The Amazon Experiment

by Deborah Abela

  But then something else happened in Max’s brain. Something that told her Linden shouldn’t eat the tart.

  She leapt forward and swiped it out of Linden’s hands, sending it skidding across the shiny floor like a jellied discus, leaving a red trail and a lilting disappointment in Linden’s eyes.

  ‘I know I should be thinking of things other than my stomach, Max, but honestly, my brain works better after I’ve eaten.’

  Max was worried about Linden’s stomach, but not in the way he thought.

  ‘Not happy with the menu, Max?’ Steinberger had just avoided the flying tart as he walked through the kitchen doors. ‘Usually people can’t get enough of Irene’s food.’

  Max’s brain jolted again. ‘I know,’ she answered, before turning to Irene. ‘Have there been any changes in the kitchen in the last few weeks?’

  ‘Changes? Why do you ask?’ Irene folded her arms across her chest, miffed that Max had thrown one of her prized creations across the floor.

  ‘It’s just an idea I have. Have there been any new staff? New cleaning products? New ingredients?’

  Irene didn’t like where Max’s questions were headed.

  ‘No, only the usual high quality, organic …’ Irene stopped and her face paled to the colour of flour. She slowly spoke her next thoughts. ‘Except for the new spice from Venezuela.’

  ‘A new spice?’ Steinberger felt a tremor of warning. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It came with the last delivery of supplies from Susoka and Sons.’

  Susoka and Sons was a food supplier that had been checked out by Spyforce and given the all clear to be their official supplier.

  ‘They’d sent it as a new sample to try out.’

  ‘Did you have it tested?’ Steinberger asked.

  Irene paused. ‘I usually give everything new I receive to Frond for testing, but I got so busy … and it was from Susoka so I thought … I never …’ She bit her lip, unable to finish.

  ‘What have you used it in?’ Steinberger continued.

  Irene was lost in trying to remember. ‘The prawn soup, the mango muffins, the strawberry flambé …’ She broke off.

  ‘Do you know if the sick agents ate any of those dishes?’ Linden asked gently, hating to see Irene so sad.

  ‘I … I …’ she began.

  ‘Here’s a list of agents.’ Steinberger called up the files and photos of the sick agents on his palm computer and showed it to her.

  Irene’s floury complexion became even whiter. ‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘All of them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Linden asked.

  ‘I have a photographic memory for that kind of thing. I like to know the dishes each agent is partial to.’

  ‘When did the ingredient arrive?’ Max asked.

  ‘About a week ago,’ Irene whispered.

  Max turned to Steinberger. ‘When did Suave arrive?’

  Steinberger’s mouth went dry. ‘Now, Max, I think it might be best not to jump to conclusions. It does happen that Agent Suave arrived a week ago, but with all the training and the security checks, he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with …’ His words fell away. With all that had happened in the last few hours, anything was suddenly very possible.

  They stood in a silence laced with confusion. Spyforce was impenetrable. In all the years since it had been established, no-one had ever managed to infiltrate it. Blue had come close but was stopped due to the efforts of the Wall of Goodness, which detected his evil intentions and caused him to be ejected from the Force.

  ‘I’m sorry … I …’ Irene’s lower lip trembled. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘You haven’t done anything,’ Max said firmly. ‘But someone else certainly has.’

  ‘Is there any of the sample left?’ Steinberger gently touched Irene’s hand.

  Her eyes only became sadder. ‘I used it all up.’

  ‘Do you still have the packet it came in?’ Linden asked.

  ‘Yes. It was a plain canvas bag. I kept it so I could reorder it.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Steinberger said. ‘Hopefully there will be enough residue to complete a test. We don’t have any time to lose. We must get it down to … to …’ His eyes smouldered like two kerosene lamps and a quiet gasp passed his trembling lips. ‘Frond … for analysis.’

  Steinberger’s hopeless crush on Frond, the head of the Plantorium, again sent his brain into a wordless wilderness.

  ‘I’ll get it straight away.’

