Boy X (24 page)

‘And you see how the monkeys watch him? And
Kronos
. . .' Pierce squinted at Ash, now unable to hide his excitement. ‘
Kronos
doesn't affect him because it's a part of him. It's—' Pierce waggled his fingers, searching for the right words. ‘It was Type Twenty-four. I knew that was the one – that's why I tried it on myself – but I was so stupid. It had to be someone who was still developing. A child. It had to be a child.' Eyes alive with pride and self-importance, he was
like an excitable boy who had been keeping a marvellous secret he was finally allowed to reveal. ‘I was so angry when it didn't work. Angry with you.' He pointed right in Ash's face.

‘Pierce, if you don't start making sense in the next ten seconds, I'm going to let Winter cut your throat just for the hell of it.'

‘Yes. Yes. Of course.' Pierce came closer to Ash. ‘But it's complicated.'

‘
Un
-complicate it.'

‘Type Twenty-four is a performance enhancer. From
them
.' Pierce gestured towards the night, not noticing the way the shapes shifted and the branches swayed. ‘Adaptable, strong, intelligent. They have genetic markers that shouldn't be there; markers I would expect to find in other animals. Feline, serpentine, pteropine, even tardigrade – a virtually indestructible micro-animal.'

Pierce took off his glasses and wiped them on the front of his shirt. ‘Someone did something on this island during the war; something way ahead of their time. The animals were genetically altered. A new kind of evolution began before BioMesa ever arrived, and it continued unchecked. Everything here became something
more
. Especially them.' He waved his hand at the treetops again. ‘They are strong, intelligent, hyper-aware, with senses more usually seen in other species. Can you imagine a
human being
with those abilities? An
evolved
human. Can you even begin to imagine how this kind of science could be developed? Imagine' – he waggled his fingers again – ‘having bones that could
heal in days; an athlete with enhanced strength; a soldier who is unaffected by extreme temperatures, who can run for miles without ever tiring, whose eyes will never fail. I thought I had harnessed the essence of what makes them different, and I gave it to this boy many years ago, but it didn't work. He was such a disappointment, but now he's back here and something . . .' He shook his head. ‘Something must have triggered it. Microbes. Something in the air, the water . . . I need to investigate further, but it explains why he slept for so long. He was changing.
Becoming.
'

‘You're telling me you know this boy? You experimented on him?' Cain was trying to make sense of what Pierce was telling her. ‘Did his mother know?'

‘Of course not. She's too narrow-minded; she would never have agreed.'

‘But she found out.' Ash allowed his hatred to rise to the surface and burn stronger. All his life he had been afraid of this man without even knowing it. His was the voice in the darkness. But Ash wasn't afraid now. Pierce was just a potbellied scientist in a scruffy suit, while Ash was something else. Something
enhanced
. ‘She found out and she stopped you.'

‘Stopped me? She
ruined
me, and took you away. But look at you now. Stronger and faster.' He turned to Cain. ‘Don't you see how valuable this is?
Kronos
doesn't matter any more. We don't need this primitive beast.' He kicked the side of the crate, making the monkey inside grunt. ‘Not when we have this boy.
Kronos
is child's play in comparison. This boy is priceless – the most significant scientific
breakthrough since . . .
ever
. I have to know how much stronger and faster he will become. I can reproduce Type Twenty-four and—'

‘Heads up.' The words came from somewhere behind him. ‘It's me, Petersen. Look what I found.'

Cain whipped around. ‘Where's Young?'

‘Checking for others.'

Ash risked a look back and saw the orange-haired soldier called Petersen emerge from the jungle. But he was not alone. Walking in front of him, with her fingers laced together over her head, was Isabel.

‘Another one?' Hulk said. ‘This some kind of school trip? How many
more
kids are out there?'

‘None,' Petersen replied. ‘It's clear.' In his left hand he was carrying Thorn's survival pack. ‘She had this.' He hefted it to Cain, who caught it one-handed and held it up for inspection. When she had looked it over, she came so close to Pierce that their noses were almost touching. She fixed him with her icy-blue eyes. ‘We haven't finished. I'm coming back to you.' Then she turned to Ash and showed him the pack. ‘This belongs to Thorn. Why is he helping you?'

But his mouth was dry and he couldn't speak. Isabel had been their best chance of disabling the boat and calling for help, but now that chance was gone.

‘Thorn is not helping us,' Isabel answered for him. ‘We took it from him.'

‘Is that so?' Cain put the pack over her shoulder. ‘And what else did you take from him?'

Petersen dug Isabel's handset from his pocket. ‘She had this but it looks dead. I can't figure out how to turn it on.'

Cain took it from him. ‘Some kind of smartphone.' She studied it for a moment, then looked at Isabel. ‘What is this?'

‘My phone.'

Ash focused his thoughts, trying to think of a way to overcome Cain and the others. If only he could get the monkeys to—

Isabel glanced sideways at him and looked up twice in quick succession as if she wanted him to see something.

When Ash followed her line of sight, he saw that her fingers were no longer tightly laced together behind her head. She had separated her hands and was holding three fingers out straight.

What is that? Three what? Three people?

‘I've never seen a phone like this,' Cain said. ‘Is this some kind of messaging device? Have you been messaging someone?'

Isabel didn't show any fear. ‘No. There's no signal.'

‘Are you in contact with Thorn?' Cain demanded.

‘No.' Isabel lowered her head as if she was looking at the ground, but she cast a sideways glance at Ash once more and widened her eyes in warning. She drew one of the fingers back into her fist so now there were only two.

What did it mean? Two what?

‘If I find out you're lying to me . . .' Cain warned.

‘I'm not.'

Cain looked at the handset again, searching for a way to
switch it on. She pressed the button on top, but the screen remained blank.

