S*W*A*G*G 1, Spook

by Jill Marshall

  As Gideon nodded, Janey watched his face to see if her assumptions were correct, amazed at how alive and radiant it looked. How could she not have understood it before, that there was something about him that wasn’t even there most of the time?

  ‘I think Gideon needed our equipment and skills to show up in full form. The emails and so on …’

  ‘Voice activated,’ Gideon confirmed.

  ‘Because you’d used the Vox Pop to give yourself a voice, and then the Wower to give yourself form … and the powers that Jack and Tilly have anyway to see things that people normally can’t.’

  ‘Gadzooks, and me!’ cried Stein. ‘I, too, am used to seeing undead beings.’

  Gideon sighed. ‘Yes, you are. And actually before Trent ran off to Transnordia, it gave me an idea. I thought we could … bring him back to life and scare the others beyond their wits.’

  They all fell silent at the thought, before Stein said gently, ‘God’s truth, I have done some incredible things but never without a body. Did you have your body to hand, Sir Trent?’

  ‘Not one I’d want to use ever again.’ Trent looked vaguely sick at the thought. ‘Although it would have been a good punishment for the others. So you built this crew from scratch, Flynn? They’re all deeply unusual.’

  ‘They’re all special. Very special,’ said Gideon, his eyes on Janey and Stein. ‘But you have to believe me, before I met Blonde and the others, I could only listen. Listen and regret. I had no voice, no presence. Just a growing bank account that my parents don’t understand enough to know I’ve tapped into it. I’ve been planning how to get back at you all for decades, and now we can do it – together.’

  The other three stared at Gideon, his words not making sense. Did he mean they could … get back at everyone together?

  ‘I was going to poison Simone with her own ring,’ said Gideon. ‘Or rather, the SWAG team was. I planted a letter on Oscar’s desk that would cause Oscar and Henry to fight over the rifle. It was primed to go off. But the objects aren’t here – they’re in the evidence room in the UK. Then I was going to scare them with Trent, hopefully into heart attacks. We have to think of another way.’

  ‘Another way to what?’ said Janey slowly, hardly caring now that, outside the control room, the games were beginning. Her insides were churning as hideously as they had when the super-sized ruby had imparted its evil power on them – for that was what it had done, she was sure of it. It had been getting its claws into her and G-Mamma from simply brushing their skin, until Gideon had instructed her to get rid of it. She was glad she’d listened to him then, but in every other respect she was convinced that she should have stuck with her earlier decision – the one where she’d decided not to trust Gideon Flynn. ‘Another way,’ she repeated, ‘to what?

  ‘To kill them. To kill the others.’ Gideon stared at Trent. ‘You’re already dead, and that’s unfortunate, but surely you’d like revenge too?’

  Trent shook his head, his eyes sorrowful. ‘I was already dying,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Simone knew that. I’m not sure if the others knew too, but they just sped up the process, really.’

  ‘All the more reason then, Varley!’ cried Gideon, his silhouette pulsing with light.

  But Janey stepped in between them. ‘Gideon, that’s not right. That’s not what you want, surely. You were setting us up to kill the people who hurt you! Do you know what that would have done to us all? Look at G-Mamma now, sitting in prison.’

  Gideon could hardly bring himself to look at her. ‘I … I know. That’s what it started as, but I didn’t know you all then. I hadn’t thought it all through. The dark dream just took over. It was what I thought I wanted, for sure, but …’

  Wishing she could hold his hand, for comfort or for persuasion or for something, Janey stepped closer to him than she had ever been and lowered her voice. ‘I can understand that you’d be angry,’ she said carefully. ‘You’ve lost so much.’

  ‘Everything,’ he retorted, hardly audible.

  Janey felt her eyes burning. ‘Everything,’ she agreed with a nod. ‘But you … you’ve got some things back now. You’ve got a … well, sort of a body. You’ve got us. Me.’

  To her alarm, Gideon looked close to tears too. ‘You don’t understand. This is all that’s kept me going for so long, the thought of what I’d do to them all.’

