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
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
COPYRIGHT PAGE
Axel’s best friend, BEAST, was a robot.
Most of the time BEAST was roughly person-shaped, with a head and arms and legs. But if he had the right app installed in his memory, BEAST could shapeshift into other forms, like his Arctic explorer form, SNOWDOG, or his knight-in-armour battle form, GALAHAD. Each form had its own special strengths and weaknesses, but they all had one thing in common. They were exciting.
Right now, though, BEAST was in a form so boring Axel thought its app must have been created as a joke. His friend Agent Omega had sent it to him on a USB drive along with half-a-dozen other ‘wacky’ apps, because ‘you never know when something like this might come in useful’.
The form was called FRIJ.
It turned BEAST into a fridge.
Right now, BEAST was sitting in the dark kitchen, humming to himself, happily being a fridge. He had learnt that fridges are supposed to hum, so he was humming a song called ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ that he had learnt from the internet. Axel had told him fridges don’t hum tunes, they just hum in a sort of peaceful drone, but BEAST had already forgotten this.
Meanwhile, over in the living room, Axel was playing on his video game console. Once, he’d played games to hide away from the world. Now, he and his friend Yumi played together online to train for missions against evil corporations like Grabbem Industries. Yumi was in Japan, but that didn’t matter when you had a fast internet connection.
Right now, Axel was running away from a teddy bear with a machine gun. The pink, fuzzy bear bellowed a battle cry and blasted a round of jellybeans at him.
Axel ducked and rolled, and the jellybeans shot harmlessly overhead. He activated a speed boost and charged towards Mushroom Base. He yelled, ‘Yumi! They’re coming!’
Yumi’s voice rang out from the speakers: ‘I’ve prepared a special welcome. Just stick to the plan! You run around and distract them while I defend the base!’
One of the best things about Bubblegum Bear Battle Bonanza was how many character classes you could choose from. Axel liked to play as a Scout, since they were fast-moving and could do acrobatic stunts. Yumi preferred the Tech class, because a Tech could build traps and turrets for enemies to blunder into.
Over a sunny green hill came a crowd of multicoloured teddy bears, waving swords, axes and rocket launchers. They were heading for Axel and Yumi’s base, which was shaped like a giant red mushroom. If the enemy could kick Yumi out and capture the base for themselves, their team would be certain to win. There were only two minutes left in the game.
Yumi stepped onto Mushroom Base’s little wooden balcony. Her bear character was dressed in power armour and carried a toolbox. She crouched down and went into a blur of movement. Next second, a freshly built Toffee Turret stood there beside her.
Axel reached the door of Mushroom Base. According to the plan they’d worked out, he was supposed to keep his distance and leave the defending to Yumi. But maybe that wasn’t such a good plan. Surely two of them could defend better than one?
The oncoming enemy bears were almost at the door. Axel made up his mind. He ran inside Mushroom Base and got ready to defend.
The door exploded into wafer-like fragments. The invading horde of Bubblegum Bears came charging into Mushroom Base.
‘Eat rainbow devastation, creeps!’ yelled Yumi.
The Toffee Turret juddered and swung around. A thunderous volley of shimmering Friendship Jellybeans blew the floor of Mushroom Base into a cratered ruin. A few of the attacking bears vanished in little explosions of red hearts, overcome by the firepower of concentrated friendship, but most of them were still coming.
Then the entire screen flashed red. A gigantic heart-shaped explosion engulfed Mushroom Base completely.
Axel watched, open-mouthed, as the game’s defeat counter flashed up the news: every single bear in Mushroom Base had been knocked out by the blast. Including him and Yumi.
‘Yumi, did you just trigger a Love Bomb?’
‘Of course!’ Yumi laughed. ‘That was my plan all along!’
‘But that knocks us out as well as the enemy!’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Yumi said. ‘So long as one of us survives, we win. And you survived, didn’t you?’
‘Um,’ said Axel.
‘You kept your distance like we agreed … right?’
‘Er,’ said Axel.
‘BOTH TEAMS ELIMINATED. THIS ROUND IS A DRAW,’ said the robotic announcer.
‘I, uh … thought you needed help,’ said Axel.
