Hammerson took personal command of Alex and provided the extra training he needed to mould him into the special service’s first super weapon—codenamed “Arcadian.” Like Zeus, born of Arcadia and destroyer of the Titans, the new Alex had been created by war—he would go in fast, hard and with maximum lethality.

Alex was again primed for red duty and the current situation in the Antarctic was just the set of circumstances that required a special resource. Jack Hammerson reached for the phone; it was time Arcadian came in.

Four

Wednesday morning Aimee checked her presentation for the last time to ensure she had the relevant information bullet-pointed and just enough feel-good blue sky built in to entice the most hard-boiled petroleum investor. Her handouts were printed up and bound professionally and she thought they looked pretty damn good. More than anything else she wanted to walk out of that boardroom in two hours (or less if lucky), and have good news for Tom when he returned on the weekend.

Aimee hoped that the progress of their project would give the board enough confidence in them to continue further funding. She drew a breath and smoothed the front of her only blue power suit. She knocked on the door and entered without waiting to be invited.

Instead of the seven members of the board she was expecting, she only recognised one, Alfred Beadman the chairman, who greeted her warmly just inside the door. Seated at the table were four people she had never met before. She assessed them all quickly—two sporty student types, a middle-aged nerd and a military man. She turned her attention back to Alfred, a fatherly figure to her and someone she knew she could always trust. He led her to a seat without letting go of her hand and asked her to sit down.

Her immediate thoughts were that they were going to be shut down and that she had somehow already let Tom down by failing in her funding request and further, getting them bounced right out the door of GBR. Aimee closed her eyes and imagined Tom walking back in at the weekend and saying in his boyish manner “I’ve got a surprise for you,” while holding a box behind his back, and Aimee responding with “and have I ever got one for you.”

After a few moments Alfred spoke softly. “Aimee, we’ve lost contact with Tom—with all of them.”

It was as if the entire atmosphere had been sucked out of the room; no one moved or spoke, no one even breathed. They just sat and stared.

“What do you mean you’ve lost contact?” Aimee was on her feet radiating a mix of disbelief and red hot anger.