Jackson was into the Year 7 reports file and scanning the boys’ section where he found Tyler’s folder in seconds.
‘Look! He’s jabbering to himself again!’ Tyler gibed. ‘Perhaps he’s a witch doctor! Voodoo’s not gonna help you, I’m afraid,’ he said, before landing a knee squarely in Jackson’s privates. Suddenly the virtual display went blank, as Jackson was bent double, his MeX mobile phone clattering on to the concrete floor.
‘What have we here?’ said Tyler, bending to pick up the metallic handset with one hand, while holding Jackson by the scruff of the neck in the other. Tyler flipped the MeX phone, making the matt-silver clam-shell do somersaults in the palm of his hand. ‘Look what the little skinflint found in the bargain bucket.’
Jackson’s heart sank. He needed to be near the handset for the rest of the MeX kit to work, so that he might avoid another serious kicking. He was going to have to do something. Ignoring the pain in his groin, he darted forward and grabbed at the aluminium handset as it completed another of Tyler’s flips. The two boys grabbed hold of it at the same time, both trying to force it from the other’s grip. Tyler pressed down hard on the bones in Jackson’s arm. But the instant the handset made contact with Jackson’s hand the electrons started to flow from its battery. They raced along the epidermis layer of his skin and shot up the cotton fibres of his shirt before energizing the very sinews of his neck and cheek, finding the tiny rivets on the grommet and infinitesimal contacts etched into the lens projector. A microsecond later and data began to flow again, the school website, the STAFF AREA holding page and Tyler’s report popping up in a projection over the bull-headed boy’s red face.
But Tyler still had his own grasp on the handset. ‘Give me back my phone!’ roared Jackson with a ferocity he didn’t think he was capable of.
‘Or you’ll do what?’ said Tyler, smirking.
Jackson wasn’t proud of what he was about to do, but he didn’t have any choice. He remembered when he’d wanted to let the remobot escape in the death-match. What was it Lear had said to him? Hold our chins aloft and fight!
Jackson found what he was looking for – a section in Tyler’s file that detailed his father’s conviction for ‘Armed Burglary’. The paragraph went on to mention that, with no other parent, Tyler was in his grandmother’s care.
‘You what?’ said Tyler, his voice cooling a little.
‘I’ll tell everyone where your dad is.’
Jackson felt sick at what he was saying – Tyler wasn’t the only one with just one parent in this tussle – but it wasn’t Jackson who was about to break someone’s arm.
As Tyler relaxed his grip on Jackson’s mangled tie and phone and slinked away with a mutter of ‘You’re not worth it’, Jackson almost felt sorry for him.
CHAPTER 14
Jackson’s muscles twinged painfully as he craned his neck to look at the wall of thousands of plump, forbidding folders on the tall shelves that surrounded him. He had chosen the census section of the local library to carry out his first-ever mission for MeX. It was somewhere he could expect a bit of privacy – after all, how many people would be spending their Saturday mornings reading census records on microfilm or county council minutes? Particularly not the likes of Tyler Hughes, Jackson thought, the memory of their last encounter making him shift, somewhat uncomfortably, in his chair.
Jackson had been woken by his MeX handset at 10 a.m. ‘Mission commences in thirty minutes,’ was all the characterless woman’s voice had said. His dad would arrive home from his early-morning shift at any minute, and Jackson wasn’t about to try and juggle his first mission with his dad’s demands for a bacon sandwich or a pint of milk from the shop. He’d jumped out of bed, sprinted to the library and almost dropped the gooey contact lens projector trying to stick it in his eye.
The words ‘re-entry phase’ blinked in his eye in shimmering red letters instantly. Jackson checked his handset – 10.55 a.m. – five minutes until the MeX unit burned through the Earth’s atmosphere to its programmed location in Cambodia.
Jackson suddenly felt very nervous. In his rush to get to the library on time, he’d had some relief from the nerves that had been dogging him for the last couple of days, but now the butterflies were back. Jackson had studied the files and knew the mission profile back to front. But doing it for real was nothing like his evening sessions navigating the fantasy world of Whisper. Did he really have the abilities that Devlin Lear believed he had?
