If any of the guests got the impression that Grabbem Industries wasn’t a well-ordered company where everything ran like clockwork, they might pull out. They had to see machines running smoothly, computers humming softly, elevators going up and down like they were supposed to, and people silently getting on with their jobs as obediently as terrified children in a classroom.
There had been a few too many ‘incidents’ lately. That interfering boy and his stolen Grabbem robot had caused Mr Grabbem no end of trouble, shutting down operations here and blowing up company property there, until Mr Grabbem had been so frustrated he’d built a colossal robot of his own to take them down. It hadn’t ended well.
‘Those two wouldn’t come here,’ he mumbled into his pillow. ‘They’d never be that stupid ...’
Mr Grabbem was soon snoring like a big happy hog in a bed of straw.
His mind was quiet, dark, as calm as an aquarium with no fish in it. He had no idea what was going to happen the next morning. No idea at all.
If he could have seen what was going to happen twelve hours into the future, he would have jumped out of bed and run screaming into the night in his fuzzy pyjamas.
Meanwhile, in a room down the hall, his son Gus Grabbem Junior was wide awake.
Gus didn’t have friends the way ordinary children do. Instead, he had a clique of rich-kid cronies who were almost as obnoxious as he was. They didn’t have fun together the way that you or I would. Instead, their nastiness merged into a sort of ghastly clump like what remains after wax crayons have been left on a heater.
They called themselves the Toxic Tweens. Together they were somehow much worse than any one of them could be on their own. It was a blessing for the rest of the world that they didn’t get to meet up more than once a year.
While the parents were off having the Big Tour, Gus and the Toxic Tweens were going to make life hell for the poor Grabbem employees. There were smoke bombs to throw, slime canisters to explode, water cannons to let off, computer systems to fry … and the best part of all was that the workers couldn’t do anything about it. They had to smile and get on with their jobs or they’d be fired immediately.
‘Oh, we’re going to have fun, all right.’ Gus smirked, as he made his plans. ‘And nothing and nobody is going to stop us!’
The MOT-BOL moved silently through the sky. It was early dawn. Only an hour to go until Axel and BEAST arrived at Platinum Acres.
Axel wished he could just stay up here. He’d never felt less prepared for a mission. He had no idea what was waiting for them in the massive complex below the ground. He cleaned his glasses nervously just to give his fingers something to do.
‘I wish we had a plan, BEAST,’ he said. ‘Agent Omega usually tells us what the plan is, but he can’t do that this time.’
‘HOW DO YOU THINK THEY CAUGHT HIM?’ BEAST asked nervously.
‘Maybe they’ve developed a mind scanner,’ Axel guessed. ‘Or maybe they hacked into his emails? Omega’s good with computers, but he’s not the only expert out there.’
‘SHOULD WE MAKE UP A PLAN OURSELVES?’
‘Good idea. See if the MOT-BOL has a map of the Grabbem base in its memory. Let’s try to figure out where they’re keeping him.’
Twenty minutes later, they had written a plan on the MOT-BOL’s onboard computer and printed it out.
Axel sighed and folded the plan away.
At least it was a start. But he still felt out of his depth. What if Agent Omega wasn’t even in the Grabbem base? He could be anywhere by now.
And despite what BEAST had said, he wasn’t sure he trusted the MOT-BOL. The hologram of Omega could have been a computer animation. All this could be a really clever trap, and they were walking right into it ...
His phone pinged. Yumi had sent him a message.
Axel. You never came back to the game, so I’m guessing you’re on a mission.
My mother finally decrypted the rest of that message. Your dad is being held by a group called the NEURON INSTITUTE. Sorry I can’t tell you any more than that.
Good luck with your mission, whatever it is.
‘BEAST, do you know what the Neuron Institute is?’ Axel asked, his heart racing.
‘NO. ARE WE GOING THERE? HAS THE PLAN CHANGED?’
Axel wanted badly to say ‘yes’. This new information changed everything. They could find his dad now!
And Agent Omega could wait a litte longer to be rescued, couldn’t he? He’d understand. And BEAST hadn’t really wanted to come here in the first place ...
Then BEAST’s ears drooped. ‘ARE WE ABANDONING AGENT OMEGA?’
