Hamish X Goes to Providence Rhode Island (20 page)

Part 2

THROUGH THE OCEAN, ACROSS THE DESERT, AND DOWN A SHAFT

I love ponies, don't you? They're just like horses, only smaller. You can do everything with a pony that you can do with a horse only with a smaller area to work in. What a bonus for people who wish to own a member of the equine species but have limited space: condo owners, lighthouse keepers, submarine commanders …

Oops! I didn't mean to mention submarines! I was trying to give you a brief respite from the overwhelming tension of the story, distracting you with a little pony chat, then I ruin everything by going and mentioning submarines. The last thing I wanted to do was remind you of how dire the situation is for our heroes and heroine. The Grey Agents have discovered Parveen! Hamish X is about to join the assault on a desert fortress, and Mimi is setting off on a voyage that will take her into the lair of the ODA! How can you stand the tension? If I were you, I'd set the book down and do a couple of deep knee bends, take a hot bath, or run around the block four times, just to relieve the pressure.

You laugh? You think you can handle it? It's only a story, you say? Stories are extremely powerful things. Narrators must constantly be aware of the power of their written words. We were all told at the Guild of one narrator who told a story so frightening that an entire town refused to
go to sleep for seven years for fear of having nightmares. There was a run on eyedrops and espresso. It wasn't pretty.

I had to put the little bit in about the ponies as a sort of emotional braking system. Believe me, you'll thank me for it later on. I won't hear you thanking me, of course, as this is a book … that is, unless I'm sitting next to you by some strange coincidence while you're reading it.

Before we get back to the story, one more thing about ponies. Did you know, dear readers, that in prehistoric times there existed many varieties of miniature horses? By
miniature
I mean that some of these horse creatures were less than a foot tall. Such a pony could conceivably run up one's pant leg were the pant leg in question baggy enough. I once had a full-grown horse run up my pant leg, but I shan't waste your time describing the incident. Suffice it to say that I will never wear pants that baggy again.

Chapter 20

PARVEEN

Parveen's first instinct was to run, but Mr. Pastille was just too quick. His long-fingered hands clamped down on Parveen's shoulders like a pair of vises.

“Where are you going, slippery little boy?” Mr. Pastille cocked his head to one side. “And how did you manage to get into our Headquarters?”

Parveen was terrified. He wanted to say something clever like Hamish X would, to be defiant and fearless like Mimi, but nothing would come. His brain was frozen, paralyzed with fear. He was finished. Noor was finished. He had failed.

Mr. Pastille pinched the fabric of the sneaky suit between his fingers and rolled it experimentally. “What a fascinating suit you have. I suppose that is why you were able to sneak in here without me seeing you.” He lifted Parveen off his feet and carried him towards the door. “Let's wait for the security detail, shall we? Then we'll take you where you belong: hook you up to the generator with all the other filthy little creatures.”

Hearing the Grey Agent refer to the children in the Hall of Batteries reached through Parveen's terror. His sister wasn't a filthy creature. She was a person and this was her world, not Mr. Pastille's. The anger Parveen felt, the outrage, jarred his brain into action again. He cast his eyes around the room, searching for some way out of
his predicament. Nothing presented itself to his desperate eyes. He decided to keep Mr. Pastille talking. Maybe the Grey Agent would say something Parveen could use.

“I … I guess you've caught me. I knew I couldn't hope to outwit you agents for long.”

“Of course not,” Mr. Pastille sneered, exposing yellowed teeth. “You humans are inferior in every way. When we take this world from you, you will finally see what true intellect is.” Using one powerful hand, Mr. Pastille pressed Parveen against the wall beside the door, the boy's feet dangling almost a metre above the ground. “We are so close to opening the portal, and when we do, your world will change forever.”

Parveen listened to the agent with interest despite his discomfort. So the apparatus in the main chamber
was
a gate of some kind. “Portal? How amazing! I have to admire the genius of your people. Maybe you could satisfy my curiosity on one point, considering that you have me completely in your power.”

Mr. Pastille cocked his head. “What point?”

“Hamish X,” Parveen said. “Why is he so important to you?”

“Ah.” Mr. Pastille shrugged. “He is the key to the portal, of course. When we find him, he will be brought back here and the gateway between our world and yours will be opened. Your world will be made more perfect.”

Parveen's heart leapt. Hamish X was still at large! The ODA didn't know where he was. There was still hope. Parveen looked at the flashing red light in the centre of the metal door. He had to get out. “Wow,” Parveen said with false appreciation as he casually fished in his pocket. “I guess that's that. We really can't hope to defeat the ODA. What are we but puny, weak, foolish humans?
If I wasn't hanging above the floor like this, I'd bow down before your superior intellect, Mr. …? Mr. …?”

“Pastille.”

“Identification confirmed,” said the voice of Mother. As the door swung open, Parveen jammed the hamster bomb he had secreted in his pocket into the Grey Agent's face. The furry ball latched on to Mr. Pastille's cheek and with a flare of energy fried his circuits. Mr. Pastille fell in a heap on the floor.

Parveen tore himself out of the death grip of the fallen agent and ran through the door into the corridor. With the backpack holding a kilogram of plastic explosive slapping against his back, he tore down the corridor towards the elevator. He was five metres away when the doors opened to reveal four armed agents. As they disgorged from the elevator, checking their weapons, Parveen pressed himself against the wall, blending into the grey metal. His sneaky suit was his only defence. He held his breath and prayed that it would work this one last time.

