S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. (16 page)

‘Wh-what are you?’ Archie stammered.

Two hooked fangs protruded from the end of the strange man’s bullet-shaped snout and clashed together like pincers. ‘Your worst nightmare,’ he growled.

‘I’ve had worse nightmares than this,’ Archie bluffed. Trying to reverse along the pavement on his bottom he quickly considered his options. His only hope was to distract his
enemy from his goal. ‘The other night I dreamed I’d turned up naked for French. Now
that
was scary.’

The stickman appeared confused for a moment as he pondered Archie’s dream and, just for a moment, relaxed his grip on Barney’s throat. As Archie had hoped, this allowed the blood to
flow freely to his friend’s brain once again.

Suddenly Barney sprang to life, slipping the rucksack off his shoulder. It was surprisingly hefty due to the supplies he’d loaded for the journey and he swung it round at arm’s
length, bringing it crashing against the skinny man’s head. The blow made little impression on the powerful mugger – apart from knocking his cap off – while the contents of the
bag, which had been left unzipped, exploded into the air before raining down on the pavement in a junk-food shower.

The stickman stared at Barney, two hairy antennae standing upright on his smooth skull and twitching eagerly in the air.

‘Hey, Baldy!’ called Archie, jumping to his feet and waving his hands in the air. ‘Don’t waste your time on him. Come and get me.’

Instantly the odd-looking man released his grip on Barney, who dropped to the ground like a bag of cement, and turned to face Archie.

‘Yikes,’ muttered Archie, glancing left and right. ‘I was only trying to distract you – I didn’t expect you to take me seriously.’

Archie backed away as the strange creature strode towards him, his mandibles thrashing together hungrily. Then a peculiar expression crept over the man’s face, and he dropped to his knees.
Ripping open a packet of Maltesers that had fallen from Barney’s bag, he tilted his head back and poured in the chocolate balls, munching and swallowing the whole lot in a second. Frantically
the mutant crawled a few yards on all fours before tearing open and devouring a Bounty and a Mars bar in quick succession.

Archie watched with bemusement as the freakish stranger scrabbled about on the ground, scavenging for sweets with the desperate hunger of a stray dog. Freed from the paralysing stranglehold,
Barney had regained consciousness and clambered to his feet.

‘Hey, Buster,’ he called defiantly. ‘Keep your weird feeler-type hands off my sweets.’

Only as the villain turned and scurried away to retrieve a far-flung chocolate bar did the perfect plan of action formulate in Archie’s mind. In a flash he communicated its essence to
Barney.

‘Run for it!’ he yelled.

Fifteen seconds later Archie was a hundred yards down the street, pumping his legs and punching the air. Behind him he could hear the wail of approaching sirens but it was too late for the
Polizei to help. As he rounded a ninety-degree corner into a side street he glanced back up Glashuttenstrasse to check that Barney had followed his lead safely.

The good news was that the stickman was still on all fours shovelling sweets into his mandibles and Barney was just a few yards behind Archie. The bad news was that the boy with the fish face
had recovered from Archie’s karate kick and was now a few yards behind Barney. And closing in fast.

‘Hurry!’ Archie hollered. ‘He’s right behind you!’

Archie slowed down just enough to allow Barney to catch up with him before speeding up again. Not daring to check their tail, the boys pelted to the end of the side street and took a right.
Immediately Archie grabbed Barney’s sweatshirt and pulled him behind a parked car.

For what seemed like an hour the two boys crouched behind the vehicle as their breathing subsided, their backs pressed against its metallic grey flank. At last Archie turned and raised his head
slowly until his eyeline was just above the car’s bonnet.

‘I think we lost him,’ he whispered tentatively. ‘Whatever
he
was.’

‘Copy that,’ replied Barney, squinting over the car. ‘It looks like the mice have slipped through the, er, net . . . We’re the mice, by the way.’

‘Yeah, I gathered that,’ Archie replied, keeping his eyes trained on the street corner. His head was spinning as he tried to come to terms with the weird characters he’d just
fought. ‘I don’t know what we’ve got ourselves into but those guys were freaks,’ he panted. ‘The tall one looked like some sort of
insect
or
something.’

