The Armoured Ghost (10 page)

‘Get in!’ she said, disappearing down into the bin.

Rake looked doubtfully at the others, then peered into the bin. The bottom had been cut out
of
it, and the hole led down into a tunnel below. They didn’t need to be told twice. Anything was better than waiting up here to be caught by the android police.

There wasn’t time to wonder how Snow had known to head in this direction. They were all just grateful for this piece of luck.

The space that Tea-Leaf led them down into was a sewer pipe that was only just big enough for the armoured cadets. Tea-Leaf fitted a cover back up under the litter bin, sealing the hole. Then she crawled along the pipe, leading them into a wider tunnel where they could stand up. It disappeared into darkness in both directions. The only light came from a lamp that Tea-Leaf was carrying. It was like a small version of the oil lamps Salt used in the Armouron base.

‘Hey, Tea-Leaf,’ Hoax greeted her. ‘Thanks a million. You saved our hides there.’

‘No problem.’ Tea-Leaf shrugged.

‘You two know each other?’ Rake exclaimed.

‘Sure,’ Tea-Leaf said. ‘We met before, outside the fairground. I like watching it too, but I’ve never managed to get inside. I was looking for him when your little war broke out up there.’

Rake, Snow and Oddball opened their visors so that the others could see their faces.

‘What the–’ Hoax gaped in amazement. ‘What are you guys doing here? And why are you wearing
armour
?’

‘I can’t believe you’ve been coming out here without telling me!’ Rake said, ignoring the question.

‘You’re having a go at
me
for keeping secrets?’ Hoax shouted back. ‘You’re wearing
armour
! You’ve got . . . got
weapons
! What’s going on with you?’

‘You want to start walking while you’re arguing?’ Tea-Leaf asked, pointing down the tunnel.

‘We don’t take orders from
you
!’ Rake said, his fear giving way to confusion and anger.

‘Right,’ she retorted, as she turned round and started walking. ‘ ’Cos you were doing so well on your own. I’m going. I know this city inside out. I can get you home. You can come with me – or stay here, lost in the dark. It’s up to you.’

The cadets followed her, their arguments put on hold until they could get back to safety. The march of heavy feet overhead reminded them
that
their hunters weren’t far away.

‘Here, listen – are you going to answer me or what?’ Hoax asked his friends in a frustrated voice as they all walked away down the tunnel. ‘How come you’re all wearing
armour
?’

Chapter 13

An Old Enemy

THE CHAIRMAN WAS
a young man – the youngest ever to control a multi-planet corporation. And the Perfect Corporation was one of the most powerful in the galaxy. He was still standing in his luxury viewing room high on the side of the Arena. The fights were over, the crowds had left. On the screens around him, he was watching the video recorded by the White Knights in the fairground.

For the first time in years, the Chairman felt a shiver of fear. Every police android could record what it saw. And even though the fight at the funfair had taken only a few seconds before the attackers escaped, there were enough clear shots
of
the criminals. The Chairman froze each screen at a different point. He squinted at them, trying not to lose his temper. He had a very bad temper.

Each screen now showed a still image of an armoured figure using an old-fashioned weapon. There were three of them – plus a boy whose face had not been picked up clearly by the White Knights’ cameras. None of them had identity discs.

‘Armouron,’ he breathed. Waving a shaky hand at the screens, he tried to look more irritated than nervous. ‘How . . . how can they be here? What are they doing here after all this time? When I . . . when I flatten someone into the history books, I expect them to stay there. I’m not having this. I’m not having it at all.’

He gazed out of the window at the dimmed lights of the Arena, the rows and rows of empty seats. He had pretended to be as excited as the crowd when they watched the Gladiators prancing around in their imitation of combat. But seeing the knights in action on the screens brought back bad memories of real battles. The Armouron had almost succeeded in capturing him once. He had seen their skill in battle first-hand – he took
this
new threat very seriously indeed.

Behind him, a tough-looking man in a suit stood there saying nothing. He knew that his boss talked to himself. The Chairman wasn’t expecting anyone to answer him.

‘Perhaps, more importantly . . .’ his boss wondered aloud. ‘More importantly, where did they go? We could ransack the whole city, I suppose. Turn everyone out of their houses. Tear down whole buildings if we had to . . . But that would make it look as if we were
scared
of something. It would look as if
something was wrong
in Nu-Topia. No, that wouldn’t do at all. We must keep up appearances after all, mustn’t we?’

