The Amazon Experiment (7 page)

Agent Max Remy ran along the damp stone tunnels that snaked their way deep beneath the city of Paris. Her shoes splashed through the algae-strewn pools of water that dribbled beneath the hum and splendour of the majestic city.

She was pursuing the dreaded and devious Sir Snivel Snodbottom, France's most fraudulent gangster, who had used his hypnotic charms to seduce the richest and most powerful of French citizens into handing over vast sums of expensive jewels, antiques and artwork.

His latest scam was taking place in the Louvre, one of the world's most famous art museums. Snivel had charmed the head curator of the museum into handing over some of its most valuable works, but just as the deal was about to be done, Max lowered herself through a manhole into the curator's grand art-filled office.

‘Your thieving days are over, Snivel!' But before Max could move any further, Snivel turned and ran through a concealed exit behind him.

Max ran after him through ornate corridors and rooms filled with huge portraits and elegant sculptures of Greek goddesses under long, ornately carved domed ceilings. The museum had been closed for hours, and the low level lights outlined a
path for Snivel to a secret trapdoor that led him down to the city's sewers.

Max followed quickly after him, opening the trapdoor and landing in a squelching stream of water below.

The low lights of the tunnel caught the edges of Snivel's weaselly frame as he splashed through the watery passage like a scurrying rat. The sound of a thousand drips echoed around the coarse stone walls, which swept into a sudden curve, and Snivel disappeared from Max's sight.

‘You won't get away that easily,' she breathed.

As she swung around the ominous corner, her feet slid to a precarious stop, only centimetres from the frothing edge of a long, cascading fall.

Max looked about her, trying to find a sign of Snivel in the wide pool that opened out below her. But what she saw, through the flickering shadows and deafening wash of water, was something that gripped her heart.

Linden was suspended above the pool in a giant web, as if caught by a spider.

‘I'm not sure I'm ready for my thieving days to be over, Ms Remy.' Snivel's voice rose above the watery din, but he was nowhere to be seen. ‘So while I get back to business, I will leave you to work
out how to save your little friend.'

Each fear-filled breath scratched at Max's throat as she searched for a way to save Linden. All around her, similar stony passages ended in the same abrupt fall.

‘Linden?'

He didn't answer, his body lightly buffeted by the swirling winds of the cavern.

‘Oh, wait, there's one more thing I almost forgot to do.'

From out of the blackness shot a fiery arrow. It made a direct hit into the outer thread of Linden's web. Terror rose in Max like a rising wave of nausea, as she watched what happened next.

The small flame latched onto the rope like a burning fuse, making its way around the outer layer of the web, sending a disintegrating wisp of ash into the churning water below.

‘Bye-bye, kids.' Snivel's laugh rang out loudly before receding into the murky darkness.

Max watched as the flame wound its way closer and closer to Linden, burning the only thing between him and certain death. She had to save him. She had to try and reach him before

‘Aaaah!' Max opened her eyes to see the creeping legs of a giant spider crawling over her hand. She shook the eight-legged animal into the air and it landed with a small bounce on the floor of the jet.

‘A tarantula. Excellent! I never thought I'd see one in the wild.'

Linden was sitting in the chair next to Max, wide-eyed at their hairy, slow-moving visitor.

‘That thing is a tarantula? I could have been killed!'

Killed … Linden's fall, Max thought sadly. When would these nightmares stop?

Linden kept his eyes fixed on the spider as it made its way to the broken hatch of the jet. ‘They might give you a painful bite but most of them aren't deadly.'

‘That makes me feel much better.' Max rubbed her aching head and felt a small lump where she'd been struck by the food hatch.

The spider sprang from the jet and it was then that Linden noticed the dense greenery outside. ‘I guess we're here. The Amazon Jungle.'

After the jet had made its unexpected and invisible landing, there'd been a scattering of birds, animals and insects, but after a few minutes they'd crept back to see who their uninvited guests were.

Max swiped angrily at a mosquito that was circling her head, but in her stupor, she missed the mosquito and struck her ear instead. ‘Ow!'

She tried to remember what had happened.

The flight. The plunge. Then the last thing she remembered.

The smug face of Suave at the controls just before everything went black.

‘Could have been smoother, but otherwise not a bad landing for a beginner.' Linden made his announcement in his usual unruffled way.

