Code Name Firestorm (9 page)

“Reboot complete,” announced Hercules.

“Welcome back,” said Nero. “I’m picking up some odd power fluctuations in your circuits. Are you functioning correctly?”

Hercules scuttled towards the other robots. His wing case slowly opened, and his large, powerful wings unfolded. Suddenly, lights appeared in his eye cameras. Red ones.

“Functioning correctly,” he said flatly. “Reprogramming successful. Full destruction subroutine acknowledged. I must obey. Destruction of micro-robots commencing.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Your tea’s getting cold!” cried Auntie Madge. “I told you not to be long. I wish I knew what you got up to in my garage, all hours of the day and night.”

“I told you, Auntie Madge, it’s a special project,” said Blackwater. “Don’t be so nosy.”

“Don’t you be so rude, young man!” said Auntie Madge.

“Sorry, Auntie,” smiled Blackwater.

It was dark outside. The dull glow of street
lights shone through the living-room window.

Blackwater opened his heavy trunk and took out a pair of headphones. He put them on and walked over to the portable radio that was perched on the windowsill close to his aunt’s chair.

“Want the radio on, Auntie Madge?”

“What? No, thanks.”

“I’ll put it on anyway,” said Blackwater.

He pressed the radio’s power button. At the same time, he pressed a button on a small remote control he had in his pocket. Instantly, the radio began to emit a loud, pulsing sound. The extra circuit he’d built into it was identical to the ones found in the speakers at Trendi Soundz. The sound rippled across the room, in waves of noise so intense they were almost visible.

For a moment, Auntie Madge sat in her armchair with a look of bewilderment on her face. Then her eyes glazed over, becoming distant and unfocused.

Blackwater switched off the radio. The hypnotic signal cut out and he replaced the headphones in his trunk.

“Confirm Firestorm Control,” he said.

Auntie Madge got up from her armchair and stood straight. “Control Code Name Firestorm is in place,” she said in a flat voice.

“You will defend the house and the garage with your life,” said Blackwater.

“With my life, confirmed.”

“You will deploy weapons as I showed you last week, when I hypnotized you before.”

“Deploy weapons, confirmed.”

“You will attack anyone who tries to enter. You will show no mercy. You will remain hidden and allow any attackers to believe that it’s me operating the weapons.”

Auntie Madge’s lips trembled slightly. “No … mercy… Confirmed.”

Blackwater smiled to himself. “Right,” he whispered. “I’m off. Goodbye, Auntie.”

“Hercules is repaired, but he’s also fully under Blackwater’s control,” said Nero.

Without warning, the stag beetle suddenly lunged at Chopper. His cutting claw clacked
savagely at the dragonfly’s wings. Chopper darted out of the way just in time.

“I’ll try to break into Hercules’s programming through our communications network,” said Nero.

“Be quick!” said Morph. “We’re trapped inside this force field with him!”

Widow leaped across the stag beetle’s path and fired looping lengths of web around him. With lightning speed, Hercules spun in mid-air, slicing the cords of webbing apart with one edge of his claw.

Using Widow’s attack as cover, Morph flung himself up and around Hercules. The centipede’s gelatinous, flexible body quickly squeezed and tightened, pulling Hercules’s wing case closed and forcing him to tumble over onto his back.

“Quick!” said Morph. “He’s too powerful for me – he’ll snap me in half! Someone find a way to disable his systems.”

“I can’t hack into his program,” said Nero. “Blackwater’s added too many firewalls.”

“Sabre, Nero, will either of your stings take him offline?” said Chopper.

“Negative,” said Sabre, “our weaponry won’t work on machines, and especially not on robots like us.”

Hercules powered up his exoskeleton. He was fitted with a variety of tools to help him tunnel through almost anything. He could even melt his way through metal.

“He’s heating up!” said Morph. “My systems might overload!”

Chopper, Nero and Widow joined the battle. The robots grappled around the inside of the speaker. Nero was thrown back with a kick from two of the stag beetle’s legs. Sabre had to whip from side to side to avoid being crushed in Hercules’s claw. Morph, his components getting steadily hotter, held on tightly to restrict Hercules’s movements as much as he could. Despite the beetle’s superior strength, the others managed to keep him at bay, by working together.

“Combined attack may result in defeat,” said Hercules. The red lights in his eyes flashed sharply. “Link to main computer now established.”

Suddenly, the energy barrier above the robots vanished.

“We’re free!” said Morph.

“He’s connected himself to Blackwater’s PC,” said Sabre.

