Armageddon Page 2

  Doug attached the spreadsheet of nonsense numbers to the message in case there were any clues in it. He was about to hit SEND when he remembered that kGram messenger ran on the Supply Chain encryption network, which was owned by Kellin Plowman. Doug had been warned not to trust anyone in Kelton. But Plowman had been injured by Viper’s thieves, hadn’t he? That was how he had ended up at the hospital. He was one of the good guys . . . right?

  There was no time to choose another messaging service. Doug clicked SEND, and then shut down the computer. If the guards looked at the browser history, they might see kGram in the list, but they wouldn’t be able to log in. They wouldn’t know who he had contacted.

  The door burst open behind him.

  Doug swivelled around in the chair and put his hands up, surrendering.

  Then he screamed.

  The thing in the doorway was not a person. It was a four-legged robot, about the size of a large dog. Six eyes stared at Doug from behind glass lenses. Plates of gunmetal grey armour gleamed in the red lights of the control room. Instead of a mouth, a long spike protruded from the robot’s face, like the proboscis of a mosquito.

  This was the automatic security system.

  Doug scrambled out of the chair and backed away into the corner. The robot scuttled towards him, joints clicking and whirring. He snatched up the steel bed leg and flung it at the robot’s head.

  Clang! The robot didn’t even seem to notice. It levelled its mouth-spike at Doug, and a transparent red fluid squirted out the end. Doug raised his arms to protect his face. The fluid covered his hands and tingled on his skin, like a prawn cracker dissolving on the tongue. It smelled artificially sweet. Medical. Doug wiped his hands on his shirt, but the sticky stuff wouldn’t come off. He was getting dizzy.

  ‘Get away from me!’ he shrieked. But the robot was already reaching for him with a mechanical claw. Doug felt like he was falling into a black hole, faster and faster, so fast that he was getting stretched. His hands and feet felt a long way from his head, on the ends of long, floppy limbs.

  Poison, he thought.

  An electrified needle extended from the robot’s claw. When it touched him there was a crackling sound. Doug felt all his limbs go rigid as the voltage hit him. Then the whole world went dark.

  ENEMY WITHIN

  ‘Where have you been?’ Dad demanded.

  Jarli paused on his way in the door. He wasn’t late—he could smell dinner cooking in the kitchen.

  ‘Out,’ he said. ‘With a friend.’

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘Someone I met at the Robattle.’ Jarli hoped this wouldn’t set off his Truth app. He wasn’t technically lying, but he did hope his father would think he was talking about a teenager. The app might pick up on his anxiety, or his intentionally vague phrasing.

  He had intended to be completely honest with his parents about where he had been, and who he had been with. But something in Dad’s tone made him think that wasn’t a good idea.

  ‘I am your father,’ Dad snapped. ‘I—’

  ‘I’m aware,’ Jarli said.

  His new phone beeped. LIE The app wasn’t supposed to react to sarcasm—maybe it wasn’t interacting well with the updated operating system.

  ‘I want to know where you are at all times,’ Dad said. ‘Is that clear?’

  Jarli hesitated. If he made a promise he knew he couldn’t keep, the app would call him out on it.

  ‘Why?’ he asked instead.

  Dad snatched the backpack out of Jarli’s hands and headed for the kitchen.

  ‘Hey!’ Jarli tried to grab it back, but Dad held it out of reach. Most old people started to shrink, but if anything, Dad seemed to be getting taller.

  He unzipped Jarli’s backpack and started rummaging through it. Jarli was aghast. Dad had never acted like this before.

  Dad pulled a tangle of charger cables out of the bag. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘That’s my stuff,’ Jarli shouted. ‘Give it back!’

  Ignoring him, Dad dumped the cables on the kitchen floor and kept digging through the bag. He tossed out a comic book, a banana and a broken wheel from Doug’s robot, which Jarli had been carrying around since Doug died. Jarli flinched as the wheel clattered against the floor tiles.

  Next Dad pulled out an envelope. Jarli held his breath. He had already opened the letter—it was an offer for early admission to a university in the city. It was a great opportunity, but he needed to stay in Kelton to protect his friends and family from Viper. He hadn’t told his parents about the offer in case they pressured him to take it.

