Chapter 26, Part A – Lady Penelope
Do you know what sucks? Being shoved in a car for two hours – which I'm adapted to, as you might guess – but you finally get that thing you've been hoping for when it comes to being in the car – and for me that's sitting in the front for once. But, after finding a box of evidence and in a hole in the floor and a suspicion that the only useful thing in there, among guns and bombs and whatnot, the only useful thing was a little locket. And all because of this suspicion I was shoved into the back. Again. Sure, in FAB1 I didn't get the slightest choice, but now I did, it did sort of suck. But, hey, we had more things to focus on.
We finally pulled up at an abandoned field in Cornwall, which used to be a farm called Efford Down Stables, but shut down all the way back in 2014 or sometime near that. Then they built a warehouse to produce adhesives. And then that got shut down, and now this was linked to Kayo's shooting. Well, if the miniscule chance was actually right. There was a piece of paper inside a locket with numbers that were probably random that were also simple coordinates, and the production code for the locket was the same as the area code. Well, these were the new versions of both area codes and coordinates – the ones originally designed by the French (I think it was the French anyway) who created a new design of coordinates and area code so that their base couldn't be bombed or nuked. But, if Kayo and Lila were right, this would somewhat prove as a link towards what actually happened on the night Kayo decided it'd be a brilliant idea to piss somebody off so much that they felt the need to shoot her.
"So I keep getting this deserted-as-fuck vibe today for all of the three warehouses we've so far visited. Anybody else feeling it?" Lila joked, locking up the GDF Jeep, which was one of the 25 left of this model that wasn't scrap. I could see why there wasn't any more than 25 left – we may as well be driving this warehouse with the quality of it. Unlucky Lila, to be assigned with such a rust-bucket. Thank God she still had her Clio and her new Vauxhall Tundra-Ayres. But these cars were loud, and would no doubt wake up Chris, Lila's son, and then her secret getaway would've been busted. And then there was Kayo and me, who went to the other extreme and didn't tell anyone – we both just left a note in case anybody woke up and started worrying.
"I'm getting that deserted feeling too," Kayo sighed, walking a few feet ahead of me and Lila, "But let's hope that's a good thing, hey? Might be easier to get evidence if we don't have people on our tails all the time."
"Touché," Lia sighed, jogging to catch up with Kayo. Here's a weird habit Kayo had seemed to develop since she told us about The Hood being her uncle: she would walk at the speed of jogging. Power walking, if you will. Or maybe it was after the shooting? We learnt about her being The Hood's niece one day, next few days we had a break from stuff and gave her a bit of space whilst also trying to make her feel as at home as we could when she wasn't helping the GDF by taking a post on their security system – most of us failed at trying to make her feel at home, unsurprisingly it was Virgil who had to take over that department, and the only way he could think of helping was a pint tub of cookie dough ice cream, a can of Pepsi each and watching Zootropolis and Finding Dory again – and then day after the idiot got herself hospitalised. So we couldn't really tell if these habits were because of the secret she told us or the shooting. So let's assume this happened after the shooting, because I'd probably get murdered for insisting the other possible cause. I sighed, before jogging to catch up with both the girls, who were focusing on busting an electronic locking system, with Lila pressing several tiny buttons and Kayo shoving something that looked like an unfolded paperclip into a grid. Yeah, I'm not the greatest with technology. The only area of technology I'd say I'm good at is biometric scanners – and that's only because the only part of science I liked in my private school was biology, and nowadays microscopes aren't commonly used. Scanning cells and pathogens and biological structures are done with – guess what? – Biometric scanners. But even the biometric scanners at bloody private schools are a bloody nuisance. I feel sorry for people at public schools and academies. And we all learnt at our private school the functions of a biometric scanner and how to fix or alter it. That's the extent of my technology usage. My job was the more social and socially intellectual part of IR crime-related 'jobs' (which effectively means shoving a recorder on my bra or somewhere that won't get checked and recording my conversations for evidence). Kayo dealt with the perhaps more hostile side of the 'jobs'. And let me tell you – they're bloody harder than they look. Cock up once and it's either you that's dead/badly injured or other people in IR who are dead/badly injured. That or left suffering. And I don't think any of the boys understand that. The only ones who have a slight idea is Virgil and John, the perhaps wiser brothers when it comes to the things we deal with. I guess you could count Alan, sort of, because he watches countless kung-fu movies, and constantly kept asking Kayo what she did, so as long as she was being truthful about missions and not giving sarcastic answers to him every time he asked, he may have an idea. I guess Gordon might, too – he occasionally watches the movies with Alan, when he hasn't got a mission and Grandma's scolded him for his pranks, but when he chooses to try and watch a movie Alan keeps pausing it after every five seconds and explaining its name, effects, and other pointless crap that Alan would actually ever use in space or PODS. But that still proved a slight idea.