Jackson wondered if his three teammates were feeling the same. The twins had seemed unruffled by their first meeting with Lear. As for Brooke, if she had any doubts about her suitability for the job, she certainly didn’t show them. Jackson had liked Brooke from the moment she’d first appeared in Lear’s video chat. She said it like she saw it and she made him laugh.
His thoughts were snatched away as the library interior suddenly merged with the view fast-jet pilots must get when they fly swift and low.
The ten-centimetre biodegradable sphere that had kept his MeX bot safe from temperatures hot enough to vaporize rock had been dropped, and the second-stage heat shield had folded itself out to form the triangular delta wing that would guide the bot in its final high-speed dash across an unbroken green canopy of Cambodian jungle. Finally, the robot saucer automatically ditched the delta wing and the automated launch system prepared to hand control over to Jackson.
The grey disc descended into its designated landing zone, a flat area of grassland ringed by a living wall of thick vegetation. The familiar woman’s voice counted down: ‘You have control in 5, 4, 3 …’ By the time Jackson had command of his craft, it was hovering sedately a few metres above the ground.
‘Well, that was a quick trip, but the lack of in-flight movies is unforgivable.’ Unmistakably Brooke.
Jackson flicked his pen controller to one side, spinning his view round 180 degrees. The three dot.robots belonging to his teammates had assembled at the other side of the clearing.
Jackson took in as much of his surroundings as his live high-definition camera feed could offer. Even through the virtual medium of the Internet he could sense the life force of the jungle surrounding his machine. The clicks and chitters of insects and the high-pitched squawks of birds and monkeys were all around him. Jackson had read the material; he knew the tech that powered his tiny in-ear grommet. It was called ‘Digital Sound Conduction’. The little grommet in his ear was using the framework of bones in his skull as a speaker, sending minuscule vibrations to set points around his head. It was like he was actually there, in the Cambodian jungle, every rustle of wind through the swaying trees, every screech and snake’s slither filling his head and connecting him to the place.
‘Time to lock and load,’ said Brooke.
‘Yeah. How we going to do this?’ asked Jackson.
‘You will lead us,’ answered Miss Kojima.
Master Kojima’s robot dipped its nose solemnly in what Jackson took to be the twin boy’s approval. These highly skilled gamers were suggesting that he spearhead the mission.
Brooke confirmed the team’s approval. ‘You take the helm. You as skipper has worked for me so far.’
‘OK, er … thank you,’ said Jackson, trying not to show his surprise in his voice. The respect that the other recruits were showing in this decision was something that Jackson had never received from his peers at school. He brought up his spider’s web display. A blinking endpoint icon represented their destination, the village and temple deep in the jungle. There was an ‘i’ icon for information next to it, which opened automatically as Jackson’s gaze fell on it, revealing some text:
Intel Update>>>
Suspect 3 IEDs:
. 2 devices in village
. 1 device in temple complex
Probable night-time detonation.
‘Well, we’re looking at three bombs in two locations,’ Jackson began tentatively, looking at the faint outline of a track on the map that led in the general direction of the blinking endpoint. ‘There’s
a trail to the right of us. It leads into the jungle for about two kilometres and should take us to the village. Let’s go.’
He grasped his pen controller and tilted it gently forward. Jackson’s MeX1 responded by gliding slowly past the other three and towards a point at which the lush tropical vegetation loomed above the landing zone. Then he slotted his disc-shaped flying machine through the only available gap in the nearly solid wall of greenery. The other three bots followed.
It was dusk in this part of the world, but while the sun had still been strong at the landing zone, it was weak beneath the thick ceiling of trees. At first, the downwash from the MeX1 lift fans ripped up plumes of damp leaves that sparkled in the streaks of sunlight penetrating the thick foliage. But as they pressed on, deeper into the heart of the Angkorian forests, the tangle of branches and thick rubbery leaves began to choke even the sun’s rays until the four machines might as well have been flying in the dead of night.
