Stamp Safari

by Cameron Macintosh

  While I’m under there, I tell Brandon all about our new life in the storeroom, and all of our close brushes with the Recapture Squad. And then, I tell him about Oscar. From under the bed, I can see his eyes go red.

  “That’s terrible,” he says. “Do you know what they do with dogs like Oscar?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure it involves memory wipes, and a lot of reprogramming.”

  “You’re right,” say Brandon. “They take them to the Behavior Readjustment Laboratory. They wipe their memories and train them to be well-behaved Skyburb dogs, clearing the streets of robo-rats and megabit-mice. Let’s just hope they haven’t started work on him yet.”

  Gosh, I think. They won’t need to do much reprogramming to make Oscar do that!

  “Where’s this laboratory?” I ask Brandon.

  “I’ve never been there,” he says, “but I’ve heard stories about it. They say it’s deep down in the basement, somewhere beneath the Sleep Wing.”

  “We don’t have a second to waste,” I reply. “Let’s get down there.”

  There’s a strange silence as Brandon bites his lip and looks down at the floor. “I’m really sorry, Max,” he says. “I want to help you - you know I do - but I have to be back in class in three minutes.”

  “Oh,” I say, looking up at Brandon’s face. “Okay then. I guess I’ll just have to do this alone. I’ll tell Oscar you said hello.” Brandon gulps. Two years ago, he never would have dodged an adventure like this. It looks like the Home has finally broken him.

  But then, out of nowhere, a twinkle suddenly returns to his eye. “Okay,” he says, “I’ll come along. I don’t mean to be a chicken. It’s just that... things have changed around here since you left. Now if we miss a class, we get taken straight to Pye’s office to explain where we’ve been.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, climbing out from under the bed. “We’ll be quick. The last thing I want is Oscar being turned into a four-legged zombie-zot!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Robo-rescue!

  “Follow me,” says Brandon. “There’s a big red door at the end of the corridor. We’re not supposed to use it unless there’s a fire, but I have a feeling it might take us down to the laboratory.”

  Brandon peeps out into the corridor, and tells me to wait. “There’s still a few people on their way to class,” he whispers. “Whatever happens, they can’t see you here. There’d be all sorts of uproar!”

  I can feel myself blushing. “So, um, what did they all say about me when I left?”

  Brandon bites his lip again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Max, but... most of them didn’t think it was the smartest idea.”

  “It’s the best thing I ever did,” I say, a little too loudly. “Life isn’t easy on the streets, but it’s better than being stuck in here.”

  Brandon sighs. “We don’t all have your courage, Max,” he replies.

  “You’ve got lots of courage. If it wasn’t for your help, I would never have escaped this place.” Suddenly, Brandon starts laughing. “I think I’d better help you escape again,” he chuckles, “before that uniform gets any tighter!”

  That’s more like the Brandon I used to know. I nudge him with my elbow as we step out into the corridor and look around. By now, everyone’s in their next class, except for Brandon. I can tell he’s quite nervous that he isn’t there too, but he’s trying not to show it.

  We run to the far end of the corridor, and Brandon pushes down on the door handle. Surprisingly, it opens right away. I follow him through, and close the door quietly behind me. There’s only one light in the stairway. It’s coming from a globe that looks like it’s been hanging there since 1990.

  The stairs are damp and slippery. I have to hold onto the side rail to stay on my feet as we spiral down and down and down. Eventually, the stairs end in front of a big green door. Brandon gives it a push, and it swings outward. The next thing I know, we’re stepping into a dark corridor, surrounded by piles of broken gadgets and robot parts.

  As we move along the corridor, I see a pile of junk with a very familiar foot sticking out of it. Without thinking, I start yelling Oscar’s name. Brandon grabs my shoulder and begs me to be quiet.

  I can’t be quiet. I’m sure it’s Oscar’s leg, and who knows where the rest of him is?

  I grab hold of the leg and yank it out of the pile. I can’t tell you how good I feel when I realize it’s the wrong color to be Oscar’s. But the relief doesn’t last long. Without the leg holding it together, the pile of parts starts wobbling. We do our best to hold it up, but the parts are too hard to grip onto. A few seconds later, the whole pile comes clattering down onto the concrete floor. The corridor seems to echo for a very, very long time.

  “That was... loud,” gulps Brandon. “Let’s get going, before we have company.”

  We run down the corridor, reading the signs above each door we pass. The first one says Cyborg Maintenance. The next three are impossible to read - their letters are so faded. At the very end of the corridor, we come to a sign that tells me we’ve finally come to the right place:

  Behavior Readjustment Laboratory

  “If he isn’t in there,” says Brandon wearily, “I don’t know where he could be.”

  My heart flutters and I run for the door. This one, however, is very firmly locked. I knock on it, quietly at first.

  “Oscar,” I whisper. “Are you in there?”