  Irene’s voice jolted Steinberger back to reality. ‘Yes. Yes.’ He tapped on his palm computer. ‘I’ll get someone onto Susoka and Sons. Maybe they can give us some clues as to where this mysterious sample came from.’

  Max and Linden watched as his fingers sped across the keys of his palm computer.

  ‘Steinberger?’ Max asked the question that was in both their minds. ‘Spyforce is going to be okay, isn’t it?’

  The Administration Manager stopped typing and turned to the two young agents. ‘Of course it is. Spyforce has thwarted many threats and dangers in the past and so we will this one.’

  Even though his words were delivered with a calm confidence, Max couldn’t help noticing Steinberger’s eyes, which were marked by a deep glow of apprehension.

  ‘Oh, great.’

  For the second time that day Max found herself standing in front of the Wall of Goodness. She looked across at Irene, who was holding the canvas bag that had held the new sample, and knew it was the only way to the Plantorium from the kitchen.

  Here goes another wasted clump of my life, she thought, as she stood in front of the Wall and waited for it to be difficult.

  The goo process began and Max, Linden, Steinberger and Irene became quickly enveloped by a sensation not unlike being dipped in lumpy custard.

  And soon after, as Max expected, the Wall started being difficult.

  ‘Oh no,’ Irene gasped. ‘I’ve made the Wall have doubts about letting us through, haven’t I?’

  ‘No,’ Linden jiggled. ‘It’s Max. She and the Wall have this special relationship they’ve developed over time.’

  Max tried to frown at Linden but the wall gurgled around the edges of her face, mushing it into all sorts of squished shapes.

  Then, in a mass exit, all four of them were enveloped into the Wall’s structure and spat out the other side into the Plantorium. They all quickly found their balance, but Linden noticed something strange about Max.

  ‘Is it just me or do you seem shorter all of a sudden?’

  Max looked down and saw she’d landed in a shallow swamp, completely soaking her recently mopped shoes. Everyone else, of course, had landed comfortably dry.

  ‘You’re going to get it, Wall,’ she warned, lifting her feet out of the squelching muck.

  Max was about to say more when she saw Steinberger becoming increasingly nervous. Each step he took became an exercise in finding the ground without stumbling or tripping over. He began talking to himself, softly, repeating something over and over. Max, Linden and Irene realised he was practising saying hello. He brushed invisible lint from his suit and smoothed his eyebrows with his fingertips.

  ‘I feel terrible about what’s happened.’ Irene wound her fingers into the knit of her jumper. ‘Look what I’ve done to Steinberger.’

  They watched as Steinberger spiked himself on a blackberry bush. The prickly branches caught on his jacket and the more he tried to unravel himself, the more tangled he became.

  ‘It’s because he’s about to meet Frond,’ Linden explained as he went to Steinberger’s aid.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Irene’s memory skipped back to the time in the canteen when Steinberger had tipped a whole pot of beetroot soup over himself after Frond had walked up to him and said hello. ‘I guess it could be that, but I still feel bad. I’d never do anything to harm the Force.’

  Max felt her back stiffen. She knew Irene felt low, but she also knew it was time for a good talking-to. ‘Remember the time I received a parcel from Spyforce
that had been bugged, and how it almost led to the infiltration of Spyforce? I felt really bad too, but in the end it was Blue’s malevolence that was to blame, not me, and noone blames you here either.’

  Irene offered a small smile as she dragged her feet across the meandering, moss-covered path. Linden had managed to untangle Steinberger, who had briskly walked on ahead through the increasingly winding paths of the Plantorium.

  ‘Max is right, Irene,’ Linden smiled.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Max said in a softer voice. ‘Noone doubts your loyalty to the Force, Irene. Ask anyone around here and they’ll tell you, Spyforce wouldn’t be half the place it is without you.’

  Irene’s legs jellied at Max’s comment. ‘Thank you, Max. I …’

  A panicked scream rustled through the Plantorium, followed by a muffled call for help.

  Max and Linden spun towards each other. ‘Steinberger!’

  They ran past snaking plants, frothing ponds of piranhas and plumes of prehistoric palms until they found him. Irene’s hands flew to her mouth, Max’s flew to her hips and Linden stared. This was not what they were expecting to see. They all blinked to check that it was true.