But the one who's really blind to this whole side is definitely Scott. I mean, yeah, busy with rescues, I get that Scotty, but if you're not going to understand the whole crime side to having a secret business (which I understand might be hard to learn since Jeff never taught the boys in an attempt to keep , at least treat me and Kayo equally over them. Normally, we split missions about 50:50, so I distract or get verbal evidence from the criminal, and Kayo will snoop around and get more concrete evidence and/or shut down said criminal's business (she likes doing that, and she had great fun in shutting down The Hood's businesses, let's say that much). But I think Scott only acknowledges my part as useful. Because whenever I get the chance to do something, nothing bad is ever said to me. Just a rundown. But whenever poor Kayo comes back to the island after doing something even remotely based around this crime and bam! One of two things happen: 1) He will just shout at her before she's even gotten out of Thunderbird S, or 2) He will treat her like she's a two-year-old and be a patronising shit. To be brutally honest, sometimes having a word with her was best. And maybe he was worried about her, I get that, sometimes I'm worried 'bout her too. But I found that every time she went out – that I knew about, anyway – and Scott knew it wasn't perimeter patrol then there would be one of his ever-so-famous words. And this all happened a few months before Jeff's 'accident'. I think I already worked out why this happened – he was taking the stress out with his infamous 'words'. Which probably didn't help Kayo out at all, especially with doing constant downloads on both Tracy Island's and my mansion's security system. I tried to learn to lighten her load, but quite frankly I'm not good at security systems. As said, biometric scanners are the only things I'm good at. So she had two separate security systems that must remain separate in order for them to work (which meant doing everything she did for one security system twice), only to have somebody who was trying to stop what she was happy doing, which was protecting IR, because Scott wanted her to help out with things like rescues. I mean, I wasn't ever there, yeah, but I want to think that if I had a sister she'd be like Kayo. And quite frankly, like most decent people would, I'd want her to be happy. I doubt being treated like she was when she first came to the island made her happy. And that's why I refused to let him see her in hospital. Here's what would happen – she feels shit and she got another one of her migraines, she kept worrying about the security system, she's in pain, and when Scott came in he'd effectively beat her up over it. God, I didn't know how she hasn't punched him yet. I didn't know how I hadn't punched him yet! No, but seriously, he did do a good job as a leader. I mean, he'd never be Jeff, duh, but he was still a good leader. And maybe I was overreacting with this. And as I said, these were only the cases that I was aware of – she could've done thousands of things without me knowing and without being shouted at! And… How the bloody hell did my thoughts about biometric scanners go to casual digs at Scott? God, I wasn't awake yet. The only way I could be awake enough yet to be doing this was with a glass of Caribbean Twist. But, of course, I hadn't. I purely just woke up, snuck out, walked about two miles then started playing Cards against Humanity – great way to start your day – only to be chasing down several warehouses. And so, that is how I got protective of the person who may as well be my sister. Believe me, the amount I had about Brains was also ridiculous.
"Is there a reason you're staring at the plant?" Lila smirked as I finally let go of my psychological debate. Turned out they'd already picked the lock, and Kayo wasn't around so I guess she already went in. "Would you like to keep the plant? It's literally just a bundle of sticks. Come on," Lila nodded to the door.
Turned out the warehouse wasn't so deserted. We were both only standing in the doorway, but we could see, behind a massive pile of crates, some sort of light. Almost looked like a campfire, since the light kept flickering. And voices, but I couldn't make it out.
"Oi," I heard somebody hiss. Turned out it was Kayo, who was perched on another pile of crates that were rush-organised into steps, gesturing for us to follow her. Well, it looks like it is indeed useful sending a little shadow in to find useful things for you. We followed her up the crates that were made into makeshift stairs up on to a warehouse support, which we could all walk across easily one after the other. I'm guessing Kayo made the crate-stairs for us – surely no criminal would know we'd be here, and then make stairs for us. If they did, it'd be a trap, and surely for a trap they'd make it more obvious for us. No, I'll safely assume it was Kayo. And I could see why Kayo chose to show us the beam. It was a perfect place to both watch and listen to what was going on. And I didn't know how to react to what I saw.
In the centre of the warehouse there was a campfire. And twenty metres out from this fire was massive crate walls, at least two metres high. And by the fire, there was three men. One was as hench as fuck itself, another in a suit, and one was in black trackies and a black hoodie. And against one of the walls was… What? Robot probe chargers? And what the bloody hell was in them? They looked like… People? Why were they in probe chargers? And why did they look dead? They were upright, sure, but they looked like they were asleep and forced to stand up. Their heads lolled forwards, arms hanging loosely by their sides. They looked like they were zombies who were asleep. There were ten, no, nine, of them. And they all looked oddly familiar, but their heads were lolled so far down that I couldn't see the faces, not from such a high up position anyway. And recognising the girls – I assume they were girls – was hopeless, because the hair was falling over their faces. All of them were in grey shorts/boxers (couldn't tell which one of the two, couldn't give two shits) and black muscle vests. And that hushed whisper I mentioned earlier – no improvement. Well, slight improvement. I could tell they were talking English. And that was it.
