Higher Institute of Villainous Education (22 page)

Dangling from the ceiling by one arm he struggled to pull the sleepers from the pack on his back. He placed the first weapon carefully in the hollow in the rock, praying that his alterations would work as planned. He worked fast, pulling the remaining three sleepers from his bag and placing them side by side in the small hole. He paused for a moment and looked at the four guns lying there. Would it be enough? He forced the question from his mind. If the modification he had made did not work as planned it was too late to do anything about it now. He reached out and pulled the trigger on the first sleeper. Nothing happened. He pulled the trigger again – still nothing. What had he missed? Just as Otto began to panic he heard a slight whining noise which began to gradually increase in volume. It was working! He quickly pulled the triggers on the other three sleepers and thumbed the switch on the grappler which would reel him down. He knew he only had a minute or so to get clear.

Otto caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and suddenly felt a blinding pain in his ankle. He looked down and saw a thin tendril wrapped around his left foot, its grip still tightening. He gasped in pain as the tendril pulled hard on his leg, dragging him down towards the creature’s gaping mouth, just twenty metres below. He locked the grappler holding him to the ceiling, trying to stop his descent towards certain death, the mechanism on the back of the device screeching in protest as the vine continued to pull him inexorably downwards. Otto yelled out in pain – it felt as if he was going to be torn in two. He gritted his teeth and pointed the grappler on his free hand downwards, aiming carefully. If he missed this shot he wouldn’t get another. He squeezed the trigger and the silver bolt shot from the grappler, straight at the slimy green tentacle attached to his leg. The bolt went straight through the tendril in an explosion of green slime and he instantly felt it release its grip on his ankle, recoiling back towards the cavern floor. Otto hit the bolt release, praying that the line would not get tangled in the flailing vines below. He watched helplessly as the line reeled in and felt a flood of relief as the bolt snapped back into place on his wrist, its silver tip covered in a thin layer of the creature’s emerald blood. Otto fired the grappler again at a distant point on the ceiling. The length of the line would send him swinging dangerously close to the cavern floor, but he knew he had to get as far away from the centre of the cavern as he could.

He released the other grappler and swung downwards at terrifying speed towards the tendril-covered floor below. As he swung low over the writhing green mass, tendrils snaked upwards, reaching for him. A couple got close but he was moving too fast now and they flailed uselessly at the empty air as he rocketed past, now swinging upwards again towards the platform crawling with tentacles.

THOOM!!

Behind Otto all four sleepers overloaded at once. The massive sonic shockwave tore through the hanging forest of stalactites, shattering their centuries-old grip on the cavern ceiling. The creature gave a final thunderous screeching roar as tens of thousands of tons of rock gave in to the pull of gravity and smashed into the floor below, crushing the bloated head and its vulnerable nerve sacs to pulp, burying the monster for ever.

The shockwave hit Otto in the back like a charging rhino, knocking the wind from him and snapping his grappler line. He seemed to fly through the air for a moment before he smashed into the suspended walkway with a bone-crunching impact. Stunned, Otto lay on the walkway, amidst the twitching tendrils, harmless now that the creature was dead. He rolled over and forced himself up into a sitting position, surveying the enormous mountain of rubble that filled the centre of the cavern, now partially obscured by the thick clouds of dust that hung in the air.

‘You’re compost, pal,’ he muttered to himself, chuckling despite the pain in his ribs. As he struggled to his feet his whole body protested. The adrenaline rush he had been feeling ebbed away to be replaced by fresh aches. His whole body felt like one big bruise.

Suddenly the platform lurched beneath his feet. The shockwave had not only loosened the huge stalactites’ grip on the ceiling, it had also loosened the fixings that secured the walkway to the wall. With a screech of tearing metal the walkway began to collapse. Otto ran for the doorway in the rock wall, every muscle protesting.

He was only a couple of metres from safety when the whole walkway collapsed, tearing away from the wall with a horrendous screeching noise.

Otto dived forwards as the floor fell away beneath his feet. He slammed into the edge of the corridor, dangling over the lethal drop to the cavern floor, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the rough rock wall. It was no good – he slipped and fell, just catching the edge of the walkway with his fingertips. He tried desperately to pull himself up, but the toll that the past few hours had taken on his body was too great – he felt his tenuous grip slipping. He closed his eyes. He wasn’t scared, just angry that he had made it this far only to fail at the end. Just as he felt that finally, inevitably, he was going to fall, a hand closed on his wrist, its grip like iron. He looked upwards.

‘You don’t get rid of me that easily, kid.’ Raven’s face, streaked with the creature’s green blood, smiled back down at him.

.

