Higher Institute of Villainous Education (19 page)

Otto and Wing walked along the corridor towards the infirmary. Nero walked a few metres behind them, making it impossible for them to converse freely. Judging by the miserable look on his face Wing was not feeling particularly talkative anyway. Otto knew how he felt. There was a bleeping sound from behind them and the two boys stopped walking as Nero retrieved his Blackbox from the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘Yes, chief. What is it?’ Nero asked, looking at the screen.

‘There’s something funny going on in the hydroponics facility, sir. Ms Gonzales reported intruders and we’ve lost contact with the first security detail that I sent to investigate.’

‘Intruders? Has the external security grid been compromised?’ Nero asked, his brow furrowing.

‘No, sir, that’s the odd thing. There’s no sign that anyone has breached external security – whoever’s in there they came from inside H.I.V.E. I’ve tried to get more information from H.I.V.E.mind but he’s not responding.’

‘I’m afraid that H.I.V.E.mind’s higher functions are temporarily offline at the moment, chief.’ Nero shot a glance at Otto. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance have anything to do with this, would you, Mr Malpense?’

‘No,’ Otto replied honestly, curious to know what was going on.

‘Hmm. Very well, Chief, proceed with caution and keep me updated.’ Nero looked worried for the first time since Otto had come to H.I.V.E. He snapped the Black-box shut and looked at the two boys. ‘You two are coming with me to the hydroponics cavern, and if I find out that this had anything to do with you, I will not be happy, believe me.’

Security team eight hurried down the corridor towards the hydroponics cavern, with still no word from team six. Suddenly, from around a bend in the corridor, Ms Gonzales came running towards them, a terrified look on her face. It took a minute to calm her down and get the story of what had happened to team six out of her, but when she told them what she had seen and heard Monroe, the squad leader, immediately contacted the chief.

‘Slow down, Monroe. What exactly did she say?’ the chief asked, his shrunken face frowning on the screen of Monroe’s Blackbox.

‘She said that she heard firing, but that the firing stopped after a few seconds, and then she heard something roar.’ Monroe had trouble keeping the nervousness from his voice.

‘What, like an animal?’ the chief asked, sounding slightly exasperated.

‘She says it didn’t sound human sir,’ Monroe replied.

‘And there’s no sign of team six?’

‘No, sir . . . if we’re going in there, I’d like to request permission to crack open one of the conventional weapon lockers. It doesn’t sound like sleepers did much good.’

The chief thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘Very well, Monroe. I’ll open the locker at the end of the corridor you’re in now. Just make sure that your men don’t get trigger happy. If it is students messing around in there I don’t want anyone shooting first and asking questions later. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Crystal, sir. I’ll report back in when we get to the dome. Monroe out.’

Thirty metres further down the corridor a panel slid open in the wall. Inside the recess that was revealed, a dozen assault rifles sat neatly mounted in a rack. Monroe handed them to his men one by one.

‘OK, safeties on and fingers outside the trigger guards until I say otherwise. If you do have to fire, be sure of what you’re shooting at.’

Monroe’s men looked nervous – he knew how they felt.

Nero strode out on to the walkway suspended from the cavern wall and looked down on the darkened hydroponics dome far below. Otto and Wing moved to the railing at the edge of the platform and looked down too, just in time to see a dozen security guards jogging across the cavern floor towards the dome.

‘Those aren’t sleepers,’ Wing said, one eyebrow raised.

Otto looked more closely and immediately saw that Wing was right. The guards were carrying rifles, their sleepers holstered on their hips. Whatever was going on down there it was obviously serious. A few moments later the guards had reached the door of the dome and appeared to be readying their weapons before heading inside. Otto noted the look of concern on Nero’s face again – this was clearly not part of H.I.V.E.’s usual routine.

The guards disappeared through the door one by one, their flashlights visible through the glass of the dome. Suddenly the light that had been in the lead winked out and all hell broke loose. All of the guards started firing at once, the loud reports of their rifles echoing around the cavern. A guard ran back out of the door and across the cavern floor, dropping his rifle as he fled. Another guard soon followed and then two more, all running across the cavern floor as if their lives depended upon it. The cavern fell silent. No more shots rang out, nor was there any sign of the other members of the security team. Nero flipped his Blackbox open.

‘Chief, what the hell is going on down there?’ Nero demanded.

‘As soon as I know, you will, sir,’ the chief replied. In the background Otto could hear people yelling.

Suddenly there was an enormous bang and the whole hydroponics dome seemed to shudder. Otto strained to see anything inside the darkened dome, but while he thought he could see movement within he couldn’t make out any details. Again a thunderous bang echoed around the cavern and this time the glass at the top of the dome cracked in a spiderweb pattern. Otto’s eyes widened in surprise. The glass was an inch thick and supposedly unbreakable. Whatever was hitting it had to be striking with enormous force.

The cavern was filled with a screeching roar and the roof of the dome exploded in a shower of countless shards. Rising from the shattered dome was a monstrous head, which, while swollen and hideously mutated, was instantly recognisable. Wing and Otto looked at each other in astonishment, speaking a single word simultaneously.

