Andy Roid and the Avalanche of Evil

by Felice Arena

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  ANDY ROID

  AND

  THE AVALANCHE OF EVIL

  Judd’s on a rescue mission, and he’s brought Andy along as his weapon of choice. Can Andy help Judd and bring down the forces of evil and still stay true to what he believes in? The pressure’s on and the stakes have never been higher!

  CONTENTS

  PREVIOUSLY

  1 ALPS BOUND

  2 CARVE IT UP

  3 OUTRUN

  4 SNOWMOBILE

  5 COVER

  6 CHAMOIS

  7 DAMAGE

  8 THE END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Books in the series

  1: ANDY ROID AND

  THE Superhuman Secret

  2: ANDY ROID and

  the Field Trip Terror

  3: ANDY ROID and

  the Camp Howl Crusaders

  4: ANDY ROID and

  the Heroes of the Night

  5: ANDY ROID and

  the Turbine Runaways

  6: ANDY ROID and

  the Sinister Showdown

  7: ANDY ROID and

  the Unexpected Mission

  8: ANDY ROID and

  the Tracks of Death

  9: ANDY ROID and

  the Missing Agent

  10: ANDY ROID and

  the Avalanche of Evil

  . . .WHEN YOU’RE HALF BOY, HALF MACHINE,

  IT’S HARD NOT TO BE A HERO. . .

  PREVIOUSLY . . .

  Andy’s definitely not a regular kid – his parents are government scientists, specialising in robotics. After a terrible accident, they’ve rebuilt him using their latest, untested research. His parents nicknamed him Andy Roid, but it’s more than just a nickname: it’s his government code name.

  Andy’s rebuild has given him superhuman powers, and now he’s been recruited by the government as a secret agent. His friend Judd is his partner, and Reggie is his online tech support with Brad, his partly bionic pet rat, keeping him company.

  Andy and Judd have been sent undercover to Switzerland where Judd’s parents were believed killed while on a mission. The boys are there with Agent Granny to track down the headquarters of the evil Blaireau Corporation.

  But when Andy intercepts a call between a Blaireau agent and a women being held prisoner, he discovers that Judd’s mother is alive.

  The mission just got personal, and Andy knows that Judd will do anything to get his mother back and punish the people who took her.

  Can Andy rescue her from the clutches of the world’s worst criminal organisation, and keep Judd out of trouble at the same time?

  Andy looked around in disgust as the truck shifted gears and he was shoved against the backside of a cow.

  MOOOOOOOOO

  The cow didn’t sound happy about it either.

  ‘Do we really have to travel in a cattle truck?’ Andy complained. ‘Surely there’s got to be a better way to get up the mountain. Why couldn’t we just swipe a car or motorbike or something – like normal secret agents?’

  Judd swayed between two cows as the truck slowly revved its way up a steep mountain road. They were headed to an isolated location deep in the Swiss Alps to rescue Judd’s mother, but they didn’t know exactly where she was being held.

  ‘All of Switzerland is out in force looking for us. We have to avoid drawing any sort of attention. So we have to keep udder the radar. . .Udder. . .other! Get it?’ Judd laughed.

  Since finding out that his mum was alive, Judd had been in a crazy mood. Andy understood why, but Judd seemed to be ignoring the fact that his mum was being forced to work for the enemy against her will.

  ‘Stop joking! We’re going deep into Blaireau territory and we might not come out of this alive. Your mum is the best code-breaker in the business. I bet they told her that if she made any contact with the Agency they would come after you and kill you. And they will, so start taking this seriously.’

  ‘I’ve got another one,’ Judd said, ignoring him. ‘Why do Swiss cows wear bells? Because their horns don’t work.’

  ‘Hilarious,’ Andy said sarcastically, sidestepping a cow pat. ‘If we get out of this alive, you should consider stand-up comedy.’

  ● ● ●

  The cattle truck pulled up in the ski resort town of Morgins.

  When they saw that the driver had gone into a tavern and that the coast was clear, Andy and Judd unlatched the back doors and made a run for it.

