Part 0

Synopsis: The Tomorrow People face their worst setback to date in their struggle for survival.

This is the fourth story in the Kindred Spirits sequence. Recommended reading order is:
1) Kindred Spirits - Two Aims, One Destination
2) Kindred Spirits - Double Bluff
3) Kindred Spirits - Slipping the Net
4) Kindred Spirits - Consumed by Fire

This story is based on the television series 'The Tomorrow People' created by Roger Price and owned by Thames Television/Freemantle Media. It also features original characters and situations created by, and the intellectual property of, Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway, October 2003.

Many thanks to Jackie for helping to shape this story and for letting me share her visions of the future.

Comments would be welcome to tiylaya@yahoo.com

The Lab, Toronto, Canada
3.45 am Eastern Daylight Time, October 1st 2019

"Toronto Lab compromised! Toronto Lab under attack!"

Abigail's voice was urgent as she spoke both telepathically and verbally. The link table under her fingertips amplified her thoughts for Tomorrow People all over the world to hear, while the inter-Lab radio in its centre would alert anyone asleep or too tightly shielded to hear the mental alarm.

"All local Labs - evacuate! You are no longer secure. All major Labs - caution! You may be at risk."

A distant explosion made the table tremble under Abby's hands and she felt the fear from the three other people in the link with her, but forced herself to give the warning clearly one more time.

"Repeat! The Toronto Lab is under attack! All local Labs evacuate! Local Tomorrow People - do not attempt to return to the Lab! If you can get away, do!"

Another explosion rocked the link table and Abby surrendered to the inevitable. Breaking the link, she looked around at the three Tomorrow People who had stayed to help her get the warning out. Their faces were white with fear, and with good reason. Only a few tens of the thousand or more Tomorrow People who lived in this Lab had been awake when all this had started. Most of those had fled or gone to help rouse the others. Perhaps these three were the only other people left in the complex. Abby wished it could be so, but she knew that was too much to hope for.

"Get out of here!" Abigail ordered her friends, without hesitation. "You've all got false IDs ready - get out there and use them! All of you are too closely connected to the Lab. These people will know who you are." Her eyes scanned each face quickly, imprinting them all on her memory, before her gaze shifted back to the security monitors that covered an entire wall of the Lab. Across half the wall, hordes of black-clad raiders were visible amid packing crates and equipment, or in front of metal walls. Several monitors around the Lab's main ground entrance, blown out by the explosions, showed only static.

"But Abby..." The protest was half-hearted, but full of helpless frustration.

"There's nothing more you can do here," Abby said simply, not turning back. "Go!"

She felt them jaunt out, but already her mind was concentrated on her next task, focusing on the details because thinking about the big picture would leave her cowering and trembling in a corner.

*****

"You ought to go too, Abby." The voice was deep, rich and sad. Her hands flying over the nearest computer console, Abby didn't spare the time to glance up at the hemispherical devices that hung from the Lab's ceiling. She knew without looking that they would be lit with TIM's presence.

"I'm not going while there's still time to help some of our people, TIM! We have explosives in the outer tunnels. If I can seal those there might be time to get false IDs out to more of us." Abby spoke frantically. "There might be time to get everyone woken up and out of the Lab. There were a thousand people asleep down here, TIM. Half the people still in the Lab probably don't even know we're under attack - the first thing these raiders knocked out was our internal alarm system. If the intruders haven't got in from the warehouse up top yet, there's still time ...."

"Abby, look at the monitors!" TIM's voice was sharp and Abby obeyed the order automatically. The black-clad figures were visible in metal-lined corridors now, proceeding amidst thin clouds of some airborne powder.

"No!" she whispered softly.

"They're already in the outer parts of your Lab, Abby. If those corridors are collapsed now people are going to die and neither you nor I would press that trigger, even if we could." The biotronic computer's voice was urgent but quiet, trying to talk reason into the co-ordinator watching her Lab crumbling around her. "They are using aerosols of Barlumin, Abby, trapping anyone who can't jaunt in time. You must leave immediately. The intruders are already in the top level of dormitories. You cannot be here when they get down to this room. You know too much, Abigail."

"Marc." Abby's lips formed the name silently, but TIM pounced on it.

"Where is Marc, Abby?" he asked immediately, aware that if her fellow co-ordinator fell victim to Sap interrogation then the lives of thousands of Tomorrow People were at risk.

"Trying to get the kids out of the dormitories!" Abby steadied herself against the computer console as another explosion sent a tremor through the floor. Her eyes were scanning the security feeds urgently for any sight of him. TIM was ahead of her. An image of Marc, his arms around the shoulders of two sleepy-looking children, appeared on the central monitor. Abby knew at a glance that he was ill - his face was pale and his movements unsteady.

"I have to go there!" Abby snapped, moving her hands to her jaunting belt without a second thought.

"Wait!" Ever-calm TIM shouted the word, cutting through her panic, stopping her in her tracks. "The London Lab is under attack, Abby. So are Labs in Melbourne and Chicago. Three of your local Labs are being assaulted. And Toronto is being hit harder than any of them. We have never experienced such a serious breach of Lab security - the Saps must have been planning this worldwide assault for months and it is focused here in Canada. If you go to Marc now, Abby, the Barlumin will affect you too and who will be left to bring the Canadian Tomorrow People back from all this?"

Abby knew that she must look as pale and frightened as Marc appeared on-screen. As she watched and hesitated, the black-clad men burst into the dormitory in the wake of their aerosol grenade and it was already too late. She had been appointed to lead these people and she knew her duty.

"They're hitting us because we're the ones who let this happen," she told herself harshly before raising her voice. "Get out of here, TIM!"

"What are you going to do, Abigail?"

Abby smiled a wan smile and tried to force the image of Marc and those two children from her mind.

"The only thing left. I've got to blow this room. If they get into the control room of a major lab...." She shook her head sharply. "I can't let that happen. I'm going to overload your local inputs."

*****

"Critical overload!" The recorded voice repeated the words over and over again. Usually it would sound throughout the entire Lab, but with the internal alarm system gone, no one outside the room would even suspect that the focal point of the complex was about to become a furnace.

Abby scanned the monitors one last time. More of them were blank now. She had lost track of Marc in the confusion, despite her efforts to relocate him. A few monitors showed Tomorrow People, dizzy and ill from the effects of Barlumin poisoning, being herded into groups. Many of them were children, forced to move into the Lab when frightened parents disowned them and drove them from their homes. They had thought that they were the lucky ones who had reached safety. Abby had thought so too, until now.

"Explosion imminent!" the recorded voice warned.

Abby dragged her mind back to her final task. The intruders were on this level now, just two corridors away from the central common area. If this room didn't blow soon it was going to be too late. There was only one thing left that she could do to add to the signal in TIM's local sensors. She would have to judge this just right. It would be difficult to tear herself free, but if she jaunted away too early, facing these dangers would all be for nothing.

Slowly, Abigail placed her hands on the link table in front of her. Reaching deep inside, she felt the power build-up in the Lab's system through the telepathic booster in the table. And then she began to pour her own mental energy into the storm.

The raw power confined in the abused circuitry and systems burst free in an incandescent fireball. Consumed by fire, the central room of the Toronto Lab would no longer be a threat to Labs the world over. Whatever happened to the Tomorrow People in Canada now, at least others would be safe.

The Lab, Toronto - 3.15 am EDT : Half an Hour Earlier

"Do you know what the time is?" Abby called the question good-humouredly to the small group on the other side of the Lab's large central room. "Turn the music down!"

"Do you know what the time is?" one of the Lab's more active members, Don, returned without missing a beat. "Stop working!"

Marc chuckled loudly and both Don and Abby fixed him with reproachful looks.

"I'm talking to you too, Marc," Don pointed out. "I mean, I know you and Abby have a lot to do but, still, working into the small hours of the morning...?"

Marc shrugged and exchanged wryly-amused looks with Abby.

"A lot to do, as you say, mon ami," Abby's fellow co-ordinator pointed out in his soft French-Canadian accent. "We've got a business to run. Not to mention more new breakouts in a day than I have fingers to count them with."

"You wouldn't think so, if you believed some of what the news reports say about us." Don's expression turned into a frown and smiles around the room faded as the humour drained away. "If you believed them, then we would all be bizarre mutations, ten feet tall with 10 fingers on each hand."

Abby spoke softly, reassuringly, to all nine of the Tomorrow People still in the room. Perhaps there were others awake in the other common rooms of the Lab, but here in the main room it felt as if they were the only people still awake in the entire world.

"But we don't believe them, Don. We know better. And so do most of the Saps out there, even if they are too scared to admit it."

*****

No one knew quite what to say after that. It was ironic that the Saps would never know how closely their terror of the next stage of human evolution was mirrored by the fear of Saps that haunted the Tomorrow People. As long as the Saps remained in the majority, the Tomorrow People would remain a hounded and persecuted group, ever in fear of lynch mobs or secret service attack. Of course, nearly ten years after the Mass Breakout began, and with the rate of new breakouts ever increasing, just how long that would remain the case was still an open question.

In the meantime, all the Tomorrow People could do was keep a low profile and a tight cover. Which, of course, was why Abby and Marc were still awake in the early hours of the morning. Trying to assess the new breakouts was enough of a task, without doing so in parallel with running their shipping business, which provided cover for the subterranean Lab in the form of an aboveground warehouse. While Don and his friends turned down their music and returned to their chatting on the other side of the Lab, Abigail sighed.

"Where were we?"

"Getting nowhere." Marc's sigh was an unconscious echo of her own. He looked at her with concern in his dark eyes. "Don's right about one thing. It's late, ma chère, and you look tired. Perhaps we should finish this in the morning?"

Abby shook her head firmly. "We have to get this finished tonight, otherwise we'll fall further behind tomorrow night and sooner or later this Lab will just collapse! Had we finished going through the warehouse manifest?"

"Indeed, ma chère," Marc agreed, leaning forward to study the paperwork spread over the link table in front of them. "We had moved on to talking about today's new breakouts."

"Eleven in one day. All able to jaunt." Abby couldn't stop the smile from appearing on her face. "And that's in the Toronto area alone. We're getting there, Marc."

"But slowly, Abby, far too slowly." Marc sighed and lifted a report off the link table. "Eight of these are school-age children, and of them, seven have drawn so much attention to themselves that I think we're going to have to resettle them at new schools."

"More paperwork." Abby frowned. "We can't go on creating new identities at this rate. Even our replicas aren't always perfect, and sooner or later we're going to make a serious mistake and be caught at it."

"But in the meantime.... What choice do we have, ma chère?" Marc's face became bleak. "Today though, we only need two identities. The families of six of the children do not wish to see them again. Two have been settled down here. The remaining four are staying at their nearest local Labs."

"Do we have room for them in the Lab schools?" Abigail asked in a flat tone, running a hand wearily over her face.

"We shall have to make room, ma chère. New children without families will raise suspicion almost anywhere else we try to send them."

"And we daren't risk that until they're completely in control of their special abilities. I know, Marc, I know. All right, I'll handle the paperwork first thing tomorrow. What about the adult breakouts?"

"Two college students, one shop assistant. All three managed to break out quietly. They will be fine with a little training."

"Training, yes." Abby considered the list of breakouts. "We'll need to get to know them and assign them to the appropriate mentors. I'll talk to six, if you'll take the other five. We can take them out for a jaunting lesson in the morning."

(And implant the passphrase while we're about it,) Marc added telepathically, with a glance in the direction of Don's group to make sure he wasn't overheard. "They all managed the jaunt to their nearest Lab well enough, so it shouldn't be too much of a chore," he went on aloud before the pause would be noticeable. He flicked through the paperwork on the link table once again. "Well, is that all for this evening?"

Abby leaned back in her seat and a frown spread across her face.

"All except one thing: Thomas."

Marc gave her a questioning look.

"He was crying again this afternoon and I still can't quite get to the bottom of what's so wrong. It's three weeks since he broke out, Marc, and he's still not used to the idea of being a Tomorrow Person." The helplessness she felt seemed to come through with every word.

Marc touched Abigail's mind briefly with reassurance, but his own thoughts were troubled. The eleven-year-old Thomas had been one of those rare children who have always shown some telepathic talent. As such, the shock and horror in his mind when Abby had helped him through the final stages of breakout had been both surprising and confusing. Surely he must have anticipated that, one day, he would join them? The boy had broken out at night, woken from a terrifying nightmare to find his mind swamped with the millions of voices of Homo superior. It had been mere chance that Abigail, walking past the link table at that moment, had heard his first cry, but that chance had inspired a special interest in the child from both Abby and Marc.

"Il a l'air tourmenté," Marc said slowly. "I do not understand why he has such a problem with getting used to the idea of being one of us. His telepathy is better trained than many of the children who broke out a year or more ago! I cannot get the expression on his face out of my mind - his expression when you guided him through breakout and his first jaunt to the Lab, ma chère. I have never seen another child appear more horrified to learn he is one of us."

"The Saps have been poisoning the minds of these children since they were little more than babies." Abby shook her head sadly. "We're losing more through panic when they break out than ever before." She paused. "I did manage to get a little out of Thomas today about his background."

"And that's been a struggle, certainly." Marc raised an eyebrow in query.

"He's only been here a couple of years, Marc. He told me that he used to live in Britain, not Canada. That explains the strange twang in his accent and why we didn't find any record of his birth, too. He wouldn't tell me whether he's told his parents that he's a Tomorrow Person yet. He just changed the subject. Given how strongly he begged us not to approach them.... I would be happier talking to them, but they must have known how telepathic he was. Perhaps they won't see any difference now. "

"Have you asked the London Lab to look into his records for us?" Marc asked thoughtfully. Abby shrugged non-committally. Marc knew as well as she did how matters stood in the overworked London headquarters of the Tomorrow People.

"I was going to put it in the next report we send. Everyone I know over there is too busy to check on one boy - no matter how out of place he seems."

"Aren't we all, ma chère? There's always - "

(Marc!) Abby's thought cracked across Marc's mind like a whip, stopping his sentence in mid-flow and drawing his attention to the pale child who had jaunted into the Lab's main room just a metre away from them.

"Thomas - " Abby's tone was gently scolding - "why are you out of bed at this time of night? Aren't your parents going to miss you?"

Thomas looked at them both with wide blue eyes and an unreadable expression.

"They might, but they're very busy. I heard you thinking about me. I know you both really care. I ... I wanted to say sorry."

Abby and Marc exchanged chagrined looks, both rapidly reinforcing their mental defences. They couldn't possibly have anticipated that the subject of their thoughts would be awake and receptive at that time of night.

"Sorry for what, Thomas?" Marc asked gently.

"I'm sorry I can't believe what you've been trying to tell me." The boy was frowning, his face troubled. "All my life I've been told that the Tomorrow People are wrong. My parents said ... they said that the world belongs to ordinary people, to normal people."

"A lot of Saps think that, Thomas," Abby told him carefully, aware that the group on the other side of the common room was listening too now. "But we're the next stage of human evolution. Sooner or later the Saps will realise that they are going to have to share the world with us. Sooner or later all the Saps will be like us."

"No." Thomas was shaking his head with the confident disbelief of an eleven-year-old boy. "You're wrong, Abby. We're a mutation, an aberration. We're polluting the gene pool."

Abby tried to hide the shock from her face. She felt Marc's horror too and his anger at the self-loathing they could both hear in Thomas's voice.

"Is that what your parents told you?" Marc asked in an artificially calm voice that did little to hide his fury. Abby laid a hand on his arm to comfort him, even as she tried to project comfort to the troubled child before them.

"It's the truth," Thomas told them simply. "Just because I turn out to be one of you doesn't stop it being true."

Abby moved forward in her chair as if to take Thomas into her arms, but the boy shied away.

