Part Three

Rebecca came out of the trance like state she had entered, lulled into by the man’s story and his strangely soothing voice. She started, and then caught herself.

“What is this nonsense?” She demanded angrily. “You think to beguile me with some child’s story, to lull me into letting you go free? I will tell you right now, you’d better think of a better excuse or you’ll find yourself behind cold bars for a long, long time. So, what will it be? Try another story, or accept your fate?”

The man’s frightened expression had returned. He seemed to stare at something behind her, but she wasn’t ignorant enough to turn and look. The next thing she knew would be waking up hours later, after this drug addict had knocked her out and made a run for it. She wouldn’t risk the injury it could cause. Besides, this one looked nasty. They’d probably find him guilty of multiple charges of possession with intent to supply.

She suddenly came back to herself. She had been daydreaming, lost in her thoughts. It was a wonder her charge had not made a break for it already, while she was not thinking straight.

There was a loud buzz, and she felt an intense heat go past her. She turned just in time to see a flash of red and nothing in the darkness behind her. Turning swiftly back, she gasped at the sight.

The man had stiffened. His eyes were wide, and as she watched they glazed over. The man went limp, and crumpled to the floor in a shapeless heap. She gingerly touched the body, rolling it over with her foot. There was a large burn on his body.

Just like the other victims of the Blaze Case.

She swiftly made her way into an alley, where it was darker. She reasoned that no killer would be able to see her here.

She hoped that her reasoning was correct.

*****

The Metaldroid Project was a success in all ways but one – the user of it slowly had his or her mind warped. It was nothing serious, no psychopaths were created, but it would make them less emotional, and more inclined to use order in their personal day to day lives. They also gained an excellent memory.

This was true until one year after the Metaldroid prototype was first activated. At this time, tests had confirmed how brilliantly it worked. Then, one day, control was lost.

The man in control of the prototype, one Jonathan Vivaldi, who had been the first to ever use it in a full mind-body transferral, disappeared. It is believed he was out on a scouting mission in America, sent to locate the country’s nuclear weapons, and was attacked. What is strange is that there are no records of him ever leaving the country, and no records of anything or anyone remotely like him ever entering America.

It is a rumour among ranking British military and scientists that something was wrong with the Metaldroid mission and that America had been in the know from the beginning. They were then able to sabotage the prototype before it could leave the country.

This rumour has never been confirmed, and Vivaldi’s family received only the dreaded envelope containing those grim words ‘Missing in Action’.

*****

Detective Inspector Rebecca Hunt was feeling more than a little afraid. She had been crouched in these shadows for hours now, and terror swept through her like a wave crashes upon the sea. She was overwhelmed, yet somehow managing to keep herself from a primal whimpering that she very much would have liked to let out. What she would have liked even more would to be back at home now, or even her office, not here in the cold, dark night, being stalked by an unknown killer, one who had possibly killed fifty already and showed no signs of repentance.

She hated to admit it, but she was terrified.

As dawn sent its first tendrils of cold morning light through the cloudy sky, Rebecca judged it safe to walk back home. Shakily she opened her front door, stepped inside, closed the door, and then proceeded to lock it. She went about the house, finding every chain and padlock she had. Only then did she allow herself to sink into an armchair and ring up the police. She phoned in to say that she was ill, and would not be coming in to work today. She did not have to put on any voice; she was shaking and trembling already. It was not faked.

She put down the phone and tried in vain to relax. She thought back to the time last night when the fog had cleared and for just an instant she had thought she had seen a figure, standing by the pavement. It had been tall, at least two metres high, and well over the normal height of a human being. Then it had gone, and she had shaken herself, trying to force herself to realise it was just a trick of the light. Unfortunately for her currently brittle mental state, the body had been proof that something very dangerous and very capable was truly out there.

In the safety of her house, she began to research. Although she had called in sick, she still had remote access to all the files of the case. She looked at these now.

There were three new files, and she ignored them all except one which caught her eye. It read ‘Software Recovery Information’. She opened this and found a mass of jumbled text. It read:

Ht … w … for … u … o.

“Th ….. stal shines … ght

………………………………..ght

This … me the ………………………

Three t …. f the ………. wait with me.”