The going was slow as every few metres the trail would vanish, succumbing to a fallen tree with talon-like branches or a rubber plant with leaves as big as garage doors that the four virtual pilots needed to pick a route round. Eventually the trail disappeared completely; Jackson could still make out its outline, but there was only dense vegetation in front of his dot.robot. Twisted roots reared up towards them and Jackson had no choice but to lead the robotic convoy higher, guiding each machine between knotted branches and the limbs of palm trees. It was clear from the lack of communication that everyone was concentrating hard on just keeping up and avoiding being swatted by one of the massive wet rubbery fronds pushed aside by the machine in front of theirs. It was Brooke who broke the silence.
‘OK, so now I understand how these Face dudes never seem to get caught. I can’t see five metres in front of my machine.’
‘You think they know we here?’ asked Miss Kojima.
The thought had occurred to Jackson. At several points in the journey he’d noticed criss-crossing trees and bushes combining to make shapes that he imagined could have been a tattooed face or a man crouching in a tree top with a gun.
‘This route to the temple was chosen so we wouldn’t come into contact with anyone.’ He said it as much for his own reassurance as that of his teammates. He took the quiet murmurs of agreement in his ear to mean it had worked for now anyway.
Eventually the foliage began to thin and Jackson was able to lead the bots back down to the jungle floor. The trail looked freshly cut, suggesting they were nearing some sort of development. In less than a kilometre he could see a clearing and some simple-looking buildings.
The village consisted of a sparse collection of huts, some on stilts, some made from a lattice of the same twisted wooden fingers that had barred the team’s route through certain sections of the jungle. Others were just squares of crudely erected cinder blocks with corrugated-iron roofs. Several of the huts had open fronts with white plastic chairs and tables set out in front of them. Jackson thought they were probably the village shops. He saw that one building, little more than a lean-to made from a sheet of plastic and some poles, was sheltering a rusty barrel over which the charcoal-coloured carcass of some kind of animal was congealing. There were half-eaten plates of meat on the tables, with plastic knives and forks strewn across.
‘I don’t think much of the local Burger King,’ said Brooke.
‘Yeah, it looks like the customers left in a hurry,’ said Jackson.
‘Faces have village spooked good. There isn’t even stray cat or dog!’ Miss Kojima sounded a little spooked herself.
‘That suits our purposes just fine,’ Jackson replied. ‘We know there are two bombs somewhere in this village and the other in the temple where the monks live. But for now we need to get rid of these two so the villagers can return to their homes.’
‘Right then,’ said Brooke. ‘According to our mission notes, the explosives are simple little critters. The bomb-maker straps a battery and an alarm clock to whatever will give him the biggest bang for his buck. When the designated time is reached, the clock hands complete a circuit and the charge from the battery ignites the explosives. That’s the theory anyway. The reality is they don’t always go off. In order for the villagers to be given the all-clear to come home, we need to perform a controlled explosion of any device we can find.’
‘Yeah, I read that too, but I still don’t know how we’re going to find them.’
‘We no need find them. What is range of Dazzler?’ Jackson looked up in surprise at the first words Master Kojima had spoken on this mission.
‘It’s twenty-five metres.’ Jackson never forgot a number.
‘Un!’ Miss Kojima’s eyes lit up as she realized what her brother was suggesting. ‘We spread out on your command. As long as in range, electric charge from Dazzlers should be enough to set off the bombs.’
A number-cruncher, two distinguished cyber athletes and a brilliant engineer. Perhaps Lear knew what he was doing. Jackson felt like everything might come together after all.
‘One last thing. What if we’re not close enough when we fire?’ said Jackson. ‘We’ve only got four Dazzlers between us.’
‘I think this is one time we’re going to have to rely on good ol’ human judgement – it’s up to us to decide what looks like a possible target.’
