right and head into a small room. He followed, passing him in the doorway as he came back out. Sure enough, there was an industrial-sized dumb waiter in the room. He opened the lift doors and confirmed that if he stood above the carriage itself, he would be able to head down with the dirty glasses and plates into the nether regions of the washing room below. He swung himself in and stood on top of the trolley mechanism as the doors automatically closed. Now he just needed to wait for someone to put another tray in and send the mechanism down into the bowels of the hotel.

He didn’t have to wait long, a few seconds later another tray of glasses was added to the top shelf, mere centimetres below his feet, the doors again closed plunging him back into darkness and a press of a button sent him plummeting downwards. He hung on as best he could, only for the mechanism to screech to a halt. Several hands emerged from the light as the doors were reopened and started to empty the trays. He couldn’t wait for an all clear, it was only a matter of time before the lift would be recalled to the surface and he’d have to wait for it to be restocked before trying again. Colin swung his feet down and over as he dropped through the open doors into a dusky concrete basement with several dishwashers and large scullery sinks left over from the 1800s. His sudden appearance did not go unnoticed, as two teenagers shouted out as he landed. He smiled, put his jacket back on and muttered something about, “Ignore me, I’m just trying to find the toilets” and headed out the door.

Unfortunately, their shouts followed him even as he stepped into the corridor, and he could hear running footsteps coming towards him. With no other choice, he dived into a room off the passageway. It really wasn’t his lucky day. In front of him were three men sitting round a small table, playing cards. He went to back out, only to feel the muzzle of a pistol in the small of his back. A garlic stench invaded his senses as the man behind him leaned in and muttered, “Inside, now!!”

Colin stepped inside even as the other three was rising to their feet. He had to get away. He pretended to stumble, ducking as he did so, allowing him to get his foot under the small card table and kick it up into the face of one of the gamblers even as he twisted around and tried to disarm his attacker. A bullet ricocheted off the floor as Colin wrestled for the gun only to have his legs kicked from under him by one of the men behind him and his face hit the concrete floor. Colin rolled over, somersaulted back up to his feet and proceeded to intermingle with the others, so they were now between him and the frustrated armed assailant. Colin swung his fist up and caught the gambler he’d previously kicked the table into, in the face causing him to fall back and bang the back of his head hard against the ground.  He didn’t get back up, so that left three!

As the remaining men attacked again, Colin sidestepped a punch and slammed the heel of his hand hard into his attackers’ jaw in response. As he did so, a bullet whistled past his temple, causing him to duck even as he stepped back again and unintentionally sat down on the edge of a nearby chair…

As he proceeded to dodge and somersault around his attackers, he warily observed that he had hoped he would be able to witness events rather than engage with anyone – in the hope that he might gather some clues as to what was intended to happen. Maybe get a few hints as to the various inter-relationships, how they regarded each other, and their various states of mind before “taking his leave” and hoping to steal himself away. Fat chance of that now.

In front of him, he heard the door creak open and he saw Moira step in with two more of her bodyguards, both of them with pistols drawn. She applauded, “Well done Mr Duncan, seems your mother trained you well. What was it she used to call you..? Her little Prince of death? Pity, all that training and effort will be for nothing…”

Colin palmed one of his pellets as he stared back. From the ridge design on the casing, he could tell by touch that it was a smoke grenade. His rebreather was unfortunately hidden in the inside pocket of his jacket, so would take him too long to get to without it being obvious that he was searching for something. Oh well, the sleep gas would be too slow anyway and only partially affective with the corridor door open, smoke would be better.

As the two men with Mystery aimed their guns at him, one of the gamblers went to grab him from behind. Colin saw a chance, he suddenly dropped to a crouch with one leg extended and spun round so his extended leg slammed against his would-be restrainer’s ankle and caused him to fall over him. A second later, one of Mystery’s personal bodyguards fired his pistol.

The sound of the shot reverberated, even more than the previous shots, and the man Colin had just tripped suddenly let out a loud scream and collapsed to the ground clutching his arm.

No time to waste, he tossed the smoke pellet at Mystery’s feet and was rewarded with the three of them instinctively jumping back as the gas escaped and began to react with the oxygen in the air. The room and the entrance to the corridor immediately began to fill with an opaque grey fog.

Colin instantly jumped towards the side wall and grabbed hold of a couple of the uneven jutting out bricks to prevent himself falling as several shots were fired randomly into the smoke-filled chamber followed by two further screams. No one fired upwards, though. He clambered as best he could along the wall, realising with some regret that his suit was being ruined in the process, then swung towards the shadowy figures by the door and dropped. His elbow strike made contact with soft flesh and his flailing fist something harder, possibly a nose, going by the sound of something breaking. He might be fighting blind, but so were they, and they obviously lacked his training of doing so blindfolded.

Not sure who he’d managed to hit, he wasn’t going to wait around for one of the gunmen to get lucky, he hurled himself forward, landed just beyond the door inside the corridor and started to run.

A single bullet whished passed his ear and he heard Mystery shout, “Stop or die! Believe it or not Mr Duncan but I would prefer not to have to kill you but I…”

Before she could finish her sentence, a blast of pure white energy surged down the corridor from the stairs, knocking Colin to the ground and slamming into Mystery and her two thugs who had been standing in the doorway. The three of them were instantly disarmed as they were all sent flying backwards, landing in a heap on the corridor floor. He instantly realised that the beam of light had to have been a targeting laser for a high-powered portable gravitics beam set on repulsor mode. Only one person present at the party would have had access to that type of technology: Moore!

He picked himself up and sure enough, there was Marcus Moore standing by the far stairs, his tie hanging loosely from around his neck, jacket-less and with one hand covered in an outstretched armoured glove. A glowing disk on the palm of the glove appeared to be the source of the blast.

“Are you okay, kid?” he shouted. Moira replied, “Mr Duncan here was showing us the skills he’d learned from his parents when they’d been running the firm. Just a bit of fun, Mr Moore. You should look him up, he has quite the colourful history.”

“Later. I think the kid and I need to leave now, and I would suggest you don’t follow. I’m not sure if that would be good for your, or their, health…” As he spoke, red laser spots appeared on her chest and on her two guards, invisibly projected from the glove. One of the gamblers stumbled out of the doorway coughing, only for a fourth spot to suddenly target his forehead.

“Come on kid, no time to dawdle. It’s well past your bedtime, and places like this aren’t healthy for someone your age. Take it from someone who discovered that the hard way.”

He backed up towards the stairs, his hand still extended towards Mystery and her goons. Colin, realising that the odds were definitely against him, ran towards Moore and the stairs. Behind him, he heard a disconnected young, Italian-sounding male voice calmly state, “I tol’ you that would not work. Compromise, my dear Mystery, compromise has to be the name of the game.”

As he got to the first landing, Marcus caught up with him. He turned and smiled = a genuine emotion on a face that seemed to be usually stuck in publicity performance mode. “Are you sure you’re ok, kid? Quite the stunt you pulled there, though if I’m honest, I do think your luck was about to run out. Hope you didn’t mind me stepping in when I did?”

Colin turned, looked down at his scuffed shoes, his dust-covered jacket, trousers and his blood-covered shirt and smiled back, “No sir, always appreciate support. I think I may have bitten off a bit more than I could chew. Why were you down in the basement yourself, sir?”

Marcus suddenly unleashed a repulsor blast behind him, causing the plaster on the wall to shatter and cascade onto the landing. Obviously intended as a reminder to the others on the floor below not to try and follow. He turned back to Colin, “Like you, I think? I heard that some interesting people were having a private party and they hadn’t invited me, so I thought I’d come anyway and see what all the fun was about. Then I saw you make for the kitchen and not return. Hope you properly stacked that tray of glasses and didn’t just leave them for someone else to deal with?” Surprised, Colin nodded while still walking up the stairs as fast as he could. “Good,” Marcus continued, “no excuse for sloppy work. So anyway, I figured out you might have found a back way to the levels below and elected to follow…”

They turned a corner only to find two of the armed figures Colin had spotted earlier sprawled out on the ground unconscious. “I, ah, wasn’t quite so covert.” Marcus muttered, almost embarrassed.

As they reached the ground floor, Marcus paused to grab another glass of champagne as he directed Colin to head to the cloakroom and retrieve his belongings. That knowledge meant that Moore had been keeping him under observation since his arrival, which Colin found to be embarrassing.

As he passed the exhibition and party, which was slowly winding down, he saw one of the waiters next to Victoria Pryde accidentally trip over his own feet and the last remaining glass of champagne on his tray tumble uncontrollably towards her dress. It was as though time stopped, one second the liquid threatened to spill onto and ruin her dress, the next she was returning the full glass, seemingly unspilled, back to the tray and was casually berating the waiter for his clumsiness.

He added it to his list of mysteries of the night and proceeded to head towards the cloakroom.

A few minutes later, leathers, helmet and bag in hand, he headed for the conference centre exit where Marcus was about to jump into a bright red Lamborghini. Sitting in the passenger seat was Catherine Heather, the archaeologist Colin had met earlier. Marcus smiled, waved and muttered something about “Try not to get in any more trouble tonight, ok kid?”

As he zoomed off heading back towards the motorway and London, Colin heard the sound of another vehicle speeding towards them, loudspeakers blaring out something so loud that all he could distinguish was the booming bass.

Colin glanced across at the casino opposite. The crowd that had previously been gathered outside were now all inside the club taking advantage of the pulsating music and light show that spilled out of the club or engaging with the gambling tables, slot machines or bar.

A black SUV was speeding towards them, the roar of its engine intermixed with the heavy bass beat coming from its excessively powerful speakers. He glanced towards the vehicle and casually observed the windows and windscreen were illegally tinted. As he looked on, a male, white in his early 20s, leaned out of the back seat with some sort of long rifle in his hands. Before Colin could do anything, a projectile was fired through the open doors of the casino opposite. A second later, a massive explosion erupted. The bouncer standing out front was blown into the street, covered in splinters of wood from the shattered doors. A second projectile was fired into the chaos even as the SUV sped away at top speed with the passenger leaning out and screaming “Present from the Fleet!”

The windows of the casino had all been blown out, and a fire now threatened to engulf the whole building. Inside were scores of patrons, either dead, injured or trapped. A smaller, secondary explosion suddenly erupted towards the back of the building, causing roof tiles to pepper those trying to flee as they ran out of the door in panic. The bouncer remained unmoving on the ground in the middle of the road.

To his surprise, a youth suddenly ran past him and pushed his way through the people trying to exit, heading into the club. Gianni must have followed them out, seen the attack, and had now entered the club for some reason.

