CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘OK,’ Sam said, ‘what resources do we have?’

‘What?’ Kieron asked.

‘It’s the kind of thing Bex would say. “What are our resources? What tools do we have in the toolbox? What have we got that we can use?”’

‘OK, I understand. We have you, me and whatever is in this room, including the ARCC kit. That’s it. Oh, and we’re stuck in Venice. Oh, and we need to get to Norway. We think.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘You know that bit in movies when things are as bad as they can be? That moment when the villain’s escaped with the secret plans and kidnapped the hero’s girlfriend, the hero’s car has crashed, he and his best friend are crawling from the flaming wreckage with cuts, bruises and broken bones miles down a remote country road in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what to do or how to get the girl and the secret plans back, and the hero’s friend says, “Hey, it could be worse – it could be raining,” and then it starts raining? You know that moment?’

‘Yeah?’

‘This is that moment.’

Sam punched him in the arm. Hard. Really hard. ‘Man up, mate. We’ve got a job to do.’

‘Yeah, that’s what the hero always says.’ He breathed out, rubbing his arm, then took a long, slow breath in. ‘Actually, we haven’t just got ourselves and the ARCC kit – we’re in one of the most expensive hotels in one of the most exclusive locations on Earth. That means that within ten metres of where we’re sitting there’s probably someone with a lot of money and access to a private jet. All we have to do is persuade them to take us to Norway.’

‘Persuade?’ Sam said, in a tone of voice that suggested he thought Kieron was mad.

‘Stay with me on this. Yes, we have to persuade them. I don’t know how, but we’ll think of something.’

Within a few minutes Kieron had pulled up images from the hotel’s security cameras, concentrating mainly on the restaurant and lift areas. He cross-referenced the photographs with the record of arrivals at the local airport and archives of style and gossip magazines, trying to identify anyone who had an executive jet. At the back of his mind while he worked, his brain was trying to figure out what plausible argument two teenagers could come up with to persuade a complete stranger to fly them to a different country – Our friends are going to die if you don’t! seemed a bit overdramatic, although it was true – but he couldn’t come up with anything convincing. Still, one problem at a time.

Which was when he found something interesting.

‘Take a look at this,’ he said thoughtfully, handing Sam the glasses.

Sam slipped them on. ‘Ooh – two people in a swimming pool.’

‘Look closer.’

‘OK, but we have things to do, you know?’ He paused. ‘Oh, hang on – isn’t that the guy with the YouTube channel where he plays all the new computer games with his friends and they do a running commentary saying how bad they are? His real name is Fyn Harkess, I think, but what’s his tag? GamR BlamR or something.’ Kieron could practically hear Sam emphasise the random capital letters.

‘I think it is,’ he said.

‘Isn’t he married to that actress – the one who did the superhero movie last year?’

‘I think he is.’

‘He earns, like, a million pounds a week from advertising and promotions. He even has his own private jet. That girl in the pool looks like the one who won the TV talent show he was the special guest judge on last week.’

‘You know, I think it is.’ Kieron winced as Sam looked over at him. ‘Yeah, I know – my mum was watching it, and I just happened to be in the room.’

‘That’s your story?’

‘And I’m sticking to it.’ Kieron frowned, thinking. ‘Hang on – how did you recognise her? You don’t watch TV talent shows, do you?’

Sam looked away. ‘Same reason,’ he said casually. ‘My mum.’

‘Right.’

‘But so what?’

‘So he does completely random things on a whim. He once bought a house in Alaska just because he wanted to watch the aurora borealis. He’s still not been there. I reckon if anyone will fly us to a different country, it’s him.’

Sam suddenly perked up. ‘Oh, hang on – they’re getting out of the pool.’

‘Great,’ Kieron said with significantly more confidence than he felt. ‘Quick – we need to be outside the fitness centre when they come out. Running desperately after the person you want a massive favour from makes you look bad. Bring both sets of ARCC glasses and the earpieces.’

He and Sam got to the fitness centre on the ground floor of the hotel barely five minutes later. They stood there, unsure whether or not to go in. Just as Kieron was about to try the door, it opened. GamR BlamR – or whatever his real name was – stood there, arm around a small, pretty girl. They both had wet hair.

