A “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” story for Christmas
By Chris Bishop
In all his years, Charles Grey had been confronted with many strange
situations – many more than the officers under his command even realised or
suspected. And when he became
director of the British branch of the Universal Secret Service, he gained access
to many confidential records of strange events and situations that very few
people were privy to, and would even have had trouble believing in.
These experiences had made it easy for him, as Colonel White, commander
of Spectrum, to accept the existence of the Mysterons, and to acknowledge the
extraordinary powers they held. He had to admit that when they turned up and
threatened Earth with their war of nerves,
nothing
before or after them proved to be more unusual – an alien enemy able to
recreate a dead person to use for their own nefarious purposes had to top
anything he had ever faced.
Today, however, as he sat in the Conference Room in this late afternoon
with Doctor Fawn, Doctor Lavender, Captain Blue and Captain Grey, he wasn’t so
sure this new situation with which Spectrum was now confronted had not managed
to top even the Mysterons.
Two days had passed since the explosion of the variable mode generator in
the engine room, and since then, White had read the many reports presented to
him about the incident by all witnesses and people involved with what had
happened – and from experts as well, including Doctor Fawn’s most unusual
medical account on his examination of their unexpected ‘guest’.
White was doing his best to appear unfazed, but he couldn’t help but
stare with deep perplexity at the young boy currently standing before them. He
was wearing a shirt and trousers almost his right size – perhaps a little
larger, but not as much as it would look too awkward. Lieutenant Beryl had
managed to borrow from a Philippine technician of very small stature – an Ati
from the island of Panay, so White understood – clothing befitting a boy more
than any outfit that could be found in Harmony Angel’s wardrobe. The boy even had proper shoes on –
sneakers, visibly used by the look of them, with dirt stains and many little
spots of paint of various colours.
The boy stood rigidly on the other side of the table, looking even more
solemn than the security guard that stood beside him. He was a strapping young lad; dark hair,
deep blue eyes, and indeed, White could certainly recognise in this boy’s
features a much younger version of Captain Scarlet.
There was the same sharpness in those eyes, and the colonel could even
detect some defiance in them. And perhaps, also, edginess. He looked somehow confused, but not to
the point of appearing completely lost.
The Spectrum commander couldn’t help but wonder what could be going
through his mind at the moment.
“What is your name, son?”
White could have kicked himself over the use of the last word. He had used it instinctively, and it was
out before he could even stop himself.
After all, if he had to believe the reports and all the indications
regarding this boy’s identity, this was probably one of his own officers
standing in front of him. Under the
circumstances, the term might appear patronising.
The young man straightened himself to attention, almost to the point of
bending backwards.
“Paul Metcalfe, sir,” he answered firmly.
His whole attitude made it obvious that the boy had grown up in a
military environment. White
exchanged glances with the four men seated at the table with him. He noticed all
of them were keeping an even expression.
Blue in particular was doing his utmost not to appear too disarmed by the
situation. No doubt, Blue felt as awkward as White
himself. Perhaps even more.
The colonel cleared his throat. “And how old are you, Mister Metcalfe?”
“I’m ten, sir.”
Ten. Only two days before, Scarlet was celebrating his 34th
birthday. White leaned over the
table, intertwining his fingers together, looking intently at the boy.
“Do you know where you are?” he asked.
The boy shook his head to the negative.
White narrowed his eyes, and leaned his head to the side, before asking
carefully:
“Do you know who I am?”
The boy kept rigid. “No, sir.
Should I know you?”
White kept himself from grunting.
He gestured towards the four men seated with him. “And do you know who these gentlemen
are?”
Paul looked carefully at each of the men staring so intently at him.
After a few seconds, he pointed first at Fawn.
“He’s a doctor… I saw him earlier when I woke up at the hospital.”
“Sickbay,” Fawn corrected. “And that was yesterday evening we… first
met.”
“And I know this guy,” Paul continued, pointing to Captain Blue. White noticed a flare of hope in the
American officer’s blue eyes, but it was quickly smothered by the boy’s next
words: “He’s the guy who got me out of that burning room, yes?”
“You remember the burning room?” Captain Grey asked quietly.
“Sure. When I woke up, there
were smokes and flames all around me, and I felt dizzy. And then there was this guy.” Paul pointed again at Captain Blue. “He found me.
He got me out, right?”
“Captain Blue indeed found you and took you to sickbay,” White confirmed.
“Captain Blue?” the boy repeated in confusion.
The Spectrum commander nodded. “I’m Colonel White.” He noticed with
dissatisfaction the way the boy was looking at him, without any recognition
whatsoever. The names obviously
didn’t mean anything to him. “This is Doctor Fawn, our chief medical officer.
Doctor Lavender, the head of our Research and Development department… and
Captain Grey, who, like Captain Blue, is a member of my staff,” White added,
pointing at each of the men in turn.
“You don’t remember any of them at all?”
Paul shook his head. “No,
sir.” He hesitated slightly, before
adding, tentatively: “There was another man…
He was in the burning room too.
A black man.”
“Lieutenant Green,” Captain Blue confirmed, as White glanced at him.
“D’you all have colours as names?” Paul asked with a perplexed frown.
“Not all, but many of us,” White answered. “The members of the senior staff all have
a colour designation. Those are
codenames.”
“Why?” the boy asked.
“They are designed to protect our identities. We are members of Spectrum.”
White watched, hoping that the revelation would trigger something in the
young man. He knew that his officers
were sharing the same hope; however, there didn’t seem to be any reaction in
Paul.
White frowned. “Do you know what Spectrum is, Mister Metcalfe?”
The boy shrugged. “No, sir.”
“Do you know about Cloudbase?” Grey then added swiftly.
“The lowest altitude of the visible portion of the clouds?” Paul asked.
The assembled officers looked at him with perplexity and he shook his head.
“My uncle George’s a pilot. Often, he takes me flying, and I sit in the cockpit
with him and he explains the instruments, and –” He stopped himself, and looked
suddenly worried. “He’s not in trouble for that, is he?”
“No, he’s not,” White reassured him, adopting a softer tone. “But that’s
not what Captain Grey meant when he mentioned Cloudbase. He was referring to the name of this
base.”
“Oh.” Paul simply nodded.
“Cloudbase is Spectrum’s headquarters,” White continued. “I am the
commander of Spectrum.”
“What’s Spectrum?” Paul asked.
“Spectrum is an international security organisation. We answer only to the World President.”
“The World President, Mr. Nikita Bandranaik?”
“Erm… Well...”
White’s frown deepened. Nikita Bandranaik had been elected the first
World President many years ago… And indeed, he was in office when Paul Metcalfe
was about the age he currently appeared to be.
“None of this means anything to you?”
he inquired, instead of answering.
As he received no positive answer, he asked again: “How about the
Angels?” He hesitated slightly and
taking a calculated risk, added: “And the Mysterons?”
“What’s a Mysteron?”
The clueless expression in Paul’s face was enough to convince everyone
present that the boy had absolutely no idea what this was all about. Colonel White preferred not to address
the question about what a Mysteron was.
Not yet, anyway.
“So you don’t remember anything about us, then?”
Paul shrugged; it was an almost indifferent shrug. It was as if he couldn’t care less about
what these men were telling him.
“Should I?” he asked.
White scowled; he looked at Doctor Fawn, seated to his right. The latter
permitted himself an almost imperceptible shake of the head, which conveyed his
dismay. White then exchanged glances
with Doctor Lavender who shrugged, without saying anything.
Discontented with their lack of answers, the Spectrum commander returned
his attention to the youngster. Even more carefully than before, he asked: “Does the name ‘Captain Scarlet’ mean
anything to you?”
He hoped that this question at
least would stir a reaction within the boy.
He was sadly mistaken; again, he saw him shrug indifferently.
“That’s another guy from your organisation?” he asked flippantly enough.
White did his best to hide his mounting frustration. “What is the last
thing you remember, Mister Metcalfe?”
This time, the boy didn’t answer; he didn’t seem to understand what White
meant by this question. Blue leaned over the table to address him, in a softer
voice:
“Paul, what do you remember from
before
waking up in that burning room? Where were you and what were you doing? You remember that?”
Paul nodded vigorously. “Oh, that’s easy. I was celebrating my birthday with my
family. And then, I went to bed… I
had school the next day, you know.” The boy frowned, as if trying to remember
the rest. “And then… I remember a
bright, blinding light… And felt
like I was falling. It was like a dream.
I tried to wake up, but I couldn’t.”
“But you did wake up in the
end,” White noted.
“Yeah… and I was surrounded by smoke and fire and debris… It was as if
there had been a bombing, or something…
And I couldn’t breathe properly.”
“From the smoke, obviously,” Fawn then commented, attracting attention to
himself. “He’s all right now, we
treated him with oxygen. That’s why
you couldn’t see him before today, Colonel.”
“And you were there,” Paul
said, pointing to Blue. “With that other guy.
The one you called Lieutenant Green.” He frowned again, obviously trying
to recall more. “That… wasn’t my bedroom I woke up in… was it?” He looked expectantly at all of them. “The fire… it didn’t happened at my home?
My parents… are they okay? Was anyone hurt?”
“Calm down,” Blue said soothingly. “Nobody’s hurt, and nothing happened
to your home. The fire you remember occurred here on Cloudbase. One of our
generators exploded in the engine room.
You were caught in the explosion, but you’re okay.”
There was obvious relief on the boy’s face. “Is that true?” he asked, still slightly
doubting.
“Your parents are safe, back home,” Colonel White confirmed.
“How come I’m here?” Paul asked.
“What am I doing here? What was I doing in your engine room?”
“That’s… a little complicated to explain,” Grey then said. “Especially
considering all you’ve forgotten…”
“I didn’t forget anything,” Paul replied defensively.
“Well, actually –”
“I want to go back home,” Paul demanded abruptly, interrupting Grey
before he could continue.
White scowled. He didn’t like
Paul’s tone of voice; but he had to remember that he had a young boy in front of
him now, and not an adult Captain Scarlet.
Although the boy’s attitude was fairly reminiscence of Scarlet at his
worst.
“Back home? Back to
Winchester?” White asked.
“Then you know I’m from Winchester?” the boy asked. Now he sounded a little suspicious.
“Yes, we know that,” White confirmed.
“We know a great deal about you.”
And more than you do yourself at the moment, he added inwardly.
“If you know that, that means you also knew from the start who I am,”
Paul commented. “Why did you ask my name, then?”
“Well… we wanted to find out how much you remembered about yourself,”
White explained. “Obviously, you
know who you are. But –”
“Do you know who my father is?” Paul asked with a deep frown. “If you do, then you also know he won’t
be happy with you… He won’t like
that you kidnapped me!”
White snorted. “Kidnapped you? That’s preposterous! No-one kidnapped you,
young man.”
“We’re all your friends here,” Blue then said.
“Friends? How can you be my
friends? I don’t even know who the
lot of you are! All I know is that I
fell asleep in my room, and woke up here.
So that must mean you kidnapped me in my sleep and brought me here – wherever
this place is exactly!”
“We didn’t do such a thing,” White answered. “And… actually, you could
say this place is your home, now.”
That last observation seemed to rile the boy even more. “No, it’s not my home. Send me back to
Winchester. My dad’s gonna be cross with you to have taken me. He’s gonna kick
your butt!”
“Will he now?” White said with a deeper frown.
“My dad knows people. You’re
all gonna be in trouble.”
“Well, that would be nothing compared with the trouble we’re having now,”
White replied in a low voice. He was
unsure if Paul had heard him or not; he only noticed the angry way the young boy
was glaring at him. He sighed.
“I’m sorry, but as much as I would like to consent to your request, I will have
to say no.”
Paul looked plainly disappointed. “So you’ll not send me back home?”
“No, I’m afraid it’s impossible, lad.” White saw the glitter of defiance
burning hotter in the boy’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated in a softer voice.
“But you will have to stay with us for a time. Be assured that it’s only
a temporary measure, until this situation is resolved.”
“What situation?” Paul asked
grumpily. “What’s so special about me that you find
so interesting?”
“More than you can imagine, obviously,” White replied, fighting hard not
to smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll take
good care of you. And I promise you, we
will
explain everything to you – as soon as we understand what’s going on ourselves.”
White realised that the boy wasn’t really listening to him, as he had
lowered his head and didn’t seem inclined to answer. Or, if he was listening,
maybe he didn’t believe him at all.
He cleared his throat. “Corporal Jarvis,” he said addressing the security
guard standing next to Paul,” can you take this… young man outside for a
minute?”
“S.I.G., sir,” Jarvis answered, straightening to attention.
“This shouldn’t take long, Mr. Metcalfe,” White told Paul again. “We have
to discuss arrangements, to make sure your stay here will be as comfortable and
agreeable as possible for you.
Perhaps you’ll even find it entertaining.”
“Yeah, well… That’ll surprise me very much,” Paul groused with barely
concealed irritation.
Docilely though, he followed Jarvis through the door, without even
deigning to look behind him. The
five men seated around the table followed him with their eyes, until he
disappeared from their view and the door slid close.
“Your thoughts on this,
gentlemen,” White then asked, rather abruptly.
“Starting with you, Doctor Fawn.
Can you confirm this is really
Captain Scarlet?”
Fawn gave a deep sigh. “D.N.A. is a perfect match. However impossible it might seem, this
young boy is indeed none other than Captain Scarlet.”
“I was afraid you would say that,” Blue said gloomily. But in a way, he was relieved. At least now, they had confirmation that
Scarlet had not truly disappeared, as no other trace had been found of him in
the search of the engine room.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Captain Grey groaned out loud.
Fawn, who was about to taste the very black and now very cold coffee he
had in front of him, glared at him. For the past two days he had barely slept.
He just knew he looked the part too.
“Does this look like the face of a kidding man, Captain?”