  ‘But … I don’t believe that,’ she told him. ‘The old couple at the cottage, you thought about them too.’ Gideon swallowed furiously, clearly trying not to think about the elderly pair he’d watched so affectionately. ‘And these people – all these innocent people here, and around the world,’ she continued. ‘Don’t you want to help them? Wouldn’t that be a better reason than getting revenge?’

  ‘I see.’ Gideon released a mirthless laugh. ‘Do you want me to use my power for good, Blonde?’

  And Janey nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. And I think you’d prefer it too. And I’ve noticed that …’ How did she phrase this? ‘You glow a bit brighter when you’re happy.’

  There was a deep silence while her words sank in, with Gideon hardly able to hold back tears. The outline of his shape was fading and glowing in an irregular pattern as he battled with his emotions.

  Finally, he turned to Trent. ‘Would you want revenge?’

  Trent sighed. ‘I thought I did – against you! But no. No, really I just want it all to be over. It’s gone on too long.’

  There was a terrible moment while Gideon stared at his old friend in which Janey thought it was over. He wasn’t going to alter his plans – and she wasn’t going to carry them out, so it had all been for nothing.

  But then his shoulders slumped forward. ‘It wasn’t until I saw what they’d done to you that I started to change my mind,’ said Gideon suddenly. ‘And I don’t want your death to be for nothing, too. Blonde’s right. Let’s do something positive, Trent. Together.’

  Gideon gazed sorrowfully at his former friend, and Trent Varley suddenly crumpled to the floor, hugging his knees as tears rolled down his face. ‘I was going to stop them,’ he sobbed. ‘I told them I was going to the police, to the government, to anybody who would listen. After what happened to you, Gideon, and to me, I couldn’t believe they didn’t see the danger in what they were planning. I always made them remember you, Flynny – all the things you’d hoped to invent. That’s why your initial is still hidden in the code for the HOST name. I insisted! I confess, they convinced me for years that we could rule the world, but I didn’t care after a while. Money and power are all well and good, but there’s no point in it just for its own sake. What’s the fun in playing rugby, say, if you don’t have a team that can match you? It all got out of hand, and now we can’t stop it.’ He broke down again as Gideon attempted to comfort him.

  Ever since the shock of discovering what Gideon had laid out for them, Janey had been planning to walk away. It was as she’s always said: they weren’t thieves, and they definitely weren’t murderers.

  But they were … friends. Friends like Gideon and Trent had once been, when a tragic accident had altered their realities beyond recognition.

  So Janey had been thinking, plotting, listening to what was going on and wondering how they could turn it to their advantage.

  And suddenly, Trent’s team-talk ignited a spark.

  ‘How about we don’t try to stop the games?’ she said. ‘How about we play them instead?’

  Chapter 25 - May the Worst Team Win

  It was HOST versus SWAG, and Janey was pretty confident that they had the upper hand.

  The control room belonged to SWAG now, which was a very good start, as all the telemetry and broadcast equipment was initiated in there. Unfortunately the staff, while free of the controlling wristbands, were alarmed to come to their senses in the presence of an enormous dog-headed god and a cat that seemed to be shouting instructions at him as it tore at them with terrifyingly accurate claws and teeth. Those who could get out fled the building, running from the central control room as fa
st as their legs could carry them, and the less fit or the cornered had locked themselves inside the very glass cell from which the SWAG team had only recently escaped. Presumably they hadn’t worked out that if Jack could get out of the glass prison, he could get back into it as well.

  But what really interested Janey was the fact that the massive monitors lining the walls were all still operating. Right at that moment, Henry Wentworth’s foolish face was projected in full colour onto every screen, and only someone watching very closely would notice the slight edge of panic behind his broad smile, plastered firmly across his face so that he looked like a ventriloquist dummy, talking through his teeth – which, Janey thought, was probably about right. He was a puppet, his strings pulled by Oscar Sullivan and Trent’s horrible widow, Simone Varley.

  ‘The procession is coming to you from our secret location, where all the world’s competitors have gathered for the inaugural World Community Games.’ His rictus grin seemed to move of its own accord as he swivelled his head to show the athletes gathering in the stadium, waving into cameras and forming swirling groups with their team-members that ebbed and flowed into the teams for the surrounding countries. They looked so happy, and it truly was an awe-inspiring sight. Janey sighed. If only it was genuine, it might have been quite a world-altering idea. A game-changer, they might have called it.

