Otto felt the whole rear section of the wardrobe tip backwards, slowly lowering to a horizontal position until he found himself lying on his back. He lay looking up at a rocky ceiling, just a few feet above him, which was lit by a dull red light. He poked his head up just in time to see a duplicate of the open box that he now lay in being raised into position and snapping into place against the back of the wardrobe doors. Otto had no doubt that a freshly laundered uniform would now be hanging in the space that up until a few seconds ago he himself had been occupying. Without warning the wardrobe he was lying in started to move, and Otto twisted round to see a curved track running along the floor of the passage ahead of him, eventually disappearing round a bend.
‘Well, we’re along for the ride now,’ he said to himself quietly. Thanks to the crimson light it was rather like sitting in a mine cart that was descending into the bowels of hell; or an open coffin, the darker side of his brain responded. As the wardrobe followed the track round the bend he could see that he was coming to a more brightly lit area up ahead. Otto lay flat in the wardrobe – he wasn’t sure if there would be any people in this new area but it would be best to stay out of sight, just in case.
The wardrobe soon passed through the opening and into a steam-filled cavern which echoed with the sounds of machinery. Otto listened carefully for a few seconds. The environment was noisy, but he couldn’t hear the sound of human voices and he decided that it should be safe to have a quick look around. He slowly raised himself up and peeked over the edge of the wardrobe.
It was fortunate that Otto did not suffer from vertigo. The rail along which the wardrobe was proceeding hung suspended fifty metres up in the air, and Otto could barely see the rough rock floor below through the clouds of steam. The rail ahead curved down towards a central suspended track where dozens of rails identical to the one Otto was travelling along converged, the wardrobes that they carried slotting neatly together to form a long train. This central track disappeared into the clouds of steam ahead, its ultimate destination hidden from view.
Otto noticed a movement to his right and saw Wing’s head poking up from a wardrobe that was running along a parallel rail a few metres away.
‘Wing,’ Otto whispered urgently, and Wing turned to look at him, a broad grin on his face. ‘I told you it would be OK.’
‘Where are we being taken?’ Wing asked as their carriages continued their steady progress along the rails. He was peering into the clouds of steam ahead, trying to make out any details of where they were heading.
‘The laundry facility presumably, and from there I can get us almost anywhere,’ Otto replied. ‘Keep an eye out for the girls.’ There was still no sign of Shelby or Laura, and Otto hoped that they too lay unseen on one of the many rails that were carrying the wardrobes down to the long train below. There was still no sign of any other human activity anywhere that Otto could see – fortunately for them this whole process was automated. More to the point, no security cameras would work in this environment, the steam that hung in the air would render any surveillance equipment useless.
Otto’s wardrobe tipped at a slight angle as it headed down the last few metres of the rail before it joined the train of identical ‘carriages’ on the central track. The wardrobe attached itself to the rear of the line and continued to rumble forwards. He turned and looked backwards to see Wing joining the train – there were several empty carriages between them.
‘Look!’ Wing cried, pointing up to a rail behind them, Laura could be seen sitting in another carriage, heading down towards the central track. She was going to join the train about fifty metres behind them. Wing waved frantically and Laura, catching sight of them for the first time, waved back. She turned to one side and seemed to say something, at which point Shelby’s head popped up from another nearby carriage and she too waved happily at them.
The steam ahead of Otto’s carriage was becoming thicker and it was becoming harder and harder to make out any details of their surroundings. Otto was starting to sweat – the temperature was rising and the humidity was oppressive. Suddenly the train passed through an opening in the wall of the cavern and into a new area filled with the noise of heavy machinery. The air was slightly clearer here, thanks to huge fans in the cavern ceiling that were sucking away the worst of the steam, and Otto could make out dozens of pieces of heavy machinery that appeared to be constantly active on the cavern floor below. Long racks of H.I.V.E. uniforms of every size and colour were being continuously fed into these machines, whisked automatically along rails from one device to another.
