Becoming Zodiak Read online

  “I don’t understand why we are doing this,” Scorpio remarked as the hovership touched down on the helipad atop Walsh Towers.

  Lord Crabbe sighed. He was growing tired of being unable to dispel the seeds of dissent that Aries had sown amongst Zodiak. Training sessions over the last couple of days had been fraught with tension and, after a consultation with Virgo, he had decided to take a more aggressive stance on the issue.

  “We are doing this because I deem it a necessity,” he replied. “Why is it that we now question each other at every turn? Why is it that you all must act like spoilt children?”

  “Because most of us are still teenagers,” Leo quipped, trying to alleviate the oppressive atmosphere on the flight deck. The team continued to appear divided despite everyone’s promises to be more united to support Virgo’s recovery.

  Crabbe was not swayed by Leo’s attempt at humor. “We are here to fulfill our obligation to William Walsh, allowing one more interview with Jimmy to show that he is fitting in. What a joke that appears to be right now, do you not think?”

  No one could meet Crabbe’s agitated glare. Jimmy felt uncomfortable. Aries, who stood alone, had not spoken to him since the events on top of the train, and he had become paranoid that others felt the same as she. He was scared that he wasn’t welcome, that he never would be.

  “But while we are here, I will also question Mister Walsh about the helicopter. I hope that by agreeing to this interview with Jimmy, I will be able to coerce Mister Walsh to leave us off the airways. At least for a little while.”

  “Why isn’t Virgo getting better?” Pisces asked abruptly. The starkness of the question made Jimmy prickle with unease. It was a question many wanted to ask, but no one wanted to hear the answer.

  “Not even she knows that.” Crabbe’s voice was smaller when he spoke. “We all expected her to start to recover now that we are twelve again.”

  Virgo had stayed in Zodiak’s hidden base with Capricorn and Sagittarius watching over her. Although she grew no frailer, she had yet to show any sign of recovery. Leo had refused to be left behind, and she demonstrated no ill effects of her car crash so far. Unlike her, the hypercar was still another week from being roadworthy.

  “But please,” Crabbe added, “as much as it may pain you, can we at least attempt the façade of a team for the next hour? We appear to be under enough scrutiny as it is without any public infighting.”

  Once inside the building itself, Zodiak presented a more united front and Jimmy was ushered away to be interviewed. Leo and Gemini accompanied him, acting as chaperones. Jimmy was pleased to have Peter, William Walsh’s head of security, guiding them to the studio.

  “You’ll be interviewed in here,” Peter said, opening a smooth wooden door. “Gemini, Leo, there’s a room over here where you can watch through the glass.”

  “We’ll be staying with Bull’s Eye,” Leo said forcefully.

  “No, Mister Walsh has strictly—”

  “Mister Walsh does not tell Zodiak what to do,” Gemini informed him.

  “I need to clear this,” Peter muttered and flipped open his mobile phone.

  “Let them come in,” a deep voice called from inside the studio. “It’ll be good to see old friends!”

  Leo’s eye grew wide. “Taurus?”

  Martin Bull strode out of the studio and into the hallway. His massive frame looked odd in his designer suit, and the top button of his shirt looked strained under his ill-fitting tie.

  “So how’s my replacement doing?” he asked arrogantly without bothering to greet his former teammates, leaving stunned expressions on their faces.

  “I’m nobody’s replacement,” Jimmy countered, though his stomach churned. “You were the Bull. I’m Bull’s Eye.”

  “Feisty for a little one isn’t he?” Martin snorted. “Learn some manners, kid.”

  Jimmy bounced up onto his toes. “I—”

  “Am leaving!” Leo finished and hooked her arm around Jimmy’s waist. “Walk, Jimmy. And not another word.”

  “What happened to you, my friend?” Gemini asked before joining Leo and Jimmy as they put distance between themselves and Martin Bull.

  “I’ll be seeing you guys,” he taunted. “All over WWW.”

  The three of them were furious by the time Peter directed them to the room where Lord Crabbe was meeting with William Walsh. The rest of Zodiak were sat outside.

  “They expected Jimmy to be interviewed by Martin!” Leo snapped.

