Tropical Tangle

by Adrian C. Bott

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  The hot sun beat down on Junk City, casting jagged shadows over a scrapyard that stretched as far as the eye could see. Light glinted off twisted, windowless cars and lit up the once-dark insides of abandoned fridges. With the heat came the smell: an overpowering mix of sludgy oil, rusting metal and hot rubber, pungent as an android’s armpit.

  In the middle of the yard, the junk had been arranged into walls. They formed a crude maze, which Axel and BEAST were halfway through.

  Axel Brayburn couldn’t feel the heat, but he was sweating anyway. From inside the air-conditioned cockpit of BEAST, his shape-shifting robot companion and best friend, Axel looked out over the heaps of rubbish.

  ‘Nearly there, BEAST,’ he said. ‘We just need to sneak past the patrol droid and fit this replacement power core into the reactor at the heart of the maze. Then the city will be saved!’

  BEAST looked at the object he was clutching in his right hand.

  ‘BUT THIS IS NOT A REPLACEMENT POWER CORE, AXEL,’ he said.

  Axel rolled his eyes.

  ‘BEAST, would you just –’

  ‘IT IS A BROKEN TOASTER.’

  Axel took a deep breath. ‘We’ve been over this.’

  ‘BEAST IS CONFUSED.’

  ‘I know it’s a toaster. Just like the reactor is an old ice-cream van, and the patrol droid is Rusty Rosie in her BULLDOZER. But I need you to play along, okay?’

  ‘SO THE CITY IS IN NO DANGER?’

  ‘There isn’t even a city near here!’ Axel groaned. ‘This is a training exercise, remember? We’re pretending there’s an emergency, so we can practise dealing with them!’

  It had been an interesting few weeks since BEAST had crashed into Axel’s life. BEAST had originally been made as a suit of robot armour for another boy to wear – a spoilt, mean boy called Gus Grabbem Junior. Gus’s father was the head of Grabbem Industries, the greediest corporation on the planet. Grabbem had wanted BEAST to rip the natural world apart so that they could get to the resources they wanted: oil, rare metals, gems and even buried nuclear fuel. But BEAST had had other ideas.

  Now BEAST and Axel worked together to stop Grabbem’s schemes whenever they could. An insider at Grabbem, Agent Omega, tipped them off to whatever new Grabbem plans were about to be unleashed.

  At first Axel and BEAST had spent their time between missions hidden away in their secret lair, so that Grabbem wouldn’t find them. However, the problem with hiding was that you never saw any action, which meant you never got to learn. After they’d run into danger on a mission to the Antarctic, Axel and his mother, Nedra, agreed some sort of regular training was needed.

  So today they were in JUNK CITY, the scrapyard that belonged to their friend Rusty Rosie. This ‘mission’ had been her idea. She’d spent days building a maze out of scrap metal so that Axel and BEAST would have a real challenge. Now she was driving around in that same maze, playing the bad guy, hunting them down.

  ‘Where are you creeps hiding?’ her voice rang out. ‘You gonna come quietly or are you gonna make me blast you out of there?’

  ‘She’s right round the corner,’ Axel whispered.

  He carefully steered BEAST back the way they’d come, moving as quietly as he could. BEAST’s big robot feet left footprint craters in the mud behind them.

  Axel wondered if he should shift BEAST’s form. BEAST could store five apps at a time, and each app let him change to a different shape with new abilities. The only problem was that each form had weaknesses as well as strengths.

  He checked the current app list. BOOSTA was a hot-rod form, super-fast on land but really light on armour. B-ZERK, on the other hand, was a heavily armoured juggernaut that moved slowly but had thick armour and a powerful cannon. Either might help … or they might just make things harder. Better wait and see, he thought.

  They were still making their way along the path between the piled-up junk walls when Axel spotted something that might be a shortcut. ‘See that gap in the wall, BEAST? Can you fit through?’

  ‘HIGH PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS.’

  ‘Good enough. Let’s take it.’

  They crawled through the gap and along a tunnel. Axel was sure it led straight to the maze’s heart. Sure enough, through the opening up ahead he saw the pale-blue paint of the ice-cream van – their mission objective.