Colin tapped on his earpiece and quickly informed dispatch that there had been an explosion at the Two Aces Casino and all emergency services would be required and then stated that a black SUV, registration unknown, had been responsible for firing some sort of explosives into the club as it drove past. He expected Dispatch to question how he had accessed the channel but instead she focused on the issue, informing him that there had been a series of attacks, apparently all gang-related across London and Wessex as well as in many smaller cities in the region and the Ministry of Powers was authorising full activation of HCP staffers in response. He cut off the channel as soon as he could; he wasn’t authorised to be doing what he was doing, and someone was bound to start asking questions if he stayed online.

Anyway, he had several injured in the street, who knows how many injured inside and of course, he had Gianni’s mysterious dash into danger to make sense of. No time to change, he tossed his leathers and the bag with his costume into a nearby bush and rammed on his helmet before heading back towards the club. As he did so, he grabbed hold of one of the doormen standing watching on in shock and pointed at the unconscious bouncer lying unconscious in the street. “You have to have had first aid training for your job, right? So, start triaging the injured and direct the rest to wait inside the hotel…” The doorman didn’t seem to hear him. Colin grabbed him by his lapels and shook him to get his attention. “Triage the injured, everyone else, direct them to wait inside the hotel and assign someone to give this man CPR before he dies. Comprende?” The last came out harsher than he’d intended, but it acted like a psychological slap, and the doorman began to respond even as the now disguised Colin ran towards the main entrance to the Casino.

Hopefully Dispatch would manage to get some assistance to him as soon as possible, but until then. The door was jammed with panicking people trying to push their way out, He pushed through anyway, switched on his helmet’s enhanced vision to see better in the billowing smoke and  saw that there were about a dozen people lying on the floor and everyone else, staff included were trying to escape at all costs via the multiple exits. Unfortunately, the fire doors seemed to be locked and the people at the back of the building were in full panic mode. There was also no sign of Gianni anywhere. He had to have headed backstage towards what he assumed were either the staff rooms or an office.

This wouldn’t do, he switched on his helmet’s speaker. “Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention, please. We have a slight issue in that the fire exits are blocked. You need to make your way towards the front door and form an orderly queue. You’re British, damn you, so you know how to make one of those. Staff, keep them moving, priority will be given to anyone helping one of the injured to safety. Now move. Help is on its way but until it arrives, an orderly queue will get you away faster than a panicked rush…” As he spoke, he grabbed a couple of the staff, pointed at the injured on the ground and switched off his integrated loudspeaker, “Get them out. At the moment, getting them to safety outweighs any additional injuries moving them might cause.” He grabbed a male patron, “Help them get these people outside, NOW!” The men responded as instructed.

He rushed through the smoke and flames towards the back of the building and was just in time to see Gianni leave what looked like a manager’s office with a briefcase. He was unlocking the rear fire door and was heading outside into the alley Colin had changed in earlier. Colin was about to follow when he saw it, an unexploded cartridge embedded into the rear wall of the stage.

A second later it exploded, its size belayed its damage potential, causing the roof of the corridor to collapse on top of him and blast him back against the corridor wall with intense prejudice. He landed on his back and felt the immense heat of the explosion wash over him. Damn, he could have done with wearing his costume or even his leathers as fragments pierced his suit trousers and shirt.

He looked up and saw a roofing beam about to crash down on top of him, even as the flames from the second explosion threatened to burn down the remains of the club. He tried to get up, but it happened too fast.

A repulsor blast knocked the falling beam against the wall and extinguished the flames, acting as a sort of gravity-powered firebreak. Behind him, he heard a now familiar voice, “No time for sleeping on the job kid, this building is about to blow. They used HEAP rounds, damn it, I thought only Dad had them.”

Cadet felt as though his brain had been turned to porridge, “HEAP?” he muttered as he tried to get to his feet. Marcus, or he should say Omniweapon since he was now fully suited up, grabbed him by his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. “Yeah, it stands for High Explosive Armour Piercing. They’re rounds designed to be fired from a specialist delivery system, the HA 3000 man-portable rail-gun. HEAP cartridges were part of an array of alternate ammo it could fire but the HA 3000 prototypes were decommissioned over ten years ago, before Dad’s company went under and I’m unaware of any other weapon developer having re-explored that option since then… Anyway, move it kid, we can discuss this more after everyone’s safe.”

Colin stumbled to his feet and rushed into the main room. On the ground in front of him, a woman in her thirties was bleeding out on the ground. Normally Colin would not risk moving her, but this building was now only good for total demolition and they were inside it. Flames from the first explosion threatened to engulf them. He grabbed the woman, throwing her over his shoulder, and ran for the door, joining the last of the patrons and staff leaving what remained of the club. Behind him, a flaming roof beam came cascading down. Marcus rushed over and caught it in mid-air then started scanning the building for any potential living victims before tossing the beam away and blasting off, through what remained of the roof.

Colin hobbled out into the street carrying his passenger only to be surrounded by paramedics and police even as Omniweapon dropped down to spontaneous applause. He immediately bowed in sarcastic humour and then turned to the Fire and Rescue supervisor, “My sensors confirm everyone still living is out of that inferno, great job gentlemen.” He then noticed one of the officers was a woman and added, “And Lady, ah ladies. Thank you, a wonderful job, well done.” He then blasted off, heading presumably for wherever he was needed next, even as fiery debris began falling into the club, now fully engulfed in flames.

Before he could figure out what to do next, he heard Dispatch mention that there have been multiple weapons attacks breaking out across Wessex and London by street gangs armed with a specialist weapon that could fire a variety of projectiles. Seems a turf war has erupted. As Dispatch went on to ask for assistance, she mentioned that the SUV that had attacked the club had been stopped by the police next to an overpass only to come under attack from another, local gang – the West-X6’ers.

Colin immediately wandered away before he could be asked for a witness statement and picked up his discarded bag and leathers. Once out of sight, he put his leathers on top of his now ruined suit and set off towards the overpass at full speed on his ‘cycle.

He stopped off en-route and found a darkened alley that allowed him to change into his costume, though he put his leather jacket and helmet back on top afterwards. It would be a matter of a second to put on his visor if it was required. The good news was that it meant he would have his full roster of combat gear readily available if needed. Now ‘appropriately’ dressed, he got back on his bike and continued towards the overpass.

As he arrived at the scene, it was clear that the Police had tried to stop the escaping vehicle using an extendable stinger strung across the road to take out the SUV’s tyres. The extended ribbon of spikes had done its job, shredding the tyres, and the vehicle had been forced to stop after trying to flee on its wheel rims alone for the next 50 metres or so before colliding with a lamppost. The driver and his three passengers had left the vehicle, probably intending to escape on foot, only to be pinned down by the police on one side and the arrival of a rival gang, the West-X6’ers on the other.

As a result, they had to take up positions near the SUV on the steps of a nearby office building. A member of the gang was wielding the rail-gun, using it to somehow cause the freezing mayhem that he saw around them.

Cadet had arrived behind the police side of the stand-off. Three police officers had been forced to huddle behind their two patrol cars, which were covered in ice and going by the damage to the chassis of the front police car, it had already been subjected to a HEAP shell that had demolished their vehicle and created a sizeable crater in the road surface. The second car had apparently collided into the rear of the first, forcing the officers to decamp.

It was clear that one of the officers had been seriously injured from the initial explosion that had taken out the first police car and needed urgent medical attention due to bleeding out. The Police, however, were pinned down under the icy onslaught and were unable to get their comrade to safety.

On the other side of the street, bricks from a nearby building site were raining down on the both the Police and the other gang members courtesy of the West-X6’ers, one of whom had been careless and was now likely dead under a shell of ice. As Cadet watched, two bystanders tried to run for cover and seconds later suffered the same fate as the gang member.

Armed Response was likely on their way, but Cadet wasn’t convinced they’d arrive in time. In the meanwhile, the officer was in a bad state. On seeing him, the other two officers immediately started to draw attention to him. Cadet was unable to refuse the officer’s urgent request for treatment of their colleague. He knew he was going to regret this tomorrow but… He revved his engine, then pulled the front of his bike into a wheelie and sped forward onto the back of a parked Mini Cooper. As soon as his front wheel gained some traction on the boot, he pushed his bodyweight forward so the rear wheel left the ground and the ‘cycle cascaded up and over the roof of the car into the air. A blast of freezing cold shot passed where the bike had been a second before, but it was already in freefall towards where the Officers were sheltering. A second later, his front tyre hit the road and threatened to throw him clear. He hunched down and held on tight as he brought the bike into a skidding halt on its side. As soon as the bike stopped moving (having scrapped the paint off and dented one side of the fuel tank), he clambered clear, pulling free his bike’s emergency first aid kit with its trauma pack containing sprays of wound sealant. He threw the bag towards one of the Officers. “Use this, it should help stabilise his wounds. Now, how many of those guns do they have and how long until help arrives?” As one of the officers opened the pack and began to use the sealant spray to seal the injuries of his comrade, the other explained, “Gang wars broken out across the whole of the South of England. A shield unit with a Firearms’ officer is on their way, but they’ve been delayed. We need to take out that gun, but all we have are these.” He held up the standard limited range Police-issue Tasers with their wired delivery system.

Cadet grimaced as he realised what he had to do, then remembered he had his helmet on. He took out several of his smoke and his flash bang ‘shock and awe’ pellets and passed them to the officer, explaining that when he heard his engine coming back to try to throw them at the gunman.

He looked over at the other officer and asked how the patient was doing. As he spoke, another freezing blast hammered into the side of the car, even as some of the West-X6’ers pelted the cars with bricks as a token of their neutrality; confirming that they hated everyone equally. The officer covered his face to prevent it being sliced by shards of brick bouncing off the car bonnet and gave a thumb’s up. Ok, time to move.

Cadet picked his bike up, checked it was still working, and sat astride it as he revved the engine once again. Then as the engine roared into life, he set off away from the scene as if departing to get reinforcements heading towards the overpass, swerving and zigzagging every which way as the gunman tried to hit him having changed the ammo type back to HEAP rounds.

As soon as he was clear, he looped round and came back at speed, using part of the over-pass approach ramp to get himself and the bike air-borne again before crashing down in a slightly more controlled way than last time onto the street behind the gunner! On cue, the two officers started pelting the area in and around him with Cadet’s pellets. Smoke billowed amplifying the flash-bang’s illumination and sonic explosions, completely disorientating the gunner so when Cadet slammed into him on the bike, he was totally unprepared and was sent flying.

