Higher Institute of Villainous Education (16 page)

‘Gonna leave you a greasy spot on the floor, Maggot,’ Block growled as he approached. Otto had nowhere to run.

Well, I’m going to go out fighting, Otto thought to himself, adopting the same fighting stance that Wing had used a few seconds earlier. He hoped desperately that Tackle and Block might not realise that he didn’t have the first clue how to defend himself in the same way Wing had.

Suddenly Block and Tackle’s eyes widened in terror. Block dropped the pipe to the floor with a clatter and backed away, hand raised defensively before him.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me, oh God!’ Block squealed pathetically. He turned and fled back up the corridor.

‘We were only messing around, we weren’t really gonna hurt anyone,’ Tackle squeaked, dropping the knife and racing down the corridor in pursuit of his friend. Otto was astonished. Had he really presented that fierce a challenge?

What Otto had not seen as the two henchmen approached him was the black-clad figure that unfolded itself from the shadows in the roof of the corridor and dropped soundlessly to the floor behind him. With one hand it pulled one of the katanas it wore strapped to its back just slightly out of the sheath, the blade glinting in the lights of the corridor. The other hand it raised towards Block and Tackle, wagging its finger ‘no’. Their reaction to seeing Raven, the most feared assassin in the school, apparently personally protecting Otto, was entirely predictable. Otto, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea she had even been there as she vanished back into the shadows as quickly and silently as she had appeared.

Otto ran over to where Wing was lying, relieved to see as he got closer that he was coming round, shaking his head as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

‘Are you OK?’ Otto asked urgently.

‘I’ll live.’ Wing looked up the corridor just in time to see the fleeing figures of Block and Tackle round a bend in the corridor and disappear from view. He clasped a hand to his forehead, wincing.

‘I’m so sorry, Wing. Are you sure you’re OK?’ Otto felt terrible about hurting him.

‘It’s OK, Otto. You were trying to help.’ Wing smiled at him. ‘Besides, I’ve survived much worse, believe me. What did you do to those two?’ Wing jerked his thumb towards the corridor that Block and Tackle had fled along.

Otto helped Wing to his feet and gave him a puzzled smile. ‘You know what? I haven’t the faintest idea.’

Otto felt suitably guilty as he accompanied Wing to the infirmary to have the bump on his head checked. Wing repeatedly insisted that he was fine and that he didn’t need to be looked over by the doctor but Otto insisted. The doctor greeted their explanation that Wing had tripped over and hit his head on a desk with predictable cynicism, but thankfully didn’t press them for more details of how the injury had been sustained and assured Wing that he would be fine barring a slight headache.

After leaving the infirmary they headed back to the accommodation block, where they found Shelby and Laura talking on one of the sofas in the atrium.

‘Where have you two been? We were starting to get worried,’ Laura asked.

Otto explained about their impromptu rendezvous with Block and Tackle, and the girls’ initial sympathy for the injured Wing was soon replaced by taunting Otto about the ‘help’ he had offered during the fight.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Shelby said, grinning, ‘Wing has basically subdued both of them and then you make your first contribution to the battle by knocking him unconscious.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Otto mumbled, feeling about three inches tall.

‘Otto’s assistance was welcome, if somewhat misdirected,’ Wing replied with a wry smile on his face.

‘I’ll have to remember that for the future. When in a life or death battle, be sure to club unconscious everyone on your side as early on in the fight as possible,’ Laura laughed.

‘Yeah, especially if they’re all that stands between you and the beating of a lifetime.’ Shelby was enjoying Otto’s discomfort a great deal apparently.

‘I still do not understand why they fled,’ Wing replied, looking thoughtful.

‘Otto must have really frightened them,’ Laura said. She managed to keep a straight face for at least two seconds before she and Shelby burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

This is going to be a long evening, Otto thought to himself. He had to admit it was odd, though. He still wasn’t sure himself what it was that he’d done to make them run away. He knew though that seeking the pair of them out and asking them what it was that had scared them so much would not be a particularly good idea right now.

