'Yessir. A Recon officer tracks runaway fairies to the surface, sir.'
'The surface, Short. Where the humans live. We have to be inconspicuous, blend in. Do you think you can do that?'
'Yes, Commander. I think I can.'
Root spat his cigar into a recycler. 'I wish I could believe that. And maybe I would, if it wasn't for that.' Root pointed a stiff finger at Holly's chest.
Holly looked down. Surely the commander wasn't upset about a few blobs of gel and the smell of fish.
He wasn't.
The text bar on her chest displayed one word in block capitals. It was the same word that she had shouted just as the hydrogel had frozen the text display: 'D'Arvit,' swore Holly, under her breath, which coincidentally was the same word frozen on her chest.
E1
The trio proceeded directly to E1: a pressure chute that emerged in Tara, Ireland. The corporals were not given any personal time to prepare, because they would not have any if they managed to graduate to Recon. Rogue fairies did not escape to the surface at a time prearranged with the police. They took off whenever it suited them, and a Recon officer had to be ready to follow.
They took an LEP shuttle up the chute to the surface. Holly had not been given any weaponry and her helmet had been confiscated. She had also been drained of magic by a pinprick to the thumb. The tack was left in until every drop of magic had been used to heal the wound.
Captain Trouble Kelp explained the logic to her as he used his own magic to seal the corporal's tiny wound. 'Sometimes you get stuck on the surface with nothing: no weapon, no communications, no magic. And you still have to track down a runner, who's probably trying to track you down. If you can't accomplish that, then you won't make it in Recon.'
Holly had expected this. They had all heard the initiation stories from other veterans. She wondered what kind of hellhole they would be dropped in, and what they would have to hunt.
Through the shuttle portholes, she watched the chute flash by. The chutes were vast subterranean magma vents that spiralled from the Earth's core to the surface. The fairy People had excavated several of these tunnels worldwide and built shuttle ports at both ends. As human technology grew more sophisticated, many of these stations had to be destroyed or abandoned. If the Mud People ever found a fairy port, they would have a direct line to Haven.
In times of emergency, Recon officers rode the magma flares that scoured these tunnels in titanium eggs. This was the fastest way to cover the five thousand miles to the surface. Today they were travelling as a group in an LEP shuttle at the relatively slow speed of eight hundred miles an hour. Root set the autopilot and came back to brief Holly.
'We are headed for the Tern Islands,' Commander Root said, activating a holographic map above the conference table. 'A small archipelago off the east coast of Ireland. To be more precise we are headed for Tern Mór — the main island. There is only one
inhabitant: Kieran Ross, a conservationist. Ross travels to Dublin once a month to make his report to the Department of the Environment. He generally stays over in the Morrison Hotel, and takes in a show at the Abbey Theatre. Our technical people have confirmed that he is booked into the hotel, so we have a thirty-six-hour window.'
Holly nodded. The last thing they needed was humans butting into their exercise. Realistic exercises were one thing, but not at the expense of the entire fairy nation.
Root stepped into the hologram, pointing at a spot on the map. 'We land here, at Seal Bay. The shuttle will drop you and Captain Kelp off on the beach. I will be deposited at another location. After that it's simple: you hunt me and I hunt you. Captain Kelp will record your progress for review. Once the exercise has been completed, I will evaluate your disk and see if you have what it takes to make it into Recon. Initiates are generally tagged half a dozen times over the course of the exercise, so don't worry about that. What's important is how difficult you make it for me.'
Root took a paintball pistol from a rack on the wall and tossed it to Holly. 'Of course, there is one way to get around the review and straight into the program. You tag me before I tag you, and you're in. No questions asked. But don't get your hopes up. I have centuries of above-ground experience, I'm running hot with magic and I have a shuttle full of weapons at my disposal.'
Holly was glad that she was already sitting down. She had spent hundreds of hours on simulators, but had only actually visited the surface twice. Once on a school tour of South American rainforests, and another time on a family holiday to Stonehenge. Her third visit was going to be a bit more exciting.
CHAPTER 3: The Island Of Broken Dreams
Tern Mór.
The sun scorched away the morning mist and Tern Mór gradually appeared off the Irish coast like a ghost island. One minute there was nothing there but cloudbanks, and the next the crags of Tern Mór cut through the haze.
