In Search of the Time and Space Mach (6 page)

Dr Harschtorm smiled as he pulled the lever that lowered Alex Crane towards a pit of writhing, slithering snakes.

‘They haven't eaten for weeks and are ready for a grand feast,' he said. ‘And you, my dear, are the main course.'

Alex had to think, and fast!

There were only minutes to go before the snakes would eat her alive. Harschtorm sat back, ready for the show, as he ate his own specially prepared banquet. Fried monkey brains cooked within the monkey heads. His favourite.

‘Bon appetit, my little ones,' Harschtorm laughed.

If only Alex could reach into her backpack and get out her Hypno Ray Gun, she could blast Harschtorm and his goons, hypnotising them into raising the lever and letting her go, but not before she dropped her Destructo Pellet, a small pill that would destroy Harschtorm's headquarters in seconds.

Just reach a little further

‘Hi.'

Max jumped in fright and turned to see Linden chewing on a carrot.

‘Don't creep up on me like that,' Max cried. ‘You scared me!'

‘Dad told me you called and asked me to meet you here at seven,' said Linden.

‘I know. You scared me, that's all,' said Max, putting her book away.

‘Ben and Eleanor gone?'

‘Yeah, they left about ten minutes ago,' said Max, her heart still beating from Linden's sudden appearance.

‘What were you writing?' asked Linden.

‘Nothing. Just scribbling.' Max blushed.

Linden was sceptical.

‘Looks pretty involved for just scribble.'

‘All right,' said Max, knowing Linden wasn't going to let it go. ‘But you have to promise not to tell anyone.'

‘Sure,' Linden smiled. ‘I'm good at keeping secrets.'

‘I'm writing about Spyforce, the super intelligent spy agency that's been set up to capture criminals all around the world, and Alex Crane is their top spy.'

Linden laughed and Max was instantly sorry she told him.

‘That's great. I love spy stories,' cried Linden.

Max was wary.

‘Do you really?' she asked.

‘I know each James Bond story by heart, have watched every
Get Smart
episode ever made, my favourite movie and series is
Mission Impossible
and my dad and I often sit down to watch his video collection of
The Man From UNCLE.'

‘You really know your stuff.' Max was impressed.

‘Can I read some of Alex Crane?' asked Linden.

Max had never shown her stories to anyone.

‘Maybe. Some day. But now we have to prepare for departure.'

‘Whatever you say, chief.' Linden saluted.

‘Max will do.'

Linden smiled as he pulled his jumper over his shoulder. He'd dressed warm, just as Max had told him. He had a big, floppy, hand-knitted jumper and what Max thought was probably his best pair of jeans. Well, at least they weren't full of patches or splattered with mud.

‘I was thinking,' said Linden, suddenly looking worried. ‘What if Ben and Eleanor come home and find we're not there?'

‘All covered,' said Max. ‘I stuffed both the beds with clothes, so when they come in to check
on us, it'll look like we're sound asleep. I even threw your jumper and shoes around so it looked like a typical Linden space.'

Linden raised one eyebrow. ‘Thanks.'

‘Don't mention it. Now let's go.'

Inside the shed, the Matter Transporter control panel quietly whirred beneath its cover. Max took the cover off and held the panel in her hands.

‘Are you sure you remember how it works?' asked Linden.

‘There's nothing to it,' Max replied confidently, but secretly she hoped she remembered all the steps.

Max took the London directory from her backpack and laid it on the bench in front of her. She held the control panel so the camera faced it and pressed the
scan
key.

There was a small bleep before the LED screen lit up with the words
scan complete.

Max and Linden looked at each other and smiled.

‘That seemed to work,' said Linden, relieved that the first part of the process appeared to have gone well.

Max then turned the camera towards them both and captured an image of herself and Linden. Turning the control panel towards her, she saw
their image on the LED screen. She used the rod to draw an outline around them both.

‘Go easy,' said Linden, feigning a concerned look. ‘Don't cut off any of my hair.'