"Is my hearing going crap or can nobody else hear them?" Lila hissed, digging through her pocket, pulling out a little black box. She flicked it open, then picked up a little black counter-like circle. It looked really delicate, but clearly it wasn't. Lila chucked the tiny little counter close to the three people around the campfire, where the little disc rolled before landing on a stray crate near the hench-man's feet. And then she took something else out of the box. They reminded me of Parker's communicator, except with no microphone, just a radio. A one way communicator. And I'll bet two things: one that chip was a microphone, and two, Lila was a clever shit with the idea to throw a microphone down there. Though I kind of knew the latter before now. We all took a little ear set thing, clipped it on then focused on the conversation from our safe spot.
"The probe chargers aren't going to last much longer," One of them said, and I safely assumed it was hench-dude.
"Oh, they'll last until dawn," Another said, and I think it was the man in the suit. The guy in the black tracksuit bottoms and hoodie was remaining silent.
"Oh, sorry. One little sunbeam over the horizon and the probes die two hours early,"
"No, Kane, they will last. I tell you."
"How the bloody hell can they last? You blew the fucking fuse trying to keep them going last week!" The Kane said, pacing back and forth.
"So? I charged them up with a car battery earlier. A li-thi-um bat-ter-y. That will last them, I guarantee you."
"You said that about Agent 79, Dave! Did you see what happened to him? Down to freaking Parkmoore Scrubs. You guaranteeing that is like a bloody curse!" The Kane hissed, and all of our faces fell.
Parkmoore Scrubs?
Agent 79?
Wasn't that what Kayo said The Hood referred himself when he used the voiceprint on Matteo Island? By the look on Kayo's face, it must've been. God, this wasn't what she needed right now. Then again, not like we'd be able to get her out here without a tranquiliser, twenty pairs of hands and several lassos.
Well, it's safe to assume these people were somehow linked to 'Agent 79', at any rate.
"Oh, that was him merely a coincidence! You can't blame me for his stupid niece coming and screwing his plan over. If I see her again, she gets another shot. Hopefully she'll actually hit the grave this time," The Dave said. Oooooh, you made a mistake there, mate!
"Remind me to save a punch for him," Kayo hissed, and I'm guessing she was going to try and walk around on the beam a bit. Unfortunately for her, Lila grabbed her arm before she could move two feet away, probably telling her to stay there for a minute.
"We will do, Kayo, if you actually forget" I smirked, then we all went back to eavesdropping:
"Well, you can't deny that it did happen! So stop being a pain up the arse and find a way to keep them charging!" Kane sighed, screwing up a sheet of paper from a massive wad of paper near the fire and tossing it towards the campfire. It missed by quite a bit, making all of us laugh at his stupid attempt under our breaths. I mean, Kayo had trained in athleticy things during her life and Lila practised every day by throwing paper essays she didn't need or simply rejected in a bin, and even I had gotten good at throwing used teabags and Sherbet's broken toys in the bin. But, even though we were all quite good at throwing things at targets, I'm sure even an average person would laugh at his pitiful attempt. And he was clearly pissed off with his attempt too; he just grunted before pacing back and forth again. Serves him right, too.
"If I put them on a charger would you stop acting like a two year old?"
"I'm not acting like a two-year-old. But yes."
"Fine. And your thoughts on charging them?" The Dave guy turned to look at the guy in the black hoodie who still didn't have a name – that we knew of –, who had gone from standing near the campfire to sitting on a crate, arms crossed with his back to us so – annoyingly – we still couldn't see his face. He shrugged at the question he was asked. He probably wasn't paying attention – something we couldn't afford to do. The Dave sighed before pulled the lid of one of the countess crates and began fumbling through wires within said crate. After a few minutes of me and Kayo keenly watching and listening to see if anything else was done or said and Lila scribbling everything on a notepad, Dave plugged small wires into each probe charger, which were no bigger than the wires you'd charge your tablet with, and after he put one in every probe charger he plugged the ends of the wires he'd just plugged in into a longer, thicker wire. How many wires are really necessary here? Apparently a lot. That or the person wants to make this thing look cool. He dragged the thick wire over to the wall of crates, and kicked out two or three crates from the bottom of the wall that clearly weren't supporting any of the crates above it. After these crates were out the way, he pulled up the wooden floorboard beneath it, which was made of wood where the crates were sitting, unlike the rest of the floor that was presumably brick. Wood just where the crates were? The fuck? I couldn't quite see what was in there necessarily, but I assumed it was a plug of some sort. After he spent a few minutes down in the whole, suddenly the room was filled with the same squawking sound that indicated the chargers were connected to a power source. Well, if it wasn't safe to say I had a headache before now, it's definitely safe to say so now.
"There," Dave sighed, crossing his arms, "Happy now? Now we're prone to the bloody GDF catching us out! Fancy seeing Agent 79 again, do ya?"
