by Oisin McGann
‘I think we’ll have to scratch that plan,’ Oddball said in a cold voice. ‘Look!’
Their eyes followed his pointing finger. A huge ship was moving across the sky. It was packed with weapons, shielded with heavy armour. This was one of the famous White Knight airships. A Flying Fortress.
Nearly fifty metres long, it looked like an upturned battleship, with most of its heavy weapons pointing towards the ground. The machine was mostly white, with black and silver detailing. It had wings, but most of its lift came from the six engines that were now pointed straight down so it could fly slowly, searching for its targets.
It passed right over the building that Salt had chosen and hovered there. Dozens more android police dropped from compartments in its belly.
‘Well, that sucks,’ Rake sighed.
‘Japes, they’re sending an army after us!’ Snow groaned. ‘Don’t you think they’re overdoing it a bit?’
‘I don’t think it’s for us,’ Rake said to her. ‘It’s to control all the people in the funfair. They don’t know what’s going on, so they’re trapping the whole crowd. It still leaves us pretty dunked, though.’
‘This is why we need technology,’ Oddball complained. ‘We need to call Salt, tell him there’s a change of plan. Anybody see a web console?’
‘They listen in on all the phones,’ Snow reminded him. Then, in a quieter voice, she added, ‘I think it’ll be OK. I think help is nearby.’
‘You guys know your way round the city, right?’ Hoax asked them. ‘I only know one way home from here. I’m already lost. You’ve got somewhere to go if you don’t get picked up, right?’
That was when it dawned on them how much trouble they were really in.
They had no way of getting home.
They were lost.
And they were being hunted by an army of battle androids. They could still hear the tramping sound of feet all around them.
Nobody said anything for a moment.
‘Hey!’ a voice called out in a hoarse whisper.
They looked around, but didn’t see anything.
‘Over here!’ the voice said again.
Less than twenty metres from them, they saw a head and an arm sticking up from the top of a litter bin. The arm was waving at them. Not knowing what else to do, they went over. It was a girl – the same girl Rake and Oddball had caught in Salt’s workshop. Rake had to think for a moment before remembering her name – Tea-Leaf.
‘Get in!’ she said, disappearing down into the bin.
Rake looked doubtfully at the others, then peered into the bin. The bottom had been cut out of it, and the hole led down into a tunnel below. They didn’t need to be told twice. Anything was better than waiting up here to be caught by the android police.
There wasn’t time to wonder how Snow had known to head in this direction. They were all just grateful for this piece of luck.
The space that Tea-Leaf led them down into was a sewer pipe that was only just big enough for the armoured cadets. Tea-Leaf fitted a cover back up under the litter bin, sealing the hole. Then she crawled along the pipe, leading them into a wider tunnel where they could stand up. It disappeared into darkness in both directions. The only light came from a lamp that Tea-Leaf was carrying. It was like a small version of the oil lamps Salt used in the Armouron base.
‘Hey, Tea-Leaf,’ Hoax greeted her. ‘Thanks a million. You saved our hides there.’
‘No problem.’ Tea-Leaf shrugged.
‘You two know each other?’ Rake exclaimed.
‘Sure,’ Tea-Leaf said. ‘We met before, outside the fairground. I like watching it too, but I’ve never managed to get inside. I was looking for him when your little war broke out up there.’
Rake, Snow and Oddball opened their visors so that the others could see their faces.
‘What the–’ Hoax gaped in amazement. ‘What are you guys doing here? And why are you wearing armour?’
‘I can’t believe you’ve been coming out here without telling me!’ Rake said, ignoring the question.
‘You’re having a go at me for keeping secrets?’ Hoax shouted back. ‘You’re wearing armour! You’ve got . . . got weapons! What’s going on with you?’
‘You want to start walking while you’re arguing?’ Tea-Leaf asked, pointing down the tunnel.
‘We don’t take orders from you!’ Rake said, his fear giving way to confusion and anger.