Max shooed away another mosquito and smiled. Seeing Linden's wide grin beneath his hurricaned hair drove away her storm-clouding bad mood.

She went to stand but was pulled back by her seatbelt.

‘Are you okay?' asked Linden.

‘For someone who was almost flown to their death, I'm fine.'

Max was pulling roughly at the belt that was strangling her when they heard a voice behind them.

‘Frond … We're coming. Everything will be all right.' A mumbled pledge wormed its way out of Steinberger's lips.

‘Looks like Steinberger's okay.' Linden undid his seatbelt and stood over the Administration Manager, wiping Steinberger's face with his hanky. The day had only just begun but the heat was starting to settle on their skin in waves.

‘Hope that's clean.' Max raised an eyebrow in mock disgust.

‘It's clean,' Linden assured her.

Steinberger opened his eyes. ‘Better be.'

‘I'll guarantee it!' It was unusual to hear Steinberger joke and Linden enjoyed every bit of it. ‘Nice to have you back.'

Steinberger offered an uneasy smile, then remembered something and quickly reached into his pocket. His face calmed when he saw that Quimby's transparent cover had protected his palm computer, and Frond's message, from damage.

‘She'll be okay.' Linden gave him a crooked smile.

‘Yes, of course she will.'

A raised voice then came down the aisle from the front of the crashed jet.

‘We're losing altitude! I'm employing reverse thrust! Hold on, everyone.'

The three agents turned and saw the door of the cockpit had been wrenched off one of its hinges
and was hanging limply across the entrance. Light slithered its way through the thin crooked wedge, revealing Suave manipulating the air with his eyes closed, pushing imaginary buttons and knobs trying to control the plane.

‘Looks like Suave's getting an instant replay,' Linden winced. ‘Going through that crash once was enough for me. We'd better wake him up.'

Max slapped at her leg as another mosquito bit through her pants in a stinging jab.

‘What about Sleek?' Steinberger asked as he struggled to his feet.

‘I'll check on him too.'

Linden led the way towards the cockpit, pushed aside the broken door and saw Sleek sitting in the copilot's seat in a limp, folded heap. Steinberger gently shook Suave, whose eyes shot open in a confused daze until he saw Sleek. ‘Is he okay?'

Linden reached out and took Sleek's wrist, trying to find a pulse. He'd studied first aid at the Country Firemen's Association in Mindawarra and was usually good at finding the pulse first go, but now he had to move his fingers around the wrist, searching for the surging of blood that would show Sleek was alive. Finally he found it.

‘It's faint,' he told the others. ‘But it's there.'

Max's eyes were fixed on something else. ‘He has the colour of the sleeping sickness in his face.'

She was right. Steinberger immediately reached into his pack and took out a needle. It was Frond's Plantorium medicine Finch had given him in case any of them should fall victim to the sickness. He rolled up Sleek's sleeve and rubbed a small circle of skin with antiseptic before holding the syringe up high to ensure it was ready. As he watched the thin length of the needle and the tube of fluid about to be splurted into the vein, Steinberger's face went pale and he began to sway.

‘I can do that.' Linden took the needle gently from the woozy-looking Steinberger. ‘Maybe it'd be best if you looked away.' Steinberger gratefully did as he was told as Linden guided the needle into Sleek's arm.

‘Thanks.' Steinberger took a deep breath. ‘I usually pass out at the sight of those things. He'll need this as well.'

Steinberger took a mini-respirator from his pack and, stretching the plastic strap around Sleek's head, fixed an oxygen mask to his face.

‘This will assist his lungs to function during the sickness.' Steinberger held his forehead, a niggling
headache working away in his head. ‘He should be all right. For a while.'

He looked towards Suave. ‘You saved our lives. Thank you.'

The two men shook hands. It was all that needed to be said.

At least according to them.

‘Yeah, and lucky we had such thick forest to cushion our fall or we'd all be smears of gooey Spyforce mush by now.'

‘Max, my stomach is still recovering from the fall … could you be less descriptive, please?' Linden held his queasy stomach, trying to convince it not to go anywhere.

‘Sorry about that,' Suave apologised.

But Steinberger was right. They had been almost killed, and it had been Suave who had saved them.

