‹ Prequel: Chasing Imagination
Sequel: Martyr's Run ›
Hurricane Heart
Invasion
Hurricane
I found an empty room with a computer, just as I needed, and began doing some research almost immediately. The Master said he would find out about Arjan van Berkel, but since that promise I’d been given absolutely nothing to work with whatsoever. But I needed to get close to him, so everything I knew about him had to be some sort of advantage.
I started off by typing his name into a search engine, but of course that didn’t work. Apparently there was a famous Dutch tennis player who was born about fifty years ago with the same name, so most of the results connected to him. He couldn’t be that famous; I’d never even heard of him.
I had no idea how long I’d been sitting at the computer—researching Arjan, tracking Soulless, contacting Carl and Jonas and the Master, updating myself on the latest news headlines (apart from the break-in in Toulouse, which had been reported on in some smaller news bulletins, there was nothing to do with the Dreamers), but Felix walked in at one point, looking shocked that I was still here.
‘I thought you might be in here,’ he said light-heartedly. ‘Have you been working ever since you left us?’
‘Yeah,’ I said grimly.
‘Wow,’ he looked comically impressed. ‘You’ve been sitting at the computer solidly for four hours.’
‘Not solidly,’ I pointed out. ‘I was on my phone for ten minutes.’
‘What have you been doing?’ He took a couple of steps further into the room, closing the door gently as though he knew even before I spoke that it was a private matter.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said, careful to never let my guard down, not even for a moment. ‘But I need to find out some things about Arjan.’
‘Oh, alright,’ Felix said.
Without warning, the sound of an alarm smashed through the base.
I jumped up from the desk so suddenly that the chair clattered backwards, but I couldn’t appreciate the comedy. My eyes darted from side to side, eventually resting on Felix, who looked even more worried than I felt—that was not good news. He obviously knew what the siren meant. Outside, I heard raised voices, shouts, even, and running.
‘What’s going on?’ I cried over the chaotic, blaring symphony.
‘An alarm system: set up by Otto not so long ago,’ he replied, shouting even though we were standing barely a metre from each other. ‘Anyone can set it off, but it means something is wrong.’
‘Like what?’ The dread in the pit of my stomach was growing.
‘Like an invasion,’ he replied.
Arjan
The alarm blared into life, screaming into every corner of the base, scalding my ears, deafening me, and I jumped to my feet, glancing around wildly for the source of the commotion.
‘What the hell?’ I cried, searching around for Felix. I couldn’t see him.
And then the bullets began.
I heard them, too close for comfort; three shots. The sheer volume and speed of them meant they could be nothing other than gunshots.
And then I began to hear the murmurs coming from all around me, closing in like a swarm of wasps as people leapt to their feet and were spurred into life. There were always a few words I could pick out, though.
‘Soulless,’
‘Soulless invasion,’
‘We’re being attacked.’
‘Shit.’
People began running, and a tall woman charged in, her eyes wide.
‘We need fighters! Grab your guns! The Soulless are in the base!’
I froze. People began to run around me, most of them heading for the door, then running left and right—some straight towards the way out, others to go and collect their firearms. I had no idea where Hurricane was.
I knew these Soulless were looking for me—they always were. Why though? And what could I do?
People seemed to ignore me as the whole Hanover base became a violent surge of activity; an earthquake; a volcano erupting...the start of a hurricane. I nearly tripped over as a large man ran into me in his haste to get past, and I grabbed the wall to stop myself from falling. Regaining my balance, I began to glance around. More shots crashed up the corridor, uncomfortably close, but not currently growing any closer, and I froze. I could go down there, but I had no gun, and even if I was given one I would have no experience in using it, but staying back here seemed cowardly. It was like the rest of the base had been put into fast-forward, and I was wading through the blurred activity in slow motion.
And where the hell had Hurricane gone?
The one time she’d left me in over a week, and this happened. And suddenly I needed her. She would know what to do. She could sort things out.
