by Jon Ireland
‘We’ll just have to wade through them,’ said Doctor Mischief, staring at the heaps of Bedlam bugs. ‘They’re harmless spying machines – nothing to worry about. Hoppy, you go first.’ And without warning the Doctor shoved Hoppy in the back and pushed her into the corridor filled with the dark mass of beetle machines.
Stumbling into the bugs, knee deep, Hoppy only just kept her balance and scowled furiously back at the Doctor. ‘Don’t you dare push me like that again!’
‘Do they hurt?’ asked Liftoff, twiddling his fingers anxiously.
‘Not yet,’ said Hoppy. ‘But who knows what they’ll do next. I think the best thing is to push through them as quickly as we can.’
Tinysaur followed after Hoppy, barely able to keep her head above the beetles. Rocket went next, wading his big feet through the scampering, crawling black bugs.
‘Hey, it’s not so bad,’ said Rocket smiling, slowly making progress down the corridor. ‘I mean it’s not like they’re real bugs. They’re just kind of tickley.’
‘Something’s not right about this,’ said Shelly, stepping into the black sea of fake insects. ‘It’s too easy ... it must be a trick.’
‘Move it, big bear,’ said Mischief, eyeing up Liftoff, the only other one left in the prison ward. ‘Everyone in.’
‘I hate creepy crawlies,’ said Liftoff shuddering.
‘Just think of them as tiny machines,’ encouraged Shelly. ‘They’re not real bugs.’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ said Liftoff and reluctantly waded in.
One by one they plodded through the robotic insects, crunching and squishing them as they went.
‘I can see the door at the far end,’ said Hoppy, leading the group onwards.
‘Move faster,’ said the Doctor, tailing in the rear for her own safety.
‘It’s not so bad,’ said Rocket. ‘That bad egg and sock room was worse than this.’
‘Something’s happening,’ said Shelly, holding up several of the beetles in his hands. ‘The bugs are moving.’
‘Of course they’re moving!’ snapped the Doctor.
‘It’s like being in a swimming pool,’ said Rocket, feeling the beetles wriggle around his waist. ‘Kind of fun!’ He turned around and grinned, but Liftoff wasn’t laughing, his face had turned pale.
‘Wave,’ mouthed Liftoff. ‘Big wave ...’
‘Wave?’ Rocket waved his hand in front of Liftoff’s gaze. ‘You want me to wave at you?’
‘Not wave at me!’ said Liftoff pointing a finger ahead at a moving mass of beetles. ‘The bugs are making a wave!’
By the time Rocket had seen the twelve foot swell of millions of black bugs, it was already too late. Moving in synchronisation the bugs had formed a gigantic wave, from front to back it rolled through the corridor. First pummeling into Hoppy, then Tinysaur and then Rocket. The three of them tumbled backwards. Shelly was next to feel the force of the wave and even Liftoff couldn’t stay on his feet as the bugs swept around them, lifting them up and washing them down the passageway.
‘Arggh!’ shrieked Doctor Mischief as the wave of beetles knocked her off her feet.
WHOOSH!
Mischief was thrown back into the Specimen Chambers, pumped out like sewage. Next was Liftoff who landed on top of the Doctor, then Shelly who slid across the floor – and then Rocket, Hoppy and Tinysaur who hastily hopped back on to their feet.
‘Get off me!’ came the muffled scream of the Doctor whose face was squished between the floor tiles and Liftoff’s massive furry bottom.
Rocket helped pull Liftoff back on to his feet.
‘That was disgusting!’ said the Doctor, shuddering all over.
‘I didn’t think those beetles were too bad,’ replied Liftoff. ‘It was kind of like a fun water ride!’
‘Not the beetles – YOU! You sat on my face! I’ve never felt so violated in all my life!’
‘How are we to get past them?’ said Hoppy anxiously, pulling out a couple of bugs that had been caught in her belt. ‘On their own, these Bedlam Bugs are puny. But put a billion of them together and they’re stronger than a tsunami!’
‘Self-destruct in six minutes and counting,’ came the automated female announcer.
‘There must be another way out,’ said Rocket worriedly.
Doctor Mischief sat up, coughing and spluttering.
‘No, there is no other way. That’s the only exit.’
‘It’s almost impossible to get past them,’ said Hoppy, ‘it’s like swimming against a rip tide.’
