Chapter Seventeen

Grieve not for your brother.

Kurt Tzavros kept himself isolated from any intercommunication, instead he applied all his pent up energy to his work in the Laboratory. It had always been his nature to be sombre, but now even Peter Steele found it difficult to relate to him.
    Tzavros looked around and sighed, even though the Russians usually worked in silence, the laboratory seemed to echo even his deepest contemplation’s. He found himself looking towards the darkroom, half expecting the door to open and a moaning, stalled, trainee pilot to stagger out.
    Half-heartily he made up another concoction and walked to the holding cells where it was administered to Sprecville. At last there was success, the man came out of his childlike stupor and began to converse, if not voluntarily, uncontrollably. Tzavros could find no joy in the moment. This should be the time when both Sukoloff and himself waltzed into the office to parade smugly in front of Henn and Steele. This had been half Sukoloff’s work, so therefore it was half his success and to go into the office swanking would be meaningless. The pleasure was absent from one-upmanship, the master of the art was gone.

Professor Sprecville told of a great experiment involving wasps. He had produced a super strain with deadly poisonous stings, one sting from this wasp was enough to bring instant death. It seemed that at the moment KIJAC had two swarms, but as yet only ten super wasps. They were, of course, rapidly increasing them with the hope of being ready in two to three months.
    The idea was two fold, first as Sukoloff had suspected; to guard KIJAC headquarters until SASAM was completed. Secondly it was planed to release the deadly swarms onto New York.
    Sprecville gave the name of the base where one of the swarms were being bred, also the formula for the artificial sting that had already claimed so many innocent lives. One small, easily concealed dart gun, one tiny dart and a person would drop. Conceivably the President himself.
    Among other substances, artificial sting contained a drug very similar to the anti-coagulant Dindevan. Unfortunately that was only part of it, similar it was, but not exact, it also damaged cells in the blood vessel walls and made the usual Vitamin K antidote ineffective. No chemical break-downs of the mysterious FE 9 were found.
    Tzavros groaned, the situation had become critical. Without their Class One pilot there would be terrible danger to the agents raiding the swarm hide-out. As chief enforcement officer, Steele would definitely be assigned to a task this important. The wasps and the bases had to be removed if they were to stand a chance of stopping Armageddon. Tzavros knew he had to find an antidote and he would have no shortage of volunteers to donate blood... But was there time?
    He reached the laboratory whilst still deep in thought, so it took him a little while to register the difference. LAB 1 Tzavros and before it two small holes where a plate had been removed. Anger ran through his veins. Kicking hard at the door he splintered a wooden panel to reveal the reinforced Steel that made any attempted forced entree into the laboratories nearly impossible.

As more deaths had occurred from wasp stings, Henn was becoming very dubious about sending his agents on even the simplest of missions. The thought of removing another little flag from his map constantly played on his mind. He looked across at the young faces and sighed. They’re too young and too inexperienced. Perhaps this is a job for me alone. Then he smiled. Just what am I thinking? But the temptation was growing. He must try to keep all these young men safe.
    Gasps rose from the young men as one of Pia’s finest, one of the elite, the one they all looked up to for his total coolness, burst in and banged hard on the table.
    "Put with it back. Now!"
    Steele let out a snort as he watched the fury in his friend’s face and saw the slight smile cross Henn’s lips. They had been so alike, Sukoloff and Tzavros, their eyes always showing what the face never would, but provoke a no emotional Russian and you had trouble.
    "What is it that you wish me to put back, Mister?"
    Tzavros again let fly with a fist to the hapless table. "You’ve taken his name down. How dare you, it his lab. Now you hear? Now with that plate putting back."
    Henn looked from Tzavros to the open mouthed young men. At this point he knew he should show his authority and reprimand this spitfire for insubordination. That would be unfair, he felt the same way, all of them did, like shouting down the whole world for its cruelty. Tzavros had just taken longer than others to finally have a logical excuse to shout. So Henn spoke firmly, but never-the-less calmly. "It’s been two weeks. You know that our outer tracers have had no luck finding him."
    "He be back."
    "He’s not on this side any more. Now I do understand, believe me, I understand more than anyone. But we have to fight, beat the catastrophe that’s threatening earth’s existence and for that I need all the science orientated people I can find. Are you up to that standard, to be head of Lab One?"
    "Da. Put with it back. It his lab."
    "Sorry, my friend, in five years yes. But we need help now, I have to appoint another science officer to Lab One, regardless of who’s lab it once was and you know it."
    Tzavros’ face had reddened slightly, not from embarrassment but from animosity, his lip curled into a snarl and still shouting he left. Before Henn had a chance to call him back, Bayfield and Tretow came into the office.
    "My Ma needs to see you urgently... We’re going to lose, Jodie."
    "Lose her? Why?"
    "She’s very ill," Bayfield began in an unsteady, too low voice. "She doesn’t even want to see her family. Maria is hoping you might be able to do something before it’s too late."

