Deadly Heist

by Jack Heath

  Then Mr Sharp spots something on the workbench behind you. Something which terrifies him.

  ‘No,’ he whispers. ‘No!’

  You turn to look, but there’s nothing scary on the bench. Just the mobile phone you saw earlier.

  Mr Sharp dives down the hatch into the sewer. Not chasing Kye, but running for his life.

  You remember what Alhamed said about the device the robbers were building. The device which they would switch on, as soon as it was ready.

  The phone beeps.

  You turn to run—

  Flash! A shockwave blasts outwards from the phone, and turns you to dust.

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again!

  The phone starts ringing. A bleep-bleep sound, like an old-fashioned video game.

  ‘You’re on, kid,’ Miss Scarlet says, pointing to the phone.

  You hesitate. ‘You don’t need to hurt anyone,’ you say. ‘I’m sure the police will give you whatever you want.’

  Miss Scarlet waves the laser pistol towards you. That seems to be her response to any sort of disagreement. ‘Answer the phone right now.’

  You pick up the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. My name’s Jess. Can I ask who I’m speaking with?’

  She doesn’t sound like a police officer. You tell her your name.

  ‘OK,’ Jess says. ‘My first question to you is, are you OK? Have you been injured?’

  ‘No,’ you say.

  ‘What about the other people in the building?’ Her voice is careful. ‘Does anyone need medical attention?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ you say.

  Miss Scarlet is getting impatient. ‘Code,’ she says. ‘Now.’

  ‘We need the code to unlock the vault,’ you say.

  ‘We have hostages,’ Miss Scarlet adds.

  ‘She has hostages,’ you say.

  ‘Who is “she”?’ Jess asks. ‘Maybe I should speak with her.’

  You look at Miss Scarlet, who shakes her head.

  ‘No,’ you say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I really need to talk to the person in charge,’ Jess says. ‘Otherwise I can’t do anything for you.’

  If you tell her you’re a hostage and that the robbers refuse to talk, Click Here.

  If you tell her you’re the one in charge, Click Here.

  Miss Scarlet looks over just as you finish typing and step back. ‘Don’t touch that,’ she says. ‘You have no idea how dangerous it is.’

  ‘I was just looking,’ you say.

  A progress bar has appeared on the screen. It’s already at two percent.

  The building is rocked by another explosion. This time the noise comes from the other side—it sounds like the bank is under attack from several fronts. Hopefully the cops are rescuing the other hostages right now.

  ‘We can’t wait any longer!’ Mr Signet yells.

  ‘Activate the nanobots!’ Miss Scarlet says. ‘Start building the device!’

  This sounds like nonsense to you, but Mr Signet seems to know what she means. He runs over to the box and starts typing on the keypad.

  Whatever he’s trying to do, it isn’t working. He looks more and more panicked. ‘They’re not responding!’

  ‘What?’ Miss Scarlet whirls around. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s like they’re already building something!’

  ‘Well, stop them!’

  Mr Signet keeps typing. You can hear boots tromping through the building. The police are coming.

  Miss Scarlet looks at you. ‘What did you do?’ she snarls.

  You try to look innocent.

  She grabs your arms and pushes you against the wall.

  ‘Tell me!’ Spittle flecks your face.

  If you tell her what you did to the box, Click Here.

  If you try to struggle free so you can run for the vault door, Click Here.

  ‘What was that?’ Miss Scarlet asks.

  Mr Signet shrugs. Mr Sharp is staring at the box.

  There it is again: thump, thump.

  Something is inside. But what?

  ‘What did you do?’ Miss Scarlet asks again.

  Behind her, the lid of the box springs open. Fingers appear over the edge. A hand, pulling itself up.

  Miss Scarlet turns to look at the box just in time to see a face emerge.

  Your face. Somehow, the person in the box is you.

  You scream. It’s impossible not to. Seeing your own reflection—but not a reflection, a whole other being, an impossible twin—breaks your brain. This person has your eyes, your mouth, your hair. Somehow, typing in your own name created a perfect copy of you.

