The Set Up (27 page)

Trained?
What did she mean by that?

‘But I left my phone out for you on the hall table, back at the mews house,’ she went on. ‘Didn’t you realise I’d done that on purpose?’

‘Er . . . no, actually . . .’

‘
And
I told Fergus we were at Penhagen House. He rang Ketty’s cellphone, which Jack had left with me,’ Dylan went on. ‘So you see, I was trying to help you, but I
had
to get that formula without Jack knowing. And Jack’s the only person I know who knows Geri – so I had to wait until I could steal a look at his phone contacts list before I could get hold of her.’ She turned to Geri. ‘By the way, Ketty helped too. She’s Viper.’

Geri’s eyes widened. Her gaze settled on Ketty. ‘
Really
, dear?’ she said. ‘And what is Ketty’s gift, I wonder?’

‘She has precognition,’ Dylan explained. ‘She foresaw that Nico would save her if she fell off the cliff and that Jack would run away as soon as he’d lost the memory card and knew you were onto him.’

‘Yeah, Ketty saved my life,’ I added.

‘Er, I can talk for my—’ Ketty began.

‘How
marvellous
,’ Geri enthused. ‘Precognition is a gift we can make
great
use of.’

‘Mmm, I don’t think what she can do is very sophisticated,’ Dylan said, a hint of a sneer in her voice. ‘She can’t actually control what or when she sees anything.’

‘Not to worry.’ Geri smiled at Ketty, who was pointedly glaring at Dylan. ‘A deeper gift may develop in time, dear.’

‘I’m not worrying,’ Ketty muttered.

She threw me a cross look. I winked sympathetically at her, then turned to Geri.

‘You keep talking about “us” and “we”,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you told us exactly who
you’re
working for?’

‘Absolutely,’ Fergus agreed.

Geri and Dylan exchanged glances.

‘Very well,’ Geri said. ‘I work for the state. A discrete part of the secret services.’

The wind whistling in from the sea suddenly dropped. I shivered.

‘You mean the government?’ Ed said slowly. ‘Why is the
government
trying to track us down? How do they even know we . . . the Medusa gene . . . exists?’

‘Okay.’ Geri smoothed down her hair below the beret. ‘D’you remember I told you my code name was Medusa?’ she said.

Ed nodded.

‘So?’ I said.

‘Well, I was given that code name years ago, when I joined a small team of government agents whose remit was to investigate unexplained phenomena,’ Geri said. ‘There were three of us – one agent’s job was to look into the existence of mythic creatures, while the second had to analyse weird and unexplained events in the natural world. I was the third agent, code named Medusa, and tasked with investigating psychic phenomena.’ Geri paused. ‘For five years, I ran a secret operation through which I tracked and tested thousands of people who claimed psychic abilities such as mind-reading and telekinesis. But every lead I followed took me down a dead end, until I met Dr William Fox. He claimed that, given sufficient resources he could manufacture a gene for specific psychic abilities. His thesis made sense, so we invested money in his research. The result was the four of you.’

Dylan, Ed, Ketty and I all looked at each other, then back to Geri.

‘The original investigative operation came to a close when we realised that Fox’s Medusa gene had fatal side effects.’

‘You mean it killed all our mothers,’ Ketty said.

‘That’s right, dear. And very sorry I am about it too,’ Geri said, quietly. ‘Anyway, in response William Fox told us that all the research and gene engineering data on Medusa had been destroyed. We had no reason to doubt him – he was genuinely appalled by the cancer your mothers were infected by and particularly devastated that his actions were going to cause the death of his own beautiful wife.’

I glanced at Dylan. She was staring stonily at the ground.

‘However, despite his anguish, William couldn’t quite bring himself to destroy his research. Instead, he hid all his notes in his family home, only telling one person – his brother – where they were. We questioned Fergus after William’s death, but he backed up William’s story. And managed to make sure that Ed and Ketty’s true identities were kept quiet.’