‘Right,’ she retorted, as she turned round and started walking. ‘ ’Cos you were doing so well on your own. I’m going. I know this city inside out. I can get you home. You can come with me – or stay here, lost in the dark. It’s up to you.’
The cadets followed her, their arguments put on hold until they could get back to safety. The march of heavy feet overhead reminded them that their hunters weren’t far away.
‘Here, listen – are you going to answer me or what?’ Hoax asked his friends in a frustrated voice as they all walked away down the tunnel. ‘How come you’re all wearing armour?’
Chapter 13
An Old Enemy
THE CHAIRMAN WAS a young man – the youngest ever to control a multi-planet corporation. And the Perfect Corporation was one of the most powerful in the galaxy. He was still standing in his luxury viewing room high on the side of the Arena. The fights were over, the crowds had left. On the screens around him, he was watching the video recorded by the White Knights in the fairground.
For the first time in years, the Chairman felt a shiver of fear. Every police android could record what it saw. And even though the fight at the funfair had taken only a few seconds before the attackers escaped, there were enough clear shots of the criminals. The Chairman froze each screen at a different point. He squinted at them, trying not to lose his temper. He had a very bad temper.
Each screen now showed a still image of an armoured figure using an old-fashioned weapon. There were three of them – plus a boy whose face had not been picked up clearly by the White Knights’ cameras. None of them had identity discs.
‘Armouron,’ he breathed. Waving a shaky hand at the screens, he tried to look more irritated than nervous. ‘How . . . how can they be here? What are they doing here after all this time? When I . . . when I flatten someone into the history books, I expect them to stay there. I’m not having this. I’m not having it at all.’
He gazed out of the window at the dimmed lights of the Arena, the rows and rows of empty seats. He had pretended to be as excited as the crowd when they watched the Gladiators prancing around in their imitation of combat. But seeing the knights in action on the screens brought back bad memories of real battles. The Armouron had almost succeeded in capturing him once. He had seen their skill in battle first-hand – he took this new threat very seriously indeed.
Behind him, a tough-looking man in a suit stood there saying nothing. He knew that his boss talked to himself. The Chairman wasn’t expecting anyone to answer him.
‘Perhaps, more importantly . . .’ his boss wondered aloud. ‘More importantly, where did they go? We could ransack the whole city, I suppose. Turn everyone out of their houses. Tear down whole buildings if we had to . . . But that would make it look as if we were scared of something. It would look as if something was wrong in Nu-Topia. No, that wouldn’t do at all. We must keep up appearances after all, mustn’t we?’
He went quiet, holding his hand to his forehead in a thoughtful pose. He had practised this pose and could do it perfectly. The way he was nervously chewing his lip spoiled it a bit. The tough-looking man in the suit still said nothing.
‘I think we need a quick and tidy, but devastating solution,’ the Chairman said at last. ‘I believe we have just the thing. Yes, indeed. Did you notice that these new Armouron Knights were a trifle short? Hardly more than children, I would say. Yes . . . killing them should be easy, I think. Have the shuttle ready. I need to visit the Freezer.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the tough-looking man replied.
The man showed no sign of the fear h
e felt at the mention of the Freezer.
The trip in the Chairman’s luxury shuttle took only a matter of minutes, but they came down in a very different part of the city. The spacecraft landed gently on the roof of a massive dark grey block of a building with sloping walls. Its only windows were slits around the top. The enormous elevator came right up under the shuttle and lowered it into the building. Then a piece of the shuttle’s floor dropped down and into the building. Carrying the Chairman and his bodyguard, the section of floor shot down a shaft at high speed. To the two men, there was no feeling of movement at all.
The shaft took them deep underground to the Freezer. It was here that the Perfect Corporation kept its experimental weapons. And the Chairman’s most dangerous inventions. The moving section of floor stopped falling and moved sideways instead. It carried them down a long, long corridor. Heavy security barriers opened in front of them and closed behind them. Some of the things that were down here could never be let out.
Others chose to stay locked down here.
