by Susan Moore
LaPlante had said in his message that this was meant to be some top-secret lab. Zoinks! It was more like a stinky junk yard.
A loud QUACK! made her jump. A big orange duck robot waddled out from underneath one of the tables. Its paintwork was dull and covered in scratches and dents. Its shiny black eyes were the old-style D2s. It had to be as old as this place was.
“Bienvenue to the SPLINTER LAB, secret offshoot of SPIN!” announced LaPlante, closing the hatch. “Your father started the SPIN empire here, at this very bench.”
He pointed to one of the steel-topped tables. Without thinking, Nat stepped across and ran her fingers over its pitted surface. Maybe her dad had made these dents while building a robot.
“I was here too,” quacked the duck.
“I was your father’s first employee,” said LaPlante, offering her a chocolate biscuit from a tin that sat on the bench.
“What was he like?” she said, taking one.
“Very smart, smarter than me, which is hard for me to admit because my intellect is at genius level. He was addicted to coffee. Ah, bon dieu, your father would drink ten cups a day! We used to joke he was rocket-fuelled from all that caffeine.” He threw back his head and let out a loud snort of laughter. “Those were the days.”
He stopped. He frowned, his face clouding over.
“And when your father died, and your mother … a tragic loss. So very tragic. And now your guardian too. I am so sorry about that. Even now when I come into the lab, I sometimes find myself talking to your father, thinking he is still there, at this bench, next to me.”
They fell silent. Nat could feel Fizz’s warm snout brush her neck. Here she was, in the place where her dad had started SPIN, with a (slightly bonkers) man who had been here with him. She never knew her dad liked coffee so much, or that this place even existed.
A tear sprang up out of the well of pain that she kept such a tight lid on, and spilled down her cheek. A feathered wing-tip patted her hand.
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.”
She looked down to find that the duck had flown up on to the bench.
“Ah, do excuse; Mangetout is both a philosopher and a poet,” said LaPlante, scooping the duck up under his arm.
“Why is this place secret? Why didn’t I know about it before?”
LaPlante sucked in the air between his teeth.
“What is being developed in here must be protected. There are many who want to get their hands on it.”
“BlackCod?” said Nat.
He didn’t answer the question but instead walked to the other side of the lab, where he pulled a dustsheet off a massive object that stood in the corner. Underneath lay an ancient, clunky Space Invaders arcade game.
“It was your father’s favourite game,” said LaPlante. “When he took a break from work he’d grab a coffee from the café and come back down to relax by blowing away pixel aliens on this screen. He liked the simplicity of it.”
He pushed the big red button on the front of the console, but instead of the game launching on screen, the front of the machine slid to one side with a swoosh! The computer inside was gone. In its place lay another tunnel.
“Mind your head and follow me,” he said, stepping inside with Mangetout waddling in after him.
“A world of mystery awaits us,” whispered Fizz.
Nat ducked down into the tunnel. It was narrower and shorter than the last one. There were no steps, but it sloped sharply downwards. They had to be deep underground at this point, way below the streets of London.
They reached another steel hatch, which led into a long, capsule-shaped lab.
Nat gasped. Tiger’s teeth, this was the complete opposite to the other lab! It was like stepping into a spaceship. Pearl-coloured walls lit by Batalilac surround-spots curved down to a polished titanium-coated floor. In the middle of this stood a state-of-the-art virtual-reality chair that looked as if it’d been beamed back from the future.
“Ku,” she said with a low whistle.
“Merci,” said LaPlante, bowing his head.
He touched the wall behind him. It slid back to reveal a silver flight suit. He took the suit off its hanger and handed it to Nat.
“You will need this to go into the game. Your father designed BlackCod for you. He architected and built the core so that only you can activate and play it. I’ve had to wait for technology to catch up for me to build the rest, and I’m still not anywhere close to finishing it. As I said in my email to Jamuka, BlackCod is still half-baked. I thought I would have a few more years yet to complete it.”
Nat looked from the suit to the chair. “But all this stuff looks ready to go.”
“It looks good, yes, but that is superficial. I had to set its physical part up to enable me to keep building the virtual world inside the game.”
“Why did Dad make it only for me?”
LaPlante let out a long, deep sigh. “It is something to do with a sword that your father was obsessed with. That was all he would tell me. The game is designed so that only you would be able to find the sword if something happened to him. I had to swear on my life that I’d complete it if he died. I don’t break promises so, here I am, building the operating shell around the core. BlackCod will only activate when you and Fizz enter.”
Nat felt Fizz’s claws dig into her shoulder. “Ouch!”
“Sorry. I have a role of importance too?”
She plucked him off her shoulder and held him in her palm. His eyes were flashing purple then green like a set of disco lights.
LaPlante sat down on the edge of the chair and let out another long sigh, like some two-hundred-year-old goat that was tired of life.
“We assume you do, little dragon, but I know no more. I have been building BlackCod for years on my own with only Mangetout to help me. It is slow work and I can’t test it, because I do not have access into the core.” He put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his stripy hair. “I have lived in this lab since then. It is my life. Mangetout and me.”
