Monster Republic (16 page)

‘Any questions?’

Everyone’s head shook slowly, but nobody spoke.

‘Good. Tinker has pulled together some info on the local area. We’ll upload it into Cameron
and then you can access it whenever you need to.’

As Smarts spoke, Tinker appeared at Cameron’s elbow, cable in hand. He bit his lip shyly and nodded towards Cameron’s right hand. Cameron grinned, pleased that Tinker had remembered to ask permission this time. He held out his hand and Tinker quickly connected the cable to a port concealed under his thumbnail.

Images and words flashed across his vision at lightning speed as the files uploaded. Again, the new experience was disorientating for Cameron – like being spun around inside a tornado of data. But as the dizziness passed, he saw that dozens of files were now stored in a new folder at the bottom corner of his HUD, ready for access.

The contents looked pretty comprehensive – the whole area mapped out in blueprints, plans and wire-frame images of the power plant and other buildings close to the marina. But Cameron couldn’t help wondering how different he would feel when he was actually
there
, so close to the site of the ‘accident’ that had changed his life for ever.

There was no sense in guessing. The only thing to do now was find out.

As everyone rose to leave, Cameron was surprised to find Slater blocking the door. So he hadn’t decided to split off. Yet.

But then what was he doing here? Cameron couldn’t believe Slater would want anything to do with whatever Smarts was planning, but he’d clearly been lurking at the back of the room all the time.

‘I’m coming along,’ Slater declared, levelling a steely gaze at Rora. ‘You need someone to watch your back. You can’t trust him,’ he finished with a jerk of his head towards Cameron.

Cameron swore quietly to himself. Yeah, that made more sense.

‘All right,’ said Rora.

He stared at her, disbelieving. Then Slater gave him a look, both warning and triumphant – and that was the last straw. Without waiting for Slater or Rora to get out of
his way, Cameron barged past and stormed out.

‘Hey!’ Rora shouted after him.

Cameron didn’t stop.

He was getting good at filtering out sounds he had no interest in hearing.

Rora caught up with Cameron while he was locked in a mortal struggle with a dark grey hoodie. Apparently this was the disguise the monsters used on the rare occasions they needed to venture out in the real world. Cameron had the weight advantage, but that didn’t make it any easier to get the thing on over his bulky shoulders and generally altered physique without ripping it apart at the seams.

‘I’m not in the mood,’ he told Rora before she could get a word out.

‘I was just going to ask if you wanted a hand with that?’

‘I can manage,’ growled Cameron, feeling more foolish than ever. He wrestled with the jumper some more and finally managed to
yank it down all the way, stretching the material and poking his head up through the neck. He reached behind him to draw the hood up, conscious of Rora still watching him.

‘What? If you’re waiting for me to say something, then you can forget it.’

He reached for the heavy coat that had been dumped on a chair for him.

‘Hey,’ Rora said, leaning in front of him and sticking her face where he couldn’t avoid seeing her. ‘Slater’s not coming to protect me. No matter what he says.’

‘I know that. He’s coming to keep an eye on me. And—’

‘Didn’t you listen to a thing I said last night?’ Rora cut him off angrily. ‘There’s more at stake here than stopping Fry and saving the Prime Minister. We have to keep the Republic together too. Slater doesn’t trust you. Big deal, we all know that. But
I
trust you. And the reason I didn’t argue about Slater coming along is that I’m hoping he gets the chance to see you in action. Because if he does, then he’ll come to trust you like I do.’

Cameron studied her expression. It was open and honest. Almost despite himself, he found that he believed her. But did that matter? Forget about Rora trusting him – did
he
trust Slater?

He guessed that the answer to that would only be revealed when they reached their destination.

Cameron checked the time on his HUD: 5.57 a.m.

Time to get going.

At the marina, the memorial service had been organized with all the pomp and circumstance of a state visit. A huge platform had been erected by the waterside for all the civic dignitaries, fronted by a dark wooden podium for the Prime Minister’s speech. Facing that was a long spectator stand. Between the two, in the centre of the square, was the new memorial, a tall shape swathed in black silk, waiting to be unveiled. Only the sleek boats moored at the various piers and jetties provided any splashes of colour, but Cameron couldn’t imagine any of those wealthy boat owners painting their expensive yachts
black just because the occasion was a sad one.