Axel swallowed hard and made his decision. ‘No. We’re going to get him out, like we promised.’
He glanced out of the window again and saw the gleaming shapes of buildings below them. They’d finally arrived at the Grabbem Base. Nearby lay an immense blue lake. No, not a lake – a swimming pool! Axel’s mind boggled at the size of it. You could fit a fleet of warships in a pool that size.
‘Better get ready to rumble,’ he told BEAST.
BEAST’s transparent canopy opened and Axel climbed inside. He thumbed a control and BEAST instantly shifted, his robot body rearranging itself into a new form: SHADO. It was slender and panther-like, with long claws extending from the arms.
The MOT-BOL hummed down through the air. A hatchway opened in the roof of the vehicle hangar below. The MOT-BOL passed through it and the hatchway hissed shut.
A jolt went through the craft as it touched down. Axel looked down and saw they had landed on a metal frame. Only a dim orange light, flashing slowly, revealed the scene before them. This must be where the technicians worked. A ladder led down out of sight.
No going back now, Axel thought.
And they jumped down into the darkness.
BEAST dropped silently through the dark and landed on all four feet. Yet instead of a massive crash, which is what you might expect when a robot drops down several floors, there was only a soft boomph and a slight creaking noise.
Axel was impressed. He lifted SHADO’s forepaw so he could see it. There were rubbery pads there, like a cat has on its paws. They must have soaked up all the force of the impact. He squeezed a control and long claws popped out, then back in. Even more cat-features!
‘Cool. BEAST, scan the area.’
‘ENGAGING NIGHT-VISION MODE.’
The huge hangar where they were standing suddenly seemed to light up around them. It was like a supermarket aisle built to a massive scale, with great racks of shelving on either side. But the ‘shelves’ didn’t hold boring things like dog food or trash bags. They held the strangest, most alien-looking vehicles Axel had ever seen.
Next to where the MOT-BOL had parked itself, there was an honest-to-goodness flying saucer, complete with a transparent dome in the middle. It looked like a relic from an old science-fiction movie. Beside that was something like a car safety seat with a gyroscope on the top and the word ANTIGRAV printed above the headrest.
Beyond were even more fantastic, ridiculous vehicles: a trike covered with metal skulls that had a laser turret mounted on it, a see-through bubble you could climb inside and boing about in, a surfboard with tiny jet engines at the back, and even someone’s attempt to make a flying broomstick.
‘MOVEMENT DETECTED,’ said BEAST.
‘Hide, quick!’
A door opened in the far end of the hall, looking as tiny as a mousehole in that great expanse of wall. Two figures came in. One shone a torch up at the MOT-BOL.
‘Check it out, Kelly. It was here all along!’
‘I thought you said that craft there had gone missing?’ demanded the other figure. ‘I suppose it just came back all by its own sweet self, did it?’
‘I … I guess it must have done.’
‘Come on, Tiago. Let’s get this maintenance check done with,’ came the reply. ‘I hate this place. Gives me the creeps. Sometimes I reckon it’s haunted.’
As the two technicians came towards them, Ax
el nudged SHADO out of their path and into the deeper shadows.
The torch beam flashed in their direction.
Axel froze on the spot.
Now that they weren’t moving, SHADO’s stealth mode switched on and they instantly became invisible. The torch beam shone right through them.
‘What in heck’s the matter with you?’ snapped Kelly.
‘Thuh … thought I saw something,’ stammered Tiago. ‘I dunno what it was, but it was … big.’
‘You’re going crazy! Too much coffee, that’s your problem! Keep your mind on the job, or we won’t have a job.’
Axel remembered to breathe. Keep it together, he told himself. You’re barely inside, and you’ve almost been seen already.
He watched the nervous technicians walk right past them.
Once the technicians had climbed up to the MOT-BOL’s landing platform and were looking in the other direction, he whispered, ‘Let’s get moving, BEAST. The route to the elevator’s through those doors up ahead.’
SHADO went bounding down the length of the darkened hangar, its footfalls as soft as snowflakes.
Just as they were about to slip through the doors, the overhead lights blazed into life. The hangar was suddenly lit up as bright as day.
