Higher Institute of Villainous Education (14 page)

An invitation to dinner from Dr Nero was not something that any member of the teaching staff at H.I.V.E. was given the option of refusing. And so it was that the Contessa, Professor Pike and Colonel Francisco were now seated at Dr Nero’s dining-room table talking amongst themselves, awaiting the arrival of their host. Ms Leon was also there, sitting upon a large red velvet cushion on top of a chair that raised her to the level of the table. The room would not have looked out of place in an English country home, and only the lack of windows served as a reminder that they were deep underground. A member of Nero’s personal staff busied himself around the room, bringing in serving dishes and pouring drinks for the Doctor’s guests. After a couple of minutes Nero finally entered the room.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. There were matters that I had to attend to that detained me longer than I anticipated.’ He turned to the white-coated attendant. ‘Ivan, please serve the first course.’

Ivan dutifully began to ladle soup into bowls and served them to the assembled diners, with the exception of Ms Leon who was served finely chopped smoked salmon in a silver bowl.

‘So, how did our new Alphas cope with their first day? I trust that there were no unforeseen difficulties?’ Nero asked his guests.

‘Their performance was as anticipated,’ Francisco replied. ‘You were right about the girl, she showed remarkable proficiency. The others performed as expected – Fanchu and Malpense proved capable, but the rest of the class were typically lacking. It’ll take some time but I’ll get them all up to scratch eventually.’

Nero nodded. ‘Tabitha, any problems?’

Ms Leon looked up from her bowl. ‘No. As you expected, Miss Trinity had not revealed her true identity to her classmates but now, if you’ll excuse the obvious pun, the cat is well and truly out of the bag. I suspect that she is feeling suitably exposed.’

‘Good. It may have been that she would have shared the true details of her past with her companions in time, but I’d rather not delay things any longer than necessary.’ Nero turned to Professor Pike. ‘Professor, did your lesson proceed as planned?’

‘Yes, Malpense performed as predicted, but the Brand girl was more capable than I had expected. It appears that her fundamental understanding of technology is not just limited to computers. I might even use a couple of the alterations that they suggested in the new version of the Poseidon device – power consumption efficiency could be improved by as much as twenty-five per cent. Their innovative use of distributed phase arrays could create a geometrically scaled multiplication in damping resonance by –’

‘Thank you, Professor, perhaps we can go over the finer details later. Did everything else go smoothly?’ Nero asked.

‘Malpense behaved just as you predicted, Doctor.’

‘Excellent.’ Nero had not shared the details of Malpense’s sponsor with the rest of those around the table he had too many unanswered questions of his own to announce Number One’s personal interest in the boy just yet. Thankfully the staff were used to Nero focusing on one or two pupils from every new intake, so they would not consider his interest in the boy to be anything particularly unusual. Ever since Nero had singled Diabolus Darkdoom out for special attention all those years ago the staff had exhibited remarkable faith in his ability to spot potential in this way.

‘If those two are such technical geniuses, perhaps you could enlist their help in trying to return me to my proper shape, Professor. It would seem that you require some assistance.’ Ms Leon made no attempt to hide the note of contempt in her voice.

‘I have told you I’m working on it. This was an unanticipated side effect. It will take time to reverse safely. If you would just submit to a few more tests, I could –’

‘You’ll understand, I’m sure Professor, if I am somewhat reluctant to submit myself to any more of your experimental procedures. Your success rate has been rather disappointing of late. While there is undoubtedly some novelty value to this body I do grow tired of hearing your excuses for your apparent inability to correct your mistakes.’ The fur along Ms Leon’s back bristled slightly as she spoke.

‘I warned you the procedure was experimental, but you insisted –’

‘You told me that it might not work, you did not tell me that there was a chance I would wake up with an irresistible temptation to chase balls of wool around the floor of my quarters. I was promised agility and heightened senses, not hairballs and claws. Perhaps I should find new ways to motivate your efforts.’ Ms Leon raised one of her paws in the air, flexing her razor-sharp claws from their sheaths.

