This chapter focuses on Luke and Max and what happened to them whilst the others battled SKUL.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the MI9 agents. I do own the Trio and Alex.
Luke and Max left the castle via the "Lizzie lift". They left late morning, planning on hiking further north to a mountain with better signal and sending a message from there. They would have gone south, but Max had predicted SKUL agents coming up from the north after a meeting with Italian mafia. Luke had decided to add that information into the message.
It took the rest of the day to find the best signal. They had to move slowly as Luke was carrying all the machinery by himself. Max had tried to make it as small and easy to carry as possible – difficult when all you have to use is technology from the late seventies/early eighties, when the size of computers was roughly that of a van. Max was carrying a small box with two large antenna sticking out of it. He told Luke as they walked that it was detecting the strength of the signal in the area. Luke grumbled that it was getting Max out of carrying anything.
Eventually they stopped on the top of a lone mount. Luke dropped the machine to the ground with a groan of relief and was instantly chided by Max for possibly breaking the equipment. Luke ignored his complaining teammate and started to eat lunch instead, which they had missed on Max's insistence.
Max grumpily turned his back on Luke and started setting up the machine: checking it for damage, connecting the signal detector into the back of it with thick wires, turning a knob here, pressing a button there. Luke licked mustard off his bottom lip and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand as Max sat back with a pleased, 'done.'
'Great,' Luke said, adjusting the microphone on top of the machinery. 'Is this on?'
'I think it is,' Max said, prodding it so that it was directed at the top agents, 'it's constructed from all the communicators microphones so it should be powerful enough to pick up our voices, but I wouldn't be sure about how well they receive it due to dodgy wiring.'
'Fine,' Luke sighed, 'can you put us through?'
'Give me a sec,' Max murmured and he began to type.
Frank was swivelling in his desk chair wondering what to do. He had once had a desk job like this, before he became head of training. He had hated it. But since his team was on holiday, Frank had nothing to do. He had been given a week off and then was asked to come in and fill in roles of agents who were taking time off.
Currently, he was supposed to be checking the files of agents under the MI High program and the progress they had made. Frank knew firsthand the progress of one team; the others took him less than half an hour. He had filled in a section adding that, although they had the Trio mission taken off them when given it originally, the young spies had stepped up to the mark and backed the Trio, ex-MI High spies Blaine and Daisy and fellow MI High agent Carrie in rescuing teammates and beating SKUL.
Now he was bored!
Frank was just considering sneaking down to the inventions department and asking Raymond if he had anything to rocket power his rubbish bin across the room, when Stark strode it.
'Ch-chief Agent Stark!' Frank spluttered, hastily taking his feet off the table and sitting upright, 'what's seems to be the problem?'
'We have been receiving an unknown, untraceable, unreadable signal from somewhere,' Chief Agent Stark informed him.
'Is it dangerous?' Frank asked, lacing his fingers together over the desktop.
'It has disrupted our conference talk with CIA operatives,' Stark growled, 'it is taking up all our communication lines. We need it to stop and we need it to stop now!'
'I'm on to it! I'm on to it!' Frank said hurriedly, jumping up from the chair and ducking out of the door, past an enraged Stark.
He ran down the corridor, skidding around corners, until he reached the major communications room. The Head of MI9 was waiting for him.
'What is this?' she asked, waving her hand at the main screen. It was humming slightly and across the screen was a piercing blue jagged line which was wavering up and down.
Frank strolled past her and through a door at the back of the room which led to the control unit for the communications room. He turned to the agent at the desk. 'May I have a go?' he asked politely.
'Be my guest,' the agent said, getting up to allow Frank to sit in front of the controls, 'I can't find it on any frequency.'
'Maybe it's not on a channel we usually use,' Frank muttered, pressing buttons and flicking switches. The humming increased then decreased then ceased, only to be replaced by a static buzzing. Frank rotated a dial and the static got fuzzier. He turned it the other way and suddenly, through the static, they heard a voice.
'It's not working.'
Frank turned the dial further. Part of the comeback remark was lost when he went too far, but Frank soon brought it back to what they could consider good. 'It will work you just got-' Static '-to do.'
Frank picked up the microphone on top of the control unit. 'Hello?' he said into it.
There was static filled pause from the other end. Finally someone asked, 'who is this?'
'This is Frank London,' Frank said, although Stark was now making gestures through the glass disconnecting the controls from the main room which clearly said that he wanted to speak to whoever it was, presumably to scold them for interrupting his important CIA meeting. Frank merely shrugged as if he wasn't sure what Stark wanted.
'Frank London,' the voice on the other end sounded relieved.
