by Sophie Deen
“Oh,” beeped Drone excitedly. “These terms and conditions are very interesting.”
Asha and Tumble exchanged glances.
“My facial-recognition software tells me that you’re not convinced,” said Drone. “But I think you’ll change your mind if you keep reading until Section 16, Clause 28.”
“I’m just going to skip to that bit,” said Asha, swiping up on her tablet.
“You’ll miss the fifteen paragraphs about the dangers of paper cuts,” warned Drone.
Asha wasn’t listening. In among the tiny lines of type and long legal words, she’d found the clause Drone was talking about. At first, it looked like a normal piece of text. But Asha had learned to look for the tiniest of details when she was coding. She saw there was a hyperlink hidden in the last full stop of the paragraph. She clicked it. After several seconds, another website loaded.
Whoa.
“Spies,” yelled Tumble. “I knew it!”
“You also said that it could be aliens or zombies,” Drone huffed, annoyed at being outwitted by a robot-hamster with only 15 terabytes of RAM.
Asha wasn’t listening.
Someone wanted her help on an urgent mission? She couldn’t believe it. Maybe it was Demola playing a prank on her? Then again, could he really build a double-fake website? Unlikely. He didn’t know a lot about HTML or CSS or any kind of programming language.
But Asha knew lots about coding. She was also pretty good at breaking into networks. Maybe the Children’s Spy Agency really existed and needed her help. But … who were they? And why was there a time limit?
THE TIME LIMIT! Asha snapped back to her senses. She only had 16 minutes left to get to the library.
“We’ve got to run!” she said, leaping to her feet and panic-dropping things from her desk inside her backpack: her tablet, some raisins, a notebook, a torch, a banana, a couple of USB keys, a hairband and her lucky keyring. “Let’s go!”
“Absolutely not,” replied Drone, her pixels glowing red. “We can’t just rush off because of a strange message from an unknown person. It is very dangerous.”
Asha snorted. “The only danger at the library is that I might get a paper cut.” She paused. Actually, she had no idea who had sent the email. Sure, Drone could be a bit overcautious … but this time, maybe she had a point. There was no way that she was going to admit this though.
“We’ll be fine,” said Asha, as confidently as she could. “I’ll tell Mum and Dad where I’m going. You and Tumble are coming with me AND it’s a library. Nothing ever happens in a library!”
Drone’s turbines zoomed, creating a small gust of wind. “You obviously haven’t read—”
Asha interrupted her. “Drone, help me calculate the most efficient route from here to the library. We have zero time to waste, so we should look for the quiet crossings. And …” Asha hesitated, “we should avoid the corner shop too. Otherwise, we’ll just get distracted.”
Drone’s wings whirred. She loved a good route. “I am calculating the fastest route based on your instructions. Asha, if we leave now we can get there within the time limit.”
“What are we waiting for?” Asha grabbed her backpack. “Drone, Tumble, let’s go! Chalo!”
She raced down the hallway and poked her head back into the kitchen. “I’m off to the library to do research for my homework project about … circus life!”
“Rani, you have a project? You didn’t tell me about it.” Mum looked up from her chopping board. “Nush, can you go with your sister, please?”
“No!” Asha and Nush yelled at exactly the same time.
“I’ve got Drone with me, Mum, and I’ll be back in half an hour. I’m meeting Demola there too. It’s a really important project, and it’s Saturday morning! That’s the safest time ever.” Asha was already out of her front door, Tumble and Drone in front of her.
“Rani, wait there! You can go, but I’m activating Drone’s parental controls!”
“Away From Home controls activated!” said Drone in a soft lullaby voice. “Logging commencing.”
“And you need to be back for lunch!” said Mum.
Asha sprinted down the street before anyone could say anything else.
Chapter 4
10:49
Asha arrived at the library with less than a minute to spare. She was panting heavily.
“I’m here!” she yelled, pushing through the big double doors. “Stop the clock!”
