I thought about Mum. I thought about Rachel, on her own in that cottage with Lewis’s body. I thought about Lewis – how impossible it seemed that he could be dead. That Elijah could have killed him.
Hours passed. The night seemed to go on forever. I had no watch, so I walked over to where Elijah slept to look at his.
One of the guards was immediately at my side, pushing me away.
‘I just want to know the time,’ I said.
The guard grunted. ‘Fifteen after six, UK time.’ He had an American accent, like the guard on the tarmac before.
I frowned. If it was still so dark that meant we must be flying west, into the night, and not east, into the morning.
I tried to imagine what lay west of Britain.
America.
Of course.
We were going to America.
I fell asleep in the end, waking stiff and cold and still tired as the plane bumped along the landing runway. As it taxied to a halt, Elijah stood up and walked past, talking very fast in Spanish to one of the guards.
Mel’s head appeared over the seat in front. The bruise round her right eye was darker now. She gave me a weak smile. ‘We’re here.’
‘Where?’ I said. All I could see out of the window was a distant row of trees.
‘Virginia,’ Mel whispered, glancing at Elijah’s back. ‘Just outside Washington D.C. That’s where we’re going now. D.C.’
Elijah turned and she shut up.
We were heading for the capital of the United States? I frowned. That didn’t make sense. Why would Elijah work in such a busy area? His life depended on RAGE not being able to find out where he was. For the first time I wondered what Elijah did day to day. Did he really work in some clinic? Or had that been a lie too?
It was good to feel the bright morning sunshine on my face as we crossed the landing strip. I followed Elijah and Mel towards a waiting limousine with darkened windows. The American guard I’d spoken to in the night opened the back door for me. I slid across the long, leather seat.
Elijah settled himself next to me. ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
I resisted the temptation to bite his head off.
‘Why don’t I need a passport?’ I said, as calmly as I could.
Elijah smiled. ‘You do.’ He flicked through the pile of documents in his lap and pulled out a small dark-blue book. A United States passport. He opened it and handed it to me.
There was a photograph of me. I was called Theodore Lawson, an American citizen. Lawson – the name I’d thought was my dad’s. How many times had I fantasised about taking that name – and about meeting my dad. How proud I’d thought I would feel.
Elijah rapped on the glass barrier that separated us from the driver. ‘I thought you would appreciate the name,’ he chuckled.
I wanted to tell him I thought it was a pretty sick joke but, again, I stopped myself. The limousine glided towards the edge of the landing strip. Through the front of the car I could see wasteland in front of us, leading to a wide road beyond.
‘It’s just a formality of course,’ Elijah said. ‘I bribe the official here anyway. But officials everywhere – corrupt or not – do love to see paperwork. No?’
He beamed at me, clearly thinking he’d made some fabulous joke.
I forced myself to smile back.
‘Is Rachel all right?’ I said. The limo started bumping over the wasteland. We were clearly heading for the road. I held my breath. I think if he’d told me anything had happened to her I might have lost it again. But he didn’t.
‘Rachel will be fine,’ he said coldly. ‘Someone is looking after her. They will make sure she is reunited with her family in the next few weeks.’
I nodded. Of course I had no idea whether he was telling the truth, but I was reassured nonetheless. In the clear, crisp daylight it seemed unlikely that Elijah would have gone to such great lengths to rescue either of us from RAGE only to kill us himself.
As the limo swung out into the road, it occurred to me that if Rachel was settled with her family under a new name – possibly even in a new country – then I would probably never see her again.
My throat tightened. I didn’t want to think about that. I peered out of the window as we flashed past a signpost. I didn’t catch the name.
‘What do you do here?’
‘My work.’ Elijah waved his hand, vaguely. ‘Genetic research.’
‘Cloning?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘No. I do not wish to put more lives at risk. Now, Theodore, for your own safety I do not wish you to see where we go now. I must ask you to accept a blindfold.’
