Becoming Honey

The Amazon had scarpered, leaving Amber and Smithie alone in the foyer of the building. The creature, the Rah’k, was yet to move, but that did not mean that either of them fancied sticking around to find out how quick it was.

Amber backed up, keeping one eye upon the Rah’k at all times as she fumbled about Ryan’s face as she sought an edge to the duct tape. She eventually found what she was looking for and yanked at it, quickly ripping it from his face.

“Gah!” he exclaimed, quietly. “Fucking Amazon bitch!”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Amber replied. “Now sit still and keep watching that damn thing in the corner. I’m gonna’ slice through these leather straps.”

“Just be quick about it,” he said, his eyes focused upon the creature high up in the corner. “Speaking of quick, how on Earth did you get up to Cumbria so quickly?”

“With a little help,” she replied. “In fact, that help is waiting outside in the guise of a GT500.”

“Harry?” Ryan sounded impressed, and he said as much. “I’m impressed, Harry can be quite temperamental. He doesn’t like many people,” a pause as Amber eased the tip of her katana into the tiniest of gaps between leather and wrist, “not even Honeys.”

“Not being funny,” said Amber as Ryan got to his feet, still with his eyes upon the Rah’k, “but I told the Amazon the truth. I’m not simply a Honey, I am Hardcore Honey.”

“Yeah, well that’s something we’re going to have to talk about on the drive south.”

“Not until you tell me everything I need to know,” Amber replied calmly as she and Ryan, both watching the Rah’k as it watched them leave, its tentacles seemingly following them like the eyes in one of those portraits in old houses. “For example, that’s not the first time you’ve seen a Rah’k and I don’t mean that you saw it up there in the corner before I arrived. I mean you’ve encountered them before.”

“Well you’ve got me there,” he replied, following Amber out of the front door and stepping carefully over the two Amazon corpses directly outside. “Anything I haven’t told you, Amber, has been kept from you because you haven’t needed to know it.”

“That’s fine, I accept that,” she said as they made their way quickly towards the road. “All I’m saying is that now, there ain’t nothing that I don’t need to know. Are we clear?”

“Yes Ma’am.” They turned left out onto the road and Harry flashed his headlights at them. “Spoken like a true Hardcore Honey.”

They walked the rest of the road in silence, until they reached where Harry was parked, at any rate.

“Evening, Harry.”

“It’s good to see you, Ryan.”

“You too, my friend. Has Amber been taking good care of you?”

He ran his hand over Harry’s bonnet, caressing his lines as one might caress a lover, and Harry purred.

“She has been a perfect lady,” Harry replied as Ryan took the driver’s seat leaving the passenger side for Amber. “Are we heading south?”

“No Harry, we’re not going home. We’re going to Stonehaven.”

“Dunnottar Castle, Sir?”

“Aye, Harry. Dunnottar Castle, and take it easy, eh? I think both Amber and I could use a good few hours’ kip.”

“What’s at Dunnottar Castle?” Amber asked as Harry reversed out of the road and turned back onto the main road that led out of Alston.

“Well you remember I told you about the Agency?”

“Of course.”

“Well, the Honeys are only a small part of what the Agency does and when I said that the Agency had been destroyed, I wasn’t being entirely truthful. In fact they are... were...” he paused as he tried to get his head around the current situation. “That is to say that you, Amber, being the only Honey, are the Agency’s only active operation on Earth, sort of...”

“The Rah’k are an alien race, aren’t they?”

“Yes. We’ve been fighting them off for years, protecting the planet from invasion using a fleet of spaceships.” He took his eyes from the road and glanced across at Amber, impressed that she did not appear at all phased by the news.

“I met the original, the first Hardcore Honey,” she said. “She imbued me, I suppose that’s the right word, with an as yet unknown amount of the Honeys’ power and with that, came a selection of memories.”

“You remember fighting the Rah’k,” said Ryan. “Or at least, you have the memory of doing so.”