  Well, now they were the game-changers. And this tournament wasn’t over yet.

  ‘They’re broadcasting from somewhere else,’ she said to the group behind her. ‘We’ve got to access the TV station or whatever it might be to beat them at their own game.’

  ‘I … I think I know where they are,’ said Trent. ‘I even helped set it up – a bunker, you might call it, in case anything went wrong.’

  ‘Can you take us?’

  Trent nodded. ‘They’ll turn the squads on you, though. Won’t cause me any harm, but you guys … even you, Flynny, with your new physical presence … you’ll be in for a pounding.’

  As Gideon shrugged easily, Janey noticed Stein inspecting Gideon and then the inside of his flagon. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It doesn’t last for ever,’ said Stein simply. ‘That’s why we have pom juice every day back in Transnordia.’

  ‘Oh, Stein! We used it all! What will happen if you don’t get your pom juice?’

  She didn’t add ‘And Gideon’ as she was pretty sure she knew. Gideon would just become half-darkness again, hunched and miserable and not at all this vibrant, glowing being that he’d just become.

  Stein tried to look nonchalant. ‘Forsooth, I have never had to find out! But I’m sure there’s enough left if I lick the bottom of the flagon. Unless you need it, Master Flynn,’ he added quickly.

  A hundred different emotions flickered across Gideon’s face, and Janey suspected every one of them was reflected in her own – loss, yearning, compassion for his friend who needed the unguent as much, if not more than he did, a spark of hope that might soon be extinguished …

  Finally, Gideon smiled. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said firmly. ‘You must have it, then you can go home and make some more. No point in both of us disappearing forever.’

  ‘Master Flynn, you are wise,’ said Stein. ‘And I’d much prefer it if neither of us disappeared forever.’

  Gideon nodded, saying nothing and avoiding anyone’s eye as Trent hopped uneasily from foot to foot.

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Janey, hoping she sounded more resolute than she felt. ‘Let’s take them by surprise.’

  As one, they ran down the stairs into the main control room where Jack and Tilly were

  stashing wristbands in waste-bins, their appearance just like any pair of teenagers who’d been sent to do the chores.

  ‘Ready to fight an army?’ called Janey.

  Tilly whooped for joy. ‘At last!’ she cried, punching the air. ‘I totally am!’

  ‘Gently, though,’ said Janey. ‘They’re only acting under orders, and they won’t know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Hey, I’m one of them. Injuries are not good for Team GB,’ said Tilly with a nod.

  ‘How about Team SWAG?’

  It was Gideon who had spoken, and now Stein and Janey moved aside so that the others could see him and Trent.

  ‘You look … different,’ said Jack to Gideon. ‘Sort of … fuller.’

  ‘Courtesy of some Stein juice. Which may be running out, so we’d better hurry.’

  Jack then bowed slightly to Trent. ‘And you look – well, dead, I’m afraid. I wondered why I could see you at the HOST offices when nobody else appeared to be able to, apart from Gideon, of course.’

  ‘Guilty,’ said Trent, holding up his hands to show his deadness, and then he shuddered. ‘Actually, guilty is right. When all this is over, I suppose I’m going somewhere terrible.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll look after you,’ said Jack gently, and Janey wondered, yet again, just what it was that the great Anubis had to do in the “processing” he’d mentioned.

  ‘I was tired anyway, man,’ said Trent suddenly to Gideon. ‘When I realised what Simone was capable of – well, that’s not me. Oh, talk of the devil.’

  Suddenly Simone Varley’s imperious face swung onto the monitors. ‘And now it’s the moment, ladies and gentlemen, that you’ve all been waiting for. Just scroll for the name of your favourite athlete to access your own personal fam-cam. You can run the race and play that game with them. Just add your card details to sign-up, and this truly astonishing experience will be yours for the first time in the history of mankind.’

  The names and identity numbers of the competitors began to roll up the right-hand side of the screen.

  ‘Now! We’ve got to go now,’ cried Janey, and SWAG instantly swept into high alert.

