Episode 93

The huge steel door closed with a dull boom behind Harold and India and they found themselves in a large, well-lit area.  Workbenches and complicated-looking equipment practically filled the place and navigation was only possible through a maze of aisles marked off with red and yellow floor tape.  Down the sides and at the far end of the room, they could see doors leading off to other spaces, offices, storerooms and so on.  The place seemed to be deserted.  Under the shriek of the fire alarms, the air was filled with the hum of equipments fans.

“We haven’t got much time,” said India.  “You take the left side and I’ll take the right,”

“Alright,” replied Harold.  He reached up under his chin and partly unzipped the front of his ‘invisibility’ suit. 

“What on earth are you doing?” demanded India, “You’ll set off their sensors.  Are you mad?”

“If two can cover more ground than one, then three can cover more than two,” Harold replied.  As he pulled the zipper down, a small grey head appeared and Teatime quickly squirmed his way out onto Harold’s shoulder before jumping down onto a nearby bench.  Harold quickly zipped up again.

“About time, old biscuit!” grumbled the small simian, “Another few minutes in there and I should have suffocated.”  He glanced around, frowning, “Ah, of course!  You’re invisible.  Right, let’s get to it, then.  I’ll get up there and do a spot of aerial reconnaisance, meet back by the door here!”  With that, he scampered up a nearby shelf unit and began making his way down the room by dint of a series of bounds from one tall unit to the next.

Harold and India, constrained by having to follow the marked-out aisles at ground level split up and began to make their own slower way into the room.

-0-0-0-0-

A guard stuck his head round the door to Moon’s office. “We have to leave, sir,” he said loudly over the din of the fire alarm.

“Be right there,” Moon replied in kind.  The guard’s head disappeared and Moon stood up.  He was about to walk out when something on his computer screen flickered briefly.  He leant over to take a closer look.  The screen was showing the feed from the c-sensors inside the building, but there was nothing there now.  He flicked over to a visual feed but the cameras revealed nothing.  Moon pursed his lips, maybe it had just been a blip, a bit of electronic noise.  Yeah, he said to himself and that fire alarm is just a coincidence, yeah right!

Moon slid open his desk drawer, withdrew his gun and, after a moment’s consideration, his taser.  He stuffed them into his pocket, walked over to the door and pulled it open a crack.  He waited until he was sure the corridor outside was empty of people and then strode purposefully towards the nearest stairs leading down.

Harold, India and Teatime arrived at the far end of the large room, having found nothing to point to the whereabouts of Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada.  Ahead of them was one final set of doors, large double ones, not dissimilar to the ones by which they had entered the room.  They were closed, but not – as Harold discovered by giving them a hefty shove – locked.

They swung open to reveal another large space.  Two rows of what looked like large chemical storage tanks marched away towards the far end of the chamber.  A tangle of pipes crawled over each tank like some shiny metal parasite and on the front of each was a monitor screen, presumably showing the status of the tank’s contents.

The fire alarm ceased all of a suden.

“We better hurry, they’ll be coming back in soon,” said India.

“I can’t imagine that the other agents will be anywhere in here,” said Harould, doubtfully.

“I say, come and look at this!” cried Teatime, who’d climbed up the pipework on the nearest tank to peer at the adjacent monitor screen.

India and Harold crowded up to the screen.  It was displaying a few graphs and several sets of numbers which changed every so often.

“Top left corner,” prompted Teatime.

“Susan,” breathed India in wonder.  Harold ran to the next monitor.
“This one says ‘Crippled Tom!’” he cried.

“And this one is ‘Territhiel’” said Teatime, who’d hopped over to another tank.

“Looks like we’ve found our missing angels and Fallen,” said India.

 

Episode 92

At the far end of the hall from where Harold, India, Box and Mr Teeth were grouped, a set of steel security doors swung open and a small group of Infinity employees trooped out, led by a middle-aged,  clip-board wielding woman, sporting a hastily-donned hi-vis vest blazoned with the words ‘Fire Marshal’.

Harold and India, invisible still in their suits, instinctively shrank back against the wall as the small group passed, no doubt heading for the door to the underground parking garage, which would be the nearest exit.  The fire marshal, seeing Box and Mr Teeth making no apparent move to exit the building, halted by them and began to insist that they leave with her group.
This was a tough one for Box: if he and Mr teeth failed to act normally and leave, suspicions would be aroused.  On the other hand, if they did as they were told, the demon and Agent India would be left on their own.  There was no way he could even tell where those two were right now, much less get any kind of signal to them.

“It’s probably just a drill,” he said quite loudly, ostensibly to the woman, “we’ll be all trouping back in here again in a minute, I bet.  Nothing to get worried about.”

She gave Box a slightly quizzical look and held out an arm in an ‘after you’ gesture.  Box and Mr teeth reluctantly turned and started walking.
Harold and India had discovered early on that they could see each other whilst the suits were powered up, even if nobody else could see them – a most sensible feature for a suit with military applications.  As the group of employees filed past, Harold beckoned to India and began running towards the security door, which was beginning to swing closed.  He had noticed that the doors were very thick steel and beyond them was a large, well-lit area.  Perhaps, he thought, Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada were being hed in there somewhere.  Not knowing what better to do and very keen not to get separated, India trotted after him.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The door to the conference room opened and four grim-looking guards stood in the corridor beyond.  The nearest of them barked at Mercury, Prada and Othello to accompany him and no nonsense.  The three agents did as they were told.

“Where’s Moon?”  Mercury asked the guard.

“Not here.” Replied the man, in a flat voice.

Outside, in the hallway, there was a quiet orderly bustle as the relatively few employees present in the building at this time of night made their way to the nearest exit, just like they’d no doubt drilled.

Pretty soon, they were in the Infinity parking lot.  The guards ushered them to stand apart from the main body of employees.

Mercury looked around, eyes narrowed, seeking possible escape opportunities.  There weren’t any but as his eyes swept over the small crowd of Infinity people, he was astonished to see….could it be?  Reverend Box and the big enforcer, Mr Teeth, dressed in something that looked like what the guards that captured them had been wearing.

He nudged Othello and gave a slight twitch of his head.  The other agent glanced casually over to where Mercury had indicated and his eyes widened slightly, but that was all.  He was not going to do anything to alert the guards.
Mr Teeth felt the vibration of the phone in his pocket.   He pulled it out and held it to his ear.  It was Pauli, asking for instructions now that things had apparently changed.  No part of their plan had included an inpromptu fire-drill after all.

“Wait ‘till we’reall  back inside, then carry on as agreed,” He said. 

Episode 91

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The van rumbled to a halt at the security barrier outside Infinity Recycling. A uniformed guard emerged from the gatehouse and approached. Box nudged the barrel against the van driver's ribs and hissed at him not to try any funny business. The driver wound down the van's window as the guard approached, and held up his id.

The guard examined it briefly, checked the photo against the driver’s face, nodded and went back into the gatehouse. A few moments later, the barrier swung up and the white van rolled into the compound.

'Take us to where you'd go if your mission had been successful,' ordered Box.

The driver nodded and swung the wheel around, piloting the vehicle around to the back of the building. He drew to a halt facing what looked to be a blank wall. Box looked at him quizzically. the man shrugged and pressed a button on the van's key fob.

Ahead of them, two sections of the wall slid apart, revealing a well-lit tunnel within.

'Wow, that was certainly well disguised,' murmured India from the back of the van. The vehicle jolted into motion once more and they headed into the tunnel which curved away to the right and sharply downwards.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Prada was pacing the room once more.

“It’ll be light soon,” she said to no-one in particular.

No-one bothered to answer her. Mercury was slumped in his chair, eyes closed, while Othello stared out of the window. A few triangular sandwich packets littered the long conference table, along with a few cans of drink.

Since a silent guard had dropped off the food and drink, they had been left to themselves. Prada sighed and moved to stand next to Othello at the window. There wasn’t much to see; the window looked out into an internal courtyard which boasted a patch of grass, some planting and a few seats – presumably for the Infinity staff members to take breaks.

“I can’t help feeling we should be doing more,” she continued.

“Like what?” asked Othello. “We can’t get out, we can’t contact anyone. Best we wait it out for now and see what happens.”

Prada sighed and turned to face into the room once more. Out or boredom, she let her eyes wander where they would, although she didn’t expect to see anything she hadn’t seen before: long, polished conference table; squeaky leather conference chairs, cupboards with nothing in them. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling. It was the usual suspended affair made up of tiles interspersed with long fluorescent light fittings.

“Could we get out through there?” she wondered aloud.

Othello turned to see what she was looking at.

“Doubt it,” he said, “The space above isn’t that big and I don’t think the structure would bear any of our weight.”

“Pity,” Prada sighed. Then she drew in a quick breath, before speaking in a low voice. “What about that?”

She pointed at the centre of the ceiling where a small round smoke detector protruded from the middle of a tile.

“Interesting,” agreed Othello, also in a low voice “but unless you’ve got some boy scouts to rub together…”

“I just might have,” grinned Prada.

She grabbed her jacket from where it hung on the back of one of the chairs and began ferreting in one of the pockets.

“A-ha!” she whispered, triumphantly, holding up a small, flat square of folded cardboard.

“Who knew a hole in one’s pocket could actually be useful?”

Othello stepped over to get a better view as Prada opened out the cardboard.

“Thank you, Crazy Jake’s Bar and Grill,” she breathed.