Holly studied it through the porthole. 'Cheery place,' she noted.
Root chewed on his cigar. 'Sorry about that, Corporal. We keep asking the runaways to hide somewhere warm, but darned if they don't keep suiting themselves.'
The commander returned to the cockpit: it was time to switch back over to manual for the landing.
The island looked like something from a horror film. Dark cliffs reared from the ocean, spumes of foam slapping at the waterline. A line of greenery hung on desperately, flopping untidily over the edge like an unruly fringe of hair.
Nothing good is going to happen here, thought Holly.
Trouble Kelp slapped her on the shoulder, breaking through the gloom. 'Cheer up, Short. At least you got this far. A couple of days on the surface is worth any price. This place has air like you wouldn't believe. Sweet as heaven.'
Holly tried to smile, but she was too nervous. 'Does the commander usually handle initiations himself?'
'All the time. This is the first one-to-one though. Usually he tracks a half dozen or so, to keep himself amused. But you get him all to yourself, 'cause of the female thing. When you fail, Julius doesn't want the equal-rights office to have any reason to complain.'
Holly bristled. 'When I fail?'
Trouble winked at her. 'Did I say when? I meant if. Of course, if.'
Holly felt the tips of her pointed ears quiver. Was this entire trip a charade? Did the commander already have her report written?
They touched down on Seal Beach, which was remarkably devoid of seals or sand. The shuttle had a second skin of plasma screens that projected the surroundings on to the craft's outer plates. To the casual observer, when Trouble Kelp popped the hatch, it would seem like a door in the sky.
Holly and Trouble hopped out on to the pebbles, scurrying forward to avoid the jet wash.
Root opened a porthole. 'You've got twenty minutes to cry or say your prayers or whatever it is you females do, then I'm comin' a callin'.'
Holly's eyes were fierce. 'Yessir. I'm going to start crying presently. Soon as you're over the horizon.'
Root half smiled, half scowled. 'I hope your skills can pay the cheques your mouth is writing.'
Holly had no idea what a cheque was, but she decided that now was not the time to say that.
Root gunned the engine, taking off over the hillside in a low, looping arc. All that was visible of the craft was a faint translucent shimmer.
Holly found that she was suddenly cold. Haven was completely air-conditioned, and her traffic suit did not have heating coils. She noticed Captain Kelp adjusting the thermostat on his computer.
'Hey,' Trouble said. 'No need for two of us to be uncomfortable. I've already passed my initiation.'
'How many times did you get tagged?' Holly asked.
Trouble grimaced ruefully. 'Eight. And I was the best in the group. Commander Root moves quickly for an old-timer, plus he has a couple of million ingots worth of hardware at his disposal.'
Holly turned up her collar against the Atlantic wind. 'Any handy hints?'
'I'm afraid not. And once this camera starts rolling, I can't even talk to y
ou any more.' Captain Kelp touched a button on his helmet, and a red light winked at Holly. 'The only thing I can say is that if I were you, I'd get moving. Julius won't waste any time, so neither should you.'
Holly looked around. Make use of jour environment, the manuals said. Use what nature provides. That maxim wasn't much good to her here. The pebble beach was bordered by a steep rock face on two sides, with a steep mudslide incline on the third. It was the only way out, and she'd better take it before the commander had time to set himself up at the top. She double-timed it towards the slope, determined to make it out of this exercise with her self-respect intact.
Something shimmered in the corner of Holly's eye. She stopped in her tracks.
'That's hardly fair,' she said, pointing to the spot.
Trouble looked across the pebble beach. 'What?' he asked, even though he was not supposed to talk.
'Look there. A sheet of cam foil. Someone is hiding on the beach. Do you have a little back-up in case the corporal proves a bit quick for the old-timers?'
Trouble instantly realized the seriousness of the situation. 'D'Arvit,' he growled, reaching for his sidearm.
Captain Kelp was quick on the draw. He actually managed to get his weapon out of its holster before a sniper's rifle pulsed beneath the cam foil, catching him high on the shoulder, spinning him across the wet stones.