‘I know,’ Barney added. ‘And that guy chasing us was a real
fish out of water
.’

‘Very good,’ chuckled Archie.

‘It’s sort of espionage humour,’ explained Barney. ‘Spies always crack a joke when they’ve outsmarted a bad guy.’

‘Really?’ Archie asked sceptically. ‘When you say spies, I take it you mean . . .’

‘James Bond,’ Barney admitted sheepishly, adding, ‘and Alex Rider does it sometimes.’

‘Oh well, in that case . . .’ Archie thought for a moment. ‘We may have given him the slip but I bet there’s plenty more fish in the sea.’ As he spoke an unpleasant
salty aroma wafted into his nostrils.

‘I know what you mean.’ Barney sniggered. ‘Shouldn’t he be in
school
anyway?’

‘Mind you,’ Archie smirked, ‘when I’d finished with him he was
battered
.’

‘Maybe he was fighting you just for the
hake
of it,’ said a timid, slurpy voice behind them.

Archie and Barney froze for a moment before exchanging expressions of silent surprise. As one they slowly turned round, their hearts drumming hard in their chests.

‘Whoa!’ Archie exclaimed, understanding the source of the odd smell he’d detected. Barney grabbed his sleeve and squeezed his arm.

Standing just a yard away from them, his bulbous eyes trained on the corner of the street and his mouth making a circular hole in his scaly head, was the fishy-looking creature.

‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ he whispered. ‘I think we’ve given him the slip.’

‘Right,’ said Archie uncertainly. ‘Just as a matter of interest . . . who are you running away from?’

The boy took his eyes off the street and looked at Archie. ‘Anybody,’ he said with a dismissive shrug.

‘Anybody?’ Archie repeated.

‘Whoever,’ the fishy kid suggested vaguely. ‘I don’t really know, to be honest. I only legged it because you screamed, “Run for it.” It seemed like a sensible
thing to do at the time – especially with that weird gangly guy on the scene. I didn’t like the look of him at all.’

‘You were with him,’ said Barney.

‘Who?’

‘The weird gangly guy.’

‘There was a weird gangly guy?’

‘Yeah.’ Archie pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. ‘We were running away from both of you.’

‘Really?’ The strange boy sounded genuinely hurt. ‘Why would you run away from me?’

‘Er, because you attacked me?’ Archie countered.

‘You started it. I might have a terrible memory but I remember that clearly. You grabbed my arm and when I turned round you knocked me to the ground.’

‘That is true,’ Archie admitted guiltily. ‘Sorry – but I only did it because I
thought
you were going to attack me.’

‘Why would you think that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Barney harshly. ‘Maybe it had something to do with the fact that you were bundling an innocent man into the back of a car?’

The boy looked horrified. ‘What man?’

‘The dude you and the weird gangly man dragged out of the gallery,’ said Barney.

‘What gallery? And who’s the weird gangly man?’

Archie could see that the more questions he and Barney fired at the scaly-skinned kid the more confused and distressed he became. There was more to him than met the eye, Archie
was sure. So he suggested going to a cafe to get something to eat. A short distance away they found an Italian restaurant where they sat at a table in the corner and ordered three pizzas.

‘We haven’t been properly introduced,’ smiled Archie. ‘I’m Archie and this is Barney.’

Barney raised a hand but didn’t look up from his Four Cheese Pizza with extra cheese.

‘Hi.’ The fishy boy nodded from deep inside his hood, which he had flipped over his head as he’d entered the building.

‘What’s your name?’ Archie probed gently.

‘They call me Finn.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘I dunno. Everyone.’

‘Why did you come to Hamburg?’

‘I don’t remember, exactly.’ Finn sighed and hung his head. ‘There’s this kind of professor, or whatever, who lives somewhere . . . else. He sends us all over the
place.’

Archie gave Finn an encouraging smile. ‘And why did he send you here?’

‘I’m not exactly sure. I get so confused, you see. Collect something, I think.’

‘Something or someone?’

‘Can’t remember,’ Finn said angrily. ‘I can’t remember much at all since . . .’