Tzavros stormed down the corridor with his heart pounding and sweat visible on his brow. The surge of emotion he was experiencing was something completely new and he did not like it. Above all, he did not know how to cope with it. He stuck a notice to the door which simple read, Sukoloff’s Lab. Keep out. Once inside the laboratory a similar note was pinned up on the darkroom door, Sukoloff’s elevator. Keep out. Then he went to work on the reproduction of artificial sting and hopefully the antidote.

"Where is she Maria?" As he asked he noticed how drained Maria looked. Despite this a faint trace of her tender smile remained and her gentle melodious voice still acted as a bright enlivening ray of hope.
    "I know where she’ll be. She’s always there when she has the strength to go."
    Henn wondered about this charming lady. Maybe in her late fifties she would never have been classed as beautiful, but her kind nature showed in the lines of her face and gave her a strange attractiveness that any beauty queen would have been proud of.
    As they walked, she told of Jodie and a love made for eternity. "She’s dying, Alex."
    "Of love?"
    "People do, you know? I hope that he’s waiting when she gets there, otherwise it would all be so tragic. A love like theirs should never be allowed to fade."
    "The old rascal, he never said this was for real."
    "Did he know? All I know is that she did."
   Henn looked across the graveyard as golden beams of sunlight turned patches of grass to the brightest of green and lit dew laden webs with spun silver. Birds kept up their sweet lament and doves cooed their mournful love-song. As a child’s far off laughter filtered through the shadows he saw her and his heart sank. Sat near a grave clutching a fading rose to her breast was Jodie, her face white and silent tears dropping from her eyes. Henn put his hand on the marble stone and scanned over the imprint that he himself had ordered written.

Grieve not for your brother, this is but his body.
For it is the soul that makes the man
and that is forever free.

    Henn whispered to the sky, "forever free old friend. You had the whole world." He almost expected the retort, "Don’t throw the world at me, Alex." There was nothing apart from a lonely sigh from a girl who could go on no more.
    "Jodie, he wouldn’t want this. He’d want you to run, to play and live. You have people to help you come through this. If you die, how do you know you’ll find him? At least here there are people who love you." She looked at him, as if he was a stranger and silently walked away.
    "How long has she got, Maria?"
    She was crying softly now, glad perhaps that somebody was near to share her heartache. "Maybe as little as a day or as long as three weeks. I don’t know, but not long. I feel as if I was losing a daughter and cheated out of sharing in their magical world. With him gone, our team goes too and with it, all our hopes and dreams. Vacily in life was sullen, but in death he would have become mischievous as he learned to live. He would have helped all who came in contact with him to laugh. Zav was already doing it, they were two young men planing prances on all near them. We have lost something of great value, Alex."
    Henn managed to nod, Sukoloff had already started to get leprechaun like tendencies as he learned to live again.

Henn could stand it no longer, the inbuilt need for just one more battle and the reluctance to lose another young man over came him. So, together with Proctor and Steele he raided the base mentioned by Sprecville, only to be disappointed on discovering it was empty. There was sign neither of KIJAC nor their deadly new members and no clue to their whereabouts. Now would come the great task of finding them and many small flags would be pinned to the map as the field officers did they utmost to uncover something. They were no longer just a Private Investigations Agency, they were becoming what they had once been; great. Every old base would be re-opened, agents recalled and the whole of the hidden Level One re-opened. All would be involved in the search for the Guardians and SASAM.

Tzavros continued with the other laboratories to find an antidote. Each agent was called upon to donate a small amount of blood for Tzavros to play with. It was failure after failure. One drop of the artificial sting and no matter what was added the blood began to blacken, even the small sample of ghost blood that remained was effected.
    Tzavros banged on his desk as yet another sample turned black, this was totally beyond him and he knew it, but pride was not going to let him admit it and ask for help. This was the Russian laboratory and that’s the way he wanted it to stay.

