Aftershock Read Free Page B

that he was actually reading. It was just one more side effect of the unusual abilities that he been born, or, more accurately, engineered with. Wing, meanwhile, was sat at his desk, looking slightly frustrated as he studied his notes from one of their recent Science and Technology lessons.
    ‘Anything I can help with?’ Otto asked, noticing the look on his friend’s face.
    ‘I am finding the mathematics of atmospheric re-entry rather perplexing,’ Wing replied with a sigh.
    ‘I told you,’ Otto replied, ‘just start with the simple stuff, Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation and its application to orbital dynamics.’
    ‘Oh yes,’ Wing replied, rolling his eyes, ‘the simple stuff.’
    ‘Want a hand?’ Otto asked again.
    ‘No,’ Wing replied firmly, shaking his head. ‘You will not be able to help me in the exams. I must try to understand this for myself.’
    ‘OK, let me know if you change your mind,’ Otto said. He was just starting to feel slightly guilty as the exams approached. He might find them trivially easy, but he knew that all of his friends were getting extremely stressed at the prospect of the looming tests. There was a beep from the door and Wing got up and pressed the unlock button beside it.
    ‘Hi, guys,’ Laura said. ‘You busy?’
    ‘Hey,’ Shelby said, striding past her, ‘they’re never too busy for us, right?’
    ‘Our lives wouldn’t be complete without you,’ Wing said with a wry smile.
    ‘Awww, you’re so cute,’ Shelby said, giving him a peck on the cheek.
    ‘What’s up?’ Otto asked as Laura walked inside and closed the door behind her.
    ‘Well, I’ve had an idea but it’s something that I’d need some help with so I just wanted to run it past you guys and see what you thought,’ Laura said.
    ‘Sure,’ Otto replied. ‘What have you got in mind?’
    ‘Well, just like the rest of you, I’m getting really sick of the hard time we’re all getting from Chief Dekker at the moment and I reckon that it’s time we took her down a peg or two.’
    ‘Go on,’ Otto said, putting down his book and leaning forward, suddenly interested.
    ‘So I was thinking about the fact that she’s been put in charge of security for the exams and it struck me how it might be really, really embarrassing for her if someone was to, I dunno, borrow the exam questions.’
    ‘Laura Brand, that is one of the most dishonest and devious things you have ever suggested,’ Otto said. ‘I love it!’
    ‘That’s what I said,’ Shelby grinned.
    ‘Hmmm,’ Wing said with a slight frown. ‘Wouldn’t that be cheating?’
    ‘It’s called securing a tactical advantage,’ Otto replied quickly. ‘With the added bonus of rubbing Dekker’s nose in it. Only problem with that is the exam papers are stored in H.I.V.E.mind’s core memory which is the most secure data storage in the school.’
    ‘How do you know that’s where they are?’ Shelby asked.
    ‘Well,’ Otto replied, looking slightly shifty, ‘I might have already . . . erm . . . considered this possibility myself and made some very gentle probes of the network to see if I could find the exam papers, you know, lying around anywhere.’
    ‘I am surrounded by dishonourable people,’ Wing said with a sigh.
    ‘Hey, honeycheeks, this is the Higher Institute of Villainous Education,’ Shelby said. ‘That’s kinda the point.’
    ‘The problem is that ever since I had H.I.V.E.mind as a passenger up here,’ Otto tapped the side of his head, ‘I can’t access anything other than the school’s most basic network layer without old wireframe-head knowing. I have no idea how we’d get access to his core memory without him noticing. I even tried just asking him for the exam papers because he still owes me for letting him ride around inside my head a few months back. He told me that even if he wanted to he couldn’t. He’s under direct command from Nero to keep the examination papers secure within his own core