by Andy Briggs
Vanta raced between them like a missile. AirBlitz has lost so much speed that Sixtus suddenly nudged into third place as they turned into the final straight.
The entire stadium was on their feet in the last few seconds as Marcus Nation’s voice became an almost incoherent scream:
“And the underdogs win! Logan46 … and Sixtus snatching third place! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Who would have thought that from the underdogs?”
Trix bounced on the spot, shrieking with delight. “We did it! We did it!” She guided Vanta down to the team’s feet in a quick landing and tore off the goggles. Laughing with glee, she hugged Carson and the two of them jumped up and down.
Carson smiled, but inside he felt a little jealous that he hadn’t been the one crossing the finishing line.
“Where’s Eddie?” Trix asked, looking around as the paddock became a hive of activity.
Carson scooped up Vanta, holding her carefully. Despite the action, her engines were cool and her chassis showed no signs of damage.
“How are you?” he asked in a low voice.
“Amazing! They love me!” she replied brightly, her camera darting this way and that to take in the jubilant crowd.
There was a flurry of movement on the far side and, to everybody’s surprise, the AirBlitz team were being forcibly escorted out by a dozen stern-looking black suits. They overheard fragments of accusations about cheating and match fixing. Eddie appeared at their side, his face pale and eyes darting around fearfully.
“Did you see that?” screamed Trix. “We won!”
Eddie gave a weak smile but was in no mood to celebrate. “Yeah. Great. Well done…” then he saw the goggles were around Trix’s neck. “You were flying?”
“Only the last lap, but … we won!”
Carson finally registered the apprehension on his friend’s face. “What happened?”
“Let’s just say we need to get out of here as fast as possible.” Before he could say any more, Marcus Nation and a gaggle of assistants hurried towards them. He pointed at them and winked.
“You guys! I knew you’d do it!”
“Really?” said Carson, raising a sceptical eyebrow. “Only ‘underdogs’ didn’t sound so supportive.”
Nation flashed a charming smile and raised an eyebrow. “It made you fly for your lives, didn’t it?” He nodded over to see the last of the suits disappear through the door. “And lucky those dudes from the racing commission spotted those cheats.” “
“How did they cheat?” Trix asked nervously, her eyes flicking between Nation and Vanta.
Marcus Nation waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, radio jammers or something. That’s not really important. What’s important is you guys!” He pointed both index fingers at them like imaginary pistols. “Bam! Bam! You were on fire!” He whirled the trio around to pose for the mass of cameras. “That was awesome!”
“You said they were from the racing commission?” said Eddie dubiously.
Nation kept his smile fixed in place as he nodded. “Yup. To be taken seriously as a league we had to have the CIAM involved.”
Trix and Carson swapped blank looks.
“The Comité International d’Aéromodelisme,” said Eddie while forcing a smile. He noticed his friends looking at him in surprise. “What? I’m supposed to know these things, aren’t I? I am the manager,” he added loudly for the cameras. He turned to Nation. “And just to double check – we have won the prize money?”
Marcus Nation laughed. “Oh, sure. That will be wired to your account. But what’s better than that is you’re the official, the first, UK Constructor League champions! Well done! That means you’re representing the UK in Seoul!”
Carson frowned. “Seoul?”
“The capital of South Korea! That’s where we’re holding the world championship, dummy!”
The shriek of joy from Trix deafened Carson.
The next two hours were a blur of congratulations. Some of the racers shook their hands, others just scowled. The league assistants guided them to a podium, where the Carsonators were announced as the winners. The Logan46 team took second, but that didn’t seem to please them at all. From the way they were staring at Carson, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they shot laser beams at him from their eyes.
However, he was pleasantly surprised to see India standing on the third-place podium. She was beaming with pride and waving to the crowd. Then followed several minutes in front of the TV cameras, during which Carson was thankful Eddie did most of the talking. He was enjoying his moment in the limelight and mentioned as often as he could how he kept the team on their toes and in tiptop condition. He was asked repeatedly to show their winning drone, which he kept refusing. It was only after Marcus Nation gave them a stern nod – and a reluctant shrug from Carson – that Eddie pulled Vanta from his pack to show her off.