Axel brought SHADO to a screeching halt. For one terrible second they were clearly visible, then they vanished from sight again. Axel prayed nobody had seen them.
Yells and wild laughter rang out. A crowd of boys and girls, none of them older than Axel, came stampeding through the doors. Fortunately, they weren’t looking Axel’s way.
Axel felt his heart give a sick thump as he saw who was at the head of the pack. None other than his arch-enemy, Gus Grabbem Junior. But who were these other strange-looking children?
‘Toxic Tween Tearaways are IN THE HOUSE!’ screamed Gus. ‘Let’s get this party started!’
‘Party! Party!’ chanted the gang.
Gus spread his arms. ‘First up today, it’s joyride time. Pick a vehicle and jump on board, everyone. Let’s have some FUN!’
They all sprinted towards their chosen vehicles.
‘That broomstick is mine,’ hissed a girl with stringy black hair.
‘I’m havin’ the surfboard!’ roared a boy with his head shaved into a mohawk crest.
‘Bagsy the bubble!’ squawked a red-faced girl with an English accent.
‘We’ll take the two-seater death trike,’ said a set of boy-and-girl twins with ice-blonde hair and fringed white leather jackets.
The technicians peered down from their perch. ‘Now hold on there, you kids,’ Tiago called out. ‘Ain’t you meant to be with the tour?’
Tour? What tour? Axel thought.
‘My dad owns this whole place, you crusty booger,’ screamed Gus, his hands on his hips. ‘I can go where I like, and so can my guests!’
‘Safety rules say you can’t,’ said the technician bravely.
Gus’s face broke into a slow grin. ‘I got a new idea. Time for some target practice, guys. Let’s buzz ’em!’
Whooping and hollering, the Toxic Tweens fired up their vehicles. In seconds, they turned the hangar into a roaring nightmare of noise and smoke.
With Gus leading the way in the antigrav chair, they flew past the terrified technicians, missing them by inches. The technicians clung to the rails of their platform and ducked out of the way as best they could. There was no way to escape. Tiago started down the platform’s ladder, but the blonde twins went zooming past fast enough to knock him clean off it. He changed his mind and just huddled there, whimpering.
‘We should have got out of here while we had the chance,’ Axel whispered.
The English girl quickly mastered the art of steering the bouncing bubble. It boinged around the room at amazing heights, almost reaching up to the ceiling.
‘Look at me!’ she crowed. ‘Watch this, Gus. I’m going to knock those two peasants off and break their silly necks for them. Just see if I don’t!’
She came rolling over to get a good run-up.
‘Oh no,’ groaned Axel as the bubble hurtled towards them. ‘If she hits us, we’ll move and turn visible – right in front of Gus Junior!’
‘Smash ’em to bits, Pippa!’ yelled the twins.
‘Here I go!’ bellowed the bubble girl. Her face had turned so red it looked like one big boil. ‘Three, two, one ...’
The bubble loomed in front of them. Axel had only moments to act. If he moved, everyone would see him. If he didn’t, she’d crash into them.
At the last second, he squeezed the claw control.
SHADO’s long claws popped out – and into the bubble’s taut skin.
There was a terrific bang and a horrible shriek.
The red-faced girl lay spreadeagled on the concrete floor, gasping. The remains of the bubble clung tightly to her. She looked like she had been shrinkwrapped.
Axel checked to make sure they were still invisible. They were. That was too close.
The black-haired girl came whooshing down on the rocket broomstick. ‘Aww, poor Pippa, what a tragedy.’ She smirked. ‘The Sausage Princess went pop!’
‘It’s not funny, Belladonna!’ wailed the girl in the burst bubble. ‘This thing’s stuck to me. I can’t move my arms and legs!’
‘What happened?’ demanded Gus.
Up on the platform, Kelly the technician folded her arms. ‘You kids broke an expensive piece of equipment, that’s what. Maybe next time you’ll listen!’
Gus narrowed his eyes. ‘That bubble’s made of reinforced Grabstic. It’s meant to be unbreakable. What did you do, Pippa?’
Axel didn’t move a muscle.
‘I didn’t do anything, it just popped!’ snivelled Pippa. She struggled inside the Grabstic, but couldn’t stand up, let alone walk.