No time to dismount, Cadet again attempted a wheelie while spinning round on the rear wheel, but it slipped on an icy discharge from the rail-gun’s expelled cartridges and collapsed on top of him. Temporarily trapped beneath the bike, the other three gang members rushed him. Cadet brought his leg up and pushed the bike away, so it slammed hard into the shins of two of his attackers, even as he kicked out at the knees of the third. It connected and he screamed out in pain even as Cadet threw a flash-bang in his direction. The resounding explosion and blinding flash disorientated him long enough for Cadet to regain his feet and carry out a double blow to his ears, further deafening and disorientating him. Before the gunner could regain the rifle, Cadet pulled off his helmet and used it like a hammer to strike him with it several times around the head. The curses he uttered in response weren’t in English. Cadet threw the helmet at another’s nose and was rewarded with the sound of something snapping even as he put on his visor to protect his eyes and allow him to deal with the flares. As he did so, the light was reduced to a more manageable level and allowed him to see clearly, just in time to see several of the West-X6’ers rush towards them intent on obtaining the rail-gun. Cadet got to his feet and prepared himself for combat, only to hear a snapping sound and high-pitched screams as the Police made their way towards them, firing their Tasers at the first of the gang to get too close to the gun.

Each of the Tasers fired two needle-style probes through the air to pierce their target’s skin before discharging 1,200 volts of electricity from the gun for a period of five seconds through insulated wires, hijacking the nervous system of their targets. The two West-X6er’s collapsed to the ground, spasming.

The others realised there was nothing more to gain, ran off. Cadet unleashed his bolos on one of those departing, causing him to fall on his face by the kerb. He then spun round, pulled out his escrima sticks and began striking at the arms and chest of the remaining conscious SUV passenger until he collapsed to the ground, completely subdued…

Behind him, as the rest of the West-X6 fled, Cadet clearly heard one of them say, “I don’t care what they shouted, they clearly ‘aint no Fleet, bro. Did you see their wrists, they’re wearin’ the M, they’re Malina enforcers…”

Cadet turned and grabbed at the nearest arm and twisted it round to stare at their wrist, sure enough, there was a tattooed ‘M’. Fleet weren’t affiliated with the Malina so why did they say they were Fleet when they shot up the casino? Unless it was to create tension between the gangs?

He rushed over to the frozen bystanders and tried to break the icy encasement over their faces, hoping to get them air, but it was too late. They had died, frozen solid – the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting caught in the crossfire.

He picked up the rail-gun and checked it for markings. It was branded Spartan Armaments and had the legend HA 3000 etched into the barrel. Nearby was a selection of clips for the weapon in a bag.

He examined the rifle carefully before one of the Officers took it away as evidence. The rifle apparently utilised an intense magnetic field, allowing it to deliver larger capacity explosive ammunition in a smaller, compact design. The higher explosive also meant it relied on explosive area attacks rather than precise attacks while targeting, resulting in extreme collateral damage.

The bag confirmed the versatility of the weapon as it contained a variety of ammunition including the high explosive armour piercing shells, napalm, cryogenic explosives, electrical discharge cartridges, and flash bombs.  

As he handed these over to the Police officers and as a squad of other officers as well as several ambulances arrived on the scene, an explosion could be heard all across the city.

Over his earpiece, he could hear Dispatch calmly explain that a live news helicopter camera had caught the aftermath of a devastating attack in Armenian Square during a wedding reception. The hit has killed many attendees and severely wounded the survivors. Police and Emergency Vehicles were already on the scene.

Cadet immediately righted his now battered bike and set off towards Armenian Square.

As he arrived at the scene and took in the devastation, it was clear that whoever had carried out this attack had already fled the scene. The square had been decorated for a local wedding and still displayed its road closure signs and barriers and its pretty garlands surrounding the square itself, as well as on many of the local shopfronts. Whoever had been getting married had been both rich and either popular or important.

There were a number of wounded bystanders in the area; At least three people had been killed going by the covered bodies and a further twelve had been seriously wounded and were in need of immediate medical treatment.

This wasn’t a time for heroics, but for solidarity. Cadet clambered off his bike, removed his helmet and joined in the search for survivors amongst the wreckage. As he worked and listened to the others, it became clear the groom was one of the bodies lying under a shroud. He’d died trying to protect his new wife, who was amongst those being ferried away by the ambulances to hospital. Cadet helped pick up a shattered pole, which had been used to help display the decorations, and discovered an unconscious toddler lying underneath, still clutching her teddy. He threw the pole away and knelt down, feeling at her throat for a pulse. Nothing. He shouted for help even as he started to administer CPR using just his fingertips as he hummed the tune to the song ‘Staying Alive’ to himself as he maintained the rhythm and then proceeded to cover her dusty little mouth and nose and gave her two quick puffs of his breath. He continued repeating the pattern until he was rewarded with a cough and a faint “Mamma” from the girl, even as a paramedic arrived and began to administer oxygen to her from his tank.

He stood up and took in the wanton destruction around him. The collateral damage showed that a massive explosion of energy had gone off, but had not combusted anything. All the glass, bottles and windows in the area were shattered. This had not been the result of an explosion, but some other form of attack… The type of damage brought to mind Banshee of The Balance, so maybe some sort of sonics were involved?  Whatever, he knew that the new weapons were multi-talented and it was surely one of them that had been used here.

As he continued his search for any further victims, he continued to listen in on their conversations. Most of the older one’s clearly preferred to speak in Armenian but the younger one’s favoured cursing in English and it soon became apparent that the two families involved in the wedding were connected and several of the ‘guests’ were already in the process of tooling up for war, this time blaming Mystery and the Firm for their tragedy.

The attack and obvious misdirection fitted the pattern of inciting inter-gang violence, that was clear.  He tried speaking to the wedding-guests that were arming themselves, telling them that he had just come from a similar attack on one of Mystery’s casinos…

That particular revelation clearly marked him as both an outsider and a possible infiltrator, and the men from the groom’s family demanded he leave immediately. If he hadn’t saved the little girl’s life, he was pretty sure they would be trying to lynch him by now… He considered mentioning that there, it had been Malina enforcers masquerading that had been responsible for the other attack, but they refused to listen to him any longer and continued to demand he leave.

He did overhear one of the younger men arguing that the same type of experimental guns were being offered for sale Saturday midnight from an abandoned warehouse in the South of London, and they needed to be able to retaliate.

Before he could ask anything though, he was pushed back towards the Police line and had to leave, but not before attaching a small tracker to that person’s jacket as he was roughly expelled from the Square.

Not exactly ethical and he was unlikely to get the tracker back, but If the guns did end up getting distributed then the death toll would start to escalate dramatically.

He logged in to Trouble Alert, just to listen and discovered that rumours were already circulating that several groups had been behind the initial attacks, all using these experimental rail-guns… Only the tongs have not been involved in the attacks so far, but they were now defending their territories. Even Mystery’s firm was credited with supposedly attacking another gang in London. Seems the news that her gang was also believed to be responsible for the attack on Armenian Square hadn’t circulated yet.

He checked his tracker on his tablet. Still in the Square. He needed to get to one of Malone’s inner city safe houses and hope he hadn’t decided to use it to throw one of his bacchanal parties there tonight. He needed to patch himself up and get some sleep.

Now that all of the gangs and criminal organisations are trying to obtain the new guns that meant things could really get rough and so far, he seemed to be the only one who had an inkling as to who might be behind the turf war.

these attacks were clearly intended to stir up gang-wars, though whether it was in order to magnify sales of their special armaments or maybe to weaken all the other gangs so that they can then take over everything themselves, he didn’t know.  He needed to try to learn the location of this warehouse where the arms-sales was to take place and try and stop the distribution.

Sometime later he arrived at Malone’s town house in the East end of London and thankfully found it deserted. He checked the tracker was still functioning, though it was still a long shot that the guy he’d planted it on would be attending the auction and if so, would do so wearing the same jacket after wearing it earlier in the day?

He needed information and for that he needed to speak with Marcus Moore again and see if any of his contacts knew anything about the weapons sales… Thankfully, there were no more reports of attacks coming in and emergency services were on the ground dealing with the aftermath.

Again, he risked going through Dispatch to contact Omniweapon who was still carrying out rescue missions, this time in and around Soho. Seems the Firm had supposedly carried out an attack on a Wing Chao brothel about an hour before, and the Tong had refused to allow emergency services in until he had arrived and ‘negotiated’. For a couple of seconds, Cadet considered heading over to help, but by the time he got there it would likely be too late to be of much assistance.

With the stand-off resolved, Marcus was able to accept his call. “So kid, you’re able to access Dispatch, eh? Seems there is more to you even than Mystery was aware. So, what can I do for you? If this is a social call though, I’ll have to boot you straight to voicemail…”

He quickly explained what he had discovered so far that he thought that the Malina were behind the attacks based on the tattoos he’d seen on the casino attackers’ wrists. To his surprise, Marcus was an attentive listener. Colin then told him about the rail-gun; about the brand name and the HA 3000 model-number he’d seen, and then asked who had taken over Marcus’ father’s company back in the day.  At best, he might also get some powerful back-up for when he hopefully headed over to investigate the warehouse and arms-sales…

Marcus was quiet for a few minutes. Then, when he spoke, it was clear that all the humour had drained from his voice.

“The HA 3000 was decommissioned before the company was taken over. If they are still around, then they had to have been stockpiled somewhere. The ah, company that had taken over wouldn’t have sat on them all these years without them resurfacing before now. No, my company was taken over by Dalton a several months back and he’s in the process of asset stripping the company. They must have resurfaced recently, but I can’t believe that Dalton, for all his faults, would try and sell them illegally on the black market…”

Dalton, Bethany’s dad… Colin wasn’t as convinced as to that man’s honour, but then again, Colin was no businessman and Marcus was. Now that Marcus mentioned it, he remembered that Omnitech was the subject of a legal battle relating to a hostile takeover of the company by Dalton International. Marcus was still fighting the acquisition, claiming several board members had been coerced (now that he could believe of Dalton), a legal battle that was likely to go on for years meanwhile Dalton was busy selling off the company bit by bit.

In the process, could someone connected to the Malina have found the stockpiled cache of prototype weapons and squirrelled them away?

Oblivious to Colin’s thoughts, Marcus explained that the guns had been made by his dad’s company Spartacorp, it had been their final military contract. They had been asked to design a new heavy infantry rifle, they called the HA 3000. The rifle utilised an intense magnetic field, allowing it to deliver larger capacity explosive ammunition in a smaller, compact design. The higher explosive also meant it relied on explosive area attacks rather than precise attacks while targeting, resulting in extreme collateral damage. To add to its versatility, it was capable of delivering several types of ammunition including napalm, cryogenic, electrical discharges, stun grenades, and standard explosive charges.

Initial trials had gone well and about 50 prototypes had been made as well as a large supply of ammunition before they discovered a major flaw in the design that resulted in the gun’s becoming unstable after several shots in succession. The military pulled the contract as a result and as Spartacorp had been facing management ‘difficulties’ rather than re-engineer, the project was shelved and the prototypes supposedly sent for disposal.

