by Greg James
‘Murph,’ said Mary as they raced towards the workshop, ‘I’ve been thinking. The message said Angel is alive. Well, that must mean that until now … everyone thought they weren’t?’
Murph considered this. ‘Erm, yeah – I guess so.’
‘Well,’ Mary went on, pointing into the patch of woodland that was coming into view up ahead, ‘where might you find the name of someone who’s … who’s not alive any more?’
Murph stopped in his tracks. ‘Of course! The Heroes’ Memorial. Angel could be the name of a Hero who died at Scarsdale. We wondered what Flora and Carl might have lost that day. Right’ – he gestured to Billy, Hilda and Nellie – ‘you three, go and look at the ornaments in Carl’s huts. See if there’s anything written on them, anything weird about them … just anything. You’ – he grabbed Mary by the hand – ‘come with me.’
Together the two of them ran along the edge of the wood and down the narrow, hidden path that led to the stone pillar. Once more, it was eerily quiet – there was only the slapping of their feet on the leaf-coated path, and the soft pittering of tiny raindrops amongst the branches overhead.
Finally, Mary and Murph burst into the woodland grove where the Heroes’ Memorial stood. The rain was dripping down across the carved names, as if the stone itself was weeping. They approached slowly, feeling a little sombre, before Murph steeled himself.
‘Look for a Hero with the codename Angel,’ he told his friend, releasing her hand. He’d forgotten he was still holding it. ‘Or maybe the Angel.’ They split up and began scanning the list.
In the workshop, Billy, Hilda and Nellie were examining the angel statues. They were all gathered carefully together on one shelf, as though they were a special collection. They were made from all kinds of material – wood, pottery, glass. But there were no words writ ten on any of them.
Hilda even counted them: ‘There are thirty. Might that mean something important?’
‘Look at this,’ piped up Billy, who had begun to look elsewhere. He was pulling a large box out from amongst the jumble of tools underneath the bench. ‘It’s full of photos!’ He tipped the pictures out on to the workbench. Some of them had names written on the back in pencil, he realised.
‘Look for Angel!’ he told the others, beginning to riffle through.
* * *
It was Murph and his keen eyes who discovered her first: on the side of the Heroes’ Memorial, carved at the very end of the list of the names of those lost. He had almost given up hope. None of the fallen Heroes had the codename Angel.
‘Venn, Otto, a.k.a. the Steamroller. Waites, Polly, a.k.a. First Frost …’
And then, there she was:
Walden, Angel
‘Mary!’ he called urgently.
Mary came to stand behind him, and he heard her gasp as she read the name. ‘Angel isn’t acodename after all! It’s a first name, a girl’s name! she exclaimed. ‘And look at her surname. It’s Walden! Angel Walden! She must have been related to Flora and Carl somehow …’
‘Do you think she was a Hero?’ Murph wondered. ‘Her name’s on the memorial, but she has no codename. All we know is that she was Flora and Carl’s relative.’
They raced up through the woods, not bothering with the pathway in their frantic hurry to get back to Carl’s workshop and tell the others their discovery. Brambles plucked at their clothes as they skirted round the pond and climbed the steps to the back door.
Murph burst through: ‘We found her! Angel Walden! She must have been Carl and Flora’s –’
‘Daughter,’ Billy finished for him, quietly. ‘She was their daughter.’
Billy, Hilda and Nellie were marvel ling over a small, square photograph. It showed a much younger Flora and Carl beaming into the camera, holding between them a rosy-cheeked, smiling baby girl. As Murph and Mary approached, Nellie turned it over and pointed to the writing on the back:
Angel, 1975
‘She was their daughter,’ repeated Billy.
‘Not “was”, Billy, IS!’ Mary breathed. ‘Magpie’s message said ANGEL IS ALIVE. The memorial’s wrong. She didn’t die at Scarsdale. She’s still out there!’
‘Destination is one hundred metres ahead,’ intoned the calm voice of the Banshee’s satnav.
Carl craned his neck closer to the rain-splattered windscreen in an effort to see through it better, which as we all know makes no difference whatsoever. But despite the poor visibility he could just make out the gloomy towers of Shivering Sands.
