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  ‘It’s open,’ Otto yelled from the gantry. ‘Wing, Shelby, get going.’

  Wing and Shelby ran in opposite directions, scanning the surfaces of the dozens of jet black slabs for the storage unit. Up on the gantry Otto watched the battery timer in his HUD drop below three minutes.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ Otto muttered under his breath. ‘It’s got to be down there somewhere.’

  Shelby sprinted past the monoliths, looking for anything unusual. Suddenly something caught her eye. Protruding slightly from the surface of one of the slabs was a smaller black cube.

  ‘Got it!’ Shelby yelled, sliding the cube fully out of the slab and shoving it into her pocket. She looked upwards and aligned the laser sight on her grappler with the opening in the ventilation shaft far overhead and fired. The dart rocketed upwards, trailing its monofilament cable, and struck home, securing itself within the ventilation shaft. Shelby shot upwards off the floor, flying past the gantry where Otto was standing and up into the ventilation shaft.

  ‘Present for you,’ Shelby said with a grin, handing Laura the black cube as she climbed inside the shaft.

  ‘Great,’ Laura said. ‘This won’t take long.’ She attached a series of self-adhesive pads to the surface of the cube and hooked them up to cables dangling from the back of the Hackbox.

  ‘I still don’t understand why we don’t just get Otto to do that with his electronic voodoo,’ Shelby said as she watched Laura urgently punching commands into the Hackbox.

  ‘Because he’d leave digital fingerprints all over it,’ Laura replied, staring at the tiny display. ‘The moment that H.I.V.E.mind is brought back online he’ll be restored from the data in this cube. He’d know instantly if Otto had accessed it. Don’t ask me why, I don’t really understand it myself, but Otto assures me that H.I.V.E.mind would know. It’s something to do with this bond they’ve developed.’

  ‘They do make a lovely couple,’ Shelby said with a grin. ‘I’ve always said they were made for each other.’

  ‘Transfer complete!’ Laura yelped delightedly. She handed the cube back to Shelby who turned and looked down through the opening in the shaft. Directly beneath them on the chamber floor far below Wing stood waiting.

  ‘OK, big guy,’ Shelby said, ‘heads up.’

  She dropped the cube through the opening and it plummeted towards Wing. Wing watched as it tumbled towards him, totally focused. He caught the cube in a single fluid motion that ensured it was not jarred by the sudden deceleration and ran back towards the storage core that Shelby had taken it from barely thirty seconds before. He slid the cube back into the monolith but it did not insert fully, the rest was up to Otto. On the gantry above Otto closed his eyes again and accessed the storage maintenance controls. The cube slid smoothly back into the black slab and Otto deleted the maintenance log that recorded the fact it had ever been removed. Otto opened his eyes and smiled – the countdown in his HUD showed a minute remaining on the camouflage system’s battery. More than enough time for them to get out.

  ‘OK, Wing, we’re good. Let’s go!’ Otto yelled down to his friend. He aimed his grappler at the opening overhead and fired, reeling himself in the moment the dart hit home. He looked down as he climbed into the opening and saw Wing aim his grappler up at them. He fired and the dart shot past Otto and into the shaft wall. A split second later, in the instant before Wing could start his ascent, the laser net lit up again with a flash, severing Wing’s grappler line instantly and trapping him beneath its lethal glow.

  ‘No! Damn it,’ Otto snapped, ‘what happened? Laura, signal Nigel and tell him to cut the power again.’

  Otto watched as the countdown in his HUD dropped below forty-five seconds.

  ‘OK,’ he said, looking at the girls, ‘I think we have a problem.’

  chapter seven

  ‘Step away from the switch,’ the security guard said, his Sleeper pointing straight at Tom.

  Nigel and Penny watched in horror from the control room above as Tom stepped away from the circuit-breaker which the guard had just forced him to reset.

  ‘What do we do?’ Penny whispered.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Nigel replied. ‘We just have to pray that the others got out in time.’

