He walked cautiously back towards the window and listened. The battle had splintered into numerous smaller actions, characterised by short bursts of gunfire spread over a wider area. James realised that this greatly increased his chances of coming under fire on his return journey.
He kept low as he exited the building into a narrow alleyway, ducking below the roofline of the parked cars, with a paint-spattered breezeblock wall at his back. He ended up in a main road, keeping a finger on the trigger and breaking into a sprint as he cut across the road.
‘Meow.’
James stopped in his tracks and crouched down beside a car, unable to work out where the sound had come from.
‘Woof,’ he answered cautiously.
Two heads popped up inside a car parked on a driveway. Because of the orange sunlight reflecting on the visors, it took a second before James recognised Dana and Jake.
‘Get over here, dingus,’ Dana whispered. ‘There’s a bunch of Team A kids hiding out three doors up the road.’
James quietly opened the car door. He dragged himself across the multicoloured stains over the rear seat, being careful to keep his head below window height. He noticed Dana was covered in about twenty splats of different coloured paint.
‘You got nuked,’ James gasped. ‘Do any of them hurt?’
‘Not too bad, most of the hits were from long range,’ Dana said bitterly. ‘I’m gonna have so many bruises, I’ll look like a black man in the morning. All my eggs got smashed, too.’
‘Who got hold of you?’ James asked.
‘Nobody actually got me, they just got mashed up when I was rolling around on the floor being shot at.’
‘All but one of my eggs are cracked as well,’ James nodded. ‘So how come you ended up all the way out here?’
‘I tried to follow after you when you shat your pants and ran away,’ Dana explained. ‘Jumped down from a first-floor window and picked up Jake along the way.’
‘I didn’t shit my pants,’ James said indignantly. ‘I made a tactical decision to withdraw under heavy fire.’
Dana laughed, ‘That’s one way of putting it, I guess.’
James decided not to push the point; Dana’s description of events was uncomfortably close to the truth.
He looked at Jake and tried to sound encouraging. ‘So how are you holding up?’
‘OK,’ Jake said brightly. ‘I shot up some people in the battle.’
‘I think the little guy just found some balls,’ Dana said, breaking into a rare smile. ‘I watched him come out of that building you guys were hiding out in. First he kind of froze, but then he took cover and put in some good shots.’
James looked admiringly at his little team-mate. ‘Did you get hit?’
Jake rolled over on to his side and proudly showed off the giant splat of lilac paint on his thigh. ‘It hurts, but I don’t care. This must be fifty times more exciting than the best computer game ever.’
James was delighted by the way Jake had handled stress. Some people freak out in volatile situations, but it looked like CHERUB’s selection process had done its usual job of picking out a kid who could handle himself when it really counted.
‘Do you still want to quit?’ James asked.
‘No way,’ Jake said. ‘I want to get hold of someone and smash up their eggs.’
James laughed. ‘So, did either of you see the other girls?’
‘I think I saw Lauren and Bethany heading off together,’ Jake said.
‘Do you reckon we should go and look for them?’ James asked.
Dana pondered for a couple of seconds. ‘It’s too risky. There are fifteen other kids out there, and only two of them are our girls. Lauren and Bethany can look after themselves. If we bump into them that’s great, but if we go out searching, we’ll most likely get shot up.’
‘I think you’re right,’ James nodded.
‘So what do we do?’ Jake asked.
James thought for a few seconds. ‘I’ve got plenty of ammo in my pack and three sets of night-vision goggles. This car isn’t secure: we’re sitting ducks if anyone walks by and spots us. I say we hide out in one of the houses nearby until it gets completely dark. Then I’ll hand out the night-vision goggles and we can go out on a little egg hunt.’
Dana nodded grudgingly. ‘I can think of worse ideas.’
7. RECKONING
By midnight it was pitch black. There was no moon, and the only light was a yellow glow from a motorway that ran behind the ten-metre-high walls on one side of the training compound.
