by Lauren Child
The third object was hidden in an underground space that Ruby had to crawl into on her stomach. She shivered at the prospect, Ruby being no fan of the small dark space. However, this was where the flashlight came into its own and Ruby traced the light across the walls, methodical in her search, and although she was not at all at ease she didn’t allow herself to become panicked (after all, RULE 19: PANIC WILL FREEZE YOUR BRAIN).
However, she was aware of the time ticking by and was sure it had taken her longer than it should to lay her hands on the copper-coloured coin that was object three. She needed to speed things up and so rather than continue crawling through this long winding tunnel she decided to resurface and make her way at ground level, that way she could pick up the pace.
From looking at the map it seemed that the fourth object was on the other side of the urban set, so she headed for the water tower, which stood fifty feet in the air. It was a gamble but as it turned out it was a good gamble. Having climbed the fifty feet to reach the wide platform that held the tank, Ruby chose not to make the final ascent by way of the ladder propped against the tank itself but instead to free-climb up it, using the wooden bands around it for hand and footholds.
Ruby took off her shoes – they weren’t climbing shoes and she’d have better grip with her bare feet. She was a good climber, and she shimmied up in no time, never looking to left nor right. At the top she found what she was looking for – a small penknife fastened to the surface by a metal band. It took Ruby no time at all to figure out that the copper coin would act as screwdriver and she could use it to turn the screw and release the penknife. She stood there on the edge of the tank surveying the terrain. She could see object five – she didn’t need to check her map, it was suspended from a crane, a large silver cylinder gleaming in the light.
Ruby didn’t want to lose time by climbing down from where she was, but if she was going to reach the crane by jumping then she needed to be on the other side of the tank. The only way was to dive into the water and swim.
So she did.
Hauling herself out of the water, she barely paused before making the leap from water tower to crane. Her heart lurched as her fingers slipped – she threw up her other hand and gripped the metal and swung herself monkey-like along the crane’s arm.
She could see the cylinder hanging from the end on a sturdy rope. Fall from here and she might cause herself some damage – or certainly end up with more than a few bruises. But she wouldn’t fall. Reaching the crane’s end she pulled on the rope, then grabbing the cylinder she used the penknife to slice through its tether. The cylinder was a good deal heavier than she had predicted and also awkward to carry, her solution was to push it up her T-shirt which worked just fine.
From there she used what was left of the rope and swung herself back and forth until she felt able to let go, flinging herself towards the scaffolding platform at the far end of the urban jungle.
To reach the end zone meant jumping across a gap wider than she had ever jumped, the drop beneath looked to be approximately thirty feet – it didn’t look possible but everything was possible, wasn’t it? She took fifteen paces back and then ran as fast as she could before leaping into the air, propelling her body forward, touching her toes on the far side, falling forward and gripping what she could grip.
She had made it.
Just.
She leaned against the wall and dropped her head to her knees; she was out of breath but she had proved what she needed to prove – she could get a perfect score. A guy in a white short-sleeve shirt and brown tie came out from behind the building she had been resting against, and stretched out his hand.
‘Thank you Agent Redfort, you made great time and a pretty good score.’
Ruby looked at him, stunned. ‘What? Did I wobble or something?’
Chapter 13.
RUBY WAS REQUIRED TO WAIT ON THE HARD METAL BENCH until someone told her otherwise. ‘About ten minutes or so.’ They didn’t even give her a towel. Or return her shoes.
No doubt she would be debriefed by some brainiac uber-nerd who would yack on to her about her skills, ego, motivation, blah, blah. To be honest, Ruby was not looking forward to this. The way she saw it, it was all so much hot air. Could she do it or not was the point – clearly she could, so why talk it over?
After what seemed like a long ten minutes, someone came to fetch Ruby and she was led to a grey door down a monochrome spiralling passage. On the other side of the door was another agent, also wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and brown tie. He was sitting at a grey desk shuffling pieces of paper around.
‘Hello Ms Redfort,’ he said getting to his feet. ‘I’m Agent—’
‘Gill,’ finished Ruby.
He looked surprised.
‘I recognise your voice from the phone,’ said Ruby.
‘You have a good ear,’ said Agent Gill. ‘Do sit down.’
Ruby sat and waited for Gill to speak.
He did some more shuffling and clearing of his throat before he eventually came to the point.
‘You took a lot of risks out there,’ he said. ‘I have to be honest, a couple of those objects I didn’t expect you to reach, given how high they were.’
‘Are you saying I’m short sir?’ said Ruby, her face in no way making it clear that she was kidding around.
‘I’m saying that you obviously took my advice and worked on your fitness; you made some very big stretches considering, well, considering. . . no insult intended Ms Redfort.’
‘Forgiven,’ said Ruby.
Gill looked a little perturbed but took a sip of his water and continued.
‘The thing is, there’s a problem.’
‘What? I made it without falling, didn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ said Agent Gill.
‘I was fast, right?’
‘You were.’
‘I got all five objects, that’s what the puzzle was telling me, five things?’
‘Five things, yes,’ agreed Agent Gill.
‘So?’
‘You missed something.’
‘You lost me.’