Inside the cardboard there were two matches

-0-0-0-0-0-

They left their erstwhile chauffeur gagged and bound in the rear of the van. There was a solid-looking door set in one wall of the basement car park and Mr Teeth and Box headed over to it. A few steps behind them, Harold and India followed.

A quick swipe of the Infinity goon’s id card resulted in a most satisfying clunk as the door’s locking mechanism disengaged. Box pushed the door open to reveal an empty, brightly-lit hallway leading away into the building’s interior.

“Looks clear enough,” grunted Mr Teeth.

He went through the door, followed by the others. Behind them, the door swung closed on its spring, locking with a click. Box glanced at his watch.

“Five minutes,” he said quietly.

Mr Teeth grunted acknowledgement.

The little party made its way along the hallway, Mr Teeth and Box leading, followed by an invisible India and Harold. They soon reached an intersection of corridors. There was nothing much to indicate the best way for them to go to find Mercury and the others. The goon hadn’t known – or had pretended not to know – where they would have been taken.

“There are some stairs through those doors up ahead,” said Box, indicating a set of double doors, above which someone had helpfully placed an emergency sign.

They began trotting down the corridor towards the stairwell.

Just as Box reached out his hand to push open the double doors, the air was split by the wail of a klaxon.

“Too early!” yelled Box above the racket. “Go to plan B!”

Episode 90

“Well, I hate to say it, old button,” said Teatime, “But I did tell you so. These OGS types are putting up with you only for as long as takes to resolve the current situation. I must say I’m glad you’ve finally seen it for yourself. Mind you,” He paused for a wicked moment, “I’m surprised that Agent India waited this long before using her taser on you again.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” replied Harold sarcastically, “I might have known better than to expect sympathy from you, but I really thought we were finally getting somewhere here. She even agreed with my idea of getting Mr Box out of the hospital. I’m such an idiot.”

“For the record,” said the little monkey, “She was acting for the good of the mission, if what you have told me is true. I’m sure she took no pleasure whatsoever in it.” He could barely keep his little mouth from stretching into a grin as he said this, however.

Harold knew the little fellow was right of course – he usually was, the smartypants. That didn’t make it any easier to accept, though. He sighed to himself. Why, oh, why did he always have to crave everyone’s friendship and approval? You’d have thought that after all these years he’d have grown out of that particular weakness, especially since that was precisely the character defect that had got him banished to the Basement along with the rest of the rebels all those long desolate years ago – as his father never tired of pointing out.

Live and learn?

Apparently not.

“What are you two talking about?” asked India. Harold and Teatime had been talking in low tones in Infernal for privacy.

“Nothing,” replied Harold curtly.

India raised an eyebrow: clearly the demon was still ticked off. She didn't care.  It wasn't like she needed its forgiveness anyway.

Harold, Teatime, Mr Teeth and India were travelling in the back of the Infinity Recycling van. Driving the van was a very morose member of unit four, whose cooperation was being encouraged, so to speak, by the gun that Box was pointing at him from the passenger seat. As an additional assurance of his good behaviour, the other members of the team were being held – after some rough but effective first aid - at Mr Teeth’s house by some of Pauli’s men. The rest of Pauli’s people were following on in their own vehicle.
Box was wearing a silver suit cobbled together from the least visibly damaged bits of the suits that the intruders had been wearing. That the ski mask-like headgear that went with the suits obscured his features was an added bonus.

Mr Teeth had not been happy to have one of the Infinity Recycling people drive the van but, as Box pointed out, they would need someone with valid credentials to get past the security guard at the gate. What happened after that… well, any battle plan was only any good until the first encounter and everyone had their part to play and all they needed was to get inside the compound.

“Ok, we’re getting close now,” said Box from the front, “Demon, you’ll need to switch on your suit.”

Harold did so. He had no idea whether the invisibility suit would prevent Infinity’s detectors from registering his presence – they only had India’s experience (and Box’s when they had tested it again to be sure) to go on.

Once again, the world seemed to switch to bizarre hues and all sounds became slightly muffled.

India, sitting opposite, relaxed slightly, the constant irritation of Harold’s presence having ceased the moment he had activated the suit. She took this as a cue and activated her own suit.

This had been the weirdest mission; working with demons instead of banishing them, fancy invisibility suits… They never covered any of this in training. Maybe she should request an extra module to be added in future… As things stood, she could not wait to get this strange mission over and done with, could not wait to get back to the everyday business of spotting the Fallen and despatching them back to their accursed home where they belonged. Well, the way things were turning out, one way or another, she would not have much longer to wait for that happy day.

The van bumped and swayed a little as it made a right turn onto the business park that housed the buildings belonging to Infinity Recycling.

“Get ready, people,” said Box, his voice tight with excitement. “We’re almost there.”

Episode 89

Teatime was still some distance from the house when he heard the sound of Mr Teeth’s shotgun.  He scampered a bit more quickly through the leafy darkness of the lower branches of the many ornamental trees surrounding the property. The scent of oranges hung distractingly in the air, but there was no time for such things now. He got to the edge of the trees at last and peered towards the house.

The security lights at the rear of the property had come on and in their fierce white glare, the little monkey could see two men sprawled on the ground near the open patio door. They appeared to be wearing silvery suits, whose metallic sheen was now being spoiled in places by trickles of blood from the men’s wounds. The men were still moving feebly, and Teatime could hear their faint cursing.

Abruptly, the sound of another shot rang out – a different weapon this time, by the sound of it. This was followed by the sound of something smashing and tinkling inside the house, but Teatime could not see who had fired. It certainly hadn’t been the two men on the ground, so that must mean there were more invisible types about. How jolly annoying! If it weren’t for the fact that the demon and India needed the invisibility suits that Harold had liberated, he was all for going back and advising that they drive away and leave Mr Jackson to sort things out himself.  He seemed capable enough.

The suits were needed, though, and they were in the house. Teatime scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. If Mr Jackson could see the intruders properly, he could probably deal with them: he’d probably faced worse odds in his time on the streets as a young man, and he clearly had no qualms about shooting people.

As he gazed around for possible solutions, Teatime’s eye was caught by something over at the base of the back wall of the house. An idea suddenly sprang into the little monkey’s head. It would be risky, as he would be in plain sight if he went over there. Still, he was confident the two wounded intruders were in no position to interfere with his plan, and he was willing to bet that any others would be intent on the doorway into the house.

There was no time to lose. He leapt from the tree, landing lightly upon the smooth green expanse of the lawn, and raced for all he was worth towards the thing he had seen.

-0-0-0-0-

“I should have gone with him,” Harold said, as the sound of the second shot came to their ears.

“No,” said Box, firmly, “Those people are bound to be looking for you, and we don’t know if they have any more of those freezing machines. You’re best staying away from them.”

“But what if he gets hurt?” protested Harold, “You humans seem to have no qualms about shooting each other for the slightest reason – a little animal isn’t going to be very safe, is he?”

“He’ll be OK,” said Box, “He’s a smart little creature; he won’t take any unnecessary risks.  Just sit tight.”

Harold slumped unhappily back into his seat. Box was probably right, but if anything happened to the little fellow....

He drummed his fingers.

He tried to think calming thoughts; usually, a nice piece of music would pop into his head to do the job but, tonight, his mental orchestra seemed to be gigging elsewhere.

Nope.

It was no good.

Harold flung open the car door and jumped out.

“What in the name of Zeus are you doing? Get back here!” barked Box, opening his own door. He and
India exited the car as Harold set off down the street towards the high wall encircling Mr Teeth’s garden.

The other two set off after him, India lugging out her taser as she ran.

Harold was already astride the top of the wall when they reached it.

“For pity’s sake, come down!” urged Box, his voice ragged from running.

India didn’t say anything, she simply whipped up her taser and fired.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Teatime covered the ground between the trees and the house in several nerve-wracking seconds. Banking on the idea that the intruders would be looking anywhere but into the garden, he ran in a straight line across the lawn, veering off as he reached the edge of the pool of radiance shed by the security lights. Here, he ran round the edge of the lighted area so as to remain invisible as long as possible.

A low stone balustrade ran round the edge of the patio, which was a stone-flagged area slightly higher than the lawn. Teatime kept this low barrier between himself and the area of the doors as he scrambled quickly round to the house’s rear wall.

Another shot roared from within in the house; the first weapon Teatime had heard had evidently been discharged again. Although the weapon made a terrific racket and shot peppered the area, it had no other effect. Teatime hoped fervently that this did not mean that the other intruders were inside the house already.  If they were, his cunning plan would be to no avail.

Crouching as low as possible and thanking the universe for his grey colouring, he made his way to his objective. At the base of the wall, there was a hinged metal cover. Teatime flipped this up, glancing around nervously to check that he was not being observed. Idiot! He chided himself. They’re invisible. How in the name of all that’s unholy are you going to know if they’re watching you?

Having no means to prop the cover open, Teatime resorted to the undignified expedient of resting it on the top of his head. Behind the cover was a simple control panel, whose controls were labelled in Spanish. Teatime pressed the large green ‘Activar’ button and the ‘sistema de aspersión‘ sprang into life.

-0-0-0-0-0-

India skipped smartly out of the way as Harold hit the pavement with a crunch that made even the grizzled Box wince.

“Are you out of your mind, Agent?” Box whispered furiously. Somewhere over the wall, another shot rang out.