“SSSH!” An angry hiss came from a stony-faced librarian. Old women glared at her from behind their newspapers, and a father and toddler pulled a face over in the picture book section.
Asha’s cheeks burned. Suddenly she felt silly. What had she been expecting? Secret agents with headsets waiting for her behind the bookshelves? A hidden bunker in the library? Whatever she had been imagining, it wasn’t anything quite so … library-ish. There were no agents, no investigations, no urgent missions. Not so much as a psst.
“PSST!”
Asha turned around to see a different librarian holding her finger to her lips. This one was friendlier and judging by her earrings, she loved otters.
“Tech section,” whispered the librarian. “Third stack, top shelf. Take this and find the book that matches.” She placed a card with a shiny holographic logo in Asha’s hand. “You’ve now got … 43 seconds.”
Asha did her best to run without looking like she was running, which was about as easy as reading with your eyes closed. She found the right block of shelves and peered at the books, looking for a clue.
Tumble hopped out of her pocket and scrambled up the shelves. He had stopped at an old and dusty book. “Asha, this book has a shiny thing on it like that card!”
“Yeah! Good spot, Tumble!” she whispered. She touched her card to the spine of the book.
The wall of shelves silently slid back, revealing the opening to a narrow shiny steel-lined tunnel. Before Drone could warn her about safety, Asha dived into the darkness and began crawling on her hands and knees. This was more like it!
She could hear the patter of Tumble’s paws and Drone whirring behind her, muttering about all the dangerous things that could happen in tunnels. Her heart beat a little faster.
The passage led into a dark room filled with floor-to-ceiling screens. Asha climbed to her feet and the door to the tunnel slid shut, sealing off her exit. As she stepped forwards the floor underneath her lit up, scanning her height, shoe size and eye colour.
Asha stood completely still. Where was she? And how was she going to get out? This room didn’t look anything like a library.
The far wall was covered with holographic maps. There were blinking dots in faraway places like California, Nairobi and Stockport. On a stack of metal shelves, all kinds of gadgets were laid out in neat rows. Asha was about to take a closer look, when a glowing hologram appeared out of nowhere in front of her.
“Welcome to your local branch of the Children’s Spy Agency, Asha Joshi,” said the hologram. It was shaped like an enormous plate of masala eggs on toast, jiggling eggily on the spot. “Applause and praise on arriving here within the time limit.
You have passed the navigation and agility tests.”
“Um … what is going on?” asked Asha, wondering what agility was.
“I am named Hedy, and I am the central Artificial Intelligence Unit of the CSA.” The computerized voice was coming from unseen speakers. “I have scanned your breath and determined that you ate masala eggs on toast for breakfast. Therefore, based on my data about human behaviour, I am appearing as an object that you are familiar with, so you will feel more at ease. I have tried to mimic the exact recipe of your breakfast eggs.”
“Wow,” said Asha. “That’s so cool. And gross.”
“Do not eat the hologram,” continued the voice.
“Um, yeah I won’t, don’t worry,” said Asha. “But who – or what – is the CSA?”
“The Children’s Spy Agency, or CSA, is a secret intelligence network. We have agents all
over the world and we only recruit the most extraordinary Homo sapiens. According to our reports, you have what it takes to join us. We have been monitoring you for some time, using information on your hamster’s FaceSpace page.”
Drone whirred at Tumble, who stepped forward waving a paw. “So great to meet a follower IRL!”
Hedy ignored him. “Our analysis shows that you ask ‘Why?’ on average 32 times a day, Asha Joshi. This is an advanced level of questioning which scores very highly, even among our top agents. We were also very impressed by the solar panels that you installed on the roof of your school.”
Asha beamed. Her SolarSchool experiment had led to a new backup energy source, and she’d managed to give Demola some power to kick-start his Lunchtime Toastie Takeaway empire.
“And the way you upgraded your school’s cybersecurity after your teacher’s email account was hacked was outstanding,” continued Hedy.
