Infiltration

By Bradley K

Just south of the Australian mainland sits a restricted and not commonly known, man-made island. The surface, left abandoned decades ago, decays, while beneath the concrete rubble and collapsing buildings, a laboratory run by the Paplen Company conducts top-secret experiments.

The secretive, though generically named, Tech Industries sends Noah Kelly, codename: Ion, to infiltrate the island and steal the focus of a long running, inhumane experiment. This mission, though, won’t go the way Ion, or Tech Industries, planned, and won’t end even when the decaying island sinks under the waves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bradley K
• Release date: Dec 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215256107

Book preview

Infiltration

Bradley K

Published by Wooden Puppet Publishing

at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Bradley K

Thank you to Carol Drayson at Timely Copyediting

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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A five-year-old girl sits on the floor of her bedroom among a collection of dolls and stuffed animals. She wears a pink frilly dress similar to those of her dolls, and slippers covered in glitter and purple fur. She’s a little overdressed just to play in her room. Her dark-brown hair falls onto her shoulders in tiny ringlets.

She grasps a doll in one hand and picks up a stuffed bear in the other. The doll and bear face each other as the girl acts out a bitter-sweet conversation where the bear pours out his eternal love for the doll and wants to marry her. The doll gently expresses her mutual love for the bear but says she can’t marry him because she’s a doll and he’s a bear and it wouldn’t work. The girl brings the toys together for a hug and she gives voice to their tears in an explosion of emotion—as only a little girl understands.

An electronic clicking coming from somewhere above the girl interrupts her performance. She looks up to where, hanging from the ceiling near her door, is a speaker.

A woman’s voice, gently and calmly, issues from the speaker. ‘Darling. It’s time to get ready.’

‘Okay,’ the girl says to the speaker as she drops her toys and moves towards her bed.

The girl has a double bed where a toy monkey lies under the neatly made sheets with just its head poking out, resting on a pillow, like it’s asleep. The girl grabs hold of a curtain that hangs from the ceiling on a track. She pulls it along and separates the bed and a white painted chest of drawers from the rest of the room. She stays on the side where the bed is.

An unknown person decorated her bedroom like any five-year-old girl’s room—if her parents are rich and happy to buy her anything she asks for. To one side is a small desk with half-finished drawings piled on top. Paintings she has completed herself cover pale-pink walls. She also has a massive TV hanging on one wall with her own couch positioned in front of it. There are a few things in the room that look different from usual, though; her room has no windows, and the ceiling has half a dozen fluorescent lights that make the place look like an adapted hospital room.

At the end farthest from her bed, a mirror runs the full length of the wall. It’s at least three metres wide. The extra-wide hospital-like door has no handle on the inside, making it impossible to open once closed, except from the outside, and has a small vertical glass pane three quarters of the way up.

A few minutes later, the girl opens the curtain again and is now wearing a hospital gown and disposable slippers. As she pushes the curtain back to its fully open position, her door opens and two men in Hazmat suits enter. Their suits are bright yellow plastic and cover them from head to toe. They built the thick black boots and black gloves into the suits, making one sealed off protective zone. Large humps on their backs contain the air tanks through which they breathe and clear plastic guards cover their faces.

The girl doesn’t show any fear as she looks up at them. The shiny plastic shields hide their faces by reflecting the light, but she can sometimes see their eyes, depending on the angle. A breathing apparatus seals around their mouths and noses, disguising their faces.

The men don’t say or do anything as the girl smiles at them and walks out the open door.

The hallway outside tells a different story to the cosiness of the girl’s room, as it’s devoid of any home-like furnishings. It looks exactly like a hospital. The girl walks on, unfazed by the sterile environment, followed by the two protected men. Needing no direction from the hazmat suits, the girl moves to a door and waits. One of the men steps forward and pushes the door, steps back and allows the girl to enter first.

