Master Kojima was waiting for Brooke. They’d decided that she would do a circuit of the temple corridors to sniff out its inhabitants and he would wait to see if she stirred anything up. He was good at waiting. He had once told a journalist from a Japanese gaming magazine that waiting was the one ingredient he expected to find missing from most of his adversaries’ game play. They would bounce around the game map, blasting all of the usual hiding places with their rocket-propelled grenades, giving away their position with every shot, every grunt and every footfall; while all he did was wait, quietly.
It wasn’t long before his patience paid off and a lone monk strolled across the courtyard in front of the cubbyhole he’d found for his remobot. The man wore a bright orange robe and had his head buried in a large leather-bound book.
‘I see … monk,’ reported Master Kojima.
‘What about you, Brooke?’ Jackson checked.
‘I’m staring at monks, mission control!’
Brooke was looking through a window into a large hall where ten or so figures sat round a large wooden table. Three others were pouring them water from a wooden pitcher. Each had a shaven head and a single piece of bright orange loose-flowing fabric tied at their shoulders. They looked like clones.
‘OK, so we know they share a weakness for orange. What more do we need to find out?’
Jackson observed the blinking icons in the inner circle of his spider display and could see that the hall Brooke was referring to was on the east side of the complex, right next to the main gate that led out to the jungle road.
‘Did you see anyone else on your travels?’
‘Nada! This is the only party in town!’
‘OK, guys, listen carefully …’
Jackson’s plan was simple. Brooke’s MeX1 would herd the men out of the hall and through the main exit. Master Kojima would do the same with the sole remaining monk. Miss Kojima would give the signal when they were safely outside. Then Jackson would fly his machine into position inside the compound to detonate the bomb with his remaining Dazzler.
‘Does this mean I get to use the HAIL function?’ asked Brooke.
‘Whatever gets the job done,’ said Jackson.
The reference to HAIL was buried deep in the MeX manual:
HAIL. The MeX1 has the ability to capture sounds from the microphone located in the user’s in-ear Stealth Communicator for real-time ‘playback’ via a single acoustic fabric speaker system.
BE ADVISED!
Use of HAIL is strongly discouraged as it may lead to a contravention of Section 1.3, Clause 4 of the International Stealth Agreement.
The screeching of the young American’s HAIL reverberated around the temple corridors like the howls of a banshee. When she was at full wail, Brooke flew her robot at the hall window, filling the room with fragments of glass and ear-splitting sound. Her saucer-shaped machine skimmed low over the wooden table around which most of the orange-clad men sat, toppling pitchers and slinging clay pots and mugs on to the stone floor. She then banked the dot.robot high into the hall’s vaulted ceiling and brought it to a hover before letting loose an even shriller cry that was pitched so high Jackson thought the grommet in his ear had grown teeth and bitten him.
Brooke surveyed the hall below her MeX1, expecting to see the men raising up their robes and running for the doorway to get out. But far from fleeing, to her amazement, the holy men had dropped to their knees and begun to chant.
‘They ain’t leavin’, but at least they’re all in one place. This ol’ hall is as full as a fat lady’s sock!’ Brooke said hoarsely.
‘Let’s just hope the third explosive device isn’t in your hall,’ replied Jackson cautiously.
At the other side of the complex, Master Kojima had followed the lone monk to a statue at the centre of a small courtyard. He watched as the monk, who had been absorbed in his book the whole time, knelt before the statue and placed his book on the ground. He expected to see him start praying, but instead he began to rummage underneath the red material that shrouded the stone figure and gathered at its feet. Master Kojima pushed his MeX1 forward, hugging the edge of the courtyard until the machine came to a collection of big palms in pots. He carefully pushed the camera lens on the front of his machine between the fan-shaped leaves until he could clearly see the monk’s face from sideways on.
There wasn’t a centimetre of the shaven-headed man’s face that wasn’t tattooed. The indelible ink body of a snake was coiled round his neck, rising to a fanged head that threatened to leap from his cheek. His ears and mouth were garlanded with strange symbols and the image of the clawed foot and scaly body of some mythical creature clung to the top of his head. This was one of The Faces.
Then Master Kojima noticed that he was holding something that looked like a shoe box. As the tattooed fighter carefully lifted the lid, the Japanese boy could just make out an old-fashioned alarm clock inside, the kind with two polished bells on top. Coils of red-and-black wire connected the clock to a sealed steel cylinder. The man quickly checked the contents of the box and, after fixing the lid back in place, slid it carefully back under the red shroud.
‘Bomb!’ shouted Master Kojima. ‘I see … bomb!’
Jackson listened as both Kojima twins started to babble furiously in Japanese, then the young girl spoke to him.
‘My brother say he see one of Faces. He think he speed up bomb!’
‘You won’t wanna hear this either,’ said Brooke. ‘I may have overdone the scare tactics! Two of my monks just ran back into the temple. I’m not sure, but they could be heading in Master Kojima’s direction.’
Jackson felt his pulse begin to race. He had to deto-nate the bomb before the two panic-stricken monks wandered into its path.
