Chapter 19

Eric was following Sarah, her path easy to determine by the trail of angry people, spilled drinks and mutters of “Who just pushed me?” The crowded viewing platforms gave way to interior walkways that circled about five levels up from the entry hall, filled with far less people so it was easier to spot the blonde girl.

This was a vast space inside the Tower, with offices, shops and restaurants all facing inwards to an atrium hundreds of meters across and over five hundred high. In the centre, between four enormous pillars that carried elevators to the upper levels was situated a new structure. His friend Sarah was leaning against a clear glass railing, looking out into the enclosed void with a disconsolate air.

He took a place at her side, leaning forwards like her and observing the preparations below.

“What is all of that for?” Sarah asked him, her voice subdued but inquisitive. She was looking at a construction of clear tubes, walls and barriers suspended about fifty meters above the lower floor, held in place by taut cables fixed to anchors around the vast atrium. Last minute adjustments were being made by Levitators in blue worksuits and hard hats, aided by heavy lifting cargo drones and some spidery construction robots.

“It’s the Maze” Eric answered confidently. “The Levitators will be conducting timed races through a set course, trying to avoid any contact with the walls and barriers. They get a time penalty for each contact and the winner is the one who completes the Maze in the shortest overall time”

“Looks hard” Sarah observed. “Isn’t this the event Miss Abrams is entered in later on this afternoon?”

“Yep” he agreed. “She has been training really hard for this one. Miss Abrams has always been fast, but this event is about control more than raw speed. She has won a couple of her First Place trophies in this event so she wants to defend her title”

“Cool” Sarah answered, her eyes following the workers below. Her next words were contemplative but not unexpected. “Eric, if I didn’t have Stanley, what use am I to you and the Project?”

Eric turned to face her, leaning his right side against the railing. As confusing as human emotions could be, he understood what she was feeling.

“Stanley is an amazing creature, someone with abilities completely unknown in our world” he began. “But the most amazing person I have met is the one standing in front of me. She is brave and loyal, caring about her friends and fierce when she has to be”

Sarah did not look at him and clenched her small hands together.

“But I am still basically a NOMA” she replied. “My Ability just lets me see and talk to Otherworld beings, I can’t actually do anything useful!”

“Do you wish you were Lilly, or Achmed, or maybe Angelina then?” he asked her. “Maybe you want to be Carmody, carrying that cricket bat everywhere and smashing things like a bull in a china shop?”

“Maybe” she conceded. “I just want to be able to do something that helps everyone in a fight, or to rescue people, or whatever!”

Eric nodded his head in understanding.

“We all want to be useful, to protect the ones we care about” he acknowledged. ”I think that time is coming for you Sarah. Your Ability is so far out there that nobody knows what power you will develop, or what you will be able to do”

Sarah gave a little laugh and turned at last to look at him. Her blue-green eyes were moist, hinting at unshed tears.

“I just have to grow up a little more, hey?” she asked him and Eric nodded his head.

“We all do, Sarah. We are just kids after all”

They laughed together at that and turned towards the exits that led to the viewing platforms.

“Found you at last you little punk!” shouted a big, beefy guy who staggered menacingly up to the pair. He had to be six feet tall, rather overweight and with a black bushy beard obscuring most of his face. The bit of his face that could be seen was twisted up into an angry snarl and he jabbed a thick finger at Sarah. “You spilled my drink! Those things cost a fortune in here and you made me lose the lot!”

He pointed to his wet shirt, the buttons of which were heroically holding back his beer belly but little hairy bits of stomach were being exposed all down the centre.

“Please Harford, you are making a scene!” wailed a slender, frantic woman in his wake. “It was just a beer. We can get you another one!”

Harford leaned forward and poked his finger right into Sarah’s chest, just above her collarbone. “The little punk will buy me a new one” he declared. “And apologise to me for being so rude!”

“I am so sorry about this” his companion told them, trying to pull back his large arm with little success. “He really does get a bit angry when he drinks”

“Get off me, Belinda!” Harford shouted and flung the woman violently from him. She screamed and spun away, her high heeled shoes slipping out from under her as she hit the nearby railings and toppled over.

Eric reacted quickly and grabbed the woman’s arms, bracing himself against the railing as she dangled over the open space. His arms locked solid and he began to carefully lift the terrified woman to safety.

“You’re an Ass” Sarah told Harford and went to help Eric when a big hand lay on her shoulder and pushed her backwards. Her back slammed into the railing and for a moment it looked like she was going to go over the side as well. Then she righted herself and glared angrily at the big drunk.

“Eric, are you Okay for a moment?” she called out, not taking her eyes off the man before her.

