The Ghost in the Machine
A “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” story
By Marion Woods
Prologue
The World Government based in Unity City, Bermuda had done much to ensure a peaceful and politically stable society since its inception more than thirty years ago, but there still remained a number of nations hostile to the concept of World Government. The need to defend member states from these rebels had led to the unification of individual national military forces into the all- embracing World Army Air Force under the control of the Supreme Commander Earth Forces. This command also extended over the World Aquanaut Security Patrol at Marineville and the civilian World Police Force with their global headquarters in Paris.
The World
Government’s Security Council had control of the Universal Secret Service and
its off-shoot the World Intelligence Network, but World President Younger, in
agreement with his predecessors in the post,
firmly believed in the need for the creation of a global security force,
enabled to cut through the red tape and bureaucracy that hampered other
security organisations. This new
organization would be answerable only to the World President. It was touch and go, but finally the World
President got his way. Spectrum, as the new organization was called, was
destined to become one of the most powerful organisations in the World, with
bases all over the globe. Formerly
launched on 10 July 2067, the carefully selected and trained agents quickly
achieved such impressive results against dangerous dissident forces, that the
critics, who had doubted that the expense of such an organization was
justified, were silenced.
It was the highly
sensitive monitoring equipment located on Spectrum’s headquarters - Cloudbase,
which hovered at 40,000 ft above the Earth - that first registered the signals
emanating from Mars. So it was only proper that Captain Black, a senior
Spectrum Officer with experience of space exploration, should lead the Zero X
mission to investigate these signals, early in 2068.
Captain Black
never really stood a chance against the Aliens living on Mars. His ill-advised attack on their complex did
no permanent damage, because using their awesome power of ‘retrometabolism’
they merely recreated their city once more. The attack did however awaken the
animosity of these powerful entities, who called themselves the Mysterons, and focused their attention
on the Earth, a planet they had previously considered of little interest.
They took the
leader of the exploratory force as their servant so when Captain Black returned
to the Earth in the Zero X rocket, he was the eyes and ears of the
Mysterons. They used him to channel
their power over the vast distance that separated them from the Earth and
because of this they zealously protected him. They also used him to seek out
information and to put into practise the stratagems they devised to punish the
Earthmen they saw as enemies.
When the Mysterons
issued their first threat to the Earth and announced that they intended to kill
the World President, Spectrum was ordered into action with instructions both to
protect the President and defeat the Mysterons. Colonel White quickly gave
orders to his Senior Officers and sent them around the World in order to be
prepared for further attacks. Captain Brown and Captain Scarlet had been given
the task of escorting the World President to Spectrum’s maximum-security
building in New York.
Unbeknown to the
Colonel on Cloudbase, Captain Brown and Captain Scarlet became the first two
Earthmen to suffer death and retrometabolism at the hands of the aliens. It was easy for them to destroy the
primitive wheeled vehicle the men were driving and retrometabolise them so that
they acted as the Mysterons dictated.
As their original human bodies were of no further use, they were
discarded.
Captain Brown
waited until he was alone with President Younger in the VIP quarters before
triggering an explosion of such force the building was destroyed. It was sheer luck that the President had
both the time and foresight to operate a safety device, which shielded him from
the blast.
Spectrum rescued
the shaken President and entrusted his safety to one of their most reliable
agents - Captain Scarlet - unaware that he was also under the influence of the
Mysterons.
The discovery of
the bodies of Brown and Scarlet at the scene of their fatal crash, threw
Spectrum into confusion and Colonel White ordered his agents to apprehend the
renegade Scarlet who was intent on kidnapping the President. In a desperate attempt to escape from
Spectrum’s pursuit, he obeyed his masters instructions and drove to the top of
the London Car-Vu tower to rendezvous with a mysteronised helicopter. The
Spectrum officer codenamed Captain Blue followed them.
Blue attempted a
rescue, but came under attack from the helicopter, and only the intervention of
the Spectrum Angel pilots, flying guard over the Car-Vu, saved his life. Destiny Angel shot the helicopter down in
flames and watched, horrified, as the machine crashed into the structure,
causing so much damage that the whole platform shifted.
Time was running
out, Blue could see the President clinging for dear life to a metal
girder. He had been reluctant to
believe that Scarlet had turned traitor but, left with no choice, he entered
into a desperate gun battle. Scarlet,
standing over the President, was exposed to Blue’s shots; so steadying the hoverpack he was wearing,
Blue took his time to aim and shot Scarlet through the heart. With an agonising scream the young man fell
over 800 feet. Blue flew his hoverpack
across to the President, issued crisp, authorative, commands and airlifted him
away from the crumbling structure, trying all the time to blank out the echoing
memory of those screams.
Later, when they
recovered the ‘second’ body of Captain Scarlet, the doctors on Cloudbase were
astonished to discover the young man had revived. Despite the shock of the fall
and the fatal shooting, something - which not even the Mysterons could quite
understand - allowed Scarlet to revive and even regain his health.
The Mysterons
found to their chagrin that Scarlet was now impervious to their
instructions. He reverted to his
original persona - a conscientious and loyal soldier and experience quickly
showed that his retained retrometabolic ability made him virtually indestructible,
so that not even death was fatal.
Re-united with Captain Blue; he waged his own war against the Mysterons and continued, over the years, to thwart
their schemes at every opportunity.
Such was his
success that the normally phlegmatic Mysterons decided he was too much of an
irritant and that now it was time to deal with him, once and for all.
Conrad Turner had
always liked Prague. Something about the city had appealed to him and given him
great pleasure, but now as Captain Black walked across an ancient bridge and
away from the tourist areas he felt nothing.
He turned down a side street and walked until he came to a run down part
of the city. He went into a dark
warehouse building, which appeared to be deserted. He could hear movement in a room at the back of the building and
went towards it, confident of what he would discover there.
Two men were
working silently at a bank of computers under the glare of an exposed low
wattage light bulb. The dim light glinted off a metallic arch construction
which dominated the middle of the room.
Wires ran from it to the computer banks and a gentle hum filled the air.
Although Black made no sound, the two men turned to acknowledge him, with eyes
as blank as his own. One was a stocky,
grey haired man in his fifties and the other a lanky young man with lifeless
brown hair and round glasses. A similarity between them suggested they might be
related, in fact they were father and son -
Victor and Miroslav Fencl.
Miroslav was used to assisting his father in his work, which Fencl had
pursued alone and in secret for many years.
When he had finally brought it to the attention of the scientific world,
through the World Government's research
forum, they had rejected it and him,
causing him to decide to seek support from elsewhere. Alerted to the nature of his achievement, the Mysterons had seen
a use for it and Fencl's car had mysteriously crashed on his drive to Bereznik
where he and his son had been heading to seek the necessary finance to pursue
his aims.
“How is the work
progressing, Doctor Fencl?” Captain Black asked. His voice was deep and
uninflected. He spoke in English, although his companions were both Czech and
spoke little English themselves.
Although the elder
of the two men replied in his own language, Black could understand him.
“We are now
successful in more than 90% of our experiments, but we have yet to try with a
human,” he said waiting for a response.
“It must be tried on an Earthman before we
proceed with our plans,” Black said curtly. “There can be no errors this
time. The Mysterons’ instructions must
be carried out.”
“We are almost
ready to make an attempt on a human - the technical problems we experienced
have been corrected and a monkey survived for several days,” Fencl said
dispassionately. “If the human survives as long, that should enable us to
complete our re-assimilation of the Scarlet being.”
“When will you be
ready to try?” Black asked.
The Doctor glanced
at his young assistant, “How much longer do you estimate, Miroslav?”
The younger man
spoke for the first time. “We can be ready almost as soon as you wish.”
“You will need a
specimen?” Black asked and as Fencl
nodded he concluded, “very well, I will get one.”
He left the
building and walked at a deceptively fast pace back to the old town, where
there were still people milling around in the historic squares. Ignoring them, he crossed through to an
impoverished residential area and sat on a low wall waiting patiently as the
sky began to darken.
His mind was empty
of all individual thought, he merely concentrated on the task ahead and the
satisfaction it would give his masters when this plan succeeded. Black had no qualms about what he was about
to do; no remorse for the hurt and suffering it might cause. The Mysterons saw no value in human emotions
or compassion. They did nothing without
reason and nothing that did not further their aims. Their present aim was to
rid themselves of the biggest obstacle to their ultimate success. Unusually, Black experienced a shiver of
emotion. It was, perhaps, a sign that
even the very thought of Captain Scarlet could unsettle the Mysterons. Innumerable times they had been within
moments of triumph, only to have victory snatched from them by Scarlet and his
Spectrum colleagues.
‘It is time it was ended.’ The
thought went through Black’s brain, and he knew with utter certainty that this
was true. Scarlet must be stopped and,
if possible, returned to Mysteron control. Then he could assist his erstwhile
fellow officer in furthering the Mysterons’ war of nerves against the Earthmen
they so despised.
“Are you
alright?” A dishevelled young man
asked, shaking Black gently by the arm. The old man looked half-dead; pallid
and lantern jawed.
Black started from
his trance and gave a dry smile. “Yes thank you,” he answered in English.
“Can I help?” The
man replied in halting English, hoping this was a rich tourist he could fleece
of enough money to at least pay for something to eat tonight.
Black showed him a business card and pointed
to the address. “Where is this please, I must find the place and I have not
been able to. It is getting late.”
The young man
frowned; the address was across the river, away from the tourist areas.
“I can pay you, if
you can help me,” Black said, managing to sound helpless.
The young man
smiled in understanding at the mention of money and nodded.
“I know where it
is. We can walk if you want - quicker
than a taxi cab and,” he grinned, “not many cabs here.”
Black looked
grateful and struggled to his feet. He
was taller than the younger man expected and not as old and frail as he had
looked sitting on the wall. However he was hungry and as the man had offered to
pay for his help, he shrugged off his doubts.
They walked
through the square and back towards the warehouse district.
“You have business
there?”
Black nodded, “I
have to buy… merchandise from them. I
have been looking all afternoon.”
“It is not an easy
place to find, few people go there unless they have to,” the young man said,
determined to make the old man like him and pay well for his assistance. He introduced himself as Josef and explained
that he was an artist; he painted pictures of the city for the tourists to
buy. Black wondered if he was a very good
artist because from the state of his clothes and his thinness, it didn’t look
as if he had ever sold many paintings.
They were walking
down the dark street near the warehouse when Black attacked. He grabbed at Josef forcing him back to the
wall of the nearest building and struck him across the face with his fist. Then
he twisted his arm until he heard the bone crack. His hand covered the man’s
mouth to deaden his screams and he forced him into the warehouse. Once inside,
Black threw him at the feet of the two scientists. They stood, eerily impassive and regarded their victim with
indifference.
“Proceed,” Black
said curtly.
Ignoring the
increasingly hysterical pleading, they stripped him and dragged him to a metallic
arch in the centre of the room, where they handcuffed him to the sides and
backed away. Miroslav went to the
control panel and entered figures into a computer. Then at a nod from his father
he threw a switch. Strange electric
currents arced through the air and earthed themselves in the prisoner’s
body. There was a deep humming noise
and the air in the room shimmered before their eyes.
The three Mysteron
agents watched impassively unaffected by the screams. After a minute or so,
Josef slumped forwards held upright only by the handcuffs. The Doctor unlocked the cuffs and dragged
the body across to a cage by the wall.
He slammed the door shut and turned to his commander.
“We have to wait a
few hours to see the results.
Meanwhile, there are adjustments necessary. The whole process must be
quicker when we use it on the Scarlet being. It will have to be recalibrated,
of course. Perhaps we should try it on
a Mysteron agent?” He gave a sideways glance at his son.
“You are both too
valuable to the project. I will get
another specimen when it is necessary,” Captain Black said.
The scientists
worked on in silence, apparently understanding what each expected without
words. Captain Black waited: time had
no meaning for him.
Suddenly,
ear-splitting screams came from the cage. The three men walked over and stared
down. The young man was undergoing
convulsions, his head thrashed about and he muttered snatches of sentences, as
if arguing with an unseen presence.
His eyes flew open in an unseeing stare, fear written large, as screams
echoed around the room. Black glanced across at Fencl, and the doctor looked at
his watch.
“Not long now, but
it varies,” he said in response to the unspoken question. Josef’s body appeared to swell in size and
grew indistinct at the edges. Almost
like a snake sloughing off a skin, the body twisted and shivered and after a
few moments a second body slid off from the first and rolled clear.
Exhausted, Josef
and his clone crouched on the floor of the cage. There was a sob from one
Josef and a tear crept down his cheek.
Captain Black gave
a satisfied nod - the machine had come through its first test run with flying
colours, soon it would be time to attract the attention of Spectrum and get
Scarlet to Prague.
He glanced at
Josef and somewhere deep within the bleakness of his mind felt a tinge of
pity. “You will soon feel at one with
the Mysterons and peace will come with obeying our masters. Give him some clothes,” he added to
Miroslav. Then as suddenly, his
compassion was replaced by his usual hardness and he turned away, leaving the
young man shivering with more than the cold.
Colonel White read
the report with a frown. “Lieutenant
Green, are they sure that it is really Captain Black?”
“They are as sure
as they can be. He has been seen
several times by reliable officers, Sir. Commander Ziak has a reputation for
efficiency; he wouldn’t alert us unless he was reasonably sure.”
“Yet we’ve had no
threat from the Mysterons that they mean to attack Prague - or anything that
might explain why Captain Black would be there. Who are the duty officers?”
“Captains Blue and
Scarlet,” Green replied, without needing to consult his desktop screens.
“Hmm, I wonder if
they aren’t better kept here and a couple of the Lieutenants sent to
investigate,” the Colonel mused.
“Well, Sir, it has
been uncommonly quiet for the past few weeks and you know how Captain Scarlet
likes to follow up any reports on the whereabouts of Captain Black,” Green
reasoned leaving aside the fact that both Captains were getting edgy with
boredom.
“Yes, I know he
does. Very well, Lieutenant Green, ask
Scarlet and Blue to come to the Control Room.
I will discuss it with them.”
In the officers’
lounge Blue and Scarlet were killing time.
Captain Blue had just finished his latest library book and was now at a
loose end, whilst Captain Scarlet was reduced to making paper planes out of
yesterday’s newspaper. The floor was
littered with crashed prototypes.
“I hope you’re
gonna pick these up,” Blue said surveying the wreckage with a wry grin.
“I thought you
could. You were a crash investigator,
after all.”
“I was a test
pilot,” Blue corrected missing the joke. “And a damned good one too,” he added
half to himself.
Smirking, Scarlet
launched his latest design, which spiralled across the room and nosedived into
a waste paper bucket.
Blue applauded,
“Good shot!”
“It was a fluke. I
was aiming for the window,” Scarlet admitted.
Blue scrambled to his
feet and fished the plane from the bin. “It’s a fault with the wings, if you
ask me.”
He spent a few
minutes tweaking the paper and then threw the plane back towards his
friend. It glided effortlessly and
gracefully came to a halt on the tabletop. Blue punched the air.
“Sometimes you are
too nauseating for words,” Scarlet complained flicking the offending plane off
the table with his middle finger.
“You’re just
jealous, ‘cause I can make better planes than you.” Blue’s handsome face wore
an appealingly childish grin.
Scarlet shook his
head. “I can’t believe we’re reduced to this,” he said and kicked at the nearby
wreckage of an earlier attempt. He
reached for Blue’s discarded book and pulled a face. “How can you read this
stuff?”
“Well, Karen said
it was good.”
“Was it?”
“Not really my
kinda thing; but she’s gonna ask me what I thought about it at some point, so I
thought I ought to finish it,” Blue confessed with an almost apologetic shrug.
Scarlet scowled;
he considered Blue to be firmly under the thumb of his girlfriend. Catch me reading some daft book just because
Dianne told me to, he thought. He opened the book at random and read a few
lines.
“Captain Blue and
Captain Scarlet please report to the Control Room,” Lieutenant Green’s voice
echoed through the room.
“Saved by the
tannoy,” Scarlet muttered gratefully throwing the despised book down.
Blue followed him
from the room with only the slightest twinge of guilt for the mess they left
behind.
They landed at
Prague Airport some four hours later.
The sky was just starting to get light and it was raining. They took an SPV from the airport secure bay
and drove to the city.
“We should check
in with the ground forces,” Scarlet said looking up from the copy of the
reports the Colonel had given them.
“Sure thing. I wonder if they have spotted Black again
and what he’s doing here.”
“We’ll find out
soon enough.”
Blue consulted the
dashboard navigation computer and turned sharp left with a squeal of
tyres. “Sorry about that,” he muttered
as Scarlet was thrown off balance.
“Maybe I should
have driven. Did you see that truck at
all?” Scarlet complained.
“Yes - stop
carping. I’m the one with expert rating on these machines!”
“Even examiners
can make mistakes.”
“And I thought it was only women who were back
seat drivers,” Blue sighed melodramatically.
“I’m gonna tell
Symphony that!” Scarlet hooted.
“If I’m not back
for our dinner date tomorrow, she’ll be ready to kill me anyway, so it probably
won’t matter,” Blue grinned back.
“Things are going
okay with you two, for now?” Scarlet asked cautiously. A few weeks ago, the couple had had one of
their periodic falling-outs. He was
never quite sure if they were at the just reconciled, passionately devoted or
worst enemy stage.
Blue nodded
happily, “Yeah, she forgave me.”
“That’s big of
her; what had you done?”
His friend
shrugged, “I’m not sure, but it must’ve been bad. I got my toothbrush back.”
Scarlet
laughed. The whereabouts of Adam’s
toothbrush was a good gauge of how matters stood. “Where is it now?” he asked.
“I was hoping to
move it back tomorrow,” Blue confided, “but if I miss the date….” he left it
hanging as they drove up to the Spectrum building.
“Let’s find Black
quickly then. I’d hate this mission to be the cause of another break-up.”
Commander Vladimir
Ziak, the Spectrum officer in control of the ground forces in Prague, had
spread a street map out on the desktop.
There were coloured spots with dates on them signifying sightings of
Captain Black. He had only been in
command of the Prague office for just over a year and he was anxious to impress
the senior officers with his efficiency.
He sprang to attention as his second in command ushered the two captains
in and snapped off a smart salute. Blue
returned it with equal smartness followed by Scarlet who then said, “At ease
Commander, or we could be saluting each other all day.”
They both declined
any refreshments and once the niceties were over they began to study the map.
Ziak explained about the coloured spots, pointing out the clusters around
several isolated areas.
“Most of them seem
to be around this building. What kind
of area is it?” Scarlet asked their host.
“It is one
warehouse in a place of warehouses and small factories but nothing very
important. It is why we are unsure it
is Captain Black.”
“We can’t know
what the Mysterons are planning, Commander,” Blue reasoned. “They must have to
make arrangements before they issue their threats. Black could be up to anything - or nothing. If it is him we’ll
need to apprehend him if possible.”
“Don’t let’s get
too ambitious, Captain. Killing him would be just as useful,” said Scarlet.
“We could gain
more by capturing him: what the Mysterons are planning to attack next, if
nothing else,” Blue was ready to argue the point.
Scarlet
frowned. “If it is Black we can bet the
Mysterons are watching him. You know
they have a habit of pulling him out of dangerous situations. Don’t let’s try
any heroics. ”
“Because you don’t think I could cope?” Blue asked with a hint of offended pride.
“Someone might get hurt,” Scarlet hedged.
“The Colonel
wouldn’t hold you responsible for any dumb thing I did to myself.”
“I wasn’t thinking
of the Colonel,” Scarlet admitted, “I was thinking…”
“Thinking of
Karen!” Blue chimed in with his friend.
They exchanged grins.
Commander Ziak
listened to this exchange with some amusement and surreptitiously studied the
two men in front of him. The pair
certainly seemed very much at ease with each other - even to the point of
finishing each other’s sentences - but in looks they were as different as chalk
and cheese.
Captain Scarlet -
who, if the gossip was right, must indeed have nine lives - was a tall,
muscular, good-looking, Englishman, with black hair and surprisingly bright
blue eyes. His square, slightly cleft
chin sported a five o’clock shadow emphasised
by a natural pallor and he looked younger than his 38 years. He had an innate air of command and an aura
of intense, pent-up energy. His clipped English accent bore only the
slightest trace of a mid-Atlantic twang.
His habitual
companion, the American Captain Blue, was slightly taller and broader, with
striking blond hair, and the kind of classically handsome features, clear,
tanned complexion and smoky blue eyes that, Ziak suspected, would make him something of a heart-throb
amongst the female staff. He came across as the more easy going of the pair,
even though he had a reputation for a somewhat pedantic streak. Ziak knew he was not much older than Scarlet
but he looked it, even though he carried the years lightly.
Their reputations were almost legendary
amongst Spectrum personnel around the world and it was strange how people whose shifts had finished hours earlier
had still found reasons to remain, on hearing that Scarlet and Blue were coming!
Personally Ziak doubted if the more fanciful gossip was true, but he wondered
if the Captains had noticed the awe-struck scrutiny they’d received from the
ground staff as they had walked through the building to his office. Glancing
from one to the other, he sensed they were both very aware of it and that they
invariably had to deal with such adulation from ground based staff.
Scarlet and Blue
went back to their SPV having given the Ground Staff comprehensive orders. They watched the auxiliary Spectrum
vehicles drive away to their positions and once every other vehicle had left,
Blue gunned the engine. They drove
through the narrow streets with Scarlet navigating from Ziak’s map. When they reached the end of the street in
which the suspect warehouse was located, Blue switched off the engine and they
checked their weapons. Finally Scarlet
fished the Mysteron detector out from under his seat.
“Ready?” He asked
Blue, who nodded.
They descended
from the SPV and cautiously made their way to the warehouse. The place looked deserted, although it was
in reasonable repair. There was no
noise to be heard above the quiet splatter of the rain and the background
trickle of water running down the gutters.
Suddenly Scarlet
nudged his companion. “Look! There’s a light towards the rear of the
building. You go through the main
entrance and I will try to find a way round the back.”
“And if you
can’t?”
“I’ll join you,”
Scarlet replied as he slipped away into the darkness.
Blue waited. No point in going in before Scarlet had had
time to search. There was still no
noise and the faint glimmer of the light did not waver, as it might if someone
was moving about. He hummed quietly to
himself as he generally did when he was waiting alone- a somewhat torturous
rendition of a Mozart melody on this occasion.
Then he pushed at the front door. It was stiff and heavy but not locked,
it didn’t squeak either, which suggested it was being maintained. Inside the
building, he expelled a deep sigh and waited until his eyes adjusted to the
gloom.
Then he activated
his cap mic and whispered, “I’m in. No signs of life.”
He knew Scarlet
would not respond unless he absolutely had to, maintaining radio silence was
second nature to them both. The cap mic swung back.
Scarlet heard the
whispered message over his radio and smiled.
Blue had obviously had no trouble getting in. He edged towards the skylight through which the light shone weakly
into the dark sky, making the raindrops glisten as they fell. He flattened
himself against the roof and peered carefully over the frame.
It was difficult
to see anything much, as the glass was filthy, but he could make out two
figures in white lab coats working at a computer bank, whilst another in grubby
overalls stood motionless by the wall.
As he watched one man walked to a large metallic arch and adjusted a
control panel there. He could hear
muffled voices and he strained his hearing to try to make out the words. He stiffened as he recognised the deep, flat
tones of Captain Black and saw the man at the arch turn and nod his head in
agreement.
Scarlet squirmed
around the window in an attempt to see Black and as he did so the wooden frame
gave way and he fell into the room in a shower of glass shards. He rolled as he
landed and stood facing towards the direction he assumed Captain Black was
standing. They faced each and Scarlet
reached for his gun. Black gave a
mocking smile as Scarlet realised the weapon had dropped from his holster in
the fall. He darted towards it, rolling away from the expected gunfire as he
did so.
To his surprise
Black did not move and moments later shots rang out from the other direction as
the three Mysteron agents opened fire on him. He dived behind a couple of
crates, cursing at the flesh wound that was stinging his left arm. Pinned down
so that he was unable to get a clear shot at his adversary he returned their
fire, consoling himself with the thought that Blue would arrive soon and after
him the ground forces.
This time Black’s caught fair and square! He thought with
satisfaction.
Making his way
cautiously through the empty warehouse Captain Blue heard the sound of breaking
glass followed by shooting. He broke into a run his cap mic descending as he
did so.
“Radio, SIR! Send in the troops,” he ordered, running in
the direction of the tumult. He cannoned into a closed door, which gave beneath
his powerful shoulders so that he almost fell into the sparsely lit room.
For a second he
took his bearings; Scarlet had taken cover behind two large crates, which stood
across from the door. Broken glass
covered the floor where he must have jumped through the skylight. There were
computer terminals on the left hand side and a large archway construction in
the centre of the room. Three men continued
firing a hail of bullets at Scarlet pinning him down, whilst over in the far
corner Captain Black stood and watched it all. Blue noticed with a jolt of
surprise that he was unarmed. Disturbed by Blue’s forced entrance, the Mysteron
agent turned quickly, although he did not seem alarmed. Blue raised his gun.
“Shoot!” Scarlet
yelled. “Blue, shoot him!” He turned his attention from his assailants towards
his friend, waiting for the shots.
Blue hesitated; it
went against his personal morality to shoot an unarmed man - even one as
notorious as Captain Black. Besides,
part of him still hoped that Black might be reclaimed for Spectrum, as Scarlet
had been. He stared at the impassive
figure of Conrad Turner and opened his mouth to speak but, before any words
came out, there was another burst of gunshot and Scarlet’s voice cried out,
distorted with pain. Blue’s reaction was as instinctive as it was immediate.