Max was more shaken by the jet's plummet than she wanted to admit. She was scared by what had happened to Sleek. With the importance of their mission, she knew they couldn't afford to lose anyone else.

Suddenly she felt the thick heat of the jungle that had moved in around them. ‘I think I need some air.'

She made her way to the broken hatch the tarantula had jumped from a few minutes before.

‘Aaaahh!'

Max made a grab for the hatch as she stepped out into nothingness, noticing too late that the jet had landed in the thick canopy of the jungle, which was acting like an overgrown hammock. Max clung to the broken door, her legs scissoring through the air as her mind became strangled with panic at the sight of the dizzying drop to the forest floor.

‘Max!' Linden sprang forward to save her. ‘Hold on!' Standing on the edge of the doorway, he reached into his pack for his Abseiler and quickly fixed it around himself, attaching the super-grip fibres to the inside of the plane.

As the device took hold, Max's eyes drifted back in her head. A wave of numbness flooded over her. Her fingers loosened from the door and she fell.

Linden leapt out of the plane like a high diver at the Olympics and within seconds grabbed hold of Max as she began her freefall to a certain death.

‘Gotcha!' he whispered to himself as they swung Tarzan-style through the corridor of trees. Allowing for the rope's swing to slow a little, Linden slowly retracted the Abseiler to pull them both to safety.

Back inside the jet, Max's life was still flashing through her mind as she opened her eyes to see Suave leaning over her slapping her cheek. Steinberger and Linden were fanning her with the bottom of their shirts. They were all asking if she was okay, but their voices wavered around her in pieces like someone was turning the volume up and down.

Something about what was happening became annoyingly clear.

‘You can stop hitting me now.'

Suave stopped and Linden sighed in relief. ‘She's okay.'

‘Well done, Linden.' Steinberger smiled at Max. ‘You frightened us for a minute there. Promise me you'll be more careful in future. We're not ready to say goodbye to you yet.'

Linden and Suave laughed quietly at Steinberger's joke, but Max's face burned a glowing
puce. She was grateful her life hadn't ended in a squelching pile in the middle of the Amazon jungle. She just wished she could tone down the near-death experiences she gave herself.

As Steinberger prepared to announce their next step, the jet lurched downwards in a stomachchurning creak. Insects and birds scattered again in a shrieking and panicked squall.

When Steinberger had recovered enough of his senses to be coherent, he gave his orders in a clear, precise stream.

‘Max and Linden, I need you to use your Abseilers and get down to the ground. I'll contact Alex and tell her what has happened, and Suave, I need you to assess the damage to the engine and calculate how safe the jet is in these treetops.'

‘Right away.' Suave leapt into action like a spring-loaded frog.

Max took her Abseiler from her pack, also eager to follow orders, until she looked outside the jet. She swooned again when she saw the distance to the ground.

‘Best thing is to not look down.' Linden knew about Max's fear of heights and began calmly readjusting the Abseiler harness around his waist. ‘The trick is to concentrate on every step. Ready?'

‘Yep,' she answered, even though her real answer was no.

Linden waited until Max had prepared her Abseiler.

‘Looks like we're set, then.'

The way he looked at her instantly made Max feel safe, like he'd somehow moved the jet closer to the ground. They both climbed outside the craft and began their slow descent. Step by step, Max concentrated just as Linden had said, until they reached the ground and fell in a relieved slump against a tree.

‘I told you it'd be okay.' Max gave Linden a cheeky smile, enjoying the feel of solid ground beneath her. ‘Bug repellent?'

They reached into their packs and applied the spray to ward off the squadron of bugs droning around them. Linden then held out a sesame seed bar he'd brought from home. ‘Want some?'

No matter where they were, Linden always seemed to be able to pull food from some part of his clothes.

Max took the bar. ‘Thanks.' She hadn't eaten since they'd left Mindawarra and her stomach was letting her know it. ‘Maybe we should take one of our meal capsules.'

‘I've already done that,' Linden replied. ‘Doesn't quite have the same kick as biting into a real piece of food.'

‘You're right.' Max broke the bar in half, then remembered something.

‘How do you know about giving injections?'

Linden took his half of the bar. ‘I had to give them to Mum when she was really sick.'

Max watched a mosquito as it buzzed around trying to find some bare skin to bite. ‘That must have been hard.'

