Project New Dawn - 13. Chapter 13

“Mac, Tom, Larry, I need you to come up the stairs please,” I cried out desperately, not sure what to do. I didn’t want to move him in case he had hurt his back. I heard footsteps on the stairs, and the three ran up. I stared at his body, he’s going to die, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I watched dazedly as Mac put her emotions aside and began to check over the boy.

“Tom, I need you to go down to Level three, in the supply closet there is a board, go get it now,”

“Is he going to be alright?” Larry asked as Tom ran off.

“I don’t know,” she looked up at him then focused on me, “Alex, snap out of it,”

 

But I couldn’t help stare at Nathan, I felt utterly useless. Pain and warmth erupted across my cheek, waking me up, making me look up to find Larry standing above me.

“Get your shit together and be a man, god knows you’re a fairy, but your our leader now and you can’t shut down,” he gave me a backhanded compliment as I shook my head focusing my mind.

“Can you see what his injuries are? Is he alive?” I asked Mac rapidly.

“It looks like he’s been hit on the head and that type of injuries bleed a lot,” she answered. There did seem to be a lot of blood, but Nate did not seem to be dead. Tom arrived a few minutes later with a stretcher that had a head brace. We gently got Nate onto the board and strapped to the headrest between the three of us to prevent any more injuries to his spine.

“Who’s looking after the kids?”

“Kelly and Sarah.” was the response. Tom and Larry slowly took Nate down the stairs as Mac and I followed, both of us covered in blood, “What happened?”

“I come up the stairs to find him lying there, he looked like he had been coming down the stairs,” I told her. Mac directed them to the surgical room, where Nate was laid in the centre of the table.

“Daisy, what equipment has the medical bay got?” Mac asked aloud.

“The Medical bay has a full digital diagnostic set, including MRI scanner, X-ray and surgical equipment,” Daisy responded.

“I need a full scan of Nate, he’s got a cranial injury,” Mac seemed to go into doctor mode.

“Please make sure the patient is on the table correctly,” replied the smooth feminine voice.

“Where can I wash up?” I asked Mac.

“Go through the double doors to the scrub room,” she said distractedly, so I motioned the other boys’ away, before heading into the scrub room. The pair went out to the waiting room. I saw a long metal sink, so pulled off my bloodied Christmas jumper and washed my hands, scrubbing all the blood off. Once I was relatively clean and dry, I went outside to the other boys.

“Someone attacked Nate on purpose,” I told them.

“But why?” Tom asked.

“He’s the head of security, other than the sabotage we had a few weeks ago, have you noticed anything different?”

“No,” Larry answered, “Did he know who the saboteur was?”

“I don’t think so, or he would have said something,” I told them, “What was he doing not in the Gamesroom?”

“I don’t know, he never came down with us. Maybe he was on the way down when he was attacked,” Tom suggested.

“Did you notice anyone else missing?” The pair shared a look with each other, “What?”

“We weren’t exactly paying attention,” the pair admitted, “But when you called, Noah had not long walked in then you were out there,”

“I can vouch for Noah, he was with me the whole time,” I assured them.

“Well then, I’m not sure who it could be,” Larry admitted shrugging his shoulders.

“We can rule out Talia unless she has an accomplice,” Mac said, wiping her hands on a paper cloth. Blood was still visible on the thin grey top she was wearing.

“Why don’t you think it was Talia?” I asked curiously.

“Whoever struck him, had to do it with considerable force, which lowers the number significantly unless there is someone on the base we don’t know about,” she gave me a meaningful look, but I knew exactly what she meant. Had the swimming pool entrance been breached?

“How is he?”

“Well he has had a big blow to the head, there was more blood than the injury suggested, but the scans don’t show anything significant damage,” she paused.

“So why isn’t he awake?”

“His injuries are still bad, I suspect he has a concussion, but I don’t think it will be long before he wakes up. The body has shut down in order to heal,” Mac explained, which made me sigh a little.

“Daisy, I want every level on lockdown,” I said aloud and immediately heard a buzz from the door, so turned to look at the other occupants, “Larry, help Mac move Nate into the Ward, then I want you to go up the stairs to the VIP lounge and find anything that might have been used,”

“Will I be able to leave?” he nodded at the door that I had just secured.

“Daisy; Tom, Larry and Mac are to be given access to leave,”

“Affirmative,”

“What about me?” Tom asked.

