“There are bread and sandwich fillings in the kitchen,” one of them said moodily. “Help yourselves. We’ll be outside.”
“So don’t try anything,” another one of the uniformed men added. “We’ll know.”
“I’m so sick of babysitting these kids,” the first one complained as they stomped towards the door.
“Me too. This definitely isn’t what I signed up for. Do you fancy a game of cards while we wait outside?”
Their voices trailed off as they left the room, so the teenagers set about preparing some food.
“Bread, salad, tomatoes, cheese… there’s quite a lot here,” Neelam said.
“I’m starving,” Jay declared as he started making himself a huge plateful of food.
Most of the group had sat down, so Neelam took it upon herself to prepare sandwiches for them. “Fancy helping me?” she said to Jay.
“Nah, ask one of the girls. It’s more their kind of work.” He laughed as he nodded at Scarlett and Lucy and walked off.
“Lucy?”
“I’m rubbish in the kitchen.”
“Scarlett?”
“Me too, but even I could probably manage sandwiches. It’s not fair that you do it alone.”
The two of them quickly whipped up some lunch, then joined the group.
“So what’s the plan?” Scarlett asked.
“Plan?” Andrew said.
“Yeah, how are we going to get out of here?”
Dylan sighed. “Scarlett, we have no choice. Goulden will kill us if…”
“Oh shush. Our siblings should be home and safe by now. I can’t say the same for us though. Our lives are at risk every second we stay locked up with this maniac. Anyway, we can easily bust out of here. Look at the way we handled that training session.”
“Yeah, but, maybe we need more training.”
“And let his men discover all our secrets, so they know exactly how to beat us – what will that achieve?”
“That’s a good point,” Jay said with his mouth full of food. Neelam shot him a look of disgust.
“Plus,” Scarlett said. “We have Alex now. He can teleport us out of here.”
“What?” Toshiko said.
“I teleported, but only a metre.”
“It’s a start,” Scarlett said. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. “Go on, try with me now.”
Alex took her hand, then blinked his eyes hard. He grinned with joy when he managed to transport them both to the other side of the room 10 metres away, but Scarlett didn’t enjoy the experience quite so much.
“Urgh, I feel sick,” she said.
“Sorry.” Alex grabbed her hand again and teleported her back to their friends.
“Try more of us,” Lucy urged.
Alex held hands with Dylan, Lucy, Neelam, Jay and Scarlett and took them out into the corridor and back again.
“Brilliant!” Lucy said.
“It was lucky no one saw us,” Dylan said cautiously.
Jay rolled his eyes. “The guards were too busy playing cards. Live a bit more dangerously, Dylan, or we’ll never get out of here.”
“So are we escaping or what?” Scarlett said.
“Now?”
“Yeah! If we act right away, we’ll have the element of surprise on our side and I noticed that they forgot to lock the door. Neelam can help us find Ethan, then Alex’s power can get us the hell out of here.”
Dylan looked unsure, but she was having none of it. She ran out of the room, waving to everyone to follow her.
“She’s nuts,” Jay said as he ran after her along with Lucy and Alex.
“Someone needs to be I guess,” Andrew said.
“I agree with her,” Toshiko added.
“Me too,” Sasha said as the three of them also followed.
Neelam and Dylan looked at each other.
“Well, I guess we’d better join them,” Neelam said with a reluctant shrug of the shoulders.
Dylan nodded as they chased after the rest of the group.
“Where are you going?” one of the guards demanded to know.
“Nowhere for you to worry about,” Neelam said persuasively. She looked at all five men. “You’re just going to let us pass and carry on with your card game, aren’t you?”
“Hey, it’s nothing for us to worry about. We’ll just carry on with our card game. On you go,” one of them said. The other four smiled placidly and nodded along with him. “Nothing to worry about,” they all repeated. “On you go.”
“You’re getting good at that,” Scarlett said to Neelam as they all quickly dashed off down the corridor. “Very good indeed.”
