The heavy steel doors that sealed the entrance to H.I.V.E.mind’s central control rumbled open. The corridor outside was, thankfully, deserted.
‘Come on.’ Otto stepped out into the corridor. ‘We haven’t got much time.’ He set off down the passage with the other three close on his heels. Laura was carrying H.I.V.E.mind and his calm synthetic voice spoke as they hurried along.
‘I have disabled certain power distribution nodes. This should only deactivate the security system along our route, though, and a number of secondary non-critical systems elsewhere in the facility.’
Wing and Otto led the way down the corridor, keeping a close eye out for any patrolling guards.
‘Can we trust H.I.V.E.mind in this?’ Wing whispered.
‘I don’t see that we have much choice,’ Otto replied quietly. ‘Without him we don’t have any way of getting past the security systems. A least we can see where we’re going – if I’d triggered the EMP we’d be trying this in total darkness. Besides, he has just as much to lose as us. I doubt that Dr Nero would be very pleased to hear that he was helping us to get out of here.’
‘I suppose so,’ Wing replied, looking thoughtful. ‘Wait . . .’
Wing gestured for them all to stop. In the distance they could hear the sound of marching feet.
‘It’s a patrol,’ Wing whispered.
Otto looked around them. There was nowhere to hide in the corridor and the patrol sounded as if it was heading in their direction. Otto pressed up against the wall, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, and the others followed suit. Otto, Wing and Shelby all looked nervously at the corner up ahead – it sounded as if the patrol would be right on top of them at any second.
Laura whispered urgently to H.I.V.E.mind and, just as it sounded as if the patrol would round the corner and discover them, there was the familiar insistent bleeping of a Blackbox receiving an incoming call. Otto knew it could not belong to any of his co-conspirators – they had all left their Blackboxes in their rooms, just as he had instructed. An unfamiliar voice came from round the corner – the speaker was only a few metres away. Otto held his breath, trying to keep completely silent.
‘Yes,’ the voice snapped.
‘Commander, this is H.I.V.E.mind. I have detected an unauthorised access attempt in Tech lab four. Please investigate immediately.’
‘Roger that. We’ll head there now,’ the voice replied. ‘Follow me, men, sounds like we got a visitor.’ The sound of the patrol diminished as they marched away along the adjoining corridor.
‘Thank you,’ Laura whispered, holding H.I.V.E.mind’s tablet level with her face.
‘My pleasure, Miss Brand,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘It will only take them a few minutes to ascertain that the alert was false and resume their patrol. We should proceed with haste.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Otto smiled. ‘Not far to go now.’
Ms Gonzales paced angrily across her laboratory in the hydroponics dome. Twenty minutes earlier H.I.V.E.mind had shut down some of the secondary power systems for no apparent reason and all of the tubes feeding the plants on the racks in front of her had run dry, their feeding systems deactivated. She knew that this meant that all the pipes distributing food, growth hormones and growth-suppressing chemicals around the building would have run dry too. There was no telling what lasting damage may be done to the plants and experiments throughout the dome if power was not restored soon. She had tried to contact H.I.V.E.mind and had received no reply for the first time that she could remember. Then, when she’d tried to leave her lab to find out what was going on, she had found that the electronic lock that sealed the door was not functioning either. So now she found herself trapped in her lab with her experiments, experiments that would all fail if she could not restore the feeding system immediately. Something had obviously gone wrong – she had been uneasy about turning over control of the automated systems within the dome to H.I.V.E.mind, despite Professor Pike’s assurances that it would improve the facility’s efficiency. It now appeared that her doubts had been justified.
Suddenly, she heard a crash from outside; somebody else was in the dome! She looked at her computer’s display, which thankfully still appeared to be functioning, and switched between the numerous views afforded by the security cameras mounted throughout the dome. At first she could see no sign of any intruder, but then her eyes widened in surprise as the view flicked past the tiny laboratory that she had been letting Nigel Darkdoom use.
On the screen Nigel’s laboratory lay in ruins. The shattered remains of a large glass tank sat on the workbench, pieces lying scattered around the room. The door to the lab hung off its hinges, as if it had been smashed open from inside. There was another crash from somewhere in the dome and Ms Gonzales’s computer bleeped insistently. She quickly read the new window that had just opened. There had been a catastrophic loss of pressure in the pipes that distributed her specially designed growth hormone to the plants around the dome – someone must have ruptured the tanks, she realised. She reached for the Blackbox that lay on her desk and requested a line to the security office. A couple of seconds later the chief of security appeared on the screen.
‘Yes, Ms Gonzales, what’s up?’ the gruff voice of the chief asked.
‘Well, this is rather embarrassing, but I appear to be locked inside my laboratory and I suspect that there are vandals loose in the dome. Could you send help?’
‘Certainly, miss. I’ll send a team straight down. It’s all happening tonight.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ms Gonzales asked.
‘Oh, nothing, really. We just seem to be having a bad case of gremlins tonight – we’ve got minor systems shutting down across the facility. I’ve asked H.I.V.E.mind what’s going on, but he tells me that he’s having trouble isolating the cause of the problems,’ the chief replied.
That would explain the malfunctioning feeding system, she thought to herself, and the malfunctioning door to her lab. An even louder crash came from outside and she noticed with alarm that cameras were failing in certain areas of the dome.
‘Please send that team quickly, chief,’ Ms Gonzales said, feeling a twinge of fear for the first time. ‘Somebody’s wrecking this place.’
Otto peeked round the corner. There was no sign of any guards in the short corridor that led to the metal doors sealing the submarine pen, and for the first time that night he allowed himself to think that they were going to make it. The blueprints had illustrated several berths for vessels inside the pen, and he was confident that they would find at least one submarine docked within. He gestured for the others to follow and headed towards the doors. As they neared the end of the corridor he could see a device mounted to the wall that looked like a pair of binoculars – a retina scanner, he realised.
‘H.I.V.E.mind, can you open this door for us?’ Otto asked as the others gathered round.
‘I cannot bypass maximum security locks remotely. It requires the authorisation of a senior member of the staff,’ H.I.V.E.mind explained.
‘Laura, get the tools out – we’ll have to hack the lock,’ Otto said, looking at the device mounted on the wall more closely. If he could just get access to the mechanism, he was sure that they’d be able to bypass the system between the two of them.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Shelby said anxiously, glancing at her watch.
‘Well, we’ll have to make time,’ Otto replied, taking a screwdriver from Laura.
‘I may have a more efficient solution,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly. As they watched, H.I.V.E.mind’s shrunken head grew to the size of a normal human one and his empty eyes closed. When he opened them again the previously blank sockets were filled with an uncannily realistic pair of human eyes. It was an extremely unnerving sight.
‘Please raise me into position in front of the scanner,’ H.I.V.E.mind instructed. Laura picked up the tablet and raised H.I.V.E.mind to the level of the retina scanner. H.I.V.E.mind’s hovering head tipped slightly, bringing his new eyes into place in front of the scanner. There was a bleep and a mechanical voice came from the device.
‘Access granted, Professor Pike.’
‘Fantastic,’ Laura grinned. ‘How did you do that?’
‘I have my father’s eyes, Miss Brand,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied with a smile.
There was a hiss and the sound of unseen bolts being released, and the doors rumbled open. As they parted Otto’s joy turned to horror, and behind him he heard Shelby gasp. There was no submarine pen. The room that lay before them was a large concrete box with no other doors or exits of any kind, and seated in a large leather chair in its centre was Dr Nero, smiling evilly.
‘Come now, Mr Malpense. You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?’