She snorted. This was what had been recovered from the latest murder in the Blaze Case. The computer had been reduced almost to ruins, a smoking, melted lump. Still, the technicians working for the police department had managed to retrieve something, which was always a good sign of their quality and know-how. Even if that know-how had only managed to pull up a jumble of words.

She stopped short of thinking when she idly looked at her browser. There, in the URL bar, was the URL, as usual. It read “http://www.police.uk/”; like it normally did. What shocked her was that nobody had made the simple connection she had just made.

She immediately set to work, searching all the possible combinations. She knew it was impossible, that there were millions of sites out there with URLs like that, but in her feverish activity, she did not have to think about how close she had come to death last night.

Her thought chilled even her own fevered body.

What if the recovered words “Htt … ww … for … u … o” was an URL?

Part Two

It was dark in the room. He could not see the walls around him, even cramped inside as he was. They had said that light deprivation was important, a key part of the entire experiment. He suspected it was just a way to ensure he didn’t get cold feet.

It could have been hours he waited, days, weeks, or just minutes. There was no way to measure time in this cold, impersonal blackness.

After an ageless time of waiting, a door grated open in front of him. Weak light spilled into the small cell that was nothing like a prison. He stood, stretching his arms and flexing his legs before he slowly walked out of the door and into the light.

It was as he had remembered, with a soft, warm red carpet on the floor and a small lamp set into the wall. He turned back, and smiled as he remembered how much that the cell looked like an elevator. He would not be going back there.

He walked along the red-carpeted corridor, the sound of his footsteps deadened by it. He was excited now. Excited to see now that he had come all this way, if the Metaldroid Project would actually work.

He reached the white door and pressed the button. The door slid open with a hiss. He took a deep breath and entered. It slid shut behind him. His breath was held while all air was sucked out of the small space between doors. The door in front of him then slid open and he could walk through to the laboratory. He stepped inside.

There was a smell of disinfectant in the air. White coated men and women were in multitudes; everywhere he turned there were at least a hundred of them. Others also, patrons of this experiment. They had, of course, been sworn to secrecy. They did not interest him; he had eyes only for what lay in the centre of the room.

It was a strange arrangement of wires and unpleasant looking metal objects. This was not what caught his eye, but rather what stood propped up beside it.

The Metaldroid.

It was huge, about two metres tall. Its head was almost like a pair of binoculars in shape, but something about their metallic shine assured anyone who saw it that this was no bird watching machine. It was shaped much like a human, having two arms, two legs, and a torso and head. It looked to be full metal, and so strong no tank shell could even scratch it. The arms ended in gloved hands, hands of metal that could bend lampposts and crush safes on a whim, but could handle weapons and bombs with gentleness and dexterity. The feet were like steel capped boots, except that they were made entirely from steel. There were rockets stored in the torso, and machine guns concealed in the arms. There were many biological weapons, mostly illegal, built inside it, ranging from nerve gas to amnesia drugs. This was not a thing that used subtlety. No, this was a war machine.

He stared at in wonder, lost in its destructive beauty. He was startled by a doctor who came up to him to take him to the centre. His breath came faster as he realised the moment he had waited for was about to come to pass.

He stepped up onto the platform and swung his leg over the side of the chair. He sat down, and white coated men pulled wires around him. The final thing he saw was the helmet being laced on his head and then he could see only blackness. He heard the lead scientist speak.

“This is the greatest piece of work of our time. No longer shall we rely on America, nor any other country, to guard us from terrorists and danger! We shall have a weapon that is stronger than any bomb. We have … the Metaldroid.”

He stepped back and whispered in the sitting man’s ear, or as close as he could get to it.

“OK, remember what you have to do. When we flick the switch, you’ll need to enter the key, like we’ve practiced before. You can do that, right? Good.” His tone was comforting, gentle, but a note of worry was evident.

The blackness fully enveloped him now. Abruptly, all sound was cut off. He had no senses; he was floating, floating in space. There was nothing, nothing at all. He was a soul left his body.

He was brought back from his thoughts when he heard a sharp beeping noise and saw some words in front of him. They said: Enter Key Now. Nervously, he entered the key phrase he had learnt and was immediately accepted. He felt a rush of warmth and then opened his eyes. He stood up. The crowd cheered.