News came in of yet another death, this time it was a young policeman. Somehow he was different, he had lingered between life and death for two days before finally death claimed him. He had gone into shock after the sting but the official cause of death had been pneumonia.
    Leaving Proctor as Acting controller, Henn and Steele searched the area within a full mile radius of the incident, but in vain. All they found were tyre tracks of a large lorry cutting across fields. Maybe it had just been a drunken driver or bravado from its bored owners, or possibly a mobile KIJAC unit testing its deadly invention.
    Henn returned to the office to be told by Proctor that the administers were completely dissatisfied with the situation, Henn was to stay in the office where he belonged. He was much too valuable to go gallivanting about risking his neck when they paid other men to do just that. This only made him angry, him more important than so many young lives? Just a few weeks ago they though him useless, they thought all of PIA useless. Now unfulfilled dreams may never be realised because their great chief was more valuable than them? It was not right, life was life no matter what kind of person you were; rich or poor; clever or not, it was all wrong. Despite how they felt they had a job to do and further questioning of Sprecville turned up addresses of other bases. As usual a search revealed only that they had been vacated. KIJAC was being careful, every place Sprecville knew about, they moved.
    Henn waited for the office to fill and the silence to leave as the agents began to troop in for their new orders. He smiled, at least the noise of chattering agents was better than the grim interviews. A new science officer was proving difficult to find, all applicants had the required qualifications. All were loyal long serving members of PIA, but something was always missing, something they did not like about the person. Maybe they were just making excuses.
    Two men made it to the final stage and Henn had taken them down to Lab One, only to find the red light on and to be refused admission by Tzavros. With this, one of the men had started to moan. "Good lord, if I take over they’ll be none of that. He’ll go by the book or nothing."
    Henn had smiled, one of the Russians going by the book? Never, Tzavros would quit within the hour and Henn did not want that, he had so much potential even if he did have more explosions than successes. Then the other man had taken down the sign Tzavros had put on the door and Henn had found himself on autopilot and rudely snatched at it, then carefully he had put it back. No, these two would not do, it would take many interviews to find the person they needed and by then it might be too late.
    The bustle in the office became loud as people came and went. Agents were becoming nervy, even though each carried insect killer, anti-histamine and vitamin K, they knew all this did was slow down the inevitable death.
    Klyne arrived, fit to resume work, hopefully. Galloway and Dwire followed with Steele. Henn told them to sit as their orders would be different, firstly Klyne, although considered fit would be kept on easy work until all signs of stress were gone. Galloway was to be given map duties with Dwire, working the complex grid system, not only to further their education but to keep Galloway safe. His Father was about to lose one child, it seemed cruel to risk the other. Steele, Bayfield and Tretow would also be held back, keeping their supreme abilities for the final battle. Tzavros would stay in the laboratory until that day then he too would join the best.
    "Mr Klyne, I want all the night clubs watched, take a different one each night and anything out of the ordinary, report back." Steele was already frowning until Henn threw him a silence man look, then Steele smiled as he realised what Henn was doing. Night-club duty was always a great excuse, send an under stress agent to a night club and pretty soon he relaxes.
    Henn ran through each task and stressed the importance of keeping within the cars, then watched as they left, hopefully not to end up in his available numbers drawer.
    "Mr Klyne, if you wait a moment I’ll give you your expense’s book. Mr Galloway and Mr Dwire, you’re to learn the grid and..." He was interrupted by the alarms wailing their annoyance at being used and as Steele and Tretow ran to the door with guns ready, Henn called into the intercom. "Security, where’s the problem?"
    The garbled voice of the security guard answered. "Sir? This is reception security? I don’t know what happened! Well, you know our large front window? It broke, Sir."
    "OK, so it broke, go outside and find the little boy with sticky sweets around his mouth and gum in his hair, he should be the one who threw the brick."
    "I did look, Sir. No brick, nothing at all. It just shattered. You should see it, Sir. There’s a massive hole in it, well like a rocket went through it and on one side there’s almost a hand print... Sir."
    "A broken window is no reason to put the base on full alert..."
    "All the papers in reception blew all over the place. Like a whirlwind went through here."
    "Perhaps that’s what it..."
    "Alex!"
    "Mr Steele! Don’t interrupt..."
    "O... O... Oh!... Alex?"
    "I am your controller. You call me Mister..."
    "Alex?... Mr Henn? Who can you think of that would enter a building without using the door?"
    Henn stood with his mouth open and Steele continued. "Could it? Yes? Do you think, yes?"
    Bayfield was grinning and jumping up and down, then Henn joined in, "Has to be, doesn’t it?" The young agents looked on in amazement, that window was expensive and the top guys were celebrating its destruction.
    "Sir, what do you want me to do about the glass?"
    "Who’s that?"
    "Security, Sir. About the glass?"
    "Frame it. Sweep it up and put in a new one, oh, I’m sorry. One of the labs just made a sonic boom, there are no problems." As he finished talking, the washroom door opened.
    "Sorry about that I missed," said Sukoloff looking very dusty, the dark rings under his eyes betrayed his tiredness, then he frowned. "Where’s Jodie?"
    It was Tretow who told him as Henn was grinning so much the words would not come out. Then without saying one more word the dusty destructor kit went back into the washroom as Tretow gasped and dived headlong for the phone.
    Dwire and Galloway could only watch in disbelief, that was the phone, red in colour, red for danger. This was the scrambler and at one touch was in contact with all world leaders. Only the very top men had clearance to use it and even men like Sukoloff asked before touching it, yet Tretow was using it whilst Henn sat on the table laughing.
    "Yo, Ma, he’s back." He handed the receiver to Henn. "Sorry, Sir, Ma likes warning so that she can move the china from the table. I got carried away."
    Henn continued to laugh but moved the receiver away from his ear and winced slightly. "He’s down. Hard by the sound of it."
    "He’ll never learn, never in a million years," said an overjoyed Bayfield.
    Henn let out such a loud laugh that it came out as a shout. "Tret, you needn’t have worried about the china, he missed the table. In-fact he missed everything and came down the chimney. Remind me to tell him that it’s the wrong time of year for playing Santa. Oh, oh, Maria is furious, there’s soot all over the place." He apologised to her and replaced the phone, then opened a drawer and removed a small plaque that he threw to Dwire. "Take that to Mr Tzavros in Lab One. Quickly please."

