‘Hello,’ said the woman and carried on walking.
Alan came hurrying across the road. ‘Hi! Hello there, nice to meet you. I’m Alan, Alan Jackson.’
The woman stopped, turned and surveyed Alan without enthusiasm.
‘Hi.’ She paused, then added, ‘I hope you’re not going to make too much noise. It’s just I work from home and I don’t like to be disturbed.’ She went on her way.
‘Okay,’ said Alan, equally coolly. ‘Nice to be made welcome.’
The woman stopped again and turned, as if she recognised and regretted her rudeness. She gave Alan an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘Sorry! Sarah Jane Smith.’
Kelsey came up and muttered in Martha’s ear. ‘Local lunatic!’ She tried to bustle her away. ‘See ya, then.’
‘Where are you going exactly?’ said Alan.
‘Bubble Shock factory,’ said Maria.
‘Free bus,’ explained Kelsey, and the two girls hurried off down the street.
‘Anyway, I’m sure we’ll get on just fine,’ said Alan.
Sarah Jane wasn’t listening. She was staring after the two girls in fascination.
‘It’s only me and Maria now,’ Alan went on, feeling he needed to talk. ‘Making a new start of it. Bit of a divorce and that.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘Don’t worry, it’s all been sorted, no shouting!’
Sarah Jane made no reply. She was still staring after the departing girls.
Determined to be neighbourly, Alan pressed on. ‘So, what sort of work do you do?’
Sarah Jane turned and stared at him as if she’d just realised he was there. Then, without a word, she turned, and sprinted for the car parked in her driveway.
Alan stared after her, bemused. ‘Really?’ he muttered. ‘Must be fascinating.’ He leaped aside as the green convertible shot out of the driveway and disappeared down the road. Shaking his head - just his luck to get a nutty neighbour - Alan turned and went back into the house.
Maria and Kelsey were walking down a nearby street, towards a bus stop. Kelsey was stabbing at the buttons on Maria’s mobile phone. She handed it back. There you go, you’ve got my number. Don’t give it to anyone in Year Eight.’
The green convertible sped past and Kelsey went on, ‘That’s the mad woman, always racing about.’
‘She’s a bit glamorous though,’ said Maria. ‘What does she do?’
They’d reached the bus stop with a poster practically shouting: ‘Bubble Shock! Drink it!’ and a picture of the usual delirious teenagers clutching orange bottles.
Kelsey shrugged. ‘Journalist or something. My mum’s friend Kath Pontin says she never has anyone round. No mates, nothing. But she’s always going out in the middle of the night. Never talks to anyone.’ Kelsey lowered her voice. ‘And this guy Sakkim in Year Eleven, he says he once saw her in the park by the station. She was talking to this big crystal thing and it moved...’
Marias mind flashed back to the incredible scene last night.
‘What, like a monster or something?’
Before Kelsey could answer, a bus swung round the corner. It was bright orange, plastered with slogans. ‘Bubble Shock! Contains Bane. Drink it!’ in giant letters. It was blaring out the irritating Bubble Shock jingle that always seemed to be on the telly. Kelsey beamed with delight. ‘Here it is!’
Her joy was infectious, and Maria found herself grinning, too. They piled on to the bus.
Maria saw that there were already about twenty people on board. Mostly teenagers, but some adults and a few little kids as well. On the bus wall, screens showed Bubble Shock commercials in an continuous loop.
A huge tray just inside the door was piled high with orange bottles. Kelsey took one, brandished it triumphantly, and plonked herself down in an empty double seat. Maria took the seat in front and swung round to face her.
She looked at the crowd of Bubble Shock enthusiasts all around her and shook her head. ‘I don’t get how this Bubble Shock stuff’s supposed to work.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Kelsey simply. ‘It just makes you feel all wide awake and stuff. And it tastes fab.’
‘I think it tastes disgusting,’ said Maria.
‘You’re one of the two per cent then,’ said Kelsey resignedly. ‘It doesn’t work on two per cent of people. That’s a fact. Anyway, it’s organic!’
She seemed to think that this was the clincher. Maria took the bottle from her and studied it. ‘So that makes it all right? Just the magic word “organic”?’
Kelsey snatched the bottle back. ‘Well, it’s natural. And that’s good.’