  Steinberger was being mauled by a giant plant.

  Frond appeared from behind a jungle of huge fern leaves in her long red coat and beehive hairdo.

  ‘What happened?’ Worry rippled in her voice. ‘Steinberger?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Linden said.

  A giant, bulbous sack at the end of a pond-dwelling plant was munching on Steinberger’s head and shoulders, while the rest of his body poked unceremoniously into the air.

  ‘What is it?’ Max asked.

  Frond pushed her rose shaped glasses along her nose and fished through her lab coat for a small glass jar. ‘It’s a giant Utricularia vulgaris. An insectivorous plant more commonly known as a bladderwort.’

  Linden’s face screwed up. ‘With a name like bladderwort, it can’t be good.’

  ‘Normally it’s very good,’ Frond added guiltily. ‘But with all that’s been going on, I forgot to feed it today. They’re usually much smaller but we’ve been cultivating this one for years using a special fish fertiliser and it’s just … blossomed.’

  Frond opened the jar, which let out a pungent dead animal kind of smell.

  Max held her nose. ‘What’s in that?’

  ‘It’s ground-up pieces of … actually, it’s not important what it is. I explained the ingredients once before and it ended up in a bout of unexpected fainting.’

  Frond waved the jar around the plant. Its long, skinny branches slowly uncoiled from Steinberger and he struggled free of its feeding bladder, which left whitish, dripping globs of plant gunk all over him.

  Max and Linden helped Steinberger to stand. He pushed his soaking hair out of his face and tried to straighten his plant-globbed suit.

  ‘I’m sorry, Steinby. Are you okay?’ Frond winced as she surveyed his upper body.

  The look of shock on Steinberger’s face at almost being eaten by a giant bladderwort was replaced by a crushing look of awe.

  ‘You’re not hurt in any way?’ Frond fed the bladderwort some bugs from her pocket. The plant immediately started to digest the bugs, far happier with those than the humany taste of Steinberger.

  ‘I … it’s … you.’ He closed his mouth, deciding it was better that way.

  ‘Why don’t we go to my work area?’ Frond suggested. ‘We can take care of you there and I can look over the sample and tell you what I discover.’

  At Frond’s work area, Max and Linden helped Steinberger out of his soaking jacket and into one of Frond’s lab coats. A bright red one with lady beetles on it.

  ‘I … it’s … you.’

  ‘Thanks, Frond.’ Max was keen to get beyond Steinberger’s stuttering and onto Frond’s testing. ‘Irene has the bag the sample came in.’

  Irene stepped nervously forward, as if she’d just been summoned to the principal’s office. Frond smiled at her warmly. ‘Thanks, Irene.’

  Frond took the canvas bag and cut a sample small enough to fit on a microscope slide. She placed the slide under the lens and examined it closely. It looked like a completely normal mixture of spices and herbs, so she turned on the heat ray of the microscope. Now she could see traces of something more sinister.

  ‘There,’ she announced with a mixture of joy and trepidation. ‘The blood parasite that causes the sleeping sickness.’

  ‘That’s excellent!’ Max’s shoulders fell in relief. ‘Now you can work on creating the antidote Finch needs to wake the agents from their sleep.’

  Frond went on staring into the lens of the microscope before slowly straightening up. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t that easy. From what Finch has told me, the parasite is carried by insects found in parts of Africa and South America. There’s evidence here that this is the South American strain of the sickness, which is carried by the triatoma bug, also known as the kissing bug.’

  Steinberger’s small yelp at the mention of the word ‘kissing’ was met by a withering look from Max. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Let me show you.’ Frond turned to the computer beside her microscope and within seconds had an image of the bug on her screen. ‘As you can see, the triatoma has a dark brown, flattened body with six reddish spots circling its wide abdomen. It has an elongated, cone-shaped head with elbowed antennae and a prominent beak.’

  Linden remembered back to Finch’s diagnosis. ‘But I thought Finch said the disease is caused by the bite of the insects?’