  Dad discarded the envelope and started leafing through Jarli’s notebook instead, looking at the ideas that Jarli had sketched out for future versions of his app.

  ‘What does all this mean?’ Dad muttered to himself.

  With that, Jarli’s rage faded. Since the car crash, Dad had been having problems with his memory. Dr Vorham had told Mum that this was a normal reaction to trauma. Now Dad—a former IT professional—didn’t even seem to recognise Python, the popular programming language Jarli had written his code in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ Jarli said. ‘I should have told you where I was going.’

  Dad glared at him suspiciously.

  Jarli gestured at the notebook. ‘Those are just ideas for new features in my app,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to show you what they mean?’

  ‘No.’ Dad thrust the notebook back at Jarli.

  Kirstie, Jarli’s little sister, walked in. She went past the sizzling wok and opened the fridge without even glancing at Jarli or Dad. She had braided her hair and was wearing her favourite sparkly T-shirt.

  ‘What are you two chuckleheads arguing about?’ she asked, searching the fridge.

  ‘Nothing,’ Jarli and Dad both said at the same moment. Jarli’s phone, Kirstie’s phone and Dad’s phone all beeped. LIE

  Kirstie laughed and munched on a piece of parmesan. ‘Good talk.’ She turned to leave the room.

  ‘Why are you all dressed up?’ Dad asked suspiciously.

  ‘I’m doing a video interview for an alien blog.’

  Jarli groaned. His sister was obsessed with alien conspiracy theories, and she had a bad habit of dragging other people into them. ‘You’re not going to tell anyone you were abducted by aliens, are you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Kirstie looked offended. ‘I’m going to read the testimony of someone who was. The actual abductees can’t go on camera in case the government tracks them down. There’s a total conspiracy, you know.’

  Normally Dad would try to talk Kirstie out of something like this. But today he just said, ‘Whatever. Can you give Jarli and I some privacy?’

  Kirstie looked disappointed. She loved riling Dad up, but today he hadn’t taken the bait. ‘OK. I’ll be off then. Video chatting to strangers on the internet.’

  When Dad didn’t react to that, she huffed and stalked back to her room.

  ‘Are we clear?’ Dad said.

  ‘Clear on what?’ Jarli asked.

  ‘From now on, you tell me exactly where you’re going.’ Dad was still holding the backpack out of reach, like a school bully. ‘And who you’re going with.’

  Jarli sighed. ‘Sure, Dad. I can do that.’

  Dad handed him the bag. Jarli stuffed his things back inside, then escaped into his bedroom and closed the door. A minute later he heard Dad move away towards the lounge room.

  Jarli sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. Dad’s weirdness was only getting worse. And it seemed like there was nothing Jarli could do to fix it.

  NO DEMANDS

  When Detective Zee Arno looked through the peephole, she was horrified to see Dana Reynolds on her verandah. It was after dark, and the journalist had no camera crew, but she looked like she was here on business. Her glossy chestnut hair was sprayed to perfection, and she wore expensive, camera-ready clothes.

  Arno unlocked the door and opened it a crack. ‘How did you find out where I live?’

  Reynolds smiled, revealing chemically-whitened teeth. ‘I never reveal a source. Can I come in?’

  Reynolds was supposed to be long gone. She had come to Kelton to interview that Truth-app kid, Jarli Durras. But she had stayed to investigate the shadowy criminal known as Viper—or so she said.

  Detective Arno didn’t like the media at the best of times. She especially didn’t like it when they investigated the same cases as the police, contaminating evidence and interfering with witnesses. Worst of all were the journalists like Reynolds, who always seemed to know way too much. It was almost suspicious, how quickly Reynolds showed up whenever Viper did anything.

  ‘It’s about Viper,’ Reynolds added, as though she could read Arno’s mind.

  ‘Talk to me at the station,’ Arno said. ‘During business hours.’ She started to close the door.

  ‘It can’t wait,’ Reynolds said. ‘Trust me, you’ll be summoned to the station shortly anyway.’

  Swallowing her dread, Arno unhooked the chain. ‘Fine. Come in.’

