The Grabbem Getaway

by Adrian C. Bott

  To our little Bean,

  who helped me find the stories.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  If a secret agent had called round to Axel Brayburn’s little house in the suburbs, he would have given Axel a job on the spot.

  ‘Here’s your laser-cutter pen, your exploding chewing gum, the keys to your customised motorbike and a brand-new bow tie,’ the agent would have said. ‘Oh, and don’t forget your shiny black secret-agency membership card. One edge is sharp, so you can use it to cut through ropes, or shave with it once you’re old enough.’

  Axel was definitely spy material, though he didn’t know it himself. Despite only being twelve years old, Axel had plenty of the qualities a secret agent needs: fast reactions, common sense, technical savvy, and even some judo training. His eyesight was the only problem – he needed thick glasses – but a few million dollars’ worth of advanced laser treatment and cyber implants could have sorted that out.

  Of course, secret agents don’t just call around to people’s houses to give them jobs, and Axel was just a regular twelve-year-old. He had no idea that he’d make a good spy. So far as he knew, there was only one thing his skills made him really good at.

  Video games.

  There were two players left in the game he was playing that morning. Victory was so close, Axel was trembling all over.

  He steered his little Tankinator – a robot tank that looked like a rubbish bin on wheels – into the safety of a cave. Now he could lie low for a few seconds and recover some energy.

  Axel played a lot of online games like Tankinator Arena. Especially in the middle of the day, with the curtains drawn, like now.

  Anyone could play the game, but the best Tankinators cost real money, and they were more powerful. That meant you could be a super-skilled player like Axel, but still lose against someone with plenty of money.

  Axel’s opponent, BAGGER_63, was clearly rolling in money. He’d bought the biggest, shiniest Tankinator money could buy. It had armour like a battleship, dozens of special features and more weapons than a Christmas tree has lights.

  But Axel had almost beaten him – first by encouraging all the other players to team up against him, and then by cleverly using the terrain to hide, fire and hide again. Now BAGGER_63 had only a tiny bit of health left.

  Cautiously, Axel peeped out of the cave … only to find he was looking right down the barrel of BAGGER_63’s main cannon.

  BOOM! Axel’s health bar vanished in a split second.

  ‘Arrr!’ he yelled, as his little Tankinator exploded into a fireball of pixels.

  ‘Owned again!’ came BAGGER_63’s voice through Axel’s headphones.

  BAGGER_63 drove his enormous elite Tankinator back and forth over the smouldering remains of Axel’s tiny one, grinding them into the dirt.

  ‘How did you find me?’ yelled Axel.

  ‘I have top-of-the-line scanners, fool. Worth every penny I paid for them!’

  The end-of-round display flashed up. It showed BAGGER_63 at the top of the leaderboard, and AX-MAN just below.

  No prize for second place. No reward at all.

  ‘You want to try beating me with a regular Tankinator?’ Axel raged. ‘Maybe try using, I dunno, actual skill instead of just buying stuff?’

  ‘Cry more, noob!’ came the smug reply. There was a brief blast of thrash metal music.

  Axel said nothing. He quit the game, pulled his headphones off and sat on the end of his bed, staring at the blank screen.

  He didn’t own an elite Tankinator because he couldn’t afford one. Axel didn’t get much pocket money. What little money his mum earned as a mechanic went on food, bills and more bills. His game console was the most expensive thing he owned. It had been last year’s birthday present from his dad, before what had happened … had happened.

  His mother, Nedra, knocked. ‘Oh, Axel, you’ll ruin your eyesight, that close to the screen!’

  Axel tapped his thick glasses. ‘Don’t think it can get much worse than it is, Mum.’

  ‘Planning on staying in all day again?’

  Axel shrugged.

  ‘It’s lovely outside,’ said his mum.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  Nedra sighed. ‘Oh well. Have fun. I’m going to fix Mr Cornish’s mower.’

  ‘Good luck!’

  ‘You too. I’ll only be half an hour. Try not to wreck the place.’

  No chance of that, Axel thought. I probably won’t even leave this room.

