More and more Neverpeople wandered up the streets from Buckingham Palace, laughing and joking, unaware that this was the day when everything would change forever.
Finally, the bus reached Greenwich.
‘Where now?’ asked Holly, confused, as Hamish dragged them off the bus and started to walk up the hill.
‘To the Royal Observatory!’ said Hamish, who’d kept his plan quiet just in case they were being watched. ‘What we need is a huge telescope!’
The Royal Observatory sat at the top of a hill in a park, overlooking the River Thames.
Outside, Hamish checked his Explorer to see how much time they had left and noticed something unusual. It was glowing green, like just by being here it was gaining power. There was something magical about this place, and Hamish knew he must be on the right track.
‘To get past the security guards inside and get to the telescopes, we’ll need a distraction,’ he said.
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Holly. ‘I’ll provide a distraction, all right.’ Hamish had always been quite a shy kid. But not Holly. She had always been the opposite of shy. She strode inside, determined. Hamish was really impressed. He’d never have been able to do that so confidently.
A moment later, two tubby security guards ran outside, screaming.
Holly was chasing them with a fire extinguisher in each hand. She was pretending they wouldn’t stop squirting.
‘I’m so sorry!’ she shouted. ‘I don’t know how to stop squirting you!’
She totally did. But the guards would rather run than hang around and get even more soaked and splattered in gooey white extinguisher foam.
Hamish winked at the others, and they snuck inside.
‘Cooooool!’ said Elliot, beaming.
Down a long and squeaky corridor, door after door after door led to the Observatory’s biggest and best telescopes.
‘Did you know,’ he said, ‘that the galaxies and the stars and everything we can see make up less than 5 per cent of the universe? I wonder what’s in the other 95 per cent! Could be aliens. Or whole planets made from toast.’
‘Right now, all I care about is what’s in the Post Office Tower,’ said Hamish. ‘Which is the best telescope to use?’
They pushed open a door to find a sign that said Onion Dome – this way.
‘Onion Dome?’ said Alice. ‘That sounds like the worst theme park ever.’
‘Wait,’ said Elliot. ‘I did a whole school project on space. I wasn’t supposed to – I was supposed to be doing Sports Day. But I think that’s where they keep the super ginormous telescope. The Great Equatorial Telescope. It’s the biggest in the country. It’s ma-hoo-sive.’
‘Can we use it?’ asked Hamish.
‘No, it’s only for looking into space. But it does have a viewing platform outside. We can stand there – and use one of these!’
Elliot pointed behind him at the gift shop.
And right in the middle of the shop was the telescope Hamish had always wanted.
A huge Gia-tron BugEye 5000 in British Racing Green!
The kids lugged the enormous telescope right up the dozens of white metal stairs that led to the very top of the Onion Dome.
‘Remember,’ said Hamish, ‘when we open this dome, we’ll be outside again and exposed. Make sure you’re wearing your tinfoil in case Scarmarsh tries to zap us.’
Everyone checked that their foil was in place, and then Clover pressed the huge red button marked OPEN.
The whole dome started to vibrate as the roof above them began to part.
JUD-JUD-JUD-JUD-JUDDER
The roof opened and the kids clambered over the rails and on to the viewing platform above, all the while lugging the Gia-tron BugEye 5000 on their shoulders.
Elliot got to work setting it up as the kids looked out over the city. In the distance, they could see more and more people heading to the Tower of London. In the sky above them, the Blue Arrows flew by in their amazing fighter jets, getting ready to put on a terrific display to congratulate the King.
‘Okay, we’re good to go!’ said Elliot, flipping the lens cap off.
Hamish stood at the viewfinder, took a deep breath and peered through.
Sadly, it wasn’t pointing at the Post Office Tower yet, so all he saw was a naked old man getting changed through a bedroom window somewhere in Finchley.
‘Yeuch!’ he shouted.
‘Sorry!’ said Elliot, moving the telescope. ‘How’s this?’
Now all Hamish saw was a baboon in London Zoo licking its own bottom.