“I didn’t mean to imply anything other than
surprise, Doctor,” Grey quickly defended himself. “How could this have
happened, to begin with? He cannot have… reverted to a kid just like that! There’s got to be a reason for
how
it happened! It cannot be because he was in close
proximity of that exploding generator.
Those things only happen in comic books, not in real life!”
“We thought that alien invaders from Mars
only existed in comic books as well,” the voice of Doctor Lavender then
remarked, very stoically. “But still
very recently, real life indeed proved us wrong.”
“Do you mean to say you know what happened to
Captain Scarlet, Doctor Lavender?” Colonel White asked.
“I have a theory.” Lavender took a sip of his glass of water
with exaggerated slowness. Noticing
all eyes were turned to him, he put his glass down and cleared his throat: “For
what it’s worth, Colonel, and I’m not one hundred percent positive it’s exactly what happened,” he said as a preamble, “I already
discussed it with Doctor Fawn, as I wanted the opinion of another scientific
mind to test if my theory had any viability.
He agrees that it might actually be a possible explanation.”
“Please, Doctor,” White requested with
impatience, even as he caught sight of Fawn’s approving nod. “What
is
this theory of yours which
might explain this… fantastic phenomenon?”
“I think we can easily suspect that the
tachyonic radiation is responsible for…
er… Captain Scarlet’s rejuvenation.”
“Tachyonic radiation?” White said with a
doubting frown. “That strange occurrence that followed the generator’s explosion
in the engine room?”
Blue snorted. “You’re not even sure this thing was indeed tachyonic radiation, Doctor,” he remarked.
“Actually, that’s not quite true.
You are choosing not to believe it was exactly what it was, Captain,” Lavender retorted.
“That phenomenon down in the engine room couldn’t be anything but the
manifestation of tachyonic radiation.
Remember that the theory stipulating that tachyons might be created by
anti-gravity force fields isn’t mine specifically, although I do adhere to it –
especially after having seen what we saw two days ago in the engine room!
Captain Scarlet received a heavy dose of that tachyonic radiation – and I
believe it might have done something to his physiology.”
“Might…
You got that right,” Grey
grunted. “How could tachyonic radiation transform a full grown man to a young
boy? It makes no sense.”
“Actually it has been theorised that
tachyons, considering that they travel faster than light, could permit atoms to
travel through time and space easily – and could reverse the effects of ageing,
under a combination of correct circumstances.”
“You’re kidding,” Blue mumbled.
Lavender heard him perfectly and turned
directly to him. “No, Captain. I’m quite serious. You saw the visual effects displayed by
the tachyons in the engine room.
Those little lights seemingly going in two directions, as you were seeing both
the past and future reflections of the present particle?”
“I didn’t believe for one second any of that
bull you served us,” Blue retorted.
“And yet, here we have a man in his
mid-thirties turned into a ten year old child,” Lavender came back stoically.
“Do you have a better explanation, then?”
“How about this green lightning Rhapsody said
she saw, just before the last explosion?”
White suggested, interrupting Blue before he could say something else.
That had been bugging him for the last two days.
Rhapsody’s report had prompted a full check on all the members of Cloudbase’s
crew, to make sure everyone was accounted for and were exactly who they were
supposed to be. Fortunately, there had not been any
incident that suggested that anyone onboard could have been turned into a
Mysteron agent. However, he couldn’t
rule out for certain the possibility that the Mysterons might have had a hand in
what had happened in the engine room.
The explosion of the generator had made one
innocent victim… but no Mysteron was now roaming free onboard Cloudbase, of that
Spectrum had made sure.
“Yes, could it be a trick of the Mysterons?”
Blue said in turn.
“They have powers we can’t hope to
comprehend,” Grey said gloomily.
“We can’t even be sure this
lightning was actually a Mysteron manifestation,” Lavender said. “Perhaps what Rhapsody Angel saw was only
a trick of the eye?”
“That’s a possibility we cannot dismiss,”
White retorted.
“The explosion of the generator doesn’t seem
to have been caused by any strange alien occurrence, though,” Grey said.
“Lieutenant Beryl’s investigation on the matter mentions a tiny fault in the
generator’s electronic controls.
Cloudbase has been hit by lightning multiple times during the last
months, and it only took one hit too many for the circuits to give up. Beryl’s team is making sure this won’t
happen again,” he added, seeing White turn to him.
“All right,” Blue said thoughtfully. “The
Mysterons might not have caused the generator to explode. They cannot possibly know of the fault. But for the rest… if we admit that
Scarlet’s condition is indeed due to this… tachyonic radiation bath he was
subjected to, perhaps the Mysterons simply made sure this would indeed happen? It wouldn’t be the first time they did
that.”
“We have to admit that the Mysterons do tend
to use fortuitous events to their own advantage,” White concurred. “Whatever
their objectives might be.”
Lavender raised an eyebrow, obviously
doubtful. “To what purpose would they have turned Captain Scarlet back to a
young boy? Doesn’t seem very logical
on their part… And not quite up
their alley.”
“Doctor Fawn,” White said, turning to his chief
medical officer. “What do you think
of this?”
Fawn shrugged. “As Doctor Lavender told you, he
discussed his theory with me,” he said carefully.
“I do agree that the incident might have something to do with Scarlet’s
condition. We would have to be blind
not to realise the tachyonic bath he received and his turning to a ten-year-old
right afterwards are related.”
“Ah!” Lavender said triumphantly. “You see?”
“However,” Fawn quickly added, “I also happen to think that it might not
be the only factor that contributed to this strange phenomenon. Maybe an ‘accident’ like the one that
just happened might have had a different outcome if it had happened to anyone
else.”
“His unique condition might have caused Scarlet to revert to being
a child?” a doubtful White said with a renewed frown.
“Doctor Lavender did mention something about
‘a combination of correct circumstances’ possibly reverting the effects of
ageing. Thus far, we might not be sure of the Mysterons’ involvement in what
happened to him, but I firmly believe Captain Scarlet’s unique physiology could
have played an important part in it.”
“Whatever do you mean, exactly?” White asked with a frown.
Fawn sighed. “You know I always say that there is a lot I… that is, we don’t understand about Captain Scarlet’s unique
metabolism. Mostly, he’s like any of
us, but still with enough differences to make him… not entirely human. As much as I despise saying this myself,
we might have yet another indication how true this assertion could be.”
“So while this unique metabolism of his,” Blue said, “when he was
bombarded by that tachyonic radiation, had that surprising effect on him, a
normal human being –”
“ – Might have been killed outright,” Fawn finished.
“His retrometabolism might indeed have reacted to the assault of this
very unique radiation in a very peculiar way,” Lavender then said thoughtfully.
“As far as we know, maybe a normal human being could have been disintegrated by
the amount of radiation – tachyonic or otherwise – that Scarlet received in that
explosion.”
“Lambert,” Grey said at this point.
“We did find his body in that room when we searched it. It wasn’t very
nice to look at. Only bits here and there. Nearly burned to a crisp.”
“Identification was only possible through dental records,” Fawn
confirmed. “You were probably lucky Scarlet didn’t permit you to follow him in
that room, Captain Blue.”
“That’s what he does,” Blue groused. “Always putting himself into harm’s
way, so no life would be lost.”
“He does what needs to be done, Captain,” White remarked.
“I know, sir. And I also know
he’s always expecting to ‘get better’ afterwards, but you can say that this
time, his heroism had rather unexpected results.”
“Talked about unexpected,” Grey muttered.
“Turned into a ten year old kid…”
“Why can’t he remember us?” White asked.
“I don’t know,” Fawn admitted. “I saw no sign of outside trauma, no
specific injury that might have caused any kind of amnesia… And you heard him, just like I did when
he first woke up in sickbay. He
doesn’t seem to remember anything beyond his tenth birthday.
Like it’s not only his body which returned to that age… but his mind, and
memory as well.”
“So no residual memory of his adult life?” White asked.
“None that I have been able to extract so far, no. Mind you, they might
be hidden very deep. It’s possible
that over time, he might experience some vague recollection of his past life…
like déjà vu. For now, since he
doesn’t remember any of us, for him it’s like he’s in a very strange place,
amongst strangers he doesn’t know.
So he reacts the only way any child – or even an adult person – would, in the
circumstances.”
“With mistrust,” Grey said in turn.
“And confusion.”
“Confusion all right,” White grumbled.
“Can we jog his memory? I mean, tell him about himself, what happened,
show him pictures and records…”
Fawn shook his head. “Would he believe you if you tried? That would be far too unbelievable for
him. Again, he would react like the child he is. And from my experience, if you
try to convince a child that age of something he might not be willing to believe
or understand, the only results you’ll have would be to turn him against you
even more.”
“So your suggestion would be not to tell him anything?” Blue asked.
“Not right away, no. At
least, not until we win his trust.
Then we’ll see what we can do.”
“Winning his trust might be complicated.” White sat back in his chair, looking
gloomy. “He’s ten, but he’s every
bit as stubborn as his adult self.”
He stroked his chin, unhappily. “And he doesn’t seem to like me much.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Fawn smiled with empathy. “You
represent authority, Colonel. Children that age – especially precocious children
– usually don’t like authority figures.”
White scowled. “Odd. General Metcalfe told me once that his son was a
relatively easy-going child in his young years.
Boisterous, as you would expect him to be, but an obedient one.”
Fawn chuckled. “To his parents, maybe.
But do you really expect Scarlet to have been an ideal child at ten?
White gave a low scoff. “With his propensity to always find himself in
trouble? Even when he’s not looking for it – which he often does – it will
always find him anyway.”
“This situation seems to be another proof of that,” Grey remarked.
“Well, I suppose it’s only a matter of time before his retrometabolism
take care of this problem and he’ll return to his normal self,” Colonel White
said thoughtfully. “How long do you
expect for that to happen, Doctor Fawn?”
At that question, Fawn hesitated.
He exchanged glances with Lavender, and Colonel White could see in both
scientists’ features the same amount of concerned doubt.
“Is there something else you haven’t told us?” he asked.
“Well… Yes, there is something,” Fawn said in a low voice.
“That sounds ominous. What is
it?”
“I don’t think we should count on Captain Scarlet’s retrometabolism to
bring him back to the way he was,” Lavender answered.
“Not right away, anyway,” Fawn added quickly.
“It seems that, as the boy he is right now, Scarlet’s not retrometabolic.”
“He’s not…?”
White was perplexed. Captain
Blue and Captain Grey opened eyes wide with horrified surprise.
“He’s not retrometabolic?” Blue echoed.
Fawn nodded reluctantly. “When I first
examined him, I noticed a cut on his right arm that didn’t look like it was
healing as it normally would with his rapid healing powers; I treated it so it
would not get infected. His body is
covered with bruises and cuts. And, when I took a sample of blood, the puncture didn’t heal either.”
“Maybe his powers just – slowed down?” Blue
suggested.
Fawn shrugged. “Then they slowed down to a
standstill. I kept a close eye on
the boy, over the past two days. At
no point was there any sign of rapid healing in him.
He’s just a normal young boy of ten.
In remarkably good health, but still not displaying any of the powers he
inherits from the Mysterons.”
“So he lost his healing powers?” Grey asked
with disbelief.
“How did that happen?” White asked in turn.
“The tachyonic radiation might have put a
dampener on his powers,” Lavender said.
“Now whether it’s permanent or not, we don’t know as yet. We’ll have to conduct tests – and pray,
if you believe in that sort of things.”
“That’s a useless recommendation,” Blue
replied with a deep annoyed frown addressed to the scientist. “I’m certainly not about to give up on
him.”
“And neither will we, Captain, I can assure
you,” Fawn replied softly. “But you’ll have to be aware that this could
unfortunately take some time. You’re
right, of course: we must keep positive that Captain Scarlet, as always, will
bounce back on his feet sooner or later, and that he will ‘heal’ from this…
condition.” He took a sip of
his coffee but disgusted by the taste, put his cup back onto the table with a
grimace. “In the meantime, we should do our best to make him comfortable… and
make him feel as ‘welcomed’ as possible.
He can leave sickbay now, so I suggest we find him a better place to stay until
he’s back to normal.”
“We’re not well-equipped to take care of a
young boy,” White remarked with obvious discontent. “This is a military base, Doctor, not a child
care centre.”
Blue exchanged quick glances with Grey who
rolled his eyes. Somehow, both men
expected their commander to say exactly that.
“We can’t very well send him back home,
Colonel,” Doctor Fawn replied. “That might give his parents a heart attack, if
they see him in this condition.”
“I never suggested that,” White protested.
“I’m well-aware that we can only keep him here on Cloudbase.
I was only bringing up the point that we –”
An insistent buzzing sound coming from the
control panel imbedded into the table just in front of his seat interrupted the
Spectrum commander in the middle of his argument. He looked down at the panel and saw the
blinking white light of the comm.link.
He pressed the button.
“This had better be an emergency,” he said
with irritation.
“This is
Corporal Jarvis, sir,” a stressed voice answered immediately. “We have a
situation. The boy got away from
me.”
“He what?” White snapped. The other men seated at the table looked
at each other with confusion.
“I just
took my eyes off him for a second, sir, and when I looked again, he was making a
run for it down the corridor and through an airlock.” Jarvis’ voice was hurried, and in
the background, rapid footsteps could be heard. “I’m in
pursuit now, but he’s fast.”
“Don’t let him out of your sight!” White
roared. At the same time, Blue and
Grey leapt to their feet. “Where is he heading?”
“Blast it… He just went into the central lift.”
“Alert security,” growled Colonel White. “We
can’t have a ten year old child roaming freely in the control tower! Corporal, if anything happens to this
boy, I will hold you personally responsible!”
“Lift just
stopped at Level T-3, sir,” Jarvis said quickly.
“At least there’s no high security areas on
that level,” Grey commented. “Just
the officers’ restaurant and the Promenade Deck…”
“Maybe he’s hungry and remembers where to
go?” Blue suggested. “We’re on it, sir.
We’ll get him back safely.”
“See to that,” White growled.