As the company had gone bust soon after, presumably that disposal never actually went ahead. When Marcus had formed OmniTech, he’d made it a point of honour to buy back all the patents and property that had belonged to his father. Could he have reacquired the guns at that point without realising it?

“Someone must have come across the cache of weapons, realised their value, and decided not to report it. Dalton is currently carrying out a full inventory of his latest acquisition, after all. Damn! Do you know where these guns are being auctioned off?” Colin admitted he didn’t, and the call just went dead.

He called Malone next, this time on his mobile. He also wasn’t on the auction’s need to know list, but he had feelers and contacts that Cadet hadn’t.

He was able to confirm that an auction was happening but not where and that for some reason the sellers were refusing to sell the whole cache to any single buyer regardless of the price being offered, insisting instead on spreading the guns and ammo around…

Altruistic gun runners, now Colin had heard everything. They had to be part of their plan to create a turf war and ensure that a merger of criminal organisations never came about.

So, what did he know? Not a lot for definite – he ‘suspected’ that the guns were in the possession of the Ukrainian Malina run by Yuri Gregorov. There had been 50 of the rifles along with hundreds if not thousands of ammunition cartridges. Unfortunately, Dalton was seemingly unaware he had even ‘owned’ the weapons, never mind that they had been stolen. Given Dalton’s reputation, perhaps that needed to remain the case.

He thought the initial attacks had all been carried out by the Malina’s gang of street enforcers, the M, pretending to be working for the other families and firms and now they were planning on distributing the weapons to ensure a continued street feud which would disrupt any negotiations and create mistrust between the various organisations.

He had to figure out some way to disrupt the auction and prevent these weapons getting onto the streets. Thankfully, according to Malone, a sort of curfew had been agreed to allow the gangs to mourn their losses. It also gave them the opportunity to prepare for a full out street war.

He drew a bath, checked out his cuts and bruises before collapsing into the bed and sweet oblivion.

He was awoken early next morning by the sound of an explosion coming from a few streets away. He quickly turned on the TV, nothing, but over his earpiece he heard Dispatch confirm that a nearby school had been invaded by one of the gangs following an early morning raid that had gone bent.

In a failed attempt to escape the scene, the attackers must have broken into the school and had been hiding out there when a number of pupils and teachers had arrived with their parents for a breakfast club the school ran every morning before classes. The gang had taken them hostage, but not before one of the teachers had managed to inform the Police.

Colin checked his tablet; they had taken refuge in King Street Primary School in nearby Old Town. According to Dispatch, the Police had regrouped and surrounded the area and were awaiting the arrival of negotiators.

If these were the M, the last thing they needed was for another group of their thugs to be discovered in possession of a rail-gun before the rest of the hoard had been distributed. They were unlikely to surrender, and the Malina were fanatical about loyalty… Death before dishonour or betrayal, that sort of thing.

He quickly dressed in his costume as he tried to focus his attention on the breaking news report on TV of the school siege, but his mind was also busy, searching his mind palace for everything he knew about the Tongs and in particular the Choy Lok On. He had just realised that they represented one possible way for him to track down the auction site that night.

So far, the tongs had not been identified as attacking any of the other criminal organisations and they appeared to be holding aloof from the offer being made to all the other gangs, but they surely must have been invited to the auction, and therefore would know where it will be held? 

He couldn’t think of anyone else (now Malone had proved a bust) who would know and who might, just, be persuaded to talk to him.  Although being a witness to possibly the last moments of Kuang Ma’s son might not be the best of introductions, it might be some sort of in, he hoped. It was the only card he could think to play at the moment. He bookmarked his intention to try to get in touch with the Dragon’s Gate leader later, whilst returning his focus to the moment. The school had become a siege situation and while presenters were suggesting getting the London Watch involved, so far there was no sign of them on the scene.

Colin wasn’t willing to wait and see if they would turn up. A rescue had to be his top priority, so negotiation with the Choy Lok On would have to wait until after, assuming he survived of course. He headed out the rear window, using one of Malone’s coats to conceal his costume.

He made his way down the fire escape into the street. Unfortunately, King Street wasn’t close enough to get there by grapnel.

About ten minutes later, he arrived near the Police Barricade around the school even as local residents were being evacuated from their homes, just in case things escalated out of control. He checked the sky. No camera drones had yet been launched and the local Police helicopter, India 98 was not yet in the air, but it would only be a matter of time.

He wandered round to the back of one of the blocks of flats being evacuated, hid the coat, and then unleashed his grapnel to the fifth-floor balcony. Before he activated it he used his phone to check the TV reports again to get an update of the situation (at least as far as the TV reporters know it) then took careful note of the camera-angles they were using, confirming that none of them actually extended above the roofline.  He activated the winch and proceeded to swing around the building to another balcony, one overlooking the school.

To his surprise, as he cleared the railings, he came face to face with a dusky-skinned youngster, cat in her arms. “Hello! You an angel?” she asked him, completely unfazed by his unorthodox arrival. As Cadet was trying to think what to say, her mother came through to hurry her daughter’s departure. She gave out a quite squeak-like scream, grabbed and pulled the girl and her pet back into the flat. Cadet unfurled his cloak and muttered, “Sorry, just needed a launch platform. Now, please don’t try this yourself.”

With that, he unfastened his grapnel from the safety railings, turned around and flung himself off the landing, hardening his cape into a glider as he did so and cape-glided down onto the flat roof of the school. His arrival seemed to be unobserved from below as he checked out the situation on the ground. The school was a single-story primary school built in the 1980s, surrounded by old houses and blocks of flats. That had been supplemented with a fleet of Police vans and cars surrounding the building on all sides, as well as a TV reporter for Channel 4 News currently ensconced at the front. It was only a matter of time before other TV stations joined them in reporting the siege at the scene.

A chain-link fence surrounded the outer perimeter of the high school, windows on the roof appeared to overlook the gym while at ground level there were fire doors into the classrooms themselves. Except for the woman and her young daughter, his arrival on the roof appeared to have gone unnoticed.

As though in reply to such a thought, there was a massive explosion at the front of the building as the main entrance evaporated. One of the gunmen inside had elected to deter any stupid acts of bravado by firing a HEAP shell into it.

Cadet immediately threw himself flat, crawled to the nearest roof-window, and cautiously peered in.  

He watched as a man, armed with the only rail-gun he could see, re-entered the gym with a big smile on his face. Besides him, there were another three gang members, at least one of whom was armed with a handgun on display. At the back of the hall looking very scared were five teachers or teaching staff, a dozen 8 to 11-year-old kids and five parents and guardians sitting on the low benches.

Despite the gang’s display of bravado, it was obvious that they were scared, and not just of being arrested. He assumed the foreign language they were speaking amongst themselves was Ukrainian, and from that he assumed they didn’t expect their hostages to survive long enough to repeat what they saw and heard.

He pulled himself back from the window, then quietly made his way towards the rear of the hall above the hostages. They were safe for the moment, but exposed. He needed to take out the two guns first and hope the teachers had enough sense once the fighting began to get everyone outside to safety.

He quietly worked his way around the roof until he has visually placed all the Malina in the room and made a judgement as to their relative states of mind and armament. There was nothing to indicate that the other two men were armed, thankfully.

From that mental plan he worked out which of the roof-windows offered him the optimum entry-point and crawled across to it.  His plan was to drop through the chosen window so that the rail-gunner was between him and the enforcer with the known hand-gun. That meant dropping through the middle windows. He looked over and saw several camera drones being unloaded from a Met Police van. He had to act quickly before their operator launched them to try and observe what was going on, through the very windows he himself was using to spy on the gang members below.

He gently tested the window for its resistance to opening and potential noisiness, giving a silent prayer of thanks to the school caretaker for oiling the hinges.

No more time, he needed to act. He stood up, whirling this extended grappling hook above his head before redirecting its flight plan down and through the furthermost front skylight with extreme prejudice. This window was at the opposite side of the hall from both him and the hostages. As soon as the glass smashed, he retracted the hook, allowing the barbs to bite against its frame, then he lobbed a couple of smoke pellets through the opening.

As a couple of bullets went off followed by another explosion, this time at the front of the gym, Cadet knew the Police would take that as a sign and be rushing the entrances and exits. He had to disarm the gunmen and get the hostages to flee before that happened. He tried to wrench open the window in the middle of the hall, but it had a lock that only allowed it to open a few inches to allow for ventilation. No time, he jumped onto the window, allowing his weight to shatter the glass then dropped, relying on his secured grapnel line to slow his descent. As he fell, he threw several smoke pellets at the rail-gunner before stopping his descent a couple of feet off the ground as he swung himself at the man, who was still distracted; both confused by smoke and still aiming at the initial broken skylight window.

His feet connected with his back and sent him flying, only for the guy with the pistol to start firing. Cadet released his cable and landed on his feet, slamming the back of his fist into a temple strike while disarming him using his escrima sticks. He ducked as the gun cascaded across the floor towards the front of the hall.

Cadet used the chaos to shout to the teachers to head for the fire exits, even as one of the apparently unarmed gang members tried to stop them. He was immediately felled by a granny and her handbag in full swing. By the way he went down, Cadet was reasonably sure she had to keep a half-brick in there, just in case.

No time for a round of applause, he bowled himself into the legs of the rail-gunner, bringing the barrel down hard at an angle onto the floor, and was rewarded with the bloody thing powering down. Unfortunately, it gave one of the others the opportunity to attack him from behind and Cadet went down hard, momentarily dazed. He glanced over and was glad to see that the teachers and parents were finally doing as he had told them and were running out into the corridor, where they seemed to be surrounded by armed men in blue.

Cadet pushed himself into a somersault, rolled away from his attacker and back onto his feet. He grabbed the wrist of one of those trying to attack him, and suddenly realised that the wrist was connected to a hand holding another pistol. No time for good technique, He pulled the hand towards him and bit down hard on the wrist. The man gave out a loud scream and dropped the gun, even as the hall was suddenly exposed to brilliant flashes and loud bangs as the Police stormed the room, seemingly from every side.

Time for Cadet to leave unless he was willing to spend the rest of the day answering a series of very awkward questions. Cadet ran towards the just visible cable dangling from the shattered skylight, reattached the cable to his winder and departed skywards. Two of the gang seeing his shape disappearing tried to rush him, but a couple of sharp kicks to their throats and jaws caused them to fall down even as Cadet vanished from sight.