His gun swerved away from Black and he fired on the other Mysteron agents.
At the same moment
Black called, “Get him into the geminator!” and the white-coated men moved
towards Scarlet, whilst the third Mysteron turned his gun on Blue and began
firing back. Blue dodged behind the
archway and fired again. The scientists
were dragging the now unconscious Scarlet towards the centre of the room and
Black was moving in behind him, as Blue aimed and shot the remaining Mysteron
with the gun. He dropped to the floor
harmless for the moment, although Blue knew he would not be truly dead unless
and until he was shot with one of the electron ray guns, specially developed by
Spectrum to combat the Mysterons. Blue
dodged away to the other side of the archway to get a better shot at
Black. Black’s approach faltered and he
turned back to the scientists.
“Hurry,” he ordered,
“there isn’t much time. Captain Blue
has called for reinforcements.”
Wondering how
Black could know that, Blue watched as the younger man began to haul Scarlet
upright, he saw the handcuffs attached to the side of the arch and guessed what
he was going to do. The elder man went
back to the computers and began entering codes on the keyboard. Faced with the choice of moving again to get
a better shot at Black or stopping the Mysterons from doing whatever they
planned to Captain Scarlet, Blue didn’t hesitate.
“Oh no you don’t,”
he threatened and darted back towards his injured companion by the most direct
route - through the arch.
Black’s frustrated
cry echoed around the room, as Blue triggered the geminator and slumped
screaming to the ground, bringing the younger Mysteron down with him, and
leaving Scarlet hanging free of the archway by one handcuff. As the electrical pulses licked over Blue’s
inert body Black and the three Mysterons melted from the room, like ice in the
sun.
By the time the
ground forces arrived the room was empty, except for the unconscious bodies of
the two Spectrum captains. Scarlet had
several gunshot wounds, including one in his collarbone which was bleeding
profusely and Captain Blue lay on the floor half way through an electrical
archway, which still flickered occasionally.
Commander Ziak
radioed Cloudbase and requested urgent medical assistance.
Doctor Fawn was
used to receiving incoming wounded at all hours, especially when the wounded in
question was Captain Scarlet. His
medical staff was trained to work in efficient teams and once he had extracted
the bullets he would let the nurses deal with Scarlet’s injuries, as all they
were likely to need was cleaning and bandaging. The situation with Captain Blue
was different - no-one was sure what
had happened to him for a start.
Scarlet might know but he was still unconscious. Fawn wired Blue to his automatic monitors
and checked his vital signs, all of which appeared to be within normal parameters.
There were no external wounds and the Captain was not in any immediate danger.
Fawn noted it on his medical records and went to perform surgery on Captain
Scarlet.
In the Control
Room, the Colonel was questioning Commander Ziak and Captain Ochre, who had led
the rescue team, but neither was able to add anything to the Doctor’s report.
“Captain Blue was
lying through the archway which was some sort of electrical machine - it kept
short-circuiting. He was unconscious,
but so was Captain Scarlet, who had several gunshot wounds and he was loosing
much blood,” Ziak explained.
“Thank you,
Commander. Your prompt actions have
undoubtedly saved the lives of your fellow officers.” The Colonel noticed with
quiet amusement how Ziak’s chest swelled at being included with Blue and
Scarlet. “You did not see Captain Black yourself?”
“No, Colonel.
Captain Blue gave the signal - radio SIR - that they needed back-up forces. Yet
only the two Captains were there when we arrived. There were signs of other
peoples having been there - but no people. We did not see anyone trying to
leave the building and a thorough search found no-one else in the
building. My men still have the place
surrounded, Sir.”
Lieutenant Green
interrupted, “Colonel, the warehouse is listed as being rented to a Doctor
Victor Fencl since October last year.”
“Fencl? I seem to have heard the name. What exactly
do we know about the Doctor, Lieutenant?”
Green pushed a few
buttons, “He’s a bio-engineer, Sir. He was the centre of a controversy a few
years ago when he claimed he had found a way to… to clone fully grown specimens. He asked the World Government for funding to pursue his research
and was tuned down, Sir.” He read and
then gasped, “there is a record of him and his son, Miroslav Fencl, being reported
missing by his wife in September last year. Czech police assumed he had gone to
Bereznik to avoid his creditors.”
The Colonel
frowned. “Sounds as if our Doctor may be a typical Mysteron case. Very well,
Lieutenant, see if you can find out anything else.”
“SIG,” Green swung
his chair back to the bank of his computers.
Colonel White was
worried, and he stared into the middle distance oblivious to the two men
standing before him, musing over the information he’d just received. It would
appear that Fencl had got his finance and from a far more worrying source than
one of the world's rogue states. Yet, thankfully, nothing serious seemed to
have happened to either Captain Blue or Captain Scarlet.
“Colonel, do you
have any instructions for us?” Ochre prompted.
With a slight
smile of apology, Colonel White turned back to Commander Ziak, still waiting
patiently before the famous circular desk.
“Well, Commander, whilst you are here, would you like to take a look
around Cloudbase?” He smiled at his subordinate’s excited nod. “Captain Ochre
here will be pleased to show you around.
Oh, and make sure the Commander gets some refreshment, Captain. Dismissed.”
In Sickbay, Doctor
Fawn kept watch over his patients.
Rhapsody Angel had come down to see Scarlet who was just regaining
consciousness. They stood together by
the bed as Scarlet’s eyes flickered open and he tried to focus, seeming
disorientated.
“Adam?” He
croaked. Rhapsody flushed.
“Blue’s usually
here when he comes round,” Fawn explained kindly. “It must seem odd that he’s
not.”
“Yes, I know,”
Dianne replied. She felt a twinge of guilt as she looked down at the injured
man in the bed.
“I want to know
what happened to Adam,” Scarlet
explained with a frustrated sigh, "If he's not here, something's happened."
"He's next
door but in no danger," Fawn said absently. He made an adjustment to a
monitor and added another entry to the patient's extensive case notes.
Scarlet’s black
brows furrowed as his memories of the events in Prague started to come back.
“Did he shoot Black? He was about to
before I passed out but looking at your faces I bet he didn’t!”
“These things
happen,” Fawn said, pushing Scarlet back onto the bed as he struggled to sit
up.
As he fell back
onto the pillows, Scarlet looked up sheepishly at Rhapsody and smiled.
"Hello Dianne. Nice of you to drop by."
"Hello Paul,
good to see you are feeling okay," she managed to keep her overwhelming
concern out of her voice as she smiled at him.
It never got any easier seeing him badly wounded and she found it
verging on the impossible to do the 'death watches', as Adam called them. Scarlet was well aware of her distress and
had forbidden her, as a general rule, to spend too much time in sickbay when he
was 'recovering'. Yet, because she knew Blue wouldn't be there when he woke
this time, she had come down herself.
She couldn't bear to think that he might wake up alone and feel that she
didn't care enough to be there. He was
her fiancé and she loved him. Perhaps,
she thought ruefully, that was the advantage Adam had over her...
"I feel
absolutely wretched," he confessed, eagerly taking the tumbler of water
Fawn offered him and draining it in one draught. He wiped his mouth with his
hand and held the glass out to be refilled. “I’d feel a whole heap better if
Blue had done his job back in Prague.
It is not every day we have Black trapped like that.”
“There’s no
certainty it would have harmed him, you know,” Fawn reasoned. “He’s under the
control of the Mysterons, and they seem to take care of him.” He gave Scarlet
another tumbler of water.
“Nevertheless,
Blue should have let him have it,” Scarlet argued petulantly in between taking
great gulps of the water. "I expect he'll have some perfectly plausible
bleeding heart explanation why he didn't do it after all - he'd been going on
about the advantages of 'capturing Black'
rather than killing him earlier. Chances like this one don't come by
very often. Adam should know better
than to waste them. I'm not going to back him up on this one when he has to explain
it to the Colonel - he's on his own this time!" He glanced at his
colleagues who were regarding him with tolerant scepticism. “What’s wrong with him anyway? Sprain his
trigger finger, did he?”
“He appears to
have been electrocuted - but if you don't know what happened, only Blue can
tell us exactly what did.” Seeing Scarlet start up in alarm Fawn added, “It
probably did him less harm than it would have done you."
Scarlet flushed
angrily. "You said he was okay!
You didn't say he was hurt! I knew there had to be a good reason for
him allowing Black to escape."
Rhapsody chuckled
at him and patted his good shoulder. "We know that, Paul."
"How did it
happen?"
Fawn shrugged.
"Ziak found you both unconscious and called for medical assistance. You were handcuffed to a machine and Blue
was splayed out on the floor, apparently. Blue is still unconscious, at the
moment, but he should recover nicely."
“There was a
contraption in the room - a sort of archway.
Maybe that was what did it?
Wonder what it was for?” Scarlet was getting sleepy again and his eyes
were beginning to close.
Fawn watched with
a satisfied smile and nodded his head towards the door, indicating to Rhapsody
that visiting time was over. She bent and kissed Scarlet’s cheek. “Get better
soon,” she teased seeing his lips twitch in a smile, although his eyes remained
shut.
“I’ll do my best,”
he whispered back. Suddenly he was
jolted back to alertness by a piercing scream. “Adam!” he said with concern and
sat upright.
Fawn was already
half way to the door and, ignoring Rhapsody’s plea to stay in bed, Scarlet
ripped off the electrodes that connected him to the bleeping machines and stood
up. His legs buckled and he crashed to
the floor.
Cursing, Fawn ran
back and picked him up. “Stay here,” he ordered and sat Scarlet on the bed
before rushing from the room.
“Help me,” Scarlet
turned to Rhapsody for support.
Protesting, she nevertheless put his arm over her shoulder and helped
him stumble to the next room. They
opened the door and saw Fawn standing gaping at the bed.
“What’s wrong?”
Scarlet gasped, fearing the worst. “How’s Adam?”
Fawn moved,
allowing them both a clear sight of the room. “He seems fine, both of him,” he
muttered still in shock.
“Good God…”
Scarlet breathed as he looked in disbelief at the two naked men standing on
either side of the hospital bed staring mesmerised at each other. Hearing his voice, both men turned to stare
at the trio.
“Paul,” the right
hand man demanded, “what’s going on?
Who’s that?” his hand stabbed towards the man opposite.
“I am Adam Svenson - who are you?” The
left hand man replied remarkably calmly, as the first man’s face swung back to
stare imperiously at his double.
With a baffled
sigh, Doctor Fawn moved to the intercom and called the Control Room, “Colonel,
I think I might have something you will want to see. Please would you come to sickbay?”
Colonel White was
about to leave for sickbay when a familiar voice stopped him in his
tracks. The loud, passionless voice
they recognised as that of the Mysterons seemed to come from nowhere and echo
around the Control Room. Its message
was as menacing as ever - and more cryptic than usual:
“THIS IS THE VOICE
OF THE MYSTERONS; WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US, EARTHMEN. WE WILL BE AVENGED
FOR YOUR UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON OUR MARTIAN COMPLEX. WE WILL USE THE POWER OF THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE TO TURN YOU
AGAINST YOURSELVES.”
“Short and sweet
that time, Colonel,” muttered Lieutenant Green as the voice died away. “And
what the heck are they talking about?
What machine?”
“Call a meeting in
the conference room, Lieutenant, for the duty Angels and the Captains. With Scarlet and Blue incapacitated, we will
need everyone to work on this. I will join
them as soon as I have spoken with Doctor Fawn. In the meantime, see what you can do to decipher the threat.”
“The only ‘ghost
in the machine’ I know is a music album by the twentieth century rock group, The Police,” Green admitted.
“Very well, it’s a
start at least - see if there have been any reports of unusual events within
the World Police Force - perhaps they intend to have them arrest us all…”
The Colonel
hurried down to sickbay, his mind full of this latest threat. Whatever Doctor Fawn had to show him, it had
better be good!
The Colonel was
speechless at the sight of the two identical Captain Blues, seated on either
side of the bed, one in a medical gown and the other in pyjamas.
Doctor Fawn had
done nothing to prepare his superior for the shock and now as he closed the
observation window blinds he explained, “That was the only way we could tell
them apart. I’ve kept them on the same
side of the bed as I found them, although I doubt it makes any difference.”
The Colonel found
his voice, “You are doing tests?”
“Naturally, they both
checked negative with the Mysteron detector, in case you wondered, and the
initial blood test shows them to be identical.
I also have Blue’s dental records and retinal scan and of course, a DNA
sample is being prepared.” Fawn scratched his head. “But if you want my
opinion, they are unlikely to show any differences either.”
“Well, what
happened? How did we suddenly end up
with two men?”
“At a guess, it
must have something to do with that ‘contraption’ Scarlet saw in Prague.”
“The electrical
archway?” Colonel White gasped. He quickly told Fawn what Lieutenant Green had
discovered about Fencl’s field of work. “Green said he was working on domestic
animals for food production but do you think he could have perfected a way to
clone adult humans?”
“If he didn’t then
I would say that the Mysterons have,” Fawn said bleakly. “The problem is, we don’t know which one of
the two Captain Blues is a clone.”
The Colonel
frowned in concentration for a moment. “This might link into the latest
Mysteron threat. Perhaps the machine they referred to is this one in Prague.” He went to the intercom. “Lieutenant Green,
Commander Ziak must return to Prague immediately. In the meantime, tell whoever is in charge there that the
warehouse must receive maximum-security protection. No one is to enter that building without rainbow class
clearance.”
“SIG, Colonel,”
the Lieutenant’s voice registered his surprise, but he knew better than to
argue.
“I suppose I had
better speak to him - er - them,” the Colonel said to Fawn. “Although what I’m
going to say is a mystery to me.”
“Take Scarlet with
you,” Fawn advised. “I cannot keep him in his bed anymore and he’s like a cat
on hot bricks. And he might be able to
tell them apart - he knows Svenson better than anyone.”
“Almost anyone,”
the Colonel corrected. “When Symphony Angel gets back from her patrol, have her
come down here as well. But if I were
you, Edward, I would warn her before letting her see these two!”
Fawn grinned.
“Symphony - ah, yes. How could I forget her? SIG, Colonel.”
The two blond men
looked towards the door as the Colonel entered and both stood to attention.
“At ease,
gentlemen.” White looked from one to the other; it really was uncanny! “How are
you feeling?”
The right hand man
in the medical gown spoke first, “I’m fine, Colonel. I just want to get this matter cleared up and get back on duty.”
“Good,” the
Colonel looked at the second man. “And you?”
“I am fine as well
and as keen to clear this up as my… companion.”
The Colonel nodded
debating whether to tell the ‘twins’ about their cloning theory. He had just decided to see what they knew,
when Scarlet came into the room, dressed in off duty jeans and a British Lions
rugby shirt, his only concession to his injuries a sling for his left arm.
Both Captain Blues
smiled with relief. “Paul!” They welcomed him simultaneously.
Scarlet grinned.
“Hello you two.” He came and stood by the Colonel, who acknowledged him with a
nod. “Seems like we’ve hit the jackpot, Colonel; two for the price of one!”
The left hand man
gave a slight smile, shaking his fair head and the right hand man guffawed.
“Your jokes don’t get any better,” he sniggered. Scarlet twitched his eyebrows
in mock offence.
“Quite,” the
Colonel said coldly, but he noticed the tension in the room had lifted slightly.
“Now, it seems our first difficulty is going to be telling you two apart. I can’t keep thinking of you as man on the
left or man on the right!”
“I am Adam
Svenson,” the left hand man said with a quiet certainty.
“No, I am ,” his
duplicate insisted.
“I have an idea,”
Scarlet began. “In effect, Adam has two identities: Adam Svenson and Captain
Blue. You,” he indicated the left hand man, who was sitting on his chair once
more, “you can be Adam and you,” he pointed to the other one, “can be Blue.
Simple, eh?”
“I have no
objection to that,” ‘Adam’ said mildly.
“If we must
pretend this fellow is me then I accept - for now,” ‘Blue’ agreed.
“Fine, we will
proceed on those lines,” the Colonel said briskly. “Now, I want you both to
tell us what you remember about the mission to Prague.”
Blue immediately
began to tell the story, speaking in a loud, arrogant voice and ignoring Adam’s
attempts to interject. Finally Adam
stopped trying and sat in silence, glowering
thoughtfully at the other man from under lowered brows. The account was a lively one but somewhat
lacking in details, which Adam provided in response to the Colonel’s
probing questions at the conclusion of the report.
“Now, what do you
remember about the room?” The Colonel prompted.
“Black was in
there and three men who were shooting at Scarlet with automatic pistols,” Blue
replied crisply.
“There was an
archway, wired to a computer terminal and that was what Black was most
interested in,” Adam added.
Scarlet nodded, it
had seemed that way to him too. The Colonel did not seem that ready to ask
another question, so Scarlet asked the one that had been niggling him since he
regained consciousness. “Why didn’t you shoot Black?”
“I intended to,”
‘Blue asserted, and looked confused, as if he couldn’t think of a good reason
for not having carried out his intention.
“He was unarmed,”
Adam said simply, adding as an after thought, “I also wondered if we took him
alive, could he be turned from the Mysterons, as you were, Paul? In the split second I hesitated, you were
shot. They began to drag you to the
arch and were about to do something to you - I couldn’t get a clear shot at
Black so I thought I’d try to stop them first. I ran towards you - through the
archway. I don’t remember anything
else. I must have passed out.”
“Me too - I don’t
remember anything else. Only I know I
didn’t do any wondering about killing that murderous swine,” Blue said with a
scathing look at his double.
“Then we must
assume the archway has got something to do with your present…eh - predicament,”
White mused. "We have had another Mysteron threat - speaking of using the power of the ghost in the machine
to turn us against ourselves. Perhaps, that is the machine they mean? - I
will get some of the Spectrum boffins to take a look at it. We already know that Dr Fencl was involved
in bioengineering and that he was reported missing months ago, so it seems a
promising line of enquiry.”
“May I go and help
Colonel?” Scarlet asked quickly.
“No, you are
better employed here, with Adam and Blue.”
“Colonel, we
didn't hear the threat but it occurs to me there might be more layers to it
than you imagine. That phrase, ‘ghost
in the machine’ is used to describe the human mind as an entity distinct from the
human body,” Adam said quietly. “The Mysterons could be threatening to use our
own minds against us.”
Scarlet glanced at
the Colonel and then back at Adam, who remained sitting on his chair with an
air of calmness that was astonishing given his present circumstances. Blue, on
the other hand was gawping at his double with confusion, a slight frown between
his pale brows.
“It is a
possibility we will have to investigate…Cap… Adam,” the Colonel said slowly. He was going to have difficulty
using Captain Blue’s Christian name.
“Perhaps we should
all go to Prague and investigate it now?” Blue chimed in eagerly.
“No, Doctor Fawn
wants you here whilst he finishes his tests.”
Blue’s irritation was obvious. However,
before he could protest further, the door opened and Symphony stood looking
nervously into the room, with Doctor Fawn hovering close behind her.
“Symphony!”
“Karen.”
The two blond men
spoke simultaneously and Adam stood as Blue moved towards her.
Symphony Angel
pushed her strawberry-blonde hair back from her forehead and looked several
times from one to the other. Then she
slowly crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Blue busied
himself fetching his chair for the Doctor’s newest patient and then helped Fawn
lift her. He supported her body in the chair,
his arms wrapped artlessly around her so that his hands cupped her
breasts. Scarlet hoped the Colonel was
too preoccupied to notice that liberty, but he noted, with interest, that Adam
had seen it and was not pleased at what he saw.
Symphony spluttered
back to consciousness as Fawn waved sal
volatile under her nose.
“Take it away,”
she ordered sharply. “Phuur! Why isn’t
that stuff banned under some convention or other?” She squirmed and angrily
pushed Blue’s invasive hands away.
“Because it works,”
Doctor Fawn smiled, tightening the lid on the small bottle.
“How are you,
Symphony?” the Colonel asked kindly.
She swivelled in
the chair and eyed the two blond men standing either side of her and then
turned to Scarlet with a wry smile.
“Okay, I give up - how do you do that?”
“I’m not doing
anything,” he protested mildly.
“It’s a hologram
or something, right?”
“I’m afraid not,”
the Colonel said. “There really are two of him - eh, of them.”
Symphony turned
again and looked from one to the other.
Blue returned her
gaze with a bright smile. “Whilst all this is sorted out, they are calling me
Blue and him Adam,” he gestured
dismissively at his twin.
Her gaze travelled
back to the silent man watching her with such obvious concern. “Are you
alright, Karen?” he asked gently.
“No, I’m seeing
double,” she muttered, turning back to the Colonel. “I’m not sure I like this.”
She was close to tears.
“How about a nice
cup of tea? It will do you the world of good,” the Colonel suggested, rather to
everyone’s surprise. He’d always been
fond of Symphony.
She frowned at
him, “I don’t like tea. Do you have any
brandy?” she asked Fawn.
Fawn grinned. “For
medicinal purposes, yes. It won’t do
you any good,” he added more sternly under the Colonel’s sharp gaze.
Symphony shook her
head and looked once more at the two identical men. She had seen her boyfriend this morning before he went on duty
and - now there were two of him? Blue
was looking intently at her, a half smile on his lips and an expression in his
eyes that she recognised only too well.
She was conscious of her body’s response to his covert invitation, and
her insides churned with a familiar anticipation, which unsettled her even
more. Shivering at the outbreak of
goose bumps on her skin, she glanced across at Adam, all too embarrassingly
aware that he recognised the unspoken spark between her and his twin.
He looked
particularly vulnerable as he watched her and when he met her gaze, he dropped
his eyes as a flush spread over his face. It was such a rarely seen side of his
personality that, with a very few exceptions, everyone on Cloudbase would have
told you that Captain Blue never knew a moment's self-doubt. It provided her with the final conclusive
proof as to which of the pair was the man she loved.
“Well - what do we
do now?” she asked with a brittle gaiety, fighting the need to be swept into
his strong arms and cry like a baby.
“Well, speaking
for myself,” Blue replied, “I would like to get some proper clothes on and have
something to eat. Seems like an age
since I had anything more substantial than one of Scarlet’s Triple X mints.”
The Colonel looked
questioningly at Fawn who grimaced. “No reason why not,” he said.
“Captain Scarlet,
as you are off duty, you can take - these gentlemen - to Captain Blue’s
quarters and let them get dressed. Then I suggest you all have something to eat
whilst I sort out the research team.”
The journey to
Captain Blue’s quarters was an ordeal Symphony hoped never to repeat. Scarlet was walking ahead with Adam, who was
still a little unsteady on his feet, so she was left to accompany Blue. He tried to encircle her in his arms several
times, even though she pushed him away with increasing firmness. Finally his
hand came to rest on her bottom as she walked. Her temper snapped and both Scarlet and Adam turned with
surprise at the sound of the slap that rang along the corridor. Blue’s cheek showed the red imprint of her
hand as she stormed ahead, her own face red with embarrassment.
“Bitch!” Blue
snarled after her.
“Leave her alone!”
Adam snapped back, goaded beyond endurance.
“Or what,
wimp? I could flatten you with one hand
behind my back,” Blue retorted, pushing Adam against the wall.
“Yes, but even
with one hand in a sling, I can break
your neck,” Scarlet warned evenly,
quietly coming to stand behind Blue. “Now, I know this must be a difficult time
for you … both of you - but fighting won’t get us anywhere. If I was you, Blue-boy, I’d apologise pretty
damn quickly to Symphony and try to behave like the gentleman you are - or at
least, the gentleman Captain Blue is.”
“If she doesn’t
like it, she knows what she can do!” Blue retorted. “You know, Paul, I’m getting tired of trying to fathom her moods
and of making allowances for the ‘wrong time of the month’. I mean, who wants a
girlfriend who’s got a permanent headache?
If a guy had a headache that often the doctors would operate,” Blue
pronounced loudly in the direction of the distant figure of Symphony.
Angrily Adam
pushed him off and with a glance at Scarlet hurried after her.
Blue watched him
with a scornful expression. “He is so under her thumb, it’s painful,” he said.
He turned to see Scarlet’s frozen expression and laughed. “Don’t bother to
argue with me, Paul: I know that’s what
you think. I can read you like a book,
you know, and you’re so frigging obvious sometimes.” He sauntered off in the direction of Captain Blue’s
quarters. Captain Scarlet followed him,
wondering, unhappily, if his friend really could read him that well.
It took longer
than expected for the pair of them to get dressed. Adam announced his intention to shower and shave and went
straight into the shower, whilst Blue chose not to shave and prowled around the
room waiting his turn in the shower.
After Adam had showered and Blue disappeared into the bathroom, there
was a constant sound of bickering. Then
there was the argument over a favoured sweatshirt which ended when Blue
snatched it away from Adam, tearing a seam as he did so. Disgusted he threw it into a corner, grabbed
a fresh T-shirt and yanked that over his head petulantly. Adam shrugged and fished out a grey shirt
instead. They both selected designer jeans - Captain Blue’s preferred off-duty
dress - from the collection in the wardrobe.
To his amusement Scarlet counted a dozen pairs - sometimes it amazed him
what Adam spent his money on.
Symphony sat in
the only armchair, refusing to speak even to Scarlet. The latter sighed, he
could foresee a long night ahead.
The group walked together
to the canteen, Adam and Symphony in front with Scarlet keeping a wary eye on
Blue, as he swaggered along enjoying the looks of surprise on the faces of the
people they encountered. Blue took particular note of the female staff members
they passed, turning to remark to Scarlet in a voice that carried down the
corridor, “Look at the curves on that honey!” as a particularly shapely ensign
skittered past, her eyes wide with shock. Blue walked backwards for awhile,
continuing to watch the girl, despite her obvious embarrassment.