‘A bit. Dad did it at first but as Mum got even more sick, I could see it was starting to get to him, so I took over.'

Linden leant back against the tree and bit into his bar.

Max sat turning hers in her hands, knowing exactly what she wanted to say but feeling like someone had wired her jaws together. Linden chewed and sighed and took in their new jungle surrounds. Max sat and stared as the bar melted onto her fingers.

Then she just burst out with it.

‘Thanks for saving my life before, I'm sorry I'm such a klutz, I know I should be more careful but I just can't seem to help it, all you've ever done is be
there for me and all I do is keep messing things up and opening my big mouth and getting us into trouble and even …' She had to say it. ‘Even getting you killed.'

She'd done it. She'd finally said it. It left her mouth dry and her knotted stomach slightly queasy.

Linden finished his mouthful. ‘Is that what all your nightmares have been about?' he asked softly.

Max lowered her head as images from the dreams crowded into her mind. ‘Yep. In each one you're stuck somewhere high and then you fall and I can't save you.'

She blinked to stop the tears that were threatening to fall, a hard lump pressed against the back of her throat.

‘I'm so sorry, Linden.' She bit her lip.

‘But Max, you've forgotten one thing. You didn't let me fall. You caught me, remember?'

‘But the first time I didn't. I just watched it happen.'

‘Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's the second time that counts, because that's the one that means I'm still your spy partner.'

Max sniffed a small laugh.

‘And me saving you back there was just
returning the favour. Mum always said one good turn deserves another. I was just doing what Mum said.'

Max's sick stomach feeling melted away.

‘And I'll tell you another thing, Max Remy.' He was starting to get fired up. ‘If you hadn't saved me from the Nightmare Vortex, I'd still be trapped in one of Blue's most evil inventions,
⁶
spending the rest of my life facing the things that scare me most. The day you first came to Mindawarra, my life jumped to a whole new level, and with all that's happened since then, I wouldn't change one thing, especially the part about knowing you.'

Max stared. She'd never seen Linden so animated. And then, a little more calmly, he said, ‘That Suave is pretty good.'

She followed Linden's gaze up the tree. Suave lay between two branches as if he was reclining on a deckchair, pointing his torch into the belly of the jet's engine.

Max smiled. Linden saved people's lives as easily as most other kids rode bikes. No matter who she'd meet for the rest of her life, she knew Linden would be one of the best.

And he was right, she admitted to herself, Suave was pretty good.

Steinberger, on the other hand, was nestled in his Abseiler harness, clinging desperately to the nearest branch, handing Suave tools as he needed them.

‘How do you think Steinberger's going to like his first mission?' Linden asked.

‘It's going to be a steep learning curve,' Max grimaced.

‘Hopefully one that won't fall on him and kill him. Watch out!' Linden grabbed Max as a wrench fell only metres from them. ‘Or us.'

‘Sorry,' Steinberger called down.

Linden smiled slyly. ‘I bet on this mission he finally admits what he feels about Frond.'

‘There's no way! He's been holding back for years.'

‘We'll see,' Linden smiled. ‘How's your mum's wedding going?'

Max was suddenly pulled from their mission smack bang into the middle of the freak show of life back at home. ‘It's like this huge tornado has landed in our house and won't go away. It's always full of designers, cake makers and dress fitters and the phone has been ringing so much that any
minute now it's going to self-combust from overuse.'

‘So everything's pretty normal, then?'

Max laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess so.'

Now that the initial impact of the crash had passed, a slowly increasing racket of animal and insect noise was firing up all around them. Max and Linden weren't that fazed by the whistles, screeches, hisses and hoots, and when Linden noticed a giant moth land on his shirt, he gently picked it off and nestled it onto the bark of the tree.

There was something far more dangerous to be worried about: Steinberger was starting to navigate his ungainly way down with his Abseiler.

‘I think we better stand for this,' Linden warned Max.

They watched as he stood on the edge of the jet's door, ready to abseil down. His shoulders lifted in a confidence-building breath, but just as he jumped, a giant butterfly flapped past his face, and his careful descent became a speedy slide all the way to the ground.

‘Well done, Steinberger,' Linden said proudly. ‘The Spyforce Gym Team's going to be calling you up when they hear about this.'