‘Be careful; they’ll have radar,’ said Flora from the co-pilot’s chair. ‘We don’t want them to see us come in.’
‘I’m doing my best, dearest,’ said Carl with the merest hint of tension. ‘This isn’t the first time I’ve stormed a prison. Remember Alcatraz in ’79?’
‘Oh yes,’ she replied, ‘that was fun.’
It wasn’t being seen that should have worried them though: it was being overheard. Far below, nestled in the bottom of his bin and sucking on an old fish head, DoomWeasel had heard their whole conversation.
‘You were right, master,’ he said softly, knowing that on the seabed Magpie would be waiting for an update. ‘Just as you predicted, the Blue Phantom is approaching.’ He used the pointy bones of the fish head to comb Ratsputin’s matted fur.
‘Excellent,’ came the voice of Magpie from beneath the waves. ‘Let’s make sure that her passage to my cell is as smooth as possible.’
Magpie’s pale fingers tapped at Miss Flint’s hacked HALO unit. A message appeared on the screen, underneath pictures of Flora and Carl:
ROGUE HERO AND ACCOMPLICE:
APPREHEND AND DETAIN.
ALL COMBAT UNITS PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO LAST KNOWN LOCATION: THE SCHOOL.
Instantly, the message was beamed to the HALO unit of every single operative in the Heroes’ Alliance.
As the Banshee descended, Flora and Carl were shocked to see several black helicopters lift off from the top of the rusty towers below and speed off into the storm.
‘I wonder where they’re all off to?’ Carl mused.
‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, dear,’ replied Flora.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ replied Carl. ‘Wouldn’t want to look any kind of horse in the mouth, to be honest. It’s a very strange thing to do, unless you’re a horse dentist.’
Rather like Murph, Carl had a habit of making jokes when he was nervous. And here, as they were about to try and break into the most secure prison on the planet to question the most dangerous Rogue who had ever existed about the daughter they thought they’d lost thirty years ago … well, that’s about as nerve-wracking as it gets.
‘Anyway, shall we land?’ said Flora anxiously.
‘Imagine the size of the toothbrush,’ said Carl to himself as he piloted them towards an out-of-the-way landing platform.
Magpie heard the scream of the Banshee’s jets as it touched down on Shivering Sands.
‘Aaaaah,’ he breathed to himself. ‘Visitors. I do love visitors. I wonder if they’ve brought me a gift …’
18
Lockdown
‘It’s just so sad,’ Hilda said. The Super Zeroes were looking through more pictures from Angel’s life – here she was as a toddler riding on Carl’s shoulders, here they saw her at five or six in a homemade version of Flora’s amazing Blue Phantom costume.
Murph was looking at a picture that he realised he’d caught a brief glimpse of the previous year. It was a head-and-shoulders portrait of Angel at about their own age. She had striking silvery-blonde hair. ‘If Angel was born in 1975,’ he mused, ‘and Scarsdale happened in 1988, then she wasn’t much older than us when Carl and Flora lost her.’
‘I wonder if she wanted to be a Hero too?’ added Hilda, who had picked up a wooden angel and was turning it over in her hands thoughtfully.
‘Maybe she already was one. If they thought she was at Scarsdale when it exploded, perhaps she was a part of the mission,’ Mary reasoned. Nellie nodded.
> ‘She’s Flora’s daughter – so I bet she had an amazing Cape,’ said Billy.
Suddenly Murph stood up. ‘It’s no use wondering. What we need to do is find Flora and Carl. They must have gone to Shivering Sands to see if Magpie is telling the truth. They’ve got a massive head start on us, which means they’re probably already there. So we need to find someone to help us get a message to Miss Flint.’ Murph shivered. ‘I’m done with secrets. We’re supposed to be an Alliance, a team. Teams don’t keep secrets from each other. And Magpie is obviously planning something major.’
‘What, though?’ said Mary, sounding frustrated and tense.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Murph. ‘But he’s managed to lure the Blue Phantom to him. That can’t be good news. She needs backup.’
