People's Republic

  ‘If you haven’t got plans I was hoping you’d come over to the mission control building,’ said Amy. ‘I need someone with half a brain to bounce ideas off.’

  Ryan reached over his shoulder and thumped on his book-laden pack. ‘I’ve got lessons.’

  Amy smiled. ‘It’s funny how you forget stuff. I used to loathe Saturday morning lessons, but I haven’t even thought about them since I left campus.’

  ‘When you get as old as you are, it’s only natural for the mind to start going.’

  ‘Watch it, cheeky,’ Amy said, as she gave Ryan a little dig in the ribs.

  ‘I’m happy to help,’ Ryan said. ‘But I’ll have to clear skipping lessons with my handler.’

  The rain started blasting in marble-sized balls as Ryan took out his phone. He pulled his hood up as he spoke to Meryl, but by the time she’d agreed to let him help, Amy had jogged about thirty metres ahead.

  ‘She’s good,’ Ryan said, when he’d caught up. ‘What are we brainstorming?’

  ‘Football kits,’ Amy said cryptically. ‘But I’m getting bloody soaked, so let’s leave it until we get to mission control, eh? Race you.’

  Before Ryan could answer Amy bolted off along the gravel path. It was a kilometre from the medical unit to mission control, but they were both in shape and ran at a good pace. Ryan won, but only because he was prepared to get muddy by crossing the grass, while Amy stuck to gravel.

  When they got into mission control they were sodden and breathless. Ryan stood inside the main entrance unlacing his muddy boots as Lauren Adams walked towards them.

  She adopted a sarcastic tone. ‘Oooh, is it raining out?’

  ‘You’ve noticed,’ Amy said. ‘Anything exciting happening?’

  Lauren shook her head. ‘Nice and dull, which is good because I’m trying to revise my AS physics. Ewart’s gone to get a late breakfast, I’m manning phones in case an agent calls in with an emergency.’

  ‘Are there any towels around here?’ Amy asked, as she flicked water out of her hair.

  ‘I’ll grab a wodge of paper ones from the bathroom,’ Lauren said. ‘Just listen out for any calls in the control room.’

  As Lauren hurried off to the bathroom, Ryan peeled the soggy bottoms of his trousers away from his legs. When he looked around, Amy was pulling her T-shirt over her head and her wet bra left little to the imagination.

  ‘Stop perving,’ Lauren said loudly, as she walked out of the bathroom.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ Ryan said, turning red.

  Once they’d done the best they could drying off, Ryan and Amy walked to the operations centre in the middle of the building. One or two mission controllers were always on duty here, providing emergency support for mission controllers and agents in the field.

  Because it was always in use, the operations centre never got tidied properly and there were mounds of paperwork, coffee cups, broken computer components and Post-its spread over six workstations arranged in a semicircle under a double-height ceiling.

  ‘OK,’ Amy said, as she stood by a white marker board mounted on a side wall. ‘Last night I used a hypnosis technique on Ning. She mentioned seeing a photograph on the wall in an office. Two muddy boys, aged between ten and twelve. They were wearing football kits: maroon and orange hooped socks, maroon shorts and orange shirts. The shirts also had a logo, which Ning described as a square smiling cartoon.’

  Ryan sat in one of the office chairs, rocking it from side to side as he faced Amy. Lauren was further away with her face in a physics textbook, but half listening to what Amy had said.

  ‘Why’s the kit so important?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Because if we can identify the team that these boys play for, we can get their names. Once we have their names we can find out where they live and who their parents are. Once we know that we can find out who Daddy is and where Daddy works.’

  ‘At least maroon and orange is unusual,’ Ryan said. ‘Millions of football teams must wear red and black, or blue and white, but who plays in maroon and orange?’

  Amy nodded and wrote maroon and orange on the whiteboard.

  ‘How do we know it’s football?’ Lauren asked. ‘I mean. What if it’s rugby, or hockey?’

  ‘Fair point,’ Amy said, as she added Rugby? and Hockey? to the board. ‘Although it makes our task harder, not easier.’

  Lauren laughed. ‘Sometimes the truth hurts.’