They came to a steel door that was nearly a metre thick. The Chairman held his eye to a scanner and spoke into a mike. The door swung open. It was freezing cold inside. There, in the centre of a large circular room, was a barrel-shaped chamber. With a hum and a clunking sound, it split apart and opened up as the Chairman approached. Gas hissed, flowing out across the floor like a fog. Lights flickered on.
Inside was an armoured robot, hooked up to cables and tubes. But this thing was nothing like the White Knights. Compared to this machine, the android police were clockwork toys.
This was the Armournaut.
It was alive and it was terribly powerful, cruel and clever. Its life-force had come from a knight who had betrayed the Armouron – a fearsome warrior who had died hundreds of years ago. That knight’s spirit had been captured in a medallion. It was this totem that gave the machine life. This Thirteenth Medallion was at least as powerful as the ones passed down from the First Twelve Knights. Maybe more powerful. Even the Armournaut’s body was built from the armour of dead knights. The Chairman gave a little gulp. This machine had been created centuries ago. He had no control over this armoured ghost.
‘I am sorry to wake you,’ he said. ‘But we have a problem. The kind of problem you enjoy solving.’
With a wave of his hand, a screen appeared in the chamber. The images of the young Armouron Knights came up on the screen. The Armournaut gazed at them for a few moments.
‘I WILL DESTROY THEM FOR YOU,’ it said. ‘ON ONE CONDITION: I KEEP THEIR ARMOUR . . . AND THEIR POWER TOTEMS.’
The Chairman rolled his eyes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You can have the armour. But if those medallions are three of the Twelve, then they’re mine. We’ve been over this before. They are valuable to me. You don’t need any more power totems. You can only use the one that’s inside you anyway.’
‘YOU WOKE ME UP TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM,’ the monster said. There was a nasty edge to its voice now. ‘I KEEP THEIR ARMOUR AND THEIR POWER TOTEMS.’
The tough-looking man who stood behind the Chairman bit his lip. He was not feeling very tough at the moment. His hand went inside his jacket, ready to draw his gun. It was a silly thing to do. Guns were no use against the Armournaut. The only kind of gun that bothered this robot needed a tank to carry it. The Armournaut turned its eyes towards the bodyguard. The hand came out of the jacket.
‘All right,’ the Chairman sighed. The machine’s hunger for the other medallions was a problem he would have to deal with at another time. ‘You can keep the totems. Now, how will you find them? It must be done quietly – and they have managed to escape our detection.’
‘THAT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE BECOME LAZY AND ARROGANT,’ the machine told him, turning its eyes back to him. ‘I NEED ONLY TO MAKE THE RIGHT PEOPLE SCREAM, AND THE ARMOURON KNIGHTS WILL COME RUNNING INTO MY ARMS.’
The Armournaut stood up and pulled itself free of the connecting cables. Without another word, it strode out of the room.
Chapter 14
The Last Two
SALT STOOD BEFORE the five kids with his head hanging down on his chest. They were lined up in front of him in the main chamber of the Old School. Rake, Snow and Oddball had taken off their armour. Hoax was looking around in wonder. Tea-Leaf was restless and suspicious.
She had led them through a maze of sewers, tunnels and basements to the Academy garage. From there, the five had made their way down into the Armouron base. Salt had been waiting for them, relief written on his face. Now he was looking very serious indeed.
‘I sent you three out before you were ready,’ Salt grunted to his cadets. ‘If Tea-Leaf hadn’t come along when she did, you and Hoax would have been caught or even killed. Things turned out all right in the end, but it was just plain luck. And we can’t count on luck.’
He stepped in front of Hoax and Tea-Leaf.
‘You two know who and what we are now. We need two more and I believe you’re the ones we’re looking for. Will you join us?’
‘What’s in it for me?’ Tea-Leaf asked.
‘You will receive training as an Armouron Knight and live life by a code that will see you through hard times,’ Salt told her. ‘You become part of a group of true friends. Apart from that, there will be years of hiding away, being hunted. You will face a high risk of being injured or killed. And a slim chance that, at the end of it, the people of Earth might thank you for saving them from a cruel tyrant. But I wouldn’t count on that bit. So, how about it?’