  Reynolds was tall, and wore heels—she had to lower her head to get through the front door of the old house. She looked around with shameless curiosity as soon as she was inside, taking in the photographs and medals on the walls. ‘You were in the army?’ she asked.

  ‘Navy,’ Arno corrected. ‘Before I joined the police force.’ She resisted the urge to offer Reynolds a tea or coffee. ‘I thought you were investigating the defence minister?’

  Reynolds waved a hand. ‘I was. But I can’t find any sources willing to go on the record about him. Anyway, a better story fell into my lap. Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arno said uneasily.

  ‘Good. I just received a message,’ Reynolds said. ‘From Viper.’

  ‘What? What kind of message?’ Arno was already on high alert.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Reynolds tapped her phone screen, and brought up a video. She hit PLAY.

  The man on the screen wore a broad-brimmed black hat, so most of his face was in shadow, but hideous BURNS covered the rest of it. His eyes, unblinking, were sunk deep within the pink scar tissue. Behind him was a silver canister. The rest of the background was invisible in the darkness, but when he spoke, it sounded like he was in a small room.

  ‘At noon tomorrow, the town of Kelton will become uninhabitable.’ The man’s voice was a distorted growl. The microphone hissed in the pauses between words. ‘Everyone has until then to leave.’

  Arno shot a glance at Reynolds. The journalist’s face was unreadable.

  ‘This is not a threat,’ Viper continued. ‘I have no demands. This is a statement of fact. Leave . . . or die.’

  The video went dark.

  Reynolds said, ‘That canister in the background looks a lot like the vacuum flask stolen from the Kelton Research Hospital two weeks ago. The one that contained an untreatable strain of botulism H, a toxin created by the botulinum bacteria. My producer tells me that less than one millionth of a gram can be fatal. In short, Viper appears to possess a biological weapon capable of poisoning not only everyone in Kelton, but the entire human race. So . . .’ She pulled a microphone out of her bag and pointed it at Arno. ‘Would you care to comment?’

  CELL MATES

  Doug woke up on the floor. When he tried to sit up, he was hit by a wave of nausea. He barely rolled over in time to vomit on the concrete.

  Shaking, he wiped his chin and looked around. The guards had moved him to a different cell. Like his previous cell, it had concrete walls, but instead of a door, there were cage bars. A camera watched him from outside. He would have no privacy anymore. And this time there was no bed to disassemble. Just a mattress on the floor.

  Even if Doug somehow escaped from his cell again, he didn’t know how he’d get past the robot. Doug’s hobby was designing small robots, submitting the designs for awards, and battling other bots in competitions. But he’d never seen anything as advanced as that terrifying mechanical guard.

  Looking through the bars, Doug could see more cells on the other side of the corridor. All empty.

  ‘Hello?’ he called, not really expecting a reply. His voice echoed, thin and weak.

  ‘Hello,’ someone said.

  Doug jolted. The voice had come from quite close by. Maybe the cell next to his.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked.

  A cough. ‘My name’s Glen.’

  Doug wished he had his phone, so Jarli’s app would tell him whether that was true. ‘I’m Doug,’ he said. ‘Are you a prisoner?’

  ‘That’s right. For three months and eight days now.’

  ‘Is it just us here?’

  ‘In this section, yes,’ Glen said. ‘I used to be somewhere else, where there were more people. They moved me here after I tried to escape.’

  ‘Huh. Me too.’

  ‘How old are you, Doug?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ Doug lied. It didn’t feel safe to admit his real age.

  There was no beep from the adjacent cell. Glen didn’t have a phone either. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘My son has a friend named Doug. I thought it might be you.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Doug asked.

  ‘Have you heard of Throwaway?’ Glen replied. ‘It was on the news a while back, according to some of the other captives.’

  Doug knew what Glen was talking about. The Minister for Defence, Aaron Fisher, had used a secret prison in Kelton—nicknamed Throwaway—to covertly detain kids who knew things that could embarrass the government. Doug, Jarli, Anya and Bess had exposed the truth, but the minister had blamed his deputy and managed to keep his job.

  ‘I thought that place got closed down,’ Doug said.

  ‘Closed down, but not demolished. Now someone else is using it to make people disappear.’

