The Grabbem Getaway

by Adrian C. Bott

  ‘They’re not giving up. We’re going to need to hide.’

  There had to be a way to avoid the Grabbem scanners, but how? Agent Omega had said that if BEAST went deep underground, it would block the signal. Axel guessed the robot would be a good digger, but they didn’t have time to tunnel through the earth.

  Maybe if they couldn’t go underground, they could go underwater. Now that was an idea he could get behind.

  His excitement building, Axel steered BEAST away from the land and out towards the sea.

  They flew above highways, parks and towns until the sea stretched ahead of them, a wide expanse of glittering water. Just as the Grabbem ships were coming close again, Axel brought BEAST down to the water’s surface.

  ‘BEAST, can you go under?’

  ‘THIS IS NOT THE RECOMMENDED FORM FOR UNDERWATER MISSIONS,’ warned BEAST. ‘OTHER FORMS ARE AVAILABLE, BUT –’

  ‘But I will need apps to access them, yes, I know! I don’t care about the recommended form. Can you go under now?’

  ‘YES.’

  That was all Axel needed to know. He tilted BEAST further down.

  There was a flurry of water as they dived through the surface, then everything was dark and quiet.

  BEAST switched his eye-beams on. Axel gasped.

  A beautiful panorama opened up before them. They were surging down through the water, past shoals of glimmering fish and bright clusters of coral. The surface looked like beaten silver, rippling high above.

  ‘Let’s see those Grabbem creeps follow us down here,’ Axel laughed.

  He steered BEAST over the edge of the drop-off and down into the deeper ocean. It was dark and cold down here, but BEAST’s blue eye-beams made the undersea world clearly visible. The jagged rocks and sandy sea-bed looked like an alien planet.

  ‘This is amazing,’ he said.

  ‘Spectacular view, isn’t it?’ said the voice of Agent Omega in Axel’s ear.

  ‘Agent Omega!’ yelled Axel. ‘You’re alive!’

  In his secret cupboard deep under Grabbem HQ, Agent Omega panicked as Axel’s voice came booming out of his computer. He frantically turned down the volume. Then he waited to see if Axel’s yell had attracted attention. His heart pounded in his ears.

  No footsteps came.

  He slowly turned the volume back up.

  ‘Hello? You still there?’ came Axel’s voice.

  ‘I’m here. I’m fine. Please talk quietly,’ Agent Omega said. He was wishing he’d thought to wear headphones.

  ‘Okay,’ Axel whispered. ‘I’m fine too. So is BEAST. We’re hiding under the sea.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ Agent Omega smiled.

  ‘What happened? I thought they’d detected you!’

  ‘They almost did. Things were looking pretty hairy down here for a moment. I had to create an emergency to distract them.’

  ‘Emergency? What kind?’

  Agent Omega glanced over to the thick plumbing pipe that ran from floor to ceiling in the corner of his room. He had taped a gadget to the side of it. ‘I used my emergency sonic destabiliser. It worked a bit too well, to be honest. I wanted to make a small flood in the computer lab, but … well … all the toilets on the research floor exploded.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘The supervisor was furious. Partly because of the mess, partly because work got interrupted, but mostly because he happened to be sitting on one of the toilets at the time. But that’s not important right now. I need to talk to you about –’

  ‘Apps?’ interrupted Axel.

  Agent Omega gasped. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve had to learn a whole lot in the last thirty minutes.’

  ‘Fair point,’ admitted Agent Omega. ‘Okay. I’ll make this as clear as I can. BEAST is a shifter. That means he can change his form to do different jobs.’

  Battle-Enabled Armoured Shifter Transport, remembered Axel. ‘Yeah. BEAST said as much.’

  ‘Okay, you’re up to speed. Now, the scientists here at Grabbem came up with a whole load of forms, each one suited to a different job they thought BEAST might need to do. Each form has an app. The app is kind of like the instructions to go into that form. With me so far?’

  Axel nodded. ‘So BEAST is the hardware, and the apps are his software.’

  ‘Yes!’ Agent Omega slapped his leg excitedly. ‘You’ve got it. Now, two very important things. Firstly, BEAST only has so many components to go around, so if an app gives him some kind of new ability, he’ll probably lose some other ability to balance things out.’

  Axel thought about that. ‘So he could be a radio, or a toaster, but not a toaster-radio.’

