Zac Power Extreme Missions Read online

  BY H. I. LARRY

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY CAL BENNETT,

  DAMIEN HOLDER & ANDY HOOK

  Zac Power Extreme Missions

  published in 2010 by

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  85 High Street

  Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia

  www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without

  the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

  A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia

  Text, illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

  Cover design by Sonia Dixon and Damien Holder

  Illustrations by Cal Bennett, Damien Holder and Andy Hook

  Typeset by Ektavo

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Sand Storm

  Dark Tower

  Ice Patrol

  Water Blaster

  SAND STORM

  BY H. I. LARRY

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY CAL BENNETT,

  DAMIEN HOLDER & ANDY HOOK

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  The early morning sun streamed in through Zac Power’s bedroom window. He squeezed his eyes shut and rolled over in his warm bed. He didn’t want to think about getting up for school.

  What should I have for breakfast? Zac wondered. Maybe a bowl of Chocmallow Puffs. I wonder if Mum bought any chocolate milk…

  ‘Zac, are you awake?’ asked a voice from the doorway.

  ‘No,’ Zac mumbled sleepily. ‘Come back later.’

  ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ said the voice. ‘I need you to get up now.’ Zac felt a hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him. ‘That’s it,’ said the voice. ‘Rise and shine.’

  Zac yawned and sat up. ‘What’s going on?’ he muttered.

  Then he opened his eyes and almost fell off the bed in shock. ‘Grandpa?’

  ‘Good to see you, kiddo!’ said Grandpa, tossing Zac his backpack. ‘You’d better get packing. We’re leaving in two minutes!’

  Zac caught the backpack and grinned at Grandpa. Zac hadn’t seen him for months. Grandpa worked for the Government Investigation Bureau, GIB for short, in their Invisibles Department.

  Grandpa’s work was so top-secret that almost no-one knew about it – except for Zac and his family, who also worked as spies for GIB. They were allowed to live at home, though. Zac was already one of the best spies in the agency. But he had to balance being a spy with going to school like a normal 12-year-old.

  The last time Zac saw Grandpa, they’d busted out of an enemy moon base together and saved GIB from being destroyed by a super-advanced android. Whatever his grandpa was here for this time, Zac knew it had to be something just as important.

  Zac jumped out of bed. He suddenly felt wide-awake. He picked up his SpyPad (the hand-held mini-computer that every GIB spy used), and glanced at the clock on the screen.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked as he threw some clothes into his backpack.

  ‘I’ll explain after take-off,’ Grandpa said. ‘Right now we need to get moving.’ He headed for the door.

  ‘Get moving where?’ Zac asked, zipping up his backpack and following him out of the room.

  ‘We’ve got a mission from GIB,’ said Grandpa.

  ‘What about your Invisibles work?’ Zac asked as they reached the top of the stairs.

  The main job of the Invisibles was to sneak GIB agents into an enemy agency called BIG so that they could gather intelligence.

  ‘There are more important things than that right now,’ said Grandpa, taking the stairs two at a time.

  Zac stared at Grandpa. BIG was the most evil spy agency on the planet! What could be more important than bringing BIG down from the inside?

  Zac and Grandpa reached the bottom of the stairs and hurried outside. There was obviously no time for breakfast. Grandpa ran out onto the front lawn.

  HISSSSSS!

  Zac looked around to see where the loud hissing sound was coming from.

  A door had just slid open in front of them, floating in mid-air.

  It took Zac a second to realise what was going on. A cloaked vehicle was parked on his front lawn. It was Grandpa’s invisible jet! Zac had never been inside it before.

  Grandpa leapt up through the door and reached out a hand to help Zac aboard.

  Zac climbed into the jet, and the door slid shut behind him. When he stood up, he found himself inside a sleek, blue-grey cabin with a cockpit at one end and a living area at the other. A giant TV screen on the wall showed a satellite feed of a sandy desert.

