by H. I. Larry
In fact, riding a camel was a lot like riding a horse, only bumpier and smellier.
It’s lucky we’re almost there, Zac thought. I am SICK of this camel!
‘The IRIS piece is hidden underground in a cavern,’ Grandpa explained as the camel galloped along. ‘And the entrance is completely buried in sand. It’ll take a bit of digging, but –’
Grandpa broke off, pulling on the camel’s reins. The camel trotted to a stop at the edge of a massive hole in the sand.
Zac peered into the hole. It had wide, sloping sides that led down to a little stone trapdoor at the bottom.
‘This is it,’ said Grandpa. ‘We’re here.’
‘And so are Caz and Blackwood,’ said Zac, pointing at the hole. ‘Caz must have used her wind-blower to move all the sand out of the way.’
‘Let’s hope they’re still down there,’ said Grandpa, passing the X-Beam to Zac.
Zac aimed the X-Beam down at the sand beneath his feet.
TSEWWW!
Light blasted out of the end of the X-Beam. Looking through the lens, Zac could see straight down into the cavern.
At first, Zac could only see a maze of dusty tunnels. He swept the X-Beam across the ground, revealing different parts of the cavern.
‘There!’ said Grandpa suddenly.
Zac stopped, staring down through the lens of the X-Beam. In a small room at the end of a long tunnel, he could just make out a grimy scrap of rusted metal. It was a tiny hook-shaped thing.
‘That’s it?’ Zac asked.
Grandpa nodded. ‘That’s it.’
Zac traced the X-Beam back along the path of the tunnel, memorising the quickest way to get to the IRIS piece.
Then he froze again.
Down under the sand, a shadowy figure was walking along the tunnel. Her eyes were fixed on a grey ball with a glowing green screen.
Caz!
‘That’s the Data Orb,’ said Grandpa, looking through the lens over Zac’s shoulder and pointing at the ball. ‘That map will take her straight to the IRIS piece!’
‘Not if we get there first,’ said Zac.
He jumped feet-first into the hole, sliding down the sandy slope to the cavern entrance.
THUD!
Zac hit the stone trapdoor hard. Then he jumped to his feet and heaved it open.
There were steps leading down into the cavern. Zac looked back up at Grandpa.
‘Aren’t you coming?’
Grandpa shook his head. ‘You’re going to need someone to pull you out of that hole when you’ve got the first piece of IRIS.’
Zac nodded, and then ran down the steps into the dark cavern.
CHAPTER
NINE
Zac switched on his SpyPad’s torch. He was in big stone room with tunnels leading off in three directions. Zac thought back to the path he’d memorised with the X-Beam, and took the middle tunnel.
It was long and narrow, and pitch-black except for the light of his torch. As he ran along, Zac shone the torch on his PSU.
He was only metres away! Zac picked up his pace, and then skidded to a stop when he saw a green light flickering up ahead.
Caz was right in front of him, just around the next bend in the tunnel. Zac switched his torch off and started tip-toeing along behind her.
He sneaked up closer to Caz. She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on the Data Orb in her hands.
It was a really old-looking gadget. There weren’t even any pictures on the screen, just a few lines of text. Zac needed to squint to make out the words.
All Zac needed to do was get the Data Orb, and Caz would never be able to find the IRIS pieces. He could end this mission right now.
Up ahead, Zac saw Caz disappear around another bend in the tunnel. Zac followed behind her, ready to make a grab for the Data Orb. But just as Zac turned the corner, someone rushed at him and knocked him off his feet. He lurched forwards and tumbled to the floor.
THUD!
Caz stood there, sneering down at him. ‘How stupid do you think I am, Power?’ she laughed. ‘I knew you were behind me!’
She turned and bolted away through the tunnel. Zac staggered to his feet and went after her.
The tunnel echoed with the sound of their thundering footsteps. Zac sprinted down the narrow path, faster than he’d ever run before, until he was right behind Caz.
Moments later, they burst out of the tunnel and into the room where the first piece of IRIS was hidden.