Asha’s grin grew even wider. She decided not to mention that it had been her who’d hacked the emails in the first place. To be fair, she hadn’t told anyone about Mrs Penny’s subscription to Fart Control Magazine … yet.
“Our motto is: Think for yourself. Question everything. You are the ideal candidate for the Children’s Spy Agency. When the world’s governments have a crisis that their adult security services cannot solve, they turn to the CSA. We need you, Asha. Between 193 and 195 countries need you.”
Drone flew towards the holographic plate of eggs and addressed Hedy directly. “As Asha’s designated risk assessor, I have questions about your proposal. First of all—”
Tumble jumped in front of Drone. “Who are you? And why do you need me?”
Drone glared at him. “Why do you need Asha?”
The hologram flickered. “She is very good at breaking into high-security computer systems. We need her help to save the Internet.”
“Save the Internet?” Asha gasped. “From what? Viruses? Hackers? Parents?”
The image on the screen changed and Asha jumped back. Instead of masala eggs, Hedy had turned into a giant set of jaws.
The speakers boomed: “SHARKS!”
Chapter 5
10:58
“Sharks?” said Asha, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. “You don’t mean actual sharks, right? Are they a new hacking group, or something? Or is it an acronym for … the Seriously Hardcore Anarchist Rebel Kids?” Asha hoped so. Those SHARKs sounded cool.
“Negative,” said the holographic jaws. “Sharks are large fish, commonly found in oceans, horror movies and some seafood restaurants. Their scientific name is Selachimorpha, and they can grow up to 50,000 teeth over the course of their lifetime. Humans are very afraid of them, even though you’re more likely to be injured by a vending machine than a shark.”
“O…K…” said Asha. “But what do sharks have to do with the Internet?”
Hedy transformed into a tangle of wires, that moved as if they were lips. It was only slightly less scary than the jaws had been.
“The Internet is a huge network of connected computers across the world. Information can be sent from one computer to another in the network,” said Hedy. “The computers in the network are connected to each other via cables. Some of the cables run for thousands of miles under the sea.”
“Cool! I had no idea,” said Asha.
“Over the last 24 hours, there have been serious global issues with Internet connectivity. I’ll now play a report from an engineer who went down to investigate a cable on the seabed.”
The screen in front of Asha burst into life. A woman wearing a wetsuit was holding a diving helmet with a shaking hand. “This is Kim Lau reporting on Cable 97A. Conditions were as expected. I located the cable and looked for damage. I found a big tear right through it. The wires were completely exposed. I was going to take a photo, when I saw something moving in the darkness. It was a huge shark, swimming beside the cable.”
The on-screen Kim swallowed hard.
“I swam away as fast as I could. The shark didn’t follow, but stayed near the cable. But I wasn’t taking any chances so I activated my panic sensor. I’ve never known sharks of that size in these waters before. Ever.”
The screen flickered out. Silence filled the room. Even Tumble stopped trying to press buttons.
“Whoa,” said Asha eventually. “So the Internet is slow because sharks are attacking cables?” Asha wondered if she was missing something.
“We believe so,” said Hedy. “Ten of the country’s undersea cables have been destroyed. There are about 30 others. We are now at a dangerous point. If sharks attack any of the remaining cables, there will be a total collapse of the Internet here.”
Asha’s mind felt as tangled as the wires she was speaking to. An hour ago she’d been eating breakfast. Now, an AI hologram was telling her about secret agents and cable-munching sharks.
“Is that what happened to Iceland?” Asha said slowly, remembering what she’d heard on the radio.
“Affirmative,” said Hedy. “We think the same pattern of attack will be used in countries all over the world.”
“But WHY?”
“The Internet is essential to the daily life of 3.2 billion people, almost half of the world’s population. Hospitals rely on the Internet, banks rely on the Internet and people need it to keep in touch with friends and family. Already today, Asha Joshi, you have used the Internet 33 times. At the moment, the Internet isn’t owned or regulated by a single person. But if an individual was able to gain control of it, they would become the richest and most powerful person on the planet.”
