HIVE: Inheritance: Chapter One

Doctor Nero, headmaster of HIVE, sat back in his chair and surveyed his office. It was quite a big room with loads of desks, computers and cables dotted around the place like daisies. On the brown painted walls hung pictures of HIVE staff and various successful students holding money and weapons. One of them pictured a tall serious Russian girl holding a knife triumphantly.

"Raven," Nero muttered proudly. Raven was his bodyguard, the most feared assassin of all time.

He needed one, because HIVE stands for Higher Institute of Villainous Education. It's a school which is situated in a volcano-where no one will find it. Basically, they trained specially selected young geniuses to become criminals. But not just geniuses, one of the streams focused on training people to fight; they were mostly dumb. That was why Raven was special, she had been a vicious fighter and fairly ingenious. Taking a deep breath, Nero pressed a button and on the computer screen a silhouette of a man appeared.

"I hear you want to speak to me, Number One?" Nero asked his boss cautiously. He knew that Number One had a high temper and meant business.

"Yes, I do Nero," Number One's voice was artificial, to keep people from knowing who he really was. "It's about HIVE student Otto Malpense."

Otto Malpense was a thirteen year old albino who was an interesting pupil at HIVE. As far as anyone knew he was an orphan, and a few weeks ago Otto had developed the ability to control and enter computers.

"I wish to see Otto Malpense."

"What?" the words were out before Nero could stop himself. Number One had never ever asked a student to see him. "On the computer, right?"

"No, in person." Number One replied; if it wasn't for the artificial voice he would of sounded icy. Doctor Nero's jaw opened, the few people who saw his boss were killed-brutally.

Nero frowned. "You're not going to kill Otto are you? He's a very good student, there's lots of potential."

Number One laughed, a deep, evil rumble. "Of course not, we just want a chat!"

The silhouette disappeared suddenly, leaving Nero staring solemnly at a blank computer screen. He gulped nervously, he didn't know whether Number One was being sarcastic or not. Was he going to kill Otto? What could he do about it? Nero sighed and picked up a phone, it was time to arrange a staff meeting.