  The other version of you screams as well. Miss Scarlet looks from you, to you and back again. Then she raises the pistol towards the clone of you inside the box.

  If you shout out a warning to the other you, Click Here.

  If you try to grab the gun, Click Here.

  ‘If you hurt me, you’ll never get it open,’ you say.

  You can hear Miss Scarlet’s teeth grinding.

  ‘I set a password,’ you continue. ‘You can’t open it without my help.’

  Miss Scarlet looks at Mr Signet. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I can get it open. We just have to wait for the current operation to finish.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ she asks.

  ‘Two minutes, tops.’

  ‘Any point keeping the kid alive?’

  Mr Signet looks at you, chewing his lip.

  If you typed in your own name, Click Here.

  If you typed in something else, Click Here.

  ‘Watch out!’ you yell. ‘Get back down!’

  But you’re too late. A laser blast hits the clone.

  The other you falls, disappearing back into the box.

  ‘No!’ you scream.

  ‘We’re out of time,’ Miss Scarlet tells the other robbers. ‘Grab some nanobots and go.’

  Mr Sharp pulls a vacuum flask out of a pouch and starts digging in the box.

  ‘What about the kid?’ Mr Signet asks.

  You lunge for the exit—

  But Mr Signet trips you.

  You hit the concrete floor. The world is spinning.

  ‘No witnesses,’ Miss Scarlet says.

  Something strikes you, and the whole world goes dark.

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again!

  You try to pry Miss Scarlet’s hands off your arms so you can run out of the vault. But she’s too strong. Then there’s a third kaboom from somewhere else in the building. Miss Scarlet loses her balance. Her hands loosen for a split second. You slip free, hit the floor and sprint towards the vault door. Mr Signet tries to tackle you. He misses and crash-lands on the concrete.

  A laser beam shoots past you as you dash through the open door. Miss Scarlet is trying to fry you, but her aim is off. You’re almost at the staff door which leads back into the main part of the bank. You’re going to make it.

  But a huge hand grabs your collar. Mr Sharp drags you backwards. He’s unbelievably strong.

  ‘No!’ you yell. ‘Get off me!’

  You may as well be pleading with a robot. He hauls you, kicking and squirming, back to the vault.

  Then you hear a noise from inside the box.

  If you typed in your own name, Click Here.

  If you typed in RHINOCEROS, Click Here.

  If you typed in BEEHIVE, Click Here.

  You grab Miss Scarlet’s gun, just in time. The laser beam misses your clone and carves a line through the concrete wall instead.

  But the barrel of the laser pistol burns your hand. You let go, stung.

  Miss Scarlet tries to fire again, but the gun clicks empty.

  The battery is dead.

  She raises a fist—

  And then your clone crash-tackles her. They both hit the floor, hard.

  Not knowing the laser gun is dead, your clone tries to grab it. Miss Scarlet takes the opportunity to flip the oth
er you off her. She pins the clone to the floor—

  But a dozen police officers swarm through the open vault door. Finally. Shouts fill the air as two of the officers pull Miss Scarlet off your clone and handcuff her. Others grab Mr Sharp and Mr Signet, who don’t put up much of a fight. They’re still stunned from seeing a copy of you climb out of the box.

  Miss Scarlet thrashes like an electric eel, but the cops holding her are too strong.

  You hold out a hand and help your clone to stand up. The two of you stare at one another for a long time.

  ‘What do we do now?’ you both say, at the same moment.

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!

  A sinister hum emanates from the box. It sounds like an enormous amount of power is being routed through it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Miss Scarlet asks Mr Signet. ‘Is it fixed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mr Signet says. He leans over the box.

  The progress bar reaches one hundred percent.

  With a ding like an oven timer, the lid of the box launches itself open. From where you are standing, you can’t see inside—but you can see the look on the robbers’ faces. They recoil in shock.

