The Covert Academy (20 page)

Prewett peeled himself off the floor and appeared in the mirror. In Brock’s rage, all he could see were his own two red eyes, like fiery condemnations piercing his soul. He looked past himself, and saw Prewett’s reflection as a demon, wings spread wide to take him far away.

Brock tore out a shard of the mirror and spun around. The fragment lodged itself into Prewett’s temple before he could utter any final words. Prewett collapsed on the bathroom tiles, blood pooling around his head in a fatal halo.

The walls seemed to close in around Brock more than ever. Eyes were watching him from every corner.

Blood gushed from Dr. David Prewett, too much for the human body to be able to hold. He seemed to laugh and gurgle on the torrent of blood and bile. But that couldn’t be, he was dead.

The voices, that had been so wonderfully silent while speaking to Prewett, rose once again in a gleeful roar. Brock clamped his hands to his head like an obstinate child.

Far away at the top of the Tower in the Colonnade, Simeon whispered commands in Brock’s head. Unable to stop himself, Brock obeyed. He ripped Prewett’s passkey hanging from his belt and ran to the one door he had never been able to use. He swiped the key at the terminal and burst out into the bright sunshine of Wake Island.

As Brock collapsed face down into the sand, Simeon watched it all, and laughed.

Joshua hesitated outside the interrogation room and watched Meyrick through the one-way glass for a few moments. He was handcuffed to the table inside. The room looked brand new. This must have been one of the few times the Academy had had a prisoner worth working over.

Sarah paused with
her hand on the door. She saw the reluctance written on Joshua’s face.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We’ll get him to sing. Just do the opposite of what I do.’

‘The thought had never crossed my mind,’ he said, thinking of Sarah’s blood-rage back in the Colonnade.

‘I won’t kill him,’ Sarah stressed. ‘But give me two minutes alone with him first.’

Joshua nodded, hardly taking his eyes off the monster in the next room. Had Meyrick been the one to take Lucia all those years ago? It seemed unlikely. Perhaps on his orders, but not by his own hand. Yet it was Meyrick’s office that had led straight down to the hidden cavern, where they’d discovered the secret armament of war drudges. Just one of those giants could probably level a city block in seconds, whereas the drones needed hours.

Then there had been the
thousands of people trapped in the pit near the drudges. Joshua assumed they’d been rounded up to build the huge machines. It was the obvious conclusion, but Joshua didn’t expect it to be that simple. It never was with the Confederacy. The drudges had looked at least ninety percent complete, so why keep the thousands of labourers at all? There had been that laser poised above their heads too... was it there to kill them?

These were not the questions Sarah would try to squeeze out of Meyrick. She wanted to track down the High Council members. But Joshua wasn’t ready to give up on his sister yet. Sarah told him what he had seen was just a hallucination brought on by an overdose of the jumpsuit’s auto-meds. He needed better proof than that before he could let the matter drop.

He shook his head to clear it. It wouldn’t do to dwell on these thoughts. If Meyrick didn’t know where his sister was, one of his Confederate buddies would.

Joshua wasn’t leaving until he found out. He watched as Sarah sat down across the table from Meyrick.

Her back was to Joshua so he couldn’t see her face,
but he could tell she was all business by the way she held herself. Meyrick was a sack of meat squeezing through the gaps in his chair. He sat still with hands clasped in front of him on the table. The attempt at an illusion of power was impressive, but the shackles on his wrists and ankles proved otherwise. His jowls began flapping, so Joshua flicked a switch on the wall to let in the sound from the next room. He caught Sarah mid-sentence.

‘...No due process here. You’re off the books, if there ever were any,’ she was saying.

Joshua guessed Meyrick had asked for a lawyer. He snorted.
How ironic
, he thought.