‘Hi,’ he said, staring at them. He was smaller than Kieron had expected. And, Kieron reminded himself, considerably richer. His hair was bleached white, but streaked progressively from ear to ear with every colour of the rainbow, from red through to violet. ‘Fans? You want an autograph?’ He plunged a hand in his pocket. ‘I think I’ve got some snappable GamR BlamR wristbands in here somewhere. You want one each?’

‘Actually,’ Kieron said, trying to project a sense of confidence in his voice, ‘we need to get to Norway, we need to go in your private jet and we need to leave now. And if you don’t take us there –’

GamR BlamR nodded. ‘Sounds cool,’ he said, cutting Kieron off. ‘Venice is boring anyway. Too many old people, and the Wi-Fi is terrible.’

‘OK. Like I said, if you don’t take us –’

‘It’s cool, we’ll go now.’ He patted the girl on the shoulder. She glanced up at him with an expression that was veering from adoration through confusion towards anger at an incredible rate. ‘You can get a return ticket to London, can’t you, babe? Actually, hey, I’ll call my manager and he’ll sort one out for you. Just pick it up at the airport.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘It’s been great. It really has.’

GamR BlamR started off down the corridor, arms outstretched, sweeping Kieron and Sam with him. ‘Let’s go. I’ve never seen Norway.’

‘Don’t you …?’ Kieron stammered. He glanced back at the girl standing outside the fitness centre. She looked as if she was going to cry. He shrugged at her helplessly. ‘I mean – shouldn’t you pack first?’

‘Nah – I travel light.’ GamR BlamR had a huge grin on his face. ‘I just buy new clothes and stuff wherever I end up. It’s a lot easier that way.’

‘But –’ Kieron glanced past GamR BlamR at Sam, who just stared back, wide-eyed – ‘what about the stuff you brought with you? You can’t just leave it behind!’

‘Of course I can. That’s the fun of being mindlessly rich and young – I can do whatever I want. If the maids are smart they’ll collect it all up and put it on eBay. Last I heard, a hotel in Bratislava made thousands selling my used T-shirts and underwear. I’ve got a lot of fans out there.’ He frowned, thinking. ‘Norway. That’s like, cold, isn’t it?’

Kieron couldn’t quite believe how easy this had been. ‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked, earning a punch on the arm from Sam.

‘Hey, you gave me the perfect excuse to drop the girl and move on – I was getting bored here anyway, and I pretty much live my life by taking random decisions. I don’t know who you guys are, but you’ve done me a favour.’ He grinned and punched the air. ‘We’re going to Norway!’

Five minutes later they were in a small motor launch, pulling away from the quayside at St Mark’s Square. Judging by the way the man with the peaked cap standing beside it saluted GamR BlamR as the three of them approached, the launch was on permanent standby in case the young millionaire needed it.

‘We left all our stuff in our rooms,’ Sam pointed out.

‘We’re living in the fast lane now.’ The wind blew sea spray into Kieron’s face and he blinked. ‘I guess we can get it all sent on. The important thing is – have you got your passport?’

Sam nodded. ‘Back pocket. You?’

‘Same.’

‘Norway’s a big place, you know?’

‘We’ll figure it out when we get there.’

GamR BlamR spent most of the time on his mobile phone – which, Kieron noted jealously, was an iPhone with a customised case embossed with his logo. Fifteen minutes later they were climbing up the steps of the vlogger’s exclusive aircraft, and five minutes after that they were taking off. It seemed that the jet, like the motor launch, was on constant standby.

‘Help yourselves to anything you want,’ GamR BlamR said, waving vaguely towards the rear of the aircraft. ‘There’s a fridge back there, and a microwave. I’ll probably crash out for a while – I always do that when I’m flying, and I haven’t slept for three days, so –’ He puffed his cheeks out. ‘You did say Norway, didn’t you? Cos that’s what I told the pilot.’

‘Yes,’ Kieron said firmly. ‘Norway.’

‘Great.’ GamR BlamR’s head lolled backwards, his eyes closed and he started snoring.

‘Is this really happening?’ Sam asked.