“I’m good” he replied as he helped Belinda get her legs back over the railing. “How are you?”

“I’m feeling great” she declared and charged at Harford. He had a moment where he went from angry to surprised then Sarah hit him in his big stomach, delivering all her body mass behind the blow just like Eric taught them in his Combat classes.

Harford “oofed” painfully but managed to get one meaty paw on her left arm before she could spin away. She turned the momentum into a roll and braced her girlish hip against the massive belly of her opponent. With a terrified yell, Harford found himself flying in an arc and slamming down heavily on the hard tiled floor.

The whole walkway shook as he landed then a kind of silence descended.

“Still good?” Eric called to her as Belinda adjusted her skirt and put her hair back in place.

“Great!” Sarah replied and walked over to join him. Harford groaned from where he lay on the floor and looked rather green in the face.

“You forgot the Number One Rule” Eric chastised her. “Always run away from a fight if you can”

“Yeah, but you had your hands full with that lady” Sarah countered. “I couldn’t leave your back unprotected. That would violate the Number One Rule of my gang”

“We protect our friends at all costs?” Eric teased her.

“Something like that” she agreed.

They decided they had better move off before the Tower Security guards turned up. Before they left, Eric passed a Twenty Panda note to Belinda.

“Please accept our apologies for the spilled drink. This should cover the cost”

“Thank you” Belinda answered. “But he has had enough. So have I for that matter”

She pocketed the note and walked away in the opposite direction, leaving Harford alone and groaning feebly when the Security team found him.

=====

The Racing committee had been allocated a suite of adjoining offices in the lower levels of the Tower, one of which was being used as a Doping test room. Sofia, Fiona and the two race officials were in there with a medical technician to administer the blood and urine sampling.

“This is not right!” Fiona declared loudly. “Miss Abrams has not done anything against the rules. In fact she is a hero, so how dare you treat her like this!”

“Calm down, Fi-Fi!” Sofia gently pleaded. “This is all part of the normal process in any sport. I already agreed to these kinds of tests when I signed up for the event”

The race officials were as far from Fiona as the room allowed, casting anxious glances at the tall and muscled woman. Sofia was surprised they had not called in their own Security team to drag the woman away, but she guessed they were trying to keep the fuss to a minimum. Even she knew the events of the race would be world-wide news and the Race committee wanted to be seen to treat her as kindly as possible.

“May I ask who registered the complaint?” Sofia asked the two officials. They exchanged a guilty look and the bigger one, the Northern Bloc representative, admitted it was Bhartok. He claimed she had deliberately bumped him with her air barrier, which is why he had placed only sixth in the final results.

Sofia laughed aloud, catching the officials and Fiona by surprise.

“What a way to end my racing career!” she said still laughing. “I could probably have him disqualified because the race cameras are bound to show what really happened” She continued to snicker to herself, only pausing for a half-hearted “Ow” when the blood samples were drawn. The med-tech apologised and asked her to stop wriggling about, so she finally managed to subside into silence.

“Why is your racing career over, So-So?” Fiona managed to ask at last. “One disqualification in a race shouldn’t be enough to do that, should it?”

“The race results, even if the complaint against Miss Abrams was upheld, would not be the cause” the female race official told Fiona with her cultured accent. “It is highly likely your friend has achieved Grade Four status with her Ability”

“That’s wonderful So-So!” Fiona exclaimed, showing far more excitement than the now subdued looking Sofia. “Why is that a bad thing?” she added, seeing her friend’s expression.

“They don’t have a Grade Four category for any of the Levitator events” Sofia explained. “Grade Threes are the highest level of competition and if I really am a Grade Four now there is no-one else to race against”

“Why?” was all Fiona demanded.

Sofia gave her a crooked smile. “There just aren’t that many of us” she replied. “The few Levitators I know of who all reached that Grade disappeared from public view. Rumour has it that their governments snatch them all up for research or clandestine spy work”

“Those are all unfounded stories!” asserted the Northern Bloc official with pompous assurance but even Fiona could tell he didn’t believe that himself.

Further discussion on the subject was ended by the office door unlocking and sliding open by itself. Jericho-Two stood on the other side, flanked by four of his grey armoured personal Guards with rifles held across their chests.

“These are private rooms!” insisted the male official, turning and standing in front of the Avatar. “How did you unlock that door anyway? They are code-locked by the Race committee”

Jericho-Two regarded him coldly through his dark glasses.

“This Tower and everything inside of it belongs to Archimedes” he said without emotion. “I am his Avatar so I can go wherever I wish”

Both officials blanched and the man backed away, allowing Jericho-Two to enter.