Zac’s eyes darted left and right, searching the dark room for the gadget piece. Green light flickered across the walls as Caz flashed the Data Orb around.
Then Zac spotted the IRIS piece sitting on a cracked stone pedestal in the middle of the room. The piece looked a bit like a ring of metal. It was about the size of his hand, with a hook in the middle. Zac ran up to the pedestal, his arm stretched out, but he was too late.
Caz got there a second earlier and snatched the IRIS piece from between his fingers. Zac crashed down on the pedestal, his hands closing on nothing but air.
Caz laughed out loud. But her laughter turned into a gasp as a sudden blast came down from the roof.
CRAAAAACK!
The whole cavern started shaking. Zac looked up in time to see the roof split open above his head. Sunlight streamed into the cavern.
But sunlight wasn’t the only thing coming in. Sand poured down on top of Zac, streaming through the roof like a giant waterfall. It was flooding the whole cavern!
Through the swirling sand, Zac could hear Grandpa yelling from somewhere up above. ‘Zac!’ he was shouting. ‘RUN!’
CHAPTER
TEN
Sand cascaded into the cavern.
In seconds, Zac was buried up to his knees. And the sand was still falling!
Zac heaved his feet free, almost losing his shoes. He raced back out of the stone room and into the long, dark tunnel.
Caz was ahead of him, sprinting along with the piece of IRIS.
The sand was rushing through the tunnel behind them like a giant wave. Zac dashed forwards, trying to escape the sand and catch up to Caz at the same time.
Caz looked over her shoulder to see where Zac was. But she wasn’t looking where she was going, and she tripped on a rock that was sticking out of the ground.
THUD!
Caz went down. The piece of IRIS went flying out of her hands. Zac raced over and scooped it up. It was cold and heavy in his hand.
The wave of sand was still rushing up behind Zac and Caz. It was almost on top of them now. Zac bolted along the tunnel. Over his shoulder, he saw Caz scrambling to her feet. ‘Give me that back, Power!’ she yelled, as sand rushed up behind her.
Zac saw light up ahead, and seconds later he burst into the cavern’s entrance. He tried to run up the steps to get out, but the sand was rising around his legs, pulling him down.
Zac remembered Leon telling him once that you could drown in sand, just like you did in water.
SNAP!
Suddenly, the sticky hand of a Goo Lasso appeared in front of Zac’s face.
Without even thinking, Zac grabbed it. He’d never been so pleased to see a sticky hand in his life!
The Goo Lasso dragged Zac out of the cavern, through the rushing sand.
He looked up and saw Grandpa sitting on his camel, pulling him free. Grandpa reached out a hand and lifted Zac onto the camel’s back. Zac showed him the IRIS piece. He had done it. He’d beaten Caz.
‘Great job, kiddo,’ said Grandpa proudly, clapping him on the back. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ Zac panted. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Just three pieces of IRIS left to get! he thought, his heart still pounding from the run.
WHOOMF-WHOOMF!
Zac’s eyes flashed up to the sky. A shiny black BIG helicopter loomed above. Blackwood threw a long rope down into the cavern entrance. Zac saw Caz grab hold of the rope just a second before the sand buried her completely. Blackwood pulled Caz aboard the helicopter.
They were shou
ting at each other, but Zac couldn’t hear what they were saying over the noise of the chopper blades.
Then the chopper turned around and flew away across the desert.
‘South-east,’ said Grandpa, following the chopper with his eyes. ‘They’re headed for the Misty Ruins.’
He shook the reins in his hands and the camel started galloping back towards the village.
But the camel was no match for a BIG helicopter. Zac and Grandpa would have a lot of catching up to do when they got back to the jet.
‘How do you know where they’re going next?’ asked Zac, holding on tight as the camel thumped along the sand.
‘Because the Data Orb will tell them that the Misty Ruins has the next closest piece,’ replied Grandpa.
As they rode along, Zac examined the IRIS piece. All this fuss over a scrap of metal, he thought.