'Who's Frank London?' his companion asked.
'He's MI9,' the first voice said, reassuringly, 'this Shifter of the Trio. London, we have a problem.'
'Are my agents with you?' Frank said immediately, although Stark was now hammering on the glass door and rattling the door handle. Somehow, and Frank "didn't" know how, but the door had locked just when MI9 were receiving a message from the elusive Trio. Fancy that.
'Not here right now,' Shifter replied, 'but they joined safely.'
'How can I help?'
'It's SKUL.'
Stark had now broken in. he snatched the microphone off Frank and said, in an "I'm-now-in-control-no-matter-what-you-say-and-so-deal-with-it-okay?" voice, 'this is Chief Agent Stark speaking.'
'Chief Agent Stark,' Shifter interrupted evenly before Stark could say anymore, 'please let speak to someone with more brain cells than a monkey.'
'Actually…' the other person with Shifter said, but Shifter snapped, 'not now!' and they shut up.
'You will be speaking to me about any problems you may be having from this moment onwards,' Stark said in the "controlled" tone he used when he was close to blowing his fuse.
There was a moment as the two beyond the static conferred with one another. Finally Shifter said, 'fine.'
Stark sighed, pleased that he had won this battle. But he hadn't won the war, as he will soon find out. 'Go ahead,' he said, 'what is your problem?'
'SKUL,' Shifter said.
'Yes, you said that,' Stark said irritably.
'They're here.'
'And where is here?'
'Where we are.'
'That isn't helping me very much.'
'No-one can help you, Stark,' Shifter said calmly, 'you were just born thick.'
Stark sucked in air through his teeth, trying to control his temper which was rising again. 'Do you want my help?' he growled.
'Yours?' Shifter said, 'no, not particularly. I want this to actually succeed.'
Stark screamed in fury and smashed the microphone against the work surface. Everyone stared at it for some time. Then Stark said in a much more controlled voice, 'I'll go and another one, shall I?' When no-one contradicted him, he hurried out.
On the other end of the line, Luke and Max looked at one another. All they had heard was a scream, a loud bang and then a burst of static. 'What was that?' Luke asked.
'It sounded,' Max said slowly, 'like Stark having a tantrum and throwing the microphone against something.'
Luke grinned, pleased about the outcome. He quickly turned this into a thoughtful look when Max raised an eyebrow at him. 'Will that have affected us talking to them?'
'Not unless he broke something else.'
'Well,' Luke said decisively, redirecting his attention to the microphone, 'London, if you can still hear us, listen up. This is what we need.'
Stark returned to the conference room five minutes later with a new microphone. He missed most of what Shifter had said but did hear Shifter's companion, who Frank named as Oracle, say, 'thanks to the locators in your agents spy-pods, you should be able to follow us here. We would send you more details over this frequency, but I don't trust it to reach you because the signal here is dodgy and, actually, this frequency is probably easy to hack into.'
The communications agent finished hooking the new mike into the control desk. To Stark's annoyance, he then handed it to Frank. 'Thank you agents,' he spoke, 'sorry for the lapse in communications. Our old microphone was suddenly broken.' Stark glowered at him. Overhead they heard a sound Stark suspected as sniggering. 'Will be answering your requests immediately. London, out.' Frank pressed a button. The strange frequency disappeared and the chief CIA agent reappeared on the conference screen. He was bright red in the face and was angrily yelling at someone they couldn't see.
Frank got up to leave. Stark intercepted him. 'Where are you going?' he snapped.
'To help my team,' Frank said, brushing Stark's hand away, 'the Trio have requested MI9 support to help them against SKUL agents who have appeared in the area.'
'In that case,' Stark said superiorly, 'I should go.'
'But they are my team!' Frank protested, 'I refuse to sit at a desk in the knowledge that my team are in danger.'
'That's what you usually do,' Stark smirked, 'I don't see a problem with it at the moment.'
'I object-'
'You are not coming,' Stark yelled, 'and that is final.'
'Will someone please tell me,' the American on the screen drawled, 'what the hell is going on?'
Luke and Max dismantled the machine into smaller sections to make it easier to carry back. 'What is the probability that Stark will insist on leading the rescue team?' Luke asked.
'Very likely,' Max replied gloomily.
'And the chances that he will rub it in when he gets here?'
'Probable, if they haven't buried him under a rockslide first.'
'It is tempting, isn't it?'
'Yeah.'