‘You needed to collect the correct five things.’ Agent Gill picked up the final item, the silver cylinder – it shone as the light from the desk lamp hit it.
Ruby was puzzled until her eyes took in what was written down one side of the silver item. BOMB it said.
‘How could I have missed that?’ said Ruby, more to herself than the test invigilator.
‘Plenty of people do,’ said Gill.
‘You’re talking about change blindness? Focusing too much on the main task – missing the detail?’
‘Yes, that’s why some people fail,’ said Agent Gill. ‘But in your case, I think it was because you were being reckless; you lost focus altogether. You got carried away.’
Ruby frowned at him. ‘But I—’
‘You also missed this.’ He pushed a photo over the desk. It showed the water tower Ruby had climbed up and swum through. On its side were large letters spelling the word TOXIC, a skull and crossbones painted beneath.
How could she not have seen that?
‘If you’d noticed the warning,’ he said, ‘you could have used the ladder leaning against the tank, hauled it up, then slid it over the water to create a bridge. I must say, it’s what I expected you to do, given your reputation.’
‘Um. . .’ Ruby was all out of words.
But Agent Gill wasn’t. ‘In addition, had you simply walked around the building where you spotted the flashlight you would have discovered a door. The bunch of keys you picked up would have allowed you access to that door and you could have simply climbed a staircase to the roof instead of bringing the whole roof crashing to the floor and thus blocking your route to the trap door and object three.’
‘Oh,’ said Ruby.
Gill peered at her. ‘Oh indeed,’ he said. ‘From observation, I would have to conclude that you have a curious lack of regard for your own life. A certain fearless approach, causing you to
be impulsive rather than considered. You are reacting rather than making decisions – your actions are gambles – and it’s a dangerous way to be when you are in the field. I have to be frank, this is not how I expected you to fail.’
‘You expected me to fail?’ said Ruby.
‘Yes. But in quite a different way. We didn’t think you would make the final leap. I mean we guessed you would try, but you see it was set further than you could jump. Candidates are expected to assess the risk, figure on it being too great and find a better route. But you made it and this surprises us very much.’
‘What can I say,’ said Ruby, dryly, ‘I’m a real good jumper.’
‘Or you got very lucky,’ said Agent Gill. He coughed and reshuffled his papers. ‘Ordinarily you’d be put forward for Stage Three of the Field Agent Training Programme and you would be enrolled on free-climb training at Dry River Canyon. But you’re not going to be recommended for further field work or tuition at this stage.’
‘What?’ said Ruby.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Gill.
‘But I’ve already been sitting things out. I thought this test was about putting me back in?’
‘Not possible,’ said Gill. ‘Not given your current test scores. You’re a danger to yourself and a possible danger to others if you don’t respect your own life.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Ruby, ‘Because I’m not afraid, this makes me some kind of liability?’
‘You are a liability,’ said Gill. ‘Because your apparent lack of fear is clouding your judgement, we can’t risk you out there – besides, you’re someone’s kid.’
‘Isn’t everyone. Aren’t you?’
‘That’s different,’ said Agent Gill, ‘my folks aren’t home waiting for me with milk and cookies.’
‘What? And you think mine are?’ said Ruby, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m thirteen, not three.’
Disappointment wasn’t the word for how Ruby was feeling. Furious might be. Agent Gill had shuffled her along to be assessed by the Spectrum psychiatrists and she was now sitting in Dr Selgood’s calm, book-lined office. Mercifully, she had been handed a towel and was beginning to dry off. Her shoes still hadn’t been returned.
DR SELGOOD: ‘What you have, Redfort, is a condition – it’s a syndrome that survivors of near-fatal accidents sometimes experience. There’s no name for it and there are very few studies on those who experience it but I call it the Miracle Effect. I had a patient who likened it to having an ever-present guardian angel at his side. He feared nothing and no one.’
RUBY: ‘What happened to him?’
DR SELGOOD: ‘He died.’
RUBY: ‘The angel was on a break?’
DR SELGOOD: ‘No one beats death. What you are now dealing with is a sort of euphoria – you don’t believe you can die.’
RUBY: ‘I haven’t so far.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘Doesn’t mean you won’t.’
RUBY: ‘It seems unlikely.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘Which is why you take risks?’
RUBY: ‘The more risks I take the less dead I feel.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘Yet ironically the more likely you are to wind up that way.’
RUBY: ‘I’m not so sure.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘How so?’
RUBY: ‘I read this book once about this kid who believes in the probability of death, a sort of risk assessment of life. He believes if something unlikely has happened one day, like, say a plane lands on your house or a forest fire breaks out and you fall off a cliff, then that particular risk is dealt with because in all probability that ain’t gonna happen twice.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘Here you are talking about statistics and yet you know better than most that just because a plane lands on your house once doesn’t mean it can’t happen again.’
RUBY: ‘True, but it would seem unlucky.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘And you consider yourself to be lucky?’
RUBY: ‘I’d say not many people escape a giant egg timer.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘You’re referring here to the time you were almost buried alive in sand.’