He went quiet, holding his hand to his forehead in a thoughtful pose. He had practised this pose and could do it perfectly. The way he was nervously chewing his lip spoiled it a bit. The tough-looking man in the suit still said nothing.

‘I think we need a quick and tidy, but
devastating
solution,’ the Chairman said at last. ‘I believe we have just the thing. Yes, indeed. Did you notice that these new Armouron Knights were a trifle short? Hardly more than children, I would say. Yes . . . killing them should be easy, I think. Have
the
shuttle ready. I need to visit the Freezer.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the tough-looking man replied.

The man showed no sign of the fear he felt at the mention of the Freezer.

The trip in the Chairman’s luxury shuttle took only a matter of minutes, but they came down in a very different part of the city. The spacecraft landed gently on the roof of a massive dark grey block of a building with sloping walls. Its only windows were slits around the top. The enormous elevator came right up under the shuttle and lowered it into the building. Then a piece of the shuttle’s floor dropped down and into the building. Carrying the Chairman and his bodyguard, the section of floor shot down a shaft at high speed. To the two men, there was no feeling of movement at all.

The shaft took them deep underground to the Freezer. It was here that the Perfect Corporation kept its experimental weapons. And the Chairman’s most dangerous inventions. The moving section of floor stopped falling and moved sideways instead. It carried them down a long, long corridor. Heavy security barriers opened in front of them and closed behind them.
Some
of the things that were down here could never be let out.

Others chose to stay locked down here.

They came to a steel door that was nearly a metre thick. The Chairman held his eye to a scanner and spoke into a mike. The door swung open. It was freezing cold inside. There, in the centre of a large circular room, was a barrel-shaped chamber. With a hum and a clunking sound, it split apart and opened up as the Chairman approached. Gas hissed, flowing out across the floor like a fog. Lights flickered on.

Inside was an armoured robot, hooked up to cables and tubes. But this thing was nothing like the White Knights. Compared to this machine, the android police were clockwork toys.

This was the Armournaut.

It was alive and it was terribly powerful, cruel and clever. Its life-force had come from a knight who had betrayed the Armouron – a fearsome warrior who had died hundreds of years ago. That knight’s spirit had been captured in a medallion. It was this totem that gave the machine life. This Thirteenth Medallion was at least as powerful as the ones passed down from the First
Twelve
Knights. Maybe more powerful. Even the Armournaut’s body was built from the armour of dead knights. The Chairman gave a little gulp. This machine had been created centuries ago. He had no control over this armoured ghost.

‘I am sorry to wake you,’ he said. ‘But we have a problem. The kind of problem you enjoy solving.’

With a wave of his hand, a screen appeared in the chamber. The images of the young Armouron Knights came up on the screen. The Armournaut gazed at them for a few moments.

‘I WILL DESTROY THEM FOR YOU,’ it said. ‘ON ONE CONDITION: I KEEP THEIR ARMOUR . . . AND THEIR POWER TOTEMS.’

The Chairman rolled his eyes.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You can have the armour. But if those medallions are three of the Twelve, then they’re mine. We’ve been over this before. They are valuable to me. You don’t
need
any more power totems. You can only use the one that’s inside you anyway.’

‘YOU WOKE ME UP TO SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM,’ the monster said. There was a nasty edge to its voice now. ‘I KEEP THEIR ARMOUR AND THEIR POWER TOTEMS.’

The tough-looking man who stood behind the Chairman bit his lip. He was not feeling very tough at the moment. His hand went inside his jacket, ready to draw his gun. It was a silly thing to do. Guns were no use against the Armournaut. The only kind of gun that bothered this robot needed a tank to carry it. The Armournaut turned its eyes towards the bodyguard. The hand came out of the jacket.

‘All right,’ the Chairman sighed. The machine’s hunger for the other medallions was a problem he
would
have to deal with at another time. ‘You can keep the totems. Now, how will you find them? It must be done quietly – and they have managed to escape our detection.’

‘THAT IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE BECOME LAZY AND ARROGANT,’ the machine told him, turning its eyes back to him. ‘I NEED ONLY TO MAKE THE RIGHT PEOPLE SCREAM, AND THE ARMOURON KNIGHTS WILL COME RUNNING INTO MY ARMS.’

The Armournaut stood up and pulled itself free of the connecting cables. Without another word, it strode out of the room.