“Sorry, didn’t exactly have time to discuss it,” she replied, rolling Harold onto his back with her foot. She leant over him. “Listen, demon. Believe it or not, I did not want to have to do that, but I am not going to let you ruin everything by running off and getting yourself caught. I get that you’re concerned for your little monkey-thing, but he’s way smarter than you are and knows how to keep his head down, which is more than can be said for you.”

The effects of a taser are more severe and longer-lasting for demons’ vessels that they are on humans. This was just as well, because if Harold had been able to move right then, he would have liked very much to throttle Agent India on the spot. She was right, of course– at least in part – which was pretty annoying in itself. Teatime was smart and quick. The thing that really galled him, though, was that India had used her taser on him – again! He hadn’t been planning to just go running in willy-nilly; he had learned that much from recent events, at least. But the fact of the matter was, she clearly still didn’t trust him or respect him.

After all they’d been through. After all he’d done to convince her that he was on her side!

What did you expect? said a cynical little voice at the back of his mind. Did you really think they would ever see you as part of their cosy little team and all go running around having jolly adventures together? Wise up, dummy! They’re just using you, and when this is over, it’ll be back to the Basement like nothing ever happened.

“We don’t have time – “ India’s voice trailed off. 

When she’d shot Harold that first time, his eyes had displayed shock and surprise more than anything else.

This time, however, they were absolutely ablaze with anger.

-0-0-0-0-0

Mr Teeth’s expensive garden sprinkler system came to life.  From many artfully concealed nozzles, jets of water gushed out and began to play over the garden, soaking everything in sight – including the patio.

The state-of-the-art Rainbow Industries camouflage suits were fantastic pieces of technology. Although they were sufficiently waterproof to keep on working perfectly well as the sprinkler water landed on them (they had been developed for the military, after all), they – and the men wearing them – still provided a physical obstruction to the water’s inexorable journey to the ground. At once, two intruders were outlined by the water, sparkling silver in the glow of the security lights, splashing off them. From inside the house, Mr Teeth’s deep bark of laughter came to Teatime’s ears, followed immediately by the roar of his shotgun. The blast caught the two men, who had been crouched close together by the doorway, obviously looking to creep into the house and take its owner by surprise.

As the buckshot tore into them, the hi-tech suits immediately stopped working, leaving two more sprawled silver-suited bodies on the patio. Teatime pushed a large red button on the control panel and the water shut off. He watched as Mr Teeth strode out through the ruined patio door and deftly disarmed all four intruders, before turning to where he was crouched.

Seeing that his saviour had been none other than the tiny monkey, the big man’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Thanks, man, that was good thinking – and good timing.” he rumbled, “I owe you. Never would have thought of using the water like that." His voice turned thoughtrful, "Pity the fancy suits got wasted, though.” Setting his shot gun against the wall, he checked the four men’s injuries – the buckshot had left multiple wounds, but none appeared life-threatening.

He retrieved the gun again and leaned up against the wall where he could see all four downed men.

“What now, Mr Jackson?” asked Teatime.

“Now we wait for Pauli and his boys and then we’ll figure out what to do with these guys.” He waved the tip of the shotgun’s barrel at the erstwhile intruders. Where are the others, anyway?”

“They’re waiting in the next street,” Teatime replied, “I’d better go and fetch them I suppose.” He scampered off into the trees once more.

Episode 88

“Drive on past and don’t slow down” barked Box from the passenger seat.

They had just turned into the road that led to the gates of Mr Teeth’s swiss-cheese-windowed mansion. A white van bearing an Infinity Recycling logo, its lights out, was parked so as to block the gateway. The gates themselves stood ajar. There was no sign of anybody around.

“How on Earth did they find us?” India wondered aloud.

“No idea, but they obviously did.” Box exhaled heavily. “This is not good. We’ll have to assume that Mr Jackson won’t be able to help us now, I think.”

“We can’t just leave him, surely?” said India.

“I’m not sure we have a choice,” replied Box, “We don’t have any weapons apart from your taser and we have no idea how many or how heavily armed the Infinity Recycling people are. Our best bet is to get ourselves away from here. I’m betting the Infinity goons aren’t looking for Mr Jackson anyway, so once they find out we’re not there, they might well just leave.”

“We have to get into the house, anyway, though.” Said India.

Box frowned. “Why’s that?”

“The invisibility suits are in there. We need them if we’re going to get into that building. Plus, if we just wait around for them to go, they might find the suits and take them back. We didn’t exactly hide them.”
Box rubbed his brow.

“OK, ok, drive slowly and let me think.” He sighed.

Harold, Teatime and India waited in tense silence as the little brown man cogitated.

“Alright,” Box said, at length. “The first thing we need is information. Mr Teatime,” he said, turning to the little monkey, “would you be willing to go on a information-gathering mission?”

-0-0-0-0-0-

Mr Teeth woke with a start. He’d been dozing at his desk, waiting for the OGS people to come back from the hospital with their colleague. He cast a bleary eye around for the source of the insistent beeping that had awoken him. On his computer screen, a message balloon had popped up, informing him that the front gate had been opened without authorisation.

Mr teeth had grown up on the streets and had a very keenly developed survival sense. He knew that the OGS people had the code to get in the gates legitimately, so whoever had triggered the alarm was no friend of his, that was for sure.

Silently blessing the foresight that had made him spend so much on his security system, he pulled up the feed from the gate camera.

The gates were ajar. A truck was parked across them, but of its occupants there was no sign.

He flicked through the feeds on all the other cameras around the house and grounds.

Nothing.

He stood up and operated the combination lock on the silver-grey metal cabinet behind his chair. The lock gave one final click and he swung the door open. From inside the cabinet, he took out a pump-action shotgun which he quickly loaded and cocked. He grabbed a handful of extra shells and stuffed them into his pocket – you could never have too much ammo as far as he was concerned.

He made his way out of the study into the unlit hallway, pulling the door closed behind him. He stopped to listen for a moment, at the same time allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

No unusual sounds came to him, but then it would take anybody a little while to reach the house from the gate – even running.

He fished his mobile out of his pocket, quickly thumbed through the contacts list and selected one.

“Pauli, this is Elroy,” he said quietly when the other person picked up the call. “Got some unwelcome visitors here, gonna need you and your boys sooner rather than later.”

“Be there in twenty.”

Mr teeth grunted, ended the call and dropped the phone back into his packet.

There were three ways into the house: the front door, the patio doors at the back, and the door from the garage. Mr Teeth didn’t think that the intruders would come in the front door. The garage would be problematic too, as the intruders would have to get it open it, then skirt the car to get to the house door, which was an extra obstacle if locked – which it was. No, too much could go wrong with that, and it would take too much time for them.

That left the patio doors.

With the house empty but for himself, only Mr Teeth’s study had been lit.

Keeping out of direct line of sight of the living room doorway, he moved quietly along the dark hall until he could stand to one side of the door to the living room and look in.

A rectangle of pale moonlight marked the position of the patio doors. Through them, Mr teeth could see a smooth expanse of lawn running down to the trees and the ornamental pond. Nothing moved out there; not even the wind stirred the tree branches tonight.

After about a minute, Mr Teeth became aware of a soft sound, a kind of metallic clicking, coming from
where the patio door lock was located. Someone was trying to pick the lock. So, whoever it was had elected to take a quiet approach.

Mr teeth steadied the barrel of the shotgun against the doorframe assumed a more balanced stance. He could
still not see anyone out there – and his PIR-activated lights had not come on either, which they most certainly should have done by now. Clearly, whoever was out there had access to one of those invisibility suits that the OGS girl and the demon had been going on about.

This was a problem: there was no telling how many people were out there. The van he had seen on the camera feed looked like it could hold half-a-dozen people at most. Six to one were not great odds and when the six were invisible….

Part of Mr Teeth’s brain kept trying to tell him to exercise that particular type of discretion which is the better part of valour and beat feet out of there. A more stubborn part of it, however, put its fingers in its ears and hummed loudly; this was his home after all and he would not be driven out of it.

A soft click came from the lock area. Mr Teeth angled the barrel of the shotgun towards that spot.
The patio door began to slide open – all by itself, apparently.

Mr Teeth fired.

Episode 87

“This is highly irregular!” The young nurse’s voice was stiff with disapproval. “Mr Box is sleeping and mustn’t be disturbed.”

“But this is really urgent,” said India, “Please, can we have just a few minutes. We’ll be very quiet, I promise.”

Standing behind her, Harold favoured the nurse with his friendliest smile and was pleased to see a little uncertainty creep into her frosty expression.

“Please,” he added, “We just need to give him some very important family news. We’ll be gone before you know it.”

The nurse glanced around to see if anybody else was watching and sighed.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll let you see him, but you get five minutes and that’s it.”

“Thanks,” said India. “That’s all we need, honestly.”

It had all started with India wishing out loud that Box could be there to offer his advice about the current situation. Mr Teeth had offered to loan his not inconsiderable resources to project Distraction, as Harold had insisted on dubbing the current phase of activity. India had been uncertain whether to accept more of his help – so far, his house and the use of a car had been the only things they’d had from hm. All along, India had been squeamish about collaborating with someone who was almost certainly involved in who knows what criminal ventures, but she was pragmatic enough to realise that beggars cannot always be choosers. Still she had sighed and wished for Box’s counsel.