Gus snorted in disgust. ‘I was getting bored anyway. Time to move on, gang.’ He pointed at Kelly and Tiago. ‘You and you, take her down to the hospital bay. They can get the Grabstic off her with a laser peeler.’
Pippa bawled after him: ‘Gus, no! Wait for me! I don’t want to miss out on all the fun!’
But the Toxic Tweens were already trooping out of the hangar. The fun had already gone out of this game for them. Who their next victim would be, Axel could only guess.
The two technicians climbed down the ladder, loaded Pippa onto a trolley and wheeled her out of the room, leaving Axel and BEAST alone.
‘That could have been a complete disaster,’ Axel said. ‘We’ve got to be a lot more careful.’
‘SHOULD WE CHANGE THE PLAN?’
‘Yeah. I’m not risking running into Gus and those kids again. Show me the map.’
Axel tried to find a way to the main elevator that wouldn’t use any of the key corridors. It seemed impossible. All the routes were heavily guarded. Then BEAST helpfully highlighted the ventilation system.
‘Classic video game strategy,’ Axel said, approvingly. ‘Good call. We should probably watch out for big spinning fans and stuff like that, though.’
BEAST found a vent cover and popped it open with SHADO’s claws. The metal tunnel beyond was only just big enough for him to fit inside. They went skittering down into a maze of pipes that twisted and turned, leading them away from the surface and deeper into the underground complex.
They clambered through pipes for what seemed like hours. When they finally found the hatchway leading out through the ceiling of the corridor below, Axel felt relieved. Despite what video games had led him to expect, they hadn’t had to jump through any fan blades, leap across chasms filled with toxic waste or even dodge under thumping hammers.
He said, ‘Well, at least that part was easy. Maybe too easy.’
The sound of shouting voices reached their ears. It was Gus Junior and his crowd, without a doubt. Axel and BEAST froze and waited for them to pass by beneath.
When everything was quiet again, Axel lifted the hatch a crack and peeked through.
He stifled a gasp of fear as he caught his first gl
impse of D4V3, the elevator guard robot.
D4V3 stood in front of the doors like a sentry. He looked like a muscle man made from gleaming chrome, but his jutting jaw and helmet-like head made Axel think of the military. One of his arms ended in a fist, the other in what looked like a gun barrel.
‘OH DEAR. THEY HAVE UPGRADED HIM,’ said BEAST. ‘HE DID NOT HAVE ALL THAT ARMOUR WHEN I SAW HIM LAST.’
‘Oh, fantastic,’ Axel said.
‘OR THAT ELECTRO-FIST.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘OR THAT GUN.’
Axel facepalmed.
BEAST made the soft pinging noise he made when he was scanning something. ‘THEY HAVE, HOWEVER, NOT UPGRADED HIS BRAIN,’ he announced. ‘IT IS STILL THE SAME BUDGET MICRO-BRAIN IT USED TO BE.’
Axel stared in disbelief at the words on his screen. According to BEAST’s scanners, D4V3 the enormous sentry had the brain of something much less impressive.
‘This guy started out as a floor scrubber?’
‘YES. HE WAS A ROBOTIC CLEANING UNIT, ABOUT THE SIZE OF A TRASH CAN LID.’
‘What on earth happened?’
‘HE WAS PROMOTED.’
Axel struggled to take that information in. ‘How … I mean, why would Grabbem use the brain of a floor scrubber for one of their most heavily armed guard robots?’
‘HE WAS A VERY AGGRESSIVE FLOOR SCRUBBER,’ said BEAST, as if that explained everything.
Axel checked the plan they’d written earlier. ‘We’d planned to sneak around him, or fight him. I’m not feeling too good about either of those.’
‘BEAST WILL FIGHT IF HE HAS TO,’ said BEAST, but Axel could tell he was just trying to be brave again. No way were they going to attack that armoured nightmare of a sentry robot. Even a sneak attack wouldn’t get through his armour. There was just no way to get down to the lower levels and free Agent Omega.
Then D4V3 began to mutter to himself as he watched the hall: ‘Rotten human kids. Nasty, messy human kids. Running around like they own the place.’
Omega Operation Page 2