‘Don’t threaten me, Tabitha, or perhaps you’d rather stay as you are –’

‘Enough!’ Nero looked angry. ‘I am tired of listening to you arguing about this. Number One personally instructed the Professor to continue this research, and I can think of no better motivation than the thought of disappointing
him
. Tabitha, I understand your frustration but you must be patient. Your original body is quite safe in the cryogenic chamber, and as soon as the procedure can be reversed it will be. And you, Professor, should redouble your efforts. Number One expects results, not excuses, and you know quite well that he is not a man renowned for his patience.’

The two teachers fell silent. They had learnt long ago not to push their luck with Nero. He was concerned, though, that these clashes were becoming more frequent, and he wondered how much longer he would be able to keep them from each other’s throats. Quite literally, in Ms Leon’s case.

‘What about Darkdoom’s son?’ the Contessa asked. ‘Surely he is worth watching too?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Nero replied. ‘I had hoped that confronting him with a history of his father’s achievements would help motivate him, but he does not strike me as being quite the boy that his father was when he arrived here.’

‘He may just need time to adjust,’ the Contessa replied. ‘I would hate to think that my efforts in
persuading
his mother to let him attend the school were wasted.’

‘I take it that he is not aware of the true circumstances of his father’s death yet?’ the Colonel asked, taking a swig from his glass. The question made the other teachers look uncomfortable.

‘No,’ Nero replied, ‘and I expect you all to ensure that its stays that way. We have quite enough to worry about at the moment as it is.’

.

Chapter Eleven

For Otto and the other students their timetable remained unforgiving over the next couple of months; their new education proceeded at a breakneck pace that showed no sign of letting up any time soon. One moment they would be learning how to crack the latest design of high-security vault, the next they would be studying the logistics of building secret orbital launch facilities. The work was relentless, and there seemed to be little room at H.I.V.E. for those who could not maintain this punishing pace. Otto was finding the work challenging but not impossible, his own strange talents helping him to adapt quickly to this new way of life. The only problems he had were with the Politics and Economics classes, not because they were particularly difficult, but because he found them mind-numbingly dull. Like anyone else he found it hard to excel in subjects that he had little or no interest in. Franz, on the other hand, had displayed a remarkable natural talent for ‘creative’ accountancy – it seemed that he could hide or redistribute money in such a way that even the teachers could not trace what he had done with the fictional funds in their exercises.

Wing too had continued to excel in Tactical Education. Indeed, something of a friendly rivalry had developed between him and Shelby over the course of a few more of the Colonel’s lessons, and their races across the grappler cavern were quickly becoming more and more hair-raising to watch. Shelby had proven to be a quite different person after she had been unmasked so publicly in their first lesson with Ms Leon. Gone was the spoilt brat persona that she had adopted in the first couple of days, replaced instead with a quiet confidence and occasional displays of hilarious but withering sarcasm. Shelby had not forgiven Ms Leon for her announcement of her true identity to the class, and as Otto had watched them verbally sparring over the following weeks he was reminded of two prize fighters circling each other, looking for the opening that would allow one of them to deliver the knockout blow. Otto doubted that Shelby would have been allowed to get away with this if it weren’t for the fact that she performed so brilliantly in the Stealth and Evasion classes. Her professional name had been well earned, since it seemed that she could be as invisible as a ghost when she wanted to be.

Shelby and Laura had also become fast friends, partly due to long late-night conversations in their room and partly due to the fact that Laura had succeeded in persuading Shelby to join their scheme to get off the island. Initially she had been reluctant to join them, insisting that she ‘worked better alone’ but soon she realised, just as Otto had, that escaping would take their combined efforts if it was going to be possible at all.

