Vanguard Prime Book 1 Read online

  Learning that he’s not automatically the smartest guy in the room makes me wonder how much of the Agent Alpha image has been created, and how much of it is real. It’s like when you find out the truth about Santa Claus – a little piece of my world has just floated away and I didn’t even see it coming.

  Then I think of the last time I saw the Agent, when the Overman had just exploded a helicopter on him, and a feeling of shame prickles inside my chest. If he fails, I don’t know what chance the rest of us have …

  Over the Flight Deck …

  ‘It’s amazing really …’ the Overman begins. He deflects another of Agent Alpha’s power bursts with his telekinetic aura, the explosions from their energy blasting brighter than the sun as their battle takes to the skies. ‘To everyone else, you’re a God. In my mind, however, you’ve simply evolved from worm to man.’ A crimson burst of aura slams like a sledgehammer against Agent Alpha’s face, drawing blood. ‘But much within you is still worm!’

  ‘You’re going back in your box, Adam,’ Agent Alpha says through gritted teeth, getting close enough to the Overman to hit him with a balled-up fist. ‘I’m going to see to that personally.’

  ‘I’d sooner die!’ the Overman snaps. ‘Have you any idea what I suffered in that machine of yours? Do you know what it’s like to be trapped in a never-ending dream, Khalid, with reality bending all around you? To be a prisoner in both body and mind? No. You don’t. Because if you did, you would know just how inhumane – how vile – it is, and how it’s just another way in which you’re nothing like the hero everyone believes you to be!’

  The Overman lands a crippling blow in Agent Alpha’s abdomen and another across his chin. The Agent flies back, just avoiding a third lethal hit.

  ‘And what would be your answer to the threat posed by someone like you, Adam? What would you do to contain a man with limitless power who is hell-bent on dominating the world? Someone whose very mind is a weapon?’

  ‘Simple. I’d kill him.’

  The Overman’s eyes flare brightly as he brings an intense wave of energy down on Agent Alpha’s head, sending the superhero tumbling down, down, down to crash into the Round Table’s flight deck.

  For a moment there is only silence.

  Then Agent Alpha pulls himself free of the wreckage, stumbling as he fights to clear his vision.

  ‘Compared to what you actually did to me, Khalid,’ the Overman says, floating down to hover over the fallen hero, ‘killing me would have been an act of mercy.’

  Agent Alpha tries to stand, tries to fly, but it’s too late; the Overman creates a tight bubble of energy around him, completely immobilising him. Though the Agent strains against his invisible bonds, he has no more strength to break free of them.

  ‘You’ll find me sorely lacking in mercy, Khalid. Instead, you can watch as I destroy everything you cherish.’

  The Overman launches both of them into the air, towards the distant tower of the Round Table’s bridge.

  All the equipment has been set up and we’re ready to go.

  The Major has removed her jacket and, much to my embarrassment, starts taking off her T-shirt. I look away, trying not to stare at the black bra she’s wearing.

  ‘Cool tattoos,’ Machina says. The Girl Code obviously means she’s exempt from averting her eyes. ‘I like that one between your shoulders.’

  My curiosity gets the better of me and I glance out the corner of my eye. The Major has a number of tattoos on her arms and along her back, the largest of which is a pair of wings stretching out from the centre of an ornate shield that sits between her shoulder blades. There are words inscribed on the shield.

  ‘Puro e disposto a salire a le stele,’ Machina reads out. ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars,’ the Major replies.

  ‘Is that Tolkein?’ I ask, despite myself.

  ‘Dante,’ the Major replies. ‘Ready, Doctor?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’ Dr Salim takes a seat beside the table, moving the lamp into a better position. The Major’s wounds look terrible under its harsh light. The medical kit was missing anaesthesia. The best we’ve been able to give the Major is a long piece of dowelling to bite down on.

  Without any further words, Dr Salim makes a start, using a pair of tweezers we boiled in the hot water to pull out all the pieces of shrapnel buried in the Major’s shoulder and upper arm. When he finds pieces that are dug in too deeply, he uses the scalpel to cut them out. I feel sick just watching, but the Major doesn’t make a single noise. She just bites down on the dowelling like she’s a hound of hell that’s just caught an angel.