Harold had suddenly had an idea and, well, here they were.

Box was sleeping like the proverbial baby when the nurse ushered them into the dimly-lit room. She went over to the bed and roused his gently.

“Mr Box,” she said softly, “There are a couple of people here to see you. I can send them away if you don’t want to be disturbed.”

Box blinked blearily around the room for a few moments and then his eyes settled on India and Harold.

“No, it’s fine, they can stay.” He pushed himself up the bed and fumbled for the controls to raise the end of it.

“Five minutes.” The nurse said sternly as she left the room.

India and Harold moved over to the bedside.

“I take it things have gone awry.” Said Box, “Pass me that water will you? Thanks.”

Harold handed him the glass from the nightstand while India quickly outlined what had happened.

“And you’ve not been able to contact Mercury and Co since.” He confirmed when she had finished.

“No.” she replied, “But we’re thinking of putting together some kind of a distraction and using the invisibility suits to get inside Infinity Recycling. You’re a much more experienced agent, though, and I wanted to get your take on it.”

“Well, it’s going to take more than a few hurried minutes for me to get my ideas together.” Box said, “Do you have layouts of the uilding, things like that? How many people can Mr Jackson provide?”

“We can go into that back at the house,” said India.

Box blinked.

“Are you fixing to break me out of the hospital?” He said, his voice a mixture of disbelief and just a little glee.

“You’ll be walking out on your own.” Said Harold.

Box frowned. “Say what now?”

“We don’t have a lot of time to explain.” Said India, “The demon here thinks he can fix your leg. I have pointed out that it’s a bit more complicated than a china mug, but he seems to think he can do it and, given the urgency of the situation, I think it’s worth a try.”

-0-0-0-0-

“OK, I’m here,” said Flowers, as she walked into the cramped security office containing Moon.

“Doctor, we’ve had some developments tonight. Some OGS Agents have discovered our little hideaway and, while we’ve rounded up some of them, there is at least one other, plus a Fallen running around loose. We need to know where they would most likely have gone. We’re so close now with this project, we simply can’t have things ruined by a couple of loose cannon.”

Flowers frowned.

“And you’ve called me in because – ?“

“I was thinking that you could maybe,” Moon was suddenly less sure of himself, “well, give one of them a shot of something that might, you know, loosen their inhibitions a bit, get them to tell us where they’ve been hiding out.”

“I see,” Flowers said, hesitantly. Her cabinets down in the lab did contain several drugs that would undoubtedly do the trick, but... She knew she was being a total hypocrite for being so precious all of a sudden about using her drugs in this way, especially when she had already done so once. Nevertheless, her conscience had been nagging away at her since then and she was not keen to feed it any further. Then she remembered something.

“I think I might have an idea where we can look for your loose cannons,” she said.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Box gingerly lowered his feet to the cool linoleum of his hospital room. The stab of pain he had been expected did not come and he breathed a sigh of relief. “So far so good,” he murmured.

Carefully, India and Harold helped him to transfer his full weight to his feet and stand. On the bed behind him lay a tangle of discarded bandage and broken chunks of plaster of Paris. Box had taken a bit of convincing to get him to allow a Fallen – even one he’d recently been working with – to touch him. In the end, though, he’d relented and Harold had set to work with, it now appeared, good results.

Box took a few test steps unaided and pronounced himself satisfied. He was just pulling on his leather trousers when the door opened. The nurse froze in the doorway when she took in what was going on.

“It’s OK,” Box said quickly, before she did anything rash. “I’m going to discharge myself. I’m a whole lot better and my cousin needs me. Can you get the paperwork ready please?”

“Mr Box,” she gasped, “It’s the middle of the night! I strongly advise you at least to wait until morning, I can’t in all conscience – “

“Please,” said Box, in a firm voice. “I’m leaving. Now. I’d rather not make any more fuss than I have to, so please get me whatever I need to sign and I’ll be on my way.”

And, twenty minutes later, with India at the wheel, they all headed back towards Mr Teeth’s.

Episode 86

No sooner had the words left her mouth than India could have kicked herself – really, really hard. Unbelievabley, she had just blurted out to one of the Fallen that it had hold of technology that could render it completely undetectable as it went about its wicked business. Brilliant work there India, she told herself severely, truly outstanding!

She half-expected Harold to pounce on her mistake with an evil cackle or something, but the stupid demon just tugged of the ski-mask and carried on drinking its coffee like nothing had happened. Maybe she’d got away with it after all.

One look at the suddenly thoughtful expression on Teatime’s face, however, instantly disabused her of that notion; the demon may have been too slow-witted to realise the strategic implications, but the monkey-thing clearly wasn’t.

When the little monkey spoke, however, it was not to gloat over her foolishness.

“That might well be jolly useful, actually,” he said.

“Oh?” said Harold.

“Well,” continued Teatime, “I was wondering how we were going to get around the fact that these wretched people seem to have a way of detecting your kind, and this just might be it. If Agent India’s gift doesn’t work when you’re in that ridiculous getup, then perhaps the Infinity Recycling people’s machines won’t either.”

Keen to keep the conversation going down this particular track, India said.

“We have two of these suits, so we could both sneak in, couldn’t we?”

“Yes,” replied Teatime, “But as I said earlier, we still have the problem of physical obstacles and guards to bypass. Magic suits aren’t going to get us through locked doors. We will need a diversion, as I said.”

“It would have to be something pretty big,” said Harold, “those guards seemed quite professional and well-organised.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to need some help.” said India.

-0-0-0-0-

“No, we do not give him what he wants,” declared Prada, folding her arms firmly across her chest. “India and the demon are the only ones who know what’s going on and where we are. We cannot possibly allow Moon and his friends to get hold of them.”

“Assuming the demon hasn’t just run off somewhere, of course,” observed Othello, “If it was looking for a chance to get away from us, it’s just been handed the best one yet.”

“I don’t think it will do that, somehow.” Said Mercury. “It has been pretty helpful thus far, besides which, the Reckoner made it quite clear that he would take it personally if the demon betrayed our trust in any way. No I suspect it will follow the plan and go back to the -” He stopped himself and grinned ruefully. “Oooh, I nearly blew it then, didn’t I? Heh, I bet Moon’s got this place bugged in some way – I would if I were him.”

Moon did indeed have the place bugged, and could not help but smile at Mercury’s stopping himself from blabbing at the last moment. He leaned back in his chair, away from the security console. A small screen showed a grainy video feed from the conference room with the three OGS agents in it. It was clear they were not going to give anything away for free, but Moon had just that moment had an idea. He picked up the phone and dialled a number. He drummed his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair as the call went though.

“Hello?” came a woman’s sleepy voice. It was, after all, the middle of the night.

“Dr Flowers? This is RolexBoy. Can you come down to Infinity Recycling right away please?”

Episode 85

India flung open the door before Harold even had a chance to ring the bell. He allowed his hand, with finger extended, to hang in the air for a moment for comic effect.

“Get in here, demon, and tell me everything that happened!” she barked.

“Pleased to see you too, Agent,” Harold replied, which earned him a Look.

Between them, and with many an irascible shouted instruction from Teatime, Harold and the little monkey had managed not only to get into the car (Mercury had the keys), but also to get it going and to pilot it back to Mr Teeth’s swiss-cheese house without crashing into anything or drawing unwanted attention from the police. Quite an achievement, Harold thought.

He recounted the night’s events in detail to India, a mug of steaming coffee in one hand. He purposefully left out anything about the two silvery cases he had liberated from the crashed truck. He wanted her to ask about them. When he was finished, she obliged him. She pointed to the silvery cases.

“What are those things, then?”

“Well,” replied Harold, lifting one on to the table and opening it, “they might just be the answer to our prayers.” He lifted a bundle of sleek, silvery material out of the case and shook it out for India to see.

“OK” she said carefully, eyes narrowed, “I’m seeing a fancy-looking oversize romper suit. How is going to help us?”

“This is what the guards who captured us – or should I say Prada – were wearing that allowed them to sneak up on us.” Harold explained.

“Seriously? They were dressed in a thing like that and you didn’t see them coming?”
Harold set aside the clothing and reached into the case a second time, lifting out an object the size and shape of a small backpack – complete with straps. “I think this is the power unit or something. When it’s switched on, you can’t be seen or heard, it’s really spooky!”

“Leaving aside for a moment the ironic fact that one of the Fallen thinks something’s spooky, how can we make use of it?” India had reached out and was rubbing the cloth between her thumb and forefinger, like it was a blouse she was considering purchasing.

“Well, I thought we might wear them and sneak back into Infinity Recycling, rescue our people, put an end to whatever’s going on and every one lives happy ever after.” Harold said, brightly.

“If I might inject a much-needed note of reality,” said Teatime, who had been watching. “Even with your magic suits, you can’t just waltz in there. There are still physical obstacles to overcome – locked doors and suchlike.”

“But, I can deal with those,” said Harold, “I – “

“Yes, old stick, I’m sure you can, given time.” Said the monkey patiently, “But don’t you think someone will notice a door opening all by itself – they’ve clearly got cameras all over the wretched place and probably heaps of guards. No, we’re going to need a diversion.”

“Actually, before we all rush down the road making plans,” said India, “we should probably make sure the suits actually work. We might need a special code to operate them or something. If we can’t get them switched on, there’s no use wasting time planning to use them.”