  ‘Normally it is, but in this case …’ and here Frond’s voice became edged with amazement. ‘The sample has been infused with some kind of dormant or sleeping parasite. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’

  ‘So …’ Irene was desperately trying to piece Frond’s information together. ‘When I added the sample to my food, the parasite woke up and put everyone to sleep?’

  ‘That’s how it appears.’

  ‘Oh, it was all my fault.’

  Linden looked firmly towards Irene. ‘No. The fault is someone else’s and Max and I are going to find out who. Right, Steinberger?’

  ‘Ah … I … you.’

  ‘Linden’s right.’ Frond offered Irene a smile that was like rich chocolate sauce but had the effect of ripping the floor from under Steinberger’s feet. He stumbled against the desk, unsettling a stand of test tubes and beakers that his lanky arms scrambled to rescue.

  Max was almost out of patience with Steinberger’s lovesickness. She turned to Frond. ‘So can you make the antidote?’

  ‘I would need the pure form of the parasite to do that.’

  ‘And all we need to do is get hold of the triatoma bug so you can extract the parasite?’ Linden queried.

  Max felt her shoulders tense again. ‘Yeah, that’s all.’

  ‘At least we’ve narrowed down our search,’ Frond said, trying to be optimistic.

  Max wilted. ‘Yeah, to the entire continent of South America.’

  Just then a great crash echoed around them. Max turned around to see what damage Steinberger had done, but this time it wasn’t him.

  ‘Irene!’ Linden ran to Irene’s side and lifted her head from the cold floor. ‘Irene, can you hear me?’

  She didn’t move.

  ‘It must be the sleeping sickness.’ Frond used her palm computer to contact Finch. ‘I’ll get someone here immediately to take her to the infirmary.’

  Linden stroked Irene’s pale face, desperate for her to wake up. ‘Please be okay, Irene,’ he said in a frightened whisper. He sniffed back a burning tear and stared helplessly at her limp body that looked like all the life had been drained from her forever.

  Max and Linden walked down the corridor to Quimby’s lab. They’d just left the infirmary, where Irene lay still and barely breathing, caught in the clutches of the sleeping sickness. Max stared at Linden as his feet thudded dully against the floor. She remembered the time in London when he had told her about his moth
er dying of cancer. He had the same look on his face now as he had then. She hated every second of that look and tried to think of something that would take it away, that would make him feel better, that would …

  ‘It’s okay, Max.’

  ‘Sorry?’ She hadn’t expected him to say anything.

  ‘I know you want to make me feel better about Irene, but you don’t have to say anything. She’s going to get better. I know it.’

  How could he do that? How could Linden know exactly what she was thinking?

  ‘Yeah. She is.’ Once again Max had to put up with her mouth saying something dull when she wanted it to come up with something great.

  Max and Linden had received a message from Harrison to get equipped by Quimby for their mission. They were going to the Amazon to find the triatoma bug.

  ‘Ah, Max and Linden. We don’t have much time. I’ve been given the brief by Harrison and I’ve assembled a range of devices that will be essential for your mission. This is the Hypnotron.’ Quimby held out something that looked like a marble. ‘Simply aim and activate it by squeezing. After thirty seconds your captive will be rendered hypnotised and ready to tell you anything you need to know. The hypnotic state ceases when you deactivate the device, or after a certain programmed amount of time. Now, don’t forget,’ Quimby surveyed the agents with a careful eye, ‘you must not use the Hypnotron after your Spyforce business is complete. Spyforce equipment must only be used in the line of duty, otherwise we are in danger of becoming like the criminals we fight against. And then where’s the difference?’

  ‘No problemo.’ Max tried to be chirpy for Linden’s sake.

  ‘Here we have the Mini Transporter Capsule, one for each of you.’ She held out two matchbox-sized cubes. ‘It is based on Francis, Ben and Eleanor’s Matter Transporter and is capable of transporting small, delicate objects through space. Place the triatoma bug in here as soon as you find it, enter the destination into the keypad on the side and off it will go. We have already lost precious time and any more time lost may have devastating consequences, so I recommend you place them in your pockets for easy access.’

  Max and Linden did as they were told.