  ‘You said the boys were muddy,’ Ryan said. ‘Which makes rugby more likely. And hooped socks are quite common for rugby teams.’

  ‘What happens when you Google football teams?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘I had a quick mess with the web,’ Amy said. ‘You get thousands of random teams. I tried searching for orange and maroon kit too and all I got was a Sydney rugby union side.’

  ‘And the Internet’s not geographical,’ Ryan said. ‘You can’t narrow your search down to teams in specific areas, unless you know an exact place name. But what about local newspapers? You know, they always report kids’ football matches and have team photos and stuff. We know the approximate area where Ning was. We could get copies of local newspapers from all around. There might be a hundred or so and you’d have to go through lots of back issues. It would take a while, but it’s far from impossible.’

  ‘Worth thinking about,’ Amy agreed, as she wrote local newspaper archives on the whiteboard. ‘I suppose you could even try calling the newspapers up, because a local sports correspondent might know which teams play in which colours.’

  ‘But you’d tip people off that we’re looking,’ Lauren said.

  ‘I don’t think that’s critical,’ Amy said. ‘We can easily find an excuse. Say we’re police looking for a young burglar or mugger seen wearing those colours, something like that.’

  ‘What about the sponsor’s logo?’ Ryan asked. ‘Like, I know you can’t type square cartoon man into Google, but there must be a place where trademarks are kept. And they must be indexed somehow.’

  ‘Long shot,’ Amy said. ‘But that’s what brainstorming’s all about.’

  As Amy wrote trademark registry? on the whiteboard, Lauren shot out of her seat.

  ‘I played under-nines’ football before I joined CHERUB,’ she said excitedly. ‘My mum ordered a kit and got this local shop to sponsor us, in return for which she agreed to stop robbing them.’

  Ryan looked confused. ‘What was your mum, a stick-up merchant?’

  Lauren laughed. ‘She ran the biggest shoplifting gang in London. And none of that really matters.’

  ‘So what are you getting all excited about?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Kit suppliers,’ Lauren said, as she typed football kit suppliers into the computer in front of her. ‘My mum ordered three or four catalogues, I can remember looking at them, picking out the colours.’

  ‘I get it,’ Ryan said. ‘There are tens of thousands of kids’ football teams in the country. Hundreds of leagues, hundreds of local newspapers, hundreds of schools, youth clubs and churches that run them, but you’re saying there are probably only a dozen or so companies that supply printed football kits. And most of them would have records of who they’ve sold kits to and what colours they were.’

  Amy broke into a smile. ‘Nice one, Lauren,’ she said, as she wrote KIT SUPPLIERS!!! up on the board. ‘And if it’s like most businesses, the market for kits is dominated by a few big companies. If we can identify the biggest kit suppliers, then get them to send us a list of everyone who’s ordered an orange and maroon kit in the past five years, there’s a decent chance we’ll locate the team we’re looking for.’

  ‘I’m extracting a list of—’ Lauren began, but a phone rang before she could finish and she reached out to grab it. ‘Unicorn Tyre Repair, how may I help you?’

  As Lauren dealt with a stricken CHERUB agent at the other end of the country, Amy stepped across to Ryan.

  ‘We’ll get a list of kit suppliers off Google,’ Amy said. ‘Then we’ll crosscheck company names against Companies’ House
business records, so that we can pick out the ones with the biggest financial turnover. Then we’ll start making phone calls, starting with the biggest and working our way down.’

  ‘A lot might be closed on a Saturday,’ Ryan said.

  Amy nodded. ‘But I’d still like to get on with this. We’ll get the company directors’ names and crosscheck against bank databases to get home addresses and contact details. I don’t care if they’re golfing, sailing their boat or visiting Granny. We’ll find out who sells orange and maroon football kits, then who’s been ordering them and where they play.’

  ‘Might take a while tracking all these people down,’ Ryan said.

  Amy nodded in agreement. ‘You got any mates who wouldn’t mind getting out of Saturday morning lessons?’

  44. TREADMILL

  Dr Kessler’s idea of a little pinch was closer to Ning’s idea of complete agony, but the small piece of muscle tissue that had been removed from her thigh would give a wealth of information on her physical potential when stained and viewed under a microscope.