  Whenever Dr Salim needs another instrument, Machina passes it to him, and when he’s satisfied that he’s pulled out every last shard, he takes the needle and thread from the medical kit and starts stitching the Major up. Strangely, this looks worse than the surgery itself and I gulp as the last of the stitches is threaded through the Major’s flesh.

  Dr Salim cleans the area down and tapes a large bandage over it. He lets out a pent-up breath and, for the first time since he sat down, he relaxes. ‘Done.’

  The Major’s head sways as she wills herself to sit up. She sits there a moment, looking as if someone’s unplugged the cable in her brain that keeps her grounded in reality. She shakes her way out of it, though, wiping the sweat from her brow and fixing us each in turn with her eyes.

  ‘Thank you. All of you.’

  Nobody replies beyond a solemn nod. I’m just about to ask what we should do now, when the Major lurches to her feet. Wincing, she pulls her black T-shirt back on. You can see her bandages through the large tear.

  She walks over to a large steel door in the middle of the lab. It looks like a bank vault, the kind you’d expect to see in some heist movie. She keys a code into the number pad next to it and it beeps open, the sound of locks rumbling.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Dr Salim asks with rising tension.

  ‘The Overman’s still up there,’ the Major replies, walking into the vault.

  Dr Salim follows her. ‘Agent Alpha could have subdued him.’

  ‘We’d know that by now.’ The Major’s voice echoes in the metallic chamber.

  I peer around the doorframe of the vault at the steel cage she’s opened. The Major’s in obvious pain as she pulls out a black padded vest, like the bullet-proof type SWAT cops wear. Over that she dons a red jacket. It looks like a biker’s jacket but made of a thicker, rubbery substance. She pulls on a pair of matching gloves before turning her attention to a large metal crate inside the steel cage. As she turns around I notice the jacket she’s wearing has a radiation hazard symbol on the back of it.

  ‘So I ask again: What are you doing?’ Dr Salim asks tersely.

  ‘You know what I’m doing …’ the Major replies as she keys another number into the metal box. It chimes open, and from inside it the Major pulls out what looks to me to be a laser cannon the size and shape of a rocket launcher. She hits a button on the cannon’s barrel and it powers up as she hefts it onto her shoulder.

  When she turns around, the smiling woman who was showing me around the ship such a short time ago is gone. In front of us stands a warrior, pure and disposed.

  ‘I’m finishing this.’

  The Bridge

  ‘I will say this to you one more time,’ the Overman says as he holds the Round Table’s captain in mid-air with nothing but the power of his mind. ‘Give the order. Move the ship.’

  Captain Gage’s head sways.

  ‘Go to hell.’

  The Overman’s face twitches.

  ‘Such a pity,’ he says, twisting his hand in the air and breaking the last of the captain’s bones. The pain finally proves too much for the captain and he drops unconscious to the floor. The Round Table’s crew looks on, horrified.

  ‘Is that it, Adam?’ Agent Alpha asks from the shadows of the bridge’s furthest corner, where he hovers in the red energy of the Overman’s telekinetic cage. ‘Is that all
you’ve got? Torturing the captain into submitting to your will? I hope you have a Plan B.’

  ‘Shut up, Khalid!’ the Overman snaps. ‘I swear I’ll –’

  He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a flash of light – like something metal moving on the flight deck – followed less than a second later by a piercing blast of plasma that cuts a pinhole through the bridge’s window and slices across his cheek like a scalpel.

  On the flight deck, Major Blackthorne curses violently as she hits the recharge button on the plasma cannon. The Overman stares down the barrel of her scope, rage darkening across his face.

  ‘Come on! Come on!’ the Major says, willing the cannon on. It beeps, telling her she’s free to fire again, which she does without a moment’s pause. The laser strikes fast and true, but the beam is broken on the Overman’s telekinetic field. It fractures into a dozen harmless rays of light as he descends from the tower, murder in his eyes.