Down below, armed police were rounding up the four men. He emerged on the roof, just in time to stare into the canopy of the helicopter India 98 as it hovered overhead. Damn, he would now be captured on camera. Time to leave. He hit release so that the grapnel hooks released their grip on the other window frame and retracted, even as he ran for the edge of the roof and flung himself off and towards the chain-link fence below. As he fell, he fired off his grapnel at a nearby lamppost and reactivated his cloak-glider. The grapnel caught even as he cleared the fence by centimetres and swung him up into the air, where his memory-hardened cloak caught the updraft and gave him height. He flew over the amazed police officer’s heads towards the block of flats – this time the second storey. It did mean abandoning his grapnel, but that would be a small price to pay, and anyway he had another one at Malone’s flat in a concealed weapons cache under the bed. Yeah, it was a cliché, but one people rarely checked since it meant moving the bed and pulling back the carpet to do so.

He hit the second storey railings, swung himself over and ran for the stairs. He needed to find a place to hide or a way to escape before the cops came searching for him. Assuming he got away, he now just had to think of a way to contact the Tong and get them to allow him an audience before the meeting tonight…

He hid out in one of the now-abandoned flats for about an hour before making his way out via the sewers. Not as nasty as they sounded, since they had walkways above the water channels and only rats and the occasional feral cat on the search for said rats to act as an obstacle to his progress. He resurfaced several hundred yards away from the school. He sneaked back and managed to retrieve the coat that he’d initially used to conceal his identity on leaving the flat before heading back to Malone’s place.

Once he was back in the peace and comfort of Malone’s flat, Colin replaced his grapnel and considered what he knew about the tongs and the Choy Lok On in particular. The Choy Lok On still organised along traditional lines: under the higher officials of the Dragon Head, vice chairman, street secretary and English secretary.

Kuang Ma was the current Dragon Head. Rising to power in the 1960s, he had maintained the tong’s traditional base in Wessex’s Dragon’s Gate and had elected to keep “Western” influences to a minimum. He was not a fool however and had realised the necessity of such things as computers and communication systems. However, with these exceptions the tong continued to operate in much the same way as it had for decades.

 At the age of 88, Kuang Ma was the oldest of the Dragon Heads but his age had not made him any less dangerous and he was reputed to have the physical condition of a man less than half his age. Colin’s observations at the hotel the previous night had confirmed that, despite his age, he had stood erect and walked with determination. His sheer personal magnetism and will to live had contributed a great deal towards keeping him in power and he still commanded the complete loyalty of the vast majority of the Choy Lok On, ruling through a combination of tradition, charisma, and fear.

He was also a loving father to his surviving children and was currently mourning the disappearance of his only surviving son. He would be impossible to contact directly, so Colin would need to find another way to establish communication.

After some thought, he decided to make his approach through Thomas Chung. As the tong’s English secretary, Thomas Chung had one of the most influential positions in the Choy Lok On and had control of a great deal of economic power with respect to the legitimate business arm of the tong.

In China, a tong’s English secretary was charged with conducting transactions with foreigners, but in the UK the position primarily entailed coordinating a tong’s legitimate business enterprises. As a result, Thomas Chung was also the president and CEO of Water Dragon Freight.

He is also without a doubt the tong’s most frustrated member. The very nature of business entailed the use of a great deal of modern procedures. Unlike the combat-oriented parts of the tong, the business end does not really work that efficiently under the “old methods.”

That gave Colin a reason to meet him, though it took some persuasion to get his secretary to book him an appointment for that afternoon, insisting what a busy man Mr Chung was. Colin responded by taking the line that he was who he was, the son of an assassinated crime-lord, estranged from his family but both rich in his own right and sponsored by and representing the business interests of Sir Bryan Bardic. He decided to not mention that he was still a pupil at Claremont.  

The appointment was for an hour’s time, a ten-minute slot to convince Mr Chung to talk with him further. He looked at his outfit and sighed. He had no time to go shopping for new clothes.

Damn, he was forced to wash the worst of the bloodstains out of his dress shirt and trousers and put them into the apartments’ drier for a quick dry so he had something other than his outfit to wear under his leathers, which he assumed they would want him to remove before meeting with Kuang Ma. He looked at the crumpled, though now cleaner shirt as he dressed. This wasn’t going to give the best impression. Never mind, this was all he had and who knew how long it would take him to get granted an audience with the Dragon Head?

Colin used the time to get in touch with Chris and asks him to do him a favour. He explained that he needed him to go down to the grove, filming his approach to it on his mobile to fix context, continuously recording as he searched round the roots of the tree for Joey’s misplaced sword and when he hopefully found it, zooming in, and then taking some close-up stills of the sword’s details such as the blade and engravings on the hilt, etc. Then filming himself backing away from the sword, leaving it in place.  Then he was to send his video and stills to Colin’s phone, which he will then show to Kuang Ma, so he could explain that he had to improvise this proof at the last moment, and promising that he will retrieve the sword from the school grounds and return it at the earliest opportunity, by whatever process the Dragon Head desired.

Great idea, immediately vetoed by Chris’. “Are you mad? You want me to let this Fu-Manchu maniac know that his son’s sword’s on school grounds and where he can find it? We just survived a hostage situation, or have you forgotten already? Now you want to invite the local Tong to come and get it? They will not wait for you to bring it to them. Also, do you really expect they will leave you with your phone while you chat with the local bigwig? Nah, leave it with me, I’ll sort out your proof and will send it when you call… All you have to say is ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ out loud when you want me to send proof. Trust me, I’ll make it happen.”  Colin really wasn’t sure why that promise did not fill him with confidence, but he had to trust his teammate, didn’t he?

He stashed his costume and kit on his bike and set off back to Wessex. Just over an hour later, he drove through the ornate Dragon’s Gate that gave the district its name and headed towards the Water Dragon’s Freight HQ, parking up outside the office. He entered the reception and asked to see Thomas Chung, pointing out he did have an appointment. The pretty Chinese girl on the other side of the desk gave him the once over and immediately tried to stone-wall him, claiming that there had been a double booking, and could she arrange an alternative appointment for him instead? Say in a month’s time?

Colin smiled and raised his voice. “Mr Chung, I am Colin Duncan, you once did business with my father when he ran the Firm? I’m here out of respect for the Choy Lok On, as I have knowledge of what happened to Joey Tiamente, also known as Joseph Kuang, son of the Dragon Head…”

A tall, skinny middle-aged man, balding with a comb over and with dark nicotine stains on his fingers, suddenly stepped out from a doorway behind the secretary. “I am Chung. I was not expecting a boy, and not one so disrespectful as to arrive dressed as a motorbike courier. What do you want?”

Colin opened the zip on his jacket to show his shirt underneath and apologised for the deception, but felt duty bound to contact the Dragon Head with news about his son. Chung’s eyes crumpled up, “Ok, talk!”

Colin smiled, “I’m sorry and with the greatest of respect this must be for the Dragon Head’s ears first. I assure you he will want to hear this.”

Behind him, he heard another door open and two men roughly grabbed him by the arms. Chung indicated they should bring him through into the offices, and Colin found himself being manhandled though the offices towards a room at the far end. Colin did not resist, though he did wonder what the office staff, politely trying to ignore what was going on, actually thought of his being ‘escorted’ through their office.

Inside the room, He found his leathers being removed as well as his phone, which was taken away and then he was briskly searched for weapons. “Please forgive Mr Duncan but as you say, you have a reputation. Now tell me what you know about the disappearance of Joseph if you value your life.”

Colin glanced up, smiling. “I’m sorry Mr Chung but that is for the Dragon Head’s ears alone. If he elects to share afterwards, that will be his prerogative.”

This went on for a good twenty minutes, with Chung resorting to threats, not that he carried any of them out, Colin was glad to note. Eventually he left the room and ten minutes later returned with a TV set on a trolley.

“Ok Mr Duncan, I will let you speak with the Dragon Head.” He switched on the set and angled the camera down to capture Colin’s features. The TV flared into life, showing the elderly man he’d seen the night before in the hotel with a young boy next to him, about 12 or 13 in age. Chung smiled, showing brown tobacco-stained teeth, “The Dragon Head understands English Mr Duncan but refuses to speak it. The interpreter in the room is for your benefit, not his. As for a face-to-face meeting, your reputation precedes you. Anyone willing to execute his own father is one to be wary of, I’m sure you agree?”

He turned, nodded towards the elderly man in the screen, then left with the two bodyguards that had manhandled Colin earlier.

Colin was convinced that the conversation would be eavesdropped on by Thomas Chung and probably recorded, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that.

The elderly man in front of him said something to the boy, presumably in Chinese, and the boy hesitantly muttered in English, “The Master asks what you know about his son’s disappearance…”

Colin nodded, then began to explain what had happened to Joey Tiamente as if he had been a witness up in the treehouse. He explained that he had been told afterwards about the contest set by the man calling himself the Gamesmaster and of the encounter between Joey and Cadet and how Gabriel Slade had kidnapped Joey and dragged him into some sort of prison dimension.  “I heard Cadet call him by his true name when he was trying to negotiate a truce, but that didn’t mean much to me at the time. I subsequently discovered that this Gamesmaster defeated Slade and took control of the dimensional gateway. I have no idea whether your son is still alive, and if so is he still imprisoned.”

He noticed that the boy remained silent, so presumably Chung had said the truth when he said Kuang Ma understood English, just refused to speak it.

Colin continued explaining that it was only now, when he had heard through some of my dad’s old contacts about what was happening between all the gangs with these new weapons and started doing some research, did he put two and two together.

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long and I’m even more sorry to be bringing you bad news., but the truth is, it’s not the only reason I wanted to speak with you…  Cadet asked me to come.  He’s sure that this offer of weapons by the Malina is a ploy, not only to make them money, but to get all the gangs into terminal warfare with one another, weakening them all so that the Malina can take over. He knows that the tongs have wisely been holding themselves aloof from the mayhem, and thinks maybe you share his own suspicions.  But holding aloof won’t stop the Malina from achieving their ends.  

If they take over all the other gangs they will far outmatch the tongs, especially with this armament, and they won’t be holding back.  Cadet believes you will have had an invitation to the arms sales.  

Would you at least be willing to tell me the time and place so that I can pass it on to him, so that he can try to organise its disruption.  The Malina need to be taken back so that at least the old status quo can reassert itself. And these new indiscriminate weapons need to be erased from existence.”

Kuang Ma muttered something and again the boy spoke, “My master says it’s ‘convenient’ that his son has been removed to somewhere that no one can find him. How is he to know that you speak the truth?”

Colin cleared his throat, “Joseph had a unique sword with him and was wearing a lion mask when he went missing. The sword was left behind. I ah, apologise in advance for what follows, hopefully but I ah had to improvise this proof at the last moment, and I promise that I will retrieve the sword and return it at the earliest opportunity, by whatever process the Dragon Head desires.” He stopped and shouted out, “Rumpelstiltskin!”