Slater, who had volunteered as getaway driver, steered the van into an available slot in the temporary car park. They were already late. The traffic had been a nightmare coming through Broad Harbour. Most of the town seemed to be on their way to the service. Cameron ground his teeth as precious minutes ticked away.

There wasn’t any time to waste.

‘Come on,’ hissed Rora.

Slater, Cameron and Tinker – all in their hoodies and heavy coats – followed her out of the van and joined the crowd of black suits and dresses making their way towards the spectator stand. Cameron had worried that Tinker’s jerky walk might attract unwanted attention, but no one paid much attention to a handful of youths in hoods. Cameron supposed everyone thought Tinker had some kind of unfortunate disability – and nobody looked very close at a kid like that. Or if they did, only out of the corner of their eye, so they could pretend not to be staring.

And if they’d known how Tinker got his ‘condition’, Cameron wondered, would they have stared then? Would people behave any differently if they knew Tinker wasn’t the victim of a disease but of the man Broad Harbour thought of as a saviour?

Cameron didn’t expect he’d ever find out. For the twentieth time he reminded himself that today wasn’t about making an announcement to the world about Dr Fry. Today was only about saving the Prime Minister. Getting the job done and getting away as quickly and quietly as possible.

It was now 10.23. They had only a matter of minutes before the ceremony was due to start. The four monsters finally reached the spectator stand. It was the obvious place for an assassin to lurk – directly opposite the podium, with a clear line of fire. But the stand was almost full now and a fast scan with his electronic vision told Cameron all he needed to know.

‘She’s not there,’ he muttered to Rora. ‘Carla isn’t in the stand.’

She cursed, then led the other three
monsters out of sight round the corner of the structure.

‘Where else could she be?’

Pulling up the plans of the area that Tinker had uploaded, Cameron zoomed in on all the spots where a sniper could hide. He flicked through the spectrum – normal vision, high-definition, infra-red, ultra-violet.

Nothing.

‘Looks like Smarts was right,’ muttered Rora. ‘Fry’s not going to risk Carla being damaged by the Prime Minister’s bodyguards.’

‘Well, then we’re missing something,’ grumbled Slater.

‘Yeah,’ said Rora. ‘Like an extra half-hour to search.’

Cameron shut out the bickering voices. He needed to think.

Maybe Carla wasn’t going to wait for the Prime Minister openly. Maybe she was hiding away until the crucial moment. But where? Cameron did a 360-degree scan of the marina, on the lookout for inspiration.

His sweeping gaze took in the broad expanse of sea for which the town had been named. Out beyond the cleaner waters of the harbour itself he noticed a few dark streaks on the surface. Patches of flotsam – junk and litter that had clumped together to form temporary landing platforms for the seagulls – were bobbing out to sea, against the tide.

‘That’s it …’ he said slowly. With a carefully directed thought-command, he called up another blueprint. The picture flashed up in his mind and appeared as an overlay on his HUD. ‘The main clean water outlet drain from the power plant runs right under the marina.’

‘So – what does that tell us, exactly?’ Rora demanded.

‘It tells us we should be looking down there.’ Cameron nodded to the manhole cover at his feet. ‘We’re not the only ones who can hide underground.’

‘Of course!’ said Rora. ‘Fry’s not going to run the risk of Carla being discovered. He’s keeping her out of sight until it’s too late to stop her.’

‘So what d-d-do we d-d-do?’ gulped Tinker, his tongue working against his front teeth.

Cameron smiled tensely. ‘I’ve spent so much time in sewers lately, I should have realized I’d end up going down a drain again sooner or later.’

Rora laughed quietly as he hoisted off the manhole cover and listened to the rush of water below.

‘L-l-looks like the man of the hour’s arrived.’

Cameron glanced up and followed Tinker’s gaze.

A sleek black limousine was pulling into the square. A small crowd of journalists flocked around the vehicle, hoping to get a snap through the heavily tinted windows.

‘Yeah,’ said Rora. ‘That has to be Fry, all right.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Cameron.

‘Who else would turn up in a more expensive car than the Prime Minister?’

