by Sophie Deen
Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve got a better idea.”
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small bag of chum. Could Asha see a fish eye in there? Before she had time to take a closer look, Tyler had launched the bag through the air.
The bag exploded on Shelly’s head like a fishy grenade. Fish guts splattered down her shoulders, and onto her tablet. She screamed.
Ricardo tried to brush the fish guts out of her eyes, but Shelly wasn’t having any of it.
“Where were you?” Shelly spat out a glob of chum. “You’re contractually obliged to take bullets for me.”
“My contract doesn’t amention fish guts, otherwise I totes would have,” Ricardo whined.
“Really?” asked Shelly, furiously. “I’m pretty sure that sub-clause 6.1 says exactly that. “Maybe you need to take another compulsory weekend of training, Ricky, and remind yourself how to be you, but better.”
The fishy distraction was all that Asha needed. She finished her code, held her breath and pressed run. Bluetooth sent the data to the shark’s receiver in less than a second.
If this worked, then it would be game over for Shelly.
The shark burst out of the water and began swimming away from the two boats and out to sea as fast as it possibly could.
“What did you do?” yelled Shelly, waving her tablet.
“What did you do?” asked Tyler, amazed.
“I set the shark to move forward, at ten times its normal speed, in a forever loop.” Asha grinned, as the pointed fin disappeared over the horizon. “Bluetooth connections only work over limited distances, so Shelly can’t reprogram the shark unless she catches up with it.”
“FOLLOW THAT SHARK,” yelled Shelly. “I’m going to get you for this!” she said, turning to look at Asha.
Ricardo raced after the shark, but it was already too late. With every second, it was getting further out of range. The shark would be swimming until Shelly caught it or its batteries ran out.
The four of them were safe and so was the Internet cable.
“Boom, mission complete,” said Tyler. “Let’s get back to dry land and report in to Hedy. She’ll know what to do next.” Asha high-fived Tyler then scooped Tumble up into a hug. Drone was still lying at the bottom of the boat, but she managed a beep of relief, which sounded a little like a hiccup.
Team CSA had saved the day.
Chapter 20
17:52
Asha had never seen a dessert look angry before, but somehow an ice-cream-shaped Hedy was managing it. Her holographic wafer wobbled menacingly.
The CSA ice-cream van had been waiting for them by the jetty in Fishmouth. As soon as Asha had clambered into the back, Hedy had appeared and begun her debrief.
“You disobeyed Protocol 10 to abandon missions when instructed to,” she said. “This is inexcusable.”
“But Protocol 2 is to think for yourself,” protested Asha and then had to stop to burp. She’d found some ice cream in the CSA van and having not had a proper meal since breakfast, she’d eaten rather a lot. “Also it doesn’t matter exactly what I did, does it? The important thing is that we succeeded!”
Asha and Tyler had come back to shore buzzing after their showdown with Shelly. The boat had been returned to its owner and Tyler was staying in Fishmouth to help Kim Lau, the engineer who had first seen the sharks. They were going to repair the damaged cables and add some further shark-proofing so nothing like this could happen again with sharks – robotic or otherwise. As far as Asha was concerned, Mission Shark Bytes had been a success.
Apart from what had happened to Drone. Asha laid her hand on the robot, who was lying between her and a very protective Tumble. Thankfully, there was no major harm and Drone just needed a couple of wires and a panel replacing. She was powered down until Asha could fix her.
“Success is relative. Your actions have consequences. Once Shelly knew her file had been stolen, she tried to access government intelligence across the world to reclaim her data. We’ve had to deal with multiple breaches. Protocol 2 is very important,” said ice-cream-Hedy, interrupting Asha’s thoughts. “But I must still weigh up your actions in full. How you achieve your objective is as significant as the objective itself.”
“But nothing went wrong,” said Asha. “Not really, anyway.”
“Breaking Protocol 10 could have led to the failure of the overall mission, not its success,” continued Hedy. “You are part of something bigger than just yourself, Asha Joshi. Last week, an agent refused to abort her mission. She ended up trapped inside a public toilet, with a robotic goose and three hoverdrones.” Hedy computer-sighed. “Initiating flowchart.”
“Nice algorithm,” said Asha.
Hedy concluded her analysis and announced: “You achieved your objective and showed initiative, courage and skill.”
“It wasn’t just me, you should have seen Tyler and Tumble—” Asha began.
Hedy wasn’t finished. “You were also reckless, disruptive, disobeyed several orders, were nearly captured on multiple occasions, stole a boat and have just eaten all our emergency supply of raspberry ripple.”
There was a pause. Asha tried not to twitch. “However, your actions have been determined as … more or less justified.”
“YES! Thanks, Hedy!” Asha leapt up, sending a splodge of cookie dough flying.
“But there are consequences,” said Hedy. “We have decided to lower your status from Agent to Probationary Agent.”
Asha froze. “What?”
“This status will be reviewed after your next mission. Congratulations, Probationary Agent Asha.”