“You’re going to come with me, but we have to go up to the arcade first,” I told him immediately leaving with Tom following close by. First, we went up to the Arcade and the Gamesroom, where the film was still playing. All the younger ones were riveted to the large screen as were some of the teens. Kelly noticed our entrance, but just merely nodded at us. Noah looked up, acknowledging us but frowned when I beckoned him over.

“What’s going on?” He asked us as we stepped out of the room.

“Nate’s been attacked,” I told him bluntly.

“What? What do you want me to do?”

“Can you make sure no one leaves, the rest of the complex is on lockdown, but they can still get out of the Arcade,” I told him.

“Yes, boss,” he grinned sardonically. I smacked him upside his head and motioned for Tom to follow me. We passed through the stairwell, making our way to the Biodome.

“Where are we going?”

“Checking something out,” I said as we found ourselves in front of the Biodome doors, which were not opening. Then I noticed a card reader by the side of the door, “I’ve never noticed that before,”

“Neither have I, usually the doors just open,” Tom agreed as I pointed out the reader. I slid my card through, allowing the doors to open, giving us entry.

“Only two others know about what I’m going to show you, but I need your opinion on securing the doors,” I told him as I stripped off my shirt. Once we reached the beach, I pulled out a bag already down here with some towels, and then stripped down to my underwear. Tom was staring at me astonished, “There is an escape route out of here, I need to check it’s secure,”

“That makes some sense,” Slowly the dark-skinned boy undressed revealing broad shoulders and a washboard stomach. I gave a low whistle causing him to grin.

“Mac is gonna like them,” I told him. I didn’t think black guys could blush, but he definitely blushed.

Five minutes later, I stood in front of the door with Tom beside me, filling out his boxers nicely, I might add. It didn’t look like it had been tampered with and was still locked.

“This leads out to a pathway down the mountain,” I explained, “Does it look like it’s been opened?”

“One moment,” He went about examining the door for several minutes, then stood up, “I don’t think it’s been opened recently, least not in the last few days,”

“Is there any way of securing it even further,”

“I can try, I would probably need help with some electronics, but I could try fitting a card reader like the ones we have upstairs,”

“Do you think Tobi might be able to help you with that?”

“I reckon so, we might even get some engineers when the new group arrive,” I suggested as we started on our way back down to the pool. We made our way quickly underneath the waterfall and emerged from the water. I started drying myself off and threw a towel at Tom.

“Why haven’t you told anyone else?” he looked at me curiously.

“Because most of them want to get out of here and get to their families, but it’s not safe for them,” I explained seeing him nod his head in understanding. We quickly got changed and started downstairs, “Everyone is going to have to start pairing up for the foreseeable future,”

“I don’t want to be attacked,” Tom admitted as I slid my key through the lock to allow us entrance to the medical area.

“You’re back,” Larry exclaimed.

“Sorry, we had to go off the radio for the time being,” I told him, “Did you find anything?”

“I did,” I stepped over to the seats and with a handkerchief or tissue picked up Tobi’s baseball bat, which had blood up to one end. I stared at it, uncomprehending. Surely it couldn’t be Tobi? Mac emerged from the ward, wiping her hands down and joining us.

“What’s going on?” She looked between our shocked face. I just pointed to the baseball bat, her face dropped, “I don’t believe Tobi would do anything like this,”

“Neither do I, but you said it yourself, only a handful of people could have done this,” I told her, “Let’s see, we’ve got the four of us in this room, Kelly, Noah, Simon, Sarah, Izzy, Amanda, Tobi and Matty,”

“No offence, but Matty is tiny and though he can run his arms are like noodles,” Tom commented. I was in total agreement with the other teen.

“Talia looks like the wind could knock her down, “

“Ratty, I mean, Amanda, though slim is quite strong,” Larry spoke up and we all looked at him, so he admitted, “She comes down to the gym with me,”

“I thought you got on well with Amanda?” I asked curiously.

“She hangs onto me, always following me around,” Larry returned and Tom sniggered getting a glare in return.

“I’m sorry, but she has a huge crush on him,” Tom laughed outright. Larry grumbled about something, but none of us heard what he said.

“Isabel is fit and sporty, while Sarah, unfortunately, is quite unfit,”

“But she does have access to the lab,” Mac pointed out.

“Then she needs an accomplice to hit Nate,” I responded.

“Simon’s arms are built for cooking, not for playing baseball or swinging a bat,” Larry added.