Neelam smiled bashfully. “Thanks, Scarlett.”
The nine heroes raced around the maze of corridors on the ground floor for the next 20 minutes in a bid to find Ethan or a door to the outside world, but they didn’t have any luck locating either.
“This is useless,” Dylan complained. “We’re no closer to escaping and, to be honest, I think we’re lucky that we haven’t bumped into any of Goulden’s men yet.” He looked around furtively. As they stalked the halls, he didn’t let his guard down for a second – he was permanently on the lookout for signs of danger and attackers.
Suddenly, he heard a whirring noise. “Look,” he said, pointing at a CCTV camera above their heads. “Do you think we’re being watched?”
Lucy looked up and fired a lightning bolt at it, causing it to explode and break into hundreds of little pieces. “Not anymore.”
“Hey, do you think you could take out all the electrics?” Dylan said. He pointed at a fuse box he had just spotted on the wall. “I have an idea…”
Lucy strolled over to it and gave it the once over.
“I can try.” She shot a lightning blast at the box, which caused it to explode with a dozen fizzles and bangs. Suddenly, the lights went out and plunged them into darkness.
“Nice move,” Jay said sarcastically.
Then the emergency lights flickered on, illuminating the halls just enough to show them the way.
“Look,” Dylan said. “We can still see, but we’re slightly hidden by the darkened conditions and hopefully any electric doors will now be unlocked.”
“Good idea,” Neelam said.
“What about the normal doors?” Jay asked.
“We’ll still need keys or some kind of super-powered plan for those.”
“Thought so.” Jay didn’t sound too impressed.
The group tiptoed down the corridor for another minute, still looking for an escape route at every turn, then Neelam yelped. “Ethan!” she said. “He’s in that room there.”
Dylan ran to where she was pointing and tried the door. “Locked,” he said with dismay.
Jay rolled his eyes. “There’s a shock. Think you can freeze it?”
“Maybe.”
“Let me try,” Scarlett said, pushing them out of the way. She leaned over and stared at the door.
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked.
“Seeing if I can telekinetically move the barrel thingy inside the lock to open it.” She waved her hand to the left and the door made a clicking sound, then she tried the handle. It opened.
“Good girl!” Jay said. “Now that is some smart thinking right there.”
He and Scarlett popped their heads around the door and saw that Ethan was sitting on a bed at the far side of the grey, stone room, He looked up and stared at them in disbelief.
“Come on,” Jay said. “We’re here to rescue you.”
Ethan jumped up. He looked shocked and elated. “Goulden’s not with you?”
“Nope.”
“Excellent.”
“Right, that’s all 10 of us accounted for,” Dylan said. He was keen to hurry things along. “Let’s get out of here.”
The group quickly continued on their way and Scarlett kept spinning her head around as they walked. “Why are there no doors to the outside world?” she said. “You’d think there’d be a fire exit or som
ething.” She shook her head in frustration.
“Look,” Lucy said, pointing at a green sign that said ‘Exit’. “Shouldn’t that lead to one?”
“Yes! Great spot, Lucy. Let’s follow it.”
They ran just 30 seconds further down the hall before they came to the fire door, which they all stood staring at apprehensively, unsure what to do next.
“Won’t an alarm go off if we open it?” Neelam asked.
“Shouldn’t do,” Dylan said. “Lucy scrambled the electrics, remember.”
Jay tried to open the door by pushing the lever down. “It’s jammed. Damnit!”
Just as the whole group was looking dejected, Ethan stepped forward. “I can help! I’ll use my bombs. I really need to start remembering I have super powers.”
“Of course,” Scarlett said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that – do you think you can blow that up?”
“I’ll do my best. The door on the cell I was in was strengthened to withstand bombs, but hopefully this flimsy thing won’t be a problem.”
He formed a small, spherical explosive in his hand and threw it at the door. It just about dented it. He tried again, but this time he made the bomb bigger and better and flung it with all his might.
