Making Waves Read online

  As Emma pushed the door open, she could see that there were lots of girls already inside. There were girls everywhere. Girls crowding around the hand-dryers trying to dry their hair, girls in the toilets, girls at the washbasins, girls just hanging around.

  Gee whizz, lemonfizz! This is hopeless, thought Emma. How am I going to get to the cubicle and, even if I do, how will I be able to access the Mission Tube with all these people here?

  She wouldn’t be able to. There was nothing for it, Emma would have to wait, she just hoped she wouldn’t have to wait all lunchtime. SHINE liked their agents to report promptly and they timed them. Just as Emma was starting to think the girls were going to stay in the toilets forever, Ms Tenga came in. That was unusual because the teachers hardly ever came in to the girls’ toilets.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ she cried. ‘I am sure we don’t need everyone in here and I am also sure everyone’s hair is dry now. Now, quick as you can, finish what you are doing and out, everyone out.’

  Girls started to shuffle out to the playground.

  ‘Not you, Emma Jacks,’ said Ms Tenga.

  Did Ms Tenga just wink at me? thought Emma. I think she did.

  ‘Emma, please stay and make sure there is no rubbish left anywhere and that everything is shiny and clean. That would be a great help, thank you. Right, everyone else, out!’

  Did Ms Tenga just say ‘shiny and clean’? wondered Emma. Was that a coincidence? Emma thought back to other times where Ms Tenga seemed to be in the right place at the right time to help her. Hmmm. Emma didn’t have time to think about that now though. Even if it was just a coincidence, Emma was grateful: she now had the girls’ toilets to herself and she needed to work fast.

  Quickly, before anyone else came in, Emma ran to the last cubicle on the right, pushed the door open and locked it behind her. She put down the toilet seat, sat down and opened the toilet roll holder. Hidden on the side, where no one would ever notice, was an electronic socket. Emma took out her phone and inserted it into the socket, just like a phone charger, and waited. There was a beep. Emma entered her pin code and took her phone out of the socket. There was another beep and then a familiar message flashed up on her phone screen.

  EJ clutched the sides of the toilet and held tight as the wall behind the toilet started to move. It spun around, with toilet and EJ attached. Once it had spun right around, EJ slid off the toilet and on to a beanbag ( SHINE liked their agents to be comfortable) at the top of what looked like a giant fun-slide. This was the SHINE Mission Tube, a system of underground tunnels that whizzed agents into and around the SHINE network. The wall then spun back and EJ could hear the click as the toilet door unlocked on the other side. That would ensure no one became suspicious about a locked toilet door and an empty cubicle. SHINE thought about these details. EJ waited while a protective shield clicked into place over the beanbag and then took her phone and keyed in ‘GO’. And go she did.

  EJ loved lots of things about being a SHINE agent. She loved the places she travelled to, she loved the gadgets she used, she loved the animals she encountered on missions and she loved going down the Mission Tube. Whizzing around corners at high speed, it was like a carnival ride that just went on and on, more than making up for having to start the mission in the toilet.

  Finally the tube straightened and levelled out as EJ came to a stop at a small platform with a keypad. She had arrived outside the Code Room. Again she keyed in her pin code and waited, this time for the security check to commence. To ensure that there was no unauthorised access to the code rooms, SHINE changed their checks daily—there had been head scans and singing tests, eye scans and signature checks. EJ wondered what today’s check would be. A tray with a small glass of water and a bowl came out from under the keypad and EJ heard a digital voice.

  ‘Gargle water and spit into the bowl. Please be accurate,’ said the voice.

  ‘Ew! That’s gross!’ said EJ but she did as she was instructed.

  She took the glass of water and drank it. Rather than swallowing, EJ swirled the water around and around in her mouth and then tipped her head back and gargled.

  EJ then took the small bowl and held it up to her mouth. Carefully she spat the water out again, into the bowl and put the bowl back on the tray.

  The bowl slid back under the keypad. For a moment nothing happened.

  Did I not spit enough back in? wondered EJ. But then she heard a beep.