  A glittering golden cloud rises from the box. The humming gets louder, and you realise it’s not electrical. It’s coming from millions and millions of bees.

  Somehow, when you typed the word beehive into the keypad, the box started making an actual beehive and filling it with actual bees. It seems impossible—like magic—but it’s true.

  ‘Get them off me!’ Mr Signet says. He’s slapping at his arms as though he’s on fire.

  ‘Stop!’ Miss Scarlet yells. ‘You’re making them aggressive!’

  Mr Signet doesn’t stop. He keeps flailing like a lunatic. Red welts appear all over his face as the bees sting him. His hands swell up like red sponges.

  Now that he’s made them angry, the bees turn on Miss Scarlet. You remember reading somewhere that bee stings release pheromones which encourage other bees to attack. Miss Scarlet screams as the insects sting her neck and arms. She tears at her hair, trying to get them off her scalp, but there are too many.

  And still more are flooding from the open box. The edge of the swarm draws nearer.

  A stunned Mr Sharp has loosened his grip. You shake off his hand and run away from the vault, back the way you came. He chases you—or maybe he’s just fleeing from the bees. The humming is deafening now.

  Something lands on your hair, buzzing. You swat it away as you run. Something else joins it. There’s a sudden sharp pain behind your ear. The flesh around the sting grows hot.

  ‘Ow!’ You keep running, with increasing panic. Another sting punctures the nape of your neck. Bees have crawled up your shirt cuffs and are buzzing around inside your clothes.

  The pain is unbearable. You’re getting dizzy.

  ‘Help me,’ you gasp, but you’re barely sure who you’re talking to. You’re not even sure the words come out. Your eyelids are swelling up. You’re blind.

  You hit the floor.

  The last thing you hear is humming and buzzing, humming and buzzing.

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again.

  ‘Not in my opinion,’ Mr Signet says finally.

  ‘Wait,’ you say. ‘He’s lying. I can get it open!’

  ‘No,’ Mr Signet says. ‘Nothing we can do but wait for it to finish.’

  Miss Scarlet points the laser pistol at you.

  ‘No!’ you shriek. ‘Stop!’

  She pulls the trigger.

  There’s a bright flash, and then the whole world disappears.

  Click Here.

  There’s a horrible groan from inside the box. Like the creaking of a ship, or maybe the cracking of a sheet of ice. Something is bending and breaking.

  Without warning, the box explodes like an egg in a microwave. Sharp pieces of metal shower the vault, clanging into the corners.

  Standing where the box used to be is a rhinoceros.

  You stumble backwards. You can’t believe it.

  The rhinoceros is impossibly huge in the vault, and it’s growing as you watch. Black eyes stare at you from leathery sockets. Huge feet scuff the base of the shattered box. A massive horn sways left and right, as though deciding who to skewer first.

  Too late, you realise what the box was—a device which could make anything. The robbers wanted it to make what they called a ‘battery bomb’. But when you typed in the word rhinoceros, you summoned this gigantic beast instead.

  The rhino snarls, furious to discover itself trapped in this room. It turns to face you, puts its head down, and charges.

  You can’t get out of the way. Mr Sharp is still holding your shirt. You scream as a tonne of animal flesh hurtles towards you. The point of the deadly horn is heading right for you.

  Then Miss Scarlet fires the laser pistol.

  She probably wasn’t trying to save you. The rhino is between her and the vault door—she probably wanted to hurt it so she could escape. But when the laser beam rakes across that tough skin, the rhino roars and changes direction. Suddenly it is stampeding towards Miss Scarlet, horn first.

  You can’t watch. You cover your eyes. There’s a mighty crash, and the sound of receding hooves.

  Dust pours down on your head. Coughing, you open your eyes. Half of one wall is missing. A cool breeze sweeps in from outside. Miss Scarlet and the rhino are nowhere to be seen.

  Mr Sharp lets go of you, stunned. You almost fall over. It’s like your legs have forgotten how to hold you up.

