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, happily outrunning the Mercedes of the security detail and scattering autumn leaves.
Finn sat in a nano-den (or ‘nDen’ as Al liked to call them) that was clipped to Al’s top pocket.
A way had to be found for the nano-crew to be housed, heard and taken out of the lab complex from time to time and nDens were the answer. This particular nDen was a typically eccentric choice of Al’s: a vintage Sony Walkman cassette player. About the size of a book, it had been adapted to hold nano-humans: there was a sofa, tinted glass for them to see out of, a line to Al through the earphones, and a built-in loudspeaker for when they needed to make themselves more widely heard.
“Tell me what went wrong with Fluffy. Maybe I can help,” said Finn.
“About three grams,” said Al.
“Three grams?” said Finn.
“That’s right,” said Al. “We reduced Fluffy, then we rescaled Fluffy – in perfect form, every atom, every molecule in the right place – and yet … somehow Fluffy ends up stone cold dead and three grams lighter. It’s as if the electrical relationships and reactions that run a body – the stuff of life – somehow disappeared. We just have to isolate why, what, where and when, and then we’ll be able to do something about it. But at the moment we haven’t got a clue – just three missing grams.”
The conversation continued as they walked through the woods with Grandma later that afternoon – another headache for the Security Service. Al was thought to be a prime target for kidnap, but Grandma refused any extra security. For her there was no appeasing villainy – and no mystery in Al’s missing three grams, either.
“The three grams are obviously the Soul,” said Grandma. “The divine.”
“Mother! As the wife of one scientist, the mother of two more and as a medical professional, do you really think that—”
“Don’t you dare be rude about simple faith!” squawked Grandma. “People have the right to experience mystery!”
“Let’s not have this argument again!” Finn pleaded, as it was one that had ruined at least three mealtimes a week for most of his life.
Yap! agreed Yo-yo, running ahead and making Finn wish he’d opted to ride with him instead. He often did this, sitting in the fur just under Yo-yo’s ear, guiding him with simple commands. Yo-yo was the best, most uncoordinated mongrel ever born. He couldn’t fathom the mystery of Finn’s physical disappearance – just as he couldn’t fathom what clouds were – but he could still smell Finn and hear him, which was all he needed.
Grandma and Al lowered their guards, warily.
“If it isn’t supernatural, what’s your best guess on the missing three grams?” Finn asked Al from the nDen.
“My best guess is there’s a relationship between dark matter, the speed of light and the timing of electrochemical reactions within a body,” said Al.
“Dark matter?” said Grandma.
“Yes, dark matter, also known as dark energy. It’s mystery stuff that makes up nearly all of the Universe, but no one knows what it is or how it works. No one except us. We have discovered that when you shrink ordinary matter – atoms and stuff – there must be a proportionate shrinking of dark matter, otherwise you’d be incredibly heavy; as heavy as you were when you were big.”
“But where is it?”
“Who knows? It’s unobservable, we can’t even begin to experiment – and without experiment we are nothing but apes groping around in our own excrement.”
“Charming!” said Grandma.
“Think of dark matter as a shadow – in this case, a shadow that makes up ninety-five per cent of our weight. When you get smaller, the shadow gets smaller. But that’s just a guess.”
“Didn’t my dad work on dark matter?” asked Finn.
Grandma stiffened and called to Yo-yo, who had reached the house and was scratching at the back door.
Grandma didn’t like to talk about Finn’s dad, Ethan Drake, who had disappeared in a lab accident before Finn was born, fire consuming him so completely that only the sphalerite
stone he wore around his neck was recovered. The same stone – that Finn’s mother had worn until she died of cancer two years ago – now hung around Al’s giant neck, next to the nDen.
“Nobody knows exactly what your dad was doing just before he passed away,” said Al. “We have some of his notes from around then, but your mum had just had you and most of his assistants were sitting exams.”
“I didn’t know he’d left notes. Can I read them?” said Finn.
Al frowned. He’d spent the best part of thirteen years crawling all over them. He could probably recite them.
