by Greg James
Murph stared down into the amphitheatre, at the thick white line that ran in a circle around the entire lowest level. And gazing back up at the glass walls, he now noticed red boxes at intervals with DANGER: HIGH EXPLOSIVE written on them. Finally, he looked up at the cameras once again, piecing it all together.
‘If you move out of the circle … the whole place will explode,’ Murph said, unable to stop his mind imagining the glass walls blowing up and the sea rushing in. He shuddered.
‘Very good,’ agreed Magpie, smiling placidly. ‘If the cameras see me step so much as a toe over that white line, those explosives will blow, and the whole cell will be flooded within moments. I can’t even get too close to it … watch.’
The old man took two large paces towards the outside of the circle. Before he could take a third, a mechanised voice broke out: ‘BOUNDARY ENCROACHMENT WARNING. STEP BACK. STEP BACK. STEP BACK.’
‘I’ve tried every power at my disposal – and, as you may have heard, I have a great many. But nothing works. This prison is not without irony, I must admit. The cameras are impervious to my tele-tech. And I can’t slip past them. The system is so sensitive it can pick me out even if I’m a different shape.’
Murph started as Magpie abruptly lay down on the floor and one of his arms elongated like a pale snake, slithering towards the white line. The mechanised voice intoned once again:
‘BOUNDARY ENCROACHMENT. STEP BACK.’
As quickly as it had grown, Magpie’s arm shrank back to its usual size and the villain leaped to his feet. He was much more agile than his frail appearance suggested he would be. Murph was on high alert now. He fervently hoped that Miss Flint had been telling the truth about how quickly she could extract him if needed.
Magpie broke into his thoughts. ‘And it’s not just me,’ he went on. ‘No living thing can cross the line without setting off the system automatically. So I can’t get out, and nobody can come in. No one could free me even if they wanted to. It’s ingenious, really. Foolproof, some might say. I’ll admit that your friends in the Heroes’ Alliance were quite clever in setting it up. A kind of underwater game.’
Some game, thought Murph, imagining the thirty long years Magpie had spent down here and almost beginning to pity him.
Magpie started to pace once again, round and round the middle of the stone circle at the base of the steps. The cameras up above whirred constantly as they tracked him.
‘You’re probably telling yourself that I deserve this treatment.’ Magpie interrupted Murph's thoughts from far below. ‘I’m sure the Alliance has fed you a lovely story about how evil I am.’
‘Well, you did steal people’s Capes,’ Murph retorted.
‘Pah! I’m a … collector, that’s all. A lover of, ah, shiny things, if you like. These … powers. They interest me. And some are rather beautiful.’
He held out a hand, palm upwards, and suddenly a stream of tiny, bright purple butterflies flew upwards towards Murph’s astonished face. They breezed past him and gathered in the ceiling space, fluttering around one of the cameras like jewels.
Murph shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. For someone who had been described to him as a hugely dangerous enemy, Magpie was coming across more like a slightly sad old man, resigned to his fate.
‘Why did you want to see me?’ Murph asked, keen to get on with his mission.
‘Well …’ Magpie considered this for a moment. ‘I suppose I was … a little lonely, I must confess. I thought they might consent to send you down to visit me, talk a little, you know. Only active members of the Heroes’ Alliance are allowed at Shivering Sands, and since you are the first and only member of the organisation without a Capability, there’s been nobody they would consider sending until now. I was rather fascinated to hear talk about you …’
Murph mulled these words over. Hear talk … he mused to himself, remembering once more what Mr Drench had told him about having his super-hearing Capability partially taken away. Could Magpie be using this somehow, to hear things? He thought uneasily about him sitting down here, on the seabed, listening to conversations in the world above. Was it possible?
‘Well, I’m here,’ Murph told him. ‘So what do you want to talk about?’
‘So much to choose from; where to start?’ said Magpie idly, stopping to look up at him once again. ‘After so much time spent down here with only my own thoughts for company. Oh, I know,’ he said, almost casually. ‘I have written a poem. Would you like to hear it?’