“So if none of us four did it, which I’m pretty sure we didn’t,” I looked around at them all with everyone nodding, “It comes down to Kelly, Noah, Izzy, Amanda or Tobi, possibly working with Talia,”

“I still don’t believe Tobi would do anything like that,” Mac argued.

“Well for the next week or two, I’m putting the place on lockdown. Everyone pairs up and if anyone wants to go somewhere they ask one of us if it’s somewhere sensitive then myself or Mac are to be spoken to,”

“No problem,” the other three agreed.

“Mac, can you stay with Nate for the time being and one of us will relieve you in a few hours?”

“That’s absolutely fine, I would hope he’ll be awake before anyone has to be relieved,” she answered.

“Good, in that case, the three of us are going to go to the Gamesroom and speak to the rest of them, tell them the place is on lockdown,”

“Are you going to tell them Nate was attacked?” Tom asked.

“No, because I think that’ll scare them. For the moment we’ll make something up,”

“I agree.” Tom, Larry and I left Mac alone with Nate and went up the fourth floor. As we entered, Tom and Larry flanking me, the movie was just about ending, so I stepped over to the media device and switched it off, getting many moans from the younger ones.

“Right, it’s getting near lunchtime so time to return to the living area,” I told them, But before we do that, I’d like to make a few announcements.

“I’ll be running a drill for the next couple of weeks, so no one will be able to go anywhere without a partner, and we’ll be locked down. That means, only the VIP area will be accessible, if you wish to go somewhere else, speak to me, Larry, Tom or Mac,” I explained, looking around at the faces. Noah looked at me questioningly, while Kelly and Sarah gave me shocked looks.

“Can we still go swimming?” Luca asked.

“Sure, but we’ll have to schedule it,”

“What about going on the computers or watching a film down here?” Kelly asked.

“You’ll have to speak to one of us, I want to test the efficiency of a lockdown,” I explained to her and then had them all moving back up to the VIP dorms, where lunch was served.

A little over an hour later I was in the mechanics bay on the ‘Archery field’, we had set up. Staring down at the target’s we had printed off, and then sellotaped to a makeshift board, I aimed for the golden centre. I looked through the compound bow’s sight, taking a deep breath and pulled back on the string with my three middle fingers. I took another breath and counted to five, centring on the target, and then released. The arrow looked like it was firing straight and true, before lodging itself in the red, very close to the blue, giving me a score of 7.

“How long have you been doing Archery?” a voice behind me made me jump, scaring the pants off me. I turned around to find Noah with a huge grin on his face.

“Long enough,” I grumbled, “I’ve got other things on my mind,”

“Obviously, I had heard you were the under-12’s regional champion,” he commented as I stared at him. I didn’t think that was too widely known around school, sure I had been in the local paper, and it was a small school, but still.

“I was, but I don’t play competitively anymore,” I returned, placing the bow back on the table, “So how did you get down here?”

“Tom bought me down, he wanted to look at some things,” he waved in the direction of the mechanical Operations Room. I looked up and saw a shadow through the glass.

“So what brings you down to my little slice of heaven anyhow?” I asked him curiously.

“What happened with Nate?” I looked at him, unsure what to tell him, and then he commented as though he was reading my mind, “I couldn’t have attacked him, I was with you,”

“Alright,” I sighed, something about Noah was niggling at the back of my mind, “He was attacked with Tobi’s bat,”

“Really? So who do you suspect?”

“There are a few people, but I have no idea why they are attacking people, let alone sabotaging us,” I replied, frustrated.

“Could it be an Alien collaborator?” He had thought this through. I was on similar lines to him.

“But how would they know we were coming down here?”

“That’s all I’ve come up with,” he shrugged his shoulders. I was about to answer when the radio crackled into life.

“Alex, Nathan has woken up,” Mac announced.

“I’m on my way up,” I touched Noah’s shoulder leading him to to the control and called for Tom.

“Hello,” he came down the stairs looking between Noah and me.

“Nate has woken up, can you keep Noah with you and secure the Engineer bay when you’re done, I have my archery equipment still out,”

“Sure, no problems,” Tom answered, “Wish Nate well for me,”

I ran back up the stairs and let myself into Level three, where I was greeted by Mac in the waiting area.

“How is he?”

“A bit groggy and has a major headache, but all things considering he’s doing well,” she returned.