"People used to tell me that when I was older I could fight against you." Thomas seemed to be willing them to understand. He seemed consumed by his fervour and the words poured out of him in a torrent. "Before they sent me away from the others, I was the strongest telepath and that was useful. I was the oldest - that's why they called me Thomas. They used to tell me that I would help save the world from you. But they never expected me to break out. It took me a long time to work it all out. I...I didn't know what to do, Abby." The boy was looking at her directly now and there were unshed tears in his eyes, but he went on before she could frame any kind of response. "But I know now."

Thomas took a step forward and hugged her quickly, running a hand over her hair before doing the same to Marc. The man was startled, but instinctively hugged him back before releasing the boy to stand once more in front of them.

"You've both been really kind, but you're wrong and that's why I'm sorry."

"Thomas - " Abby's throat was dry with surprise and a sudden foreboding - "what have you done?"

"What I was made to do," Thomas said simply. He rested his hands on his jaunting belt and gave them a tearful look. "You know - Operation Malthus."

*****

Thomas jaunted before either Abby or Marc could seize him. Both the joint co-ordinators of the Canadian Tomorrow People leapt from their seats and into action, their faces grey with horror.

(We've got to evacuate the Lab.) Marc's thought was loud enough to bring everyone else in the room to their feet in surprise. He typed a few quick commands into the Lab's security console, but neither he nor Abby was surprised that there was no response. There had been three long weeks for Thomas to work his sabotage.

The first tremor rocked the Lab before anyone else could move.

Already it was too late.

Thomson Memorial Park, Toronto - 6am EDT

It ought to be raining.

The thought crossed Abby's mind as much to fill the void left by her shocked numbness as because she felt it to be true. On a day like this, when a hundred thousand people were crying in shock and pain, the sky should be crying with them. Instead the autumn morning was cool and crisp, the dawn light just beginning to flush the sky. Only a distant hint of smoke on the wind marred the idyllic scene.

Abby's first sequence of random jaunts had taken her fifteen miles away from the Lab and across the city. She had barely made the first of them in time. With her mind in contact with the link table's boosters, she had felt the thoughts of everyone trapped in the Lab and the fears of the thousands of Tomorrow People outside who had woken to find their world falling apart. For a moment, just a moment, she had been tempted not even to try to jaunt away.

In the end though, she had fled the fire even as it ignited, not stopping to think or breathe until she had jaunted three times in quick succession. With each jaunt she had been aware of noise and chaos, of mobs of people on streets that should have been empty in the small hours. Toronto was like an upturned molehill and only in the solitude of one of the city's parks could she even begin to regain her balance. Now, as she walked in circles, round and round on the gravel paths, Abigail tried to work out what she could do next. Her people were scattered and on the run and something told her that trying to gather them together again so soon would be the worst possible move. Again and again the scenes played through in her mind. The quiet evening with Marc, Thomas speaking with the conviction of a brainwashed child, Marc with a child in each arm, and all of them looking frightened and ill... And almost as often as that last image, one of Thomas hugging Marc and Abby herself. Thomas was not a tactile person. That embrace somehow seemed to have been the moment the wrongness took over the world.

(Subject is in Thomson Park - tracking.)

The thought came out of nowhere, as loud and clear to Abby as a voice by her ear. In the same instant, she jaunted.

*****

A bug, Abigail realised as she emerged from hyperspace into a lonely back street in the suburbs of Toronto. I've been bugged.

There was no other explanation for how a telepathic Sap could have tracked her down so quickly. In common with every other Tomorrow Person in Toronto, Abby's mental defences were rock solid, hiding her from the Sap agents who had attacked the Lab. Even TIM couldn't have tracked her by thought alone. She longed to call out to him, to all of her friends, but TIM had spoken of the London Lab being attacked and Toronto was almost certainly crawling with telepathic Sap agents. All she could do was lock her mind down tight and wait out this trial.

No, she thought, telepathy hadn't brought her tracker onto her tail - there had to be a bug on her somewhere. It would be a homing device as well as an audio bug. And it would be small, probably little more than microscopic. The image of Thomas hugging her, running a hand over her hair and clothes, flashed through her mind once again, but now, for the first time, it made sense. The child had planted a bugging device on her and she hadn't suspected a thing.

Of course. Abby watched the sequence of memories march past her mind's eye once more. Thomas had bugged Marc too, and the intruders had headed straight for the upper dormitories where Marc had been. Abby felt her heart clench with a poisonous mixture of bitterness and anxiety. Now the Saps had him. If he were even alive.

"He has to be alive!" She shook her head, angry with herself for giving in to despair so easily. "They all are!"

It was quiet in Abby's head now - far too quiet after the traumatic events of the night. Undoubtedly, there was panic in the air; undoubtedly there was grief. But there was also a gaping emptiness where there should have been the distant murmur of voices. Abby hadn't dared call any of her closest friends or assistants in the Lab directly. Even before the realisation that she was being tracked, she had known that trying to touch anyone telepathically would make them both beacons to any Sap telepath. Nonetheless, she longed to discover the full extent of the disaster as much as she dreaded learning it. If Abigail were any judge, thousands of people were missing from the telepathic background, and she could feel their absence more strongly than she had ever felt their presence. Never had she dreamed that she would pray her people had been captured.

And now she didn't even have time to stop and catch her breath. Eventually she'd get all this figured out; she'd get rid of the bug and would be able to do something to really help her people, but for now she just had to keep moving. If she were being tracked, she couldn't risk jaunting to any of the local Labs that had looked to Toronto for guidance. She couldn't risk a mental call to any other Tomorrow Person. And she couldn't just stop and do nothing either, or the government agents would close in on her. Sooner or later they'd lose patience with her silent refusal to interact with any of the others. They'd seize her. And, as TIM had told her, she knew far too much to ever let that happen.

Headquarters, London Tomorrow People - 6am EDT (11am Local Time)

John let himself sink wearily into a chair and then shuffled around, trying to make himself comfortable. The room, the chair, the link tables - all were identical in every detail to those he had been forced to leave behind and yet, in his mind, they just didn't feel the same.

The room was quiet for the moment, as if the eye of the hurricane were even now passing over them. The jaunting pad, which had been humming all day with new arrivals, was temporarily silent. Elsewhere in the complex, John could both hear and feel the minds of thousands of people trying to make sense of the way their lives had just been turned upside down. The London Tomorrow People would adjust, of course. After all, this wasn't the first time they had been forced to abandon their home and move on. It was just that last time there had been so few of them, while this time there were so many!

Abandoning his attempt to find a comfortable position in which to arrange his aching limbs, John glanced upwards at the gently glowing hemispheres suspended amidst the tubing on the room's ceiling.

"Are you all right, TIM?"

The lights gave a slight pulse of affirmation, but the biotronic computer's voice was weary as he responded. "I am fine, John. I merely require a short time to adjust to the transition. The relocation of my major thought processors is always somewhat ... traumatic, as I believe you know."

"I know, TIM." John's voice was regretful. "I wouldn't have forced you to do it if - "

"You had no choice, John," TIM interrupted firmly. "Indeed, it was fortunate that this facility was already prepared and ready to receive us."

John nodded unhappily.

"Mike's team have done a wonderful job with this place - it can't have been easy." He rubbed the back of his neck to try to relieve some of the tension there. It had already been a long day and it was not yet half over. "Is everyone accounted for?" he asked, aware of the tingle as yet another person jaunted in to the room, but ignoring it.

"All residents of the London Lab and most of our more prominent non-resident members have checked in safely, John," TIM assured him at once. "There were a number of disturbances across the British Isles, aimed at individual Tomorrow People who have aroused the suspicion of the Government or their neighbours in the past, but none of our local Labs have come under direct attack. We were able to fully evacuate the London Lab well before its defences were breached." TIM paused solemnly. "We have been lucky."

"Luck had very little to do with it." Stephen's voice was angry as he stepped down from the jaunting pad. As head of the Lab's security unit, Stephen had been worked harder than most today, trying to cloud the minds of the telepathic Saps in London as the other Tomorrow People jaunted to safety. Even as recently as five years ago, the idea of a Lab security unit would have been strange and a little disturbing, but the opening salvoes of this silent war had taught the Tomorrow People that they could only follow their pacifist instincts so far. After the trials of the morning, John was simply grateful that they had been prepared for this attack. He gave his old friend a nod of acknowledgment and waved for Stephen to sit down. The other man ignored him, pacing backwards and forwards around the room in a futile attempt to work off his excess energy. "We didn't even realise the Lab was surrounded until Abby put us on the alert."

"I was about to ask," observed John, "what actually happened in Toronto, TIM? Were Marc and Abigail able to evacuate their people in safety?"

The pause before TIM's answer was enough to alarm both of the senior Tomorrow People.

"I fear not, John."

"Go on," John told him grimly.

"The Toronto Lab was completely overrun and its control room destroyed, John. There were other Labs attacked this morning, and I have offered assistance where I could while giving the Lab leaders our new location, but Toronto has borne the brunt of this assault - six of their local Labs were also raided. I believe Marc was captured, together with a significant number of the Canadian Tomorrow People."

"Marc's been captured?" Stephen repeated in stunned disbelief.

"Why didn't you tell us this before, TIM?" John asked angrily, coming to his feet and striding over to the nearest link table.

"May I remind you, John - " TIM's usually calm voice had an edge to it now - "that our resources have been fully committed to the relocation of the London Lab since the moment we were alerted to the problem. It is only in the past few minutes that it has been possible to stop and review the situation elsewhere. The Toronto Lab, like the others, was assaulted with large quantities of Barlumin and its derivatives. Informing you of the situation any earlier would not have allowed you to take any additional action."

John gave TIM an angry look and then focused his mind on the link table, extending that focus when he felt Stephen move up beside him to help.

(Abigail?) he called sharply. (Abby, report!)

There was only silence in response.

"If there are as many Sap telepaths around over there as there are in London, she's probably shielding too hard to even hear us calling," Stephen suggested, frowning.

"I very much hope that is the case." TIM spoke quietly, aware of the anxiety that both John and Stephen were trying to hide. This was not easy for either of them. They'd both seen a lot of potential in the young Canadian co-ordinators, allowing themselves to feel a much closer connection to Abby and Marc than to most of the other Lab leaders.

John felt his mouth go dry at TIM's tone.

"What is it, TIM?"

"I am not certain that Abby was able to jaunt away in time from the explosion of the Lab's control room."

"She must have done!" The Canadian-accented voice came from the jaunting pad and John frowned at the two newest arrivals as they stepped down from it. "She can't be dead!" The man who had spoken was unfamiliar, but John and Stephen both recognised the other as head of the Florida Lab. John raised an eyebrow in query. Ever since relations with the Saps had worsened, it was rare for anyone, even Lab leaders, to jaunt between Labs. He hadn't expected even those leaders privy to the new location of the London Lab to make use of that knowledge.

"John, Stephen." The American nodded a greeting and his Canadian companion seemed momentarily taken aback to find himself in the presence of such illustrious figures. "I'm sorry, I know you're busy and this is a security risk but ... " The man hesitated. "Well, I've had fifty-odd Canadians jaunting in this morning and Don here ... Well, he said something about Operation Malthus!"

"Malthus!" Stephen exclaimed, dark memories clouding his eyes.

"Sure, that's what the kid said." Don ran a hand through his disordered hair and looked about him with wild eyes. "Look, I don't know what all this is about, but my home's just been wiped out and I don't have a clue what's happened to Abby and Marc, and it was all because of that kid!"

John and Stephen exchanged shocked and anxious looks.

"Stephen, I know our agents are tired, but I want everyone capable of taking care of themselves out there trying to find out what's happened," John ordered. He went on before Stephen could do more than nod an acknowledgment. "TIM, how many other Labs were attacked?"

"Too many, John, far too many. I am now checking those regions not answering calls. Most merely appear to be deserted, but I am unable to access my remote stations in an alarming number of them. With the world's Tomorrow People shielding too high to hear faint and distant telepathic calls, I believe it may be necessary to send out people to each location to try and get in touch with the local leaders."

John nodded grimly.

"We need to get organised. We've been running around, each trying to make sure our own Labs are safe. Now we have to look at the big picture," John told them all sternly. "Let's get people out there on the ground to find out what's happening. And you..." He fixed Don with a piercing gaze. "You sit down and tell me exactly what happened."

North-Eastern Toronto - 8am EDT

Her breath frosting in the chill autumn air, Abby looked up and down the road. As she had hoped, she'd found the place deserted when she had jaunted in. Earlier in the night the scene must have been very different.

The remnants of shattered streetlights and broken car windows frosted the ground under her feet. Food wrappings, lost scarves and gloves littered the sidewalk. People had been here, recently and in large numbers. She'd found similar scenes elsewhere in the city in the few hours since she had fled the telepathic voice in the park. A powder-keg of stored anxiety and suspicion had exploded last night and this morning all that was left was its debris, along with the smell of smoke and fear in the air. In the absence of any real purpose to her meanderings, curiosity drew Abby onwards. It wasn't until she neared the street corner that she saw the red lights that were reflected in the windows around her.

The firefighters were packing up as Abby followed the lights to their source. She felt a sense of rising dread within her even before she saw the building they had been trying to save. The battle they had come to fight was lost: the house lay in ashes, with charred timbers all that remained of its structure. Abby stared at it, only now trying to work out where she was; knowing but dreading the answer. Her jaunts had been random, but there were few places in the city that were far from the home of a Tomorrow Person, one or more of the many trying to live in the mainstream while keeping their secret. Many such homes acted as local gathering places; some even held small refuges for fellow TPs in trouble. Without any conscious thought, her jaunts had brought her here - desperate to find out what had happened to even a few of her people, despite her reluctance to endanger them.

"Did they get out?" Abby whispered the question to herself, struggling to deal with the mixture of anger and horror that filled her, and was shocked when a voice at her shoulder replied.

"No one knows." The firefighter was dirty and looked exhausted. Soot had darkened the middle-aged man's blonde hair, and the fluorescent strips on his padded jacket reflected the flashing lights through a layer of dust. He didn't really look at her as he spoke, perhaps taking her for some idle passer-by. "The house was well alight when we got here. We'll have to go through the ashes before we know one way or another, but we're being called away already - I've never known a night like it! This wasn't the only house to go up last night. There were riots all over the city. There must have been over a hundred fires like this one - and the police'll never catch the people who started them." The man had been talking tiredly, caught up in his own concerns. Only now did he take in Abigail's pale and drawn face. He touched her arm in sudden concern and sympathy, but Abby flinched away. "I'm so sorry. I've been doing this for so many years that sometimes I forget what it really means. Did you know the people who lived here?"

"They were a young family." Abby spoke slowly as she pulled the details from her memory. "Two little children." Lost in her own thoughts, she didn't hear the firefighter's response. She hadn't known this couple well - Marc had been responsible for their training and education - but they were like thousands of others across Canada. The children would have been too young to jaunt to safety and with no one in the Lab.... Had their parents thought to keep matter transporters in the house for the kids? There were never enough of the complex devices to go around these days and most were stored in the Labs to be called for when necessary. Had this family been trapped? The mob that had set the fire must have known what they were doing. Had they been encouraged in their rampage by government agents who knew the truth, or had they just acted on the rumours that must have flown through the city during the long night?

The firefighter returned to his appliance, helping to pack the tightly coiled hosepipes and neatly folded ladders, as Abby stood lost in silent thought. She seemed unable to summon up any kind of fury for the people who had done this, only a numb pity and disgust.

The questions chased one another around her exhausted mind and she found herself visualising the chaos of those pre-dawn hours. How many people had been roused by the first mob, turning on their neighbours in fear and suspicion? The children of two Tomorrow People often showed random and unpredictable talent long before they broke out and learnt to jaunt. How many families had been caught like this by the need to save the very children who had cast the shadow of doubt upon them? And how many decent, normal people would wake up in the morning with a memory of mass hysteria that they would regret for the rest of their lives?