  He scrambled out – and that was when the tower of cars came crashing down on them. Behind it was Rosie, grinning madly behind the wheel of her bulldozer. ‘I KNEW IT! Had to take the shortcut didn’t ya? You fell right into my trap!’

  BEAST lay sprawled on his back, half-buried in wrecked cars. Axel stared up at the sky through BEAST’s eyes.

  ‘DOES THIS MEAN THE CITY IS DOOMED?’ BEAST asked sadly.

  ‘I’m not giving up as easily as that,’ Axel said through clenched teeth. There was still a chance to save the city, if he was brave enough to take it.

  He shoved BEAST’s canopy, trying to open it. It was stuck. He thumped it in frustration. ‘Oh, come on – open, you useless thing!’

  The canopy popped open. Axel leapt out of BEAST, grabbed the toaster out of his fat robotic hand and sprinted to the ice-cream van. A swift SLAM DUNK through the window and it was home.

  ‘Ah, nuts,’ said Rosie, twisting her cap around. ‘Well done, kid. You win.’

  ‘Yeah, but only just,’ laughed Axel. ‘That was hard!’

  ‘You think so? I was goin’ easy on you with the dozer,’ Rosie grunted, as she began to use the bulldozer to lift the cars off BEAST. ‘Next time I’ll use the army surplus tank. That’ll really light this place up.’

  BEAST struggled to his feet. He turned his head to the left and the right as if he wanted to make sure everything still worked. His eyes were small and sad.

  ‘You okay, BEAST?’ Axel asked.

  ‘MY SYSTEMS ARE FUNCTIONAL,’ BEAST said, and stomped off.

  Axel watched him go. BEAST got a bit funny with games sometimes. Maybe he’s still learning how to have fun, thought Axel, and shrugged. He’ll get used to it.

  Later, as Axel sat around the table with Rosie and his mother in Rosie’s customised trailer home, there was a soft knock at the door.

  They all fell silent and looked at one another. BEAST still hadn’t come inside after their practice battle, but he was far too large to knock softly.

  ‘Nobody’s supposed to know we’re here,’ Axel said.

  ‘Wasn’t expectin’ customers,’ Rosie said. ‘Yard’s closed today, anyhow.’

  ‘It could be Grabbem,’ whispered Nedra.

  Rosie stood up. ‘Sit tight. I’ll deal with this. If any bad business goes down, smash through the back window and get out of here that way.’

  Axel’s palms itched. He wished he had some way to send a message to BEAST and warn him.

  Rosie opened the door a crack.

  Outside was a tall, dark man in a heavy coat and mirrored glasses. The badge on his coat showed a fist with a G inside. The Grabbem symbol. Beneath it were the words: MAXIMUM SECURITY.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Rosie.

  ‘I’m looking for Axel,’ said the man.

  Axel knew that strange, hoarse voice. He’d heard it before, but never in person.

  The man glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘Rosie, it’s me. Let me in. I’ve got something for Axel.’

  ‘Agent Omega!’ Axel yelled. ‘Is it you?’ Agent Omega win
ced. ‘Not so loud. You never know who might be listening.’

  Rosie pulled him into the trailer. He glanced around, as if checking for exits. He had the nervy, worried look of a hunted animal.

  ‘Where’s BEAST?’ he asked.

  Axel pointed downwards. ‘He’s in his cave in GOPHER mode. Wanted to be by himself. He gets like that sometimes.’

  Agent Omega relaxed a little. He squeezed in next to Nedra, who poured him some super-strong coffee. She tried to take his coat, but he insisted on keeping it on, despite the hot day.

  There was an awkward silence. He cleared his throat. ‘Apologies for calling in person.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s lovely to meet you at last,’ Nedra said.

  ‘It seemed the safest way to deliver this.’ He passed Axel a shiny black case about the size of a large envelope.

  Inside the case was something that looked like a pair of sunglasses, formed in a single wrap-around piece. The lenses were jet black. Axel could just make out tiny circuits embedded in the material.

  ‘It’s a smart visor,’ Omega explained. ‘Put it on. It’ll fit over your glasses – I designed it to.’

  ‘You made this? For me?’ Axel asked, amazed.

  ‘Oh, yes. And I used Grabbem equipment to do it. I like fighting them with their own weapons.’