  The Major curses to herself and tosses the cannon aside, pulling her service pistol from its holster and squeezing off as many rounds as she can. The Overman continues to advance on her, unshaken by the bullets that spark off his field.

  Just as he comes within striking distance, she stamps on a pressurised button hidden on the flight deck. A manhole cover springs open, revealing a ladder that leads off into the heart of the ship. She’s already formulating another battle plan as she jumps into the manhole, the taste of retreat bitter on her tongue.

  Her escape, however, is cut short.

  The hinges that anchor the ladder to the wall buckle. The metal rungs shudder into life like snakes, coiling themselves around the Major until she’s completely ensnared.

  ‘No!’ she shouts, struggling against the bonds even as they lift her up into the brightness of day, suspending her in mid-air as if she’s just been crucified.

  The Overman hovers silently into view.

  ‘Captain Blackthorne,’ he says icily, the wound on his cheek cauterised by the heat of the plasma blast. ‘I should have expected you to make your presence felt.’

  ‘It’s Major Blackthorne now, Drexler. And, well, you know me. I like to make an impression. Besides … I owed you a scar.’

  Without replying, the Overman reaches out and runs a finger down the Major’s cheek.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he smirks. ‘I’d forgotten about the mark I left on you.’

  Major Blackthorne holds back from spitting in the Overman’s face, but just barely. Her struggle to contain herself obviously amuses the Overman, who simply raises a hand to hoist her higher into the air.

  ‘I think after your little demonstration we’ll see what we can do about securing my new command centre.’

  They rush through the air, landing on the bridge. A momentary look of alarm flashes across Agent Alpha’s face when he sees who the Overman has taken prisoner.

  ‘Despite all her years of service, it seems that Major Blackthorne could still do with some target practice,’ the Overman laughs, levitating the Major to the corner opposite Agent Alpha.

  ‘You!’ The Overman points at one of the young officers by the ship’s controls. ‘How do I retract this tower below deck?’

  The young officer stands, paralysed. Her eyes dart instinctively to a switch in the control panel in front of her. The Overman follows her gaze and a sly smile slides across his face. ‘Thank you ever so much,’ he says, concentrating on the control panel.

  The young officer looks on in horror as the bridge fills with yellow hazard lights and the sound of sirens. The tower starts its rumbling descent, retracting into the belly of the ship. A dark shadow falls upon those gathered on the bridge as the sky disappears, replaced by the flickering glow of fluorescent lights.

  The tower comes to rest in the belly of the ship with a large metallic thoomp, segments of the flight deck extending overhead to hide the bridge and block out the sun.

  ‘Now that we’re safe away from the prying eyes of the world,’ the Overman says when the process is finished, ‘let’s see what we can do about getting this ship moving.’

  He closes his eyes, and for a moment it seems that nothing has happened. Then a slight hum fills the bridge. It grows until it becomes a great, reverberating growl that ripples through the body of the whole ship. The Overman opens his glowing red eyes.

  ‘I can feel … everything,’ he roars in triumph.

  Outside, the sea swirls in a frenzy of motion, clawing at the giant vessel. But slowly, as if being raised by the hand of God, the Round Table lifts into the air …

  Not long after the Major leaves, Machina works out a way to keep a watch over her. Panelling is ripped open and circuitry exposed. Machina places a hand on her belt buckle, where she keeps her nanobots, and tells me she’s going to send a small number of the tiny machines into the wiring of the ship’s security systems, which will allow her to see everything that the security cameras see.

  I can’t see the microscopic nanobot thingies she tells me are on the tip of her finger as she deposits them in the nest of circuits. I just have to take her word for it that she’s not crazy. And the fact that her eyes start glowing.

  She relays back to us the Major’s trip to the flight deck, picking her way through the wreckage.

  She tells us how the Overman has Agent Alpha trapped in some kind of telekinetic field on the bridge.

  She also tells us how the Overman is torturing Captain Gage, presumably to get him to give the order to move the ship. And how the Major has blasted a hole in the window of the bridge and sliced the Overman’s cheek.