Sukoloff removed his person from the hearth and stomped scowling and sneezing across the room with Maria following close behind dustpan in hand, sweeping the black footprints from her once pretty carpet. As he saw Jodie he gasped, she was laid on a bed of pale pink linen that only seemed to enhance the whiteness of her skin and the darkness of her hollow eyes.
    "Jodie! Oh no, my Jodie." She blinked then shut her eyes tightly. "Look at me, Jodie, or do I look that bad?"
    She did as she was asked but then gave a faint yell and promptly closed her eyes again. "All I’m doing is dreaming again. I’ll reach out to touch you and you’ll go."
    He smiled and tenderly kissed her, leaving a sooty smudge as he did. "Nope. I’m real, I’m alive... Well, you know what I mean, I’m here." Colour suddenly appeared in her cheeks. She was smiling now and soon sat up, yelling, laughing and crying. "Oh, Vacily, you came back. They said you wouldn’t, they said you couldn’t."
    He held her tight. "I had to return. I... Missed you." Then he looked up and giving a small laugh said, "Oh, crikey, am I in trouble. I haven’t checked in yet, back in a minute." And Maria groaned as she reached for the phone.

Henn grabbed the phone the instant it rang and shouted the warning. "He’s coming back." To which everybody ducked, much to three young men’s astonishment.There was the inevitable crash from the washroom and Sukoloff walked out. Everyone stood in disbelief as they saw him. He was black from head to toe, his once blond hair stood up on end aided by the new super hairstyling abilities of chimneys and the blue black rinse of soot. A trail of footprints showed his route across the floor and resplendent handprints in a pop art reproduction design adorned the door. The only piece of him which remained unmodified were his teeth that gleamed white against his murky skin.
    "Hi, Alex, Sukoloff... That’s me... You know? Reporting back for duty. But not right now because I’m busy. I’ll explain later, bye." And he turned and walked to the washroom muttering slightly. "Oomph, sorry about the sink, Alex, you needed a new one anyway. Someone had put an awfully big crack in it."
    Henn chuckled even though he was shaking a fist after the Russian and again he called Maria. "Heading your way." Then he waited already flinching... And waited. "Maria, has he arrived yet?" As she answered with an enigmatic "No" they continued to wait.
    "It’s all right, Alex, I see him. What is he doing? He’s in that big apple tree in my garden. No, Vacily, don’t do that! Oh no, I just don’t believe it."
    "What he done? Is he all right?"
    "He jumped out and went straight through my greenhouse and landed in the water-butt. Now he’s getting cross and whirling out of control. Oh no you don’t, my lad. I’m sending you back. There’s no way you’re coming in my house like that."
    Tzavros skidded in grinning and shouting. "He’s back? Is he?" He did not have to wait long for the answer, Sukoloff stormed out of the washroom, looked at them briefly and went back in muttering about the wrong elevator.
    "How did he get tarred and feathered?" Steele was pointing and laughing so much he slid of his chair.
    Henn explained in between snorts that the water-butt had dampened his mucky skin and smudged most of the soot into a lovely black sticky goo, but it was the landing in the chicken coop had been the final insult to his unconformity to the vogue set.
    Another crash from the washroom signalled his next visit, this time he was holding a piece of paper that he handed to Tzavros. "Nice, like it." then again he left but not without depositing more straw and soot damaged feathers to further his aesthetic interior design qualifications.