  ‘A little messy but agent DNA and identity confirmed. Please drop in, Agent EJ12!’

  There was then one final beep, the floor under the beanbag fell away and EJ dropped down, beanbag and all, into a chamber underneath the Mission Tube. EJ had entered the SHINE Code Room. It was sparsely furnished, just a chair and a table and a clear plastic tube sticking out from the ceiling above the table.

  EJ heard a whizzing sound. She put her phone on the desk and put her hands out under the tube, catching the capsule that then popped out. Inside the tube were a piece of paper and a pen. EJ read the message on the paper.

  EJ looked hard at the code, studying the writing, if you could call it that. She was pretty sure they were letters but what had been done to them? This was not going to be an easy code and she was already way behind on time because it had taken so long to get everyone out of the toilets. EJ’s head started to rush and her thoughts whirled around and around as she began to tap the pencil on the table. None of these things were good for code-cracking.

  Calm down, she told herself, you need to look at codes slowly. There is always a clue somewhere. The code is broken up into parts, so just look at the first part.

  EJ looked again, this time slowly looking at each letter of the coded word.

  The fourth letter is a C, thought EJ. But why does it look normal and the others don’t? But, actually, some of the others don’t look that weird after all—the B and the K just look a bit funny, sort of upside down.

  And then EJ noticed that some of the code was reflected on her phone screen. The reflection picked up some of the words on the paper but now, when she looked at them on her screen, they looked completely normal. A mirror code, she thought. Can She then wrote the message out again. it be that simple?

  EJ took her phone and switched to mirror app, then held the screen over the message, taking one line at a time. She wrote down what was reflected in the mirror.

  She then wrote the message out again.

  It’s like a poem, thought EJ, but a bad poem, a really bad poem. And then it struck her—there was only one person in SHADOW who used really bad poems. Adriana. Adriana X, brilliant but crazy SHADOW scientist—and evil twin sister of the head of SHINE, A1. EJ scrawled a note under the decoded message.

  Then she rolled the paper back up and popped it up into the tube. Immediately it was sucked away to the Operations Room where A1 would be waiting for it.

  I’d better get there too, thought EJ as she reentered the Mission Tube. A1 is not going to be happy.

  A1 did indeed not look happy but her face brightened as EJ came through the large automatic doors from the Mission Tube to the SHINE Operations Room.

  ‘Welcome back, EJ12,’ said A1. ‘You took a little longer than usual. Any problems?’

  ‘It wasn’t the code,’ explained EJ, blushing and anxious that A1 might think she was losing her touch as a code-cracker. ‘It was more the problem of getting all the girls out of the toilets. I thought I would be waiting forever but then one of the teachers, Ms Tenga...’

  EJ stopped for a moment. She had just realised something about Ms Tenga’s name. If you mixed the letters up you could spell a-g-e-n-t, agent. There were too many coincidences. Maybe she should ask A1 about...

  ‘Yes,’ said A1. ‘Do you have something to ask me?’

  ‘Was that a coincidence, A1?’

  ‘Was what a coincidence, EJ12?’ said A1.

  ‘Ms Tenga...’

  ‘Ms Tenga?’ repeated A1.

  ‘This may sound silly, A1, but is Ms Tenga a SHINE agent too?’
r />   A1 smiled. ‘Yes, she is, EJ,’ she replied. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to figure it out. We have found it useful to cluster agents together. You never know when they might be able to help each other. I’m glad she could help you today. And now we need your help, EJ12. Let’s take a look at your decoded message.’ And with that, A1 looked up and spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Light Screen, lower.’

  On A1’s command, an enormous screen came down from the ceiling. It was the Light Screen, a giant, voice-activated plasma screen that accessed the Internet, all SHINE’s classified files and databases, radio and television channels and GPS technology. It also linked in with SHINE’s research and surveillance stations all over the world. EJ’s decoded message flashed onto the screen.

  ‘Good work, EJ,’ said A1, ‘and I think you are right, this message has all the signs of being from my sister, Adriana.’