To his surprise, her upswept arms holding the propellers now sagged low and angled backwards and her fuselage looked fatter, giving her a strikingly different appearance. Carson restrained his gasp and noticed his friends’ puzzled expressions. Held in his hands, he could feel surges of power flowing through the little drone, causing her chassis to quiver with delight. Luckily, Vanta didn’t start talking in front of the cameras.
The circus was finally over, and they found themselves being led down a concrete tunnel with the other two teams, to the loading area where electric MPV people carriers were waiting to take them to the train station. Marcus Nation told them that all the details about the final would be emailed to them, and the flights taken care of, but they had to make sure they were ready for the following weekend.
The Logan46 team climbed into their waiting vehicle without a word. Running a hand through his short, spiky hair, Logan himself roughly shouldered past Carson and muttered under his breath. “You’re dead meat next time.”
Trix and Eddie climbed into the next people carrier, but Carson stopped when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was India, nervously wringing her hands.
“I wanted to say thank you for what you did on that eighth lap. You saved my bacon. I think I misjudged you.”
“No problem.” He felt suddenly buoyant. But the feeling quickly disappeared when India’s smile broadened.
“But I’m going to totally destroy you when I see you in Korea.” She skipped towards the last MPV, where her parents were waiting for her.
Bewildered, Carson climbed into his vehicle and they pulled away. Eddie nudged his friend in the arm.
“What did your girlfriend say?”
“That she was going to totally destroy me next time she sees me,” said Carson flatly.
Chapter 20
EVASION!
The drive to the station began in stops and starts as the silent electric minivan joined the choked London roads. The Carsonators were assigned the same driver who had picked them up from the hotel, and he hadn’t said a word, seeming content to listen to a dull political show on the radio. Carson, Eddie and Trix had sat right at the back.
Eddie messaged his sister they were on their way to the train station, then tried to settle back and relax. His heart was still hammering from the encounter with the agents, and he kept nervously glancing behind them and drumming his fingers on his knees.
The smile hadn’t left Trix’s face as she scrutinized their trophy. It was an old circuit board shaped into the outline of a drone. Carson stared into the middle distance.
“Thanks, Carson.” He was surprised when Trix tapped him with the trophy. “I know you really wanted to be the one crossing the line, but we had to switch.”
He nodded, trying to hide just how gutted he felt. “I know. You were brilliant. Besides, we’re a team. We all won. What does it matter who was flying?”
“We’re being followed,” Eddie said urgently. He unfastened his seat belt so he could twist around and peer out of the back window.
The other two looked at him in alarm – then burst into laughter.
“Maybe it’s a crazy fan?” Trix
said in a scary voice.
“He’s right,” came a muffled voice from the pack on Carson’s knees. He unfastened the zip and Vanta hopped half out, back to her normal shape. It was the first time she’d spoken since the race. “Two vehicles have been behind us since we left.”
Carson shrugged. “Why would anybody follow us?”
“Well…” Eddie hesitated and gave another glance out of the back window. A pair of vans were just two cars behind. They changed lanes in unison as he watched. “While you were racing, something very strange happened.”
Eddie quickly told them of his misadventure. Carson and Trix listened with increasing disbelief, then fear as they recalled how the AirBlitz team were dragged from the paddock.
“You’re telling me they weren’t officials?” said Carson as he picked out the pursuing vans.
Eddie shook his head. “They were posing as officials, but they kept calling themselves agents.” He looked accusingly at Vanta. “No prizes for guessing what they’re looking for.”
If it were possible, Vanta’s camera seemed to grow larger, giving them puppy eyes as she looked between them.
“OK, yes. They’re looking for me. I … I ran away.”
“From who?” asked Carson, although deep down he knew.
