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when the other was made from metal and plastic.
    ‘Why do you want to help?’ he asked. ‘You barely know me.’
    ‘It’s how I’m programmed.’
    ‘Don’t blame me when you spend the next million years in jail.’
    She shrugged. ‘With good behaviour I could be out in half that time.’
    Blake frowned. ‘We just need to work out how to break in,’ he said.
    ‘I’ve already formulated several plans.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Blake,’ Nicki said, patiently, ‘my brain is capable of twenty-four gazillion calculations per second.’
    Zeeb says:
    A gazillion is a really big number, but it’s not the biggest. Even if you put a nine at the front, there is a bigger number and that number was first calculated on the planet Trian Four.
    It had long been rumoured that the Trians had discovered the largest number in existence within a deep cavern on their planet. An ancient civilisation known as the Gaarrggg (I think it’s a silly name too, but people can call themselves whatever they want) had grown a giant mushroom to use as a calculating machine.
    Yes, a mushroom. The Gaarrggg had long since discarded synthetic materials and grew their computers from biological waste.
    When the Gaarrggg prime minister, Bastmuffin Gelda, confronted the mushroom, demanding to be told the largest number in existence, the mushroom asked, ‘Are you sure you want to know?’
    ‘Absolutely,’ said Prime Minister Gelda.
    ‘Really sure?’
    ‘Definitely.’
    ‘Are you positively certain—’
    ‘Just tell me the sprottin’ number!’
    ‘Well, okay,’ the mushroom said. ‘It’s—’
    And it told him.
    The prime minister stood, thoughtful, for about five minutes. Then the left side of his mouth began to twitch. Shortly after, his whole face started moving uncontrollably. Then his right eyeball popped out as he laughed and repeatedly punched himself in the jaw.
    By the time his advisers checked to see how he was doing, they found him on the floor chewing his left foot.
    The whole incident was all rather unexpected. The mushroom, meanwhile, had said nothing more, and sat in the cave, looking rather pleased with itself.
    ‘What the sprot happened?’ the deputy prime minister asked. ‘What went wrong?’
    ‘I told him the largest number in existence,’ replied the mushroom.
    ‘Which was?’
    Not really a very clever thing to ask, because the mushroom told her. Some hours later they found the deputy prime minister sitting alone on the floor of the cave with Prime Minister Gelda’s right arm poking out from her mouth. No one was sure what had happened to Gelda until they realised most of him was now inside the deputy prime minister.
    It was quite a disappointing result all round, and the cave was sealed up shortly afterwards. I’ve often wondered what happened to that mushroom. Did they cook and eat it? Personally, I like mushrooms with a little butter and—
    ‘How many plans have you come up with?’ Blake asked.
    ‘Twelve,’ Nicki said. ‘However, I would rate nine of them as nothing short of suicidal. And our chances of succeeding in two of the others are no better than surviving a jump off the mile-high Wobontom Tower—without a parachute.’
    ‘And the remaining plan?’
    ‘Still not great odds,’ Nicki admitted. ‘We would need help from someone who’s good with a jet pack.’
    ‘You mean,’ Blake said, ‘a scarmish jet pack?’
    ‘That would do.’
    Sprot.

12
    Astrid Carter was worried sick. Lisa still hadn’t come home.
    Astrid had rung the police, but they had said a missing person’s report couldn’t be filed until two days had passed. Then they had suggested that Lisa might have run away, so Astrid had angrily hung up on them.
    Lisa wouldn’t run away , she thought. But where is she?
    It wasn’t like her daughter to go off without telling her. They had planned to go out and get their hair cut; a great new salon had opened on level 800. And besides, Lisa had no reason to leave. She was perfectly happy at