‘Elliot, this is horrible!’
‘How about now?’ said Elliot, panicking, and shifting the telescope further to the right.
‘Yes!’ said Hamish. ‘That’s it! That’s the Post Office Tower!’
He was looking at the ground floor. Those Terribles from earlier were standing by another car, licking the juice from its exhaust pipe again. But at least it was pointing the right way now.
So Hamish moved the telescope up . . .
And up . . .
And up . . .
Past the bland concrete base . . .
Past the first windows . . .
Past the satellite dishes. . .
Up . . .
Up . . .
UP even faster . . .
And . . .
‘Oh, no,’ said Hamish, the blood draining from his face.
‘What is it?’ asked Clover, trying to inch past him to take a look.
‘Oh, dear, no!’
I Wish We Hadn’t Taken a Closer Look!
What Hamish saw through the windows of the top floor of the Post Office Tower chilled him to the core of the middle of the centre of his very bones.
He did not see Scarmarsh, that much was true.
But he did see something else.
Something that proved Scarmarsh had to be there.
What were those huge, awful, clanking, boxy things?
With rivets and nuts and bolts in their arms?
With stark, glowing eyes and sleek, smooth helmets?
Were they machines? Were they demons? Were they . . . machi-mons?
‘They’re Hypnobots!’ said Holly, who’d just returned and put down her fire extinguishers, which were now completely empty. ‘Oh, no! I read about them when I was in the British Library. There was an article in Evil Icons magazine!’
‘What did it say?’ asked Hamish, peeking meekly through the viewfinder again.
‘They were just supposed to be a rumour!’ said Holly.
But there they were, visible through the giant telescope, clear as day – and clearly not a rumour!
HYPNOBOTS!
Holly thought back to the article she’d read. At the bottom there’d been this:
LATEST FROM FRYKT
‘Watch Out’ for
Hypnobots! p.16
Did you spot it too? And FRYKT – wasn’t that Scarmarsh’s base? Holly thought it was. So, over a can of Cherry Coke and a butternut flapjack, she’d read the article . . .
Word reaches us that there may or may not be more going on on the island of FRYKT than we first thought!
‘We have developed a range of foolproof, terrifying watching devices,’ an unnamed spokesman said, evilly. ‘Meaning we can watch almost anyone, almost anywhere, at almost any time . . . ! We will tell people this is for their own good and is in fact protecting them. But we will know that really it is “Project Hypnobot” . . . an interesting rumour indeed!
EVIL ICONS MAGAZINE VOL XX ISSUE X
Well, it wasn’t a rumour any more. This was how Scarmarsh could see everybody all the time!
Hamish was right to be horrified at the idea of Hypnobots. They were awful.
Do you know what they were?
They were giant, metallic black robots!
CLANKING! CLUNKING! THUMPING when they moved!
Blue pulses of light shooting around their bodies every few seconds. Able to sit perfectly, hypnotically still for hours on end. E
ach one staring and glaring out at another part of the pitiful city below it.
You couldn’t reason with a Hypnobot. You couldn’t convince one you were nice, or that they should stop watching you. They didn’t care if they scared you. They were emotionless.
They never slept, or blinked, or shut their eyes.
Those dark eyes were like camera lenses, always on, always shifting focus to see what they could spot next.
Hypnobots could see anything with those evil peepers. They could zoom right in at a hundred miles an hour. They could scan the city from left to right. They were always ready to spy on whatever they’d been told to with those huge, round black eyes with piercing blue lights. That was why they needed to be so high up – so they could stay vigilant.
And when they spotted their target?
BVVVVVVT – an arm is raised.
BADOINK – a button is pressed.
WAAAAAAAH! – an alarm sounds.
KAPOOOOOOW! – the zap shoots out, ready to blank another poor soul and their unwitting otherhalf.
Oh, you might think you can just hide down an alleyway. Or stay indoors. But all the Hypnobots needed was a brief appearance near a window. Or a momentary reflection in a shop door or car wing mirror. They saw everything.