I let one of the guards tie a black band round my eyes. Elijah made a few more comments about his work – what a great man he was, what a terrible waste of his talents RAGE had brought about years ago by denying him the opportunity to carry on developing his research.
I said nothing. Apart from the fact that I thought the man was a pompous idiot, I refused to carry on a discussion with anyone while suffering the indignity of not being able to see them.
Soon Elijah lowered his voice and started murmuring in Spanish to Mel.
My thoughts turned to my real parents. My genetic parents: Elijah’s mother and father, who had escaped from Germany towards the end of the Second World War. Elijah had called them victims of the war. The main victims of the war that I knew about from school, were the six million Jews killed when Hitler tried to wipe out the entire race from Europe in the Holocaust. I guessed that was a kind of sick genetic engineering. Was that why Elijah had studied so hard to become a geneticist? In revenge for what had been done to his race?
My race?
If my genetic parents were Jewish, did that make me Jewish too? At home I hadn’t been anything. Well, British – but no religion. Now I was . . . what? German? Jewish? I had no idea.
I was lost. In absolutely every sense of the word.
I lost track of how long we’d been driving too. At last I sensed the car slowing and tilting downhill. I was sure from the muffled outside sounds we were driving through a tunnel. It seemed to go on a long time.
Finally we stopped. I felt hands tugging at my blindfold. Mel’s face appeared in front of me. She looked calmer than she had last night.
‘We’re here.’ Smiling, she leaned into my ear and whispered, ‘It’ll be okay, Theo. Don’t worry.’
And then she turned away to get out of the car – and I caught sight of the weirdest place I’d ever seen in my life.
44
Rachel
‘Of course it will work,’ I said.
I was so fired up I wouldn’t listen to any of Lewis’s objections.
‘It’s masses of work. And it’s insanely risky,’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘So what do you want to do? Leave Theo at the mercy of a man he doesn’t even know? Leave Mel with someone who hits her?’
Lewis looked across the moorland. We were outside, taking a walk around the cottage. I couldn’t bear to be cooped up indoors for another second. It was fantastic to feel the wind whipping through my hair, burning my cheeks.
‘I don’t want to put you in any danger.’
I glared at him. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘Okay.’ He sighed. ‘Explain it to me again.’
‘You take me to the RAGE headquarters. You pretend Elijah was blackmailing you to rescue me and Theo from RAGE. But you were only going along with it until you could get away from him, that you were really working for RAGE all along. That that was why you didn’t kill Simpson and that other guy.’ I focused on Lewis’s bright blue eyes, willing him to accept what I was saying, to believe in my plan. ‘You explain that you can get RAGE right inside Elijah’s compound – all the way to Theo – on the pretext of delivering me to Elijah.’
‘As I said, it’s insanely risky.’ Lewis sighed. ‘But it’s the next bit that’s the problem.’
‘No.’ I turned into the wind, letting it surge against my face. ‘No. It’s perfect.
While RAGE and Elijah’s guards are battling it out, we find Theo and Mel and escape.’
Lewis rolled his eyes. ‘You have no idea what that kind of scene is really like. It’s total chaos. Impossible to plan for.’
‘But you know Elijah’s compound. You know where he’ll have Theo. Roughly, at least. You can direct RAGE somewhere else.’
Lewis strode on ahead. I let him go. I sensed he needed some time to think through what I was suggesting. He’d already told me about the Washington D.C. compound where Elijah lived. Lewis knew the place inside and out. If anyone could get us in there, it was him.
The wind died and the sun emerged from behind a cloud. I tipped my face upwards, enjoying its warmth. I wondered how Theo was. Whether he was thinking of me.
Lewis walked back.
‘Even if Max is as good as you say, she may not want to have anything to do with this,’ he said. ‘And I’d need her help. I’m no computer expert.’
‘But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t ask her,’ I said.
