Code Name Firestorm Read Online Free Page B

here?”
    Agent J quietly scanned her with his smartphone, which was filled with electronicsspecially adapted by Professor Miller and Alfred Berners.
    He contacted HQ again. “It’s gone. The data has gone.”

    “Acknowledged, Agent J,” said Queen Bee, back at SWARM HQ. “Get whatever information you can from this woman, hand her over to the police, then return to base.”
    She stabbed at her phone in frustration, then turned to Professor Miller. “Time to step up our investigation,” she said. “Launch the SWARM.”
    A series of intricate metal cages, about the size of a shoebox, rose up from the surface of the lab workbench. Inside each was a fully repaired micro-robot.
    Red and green lights pulsed inside the cages. A glow flickered across nests of circuits and activation chimes sounded. The robots began to move.
    “Online,” they said as one.

CHAPTER THREE
3:40 p.m.
    Two black sports cars came to a stop in two ordinary residential streets in London. One parked close to the home of Tim Jones, the teacher who’d carried out the bank raid. Several miles away, the other car was outside the block of flats where Sally Burns lived.
    The first car was driven by SWARM’s Agent J, the second by Agent K. Both of them reached across and entered a code into a touchscreen on their car’s dashboard.
    Beneath the cars, small hatches slid open. Inside were plastic blocks, moulded to fit individual SWARM robots. The robots detached themselves and dropped to the ground. Their mission: to search the homes of the two Firestorm “attackers” and unearth whatever they could. As soon as the robots were clear, the cars sped away, back to SWARM HQ.
    Assigned to Tim Jones’s house were Chopper, Hercules and Sirena. Widow, Nero, Sabre and Morph scuttled, flew and spun their way up to Sally Burns’s flat.
    “Flow sensor data through our communications network,” signalled Chopper. “We can cross-check information as we go, and Simon Turing will monitor back at HQ.”
    “Logged,” replied the others.
    “Scans show no humans in the flat,” transmitted Nero. “We are proceeding to the second floor. Entry through letter box.”
    “Nobody home here either,” said Sirena. “Point of entry, dog flap at the rear of the house.”
    The robots’s sensors were programmed to read, record and analyze everything around them.Data streamed through their electronic brains: infra-red and X-ray scans, airborne particle sampling, chemical probes and high-res imaging.
    Carbon-fibre legs tipped with micro-grips enabled them to skitter along any surface. Tiny sections of their metallic bodies housed specialized circuits and detectors. Chopper’s compound eyes glittered as the mechanisms behind them whirred. Morph’s gelatinous exoskeleton flattened as he squeezed into the tightest spaces.
    Simon Turing’s voice dropped into the network. “HQ to Hive 1 and Hive 2. We’re getting a steady data feed. Keep looking.”
    “Why haven’t the police searched here for clues already?” signalled Sabre.
    “Queen Bee has control of the investigation,” said Chopper. “The secret services are able to take over from the police at times like this, as Agent K did at the bank. My communications data says the human expression ‘pulling rank’ applies here.”
    “Besides,” said Nero, “we can do the job with greater speed and efficiency than any human.”
    “Checking Tim Jones’s laptop,” said Sirena. “Hard drive is six terabytes. Scanning… Completed. Language analysis of documents shows nothing unusual.”
    “Scanning through mixed pile of papers and address books in Sally Burns’s kitchen drawer,” said Morph. “Some overdue bills, but nothing significant. Records of a charity walk… A camera containing twenty-three photos from a birthday party, dated four weeks ago…”
    “Analyze,” signalled Chopper. “Now that we’ve made a first set of basic scans, we can compare results and find out if anything connects Jones and Burns.