Cameron grimaced. Fry’s arrival could only
mean time was running short. But then, he knew that already.

‘OK. You guys keep an eye on things up here. I’ll take a look down below.’

Slater shook his head, tugging on Rora’s arm.

‘You aren’t seriously going to let him go off on his own, are you?’

‘What do you suggest?’ she fired back. ‘We can’t be a hundred per cent certain that Carla is down there. The rest of us have to be ready in case she appears up here.’

‘I don’t trust him!’ growled Slater. ‘He could be going to rendezvous with her. They could be in this together!’

‘You don’t trust Cameron? Well, I do.’ Rora’s tone was ice-cold. ‘And you can either accept that fact, or you can walk away. But whatever you’re going to do, do it now.’

Slater’s face contorted with fur y.

‘Have it your way!’ He stepped away from the group and vanished into the crowd.

The fox-girl stared implacably after him.

‘Rora—’ began Cameron.

‘Forget it,’ she said briskly. ‘Some things are worth fighting for, right?’

Cameron nodded.

‘So let’s fight. Tink and I will take care of things up here. Just – report back soon, OK?’

‘Soon as I can,’ Cameron assured her.

Rora glanced back at the limo, watching it cross the square at a slow but steady crawl. It had almost reached the guests’ platform. ‘Now get going.’

Dropping into the hole, Cameron landed thigh-deep in fast-flowing water. Above the roar of the current in the tunnel he heard the scrape of metal as Rora and Tinker slid the cover back into place overhead. The beam of sunshine in which he had been standing, like an actor in a spotlight, disappeared.

Cameron’s eye switched to night vision, this time with barely a hint of dizziness. Now, which way to go? He strained his hearing. There was a faint sound further up the drain, in the direction the water was coming from, and his HUD was registering
a slow, regular electronic pulse, like a heartbeat.

Carla?

Cameron took a deep breath and trudged off upstream. It would have been tough wading against the current if it hadn’t been for his supercharged legs. He smiled ruefully. It was ironic that Fry had given him all these abilities that would, ultimately, make it that little bit easier to defeat him.

Thirty metres along, Cameron spotted a glow. As he cautiously sloshed closer, the light of an LED display stood out brightly in the gloom – flashing in time with the electronic pulse he had been picking up. Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with Carla at all.

Confused, he hastened forward into a larger chamber. He could see no sign of Carla. What he could see was the huge stack of plasticine-like bricks set in the middle of the chamber. A tangle of wires connected them to a small round box with an LED display that sat on top of the pile, counting down the seconds. Cameron had seen enough movies to
recognize what this combination meant.

The bricks were plastic explosive. The box was a detonator.

It was a bomb.

Cameron looked up at the ceiling. Daylight filtered down, and through the bars of a grating he could see the tip of the silk-wrapped memorial pointing at the sky. The bomb was right under the square, just in front of the Prime Minister’s podium.

Cameron felt a wave of fear wash over him, goose pimples crawling across what was left of his skin. He could almost hear the roar of the explosion that had ripped through the power plant. Fry had nearly ended his life completely that day. At the very least he had ended life as Cameron knew it. Now he was trying to do it again to the Prime Minister and countless innocent bystanders.

He crouched down to examine the detonator. The digital display glowed helpfully at him, ticking down the numbers in red. The device was timed to go off at precisely 11 a.m. The end of the two-minute silence.

Smarts was right again.

The sound of splashing footsteps had Cameron on his feet and spinning round.

There, hands on hips and blocking the tunnel behind him, stood the dark and shapely figure of Carla.

‘Hello, Reilly. Dr Fry didn’t think you’d come. He didn’t think you were that stupid. But I told him I knew you better. “This is Reilly we’re talking about,” I said. “He’s stupid enough for anything.”’

‘This is a bomb, isn’t it?’ Cameron said.

Carla smirked. ‘Did you work that out all by yourself, or did you have help from your freaky Reject friends? Of course it’s a bomb. A special present from Dr Fry to the Prime Minister to make sure no one falls asleep in his boring speech.
Boom!
’

‘I’m not going to let that happen,’ said Cameron firmly.

Carla cracked a grin, clean white teeth gleaming in the gloom.