Free Blackout by Andrew Cope Page A

special lift that goes up to the very top floors, sir. Highly restricted access. I’ve never been up there personally. I can only go as far as the restaurant, that’s the thirty-third floor. But there have been a lot of people using the
private lift. Strange people, if you know what I mean?’
    Sophie’s cat had been abducted and she couldn’t wait any longer. She snatched the professor’s bulging wallet and wafted it in front of the security guard’s wide eyes. ‘What kind of strange people? We want to get up there.’
The little girl waved the wallet around and the man’s eyes tracked it, like Spud did with a chocolate éclair.

    ‘Old people,’ he said, mesmerized by the chunky wallet. ‘Loads of very old people. They go up and they never come back down. A community of pensioners.’
    ‘There, told you,’ said Sophie, turning to the others. ‘Shakespeare has been catnapped by a bunch of evil diamond thieves who just happen to be pensioners. And somehow they’re intending to destroy the Internet. It makes perfect sense.’
    ‘It does?’ asked the guard, his eyes still on the professor’s fat wallet.
    ‘Get us up there,’ ordered Sophie.
    ‘I c-can’t,’ stammered the guard, fearing his easy cash bonus would disappear before his very eyes.
    ‘Can’t or won’t?’ frowned Sophie.
    ‘I can only get you as far as the restaurant,’ he said. ‘After that, you’d have to take the, ahem, secret stairs.’
    In pride of place, in the middle of the room, sat a strange-looking contraption. Shakespeare eyed it curiously.
The bottom half looks like the
lawnmower that Dad keeps in the shed. And then there’s a series of pipes and tubes. And what on earth is that sparkly thing swinging above it?
He cast his mind back to the school disco when he’d popped by to fetch Sophie.
It looks like a glittery disco ball
, he thought, remembering the one that had been suspended from the school ceiling.
How odd. Maybe the old people are going to be doing some disco dancing
. Shakespeare gulped as the realization hit him.
The glittery things on the disco ball are diamonds!
    A man was kneeling next to the contraption. He had opened the panel on the lawnmower and seemed to be fixing the diamond –
my diamond
– inside. He closed the panel and dusted his hands together. ‘Precision engineering,’ he announced. ‘Everything is sorted, right down to the last thousandth of a millimetre. The satellites are nearly aligned. Our time is coming.’
    Shakespeare hoped his family were tracking him through his translating collar. He glanced at the grandfather clock ticking its way past 11.30 a.m.
Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen soon!
Shakespeare’s previous scrapes had used up a few of his nine lives.
I just hope I’ve got enough left to save the world
.

14. Getting Carried Away
    Ten
minutes later the children were skipping up the stairs towards the very top of the Shard. Professor Cortex was puffing behind. If they’d had time to look at the view, they’d have noticed the whole of the capital city spread out below, a giant Google map that was about to go offline.
    Sophie was first to the top. She caught her breath and waited for her brothers. The professor’s footsteps were at least two floors away and she didn’t have time to wait. ‘Shakespeare is in here,’ she said, turning the handle, and burst into the top-floor apartment.
    Dozens of old people’s eyes looked their way, many over the top of their spectacles. Already furrowed brows became even more creased. Jigsaws and crosswords ceased.
    The grandfather clock ticked towards midday
and the kettle boiled in an otherwise silent stand-off. The children stared at the small army of pensioners and the pensioners blinked back until the kettle boiled violently and clicked itself off.
    ‘Young people,’ said a voice, breaking the silence.
    ‘I would imagine you’d like a biscuit?’ suggested a helpful old lady.
    Ben stepped forward first, his protective