"What, the third of the GDF left? Get real," Kane said, and we all exchanged a glance. Only third left? What was that supposed to mean? "And if anything goes wrong, maybe we'll just reveal how much of the GDF we've gotten control of. Maybe threaten killing off, I dunno, one of the Lieutenants? Maybe a Colonel? Face it, we've already shut down the GDF as it is," Kane continued. What the hell were they on about? I stared at Lila as she got her holo-projector out, immediately diminishing the brightness, before going in to the messaging app. Kayo and I both stared over her shoulder as she typed a message:
Send backup to Cornwall. We're watching over three freaks with robot probes. They said they've already gotten control of two thirds of the GDF, and they've just said they'll kill off one of the higher authority if we try to disrupt them. Send in the people who usually helped me and Kayo when we were hunting down The Hood. Co-ords 204863 598743. And don't use any form of air travel – just the cars.
Lila pressed send on the text, shoving back in her pocket and getting her gun out. She wasn't actually debating shooting, was she? I mean, yeah, her job as much as ours was to save people, even though she technically was also employed to kill the bad ones, but she couldn't just go and shoot them without even talking to them… Right?
I was slightly caught off-guard when a pinging sound went off in the room. One of the guys – Dave, I think – went over to one of the many holo-projectors sitting in the corner of the room next to black hoodie guy, pulling out the one that's flashing. He turned it on, reading a few lines of text on there, before opening one of the crates and whipping out a gun.
"Well, it turns out have a few little spies. I told you the bloody electrics would blow it! What do you think of that, then, smarty-pants?" He threw the holo-projector at the Kane so he could read the text, then checked the gun's magazine, "You said we'd kill of a Lieutenant or Colonel. And surely it's make a point, wouldn't it? So go get one of them then!" He grabbed a box of bullets and filled up the gun's ammo as my heart dropped. Was that the text Lila sent to Colonel Casey? Why was her holo-projector here? "And you're doing the killing by the way. If we aren't going to get caught, no harm in you doing it, is there?"
"Fine," Kane hissed, pulling out some of the crates next to the probe charger's socket hole in the crate wall, before ducking to go underneath them.
"What the hell?" Lila hissed, frowning slightly. "Why is Colonel Casey's holo-projector there? And… Are they actually going to kill somebody? From me sending the text?" Lila bit her lip, "We have to stop it. Even if it's a threat. Kayo, do you reckon you could get into their secu- I should've expected that by now," Lila said, and surely enough, Kayo wasn't there. Typical.
"Shadows only hang around for a certain amount of time," I sighed, "But don't worry, nobody's dying today. I'm not letting that happen, and I'm sure Kayo-"
"Shh!" Lila hissed, pointing a finger down to the two holes in the crate wall, one was blocked with a thick wire. The other one, however, was also blocked. But the things blocking this hole was moving. Surely enough, Kane was standing there, one hand holding a gun he must have acquired somewhere along the line, and the other arm behind him. He came through the hole in the wall, then threw the hostage he seemed to have chosen to murder on the floor. I couldn't see the person's face, but all I could see was this person had the same muscle vest and shorts on as the probes did – clearly they did some shopping in Primark – and she had her hands tied behind her back and dark brown hair falling over her face. It also looked like this person must've had some sort of accident recently – there was a scarlet cut down her leg that looked infected from lack of medical care, and her arms and the part of her torso that was showing revealed a bruise. Actually, I'm not even going to call it a bruise – it was more like several bruises that had merged together to make a bruise massacre. God, poor girl. The girl had clearly not eaten much recently, too – I could see each of the bones through her arms, and I could clearly see her rib cage. I kind of became used to seeing somebody's ribcage with Kayo – since she came to the island we could all clearly see her ribcage even through her shirt to this day – but as soon as it was somebody else, I felt squeamish about it. This was no exception. No doubt she'd have malnourishment, not to mention infections, and flesh and bone bruises, and probably low self-esteem. And now I know what my next few weeks will be – supporting the case to get these people back to health and happiness.
But clearly I hadn't seen the worst of it.
"Good choice," The Dave hissed, taking the gun off safety mode.
And it was at that moment the girl looked up to give them a dark look. And then it fully hit me. I knew her. Brown hair. Brown eyes. And even if she wasn't in uniform and her hair wasn't up in its usual bun, I could still recognise her. No doubt.
It was Colonel Casey.
.
.
.
Chapter 26, Part B – Delilah
I had recognised the person the three jackasses brought in as soon as I got a glance of her. But finally being able to see her face made it ten times worse. No, she was at base earlier! She was still at the GDF base when I last checked! How the hell could she get here so fast? She certainly was no speed demon and wouldn't speed on roads so she couldn't've came here by her car; people on public transport were on strike meaning public transport from the distance from base to Cornwall were closed; and she could never have walked here – or flown here (since the jets were under repair) – so quickly. This made no bloody sense. Criminals, when using killings as tactics, typically did lots of kills on lower-ranked people, and as people began to click on to what they were doing, killing more higher-ranked people, and when they totally lost grips of everything they slaughtered the highest-ranked person to convince the public that they were still in control of their shitty plan and still so far up their own arses that they may as well be taking a tour on their anus. Guess which one is accurate? Whoever said the latter of those two – well done, you found your basic human decency when it comes to today's society, considering most facts are now told in the form of rhetorical questions.