  ‘Close enough. Also, the software to make BEAST change shape is pretty complicated. It takes up a lot of space in his brain. He can only store five apps at a time.’

  ‘Only five. Gotcha.’ Axel frowned as a thought struck him. ‘So if the apps are all made by Grabbem, and they don’t want me to have them, how am I ever going to get any?’

  Agent Omega grinned and leant back in his chair. ‘Leave that to me, the master hacker.’

  He tapped a key on his keyboard. A window popped up on his computer screen: sending.

  ‘BEAST?’ said Axel. ‘Why are you, um, vibrating?’

  ‘RECEIVING DATA!’ said BEAST, sounding as happy as if he’d said receiving birthday presents.

  Before Axel’s eyes, five download bars appeared. Each one had a word next to it, which Axel guessed was the name of an app:

  ‘So what do these apps do?’ he asked.

  Agent Omega rubbed his chin and coughed. ‘I, uh … to tell the truth, I’m not entirely sure. I think BLACKBAT is stealth mode, but the others? No clue. I hacked my way in and took what I could find. I figured any apps were better than none. You’ll just have to work out what they do by yourself.’

  ‘No worries. Thanks, Agent Omega. I’m sure these will help us stay alive.’

  A red light on Agent Omega’s computer began blinking furiously.

  ‘Oh, heck,’ he said. ‘They’re on my trail again. I guess exploding toilets didn’t slow them down as much as I’d expected. Come on, computer, hurry up and send those apps!’

  The download bars crawled across Axel’s vision, moving way too slowly.

  Axel groaned. Why didn’t an advanced robot like BEAST have a better roaming internet connection?

  ‘Are those Grabbem ships still up there?’ he asked BEAST.

  ‘YES,’ BEAST told him. ‘AND … SOMETHING ELSE.’

  That made Axel jump. ‘What is it? Can you tell?’

  ‘SORRY, AXEL. IT’S BIG, AND FLYING, AND IT SCARES ME.’

  Axel boggled. ‘Um. Agent Omega? A little help here? BEAST isn’t making any sense.’

  ‘Oh yes he is,’ said Agent Omega, sounding very grim. ‘Axel, I think I know what’s up there with those Grabbem ships. And if I’m right, things just got a whole lot worse.’

  Gus Grabbem Junior sat in the cockpit of his very own fighter craft, playing deafening thrash metal music through the speakers.

  The fighter was shaped like a slender dart with swept-back wings. Every bit of it was gleaming black, except for the tips of the missiles under the wings, which were red. Gus licked his lips. There were a lot of missiles.

  Just for the sheer fun of it, he flew down low over a nearby town. The black fighter roared through the sky, so low down it looked like it must be crashing. People looked up, pointed and screamed. The force of the wind in its wake ripped tiles off rooftops.

  A child’s ice-cream fell out of its cone and went SPLAT on the footpath.

  Gus laughed and pulled the joystick back, climbing up into the sky. He turned down the thrash metal music and thumbed the communicator button: ‘Nearly there, Dad. I can see those two losers you sent out up ahead.’

  ‘Nice one, son,’ came the voice of Gus Grabbem Senior. ‘Did they get the robot yet?’

  ‘Nah. They’re just flying in circles over the sea.’

 
‘Ha! Never send an employee to do a Grabbem’s job,’ leered Gus Senior. ‘When they get back here, I’ll sack ’em.’

  ‘Can I watch?’

  ‘Course you can! But first, you take charge, son. Show those losers how it’s done. Go bring that robot back. In bits if you have to.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll smash it to bits all right,’ murmured Gus Junior. ‘No filthy common kid gets to steal my robot. I’d rather blow it up!’

  The downloads were almost complete. Only BLACKBAT was left. The bar crept slowly towards the end like a snail going back to school after the holidays.

  Agent Omega used his computer to scan through the Grabbem systems and found what he was looking for. Hangar thirteen, Gus Grabbem Junior’s personal vehicle bay, was empty.

  ‘Axel, listen. There’s so much I still have to tell you, but there’s no time. BEAST was originally built for a boy around your age.’

  ‘Oh. I guess that explains why the compartment I’m in is my size,’ said Axel.

  ‘That boy’s name is Gus Grabbem Junior,’ Agent Omega went on. ‘Son of the multi-bulti-billionaire who happens to be my boss. He’s the most spoilt, violent, disgusting little brat you could ever hope to meet.’