‘You’re quite right,’ agreed Shelly. ‘They’re moving together like fast flowing water –’
There was a sudden realisation that crossed Shelly’s mind.
‘That’s it!’ he said snapping his fingers. ‘Water!’
‘We’re all thirsty,’ snapped the Doctor, clambering to her feet. ‘Let’s wait till after we’ve stopped the self-destruct before snacks and drinks!’
Shelly ignored the Doctor and instead politely asked Liftoff: ‘Would you mind lifting me onto that high worktop over there?’
‘If you want,’ said Liftoff, with a puzzled expression. ‘Need a better view?’ And with ease he plucked Shelly by his shell and placed him up on one of the stainless steel worktops that ran alongside the far wall.
‘What are you playing at?’ hissed the Doctor, impatiently tapping her wrist as though it had a watch. ‘We’re wasting precious time!’
‘Those beetles aren’t real insects. They’re machines,’ said Shelly as he reached up towards a bright red button. ‘Just electronic gadgets.’
He pulled off a glass cover and pressed the red button firmly.
Above it were the words:
EMERGENCY ONLY. PRESS IN CASE OF FIRE.
Immediately an ear-splitting alarm bell rang throughout the chambers, and then a second later, from the ceiling poured forth showers of water.
PSSSSSSSST!
The fire sprinklers sprayed cold water all over the floors, cupboards and walls. There was water everywhere! And soaking everyone in the room from head to toe.
‘What are you doing, you fool!’ shrieked Doctor Mischief, trying to cover her head from the rain. ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘Look everyone – in the corridor!’ shouted Hoppy through the noise of the alarm. ‘The sprinklers are soaking the beetles and they don’t like it one bit.’
‘Electronics don’t like to be mixed with water!’ said Shelly loudly. ‘The water is stopping them from working.’
Everyone turned and watched the electronic beetles as they malfunctioned in the water – sparking and hissing, flipping this way and that with the sound of crackling and popping like one of Liftoff’s mega bowls of Rice-Pop cereals.
‘Ha!’ said Rocket out loud. ‘The Bedlam Bugs are breaking!’
Shelly pushed the red button again and the sprinklers and alarm bells stopped.
‘Brilliant Shelly. You did it!’ said Hoppy. ‘You’re a genius!’
‘Except now we’re all soaking wet ...’ moaned the Doctor.
‘At least we’ve washed off that horrible egg and sock smell,’ said Rocket to Liftoff. ‘It’s just a shame Mischief still stinks. I don’t think any shower could get rid of her nasty smell.’
‘I heard that!’ shouted Doctor Mischief.
‘Enough of this bickering. If we don’t stop the self-destruct we’ll all be dead,’ said Hoppy. She waded into the mush of broken beetles and beckoned the others to follow. ‘Come on! Hurry!’
‘Four minutes to self-destruct!’ warned the female announcer.
‘GO! GO! GO!’
Chapter 23 – The Beginning of the End
Rocket, Liftoff, Hoppy, Shelly, Tinysaur and a disheveled-looking Doctor Mischief, shuffled as fast they could through the corridor of broken Bedlam Bugs. Hoppy flung open a door and entered into a lobby.
‘Where now?’ she asked.
‘We’re thirty floors away from my Command Centre,’ said the Doctor, nudging
Hoppy aside. ‘I can take the lift up and switch off the self-destruct from there. You can take the other lift with Shelly down to the Computer Warehouse and use his password in one of the main terminals.’
‘We don’t have time,’ said Shelly, shaking his head. ‘It will take more than four minutes for the lift to descend the five hundred and seventy floors to the bottom.’
The Doctor thought about it for a second and her face fell.
‘I don’t believe it, he’s right. We don’t have time!’
‘Come on, think!’ said Hoppy, who was pacing up and down beside the lift. ‘There must be an alternative.’
‘I say we surrender to the Code Maker,’ said the Doctor. ‘We beg for mercy and hope he saves us.’
‘Garbage!’ yelled Shelly.
‘Too right that’s garbage,’ agreed Rocket. ‘I’m not begging for mercy!’
‘No, I mean – rubbish – there –’ Shelly pointed to a steel hatch in the wall. ‘The garbage chute! It leads down the mountain. It’s got to be faster than the lift.’
‘Three minutes to self-destruct.’
‘I say we surrender,’ said the Doctor cowardly. ‘Who’s with me?’
Liftoff went over to the garbage disposal and ripped the steel trap door from its hinges like he was tearing tissue paper.