Hamish shivered. No wonder he’d always felt like someone was watching him. They had been! But why hadn’t the Hypnobots zapped him the first time he’d come to Otherearth? They’d known he was here because someone had put those signs up.
‘It gets worse,’ said Holly. ‘The article said they can also be used . . . in battle.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Elliot, covering his eyes with his hands. ‘Battle robots. Why not?’
‘How big are they?’ asked Alan, innocently. ‘Can I see?’
‘What does it matter how big they are?’ said Alice. ‘They’re battle robots!’
‘HAMISH!’ yelled Alice, peeking through the telescope. ‘I think something’s happening!’
She let him have the viewfinder, and immediately he saw what had scared her.
The enormous eyes of an awful Hypnobot were flashing and whirring! There were four little holes in its forehead, and now steam was whistling right out of them, like when a kettle boils.
What did that mean? Did that mean it was about to strike?
Hamish could see that the other Hypnobots were going crazy too, madly flailing their arms up and down and screaming and steaming too.
‘It’s pointing at something on the streets below!’ said Hamish, and the others all gasped. Alan nearly fainted.
BVVVVVVT – Hamish watched as the Hypnobot raised a huge arm.
BADOINK – now it slammed a button with such force that the windows in front of it seemed to shake.
A satellite on the side of the Tower began to tremble and turn.
‘It’s going to zap someone!’ said Hamish, horrified.
‘Who?’ yelled Holly. ‘Where?!’
KAPOOOOOOW!
Hamish yanked the telescope round to follow the direction of the zap as it tore through the sky, rippling the air behind it.
On a road far down below, a poor, innocent police sergeant was giving directions to two American tourists outside a museum.
ZAAAAAAAP!
The sergeant fizzed and vibrated!
His two little feet levitated off the ground for a moment!
His helmet spun round on his head!
His shoelaces went all straight and pointy!
Two wisps of smoke curled out of his ears as he landed softly on the street again!
Then he started just stroking the tourists’ confused faces and blowing wet raspberries at them.
‘That’s no way to welcome people to the country!’ yelled Hamish, furious.
He pointed the telescope quickly back up to the Tower.
The Hypnobot was cackling and crackling while its Hypnopals tried to high-five it with their huge metal hands. One of them started pretending to blow raspberries for a laugh, and spat nuts and bolts all over the room, which just annoyed everybody.
A giant black BACK TO WORK! sign suddenly blasted on behind them and they fell silent, their evil eyes whirring and turning again like all-seeing, all-knowing camera lenses.
‘They’re so powerful,’ said Hamish, quietly.
‘But we can beat them, right?’ said Holly, nudging him. ‘Right, Hamish?’
‘Battle robots,’ he said, slowly, and then Hamish Ellerby sighed. ‘I think that’s it, guys. I think we’re done.’
‘What do you mean “done”?’ asked Holly because Holly would never give up. ‘Don’t make me put you in my RevengePad, Hamish!’
‘We’ve done all we can on our own. We’ve found Scarmarsh and his Hypnobots. We know he’s guarded by Terribles and that the city is crawling with them. It’s time to tell the grown-ups. We need to alert the army.’
‘Aside from the fact that grown-ups are always useless in situations with battle robots, there’s a big problem with your plan,’ said Alice, and Holly seemed pleased someone wanted to fight. ‘We met the chief of the army at Downing Street, remember? The Sergeant Major had been zapped. He was just going on about having a cat called Mr Poopy. That means both he and his otherhalf have gone blank!’
‘Then we tell whoever is second-in-command,’ tried Hamish.
‘What if they’ve been zapped too?’ said Holly, desperately.
‘Then we tell his third-in-command!’ said Hamish. ‘Or we tell someone who’s still got some power!’
But everyone knew that, at the rate Scarmarsh was going, the only person left in a position of power would probably be the deputy assistant regional manager of a shoe shop, or something.
‘The point is,’ said Hamish, ‘we can’t do this on our own. We’re kids. But if there aren’t any grown-ups in power then they can’t do anything either.’