  He fired up Tankinator Arena again, went to the game’s Store section and looked longingly at all the amazing gear you could buy. Vehicles with super-powered weapons, speed boosts, extra armour, even custom paint jobs. All for a price, of course. He lost track of time as he daydreamed about what it must feel like to own an elite Tankinator …

  KA-THOOM!

  It was the sound of a big metal object being crashed through. Just like when his little Tankinator got shot. Only louder.

  Axel leapt to his feet.

  Next moment, the screen went black.

  Axel’s first thought was: What was that noise? It didn’t come from the game!

  His second thought was: Did we blow a fuse? The power’s gone out.

  ‘Dad?’ he said aloud, then felt silly for saying it. His father had gone missing a year ago, when he’d gone to pick up some take-away and had never come back. There had been no news since then, not even a whisper. But all the same …

  From downstairs came the creak and groan of metal being bent out of shape.

  Axel left his room and cautiously crept down the stairs. The light in the hallway flickered. He noticed his mum’s favourite Buddha statue – a present from her own mother in Sri Lanka – had fallen off the hall table. He quickly put it back and then headed for the inside door that led to the garage.

  From behind the door came odd noises.

  Wheeze-clunk. Wheeze-clunk.

  ‘This is deeply weird,’ Axel said to himself.

  He hesitated, wondering if he should wait for his mum to come home before finding out what was going on.

  No, he thought. I’m twelve. She left me in charge. I can handle this, whatever it is …

  He flung the door open and leapt inside the garage with a yell.

  The yell turned into a gasp.

  The metal garage door – what was left of it – had been crumpled up like a bit of aluminium foil. But even stranger than that, something had tried to flatten it out again. It stood jammed into the gap where it had once hung, a battered, sorry-looking mess.

  A large robot was standing there, looking at him.

  It had an electrical cord dangling from where its mouth would have been if it had one, almost like it was sucking on a bit of licorice. Blue sparks flew.

  It looked guilty. When it saw Axel, it jumped.

  It jumped.

  Axel stood paralysed, not sure what to do.

  Part of him wanted to scream. Another part wanted to burst out laughing, because he was obviously going crazy, and that meant he could take his clothes off and empty baked beans over his head and do the other sorts of things that he guessed crazy people were supposed to do. But what he actually did surprised him.

  ‘It’s okay!’ Axel said, holding his hands out. ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  The rob
ot’s shoulders sagged in relief.

  Axel took a good look at it. He wasn’t imagining it, and he wasn’t dreaming. It was quite real; a chunky green and black robot over two metres tall, with panels all over it that things probably came out of, like tools or guns maybe. In its chest was a faintly transparent canopy, covering a padded small-person-sized hole.

  Somebody me-sized can climb inside this robot, Axel realised. He glimpsed some tempting-looking controls inside the chest, too. Maybe it was meant to be operated from within. What would happen if I tried?

  Axel took a step forward. The robot watched him with big, unblinking eyes.

  ‘Are you … an alien?’

  The robot shook its head. Whizz-whizz went the mechanisms in its neck.

  ‘Can you speak?’

  The robot nodded. It looked up at the mangled garage door, then back to Axel.

  ‘SORRY,’ it said. Its voice was electronic, exactly like Axel expected it to sound. ‘DOOR BROKE.’

  ‘Yes,’ echoed Axel. ‘Door very broke.’

  ‘TRIED TO FIX IT,’ the robot said. It hung its head, looking as sorry as a guilty dog.

  Axel remembered his mother’s words. ‘Don’t wreck the place …’ A chill went through him. She was going to lose it.

  The robot dropped the power cord and let out a digital buuuurp, which sounded like an old-fashioned phone. The garage light went on, but weakly.

  ‘Have you been eating our electricity?’ Axel demanded.

  The robot shuffled away from him. ‘SORRY,’ it said again. ‘HUNGRY.’

  ‘What are you even doing here?’

  The robot huddled itself into a ball.

  ‘BEAST IS HIDING,’ it said.

  ‘That’s your name? Beast?’

  Another nod.