‘I guess.’ Lewis paused. ‘It’s just RAGE picked up Max and Theo’s friend Jake on Friday evening, trying to find out what they knew. Only for a couple of hours, but still . . .’ He tailed off.
I nodded. I could just imagine how frightening that must have been – being questioned by the people who’d held a gun to Theo’s head.
‘But they didn’t know anything,’ I said. ‘RAGE must’ve realised that. Max and Jake didn’t even know Theo was planning on running away. And they certainly had no idea about all the cloning stuff. Don’t you see, so long as RAGE don’t realise we’ve contacted them, they’re not at risk. And if Max does all the work in internet cafés, they won’t be able to track her like they did on her home computer.’
‘Which they’ll definitely be monitoring,’ Lewis added.
‘I know.’ I waited while he paced off again.
My plan was that, while Lewis and I worked out how we would infiltrate the RAGE headquarters and attack Elijah’s base in Washington D.C., Max – under Lewis’s direction – would research the basic stuff we needed for a successful secret relocation. Not the one Elijah had come up with for me and my family. But three whole new packages. I had this idea we could all end up somewhere close to each other. Me, Mum and Dad – Lewis and Mel – and Theo and his mother.
I hadn’t mentioned this particular detail to Lewis yet.
‘Rachel.’ Lewis shook his head. ‘The whole thing is totally mad.’
‘But you’ll do it?’ I said eagerly.
Lewis grinned. ‘For Mel and Theo, yes. But there’s one condition.’
45
Theo
I got out of the car and stared at the building.
The two huge steel doors that the car had just driven through shut with a clang. We were completely underground – concrete walls on either side and a low ceiling above our heads. The building in front of me was built right into the concrete. Squat, with a curved glass front and sturdy steel pillars. But it wasn’t the outside of the building that caught my attention.
I couldn’t take my eyes off what was inside.
Through the glass was a huge room that looked . . . well, it looked like a park. It was unbelievable. A carpet of grass. Trees and flowers instead of furniture.
Elijah led Mel, me and two of the security guards through the first set of sliding doors. They shut immediately behind us. He punched some numbers into the screen beside the next set. After a few seconds these doors opened too and we walked into the indoor park.
I gasped. It was like stepping into the country. The glass walls that led out to the concrete exterior had vanished. Instead were images of trees and distant fields that vanished into a faraway horizon. I knew they must be projected pictures – holograms – but they were more convincing than anything similar I’d ever seen before. Above was what looked like a clear blue sky, the occasional cloud drifting across it. A few people were walking about. I could even hear children playing in the distance. And the air smelled different – sweet, somehow, like real country, with a light breeze.
‘The Outdoor Room. It’s all smoke and mirrors,’ Elijah said, clearly enjoying the stunned look on my face. ‘We use holograms and sound tracks and modified air con to create the illusion of an outside world. It’s our main recreation area. A prototype for the sort of thing they’ll build in space one day.’
He led me across the field and over a small bridge that spanned a stream. Elijah noticed me gawping at the sparkling water. ‘It’s on a loop,’ he said. ‘Like a fountain.’
We passed an exit sign pinned to a tree – the only incongruous element in the whole scene – and came to a large wooden shack. Elijah entered some numbers into a pad next to the door. The door slid open. Inside were tables and folded table umbrellas.
‘There’s a café outside at weekends,’ Elijah smiled. ‘And some people prefer the shade. Not that you’d burn in our sun. No harmful UV rays.’ He laughed.
The door we had just walked through slid shut again. Elijah pressed some buttons to open the one in front. ‘So what do you think?’
‘It’s incredible,’ I said, truthfully. ‘But why is it here?’
‘I have powerful friends.’ Elijah ran his hand through his hair. ‘And there’s a staff of over a hundred here – scientists, security, plus all the service staff – catering and cleaning and so on. And all their families. We have an elementary school and a children’s play area. Most people only leave for holidays. Our biggest security risk is when the doors open to let people in and out.’