She looked so comically defiant that Maria burst out laughing, and Kelsey laughed too.
‘Drink it! Drink it!’ shrieked the commercial.
The bus drove past yet another Bubble Shock poster. Out of nowhere, a green convertible slid out of a side street and followed.
Behind the wheel, Sarah Jane fixed her eyes on the large orange shape ahead. The bus drove on, stopping now and again to pick up more passengers. Leaving the suburbs behind, the bus led her to an ultra-modern factory building in a quiet lane on the edge of town. It was protected by a high metal fence and vast iron gates.
Inside the bus, a cheer went up as the factory came in sight.
Maria studied the factory - a linked cluster of gleaming industrial buildings, some squat, some long and thin, and some cylindrical towers. The whole place seemed to be constructed of corrugated metal and plastic. Huge metal pipes ran along the outer walls, and there were mysterious vents and turrets everywhere. The factory looked ultramodern and sinister.
Kelsey greeted it with delight. ‘There it is!’ she shouted. ‘Bubble Shock!’
The huge gates swung open and the bus passed through. The gates began to close behind them.
In the green convertible, Sarah Jane’s eyes widened. On impulse, she put her foot down and the car shot through the rapidly shrinking gap, with inches to spare.
The gates clanged shut behind her.
She was in! A thought flashed through Sarah Jane’s mind. How was she going to get out?
Chapter Three
The Bane tour
Sarah Jane parked behind a side building and got out of the car. She looked around her. For the moment at least, there seemed to be nobody in sight. Flattening herself against the corrugated metal wall she peered around the corner.
Straight ahead was the big orange tour bus. It was parked beside the visitors entrance. There was an orange panel over the door, bearing the words ‘WELCOME TO BUBBLE SHOCK!’ in giant letters. Orange balloons hung over the doorway and the entrance was flanked by guards in orange-overalls and white-helmets. The passengers from the bus were already filing inside, followed closely by the guards.
Sarah Jane considered tagging on to the tour, but rejected the idea immediately. Too public, she thought, and too well-supervised. It was unlikely that whoever ran the factory would allow visitors to wander around at will - which was what Sarah Jane wanted to do. She must find some other way in.
She looked at her wristwatch. It was a man’s watch, a rather old-fashioned affair with an oblong face. She flicked open the face and it lifted like a lid, revealing an electronic screen filled with flickering data. She studied it for a moment then snapped it closed.
‘I knew it!’ said Sarah Jane.
Maria followed Kelsey and the others into the building, along a short corridor and through a metal door, which led into a metal-walled anteroom. Straight ahead was a metal arch, the kind you see in airports.
An orange-overalled guard stood beside it at a keyboard console. A handsome young man clutching a clipboard appeared.
‘That’s Davey, the chief tour guide,’ whispered Kelsey. ‘He’s well buff!’
Maria nodded. Davey was handsome enough, she thought, but there was something cold and cruel about him. Something remote and detached, almost alien...
‘Right, welcome to the Bubble Shock experience,’ said Davey, in the bored voice of a man who’d said the same thi
ng hundreds of times before. ‘If you could all step through the archway, one by one, thank you. Just a security scan.’ Two boys at the head of the line hurried forward, each trying to get through first. ‘One at a time, thank you,’ said Davey wearily.
The boys went through in single hie. There was a flash of light as each passed through the archway and the rest of the crowd followed.
Maria held Kelsey back, letting the others move past them. There was something very disturbing about all these exaggerated precautions.
Maria gave Kelsey a sceptical look. ‘A security scan in a pop factory?’
‘People want to steal the recipe!’ said Kelsey. They were last in the queue now. Kelsey moved to the archway and went through, triggering the flash. ‘Come on, it doesn’t hurt.’
Bracing herself, Maria stepped through the archway...
In the Data Room in the factory, Maria’s image appeared frozen on a screen. It was surrounded by flashing data. All around other screens flared and flickered, recording and transmitting more data.
A bored technician looked up from his console.
‘Last of today’s first lot going through now. Transmitting data to the Archetype in five, four, three.
In a shadowy area at the back of the laboratory, a woman stood over a long table, rather like a mortician’s slab. A slender, smallish shape lay on the table, covered by a white sheet. A variety of medical wires and tubes ran under the sheet, attached to the body below.