“You make an excellent point, Agent,” said Teatime. He turned to Harold, “Well, off you go old shoe.”

“You sure you want me to do this?” asked Harold.

“Well, the suit’s too big for the monkey, and if it goes bang or something, I’m not indestructible,” retorted India, “so, yes, demon, you get to do it.”


Harold was secretly rather pleased. He’d been itching to try out this clever bit of human technology. Yes, ok, he was a demon and many demons could and did make themselves invisible at will, but he’d never had the time to work on that – and probably never would now. He slipped off his jacket and began to undress down to his underwear. India took one look, blushed and stalked out of the room.
Harold grinned. Teatime sighed and rolled his eyes.

Harold wriggled into the romper suit which was quite stretchy when it came to it, and fitted his six-foot frame quite well. In addition to the suit, there were bootie-like things with soft soles, gloves and a ski-mask. Harold donned all of these.

“It’s safe to come back in now,” he called out to India. “I’m decent.”

“That’s something you’ll never be,” she muttered as she came back into the room.

“Aww, I’m hurt!” said Harold, mockingly, placing a hand over where his heart would be.. “Just when I thought we were beginning to get along and all.”

“Hmph!” was India’s only response. She walked over to the empty case and looked inside. “Hmm, I guess it was too much to hope that they’d leave a handy instruction booklet lying about.”

Harold had picked up the backpack-like object and was examining it.

“There’s a cable here,” he said, “Maybe it connects to the suit somehow.” He ran his hands over the suit until he found a hard lump in the collar of the romper suit. He teased it out between finger and thumb and slid the jack on the end of the cable into it until a soft click told him it was seated correctly.

“Am I invisible yet?” he asked.

“No.” chorused India and Teatime.

“Hmm, obviously, there’s a switch somewhere that’s easy to get to – it would need to be. There’s not one on the backpack, so it must be around here on the suit somewhere.” He put his arms through the straps and shrugged the backpack into place, being careful not to pull the connection apart. He cast his mind back to when the guards had first magically appeared. They had drawn weapons, but before that they’d been apparently clasping one wrist with the opposite hand.
“Got it!” he cried in triumph, pressing the small stud located on the left hand cuff.

He felt a soft vibration start up in the backpack. The biggest change though was that the world had suddenly been re-rendered in weird colours – all purples and greys in lower definition than normal.

“How bout now?” He turned round to see a look of utmost surprise on India’s face, and Teatime bolt upright on the table, his tiny teeth bared – an instinctive monkey reaction to the strange, no doubt.

“Very well, turn it off, turn it off, old sock!” urged Teatime, “We don’t want to run the battery down, do we?” Harold pressed the stud again. The vibration stopped and the world returned to normal colours.

Now he could see her again properly, Harold could not but help notice that India had gone very pale and very quiet.

“Agent? Are you alright?” he asked. “Shall I get you some water?”
“Turn it on again.” She said faintly.

Harold shrugged and did as he was told. The purple-o-vision bloomed silently, filling he field of view once more.

“OK, off again.” India’s voice was firmer now.

Harold complied.

“That is so weird,” she said, shaking her head.

“What is?” asked Harold. “Didn’t the suit work properly? Was I still visible?”
India wiped a hand across her forehead.

“Not only were you not visible, demon,” she replied grimly, “but my teeth stopped itching. I couldn’t sense you at all.”

Episode 84

Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada looked up guiltily as the door opened. They had been going through the few drawers and cupboards in the conference room, looking for a plug-in telephone after Othello had spotted a socket for one on the wall.


Agent Moon walked in.


“Moon! Tell your goons to let us go!” Prada was on her feet and shouting before the door was even closed behind him.


“Agent Prada,” warned Mercury, “let’s just stay calm and see what Moon has to say for himself.” He looked enquiringly at the latter. “Well?”


Prada slumped grumpily into a seat and began to worry at a hangnail with her teeth. Moon perched himself on the corner of the long conference table and surveyed the three of them. He looked different somehow, more confident, more mature and self-assured.


“Look,” he began, “I realise that this looks really bad –“


“Ya think?” muttered Prada, which earned her a frown from Mercury.


“- but, please believe me when I say that what’s going on here, what I’m involved in, is one of the most important projects this world has ever seen.”


“That’s a bold statement,” said Othello, “Care to elucidate?”


Moon took a moment to scratch at his temple as he composed his thoughts.


“I’d be more than happy to, believe me, but first I need some information from you guys.”


“Oh?” said Mercury, guardedly.


“Yeah, it’s just a small thing really, but I really need to know where Agent India and your pet demon are right now.”


Mercury, Prada and Othello looked at each other briefly, then Mercury spoke.


“And why would you need to know that, Agent?”


“We’re at a very sensitive stage in our work here,” Moon replied, “We really can’t afford to have unpredictable elements running about the place, disturbing things. It’s just too important.’


”You don’t seriously expect us to tell you, just like that, surely.” Said Prada.


Moon sighed. “I suppose not, but I thought it was worth while to ask, anyway.”


“So what now?” said Prada, “You going to start threatening us? Get one of your goons to shoot one of us like you did to Emerald? Like you did to Box?”


Moon’s face reddened.


“Those things were never meant to happen like that, I swear.” He said fervently. “A few people misunderstood what they were supposed to be doing and …” he trailed off, and suddenly, for a moment, he was the Moon they recognised - young, uncertain.


“Did whoever it was who planted the bomb in the warehouse misunderstand as well?” asked Othello, “Only, it seems to me that setting up something like that would take a certain amount of premeditation. Firing a gun can be a spur of the moment thing, but not planting explosives, that takes planning. You’re going to have to do better than that, Moon.”


Moon showed his palms in a conciliatory gesture. “You’re right, of course. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to have done and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just that what we’re doing here is so very important.”


“Look, Fallen and Loyal alike have disappeared completely,” said Mercury, “Gone. Vanished. Not dismissed – which was always sufficient before now, but vanished. Are you destroying them somehow? And why target the Loyal when they’re on our side, for pity’s sake! Don’t you realise that you’re upsetting an ancient arrangement that has stood the test of time for centuries?”


“I understand that there are serious implications to what we’re doing here, believe me,” said Moon, “We appreciate that neither the Basement nor the Penthouse is going to be happy with what we’re doing here, but – “ he stood up and began pacing, as if about to deliver a speech.


“Humans have always been stuck in the middle between the two of them, at the mercy of either temptation from the Basement or whatever crumbs of bounty the Penthouse sees fit to bestow.”


“But that’s how it’s meant to be,” interrupted Prada. “If it – “


“Let me finish, please,” said Moon, cutting her off. “The Fallen and the Loyal have abilities that none of us humans can match and yet they hardly ever use them. There’s so much good they could do in the world but they don’t. Why? Because of some ancient agreement – to which we were not even party!”


“Moon, you know perfectly well why they can’t get involved in human affairs,” said Mercury, a not of irritation creeping into his voice. “Any one of them could rule this world without hardly lifting a finger if it so chose. The arrangement is for our protection, so that we are free to conduct our affairs as we see fit. They can try to influence us – that’s all. Our free will is what’s at stake here.”


“I know that!” Moon was beginning to sound angry himself now, “But is it an infringement of anybody’s free will if they get cured of cancer, or if a drought-stricken region suddenly get some rain for once? If a starving kid gets a bowl of rice? They see all this misery and they stand by and do nothing! If somebody saw an old lady fall down in the street and hurt herself, and yet just walked on by, we would be outraged at their lack of compassion. If we mortals can act altruistically, then why can’t they? It would be nothing to them.” He stopped, a little out of breath.


“I’m sure the Loyal at any rate would agree with you,” said Othello, “And I’m sure they very much want to help, but where do you draw the line? You can feed a single starving mouth easily enough, you might even feed a village or a town. Then you might just say to yourself, well, I can end starvation in this whole land altogether by getting the government to stop fighting internecine civil wars with their neighbours. Oh, and while I’m at it, I should get the neighbour governments to improve their human rights records. Pretty soon, if you go down that road, you’d be running the whole place. So it’s best not to even start down that road – hence the arrangement.”


“Well, I think it’s time things changed.” Declared Moon. “If they can’t – or won’t - help then –“


“- you’ll wipe then out.” Prada finished for him, flatly.


“No. That is not what’s happening here – the last thing we want is for any of them to be wiped out.”


“Then what?” asked Mercury.


For a moment, it looked as though Moon were actually going to tell them, but he obviously thought better of it. He shook his head.


“Sorry,” he said, “As I said, I’ll tell you gladly, but only when India and the demon are secured.”


He moved to the door. “Have a think about it and if you change your mind, just tell the guard. In the meantime, I’ll have some drinks and sandwiches sent in.”


The door closed. Mercury, Prada and Othello looked at one another.


“So,” said Mercury, “Do we give him what he wants?”

Episode 83

“You have absolutely no right to keep us here! Let us go!” Prada’s pale face was flushed with anger.

“Please sit down, miss, and stay calm.” Said Nugent, patiently. “I’m sure everything will be fine, but we have our orders. Someone will be along to speak to you soon.” He closed the door firmly behind him, leaving Prada, Othello and Mercury alone together for the first time since their capture.
Othello waited a few moments and then went over to the door. He eased it open a crack, glanced out and quickly closed it again.

“Two guards outside,” he said. “Armed.”

Mercury, meanwhile was checking the windows.