At that moment, all around the garage, machinery juddered and blinked into life. An array of Blackwater’s weapons had switched themselves on.

“Oh no,” said Morph quietly.

“Reprogramming must be obeyed. Full destruction subroutine must be obeyed,” said Hercules. “Total destruction of robots and all garage contents. Begin.”

At the far end of the garage, a barrage of miniature rockets launched.

“Hive 2 to HQ, I’m tracking Blackwater,” signalled Sirena. “He’s loaded that trunk in his car and he’s driving away. I’m on the roof of the car.”

“Stay with him,” said Queen Bee, from the SWARM laboratory. “Where are Drake’s assault squad?”

“They’re getting close to the house,” said
Sirena. “They haven’t seen Blackwater leave. I’ve had no indication that he knows they’re so close. He doesn’t realize how narrowly he’s avoided them.”

“However, we can be sure he’s prepared for whoever he thinks might come to get him, whether it’s the police, MI5 or us,” said Queen Bee. “We know he favours booby traps. That house is probably full of them!”

“Can’t we have MI5’s attack called off?” said Sirena. “They may end up hurt.”

“I doubt Drake would listen, if it was
us
warning him,” said Queen Bee.

At that moment, MI5 agent Drake raised a walkie-talkie to his lips. “Go! Go! Go!”

All the members of his squad broke into a run. They emerged into the open, charging towards the front of the house and down the alleyway that ran along behind the garage.

Inside the house, the hypnotized Auntie Madge could hear the thudding of boots.
She watched through the living-room window. She could see the dark flak jackets and helmets of the MI5 agents in the glow of the street lights. Their machine guns glinted.

She picked up the remote control for her TV. Blackwater had made a number of hidden modifications to its circuits. She pressed a long sequence of buttons.

Up in the dusty attic, where Blackwater had told Auntie Madge he was storing some stock from the shop, a series of lights flashed. Hatches sprung open on the outside of the roof.

Below, one of the MI5 agents slapped Drake on the shoulder. “Sir! Up there! Something coming at us!”

“What?” said Drake.

A rain of small explosive spheres suddenly fell all around them. Each one detonated as it hit the ground. The agents were knocked back as fireballs burst into the air with a series of thunderous bangs. The same thing was happening to the agents approaching the house from other directions.

Machinery in the attic sent a second wave
shooting out of the hatches in the roof. This time, sticky, football-sized blobs of Blackwater’s instant-setting sealant were rapidly fired out. They emitted low bleeps, as heat-seeking electronics inside guided them at speed towards anyone nearby. Any MI5 agent who couldn’t dodge them quickly enough found themselves glued to the ground by an arm or a leg.

“Blackwater’s not giving up without a fight!” Drake yelled into his walkie-talkie. “All units, prepare to move in on my signal!”

Inside the garage, everything was ablaze. The miniature rockets, fired at Hercules’s command, had exploded in sheets of flame.

The SWARM robots faced three dangers at once: attack from Hercules’s razor-sharp claw, the spreading fire, and the weaponry that was activating all around them. Like the MI5 agents outside, the robots found themselves targeted by all kinds of Blackwater gadgets and booby traps.

The insects darted in every direction, spreading
out across the garage. All were desperately trying to stay out of reach of one deadly attack or another.

“When Hercules said ‘total destruction’ he wasn’t kidding!” said Morph, squeezing under Blackwater’s PC to avoid the flames.

“Blackwater must be determined to leave no evidence,” said Chopper. He zipped around, avoiding a stream of electrical darts, his brain calculating flight paths a billion times a second.

“There’s no way to escape this garage,” said Morph. “Everything is sealed and shielded. The door is too tightly fixed for even me to squeeze under.”

“Is there no way to deal with Hercules?” said Sabre. He was flying at top speed, staying only a few centimetres ahead of the stag beetle’s snapping claw. “If his link to Blackwater’s computers can be broken, perhaps we can stop all this destruction?”

“I have an idea,” said Nero. “The risk of severe damage is high, but if it works it’ll restore Hercules to normal. Sabre, direct him this way.”

“Logged,” said Sabre. He dived down,
swooping over Nero, who was scuttling across the table. As Hercules flashed past in pursuit, Nero hooked his tail around Hercules and was whipped up into the air.

The stag beetle twisted, ready to hurl Nero aside. From the scorpion’s back, a fibre-optic probe darted out and sunk itself into Hercules’s head. The probe was normally used to hack computers. What it might do when connected to another robot, not even Nero could guess.