Dana, James and Jake had night-vision goggles fitted on to special clasps built into their helmets. The goggles didn’t work in complete darkness; instead they amplified light, turning the world into a strange mixture of blackness, punctuated by intense green outlines. The imaging software inside the goggles took a fraction of a second to process what it saw. This tiny lag between making movements and your eyes registering them made James queasy.
When they clambered from their hideout, they were hoping to ambush the building where Dana and Jake had spotted Team A forty minutes earlier, but they’d moved on. Their only legacy was an empty equipment box and a stinking puddle where a couple of boys had peed in the corner.
‘What now?’ Jake whispered, as a stun grenade erupted somewhere in the distance, turning the view through his goggles into a white sheet.
James was disappointed, but he still had faith in his night-vision strategy. ‘We keep hunting,’ he said.
They began a cautious trek through the compound: moving slowly, keeping low and speaking only when absolutely necessary. If they got caught in a wide-open space they could easily get picked off, so they stuck to side streets and alleyways, only venturing into the main avenues when they had to cross them.
James noticed a green outline inside a building as he passed a window, but he didn’t say a word until they reached the end of the street and ducked down between two houses.
‘Two buildings back,’ James whispered. ‘There’s at least one person moving inside.’
Dana was her usual contemptuous self. ‘Are you sure it’s not a stray cat or something?’
James shook his head. ‘Too big, definitely human. I’ll take it from the front. Dana, you climb over the garden wall and cut round the back. Wait until you hear me make my move and be ready to cut them off if they try to escape. Jake, you wait here. Set your rifle to automatic and be ready to cover us if things get heavy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jake said.
Dana shushed him. ‘Less noise, you little idiot.’
James turned slowly on his heel and crept back to the building where he’d spotted the movement. He leaned in front of the window and cautiously poked his head up above the ledge, moving very slowly because he didn’t want the ammunition clips inside his pack to jangle.
His night-vision goggles showed the outlines of two bodies sitting against a wall. They were a little smaller than James and, although it was hard to tell from his artificially intensified view, he got the impression that they were both female.
Realising there was a chance it could be Lauren and Bethany, James ducked down and made the signal.
‘Meow.’
He knew he’d blunted the element of surprise, but James didn’t want to end up in a shooting match with his own team-mates. The two figures inside scrambled for their weapons as one of them replied hurriedly, ‘Meow.’
As soon as James heard the wrong signal, he jumped up above the window ledge and fired a shot. One girl screamed out, and James ducked again as the other fired blindly into the darkness. When this firing stopped, James popped up and fired two more accurate shots through the window, hitting the other girl both times.
Meanwhile, Dana had entered via the back door of the building. She ran along a short corridor and burst into the room. James would have liked more time to use the advantage of his night vision to psyche the girls out, but he had to make his move once Dana was in the room.
‘I want your eggs a
nd the driving springs from your rifles,’ James announced as he jumped through the window.
‘Up yours, James,’ Kerry answered.
James and Dana ducked out of the way as wild shots flew around the room. Then Kerry’s gun made a hollow click.
‘Oh dear,’ James gloated. ‘That sound isn’t good.’
‘I’ve got more,’ Kerry said.
‘So why are you sitting still, instead of reloading?’ James asked.
‘Can you see us?’ Kerry asked.
‘Every move you make,’ James laughed. ‘We’ve got night vision.’
Gabrielle sounded furious. ‘Jammy little …’
‘Oh, hi Gabrielle,’ James said, as he clambered through the window. ‘I didn’t realise it was you. I hope that hit’s not stinging too badly.’
‘I bet it’s not as bad as when I shot you in the back earlier on,’ Gabrielle snarled.
‘James,’ Dana said fiercely, from the opposite side of the room. ‘We just made a giant racket. Cut the cute banter and let’s get out of here.’
Kerry laughed. ‘Oh it’s Dana, I thought there had to be someone with brains behind this operation.’
