‘I even put on some of Dad’s hair grease.’ But the look on Max’s face told him it didn’t do much good. ‘Mum used to say I’ve got hair with a lot of personality, what can I do? And besides, you can’t keep a good strand down.’
He giggled at his own joke. Max tried to ignore the joke and his hair and walked on.
‘Where should we wait?’ asked Linden.
‘Not sure. I guess we should just go somewhere in the middle,’ Max answered, starting to feel nervous about the whole thing and hoping she didn’t mess up.
They walked a little further as Linden started to guess how they might get to London.
‘Maybe they’re going to send some little green men in a super-advanced spaceship to take us away?’ he suggested.
Max’s nerves got worse. She pictured herself walking into Spyforce’s plush secret headquarters and at the earliest possible chance, falling down in front of everyone.
‘Or maybe they’re going to use a high-density matter scrambler to dismantle the atoms from our bodies, fling them through space at the speed of light and reassemble them in London.’
Linden was getting more excited at the possibility of what might happen. Max, on the other hand, wasn’t. Her head jammed with images of disaster, like the one where she was being introduced to the head of Spyforce and accidentally knocked hot coffee from the table all over him. Or the one where she attempted to clip on her fingerprint-sensitive identity pass and accidentally flicked it across the room, breaking the invisible laser beam that set off a high security alert. She could see the chaos as she tried to apologise among the running feet and barked orders of Spyforce’s top security agents.
Linden, oblivious of her panic, talked on.
‘Or maybe we’ll be sucked into space at a million miles an hour in a giant straw-like transporter tunnel and spat out at Spyforce headquarters.’
Max had had enough of Linden’s speculating.
‘Or maybe you should just keep quiet so they don’t hear how much you talk and decide not to meet us at all.’
Linden stopped abruptly like an enormous cement wall had suddenly dropped in front of him. He thought it was fun trying to work out what might happen.
Max walked on until she found a place that looked like all the others and decided to stop.
‘I think here is a good spot,’ she announced, and sat down and checked through her pack to see if she had everything.
Linden followed her wondering what it was about Max that made her so hard to understand. One minute she was fine, the next she wasn’t. He sat down beside her, deciding it was best not to think too much about it.
‘What’s that?’
Max flinched as a muffled ringing sound was heard from somewhere close by.
‘I brought the CTR just in case we need it,’ Linden explained as he rummaged through his pocket.
‘Great,’ said Max, not sounding at all like she thought it was great.
‘Hello?’ Linden asked, followed by a quick and surprised, ‘Ella!’ as if it could have been anybody else. ‘How are you?’
The CTR was a Communication Tracking and Recording device that Ella had given Linden on their last mission in London. Max knew it could come in handy, but refused to like anything about Ella so she wasn’t about to admit it. She sat slightly away from him as he blahed on and on with a lot of really’s and no way’s and that’s great’s.
After a few minutes, Max couldn’t stand it anymore. She snatched the device from Linden’s hand, spied a large rock nearby and threw the CTR so hard it fireworked into the sky in a million pieces. She watched as it all happened in slow motion. First the throw, then the flying curve through the air and finally the impact, sending sparks and CTR bits everywhere in an impressive, airlifted shower.
‘Thanks for calling. I’ll speak to you later.’
Max never snatched away the CTR and Linden finished his conversation oblivious of her imagined outburst.
‘That was Ella.’
Max didn’t respond but looked towards the darkening horizon.
‘She said Blue has this new range of kid’s foods that she and her mum are convinced can’t be good.’
Max tried not to listen but couldn’t help spark up at the mention of Blue’s name. ‘They reckon if Blue is behind it there has to be something bad about it. Trouble is, the stuff tastes so good that once you’ve had some you can’t get enough. You know, like those hamburger chains that sell you burgers that make you feel queasy afterwards but you keep going back and buying more.’
Max was dying to ask about Blue’s foods but refused to act interested.