Blue and Grey barely nodded their agreements
and walked swiftly to the door. It was sliding open when Colonel White suddenly
called out:
“Captain Blue!”
Blue stopped in his tracks and turned around,
leaving Grey to exit the room. “Sir?”
“Scarlet is your partner. Until this
situation is resolved, I leave you in charge to make sure he doesn’t get into
other mischief! You have carte
blanche to do whatever it takes.
With the upcoming visit of the World President in a few days, I certainly don’t
need
additional problems!”
“Yes sir!”
Blue left the room and the door slid closed
on him. White let out a deep sigh
and shook his head miserably.
“If this is the work of the Mysterons,” he
groaned, “I think I’ve worked out their plans already… They want to sabotage
this visit and make us look like fools in front of the World President.”
“Surely, they would have announced their
intentions,” Fawn commented, feeling sympathy towards his commander.
“Bite your tongue, Doctor… The day is still young. Who knows what other catastrophe will
fall upon us?
“The World President is not due for a few
days,” Fawn added. “Maybe this situation will have resolved itself in the
meantime?”
“Wishful thinking, Doctor,” Lavender said
gloomily.
“A little constructive thought never did any
harm, Doctor Lavender,” Fawn retorted swiftly, annoyed by his colleague’s
remark. “And you could at least be a
little more supportive. That could also be helpful.”
“General Peterson should be coming tomorrow
morning, to do a preliminary tour of the base,” White said thoughtfully. “That’s
standard procedure to make sure everything goes smoothly, before the World
President’s official visit. I don’t suppose you can guarantee that Captain
Scarlet will be back to normal by then?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Fawn answered with a shake
of his head. “I wish I could, really…”
“Never mind.
Then it looks like it would be better to keep our ten year old guest out
of the way, until the general’s visit is completed.”
“Surely,” Fawn protested, “you don’t expect
that the Mysterons would in any way use the boy for –”
“I don’t think anything of the sort, Doctor,”
White interrupted. “I’m just
thinking that Peterson might not understand this child’s presence onboard. Don’t you think it might just look a
little bit suspicious?”
Fawn scowled. “Actually, no, I don’t. In what way, pray tell, could it be
suspicious, Colonel?”
White hesitated. “And what if the boy tells him he had
been kidnapped, like he assumes?”
“Oh,” Lavender said, tutting. “That
would certainly sound
suspicious enough. I’m beginning to see
your point, Colonel.”
“Well, I have every confidence our young
guest will be found soon,” White said.
“And then, we’ll have to take some special measures with him. I don’t know about you, gentlemen, but I
don’t trust a young Paul Metcalfe to be any less restrained than his adult self. Especially if he thinks he’s being held here
against his will.”
“Did you go to see Captain Scarlet in sickbay
today?”
Captain Ochre and Melody Angel were emerging
from lift A to walk into the main corridor leading to the
officers’
restaurant. Ochre had picked up
Melody after her stint in Angel One, and had invited her to an early dinner.
“No,” Ochre answered to the young woman’s
question. “No-one was being allowed in.
But I know he was well enough to get out today. He was supposed to see the colonel for
evaluation.” He shook his head
despondently. “Can you believe any of this?” he asked Melody. “Scarlet turned
into a toddler…”
“Not a toddler, more a kid of about ten years
old, according to Fawn,” Melody corrected.
“I know, I know… I remember what Fawn told us
yesterday, during that briefing. “I
swear, it just sounded like a massive prank.
I didn’t know if I was going to laugh or take Rhapsody in my arms to
comfort her… Poor girl, she was so
pale, I thought she was going to faint…”
“She’s made of sterner stuff than that,”
Melody retorted. “And it’s no joke,
Rick. Christmas is coming, not April Fools’ Day. Besides, I can’t really see Doctor Fawn,
Doctor Lavender… and especially Colonel White mounting something that big.
Can you?”
“No, of course not. And Blue wouldn’t let
Rhapsody in for so much distress either.” Ochre sighed. “How is she holding up since then?”
“Remarkably good, so far,” Melody reported.
“As I said, she’s a tough woman… And
when it comes to her boyfriend, she can take a lot more than we can imagine, I
suspect. Mind you, she’s not been
allowed to see him yet, either.”
“Only Blue and Grey – because of their
involvement with what happened in the engine room,” Ochre said with an
understanding nod. “She must be
dying to see him.”
“I don’t know…” Melody said thoughtfully.
“She seems torn between wanting desperately to see him and… not knowing how
she’ll react when she actually does see him.
She’s reassured that he’s physically fine… That is, not hurt, anyway,”
she added, seeing the odd way Ochre was looking at her.
“I can only imagine what it’s like for her –
her boyfriend suddenly turned into a child.
How would you react, Mags?”
“You’re asking me?” Melody grinned wickedly. “My boyfriend already
is
acting like a child half of
the time.”
“Oh, low blow, sweetheart. But then, I should have seen it coming. I opened that door very wide, didn’t I?”
“According to the gossip I heard from the
nurses, when Scarlet woke up, he didn’t recognise Fawn at all. He doesn’t even seem to remember anything
of his adult life.”
Ochre
raised a brow. “Oh? So you listen to gossiping nurses, Melody Angel?”
“Of course… I might be a tough Angel pilot,
but I’m also a normally constituted woman…
Gossip is part of our life.”
She glanced at him sideways. “At least, according to you, men.”
He chuckled. “Well, we like you that way –
that’s how we get to learn all the interesting news.” He put his arm around her shoulders – and
was rather surprised that she didn’t remove it outright. Satisfied that she would let him be this
familiar with her, he continued:
“You know, he won’t like it.”
“Who?” she asked with a frown.
“Scarlet.
When he’s back to normal, he certainly won’t like what happened to him.
I mean, those things… they’re always happening to him.”
“He does
seem to attract them like a magnet,” the young woman agreed with a nod.
They were about to walk past the door of the central lift when it slid
open. A young boy rushed out from the lift, without really checking where he was
going, and collided with them. They
looked down at him in total surprise.
“Hey, what the –” Ochre’s hand instinctively closed on the boy’s arm to
hold him tight as the latter made an attempt to get away from him. With a frown of perplexity, he stared
into the young face which was glaring up at him with obvious dissatisfaction.
“Who the devil are you?” the American officer blurted.
“Rick, think!” Melody then said.
“It can only be –”
“Let go of me, Captain Yellow!”
Ochre wasn’t sure what baffled him the most: the voice, so young and
clear, the antagonism he could hear in it, or the sudden realisation of who this boy must be.
Ochre’s hold tightened on the youngster’s
arm, realising he was trying to escape him. He had
trouble keeping him still.
“Calm down, kid. Where do you think you’re going like
that?”
“Let
me go! What do you people want with me?”
“Would you calm down?” Ochre ordered with a
sterner voice. “We’re your friends
and –”
“I said:
let me go!”
The boy pulled on Ochre’s hand and bit it
fiercely. The American yelped, and
his hold loosened; taking advantage of this, the boy sent his right fist up and
hit his opponent straight on the nose.
The impact was painful enough to cause Ochre’s eyes to water, and he let go
instinctively. The boy then kicked
him in the leg with all of his strength.
Melody winced as she heard the audible sound
of impact of bone against bone, and saw Ochre’s face distorted with pain, as he
jumped back on his one uninjured leg, one hand reaching for his painful nose.
Seeing that he had momentarily incapacitated his adversary, the boy darted to
the other end of the corridor.
“Hey, wait!” Melody called after him.
He had reached the lift at the end of the
corridor and pressed the opening button, turning his head slightly in her
direction; the door slid open…
… Revealing both Captain Blue and Captain
Grey standing in the lift.
Discovering them, the boy attempted to get
away, but Captain Blue’s hand suddenly snatched him and roughly pulled him back.
With a
cry of anger, the boy turned around, ready to strike this man who was hindering
his escape – but Blue caught his wrist on the fly, easily stopping the closed
fist from ever reaching him, and held the boy firmly, looking him straight in
the face, with a stern expression.
“Now, Paul, you will calm down!” he ordered
tersely.
The boy automatically stopped his antics, and
froze, under the strength of the commanding voice. With eyes wide with dread, he
stared up at the tall blond man who was stooping in front of him, keeping hold
of both his arms.
“Captain Blue, release that boy immediately!”
It was Blue’s turn to freeze upon hearing
that clear, strident voice, which caused everyone to look up. Standing in the open doorway of the
officers’ restaurant, just a few meters from them, was Symphony Angel who was
glaring furiously at him. She left
her spot and strode purposefully towards them. She pulled Paul from Blue’s hands
and stood protectively between the two of them; the American captain was too
surprised to even think of reacting.
And frankly, so was the boy, who seemingly
decided this young woman was a worthy protector against these men who were
chasing him.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Symphony
told Blue in a scolding voice.
“Can’t you see you’re hurting him?”
Blue was beyond being stunned now. “What? I wasn’t hurting him!”
“Yes, you were!” Paul came back defiantly.
“I’ll have the fingerprints of your hand on my arm for days!”
“Oh yeah? And what about what you did to me?”
Followed by Melody, Captain Ochre was hobbling along the corridor towards them.
His voice had taken a nasal intonation and blood was dripping from one of his
nostrils. Obviously, even a ten year old Paul
Metcalfe knew how to use his fists properly.
“Oh, frankly, you’re such a big baby…” To Ochre’s surprise, Melody strode past
him and came to stand with Symphony in front of Paul. “He’s only a kid, and you men are all
ganging up on him.”
“He escaped custody from Corporal Jarvis,”
Blue tried to explain. Colonel White
–”
“I’m sure Colonel White didn’t mean for you
to manhandle him the way you did,” Symphony interrupted.
“Symphony…”
Blue stood closer to her. He caught sight of young Paul pulling himself
further behind her. He glared at his
fiancée. “You do
know who this is, don’t you?”
“Of course I know. I was there yesterday at the meeting
Doctor Fawn held. Do you take me for an imbecile?”
“Of course not! You know he shouldn’t be allowed to run
free around the base… not without the supervision of an adult?”
“Well, he does have the supervision of adults
now,” Melody said in turn.
“There’s certainly no need to be brutal with him.”
“You girls certainly chose a hell of a time
to find your maternal streak,” Ochre groused.
He lowered his eyes to Paul, who glared back and stuck out his tongue at
him. “And I’m not ‘Captain Yellow’!”
the American told him heatedly. “The
name’s Ochre, squirt!”
“See if I care,” the boy mumbled.
“You know what, kid?” Ochre told him,
pointing a threatening finger at him. “You’re asking for a good spanking, and
God help me, if you continue that way, I’ll be the one giving it to you!”
Melody spun on her heel to face him, pulling
Paul behind her. “If you touch him, I’ll finish the job he started on your
nose!” she promised.
That took Ochre aback. He stared at her unbelievingly. “Ah, come
on,
Mags!” he said with
exasperation. “You know I wouldn’t really –”
“I don’t like you!” Paul suddenly declared,
glaring up at Ochre.
"Well, I don't like you either, so that makes us
even!" Ochre growled back defiantly.
“Captain Ochre, that’s enough, you’re acting like a
child,” Symphony chided him.
“He started it!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Blue’s loud intervention was
enough to bring everyone’s attention back to him. Even Paul raised his eyes to the
stern-looking blond American, who pointed a finger at him. “You, sir, are confined to quarters.”
“You can’t force me!” the boy challenged him.
Blue scowled. “Can’t I?”
“Blue?” Blue turned around to Grey who stood
slightly behind him. “You can’t confine him to… you know… Scarlet’s quarters? I
don’t think that would be a good idea.”
At Blue’s inquiring scowl, Grey added, in a lower voice: “There might be
stuff lying around that he might find disconcerting... Remember what Fawn told
us.”
“You do have a point,” Blue said with an
understanding nod. “We need a
place where we can keep our eyes on him.”
“What are you on about?” Paul inquired.
“The brig sounds like the ideal place,” Ochre icily suggested without
taking any notice of the boy’s question.
“Rick, the idea…” Melody glared at him. “Stop it, you’ll scare him. This
boy ain’t our prisoner.”
“I’m not?” Paul asked.
“We already told you,” Blue said.
“You’re amongst friends.”
“Yeah, sure… Friends who’re keeping me from going back home? I don’t
trust you!”
Blue considered the boy, musing on Grey’s comments. Indeed, keeping the
ten-year-old in Scarlet’s quarters didn’t seem like a good idea. At first, he had imagined that finding
himself in familiar surroundings might jog the boy’s memory; but what if, to the
contrary, it should somehow traumatise him?
Beside, the boy obviously needed constant surveillance, and Scarlet’s
private quarters seemed a little cramped for at least two people to lodge in
there for an uncertain amount of time – especially if one of those people was a
turbulent and stubborn child.
Ochre’s suggestion was, of course, out of the question. And as Doctor Fawn had deemed him
physically fit, sickbay would be no joy for the boy to stay in.
“I can see only one option, then,” Blue said thoughtfully.
“You’re sending me back home?” Paul asked hopefully.
“No.”
Before Paul could react, Blue quickly got
hold of him and picked him up from the floor, tucking the boy firmly under his
arm. He turned around and walked past Symphony and Melody, and in front of
Ochre, towards the central lift, taking little notice of Paul’s futile kicking
and protests.
“Hey, let me go, you brute!”
“Quiet, or you’ll get the spanking Captain
Ochre promised you,” Blue said sternly.
“Grey, call the colonel and tell him I’ll be assigning a guest room to
our young friend.”
“S.I.G.,” Grey answered swiftly.
“And I want a meeting with the senior staff
in less than an hour in the Amber Room.”
“You got it, Captain,” Grey added, saluting
him.
“The rest of you, follow me.”
“Symphony,” Melody asked her colleagues as
they fell into line behind Ochre who was closely following Blue, “do you think
Blue would really…?”