  ‘But what is she doing?’ asked EJ. ‘What is “black harvest”?’

  ‘We think it is something to do with this,’ replied A1, passing EJ a small plastic container with a long black stick inside. ‘It accompanied the message.’

  ‘It’s a stick?’ asked EJ.

  ‘Sort of,’ replied A1. ‘An underwater stick anyway. It’s a piece of coral, black coral to be exact and the skeleton of black coral to be even more exact. The tissue of the coral is brilliantly coloured but the skeleton is this distinctive black. It is quite beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes but what does this have to do with Adriana and SHADOW ?’ said EJ.

  ‘We weren’t sure until you decoded this message, but now I think we can piece a few more bits of the puzzle together. We think this coral is the “black harvest” mentioned in the message. We think Adriana is harvesting black coral. We have been monitoring some unusual changes in the levels of water pollution up in the reefs of the marine heritage area off the north-eastern part of Australia and coral harvesting may explain it.’

  ‘But why would Adriana want black coral?’

  ‘Black coral is quite rare and extremely valuable because it mainly grows deep in the ocean, deeper than where most divers can go. It is difficult to get large quantities of it and that makes it very expensive. However we believe that Adriana has devised a new way to get the black coral. And lots of it. If she has, it could be devastating for the whole of the reef system. Our leading marine scientist can help us here.’ A1 turned to the Light Screen. ‘Teleconference Professor Agent F15H.’

  An image of a young woman with short black hair appeared in the corner of the Light Screen.

  ‘Hello A1, Agent EJ12.’

  ‘Thanks for joining us, F15H. Can you please give us some background on the reef system on the north-eastern coast of Australia and some of the changes you have been monitoring?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Let’s look at the area on the 3D map.’

  A map appeared on a part of the Light Screen, a satellite, 3D photomap. It started with Earth as a globe sitting in space. EJ could see the white of Antarctica and then above that the browny-green of the landmasses of Australia and New Zealand, both surrounded by water. Hugging the right-hand side of the top bit of Australia was a thick line of dark among the blue.

  ‘Is that the Great Barrier Reef?’ asked EJ12.

  ‘It is indeed, well done,’ said F15H. ‘You can just make out the spread of islands that lie off the coast. But let’s go in closer. Map, zoom Australia, northeastern coast.’

  The map zoomed in closer and EJ could now see different shades of blue in the ocean, the whites of the waves and the craggy browns and greens of mountains on the land. It was an incredibly detailed map. EJ could even see the waves moving.

  ‘Now we can see the reef better,’ said A1.

  ‘It’s enormous,’ said EJ. ‘I didn’t realise that it was so long.’

  ‘The Great Barrier Reef is the longest stretch of reef in the world,’ said F15H. ‘It’s millions of years old and home to thousands of ocean species. We can look at pictures and footage that can give you an idea of the richness of life under the water. Light Screen, zoom. Show images.’

  The Light Screen was suddenly awash with images. Photos flashed and video streamed, showing fish, big and tiny, of all the colours of the rainbow. EJ watched as more images appeared on the screen. There were pictures of dolphins diving, whales swimming and sea turtles gliding through the blue-green water. And there was coral, in all shapes, sizes and colours—browns, oranges, pinks and purples, blues and reds. Some of the coral looked like flowers, some like mushrooms, some like bushes and trees and some looked just weird, like nothing EJ had ever seen before. And, swimming over and through it all were hundreds, maybe thousands of fish. It was hard to take in just how many weird and beautiful species there were living together under the water.

  ‘That’s awesome!’ said EJ12.

  ‘Yes, and for once, I am pleased to say, that word is used correctly,’ said A1 smiling.

  EJ grinned back, a little embarrassed. A1 sounded just like her mum, who was always carrying on about how you couldn’t describe a TV show as awesome.

  ‘It is,’ agreed F15H, ‘but it is also under threat. Climate change is altering the balance of the sea water and making it too acidic for many of the species. We are starting to see disturbing signs of the smallest species being affected and if the smallest species are affected, soon all the other species will be too.’