“Is he going to be all right?”

“I put him through the scanner again before I called you up and the swelling has gone down, now I’m not a doctor, so I can’t say, but it looks like he will make a full recovery,” She explained as we entered the ward and found Nate lying there staring up at the ceiling. He was wearing a hospital gown.

“How are you feeling?”

“Breezy,” he returned with a laugh. I realised he meant the open-backed gowns.

“Well, you have to be comfortable,”

“I…erm…didn’t change myself,” he blushed making his face go bright red. I looked over at Mac to find she was looking away, trying to look innocent.

“Was it a nice view?” I asked cheekily getting a glare from Mac; while Nate flushed even brighter red if that was possible.

“I’m going to throw you out of my medical centre,” Mac snapped, but she had a small grin on her face.

“So any idea what happened?” I looked at Nate.

“I don’t remember anything, the last thing I remember is going down the stairs to watch the movie,” came the hesitant answer.

Nothing at all? Did you know you were attacked?” I asked him, surprised.

“It’s not uncommon for someone with a head injury to have memory loss,” Mac supplied.

“She told me I had been attacked with her brothers’ bat; you don’t think Tobi had anything to do with this?” He looked at me, concerned.

“Honestly, I don’t know. It was his bat, and he has the strength to do something like this, but why would he attack you?” I asked out loud, not looking at Mac, whom I was sure was glaring at me.

“He’s such a sweet lad, he can’t be our saboteur. What would his motives be?” Nate looked at me though I agreed with him. My friend was intelligent, but why would he try to sabotage us and attack Nate?

“Look get better, then we’ll talk again soon, we’ll find out who did this to you,” I told him and nodded at Mac as I left the medical wing.

We celebrated New Year, January and February seemed to melt away as though someone was speeding up time. I was still none the wiser who had attacked Nate and last week we had had another act of sabotage. One of the crops had been poisoned with chemicals, supposedly for the pool. Whoever it was had put the substances in the plant-feeding system killing the plants off. We could no longer use that field now. It was the end of February now, so I was sat in the Command centre waiting for my weekly conversation with Maria Strange.

“Good Afternoon, Alex, how’s everything going?” her voice crackled to life, as I leaned back against the chair.

“Just peachy,” I replied sarcastically.

“You sound stressed, Kid,”

“Sorry, I have a headache,” I told her, “We had another saboteur attack last week after our last talk,”

“Another attack?” for some reason, I got the impression she did not sound terribly surprised. I stowed that thought away for another time.

“One of our crops was destroyed by chemicals,”

“Haven’t you got them locked away by the pool?” she asked. My spidey sensors tingled; I did not think I had told Maria about the pool and waterfall. That seemed to be insider knowledge. I suppose she could have got hold of the floor plans, but I doubt that.

“Not locked away, but stored in the Biodome,” I answered carefully.

“Have you got any ideas of the saboteur?” She asked, but I knew I better tread carefully. Something was not adding up here. I thought about other conversations, where they seemed to know little things. I had chalked it up to my telling them beforehand and forgetting.

“No, I’ve got a few ideas, but nothing concrete,” I returned, before changing the subject, “What’s happening out there?”

“We’ve rescued more people, but Kelvedon can only support so many people, and we have to screen for potential collaborators,” Maria returned.

“Collaborators?”

“We’ve been getting reports of intern camps, the Aliens have been setting up, our own people have been working with the Aliens to keep prisoners,”

“Slimy weasels,”

“We’re in agreement, Kid, these camps seemed to be mainly made up of children and young teens,” Maria added.

“Where are all the adults?” I asked curiously. There was a pause as though Maria was thinking about how to answer, but I could still her breathing, “Are you still there?”

“Sorry, we’ve got a scientist that wants to speak to you. Especially when you open your doors,” she answered.

“All right, give me five minutes to get my researcher down here,” I replied.

“No problems,” I clicked off the headset and pulled out the radio, “Mac, could you and Sarah come down to the Ops room,”

I got quick replies and sat back to think, something about the whole conversation seemed off. Maria knew more about the base than she was letting on, and it was information that could have only come from inside the mountain. Someone was talking to the military, which was all I needed after the saboteur.

“Hi Alex, what can we do for you?” Mac entered the room. I looked them both over, Sarah; the dark-haired chubby girl had lost weight and looked better. Her bright blue eyes were shimmering with intelligence, and she seemed eager to help, so I laughed.