Archie noticed that Finn was struggling to cut his food but the cutlery was slipping in his stubby, scaly fingers. He saw with a shock that Finn’s hands were covered in scalloped flaps of
skin, some of which hung loose in clumps.

‘I can’t be bothered eating this with a knife and fork,’ Archie announced, tearing off a chunk of his pizza and taking a bite. ‘It’s much more fun to rip it
up.’

Frowning, Barney looked up from his plate. ‘Hey, you’re the one who’s always telling me not to eat with my fing— Ouch! Why are you kicking me?’

Archie ignored his friend’s protests and smiled at Finn, who nodded gratefully and tore a piece off his pizza.

‘Do you remember what happened to you?’ Archie ventured at last.

‘Not really,’ Finn said bitterly. ‘I was one of his experiments. He mixed me up with a fish – you know, genetically.’

‘Why?’ asked Archie, appalled.

‘Part of his evil master plan, I suppose. Now I’m a really strong swimmer and I can breathe underwater – but I’ve literally got the memory of a goldfish.’

Archie said nothing and concentrated on not looking too shocked. He ignored Barney, who was silently mouthing, ‘He’s one of Doom’s mutants!’

‘And I’ll tell you something else,’ Finn added, licking stringy mozzarella off his fingers. ‘I’ve got a memory like a goldfish too.’

‘How long is your memory?’ Archie enquired. ‘Minutes? Seconds?’

‘Depends,’ said Finn, pausing to suck milkshake through a straw. ‘I forget most things instantly – people, events, places. Sometimes I sense I’ve been somewhere
before but the details will be hazy. Occasionally someone will say something and a whole load of memories come back to me but generally it’s a case of “out of sight, out of
mind”.’

‘So life’s full of surprises?’ Archie smiled grimly.

‘I still get a shock every morning,’ Finn said sadly. ‘I go to the mirror in the bathroom and I see this hideous face for the first time.’

‘What’s this evil scientist called?’ Archie probed.

‘Which evil scientist?’ Finn said blankly.

‘If we can’t find him we’ll be doomed,’ Archie commented, choosing his words carefully.

‘Doctor Doom!’ Finn announced. ‘He’s a professor experimenting on animals and people to research his evil plan to take over the world or something. He genetically crossed
me with a fish. Now I’m a good swimmer but my memory’s really short.’

Archie raised his eyebrows as if hearing Finn’s revelation for the first time.

‘Does Doctor Doom have any more genetic experiments in the pipeline?’ Barney asked. ‘Is the guy you nabbed from the gallery going to be crossed with a frog or
something?’

Finn sat back and pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead. ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. Probably. Oh gosh, how did I get into this mess? I should have refused to help but
I’m so easily influenced. I don’t know right from wrong most of the time.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Archie said resolutely. ‘Everything’s going to be OK. And, just for the record, we’re the good guys.’

Archie excused himself from the table and followed the signs to the restaurant’s toilets. Inside the Gents he locked himself in a cubicle, took out his mobile and dialled the number for
STINKBOMB’s Emergency Agent Recovery Unit, which Highwater had given to him.

‘Hello?’

‘SEARU?’ Archie whispered.

‘No, young man, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong number.’

Archie rolled his eyes. ‘Mr Grey!’ he hissed. ‘It’s Agent Yankee.’

‘Yankee,’ Holden Grey exclaimed with surprise. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

‘I didn’t expect to speak to you,’ Archie explained. ‘I thought this was the dedicated secure line to SEARU . . .’

‘Searu . . . ?’ Grey repeated slowly.

‘Yes,’ Archie said, lowering his voice even further. ‘STINKBOMB’s Emergency Agent Recovery Unit.’

‘Oh, Sear-
u
!’ Grey stressed the last syllable as if Archie’s incorrect pronunciation had misled him. ‘Yeah, this is it, sure. I was just engaging in a little
counter-espionage bluffery, in case you were the November Mike Echo, or enemy to you and me. It’s the sort of advanced field ops procedure you’ll learn about when you’ve mastered
the basics.’

‘So SEARU is just you?’ Archie’s voice was weak with disappointment. ‘I thought it was a whole team of specialists.’