"Somebody left you a text," Kane hissed, throwing the holo-projector on the ground in front of her, with the text open on it, "I trust you know who they are," Casey took a few seconds to read the text and who it was from before she started looking around with the same face as a deer that was caught in headlights. I knew why, too – she was worried for me and whoever else I was with. She was worried we'd end up like her.
"Don't you dare touch her," She hissed, trying to make her voice sound as clear as possible through the several browned bruises she had on her neck. I also picked up she only mentioned me, and I worked out why – she wasn't giving away that there was anybody else with me. And I knew there was a reason – I always do these sorts of thing with somebody else, usually Alfie my husband, but this time it was Kayo and the Penny. She probably didn't know it wasn't Alf, but still.
"Oh, we wouldn't," Dave said, so sarcastically you could've skewered a fish with the pure sarcasm, "But I'm sure you'd know that we can't have anybody know about this plan and live for long, don't you?"
"Fuck you," She hissed, and I was slightly shocked she actually swore at somebody. Shocked in a good way, obviously, but still shocked.
"What a lovely compliment," Kane hissed, opening the gun's magazine to check the ammo before closing it and re-enabling the gun. "Would you like them to be your last?" He hissed, pointing the gun at her head.
She was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a slight metallic rattling up on one of the supporting beams.
Shit. Kayo was up somewhere on the beams! Shoot, shoot, shoot! Shh- oh, not shoot like that! Geez, that wasn't even mildly funny considering recent events concerning Kayo and shooting. Lemme rephrase – damnit, damnit, damnit. But seriously – Kayo was up there somewhere, and now they were aware of it! God, if I had to deliver her corpse back to Tracy Island…
"Someone's up there," Kane hissed, pointing the gun at random points in the ceiling.
"No shit, mate. What tipped you off, genius?" Dave snapped, gesturing at the guy in the black hoodie to look at the beams. Well, I thought it was just to look. Apparently not. In a few swift moments, he pounced himself over the massive makeshift wall of crates, and up onto the lowest set of beams supporting the wall. We were two beams up from him, and from his angle, we were not that discreet. Well, he shouldn't spot us, but I still wasn't comfortable. I tugged at Penny's sleeve, gesturing for her to follow me as I slid further along the beam, away from Kayo's makeshift stairs for us, looking around for somewhere to hide. Well, Kane's little minion seemed to be a bit too obsessed with checking the beams over, so surely it'd be best to find a hiding spot on ground. That wasn't the bit that worried me, though. It was getting down here. Like I said, if I had to deliver a corpse to Tracy Island… Well, no answer needed.
I began to study the limited options we had. Crate wall? Nope. Back on the crate-stairs at the other end of this support beam? We'd be seen. By the door? We wouldn't be able to see anything happening. Other beams, alternating to avoid the guy who looked like he was advertising both Sport Directs' Slazenger clothes and the emo population? That'd be extremely difficult with two people. If it was just me or just Penny, maybe, but I wasn't separating even if Kayo had different ideas.
My eyes finally fell on three massive cargo vans all parked behind one of the crate walls. Hmm, they might be useful, if we could perch between the cargo bit and the passenger/driving bit. Yeah, I'm a bit thick with vans and Lorries. I slipped down to the other end of the beam, trusting that Penny didn't do a Kayo and disappeared somewhere behind my back, then climbed down the pillar that was supporting the beams at of the back of the warehouse, using my nails to get extra grip on my leather gloves to make sure I didn't fall and bleed to death or die from my bones fracturing and getting internal cuts.
When I had gotten myself down and helped Penny get down, we both climbed onto the middle van, perching ourselves in the crevice of the cargo van. I decided now would be a good time to get my gun out – I had a permit to shoot if under deliberate threat since I was technically still a federal agent – and gave Penny her own form of self-defence with a tranquilizer gun, since that was shooting them but not technically shooting them, as I explained to a slightly baffled Penelope, it was just a tranquilizer gun that had the effect of Kayo punching them but in a less painful, less hostile way and saved them getting a black eye or broken nose, so she was effectively doing a good deed by knocking them out before Kayo got to them. I also explained that she had minimal chances of using her, but the bit that I didn't tell her was that the reason she wouldn't shoot was because she was only allowed to shoot if she was threatened, and if there was a threat, I'd shoot them there and then, well, as soon as I had recorded proof of the threat, which meant getting the recorder to record stuff, but the recorder was – oops – currently pinned on my bra.
"Right, Pen, don't judge me for this," I muttered, before trying to find the recorder, which had slid onto the bra strap as opposed to being next to the strap. I clicked it, waited for it to vibrate in conformation that it was on, then looked up at a disgusted Penny. I just shrugged, then peered over the top of the van, to see Colonel Casey like we last saw her, still under the threat of this Kane guy who had a gun aimed at her. The Dave guy was in a corner, talking into some sort of mobile or walkie-talkie, and although he was quite far away from my microphone chip, I'm pretty sure he kept saying the letter 'z' quite often. Like, unless he was ordering a zebra from somewhere, I didn't see why he kept on saying z so often. The black hoodie guy was still pondering around the beams. God, I just hoped Kayo got the hint and was avoiding the beams.