Much like the sterile hallway, the room is without homely furniture holding just a simple steel trolley with a thin foam mattress across the top. Next to the trolley is a bank of machines that wouldn’t be out of place in an operating theatre. With no prompting, the girl climbs onto the trolley via a stepladder and, under the supervision of the two men, she collects a set of wires from the machines beside her. The end of each wire has a small circular pad on it with a thin strip of plastic protecting a sticky surface which she peels open and attaches to her body underneath her gown. One goes near her shoulder and she places the other on the opposite side of her body, on her rib cage, under her arm.

The first of the two men closes the door. The sound of the electronic maglock engaging announces the room is now secured.

Juliet picks up another collection of wires, dozens of them in one bundle, running from the machine to what looks like a swimmer’s cap but made of rigid plastic. She places it on her head and does up a strap under her chin to keep it in place.

The second of the two hazmat suit-covered men checks the wires and the machine. He pushes a few buttons, making sure everything works. The girl’s heart rate registers on a small screen, showing she’s calm and resting. The two leave the room through a different door on the other side. Before they close it, a third hazmat suit wheels a bed into the room; or it could be one of the original two. It’s hard for the girl to tell. On the bed is a man who looks in every way homeless. He’s at least sixty. His hair is long and filthy; his beard, matted. He looks like he hasn’t bathed in weeks. The girl screws up her nose; such a horrible smell.

The man’s eyes dart around the room as he fights against the straps holding him down. They strapped both arms and legs tight so no amount of wriggling will set him free. He also has a strap across his waist like a seat belt and one across his chest; he’s not getting loose.

The girl smiles at the man. He stops fighting and stares back at her. His bed is beside hers, putting only an arm’s length between them. The man also has a series of wires attached to his body and they’ve attached a machine showing a read-out of his vital signs to his bed. His heart rate is over ninety beats per minute, but is slowing as he stares at the girl.

‘Where am I?’ he asks her, just above a whisper.

The girl shrugs, ‘I don’t know.’

Again, without direction, as though she knows what the unseen observers expect of her. She places a tiny hand on the bare skin of the man’s closest arm. He’s even more confused as he glances between her hand on his arm and her now expressionless face. His face turns red as he coughs. He tries to reach for his throat but can’t with both hands strapped down. ‘Can you,’ he asks between coughs, ‘Free. Me?’

The girl ignores his request, and his obvious pain, and keeps her hand resting gently on his arm. ‘I’m Juliet One,’ she says.

The man keeps coughing and calls for Juliet’s help and struggles to breathe. His coughing becomes more violent, and he spits up blood. He forces his lungs in and out as they refuse to draw breath without help. His head becomes heavy on his neck as he’s overcome by dizziness. Sweat pours off his skin.

Juliet remains in a disturbing state of calm. ‘Juliet One as in the number one, because I’m the first of this version. I’m not sure what I’m a version of, though, but they say I’ll probably be the last too. You’re going to sleep now.’

Juliet’s heart monitor shows no change in her vitals as the monitor attached to the homeless man beeps loudly and continuously as the screen shows his pulse climbing to over one hundred beats a minute. The man struggles against his straps as he shifts between coughing sprays of blood from his mouth, vomiting stomach acid, and gasping for breath.

He stops struggling and relaxes, breathing out slowly, blood bubbles forming in his mouth. He closes his eyes for the last time. He lies perfectly still and calm on the trolley as the machine attached to him squeals for attention and shows a flat line where his heartbeat once bounced violently across the screen.

The men in Hazmat suits return and wheel the dead visitor out again as Juliet One removes her wires and waits to be walked back to her room. She knows they’ll be happy with her and she’ll have a new toy or dress waiting for her when she gets back.

1

Noah Kelly lies across his three-seater couch, an Xbox controller in hand. Other than his fingers on the controller and a slight twitching of his eyes, he’s all but motionless. He taps energetically on the coloured buttons, staring up at the projector screen attached to his lounge room wall. The room and his face are aglow with frenetic flashes of coloured light from a futuristic battlefield reflecting off the screen in a room otherwise lit only by a single lamp. He looks comfortable, but in the space of a few seconds his expression goes from smiling to frowning to a curled, angry lip, depending on how well his game character is doing. Every few minutes he lets out a groan and kicks at the armrest under his stretched-out feet and grumbles something under his breath.

