by Greg James
“No, of course,” said Murph soothingly. “Er, Hilda, would you sign us in with this nice lady, please?”
Patsy McLean had not been called a nice lady in over seventeen years, and even that time it had been sarcastic. The ghost of a dead smile lingered about her pinched mouth for a fraction of a second as Hilda scribbled their names in the book.
“Purpose of visit, it says here.” She turned back to Murph. “How do you spell ‘thwart’?”
“Just put ‘stop,’” suggested Billy.
“Oh yes, right, thanks,” said Hilda gratefully.
She stuck out her tongue as she wrote in the Purpose of visit column:
Stop evil wasp guy, rescue
school, and save day.
“Thank you,” said Patsy, handing them laminated cards with VISITOR on them. She really was a terrible receptionist—but of course nobody had ever dared tell her so.
In a flash, the Super Zeroes were off through the revolving doors, which worked far better during a power outage because you could just push them.
“I think the elevator’s out of order,” shouted Patsy after them. “I heard it exploding or something a minute ago. I’d take the stairs if I were you. On the right.”
Murph, Billy, and Hilda sprinted up several flights of stairs and found a fire door right at the top. They opened it by pushing on a bar, and let Mary and Nellie in. There was a brief burst of triumphant dancing as the five Super Zeroes were reunited.
“Right—let’s find out what’s waiting for us,” said Murph, pointing to the door that led into the main building. A sign beside it read: Fourth Floor: Strictly No Access to Any Personnel without Top Level Security Clearance. But nobody ever got to be a Hero by taking notice of signs.
There was an electronic pad beside the door where usually you’d need to swipe a security pass—but with the power off, Murph simply gave the door a push and it swung open.
The Super Zeroes found themselves in a white room decorated with potted plants and unconscious teenagers. And just as they entered through one door, someone else came in through another, smaller door off to one side. He was a man with a sharp nose and carefully arranged hair, dressed in a brown coat and carrying a broom.
“Don’t attack me. I’m not part of this monster’s plans. Please! I’m just a humble cleaner,” he explained, brandishing his brush at them.
“What’s been going on here?” demanded Murph, pointing to the slumped forms of the guards.
“He took them over with mind-control helmets, that monster,” replied the man, shifting his way around the wall toward the door to the stairs. “Are you part of the rescue mission? Your main strike force must have come through already. What powers do they have?” he asked suddenly, leaning toward them curiously. “Where do their powers come from?”
“Never you mind,” interrupted Mary. “Do you know where that wasp guy is now? And where he’s holding our friends?”
“From that school?” asked the man dressed as a cleaner. “In his tower, of course. They’re all in his tower. Prisoners at the bottom. And you’ll find Nektar at the top.”
He had finally reached the door to the stairwell, and before anyone could think twice he’d gone through it, shouting, “Make sure you don’t let him get away!” over his shoulder as he pounded off down the stairs.
“He had unusually shiny shoes for a member of the domestic staff,” Hilda said thoughtfully.
“Leave him. Whoever he is, we don’t have time,” said Murph. “Get the helmets off these ones.” Together, they pried the mind-control helmets from the unconscious guards and, with difficulty, dragged the kids to lie together at one side of the room.
Then all five Super Zeroes crept cautiously into the corridor that led to the glass-walled boardroom and beyond—Nektar’s lair.
23
Battle of the Boardroom
Murph looked down the long hallway. Out of the windows to his right he could see the setting sun through the breaking clouds. But with the lights off, the passage was unpleasantly dark. The yellow emergency lighting was still functioning, but it was dim and cast thick black stripes of shadow that could be hiding anything in their depths.
A loud buzzing sound caught his attention. It was a wasp, bashing itself repeatedly against one of the windows. He moved closer to take a look. It was one of the spy drones, but with the power off to Knox’s control center, it had nothing to guide it. The drone turned to him, the tiny glass lens of its camera reflecting the faint yellow light, before blundering off down the hall, back the way it had come.