The duck quacked and flapped its wings.
“I want to go in and see what’s in there,” said Nat.
Philippe shook his head. “It is too soon. It could be dangerous because I have not built the haptic load tester yet. The challenge could overload your brain.”
Nat bit down on the inside of her lip. “I’ll take that risk. I’ve got to see if there’s something in there that can help me. I’m being chased by that crazy, sword-wielding WarZworld queen who seems to know all about the sword anyway. I want to go into BlackCod now.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
OCULAR INTAKE
Nat ran her fingers over the flight suit’s soft fabric. It was thinner than a wonton wrapper.
“Where are all the haptic feedback sensors?” she said, unzipping it.
LaPlante looked up. “They are in the fabric, all nanothreaded in. When you put it on it will automould to fit you. Mangetout and I designed and made them.”
Mangetout quacked in agreement.
Nat kicked off her Slider boots, stepped into the silver suit and pulled up the zip. When it reached the top there was a clicking sound. A hood popped out and automatically raised up and over her head. The nanothreads in the fabric lit up electric blue, like veins. She felt the suit suck in, mapping and moulding itself over the contours of her body until it became a second skin.
“Zoinks, I feel like a robot!” she said.
She moved through a few windmill and stretch-kick kung fu warm-up moves, testing its mobility.
“Ku,” she said, satisfied.
Philippe waved a hand over the top of a small console desk. A holographic image of a black fish sprang up, swimming in a circle in mid-air. Part of the wall slid back to reveal a glass shelf holding a pair of silver glasses. He handed them to her.
She expected them to be heavy, but like the haptic suit they were as light as a feather. A BlackCod logo was stamped into one of the arms.
&n
bsp; “Are these virtual-reality glasses?”
Philippe nodded. “Oui. Mangetout designed them.”
She looked at the duck robot, who was perched on the console desk next to Fizz. Mangetout really didn’t look like she could design anything.
“I combined the sunglass designs of the last century with the technology of today,” she quacked.
“They’re way better than the Octozebs I’ve got at home,” said Nat.
Philippe pulled a MicroSpan tool from his pocket. He leaned in towards Nat’s face. “I need to scan your right iris so that we can verify the glasses to you. Do not blink.”
Nat held her eye open. A thin yellow light scanned across.
“Bon. All done,” he said, handing them back to her. “Please take a seat.”
She sat down in the VR chair.
“Welcome, Natalie Walker,” the chair said, sliding back and raising the footrest to a full reclining position.
It lit up electric blue like her suit and began to mould around her, until it had completed its customfit cycle.
Philippe slid back a panel in the console desk and lifted out a miniature dragon-sized VR chair. It was one of the dingest things Nat had ever seen.
“Fizz, please come,” he said, wiring it up to a cluster of Spiderwires attached to the console desk.
Fizz swooped into the seat.
“Welcome, Fizz,” the chair said, shrinking down in size to fit him.
Philippe crouched down and pulled a tiny box from his pocket. Nat gasped; inside lay a mini pair of VR glasses.
“Ku, but can’t you just wire him into the game?”
He shook his head. “No, even though he is a robot it has to come through his visual sensors.”
“I do not have an iris,” said Fizz.
“Non, but Max Walker gave you a unique eye pattern construction, perfectly optimised for these.”
He carefully picked up the glasses and held them out. Fizz took them with his talons, his eyes glowing deep purple in delight.
“My first pair of glasses,” he whispered, placing them over his snout.
Snap! They were on for a split second when suddenly he opened his mouth and let out a deafening, piercing screech. He rocketed up out of the chair, high into the air, red smoke streaming out of his snout. THUD! He hit the ceiling with full force. His screeching stopped. Silence.
“No!” cried Nat, hitting the auto-release button on her chair.
She leapt out and sprinted across the floor towards him. With a lightning-quick flying-kick she propelled herself up and out, catching hold of one of his wings.
“QUACK!”
Nat came crashing down on top of Mangetout.
“Injured, need repair,” said the duck, one of its wings crushed and half snapped off.
Philippe gave Nat a hand up. He prised Fizz from her grip and flicked off his glasses. In an instant the dragon whirred back to life, his eyes glowing amber.
“Massive sensory overload removed. Normal service resumed.”
“Ai yah! Thank goodness,” said Nat, snatching him back and hugging him close.
Philippe fixed a circular diagnostic lens over his good eye and peered closely at the glasses.
“Mais c’est bien. We have just tested our haptic levels. I’ll take it down to minimum load, which I didn’t think would be good enough, but based on this test it is.”
He input some information at the desk keyboard, while Nat checked on Mangetout. The duck had her head bent over her wing.
“I’m so sorry I landed on you,” said Nat.
Mangetout looked up. In her beak she was holding a tiny screwdriver with which she was unscrewing the broken wing.
“Do not worry. It is something I can repair myself. It is not the first time this has happened to me.”
“Ready for take two?” said Philippe, handing Fizz back his glasses.