‘Axel, you idiot!’ Yumi yelled, so loudly that BEAST stopped humming and looked up. ‘I didn’t ask for your help. I was counting on you to stick to the plan!’
Axel sighed. Yumi let out an ooooh of utter fury.
‘I’m sorry,’ Axel said. ‘It just didn’t seem right to leave you alone.’
‘You weren’t leaving me. I asked you to go. Now I’m going to get an experience-point penalty for blowing up my own team member! Axel, we can’t fight as a team if you don’t do the things you say you’re going to do!’
‘I said I was sorry!’
‘Whatever. Let’s take a break. Back in five.’
‘IS YUMI OKAY?’ asked BEAST, as Axel sighed again and leant back on the couch.
‘Yeah. She’s just mad at me. I don’t blame her. I guess I let her down.’
BEAST shifted out of FRIJ form into his regular robot shape, shuffled across the room and laid a hand on Axel’s shoulder.
‘I AM SORRY SHE DID NOT HAVE MORE NEWS FOR YOU.’
‘Me too,’ said Axel.
Axel let his mind stray back to the night when Yumi had told him, ‘We think we know what happened to your dad.’ Crazy to think it was only a week ago.
‘He’s definitely alive,’ she’d told him. ‘And he’s being kept prisoner by a powerful group. We don’t know which one yet, but it’s not Grabbem. My mother spotted his name on a partially decoded transmission. Matt Brayburn. Subject 547.’
Axel hated that word, subject. It made him think of ‘test subject’. The thought that someone could be doing experiments on his dad made him clench his fist until the nails dug into his palm.
When he’d told his mum, she’d cried and laughed and then cried some more. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘I always told you, didn’t I? He’s alive. And as soon as Yumi finds out exactly where he is, you and BEAST can bring him back! I’m sure Agent Omega will help, too.’
Agent Omega had a job at Grabbem Industries, but he was a double agent, helping Axel to fight them. He usually called every other day to talk about new missions, but he hadn’t been in touch all week. Axel was almost relieved about that. How could he concentrate on fighting Grabbem when his dad was being held prisoner somewhere? All he wanted to do was rescue him.
Something at the back of the house went tap, tap, tap.
Axel glanced up. Green light was pouring through the rear windows. A metal tentacle was tapping on the glass. It dangled from a round, hovering craft. BEAST gasped.
‘AXEL, IT IS THE MOT-BOL!’
‘You’re right! Agent Omega must have flown it here!’
The MOT-BOL, or Meatball as Axel liked to call it, was their home away from home when they were on missions. It was a flying docking station for BEAST to retreat to, so he could recharge and repair himself.
Axel and BEAST ran out into the back garden. The
MOT-BOL hovered low, hiding itself behind the trees. It slowly landed in front of them like an alien spacecraft.
Axel felt a chill that ran deeper than the cold of the evening. Something was wrong. He knew it, with that sickly certainty you get when you are sure there’s bad news coming but nobody wants to be the one to tell you.
He called out, ‘Agent Omega?’
But there was no answer.
The silent craft was completely empty.
Axel slowly crept forward until he could look right up inside the MOT-BOL. There was no sign of Agent Omega. Or anyone else.
BEAST’s ears twitched as he picked up a signal. ‘THE MOT-BOL SAYS IT CAME HERE ON AUTOPILOT. IT HAS A MESSAGE FOR YOUR EARS ONLY,’ said BEAST. ‘IT SAYS YOU MUST GO ABOARD.’
Axel’s skin prickled. This could be a trap, he thought. By now, Yumi would be impatiently waiting for the next round of their game. He badly wanted to go back indoors, but this felt deadly serious.
‘Should I?’ he asked BEAST.
‘YES,’ said BEAST. ‘THE MOT-BOL IS OUR FRIEND. WE CAN TRUST IT.’
Axel climbed up inside the MOT-BOL. A single button was blinking on and off, shining the spooky golden colour of a cat’s eyes in the dark. He pressed it.
Agent Omega appeared in the air in front of him. He was transparent and glowing blue.
Axel jumped. Then he realised this wasn’t a ghost. It was a hologram, just like the very first time Agent Omega had spoken to them.
The hologram of Agent Omega glanced over his shoulder. Sweat was beading on his brow.
