manage the swim a second time. His only chance was the door that had first led him here. It led to the metal staircase that would bring him to Block D. There was a telephone in his room. Failing that, he could use the Game Boy to transmit a message. But M16 had to know what he had found out.
He reached the end of the corridor then ducked back as three guards appeared, walking together toward a set of double doors. Fortunately, they hadn’t seen him. Nobody knew he was here. He was going to be all right.
And then the alarms went off. A siren wailing electronically along the corridors, leaping out from the corners, echoing everywhere. Overhead, a light began to flash red. The guards wheeled around and saw Alex.
Unlike the man on the observation platform, they didn’t hesitate. As Alex leaped headfirst through the nearest door, they brought up their machine guns and fired. Bullets slammed into the wall beside him and ricocheted along the passageway. Alex landed flat on his stomach and kicked out, slamming the door behind him. He straightened up, found a bolt, and rammed it home. A second later there was an explosive hammering on the other side as the guards fired at the door. But it was solid metal. It would hold.
Alex was standing in a metal passageway leading to a tangle of pipes and cylinders, like the boiler room of a ship. The alarm was as loud here as it had been in the main chamber. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. He leaped down the staircase, three steps at a time, and skidded to a halt, searching for a way out. He had a choice of three corridors, but then he heard the rattle of feet and knew that his choice had just become two. He wished now that he had thought to pick up the Browning automatic. He was alone and unarmed. The only duck in a shooting gallery with guns everywhere and no way out. Was this what M16 had trained him for? If so, two weeks hadn’t been enough.
He ran on, weaving in and out of the pipes, trying every door he came to. A room with more space suits hanging on hooks. A shower room. Another, larger laboratory with a second door leading out and, in the middle, a glass tank shaped like a barrel, filled with green liquid. Tangles of rubber tubing sprouted out of the tank. Trays filled with test tubes all around.
The barrel-shaped tank. The trays. Alex had seen them before—as vague outlines on his Game Boy. He must have been standing on the other side of the second door. He ran over to it. It was locked from the inside, electronically, with a glass plate against the wall. He would never be able to open it. He was trapped.
Footsteps approached. Alex just had time to hide himself on the floor, underneath one of the work surfaces, before the first door was thrown open and two more guards ran into the laboratory. They took a quick look around without seeing him.
“Not here!” one of them said.
“You’d better go up!”
One guard walked out the way he had come. The other went over to the door and placed his hand on the glass identification panel. There was a green glow and the door buzzed loudly. The guard threw it open and disappeared. Alex rolled forward as the door swung shut and just managed to get his hand into the crack. He waited a moment, then stood up. He opened the door. As he had hoped, he was looking out into the unfinished passageway where he had been surprised by Nadia Vole.
The guard had already gone on ahead. Alex slipped out, closing the door behind him, cutting off the sound of the siren. He made his way up the metal stairs. They led him back to the glass corridor that joined Blocks C and D. Alex was grateful to be back above ground. He found a door and slipped outside. The sun had already set, but across the lawn the airstrip was ablaze, artificially illuminated by the sort of lights Alex had seen in soccer stadiums. There were about a dozen trucks parked next to each other. Men were loading them up with heavy, square red-and-white boxes. The cargo plane that Alex had seen when he arrived rumbled down the runway and lurched into the air.
Alex knew that he was looking at the end of the assembly line. The red-and-white boxes were the same ones he had seen in the underground chamber. The Stormbreakers, complete with their deadly secret, were being loaded up and delivered. By morning they would be all over the country.
Keeping low, he ran past the fountain and across the grass. He thought about making for the main gate, but he knew that was hopeless. The guards would have been alerted. They’d be waiting for him. Nor could he climb the perimeter fence, not with the razor wire stretched out across the top. No. His own room seemed the best answer. The telephone was there. And so were his only weapons, the few gadgets that Smithers had given him four days— or was it four years?—ago.
He entered the house through the kitchen, the same way he had left it the night before. It was only eight o’clock, but the whole place seemed to be deserted. He ran up the staircase and along the corridor to his room on the first floor. Slowly, he opened the door. It seemed his luck was holding out. There was nobody there. Without turning on the light, he went inside and snatched up the telephone. The line was dead. Never mind. He found the cartridges for his Game Boy, his yoyo, and the zit cream and crammed them into his pockets. He had already decided not to stay here. It was too dangerous. He would find somewhere to hide out. Then he would use the Nemesis cartridge to contact M16.
He went back to the door and opened it. With a shock he saw Mr. Grin standing in the hallway, looking hideous with his white face, his ginger hair, and his mauve twisted smile. Alex reacted quickly, striking out with the heel of his right hand. But Mr. Grin was quicker. He ducked to one side, then his hand shot out, the side of it driving into Alex’s throat. Alex gasped for breath but none came. The butler made an inarticulate sound and lashed out a second time. Alex got the impression that behind the livid scars he really was grinning, enjoying himself. He tried to avoid the blow, but Mr. Grin’s fist hit him square on the jaw. He was spun into the bedroom, falling backward.
He never even remembered hitting the floor.
THE SCHOOL BULLY
« ^ »
THEY CAME FOR Alex the following morning.
He had spent the night handcuffed to a radiator in a small dark room with a single barred window. It might once have been a coal cellar. When Alex opened his eyes, the gray first light of the morning was just creeping in. He opened them and closed them again. His head was thumping and the side of his face was swollen where Mr. Grin had hit him. His arms were twisted behind him and the tendons in his shoulder were on fire. But worse than all this was his sense of failure. It was April 1, the day when the Stormbreakers would be unleashed. And Alex was helpless. He had let down M16, his uncle—and himself.
It was just before nine o’clock when the door opened and two guards came in with Mr. Grin behind them. The handcuffs were unlocked and Alex was forced to his feet. Then, with a guard holding him on each side, he was