"Are you all right?" In her abstraction, Abby was startled to find the blonde-haired man returned and standing by her shoulder. He glanced nervously at her and then back towards the blood-red fire engine, watching as the rest of his crew climbed into the crowded cabin. "You've been standing there for a quarter of an hour." He paused and spoke gently. "As I said, they might have got out. Look, I have to go. There are too many fires out there."

"Too many fires," Abby agreed numbly. "And too many questions."

The man hesitated.

"Look, I don't know if the people here were ... friends of yours. If they were ... get out. Get out of the city. I don't know what kind of earthquake hit us last night, but I do know one thing: you don't want to be here for the aftershocks."

Abigail met his eyes for the first time and was momentarily touched by the concern she saw there. Then the sheer overwhelming hopelessness of the situation swept over her again and all she could do was nod once as he turned and ran back to his crew.

Abby watched listlessly as the fire engine drove off. Then she opened her telepathic senses and listened for the buzz of thought she knew she would find there. No Sap telepath could shield their presence from a Tomorrow Person as experienced as Abigail was, when she chose to look. A man's mind touched hers - young, relatively inexperienced, his thoughts hummed with the intensity of his determination not to let her escape his surveillance. Abby sighed. This was the fifth individual telepath she had felt already this morning. Would they never run out? Would they never tire? Either way, only one thing was important right now: she was being watched again, just as she had been at every stop she'd made since fleeing the Lab. It was time to move on. With a final sad look around her, she jaunted.

Canada, 150 miles from Toronto - 10.30am EDT

The walls were swaying and billowing inwards. Lights exploded in front of his eyes and more were bursting inside his head. His stomach churned as his mind throbbed with the agony of the sensory overload. Curled tightly into a foetal ball, Marc buried his face in his hands and prayed for it all to stop.

"Get up, you lot!" The words ricocheted through Marc's head, triggering fireworks that exploded behind his retinas. His eyes wouldn't focus; the soldier was no more than a vague blur in front of him. "Get up!" the soldier shouted once again, kicking Marc in the ribs as a wordless and brutal encouragement. The Tomorrow Person barely felt the physical pain, too lost in mental agony to care.

How long had he been like this? The hours had passed in a blur of unconsciousness and drugged disorientation. There were others nearby, others affected by the Barlumin, but Marc could not hear even a hint of them in his mind. His first experience of mild Barlumin radiation from the fine dust aerosols used by the raiders had come as a shock. Nothing though, could have prepared him for this never-ending journey. Confined in the back of a truck with who-knew-how-many of his friends and a solid lump of the mineral, he wasn't just stripped of his special powers: he had been stripped of all rational thought.

"Get up!" the soldier shouted once more and now, for the first time, his meaning began to penetrate Marc's confused mind. "You people are supposed to know everything. Can't you tell we're here?"

Light assaulted Marc's eyes and now it was daylight, not the random firing of radiation-damaged neurons. A breath of fresh air cut through the stuffiness of the truck and caressed the Tomorrow Person's face. He sucked in the fresh air as though it were water at the end of a desert trek. Forcing his eyes to focus, feeling his mind beginning to clear, he raised his head carefully.

"Where are we?" The voice was high and frightened, but he recognised it as belonging to one of the children who had broken out less than a day before. She was crying, and she wasn't alone. Marc cried out too as he instinctively tried to touch her telepathically with comfort and his mind seemed to explode with agony. People all around were crying in pain and confusion, many of them only now waking from the peaceful oblivion of unconsciousness.

Marc gazed about him in confusion, aware of something - no, someone - missing. 'Abby!' The thought of his fellow co-ordinator wiped all other concerns from his mind and his eyes struggled to focus on the faces around him, hoping and praying that hers was not among them. After Thomas's betrayal, keeping track of Abby had become impossible, despite the fact that she had seldom left Marc's thoughts. As he'd struggled to deal with the effects of the Barlumin aerosols, he had watched the crowds gathered at gunpoint by the soldiers, thanking each moment that passed without her capture. But then he had been thrown into that truck and thought had shut down - even the thought of Abigail.

Lost in his concerns, still too confused to move, Marc found himself seized by an arm and literally dragged across the floor of the truck before being tossed out to land in the mud beyond its door. Soldiers surrounded the Tomorrow People, pulling them to their feet and herding them into small groups. Marc himself was hauled to one side, closely guarded, despite his attempts to help some of the children who had fallen to the ground beside him. Last to climb out of the truck, one of the soldiers behind Marc held a pyramidal Barlumin emitter against his chest, as if cradling something precious. The device was closed, the effects of the mineral within mitigated by its thick casing, but the soldier was clearly ready to open it again at a moment's notice. Already, Marc had realised that this would be unnecessary. It was faint, yet there was Barlumin here somewhere. At the back of his mind, he felt the agony of the journey settle into a throbbing headache that the low concentrations of the mineral would sustain indefinitely. After the truck it was almost a relief, but he knew that it was a false one. Even this low a concentration would keep Marc and his people cut off from their powers, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

All around, other trucks were disgorging their sick and disoriented cargoes into the parade ground of what appeared to be an old military camp. Long, low wooden huts, crudely painted and more than a little run-down, stretched out in every direction. Scattered amongst the huts were squat wooden towers housing guards, who were keeping their new prisoners covered with both conventional and specialist anti-telepath weaponry. Marc had seen photographs of places like this in long-forgotten history lessons. A creeping horror climbed his spine as he remembered that history and all that went with it.

"A concentration camp," he whispered aloud. Guards gripped his arms tightly at this first indication of rational thought from their prize prisoner. Still weak but strengthened by his anger, Marc tried to shake them off, his aim uncertain at first. To one side, perhaps a hundred metres away, a group of men in military colours looked up from their discussion at the disturbance. Marc's efforts became more focused as he tried to break free from his guards and face these commanders. "You cannot do this to us!" he shouted hoarsely. "You cannot keep us here!"

More people were turning to face them now, the faces of the TPs falling as they saw their leader being securely held. Marc forced the tinge of panic from his face and voice, letting himself dwell on the anger instead. He had a responsibility to all the people here. He had failed to keep them safe; all he could do now was try to lead them through this trial with dignity. Abby would get them out. Marc was sure now that she wasn't amongst the anxious crowd. Sooner or later, she would rescue them all.

He focused on that hope as he faced the green-and-grey-clad men who were approaching him. They weren't wearing military uniforms exactly, more an assortment of camouflage-coloured clothing. He sucked in a sharp breath: Military Intelligence, and high ranking too. They had to be. Still sick to his stomach with Barlumin poisoning, Marc struggled to stand straight. He fixed the foremost man with a steady gaze, reading the man's name, 'Trent', from his ID badge.

"Where are we?" Marc said quietly, feeling his responsibilities as Co-ordinator of the Canadian Tomorrow People more acutely than ever before. The man in charge gave him a contemptuous glance and ignored the query, striding past and jumping onto the tailboard of the truck in order to get a better view of his new subjects. Despite himself, Marc couldn't stop his voice rising desperately. "You have to tell us where we are!"

"Oh, I don't think you're in any position to be giving orders around here. What say you and I have a little chat now, eh Monsieur?" Trent nodded to the soldiers and they pulled Marc roughly to his feet. Marc let himself be manhandled, hating the man for the singsong sarcasm in his tone. "Get these people assigned bunks, and bring this one to headquarters. We have a nice room prepared for our star guest and I'm sure he won't mind answering a few simple questions for us now, will he?"

The Suburbs of Toronto - 12 noon EDT

"I don't believe this." The woman waved the midday paper in front of her partner's face. The middle-aged man grunted non-commitally and sipped his drink to avoid the necessity of a more verbal response. "Not a word about the riots! Not a word about the houses burned to the ground! How they think anyone in the city could have failed to notice... well, I ask you!" She read the headline again, aloud this time. "'Mayor Demands Tax Hike' - as if that's news. What about all the disturbances? What about the men in black who raided that house down the street? The Government can't hide it all from us for ever." She looked around the small café, aware of the eyes upon her. "If you want my opinion," she went on, indifferent to the fact that no one did, "it's these Tomorrow People, that's who it is. They're causing all this trouble. They oughtn't to be allowed to live among decent people."

The woman's companion sighed and put down his now empty cup. Clearly this was not a new argument for the two of them.

"It is a rather large tax hike," he pointed out calmly.

She glared at him and looked down at his empty plate and her own half-filled cup. "Have you finished, at last?" she demanded, as if he were the one who had kept her waiting. "You're impossible when you're in this kind of mood." She thrust the newspaper into his lap as she rose to her feet. "We're going home." Clearly resigned to the burdens of his life, the man followed her silently from the café, glancing thoughtfully at the headline of the paper he now carried.

Neither of them noticed the pale young woman sitting alone by the window.

****

Abigail held back the tears and the fury, but the woman's voice was like a knife in her mind. "They oughtn't to be allowed to live among decent people." It was words like that which had led to her home being destroyed, her people captured, Marc taken away and perhaps even tortured for the information he possessed. It was words like that which set fire to a house with two children inside. It was words like that which turned superstitious fear into hate.

Abby dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, trying to make the gesture nonchalant and inconspicuous. She so much wanted to stand up, to speak out, and give these Saps a lesson! But how would that improve anything? Speaking out alone, she would seem a crank or just make herself more of a target, while demonstrating her powers would just fuel the fear that simmered under the surface of this city's mental landscape. Instead she sighed and forced herself to take another small bite of the pastry she had bought. It tasted dry and it was an effort of will to swallow each mouthful, but she had to admit that she was hungry. Abigail knew it had been too long since she had last slept and she couldn't actually remember her last meal. Half a day constantly keeping on the move, staying one step ahead of the people tracking her, had left her feeling drained. She had found that no matter how far she jaunted within Canada's borders there would be both a Sap telepath and a team of military agents on her trail within half an hour. She hadn't dared to go further afield. The only places outside Canada that she knew well enough to jaunt to blind were Labs, and she wouldn't place another Lab at risk - no matter how great the price. Eventually though, Abby had realised that walking and jaunting indefinitely were not getting her anywhere.

If these Sap agents had wanted her in custody, then large numbers could have moved in and trapped her with Barlumin weapons on any one of three or four occasions during the course of the day. Instead they had let her run free. Tracking her electronically, and with the team of eight relatively short-range telepaths who seemed to have been placed on her trail, they were merely watching her. The invasion of her privacy would have been distressing at any time, but she knew this was worse than simple surveillance. They were waiting for her to betray her friends. Well, if they had waited this long, they could wait a little longer. Knowing that she would never be able to use it again, Abby had drained one of her bank accounts and taken the cash. She had jaunted out of the Lab in the early hours of the morning with no more than the clothes she stood up in, and the autumn air was cold. She had needed a coat and she had bought one. Now, more than anything, she needed a hot drink.

The coffee warmed and comforted Abby. She cupped the mug in her hands, only now aware of how cold and stiff she had become. The decision to just stop and take the risk had, strangely, been an enormous relief. After that, the conversation at the next table had been an unexpected and unpleasant reminder of the dangers outside. This café was small and in one of the outer suburbs of Toronto. Nonetheless, she knew it was already surrounded. The woman who had first alerted her to the watchers was back in her mind, trying to conceal her presence and failing miserably. Not for the first time, Abby considered striking out and blinding the woman's mind's eye - temporarily at least. It might give her some small satisfaction but, truly, what good would it do? Military Intelligence would have another telepath on her trail within minutes. Sitting by the window, Abigail watched the street carefully, noting the suspiciously loitering passers-by and watching for any sign that they were about to move in.

The café's proprietor moved out from behind the serving counter to clear the plates and cups that the disagreeable couple had left behind. Suddenly alert and with hands on her jaunting belt, Abby watched the woman closely for any sign that she was a danger. Her attention didn't go unnoticed.

"Don't let that old harridan bother you, honey," the woman told Abby in amiable tones. "That pair come in here for their regular lunchtime argument once a week. Our other regulars are all used to tuning them out."

Abby gave a small cough to ease a throat tightened by cold and disuse and then spoke tiredly, relieved to hear a friendly voice.

"She's right though about the papers not reporting the ... disturbances last night."

The café owner frowned and concentrated for a moment on her task. With a clatter, she finished stacking the used plates.

"Perhaps there are some things that it's better we don't know about," she said shortly.

"How can you say that?" Once again, Abby felt her temper flaring, anger washing away some of the shock. Images flashed through her mind - the Lab overrun; her people captured or killed; Marc looking ill, a child in each arm. How could anyone willingly blind themselves to all that? "Don't you think that if people are being killed, if people are being rounded up like animals, everyone should know about it?"

"It's not as if they're real people, like you and me." The waitress gave a short humourless laugh. "That's if they even exist." She looked up, meeting Abby's eyes, and something in Abigail's gaze changed the nervous tension in her expression into a faint trace of fear. The woman took a step backwards and broke the stare, as if that would protect her from what she seemed to realise was before her. "I think you should leave," she said harshly.

Abigail remained seated, understanding but not wanting to. She knew that after the traumatic events of the night, she was wearing her fear and confusion more openly than any Tomorrow Person should ever do.

"Why?" Her voice was confused and a little lost. "What have I done?"

"Your kind aren't welcome here," the café proprietor hissed softly. She wouldn't meet Abigail's eyes, didn't see the pain of rejection there. Abby knew argument would be useless. She left the remains of her pastry on the plate and stood up.

"I don't understand." She lied for the sake of appearances more than anything else, before her anger broke through the shock. "None of you understand, but perhaps you can." Again images of the Lab, of Marc, of the fire, flashed through Abby's memories and this time she reached out telepathically and shared them. The woman in front of her stared silently at nothing as Abby projected her anger and pain telepathically into the Sap mind. The café's other patrons stared as their hostess collapsed into a chair, her eyes wide with horror, but few of them had overheard the conversation and fewer still made the connection. Wordlessly, Abigail walked out.

Headquarters, London Tomorrow People - 1pm EDT (6pm Local Time)

Stephen gritted his teeth and forced himself to wait patiently as the second hand of the clock crept around to join the minute hand on the hour. He had ordered his team to check in at the new headquarters at six PM. Expecting them to be early was over-optimistic perhaps, but given everything he had learned today, each second they were overdue worried him.

"Patience, Stephen." TIM's familiar voice was soothing, but Stephen knew the biotronic computer too well to be deceived by his apparent calm. He gave a wry laugh.

"You know patience is a virtue I've never been able to claim, TIM."

"You can say that again," John teased gently, looking up from a report he was reading, but Stephen didn't miss the flick of John's eyes to the clock and back once more.

"I ought to be out there," Stephen told his friends angrily. "Eight major labs and sixteen local Labs raided within a few minutes! It was a miracle that there was enough warning from Canada that most of them were able to evacuate. Even so, we've probably had several hundred TPs out there captured with Barlumin." He shook his head, angry with himself more than anything else. "My team was meant to keep an eye on Lab security worldwide and we didn't even have a hint that the Saps were planning this!"

"Stephen - " John's voice was soothing - "we've been through this. If anyone from Operation Malthus were involved, you'd be recognised before you could find out anything useful in Toronto. And the child was a member of the Toronto Lab for three weeks - three weeks, Stephen! It's a wonder so few Labs were compromised. Most of these attacks would have happened sooner or later anyway. The Saps had hints as to the location of them all. I would guess only the Chicago Lab was targeted because of information gathered from Toronto." He paused, gazing into nothing. "The Saps must have been co-ordinating this worldwide campaign for months, but with Thomas in Toronto .... They synchronised their attacks so we would all be caught off guard."

"And we were, we were," Stephen agreed bitterly. The first of his agents jaunted in before John could respond and, after that, the jaunting pad in the corner seemed to hum constantly with new arrivals. Stephen counted them back anxiously - trying to keep track of who was here and who was still out in a world that seemed to have turned on them overnight - as TIM provided hot drinks and food for the tired agents.

"All right." John called the meeting to order at five past the hour, giving Stephen's people time to warm up and catch their breath. The eldest Tomorrow Person spoke quietly, but the authority in his voice cut through the bustle in the room. "We all know what happened last night. We know that London was abandoned and that Toronto is gone. What happened to the other major Labs?"