  Viper, Doug thought.

  ‘I’m guessing that’s where we are, anyway,’ Glen continued. ‘I don’t think we’ve left Kelton, and where else in this town could you find a building like this?’

  ‘And you’ve been here the whole time?’

  ‘No. I was in a basement somewhere, first. Then this place, about six weeks ago.’ Glen’s voice broke. ‘I . . . I miss my wife, and our children. I’m not even sure they know I’m alive. The guards won’t tell me anything.’

  Doug pushed his arm between the bars which made up the door. He reached for the neighbouring cell. After a moment, he felt a large, strong hand clutch his. It was unsettling, to hear such a big man so scared.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Doug said. ‘We’re going to get out of here. I managed to get out of my cell for a while. Before they caught me, I sent a message to a friend. Help is coming.’

  ‘Oh. That’s good.’ There was a note of forced optimism in Glen’s voice.

  ‘Your son,’ Doug said. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Jarli,’ Glen said. ‘My daughter is Kirstie.’

  Doug snatched his hand back as though he’d been bitten by a snake.

  ‘What?’ Glen asked.

  Doug’s mind was racing. If this was Glen Durras, Jarli’s dad, and he’d been captured more than three months ago . . .

  Then who was the man living at Jarli’s house?

  MASS PANIC

  Jarli’s phone dinged. A message from Bess:

  Bess had been Jarli’s best friend since they were little. She was a punky girl with a love of classic novels, a hatred of sport and a knack for charming strangers into doing whatever she wanted. She had been gloomy since Doug’s death—she blamed herself—but Jarli had never heard her admit she was afraid. If Bess was scared, then Jarli was, too.

  He sat down on his bed and tapped the link. A man with a black hat and a scarred face appeared on his phone screen.

  ‘AT NOON TOMORROW, THE TOWN OF KELTON WILL BECOME UNINHABITABLE. EVERYONE HAS UNTIL THEN TO LEAVE. THIS IS NOT A THREAT. I HAVE NO DEMANDS. THIS IS A STATEMENT OF FACT. LEAVE . . . OR DIE.’

  By the time the video was over, Jarli felt sick. He realised he was trembling. He’d witnessed the damage Viper’s plans had done to the town. He’d heard his distorted voice. Both Eaton and Scanner—an undercover cop in Viper’s organisation—had mentioned rumours about his appearance. But he’d never actually seen Viper. Seeing his face made it real.

  Jarli did a quick web search. Maybe someone had already proven the video was a hoax.

  Nope. Dana Reynolds had been the first to upload the video, and she was never wrong when it came to Viper. Since then, other news outlets had picked up the story. The headlines got worse and worse:

  As Jarli watched, another headline popped up.

  On social media, hysterical posts and comments were multiplying.

  Jarli’s phone buzzed in his hand, and he jumped. Bess was calling.

  He answered. ‘Bess. I just watched the video.’

  ‘So you’re leaving, right?’ Bess sounded out of breath. ‘Me and Mum have almost finished packing the car. We’ll be gone in an hour. But you’ll be right behind us, won’t you?’

  ‘Um, hang on.’ Jarli was still trying to wrap his brain around the initial threat. He checked his smart-watch.

  ‘A lot could happen between now and noon tomorrow,’ he said hopefully. ‘The police could catch Viper, or the whole thing could turn out to be a hoax. Are you sure you want to leave right now?’

  ‘Jarli. Listen to me.’ Bess’s voice was urgent. ‘There are only two roads out of Kelton. Over the next fourteen hours, a thousand panicked people are going to try to take all their stuff out of town on those roads. It would only take two traffic accidents to trap everyone here. We have to get out before it’s too late. Please, please tell me you’re coming.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Jarli said. ‘Let me tell Mum and Dad what’s going on.’

  He walked into the kitchen to find them already arguing.

  ‘I’ve lived here my whole life,’ Mum was saying, tears in her eyes. ‘Your family has been here since before it was even a town. Now you’re telling me you want to leave?’

  Dad’s face darkened with frustration. ‘Do you know what “uninhabitable” means?’ he demanded. ‘If you stay here, you and your children—’