“Fed up with the younger kids?” I joked.

“I love the kids, but I need a break, or I’m going to be tearing my hair out,”

“Is Kelly not looking after them?”

“She’s been tired a lot lately and had to go take several breaks from them,” Sarah told us. I filed that little nugget of information away.

“Well, I’m glad you get a little break,” I told her, “I’ve just been talking to Maria, and she has got a scientist to come to speak to us, I figured you might want in on the conversation,”

“About what?” Mac asked curiously, taking a seat. Sarah grabbed a computer chair and drew it closer.

“I’m guessing the zombies or whatever the hell they are,” I answered just as I heard crackling.

“Alex, you there?”

“Sure, and I’ve got my team with me,”

“Well this is Dr William Cauldwell, our lead scientist,” She introduced.

“Hello, Mr Walker, I’ve heard a lot about you, including the fact you have fought a Tracer,”

“A What?” I asked him.

“It’s what we are calling those things, I’m hesitant to call them Zombies,” he was typically British and sounded quite posh.

“But they attack you and are mindless,” I responded, remembering my own attack.

“Not so much mindless, but their thoughts are single-minded: Prey!”

“Is it a virus or bacteria?” Sarah asked.

“It’s a Parasite, of Alien origin; we believe it was introduced when the meteorite storm hit the Northern Hemisphere,”

“What’s the Incubation Period like?” I shared a look with Mac; this twelve-year-old seemed older than her years and switched on.

“How old are you?” I could almost hear the scientist’s jaw drop.

“Twelve, Sir, but I read anything to do with Microbiology and Virology,” she replied almost shyly.

“If I had a hundred like you, we’d cure every virus under the sun,” the scientist chuckled, “Now, the Incubation period can vary from person to person from a couple of hours to several hours. One of the first known cases was the attack on young Mr Walker; he came into contact with a meteor in the early hours of 1^st November and took ill within three hours, after that we lose the timeline until he attacks Mr Walker at 20.00 hours,”

“Was the patient admitted to the hospital?” Sarah asked.

“No, we have a police report that states the man found the meteor while out walking his dog, while at work he complained to his secretary he was unwell and left for home. Then we have no contact until later that night,” The Doc reported.

“Anything else you can tell us?”

“Yes, for some reason, the parasite does not affect children,” I sat up and took notice at that.

“We have yet to determine why, but we have not had a case under sixteen as of yet,”

“What happens to a child infected?” I asked curiously.

“We don’t know,” the doc admitted.

“Hopefully we don’t find out,” Mac added optimistically.

“No, hopefully not,” the doc agreed, “Now I’m going to send you our research, I think it might be beneficial to you, young lady,”

“Thanks, Dr Cauldwell,”

“Thank you all for listening patiently,” he left followed by Maria signing off soon after. I went onto the computer and logged into the secure server and accessed the only outside port. But for some reason, it would not allow me to work.

“Damn, bloody computer,”

“What’s the matter?” Mac asked, laughing at me.

“I’m trying to get access, but it’s not letting me,” I swore at the computer getting ready to hit it.

“Why don’t you ask Tobi? That’s usually his domain,”

“Oh, he’s been busy with other stuff,” I replied, getting a glare from Mac. She knew I had been avoiding him since January, despite him trying to talk to me. For that matter, I’ve been avoiding Mac too.

“Well, then your best action would be to talk to Kelly,” Sarah replied confidently. I stared at her with a look of shock.

“What do you mean? I didn’t think Kelly knew anything about computers,”

“Her dad is an IT specialist for the government, she’s a whiz when it comes to computers,” Sarah chatted easily, not realising how significant this might be. I avoided Mac’s look, but I knew she must be as shocked as me.

“That’s good, well I’m finished here, and I’ve got some work to do in my office,” I told them, trying to move them out. After a few seconds of quiet protest Mac followed Sarah out the Operations Room, I closed the doors behind me and made my round to my office, where I spent more hours recently, planning for when the doors opened. I closed the office door and immediately went over to the safe. I unlocked the doors pulling out the paper files I had on everyone, sitting on the sofa. I spread them over the coffee table.

“TV on,” I spoke, so the large wall-mounted screen came on. I picked up Kelly’s file, pouring over it. Absolutely nothing, “Daisy, access Kelly Parker’s file,”

“Accessing, what are the parameters of the search?” the smooth female voice replied.