“That’s going a bit far.” Scarlet’s amusement
had long since evaporated.
“Lighten up,
Paul. There are plenty more fish in the
sea - or should I say birds in the sky?” Blue joked, winking at a confused
technician as he brushed unnecessarily close to her in walking through the
canteen door. He laughed excitedly at
her flustered reaction and with his hands tucked into his jeans, set off in a
jaunty walk towards the food counter.
Adam ate
sparingly, whilst Blue devoured a large pizza with fries and 2 beers. Scarlet watched in fascination, but Symphony
was close to tears throughout their meal. Even Adam’s quiet concern could not
console her and she left them just as soon as she was able to use the excuse of
her impending duty shift.
By the time
Scarlet deposited the twins back at sickbay, he was getting worried. Fawn’s tests may have proved that the pair
was identical in every physical way; but there was a world of difference in
their nature. There was undoubtedly an animal magnetism about Blue - which
quite over-shadowed his quieter ‘twin’.
Blue radiated good health and vitality, he was energetic and voluble,
but incredibly disruptive, restless and easily bored, and he saw no reason why
he should not always have his own way. Adam rarely spoke and when he did it was
short and to the point. He watched his
twin with a stern curiosity, either unable, or declining, to disguise his
obvious disapproval. Whenever the two
clashed, which they did frequently, Blue would rattle off a volley of critical
abuse, getting more enraged when Adam shrugged it off with disdainful
indifference.
Doctor Fawn soon
found it impossible to keep them together in sickbay. In between bouts of tormenting Adam, Blue amused himself
flirting outrageously with the nurses and managed to set a couple of them
against each other. Foreseeing the
ruination of all his hard work at creating an efficient team of medical staff,
Doctor Fawn asked the Colonel to allow them both the run of the base. Delighted with his freedom, Blue departed
gleefully in search of further
amusement, with the somewhat reluctant Captain Scarlet as a companionable
guard. Adam, with a sigh of relief,
chose to remain in sickbay.
Later that
evening, Scarlet went back to sickbay to get a medical release from Doctor Fawn
so that he could spend the night in his own quarters. He had left Blue playing
poker with Ochre and Magenta - under the strict condition that they only wager
for candy. Both Captains were expert
poker players and Scarlet wasn’t sure the ‘new’ Blue wouldn’t get angry at
being fleeced for real money.
With Fawn’s
agreement, Adam had been to fetch some of Captain Blue’s personal music
collection for his entertainment. Since
when he had shut himself in his room
listening to Bach and Telemann.
“I could get
heartily sick of fugues,” Fawn complained mildly, as he examined the rapidly
healing gunshot wounds.
Scarlet grinned,
“Yeah, they are an acquired taste. Adam
once told me - the real Adam, I mean
- that he liked them because they were so mathematical.”
“Well, at least he
can’t sing along to them,” Fawn smiled.
Scarlet chuckled,
“That’s right enough - You should always count your blessings, Edward.”
He went back to
the poker game to discover Ochre and Magenta by themselves in the Officers
lounge.
“Where’s Blue
gone?” he asked, annoyed that they had let him wander off alone.
Ochre looked up, a
little sheepishly. “He wiped us out - ate every damn candy and then he went off
to find something else to do.”
“He beat you -
both?” Scarlet was incredulous.
Magenta nodded. “I
never knew Blue could play poker like that.” Scarlet bet that Captain Blue
wouldn’t have known it either. Magenta continued, “He’s usually over cautious
and you can get him that way.” Ochre was nodding in agreement.
“Did he say where
he was going?”
“Nope; just that
this place was - what was it he said exactly, Patrick?”
“More boring then
Boston,” Magenta grinned.
Scarlet had no
luck in tracking Blue down, so he made his way to the Control Room, where the
Colonel was busy with paperwork. Lieutenant Green was off on his dinner break
and the communications panel was manned by one of his deputies, Lieutenant
Claret.
“Colonel, may I
speak with you, in private?” he asked. Colonel White glanced at Scarlet’s
worried face and nodded. He pressed the switch that dropped the Perspex privacy
wall from the ceiling to isolate his desk and the stools around it.
“What’s wrong,
Captain?”
“It’s about… the Captain Blues.”
That came as no
surprise to the Colonel, who already had several reports from senior
Lieutenants and technicians on his desk, about Blue’s behaviour towards female
members of their teams.
Scarlet paused,
seeking the right words. “Colonel, they may be identical physically, but they
are exact opposites. Adam is more like the
Captain Blue we all expect to see - except that he’s too passive, he doesn’t
even try to tone down Blue’s bad behaviour.”
“How would you
suggest he do that, Captain?” the Colonel asked.
Scarlet shrugged.
“Damned if I know,” he admitted. “I’m no
prude, Colonel…” Colonel White showed no surprise at this, “but Blue says the most outrageous things to the female
staff - not that they seem to object
all that much - but there are times and places for that sort of behaviour and
Cloudbase isn’t the place and now isn’t the time!”
“So, what do you
deduce from this, Captain? You know him
as well as anyone - and Symphony is finding it hard to be objective about this.
Do you have doubts that either of these men is really Captain Blue?”
Scarlet puffed out
his cheeks and shrugged. “Colonel, I have
seen Adam Svenson behaving this badly - but only once, years ago, when we were
on leave in Amsterdam, as it happens. He got completely oiled and was obnoxious
for the rest of the evening. He was
back to normal the next day, apart from the mother of all hangovers; it isn’t
his natural behaviour, but he is capable of it.” Scarlet grinned at the memory
of the night Adam - in the spirit of enquiry, as he put it but really because
of a bet with Captain Ochre - had tried to overcome his friend’s inability to
get drunk - a legacy of his retrometabolism.
“Besides, Blue
knows things no impostor could know,”
he added thoughtfully, “Somehow; we
have two aspects of the one personality - personified. I keep coming back to that machine, Colonel,
which was the only thing Ad - eh - Captain
Blue - experienced that I didn’t when we were in Prague. Have the boffins discovered anything about
it?”
“It’s going to
take time, Captain, but if that machine did do something to Captain Blue we
will find out what.”
“And correct it,
Colonel?”
“If we can, yes.
In the meantime, I suggest you go and find the missing ‘twin’ and keep an eye
on him. He’s not making himself many
friends amongst the team leaders,” Colonel White said reflectively. It was something of a surprise to him just
how many personal relationships amongst his staff Blue’s behaviour was flushing
out into the open!
Doctor Fawn was
the earliest visitor at Scarlet’s quarters the next morning.
“Making house
calls now, Doc? I was on my way to see you to be signed fully fit for duty.”
“Have you seen
Blue?” Fawn asked shortly.
“Not since I left
him with you late last night. Why?”
“He’s missing.”
“You mean he’s
vanished?”
Fawn shrugged. “He
wouldn’t settle. Adam went to sleep
immediately but not Blue and now, we can’t find him.”
“Tried the
oracle?” Scarlet paged Lieutenant Green. “Ah, morning Lieutenant, do you, by
any remote chance know where our friend Blue is? Doctor Fawn has mislaid him.”
“He’s in the brig,”
the communications officer replied.
“Whatever for?”
Fawn cried in alarm.
“Fighting. He was in a brawl with Ensign Tucker of
Engineering over Leading Technician Lesley Saville. It seems that Ensign Tucker
took exception to Blue’s attempted seduction of his girlfriend and he took a
swing at Blue who promptly laid him out and, according to Doctor Tan, he has
broken Tucker’s collar bone. The
Colonel will pass sentence at Requestmen
and Defaulters later this morning.” It was apparent that Lieutenant Green
was trying hard not to laugh through this recital.
“Now, that really
doesn’t sound like the old Blue,” Scarlet said shaking his head at Fawn, who
was already on his way out of the room.
Gathering his red tunic Scarlet followed.
As Chief Medical
Officer of Cloudbase, Doctor Fawn could over-rule anyone - even the Colonel, at
a pinch - so the security guard allowed him to collect the still unrepentant
and increasingly restless Blue and remove him to sickbay, on the strength of
his assertion that the man had a black eye that needed treatment. Once there
Fawn consigned him to his room but agreed to order him breakfast.
“I’ll see what
Adam wants,” Scarlet offered opening the next door. Adam was still asleep and Scarlet went to awake him. But when he
looked down he had second thoughts; Adam was pale, his face drenched in sweat
and he was breathing with difficulty.
He called to Fawn who was arguing with Blue as to just how many fried
eggs he could have with his ham.
Fawn ordered
Scarlet from the room and began to examine his patient. Moments later, Scarlet
saw the nurses’ light come on. Nurse
Tanner gave him a brief smile as she adjusted her cap and went in to the
Doctor.
“Something up with
misery-guts?” Blue asked from his doorway.
“You were told to stay
there - even I heard that,” Scarlet said briskly. “You’ll be in big trouble when the Colonel hears about last
night. I should try and keep on the right side of the Doctor if I was you, he
may be your only defence.”
Blue shrugged with
a devil may care grin. “She was a bit of alright though - well worth it!”
“What on Earth do
you think you were doing?” Scarlet asked incredulously. “And what about Karen?”
“I went round
there first but she just had another go at me - man, does that bitch have a
temper - so I went to find a more amenable squeeze.”
“And you found
Technician Saville?”
Blue grinned.
“Yeah, she’s always had this thing for me!”
“Has she?” Scarlet
asked in surprise. “Well, if you say so - but you’ve never taken advantage of
it before.”
“I can’t imagine
why not!” Blue grinned again.
“Something called
good breeding, which you seem to have lost your share of,” Scarlet muttered
scathingly.
Nurse Tanner came
out some moments later and went back into the room with a saline drip.
“It looks bad,”
Blue smirked callously. “I guess we’ll see soon enough which of us is the real
Adam Svenson.”
He went back into
his room, whistling loudly. Despite
himself, Scarlet smiled - just like the real
Captain Blue he could not carry a tune!
Fawn soon had Adam
stabilised and conscious again. Scarlet was allowed in to see him, after a bit
of special pleading. In all the
excitement about Blue, he felt, somewhat guiltily, that Adam had been
neglected.
There was a shaky
but genuine smile on the man’s pale face as Scarlet edged in. “Paul, how nice
to see you,” he said struggling to sit up.
“I’ve seen you
looking better. What’s up?”
“I’m just
tired. Nurse Tanner was telling me
about Blue’s night on the tiles. I wish I had that energy - or any energy just
now. I wanted to see Karen before she
went on duty but now I’ll have to wait and hope she’ll pay me a visit. Doctor Fawn says I’m here for the whole
day.”
“I’ll pass on your
message; I’m sure she’ll drop by. She’s
not mad with you, after all.”
“No? I understand he upset her and if he is me and I am him…”
“I am the Walrus, Googoogachoo.” Scarlet chanted irrepressibly.
“It makes as much
sense as anything else, right now,” Adam gave a wry smile.
Scarlet perched on the edge of the bed. “I
can’t understand why Blue is thriving and you’re not.”
“I was thinking
about that last night; he certainly has more pep than I do. It’s strange, sometimes I feel completely exhausted
and yet I’ve done very little, other times when I’d expect to be tired, I feel
quite okay. I don’t know if Blue feels
it the same, he hardly seems to sit still.”
Scarlet nodded,
Blue had spent the entire evening on the go.
Adam continued
with his musing, “It all seems fantastical, but we know the Mysterons’ have
powers beyond our knowledge. I was
wondering if that machine hadn’t just cloned me - Captain Blue, I mean - but
had somehow split me - that is Captain
Blue - kinda like a Jekyll and Hyde.
I think I am as rational as ever but I seem to… feel less than I remember… Captain
Blue… does. I hate to say it, but I
can see shades of my adolescent self in that
Blue.” Adam gave up on his attempts not to speak of himself as the original
personality. “I can remember my Father lecturing me on how I would become a
delinquent if I didn’t learn to control myself. I reckon I’d have ended up very much like Blue.”
Scarlet sensed
Adam’s embarrassment. “I shouldn’t worry too much about that, Blue-boy - I bet
every dad says that to his teenage son - mine certainly did - frequently.”
Scarlet was rewarded by a gleam of delight in his friend’s pale eyes at his
unconscious use of his nickname.
“Could be, I
guess, but what if the… irrational side gains control over the rational -
that’s what happened to Jekyll, isn’t it?
He couldn’t control Hyde in the end.
That would tie in with the Mysteron threat to use the power of our minds
against us. Maybe I’ll just become a
cipher and Blue will be the only functional one left?”
Scarlet frowned at
the thought and Adam continued, “I also think whatever did happened to me in
Prague was supposed to happen to you because when you were shot, Captain Black
ordered those men to take you to that
machine - the geminator.”
“Why would they
want to make two of me? It hardly seems
likely, Adam, they hate me beyond reason.”
“Nevertheless,
that machine was designed to work on you; I’m convinced of it. When I ran
through the arch, I must have triggered it and this is what it did to me - but
it may not have created a physical duplicate of you at all.”
“Okay, but what
could it have done to me that would have this effect on you?”
“Perhaps they were
looking for a way to regain control of you and it was meant to separate… let’s
call it - your humanity - from your Mysteron-side. They would expect the
Mysteron side of your personality to be the strongest element so you’d be open
to their control again. With me, it just divided my personality.”
“What makes you
think the Mysteron side of me is stronger?”
said Scarlet defensively, he always found it difficult to discuss his
unique situation dispassionately - even with his best friend.
Adam smiled
placatingly and explained, “I don’t necessarily think any such thing - what
matters is what the Mysterons think. In
humans, the irrational side is stronger - emotions can govern us all, if we let
them, but to the Mysterons, your humanity is your weakness. They would expect
that side of you - the human side- to be subservient.”
“And you think
that’s what this geminator does - is that what you called it?”
“That’s what Black
called it. He told the other Mysterons
to ‘Take him to the geminator.’ I think the Mysterons have developed a
machine that alters the mind and the
personality of the subject - not just a simple cloning machine. If a
cloning machine could ever be called simple,” he concluded with a thoughtful
shrug.
“Svenson, I hate
to say this but you’re one damned clever Yankee.”
“Only half of one
damned clever Yankee, if I’m right.
Like it or not, that foul-mouthed, libidinous, boor next door is the
other half,” Adam spoke with considerable venom.
Scarlet raised his
eyebrows. “Have you ever fancied Technician Saville?”
“Lesley? - She’s a
nice girl. We chat sometimes when I’m
‘tinkering with engines’ as you so disparagingly call it. Why?” Adam was
surprised by the change of subject.
“Did you know, eh,
what was it Blue said? - ‘she’s always had a thing about you’?”
Scarlet quoted.
Adam nodded. “It’s
harmless enough. I can live with it -
if she can. Actually,” he confessed blushing slightly, “there’s a few of them
who seem to have ‘a thing’ about me.
Karen calls them my acolytes! I just ignore it and them, but it bugs her. I think that’s why she gets so cross
sometimes. It’s not because of what I’ve done, but because one of them got too close or did or said
something!” He smiled at his sniggering friend. “You have a dedicated group of
acolytes too, didn’t you know?”
Scarlet blushed as
livid as his tunic. “Get away!”
Adam laughed,
“Really, and I bet you Dianne knows who they are too.”
“Rubbish!” Scarlet
was so clearly embarrassed that Adam indulged in a little gentle teasing.
“Well, what do you
expect? We dash about saving the world
and getting into impossible situations - both of us surviving merely by the skin of our perfect white
teeth! I am led to believe, by a couple
of experts in the subject, that neither of us is exactly… displeasing to look
at.” He grinned and for a fleeting moment Paul saw the old Adam Svenson lying
there.
“Experts,” Scarlet
queried beginning to suspect he was having his leg pulled. “It wouldn’t be one
red-head and one blonde, would it?”
“I cannot reveal
my sources,” Adam said poker-faced, but fighting a smile.
“They’re ‘aving you on, mate - they bowf
fink we’re bladdy gorgeous!” Scarlet grinned, lapsing into a ‘mockney’
accent.
Adam began to laugh and coughed violently.
Scarlet looked at him with concern. There were still dark rings beneath his
eyes. “I’d better leave you - get some
rest. I’ll go and tell the Colonel
about your theory, so he can get the boffins to weave some magic to reverse
this voodoo.”
“They’d better
hurry up then,” Adam whispered quietly, his breathing sounding harsh again. “I
don’t think this will last long.”
Alarmed, Scarlet
left the room, glancing back to see that the tired blue eyes were closed again
and the breathing had slowed once more as the patient slept.
Colonel White
listened with interest to Adam’s hypothesis.
“It is not as
far-fetched as it seems,” he mused and he told Scarlet about Fencl’s cloning
experiments, “we have finally managed to gain access to the papers he submitted
to the World Government in his bid for funds - and that was no easy task in
itself! Doctor Giardello has reported that although some of the machinery in
the Prague warehouse is the same as that described in the papers, a great deal
is new and they can only guess as to its use.”
The Colonel looked
intently at his premier officer. “Do you remember being handcuffed to the
machine?” Scarlet shook his head. “We
couldn’t be sure at the time, if it was just because you were the officer they
caught, but if Blue remembers Black ordering you there, it must be the case
that it was developed to be used on a Mysteronised subject and that might make
a difference. Giardello has requested the assistance of either Lieutenant Green
or Captain Magenta to decode some of the computer programs.”
“Surely Magenta
would be best at that?” Scarlet interrupted. “He’s never been known to fail
with computer programs - at least according to him, he hasn’t.”
“Quite. I was considering sending them both down along
with Doctor Fawn for good measure,” Colonel White confessed. “What you have
told me about Adam’s deterioration leads me to suspect speed might be of more
importance than we originally thought.”
He punched a
keypad and logged in to the medical reports that Doctor Fawn posted for him and
read in silence for a while. Scarlet tried to resist the temptation to read the
report, upside down, from over the edge of the desk.
“Hmm, the Doctor
says that there is an increase in ‘general debility’ in Adam’s case. Nothing he can pinpoint, but he is not as
well as he was,” White sighed. “It takes a qualified doctor to tell us that? I
wonder sometimes if medicine is all its cracked up to be.”
Scarlet smiled
dutifully well aware the Colonel was as worried as he at Adam’s decline. “I
probably should not say this, Colonel, but I’m going to anyway,” he said in a
rush of confidence. “I’m sure Adam is our Adam Svenson - I think he is the
original - just something about the way he spoke to me and an expression or two
on his face - it was him. But, I suppose we must assume that if he was
‘split in two’ part of his original nature is Blue - although it pains me,
almost as much as it pained Adam, to admit it!”
“Whatever the
truth of the situation, Captain, we must do our best for both of them. If it proves impossible to… reunite them, we
have to create lives for them both.”
“Heaven forbid!”
Scarlet breathed. “Until this morning I never realised how much I would miss
that annoying Yank!”
Lieutenant Green
was, as usual, excited about being given an away mission. He so rarely got to be involved in the
‘nitty gritty’ of a case that every trip away from base on business remained a
pleasure. The Captains all had a tendency to treat him very much as an
inexperienced youngster, much to his irritation - he was thirty-four now and
knew a darn sight more about Cloudbase and its complex computers than they
did! However, he was too good natured
and he both liked and respected them all too much to let it get to him - very
often. Only occasionally did he make the point about his seniority by assigning
them to additional communication duties.
He had already
spent the best part of two hours with Captain Magenta downloading information
and reviewing the data they already had, before going to throw some things in a
tote bag. Now he was hovering around the SPJ hangar waiting for the pilot to
arrive.
Symphony pushed
through the door with Magenta alongside and Scarlet behind him.
“Here already,
Griff? - you’re keen,” she smiled as she punched the code to open the aircraft
door. Green just smiled broadly and almost hopped from one foot to the other as
he stood aside to let Symphony and Magenta enter the plane first.
“Are you coming
with us, Captain Scarlet?” he asked
“No, I’m confined
to base for now. I start my duty roster
again with Captain Grey in twenty-five minutes. I just wanted to see you all off and wish you luck.”
Magenta stopped
and turned in the doorway. “Don’t worry Paul, we won’t let Adam down.”
“I know,
Patrick.”
Magenta had, at one
time, seen himself as something of a rival to Blue for the affections of
Symphony Angel, but now he counted Captain Blue as one of his closest
friends. Blue had never thrown his
criminal past in Magenta’s face even when told that his father’s business was
one of the ones defrauded by Magenta’s crime syndicate; in fact, Blue had
laughed at the revelation!
There was a crash
as the door flew open and Doctor Fawn struggled through with two heavy boxes on
a trolley. Scarlet went to help him
load them and then they waited as the Doctor went to collect his personal
luggage.
“Come on, Edward!”
Scarlet called as Fawn strolled back into sight. “Griff’s gonna bust with the
excitement if you don’t leave soon.”
Symphony waited
until the Doctor was strapped into his seat and then she went down to Scarlet.
“I wasn’t able to talk to Adam - he was asleep when I stopped by. Please tell him I did call and give him
this.”
She kissed his
cheek.
“I’m not giving
him that - except verbally!" Scarlet teased her.
"Okay,"
she smiled. "You can keep that one for yourself - but give him my love and say I will call again
when I get back." She smiled up at his amused face and spontaneously
reached out to hug him. She had always
liked Paul, who had always been such a good friend to her and Adam. He had known of their relationship almost since it started and had
sometimes acted as an intermediary between them, during their not infrequent
estrangements - usually when she had boxed herself into a corner and was too
proud to admit she was wrong. She knew
Paul regarded Adam in the light of the brother he had never had - just as he
teased her by calling her 'Sis' on occasion - and she was well aware that Adam
preferred Paul to at least one of the
brothers he did have!
“And should I give
the same message to Blue?” Scarlet asked cheekily hugging her back.
“Certainly not! If
you must tell him something, say I look forward to blacking his other eye!”
“You and Ensign
Tucker both,” Scarlet laughed.
“Tucker be damned!
I blacked his eye for him and will again if he tries it on with me any more!”
Scarlet was
impressed. “Karen, maybe I should not even ask you this, but when did you know
which one was the real Adam Svenson?”
The look she gave
him spoke volumes. “I never doubted it.
My Adam would never have
copped a feel like that when he lifted
me to that chair. Have you ever seen him do anything like that in public? ”
Scarlet had to
admit that he hadn't. “Then why does Blue upset you so?” he asked a little
confused by her active dislike of Blue.
She struggled to
put her feelings into words. “Because I love Adam Svenson - and I know how
mortified he is to realise that Blue must be a part of himself. And it really shook him that even you, Paul,
his closest friend, weren’t sure at
the very start which of them was real.”
“I am sure now,”
Scarlet assured her, colouring under her scrutiny.
She nodded. “Then
tell him. I think he needs to know.”
“Have you told
him?”
“The best way I
know how,” she said as she turned back to the plane, where Green was calling
for her.
Scarlet was still
smirking when he met Grey in the Officers Lounge.
At the warehouse
in Prague the investigation of the geminator was proceeding under the control
of Dr Giardello - the senior research scientist from Spectrum Intelligence's
R&D department. Giardello was the
man credited with the development of both the electron ray gun and the Mysteron
detectors - so vital to Spectrum's battle with the elusive Mysterons. He had the reputation of being a hard task
master and of being totally dedicated to his current project. The three other research assistants working
under Giardello gave every appearance of welcoming the Cloudbase contingent as
blessed relief forces.
Doctor Giardello was impressed by the application of the
Cloudbase officers. Magenta and Green
settled down to work as soon as they arrived, while Doctor Fawn reviewed the
progress from the medical side. They
were all hampered because the notes they’d found were in Czech and although
Commander Ziak was acting as translator, his knowledge of medical and technical
terms was limited. After some time
floundering through the translation, Fawn clamped a hand to his head and
cursed.
“Doctor Javorsky!”
He plonked his cap on his head and activated his cap mic. “Claret, it’s
me. Doctor Fawn, that’s who…. Yes, well never mind now. Is Doctor Javorsky on base? She is - good. I’m faxing up some documents, I want her to translate them as
soon as possible. What? I don’t care if she is off duty - or what
time it is! Tell her I need them. Yes, thank
you, Claret, I will square it with the Doctor myself later.”
He looked up to
see everyone staring at him - “I’m an idiot - Doctor Javorsky is from
Bratislava and I bet she can speak Czech.”
Giardello smiled.
“And she’ll know the jargon too. Good
thinking Doctor.”
Magenta and Green
exchanged pitying glances and returned to their computer terminals.
A few hours later,
Colonel White, Captain Scarlet and Symphony Angel sat in the conference room
with Doctor Eva Javorsky and listened to the reports from Prague.
“So, whilst the
programs do contain a lot of material we can still only guess at, we could - we
think - re-write it to reverse… whatever it is it is doing,” Magenta concluded
hesitantly.
“You think?” Scarlet echoed.
“Yes, well it’s
not an exact science,” hedged Magenta.
“I rather thought
it was,” the Colonel commented wryly.
“Sir, this is an
alien program - it has properties we cannot hope to understand, even if it
wasn’t written in an unfamiliar language!” Magenta protested.
Lieutenant Green
interjected. “We have managed to translate about a third of it - so we are
confident…”
“Quite,” Magenta
qualified.
“We are confident we can reverse it, without too
much risk,” Green repeated with emphasis. “It’s just a matter of semantics,” he
stared challengingly at his superior officer.
Magenta shrugged.
“For you, maybe,”
Symphony snapped angrily, “but you have no right to decide whether or not to
risk Adam Svenson’s life on the off-chance you have understood the semantics of a computer program! If Adam is not to be allowed to make his own
decisions, then I should be allowed to speak on his behalf - which I at least have some right to do - we’ve
been lovers for years.”