“From very bad people.” Vanta zipped out of the pack and hovered in front of them, but out of view of the driver. “There’s an eighty-seven per cent probability they’re the same people who broke into your house.”
Carson felt his blood run cold. “So they know I have you?”
“If they knew for sure, then they would have made a move much earlier.” Vanta fluttered nervously. “They must have been watching all the games across the country, just in case.”
“Is this why you changed shape earlier?” Eddie asked. “So they wouldn’t recognize you?”
“Yes. I didn’t think it was a great idea for the press to get detailed pictures.”
“But can’t they track you?” Trix asked with concern.
Vanta turned to look at her. “Only within close proximity, like inside the arena, can they detect my frequencies. When you connect me to the controller it helps mute those signals. And they don’t know which drone I am.” She swivelled to look at the three of them in turn. “Because I’m in disguise even now,” she added quietly.
Carson nodded slowly. “When they came to my house…”
“They broke in on all the competitors,” said Eddie, whose gaze hadn’t left the vans. “Remember the crime wave reports? And that Agent Bevan admitted it was them.”
Carson unclipped his seat belt and balanced on his knees, sitting backwards on his seat so he could watch the vans. “Why are they following us now?”
“Eddie’s trick using AirBlitz for cover was brilliant, but it wouldn’t have taken them long to realize their drone was nothing special,” said Vanta as she joined him peering through the window. “And this close…”
“They can detect you,” said Trix finishing the drone’s sentence.
Carson tightly gripped the back of the seat. “Surely they won’t try anything in the middle of London?”
Eddie shivered. “You didn’t see what they were like back there. I reckon they don’t want us setting foot on that train.”
“We have to shake them off,” said Vanta. “Leave that to me.”
Vanta gave a little shiver. Then Carson saw the driver’s satnav suddenly change route. Without giving it a second thought, the driver followed the map and pulled off the busy road.
Carson was impressed. “You hacked into the satnav. But weren’t we safer surrounded by traffic?”
As if on cue, the pursuing vans followed and accelerated forward, splitting either side of their minivan. Eddie’s eyes widened when he saw Agent Anders was at the wheel of one, Agent Bevan in the passenger seat. The other van contained a pair of almost identical goons who looked too big to fit inside. Their own driver glanced around in irritation as he suddenly noticed the danger.
“What the—?!”
His side window suddenly shattered as one of the thugs fired a Taser at him. The two metal darts hit the driver in the arm, then deployed a powerful electrical shock.
The driver jerked in his seat, dribbling and gurgling incoherently. His hands waved in the air as he let go of the steering wheel. Ordinarily the people carrier would have careened from the road – instead it veered into one van and bounced off, hitting the other. Having disconnected their seat belts earlier, Carson and Eddie were thrown from one side to the other with the two sharp impacts. But being caught between the vans meant their vehicle remained heading straight forward…
Straight towards a sharp bend in the road, marked by barrier of jagged black-and-white arrows.
Carson lunged for the steering wheel, but the heavy driver was slouched against it.
“We need to turn!” shouted Trix.
“I can’t move him!”
“You can’t drive, either!” shouted Eddie in panic.
“I can!” Vanta darted to the front and perched on the dashboard. She gave a slight wiggle which Carson now recognized as her “hacker face” and suddenly the van’s dashboard lit up with the message: HANDS-FREE DRIVE ENGAGED. “Hold on!”
Controlling the people carrier remotely, Vanta slammed on the brakes. The screech and scent of burning rubber filled the van. Carson and Eddie were hurled forward, crashing into the seats in front. Trix was saved by her seat belt, but the breath was knocked from her. The menacing vans overshot them and hit their brakes too as the three vehicles took the sharp turn ahead.
Agent Anders wrestled the steering wheel as her van hit the barrier in a shower of sparks. Vanta was driving too fast as she made the turn. The wheels on one side lifted from the ground. The little drone managed to hover in place as the car rolled – tumbling Carson, Trix and Eddie over one another as they rolled against the sliding door.
