Eye of the Storm (2 page)

Even at fifty metres there was no mistaking the impact of the bullet in the middle of the wooden target.

‘Cool!’ Callum exclaimed.

‘Nice shot, Mum,’ Sam added, reminded again of how Callum had compared her to Sarah Connor in the
Terminator
films. ‘How did you learn to shoot like that?’

‘I had a good teacher,’ she said, expertly flicking on the safety catch. ‘And I
listened
to what he said. Now, try it again, Sam. But this time I want you to do exactly
as I tell you.’

‘OK.’

For the next few minutes, Claire manhandled Sam into a position resembling the one she had used. To Sam’s amazement, the rifle was far easier to hold steady this time and his second shot
blasted a hole through the top right-hand corner of the target.

‘Awesome. Nice shot!’ Callum cheered.

Sam lowered the rifle and rolled his right shoulder again. The recoil this time had not felt so severe, but his shoulder still hurt from the first shot. He was pretty certain he would have an
impressive bruise later.

‘Better,’ Claire said, acknowledging his hit with a slight nod of her head. ‘But you snatched the shot. Remember, if you want to be accurate, don’t pull at the trigger
– squeeze it gently. The best riflemen are relaxed as they take their shots.’

‘What about in the alley?’ Sam asked thoughtfully. ‘There was no time for all this preparation there. When you ambushed those raptors, the bullets were flying thick and
fast.’

‘That’s true,’ Claire agreed. ‘But that was close-quarters shooting. It was hard to miss. Our targets were never more than five metres away. Even half full of lead, a
raptor can be deadly unless you’ve managed a mortal shot. They’re dangerous until the final gasp of life has left them, so we had to down them fast. There was no room to take
chances.’

‘That makes sense,’ Sam said, pursing his lips as disturbing images of the bullet-riddled bodies of the raptors filled his mind. It was one thing to practise shooting, but the
thought of actually aiming to kill something, even a raptor that would tear him apart without hesitation, was unsettling.

‘Also, raptors move incredibly fast,’ Claire continued. ‘Learning to hit a static target like this is just the first step. Shooting a moving target that will kill you if you
miss adds a whole new level of difficulty.’

‘Shooting at raptors sounds like my experiences with girls at school,’ Callum volunteered thoughtfully.

‘Really?’ Claire said, her lips twisting into a wry smile. She placed her hands on her hips and adopted a stance that seemed to say
I was a high school girl once. Continue, if you
dare!
‘How so?’

‘Well, for a start girls also hunt in packs,’ he said, keeping his face deadpan. ‘And if you fail to take out the right one at the first attempt, you’re as good as dead
to the rest of them forever after.’

‘Brilliant!’ Sam laughed, shaking his head. ‘And
so
true!’

Claire didn’t say a word. She just nodded, her smile widening a fraction.

‘Your turn I think,’ she said, pointing at Callum. ‘Safety on, Sam, and pass Callum the rifle. Let’s hope his shooting is as sharp as his wit.’

It was hard to credit the monstrous-looking raptors with creating the many strange and wonderful technological marvels that Sam had seen since arriving here. However, he could not deny that some
of their inventions made human technology seem positively backward. Indirectly, it was raptor technology that had caused humans to begin crossing into this world centuries ago. In their quest for a
clean, sustainable energy source, the raptors had caused unpredictable tears to form in the fabric of time and space that kept universes apart – rifts that had caused many to cross between
the two worlds. Yet for all of the scientific and sociological advances the raptors had made over millennia of evolution, the primal urge they felt to hunt and kill their food remained deeply
ingrained. For the stranded human population, especially those rebelling against the raptor hierarchy, this made proficiency with weapons an essential skill set.

Callum took the rifle and did his best to imitate the techniques that he had seen Claire teach Sam. The recoil of the rifle made him stagger slightly, but to his delight, Callum scored a good
hit first time.

‘Look at that!’ he crowed. ‘First shot and I deliberately killed a piece of wood. I doubt that I’m going to be able to hear anything for the next week, but who cares?
That was
very
cool.’ Suddenly, he pointed up and to the right. ‘Hey! What’s that up there?’

Something large and silver-coloured was flying towards them at speed and against the breeze. It looked like a cross between a small hang glider and a large box kite. Although it was still a good
distance away, Sam could definitely make out a figure sandwiched between the wings. Someone was flying the strange contraption. It looked like a raptor.

‘So it’s true!’ Claire exclaimed. ‘There’ve been rumours for some time that the raptors have been experimenting with building flying machines, but I didn’t
realise they’d managed to take to the air.’

‘How did it get that high?’ Callum asked. ‘Do you think he jumped from the top of the city, or is that thing powered somehow?’

‘I don’t know,’ Claire replied. ‘It seems to be moving too fast for it to be a pure glider, so there must be some kind of power behind it. But if the raptors have
mastered flight, we need to find out as much about the machines as we can. Come on. We’re too exposed here. If we can see him, he sure as hell can see us by now. Let’s hope he’s
too busy concentrating to care who we are, and that he doesn’t have any sort of remote communication with the city.’

Sam grabbed the heavy rifle from Callum and followed his mother in a sprint towards a nearby stand of trees. Seconds later, they were all crouched behind tree trunks, peering out to see where
the flying machine would go. It passed almost overhead, the whispering
swoosh
of its passage through the air and the soft whine of the large fan-like propeller at the back of the machine
clearly audible.

‘I’d say it’s about fifty metres up,’ Sam observed. ‘But it’s not descending. Do you want the gun, Mum?’

He held the rifle out towards her, but she gave a slight shake of her head. Her eyes were following the flying machine and its pilot intently.

‘I don’t kill unless it becomes necessary, Sam,’ she said softly.

