The Set Up (17 page)

Seconds later Dylan called from the hall. ‘I’ve taken the cash on the table, but there’ll be more on Jack’s desk in his room.’

‘What?
Wait
. . .’

But the front door slammed shut. Muttering to myself about Dylan muscling in on my cash, I gathered my stuff and went upstairs to Jack’s room. I hadn’t been in there before, but it was exactly as I’d expected – all pale wood furniture, and designer chairs. A couple of modern prints hung on the wall over the white-sheeted bed. No photos, though. In fact, no individual touches of any kind. It was more like a hotel room than someone’s personal space.

I wandered over to the desk. It was the most cluttered area of the room, full of CDs and notebooks and scraps of paper – with a half-drunk mug of coffee in the corner. A pile of coins lay by the mug. I stared at it, wondering how much it would be okay for me to take. I reached out to pick up a couple of pound coins and some small change . . . and knocked the coffee mug over. It fell to the ground with a smash. Coffee splashed onto the wooden floor.

Crap.
I’d broken his mug.

I bent over to pick up the pieces. As I leaned down, I noticed a little ledge under the desk. Something black was wedged inside. I peered closer, then pulled it out. It was the computer disk we’d just found – the one with
Medusa
written in red on the back.

My heart skipped a beat. How come Jack had left it behind?

I stared at the disk, the broken mug forgotten. If Jack turned up to his meeting with Geri without this he’d look really stupid. I grabbed a handful of coins off the pile and raced to the door. Jack had only been gone five minutes. He could easily still be on Long Acre, waiting for a cab. If I hurried, I should catch him.

I caught sight of Jack at the corner of the street. He’d obviously given up on finding a cab and was disappearing into Covent Garden tube station. I pelted down the road and dived in after him. I had to buy a ticket and by the time I reached the lift, there was no sign of him. He must have already gone down. I got in the next lift.

As I reached the platform, a westbound train pulled in. The doors slid open. I could see Jack right at the other end of the platform, stepping inside. I hesitated for a second then, as the doors beeped their about-to-close warning, I leaped into the nearest carriage.

I tried to walk through the train, but the doors between the carriages were locked. I got out at the next station – Leicester Square – but I couldn’t see Jack on the platform. I nipped back on the train a few carriages along but I was still only halfway down when I saw Jack get off at the next station, Piccadilly Circus. He was right next to the way out and, again, had disappeared before I had time to call out his name.

I followed him up the stairs but could see no sign of him at the ticket barrier. There were a number of exits out of the station – I darted up the nearest one. Surely I’d see him at surface level. I looked round. People everywhere.
Yes.
There he was, across the road from me, walking in the opposite direction.

Fingering the disk in my pocket, I crossed the road and followed him. He was walking fast – too far ahead for me to catch him, or for him to hear my yells. He reached the bottom of the road and crossed into the park opposite. St James’s Park.

I raced after him, worried I’d lose him in the trees. He hurried across the grass, finally stopping at a bridge overlooking a long stretch of water. Trees and bushes were planted on either bank and families of ducks swam up and down the stream.

‘Jack!’ I ran over.

He jumped when he saw me. ‘Nico, what are you doing here?’

I held out the black disk. ‘You forgot this.’

Jack frowned. ‘Oh, right. Where did you find that?’

I explained what had happened, feeling more than a little embarrassed. Jack maintained his frown throughout my story, looking edgily round every now and then.

As I finished speaking he checked his watch. ‘Okay, you’re right, I’d have looked ridiculous without this. Er . . . You’d better get off.’ He took the disk and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Now it was my turn to frown. I hadn’t expected Jack to gush heartfelt thanks all over me, but I was saving his bacon here, for God’s sake. I’d thought at least he’d be grateful.

‘Okay.’ I slunk off. As I reached the path leading up to The Mall I turned round. Jack was watching me go. I walked on up the path, feeling uneasy. Was he making sure I left? And how odd had his behaviour been? It was almost as if I was bringing him something he
didn’t
want, rather than something that he desperately needed.

In fact . . . I stopped. Wasn’t it kind of weird that Jack should have forgotten the disk in the first place? I mean, that ledge under his desk looked more like a hiding place than somewhere a disk might fall, unnoticed. And, now I came to think about it, the whole meeting was about handing it over and yet he’d clearly got all the way to the handover site without noticing he didn’t have it.

I turned on my heel and headed back towards the bridge where I’d left him. Jack was still there, but he was no longer alone. He was talking to a tall, thin man with cropped black hair. So where was Geri? I couldn’t hear what the two men were saying out there by the water, but it didn’t look like a discussion on the best way to feed ducks.

I crept along the row of trees lining the path. The thin man’s voice was raised now, but I couldn’t make out individual words. I edged closer, into the undergrowth that fronted the water. I climbed over the low fence that separated the path from the stream and crawled from bush to bush until I was close enough to listen in.

‘You’re sure this is the Medusa gene formula?’ the thin man said.

‘Yes.’ Jack sounded tense. He held out his hand. There was something in his palm. ‘It’s all here. The whole thing.’

I crouched, stock-still, behind my bush. Jack had said the computer disk contained information about Viper. Not the gene formula. In fact, it had never occurred to me that there
was
a formula for the Medusa gene.

