The Nightmare Vortex (3 page)

Linden and Max stepped out of their bedrooms and stood against the railing looking down on the final party preparations. The apartment had been completely transformed into a Japanese-style garden. There were bonsai plants, trickling water features, expensive vases and lamps, and meandering paths of white glistening rocks.

Linden ducked as a giant tree swooped past. ‘Is it always like this around here?'

‘Only when I'm being punished,' Max replied. ‘There's a party here tonight for Mum's TV types, which means the house will be full of people talking and laughing about boring things that aren't funny.'

‘Sounds great.' Linden groaned.

‘It'll be the night of my life,' Max said dryly. ‘Breakfast?'

Linden and Max went downstairs and only narrowly avoided being swallowed up by a tidal wave of tablecloths.

‘The blue,' said Max's mum over the rim of her glasses. ‘No. Red. Shows we're in charge but warm at the same time. Ah there you are, sweeties. Did you sleep well?'

Linden started to answer, but Max's mother interrupted. ‘Help yourself to breakfast. Mind you
don't step on that rug. I want it fresh for tonight. I had it brought in from Turkey.'

She saw a furniture man placing a giant vase on the marble floor. ‘No, no, no … not there. Over there.'

Max sighed. ‘That's another thing about my mum. When she asks a question, she rarely waits around for an answer.'

They grabbed some juice and toast and made their way back to Max's room where they found a message light flashing on her palm computer.

‘Hello, Max and Linden. Ben and Francis said you'd be there. How are you?'

It was Steinberger. Max and Linden waited for the rest of his message.

‘This isn't a recording. I'm live. You can answer.'

‘Excellent,' Linden muttered through his toast.

‘Now that you've received your parcels, the next step is spy training which starts tomorrow and will continue all week after school. The Training Manual will explain what you'll be doing and what you'll need for the exam at the end.'

‘Where will we train?'

‘In the Spyforce office in Sydney.'

‘In Sydney?'

‘Yes, Max. Actually, it's right near your home.

We'll provide a cover for you by saying there'll be sports every night this week as part of a kids' fitness campaign and … oh, you'll be trained by one of our best.'

Max jumped off her bed. ‘Alex?'

‘No.' Steinberger sensed her disappointment. ‘But someone just as good.'

‘Will we be sent on another mission soon?'

‘Not yet, Linden. You'll be busy with your training for a while. Ben and Francis will pick you up tomorrow morning at nine for your first session. Good luck and may the Force be with you.'

Steinberger zapped off the screen.

Max and Linden spent the rest of the afternoon studying their training manuals until Max's mother burst through the door looking like an oversized swan with a hairdo like a small tornado had whizzed through it.

Max stared. ‘What are you wearing?'

‘Do you like it? It's designer. Very expensive. The only one of its kind in the world. Anyway, time to get dressed. Linden, do you have something you can wear?'

‘I was going to wear this.' Linden looked down at his clothes. It was his best outfit. His dad made him pack it especially.

‘Fine.' She wasn't sure what else to say. ‘There are plenty of combs in the bathroom too. You've certainly got a lot of hair for a small boy.' Max's mum looked at Linden's hair like it was a wild animal she wanted to send to the beauty parlour for taming. ‘I'll see you downstairs.'

It was times like these Max wished she was an orphan. ‘Sorry. She doesn't have much tact sometimes.'

‘It's not her fault she can't recognise style when she sees it.' Linden tousled his hair and made it stand out even further.

Max smiled. Linden was her only chance of making it through the night.

They went downstairs and made their way through the overdressed crowd of people talking so loudly it was like they were in the middle of a storm. Everyone was darling this or darling that except for the guy who was hoarding food like he hadn't eaten in a million years. And what's more, almost all of them were smoking!

‘Haven't they listened to a health report since the sixties?' Max walked away as someone blew smoke in her face. ‘News flash everyone: smoking can kill you. Everyone born this side of the twentieth century knows that.'

Stiff-faced waiters came by with what Max and Linden thought was food.

Linden went to take some.

‘I wouldn't if I were you,' Max cautioned. ‘Could be anything.'

‘But I'm starving.' He picked up a small piece and took a bite. ‘What is it?' he asked the waiter.

‘Sautéed Venezuelan slugs on a bed of tripe.'

Linden stopped chewing. ‘Slugs on cow's stomach?'

‘We prefer to call it tripe,' snipped the waiter and turned away.

‘Maybe not eating for one night won't hurt me,' Linden said, feeling queasy.