  ‘I can breathe again!’ Andy exhaled. ‘That was totally the stink-fest express. So now what?’

  ‘We have to get some supplies, to head further up into the mountains,’ Judd said, pulling Andy into a ski-supplies store. ‘Can I look at the location again?’

  Judd took Andy’s left hand and had a closer look at the map he had opened up on the touch-screen embedded in Andy’s palm.

  ‘The road we drove in on won’t take us further up into the mountains,’ Judd said. ‘We’ll have to take the chairlift to the top and then hike it from there.’

  ‘Can I help you boys?’ asked the store clerk in French.

  Andy yanked his hand away from Judd and shoved it in his pocket.

  ‘Ah, yes, we need some hiking supplies,’ said Andy in perfect French, thankful for his language app.

  ‘Hiking? Today?’ said the clerk, a middle-aged man with a bushy black beard. ‘There’s a snowstorm warning for the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘But it’s spring,’ said Andy, ‘almost summer.’

  ‘This high up in the Alps the weather can change suddenly. There can be snow all year round.’

  Andy translated for Judd what the man had told him.

  ‘Dude, snow or no snow, we’re still going,’ Judd whispered. ‘There’s no way a little bad weather is going to stop me from finding my mum. Get us some snow gear as well. I’ll go grab some food.

  Here’s some cash,’ he added, handing over

  a stack of money.

  ‘How? Where?’ said Andy.

  ‘Agency funds,’ Judd answered.

  ● ● ●

  ‘I get that we need all the hiking gear, but did we really need snowboards?’ Andy asked, as they walked towards the chair-lift station.

  Judd shrugged. ‘Snowboarding is awesome,’ he said.

  ‘Great,’ Andy said. ‘I guess I’m the one who’ll be carrying all this, since I’m the one with the superhuman strength and all?’

  ‘Got it in one, dude!’ Judd grinned.

  ‘Why do I need a jacket? I can handle the cold down to minus eighteen degrees Celsius.’

  ‘It would’ve looked suspicious otherwise,’ said Judd.

  As the chairlift jolted out of the station and took them up the mountain, Andy glanced back over his shoulder at the town and saw the clerk standing outside his shop. He seemed to be staring after them.

  Andy didn’t have a good feeling about that. In fact, he didn’t feel good about any of it. Not one bit.

  ‘So, how much longer do you think it will take us?’ Judd panted, sweat dripping down his face.

  The boys had taken the chairlift to the end of the line and begun their trek higher into the Alps. They had been hiking nonstop for hours.

  Eventually they passed the last houses and chalets and reached the end of the sealed road. There was nothing but wilderness in front of them.

  ‘My iris speedometer app says we’re walking at three point one kilometres per hour and, as the crow flies, we still have over nine kilometres to go. Then we have to start the search for wherever they’re holding your mum. If I can get a changing-gradient percentage of the local topography and estimate the sustainability of our endurance levels, I could easily calcu
late the time it would take us –’

  ‘Whoa, dude, take it down a notch. When did you turn into Reggie?’ Judd said. ‘You sure that one of your languages isn’t geekenese?’

  Andy shrugged. Judd’s comment reminded him of his nerdy friend and go-to guy in the Agency.

  Andy had made Reggie promise not to say anything to the General about what he and Judd were up to, and Andy wondered how he was holding out.

  ‘I’m just saying, get ready to have a serious workout ‘cause it’s going to take most of the day to get there, unless you want me to carry you. I reckon I could do it in thirty minutes.’

  ‘You’re not going to carry me like some baby,’ snapped Judd. ‘I have my pride.’

  ‘I wouldn’t carry you like a baby. I’d piggyback you,’ Andy said.

  Judd just shook his head. ‘It’s snowing already,’ he said, pulling on his snowshoes. They looked like tennis racquets fitted to his hiking boots. ‘I thought we might have more time before the weather changed.’

  Andy looked up and felt snowflakes landing gently on his face. Within minutes the skies had turned grey and the temperature was plummeting. Until the storm passed it would be too dangerous to run at top speed. He could hardly see a metre in front of his face.

  By the time the boys stopped a couple of hours later, everything around them was covered in white.

