Code Red (3 page)

Time to get out of here.
Pretending to be stroking his chin thoughtfully, Zac lifted up a finger and gently tapped the side of his nose.

As soon as his finger hit the band-aid, an enormous stream of fake blood began flowing out of Zac's nose.

Big Boss stopped short. ‘Agent Rock Star! Are you OK?'

‘I'm fine,' Zac said thickly through his bleeding nose. ‘Just a little nosebleed!'

But little was
not
the word for it.

‘Are you sure?' said Agent Big Boss, looking a bit grossed out.

‘Yeah,' said Zac quickly, covering his face. ‘Back in a minute!'

He jumped up from his chair and ran out the door.

Racing to the end of the corridor, Zac took the lift to Level 53 and headed into the toilets.

Third toilet along,
he reminded himself.

Zac stepped inside and locked the door behind him, and then ripped the bandaid off his nose. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.
Now for the disguise.

He looked around and saw a big heavy plastic bag stuffed behind the toilet. He reached into the bag and pulled out copies of Agent Checkmate's ID tags and key cards. He also found a GIB uniform marked
Top-Secret Zone
, and…

‘Aarghh!'

It was the most realistic mask he had ever seen! It was almost as though Leon had peeled off Agent Checkmate's real face and put it in the bag.

Gross.

Agent Checkmate Reusable Mask Disguise

Zac began to stretch the mask over his own face.

KNOCK KNOCK!

Uh-oh.
There was somebody at the door!

‘Uh, someone's in here!' said Zac awkwardly.

‘Agent Rock Star?' asked the man outside.

‘No,' lied Zac, trying to disguise his voice. ‘This is Agent Checkmate! Agent Rock Star just left.'

‘Oh,' said the voice. ‘Agent Big Boss sent me to check on him.'

‘Well, he's not here,' said Zac, trying frantically to pull the mask over his head. ‘He's somewhere else!'

‘OK, well, if you see him –' ‘Yeah, I'll definitely tell him you were looking for him,' said Zac, zipping up Checkmate's special TSZ uniform. ‘Now if you don't mind…'

‘Right, sorry,' the man said quickly. ‘I'll, uh, leave you to it.'

Zac heard the sound of footsteps leading out of the room. Breathing a sigh of relief, he opened the toilet door and walked outside.

Then he dashed out of the bathroom and headed for the Top-Secret Zone.

CHAPTER
FIVE

The lift doors opened onto Level 52, the entrance to the TSZ.

To Zac's surprise, there were no guards. Just a long, white corridor with a door at the end.

Zac jogged along the corridor to the door and swiped Checkmate's ID card. The heavy door opened automatically.

Zac stepped through the doorway into a tiny white room.

The door closed behind him. Suddenly all the lights switched off.

A computerised voice echoed in the darkness.

SCANNING FOR DANGEROUS MATERIRLS

A bright green light blasted Zac from all sides.

NO DANGEROUS MATERIALS DETECTED

The room went dark again.

INITIATING FACIAL SCAN

A wide beam of blue light flashed out from the wall in front of Zac.

Time to put this disguise to the test,
he thought.

The beam passed up and down Zac's face several times, then flickered off. For one awful moment, Zac thought the mask had failed to fool the scan.

But then the computer voice spoke again.

SCAN COMPLETE.
IDENTITY CONFIRMED.
WELCOME, AGENT CHECKMATE.

The lights flickered back on, and a door hissed open at the far side of the room.

Zac stepped out into the TSZ.

Straight away, he realised there was a problem with Leon's plan.

The TSZ was huge! There were ten whole levels of classified gadgets, hidden research labs and secret rooms.

GIB Command Headquarters [Lower floors detail]

It would take hours to search the TSZ. Why hadn't they thought of this?

And how was he going to explain being away for so long to Agent Big Boss?

Forget it,
Zac told himself.
Worry about
that later. Right now you've got to find that
holo-projector.

Zac began performing a systematic search of the TSZ. He worked his way through room after room, all of them gleaming white and filled with incredible top-secret GIB technology.

This stuff was state-of-the-art, even for GIB. Normally Zac would have been absolutely amazed by all of these gadgets. But right now he had only one gadget on his mind.

After about 20 minutes, Zac passed a security agent talking into his SpyPad. Zac caught a bit of the agent's conversation and froze.

‘You mean he just ran out of the meeting?'

Uh-oh,
thought Zac. It sounded like GIB were onto him.

‘Yes sir, Agent Big Boss,' the agent continued, disappearing around the corner. ‘We'll keep an eye out for him.'

Zac breathed a sigh of relief.
Don't
panic
, he told himself.
This is why you're in
disguise.

But this search was taking far too long. Minutes began slipping into hours.

Some time later, Zac checked his watch.

Three hours of searching and still no holo-projector! He took the stairs up to Level 43, the highest floor of the TSZ.

More cold white labs. More computers. No holo-projector.

Zac was almost ready to give up when a sign on another door caught his eye.

That's the same symbol that the Black Jungle
agents had on their uniforms,
thought Zac. This had to be where the holo-projector was being kept!

Zac pulled out Agent Checkmate's card and swiped it. The door stayed closed.

He tried again. Nothing.
Great,
thought Zac.
Now what?

But then he saw another agent approaching the door.

She had long, brown hair and was wearing a white uniform just like the ones the Black Jungle team had been dressed in. She was deep in conversation with someone on her SpyPad.

‘You mean Agent Rock Star is still missing?' she said. ‘How in the world could he stay hidden for this long?'

‘Not
hidden.
' Zac could hear Agent Big Boss's angry voice through the SpyPad. ‘He's obviously snooping around to find out what we know about Agent High Pants.'

Aha!
That proved it. Big Boss was definitely hiding something about Zac's grandpa.

The brown-haired agent swiped her ID card and the Invisibles door hissed open. Then the agent walked right past Zac.

‘Even if Rock Star
is
after the holo-projector,' she said, ‘there's no way he'd be able to make it this far into the TSZ without getting caught.'

Oh yeah?
thought Zac. And before the door closed again, he slipped through and followed the agent inside.

CHAPTER
SIX

The agent with the SpyPad disappeared through another door to her left, leaving Zac alone in the corridor.

Unlike the big bright rooms outside, this corridor was narrow and dimly lit. It took Zac's eyes a minute to adjust.

It sounded like he was on the right track. The holo-projector was somewhere in this section of the TSZ.

But even Agent Checkmate wasn't allowed in here, so Zac's disguise was useless. He would have to be careful he wasn't seen.

He cautiously began making his way down the corridor.

Every room along the corridor was hidden by dark, tinted windows. Every door was closed, locked, and marked with the same eye symbol.

Zac glanced at the signs on the doors as he walked past.

Zac had no idea what any of this was. What could possibly be so top-secret that not even Top-Secret Zone agents were allowed to see it?

Zac froze halfway down the corridor.

OPERATION: BLRCK JUNGLE

This was it. It had to be.

Zac pressed his face up to the tinted window to try to see inside, but it was too dark. He got out his SpyPad and set it to Laser.

Pointing the SpyPad at the window, he traced a wide circle in the glass with the laser. The glass circle slipped and fell towards Zac. He caught the glass just in time to stop it smashing on the ground.