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and Space Machine on her belt, swept her hair out of her eyes, straightened her shirt and – when she’d run out of other stalling tactics – took Eleanor’s hand before reluctantly reaching out and lightly taking Linden’s.
    â€˜If Linden should come to harm or get lost or be in danger in any way,’ she said quickly, ‘I, Max Remy, will do everything I can to help him and bring him to safety.’
    Linden repeated the pact for Max, staring directly in her eyes. Max felt her face light up in a fiery, everyone’s-looking-at-me red. She quickly dropped hands and turned away to see even more tears teetering on the edges of Ben’s eyelashes. She pulled the machine from her belt.
    â€˜Travel carefully,’ Ben sniffed.
    â€˜We will.’ Max entered the coordinates ofSpyforce headquarters in London. An image of the city and the agency appeared before her.
    â€˜May the Force be with you,’ Ben’s voice cracked.
    â€˜Uh huh.’ Max grabbed Linden’s hand more forcefully this time to avoid Ben’s fast approaching blubber fest.
    â€˜And don’t forget to …’
    Max pressed transport and, with a small ffftt sound, she and Linden were on their way to London, England.

The Time and Space Machine sucked Max and Linden out of Ben and Eleanor’s underground lab in Mindawarra and, fifteen seconds later, had transported them to Spyforce HQ, London. In a flash of fluorescent light, they hovered momentarily in the air before floating gently to the floor of the VART – the Vehicular All-Response Tower.
    Max slowly breathed in the air of the hangar. It was filled with some of the world’s most technologically advanced spy vehicles, specially engineered for manoeuvring through any climate and terrain. Max looked at the place where the Invisible Jet would be if she could see it. She turned towards the Sleek Machine, which was a combination of a motorcycle and a glider that became invisible when it reached a certain oscillation frequency. She felt a quiver of excitement when her eyes landed on a shelf that held the range of foldaway inflatable vehicles they’d used to escape Blue’s thugs deep within the heart of the Amazon Jungle 4 .
    And when she turned further, she saw Linden only centimetres from her face.
    Until he leant in and came even closer.
    Max lunged backwards. ‘What are you doing?’
    â€˜There’s a ladybeetle in your hair.’ Linden took the bug gently in his hands and set it free. ‘Must have hitched a ride.’
    â€˜Of course.’ Max laughed nervously as she slipped the machine into its belt. ‘A ladybeetle. What else could it have been? It’s not like you were trying to kiss me or anything.’ Max’s eyes widened in horror. Please tell me I didn’t actually say that, she hoped.
    But the confused look on Linden’s face told her she had.
    â€˜Oh look, there’s Steinberger.’ Max straightened up and turned away, but before she could take one step she heard, ‘Wait! Don’t walk there.’
    Max froze with her foot suspended in midair while Steinberger faced her with outstretched hands, bulging eyes and toes clenched in his over-polished shoes.
    â€˜Sorry to startle you.’ He quickly approached. ‘I should have warned you. We’ve laid new soundproof, shock-absorbing, vibration-detecting flooring. It needs more time to settle, so we need everyone to keep to the temporary walkways.’
    Steinberger pointed to a higgledy line of wooden planks that stretched into a kind ofminiature highway throughout the VART.
    â€˜Vibration-detecting flooring. Like the Vibratron?’ Linden asked as Max placed her foot back on the ground.
    â€˜Yes.’ Steinberger beamed. ‘CRISP decided we needed a complete update of our security systems, and part of that update includes adding Vibratron cells to each square metre of the VART’s floor.’
    CRISP stood for