plane. What would they do?
Piinngg!
Â
It was a SHINE mission alert. Emma took out her phone.
Â
DING DONG!
Â
Whatâs that? wondered Emma, as she turned and saw her mum checking her own phone. They both looked around to check if the boys had noticed but they were far too busy in the duty-free shop looking at computer games.
âDarling,â said Emmaâs mum to her dad. âEm and I are going to look at the shops over the other side. We might be a while,â she said, winking at Emma. âBut letâs go to the toilet first, Em.â
Emma knew exactly what her mum was thinking.
âGood idea, Mum,â she said. âWhich one?â
âThe one with the light globe sign next to it,â said her mum. âOver here.â
They walked into the toilets and made their way down the row of cubicles. They were nearly at the end and Emmaâs mum was still close behind her.
âPlease tell me we are not both going in the same toilet,â Emma mumbled to her mum.
âDonât be ridiculous,â Mum replied quietly. âI always take the second from the end on the right, the one next to you.â
Thatâs a relief, thought Emma. It was embarrassing enough starting a mission on the toilet without your mum sitting there too!
Emma went into the last cubicle on the right and closed and locked the door behind her. She sat on the seat and looked under the toilet roll holder. Sure enough, there was a small socket, the perfect size for Emmaâs SHINE -issue phone. She connected her phone and waited.
Her phone screen flashed.
And then, as Emma gripped the seat, it spun around and she was on the other side of the wall sitting on the toilet seat at what looked like an underground train station. There was a beep and then her mum, also sitting on the toilet seat, spun around too. EJâs screen flashed again.
SBT stood for SHINE Bullet Train and although Emma had only ever used it before to leave SHINE HQ , she wasnât surprised that SHINE would have a station at the airport. EJ and SJ boarded the train and, as it began to move, the touch-screen in front of EJ flashed on. First the SHINE logo appeared and then text underneath it.
âMum, I mean SJ45,â said EJ. âIâve just received a code.â
âOkay, EJ, do your thing,â said SJ45. âA1 will need it cracked before we arrive at HQ.â
That didnât give EJ long. She looked back at the screen.
EJ looked at the message. It looks like nonsense but there are spaces so they must be words, thought EJ. But what sort of words are they? Where do I start? EJ knew all messages had to have a clue somewhere otherwise the person receiving it wouldnât understand it. It would be like getting a message in another language that they didnât speak.
Hold on, thought EJ. Another language, maybe thatâs it. Maybe this message isnât in code but in another language. But which one? EJ knew there were more than six thousand languages in the world.
This might take a while, she thought. The message was traced to a phone in Africa so maybe itâs an African language. How many languages can there be in Africa? Iâll have this done in no time.
EJ swiped to the SHINE Internet app on her phone and keyed in the question. When she saw the answer she was a little deflated.
âGreat,â said EJ.
âEverything okay?â asked SJ45.
âNot yet,â said EJ.
She looked back at the screen and touched on the icon of the small light globe in the bottom corner that was for agents to send messages back to SHINE HQ . It was a high-level security email system. EJ quickly keyed her email.
She touched SEND and waited. After only seconds, the globe icon flashed. EJ touched it and saw her reply.
Okay, thought EJ. Now weâre getting somewhere. Again she went on the Internet and searched languages spoken in Tanzania. There was a number of different languages spoken but