‘And this also explains how the gene code for Medusa causes whatever virus it’s implanted in to mutate and cause cancer in the mothers?’

‘Yes, though there’s no explanation as to
why
that happens,’ Jack said. ‘But all the important details are in there. Everything you need to know. And remember, Carson, the gene might kill the mothers, but it leaves the babies unharmed and fully skilled. Still, you know that from the recordings of Dylan and Nico that I sent you.’ Jack held out his hand again.

Recordings? When had Jack recorded me using my telekinesis? My stomach twisted over as I remembered that first day in the garage at the mews house – and how Jack had filmed me moving that tyre around.

Carson took what Jack was holding out. It wasn’t the disk we’d found in William Fox’s notes. It was much smaller. Like a memory card for a phone or a camera.

He peered at the tiny card more closely. ‘This can’t be the original,’ he said.

‘It’s not. I downloaded it from a disk I found in William Fox’s files.’

So that’s why Jack hadn’t needed the disk. He’d copied the formula onto the memory card. And now he was giving the card to this man, Carson. But why? Did Carson work for Geri too? What about Viper? I thought that finding her was what Geri and Jack were interested in?

‘I’ll need the original, too.’

‘Sure.’ Jack nodded, but he didn’t take the disk I’d brought him out of his pocket.

The man took out some kind of hand-held device and inserted the tiny memory card Jack had given him into the machine. As he pressed buttons and stared at the screen he spoke again, but more quietly. I could only catch the occasional word.

I waited, frozen to the spot, as Carson took the card out of his device. He nodded and said something else I couldn’t hear.

‘That’s not what we agreed.’ Jack’s voice rose, bitter. He snatched the memory card back and shoved it into his wallet.

‘Give that back,’ Carson said.

‘Not until you agree to wire me
all
the money.
Now
.’

‘No,’ Carson snapped. ‘You’ll get the rest when I’ve verified the formula.’

‘I’m taking a huge risk bringing this to you.’ Jack was almost shouting now. He tucked his wallet, containing the memory card, into his inside jacket pocket. ‘I want my payment in full. Now.’

Payment?
Money?
My head spun as it sank in. Jack was
selling
the formula. But . . . but . . . how did this tie in with everything he’d said about wanting to find Viper?

And then I realised. It didn’t. Jack had
never
really been interested in finding Viper – or in helping any of us develop our abilities. He’d obviously only worked with me on my telekinesis for one reason – to win my trust so that I’d help him find and steal Fergus’s Medusa files.

He had used me. He had used Dylan and Ed too. He didn’t care about us. All he cared about was finding the formula that – at a terrible cost – had given us our special abilities. And now, even though he knew that this formula would kill any pregnant mothers whose babies were implanted with it, he was trying to sell it.

He had lied and cheated and betrayed my trust.

Bastard.

I felt like I’d been chucked out of a plane and was freefalling through a storm.

A red haze coloured the park. Rage boiled inside me . . . anger twisting and roaring . . . I held out my hands, pointing at the trees and the benches and the flower beds around me, my only thought to tear and destroy.

Branches swayed violently . . . a bench flew several metres across the ground . . . flowers ripped themselves out of the earth . . . Out of the corner of my eye I could see people in the park gathering . . . staring . . . and Jack and the other man, Carson, looking round, eyes wide.

A dead branch, hanging from a tree just above my head, tore off. In a second I’d transported it across the bushes to the path where the two men stood. Without thinking about it, I flung the branch as hard as I could against Jack. He stumbled sideways to the ground. The computer disk that I’d brought him fell out of his pocket and onto the grass. I summoned it straight into the stream and heard its dull plop into the water. I knew my priority should be getting hold of the tiny memory card which Jack had placed in his wallet, but all I really wanted to do right now was get even with him. As Jack struggled to stand up, I raised the branch again and hurled it towards him.

I missed Jack. The branch whacked Carson round the stomach. He fell to the ground, then looked up. Gasping, he saw me . . . pointed at me.
Crap.
Jack turned. I ducked back behind my bushes, then peered out. Furious I tried to lift the branch again, but now I was consciously trying it wouldn’t move.
Damn.

Jack’s face filled with alarm. He said something I couldn’t hear to Carson, who was still doubled over on the ground, then ran towards me.

‘Nico.’

I turned and fled, racing past the bushes, up over the low fence, along the path. I glanced at an overflowing litter bin ahead of me. I held out my hand and made a twisting motion to pull the rubbish out. Crisp packets, ice cream wrappers, plastic bags, bottles all flew up, into the air. I directed them behind me into what I hoped was Jack’s path.

I heard him yell and gritted my teeth as I ran. I pounded on, swerving past a rollerblader coming up the path. Just ahead was a woman with a pram. As I noticed it, the front wheels of the pram rose a fraction into the air.

Baby. There’s a baby in there!

As suddenly as it had started, the rage inside me vanished. I froze with terror. In a few more seconds my out-of-control telekinesis would have tipped that pram over, spilling the baby onto the ground.

The pram settled back onto the ground. The woman pushing it stopped for a second, clearly bemused by what had just happened. She frowned, then started walking again.

I stopped running and forced myself to focus on the stream that drifted alongside me. I was terrified that if I looked at on the pram it would start to rise up again. My heart drummed against my chest. I stood, waiting for the woman to pass.
Don’t look. Don’t look.