‘If it’s not, then we’re both having the same hallucination.’ Kieron shook his head. ‘I didn’t even get around to threatening him with exposure!’ he said, sounding aggrieved.

‘We should probably get some sleep as well.’

Kieron nodded. He stared at Sam. Sam stared back.

‘Hungry?’ Sam asked eventually.

‘Yeah.’

Sam got up and walked back to the galley area. Kieron heard the sound of locker doors being opened and closed.

‘I can’t help thinking,’ Kieron called out, ‘about that girl. I hope she’s not still standing there, in the corridor, staring after us.’

Sam came back a few moments later. He had a strange expression on his face – one which Kieron couldn’t quite decipher.

‘Judging by the ingredients I’ve found back there,’ he said, ‘your boy here’s favourite snack appears to be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with crispy bacon. You up for it?’

‘Seems rude not to,’ Kieron replied.

They ate, they explored the amazing entertainment system on the aircraft and then they slept. When they woke up, GamR BlamR was on his laptop, playing a game and narrating his way through it in a constant stream-of-consciousness.

‘Broadband Wi-Fi in flight,’ Sam observed quietly. ‘That’s what money can get you.’

‘What’s he playing?’

Sam shuffled round until he could see diagonally over GamR BlamR’s shoulder. He shuffled back a few moments later. ‘You know that game your mum got you for Christmas?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It looks like the sequel.’

Kieron was aghast. ‘But it hasn’t even come out yet!’

‘I know. I think he’s playing a beta-level demo.’

Kieron closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I so need to be rich.’

‘You and me both, bro.’

Customs officials were waiting at the foot of the jet’s fold-down stairway. They took a cursory look at Kieron and Sam’s passports and waved them through. They were more interested in GamR BlamR. The moment his feet touched Norwegian soil they clustered around him, clamouring for autographs and taking selfies.

Kieron looked around. A cold wind blew against his cheek, freezing his ear. The air felt crisp and clean, like it was freshly made. Little feathery trails of cloud had been brushed onto the deep blue canvas of the sky.

‘There’s a lot of Christmas trees out there,’ Sam said dubiously.

Kieron looked around. His friend was right. Every single tree was a perfect cone. All they needed was twinkling lights.

A futuristic black limousine swept up to the aircraft and coasted to a silent halt. Kieron presumed it was for GamR BlamR, probably arranged by his management company, or personal assistant, or the invisible AI that organised his life for him. He waited for the chauffeur to get out and hold the rear door open for the teenage gaming legend, but instead the door clicked open and swung out invitingly.

‘No driver!’ Sam pointed out in a whisper. ‘Look in the front. That car’s got no driver!’

‘See ya, guys!’ GamR BlamR called from where he’d just finished with the customs officials. ‘Looks like my ride’s arrived.’

‘It’s got no driver!’ Sam squeaked again.

‘I know. Cool, right? There’s a start-up who are testing driverless cars here in Oslo. My people got in touch with them and happened to mention that I was unexpectedly coming here, so they asked if they could provide me with one of their cars, if I could mention them favourably on my YouTube channel and have some publicity photos taken with me sitting inside, actually live-streaming while being driven around. So my people said yes, and here we are.’

‘I don’t suppose you could give us a lift to a hotel?’ Kieron asked.

‘No problem.’ GamR BlamR shrugged. ‘You want to borrow the wheels too? I’ll live-stream some stuff while we’re driving into the city – after that I don’t need it any more.’

‘Won’t the company mind?’

‘They won’t know. Anyway, they’ll’ve got their publicity by then. After that, it’s going spare.’

‘But won’t you need it to drive you places? See the sights?’

GamR BlamR laughed. ‘I like you guys. You’re funny. No, I’ve got no intention of seeing anything beyond the view from my hotel-room window. As long as I’ve got room service, Wi-Fi and air-conditioning, I’m happy.’

‘Then what’s the point of travelling?’ Sam asked.

‘It broadens the mind – that’s what they say. So – come on. Who wants to sit in the front?’