    Dwire, Galloway and Klyne scowled, new to PIA yes, but this was amazing, this vast complex held surprise after surprise. They had not even heard rumours about these secret elevators, nevertheless the whole building must be riddled in them.
    It was twenty minutes before he put in another appearance, this time in a colourful tracksuit that not only clashed with his pale complexion but seemed on the large side. Henn began pointing and frowning which brought forth an embarrassed laugh and the explanation. "Sorry, Alex, I couldn’t remember which elevator went to my apartment. So I used yours. Sorry about your coffee table but you did need a new one, that one was so quaint."
    Henn began to explain about the value of antiques but stopped as he realised the whirligig was not even listening, he was just reading a small compass and waving his arms about. "That way I think, or was that chickens? No that way... No, that Maria’s neighbour. Poor lady will go berserk when sees what I did to her gnomes."
    It was Tretow who again spoke as nobody else seemed able to. "Vacily, calm down, you’re forgetting everything you ever learned. You’ve got plenty of time so just pretend that you’re going to land on an aeroplane wing. Gently, with final reverse thrust."
   "Right ho." As Henn called Maria, again Sukoloff left.
    Klyne turned white, he remembered everything so clearly now. I was stood at the open plane door and I saw him. He was squatting on the wing grinning, oh God! What is he?
   "Good lord! What ever happened?" said Maria sounding more than slightly shocked. "He made a perfect landing on top of my china cabinet. No, Vacily, don’t you dare, don’t float like that, just jump. Vacily, I said don’t."
    There was a small tinkling and a voice with a slight accent said, "Yeah, I catched it, apart from those pieces. Looks better without handle anyway."
    Henn sighed, Sukoloff had not been back one hour and already he was costing PIA a fortune.

He sat there grinning as she went on and on, question after question yet never a pause to hear the answer. Finally he said. "Jodie! Shut up."
    She carried on for a brief moment then sat back and blinked. "Vacily? Did you say shut up?"
    He nodded, then laughed as she continued her excited incessant chatter. "Shut up. You’re not listening to me."
    She smiled at him in between another fast round of causerie, then stopped for a meteoric moment, to continue. "I am listening, you should have seen..."
    He shouted now, then held her hand and gentle kissed her forehead, "I missed you, because... I well, you know? No, you don’t do you? I love you, Jodie, I love you so much I hurt."
    This stopped the chatter, she sat looking puzzled. "Pardon?" she said.
    "I love you!" But before she could say anything he jumped up. "How about Spain? Are you well enough to travel?"
    "I am now."
    Maria gave a deep sigh as she heard him say. "Back soon." and she phoned.
    Henn glanced up puzzled, was that a knock on the door? Since the re-opening of Level One all doors on that floor were electrically operated by a small chip contained within Level One agent’s identity cards and always opened automatically. He went to the door and as expected it opened.
    "Thanks, haven’t got my card," said Sukoloff smiling impishly.
    Henn looked up and down the for once, luckily, empty corridor. "Vacily! Don’t ever use A and D Mode without using your elevator."
    "Thought you said I wasn’t to use my elevators. I’m taking tomorrow off by the way." Then he headed towards the washroom.
    Three young agents sat open mouthed wondering where this man kept going? Klyne smiled, something was very strange about this Sukoloff, but he didn't care, all he knew was that twice the man had saved his life, other than that, he didn’t care what he was.

Back to what's new.