Scattered throughout the room are seven of Noah’s mates, three of whom, with controllers in hand, are also playing the game. The guys who aren’t playing are watching intently, beers in hand, none particularly drunk, but getting there, ready to tease anyone who does something stupid. Noah prepared his house for events such as this by supplying beanbags—which he felt gave his home a retro vibe that he’s proud of.

A fraction under 180 centimetres, military-short hair disguising greying temples and a weather-beaten face, Noah looks older than his thirty-four years and feels every part and more. Well-worn crow’s feet at his eyes also age him and tell the story of all he has lived. Dead body after dead body pile up in his memory colouring even the happy times, even while playing video games. He has seen death. He has created it. He has saved the lives of his friends and taken the lives of strangers. Some lives he has saved belong to the men in the room with him now.

Put to a guess, anyone would say that all these men are in the military based solely on their appearance, and they’d be right. There’s well over fifty years of Australian Defence Force experience between them, though Noah is the only one no longer active in service.

They all understand the irony that a room of soldiers are playing a computer game in which they are soldiers tasked with winning a battle. Each corner of the large screen hanging from the wall is its own image, one for each player. Each one having its own first person POV peering out over the top of a rifle. Explosions rip apart the already broken town, making their patrol through the rubble even more precarious. Every so often a character will yell and so will his human player.

‘Someone murder that sniper!’ says a voice somewhere in the darkness of Noah’s lounge room. Followed by cursing the game and his apparently faulty controller.

Noah remains silent as his character stalks through the remains of a large gothic church. He’s already searching for the sniper wreaking havoc on their team. Noah will either find him in the bell tower or be able to use the location to look over the town to where a sniper might hide. Quietly climbing an old wooden stairwell, he only makes it halfway up before he hears voices above him.

He taps a button, and the rifle disappears, only to be replaced by the character’s two arms, a knife held tight in the right hand. He climbs, slowly, quietly, beneath the gunfire and explosions and yelling. The darkness of the stairwell gives way to sunlight and a gentle breeze. He has reached two large bells hanging peacefully at the top of the tower, almost oblivious to the destruction surrounding them.

A slight nudge of the controller and Noah sticks his soldier’s head into the open air. There’s no one in sight, but the voices are louder and clearer. One voice sounds like he’s in pain, complaining and groaning. Noah can now hear the man is speaking through a teary voice. He moves upward until his character is standing in the open with the bells hiding the other side of the tower. Knife poised, Noah flicks his controller, and the character steps sideways around the first bell. A man sits propped against a wall. Holding his stomach, blood seeping from a large wound, still pools beneath him. He spots Noah and is about to scream when, with another quick tap of his controller, he throws the knife at the man and it lodges in his forehead. The man limps sideways and his head hits the ground. The second man, still hidden from Noah’s view by the bell, says something Noah doesn’t listen to as he bounds around the remaining bell and jumps on the sniper, who is lying on his belly on the brick platform.

The sniper barely has time to look up when Noah’s character drops on top of him and beats the back of his head with his fists until the animated blood splatters Noah’s vision.

He puts the controller down and wipes his hands on his shirt. ‘Sniper’s dead, fellas.’

Freddie, one of the four players, says, ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Church bell tower. Got a splendid view up here.’

‘Well, wait for the rest of us.’

Another voice says, ‘This isn’t real life, dude. Take it easy.’

Having joined the Australian Army at seventeen, largely to get away from his overbearing mother, Noah found much needed structure and discipline within the ranks and hierarchy of the defence force, something he wasn’t even aware he wanted until he was there. Finally, knowing where he fitted in gave him a purpose and confidence denied him since childhood.