  “Martin? He’s here?” Aries asked, suddenly alert.

  “Seriously, Ariel. Not now,” Leo warned her. “We need to see Lord Crabbe.”

  The door opened and Crabbe was pushing himself out. “So you just got lucky?” he was asking, his tone derisive.

  “Lucky, yes,” Walsh explained. “But my revenue has taken an upturn, so I’ve been able to employ more staff. More staff means more coverage on the ground. And in the air, of course.”

  “Lord Crabbe, we need to talk to you,” Leo said.

  “On the ship.” Crabbe smiled tightly.

  “But—” Leo was interrupted by the triple beep of an alarm from the speaker built into the armrest of Crabbe’s wheelchair.

  “Zodiak, this is Libra. I’m getting a report of—”

  “Maintain radio silence, Libra. We’re on our way,” Crabbe said, and he ushered Zodiak to be on the move with one finger on his lips.

  Quietly.

  Walsh followed Zodiak to the roof.

  “Jimmy, I hear you are doing a grand job!”

  Jimmy paused, unsure of whether he should even say thanks.

  “Umm, I…I…” he stuttered. “I really have to go.” The rest of the team was already boarding the hovership, and he could see Aries had stopped and was staring at him.

  “Of course! I am so very proud of you, you know.”

  Jimmy found the words tumbling out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

  “So why did you get the old Taurus to interview me?”

  Walsh blinked. “Martin? I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I asked for Owen Morten and Jennifer James to chat with you. Only the very best for you, my boy. Martin is good, but he is still a beginner.”

  “Well, he was the one waiting for me in the studio.”

  Walsh shook his head almost wearily. “Jimmy, I am so sorry. Leave this with me. I’ll get to the bottom of it. I just want—”

  “Bull’s Eye! Move it!” Leo shouted, and with a brief wave to Mister Walsh, Jimmy sprinted up the ramp and into the ship.

  Inside, the team was crowded around Libra’s flight deck.

  “Lucky we’re here in London,” Libra said. “Because someone’s broken into the gold vault in the Great Britain International Bank.”

  “There’s no way the cameras can get there before us today,” Aries said darkly as she stared at Jimmy.

  A message flashed up on one of Libra’s three-dimensional screens.

  “Problem just got worse,” he sighed.

  “What?” asked Scorpio.

  “A bomb. There’s a bomb.”

  41

  “Three minutes to destination,” Libra announced as Zodiak prepared for their assault on the bank vault.

  Jimmy was much more adept at putting on his body armor this time around, and now his logo, representing his manifestation as Bull’s Eye, adorned his bulletproof chest protector.

  Lord Crabbe had explained to him that, in time, the original Taurus logo would replace that of Bull’s Eye, but—given the reaction of some of the team to Martin Bull’s departure—it was safer to go with something different for now. As he stood in the team’s preparation room aboard the hovership and pulled his helmet into place, there was one thing that worried Jimmy.

  “Leo?” he asked. “How come every trip we take in this ship is so quick?”

  Leo snatched a sheet of white paper and a pen from a nearby table. She drew two small circles a few inches apart.

  “Let me ask you a question instead,” she said. “W
hat’s the shortest distance between these two dots?”

  “A straight line.”

  Leo nodded and drew a thin line from circle to circle.

  “But what about this?” She folded the paper in two so the circles touched.

  “Now there’s no need for the line. In fact, if we followed the straight line now, the journey would take longer. The hovership can fold distances, bringing us within metres of where we need to be.”

  Jimmy squinted. “But how is that possible?”

  “There are some things we don’t ask, we just accept. Virgo’s knowledge and Lord Crabbe’s ability, not to mention his money, bring these things to life.” She shrugged. “It’s like magic.”

  Jimmy realized that trying to find the logic in what Leo had told him would likely drive him insane, so he accepted her shrug and checked his rifle. He locked it into place and tapped the side of his helmet so Libra would know he was ready to go.

  “The local police have informed us that there are three terrorists inside the vault,” Lord Crabbe’s voice, loud and commanding, came through the speakers. “There are no civilians inside. Just a bomb.”

  “On final approach to target,” Libra confirmed.