It looked like it was moulded to fit a person’s hand. And there was that little hook in the middle of it, almost like…
‘A trigger!’ said Zac out loud. ‘That’s what this piece is, isn’t it? IRIS is some kind of weapon!’
Grandpa looked over his shoulder at Zac. He had a strange look on his face, like he was trying to decide something important.
‘Yes,’ said Grandpa, at last. He pulled on the reins and the camel slowed to a trot. ‘IRIS is a weapon. IRIS stands for Intra-Retinal Intuitive Sleep. It’s a sleep ray. It slows down brain activity and forces people into a deep sleep.’
‘Huh?’ said Zac, raising an eyebrow. ‘IRIS just makes people go to sleep?’
Grandpa shook his head. ‘It makes people go to sleep permanently. Like going into hibernation. And IRIS is powerful enough to be used on a whole city at once – but there’s no cure.’
Zac’s eyes went wide. ‘Does it kill you?’
‘No,’ his grandpa said quietly. ‘But once you get hit by IRIS, there’s no waking up. You spend the rest of your life asleep, just wasting away.’
Zac gulped. With that kind of power in their hands, BIG would be unstoppable. All they’d need to do was point IRIS at GIB HQ, and…
That would be the end. Of everything.
Grandpa stared at the BIG helicopter as it disappeared into the distance. ‘I should’ve told her it was a bad idea,’ he whispered. ‘Why did I even let her start building it?’
‘Who?’ asked Zac. ‘Wait. You mean Blackwood?’
Grandpa nodded.
‘Blackwood was part of GADGET?’ exclaimed Zac. ‘She’s the one who built IRIS? But then why is she bothering to put it back together? Why doesn’t she just build herself a new IRIS?’
‘Because she can’t,’ said Grandpa heavily. ‘She didn’t build the original IRIS by herself. It was two GADGET agents working together, remember?’
‘So who was the other agent?’ Zac demanded.
He felt furious. Blackwood was the most evil spy in the whole world! Who in their right mind would help her build a weapon like this?
Grandpa pulled the camel to a complete stop. He turned to face Zac properly.
‘It was me,’ said Grandpa. ‘The agent who helped Blackwood was me.’
TO BE CONTINUED
DARK TOWER
BY H. I. LARY
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CAL BENNETT
& DAMIEN HOLDER
MISSION UPDATE
CLASSIFIED
In SAND STORM, Zac and Grandpa beat Caz and Blackwood to the first piece of IRIS.
IRIS is a dangerous super-gadget that was broken up into four pieces and hidden around the world.
But Zac has a feeling that there's more to this Extreme Mission than Grandpa is telling him . . .
CURRENT TIME:
THURSDAY 7.01 PM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER
ONE
THUMP-THUMP!
Zac Power was bouncing up and down on the back of a camel. He closed his eyes, squinting against the sand and the wind.
His grandpa was sitting in front of him, holding the reins. They were thundering over the desert, racing to get back to their invisible jet. They had to get to the next piece of IRIS, which was hidden deep in a forest called the Misty Ruins.
They’d been riding in silence for hours. Zac’s mind was racing so fast that he couldn’t even open his mouth.
He’d always believed that Grandpa was GIB’s best and most loyal spy. But then Grandpa had revealed a terrible secret from his past.
Years ago, Blackwood, the head of the evil BIG spy agency, had created a super-gadget that was powerful enough to put whole cities into a deep sleep.
And Grandpa had helped her build it.
When Grandpa told him this, Zac was shocked into silence. Now he stared into the distance, watching the sun setting behind the dunes.
Finally, the silence got too much for him. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said to his grandpa. ‘Blackwood is the most evil woman in the whole world! She’s the Commander of BIG! Why would you ever help her build something like IRIS?’
‘That all happened a long time ago,’ said Grandpa. ‘Before GIB or BIG ever existed. Things were different back then.’
‘But –’
‘Look, kiddo,’ Grandpa cut in gently.
‘You’re going to have to trust me. We have to focus on finding the rest of IRIS before Caz and Blackwood do.’