"Melbourne was hit hard." The young Tomorrow Person who spoke was pale and hunched down in his seat by one of the link tables, cupping a hot drink in his hands. "The Lab there had three main doors and the Saps found two of them."

"Were you able to find Gavin, the leader down there? He's not answering me telepathically," Stephen interrupted, leaning forward intently.

"He got a dose of the Barlumin, but some of the others got him out. He'll be fine in a day or two." The young man paused and shook his head in helpless frustration. "The people I spoke to thought that a couple of hundred people might have been caught by the Barlumin the Saps deployed. Most of them were affected by Barlumin poisoning while still asleep, or trapped while trying to defend children too young to jaunt to safety."

"TIM," Stephen frowned, glancing up at the biotronic computer, "have you been able to find out what's happening to all the people who've been caught?"

"Indeed." TIM's voice was sombre. "In every country in which a Lab has been raided I can find record of the recent refitting of derelict or underused army camps. Every one of those records has been truncated by one official secrets act or another. When I tried to scan the camp in northern England I encountered significant interference on my telepathic receptors. I believe these bases have been fitted with sufficient Barlumin to incapacitate any Tomorrow Person kept within them."

There was a murmur of anger and dismay from everyone in the room. John clenched his fists in an effort to hold his temper in check.

"Concentration camps." He spat out the words. "Kershia warned us, but after we shattered Operation Malthus, I thought ...." His voice trailed off angrily. "They're trying to round us up."

"John - " Stephen's voice was determined and reassuring - "we will get them out of there, sooner or later." He rubbed a hand across his stinging eyes. "All right, people, what about the other major Labs?"

*****

Stephen looked down at the paper on which he had been making notes for the last half-hour and tried to summarise them.

"We struck the first blow in this war when we shut down Operation Malthus," he told his agents flatly. "We knew that the Saps were going to strike back and they've waited just long enough to put us off our guard. We were lucky today. There was enough warning from Canada, so that most Labs' occupants saw their attackers coming." He raised a hand, counting off points on his fingers. "Yes, the leaders were forced to collapse or destroy part of their home. Yes, in each city they raided, agitators raised mobs that have driven some of us from homes and livelihoods ... or worse. Yes, a couple of thousand people have been caught by the Saps." He paused and began to curl his fingers again, counting down the points on the flip side of the situation. "But in most of those regions there were many minor Labs that haven't been touched. In every case the local leader escaped, even if forced to do so by their friends. Instead of a couple of thousand people imprisoned, there might have been a hundred thousand, or even millions." Stephen paused, trying to force confidence into his voice as he spoke to his demoralised team. "The Tomorrow People have been hit and hit hard, but we'll recover." His voice faltered and he looked across the room at the cluster of agents who had not yet reported. "Almost everywhere." He glanced up at John and his friend nodded.

"Toronto." John dropped the word into a room that became silent at the sound of it. "What's happening in Toronto?"

For a long moment no one spoke.

"The people are scattered," reported one of the agents who had just come back from the city. "They can't even evacuate to one of the local Labs. Their co-ordinator effectively told them to get out and hide. A lot of them have left the city. A lot more of them don't know what to do - they're lying low but don't dare to try and leave. They don't have anywhere to go. The city is crawling with Sap telepaths and the TPs there are scared to use their telepathy at all, except very quietly and at very short range." The young woman hesitated. "More than a hundred people were probably killed. Our best guess is that two thousand people were snatched from the Labs or their homes. Half of those were kids."

"Two thousand!" someone repeated numbly from the back of the room.

"The surrounding regions have all sent in people," another of the agents volunteered, "ready to help if the Saps track down any others. They're taking in matter transporters, so those families with small children who want to leave Canada can do so." "We can resettle perhaps a few thousand across North America," TIM interrupted doubtfully. "Beyond that a mass movement of people is going to be noticeable to the Saps."

"We can bring a fair number here - it's what this place was designed for, after all - but I don't think many more than that will want to move," Stephen told them all, thoughtfully. "Abby and Marc were well ahead of most of the other Labs around the world on Lab security. They had more contingencies in place against a breach in Lab integrity than just about anyone else - probably because they knew better than most just how much work the Saps have put into that. Half their neighbours thought they were being paranoid! The entire Lab was rigged with security monitors and alarms and they had secondary identities arranged for most of the people heavily involved in running their Labs. That's as well as the false IDs they had to set up for the new breakouts. Most of the people who didn't actually live in the Labs would have had very little contact with them. I think most will stay put and pray that they've not been given away." He clenched his fists, unable to express the anger he felt. "And after all their work, Marc and Abby were hit by the one thing they couldn't have anticipated. Malthus was meant to be over and done with! None of us had any idea that one of the kids had escaped or that any of them had the potential to break out!" Stephen sighed, closing his eyes and slowly unclenching his hands, before going on. "Abigail? I assume no one was able to find her?"

"Do we even know if she's still alive?" a young woman at the back of the crowd asked quietly. "No one in Toronto seems sure if she jaunted out of the Lab in time."

"I believe it is likely that she did." TIM's sudden interruption drew the eyes of everyone in the room towards him, relieved and anxious for him to justify his assertion. Aware of the attention, TIM went on slowly. "I have been monitoring a large volume of encrypted Sap signal traffic. I believe they are attempting to track a high-ranking member of the Toronto Lab - with some success."

"You think it's Abby?" Stephen asked urgently.

"It is possible," TIM conceded. "If so, the Saps have some method of tracking her movements and she is almost certainly under telepathic surveillance. It would explain why Abigail has not attempted to contact us or any other Lab."

"Can we get ahead of them? Grab Abby and get her out of there?" John asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"I regret, John, that the signals I am receiving are non-localised and I am unable to crack the encryption protocol. They might well have designed it specifically for this occasion. The new miniaturised surveillance cameras that you have developed might prove useful, however. If we can first locate Abby, we will be able to find and remove the bug, but until then...."

"We're just going to have to do it the hard way," John sighed. "Abby must be in shock. She's not going to be able to keep ahead of them indefinitely. One of us has to get to her first." He frowned, looking at the agents around them, and sent Stephen a tightly focused thought. (They all look just about done in, Stephen. Do we have anyone else we can send out to look for Abigail?)

(We have a few more who were away this morning or went to check on some of the Labs we were pretty sure had evacuated just for safety,) Stephen shrugged. (I'll round them up.) He nodded to his agents and raised a hand in dismissal. "We'll get people onto it," he told his tired audience aloud. "Meanwhile, get some rest. You've all worked hard today and we'll still be picking up the pieces of all this in the morning."

*****

(The Saps have captured Marc,) TIM reminded John and Stephen privately, as the others drifted from the room. (Even those with new identities remain at risk. We are all in danger.)

(Marc won't give us away,) Stephen snapped, shaking his head in denial.

(He may not have a choice,) John thought very quietly. He felt Stephen's upset response and sent his regret. (We have to consider the possibility, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. First things first. Let's find Abby and get her out of there. Kershia's still out looking for her, in any case. She asked Elle to take over her duties up here.) He let his voice trail off, sensing the unpleasant memories that, even after so long, lingered as a barrier between Stephen and his best agent. (Kershia has always been a law unto herself, but her friendship with Abby has deep roots. She won't give up.) John paused again and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose to ease the tension. (We're getting old, Stephen, you and I and the others of our generation. Most of us are off world all the time - dealing with the refugees or trying to talk sense into the Federation. I think half the TPs out there wouldn't even recognise us if we jaunted into their Labs. We can't afford to lose people like Marc and Abigail - not now. If we win this war we're going to need them.)

(When we win this war,) Stephen corrected immediately. John didn't meet his eyes.

(Perhaps, Stephen, perhaps.)

Pinewood Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada - 4pm EDT

The air smelled of snow and of ice. Sunlight reflected in shimmering curtains off the lake water, the vista ever changing as the wind rippled its surface. The rowing boat rocked gently beneath Abby and she held tightly to its wooden sides. Had this been a good idea? After the hours of running with no hope of shaking off her pursuers, she had just wanted to get away. Here at least, no one could creep up on her. No one could brush against her in the crowd, discreetly applying the Barlumin weaponry she dreaded. In a small rowing boat, surrounded by a mile of water in every direction, Abby felt as safe as she had done at any point that day.

Of course, 'safe' was a relative term at best. The constant and wearing pursuit was beginning to terrify her. She would not be able to keep this up indefinitely; perhaps a day, certainly not for much longer. Already, her eyes were stinging with the dryness that came with lack of sleep. Already, her limbs were aching with weariness. No - Abby pushed those thoughts aside with sheer force of will - she couldn't afford to worry about tomorrow right now. She had come here to give herself a chance to think and a chance to act before her pursuers caught up with her; she didn't have time to waste.

Pinewood Lake lay in silence, the stillness broken only by the slight breeze that sent small waves across it, as if they were racing one another to their destination. A full fifteen miles away, the small settlement to which it gave its name huddled on the lakeshore, but Abby tried to cast any thought of it from her mind. The only local Tomorrow Person she knew of was more than capable of looking after himself, but when she had found herself so close to an old friend's home, her first instinct had been to jaunt once again. Instead she had 'borrowed' Travin's boat from its isolated shelter and headed out on to the lake. She wasn't ready yet to face the crowded city and she and Marc had been out more than once in this little craft. She knew how to handle it.

The sheer physical concentration took her mind off other matters, for a few minutes at least. Abigail took deep breaths of the cool autumn air and forced herself to think clearly and rationally for almost the first time since this nightmare had started. Her first priority had to be trying to rid herself of the bugging device that had been planted on her. Until she did that she would not be able to contact any of her people and, more than anything else, that was what she wanted to do. She wanted to know what was happening, where everyone was, who was safe ... and who wasn't. But until the bug was gone she could do precisely nothing.

Abby had already searched her clothing for any sign of the device, but she had hardly been surprised not to find it. The Saps, in their never-ending fight against other nations, stateless terrorists, and one another, had always spent more money on military research than any of a hundred other causes. The first signs of the Mass Breakout had just added to the paranoia and the development of surveillance devices. Whatever Thomas had planted on her, it would be advanced, perhaps more advanced than anything the Tomorrow People had seen before. It could be very nearly microscopic, using her own body as both a power source and a sounding board to pick up vibrations. And it could be anywhere - attached to clothing, hair or even skin without her noticing. Well, the latter two possibilities Abby could do nothing about. She would just have to concentrate on the first.

Abigail sat huddled in the full-length duffle coat she had bought earlier, afraid to lose the warmth that had been so slow to build up inside it. Nonetheless, now that she had a short while to think about it, she realised that buying the coat had only been a first step. Abby began to slip out of her clothing as best she could while staying inside the baggy coat. She would have to find replacements from somewhere. Perhaps Pinewood Lake, perhaps somewhere in Toronto. She had money - the remains of the bank account she had drained still filled her pockets. She simply hated the knowledge that wherever she went, whatever she bought, they would be watching her. Unless this actually worked, of course.

One by one, the items of clothing slipped into the dark water. Abby watched them vanish, hoping beyond hope that an alarm, somewhere, was bewailing a signal's loss. That wouldn't stop the Intelligence hordes from descending on this place, naturally. Already they would be en route, ready to turn around and follow her beacon at a moment's notice if she jaunted. She smiled a tight and humourless smile, imagining the consternation on their faces if their bug were even now short-circuited, lying dead on the lakebed.

Abby was wearing nothing except underclothes and her new coat when the helicopter flew overhead. It hovered above the rowing boat, the thunder of it filling the air. The downdraft from the rotor blades rocked the boat violently, threatening to throw her from the small vessel. Clinging to the rowlocks, she gazed upwards. She had thought herself isolated here. The Intelligence men shouldn't have been able to approach any closer than the distant shoreline. She screamed into the unnatural wind, the anger she had felt earlier in the café coursing through her once more.

How dare they! How dare they fill her world with their hatred and their noise and their machinery. She had to be free of all this. The boat rocked again, almost tossing Abigail into the churning water and startling her from the verge of jaunting. An idea came to her suddenly and she looked up again with new purpose. There was a telepath in the chopper, the youngest of the familiar group, but with the noise and vibration his concentration was shaky at best.

Telekinesis sent Abigail's warm coat to dry land a moment before she hit the icy water. The shock of it knocked her breath from her body. Her muscles spasmed, locking her chest tight as the blue-black water closed about her. For a moment, consciousness fled as hypothermia and exhaustion took their toll. Instinct saved her, the ice-water imploding in a swirling rainbow of refracted light as she jaunted.

*****

"Get her inside." The voice was unfamiliar and tense. Something warm and dry touched her wet skin, wrapping around her. Abby kept her eyes closed, allowing herself to rest in strong arms, not resisting as they placed her in a hard wooden chair.

Shivering, dripping, gasping for breath, Abigail pulled the blanket ever more tightly around herself. A cup of warm soup was pressed into her blue-tinged hands and she sipped it gratefully. Her eyes opened slowly, only now recognising the inside of a public house. Only now recognising that the people who surrounded her were Saps, as strange to her as her surroundings. Instinct had saved her life and instinct had brought her home to Toronto. Sheer chance or some unconscious inspiration had caused her to jaunt to the city's waterfront, to be found and helped into a nearby pub by startled passers-by. They had wrapped her in the blanket, given her warm drinks.

"How did you come to fall in?" The man who had handed her the soup pressed his hands around her numb fingers, helping her hold the cup. "You were lucky. The water is freezing!"

Abby just gave him a blank look and he broke off from questioning her, speaking instead about shock and ambulances to someone out of her line of sight.

"No!" Abby could hear her teeth chattering. "I'll be fine. I just need to warm up a little. I'll be fine!"

She couldn't explain to them how she had ended up in the water. Even to herself, she couldn't pretend that jumping into the lake had been a good idea, but... she had never believed that the bug was attached to her clothes. Thomas had trained all his life to infiltrate a Lab. He would never have made such a trivial mistake. With the helicopter above and the fragile boat below her, it had seemed only natural to try shorting out the bug, no matter where it had been planted upon her. If total immersion in water hadn't done it ....

Hope began to swell in Abby's tired thoughts. Perhaps it had worked! Perhaps the Intelligence agents who had trailed her to the lake believed her truly gone, drowned in the black water. Perhaps she was finally free!

Shock and cold had blocked her mind, robbing her of her special powers. Now, as their influence began to recede, her mind opened. The caution of seven years as a Tomorrow Person guarded her thoughts automatically against detection but, even without reaching out, she felt the life of the city swell around her. After the physical and mental silence of Pinewood Lake, the everyday hum of the city was almost a shock.

The sarcastically amused thoughts of the woman telepath rang against the familiar background like a discordant note in an intricate symphony. For just a moment, Abigail clung to her hope - this close to the city centre it was natural that one or more of the Sap telepaths would be nearby. It didn't mean....

She closed her eyes in despair as she accepted the truth. The woman was straining to find Abby's mind, her thoughts sweeping across the dock area. The Saps knew exactly where to search for her and yet Abby would swear that not a single thought had escaped her mental defences. It hadn't worked.

It hadn't worked.

Abby pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders with a numb determination. First things first. She needed to pick up her coat and money, and then she would need more clothes - even if she had to steal them. Most of her rescuers had drifted away; the few who were left were clustered around the bar, their backs to her. She would have to steal this blanket too. And leave without thanking the kind people who had helped her so. Everything in her cried out in protest. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she forced them away.

There would be time enough for tears later.

Abby jaunted.

The Camp, 150 miles from Toronto, Canada - 6pm EDT

David gazed at the unconscious man and felt no pity. As an observer he had played little part in the interrogation of the TP leader, but he would not have hesitated to do so. They were at war, whether the 'next stage of human evolution' wanted to believe it or not. And in wars people got hurt.