‘Whatever it was that caused them to flee I am glad that they did. The whole situation might have been resolved somewhat more unpleasantly if they had not. I do not believe they wanted to leave us with just a few bruises – they had murder in their eyes.’ Wing seemed suddenly serious. Otto knew what he meant – the most frightening thing about the fight had been the look on Block and Tackle’s faces as they had advanced towards him after Wing had gone down. He had felt with a dread certainty that they were going to seriously hurt, perhaps even kill him. He would not underestimate their capacity for violence in future.

When she and Laura had finally stopped laughing Shelby looked over at Wing with concern, her voice low as she spoke.

‘So are you going to be OK for tonight?’ She asked.

‘I’ll be fine,’ he grinned again, ‘though I strongly recommend not turning your back on Otto at any point.’

A very long evening indeed, thought Otto.

Nigel was worried. Violet was growing much more quickly than he had anticipated and she was becoming rather hard to handle. The last time he’d fed her she’d bitten his finger and drawn blood. It wasn’t so much the minor injury that bothered him, but the way she had been driven frantic by the tiny taste she’d received of the dark crimson liquid. It was at that point he’d decided the pipe that would feed her regular doses of a growth-inhibiting agent, which he’d smuggled out of Ms Gonzales’s lab, needed to be placed near her roots. That should at least ensure that she would not grow any more for now. He’d have to address what he was going to do about her violent tendencies tomorrow, though he wasn’t entirely sure how one controlled aggression in plants. He might, he realised, have to ask Ms Gonzales for help after all.

He held a cockroach out to Violet, clasped in the jaws of a long pair of forceps. The plant didn’t seem at all interested in the bug she was being offered. Instead, the long tendrils curled up the forceps towards his hand in a most unsettling way. He pulled the forceps from the tendrils, trying carefully not to snap any of them. Their grip was surprisingly strong. The cockroach lay near Violet’s base, ignored and untouched. If she was off her food as well, Nigel feared that there might be something seriously wrong with her. He sat staring into the tank, an anxious expression on his face.

‘What am I going to do with you?’ he sighed, placing his hand on the glass.

Otto sat on his bed reading a biography of Diabolus Darkdoom that he had borrowed from the school library. Nigel’s father had led an eventful life, each scheme that he planned more daring and audacious than the last. Otto had just reached the section that dealt with Darkdoom’s plan to steal the Eiffel Tower when Wing walked out of the bathroom wearing just his boxer shorts and a vest. It was not the first time that Otto had seen the array of scars that seemed to cover Wing’s body, but he had still not plucked up the courage to ask Wing how he had ended up so marked. He supposed that Wing would tell him himself when he felt the time was right. He also noted that Wing was still wearing the small amulet on a chain around his neck that, as far as Otto knew, he never took off. The amulet was in the shape of a white comma with a tiny black circle in the centre of its head. Otto had resisted the urge to ask about this object too, but now, as they prepared to leave the school, he realised that he may not get the opportunity again. Wing looked up and noticed the curious expression on Otto’s face.

‘Is there something you want to know, Otto?’ he asked, sitting down on his own bed.

‘Yes . . . I don’t mean to pry, so feel free to tell me to mind my own business if you like, but I was wondering what that was.’ Otto pointed at the symbol resting on Wing’s chest.

‘This?’ Wing took hold of the amulet.

‘Yes, but I’m just being nosy, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,’ Otto replied, hoping that Wing would tell him anyway.

Wing looked suddenly sad, staring at the symbol resting in his palm.

‘It belonged to my mother,’ he began, his voice quiet. ‘She gave it to me just before she died. This is yang, it is one half of the symbol that represents yin and yang. It also represents everything that my mother believed in, that there are two opposing forces which are always active in the universe. Yin exists in yang and yang exists in yin. They symbolise the changing combination of positive and negative, light and dark, good and evil which keeps the world spinning and creates chi – the life-giving force. When she gave it to me she told me that the dark spot at the centre of yang’s whiteness should remind me that the seed of evil always lies within the heart of goodness, and that conversely yin shows that even the blackest, most evil soul has within it the potential for good.’ He fell silent, staring at the amulet in his hand.

‘I’m sorry, Wing, I didn’t mean to dredge up bad memories for you. I didn’t realise it belonged to your mum.’ Otto felt awful. In the space of a couple of hours he’d managed to inflict physical and now emotional pain on his best friend.