‘Yeah, James,’ Gabrielle agreed. ‘I saw how you looked out for your team by running off at ninety miles an hour.’
James was irked. ‘I’ve got my gun pointing right at you,’ he said angrily. ‘Shut your stupid holes, throw us your packs and hand over your guns.’
‘Why don’t you come over and get them?’ Kerry jeered.
James fired a warning shot into the wall a few centimetres above Kerry’s head. ‘Because this clip is stuffed with ammunition. I can see every move you make and I can shoot you at will. Now, I’m gonna count to three, and if your guns and packs haven’t landed somewhere near my feet when I finish, you two are gonna feel serious pain. One, two …’
Kerry and Gabrielle’s pride didn’t extend far enough to run the risk of another hit. They surrendered their stuff before James finished counting. He crouched down and grabbed the egg box out of Kerry’s pack. It was hard to see in the darkness and tricky to feel through the protective gloves, but so far as James could tell, Kerry’s eggs were all intact.
‘Six unbroken eggs, for Little Miss Perfect,’ James giggled as he ground up the eggs under his boot.
‘This isn’t over,’ Kerry shouted back defiantly. ‘You have to let us go and I’m gonna hunt you down.’
‘I reckon this makes us even,’ James answered. ‘Remember last summer at the hostel, when you two blasted me and Bruce with the paintball guns from point-blank range?’
A small voice piped up from outside before Kerry got a chance to respond. ‘There’s four people heading our way from the top of the street,’ Jake said. ‘Let’s get out of here before World War Three breaks out.’
‘I’ve crushed Gabrielle’s eggs,’ Dana said. ‘Let’s roll.’
James realised he didn’t have time to take the driving spring out of Kerry’s gun in pitch darkness and it was too awkward to take with him, so he swung it by the barrel and smashed it as hard as he could against the wall. As he spun back, Kerry lunged at him. Dana fired a shot, but she’d aimed cautiously to avoid hitting James and ended up missing both of them.
Kerry crashed into James. She was smaller and lighter than her boyfriend, but her martial-arts skills were far in advance and five years of CHERUB training had made her stronger than a thirteen-year-old girl had any right to be. As James smashed into the ground with Kerry on top of him, a stun grenade exploded inside a building a few doors up the road.
Before Kerry pinned James, he found a second to shout at Dana: ‘Take Jake and get out of here.’
James’ logic was simple: eggs were what counted in the final tally. He only had one, while Jake still had six unbroken ones. Rather than get caught up in the melee that seemed set to break out, it was better to run off, even if that left James to tangle with the girls on his own.
As Kerry pinned James’ shoulders under her knees and Gabrielle ripped away his gun, Dana escaped out of the front window and ran off with Jake. Kerry thumped James’ helmet against the concrete floor, demolishing the night-vision goggles. Shots were being fired in the street outside as the broken goggles over James’ visor plunged him into absolute darkness.
‘Thought you were pretty clever, didn’t you,’ Kerry said sweetly. ‘Remember combat class, James? How many times did I tell you? Never turn away from your target and never let your guard down for a single second.’
Gabrielle crunched James’ single remaining egg, as Kerry pulled his arm tight behind his back.
‘Want a broken shoulder, James?’
‘Kerry,’ James gasped. ‘Please. You got my eggs, you’ve got to let me go now.’
‘Why don’t you write a letter to the United Nations?’ Kerry grinned, as she released his arm and smashed the point of her elbow into his lower back.
As James whimpered in pain, Gabrielle sounded happy. ‘He’s got tons of ammo in this backpack.’
‘Great,’ Kerry said, as she grabbed Gabrielle’s gun off the floor and loaded a clip. ‘Let’s head out the back way and try catching up with those other two.’
James lay face down on the bare concrete. Kerry had elbowed him in the same spot where he’d been shot and the pain in his lower back was terrible. As Gabrielle exited, she made James suffer the ultimate indignity, shooting him twice in the thigh with his own gun.