Trent kicked the table in a useless display of frustration, for once forgetting the presence of his 'official observer'.

"And a fat lot we got out of that one! I've never seen a TP conditioned against drugs and hypnotism!"

David couldn't resist a smirk. After a day of watching Trent triumph, it was refreshing to see his frustration. Trent scowled at him and frowned thoughtfully. "We ought to have Thomas here. The kid could just pull everything he knows from his head."

David's head snapped up, anger in his eyes.

"He's one of them, Trent. Whatever we made him to be, he's a Tomorrow Person now." David was aware that the scorn in his voice was unwise, but this was one area in which he was not prepared to compromise. He had watched the child grow up, helped raise and train him. And he had never imagined that the last of the Malthus children would become the very thing they had been created to combat. "Would you actually believe anything he told you?" He gave a bitter laugh. "You can't trust them, Trent. They'll stab you in the back as soon as look at you."

Trent glared at David and paced the length of the room, pausing to aim yet another kick at the table holding the unconscious Tomorrow Person. The man was enjoying this far too much. Since inspecting his prisoners in the camp that morning, Trent had seemed drunk with power. David could only muster a mild disgust for such behaviour. He had seen too much today and in the last two years to be taking any pleasure from this work.

"And how they can look at you!" Trent laughed sarcastically, but there was anger at David's tone in his eyes. "I thought the kid was going to kill you with a look when he realised we were throwing him in with the others."

David tried to laugh along, but he too remembered the way Thomas had looked at him as the boy sprawled in the mud of the camp's parade ground. The look of pained betrayal on the child's face would haunt him, he knew. In his mind's eye, Thomas's wide blue eyes merged with a woman's brown ones. An expression of dazed betrayal flashed across her face as David tightened his finger on the trigger. Thomas had mirrored it so closely! David shook his head sharply, unconscious of the gesture. No, he wouldn't think of that - not now. He was unsettled; recognising the TP leader had been a shock. Perhaps it had been a coincidence that this man had delivered pizza to his house just hours before everything fell apart, but David didn't believe in coincidence any more. Perhaps this man had known ... her, perhaps not. It didn't matter. He had learned everything he needed to know from that whole affair. He had learned whom he could and couldn't trust.

"Thomas knew what would happen to a Tomorrow Person long before he admitted to being one," David told Trent flatly. "As long as I have any say in the matter, the boy stays in the camp."

"And perhaps that won't be as long as you think." There was no disguising the hostility in Trent's voice now. "I think that maybe you ought to reread the definition of 'official observer', eh?"

"Without us, Canadian Intelligence would still be scrabbling around in the dark!" David snapped. "We've provided you with the Barlumin you asked for. We entrusted you with the conclusion of Operation Malthus because we thought you would be grateful - "

"You entrusted us with Malthus because the British Secret Service was so riddled with holes that the TPs could snatch seven children from your most secret base," Trent interrupted, smiling a cruel smile and waving a hand as if to dismiss David's argument. "Your General Walthorpe was so eager to get Thomas out of the country, he was practically begging us to take the kid in!"

David ground his teeth together with the effort of not answering back just as quickly. It wouldn't be so galling if it weren't all true. After the Tomorrow People's raid on Operation Malthus the entire British national security operation had been left in tatters. From being world leaders in the TP containment field, Britain had found itself almost a decade behind its nearest rivals. From being second-in-command of the most sophisticated telepathic infiltration project ever designed, David had found himself an 'official observer', able to do little more than support and guide the last of the Malthus children. He had thrown himself into the job, his devotion to Thomas filling some part of the hole left in his world when he had lost Keetia and the life he'd hoped they'd live together. And now Thomas had betrayed him, just as she had done.

Only one thing was important now - containing the Mass Breakout menace before it was totally out of control. He looked up at Trent, his face expressionless.

"I'm not here to play power games, Trent. I'm here to see that our world stays in the hands of people who have earned it."

Trent turned away from him, unable to find any quick reply. The Canadian Intelligence officer snapped his fingers at the soldier by the door and waved a hand vaguely towards the man on the table.

"Bring him," he ordered. Trent turned back to David with a vicious grin on his face. "I think everyone will be settled in by now. It's time we told these people how things stand."

******

There was a collective gasp from the Tomorrow People as their unconscious leader was cast at their feet. Forced into the centre of the camp's parade ground, they formed a confused huddle of displaced people. A few of the braver souls darted forward to lift Marc out of the mud. The soldiers let them. There would be time enough later for Marc to be returned to interrogation. Meanwhile, let his people nurse him for a time. It would save the soldiers the trouble.

"Listen up, all of you!" Trent shouted, his sharp voice cutting through the rising hum of frightened conversation. The camp fell silent, only the crying of the younger children breaking the tableau. "My name's Trent. You don't know who I am and you don't need to. All you need to know is that I'm in charge. To be honest, I don't much want to know who any of you lot are either. You have all been arrested under the provisions of the Canadian National Emergency Bill and according to a warrant signed under the mandate of the federal Solicitor General. You will remain in detention until the current threat to the national security of Canada has passed." He paused, looking about him with an expression of loathing. "All right, so much for the legalities, eh? You know why you've been brought here as well as I do and you know we're not going to let you out any time soon. Don't think you can escape either. As you've probably figured out by now, there's enough Barlumin in the camp to keep the lot of you down to the level of us mere humans. It's all around you, permeating this place. Perhaps it's in the ground, perhaps it's in the paint on the walls, perhaps it's in the water you drink. You'll never know."

"You cannot keep us here forever," A French-Canadian woman shouted as she bent over Marc. She looked up with impotent fire in her eyes. "You can't expect to arrest hundreds of people without some protest - un tollé!"

"Two thousand, actually." Trent waved a hand as if dismissing the total as trivial. "Give or take a hundred. And that's not counting the couple of hundred inevitable casualties. Haven't you figured it out yet? You're Tomorrow People. There's not going to be any kind of outcry - no one is going to care!"

The lightness of the Intelligence man's tone did little to soften the impact of his words. They left the crowd reeling and Marc stirred weakly, the word 'casualties' ringing through his mind. David watched as the man's eyes drifted open and Marc's pain-fogged gaze fixed on his face. The Tomorrow Person must have known that members of his Lab had died. When the soldiers had burst in, many of them had carried conventional weaponry as well as the Barlumin and Synaptrol based chemical agents. Rather than allow the Tomorrow People to retaliate with their stun guns, the soldiers had been ordered to shoot first at any potential threat. Even as they had been herded together, Marc must had seen the bodies of friends in the wreckage of the Lab's upper levels, but perhaps he hadn't realised the scale of the slaughter.

"Abby," he whispered softly, just loud enough for David to hear. The British man could feel a certain sympathy. From what he had heard of her activities that day, Marc's Abigail was a fighter. The woman who had dived into an icy lake in the effort to escape would not have willingly abandoned any of her people to their fate just hours before. David could almost see the thoughts in the minds of Marc and the crowd. Had Abby escaped the Lab? Or had all their hopes and dreams died with her in the wreckage of their home?

"Abby got away." The child's voice carried across the parade ground and two thousand Tomorrow People heard and believed. David's breath caught in his throat at the weakness in the familiar voice. No, he had to be strong here. He had to remember who the enemy was. The child's words fell into total silence. "She jaunted out of the control room before she blew it up, Marc."

"Thomas!" Trent sounded shocked and angry. Slowly, Marc raised his head to gaze at the boy who now stepped out from the anonymity of the crowd. David too leaned forward to study the small form. Thomas looked tired and ill - clearly he had been subject to much the same treatment as the other Tomorrow People around him - but more than that, he looked smaller somehow, as if the fulfilment of the destiny for which he had been created had left him empty and bereft. David tried to feel some emotion for the boy whose path he had shaped for all his short life; he tried to hate Thomas for the way his dreams had been perverted by the child, but could only muster an intense pity and disgust. Thomas was and always had been a weapon, and like any weapon, its charge exhausted, he was no longer of any use.

One of the agents, clearly angered by the boy's words, pushed hard against Thomas's shoulder and the unsteady child toppled forward, landing in the mud not far from Marc's feet. Mud streaking his blond hair brown, Thomas looked up resentfully at Trent and David.

"I did what I had to, but I don't have to like it!" the eleven year old shouted, his voice shrill. "And now you're going to leave me here. I knew that before I even reported." His gaze shifted to fix on David's face. Standing near the back of the group, the British agent refused to meet the boy's eyes. "You'll leave me here because despite everything I've done, I'm one of them. And you can never trust a Tomorrow Person."

There was an angry murmur from the other Tomorrow People now, a shifting forward of the mass. The soldiers too, shifted nervously, moving their hands to their guns as if they could dispel the crowd's anger with the threat of force. Thomas, the focus of such rage, ignored it, tears running unchecked down his cheeks. David shifted uncertainly, his eyes fixed on the TP Leader. Weak as he was, barely able to stand, Marc could see the sparks draw ever closer to the kindling as well as David could. Any moment now this crowd would erupt and then the jittery soldiers wouldn't even hesitate. The parade ground would become a battlefield, and not long after that a charnel house, with the bodies of Marc's people in the mud. Staggering to stand unsupported, Marc raised a hand for silence, and at once a hush fell over the crowd.

"Thomas is one of us, mes amis," he said firmly, in a trembling voice that nonetheless cut across the murmurs. "I will not allow the child to carry the blame alone." Thomas gave him a startled and uncomprehending look, but seemed unable to speak further. Marc's swollen eyes met David's gaze contemptuously, and David sensed a determination that was the equal of his own, if totally opposed. "We're better than that."

Thomson Park, Toronto, Canada - 7.30pm EDT

Yet another sudden jaunt returned Abigail to the park from which she had watched the dawn of this unending day. Leaning back against the rough bark of a tree, she took a deep breath of the cool air, feeling it scour some of the grime of the city out of her lungs.

She had seen more of Toronto in the last day than in the last decade and more than anything she wanted to escape the place. As the day had passed, Abby had fought off her growing exhaustion and frustration by varying the pattern of her jaunts and the interval between them. Her only consolation was the steadily growing weariness in the minds of the team of telepaths monitoring her. As they grew increasingly tired their thoughts were leaking more and more often, giving Abby images of the Military Intelligence operatives tracking her and of the widely scattered vans in which the range-limited telepaths had to be transported in order to regain contact after each of her jaunts.

After a day of helpless running, the insight into the organisation pursuing her gave her a welcome feeling of power. Before coming here she had spent almost an hour in a small town forty miles outside Toronto, allowing the Intelligence people to move their soldiers and telepaths out of position so as to surround her. Perhaps they had thought that she had given up running, perhaps they assumed she had stopped there for a reason. Either way, they had done just as she had expected, gathering their resources in the area. Taking a huge risk, she had opened herself a little wider to the leaked thoughts of the inexperienced telepath watching her, and did not jaunt until she had seen a large military build-up through those eyes. She wouldn't be able to use this trick again, but with any luck she would have a few minutes yet before the Intelligence service doubled back and she was once more under surveillance.

Abby felt a smile of triumph on her face and her spirits fell as she sensed what she was doing. She was acting as if she had won somehow. She was acting as if she had somewhere to run to, some hope of escaping the hunt. She had slipped the telepathic invasion of privacy for just a few minutes, but she was still wearing a homing device; she was still wired for sound. The realisation left her feeling drained. Abigail sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to ease their gritty dryness. An image of Marc flashed across the inside of her eyelids, just as it did every time she had closed them today. She felt so useless. Her people were scattered, Marc had been captured, and all she had done was run for her life. Angry with herself for giving in, Abby forced her eyes open. She might be running but, even so, the pursuit drew resources away from any attempt to round up the vast majority of her people who remained in the city.

Taking advantage of the few minutes of relative solitude, Abby scanned the park from the shelter of the copse into which she had jaunted. As she had expected, given the time of evening, scattered groups of teenagers were haunting the green space, each basing its territory around some bench or tree or other minor landmark. Despite the turmoil of the night before, the life of the city and the complex rituals of youth went on. Nonetheless, something was jarring; something in the back of her mind told her that all was not what it seemed. Frowning, she forced herself to concentrate and studied the other people in the park more carefully.

Within moments she noticed the group of children who were quite unlike any of their peers. They were clustered around one of the park benches; the youngest among them were seated, huddled in coats much too large for them and surrounded by what seemed almost to be a protective screen of older youths. It was the age range that drew Abigail's eyes first. It was seldom that young people on the verge of adulthood would be seen out in the company of younger teens, let alone a couple of children who couldn't be older than six or seven years old.

Her heart sinking, Abby guessed what she was seeing long before she recognised the faces of the older children. She felt tears sting her eyes at the sight of them. She had worked so hard to lead the Saps away from the homeless and dispossessed remnants of her Lab that she'd almost been able to forget what dire straits many of them must now be in.

For a moment, Abigail hesitated. She didn't dare approach the children openly. Not only was she in no position to help them herself, but given that she was almost certainly wired for sound, she would condemn them all the moment one of them spoke her name. At the same time though, even the most experienced of these children was incapable of completely concealing a telepathic conversation from a listening Sap telepath. True, Abby had no immediate sensation of being watched mentally and had expected the respite, but tired as she was, there was no way she could be sure. She racked her brain, trying frantically to choose the safest path from the dizzying maze of alternatives she could suddenly see. The logical move for them all now would be if she were to jaunt out immediately, but even that carried risks. After her recent long intervals between jaunts, moving on too quickly might rouse suspicion in itself.

Some of the children were crying. Abby watched with numb dismay, as if seeing everything on some distant screen. Others amongst them wore the expressions of children who had seen too much to find release in simple tears. Every face was pale and all the children were shivering. The eldest in the group, Josh, urged the others to quieten their tears, then looked around him desperately, as if hoping to find guidance amongst the trees. For just a moment, as he turned away from the younger children, Abby saw an expression of grief and confusion cross the young man's face before he faced them again with a reassuring smile. No matter what the danger, she couldn't abandon these children. She had a duty towards them.

Reaching a quick decision, Abby focused her eyes on the young man and then, taking a deep breath, focused her mind.

(Don't answer me!) The thought was the narrowest and most direct Abby was capable of. Even had she been in a room full of experienced Tomorrow People, or untrained but sensitive children, she would have been confident of not being overheard. Josh's head jerked backwards and the seventeen-year-old boy's eyes widened. (Josh, this is important. Don't answer me. I'm under surveillance and you don't have the experience to hide your thoughts. Listen - leave the others for a moment. Walk into the stand of trees twenty metres to your left.)

Abby could see the uncertainty and wariness on Josh's face, but the young man was clearly desperate for advice and guidance. Nervously, she watched as he made some excuse to his companions and headed towards the thicket. Now came the most difficult part.

(Josh, there is another group of trees a hundred metres north of you. Be very, very careful and very, very quiet, you understand? Jaunt into it.)

******

Abigail was ready for Josh's exclamation of surprise and relief when he jaunted into her presence. Her hand across his mouth cut it off unvoiced. Spinning him to face her, she put all the warning and meaning she could into her expression, placing a finger across her lips and shaking her head sharply. The boy's eyes widened as he took in her pale face and dishevelled figure, his look mingling disappointment with surprise. Still in silence, Abby took his hands in hers and focused her thoughts through the physical contact, allowing her mental voice to fall to a mere whisper.

(Josh, I want you to think very, very quietly. Don't try to project, just let me pick up what you want me to see. All right, now tell me everything.)

(What happened, Abby?) The boy's thoughts were angry and confused. (What happened back there at the Lab?)

(What you saw.) Abby kept her thoughts very level. Josh didn't need her pain; he didn't need her grief or despair. This boy needed someone to rely on - he needed the Lab Co-ordinator who had helped train and house him. For him, Abby could be strong. (We were raided and driven from the Lab. We can't go back there. Have you had any contact with anyone else?)

Josh shook his head.