‘You brought this system upon yourself,’ Sarah continued. ‘There will be no trial, no jury of your
peers
, no representation. Why should you be the first in forty years? No, you’re looking at the judge, jury and executioner right in front of you.’ She spread her arms magnanimously. ‘If you want to waddle away from here, you’d better start with a plea... and it better not be insanity, because we knew that one already.’

She managed all that in one breath. Joshua couldn’t help but be impressed.

‘How can you make it worth my while to give up my colleagues?’ Meyrick asked, skipping straight to bargaining.

Joshua was surprised. Surely Meyrick knew he wasn’t ever getting out of here. Sarah wasn’t going to go down that road. She stood up.

‘Tell you what,’ she said emotionlessly, as she produced the photo of the Confederate High Council they had found in Meyrick’s office. ‘For each name and location you give me, that’s one finger or toe you can keep.’

She pushed the photo toward him and walked around the table dragging a knife that had appeared in her hand. The scratching noise was like nails on a chalkboard. Meyrick winced. He was losing this deal fast.

He’ll lose his digits even faster
, thought Joshua. He burst into the room before Sarah did too much damage. He took the knife from her. Meyrick’s pinky finger bled everywhere, but it was still attached.

Joshua trundled Sarah out the door and sat down. They made a show of it, but
they need not have bothered since Meyrick was blabbering like an infant.

‘I can’t keep her away from you for long,’ Joshua said. ‘Not until you give me something to work with. I promise once I have the information I need, I’ll move you to a more secure location.’

‘I... can’t go back home?’ Meyrick was a miserable mess. His mouth was still cut to shreds from Sarah’s previous assault on him. The drugs must have made him forget what had happened in the Colonnade.

‘No,’ Joshua said simply.

Meyrick whimpered.

‘Look Meyrick, you can’t go back to the Confederacy now, or ever. You’re tainted. They would never believe you hadn’t sold them out, and they’d kill you anyway.’

Meyrick’s eyes went as wide as dinner plates.

Sheesh just how naïve is this guy?
Joshua thought. He almost pitied him, then he remembered Lucia.

‘
Okay let’s start small,’ Joshua offered. ‘There is a girl, she was taken by the Confederacy six years ago. Yeh high, brown hair, freckles, a real wise-ass.’ Meyrick looked up between sobs. ‘She’ll be fifteen now, name of Lucia,’ Joshua finished.

Meyrick shook his head. ‘No one like that in my district. I only take adults.’

Joshua was shattered. So he hadn’t seen Lucia that day in the Colonnade. But Meyrick wasn’t finished.

‘The Fletchers have her.’

Sarah burst back into the room with a thunderous
bang. Before Joshua could argue, she snatched back the knife and twisted it into the wound on Meyrick’s hand.

‘Okay
! Please, stop!’ he yelped and twisted in the seat. The shackles kept him pinned however, and Sarah did not let up.

‘Where are the Fletchers?!’ she snarled, sending spittle in Meyrick’s face. ‘Where are they?!’

Joshua was in a daze. Lucia was alive. Meyrick had just confirmed it. She wasn’t in the Colonnade, but she was out there somewhere. Now he had a name to go on. The Fletchers.

Meyrick was defeated, but he wasn’t going to give any information to Sarah. He didn’t trust her to stop the torture and Joshua couldn’t blame him. He convinced Sarah to ease off Meyrick then bundled her back outside the room. In the apparent safety with Sarah gone, Meyrick finally broke.

‘The Fletchers are in Hawaii. I’ll give you the co-ordinates, just stop!’

Joshua left him there with the photo of his partners, a weeping broken shell of a man who knew he would not be seeing daylight
for a very long time, but relieved to be alive for now.

Outside the interrogation room, Joshua regained his composure. ‘That was a bit extreme.’

Sarah shot him a hard look. ‘We just found out where your sister and the Fletchers’ base are. I’d call that a win.’

‘Seems like you’ve got quite
a history with the Fletchers...’ Joshua began.

Sarah narrowed her eyes.

