In The Dark (5 page)

‘That's an owl,' said EJ out aloud. ‘You are a cute owl aren't you?'

‘Thanks,' said EJ. ‘I knew you were.' And so it went on as she walked through the bush. There would be a noise and EJ would tell herself what was making the noise, sensible things not crazy, scary, spooky slumber-party things. But there were noises everywhere and they seemed so close. EJ couldn't work out what they all were. She felt her heart start to beat fast again and she felt a warm flush run up her neck. She was starting to panic. EJ felt alone, she felt small and, most of all, she felt scared.

She wanted her mum.

Now EJ's heart was beating so hard she thought it was going to burst.
What is that? I need Mum!
EJ pressed the BEST app and her mum answered immediately.

‘Hey Em, I mean Agent EJ12. You'll do anything to get out of eating fish pie, won't you? I must say I'm not sure what I think about
SHINE
giving you a mission on a school night. I might email A1 about that.'

‘Mum, don't you dare!' said Emma, who was thinking her mum may not have been the right BESTie to choose after all. But the sound of her mum's voice made EJ feel calmer, safer. ‘Mum, there are some pretty scary noises here.'

‘Remember our possum at home,' said her mum. ‘She made a pretty horrible noise but was actually very cute and not dangerous at all.'

‘I tried to remember that,' said EJ, ‘but now there are so many weird noises, I'm not sure.'

‘Why don't you put me on loudspeaker so I can hear too?' suggested Mum.

EJ was slightly surprised her mum knew phones had loudspeakers but didn't say anything as she switched it on.

‘Okay,' said her mum, ‘let's keep walking.'

And so EJ walked through the night bush chatting with her mum, who would sometimes say, ‘Oh that might be a sooty owl, EJ. Lucky you, they are very rare. Now that, I think, is a tawny frogmouth and that is definitely a barn owl.'

And so it went on as EJ walked through the bush
and up the hill. She wasn't sure that her mum really knew the names of all the birds or whether she was making them up but it didn't matter. She wasn't afraid any more, she was even kind of enjoying it, and before long she had reached the top of the hill.

‘Okay Mum, thanks, I can do it myself now,' said EJ.

‘Of course you can. Good girl and good luck, EJ,' said Mum, ‘and I'll save some fish pie for you.'

EJ groaned but smiled as she put her phone back in her pocket. She must be getting close now. She needed to go down this hill and then the mine was on the next hill. And somewhere would be an entrance. As she headed down the other side of the hill, she could still hear noises but EJ stayed calm. She knew they were just the bush animals and birds calling to each other. The ground had levelled out and then started to go up again. EJ checked her compass. She was still heading north so she must be nearly at the mine. EJ checked her sun charm. It had turned to a dark orange. That was not good, it meant that the
SHINE
energy supplies
were getting dangerously low. She needed to hurry.

As EJ walked, she shone the giant torch ahead of her, swinging it from side to side and up and down, looking for something that might be a mine entrance. Just as she was starting to think she would never find it, EJ felt her boots hit something. She shone the torch on the ground and saw a metal track, the mine cart track. She must be on the right track! Then EJ's torch shone on an old sign, nailed to a tree.

EJ had found an entrance to Black Cave Mine. She took a deep breath, held her torch out straight in front of her, and headed slowly down the track into the mine. EJ took one, small, tentative step at a time, along the rusty, dusty track. Shining her torch around, EJ could see the tunnel's walls. They were made of deep red rock, with some smooth patches, some rough. EJ ran her hands along the wall and was surprised at how cold they felt.

EJ saw that the top of the tunnel wasn't much higher than her head and the tunnel floor was scattered with loose rocks between the cart tracks. She would have to watch her step.

Gee whizz, lemonfizz, it is dark in here,
thought EJ.
Dark and cold. Maybe there is another way to find Operation Lights Out...

Saved by the Ping! It was another message from
SHINE.
EJ stopped and took out her phone. She looked at her screen.

SHADOW
must have sent another message in Braille,
thought EJ.
They can't send that to my phone.

EJ was right. Because
SHADOW
had sent the first message in Braille,
SHINE
had been on the look-out—or should that be feel-out—for a second message using the same alphabet. So, when they intercepted what looked like a blank piece of paper, they checked for the little raised dots. They found them and then simply reproduced them digitally to send on to EJ.

The message came through.

They could have then converted it to the normal alphabet, couldn't they?
thought EJ.
But then again, that is my job I suppose.

EJ checked her code app and found the Braille alphabet again. In no time at all, she had converted
the Braille to normal letters but this time the message made no sense at all.

‘It's obviously a code within a code,' murmured EJ. ‘If I were a
SHADOW
agent hatching evil plans, what code would I use? That's hard, it's like the opposite of what I am, the complete opposite. The opposite, thought EJ.
Could that be it?
SHINE
—
SHADOW;
dark—light; good—bad; back—front ... Hmm, could it be a backwards code?

EJ loved cracking codes. She loved taking something that looked liked nonsense and working with it
until it made sense. Now, looking at the letters she had a feeling that she was about to crack this code.

Let's test it,
thought EJ.
A backwards code means A=Z and Z=A, B=Y and Y=B and it goes on like that, all the way through the alphabet. If the same
SHADOW
agent has signed off with her initials, AX, the last two letters of this code will be ZC.
EJ quickly checked.
Yes, they are. Backwards code confirmed.
EJ flipped to the code app on her phone and found the decoder for the rest of the alphabet.

It took her no time at all to decode the rest of the message.

EJ keyed in the decoded message and sent it back to
SHINE.
Within seconds A1 was on the phone.

‘Good work EJ. Now we know that you have just two hours to stop AX.'

‘Do we know who AX is yet?' asked EJ.

‘I think we do,' replied A1. ‘There were thirteen
SHADOW
agents with the initials AX but we have narrowed it down to two people, Adriana X or Alexandra X. Both are
SHADOW
agents, both
have the skills to be behind something like this. We are sending you visuals of each now. There are, however, a few things that make us fairly sure that it is Adriana.'

‘What are they?' asked EJ.

‘Well, the first thing is her name,' said A1. ‘One of the meanings of the name Adriana is darkness. Someone with a name that means darkness being behind a plan to put
SHINE
in the dark, is that a coincidence, I wonder? I do not think so, I really don't.'

‘And the other thing?' asked EJ.

‘The code,' said A1, ‘the use of the Braille alphabet and the poetry. We know Adriana has very bad eyesight, she can hardly see a thing. That might explain the Braille. And the poetry, if you can call those bad rhymes poetry, well, Adriana always fancied herself as a poet. No one else did, I might add, but she often sends messages in rhymes. It is almost like her trademark. It's been a while since we have heard from Adriana but this kind of scheme is
just the sort of thing she might get up to.'

‘How do we know so much about her?' asked EJ.

‘Adriana has caused quite a few problems for
SHINE
over the years,' sighed A1.

‘But how would she know where the solar station is?' asked EJ. ‘Isn't that top-secret? How could Adriana have found that out?'

‘I'm afraid I can't tell you that, EJ,' said A1. ‘It's classified information with the highest security clearance required on a strictly need-to-know basis. I can tell you however that if it is Adriana who is behind Operation Lights Out, she does know where the solar station is and how it works. Now, you need to get down that mine, and you need to hurry. And remember, EJ, make sure you can't be seen.'

EJ looked down the mine tunnel. She could see only blackness. She gulped.

‘That shouldn't be hard,' she said.