by Felice Arena
‘Step on it, Agent – they’re gaining on us,’ cried Judd.
‘They’re shooting!’ Andy hollered.
‘Get down and hold on!’ screamed Miss Taylor. ‘I’m making a turn!’
‘ARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!’ hollered Andy and Judd, as Miss Taylor pulled a hard right and screeched down a dirt road.
The jeep bumped and jumped violently as it zoomed down the dusty track.
‘No way! They’ve made the turn too!’ cried Judd. ‘Floor it!’
More shots rang out from the Cadillac as it revved closer to their jeep.
‘Hang on, boys!’ cried Miss Taylor, slipping and swerving on the track that now led through a densely forested area. ‘They won’t be able to keep up with us on this terrain with that pile of junk!’
Andy turned and saw that they were pulling away from their chasers. ‘We’re losing them!’ he yelled.
‘Just a few hundred metres ahead in that clearing is Code Leonardo,’ yelled Miss Taylor. ‘Get ready to put your heads down and run, boys! It all looks good from here – not long now!’
Suddenly the loud whooping sound of blades echoed directly above them.
Code Leonardo is a helicopter! Andy realised, just as a pack of wild dogs came bursting out from the forest, frightened by the roaring aircraft.
The pack ran directly out in front of their jeep. Miss Taylor had no time to think. She swerved sharply to avoid hitting them, and rammed the jeep into a tree!
Andy was flung forward. He felt his seatbelt tighten against him as he slammed up against the back of Judd’s seat. Shattered windscreen glass hurtled past him – and the forest was suddenly inches from his face.
The front end of the jeep was completely smashed. Steam hissed and billowed from underneath the bonnet.
‘Is everyone okay?’ asked Miss Taylor, who had blood streaming out of a gash on her forehead.
‘Yeah, I am, but we won’t be soon,’ said Andy. He could hear the engine of the Cadillac drawing closer. ‘We’ve gotta get out of here!’
Andy and Miss Taylor hurriedly climbed out of the jeep, but Judd was still struggling to move.
‘Arrrgh! My knee!’ he moaned. ‘It’s wedged in under the dashboard!’
Andy picked up the front of the jeep. With his bare hands, he twisted and folded the crushed metal and plastic away from Judd’s knee as if it were soft as clay.
He pulled the windscreen off and lifted Judd right out of his seat.
‘Thanks, dude,’ said Judd. But as soon as he put pressure on his leg, he groaned in pain.
‘Your knee is swelling up,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘There’s no way you can run on that.’
‘Yeah, I can,’ Judd said definitely. ‘I’ll just have to grin and bear it… Arrrrrgggghhh!’
‘Yeah, right, tough guy,’ said Andy. ‘Jump on my back – quick! They’ll be here any second.’
‘Andy, run towards the helicopter. The General will be waiting for you,’ said Miss Taylor, pulling a gun from her jacket. ‘He’ll take you to safety.’
Andy gulped. ‘What about you? Do you want me to stay and help you fight them off with my laser?’
‘No,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘I have my orders – just get yourself and Agent Buddy out of here.’
Andy hesitated.
‘Agent!’ said Miss Taylor. ‘Tell him to move!’
‘We have to follow orders,’ said Judd. ‘She’s a professional. Let her do her job.’ But he sounded uncertain. ‘Um, you will be okay, won’t you?’ he said.
‘This is no time to be sweet!’ yelled Miss Taylor, over the chopping sounds of the helicopter’s blades. ‘Just GO! They’re here!’
Andy sprinted away down the road with Judd on his back. He winced as he heard more gunshots ringing out behind him. Within seconds, he had bolted out into a large clearing.
‘Judd! Andy!’ cried the General. He was waving from inside the helicopter. It was ready for take-off, its blades whirling loudly.
It felt as if they had just run head-on into a wind tunnel. The whooshing of the helicopter blades was so forceful that it made the boys’ hair and clothes flap wildly.
Andy sprinted for the helicopter, just as the Cadillac burst into the clearing and roared towards them.
‘What the…?’ yelled Judd. ‘No! Agent Magistra!’
Bullets shot past Andy and Judd, narrowly missing them. Andy picked up his pace. The helicopter was starting to lift, hovering centimetres and then metres off the ground, and rising fast.
