21

The Ticking Clock

We sit in a clearing behind the centre to go through the endgame. Each of us has a role to play, and if any of us fail, the whole plan will come crashing down. It requires total investment from all of us, and total investment is challenging when you haven’t slept properly in two days.

Everyone is assigned a job to match their skillset.

‘Big Mak: you understand construction and you’re strong. You’ll be stationed at the dam site. Your priority will be getting that dam down, however you can. We need the river flowing back down into the crater. Ade: you’re smart and you’re fast. I need you to help Mak at the dam. You’ll need to distract the guards while he susses out where the weak spot is. Once he’s made a dent in it, I want you both to attack a bug-eye. The rest of the plan depends on them releasing that pheromone and drawing all the others up to the river. Use the swarm. They’ll be frenzied and aggressive, so you might even be able to get them to do a lot of the dam destruction for you. Try to lure them into the riverbed so that when the dam breaks, they’re swept away.

‘We’ll get it done,’ Mak says.

‘And keep each other safe. When the river floods through, you both need to be clear of the torrent.’

‘Affirmative,’ Adrianne nods.

‘Ah, Big Mak and Adrianne – the perfect team,’ Kat says. ‘Your ship name can be Big Mad. No, Marianne. No – Madriak!’

Both Mak and Adrianne turn pink, so I move on.

‘Chets, they don’t know you’re not a bug-eye anymore. You can be our undercover brother. You need to keep Digger and Hoche from going with the others when they swarm. They’re clever – they’ll work out what we’re trying to do and that could jeopardise the whole thing. We need to keep them away from the dam.’

‘Got it,’ Chets says.

‘Katja: you’re blessed with an innocent face and mad climbing skills. I need you to lure Digger.’

‘No problem,’ she smiles.

‘And I’ll take on Hoche. She’ll come for me anyway. It’s about time we faced off.’

The sun is getting low in the sky and we need that dam down before it gets dark. The bug-eyes can see at night, and we can’t, so they’ll have too much of an advantage if we leave it late.

‘Good luck, everyone,’ I say. ‘Let’s get ready to rumble.’

I wait nervously with Katja in the trees at the side of the lawn.

‘I hope Madriak are alright,’ Kat says.

‘They’re a couple of bad-As,’ I say. ‘And they’ll look out for each other. I’m sure they’re OK.’

‘I guess we’ll find out soon, one way or another.’

It’s still wicked hot, but for the first time in days there’s a slight breeze. It feels amazing as it tickles my skin, and it carries the faint smell of blossom. It’s almost like life is coming back into the crater. It gives me hope.

‘Look!’ Kat says, pointing at the bug-eyes who up until now have been completely engrossed in draining the lake. The water is ankle-deep. Like a flock of frightened deer, they all suddenly raise their heads and sniff the air. They turn in the direction of the dam, and then they drop their tools and run.

‘Oh gosh, how are Ade and Mak going to manage all those angry bug-eyes?’ Kat says.

‘We can’t worry about that now,’ I say. ‘Besides, the force is strong with them. If anyone can do it, they can. Look – Chets is up.’

Chets has been stalking around the treeline, as if he’s on hunter duty. When the bug-eyes start to swarm, he runs towards Hoche and Digger.

‘Hunters, cease!’ he calls, as they turn to join the others flocking to the dam site.

‘He’s totally got the bug-eye lingo down,’ I say.

‘Yeah, he’s embracing the role.’

Hoche and Digger turn to Chets, who is still wearing his sunglasses. That’s our sign to take position. Kat turns and hugs me.

We leave the shelter of the trees and sprint on to the floodlit lawn. The white lights glare down on us, like spotlights. We’re out in the open and visible to everyone in the crater. My vision blurs, so I can’t see anybody except Kat, and this is where we go our separate ways. She’s gone in a swoosh of colour, and I run, as fast as I can, towards the patch of tall trees on the far side of the lawn. In the corner of my eye I see the distorted shapes of Chets, Hoche and Digger. Chets starts to jog my way. Digger gallops after Kat. Hoche is shooting towards me like an arrow with a vendetta.

I close my mind to everything around me except the enormous tree looming ahead, and making my legs move faster and faster. I expect every moment to be tackled from behind, flung into the hard dirt ground, my teeth clashing together, the breath being knocked from my body, but Chets must be doing a good job of slowing Hoche down. I reach the tree. It has a rope ladder on one side. I launch myself at it and grab the highest rung I can, then I start to pull myself up, my muscles throbbing. I’m not the best at climbing and I wouldn’t usually attempt this without a harness, but I have to get higher.