  Then it all goes to hell. And before we know it we’re right back where we started, only this time we don’t have the Major to help us. We’re alone.

  And that’s when the ship begins to quake.

  We’re sent tumbling to the floor, and with the red lights and the tremors and all the chaos it feels like the end of the world.

  Machina is the first to sit up. She leaps to her feet and puts her hands back into the circuitry.

  ‘I’ve lost contact!’ she cries. ‘He must have retracted the tower.’

  ‘It feels like he’s lifting the ship up!’ I shout over the sounds of screaming, shuddering metal.

  ‘No way! That’s impossible!’ Machina yells, shaking her head. ‘He doesn’t have that kind of power!’

  ‘Well, he’s had a lot of time to practise!’ I shout back. The floor tilts as I try to stand and I smack my head on a steel cabinet.

  And just as suddenly everything is silent. We look at each other in guarded hope that we’ve seen the worst of it. Then the ship starts moving again and we’re lurched forcefully to the side. I feel like a puck that’s just been smacked across an air-hockey table.

  ‘If he hasn’t lifted the ship up and is moving it himself, then we’ve just hitched a ride on top of the world’s biggest humpback,’ I mumble sarcastically as I pull myself up from the floor for the second time.

  ‘Okay, okay. You may have a point,’ Machina replies. ‘What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘We’re not going to do anything,’ interrupts Dr Salim. ‘We’re going to wait here, where we’re safe from a telekinetic madman running rampage over a multi-million-dollar warship he’s just hijacked.’

  ‘Dr Salim,’ Machina says, ‘we’re Vanguard Prime. We can’t just sit by and do nothing.’

  ‘You may be Vanguard Prime, but you’re also children. And I don’t think the Major would want you to endanger yourselves. There must be dozens of international agencies that are aware of the situation by now, and they’ll be putting together a list of all kinds of contingency plans. The safest thing we can do is keep out of their way.’

  ‘We can’t count on others coming to help us. Not when we’re the ones who are usually sent in to do the helping. Look … when I hacked into the security feed I did a simultaneous playback. I was watching the live feed, but I was also going through the footage of how the Overman escaped.’

  ‘And?’
Dr Salim asks. He doesn’t seem to be as impressed by Machina’s multi-tasking as I am.

  ‘He had this … device. Some kind of metal tube. And he, I dunno, he brainjacked Persona, made him transform into one of his different personalities.’

  ‘The Dragon?’ I ask.

  Machina nods. ‘If we can get to the Gallery, perhaps Persona can help us.’

  ‘And how would he be able to do that?’ Dr Salim asks sceptically.

  ‘By turning into Metatron?’ I say.

  Machina nods again.

  ‘If you actually manage to do that,’ Dr Salim says, still unimpressed. ‘And I mean if – what makes you think that will make any difference at all? The Overman’s already taken down Agent Alpha and the rest of the specially trained crew onboard. And who knows what’s happened to Gaia –’

  ‘Gaia’s on the lower starboard decks, battling Cronus,’ Machina interrupts. ‘She’s too occupied with him to stop the Overman.’

  ‘So that makes Metatron your best chance? Honestly, what help could he possibly offer? And what if your actions interfere with whatever plan the AN and the Navy no doubt have?’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ I say to Machina. ‘And you never know. They might even have the Knight of Wands with them. He wasn’t on the ship when the Overman broke free. We shouldn’t –’

  ‘I don’t think the chances of us interfering in their plans are that significant. The Overman has control of the ship. He also has our team entirely at his mercy. That’s not a scenario I’m comfortable with, and if I think we have a shot at doing something about it, I’m going to take it.’ Her voice takes on an edge I’ve never heard before, and all of a sudden she seems less like the sulky girl I’ve gotten to know and much more like the way the rest of the world thinks of her. She sounds like a superhero.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I have a responsibility here,’ Dr Salim says, unmoved by Machina’s words. ‘I can’t let you go. Not if you could be hurt. The Major wouldn’t want it.’