Max frowned, trying to make Linden understand this wasn't the best time for jokes. She took a deep breath as she held the rod above the
activate
key.

‘Here goes,' she said as she brought the rod down.

There was the quick
zap
sound and then nothing.

Max and Linden looked around them.

‘Did it work?' Linden asked, referring to the transporter capsule.

‘I'm not sure. Let's put our hands out and feel around,' suggested Max.

They slowly raised their hands until they were met with a flash of light and another
zapping
sound. A slight tingling sensation spread through their bodies like a wave.

‘Found it,' said Linden proudly.

‘It worked!' Max almost screamed. ‘Now to set the coordinates for London.'

She adjusted them for Cricklebury Lane, London W6. The home of Professor F J Williams.

Max knew she was about to do the biggest thing she'd ever done in her life. She was excited, but she'd also never been as scared.

‘I guess it's time,' she said softly.

‘We should make a pact,' Linden decided.

‘A what?' Max asked.

‘A pact. Like a deal,' he explained.

‘I know what a pact is, but we don't have time,' said Max, eager to get the mission started and avoid any emotional stuff.

‘I'm not going until we do it,' said Linden, folding his arms across his chest.

The way Linden said it, Max knew she had no choice. Besides, the sooner she let him get on with it, the sooner they could leave.

‘Okay. What's your pact?'

‘Hold out your hands,' Linden instructed.

Max held out her arms. A zapping sound rang out around as they broke through the transporter capsule's electro-magnetic field. Linden took Max's hands in his and closed his eyes as small sparks flew all around them like fireflies.

Max shook her head. This was not the kind of departure she had in mind.

‘If Max should come to harm or get lost or be in danger in any way, I, Linden M Franklin, will do
everything I can to help her and bring her to safety.'

They both stood in silence.

Linden leant forward and whispered, ‘You're supposed to say it about me now.'

Great! Just what Max wanted, another mushy moment.

‘If Linden should come to harm or get lost or be in danger in any way, I, Max Remy …'

She forgot what came next.

‘Will do everything I can …' Linden whispered.

‘Will do everything I can,' Max repeated, then frowned, trying to remember the next bit.

‘To help him and bring him to safety,' Linden added.

‘Oh yeah, to help him and bring him to safety.'

Linden smiled.

‘Good. Now we can go. All aboard. Express Transporter to London leaving in ten seconds,' he announced.

Max looked at her wrist.

‘We should synchronise watches. We will only have about ten hours to complete the mission once we're in London if we're going to get home before Ben and Eleanor wake up. Did you wear your watch?'

‘Yep.'

Linden pulled up the sleeve of his jumper to reveal a large silver watch that looked like it had been around a long time.

‘Are you sure that's going to work?' Max asked.

‘It's my grandad's. He left it to me. I don't use it much, but he said it never lost a second.'

After they'd checked the time, Max held the control panel in front of her. She wiped her sweaty hands against her pants and adjusted her backpack.

‘Here goes,' she said.

This was it! If the Matter Transporter worked, in a few minutes they would be in London. But if it didn't, who knows where they'd end up.

Max took a deep breath and carefully placed the rod on the
transport
button.

The shed shook, the transporter capsule surrounding them started to smoke and a loud whirring sound filled their ears, just like the sound they heard when they transported the sandwich. Max and Linden held their breath as the crash of sound and light exploded around them.

Then …

There was quiet.

Smoke rose from where the transporter capsule was supposed to be.

Linden and Max were gone.

Ralph heard the noise from the yard and crept into the shed. He whined when he saw it was empty.

When Max opened her eyes she couldn't see a thing. She shook her head but still she couldn't see. When she went to move her arms she found they were pasted to her sides but after wriggling them free, she held them up and saw they were covered in … rotten meat!

Yuck!

And the smell!

Where was she? What had happened?

She thought hard. The Matter Transporter. Ben's brother. Time and Space Machine.