"You sent backup, didn't you?" I was finally drawn back to Kane, who still had the gun aimed at Casey's head, "You little shit,"
"How was I meant to send backup exactly?" Casey hissed, trying to keep her voice still despite the bruising coving her whole neck.
"I dunno, maybe some bloody microscope?"
"I assume you mean microphone?" Casey hissed, "And no. You confiscated everything, didn't you?"
"Don't play smart," Kane kicked her in the back and I had to fight the urge to shoot or punch him. Then he looked up to the beams, watching around for a while, before finally calling up to the guy in the black hoodie and trackies, "Any sign yet?" There was a bit of silence, which I guess was him responding, "Then keep looking. And pick up the pace." Shit, he was going to end up spotting us, wasn't he?
"Wait here," Penny hissed, as she slid down off the van.
"Oi, Penny, what are you doing?" I hissed.
"Chill. Just get on the crate wall, and watch my back, okay? I've gotta plan," She paused, "Have you got a recording device on?"
"Turned it on a while ago," I sighed, taking my gun off safety, loading up the first bullet and curling my finger around the lever, "Just… Keep your distance from the guys, okay? Don't want to end up shooting you,"
"F.A.B"
"Okay, then, go on," I regretted what I was saying, but how else was I meant to get evidence? Once Penny started to climb the crate wall, I slid my hand down the top of my navy button-up shirt, and turned up the detector on the recording device so we'd catch every single little detail that was said. Once Penny was half the way up, I began to climb the crate wall, perching myself behind three or four crates full of God knows what.
"Oi," Dave hissed up to hoodie dude, "Found her yet?"
"No need," Penny finally spoke up, sliding down the crate walls. Everybody's attention was suddenly turned to her. The guy in the black hoodie hopped swiftly down from the beams, then onto the crate wall and rolling skilfully onto the ground where his mates were waiting – show-off. All the guys were looking a little smug and baffled, whereas Casey was just baffled. Baffled and visibly worried.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" One of the guys said – I couldn't see any of their mouths moving but I believe it was Kane.
"Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward," She replied simply. God, she sounded like an absolute tart there, didn't she? But it seemed they recognised her. Which made sense, since she went to a lot of public events to raise awareness of the events.
"Oh. So I assume you're with the other Colonel?" Dave huffed, "Three seconds. Get your mate down here before we shoot her," He nodded to a still baffled Casey.
"But she's not here. How am I meant to get her here in three seconds exactly? We're in Bude. She's in Bracknell. The rough car travel time is four and a half hours. And that's ignoring traffic,"
"Bullshit," Kane spat, "Then why did Delilah send the text?"
Simple. I borrowed her comms," Penny held up my navy holo-projector, and I realised that she'd nicked it off me. Little shit. Actually, I hate Kayo for teaching her how to nick things. "It's quite easy to lose things like my comms when I keep travelling," Penny continued, blatantly lying, "I believe I left my one at Ascot yesterday. Lila simply lent it to me," The guys in the room seemed quite content with that answer, "Now I've answered a few questions for you, why don't you answer a few questions for me? So, let's see, I answered, what, two questions for you so I get two. Okay, first question – why have you got her here?" She nodded at a still baffled Colonel Casey.
"You only answered one," Kane spat.
"Actually, the first was if Lila was with me which is a no, and the second was why Lila sent the text which she didn't send a text, it was me using her comms," Penny shrugged, "Now, my question. Why have you got Colonel Casey here and why the bloody hell have you got her in this state?"
"Oi, we can't tell her this," Dave hissed, walking a bit closer to Kane, taking the gun off him and pointing it at Colonel Casey's back. I'm guessing it was a queue for Kane to do the explaining, if any.
"Well, it's not like we're going to let her leave, what's the harm?" Kane shrugged, and whilst I couldn't see Penny's face I saw Colonel Casey's face go from baffled to pure panic. "Where do you want me to start?"
"The beginning, I guess," Penny said, as I strained forward a bit to see her standing normally, one hand on her hip, not really giving two shits about her current situation. Well. That's new. Either she wasn't giving two shits or she was covering it really well. Normally we can tell when she's nervous because she babbled. But she wasn't babbling now. Good girl.
"Well, I'll hopefully save most of your questions if I tell you the whole thing. Do you remember a man called Jeff Tracy? Went missing a while ago?" Kane asked, and Penny nodded. Well, she should know. If not, I'm sure she'd get five slaps around the head, one from each of his sons. And probably a punch from Kayo. "I'd be surprised if you didn't hear about him," Kane continued, "Famous ex-astronaut, used to own Tracy Tower, yes, he made quite a lot of fame. And apparently he was a close friend of your father's, Lord Creighton-Ward. It was quite a surprise when he finally went from immaculate fame with a mass of income coming in, just to abandon everything to hide away in the remotes of nowhere. And it was quite a surprise he never returned to his profits? And that nothing was ever heard of him again to this magnitude? Why do you think that was?"