Holly darted right, zigzagging through the rocks. If she kept moving, the sniper might not be able to get a lock on her. Her fingers were actually digging into the mud slope when a second sniper reared up from the earth, shrugging off a sheet of cam foil.
The newcomer, a stocky dwarf, was holding the biggest rifle Holly had ever seen. 'Surprise,' he grinned, teeth crooked and yellowing.
He fired and the laser pulse hit Holly in the gut like a sledgehammer. That's the thing about Neutrino weapons: they don't kill, but they hurt worse than a bucket of hangnails.
Holly came to, and immediately wished she hadn't. She leaned forward on the oversized chair she was tied to, and threw up all over her boots. Beside her, Trouble Kelp was involved in the same activity. What was going on here? Laser weapons were not supposed to have side effects, unless you were allergic, which she wasn't.
Glancing around, Holly caught her breath. They were in a small roughly plastered room, dominated by a huge table. A huge table or a human-sized table? They were in a human residence? That explained the sickness. Entering human residences without permission was expressly forbidden. The price for ignoring this edict was loss of magic, and nausea.
The details of their predicament sparked in Holly's memory. She had been on her initiation when a couple of fairies had ambushed them on the beach. Could this be some kind of extreme test? She looked across at Captain Kelp's drooping head. That was pretty realistic for a test.
A huge door creaked open and a grinning elf stepped through. 'Oh, you are unwell. Sorcery sickness, or Book Barfing as I believe the younger fairies call it. Don't worry, it will soon pass.'
The elf looked older than any fairy Holly knew, and was wearing a yellowed LEP dress uniform. It was like something out of a period movie.
The elf caught Holly's glance. 'Ah, yes,' he said, plumping up his ruffles. 'My finery fades. It is the curse of living without magic. Everything fades, and not just the clothing. To look in my eyes you would never guess that I am barely a century older than my brother.'
Holly looked in his eyes. 'Brother?'
Beside her, Trouble stirred, spat and raised his head. Holly heard a sharp intake of breath. 'Oh gods.Turnball Root.'
Holly's mind span. Root? Brother. This was the commander's brother.
Turnball was delighted. 'Finally, someone remembers. I was beginning to think I was forgotten.'
'I majored in Ancient History,' said Trouble. 'You got your own page in the Criminally Insane section.'
Turnball tried to appear casual, but he was interested. 'Tell me, what did this page say?'
'It said that you were a traitorous captain who tried to flood a section of Haven just to wipe out a competitor who was muscling in on your illegal mining scheme. It said that if your brother had not stopped you with your finger on the button, then half the city could have been lost.'
'Ridiculous,' tutted Turnball. 'I had engineers study my plans. There would have been no chain reaction. A few hundred would have died, no more.'
'How did you escape from prison?' asked Holly.
Turnball's chest puffed up. 'I have never spent a day in prison. I am not a common criminal. Luckily, Julius lacked the gumption to kill me, and so I managed to escape. He has hunted me ever since. But that ends today.'
'So that's what this is all about: revenge?'
'Partly,' admitted Turnball. 'But also freedom.
Julius is like a dog with a bone. He will not let go. I need a chance to finish my Martinis without looking over my shoulder. I have had ninety-six residences in the past five centuries. I lived in a fabulous villa near Nice in the seventeen hundreds. 'The old elf's eyes grew misty. 'I was so happy there. I can still smell the ocean. I had to burn that house to the ground because of Julius.'
Holly was rotating her wrists slowly, trying to loosen the knots. Turnball noticed the motion.
'Don't bother, my dear. I have been tying people up for centuries. It is one of the first skills you learn as a fugitive. And well done, by the way. A female at an initiation. I bet my little brother doesn't like that. He was always a bit on the sexist side.'
'Yes,' said Holly. 'Whereas you are a real gentlefairy.'
'Touche,' said Turnball. 'As I used to say in France.'
Trouble's face had lost the green tinge.
'Whatever your plan is, don't expect any help from me.'
Turnball stood before Holly, lifting her chin with a curved nail. 'I don't expect help from you, Captain. I expect help from the pretty one. All I expect from you is a little screaming before you die.'
Turnball had two accomplices: a sullen dwarf and an Earthbound sprite. Commander Root's brother called them into the room for a round of introductions.