I stared at Fergus with a new respect.

Geri sighed. ‘Without the state resources I’d enjoyed before, my operation was closed down, there was no way I could find you. And – to be honest – little point in doing so at that time. William Fox had made it clear that the effects of the Medusa gene wouldn’t kick in until puberty. And, of course, we couldn’t be sure back then that the gene would really work.’

‘So what changed?’ I said.

‘Last year, when I knew your abilities would be emerging, I got the government to fund a new project and set Jack to find you all. Dylan – as Fox’s own daughter – and Nico – who we knew was living with Fergus – were the easiest to track down. The other two, as you know, took more time. And it would all have gone very smoothly, if Jack hadn’t stumbled across the Medusa gene formula . . .’

‘. . . and Carson hadn’t offered him twice as much money as you were paying him,’ I added.

Geri nodded.

‘So what’s the purpose of this new project that the government’s agreed to fund?’ Fergus asked.

‘And how do the four of us fit into it?’ I asked.

Geri was silent for a moment, the only sound the wind and waves raging. Then she spoke again.

‘The four of you
are
the new project,’ she said.

‘What does that mean?’ I said.

‘That’s up to you, dear,’ Geri went on. ‘There are three options . . .’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Okay.’ Geri cleared her throat. ‘Option one. I call the gutter press and tell them all about you. I make sure they know wherever you go and whatever you do. They hound you forever.’

‘No!’ Behind me, Fergus exploded. ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to protect them from! That’s . . .’

‘Option two.’ Geri continued as if Fergus hadn’t spoken. ‘We keep everything secret and I hand you over to a team of government scientists. They will keep you locked up in lab conditions, away from your friends and families, for the rest of your lives.’

‘
What?
’ Ketty said.

‘You can’t,’ I said.

‘These kids have rights!’ Fergus was red in the face. ‘You’re not their legal guardian, you can’t just whisk them away and turn them into . . . into . . .’

‘Research experiments,’ I finished for him. ‘Those are crap options, Geri.’

Geri smiled at me. ‘But you know I can make them happen,’ she said. ‘You saw how fast I was able to remove the records of Jack’s helicopter’s flight this morning. He called me on the way to the heliport, claiming he had new intel on Viper’s identity. I didn’t know he was double-crossing me with Carson at the time – so when he said he needed to throw the police off his scent I just assumed he’d broken some minor law to get a lead on Viper and covered his tracks as he requested. It was – literally – as easy as making a phone call.’

‘You’re still offering us crap options,’ Ed stammered.

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Media victims or lab rats isn’t much of a choice.’

‘You haven’t heard the third option,’ Geri said slowly. ‘How would you like to go back to school and still stay in touch with your families? No press. No labs. A normal life. Your old life, in fact.’

‘It wouldn’t be an old life for Dylan,’ I said.

‘Dylan’s already agreed to option three,’ Geri said briskly. ‘She did so months ago, when we first met in the States. You can ask her yourself, but I know for a fact she was – and is – very keen to leave Philadelphia and begin a new life here . . . at her uncle’s boarding school.’

I stared at Dylan. ‘So you were never staying with relatives,’ I said slowly. ‘You and Jack made that up because you didn’t want to have to explain you were moving here.’

Dylan crossed her arms and gazed out to sea. I suddenly remembered what she’d told me on our train journey back from Scotland.

Geri made it sound like coming here would be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to me.

I frowned. How could she think joining Fox Academy would be exciting? There had to be something Geri wasn’t telling us. ‘What’s the catch?’ I asked.

‘No catch,’ Geri said. ‘But we
will
need something in return.’

The wind died again. A seagull squawked overhead.

‘And what’s that?’ I said.

Geri’s high, tinkly laugh rang out. ‘Every now and then, a difficult situation arises in the world which can’t be dealt with by normal means. Your abilities will help.’

I narrowed my eyes. ‘You want to
use
our abilities?’