(We've been keeping moving all day, Abby. We've not seen anyone we know since we got out of the Lab this morning.) Abigail could feel his frustration as he went on. (Everyone is shielding so high and I didn't dare call anyone loudly. I've felt Sap telepaths around us from time to time and kept everyone quiet.... Abby, I don't think many of the people we knew got out.)

(I know, Josh, I know). She glanced out through the screen of trees, keeping an eye on the other children. (How many of you are there?)

(Fourteen,) Josh answered immediately. (Including the four little kids. Abby, I took them to watch a film at the movie theatre this afternoon - just to keep them warm. We don't have much money left. Where are we meant to sleep, eh?)

(Quietly, Josh,) Abby warned urgently, thinking hard. She didn't dare send them direct to another Lab, but there were not many other options. She was going to have to take a risk. (Do you have matter transporters for the small children?)

(That's how we got them out of the Lab in the first place,) Josh confirmed. His eyes clouded as he remembered the panic and chaos in the Lab that morning. (Most people were still asleep and anyone who was awake was trying to get to the stun guns or wake the rest. People kept shouting at us to jaunt before we were trapped. The kids got separated from their folks somehow and we grabbed them just as we were about to jaunt out.) A strange expression of wonder and joy passed momentarily across his thoughts and face. (One of them broke out, Abby. We only had three belts and there were these four little kids and one of them just got this funny look on her face and jaunted into hyperspace. We had to pull her out and give her a crash course in how to control it all today.)

Abby felt a smile creeping across her face, remembering the joy she had always felt when the children of Tomorrow People realised their potential, but then she remembered that the proud parents might never know that their child had broken out, and the smile faded. This was taking too long, but she couldn't just leave these children to freeze in the park overnight. With matter transporters, they could get the kids somewhere warm, if she could only suggest a safe place. Gently, so Josh wouldn't realise what was happening, she probed a little deeper into his mind. She had to be sure of what she was doing before she told him anything now. There was no deceit in the boy's mind, nothing but concern for himself and the younger children who had found themselves so unexpectedly in his care. Finally, Abigail was satisfied.

(All right, Josh. I want you to get the kids away from this park - I don't care where, but this place will be crawling with government agents any time now and you're not going to be able to keep everyone quiet for long. Then I want just a couple of you to jaunt to a town called Pinewood Lake in Saskatchewan. It's in the middle of nowhere, but a man called Travin lives there. He got fed up with Lab politics almost a decade ago and retired out there. He'll be able to help. He'll get the lot of you to safety.)

(What if he's not there?) Josh asked nervously. (What if he's run, like everyone else?)

(I don't think he would, but just in case....) Abby didn't even hesitate. Releasing one of Josh's hands, she pulled her remaining money from her coat pocket and pressed all but a few dollars into Josh's hand, before grasping his wrist to renew the contact. (You can find them somewhere to sleep for tonight at least. Tomorrow things will be quieter. Just get them through tonight, Josh.) She looked around the park once again and let her passive awareness broaden to listen for any Sap telepaths in the area. There didn't seem to be any just yet, but through their connection, she felt Josh's surprise at how much his little group distorted the mental background in a mind as highly trained as her own. She looked at him a little sadly. There was so much he'd never had the chance to learn. (I don't think the Saps will hear you unless they guess and listen to your group deliberately. But I have to move on. Get them out, Josh.)

(I will, Abby,) Josh promised fervently. (I will.)

******

Abby watched, telepathically as well as visually, as the young man jaunted back to the trees nearest the other children before slipping out to join them. Closing her eyes, she sighed in momentary relief. Perhaps they really had got away with it; either way, she couldn't stop here. She was already focusing her mind, preparing to jaunt out, when she felt the steadily approaching presence of one of the Sap telepaths who had tracked her all day. He knew from the homing device that she must be close, but the short-range mental abilities of the man were straining, trying to find some trace of her well-shielded mind. Burying any thought of the still too-close children deep inside, Abby quite deliberately brushed the man's mind with contempt. It had been hours since she'd given up trying to pretend that she didn't know they were nearby. They were waiting for her to make a mistake that would give away her friends, and they knew that she knew it.

(It took you long enough to catch up this time,) she said, loud enough to give the Sap a splitting headache and wipe out most of his telepathic sensitivity. Abby nodded to herself with satisfaction, knowing that he would never sense the children's presence now. (Catch me if you can,) she jeered.

Then she jaunted, leaving the Saps to catch up once again.

Military Intelligence Surveillance Unit, Toronto - 8.15pm EDT

"The snoopers have picked her up, sir!" There was a note of triumph in the voice of the soldier reporting.

"They'd better not lose her again - that's all," Trent snarled, casting an angry look towards the back of the van. The telepath that Abigail Rollinde had shouted at in the park was still slumped in his seat, holding his head as if it would otherwise burst, despite the painkillers. Trent dismissed the man from his mind impatiently. After all, any telepath assigned to watch a Tomorrow Person was briefed on the risk of overload. The young man had been doing his duty and if that got him a couple of days in hospital, then so be it.

Nonetheless, with two soldiers, two intelligence officers, that useless British observer, and Trent himself in the claustrophobic and computer-lined van, the presence of an injured telepath was an irritant they could all do without. David met Trent's scowl with a raised eyebrow. The Englishman knew that his mere existence was an insult to Trent and his people, and he had enjoyed rubbing Trent's nose in it for every hour of the two years he had spent here as Thomas's 'observer'. Trent was looking forward to the next few weeks though. When the Rollinde woman was in custody and the dust settled, David would be the one forced to explain how a Malthus genetic product could break out as a Tomorrow Person. Trent couldn't wait to see the other man squirm.

"Anything on the microphone?" David asked quietly. The agent responsible for listening to the bug glanced up and shook his head, unaware of the harsh smile of anticipation on Trent's face, as he responded to the observer's question.

"Not a thing, sir. She's being quiet as a mouse."

"The nearest telepath says that the subject is still not giving anything away telepathically either, sir," the soldier reported, one hand on his earphones as he concentrated on the message he was receiving. "Apart from the time she shouted at our snooper there, she seems to have maintained telepathic silence."

"Then let's get moving!" Trent snapped impatiently, his imminent confrontation with David put aside as duty called. He cast another disdainful look at the telepath in the back of the van. "And get another of the snoopers here fast! This one's not going to be much good for anything."

David leaned forward, his eyes scanning the various monitors. The van roared back into life, the screens around them flickering as it jerked into motion.

"We can't keep this up," he murmured, more to himself than to anyone else. "We ought to take her in and question her before we lose her completely."

Trent scowled at him, holding the side of his seat to remain steady while the van weaved in and out of the busy traffic. He was not about to lose this point in the unspoken power game he and David were playing.

"Not a chance!" he snapped. "The Rollinde woman is far more useful loose to lead us to someone else. She's one of the Lab's leaders, for goodness sake. Even if she's trying to avoid the other TPs, they'll be trying to find her. And when they do...."

Reluctantly, David nodded, but Trent couldn't extract much triumph from the minor victory. There was a limit to how long they could keep this up and David knew that as well as he did. Sheer economics meant that they could not sustain this large an operation indefinitely. Trent glared at nothing. The head of Canadian Intelligence (Special Security Division) was not about to back down on mere financial grounds. He would need a better excuse. Fortunately, one of Trent's own agents provided one.

"Sir, the unit leader of our telepaths is asking to speak to you." The man put his hand to his earphone to hold it in place, struggling to hear over the van's engine noise. "She says that her team won't be able to keep the subject under surveillance much longer. They're getting too tired."

"She'll keep that woman in telepathic contact until I tell her otherwise!" Trent snapped. They all swayed as the van screamed around a corner and then David leaned back, smiling slightly to see someone else in Trent's line of fire for a change.

"Sir, she says they are physically incapable of it." The agent shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "She says it's hard work tracking a Tomorrow Person who's trying to hide. They have been on duty since three this morning, sir."

Impatient and restless, Trent climbed out of his chair, bending down to peer through the gap between the front seats. He reached out to steady himself against the sides of the van as it rattled along the fast lane of a highway, horns blaring at any vehicle daring to impede its progress.

"Can we get another team to replace them?"

"Every telepathic agent in Canada was deployed last night, Trent," David reminded him with a certain wry pleasure. He couldn't challenge Trent's decisions, but as an observer it was certainly his place to point out where the Canadians had gone wrong and he never missed an opportunity to do so. "And after that none of them are going to be fit for duty today. Even the ones your people didn't dose by mistake with the ridiculous quantities of Barlumin they wasted."

Trent dropped back into his seat, fixing the British agent with a scowl, then sighed.

"All right," he said quietly, his fists clenched angrily. "If Ms. Rollinde hasn't contacted anyone by midnight we'll bring her in."

David nodded in silent satisfaction, clearly not foolish enough to put the emotion into words with Trent sitting beside him. Whatever personal axe the man was grinding, it was clear that he wouldn't rest until every Tomorrow Person on the planet was confined or safely dealt with. The completion of that task might be a long way off, but for one particular TP at least, the clock was ticking.

Not far from the Lab, Toronto - 9.30pm EDT

The warehouse was a collapsed ruin. That wasn't really a surprise, of course. After all, the explosives that had breached the Lab's main door must have been powerful enough to destroy a fair-sized house. Nonetheless, the sight left Abby feeling an irrational rage. The Toronto Tomorrow People had been running their import/export business for years before she'd broken out. True, it existed solely to provide a cover location for the underground Lab. True, it had always seemed such a chore to run. However, as Lab co-ordinators, Marc and Abigail had spent more than half a decade directing the company and making it successful and profitable. For it to be wiped out as no more than a minor detail of the military's plans seemed almost as much an act of wanton destruction as what had happened beneath it.

Only now aware of the tears running warmly down her cold cheeks, Abby wiped them away with one hand. Why had she come here? She hadn't dared approach any closer than the other side of the industrial site on which the warehouse had stood, but had watched with rising fury as hazard-suited men picked through the ruins of her home. It wasn't as if she could do anything to change what had happened here and she certainly didn't believe anyone was left in the underground complex, but she had needed to come anyway. She had had to see the destruction for herself. In her exhaustion, the events of that morning were already starting to take on the haziness of a nightmare. Abby shook her head, trying to dispel the fog that was filling it. She couldn't afford to block this out. She had to remember every detail - she owed it to all those people who hadn't escaped.

Besides, perhaps - just perhaps - she might be able to pick up some hint of what had happened to Marc and the others. There was no guarantee that TIM, John or anyone else had been able to track events in the Toronto Lab, or even that they had any idea what had happened here. TIM had spoken of an attack on the London Lab - had London been hit as badly as Abby's people had been? She pushed that thought from her mind with an effort for the hundredth time today. Even putting aside fear for her London friends, she didn't dare consider the implications of a disaster of that magnitude for Tomorrow People worldwide.

Either way, if Abigail couldn't count on other Labs to come to the rescue of her people, she had to start learning what she could now. With the microphone presumably still planted on her somewhere, making any progress would not be easy, but she was tired of endless running. If she could just tune in to the minds of the hazard-suited men without the Sap telepath tracking her overhearing.... It wasn't ethical, but after the Lab raid, even John would let this one pass.

Abby rubbed her pounding head absently. Her headache had been getting steadily worse all day, but since she had jaunted here it had become a throbbing, menacing thing. The only plus factor was that she didn't seem to hear any of the Sap telepaths around yet. She had heard nothing more from the man she had spoken to in the park, while the others had become both wary and angry since that incident. Abby had taken a bitter pleasure from their discomfort. Their reluctance to leave themselves open to her, together with their heightened emotion, had made them relatively easy to detect and then block from her thoughts. It was strange that none of them should be watching her here, though. Usually jaunts this close to the centre of Toronto had brought her into range of one or another of the group within minutes.

Still, whatever the cause, she had to take advantage of the respite while it lasted. The workers on the warehouse site might well have been warned of her approach, so she would have to be stealthy, but there was still a chance that she could see something in their dull Sap minds - maybe even what had happened to Marc. Abby moved into the shadow of a different building, anxious not to stay in one spot for too long in these dangerous surroundings. She frowned to herself, leaning against the nearest wall for support. At first she had been able to feel little beyond her rage at the men who were desecrating the site of her people's biggest tragedy. Now Abigail realised that she couldn't see what the workmen were actually doing. From time to time, one or more would emerge from below with large plastic bags full of debris and what looked like ash. The ash in itself wasn't surprising, for Abby shuddered to think of the fires that must have been started by bullet damage to the Lab's systems. Smoke still drifted around the warehouse in a thin cloud, extending even this far from the building, an unwelcome reminder of the battle that had raged below. Elsewhere in the city a chill autumn breeze had cleansed the air, but this site was shielded all around by tall buildings and by the natural depression in which it lay. Above them the breeze blew strongly, snapping company flags taut on their poles, but at ground level the air was still and the taste of smoke filled Abby's mouth and throat. She shook the physical discomfort aside, forcing herself to concentrate despite her ever-shortening attention span. What baffled her was why the Saps would be collecting the debris, as if gathering something too precious to waste.

Carefully, Abigail crept closer, trying to get a clear view of was happening, as well as to get a fix on one of the workmen's minds. It was odd that she hadn't been able to sense them from this distance, but then she knew she was tired; reading a Sap mind was never a straightforward task. It should become easier as she drew nearer.

She was just a hundred metres or so away from the warehouse when she saw one of the workmen running what appeared to be a small vacuum cleaner over the hazard suit being worn by another. Puzzled, she stopped for a moment to watch, once again leaning against the nearest wall to provide support and balance. The man was meticulous, cleansing every grain of dust from the white suit before removing the small vacuum cylinder from the device and inspecting its contents with some satisfaction. Abby took a step forward, aiming to get a better view as she tried to work out what could possibly be in the dust that was so valuable or essential.

The world spun around Abigail and her step became a stumble. Her mind seemed to be trying to escape through her ears, taking her sense of balance with it. Desperately, she groped her way back to the wall and pressed her forehead against its cold bricks. Sudden realisation left her heart in her mouth and her anger focused entirely on her own thoughtlessness. How could she have been so stupid! What was the most precious mineral the Saps possessed? And what had they deployed in vast quantities less than a day before?

Barlumin dust would have coated every surface in the Lab, the air-conditioning system spreading it far ahead of the advancing intruders. Barlumin aerosols would have been spread on the smoke that still tainted the air. The rare mineral couldn't make up more than a fraction of a percent of the ash and dust the Saps were collecting from the subterranean Lab, but no national security service in the world could afford to lose that much of the rare mineral - of course they would be recycling it. And now Abby was just a hundred metres away from what was probably the largest concentration of the stuff on the planet, excepting only the original seam near Loch Ness where it had first been mined. She had to get out of here!

The shout from the workmen came when Abby had managed to back off only fifty metres or so. Glancing back over her shoulder, struggling to keep her balance whilst doing so, she saw one of the white-suited figures holding a radio unit to his ear, directing others in pursuit. Maybe her pursuers had been curious as to what she would do at the Lab site, maybe they had just expected her to trap herself in the Barlumin-irradiated area. Either way, they had clearly lost patience when she began her retreat. Her heart in her mouth, Abby focused on placing each foot in front of the last. Yet again she was running for her life, this time in a more literal way than she had ever anticipated, and she had nowhere to run.

The pressure was lifting from her mind now, and her sense of balance was returning, but she knew it wasn't enough. Even affected as mildly as she had been by the Barlumin radiation, Abby was a long way from being able to jaunt and the workmen were gaining on her by the moment. A cold and exhausted woman didn't have a hope of escaping from the trained and well-rested soldiers assigned this important but menial labour.

The wind of her passage wafted more of the stale smoke into Abby's face and she coughed as she ran, eyes streaming. This wasn't going to work. Each breath she took of this tainted air was tying her more tightly to the ground.