“What are the jobs of Kelly’s mother and father?” I asked pacing the floor.

“Jason Parker is the headmaster of the local High School, and Vanessa Parker née Steward is one of the Science teachers,”

“Has the file been corrupted or changed?” was my next question.

“It has not been modified since being downloaded to my data banks on the 31^st October 2030,”

“Shit,” I swore loudly, wondering how Sarah could have got it wrong. Kelly had told us her Dad was the Headmaster and I remember meeting him when he arrived at the school nearly two years ago, “Pull up the footage from the stairwell at the time of the accident,”

“The stairwell is a dead zone,” a voice said and scared the life out of me. I looked up to see Noah leaning against the door. He was wearing his usual biker jacket and biker boots. He had his arms folded and was watching me carefully.

“Don’t scare me like that,” I scolded him, but he just shrugged at me.

“The door was unlocked, and I thought you might want to talk to someone, you’ve been locked in here every chance you can. I also just saw Mac coming up the stairs looking angry,” he explained.

“Take a seat,” I gestured at the sofa, “But lock the door behind you,”

“No problems,” he closed then locked the door settling onto one of the sofa’s looking at me.

“I really need some privacy,”

“The commanding officer’s room is equipped with a Privacy Screen, it shields any noise from being heard or stops listening devices from sending out signals,” Daisy reported.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” I asked curiously.

“You never asked,” she returned almost sassily. Noah grinned at me.

“Please switch on the Privacy Screen,” I commanded hearing a slight buzz, so turned back to Noah, “What did you mean, about a dead zone?”

“There are no cameras in the stairwell, I thought you might have realised that by now,”

“I’ve been going over footage from the Labs and the latest act of sabotage, but I’m not getting anything on the cameras. For all intents and purposes, the saboteur is a ghost,” I told him, needing to trust someone.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding Mac and Tobi? Do you not trust them?”

“They’ve been my friends for so long, I thought I could trust them, but that was still Tobi’s bat used, and he has the technical abilities to wiped camera footage,”

“So you think the camera footage has been altered?”

“I knew it had for the first attack, but I had not properly looked into the video of Nate’s attack,” I replied sheepishly.

“Why?”

“Honestly, I’ve been wallowing in my in self-doubt and worry, so I’ve been avoiding looking at anything to do with Nate’s attack,” I replied and got an understanding look.

“We’ve been down here nearly four months; you’ve been doing a great job up until last month when you would disappear for hours on end,” Noah told me, “You’re either in the Operations Room or in here,”

“You’ve been watching me,” I accused. A light seemed to go off in my head as a few things begun to make sense, “The brass at Kelvedon have been worried about me lately, you’ve been reporting to Kelvedon Hatch,”

“I never wanted the job, especially after I got to know you, Alex, you’re an extraordinary guy,” I felt my cheeks begin to flame, “But I was placed on the program, so the military would have someone to report to them,”

“You look like a kid; you’re not a twenty-four-year-old midget, are you?” I asked him. He laughed at that as I grinned at him.

“No, I am really fifteen, but my dad is in the military, so they felt I was a safe bet,”

“How have you managed to talk to them?” I asked with wonder. He held up a key-card not dissimilar to mine.

“This is a skeleton key, I’ve had access to the command centre when no one was about deleting the logs from the system,” he explained. I felt a flare of anger, but then I understood why.

“From now on we work together, Mac is still my second in command, but I need you to help me out,” I told him getting a nod from him.

“I wanted to be closer to you, anyhow,” he slyly told me. I wasn’t sure whether it was an innuendo, but a blush covered his cheeks. I knew he liked me, it helped Noah is pretty damn cute. I walked over to him and pulled him up, he was slightly shorter than me, but his boots made him almost level. I brushed a lock of auburn hair from his face, leaned in when a knock sounded on the door.

 

Noah opened his eyes, but I could see a spark of annoyance the beautiful green eyes. I shrugged but knew I had to answer.

“Daisy, end Privacy screen,” I told her and unlocked the door, yanking it up and almost barked, “What?”

“Erm, I have something to show you,” Nate replied, almost timidly, shying back from me.

“I’m sorry, we were deep in conversation,” the boy tried to peer over my shoulder and obviously saw Noah because he blushed giving me a sly grin. I indicated for him to come in, which he did shutting the door behind himself, “Privacy screen on please,”

“What was that?” Nate asked as the buzzing indicated the room was shielded.