‘It's dead.' Isabel's expression gave nothing away.

‘I've had enough of this.' Cain was losing her icy calm. ‘Switch the damn thing on. Right now.'

‘It's dead. I told you.' Isabel drew another finger back into her fist.

One left. It's a countdown. One minute left until what?

Cain snatched one of Isabel's arms and, for a moment, Ash thought she must have seen the signal. But then she turned Isabel's hand over and slapped the handset into it before drawing a knife from the sheath across her chest. ‘Switch it on.'

Isabel stared Cain right in the eye as if she wasn't afraid of her at all. She looked at her for a few long seconds, then the handset beeped twice.

That wasn't just monkeys throwing fruit
, Ash thought.
Isabel was throwing HEX13. She's rigged the camp!

In that instant, a loud
KA-BOOM!
echoed in the jungle, accompanied by a blinding white flash.

04 hrs and 31 mins until Shut-Down

A
surge of energy blasted through the camp, bringing a cloud of stinging debris. Ash reeled like a drunk, blinking hard in confusion, but the effect wasn't as intense as it had been in the BioSphere. His body had already adapted to protect itself, and by the time the second explosion split the night, he had recovered enough to see what was happening.

In the canopy, the howler monkeys had whipped into a frenzy of sound and movement. They growled and grunted, leaping from branch to branch. A shower of broken sticks and unripe fruit rained down like a storm and they bared their teeth, screaming at the men below.

Soldiers blindly fired into the forest.
Brrratatat!
Bullets
found their mark, slamming into the animals, knocking them from their perches, sending the others wild. The screaming rose in pitch as they encircled the camp like an attacking army.

Still disorientated, Ash turned his attention to Pierce, standing just a few metres away. He steadied himself, then moved towards him as another detonation tore through the trees. Several monkeys were caught by the explosion, ripped from the forest and propelled into the camp. Ash stumbled in the shock wave but kept going as a series of hollow pops, like balloons bursting, came from the forest. White smoke filled the air and shapes moved in the haze as the howlers began to descend from the trees.

Brrratatat!

‘STOP FIRING!' Cain ordered. ‘CHECK YOUR TARGETS!'

‘Get them away from me!' Pierce's voice came out of the smoke.

Ash jogged through the fog towards the voice. He was almost on Pierce now. But something else was coming too; low muscular shadows were closing in like demons.

The monkeys wouldn't harm him, though. He was sure of it. They were here to protect him. He could walk past them, take the messenger bag, and they wouldn't do a thing to hurt him. He had nothing to be afraid of. But as he took another step towards Pierce, surrounded by chaos, fingers grabbed at the back of his shirt.

Ash spun round, putting up his hands, ready to fight, but Isabel barrelled into him, yelling in his face. ‘Get down!
Flashbang!'

Without time to think about it, Ash let Isabel push him towards the fallen log, shoving him into the place where the old tree met the ground. He clamped his hands over his ears as Isabel jammed herself in beside him, then a fraction of a second later a deafening
BANG!
thundered in his head and a mind-numbing, intense light flashed across the clearing.

It was as if the sun had burnt itself out right there in the camp. Even with his eyes closed and his face buried in the nook of a fallen tree, Ash's whole brain lit up. Cain and Pierce and every other living thing nearby would have been blinded by the flashbang.

Once it was over, Ash opened his eyes and got to his feet. The camp was a mess, debris scattered all over, smoke wafting in from the trees. The lid of the wooden crate was splintered, but the large howler that had tried to smash its way out had been caught in the crossfire and was slumped, half in, half out, its lifeless arms trailing on the ground. Many other monkeys – more than Ash could count – sat huddled and afraid, blinking, trying to see. They growled and bared their teeth at the slightest noise. Cain was crouched in the same place Ash had last seen her, both hands covering her eyes. Winter was on the ground, doubled up in pain, and Petersen was lying dead. Around him, the clearing was littered with the corpses of howler monkeys.

Pierce was writhing in agony, holding his hands to his face.

‘Quick!' Isabel grabbed Ash's arm. ‘There's another soldier out there.' Her voice sounded quiet and distant even though she was shouting.

‘Stay here.' Still woozy but recovering quickly, Ash stumbled back into the camp.

Cain was kneeling now, with her head up and the stock of her rifle pulled tight against her shoulder. Her hearing was beginning to return, but Ash could tell she was still blind.

‘Thorn?' she was saying. ‘We didn't want to leave you in there, but there was no choice. Everything was going wrong and we had to get out.'

Some of the monkeys were coming to their senses now. They turned their heads, picking up the voices. Some leapt to their feet and stood on all fours, muscles rippling beneath their fur. They were strong and adaptive; it wouldn't be long before they were on the attack once more.

Ash moved out of Cain's line of sight and snatched up a rock, throwing it over her head to land close to Petersen's body. She spun round. ‘Thorn?'

While she was facing away from him, Ash picked up Thorn's survival pack. He slung it over his shoulder and ran to Pierce, grabbing his knife from the forest floor beside him and slipping the blade under the strap of his messenger bag.

‘Please.' Pierce became still and put out his hands as he looked up without seeing anything. His eyes were open, but they moved from side to side as if he were searching for something, and Ash knew the flashbang had blinded him.

‘Please, Thorn. Please. We
had
to leave you.'

Cain whipped round again, her weapon pointing towards them. ‘Thorn? What are you doing?'

Ash put the point of the blade against Pierce's chest, letting him feel it digging in.

‘Don't do this.' The pitch of Pierce's voice heightened as his throat constricted and panic gripped him. The stink of burnt rubber flooded from every pore, mixing with the metallic smell that hung in the smoke. ‘Don't kill me. Cain, don't let him kill me.'