The Colonel
cleared his throat loudly and Symphony gave a huge sigh before her temper burst
its already strained confines and she snapped, “Face it Colonel, Adam and I
don’t spend our evenings together playing canasta!”
“Symphony Angel -
there is no call for that kind of behaviour,” the Colonel admonished.
“Yes there is,
Colonel. I’m sorry, but we sit here
listening to this talk about… semantics whilst Adam is getting weaker and Blue
struts about behaving like a…tom-cat! It seems to me, that whatever the state
of play is down there we are running out of time and options up here.”
“You will calm
down Symphony or you will leave,” Colonel White said at his frostiest.
Silenced but not
cowed, she folded her arms and pressed her lips together as if to keep the
words inside.
Doctor Fawn asked,
“Eva is that true? Is Adam getting weaker?”
“Unfortunately it
seems so, Doctor. The patient Adam is
drifting in and out of consciousness.”
“You have tried to
stabilise him?”
“Doctor Tan is
there now - there is always a member of the medical staff with him. But, if I may say - there is something in
the notes which I wish to bring to the discussion - Ziak may have translated
some of this already and I would like your opinion if you have already seen
it.”
“Please Doctor -
just tell us the facts,” the Colonel ordered.
Eva Javorsky, a
recent addition to Spectrum currently doing her training with Fawn on
Cloudbase, flushed slightly and began, “In some of the notes on the monkey…”
“The monkey? Adam’s not a monkey!”
“I won’t warn you
again Symphony, you will just be removed. Continue Doctor.”
“It was with the
monkey,” she gave the Angel a sympathetic smile, “that they first mention that
after the specimens were replicated -- some of the clones were more aggressive
and became stronger. Whilst the vigour
of these specimens increased, the other - less aggressive specimens declined
until eventually they… ceased.”
“Ceased?” Scarlet
asked. His eyebrows rose in alarm. “You mean they died?”
“I mean they say ceased,” she replied checking the
documents she held before her on the table. “They speak of absorption or subjugation, almost as interchangeable terms when
describing this process.”
Fawn considered a
moment and then nodded. “Come to think of it, every time Blue went AWOL and got
into mischief, Adam was weaker.”
There was a
silence in the room as they considered the implications of this. Symphony stifled a sob and dropped her head
to hide her emotions whilst she struggled to regain her self-control. Scarlet, annoyed at the apparent
insensitivity of his colleagues, knelt alongside her chair and encircled her in
his arms. Her head came to rest against
the vivid red of his tunic with a grateful sigh.
“So, does it
follow that the more passive Adam is, the more Blue’s energy levels increase?
Or is it simply a case of whoever is the stronger automatically absorbs the strength of the other?”
Colonel White mused.
“We cannot be
sure. Blue has been the most active of the pair, but I would suggest that he is
the clone. From my observations of
them, I lean towards the theory that Adam is our original Captain Blue,” Fawn
began.
Symphony looked up
and gave a snort of contempt - if Fawn had only just reached that conclusion, then Adam was in
trouble!
“How would this
have affected Captain Scarlet?” the Colonel asked.
“That doesn’t
matter anyway,” Scarlet snapped. “It’s Adam we have to worry about.”
“Is there any
indication that this process can halted, Doctor?” the Colonel asked Doctor
Javorsky, ignoring the outburst.
Javorsky shook her
head. “The records are not concerned with that - it seems that this was what
they wanted. However the process was supposed to affect Captain Scarlet, they
were pleased to see it happening with their experiments. Initially they speak of total absorption
taking a matter of days and often the specimen died, but as the absorption
rates increased and the process became quicker, the stronger, surviving clones
were Mysteronised - whether by retrometabolism or some other method is
unrecorded. Obviously they knew and saw
no need to record it.”
“What about ADAM?”
Symphony asked defiantly, wiping her eyes with her hand and daring anyone to
criticise her. “Do you mean he will become a Mysteron, once this parasite has drained him of his
strength?”
Scarlet stood up and
looked straight at the Colonel. “The most pertinent part of Doctor Javorsky’s
theory is that this all took a couple of
days. Symphony is right; we are running out of time, regardless of which of
them is the real Captain Blue.”
“Doctor Javorsky,
I think we may need to look at calming Blue down to try to slow this process if we cannot halt it,” Fawn urged,
preferring not to answer Symphony’s question.
“How would you
suggest we do that?” Scarlet asked, adding with sudden anxiety, “I left him
playing soccer with some of the guys in the sports hall.”
“You did what?”
the Colonel snapped. “He was under orders to stay in sickbay - there or the
brig!”
“He’d have wrecked
the brig if we left him there,” Scarlet explained. “And he was playing rock
music in the sickbay and singing along with it so loudly that poor Tan was
getting fraught. I thought the soccer
might tire him out.”
“It might also
drain more stamina from Adam,” Javorsky remarked quietly, well aware that
no-one wanted to voice this fact.
Colonel White opened
a communication channel to Captain Ochre. “Captain, I want you to go down to
the sports hall and arrest - the individual known as Blue. He is to be taken to sickbay and placed
under restraint. A security guard is to
remain there to prevent his leaving.”
“SIG, Colonel,”
they heard Ochre say.
The Colonel then
called Doctor Tan. “Captain Ochre is bringing Blue back to sickbay. He is to be placed under restraint and
sedated, until further notice.”
“But Colonel,
sedate him just for getting into a fight?” Tan ventured to object.
“There is more to
it than that, Doctor. Doctor Fawn or
Doctor Javorsky will bring you up to date on the matter.”
“SIG, Colonel.”
“Well, let’s hope
that at least slows the process down.
Now, I want every resource we have thrown at this problem; it is to have
class one priority. Doctor Fawn, how
soon do you think you’ll be ready to test the geminator machine?”
Fawn opened and
closed his mouth in confusion. “Just as soon as we can, sir. We’re getting on to it right away!”
“Good.” The
Colonel looked up at the others around the table, “well, go on then, I am sure
you can all find something useful to do!”
“Yessir, Colonel.”
Scarlet helped
Symphony out of the room.
White watched them
go and once alone, his head sank into his hands. “Dear God,” he whispered,
“don’t let me loose another good man….”
Prague was
crawling with Spectrum security forces, so Captain Black was keeping a low
profile. There was no way he could get
back into the warehouse undetected. He
had seen Magenta, Green and Fawn arrive and surmised that the geminator had
begun to have an effect on Captain Blue.
So even if they had not got Scarlet, the mission could not be called a
complete failure when they had managed to incapacitate Blue. His scientists calculated when the
subjugation would be complete, although there was the possibility of
irregularities because the machine had been calibrated for Scarlet’s unique
metabolism and neither had Blue received the full exposure deemed necessary
even for a normal Earthman.
Yet, however long
it took, Captain Blue would become a Mysteron agent - following instructions
relayed to him through Captain Black.
He would be undetectable by Spectrum’s Mysteron detectors. He would create havoc in the Spectrum
organisation and that would leave them free to capture Scarlet and use the
geminator on him. Earthmen were so
unpredictable that it was impossible to be precise as to future events - still
time would tell and they had all the time in the world.
In the sickbay on
Cloudbase, Karen sat curled up on a spacious easy chair beside Adam’s bed.
Casually dressed in a short sleeved, tunic dress of deep coral and open-toed
sandals, her hair loose on her shoulders, she looked the picture of serenity,
but anyone watching her would have seen that although she had a book open on
her knee, she had not turned a page for over an hour. She was watching the
gentle, yet reassuringly regular bleeps of the machines and the minimal rise
and fall of her lover’s chest as he slept.
The conference had
been torture for her. To hear them
discussing the theories about Adam’s condition so stoically had been almost as
much as she could take. She tormented
herself with wondering - what if she had
unwittingly made him worse by sending Blue away in such a rage that he had
not only seduced Lesley Saville, but also fought Graeme Tucker. Surely, those incidents must have depleted
Adam’s strength - if this parasite theory was correct.
She recalled
uneasily how she had discovered him in his quarters, going through his music
collection and had stopped to speak to him. She had begun to explain that she
believed him to be the real Captain Blue, assuring him that whatever happened
she would always love him. She had thrown her arms around him, offering herself
to him as proof of her love. She had
seen the…gratitude in his eyes for
her belief in him, but he had been uncharacteristically cold with her as well -
and quite unlike his usually assured self.
He had turned aside her caresses with gentle smile of apology and a shake
of his head.
The contrast with
Blue’s open admiration and desire for her was startling and she wondered, a
little sadly, if things would ever be the same between them.
She turned to the
bed as he stirred in his sleep and gave a deep sigh. He had slept for almost four hours now, since the dishevelled
Captain Ochre had brought Blue in and forcibly strapped him to his bed whilst
Doctor Tan sedated him and peace had reigned in the sickbay.
She had spoken at length
to Tan about her concerns and although it had taken a lot of cajoling to
convince him to sign her off as unfit to fly, he had done so eventually and she
was determined to stay where she was.
It would take the Colonel himself and every rule in the book to get her
to leave!
The door opened
and she turned, half expecting to see the Colonel, but it was Rhapsody Angel,
in uniform and carrying her helmet, standing hesitantly by the door. She ventured to step inside, concerned to
see just how drawn her friend looked; Karen always felt everything so
intensely.
“Any change?” she
asked quietly, encouraged by the welcoming smile.
Karen shook her
head. “He’s sleeping.”
“Poor Adam, he
looks exhausted,” Dianne commented coming closer.
Karen knew that no
one outside of the conference and the senior medical staff knew the latest
theory on his condition, so she couldn’t accuse her friend of deliberately
rubbing salt in her self-inflicted wounds.
“You haven’t seen
him for a while though, have you? He
doesn’t look worse - just much the same,” she said, her voice shaking, despite
her effort to sound upbeat.
“No - not since he
was first… duplicated.” Dianne grinned. “I guess he won’t like to remember that
when he’s better, neither of them had a stitch on!”
“No, that won’t
please him at all,” Karen agreed, smiling.
“I always thought
Scandinavians were broad-minded about that sort of thing.”
“Must be all those
Puritans lurking in his Mother’s family tree.”
Both women
giggled.
“Sssh,” Karen put
a finger to her lips, “we’ll wake him up.”
“Too late you
already have,” a quiet voice said from the bed and Adam opened his eyes.
“How are you,
dearest?” Karen asked, dropping her book from her knee as she stood to smile
down at him.
“Embarrassed; I
don’t like being talked about as if I’m not there.”
“Eavesdroppers
never hear well of themselves,” Dianne said silkily. “So it serves you right, dearest, for listening!”
He smiled at her.
“I ought to know by now that I can never win an argument against the Angels.”
Dianne nodded
emphatically and showed him the basket of fruit she had selected from the
canteen. “A present for you - I understand they are obligatory on hospital
visits so I brought you this.”
“Thank you, it’s
very kind of you to bother. Paul always
says he gets so much fruit when he’s in here for any length of time, that he
can’t face eating any more when he’s out. They do feed us in here, you know.”
“Yes, but not the
serious stuff one needs to really get well,” Dianne said putting the basket
down on the bed. “Look beneath the
healthy stuff and what do we find?”
Karen lifted an
apple and grinned. “Chocolate!” She fished out a bar and broke it. “Share and
share alike,” she handed a row of squares to Dianne and keeping a row, put the
rest on Adam’s chest.
“When the going
gets tough the tough eat chocolate,” Dianne said chewing contentedly.
“Shall I break
some off for you?” Karen asked, as Adam made no attempt to do so.
“I still have just
enough strength to do that for myself,” he sighed as he saw the hurt in her
eyes. “I’m not hungry, honey, that’s all.”
“Got to build up
your strength, you know,” Dianne urged. “Can’t have you lazing around here for
too long. Who’s going to keep Paul on
the straight and narrow otherwise?”
“Not Blue, that’s
for sure,” Karen said.
“Where is he?”
Adam asked, obligingly chewing a square of chocolate, even though he did not
really want it.
“Asleep next door;
I put my head round there first, by mistake,” Dianne explained.
“No food parcels
for Blue, then?” Adam asked.
“I saw him in the canteen
at lunchtime - the amount he was eating, he’ll need a new uniform soon.” Dianne
reached across and helped herself to more chocolate.
Adam proffered the
bar to Karen with a wry grin. “Well, he can pay for it, I’m not going to.”
“Hey, I wonder if
you’ll get two lots of salary whilst you’re in two minds!” Dianne quipped. Then seeing the distress on
Karen’s face she added hastily, “Sorry, that was tactless.”
“I thought it was
rather amusing. I shall raise it with
the Colonel next time he drops by. Actually
he’s as likely to say I owe them money for two lots of upkeep,” he said with a
friendly pat on Dianne’s arm.
She smiled her
thanks at him. “Don’t let him spin you that line, Adam. Oh, by the way, I have this for you from me
and the other girls - it’s a sort of
‘get well soon’ card, we’re all missing you in the Amber Room, Blue-boy’.” She
unconsciously used Scarlet’s nickname for him and he smiled with pleasure as he
took the card and read the messages inside. “Oh, and I am meant to tell you,
Symphony, that the Colonel has sent for Calypso - so it looks as if you have
been officially signed off for a time.
How do you get away with it? I
never get compassionate leave when Paul’s in dry dock.”
Karen gave a smile
of satisfaction - Calypso was the senior pilot amongst the team of six standby
Angels - based at Glenn Field. These
pilots performed as an air-display team, much as the Angels themselves had done
during their initial training for Spectrum. Then she noticed Rhapsody's
sceptical glance and said disarmingly, “You’d never do any work if he allowed
that. Thankfully Adam’s not here every other week.”
“Too true - oh
wise American! Well, some of us still
have work to do - I’m on duty in ten minutes.
I will see you both again soon.
Behave… at least when anyone’s looking!” Dianne leant over and kissed
Adam’s cheek, waved goodbye and left them alone.
“I like Di,” said
Adam handing Karen the card and watching her clear the fruit basket away.
“Me too. Now, how are you feeling? I notice you
didn’t answer me last time.” She reached over to brush his fringe from his
eyes.
He sighed. “I am
more tired than I can ever remember, but I feel okay - nothing aches at least.
Why have you been signed off? It must
be bad for the Colonel to have called in Calypso.” He was all concern as he
turned his blue eyes to gaze at her. “You certainly look alright to me - but
then I’m partial to pretty dresses and a nice display of leg,” he teased.
She preened under
his gaze, familiar with his disparaging opinions of the Spectrum uniforms that
kept all the women in trousers. “Oh it’s just a general debility; there’s been
an outbreak and I caught it soon after you.”
“Karen…” he said
sternly.
“I am not going
back on duty without you - so don’t argue,” she perched on the edge of his
bed. “Move over,” she ordered.
Adam squirmed
across to the far side of his bed and she kicked off her shoes and lay down
beside him on the top of the duvet, his arm around her and her head on his
shoulder.
“That’s better,”
Karen said, snuggling as close as she could.
“I’ve had a while to think about things, whilst you’ve been snoring in
the arms of Morpheus…”
“I do not snore.”
“No dear,” she
grinned up at him, “whatever you say.”
It was an old argument. “Anyway, I thought about what it might be nice to
do for your birthday next month.”
”Forgetting it
gets my vote.”
“No - we can’t do
that. After all it is the big one - the
big 4 - 0.”
“That’s it, kick a
guy when he’s down!” He was surprisingly sensitive on the subject.
She grinned
playfully. “I thought we might elope.
What do you think?”
Adam looked at her
bleakly. “Elope? I haven’t got the
strength to make it to the hanger deck!”
“No, but you will
have by then.”
“Karen, we’ve
talked about this - plenty of times.
You know the Colonel said that if we decided to get married, one of us
would have to leave Cloudbase and you were not happy when I spent those months
at Koala Base training up the standby Angels.”
“What do you
expect? You were stuck in the middle of
nowhere with six ripe, young women hanging on your every word! So sure, I thought that was a great idea,” she laughed.
“I don’t know what you were worried about -
they were not interested in me - some old fogey who learned to fly decades
ago.”
“That statement only
shows how little you know about impressionable young women. Just think back to
what happened to one of the Angels last time you were at Koala - the poor girl
fell for you hook, line and sinker!” She punched his chin playfully, “Mind you,
I admit I’d trust you better now than I did when you went off with the Standby
Angels. I was still doubting my own
good luck then!” He shook his head at her, but he looked pleased nevertheless.
She continued, “Anyway, don’t try to
change the subject! What do you think
of my idea?”
“It smacks of
desperation, that’s what. Frightened of
being left on the shelf, älskling?”
“Certainly not!”
“Well, then I
assume you have decided that you might as well ruin my career - or perhaps you
don’t think I will have a career for much longer?”
“Adam… Don’t say
things like that. It frightens me.”
”What did the
conference say?”
She was reluctant
to tell him, but he wouldn’t let her get away with generalities and she found
herself telling him what had been said and weeping on his pyjama’d shoulder
too. Adam was silent as he considered the implications. He thought of Blue,
‘asleep’ next door and of his companions in Prague, working so hard to create
the possibility of returning him to what they considered normal. It took him an effort to remember that his
situation seemed more upsetting to his friends than it did to him. With the single exception of his
discomfiture at Blue's constant bad behaviour, he did not find his position
distressing. If he had had his normal
stamina, he would hardly have noticed the difference - or so he told himself.
He hugged Karen
until her sniffs subsided.
“Well, I wonder,”
he said and she raised herself to look at him with reddened eyes and smeared
mascara. He knew that look and smiled
affectionately. “Out with it - what’s wrong - what have you done now?”
“I probably made
it worse, didn’t I, when I made Blue so angry and if I had… when I found you in
your room…?” She hesitated to explain her fears, but relief surged through her
as he grinned and shook his head.
“No, I felt so
much happier after you spoke to me - it was even better than the chocolate!” he
teased, using the Angels’ own benchmark for excellence. Then he added with an
embarrassed frown, “Karen… I am sorry…about that… I mean, I…”
She shook her head,
dismissing his concerns and traced her finger across his lips. He drew a deep
breath to calm his own suddenly racing emotions and caught her teasing fingers,
forcing himself to concentrate. “Perhaps it’s not like a parasite, but more
like…,” he cast around for an analogy, “One
milkshake with two straws in it.”
She frowned,
paying only cursory attention to what he was saying as she kissed each
individual finger on his hand that held her own. “What?” she asked.
“Perhaps there’s a
limited amount of milk shake or life force or whatever you wanna call it…and
whoever sucks hardest gets most. If
Blue rushes around like a maniac he gets more milkshake. Perhaps I should do a little rushing around
of my own - especially whilst he’s ‘sleeping’.”
“Do we really have
to rush at it?”
“Well, the medics
could look in at any time,” he grinned.
She pouted. “We’d
better make sure they have something interesting to watch then.”
Adam gave a
throaty laugh as he abandoned himself to her kisses.
Captain Scarlet
was on edge. He always found it nerve
wracking whenever his colleagues were busy with a mission he was not involved
with and now was no exception. He had
asked the Colonel again for permission to go to Prague and had been told that
he would only be in the way. Much as he
liked and respected Captain Grey, his partner for this shift duty, Brad was no
replacement for Captain Blue and Scarlet was bottling up his frustration. He went back to the Control Room and finding
the Colonel absent, he ordered Lieutenant Claret to put him in touch with the
working party.
Lieutenant Green answered, “Hello Cloudbase,
what can we do for you?”
“Lieutenant, I was
wondering how things were going - have you made much progress?”
“Captain Scarlet?
Hello! Well, we are getting some
results, but not exactly encouraging ones.
In fact, we have a small collection of dead mice so far,” Green admitted
with a sigh.
“Not exactly the
result we’re looking for, Griff.”
“Problem is that
if we get it to work we’ve then got to work out how to do it backwards and put
Blue together again,” Green confessed.
“You have worked
out how to get it to work, though?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“Given that we may
be running out of time here, maybe we should speak to Adam and ask him what he
wants to do? Perhaps he’d prefer us
just to run it backwards and take the risk?”
“I couldn’t
say! It might kill him.”
“Doing nothing
might kill him too,” Scarlet said brutally. He heard the Colonel coming back
and signed off hastily. Then he put his
finger to his lips and warned Claret to secrecy before slipping out through the
computer banks and file room.
Determined to push matters along he walked briskly down to sickbay to
find Doctor Javorsky on duty.
“Captain Scarlet? Are you sick?” she asked, standing
as he approached her desk.
Scarlet smiled at
her, noticing how she blushed when he did so. Goddamn Adam Svenson and his fanciful ideas about ‘acolytes’, I shall
be forever noticing things like that now! He thought with a spark of
irritation.
“No Doctor, I am
fine. I want to see Adam if he’s
awake. I think it’s about time we told
him the facts and let him decide what he wants to do. It’s his life after all.”
Doctor Javorsky looked sceptical and so he continued, “Prague is not
having much success and if we do nothing, Adam might … cease, anyway. He ought to be told.”
“Can’t carry the
responsibility, eh, Captain?” Javorsky said quietly.
“Do we have the
right to deny him the right to make his own decision, Doctor?” he asked in
return, resenting her implication.
“Perhaps not;
however, I think he may know the situation already.” She explained, “Symphony
Angel went to visit with him and has stayed since some five hours. He woke up awhile ago so I would leave it
for now, Captain.” Scarlet raised his eyebrows interrogatively. “They forget the beds are linked to the
monitors of Doctor Fawn. I thought
there was again a problem when I see two heartbeats and hurry to assist, but
then I hear such happy laughter when I am close to the door, that I do not interrupt
them.”
“No, perhaps I
wouldn’t want to go in just now. Adam’s
pretty tolerant, but he’s not that
tolerant!” A thought struck him and he
frowned again. “Won’t it … eh… wear him out?”
“But what a way to
go, eh, Captain?” Javorsky said with a surprisingly raucous laugh.
Scarlet stopped
trying to hide his amusement. “So you stayed here - Very wise, Doctor.”
“I am called Eva,”
she smiled. “It is less formal.”
Scarlet found
himself getting hot. “We are not
supposed to use our names whilst on duty,” he said, hearing himself sounding so
pompous that he mentally cursed Adam again.
“My apologies,
Captain,” Javorsky said, her tone suddenly cold.
“But we all do it
all the time,” he added, as if he had never intended the pause. “So, I will be
happy to call you Eva. I am Paul.”
“I know. I have the medical records here.” She
smiled. “Perhaps you would like coffee?
There is a machine here, it makes good coffee.”
“Yes, I know it
does. Probably the best coffee on the
base - the Amber room coffee tastes like ditchwater and the officers lounge
coffee could be used to weatherproof the runways! Thank you, I would like that.”
Scarlet sat
opposite Javorsky and sipped his coffee.
He began to think that he was over-reacting to the Doctor’s friendliness
because she just carried on with her paperwork and left him in peace. It is
relaxing, Scarlet thought, recalling evenings spent in Fawn’s company
whilst he was technically still unfit for duty, but out of danger. All in all he probably spent more time in
the sickbay than the officers’ lounge!
A monitor on the
computer beside the Doctor bleeped.
Javorsky pushed a button and frowned.
“We have a problem,” she muttered.
“Not Adam? … Hhmm, he hasn’t over-exerted himself?”
Scarlet exclaimed.
“No. Blue.” Javorsky hurried to the room where
Blue was lying sedated. Scarlet watched
as she checked the monitors and then reached to call for the duty nurse. Nurse
Waite hurried in, taking the time to give her most frequent patient a smile of
acknowledgment.
“His condition has
deteriorated. He must be revived,”
Javorsky instructed. Waite closed the
door.
Scarlet pondered
on the implications and wondered if Adam - busy with whatever he and Karen were
doing now - was alright too. The idea
must have occurred to Javorsky because moments later the door opened and she
stepped across to knock loudly on Adam’s door.
“Miss Symphony, is
everything alright in there?” There was
no immediate answer. “Miss Symphony? Mr
Adam? I am coming in now.”
Symphony wrenched
the door open before Javorsky did. She
was wearing Adam’s dressing gown over an attractive teddy of pale green silk
and creamy lace.
“Sssh! What’s the matter, he’s just gone back to
sleep,” she muttered angrily, and then saw Scarlet hovering in the
distance. “Is this anything to do with
you, Paul, because if it is...?”
He shook his head,
but Javorsky answered, “Miss Symphony is Adam alright?”
“He’s
sleeping. We were both sleeping.”
The Doctor pushed
past and looked down at her patient. Karen
followed her in and Scarlet followed her.
Javorsky gently took Adam’s wrist and counted his pulse.
“What’s wrong?”
Karen hissed.
“Blue’s bad,”
Scarlet answered, making her jump because she hadn’t registered he had entered
too.
“So?”
“They wanted to make
sure Adam was okay.”
Karen gave a sharp
nod of her head. “He’s been fine.”
Javorsky carefully
laid Adam’s arm down and was surprised when he snuggled up to her hand with a
murmured “Karen.”
She gently
extricated herself. “Pulse normal,” she mused. “He looks better than he has all
day.”
“We‘ve been
discussing his latest hypothesis,” Karen said, suddenly blushing.
“That’s a new name for it.” Scarlet couldn’t
stop the comment coming unbidden to his lips even though he was sorry to have
made her more embarrassed.
She hastened to explain, “Okay - so what if
we were having a little cuddle? We weren’t doing anything wrong! And we really were discussing the problem as
well. In fact Adam wondered that if he
was getting weaker whilst Blue … partied, perhaps he should party and see if he
got any stronger. Seems to have worked
- better than expected perhaps?”
“Much better than
expected,” the Doctor said sourly. “Blue was sedated with a dose calculated to
be effective with a healthy, active man.
