‘I guess he doesn’t like Gus Junior’s crew either,’ Axel said.
Then a thought popped into his head. D4V3 had said messy. That gave him an idea.
‘Hey. Back when D4V3 was a cleaning robot, what sort of mess made him most angry?’
‘CHEWING GUM,’ responded BEAST immediately. ‘IT DROVE HIM MAD.’
Axel took a stick of chewing gum out of his pocket. ‘Okay. I think I might have a plan. But if this doesn’t work and he catches me, you’re going to have to rescue two humans today ...’
At that moment, Mr Grabbem was leading the members of the Big Tour through the Planning Room. This was a sort of exhibition hall. Little models of landscapes and buildings showed which part of the world Grabbem Industries was going to wreck next.
‘Feast your eyes!’ he told his guests. ‘Check out the Rainforest Ripper. Designed that one myself. Over here we’ve got the plans for the Dolphin Slicing Factory. Young Gus came up with that after we let him play with the kitchen blender ...’
A voice boomed out over the loudspeakers. ‘Lady Porkington-Trotter to the sick bay, please. There has been a minor accident.’
Lady Porkington-Trotter squealed, ‘Pippa!’ and rushed out of the room.
Startled guests broke into anxious muttering.
‘What’s that? Accident?’
‘Something’s wrong!’
‘I thought we were safe ...’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Mr Grabbem through a clench-toothed grin. ‘Everything’s fine! Just kids larking about.’ He whispered to his wife: ‘Shona, get that moron on the speakers to shut their silly gob now.’
‘I’m on it,’ she snapped, and vanished out of the room.
Justin Smoothley’s chihuahua let out a series of frightened yips that made Mr Grabbem want to bake it in a pie.
‘Lysander’s getting a headache.’ Justin pouted.
Mrs Grabbem glided back into the room, as calm as a vampire but a lot more suntanned, and whispered in Mr Grabbem’s ear. ‘It’s dealt with. I sacked ’em.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said Mr Grabbem, still smiling.
Axel popped the gum into his mouth and started chewing.
‘I’ll use this to make a mess and distract him, then we’ll both run past while he’s busy. Okay?’
‘OKAY. PLEASE DO NOT GET CAPTURED.’
‘I’ll try not to.’
Axel climbed out of BEAST, opened the ceiling grate, waited until D4V3 was looking the other way and then dropped down to the floor. The slap of his sneakers on the floor made D4V3 whip his head round and glare.
‘Identify yourself!’ the robot grated.
Axel thought fast. ‘I’m Kevin,’ he said.
‘FULL name?’
Axel realised he should have thought up a fake name before doing this, but it was too late.
‘Kevin … Snot,’ he said, hoping he sounded convincing. ‘I’m with the tour.’
D4V3 wasn’t buying it. ‘Kevin Snot? Don’t have that name on record. Which company are you from?’
‘None of your business!’ Axel said. Having to be rude made him feel terrible, especially since the robot was only doing his job, but there were more important things at stake.
He took the gum out of his mouth and dropped it on the floor, right where D4V3 could see it.
Deep inside D4V3’s tiny robot brain, a long-forgotten circuit suddenly went into overdrive.
‘PICK THAT UP!’ he boomed.
Axel trod on the gum and ground it into the floor with his heel. ‘Nah,’ he said. He sauntered away.
D4V3 began to vibrate all over, like a washing machine going into its spin cycle. Little jets of steam hissed out of his head as his system began to overheat. He was mad.
‘KEVIN SNOT, I ORDER YOU TO CLEAN UP THIS MESS IMMEDIATELY!’
‘Clean it up yourself,’ Axel sneered. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you know how?’ He let out a laugh that he hoped sounded suitably evil.
BEAST watched him through the ceiling hatch, his eyes wide.
Long ago, when D4V3 had been a floor-scrubbing robot, he had worked hard to get rid of the mess the humans left behind all day long. Regular dirt was bad. Spilled food was worse. But chewing gum was the worst mess of all. It was sticky and stretchy and clogged up his bristles.
Now, as he stared at the disgusting grey blob of gum on the perfect clean floor, all those angry memories came boiling up again. He had to get rid of it right now.
‘Gum!’ he roared. ‘Horrible gum! Clean it up, clean it up!’