She looked around and saw she was up to her neck in baked beans, mouldy fruit, scrapings of old spaghetti, fish and boiled cabbage.

She'd landed in a giant rubbish bin!

Great!

She wiped what was left of a piece of custard pie from her head and felt her body to see if she was okay. Arms, back, legs. Everything seemed fine and the control panel, even though it was covered in tomato sauce and soggy spinach bits, was still with her and bleeping happily.

She looked over the side of the bin and saw people everywhere. There were street vendors standing over hot iron barrels roasting chestnuts, shoppers in warm coats rushing across streets and
just missing being hit by beeping cars, police in funny big hats walking around and sometimes stopping to give directions, and spruikers standing outside shops calling with loud voices, trying to get people to come inside. The roads were clogged with red double-decker buses, old black taxicabs and cyclists with courier bags on their backs dodging in and out of the traffic. And on either side the footpaths were full of glass cabinets displaying slices of pizza, shops with shoes, clothes and TV screens playing the same images on each, stands with postcards, shelves of miniature towers and castles and racks of hats and T-shirts with the British flag plastered all over them.

They'd made it! They were in London! A little soggy, but in one piece and alive! And when she checked her watch, which had also survived the gross landing, all in a matter of minutes.

But then she realised something was missing.

Linden!

Where was Linden?

He must be in the bin! Buried underneath all the slime!

‘Linden!' she screamed.

Max searched frantically, pulling up lumps of beef stew, wading through stale pools of soup and
dessert goo, picking through half-eaten shepherd pies and still she couldn't find him.

What if something had happened to him? How would she explain it to Ben and Eleanor? And Linden's father? Maybe this had been a bad idea after all.

He could be anywhere. Literally. Maybe he really did end up in outer space, or in another country or …

Max started to panic.

‘What am I going to do?' she said out loud. ‘Linden and I could have been friends. He was a nice guy and the pact we made, even though it was a little corny, was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.' Max's eyes became teary. ‘And I would have done anything to save him if he was in danger. But now …'

‘Hi.'

Max knew that voice.

She turned around and saw Linden eating a large apple and frowning.

‘They don't taste any different from the ones at home.'

Max stared at him and tried to control her voice. He looked warm and dry in his jeans and jumper, and he'd put on a jacket since she had last seen him.

‘Where have you been?' she asked.

‘I arrived in the hotel across the street and the guy at the desk gave me this apple on the way out,' said Linden, smiling.

‘The hotel across the street,' Max said with a shiver, as she started to feel the soggy garbage soak through to her skin.

‘Yeah. Lucky ha?'

Linden stared at Max, like he only just realised where she was.

‘What are you doing in that bin?'

‘Oh, just waiting for you.'

‘Looks to me like you were slimed by one of the Matter Transporter's ‘hiccups',' laughed Linden.

Max was trying really hard not to lose her temper.

‘Just get me out of here,' she said slowly, feeling like a sizzling firecracker before it explodes.

Linden helped Max out of the bin as it started to rain.

‘Great! That's all I need,' she said, looking up at the grey sky.

‘At least this way you won't have to have a shower,' Linden joked.

The look on Max's face told him he should cool
it with the jokes if he wanted to reach his next birthday.

They ran to a public toilet in a small park nearby, dodging through streams of people who frowned at them as they rushed past. Linden waited outside the Ladies with his hands across his chest to keep warm and tried to avoid the drips spilling from the small sheltered alcove above him.

Max came out of the Ladies in a much better mood now that she had on clean pants and a jacket from her backpack.

‘Okay, we're ready to begin the mission.'

Max pulled out her notebook and checked the address. The bin she landed in was right next to the building where Francis lived. Cricklebury Lane, London W6.

‘That's the place just over there,' she said, pointing to the building.

They made a dash across the park and came to the front door of what they hoped was Francis's home. There was a security system with a code to enter the building, which meant that Max and Linden had to wait for someone to go in or out before they could sneak in the door before it closed.