“The entrance to the tower’s this way; that’s what the cleaner said,” Murph said in a low voice to his friends, “but it’ll be guarded. Watch your step.”
As they crept down the hallway toward the boardroom, there was a sudden disturbance in the air, as if something had flown past them very fast and left a jet stream in its wake. They looked around but saw nothing.
“Come on,” Murph ordered, leading them through into the huge, glass-walled room. Ready for anything, the Super Zeroes spread out in a line and took in their surroundings.
On a large table to one side lay the two remaining at tack drones, their guns pointed downward and the lights around their bulging eyes switched off. Wires connected them to an electrical out let on the wall.
Over at the far end, hard to make out in the dim yellowish lighting, was an untidy pile of tables and chairs: they had been thrown together to form a rough barricade in front of a set of heavy-looking doors.
Murph pointed to the doors, mouthing, “He must be in there,” to his friends.
“There’s no point in whispering. I can hear you perfectly well.”
The five Super Zeroes jumped. The voice had come from behind the barrier of furniture.
“Yes, my master is in there,” the voice went on, “but I don’t think you’re going to be visiting him anytime soon.”
“It’s Drench,” Billy realized. “Super-hearing.”
“The official term is Hypersensitive Auditory Capability, and it’s ‘Mr. Drench’ to you. But you can call me ‘mighty Nektar’s most loyal servant.’”
Where the other human drones had sounded monotonous and zombielike, Mr. Drench was speaking with an excited fervor. Murph shuddered, remembering how disillusioned with his job at The School the teacher had sometimes seemed, how he’d revealed something of his past and his frustration at being thought of as simply a sidekick to Captain Alpha. What might a mind-control helmet do to the hidden bitterness fermenting away in there? he wondered.
Murph now caught a glimpse of Mr. Drench’s glasses flashing yellow light back at them from between two piled-up chairs.
“You have done well to come this far,” continued Mr. Drench-drone, more resentment bubbling to the surface. “It’s clear we underestimated you. Once you have been captured and subdued it will be interesting to interrogate you. You will provide valuable information to help my master crush any future attacks. I am only glad that you have not been able to notify the Heroes’ Alliance of the supreme Lord Nektar’s plans. By the time they find out it will be too late.”
“I imagine he’s planning to take over the world or something. They usually are,” Mary whispered to Murph.
“Ha!” snapped Mr. Drench. “Yes, we will take over the world. Once my master’s loyal servant Knox has created more helmets like mine, we will enroll the whole school in our glorious army.” He sounded positively manic by now. “All will join us in worshipping mighty Nektar, the most powerful. All will join his hive.”
“I think that’s bees,” started Hilda.
“Silence!” screamed Mr. Drench. “Seize them!”
Ever since he had been turned evil by the mind-control helmet, a tiny part of Mr. Drench’s brain had really been looking forward to saying, “Seize them!” It’s the most fun part about being a bad guy. Just because it felt so good, he said it again, drawing it out for effect:
“Seiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiize themmmmmmm!” The Super Zeroes looked
around frantically, wondering who he was talking to.
“Quick, back into the hallway,” decided Murph, but when they turned around, they found the doorway behind them was blocked. Dirk Scott stood there, his black-and-yellow eyes fixed on them.
Murph remembered the blast of air they’d felt out in the passageway. The Sheriff had used his Capability to flash past them and cut off their way back.
“You will not escape,” said Dirk in a droning voice. “We will control you.”
“Not today!” sang Nellie, diving toward him with her hand outstretched.
Dirk was too startled and too brainwashed to get out of the way. Nellie’s hand connected with his face, hitting him with a jolt of lightning-bolt electricity. He jerked and smashed back against the door, sparks flying from his yellow helmet as the lights along the sides of it went out. Dirk slumped to the floor.
“Well, that’s new,” marveled Murph. “When did you figure out you could do that?”