‘… two, one - transmit!’ said the technician.
There was a crackle of energy and the body under the sheet twitched and shuddered. Lights flashed on the surrounding screen and consoles.
The woman stepped forward into the light. She was tall and stately, impressive in a black silk dress. She wore jet-black earrings and an emerald ring. There was a blazing emerald pendant at her throat. Beautiful, with icy blue eyes, she had an air of tremendous authority. Like Davey the tour guide, there was something cruel and inhuman about her good looks.
Her name - or rather the name she had chosen to use - was Mrs Wormwood.
‘Is it working?’ asked the technician.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Wormwood softly. ‘He’s almost fully mature.’ She lifted a comer of the sheet and reverently touched the still young face beneath. ‘I would even say, perfect! Mother will be pleased.
Sarah Jane was edging her way round the metal buildings, careful to hide when she caught sight of the occasional orange-clad worker. There seemed to be very few of them. She guessed the factory must be largely automated.
She came to a metal door with a massive lock. A sign above it read, ‘Switch Room’. She took what looked like a lipstick from her pocket, uncapped it and held it up to the door. The end of the lipstick glowed red and there was a crackle of energy as the door unlocked.
At this point, Sarah Jane’s plans suffered an unfortunate set-back.
She pulled the door open and found herself facing two guards. Burly and thuggish, they stared down at her.
‘Oops!’ said Sarah Jane.
Mrs Wormwood put a hand to her ear as a voice crackled into the discreet com-unit earpiece hidden by her hair. It was Lesley, her secretary.
‘Mrs Wormwood? We have an intruder.’
‘Well, dispose of him.’
‘It’s a human female. She says her name is Sarah Jane Smith.’
Mrs Wormwood seemed delighted. ‘Does she indeed? Then bring her to my office. And make her welcome.’ She smiled an unpleasant smile. ‘This should be fun.’
Davey, the tour guide, marched the little group along a metal corridor, through another security door and down a short flight of steps into the main factory area. It was filled with complex and mysterious machinery. Giant vats bubbled and hissed and gave out wafts of Bubble Shock-scented vapour. Kelsey sniffed it luxuriously.
Maria found it made her feel a little sick. No doubt about it, she was one of the two per cent. She gazed around the factory floor, impressed despite herself.
‘It’s huge...’
‘Seen it loads of times,’ said Kelsey loftily.
Davey addressed the group. ‘Just a reminder... if you could turn your mobile phones off? That means all of you. We’ve got sensitive equipment in here and the signal can interfere with the machinery So, mobile phones off, thank you.’
Most of the group started fishing out mobile phones and switching them off. Maria and Kelsey did the same.
Maria looked at her phone. ‘What’s a mobile gonna do, make the bubbles go flat?’
Davey must have had acute hearing because he snapped, ‘That’s enough lip at the back! Just do it. Thank you.’
Obediently, Kelsey and Maria switched off their phones.
‘He’s a bit rude,’ muttered Maria.
Kelsey gazed at the guide. ‘I don’t care. He’s a total muffin!’
‘Okay, everyone,’ said the total muffin in the same flat, bored voice. ‘This, as you can see, is the main production area. And before we go any further, I’d like to offer you more free samples. Help yourselves!’
He indicated a nearby trolley holding an open crate piled high with bottles of Bubble Shock, and droned on with his tour guide patter. ‘Bubble Shock revitalises your taste buds, gives you energy morning, noon and night. Only Bubble Shock contains Bane! Keep moving now, that’s it, don’t touch anything, move along now, free Bubble Shock...’
The tour group filed past, grabbing bottles, with some people grabbing several.
Maria just walked past - and Davey noticed. He pushed the trolley towards her. ‘Oi, you! No Bubble Shock?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks. I’m one of the two per cent with the wrong taste buds.’
Davey smiled coldly. ‘Don’t worry, we’re working on it. Soon we’ll have everyone drinking Bane. The whole world...’ He took a bottle from the crate and tossed it to her.
Maria stared defiantly at him and tossed the bottle back in the crate. ‘I’d rather have a cup of tea.’
