Blue's Revenge (11 page)

Max, Linden and Toby appeared in a flash of fluorescent light and falling sparks of colour. They hung in the air for a few seconds before floating gently to a rocky cliff-top at the bottom of the hill leading to Blue's castle.

‘That was insane!' Toby cried. ‘What
was
that we just did?'

Max and Linden began searching for the stunted tree that hid the transported sack of Spyforce gadgets Dretch had told them about.

‘We've just travelled at hyper-speed from Australia to Scotland using a Time and Space Machine,' Linden said a little smugly.

‘Well, that's something I wasn't planning on doing today.' Toby looked up towards the castle. ‘This Blue guy lives here? Tell me, is he a little man who spends most of his time making plans to dominate the world?'

Max looked up from her search. ‘Pretty much.'

‘Thought so.'

Linden's irritation towards Toby wasn't going away. ‘It'd be great if you could help us find the pack instead of standing there talking.'

‘No problem.' Toby frowned, unsure of where Linden's attitude was coming from. ‘What's in this pack anyway?'

‘Impact Suits, Undetectatrons, Danger Meters and hopefully a few other things that will make what we're about to do a little easier,' Linden explained.

‘Excellent.' Toby had no idea what Linden had just said but it sounded like fun.

The wind swirled around them, buffeted up from the icy waters of the ocean below. The three searched the ground around the tree, poking into clumps of ragged, grassy scrub until Toby came across a small cloth bag. ‘Is this it?'

‘Hand it over.' Linden looked inside and smiled. ‘Yep. Now put this on.' He handed over the Undetectatron. ‘It keeps you hidden from all security devices. Just peel off the label and stick it to your chest.'

Toby took the Undetectatron and, lifting his jumper, did as he was told.

‘And this Impact Suit will save you from any falls or knocks. It's like a suit of armour, a bullet-proof vest and an airbag all in one,' Linden instructed. ‘It goes over your underwear but under your clothes.'

‘But I'll have to show off my muscly body.' Toby smiled at Max but realised she hadn't heard. She stood, barely moving, staring at the castle on the hill.

‘Just put it on,' Linden whispered sternly as he handed Toby his last device. ‘And this is a Danger Meter. At the slightest hint of danger you will feel a vibrating rhythm against your chest.'

Linden took off his pack and put the sack and its remaining gadgets inside. He quickly sent a message to Dretch telling them they'd arrived, but when he looked up, he noticed Max was still staring fearfully at the castle, turning the digital camera ring on her finger. He walked over to her. ‘We're ready to complete our mission, boss.'

Max kept staring into the biting wind.

‘We're going to find your mum and Harrison, Max. You know that, don't you?'

Max turned to him. ‘Can we say the pact?'

‘Of course,' Linden answered gently.

‘What's the pact?' Toby called.

Max turned and saw a half-naked Toby stepping into his suit. Linden glared at him. ‘Nothing you need to know about.'

‘I think we should all say it,' Max whispered, turning away.

Linden held Max's hand and, after waiting for Toby to finish dressing, reluctantly offered his other hand to him. Max closed her eyes and began the pact, reciting word for word her promise to look
after her two fellow spies. Linden repeated the promise, followed by Toby.

‘Excellent,' Toby exclaimed. ‘What do we do next?'

Linden walked over to his pack and took out his palm computer. He studied Dretch's map of the area and discovered a scrubby forest path that would take them directly to the castle. ‘Follow me.' He'd never worried about it before, but suddenly he wanted to show that he was in charge. ‘Now remember, Toby, Max and I have done this kind of thing lots of times, so all you need to do is follow us and not attract attention to yourself.'

But as Linden finished speaking his foot slipped on the muddy path and he flipped into the air, landing with a squelching bellyflop on a mound of damp moss.

‘Sure thing, boss.' Toby smirked and offered to help him up.

Linden ignored him and, unearthing his hands from the mud, picked himself up. He winced, not from the fall, since the Impact Suit had kept him safe, but from making a fool of himself in front of Toby. He casually flicked off some mud from his arms and chin and led the way to the side of the castle and the gloomy edge of the moat.

He looked again at his palm computer. ‘Dretch has marked an entry point on the top level of the castle.' He pointed upwards. ‘It's through that archway and into an open-roofed courtyard.'

‘How are we going to get there?' Toby frowned.

Linden slipped his computer into his pocket and pulled out the lever on his pack. ‘We're going to fly. You'll have to come with me.'

‘Fly? Of course. Why didn't I think of that?' Toby beamed.

‘Actually, it'd be better if he came with me,' Max suggested. ‘I'm lighter than you and the packs are going to struggle enough to lift our weight in this wind.'