  ‘This is lame,’ Judd said. ‘First chance I get I’m snowboarding. I had an assignment a couple of years ago looking after a diplomat’s son in Canada. It was just full-on snowboarding and skiing. I can carve it up, dude.’

  Eventually the snowstorm cleared and they found they had reached the top of a ridge.

  Judd was standing precariously on the edge of a steep icy slope. He ripped off his snowshoes and replaced them with a snowboard.

  ‘Coming?’ he asked, tilting forward.

  ‘Nah,’ Andy said. ‘I’ll race you. I reckon I could bolt down this slope without losing my footing.’

  ‘BOOOOOOOORING,’ groaned Judd, adjusting his ski mask and goggles. ‘Where’s the fun in that? Dude, with your super-freaky reflexes, you’ll have no problem snowboarding. Don’t be a wimp. Let’s shred this run together.’

  ‘All right then, you’re on,’ Andy said. He pulled the snowboard off his back. ‘Ready?’

  Judd nodded. ‘After three,’ he said. ‘One, two. . .GOOOOOO!’

  Judd slid off the edge and shot down the slope.

  Andy followed him. ‘Whooooooooooohooooo!’

  He held his breath as he turned and swerved down the slippery run.

  WHHOOOSSSHH

  Everything whizzed past him as if he was watching a 3-D extreme-action film. Judd charged out in front of him.

  FWOOOSSSHHH

  Andy’s reflex sensors kicked into overdrive, and in no time he was using his board as if he had been doing it all his life.

  The trees on either side of him zipped past in one big blurry green streak.

  Andy was having the time of his life. It was the first time since arriving in Switzerland that he was actually having fun, and for a moment he felt like a regular teenage boy again.

  ‘WOOHOO!’ he yelled again, speeding after Judd.

  The boys sliced and cut through the powdery snow, dodging and zipping past each other.

  ‘Watch this!’ Judd called out as he approached a small mound in the slope. ‘Time to catch some serious air! YEEE. . . HAAA!’

  Judd launched himself off the naturally formed ramp and was airborne.

  Andy followed.

  WHHOOOSSSHH

  He soared into the sky. The power in his legs launched him much higher and faster than Judd’s jump.

  It was exhilarating and Andy couldn’t help but throw in a triple torso-twist of midair awesomeness.

  Too bad this isn’t a tryout for the Winter Olympics, he thought. I’d be a gold medallist, for sure!

  ‘WHHHHHOOOOOOAAAAA!’ he shouted, as he continued soaring right over Judd and crash-landed metres ahead of him.

  Judd had no time to react. He slammed right into Andy.

  WHHAACKKKKK!

  Tumbling out of control like a couple of giant rolling snowballs, the boys kicked up a windmill of ice and sleet. Andy sprang to his feet, but Judd lay motionless, flat on his back.

  ‘Judd! Judd!’ Andy said, jumping over to his friend and ripping off his ski mask. ‘Judd? Are you okay? Awww, geez, what have I done?’

  Andy shook him, but he wasn’t responding.

  ‘Judd, come on,’ Andy repeated, panicking. ‘C’mon, say something. . .’

  A smile curled across Judd’s face.

  ‘That was friggin’ radical!’ he mumbled. ‘Let’s do it again!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Andy said, helping Judd back onto his feet. ‘I got a little too excited and I forgot to monitor my strength. I probably should have skipped the aerial acrobatics.’

  ‘Dude, seriously, I’m fine,’ Judd said. ‘But you haven’t lost my backpack, have you?’

  ‘It’s over here,’ Andy said.

  As Andy leaned down to pick up the bag, something small and feathery rushed out of it.

  ‘Whoa,’ Andy said, startled. ‘What the?’

  A hummingbird hovered a few centimetres above Andy, then zoomed away.

  ‘No way! It’s back!’

  ‘What’s back?’ Judd asked.

  ‘That hummingbird that followed me in Lucerne. The one you thought could be a flying robotic camera for the Blaireau. It was hiding in your bag.’

  ‘This is bad news, dude. A huge tactical error on our part.’