The dwarf's name was Bobb, and he wore a wide-brimmed sombrero to keep the sun off his delicate dwarf skin.
'Bobb is the best burglar in the business after Mulch Diggums,' explained Turnball, draping an arm round the squat dwarf's massive shoulders. 'However, unlike the canny Diggums, he doesn't plan so well. Bobb made his big mistake when he dug into a community centre during a police fundraiser. He's been hiding out on the surface since then. We make a good team: I plan, he steals.' He turned to the sprite, spinning him round. Where the sprite's wings should be, there were two bulbous knobs of scar tissue.
'Unix here got in a fight with a troll and lost. He was clinically dead when I found him. I gave him the last shot of magic I had to bring him back, and to this day I don't know if he loves me or hates me for it. Loyal though. This fairy here would walk into the Earth's core for me.'
The sprite's green features were impassive, and his eyes were as empty as wiped disks. These two fairies were the ones who had picked off Holly and Trouble on the pebble beach.
Turnball ripped Holly's nametag from her chest. 'Now, here's the plan. We are going to use Corporal Short here to lure Julius in. If you try to warn him, then the captain dies in terrible agony. I have a Tunnel Blue spider in my bag that will rip his insides apart in seconds. And having entered a human dwelling, he won't have a drop of magic to ease that pain. For your part, all you have to do is sit in a clearing and wait for Julius to come and get you. When he does, then we get him. It's that simple. Unix and Bobb will accompany you. I will wait here for the happy moment when Julius is dragged through that door.'
Unix cut selected straps, hauling Holly from the chair. He propelled her through the giant doorway, into the morning sunlight. Holly breathed deeply. The air was sweet here, but there wasn't a moment to pause and enjoy it.
'Why don't you run, Officer?' said Unix, his voice alternately high and low, as though half broken. 'Run and see
what happens.'
'Yeah,' taunted Bobb. 'See what happens.'
Holly could guess what would happen. She would get another laser burst, this time in the back. She would not run. Not yet. What she would do was think and plan.
They dragged and prodded Holly across two fields that sloped southwards to the cliffs. The grass was sparse and rough, like clumps of missed beard after a shave. Flocks of gulls, terns and cormorants appeared over the cliff line like fighter jets climbing to cruising altitude. Down past a thicket rampant with wildlife, Bobb stopped beside a low rock erupting through the earth. Just big enough to shelter one fairy from an easterly approach.
'Down you go,' he grunted, pushing Holly on to her knees.
Once she was down, Unix clamped a manacle round her leg, hammering the spike on the other end into the earth.
'This way, you can't just take off,' he explained, grinning. 'If we see you playing with your chain, then we knock you out for a while.' He patted the scope on the rifle strapped across his chest. 'We'll be watching.'
The rogue fairies retraced their steps across the field, settling down in to two hollows. They pulled sheets of cam foil from their packs, draping them over their frames. In seconds all that could be seen were two black-eyed gun barrels poking from beneath the sheets.
It was a simple plan. But extremely clever. If the commander found Holly, it would seem as though she were setting herself up for an ambush. Just not a very good one. The second he showed himself, Unix and Bobb could nail him with rifle fire.
There must be some way to warn the commander without endangering Trouble. Holly chewed it over. Use what nature provides. Nature was providing plenty, but unfortunately she couldn't reach any of it. If she even tried, then Bobb and Unix would stun her with a low-level charge, without having to alter the basic structure of their plan. There was nothing much on her own person either. Unix had searched her from head to toe, even confiscating the digi-pen in her pocket in case she used it as a weapon. The only thing they missed was the wafer-thin computer on her wrist, which was shorted out anyway.
Holly lowered her arm behind the rock, peeling back the Velcro patch that protected her computer from the elements. She flipped the tiny instrument over. It seemed as though hydrogel had seeped into the seal, shorting out the electrics. She slid off the battery panel, checking the circuit board inside. A tiny drop of gel was sitting on the board, straddling several switches, making connections where there shouldn't be any. Holly plucked a blade of coarse grass, using it to scoop up the drop. In less than a minute the remaining film of gel had evaporated and the tiny computer hummed into action. Holly quickly blacked out the panel on her chest, in case Bobb or Unix spotted the flashing cursor.