‘Axel, if you’re watching this recorded message, it means the worst has happened. Listen carefully. My life, and the future of our whole operation, is hanging in the balance.’
Axel felt like all the bones had fallen out of his body. Finding out things were every bit as bad as you had feared was a strange (but somehow horribly satisfying) feeling.
‘For some time now,’ said the hologram, ‘I’ve felt like Grabbem were breathing down my neck. Like they’re going to find out I’m working with you any second. Then today these two men in white coats came to check my computer, and they wouldn’t say what it was for. Then they checked my pulse rate. I was so nervous, my heart was thumping. They’re onto me. I know it.’
‘We’ll help!’ Axel burst out. Then he remembered Agent Omega couldn’t hear him.
‘My only hope now is you and BEAST. That’s why I’ve set up a special system with the MOT-BOL in case they’ve caught me. See the keyboard here? Every day, I have to type in a password that only I know. If I ever don’t put the password in, it means I can’t, because something’s happened to me. In that event, the MOT-BOL is programmed to head directly to you, under cover of darkness.’
‘Clever system,’ Axel said.
‘Now I need to prep you for the mission I hoped I’d never have to send you on,’ continued Agent Omega. ‘The MOT-BOL will fly you and BEAST to Platinum Acres, where the Grabbem family live. Under their mansion is an enormous underground factory complex. My workplace. I’m somewhere inside it, most likely in a prison cell. Axel, I need you to break in … and break me out.’
He pointed to a cable that hung down from the roof. ‘Plug that into the back of BEAST’s neck, and he’ll download the apps you need. I’ve loaded up SKYHAWK, OGRE, HECKFIRE and a couple of new ones called PILLBUG and SHADO. PILLBUG turns him into an armoured form. He can’t do anything apart from crawl about and roll into a ball, but he’s pretty much impossible to hurt. SHADO is a stealth striker. Almost no armour in that form, but if he keeps still, he’s completely invisible. Powerful blade attacks. Use that one to take out sentry drones and stuff. I’m sure you can figure out plenty more uses.’
The hologram looked right at Axel. It was spooky, as if it could actually see him.
‘I’m counting on you, Axel. You’re the only one who can pull my butt out of the fire. Good luck – and thanks.’
It disappeared.
Axel climbed back outside and just stood on the grass, thunderstruck. ‘We’re going to break into Grabbem Headquarters?’ he said.
He and BEAST had gone to some risky places in the past. They’d narrowly escaped from giant metal tentacles in a secret iceberg base, and almost been stomped flat by a towering robot in a deserted island city. But now Agent Omega was asking them to go to the most dangerous place in the entire world, for them.
And if I’m scared, Axel thought, what must poor BEAST be going through? That Grabbem factory is where he was made. It’s where he ran away from! If they catch him in there, they’ll take him to bits!
Sure enough, BEAST was trembling all over.
‘BEAST?’ said Axel gently.
‘I MISS BEING A FRIDGE,’ said BEAST, in a little voice. ‘I LIKE BEING A FRIDGE. IT IS SAFE AND BORING AND I CAN TALK TO THE FROZEN PEAS AND NOBODY TRIES TO BLOW ME UP.’
‘When all this is over and we’ve beaten Grabbem once and for all, you can be a fridge for as long as you like. I promise,’ Axel said.
‘I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK THERE!’ BEAST wailed. ‘WHAT IF THEY CAPTURE ME AND ERASE MY MEMORIES AND I FORGET I EVER MET YOU? WHAT IF THEY MAKE ME HURT YOU?’
‘That won’t happen!’
‘AXEL HAS NEVER BEEN INSIDE … INSIDE THE GRABBEM PLACE. BUT BEAST HAS. BEAST KNOWS!’
He can hardly bear to say the word Grabbem out loud, Axel thought. He’s being so brave.
He tried to think of what to say to comfort BEAST, but he couldn’t. The trouble was, BEAST was right. Axel had no idea what the kindly robot had been through in that dreadful place. He wrapped both his arms around BEAST’s arm and gave him a hug.
‘You’re a lot braver than you know, mate,’ he said. ‘I know you’re scared. So am I. But Agent Omega’s scared, too. We can’t let him down.’
They sat like that for several minutes. Neither of them said anything.