A movement on the track ahead of them caught Otto’s eye and he watched as the wardrobe twenty metres ahead of his own rotated around the rail until it was hanging inverted from the underside of the track, the uniform that had been resting inside it falling into a huge pool of boiling water below. The tank of foaming, steaming water was the size of an Olympic swimming pool and was filled with floating uniforms that were being constantly stirred by several enormous metal paddles. As Otto watched, the next carriage repeated the procedure, again dropping the dirty uniform within into the pool below. Otto realised with horror that he only had a few seconds before his own carriage followed the same procedure and unceremoniously dumped him into the boiling water. He looked around frantically – he might be able to jump to the carriage behind him but that would just be delaying the inevitable, and besides it was an awfully long way down. Otto looked ahead again. There were only two carriages left between him and the drop-off point – he was running out of time. He moved to one side of the carriage, and swung his leg over the side; his only hope was to try to climb around the side of it as it rotated. He looked backwards and saw that Wing was reaching exactly the same conclusion, a look of concentration on his face as he prepared for his carriage to upend itself. He tried shouting a warning to the girls behind them but he could not make himself heard over the noise of the machines below. They just waved back, unsure what the two boys were doing.
Otto took a firm grip of the side of the carriage and swung his other leg over the side, lowering himself carefully so that he was hanging from the side, his arms protesting at having to support his full weight. The carriage in front of Otto’s tipped over, continuing on its way, hanging upside down from the rail, and Otto suddenly felt his own carriage start to tip as he clung on for dear life. As the other side of the carriage fell away the side that Otto was hanging on to raised up into the air, the bottom corner of the carriage biting into his arms painfully as he was pulled upwards. His feet struggled for a purchase on the smooth underside of the carriage and he could feel his tenuous grip on the side panel slipping. Just as he thought he couldn’t hold on any longer, the carriage passed the halfway point of its rotation and Otto could feel what had been the underside of the carriage until a few moments ago taking more of his weight, relieving some of the strain on his arms. A second later he was lying panting on the underside of the carriage as it continued on its way, oblivious to the presence of this unauthorised passenger. Otto could see the rail clearly now, passing through a long thin box on the underside of the carriage, presumably propelled by some form of magnetic induction.
Otto looked back and was relieved to see that Wing too had managed to clamber on to the top of his own inverted carriage.
‘Are you OK?’ Wing asked.
‘Yeah . . . where are Shelby and Laura?’ Otto hoped that they had seen the frantic scramble.
Behind them the two girls had seen exactly what had happened to Wing and Otto’s carriages and they too were preparing to try and avoid a brief, terminal swim in the bubbling pool below. Otto wasn’t worried about Shelby he knew that she, like Wing, found these sorts of acrobatics second nature – but he didn’t know if Laura would find it as straightforward. As her carriage approached the point in the track where it would rotate, Wing gave her a thumbs-up, to which she responded with a weak smile. She looked frightened, and Otto didn’t blame her. She copied what she had already seen Wing and Otto do and hung on
to one side of the carriage as it started to tip over, frantically scrabbling for grip as it rotated beneath her. Just as it looked like she had completed the tricky manoeuvre successfully, she slipped on the slick condensation that had formed on the carriage. Otto and Wing gasped in unison as she lost her balance and toppled over the side of the carriage, arms flailing.
Shelby was already in the air, slamming on to Laura’s carriage. She landed flat on her front, one hand shooting out and catching Laura’s flailing wrist, the other latching on to the box which the rail passed through. She grimaced in pain, her arms feeling as if they were being torn from their sockets.
‘Hold on,’ she instructed Laura through gritted teeth, struggling to support the other girl’s full weight, feeling her grip weakening.
Seeing the desperate look on Shelby’s face Wing acted without hesitation. He sprang from one carriage to the next, almost at a run, closing the distance between the struggling girls and himself in seconds. He dropped on to Laura’s carriage, desperately stretching his hand out for hers.
‘Grab on to me, Laura,’ he shouted. From the look of pain on Shelby’s face Otto knew that her own grip on Laura could not last much longer. Laura reached out with her free arm, straining to reach Wing’s outstretched hand, her fingertips just a few centimetres from his.