Nat’s chair looked far less appealing than it had done only minutes before.
“Lights, camera, action!” said Fizz, flying back into his seat and putting on his glasses.
She winced as the glasses snapped on over his snout. There were no fireworks this time. Nothing.
“Ocular intake stable,” he reported.
“Ready, Natalie?” said Philippe, handing her pair over.
She hesitated. Half of her wanted to rush headlong into BlackCod, to find this sword that had caused so much trouble already. But the other half of her was tired, nervous and grieving for Jamuka.
She took the glasses and put them on. Her skin tingled as the frames suctioned on to her head.
“Bon. The glasses are now tapping into your brain receptors just like normal virtual reality. Are you ready, BlackCod crew?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE BRIBE
Limpet looked across his desk at Ivy Shiversand. They hadn’t met in person for several years, and that had suited him quite well. She’d grown vast in size during those intervening years, but more than anything she’d aged beyond recognition. Despite the Cementer sculpting she’d had done to her face, it looked like a death mask.
He was at least twenty-five years older than her, but right now, if someone came in who didn’t know them, they would think him the younger of them both.
Her suit of armour and cape were giving off the musty smell of old socks. He had wanted to open the window to let in some air, but that was too risky in case someone eavesdropped on their conversation.
He’d listened to her complain about how he had treated Saskia, and how the rumour-mill in the school must be stopped. He’d listened to her rant on about the good old days when she’d been at Boxbury with Max Walker, and how they’d been such great friends.
There hadn’t been a chance to get a word in. Until now. She was waiting for him to apologise.
Mr Limpet steepled his fingers together.
“Ivy, we have known each other a very long time. You didn’t come to Boxbury in person to tell me all this. We could easily have had this conversation remotely, so why don’t you tell me what this is really about.”
She huffed.
“Very well. Let’s get straight to the point. I hear the Walker girl is coming to board with you.”
“That is so.”
“I need you to allow one of my beetlebots to join your surveillance force.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“Because Max and his wife left her something that I want to know more about.”
His jaw dropped at her blunt admission.
“I will do no such thing.”
She leaned across his desk.
“Yes you will because otherwise I’ll let everyone know you’ve been siphoning off school funds to feather your own nest.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alpha, show.”
Her vile beetlebot scuttled into the middle of Limpet’s fine, leather-topped desk and flicked up its shiny brown shell. His Swiss bank account statement came up full screen. It was right up to date. He’d checked it himself earlier that morning. It contained seven million, three hundred and twenty-seven pounds.
“How did you get this?” he said, his voice strangled.
“Never you mind that, Limpet.” Ivy laughed a ghastly laugh. “All you need to know is that I always get what I want.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
THE ELF
Nat was inside BlackCod. She was standing in a medieval town square filled with a maze of wooden stalls. The sky above was a vivid violet. She could smell smoke and barbecued food in the warm air. People in hooded cloaks were shopping at the stalls, chatting, their voices loud and conversations buzzing.
Her body tingled and fizzed with the new sensory experience. It was a hyper-real that she’d never felt before.
Looking down, she saw she was clothed in a long green velvet gown. A pair of red jewelled slippers peeped out underneath. Zoinks! This was what her dad had designed for her? She
looked like a fairytale princess.
She caught sight of her hands and gasped. They were neon green and patterned with electric-blue stars. She pulled up a sleeve – the same thing. She was an alien fairytale princess.
She wasn’t alone though. A man with a blue-and-orange striped face walked by talking to a boy with yellow-and-gold zigzagged skin.
A girl came running past and elbowed Nat out of the way. She fell backwards, bumping into a wooden table piled high with books.
“Sim lat?” said a squeaky voice.
Nat turned to find a tiny elf in a black skirt and shawl standing on one of the book stacks, her hands on her hips.
“Sorry?” said Nat.
“Ah, you speak English. I was asking if you’re interested. Interested in my books.”
Nat glanced down. The table was piled high with stacks of ancient, dusty leather-bound books.
“Pick one out; it will be a cracking read,” said the elf with a loud cackle.
Nat was about to reach for one when someone thrust a glass vial full of blue liquid under her nose.
“Want some dragon’s blood?” said a gruff voice.
She turned. A hunched old man with warts sprouting out of his face was grinning at her and showing the only two black teeth he had left. His breath smelled worse than a dead cat.
“No, thanks,” she said, recoiling.
He waved the vial again. As it moved the blood turned from blue to red.
“It’ll give you fire in your belly. Only seven shillings to you. Ow!”
“Get off my customer!” screeched the elf, her clawed fingers pulling him away. She was holding a long stick in her hand. “I’ll beat you again if you don’t leave right now.”
The old man spat at the elf, his greasy saliva hitting her full in the face. Using her sleeve the elf smeared it away. Nat’s stomach heaved.
“Stanka quamquam stymix!” said the elf, pointing her stick at the man.
Sparks shot out of the end of her stick and came showering down on the old man. Nat ducked out of their path. A blinding flash ripped through the air, followed by a loud farting sound.