“Aha!” Al cried. “It’s you, Fatty!”
Al seemed to be addressing a large vehicle. But, as they came round it, Finn saw what was inside. Huge quarter-sections of a giant metal doughnut, each the size of a cottage, were being manoeuvred off the transporter by an outsize forklift, a freak-show mirror of perfect polished steel on the inside, a mess of hydraulics and wiring on the outside, featuring domestic plumbing and gaffer tape – a dazzling piece of engineering that looked like it’d been knocked together in a shed: very Uncle Al.
Finn caught his distorted reflection on the perfect inner surface and remembered a night at home the year before when Al had appeared unexpectedly on the doorstep to demand Toad-in-the-Mustard-Hole from Grandma (the family comfort food). He had sworn and ranted at the table saying “they’ve mugged me” and “they have press-ganged Fatty”. There was little indication who ‘they’ or ‘Fatty’ were, but a general hatred and distrust of anyone In Charge had come across before he’d drunk too much and fallen asleep in front of Match of the Day.
“Ah yes, the Fat Doughnut Accelerator you developed at Cambridge!” said Professor Channing.
“Stolen from me a year ago in the dead of night!” said Al.
“Ah… it was?”
Commander King appeared on the gantry above them like a materialising vampire.
Al pretended not to notice.
“Ripped from my still beating breast and shipped to the military by that perfidious, superior, mendacious, warmongering…”
“Dr Allenby.”
“Ah… Lord Vader.”
King allowed himself a minuscule, dry smile (no one else dared) and descended slowly. Finn hid behind Professor Channing.
“As I recall, we commissioned a preliminary study into possible defensive potential only after you had withdrawn cooperation, concealed the sequencing codes and thrown what my nanny used to call ‘a wobbly’?”
“Because I said NO to weaponisation.”
“But you were already working with the military?”
“Only with my guys – and we were having ‘fun’. Didn’t Nanny ever teach you to ‘have fun’, Commander?”
“Certainly not. She taught us Cleanliness, Godliness and to Ignore Naughty Boys.”
“Then what are we doing here? Because I warn you, if you’re on holiday too, there’s no pool.”
“We need you, Dr Allenby. If not your terrific sense of humour.”
There was a cold connection between the two, the ghost of a mutual respect.
“So spill the beans,” said Al.
Without even looking at Finn, King said: “Not in front of the children.”
Uh-oh.
Finn shrank further behind Channing.
“They’re perfectly normal human beings, just smaller and largely odourless. Say hello, Finn, you’re frightening the King.”
Finn emerged from cover.
“Hi. Sir. Finn. I mean, I’m Finn. Not sir. Not you, you’re sir. I’m just…”
“Hello, Infinity, I am sorry we’ve interrupted your excursion. We have a canteen area. There’s a television, some magazines. Why don’t you go with Nigel and he’ll show you the—”
“I think I’ll stay and watch!”
(Canteen. Television. Nigel. Apart from an absurd facility for science and maths, Finn was average or hopeless at most other things, but he did have an Acute Sense of Dread – the one great advantage of being orphaned. Just keep going.)
King, not used to interruptions, raised an eyebrow.
“He thinks he’ll stay and watch,” confirmed Al, dragging Finn forward for a formal introduction.
“Meet my late sister’s child, my sole heir, my DNA. I promised him an adventure and my mother a week of respite care – and that’s exactly what they’re going to get. Wherever I go, he goes.”
Finn felt briefly at ease, proud even, till Al continued, “He may look like a scruffy, not particularly well-coordinated boy from a bog-standard comprehensive…”
“Hey! It’s an academy. It has academy status.”
“…but he’s in the top set for science and maths and has been schooled by me in the wilder side of theoretical physics, rocketry and blowing things up. What’s more, he has a soul a mile deep, a smile a mile wide and can be trusted absolutely.”
Finn thought this might be overselling him a little, but still couldn’t help tacking on, “And I’ve had two letters published in Amateur Entomologist. It’s a specialist magazine.”
“You surprise me,” said King drily and took a step forward so that he and Al were eyeball to eyeball.
“This is an extraordinary situation, an aggregate threat to human life that demands a global response through the G&T and the reconstitution of Boldklub…”
Al whispered back, “He already knows.”
Commander King turned a shade of white not known in nature.
A shade of murder.
Al slapped Finn on the back and drove him on up the gantry.
“What do I know?” Finn whispered.
“Shut up and go with it,” hissed Al.
Up in the control gallery, Finn no longer felt like he was in a video game. Up here it was more like the bridge of a spaceship in some movie. There were banks of computers and displays and an observation window that ran the length of the gallery and looked down across the vast CFAC below.
“Wow!”
Beyond the giant lorries that were depositing the accelerators and physics kit, Finn could see more trucks arriving, military green and brown. He could make out the tarpaulin-covered shapes of what he took to be vehicles, and maybe even a helicopter. Signs were appearing everywhere that warned ORDNANCE – EXTREME CARE – RESTRICTIONS APPLY.
Al headed straight for two soldiers – one huge, the other small and wizened – who had risen to greet him: the first like an old friend, the second with wary resignation.
“Kelly and Stubbs! My boys! The old team back together again!” laughed Al.
Captain Kelly wore an SAS badge and was a comic-book action hero: six foot six and one hundred kilos of scarred flesh and raw power. He poked Al’s chest in mock accusation (nearly breaking his sternum) – “They let you back in?” – before following up with a laugh and a bear hug.
“And Major Leonard Stubbs! Sir!” gasped Al once he was free.
Stubbs grimaced and Kelly ruffled his hair.
“He’s happy,” insisted Kelly. “He’s wagging his little tail.”
With the physique and charm of a defeated tortoise, Engineer Stubbs was technically retired and past pensionable age, but, as a minor genius with both mechanical and information systems who could fix anything, he’d been given an honorary commission at sixty and asked to stay on – which, considering he had never attracted a Mrs Stubbs, was a blessing all round. He clearly didn’t do hugs or emotion, which of course made Al