‘I can’t reach you,’ she cried, a look of frightened panic on her face.
‘I can’t hold her much longer,’ Shelby gasped. Her own grip on the carriage was slipping.
‘You’ll have to try to swing her towards me, Shelby,’ Wing said. Shelby nodded slightly and summoned the last of her strength to swing Laura towards Wing’s outstretched hand, yelling out in pain at the effort while far below the boiling pool bubbled viciously.
Otto watched helplessly from atop his own carriage as Wing grabbed for Laura’s wrist as she swung towards him. Shelby’s strength finally gave out and she lost her grip on Laura, and for a moment Laura seemed to dangle in the air before Wing’s hand snapped around her wrist in a vice-like grip. Wing strained to pull Laura up and after a few seconds he hoisted her safely on to the carriage alongside Shelby and himself. Laura threw her arms around Wing and hugged him, tears pricking her eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I thought I was done for.’
‘Not while I still breathe,’ Wing replied, ‘and it should be Shelby you’re thanking, not me. I do not want to think about what might have happened if it were not for her.’
Shelby sat rubbing her shoulder. She looked exhausted.
‘Just be glad that we still need you to get out of here,’ Shelby replied with a wink, ‘otherwise I might not have bothered.’
Otto watched the dramatic rescue from his own carriage with enormous relief. All thoughts of escape had gone from his head when he had seen Laura fall – he would never have forgiven himself if something had happened to her. They wouldn’t have been there at all if it had not been for his plan, and he felt that it was his responsibility to get them all through this in one piece.
As the train rumbled onwards, Otto could make out a raised platform up ahead that they could use to get off the carriages. They had to get moving now; they had an appointment to keep.
‘It’s got to be around here somewhere. I’m sure this is the south wall.’ Otto sounded frustrated.
‘I still can’t see anything,’ Laura said as she came round from behind one of the large pressing machines that lined the wall.
‘Over here!’ Wing shouted from twenty metres away. ‘I think I’ve found it!’
The others hurried over to where Wing was standing. As they approached he smiled and pointed at a ventilation grille in the wall, partially concealed between two of the large machines.
‘That’s it. Come on, let’s get it open.’ Otto was relieved. He’d known that there had to be an access point for the ventilation system here, but after they had spent ten minutes searching fruitlessly he had started to wonder if he’d made a mistake. He pulled a screwdriver from his backpack and set to removing the screws that held the grille in place.
‘We need to get a move on,’ Otto told the others. ‘We’re behind schedule.’ It would not be a good idea for them to still be on the island when the rest of the school woke up. He put the screwdriver back in his pack and pulled out a torch, pointing its beam into the dark recesses of the ventilation shaft.
‘You’re sure this is the right way?’ Laura asked, a look of concern on her face.
‘Yes. We just have to follow this shaft and we’ll come out at the main distribution node,’ Otto replied. ‘I’ll take the lead. The rest of you follow me.’ Embedded in Otto’s memory was the layout of the ventilation system on the image of the blueprints from Professor Pike’s desk. He got down on all fours and crawled into the dark shaft, the others dutifully bringing up the rear.
Otto could not creep along with the torch held in one hand, so he moved as fast as he could through the dark confined space while feeling in front of him for any junctions in the tunnel. It was slow going, despite his efforts to keep the pace up, and he started to worry about the amount of time they had left.
It took them almost an hour of crawling through the darkness before they reached their destination. Otto had led them flawlessly through the dark maze of ventilation shafts, occasionally flicking the torch on to point out obstacles or to make sure they could see what direction he was heading in at a particular junction. They had passed numerous other grilles looking out on to other parts of H.I.V.E. as they had crawled along. Some of these areas were familiar to them, but many of the rooms and passages they had passed they had not seen before and their purpose could often only be guessed at. There had been one particularly nasty moment when they had been forced to crawl as silently as possible through a section of the shafts that ran through the guard’s barracks. As they had crept past the grilles in the shaft they had seen row after row of bunk beds, most of which were occupied by slumbering guards. Thankfully they had not been spotted.