  Gemini strolled into the prep room, eyes glued to his phone. He had yet to gear up, and Scorpio looked far from impressed.

  “Are you having a vacation today?” he asked.

  “No,” Gemini answered casually. “It’s just, there is no bomb.”

  Scorpio just stared at him. “What?”

  “I have hacked the security system in the vault,” Gemini said. “The bomb is a fake. Ask Libra to scan with thermal imaging.”

  “Libra, do you hear this?” Scorpio asked.

  “Already scanning… Gemini is right.” He gave a loud, clipped sigh. “Great work. There’s a field about a kilometer from the vault. I’m going to put the ship down there.”

  “Before you do,” Aries said, “can you do another scan? For any film crews.”

  “All clear!”

  “That makes a change,” Aries quipped, staring at Jimmy.

  “Aries, come on!” Aquarius snapped. “Let’s be a team and go catch us some bad guys, all right?”

  The local police had formed a cordon around the vault and held a watchful position back on the highway as Zodiak ran down the vault’s wide driveway almost ten minutes later.

  Lord Crabbe and Libra waited back on the hovership as the rest of the team surrounded the building. The two of them watched the 3D monitors, all glowing green, as Leo, Scorpio, Gemini, Aries, Aquarius, Pisces and Jimmy took their designated positions. There was only one entrance in and out of the vault, and Pisces positioned the amphibian right outside the door. Scorpio, on his motorcycle, stayed twenty metres back from the doors, keeping a watchful eye over the rest of Zodiak. The final members of the team, all on foot, flanked the entrance with their weapons drawn, ready and waiting to charge inside.

  “Scorpio, you have the lead,” Libra spoke through their helmets.

  “Right. On my mark, I want the water cannons to blast those doors off their hinges. In three, in two…”

  Libra interrupted the countdown.

  “We have a systems malfunction… Lost all camera visuals. Zodiak, do you still hear me?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “If you are happy to proceed, then you’re good to go,” Libra informed them. “Scorpio?”

  “Zodiak! Go!” Scorpio instructed.

  No one moved.

  “Aquarius!” he said. “Blast those doors down!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Does anyone copy?” he asked. No response came through his helmet.

  “Now the audio feed has died!” he shouted, waving one arm in the air. The rest of the team looked around at him, confused and unsure of what to do next.

  That was when the vault doors opened and three men walked out, each with his hands in the air, signaling surrender. They each wore apparently cheap suits, one blue, one grey, and one brown. Jimmy could see their discarded weapons lying on the floor behind them. It appeared to him that, once they knew it was Zodiak outside, they had given up on any hope they had of stealing the gold or even escaping. They must have known that, once Zodiak arrived, their ruse of having a bomb would be quickly uncovered.

  No one moved. The terrorists saw that there was an uncertainty in their would-be captors, and as one, they bolted.

  Blue Suit ran straight into Gemini, who dropped his shoulder and unleashed a right uppercut onto the man’s chin. Gemini felt bone crack under the power of his punch. Blue Suit’s eyes glazed over and he crumpled to the floor.

  Aquarius lined up Grey Suit and blasted him with the water cannon. The force knocked him off his feet, and before he had chance to recover, Aquarius was on him, pinning him to the floor in a powerful headlock.

  Brown Suit easily ducked past Aries and sprinted away. Jimmy dropped to one knee and selected 020 on his rifle.

  “I have the shot,” he announced, and squeezed the trigger just as Scorpio’s bike veered in front of him.

  The rubber bullet Jimmy had chosen flew from the barrel of his rifle and struck Scorpio on the back of his helmet. Scorpio wobbled, seemed to right himself, and then lost control of his bike. The back wheel snaked first one way and then the other before it regained traction and flipped Scorpio up into the air. He landed on his hip and slid across the tarmac. His bike flipped over once and then came to a halt, leaving pieces of itself in its wake.

  ‘Brown Suit’ ignored the trouble behind him and continued to run. Leo drew her pistol and took a wide stance, tilting her head as she looked down the sights. Her wrists absorbed the recoil as she fired and the criminal fell to the floor with a grunt, a tranquilizer dart sticking out of the back of his neck.