“These can’t be opened,” he sighed. “Looks like we’re here for the duration.”

“And since they have our phones, we can’t even let India know what’s happened.” Said Prada. The guards of units Three and Four had searched them quickly and professionally before ushering them into what looked like a perfectly ordinary conference room.

“She’ll know something’s up when we don’t make the check-in call.” Mercury looked at his watch, “in about ten minutes or so.”

“Were the guys that nabbed you wearing Predator-suits as well?” asked Prada.

“Predator suits?” Mercury inquired with raised eyebrow. “Oh! The fancy invisibility things? Yeah, they flat-footed us quite handily. What I wouldn’t give for a few of those things!”

“They’re some seriously advanced tech,” said Othello, “Military maybe. There’s a pile of money being spent here. I think we’re definitely on to something now.” He turned to Prada, “ So what happened to the demon? Did they capture it?”



Teatime crouched under a hedge, straining his tiny eyes and ears to the maximum to reassure himself that there were no perishing humans about. The car they had all arrived in earlier that evening sat, apparently undisturbed, just in the spot they had left it. During their earlier planning session at Mr Teeth’s, it had been decided that the car was the place to meet up if anything untoward happened. Well, untoward was certainly an understatement. A supposedly low-risk recce mission had turned into a complete shambles.

Teatime hoped Harold had a) got away safely and b) remembered this part of the plan. He was a good-hearted chap but, honestly, sometimes he could be such a complete duffer. Besides, it would be colossally inconvenient if the silly oaf had got himself captured. Not only would the investigation be severely hampered, but Teatime would have to explain things to Harold’s father. Not a pleasant prospect.


Harold had not forgotten the plan. It had taken a while, but he had eventually managed to find a service ladder and climb out of the culvert. As soon as he had emerged, he had tried calling Mercury’s phone to let him know what had happened. It had just rung and rung and then gone to voicemail. So had Othello’s. He even called Prada just in case, somehow, she had managed to escape herself, but the result was the same. This did not bode well. Maybe all the agents had been captured then. Well, all except one. India. His number one fan. With some trepidation, he dialled her number.


“All of them?” India cried, incredulous.

“It would seem so, I can’t raise any of them on their cells.”

“But you managed to escape. Just you.” Her voice had a hard, suspicious edge to it.

“Well, Teatime too, probably. We got split up in all the confusion.”
India rubbed her eyes. She needed to think. This was one scenario they had not rehearsed. She was effectively in charge now all of a sudden. This was only her first proper mission. She was the most junior member of the team, she couldn’t be expected to tackle this level of responsibility. It just wasn’t right. Get a grip, she told herself sternly. She took a big breath.

“OK, demon, try and find the monkey-thing and then both of you get back here, so we can figure out what to do next.“

“Will do.”

The line went dead. Well that went surprisingly well, Harold thought as he put the phone away. He had been expecting much more of a tongue-lashing than that. She must be softening.

Right then, back to the car and hopefully a reunion with Teatime.

Episode 82

Harold dropped the twenty feet or so into the culvert, landing lightly. He trotted over to the crashed truck. Some kind of liquid was leaking from somewhere and spreading in a dark pool around it. Harold hoped it wasn’t fuel or anything else flammable: he’d seen lots of movies and TV programmes since coming to earth and vehicles inevitably seemed to go ka-boom shortly after crashing. If motor vehicles were so dangerous, why on earth did humans routinely trust their lives to them? Harold wasn’t afraid for himself; his clothes would be ruined, of course, if the truck blew up, but he would be basically unharmed – if a little weak and in need of pizza. The humans inside would not fare so well, however, so chop-chop, old bean, he told himself in his best mental imitation of Teatime.

The truck’s rear end was closest to him and one of the doors, having burst open in the crash, was lying invitingly open on the ground, providing a handy means for Harold to scramble in.

The inside of the truck was a shambles. There had clearly been a lot of complicated and delicate equipment in here, but most of it had been torn from its mountings in the crash and was smashed and scattered all over the place. Bits of broken glass glittered everywhere. Thankfully, there was no electrical sparking – indeed, all was eerily quiet. Harold’s night vision, demonically good as it was, soon allowed him to spot the rear compartment’s lone occupant.

The man was unconscious with a sizeable gash on his forehead which was bleeding freely. He was lying sprawled on top of a small heap of busted up equipment. Further examination, however, was hampered by two large silvery equipment cases which had tumbled onto the man’s body and legs. Harold grabbed the handle of the nearest one and unceremoniously slung it out through the door-hole, where it landed with a clatter on the concrete beyond. The second one followed suit shortly after.

Harold crouched next to the man. He was quite young by the looks of it, which was good as it meant that he would be strong and healthy. Humans’ bodies were so terrifically delicate, though. One wrong move from Harold and a bad situation might become much, much worse. Harold had seen fly-on-the-wall documentaries about hospital ERs and knew that broken necks and spines were bad news. If he moved the man… He wracked his brains for a moment, wrestling with the beginnings of an idea, then shrugged to himself: it was worth a try, surely?

He tentatively reached out his hand and, using the same facility that had allowed him to sense the locks on the various doors he had opened, he tried to ‘see’ if anything was broken in the man’s body. The rush of sensation he received in return was very odd indeed: humans, it transpired, were basically a big bag of warm squishy with a bony frame. Fortunately, the man seemed to be undamaged apart from the knock on the head he’d received.

Harold carefully manoeuvred the limp and distinctly uncooperative form out through the door hole and dragged it far enough away (he hoped) from any potential ka-boom. Not knowing anything about recovery positions or anything much else of First Aid (the Basement did not have this subject on its curriculum for some reason), he made the fellow as comfortable as he could, then headed back to the van.

As he trotted past them on his way to the front of the truck, Harold glanced at the two bulky cases he had ejected so carelessly. They bore the Rainbow Industries logo as well as some other black stencilled lettering: RI-180-A Smart Camouflage (Medium). Harold felt a stab of excitement: if those cases contained what he thought they did, then getting Prada back might be a tad easier.

There was no time for that now, however.

Harold scrambled up onto the passenger side of the vehicle, which was now effectively its roof, and made his way over to the driver’s compartment. Through the broken passenger side window, Harold could see that both airbags had gone off and then deflated, leaving their fabric draped in pale folds eerily reminiscent of a shroud, over the occupants, neither of whom was moving.

Harold stood up and tried to tug the passenger door open, but it was badly buckled and refused to budge. Favouring the universe with a gimme-a-break-already sigh, Harold crouched down again and used his abilities, just as he had done on Mr Peck’s cable-tie handcuffs, teasing the molecules of the twisted metal apart bit by bit, so as to avoid sparks and subsequent unwelcome ka-booms.

The door now open, Harold reached in and gently lifted the air-bag material out of the way, the better to see the two men. A hand-scan (as he suddenly decided to called it) revealed that the passenger had a broken arm and a couple of cracked ribs, as well as a large egg of a bump on the side of his head – no doubt the cause of his unconsciousness. He tried to reach down to the driver to check on him, but the bulk of the passenger’s body prevented it.

The passenger himself was probably not in too great a danger from his injuries, Harold thought (so, you’re a Doctor all of a sudden, taunted his own inner voice), but clearly the man would benefit by not being in the truck any longer than was necessary.

But how to get him out safely?

The truck’s front windshield was a spider web of cracks, but was, miraculously, still more or less in one piece. If Harold could just remove it, there would be a nice big aperture through which rescue could be effected. He was just starting to congratulate himself on his own inventiveness when the sound of a passing siren drifted down from the highway above.

He smacked himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. You idiot! he told himself, you should have rung for an ambulance before getting stuck in!

He reached for his phone, but, as his fingers curled around its cool smooth plastic, he suddenly remembered all those NO MOBILE PHONE signs displayed so prominently in filling stations. Mouthing a silent phew at his lucky escape, he jumped down to the ground.

Once he got to work on it, the windscreen all but fell out of its own accord and, with the large gap it left, Harold was now able to check on the truck’s driver at last.

The driver’s corner of the truck had borne the full brunt of the vehicle’s high speed impact with the unyielding concrete of the culvert’s wall. There was nothing anyone could do for the driver now.

Shaking his head, Harold carefully eased the passenger out of the truck and dragged him as gently as he could over to where he had left the other man, laying him down beside his comrade. He then dialled 911 and gave brief details of the men’s injuries and the location.

That done, he suddenly felt quite drained. All the tearing about at high speed, followed by all the scanning and cutting of metal and glass had apparently taken its toll. What he wouldn’t give for some pizza right now! No rest for the wicked, though, he told himself.

Slinging the straps of the two cases over his shoulders, Harold started walking along the culvert and away from the crash site – it wouldn’t do to be around when the medics (and Police, probably) showed up. Now, there had to be a service ladder or something around here somewhere.

Episode 81

Harold found himself running across an area of rough ground, mostly loose, dry dirt with the odd tussock of scrubby grass dotted here and there. Behind him, he could hear the truck’s engine being revved and what sounded like a very bad-tempered clash of gears as it was hastily slammed into reverse. Hopefully, the Infinity Recycling crew would waste a lot of precious time getting the truck back out of the loading yard and onto the road again, time he could use to his advantage.

He looked back to see if any of them had followed him over the fence, but could see nothing except the sweep of the truck’s lights as it swung around, and even these disappeared as it drove out of the yard.

Where would they go?