“What, spank the kid?” Symphony smiled. “Not
a chance! Big Blue’s a cuddly bear
at heart… And if there’s any spanking going on, I can guarantee you, it won’t be
the kid who’ll get any of it.”
“Oh.”
“Symphony, what’s keeping you over there?”
called the voice of Captain Blue from up front.
“Nothing, Captain Blue,” she replied,
grinning, catching the knowing smile on Melody’s lips as the door of the lift
opened and the procession all went inside, one after the other.
The lift stopped at the lowest
level of the control tower and the door opened to let everyone out; by the time
they arrived in front of the door of one of the guest rooms, Paul had stopped
his struggling, so Blue put him down on his feet.
He pressed the opening button, and the door slid open in front of the
still scowling boy, whom he invited in.
“This will be your quarters, Mr.
Metcalfe.”
For a moment, Paul looked up at
him, seeming determined to refuse to obey, but one look inside aroused his
curiosity enough for him to finally decide to walk inside. Perhaps he had also realised, just by
looking at Captain Blue’s set face, that the Spectrum officer was just as
resolute as he was to have it his way.
They all followed behind Paul, who
walked around the room, looking about with interest. The place was spacious –
more spacious than any of the officers’ quarters, except maybe for Colonel
White’s private suite, and was obviously designed to receive more than one
guest. There was a large television screen imbedded into the wall, and a very
comfortable sofa and settee in the middle of the living quarters. There was a small kitchenette in one
corner, and three doors at the far end of the room.
“Those are bedrooms,” Blue said,
pointing to two of the doors. “You take your pick. And the bathroom’s through
there,” he added pointing to the remaining door. “You can use the TV for movies,
videogames, whatever you wish. You
just need to use the commands. There is a smaller TV set in each of the rooms as
well.”
“Not bad,” the boy muttered, still
looking around. “For a prison.”
“This is not a prison,” Blue
retorted. “This is one of
Cloudbase’s guest rooms. Only the
V.I.P suite is better than this one.”
“And I can’t have that one?”
“No. Just be happy with what you have. Our private quarters are not as big or as
nice as this room.” Plus, Blue reflected inwardly, the V.I.P. suite would be
needed for the World President’s visit a few days later. Who knew if Scarlet would be back to
normal by then…
Paul shrugged. “Fine, then. I guess it’s better than
that room in the hospital, anyway.”
“Sickbay,” both Melody and Ochre
corrected. She said it with enough
grace; he, far less.
“I’ll see if I can find you some
more clothes to wear,” Blue continued.
“You can have all the food you want – provided it’s in reasonable
quantity and it’s healthy food.
We don’t do junk food on Cloudbase.”
“Fine. I don’t either.”
“Since when does Paul Metcalfe say
no to a good portion of fries and a big, juicy hamburger?” Ochre whispered to
Symphony, as Blue continued to show the boy around.
“Beats me,” she answered in the
same voice. “I’m just wondering when Blue turned anti-junk food himself…”
“You have use of all the
facilities and comforts of this room for the remainder of your stay,” Blue told
Paul. “Which I hope will be short-lived.”
“You and me both,” Paul said
defiantly.
“A real breath of fresh air,”
Ochre said, crossing his arms across his chest and considering Paul with
interest.
Paul glared at him sideways. “Hey,
I didn’t ask to be here in the first place.”
“Believe me, kid, we didn’t ask
for you either.”
“Do my parents know where I am, to
begin with?”
“Oh, they do know you’re on
Cloudbase,” Blue said, nodding knowingly.
“They sent me here?”
Blue refused to lie or to answer
that question directly. “Believe me, it’s best if you’re here with us, than with
them,” he simply said.
“Is there something wrong with
them?” Paul asked, a little warily. “You told me they were okay… The White guy
said the same.”
“They are okay,” Blue said
reassuringly. “You have no need to worry about them. Or about yourself, for that matter. But you can’t contact them,” he quickly
added, pre-empting the boy’s next question.
“Why?”
“Cloudbase’s location needs to
remain secret,” Symphony said, seeing Blue hesitant to give an answer. “It’s for
security reasons.” By now, she had
guessed that her fiancé was reluctant to tell anything to the young Paul
regarding his identity and his involvement with Spectrum. For whatever reason, she didn’t know yet
– but she imagined he had good motives.
Ochre and Melody probably guessed
as much as her, as they were keeping just as quiet as she was on the subject.
However, when Paul turned to her to ask his next question, she was slightly
taken aback:
“Are you telling me you’re keeping
me here for my own safety?”
He seemed doubtful even as he
spoke these words, and that made Symphony hesitate. It was Blue’s turn this time to come to
her rescue:
“You can put it that way, yes,” he
said, his voice still soft. “For
your own safety… and for theirs, as well.”
“Okay… ” Paul nodded his head
slowly, seemingly weighing this new information with sufficient consideration.
“I might buy that…”
Blue tilted his head, looking
thoughtfully at him. Why did Paul
seem so ready to believe that explanation?
It seemed far-fetched enough as it was, and yet, he appeared to accept it
without too much trouble.
He didn’t press the question for
now. As long as the boy stayed
quiet, whatever the reasons, he was content with that.
He took a mental note to have some
of the computer privileges of this room disconnected at the earliest
opportunity, not only to stop Paul from trying to contact his parents, but also,
so that he wouldn’t browse around Worldnet and discover that time seemingly had
jumped a good twenty years ahead in the future for him. He might find that news upsetting.
“I suppose I won’t be allowed to leave this
room whenever I want?” Paul asked.
“I don’t know, I might feel cramped, staying here all day…”
“Oh yes, you’ll be allowed to
leave this room,” Blue told him. “You’ll have permission to go eat at the
officers’ restaurant, or to go to the sports hall… You can go to the pool as well, if you
want. But only if you’re accompanied by your guardian.” As the boy turned an enquiring look on
him, Blue continued: “Someone will be assigned to your company day and night.
Now it’s obvious you still don’t trust us, and after the stunt you pulled when
you escaped Corporal Jarvis’ vigilance, I don’t trust you either. We don’t want
you to wander around on this base and find yourself in some critical area where
a kid has no business going.”
“I suppose it’s still for my
safety?” Paul challenged him.
“This is a military base, not –” Blue stopped
himself. Now he was starting to
sound exactly like Colonel White. He
heard the barely concealed chuckles from his colleagues. He cleared his throat. “There
are
dangerous places onboard,”
he said instead.
“Yeah. Like that exploding generator room of
your, right?”
“Smart as a whip for a kid, ain’t you?” Ochre
remarked with a thin grin.
“Should that surprise you that much, Captain
Ochre?” Melody retorted.
“And who’s going to be my ‘guardian’, then?”
Paul asked again. He pointed to Ochre. “Not Captain Yellow here, I hope?”
“It’s Captain Ochre,” Blue corrected, just as
Ochre was opening his mouth to protest anew against the mishandling of his
rightful codename. “And you guessed it right the first time.”
Ochre did a double-take. “Hey, wait a minute,
Blue –”
“I don’t want to be left alone with
that
guy!” Paul protested.
“He won’t hurt you… His bark’s worse than his
bite. Beside, Melody Angel will
share duty with him.”
“I don’t mind, but I’m no professional
babysitter,” Melody said smoothly enough. “Just so you know.”
“Since when do you like children so much?”
Ochre asked her, exasperated by her lack of support.
“Since when do you think you know me enough
to imagine I might dislike them?” she shot back, scoffing.
Symphony rolled her eyes. “I swear, sometimes
the two of you sound like one of those old Bickersons radio recordings…”
Ochre ignored her and walked to Blue, taking
him by the arm. “A minute of your time, if you please, Captain Blue…” He pulled his colleague a few steps away
from the young Paul, whom Melody and Symphony instantly took under their wing to
show him around the suite. Blue
could see Ochre wasn’t very pleased, but he docilely followed him.
“Have you suddenly lost your marbles?” Ochre
snapped in a low voice, as soon as he was sure he was out of Paul’s earshot.
“You’re assigning me as that… brat’s guardian?
With Melody?”
“It’s only temporary, Ochre,” Blue told him
patiently. “We’ll share the duty between us until the situation is resolved.
This won’t be fulltime.” He looked
over his shoulder; busy with Melody and Symphony, Paul wasn’t paying any
attention to them. It seemed the boy
was starting to relax. “You and Melody are just taking the first shift.”
“Uh-uh,” Ochre said doubtfully. “Blue, I’m
sorry to remind you, old pal, but you and I, we’re the same rank. How can you go ‘round and tell me I’ve
got to do this?”
“Colonel White’s orders,” Blue said with a
smile. “Think of this as a field assignment. And of me, as your field
commander.”
Ochre scowled. “You’re taking way too much
pleasure in this.”
Blue sighed. “Ochre, try to remember… this
‘brat’, as you call him, is one of our friends.
He might not know it right now, he might not want to admit it, or even
trust us, but he needs us.
Desperately.”
That got to Ochre. He instantly regretted his bad temper and
shook his head, relenting. “You’re right of course. You know you have my full cooperation.”
He looked over his shoulder, glancing briefly in Paul’s direction. “Am I right
in thinking we ought not try to force him to remember?”
“Not if you don’t want to turn him even more
against us. He distrusts us enough as it is right now, and what we want is to
gain his trust, not lose more of it. We have to tread carefully around him.
You know how kids this age are.”
“No kidding.
A ten-year-old with Scarlet’s stubborn streak? I hope he won’t stay like that too long –
at least I can deal with an adult Scarlet.
I can’t very well retaliate against a kid.”
“You’ll manage,” Blue said with an
encouraging smile. “Tell Melody
about this, will you? In the meantime, I’ll be meeting the rest of the senior
staff and the Angels, and will inform them of what’s going on, and how to act
around Paul. We wouldn’t want any of us to make any misstep with him. I’ll organise a rota between all of us
for the guard duty. I don’t think it’ll be wise to assign other personnel to
that particular assignment.”
“I totally agree with you,” Ochre said. “How
long will it take before this ‘situation is resolved’?”
“I have no idea. Even Doctor Fawn can’t tell. We’ll just have to hope Paul will be back
to normal soon.”
You might consider leaving Rhapsody out of
it,” Ochre suggested. “It’s probably hard enough on her as it is right now.”
“She might not want to be left out of it,”
Blue remarked quietly. “If I know Rhapsody, she will want to be a part of it as
much as any of us. However, I’ll
consider your suggestion, if there’s a need for it.
“Good.
Although how you’ll manage to explain her absence away to the colonel
might be a little tricky.”
Blue smiled.
Ochre couldn’t know that Colonel White knew very well about Scarlet and
Rhapsody’s relationship. In fact, Blue himself had learned only recently that
the Spectrum commander knew that secret – which, all things considered, was much
better guarded than his own relationship with Symphony.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said without
committing himself. “I’ll take care of it.
And in the meantime, you take good care of Paul. Keep him busy, find good ways to occupy
him, so he won’t cause any trouble.”
“Put your mind at rest, Blue. And leave it to
me,” Ochre said with self-assurance.
“I’ll take good care of him.
After all, how difficult could it be to keep a kid that age busy? I’m sure it won’t be a bother at all!”
Unfortunately for Captain Ochre, in the few
hours that followed, he found out he had been slightly over-confident in his
capacity to satisfy the whims of a ten year old boy.
No matter how nice the American captain tried to be, the young Paul’s
feeling of mistrust in him didn’t waver; on the contrary, it increased even
more; in the boy’s view, the American’s friendliness didn’t ring quite true, so
he was quick to imagine he was up to something.
Paul made no effort to hide his feelings on the matter, and made it very
clear that no attempt from Ochre to try and mollify him would come to any
result.
Fortunately, while Ochre was unable to win
Paul over, it wasn’t exactly the same for Melody. On the contrary, the boy grew quite
attached to the Angel pilot, probably because she had taken his side against her
compatriots on their first meeting.
Right from the start, he liked her and showed himself much more docile
with her. Ochre was fascinated to realise that the otherwise tough young woman
was showing a softer side with this irritating English boy, who seemingly had
nothing in common with her. She had told him she was a fighter pilot and that
automatically made her interesting. She was ‘one of the guys’, and he kept
asking her questions about aircraft and her experience as a pilot.
“I am a pilot, too,” Ochre then said,
realising that Melody was monopolising all the boy’s attention and interest. He
felt a certain level of jealousy upon seeing the camaraderie between the two of
them. He knew it was ridiculous;
Scarlet had never showed any romantic interest whatsoever for Melody. As a ten year old boy, that was certainly
even more true.
His comment was met with the utmost level of
indifference. “Yeah, so?”
At this point, Ochre gave up. He rose to his feet, under the pretext
that he needed to go to the officers’ restaurant and take delivery of their
dinner. He took their orders – he
wasn’t that surprised to hear Paul ask for hamburgers and fries, despite his
earlier claim that he didn’t like junk food – and then left them, assuring them
he’d be back shortly. When the door
slid closed on him, Melody and Paul were seated in the living area, and the
young woman was starting to tell the boy the story of how she crashed in the
South Seas and found herself stranded on an island for nearly a year. The boy was hanging on her every word.
The walk to and from the restaurant gave
Ochre the time to let go of some steam; by the time he returned, he had resolved
to show his best side and to win Paul’s trust.
When he entered, Melody and their young guest
were still seated at the same place in the living area and he made distribution
of their respective meals; Paul accepted his eagerly and started devouring it.
He was obviously famished.
“I received a call from Blue while at the
restaurant,” Ochre said towards the end of their meal. “We should be relieved before the end of
the evening. Apparently, Colonel
White wants Blue and me to be with him when General Peterson arrives tomorrow
morning.”
“I know,” Melody said. “And I was designated
to escort his craft back to Cloudbase. So I will be leaving early to meet his
plane about halfway to base, where his World Army escort will leave me in
charge.”
“Blue contacted you too?”
“No, I got the info from Magenta. While you were gone, I called him to ask
for a favour and he told me all about it.