They didn't have to wait long. An old lady
dressed in a long fur coat and holding an even furrier dog walked out.

‘Come on, Poochikins. It's time for your walk, and after that you're off to the hairdresser for a shampoo and trim.'

When Poochikins and the fur lady left, Max and Linden raced forward and caught the door just before it closed. Linden held it open for Max.

‘I'm not helpless. I can do it myself, you know,' she said.

Linden looked hurt.

‘I didn't say you were helpless, I was just opening the door for you.'

‘Well, you don't need to. We've got a case to solve,' said Max as she walked into the building.

Linden stared after her and sighed.

Max walked to the elevator as Linden stopped and looked around the foyer. He'd never been in such an expensive-looking place.

‘You'd have to be really loaded if you wanted to live here,' he said.

The elevator doors opened and Max stepped in.

‘Come on, let's go,' she interrupted Linden's inspection of the foyer.

On level nine they found flat 907. Francis's flat.

Just as Max was about to knock, Linden stopped her.

‘What are you going to say to him?' he asked.

‘I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet,' Max replied.

‘Shouldn't we have a plan?'

‘Do you have one?'

He didn't.

‘Just do it and we'll take it from there,' he suggested.

Max swallowed hard and knocked.

They could hear the sound of a chair being moved and footsteps walking heavily across the floor. They both took a deep breath.

The door opened a crack and was stopped by a chain. A pair of beady eyes above a whiskered chin looked down at Max and Linden.

‘What do you want?' the man grumbled.

Max was hoping this narky old man wasn't Francis.

‘We're, um, looking for our uncle,' Max stammered. ‘He lives in this building.'

It was obvious the whiskered man didn't like people knocking on his door.

‘What's his name then?' he said angrily.

‘Francis Williams.'

The man's eyes opened wide in fright.

‘Never heard of him,' he snapped, and slammed the door shut.

Linden looked at Max.

‘I guess we said something he didn't like. Let's try one of the others.'

Max knocked on the door of flat 911.

An old lady opened the door and smiled at them.

‘Hello there, what can I do for you?'

‘Hello,' Max said in her best and most polite voice. ‘We were wondering if you wouldn't mind helping us.'

‘I'd be delighted. What can I do for you? Are you selling biscuits or something?'

‘No, we're looking for our uncle. He lives in this building but we're not sure which flat.'

‘I've lived here for twenty-five years,' the old lady said proudly. ‘If anyone knows your uncle it would be me. What's his name?'

‘Francis Williams,' said Linden.

You would have thought Max and Linden had set a python loose in her flat the way the old lady's face twisted up with fear.

‘I don't know him,' she said, her voice suddenly icy.

She began to close the door but Max put her foot in the way to stop it.

‘Please. You've got to help us. We're from Australia and it's very important we find him.'

The old lady looked up and down the corridor to make sure no one was listening. ‘Your uncle got himself into some terrible trouble,' she whispered. ‘And one day some men in suits came and took him away.'

‘Why would they do that?' asked Linden, frowning.

A door nearby opened and a man in a suit walked out. He nodded at the old lady and stepped into the elevator. The old lady looked nervous and when the elevator doors were closed she said quickly, ‘All I know is that one day he lived here and the next day he didn't. I can't tell you any more. Now please, go away.'

The old lady closed her door and the sound of ten locks being set echoed around the empty corridor. It was obvious she knew more than she was saying. Finding Francis wasn't going to be as easy as she thought, but Max wasn't going to stop until she had done it.

She turned to Linden.

‘Something spooked the old lady and the
whiskered man when they heard Francis's name, and we have to find out what and why.'

‘How are we going to do that if they won't talk to us?' asked Linden.

‘We're going to visit the Government department where Francis works. And even though I've got a feeling we won't find him there either, maybe we can find someone who isn't afraid to talk.'

As Max and Linden waited for the elevator, a door to one of the flats opened a fraction and two spectacled eyes peered out, watching them. Then the elevator doors closed behind them and they were gone.