Chapter Sixteen

Laura slowly opened her eyes. The tendrils that had smashed through the door just seconds before lay convulsing harmlessly on the floor. She looked across the room at Nigel and Shelby, their own expressions of astonishment matching her own. Stepping cautiously over the fallen tendrils, she poked her head through the ruined doorway. All over the cavern the tendrils lay motionless, giving no hint of their previous murderous intent. Shelby and Nigel followed her out on to the balcony, gaping in disbelief at the piles of dead vines.

‘What happened?’ Shelby said quietly as more doors began to hiss open around the cavern.

‘Divine intervention?’ Laura replied.

‘They must have destroyed the nerve clusters,’ Nigel said quietly.

‘Oh, who cares,’ Shelby grinned, ‘as long as we don’t have to clear it up.’

They headed off down the balcony towards the stairs, picking their way through the dead vines.

Back in the room a small voice came from behind the bathroom door.

‘Hello? Hello? Is anybody being there?’

‘Max . . . Max, can you hear me?’ Raven gently stroked Nero’s cheek. He was still worryingly pale. His eyes flickered open.

‘Natalya,’ he whispered, his voice croaky. ‘The school?’

‘It’s over, Max. The creature is dead and the school is safe.’ She smiled. ‘I think we might need a new hydroponics facility, though.’

‘Well done. I knew you could do it,’ Nero replied with a smile.

‘Actually, it wasn’t me, I was . . . occupied elsewhere. It was Malpense. He carried out the plan himself. It worked, Max.’

‘Malpense?’ Nero’s surprise was obvious. ‘Where is he? I want to thank him.’

‘I’ll get him for you, he’s just over there . . .’ Raven’s voice trailed off.

‘What is it, Natalya?’ Nero asked urgently.

Otto and Wing were gone.

Otto and Wing ran across the gantry towards the helicopter sitting ready on the crater landing pad. Otto had heard Nero give the emergency evacuation orders and had hoped that it would mean that the way to the landing pad was clear. Just as he’d expected, there were no guards anywhere to be seen. They were too busy dealing with the chaos elsewhere in the school. He looked upwards. The crater was open and for the first time in months he saw clear blue sky. It was a strangely moving sight.

Suddenly Wing slowed, coming to a halt halfway across the gantry, still clutching his injured wrist.

‘Come on, Wing, this is our chance. I can fly that thing, trust me.’

‘Otto,’ Wing replied, looking down at the floor, ‘I can’t leave.’

Otto stared at his friend in amazement.

‘What do you mean, you can’t leave? What was last night about? This could be our only chance.’ Otto didn’t understand. What had happened to Wing?

‘I tried to tell you earlier. It’s Nero.’

‘What about him?’ Otto was getting annoyed – they didn’t have time for this.

‘When he was injured I saw something. He was wearing the other half of my mother’s amulet.’

Otto suddenly understood Wing’s tortured expression. ‘I thought you said it was lost?’ he said quietly.

‘It was, until today. I have to know where he got it from . . . I have to know if he took it from my mother.’

‘Wing, I understand, I really do, but this might be our only chance to get off this rock. Is it really that important to you?’

Wing looked up at Otto, his eyes filled with sadness. ‘Yes . . . it is. I cannot leave.’

Otto felt his anger flare. ‘Fine. You can stay here because of a piece of jewellery if you want, but I’m leaving.’ He started walking towards the helicopter.

‘Otto, please, I need your help. You have been a great friend to me and I am not sure I can survive here alone. I know I can defend myself physically, but mentally, I just don’t have your strength. Without you I fear that the darkness in this place will consume me.’

Otto stopped, his hand on the helicopter door handle. He had never had a friend like Wing before. Always too busy trying to outwit everyone around him, he’d never had the time or the inclination to worry about his own loneliness. But something inside him had changed. Wing had risked his life for him without hesitation, and now Otto was going to repay him by just abandoning him here. He thought about Laura and Shelby, how he had promised them that he would get them out of here, away from H.I.V.E. Could he just leave them all behind? He heard Nero’s words from earlier that day echoing in his mind.

‘Where exactly did you think you were going?’ Otto whispered to himself.

He took his hand from the door handle and turned to face Wing, a half smile on his face.

‘We’re going to have to do something about that snoring.’

Nero sat at his desk surveying the latest damage reports. It had taken several weeks to clear the school of the remains of Nigel Darkdoom’s mutated science project and his engineers had informed him that the new hydroponics dome would take months to complete. The chief had also told him that six of his guards had lost their lives in the battle against the creature and Nero had given him strict instructions that their dependents, if they had any, were to be discreetly given any support that H.I.V.E. could offer. Miraculously none of the students had been seriously injured. There were a couple of broken bones, some cuts and bruises, but nothing more. It could have been much worse.