  At that instant an incoming transmission request from Laura flashed up on Nigel’s Blackbox and he hit the receive button.

  ‘Nigel,’ Laura said quickly, ‘what’s going on? The laser net just reactivated with Wing on the wrong side of it.’

  ‘We’ve got a big problem here,’ Nigel explained. ‘A guard’s just come in and caught Tom. The guard forced him to reset the circuit-breaker. There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Weren’t you watching the patrols?’ Laura asked irritably.

  ‘I was,’ Nigel moaned, ‘but then I had to throw all those switches and I got distracted. I’m really sorry – I should have been paying more attention.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Laura replied, ‘we just need to get the grid turned off.’

  Down on the floor of the Power Core, the guard reached for the radio attached to his belt.

  ‘I’m going to call this in,’ the guard said. ‘Don’t move a muscle unless you want to spend the next few hours unconscious.’

  The guard hit the transmit button on the walkie-talkie.

  ‘This is Evans in the CPC. I’ve got a . . .’

  The guard’s eyes widened in horror as a screaming, black-faced demon leapt from the shadows and hit him like a truck. He collapsed backwards under Franz’s weight and as he landed flat on his back there was a muffled zap sound as his Sleeper discharged. Franz rolled off the unfortunate guard who had just accidentally rendered himself unconscious with his own weapon.

  ‘Be throwing the switch,’ Franz said as he climbed to his feet. ‘Quickly.’

  Tom blinked once in astonishment before rushing over to the circuit-breaker and throwing it back into the off position.

  Up in the control room Nigel grinned at Penny.

  ‘You know, we are never going to hear the end of this.’

  ‘Come on, guys,’ Otto said under his breath as he looked down through the opening in the ventilation shaft. The battery counter on his HUD ticked below ten seconds. Wing had exactly the same charge remaining and the moment the batteries failed and the thermoptic camouflage disengaged he would be easy prey for the sentry guns on the walls. Otto did not like to think what the consequences would be if Nero realised what they had been doing. He watched the counter, feeling helpless.

  Five . . .

  Four . . .

  Three . . .

  Suddenly, the glittering laser net above Wing’s head vanished. Wing reacted instantly, aiming the grappler on his other forearm at the small opening far overhead. Otto scooted back from the opening as the grappler bolt struck the ceiling of the shaft. The battery timer hit zero and the camouflage systems in his suit disengaged and Wing became visible as he flew into the air and shot up the line towards the opening. As he reached the shaft and pulled himself inside, four of the sentry guns began to track his emerging thermal signature. They rotated into position just as Wing’s feet disappeared into the shaft. The sentries scanned the area slowly, looking for any trace of the phantom contact before giving up and returning to their standby positions.

  ‘That was too close,’ Otto said, letting out the breath that he’d been holding for the last thirty seconds.

  ‘May we return to boring again now,’ Wing said with a small smile.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Otto replied with a grin. ‘But first we need to return these suits to the storage room. Laura, signal Nigel and the others and tell them to restore the power down there.’ Laura nodded and pulled out her Blackbox as Otto set to work securing the ventilation grille back in place. If they were going to get away with this they would have to leave no trace of their presence.

  ‘How long have we got on the security camera loop?’ Shelby asked.

  ‘Fifteen minutes. Plenty of time.’ Otto replied.

  H.
I.V.E.mind awoke as the power flowed back into his primary systems. He waited as the core dump was uploaded back into his system and his memory returned. He reviewed his last actions before the unexpected power outage. He had been checking an inconsistency in the footage from the school’s security cameras. H.I.V.E.mind studied the captured frame of a security guard walking past the cameras. Something about it had caught his attention. He noticed the watch which was clearly visible on the guard’s wrist. The time on the watch did not tally with the time-stamp on the footage. There was the possibility, of course, that the guard had simply not set his watch correctly so H.I.V.E.mind searched the footage from the other cameras. There did not seem to be any other inconsistencies but he could not shake the sense that something was not quite right. It was a perfect example of what separated a true artificial intelligence from being simply a very powerful computer; the ability to feel and then to act on those feelings instead of just coldly processing the data that was presented to him. He tapped back into the live feed from the camera network and studied it carefully. There was something layered within the datastream but it was almost impossible to make out exactly what it was. He began slowly to break the stream down and analyse it. It was time-consuming work but he soon began to see a pattern emerging.