“Tea! We must get in and put the kettle on before it gets dark,” Grandma interrupted, trying to move things on.
But Al was in the moment, and it was clearly an uncomfortable one.
“They’re complicated, Finn. A mess, in fact. Lots of stuff that looks like answers but isn’t. It’s not what you want,” he said, cryptic and awkward.
“And cake! We have plenty of cake,” Grandma said, taking out her keys to let them in.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Will you show me or not?” said Finn.
“Maybe. One day.”
“Sherry!” concluded Grandma, hurrying them into the house.
By the time they got back to Lab One it was late.
Al opened the Sony Walkman and said goodnight to Finn at the edge of the nano-compound.
“We’ll try the experiment again tomorrow, and every day, till we get it right,” he said, winking and walking away.
Finn took comfort as he watched him go. His uncle might wear glasses held together with tape, but he was reassuringly massive, in brain as well as bulk.
Everything was dark and Finn supposed the others had already gone to bed.
Then he heard a voice.
“Feeling any better, Noob?” Delta asked, using her nickname for Finn.
Suddenly – POP! – all the lights came on at once, dazzling him.
“What the …?!”
As Finn’s eyes adjusted to the light, he could make out three figures, some balloons, and … a Thing.
“Surprise!”
(#u6979ecb6-e348-5f95-9619-23eb60dc6081)
September 29 22:58 (GMT+1). Hook Hall, Surrey, UK.
Delta slapped Finn on the back.
“Happy nearly-birthday!” grinned Kelly.
“Thought we’d cheer you up,” said Stubbs, deadpan.
They stood back and let Finn take in the Thing.
The others had been testing it for the last month. He’d glimpsed parts of it before, designs on-screen, but he’d never seen the whole thing.
“The nCraft?” said Finn.
“I see you’ve been paying attention,” said Kelly.
“Say hello to the X1 Experimental Nano-thruster,” murmured Stubbs, reverentially.
Delta bit her lip excitedly, like they had pulled off the best birthday surprise ever.
“Guy’s a genius,” said Kelly, roughing Stubbs’s remaining hair.
“It’s fast as a whip and can turn on a pin!” said Delta.
“It’s –” Finn tried to put it into words – “a little ugly.”
Three faces fell at once. He thought Kelly would cry or hit him. “This isn’t a beauty contest!” he yelled.
It was, thought Finn, like one of those weird deep-sea fish that had evolved in the perpetual gloom of an ocean trench. Roughly the size of a limousine at their scale, it had a gawping front grill like a great mouth and two headlamp eyes. It had multiple stubby wings and rudders that looked like fins, and a tail section with a scorched and nasty-looking exhaust, and its underside was regularly pockmarked with clusters of small thruster units.
“I’m not being mean,” said Finn, apologetically. “I’m just saying it looks like an ugly bug and when you go into production—”
“It’s the prototype!” shouted Kelly. “You think we’d let you near one of the new X2 models?”
“So shallow,” sighed Delta.
“Hey, I’m still twelve –” Finn checked his watch – “just. I’m meant to be shallow!”
“Well then I don’t suppose for one moment,” said Stubbs, “you’ll be wanting a go.”
And with that he flicked a switch on the outside of the craft. Computers and gyroscopes woke within, turbines turned over and the Bug came alive. Lights blazed all over its body and it floated off the ground, suspended on a cushion of air, flexing its tail and wings to keep absolutely steady.
“Wow,” said Finn, gobsmacked.
“We’ve ‘borrowed’ it for one night only. Not a word to anyone, especially not to Al,” warned Kelly.
“Note the extraordinary stability,” Stubbs began, gearing up to explain the technicalities. “A central jet runs a compressor that feeds cold gas rockets all over the body controlled by an intelligent thrust-vectoring syst—”
“OK, OK, I want a go!” said Finn.