If it is as you thought and he is weaker because Adam is… partied out,
then it would explain his dangerous relapse!
You might have killed him, Miss Symphony, and we do not know what the
effect of either one dying is. You fear
Adam might become a Mysteron if Blue absorbs him - it may also be that he will
be a Mysteron if he absorbs Blue. Did
you think of that?”
“No.” Karen looked
horrified. “We weren’t thinking about much at all, Doctor. He was so much more
like his old self and I was just so pleased to see him - so much better.”
Javorsky gestured
to the door and shooed them both out of the room. “He must sleep, I must be
able to stabilise them both. You must
both go.”
“My dress is in
there!” Karen cried in alarm.
“You have others,
I expect.”
“What?”
“Go, both of you,
please, now.”
“Doctor, for
pity’s sake!” Karen pleaded as the door began to close.
Javorsky relented
and threw the dress through the almost closed door, shutting it immediately
after she had done so.
“Come on Karen,
I’ll take you to your quarters,” Scarlet offered, gallantly turning his back as
she shrugged off the dressing gown and slid into the dress.
“Stop enjoying
this, Metcalfe.”
“Me? Why ever would I do that?” Scarlet said with
an almost perfect poker face.
Having left
Symphony safely in her quarters, Captain Scarlet went to the empty conference
room and tapped into the communications link to Prague. His call was answered by Doctor Fawn, who
luckily was too preoccupied to ask questions when Scarlet asked to speak to
Ziak.
“Good evening,
Commander Ziak. I am hoping that you
will be able to do me a favour,” Scarlet said with a friendly smile at the
serious face on the screen.
“Captain Scarlet,
I will, of course, be only too pleased to assist when I can.”
“Thank you. I want you and your men to find Captain
Black for me - or any of the men who were in the warehouse with him. I have a feeling they must still be in the
city - Captain Blue told me that Black ordered his minions to take me to the
geminator machine and I have a
suspicion that he won’t leave until he feels there is still a chance of my
being given the same treatment as Blue. There were several other sites marked
on your street map, where Black had been sighted as well as the warehouse, I
suggest you concentrate on them. If - when - your people find any of them, I
want you to report to me - not the Colonel - not just yet. Will you do that for me, Commander?”
Ziak hesitated,
but he was not immune to the glamour that was attached to Captain Scarlet and he
nodded. “Certainly we will try, Captain.”
“Splendid, I look
forward to speaking to you very soon.
Goodbye, Commander.”
There was nothing
he could do now except wait, which for Scarlet was always easier said than
done. He had never had much patience with
delays. In the meantime he made what
preparations he could and spent time with Rhapsody who was off duty for a few
hours.
The Angels were
all concerned about Captain Blue and Symphony and Dianne was anxious for any
news he could give her about her friends.
It was only with great difficulty that he refrained from telling her
about the incident in sickbay, and to avoid that temptation he explained the
outlines of his plan to help his friend.
“Paul, it sounds
as if it will be incredibly dangerous. I am sure Adam wouldn’t want you taking
too many risks,” Dianne said earnestly.
“No, Adam would
spend forever assessing the risk factors and by then it would be too late!” he
teased. “I haven’t told him yet - in
fact only you know so far. I will have
to go to the old man with it as soon as Ziak has found Black’s hiding place,
but for now - keep it to yourself, my love.”
“Well, of course I
will, but I can’t help worrying about you,” she replied, kissing his cheek.
“I want to do
this, Di; I owe it to Adam to try.” She remained sceptical even as he tried to
explain his motivation. “You know how annoyed I get when they say I’m the
bravest man in Spectrum, because I know what they don’t - that whatever happens
to me the chances are I will recover to fight again. Adam has no such guaranty - his first death will be his last -
and yet he never refuses to help me, however harebrained the scheme. And more
often than not, he’s the one who carries what’s left of me back to Cloudbase so
that Fawn can nurse me back to health.
I know I couldn’t do my job half so well without his support, Di.” He
glanced at her stricken face with concern. “And so, I don’t intend to have to
try!” He hugged her and returned her kiss. “But I promise to be careful. I don’t want anything to go wrong - after
all, I have too much going right in my life just now!”
“I can understand
that you want to help Adam. Honestly I
can, Paul, but I am positive that if you asked him, Adam would say you
shouldn’t take this risk. After all,
you are not like the other Mysteron agents - you have broken free of them and
even Doctor Fawn cannot say for sure that what is dangerous for Mysterons as a
whole is dangerous for you. So it must
apply that we cannot be sure you wouldn’t be affected by things they are immune
to.”
He hugged her to
his heart and said softly, “Perhaps that’s why I have to try this one, Dianne,
perhaps I just have to earn that reputation for bravery.”
She shook her head
sadly, but didn’t argue any more. She knew this need to prove himself as worthy
of his reputation was as integral to him as breathing. He continued to see himself as perpetrating
some kind of fraud - although he was the only one on Cloudbase who thought of
it like that - and neither the Colonel nor Adam could shake it out of him. Besides,
she knew him well enough to know when his mind was made up.
So she just cuddled close to him and listened
with mounting amusement as he haltingly asked her if she knew anything about
the acolytes Adam said he had.
She made him work
hard to get their names though.
It was about four
in the morning and Doctor Tan had drifted off into a doze as the end of his
shift approached, when Blue, as restless as always, slipped from his room and
opened the door to Adam’s. The room was
in darkness but as Blue moved towards the bed, Adam’s voice startled him.
“Come on in. I think we need to talk.” The bedside light snapped on and the two
identical men studied each other in the warm yellow light.
“I couldn’t
sleep,” said Blue, a little aggressively.
“I know. I could sense your restlessness.”
Blue came and sat
on the end of the bed, tucking his right foot under his left leg and resting on
one arm. “It’s weird to be looking at myself like this. What has happened to me? Why are there two of us?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Would I ask if I
did?”
Adam smiled. “Most
probably, if you felt it would serve your purpose. I would. There’s no point in trying to second-guess me… Blue - I
know only to well, what you’re thinking.”
“When all this
happened, I didn’t understand where you had come from. Sure, that geminator
hurt and I woke up feeling like death; and when I saw you, I damn near
flipped! I felt groggy but I was
growing stronger all the time, I could feel my strength increasing and I knew I
had the edge on you. Now, I’m not so
sure and I don’t understand,” Blue admitted warily.
“Nor do I,” said
Adam moving to sit next to him on the bed and pulling his leg beneath him in
unconscious imitation of his visitor. “You were certainly the stronger after we
separated. I felt so weak it was all I
could do to stand and walk with Paul to my…
our quarters. I think that may have
been due to the initial shock of the procedure started by the geminator.”
“They tell me it
was a cloning machine and therefore one of us must be a clone, so what am I to
you?” Blue asked defensively.
“You are, almost
certainly I think, a clone of my physical self. The geminator was
designed to separate Scarlet from his Mysteron side and allow them to recover
control of him. But because there was only one entity in Captain Blue’s body,
we each got half of his personality.
You got the physical or emotional side and I… well,” Adam paused.
“Oh, you got the
brains alright,” Blue said irritably. A
large part of his frustration had come from the unaccountable inability of his
mind to function as he expected it to. He had come to the conclusion that if
all he had to work with was his emotions, then he would see just how far he
could get with that weapon against the bastion of Adam’s intelligence. After
all, he knew instinctively which strings to pull to the greatest effect.
“That’s one way of
looking at it,” Adam agreed. “Perhaps
we’re better off just saying you are very like a younger version of me, one I
remember without too much pride, I have to say.”
“You should loosen
up a little, you know? Life can be a
lot of fun,” Blue asserted.
Adam raised his
eyebrows and smiled, “It can be fun even when you have to take the
responsibility for what you do with it.”
“Yeah? And you sound like Dad,” Blue said scathingly.
He started to pace the room, restless again. “So, what do we do about it then?”
“They are trying
to find a way to recreate the original Captain Blue.”
“Why? What’s so
great about him that having the two of us isn’t as good as?”
“I don’t know,” Adam said sharply. “I’m
in the same boat as you - to me being like I am seems…entirely normal.”
Blue stared at
him. “Tell me honestly why you think I am the clone. I remember growing up in
Boston. I can remember everything that
happened.”
“Tell me what you
remember.”
Blue drew a deep
breath and proceeded to list the most memorable emotional peaks and troughs in
the life of Adam Svenson, until his voice trailed to a halt when he began to
speak of the events at the London Car-Vu. He gave a sly glance at Adam, noting
with satisfaction his pale face and downcast eyes - he had succeeded in
unsettling his twin. “ If you want my opinion,” he concluded sourly, “that’s
when Adam Svenson became so wrapped up in being Captain Blue that he buried
much of himself away and now the emotions you say I embody come as a surprise and - what’s far worse - an
embarrassment to him.”
Rather
unexpectedly, Adam retaliated. “You wouldn’t be an embarrassment if you acted
anything like someone of your age and position should act,” he said, startling Blue with his vehemence. “You act
like an irresponsible, amoral teenager!”
Blue‘s response was an outright attack. “No I
don’t. I just act like someone with any kind of emotional depth to them would
act. But you gave up doing that years
ago. Okay, so it wasn’t the easiest thing to deal with… after what Grover did
to us - either time … but we managed
- Oh yes- we managed - If I am part
of you, you have to hear me out - Adam!” Blue
glared at his twin. “How ironic that Paul called me Blue when you are so much
closer to the Captain Blue he thinks he knows, and I am the Adam Svenson he’s never really had the chance to know.”
Adam shrugged, not
wanting to comment.
Blue continued his
restless pacing, counting points on his fingers. “Then it was Dad and all those
arguments you wouldn’t let yourself be seen to care about - but you did
care. Then it was Soraya and you had to
cover the guilt you felt about that, didn’t you? Because grown men with jobs in the security division can’t be
seen to have any weaknesses. Then it
was Karen - my God, she hit you running, didn’t she? You never believed in
‘love at first sight’ - romantic twaddle, wasn’t it? And then it happened to
you and you couldn’t believe what you
felt for her and what you still do. But
just how long is it since you told her that?
How long since you just said ‘stuff the Colonel’ and took her away for a
weekend in Paris or Rome? Stopped all
that, haven’t we? Daren’t take her home to Boston, in case people expect things
to happen - things we don’t consider ‘practical’.” Blue drew air quotes. Adam’s face was set in an unyielding
expression of controlled anger that anyone who knew his father would have
recognised with dread. Blue recognised
it and gave a slight chuckle. “Let it
rip, go on, scream at me! It would
probably do you the world of good to loose that renowned good temper.”
With a slight
shake of his head, Adam declined to be goaded, although he was surprised at the
violence of the anger he felt welling up inside him. These powerful bursts of emotion were seemingly getting more
frequent. “Yelling won’t get us anywhere and will just bring Tan in here to
sedate us both again,” he said, fighting to keep his composure.
Blue pressed on,
“What’ll you do about her suggestion of an elopement?”
“How do you know
about that?” Adam snapped.
Blue shrugged. “No
idea - you got the brains, remember?
You think she was joking, but are you sure? Will it always be a joke, Captain
Blue, or will she one day stop mentioning it and just walk out of your dreary
little life?”
“You’re talking
rubbish - the last thing my life could be described as is dreary! How many other men get to sit up all night
being harangued by their emotionally overwrought clone?”
Blue gave a
slight, superior smile. “Oh a definite touch there, is the armour beginning to
crack, I wonder?”
Adam shook his
head. “Take more than you’ve got to do that, Blue.”
Blue’s eyebrow
rose in disbelief. “You think so? You
haven’t heard the moiety of it yet.
There is nothing about you I don’t know and nothing I won’t use against
you.”
Adam glanced at
him thoughtfully - since when did Blue use words like moiety? He began to wonder
if the division of their shared personality wasn’t beginning to even out.
Blue continued his
complaint, “She likes you better than
me, although God knows why...”
“So it would
seem.”
“But why? I remember the good times we’ve had together
and they were good times! Why should
she ignore that and reject me? She’s unlikely to ever get half as much fun with
you. I won’t let Karen go and I won’t stand by and see you loose her
because you can’t get over that Goddamed puritan streak that runs straight
through you!” Blue unwittingly let his anger and frustration spill over and he
was annoyed to see understanding dawn on Adam’s face.
“Perhaps she just
doesn’t appreciate that much raw emotion all at once? I know I don’t,” Adam
said levelly. “It can be unnerving.”
“It wasn’t me she accused of being a cold fish!”
Adam glared at
him. “She only says things like that when she’s mad at me and trying to goad me
into arguing with her. She doesn’t mean it,” he growled.
“Don’t tell me I
hurt your feelings - because you
haven’t got any!”
“Look, if there is
one thing we will always argue about,
it is Karen, so I suggest we don’t speak about her at all. Let’s just take it as read that we both love
her and concentrate on the fact that if we stay separate, she will have to
choose between us. There is only one
way we can both have her and that is to find a way to merge ourselves once
more.”
“Frightened she
might choose me?” challenged Blue.
“No, but I’d say
you are frightened she will choose me,” came the brutal reply.
There was a long
silence. Both men looked at each other weighing the implications of their
situation and realising that there was a chance that if Karen was forced to
choose between two halves of the man she loved, she might choose neither. For
the first time an emotion united them - it was sheer, gut wrenching misery.
“Sit down for Heaven’s
sake,” Adam said wearily and rather to his surprise Blue did come back to sit
on the bed again. They sat in silence for a few moments and Adam could sense
the tension in Blue.
“I’m scared,” Blue
admitted suddenly, unable to look Adam in the face.
“So am I.”
Two pairs of
identical blue eyes met and recognised the essential kinship of each other.
“I don’t want to
be a Mysteron.”
“Neither do I and
I know that whatever can be done to
avoid it, Spectrum will do,” Adam reasoned.
“Yeah, they’ll
kill us.”
“Sure they will,
but only as a last resort,” Adam said, a slow smile lifting the corners of his
mouth.
Blue smiled back
and for the second time they shared an emotion.
“I daren’t sleep,”
Blue confessed, exhausted by his own emotional turmoil. “I’ve been getting the
nightmares again.”
Adam didn’t need
to ask the nature of the nightmares. As a boy, he had been abducted, brutalized
and held to ransom and he’d been plagued for years afterwards with terrifying
dreams as he relived the ordeal. Twenty-five years later fate had again landed
him in the clutches of his tormentor and the nightmare had started all over
again. It would appear that Blue - with
his highly charged emotional memories was still suffering. Pity overwhelmed
Adam as he recalled all too clearly the horrors of those nightmares. He reached out to touch the hand that lay
close to his. “It’s okay, Adam, you
can stay here.”
If Blue noticed
the use of his Christian name he made no comment, he turned fear drenched eyes
on his twin and nodded as Adam made room for him. They lay side by side and when the light was turned off; they
both closed their eyes and slept - hand in hand.
Ziak’s call for
Scarlet came through early in the morning.
“We have found the
house. It is across the city from the warehouse and the neighbours say the men
who live there are reclusive and unfriendly.
I had two agents watch the house and about an hour ago they saw a man
they identified as Captain Black enter and leave some forty minutes later.”
Scarlet smiled,
“Many thanks Commander and please pass my congratulations to your surveillance
teams. “
“Captain, why do
you need to know this?”
“I have a plan; at
least I have the beginnings of a plan, which I hope will show us how to heal
Captain Blue.”
“How is the good
Captain?” Ziak asked.
Scarlet grimaced.
“Still with us, thank God. Ziak, if I
need more help when I come to Prague, will you give it?”
“Without doubt,
Captain. I too wish to see Captain Blue
healed.”
Scarlet smiled. “Keep
your fingers crossed then, all I have to do now is convince the Colonel it
could work. I’ll keep you informed.”
Colonel White heard him out in ominous
silence. As Scarlet’s voice came to a
stop, he said firmly, “Absolutely not.
It is far too dangerous.”
“Why?” Scarlet
questioned.
“You might get
yourself killed.”
“An occupational
hazard in my case,” Scarlet said dismissively.
“Permanently
killed,” White emphasized.
“I know; but
supposing, just supposing it works
and I manage to get Black into the geminator.
Perhaps we could regain him and discover
how to save Adam.”
“I forbid it,”
White repeated.
“Do you have a
better idea, Sir? Magenta, Fawn and
Green are running out of mice down there.
They cannot keep Blue under sedation forever, and how long before they
have to do it to Adam too? This is our
only lead. At least let me go to Prague
and try; I cannot sit here and do nothing.” The last part of this was a plea.
Colonel White
sighed; he knew Scarlet was capable of disobeying even his direct orders if he
felt justified in doing so. He had done
so once before in order to save the Colonel’s life. Nevertheless, White felt he must play by the book.
“The Regulations
state, Captain, “he began.
“Bugger the
regulations, sir! I am talking about
Adam Svenson!” Scarlet exploded.
“They state,”
White snapped sternly, “that Spectrum personnel will not put their personal
feelings before their duty, nor allow their feelings to take precedence over
their orders.”
“With respect,
sir,” Captain Scarlet said, making it obvious that he felt little respect for
anyone’ s authority at the present moment, “Spectrum personnel are not puppets;
we are flesh and blood like everyone else.
Without the very same personal feelings you seem to deplore, there would
be no loyalty, no camaraderie and no organization worthy of the name of
Spectrum. I have worked alongside Adam
Svenson for seven years and never once has he let me down. I do
not intend to fail him now. Black
wants me - very well, let him have me.
If I go willingly and we are prepared, we can turn the tables on him,
possibly regain Black and save
Adam. I am willing to try. All you have to do is let me.”
Colonel White
looked at the younger man; he saw no willingness to compromise in the sharp
blue eyes, set chin and tightly compressed lips and he knew the futility of
arguing with him once Scarlet had convinced himself of the wisdom of his
decision.
“Very well,” the
Colonel said, “but I have severe reservations about this whole escapade. Nothing must be left to chance.”
“It won’t be - I
have too much at stake to be careless.” Scarlet thought of Rhapsody’s beautiful
face creased with worry lines as he explained his plan to her.
“Your life most of
all, Captain,” White said forcefully.
“And Adam’s,”
Scarlet added with a slight frown. He had one last person to convince before he
could begin.
Three hours later,
closeted in Ziak’s office with the door firmly shut against being overheard,
Magenta read the Colonel’s orders through in stunned silence. He looked at Captain Scarlet. “You are going
to surrender to Captain Black?”
“Not so’s you
would notice. But Black has to believe
it. I must get him here and you must be
ready so that when I do, everything goes smoothly. We’re running out of time, Pat, there is no second chance with
this.”
Magenta sighed and
scratched his chin. “Okay, run it past me one more time,” he said.
The Czech agents
left Scarlet in the next street to the suspects’ house and retreated as
instructed. Scarlet slowly made his way
to the front of the house and, hiding behind a convenient wall, he watched the
place through Spectrum binoculars. He
could see people moving inside the house, but he could not identify them. Glancing at his watch he frowned; there just
wasn’t time for a long stake-out. He
made one last check of his equipment including the wire-tap Lieutenant Green
had inserted into the right hand epaulette of his tunic. That should pick up much of any conversation
as well as transmit a tracer beacon to the monitors in the warehouse.
“I’m going towards
the house. With luck it shouldn’t bee
too long before they see me,” Scarlet said, hoping someone was listening. There was no response loop in the system. “Here goes nothing,” he said more to himself
as he crept, amateurishly across the road, making himself more than obvious by
his exaggerated attempts to remain hidden.
He prayed the ground officers were right in saying that Black was not
there and that the Mysteron agents in the house were as inexperienced as he
thought.
Creeping around
the back entrance to the house Scarlet made as much noise as he could without
being blatantly obvious and was relieved to see the door open and one of the
agents slip out.
“Thank Heavens, I
was beginning to think they were all deaf!” he muttered.
He allowed himself
to be surprised and put up a spirited but intentionally pointless defence of
himself. The young Mysteron finally
thought to crack him over the head with his pistol butt and almost with
thankfulness, Scarlet collapsed in what he hoped was a convincing faint. He opened his eyes after they had dragged
him none too gently inside the house. He groaned and put his hand to his head,
glancing up to see the two men who had been wearing the white coats at the
warehouse laboratory - presumably Fencl and his son - and the third man who had
been shooting at him in the warehouse - the man Blue claimed to have shot! Well,
at least we have the right place, he thought.
“Do not move
Earthman.” Dr Fencl said in heavily accented English.
“You will not
succeed in holding me here,” Scarlet said. “My colleagues will find out where I
am.”
“No doubt, but you
will not be here for long.”
Scarlet wordlessly
thanked Green for his tracer. “What do you intend to do with me?” he asked.
“Wait and
see.”
Scarlet tried to
struggle to his feet and was pushed back down by the younger man.
“Watch him
carefully, Josef, and if he moves - shoot him,” Fencl said dourly.
Thereafter he sat
hunched in the corner, praying that Black would arrive before too long. He begrudged every wasted minute as he
thought of Adam and Blue on Cloudbase.
Some twenty minutes later, there was a cold draught of air and he looked
up to see Captain Black enter the room.
“Welcome Captain
Scarlet, we meet again,” he said.
“Captain Black you
won’t get away with this!” Scarlet said, suddenly conscious that he was
over-acting. Black would not be as easily fooled as his agents had been.
“You don’t know
what we intend to do for a start, Captain.
The Mysterons instruction will be carried out - whatever the cost.”
“Spectrum won’t
risk the lives of innocent people to try to save me.”
“Come, come
Captain. You don’t believe that, do
you? Spectrum will do a great deal to
save its best agent, surely?”
“Have you already
forgotten the oaths we take on entering the service, Captain?”
“I forget
nothing. Yet Spectrum will be as
helpless as the other forces you have ranged against us when its premier
officers, Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue, become as one with the Mysterons!”
“What did you do
to Captain Blue?” Scarlet asked, scrambling to his feet.
Black smiled in
derision. “Are you two still holding each other’s hands, Metcalfe? I should have thought you and Svenson would
have learned how to look after yourselves by now.”
“He’s safe on
Cloudbase where you cannot get to him and I am here to discover just what you
have done to him.”
Black smiled
again. “We won’t need to get to him; he will come to us. Once the geminator has done its work and the
clone has absorbed its host, Blue will be controlled by the Mysterons and he
will work with us - so will you, Scarlet, once you have experienced the power
of the geminator.”
“You will need to
kill him before you can ‘control’ him and Cloudbase is heavily fortified,”
Scarlet said, dismissively.
“No, the clones do
not need to be killed, that is their big advantage - they are no longer true
human beings, merely wraiths of their former selves. Mind control is a much easier matter with them.”
Scarlet looked
closely at the face of his former comrade-in-arms and asked quietly, “Is that
what they did to you, Conrad? Is that
why you are under their spell?”
Black looked away
angrily, and spoke to the scientists, “Bind his hands and take him to the
car. We are going to the warehouse.”
Scarlet struggled
against the encircling ropes, largely because it was expected of him, but they
were tied with ruthless efficiency and he could feel his hands going numb even
before they reached the small, black, anonymous car outside on the side road. He was shoved into the back, squashed
between Miroslav and Josef. Black sat
in the front passenger seat, watching him with empty, dark eyes; it made
Scarlet’s flesh creep, although he was surprised to note that his usual nausea
in the company of Mysterons was absent.
The journey across
the city seemed to take an age, as the traffic was bad and the bridges
congested. Scarlet hoped the tap wire
had relayed all the information to his colleagues in the warehouse and that
Cloudbase now knew what the ultimate fate of Captain Blue would be if either of
the ‘twins’ managed to gain control of the other. Before he had left, the Colonel had warned him that neither he
nor Blue would be spared if the plan went wrong and they became Mysterons.
He knew from past
conversations with Captain Blue that being mysteronised was something his
friend genuinely feared and they had a mutual pact that if either of them
should fall under the thrall of the Aliens, they would put an end to each
other’s existence at the first opportunity. Now
there’s a possibility that Spectrum will do the job for us, Scarlet thought
ruefully. He screwed his eyes against the distorting curtain of the rain on the
car windows and thought he recognized the passing streets from the area around
the warehouse.
The car drew up in
the dark shadow of a building and Black got out. Peering out of the
window Scarlet saw Black talking to another man in the shadow of the building
opposite. He suspected there must be
more Mysteron agents and he hoped that the numbers were limited to the few he
could see. Black came back to the car and opened the door. Josef got out and Miroslav pushed Scarlet after
him. He landed awkwardly in a puddle and was rudely hauled to his feet by
Josef.
As Black started to walk towards the
warehouse Scarlet, hustled along by the younger Mysterons, hoped the occupants
were ready inside. He couldn’t see any
sign of Ziak’s men, which is as it should
be, he thought trying to reassure himself.
If he could see them, then so could Captain Black. He must never forget that Conrad Turner had
been an exemplary agent in his time.
As they neared the
workroom, the procession stopped and the scientists produced their guns. From
out of the gloom there appeared another five men, all armed and Scarlet could
tell by the wave of nausea that now
affected him that they were all Mysterons.
He suppressed his sickness enough to wonder if the difference was due to
the younger men, at least, being clones.
Black kicked the
door open with his booted foot and Scarlet saw his Spectrum colleagues start
with commendable surprise, as the room was invaded by the Mysterons.
“Captain Black!”
Magenta gasped and reached for his gun, as Green made to contact Cloudbase.
“Stand down,
Captain Magenta, Lieutenant Green,” Black said levelly. “Unless you want to see
the end of Captain Scarlet.”
“That’s no threat,
Black,” Magenta snarled.
