Base Camp (5 page)

‘I've set up the beacon,' he said, stepping back into the laundry.

By now Agent Cougar had untied the other agents. There were two men, a woman, and a girl about Zac's age.

Hang on,
thought Zac, doing a quick head count.
Four agents in the laundry. Plus Cougar, that only makes five.

‘Aren't there supposed to be six agents at this base camp?' he asked them.

Agent Cougar had obviously noticed the same thing. ‘Yeah, where's the boss?' he asked.

‘The BIG agent got him,' said a man with glasses. ‘He came in, tied up the rest of us, then grabbed the boss and carried him out the door.'

‘Did he attack you?' asked Zac.

‘No,' said the older woman. ‘He just sneaked in here and grabbed us one by one. By the time we realised what was going on, it was too late.'

‘I started to send out a distress call, but he caught me halfway through,' said the other man. ‘We've been stuck in the laundry ever since.'

‘Did any of you see his face?' Zac asked. ‘Do you know who he is?'

The girl shook her head. ‘It all happened so fast. We tried to stop him, but he was…' She trailed off, trying to find the right words.

‘I've never seen anything like it before,' she said eventually. ‘He was just so fast. And so strong.'

‘Yeah,' said Zac. ‘I know. I ran into him in the jungle and I only just got away. But the emergency beacon is set up now. The rescue crew should be here any minute.'

BOOM!

‘What was that?' Zac looked over at Agent Cougar.

Cougar's face was completely white as he pointed a shaky finger at the door. ‘He's here.'

CHAPTER
NINE

Zac spun around. The BIG agent was standing frozen in the doorway, staring right at him. He was still wearing a mask.

Zac glanced across at the huddle of GIB agents. They were all researchers and techies, just like Leon. Great in a lab, but rubbish in the field.

‘Get back into the laundry!' he ordered them. ‘Let me handle this.'

Agent Cougar was only too happy to follow this instruction. He dashed into the laundry and the others followed him in.

Zac's eyes flickered back to the doorway. The BIG agent was gone.
Where did he
–

OOOF!

Zac was tackled from behind! The masked BIG agent had slammed into him like a sack of bricks.

Zac threw his arms out in front of him to break his fall. As soon as he hit the ground, Zac tucked his legs up underneath his body.

He sprung up as fast as he could, throwing the BIG agent off.

Zac ran across the room, jumped over a couch and turned back to face the agent.

The masked kid sprung to his feet and crossed the room in Zac's direction. He lifted up one end of the couch that stood between them and tossed it aside like it was made out of cardboard.

Well,
thought Zac.
That's definitely not normal.

The kid broke into a run. But Zac dived under the wooden table in the corner and started commando-crawling across the ground. His backpack was on the far end of the table. If he could just reach his SpyPad…

Then Zac felt two cold hands around his legs.

The BIG kid dragged him out from underneath the table and pinned him to the ground.

Zac twisted around to stare up at the agent's face. ‘Who are you?' he demanded.

The agent said nothing.

‘All right, then,' said Zac, yanking an arm free from the BIG agent's grip.

Before the kid had time to react, Zac reached up and grabbed at his mask, pulling it free.

For a second, everything seemed to stand still. Zac looked right into the BIG kid's face and saw…

Himself. Zac Power.

The masked BIG agent looked
exactly like him
. It was another Zac. It was impossible!

WHOOMF-WHOOMF-WHOOMF!

The sound of helicopters in the distance brought Zac back to reality. It was the rescue crew.

The other Zac's head jerked up. He leapt to his feet and bolted for the door.

‘Oh no you don't!' yelled Zac. He sprung up and raced after him.

The two Zacs tore through the science lab and out into the jungle.

The BIG Zac looked up at the sky.Three GIB helicopters were zooming towards them, less than a minute away.

The Zac look-alike bolted.

Zac took a dive at the agent, his arms outstretched. But his hands caught only air and he hit the dirt. He glanced up just in time to see something fall to the ground from around the BIG agent's neck.

Zac staggered back to his feet, ready to give chase again.

But it was too late.

The other Zac had dashed away into the jungle and was gone.

CHAPTER
TEN

Zac looked down to see what had fallen from around the BIG agent's neck. It was some kind of computer chip on the end of a cord. Zac picked it up and tied the cord around his own neck.

He waved up at the helicopters. Then he raced back inside the base camp to grab his backpack and get the other agents.

‘I saw the BIG agent!' said Agent Cougar, pointing through a little window in the laundry. ‘He was running away through the jungle. He looked just like you!'

‘I know,' said Zac, shaking his head.

‘But that's impossible!' Cougar began.

‘How could – I mean, what
was
he? A clone, or a twin, or –'

‘I don't know!' Zac snapped.

This was all confusing enough without Cougar babbling about it.

‘Sorry,' said Cougar.

‘No, it's OK,' said Zac. ‘I just – I don't know. Let's just get back to HQ.'

Zac led the other GIB agents outside.

The helicopters were hovering over the base camp now, but the jungle around the building was too thick for them to land.

Instead, they lowered ladders to the ground for Zac and the other agents to climb.

Zac and Agent Cougar boarded one of the helicopters together.

‘Nice work, Agent Rock Star!' called the pilot as Zac climbed aboard.

‘Thanks,' replied Zac. He was too distracted to say anything more than that.

He sat down, strapped himself in and tried to make sense of everything that had happened to him in the last 15 hours.

• He'd found a BIG holo-projector with coded information about his long-lost grandpa.

• He'd met a secret team of GIB agents who thought Zac was going to wreck their mission.

• He'd fought a super-strong enemy agent who turned out to be Zac's exact double.

And on top of all of that, he had less than four days to stop BIG from setting off that Tech Blaster and sending all of GIB's gadgets into meltdown.

Zac's mind was a blur. It was too much to take in.

He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. He just needed a few minutes to rest.

BEEP BEEP!

Someone was calling Zac on his SpyPad. It was Agent Big Boss.

‘Excellent!' said Agent Big Boss through the SpyPad screen. ‘I hear you've rescued our stranded agents. Well done!'

‘Not all of them,' said Zac. ‘The head of their team was taken away by the BIG agent before I got there.'

‘Ah, yes,' Big Boss said awkwardly. ‘Well, five out of six agents rescued. That's not a bad effort!'

Zac stared at his SpyPad. That wasn't the response he had expected at all. An agent had gone missing and it was as though Big Boss didn't even care!

‘Sir, don't you want to –'

‘Anyway,' Big Boss said, talking right over the top of Zac. ‘Did you discover the identity of our mystery BIG agent?'

‘Uh, yeah,' said Zac uncertainly.

Something in the distance caught Zac's eye, distracting him. Looking out the window, Zac saw the BIG agent's jet rise up from between the trees and fly off in the opposite direction.

How was Zac supposed to explain all this to Agent Big Boss, when he didn't understand it himself?

‘Well?' Agent Big Boss said. ‘Who is he? Who's the BIG agent?'

Zac took a deep breath and stared at the face in his SpyPad screen.

‘It's me.'

TO BE
CONTINUED

Coming up in...
CODE RED

BIG have got their own Zac Power -
but how? And what does BIG know
about Zac's missing grandpa?

Zac has a hunch that it's all
connected. So why does
Agent Big Boss want to
shut down his investigation?