‘Anyone?’ said the Doctor, clearly being ignored.
‘Shelly, Tinysaur, you go first and I’ll follow,’ said Hoppy firmly.
The garbage hole was just about big enough to fit Shelly’s orange shell and he climbed inside.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Shelly, tapping on his shiny orange helmet, ‘I’ll be perfectly safe.’ And without the slightest sign of fear, he shoved off and dived into the black hole and away.
‘Wheeeeeee!’
‘Now you, Tinysaur,’ said Hoppy.
Tinysaur gave a whimper and looked sorrowfully up at Hoppy.
‘You either go down there with me and Shelly or you stay here with Doctor Mischief.’
The little dinosaur looked at the sneering lizard, thought about it for half a second and then hopped into the garbage chute and away.
Whoosh!
‘We’ll do our part – make sure Doctor Mischief does hers!’’ said Hoppy to Rocket and Liftoff, and then dived head first into the chute.
‘Yeee haaaar!’
‘You heard her,’ said Liftoff, putting one of his big paws on the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’
The Doctor reluctantly pressed the call button by the lift.
‘No funny business,’ said Rocket, ‘we’ll be watching you!’
The lift door opened and Rocket nudged the Doctor inside. Liftoff squashed in after them.
‘Top floor,’ ordered the Doctor to Liftoff. ‘Come on! I haven’t got all day!’
Liftoff took a deep breath, frowned at the Doctor, and then pressed the button in the lift marked with the number one.
* * *
‘Arrrrrrrrrgh!’ screamed Hoppy as she slid at terrific speed down through the waste tube, a slippery ride to the bottom of the mountain, bending, twisting and sometimes falling in sudden steep drops.
After a minute or so of bumps and bashes Hoppy saw a bright light approaching.
‘Coming through!’ yelled Hoppy. She hurtled out the chute, flew in the air for several feet and dropped into a waste skip full of broken cardboard and shredded paper.
‘Yap, yap, yap!’ Tinysaur jumped onto Hoppy and excitedly licked her face.
‘Good girl! We made it! Where’s Shelly?’
‘I’m up here,’ said Shelly, who was clinging onto a light fixture and gently swinging above the skip. ‘It’s very hot in here, isn’t it?’
‘Can you see a way out?’
‘There are lots of doors,’ Shelly replied, cupping his hand above his eyes. ‘But which is the right one?’ He dangled out his feet. ‘Watch out below.’ And with that he dropped down into the rubbish heap, crashing into the cardboard and paper.
After Hoppy helped Shelly onto his feet, the three of them quickly scrambled across the mess and leapt over the side of the skip.
‘Find the door that feels the hottest,’ said Hoppy, ‘that will be the way to the Computer Warehouse.’
‘Of course,’ said Shelly, nodding his approval, ‘good thinking!’
They split up and ran past hundreds of yellow and green waste skips and along the outskirts of the recycling depot. They were checking each of the doors by hand to feel for any heat.
Tinysaur spotted steam pouring out from under one of the green exit doors and barked to get the others attention. Hoppy felt the warmth on the door and she forced it open, steam pouring out everywhere.
‘We don’t have much time. Quickly!’
They sped along the hot foggy passageway and after a couple of hundred metres they came to a security door which read:
COMPUTER WAREHOUSE. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.
‘Oh dear,’ said Shelly trying the door handle. ‘It’s locked!’
‘Stand back,’ warned Hoppy. ‘I’m about to unlock it!’ She took three strides back and then ran forward and karate kicked the door down with a crash.
‘Hee Yah!’
Hoppy, Shelly and Tinysaur stormed into the massive computer warehouse – the same room where Hoppy and Tinysaur had entered from the underground tunnels just hours earlier. Only this time there were flames and smoke everywhere. Many of the computer servers had blown up through overheating and they began to cough at the toxic fumes.
‘What now?’ said Hoppy, shielding her eyes from the scorching heat.
Shelly tightened his helmet. ‘Over there,’ said Shelly, pointing to a steel grey pillar surrounded by keyboards and screens. ‘I can enter the password in there –’
BOOM!
A blast of orange and purple flames exploded out from a nearby machine and knocked everyone to the floor.
‘Is everyone OK?’ said Hoppy, wearily climbing back to her feet.
Tinysaur gave a disheartened yap and Shelly sat up and repositioned his helmet.