‘You do not need to apologise. My memories of my mother are happy ones. I miss her, of course, but somehow I feel that she still watches over me.’ Wing smiled at Otto.

‘What about the other half of the amulet?’ Otto asked. ‘Has your father got it?’

‘No, the other half was lost. I should like very much to find it one day, it would resolve many unanswered questions.’ Otto noticed a sudden cold, hard look in Wing’s eyes and decided it would be best to not press the matter any further.

‘Well, once you’re dressed we need to do a final equipment check,’ Otto said. ‘We need to get out of here before our yangs turn into yins.’ He was relieved to see Wing smile at this and tuck the amulet back inside his vest.

.

Chapter Twelve

Otto checked his watch again for what must have been the twentieth time in the last ten minutes. Five minutes to go – he’d better wake up Wing. He walked over to him and gently shook his shoulder, ‘Wing, wake up. It’s nearly time.’

Wing opened his eyes and did his usual slightly unnerving trick of going from an apparently deep sleep to fully awake and alert in a split second.

‘Good, is everything ready?’ Wing asked.

‘Yes, we’re good to go. We’d better get in position.’ Otto swung his backpack on to his back – it wasn’t too heavy since Wing had insisted on carrying the bulkiest piece of equipment.

‘I hope Shelby and Laura are ready.’ Wing looked worried.

‘Don’t worry. I’m fairly sure you’re the only one of the four of us who got any sleep tonight,’ Otto replied, smiling. He’d be very surprised if the two girls hadn’t been doing exactly the same thing as Otto, pacing around their room willing the second hands on their watches to sweep round the dial just a little more quickly.

Wing nodded and walked over to the wardrobe on his side of the room. Otto followed suit, opening the door of his own wardrobe. The cramped space was empty, since Otto was wearing the uniform that would normally be hanging there.

‘You are sure about this, aren’t you?’ Wing asked, eyeing his own empty wardrobe with suspicion.

‘If I’m wrong this will be the shortest and least impressive escape attempt in human history,’ Otto replied with a weak smile. ‘Come on, two minutes to go. Get in.’

Wing looked around their room one last time and stepped into the wardrobe, having to duck slightly to fit into the cramped space. Otto stepped into his own wardrobe and turned to face into the room.

‘See you on the other side,’ Otto said with what he hoped was a note of confidence.

‘Good luck,’ Wing replied and closed the door of his own wardrobe.

Otto pulled his wardrobe door shut, plunging the small space into darkness. For the past few weeks he had lain awake in bed in the early hours of the morning, straining to hear any sound coming from their apparently magical wardrobes. Eventually he’d heard it, at two o’clock in the morning, a click and a whirring sound from both wardrobes, almost inaudible but, it soon became apparent, regular as clockwork. He had even sat by the wardrobe one night and tried to pull it open as soon as he heard the noise, but the door had refused to budge. Once he heard a second tiny clicking sound he’d managed to pull the door open again and had found a clean uniform hanging there, just as he did every morning. Something happened in the wardrobe during those few seconds that the doors were locked and Otto knew that it could be their key to getting out of their rooms undetected.

Now as he stood in the small, dark space he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a mistake. The blueprints he’d seen of H.I.V.E. on Professor Pike’s desk hadn’t covered the accommodation blocks, so there was no way of knowing exactly what would happen next. When he had first explained this stage of the plan to his three coconspirators they had looked at him, perhaps understandably, as if he was mad. Laura had listened carefully to his proposal and declared that it sounded like a good plan, but only if they intended to escape H.I.V.E. via Narnia. Otto had assured her that his plan didn’t involve any trips to snowy forests populated by overfriendly fawns, and besides he didn’t even like Turkish Delight. All joking aside, this was probably going to be something of a magical mystery tour for all of them. Otto knew there had to be less then a minute to go until they’d know for sure. His breathing sounded awfully loud in the confined space, and it seemed to him that time was passing very slowly indeed. Just as he had convinced himself that this wasn’t going to work and that they’d fallen at the first hurdle, there was a soft click in the darkness.