  Sirens fill the air, covering the distant thunder of the rhino’s hooves.

  ‘We gotta go,’ Mr Signet says to Mr Sharp. ‘Come on, man! Run!’

  He runs through the hole in the wall, but is immediately grabbed by a man in SWAT gear. Police are flooding into the room, checking corners with torches and shouting to each other. Two of them grab Mr Sharp and wrestle him to the ground.

  One of them holds out a gloved hand to you.

  ‘You OK, kid?’ he asks.

  You just stare at the hole in the wall.

  ‘What happened here?’ the cop asks.

  ‘I have no idea,’ you say.

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!

  ‘I doubt it,’ Mr Signet says at last. ‘But it’s your call.’

  Miss Scarlet thinks for a moment. You wonder what’s going on behind those evil eyes.

  She points the laser pistol at you.

  ‘No!’ you scream. ‘He can’t open it! I can! I set a password!’

  Ignoring you, Miss Scarlet pulls the trigger.

  The universe goes black.

  THE END.

  Click Here to try again.

  You wake up in absolute darkness, lying on a cold, hard surface. Your breaths reverberate around you, bouncing back immediately. You’ve been packed into a tight space.

  A coffin. Someone must have thought you were dead—and now you’ve been buried alive!

  You stifle a scream, not wanting to waste the oxygen. Maybe they didn’t bury you that deep. Maybe you can dig your way out.

  You can’t lift your knees. The walls are tight on either side of your shoulders. But you can get your hands against the lid and push.

  It pops right open. Fluorescent light floods in. You’re not buried, and this isn’t a coffin. It’s the box—the one you typed your name into. You’re still in the vault.

  Thoroughly confused, you climb out of the box. No sign of the robbers—but there’s a body on the floor.

  It’s you.

  Your knees go weak. You feel like you might throw up.

  That isn’t a copy, you realise. You’re the copy. Somehow, when you typed in your name, the box started making a clone of you. And then the robbers killed the original version.

  Voices echo from outside the vault. The robbers, discussing what
to do next.

  A terrible fury floods through your body.

  The nearest potential weapon is a fire-extinguisher. You wrench it off the wall, barely noticing how heavy it is as you carry it out of the vault.

  In the staff-only area, the three robbers are standing in a circle. Mr Signet is talking about the police cordon, and how to break through.

  Miss Scarlet sees you first. The colour drains from her face. ‘What . . .’ she whispers. ‘How . . .’ She probably thinks you’re a ghost. In a way, she’s right.

  The other robbers turn. Mr Sharp screams like a little kid. You raise the fire-extinguisher, ready to hurl it with all your might.

  Mr Signet snatches the laser pistol off Miss Scarlet’s belt and shoots. He misses you, but the energy bolt punches a hole through the extinguisher. A grey cloud of gas billows out of the hole.

  You throw the extinguisher. It doesn’t hit anyone, or at least, you don’t think so. It vanishes into the mist and clangs to the floor somewhere beyond.

  Still fuelled by rage, you storm towards where the robbers were standing. You lash out, but hit nothing. They must have gone into the customer area of the bank.

  You fumble your way past the counter and through the staff-only door. The terrified robbers are fiddling with the shutter over the front door, trying to get it open.

  ‘Hello,’ you say.

  They whirl around and see you, looming a few steps behind them, arms hanging loose by your sides. Mr Signet yelps. The other two claw at the door. You walk through the ankle-deep mist towards them as though you’re floating.

  Miss Scarlet finally manages to unlock the shutter. Mr Sharp lifts it and they all sprint through the foyer, out into the dawn light. The street is thick with police.

  Desperate to get away from the vengeful ghost behind them, the robbers immediately surrender. They stick their hands up and run to the police cars. Mr Signet yells, ‘Get us out of here!’

  You stand in the doorway and watch the police take the robbers away.

  00:00

  You survived! There are thirteen other ways to escape the danger—try to find them all!