‘A poem?’ asked Murph blankly. Perhaps he should have been surprised at this turn in the conversation, but by this point it was just a weird little cherry on top of the Super Strange Sundae of a day he was having.
‘Yes,’ said Magpie – and if Murph had only been closer, he might have seen a tiny spark of hatred flare somewhere deep within Magpie’s dark eyes, like a supernova in a distant galaxy. ‘A poem.’
Murph scrabbled in his pocket for the paper and pencil. He had to take something back to Miss Flint.
So, as Magpie recited his poem in a sing-song voice, Murph dutifully jotted down every word:
One for a stranger,
Two, an old thief.
Three for anger,
And four for grief.
Five for a follower,
Four for a friend.
One to seek,
Three for a sad end.
Four, she falls,
And three, she flies.
Six, she can live again.
Three, she dies.
* * *
‘All this effort for a … poem?’ raged Miss Flint incredulously. The head of the Heroes’ Alliance didn’t have much time for poetry (an attitude that’s almost always a mistake).
Murph was holding out the piece of paper upon which he’d jotted down Magpie’s poem as best he could.
‘It’s just an old nursery rhyme,’ she went on in disgust. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t say anything useful. Nothing about why he wanted to see you. Nothing about why he’d written your name on the floor.’
Murph shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps he meant it when he said he was lonely and I was the only one you’d send down there.’
Miss Flint made a disgusted pt’chah! noise and led him back down the corridor through the prison, ranting as she went. ‘Nothing but incomprehensible whispering under his breath for thirty years, and now when he chooses to speak out he’s decided to become a poet. I should have known this would be a waste of time.’ She said this last bit almost to herself, as they crossed the bridge back to the helicopter that was waiting to take Murph home.
Murph felt his stomach swoop in disappointment: Miss Flint had been counting on him, and he couldn’t help feel like the failure was his fault somehow.
‘Right.’ Miss Flint turned to Murph on the landing platform and fixed him with the most serious of her wide selection of serious expressions. ‘Before you leave, I must ask for your complete discretion, Kid Normal. You must not, under any circumstances, tell anyone about your visit to Shivering Sands today. Is that understood?’
Murph nodded.
‘This facility is top secret. Especially Sub Level One. I had to take a chance and send you in there, in case Magpie had some real information to give us.’ She looked slightly embarrassed. ‘It appears he was simply … toying with us, I’m sorry to say. But that’s all the more reason for you to keep this close to your chest. I don’t want to go alarming the rest of the Alliance for no reason. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Crystalutely,’ Murph confirmed.
‘Utter secrecy, remember?’
‘Understood.’
‘Tell absolutely no one.’
‘Roger and wilco.’
Far below, Magpie sat back down cross-legged on the floor and listened to them, smiling a dangerous crocodile smile.
He rubbed his pale hands together in delight.
He heard the rotor blades beat the salty air as the Alliance helicopter carrying Murph took off from the top of Shivering
Sands and flew away across the waves.
He heard the footsteps of Miss Flint as she returned to the control room.
And he also heard a noise that nobody else in the entire complex was aware of. It was the rasping breath of a small figure who was scratching around in a rubbish bin behind the Shivering Sands kitchens.
Magpie’s friend in the outside world. His only ally.
‘Oh, Drench …’ cooed Magpie, knowing that with the remains of his super-hearing Capability, the little man would be the only person who could hear him as he whispered the words from down in his cell.
‘Yes, master?’ replied Mr Drench, poking his face out of the bin. He had a banana skin on his head.
‘I heard the helicopter departing. Is everything satisfactory up there?’
‘All has gone according to plan.’
Underneath the sea, Magpie grinned his cruel grin.
Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, he thought to himself. And when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.
9
Nellie’s Secret
‘So … hang on,’ said Mary, holding up a hand. ‘Miss Flint sent you in … on your own … to talk to the most dangerous enemy the Heroes’ Alliance has ever faced?’
It was morning break, and the Super Zeroes were sitting along the front porch of the wooden pavilion that stood at one edge of The School’s large playing fields. Murph had spent a great deal of time here the previous year sweeping up, and it had become one of their favourite places to hang out.
