Stormbreaker

iceberg. The main body of the factory was here, underground.
    He looked more closely. He remembered the Stormbreaker that he had used and now he noticed something that he hadn’t seen then. A strip of plastic had been drawn back in the casing above each of the screens to reveal a small compartment, cylindrical and about five inches deep. The computers were passing underneath a bizarre machine—cantilevers, wires, and hydraulic arms. Opaque, silver test tubes were being fed along a narrow cage, moving forward as if to greet the computers: one tube for each computer.
    There was a meeting point. With infinite precision, the tubes were lifted out, brought around, and then dropped into the exposed compartments. After that, the Stormbreakers were accelerated forward. A second machine closed and heatsealed the plastic strip. By the time the computers reached the end of the line, where they were packed into red-and-white Sayle Enterprises boxes, the compartments were completely invisible.
    A movement caught his eye and Alex looked beyond the assembly line and through a huge window into the chamber next door. Two men in space suits were walking clumsily together, as if in slow motion. They stopped. An alarm began to sound and suddenly they disappeared in a cloud of white steam. Alex remembered what he had just heard. Were they being decontaminated? But if the Stormbreakers were based on the round processor there couldn’t possibly be any need for such extremes—and anyway, this was like nothing Alex had ever seen before. If the men were being decontaminated, what were they being decontaminated from?
    “Agent Gregorovich, report to the biocontainment zone. This is a call for agent Gregorovich.”
    A lean, fair-haired figure dressed in black detached himself from the assembly line and walked languidly toward a door that slid open to receive him. For the second time Alex found himself looking at the Russian contract killer, Yassen Gregorovich. What was going on? Alex thought back to the submarine and the vacuum-sealed boxes. Of course. Yassen had brought the test tubes that were even now being inserted into the computers. The test tubes were some sort of weapon that he was using to sabotage them. No. That wasn’t possible. Back in Port Tallon, the librarian had told him that Ian Rider had been asking for books about computer viruses.
    Viruses.
    Decontamination.
    The biocontainment zone …
    Understanding came and with it something cold and solid jabbing into the back of his neck. Alex hadn’t even heard the door open behind him, but he slowly straightened up as a voice spoke softly into his ear.
    “Stand up. Keep your hands by your sides. If you make any sudden move, I’ll shoot you in the head.”
    He looked slowly around. A single guard stood behind him, a gun in his hand. It was the sort of thing that Alex had seen a thousand times in films and on television, and he was shocked by how different the reality was. The gun was a Browning automatic pistol and one twitch of the man’s finger would send a 9mm bullet shattering through his skull and into his brain. The very thought of it made him feel sick.
    He stood up. The guard was in his twenties, pale faced and puzzled. Alex had never seen him before, but more importantly, he had never seen Alex. He hadn’t expected to come across a boy. That might help.
    “Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
    “I’m staying with Mr. Sayle,” Alex said. He stared at the gun. “Why are you pointing that at me? I’m not doing anything wrong.”
    He sounded pathetic. Little boy lost. But it had the desired effect. The guard hesitated, slightly lowering the gun. At that moment Alex struck. It was another classic karate blow, this time twisting his body around and driving his elbow into the side of the man’s head, just below his ear. The guard didn’t even cry out. His eyes rolled and he went limp. Alex had almost certainly knocked him out with the single punch, but he couldn’t take chances and followed it through with a knee into the groin. The guard folded, his pistol falling to the ground. Quickly, Alex dragged him back, away from the railings. He looked down. Nobody had seen what had happened.
    But the guard wouldn’t be unconscious long and Alex knew he had to get out of here, not just back up to ground level but out of Sayle Enterprises altogether. He had to contact Mrs. Jones. He still didn’t know how or why, but he knew now that the Stormbreakers