Steinberger gulped great chunks of air and
smiled when he realised he was still alive. ‘Oh, come now.' He leant on a tree for support, but felt something strange. It was the spindly legs of a stick insect as it moved gingerly onto his fingers. He pulled his hand from the tree as if it was on fire and shook it vigorously, then tucked it safely into a pocket.

Meanwhile, Suave had finished his work, packed his tool bag and made his way down with his Abseiler, landing firmly on the ground like a trapeze artist finishing a routine on the high wire.

‘How does it look?' Steinberger swished bugs from his face and brushed their crawling droves from his clothes.

‘She's too damaged to fly. I'm not sure if I can fix her, but I can give it a shot.'

‘There's no time.' Steinberger looked at his watch. ‘We must get on with the mission immediately. How stable do you think she is?'

‘After that last jolt, she's settled pretty firmly into some solid branches. I've added some Abseiler rope for extra protection.'

‘What about Sleek?' Linden wasn't sure leaving the sick pilot behind was a good idea. Even if the jet was stable, there were enough animal noises around them to suggest it might not be so safe to be alone in the jungle.

‘With Frond's medicine and Finch's mini-respirator, he should be fine for at least the next forty-eight hours. I also added some Bug Repellent to him and spread Animal Dispeller sachets all around him,' Suave said.

Max looked at Agent Perfect and wondered if he ever got bored with being such a hero.

‘What if we can't find our way back to the plane?' she asked.

‘We all have our palm computers with us, including Sleek.' Steinberger took out his. ‘So we will know where the jet is using his locator.'

Thankfully all the computers had survived the bumpy landing.

‘What did Alex say?' Max asked.

‘She took a reading of our area and confirmed we're in the heart of triatoma territory. She's also organising a transport carrier called the Goliath to make its way here. It will load the Invisible Jet into its hold and wait for us here until our mission is complete.'

His voice had filled with the importance of what he'd just said, but another butterfly flew at him and he collapsed into a hand-waving mess.

‘Maybe some of this will help?' Max offered him her Bug Repellent.

As both Steinberger and Suave applied their repellent, the noise and movement of the jungle increased. Max started imagining monkeys, snakes, lizards and spiders, all of which seemed to be hidden only centimetres away. Branches moved suddenly above them, bushes rattled beside them and the flapping of giant wings whomped somewhere in the jungle behind them.

Steinberger was the least easy with their surrounds. He'd rarely been outside of England, and during his years of employment with Spyforce he'd hardly left London. His brow was speckled with sweat at the heat and the thought of the animals around them. The repellent seemed to calm him down, as it immediately sent insects and bugs away, but when he looked down, the colour fell from his face like a leaking thermometer.

‘I … Is that …? Oh dear.'

A thick green snake slid across his shoe.

Max and Linden got ready to catch what they thought would be a fainting Steinberger until what happened next.

Another message came through on his palm computer.

He took out the bleeping device and stared at its miniature screen.

‘Who's it from?' Linden studied Steinberger's face, hoping the news wasn't bad.

‘It's Frond.'

The snake slithered away without Steinberger giving it another thought.

‘How's she getting her message through? It looked like her palm computer had been crushed.' Maxfrowned as a wide smile filled Steinberger's face.

‘Clever girl,' he whispered, almost to himself. ‘She's using her video watch. It's a new design of Quimby's. She must have given it to Frond to test out. The watch is so small that even under close scrutiny it still looks like a simple watch, but it is capable of transmitting messages across the world from almost any location with perfect clarity.'

Frond's message contained a reference to a map, which Suave quickly located on his palm computer. She then gave the specific longitude and latitude points of where she was.

‘Can you work that out, Suave?'

‘Ten four,' he snapped.

While Suave worked out Frond's exact location, Steinberger listened to the rest of the message. Frond explained that she was being held captive in a mansion where a lab was experimenting with stolen local plants and recipes that were hundreds of
years old to create potions and serums. They were also conducting experiments using the triatoma bug. The message then ended with one simple plea.

‘Take care, all of you.'

Her last sentence lingered in the air. Steinberger ran a finger across his computer where Frond's face had just disappeared. ‘So she is here.'

Suave interrupted Steinberger's musing with the location.

‘Got it! Should be only a few hours from here.'