‘Even if you wanted to, it would be a tough shot,’ Callum observed. ‘Look at it go! Wow! I’d love to try that. It looks like great fun.’

The contraption raced away, its pilot apparently not interested in their presence at all. Claire looked thoughtful as it disappeared into the distance.

‘I think we’ll keep any further shooting practice for another day,’ she said eventually. ‘And, Sam, you need to remember that a gun should only be used in extreme
circumstances. Our rebel group are
not
murderers. We use weapons for self-defence, and if necessary, to achieve the bigger goal of stopping the raptors from destroying both their planet and
ours . . . but only if there’s no other way. If I can’t trust you to follow that simple principle, then your lessons end right now. Understood?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ he mumbled, feeling deeply chastened. He hadn’t really considered the consequences of killing or seriously hurting the raptor. For all their fierce appearance,
raptors were highly intelligent creatures. Sam could not imagine deliberately shooting another human, so what made him think that shooting a raptor was any more ethically acceptable? His mum was
right: he needed to take things more seriously. This wasn’t a game on his Xbox.

‘Good. Come on. Let’s get back to the others. I need to talk to some people about what we’ve seen.’

They moved out from under the trees and walked back to the city in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

Three days earlier. . .

Niamh Cutler could not decide if she should feel guilty, relieved or frustrated. It appeared her immediate search for her brother Sam and his friend Callum was over, and she
had failed to find them. The US coastguards were still out searching, but she knew they wouldn’t find anything. Through the strange telepathic bond that she shared with her twin brother Sam,
she had learned a couple of things for certain. First, wherever Sam was, he had found their mother. Second, given that nothing had been seen of Claire Cutler in the last nine years since she
disappeared somewhere off the coastline of the Florida Keys, it was safe to assume that wherever the missing boys were, the location was both remote and difficult to find.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on her brother again, searching for any hint or whisper of what he might be feeling or doing. Nothing. She could still feel that he was alive, but that was it.
Earlier that day, she had sensed his thoughts and emotions clearly, but now there was only the faintest glimmer of a presence in her mind. Why did the strength of her perception of Sam vary so
drastically? It didn’t make any sense. With a sigh, she opened her eyes and tried to relax into the seat.

Sitting in the back of a police patrol car, cruising along the Overseas Highway towards the Sheriff’s Office at Key West, Niamh had plenty of time to think. It should have been the perfect
opportunity to organise what she knew into some semblance of order, but the throbbing pain in her left ankle and the burning sensation of the graze up her left side and across her back were
clouding her thought processes. Jumping from a moving bus had not been the smartest thing she had ever done.

Their holiday had started so well, but Sam had not been content with sunbathing around the pool and snorkelling on the nearby beaches. Instead, he’d had to go and take their dad’s
boat out without permission and get himself lost, along with his friend Callum. It was just the sort of testosterone-fuelled stunt that boys seemed to thrive on.
No wonder there are more boys
born every year than girls
, she mused. It must be nature’s compensation factor for boys’ tendencies towards courting danger and getting themselves killed while doing stupid things
– Darwinism in action.

But Niamh knew Sam and Callum were not dead. Despite Sam’s pig-headed refusal to listen to reason before taking the boat, somehow, somewhere, he was still alive. Niamh felt it with a
surety that most found hard to understand. Ever since she could remember, she had experienced a special bond with her twin brother that had manifested in flashes of what she could only describe as
telepathy. For Niamh this phenomenon was not something she could initiate at will, though with Sam missing she had done her utmost to trigger episodes and analysed every incident and image she had
received, no matter how bizarre it seemed. Sadly, she could not converse with her brother through the strange mental bond. The link was too ephemeral and unpredictable. However, at times she could
sense her brother, particularly if he was experiencing intense emotions. That was how she had come to discover that wherever he was, Sam had found their mother.

Her mother was alive! Niamh found it hard to believe that, after all this time, her mother was really out there somewhere. Her heart raced with excitement at the thought. It had not been easy
growing up without a mother, but now it appeared that if she found Sam, then she would also be reunited with the mum she had never thought to see again.

Dad had been a constant support as she had grown up, but there had been more and more times recently when Niamh had yearned for her mother. Her body was changing and the insecurities she felt
were not something she wanted to share with her dad. She was sure he understood the
theory
of female puberty, but he’d never experienced it for himself, so how could he help her? A
bitter, clenching pang of jealousy tightened her stomach as she imagined Sam spending time with their mother.
It’s not fair! He took dad’s boat and caused all this trouble. And what
happens? He gets rewarded by being reunited with our mum.

‘Life’s got a strange way of rewarding the wrong people sometimes,’ she muttered softly.

‘You OK back there?’ the policeman in the front passenger seat asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.

‘Oh yeah!’ she replied, her voice thick with sarcasm. ‘Never been better, thanks.’

‘Not much further now,’ he added, apparently oblivious to her tone. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll soon have you fixed up.’

‘Great!’ she muttered. ‘I can’t wait.’
Patched up and packed off to England,
she thought
. And what then? There would not be much she could do to find
anyone
if she was stuck on the other side of the Atlantic.

Besides, there were still several weeks to go before the end of the summer holidays and with her dad still in police custody, where would they send her? The police were not going to let her live
at home in England on her own any more than they would have done here in the Florida Keys, and she couldn’t go back to school until September. There were relatives she could stay with. That
seemed the most likely outcome, but what was going to happen to her dad? The police seemed to think he had murdered Sam and Callum, which was a ridiculous accusation. Her dad was a gentle man. Even
the suggestion that he could have killed the boys was one that Niamh found deeply offensive, and she knew he had been nowhere near them when they had gone missing. But how could she prove it?