Geri nodded. ‘That’s why we set up that elaborate con in the casino – to test out how well you performed under pressure. Unnecessarily, as it turned out. All four of you have had to work under far greater pressure today – and it has been a huge success.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Ketty said. ‘You’re saying you want us to form some kind of crime-fighting force?’

‘To fight
criminals
?’ Ed added. ‘Using our abilities?
No.
’

‘They’re just kids,’ Fergus pleaded.

Geri shrugged. ‘You’ll get relevant training and a proper briefing each time. And you’ll be able to develop your team-working abilities too, under Mr Fox’s guidance.’

Team-working?
I made a face. That didn’t sound much like fun.

‘I want no part of this,’ Fergus snapped. ‘These are
children
whose lives you’ll be risking.’

‘Would you rather we went back to options one or two?’ Geri sighed. ‘Anyway, from what I’ve seen, the four of you work together very well.’

I glanced from Ketty and Ed to Dylan. My secret girlfriend, plus the boy who wanted her
and
the most arrogant girl on the planet, whom everyone appeared to think I was actually going out with.

Oh yeah.
Loads of team-working potential there.

‘There isn’t a choice, then,’ Ketty said flatly. ‘We’re part of this project whether we like it or not.’

Ed put his arm round her shoulders.

I looked away.

‘We’re agreed then.’ Geri smiled. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘welcome to the Medusa Project.’

Two weeks later and we were settled back at school for the start of the summer term . . . back to our old lives. Well, except everything was different of course.

Dylan was there for a start. I don’t think she was very impressed that I’d spread a bunch of rumours about us going out together last term, but she didn’t seem any more bothered by the gossip about us than she was by the legions of boys queuing up to get it on with her. She ignored everything and everyone – keeping herself to herself most of the time.

As for me, once it was obvious that Dylan and I weren’t together I got a load of teasing, especially from Tom and Curtis. But I didn’t care.

I had Ketty.

She did as she’d promised and cooled it with Ed straight away. But they still hung out a lot after school. I left them to it, knowing I’d see Ketty later. We met up – outside usually – for a couple of hours every evening. Those times were great. I just wished it didn’t have to be this big secret, but Ketty kept saying Ed needed a chance to get used to them only being friends. Then she’d tell him, and everyone else, about us.

It was the end of the first full week of term. We were going to have our first team-working session the next day, Saturday. God knows what it was going to be like.

At least Fergus and I were getting on better. After that little chat we’d had back on the cliff top at Penhagen House, Fergus promised that from now on he would treat me like an adult. No hiding the truth from me any more.

And, true to his word, he told me as soon as Geri Paterson contacted him to say they’d captured Jack Linden.

That meant a lot.

Anyway, like I said, it was Friday afternoon, school had finished and I was outside, sitting on the low wall out the back of the main building.

I heard footsteps and looked up. Ketty and Ed were running towards me. Ketty reached me first.

‘Mr Fox wants us in his office,’ she said, catching her breath.

‘Really?’ I smiled at her. She looked beautiful, with the sun shining on her hair and her eyes all wide and excited.

Ed ran up and the smile fell from my face. I knew it wasn’t really Ed’s fault that Ketty was keeping our relationship a secret, but it didn’t exactly make me like him any better. I almost wished he’d break his own rules about mind-reading – and find out the truth for himself.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Come on.’ Ed stared at me, as usual not quite making eye contact. ‘Mr Fox says it’s important.’

‘Really?’ I faked a yawn. ‘What does he want us to do? Colour-code his paper clips?’

There was a pause. Ed and Ketty looked at each other, then back to me.

‘It’s our first mission,’ Ketty said. ‘For the Medusa Project.’

I sat bolt upright, all my bitterness at Ed forgotten. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘No.’ Ketty’s eyes sparkled with excitement and fear. ‘Come on, they’re waiting.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Fox and Geri Paterson . . .’ she said.