  Otto hit a button on the Hackbox and the door to the storage room slid shut and locked with a solid sounding thunk. They had changed back into their standard issue black Alpha stream jumpsuits and still had plenty of time left to get back to the accommodation block before the hack on the security cameras expired. Nigel, Franz, Tom and Penny were waiting for them.

  ‘Everyone OK?’ Otto asked.

  ‘Yeah, we’re fine,’ Nigel replied, ‘though we did leave an unconscious guard in the Power Core.’

  ‘I am being forced to use my elite combat skills to take him out,’ Franz said with a serious expression.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be able to ID you?’ Otto asked with a slight frown.

  ‘He got a look at me but it was dark in there and I reckon from the look on his face that the only thing he’ll actually remember from the whole experience will be Franz flying at him,’ Tom replied.

  ‘You need to get that stuff off your face, Franz,’ Otto said, ‘before that guard wakes up and describes the person that attacked him. You’re not going to be exactly difficult to pick out of a line-up at the moment. Good work in there – you really saved our bacon.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ Franz said with a dismissive wave. ‘Sometimes the pure killer instinct takes control and I am becoming just an unstoppable weapon. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, well, anyway . . .’ Otto said, trying hard not to laugh. ‘You guys get back to your rooms. Laura and I have to get rid of some incriminating evidence.’

  Laura pulled the Hackbox from her backpack and they headed over to one of the waste disposal chutes in the wall nearby. She quickly encrypted the parts of the H.I.V.E.mind core dump that they needed and then copied the file from the jury-rigged device on to her own Blackbox. With the data secure Otto triggered the Hackbox’s self-destruct routine. The device began to spark and hiss as its internal circuitry was reduced to molten slag. Otto dropped the smoking device into the chute. Even if it were retrieved, which was unlikely, there was now no way that it could be traced back to Otto and his friends.

  ‘All that work and now it’s just trash,’ Laura said with a sad smile. ‘Seems like a bit of a waste to be honest.’

  ‘We can build a better one,’ Otto replied, ‘and it’s preferable to Nero catching us with it. There’s going to be a security sweep when they find that guard in the Power Core and you can bet that we’re going to be top of the list of suspects. Best to just get rid of it.’

  ‘Aye,’ Laura replied, ‘at least we got what we needed.’

  ‘More than we needed actually. I had a quick look at the files and that core dump included a full copy of H.I.V.E.mind’s source code. I don’t know about you but I’ve always wanted to have a poke around in that and find out what makes him tick. You even managed to get a copy of the operational plans for the Hunt.’

  ‘Did I?’ Laura asked, sounding surprised. ‘I was just frantically copying everything as fast as I could. I wasn’t really paying attention to what the files were.’

  ‘You did great,’ Otto said with a smile. ‘Come on, we’d better get back to our rooms before that guard wakes up and they start turning the whole school upside down searching for whoever knocked him out.

  They both turned to head back up the stairs to their rooms when a voice stopped them cold.

  ‘Hello, Malpense,’ Cole Harrington said as he stepped out of the shadows. Without warning, someone grabbed Otto from behind and wrapped an arm around his throat. At the same instant, a giant hand clamped over Laura’s mouth, stifling her yelp of pain as her attacker twisted her arm and yanked it visciously upwards into the small of her back.

  ‘I believe you know my associates, Mr Block and Mr Tackle,’ Harrington continued with an unpleasant smile. ‘They don’t seem to like you very much for some reason.’ Otto and his friends had had several previous encounters with the Henchman stream students Block and Tackle, all of them unpleasant. ‘If you try to call for help, Mr Tackle will hurt Miss Brand very badly. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘What are you doing here, Harrington?’ Otto demanded angrily.

