Inside is a small room lined with shelves holding giant tubs of butter. Well, not butter but that cheap stuff that’s supposed to taste the same as butter but blatantly doesn’t. There are rows of two-litre bottles of milk, stacks of ham, piles of cucumbers and salad stuff – basically a tonne of food. And it’s awesomely, refreshingly cold.
‘Everybody in!’ I check the door to make sure it opens from the inside as well as the outside while they all rush into the room.
‘This is fabulous!’ Adrianne presses her face to a shelf.
Katja lies on the floor, stretching out across the fridge so that her fingertips touch one side and her toes the other. Chets sinks to his knees and tears into the baguette, alternating a mouthful of bread with a mouthful of apple. Then he opens a crate of butter and starts scooping it out with his fingers. You’d think he hadn’t eaten for a week. I open a bottle of milk and tip my head, taking a huge mouthful which I quickly spit all over Mak.
‘Gone off?’ He laughs.
‘Just a bit,’ I say. ‘I guess they’ve not been keeping their refrigerated supplies in order.’
‘That’s a good sign. Hopefully they won’t come in here.’ Adrianne’s cheeks are pink in her pale face. The light in here is bright and stark, so every detail is illuminated: the short fuzz of Big Mak’s blond hair; a graze on Chets’ arm that surprisingly I haven’t heard him complain about even once; the sparkle in Katja’s eyes. And a little nest of random belongings tucked behind jars of mayonnaise under the deepest shelf in the corner of the room.
‘What’s that?’ I say, walking over and moving the mayo out of the way. ‘It looks like we weren’t the only people to think this would be a good hiding place.’
There’s a stack of papers, an iPad and a dark red hoody balled up at the back.
‘I knew I’d need my hoody.’ Chets grabs it and shakes it out. A wallet falls out of the pocket.
Katja picks it up and opens it, pulling out the credit cards and a driver’s licence. ‘Oh gosh,’ she says. ‘Look – it’s Dale.’
We stare at the card she holds up. It’s a National Union of Students, University of Nottingham ID card. Dale is smiling out at us – the same guy we saw earlier, just less bloody and mental.
‘Do you really think we’re safe here?’ Chets says. ‘Things didn’t go so well for Dale.’
‘We’re not safe anywhere,’ I say. ‘But maybe we can find something amongst this lot that will help us.’
‘I wonder what happened to him,’ Katja says. ‘I hope he’s all tucked up safe in hospital, eating ice cream.’
‘Everybody take a couple of pages and read,’ I say. ‘We don’t know how much time we have here.’
Adrianne, Katja, Mak and I grab some sheets from the pile. Some of them are ripped out of textbooks, some of them have diagrams drawn all over, but most of them are handwritten notes. Scribbles and things scrubbed out with strange comments written at funny angles. The room goes quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the sound of Chets crunching through his apple.
‘There’s a load of stuff about extra-terrestrial matter,’ says Katja. ‘That means things that aren’t from Earth, right? But what things exactly?’
‘Maybe the spores?’ I say.
‘But how would they have got here if they’re extra-terrestrial?’
‘Oh – remember in the leaflet it said that the crater we’re in, where the lake formed and the centre was built, was created when a meteor hit the Earth?’ Of course Adrianne was paying attention when Hoche was reading us the information.
‘A meteor from space,’ Chets says.
‘So what if the spores Hoche mentioned were inside the meteor and were left behind in the crater when the meteor was cleared away?’ I’m getting excited as each piece of information fits with the next.
‘Alien spores.’ Mak looks around at us with a look on his face like this is the coolest thing ever.
I skim through the rest of the notebook page. ‘It says here that the spores are tiny – so small they can only be seen through a microscope. He must have managed to get a look at one cos he’s drawn a pic.’
Everyone squints at the diagram I’m holding. It looks like a cross between a dandelion seed and an angry giant squid.
‘And this page says that they thrive in super-hot conditions,’ says Katja.
‘They’re called extremophiles,’ Mak says. ‘My parents make me watch loads of documentaries so I know about this stuff.’
That seems a bit weird: Mak’s parents aren’t even bothered whether he does his homework or not, but I guess they must value a different kind of education.
‘Do you think that when they started building the centre, the digging and stuff freed the spores?’ Chets has finally put down his lunch-slash-breakfast-slash-I don’t even know what mealtime it is, and picked up some of Dale’s papers to look at.
‘And there’s the heatwave! It hasn’t been this hot for a hundred years, or something,’ says Mak.
‘It hasn’t been this hot since records began,’ Adrianne corrects him. ‘And it hasn’t rained in weeks.’
‘So they like it hot and dry,’ I say. ‘Which works with what we’ve seen so far – them keeping away from anything cold and … flipping heck – the dam! They’re trying to stop the river from flowing down into the crater!’
The tannoy system crackles on. ‘Montmorency pupils – this is your assistant head speaking. It seems you ignored my instructions to stay in your rooms. That is unacceptable behaviour. Those of you in hiding – I will give you another chance to come to me and surrender. Whatever that rogue group of naughty children have told you, believe me it is in your best interests to do as you are told. And for the rest of you running around the centre causing mischief, let there be no doubt: I am in control of Crater Lake, and I will make you comply with my wishes. You have fifteen minutes to come to the main office and give yourselves up or there will be severe consequences. The clock is ticking.’