  The smart visor was so light it was like wearing nothing. At first it seemed to do nothing, too. Axel could see just like normal.

  He didn’t want to be ungrateful so he said, ‘It’s very cool. Thanks.’

  ‘It responds to your thoughts,’ Agent Omega explained. ‘Think about seeing through things, and you’ll be able to.’

  X-ray, thought Axel.

  Suddenly he was looking at a human skull with veiny eyeballs. It gnashed its jaws at him.

  ‘Arrr!’ he yelled, and nearly jumped out the window in horror. The view swiftly changed back to Agent Omega’s worried face.

  ‘You might want to take it easy with that one,’ Omega said, ‘but it should come in handy for seeing through walls. You can also use the visor to scan for heat signatures. Oh, and it’ll show you what keys to press to hack any Grabbem terminal.’

  ‘That’s amazing!’

  ‘All that stuff – isn’t that what BEAST does?’ asked Nedra.

  ‘Same technology,’ said Agent Omega. ‘But with the smart visor, Axel will be able to do it by himself.’

  ‘Sweet!’ said Axel. He held up his hand and looked at the finger bones. ‘Whoa. Skeleton hand. Creepy.’

  Agent Omega frowned. ‘Let’s get down to business. I’m not just here to hand out presents. I’ve got an assignment for you.’ He produced a slim silver laptop from under his coat.

  ‘I’ll go fetch BEAST,’ said Axel.

  ‘There’s no time. Brief him yourself after I’ve gone.’

  Agent Omega turned the laptop so that Axel could see. The screen showed a green island surrounded by sparkling blue water.

  ‘This is Stormhaven Island. It’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Gus Grabbem Senior owns it, as well as the ocean around it for kilometres. He’s built a house there.’

  Axel looked longingly at the wide sandy beaches and palm trees. His arch rival, Gus Grabbem Junior, got to sun himself on those beaches – spoilt brat that he was, he probably didn’t even appreciate it. But by the look on Nedra’s face, she wished she could go there too. Her travel suitcases had been at the top of the cupboard for a long time.

  ‘That house is a cover for some kind of secret base,’ Agent Omega went on. ‘Grabbem are building something there – their biggest project in years. They call it the Plunderer.’

  Axel’s mind raced as he tried to think what the Plunderer might be. A warship? A tank? It could be a giant two-headed cyborg battle hamster for all he knew.

  ‘There’s more. I’ve decoded some Grabbem emails,’ said Agent Omega, ‘and it seems they’re planning on detonating a bomb out there. An atomic bomb.’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Rosie.

  Nedra looked sick. ‘How could they?’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ asked Axel.

  ‘It’s meant to power the Plunderer somehow. Don’t ask me how – it’s a mystery to me. But there’s rich and varied marine wildlife in that part of the ocean, and an island atoll nearby,’ Omega said. ‘The damage from an atomic bomb would be … yuck. I don’t even want to think about it.’

  Axel nodded. ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘Get inside that base and stop the launch of the Plunderer. You need to be extra stealthy on this one, though. If that means going solo so you can get into places BEAST can’t go, then do it.’

  Axel fingered the visor. ‘Okay. I understand. What about apps?’

  Agent Omega slid a USB drive across the table. ‘You’ll need BLACKBAT, which BEAST already has. There are four new apps on the USB for you.’ He counted them on his fingers. ‘MANTA is a new underwater form that’s sneaky and quick, to replace SHARKOS for this mission. OCTO is clearly octopus mode: eight strong tentacles for lifting and moving things. HARPY is a flying heavy-lifter, with two claw grabbers.’ He paused. ‘And then there’s ORBITA. Just in case.’

  ‘What’s that one for?’

  ‘I don’t expect you’ll need it. It’s just that … well, we don’t know what the Plunderer even is or where it operates, so I thought you’d better be prepared for any environment …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Well?’ Nedra demanded.

  Agent Omega took his glasses off. Axel was a little startled to see that he had ordinary human eyes under there. Omega was so tech-minded, Axel had wondered if he might be a cyborg.

  ‘ORBITA is a zero-gravity form,’ said Omega. ‘For operations in space.’

  At the Grabbem mansion, Gus Grabbem Junior kicked open the double doors to the dining room. His mother and father were already seated at opposite ends of the enormous table, with a wall of fresh toast between them.