Then, very slowly, BEAST straightened up. A look of determination seemed to come over his face. He pulled the USB drive with the FRIJ app on it out of his arm and handed it to Axel. Then he marched up into the MOT-BOL, grabbed the cable and plugged it into his neck.
‘RECEIVING DATA!’ he announced.
‘Wait,’ Axel said. ‘Does this mean …’
‘NEW APPS INSTALLED. BEAST IS READY TO FIGHT.’
‘BEAST, I need to be a hundred per cent clear on this. Are you saying you’re coming with me?’
‘YES.’
Axel grinned. ‘Way to go! I’d better just go and write a note for Mum, or she’ll freak out. Then we can go and fetch Agent Omega. Right?’
‘RIGHT,’ said BEAST. ‘AGENT OMEGA HELPED BEAST ESCAPE GRABBEM. BEAST OWES HIM EVERYTHING. SO IF BEAST CANNOT BE BRAVE ENOUGH TO HELP HIM NOW, THEN … THEN BEAST MIGHT AS WELL GO AND BE A FRIDGE FOREVER!’
Mr Gus Grabbem Senior, the head of Grabbem Industries, lay tucked up in a big circular bed. The bedcover was made to look like planet Earth, because Mr Grabbem liked to imagine that the whole world was his. Sometimes he jumped up and down on it.
He couldn’t sleep. He was excited because it was the day before the Big Tour. This was a special event where he took a group of people around his enormous factory, so that they would be impressed and invest lots of money in his firm. It was important that it went well, because the more impressed they were, the more money he stood to get.
He scrolled through his emails on a golden laptop while his wife read The Endangered Species Cookbook.
‘They’re coming,’ he said, and rubbed his hands with glee. ‘They can all come!’
‘That’s great, honey,’ said Mrs Grabbem, without looking up.
‘Even Lady Porkington-Trotter is flying over from England!’
‘Won’t that be nice. Are the Crusherbots all ready?’
‘Oh, yes, my dainty little dollop. We’ll show ’em off as the grand finale.’
The Big Tour wasn’t just about money. It was about showing off, and the whole point of being rich was that you got to show off. Most people didn�
�t understand that. They thought that being rich was about being able to get what you wanted. But even when you were only a little bit rich, you didn’t really want anything anymore. You could always buy a meal if you were hungry, or warm yourself up if you were cold. You could see any movie you wanted to see. So when you were ridiculously rich, life was so boring that showing off to other rich people was the only thing left to do.
Apart from give money to charity, of course, but Mr Grabbem wasn’t that kind of person.
Mr Grabbem looked over the guest list for tomorrow. What an amazing party this was going to be. Even Gus Grabbem Junior was going to have fun, playing with the other rich people’s kids.
The list read:
• JUSTIN SMOOTHLEY, supermodel, no children, and his chihuahua LYSANDER.
• HENGIST PUNKERDUNK, oil baron, and his children EZEKIEL and WANDA.
• LADY FLORA PORKINGTON - TROTTER, sausage queen, and her daughter PIPPA.
• JUANITA CASTILLO, art trader, and her daughter BELLADONNA.
• GENERAL LUCILLE ‘SPINE-RIPPER’ REGAN (retired), and her son BUCKSHOT.
• PROFESSOR ARNOLD PAYNE, Director of the Neuron Institute, no children.
All the hairs on Mr Grabbem’s back stood on end as he read the words ‘Neuron Institute’, and, just for a second, his good mood wavered.
They were deeply creepy people, that lot. Professor Payne had a damp, clammy handshake and his face was as waxy white as a dead crocodile’s belly. Mr Grabbem had often had the uneasy feeling that if he gave the Professor a hearty slap on the back, the Professor’s face would fall off and reveal what was really underneath. Maybe he had the face of a man-sized mosquito. Or maybe metal face-bones with blinking lights among them, and a dark grille for a mouth …
‘Pull yourself together,’ he said gruffly to himself. ‘Business is business and their money’s good.’
He folded away the laptop and rolled over to go to sleep.
Tomorrow’s Big Tour was going to be a triumph. The best one yet. He’d make a fortune.
Just so long as the staff did their jobs, the guests’ children all behaved themselves and, most importantly, nothing out of the ordinary happened.
Omega Operation Page 1