“About five seconds ago,” replied Nellie shyly. They grinned at each other, and everything seemed great for about seventeen twenty-fourths of two seconds.
“Seize them!” shrieked Mr. Drench, who was incredibly excited to get this line for a third time and really gave it everything he’d got.
With horror, the Super Zeroes saw the dark silhouette of Deborah Lamington move out from behind the barricade of tables and chairs. And Cowgirl was spinning a rope lasso. The yellow strip of lights along the side of her head flashed as she spun the rope faster and faster. The heavy form of Dirk was blocking the doors behind them—there was no way out.
“You will be captured and subjugated. There is no escape. You will join us as loyal servants of Nektar,” explained Cowgirl unhelpfully.
But before she could launch her lasso, there was a huge clang that sounded like the back of somebody’s head being hit with a frying pan. There was an excellent reason it sounded like that. Behind her was a lanky teenage boy holding a large frying pan. Deborah fell forward, stunned, and Hilda raced across and snatched the helmet from her head before she had a chance to come around.
“Where did you spring from?” asked Mary.
“Over there by the coffee machine,” squeaked the teenager. “Nektar told me to wait there, so I did. Anyway, my name’s Gary—and I think my internship placement here just ended.”
“Why do you have a large frying pan?” Billy wanted to know, but there was no time for Gary to answer.
“You will never defeat Nektar!” came a weaselly voice from the back of the room. Mr. Drench was standing in front of the barricade that guarded the double doors to Nektar’s tower. “You are not Alliance operatives. You are not Heroes. You have no potential,” he spat.
But then he took another look.
In front of him stood the boy who had started the school year with no Capability, no friends, and no confidence. But now Murph’s eyes were narrowed, his feet planted firmly apart in determination. To his right, Mary tightened the belt on her yellow raincoat in preparation for battle. Beside her, Hilda tossed her hair and snorted like a thoroughbred racehorse; she felt she needed a cool move for this dramatic moment and that was all she could think of. To Murph’s left stood Nellie, her eyes bright behind her straggly dark hair, her fists clenched. And beside her stood Billy, his head high with confidence and his gaze steady.
They were a team, and they were not going to give in.
Their leader nodded toward Mr. Drench. “Pop him, Billy,” said Kid Normal.
It was never going to become one of the classic catchphrases, but Balloon Boy knew what to do. He flicked out his hand, and Mr. Drench’s head suddenly expanded—his feathery hair standing on end and his eyes bulging like huge bloodshot marbles. His mind-control helmet flew into the air and shattered against the ceiling. He slumped to the floor, and his head rapidly deflated with a noise like a badly behaved toddler at a posh opera.
For a moment, the Super Zeroes stood in silence, contemplating how far they’d come. Then they contemplated how far they still had to go, which was less inspiring. Mary broke the silence.
“Tower?”
“Tower,” confirmed Kid Normal.
“I’m just gonna go if that’s okay?” said Gary softly, tiptoeing toward the exit.
24
Nektar’s Nemesis
When Arabella Ribbon bought the factory to set up her robotics business many years ago, she wondered why there was a large tower rising from one side of it. The real estate agent who sold it to her claimed that it was because it had previously been a factory that tested elevators, but real estate agents tend to lie a lot. Anyway, a tower there was—a tall, round tower on the southern end of the building, only accessible by the single set of double doors through which the Super Zeroes now crept.
A year ago it had housed nothing much except Arabella’s large, round office, which was right at the top, because she liked to look out at the view and work out how much of it she could buy. Underneath that was a series of storerooms, and, at the very bottom, below ground level, was a large, round empty area which, if the real estate agent was telling the truth, was where the elevators would plummet into if the testing didn’t go well.
But that was many months ago. Since then, the tower had become the private domain of Nektar, hideous genetic freakazoid that he was. And things had changed.
If you’ve never seen a wasp’s nest, here’s a quick summary. A load of wasps who get along well decide to set up home together. So they chew stuff up, then stick it together with their own spit to make an elaborate nest for themselves, usually in the attic of someone’s house.
