good to hear, kid,’ said Hitch. He looked like he was going to add something but if he was then he changed his mind.
‘The thing is,’ said Ruby, ‘I don’t have my bike, so I was wondering if you could see your way to maybe driving me in?’ She gave him the Ruby Redfort slow blink and full-on eye hold – but it didn’t work.
‘Kid, it may come as a shock but I’m not actually employed by Spectrum secret services to drive you around. The job’s more complicated than you think.’
‘So how am I supposed to get to HQ immediately? It’s gonna take me three city buses and a twenty-minute walk.’
‘Take the subway from Greenstreet,’ suggested Hitch.
‘Greenstreet is closed for maintenance,’ said Ruby.
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something. Isn’t that what we pay you for? Thinking.’
‘That’s what I was doing, that was me thinking you might give me a lift.’
‘Think again kid.’
‘So how do I make it into the Spectrum elevator, you never gave me the code.’
‘Sure I did,’ said Hitch.
‘You did?’ said Ruby.
‘Think about it,’ said Hitch, ‘I’m sure it’ll come to you. Just add it up.’
RUBY LEFT HIS APARTMENT MUTTERING TO HERSELF about the gross injustice of it and how it was tantamount to child neglect, etc., etc. She picked up her satchel, slung it across her chest and walked out of the front door slamming it behind her. She was working up to being in a bad mood all the way down the front steps, until she caught sight of Elaine Lemon, a woman to be avoided at all costs. Mrs Lemon was always trying to engage Ruby in conversation which was rarely anything but deadly dull and she pretty much always rounded up by saying, ‘So maybe you’d like to babysit for Archie, I know how much you two enjoy spending time together.’
This was not true: Archie was not quite a year old.
Did he even care who he was spending time with? And as for Ruby, was it possible to enjoy hanging out with a baby?
Ruby for one thought not, and so in an effort to avoid Mrs Lemon she completely gave up on her bad mood and ran as fast as she could down Cedarwood Drive. When she got well out of hollering range she slowed her pace to a brisk walk. As she made it past the O’Learys’ place, she couldn’t help but notice that yet again they were having building work done. They seemed to have the place remodelled at least twice a year. There was a skip piled with junk out in front and sticking out of it was what looked like a perfectly OK skateboard.
This was Typical of Britney O’Leary; she would try something for about a week, get bored and then move on to another activity. Ruby yanked the board out and set it on the ground. It looked fine. She stepped onto it; it felt fine.
Here was her transport. It wasn’t as fast as cycling or driving, but it was quicker than taking three buses and a three-block walk. Of course it would be quicker still if she grabbed the wheel arch of a moving vehicle. If that guy with the haircut could do it then she certainly could. Yes, she would skitch a ride.
Ruby had never actually tried it before. If she was totally honest this was because she had always thought it was a dumb thing to do; unless of course it was an out and out emergency type of situation or one wanted to end up in the emergency room. But things had changed; she had escaped from the mouth of death, felt its burning tongues of fire, but she’d come out of it unscathed, permanent injury-wise. She felt, well, invincible, and so skitching suddenly seemed like a very good way of getting around fast.
Ruby set off on her newly acquired skateboard and minutes later had grabbed hold of an unsuspecting car headed in the right direction and she was on her way. She travelled at high speed, a great deal faster than pedalling a bike – she only had to shift rides twice, when the cars she had chosen peeled off in the wrong direction, and she reached the Schroeder Building car park in very good time.
As she snatched up her board she couldn’t resist a smile – quite a blast; the wind in her face, the road speeding so close beneath her feet. Travelling at thirty miles an hour without working for it, yeah, it was a blast all right. If she’d wiped out, it would most probably have been curtains for Ruby Redfort. . . but then, that only made her like it more.
She walked to the elevator, stepped inside and waited for the doors to close behind her. Now what? Now she needed to figure out the code that would take her to Spectrum.
She stood there thinking, If Hitch told me the code then it must have been when we arrived in the underground car park.
What did we talk about?
It couldn’t have been very interesting or she would have remembered. No, it was boring; Hitch was small-talking about the building. . . something to do with cars, and levels and floors.
She looked around – somewhere there would be a parking notice.
It was near the ramp where the cars came in.
Level capacity 500 vehicles.
There were 3 Levels so that meant 1500 cars. The Schroeder was seventy-seven storeys high. She knew that because everyone knew that; it had a big 77 above its entrance, the number referring to where the building was in the street and also to the number of floors it was made up of. She thought of what Hitch had said: add it up.
She added the numbers, 1500+3+77, stepped inside the elevator and tapped 1580 into the code panel. The door did not open.
‘What?’ said Ruby out loud. ‘Is this thing broken? How do I even call Spectrum maintenance?’ And that’s when she remembered that she needed to factor in the number of maintenance vehicles – Hitch had mentioned those too, but she couldn’t remember the exact number. This was somewhat of a pain since it involved counting the “maintenance reserved” bays but eventually she got there. Seventeen.
OK, add the maintenance vehicles.
She tapped in 1597 and the door opened.
‘Could he not have just reminded me?’ Ruby muttered. But she knew what his answer to that would be. Pay attention Redfort.
Despite the almost impossible feat of arriving barely twenty-seven minutes after leaving home, she was still met with an impatient look from Buzz, who told her to sit and wait until she was called.
‘Could I maybe go grab something from the canteen?’ said Ruby. ‘I skipped breakfast to be here.’
‘If you’re not here when they call you, it’s a fail,’ said Buzz.
Ruby rolled her eyes, and went and sat in the atrium for at least as long as it would have taken to eat breakfast.
‘Agent Redfort please make your way immediately to the rainbow office,’ came the robotic voice