Harold’s mind raced: having seen him run off into the dark, they would try to find a way onto this open area as soon as they could. He wasn’t out of the woods yet by a long chalk. Heh, woods would be quite handy in his current predicament.

Then he had an idea. Whipping out his phone, he called up Google Maps. It took a maddeningly long time for the app to work out where he was and display the map of the area, but eventually it appeared.

Up ahead, about half a mile off, Harold could see a line of moving lights. So that would be the highway indicated on the map just there then. So, that bit was the business park and there was the loading yard. Harold zoomed the image out to get the whole of the rough ground onto the screen. It looked like there was just the one place that a vehicle could get through and was it just over there….

Sure enough, as if on cue, like the eyes of some malevolent creature, the truck’s headlights appeared and began to grow larger as the vehicle bounced and bumped its way onto the field.

Harold headed for the lights of the highway. Maybe he’d be able to persuade someone to stop and give him a ride (unlikely! he admonished himself), but even so, once he actually was on the well-lit main road, surely the IR people wouldn’t be able to try and capture him without drawing a lot on unwelcome attention. It was definitely the best bet at this stage.

The truck’s engine roared as the driver floored the accelerator. Harold risked a look back and saw that the truck was on a somewhat oblique course to his; it looked like the truck’s occupants didn’t exactly know where he was at this point, which was fine by him.

The highway lights drew steadily closer. He might make it yet.

Suddenly, the truck accelerated past Harold on what was now almost a parallel course, albeit a hundred yards to the side. Darn it!  They must have figured out the highway was his best bet and were trying to get there before he did. That was not good news: the open ground was a rough wedge shape with the narrowest part abutting the highway. If they did get there in time and got their freezing machine going again there was no way he was getting past them. He slowed to a stop; no point in running straight into their trap. The obvious thing would be to head back the way he’d come, putting maximum distance between himself and them.

He turned and began to run back.

Behind him, the truck’s engine, which had been a more or less constant roar suddenly rose in pitch, giving out a tortured mechanical scream. This lasted but a moment, however, before being cut off by a horrendous crashing sound, followed by the nails-on-blackboard screech of something heavy and metallic sliding against something very hard and very rough.

Then all at once there was silence.

Harold whirled round.

The truck was gone.

He stood there for a few moments, at a loss. In his experience, trucks did not just disappear. After a while, though, a new sound came to his ears, an irregular ticking interspersed with the occasional spong of cooling metal.

Harold made his way over to where the noise was coming from. The mystery of its sudden vanishing act was solved.  A twenty foot wide, twenty foot deep solid concrete drainage culvert ran more of less parallel to the highway. The truck’s driver simply hadn’t seen it in time.

The truck lay on its side at the bottom of the far wall. It must have hit at an angle, its momentum flipping it round a full 180 degrees given that it was now facing back the way it had been going. From what Harold could see of it, the driver’s side was completely staved in and the rest of the truck looked pretty bent and battered. It wouldn’t be following anyone anywhere now.

For a moment his spirits soared. This was his chance! He could get away, hook up with Teatime, Othello and Mercury and figure out how to rescue Prada.

But, a more level-headed thought insisted, there were people in that truck. If they had survived the crash, they were very likely to be needing medical attention.

So call an ambulance and leave them to take care of it.

But an ambulance could take ages, those people needed help now.

But if they weren’t that badly injured after all, he’d be walking straight into their arms.

Not badly injured?  Seriously?  The truck was a mess.

Harold gazed at the crumpled truck for a moment longer and then with a sigh, walked to the edge of the culvert and jumped down into it.

Episode 80

Harold risked a glance back over his shoulder as he ran. It looked like Prada was trying to make use of Teatime’s distraction herself: she was struggling manfully (girlfully?) in the grip of two of the silver-suited guards. The other two were pounding along the road after him. Of Teatime, there was no visible sign. He hoped the little monkey was ok. With any luck, the humans in their usual arrogance would overlook him as just a dumb animal and he would make good his escape.

What about Agent Prada, though?

A razor-edged icicle of guilt stabbed into his mind and he almost turned back for her. A second thought, however, hot on the heels of the first pointed out, quite reasonably, that getting himself captured would be no help whatsoever to anybody, so he shifted up a gear to put some distance between himself and his pursuers. His earthly vessel was not super-strong, but it was very fast and it did not get tired or out of breath. His pursuers were soon falling behind.

Inside the Infinity Recycling building, Nugent cursed softly as the red dot on the c-detector winked out.

“Unit four, this is Sec-1, what’s your status?”

Unit four’s leader responded after a few moments. “Sec-1, we have captured one of the intruders, the other one ran off. Roe and Rehman are in pursuit.”

“Copy that, unit four ”

Nugent switched to a different channel. “Mobile team, immediate scramble. We have a contact heading south.”

“Mobile team, acknowledged,” came the crisp reply.

Mercury and Othello were caught as flat-footed as Prada and Harold had been – only they didn’t have a handy monkey-shaped distraction, so ended up being matched ignominiously into the Infinity Recycling building by the unsmiling guards of Unit three.

As soon as he saw that Harold had got clear, Teatime leapt away from the flailing arms of the stupid human guards and set off in the same general direction as the demon. He had no hope of catching him, of course, but one direction was as good as another under the circumstances. Unlike Harold, however, Teatime had no qualms whatsoever about leaving Prada to her fate. So far as he was concerned, she could take care of herself and the guards’ weapons were clearly meant to intimidate rather than injure or kill since they had not tried to use them. Besides which, any humans struggling with her were humans who were not chasing him.

Somewhere far behind him, Harold heard an engine cough into life. This was not good: he could not possibly outrun a motor vehicle, and what if it was equipped like the one at the safe house that had managed to freeze him? He had to get away from the road and hope the vehicle was not set up to travel over rough terrain – not that there was much of that in this over-landscaped and asphalt-covered place.

The sound of the engine was growing louder now. It was a hungry, angry sound to Harold’s ears.

He veered off the main road and headed for a gap between Eaton-Brewer Inc and Knight Securities, a narrow service road of some kind. He hoped that the Infinity Recycling vehicle would carry on along the main route and that his short-cut would get him clear of the business park. If he could get to some roadless ground…

The buildings were two lightless boxes looming up on either side as he ran between them, his footfalls echoing madly off the walls. Behind him, he heard the vehicle shift down and slow – it was turning too! Harold was sure that the driver could not have actually seen him; the road was curved and he would have been far enough around to be out of sight, he was sure. Either the driver had got very lucky in his guesses or he had some means of tracking him. Now that would be really bad news. It made sense though: he and Prada had been very careful to stay a good distance from the cameras and lighting at Infinity Recycling and yet they had still been discovered. So, unless Mercury or Othello had blundered – and he could not believe they would have – it must have been his own presence that had alerted the strange silver-suited guards. It would appear they had some sort of demon-detection technology.

Project Dynamo had been perfected after all.

The service road emerged onto another road, running parallel to the original one. Harold ran straight across it, looking left and right in desperation, hoping for any kind of narrow gap that would prevent the vehicle from following. Nothing obvious presented itself and he could feel panic rising as the sound of the vehicle changed: it was now between the buildings and would emerge at any moment.

He took another service road. This one curved around the back of a building into a loading yard of some sort.

Dead end!

A high fence surrounded the yard. Harold glanced around wildly. He could hear the vehicle’s wheels bump up over a drainage grating that had marked the entrance to the service road. He could not be caught here!

Then he spied it – a dumpster hunkered down in the corner of the yard. He sprinted over to it, leapt up onto it, his feet clanging noisily on the metal of its lid, and bounced-jumped for the top of the fence.

His hands closed around the topmost horizontal bar and he began to heave himself up, ready to swing over the top.

The world was suddenly filled with light as the vehicle roared into the yard and screeched to a stop. Immediately, a strange whining sound filled the air and Harold’s vision swam crazily.

The freezing machine!

More terrified than he had ever been in his long life, he hurled himself over the top of the fence, not bothering to engineer a clever landing – he was a demon after all, and it was not like he would break an ankle.

He hit the dirt on the other side of the fence hard, rolled and staggered to his feet. His limbs felt unaccountably sluggish and heavy. He felt – what was the words the humans used, tired! His head was full of cotton wool. He lurched forward a step or two, the world tilting and listing crazily, then he took another few. A few yards behind him and a million miles away, the engine of the vehicle was idling now and he could hear shouts. They sounded angry. That was a good thing. He stumbled forward a few more drunken steps and suddenly started to feel more normal. Maybe the machine wasn’t fully switched on yet, maybe it had to warm up or something.

A balloon of hope and excitement suddenly inflated inside him and he pushed himself onward into the darkness, feeling better with every step.

Episode 79

Moon put down the phone and jumped out of bed. A mixture of excitement and puzzlement was building inside him. The c-detectors at Infinity had never so much as twitched before now, except when rigged for staff training exercises. Nugent had said the reading was low - a mere 3.5, but it was stable and seemed to be moving purposefully and systematically around the outside of the site.

Moon tugged on his trousers and hurriedly fished his shirt and jacket off the floor. One shoe was playing hard-to-get under the bed and he had practically to lie down full-length to retrieve it.

