Drama Queen (3 page)

Emma would normally report to
SHINE HQ
via the Mission Tube, a secret underground transport system that took agents to key
SHINE
locations. Each agent had their own access point and the access point for EJ12 was at her school, in the girls' toilets of her school to be exact. But today was Sunday and the school was locked. It was exactly for moments like these that
SHINE
had the Light Shop, a small ordinary-looking shop in a small, ordinary-looking shopping village. What was less ordinary was that underneath the shop, twenty floors down, was
SHINE HQ.
As her mum drove,
Emma switched on the radio just as another news report was beginning.

‘Continuing our earlier story about the strange changes to the water in a city reservoir, it seems another reservoir has also been affected. Authorities still have no clues as to what has happened but fear if more reservoirs are shut down, the city's water supply will be in danger.'

Is the mission something to do with this water disappearing?
Emma wondered as her mum slowed down and stopped the car.

‘Okay sweetie, I mean Agent EJ12, here we are.'

‘Thanks, Mum,' said Emma, opening the door.

‘Good luck and don't forget to give the new password to the lady,' called her mum as she pulled out from the kerb and drove away.

Emma stood outside the Light Shop. ‘We shine a light!' said the sign in the window and Emma smiled at that as she pushed the door open. A buzzer went off. She looked around but no one seemed to be there. Strange. She walked around, ducking under
all the lights hanging from the ceiling and then, seemingly from nowhere, an elderly lady appeared.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘May I help you?'

‘Hello,' replied Emma. ‘I hope so.' And then she remembered the new secret password exchange. ‘I am very interested in lava lamps, do you have any?'

‘Oh, yes we do, please follow me,' said the woman. She led Emma to the counter at the back of the shop. The woman went behind the counter and took out a small black box. ‘Would you be so kind as to put your hand on here?' said the lady, smiling as she placed the box in front of Emma.

Emma put her hand on the pad, which buzzed for a moment then stopped. A small green light on the side of the box glowed.

‘How lovely!' said the lady. ‘You are cleared for access, Agent EJ12. Please take the lift to level 20 and await further instructions.'

EJ went to the lift and the doors opened. She walked in and looked at the lift buttons. There were buttons from 0 to 8 but that didn't worry EJ. She
simply pressed 2 and 0 and waited as the doors closed. There was a sudden whoosh and EJ's ears popped before the lift stopped. EJ was at level 20, actually-20 to be precise—she was now twenty floors below ground level.

‘Welcome, Agent EJ12,' said a digital voice as the doors opened. ‘Exit lift and turn left. Continue until you come to the Code Room.'

EJ walked until she came to a plain metal door with a small keypad and screen next to it. She keyed in her pin code and another digital voice spoke.

‘Security test commencing. State your name.'

‘Emma Jacks,' said EJ in a clear, loud voice.

‘State your favourite ice-cream flavour.'

EJ didn't have to think about that one. ‘Double choc-chip with caramel crunch,' she said.

‘Welcome, EJ12. Door opening.'

EJ12 had reached the Code Room.

The Code Room at
SHINE
‘s
HQ
was a very small, simple, yellow-painted room with a chair, a table with paper and a pen, and a long, clear tube coming from the ceiling and ending directly over the table. The messages came via the tube and EJ expected a small canister to come whizzing down with a coded message for her to work on. She was, therefore, a little taken aback when a very large canister slowly pushed its way down the tube before being squeezed out on to the table. There was a large label on the outside.

EJ took the canister and unscrewed the lid. She pulled out a thick wad of paper stapled three times down the left-hand side. It had a bold heading on
the front page and some numbers were scrawled across the top in pen.

It is a foggy night. Agent White, in a black trench coat, collar up, is standing under the dim light of a street lamp. Agent Black, also in a black trench coat, appears from out of the shadows. She approaches the first woman cautiously.

EJ read the script and read it again but she couldn't see any code. But there had to be one and she had to find it, fast.

EJ looked again at the hand-written note across the top.

If there is a code here, and there must be,
she thought,
then there has to be a connection between this writing and the script.
EJ knew from her
SHINE
code-cracking training that codes had keys and once you found the key you could unlock the code. Was this handwritten note the key? EJ looked at the first part.

SM2, what is that?
EJ asked herself. It wasn't a code, at least not one EJ recognised so what was it? Then EJ looked to the top of the page and read SPY MOVIE 2.
Is SM2 simply short for Spy Movie 2? And if it is, what is S4 short for?
EJ read down and saw ‘Scene 4'. Was S4 Scene 4? ‘Too easy!' cried EJ out aloud.

But then she looked at the next bit of the note and thought perhaps it wasn't so easy. There were no more letters, just numbers. EJ realised that the code had changed.

These numbers have to stand for something and they have to stand for something to do with the script for Scene 4 of
Spy Movie 2
but what is that? They probably don't stand for letters because none of the numbers are the same.
EJ looked hard at the numbers again.

Then she noticed something. The numbers were in order, starting with the smallest number
and getting bigger.

I wonder,
thought EJ. She looked at the script and began counting the words from the start, writing the number above the word. ‘It' was 1, ‘is' was 2, ‘a' was 3, ‘foggy' was 4 ... When she got to 48, she circled the word ‘first'. If she was right, that was the first word of the message. She kept on numbering each word and got to the 106th word and wrote that down, then did the same for 111, 131, 173, 179, 185 and finally the 188th word.

EJ circled and then wrote down the 48th word of the script.

First

She kept on numbering each word and got to the 106th word and wrote that down.

First ball

And then the same for 111, 131, 173, 179, 185 and 188, writing each word down.

When she had finished, EJ looked at what she had written.

That had to be the secret message. It was clearly an instruction but for what and for whom? And what did it all have to do with
Spy Movie 2?

EJ needed to get this back to
SHINE
and fast. She rolled the script back up, tucked in the paper with the decoded message and put it all back into the canister and the canister back up the message tube. It was sucked away towards the
SHINE
Operations Room where the head of
SHINE,
A1, would be waiting for it.