The ground! Sudden inspiration gave her a new burst of speed, and as she ran, she now looked from side to side. The other warehouses on the industrial site had never been of much interest to Abigail, but she had known the details of her own inside out and there were certain rules that any such place would have to obey. She spied the fire escape out of the corner of her eye and changed direction in a moment, heading towards it without breaking her stride. The metal steps rang beneath her unsteady feet and already the leading soldier was climbing the steps below her. Toronto planning regulations: all warehouse buildings must possess at least two fire escapes providing access to, and evacuation from, the building's roof ... If she could only get off the ground, above the smoke!

Chill wind blew against Abby's face as she climbed and now it was real wind, not just air displaced by her seemingly never-ending ascent. With sudden clarity, she remembered another day and another climb - clean air blowing down the slopes of Mauna Loa as she had raised her face to the afternoon sun. Then, just as now, she had been climbing for freedom and to escape the troubles that surrounded her. The thought buoyed her, giving her tired legs new energy. Cold seared her lungs, but each breath now was fresh air and she breathed it gratefully and deeply. The top of the stairs came as a relief, easing the agony of her cramping leg muscles, and then she was on the open expanse of the roof, still running to stay ahead of her pursuers. One by one they climbed to the roof behind her, fanning out and trapping her at the roof's edge.

Out of space, Abigail stopped and stood with her back to the low wall that encircled the roof. Warily, she watched the approach of the hazard-suited men. As she had hoped and planned, her mind was clearing now that she had escaped the radiation that permeated the environment below, but she still wasn't sure if jaunting was an option. Time. She needed just a little more time for her special abilities to recover. Angry with herself for getting into this situation, furious with her pursuers for putting her in it, Abby cast about her for any escape.

The soldiers weren't ready for her leap onto the wall behind her. She had barely known herself what she was going to do until the moment she moved. One or two took a quick step forward, but she raised her hand warningly to stop them.

"Back away." Abby's voice was hoarse from smoke, cold and disuse, but in the silence on the roof everyone heard her. "Back away or I'll jump." She spoke now as much for the benefit of the bug she wore as for the soldiers facing her. What kind of mind was directing this operation? Would he take a chance and throw it all away now, or would he blink first when faced with a high-stakes gamble? "Your bosses have invested too much time and effort into chasing me for you to throw it all away like this. If I jump now, they lose everything." Hearing the weariness in her own voice, Abby gave a bitter laugh. "And believe me, after everything I've seen today I'm not going to hesitate.

Would this work? Abby felt her mind growing clearer by the moment, a new clarity in her thoughts making the world around her somehow sharper and more distinct. Desperately, she tried to visualise herself in a street a mile away, but she knew without trying that the destination was still beyond her reach. For long seconds she stood poised on the parapet. Her future depended now on the men in front of her and their distant controllers. She was playing chicken and playing it with her life. Either they would do as she told them, or she would indeed step backwards into the five-storey void. Thousands were counting on her silence; she owed them her life, nothing less.

"Stand down." The order came through the radio unit each soldier wore beneath his hazard suit and Abby breathed out a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. She honestly hadn't expected to walk out of this one - she still couldn't quite believe she had. One at a time, the soldiers stepped back cautiously and Abby felt her shoulders slump. She closed her eyes momentarily in relief and it was only with the absence of visual distraction that she heard the decision in the mind of the young soldier on her left. Frustration overwhelming his sense of discipline, he lunged towards her with thoughts of medals and honours ringing through his head.

But Abby was one step ahead of him. It was now or never. Glancing over her shoulder at the long drop, she drew a deep breath and then took that one step backwards.

Pinewood Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada - 10pm EDT

"Excuse me?" The voice was young and hesitant and spoke with a city accent, his intonation rising and turning his words into a question. "I'm looking for a man named Travin?"

Travin Harkness looked up from his drink and studied the young man interrogating his barman. Definitely a city boy; no one in his right mind would dress like that in this sleepy village of a few hundred souls. There were many reasons why a city boy might be looking for Travin on this day of all days.

There were just as many reasons why Travin shouldn't let himself be found. The alarm from young Abigail that had woken him that morning had been about as rude an awakening as he'd ever experienced and a dreadful shock. The Toronto Lab had been his home and his responsibility for so many years that his decision to step aside for the sharp young minds of Abigail and Marc had necessarily carried with it a decision to retire to his home town. Okay, he had barely been into his late forties, but he just couldn't have stayed in the Lab without second-guessing every move his younger replacements made. Neither he nor Abby and Marc deserved that. He had never regretted the choice - even when he'd heard Abigail's alarmed voice in his mind and knew that his old home had gone forever.

Like many of Canada's Tomorrow People he had lain low at first, wondering if his cover were blown, wondering if he dared to try and help. Given the nature of the exponentially accelerating mass breakout, no more than a small fraction of the Canadian Tomorrow People would remember an administrator who had left nearly a decade before. Abigail and Marc had come from time to time to consult him or just visit here in Pinewood Lake, but Travin himself hadn't been back to Toronto since the day of his retirement. Knowing that a clean break was needed he had even chosen not to leave a forwarding address. True, an agent in the Lab might have learned of his presence here, had anyone searched for him specifically, but the chances of his name coming up in random conversation would have been slim. In the end, frustration and impatience had driven the veteran Tomorrow Person out from under cover. Around noon, he had reached out mind-to-mind to touch the nervous leader of the local Lab based just two hundred miles north of here.

By all accounts it was sheer luck that their Lab hadn't been raided while so many of their neighbours' Labs had. Travin hadn't questioned that luck - just used it. A small team, personally summoned by the female leader, had jaunted back into the evacuated building, swiftly collecting all the useful equipment they could. They would probably never return to the now suspect site.

Instead, Travin and his nominal leader had assembled the trusted core of the local TP Lab in a deserted barn, ten miles out of town, and then gathered in the confused and anxious refugees from Toronto as they fled in this and every other direction. Most had been shielding tightly, but the knot of TP minds was a beacon nonetheless. Certainly, it had been enough to attract TIM's attention and the biotronic guardian of the Tomorrow People had been only too pleased to find an old friend active and busy. The lack of definite news about young Abby and Marc had strengthened Travin's resolve to do what he could. Only when he felt the presence of a passing Sap telepath, focused on some task of his own, had Travin temporarily disbanded the mental link they'd sustained. The danger had soon passed and the Tomorrow People had cautiously resumed their meld; in such a remote village the chances of any Sap telepath turning up at random were extremely slender. Eventually the flood of newcomers had died down to a trickle and Travin had retreated from the link and come here, eager not to be seen deviating from a schedule which he was known to keep like clockwork.

And now a city boy, asking for him by name. Curious and somewhat alarming.

The barkeeper was also looking appraisingly at the young man. He appeared to consider the question, polishing a glass and turning to replace it on its shelf as he did so. As the barkeeper turned towards him with questions on his face, Travin caught the man's eye with a slight shake of his head.

"I'm afraid there are no 'Travins' around here," the barman told the boy nonchalantly, turning back to face the visitor. "Have you tried the other bars in town, eh? There are a couple of others away north of here."

The young man shook his head, clearly disappointed.

"No, for some reason I was sure he'd be in here." He looked around the bar with an expression that was close to despair. "Thank you for your help." With a sigh, he headed back to the door, tightening his thin jacket across his chest as if that would help protect him against the cold autumn night outside.

Frowning, Travin lowered his mental shields slightly, trying to get a feel for the mind of the boy searching for him. The wash of anguish and frustration was almost overwhelming. The boy was a telepath all right and so powerful that he almost had to be a Tomorrow Person, but Travin knew from discussions with Abby and Marc that nothing could be taken for granted in these desperate times.

"Stop and take a drink, kid," he called in a low voice as the young man passed. The barman frowned at him, clearly wondering both at Travin's decision to speak out and whether the boy was of age. "You look frozen solid - you could do with something hot to warm you."

The boy stopped for a moment, glancing up.

"I have to get back to my friends."

"Are they outside?" Travin asked in sudden concern, imagining a huddle of city children freezing slowly to death out there in the night. Certainly, if this boy's 'friends' had been adult, they would never have sent him alone into the bar.

"No, I left them ... somewhere warm." The hesitation in the boy's voice was reassuring. If he had in fact jaunted into town alone then the spectre of hypothermic children was perhaps a little less likely. Still, Travin knew he had to be cautious here. He spoke a little brusquely, as if scolding a foolish young relative, and the boy seemed to respond to the tone as much as to the words.

"Then they'll be safe enough for a few minutes and you'll do them no good if you freeze between here and the next bar, eh? Sit down, kid."

"I ... I ..." The boy sat abruptly and the barman was already on his way across with a steaming cup of coffee.

"It'll go on your tab," the barman warned Travin, placing the drink in front of the cold boy, who cupped it eagerly in his hands. Travin spared the barman a grateful nod and watched as the boy sipped at the coffee.

"Josh. My name's 'Josh', not 'kid'." Josh spoke with a note of defiance in his tone and Travin observed with interest that now, for the first time, the boy was reaching out tentatively to probe his mind. With the ease of many years' experience, Travin strengthened his mental defences, projecting the foggy impression of a Sap mind to the half-trained boy. This was going to get them nowhere. The kid didn't seem inclined to spill any more details about himself and without them Travin was certainly not going to volunteer any of his own. If only he could think of something to say, something that would prove once and for all whether or not his guest was what he seemed to be. Sighing, he glanced out of the misted window into the night.

"Strange weather we're having." The comment came from nowhere, shaping itself on Travin's lips without any conscious thought on his part. Frowning, he tried to remember why he'd said it, but only a half-formed memory of Abby speaking softly and urgently floated through his head. 'You have to remember, Travin.' Her eyes were wide and she was inside his head, lulling, reassuring. 'When the time is right, you'll remember.' He half rose to his feet, suddenly furious. Abby had done that to him? Planted a suggestion without permission or explanation? Already though, words were tumbling from the boy's lips and his expression was just as confused.

"Yes, it looks like Pele's sent the fog again."

Travin let himself sink back into his seat, the fury flowing out of him. His response was a whisper only the boy could hear.

"But soon the dragons will blow it away."

'Tomorrow Person'. The words carried that certainty with them, but more than that: 'Trusted Tomorrow Person - Lab member or recent breakout.' Quite how or why Abby and Marc had done it, Travin had no idea, but the invasion of privacy was explained and perhaps in some way excused. He sighed and reached out with a focused mental touch.

(Quietly, kid, a Sap telepath passed by here earlier and that's unusual enough for us all to stay tight shielded. Now, why don't you tell me how you know my name?)

(You're Travin? I've been looking for this place for hours!)

The excitement and relief in Josh's thoughts were infectious and Travin found himself smiling before hastily reinforcing his mental barriers. Young Josh had been through too much today to hold his shielding for long.

(Abby told me where to find you. The others...)

(Abby?) Travin interrupted urgently, excitement of his own now colouring the link. (She's alive? Tell me ...) He restrained himself with difficulty. Abigail would not thank him for letting his concern for her harm the children he could see in Josh's mind. (No, first we're going to collect these friends of yours and get them to safety. Then we'll talk about Abigail!)

Scarborough Campus, University of Toronto - 11.50pm EDT

Abby sipped her steaming coffee, thanking every power of good in the world for late-opening student bars. She might even warm up a little if she could shelter here for half an hour. The night was bitterly cold outside, a biting wind blowing in off Lake Ontario. She ached all over, as if the cold had crept into her bones and lodged there in the hours since her exhausting escape from the Barlumin-polluted industrial estate.

That escape had been far too close for comfort. She had been well over halfway to the ground before adrenalin and the sudden clarity of approaching death had given her the boost needed to jaunt to safety. She had emerged from hyperspace in a deserted street less than a mile away from the derelict Lab, with a tumble that left her sprawled on the damp ground, and for several minutes she just lay there. She had stepped from the roof more than half expecting the step to be her last. Despite feeling guilty when she thought of the hundreds of her friends dead or missing since that morning, Abby couldn't suppress her overwhelming relief when she found herself alive and free. Eventually she had staggered to her feet and moved on. After all she had been through to escape capture, she was not about to put herself back on a plate for her pursuers by staying in the same place for long.

Gradually, as the light faded, the friendly city that Abby knew had faded with it. Like some secret identity only assumed under cover of darkness, a world of harsh neon lights and loud nightclubs had begun to take over. Usually Abigail liked the life and action of the city at night, but today the noise and colour jarred her exhausted senses. She was no stranger to metropolitan nightlife, of course. Despite her father's unsettled lifestyle, Toronto was the closest to a home city she had ever had. Throughout her childhood, her family had rebounded here as if attached by some invisible cord. It had seemed natural to attend university here, and like any other teenage girl she'd gone out clubbing, rebelling against society and convention. In many ways breakout had been the ultimate conclusion to that subconscious rebellion. It certainly hadn't stopped her partying through the remaining year of her degree course - Tomorrow Person or not, she had still been a student.

And this had been her student bar. It was so strange to be back here after so many years, after so much had happened in her life. The décor had changed, the bar staff had changed, Abby had changed, and yet ... just as, deep inside, she was the same idealistic young woman she had always been, so the bar was the same refuge it had been in her student days.

She hadn't known where she was going until a moment before jaunting. All she knew was that she couldn't walk much farther. Her legs were almost completely numb, her eyes closing of their own accord. She would have to find somewhere to sleep and soon, but where could she go? Even if she could be sure that her pursuers would have the patience to wait for her to awaken and not just seize her while she slept, she had little money to pay for lodgings. She had struggled to think what she would have done before breaking out - it seemed so long ago now. Where would she have gone if she hadn't had the Lab? Where would there be people ... witnesses? A group of late teens had walked past her, laughing and teasing one another, and the college logos on their jackets stood out vividly in the streetlight, like flares beckoning her home. She couldn't stay here indefinitely, of course, but for now even a few minutes respite would be something.

Abby's unfocused eyes drifted across the clusters of students - some out for a quick break from mid-term pressures, others just having a good time. Young people laughed, joked, or just relaxed in the presence of their friends. A small group of teenage girls was playing pool at the table in the corner. A young man on his own, dressed entirely in black, slipped into the room and ordered a soft drink before coming to sit just a few tables away from her. A couple by the bar got to their feet, pulling on coats against the cold night as they called their goodbyes to friends around the room....

It seemed such a normal scene and yet, all of a sudden, Abigail felt an almost overwhelming sense of homesickness. Coloured lights swirled in disco patterns across the walls and floor - a reminder of the soothing lights of the Lab and an echo of the soporific psychedelia of Hyperspace. At this time of night, the Lab would be growing quiet around Abby and Marc. They would be bidding their friends and charges goodnight, working on for some hours or - on rare occasions - just relaxing in one another's company. It was so easy for Abby to close her eyes and see the scene. It would be so easy just to drift....

(We're watching you.)

The taunt from the telepath rang through Abby's mind as her mental defences began to fail. The dream into which she'd been slipping turned suddenly dark and ominous. Her friends turned to stare at her with silent accusation and, standing in the corner of the Lab as he inhabited a corner of her mind, the telepath smiled a vicious smile.

No! Abby shook herself awake, her mental shields slamming back into place. The Lab and that chapter of her life were gone; drifting into sleep or some fantasy world could not bring them back. Abby struggled to feel something about that - grief, distress, anger - but exhaustion turned every emotion into the same dull haze. She couldn't afford to sleep, not now, not yet, but it was growing harder and harder to stay awake. The room seemed to spin dizzily as her eyes followed the lights across the walls, and she forced herself to focus instead on the still warm mug she held in her hands.

It didn't help. Abby, deprived of visual stimulation, found her mind groping to absorb and understand every sound around her. Exhausted as she was, her mental filters couldn't pull any one conversation from the many in the bar; instead she found herself adrift in an overwhelming confusion of disconnected sentences.

"This new website - I'll send you the address - it's...." "I don't have the foggiest what he was going on about and I'd swear he doesn't have a clue...." "Oh, come on! You've got to remember 'Captain Pugwash'. It was...." "And my sister said...." "With all the junk in my inbox..." "Have you checked out the online comics yet?" "So where are we going next...?" "Are you ready?" "There's this essay...."

