Lara tasked Wing Command to fly a reconnaissance mission over the Rocketship.com warehouse and report back. A little over thirty minutes later a pair of pigeons flew into the tree house, perched on her shoulders and began tweeting rapidly in each ear. Lara translated.
“They’re reporting increased drone activity.”
“Could it simply be orders from the warehouse?” suggested Serge.
“Regular deliveries are continuing, but Wing Command reckon that’s to make it look like everything’s normal,” said Lara. “However, based on the flight profile of the drones, my birds believe they’re patrolling for intruders. There’s particular activity around the new building.”
I felt a sudden chill. “What new building?”
One of the birds twittered again and Lara frowned. “She’s saying, ‘Many big fire sticks ready leave nest go up up,’ but I don’t know what that means.”
I did. As she said the words the company’s distinctive logo blazed through my mind. “Mini waffle-maker,” I muttered.
“That doesn’t sound like an accurate translation,” said Lara.
Dina laid a hand on my arm. “Luke, are you OK?”
In answer I slowly shook my head. Something had occurred to me. Something terrible. I had remembered a conversation with my dad about the future of global delivery. “It’s not books, it’s Intercontinental Logistic Missiles. Rocketship.com has a new delivery system that can reach any point on the planet – in one hour. But those warheads won’t be carrying waffle-makers.” I looked round the tree house at the expectant faces of my friends. “They’ll be filled with Retconite.”
Our first reaction to this revelation was a sensible one. We decided to call a grown-up. Despite being in possession of superpowers and time-travel capability, we were after all a bunch of kids who’d just uncovered an apocalyptic plot that threatened the entire world. Calling for help was the responsible thing to do. Fortunately, there was an organisation designed for just this sort of eventuality, and we had their phone number. Star Squad was a branch of the military that had been set up to assist Star Lad, and they had done so on numerous occasions.
“It’s ringing out,” said Zack, putting his phone on speaker.
When it became clear that no one was going to answer we did a quick online search, which revealed that Star Squad had been disbanded soon after Zack hung up his cape. To give my brother credit, he looked suitably shame-faced at this information.
Next we tried the police. Zack had argued that well-funded emergency services would be more useful than a superhero. However, in this instance the constable at the local station who answered the phone had clearly not received sufficient training to deal with the particular nature of our enquiry. Which is to say, he hung up on us.
The future of the world was in our hands.
With no other option, we set about planning our assault on the warehouse. We had to sneak into Rocketship.com, sabotage the missile launch and prevent Servatron enslaving all of humanity for the rest of time. Preparation was key.
“We need to know what we’re walking into,” I said. “Otherwise our mission will be over in less time than it takes the Flash to pull on his lucky underpants.”
With the aid of Lara’s Wing Command and the Internet we were able to sketch the exterior of Rocketship.com. It consisted of several connected buildings stretching across a vast fenced-off site. Each block was a giant mirror-clad building that gleamed like a newly unboxed chrome gadget. The familiar logo hung above the entrance, and beneath it was a line that read: “The Future, Delivered.”
Finding pictures of the interior proved trickier. Rocketship.com was a huge corporation with a reputation for secrecy. Zack and Lara got to work on their phones.
While they searched I nipped into the house to collect a few items for the upcoming mission. Retrieving my trusty Deadpool backpack, into it I placed Star Lad’s sigil (for good luck) and the superhero notebooks containing my handwritten adventures. I fixed a yellow sticky note to the front cover that read: ALL OF THIS REALLY HAPPENED!!! (with three exclamation marks for added impact). In the event that the Retconite affected me I hoped I would see it and remember. But what I needed most of all were Dad’s keys to the comic shop and access to his Rocketship.com account. While he was making a sandwich and his back was turned, I quickly accessed it on his phone and then returned to the others.
By the time I reached the top of the rope ladder they had tracked down a number of videos that showed enough of the warehouse interior for us to piece together a rough layout. In the videos they didn’t call it a warehouse – it was a “Fulfilment Centre”. At one end was the Returns section, where unwanted items arrived to be restocked in the first of the centre’s two gargantuan storage units. Each was shelved from floor to ceiling with gadgets and appliances – everything from tiny flash drives to fridges the size of vans. Robots with what looked like tank-tracks and powerful extendable arms carried orders to a conveyor belt that led to another department where they were boxed up before being shuttled through to the final building.
The launch bay.
The video showed a forest of upright metal tubes stretching as far as the eye could see. Each tube contained a single missile, its silver fuselage adorned with the Rocketship.com logo, nose-cone painted in the red and black of the company’s colours. Many of the nose-cones were hinged open, and beneath them lay generous payload compartments. A steady stream of drones buzzed around the missiles, loading packages into the purpose-built spaces. Once a missile was loaded, the tube would be shuffled on another conveyor to the launchpad, an area in the centre of the room beneath a sliding roof. According to the narrator on the video, twenty missiles could be launched at a time. There was a short countdown and then the tubes ejected their missiles using compressed gas, shooting them clear of the building before their rocket engines kicked in, accelerating them to super-mach speeds and on to their destinations.
“Capable of launching five hundred missiles an hour,” said the video’s informative narrator. “Mother precisely plots the flight path of each and every one.”
The missile operation was controlled by a computer nicknamed “Mother”, located not in the launch bay, but in the centre of the second storage unit in a separate climate-controlled, quake-proof chamber.
With this information added to what we knew, our plan was beginning to take shape. I pointed to the layout. “First, we make our way into the Fulfilment Centre, here, then head through the first storage unit to the second one, here. Once there we access Mother, stop the launch and put paid to Servatron’s plans.”
Zack groaned and threw up his hands. “Even assuming we can get in and keep Servatron off our backs, how do we stop the launch? If I had my superpowers I could reduce the control centre and the missiles to a pile of junk, but I don’t.”
“We can shut down the launch using Mother,” I said.
“How? It’s not like we’re amazing computer hackers.”
I had thought of that. “Who’s the guy that owns Rocketship.com?” The name was on the tip of my tongue. “Wolfgang Something.”
“I think it is Danger,” added Serge.
I borrowed Lara’s phone and typed in the first name and the search engine auto-filled the rest. “Hazard.”
“Ah,” said Serge. “Danger must be his middle name.”
Thousands of results filled the page. It seemed that, unlike his company, Doctor Wolfgang Hazard enjoyed publicity.
“What are you doing?” Lara asked.
“Every gadget that my dad bought from Rocketship.com has one thing in common.”
“They all tried to kill us,” Zack muttered.
“Well, yes, but apart from that, they all use voice-control activation.” From the toaster to the bedside lamp, everything Dad had ordered from Rocketship.com could be controlled by speaking to it.
Dina was confused too. “But why would the system respond to your voice?”
“Not mine.” I clicked on a video clip of Rocketship.com’s visionary owner.
“Guten tag, my name iz Voolfgang Hazard.”
Doctor Hazard was a powerfully built man with a square head and steely grey eyes, and he spoke English with a strong German accent. As well as being a visionary entrepreneur he also appeared as a judge on a TV show where he got to fire people from their jobs.
“It stands to reason that the central computer must respond to the voice of its creator,” I said. “There are loads of clips here. It shouldn’t take long for us to piece together a few useful phrases.”
Dina and Lara were impressed by my thinking. Zack less so.
“That might work, but we still have to get close enough to use it. And that means first bypassing those drone-guards.”
“Leave that to me,” I said. “And a dodgy trouser press.”