He and Symphony will be relieving us tonight.
They’ll stay here for the night.”
Ochre was about to ask what that favour was
she needed from Magenta, when he was interrupted by Paul: “Who’s General Peterson?”
Ochre was only too happy to answer that
question; for once, he had aroused the young boy’s interest. “Space General
Peterson is one of the World President’s closest advisors in matters of
security,” he explained. “The World
President is to come to Cloudbase for a visit in a few days, so General Peterson
comes tomorrow to inspect the base.
He will afterwards report to the World President that it’s safe to come aboard.”
He shrugged dismissively. “That’s only a formality, actually.”
“Does he know about the explosion that
occurred in your engine room?” Paul answered matter-of-factly. “He might not consider the place safe
after that…”
Ochre scowled. That boy was way too smart for his own
good. “Of course he knows,” he said.
“An incident like that can’t be kept a secret.
And if the base wasn’t considered safe, he wouldn’t come in the first
place.”
Paul shrugged indifferently and took another
bite out of his hamburger.
Right at this moment, the door buzzed; Melody
was instantly on her feet and crossed the floor. “That must be Magenta,” she
said.
“Already?” Ochre was rather surprised. He didn’t expect their relief for few
more hours.
Not that he didn’t welcome it.
“What colour is Magenta, exactly?” Paul
asked.
That new question caused a wicked smile to
spread on Ochre’s lips. “You’ll soon find out, kid.”
Melody pressed the opening button and the
door slid open to reveal Symphony Angel and Captain Magenta, standing on the
other side. Magenta was carrying a
large brown bag in his arms; he smiled widely as he entered the room with his
companion.
“Hiya, Ochre!” he called. “How’s it going?”
“Not too bad, thank you,” Ochre answered
quietly. “You’re here early. What’s
going on?”
“We thought of relieving you early,” Symphony
explained. “So you two will have
time enough to prepare for Peterson’s visit. You will probably need your rest and, as
Doctor Fawn often says, the Room of Sleep isn’t always good for your health…”
“He does say that often, yeah,” Ochre agreed.
Upon seeing Paul, seated in the living area
next to Ochre, Symphony waved energetically at him. “Hi, Paul!”
The young boy answered with a rather unsure
wave of his own, as he still didn’t know what to make of all these strangers who
were trying so hard to act so friendly towards him. He did remember Symphony as the other
young woman who had stood up for him, so he was as ready to trust her as he did
Melody.
His eyes, however, were not leaving Magenta,
and Ochre noticed that.
“I also have this delivery to make,” the
Irish captain continued, handing his bag to Melody who was still standing in
front of him. “I hope this will do.” He gave a quick glance in Ochre’s
direction. “I… erm… took the first
one I found lying around.”
“I’m sure that’ll do perfectly,” Melody said
with confidence. She eyed the contents of the bag and nodded approvingly. “Oh, yes…
This looks perfect!”
“What is it?” Ochre asked with curiosity, as
the three of them approached.
Melody came in front of Paul. “Just a late birthday gift for our young
guest here,” she said in an innocent voice.
“Or an early Christmas gift, you take your pick. Happy birthday, Paul!”
“For me?” the boy said in confusion. He took the bag Melody was handing to
him. A curious Ochre was trying his best to get a glance at what it contained,
without success.
“Well, you seemed bored earlier. So when you
went to the bathroom, I took the opportunity to call my friend Pat and asked him
to bring you this.”
“Pat?” Paul said with a furrowed frown.
“Hiya, kid,” Magenta said jovially, smiling
roguishly and proffering his hand to Paul.
“I’m Pat. People around here
call me Captain Magenta.”
“Captain… Magenta,” Paul repeated. He
presented his hand in turn, a little hesitantly, and Magenta shook it warmly.
“Not Captain… Pink?” he asked with uncertainty.
That made Magenta guffaw out loud. “Oh, no… certainly not. That’s funny, isn’t it, Ochre?”
“Hilarious,” Ochre said without a single hint
of amusement. He had expected more of a reaction out of Paul – the kid making
fun of Magenta’s uniform colour, calling him names, whatever – but he proved to
be a total disappointment. He pushed
himself to his feet and walked towards the counter. “I’m getting some coffee.
Anyone else want some?”
“Yes, put some milk in mine,” Melody said
distractedly.
Magenta took the seat Ochre had vacated.
“Magenta is more like a purplish red colour,” he explained, in an exaggerated
Irish brogue. “I’m Irish, so I would have preferred green, but, hey, the colour
was already taken. What could I do? It could have been worse…” He pointed to Symphony. “You already know this charming lady,
don’t you?”
“We met earlier,” Symphony said. “But I
didn’t have the opportunity to present myself properly.”
“Symphony, right?” Paul said with a large
smile.
Hope flared in Symphony’s heart. “You
remember that?” she asked with an upbeat tone.
“Sure… I heard the big blue guy calling you
that earlier,” Paul explained, and Symphony did her best to hide her
disappointment. The boy didn’t take any notice, as he returned his attention to
the big bag on his lap. He put it on
the floor at his feet and fished into it with both hands.
Ochre had reached the counter and had taken a
couple of mugs from the cupboard. He
was starting to fill them with the coffee he had brewed earlier, and was looking
distractedly at what was happening in the living area. He noticed the
conspiratorial glances between Magenta and Melody, and wondered what it could be
all about, when he finally saw the huge box Paul extracted from the bag.
“Cool!”
the boy said with excitement in his voice. “A model aircraft kit!”
Ochre froze on the spot, upon recognising the
box as containing one of the unmade model aircraft he knew should have been in
his quarters. He became livid, staring unbelievingly, as Paul excitedly turned
the box in his hands, checking the colourful drawings, graphics and text
covering its surface.
“A 2045 F-100 Hawkcraft… A World Government
craft, right? It looks like a fun model to make too!”
“You like making model kits, Paul?” Melody
asked.
“Yes, I do… I don’t do them often, ‘cause I
don’t always have time. But it looks
like I’ll be able to do this one, since I’m stuck here with you guys. Thanks, Melody!”
“I’m glad you like it, sweetie.” Melody
caught sight of Ochre who was glaring at her with angry eyes, rooted on the spot
by the counter, a half-filled cup of coffee in one hand and the coffee pot in
the other. He looked ready to
explode. She excused herself with a gracious smile and left her seat.
While Symphony took her place and joined
Magenta in helping Paul open his box, Melody walked purposefully towards the
furious-looking Ochre. He was
looking daggers at her, but she made a show of not appearing too bothered by it. In total silence, he put cup and coffee
pot onto the counter, and opened the door to the nearest bedroom. She preceded him inside and he followed,
closing the door behind him.
She turned to him. “Now what is it, Rick?”
“It’s your doing, isn’t it?” Ochre said
between his teeth. “That was
your
idea to give the kid one of
my models?”
She sighed.
“Look, Rick… He’s a kid, he was getting bored. I thought it would be a good way for him
to pass the time while he’s cooped up in here.
So I called Pat, and asked him to go to your quarters and get one of your
unmade models.”
“Melody,” he said, forcing his voice to
remain calm – and failing miserably, “that model… is a World Government F-100
Hawkcraft…”
“That’s what Paul said.”
“… Diamondback Fighter, from 2045,” Ochre
finished in a strained voice. “The first fighter aircraft
officially
commissioned by and for the
World Government.”
“Oh, I think I remember that one,” Melody
said thoughtfully. “I think I flew
in one of those.”
“You probably flew the Mark III model,” Ochre
retorted between his teeth, trying hard not to lose his patience. “This
one is the
Mark I… And that particular
kit they made of that craft
is one of the
rarest models to exist on the planet at
the moment. It’s a limited, 10th
anniversary edition that was released in 2055…”
“Really?” Melody said pensively. “Oh. I hope it won’t cause too much confusion
if Paul notices a date on that box, then…”
“Melody, it took me two years to get my hands on that model!”
Ochre suddenly exploded. “Do you know how much it cost me to get it
and
how difficult it was to have
it shipped to London HQ, so it could be sent here to Cloudbase? And you go and give it to that kid!”
“Lower your voice. He’ll hear you. “
“He will ruin it!”
“You don’t know that,” Melody retorted
sternly. “And stop being such a
kid.” she sighed deeply. “Rick, a good friend of ours is in trouble… Whether or
not it’s obvious to you, or even to him, that’s the simple truth. Now I don’t
plan to let him down in this moment of need. That model kit is just a trifle
compared to what Paul’s going through right now. Are you really telling me you consider it
so important that you wouldn’t sacrifice it for the wellbeing of your friend? If that should help Paul regain his trust
in us…”
“You could have chosen a better way to do
it,” Ochre mumbled, calming down.
“At least, you could have called me, instead of Pat.”
“When you left earlier, you didn’t look too
happy. I thought it was better to
leave you alone for a short moment and not bother you. Beside, you’re so attached to your
models. I didn’t think you would agree.”
“I might,” he grunted. “I would have chosen another model,
instead of that one…”
“Rick… It’s only a toy.”
“It’s not a toy,” Ochre protested. “It’s a
highly collectable –”
“ – And overly glorified
toy,” Melody interrupted him. She
smiled sadly when he looked down reluctantly at her. “Rick, come on… it’s for a
good cause.”
“A good cause, yeah…” Ochre sighed. “All right… maybe he won’t
ruin it then. I might…
help him with it.” It was a struggle for him to even suggest
it. “If he wants, of course.”
“That might help smooth things between the
two of you,” Melody said, encouragingly.
“Yeah, you might be right…” He smiled, and
she was happy to see he was becoming reasonable. “Anything to stop him from
calling me ‘Captain Yellow’,” he added with a chuckle.
There was a beeping sound coming from his
epaulettes, which flashed white.
Swiftly, he answered the call he knew came from Colonel White and the mic
on his cap lowered to his mouth.
“Yes, Colonel?” he said into it. “Yes, sir…
I’m coming over… Melody Angel? She’s with me right now,
I’ll tell her… See you right away,
sir.”
His mic returned to the visor of his cap and
he turned to Melody. “It seems
there’s been a change of plan.
Peterson will be arriving at oh-seven hundred hours tomorrow morning instead of
ten.”
“Oh.”
Melody nodded thoughtfully. “Then it means I’ll be leaving to meet his
plane in the middle of the night.”
“Should have guessed Blue’s instructions
earlier meant some changes,” Ochre commented.
“We have to go to the Control Room now. We’re needed for briefing.”
“Right,” the young woman said, straightening
up. “Let’s take our leave of our guest then, and be on our way.”
“Gladly,” Ochre said morosely. “I’m looking
forward to be doing some normal Spectrum stuff.
That babysitting business is absolutely killing me.”
“Welcome to Cloudbase, General Peterson.”
It was early the next morning and Colonel
White, flanked by both Captain Blue and Captain Ochre, had gone down to
Cloudbase’s hangar to personally meet with Space General Peterson, whose jet had
been just been lowered down by the lift from the runway above where it had
landed just a few minutes before.
The general was one of President Younger’s
closest security advisors; of all of the members of the World Cabinet, he was
the most sympathetic and convinced supporter of Spectrum’s cause. It had been
because of Peterson’s intervention and because of his insistence that, a little
more than a year before, Spectrum had received the exclusive mandate to fight
the Mysteron menace and be given all the leeway and budget necessary to do the
job properly. He approved any project or development that might improve the
organisation’s work throughout the globe and help in its war against the
Mysterons. Spectrum having always met his expectations, Peterson had never regretted his
decision to endorse every decision made by Colonel White, backing him even
against the World President himself, when it became necessary. Colonel White had always been grateful
for the general’s helpful influence and for his constant, unwavering support.
Peterson was also one of those rare people outside of Spectrum who knew
of Captain Scarlet’s unique abilities, and who actually defended his presence
within the organisation in those early days when officials were wary of him.
General Peterson and Colonel White had known each other for almost as long as
both men had been working in the World Government, and had always maintained a
friendly relationship towards one another. The general had trusted in his old
friend’s arguments in favour of the young man and again in that case, Peterson
had no cause to regret his decision, as some time later it happened that Scarlet
had saved his life, as well as those of the World President and Colonel White.
“It’s good to see you, Colonel,” Peterson
said, shaking the colonel’s proffered hand.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“A while indeed,” White said with a thin
smile. “Since our little
misadventure in Kenya, actually.”
“Yes, exactly.” The general chuckled, a little nervously.
“And this time, I believe we won’t run the risk of seeing the roof flattening us
like pancakes!”
“I trust you had a good flight?”
“Yes, very good, thank you. You know, each
time I visit your Cloudbase, I can’t help being in awe. She’s quite a sight in the sky. Such a technological marvel… I do envy your command, Charles. I’m really tempted to ask the World
President to hand it to me.”
“Well, then you’ll have the Mysterons as
well, Brian,” White reminded him.
“Mmm…”
Peterson nodded and seemed to give it some thought. “In that case, I reckon you can keep her,
then.”
“You’re too generous.” White turned to his
right. “I don’t believe you ever met Captain Ochre, one of my staff officers?”
“I don’t think so, no. Captain Ochre…” Peterson presented his hand, that Ochre
shook warmly.
“General.”
“Although, I do believe I was in the
selection committee that chose you…
Commander Fraser, right?”
“You have a good memory, General,” Ochre said
with a smile of thanks.
“And you have a reputation that precedes you,
Captain.”
“And I think you remember Captain Blue?”
White continued, turning to the man at his left.
“Of course. How are you, Captain Blue?”
“I’m well, General, thank you,” Blue answered
shaking the general’s hand.
“It’s always a pleasure to meet you.
Have you done any hunting lately?”
Peterson grimaced. “As you probably recall, I
do all my hunting with cameras now,” he said.
“I’ve got a beautiful shot of a family of Bengal tigers living in the
wild that I took last summer, while in vacation in Nepal. Beautiful animals,
still an endangered species, I’m afraid.