In fact the only person who seemed to be really struggling to adapt to life at H.I.V.E. was Nigel. For several days it had seemed that each new lesson they attended just made him more miserable, not helped by the fact that all of the teachers seemed to have higher expectations of him than they had of the other students. Otto had lost count of the number of times that he had been picked on by a teacher, singled out to answer a particularly difficult question or had his poor performance compared unfavourably with the past successes of his father. Clearly the Darkdoom name was a burden that he was expected to bear without complaint, but Otto had grave doubts that Nigel was really a suitable candidate for the Alpha stream. The only subject with which he didn’t seem to struggle was Biotechnology, often displaying a depth of knowledge of the subject that had surprised the teachers and even his fellow students. Consequently, the only place where Nigel seemed happy was in the hydroponics lab, where he had quickly become fascinated with the carnivorous plants that H.I.V.E. cultivated for experimental purposes. Otto had accepted an invitation from Nigel to come and feed his charges with him one evening after dinner and he had been struck by the care with which Nigel had fed insects to each of the numerous varieties of plants.

‘I used to tend the gardens with my mother,’ he had explained, ‘this reminds me of home.’

Homesickness was not something that Otto found he suffered from, but in that regard he seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. Laura had been missing her parents particularly badly, refusing to believe that they could possibly have consented to her abduction. She wanted to get home, believing that they would be worried sick by her disappearance and frustrated that she could not reassure them that she was OK. This was just one reason why their ‘extra-curricular’ activities had been proceeding quickly. If they were going to escape, they needed to act fast. The longer they spent on the island, the greater the chance that their efforts would be discovered.

It had not been until the end of their first month at H.I.V.E. that Otto had explained the details of his plan to Wing, Laura and Shelby. The four of them had sat in a quiet corner of the atrium as Otto had explained to them exactly how they were going to escape, his voice low to avoid any chance of being overheard. As Otto had predicted, they had initially greeted his suggestion with open scepticism. Shelby in particular seemed highly dubious that the four of them were capable of doing what Otto was suggesting while still avoiding detection. Otto had been prepared for this and had reassured his three co-conspirators by going through each stage of the plan in detail and providing apparently satisfactory answers to all of their many questions. After a couple of these secretive meetings it seemed that they were all starting to really believe that they could actually pull it off, and Otto turned their attention to solving some of the initial practical problems that had to be overcome before any escape attempt could be mounted.

First he had gone over the list of components that he and Laura would require in order to construct some of the equipment they’d need. Otto thought that he could smuggle some of the more common items out of Practical Technology lessons himself. Professor Pike was not, after all, renowned for keeping a particularly close eye on the students during his lessons. Some of the more exotic components, however, would be rather more difficult for them to lay their hands on. He knew where some of them could be acquired, but the security around them might be tight. He had discussed these items with Shelby and she had, after a couple of days of discreet investigation, assured him that she could get them what they needed without being detected. It was Otto’s turn to be sceptical then – he knew that she was uniquely gifted when it came to acquiring hard-to-reach items, but this would be a real test of her prowess.

It was no small surprise, then, when after only a couple of days Shelby had walked into Otto and Wing’s quarters and carefully laid out on the bed every single item on the list. Otto made a mental note that he would remember in future to have more faith in her abilities. That had been the cue for Otto and Laura to start work on assembling these components into something they could use. Otto was ninety-nine per cent certain, after searching every inch of their rooms, that there was no surveillance of the students in their quarters, and so they had decided to use their bathrooms as makeshift workshops for this purpose. The way he saw it, if they were being watched as they worked on these unapproved science projects then they would doubtless find out soon enough. The fact that they had eventually completed their work without the ever-present guards breaking down their bathroom doors suggested that their activities had thankfully remained undetected.

And so it was, as they approached the end of November, that they were finally ready to put their plan into action. There were still elements of the scheme that worried Otto, places where they might have to rely rather too much on luck for his liking, but they could not afford to sit around worrying. They finally settled on a date for their attempt and, as the fateful day drew nearer, Otto could not help but feel nervous and a little excited. There was no doubt that H.I.V.E. was a unique establishment, and much of what they’d studied he’d found fascinating, but he still felt like a laboratory rat in a maze. Secretly he feared that if he stayed much longer he might start to enjoy his studies rather too much, which would only make it that much harder to leave. There was a nagging voice at the back of his mind that kept asking what exactly it was that he was so keen to get back to. The orphanage may have been his home for years, but he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he would, and it wasn’t as if he could spend the rest of his life there. The louder this voice got the more determined Otto became that he had to leave now before these doubts became impossible to ignore.