“Aye, that’s right.” Amber paused and lit a cigarette. “One thing I don’t understand though, is that the Honey whom I first encountered said that there was nothing magical or mystical about Hardcore Honey.”

“She wouldn’t have known any better,” Ryan replied without missing a beat. “It’s something that only Hardcore Honey knows, and as the first Honey you met inherited the role less than a week prior from a Honey who herself was only Hardcore Honey for a matter of days... Fuck, that’s a little confusing but I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. Keeping everyone up to date whilst the Honeys were being killed and our operation torn apart, it was a near-impossible task.”

“I should imagine so,” she replied as she flicked her ash out of the open window. “So tell me, what’s at Dunnottar Castle?”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” Ryan replied with a smile. “Suffice it to say that it’s a heavily fortified Agency facility through which we gain access to our Orbital Command Centre.”

“All right,” said a chuckling Amber. “I’ll let you keep that one secret from me. Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Probably, but it’s been one Hell of a day for me,” he replied, yawning as if to emphasise the fact that he was, indeed, rather tired. “Is it OK with you if I get some sack time, first?”

“Sure, but don’t think I’ll forget.”

“As if I’d ever do such a thing,” he replied, rested his head back and promptly fell asleep.

Amber must have fallen asleep, too, because the next thing she knew it was daylight, although still quite early in the morning, and the ocean was to their right. In the driver’s seat, Ryan was still fast asleep and she decided against waking him, figuring that considering the day he suffered through warranted as much sleep as he could get.

“Morning, Harry,” she said in something with a little more volume than a whisper. “How’re we doing?”

“Not too bad,” the vehicle replied. “Even though I’m driving at speeds far below my maximum velocity, we are making good time.”

“Glad to hear it,” she replied, lighting a cigarette as she did so. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could stop for a coffee, is there?”

“I think we can probably manage that,” replied Harry. “I believe there is a suitable location for such a thing coming up in a matter of miles.”

“Thanks, Harry,” said Amber as the car drove on along the quite beautiful road. The brilliant early morning sun was clearly visible, high in a bright blue, cloud-dotted sky over the North Sea to the east, its rays dancing over the swells and waves as they made their way towards land.

Several minutes later Harry slowed and turned left off the coastal road, and onto the forecourt of a petrol station that boasted its own Starbucks franchise.

“Great,” said Amber as she jogged towards the forecourt shop. “Starbucks; getting a black coffee is going to be a fucking nightmare.”

Eventually Amber exited the shop, having acquired two simple, straightforward , bog standard black coffees. It had not been an easy task at all, and she had been offered countless flavours of Frappuccino, chocolate and espresso based beverages, before she had finally convinced the young Scottish barista that all she really wanted was two black coffees, thank you very much.

By the time she made it back to Harry, Ryan was awake and just getting out of the car to have a cigarette whilst stretching his legs. Thinking that was a rather good idea, Amber decided to join him and together, they took a stroll out over the coastal road and looked out over the North Sea from the cliff top.

The sea breeze played gently with Amber’s black hair, yet it was not a strong enough breeze to make the cigarettes, coffee or view any the less enjoyable.

“What you see up there; the sky and clouds and at night, the stars and Moon,” Ryan began, pausing to take a draw upon the cigarette. “It’s all fabricated. I mean don’t get me wrong it all exists, but there’s so much more up there, too, and without the real-time image of the sky without all that other stuff that’s projected onto the Earth’s magnetic field, you would see how full the sky really is.”

“Me and everyone else,” said Amber, turning her head slightly out of the wind. “I’m pretty sure it would not be a good thing if the general public were aware.”

“Most would be OK with it, I suspect. We think that the majority of people have already accepted that there’s a lot going on that they don’t know about nor understand and for them it would be somewhat of an, ′oh, right. Well I figured as much. Tea? I’d love a cuppa,′ kinda’ moment.”

“But for the rest it would be reason to panic, reason enough to start blowing shit up and killing innocent people.”