If only the human race had been more considerate of the beasts we share
this planet with in the past, we would not have to fight and try to save so many
species even today.”
“Too right, General.”
“If you would follow us, General,” White
said, gesturing towards the exit of the hangar.
“Of course, Colonel,” Peterson said, walking
with the three of them. “Captain Scarlet will not be joining us?” he asked then,
looking around, as if he almost expected the English officer to appear suddenly
from behind one of the many craft housed in the hangar.
White hesitated. Because of the World
President’s upcoming visit to Cloudbase, he had been duty-bound to inform the
proper security officials of the accident in the engine room; that was standard
procedure, as they would want to insure that the president’s safety wasn’t at
risk. However, the consequences of that accident for Scarlet was another
question; his current condition wasn’t a security risk for the president as
such, and so, the Spectrum commander didn’t see any reason to mention it. In his view, this was a private matter
for Spectrum only, and he preferred not to have anyone outside of Spectrum
putting their unwanted nose where it did not belong.
“Captain Scarlet is… off base, at the
moment,” the colonel said casually.
He didn’t like lying outright to Peterson, but quite frankly, he couldn’t think
of any other explanation he could give.
Besides, technically speaking, a ten year old Paul Metcalfe wasn’t
exactly Captain Scarlet.
“Ah, that’s a shame,” Peterson said. “I like that young man. Especially considering how he saved all
our lives in Kenya. I was rather
looking forward to meeting him again. But I guess, even an indestructible agent
needs to take some time off once in a while, doesn’t he, Colonel?”
“Perhaps I’ll be a suitable replacement then,
General,” Ochre offered, smiling.
“I’m sure you’ll do very well, Commander… I
mean, Captain,” Peterson said amiably. “Ah, Colonel… I trust the recent problems you had with
your engine room are now under control?”
“Specifically, the problem was with our main
variable mode generator,” White explained. “And yes, it’s all under control now.
We’re running on full power and Cloudbase is stable.”
“So I see. There wasn’t any risk of Cloudbase
falling from the sky, if I understand correctly, then?”
“In this case? No, that would have been very
unlikely,” White said with confidence. "It would take much more than one failing
generator for that to happen. Cloudbase’s automatic safety measures insured that
as soon as a problem presented itself with the faulty generator, all its
functions were taken over by a secondary unit.”
“It’ll stay that way until the main variable
mode generator is replaced,” Blue added quietly. “The repairs should be completed in the
coming weeks.”
“If you wish, I can personally show you the
extent of the damage,” White suggested. “It looks extensive, but it’s restricted
to only a small section of the engine room.”
“I’d like to see, yes,” Peterson accepted.
“If only to see your repair crew at work.” He smiled.
“I’ll be then more capable of judging their efficiency and then reassure the
World President that there is no risk of him dropping from the sky. Not that I had any doubt, of course,” he
quickly added, noting White’s raised eyebrow.
White thanked him with a new smile. “We
appreciate the vote of confidence, General.
Captain Blue, Captain Ochre…
Take over from me in the Control Room until ten thirty, when we’ll meet again at
the general’s assigned quarters.”
“S.I.G., sir.”
“This way, if you please, General…”
“You’re very good at this, Paul.”
Symphony Angel was looking in awe at Paul’s
work, set on the table of the living area. The boy had been working on his model
for a few hours the evening before, before going to bed very early. The day had
obviously been long for him, and he had fallen asleep right away, completely
exhausted.
That had made Symphony and Magenta’s work
easier, and there didn’t seem to be any indication that Paul would want to try
and leave his room during the night – as Ochre had suggested he might attempt to
do. Blue had entertained the same suspicion, based on the boy’s stunt the
previous day, when he had escaped from Corporal Jarvis’ surveillance, and so he
had advised Symphony and Magenta for one of them to ‘keep watch during the
night, just in case’. Although they
had done as they had been told, it had been a needless recommendation; Paul had
slept through the entire night, without even stirring once, and it had been an
uneventful watch.
Adam was
being ridiculous,
Symphony finally came to the conclusion. There was absolutely no reason to
worry about Paul attempting to run off during the night. Where in Heaven would he have gone to? We’re in a freaking hovering aircraft.
Immediately after getting up, and as he was
having an early breakfast, Paul had been checking on his model, making sure the
parts he had glued the previous evening were neat and ready for the next steps.
The cockpit was slowly taking form, and Paul was currently busy trying to fit
the tiny pilot into his seat. Seated
on the other side of the boy, a coffee set on the table in front of him, Captain
Magenta was checking the plans, comparing them with the many pieces spread in
front of them.
“I never realised you had such talent for
model making,” Symphony continued, delicately taking the small engine that Paul
had put aside the evening before, and checking it more closely. Wow, such tiny details… No
wonder Ochre’s so fascinated by this…
“How would you know that?” Paul asked with
curiosity. “You don’t know me that well, do you?”
“Mmm, you may be right. I may know a lot
about you, but obviously, I don’t know everything
about you.”
“He’s certainly very patient with that,”
Magenta commented in turn. “You
know, I daresay, he’s almost as good as Ochre himself.”
Paul raised his eyes to him. “He’s so good at
making models, then?”
Magenta chuckled. “Oh yes… Second to none. At least, according to him.” He took the engine Symphony was handing
him and examined it. “I bet he’ll be
impressed by your work.”
Paul shrugged. “It’s a nice model,” he said.
“It’s fun to make. Do you think I’ll be able to keep it when
I go back home?”
“Of course, if you like it that much,”
Symphony said. “Why not?”
“I’m glad you like it,” Magenta said. “I’ll
be sure to tell Ochre. It was one of
his.”
“I do prefer real planes, though,” Paul
commented. He put his piece onto the table to let the glue dry and sat back onto
the sofa. He turned to Symphony. “I
meant to ask… You have the same uniform as Melody. Are you a pilot too?”
“I am.
Melody and I are part of the Angels squadron. We’re fighter pilots.”
“Yeah… Melody told me. You see much action?”
“Enough, yes…”
“How come I never heard of you? ‘Cause you’re
a secret organisation?”
Symphony hesitated. “Something like that,”
she said without committing herself.
“The Angels’ craft are the best interceptors
in existence,” Magenta said in turn, causing Paul to turn to him. “And our Angel pilots are the best there
is.”
“Really?” Paul asked, opening wide eyes.
“Oh well, we do our best,” Symphony said.
“You kidding?” Magenta retorted. “You and the
others saved our hides more than once, Symph… There’s no denying your talent. Accept a compliment when you receive
one.”
“You’re stationed here, on Cloudbase?” Paul
asked. “Are there many planes here?”
“Well, aside from the Angel interceptors, we
have passenger jets and helijets, and…” Magenta frowned. “Say, what did they
tell you about Cloudbase, exactly?”
“Nothing much,” Paul said, a sulky expression
on his face. “Only that its location
must stay secret…” He sprawled down
onto the backrest of the sofa. “And that’s the reason why I can’t contact my
family.”
“They didn’t tell you anything else?” Magenta
insisted. “For example… Did they tell you that Cloudbase is a
hovering carrier?”
Paul opened wide eyes at him and sat up
straight. “You’re kidding! A
hovering carrier? Really?”
“I’m not kidding,” Magenta said, chuckling.
“And yes, really. A hovering
carrier.”
“Up in the air?!”
“Way up in the air. 40,000 feet, to be exact.”
“Way cool!”
Paul exclaimed, very excited. “That’s… over the clouds, right? Is that why it’s called Cloudbase?”
“I believe that might be the reason, yes.”
Magenta pointed to the nearest porthole.
“Didn’t you check outside already?”
“No, I didn’t think of checking… I didn’t think it was that interesting to
begin with. Beside, it was almost
dark when we got here yesterday.”
“Well, if you do check now,” Magenta
suggested, “you’ll only see the sky, as far as the eye can see.”
He had barely finished speaking before Paul
was already up and striding towards the porthole; Magenta and Symphony followed
him with amused eyes and watched as he stood in front of the porthole to look
outside.
“Is that wise to tell him that much?”
Symphony whispered to her companion.
“Blue told us to be extra careful with what we might tell him…”
“Which concerns him directly, yes,” Magenta
agreed with a nod, his eyes still set on Paul. “He might not believe about
anything we might say about his adult life…
It would be too unbelievable and he might think we’re trying to trick
him.” He looked directly at
Symphony. “But what could be wrong in telling him about Spectrum and Cloudbase? On the contrary, wouldn’t that be helpful
to him?”
“Hey, I can see part of the base! And the clouds below!” Paul turned to face them. He looked even
more excited than before. “Is that a runway down there?” I see a plane at the very end of it!”
“That’s Angel One,” Symphony informed him.
“There’s a pilot at the helm at all times. That way, she can be airborne at a
moment’s notice, should there be an emergency.”
“She? All your pilots are girls?”
“All our fighter pilots are girls,” Magenta
specified.
“Can I go to the runway?” Paul asked,
returning swiftly to them. “Please,
I want to see that plane closer!
Where are the other planes? Are they
on the runway too? I can’t see very
well from here!”
“Slow down,” Magenta said, laughing. “You can’t go on the runway, Paul.”
“Awww…”
Paul looked disappointed. “I should have known you would say no…”
“And for good reasons,” Magenta quickly said.
“At this height,
nobody
can go on the runway… Not
without a protective suit, a harness and breathing gear. It’s very cold, very windy and the air
pressure makes it very difficult to breathe.”
“Oh.”
Paul nodded his understanding. “I haven’t thought of that.”
“There are no other craft on the runway,
anyway,” Symphony added in turn.
“Only Angel One. The other craft are
stored in the hangar underneath the runway.”
Paul’s eyes lit up. “Under the runway? Inside the base? So that means we can go
there?”
“Well…”
Symphony hesitated.
“I don’t know…” Magenta said cautiously.
“Oh please!
I want to go!” Paul begged
them. “I’m going crazy cooped up here!
I can’t make models all day long!
And your Captain Blue said I could go out of this room, so long as my guardian
comes with me! I think that for now,
that means the two of you, right?”
“I… guess,” Symphony said, still unsure. She
exchanged glances with Magenta.
“What do you think, Pat?”
“Can we leave this place then?” Paul asked
insistently. “Can we? Please? I’ll be good!
I won’t cause any trouble! I
promise!”
“In that case… How about not just the
hangar?” Symphony suggested. “We could take you around the base… Those places
you can visit, that is?”
“That would be great! I’d like to see it all, yes… But I do want to see the hangar and the
planes!”
“That might be possible,” Magenta said
thoughtfully. “But you’ll owe us one.”
“Anything you want!” Paul exclaimed.
“I will remind you of that later on,” Magenta
said. “Mmm… I might be getting soft… But all right, then. I don’t see anything wrong with a little
visit. As long as you’re being good.”
“Yay!”
Paul impatiently ran to the door.
“Let’s go right away, then!”
“I hope we won’t regret this,” Symphony said
with a sigh at she pushed herself to her feet.
Magenta shook his head and followed her.
He was already starting to wonder if it was
indeed a good idea to begin with.
“You were right, Colonel White. The damage does look extensive.”
Standing with Colonel White in the Engine
Control Room, General Peterson was gravely looking down at the portion of the
Engine Room where the damage was very obvious; the surface of the floor and a
wall had been blackened by the recent fire, and there was still the remains of
the opened up globe of the generator, which looked like a distorted broken egg
in one corner. The rest of the debris had been thoroughly cleaned up, though,
and there was a crew already working on the repairs, under Lieutenant Beryl’s
direct supervision.
“It’s a wonder Cloudbase didn’t suffer more
than it actually did,” the general added quietly.
“That’s because she’s been designed to endure
such setbacks and remain operational throughout,” Colonel White commented.
“Remember she was built in space, General, before she was brought down into the
Earth’s atmosphere. If she can
withstand re-entry without a problem… then she can survive almost anything.”
Peterson nodded slowly. “Captain Black used
to say that Cloudbase was the most outstanding achievement of technology ever
built by man… and that if he had to choose the one thing in his life that he was
the most proud of, it was to have contributed to her design and construction.”
“It was his magnum opus, most certainly,”
Colonel White agreed with a nod.
“I hope he someday finds peace,” Peterson
added in a low, respectful voice. He
turned to the Spectrum commander. “Were there any casualties in this accident?”
White sighed. “One death, unfortunately.
Harold Lambert, a technician who had been with us for the past thirteen months.
Four other men suffered minor injuries, including my aide, Lieutenant Green.
They will be returning to active duty in a day or two.”
“A shame about that technician, really… ”
“All we can do now is to make the repairs and
insure the fault that caused that disaster will be corrected,” Colonel White
continued. “At least, this way, we’ll make sure that such incident will not
happen again and that there will be no other victims because of it.”
Peterson nodded thoughtfully. “And I’m sure
your technicians will make a very good job of it, Colonel.” He nodded towards the exit. “Shall we continue, then? Is it possible to go down and see the
repairs up close?”
“By all means, General…” White gestured towards the exit. “I’m
sure Lieutenant Beryl will be more than happy to give you any information you
might want to know about the work in progress.”
He checked his watch. “By the way, I’ve given instructions for your
quarters to be ready for you earlier, so I’ll be taking you there after our
visit to the Engine Room. That way, you’ll be able to settle yourself. Your baggage has been taken from your
passenger jet directly to your room. Ah, and Captain Ochre and Captain Blue
should be waiting for us there. They’ll be escorting you to the officers’
restaurant, if you feel like a little meal.”
“Thank you, Charles. I do admit I’m famished. Very considerate of you.”
“Then afterwards, Captain Blue and Captain
Ochre will take over from me, and continue the tour with you. I’m afraid I will
have to leave you to them… I have
some duties to attend to in the Control Room.
I might see you later, towards the end of the afternoon. If you don’t mind, of course.”
“Of course not, Colonel. I know the weight of command too.” Both men entered the lift and exited the
Engine Control Room to reach the next level.