Zac was so angry that he felt like exploding. ‘But we already have one piece! They can’t put IRIS back together now!’
Grandpa shook his head. ‘If Blackwood had even one piece, she could figure out how to make a new IRIS. That’s too big a risk to take. We have to get all four pieces.’
Zac took a deep breath. ‘OK.’
‘Trust me, kiddo,’ said Grandpa. ‘We’re still on the same side.’
Zac didn’t answer. He had a thousand more questions buzzing around in his head.
But even though Zac was annoyed and wished that Grandpa would tell him the whole story, he knew deep down that he could trust Grandpa. Even if I hate being kept in the dark, he told himself.
Eventually they came to the little village where they had parked Grandpa’s invisible jet. Zac held on tight as the camel slowed down jerkily to a trot.
When they got there, Zac saw the tyre marks on the sand where the invisible jet was parked. And sitting next to it was another vehicle.
This new vehicle looked halfway between a helicopter and a submarine.
It had twin propellers at the top and two giant floodlights on the front. It was clunky and rusty and looked about 50 years old.
CRRREEEAAAK!
Zac jumped back as a rusty door swung open and a man with a beard stepped out. Zac recognised him as Agent Cougar, one of Grandpa’s team from the Invisibles Department.
‘You found her!’ Grandpa grinned, staring up at the vehicle.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Agent Cougar. ‘Pulled her out of storage just like you asked. Topped up her fuel and water, too.’
‘This is the Searcher,’ said Grandpa to Zac. ‘The first spy vehicle I ever built, back when I worked for GADGET.’
Zac looked at the Searcher, wondering if it could even fly anymore.
Grandpa turned back to Agent Cougar.
‘Thanks,’ he said, shaking his hand.‘Would you mind taking the invisible jet back to base with you?’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Agent Cougar.
Zac and Grandpa climbed aboard the Searcher. It looked even older on the inside. The floor creaked under their feet. Metal pipes stuck out everywhere, and Zac had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the roof.
There was a tiny cockpit at the front of the Searcher. It had two rickety seats in front of the steering controls. Zac and Grandpa sat down and strapped themselves in.
Zac looked at the controls. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘but why are we taking this old thing to the Misty Ruins? Wouldn’t your invisible jet be better?’
‘They don’t call them the Misty Ruins for nothing,’ Grandpa explained. ‘The whole forest is covered in a thick white fog. We’ll need the Searcher’s fog lights to find our way through it all.’
Grandpa heaved at a huge lever on the floor between them. ‘I know it looks old,’ he added loudly as the Searcher powered up, ‘but believe me – it has some very special features.’
CRRREEEAAAK!
WHOOMF-WHOOMF!
The Searcher shuddered and shook and slowly lifted off the ground.
Zac gripped the controls a bit tighter than he usually would have. He wasn’t completely sure that this thing was safe.
But at least we’re leaving the desert, he thought, trying to relax. Misty Ruins, here we come!
CHAPTER
TWO
For several hours, the Searcher zoomed over the ocean at full speed. It turned out that the old chopper was faster than Zac had expected, even though it creaked and rattled all the way.
WHOOMF-WHOOMF!
‘…and then,’ Zac told Grandpa, finishing the story he’d been telling, ‘the Turbo Boots blasted me up out of the volcano, about two seconds before the whole thing exploded!’
‘Sounds like that was a close one!’ said Grandpa from the co-pilot’s seat. ‘You really are becoming an amazing spy.’
‘Just like my grandpa,’ Zac smiled.
He shifted in his seat. The Searcher might have been fast, but he and Grandpa had still been at the controls for ages. And even swapping stories about their missions couldn’t keep them entertained forever.
Grandpa had chosen hiding places for the IRIS pieces that were as far apart as possible. That meant a lot of travel time. Four days all up, and he was only one and a half days into his most extreme mission ever.
Soon, Zac saw snow-capped mountains rising up in the distance.
‘The Misty Ruins are down in the valley between those mountains,’ said Grandpa from the co-pilot’s seat.