‘Look, I’m worried about you.’ Joshua stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands. ‘Aren’t you taking this a bit too far? I mean, I appreciate all you’ve done to help me, but...’

‘Yeah I know,’ Sarah sighed. ‘That
was why I recruited you after all. I needed the reminder, so... thank you.’ She put a hand on Joshua’s shoulder. ‘Tell you what, when we go after the Fletchers, I’ll follow your lead. No killing, no blood. Promise. Okay?’

She smiled and Joshua’s chest thumped madly. Sarah really was beautiful when she wasn’t killing things.

‘Okay,’ he nodded. ‘So, the Fletchers have my sister? Who are they? I’ve never heard of them before.’

‘No you wouldn’t have,’ Sarah said. ‘But
Ryan was one of them. The Fletchers are a group of assassins created by the Confederacy with the sole purpose of finding the Academy. They were the ones who found our first base in Japan. They’re the best chance the Confederacy has of finding this place. The thing is, Meyrick knows this. So why would he give up their-’

An alarm wailed and a siren flashed warning lights overhead, cutting Sarah off. Everything dimmed as the power switched to an internal generator.

Casey’s voice blared out over an announcement system. ‘The Academy is in lock-down. All students return to yer lodgings immediately. This is not a drill.’

The Academy was in a
full-blown panic. Confused and scared students ran everywhere. Many grabbed weapons from the range and pointed them fearfully in every direction, as though someone might attack at any moment.

It was a poor choice of words from Casey,
Joshua thought ruefully. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the commotion. ‘He should have given these kids more details!’

Sarah ran next to him,
shoving people out of the way. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know any more himself!’

Joshua shook his head. ‘No excuse! At least give them something more useful to do than cower in their rooms!’

Sarah tugged on Joshua’s shoulder, stopping him. ‘Hey!’ She brought her head in close to speak without shouting. ‘Find Casey. Find out what’s going on. But we have to move against the Fletchers as soon as possible. Tell him. Get some real support on this one.’

Joshua nodded.

They made their way to the auditorium instead of going to their dorm rooms. A few brave stragglers noticed and fell in their wake. Joshua felt like he was leading a ragtag band of brothers. He didn’t even really know these kids, but they trusted him enough to lead them. He hoped he could live up to their expectations.

There was already a small group in the auditorium. Casey was there, as expected, since the PA system was
there too. He was arguing in Japanese with Ichiro. Casey outwardly appeared cool and calm, while Ichiro was gesturing wildly, on the verge on panic. Joshua heard the name “Fletchers” mentioned several times.

Richard huddled nearby with his fellow pilots, Jayson and Val. Those two had only recently returned from various missions throughout Europe, as they hailed from that region. Jayson was a swarthy Greek, and had been with the Academy in the early days, since Greece had been one of the first to succumb to the Confederacy. Val was from Moscow, and came from a strong heritage of defiance against oppression.

Joshua didn’t know how reliable they were, but trusted Richard’s judgement.

As for the seven
who had followed him in, Joshua didn’t know their names. But they were here and that meant they wanted to help. It would be enough for now.

Joshua broke up the argument between Casey and Ichiro. He simply walked up and stood between them, arms spread wide.

‘What’s going on? In English, guys.’

‘What do you think you’re doing here?’ Casey said. He looked around at the rest of them. ‘All of you are supposed to be in your rooms.’

Joshua brought Casey’s attention back to him. ‘Hey! We want answers. Why the alarm?’

Casey stared daggers at Joshua, but it was Ichiro who spoke up.

‘Dr. Prewett i
s dead. I found him in Brock’s cell. Before he...’ Ichiro choked up.

‘He
thought Brock’s iPCs were hacked,’ Casey finished hastily. ‘Which means someone was watching the whole time.’

Ichiro picked up the story again. ‘We followed Brock up to the surface. He saw the island, he knows where we are. That means whoever was watching on the other end does too.’ Ichiro sagged in defeat.