The obvious thought was that there must be more than one entrance in and out of this place—in fact, the one we had come in earlier was in the opposite direction to the commotion of the invasion. It would be only too easy to get out and run.
But the simple and yet shocking truth was that I did not want to run. I wanted to stay. I wanted to find Hurricane, so that we could either run or fight, but do it together.
I heard running footsteps coming from the centre of the chaos, followed by a gunshot; closer than before. I made my decision, turning in the opposite direction down the tunnel and running.
I charged for about ten seconds, past doors, not thinking to stop and check them for any signs of Hurricane, or even Felix for that matter.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
The voice was sharp even over the calamity, coming from behind. I abruptly stopped dead, so much so that I almost tripped over myself, and turned.
Hurricane was standing several metres away, having evidently just come out of a door that I’d run straight past, her gun in her hand. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind.
I broke into a laugh.
The terrified laughter seemed to break a tension between us, and she strode closer, her face still serious, but not angry.
‘Where did you go?’ I asked, wanting to be angry, but just sounding relieved. I didn’t want to sound that way; I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea that I liked her.
‘I could say the same thing,’ she said, ducking and instinctively putting her hands to her head as the sound of a bullet leaving a gun could be heard even closer than before.
‘Where are they?’ I asked. Whilst the network of labyrinthine tunnels proved to be an excellent hiding place, that could work for both teams, meaning I had no idea where the enemy was. They could be seconds from running round the nearest corner and we would be completely unprepared.
Hurricane jumped up, ready for action. Without warning, she grabbed me by the wrist, beginning to run in the direction I had originally been going, and I followed. I wasn’t bad at athletics, but I was struggling to keep up with her after not so long.
We rounded a corner and she shoved me against the rough wall, her hand still on my chest as she glared at me, piercing into my churning thoughts.
‘They’re after you; only you, Arjan,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I breathed, unable to quite get enough air into my lungs after running so suddenly and so fast.
‘They’re not even interested in this hideaway,’ she continued. ‘Normally the Soulless would dream of happening upon a place like this just by chance, but now they’re not even kidnapping. They’re just searching for you. And I suspect there are a lot more than two of them like I predicted earlier.’
She unzipped her black leather jacket, crouching and leaning her hands on her thighs as she thought. As usual, she wasn’t prepared to explain anything, but I knew when she’d come up with an idea.
‘Come on!’ she cried suddenly, grabbing me again and dragging me off, her eyes flashing with thought like a light had just come on inside her brain. How I envied her imagination. I had had no practice with thinking up plans and plots.
‘If we leave now, the others are all going to get killed,’ I protested unexpectedly, surprising Hurricane and even myself.
‘Like I said,’ she said impatiently, stopping so she could speak, ‘they’re not after any of them. They’re just looking for you.’
‘But why?’ I yelled, finally losing it completely. ‘What the fuck do they want with me?’
For the first time ever, I saw the faintest trace of regret cross Hurricane’s eyes; sorrow mixed with sympathy and guilt.
‘I only wish I could tell you,’ she breathed sadly. And then, just like that, it was gone once again. The mask came back, and she grabbed me a third time and pulled me off down the tunnel. This time, I asked no questions. I didn’t try and stop her. Whether I liked this insane woman or not, she was the one who could get me out of here alive.
And then I could hear them coming. I could hear them, all around me, possibly inside my head, unable to tell what was real and what was just my imagination. But they were here. Like Hurricane said, and like I could never understand before, I could feel them.
She turned to me. Her eyes widened. My life went into slow motion.
‘They’re coming,’ she whispered, her voice a snake that wound through the intertwined coils of my brain.
I turned, moving too slowly no matter how alert I felt. Suddenly, this was all a dream. It was too surreal. We stood there in the dark, tiled tunnel, thick with Dreamer graffiti that I was almost too preoccupied to notice.
I recognised this man coming down the tunnel towards us. The black mask he wore; the black trenchcoat billowing as it caught on the breeze conjured by his fast pace; his black suit and boots.