  ‘OK,’ said Zac, dropping his backpack on the floor. ‘Now are you ready to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘It’s nothing too extreme,’ said Grandpa, grinning at Zac.‘But how do you feel about a quick race around the world?’

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  ‘Ready for take-off?’ called a voice from the front of the jet.

  Zac looked up and saw Leon, his geeky older brother, sitting at an enormous control panel crammed with glowing buttons and dials. Leon worked on gadgets and vehicles in the GIB Tech Labs.

  Grandpa nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

  Zac jumped into the co-pilot’s seat. He and Leon got to work at the controls, steering the invisible jet out onto the street. As they picked up speed, Zac could see the houses rushing past the window, faster and faster.

  Zac still had no idea where they were going, but at least it meant he got to miss out on school!

  ‘The course is plotted,’ said Leon, tapping a few final buttons. ‘Autopilot on.’

  ZZZOOOOOOM!

  The jet lurched forward and rocketed into the early morning sky.The force threw Zac back against his chair. After about 30 seconds, the jet levelled off and started flying towards the ocean. The city was far below them now, a sea of tiny buildings. Zac and Leon undid their seatbelts and stood up from the control panel.

  ‘When will we get to the Amber Sands?’ Grandpa asked Leon.

  ‘In about four hours,’ Leon replied.

  ‘Why are we going to the desert?’ asked Zac. He’d visited the Amber Sands before, on another mission.That was the first time he’d ever met the BIG agent Caz. Caz was his worst enemy.

  ‘We’ve got some treasure-hunting to do,’ said Grandpa. He pulled something round and shiny from his pocket and handed it to Zac. It looked like a standard-issue GIB mission disk, but it was jet-black instead of silver.

  Zac slipped the disk into his SpyPad. A message popped up on the screen.

  ACCESS DENIED

  Level X security clearance.

  Retinal scan required to verify identity.

  It looked like the security on this mission was super-tight! Zac held the SpyPad up to his face. A laser shot out from the screen, scanning his eye.

  The SpyPad beeped, and then Zac’s top-secret mission loaded onto the screen.

  HIGHLY CLASSIFIED

  LEVEL X SECURITY

  ACCESS ONLY

  A Data Orb containing a top-secret G.I.B. map has been stolen by B.I.G. Commander Agent Blackwood. The map leads to four pieces of a highly dangerous device, code-named IRIS. Blackwood and her granddaughter, B.I.G. agent Caz Rewop, are planning to find t
he pieces and put IRIS back together.

  YOUR MISSION:

  Collect the four pieces of IRIS before Blackwood can reach them.

  TOTAL MISSION TIME REMAINING:

  4 days, 2 hours, 16 minutes

  ‘Blackwood is Caz’s grandma?’ said Zac, looking up from the screen. He’d had no idea that the two of them were related.

  Leon shrugged. ‘I guess evil runs in the family.’

  For a second, Zac saw a strange look flicker across Grandpa’s face. But then it was gone. Zac looked back down at the mission briefing.

  ‘So, what is this IRIS thing?’ he asked. ‘And why was it broken up into pieces?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Grandpa. ‘IRIS was created many years ago by two spies when they were not much older than you. It was an incredibly powerful gadget. Too powerful. When I realised how dangerous IRIS really was, I had to get rid of it.’

  ‘You broke IRIS apart?’ said Zac.

  Grandpa nodded, and then cleared his throat. Zac had the strangest feeling Grandpa wasn’t telling him everything he knew.

  ‘I took IRIS from the research lab and split it up into four pieces,’ Grandpa said. ‘I went around the world and hid the pieces in different secret locations.’

  ‘But now BIG have a map to find the pieces,’ said Zac. ‘And they want to put IRIS back together.’

  ‘No-one was ever supposed to find that map,’ said Grandpa, shaking his head. ‘It was encoded inside a Data Orb and sealed up in the Invisibles Department at GIB headquarters. I even DNA-locked the data!’

  ‘DNA-locked?’ said Zac.