While D4V3 bellowed and raved with his back turned, Axel looked up and quickly mouthed, ‘Now!’
BEAST nodded. He leapt down in SHADO form.
Axel thumbed the elevator button and prayed the doors would open quickly.
But something was wrong. D4V3 looked at the arm with the fist. He looked at the arm with the gun barrel. He looked down at his feet. ‘Arrrgh,’ he moaned. ‘I need my brushes. I can’t find where my brushes have gone!’
‘Oh no. That’s bad,’ Axel whispered.
D4V3’s eyes blazed crimson. Steam blasted out of his head like a foggy afro. He pointed his gun-barrel arm down at the blob of gum. ‘WHO NEEDS BRUSHES ANYWAY?’ he screamed. ‘I GOT SOMETHING BETTER RIGHT HERE! IT’S CLEAN-UP TIME, GUMMO!’
Axel and BEAST dived for cover.
Next second, in a blinding, deafening barrage of sound and light, the full force of D4V3’s plasma cannon opened up on one small piece of gum.
The weapon had been designed to blow holes through tanks and knock satellites out of orbit. It had not been intended to be used for indoor cleaning jobs. As a result, several disastrous things happened, one after the other.
The first disaster was that the plasma cannon removed not only the gum, but the floor that surrounded it in a five-metre radius.
That alone would have been bad enough. But the plasma beam didn’t stop there. It kept going, reducing a vending machine to atoms on the way, and punched right through the next floor. Then it burst through the floor after that, and the floor after that, until it had scorched a hole through forty-one floors. Imagine you have a cake with forty-one layers, and then someone who really hates cake fires a single bullet through the entire cake in one shot.
The second disaster was that D4V3, having shot away the floor directly beneath his own feet, immediately fell down the hole. Axel heard his robotic wail grow steadily fainter until it stopped with a sudden crash.
The third disaster was that the alarms went off. Because a robot blowing a hole through your building is not going to go unnoticed.
Axel stared down into the smouldering pit in front of them. Glowing, molten girders jutted out of its sides. Everything had gone very wrong very fast.
BEAST’s ears twitched. ‘AXEL, WE ARE IN GREAT DANGER. THERE ARE GUARDS COMING!’
‘From which direction?’
‘EVERYWHERE!’
Now Axel could hear it too – the sound of boots pounding and orders being shouted.
The elevator was almost here. But would it be a way out, or would it be full of guards? He couldn’t take the chance.
He hoisted himself back up into BEAST’s chest cavity. ‘We can’t fight that many. We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘BUT THERE IS NOWHERE TO RUN TO!’ wailed BEAST.
Axel looked around, then down at the gaping hole. ‘Oh, yes, there is. We go down. Get into PILLBUG form!’
BEAST shifted. Metal screens fanned out across his body, enclosing him in a ball of thick armour. Only his eyes could be seen looking out of a little gap.
Axel rolled him up into a ball. He couldn’t see anything at all now.
Time for a leap into the dark. He took a deep breath and rolled BEAST over the edge.
Meanwhile, Mr Grabbem was showing his guests around the Experiment Lab. This was his favourite part of the tour.
‘In this room we’re developing an acid so powerful it can eat through anything!’ he said.
Profe
ssor Payne frowned. ‘Really? Then what are you going to keep it in?’
Mr Grabbem’s grin faltered, then came back twice as strong. ‘Ha ha ha! Good one. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Now, in this next room, we’re working on a method to turn whales directly into oil. Every bit of ’em, bone, brain and all. Imagine that!’
‘Darn good idea,’ said General Regan. ‘Nothin’ more useless than a whale. Stupid great mounds of blubber taking up space in our oceans.’
At that point, the alarms went off.
Mr Grabbem turned a shocking shade of pink. He hissed in his wife’s ear, ‘NOW what’s the matter?’
She checked her tablet. ‘Robot malfunction by the main elevator,’ she whispered back. ‘Fire on multiple floors … serious damage ... a whole row of machines destroyed …’
Mr Grabbem growled, ‘On my big day? What a coincidence. Someone’s trying to ruin the tour.’
‘What do we do?’
‘Send a message to Robotics. I want the Crusherbots armed and ready.’