I tucked this piece of information away in my head for possible future use. I was impressed by the Outdoor Room, but there was something about it that I hated too. Maybe the idea that it was entirely fake.
There was no time to think about it. The door in front of us opened. Elijah strode off along a long, clinically-white corridor. Rooms led off on both sides. We rounded a bend and went through two or three more security doors. Several harassed-looking men and women scurried past. They all greeted Elijah with the same mix of respect and fear.
‘Tell me again what kind of work you do here?’ I said.
‘Cutting-edge work in genetics. PGDT techniques, mostly.’ He smiled. ‘That’s pre-implantation genetic diagnosis – when you screen embryos for genetic diseases. All good, helpful, scientific work.’
I stared at him. ‘Why’s it all so secret then? Why does it have to be underground?’
The smile slid off Elijah’s face. He cast me a withering stare. ‘I wonder if some of my DNA was corrupted when you were created,’ he snapped sarcastically. ‘Perhaps you have forgotten the people who tried to kill you? RAGE? Well they have been attempting to assassinate me since you were born – and nearly succeeded twice. So being underground keeps me safe.’
I frowned. All this amazing technology – just to protect Elijah? There must be more to it than that. I wondered uneasily who was paying for the compound. Elijah had mentioned powerful friends. Who were they?
He stopped beside a door marked Private.
‘Mel will take you to a room,’ he said, without looking at me.
He stood in front of a small pad and a light beam scanned his eye. The Private door opened and he disappeared.
I stood there for a second, not quite sure what had just happened.
Mel touched my arm. ‘He didn’t exactly graduate charm school,’ she said. ‘Though he can turn it on when he wants.’
I nodded. I still had no idea why Elijah had brought me here. Okay, so he wanted to keep me safe from RAGE. But this was clearly a working compound – a place designed for scientific developments. How did I fit in with that? In fact, so long as he couldn’t show me off as a scientific achievement, why was he protecting me at all? No way did he see me as a son. I was pretty sure all I was was a successful genetics experiment to him. Nothing more.
Mel led me through more doors and corridors. At last we reached a long line of apartments.
‘You’ve got your
own studio,’ she said, pushing a door open. ‘I’ll show you the main dining area later.’
It was a large room with a bed at one end, a tiny bathroom off to the side and a sofa and little kitchen area nearer the door. Everything was smart and clean – like a hotel room.
I looked around, my mouth dry, then wandered across the wood floor towards the sofa. The whole room was actually bigger than the living area Mum and I shared in our house. I had a flashback to my messy bedroom at home. I missed it all desperately. Not just Mum herself, but my whole life – school, my friends, even Roy. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that they were all in another country. Another life.
I sat down on the sofa, a lump in my throat.
Mel perched next to me and put her arm round my shoulders. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to.’ I gritted my teeth. ‘I don’t understand why I’m here. Why can’t I be relocated, like Rachel?’
‘For some reason Elijah wants you here.’ Mel squeezed my arm. ‘Like he wants me here. And what Elijah wants, he always gets.’
‘So I’m a prisoner?’
Mel sighed. ‘My best guess is that he wants to train you up to take over from him. I mean, he had this really bad virus last year. Left him with some godawful heart condition that he’s on loads of meds for. Don’t get me wrong, he’s fine now, but I think being ill like that showed him he wasn’t going to live forever. I think he likes the idea of someone, literally in his own image, taking over from him.’
I stared at her. ‘But there’s no way I could do any of the stuff he does here. He was probably dissecting dogs when he was ten.’
Mel laughed.
‘Are there even any other people my age here?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘There are some younger kids. But for high school most families send their children away during term time. Blindfolded, of course. Hardly anyone knows where we actually are. Somewhere underneath D.C., obviously. But I don’t know exactly where. I get blindfolded too.’
‘He doesn’t trust you?’ I said.
‘Not about that.’ Mel shook her head. ‘Especially not now.’