‘I'm not sure that …' Linden began, but Toby had already moved behind Max and put his hands around her. Linden felt a curious urge to pull him off and throw him to the ground.

Within seconds the three spies were in the air, navigating their way through the surging bursts of wind. Max gritted her teeth. There was a time when she was hopeless at operating her Personal Flying Device, but after months of practice, she felt she had mastered it.

What she hadn't mastered, however, was her fear of heights. As they rose above the pitch black
moat, Max looked down and her fear hit her like another gust of wind.

‘Oh!'

Toby and Max tipped sideways along with her confidence.

Linden saw her faltering and guessed the reason, but just as he was about to warn Max not to look down, Toby got in first. ‘You can't fly this thing any better?'

‘I'm trying.' Max's voice was verging on panic.

‘Maybe you should have taken a few lessons before you decided to risk my life.'

Max was annoyed that she was trying to save their lives and all Toby could do was criticise. ‘And maybe you should just be quiet and let me fly this thing.'

‘I would if you were any good at it.'

That was it. Max was furious. She gripped the lever of the flying pack even tighter. ‘I'm one of the best spies Spyforce has. And one of the youngest!' The PFD sailed straight upwards as Linden looked on, navigating his own way through the wind. ‘I've flown one of these through the middle of a volcano and …' Max headed towards the stone archway. ‘Saved one of Spyforce's top agents doing it.' She started taking the PFD in for a landing.

‘And another thing …' But as they were about to land, a blast of frosty air rounded a stony corner of the castle, pushing them off-balance. The two hit the stone floor with a pounding thud and rolled to a bumpy stop metres from where they first touched down.

Linden saw the jostled landing. ‘Max!' But she couldn't hear him over the wind.

‘Okay, you can get off me now!' Max wheezed as Toby's body was sprawled over hers.

Linden landed just behind them and raced over to Max. ‘Are you okay?'

‘Is she okay?' Toby cried getting to his feet. ‘She's amazing! At school she never gets picked for any of the sports teams and here she is with this action-packed life that's better than most DVDs. Oh, and sorry for the dig about needing flying lessons.'

It was only then that Max realised what Toby had done. He'd picked a fight with her so she'd forget about her fear of heights.

‘Very clever,' she smiled.

‘Thank you.' Toby looked very pleased with himself.

Linden was confused. From the air it had looked like they were arguing, but now they were
all smiles. ‘You were lucky you had your Impact Suits on.'

Linden was right. Toby only just now realised that after such a rough landing, he didn't hurt at all. ‘I have got to get one of these.'

Linden was looking at his palm computer for their next move when he felt his Danger Meter vibrate against his chest.

‘Anyone else feel that?'

No-one had the chance to answer before two large hands moved out of the shadows and dug firmly into Linden's shoulders. He turned to see the outlines of three goons standing behind him.

‘This isn't part of the plan, is it?' Toby's Danger Meter pounded against his chest as he too was taken captive.

Max shook her head despondently as Linden looked up at the towering men. ‘Would you believe we got lost and were meant to be somewhere in Switzerland?'

The goons sniggered and grabbed all three, shoving them forward with their arms pinioned behind their backs.

‘Take it easy! I'd like to use those arms again someday if that's okay,' Toby ordered, but his arms
were pulled back even tighter. ‘Thanks. That's much better,' he said sarcastically.

They were forced into a long circular stairwell that twisted its stony way deep into the castle's lower layers.

‘How did they know we were here?' Max whispered to Linden. ‘We have the Undetectatrons.'

‘Maybe Toby didn't put his on quick enough.' There was a hint of blame in Linden's voice as he glared at Toby.

But Max thought it was something else. ‘Or maybe they knew we were coming.' It was as if the goons had been waiting for them – but the only person who knew they were coming was Dretch. Max's heart jolted. Maybe instead of helping them, he was simply leading them to their deaths.

At the end of an increasingly narrow corridor, they came to a scratched and scarred metal door. One of the goons pulled out a key from a piece of elastic attached to his belt and opened the imposing structure.

‘Ah, welcome, dear children, I've been waiting for you.'

Max and Linden's eyes bulged as they faced Ms Peckham. She was one of Blue's closest assistants and they hadn't seen her since they were kidnapped
in London and threatened with being lowered into a vat of green jelly.
¹¹

She was immaculately dressed in a finely pressed skirt suit, polished shoes and hair tied back in a bun that was wound so neatly it looked fake.

‘You've arrived just in time,' she said in a voice as smooth as a hotel manager's. ‘It's wonderful how we can always trust you to be great Superspies. Why do we bother having henchmen at all when you managed to get yourselves here on your own?'