With a high-pitched hum from the jet engine beneath them and the hiss of collective thrusters, they rose steadily towards the roof of the Central Field Analysis Chamber. On top of the Bug was an open cab with four seats, a roll cage, a windscreen and some crude controls. It was like sitting in a fat flying sports car, thought Finn, yet with a ride so gentle they might have been in a bubble. There was also a mount for an M249 Minimi light machine gun, to defend themselves against insects and any other threat they might face in the outside world.
They had to be careful, the craft was supposedly strictly out of bounds in Lab Three, but the Duty Techs were in Lab Two and Stubbs and Kelly had nobbled some of their monitoring equipment, smuggling the Bug out through the model rail network, first to the nano-compound in Lab One, then into the vast, empty spaces of the CFAC.
Finn was just admiring the view as they rose above the stone circle of particle accelerators when Delta said, “OK, brace,” and punched her arms forward against the dual joysticks.
Finn’s head snapped back and the roof rushed by, his insides galloping hopelessly to catch up with his skeleton, as Delta turned hard to avoid hitting the far wall of the hangar. They shot back across the CFAC at roof level, then dived and … SLAM! Halfway to the ground Delta made the Bug turn 90 degrees without bothering to slow down, the nCraft morphing to deliver thrust at all the right angles at once. Finn was left gasping.
Delta then plunged towards the rows of benches crammed with computers surrounding the accelerator array. Down they went, skimming along the desks, slaloming the accelerators and monitors, whipping up paperwork, then down again to rollercoaster beneath benches and between chair legs, then up again into empty space.
Finn’s mind was spinning. They were not flying: they were motion itself. Pure euphoria battled memories of his terror-flight, trapped on the back of the Scarlatti wasp the previous spring, till – SLAM! – Delta opened up the reverse thrusters and stopped the Bug dead. Finn was thrown forward so hard he thought he was going to bring up his lungs, never mind his dinner.
In sudden stillness, he took a gulp of air and looked at the clock on the lab wall. It was midnight, his birthday: his turn. He grinned.
Finn climbed across and took the controls, and for one minute and forty-nine seconds he had the best birthday ever.
Delta ordered him not to think too much. “Just point and shoot.”
He took hold of the twin sticks, looked at the far wall of the CFAC and pushed them forward.
The Bug shot forward, so he eased back, getting a feel for the power as he coasted the entire length of the building, rising all the time. He felt a surging joy and remembered sitting on his mother’s knee steering her old Citroën 2CV around a beach car park in the rain.
He accelerated and made a turn, arcing back around, just below the roof, then more turns.
Then he began to throw the Bug around like rodeo horse. It was easy. The speed and distance you could cover was awesome and the handling was amazing – it felt as though you had thrust from a thousand places at once.
It felt alive. This was almost better than being big.
He flew up towards the Control Gallery that overlooked the CFAC, then dived and curled to fly around the circle of accelerators like Ben Hur around the circus maximus, laughing and loving it, until …
POP!POP!POP!
For the second time that night he was dazzled by sudden bright lights.
Delta leapt across and snatched the controls from him, pulling the Bug to a halt and leaving them hanging in mid-air, staring down at a group of incoming officials, hurrying across the CFAC towards the gantry steps of the Control Gallery.
“What’s happening?” asked Finn.
“Oh no …” said Stubbs. “King.”
Finn looked over. The great hanger doors of the CFAC were whirring open and Commander King was crossing the chamber, trailing aides and flanked by General Mount of the British High Command on one side and the head of British Intelligence on the other. Then, even more remarkably – VROOOOM! SCREEEEECH! – in roared a 1969 De Tomaso Mangusta, and out hopped Al.
“Good evening, Dr Allenby,” uttered King, trying to ignore the showy entrance.
“Peter. Wendy. Tink,” Al said to the trio. All three, used to his odd sense of humour, ignored it and carried on up the steps.
Finn’s heart was in his mouth, he looked at the others and they were already grinning.
“It’s the G&T. It’s meeting.”
They should have been afraid, they were absent without leave in the Bug. But suddenly the normal rules didn’t seem to apply any more.
After the months of tedium and frustration something was happening.