Black gave a
slight shake of his head. “Do not underestimate the power of the
Mysterons. I could kill Scarlet before
you could shoot that weapon. But there
are other ways to ensure your compliance, Captain,” he turned his dark eyes on
Scarlet, held between the two scientists who had their guns pointed as his
head.
Scarlet felt a
sharp and increasingly acute pain between his eyes; he blinked, frowning as the
pain grew, and a moan escaped from his lips and he grew pale. Fresh waves of
nausea threatened to overwhelm him and he shivered uncontrollably, as his
consciousness ebbed away under the onslaught.
Fawn moved forward to assist the distressed man, but Dr Fencl swung his
gun towards him and motioned him to stay away.
Dr Giardello came to stand alongside and the two men exchanged worried
glances.
Black gave a
satisfied smile and looked away. “Scarlet’s much vaunted sixth sense for the
presence of Mysteron agents cannot withstand the infinite, unbridled power of
the Mysterons! If I wanted to, I could
leave you a man with the mind of an imbecile.
Now, do as I say.”
Magenta lowered
his hand and dropped the gun to the floor, as Lieutenant Green moved away from
the consol and raised his hands. Under
Black’s expressionless gaze, the Spectrum personnel shuffled together. Doctor Fawn put a comforting hand on Green’s
shoulder, sensing the younger man’s concern.
The Mysteron
agents came and stood guard over the Spectrum personnel, pushing them away from
the control panels and the archway.
Fencl had already moved to the panel and was busily entering codes and
watching readouts scroll across the screen.
“Take him to the
geminator.” Black watched as his agents dragged the still dazed Scarlet to the
archway. Weakened by Black’s assault,
his struggles were useless as they untied his hands, stripped him of his
uniform and clasped the handcuffs shut around his wrists. Fencl went to the
control panel as his assistant checked the panel on the archway. They spoke in Czech, as they went through
the initiation sequence.
Doctor Fawn looked
at the helpless figure of Scarlet, still fighting his nausea and wondered if
the man would stand the onslaught of this machine. From what they had been able to piece together, whatever it did
happened at a very basic molecular level and none of the mice they had
experimented on had survived the operation.
“What will happen
to him, Conrad?” Fawn asked somewhat distractedly.
Black turned with
a hint of surprise in his eyes. “Once
the machine has been recalibrated, he will be replicated and the weak human
side of his nature will be absorbed.
Then he will take his place alongside me as the servant of the
Mysterons. In time we will be joined by Captain Blue and Spectrum will be
weakened to the point of futility.”
“And if it doesn’t
work?” Giardello asked.
“Then perhaps you
had better say goodbye to him now - there won’t be much left,” Black replied
casually. He turned to Dr Fencl who was
speaking to him. “Well, use the machine anyway - if the fools from Spectrum
have disrupted the program, it cannot be helped. Start the process now, Doctor, the Mysterons’ orders must be
carried out.”
Lieutenant Green’s
moan of despair accompanied the switching on of the geminator. Magenta looked away as the electrical
pulses seared through Scarlet’s body and he screamed, arching his back against
the pain - this was the part of Scarlet’s carefully crafted strategy that had
filled the Colonel with such concern and, quite frankly, it scared the bejesus
out of him! Scarlet was taking an awful
risk - not that that was any great surprise. He could be rash to the point of
stupidity in Magenta’s humble opinion, at least with his own safety. Still, he wished Scarlet had talked it
through with Captain Blue before starting, but Scarlet had refused to put his
friend under the pressure of accepting
the ‘rescue plan’.
Fawn took another step towards the archway
only to be restrained by Giardello’s hand on his arm.
“Stop it!” Fawn
shouted. “Can’t you see you are killing him?
Electricity is the one weakness we have found in his invulnerability.”
Black glanced
across at the small group of Spectrum men and said nothing. He looked back to the scientists and nodded. The pulse rate increased in response to
Fencl’s command. Scarlet’s screams
echoed through the room once more.
Green put his hand over his ears and turned away. Fawn patted his shoulder; he knew how the
young man was feeling - the slight smell of burning flesh was making him
nauseous too.
“For the love of
God, Conrad - stop this!” Magenta pleaded.
Miroslav Fencl
went to the control panel on the archway and made a few adjustments and as the
pulses settled down to a constant wave. Scarlet lost consciousness and slumped,
held upright by the handcuffs. Minutes
later, Fencl cut the power and the two Mysterons unclipped the handcuffs and
let the body crash to the floor.
“How long?” Black
asked curtly.
Fencl shrugged and
replied, “The Earthmen have tampered with the program, but not enough to render
it harmless. I estimated that after
we had made our final modifications, the replication should take a few minutes
only - I don’t think that should have changed, but we have not had time enough
to ascertain what they managed to throw out of kilter.”
“I hope we do not
have to wait around here. Spectrum will
get curious if their precious Scarlet is missing for too long,” Black said,
nudging the crumpled body of his adversary with his booted foot. “You had better hope it is merely minutes,
Doctor.”
Giardello was
watching Scarlet intently and consequently he was the first to notice the
softening of the outline of the body.
He nudged Fawn and pointed towards their stricken colleague moments
before another series of screams rang around the room. Black looked pleased and moved away
slightly. The body convulsed, quaking and shivering until it seemed to blur. A
second body slithered from the original and they lay side by side beneath the
archway, both gasping for breath.
“Congratulations,
Dr Fencl, your machine works,” Black said. “Revive them both.”
The scientists
dragged the bodies apart and slapped both of them across the face until their
eyes opened.
Scarlet sat up and
glanced across at his doppelganger with a sense of despair. He felt exhausted and every nerve seemed to
be sending red hot pulses of pain back to his confused brain. He felt a fresh wave of sympathy for Adam -
if he’d experienced even half of this he had done well to keep sane! He was
completely self-aware - he knew he was Paul Metcalfe and that the other man was
merely his clone. But he wondered if
the other Scarlet felt the same thing with such confidence and once more felt
an empathy with his friend back on Cloudbase.
Fencl threw down
two grey boiler suits at the ‘twins’ and suddenly embarrassed by his own
nakedness Scarlet wriggled into one of them, fumbling with the buttons and
zips. His replicant did not seem to be
any better coordinated. Black ordered him to his feet and still unsteady on
legs that seemed to have turned to jelly, Scarlet dragged himself upright.
“How do you feel,
Captain?” Black asked, looking intently from one to the other.
“Guess,” Scarlet
grated back. “It was a laugh a minute as you could see.” He glanced at the
clone, expecting his response.
“You will not be
making jokes once the absorption is complete,” Black snarled. He turned to the other man who had not
spoken as yet.
“Who are you?” he
asked. The other Scarlet slowly raised his sharp blue eyes and stared in
silence. “Answer me,” Black ordered. The man opened his mouth, but there was no
sound. Black turned to Fencl, incandescent with rage. “What has gone wrong?”
Fencl shrugged and
turned away from the twins. “I told you they had tampered with it - there
wasn’t time to check every procedure.
It would appear the speech centres of the brain were not replicated.”
“But once the
clone has absorbed the human, this will be corrected, won’t it? What use to us is a Scarlet unable to
speak?”
Fencl shrugged
again, supremely indifferent to Black‘s anger. “It is possible, Captain.”
Blinking fiercely
and shaking his head in an effort to focus on the problem in hand, Scarlet
found his voice again. “Whoops,” he said, “just a little slip up there, eh Conrad? But what makes you think that the clone is
the one you want? How can you tell that
I am not the Mysteron?” He was asking
himself the same question as he reviewed the changes in himself with almost
heart-stopping stupefaction.
Black turned to
him with a slight show of uncertainty. “I could kill you both and see which one
revives,” he suggested with a threatening smile.
“And stop the
absorption process? That will please
our masters,” Scarlet said with increasing self-assurance. So, Black could not tell them apart but he
thought the retrometabolism would only show itself in the Mysteron and that the
clone was the Mysteron. Yet familiar sensations within his
pain-wracked body suggested to Scarlet that that might not be the case; he was
desperately thirsty for one thing. He
reached across and picked up a screwdriver from the console. “If you cannot
tell, well, let’s find out shall we?”
He drove it into his hand with a ferocity that made his Spectrum
colleagues gasp. He shuddered from the
pain and dropped the screwdriver, cradling his hand against his chest. Black came closer, as interested to see the
result as Scarlet.
Scarlet held out
his hand, the blood dripping from the wound onto the floorboards. He willed it to stop shaking and held it rigidly
outstretched for a few minutes while the blood flow gradually slowed to a stop
and the wound began to repair itself.
Black was
impressed. “Perhaps you have not failed our masters, Fencl.” He smiled at
Scarlet. “Soon you will have absorbed the weaker clone and be ready to join me
in our war of nerves.”
“Paul,” Fawn
pleaded, “fight against it. Captain
Blue has managed to hold out against this process, you can surely do as much.”
“Why should I want
to Doctor?” Scarlet said, swaggering towards the group of Spectrum officers, “I
have never felt so… alive, nor so powerfully aware of my invulnerability.”
Fawn looked
carefully at him, he knew Scarlet better than any man here. He seemed to be almost
bursting with excitement and there was some colour in his face and a light in
his deep blue eyes that had not been present before. Fawn compared it with his usual pallor and a suspicion began to
grow in his mind.
Scarlet returned
the Doctor’s gaze with a slight smile, careful to keep his back to Captain
Black, who was watching him with intense interest. Magenta moved slightly and started to edge behind Scarlet,
between him and Captain Black.
“Scarlet,” Black
warned.
Scarlet spun round
and swung a sudden punch at Magenta causing him to double with pain and fall to
his knees. Hastily, Fawn bent to assist
his colleague,
“There was no need
for that,” he muttered. “What harm could he do you?”
“None.” Scarlet
looked down at his injured hand - the same hand which had just delivered the
blow and glanced across at Black. “With you and I and soon Captain Blue to
serve them, the Mysterons will be victorious.” He haughtily extended the
injured hand towards Black, displaying the newly formed scar tissue.
“You traitor!” Green snapped, throwing
himself against the arrogant figure in angry frustration. “Captain Scarlet
would never have betrayed his friends!”
Scarlet easily
threw the young man to the ground and laughed. “You are quite right, Captain
Black, when Adam joins us, these puny Earthmen will not be able to withstand
us!”
The other Scarlet
had fallen to his knees and was slowly choking as he tried to catch his breath.
Scarlet moved closer to him and put his hands on his shoulders, throwing back
his head and almost crowing. “Soon, even you
will do as I say, Conrad - the
Mysterons will have a servant worthy of them, at last!”
Black raised one
eyebrow and considered the all too vital figure of his former adversary. The
Mysterons had expected more resistance to their control than this, but perhaps
the re-emergent Mysteron within Scarlet was still fighting the emotions
inherent in his human personality. Once
the absorption was complete, Scarlet would surely settle into a more
conventional behaviour. It was the fact that he had been for so long beyond
their control that must account for these emotional outbursts. Still, he wished
he could feel the comforting certainty of the presence of the Mysterons in his
own mind, now was not an opportune time for them to neglect their support of
him. A slight wave of unease caused him
to swallow compulsively whilst Scarlet seemed to grow in strength even as the
weaker clone sank further to the floor.
“What are you
going to do with us?” Lieutenant Green asked, as he watched horrified at
Scarlet’s transformation.
“A little
assimilation, Lieutenant. Security on
Cloudbase won’t be able to tell you are Mysterons and you can assist Captain
Blue with taking control of the base,” Captain Black said. “This is working out
even better than expected.” He looked towards Scarlet for confirmation that the
man agreed with him.
Scarlet was
standing head down, watching as the replicant finally dissolved into an
indistinct mass and was absorbed by his bare feet.
“Much better,”
Scarlet said with less vitality than he had previously displayed. There was almost an air of sadness about
him. Suddenly his head snapped up and
he moved swiftly to the Spectrum men obscuring Black’s view of them. “Best to
make a start - who wants to be first?”
Magenta moved with
lightning speed and pushed Giardello behind the wooden crates as Scarlet shoved
Fawn out of the Mysterons’ line of fire.
Magenta drew his second weapon - one of the prototype electron pistols
Scarlet had brought down from Cloudbase and took out one enemy agent with a
whoop of delight. Scarlet grabbed the
gun the dead Mysteron had been using, prepared to lay down covering fire, as
Magenta waited for the pistol to recharge. But it was not necessary - confused,
the Mysterons were milling about, as if lacking instructions. Black was apparently as uncertain as them;
he watched in confusion, shaking his head as if he could not make sense of what
he was seeing.
Green joined
Scarlet in covering Magenta, and Scarlet turned his pistol on Black.
“Tell them to
surrender, Captain,” he ordered as Ziak’s men burst through the door and
trained their weapons on the Mysterons.
Black was still
confused. He waited for the Mysterons
to tell him what to do, but his mind remained empty. He could not remember feeling so alone since… since his journey
to Mars. Why had his masters deserted
him? His confusion grew and he just stared speechless at his agents.
Scarlet stepped
into the command vacuum and snapped orders to Fencl. “Put him in the geminator.” He pointed at Captain Black.
Confused, the
Doctor moved towards Captain Black.
Lieutenant Green came to help, cheerfully handcuffing their adversary to
the archway. Black began to struggle,
as if he was just starting to realise his predicament.
“You will loose me!” He screamed as the first
set of cuffs snapped shut, although he was not addressing anyone in the room.
“Doctor Fawn,
throw the switch! We don’t have long!” Scarlet shouted, rushing to the computer
console, where Fawn’s hands were hovering uncertainly over the control
panel. As Magenta grabbed Black’s arm
and hoisted it to the last handcuff Fawn pressed the power and the current
started to pulse through Black’s body.
His head dropped and he moaned with pain. Miroslav moved mechanically to the archway panel and adjusted the
dials, increasing the frequency of the pulse.
Black’s head came upright and he screamed, his body taut with the flow
of the current. His features became indistinct
as expressions swept across that usually impassive face and his screams grew in
their intensity.
“It isn’t
working,” Magenta said, wincing as he watched the violent process.
“This is the process the Mysterons used on
Black whilst he was on Mars - he wasn’t killed and Mysteronised in their usual
way of doing things on Earth. We can’t
let him out, this is our only chance -
increase the voltage,” Scarlet said through gritted teeth.
Black had passed
out and he hung limply from the handcuffs.
Mechanically, Fencl unlocked them and lowered the body to the
floor. Scarlet approached him and bent
to touch the pale skin. Black was cold
to the touch.
“Is he dead?”
Giardello whispered.
“No, there is a
pulse,” Scarlet turned to reach out again and as he did so Black’s body faded
from their view and he vanished.
“NO!” Scarlet roared and slammed his hand
into the archway. “No!”
All the remaining
Mysteron agents suddenly dropped to the floor lifeless, as the Mysterons turned
from them. Those amongst the Spectrum personnel that had never seen the
phenomenon before gasped in astonishment, but Scarlet merely sighed and shared
a rueful glance with Magenta, for so many human lives destroyed in pursuit of
revenge.
“Scarlet, come
away from there, you don’t know what a second dose of that will do to you,”
Doctor Giardello ordered.
“What happened to
Black?” Lieutenant Green stammered.
“The Mysterons
have reclaimed him, I guess,” Magenta said, coming to stand beside Scarlet,
still kneeling on the floor beside the archway. “It was always the most likely
scenario that they would save him at the last.”
“And we have no
way of knowing if it ‘cured’ him,” Green said with a sigh.
“They took control
of him again,” Scarlet said. “They can’t afford to loose him - he is the
conduit for their power.”
Doctor Fawn came and
bent down to examine Scarlet, shining a pencil torch into his eyes and taking
his pulse. “How do you know that?”
“I learned a
lot when he turned their power on me
and in the geminator. There was an
almost unlimited power there - seemingly omnipotent and unyielding. They could
have taken him back at any time, but they chose to wait until he had been
'punished' enough. It seems that
Captain Black has been experiencing too many moments of 'human weakness'
lately." Scarlet dropped his head into his hands. “Poor Conrad, fancy having to share your
head with that forever!”
“You are lucky you
won’t have to,” Fawn said briskly, standing and putting his torch away. “You
look as disgustingly healthy as always, Captain Scarlet.”
“What was it
like?” Green voiced the question they all wanted to ask.
“Oh, the
insatiable curiosity of the young,” Scarlet sighed, getting to his feet. “Hell,
how do I know what it was like? It was
like having red-hot needles pushed into every nerve ending and then having
someone jump up and down on them for good measure. It was like sweating buckets in a sauna. It was like drowning and
suffocating all at once.” He glanced at the horrified expressions on his friend’s
faces and the vehemence left his voice as he concluded, “It wasn’t nice,
Lieutenant, and believe me I’ve experienced some pretty unpleasant sensations
in my time.”
“I think a spell
in sickbay will do you good - just in case,” Fawn said soberly. “You certainly
had me thinking we had lost you back there.”
The other three
nodded.
“Especially when
you belted Magenta,” said Lieutenant Green.
“He didn’t belt
me, he pulled the punch and I dropped,” Magenta said with a smile at Green. “We
had to convince the Mysterons he had turned. And you must admit he was pretty
convincing. The simple fact that he didn‘t take the electron pistol from me was
enough to let me hope he was - still one
of us!”
“Did you know that
trick with the screwdriver was going to work?” Giardello asked.
“It wasn’t a
trick!” Scarlet said affronted. “It
bloody well hurt.”
“But it’s healed,”
Fawn said, taking the hand and examining it.
There was a scar where the wound had been and he knew from experience
that would be gone by morning.
“Yes, it’s
healed,” Scarlet gave a mischievous grin. “I was bloody lucky there!”
“You didn’t know
for sure?” Green gasped. “You took the risk?”
Scarlet’s grin
grew even broader. “Sometimes you just have to trust your luck.”
“Holy Mother, I
thought you must have known,” Magenta
sighed. “Remind me never to play poker with you again; you’re getting too good
at bluffing.”
That eased the
tension and everyone smiled. Fawn and Giardello made their way back to their
workstations and Magenta and Scarlet began to make arrangements for the bodies
of the mysteronised scientists to be collected and disposed of by Commander
Ziak’s ground forces.
Lieutenant Green
sprang across the room as the communications panel bleeped urgently. “That will
be the Colonel,” he predicted as he went.
They all heard the
Colonel’s voice over the speaker, “We have seen and heard most of what happened
down there. Well done Captain Scarlet,
it was a valiant effort.”
“Thank you
sir," Scarlet said with a rueful glance at Magenta.
"Still, it hasn’t really solved the
problem of Captain Blue, has it? We
still don’t know if he can safely go in the machine," Colonel White said
with remorseless logic.
“I ’m sure he can,
Colonel. Captain Black survived a
second dose - even though the Mysterons took him back afterwards.” Scarlet
said, although he sounded less confident than he had.
“Give us some time
to analyse the data recorders we put into the system before all this started,
sir. We may learn more from those,”
Magenta said.
“We still don’t
have much time, Patrick,” Scarlet reminded him.
“We’ll make time,”
Magenta said and went towards the computer terminals to begin his work.
Cloudbase
- the next morning.
Doctor Fawn was as
good as his word and put Scarlet through a rigorous physical examination on
their return to Cloudbase. He also ran a complete set of blood tests, scans and
tissue analysis. He reported to the
Colonel, in a class one confidential report that Scarlet was, as far as his
science could tell, totally unaffected by his traumatic experience in the
geminator. He was not so sure though,
that the experience had not had an effect on the victim’s mental state. Scarlet
had been evasive in many of his replies to Fawn's questions about what exactly
did had happened to him in Prague.
Currently, Scarlet
seemed overly concerned to learn that since they had been discovered sleeping
side by side, the two ‘Svensons’ had spent all of their time together. Doctor Tan's report to his superior that
Blue was much calmer but it was noticeable that Adam was becoming more
volatile, had caused Scarlet's frown to deepen. Yet he still refused to give detailed answers to Fawn's
questions.
The downside of this rapprochement between them was that neither Svenson was
prepared to sleep now - since waking
together, sweating with the horror of
untold nightmares the last time they slept.
The strain had quickly become apparent and Tan had taken the decision to
sedate them both for their own good.
Blue had become agitated at this, apparently believing there was some
'plot' to strengthen Adam at his expense.
Adam finally calmed him down and convinced him to return to his own
room, by allowing Tan to sedate him first.
Scarlet sat by
Adam’s bed, watching his friend with a troubled expression. Fawn was almost
tempted to wake Adam from his sedated rest, as he had long suspected that
Captain Blue was Scarlet’s ‘father confessor’, and he guessed that whatever
ailed Scarlet, it would take that unique brand of patient, uncritical
friendship to worm it out of him.
Symphony, still
signed off duty, came down to sickbay with Rhapsody to see their men-folk, but
the presence of his fiancée only seemed to make Scarlet more morose. Finally, Fawn could take it no longer and he
ordered Scarlet to go and eat something.
“Yes, come on
Paul. I promised Calypso that we would
all lunch together and she’s anxious to meet you again,” Rhapsody said with a
bright smile.
“Oh, I don’t know,
Dianne, I’m not much company at present.
I’m sure Calypso would be better off dining with someone else.”
“No, she wants to
meet you and Adam’s not going to wake up yet.” Rhapsody glanced at Karen, who
was also moping. “For Heaven’s sake you two!
Let’s go eat and try to look as if it’s not going to be your last meal!”
Fawn smiled as he
watched Rhapsody chivvy them along the corridor. If anyone could liven them up it was Dianne!
Half an hour or so
after their departure, Adam woke from his enforced sleep; he yawned, blinked
uncertainly and looked at Fawn’s smiling face with some confusion.
“Hello there; how
are you feeling?”
“As if I’ve been
asleep for decades,” Adam muttered. “I’m famished.”
“Let’s assume
that’s a good sign. I’ll order you a
light meal.”
“Steak would be
nice,” Adam said without much hope. “With a glass of red wine.”
“A plain omelette
and a little salad would be best, I think, with a glass of milk.” Fawn
demurred.
“Okay, what crime
did I commit in my sleep to be punished with a meal like that?” Adam grimaced
and struggled to sit upright. “I could
eat a horse - saddle and all.”
“You sound like
Blue,” Fawn said with a hint of concern in his voice. Adam’s suppressed appetite had been one of the most obvious
differences between the two of them.
“How am I? ... Eh... how is he, I mean?” Adam shook his
head with some confusion.
“That does it,”
Fawn went and called Javorsky in the next room. “Please revive Blue. Adam is showing signs of not knowing which
of them he is.”
“SIG.” Doctor
Javorsky said briskly. Minutes later she came back on the intercom. “Blue is
also confused and rather unhappy about it.”
Fawn could hear some ripe language coming
from the patient. “Are you able to walk?”
He asked Adam, who nodded, so he unhooked the monitors and helped him
from the bed and across to the next room.
Blue was sitting
on the edge of his bed cursing under his breath; he glanced angrily at the new
arrivals. “Oh great, now I have to tolerate him as well!” he muttered and
carried on with his invective.
Adam sat in the
armchair by the bed and after a few minutes snapped something in a foreign
language which sent Blue to a shocked silence and then reduced him to weak
laughter. The twins exchanged conspiratorial smiles and Blue relaxed back onto
his bed.
“What was all that
about?” Fawn asked Adam.
“Its personal -
you wouldn’t understand.” It was obvious that he wasn’t going to tell.
“I didn’t know you
could speak…eh, Swedish,” he hazarded conversationally as he started to take
Blue’s blood pressure.
“My Grandfather
taught me - it comes in useful sometimes…” Blue answered.
“…Especially
because Mom never learned to speak it,” Adam finished the sentence.
Fawn and Javorsky
shared a glance and Fawn said, “I’ll see to that lunch you wanted.”
“Steak,
medium-rare with all the trimmings. Twice,” Blue said, whilst Adam nodded in
agreement.
“This is getting more alarming with every
minute,” Javorsky said.
Fawn went to the
intercom and spoke to the Colonel, appraising him of the latest development and
then, with a shrug at his young companion, ordered two steaks with all the
trimmings.
The twins were
busy eating their lunches, pinching things from each other’s plates and talking
in half sentences to each other, when Scarlet and the three Angels came into
the sickbay.
Calypso was a
tall, dark-haired woman in her late twenties. She came from Johannesburg and
had been a pilot with the WAAF before being selected for Spectrum
training. It had been Captain Blue who
had delivered the specialist part of that training - on the Angel Interceptors,
some years ago now, but as he still acted as a quasi-official 'line manager'
and their link to the Colonel and Spectrum's resources, Calypso knew him fairly
well. Even though her companions had
warned her what to expect, she stared in open disbelief at the sight of the
twins.
“Hello there, Keptin,” she managed to gasp after a
lengthy silence.
“Calypso, how nice
to see you,” they replied simultaneously.
Blue gave her a
bright smile and winked at her confusion.
Old habits die hard, Scarlet
thought with amusement.
“Please excuse
us,” Adam said. “We’re still having lunch, because…“
“…Fawn took ages
to order it,” Blue finished the sentence. He helped himself to an onion ring
from Adam’s plate at the same moment as Adam speared a mushroom from his. Both
men raised their glasses and drank some of the beer they had been allowed to
have with their lunch.
“What is this -
synchronised eating?” Rhapsody asked in amusement.
“Damn nearly
synchronised everything,” Fawn admitted. “They sneezed in unison a couple of
minutes ago.”
Scarlet looked
alarmed. “We’re running out of time.”
“How do you know
that?” Fawn asked directly, determined not to let Scarlet escape with half
answers this time. “Captain Scarlet,
every little bit of information you can give me might assist Captain Blue.”
Ignoring him,
Scarlet sat next to Adam, who pushed a bowl of fries towards him with a smile.