‘To make you feel superior because they have the intelligence of small rocks.' Max was furious that they'd been caught so easily.

Ms Peckham laughed quietly into her white-gloved hands. She nodded at the goons, and within seconds they had roughly torn Max and Linden's packs from their backs and given them to her. ‘You won't be needing these anymore.'

Max shot Linden a panicked look.

Peckham went through the packs until she found what she was looking for. ‘Ah, there you are.' She held the Time and Space Machine before her. ‘It's about time you came home.'

‘It's not yours. It's Ben and Eleanor's!' Max shouted.

The goons sniggered and pushed Max, Linden and Toby after Ms Peckham as she walked down a long stony tunnel punctuated by a series of bolted metal doors. Max felt the floor waver beneath her as she realised the magnitude of what she'd just done. Harrison hadn't used the Time and Space Machine to get here to avoid it falling into Blue's hands, and now she had pretty well handed it to him.

‘You will be kept in one of these rooms until Mr Blue has decided what to do with you.'

‘And maybe we don't want to be kept in one of these rooms.' Toby was tired of this woman's bossiness.

‘You should have thought of that before you trespassed on private property.'

Ms Peckham's smile rose slowly. ‘Take them in.'

The goons grabbed Max, Toby and Linden even harder and thrust them along the tunnel after Ms Peckham. As they approached the last door, they heard angry muffled cries.

‘Do you hear that?' Toby whispered to Max. ‘We're not about to be thrown into a den with some half-crazed loony, are we?'

‘No. Of course not,' Linden said abruptly.

But with each step that took them closer to the angry locked-in cries, Linden worried Toby might be right, and that their attempts to save Harrison and Max's mum were going to end in a small cell in the farthest corner of Scotland at the hands of a deranged madman.

The goons opened a thick metal door with an echoing drone and Max, Linden and Toby came face to face with the person behind the deranged cries.

‘Mum!' Max stared at the wild-haired, makeup-smeared woman gripping the bars of an inner cell door in front of her.

She was still wearing her wedding dress, but instead of the perfect white designer creation, she was swathed in a torn, frayed and muddy disaster.

The goons unlocked the cell door and shoved the three of them inside, slamming it shut behind them. Max's mother grabbed her daughter and squeezed her so tight it was hard for Max to breathe.

‘Oh, my little girl. My baby! Is it really you? What are you doing here?'

Max had thought so much about saving her mum she had forgotten to think about how she would explain why she was there.

‘Well, Mum, it's like this. You see …'

Max's mum turned to the goons with a fierce snarl in her voice. ‘What have you two brain-dead sacks of stupid done? She's just a little girl. It's bad enough that you kidnap a completely innocent woman, but now you're kidnapping children too! What kind of inhuman apes are you? Why don't you get real jobs? Something more suited to your
intelligence, like gathering slime off the bottom of a sewer. Or how about –'

‘Ah, Ms Beckinsdale? Usually it's best not to upset these guys.' Linden gawped at the way Max's mum got angry in exactly the same way Max did.

‘I'll give them upset, I've only just begun. When I've finished with them –'

‘I can see where your feistiness comes from,' Ms Peckham said to Max in a mocking tone. ‘Trouble is, it's not going to help either of you.'

She turned away with a jaunty step. ‘That's all for now. I need to let Mr Blue know he has guests. Oh, and if you even try to escape, it will be the last thing you ever do.'

The metal door pounded shut as their captors left, reverberating with a clanging sound for whole seconds after they had gone.

‘Hmmmph!' her mum snorted before turning her attention to Max. ‘Oh, my sweet baby girl! Are you okay? Have they hurt you?'

There was so much Max had to tell her mum that it all came out in a panicked, garbled rush. ‘I'm fine but I was so worried about you and when you were kidnapped from the wedding we didn't know who did it and where you were or what we should do and all I could think about was that you had to come
back because I couldn't stand the idea that you'd never be here anymore and that I'd never see you …' Max took a breath and slowed down. ‘I couldn't see any reason for doing anything without you.'

‘It's okay, sweetie. We're together now and I'm sure it won't be long until the police find us. Then we can go home, have nice warm baths and forget this ever happened.'

‘It's a little more complicated than that, Ms Beckinsdale,' Linden said sheepishly.

‘No, you're right. We'll have to answer questions first, of course. The police need to do their job. But as long as I'm with my beautiful girl, it doesn't matter where I am.' She gave Max another firm hug and nuzzled her in the cheek.

Toby raised his eyebrows, wondering how Linden was going to explain his way out of this one.