Kaboom! Bits of wood and metal flew everywhere as the bomb exploded.
“Blimey!” Neelam said as she jumped back from the blast. She looked at the door to see it was now obliterated and sunlight was flooding in through the gap. “Sunshine!” she shouted.
Realising they had no time to waste, they all piled through the door into the world outside. Dylan stared around at the large, concrete space – it looked like a car park only there weren’t any cars. About 100 metres away, royal-blue boards formed a wall around the edge of the grounds.
“I can’t see a way out,” he said.
“Get them” a man yelled. The group turned to see a group of at least 30 guards running towards them. Several men were firing guns in a panic. “Goulden will have us killed if they get away.”
“Alex!” Scarlett said. “Get us out of here.” She grabbed his hand and Dylan’s. “Quickly, everyone link hands.”
Alex gulped and closed his eyes. He tried with all his might to wish them all out of there – out of danger and to somewhere safe. He opened his eyes again and saw they were standing in the middle of a busy road, where there was already a splendid display of Christmas lights up ready for the forthcoming festive season.
“Oxford Street?” Dylan said. “You brought us into the middle of central London?”
“Sorry,” Alex said. “It’s the only place down south I could think of.”
“At least we’re safe,” Scarlett said. “And on the plus side, everyone here is so caught up with their busy day that no one has noticed that we just appeared out of nowhere.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Sasha said. She pointed at a bewildered-looking man in his forties who was staring straight at them.
“Don’t worry,” Neelam said. “I’ll make him forget all about that.” She worked her mind magic and the man suddenly forgot they existed and wandered away.
“That’s a handy trick,” Jay said.
“What now?” Andrew asked.
“I dunno,” Dylan said. “Go home or call our parents?” He looked at Oxford Circus to their left. “There’s a tube station and payphone over there. I suppose we head that way and go our separate ways?”
“I guess so,” Scarlett said. “Well, it’s certainly been an experience.”
“Yeah.” Dylan smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You too.” She looked up through her jet-black fringe. How did she still look so amazing after everything they had been through? “See you around.”
And with that she wandered off into the crowd, swiftly followed by the rest of the newly super-powered teenagers.
“Well I guess that’s that over with,” Dylan thought as he made his way to the Victoria line to take a tube towards home. As sad as he was to say goodbye to the group, he was looking forward to seeing his family and getting back to normality.
Chapter 10
One month later
Dylan was sitting at home lazily flicking through the satellite TV channels when he first heard the news.
“We’re just getting some information through of a terrible incident in north London…”
“What?” Dylan said in shock. He rested on the channel to hear more.
“Just over 30 minutes ago, a bus exploded on Baker Street in Enfield. No one has claimed responsibility for the tragedy yet, but it is beginning to look like the actions of terrorists.”
His mum, dad and Sophia had gone into Enfield Town after school to buy her some new shoes. They’d caught the bus because his mum had taken the car to the garage for a service this morning.
“I’ve got to get down there,” he said. He grabbed his coat, then raced out of the house and down to the town centre as quickly as his legs could carry him.
It was 15 minutes’ later when he finally reached the scene. He desperately tried to make his way past the masses of people to get close to the bus.
“You can’t go near there,” a policeman said.
“I’m worried my family might have been on that bus.” Dylan said. He gave him a pleading and desperate look.
“Name?”
“Dylan Nicolson.”
The officer’s face contorted into a strangely sadistic smile.
“You looking for Sophia, Jane and Robert Nicolson?”
He nodded. “Have you seen them?”
“They’re dead. Sorry, son.” He delivered the news in such a blunt and direct manner, Dylan could barely take it in.
“What?” He didn’t know whether to break down in tears or lash out in anger. Why was this man being so callous? He wanted to punch him for being so uncaring.
“Wait here. Please don’t go anywhere,” the officer said as he walked away. “I’ll be back.”