  After the biopsy, Carlos and Ning had full body X-rays to determine any skeletal defects, then they were wired up with heart monitors, fitted with breathing masks and given a treadmill workout to test their heart and lung capacities.

  The speed at which you recover from a bout of exercise is a key sign of your fitness levels, so Ning and Carlos still had the heart monitors attached as Dr Kessler disappeared to his lab and gave them a chance to rest.

  Ning wasn’t as fit as she’d been when she lived at the sports academy, but she was still a natural athlete and recovered well. Carlos on the other hand was gasping and kept rubbing the plaster stuck to his thigh.

  ‘If you scratch you’ll make it worse,’ Ning said.

  ‘What do you know?’ Carlos said. ‘And why do you speak with such a stupid accent?’

  The girls at Kirkcaldy had taken the mickey out of Ning’s Sino-Scouse accent and she’d grown self-conscious about people thinking she sounded stupid every time she opened her mouth.

  ‘I’ve had muscle biopsies when I was at a sporting academy in China,’ Ning explained. ‘If you scratch, it will start bleeding again.’

  Lottie the nurse dropped by with cups of water, which they both downed quickly. Ning threw her empty cup at the recycling bin, but it bounced off the rim. Carlos approached to dispose of his own cup as Ning bent over to pick hers up, but made a retching sound and shot a torrent of puke down the back of Ning’s shirt and trousers.

  ‘Aww, bloody hell,’ Ning shouted angrily, as Carlos staggered off to the other side of the room and broke into a coughing fit.

  Ning didn’t know whether to clean up or help Carlos first.

  ‘Nurse,’ Ning shouted, as she spotted a dispenser filled with paper towels.

  Lottie comforted Carlos and gave him water to wash his mouth out as Ning did the best job she could cleaning off the back of her T-shirt and trousers.

  ‘Is there anywhere I can get a clean set?’ Ning asked. ‘Can I run back to the main building, I know there’s a uniform store somewhere?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t authorise you to leave during recruitment testing,’ Lottie said. ‘Please sit still, the heart monitors are supposed to be measuring your recovery time.’

  Ning felt sorry for Carlos, but at the same time she was angry with him because there were a million places where he could have thrown up without hitting her.

  Now that medical procedures were over, chairwoman Zara Asker would conduct the rest of the tests.

  ‘I’ve got three kids and they’ve all thrown up on me dozens of times,’ Zara told Ning when she arrived. ‘We need to get to the dojo and I’m not taking a twenty-minute diversion just because you’ve got a little wet patch on your trousers.’

  Ning felt miserable as she followed Zara through light drizzle towards the dojo. Carlos was still fighting for breath and twice Zara turned back and yelled at him to keep up. The chairwoman had seemed much nicer the previous afternoon and Ning guessed Zara was just having a bad day.

  The martial arts dojo was one of the swankier buildings on CHERUB campus. The construction cost had been donated by the Japanese government after a CHERUB operation infiltrated a Russian spy syndicate stealing valuable Japanese technology.

  It was built in traditional Japanese style, with a vaulted roof shaped from huge single-trunk beams. Outside was a traditional Japanese rock garden and a carp pond spanned by a wooden bridge. The inside was more functional, and apart from the spectacular roof, could have been any modern gymnasium, with banks of fluorescent lights and a hum from the ventilation system.

  After leaving shoes and socks outside on a porch, Ning, Carlos and Zara crossed springy blue matting in the main part of the gym. You’d usually see Miss Takada teaching martial arts here, but presently a group of cherubs in their late teens had a ghetto blaster pumping out an old show tune as they practised a dance routine.

  A sliding screen took them through to a side room which had a square of red matting in the centre and wooden benches around the edge. Two sets of safety gear had been left in the middle of the floor: lightly padded martial arts gloves, gum shields, head protectors and a protective cup for Carlos.

  ‘The rules are simple,’ Zara said. ‘Use any technique to floor your opponent, except kicks to the genitals, jaw wrenching or eye gouging. It’s five rounds, first to get three submissions wins.’

  Ning looked awkwardly at Zara, as Carlos tried to figure out how to properly tighten the Velcro straps on his padded gloves.