“My apologies, Mr Jericho” he stuttered. “I did not recognise you”

Jericho-Two did not reply to him, simply stepping into the impromptu medical lab and addressing Sofia directly.

“Please come with me, Miss Abrams” he demanded firmly. “You do not need to submit to this treatment”

“It’s fine, Jericho” Sofia replied. “We are all done here anyway”. She rolled the sleeve of her flight suit down and collected her Smart Goggles. “Come on Fi-Fi, I want to check on the kids” With that she nodded to the two cowed officials and walked from the room, followed by Fiona who gave them both a scowl.

Jericho-Two examined the med-tech and two officials for a moment, letting them feel the considerable weight of his regard.

“Send all the test results to my office” he instructed them and the three of them nodded immediate agreement. That done, he turned away and stalked from the room. Behind him the door automatically slid closed and locked itself once more.

A short distance down the corridor, Sofia and Fiona stood with the four Guards. Sofia gave Jericho a wry smile as he approached them and stepped forward to lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you for coming to my rescue” she told him. “It was a bit late and completely unnecessary but I appreciate the sentiment”

“You are welcome, Sofia” he replied, completely missing the second half of her statement.

“Eric and him really are very similar, aren’t they” observed Fiona and that got a small laugh from her friend.

“Yes they are” Sofia agreed.

=====

Back in the Doping room, the med-tech and the two race officials looked at each other.

“So it really does happen, doesn’t it?” gasped the female official.

“I can’t believe they grabbed her so quickly!” said the med-tech. “She only just became a Grade Four!”

“It was like that with one of the Levitators I knew back in the States” drawled the male official. “Day after she tested as a Four she vanished. Last rumour I heard was she flew spy missions over the Eastern Bloc in a stealth suit!”

“Poor woman!” said the Oxford educated official. “And just when everyone saw her save that little child! She deserved to be a hero!”

“I doubt we’ll ever hear of her again” said the med-tech and finished labelling the samples. She held up one of the small vials of blood before sealing it in the chiller box.

“Such a shame, as she was so pretty” she added.

“Bit too skinny for my tastes” added the male official.

=====

The man was quite ordinary looking, with short trimmed dark hair under his white cap and a bland, unremarkable face. He had no beard or moustache, no earrings or tattoos, in fact nothing that made him stand out in any way at all.

It was a look he had spent years refining and took great care to be as unnoticeable as possible. The name tag on his chest said Warren Jenks, pinned to his blue worker coveralls with the calm assurance that told everyone he was just another maintenance technician. One of hundreds on duty today and not unusual or suspicious to be seen accessing the environmental controls for this sector of the Tower.

His stolen smart key opened the maintenance door instantly, a small narrow one that said “Authorised Personnel Only” on the outside. The man slipped inside and pulled it closed behind him with easy confidence as if he really belonged there. He took a datapad from his pocket and brought up the plans for the air conditioning system for this sector, one filled with eateries, restaurants and bars.

The datapad showed him the access panel he needed and he quickly opened it, finding the inlet valves for the air sanitiser mix. This was injected as an aerosol into the temperature controlled air to prevent any mould or dangerous bugs being spread throughout this part of the Tower. Similar stations were spread all through the vast Tower complex and for all he knew other agents were performing the same task as he was right now.

To the man currently known as Warren Jenks that did not matter. All he cared about was completing his own mission. He rolled up his left sleeve to expose the well-crafted cybernetic arm that lay beneath the coverall. With a mental command the forearm split down the centre, the two outer halves of realistic skin parting to reveal a central storage compartment.

He had used it many times to ferry illegal or dangerous goods from one country to another. Today his arm held a long metal gas cylinder that filled the storage space. It was unmarked and he had no idea what the cylinder contained. That was not his concern, the only instructions he had been given was to make sure he was out of the vicinity before the contents were released.

Carefully he lifted the cylinder out of his arm with his steady right hand and closed his forearm compartment. Using both hands he linked the cylinder into the inlet valve that his datapad had indicated and set the small timer on the side. Assuming everything went to plan he had thirty minutes to get as far from here as possible.

Jenks closed the access panel and walked quickly back to the entry door. It opened instantly and he was soon amongst the many civilians wandering about the Tower, all enjoying an exciting day of races, food and drinking.

He allowed himself a small smile, wondering exactly how exciting their day was going to become once the cylinder delivered its contents. For a brief moment he considered taking up an observation point some distance away, just to see what was going to happen.

It lasted only a moment, as the man knew it was not going to be anything good. He was far too much of a mercenary to risk his own life out of idle curiosity. His footsteps never paused as he swiftly followed his route out of the Tower and away from the calamity to come.