Back in the office, Colin’s phone suddenly lit up and there was a momentary flash on the receptionist’s screen as something sentient invaded her computer and then infiltrated their security system.

A second later pictures of an antique sword with a chisel-shaped blade, black lacquered handle carved with Chinese symbols appeared as a separate window on the screen in front of Colin, it was lying against the trunk of a tree. The camera changed angles, zoomed In close on the symbols for a few seconds, and a nearby printer in the office outside suddenly activated and began printing a series of photographs of the weapon.

Then the screen within a screen vanished and the display returned to normal as Firewall exited the building once more, leaping the divide between the phone and the receptionist’s computer. Trying to digitise himself down to a phone signal had left him completely drained, even if he had been just outside the building when he’d called himself into Colin’s phone then had to leap across into the computer system. It was a useful skill, but one that rendered him completely defenceless afterwards

The elderly man looked upset and muttered something to the boy who spoke again, “That is my Master’s son’s sword. It seems you speak truly. What is the price for its retrieval?”

“I will bring it to him, by whatever means the Dragon Head feels is best, but I do ask for his assistance for my friend Cadet. Tell me where the gun sales are going down and let me pass that information back so that no more of these weapons end up on the streets or destroying each other… I give you my word to bring to you the blade as soon as I can. I wish I knew more, but the only people who might know are Gabriel Slade who grabbed Joseph and the Gamesmaster who subsequently did the same to him.”

The boy spoke again, this time unprompted. “The master thanks you and agrees that these weapons are unseemly and should not be allowed to propagate on the streets. He will ask Master Chung to provide you with the address you seek and details of the sale. My master bids you a safe journey and promises if you have lied in any way that he will meet with you again, though it will not be so pleasant an experience.” The screen went dead and a second later Chung and his two goons re-entered the room. It was clear that Chung had been listening to every word.

A minute later, Colin retrieved his leathers and phone and was handed a note with an address of a warehouse in South London, below was a time 10pm and today’s date. He stepped outside and walked towards the car park.

Outside, he found a near unconscious Chris’ shivering away next to his bike, having almost crawled the last few metres. The stunt of jumping as a telephone signal even using 5G, then crossing the ether to infiltrate their computer system had left him exhausted. Colin couldn’t leave him there and would have to risk taking him somewhere to recover.

Colin reached over and gave the shivering, near-comatose Chris a big man-hug in appreciation of his efforts, muttering, “You’re just so much smarter than me, bro.”  He couldn’t return him to school in this state without a lot of questions being asked so he began to rack his brains to try to think of somewhere safe and comfortable nearby for Firewall to recuperate. In the end, he settled for Sir Bryan’s Town house and called Malone to see if he knew someone who could keep an eye on him until he recovered. He was slightly uneasy at the hint of humour in his old friend’s voice when he agreed to get someone round. Colin just hoped Sir Bryan would not be in residence, otherwise he’d have a lot of explaining to do.

He helped Chris onto the back of his bike, placing their only helmet over his friends’ head and was about to set off for the luxurious terrace houses of Guinevere Boulevard and Sir Bryan’s property, hopefully repaired since his last visit, when his mobile rang. Colin answered it and heard a youthful but now familiar voice. “My master wants to warn you that he believes that the Malina will soon know of your friend’s plan to intrude on the auction tonight. He wants you to provide him with proof that someone has betrayed him. Your friend needs to be prepared for the M to be expecting him. My master says, consider it a test.” The call then ended. That explained why he had been told to turn up two hours before the auction…

He set off, determined to keep to the back roads and avoid any contact with the Police. He had a bit of trouble as he was crossing a major junction when a Police officer on patrol spotted him and radioed in his ‘riding without a helmet’ stunt but he was on foot and Colin quickly vanished into a maze of backstreets before arriving at Sir Bryan’s and seeing Malone’s idea of help.

Sitting on the stairs to the front door was a familiar figure – Karen Schofield, criminal lawyer at Cabot, Cunningham and Crawley and not seen since he’d saved her at this very address from the attentions of the Gamesmaster and Slade.

He quickly hid the bike in the underground garage and then helped Chris up the stairs towards Karen, who sat on the top step watching and smoking a cigarette. “You know this makes us even, right?” She said as she took Chris’ other arm and helped him stand while he unlocked the front door. They entered and headed for the Old man’s study. He helped make Chis comfortable on the sofa and made Karen promise to call the school if he hadn’t fully recovered by 9pm. The last thing he wanted was for Chris to be caught AWOL from school, since he wouldn’t have had time to request a pass to stay out overnight when he’d set off to come and help him.

Thanking both of them again, Colin retrieved his helmet and headed to the garage to change the plates on his bike (just in case) and suit up, then set off to recce the South London warehouse.

There were several reports coming in over Trouble Alert of attacks breaking out again across the Southeast of the Country in particular, thankfully only a couple involved rail-guns and London Watch and others were already on-scene and dealing. He considered joining up with them but assumed that if he was to contact them they would again side line him into acting as their comms link, anything to keep him out of the line of fire and he wasn’t willing to risk that.

The Beeb’ news was reporting 21 fatalities in total from the previous night’s battles, with several more people still listed as missing. The chaos had resulted in an imbroglio of conflicting reports that clearly disguised the Malina’s involvement in the initial attacks.

Colin needed help if he was to stop this before it escalated any further. He again went through Dispatch to try to get in touch with Marcus Moore. This time though, she wanted to know the purpose of the call. Even though there was no emotion in her voice, it was clear that he was nearing the end of her patience with his intruding on what should have been one of the most secure lines of communication in the world. He explained he had urgent information that Omniweapon needed to hear.

“Omniweapon is currently offline, and Mr Moore has not left any instructions to allow you access to his personal line. I will put you through but only because I believe you have information that Omniweapon’s other personae may wish to hear, if that is incorrect then I will ensure you and your clever friend never regain access to this system ever again. Now, do you wish me to put you through to Mr Moore’s personal phone?”

For a split-second Colin hesitated, then realised he had no choice, “Yes, put me through, please.”

There was silence for several seconds, presumably while Dispatch ‘talked’ with Moore’s house A.I., then he heard the phone start to ring out. It continued to ring for what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than five minutes, then “Yes? This better be important, I had to get out of bed after being up all night.”

Colin apologised but asked him a question in return, “How important is it to you to get these rail-gun’s off the street, permanently?” The phone went quiet for a few seconds then when he replied, all the hostility and anger had gone from his voice, “Go on, I’m listening…”

Colin told him everything that he has discovered – including the fact that Cadet’s intervention was expected from 10pm on. He hoped by going there during the day, he would be able to avoid all the other gangs and their enforcers being gathered to bid on the guns.

He had six hours until then and was already on his way to reconnoitre the warehouse, but he needed to know if Moore’s father had built in any fail-safes that he could exploit to disarm the rifles?

“There is a way, but I need a couple of hours to prep my suit’s sensors to do so. I will also need the specific serial number from each of the guns – I’m hoping they might be sequential, but can’t guarantee it… With that information, I can override their CPU’s and switch them off, but I need to be within ten metres of the weapons to do so.”

He listened as Marcus explained that they would need to physically examine the weapons or at least read-off their serial numbers in order to try disabling them.

“Any idea just how many weapons there are?” Marcus was quiet for a second, then confirmed that his father had made fifty-two guns in total, assuming the Malina had also got their hands on the original two prototypes.

Colin began to outline his “plan”, as far as it went, but stated outright that he would happily accept any suggestions or advice.  Marcus immediately ‘suggested’ he wait until he could get to the warehouse himself and deal with this personally. Colin ignored that ‘suggestion’ as this could be a decoy and if so, that meant he had to find the real location otherwise the sale would go ahead regardless with all the bloodshed and destruction that would entail.

He explained that he meant to head over to the warehouse asap, installing himself on the roof so that he could watch what was happening over the roof-edge or through any handy sky-lights, so he could get a feel for the situation.

His plan was to try to gain entry unnoticed via the roof.  What he was hoping for was an opportunity to lower himself into the warehouse and maybe get himself a rail-gun of his own. He was hoping that is that once in place, no one will dare shoot at him for fear of the resulting explosion, but he will be able to threaten to fire outwards with the rail-gun.  Whatever happened next, he wanted this resolved before any other gangs were due to arrive for the sale.

Having given Marcus the address and explained that he was already on his way and should be there in about 20 minutes, he switched off the call, amidst Marcus’ vocal protestations. He needed to figure out a way to deactivate the rifles, and he had to make sure they didn’t vanish again before they could be gathered.

He got as close as he dared, then parked up and swung himself up onto the flat roof of a nearby warehouse. Looking over the edge, he could make out four gang members patrolling the grounds around the neighbouring warehouse. Like the one he was on, this was a compact box of a building with a flat roof and a double skylight in the centre. There was a set of metal roller doors to the front and rear large enough to allow small delivery vans to enter and leave and a metal double door serving as an emergency exit. Large reinforced rectangular windows were arranged five metres up the sides of the warehouse to provide light.

Cadet scooted over to the skylights on the warehouse he was on and checked how easy they were to open. Beneath him, he could see a series of florescent light fixtures on the ceiling lighting up the warehouse below. At the north-west corner of the building and up a flight of steel girded stairs was a small, raised office. A second set of steps and a ladder allowed roof access to one of the skylights.

If this was duplicated in the warehouse opposite, then he had a way in. He waited until the apparently unarmed patrols were either on the other side of the building or looking away and taking a long run up tried to jump the alleyway that separated the two buildings. Cadet didn’t want to risk using his cape as a glider as it would cast too big a shadow down below and for such a small gap would be hard to land. He considered using his grapnel, but couldn’t risk hitting the wall opposite and making too much noise as he climbed. No, a jump was required with a seven or eight metre drop if he misjudged it.

He took a long run up and jumped for the roof opposite. His upper torso landed leaving his legs dangling only for him to start sliding. He grabbed at the roofing felt and felt it begin to tear even as he clambered up and onto the roof. If they had seen his clumsy landing, they weren’t making a lot of noise about it. Hopefully that was a good sign.

He rolled himself across the roofing and made for the skylights. Unlike on the other warehouse they were locked but with such a flimsy lock, Cadet was easily able to force it open and sneak inside and onto the ladder. Beneath him, in the office, he could hear voices talking again in what he assumed was Ukrainian. He stayed quietly concealed behind the ladder as he took in the scene; a lorry was parked up against a far wall, its cabin facing into the middle of the warehouse. Nearby was an abandoned forklift, several metal containers and a number of empty wooden crates scattered around the warehouse floor.