  There’s no response. Maybe he just can’t hear me. I knock again, harder, but Brandon grabs my hand. “Quiet, Max, we’ve made enough noise !”

  Just then, I hear an electronic whimper on the other side of the door. I press my ear against it, and whisper as loudly as I can: “Oscar, is that you?!”

  I hear the same whimper again, and then a soft bark.

  “It’s him!” I yell.

  This time, Brandon presses one of his hands across my mouth.

  “Sorry,” I say, “this is kind of exciting. Let’s get into that lab!”

  “But how?” asks Brandon.

  “Well, we could smash the door down... but I think I’d prefer to pick the lock.”

  “I like that idea better too!”

  I tap softly on the door again. “Stay calm, Oscar, we’ll be with you in a second or two.”

  I run back to the pile of robot parts, and lift a broken cyber-cat tail from the top of it. From one end, five broken wires are dangling out. Most of them are red, but I can see a few green ones too.

  At least, thanks to Selby, I now know what these colors actually mean!

  I yank a handful of wires out and run back to the door. When I get there, Brandon points nervously up at a security camera he’s just seen in a corner near the ceiling.

  “Yikes,” I gulp. “We’d better not mess around.”

  “Careful with those wires,” says Brandon. “If those red ones touch the circuit in the door handle, you’ll be zapped into a cloud of vapor.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not doing anything electrical - green wires only, today!”

  Brandon watches quietly as I peel the plastic coating from one of the green wires to expose the data cable inside. I take it over to the door and slide it into the sensor dock at the bottom of the handle. Then, I push it in as far as it’ll go, and start jiggling it around.

  Only a second or two later, we hear a click inside the handle and the door slowly swings out toward us.

  “Wow!” says Brandon. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “My friend Jessie gave me a few lessons. You’ll have to meet her some day.”

  With the door fully open, I find myself looking at one of the saddest sights I’ve ever seen. It’s a long, narrow room, with laser cages all along each side. In each cage, there’s a robo-creature sitting on its own. Some of them have hope in their eyes, but for others, it’s clearly too late. They’ve already been deprogrammed into empty metal shells.

  I run down the middle, looking for Oscar. Finally, I find him at the very end of the room.
He sits up in his cage, beaming.

  “Oscar!” I scream. “Are you okay?”

  He nods, but he points a paw at the robo-rabbit in the next cage. It’s chewing on a plastic carrot and rocking from side to side with empty eyes. It creeps me out, just as much as it seems to be creeping Oscar out.

  I want to give him a hug, but if either of us gets any closer to the beams of his laser cage, we’ll both be turned into steam clouds!

  Brandon suddenly appears beside me. “Hey, Oscar,” he says. “Great to see you again. It’ll be even better to see you outside of that cage.”

  I look at the control panel in front of Oscar’s cage. It seems to be operated by a thumb-print scanner. This isn’t good. Without the right thumbprint, there’s not much we can do to switch the laser beams off.

  “Any ideas, Brandon?” I ask.

  “Well, maybe there’s a way we can find the right thumbprint, and make a copy of it?”

  As soon as Brandon stops speaking, Oscar starts scratching like crazy at the floor of his cage.

  “What are you doing, Oscar?” I yelp. “There’s no time for pointless digging!”

  Oscar stops and points a paw at the pile of dust he’s just created on the cage floor. He pushes the dust to the edge of the cage, and puffs a blast of air into it. The dust blows out of the cage and across the control panel in front of it. Suddenly, a whole range of ghost-like fingerprints become visible.

  “That’s a brilliant start,” I say to Oscar, “but how do we get one of those thumbprints onto the scanner?”

  Oscar’s face goes blank, and he shakes his head. “How about we find something sticky that we can use to make a print of one?” offers Brandon.

  The next thing I know, Oscar’s squeaking like a boiling kettle and pointing a paw at my leg. “What is it, pup?”

  “There’s something sticking out of your pocket,” says Brandon.

  I look down at my pocket and see a corner of the mystery sticky thing peeping out. With all that’s happened, I’d almost forgotten about it. I take it out of its pouch and touch the reverse side of it. It’s still slightly sticky. All of a sudden I realize what Oscar’s trying to suggest.

  “Oscar,” I laugh, “you’re a genius - you’ve proven it once again!

  I press the sticky side of the paper onto the clearest thumbprint I can find. When I lift it off, there’s a perfect copy of the print on the back of the paper. I press it print-side-down on the scanner, and hope for the best.

  A second later, I hear a loud zap as the laser cage loses power and the laser beams between me and Oscar vanish into thin air. He leaps into my arms and licks my face with his cold metal tongue. Brandon’s face gets a big, cold lick too.

  We’re all feeling rather pleased with ourselves until we hear the door squeak behind us. A moment later, an angry-looking teacher storms into the room.

  “What’s going on in here?” she booms. “And why aren’t you boys in class?”