Paul Metcalfe was seemingly having the time
of his life; guided by Captain Magenta and Symphony Angel, he had visited a good
part of Cloudbase, starting with the Promenade Deck, from where he had the best
view possible of the runways, as well as an impressive take-off of the three
Angels, which had been sent on patrol around the base’s perimeters. Then the two
Spectrum officers had made a tour of the Control Tower, visiting the restaurant,
the officers’ lounge and the officers’ pool, and had taken the long way down one
of the escalators to Cloudbase’s main body, to take him to the recreation rooms,
sports courts and the cinema hall. Following that, they took a lift down the
Amber Room, which was currently vacant; finally, for the boy’s last treat, they
took him to the hangar.
The hangar was huge, and Paul showed himself
suitably impressed. There were three complementary Angels craft stored at the
very end, with one currently in maintenance, and he was allowed to approach it
near enough to stroke the fuselage.
He barely listened to Symphony’s explanations of the five Angel pilots’ rota,
sharing duty in the Amber Room and Angel One, and how it was extremely rare for
the five of them to all be in flight at the same time – except under very
extraordinary circumstances.
He was rather more interested in the technical descriptions given by Lieutenant
Coal, chief engineer of the aircraft maintenance division, who was only too
happy to satisfy the curiosity of this young and impromptu visitor. Surely, if
this boy he knew nothing about was in the company of two of Spectrum’s finest,
then it was perfectly safe to give him all this information.
“He does look like Captain Scarlet,” he
commented at some point, addressing Captain Magenta. “Is the boy related to him?”
Magenta simply shook his head, refusing to
answer the question directly.
They walked in front of the two stored
Medicopters, the only Magnacopter owned by Spectrum, and then the three
Helijets; Paul was allowed to quickly look inside one of them, before they
continued their visit. They walked in front of a series of silver and blue
airplanes, larger than the Angel interceptors, with one of them set on a lift,
obviously ready to be taken to the airstrip above.
“… And this one is what we call an S.P.J.
Short for Spectrum Passenger Jet.”
Paul stood in front of it, obviously in awe.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. He
noticed a white aircraft, standing on the other lift, right next to the S.P.J.
“And that one, what is it? It looks different
from the others.”
“That’s because it’s not one of ours,”
Magenta said. “That’s a World Army Passenger Jet. Probably the one which brought General
Peterson to base this morning.”
Paul nodded thoughtfully. His interest was now all back to the
S.P.J. “Can we go inside and look at
it?”
Symphony hesitated. “I think it might be
about time we return you to your quarters,” she started. “There’s really not
much to be seen…”
“Oh, come on,” the boy protested. “We’re here
already… You wouldn’t take me back
while we’re so close to it, would you?
That would be too cruel!”
She nodded slowly. “That would be cruel,
you’re right. Captain Magenta?”
He relented, if somehow a little hesitantly.
“All right, but quickly, then. It’s
almost lunch time.”
“Thank you!”
And without waiting for them, Paul dashed
towards the S.P.J.
“He’ll get us in trouble,” Magenta muttered.
“We really should make this quick.”
Symphony nodded in agreement and the both of
them joined their guest. The single guard by the S.P.J.’s main hatch let them
through, without asking questions, and they entered the S.P.J. They went through the security airlock
and found themselves in the passenger cabin.
Paul looked around with curiosity; he seemed
somehow disappointed.
“You see,” Symphony told him, “it’s much like
any passenger jet you can imagine… And probably had been into.”
“Yeah, my uncle George pilots similar craft,”
Paul admitted. “He’s in the British military. ‘Cept, this one’s roomier… and there’s
less seats.”
“Not exactly,” Magenta explained. “Come over here.” He gestured to Paul and
took him to a panel embedded in the wall, next to the lock. “You see these buttons? This is the beauty of the Spectrum
Passenger Jet. You want more seats? You press this button here… And seats will emerge from the floor and
fix themselves into place. You can
adapt the number of seats according to your need.
In normal times, the S.P.J. is a seven seater – not counting the pilot
and co-pilot in the cabin. But you
can easily increase the number of seats to fourteen.”
“Cool!”
“You can also make this space into a
conference room as well,” Magenta continued.
“And also, you have various panels that can be installed, with those same
buttons, and separate the passenger cabin in three different compartments.”
“Including a storage room?”
“Well, we do have storage room back there,”
Magenta explained, turning around and pointing towards another door beyond the
hatch they had gone through. “You
also find the galley and toilets over there… And access to the lower part of the
S.P.J.”
“No holding cell for bad guys, then?”
“We have a holding room in the back as well,”
Magenta said with a chuckle. “You’re right, Spectrum would need one of those.”
“How about the cockpit?” Paul asked, his eyes bright. “Can I visit
it?”
Magenta exchanged glances with Symphony.
They had gone this far, so there was little point refusing this last request.
“Of course,” Symphony said. “But you touch nothing, right?”
“Of course not!”
Paul preceded the two Spectrum agents into
the cockpit; Symphony invited him to sit in the pilot’s seat – “Your uncle never
let you take this place, did he?” – and sat in the co-pilot’s seat herself,
while Magenta took the radio operator’s seat behind her.
“I don’t suppose you pilot these planes
often, if you’re a fighter pilot, Symphony?” Paul asked, turning to the young
woman.
“All of us, Angels or colour-coded officers,
need to pilot a S.P.J. at one time or another,” Symphony answered. “So I’m well-acquainted with this one.”
She looked at the control panel in front of them. “Are you in luck,” she said,
pointing at a section of the panel. “This is brand-new equipment that was
installed only a week ago. Oh… This must
be the plane that Blue and Melody need to test this week. That would explain why
it’s on the lift.”
“What is it?” Paul asked.
“The new onboard computer slash autopilot,”
Magenta explained from the seat behind.
He smiled roguishly. “The Angels have decided to call it Georgina.”
“Georgina?” Paul asked with a frown. “Like
the Famous Five character?”
“Actually, like the female version of
George,” Symphony said with a chuckle. “You know how an airplane autopilot is
often referred to as George? Well,
Georgina is much smarter.” She
pressed a button. “Computer?”
“Voice recognition
activated,” a
mechanical voice answered. “Symphony Angel, Angel Squad pilot.
Awaiting instructions for flight plan and take-off authorisation.”
Paul opened eyes wide with astonishment.
“Wow!” he whispered.
Symphony was very pleased with his reaction.
“Cool, isn’t it? That’s a new
security feature. It’s on testing mode right now, and they’re still making
adjustments to it. Once activated with a security code, the new computer will
only take instructions from an officer with proper authorisation… authorisation
which has been previously entered into its databank. Of course, for take-off
procedure from Cloudbase, the authorisation has to be backed from the Control
Room. But once out of Cloudbase’s… erm…
jurisdiction, the pilots are masters onboard.
They could set a course, and then let the plane fly itself to its
destination.”
“They could also use a code to lock down the
plane on arrival, when they need to leave it unattended,” Magenta added. “This
way, a non-authorised person wouldn’t be able to use it.”
“Way cool,” Paul breathed out. “And does this
plane land itself when it reaches its destination?”
“Voice recognition
activated,” the
mechanical voice then said, causing everyone to turn towards the speaker.
“Captain Scarlet, Cloudbase staff officer. Awaiting instructions for flight plan
and take-off authorisation.”
Everyone stared at the control panel. Magenta and Symphony couldn’t believe
their ears; as for Paul, he frowned in incomprehension. “What’s going on?”
“Probably some malfunction in the voice
recognition programming,” Magenta quickly said, rising from his seat. “We told you it’s a brand-new system, and
it’s still going through some adjustments.”
He exchanged worried glances with Symphony, and then gently took Paul by
the arm. “Come on, we really ought to take you back to your room.”
“Aww… Already?” the boy moaned. He got up, if reluctantly. “Can’t we
continue the visit? You haven’t
showed me any of the other interesting stuff…
Like the Control Room you mentioned, Symphony, and the Engine Room, and –”
“They’re really no places for a kid your
age,” Magenta said, gently pushing him towards the exit. “Beside, if we take you there, don’t you
think we’d get into trouble with our commander?”
“Yeah,” Symphony added swiftly. “We already stretched your visit much
more than really is comfortable.
Tempting fate more than we have would be just a little too risky.”
She followed behind Magenta, glancing with
uncertainty at the control panel, and wondering how the devil the computer had
been able to recognise Captain Scarlet upon hearing the young voice of Paul
Metcalfe.
“We’ll just be in time to meet with Colonel
White at the door of General Peterson’s room,” Captain Blue told Captain Ochre,
checking his watch as the both of them rode Lift B back from the Control Room to
the lowest level of the tower. “They must be on their way right now.”
“Mmm… I hope the visit has gone smoothly this
morning,” Ochre said sombrely. “Do you think Cloudbase’ll pass muster?
I don’t know, but the general wanting to see the damage in the Engine Room first
thing seems to be a sign he might be worried about something.”
Blue shrugged. “It’s the colonel who asked
him if he wanted to see the damage by himself,” he reminded his colleague. “And
that was a very good tactical move,
if you ask my opinion. That way, he
shows Peterson what we have nothing to hide.”
“Do we?” Ochre asked morosely. “Or maybe you have forgotten a certain
little boy who is currently driving everyone nuts onboard Cloudbase?”
Blue clicked his tongue with annoyance. “Stop
that, Rick. Paul isn’t driving
anyone else nuts but yourself and you know it.”
“What do you mean?” Ochre protested.
“Melody’s been telling me about Paul being on
his best behaviour with her, but not getting along with you,” Blue said with
irritation. “She put it all down to
some childish behaviour of yours.”
“Oh, come on!” Ochre sighed, rolling his eyes. “I swear
to you, I tried hard, but the kid can’t stand me!
I swear, Scarlet is taking advantage of this situation and is getting
back at me for all those pranks I played on him. Are you sure he doesn’t really remember
and he’s not pretending?”
“Oh, now you’re being ridiculous… You were unhappy with that assignment
from the very beginning and you let that get in the way of your job!”
“What?”
The lift had reached its destination and the
door slid open in front of them.
Both men got out and Ochre stood in the hallway, facing Blue with anger. “Now
see here, Blue, if you think that best friend of yours is quite unable to be a
total brat when he puts his mind to it, I can assure you, you probably don’t
know him as well as you say you do. He’s a –”
“I say, what’s going on here?”
Ochre stopped his diatribe instantly upon
seeing Rhapsody Angel walking their way down the corridor, with a furrowed brow.
He cleared his throat and turned to her, forcing a smile on his lips.
“Oh, hi Rhaps. What’re you doing around here?”
She stopped in front of both men and eyed
them with curiosity. Obviously, she
was wondering what the object of their dispute was, but she also had something
else on her mind. “I went to see Paul,” she explained, showing the book she was
holding. “I thought that maybe I
could give him back the birthday present I gave him three days ago. Maybe it would please him and raise his
spirits a bit, seeing as it was his favourite book as a child…” She chuckled nervously. “… And seeing as he’s a child once more…”
“He didn’t like it?” Blue asked, scowling.
He was concerned. This whole situation couldn’t be easy on
the young woman, he suspected. And
seeing as she had not given the book to Paul, he imagined that he probably had
either refused it or ignored it.
“Actually, I didn’t have the opportunity to
give it to him,” Rhapsody explained uneasily. “He wasn’t in the guest room where
he was supposed to be assigned.”
Both Ochre and Blue felt suddenly
apprehensive, hearing these words.
“He wasn’t there?” Blue said in a low voice.
“What about Symphony and Magenta? It
was their turn of duty with him.”
“They weren’t there either. The room was completely empty.”
“Now where’s that brat?” Ochre muttered.
“Hang on, Ochre,” Blue told him. “If Symphony and Magenta weren’t in there
either, then it must mean they’re with him.
They –”
Right at that moment, the airlock leading to
the escalator slid open and they heard clear laughter coming from the other
side. They turned around just as
Paul Metcalfe stepped through the opening; Captain Magenta and Symphony Angel
were right behind him.
Paul stopped in his tracks. His eyes grew
wide at the sight of Captains Blue and Ochre looking straight at him with
bewilderment – and apparent displeasure.
As for Rhapsody Angel, her blue eyes were
even wider than his, and she found herself rendered almost speechless upon
seeing this ten year old boy whom she knew could only be her fiancé.
“Oh… my… God…” she was able to gasp.
“Oh no…” Paul breathed out. “Not you two…” And suddenly he dashed down the corridor,
in exactly the same direction Rhapsody had come from. “You won’t take me alive!” he cried out.
“Paul!” Symphony called after him. “Don’t –”
“Hey, kid, stop –” Ochre muttered a curse,
and sprinted after the fugitive. “What did I tell you, that kid’s a menace!”
“Ochre, wait –” Blue groaned. He took off, almost bowling Rhapsody over
– and took a second to mutter an apology – and disappeared round the corner,
just after Ochre.
“Blast,” Magenta groused, emerging from the
airlock and coming over to Symphony in the hallway next to Rhapsody. “And everything was going so well…” He excused himself and went after his two
colleagues.
“Are you okay, Dianne?” Symphony asked in
concern, noticing how pale Rhapsody had suddenly gone. “You look like you’ve seen –”
“A ghost?” Rhapsody offered, shaking her head
mechanically. “No… That’s not quite what I saw… I… I wasn’t quite prepared for
that, despite what I’ve been told…”
She leaned against the wall. “I think I need a very stiff drink…” She looked at Symphony. “What just
happened? Where were you with him,
exactly?”
“He was bored, we gave him a tour of
Cloudbase,” Symphony informed her.
“Everything was going fine, until…
Well, until he saw Blue and Ochre. I could wring Big Blue’s neck for
scaring a child that way!” she griped.
“I just think Paul was caught unawares and
panicked,” Rhapsody murmured, trying to make sense of it all. “You can’t blame
Blue for that. Oh my, this is getting a bit much…” She gave a low chortle and
then pushed herself from the wall. “If anybody’s looking for me, tell them I’m
sick.”