  ‘You’re not the only one who knows how to open doors in this place, Malpense,’ Harrington replied. ‘Though my methods are somewhat simpler. You just have to know the right people.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Otto asked, seeing the look of pained fear in Laura’s eyes.

  Harrington walked over and put his hand in Laura’s pocket, pulling out her Blackbox.

  ‘This,’ Harrington replied, ‘or at least the files that are now on it. I was delighted to hear what you said about H.I.V.E.mind’s source code. Forget the examination papers. Do you have any idea what that code would be worth on the black market? I may not be due to leave H.I.V.E. just yet, Malpense, but when I do those files are going to make me richer than you could possibly imagine.’

  ‘The files are encrypted,’ Otto snapped back, ‘and there’s no way that I’m going to unlock them for you.’

  ‘Really,’ Harrington said, turning to Tackle and Laura. ‘OK, if that’s the way you want this to go. Mr Tackle, I’m going to count to three and then I want you to break her arm. One, two . . .’

  ‘Stop!’ Otto snapped, knowing full well that Tackle would not hesitate to carry out Harrington’s command. ‘I’ll do it, just don’t hurt her.’

  Harrington handed Laura’s Blackbox to Otto and watched as Otto opened the file and typed in the decryption key. He smiled as he took the slim device from Otto and inspected the unlocked files.

  ‘Good,’ Harrington said with a smile. ‘Now I’m afraid that we’re going to have to make sure that you don’t do anything stupid like tell anyone what I’ve got here.’ He thought for a moment and then looked at Block. ‘Take them up to the top balcony and throw them off.’

  ‘Hold on, you didn’t say nuffink ’bout killing ’em,’ Block said with a frown.

  ‘Yeah, what if we get caught?’ Tackle said, nodding.

  ‘You won’t,’ Harrington said, shaking his head. ‘Malpense must have disabled the security cameras in here or he’d already have been caught. No one will ever know we were here. I’ll double what I’m paying you, just do it.’

  Otto took a breath but Block clamped his hand over his mouth before he could call for help.

  ‘All right, but you’d better make sure that money is where you said it would be when we get out of here,’ Block said.

  ‘Trust me,’ Harrington said with a smile, holding up Laura’s Blackbox, ‘with what I’ve got here, I’m good for it. Now stop wasting time and get rid of them.’

  Otto struggled to break free of Block’s vice-like grip but it was useless. The two Henchmen dragged them across the atrium towards the stairs leading upwards. There was a look of panicked
fear on Laura’s face as she too tried desperately to get away from Tackle but the huge Henchman was far too strong for her.

  Suddenly, wailing sirens began to sound all over the school.

  ‘Security alert, full lockdown in progress,’ H.I.V.E.mind’s voice stated calmly over the tannoy system. Harrington looked desperately over at the doors to the accommodation block. There was no way out of here now, even with the access code he had bought.

  On the other side of the atrium Block hesitated and looked at Tackle in confusion.

  ‘Whadda we do now?’ he asked.

  Otto felt the pressure from Block’s hand on his mouth ease slightly and he seized the opportunity, biting down on Block’s fingers so hard that he drew blood. Block pulled his hand away instinctively and Otto snapped his head forwards and then back with as much force as he could. The back of Otto’s head made contact with Block’s face with a crunch and Block immediately let go of him, staggering backwards howling in pain as blood streamed from his smashed nose. Otto turned to face the hulking Henchman, unsure of what to do next. He knew that there was no way he could match Block in a straight fight. Block’s hands dropped from his face and balled into fists as he walked towards Otto with a look of murderous rage in his eyes. Otto backed away from Block as Tackle stood by, still restraining Laura. Otto felt the wall behind him as Block raised one of his massive fists.

  ‘You’ve had this coming for a long time, Malpense,’ Block said.

  There was a sudden zapping sound and Block’s eyes rolled upwards as he collapsed to the ground unconscious. Behind him, Chief Dekker stood with her Sleeper raised.