‘Is there a fire?’ gasped Justin Smoothley.
‘DRILL!’ shrieked Mr Grabbem in a voice so loud it made Lysander the chihuahua wet himself.
Mr Grabbem leant, panting hard, against the wall. ‘Just a fire drill,’ he said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ His shirt was sweaty under the armpits.
Professor Payne gave him a cool, calculating look. ‘Are you being completely honest with us, Grabbem?’
Mr Grabbem made an offended face. ‘My dear Professor. Would I lie?’
Inside BEAST, Axel was flung every which way at once as they fell through floor after floor, plummeting down the length of the plasma-blasted shaft. Any second now, they’d come to a crashing halt. He could only hope BEAST’s armour was strong enough to survive the fall.
But when they finally hit the ground, it wasn’t with a crash.
It wasn’t even with a bang.
It was more of a plop.
Axel waited for his world to stop spinning. ‘BEAST, what happened? Are you okay?’
‘NO DAMAGE,’ BEAST said. ‘YET.’
‘What do you mean, “yet”?’ Axel fanned his face. It was hot in here all of a sudden.
‘PILLBUG FORM IS NOT FIREPROOF. WE HAVE LANDED IN MOLTEN METAL.’
‘What?’
But as soon as he’d said it, Axel figured it out. D4V3’s plasma beam must have blazed right into whatever Grabbem machinery was on this level and melted it. PILLBUG had splashed down into white-hot liquid metal!
‘THE METAL IS ALREADY COOLING DOWN,’ said BEAST. ‘THAT IS THE GOOD PART. THE BAD PART IS THAT IF IT COOLS DOWN ANY FURTHER WE WILL BE TRAPPED.’
Axel had a vision of BEAST encased forever in a lump of steel, with him as a little skeleton body inside, and almost freaked out on the spot.
‘Can you still shift?’
‘I THINK SO.’
‘Go into HECKFIRE form, quick!’
BEAST shifted. The armour plates of PILLBUG slid away, and for a horrible moment all of BEAST’s heat sensors turned screaming red. Axel shielded his eyes from the blinding glare of the liquid metal. He could smell burning.
Next moment, BEAST’s arms became clawed limbs and his head became reptilian. His dragon-form, HECKFIRE, took over. The heat sensors stabilised; HECKFIRE was immune to heat.
Axel flung out HECKFIRE’s claw, caught hold of the edge and hauled them up from the scalding pit.
HECKFIRE clambered out of the silvery, smoking liquid as if it had been a hot bath. Puddles of metal as bright as mercury lay in his wake.
Axel took a look around, trying to get his bearings.
They had fallen a long way underground. D4V3’s plasma cannon had blasted through into the Factory Levels. They were in a great, gloomy hall where robotic arms assembled Grabbem machines on conveyor belts, lighting up the darkness with blue crackling sparks. The floor was solid steel, except for the part that the plasma beam had turned into a molten jacuzzi.
Axel turned HECKFIRE’s armour up to full blast, to melt away any scraps of steel that were still clinging to them.
‘Are you okay?’
‘ONLY MINOR DAMAGE.’
‘Well, we made it into the base, nobody knows we’re here, and we’re still alive,’ Axel said. ‘So far, so good, I guess. Remind me what we’re meant to do next?’
‘FIND A COMPUTER TERMINAL.’
‘Great. That could take hours! What do they look like?’
‘LIKE THAT,’ said BEAST, and pointed at the little grey computer terminal that was running the factory machines.
‘Oh,’ said Axel.
Our luck’s changed, he thought. But he didn’t say it out loud, in case that jinxed it.
BEAST plugged his finger into the side of the terminal. The screen filled up with random gobbledygook. Columns and columns of letters and numbers shot past with blinding speed.
‘ACCESSING FILES,’ said BEAST. ‘SEARCHING ...’
‘We’re looking for Cedric Bunk,’ said Axel. ‘That’s Agent Omega’s real name. He didn’t want to tell us but Mum point-blank refused to write Agent Omega on his birthday card.’
‘SEARCHING ...’ said BEAST.
Axel decided to keep quiet. There was nothing he could do to help. It was all on BEAST now.
‘LOCATED!’
‘You’ve found him? Where?’