‘Wow, talk about making an easy life for yourself, huh?’ Tea-Leaf quipped.
‘I should tell you, young lady, that I do not have a sense of humour,’ Salt informed her. ‘I consider it an overrated quality.’
‘No, really,’ she said. ‘Sounds good. I’m in.’
‘Yeah, I’m cool with that,’ Hoax responded.
Salt gave a little smile. They weren’t being as casual as they thought: he knew they would stand by their words.
Rake frowned. Tea-Leaf had never done any Gladiator training. How could she start from scratch now, as a knight? Still, it could have been worse.
‘So, Stamper’s not in?’ he asked.
‘No. He’s not made of the right stuff,’ Salt replied bluntly. ‘Now, it’s time for our two new cadets to choose their medallions.’
He brought over the wooden box, which held the last two power totems. Tea-Leaf and Hoax both hesitated – if they took turns, only one of them was going to get to choose. The two of them chose at the same time, each picking a disc in one smooth move. They both flinched as the Flow rushed through them – a mixture of energy, emotion and the faint whisper of someone else’s memories.
‘Stand Together,’ Hoax murmured.
‘Battle as One,’ Tea-Leaf added in a soft voice.
‘They have accepted you,’ Salt told them. ‘We have our five. From now on, you will live by the Armouron code: Honour, Duty, Compassion and Justice. But none of you are knights. Not yet. And before I let any of you out of here again wearing an Armouron suit, you’re going to need a lot more preparation.
‘Tea-Leaf, you are welcome to stay down here for the rest of the night. The rest of you need to get back to your beds. Hoax, I’ll have you moved into quarters in the Armour Department as soon as possible. So, all of you – sleep tonight, if you can. From tomorrow night, we’re going to get serious about your training.’
As they walked back towards the stairs leading to the Academy, Rake said beneath his breath:
‘What, like we weren’t being serious before? What’s he going to do us now?’
Chapter 15
A Bunch of Misfits
ONCE MORE, THE row of cadets stood before Salt. He walked up and down the line. He did not look impressed. Tea-Leaf and Hoax were trying to hide how nervous they were. They had spent the rest of the last night and day wondering what the old knight had in store for them.
‘This is what I’ve got to work with,’ he growled. ‘A fine bunch of misfits
, I must say. Look at you: a show-off, a thief, a geek, a liar and . . . and a little girl.’ Snow looked a bit hurt. Salt looked like he didn’t care. ‘Well, we’re all stuck with each other now, so we have to make do with what we’ve got. Not one of you is putting on a suit of armour again until I think you’ve well and truly earned the right to wear it. Let’s see if we can whip you into some kind of respectable shape before the White Knights find us and bury us in the darkest prison in the deepest hole on Earth.
‘Cadets! Up against the wall! Give me handstand press-ups! And I want to see the tops of your heads touch the floor and then I want those arms perfectly straight! Twenty times! Now!’
The five kids tipped up into handstand positions against a bare piece of wall and started lowering their heads to the floor and back up again. And so began a new level of training for all of them. Gruelling physical exercises to strengthen their bodies. Drills and sparring to improve their speed and coordination. Meditation to help them focus when they were completely exhausted.
For two weeks, Salt used every minute he could spend with them to work them until they dropped. Then he taught them how to pick themselves up so he could work them some more.
By the third week, he decided they were ready to start training in their armour. For the first time, Tea-Leaf and Hoax got to see what the old knight had made for them.
Like the others before them, they each looked at the tough polished surfaces of their armour. And, for the first time, saw the knights they might become. All five cadets brushed their fingers over the plastallic plating. They could feel the power of the totems flowing through the skin of their armour. They hefted the weapons in their hands, admiring their weight and balance. Finally, Salt had decided they each had earned the right to wear the armour of an Armouron Knight.
All of the cadets were suited up and given the weapons they would use in combat. They struggled to contain their nervousness, their excitement, as Salt walked down the line. He described the qualities of their armour to each of them.