He had successfully linked his mind to the Metaldroid body. He could now go out and control it, become a war machine. He would not be able to feel pain, or ever get tired. He could leave the body and return to his actual body whenever he needed. He was in control. He was elated. He raised the Metaldroid fist and spoke. The crowd fell silent as he spoke. The voice was deep, emotionless, strong.

“We are Britain once more!”

As the crowd laughed and cheered and the scientists congratulated one another, the man had other thoughts. They had underestimated the powerful feeling of controlling another body. If he was not careful, it could become an addiction.

No.

He was certain it would.

He smiled, revealing his shiny metal crocodile teeth. He was going to spend a lot more time in this body. Humans were so pitifully weak.

He did not pity them.

Part One

It was just a normal day in his house, working from home. He’d abandoned his office computer months ago, when he had learned how to remotely connect to it from his own house. He hadn’t had to leave the house for work ever since, and he was earning a nice fat pay check as well.

Looking around, he realised that it was dawn. He had somehow worked through the whole of the night. Right now, he had finished all his work he had planned to do today, and was now actually a day ahead, hours ahead of all the other lazy employees. He was surprised that they even bothered to drag their large bulks to the office itself. He supposed that they just didn’t know how to work from home. He congratulated himself for what must have been the thousandth time on his choice.

He turned back to his monitor and blinked, rubbing his eyes and looking at the computer screen. He was on an online forum, one that was marked for general purposes. Basically, that meant that anything went. There were topics from animal care to places to hit someone to kill them. He had never frequented that part of the board.

Reading over the latest post in the Coffee Bar – a general-purpose thread within the general-purpose forum- he was surprised to see poetry on the page. The post entry read:

This is really important. I may sound like I am trolling or lying here, but it’s the real truth. I promise it’s real. Now, you’ve been my forum friends for years now, I need you to listen closely.

I was online the other day when I read a news article, about people dying randomly. There seems to be no connection between the deaths except one thing that the authorities have missed.

Haven’t you noticed how so many people have stopped posting on this board?

Yes, that’s what I am saying. The deaths are, connected somehow. The only reason it made it into a news article was because of the way they all had died. They were all found the same way - there seemed to be massive burns all over their bodies. I only realised it was them when commenters posted their respects to the bloggers and forum frequenters.

What’s also strange is that in the last two months, I’ve received Private Messages from all the deceased people. They were all interested with what turned out to be a certain poem. They each messaged me a part of it, hoping that I could uncover its secrets. I put it together and I’ll post it here for you. I don’t know what it means, but it got twenty people killed.

My forum friends: help me.

-Jason-

“The chip of crystal shines so bright

Outshining even heaven’s light

This time the crystal comes with thee

Three tolls of the bell, I bid you wait with me.”

He stared at the poem, and read the message above it for the third time. So his friend was worried about some conspiracy? Just because a lot of people were dying the same way … maybe it was some kind of new cancer. Yes, that had to be it.

There was a knock at his door. He straightened up and with a groan levered himself into a standing position. He shuffled over to the door, his gait slow. An observer might have thought he were fifty, rather than the much younger age of thirty that he really was.

He reached for the door handle and tugged on it, pulling open the door. On the doorstep stood a cloaked figure, its face hidden by a long hood.

“Who – who are you?” He stuttered, suddenly feeling very frightened. He took a step further back, into the comforting warmth of his house, but his eyes did not leave the figure.

The stranger did not reply, but drew back his hood. He only had time to catch a glimpse of silver grey before there was a flash of red light and he was burning.

                        *****

Detective Inspector Rebecca Hunt looked longingly at her sofa. She would not have a chance to use it for another three hours, so she sighed and turned away from it. It would not do to fall asleep now, while she was working. It had been a long day, and if she sat down on that deliciously inviting sofa she would not stand up again for many hours. She settled for the ancient wooden chair, without a cushion, praising herself on her self restraint.

She was one of the many detectives assigned to the case dubbed ‘The Blaze Case’. It was an absurd but grimly real. The murders – for what else could they be? – had no pattern, and it seemed, there was no obvious motive behind them. None of the people had been connected; none had even known each other. There was no rhyme or reason between what she had begun to think of as the attacks. Rebecca privately believed it to be the work of some insane psychopath, acting out his own private little play at the expense of the murder victims and the police.