‘Violet!’

There was little similarity to the tiny plant they had seen just a few hours earlier. Her head was the size of a truck, and her mouth was filled with jagged teeth the size of traffic cones, all supported on a long flexible neck thicker than a giant redwood tree. Green slime dripped from her gaping maw as she roared again, shaking the platform that they were standing on. The enormous head swayed from side to side, teeth gnashing at the air as two of the remaining guards opened fire on her with their rifles. They might as well have been using pea-shooters.

‘Chief! Get your men out of that cavern now. We have a serious problem,’ Nero snapped, turning his Blackbox and pointing the tiny camera at the monstrous creature below.

‘Good God!’ they heard the chief gasp. ‘All teams pull back now! Unlock all conventional weapon lockers around that cavern – I want flamethrowers and rocket launchers on that walkway now!’

Nero, Otto and Wing were safe on the walkway for now; they were at least fifty metres above the creature’s head. As Otto watched in horrified fascination he could actually see the monster growing. Long tendrils covered in vicious thorns and suckers snaked out of the ruins of the dome, spreading across the cavern floor at terrifying speed.

Nero turned to face Otto and Wing, his face furious.

‘What have you done, Malpense? What is that thing?’ he demanded.

Otto shook his head. ‘I know you probably won’t believe me, but we had nothing to do with this.’

‘Then perhaps you can explain why you both seem to recognise that monstrosity.’ Otto had never heard Nero raise his voice before.

‘Because Nigel showed it to us yesterday, but it was only six inches high then,’ Otto replied, hoping that he wasn’t condemning his green-fingered friend to a terrible fate at Nero’s hands.

‘Darkdoom? Darkdoom did this?’ Nero was visibly surprised. He placed a hand on his forehead, rubbing his temples. ‘Oh, why is it always the bald ones?’

.

Chapter Fifteen

Raven watched the two girls walk into their room and the door shut behind them. Although she didn’t always agree with Nero on the way in which he dealt with these escape attempts, she’d learnt a long time ago that it was best not to question his motives too closely. She also regretted having to hurt the Fanchu boy, but she had seen what he was capable of during the confrontation with the two older boys in the corridor the day before, and she had known that she had to finish the fight before it even started. He would at least heal, which was more than she could say for most of the opponents she had faced.

Now she made her way across the atrium of the accommodation block and through the exit, heading for her own quarters. With Malpense safely in Nero’s hands she was intending to try and get some sleep. Thanks to the fact she had had to follow them through every step of their escape attempt she had not slept in nearly twenty-four hours and, while her reserves of stamina were nearly limitless when the situation called for it, she still needed to rest occasionally, just like everyone else.

Suddenly the Blackbox in the pouch on her belt started to vibrate; she pulled it out and flipped it open. Nero looked back at her from the screen. The look of genuine concern on his face immediately set alarm bells ringing in her skull.

‘Raven, I need you on the walkway overlooking the hydroponics cavern right away.’ He could not hide the note of anxiety in his voice. In the background she heard an eerie screeching roar.

‘What’s happening, Doctor?’ she asked urgently.

‘I think you need to see this for yourself,’ he replied, looking at something to his left, out of the camera’s field of view.

‘On my way.’ She flipped the Blackbox closed and broke into a run, heading for the cavern.

‘Come on, Nigel, wake up.’ Otto shook the Blackbox slightly, as if that might somehow get Nigel to answer more quickly. After a few more agonising seconds Nigel appeared on the screen, rubbing at his eyes.

‘Otto, you do know that it’s half past four in the morning, don’t you?’ Nigel moaned.

‘Sorry, Nigel but this couldn’t wait,’ Otto snapped back.

‘What?’

‘See for yourself.’ Otto pointed the camera at the rampaging monster that had once been Nigel’s science project.

‘Violet!’ Nigel cried, and Otto turned the camera back towards himself. ‘Oh my God, what’s happened to her?’

‘I was hoping that you might be able to tell us, Nigel,’ Otto replied, trying to keep his voice calm.

‘She was fine last night. I checked on her before I came back to my quarters. I have no idea what could have caused this.’

Otto looked down at the scene below. The squirming mass of lethal-looking tendrils had now covered the entire floor of the cavern. As he watched he was horrified to see a mass of these tendrils rip the cover from a ventilation shaft that was set into the cavern wall and fling it to one side, more tendrils swarming into the now exposed shaft at a ferocious speed.

‘How do we kill it, Nigel?’ Otto demanded.

‘You can’t kill her! She doesn’t know what she’s doing!’ Nigel wailed.

‘It’s her or us, Nigel. If we don’t stop her she’s going to overrun the entire school. So how do we kill her?’ Otto was losing his patience.

Nigel hesitated for a second, a look of tortured indecision on his face. ‘There’s a bundle of nerve clusters at the base of her stem. You have to destroy those to kill her.’

Otto peered down into the cavern trying to pick out anything at the base of the monstrous stem. Then he saw them – pulsating slime-covered sacs arranged in a circle around the stem, each one the size of a small car.

‘OK, I see them.’

‘I’ve got to come down there. Perhaps I can calm her down,’ Nigel said frantically.