“Um … what does probationary mean?” asked Asha, pretty sure it wasn’t something good, but just at that moment Hedy’s screen went black.
A second later another one came to life. It showed Tyler, still on the beach at Fishmouth, grinning.
“I’ve just started working with Kim Lau,” he said. “Turns out she’s an engineer for a cable-laying company. We should have Iceland’s connection restored very soon and the Internet back up to full speed here within a few days. We so nearly lost that final cable. Our shark had managed a little nibble before we turned up.”
“Cool,” said Asha distractedly. It was cool, and of course Asha was delighted they had saved the Internet, but she had a more pressing question. “Tyler, do you know what probationary means? Is it bad?”
Tyler’s grin faded a little. “You’re on probation? No, it’s not bad … but it just means Hedy’s going to keep an eye on you before making you a full agent. Don’t worry! It happens to a lot of first timers.”
“Did it happen to you?” demanded Asha.
“No,” Tyler admitted. Then he added, “Don’t sweat it. All you’ve got to do is ace your next mission.”
“That’s all? Saving the Internet isn’t enough? That’s ridic—” Before Asha could continue, Tyler looked up and to the left, at another window on his screen. He frowned.
“Whoa, got to shoot,” he said. “There’s a new mission. Rare dolphins have been disappearing from protected areas around the American coast. Also there’s a crab in my flipper…” With that, Tyler’s screen also went black.
Asha slumped back on her seat, knocking over an empty sprinkles tub. She was a probationary agent? Just because she’d disobeyed one protocol! And stolen one boat! And tried to steal one entire database instead of a single file and been caught in the process. And lied to her parents…
OK. Maybe Hedy did have a point.
Still. A probationary agent was 100 per cent more agent than she had been that morning. At least she was part of the CSA.
But what was the CSA? Who was in charge of it? And who was Hedy? How could an AI be in charge of a global organization? Someone had to have programmed Hedy in the first place.
Just thinking about it made her fingers twitchy. She wanted to write down her thoughts, search online, and call Demola, all at once. But most of all, she couldn’t wait to go on another mission.
* * *
The van was swinging onto the road that led to her home. Ice cream was nice, but what she really needed was a bowl of hot dhal. And maybe one of Mum’s big bear hugs. And Dad’s too. She’d tell them that she wasn’t going to sleep over at Demola’s because she’d finished her project and wanted to do some maintenance on Drone instead. And then tomorrow, she would do her homework and help make some jalebis.
This weekend, anyway.
Epilogue
April 15 - 16:41
Asha was half-listening to a news stream as she made the final touches to Drone’s new panelling. She was hoping to find out what had happened to the robot shark. Had Hedy managed to expose Shelly as the CSA had planned?
“There have been no further reports of shark attacks in the last twelve hours,” said the news reader. “Since this morning engineers across the globe have been working non-stop to repair damaged cables. We’ve just had confirmation that all the original cables are now once again operational. Flights and hospitals can resume a normal service and the global stock market is showing signs of recovery. Shelly Inc has released a statement saying that, in light of these developments, it will suspend its roll-out of ShellyNet for the foreseeable future. Politicians from all sides, however, have praised Shelly Belly for standing with the government in a time of crisis. She is being presented with the National Award for Bravery, for offering her services when the country was on the brink of cyber-disaster. We now go live to the ceremony at Buckingham Palace.”
“Euch, what?! That’s a total lie!” Asha muttered to Drone, whose eyes flashed a sympathetic green. “Shelly Belly is NOT the hero everyone thinks she is. She’s not who I thought she was either.”
Asha hadn’t told anyone what had happened. Not her parents, not Anushka or even Demola. They had no idea that Asha had broken into Shelly Inc, hidden in a helicopter and won a coding battle on a stolen boat while a robotic shark was trying to eat her.
Her CSA Handbook said she was allowed to tell one person about her agent status, and she knew she could trust Demola. But she wanted to tell him in person. For one thing it was more spy – and she also couldn’t wait to see the look on his face. Asha had also decided to tell Nani-Ji, her grandma. Nani-Ji was 1,000 years old and could keep secrets better than anyone Asha knew. And if the CSA found out Asha had told her, they probably wouldn’t care anyway. What difference if a little old lady knew?
Asha looked at her tablet screen, where the news stream was still playing. “A rare tiger cub has been kidnapped from Park Zoo.” There was a clip of a tiger pacing around her enclosure.
“There are only around three hundred Sumatran tigers left in the wild,” said the reporter. “The zoo’s breeding programme brought hope for their survival. But now…”
“Who’d steal a tiger cub?” Asha frowned. “Hey, do you remember what Tyler said about those dolphins going missing? I wonder if…”
Her satellite phone rang. Asha grabbed it from her desk and read the screen.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published 2020 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Copyright © 2020 Bright Little Labs
Illustrated by Anjan Sarkar
Photograph of Hedy Lamarr © SNAP/Shutterstock
With thanks to Anna Bowles and John Thorton,
and Sean Tracy, our tech consultant
The right of Sophie Deen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-9038-4 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