‘Maybe that’s why Spyforce want to see us,’ Linden persisted.
‘Maybe.’ Max shrugged, thinking he was probably right.
‘Oh, and she said to say hi.’
Max looked down at her watch and really pretended not to hear this one.
‘It’s almost eight o’clock. I guess we just wait now.’
Linden sighed and put the CTR safely back in his pocket. He didn’t understand why Max didn’t like Ella, but knew she’d have to come round one day.
They sat in silence for ages. Nothing much happened apart from a few owl hootings and the odd rustling of grass nearby, which Max told herself was the innocent scrambling of lizards and not the sneaky slithering of deadly brown snakes.
There were certain things in the country Max still couldn’t get used to.
‘What was that?’ She jumped up in a panic as something fluttered quickly past her face.
‘Moth most likely,’ said Linden calmly, watching her hands swish frantically around her like a human fan on high speed.
‘They can get as big as small birds out here. Can’t hurt you, though. Any sign?’
Max stopped waving her hands, put them on her hips and looked around, trying to pretend she wasn’t spooked.
‘Not yet.’ She sat down and started to feel calmer. Linden had a way of doing that. When she felt nervous he would say things that made her feel okay again. Max relaxed for the first time in ages. ‘Little green men?’ she asked.
‘Okay, so it’s more likely we’ll be collected in the transporter tunnel,’ Linden said authoritatively.
They both smiled and sat there again, waiting for what would happen next.
‘We should say our pact,’ Linden suggested.
Max cringed. She was hoping to get through this part of their mission without having to go through any soppy stuff. ‘I think it’s better we stay quiet in case we miss anything.’
‘You know I’m not going until we do it. I think it’s important.’
Why did Linden do this? thought Max. Mostly he was pretty easygoing but there were times he had this look on his face that told her he was going to get what he wanted.
‘Okay.’ She sighed. ‘How does it go again?’
Linden held out his hands and closed his eyes.
‘Oh that’s right,’ Max wilted. ‘The holding hands bit. My favourite part.’
‘If Max should come to harm or get lost or be in danger in any way, I, Linden M. Franklin, will do everything I can to help her and bring her to safety.’
Max squinted through half-closed eyes for something that would interrupt this overly sentimental moment. Nothing happened so she tried to remember the pact.
‘If Linden should get into trouble …’
‘… come to harm,’ he corrected.
‘… come to harm,’ Max struggled to remember. ‘Or get lost or be in danger in any way, I, Max Remy, will um, will um, help him out …’
‘… do everything I can …’
‘… do everything I can to help him and bring him to safety.’
‘Now that wasn’t too hard, was it?’ Linden smiled and let go of Max’s hands.
Pleased now that it was over, Max looked at her watch again for what felt like the hundredth time.
‘It’s almost nine o’clock,’ she said frowning. ‘Maybe they’ve forgotten about us.’
‘I don’t think that’s pos
sible. You’re a pretty hard person to forget.’
‘Is that right?’ Max replied. She was about to let fly with something witty when they felt the ground beneath them start to vibrate.
‘Can you feel that?’ she asked.
‘Either I’ve developed a bad twitch or we’re about to find out what the email from Spyforce meant.’ Linden put his hands on the ground and looked around.
The vibrating became more intense, like a gigantic steamroller was coming towards them.
‘What do you think it is?’ Max strained her eyes to see through the dark.
‘Not sure, but it’s something big.’
‘What should we do?’
‘I don’t think we’ve got much choice but sit here and shake.’
Just as Linden finished saying this, a mighty thump shook the ground. They closed their eyes as a powerful gust of wind swept around them, encircling them in dust and almost lifting them into the air.
‘Aaahhh!’ Max and Linden held onto each.
After a few minutes, the vibrations decreased and the wind dropped down like someone had switched off a huge propeller.
And then, nothing.
Max and Linden looked around them. Their hair was plastered upwards and their teeth were gleaming white against their dirt-covered skin. Apart from that, everything seemed as it was before until they realised one horrible thing.