The monster’s huge head tipped back and let out another screeching roar like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard.

‘I think it might be a bit late for that Nigel. Stay where you are.’

The chief of security ran up to Nero as Otto flipped the Blackbox shut.

‘It’s in the shafts, sir. At the rate that thing’s growing it’ll overrun the whole school in a couple of hours.’ He didn’t appear to have an immediate suggestion as to what they could do about it. Behind the chief, security guards fanned out along the walkway. Some were carrying flamethrowers with large fuel tanks strapped to their backs and others were armed with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers.

‘Very well, Chief. Hit it with everything you’ve got. Let’s see how much damage this thing can withstand,’ Nero instructed.

‘Make sure they aim for those growths at the base of the stem,’ Otto added, relaying Nigel’s advice.

The chief nodded and yelled instructions to his men, who were now spread out along the length of the walkway, before shouting, ‘Fire at will!’

The guards did not need to be told twice, and multiple rockets streaked down from the walkway towards the creature below. The tendrils surrounding the base of the creature reacted impossibly fast, springing into the air and swatting the warheads aside before any of them could find their mark, the missiles exploding harmlessly against the walls or in the masses of squirming tentacles. There was no way the guards could destroy the nerve clusters from their current position. Round after round was swatted away before they got anywhere near finding their mark. Nero looked even more worried than before.

‘Chief, lock down the accommodation blocks. If that thing reaches the students we’ll have a massacre on our hands.’

In accommodation area seven Laura and Shelby sat dejectedly on one of the sofas in the atrium. Neither of them felt like talking about the disastrous failure of their escape attempt, but at the same time both of them were much too wired to sleep. Suddenly from all around them there came thumping clangs.

‘What’s that?’ Laura shouted over the noise.

Shelby looked around the atrium as the noise continued. ‘They’re sealing the ventilation shafts,’ she replied as yet more steel sheets slid into place behind the grille dotted around the accommodation block’s walls.

‘They don’t seriously think we’re going to go crawling around in there again tonight, do they?’ Laura moaned. ‘We get the message!’ she shouted at their unseen tormentors.

‘I think they know that,’ Shelby answered softly as the noise stopped. A grinding noise from behind them caught their attention and they both turned to see a huge metal slab closing off the entrance to the block. Shelby looked across to the other entrance way at the far end of the cavern. That too was being sealed shut.

‘I don’t think they’re trying to keep us in.’ She looked carefully at Laura. ‘I think they’re trying to keep something out.’

Meanwhile in the hydroponics cavern, the tendrils were climbing the walls and it was all the guards could do to drive them back from their previously safe perch.

‘We’re out of ammo for the launchers, sir. I’m running out of ideas here,’ the chief said, anxiously eyeing the tendrils that were climbing the walls towards them.

‘Get as many of the helicopters ready for take-off as possible,’ Nero instructed. He knew that it would be impossible to get everyone off the island that way but he might be able to save at least some of the students.

‘Yes, sir.’ The chief jogged away and began to issue more frantic orders to his men.

Otto looked around the cavern, trying not to look at the terrifying mass of swarming thorn-covered vines below. He glanced up at the ceiling. His eyes widened.

He turned to Dr Nero. ‘Dr Nero, I may have an idea.’ He briefly explained what he was proposing to Nero, whose expression changed from one of doubt to one of intense calculation.

‘Under any other circumstances I would say you were insane, Malpense, but that might work,’ Nero said with a grim smile just as Raven ran out on to the walkway. There was not much that surprised his most capable operative, but Nero saw the look of astonishment on her face as she took in the scene in the cavern below.

‘Raven,’ Nero shouted over the sounds of the guards firing at the creature, ‘over here.’ She seemed reluctant to tear her eyes from the monstrous plant as she approached Nero.

‘We never have small problems, do we, Max?’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘This one is bigger than most, I fear,’ he replied, his face grave.

He quickly explained the plan that Otto had proposed to him a moment earlier.

‘I get all the fun jobs, don’t I?’ she said, giving Nero a predatory grin.

‘Go with Malpense to collect the items he needs, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you to hurry. And keep an eye on him, we wouldn’t want him to slip away in the confusion, would we?’

‘We’ll be back before you even notice we’re gone,’ she replied, turning to Otto.

Wing eyed the black-clad woman warily. ‘What did you get yourself into now, Otto?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Otto replied, ‘but I’m not going to argue with her, are you?’

‘I should come with you. I don’t trust that woman.’

‘Neither do I, Wing, but you’re hurt. You should stay here.’ Wing was still holding his wrist carefully. If anything did happen Otto knew that Wing would not be able to help very much with a broken wrist. Besides, the creature had probably spread throughout H.I.V.E. by now and there was no point them both ending up as fertilizer if something went wrong.

‘Malpense! You’re with me.’ Raven’s tone made it clear that she was not prepared to discuss the situation.

Several dozen students had now gathered in the atrium of accommodation area seven, woken by the sounds of distant explosions and nervously discussing what was going on outside the firmly sealed block. Laura looked over at the heavy steel doors as another explosion made the atrium floor shudder.