As Miss Kojima set off to try and find the runaway monks, Jackson snapped the nose of his dot.robot downwards. With the flying disc almost vertical to the ground, the blades of its ducted fan engine ripped through the air and hurled it along the aisles of the ancient temple, weaving through the hallways, trees and jungle plants that grew inside as well as out.
The tattooed man had almost reached the cluster of plants where Master Kojima’s remobot was hiding when Jackson’s machine screamed into the open courtyard. The jungle fighter was quick to react, rolling across the cobblestone floor and rising to a kneeling position, his gun pointing directly at Jackson’s machine.
Master Kojima made his move. The MeX1 shot through the foliage, arriving between the tattooed fighter and Jackson’s machine as two bullets left the hand-gun’s barrel. The supersonic slugs pounded into the thin thermoplastic outer shell of Master Kojima’s machine, the spike of pressure ripping off a fist-sized chunk of battery and carrying it clean through one of the processors responsible for the remobot’s fly-by-wire controls. The robotic disc pranged off one of the stone pillars that supported the cloister, leaving Master Kojima powerless to stop his machine from slamming into the wall.
Miss Kojima was a couple of corridors away from the glowing icons that represented Jackson and her brother when she spotted the two monks. ‘Two orange men … coming to you.’
‘Detonate … now!’ shouted Master Kojima. But the jungle fighter had switched his attention to Jackson’s machine, which the twelve-year-old had just managed to reverse into the cluster of plants in an attempt to avoid being shot.
‘I can’t see the target!’ shouted Jackson. ‘I need to be sure it’s within range.’
The tattooed man had his back to the downed grey disc controlled by Master Kojima when he heard its engine spool up. He immediately stopped and spun round into a steady firing stance. He knew he’d hit it with his first volley, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. For all his readiness, as the mysterious machine’s engine roared, the disc that had seemed so nimble in the air just skipped erratically about the pebbles, dashing its damaged fuselage against the walls and pillars. The seasoned jungle fighter, who had been sent by his commander to check that their third and final incendiary device was sti
ll intact, after the two they’d set in the village had apparently malfunctioned, could see that the machine was broken. After he’d put another couple of rounds into it and downed the one in the palms, he thought, he would pick them up and take them back to camp. When will the Americans learn that their technology is no match for the jungle fighters of Cambodia?
He was taking aim when, in the corner of his eye, he caught the shape of Jackson’s machine breaking cover. But by then it was too late. A third machine came out of nowhere. Miss Kojima’s dot.robot hit the tattooed man squarely in the stomach, the momentum of the strike bending him double and carrying him backwards through the covered entrance to the courtyard.
‘Now, Jackson!’ shouted Master Kojima.
The harsh light from Jackson’s Dazzler seared into the back of his eyeball. There was no getting used to it. At the same time his view was shaken, as a wave of hot air from the courtyard explosion washed over his machine.
Miss Kojima’s MeX1 was scorched but otherwise undamaged; the stone archway above her robotic craft had absorbed the brunt of the fiery force that had burst from the statue. A few metres away from her lay the tattooed man. For a moment she feared he might be dead, but then, slowly, he rose from the stone floor that he had tried shamelessly to meld with as the super-heated flames roared overhead.
The man turned, brushing ash and the fragments of smouldering ferns and palm leaves from his clothes, and stared with clear, bright eyes ringed with hand-drawn thorns at the machine that he now realized had saved him from the ravages of his own bomb.
He then about-faced and sprinted away.
CHAPTER 16
Jackson felt great. In the week that followed the successful jungle mission, the four recruits had been called upon to escort a shipment of food aid along a lawless stretch of the Somali Peninsula and guard a warehouse full of computers intended for African schools, which rebels had threatened to steal. Following each mission, Lear had sent them each a video message comprising a quick debrief and a heads-up about their next assignment. They were then given access to the relevant MeXnet files, which they were expected to study diligently.
The missions were exhausting and Jackson had school and homework to keep up with, but the feeling of hitting criminals where it hurt was intoxicating. Lear’s praise, which was often lavished on Jackson in particular, made him feel like he counted for something and, if Jackson had had any doubts about MeX before, they’d been washed away in the swell of the most exciting week of his life.
He had spent the previous two evenings – and a good deal of his school breaks and bus rides – immersed in the details of the team’s next mission which was scheduled to take place in Ukraine. Lear had described it as a simple reconnaissance job. ‘Don’t expect the thrills and spills of your jungle adventure,’ he’d said. ‘This is a simple point-and-click affair. Think of yourselves as invisible tourists. Just turn up, take some snaps and disappear.’
The background of the East European assignment, which focused on a Ukrainian gangland figure known as General Dragos, fascinated Jackson. According to the intelligence report, Yuri Stanislav Dragos was an ex-military commander turned businessman grown rich during the Russian oil boom. His sights were now set on getting a piece of the planet’s hottest commodity – water. It was alleged that Dragos was using a private security force to flatten a path through villages and farms in Ukraine’s Ural mountain region – forcing landowners to leave their homes for a supposed property development scheme when, according to MeX, he was actually laying a secret underground pipe network to drain the region of its natural water reserves. According to information on MeX’s intranet, clean drinking water was increasingly hard to come by and companies worldwide were lining up to control what the citizens of certain countries drank. If someone like Dragos was able to control the water that people desperately needed, he could charge massive prices and make huge profits.