  ‘Hey!’ Axel said. ‘Stop that!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘If he’s just a kid, you shouldn’t say those things about him.’

  ‘… I beg your pardon?’ Agent Omega boggled.

  ‘Even if he’s mean, you don’t have to be mean too,’ Axel explained. ‘And we don’t know why he’s like that. He might have good reasons. Maybe he’s got family troubles or something.’

  Agent Omega angrily opened his mouth to yell at Axel, then decided he’d better not.

  Calm down, Cedric, he told himself. Axel’s just a nice kid. He wants to see the good in everyone. He doesn’t know what young Gus is capable of.

  But he was about to find out.

  Something slashed down through the water just ahead of BEAST, leaving a foamy wake like a torpedo. Axel had just enough time to think, What in the world could that be? and then the explosion hit.

  Underwater, it was somehow loud and muffled at the same time. A shockwave tore BEAST upside-down and smashed Axel hard against the cockpit’s padding. They hurtled backwards, cartwheeling, and slammed against a wall of undersea rock.

  Axel struggled to turn BEAST the right way up. He could barely see anything at all in the clouds of sediment from the explosion. A few sad, ragged scraps drifted past his eyes. They looked like they had once been fish. The blast had cooked them in a split second.

  A voice rang out from BEAST’s speakers: ‘Hey, fart-boy! This is Gus Grabbem Junior speaking. How are you doing down there?’

  Axel had the funniest feeling he’d been in this situation before, somehow. ‘Can he hear me?’ he asked BEAST.

  ‘Of course I can hear you, dillweed. You’re in deep trouble. You know that, right?’

  There was a soft ping. Axel glanced over and saw that the apps had finally finished downloading.

  A message from Agent Omega appeared underneath: Can’t talk more b/c GG may hear. Only way 2 kp BST safe: take out trackng device. Gd lk. O.

  ‘Gd lk to you too,’ Axel whispered.

  Gus sang in a neener-neener tone: ‘You stole my ro-bot, and now you’re going to pa-ay.’

  ‘I didn’t steal him!’ Axel yelled. ‘He ran away of his own free will!’

  ‘Bzzzt. Sorry. Wrong answer. You lose. Goodbye.’

  When Gus said that, Axel knew what must be coming. He fired BEAST’s rockets and roared up through the water, just in time for the next missile to whip down and hit the place where they’d been seconds before.

  Another thunderous blast, another slam of water – but this time they were already moving, and it just pushed them forwards all the faster.

  Axel thought quickly. They couldn’t stay down here, or Gus would just keep firing until he blew them out of the water. They were going to have to fight. He just hoped the apps would help.

  Then he thought about how the crab-ship’s missile had destroyed a tree and how miserable BEAST had been about it. Somehow, they had to fight in a place where nobody would be hurt. Not even plants or animals, if Axel could help it. Those poor cooked fish … But where could he go?

  ‘You still down there, Captain Garbage?’ mocked Gus.

  Just like that, Axel had his answer.

  ‘Garbage,’ he said softly to himself. ‘Of course. BEAST, I need you to fly as fast as you can.’

  ‘ROGER,’ BEAST said. ‘ENGAGING SUITABLE APP NOW.’

  One word lit up in brilliant blue: SKYHAWK.

  Mechanical parts hummed and buzzed in BEAST’s limbs. Axel felt an odd lurch as the cockpit changed shape, becoming more of a seat.

  Then more words lit up in red: Danger! Not for underwater use!

  ‘Oh, man,’ said Axel. ‘I should have thought of that. We need to get out of the water right now.’ He hit maximum thrust.

  BEAST broke the surface like a rocket, water pouring off him, and tore up through the sky. As BEAST climbed, he changed.

  Flat wings extended from his arms as his legs folded back. His chest cavity rotated smoothly, moving his pilot onto his stomach. Now Axel was propped on his elbows, looking out over BEAST’s head.

  In his SKYHAWK form, BEAST had become a sleek jet fighter. Axel grinned. Regular BEAST was pretty fast, but he hadn’t exactly been streamlined. This version of BEAST seemed like it could zip across the Atlantic after lunch and be back again in time for dinner.

  ‘You dummy!’ Gus Grabbem screeched, and burst out laughing. ‘You picked SKYHAWK?’