‘What are they doing?’ screamed Andy.
‘They don’t want the helicopter’s engine to be hit by the bullets,’ Judd yelled into his ear. ‘You’ll have to jump and grab hold of the landing struts!’
‘The what?’
‘The legs! The helicopter’s legs!’
‘Hold on tight,’ yelled Andy, as he increased his speed and took one giant leap.
‘WOOOOOAHHHHHHHH!’ cried Judd, as they shot up to the helicopter.
Andy grabbed at the landing struts and held on for dear life as the helicopter surged into the sky.
‘Woo-hoo! This is way better than any window seat! Look at that view!’ yelled Judd.
‘How sick is this!’ Andy cried, as he looked down to see the Cadillac screech to a halt. The gunmen jumped out of the vehicle and continued to shoot at them. Their figures rapidly turned to tiny specks as the helicopter soared further away.
Andy’s heart was racing. ‘What an adrenaline rush!’
‘We’re out of danger!’ yelled the General from inside the helicopter, looking down at the boys. ‘We’ll pull you in soon. Just hang on!’
‘Is Miss Taylor okay?’ asked Andy, after they’d been pulled inside the helicopter and were flying high above the clouds. He was scared that the answer might be ‘no’. He could tell that Judd was scared too.
‘I’m sure she is,’ said the General. ‘She’s incredibly resourceful, and a sharp shooter. She’ll be able to outsmart them, but we’ve ordered backup to the area to help her out.’
‘But there were gunshots, and the dudes in the car got past her. They were firing at the helicopter – what if they… they…’ Andy didn’t know how to finish his question.
‘Andy, I promise I will let you know as soon as I hear something,’ said the General, sounding serious. ‘But for now my main concern is you and your parents. We have to rethink our strategy.’
Andy didn’t like the sound of that. A change of strategy meant only one thing – they would have to move again, just when he was starting to make good friends and feel like he belonged.
‘So where are we being shipped to now?’ he asked.
‘Nowhere – not you, that is,’ said the General.
He pressed a button and a small screen popped out from his seat’s armrest. He tapped it and several seconds later Andy’s parents appeared, in two seEB03BodyTextIndentedte windows.
‘Andy! Thank goodness you’re safe!’ cried his dad.
‘I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,’ said his mum.
‘Hi, Dad. Hi, Mum,’ said Andy. ‘Where are you guys? Are you in two different places?’
His mum and dad nodded.
‘They’re in safe houses in different parts of the state,’ said the General. ‘They’re under constant guard, but for safety’s sake, I can’t tell you where they are. It’s time to play offensively with Baffi. We need to send him and his men on a wild goose chase. Right about now his team will be getting information that you and your folks are on the run again – and we’ve already set up some dummy sightings in cities across the country. After that, we believe – well, we hope – that the last place they’ll look for you is in the city you’ve been living in.’
‘But does this mean we won’t be together anymore? Ever?’ Andy asked his parents, his face dropping.
‘Of course not, darling,’ his mum said. ‘Just until the General and his team have captured Sylvester.’
‘And we’ll still find ways to be in contact with you,’ s
aid his dad. ‘Even though you won’t be able to call us on your palm screen for a while.’
Andy could tell his parents weren’t happy about being seEB03BodyTextIndentedted from him or each other. His father was fiddling nervously with his glasses and his mother was speaking in that lawyer-like tone she used when she was trying to cover something up. Andy tried to put on a brave face so as not to worry them any more.
‘So…so…where will I be living?’ he asked.
‘With Judd,’ said the General.
Andy turned to Judd.
Judd grinned. ‘Hey, roomie!’
‘You’ll continue to go to Renfrew High,’ added the General. ‘To the best of our knowledge, Baffi and his men still don’t know what you look like and only Zloy knows you were in the Howl Ranges. Principal Thompson will be keeping an eye on you. She’s not an agent, but we’re in close contact with her. Judd, however, will have to lie low. He’ll stay at home with Agent Granny. They’re both good agents and they’ll be your backup, if needed.’