Sarah Jane was sitting in the guest chair in front of Mrs Wormwood’s enormous desk, trying to look a lot less apprehensive that she felt. She had already decided on her story. All she had to do now was to keep calm and bluff through it.
Mrs Wormwood’s secretary, tall and as elegant as her mistress, placed a cup of tea on the glass desk-top in front of Sarah Jane and moved away.
‘Thank you,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘That’s very kind.’
Sitting on the other side of the desk, Mrs Wormwood smiled and said, ‘Think of yourself as our guest.’
Somehow she made the polite words sound like a threat.
Sarah Jane smiled back and glanced around the office. It was an enormous ultra-modern affair designed in glass and steel with huge picture windows. Judging by its size, Mrs Wormwood must be very important indeed.
She launched into her story. ‘I wasn’t breaking in. I was just trying to reach someone in charge. I phoned about a hundred times but no one would talk to me.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen the list,’ said Mrs Wormwood. ‘Letters, phone calls, e-mails… Miss Sarah Jane Smith certainly makes her presence felt!’
Doing her best to look every inch the determined, professional, investigative journalist, Sarah Jane produced a notebook. ‘Do you mind if I take notes?’
Mrs Wormwood produced a smile of saccharin sweetness. ‘Not at all. Since you’ve been so bold, let’s make this an official interview.’
Sarah Jane opened her notebook. ‘And it’s… Mrs Wormwood?’
‘That is correct.’
‘As a matter of fact it’s in the Bible, Wormwood,’ said Sarah Jane brightly. ‘The Book of Revelations. At the end of the world, it describes a star, falling to Earth and poisoning the waters. A star called Wormwood.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Mrs Wormwood uninterestedly. ‘Shall we move on to business?’
Sarah Jane changed tack. ‘I’ve got contacts in the City,’ she said. ‘They say it was like this company dropped in from nowhere. Normally, it
takes years of tests to get approval to market a new foodstuff. You got it in two weeks.’
Mrs Wormwood assumed an expression of virtuous innocence.
‘All we’re doing is satisfying a need.’
‘Which is?’
Mrs Wormwood’s eyes gleamed. ‘The people are hungry, Miss Smith. Hungry for new food, new drink, new tastes. All the Western world does is eat!’ Her voice rose higher quickening with excitement. All day, every day, eating, they gorge and feast and chew and bite, all sweet and hot and cold and sticky. Food and drink, just food and drink, that’s the human race. They devour! Who are we to deny them?’
‘So you invented Bane?’
Mrs Wormwood rose. ‘Oh, the Bane inside Bubble Shock isn’t new, Miss Smith. It’s very, very old. Come and see.’
She moved over to a giant wall screen, and Sarah Jane followed.
On the screen deliriously happy teenagers sung and danced and skateboarded and turned somersaults, all clutching little orange bottles.
‘Bane!’ screamed the soundtrack. ‘The brand new taste for a new generation. Bane gives you life, gives you energy, gives you get-up-and-go!’
‘For all the hype, Bane is totally natural,’ said Mrs Wormwood persuasively. ‘One hundred per cent organic.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah Jane. ‘But organic what?’
Mrs Wormwood laughed. ‘Now don’t be silly, I can hardly give away our recipe.’
‘I checked with some scientists I know...’ began Sarah Jane.
Mrs Wormwood sighed. ‘Your social circle sounds fascinating.’
‘They tried to analyse a bottle of Bubble Shock – ’
‘Oh, what good is analysis?’ said Mrs Wormwood impatiently. ‘That’s just chemicals and sweeteners and E-numbers. The test of a drink is in the tasting. Have you tried it?’
‘Oh no. Definitely not!
‘But you must. Lesley!’
Her secretary appeared, holding a bottle of Bubble Shock. She handed it to Mrs Wormwood, who tried to hand it to Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane shook her head. ‘No, really. Thanks, I’m fine.’
‘But I insist!’ Mrs Wormwood twisted the cap, and there was a sinister little hiss of gas. She held out the bottle. ‘A good journalist should submit to the complete experience.’ Her voice became stern, commanding. She stared hypnotically at Sarah Jane. ‘Drink Bubble Shock, Miss Smith. Drink deep!’
[Sarah Jane Adventures 01] - Invasion of Bane Page 2