Asha had never thought about the Internet like that before. But Hedy wasn’t answering her question about sharks. “But why—”
Hedy cut across her. “The CSA fights injustice and abuse of power. We’ve received confidential information that the shark attacks are being organized by Shelly Belly, the trillionaire inventor of—”
“—LavNav and TWAG.” Asha nodded excitedly, as she finished Hedy’s sentence.
It wasn’t just Tumble who was obsessed with Shelly Belly. Asha knew everything about her. At fourteen, Shelly had become the youngest person ever to win a Falcon Prize – the biggest prize in tech – for inventions like LavNav (an app for finding public toilets when you are out and about) and the TWAG series (Time Wasting Addictive Game). Now, at seventeen, she was the CEO of Shelly Inc, a global tech company that made search engines, apps, robots, toys, phones, smart houses, genetically modified pets, designer babies, antibiotics, hands-free poop-a-scoops … everything, really.
“Shelly Belly is very powerful. Her combined worth is more than the value of all of the world’s pocket money and gold. The CSA has investigated her in the past over the way she collects the personal data of her customers without consent, particularly data relating to the time they spend on the toilet. Now we believe Shelly is trying to cause a global Internet shutdown by using sharks to destroy undersea cables.”
“How can she control sharks?” Asha asked, more confused than ever.
“We have inconclusive evidence. She might be luring the sharks to the cables. Or she might have trained a shark to attack the cables.”
“But how will Shelly run Shelly Inc without the Internet? Surely she will be affected too?” Drone asked.
“Once news of the shark attacks become public, Shelly plans to replace the cables and launch her own Internet: ShellyNet. People will have to pay whatever Shelly wants to charge them, because there won’t be any other option,” said Hedy.
“So you think Shelly’s doing all of this just to make more money?” Asha asked. “But she’s mega rich already!”
“It is more complicated than that, Asha Joshi. Shelly and her corporation want complete control. If people are forced to use ShellyNet, all Internet-based services – email, instant messaging, video calling, banking, transport, music streaming, media streaming, social media, and yes, nannybots – will be under Shelly Inc’s control. Shelly will be able to check your search history or your
nannybot’s log. If she decides that she doesn’t want you to video call Nana-Ji or that a hospital can’t have the Internet, she could block your Internet access.”
Asha gulped. “That’s really bad!” She reached for Drone.
“We predict that will only be the beginning. If users have to give their personal information to sign up, Shelly will know everything about everyone. She will own all your private data.” Hedy flickered. “We fear this is just the first part of Shelly’s plan. We strongly suspect she has an ultimate goal. Global mind control.”
Chapter 6
11:04
Asha’s head was spinning. It was a lot to take in on a Saturday morning. She turned back to Hedy. “So, Shelly is using sharks to attack the Internet. And you need my help to stop her?” Asha was having trouble believing that there hadn’t been some sort of mix up. Could there be another older, smarter Asha Joshi out there, and the CSA email had been sent to the wrong person by mistake? And was Shelly Belly really behind Internet-destroying sharks? Just last week, Asha had watched a video of Shelly donating routers to schools.
“Affirmative,” Hedy replied without hesitating. “We know there is a file called Operation DeepWater saved locally on Shelly’s computer system. The file will tell us exactly how she has trained the sharks and which cables she is planning to attack next. We can use this information to stop the attacks and expose Shelly. It will not be easy to bring someone as powerful and in the public eye as Shelly Belly to justice. We need every piece of data in that file.”
“Right,” said Asha, her mind racing. “Shelly Inc will have state-of-the-art cybersecurity.” Hacking a system like that was going to be a challenge, but a seriously fun one. Ideas immediately started bubbling out of her. “A cyberattack will raise so many alarm bells. Shelly will be on to us in no—”