Brooke’s machine was hovering at the edge of the town square by a rusty old tuk-tuk, a type of motorcycle with a cabin attached to the rear that local people used as a taxi. It was top of the list on Jackson’s mental list of bomb targets.
‘OK, Brooke, on my command,’ said Jackson. ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go!’
The Dazzler lit up the shadowy village in an instant, its electric-blue glare searing the silhouette of the huts deep into Jackson’s retina and causing his right eye to water. It took a few seconds before he could see clearly enough to notice that the tuk-tuk motorcycle had vanished.
‘It … land … behind Burger King!’ said Miss Kojima.
‘Home run!’ shouted Brooke, her remobot untouched by the blast.
‘OK, I’ll go next. Wearing my bomber’s cap, I’d say that pigsty, or whatever it is, at the other edge of the village looks suspect,’ said Jackson.
He was looking at a squat structure made of reed matting and sheets of corrugated metal. Its bamboo gate hung open on frayed rope hinges and he could see the floor inside was a mixture of mud and straw. It made sense that the inhabitants of the village would have taken their precious livestock with them when they received orders to evacuate.
‘Pardon me … but I think … bomb in … gas … station.’ It was the voice of Master Kojima. Jackson had seldom heard him speak. Almost all communications with the Kojimas were handled by his sister, probably because she was the most fluent speaker. ‘I try?’ asked the Japanese boy.
‘Be my guest,’ replied Jackson. He hadn’t realized that the lean-to, filled with plastic bottles, was in fact the village petrol station, but had to agree that – as potential bomb locations went – it seemed like a good candidate.
Master Kojima’s MeX1 drifted down the street, coming to a stop halfway down, several shelters up from the gas station.
‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go!’ cried Jackson.
Once again, the detonation of the Dazzler hurt to look at, but given that all four recruits were viewing the flash via Retinal Projectors, there was no way of avoiding its intense glare.
This time, however, there was no explosion. As Jackson’s vision returned to normal he could see that the lean-to was perfectly intact.
‘Doh! You missed,’ said Brooke, displaying her usual tact.
‘I … sorry,’ said Master Kojima, the disappointment obvious in his voice. ‘I shame team.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Jackson. ‘We have other options.’ Jackson wasn’t sure what exactly those options were, given that they were now two Dazzlers down, but he could tell how guilty his Japanese teammate was feeling and didn’t want to make him feel any worse.
A few minutes later, Mi
ss Kojima fired her Dazzler on Jackson’s cue, and the four dot.robots moved off towards the temple complex, leaving the burning shell of the pigsty behind them.
Two bombs down. One to go.
CHAPTER 15
The temple complex was a stately collection of old stone buildings huddled together and topped with a jumble of roofs organized in layers. From where the MeX machines were hovering, the slate roofs, edged with wood and gilt, formed shapes against the jungle backdrop like a flotilla of ships on a big green sea.
‘We’ve only got one more explosive device to find, but just one Dazzler, so we need to decide carefully where our target is. Brooke, I think you and Master Kojima should scout out the temple itself first and locate the monks.’
‘Hey, boy wonder, you up for this?’ said Brooke.
‘Un,’ replied the downcast Japanese boy, still obviously disappointed at his previous mistake.
Jackson watched the two saucers move off, each hugging the base of the ancient wall that surrounded the enclosure before they edged round an archway and slipped inside. The wall was alive with the stone faces of fierce-looking animals and dancing natives; its four sides constituted a huge stone tapestry that depicted everything the people of this place had loved, feared and worshipped for thousands of years. The sun had already sunk behind the temple skyline and Jackson guessed it would be dark in about twenty minutes. Based on The Faces’ previous record, once night-time set in it was only a matter of time before their remaining device exploded. He felt the familiar pangs of uncertainty in his stomach. The village might have been deserted, but the temple held no such guarantee. The monks could be anywhere. And it wasn’t just the bomb that was cause for concern; the Dazzler and the Bass Bomb might have been non-lethal, but they could still inflict serious harm on someone. Everything had to go to plan.
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