Now, as they approached the end of the shaft, Otto could see a soft blue light through the grille ahead. He looked back down the shaft and could see the pale outlines of his friends’ faces behind him, faintly lit by this new source of illumination.
‘This is it. Not much further now,’ Otto whispered. ‘Everybody OK back there?’
‘I can’t feel my knees any more,’ Laura replied from behind him. ‘I never thought I’d look forward to standing up so much.’
‘You think this is bad? You should try getting through the Louvre’s ventilation system,’ Shelby shot back.
Otto was relieved to hear that they were apparently still in good spirits. The crawl through the ventilation system had been painfully slow and he needed them all to stay sharp. He reached the grille at the end of the shaft and unclipped it, swinging it open. He peeked out over the edge of the shaft and could see that the room below was unoccupied. Sliding through the opening, he lowered himself silently to the floor below. The circular room was filled with large white columns, each six feet high, which were covered on all sides with flickering blue lights. Fibre-optic cables ran outwards from these columns and climbed the white walls, pulsing with the same blue light. In the centre of the room was a large pedestal in the shape of a pyramid with its point cut off, which was connected by glowing blue tracks on the floor to each of the columns. It looked like a high-tech Stonehenge.
Laura dropped to the floor behind Otto and looked around the room, her eyes wide.
‘So this is where he lives, is it?’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Otto knew what she meant. There was something eerily beautiful about these strange monoliths, the blue light pulsing around the room like blood pumping through veins. Wing and Shelby clambered out of the shaft, swinging the grille shut behind them.
‘So where do we place the device?’ Laura asked, looking at Otto.
‘By that central pedestal should do the trick,’ Otto replied, his voice distracted. As he watched the blue
light flowing around the room he swore that he could see patterns and that he could almost discern their meaning.
It was frustrating, like a conversation that you could only just hear, the odd word making sense but true understanding hovering slightly beyond reach.
‘So where is the big blue guy?’ Shelby asked, looking around the room carefully.
‘Not here, apparently,’ Wing replied. ‘Are you sure this is the right place, Otto?’
‘If this isn’t the right place, then I don’t know what is. Come on, let’s get the device set up.’ Otto headed towards the pedestal in the centre of the room.
‘He must know we’re here,’ Laura whispered to Otto as the four of them gathered around the pedestal.
‘Not necessarily, I don’t see any cameras in here. It may be that H.I.V.E.mind has to actually manifest here before he’s aware of our presence,’ Otto explained. This room, as far as Otto could tell, was the central processing hub for H.I.V.E.mind and, though there was no sign of the AI at the moment, Otto was willing to bet that this was the nearest thing that H.I.V.E.mind had to a home.
Wing reached into his backpack and pulled out an object encased in several layers of protective bubblewrap. Once unwrapped, it looked like a fat metallic sausage with three hexagonal metal collars equally spaced along its length and a control panel in the centre.
‘I hope this works,’ Laura muttered as she adjusted a couple of the switches on the control panel.
Otto watched as Laura made the final adjustments to the device. It had not been easy to acquire all its components, and it had been even more difficult to assemble it in secret. There had not been an opportunity to test it, since activating a powerful but compact electromagnetic pulse device in their living quarters might have been a little unwise. Security may not have been as tight as Otto had initially feared, but testing it by permanently disabling every electronic device within two hundred metres might just have attracted some unwanted attention. It had occurred to Otto on the first day at H.I.V.E. that if you could not become invisible yourself the only way to escape would be to blind H.I.V.E.’s substantial surveillance network, and the only way that Otto could think of to do that was to disable H.I.V.E.mind. Both he and Laura had initially been uncomfortable with the idea, but eventually they had managed to reassure each other that H.I.V.E.mind would have to be backed up somewhere else in the facility so, while their actions may put him offline temporarily, it would not kill him. Otto just hoped that they were right. He knew it was illogical to worry about the fate of what was after all just an elaborate piece of software, but he didn’t want to do any permanent damage to H.I.V.E.mind.