His luck held. The agents hefted their rifles and dashed directly past him down the corridor towards the armoury. Taking his chance, he ran for the elevator, sliding through the doors as they hissed shut. One of the agents turned at the sound of Parveen's footfalls.

“Stop! Stay where you are!” The agent raised his rifle, but not in time. The doors closed. Breathing heavily, Parveen leaned against the wall of the car, sweat soaking him as he tried to think what to do next.

The car began to rise. He had to act quickly. He could only assume that there would be enemies waiting for him when the elevator reached the next floor.

“You cannot escape.” Mother's voice filled the car. “I am aware of your presence now. I have been analyzing my watch logs and I've noticed discrepancies: food sap levels
depleted, air flow blockages, heat imbalances. Now that I have located the cause, it is a matter of a very short time before I corner you. Why bother running? Surrender yourself and the end will be quick. Listen to Mother.” The voice was filled with maternal concern.

“You aren't my mother.” Parveen shook his head. “And I'd rather make you work for it.” Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out his multitool, flipped out the screwdriver attachment, and rammed it into the control panel.

“Stop that.”

Parveen ignored the voice, jamming the metal prong of the screwdriver into the edge of the keypad and prying the cover off.

“I order you to stop that, young man!”

Parveen failed to comply. He thrust the pointy end of the tool into the mess of wires and circuit boards again and again until, at last, the lights in the elevator flickered and went out. The car ground to a halt and the voice cut out in mid-sentence.

“Even if you stop the elevator, you can't escaZZZZZZT!”

Parveen looked at his handiwork and smiled. At least now he had a moment to think. He flicked a dial on his goggles and the darkness dissipated into a greenish glow of night vision. He looked around the walls of the car for an access panel, but he couldn't see one.

“What? Don't they ever have to repair these things? Even the ODA can't make anything that never breaks down.” He looked up at the ceiling of the car and saw it: a square panel that was almost invisible against the uniform grey of the elevator car. Parveen quickly traded his multitool for a strange-looking device he pulled out of his backpack. It was a metal disc with a metal eyelet attached to one side. He also drew out a length of rope and threaded one
end of it through the eyelet, knotted it, and then flipped a small switch on the disc. A humming sound filled the car. The disc bucked like a live thing in Parveen's hand. He held the disc face up towards the ceiling and let it go.

Like a bullet out of a gun, the powerful electromagnetic disc flew out of his hand and stuck with a clang to the ceiling, the rope dangling down to Parveen below.

The small boy grabbed the rope and laboriously hauled himself up until he could reach the access panel. Swinging from the rope, he drove his feet into the centre of the panel and it flew open, revealing a square of darkness. Parveen swung away and back towards the opening, hooking his knees over the edge. Reaching out with one hand, he grabbed the rim of the access panel and pulled himself up. His chest heaving from the exertion, he sat and regained his breath.

“This is Mimi's job. I'm not really an acrobat,” he said out loud to no one at all. He looked around to find he was sitting beside a tangle of thick cables that snaked away up the shaft above him. He hardly had a moment to take this in when the car jerked and started rising.

“Uh-oh.” He ducked his head back into the car, flicked the switch on the magnetic grapple hook (another of his inventions), and pulled it and the rope up. He stuffed them into his pack and slammed the access panel shut.

The elevator car picked up speed. In seconds, Parveen would be back up to the level of the great chamber. He ducked down and thought about his next move. His only option was to return to the ventilation shafts, keep moving, and try to avoid capture long enough to sabotage
⁷³
the gate. Getting Noor out had been next to impossible before he had been discovered. Now that the Grey Agents knew there was an intruder in Headquarters, escaping with Noor would require a miracle.

“That's all right,” Parveen said, adjusting his goggles. “I'll build a miracle for you, Noor. All I need are tools and time.”

The elevator slowed and came to a stop. Parveen heard agents pounding on the elevator doors and shouting for his surrender.

“Come out with your hands up!”

“You can't escape!”

“Surrender and you won't be harmed … much.”

Parveen scurried to the edge of the car and reached out towards the side of the shaft, his fingers twining in the metal grating of a ventilation shaft cover. Heaving with all his strength, he pulled at the cover, but it barely budged. Below, in the elevator car, he heard a wrenching sound. The agents had found something with which to pry open the doors.

Fear led him to urgency. He grabbed the vent cover with both hands and pulled. A screw popped loose and fell down the shaft. Heartened, he braced a foot on either side of the cover and put all his strength, fear, and desperation into the effort. He was rewarded when the cover flew off and he went tumbling backwards to land with a loud thud on the top of the elevator car, rolling across it and almost falling off the opposite side into the shaft below. He just managed to stop himself by grabbing a length of power cable and holding on.

“He's on the roof.”

Parveen leapt to his feet. The noise had alerted the Grey Agents below. He reached to his backpack and pulled out a long, thin piece of plastic, thumbing a sharp blade out of it as he went. He ran across the roof of the elevator, slashing the cables as he went. The cables all snapped and sparked save one, and even it was deeply cut to the point of being severed. The car lurched beneath Parveen's feet. He jumped from the car into the ventilation shaft and spun to look back.