A giant fireball burst out of the crater and shot into the sky, throwing ash everywhere. TorrentBoy ran across the room and grabbed Gabby by the arm, and yanked her out of the building before a second fireball scorched the office.
Outside, the sidewalk was starting to crack from the awful tremors, and the shopping centre across the street was covered in broken windows.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Gabby shouted, looking to her bike, which she’d locked to a nearby lamp post.
Just then, a large chunk of the sewage treatment plant dropped on the bike, turning it into a bright red pancake with a bell.
“Aw nuts,” she sighed.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” said Rezzit suddenly, “which do you want first?”
TorrentBoy looked around as the city started falling apart around him.
“Good first!” he said into the Watch.
“The good news is I’m going to summon the SpeedJet to get you out of there.”
“Great! So what’s the bad news?”
“You’ve only got about ten seconds before the machine goes kablooey.”
TorrentBoy gritted his teeth and slammed his fist down on the Tracker Watch.
“SpeedJet! Go!”
A bright flash shot out of the watch and in an instant, a sleek blue machine like a rocket-powered surfboard materialized in front of him. He leapt onto it, grabbed Gabby’s arm, and with a quick twist of his heel, the Jet shot up into the sky!
And then … a loud boom, like a thousand bombs going off at once; and a shocking flash that burst across the rooftops until it hit the Jet and sent it into a spin.
“Hold on!” TorrentBoy yelled, trying to keep from falling off. They spun and twisted through the air, smashing into chimneys and TV satellite dishes on the way.
TorrentBoy slammed his heel down into the accelerator hard, and the Jet burst a hot flame out behind it, and whooshed further into the clouds, slowly straightening out.
Gabby was holding onto TorrentBoy tightly, her teeth chattering loudly.
“Are you scared?” he asked her, kind of mockingly.
“No, I’m cold! Can we stop flying so high?”
TorrentBoy realized they were pretty close to space. His armour protected him from the cold, so he hadn’t noticed how chilly it really was.
“Oh. Uh. Sorry.”
They dropped down below the clouds, and Gabby sat down on the Jet to get a better look at the world below.
“Did it explode?” she asked, pointing down at the sewage treatment plant, which didn’t seem too blown up considering the shock wave that it had just burped into the sky.
TorrentBoy looked down too, and frowned.
“It doesn’t look like it. Let me check my computer.”
“Oh, I’m your computer now, am I? Can’t even be bothered to say my name in front of your girlfriend?”
TorrentBoy gritted his teeth.
“Computer, what’s the status of the machine?”
Rezzit kept quiet.
“Computer, did the machine explode?”
No answer.
“Computer—”
“Did your computer break or something?” Gabby asked, sounding worried.
“No,” grumbled TorrentBoy, “it's just really dumb and sometimes I need to speak extra slow for it.”
“You want me to turn off the Jet’s engines right now?”
TorrentBoy sighed loudly.
“Fine. Rezzit, what happened to the machine down there?”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“What’s that?” Rezzit said innocently, “What? Are you talking to me? Me, Rezzit? The one who saved your butt?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, well in that case, I guess I’ll answer you, you ungrateful little punk. Let’s see … okay, the machine appears to be intact. I don’t know what caused that explosion, but whatever it was, it didn’t even dent the machine.”
TorrentBoy frowned.
“What? What’s wrong?” asked Gabby anxiously.
“Rezzit says the machine wasn’t even scratched.”
“Oh,” she said, “so what does that mean?”
“It means I have to go back and blow it up properly. But first, I have to drop you back at school before—”
“Oh no!” Gabby gasped suddenly.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“My friend Wesley was down there!”
TorrentBoy was shocked! Gabby was worried about him? She was scared he might have been squished into a crumbly bit of red slime by a falling building or something? This was too funny! She had a heart inside her cruel little body after all!
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” TorrentBoy said reassuringly.
“Oh trust me, I have to worry. If he didn’t get blown up, he probably fell into the crater all by himself. He’s a real klutz.”
“Ha! It’s funny ‘cause it’s true!”
“I bet he’s more capable than you think,” TorrentBoy sulked.
“Last year he got his foot stuck in a toilet in the girls’ bathroom by mistake.”
“I didn’t — I mean, he did not!”
“Then why’d everyone call him Mr Soggy Shoes all year?”
“It was a friendly nickname,” he sulked.
“No, his friendly nickname is ‘pooperpants’.”
TorrentBoy had nothing to say to that. He hadn’t known about being called pooperpants, but now he understood why nobody would sit next to him in assemblies.
He was so lost in thought that he almost didn’t notice Gabby nudging him.
“So what were those big creatures that attacked us? You look like you’ve seen them before.”
“They’re Proton Leeches,” TorrentBoy said, trying to avoid eye contact. “They feed on Torrent energy and anyone in their path. Also, their breath smells.”
“I noticed,” Gabby agreed, “but why did they come after me and Wesley?”
“That’s probably my fault,” said Rezzit without a hint of regret, “when I gathered up all that juice to make your force field, they would have noticed the surge and come running for table scraps.”
TorrentBoy nodded.
“Rezzit did something dumb,” he explained to Gabby. “He says sorry.”
“I do not!”
“He feels really stupid.”
“In your dreams, pal!”
“He promises not to use TorrentSpace irresponsibly again.”
“What's Torrent… Space?” Gabby asked hesitantly.
TorrentBoy took a moment to consider. It was a big question, and the answer was so complicated it had taken him a while to really wrap his own mind around it.
He explained to Gabby about how all people on Earth are part of a giant, interlocking network of brain energy. Each person shares a little bit of their knowledge and experience with the group — without even trying — through this mesh, so that everyone gets a little smarter.
“That’s TorrentSpace,” he concluded, “it's what makes us truly human. Without it, we’re just … empty shells.”
“And so you’re around…”
“To protect TorrentSpace.”
“From what? Leeches?”
“And more. You’d be surprised how many nut cases out there want to harness TorrentSpace for death rays and giant planet-busting bombs.”
Gabby looked positively sick at the thought.
“Sounds like a great job.”
“It’s a lot of hard work,” TorrentBoy agreed, “But at least I get to fly around on cool toys like this thing!”
And then, as if on cue, the SpeedJet rocked sideways, and its engines shut off in a jolt of flame.
They started dropping, and fast!
“Aw nuts,” he sighed.