Now take what we just told you about wasps and imagine a person doing the same thing. In other words, it really was truly one of the grossest things the Super Zeroes had ever seen in their entire lives. Now brace yourself and let’s have a look, shall we?
The cardboard, paper, wood, cables, and metal that had been stored in the rooms on the tower’s lower floors had been smashed, mashed, and, in some cases, chewed together. They’d then been plastered with—yes—Nektar’s own sticky mouth juices to line the walls and ceilings. So the rooms and hallways of Nektar’s tower didn’t look like normal rooms and hallways, with nice clean lines and corners where walls, floors, and ceilings met each other. Instead, they were rounded, like the insides of an intestine or a really expensive film set. It was like walking into another planet.
And it really, really stank. You know how bad it smells when relatives—grandmas are the worst offenders—do that thing where they lick their fingers and use them to clean your face? Well, take that smell of stale lick and multiply it by a thousand. Then add ten. That’s kind of what it smelled like inside the tower that had become Nektar’s lair.
Remember, he’d been in there sticking stuff together with his spit for the best part of a year. And we don’t know about you, but we certainly don’t remember him taking a toothbrush with him.
The rounded passageways of the nest were dark and creepy-looking. As Murph and the rest of the Super Zeroes stood in the first chamber, they could see two main routes open to them. One curved upward; the other down. Once they had been staircases, but now, coated with crispy mush, they looked more like tubes.
“Don’t for goodness’ sake say we have to split up,” said Hilda.
Murph had, in fact, been about to use those exact words. “Why not?” he asked.
“Nothing good ever happens when people split up. Have you never watched a movie, like, ever?” Hilda said, turning to him and putting her hands on her hips. “It’s like in a creepy TV show when someone goes into a dark house but doesn’t just turn all the lights on. The rules should be simple: Don’t split up. Turn the lights on. When you split up or stumble around in the dark, something awful always happens.”
Nellie nodded sagely; she was quite a fan of horror films, and this sounded like good advice.
“Well, there were some lights on in the rest of the factory,” reasoned Murph, “so we should be able to sort the lig
hts out at least. Must be an emergency system.” He turned back to the doors and scanned the walls on either side for light switches. He spotted them—almost hidden underneath layers of mashed-up and stuck-together goo.
Clenching his teeth, Murph pushed his hand through the covering, which was dry and papery thin, and flicked all the switches down.
There was a flicking, blinking noise as a few lights came on through the tower. But because they were hidden underneath layers of pulpy, stinking nest material, they only cast a pale, brownish light that made the way forward look even creepier, if anything.
“Okay,” said Murph, trying to sound more confident than he felt, “the lights are on.” He paused. “But we are going to have to split up, just for a bit. Hilda, Billy, you head down and see if you can locate where the rest of The School are being held. Mary, Nellie, you come with me. Let’s see if we can find out where wasp guy is hanging out.”
All five looked at one another for a long moment. This was it. Then they separated and headed off along the gloomy, sloping, stinking passageways.
Here and there, patches of the real staircases beneath were visible, and Murph tried to walk on them wherever he could. But sometimes it was impossible to avoid stepping on the crushed debris that covered almost every surface. It made a papery crunching sound every time he moved; it was impossible to creep along silently. Whatever was waiting for them at the top of the tower would have plenty of warning that they were coming.
Hilda and Billy crept down the other passageway—which was built around a spiral staircase that seemed to wind its way toward the base of the tower. As they neared the bottom they could hear whistling, and as they peered around the final curve they could make out a large figure pacing backward and forward.
It was Mr. Flash. Behind him they could see that a huge, thick metal wall had been constructed across the middle of the large room at the bottom of the tower, with a door fashioned from iron bars in the center. One of the bars was frosted with ice—clearly someone had tried to use their Capability to escape but with no success. Another of the bars seemed to be splattered with soup.