  Jimmy ran to Scorpio and was relieved to see him pushing himself up to his feet.

  “Scorpio. I’m so sorry! I called the shot, and then you were in my way.”

  “You fool!” Scorpio shouted, tearing his crash helmet from his head. He threw it at Jimmy, who ducked out of the way; but then Scorpio was on him, and he was grabbed by the shoulders and flung to the floor. “My bike! Look what you did to my bike!”

  Jimmy stared back at his enraged teammate, his own temper flaring in self-defence. “But I called the shot! I did as you told me in practice!”

  “Now hang on,” Aries boomed as she marched across to them. “I was stood right by you and I didn’t hear you say a word.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “Why would I lie? I’m not the one that just shot a member of my own team!”

  “Enough!” Leo shouted, pointing back towards the road. “We’ll sort this out later. Right now, we need to show our strength.”

  “Perfect,” spat Aries as a WWW News van stopped outside the bank and dumped out a cameraman and reporter. “Just what we need. Hey, Bull’s Eye! Shame your buddy didn’t get his cameras here sooner. Then the whole world could’ve seen why you don’t deserve the name Taurus!”

  Jimmy wrenched himself out of Scorpio’s grip and looked around for at least one friendly face amongst Zodiak, but he found none.

  42

  Jimmy walked with his head down as he approached Walsh Towers. He wore a baseball cap with the peak pulled low over his eyes and a pair of sunglasses. No one had given him a second glance since he had stepped off the train. He hated the fact that he lied to Lord Crabbe when he’d asked if he was allowed to see his family, but he needed a friendly face right now more than he’d ever needed one in his life. Telling Brian, Claire and Shane what had happened at the vault was the last thing he wanted to do, but he believed Mister Walsh would at least lend him a sympathetic ear.

  In the aftermath of Scorpio’s crash, Jimmy had felt isolated from the rest of Zodiak. Aries had continued to mock him, Scorpio refused to speak to him, and Leo simply looked disappointed. Lord Crabbe and Virgo had spoken to him, had told him they would help him work out the situation, but even they had reprimanded h
im for firing his weapon so dangerously. He had given up on trying to explain that he had called the shot—he had no proof. He had been close to tears in that moment but had not shown any weakness. He had instead asked for the chance to see his family, if only for a few hours.

  The receptionist at Walsh Towers had initially been dismissive of his request, but then he took off the cap and sunglasses and she had gasped with recognition. She picked up the phone immediately.

  “Mister Walsh. I have Jimmy Taurus in the foyer. He wishes to speak with you.”

  Moments later, he was in an elevator on the way to Walsh’s office at the top floor of the skyscraper. He was met there by Peter, and was asked to take a seat outside Walsh’s room.

  “He won’t be a minute. He’s just finishing up in a meeting,” Peter told him before leaving.

  The door to Walsh’s office opened soon after, and a smartly dressed man with a shaved head stepped out.

  “Hey, look who it is!” the man said enthusiastically. “Jimmy Taurus!”

  “Do I know you?” Jimmy asked.

  “No. No, you don’t, but it’s sure good to see you.”

  The man tipped Jimmy a salute and walked off towards the elevators.

  William Walsh called Jimmy into his office.

  “It’s so good to see you, my boy,” he said.

  “You too, Mister Walsh.”

  “How are you?”

  Jimmy sighed, the emotion of the last few days catching up with him. “Not great. You heard about Scorpio’s motorcycle crash?”

  “I did, yes, but you must not dwell on these things,” Walsh said soothingly. “It is the nature of the business. Accidents happen. This time it was Scorpio, last time it was Leo. These things are part of the job you now do.”

  “I guess so,” Jimmy responded. Then, “That man who was just in here? Do I know him?”

  Walsh paused. “He’s one of the producers from the show. You may not have spoken to him, but you would have seen him then.”

  He poured himself a drink and asked Jimmy if he needed anything.

  “Not a drink, no,” Jimmy said. “But I need someone to talk to. No one will believe that I called the shot. Libra’s cameras and audio devices had gone offline, so there’s no record that it wasn’t my fault.”