‘No, I mean there won't be any questions.'

‘They are going to want to ask questions to find out why these hooligans kidnapped me. That's how it works.'

‘Not in this case,' Toby mumbled to himself.

‘Mum?' Max's nerves sent a trembling spasm through her whole body. ‘We've come to rescue you.'

Max's mother smiled. ‘That's very sweet but I'm not sure you and your little friends will be able to
do anything about these brutes. My guess is they are seasoned criminals and this isn't the first time they have done this.'

There was a prickly silence in the room until Linden spoke up. ‘Um, you're right. It's not. Max and I have come up against them a few times before.'

Max's mother's face fell. ‘I'm sorry?'

Max had been able to keep her Spyforce identity a secret from her mother since she'd been made an agent, but now she was finally going to have to admit it.

‘Mum, Linden and I are spies. We're part of an intelligence agency called Spyforce, which is based in London. We used a Time and Space Machine to travel here from Sydney to save you and our boss, Harrison, who we think Blue is going to kill.'

There was another heavy silence.

‘Now, Max, I know things have been pretty traumatic these last few days, but I think I'd know if you were a spy.'

Linden tried to help. ‘It's true, Ms Beckinsdale.'

No-one knew what to do, until Max's mother decided for them.

‘Don't give me this “I'm a spy” talk. You're a little girl whose life should be spent at home studying and talking on the phone and going to
parties with your friends, not caught up in a world of Peckhams, Blues and …' She glared at Linden. ‘Boys with way too much imagination.'

Max's sadness over her mother's kidnapping was suddenly pushed aside by a big dose of being fed up. She'd come halfway around the world to save her mother, breaking Spyforce rules and risking her life, and all she was getting was one of her usual lectures.

‘And what about your life? You don't think I ever have a problem with that?'

Max's mother gasped. ‘That is not the same thing, young lady.'

‘Stop calling me young lady. Do you have any idea how irritating that is?'

Linden knew he was about to see one of those mother–daughter showdowns Max had told him about.

‘Even on the other side of the world you still treat me like a kid, yelling at me and telling me what to do in front of other people, when I am a spy who has saved the world from criminals like Blue who only want to destroy it. And you know what? I'm actually good at it! But I know you're not going to believe that because you think I mess up everything I do.'

Max's mum frowned. ‘That's not true, sweetie.'

‘It is! You're always telling me I'm clumsy and careless and don't take care of anything properly, but being in Spyforce has taught me I'm good at lots of things.'

Max's mum stared open-mouthed at her daughter. ‘But sweetie, I …'

‘What's that?' Toby saw a red light flashing through Linden's jacket pocket.

He took out his palm computer. ‘It's Dretch.'

‘Who's Dretch?' Max's mother asked.

‘He works with us at Spyforce,' Linden answered. ‘And apart from Peckham and her goons, he's the only other person who knows we're here.'

Max's mother took a few moments to realise what this meant. ‘So the police aren't on their way?'

‘No, but Spyforce is better than any –'

‘I've heard enough about Spyforce for now!' she snapped.

Max had had enough of her mother and grabbed Linden's computer. ‘Dretch.' Her voice was cold. ‘We've been captured. As if they somehow knew we were here …'

‘Captured?' Dretch flinched. ‘Are you all safe?'

He seemed genuinely worried, or as worried as Dretch could get.

‘Yes. For now. But Peckham's got the Time and Space Machine.'

Dretch's eyes got even wider.

‘You knew nothing about this?'

Toby and Linden stared at Max, realising what she was accusing Dretch of.

‘Nothing.' Dretch deflated. ‘I'll work out a way to get it back. For now, Harrison is in danger and needs our help. Quimby has been studying the unusual area of activity in the castle and has discovered that it is a highly charged field called a Portal Room.'

‘A Portal Room?' Linden asked. ‘You mean a room with entrances to different realities?'

‘So you are as clever as they say?' Dretch smirked. ‘When acted upon in a certain way, the particles in the room change shape, offering a gateway into another realm.'

The computer was snatched from Max's hand.

‘Hang on a minute there, Fetch, I'm Max's mother and I want to know why you haven't sent someone here to save us.'

Dretch groaned at the woman who'd invaded his screen while Max fumed about the way her mother was behaving.

‘Mum, it's because we need to save Harrison as
well as you and bringing in the police at this point would only complicate everything.' She took a breath to calm herself down. ‘Can I have the computer back now?'

‘Not until I get an assurance from this Fetch fellow that he will organise our rescue immediately.'

Max's mum had an hysterical edge in her voice that meant she was only going to get worse. ‘Mum, we're here to do that.' Max gritted her teeth. ‘And his name is Dretch.'