“Seat belts!” Vanta screeched. “You should have your seat belts on all the time!”
The top of their vehicle clipped Agent Anders’s sparking van, pushing them back on to four wheels with a heavy jolt. Inside, the passengers rolled back to the floor in a chorus of screams. Trix and Eddie dropped themselves back into their seats and Carson found himself sitting in the front passenger seat as the unconscious man lolled against him.
“You are a terrible driver!” Eddie snapped at Vanta.
“I am more of a flyer… Hold on!” Vanta said as the electric engine gave a low whine and bolted ahead.
There were a couple of metallic clicks as the boys latched their seat belts. A quick check in the damaged rear-view mirror showed Carson that their pursuers were slowly catching up.
“We have to do something,” he wailed desperately.
The dual carriageway ahead was peppered with cars, which Vanta slalomed through, accelerating up to eighty miles per hour. Several times Trix closed her eyes, convinced they were going to crash.
“I’ll call the police!” Eddie’s nerves were jangling as he fished his phone from his pocket.
“You could,” said Vanta, “but they will hand me over.”
Carson hadn’t thought about that. He caught Trix’s wide eyes. She gave a slight shake of her head.
Even Eddie didn’t appear to like that idea. “Then we’re going to have to give them the slip,” he said firmly.
Vanta brightened. “OK. Then sit back and relax. Remember, I’m remotely piloting the van.” Carson felt worried with the idea that a drone was going to be controlling him. “I’ll be right back.”
“Wait – what?”
Vanta flew straight through the broken passenger window and arced towards the van, drawing up to their right-hand side as the traffic ahead thinned out. Locked in positions by their seat belts, they could only watch in horror as the side door of the approaching van slid open, revealing the grinning goon who had fired the Taser. He had a bigger one in his hand, so big that he hefted it on to his shoulder like a rocket launcher.
“He’s
going to blow us up!” screeched Eddie.
Trix’s fingers dug into her seat out of sheer fright. “I don’t think so. I think he’s going to taser the electric engine! We roll to a halt, then they’ve got us!”
The man took aim at the side of the boot, where the battery packs were stored. His finger flicked aside a safety guard across the trigger. There was nothing they could do to stop him.
At the same time Carson caught sight of what lay ahead – a set of traffic lights were on red and huge lorries were cutting across their path. If Vanta didn’t stop them now then it didn’t matter if the man fired or not.
In anticipation of a pending crash, Carson pushed himself back into his chair. His arms were shaking from the very effort. His attention was drawn back to the van as he caught movement behind it.
It was Vanta swooping down faster than he had ever seen her fly. A quick glance at the speedometer showed they had slowed to fifty miles per hour – but the world around them still whipped by in a blur.
They all watched the little drone disappear between the van’s rear wheels and feared she would be crushed to oblivion.
There was a series of sharp electrical flashes from under the vehicle, similar to what Carson had witnessed during the first race when Vanta mysteriously took out their buzz-saw rival. It provided enough illumination for Carson to see the drone barely skimming over the tarmac was now growing.
Vanta was growing.
From a drone he could hold in his hand, he watched in astonishment as ribbons of electricity coursed along Vanta’s fuselage as she expanded. He couldn’t see any expansion joints in Vanta’s fuselage; instead the drone’s skin and chassis seemed to stretch until she was the size of a car. It all happened in seconds. In doing so she lifted the minivan up off the road, her suddenly enormous engines revving at maximum power.
The vehicle’s rear wheels spun with a shrill shriek now they were no longer in contact with the road. The goon dropped his weapon and clung to the doorframe for his life.
With open mouths, the children watched as Vanta rose above them. Then, with a sharp wiggle, she pitched the van off her. It tumbled through the air – smashing down on its roof in a cloud of metal fragments. It rolled half a dozen more times before slamming into a barrier. Miraculously, the two men inside dragged themselves clear of the wreckage as it caught fire. Carson finally remembered to look ahead.