‘Oh dear,’ said Shelly, blinking his eyes, ‘it looks like we’re not the only ones down here. Look!’
Three Arm-E guards stomped into view. Next to them was the little three-wheeled droid, Zoom, whose eyes had turned red, clearly deep in the trance of the virus.
‘Beep, beep, didy, beep, bip, bip, beep,’ ordered the virus-controlled Zoom.
Hoppy didn’t need to know the language of Roboticus to know it meant trouble.
The Arm-E guards lifted their long tentacle arms and moved to attack ...
Chapter 24 – Double the trouble
Rocket watched the lift numbers rapidly descend: five, four, three – when without warning the lift jolted to a sudden stop.
‘What’s happening? Why aren’t we moving?’ said the Doctor sharply.
‘Don’t look at me?’ said Liftoff, raising his hands in innocence.
‘Did your dirty, fat bottom just hit the emergency button,’ accused the Doctor, scowling.
‘My bottom is not dirty! And no, I didn’t touch anything!’
‘I stopped it.’
It was the Code Maker. His voice boomed from speakers inside the lift.
‘Your efforts are futile,’ continued the Code Maker. ‘Don’t you remember I control all the machines in the mountain? Including this lift!’
‘No big deal,’ said Rocket coolly. ‘We’ll just take the stairs. Liftoff, would you be so kind as to open the doors please.’
As though the big bear was opening his cabin curtains ready for a new day, Liftoff tore the heavy steel doors apart with a single swish.
‘You can’t control the stairs, Code Maker,’ said Rocket. ‘They’re not machines.’
‘It’s too late!’ said the Code Maker, clearly agitated. ‘You’re out of time. Give up now and you can be spared!’
‘We’ll take our chances,’ said Rocket.
‘Speak for yourself,’ said the Doctor. ‘I giv
e up! Spare me!’
‘Oh be quiet,’ said Liftoff, shoving the Doctor out of the lift’s broken doors.
‘It’s only two flights of stairs to the top,’ said Rocket. ‘We’re almost there.’
* * *
Hoppy was in a fighting stance, her fists clenched and fiercely glaring at the Arm-E robots.
‘Me and Tinysaur will distract the Arm-Es while you get to the terminal.’
Shelly nodded.
The three ferocious Arm-E guards pounded closer, their arms swishing like whips and their claws pinching tight.
‘Come on, Tinysaur,’ beckoned Hoppy. ‘Follow my lead!’
Tinysaur gulped.
Picking up a large chunk of broken metal, Hoppy hurled it towards the closest Arm-E guard.
THUD!
It bounced off the robot leaving barely a scratch.
‘Hey, four arms! Yeah, you! ’ Hoppy taunted. ‘Try and catch us, you big heap of junk!’
The first Arm-E stomped up to Hoppy and threw a big swipe from one of its tentacle arms. Hoppy ducked just in time, then backflipped and cartwheeled out the way.
‘You’ll have to do better than that!’ she shouted, distracting the guard away from Shelly.
The second Arm-E tried to grab Tinysaur but the little dinosaur slid between the robot’s two legs.
Hoppy called out to Tinysaur: ‘You go to the right and I’ll take this one left. We’ll split them up.’
Tinysaur barked loudly and the second Arm-E swiveled around and followed her up one of the rows of computer servers.
With two of the guards out the way, it was now up to Shelly to get to the main computer terminal.
The robot Zoom gave an order to the third guard with some beeping sounds. The third Arm-E moved in front of the computer terminal and blocked Shelly’s path.
‘Two minutes to self-destruct!’
‘Oh dear,’ said Shelly. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! What am I to do?’
Chapter 25 – The missing key
Two big entrance doors flung open as Liftoff and Rocket barged their way inside Doctor Mischief’s Command Centre. They’d climbed the stairs quickly and the trouble with the lift had only set them back a few seconds.
‘Come on,’ said Rocket, waving for the Doctor to enter the room, ‘it’s perfectly safe.’
Doctor Mischief’s eyes flicked about the room. ‘I don’t want to get caught out like last time. You can’t trust those robots ...’
‘There’s no one else up here, see,’ said Rocket, gesturing around the room. He sat down on one of the office chairs and wheeled himself over to one of the main computers, where several screens sat round a desk full of buttons, lights, switches and a keyboard. ‘Just tell me what to touch,’ he said as his hands hovered above the controls.
