Stormbreaker

and took out a sheet of plain paper. Quickly, he wrote a brief message in block capitals:
    FOUND THIS IN IAN RIDERS ROOM. CAN YOU MAKE ANY SENSE OF IT?
    Then he found his Game Boy, inserted the Nemesis cartridge into the back, turned it on, and passed the screen over the two sheets of paper, scanning first his message and then the design. Instantaneously, he knew, a machine would have clicked on in Mrs. Jones’s office in London and a copy of the two pages would have scrolled out of the back. Maybe she could work it out. She was, after all, meant to work for Intelligence.
    Finally, Alex turned off the machine, then removed the back and hid the folded paper in the battery compartment. The diagram had to be important. Ian Rider had hidden it. Maybe it was what had cost him his life.
    There was a knock at the door. Alex went over and opened it. Mr. Grin was standing outside, still wearing his butler costume.
    “Good morning,” Alex said.
    “Geurgh!” Mr. Grin gestured and Alex followed him back down the corridor and out of the house. He felt relieved to be out in the air, away from all the oppressive artworks. As they paused in front of the fountains there was a sudden roar and a propeller-driven cargo plane dipped down over the roof of the house and landed on the runway.
    “If gring gy,” Mr. Grin explained.
    “Just what I thought,” Alex said.
    They reached the first of the modern buildings and Mr. Grin pressed his hand against a glass plate next to the door. There was a green glow as his fingerprints were read, and a moment later, the door slid soundlessly open.
    Everything was different on the other side of the door. From the art and elegance of the main house, Alex could have stepped into the next century. Long white corridors with metallic floors. Halogen lights. The unnatural chill of air-conditioning. Another world.
    A woman was waiting for them, broad- shouldered and severe, her blond hair twisted into the tightest of buns. She had a strangely blank, moon-shaped face, wire-framed spectacles, and no makeup apart from a smear of yellow lipstick. She wore a white coat with a name tag pinned to the top pocket. It read: VOLE.
    “You must be Felix,” she said. “Or is it now, I understand, Alex? Yes! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Fraulein Vole.” She had a thick German accent. “You may call me Nadia.” She glanced at Mr. Grin. “I will take him from here.”
    Mr. Grin nodded and left the building.
    “This way.” Vole began to walk. “We have four blocks here. Block A, where we are now, is administration and recreation. Block B is software development. Block C is research and storage. Block D is where the main Stormbreaker assembly line is found.”
    “Where’s breakfast?” Alex asked.
    “You have not eaten? I will send you a sandwich. Herr Sayle is very keen for you to begin at once with the experience.”
    She walked like a soldier—straight back, her feet, in tight black leather shoes, rapping against the floor.
    Alex followed her through another door and into a bare square room with a chair and a desk and, on the desk, the first Stormbreaker he had ever seen.
    It was a beautiful machine. iMac might have been the first computer with a real sense of design, but the Stormbreaker had far surpassed it. It was black apart from the white lightning bolt down the side—and the screen could have been a porthole into outer space. Alex sat behind the desk and turned it on. The computer booted itself instantly. A second fork of animated lightning sliced across the screen, there was a swirl of clouds, and then in burning red the letters SE, the logo of Sayle Enterprises. Seconds later, the desktop appeared with icons for math, science, French—every subject—ready for access. Even in those brief seconds, Alex could feel the speed and the power of the computer. And Herod Sayle was going to put one in every school in the country! He had to admire the man. It was an incredible gift.
    “I leave you here,” Fraulein Vole said. “It is better for you, I think, to explore the Stormbreaker on your own. Tonight you will have dinner with Herr Sayle and you will tell him your feeling.”
    “Yeah—I’ll tell him my feeling.”
    “I will have the sandwich sent in to you. But I must ask you please not leave the room. There is, you understand, the security.”
    “Whatever you say, Mrs. Vole,” Alex said.
    The woman left. Alex opened one of the programs and for the next three hours lost himself in the