Quickly moving up the ranks, it was during his time in the SAS where he honed a particular skill above others. As his team attacked their target from one angle, Noah would enter from another location, solo. He’d do his job and leave completely unnoticed. He was long gone before anyone knew he had been there at all. During one mission, his task was simply to leave a handwritten note on the bed of a warlord to let him know he wasn’t as safe or powerful as he thought. Noah could only imagine what it was like for one of the most evil rulers in that part of the world to walk into his own bedroom, only to find a letter propped up on his pillow; the only thing on the paper inside was a smiley face and a crude, hand-drawn Australian flag. Noah’s own artwork.

Choices took Noah away from the SAS, and his story, along with word of his skills, made it to the ears of interested parties, namely, a reclusive German billionaire living in Australia. With business ties beyond the corporate world, the billionaire was on the board of directors of one of the most secretive private companies on the planet; the unremarkably named Tech Industries. The largest weaponry conglomerate in the world acting as a front for funding and conducting some of the biggest private wars over the last half century. Tech Industries was the Billionaire’s very own contradiction. He makes his money building weapons of war, then funnels that money to pay private soldiers to prevent full-scale international conflicts.

They offered for Noah to join their ranks. A job to be kept secret from even his closest friends and family.

‘I have little in the way of family,’ Noah said when he first met the operations director, the man he would ultimately answer to.

The man smiled and nodded. ‘We know. We like that about you.’

Now, three years into his career in private war, Noah balances the unique nature of his employment with a relatively normal bachelor lifestyle. Relationships, he figures, during the fleeting moments he thinks about them, will have to wait until he retires. That surely won’t be long. He couldn’t do this forever, anyway; it’s a young man’s game.

People have said there’s something about the way Noah carries himself, though, his presence that makes him ‘ageless’. He doesn’t buy it, but he won’t tell you he feels even older than he looks.

When he’s not playing video games, he spends his time working out. There isn’t an ounce of fat on him, which makes him look skinny until he takes his shirt off to reveal sculpted muscle.

Noah lies across a large couch in his lounge room playing his video game. A digital projector hangs from the ceiling and splashes images onto a large screen hanging on the far wall. A series of speakers surrounds the room to immerse him and his friends in their gaming experience.

‘Freddie, don’t make me run,’ says Noah to another player. ‘You can’t outpace me.’

His mates laugh and yell insults as Freddie responds, ‘What are you talking about, dude? I’m nowhere near you.’

‘What?’ Noah says with a laugh. ‘So, who the hell am I stalking?’

They all laugh. Someone throws an empty dip container, hitting Noah in the head, leaving a smear of hummus on his face.

Noah wipes the dip from his face. A phone rings, barely registering through the constant automatic gunfire, explosions and animated aircraft blocking out most other sounds. An observer, reclining in his beanbag, searches the floor around him for the source of the faint sound. Once found, he holds up a mobile phone.

‘Whose is it?’ he says.

He’s met with denials from those not in the game, but the four players take a moment to make sure their character is safe before risking a look away from the screen. Noah takes a glance and claims the phone as his own. It’s immediately launched at him. Unable to see it fly in his direction, it hits him in the nuts and everyone laughs as he groans.

Noah passes the game controller to a mate sitting on a beanbag next to him. ‘Smithy. Take this.’ Smithy, bald-headed and smiley-faced, and the most drunk in the room, grabs the controller, playing on without missing a beat. Noah jumps off the couch with his phone and leaves the room, but not before announcing, ‘And I was winning and everything.’

They all laugh, rejecting his claim.

‘Get out of my house’, he says before he’s out of the room.

Moving down the hall, away from the noise, he places the phone against his ear. ‘Hello?’

A friendly, though somehow digital, female voice says, ‘Mr Ion?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m calling because you are our lucky winner of the day!’

‘Oh yeah? What do I win?’

‘Well, you’ve won an invitation to The Ball,’ she says.

Noah acts more interested than he should be. ‘The Ball? Sounds great. Can I take a date or do I go with you?’

‘Depends on the weather’, is the woman’s strange reply.

‘Hold on,’ Noah says, moving into his bedroom and closing the door behind him.