“Dylan,” a voice behind him said. He turned around to see Jay standing before him. He was carrying a very disorientated-looking Neelam, who he placed down on the ground.
“Jay! Neelam! What are you doing here?”
“I came as soon as I heard them mention your family amongst the fatalities on the news. I picked Neelam up on the way. I would have been quicker, but I didn’t know her exact address.”
“That was quick. Oh yeah, of course…” Dylan remembered his friend’s power.
“I’m so sorry,” Neelam said. She gave Dylan a sympathetic look, then glanced at the crowd purposefully. “I’m going to have a scout around and probe a few minds, see what I can find out.” And with that she dashed off.
Suddenly, Sasha and Toshiko approached from an alleyway.
“How did you get here?” Jay asked.
Sasha mimed a flying action with her hand. “I brought Toshiko with me by Sasha express. We’ve been hanging out together lately and when we heard… we thought you might need our help.”
“Help?” Dylan said. “Why?” He felt very disorientated. The most awful thing in the world had happened to him, the news hadn’t even sunk in yet and now his super friends were here to help. Their adventures had started to seem like a distant memory as the days and weeks passed by since they were Goulden’s prisoners, but now here they were. Well, some of them.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sasha whispered. “Goulden must be behind this somehow.”
A wave of anger washed over Dylan. “Of course. That does sound pretty likely.”
“Very likely,” Neelam said as she suddenly reappeared. “Well, most definite. I just got confirmation from the mind of one of those officers.”
“No wonder I was told to wait here,” Dylan said angrily. “Come on, let’s move to another part of the road.”
He led the way as they walked around the police cordon and mingled in with the crowd at the other side of the scene.
“Dylan!” a voice shouted. He turned to see Lucy running down the road. “I ran al
l the way here from Muswell Hill. Are you OK?” She threw her arms around him.
She was closely followed by Alex, Ethan and Andrew. “We would have been here sooner, but I’ve been teleporting round the north and Midlands looking for these two,” Alex said. “I’m not great at going to places I’ve never been before.”
“Thanks for coming,” Dylan said. He was genuinely touched that they had all raced to help him in his hour of need.
“Was it him?” Andrew asked.
“Looks like it,” Neelam said. “No doubt he’ll creepily appear to tell us why any minute now.”
“Oh how astute you are, Miss Nori.”
The group had been so fixated on greeting each other that they hadn’t noticed Goulden sneak up on them.
“You!” Dylan said, running towards the Prime Minister, who was looking very pleased with himself.
“Not here,” Neelam said in Dylan’s head telepathically. “It’s what he wants. I just read his mind and he’s hoping that we’ll lash out at him and expose our powers, so he can pin this thing on us and arrest us all.”
Dylan composed himself even though it took all the remaining energy he had. He desperately wanted to rip Goulden’s throat out.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the Prime Minister said with a fake, charming smile. “It’s a terrible tragedy.”
The rest of the group stayed silent and Dylan guessed that Neelam had forewarned them too. Goulden took a step closer.
“One hundred and eighteen people died in today’s attack,” he whispered, so he couldn’t be overheard. “This bus was specifically targeted because Dylan’s family were on it. Unless you agree to be my super soldiers, I’ll do this to all your families in crowded, public places and dozens, no hundreds, more will die.”
No one answered.
“I’m deadly serious.”
Dylan was contemplating how he could shut Goulden up and wipe that smug grin off his face when a florist’s shop sign soared through the air out of nowhere and whacked him on the head, knocking him out.
“Move away into the crowd,” Neelam whispered. “Quickly. We don’t want anyone to link us to this.”
“I’ll sort out the local CCTV,” Lucy said. “Just in case.” She glanced around and shot out a very subtle lightning bolt that quietly zapped the camera. It looked like she’d gained improved control of her powers since the group last met.
Out Of Time (Book 0): Super Unknown Page 6