“And where are you going?” Symphony asked
with concern as she entered the lift.
“To Paul’s private quarters,” she answered
bleakly. “To get that stiff drink. I
know he’s got a bottle of malt and I know where he stashes it. In his present
condition, he can’t drink it.” The
door started to close. “But I could certainly use it.”
“So, General Peterson,” Colonel White asked
as he and his guest left Lift A and started down the long corridor towards one
of the V.I.P. rooms, “would I be too bold in asking if Cloudbase is making a
good first impression thus far?”
“It does seem to me that everything is under control,” Peterson said with
a slow nod. “Your crew did a thorough repair job and clean up of the sections
affected by the accident.
Although I didn’t quite understand all these specifications given by
Lieutenant Beryl regarding the corrections his team are making to the
generators, to insure that such an incident will never happen again.”
White chuckled. “Don’t worry, General.
You were not the only one. I admit I didn’t understand most of his
explanation either – and I’m supposed to be technically savvy. But now that you seem satisfied that
everything is fine…”
“You have to admit, Colonel, that the Security Council had some reason to
be concerned about this accident. And some of us were actually wondering if it
was indeed an accident. And you know how fretful the World President is over the
whole business about the Mysterons… And
not
without reasons, considering the previous attempts they made against him
already. Seeing as the World President was to come here for an official visit,
it seemed like the Mysterons could have… engineered the whole incident to get to
him once again. What if they had
taken over the entirety of Cloudbase for that sole purpose?”
White raised a brow. “Well, maybe I can have myself and the rest of my
crew submitted to a Mysteron test to put your mind at rest, General?”
Peterson waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t have to go to such
lengths…”
“On the contrary. And if it reassures you, we already have made such
verification, with exactly the same concern in mind.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, straight after the incident in question. All those who had been
involved with it have been checked since then. So you have nothing to worry
about. That’s standard procedure, as
a matter of fact. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything to worry about. Mind you, the Council’s concern could
have been justified. If Cloudbase
had been taken over, I would indeed have been Mysteronised as well. And all of
my staff, for that matter.” White
marked a pause. “We also do regular
tests onboard, just to be on the safe side.”
Peterson nodded quietly. “Always the over-efficient one, aren’t you,
Charles?”
“One cannot take enough safety measures, General,” Colonel White replied.
“I should know – I had to deal with uncomfortable situations before in the
U.S.S. At the time, I could only
rely on a chosen few, and couldn’t trust anybody else. Things are even worse when it comes to
the Mysterons.”
“You and your organisation are doing very well. We can only commend you for your efforts,
Colonel.”
“Thank you, General. I’ll be sure to tell my staff that their work is
appreciated.”
“And as far as I’m concerned, Cloudbase is probably the safest place you
can find on Earth. What you just showed me down there is proof enough of it. And
I’m sure that the rest of the tour will only serve to confirm that assumption.
I’ll tell that as well to the World President.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Peterson nodded again. “I see no reason to worry about this incident in
the Engine Room more than is really necessary.
Or to cancel the World President’s visit because of it. So you should
expect him his visit. Possibly
tomorrow, as scheduled.” He smiled mischievously.
“Although, I’m not sure you will consider this good news or not.”
White shrugged. “What makes you say that, General?” he asked innocently.
“I know you don’t much tolerate civilians around this ‘military base’ of
yours. Especially politicians coming
to stick their noses in your business…”
“The World President isn’t any
ordinary civilian,” White remarked. “Or politician, for that matter. And I do realise that sometimes it cannot
be helped. Especially when the
said politician happens to be your boss and the one handing over the money that
permits this organisation to run.”
“Which is why you tolerate the World President’s presence.”
White offered a smile. “Something like that… But you’re right, of course: I do prefer to do my job quietly, without
any meddlesome civilians around…”
Peterson chuckled again. “And that probably
includes me, doesn’t it, Charles?”
“Oh…”
White put on an expression of mock hurt. “I’m sure I can certainly make
an exceptional effort in your case, General.”
“Come back here, you squirt!”
Both men had just walked past the turn of a corridor when the loud shout
resonated behind them, making them both turn around in puzzlement – in time to
see young Paul Metcalfe pushing open the door of a maintenance corridor and
racing straight towards them, just as Captain Ochre appeared in the opening
looking none too happy. Colonel
White frowned at the scene, watching as Ochre, followed by Blue, gave pursuit to
the boy.
Paul wasn’t even looking where he was going, too busy to look over his
shoulder at his pursuers who were gaining on him. As the boy passed by him, Colonel White
only needed to extend his arm to catch him on the fly. A surprised Paul stopped in his tracks
and looked up to find the Spectrum commander glaring down at him with
irritation.
“What are you doing here?” White seethed between his teeth. “Don’t you know you can’t run in these
corridors?”
“Paul!” Ochre and Blue arrived right in front of the two superior
officers. Turning a displeased and
accusatory glare in their direction, White gave them custody of the boy. Behind them, through the still-open maintenance
door, he saw Captain Magenta appear.
“We’re sorry, sir,” Ochre offered, trying his best not to lower his gaze.
“Exactly what is going on?” White growled.
“Sir. This was my fault, Colonel.” Captain Magenta was coming their way
and his words attracted everyone’s attention.
He stood in front of the colonel. “The boy was getting bored in his room.
I thought it would be a good idea to take him for a visit around the base.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” White said, his jaws clenching. “…And he slipped through your fingers, I
see.”
“He is a slippery one, sir,” Ochre
commented, smiling uncomfortably and ruffling Paul’s hair in a playful fashion.
The boy glared daggers at him, and brushed his hand away in annoyance. “You
can’t blame Captain Magenta for losing him, sir.”
“Actually, Colonel, he behaved himself perfectly.” Magenta looked
sideways in Ochre and Blue’s direction. “I think he panicked when he saw Captain
Ochre and Captain Blue, as we were taking him back to his place.”
“For whatever reason?” General Peterson then asked with a curious frown.
“Well… maybe he was under the impression he wasn’t allowed out of his
room,” Magenta said.
“He had no reason to be afraid,” Blue commented. “I did say he could go
out, as long as he was supervised by an adult.”
“Well, boys will be boys, Blue,” Magenta told him with a grateful smile.
“What a strapping young boy this is,” General Peterson said, looking down
at young Paul. He noticed the way
Ochre was keeping his hand on his shoulder. “Is he your son, Captain Ochre?”
Ochre opened eyes wide with something akin with horror. “My son? Er… no,
General.” Thank God, he added inwardly. Blue and Magenta had trouble
suppressing the same amused smile; by the sound of Ochre’s voice, it seemed
there was no worse fate for their colleague.
“He reminds me of someone,” Peterson continued, rubbing his chin
thoughtfully as he examined Paul with attention. “Have we met before, lad?”
“No, sir – I don’t think so,” the boy answered.
“Perhaps it is your father I know,” Peterson continued. “Is he stationed here on Cloudbase?”
“No. He’s –”
“Paul is just here on a visit,” Blue quickly answered before the boy
could add another word.
“More like I’ve been kidnapped,” Paul muttered under his breath.
“Now, Paul,” Ochre said, laughing nervously, patting playfully on the
boy’s cheek. “That’s no kind of joke to make, you know…” He smiled awkwardly, addressing Peterson.
“Kids… They say the darnedest things…”
“It’s true, I can’t go wherever I want,” Paul protested. “You saw how
they chased me?”
“Well, Cloudbase is a secure military base,” Peterson reasoned patiently.
“I’m sure it’s for your own safety you can’t go everywhere you want to go.”
He frowned and turned to White.
“I must say, Charles – knowing you, I’m rather surprised you would allow
this lad to be up here. Any
particular reason why you did? Not that it’s any of my business, mind you…”
“Yeah,” Paul then said quickly, much to Ochre, Blue and Magenta’s horror.
“Do tell him, ‘Uncle Charles’.”
“Uncle Charles!” Peterson said triumphantly. “So this boy is your nephew, then? I
thought you didn’t have any family, Colonel.”
White glared down at Paul. He shook his head. “I don’t. This boy’s not my
nephew… He’s the… son of a friend of
mine.”
“Am I?” Paul asked almost defiantly.
“Why don’t I take you to the
restaurant and give you some ice cream, Paul?” Magenta then said, pulling the
boy away from Ochre’s hands as White addressed him another withering look.
Ochre caught the ball on the rebound. “Sure, good idea – that ought to
keep him busy… Uncle Magenta will
get you lots and lots of ice cream…”
“I don’t want ice cream,” Paul retorted.
“Oh yes you do… Come on, be a
good boy… You’ll get yourself in trouble if you continue that way. And me at the same time.” Magenta smiled awkwardly and nodded to
both White and Peterson. “Colonel, General… We’ll get this rascal out of your
hair.”
White sighed deeply. “Please, Captain.”
He watched as Magenta turned Paul around and, keeping his hands firmly on
both the boy’s shoulders, steered him down the corridor. “Captain Magenta?” he called after him. He watched as the Irish captain looked
over his shoulder. “Be sure to report to me when this boy has had his ice
cream,” the colonel added ominously.
Magenta’s shoulders sagged. “S.I.G., sir,” he said, the words catching in
his throat. He knew right there he was in trouble. He turned around and kept
going with Paul.
White kept watching them go, with an icy stare, until they disappeared
from his view. He then shook his
head in apparent dismay, while Peterson smiled almost roguishly.
“He seems like quite a handful.”
“Oh, he is,” Ochre said, nodding in agreement. White glared at him, silencing him on the
spot; Blue had the very good sense to keep quiet. He knew the signs perfectly well. The colonel was totally livid.
“You don’t know the half of it,” White muttered under his breath,
answering Peterson’s comment.
“Frankly, Charles – I didn’t know you liked children at all. I’m still wondering why you allowed that
small boy’s presence onboard…”
White hesitated. “Well – actually, General, in his situation, we didn’t
have much of a choice. There was a
Spectrum operation, which left the boy on his own, without the supervision of an
adult, so I needed to make a last minute decision, for his own safety. It really couldn’t be helped.”
Colonel White felt like an idiot; however the words came out, they didn’t
seem to make any sense at all. He felt like one of those horrid politicians who
would string long, nonsensical sentences one after the other for the sole
purpose of distracting their interlocutors from learning the truth they sought
to keep from them. He didn’t want to
commit himself, nor to lie openly to Peterson. But frankly enough, he failed to see
exactly what he could actually say that would make enough sense to cover the
truth behind the presence of this meddlesome boy on Cloudbase.
But fortunately enough, Peterson didn’t press on, and simply nodded
thoughtfully, as he watched the direction in which Paul Metcalfe had disappeared
with his guardian.
“It’s nice to see you giving some time to the lad,” the general said.
“It’s even more remarkable, when you consider he isn’t a relative of yours.”
He looked at White. “I assume you’re close to him and his father, then?”
“Well… Yes, you could say that,” White answered, almost like an
automaton. “The boy is like… family, if you can say that.”
“When you don’t have much family, you got to stay close to the little you
have. Even more so when it’s not real
family.”
White didn’t wish to extrapolate on that subject and simply smiled
somewhat forcedly.
“Take the World President, for example,” Peterson continued, seeming on a
roll. “The poor man… he works so
hard, he doesn’t even have time to give to his own children. You know he has two children, don’t you,
Charles?”
“I… Yes, I read that in the newspaper,” White said, a little unsure.
“The little one, Sahra… she doesn’t seem to mind that much… Maybe she’s
too young to realise. But the older
one, Daniel…” Peterson shook his
head sadly. “Since his mother passed away, he’s the archetype of the rebellious
teenage boy. Always getting in trouble. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size
of Futura City and keeps reproaching his father that he doesn’t care about him…
That his work is more important than even his children.”
“I can sympathise,” White
commented. “I might have made the same reproach to my own father, forty years
ago…”
“You thought he should have given you more of his time?” Peterson asked.
“He was a military man and thought only of his career. Or so I thought at
the time.”
“Then maybe Younger should give his children more of his time as well…”
Peterson said, thoughtfully.
“President Younger is a very busy man,” White said. “It must be difficult for him to actually
find quality time for his children.”
“Mmm… Difficult, but not impossible,” Peterson said, stroking his chin.
White smiled awkwardly. “Personally, General, I wouldn’t hazard for one
minute giving advice to the World President on how to raise children.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” the still pensive Peterson retorted. He seemed
to come out of his fugue and turned directly to White. “I’d like very much to
see those quarters that have been assigned to me, Colonel,” he said in an upbeat
tone. “This meeting with that friendly boy has just given me an idea that I’d
like to suggest to the World President. I would need to contact him right away,
if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, General,” White answered, slightly taken aback by Peterson’s
sudden request. “Captain Ochre will
be taking you to your room right away, then.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
“Captain Blue, you’ll come with me.
You’ll be joining the General later for the rest of his visit.”
“S.I.G., sir.” Blue had the
foreboding impression that Colonel White intended to bawl him out regarding the
near-miss fiasco almost caused by Paul’s meeting with the general. However, as
they both left General Peterson and Captain Ochre, and he followed his commander
down the corridor towards the nearest lift, he realised there was something else
in his mind that bothered him as well.
“I don’t like it, Captain,” White said in an undertone. “I don’t like it at all.”
“Sir, I think the incident was only due to an odd set of circumstances. I don’t think we ought to blame anyone
for young Paul’s –”
“Yes, this is a matter for concern, Captain, but that’s not all that’s
bothering me right now,” White interrupted suddenly.
“No? Then what is it, sir?”
“I’ve known General Peterson for a long time, Captain. A very long time, indeed…” Both men entered the lift and White
pressed the button for the Control Room level. “I just know when that man has
some fishy idea in his mind… And I’m almost sure that when that idea takes form,
and I learn what it’s all about… I won’t be happy at all.”
OTHER STORIES FROM CHRIS BISHOP