I’m a third of the way up when Hoche reaches the tree. I look down to see her lurching at me, but her fingers miss my foot by a few centimetres. ‘I’ve got you now, Lance,’ she says. ‘This is a dead end – there’s nowhere left for you to run.’

I keep moving upwards, one rung at a time, until I reach the wooden platform. Once I’ve heaved myself on to it, I look down. Hoche and Chets are still on the ground, having a discussion. Chets points to a tree nearby and jogs towards it, while Hoche starts to climb up after me.

When I look down, all I can see are those creepy-mad eyes: the shiny black and glowing yellow. The urge to jump is almost overwhelming, but I know I have to wait.

I look across the lawn to the climbing wall. Katja is halfway up it, taking a complicated route – zig-zagging across it like a rainbow-coloured ant. Every now and then, she stops to pour something on the hand and footholds. She’s totally doing it like a boss.

Digger is behind her but not as fast as I’d have thought he’d be. He’s definitely changed shape. He’s bigger, especially across his chest, so he must be stronger, but he’s sort of twitching in a pretty disturbing way. He reaches the wall and throws himself on to it like an animal. He goes for the direct route upwards, grabbing the handholds and perching on the tiny footholds like he’s done this a million times. Every now and then he stops and his whole body sort of shudders.

Hoche looks over and smiles. ‘Ah, the sporeling’s metamorphosis is complete. Take a look, Lance, at the majestic form of a hunter.’

I watch in horror as Digger’s shuddering grows more and more violent. Then the top of his back massively expands, bursting through his polo shirt, which falls in shreds to the floor. His shoulder blades are overly prominent, and still growing. They pull apart, splitting his skin open to reveal a mass of dark grey fuzz underneath. He claws at his face and his human skin just peels away exposing his new skin, which is matte black, like velvet. He doesn’t look like a person anymore. He doesn’t look like a giant wasp, or one of those huge-eyed aliens you see on TV. He’s something I could never have imagined. Some impossible monster with a mix of human and insect-like features and a head like a mouldy potato. Although Digger’s head was a bit potatoey before he transformed, so maybe that’s just him. And, just as I think he couldn’t get any scarier, his shoulder blades extend out of his back, dripping black goo, and start to stretch into what can only be wings.

Katja screams, and I don’t blame her. I want to scream and I’m not up close and personal with the Digger monstrosity.

‘He’ll have her soon,’ Hoche says and carries on climbing up my tree.

I watch Kat with my heart racing and my mouth dry. She’s almost at the top of the wall. He’s close behind, but he’s having trouble moving his hands and feet. Our plan is working. Kat’s fingers grasp the summit and she starts to heave herself up. Digger tries to follow, but he can’t move his right hand from the handhold. His feet are stuck too. He jiggles about, and pulls and pulls, and finally gets his left hand loose. He lunges towards Katja and grabs her shoe. For half a second she falls back, then she drops something on Digger and kicks out. Digger makes a noise that’s somewhere between a scream and a roar. His wings stop unfurling – they must be stuck, too. Katja clings to the wall, and slowly eases herself up, leaving her trainer in Digger’s hand, and Digger roaring in fury, stuck to the superglued wall like a paralysed spider.

‘Doesn’t look like he’s going to have her after all,’ I say, so full of relief that I feel like I might wet my pants.

Hoche looks over. ‘No. No, no, no. This is your doing, Lance Sparshott, you vile little reprobate.’ She quickens her pace. Time to move.

I ease myself around the platform to the other side of the trunk where a thick rope is swinging slightly in the breeze. The leap of faith. An uncomfortably large distance away, stretched between two trees, is a large net. So there’s me on my ridiculously high platform and then a load of empty space, which I have to cross if I’m going to get away from Hoche and put her out of action.

I turn to see her fingertips appear at the edge of the platform. I hold the rope and try not to think about the huge drop to the ground. If I fall, there’s no way I’m going to make it without breaking most of the bones in my body.

The top of her head appears, and those truly awful eyes. She hisses at me, which I think is alien-speak for ‘I hate you and I’m going to kill you-slash-use your body as a host for my parasitic sporelings.’

I count three breaths. I hear the click of her heel on the wooden ledge. Then I fling myself from the platform.