Truthfully, he felt like an idiot. Magpie had used him to get to his friends, and now they were in peril. He’d carried a message without even realising what it was, or how dangerous it could be. And his own investigations into Magpie suddenly seemed like a childish waste of time. There had been a much bigger game going on all the while.
‘Murph’s right,’ said Mary. ‘We need to get help. Who might be able to contact Miss Flint? Deborah? Mr Souperman?’
‘School’s started,’ Murph said. ‘They’ll all be in the main hall for assembly.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Mary. ‘Like you said, the time for secrets is over.’
Bursting out of the wooden workshop door, the Super Zeroes pelted back in the direction of the main school building as if their lives – or, at least, the lives of their dearest friends – depended on it.
As the five of them slammed dramatically through the doors into the main hall, Murph felt like he was in one of those hospital-based dramas where the heroic doctor runs into the operating theatre in slow motion just in time to save the day.
Of course, he wasn’t in a slow-motion scene in a hospital-based drama. He was in a school, moving very much at normal speed and not in possession of a white coat or a stethoscope. But it felt exciting, and before he could stop himself he was imagining shouting, ‘I need a scalpel, ten ccs of plasma and a doughnut, stat!’ at some nurses. He wasn’t exactly sure what ‘stat’ meant, but TV doctors always seemed to say it.
In any case, Murph’s mental drama was cut short at this point by the arrival of actual real-life drama.
Everyone in the room had stopped to stare at the Super Zeroes. Mr Souperman was onstage, apparently in the middle of some classically unsuccessful public speaking. ‘We must pilot the, ah, train of knowledge,’ he had been saying, ‘towards the airport, if you like, of your own brains.’ But five second-year students slamming through the door like drizzle-drenched doctors had put him off his stride.
‘Sorry we’re late,’ cried Murph.
He caught sight of Deborah at the side of the hall. She was standing next to Mr Flash and a gaggle of A Stream students.
‘Don’t mind us,’ Murph went on airily, as the Super Zeroes all sidled towards the two teachers to a chorus of grumbles from the rest of the students. It was like walking through an amusement park based on the theme of glaring. ‘Do go on, Mr Souperman. Something about airports, was it?’
‘WHAT THE PEA AND HAM SOUP ARE YOU LOT UP TO?’ Mr Flash whisper-roared at them as they got there, but Murph ignored him and turned to Deborah.
‘We need your help!' he said. 'Do you know how to get in touch with Miss Flint? It’s really important; we need to tell her something!’
But Deborah wasn’t looking at Murph: she was staring in disbelief at the screen of her HALO unit. At the same time, Murph’s own handset started buzzing manically, and his hand went to his pocket.
‘What’s this, an Alliance call?’ Mr Flash’s eyes lit up. For all his talk, Mr Flash had never actually been an active member of the Heroes’ Alliance, and his eyes gleamed at the prospect of being so close to a real mission. ‘Let’s have a look, then! MUST BE SOMETHING BIG IF YOU’VE BOTH GOT THE CALL.’
Murph hesitated. The look on Deborah’s face was scaring him, and somehow he knew that he wasn’t going to like what was on the screen.
He dug it out anyway, but immediately stopped in astonishment. The green light was blinking urgently, and on the screen were pictures of Carl and Flora.
Deborah had recovered from her shock. ‘This is unbelievable!’ she told Murph breathlessly. ‘Flora and Carl – they’ve been declared Rogue Heroes!’
The manic whispering from their corner of the hall was attracting the attention of students nearby. Corned Beef Boy had overheard Deborah.
‘What, the caretaker?’ he scoffed. ‘And the school secretary? That’s mad.’
‘It’s an Alliance order – all Heroes!’ said Deborah to the Super Zeroes. ‘We’re duty-bound to capture them! Where are they?’
‘They’ve gone,’ shouted Murph in a panic, silencing the whole room immediately. ‘But they’re not Rogue Heroes! You have to believe me! There’s so much going on here that you don’t understand! That’s what we came to tell you.’
The tension in the hall was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Not an ordinary knife either. You would have needed a special razor-edged, diamond-sharpened tension knife.