Four more of the gang were near the front watching the inside of the roller doors, each of them armed with one of the rail-guns. What he couldn’t see were the crates containing the guns themselves… He climbed down closer to the office and, staying concealed, tried to see what was going on inside. A man with the appearance of a much younger Yuri Gregorov was sitting behind a desk while four other men, only one dressed in overalls, listened attentively. Then Cadet heard the clanging of footsteps as three people climbed the metal steps from the floor up to the office, one of whom was Yuri himself. He popped his head round the door, said something to his younger doppelgänger, and then started climbing back down to the ground again. Whatever he’d said, was resulting in the younger version also leaving with him own bodyguards.

Wherever the guns were, they clearly weren’t being stored in the office. He noticed one of Yuri’s bodyguards head towards the back of the parked lorry and clamber in. A second later, he reappeared with a HA 3000 rail-gun and switched it on before returning with it to his boss.

Cadet was about to try to climb down the back of the ladder from the balcony surrounding two sides of the office when something long and black suddenly tangled around his throat and jerked him off his feet. He managed just in time to slip his hand underneath a noose that appeared to be an animated length of hair, just as it tightened and lifted him further off the ground. He hung there, struggling for breath, as a woman stepped out from beside the office. That was accompanied by the animated length of hair around his throat tightening again as his toes tried desperately to reach out for something to get a purchase but failing. It pulled him closer to her scarred face as she smiled, showing off a mouthful of gold teeth, and tried to throw him over the safety railings. At present, he was slowly and painfully suffocating. As he watched even more hair extended out from the back of her head, he knew that if she succeeded in throwing him over the railings, then the hangman’s drop would likely kill him outright by snapping his vertebrae. Below, even as his ears began to ring, he could hear laughter from the other gangsters as he watched Yuri’s son and his entourage leave the building by the back door. Yuri and his other bodyguard were standing next to the lorry, but seemed to be unable to find the keys to start it up…

Cadet tried to use his trapped hand to loosen the noose around his neck a little and give him some breathing space. He managed to get a couple of much-needed gasps of breath before the noose tried to tighten again.  With his other hand, he reached out and grabbed hold of a nearby vertical stanchion that supported the platform to the roof and pulled himself towards it even as his attacker threw him over the railings. Cadet held on for dear life, swung his legs round like the gymnast he was and spun around the upright post horizontally like a pole dancer so his legs, which were now fastened on the pole above his torso, could take the weight of his body. He let go with his hand of the pole and began to reel his attacker closer to him, spinning round the pole several times so that he wrapped the hair-strands round the post. Unwillingly tethered, she tried to pull free, and Cadet felt the upright shudder. Her attempts to escape threatened to break it free from its fastenings!

No time to waste, He continued his spin while he still had momentum then on his last twist, he grabbed the post, released his legs hold on the upright and used the built-up energy to slam both feet into his opponent’s face.

He had hoped to knock her over the railing and succeeded, unfortunately he hadn’t expected to go over with her as the bottom of the post finally broke free and he and the twists of hair slithered off the end. The two of them dropped towards the ground and the man in the overalls at the base of the stairs. She landed hard, followed a second later by Cadet landing on top of her. It left him winded but her unconscious as he pulled the noose of hair away from his bruised throat and used it to whip out at the worker who just stood there open-mouthed. The length of hair flicked him in the eyes, causing him to fall backwards even as Cadet threw the ‘noose’ away, then immediately turned and ran towards the lorry.

A shot sounded and a small cannister flew past his face to hit the pillar behind him, Intense cold radiated from the base of the office where it hit, followed a second later by upright strands of ice expanding from the cryogenic cartridge threatening to collapse on top of him. The ice flowed across the floor, threatening to make him slide or fall down. Well, he thought he needed the speed and a smaller target was always a better option. He felt the coldness of the ice underfoot as he dropped to the ground and allowed his momentum to roll him into Yuri’s bodyguard and bowl him over.

His momentum carried him beyond the collapsing figure towards his target. At the last second, he somersaulted onto his feet, grabbed the rear edge of the lorry’s open rear door and flung himself up and into the back of the truck. He heard several clicks as weapons were trained on the rear of the vehicle but hoped, prayed that they wouldn’t want to risk firing and exploding the arms cache he was currently sprawled on top of.

He immediately grabbed one of the rail-guns, hit what he hoped was the activate switch and not the safety, and slammed in the first clip he found. Outside, he could hear someone scream not to fire in case they blew up the ammunition. Well, he’d got to the guns, just not as stealthily as he had hoped.

Outside he heard what sounded like a helicopter, possibly landing nearby, and over that the sound of someone telling him to come out quietly if he wanted to live.

Instead, he pulled out his pocketknife, slammed it into the thin aluminium side and created a hole big enough to poke the barrel of another rail-gun through. He then swung round the side and, aiming high, pulled the trigger on his own rifle. The shell hit the rear wall and burst into flames, which started to spread. He was forced to pull himself back inside and again collapse on top of the guns as one of the guards fired back. A large part of the wall just behind him evaporated as the HEAP shell hit it. He heard someone scream an order to cease-fire if they valued their life.

Seems they had a stalemate; he couldn’t escape and they couldn’t risk firing on him again. He reloaded and, while he tried to think what to do next, checked out the crates of weapons and their serial numbers. He was sure that outside the Malina were trying to sneak up, so had to be prepared for anything. Outside, he could hear Yuri trying to negotiate with him over the sound of the helicopter rotors. He ignored it and instead loaded as many of the rifles as he could while checking the serial numbers for Omniweapon – to his dismay the serial numbers were similar, all starting the same but the last digits were all odd and non-sequential. Then he realised why, they were all prime numbers… Starting with 177ABA701-05, 07, 11 and so on. He checked the next crate even as he devised a rough and ready dead man’s switch on the crates of HEAP clips – using a rifle loaded with pyro-shells as his detonator. These were numbered 177ABB but ending in 02, 03, 05 etc.

Quietly he switched his comms-unit on and switched it over to the phone function and called Moore. A second later he heard Moore’s voice reply, “Okay kid, please tell me you’re either safe or you have the serial numbers?”

Cadet quietly relayed the known serial numbers and his discovery that each crate of ten guns were prime numbered. “Hope it helps, as I think I’m about to go out in a blaze of glory.” On the roof of the lorry, he could hear footsteps as someone attempted to reach him from above.

Over his comms he heard Moore talking, presumably to his A.I., “Serial Numbers, extrapolate!” Then “Just tell me you’re not on that ‘copter please?” ‘Copter? Was he able to see the helicopter taking off outside? Did that mean..?

A second later, the warehouse roof exploded and his intruder on the roof of the lorry was sent flying into the warehouse wall, hard!

He heard several loud clicks followed by a single explosion as he dived out the back and into the warehouse itself, armed with his Rail-gun (which might no longer work, he suddenly realised).

Outside, two of the guards were throwing down their rail-guns in disgust and reaching for hand weapons. The remaining one of them still had a working weapon, for the moment at least, as another hole in the roof could testify.

In front of him, Yuri was standing beside his bodyguard who appeared to be manifesting some form of metal skin while a beam from his chest was holding the Omniweapon frozen in mid-air. Not that that stopped Moore from talking as he casually chatted with the gangster holding him in place, “Metalek, long time no see, how’s the cyber-psychosis coming along? Just as homicidal as ever, I see.”

Cadet aimed his rifle at the roof above the three other guards, then pulled the trigger. Nothing, his rail-gun had been deactivated alongside the others. He considered throwing it at the three of them, but they were too far away for the heavy weapon to reach them.

He shouted over to Omniweapon, “Metallic? Cyborg?” Marcus managed to move his head slightly as he replied, “Meta with cybernetic enhancements, hence the name Meta-Lek. He hates it.”

Cadet dropped the rifle and threw himself into a cartwheel towards Yuri and Metalek hoping the sudden display of acrobatics would confuse them. Yuri responded by dropping the rail-gun and pulling out a handgun, a make and model that Cadet didn’t immediately recognise and start firing at him. He was forced to dodge before reaching his target as he rolled himself underneath the cabin of the lorry and grabbed hold of the chassis to enable him to swing out again at the front, behind Yuri’s legs. Yuri realised something was wrong and started to turn round, even as Cadet swept his feet from under him and knocked the handgun under the lorry.

He somersaulted to his knees and grabbed the boss in a chokehold as he fell. Cadet applied additional pressure to his prisoners’ carotid artery with his knuckles and shouted at Metalek to release Omniweapon. He almost wished he’d retained the pistol, but that was one bluff he was fairly sure either Yuri or Matalek would have called him out on.

Metalek refused to turn to face him, instead he applied additional telekinetic pressure to Moore’s suit of armour causing one of the elbow joints to shatter even as he shouted, “I call your bluff little man. Finish him and his son will call vendetta on you and yours, that I…”

He never finished the sentence as behind the three guards the metal door was suddenly peeled back by a flying, older, well-built man dressed in a flag uniform. The new arrival’s right eye glowing a menacing red as he snatched at the gun of the closest guard and squeezed the barrel into a pretzel one-handed. With his other hand, he swung his cane into his companion, knocking him into the nearby stairs. The Commander had tracked down his wayward ‘ward’ and didn’t seem too happy. He backhanded in a very casual, almost gentle, manner the man staring at his now useless rifle causing him to collapse either from being knocked unconscious or from shock, it was hard for Cadet to say before Commander floated across to the last remaining guard.

Cadet didn’t wait to see what happened next. He applied pressure to the artery, rendering Yuri unconscious, then pushed him into Metalek’s back as he tried to figure out how to ‘liberate’ Omniweapon. The gangster was now covered from head to foot in what looked like metal scales and seemed to be applying some sort of telekinetic pressure to Omniweapon’s suit, freezing it in the air.

He grabbed hold of the rail-gun on the ground and shouted out “Can you free 177ABC701-23?” then aimed the barrel at Metalek’s back and pulled the trigger.

A microsecond later, his target was engulfed with flames as the pyro-cartridge ignited and started to roast him. The sudden rise in temperature was felt through his bio-organic armour, his focus on crushing Omniweapon wandered and Omniweapon flew forward and slammed him into the engine chassis of the lorry even as he tried to bring his fire suppression system online.

Oops! Thought Cadet as he realised that there was a strong possibility the flames might spread to the ammo inside the lorry and was forced to run over and pull an unconscious Yuri to safety. Thankfully, the suit’s suppression system was powerful enough to put the flames out almost instantaneously, before they reached either the fuel tank or the ammunition, but not before Metalek had collapsed with pain from second degree burns all over his body as his metal scales heated up.

Forced to change back, Omniweapon was almost gentle as he administered a sedative to Metalek and called for an ambulance. Then he walked round to the rear of the van and checked out the cargo.