At first I freefall – down through the air with nothing to hold me back. The feeling is sickening. I brace myself for the kick when the rope I’m clinging to for dear life goes taut. This is the most dangerous moment – the part where I’m most likely to lose my grip and fall. The rope jerks, my hands slip. My body jars at the bounce. I try to grasp the rope tighter, but it slides through my hands, burning my palms. The forward momentum is still swinging me towards the net. I just need to hold on for a second longer. My sore hands reach the end of the rope, as I near the landing net. I have one chance. So I let go and basically fly through the last bit of empty air and crash face first into the net. I manage to grab it with one hand and I try to lock it shut while the rest of my body bounces away from the net and then back towards it again. I get my other hand on to a rope, then a foot. I’ve made it. I hang there for a second, dripping with sweat and relief. There’s no breath left in my body.

But Hoche has grabbed the swinging rope and is strapping herself into the safety harness.

I force myself onwards, climbing the net as quickly as I can, though my whole body wants to give up and die. I only have a few seconds before she jumps.

I slide clumsily on to the platform – I’m not going to be winning any awards for being slick – then I take off my backpack and pull out the can of olive oil.

Hoche jumps at the same moment she clocks the oil. She howls, but it’s too late. I pour it all over the safety net.

When she hits it, she tries to grab on, but her hands just slip off. She bounces back and tries again on the return swing, but her hands are oily now so she has even less success. She’s losing momentum and she can’t get on to the net. She’s stuck and she knows it.

She scream-roars – scroars – like Digger did, only hers is higher pitched so it sounds even more terrible. I put my hands over my ears while I grin at her furious face. The rope is almost out of swing, so she’s just dangling from the harness in the centre point between the trees. She can’t get to either side and she can’t drop down. One of her shoes falls off into the darkness below.

‘You’ll pay for this,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t matter what happens to me. My race is stronger, smarter and better than you in every way. We will dominate this world and you will be forgotten.’

‘I’d love to stop and chat, Miss,’ I say. ‘But if you look to your left, you’ll see that the river is flowing back into Crater Lake, so I’m afraid your precious sporelings aren’t going to be escaping any time soon.’

She turns to see the river surging down to the bottom of the crater, carrying most of the bug-eye workers with it. They’re so weak from the moss-soup and the cold water that they’re not even attempting to climb out, just scrabbling around with panicked looks on their faces. Mak and Adrianne did it.

I climb down from the tree and collapse on the floor.

‘How’s the tunnel blocking going?’ I ask Kat, who runs over and flops down beside me.

‘Chets is nearly finished. He worked out how to operate the digging machinery,’ she says.

‘So he’s digging in reverse?’

‘Yes, and still wearing the sunglasses. He thinks they make him look swag.’ She smiles. ‘Well done, Lance. Your plan worked.’

‘It was all of us,’ I say. ‘That was some epic climbing.’

‘I nearly fell when that black slime started oozing out of him.’ She looks over to where the thing that used to be Digger is glued to the wall, jerking around still trying to get loose. ‘Poor Digger – he looks disgusting.’

‘An abomination,’ I agree.

‘I guess he must have skipped dinner, or maybe because he’s been turned the longest the moss didn’t work so well on him. Do you think if we give him some more water bears he might turn back?’

‘I don’t think there’s any coming back from that,’ I say. ‘But hopefully the others will be OK. Are you up to doing one more job?’

‘Of course.’

‘We’re not safe until we get the word out. Will you take my mobile and climb up to the roof? If you can get reception, phone the police, MI5, the Men in Black and my mum.’

‘I’m on it,’ she says, taking my mobile and running back across the lawn.

I want nothing more than to lie here and fall asleep, but there’s still work to be done, so I force myself to get up.

Without my phone, I’m not sure what time it is exactly, but the crescent moon is high in the sky, and the stars are twinkling. With the floodlights on I can see the lawn and the lake, and they’re buzzing with activity.

I walk over to where Chets is driving the digger, and obviously having the time of his life. He grins at me and gives me a thumbs up.

‘When you’re done,’ I call, dodging out of the way as a pile of earth tumbles out of the scoop, ‘can you go and look for Digger’s keys? If we can get into his office, we might be able to use the phone. I don’t know if Kat’s gonna have any luck getting reception.’

‘He usually keeps them in his pocket,’ he yells.

‘I think his trousers are still mostly intact,’ I say, ‘though I don’t even want to think about what he looks like underneath. The keys might have fallen out when he turned.’

‘If not, I’ll climb up and see if I can get them,’ Chets says.

‘You sure you’re OK with that? He looks pretty scary.’

‘Don’t worry, I can handle it.’