She thought she heard a sound at the window and turned to look out. It was raining as usual, and she could hear some lightning too. There was a rumble of thunder and then the world lit up for an instant. Something caught her eye. There, in the window was a face. The lightning flash stopped, but then flashed again just a second later. There was no face at the window, or anything else except the slender trees swaying in the gale-force winds.

She was working too long hours, and her tired mind was playing tricks on her. Going senile, she told herself sarcastically. At the age of thirty three, you’re working too hard. Better get some money in the pot for that old ladies’ retreat – or better still, the mental institution.

She rose from her hard wooden seat and pulled on her warm jacket. She would take a walk and let the cool refreshing air clear her head.

She still could not entirely get rid of the lingering thought that something had been watching her.

Outside, it was not exactly what she would call refreshing. As she had noticed before, it was raining, and there was a little smattering of lightning and thunder mixed into the stew pot of weather. It was hardly a nice day to pick for a walk. At least there’s no chance of any other poor people burning in this weather, she reflected bitterly to herself.

She walked slowly along the street, her spirits as low as the dark green moss that grew on the side of the road. Evidently the cleaner here had given up. There was grime on the walls of houses, and graffiti on buildings, showing no signs of being removed. In fact, she fancied the defiling text was still wet from the spray paint, as if it had been painted only a few minutes ago. She shook herself. It was raining. Nobody in their right mind would even be out here now.

She turned down an alley and saw that she had been mistaken. A small shape huddled in a corner, a man, with a stub of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a dirty brown coat wrapped around him. He started when she looked at him. She realised she must have almost appeared from nowhere, walking from the shadows to this corner. She spoke to the seemingly homeless man.

“What are you doing out here in all this rain? It’s pouring down, and you’ll catch a cold out here.” She spoke sharply, with authority. The man was not fazed. He slowly looked her up and down, looking at her wet, tired state. He grinned, revealing several missing teeth and other yellowed ones. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse but still clear enough to hear.

“You tired, miss? Need a bit of … energy? Some R and R? I’ve got just the thing for your type.”

He leered at her. Looking down, Rebecca realised her jacket was messy and dirty. She looked tired, dirty, dishevelled, almost like the man himself. Her voice was not as firm as before, nor was she as clearly in charge.

“I don’t know what you mean. Please leave me alone, sir. I do not take kindly to folk like you having ideas that would not befit a proper lady.”

His grin grew wider as he reached into his coat and pulled out a long thin package. Opening the brown paper bag, he showed her a long brown tube and started to speak in his curious hoarse voice.

“Finest cannabis this side of England. You have the money, darling?”

Repulsed, Rebecca took a shaky step back. This was not what she had imagined. Taking a deep breath, she slipped her hand into her jacket and then simultaneously pulled something out and slammed the man against the wall, not hard enough to injure him, but hard enough to show him that if she wanted to or needed to she could.

“Detective Inspector Rebecca Hunt,” She growled at the man, whose eyes were now wide with fright and shock. “I’m the law around here, even if this place has gone to the dogs. There will be no drug addicts on my turf!”

She dropped him, let him crumple to the floor and allowed him to catch his breath for a moment and then launched into a tirade.

“Do you know what that drug does to you? It can give you paranoia! For the rest of your life, you’ll be looking around corners, because you’re sure your neighbour is out to get you! Do you want that? Do you?” Seeing that this tactic was not working, she changed abruptly.

“Possession of cannabis is illegal. It’s a class B, so you can get fourteen years for supplying, and an unlimited fine. I doubt you have enough money to pay for what I’d charge you.”

She had him cornered now, metaphorically as well as literally.

“I’ll do whatever you want!” He was cringing, in retreat. “I’ll tell you anything, just let me off this one time! I’ll… I’ll even tell you of the Metaldroid Project.”

“The Metaldroid Project?” She frowned. “What nonsense is this?”

The man reassured her. “Let me speak, and I will tell you all.” He was only too happy to begin.

“It started in Britain, in 2001…”