“Exactly,” Ryan replied. “The Rah’k know this, too, thanks to their alliance with the Amazons, and they’ve made several attempts at getting to the generator that powers the image.”

“Who is up there to stop them?”

“The military,” he replied. “Mostly British and American armed forces but there are plenty from all over the Commonwealth, too.”

“Well I’d say it’s better to have them up there, defending the planet, rather than shipping them off to fuck knows where to fight fuck knows who in a war that has nothing to do with them.”

“Which is exactly what the Prime Minister keeps saying, to the letter,” he replied with a chuckle. “Well, almost to the letter, anyway.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” said Amber, chuckling along before she downed her coffee in one. “Right then, we should probably get back on the road.”

“True enough, I imagine Harry’s getting lonely.”

“Well we can’t have that now, can we?”

They made their way quickly back to the petrol station and into Harry. Amber took the driver’s seat this time, saying that she fancied a drive. Both Ryan and Harry were more than happy with that, and it was not at all long before they were back out on the open road.

“How about some music, Harry?”

“Anything in particular, Amber?”

“Yeah,” she replied with a grin. “I fancy listening to something German and industrial.”

“Well I shan’t complain,” the vehicle replied as a dirty bass line kicked in. “I am quite partial to a little Rammstein, after all.”

“I gotta’ say, Ryan,” said Amber without taking her eyes from the road in front of her. “For a car, Harry does have rather excellent taste.”

“Well do you expect anything less?” Ryan asked, his grin matching Amber’s. “I mean, at the end of the day he is my car.”

“True, but you don’t look like the stereotypical metalhead,” she replied. “I can’t imagine you kicking and punching at a Slayer gig, for example.”

“Looks can be deceiving, girl,” he replied, laughing out loud. “I was ruling mosh pits before you were so much as a twinkle.”

***

A few hours later, a little before midday, Amber took a right turn off the coastal road about halfway between Montrose and Aberdeen, and guided Harry down a well driven track. Dunnottar Castle loomed large against the backdrop of the still blue sky as she drove past a sign warning any erstwhile castle junkie that Dunnottar was off limits to the general public. Twenty yards later was another sign carrying a warning that anyone travelling along the track was about to pass through a minefield.

“I’m fairly certain I don’t need to say but I’m going to anyway,” Ryan began, “but please, for the love of God do not, whatever you do, stray from the track.”

“No worries,” Amber replied, taking great care to keep Harry on an even keel as they traversed the rough terrain. “I don’t fancy having, ′here lies Amber, the silly bitch, strayed from the beaten path and got blown to shit,′ carved on my headstone.”

“Aye, although as headstones go, that wouldn’t be a bad one.”

“It would give the locals something to gab about, that’s for sure,” she said with a chuckle. “Right, what happens at these here gates?”

“The guards will recognise you and let you drive right on in.”

“How can that be?”

“All Agency operatives are trained to spot a Honey,” he explained. “There are always a few tell-tale signs; the stature and the eyes, mostly.”

“Fair enough,” she replied with a shrug as, true to Ryan’s word, the two guards on gate duty took one look through Harry’s windscreen at Amber, opened the gates in a hurry and allowed her to drive on through.

“Does being Hardcore Honey get me out of speeding tickets, too?” she asked with a grin as she followed the track to where a smattering of plush looking vehicles were parked up on the left hand side. “Only I’m three points away from a ban.”

“You know, I’m beginning to think that you’re not taking your responsibilities at all seriously.”

“I don’t know what you mean, I’m sure,” she replied, smiling broadly as they parked and alighted the vehicle. “You gonna’ be all right here for a while, Harry?”

“Of course,” the car replied. “Just try not to die, please. I’d rather not be stranded north of the border if it’s all the same to you.”

“We’ll do our best,” Ryan replied, gently patting Harry’s bonnet. “How does that sound?”

“Well I suppose it will have to do. Stay safe, you two.”