“What wrong,
Paul?” Blue asked, with some concern.
Scarlet looked
from one to the other, the edges between them were beginning to blur; Blue was
acting with far more restraint and Adam was more light-hearted than he had
been, although neither one seemed to have the upper edge. Remembering how it had felt when he had
reabsorbed the weak clone, he shuddered, wondering if the two Adam Svensons
were experiencing the same feelings.
“Do you guys know
what’s happening?”
The twins looked
at each other, and Blue said, “I think we do, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we do,”
Adam agreed.
“And?” Scarlet
asked pointedly.
They both
shrugged. “What can we do about it?” Adam asked.
“Presumably, one
of us will end up in control, but I can’t see that it matters all that much
which of us it is. Hell, Paul, could be worse,” Blue said.
“Once this
happens, it leaves you vulnerable to the Mysterons!” Scarlet snapped. “They can
get into your head without having to kill you first - you will become what
Captain Black called a wraith!”
“Wicked,” Blue
said rolling his eyes.
“Spooky,” Adam agreed.
“For crying out
loud, will you take this seriously?” Scarlet said, smiling despite
himself.
“Adam, what’s
happening to you?” Karen asked coming over to the table.
Blue patted the
seat next to him. “Sit here, Honey.” he said with a pleading smile.
Karen looked at
Adam who twitched his eyebrows upwards and swigged his beer. She perched next to Blue, warning, “One hand
where it shouldn’t be - just one - and you’re dead.”
Blue held both
hands up, “I’ll be good.”
“Oh-ho, yeah,”
Adam sniggered.
Scarlet put a hand
on Adam’s arm and made him look at him. “You will become a Mysteron agent; the
very thing you always said you feared more than anything. Doesn’t that make you
concerned?”
To his
consternation, Adam jumped up, flushed with anger and pushed the table away,
upsetting the beer. “It scares me rigid, as if you didn’t know! But what can we do? What
can I do?” He pressed the heel of his palms into his eye sockets and his
long fringe of blond hair fell across his fingers. Blue went to stand alongside
his ‘twin’. The pair rested against each other, head to head and Scarlet
blanched to see a softening of their outlines.
“Keep away from
each other -contact makes it happen faster!” he said, moving between them,
surprised to see a spark of anger in both pair of smoky, blue eyes.
Karen led Blue
back to the table. She laid a hand on his shoulder and looked anxiously into
his face. He returned her gaze with a smile that was everything she expected
from Adam.
“Look, I think we
have to face it, before it gets too late. You have to decide what you want to
do - both of you. There are three
choices,” Scarlet counted on his fingers.
“Do nothing and risk becoming a Mysteron agent or use the geminator and
take the risk it won’t work.”
“And the third?”
Blue prompted, tearing his eyes away from Karen’s confused face.
Adam answered
bleakly, “Fall on our swords, like noble Romans.”
“No!” Karen almost
screamed her protest. “You cannot give up without even a fight. It’s just not like you, Adam.”
“I’m not sure we
know what is like us anymore,” Blue replied with a wry grin. The twins exchanged long, worried looks over
the distance between them, and then they made up their minds simultaneously.
Adam nodded as
Blue said, “We’ll go through the geminator - under certain conditions. If it doesn’t work and we come out as
Mysterons…”
They both looked
at Scarlet and said together, “You will have to kill us - both.”
He nodded curtly
without speaking.
Colonel White sat
with Doctor Fawn, studying the results Magenta and Green had extracted from
their computers. Adam and Blue had just
left them having discussed their decision with the Colonel.
Fawn looked up
from the paperwork. “If there was any other way and any more time, I would not
advise you to allow this,” he sighed. “As it is, Scarlet is convinced that time
is running out and that Blue and Adam are merging. He is also sure that when it happens it will leave Captain Blue
open to control by the Mysterons. I
cannot argue with him on that, he is the only one, apart from Captain Blue, who
has experienced the process and the Blues don’t seem to know much about it.”
“Do you think
they… he understands the risks?”
Fawn nodded. “He
knows alright. Whatever that machine did, it didn’t affect his intellect.”
The Colonel asked,
“Do you personally think it will work?”
Fawn ran his hand
through his dark hair. When he looked
up again the Colonel could see the strain on his face. “I wish I knew the
answer to that, Charles. I will do all I can to keep him alive through the process,
but what the result will be once it has finished, I have no idea.”
The Colonel
nodded; he knew it had been an unfair question, but he felt the need himself
for some reassurance. “Magenta and
Green have made very few alterations.
They took Scarlet’s suggestion to keep it on the settings used for him,
as Blue seems to think he triggered the machine when it was set up to deal with
Scarlet. We can only hope it works.”
Fawn nodded and
set the papers back on the table. “I had
better get back to sickbay and prepare whatever looks like a sensible first aid
bag for such a case.”
“Good luck,
Edward.”
“Thank you,
Colonel.”
Scarlet was so
tense that he was finding it hard to be polite in response to the sympathetic
expressions of good luck everyone wanted to offer. He resolved his problem by deciding to avoid everyone until it
was time to leave. He wandered the base
and ended up, as usual, on the Promenade Deck.
He stared down at Angel One, ready for launch on the flight deck below,
with Melody in the cockpit. His mind
was in turmoil, remembering his own suffering in the geminator and his hopes
that Adam could withstand it a second time. Even supposing his friend survived
the physical trauma, he hardly dared contemplate the awful possibility that
Adam would come out controlled by the Mysterons. He knew without any doubt that he would shoot him if that
happened, because he had promised it; but he could not bring himself to imagine
just what it would feel like killing Captain Blue.
“Think positive!” He told himself sternly. “This
is going to work - this has to work.”
“Paul?” He turned
to see Dianne standing some distance away from him. He scowled at her and turned away as she came closer; when she
gently put her hand on his arm, he jumped as if in pain.
“Paul, please: talk to me.”
He turned to look
at her, his blue eyes dark with foreboding. “I can’t, Dianne. I don’t know what to say.”
“I know you are
worried… about Adam and all of this. But, sweetheart, if you can’t even share
these things with me, it makes me
wonder, just how important is our relationship to you?” she hated herself even
as she asked the question. This kind of
pressure was just what he didn’t need right now and here she was making it
worse.
“It’s just about
the only thing that is keeping me sane right now - that’s how important you are
to me!” He hastened to reassure her, grasping her hand tightly, and she smiled
to see the affection surge into his eyes. He tried to answer her question, “I
am worried; worried that I’m missing something - something that might make all
the difference. I keep going over in my
mind what happened and I can’t pinpoint it, Di - I just can’t remember! It’s there; I know it and my inability to
remember could send my closest friend to his death!”
“Paul, you cannot
blame yourself for this! Adam knows the
risks - good grief, you’ve said yourself he weighs every risk factor before
he’ll even cross to the flight deck!” He smiled at her. “Look, if I can’t help, have you thought of
talking to Adam? Between you, you are
the only two who know anything about this machine and what it does, and perhaps
he can jog your memory - or even think of something himself - he’s a bright
lad, you know!”
He sighed and
admitted, “I called in before I came here, only he was on the videophone
talking to his mother.”
She frowned.
“How’s he doing that? I mean, she can’t be allowed to know there are two of
him.”
“Sound only, due
to some minor technical difficulty, I understand,” Scarlet grinned. “He thinks
of everything.”
“Well, I can’t
imagine he’ll be on the phone to Boston for that long. Karen says she has to nag him to call them
once a month, as it is.” She hesitated. “Look, let’s all go and have a drink
and something to eat, you, me, Karen, Adam and Blue.”
“The condemned man
ate a hearty meal…” Paul muttered.
“Stop it! Lets go and collect the others and we’ll
paint this floating den of wickedness
bright red - if not actually scarlet!”
“Floating den of
wickedness? Cloudbase?” He laughed outright. “What gave you that idea?”
“My Grandmother,
who’s just enough of a stickler to object to me living up here with all these
unmarried men.”
“Who does she
think you are - Messalina?”
Dianne laughed.
“Probably. Now jump to it Captain- at
the double, soldier!”
“Yes sir!”
They found Karen
in her quarters, sitting on the futon with Adam stretched out with his head in
her lap and Blue resting against her shoulder on the other side. She looked up and smiled in bemusement as
they came in on her invitation.
“My, you all look
cosy,” Dianne said with a grin at her friend.
“Yeah, aren’t we
just?” Karen laughed back, rolling her eyes towards the men who hemmed her in
like bookends.
Adam sat up and
swung his legs to the ground. “A meal in the restaurant, eh?” he said, “I just
might be able to eat something.”
“How did you know
I was going to suggest that?” Dianne gasped.
“Didn’t you say
something?” he asked Scarlet.
Scarlet shook his
head. “Not a word,” he turned to look at Blue, his eyes wide with shocked surprise.
“Adam!” he gasped.
“What?” they both
asked.
Frowning Scarlet
pointed at Blue. “You were thinking about Hawaii? And… what happened when you
and Karen went there last year.”
The three of them
looked at him in surprise, and Karen started to blush, turning to glare at Blue
as if he had been telling secrets.
“So he was,” Adam
said unperturbed. He hugged Karen who was getting ever more embarrassed.
“What did happen?” Dianne asked confused.
“Nothing you need
worry about,” Karen said quickly. “And nothing you had ever better mention
again, Metcalfe.”
“But how did Paul
know what Blue was thinking and Adam know about the restaurant?” Dianne
questioned them. “Can you read each other’s minds?”
The twins looked
at each other and then at Scarlet who was frowning as he struggled to focus on
the fuzzy thoughts just at the edge of his mind. “Yes, I think we can…” he
murmured. “At least I know what you’re thinking about - and you ought to be ashamed of yourself,
Blue.”
“His is a real one
track mind,” Adam said and laughed at his ‘twin.’
Karen looked
helplessly at Dianne and then back to the ‘twins’. “You two can do it with each
other?” They nodded. “But not with other people, I mean not with me!”
She was aghast.
“Honey, we don’t
need to read your mind,” Blue said with
a kiss in her direction.
“But now you can
do it with Paul?” Dianne asked. “When did all this start?” She nudged Scarlet
for an answer as he continued sniggering at whatever the twins were thinking
about.
“Just now - when
Blue was thinking about...”
“So you said
already,” Karen interrupted with some ferocity.
Scarlet bit his
lip and looked wide eyed at Adam, who was standing looking inappropriately
innocent by his side.
“What is going
on?” Dianne persisted, looking at Scarlet who was still trying to fight his
mounting amusement without much success. “And when did you two start
mind-reading each other?”
“Yeah, when - exactly?” Karen asked turning to glare
at the pair of them.
“Oh, ages ago,”
Blue said airily.
“Well, the other
night anyway,” Adam qualified. “I knew Blue couldn’t sleep and he knew... what
we had been talking about that afternoon.” He gave Karen an apologetic smirk.
“It’s been getting easier since it started,” he added thoughtfully. “But this
is the first time it’s ever happened with anyone else.”
“Oh great, this is
worse than ever!” Karen sighed. “Let’s go and eat, it might take all their
minds off… you know,” she suggested
with a despairing look at the grinning Scarlet.
Dianne turned to lead the way. “ I‘ll thank
you to keep your mind away from any comparable incidents you might be tempted
to recall, Captain Scarlet,” she said with a wave of her finger in his
direction.
“Way too late for
that,” Blue smiled as he offered his arm to Karen.
Dianne drew in a
sharp intake of breath and said, “Come along, Paul, you’ve got some explaining to do over dinner."
Karen grinned as Dianne swept past, apparently mollified
to think that the twins had equally compromising information on her friends!
As she waited for
Adam to take her other arm, a somewhat chastened Paul whispered to Karen, “I’m
surprised at you, Ms Wainwright.”
“Whatever
for? Didn’t you ever see From Here to Eternity?” She retorted and walked off with her arms
linked with the twins.
After
some discussion, Blue convinced them all to go to the official bistro situated
across from the Promenade Deck. This restaurant was the only place on Cloudbase
where you could - officially - get an alcoholic drink, apart from the VIP
restaurant, which was only used to entertain visiting non-Spectrum
personnel. The waitress service meant
that no-one could drink more than the regulation limit, but Scarlet discovered
that somehow Blue had charmed the waitress into bringing them additional
bottles of wine along with the
substantial meals both twins seemed prepared to consume.
Towards
the end of the meal Scarlet felt the beginning of a headache between his
eyes. He was surprised when a few
minutes later it hadn’t cleared. He frowned and looked across at Adam and Blue
who were both drinking their third - or was it fourth? - glass of red wine. He
concentrated, deliberately clearing his mind of conscious thought, and was
startled when he discovered he could hear a background hum. He focused on it and rode the thought waves
coming across the table. The twins were
both tipsy and wondering just what was going to happen when it came time to go
to bed. They seemed to be carrying on
a regular conversation with each other without speaking or stopping whatever
else they were doing or talking about.
This private communication was smattered with words Scarlet did not know
- Nordic words he guessed, and
occasionally with images that replaced whole sentences. Scarlet smirked and, unbidden, the thought
came into his conscious mind that Blue had a much wilder imagination than he
had ever credited the staid Captain Blue with. Moments later, both Svensons looked across at him, glaring at
the intrusion.
“You
two had better sober up, you’re giving me a headache,” he complained.
“Must
be awhile since you had one of those,” Karen smiled at him.
“Yes,
I had forgotten that life without retrometabolism can be a real pain,” he
joked.
“You
are not suggesting that you have lost that ability, or that Captain Blue will
have gained it?” Dianne almost choked on her wine.
Scarlet
laughed. “No, just how you all suffer!”
“You are becoming insufferable, Paul,” she warned him playfully.
Blue
punched numbers into the jukebox and coerced Karen into dancing with him. Adam watched languidly as his twin swung her
around, her laughter growing with every extravagant twirl.
“I
thought you said you couldn’t dance?” Rhapsody said to Adam, watching Blue’s
performance with surprise.
He
turned to her with a patronising smile. “Mrs Svenson’s sons have to be
proficient in every social grace and it’s not exactly rocket science. I endured
so many lessons as a child that it’s just something I can’t be bothered with
any longer, but Blue doesn’t think like that - he likes to be doing something.”
“You’ll be telling me you can sing next,” she
retorted irritated by his condescending tone.
“’Fraid
not,” he laughed, his normal good humour reasserting itself. “Not all the
lessons in the World can do much about that!”
Following
the example of Blue and Symphony several other patrons had started to dance.
After a few minutes a somewhat hesitant Lieutenant Sorrel came across and asked
Rhapsody if she would dance with him.
Knowing Paul wanted to talk to Adam, she accepted and joined her friends
out on the busy dance floor.
The
two men sat in silence watching their partners and then Adam asked simply,
without taking his eyes off Karen, “What happened to you after the geminator?”
Scarlet
sighed and answered quietly, “I became human again. The clone was the Mysteron.
Black believed the clone could not speak and he may have been right, but
he did not realise that the clone was communicating through telepathy -
directly with the Mysterons. I could sense his thoughts - I can’t explain
it. I knew they had turned their
attention from Black towards what they saw as the superior servant. That left Black without his usual guidance
and he wasn’t thinking properly. I knew
I had to divert his attention, so that he would not realise what was
happening. My only chance of turning
the tables lay in not letting the Mysterons realise what I knew and in keeping
Black unsure which of us was the ‘right’ one.
So I stabbed myself with a screwdriver. It did the trick, at least.”
“Did
you know you would heal?” Adam’s head half turned to him, but their eyes did
not meet.
“I
suspected as much. I could feel the
retrometabolism working through my system -
as if it assumed the effects of the geminator were wounds and it had to patch me up. Lucky it did, I guess, because whilst it was working overtime to
get me back to normal, it was absorbing the clone's energy faster than he could
absorb mine."
Now
their eyes met and Scarlet’s shone as he explained, “I had forgotten just how
wonderful it is to be a wholly human being - to feel and understand everything
with such clarity. I usually look at
the world through eyes that are partly veiled to the true beauty of it
all. I guess Mysterons don't have much
use for beauty..." He looked across at his friend. Adam's face wore its usual attentive
expression and Paul began to try to explain, feeling that here, at last, was
someone who must know something about how he felt. "I was human, Adam, and
for that short time I knew that whatever happened, the Mysterons would never be
able to take control of me again. But the feelings within me told me that I
still had the power of retrometabolism - I was still virtually
indestructible! Can you imagine how
that feels? I felt invincible and powerful
- its a heady mixture...” His voice trailed into silence as he saw a slight
frown between his friend's brows and the barely concealed look of unease in his
pale blue eyes.
Paul
sighed. No, not even Adam - an Adam who had experienced the geminator as he had
- could understand the emotions involved with his unique situation. And if Adam
couldn't - who could? Perhaps only Captain Black would understand the symbiotic
existence of the Mysteron and the human in one body - and then only if his
cowed humanity was allowed to flourish once more. For now, he was still alone
in his strange world and the frown on Adam's face was deepening. Sadly, Captain Scarlet realised that the
idea of a human being with his abilities was something Adam could not easily
accept - he had never realised before that his friend was only comfortable with
his powers of recovery because he rationalised it as an alien attribute.
"Lord,
I must sound like a complete megalomaniac!” he said with a rueful grin and
dropped his gaze to his hand, where the scar had now completely disappeared.
“But I cannot tell you how dejected I felt when I had reabsorbed the clone and
that part of me which knows the Mysterons was back.”
Looking
up, he saw pity flood into Adam’s eyes - with this, at least, Adam could
understand enough to sympathise. “Well,
to some of us mere mortals it looks as if you are invincible and we are
grateful for it, my friend,” he smiled kindly.
“No,
I’m just a guy doing what I can to keep this old world turning,” Scarlet
shrugged. “And what little I am able to do, I could not do without the support
of all of my friends.”
“Paul,
you should never doubt that you have that - wholeheartedly. And you shouldn’t
need me to keep telling you that, either.” Adam’s tone was slightly irritable.
He swivelled round and placed his hands on the table, fingers steepled together,
as he forced himself to concentrate and shut out the thoughts and emotions of
his twin. “Now, what is so worrying you can’t talk to me or Dianne about it?”
Startled,
Scarlet growled, “Get out of my head, Svenson. I don’t understand why this is happening,
but I won’t invade your mind intentionally, if you don’t invade mine.”
“Agreed.
Come on, they’ll be back soon - Spill the beans, Paul.”
Scarlet
looked across at his friend, that famous patience appeared to be wearing thin
and his normally good-tempered expression had been replaced by an exasperated
look. Wondering if he was still wary of
him, Scarlet was tempted into risking a quick dip into Adam's thoughts
and understanding came with the overwhelming sense of anxious jealousy that was
still sloshing around Adam's mind from watching Karen enjoying herself with
Blue. Suddenly Adam's attention focused
on the intrusive presence and he glared across the table at Scarlet, who
acknowledged his trespass with an appeasing smile. Adam sighed.
Feeling rather like a naughty schoolboy,
Scarlet began, “I’m not a natural telepath and neither are you, so the only
link can be the geminator. You and Blue
are part of the same mind anyway, so that’s no great surprise, but you and
me? It suggests the Mysterons’s hold
over you is growing. The clone was
using telepathy to communicate with the Mysterons and their hold over Conrad is
the same - they control his mind. Buried deep within him is what’s left of his
humanity and even after all these years, it surfaces sometimes, which might
explain some of his more… uncharacteristic actions at times. However, it’s been so long since they took
control of him I doubt he could function for long without both elements now - I
could feel his unease and … fear when
they turned from him to the Scarlet clone.
He couldn’t think straight.
Hopefully, you won’t have that problem - it’s only been a matter of days
since… it happened.”
“Can
the geminator reverse the process?” Adam asked bluntly.
“That’s
what I can’t remember!” Scarlet’s fist crashed onto the table. “I am sure I did
know because the clone knew what the Mysterons knew and for a short time
afterwards I could remember everything! Black was most definitely alive after he fainted from the
treatment, I felt a pulse. But that was only a matter of seconds before they
called him back and they already had control of his mind even before he
vanished. I know they did. I think it may depend on how much exposure
the victim has had to the process, the speed of the merger between the clones
and the openness of the victim's mind to Mysteron control. You had limited exposure and you and Blue
still haven't merged, at least not entirely, even yet. And I'm damn sure neither of you want the
Mysterons to take control of your minds! When I absorbed the clone and the
Mysteron side of me was back, I could feel them in his mind still trying to
control me through him - such an overwhelming power and … hate, I thought I
would go mad - and then the retrometabolism cut in and squashed him like alien
bacteria! He’s still within me, he
always will be, but he’s harmless, they cannot reactivate him now.”
“The
retrometabolism? You could feel it?”
“Like
an adrenaline surge. How it works, I
cannot hope to understand, but, you see, it’s like there is this energy within
you. How and why it stayed with me when
you …”
“Killed
you,” Captain Blue said shortly.
“Saved
me, “Scarlet corrected. “I cannot begin to explain, but it is independent of
them now - they cannot stop it and they cannot over-ride it.”
Adam
pursed his lips and shrugged. “Black and you have both been under the control
of the Mysterons - I never have, and I’m not now - as far as I know, although I
accept your comment on the telepathy. I don’t have retrometabolism, would that
I did, for once! However, I am not
prepared to let either of us," he nodded toward Blue on the dance floor, "become Mysterons and if the
geminator will break their hold and leave me at peace with my own mind, I am
willing to go through with it. I know that this balance between Blue and myself
cannot last indefinitely - he is pushing all the time to gain the upper
hand." Adam gave a grim smile. "So far I can handle him, but I don't
know if I always will be able to. I
cannot say, any more than you could, that I am looking forward to taking in
such a part of myself - but at least he is a part of me and not alien, and I
have caged him before and will again."
The
pair sat in silence for awhile, each busy with their own thoughts - and more
alike in their hopes and fears than they realised.
Adam
was the first to shake off his introspection and he said brightly, "The
fact that the Mysterons abandoned Black, however briefly, and that you could
feel them in the clone’s mind until you managed to subdue him - suggests they
are vulnerable to confusion.” He went
silent again and Paul recognised the intense look of concentration on his face
and sat quietly so as not to disturb him.
After
a time, during which Adam had said nothing, Scarlet glanced up to see Blue and
Karen coming back towards the table - he waved them away, shaking his
head. Blue frowned as his habitual
paranoia took control and he was obviously trying to enter his ‘twin’s’
thoughts. Adam’s head dropped into his
hands and he growled ‘No’ as he shrugged off the intrusion.
Dianne
hurried across with Sorrel still in attendance. She slipped her hand into Blue’s and smiled invitingly as he
hesitated; he finally went back to the dance floor with her. Sorrel sheepishly offered his hand to the
distracted Symphony. Seeing Scarlet’s
frown, she gave Sorrel her hand and turned away again.
Scarlet
watched them until they were safely away. Adam had not moved. Then slowly his
hands dropped from his face and he looked across at his friend, reaching out in
his thoughts and gently probing Scarlet's mind. Once more Scarlet was taken
aback at the strength of the mind he encountered and he resisted angrily.
Adam’s
mind recoiled and he smiled. “Good, you can throw me out. I think I know how we could do it, but I
don’t know if I have the right to ask you to share the risk.”
“Take
it from me, you have the right,”
Scarlet said matter of factly.
“I
think it is likely that I would survive a second exposure to the geminator - in
fact I think it might even be essential that I do go back - however unappealing
the thought is. This delay in the
merger of Blue and myself suggests to me that we may have not received enough
of the treatment for the process to work completely and that we may be stuck
like this forever - in an endless battle for dominance, until one or other of
us ...ceases.” He gave Paul a wry smile at his friend’s startled reaction to
his use of Javorsky’s term. Adam had
not wasted his time in sick bay and he had charmed Doctor Javorsky into revealing
a good deal more about his predicament than Doctor Fawn knew or would have
approved of. “At least I am willing to
bet my life on it,” he conceded, adding, “As to the probability that the
Mysterons would try to take control of my mind - when I get the correct dose of rays - well, I think that we should be
safe enough in the geminator, if you come too.” Adam tapped his head. “In
here. If the Mysterons are... lying in
wait for me, they’ll go for you as they did when they abandoned Black for your
clone and your retrometabolism will see them off. I hope.”
“Adam,
that could spell disaster!” gasped Scarlet.
“Why? At the very worst you’ll be able to do the
crossword quicker and I might finally get to understand the fascination of
cricket!”
“It’s
not a joke.”
“And
don’t think I don’t know it, Paul, but you would be in control of the
situation. I’m damn sure that I
couldn’t throw you out of my mind as you just did to me - try,” he offered,
dropping his guard.
Hesitantly
Scarlet let his thoughts mix with his friend’s. Adam had constructed a defensive jumble of images, some of which
Scarlet had no problem recognising: his home in Boston, his family and his
classic Italian sports car – of which he was inordinately proud – but there were more faces and places he
didn’t know. Beyond these defences lay lustrous miasmas of pure thought. He had no conscious desire to probe too far
but one image of a young woman with black hair and brown eyes drew him in,
curious to investigate.
He
was startled when he thought he heard Adam shouting, “Paul! Go away now -
please!” He looked across at his friend’s pale face, and saw the sweat on his
upper lip as he fought for control.
Scarlet retreated immediately and Adam let out a huge sigh.
“That
was neither easy nor comfortable.”
“The
girl with the dark hair and eyes,” Scarlet asked, still lost in the bright
images, “is it… was that…?
“Yes, that was Soraya.” Adam blushed. “It has
been awhile since I could remember her face that well, but Blue has stirred up
a lot of emotional memories I thought I had under control - not all of them
happy ones. I mean it’s kinda nice to
know she’s still in there,
somewhere.”