I give him a wave and make my way to the lake. It’s going to take a while to get used to this new Chetan.

The lake is full of bug-eyes splashing about. Adrianne and Big Mak are running around the edges, poking them back in with oars when they get too close to dry land.

‘Hey, Lance!’ Big Mak shouts. ‘We did it!’

‘Woohoo!’ Adrianne punches the air.

‘You guys did amazing,’ I yell. ‘You’re heroes!’

‘You too, mate.’ Big Mak comes running over to me. ‘Some of this lot are turning human, so we can start getting them out.’

‘They’re tired, though. Maybe we could get something to help them, some life-jackets or something?’ Adrianne prods Atul, who definitely still has bug-eyes, deeper into the water.

‘I think there’s a dinghy in the boat shed,’ I say. ‘I saw it when we were hiding in there.’

‘That would be perfect.’

‘I’ll go get it.’ I run around the lake to the pier side, open the door to the boat shed and flick on the light.

I see what I need towards the back of the shed – behind the canoes and oars there are some inflatable rafts. It’s going to be a squeeze to get to them, so I take off my backpack and chuck it on to the pier, then I go for the inflatables, climbing over piles of ropes and oars until I’m at the back of the shed.

Suddenly, the light flickers. My first thought is that the lightbulb must have popped, but I turn on instinct and, in the last flash of light, I see her. Then everything goes black. I crouch down behind the rafts.

‘It’s no good hiding,’ Hoche’s voice hisses from somewhere in the darkness. ‘I can see you.’

I swallow. Damn those bug-eyes.

‘Miss Hoche,’ I say, ‘I thought I left you hanging out by the leap of faith. Get it? Hanging out?’

She doesn’t laugh. ‘I managed to find my way out of your pathetic trap. Anger is a great motivator.’ Her voice is a little closer this time. ‘You should know – a boy like you, full of anger and aggression. If you were going to make it past today, you’d only end up in prison.’

‘You’ve got me all wrong,’ I say, fumbling with the inflatables in front of me. ‘The things I’ve done – trapping Trent in the toilets, everything at Crater Lake – I didn’t do them out of anger. I did them to help my friends.’

‘And now you’ve ruined our plans,’ she says. She must be barely more than a metre away now. ‘My sporelings are destroyed. Soon I’ll be the only one left.’

‘You don’t like soup?’ I say.

‘My human body is allergic to carrots. So I found alternative nourishment.’

‘OK,’ I say. I’m stalling. I need a few seconds more. ‘Firstly, a carrot allergy? That’s random. And, secondly, the way you say “alternative nourishment” sounds totally creepy, like you were eating human entrails or something.’

‘I know what you’re doing,’ she says. She’s so close I can feel her breath on my arm. ‘But there’s no way of getting out of this alive. You’re not clever enough to defeat me.’

‘See, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I say, and I yank the ripcord on the dinghy in front of me. It pops up hard and starts inflating, knocking Hoche back. I hear a crash and a scroar and I run, clambering over the boats towards the light coming in around the edge of the door. I fling it open and run out on to the pier, grabbing my backpack.

There’s a deafening scroar behind me, and Hoche comes running out of the shed.

‘Do you know what, Miss?’ I say, running and trying to open my backpack. ‘I might not be in the top group for maths. I might not be on the football team. I might not have the most house points. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have smarts and it doesn’t mean I don’t have skills.’

I’m at the end of the pier now. I could jump into the lake, but that isn’t going to get this finished.

Hoche slows down to a walk. She knows I’m not going anywhere.

‘Compared to me, you’re nothing, Lance Sparshott. It’s like that ridiculous game you all play – the one with the Geek, the Robot and the Overlord. I’m the Overlord and I was put here to enslave geeks like you.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I say.

‘You’re pointless and weak – the archetypal geek.’

‘Hell, yes, I’m the geek and proud of it,’ I say, taking one more step back. ‘I meant you’re wrong about you.’

She tried to step toward me, but her stupid heel is caught in between the wooden boards of the pier. She wobbles.

‘You’re not the Overlord, you’re the Robot.’

I launch myself at her, and as she opens her mouth to scroar, I stuff in a bunch of moss and hold my hand over her mouth, pushing us both over the edge of the pier. She fights me as we fall, but as we plunge into the water, the shock of the cold makes her gasp. She swallows the moss. I let go of her face and hope I never have to get that close to a teacher again, then I leave her to splutter back to the surface.

I take a breath and swim for the shore.