Kieron sat in the driver’s seat, behind a steering wheel that had been squashed up against the dashboard. He guessed it would suddenly expand outwards if there was any problem. He hoped not. Unlike Sam he didn’t drive, and he had no intention of taking the wheel and steering them out of danger. Sam sat beside him, while GamR BlamR got in the back. Even before he’d sat down he had his laptop out and was talking excitedly into the integrated camera and microphone, narrating his life as it occurred.

Kieron’s seat, and the one beside him, seemed to be able to swivel around so he could face the seats in the back. Very cosy. Just like the world’s smallest living room.

Sam plucked a tablet computer from a holder on the dashboard. ‘It’s got a destination pre-programmed in,’ he observed. ‘Looks like a really nice hotel in the centre of Oslo. It’s asking if we’re ready to go.’

Kieron glanced over his shoulder at the oblivious GamR BlamR. ‘Yeah, I think so.’

‘Fastest route or scenic route?’

‘He doesn’t care. Let’s take the fastest.’

Sam tapped the screen and the car accelerated smoothly away, heading around the side of the terminal building and towards an exit gate, which opened for them automatically. It was that easy.

The drive into Oslo took under an hour, past two-storey houses painted in the same bright colours as GamR BlamR’s hair. Eventually they were heading through the city itself, over a wide river and a wider set of train tracks, and pulling into a drop-off area in front of a hotel that looked like its designers had been unable to agree what shape to make it. On one side it was wider in the middle than at the bottom or the top, while the other side seemed to slope away in several directions.

‘It looks like a cereal box that’s been sat on by a small child,’ Sam observed, ‘and I should know. My oldest sister’s kid went through a phase of taking cereal boxes off the table and sitting on them.’

‘Isn’t he still in nappies? Remind me never to have cereal at your house.’

A small crowd gathered around the car as it stopped. Kieron saw photographers and people holding up mobile phones and tablets. They all wanted to catch a glimpse of the rainbow-haired celebrity in the back seat.

As soon as he noticed the crowd, GamR BlamR folded his laptop up, grinned at them and gave a double thumbs-up. The door opened automatically for him – like so many other things in the vlogger’s life, Kieron thought darkly – and he erupted out of the car, laptop under his arm, high-fiving and shaking hands. As the crowd swept him towards the hotel lobby he didn’t even look back.

‘Well,’ Kieron said, ‘it looks like the car’s ours now. Where do you want to go?’

‘Let’s find somewhere quiet and anonymous and make a plan. A pizza restaurant maybe?’

Ten minutes later they drew up outside what looked like a popular but reasonably anonymous place that fitted the bill. They left the car outside – taking the tablet with them along with a digital key card they discovered in a slot in the dashboard. They spent a few minutes trying to work out how it could be used to lock the car before realising that if the key card moved more than a few feet away from the car then it locked automatically.

They found a table in the corner. The waiters spoke English, fortunately. They ordered, then sat looking at each other.

‘Right,’ Sam said, ‘we’re here. We don’t know if Bex and Bradley are in Norway or not, and we don’t know where in Norway they might be if they are. I’ll admit that I didn’t expect us to get this far this quickly, but I have no idea what we’re going to do next.’

‘Norway seems like a very organised country,’ Kieron observed, taking the ARCC glasses from his pocket and putting them on. ‘Let’s assume Bex and Bradley have been slipped quietly in by Asrael. We won’t be able to trace them through the normal channels – border security cameras or passenger lists – so we come at the problem from the other direction. We don’t look for Bex and Bradley; we look for Asrael.’

‘You think they might have a website, with, like, a contact address?’ Sam asked cautiously.

‘No.’ Kieron touched the button on the side of the glasses, activating the augmented-reality technology, and watched as a series of translucent menus appeared in front of him, superimposed on the scene of the restaurant. ‘We look for the girls – Katrin, Eva and Hekla.’

The app he’d dumped the girls’ faces on started accessing Norwegian government databases – driving licences, social security, student IDs, everything that an organised society kept in order to look after its people in an organised fashion.

Fifteen seconds later, he’d found all three of them. Names, and addresses. He cross-referenced the information with tax records.

‘He’s rehearsing a performance,’ he heard Sam say to a waiter who, he dimly saw through the menu screens, had turned up with a bottle of water. ‘Youngest classical conductor in the world. Very famous. Needs to run through his moves though.’