"Dunno. Never questioned," Penelope shrugged, "Just assumed that maybe he wanted his kids to leave a normal life after their mother's death and, I dunno, brought them a place to grow up? Used his profits to give them a nice place to learn things?"
"But a little odd, don't you think? Take them somewhere desolate? Doesn't it seem odd to raise them in public schools then take them away from civilization? Doesn't it seem like they are, per say, hiding something?" Kane said, pacing back and forth, and my heart dropped. Did they know about International Rescue? They knew the Hood, so did he tell these guys about it?
"Well, maybe they were, I dunno, upset about their Lucy's death?" Penny said, before elaborating to Kane that Lucy was Jeff's wife.
"Well, I don't care how many excuses you make up. I have my thoughts and facts on the thought, and I am about to show you how they developed to this, as you wished to know about," He gestured to a – still baffled and worried – Colonel Casey.
"Quite a few years ago was the first rescue that International Rescue got involved with. Like the rest of the population, we were immediately intrigued by the display put on show to save the lives at risk. Such bravery, such determination, such selflessness. As somebody who studies lethal things, I knew that, surely, these things don't come naturally. Surely something must've triggered these responses, something such as, per say, guilt. Guilt of losing somebody. Because why else would they be so willing and selfless, did you ever suppose it was to break even with something? This is what I believed, and for years I kept trying to find out more and more about this team. But clearly, when possessing such amazing craft, they must have some amazing crew supporting them. And this amazing crew made an amazing security system, truly, it took me years to finally bust through it. And the only way I could do that was by pure chance – one second either side of my hacking and I wouldn't've got into it. And I wish I could say I beat one of the strongest security systems, but I would be lying to say that. I only got in when the two youngest members were messing around on the accident scene, which was underwater. They kept moving around so frequently in that little sub and doing so many tricks, so many gags, that they must have accidently knocked the anti-detection system off. At least that is what I believe – I could not see any other way how I could've gotten into the system. But I had to act quicker in my hacking then I ever did before, because they must have realised they knocked it off relatively quickly and turned it back on. But I was a lot quicker than they ever wished; I had gotten into Thunderbird 4's system quicker than the time it takes to log onto any site. After that I learnt the reason why the pilots were cocking around so much was because the main pilot was teaching somebody else how to operate it. What a mistake – why couldn't they have just done it where they kept their ships?
"That was the beginning of me finally finding out the identity of the pilots – they were all Tracy boys. And I wanted to find out so much more about it, and I wish I could've – but, as to be expected with such an extraordinary team, getting past the security system proved the greatest difficulty. Truly, whoever made it must've had some sense of loss and hurt to make such a great security system; you only ever take things to that extreme if you've been hurt enough to learn how to let nobody in. It reflects the person entirely, security systems. But this person must've been really hurt. Even as somebody who's lost everything, clearly the person who made this system was only holding on by protecting everything they have left, including International Rescue. The system was so thorough, so hard to hack, even somebody who had hacked the Bank of London couldn't make it through this security system. And within fifteen hours, I wasn't even in Thunderbird 4's system. This person had removed me from it, and all through likely determination of the security system's creator to keep everything under control. To make sure nothing else was lost.
"Soon it was made clear that there was no way past this security system. So, surely, there had to be another way into it. I only knew five of the members within International Rescue then, and that wasn't enough to get any external family links. You see, if you attack a member's family and tell them that they'll stop hurting the victim under the condition that you get some part of the organisation, now that always works. But yet, nothing could be found. Any shooting at the ships themselves always seemed to fail. But surely there had to be another way in. Knowing that the pilots were all Jeff Tracy's sons, I began to search the Internet high and low, looking for close relatives and friends of Jeff Tracy. After a period of finding the right places to look, it finally brought me to find your little friend here," Kane gestured at Colonel Casey, "As soon as I found out about his wedding to Lucille, I found out the best man who was Captain Lee Taylor – which proved no immediate use – but it was when I found out the head bridesmaid, well, things changed. Lucille clearly became attached to Jeff's friends, so much that he made his best friend head bridesmaid.
"I looked into this a little bit more, and found – using my information that I had written down and saved from Thunderbird 4 – that the GDF and International Rescue had a link of some sort, and more research showed that International Rescue was supported by the GDF. So surely, by taking down the GDF, I would finally be able to reap the benefits of my countless amount of hours devoted to trying to crack down who was in International Rescue. But just like its supported non-profit business, the GDF proved a tough nut to crack. Regardless, the security system was taken down in seconds and I had all the GDF's information within seconds. But none of it was linked to International Rescue. A few more days of research, and I found that it was kept separately, with the only way to access the information I desired was to get the leader of the team to confirm it over. And the only way to do that was to use Colonel Casey's image.
