lift.”
Jamie looked at him, then shrugged and turned away.
Fat idiot. Don’t tell me where I can’t look.
Gears crunched above his head and the lift started to slow. They were rising through a dull grey shaft, which suddenly opened out into a wide room, full of movement and noise.
One whole side of the vast semi-circular room was open on to a wide tarmac area that led out to the middle of the long, brightly lit runway. Inside, two lines of black-clad figures, eight wide, were stood facing the huge open doors, submachine guns set against their shoulder, pointing out into the darkness. A chill ran up Jamie’s spine when he saw them.
I’ve seen people like this before. They look like soldiers, they look like the men who—
He couldn’t let himself finish the thought. He looked away from the dark figures, and saw the round crest he had seen in the white corridor, stencilled high on the huge hangar wall. The same three Latin words were stamped below it, running almost the entire length of the vast surface.
Lux E Tenebris
Behind the rows of soldiers, dozens of white-coated men and women bustled across the vast concrete floor of the room – hangar, it’s a hangar, they don’t make rooms this big – shuttling stretcher trolleys and IV drips back and forth, shouting instructions and questions to one another. A steel shutter door slid upwards to Jamie’s right and four figures in full biochemical hazard suits pushed a pair of metal trolleys covered in plastic oxygen tents into the hangar.
In the distance, Jamie heard the heavy thud-thud-thud of an engine.
“Incoming!” yelled one of the soldiers.
“How much time?” asked a tall, skeletally thin man stood behind a portable computer array on a heavy steel trolley.
“Ninety seconds!”
The activity in the hangar accelerated, doctors and scientists and soldiers running in every direction, the heels of their shoes and boots drumming on the concrete floor.
A huge crash boomed out to Jamie’s left, and he jumped. A heavy metal door had thumped open, slamming against the wall with a deafening clang. Frankenstein thundered through the door, his huge head surveying the room. His eyes locked on Jamie’s; he smiled a smile with absolutely no humour in it, and came towards him.
Jamie stood frozen to the spot as Frankenstein crossed the hangar in a dozen of his giant strides, grabbed him by the neck of his T-shirt and lowered his enormous head down so they were face to face. His mouth was set in a spirit-level-straight line, his jaw clenched, deep breaths blasting out of cavernous nostrils and blowing the hair from Jamie’s forehead.
It’s trying hard not to kill me. Really, really hard.
Frankenstein’s wide misshapen eyes, the pupils slate grey, stared into Jamie’s. Eventually, the monster spoke. “That will be the last time you run away from me,” it said. “Do you understand?”
“I—”
“Say nothing,” Frankenstein roared. “Not a word. Nod if you understand. I don’t want to hear your excuses. Do you understand?”
Jamie nodded, then turned his head away, tears of shame and humiliation coming to the corners of his eyes. Several of the troops and doctors had stopped what they were doing and were watching the confrontation, even as the blinding lights of a helicopter illuminated the wide landing zone beyond the hangar doors; Jamie could no more meet their stares than he could that of the giant in front of him.
Movement in the corner of the hangar caught his eye. A section of the blank concrete wall slid aside, and four black-clad figures emerged. They wore large black machine pistols on their right hips, short black tubes on their left, from which wires ran to shallow square tanks on their backs. Jamie recognised the tubes immediately – they were a smaller version of the weapon he had seen Frankenstein fire in the living room of his mother’s house.
My God, this is all really happening. I’m not going to wake up.
My mother is really gone.
The four soldiers emerging from the hidden corridor took up positions, two on either side of the door, and a figure strode quickly out of the darkness, through their guard, and headed towards the giant open side of the hangar. The newcomer was dressed in the same sleek black gear as the others, but without the deep purple visor. Jamie saw a flash of grey hair, swept back from the man’s forehead. As he strode across the concrete floor he cast his eyes quickly around the hangar, and they met Jamie’s. Surprise rippled across the man’s face. He turned to one of the soldiers, said something, then marched across the hangar towards Jamie.
“Victor!” the old man shouted, crossing the distance rapidly. Frankenstein looked round, saw him coming, and swore under his breath. Then he looked back down at Jamie, his eyes clearing, as though he had forgotten he was holding a teenage boy by the neck of his T-shirt, and swore again, loudly this time.
He’s not really angry with me. It’s something else. He looks scared.
Frankenstein released Jamie and told him to stand up straight. Jamie did so, grudgingly, as the old man arrived before them.
“Victor,” he said again. “Can you explain to me why there is a civilian teenage boy inside the most classified building in the country? I hope you can, for your sake.”
Frankenstein stood straight as a board, towering over both Jamie and the old man.
“Admiral Seward,” he said, from above their heads. “This is Jamie Carpenter. I pulled him out of his house as Alexandru was about to tear out his throat, sir. His mother is missing, sir. And I didn’t know where else to take him, sir.”
Seward did not appear to have heard anything after Jamie’s name. He had recoiled, visibly, when he heard it, and now he was looking at the boy with a look of complete surprise.
“Jamie Carpenter?” he said. “Your name is Jamie Carpenter?”
“Yes,” replied Jamie. He was beyond confusion now, and when Frankenstein barked at him to say sir, he added “Yes, sir” without objection.
Admiral Seward was rallying, his composure returning.
“Ordinarily, I would tell you it was a pleasure to meet you,” he said to Jamie. “But this is not an ordinary night, nor has it been an ordinary day by the sounds of it. And you...” He trailed off, then regrouped. “I would like to see you in my quarters, Mr Carpenter, when this matter is resolved. Victor, will you escort him?”
Frankenstein agreed that he would, and then the helicopter landed outside the hangar doors and everything started to happen very quickly.
*
As its rotors began to wind down a door slid open in the sleek metal side of the chopper and a black-clad figure jumped down on to the concrete and waved an arm, beckoning the scientists forward. As white coats rushed across the landing area, the soldier reached up into the belly of the helicopter and helped a man in a biohazard suit down to the ground. The hood of the suit had been removed, and the arm was torn open.