“It’s a shield, of sorts, stops bugs from transmitting and people hearing conversations,” Noah explained, “My guess would be, when the door is closed it creates a circuit allowing the room to be shielded,”

“Wow,” Nathan looked amazed. I took the time to look at him; he seemed to have recovered well from his Christmas attack. From what I’ve heard, he visits Mac every few weeks to see how he is getting on, but there seemed to be no side effects.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him curiously.

“Good, thanks,” he replied then drew bought out a Remote Device, about the size of one of the old iPad Mini’s, made up of a glass-like substance with a handle of rubber. His fingers danced across it as he swiped the images onto my screen.

“Now I’ve been going over the footage from all three events for the last week,”

“But all three have been tampered with,” I interrupted him.

“I’ve not got the skill level of Tobi,” Nate’s blue eyes met mine, challenging me, “but yes, I found traces the video footage had been affected. There was no way of retrieving the original,”

“Even though the stairwell has no video cameras,” Noah added.

“You’d be correct, but we could look at the video from the VIP section or the Arcade, but as I said they’ve been corrupted,”

“Even after the protection Daisy put in, that means we’re back to square one,” I moaned.

“Not, actually, what the saboteur did not count on were the cameras in the Biodome,” I stared at him like he had lost his mind.

“I thought there were no camera’s in the Biodome,” Noah echoed my thoughts.

“It took me a while to find them and hours of footage, but there are three cameras placed in the Biodome to protect against intruders,”

“What do you mean?” I asked as he gave me another look.

“I know about the Biodome exit, there is a camera looking directly at it, which also has sensors on it. So I know you’ve set it off twice,” I really blushed then, because he must have seen some footage of Noah and me going down to the pool. He nodded his head but didn’t say anything.

“Why has no alarm been raised?” I looked at Noah when he asked that, wondering myself.

“The sensors were incorrectly set, I’ve now set it up properly to alarm on your wrist pad,” he answered, so I nodded my thanks, feeling the pressure of the pad. Usually, I forget it was there most days, “But that’s beside the point, there are two other cameras, one facing the path on the waterfall and the other is watching the chemical room,”

He pressed play so that we saw two different screens side by side, I gasped as my suspicions were confirmed. Kelly Parker entered the Lagoon and looked around, checking to see if anyone was there, then got the chemicals from the Chemical room destroying one of the crops. Something must have spooked her because she stopped after one.

“Frackin’ hell,” Noah swore.

“I had my suspicions; Sarah told me Kelly’s Dad was a computer Whiz for the Government, so she must have his skills,”

“But her Dad was the Headmaster of the school,” Nate protested.

“I wondered how Sarah could have got it wrong,” I replied, thinking about everything and all the attacks, “Daisy, can you remote access external servers without compromising the Mountain?”

“My encryption is a Quantum Algorithm, any attempts to backtrack to the Mountain would destroy the original attacker’s server,” she sounded smug.

“Can you do a search for Robert Parker?” I asked. She replied in the affirmative and went off on a search, “So what do we do about Kelly?”

“Lock her up and throw away the key,” Nate suggested viciously, rubbing the back of his head unconsciously.

“We can put her in one of the holding cells, but we would have to be careful about confronting her, she obviously cannot communicate with the outside world, or we would have the aliens on us like ticks on a dog,” I replied carefully.

“I suggest we leave her free and unaware that we are on to her,” Noah looked between the two of us.

“We’d have to be very careful if we did that,” I suggested wearily.

“She should be locked up,” Nate grumbled, but I knew he didn’t mean it.

“Ok then, we observe her, and if there are any other types of sabotage, we lock her up,” I replied, “Daisy, I want you to watch Kelly Parker at all times if she uses a computer I wanted to be alerted. I, also, want her use recorded discreetly,”

“Affirmative, I have completed my search,”

“What have you found out?” I looked at the other two.

“Robert Parker does not exist before 2027; all records of him seem to start there. His records would pass a background check, but underneath Robert Parker does not exist,”

“Government Agent?” I wondered aloud.

“All his biometrics have been erased however I was able to discover a profile, but I cannot access it as it’s behind several walls of encryption,”

“What the hell did he do?” I wondered, “Thank you, Daisy,”

“Are you going to tell Mac?” Nate asked.

“As of right now, only the three of us know about Kelly, until she does something or the doors open, no one else shall be informed,” I told them firmly.