Otto felt the whole rear section of the wardrobe tip backwards, slowly lowering to a horizontal position until he found himself lying on his back. He lay looking up at a rocky ceiling, just a few feet above him, which was lit by a dull red light. He poked his head up just in time to see a duplicate of the open box that he now lay in being raised into position and snapping into place against the back of the wardrobe doors. Otto had no doubt that a freshly laundered uniform would now be hanging in the space that up until a few seconds ago he himself had been occupying. Without warning the wardrobe he was lying in started to move, and Otto twisted round to see a curved track running along the floor of the passage ahead of him, eventually disappearing round a bend.

‘Well, we’re along for the ride now,’ he said to himself quietly. Thanks to the crimson light it was rather like sitting in a mine cart that was descending into the bowels of hell; or an open coffin, the darker side of his brain responded. As the wardrobe followed the track round the bend he could see that he was coming to a more brightly lit area up ahead. Otto lay flat in the wardrobe – he wasn’t sure if there would be any people in this new area but it would be best to stay out of sight, just in case.

The wardrobe soon passed through the opening and into a steam-filled cavern which echoed with the sounds of machinery. Otto listened carefully for a few seconds. The environment was noisy, but he couldn’t hear the sound of human voices and he decided that it should be safe to have a quick look around. He slowly raised himself up and peeked over the edge of the wardrobe.

It was fortunate that Otto did not suffer from vertigo. The rail along which the wardrobe was proceeding hung suspended fifty metres up in the air, and Otto could barely see the rough rock floor below through the clouds of steam. The rail ahead curved down towards a central suspended track where dozens of rails identical to the one Otto was travelling along converged, the wardrobes that they carried slotting neatly together to form a long train. This central track disappeared into the clouds of steam ahead, its ultimate destination hidden from view.

Otto noticed a movement to his right and saw Wing’s head poking up from a wardrobe that was running along a parallel rail a few metres away.

‘Wing,’ Otto whispered urgently, and Wing turned to look at him, a broad grin on his face. ‘I told you it would be OK.’

‘Where are we being taken?’ Wing asked as their carriages continued their steady progress along the rails. He was peering into the clouds of steam ahead, trying to make out any details of where they were heading.

‘The laundry facility presumably, and from there I can get us almost anywhere,’ Otto replied. ‘Keep an eye out for the girls.’ There was still no sign of Shelby or Laura, and Otto hoped that they too lay unseen on one of the many rails that were carrying the wardrobes down to the long train below. There was still no sign of any other human activity anywhere that Otto could see – fortunately for them this whole process was automated. More to the point, no security cameras would work in this environment, the steam that hung in the air would render any surveillance equipment useless.

Otto’s wardrobe tipped at a slight angle as it headed down the last few metres of the rail before it joined the train of identical ‘carriages’ on the central track. The wardrobe attached itself to the rear of the line and continued to rumble forwards. He turned and looked backwards to see Wing joining the train – there were several empty carriages between them.

‘Look!’ Wing cried, pointing up to a rail behind them, Laura could be seen sitting in another carriage, heading down towards the central track. She was going to join the train about fifty metres behind them. Wing waved frantically and Laura, catching sight of them for the first time, waved back. She turned to one side and seemed to say something, at which point Shelby’s head popped up from another nearby carriage and she too waved happily at them.

The steam ahead of Otto’s carriage was becoming thicker and it was becoming harder and harder to make out any details of their surroundings. Otto was starting to sweat – the temperature was rising and the humidity was oppressive. Suddenly the train passed through an opening in the wall of the cavern and into a new area filled with the noise of heavy machinery. The air was slightly clearer here, thanks to huge fans in the cavern ceiling that were sucking away the worst of the steam, and Otto could make out dozens of pieces of heavy machinery that appeared to be constantly active on the cavern floor below. Long racks of H.I.V.E. uniforms of every size and colour were being continuously fed into these machines, whisked automatically along rails from one device to another.