Deborah was looking at Murph intently. It was like that moment in a cowboy film where two gunslingers face each other in the middle of the road. Which, if you think about it, is an inconvenient place to stage a gunfight. What if they got run over by a stagecoach or something? But there’s no time to ponder that now. Let’s get back to the action.
Murph had just begun to think he could see a softening in Deborah’s eyes when the lights on both HALO units began blinking once again. Like the moment in the cowboy film where the tension breaks and everyone goes for their gun, they both looked down to see a new message on the screen.
Murph’s face paled, and he showed it to Mary, who had come to stand beside him. KNOWN ASSOCIATES OF ROGUE HEROES – APPREHEND AND DETAIN, the message read. Above these words were photos of all five Super Zeroes.
As the squadrons of helicopters had begun taking off from Shivering Sands, a delightful little idea had occurred to Magpie.
‘Since they’re going to look for Rogue Heroes,’ he purred to himself like a spiteful cat, ‘why not give them a really exciting day out?’ His spindly fingers toyed with the master HALO unit. ‘And I must thank Kid Normal for delivering my message so efficiently. I’m sure a battle against the rest of the Heroes’ Alliance will teach him and his friends a valuable lesson. Namely: you can’t trust anyone.’
Magpie gave a chilling chuckle as he put the HALO unit back into his coat pocket for a second time, dousing the purple light from its screen, and listened for the footsteps of his enemies growing closer.
Slowly, Murph and Deborah raised their heads and stared at each other.
Murph tried to contort his face into an expression that said: ‘I know this looks really bad, but I have information that the Alliance doesn’t know, and would you please pretend you’re not a superhero for a minute and let us go?’
It’s a lot to squeeze into one expression – and in the end it just looked like he was trying to hide a bee in his mouth.
Deborah’s face was much easier to read. It said: ‘I’m about to leap into action, and it’s not going to be much fun for you.’
Murph’s expression changed subtly, until it said something far too rude to write down here.
‘Stop them!’ shouted Deborah to the A Stream students gathered nearby, at exactly the same time that Murph turned to the rest of the Super Zeroes and shouted, ‘Run!’
The Zeroes turned and pelted out of the hall at maximum speed, with the students of the A Stream stampeding after them like a stampede of stampeding stampeders.
Mr Souperman, who fortunately for everyone hadn’t brought his HALO unit with him to assembly, started to move down the stage steps to find out what was going on. He was left dumbfounded by the sudden burst of activity. ‘What about the train of knowledge?’
he shouted after them, but he couldn’t be heard above the chaos.
The Super Zeroes smashed back through the doors and into the corridor, but the A Stream were hot on their heels like a pair of insulated socks with innovative heel-warming pads built in.
Everyone spilled out into the passageway more or less together, creating a huge, pulsating heap of small battles. Deborah was hopping about, spinning her lasso and crying desperately, ‘Get out of the way!’ but nobody was listening. Billy was being wrestled by Corned Beef Boy, but had ballooned himself to such a large size that the bully’s meaty hands couldn’t find any purchase.
Mary had initially adopted a combat stance with her umbrella like an elegant fencer, but soon had to resort to bashing people with it like an angry old lady fending off purse snatchers.
Hilda tried to help her by stamping hard on Crazy Eyes Jemima’s toe, who hopped about in agony before barrelling into Bill Burton, who was wheeling a trolley towards the hall laden with crockery to begin setting up for lunch. It went flying, sending plates and cutlery spilling out across the floor, and Bill, enraged, started spinning plates through the air towards anyone who approached him. It turns out there was one thing that made the friendly chap lose his cool, and that was anything that came between him and his ability to deliver a prompt and efficient lunch service.
A rumble of thunder came from outside as Nellie prepared her Capability; she was edging down the corridor with her hands raised like a conductor about to begin a symphony.
While all this was going on, Murph was trying to restore order and get his team out of there. But before he could act, he found himself pinned to the ground with his hands behind his back. He struggled furiously but couldn't get free. The air was filled with the sounds of battle – umbrella thwacking, rumbling thunder, screeching and stamping. But then a low voice spoke directly into his ear, cutting through the noise.