‘Oh no,' Max moaned. ‘There's a movie star wannabe coming our way.'

She tried to make a getaway but was too late.

‘Max! Hi. How lovely to see you. Is this your boyfriend?'

Max felt her face fire up like she'd been dropped into a furnace. ‘He's a friend.'

‘Oh. Did you see me in
Snow Ponies
? What did you think? It won't be long until I get snapped up for the movies or become a pop star. That's where the big dollars are.'

If Max had to listen to any more of this drivel
her insides were going to explode over everyone. ‘I think I heard my mum calling.'

‘Say hello to her for me!' the actress said as Max and Linden wriggled away.

‘Remind me never to be like these people,' Max said decisively.

‘That'd only happen if your brain was removed and replaced with a slightly damp sponge.'

Max smiled.

‘Hey,' Linden said excitedly. ‘I think that looks like bread.'

He grabbed some bread from a passing waiter as Max spotted Aidan in full schmooz mode with the head of the network.

‘Look.'

She nudged Linden and pointed to a bowl of dip directly beneath Aidan's arm and just as he gave one of those loud fake laughs, he leaned right into it. When he pulled his hand up, the bowl of dip came with it and landed all over the shirt of the network boss. Max and Linden laughed as Aidan apologised and tried to wipe off the big, fishy globs which made the mess even worse.

‘Good to see you two enjoying yourselves.' It was Max's mother who hadn't yet noticed Aidan's dilemma.

Max's laugh was cut short when she noticed a man unlike all the other guests, staring at her intently.

‘Mum? Who's that guy there?' But as she asked this, the man disappeared behind a large plant.

‘I'm not sure, sweetie. Probably a hanger on. Television is so full of them. Have you had enough to eat?' Before they could answer, she was called away. ‘I have to go darling, work is calling.'

‘Did you see him?' Max asked Linden, trying to see where the man went. ‘He was real weird looking.'

‘He'd fit right in then, wouldn't he?'

Maybe he was just a hanger on like her mother said, but there was something about the way he was staring at her that made Max feel uneasy, like he was up to something and it included her.

‘How about we make a quick getaway?'

‘Fine by me,' said Linden, still trying to find a tray of recognisable food.

Max snuck along the hall, grabbing the phone on the way. ‘Takeaway?'

Linden's fears of dying from hunger faded. ‘You bet.'

They quickly ran upstairs to the safety of Max's
room, as the man who had been staring at her followed them into the hall, his eyes fixed on their every step as he pulled a radio transceiver from his pocket.

‘Not long now, boss, and you'll have exactly what you want.'

Alex Crane crouched among the bulging lines of cargo spilling across the wharves of the Grand Harbour in the Mediterranean country of Malta. The sun seared its way through a thirty-five degree day as muscled men in sweat-soaked clothes sang and unloaded crates from hulks of ships that huddled like roped and captured giants.

The boats had sailed from Egypt and when Alex adjusted the focus on her X-ray microfilm binoculars, she knew her hunch was right. The crates were brimming with stolen treasures from the ancient world.

She switched her binoculars from X-ray to regular to locate the snivelling Count Templar, the man with the fiendish taste for rare artefacts. He was sitting on a balcony with Max Remy, who was in disguise as a Transylvanian duchess eager to spend vast sums of money on the Count's wares. With Alex's microfilm and Max's deal, the Count would be locked away for so long that he himself would become an ancient artefact.

Alex looked at her watch. Max should have finished by now. She put on her supersonic earpiece and discovered the Count had finished the deal but had fallen for Max's charms and wanted to marry her.

Marriage! Alex watched as Max tried to evade the Count's slimy moves and his wandering arms that held her around her throat, begging for a kiss. Alex knew she had to save her, but as she leapt forward, the cord of her binoculars snagged under her foot and she tripped, landing face first at the feet of the muscled men.

Her arms were pinned against her as the men lifted her into the air like a small, tattered doll, before striding to the dock and dangling her over the side, just seconds away from a watery doom. What was she going to do? She had to escape these muscle-bound men before it was too late … before she drowned and before Max became a victim of the Count's

Brrrrrnnnnnggggg
!

Max sat up clutching her pillow and gasping for breath.

‘You okay?'

It took her a few seconds to take everything in. Linden was sitting on her bed holding the palm computer. She was in her pyjamas. Then she remembered. Today was the day they would start their spy training.

Max was miffed that Linden was awake and she was half asleep with dreams of not quite saving the world.