‘Ms Beckinsdale?' It was Toby. ‘I know this has been a terrible time for you but Spyforce really is the best spy agency in the world, with gadgets even the most well-equipped police force doesn't have. Believe me, they are far better to handle this rescue than anyone else.'

Linden smiled knowingly. Toby may have thought he was saving the day, but once Max's mother was on a roll, no-one could stop her.

But then, the strangest thing happened. She calmed down.

‘I think Max needs her computer back now, Ms Beckinsdale,' Toby added gently.

She handed back the computer to a stunned Max.

Dretch continued. ‘The Portal Room is one
step up from the Nightmare Vortex that you were sucked into during the Annual Spy Awards Night.
¹²
It's a world of constantly changing realities that Quimby believes, in the wrong hands, could be very dangerous.'

‘Is this what Blue is planning to use on Harrison?' Linden asked.

Dretch paused. ‘He already is.'

A cold disquiet settled on the room.

‘This is what we received from Harrison's button camera only minutes ago.'

Toby and Linden gathered around Max, staring incredulously at what they saw on the computer screen. Through Harrison's hidden camera, they saw Blue sitting on an ornate sofa in a high-ceilinged, regal room. He was surrounded by intricate tapestries and paintings, carved cabinets and tables, and a man in a golden suit was serving tea.

‘You have one more chance to give me what I want.' Blue sipped his tea innocently. ‘Otherwise you will force me to invite you into my latest and perhaps most exciting invention: the Portal Room. A place of alternate realities that can be called up by a simple flick of these controls.'

Blue took a small black switch from his pocket.

‘You could be dangled from the tops of glaciers, or thrown out of a plane without a parachute, or left stranded on a rotting raft circled by ravenous sharks. Things can get very nasty.'

‘It is a tempting exchange. My life for one small machine,' an unseen Harrison answered.

‘Ah, I was hoping you would see it my way. After all, you've made one Time and Space Machine, you can make another.' Blue's smile was so wide it almost reached the edges of his face. ‘So, what's your final word?'

They saw Harrison's hand put his teacup and saucer on the gold tray before him. ‘You're wasting your time, Theodoran. I will never give you what you want.'

Blue gripped the handle of his cup firmly. ‘Even after what I have told you?'

‘I am not a man who can be bought. Not for any price.'

‘Blue's serious about that room,' Linden whispered to Max.

‘I know.' At that moment they were so proud of their boss, they knew they'd do everything they could to save him.

Blue flinched in fury as Harrison sat before him
refusing to be swayed.

‘Then you and your precious Spyforce will pay!' He stood up and threw the cup against the wall, sending a shattered mix of tea and crockery ricocheting from a hanging tapestry before it fell tinkling to the floor.

He held the switch in front of him and was about to press down hard when there was a knock at the door.

It was Peckham. She had a Cheshire cat grin on her face as she walked over to Blue, whose back was turned to Harrison.

Peckham whispered in his ear and discreetly handed something to him. Blue took her offering and put it in his pocket. He then murmured something which brought an even greater smile to Peckham's lips.

‘It will be done immediately.'

‘She's given him the Time and Space Machine,' Max guessed fearfully.

As Peckham left the room, Blue turned to Harrison triumphantly. ‘Shall we?'

He pressed down on the black switch and a giant image of a snow-covered mountain swirled into view in the middle of the room, like an oversized floating movie screen.

‘What was that he just did?' Max's mother stared.

‘He's activated the Portal Room,' Max answered.

‘But I thought you were just …'

‘Shhhh, Mum. We need to watch this.'

Blue shot Harrison a smug look. ‘It's a pretty picture, isn't it? But I wonder what would happen if we were to step inside?'

Blue moved to a small marble stand in front of the picture and placed his hand on one half of a small metallic dome in the centre.

‘All you need to do is place your hand on the other side of this dome to create the energy field strong enough to pull us in.'

The image on the computer shuddered as if Harrison was being pushed towards the stand. His hand was forcibly planted on the dome and the two halves were pushed together. When contact was made, a swirling energy field tore from the now complete dome towards the centre of the image. A twisting, tornado-like wind snagged at Blue's clothes and hair, pulling them towards the snow-covered mountain.

‘Here we go!' Blue was jubilant.

It was then, with a frantic blur, that the screen went black.

‘Harrison!' Max called just as Dretch's face appeared on the screen. ‘We've got to find him. Do you know where they are?'

‘The coordinates of the Portal Room are on your map.' Dretch paused. ‘It'll be very dangerous. The chances of coming out alive are difficult to predict.'