Normally he would have punished the four students who had attempted to escape, but given their heroism during the crisis he had taken no action against them. Malpense in particular had shown unusual courage. There was no doubt that the boy showed extraordinary potential, if they could actually manage to keep him on the island for the next six years. Nero had summoned Malpense to his office shortly after the crisis and had thanked him for his extraordinary efforts to save the school. He’d also told him that he didn’t want to hear about any more escape plans being made.

Malpense had looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘Don’t worry, Doctor. You won’t hear about them.’

Nero had also given strict instructions that no one who knew what had happened was to discuss Nigel Darkdoom’s part in creating the monster that had so nearly destroyed the school. A couple of members of staff and the chief of security had requested that the boy be expelled for his part in the disaster but Nero had dismissed their demands. If anything, it showed that the Darkdoom boy had a great deal of untapped potential indeed, in the right circumstances the creature he had created might even have been useful. The boy had more of his father in him than he realised.

At precisely the appointed time the video screen on the wall flickered into life. Number One sat hidden in shadow as usual. Nero had not spoken to him since the crisis and, while he had submitted reports on the incident to their anonymous leader, he was not sure what Number One’s reaction would be. Nero had not been looking forward to the conversation.

‘Good morning, Maximilian. You have had an interesting couple of weeks, I see,’ the shadowy figure said.

‘Yes, sir. It was a regrettable incident, but the school is now virtually returned to normal.’

‘So I see from your status reports. I also see that the Malpense boy should take most of the credit for defusing the situation.’

Nero knew that the reports he had sent were largely accurate, but he doubted that Number One knew just how close they had come to total disaster.

‘Yes sir, he showed remarkable initiative.’

‘Just as he did during his escape attempt, I note. Do you think he may become a problem?’

‘No, sir. I am quite used to dealing with the more . . . precocious students, as you know.’

‘Indeed. I’m sure I do not need to remind you of the consequences if you were to let the boy slip through your fingers.’

‘No, sir. I understand.’

‘Good. Be thankful that he was not seriously injured during the events of that day, Nero. If Malpense is killed he will not be making the journey into the next life unaccompanied.’

‘Yes, sir. It is difficult to provide him with constant protection discreetly, but we will of course continue to do our best.’

‘I am not interested in your best, Nero. He is to remain unharmed, no excuses.’

‘Understood.’

‘Good. Will you require any extra resources to assist in the reconstruction of the damaged areas of the facility?’

‘No, Number One, I believe we have everything in hand.’

‘Very well. You will be attending the G.L.O.V.E. command meeting in Vienna next month.’ It was not a question.

‘Yes sir, I had received notification.’

‘This will be an important meeting, Nero. I have something critical to discuss with the assembled commanders.’

‘I look forward to it,’ Nero lied.

‘I’m sure you do, Maximilian. That will be all.’

The screen went dark and Nero let out a long sigh of relief. Number One was notoriously unpredictable – too many men had thought they had pleased him only to find that their next appointment was with a remarkably well-stocked piranha tank. The fact that he himself was still breathing suggested that he had not lost his superior’s confidence. Nero knew that if Malpense had ended up as a snack for Darkdoom’s rampaging creation he might as well have jumped down the creature’s throat after him. He didn’t like being kept in the dark about something upon which his life so obviously depended. He had to find out more about the boy, and he had to do it fast.

Number One watched as Nero’s calm face disappeared from his own video screen. Nero had always been good at concealing his nervousness, but Number One knew that H.I.V.E.’s headmaster was unsure of his own fate given the fiasco that had taken place at the school. He should be worried – Number One was not tolerant of mistakes, even from his most trusted operatives. Fear was a remarkably effective tool and G.L.O.V.E.’s commander knew precisely how best to wield it.

He sat back in his chair, a smile on his face. Nero was a ruthless and devious man, but he had weaknesses, his love for his school being primary amongst them. Those who knew his prior history would be astonished at the care with which Nero protected H.I.V.E. and its students. It was rather like one of those sickeningly saccharine news stories of some dangerous wild predator looking after a litter of orphaned kittens.

Given this protectiveness, he knew he had to proceed carefully. He was not sure if he could depend on Nero’s loyalty if the man ever found out exactly what Number One actually had in mind for the Malpense boy. He smiled again as he thought through what he had planned for the boy’s future. One day Nero and the boy would discover exactly what this plan was – indeed, it was essential that they did – and on that day Otto Malpense would wish he’d never been born.