  ‘Amy wrote a file on me,’ Ning said. ‘I don’t know if you read it, but I’ve done a lot of boxing and Carlos is way below my weight class.’

  ‘Of course I read your file,’ Zara snapped. ‘But who says getting into CHERUB is easy? If Carlos is small and skinny in here, he won’t suddenly get big and strong on an undercover mission, will he?’

  Ning wondered about Zara acting so differently to how she’d been the previous afternoon. Ryan had refused to give any details on the recruitment tests, but he’d hinted that she should expect the unexpected. As Ning pulled on her headgear she wondered if Zara’s mood was a deliberate way to make her feel uneasy.

  ‘Line up,’ the chairwoman said sharply.

  But Carlos hadn’t mastered his combat gloves and Zara tutted impatiently as she fixed the Velcro straps for him.

  ‘Touch gloves and fight.’

  Carlos moved aggressively, swinging wild fists and making a few soft contacts with Ning’s shoulders. But he had no idea what he was doing and Ning could have planted a brutal fist in his face any time she liked.

  As Ning backed up Carlos almost did for himself, coming off balance with his own swinging fist. Ning saw the opportunity to floor him without serious damage and swept his feet away. Carlos hit the mat hard and Ning straddled his back.

  ‘Give up,’ Ning said, as she sat on Carlos’ back.

  It’s tough to speak with gum shields in, but whatever Carlos said wasn’t polite and he kept wriggling even though his situation was hopeless. Ning didn’t want to hurt Carlos, but she needed to do something extra to make him submit, so she put her hand on to his shoulder and dug her thumb into his armpit.

  ‘Oww,’ Carlos yelled. ‘I submit.’

  Carlos steamed as he stood up and shouted like a spoiled brat, ‘That wasn’t fair. I tripped.’

  Ning couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in luck.’

  ‘Get your gum shields back in,’ Zara said firmly. ‘Line up, touch gloves.’

  Carlos had nothing in his tactical arsenal beyond the wild swinging thing. But he didn’t trip this time, so Ning moved in and gave him a fairly gentle punch in the face, hoping it would be enough to knock him back without hurting his nose. To Ning’s surprise, Carlos’ legs went wobbly for about half a second, but as she backed off Carlos charged again. She shoved him backwards, but not before he’d caught her with a heel in the stomach.

  Unfortunately for Carlos, i
t was only enough pain to make Ning angry. She ducked into a proper boxing stance for the first time and threw three quick punches. The first to the head knocked Carlos backwards, the second to the gut doubled him over and the third pounded the side of his ribcage and left him sprawling on the mat.

  Carlos had landed face down, but he soon rolled on to his back and made a high-pitched wailing noise.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ning said, as she rushed over. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve always been strong and I’ve won medals for boxing.’

  Carlos had this weird expression and Ning backed off because she thought he might puke again. She turned to face Zara.

  ‘What’s the point of this?’ Ning asked. ‘All it proves is that an experienced twelve-year-old boxer can batter a skinny ten-year-old. That’s hardly a big surprise.’

  Zara eyeballed Ning. ‘Maybe you should remember who you’re talking to and follow the rules.’

  Ning bristled. She’d woken up that morning thinking she’d found a place where she wanted to be, but now she was facing a strict teacher laying down stupid rules and telling her to remember her place, exactly like school in China.

  Ning trembled as thoughts raced through her head.

  ‘I’m not hurting Carlos again,’ she said, as she ripped off a glove and threw it down. ‘I submit three times, so Carlos wins three to two. Just hope I’ll do better on the next test.’

  Zara took a long slow breath before nodding. ‘Fine, Carlos wins.’

  Ning had expected Carlos to show gratitude, but he instantly leapt up off the floor and started jumping around shouting, ‘I win, I win. In your face!’

  ‘Aww, give over,’ Ning said irritably. ‘You didn’t even know how to put the damned gloves on.’

  ‘The next stage tests your brainpower,’ Zara said. ‘A simple written exam, testing mathematical abilities, language skills and general knowledge. You’ll have ninety minutes and I expect you to complete it while sitting in complete silence.’