‘Erm, yeah,’ said Murph simply. It was only hours since he had sworn a solemn promise of silence to the head of the Alliance:
‘Utter secrecy, remember?’
‘Understood.’
But that obviously didn’t apply to his four best friends and crime-fighting partners, right? That had to be in the small print somewhere.
‘So – why just you?’ asked Hilda, looking miffed. ‘Why not send all of us? We are a team, after all.’
‘They couldn’t send any of you down to Magpie,’ Murph consoled her. ‘He could have stolen your Cape.’
Hilda shivered at the very thought of someone taking her horses away. Nellie looked down at her hands and made a small noise of fright and determination that’s very difficult to write down but would be something like eep.
‘You’re right, Murph,’ Mary piped up, trying to break the fearful mood that had taken hold of them. ‘You were the only safe bet. I mean, what was Magpie going to steal from you? Your incredible meatball-eating ability?’
Murph rolled his eyes and cuffed her on the shoulder affectionately.
‘So … what’s he like?’ asked Hilda, wide-eyed. ‘Is he a … massive bird or something?’
Murph thought about his answer carefully. The truth was he didn’t really know what to make of the most dangerous supervillain on the planet. ‘He’s … really, really creepy,’ he said. ‘He was trying to make out that he’s this harmless old man – but there was something really unpleasant in the atmosphere down there. Almost like a gas coming from him, you know?’
‘Yeah, you often get that with old men,’ began Billy sagely. ‘My grandad –’
‘No,’ Murph cut in, ‘it was honestly really unnerving. There were loads of security systems and stuff – but you couldn’t be in a room with him and feel safe.’
They were all silent for a moment.
‘Can I see the poem he read to you?’ asked Mary finally, looking thoughtful.
‘Yeah. It’s like some kind of nursery rhyme, I think,’ Murph confirmed. He pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket.
‘That is a secret message. Absolutely. Definitely. No doubt. One hundred per cent,’ said Mary, after studying it for a while.
‘Well, Miss Flint didn’t seem to think so,’ said Murph doubtfully. ‘She thought the whole thing was a waste of time.’
‘No, nope, nuh-uh, no way,’ replied Mary. ‘This’ – she waved the paper at the rest of them – ‘this isn’t a poem.’
Everyone looked at her blankly.
‘It’s our next mission,’ she told them. ‘Not a Heroes’ Alliance mission – our own investigation. Miss Flint doesn’t even think this poem is worth bothering with. It’s up to us to prove that it is. Think of how brilliant it would be if we foiled a secret plan devised by the Alliance’s most dangerous enemy.’
It was clear that Mary was as annoyed as Murph at how everyone seemed ready to dismiss the Super Zeroes’ abilities – first their classmates, then Mr Flash, and now even Miss Flint’s belief in them felt like it was in doubt.
‘But why would Magpie send me a secret message?’ queried Murph. ‘I mean, I’m just …’
‘He’s just Kid Normal,’ chipped in Hilda.
‘I don’t know yet,’ admitted Mary. ‘But I refuse to believe that one of the most dastardly supervillains in history just fancied a bit of company and a quick chat. He must be planning something, and this poem is the key to it.’
‘Perhaps it’s a secret code,’ said Murph. At Mary’s words, his curiosity had sat up and begun sniffing the air like an inquisitive puppy. And if there was one thing Murph loved doing, it was taking the Puppy of Curiosity out for a walk. You never knew what it would stick its nose into.
‘Let’s all take a copy of the poem and start thinking about what it could mean,’ he told his team. ‘But in the meantime, we need to find out everything we can about Magpie. Where he came from, who he really is, why he’s started speaking after all these years, how he ended up in that prison. How he got his name. Everything. We need to know how his mind works. It’ll give us the best chance of understanding what this message might mean.’ He got up from the wooden veranda and dusted himself down.
‘I love a good mystery,’ said Billy excitedly. ‘When do we start?’
‘Now. And I know just where to start too,’ said Murph decisively. ‘In Carl’s workshop.’ He set off across the field, with the rest of them trailing behind him.