‘Agent Granny is my guardian decoy,’ added Judd. ‘A teenager living at home alone would raise suspicions with the neighbours. But, dude, let me tell ya, Agent Granny is a total –’
‘Don’t start with that, Judd!’ snapped the General. ‘More than ever, I need for you and Agent Granny to get along and work as a team. Got it?’
Judd nodded.
Andy thought it was kind of funny to see Judd being reprimanded by his grandfather. Underneath his cool, he was still just a kid.
‘Now, any more questions?’ asked the General.
‘Yeah, I’ve got one,’ Andy said. ‘How did Zloy connect me and Judd? How did he know I was there in the forest?’
‘Don’t think I haven’t been wondering about this,’ said the General. ‘My greatest fear is that we could have a leak in our security…but there’s no hard evidence of that yet.’
Judd looked a bit embarrassed, and the General shot him a look. ‘What do you know, Agent? Spit it out.’
‘There was footage of Andy’s laser on the bank surveillance video,’ said Judd. ‘I didn’t tell you because –’
The General looked really disappointed. ‘I don’t want to hear excuses, Agent. We’ll discuss this later.’
‘We worked on laser augmentation with Sylvester,’ said Andy’s dad.
‘He would have connected the laser beam to us in a second,’ said Andy’s mum. ‘No wonder he sent Zloy to sniff around.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll have the Turbo Dashboard with me, Andy. But we won’t be able to initialise any other applications for a while so see if you can stay out of trouble this time, okay? No racing off on midnight rescues. I’ve already packed your suitcase. Brad has been fed and he’s waiting for you in his cage. Now be good and we’ll call you soon as soon as we can.’
‘We love you,’ said Andy’s dad.
Andy caught Judd turning the other way and looking out of the window. It didn’t take much to guess he was thinking of his own parents. Andy was starting to understand how much he must miss having them around.
‘I love you, too,’ Andy mumbled.
As the images of his parents flashed off, Andy sank back into his seat, and sighed. He was too tired to think about the future, and it was the first time he had been able to relax in a long time.
He closed his eyes, and with the helicopter’s blades whirling rhythmically above his head, he fell into a deep sleep.
‘So this is home,’ said Judd, opening the front door of the house and limping into the foyer. His knee was just bruised and swollen, nothing broken. ‘It’s not much,’ he said. ‘Just your average suburban house. I was hoping for a cool warehouse loft in the city this time, but the General thought it wouldn’t fit the cover profile.’
Andy followed Judd, holding a suitcase in one hand and Brad in a cage in the other.
‘So dump your stuff. I’ll show you around,’ Judd said.
The lounge room was decorated with frilly cream curtains, soft, lavender velvet couches with embroidered pillows, and little ceramic forest animals that were scattered along the windowsills.
‘Um, nice place,’ Andy said, trying to be polite.
‘Seriously?’ said Judd.
‘Yeah, well, I’m not a fan of the pillows but it does have a –’
‘Dude! Stop!’ Judd snorted with laughter. ‘You’re worrying me. This is just a façade, so the neighbours don’t get suspicious.’
‘Oh!’ Andy sighed, relieved. ‘Because for a moment there I thought you’d had Old Mother Hubbard pimp this place out.’
Judd roared with laugher.
‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘Cracking the quality jokes now. Nice one!’
‘I try.’ Andy smiled for the first time in days as he followed Judd upstairs.
‘So your room is over there,’ said Judd, ‘but check this out first.’ He pushed open a door to their left.
‘No way! You have a trampoline in the middle of your bedroom?’ Andy said.
‘Yeah…thanks to these freakishly high ceilings.’
‘And, get out! Is that a pinball machine?’ asked Andy.
‘Yep.’ Judd nodded. ‘A collector’s item. Retro cred! Cool, huh?’
‘Awesome. So no modern games for you?’ asked Andy. ‘There’s no tv in your room, not even a computer. You’re sort of old-school then?’
‘Nah, I love my online games, too – I’ve got everything set up in the media room downstairs.’
Judd led Andy back down the stairs through the frilly lounge room, into the kitchen and then down another set of stairs to the basement.
Andy’s jaw dropped. The room was huge, and it was decked out with four giant flat-screen TVs on the walls, two swivel leather armchairs – and every type of online and computer-game console you could think of.
‘Sweet!’ he said.