‘How long have you been there?'

‘About five minutes.'

‘What if I wasn't decent?'

‘I figured you would be since you said “come in” when I knocked. It's alright.' Linden looked around. ‘It'll be our little secret that you're not always perfectly dressed.'

‘That's not the point.' Max began, trying to focus her sleepy eyes that were refusing to open. But it was exactly the point only, of course, she couldn't tell him that.

‘Steinberger's waiting.' Linden pointed to the palm computer.

‘Already?' Max looked at her creased pyjamas and pushed her ruffled hair out of her eyes. ‘Lucky those things see only one way.'

‘Oh no, I can see you quite well.' Steinberger smiled. Max drooped. ‘Ready for your first dose of spy training?'

Linden's eyes widened. ‘Sure am!'

‘Most of being a good spy is instinct but there's also fitness and agility and that's what we'll concentrate on this weekend. Ah, I remember my
first spy training when …'

Steinberger rambled on about his early days at Spyforce, while Max sat in quiet horror knowing fitness and agility were things her uncoordinated limbs knew nothing about.

Eventually, Steinberger wrapped up his story and wished them luck. ‘And may the Force be with you.'

Max switched off the computer without hearing Steinberger's farewell. Putting her body through fitness and agility training was going to be like signing up for a trip to a medieval torture chamber.

Linden wondered where the look of terror on Max's face had come from. ‘Max?'

‘Yeah?'

‘You better get dressed. Ben and Francis'll be here soon.'

‘I know.' She tried to look normal again. ‘I was just hoping getting dressed alone wasn't too much to ask.'

‘Oh,' Linden said, a little embarrassed. ‘I'll be outside.'

Downstairs, both Max's mum and the house looked immaculate. Aidan, however, looked terrible.

‘Morning, Aidan.' Max crunched her toast loudly in his ear. ‘Great party.'

‘Yeah,' Aidan whispered, grabbing his head and covering his ears at the sound of the doorbell.

‘That'll be Ben and Francis. Bye, Mum.' She grabbed her bag and tried to escape before she fell victim to another of her mum's kisses, but it was too late. The kiss slobbered all over her.

Once they were outside Max wiped her face against her sleeve. ‘She'll wear my face out if this goes on any longer.'

‘I'm sure she'll buy you a new one,' Linden joked as they walked down the stairs. ‘Even though I like the old one.'

Max fixed her eyes on Linden's face as her ears buzzed with what he'd just said, but with all that Linden concentrating, she forgot to look where she was walking and tumbled down the rest of the stairs.

‘Aaaaaahhhh!'

When she landed at the bottom, Ben lifted her up and plonked her upright again.

‘Didn't know you'd be so excited to see us, Max. Okay, everybody in the car.'

While Linden sat watching the sights of Sydney, Max heard his words over and over again.
She examined her face in the rear-view mirror. She had a plain face. Her mother even said so. So how could Linden like it?

The car soon pulled up in front of a very regular-looking glass building in a very regular-looking street. It was four storeys tall with double doors and not a sign anywhere saying what it was.

‘You kids have a great time and remember, don't expect to be experts on your first day. Training can be tough.' Ben ruffled Linden's hair and winked at Max. ‘We'll pick you up at five.'

Inside the building, a small woman with a pink fairy floss hairdo sat behind a desk.

‘I'm Marion. Such a privilege to meet you. You're very famous you know … in that quiet, spyworld kind of way. But I won't hold you up. Place your palms here and you'll be away.'

Max and Linden pressed their hands onto a square plastic plate that lit up like a flattened Christmas tree. After a few seconds a musical voice chimed, ‘Verification complete.'

Marion's lips slooshed into a ear-creasing smile. ‘I knew you'd pass. It's through those doors. Good luck.'

‘Thanks,' Linden said, amazed by the amount of smile Marion could fit onto her face. When they
turned and entered the doors, they found themselves in a gymnasium with the usual ropes and trapezes hanging from the ceiling, running machines and rock-climbing walls, but also all sorts of bleeping, revolving devices and chambers they'd never seen before. Nestled among all the equipment was someone standing with their back to them.

‘Excuse me. We're here for training,' Max croaked nervously.

‘You're three minutes late,' the trainer said without turning around.

Linden looked at Max.
Oops
, he mouthed, but Max recognised the voice.

‘Alex?'

The trainer turned around, her eyes fixed on her palm computer. It was Alex.

‘I want fifty star jumps, twenty minutes on the running machine and fifty sit-ups.'