  Wishing for G-Mamma, or Trouble, or Alfie or even her Ultra-Gogs – just something that would help her as she dragged her new friends out into the path of thousands of the world’s most super-fit humans, Janey mustered as much confidence as she could.

  ‘Trent, lead the way, please,’ she said. ‘Gideon, in the middle of the group. Everyone else, protect Gideon at all costs. He’s the ace in our pack.’

  And with that, she shoved open the doors to the control room that Trent had just evaporated through and ran on ahead.

  The tented tunnel was full of people. Many were the escaping HOST ambassadors who had been relieved of their wristbands. Offering no danger at all, they simply scrambled away as fast as their feet would carry them. As others turned to gaze at them in horror or fascination, however, Janey witnessed that momentary pause as their vision was taken over by the ruby-powered mechanism on their wrist.

  ‘They’ve seen us,’ she hissed. ‘HOST will be in control now. Get ready.’

  She hadn’t spoken a moment too soon. Suddenly a member of the Georgian ballet team whipped around like a spinning top, hurtling straight towards them, gathering speed as he spun and gathering allies as the rest of his team joined in until a whole phalanx of black-garbed ninjas was whistling towards them.

  ‘Ha! Two can play at that game!’ cried Tilly, sweeping around with a firmly-extended leg and then disappearing into the fray, punching and kicking and spinning with the best of them. ‘I’ve got this! Keep going!’ she yelled, plunging deep into the thick of it.

  They didn’t have time to stop and haul her clear of the gymnasts anyway. As they emerged from the corridor into the stadium to find that news of their presence was spreading, the athletes were forming terrifying ranks that stretched away across the arena, as far as they could see.

  Even with their unusual powers, the SWAG team weren’t getting out of this easily.

  If at all.

  ‘You don’t think people at home are paying to watch us get thrashed, do you?’ Jack glanced from side to side. ‘Only I think they might get more than they bargained for when they see me.’

  ‘I doubt they’ve started yet. Back to back! Protect Gideon!’

  With Stein and Jack on opposite points of the tri
angle, they surrounded Gideon, facing out, looking for a chink in the vast army that now stood between them and freedom. Where was Trent? Janey couldn’t see him, and she wasn’t sure if that was because of the deepening shadows as daylight fell, or because he was so far ahead she’d never find him …

  And then Gideon suddenly spoke. ‘Blonde,’ he said weakly. ‘I’m fading.’

  She spun back to the centre. It was true: the red-gold track that had highlighted his outline was weaker, pulsing rather than beaming, and the pink lustre to his skin was sinking away to its previous pallor. Stein was also staring at him, reaching for his flask of unguent … but Janey stopped him.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘There should be enough time.’

  Then Jane Blonde - the spy who had tried at all times to remain invisible, who preferred to work alone to keep others out of harm’s way - tapped her new friend Jack on the shoulder. ‘Could you lift me up?’

  He did it without question. Janey was instantly perched on his broad shoulder, high above the arena floor for all to see. From her vantage point, she could finally see Trent, far away across the stadium, pointing to an enclosed viewing area poised above the athletes. Of course. Where they could truly have eyes on everything.

  Well, there may not be enough time to get there now before Gideon faded away completely. But there was time to bring the HOST leaders to them.

  High above the heads of even the tallest of the athletes, Janey held her arm up and waved. ‘Here!’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Over here!’

  Every pair of eyes in the stadium turned towards her, and she knew exactly what that meant. Simone, Henry and Oscar had pinpointed their position. All chipped eyes were trained on them, so in their glass viewing box the HOST team would be able to see them in great detail. They could plan their attack and bury them in hired muscle – albeit innocent hired muscle – in moments.

  Just to back up her theory, the massive monitors situated around them crackled with a burst of energy, and then, instead of a thousand names rolling past the viewers to entice them to share their fan-cam, the image of a strange group of imposters shot up onto the screen. A hulking teenager with jeans and a vulpine head of majestic black fur stared back out at her, beside a smaller boy with long hair, ice-white skin and a strangely old-fashioned outfit. And there was she, Jane Blonde, held aloft by Jack as if she was some kind of mascot, her spysuit glinting as the sun sank.