‘Scarrus,’ Hurricane said.
I found an empty room with a computer, just as I needed, and began doing some research almost immediately. The Master said he would find out about Arjan van Berkel, but since that promise I’d been given absolutely nothing to work with whatsoever. But I needed to get close to him, so everything I knew about him had to be some sort of advantage.
I started off by typing his name into a search engine, but of course that didn’t work. Apparently there was a famous Dutch tennis player who was born about fifty years ago with the same name, so most of the results connected to him. He couldn’t be that famous; I’d never even heard of him.
I had no idea how long I’d been sitting at the computer—researching Arjan, tracking Soulless, contacting Carl and Jonas and the Master, updating myself on the latest news headlines (apart from the break-in in Toulouse, which had been reported on in some smaller news bulletins, there was nothing to do with the Dreamers), but Felix walked in at one point, looking shocked that I was still here.
‘I thought you might be in here,’ he said light-heartedly. ‘Have you been working ever since you left us?’
‘Yeah,’ I said grimly.
‘Wow,’ he looked comically impressed. ‘You’ve been sitting at the computer solidly for four hours.’
‘Not solidly,’ I pointed out. ‘I was on my phone for ten minutes.’
‘What have you been doing?’ He took a couple of steps further into the room, closing the door gently as though he knew even before I spoke that it was a private matter.
‘It’s a long story,’ I said, careful to never let my guard down, not even for a moment. ‘But I need to find out some things about Arjan.’
‘Oh, alright,’ Felix said.
Without warning, the sound of an alarm smashed through the base.
I jumped up from the desk so suddenly that the chair clattered backwards, but I couldn’t appreciate the comedy. My eyes darted from side to side, eventually resting on Felix, who looked even more worried than I felt—that was not good news. He obviously knew what the siren meant. Outside, I heard raised voices, shouts, even, and running.
‘What’s going on?’ I cried over the chaotic, blaring symphony.
‘An alarm system: set up by Otto not so long ago,’ he replied, shouting even though we were standing barely a metre from each other. ‘Anyone can set it off, but it means something is wrong.’
‘Like what?’ The dread in the pit of my stomach was growing.
‘Like an invasion,’ he replied.
Arjan
The alarm blared into life, screaming into every corner of the base, scalding my ears, deafening me, and I jumped to my feet, glancing around wildly for the source of the commotion.
‘What the hell?’ I cried, searching around for Felix. I couldn’t see him.
And then the bullets began.
I heard them, too close for comfort; three shots. The sheer volume and speed of them meant they could be nothing other than gunshots.
And then I began to hear the murmurs coming from all around me, closing in like a swarm of wasps as people leapt to their feet and were spurred into life. There were always a few words I could pick out, though.
‘Soulless,’
‘Soulless invasion,’
‘We’re being attacked.’
‘Shit.’
People began running, and a tall woman charged in, her eyes wide.
‘We need fighters! Grab your guns! The Soulless are in the base!’
I froze. People began to run around me, most of them heading for the door, then running left and right—some straight towards the way out, others to go and collect their firearms. I had no idea where Hurricane was.
I knew these Soulless were looking for me—they always were. Why though? And what could I do?
People seemed to ignore me as the whole Hanover base became a violent surge of activity; an earthquake; a volcano erupting...the start of a hurricane. I nearly tripped over as a large man ran into me in his haste to get past, and I grabbed the wall to stop myself from falling. Regaining my balance, I began to glance around. More shots crashed up the corridor, uncomfortably close, but not currently growing any closer, and I froze. I could go down there, but I had no gun, and even if I was given one I would have no experience in using it, but staying back here seemed cowardly. It was like the rest of the base had been put into fast-forward, and I was wading through the blurred activity in slow motion.
And where the hell had Hurricane gone?
The one time she’d left me in over a week, and this happened. And suddenly I needed her. She would know what to do. She could sort things out.
The obvious thought was that there must be more than one entrance in and out of this place—in fact, the one we had come in earlier was in the opposite direction to the commotion of the invasion. It would be only too easy to get out and run.