RUBY: ‘I could just as well bring up the time that I was paralysed by jellyfish and nearly eaten alive by sharks.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘And it doesn’t occur to you that perhaps the situation you had put yourself in led to your near demise? And that the reason you escaped with your life is due in part to your training and some pretty advanced gadgetry and in part down to the luck of being rescued in the nick of time?’
RUBY: ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself doc, I am very unlikely to die. I got everything going for me.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘And yet, in your test, you swam through toxic water, then climbed a crane to grab a bomb.’
RUBY: ‘Oh come on. It was a test. Those things weren’t real.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘But what if they had been?’
RUBY: ‘They weren’t.’
DR SELGOOD: ‘The thirty-foot drop was real.’
RUBY: ‘You telling me there wasn’t a giant inflatable there to catch me?’
The psychiatrist sighed and closed the file.
DR SELGOOD: ‘Maybe you should come and see me again; how about I set up some appointments.’
RUBY: ‘If you enjoy chatting so much then who am I to deny you this pleasure.’
She smiled but her teeth were gritted.
When Ruby exited the psychiatrist’s room, she found her shoes sitting waiting for her, both now quite dry. She put them on, looked around and thought for a moment. Then instead of turning left and taking the elevator to Buzz level, she turned right and fast-walked her way to the zig-zagging emergency stairs and on down to orange level. She stopped at the gadget room door, looked at her watch and tapped in the exact time – this was the code to open the door, or at least should have been but the door did not open.
Those sneaks.
Click, click went her brain.
Froghorn, she muttered, I’ll bet it was you.
Froghorn was the go-to guy when anyone at Spectrum was looking to switch a code or speedily improve short-term security. But codes worked best when set by an unknown and unfortunately for Froghorn Ruby knew him pretty well. She guessed that part of the reason for resetting the gadget room code was to prevent her from accessing it. Froghorn would enjoy that, it would make him very happy to think the Redfort kid had been locked out. So she asked herself, What would Froghorn do?
And recalling the conversation she’d had earlier with him she suddenly knew. He wouldn’t have been able to resist.
45902314 : her test number, the digits that spoke of failure.
She punched them in and the lock clicked open.
People can be so predictable, thought Ruby.
She had no trouble finding what she wanted. She had gazed at them on so many occasions that she would be able to locate them had she been blindfolded. Twenty seconds later, item 202 was zipped safely inside her backpack. She didn’t feel one iota of guilt about it – she needed them, should have been issued them, and in any case, who else here was going to wear them. And after all, she couldn’t skitch everywhere on that skateboard, certainly not to Dry River Canyon, which was where she intended to go.
GETAWAY SHOES
Depress green button on base of left shoe to convert to roller shoes. Depress red button on base of right shoe to activate power jets. Maximum speed 91 miles per hour for a distance of 7 miles approximately. Warning! Can cause feet to overheat. Avoid use on rugged terrain.
They had once belonged to the boy Bradley Baker and were now gathering dust in a display case. That was all wrong, as far she saw it. Ruby closed the glass door hoping no one would notice the empty space. She didn’t think they would. RULE 18: PEOPLE OFTEN MISS THE DOWNRIGHT OBVIOUS.
She was about to leave when her eye caught sight of a “must-have item”, as her mother would put it. The item appeared to be nothing more than a tiny silver backpack, but when she read the description it struck her that this was one very cool and extremely useful piece
of gadgetry.
THE GLIDER WINGS
Simply slip backpack on over clothing. Make sure nothing covers backpack. To activate fabra-tech wings jump (minimum height twenty feet) and once falling hit red button located on the right-hand strap.
If wings fail –
The note about wings failing was missing, the paper torn, but she figured that the wings wouldn’t fail and if they did, well, she could figure that out while she was falling. There was a small orange card to the side of the little glider wings no doubt explaining that this item should not be removed without permission, blah, blah.
Ruby figured if she was in trouble for taking one item she might just as well be in trouble for taking two. And anyway, if Spectrum were so worried about her falling off things and so on, then why not be prepared? Surely by taking the glider wings she was actually being responsible – well that’s how she saw it anyway.
In for a penny in for a dollar, she thought, as she headed back to street level.
Chapter 14.
RUBY STOPPED BY AMSTER GREEN HOPING TO CATCH CLANCY – she felt like she needed to see a friendly face after her disappointing morning at Spectrum. But it was a long shot, and when she climbed the oak and reached into one of the many knots in its bark, she found only a small piece of paper, folded into the shape of a bug. She opened it up and read the message.
vlvfwk’u gthf cm xn vtyzmbqucgd lcwwjfex.*
‘Poor Clance,’ sighed Ruby, ‘that Olive kid is something else.’
She climbed back down and began her short trip home. The skateboard ran smoothly along the level road of Amster and her tired limbs took it easy.
As soon as Ruby got in she called Clancy.
‘I got your message, sounds like a drag – couldn’t your sister Minny help you out? She owes you for all those other times.’
‘You got that right,’ grumbled Clancy. ‘Anyway, so where were you today?’
‘I had to take my Girl Scout test.’ Ruby and Clancy had learned from experience to speak in a roundabout fashion on an unsecured line.
‘Are you back in?’
‘Nope.’