‘Yeah, I know.’ Judd grinned proudly. ‘We can play later. It’ll be great to have company! You wanna drink?’
Judd flipped open the armrest of one of the leather chairs and pulled out a couple of cold soda cans.
Andy grinned some more.
‘Last night was kind of insane, right?’ Judd said as he dropped into a chair.
Andy nodded.
‘So listen up… While you stay here, you make the rules. We can do and eat whatever we want. This is our place. Remember, there are no parents or teachers to tell us what to do. What d’ya reckon? Like the idea?’
Andy wasn’t sure what to think. He was twelve, and he’d never experienced this sort of freedom before. ‘What about this Agent Granny person you live with? Isn’t she old? Didn’t you say she’s your guardian?’
‘Decoy guardian. Big difference,’ said Judd. ‘The General’s my principal agent, my handler. She’s just like the living room – a front, a cover. And, yeah, she’s old. Full-on ancient – she’s sixty! We try to keep out of each other’s way. She stays in her granny lounge room and I hang out either down here or in my bedroom.’
‘And she doesn’t care that you might stay up all night?’ Andy asked.
‘Dude – she’s not my parent. She’s a fellow agent. She’s got better things to do than keep an eye on me. Anyway, she’s not your typical granny. You’ll know what I mean when you meet her.’
Just then, Andy heard the roar of a motorbike pull up outside the front of the house.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ he asked. ‘Hang on, that sounds like a Harley.’ Andy ran upstairs into the lounge room, and pulled back the frilly curtains to see a Harley Davidson motorcycle stopped outside the house.
‘I was right,’ cried Andy. ‘Awesome! But who is that guy?’
For a moment, Andy thought that Baffi’s men had found them. The figure on the motorbike, dressed in jet-black leather, chunky boots, and a tinted-screen helmet, certainly looked menacing enough.
He hopped off his bike and marched right up to the front door. Andy heard a key turn in the lock and almost panicked. But Judd seemed calm.
The biker lifted off his helm
et as he walked into the lounge room. Andy’s eyes popped. ‘He’ wasn’t a he – she had short spikey grey hair, a chubby face, and an intense stare.
‘Andy, meet Agent Granny,’ said Judd.
Agent Granny shook Andy’s hand firmly. ‘So you’re the robot boy I’ve been hearing about?’ she said in a deep voice. ‘Welcome!’
Andy didn’t mention that he wasn’t a robot. Granny looked like someone he didn’t want to argue with.
‘Nice to meet you, Agent Granny,’ stammered Andy. ‘Um, cool bike.’
‘Yeah, she’s all right,’ said Granny. ‘But my real pride and joy is in the garage. And, as I’ve told Agent Buddy here, if anyone lays a finger on her, even a robotic one, I will snap it off! Got it?’
Whoa, she’s almost as scary as Zloy, thought Andy, nodding.
‘So, keep out of my way, and I’ll keep out of yours. If you need anything, ask Judd here first. You can call me Bev. Oh, and one more thing… I got word from the General that Agent Magistra is okay. She took out Baffi’s men and is back undercover at camp. Now that’s a girl after my own heart.’
As Agent Granny went in to the kitchen, Andy let out a huge sigh of relief. ‘Isn’t that great about Miss Taylor,’ he said, turning back to Judd.
‘I knew she’d be fine,’ Judd said, but Andy could tell he was just as relieved. ‘So are you ready to have a bit of well-deserved fun? Time to let loose and start living large!’
The way that Judd grinned and slipped on his trademark sunglasses made Andy slightly nervous.
After the dramatic events of the past twenty-four hours, Andy felt like he had proven himself, and he and Judd had definitely been the heroes of the night. But while he had often wished his parents wouldn’t treat him like a kid, Andy was torn. He had never expected to grow up this quickly. He turned thirteen in less than a week, and his parents wouldn’t even be able to contact him. With this newfound freedom, could he still be the normal kid he yearned to be? Only time would tell.
When I was a kid I was invincible – or so I imagined. My brother and I would combine all the powers of our favourite comic and TV superheroes and have the most epic battles in our backyard. We would zap at each other with our awesome laser fingers, run faster than a cheetah riding a Ducati (now that’s fast!), and jump over buildings (more like the swing set) in a single bound.