A second later, he shouted out, “There are only thirty-eight HA 3000’s onboard and most of the ammo. The kid’s got another, there’s one under the lorry, and there was three more with the guards. Ah, nice to see you again, Commander. Good to see that forced retirement hasn’t blunted your skills. I take it you’re another of the kid’s acquaintances, eh? Anyway, that means nine weapons still unaccounted for, though I believe at least four of them may already be in police custody. If you don’t mind, I’ll remove my property and see if I can’t track down the rest.”

Commander floated over, landing hard on his cybernetic leg, and began to argue that these weapons were evidence and had to remain until the police elected to dispose of them… Cadet left them to it as he heard a telephone call coming in via his comms link.

He moved away from the property squabble and pressed to receive the anonymous call. A young voice, with a touch of a Chinese accent that was starting to sound very familiar, spoke. “Mr Duncan, congratulations on your work so far. Can you confirm whether the Malina were expecting you?”

“Hmm, they were certainly alert – even though I arrived super-early…”

 “Then it is true, that the Choy Lok On has a traitor in its midst, one close enough to the Dragon Head to put the reputation of the tong at risk. There is one task still outstanding, Vasil Gregorov, son of Yuri has been sent to assassinate Gianni Royale by taking out Mystery’s London casino in the Docklands… He has the remaining weapons onboard the helicopter with him and will be in range soon. I doubt you will be able to stop him in time, but he must be stopped before this war escalates any further. My master wishes you well.” The call suddenly ended at that point.

He immediately began running for his bike, though he shouted out that the Malina had one last task to perform; “they intend to destroy Mystery’s London casino and kill Gianni Royale!”

He heard Commander shout at Omniweapon to stay and guard the weapons until the police arrived, then Cadet felt his feet leave the ground as the Commander grabbed him by the back of his costume using the concealed straps built in to the uniform to fly him up and out of the warehouse.

The sudden change in air temperature made him shiver as he realised he was still holding the rifle and had several weapon cartridges in his pouch. Commander was silent for about a minute, then said, “I know now is not the time, but we need to talk about your extracurricular activities of late. Why did I have to find out what was going on from your semi-comatose friend recovering on my couch and from a strange woman chain-smoking in my house while drinking my best whisky?”

Over the rushing wind he heard the Commander pause then ask what he thought he was up to and why hadn’t he handed the case over to people who were trained and authorised to deal with it?

Colin paused, trying to gather his thoughts then gave up and muttered over the howling wind, “Uh… it started out as something different, a family matter…” he admitted grudgingly, “…and then it just snow-balled so fast that I never knew where it was going. Sorry,” he added, hopefully.  “Don’t blame my friends.”

Beneath them, in the car park, they could see two men step out of a helicopter and head towards the Casino as the helicopter started to rise once more into the air.

“I’ll deal with the helicopter, you sort out the squabbling kids.” and with that Commander released him. Cadet activated his cloak glider and silently headed towards the armed men below. He checked his weapon as he glided in. It was showing as active but, if he understood Omniweapon correctly, so were the two rail-guns below.

As he glided towards the ground like a guided missile, he saw Gianni Royale step out of the casino with four of his club security. Gianni was holding a now familiar shape in his hands – he’d somehow obtained a rail-gun of his own. Thankfully, his guards appeared to be unarmed.

Cadet folded his glider wings in tight to increase his speed and drop fast and silent out of the sky. Cadet had just has time to think it was rather ironic, that he was going in to try and protect one of Mystery’s casinos, before he was forced to slow his descent by spreading out the cloak wide. Then there was no more time for reflection, as Vasil and his guard tried to take him out while he was still in the air. HEAP shells exploded around him as Cadet angled his downward glide so that he came in fast and hard behind the two invaders, aiming to try to take them both down by surprise with his outstretched cape-wings. He missed his targets by centimetres, hit the ground hard even as he collapsed his wings, deactivating his cloak by switching off the electrical charge that maintained its glider shape and managed to right himself in a tumble.. Unfortunately his rifle seemed non-functional having been accidentally damaged on landing. He dropped it on the ground before striking Vasil several times around the temples and wrists using his escrima sticks, causing him to drop his heavy rifle, but his enforcer managed to step back and bring his weapon up, ready.

Behind them, Gianni unleashed his own rail-gun, not at the Malina enforcer or at Cadet, but at the ground between them. The shell hit the ground and suddenly erupted into an ice wall, hiding Cadet from view.

Cadet felt the cold radiate out behind him even as he slammed Vasil in the throat and watched him collapse, clutching his neck and struggling to breathe. Cadet looked in the sky and saw the Commander being peppered by an enforcer armed with another rail-gun while hanging out the side of the hovering helicopter. Commander was shrugging off the shots, but it did succeed in forcing him to keep his distance. Cadet still had the Malina gunman to deal with, and quickly. He risked one last glance up at the sky, recognising the flare of what looked like a guided missile incoming was Omniweapon and ran at the ice wall, hoping to clear it so he could confront the remaining intruder. His foot slipped on the ice as he tried to clamber over the top and fell over and down the other side of the ice wall in an uncontrolled tumble.

He landed badly even as he heard the gang member’s rail-gun go online.  He flicked his cloak round the barrel of the other’s rifle, hardening it as it wrapped  then yanked it back, pulling the gun out of his hands even as another cryo-shell hit the ground near the thugs feet and froze him in place.

A kick to the head rendered him unconscious. Cadet then spun round, expecting to have to deal with Gianni only to see him lay his rail-gun on the ground and step back with his security team, arms raised. “For the record, I obtained this weapon from an earlier attempt on my life. The attacker’s inside, detained and si, I have called la polizia. I only, ah, handled it in defence of self… Grazie for the save.”

Cadet looked up and saw Commander in the air, holding one handed the gunman from the helicopter, while Omniweapon was forcing the helicopter to head towards a nearby football pitch to land.

Within a minute, the police arrived and arrested Gregorov Junior and his gangster accomplices as well as questioning Gianni Royale and his staff but elected to not arrest them, at least immediately.

Seems the turf war was over. Yuri’s arrest followed soon after by his son’s made the news and Gianni made sure that the source of the attacks was announced to one and all as soon as possible. Unfortunately, according to Omniweapon and the Commander, the damage was already done.

All but two of the weapons were accounted for and taken into police custody. It later turned out that Dalton tried to claim the weapons as part of his acquisition of Omnitech but as the weapons were made by Spartacorp and never formed part of Omnitech’s inventory he had no legal claim on them.

Marcus, admittedly reluctantly, agreed to their long delayed destruction and made political capital out of doing so. He also used his hastily called press conference as an opportunity to persuade the other crime lords to resume their status quo or at least, with Yuri and Vasil out of the picture on attempted murder charges, of putting their efforts into dividing the Malina territory before someone stepped into the gap and took over leadership of the Malina.

What could possibly go wrong?

Marcus was warmly thanked by Cadet for his back-up and help, or at least he tried to. Moore was in a hurry and flew off, heading towards his hastily arranged press conference.

The Commander demanded a much more detailed explanation, with an honest narrative of how it all had unfurled. Cadet obliged, accompanied by embarrassed apologies for biting off so much more than he could chew, promising to try not to fall into the same trap in future, though he made sure he used the word “try”.

 Arrangements still had to be made for discretely returning the lost blade to the tong chieftain, and thanks given for aid and advice received, a mutual debt acknowledged hopefully but in the meantime, he returned to school, and collapsed in a small heap on his bed and chilled…  

He really didn’t want to have to explain anything to anyone or apologise any more… but then there was that gremlin thing going on, which won’t let anyone have peace for very long… He had to arrange to have a chat with Serena and Donna on Monday, once they returned to school.

Sunday morning he awoke to find a note under his door inviting him to a meeting and debriefing with Mr Summers that afternoon. He was grateful to discover he hadn’t been grounded immediately as he wandered towards the grove and retrieved the sword from amongst the tree roots where Chris had replaced it. He drove with it on his battered bike to Dragon’s Gate and left it with the Tong’s lawyer, one Kwang Don Kung, before heading back to school for his chewing out by the old man.

Had he done the right thing? As a result of his efforts, the various criminal syndicates were back competing with each other, with all the bloody chaos and collateral damage that entailed. Whether he agreed with it or not, collaboration between the organisations would have meant less bloodshed in the long run.

He was reasonably sure now that Gianni Royale had been the actual brains behind the collaboration, but now it looked as though all the gang fighting had resulted in increased suspicion and distrust and sank any possibility of collaboration in the immediate future.

To no-one’s surprise, Mr Summers grounded him for his actions. What was a surprise was that it would only be for two weeks. Meanwhile, Sir Bryan arranged for his bike to be taken away for some much-needed TLC and repairs and stated he would return it when Colin was again allowed to ride it.

Monday morning

As Colin was due to head over for breakfast, he noticed there was a parcel delivery note in his pigeonhole. This early, it had to be a special delivery, so he immediately headed down to the parcel room. Sure enough, there was a package – a suit bag with a tailored evening suit and a pair of dress shoes in his size. There was a note attached, “Hey kid, as Ms Moriarty suggested, I looked you up. Very impressive. Until next time, MM.”

He glanced at the suit. He was sure it would fit perfectly; after all, someone with an engineer’s eye for detail had selected it. He was about to carry it up to his room when he thought to give it the once over. He smiled when he realised that the dress shirt’s cufflinks were GPS trackers. Ok, he’d have to ask Chris to deactivate them until needed or possibly relocate the signal to the middle of the English Channel?

As he left the suit on his bed and started to head across to the cafeteria, he spotted a very excited Amy Thyst, hovering away in mid-air and gibbering away in her own unintelligible alien language to the new kid, Scat, Scath? Seems he also spoke the same language as her and seemed just as excited to be with her as she was to be talking with him.

As he sat down for breakfast, a yawning Chris’ joined him with a plate piled high with sausages, eggs, black pudding and other delicious carbohydrates. Seems he was still recovering after his stunt.

He yawned before he told Colin that the main news in the school was that Nikki Reilly was awake again, having regained consciousness late Saturday night but had been acting strangely since. There were rumours that she was suffering from at least partial amnesia, and that Doctor Collins and the Old Man had wanted to either send her home or remain in hospital to recover further.

Not only had Nikki refused, but she’d managed to persuade her parents to let her return to school. According to Young Chris who was in the same class as her, she apparently claimed that her name was now the Watcher and that she had to stay, as “Claremont was the best location to assimilate knowledge pertinent to the survival of her species…”

1. https://uksuperhero.com/2021/03/31/bluebook-session-60g-a-cascade-of-mirrors/
2. https://claremontacademy.uk/2020/09/13/bluebook-session-17f-hunter-seeker-fight-or-flight/