Jackson was confident that he’d read all the relevant material supplied by MeX. He’d even swotted up on Ukraine and the countries that bordered it from material he’d sourced online. Whenever the call from MeX came, he would be ready. He just hoped it wouldn’t be tonight. It was Friday night and Brooke had suggested the team members meet online for a chat.
He squeezed a narrow sausage of mayonnaise on to the thin slice of ham in his sandwich that formed the peak of a precariously balanced food tower consisting of sandwich, cold pizza, several chocolate bars and a yoghurt on top. He was hoping to make his way quietly to his room when Mr Farley came straight out of the lounge and almost walked into him.
‘You’re being suspiciously quiet,’ said Mr Farley.
‘That’s because I’m performing secret experiments in my room, Dad,’ replied Jackson, steadying the pile he was carrying by placing his chin on top of the yoghurt.
‘Experiments that require most of the contents of the fridge?’ It was true that Jackson had depleted the fridge of a good deal of its contents over the course of the week in order to support his late-night sessions. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ his dad continued. ‘Food’s there to be eaten. Don’t suppose you want to curl up on the sofa? There’s a movie about to start.’
‘Thanks, Dad, but I’ve just finished my homework so I can play Whisper.’ Jackson had no intention of playing his favourite game, but saying its name made him realize how strange it was that something he had played almost every day for a whole year could feel like the distant past after a break of just a few days.
‘I hate to say it, son, but I’d like to think there was something more constructive you could do with that brain of yours.’
Jackson wished he could tell his dad about MeX. He’d imagined himself telling his dad how he, out of all the possible candidates in the country, the world even, had been chosen; about the people he and his three new friends had already helped. And he’d already thought about sitting him down on the sofa and taking him through the MeX gear. His dad loved reading about all the new gadgets in the Sunday newspapers, and the grommet and in-eye projector would have astonished him. But he would also have been freaked out by the whole thing. He would have wanted to know who MeX were and why they were contacting children without asking for their parents’ permission. But, worst of all, he probably would have stopped him. Anyway, thought Jackson, he and the others were sworn to secrecy.
‘Dad. Relax. It’s Friday night. And if I don’t get this food out from under my chin soon, there’s a danger I’m going to stay like this.’ He had been bent forward like an old man for the entire conversation, trying to keep the Leaning Tower of Foodstuffs from taking a spill on to the carpet. As he moved off towards his bedroom, his father called after him.
‘You know we’re only a few days away from Mum’s special day. You still good to get the sunflowers?’
Jackson hadn’t forgotten the anniversary of his mother’s death. ‘I’m good.’
Then both of them disappeared behind their respective doors.
As Jackson settled down in front of his computer, he could see that Brooke was already online. She accepted his request for a video chat.
‘I think he’s cute,’ said Brooke. She was looking off camera at something on her computer screen.
‘Who’s cute?’ Jackson asked.
‘Dragos. He has a kind of film star thing going on.’ ‘If you’re talking about the MeXnet mugshot of him, I think he looks like a scumbag,’ said Jackson. There were several long-lens snaps of the man in the classified documents which the team had all been given access to. It wasn’t the face Jackson had in mind for such a dangerous man. An eye patch or a scar wouldn’t have gone amiss. Dragos had a lion’s mane of shiny, jet-black hair that framed finely chiselled features. But his eyes were fiery beneath the thick black eyebrows and in all the photographs he wore the same black beret, which, to Jackson at least, meant he wasn’t afraid to use his old military muscle to back up his business deals.
‘It’s a shame we’re only allowed to use our camera on him,’ he said.
‘Check out Rambo,’ Brooke said, smiling. ‘A few missions under his belt and he thinks he’s got a licence to kill.’
‘What about those pictures of the forests and farms he’s dug up for his pipeline?’ Jackson was referring to satellite images on MeXnet. Because of the mountainous terrain, MeX had been unable to get clear enough images of what were described as Dragos’s ‘slash-and-burn’ tactics. Although the pixellated images were shocking enough, according to their briefing material their first proper mission was to get in close and capture some clearer photographic and video evidence.
‘You’re right … he’s a good-looking scumbag,’ said Brooke.
Jackson’s computer emitted a soft harp sound and a small box with the word ‘Kojima’ popped up. After he had accepted the twins’ request to join the video chat, a window containing the Japanese duo materialized, next to the one showing Brooke.
‘Good … morning … teammates,’ said Miss Kojima, both twins adding their by now habitual bow, to which Jackson and Brooke felt compelled to respond with their own shallow dips of the head.
‘It’s night-time here,’ replied Jackson. ‘But I get your meaning.’
‘For us … sun just rise. We no stay long.’
Brooke grinned. ‘We know, honey. You gotta keep Daddy happy. We’re just glad you could both make it.’
The twins had shared details of their gruelling daily routine with Jackson and Brooke as the recruits got to know each other during their recent missions. Physical exercise at the crack of dawn, then schooling and game practice right up until bedtime.
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