Paul
knew the story of how Adam’s fiancée had died in a car bomb assassination
attempt on his life and he knew his friend still blamed himself for that more than
a dozen years later.
“Only
there did seem to be some powerful emotions associated with the memory,” he
tried to explain to an Adam observing his embarrassment with ironic eyes.
“Yeah? Well don’t tell Karen!”
Paul could tell it had unsettled Adam more
than he wished to acknowledge. “Not a word,” he promised.
After
a pause Adam asked, “Well, what do you think?
If we are going to give this a try we'll need to speak to Fawn at the
very least - maybe the Colonel too. It
wouldn't be fair to run the risk of your falling under the thrall of the
Mysterons again without putting people on their guard."
Scarlet
nodded. "He'll say 'no' of course - the Colonel."
"He
can say what he likes - he can't actually stop us if we both agree to do
it," Adam pointed out. "Will you be able to squash the aliens if they
come for us?” The lightness of tone belied the seriousness of the question.
Paul
snapped his fingers. “No sweat! Unlike you, Svenson.”
“Well,
I wasn’t gonna let you rummage unfettered through my subconscious! All I got from your mind was an image of
Dianne and what looked like the schematics for an SPV!”
“Actually,
it was an analysis of the fielding placements from the last Ashes test match, I
was reading about them earlier.” They laughed and Paul said, “I just might go
and dance with Dianne. Whatever you and
Blue and Karen are planning to do tonight - and I don’t want to know -" he
added as Adam began to protest, "you are on your own… so to speak, from
hereon in. I have a beautiful lady to
pay court too.”
The following
morning, Scarlet met up with the twins in the officers' lounge. Blue was
yawning and Adam looked tired, but he refrained from comment and studiously
avoided their thoughts, for which courtesy Adam, at least, was grateful. As it
happened, Karen had given them both a chaste kiss and locked them out of her
quarters with a firm 'good night'. Thereafter they had sat up all night playing
poker with Magenta and then Ochre when they changed shifts. Blue had become extremely petulant when he
lost repeatedly - not to the other captains, but to Adam. He accused his twin of cheating and had
tipped the table over in a temper - bruising Ochre's left shin rather badly as
a result. Consequently, he was in
Doctor Fawn's bad books when they went back to sickbay to discuss their
intentions.
Scarlet began to
explain what they intended to do, telling Fawn about the telepathy. Then Adam explained his theory of how they
might avoid handing Captain Blue to the Mysterons, by setting a 'honey trap'
using Scarlet's mind. The Doctor was, as they had expected, sceptical but not
dismissive. He insisted they tell the
Colonel, which caused another delay as their commanding officer was unimpressed
by their reasoning.
Finally Blue had
had enough of all the wrangling and he stood up from the conference table and
announced, "Well, either we go through the arch with the safeguards we
have devised - or I don't go through it at all!"
"You don't
mean that," Scarlet reasoned.
"Oh yes I
do. I only have your words for it that
anything would happen to me if I just carried on as I am now. I'm not sure I believe it anymore." He
glared at Scarlet who was looking at him with exasperation. "I don't have
to stand for any of this if I don't want to - you can't make me."
Adam sighed.
"No, he can't - but I can and I will." His voice grew harsh and
authoritative. "Now sit down and shut up!
I have had just about as much as I can take of your bad manners,
tantrums and loutish behaviour. Use
what little common sense you have, Adam, and try to behave with some
self-discipline and courtesy!"
Blue turned hostile eyes on Adam's set face
and the two men stared wordlessly at each other. Scarlet could hear the vituperative thoughts between them -
although he tried his damnedest not to.
Finally Blue dropped his eyes and slouched back into his seat,
glowering.
Adam gave an
embarrassed grimace at his astonished colleagues. "I do a mean
impersonation of my Dad, when pushed," he said non-committally.
Colonel White was
concerned to see the deterioration in the balanced relationship between the
twins. He realised that there were no
other logical options and that he couldn't stop them from carrying out their
plan anyway - so he gave his permission - whilst stipulating that electron ray
guns and Mysteron detectors be taken and used if necessary.
"You must be
aware, Captain Scarlet, that if by using yourself as a decoy you do fall into
Mysteron hands, your colleagues will be under direct orders to shoot you with
the electron guns and the same will apply to Adam and Blue - or whichever of
them survives the geminator."
"We are all
aware of that, sir, and we are all willing to take the risk," Scarlet
replied.
The Colonel looked
at Adam who nodded and then at Blue who shrugged and cast a withering look at
his twin. "Yeah," he muttered.
With a sigh, Fawn
announced they were ready and The Colonel ordered Destiny to fly the SPJ to
Prague.
Symphony had also
been to see the Colonel, demanding to go too, but as he pointed out, she was
still signed off sick and he was aware that neither Adam nor Blue wanted her to
witness the experiment, so he refused
to listen to her pleas. Fuming, she
burst into the loading bay, where the small group to make the trip were
waiting.
“He won’t let me come
with you!” She cried, throwing herself into Adam’s arms. Gently he drew her
away from the others and with Blue hovering in attendance, he soothed her rage.
“It’s for the
best, älskling. It will make it easier for us if you wait
here.”
“You told him not
to let me, didn’t you?” she accused, pushing him away. “How could you do that? You’ve hurt me more than I ever imagined
possible; don’t you care about my feelings at all?”
Blue took her in
his arms and held her close as she struggled. “Listen to the man, älskling, he knows what’s best - for all
three of us.”
“But Adam…” she
began to protest further.
Blue’s face
softened as she acknowledged for the first time that he was, at least an aspect
of, Adam Svenson and he silenced her with a kiss. “Whatever happens in Prague and whichever of us comes back - and
I am sure one of us will; don’t ever forget that I loved you just as much as...
he does. I may be less decorous in
showing it, but I feel just the same.”
Tears flooded into
her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry I blacked
your eye.” She smiled at him, reaching up to gently touch the fading bruise.
“You’re forgiven -
as always. Just don’t take anything out on him when he comes back.”
She would never know just what it cost him to make that request!
Karen frowned. “You
don’t think you will come back, do you?”
“Sure I will - as
part of Captain Blue, just as I always was before this happened!” He couldn’t
keep a wistful note from his voice as he added, “You could do me a favour now and again and make him lighten up a
little, so I can get to come out and play!” Then he winked at her and she
blushed.
Adam joined them.
“Karen, before we go, we want to tell you…
We’ve made a will - well updated the old one, really. But we have both signed this one and it was
witnessed by the Colonel and Doctor Fawn, this morning. Not even my
Father should be able to dispute it!”
“Won’t stop him
trying though,” Blue muttered darkly.
“Why tell me?” she
asked, looking from one face to the other.
“Well, apart from some
bequests to my mother and sister - mostly family stuff and the usual payment of
debts and so on…”
“And Paul gets the
car - he’s always coveted that,” Blue interjected with a grin.
“Yeah, Paul gets
the car, but everything else is yours. If you want my advice you’ll leave the
greater part of it where it is. It’s
mostly tied up in securities and real estate anyway but whatever his faults, my
Dad makes money hand over fist and he’ll make sure you get the best return out
of it.”
“My advice would
be spend it and have a good time, but you’d better listen to Adam, I suppose.”
“How much are we
talking about, you’re making it sound like a fortune,” she said uneasily.
“Not that much
really, a couple of million, that’s all,” Adam confessed.
“What!” she gasped
at him. “You call that not much?”
“Well, we are a
Svenson when all is said and done,” Blue said with a rare display of family
pride.
“But…”
“It’s too late to
change it now, honey, and anyway - we’ll
be back,” Adam said hugging her. “So don’t plan on spending it all just
yet.” She opened her mouth to protest but saw the wicked humour in his smile in
time, so she contented herself with a rueful grin and he laughed. “Now give us
both a kiss and go and wave from the Promenade deck.” She showed signs of
beginning to protest again and he continued, a little curtly, “Please älskling, just for once, don’t argue.”
Speechless, she
kissed them both and meekly went out of the loading bay.
“That went as well
as could be expected,” Blue said sadly as the door swung shut behind her. “Come
on, lets get aboard before they come looking for us.”
Prague
- later that day
Back in Prague
Commander Ziak had everything prepared at the warehouse. He greeted Doctor Fawn and Captain Scarlet and
gawped at both Captain Blues, before shaking their hands fervently. Giardello, Magenta and Green were already in
the room, and there were two stretchers against the wall and one of Fawn’s
portable emergency beds next to the archway.
It was a sobering sight.
Blue gave a deep,
slightly shaky sigh and walked up to the geminator, running his hand down the
smooth metallic side. He said lightly,
“Never really thought I’d be here again.”
“Are you still
sure about this?” asked Fawn. He knew that everyone now expected it would be
Blue who was ‘absorbed’ and he felt a wave of sympathy for the individual, who,
however annoying, had become such a vital personality in his own right.
“Oh yes, Doctor, I
can’t see any alternative, can you?” Blue said quietly. He looked at Adam and
with a flash of insight asked the question currently bothering his twin, “Do we
have to strip off?”
Fawn shrugged.
“You were both naked when we found you in sickbay and Scarlet was stripped by the Mysteron agents.”
“Oh good,
something else to look forward to,” Adam muttered, turning away from them all.
With a sudden
return of his high spirits Blue teased, “Well, admit it - you’ve always fancied
a bit of bondage!” He rattled the handcuffs at his outraged double and laughed
raucously.
Scarlet hid his
amusement and patted Adam’s shoulder. “Now I know why you didn’t want Karen to
come along,” he teased. Adam gazed woefully at the archway, aware that Magenta
and Green were trying to hide their laughter.
“Wait a moment,”
Giardello said. “Am I right in thinking that when you first experienced the
geminator, you were not only fully dressed, but also not handcuffed to the
machine?”
“Yes.”
Ziak confirmed,
“When we got here, Captain Blue was lying half way through the machine, he was
in full uniform - except that his cap had fallen off when he fainted, I
expect.”
“Then, if we are
seeking to reproduce the dosage, we should do the same,” Giardello suggested.
“What? Just have me walk into the machine?” Blue
said, frowning. “We’d have to do it simultaneously wouldn’t we, and Scarlet
says we shouldn’t have physical contact.”
“Besides, I’d bet
that the uniforms offer more protection that these T-shirts and jeans,” Adam
added soberly.
“Well, you can
borrow a couple of tunics, at least,” said Fawn, briskly. “I think Dr Giardello
has a point. We should keep to the original exposure as much as possible, in
case excess dosage is fatal.”
The two Blues
gazed unhappily at each other.
“Adam?” Scarlet
asked.
“Let’s do it. I
can’t bear arguing any more,” he snapped.
Blue nodded.
Giardello went to
the control panel and flicked a switch. “That’s in standby mode as it must have
been for your entry to have triggered it.” He began to study the dials and
compare them with his notes.
Blue looked at
Adam and they moved to stand side by side. Doctor Fawn fussed about, and
Magenta and Green were still making final checks when the twins unexpectedly
darted through the archway stride for stride. The geminator sparked into life
with two electrical flashes earthing themselves in the bodies. Both fell to the ground, groaning as the
pulses continued to strike them.
“Adam?” Scarlet
moved towards them, the only one not surprised by the incident, as he was
already watching his friend’s mind. “How long does this go on for? Do we know?”
he asked, as the question floated into his mind. It was reassuring, he thought,
that Adam could still formulate clear thoughts.
“We estimate about
five minutes before Ziak got to him,” Magenta said, coming out of his
surprise. “Although the readouts were
none too helpful.”
“Three minutes to
go,” Green informed them, watching the timer carefully.
Scarlet went to
kneel beside the archway, careful to avoid the sparking bursts of electricity.
“Minute thirty,”
Green counted. “Fifty seconds, forty, thirty, twenty...”
“Oh for crying out
loud!” Scarlet yelped and grabbed Blue’s arms, heaving him free of the
geminator. Ziak hastened to pull Adam
free.
“Captain Scarlet!”
Giardello protested. “You might have ruined the whole thing!”
“No I
haven’t. He’s still with us,” he told
Fawn, tapping his head. He moved the bodies closer together and laid
them on their sides with their arms across each other. “What else?” He gently
moved their heads so that the foreheads touched. “Best I can do, now it’s up to
you. Just remember to hold on to yourself; because this is gonna hurt like
hell,” he advised the apparently unconscious twins.
They watched and
waited for what seemed an age but could not have been more than four or five
minutes before Adam stirred. Convulsions racked his body and he began to shake
uncontrollably. Blue’s response began a
moment later and then both began to moan. It started as a low keening and rose
inexorably to echo around the room.
Scarlet
concentrated, trying to keep a watch on both minds, whilst fighting the waves
of pain and fear that threatened at one point to overwhelm all three of them.
He could sense no malevolent presence in either mind, only the torment of the
twins. His stamina began to fail as the
strain of concentration increased. It
was with a feeling of relief that he began to sense the gradual melding of the
two minds and personalities, with Blue‘s individuality ebbing away. There was no struggle from the clone and
even in the throes of the pain, Scarlet sensed the indomitable intelligence
that governed Captain Blue’s personality easing the process along. It was far easier to hold on to the one mind
and easier to detect anything that should not be there.
Giardello crouched
down to observe better what was happening and with a moue of disgust, Fawn went
to the emergency bed to switch on the power so it would be ready. He heard a click and a hum and knew, without
looking, that Ziak, Magenta and Green had, in accordance with direct orders
from the Colonel, all switched on their electron rifles; one for Adam, one for
Blue and one for Scarlet - if necessary. He found himself muttering a prayer
and crossing his fingers for luck.
Suddenly Scarlet
stood and turned towards them. Green
stiffened as he recognised the same, almost demonic, expression on his face,
reminiscent of Scarlet’s own assimilation battle. It was obvious there was a terrible struggle going on in that
mind, as once more Scarlet wrestled with the Mysterons. He fell to his knees,
moaning and shaking his head, his hands tearing at his hair as if to try to
physically remove the alien presence.
Magenta crossed
himself and Green heard him murmur a prayer. “All we need now is bell, book and candle,” he thought and
immediately felt guilty at such frivolity of mind amidst so much suffering.
Everyone was so
busy watching Scarlet that no-one noticed the final, gentle absorption of Blue
and all five men gasped with shock as Captain Blue knelt unsteadily and reached
to grab Scarlet’s uniform tunic.
“Paul,” he called
weakly, “Paul, what can I do?”
Scarlet did not
answer. His mind was focused
completely on ridding itself of the Mysteron influence which seemed so much
more formidable than it had before. Leaving him, Blue crawled with a painful
slowness towards Magenta who stooped to help him to his feet. Fawn moved to
assist but Blue shrugged them both off and reached down to lift Magenta’s
handgun from his holster.
“What?” Magenta
stammered with surprise as Blue extended a shaky arm, steadied himself against
Magenta’s body and pulled the trigger with difficulty. The shot buried itself in Scarlet’s back. He
fell forward with the impact, gasping at the pain.
“Blue’s a
Mysteron!” Giardello shouted. “Shoot him!”
Ziak aimed his
electron rifle at Blue, who, exhausted by his efforts, had collapsed back to
the floor; but before he could pull the trigger, Magenta moved to stand over
his colleague, protecting him from the shot in response to Fawn's shouted,
"No!" Ziak looked towards the
Captain for confirmation of Giardello’s orders, but Magenta was now watching
Fawn who had rushed to Scarlet’s side as he fell and was holding the injured
man in his arms.
Fawn recognised
the unmistakable signs that Scarlet’s unique natural defences were kicking in
and that, at the same time, the man’s mental anguish was subsiding and he was
growing calmer.
“Of course,” Fawn
said as the realisation dawned on him. “It is Scarlet’s retrometabolism that
defeats the Mysterons, but the process only kicks in when the body is
injured. Captain Blue’s shot has
started the process - Scarlet’s body did not regard the Mysterons’s invasion of
his mind as an injury - but once it starts to work on an obvious wound, it
clears all altered matter from the system. It returns the body and the mind to
the state it was in before he was retrometabolised! Why didn’t I see it before? When Scarlet faced the Mysteron
threat before, his retrometabolism was already working on the effects of the
geminator, and subsequently on his wounded hand. This time it was not in action until Blue shot him! Captain Blue was only doing what he could to
assist his friend; there is no need to believe he’s been mysteronised.”
Lieutenant Green
had grabbed a Mysteron detector and he now displayed the x-ray photograph of
Captain Blue to the others, “For what its worth,” he said.
Fawn instructed
Green and Ziak to lift the now unconscious Blue to the emergency bed then he
muttered, “I knew I should have brought two of them.”
He bent to examine
Scarlet again.
The Spectrum
Captain’s blue eyes focused blearily on him. “Adam?” he said.
Fawn nodded. “He
made it - thanks to you. He’ll be fine.”
Scarlet smiled.
“So will I, thanks to him.” He closed his eyes and drifted into the familiar
sleep of death once more.
Some weeks later,
a fully recovered Captain Scarlet was sitting in the Officers’ lounge reading a
newspaper whilst beside him Rhapsody was busy writing a letter. On the far side of the room Captains Ochre
and Magenta were arguing amicably over a game of cards.
The medical team
of Fawn, Tan and Javorsky, had undertaken several days of exhaustive tests on
Blue and Scarlet. It had been proved
that they could no longer communicate telepathically, and that neither had
suffered any permanent effects from the mingling of their minds, leaving Captain
Blue - as he confessed to his friend with a rueful grin - none the wiser about
the joys of cricket!
Now Captain Blue
was in Boston on convalescence leave, having been declared ‘cured but exhausted’
by Doctor Fawn. Symphony had left a few days after him to join him for a
holiday - ostensibly to celebrate his 40th birthday, which fell on the 26th
August. They were due back at the start
of September when Calypso would be returning to the standby Angels base at
Glenn Field.
The geminator had
been carefully dismantled and the parts stored away in several secure Spectrum
repositories against the day they might find a way to make use of it. Fencl’s notes had also been placed in the
maximum security archive, along with all the additional information discovered
by Magenta, Green and Doctor Fawn.
Everything seemed
to have got back to normal.
An Ensign came in
with the post and handed the letters around. Scarlet looked at the small pile
he had been given; they were mostly bills and circulars as usual, but there
were two letters - one from his mother and one with a Boston postmark. Paul
recognised the writing and slit it open to reveal an ornately printed gilt
card.
Mr and Mrs John
Svenson
Request the
pleasure of the company of
Colonel Sir
Paul Metcalfe
At the marriage of
their son,
Adam John to Karen
Amanda Wainwright
On Saturday 24th
August 2075
at 3.00pm
RSVP.
He looked across
at Rhapsody who was reading an identical card. Her face lit up with delight.
“They’re gonna do it, they’re actually gonna do it!” she whispered excitedly as
she hugged him, kissing his cheek.
“Yes, I suspected
he might be planning something along these lines by the way he kept apologising
to me before he left,” Paul grinned at her excited face and added, “I think we
may be seeing Blue’s legacy around here for some time to come!”
He turned his card
over to see that Adam had written a message on the back.
I do hope you and Dianne can make it. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting leave
from the Colonel. Hope to see you here, then with your help and a bit of luck,
it will be a much less pretentious event than my parents expect. I have a little task I’d like you to
perform, if you’re willing - you’re the best man for the job!
Yours,
Adam.
He smiled and
stood up holding out a hand to Dianne, who put her writing paper away. They
walked towards the Control Room.
“Do you think the
Colonel will let us both go?” she asked anxiously.
“I don’t think
he’ll have a leg to stand on if he tries to say no,” he laughed and showed her
Adam’s note.
“She never even
told me,” Dianne complained as she
handed the card back.
“Maybe she didn’t
know for certain,” Paul reasoned. “Like I said, Adam was being awfully
secretive about whatever he was up to before he left.”
“Well, it looks
like he’s more of a romantic than I ever gave him credit for,” she confessed.
“Oh yes,” Paul
said with a reflective smile. “There’s a lot more to Adam than meets the eye.”
Dianne looked up
at him, her head on one side. Ever
since the two of them had experienced what Paul insisted on calling the ‘mind meld’ they seemed more in tune with
each other then ever. She guessed she
was just going to have to get used to it.
In the Control Room,
Colonel White was half expecting a visit from Scarlet and Rhapsody Angel. He knew the post was in and he had his own
invitation before him on his desk. The
cloning incident had brought home to the lovers just how uncertain their lives
were. Indeed, Captain Blue had spoken frankly about his intentions during their
long, private debriefing session before he went on leave. He had gone so far as
to offer his resignation should it be required, rather than be diverted from
his purpose and the steely glint in his sharp blue eyes had warned the Colonel
not to call that particular bluff. There was no way the Colonel could afford to
loose so able and experienced an officer; so although he still held
reservations about the wisdom of allowing his personnel to become so closely
involved with each other, he acquiesced to the Captain’s plans. Besides, he realised marriage would hardly
change their current lifestyle beyond regularising their status and permitting
them the comfort of a double bed. He
did wonder however, what might happen when they started a family and he thought
he knew them both well enough to know exactly whose decision that would be!
Colonel White
smiled to himself at the memory of Symphony’s flushed face and barely contained
excitement as she explained the situation to her commanding officer.
“Adam called this
morning and told me he’s obtained a special licence and sent my mother plane tickets so she can come across before the
wedding. But he told her she must
invite all my old friends from home and he'd send the company jets to fetch
them all! He's actually got his Father to call in several favours
to enable all the arrangements to be made on time. He’d only just remembered, he
said, to call and ask me if I would
marry him after all!” She blushed like a schoolgirl and continued, “Because if
I wouldn’t he’d have a lot of cancellations and embarrassing explanations to
make.”
It had not even
occurred to her to wonder if the Colonel would, after all these years of
discouraging their union, still raise objections. And, if he was honest with
himself, the Colonel knew he had neither the heart nor the inclination to
oppose them any longer. Her
relationship with Captain Blue had started almost as soon as they met and over
years filled with incident and danger, it had grown and developed into a mature
and loving relationship that sustained them both.
What happened next
had given him a great deal of embarrassment and delight.
“So I wondered,
sir, if you would please be so very
kind as to escort me at the wedding? It
would mean a great deal to me - and to Adam - if you would… give me away, I
guess the phrase is, although it always sounds so demeaning …I can’t think of
anyone else I would want to do it, sir?”
He remembered how
distressed she had been, early in her Spectrum career, when first her
grandfather and then her adored Father had died within a short time of each
other, and he suspected Adam had played a considerable part in helping her
weather her unhappiness at that time. He knew the Wainwrights to have been a
close-knit and loving family and he appreciated the significance of her request
to him.
“Well, I... eh… I would be honoured,
Symphony. Karen. If you are sure…”
“Absolutely, one
hundred percent sure!” She threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “My
Mom will be pleased to see you as
well,” she added with an all too conspiratorial grin. “Oh, and you will let
Paul and Dianne come too, won’t you, because Adam’s set his heart on having
Paul as his best man?” He nodded his
agreement and she gave him a dazzling smile.
"Oh, I just wish everyone
here could come! Do you think
Lieutenant Green could rig up a video link or something?" Colonel White looked thoughtfully towards
the grinning Lieutenant, but she didn't notice as she babbled on. “Adam’s sent
invitations to Paul’s parents - says it’s about time he stopped feeling so
intimidated by the General and that Mrs Metcalfe is such a cutie!"
"He's really doing rather well with the
arrangements, although it is about time Mom and I leant a hand. When I asked him for his ideas of suitable
tunes to walk up the aisle to - he
suggested the theme from 'Mission: Impossible'. I think it was meant to be a joke,” she confided to the Colonel
with an expression of tolerant forbearance.
Privately, Colonel White thought it was more
indicative of incipient panic.
Then in a more
considered tone Symphony said, “You know, I think the Mysterons did him a
favour, in a weird kind of way. There’s
a whole new side of him that even I
barely realised was there at all before this happened.”
His reverie was
interrupted by the entrance of Scarlet and Rhapsody.
“Ah,” said Colonel
White with a smile, “I’ve been expecting a visit from you two.”
Captain Scarlet
returned the smile. “Then I guess we’ll just ask if we can go, sir?” He
proffered Adam's invitation in the Colonel's direction, meaning to show the
message if there was any debate on the point.
The Colonel
nodded. “I doubt any one of us would want to miss this,” he said, indicating
the identical envelope to theirs that lay on the desk. He picked it up and drew out the card as if to reassure himself
and them that it was the same.
“When did you
know, sir?” Rhapsody asked. She began to suspect everyone had had a hint about
the forthcoming event except her!
“ Only when
Symphony came to fetch her leave chitty, although Captain Blue had said a few
things that led to me expect something might be in the offing. She told me that
the Captain had made arrangements for their wedding and had asked her to marry
him - rather the wrong way round, I think,” the Colonel said with a shake of
his head. "In my day it was always good manners to secure the lady's
agreement first."
Scarlet suspected
he was teasing and said, “So her
answer was 'no, not until you get it right'?" He grinned. "Karen's
always been keen on women's rights."
“Surprisingly, she
told him that she must ask me first! One of the few occasions Symphony has
actually asked permission to do something before she does it," the Colonel
said with surprising good humour.
"She has actually asked if I will give her away, which I consider
an honour and privilege to do, of course.”
Scarlet grinned,
"Well it looks as if someone should warn Boston that the British are
coming!"
“It looks as if we’ll get our first
proper Spectrum wedding, after all!” Rhapsody corrected with a bright laugh as
she slipped her arm through Paul’s.
“Yes,” said
Colonel White, “and I have the feeling it won’t be the last.”
The End