Max's heart went into warp speed at seeing her hero. ‘Steinberger told us our trainer would be someone else.'

‘Well you've got me. There's a bad case of flu going around and there was no one else to do it.' Alex said, looking up for the first time since they'd arrived. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?'

Max and Linden dropped their bags and began jumping.

Max whispered to Linden, ‘It's Alex!'

‘She doesn't seem too happy to see us.'

‘She's just being professional.'

Max's fears of being uncoordinated came crashingly true as she fell from monkey bars, bounced off gym balls, collapsed into foam pits from swinging trapezes and winded herself trying to clear jumping horses. Hard balls knocked her off her feet and rope nets strung across giant rubber mattresses got her hopelessly tangled.

‘Oooooph!' After several hours of Alex's rigorous training routine, Max fell from the rock-climbing wall and thudded onto a gym mat right at Alex's feet. Alex's head was buried in her computer as Linden landed expertly beside her.

‘What's next?' he asked excitedly. Linden, of course, was good at all this stuff.

‘The virtual cascades,' Alex said, stepping over a flattened Max.

The two moved off as Max picked herself up.

‘Don't worry about me. I'll be fine,' she mumbled as she followed them into a darkened room and up onto a wooden platform.

‘This is the virtual reality chamber,' Alex began. ‘The next task must be completed wearing these specially designed headsets.'

Max and Linden took this as their cue to put the headsets on and when they did, what they saw was eye-popping. They weren't standing on a wooden platform anymore but on one side of a towering cliff top with a raging flood of water flowing beneath them.

Max was afraid of heights and even though she knew the waterfall wasn't real, she had to warn her legs to stop shaking.

‘The headsets allow you to experience dangerous situations within the safety of the training centre,' Alex began. ‘Beside you is an Abseiler — a pocket-sized device that allows you to descend heights or cross seemingly impassable distances. The Abseiler is fitted with a rope made of Venus Flytrap fibres which makes it extremely adhesive. Simply take hold of the rope, attach it to the wall behind us, and hurl the Abseiler towards the opposite cliff face, where it will adhere with an unbreakable strength. Climb along the rope to your destination, press the release button to disengage the fibres and the Abseiler will retract. Any questions?'

Linden shook his head while Max concentrated on not passing out.

‘Good. Before you is a chasm where the bridge has been blown out. You must use your Abseiler and in two minutes, get to the other side.' Alex held out the stopwatch hanging around her neck. ‘Who's first?'

Linden stepped up to the edge of the cliff. ‘Me!'

Alex started her stopwatch. ‘Go!'

Linden attached the rope behind him, threw his Abseiler across the plunging ravine and watched as it sucked onto the opposite cliff-face. With a determined expression, he grabbed onto the rope and climbed above the boiling rapids with the ease of someone crossing a street. When he reached the other side, he pressed the release button and stood proudly on the opposite cliff.

Alex pressed her stopwatch.

‘One minute twenty. Well done. Max?'

Max stepped up to the cliff-edge. The swirling waters below made her feel dizzy. Her head felt like it was melting and her breath came in short, sharp jabs.

‘Go!'

Max tried to make her feet move but with every second that passed they seemed to become heavier,
like they were made of cement. No matter how hard she tried, her fear of heights wouldn't let her budge.

‘Max?'

‘I … I …' she began, but felt like she'd forgotten how to speak. She wanted so badly to do it, but couldn't. Her eyes blurred so that the cliff and the abyss merged into one giant fog. Why couldn't she move?

‘Time's up,' said Alex and left the room in a stinging silence.

When Max and Linden met her in the main training area, she was making notes on her computer. It seemed like ages until she spoke.

‘Linden. You did well. You have a natural ability.' Silence again, before, ‘And Max?'

Her heart perked up. ‘Yes?'

‘Sometimes you have to look fear in the face to realise it's not so terrifying.'

Max's shoulders nosedived along with her ego. She knew she wasn't perfect, but she was a good spy and she'd get it soon. She realised it was probably the wrong moment, but she asked anyway. ‘Alex? When will we be sent on our next mission?'

Alex started packing her bag. ‘I've no idea but it won't be until you've learnt a lot more. I'll see you both tomorrow. On time.'

As Max watched her go, she was determined to prove to her she was a good spy.

Her body ached and her pride sagged but that wasn't the worst of it. She had a science exam tomorrow and faced hours of study when all she felt like was falling into a deep, training-free sleep.