‘So, with such a potent combination of natural neurotoxins it is easy to see why this particular family of plants has so much potential. Full-scale cultivation may even –’

MWAH, MWAAAAH, MWAH!!!!

The school bell echoed around the hydroponics dome, drowning out the final words of Ms Gonzales’s Biotechnology lesson. As everyone started to pack their bags she raised her voice.

‘Remember I want you all to complete an essay on the genetic manipulation of growth characteristics in complex plants for next week’s lesson.’

Otto couldn’t help but smile to himself. If all went to plan tonight he wouldn’t have to worry about that particular piece of homework. Wing caught sight of Otto’s expression and grinned.

‘Perhaps we should post our essays to her,’ he said quietly.

‘We could if we had an address to send them to,’ Otto replied, and, noticing Nigel approaching, quickly placed a finger to his lips, silencing Wing.

‘Hi guys.’ Nigel seemed unusually cheerful. ‘Are you going straight to lunch or have you got a couple of minutes to have a look at something I’ve been working on?’

Otto swung his backpack on to his shoulder. ‘I’m in no hurry to get to lunch. Let’s see what the mysterious Darkdoom has been up to his in lab.’

Nigel smiled happily at Otto. ‘Cool. Do you want to come too, Wing?’

‘Certainly, though I don’t mind telling you that I find those insect-eating plants of yours rather unsettling.’ Wing wasn’t joking. He didn’t like the way that an apparently innocent-looking plant could hide the fact that it was a killer, even if it did only murder bugs.

‘Oh, this is much better than them, trust me,’ Nigel replied, sounding strangely proud. ‘Come on.’ He beckoned for Otto and Wing to follow him up a nearby flight of stairs.

They passed through an airtight door and down a long gantry that hung above the steaming tropical environment that was artificially maintained in this part of the dome. Eventually they came to a door which Nigel opened to reveal a small room with glass walls that looked out on the carefully cultivated jungle below. In the centre of the one workbench in the tiny room was a large cube-shaped object covered with a black cloth.

‘Please speak quietly – she’s very sensitive to sound,’ Nigel whispered.

Wing glanced at Otto as Nigel turned to the cloth-covered object, a look of confused curiosity on his face. Otto gave a small shrug in reply. It had been a couple of weeks since Nigel had excitedly announced that Ms Gonzales was letting him use one of the spare rooms in the hydroponics dome to conduct extra research. Otto remembered feeling pleased that Nigel had found something to interest him at H.I.V.E., especially given his dismal performance in their other classes. Now it seemed that they were finally going to get to see what he’d been doing in this tiny little room.

‘Here, come closer,’ Nigel instructed, and Otto and Wing obediently crowded round the mysterious cube.

‘Gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to Violet.’ Nigel pulled the cover from the cube with a flourish to reveal a glass tank containing the strangest plant that either of them had ever seen. It looked like a single Venus flytrap at the end of a fifteen-centimetrelong stem, but it had long sharp thorns in its mouth rather than the soft flexible fronds that made up the normal plant’s ‘teeth’. Arranged around the base of the stem were prickly leaves and long tendrils that occasionally waved around in the air, as if seeking prey. Nigel seemed delighted by the amazed looks on Otto and Wing’s faces.

‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ Nigel sighed. ‘It’s taken me ages to sequence the right characteristics from my other plants, but she’s been worth all the work.’ He popped open a plastic box on the workbench and pulled out a long fat earthworm. ‘Watch this.’

Nigel dropped the earthworm on the soil near the base of the plant; Violet’s reaction was swift and violent. The tendrils at the plant’s base snaked out, gripping the worm as the toothed jaw bent down on its flexible stem with startling speed, snatching up the helpless creature, devouring it in seconds. Wing’s expression turned to fascinated revulsion.

‘That is truly one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen,’ he said softly. ‘How did you create this thing?’