They had their arms around each other.
‘Errrrrrrr!’ they screamed and pulled away, quickly wiping their hands against their clothes to brush away the hug as much as the dirt that had caked itself to them.
‘What happened?’ Linden wiped his eyes so that he left two dirtless stripes like he was wearing a bank robber’s mask.
‘I can’t see anything.’ Then Max remembered. ‘Maybe it was that windstorm Larry predicted.’
‘He’s got a good nose for weather that pig.’ Linden smiled proudly.
Max was getting annoyed. ‘Where are they? They said they’d be here,’ she said huffily. ‘We’ve been waiting over an hour and —’
Before she could say any more, a mechanical hum began to whir in front of them from the inky night blackness. Max and Linden squinted hard to see what it was and couldn’t keep their mouths from falling open when they saw what happened next. A large metal hatch was being slowly lowered to the ground. Nothing else. Just a large metal hatch.
‘Maybe it’s the alien theory after all.’ Linden gasped, not sure he was ready to have his first extra-terrestrial encounter.
A silhouetted figure stepped carefully forward as if between two walls of light, leaving behind a solid glow that poured out of the hatch in a blinding flood.
Max and Linden sat wide-eyed and frozen like two rabbits caught in headlights as the mysterious figure loomed before them.
‘I guess it’s too late to make a run for it?’ joked Linden, hoping to ease the tension.
It didn’t. Before Max could answer, the figure removed a long, solid object from its pocket, stepped down the hatch and headed straight towards them. They nervously imagined what the object could be. A gun. A knife. A Spectral Atom Pulveriser (this was Linden’s thought, not Max’s).
Whatever it was, Max and Linden watched the figure getting closer and closer, knowing they could be facing the final, terrible moments of their lives.
‘Max?’
‘Yeah.’
‘If you survive and I don’t, could you make sure my goldfish Henry gets fed?’
‘You’ll survive,’ said Max, trying to work out what their next move should be.
‘And could you let my dad know he’s the best?’
‘Linden, nothing is going to happen to you,’ she shot back, his questions pestering her like a small yapping dog.
The figure got closer. The long object in his hand dangled like a slow pendulum with each step, like it was counting down the last minutes of their lives.
‘I’ve also got a subscription to Spy Monthly that will need to be cancelled. And I have —’
Max had had enough. ‘Linden. If you keep going, the only person you’ll have to be worried about is me.’
He took her point and was quiet.
The silhouette stopped a few metres before them. The light from the hatch formed an angelic halo all around him. Max and Linden huddled together, desperately thinking what to do. Then slowly, menacingly, the figure raised the long, slender object so that it was pointing straight at them.
‘What are we going to do?’ Max whispered as her brief life flashed before her eyes like a video clip on fast forward.
Then something happened to answer her. The figure moved the object even closer towards them and muttered one, short word.
‘Mint?’
Both of them frowned.
‘Did you say “mint”?’ asked Linden, double checking that he’d heard right.
‘Yep. They’re the chewy kind. My favourite,’ said the figure.
There seemed nothing much else to do but accept.
‘Thanks,’ said Linden, relieved to be alive as the figure dropped mints into their hands.
‘No matter how many times I do it I can never quite get used to the effect this whole travel thing has on me. Leaves me sort of light-headed. Takes me a good few minutes to get my mouth working again. I guess it has something to do with the speed. Not quite as fast as light yet but they’re working on that. Even though some scientists think it’s impossible, what with the infinite amount of energy needed to push an object through space at that speed. But I guess people thought we’d never walk on the moon until Armstrong put on a spacesuit one day and up and did it.’
The strange man who was getting stranger by the second, paused long enough to realise he hadn’t told them his name.
‘Oh! How rude of me. I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Steinberger. R.L. Steinberger. Administration Manager of Spyforce. And you are Max Remy and Linden Franklin. Pleased to meet you both.’