  ‘It’s okay. I understand. Hiding is the right thing to do sometimes,’ said Axel.

  BEAST looked at him.

  There was a pause. Very slowly, BEAST uncurled itself until it was standing up.

  Axel took a breath. ‘I’m Axel, by the way. I like hiding, too.’

  ‘WHERE?’

  ‘Oh. All sorts of places. Mostly I used to hide in the old stationery cupboard at school. Nobody ever found me.’ Axel made a face. ‘Once I stayed in there for so long they locked the school up and went home. Mum went pretty crazy over that.’

  BEAST thought about that. ‘WHO WAS AXEL HIDING FROM?’

  ‘Bigger kids. So long as you only have to fight one bully at a time, you can fight. I fought a lot. But when they start jumping you in a gang, you kind of have to hide.’

  ‘IS CUPBOARD A GOOD HIDING PLACE?’

  ‘The best,’ said Axel. ‘Especially if you brought a book.’

  BEAST nodded. It held out a huge robotic hand. ‘PLEASE TAKE BEAST TO STATIONERY CUPBOARD.’

  ‘Uh. I can’t,’ Axel said.

  ‘PLEASE.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘BUT BEAST NEEDS TO HIDE. HE AND AXEL CAN HIDE TOGETHER.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I can’t take you there. I don’t go to that school anymore. Or any school.’ Axel paused. This part was always hard to explain. ‘I’m home-schooled. Mum does my lessons now. Because of all the fighting. And the hiding.’

  BEAST was still holding its – no, his, thought Axel – hand out. The robot was trembling and his eyes had gone very big. Axel didn’t understand how something so big could look so frightened.

  ‘So who are you hiding from?’ he asked.

  Before BEAST could reply, there was a scream from outside. It was his mother’s voice. She was back from fixing Mr Cornish’s mower.

  ‘Axel?’ she yelled. ‘Where are you? Axel! Answer me! What on earth has happened to our house?’

  Axel thought fast. ‘This way,’ he told BEAST, and ran through the door back into the house.

  BEAST crammed himself through the door. He was too big to fit, but he pushed his way through anyway. Axel winced at the sound of splintering wood.

  Through the glass in the front door he could see his mother at the top of the drive. She was yelling something about property damage. Now she was coming towards the front door, her keys in her hand.

  ‘Upstairs! Hurry!’

  Axel sprinted up to his bedroom door. BEAST crashed up behind him, the stairs cracking underfoot as he went. He’s like a dog, Axel thought. A huge daft dog that doesn’t know how big he is.

  Axel pointed BEAST into his bedroom. The robot had to hunker right down to get through the door, but just about managed it. With a donk, Axel’s model spaceship fell from his bedside table. BEAST trod on it.

  A key turned in the front door lock. The door opened.

  ‘Axel?’ his mother called, sounding desperate. ‘Just tell me you’re safe!’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum!’

  It was rapidly dawning on Axel that a giant robot in your bedroom isn’t any easier to explain away than a giant robot in your garage, but it was too late to change his mind now. He could think of only one thing to do.

  He grabbed the sheets from his bed and threw them over BEAST.

  He could hear his mum coming up the stairs. ‘What’s happening? Where are you?’

  ‘Having a nap!’ Axel yelled.

  ‘DARK ENVIRONMENT DETECTED. ENGAGING NIGHT VISION MODE,’ said BEAST from under the sheets.

  ‘What was that?’ screeched Axel’s mother. ‘Who’s in there?’

  ‘It’s just my video game!’ Axel said.

  The bedroom door flew open. His mother stood there, breathing hard, with oil on her fingers and a terrible look on her face.

  ‘Did you fix the mower?’ Axel asked innocently.

  ‘Never mind the flipping mower,’ his mum yelled. ‘Explain to me why the garage door is wrecked, along with the stairs! Surely you noticed?’

  ‘Um, not really. I had the volume up pretty loud.’

  ‘And what’s this?’ She jabbed a finger at the huge mound of sheets.

  Axel’s sheets slowly slid off BEAST’s head. The robot looked up at Axel’s mother, who was opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish.