The boys arrived back at the castle shortly after midnight. Lizzie had been waiting for them at the bottom of the cliff, after spotting them moving towards the sinister shape in the shadow of the mountain, for the last ten minutes. They didn't say much. Lizzie could tell from the boy's actions that they had been successful in delivering the message. She just held out her arms and lifted the three of them through the rock and into the lower basement.
Transporting machinery and three people in tiring work. So Lizzie woke Rose, who was up next on lookout duty, and the Trio went to bed.
They awoke to Jessica cooking them breakfast. Whilst they ate, Max and Luke filled them in on what had happened in the conversation, if you can call it that, with MI9.
'And then he smashed the microphone,' Luke said, 'it was hilarious. Well, not at the time obviously,' he quickly added when Jessica frowned at him. Carrie and Lizzie on the other hand were in stitches of giggles.
'They got the message okay,' Rose asked Max.
'Yeah,' Max said, scraping the bottom of the butter pot and then, peering in, 'We're out of butter.'
'We're running low on everything,' Jessica said, 'get used to it. We'll be rationing from now on.'
'How long until the food runs out?' Luke asked.
'If we add the dried food these guys brought us, and ration it carefully, I predict we'll be out of food by... tomorrow.'
'That's not good,' Carrie admitted. Lizzie glanced at the wall in the direction of the SKUL camp.
'I bet Alex has food.'
'It's too dangerous, Lizzie,' Oscar said.
'What have we got left to lose?' Lizzie asked, 'I don't fancy starving. Besides he won't kill me, even if they do catch me.'
'Are you sure?' Rose asked.
'Sure!' Lizzie said, waving her hand dismissively, 'he'll ransom me so that you hand over the formula and then he'll kill me!' The others looked at her, their faces were blank. 'Who really fancies staving?' They glanced at one another. 'Any last minute objections to me raiding the SKUL camp for food?'
Jessica raised a hand. 'Just an idea,' she said, 'do it tonight.'
'Why tonight?'
'Because they'll probably try another attack tonight,' Jessica pointed out, 'so whilst their attacking us, you can attack them.'
'Can you handle them without me?' Lizzie asked worriedly.
Luke coughed, slightly offended. 'You're not the only fighter in the Trio, you know.'
They agreed to wait until SKUL struck before Lizzie snuck into their camp. They also agreed that watches should no longer be made alone. So Lizzie and Oscar took the first watch, agreeing to only wake Rose and Max if it was not possible they could stay awake any longer.
They lasted most of the night, just talking, but finally Oscar surrendered to sleep and so Lizzie woke the next pair.
They roused the next morning to find Luke, Carrie and Jessica returning from their shift. Not a single peep from SKUL.
'Maybe they're trying to catch us off-guard,' Rose suggested as they sat at breakfast eating the last of their rations.
'Whatever they're planning,' Lizzie muttered, upending the packet to reach the last of the crumbs, 'I'll find out later. I don't care what you say, Luke. We need more food. I'll sneak into their camp about midday.'
The others didn't object for once. They knew too well the consequences if she didn't.
Lizzie returned about one, her arms filled with packets of food. 'They were well guarded,' she admitted as Jessica took them from her, 'but the idiots were letting their teammates take them when they were hungry. I just walked in and took a few. I had a mask on don't worry,' she added when Luke stared at her, worriedly.
'This will last us at least until the day after tomorrow,' Jessica mentioned, 'if we ration really carefully.'
'I could just sneak in again if we run out again,' Lizzie said lightly.
'No,' Luke, Jessica and Oscar said simultaneously.
'No,' Luke said again, 'that's not a risk we're going to take for now.'
'At least wait for when their attacking,' Jessica said softly to Lizzie when Luke had walked off.
But SKUL didn't attack that night, or the night after. 'What are they doing?' Carrie asked that evening as she Luke and Jessica sat on the steps midway through the first shift. Her stomach rumbled and Carrie rubbed it caringly. The Trio and Jessica had been trained to survive rationings as small as they had to make them. Oscar had trained himself, but Rose and Carrie were suffering under the lack of normal food. Carrie's optimism was definitely suffering.
'I know what Alex is doing,' Jessica said as she glared at the front door as if daring her brother to step through, 'he's waiting for his back up. More SKUL agents means more trouble for us.'
'How long until MI9 arrive?' Carrie asked Luke.
'If all is well, they may arrive tomorrow or the day after,' he said hopefully.
'But Stark is leading the team.'
'Yes,' Luke said with a sigh, 'and he managed to lose himself doing navigation in African salt plains on our training program. We were supposed to go from one side to another. He ended up in Kenya.'
There was a gloom filled pause.
'We're doomed,' Carrie muttered.
I'll update as soon as I can. Promise! :D