  ‘Our part?’ said Andy. ‘It was in your bag, buddy!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, details, details,’ Judd said. ‘We’ve got to get rid of it. Next time you see it, laser it or something.’

  ‘What?’ Andy said.

  ‘Get your awesome laser finger out and destroy it.’

  The little bird was coming back for another run. Andy could see its metallic green and ruby feathers shimmering in the bright sunlight.

  ‘I don’t want to kill it,’ Andy snapped. ‘What if it’s not mechanical? What if it’s real and alive like me, or Brad? You know, a real bird with just a few bionic augmentations. How can you be okay with killing something?’

  ‘I have to be! We’re agents, dude, not kids back in some lame school. When I catch up with the guys who have my mum, the guys who killed my dad, they’ll find out what they’re dealing with.’

  ‘So how do you even know your dad is dead?’ asked Andy. ‘Maybe he’s being held hostage. too.’

  Judd sighed. ‘No,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘They found his body. Whereas my mum was never found. The Agency investigated, but in the end they assumed she’d been killed as well. Now the Blaireau Corporation is going to pay –’

  Andy raised his hand and stopped Judd mid-sentence. ‘Do you hear that?’ he said, looking back over his shoulder.

  VROOOOMMMM

  It was the sound of revving engines.

  Two snowmobiles burst through the woods behind them and roared towards the boys. The drivers were dressed entirely in black, their faces covered in helmets and ski masks.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Judd cried, scrambling to get back on his snowboard.

  ‘Forget the snowboard!’ Andy yelled. He grabbed Judd and bolted through the snow.

  Andy’s heart was pounding as he clocked 50km/h, his feet crunching across the snow so fast he was barely making a mark.

  ‘I bet they’re Blaireau,’ he shouted.

  ‘No kidding, Sherlock!’ Judd yelled back.

  ‘I think I know a way to slow them down,’ Andy said. He veered off the steep slope and sped up, heading into the forest.

  Andy stopped and placed Judd on the ground. ‘I’ll sort this. Just hide behind this tree.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Judd asked.

  Andy didn’t answer. He just scooped up a large amount of snow. With a single leap, he launched himself high into the branches of a pine tree
.

  With a clear view of the snowmobiles out in the clearing, racing towards them, Andy moulded the snow into a giant snowball about the size of a motorbike helmet.

  VROOOOMMMM

  The snowmobiles reached the edge of the woods. They were only metres away from where the boys were hiding.

  Andy pitched the snowball directly in front of the second snowmobile.

  FWOOOSSSHHH

  The driver swerved and lost control.

  THUD!

  The snowmobile crashed to the ground, then tipped and skidded across the snow.

  The other driver sped on ahead, deeper into the forest. He hadn’t seen what had happened to his partner.

  The driver sat in the snow, cursing and looking dazed. Then he pulled his helmet off.

  Andy recognised the ski-shop clerk!

  That’s why he was staring at us, thought Andy. He’s connected to the Blaireau Corporation!

  Judd dashed out from his hiding place and pushed the knocked-over snowmobile onto its tracks. The winded ski-shop clerk jumped to his feet and charged at Judd.

  WHACK! THOMP!

  Andy watched as Judd and the skishop clerk immediately launched into a serious ninja showdown.

  They blocked, punched and swiped at each other with the ferocity of a couple of kung-fu masters.

  They slipped and fell in the soft snow, but Judd wasn’t holding back with his bare-knuckle strikes and neither was the man.

  Eventually the ski-shop clerk began to tire and Judd made his move. He swiftly scooped up a handful of snow and threw it in the man’s eyes.

  The clerk staggered back, blinded by the snow for a split second.

  It was more than enough time for Judd to execute a forward kick to his opponent’s groin.

  The man groaned and fell to the ground with a thud.

  Judd turned and jumped on the snowmobile. He revved the throttle.

  Andy dropped from his treetop and jumped on the back of the snowmobile. ‘GO! GO! GO!’ he shouted.

  They roared out of the forest and into the clearing again. But it wasn’t long before they could hear the sound of the other snowmobile behind them.