  EJ scrunched her nose and narrowed her eyes, feeling a bit confused.

  F15H glanced down at her from the Light Screen. ‘Let me explain,’ she said. ‘Everything in nature is connected. If something happens to one part it has a knock-on effect with something else and then that thing will affect something else and so on. Take tiny plankton,’ she said. ‘Light Screen, show plankton.’

  An image appeared of tiny and transparent insect-like things swarming in the water like little sea bugs.

  ‘These organisms, many of them microscopic, are probably the most important group of species in the ocean,’ said F15H.

  ‘They are? You’re kidding me?’ exclaimed EJ. ‘They are so small. What about fish, dolphins and whales?’

  ‘Of course they are all important but without plankton, all of those creatures run into trouble,’ continued F15H. ‘Plankton is the food of many larger animals. If there is a problem with the plankton there will be a problem with the fish, with the whales and, slowly, the balance is upset, the food chain collapses and the reef and all the life that depends on it begins to die.’

  ‘Is Adriana doing something to the plankton?’ asked EJ biting her lip anxiously.

  ‘Probably. If she is harvesting the coral that will definitely be increasing the pollution levels of the water as well as causing other damage to the reef. For the last month we have been seeing some much higher than expected pollutant levels in particular areas of the reef but we can’t find the cause. There are also areas where the reef has been completely destroyed. Light Screen, show images.’

  Now more photos spilled on to the Light Screen but these were not beautiful, they were awful. There were images of water so clouded with dirt you could hardly see anything, images of lifeless coral smashed and dried on the seabed. And there wasn’t a fish to be seen.

  ‘This is the same reef?’ asked EJ, shocked.

  ‘I’m afraid so, at least a part of it,’ replied F15H glumly. ‘We believe that this is where the piece of black coral sent with the message came from.’

  Suddenly, there was a beep. F15H looked down and checked her pager.

  ‘Will you excuse me, A1?’ she said. ‘We have just had some more test results in and I need to look at them.’

  ‘Of course,’ replied A1. ‘Many thanks, Agent F15H, and please keep me informed. SHINE out.’

  The image of Agent F15H disappeared from the screen.

  ‘So, EJ,’ said A1, ‘we are pretty sure that Adriana is harvesting black coral. And Adriana’s message says “Black Harvest 1 complete”. That must mean she plans to carry out more.’

  �
��We have to stop her!’ declared EJ.

  ‘Yes, but first we have to find her,’ said A1. ‘And, so far, we have found no trace of her.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because of the A-Sub,’ suggested EJ. ‘The message says “A-Sub works a treat”. Perhaps she says that because no one can find her?’

  ‘I think you are right, EJ,’ replied A1. ‘We think Adriana’s A-Sub uses some kind of secret stealth technology that allows her to travel underwater without detection. But now we know a bit more about what we are looking for, we have a few secrets of our own up there which might just help us find her.’

  ‘We do?’ asked EJ.

  ‘Yes,’ said A1, ‘but we haven’t got much time.

  We need to get you to the reef, find Adriana and stop her before her harvesting and testing does any more damage.’

  EJ wondered if now would be a good time to tell A1 about her secret.

  Somehow A1 already knew. Indeed, A1 seemed to know a lot of things EJ didn’t expect her to and she often seemed to know what EJ was thinking, which could be disconcerting. Sometimes, however, it could also be comforting. This was one of those times.

  ‘EJ, you will be fine. You just need to take the plunge and dive right into the mission. Once you get started you won’t even think about things you used to be scared of.’

  EJ wasn’t so sure but she was determined to stop Adriana doing any more damage to the reef. Somehow that now seemed scarier than the deep water.

  ‘So,’ continued A1, ‘let’s commence your mission briefing. You did very well in your pool dives so you are ready for ocean diving. And in case you were worrying, Agent Captain C2C will be there to show you the ropes. You will remember C2C, our lead ocean agent, from your Antarctica mission and, if I remember correctly, one of our training camps. You will meet C2C at our secret diving station.’