  The butler, Lucius, watched steadily as Gus swaggered in and flung himself into a chair.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Lucius said.

  ‘Morning, fart-breath,’ said Gus.

  Lucius was an accomplished actor and had once been part of a posh British theatre company. He was very good at hiding his real feelings. ‘Would you care for some breakfast?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, flunkey. Get me some toast. And use those tongs. I don’t want your fingers all over it.’

  Inside his mind, Lucius was imagining how much he would enjoy smashing Gus’s electric guitar over his head. On the outside, however, he was perfectly calm. Not even a nostril hair quivered as he dished up the food.

  Gus bit, chewed and spat a wad out onto his plate. ‘This toast’s cold.’

  ‘Please don’t be a fussy Gussie,’ said his mother, with a hand to her head. ‘You’ll give Mummy a headache, and you don’t want to do that. Not today.’

  ‘What’s so freakin’ special about today?’ Gus put his feet up on the table.

  ‘Today’s the day we launch the Plunderer,’ grunted Gus’s father from behind his newspaper. ‘We’re heading out to the island house in an hour. You’ve not forgotten your special job, have you?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I get to press the big red button!’

  ‘That’s right,’ grinned Gus Senior. ‘My little boy gets to trigger his first atomic blast!’ He dabbed a sentimental tear from his eye.

  Just then, a man in a captain’s uniform stepped into the room. He bulged in all sorts of places, like a badly baked loaf of bread that was made of muscle. He took off his hat. His head was shaved. Scars and tattoos were in the middle of a turf war across his skin.

  ‘Reportin’ for duty, sir.’

  Gus Grabbem Senior stood up, folded his paper away and gave the man a friendly whack on the shoulder. He didn’t budge.

  ‘Fenton! Good to see ya, skipper. Take a seat.’

  ‘Prefer to stand, sir,’ said the man. ‘I’m not one for comfort.’

  Gus Junior looked the man up and down. Somethi
ng was happening in Gus Junior’s brain that didn’t usually happen, and he didn’t like it. He knew, in the deep-down way that you know certain true things, that this stranger wouldn’t be as easy to push around as the rest of the Grabbem staff. So he did what he always did. He turned his fear into rudeness.

  ‘Hey, Dad. Who’s the Frankenstein?’

  Lucius, who was tidying up the tea things, let out the tiniest of excited squeaks. Inside, he was thinking: Please, oh please, let the ghastly little brat push this hard-nut too far, and get the spanking he so richly deserves!

  ‘This is Captain Fenton,’ said Gus Senior. ‘He’ll be in charge of the Plunderer.’

  ‘Thirty years’ naval experience, as both man and boy,’ said Fenton, his chest swelling with what might have been pride.

  Gus Junior gave a scornful sniff. ‘Big deal. I could steer the Plunderer myself if I had to.’

  Fenton slowly went and stood behind Gus’s chair. He leant up close to Gus’s ear and whispered: ‘Maybe you could. But the sea can be a frightening place, young fella. Some right nasty characters turn up on board ships. And the thing is, once you’ve put to sea, you can’t just hop off again if you decide you don’t like it. So it’s best to put a man like me in charge. I’m not trying to scare ya. Just want you to be realistic.’

  Gus swallowed. ‘I can look after myself.’

  Fenton placed his hand, heavy as a spade, on Gus’s shoulder. He squeezed, hard. It hurt.

  Gus tried not to wince, but the pain showed on his face.

  ‘Just do as you’re told, sunshine, and we’ll get along famously,’ breathed Fenton. He gave Gus’s shoulder a final pat and turned back to Gus Senior. ‘Care to meet the first mate, sir?’

  ‘Send him in! Let’s see what my money is paying for.’

  Gus Junior was already uncomfortable. When he saw the metal horror that came stalking into the room, he became downright scared. It was like a robot pirate, with multiple arms and a chrome skull for a face.

  ‘Presenting U-WOT-M8,’ said Fenton. ‘Not just a reliable first mate, but a crackin’ chief of security, too. Armed with the deadliest weapons, and clever enough to know when to use them. Knows when to stun and when to kill. Its senses are so fine, they even work on the pheromone level.’