With the phone still at his ear, he opens a dresser drawer and retrieves a small black plastic object, which is a phone docking station. Before closing the drawer, he looks down at a photo that sits there without a frame. The photo is of a stunning woman. She has dark hair and the mixed features of someone half Thai and half Caucasian. She’s sitting at an outdoor café and doesn’t seem to know her photo is being taken. The blurry background shows someone had taken the photo from a distance. The people she is with are out of focus, everything centred on her. Noah closes the drawer, leaving the photo where it was.

He sits the docking station on top of the dresser, a projector lens on one end of the dock facing the wall. He places his phone on it, no plugs or wires, it just rests on the flat surface. The phone’s screen scrambles, cutting to black before coming to life again, showing the Tech Industries logo. The projector lights up, displaying a matching image of the logo on the wall.

The phone’s screen changes to show a readout of what Noah hears from the woman. ‘For further verification, please read the following lines.’

The woman goes quiet as the image projected on the wall displays a sentence: I have but one life to give.

Noah repeats the line, and the screen flashes green to confirm his voice match. A new line appears on the wall: The far side is closer.

Noah reads it out and the phone flashes green again.

The friendly voice returns. ‘Ion, we have a mission for you. Your invitation stems from your successful infiltration of the Pinnacle Towers two months ago. We have analysed the files you retrieved during that mission and we have formed a plan for a job at another site owned by the Paplen Company. Would you like to know more?’

Buttons appear on the screen of his phone. One is green and reads ‘YES’, the other is red and reads ‘NO’.

Noah taps ‘YES’.

‘A top secret, high-value product of interest is being developed at a little-known island facility off the Australian coast. We want that product. Would you like to be involved?’

Noah thinks out loud, ‘I don’t know.’ He cracks open the bedroom door and hears his mates in the lounge room; yelling and laughing, explosions and gunfire.

The ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ buttons reappear on the screen.

He closes the door and hovers his finger over the ‘No’ button for a moment. He opens the dresser drawer again and retrieves the photo of the woman. He stares at it for a moment and presses ‘Yes’.

‘Very good,’ says the voice. ‘Because of unforeseen matters, this mission has minimal prep time, and it requires you to arrive at the following coordinates by 0200 tomorrow morning. More information and an open link to your overseer will be provided en route to the island. As usual, we will pay your fee in two instalments, half when you are in the air and half when we receive the verified product. Thank you, Mr Ion, and good luck.’

Noah watches the phone return to a standard call screen while the projector splashes co-ordinates for his meeting place on the wall. He memorises them and they disappear as the connection ends and the phone turns off.

He checks his watch: 0050. ‘Bit of warning would have been nice.’

Noah returns to the lounge room where Smithy glances up at him and says with a slightly drunken slur, ‘Turns out you died, bro.’

‘That’s cool,’ Noah replies, with little interest. ‘Work got flooded. Burst water main. Gotta head in.’

The guys tell him to forget about it and leave it for someone else. For all they know, he’s just a building manager who can leave that stuff up to his underlings. Noah rejects that option and after jokingly telling them not to drink all his beer, he leaves them to continue their night of gaming. He’ll return in the morning, if he can.

2

Noah’s spacious double garage holds only one car, his brand new, custom-painted in matte-black, HSV GTS. The twenty-inch black and chrome mag wheels give his car the purposeful, fierce look he was after. He’s very proud of it. It sits in a clean and uncluttered space kept free of the usual items found stored in a garage. No garden tools or push bikes. Not even oil stains on the bare concrete floor. There’s just a long, wood-topped, steel-legged bench along the back wall. The other half of the garage not holding his car has rubber flooring over the concrete base and is home to weight machines, dumbbells, and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. After securing the door behind him, Noah walks straight to his workbench.

The bench is at least two metres long and just under a metre deep. Noah bolted its solid steel legs to the concrete slab beneath it.

Noah opens an app on his phone and after putting in a passcode, the large work bench rises from the floor. As the floor lifts, it reveals a level of shelving kept below the foundation. It holds large black, hard plastic cases.

He grabs the two black cases hidden there and places them on the