  ‘HELLO,’ said BEAST.

  ‘…’ said Axel’s mother.

  ‘He’s a robot,’ Axel said. ‘I, uh, won him in a competition, and the delivery men couldn’t get him in the front door, so they had to take the garage door off, and they broke it, and, and, and …’

  His mum held up a hand to shush him. ‘I am going to get us all some milk and cookies,’ she said in a shaking voice, ‘and then we can have a nice sit-down and a chat. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Axel.

  ‘OKAY,’ said BEAST.

  Ten minutes later, Axel and Nedra were sitting on the bed, while BEAST held a tiny cookie in his enormous claw-like hand. The robot glanced around as if he were very nervous.

  ‘He’s called BEAST,’ explained Axel.

  ‘STANDS FOR BATTLE-ENABLED ARMOURED SHIFTER TRANSPORT,’ said BEAST, and Axel thought he sounded proud of himself for once. Then Axel thought: what does shifter mean?

  ‘Why were you hiding in our garage?’ asked Axel’s mother, who had calmed down a bit.

  ‘DON’T WANT TO GO BACK,’ said BEAST. ‘BAD MEN WANTED ME TO DESTROY NICE THINGS.’

  ‘Nice things? Like what?’

  ‘TREES,’ said BEAST. ‘FLOWERS. CORAL. PRETTY HILLS.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Axel.

  ‘I do,’ said his mother. She sounded angry again. ‘Look at the symbol on BEAST’s chest.’

  Axel hadn’t noticed the little symbol until she pointed it out. It was a red G that looked like a clenched fist.

  ‘That symbol stands for the greediest, sneakiest, wickedest corporation in the world,’ she hissed through her teeth. ‘They’re always on the news, sliming their way out of one investigation or another. There’s no other corporation out there that breaks the law and gets away with it so often.’

  ‘You mean … Grabbem Industries?’ said Axel.

  At the mention of Grabbem Industri
es, BEAST tried to hide under Axel’s bed and there was chaos for a moment, since Axel and his mum were still sitting on it. But they soon settled BEAST back down.

  ‘They’re bad people, Axel,’ his mum said. ‘They have billions of dollars already and they want even more, and they don’t care how much of the environment they rip up to get it.’

  ‘So? That doesn’t mean BEAST is bad!’

  Axel’s mother looked at him very seriously. ‘This robot is a weapon. It said it was battle-enabled. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘BEAST’s not an it, he’s a he. And he isn’t dangerous!’ yelled Axel. ‘Didn’t you hear him? He doesn’t want to destroy things. That’s why he ran away!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Axel. Grabbem Industries are going to be out looking for him. We have to tell them where he is, or they’ll want to know why we didn’t. And this family’s already been through enough.’

  BEAST trembled.

  Nedra stood up and headed for the door. Axel dived into her path and stood in the doorway, blocking it.

  ‘Don’t make him go back, Mum!’ Axel begged.

  She looked at BEAST and back to Axel, held up her hands, and sighed. ‘What other choice do I have?’

  A strange, deep voice said, ‘I think perhaps I can help with that.’

  Axel and his mum looked over to where the voice was coming from. BEAST had stopped moving and his eyes had rolled upwards. A beam of misty blue light was shining out of BEAST’s chest. At its end, it formed a 3D image of a tall man with dark glasses, hunched over his desk.

  ‘A hologram projector!’ said Axel.

  The man nodded. ‘Correct. I am a friend. You may call me Agent Omega. It is very important that you listen to what I have to say.’

  ‘And why is it so important?’ demanded Axel’s mother.

  ‘Because in just under five minutes, Grabbem Industries are going to attack your house!’

  The headquarters of Grabbem Industries, where the Grabbem family lived, was a gigantic mansion made of steel and glass.

  Beneath the mansion, running far underground, were gloomy offices and factories and tunnels and secret laboratories. Down there, thousands of people worked for Grabbem, toiling away like termites in a mound. They never got to see the sun, but Mr Grabbem liked it this way. It meant he didn’t have to look at them.