  ‘Yeah, and?’

  ‘SKYHAWK’s got no weapons. It doesn’t even have arms or legs! How are you gonna fight, huh?’

  Axel remembered what Agent Omega had said about how BEAST’s forms always lost some kind of ability as well as gaining new ones. Well, it didn’t matter. All he needed right now was speed, and SKYHAWK had that.

  ‘Who said anything about fighting?’ he told Gus. ‘Eat my dust.’ And he shoved the throttle as far as it would go.

  The flesh on Axel’s face dragged backwards from the sheer force of acceleration. The country below them was a green blur, the clouds a random scurry of blue and white.

  He tried easing BEAST gently from side to side and found it was much easier than before. Piloting SKYHAWK felt as smooth and natural as playing a flight simulator.

  He tilted them over to the right and kept going until SKYHAWK had completed a full barrel roll.

  An odd sputtering sound and a flash of greenish light made him glance at the rear-view screen. Gus was chasing him. His own black fighter was way out in front of the more sluggish Grabbem crab-ships. And he was firing. Rapid pulses of yellow-green energy peppered the air around them.

  ‘Guess what the other problem with SKYHAWK is?’ gloated Gus as Axel dodged and weaved out of the way. He just needed Gus to follow him for a little longer. The landmarks he was looking for should be showing up at any moment.

  ‘I give up. What is it?’

  ‘You’ll find out!’

  More volleys of cannon fire drilled through the sky, seeking their target. Axel banked hard, but was a second too late. One of Gus’s shots smacked into the underside of BEAST’s right-hand wing and punched right through it.

  BEAST moaned in what sounded very much like pain.

  Axel stared at the blackened circle Gus’s shot had made, and at the sparking exposed wires that lay inside the hole, looking like burnt spaghetti. There was a sickening lurch as BEAST wobbled violently. The controls wrestled themselves out of Axel’s hands.

  ‘Ya see now?’ laughed Gus. ‘SKYHAWK may be fast, but its armour’s paper thin. And as for those fat old jets on the back of it? Guess what happens if I score a hit right in the middle of one!’

  Axel didn’t have to guess. He knew.

  This version of BEAST had a weak spot – and Gus Grabbem Junior knew exactly where it was!

  Agent O
mega was right, he thought. ‘Wow. You really are a jerk.’

  Gus Grabbem laughed – and the next thing he said made Axel’s blood run cold.

  ‘Cry more, noob!’

  It’s him, Axel thought. Gus Grabbem is BAGGER_63! No wonder he could afford an elite Tankinator if his dad’s a billionaire.

  ‘BEAST, talk to me!’ he said. ‘Are you badly hurt?’

  ‘THE DAMAGE IS ONLY MINOR,’ said BEAST.

  ‘Yahoo!’ squealed Gus behind him, an all-too-familiar sound. ‘Got that fat jet engine locked in my sights. You are goin’ down!’

  As Gus opened fire, Axel put BEAST into a crash dive, ducking out of the path of his shots.

  Axel saw they were flying close to the place he’d chosen for his battleground. There was no mistaking the high wire fences all around it, nor the towering crane with its giant grabber. ‘Junk City!’ he whispered.

  Everyone from Axel’s town knew about Junk City. It was the biggest scrapyard for hundreds of kilometres around. Everything from old farm trucks to disused train carriages ended up in one of its teetering piles.

  The woman who ran Junk City called herself Rusty Rosie. She often worked with his mum and Axel liked her, though he was a bit scared of her too. She had muscles, tattoos and one eye that was all cloudy, supposedly from ‘a load of flyin’ sparks off of the angle grinder’. He hoped Rusty Rosie wouldn’t be angry with him after what he was about to do.

  Smoke trailed from BEAST’s wing as they hurtled down towards Junk City. Axel could clearly see the stacks of rusting cars like weird skyscrapers in front of him. ‘I hope this works,’ he murmured. ‘BEAST, change to whatever form has the most armour.’

  ‘SHIFTING TO OGRE,’ said BEAST.

  SKYHAWK’s smooth wings folded away. Out came BEAST’s arms and legs again, only now they were thick and hefty-looking. Instead of the fingers BEAST had had before, there were fat fingerless hands like mittens.

  With a wheeze-crump sound, BEAST’s head popped into his body and then back out, now looking like a little domed turret with blue eyes shining from it.