He held out his hand.
It was hard to believe the person who had sent Max such brief and formal emails could turn out to be this man with a mouth like a running tap.
Max and Linden held out their hands but before they could make contact, they heard a beeping sound.
‘Oh.’ Steinberger looked down at a pager, disappointed to have to end the conversation so quickly. ‘Looks like the jet’s ready for take-off.’
This was too much.
‘The jet? What jet?’ Max wondered if perhaps this Steinberger person had lost a few rungs on the ladder when it came to the brain department.
‘Oh, I haven’t mentioned that yet?’ He laughed. ‘Silly me. The superfast, deluxe TXR-5 Invisible Jet that’s behind us.’
He flung his arms out like he was a game show host introducing the grand prize.
‘An invisible jet?’ asked Linden, looking at nothing but a well-lit hatch.
‘Yep. Only one of its kind. Except for the TXJ-7, but we don’t like to mention that one because it tends to get Frond upset over the issue of fuel consumption. A little guzzler it was, but we soon fixed that so that now this one runs on a purely plant-based formula that creates no pollution whatsoever. In fact —’
Beep, beep, beep, beep!
Steinberger was again interrupted by the pager.
‘It’s Sleek. He tends to get upset if we don’t keep to schedule and after that unfortunate incident with the weather balloon on the way here, we’re already a bit behind. Shall we?’ He took a notepad out of his pocket and moved towards the hatch.
Max and Linden stood up and cautiously followed him, wondering if taking this strange man’s lead was a very wise thing to do, while a million questions crash-landed in their heads. Who was Frond? What was a ‘Sleek’? How is it possible to have an invisible jet? And why did this guy talk so much?
As they approached the hatch, Steinberger stood aside and invited them in.
‘Welcome to your superfast ride to London in the world’s most luxurious, high-tech mode of transport to ever —’<
br />
‘Steinberger! We’ve got a schedule to try and keep,’ said an agitated voice from nowhere.
‘Right you are, Sleek,’ he replied, and ushered them quickly in.
The entrance to the hatch was blocked by two glowing balloon-like walls. Max and Linden looked at each other and shrugged before pushing their way in. Once inside, they found themselves in a small, white, rubber room. They could hear ticking.
‘What’s going on?’ But just as Linden asked this, an alarm bell sounded and a blast of vacuum like air lifted them off their feet. It sucked at their hair and clothes, whisking them round in circles and bouncing them off the soft walls.
‘Aaahhh!’ they screamed.
May felt dizzy and hoped she wasn’t getting her brain sucked out.
They were bounced and twirled and jostled in a fierce vacuum frenzy. Then suddenly the suction stopped and they were spat out of the balloon chamber and left toppling about, trying to find their balance.
Max was starting to get annoyed at how they were being treated but before she let Steinberger have it, she took a good look around at where they’d landed.
They really were inside a jet! And it was enormous. There were fluffy, lined seats and carpets, digital screens that folded out from the armrests, giant beanbags, a glass cabinet filled with every drink imaginable, a spa and even a small pool.
Steinberger looked very apologetic.
‘I’m sorry about that. I should have warned you about our Automatic People Sanitiser. When a passenger steps into the jet, the sanitiser detects if there is any material on them that may interfere with the smooth running of the machine — dirt and dust, for example — and it turns itself on if it thinks a good clean is needed. Very efficient for getting rid of any pesky bugs or cleaning up after a particularly messy mission, and I can tell you there have been plenty of —’
‘This is your captain speaking,’ interrupted a stern message on the intercom. ‘Would all cabin crew and passengers get ready for take-off. Make sure your tray tables are stowed correctly and your seatbelts are firmly fastened. Take-off will be in approximately thirty seconds.’
Max and Linden were shown to their fluffy seats by a tall, unsmiling, uniformed man who asked if they were comfortable and without waiting for a reply, went to the back of the jet and strapped himself into a seat.
Spyforce Revealed Page 6