‘According to this,’ he said once the waiter had left, ‘they all live in a town called Beitostølen, which is about a hundred and fifty kilometres north-west of here, and they all work at a company called Learsa, which is based in a building overlooking Lake Olevatnet. It’s in an area called Oppland. From the lake the River Oleåne flows down to a port named Javnin. It’s all pretty desolate.’

‘Learsa,’ Sam mused. ‘That’s “Asrael” backwards. Very clever. What do they do?’

‘They manufacture drones,’ Kieron replied, reading the words from the screen displayed on the lens of his glasses. ‘Not little recreational ones – big ones for use by TV broadcasters, film-makers and the military. And yes, I am reading that information off their website.’

‘That makes sense.’ Sam nodded. ‘They specialise in making high-end drones, so they find a way of using them in assassinations to make more money. Very clever.’

‘Yes,’ Kieron said. ‘It happens all the time.’

‘Don’t knock it – as business plans go, it’s got a lot going for it.’

‘And they need it.’ Kieron was checking Learsa’s finances – all diligently filed with the Norwegian tax authorities. ‘The company’s been in trouble for a while now. Their drones are great, but expensive. There are cheaper ones around that do mostly the same things.’ More information flashed up in another screen. ‘Oh – that’s interesting.’

‘What?’

‘Learsa is a family firm, set up by one Gustav Reginiussen, but currently run by his wife Agnetha following his death – along with their three daughters, Katrin, Eva and Hekla.’

Kieron took the glasses off and stared at Sam. ‘It’s still a long shot. We don’t know if the girls came back here to Norway; we don’t know if they brought Bex and Bradley with them if they did; and even if both of those things did happen, we don’t know whether or not they’ve taken them to Learsa’s headquarters. But it’s the best information we have, and I suggest we follow it through.’

‘Agreed,’ Sam said. ‘But we’ll need help.’

Kieron held out his hands, palm upwards. ‘Who from? It’s just the two of us!’

‘Not from a person, from a thing. We need to get eyes-on to this company building without exposing ourselves.’ He smiled slowly. ‘What do you say we buy ourselves a drone – with Bex and Bradley’s money of course? We can fly it right up to the place.’

‘Just like we did back at that hospital in Newcastle?’ Kieron nodded. ‘I like it. Just one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Can it be a Learsa drone? Because that would be poetic justice.’

‘Actually,’ Sam said, ‘I’ve got an even better idea. Give me the glasses.’

Reluctantly Kieron handed them over. He felt strangely vulnerable without them. He’d come to like the extra level of reality they gave him, and he’d got used to it as well. Having to give them away, if only for a few minutes, was like realising you’d left your mobile phone at home.

Watching Sam use the ARCC kit, Kieron felt a sense of worry descend over him like a damp grey cloud. What did the two of them think they were doing? They weren’t agents – not like Bex and Bradley. They were just kids. Worse than that, they were kids far from home, in a country where they didn’t even speak the language, expecting to waltz right into a nest of high-tech assassins and rescue their friends. This wasn’t a game! Sam could die; Bex and Bradley could die; he could die! How would his mum feel if she got a phone call telling her that Kieron had died in some foreign country he wasn’t even supposed to be in? If she couldn’t understand how he’d got there and what he was doing, how would she ever come to terms with losing him? And Sam – what if it was Sam who died? Kieron knew he wouldn’t be able to stand in front of Sam’s mother and tell her what the two of them had been up to. He wouldn’t even be able to go home. He’d have to go on the run, living below the radar, moving from town to town, taking whatever jobs he could get that paid cash and kept him from being found, and all without his only real friend. He felt his mouth go dry. The room seemed to shift around him, as though it was rocking. He couldn’t feel the carpet under his feet; he felt like he was floating in space, able to see everything but not feel it or hear it properly: the sounds of the restaurant and the outside world had suddenly become fuzzy and muffled. His heart raced, and he started to shiver.

‘Kieron?’

‘Wha— what?’

‘You looked really strange there for a minute. Are you all right?’