‘She sounds really mad,’ Katja says. ‘What if she finds us?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’ I shove Dale’s notes into the pocket of his hoody, ball it up and squash it into my backpack.
‘Surely we need to keep looking at those pages?’ Adrianne says. ‘Why are you putting them away?’
‘Because there’s something else we need to do first, to try to slow down Hoche and Digger. Do you remember where the security room is, Ade?’
‘Of course,’ she sniffs. ‘It’s at the far end of the centre, why?’
‘We need to do something about the security cameras. With them all functioning, she can track us too easily. If we can turn them off, she’ll be blind.’
Mak pulls his cap back on. ‘Good thinking, mate. Let’s go.’
‘It was getting too cold in here anyway,’ Katja says, retying her shoes.
‘Ready then?’ I say. ‘Let’s go. As fast as we can.’
10
The Hacker
We leave the gorgeous coolness of the fridge and run through the kitchen, grabbing supplies and bottled water as we go. I listen at the door before inching it open and looking up and down the corridor.
‘Back in the fridge! Back in the fridge!’ I try to make my voice quiet but commanding at the same time, which is actually quite hard. ‘Bug-eyes!’ I say, and that gets everyone moving, shoving each other towards the fridge door. We bundle in and I pull it so that it’s open just a crack.
‘Hunters?’ whispers Mak, trying to see over my shoulder.
‘No, from the way they were walking, I think just workers. But we can’t afford for them to see us. Hopefully they’re just passing through.’
But, as I hold my breath and start to count a minute out in my head, I see the handle of the kitchen door turn, and two people enter the room.
‘Guys,’ I say, ‘I know what happened to Dale.’
Dale is still in his dirty, bloody clothes, but his wounds have been neatly bandaged, and the bleeding has stopped. The dark, swollen rin
gs around his eyes have gone.
‘Ah, he looks so much better.’ Katja is crouching down peeping at him from under my arm. ‘Apart from the bug-eyes, obviously.’
‘But how did he get here?’ Chets says.
‘Digger obviously had him brought back here instead of calling an ambulance,’ Adrianne says. ‘And he was unconscious, remember, so he must have bugged out.’
‘Look, he’s with Midge,’ Mak says. ‘Shouldn’t they be working, though? At the dam site? What are they doing?’
They’ve disappeared over to the window side of the kitchen and out of view. I edge out of the fridge and creep to the corner to look.
‘We must hurry,’ says Midge, in a calm voice. ‘We must get back to work.’
‘These bodies need sustenance. The hive cannot work without proper nourishment,’ Dale replies.
‘These bodies are weak,’ says Midge, and that is something Midge would never say, because she’s a purple belt/white stripe in karate and she bangs on about it all the time. ‘They require so many things.’
‘They are all we have. They will suffice.’ Dale is putting a huge pot on the cooker. I’m satisfied that they don’t know we’re here and that we just have to sit tight, so I return to the fridge, close the door and signal the others to hide behind the shelves until they’re gone.
‘What are they doing?’ Chets returns to his baguette.
‘Making food,’ I say.
‘What are they having?’
‘I’ll give you one guess.’
‘Tomato soup!’ they all whisper at the same time.
‘Wrong. Chicken soup.’
As soon as Midge and Dale are gone, we race out of the kitchen. Time is running out. We don’t come across any more bug-eyes as we run through the empty corridors. I assume they’re all tucking into their soup in the dining hall.
I’m not sure what the worker bug-eyes will do if they catch us. I know they’re not hunters, and that their focus is carrying out whatever tasks they’ve been set, but as they’re all reporting to Hoche, we can’t risk being seen by them.
The security-room door has a ‘No Entry – Staff Only’ sign on it, which (lucky for us) somebody must have thought would be enough to stop a bunch of kids from running in and messing with their stuff.
Inside the room there are three screens that flick through images of the centre – the security gate, the entrance to the building, the corridors and some of the rooms.
‘There are the others,’ Katja says, as the inside of the dining hall appears.
‘It looks like they’re arguing.’ Chets leans in to get a better view. ‘Trent seems mad – that’s not good.’
‘Maybe some of them want to leave,’ says Adrianne. ‘They’ve been locked in with him for hours – they’re probably desperate to get out.’
‘You really don’t like him, do you?’ I say. ‘What’s the story?’
‘Why does there have to be a story?’ she snaps at me. ‘You all hate him too.’
‘But he spends his life trying to make ours miserable. He’s nice to you.’
‘I never asked him to be.’ Adrianne’s face has turned red. ‘In fact, I wish he’d stop. Now can we change the subject?’
‘Guys,’ Mak says, peering at one of the screens. ‘Check this out.’
On the screen, in black and white, we can see Digger skulking around in a room we haven’t seen yet. It looks like some kind of maintenance area cos there are hoovers and cleaning stuff, and what could be a boiler. As we watch, Digger lifts a heavy-looking lid from a giant container.