  ‘So that only someone with Power DNA could open it,’ Leon explained. ‘Either Grandpa or someone else in the family.’

  ‘Me and someone else in the family,’ said Grandpa. ‘This particular Data Orb takes two sets of Power DNA to unlock.’

  I guess that’s why GIB needs more than one Power for this mission, thought Zac.

  ‘Last week, GIB security was transferring the Data Orb to our high-security vault,’ said Grandpa. ‘Blackwood intercepted the delivery truck and stole the Orb.’

  ‘And Blackwood’s obviously found a way around the DNA-lock,’ said Leon. ‘Because she and Caz are already on their way to the first piece of IRIS.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Zac. ‘We’ll just get there first and take the piece before they do.’

  ‘Right,’ said Grandpa. He put a hand on Zac’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.‘Kiddo, we can’t let Blackwood get her hands on those gadget pieces. If BIG gets IRIS up and running again, it will be…’ ‘A nightmare?’ Zac finished.

  ‘No,’ said Grandpa seriously. ‘Far worse than that. At least you can wake up from a nightmare.’

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  ‘What is this IRIS thing, anyway?’ Zac asked again, realising that Grandpa hadn’t answered the question.‘Why is it so terrible?’

  ‘That’s…classified,’ said Grandpa, not quite meeting Zac’s eye.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Sorry, kiddo,’ Grandpa interrupted. ‘You don’t need to know what IRIS does. Our mission is just to find the pieces before Blackwood does.’

  Zac was annoyed. Even though he was a top GIB agent, adults still sometimes treated him like a kid.

  ‘Come on,’ said Leon, moving towards the back of the jet. ‘Let’s head up to the MicroLab and I’ll get you ready for the first leg of your mission.’

  ‘MicroLab?’ asked Zac.

  ‘My new mobile laboratory,’ said Leon proudly. ‘The smallest yet. It can travel by land, air and sea. It’s not quite ready to go orbital yet, but –’ ‘Great,’ interrupted Zac with a grin. Once Leon got talking about his inventions, it was almost impossible to stop him!

  ‘Where is it?’ Zac asked.

  ‘It’s docked on top of the jet,’ said Leon, pressing a button on the ceiling.

  HISSSSS!

  A hatch opened up above their heads, revealing another cabin.

  ‘How come I couldn’t see it from the outside?’ asked Zac, following Leon through the hatch into the MicroLab.

  ‘The jet’s invisibility device can be extended,’ explained Leon. He stood up in the cabin of the MicroLab and looked around. ‘So, what do you think?’

  The whole place was a mess of gadgets and gadget parts – crammed onto shelves, hung on silver hooks, stuffed into clear plastic boxes and drawers.

  ‘It looks like Granny’s attic,’ said Zac.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said Leon, reaching up to a shelf above his head. ‘Well, I bet Granny’s attic doesn’t have one of these.’

  He pulled something shiny down from the shelf and handed it to Zac. It was a metal gadget with X-shaped tubes at the end, and two rubber handles at the bottom.

  ‘Look familiar?’

  ‘The X-Beam!’ said Zac, recognising the gadget straight away.

  The X-Beam was like a normal X-ray machine, except it could see through brick and metal. A few months earlier, Zac had taken the blueprints for this gadget from an enemy agent.

  It obviously hadn’t taken Leon long to turn those blueprints into a working X-Beam.

  Sometimes it’s handy having a geek for a brother, Zac thought with a grin.

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Leon. ‘Try it.’

  Zac grabbed hold of the two rubber handles. He looked through the lens and took aim at the roof.

  TSEWWW!

  A flash of light burst out of the X-Beam. Suddenly, the MicroLab’s ceiling seemed to disappear. Through the lens, Zac could see straight through the ceiling to the sky outside.

  ‘Awesome!’ he said, taking his finger off the trigger.The X-Beam powered down and the ceiling looked solid again.