A movement on the track ahead of them caught Otto’s eye and he watched as the wardrobe twenty metres ahead of his own rotated around the rail until it was hanging inverted from the underside of the track, the uniform that had been resting inside it falling into a huge pool of boiling water below. The tank of foaming, steaming water was the size of an Olympic swimming pool and was filled with floating uniforms that were being constantly stirred by several enormous metal paddles. As Otto watched, the next carriage repeated the procedure, again dropping the dirty uniform within into the pool below. Otto realised with horror that he only had a few seconds before his own carriage followed the same procedure and unceremoniously dumped him into the boiling water. He looked around frantically – he might be able to jump to the carriage behind him but that would just be delaying the inevitable, and besides it was an awfully long way down. Otto looked ahead again. There were only two carriages left between him and the drop-off point – he was running out of time. He moved to one side of the carriage, and swung his leg over the side; his only hope was to try to climb around the side of it as it rotated. He looked backwards and saw that Wing was reaching exactly the same conclusion, a look of concentration on his face as he prepared for his carriage to upend itself. He tried shouting a warning to the girls behind them but he could not make himself heard over the noise of the machines below. They just waved back, unsure what the two boys were doing.

Otto took a firm grip of the side of the carriage and swung his other leg over the side, lowering himself carefully so that he was hanging from the side, his arms protesting at having to support his full weight. The carriage in front of Otto’s tipped over, continuing on its way, hanging upside down from the rail, and Otto suddenly felt his own carriage start to tip as he clung on for dear life. As the other side of the carriage fell away the side that Otto was hanging on to raised up into the air, the bottom corner of the carriage biting into his arms painfully as he was pulled upwards. His feet struggled for a purchase on the smooth underside of the carriage and he could feel his tenuous grip on the side panel slipping. Just as he thought he couldn’t hold on any longer, the carriage passed the halfway point of its rotation and Otto could feel what had been the underside of the carriage until a few moments ago taking more of his weight, relieving some of the strain on his arms. A second later he was lying panting on the underside of the carriage as it continued on its way, oblivious to the presence of this unauthorised passenger. Otto could see the rail clearly now, passing through a long thin box on the underside of the carriage, presumably propelled by some form of magnetic induction.

Otto looked back and was relieved to see that Wing too had managed to clamber on to the top of his own inverted carriage.

‘Are you OK?’ Wing asked.

‘Yeah . . . where are Shelby and Laura?’ Otto hoped that they had seen the frantic scramble.

Behind them the two girls had seen exactly what had happened to Wing and Otto’s carriages and they too were preparing to try and avoid a brief, terminal swim in the bubbling pool below. Otto wasn’t worried about Shelby he knew that she, like Wing, found these sorts of acrobatics second nature – but he didn’t know if Laura would find it as straightforward. As her carriage approached the point in the track where it would rotate, Wing gave her a thumbs-up, to which she responded with a weak smile. She looked frightened, and Otto didn’t blame her. She copied what she had already seen Wing and Otto do and hung on to one side of the carriage as it started to tip over, frantically scrabbling for grip as it rotated beneath her. Just as it looked like she had completed the tricky manoeuvre successfully, she slipped on the slick condensation that had formed on the carriage. Otto and Wing gasped in unison as she lost her balance and toppled over the side of the carriage, arms flailing.

Shelby was already in the air, slamming on to Laura’s carriage. She landed flat on her front, one hand shooting out and catching Laura’s flailing wrist, the other latching on to the box which the rail passed through. She grimaced in pain, her arms feeling as if they were being torn from their sockets.

‘Hold on,’ she instructed Laura through gritted teeth, struggling to support the other girl’s full weight, feeling her grip weakening.

Seeing the desperate look on Shelby’s face Wing acted without hesitation. He sprang from one carriage to the next, almost at a run, closing the distance between the struggling girls and himself in seconds. He dropped on to Laura’s carriage, desperately stretching his hand out for hers.

‘Grab on to me, Laura,’ he shouted. From the look of pain on Shelby’s face Otto knew that her own grip on Laura could not last much longer. Laura reached out with her free arm, straining to reach Wing’s outstretched hand, her fingertips just a few centimetres from his.

‘I can’t reach you,’ she cried, a look of frightened panic on her face.

‘I can’t hold her much longer,’ Shelby gasped. Her own grip on the carriage was slipping.

‘You’ll have to try to swing her towards me, Shelby,’ Wing said. Shelby nodded slightly and summoned the last of her strength to swing Laura towards Wing’s outstretched hand, yelling out in pain at the effort while far below the boiling pool bubbled viciously.