There could really only be one explanation for the blip. Somehow, Mercury and his team, plus their pet demon by the looks of things, had figured out where the facility was! Keys, phone, phone, phone! Where the hell was his phone? Oh, there it was on the bedside table. How on earth had they managed to find out where the facility was? Flowers's interrogation of Box had revealed that they knew nothing worth knowing. The facility wasn't even officially listed as belonging to Infinity Recycling - only some serious digging would have revealed the connection. Someone obviously had been digging, though, probably Othello, he would have been the only one smart enough. Flinging on his jacket, Moon headed for the door.

The quiet of the night was broken by the sound of an approaching vehicle.

"Quick, get down behind here," Prada whispered, tugging Harold's arm. They both crouched down behind Adept Engineering's conveniently placed and neatly clipped box hedge. Teatime hopped off Harold's shoulder and moved toward the hedge with a view to climbing up it.

"How exciting is this?" whispered Harold excitedly.

"Don't get too enthusiastic," she whispered back, "we're just keeping a low profile is all, just a precaution. After all, it's unlikely anybody would look twice at us anyway, but still..."

Teatime peered over the top of the hedge as the vehicle passed by. After a moment, he clambered down to ground level.

"False alarm, chaps," he said, "It was just a delivery van or some such."

Nugent repositioned the CCTV cameras to point to the area corresponding to the dot on the c-detector. Annoyingly, the area lay just beyond the reach of the perimeter lighting, so he brought the thermal camera to bear on the same spot. Aha! Two crouching figures could be made out, along with a third much smaller one on the ground next to them. Nugent spoke into his headset microphone.

"Units one, two and three, search your sectors, we have a positive in sector 4 and there may be others."

"Unit four. You have two targets and possibly a small animal of some kind on your front porch."

"Unit four, copy." came the crisp reply.

It was as if the guards appeared out of nowhere. Prada and Harold scrambled to their feet as the six men appeared suddenly to shimmer into existence around them. They were all dressed from head-to-toe in a snug-fitting uniform of some strange-looking material. It resembled more than anything the sort of shiny nylon silver suits actors wore in old sci-fi B movies that were meant to show that in the far, far future mankind may have had jet-packs and food pills, but absolutely no sense of style. The guards' heads were covered in a ski-mask like affair of the same stuff and round their waists they had broad pouched belts, a-la Batman, and some kind of oblong backpacks on their backs. Science Fiction props their costumes might have been, but the weapons they were now drawing looked perfectly realistic.

One of the men, a leader of some sort presumably, whipped off his ski mask. Underneath, he was revealed to be a pleasant-looking, blond man in his late twenties.

"Sir? Ma-am?" he began, "I have to inform you you're trespassing on private property and I'm gonna have to ask you to come with us please"

Harold and Prada glanced at each other, neither sure exactly what to do. Of course, the guards might just want to ask them a few questions and then let them go on their way, in which case, there would be no harm in going with them. On the other hand, if the guards were part of the shadowy organisation responsible for the disappearance of the angels and demons and possibly the murder of Agent Emerald as well, it would be very foolish to go with them right now.

Suddenly, one of the guards grabbed at his head as a quick, agile shape landed upon it and began tearing at the ski mask covering the man's face.

"Run!" screeched Teatime in Infernal and leapt off the man's head just as one of his colleagues took a swipe at him.

Harold vaulted the low hedge and ran.

Episode 78

It was night once more, with just a few stars showing, as Mercury stopped the car.


"OK," he said, "The place Moon visited today is just at the end of this road on the right – you've seen it on Google earth. We're just going to go around the outside and see what we can see for ourselves. Be on the lookout for cameras and any other security . The whole idea is just to get a good look and see if there might be a way in or if there's anything else we can learn about the place. Let's try not to arouse suspicion."

Harold could feel a tingle of excitement as he got out of the car. They had finally made some real progress, they were finally closing in on their mysterious adversary.

Looking around though, he had to admit that, as secret headquarters went, this place was a bit of a let-down. The business park was typical of its type – a campus of single or two-storey brick buildings, as alike as Lego blocks. Each pale brick-built building was surrounded by a block-paved parking area and the regulation amount of carefully landscaped but essentially uninspired lawn and planting. Each building had a tasteful sign proclaiming the name of the company housed in it – Adept Engineering, MillCo, Branch & Simons, and so on.

"We'll be approaching Moon's building from the rear, which should be less obtrusive, but we still need to be careful." Mercury said quietly. "Prada, you're with the demon and Mr Teatime. Othello, you're with me." He took out his phone and dialled India's number. "OK, we're at the park and we're about to do a circuit of the building."

They set off, splitting up at the next intersection, so as to approach the building from different directions and save time by covering the area in two teams.

"Looks like a few things have changed since Google maps last photographed this place." murmured Prada, as she and Harold looked at Infinity Recycling's premises. Unlike the other Lego blocks on the park, this one had a 10-foot high fence of sturdy metal railings running around it. The landscaping had been torn out and replaced by asphalt. The building itself was not noticeably different from any others on the park. A couple of white trucks and a handful of cars were parked in the parking area and, while most of the building was in darkness, light glowed behind drawn blinds in a couple of the ground floor windows. The parking area itself was well-lit by tall light poles around the perimeter.

"There seems to be an awful lot of security for a recycling business," said Teatime. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to steal what is essentially rubbish."

"Maybe they recover gold from old circuit boards or something, or maybe it's toxic stuff and they need to keep people out for safety." said Prada, peering up at a light pole next to the fence. "Is that a camera up there?"

Harold looked where she was indicating and saw the telltale shape. "Looks like there might be more than one." he said.

"Maybe they've got infrared as well, just in case." Prada got out her notebok and jotted this detail down, marking the position of the pole on a sketch-map.  She took out a camera of her own and took a few quick photos. "OK, Let's move around the next corner."

They started walking, being careful to stay well out of the range of the light.

Inside the building, a security guard set down his coffee mug.  The console in front of him had emitted a beep, and a red LED was flashing. Below it, a monitor showed a red dot moving slowly to the east of the building. The security guard's heart-rate increased: this particular monitor had never shown anything, except during training exercises.

He picked up the phone and dialled a few digits. "This is Nugent at Security-one. Sorry to disturb you, but I thought you should know that the c-detector's just lit up. Yes, for real"

Episode 77

Moon stopped his car at the entrance to a non-descript campus on an equally unimpressive business park. A uniformed guard emerged from the little hut next to the security barrier, clip board in hand, and motioned for Moon to lower his window.

Moon turned off his car stereo, cutting off the sound of Mitch Carpenter, lead singer of Chip off the Old Block, going on about how his heart felt like it had a great big Charley Horse now all his happiness had fled because of old ladies' gossip or some such twaddle - at least that's what it had sounded like. That was one CD that was definitely going back to its lender without being copied!

He gave his name and showed his id to the guard and was waved through quickly enough.

Now that he was actually here, he could feel the excitement building inside him. The phone call last evening had been most intriguing. If the project had actually come up with some real results, he wouldn't be the only one with cause for gratitude. The implications were staggering,

Haines was waiting for him in the Spartan little reception area. Moon signed in and the two men walked wordlessly to the laboratory where the demonstration was to take place.

As they entered the lab, Dr Flowers stood up behind her desk and greeted Moon warmly.
"Welcome, would you like some coffee or something before we get started?"
"No thanks, I had one just before setting out," Moon gazed around the room in bemused interest. There was a definite Heath-Robinson look to a lot of the equipment - a sort of mix and match approach, connecting all kinds of disparate bits of electrical and electronic components had been adopted, by the looks of it.

Flowers saw Moon looking.

"At this early stage, we're still trying to figure things out." she said, "Obviously, once we've refined our techniques, we can build something a little less messy-looking. Shall we start? If you take a seat here, you'll get a good view."

Haines sat down on a stool next to a large, blocky piece of equipment, encrusted with lights and dials and with numerous wires coming out of it. He then proceeded to pull onto his head what looked for all the world like a swimming cap. The cap was covered with round metal clips.

Flowers moved in and began to connect the wires from the equipment to the clips on Haines's swimming cap. When they were all connected, she flipped switches and the large box hummed to life.

"All set?" she asked.

Haines nodded.

Flowers picked up a telephone that lay next to the blinky-lights box.

"Pilkington? Switch on number three, if you please."

She replaced the handset and moved to where a lumpy shape lay under green surgical cloths on the bench.

She twitched these aside and Moon was surprised to see the body of a small monkey lying underneath.

Noticing Moon's startled reaction, Flowers smiled. "Don't worry," she said, "it's not dead, just anaesthetised." She lifted another cloth to reveal a surgical tray and instruments. Quickly donning some rubber gloves, she swabbed an area on the monkey's arm with antiseptic. It looked to Moon like a patch had been shaved in the monkey's fur. Flowers then took a scalpel from the tray and with deft precision, made a two-inch cut in the monkey's skin. Immediately, blood flowed out onto the green sheets. Flowers stepped aside and motioned to Haines, who stepped up to where Flowers had stood.

"Watch closely," said Flowers, and Moon leaned in, transfixed.

Haines reached over to where the little monkey lay and touched its arm, Moon wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the most minuscule flash or spark of blue run from Haines's finger to the animal. Haines then stepped back, a strangely euphoric look on his face.. With the blood covering the area, Moon could not see that anything had changed. He looked at Flowers with a quizzical expression. She grinned, stepped forward and swabbed the blood away.

"Amazing!" breathed Moon.

There was no sign whatsoever of the cut Flowers had just made.