Amber and Ryan walked along the track towards Dunnottar Castle. The closer they got the more Amber noticed, such as the enormous guns upon the turrets, for example, and a huge dome that rose from the centre atop which was situated something that did not look too dissimilar to a mobile telephone tower.

“I’ll bet you get decent reception up here with that thing,” she said, nodding towards the dome.

“Try none,” Ryan replied. “There’s a blanket covering the entire facility that only permits secure communication.”

“That does make sense,” she replied. “The last thing the Agency would want is for the Amazons to track us here.”

“Oh they’re very much aware of the facility,” he said in a very matter of fact manner. “In fact they’ve infiltrated a couple of times which is why we now have cybernetic guards on the gate.”

“So when you said that operatives are trained to spot a Honey..?”

“It’s true, they are, but the gate guards can tell more easily than others.”

“Fair enough.”

Moments later the gravel and sand beneath their feet changed to flagstone. The going was much easier and in less than a minute, Ryan and Amber stood before an enormous gate that was as high as the castle itself

“So do we knock, or what?”

“No need, just give it a gentle push.”

With a dubious shrug, Amber did as Ryan suggested but much to her surprise, a gentle push was all it took for the gate to swing gently and quietly open.

“The entire thing is an enormous DNA reader,” Ryan explained as they proceeded through the gate and into the courtyard. “Essentially, it recognised that you are Hardcore Honey.”

“I guess that makes sense then, considering that the first Honey imbued me and whatnot.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “So, what do you think?”

Amber looked around her immediate area. The first thing her instincts told her to do was check for a secondary escape route. Obviously the gate was the first option but if that was compromised, she felt the need to locate another. She found what she was looking for soon enough. To her right the castle wall appeared to be weaker than the rest. No, not weaker... As she stared it down it shimmered. Some kind of hologram, perhaps? Either way, that was another way out.

Next, she took in the huge dome that rose from the courtyard flagstone towards the sky. It was metallic, which did not surprise her in the slightest, and she could just about see the gantry atop it that she had mistaken for a mobile phone tower as it reached up what she guessed must have been a few hundred feet at the very least, and probably much more.

“It’s impressive,” she replied with a nod towards the standard-sized door at the base of the metallic dome. “I assume that all the action takes place in there?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?”

“Not if I can help it,” she replied, grinning. “Lead the way, Smithie.”

Ryan did just that and Amber followed him over the forty feet to the door. It opened automatically at their approach and they entered.

“Just gotta’ sign in,” said Ryan, breaking off towards the unmanned desk to their right. Amber followed and picked up the pen as he placed it upon the clipboard. “Not you, don’t worry. Trust me, everyone in this place is already well aware that Hardcore Honey is on the premises.”

“Nice, it’s like I’m a celebrity or some shit.”

“To the Agency, you are,” he replied, leading the way towards a set of double doors. “You’ll get used to it, I’m sure.”

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that, I think I already am.”

Through the doors a wave of intense heat washed repeatedly over them. So hot was it that it took Amber’s breath away, and she found that she had to lean against the wall in order to catch her breath.

“Shit, sorry,” Ryan replied, awkwardly. “I should have warned you how hot it is in here. I’ll run and get you a glass of water, just stay here. I promise, you’ll be as right as rain in about five minutes.”

He ran off and returned a couple of minutes later, carefully carrying a large glass of water. He handed it to Amber and she gulped it quickly.

“Damn!” she said, gratefully taking two or three huge breaths. “You’re right, you really should have warned me about that. What’s the deal?”

“To tell you that would be to ruin the surprise,” he replied. “But when you see it, you’ll understand.”

“OK, but whatever this bloody surprise is had better be worth it,” she said as she pushed herself off from the wall and followed Ryan as he continued down the corridor.

“It is,” he replied. “I wouldn’t be keeping it so close to my chest if that was not the case.”

They progressed through three more sets of double doors, all of which detected their approach and opened automatically. The fourth set of doors did not open in the same manner, however, and Ryan pushed them open in very much the same manner as a cowboy entering a saloon in a western.