But the simple and yet shocking truth was that I did not want to run. I wanted to stay. I wanted to find Hurricane, so that we could either run or fight, but do it together.
I heard running footsteps coming from the centre of the chaos, followed by a gunshot; closer than before. I made my decision, turning in the opposite direction down the tunnel and running.
I charged for about ten seconds, past doors, not thinking to stop and check them for any signs of Hurricane, or even Felix for that matter.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
The voice was sharp even over the calamity, coming from behind. I abruptly stopped dead, so much so that I almost tripped over myself, and turned.
Hurricane was standing several metres away, having evidently just come out of a door that I’d run straight past, her gun in her hand. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind.
I broke into a laugh.
The terrified laughter seemed to break a tension between us, and she strode closer, her face still serious, but not angry.
‘Where did you go?’ I asked, wanting to be angry, but just sounding relieved. I didn’t want to sound that way; I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea that I liked her.
‘I could say the same thing,’ she said, ducking and instinctively putting her hands to her head as the sound of a bullet leaving a gun could be heard even closer than before.
‘Where are they?’ I asked. Whilst the network of labyrinthine tunnels proved to be an excellent hiding place, that could work for both teams, meaning I had no idea where the enemy was. They could be seconds from running round the nearest corner and we would be completely unprepared.
Hurricane jumped up, ready for action. Without warning, she grabbed me by the wrist, beginning to run in the direction I had originally been going, and I followed. I wasn’t bad at athletics, but I was struggling to keep up with her after not so long.
We rounded a corner and she shoved me against the rough wall, her hand still on my chest as she glared at me, piercing into my churning thoughts.
‘They’re after you; only you, Arjan,’ she said.
‘I know,’ I breathed, unable to quite get enough air into my lungs after running so suddenly and so fast.
‘They’re not even interested in this hideaway,’ she continued. ‘Normally the Soulless would dream of happening upon a place like this just by chance, but now they’re not even kidnapping. They’re just searching for you. And I suspect there are a lot more than two of them like I predicted earlier.’
She unzipped her black leather jacket, crouching and leaning her hands on her thighs as she thought. As usual, she wasn’t prepared to explain anything, but I knew when she’d come up with an idea.
‘Come on!’ she cried suddenly, grabbing me again and dragging me off, her eyes flashing with thought like a light had just come on inside her brain. How I envied her imagination. I had had no practice with thinking up plans and plots.
‘If we leave now, the others are all going to get killed,’ I protested unexpectedly, surprising Hurricane and even myself.
‘Like I said,’ she said impatiently, stopping so she could speak, ‘they’re not after any of them. They’re just looking for you.’
‘But why?’ I yelled, finally losing it completely. ‘What the fuck do they want with me?’
For the first time ever, I saw the faintest trace of regret cross Hurricane’s eyes; sorrow mixed with sympathy and guilt.
‘I only wish I could tell you,’ she breathed sadly. And then, just like that, it was gone once again. The mask came back, and she grabbed me a third time and pulled me off down the tunnel. This time, I asked no questions. I didn’t try and stop her. Whether I liked this insane woman or not, she was the one who could get me out of here alive.
And then I could hear them coming. I could hear them, all around me, possibly inside my head, unable to tell what was real and what was just my imagination. But they were here. Like Hurricane said, and like I could never understand before, I could feel them.
She turned to me. Her eyes widened. My life went into slow motion.
‘They’re coming,’ she whispered, her voice a snake that wound through the intertwined coils of my brain.
I turned, moving too slowly no matter how alert I felt. Suddenly, this was all a dream. It was too surreal. We stood there in the dark, tiled tunnel, thick with Dreamer graffiti that I was almost too preoccupied to notice.
I recognised this man coming down the tunnel towards us. The black mask he wore; the black trenchcoat billowing as it caught on the breeze conjured by his fast pace; his black suit and boots.
‘Scarrus,’ Hurricane said.