*
James woke from a weird dream, with a string of drool dribbling down the inside of his visor and the taste of smoke in his mouth. The sun was up, though at first he could only see cracks breaking around the edges of the broken night-vision goggles still fitted to his helmet.
He got a sharp reminder of Kerry’s elbow in the back the instant he tried to move. He rolled cautiously on to his side and tried to prise the goggles off; but the plastic clip holding them in place had cracked when Kerry knocked them against the floor and now they refused to separate from the helmet. James twisted the goggles, but eventually he had to resort to brute force, showering the room in plastic fragments as they snapped away from the helmet.
Once his eyes adjusted to the daylight, James raised the cuff of his padded suit and looked at his watch. It was quarter to six, meaning he’d been unconscious for about four hours and the exercise still had more than two hours to run. James couldn’t remember clearly, but he realised the mixture of pain and exhaustion must have made him pass out: nobody voluntarily nods off in the middle of training when they’re tanked up on adrenalin and their heart is banging out a hundred and eighty beats a minute.
With no clue about the safety of his immediate environment, James crawled over the concrete floor towards the nearest wall and sat against it, pausing briefly to study the multitude of coloured splats where he’d been shot.
He felt slightly light-headed and desperately thirsty; but his canteen had been in the backpack with the ammo that Kerry had taken. He peered cautiously out of the window, studying the residue of the previous night’s battle. It was easy to tell the difference between fresh paint splats and older marks that had been smoothed out by rain.
James thought about searching for the other members of his team, but he’d run the risk of getting shot, and without a gun or ammunition he didn’t think he’d be much use anyway.
He decided the best strategy was to stay where he was, counting out the minutes until the exercise ended and hoping that no one would stumble into him. He glanced at his watch again, as his mind fixed on the cold drink he hoped to get hold of in a hundred and thirty-two minutes.
8. DELIVERANCE
The last hours of the exercise contained nothing like the full-blown battles of the evening before. James suspected that most teams had run low on equipment. Ammunition, working rifles and eggs were in short supply; most importantly, so was the energy required to fight. Only the sounds of occasional light skirmishes disrupted the morning birdsong.
To pass the time, James messed with Kerry’s rifle. A
lthough he’d smashed it against the wall and knocked a lump out of the wooden stock, it only took a light clean and a few adjustments with the attached multitool to get the firing mechanism running. The trouble was, he still didn’t have any ammunition.
He stretched and massaged the tender area of his back and took a pee in the hallway outside, but after an hour boredom got the better of him and he decided to explore. He started off checking out the rest of the house. He found a couple of discarded ammo clips. Occasionally, people will drop a clip with a few shots left and replace it with a full one if they’re heading into action, but all he found were empties.
The back of the building had a small garden, and James crept outdoors with the intention of jumping over the waist-height wall into the next one. But as he raised his leg, he came over light-headed and for a moment thought he was going to be sick. He lay out on the grass and raised his visor a couple of centimetres to breathe some fresh air.
James was slightly worried. By CHERUB standards this wasn’t a particularly tough training exercise, but he felt weak.
A half-hour before 8 a.m., he recognised Lauren and Bethany cutting along the alleyway behind the garden wall. They were the first figures he’d seen in more than an hour, so he decided it was safe to expose his position with a ‘Meow’.
‘Woof,’ Lauren replied.
James was happy to see them, despite the humiliation of having no eggs or ammo while the girls’ confident air suggested that they were doing OK. As they clambered over the wall, James made a rough count of the splats on their uniforms and realised they’d each taken six or seven hits, about the same as him.
‘What’s up with you?’ Lauren asked. ‘You’re all stooped.’
‘I was tired before we even started. Then I got a killer shot in the back and Kerry thumped me in the same spot with her elbow. It’s agony.’
Bethany laughed. ‘Lovers’ tiff.’
James ignored the jab. ‘I lost my canteen,’ he said. ‘Have either of you got any water left?’