“Hello, guys and girls,” he said jovially, the comment directed at the seven individuals occupying what appeared to be a changing area of some sort. All of those within greeted Ryan in a similarly cheery manner, and it was all a little too cutesy for Amber.

“Fuck, I think I might chunder,” she said with a chuckle. “Come on then, Smithie. You gonna’ introduce me to your buddies, or what?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he replied as he sheepishly turned to face her. “Guys, I’m pretty sure this lady needs no introduction.”

“Ma’am,” all seven said pretty much in unison as they quickly stood to attention, saluting as they did so.

She awkwardly returned the salutes and then shook her head, glancing at her hand in disgust.

“Yeah OK, I’m pretty sure I can’t take that shit,” she said. “How about we just stick with Honey or better yet, Amber?”

“You heard the lass,” said Ryan as he turned back to his buddies with both eyebrows raised and his eyes opened wide. “Honey, it is.”

“Much better,” she said. “Right, so who are all of you guys? I’m not worried about names, I’ll pick those up as I go, but what am I doing here with you?”

“You mean old Smithie here hasn’t told you, Ma’am... I mean, Honey?” one of the male occupants of the room spoke. He was a well built man; bald, with broad shoulders that put Amber in mind of a rugby player.

“No, but you know what he’s like, right?” she said with a chuckle. “He does like to keep his secrets.”

“No flies on her, Ryan,” one of the two women said, a slender redhead, her face a mass of freckles. Turning to Amber she nodded towards Smithie. “I see it didn’t take too long for you to get his number.”

“Longer than it should have, I’ll admit,” Amber conceded. “So, is one of you gonna’ spill or do I have to beat it out of someone?”

“As I’m fairly certain you could take all of us with both hands tied behind your back, I’ll tell you,” said the redhead with a smile. “You’re coming up with us, Honey. We’re gonna’ give you a tour of the Agency’s Orbital Command Centre.”

“I like how that sounds,” Amber replied, grinning. “I assume we’re going up there in a spaceship of some kind?”

“No Ma’am,” the redhead replied, and Amber decided to let that one slide. “Did Ryan not tell you?”

She shot Smithie a confused look, as if she was questioning the fact that he had not told the Hardcore Honey exactly how they got from the ground to the Orbital Command Centre.

“No, he has not,” Amber replied. “I assume that’s the surprise he has in store for me.”

“Surprise?” the bald man said. “Well in that case, Honey, come with us and we’ll show you just how big a surprise Ryan has for you.”

With her new friends jostling around her, Amber had little choice but to follow them, along with Ryan, through yet another set of double doors and down a long, wide corridor. Rather than the magnolia it seemed that the rest of the facility had been painted with, the walls of the corridor were comprised entirely of dull metal sheeting, whereas the roof above her head was of concrete.

“How far down are we going?” Amber asked, having noticed a slight decline to the floor.

“A couple of hundred feet is all,” the redhead replied. “Being even that short distance underground though, it helps to disperse the heat.”

“Disperse the heat from what?”

“You’ll find out on the other side of this door,” another of the men said. Unlike the first man who spoke, he was not bald. He was just as built but with a bird’s nest of a hairdo that Amber was not entirely sure had ever been washed.

Amber followed them through the door and found herself in a cavernous room, a perfect circle unless she was very much mistaken. All the walls were lined with glass whilst the floor and ceiling were of metal, though a much softer alloy than that lining the walls of the corridor.

“This, Amber,” said Ryan, unable to hide the excitement as it spread across his face, “is what we call the Route.”

“The Route?”

“Yes Ma’am,” the bald man continued. “It’s a teleport capable of transferring the matter of hundreds of people at a time, and taking them straight up to the Orbital Command Centre. All in all the process takes about thirty seconds but to anyone using it, the journey feels as though it takes less than a single second.”

“Sounds bloody good to me,” said Amber with a grin. “What the fuck are we waiting for?”

“I like her,” said the redhead to no one in particular. “Route us, Scotty.”