‘Yeah.’ He swallowed, as things gently settled back to normal. Well, as normal as they had been, anyway. ‘Panic attack. I think the craziness of all this suddenly hit home.’

‘I’ve had a couple of moments like that,’ Sam admitted. ‘Do you remember when they made us do cross-country at school last year?’

‘Don’t – I’ve been trying to forget.’

‘One of the sports teachers told me it’s best not to focus on the horizon, just on where your feet are going. Don’t think about how far it is to the finish line; just force your feet to take one step at a time.’

‘Very comforting – thanks. Can I have those words on a motivational poster?’

‘Ha ha,’ Sam said succinctly.

‘And to you.’ Kieron smiled at his friend. ‘Are you finished? What have you done?’

‘What I have done is two things – firstly, I have emailed a tech shop here in Oslo that sells Learsa’s drones and told them that I’m GamR BlamR’s agent, that he’s here in Oslo, and that he wants to have a go with one of their drones and would be happy to mention them and the location of their shop on one of his YouTube broadcasts. Secondly, I have emailed GamR BlamR’s people, saying that I’m a tech shop here in Oslo and I’d love to give their client a promotional gift of a high-spec drone. Each person thinks they’re talking with the other, but actually it’s all going through me.’ He smiled a triumphant smile. ‘A package will be arriving within the hour, containing a top-of-the-line, fully charged drone.’

‘I love what you’re doing,’ Kieron said admiringly, ‘but this is fraud.’

‘We’re just borrowing it,’ Sam pointed out. ‘We’ll pass it on once we’ve rescued Bex and Bradley. He won’t even know it’s been out of the box.’

‘OK then.’ Kieron nodded. ‘Shall we go across to the hotel, intercept the package, get back into GamR BlamR’s robot car and drive up to Learsa’s HQ then?’

The package – a heavy box about the size of a 52” LCD TV screen – was just being carried into the hotel lobby when they got there. Sam knew the name of the person he’d been dealing with, and bluffed the delivery men into giving him the box and he and Kieron carried it back out to their car. Well, GamR BlamR’s car. Well, actually the robot car belonging to some Norwegian company, but for all practical purposes it was their car for the time being.

The drive out of Oslo took them through a landscape that was gently rolling to start off with but which gradually became more and more corrugated, as if the ground had been rippled like a shaken bed sheet at some point and had got stuck that way. The grey rock around Oslo turned darker and bleaker as they headed north. Low hills became larger and more jagged. The houses, which had started out close together, became more and more spaced apart, and changed their form, looking now more like what Kieron thought of as chalets: the kind of thing he’d only seen at holiday camps. Several times he found that they were driving alongside long narrow lakes, whose water looked almost black in the late-afternoon light. Sometimes he noticed V-shaped ripples, signs that something was swimming in there, although he could never tell what it might have been. They were moving further and further from civilisation, into the wild.

It got colder as they drove, and several times one of them turned the heating up to stop themselves from shivering. Small flurries of snow blew against the window, borne by the cutting wind, and covered the fields and the roofs of the houses they passed with a thin layer, like a threadbare blanket.

Time lost all meaning as they drove through the stark Norwegian countryside, and Kieron was shocked when Sam suddenly nudged him out of his partial sleep and fractured dreams.

‘I think we’re here.’

Kieron sat up straighter and looked out of the window. They had pulled up at the side of a minor road – more of a dirt track – overlooking another of the long narrow lakes. The horizon around them was filled with dark shapes that were too big to be hills but too small to be mountains. Away to their right, Kieron saw several chalets that had been painted yellow and red. But the main thing that caught his eye was the building perched on the far shore of the lake, half hidden by the snow flurries. It sat on the edge of a steeply sloping mass of rock that led down to the surface of the water. The building was huge, wooden but futuristic, with large stretches of glass, and it looked completely out of place. It had been built out over the lake so that half of its massive bulk extended out over the water, supported by several piles that stretched from the exposed underside of the building to the steep rocky slope, like tree trunks stripped of all their branches. It seemed to glower across the water at them, like some gigantic squatting ogre.

‘That’s Learsa HQ,’ Sam said bleakly. ‘So – what do we do now?’