  I don’t bother answering. Instead, I tap our dusty thumbprint onto every scanner I can reach. As their cages disappear, robo-animals leap to the floor and run around like crazy. A gold-plated cyber-cat darts toward the door, and the teacher dives on top of it. “No!” she screams. “You’re my best quantum-cat!”

  While she’s distracted with her shiny mutt, Oscar, Brandon, and I leap right over her and run for our lives - straight back toward the dark stairwell we came down. Brandon gets there first. He pulls the door open for me and Oscar, and waves us through.

  Just before I close it behind me, I take a quick look back. I see the teacher in the corridor, surrounded by confused robo-animals, running around bumping into things. One of them crashes into the wall, and the teacher trips over it. We should be safe for a few more seconds!

  I look around for something to wedge the door closed, but there’s nothing big enough. All we can do is run. My heart pounds like a drum as we run up flight after flight of slimy stairs.

  Finally, we reach the door to the Sleep Wing. “Here we are, Max,” says Brandon.”Maybe we can all hide under my bed?”

  Oscar seems to have a different idea. He barks, and then he runs up the next flight of stairs.

  “Oscar,” I yell, “we’re not going up there!”

  But he doesn’t turn back. All I can hear is the sound of his feet tapping on the steps as he climbs higher and higher.

  “Do you know what’s up there?” I ask Brandon.

  “I don’t have any idea. But I think we’d better find out!”

  Brandon takes the lead and I follow him close behind. By the time we catch Oscar, three flights up, I’m puffing like a road-running robo-rabbit!

  We find Oscar sitting in front of a big heavy door, tapping on it with his paw. The handle’s too high for him to reach, so I open it up for him. Suddenly the dark stairwell fills with a burst of sunlight. We step outside and find ourselves at the top of a very tall turret.

  We get an incredible view of Skyburb 7 from up here, but we’re extremely vulnerable. Apart from the stairwell, there’s nowhere else to run.

  “Hey, Oscar,” I say. “Can you tell us the time, please?”

  Oscar beams his time display into the air above his back: 3:55 p.m. Jessie’s due back in twenty minutes. All we can do is wait, and hope she sees us up here when she arrives. While we wait, we all sit down, out of view, on the turret floor.

  “So,” I say to Brandon, “are you coming with us this time?”

  “I’m sorry,” he says glumly, “I don’t like this place either, but... I don’t think I’m ready to leave it.”

  “Come on, Bran,” I plead. “We’ll open our own office and become Bluggsville’s most famous private investigation team.”

  “That sounds incredible,” he says, looking down at his hands. “But I’ll only be here a few more years. By then, I’ll be a qualified Aircell Attendant.”

  Poor Brandon. It looks like the Home really has taken over his head. “It’s up to you,” I reply. “You just have to listen to your heart.”

  When “4:15” finally appears on Oscar’s time display, I stand up and look around. Yes - there’s Jessie’s air-cab, hovering at the front gate.

  I wave, but she can’t seem to see us. I guess she wasn’t expecting us to be up here when she came back!

  Brandon has an idea. “Hey, Oscar,” he says. “Turn on one of your ear lights.”

  He picks Oscar up and angles him until the light shines directly at Jessie’s air-cab. The next thing we know, the air-cab is lifting into the air and zooming up toward us.

  “Nice idea, old pal,” I say.

  “Hey, Max,” he replies. “Talking about nice ideas... what was that thing you used to copy the thumbprint down there?”

  “I wish I knew,” I groan. I reach into my pocket and take it out. “We found it in the storeroom. None of us have any idea what it is, but it’s been very helpful today, I must say.”

  Suddenly, Brandon starts laughing. “Are you serious?” he giggles. “That’s a postage stamp! We learnt all about them in History. People used to stick them on letters and packages, to send them from place to place.”

  “Wow,” I say, “now that we’ve got Package-Pop and Zee-Mail, that seems such a primitive way to send things around!”

  I hand the stamp to Brandon. He seems quite eager to take a closer look.

  “I can’t believe it!” he yells. “That’s Neptune Williams!”

  “I know. Actually, that’s about all I know about this... stamp thing!”

  “Neptune was incredible,” says Brandon. “She was one of the world’s Top Ten players for more than twenty years. I’m her biggest fan on Skyburb 7!”

  At that very moment, Jessie’s van pulls up against the edge of the turret.

  “Hey,” I say to Brandon, “keep it, it’s yours.” Brandon’s mouth drops open. “No, you found it. I couldn’t take it from you.”

  “Please,” I say. “Without your help, I’d never have seen Oscar again.”

  Jessie might
not be happy about this, but who knows when I’ll see Brandon again.

  “Thanks, Max,” he says. “I’ll take very good care of it.”

  As Jessie opens a side window, Oscar dives over the edge of the turret and onto her lap. Before I follow him over, I hold up a hand, and Brandon gives it a high-five.

  “Are you sure we can’t convince you to join us?” I ask.