"I had heard of many people who had tried to force her into it through her own flesh and skin, and surely they all failed, so that tactic failed. Around that time, one of our fellow agents, Agent 79, managed to locate the island remotely. I might have been jealous, but seeing what one of the members did to him, well, suddenly my jealously subsided and slowly became pride that I did not take his action. As such, I continued my quest to find a way to get the information I needed. Slowly I came to the decision that there was no way to force her into it, without giving the whole act away. So we decided that we would kidnap Colonel Casey and anybody who began to catch on, replace them to stop anybody else suspecting anything. So came in the human probes.
"Human probes. Ran on lithium rechargeable batteries, these probes are designed to go on for seventy-two hours straight whilst still being within our control. We designed these probes so that we could control them through the use of holo-projectors, and me and my… colleagues, let's call them, we all worked together to collect everything we might need for the probe; the crates in front of you are for helping the connection between the probe and our holo-projector, to your left and right, the parts to create the actual probe and to design the probes to look exactly like the people who we had replaced with probes. From then on, it was just a matter of acting them out. As for the people who had to go home to their families, we made fake letters to send home to the people they were staying with, saying that they had to go to a conference regarding The Hood's arrest. And for work, simple programming for different scenarios. Two of us would juggle the 'regular' people, while one of us – usually me – would operate Colonel Casey, through this probe," He nodded at a probe, who, now I thought about it, was the spitting image of Colonel Casey.
"As for the plan, we planned to slowly change the attitude of the two thirds of the people within the GDF, gradually turning them more menacing. And, supposing that nobody else caught on, we would slowly turn all the members left to the lowest ranks possible, and bring our probes to the highest authority. And then, with the highest lines of authority all on our side, we would more or less force the information I had waited for out of International Rescue. And then, well, I could do whatever I pleased. No doubt I'd get a promotion from The General," Kane paused, as I took note on this General guy, "Impressed by our plan?"
"Not really," Penny sighed, "But, hey, I'm probably not expected to," She paused for a second. "Can I ask another question, though? Just another one before… well, I guess before I end up like this," she nodded at Colonel Casey.
"Go on then," Kane sighed, looking briefly at Colonel Casey then back at Penelope.
"On a scale of one to ten… how much do you like crates?"
"Um, what?" Kane asked, but it was soon answered. There was some relatively quiet revving, which only grew louder and louder, until at one sudden moment one of the walls collapsed in a massive explosion of wooden crates and one of the walls completely collapsed on top of the squared-off area. Penny had obviously been expecting it – she probably saw Kayo planning it, and so played along to give her time – and Penny was quick on her toes; after she asked Kane sarcastically if he liked crates, she did one of the quickest sprints over to Colonel Casey I'd ever seen, thankfully avoiding getting shot by Dave since he was mesmerised by the revving in the warehouse, and then Penny effectively pulled Colonel Casey up onto a non-damaged crate wall and cutting off the rope that tied her hands behind her back. I was also on the same wall, so I went over to keep guard whilst Penny sorted her out. As for Kayo, well, she was getting her revenge. Turned out the revving we heard was a motorbike she found, not the one from her ship but a different one. Even better – they couldn't identify it was her because she was wearing a black helmet with tinted glass as well as a leather jacket and fingerless gloves. And she was enjoying her new bike. She kept driving into the crates, spraying the contents deliberately at the three guys. The black hoodie guy had avoided the worst of it, and had disappeared from sight. The other two, though, were trapped in the huddle of crates. They obviously weren't that hurt, but still, Kayo was giving them a run for their money. Probably considering what was said earlier. As soon as Penelope had managed to patch up Colonel Casey's bleeding cuts, she shouted down to Kayo to come and give us a hand. Surely enough, she immediately left her attacking to come and help us out. Kayo quickly managed to get up the crate wall, ripping off the helmet she was wearing and using the jacket she acquired to make a sling for Colonel Casey's arm which we thought was broken, and whilst we all helped Colonel Casey to get down the crate wall and to the door, the men must have gotten themselves up.
And they must have been mad. Because, as we all were about thirty metres away from the warehouse door, the warehouse suddenly filled with a sudden beeping. None of us could work out what it was, until it was too late.
It was a bomb.
And within seconds of us finding it out, I heard a bomb go off behind me, and before I knew it we were all catapulted forwards, and as soon as I hit the ground I felt a searing pain run through my body and I was out within seconds.
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Oh God, I haven't posted in a long time, have I? Oops. Sorry guys. Things have been really busy recently and I actually re-did this chapter several times, trying to get the right balance of character's views. But I'm back from my aunt's place and now I can write and do my art freely. I promise to post quicker this time and I will try to work out a day that I can post a chapter every week that is guaranteed (I'm thinking either Monday or Thursday). In regards to whether I will be posting once series 2 comes out, I'm leaving that up to you guys. I mean, I don't know if you want me to just blank out the new episodes and continue with my original plan, or maybe stop this one and start a new fanfic for the new series, or if you want me to tie in the new episodes with this fanfic? Please tell me what you want to happen in terms of series 2, since I don't really know that will be best for you guys! Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed, and if you want to see anything come up, please tell me and I will do my best it fit it in! :D