  ‘According to Grandpa, the first piece of IRIS is hidden underground in the Amber Sands desert,’ said Leon. ‘But because we don’t have the Data Orb’s map, we don’t know where exactly. The X-Beam will help you track it down.’

  Zac put the X-Beam in his backpack. Leon began hunting through his shelves and opening drawers.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Zac asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ said Leon with a yawn. ‘I usually get more prep time than this. Grandpa only woke me up five minutes before he woke you.’

  Leon opened another drawer. ‘A-ha,’ he said, taking out what looked like a black tripod. He handed it to Zac.‘This is a Shield Dome. The weather can get pretty nasty out there in the desert, but this should protect you from the worst of it. Just plant it in the ground and hit this button on the side.’

  ‘Great,’ said Zac. ‘Thanks.’

  He glanced down through the hatch, checking to make sure Grandpa was still at the front of the jet. Then he lowered his voice and said to Leon, ‘Did you see that look on Grandpa’s face?’

  Leon raised an eyebrow. ‘What look?’

  ‘When I asked him what IRIS did,’ said Zac. ‘Grandpa got this look on his face, like he was hiding something.’

  ‘Grandpa wouldn’t lie to us!’ Leon said, shaking his head.

  ‘I didn’t say he was lying,’ said Zac.

  ‘But I get the feeling he’s not telling us everything.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Leon shrugged. ‘But Grandpa wouldn’t keep secrets from us unless he had a really good reason to.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Zac. He loved his grandpa, but his spy senses were tingling. He knew something weird was going on. And I’m going to find out what, he told himself.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Leon. ‘I’ve got to head back to HQ for a bit, but I’ll meet you on the way to your next stop. Good luck finding that first IRIS piece!’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Zac, climbing back down through the hatch to Grandpa’s jet. ‘See you.’

  Zac dropped to the ground. The hatch hissed closed above his head. Then there was a low rumble as Leon’s MicroLab disconnected from Grandpa’s jet and flew away.

  Zac headed over to Grandpa, wondering what could be so terrible about IRIS that he wanted to keep it a secret.

  CHAP
TER

  FOUR

  A few hours later, the invisible jet was flying high above the Amber Sands. Zac and his grandpa were closing in on the first piece of IRIS.

  ‘How much further?’ Zac asked.

  ‘Not too far,’ said Grandpa, glancing down at a strange gadget on his wrist.

  Zac eyed the gadget. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a Proximity Scanning Unit,’ said Grandpa, reaching into his pocket. ‘I’ve got one for you too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Zac. ‘What does it do?’

  ‘I planted a Tracking Beacon on each IRIS piece,’ Grandpa explained. ‘The PSU locks onto the beacons and tells us how far away we are from each piece. It was a back-up in case I didn’t have the Data Orb.’

  Zac strapped the PSU to his wrist.

  ‘Cool,’ he said. ‘We’re nearly there –’

  WHOOOOOSH!

  Zac was almost thrown out of his seat as the jet suddenly lurched sideways. He glanced out the window to see what had knocked them. But all he could see was a giant wave of sand!

  ‘What was that?’ Zac shouted, grabbing the control panel in front of him.

  ‘It must be a sand storm,’ Grandpa shouted back. ‘They happen all the time in this area. Don’t worry, it’s only a little one.’

  WHOOOOOSH!

  ‘A little one?’ said Zac, as the jet gave another horrible jolt. Sand lashed the outside of the jet, blowing it off-course.

  ‘I’ll have to land the jet,’ called Grandpa above the noise. ‘It’s too dangerous to keep flying!’ He grabbed the controls and steered the jet towards the ground. Sand blasted out from under them as they landed.

  Zac braced himself as the jet rumbled loudly across the sand. But then suddenly the wind was gone. The sand storm had disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

  ‘Right,’ said Grandpa, powering down the engine. ‘Let’s get going.’

  HISSSSSS!

  I guess sand storms come with the territory, Zac thought, grabbing his backpack.