The gang were silent. It really did seem like all was lost.
But then . . .
‘Wait!’ said Alice. ‘There is someone!’
Hamish blinked. Who?
‘Someone who’s been right in the middle of this, but who’s stayed unzapped!’ said Alice. ‘Someone who could take charge and alert the army! Someone we’ve met but overlooked!’
Hamish had no idea who she could be talking about.
‘Mysterio!’ she said.
‘What – that Romanian guy?’ said Elliot. ‘But we’re on Otherearth and he’s back in our world!’
‘It’s just like Leo and Leona – if you can get through to his otherhalf, you can explain everything. And Mysterio’s otherhalf will definitely want everything back to normal! She can look in the Prime Minister’s address book and find a number for the most important person in the army!’
It was the only idea they had.
‘Fine,’ said Hamish, fishing out the business card Mysterio had given him back in Starkley the night the PM had been zapped. ‘I’ll call “Mrs” Mysterio. You keep your eye on the Tower. And stay hidden!’
Down below, there was a payphone. Hamish scrambled down a drainpipe and then reached for the receiver, popped some coins in the slot and dialled the number.
The line was strange and crackly. It didn’t sound like a normal ringtone.
BVVVVVVVVOOOOOBBBBT
Hamish waited for the call to be answered. How was he going to explain this? How was he going to convince Mysterio’s otherhalf?’
‘HALLO?’
‘Erm . . . is that . . . Mysterio?’ said Hamish, sheepishly. ‘This is . . . she,’ replied the voice, which soundly oddly familiar as well as just . . . well . . . odd.
‘My name is Hamish Ellerby,’ said Hamish. ‘This will sound crazy, but—’
‘HAYYYMEEEESH,’ said the voice. ‘Think godness you’se okay!’
What? How did this Mysterio know who Hamish was?
‘I knows all aboot what you’ve been doing. Alex told meee.’
Alex! So Alex had had the same idea and found someone in Downing Street who could help! Thank goodne
ss for Alex!
‘Phew!’ said Hamish, so glad he’d found a friend on Otherearth. ‘But listen – we need to hurry.’
‘Hurry?’
‘You need to get the whole army to the Post Office Tower right now!’
Hamish looked up at his friends, relieved, and gave a little thumbs up. It was all going to be okay!
‘The Post Office Tower?’ said Mysterio, mysteriously. ‘Why the Post Office Tower?’
‘Because that’s where Scarmarsh is,’ said Hamish.
Mysterio went quiet. Then . . .
‘You know where Scarmarsh is?’
‘Yes, and you need to send helicopters because there are Terribles at the bottom, and you need to be prepared for battle robots who’ll probably see you coming on account of them being Hypnobots.’
‘Hypnobots?’ said Mysterio.
‘They’re the worst,’ said Hamish. ‘They’re huge, and terrifying, and steam comes out of their foreheads, and—’
‘Where are you, Hamish? Can you see the Tower from where you are?’
‘Yes,’ said Hamish. ‘I’m looking at it right now.’
‘Right now? Well, you must be close to it,’ said Mysterio. ‘If you can see those “Hypnobots”?’
Hamish noticed the tip of the Tower start to glow red in the distance.
‘Just the opposite actually,’ said Hamish. ‘But I’d better not say too much because I bet they can trace calls too, but let’s just say we’ve been “scoping” the place out . . .’
Hamish could hear something now. Was that an alarm sounding? Somewhere far away?
‘That’s very interesting,’ said Mysterio, and Hamish couldn’t help but notice that Mysterio’s voice wasn’t quite as foreign as before. That was weird – if the normal Mysterio was foreign, wouldn’t his Otherhalf be too?
‘Hamish!’ called Holly, urgently. She was still looking through the telescope, up on the viewing platform.
‘So can you help?’ Hamish asked, as from somewhere behind him a ship’s bell rang.
‘I can certainly help,’ said Mysterio. ‘But, if you could tell me exactly where you are, I could send someone to pick you up? To keep you safe?’
Hamish and the Neverpeople Page 11