‘Why there?’ Billy piped up.
‘I want to talk to Sir Jasper. Flora told us he’d be sticking around for a while, working on something with Carl, remember? Well, when I was in Magpie’s cell, he changed shape. And what did the Gemini Sisters say their Cape used to be?’
‘Shape-shifting!’ Mary cried triumphantly.
‘Right,’ said Murph. ‘I think Magpie is responsible for taking the Ex-Cape Committee’s powers.’
‘Ooh, our first lead! We’re just like the Famous Five,’ said Hilda excitedly. ‘I can be Julian! Which one do you want to be, Murph?’
‘I dunno,’ said Murph, ‘John?’
‘There isn’t a John,’ sniffed Hilda.
‘Erm, Michael?’
‘Stop just saying names,’ said Hilda, marching off ahead of him. ‘You can be Timmy.’
‘OK, whatever,’ said Murph, stifling a laugh. Then he paused. ‘Hang on, wasn’t Timmy the dog?’
Hilda was striding ahead, smirking to herself.
‘Wait!’ shouted Murph, running after her. ‘I don’t want to be the dog! Stop!’
‘Here, boy!’ Hilda teased him, clicking her fingers. ‘Walkies!’ Even Nellie turned and gave a little whistle, smiling shyly at him from behind her green-tipped hair.
* * *
The Super Zeroes could tell Carl was in his workshop, not only by the trickle of smoke coming from the chimney but also the persistent banging sound that was audible from across the playing field.
Murph marched up to the front door, glancing with affection at the handwritten sign that read Fortress of Solitude, and knocked.
The banging stopped, and a second later the door was opened, not by Carl but by his wife, the Blue Phantom herself, bearing a mug and a beaming smile.
‘Oh, hi, you lot!’ exclaimed Flora delightedly. ‘Come for that cup of tea, have you? Lovely.’
‘That’s right, yep, the cup of tea,’ said Murph brightly. ‘Love a cup of tea.’ Flora was sharp, and they’d need to be subtle if they were going
to keep the fact that they were investigating Magpie from her. ‘But we were hoping to grab a chat with Sir Jasper as well. Is he here? We didn’t get a chance to talk to him on Veterans Day – we were stuck tidying the ACDC for Mr Flash.’
Flora laughed kindly and ushered them inside Carl’s workshop – a long room lined with wooden workbenches and filled with gadgets. Carl was a brilliant engineer who supplied working Heroes with equipment when he wasn’t busy keeping The School spick and span.
‘Jasper will be delighted to chat to you,’ Flora said as she went. ‘Between you and me, he didn’t really get many takers the other day, and he’s a bit sore about it. Seems most students weren’t very interested in the stories of ex-Heroes with no Capes, I’m sorry to say. Very short-sighted of them, if you ask me.’
The door leading to Carl’s main garage was usually kept securely locked, but today it was standing open. They all headed through.
Bright lights had been strung from the wooden ceiling. They were shining on the polished fuselage of a sleek, bullet-shaped car with a single wing set across its back. This ooh-inspiring vehicle was the Banshee, the Blue Phantom’s pride and joy. Built and piloted by Carl, it had been severely damaged in the fight against Nektar last year when Carl and Flora were forced to make an emergency crash landing.
But it seemed that the caretaker had been busy since then – a few metal panels were still missing from the wing, and one of the jet engines had been removed and placed in pieces along a wooden workbench, but otherwise the silvery-blue machine looked very nearly as good as new. Carl and Sir Jasper were bent over the bench, chattering contentedly like two old hens trying to fit together the world’s oiliest jigsaw puzzle.
‘Ah, you’ve lost part of the subsonic inlet, that’s the trouble here, old chap,’ Sir Jasper was saying, guiding his wheelchair forward to prod the area with a wrench.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. I can sort that easily. It’s the compressor that’s the real problem: all the blades are bent out of shape. Look!' Carl held up something that looked like a twisted, blackened aeroplane propeller. ‘And it’s still got bits of robot wasp stuck in it as well! Now I wonder where I put my stiff-bristled brush? It’s a right old mess in here, I can never find anything.’