‘OPERATIVE BUNK IS IN THE HOSPITAL WING, ISOLATION WARD.’
Axel gasped. ‘The hospital, not the prison? That means he’s hurt. We’ve got to get to him right away.’
Anger swept through him, washing away all traces of fear. What could have happened? Had Agent Omega tried to fight Grabbem when they found out he was a double agent? Could they have poisoned him, even? It didn’t matter. He was going to get his friend out of there, even if he had to carry his unconscious body out in his arms.
‘Unplug yourself, BEAST. We’re leaving.’
BEAST hesitated. ‘I AM SURE THERE WAS SOMETHING ELSE I WAS MEANT TO DO.’
‘Forget it. There isn’t time. We’re going to the hospital, now!’
Up on the wall, a security camera turned to watch them.
The good news was that the hospital wing wasn’t far away. They could be there in five minutes. The bad news was that the route they needed to take was a really busy one. It led past the cafeteria and the toilets, so loads of Grabbem staff would be constantly coming and going.
‘We’re so close!’ Axel said. ‘How are we going to do this? It’s not like we can just walk through the base and pretend to be Grabbem employees.’
BEAST pointed to a set of overalls hanging by one of the machines. ‘YOU COULD WEAR THOSE.’
‘Yeah, but what about you? They don’t make overalls in your size,’ Axel said drily.
‘MAYBE BEAST SHOULD JUST WAIT HERE, THEN,’ said BEAST.
He sounded gloomy. Axel knew that was a warning sign.
Sometimes, despite all the amazing things he could do, BEAST started to doubt himself and feel like he was a burden. At times like those, Axel had to make sure BEAST knew how important he was. If BEAST got into a slump now, he might want to turn into a fridge and do nothing at all, and then they’d be stuck ...
A fridge. Of course.
Just like that, Axel had the answer. He took a USB drive out of his pocket.
Hundreds of people milled about outside the cafeteria, talking, drinking and complaining about work.
Not one of them gave Axel a second look as he walked past, pushing a trolley along. He was wearing the worker’s overalls they’d found with a cap pulled down low to hide his face.
On the trolley lay a very hi-tech-looking fridge with smart black and green panels. There were two spots that looked a little like closed eyes on the front.
When they reached the security checkpoint halfway down the hall, the guard on duty looked at them wearily. ‘Where you takin’ that?’
‘New fridge for the staffroom,’ Axel mumbled.
‘Glory be. They’re finally s
ending us something useful. Go on, in you go.’
A green light went on and the door slid open. Heart thumping, Axel wheeled the fridge through. It hummed softly to itself as it passed by.
Never gonna give you up, thought the guard. Never gonna let you down … wait, why am I thinking of that flippin’ song?
But the fridge had already gone.
Axel strode on with his head down. He was no longer sure whether he was excited, terrified, or a bit of both. He was right in the heart of the enemy’s operations, and they didn’t even know. After all they’d been through, he was going to rescue his friend right under Mr Grabbem’s nose!
‘Watch where you’re going!’ snapped a horribly familiar voice.
Axel saw he’d nearly run the trolley wheel over two shiny black shoes. He glanced up – and nearly fainted from pure fright. He really WAS under Mr Grabbem’s nose. The real Mr Grabbem was right here, right next to him!
‘Sorry, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘My fault, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.’
To his amazement, Mr Grabbem patted his shoulder with a sweaty hand.
‘No worries. Keep working, lad.’ He turned to his companions. ‘See, here’s a worker who knows his place. Humble, y’see? They don’t get above themselves here at Grabbem Industries!’
Axel sneaked a look at the group of people Mr Grabbem was talking to. What a ghastly crowd. They all had the same mean look in their eyes, and the same arrogant attitude as Grabbem.
‘Weaselly little whelp,’ snarled a woman in a military jacket.
A handsome blond man stroked his chihuahua and sneered. ‘I think you’re being too generous, Grabbem, employing his sort.’
‘If that had been one of my workers, I’d have planted an obedience chip in his brain,’ said a tall, bald, very pale man.
Mr Grabbem chuckled and wagged a finger. ‘That might be how you do things at the Neuron Institute, Professor, but round here we’re not in the Frankenstein business!’
They all laughed, except for the Professor, who just stared blankly.
Omega Operation Page 3
