Sometimes grown-ups have to do things they don’t want to do. They take decisions that they know will hurt someone. But they take them knowing that, by hurting this one person, they might save many more from harm. Or, at least, that is what they tell themselves to make themselves feel better.
After Betsy and Joe, the two Betas, had rebelled against the 39th College, and before Extolziby had arrived and been modified to turn him from a normal, though brain-damaged, boy into what they hoped would be an Alpha, Principal Rostokovich and the others had built in some new safety measures. If he went the way of Betsy and Joe, and fell into the wrong hands, or his brain just went haywire, he might be very dangerous to other people so they had installed what they called a Dead Man’s Handle. On trains this is a handle that the driver must hold at all times while the train is running so that if he has a heart attack or falls asleep and lets go, the train will come to a stop. If you don’t have a Dead Man’s Handle you have a runaway train. And a runaway train is very dangerous.
Dr Dantalion Marchanby, whom everyone called Frank, had designed the brain handle. It was a tiny circuit, so small that it was invisible to the naked human eye and could be seen only under a very powerful microscope. It had been placed in Extolziby’s brain at the same time as everything else. It could be activated like a mobile phone. When it received the signal to activate, Extolziby’s brain would switch off. All of his brain. Including the parts that we all have but never have to think about, the bits that make us breathe and tell our hearts to beat and generally keep us alive. Those would switch off too.
But Frank had insisted on a second circuit, which would simply switch off the enhancement technology in Extolziby’s brain so that he was a normal boy, or as normal a boy as one could be after such a traumatic accident.
As the Principal, Frank and the others had watched the news from London and realised that Extolziby was evading the police, an argument had raged between them. They had to do something. But what? They simply couldn’t afford someone even more dangerous than Betsy and Joe to be out there. They knew Extolziby was headed for Magellan. They couldn’t tell the police or the government because either would insist that they trigger the Dead Man’s Handle. Not only would it be the end of their work, and the end of the college’s funding, it would also be the end of Extolziby and likely Talura.
So, in the end, common sense had won out. They had activated the second trigger. Extolziby’s Alpha powers were no more.
A hush fell over the Senior Common Room as they watched a message flash on a holo screen.
PARTIAL DEACTIVATION COMPLETE
Frank got up from a battered old armchair. The Principal looked at him. ‘Where are you going, Dantalion?’ In times of high stress she forgot that he preferred to be called Frank.
‘London, me little Cockney sparrows,’ he said, as he ran from the room.