‘What’s in there?’ I ask.
‘It looks like the water tank,’ Mak says.
Digger leans over the open tank, and something flies from his mouth into the water. Because the footage is black and white, and the room is dark, it’s really hard to make out, but…
‘Did he just spit?’ Katja says.
‘Oh, man, that’s gross.’ Chets makes a face and turns away, but the rest of us squeeze in even closer.
‘Why would he spit in the water?’ I say. ‘I mean, I get it could be some kind of revenge spit, but it seems strange for him to go to all that trouble when there are plenty of other things he could do to us.’
The image disappears and is replaced by a view of the admin office. Hoche is in there, pacing around in her heels. Even though there’s no sound, I can almost hear the click-clack as she walks back and forth. As she gets to the window side of the office and turns back towards the camera, we see her face clearly. It looks like she’s speaking.
‘Is she talking to herself?’ I say.
‘There must be someone in there with her,’ Katja says. ‘She always tells me that talking to myself is a sign of a disorganised mind.’
‘We know it’s not Digger.’ Chets moves back towards the screen. ‘Because he’s apparently busy contaminating the water supply. Do you think it’s one of the bug-eyes?’
‘I think there’s a second camera in the office,’ I say. ‘So when the footage cycles forward, we might be able to see more.’
We wait in silence for a few seconds for the image to change and, when it does, we see there is someone else in the room. There’s a figure sitting on a chair. Because of the angle of the camera we can’t see his face, but he looks kind of familiar.
‘Who is that?’ Mak says.
‘I’m not sure,’ says Adrianne. ‘But he can’t be a bug-eye – look, he’s tied up!’
Adrianne’s right. The mystery man is tied to the chair.
‘I wish I could hear what she’s saying to him,’ I say. But even if it is possible to get some sound, we don’t have time. ‘Can you turn these off, Chets?’
Chets has been inspecting the system. ‘Sure, I can turn them off, but what’s to stop Hoche turning them back on again?’
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘Can you disable the system, somehow? I’m not talking major hack stuff or implanting a virus: something quick.’
Chets sits at the desk and starts clicking the mouse. ‘It’s password protected, but if I can crack it…’ He taps away at the keyboard.
‘Where do we go next?’ Katja says. ‘It’s nearly morning and Miss Hoche is going to be looking for us.’
I look out of the window to see a haze of pale yellow easing up over the horizon. ‘I think we’ll be safer out of the building. We can find somewhere to hide in the woods while we work out what the hell we’re going to do.’
‘Cracked it!’ Chets yells. One by one, the images flicker and the screens go dark. ‘And I’ve changed the password to something they’ll never guess, so they won’t be able to log back in.’
‘Awesome. Well done, mate.’ I turn to the door but, on second thoughts, I pick up a chair and smash it into the screens, totally destroying them. ‘Just in case.’
We leave the room, and make our way to the nearest exit. The sooner we’re away from this building, the better.
We trek through the trees as the sun rises, keeping to the steeper side opposite the dam site. As the adrenaline buzz fades away, so does our energy. My backpack feels like it’s full of rocks. My legs are starting to refuse to lift my feet. In my head, I offer them bribes – just a bit further and we’ll have a sit down; just a bit further and we’ll take off our shoes. But, at the same time, I’m worried about stopping cos I feel like I won’t want to start again. None of us are chatting now. Our heads are down as we concentrate on each step forward.
‘This is a good place,’ Mak says, stopping to look around. ‘There’s a hollow inside those bushes, see, and if we keep a lookout at the top of that tree over there, we’ll be able to spot the bug-eyes coming from a long way off. We’ll be able to evacuate before they reach us.’
He says it like he knows exactly what he’s doing, so I nod and point to a small gap in the bushes.
‘’K – let’s do it. There’s enough room in there for everyone, but we’ll take it in turns to be lookout. I think we should have two people on duty at all times. I don’t want a
nybody to be alone.’
‘Should we have a meeting first?’ Adrianne says. ‘I think we need to discuss our options.’
Everyone groans.
‘Ade is right,’ I say. ‘We can’t just hang around in a bush and hope for the best. Let’s eat and talk.’
We sit at the bottom of the lookout tree, except Katja, who climbs up it far enough to give her a good view of the crater.
‘Can you still hear us, Katja?’ I call, as quietly as it’s possible to call to someone who’s halfway up a really tall tree.
‘Loud and clear.’ Her voice floats through the leaves.
Now that we’ve sat down, the muscles in my legs start to throb and I have an overwhelming urge to lie back and close my eyes.
Looking around at the others, I can see the tiredness is hitting them too. We’ve been awake for twenty-four hours, which is probably a record for most of them. I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights, so it’s nothing new for me, but even I’m feeling tired. They must be ready to drop.
‘What are we going to do, Lance?’ Chets leans back against a tree and rubs his eyes.
‘We’ve got through the night,’ I say, ‘And that’s something to be proud of. Does anyone know when the coach is coming back for us?’
Crater Lake Page 7