Abigail felt tears pricking her eyes as she struggled to stay on top of the meaningless noise. Pressing her hands to her ears, she looked up again just in time to see another man dressed in black, older than the man who had arrived earlier, slip into the room and join the first. Distracted and idly curious, she noticed that the younger man seemed startled and made as if to stand, but the older man waved him back into his seat. Both men glanced at their watches in unison and, instinctively, Abby's eyes flicked to the large clock on the wall behind the bar. 11.57pm. It was almost tomorrow.

Putting the strange behaviour of the two men out of her mind, Abby sighed. She could stay here another quarter of an hour perhaps, and then she would have to move on. By then she might even have some idea of where she was going. The noise level was building up again, and this time, in an effort to stay in control, she began to run through the soothing meditations that every Tomorrow Person was taught. Fifteen minutes, she thought, as her eyes began to drift shut once more. If she could just get fifteen minutes rest before moving on....

Headquarters, London Tomorrow People - 11.50pm EDT (4.50am Local Time)

"That was unnecessary, TIM!"

Kershia snapped the accusation the moment she jaunted into the Lab's main room. Stepping down from the jaunting pad on either side of her, the two younger TPs TIM had sent to fetch her exchanged wry looks.

"It didn't really look as if you were going to come back voluntarily, Kershia," one of them pointed out in an amused tone. Kershia fixed him with a glare and bit back an angry retort. There were not many people who could get away with baiting her but, irritatingly, this was one of them. They might not be friends exactly, but they'd been through enough together for him to deserve that much.

"You keep out of this, Jimmy," she told him shortly, turning back to the main focus of her ire. Striding from the jaunting pad into the centre of the dimly lit room, she looked up at TIM's hemispheres. "TIM, why did you have to send anyone out after me? I told you I'd come back when I found Abby. How did you expect me to get anywhere, dragging these two around?" She jerked a thumb at each of her two companions. The younger of the two looked as if he might protest, but a quick shake of the head from Jimmy kept him silent. Kershia saw it and turned away from the concerned look on both faces. With a wave, Jimmy dismissed the younger TP, who nodded a farewell before jaunting off. Kershia ignored the exchange, prowling restlessly around the central link table.

"Kershia - " TIM's voice was sympathetic and soothing - "You're not going to help Abby by searching until you drop. It's almost morning and you need sleep. After the evacuation yesterday morning and then spending the day in Toronto...."

Kershia shook her head in disbelief. She hadn't expected most of the TPs she worked with to understand, but TIM of all people should know that she wasn't about to leave Abby out there alone.

"Abby hasn't slept for two days, TIM." Kershia's voice was flat and uncompromising. "I can last a while longer."

"You have responsibilities here too, Kershia."

Kershia hesitated. Seven young faces swam through her mind, gazing at her with identical grave looks. "It's what we do, Kershia," Alex had told her simply. "It's what you trained us to do." Kershia had recoiled from that reminder, knowing it was no more than the truth. She had stared at the children in shock. There had been a note of uncertainty in the boy's voice, there had even been a hint of regret, but she had thought that the last two years had made such a difference to the children. She had thought she'd won their trust, but not once in those two years had they mentioned that they had a brother.

"They'll survive a little longer without me," she told TIM and she couldn't keep the note of bitterness from her voice. (I should have stopped this.) She didn't mean to put her guilt into words but here in the Lab, with Jimmy at her side and TIM above, only the most tightly shielded thoughts were safe.

"There was nothing you could have done!" Jimmy burst out. He pushed away from the wall he had been leaning against and strode into the centre of the room. "Kershia, you can't take the world onto your shoulders."

Kershia just looked at him sadly and then, frustrated, decided to open her mind to her fellow agent, showing him the memory that had been tormenting her all day. Jimmy's mind filled suddenly with the image of the well-equipped schoolroom in a lonely military base. It was a room he recognised. Jimmy too had memories of the Dartmoor base that he would rather forget, but now he sank into Kershia's memory, his own pushed aside.

[General Walthorpe gazed at the seven telepathic children in front of him with fatherly pride. These were the agents who would destroy the Tomorrow People menace once and for all. He spoke to Keetia Ahren, his trusted agent, expecting her to share his delight:

"We incubated ten foetuses in the beginning. Nine of these survived the implantation into the surrogate mothers and eight survived the birth."

'Keetia' was a whirl of confusion. Stephen was in captivity - betrayed by her in an attempt to save his life - and now the children were trying to break her shields. If that happened then more than her own life was at stake.]

By the time Kershia had been debriefed, the children released from their incubators, and the repercussions of the Malthus raid had died away, almost a year had passed. The strain of living day to day with the consequences of her actions had driven that short conversation from her mind. Perhaps she'd suppressed her suspicions that there were other children out there. Perhaps she had assumed that the eighth child Walthorpe mentioned died in infancy from the same genetic flaws that destroyed two of its siblings. Perhaps it had slipped her mind altogether. It didn't matter now.

"I helped train those children to believe that Tomorrow People aren't even human," Kershia told TIM and Jimmy sadly. "And then I let one of them loose. On Abby and Marc."

"Kershia..." Jimmy's voice trailed off and his hand stopped just short of touching her arm. He wanted to comfort her, but Kershia would only resent the comfort he or anyone else in the Lab could offer. Perhaps only Abby could have broken the shell Kershia habitually built around herself, and Abby was far from here.

"Kershia! Jimmy!" TIM's urgent call cut across the awkward silence. Kershia looked up sharply as a map of Toronto illuminated the display screen on one wall of the room, zooming in until no more than a few square miles of the city were in view.

"TIM? What is it?" Kershia's eyes scanned the map, her hands on her jaunting belt, but she could only sigh in frustration. She knew Toronto a little and the area TIM was highlighting was still too large for any one person to search.

TIM sounded excited. "My sensors have been attuned to Abigail's thought patterns for much of the day," he told them both. "I believe I detected a signal - momentarily. I was able to isolate it to the region displayed."

"But why...?" Jimmy began.

"She's tired, Jimmy!" Kershia snapped, rounding on the young man in irritation. "She must be ready to collapse. She's not going to be able to block her mental signals for ever." She dropped into one of the chairs beside the link table, her own weariness starting to drain her of hope. She looked up beseechingly. "TIM, we need to zoom in closer - somehow!"

"I am very much afraid that without further information...." TIM broke off mid-sentence. "But I am now detecting several military intelligence vehicles in the area."

"What's in that region, TIM?" Jimmy asked intently. "Where could she go at this time of night?"

It was a good question, Kershia had to admit, and she frowned. Some distant memory niggled her - something Abby had once mentioned. Kershia's eyes widened and she bounced to her feet in sudden realisation.

"The university! TIM, Abby went to college around there, didn't she? Wouldn't there be something there open this late?"

TIM's lights pulsed enthusiastically.

"Indeed. I am sending remote cameras into the area now. I have also woken John and Stephen. They will be here in just a few minutes."

Kershia jumped to her feet, her hands once again on her jaunting belt, but this time Jimmy seized her arm.

"Kershia, wait! TIM's already told us that the area's crawling with Sap Intelligence. Let's see what the cameras show." Kershia tried to shake him off, but he held her fast. "Look, even I don't know half the information you have in your head. They've already got Marc. Are you so keen to give them everything you know too? To give them the location of the rest of the Malthus children?"

She stared at him, horrified and angry at what he was saying. Her only thought had been to find Abby and get her to safety; the risk of her own capture hadn't even occurred to her.

"TIM, get us a picture!" she snapped. "Fast."

The image was on the screen before she finished speaking. The view from TIM's pin-sized remote camera was grainy and unsteady as the tiny device hovered near the ceiling of the bar. Kershia didn't care. Abigail sat alone in one corner of the bar, dishevelled and exhausted. Her head was nodding and she held her mug askew as her eyes closed. Relief washed through Kershia; they'd found Abby - at last!

"She's surrounded." Jimmy's voice was tense.

And now the relief drained from Kershia as she began to see what her fellow agent had spotted at once. Dotted around the bar, people dressed in dark and nondescript colours sat alone or in pairs. And every one of them had the tensely casual posture of intelligence agents awaiting some signal. Kershia let her gaze slide over them, counting, trying to find a weakness in their distribution, but then her eyes stopped, fixed on one face amongst the many.

David - Memories flashed through her, draining her will and confidence.

[Fixing her with one final, longing stare, he shook his head and mouthed the words, "I'm sorry." Then raised the revolver and pulled the trigger.]

David was in the bar. He looked older, his brown hair beginning to show the first hints of grey, his face a little roughened by age or experience. Instinctively, her emotions confused and overwhelming conscious thought, Kershia inspected every detail of the man beside whom she'd woken every day for three years, the man who had tortured Stephen for information, the man who had tried his best to kill her. The man who was now aiming a Barlumin-emitter gun at Abigail.

Kershia's hands were resting on the link table as she leaned forward towards the screen. Now she put all her strength into a single telepathic call, focusing it through the table's telepathic booster. David glanced at the clock behind the bar, clearly waiting for some predefined time. Five seconds to midnight. Abby was almost asleep; her mental shields must be slipping. She had to hear this. She just had to.

(Abby!) Kershia screamed. (Jaunt! Now!)

Abby's head snapped upwards, her eyes opening wide. David saw the reaction, his finger tightening on the trigger, but already she was gone.

Kershia didn't hesitate. Before Jimmy or TIM could react, she jaunted.

Mauna Loa, Hawaii - 0.01am EDT, October 2nd 2019 (10.01pm Local Time)

It was dark on the slopes of Mauna Loa, the black-basalt scene illuminated only by the waxing crescent of the Moon. Abby shivered, wrapping her arms around her chest. Shock and exhaustion left her weak and shaking as the night breeze ruffled her long brown hair. Had that really been Kershia? Or had Abby's dreaming subconscious just seized her friend's voice to deliver its warning? The question was answered in an instant. Another figure shimmered out of hyperspace no more than a metre from her, and of the millions of Tomorrow People living in fear the world over, only one would come to this place in the middle of the night. Abby felt her legs weaken as relief washed through her like a cleansing tide. All day she had been terrified of meeting any of her kind, convinced that she could do no more than lead them into danger and captivity. But now everything was different. Kershia was here, and there was no one Abigail trusted more.

(Hush, Abby!) Kershia's mental whisper was urgent and focused, stopping her name unspoken on Abby's lips.

Confused and disappointed, Abby obeyed, waiting in silence as Kershia peered at some kind of scanner, summoned telekinetically from the Lab. Kershia looked up, her brown almond eyes reflecting the pale moonlight. Her expression was invisible behind that sparkle and Abby shied away as the woman in front of her darted forwards, hand outstretched. Sudden pain made her gasp desperately as she pulled away, and then it was done. Two strands of Abby's hair were left in Kershia's hand, and despite her confusion, Abby felt her friend's sense of triumph. Kershia's mental energy flooded the world around them and the smell of burning hair filled the hollow in which they stood. Abby sank to her knees, at last understanding. Kershia's pyrokinesis had finally rid her of the listening device which had haunted her all that day. Of course, they might already have been able to use it to track her here, but so quickly and in so remote a location? It had always taken them several minutes to find her, even when she had remained in Canada. At long last she was safe.

"Abby." Kershia was on her knees beside Abby, her arms around her, sounding shocked and anxious as she saw her condition. "Abby, I'm here." Through a veil of tears and exhaustion Abby saw only a vague outline of the woman she had met on this mountain almost eight years previously. It seemed like a century and more. Kershia's voice was soothing and reassuring, years of caring for younger siblings and other children lending her authority. Abby felt her eyes growing heavy as she finally felt safe enough to sleep. "I've been looking for you for so long! It's all right, Abby," Kershia told her softly, "I'll get us home."

Home. The thought floated to the surface in the calm sea of Abby's thoughts and suddenly those waters became stormy. Home was gone. Home had been consumed by fire. Home had been taken from her when Marc had been taken. She jerked away from Kershia, anger flooding through her.

"How can you say that?" she hissed bitterly. "How can you say it's 'all right'?" The words spilled out of her, all the frustrations of her silent day spilling over in a rush of tears and sobs. "My people were wiped out, Kershia! The Saps knew where every exit was. They knew every weakness we have." Memory connected with memory in Abby's misfiring mind. She looked up, her gaze fixed on the face gleaming in the moonlight. "But you would know all about that, wouldn't you?" she accused with anger in her eyes. "You spent years betraying the rest of us! You watched at Barcelona and that was just a warm-up for what happened today. How could you, Kershia? How could you do that? Do you have any idea how many lives have been torn apart today?"

Kershia made no attempt to close the gap that had opened between the two women. She knelt in the volcanic ash, her eyes not meeting Abby's. When she spoke, it was in a low voice.

"Do you think I haven't thought of that?" she asked simply. "Do you think I didn't think of that the moment I learnt what happened? Do you think that wasn't filling my mind the whole time I was searching for you?" Kershia looked up with tears unshed in her eyes. "I've lived with my choices every day for the last seven years, Abby. I've handled it because I've had to. And I've done everything in my power to make up for what happened at Barcelona, for what happened on the Malthus raid...."

"Malthus!" Abby whispered the name harshly. "What use was that raid - all the lives spent for nothing? They got us in the end. Thomas did exactly what he was designed to do and if you let one get away, who knows how many others escaped too?"

Kershia hesitated. Abby was too tired and too grief-stricken to listen to reason now, but there were some things she had the right to know.

"Thomas was the last."

Abby stared at her in the dim light, the solemn certainty and self-reproach in Kershia's voice beginning to break through to her.

"How could you know, Kershia? How could you possibly know?"

Kershia sighed, shifting so she was kneeling closer to Abigail, and gazing out across the sleeping island of Hawaii.

"Because I asked the others. The Malthus children were just nine years old when we kidnapped them, Abby. Someone needed to look after them. You know I've never really settled into life in a Lab. I grew up in a house full of younger brothers and sisters and after the raid, well, I didn't have anything better to do. Not many TPs have as much practice shielding against people like the kids. I thought..." Kershia paused for a moment, as if only now aware how much her long list of justifications sounded like excuses. "I suppose I thought I would be giving something back. There aren't any more Malthus children, Abby. If there were, my kids would have told me when I challenged them today. They promised me that there were only ever eight of them."

"And you believe them?" Abby asked sarcastically, struggling to understand the faith Kershia showed in her charges, as well as her decision to accept them. Kershia met her eyes, nodding gravely.

"I knew they were hiding things from me ... but they're not our prisoners, Abby. They're victims of circumstance - as unable to change their past as we are to go back and prevent our own breakouts. I let them have their privacy." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I never dreamed what the consequences of that would be, or I'd have pushed them harder, I swear. But I have taught them one thing - if I ask them directly, they never lie to me. I'd know if they were lying. Despite everything they were trained to be, they're still children and I think they've learnt to respect me."

Abby looked away, her voice hardening.

"That's what I thought about Thomas."

"Abby...."

"No." Abby's sharp answer cut off Kershia's helpless sympathy. She felt new tears gathering in her eyes. "Kershia, don't even try. My Lab is gone and nothing you can say is going to bring it back."

Abby wrapped her arms tightly around herself, defeat and despair filling her mind. All she wanted to do was sleep, and after this never-ending day, she wasn't sure she ever wanted to wake up again. Maybe it would have been better for everyone if she hadn't managed to jaunt away from the warehouse roof. Even with Kershia by her side, the loneliness of the day seemed to have left her feeling cut off and isolated. Possibly Kershia had never settled to a Lab life, but since her return from Mauna Loa seven years before, Abby had never felt so alone. She missed the mental presence of Marc, of her friends, like a physical loss. As she shivered, Kershia touched her arm and, strengthened by that physical contact, the powerful sense of her support and sympathy flooded through Abby.

(I can't bring it back, Abby,) Kershia told her slowly. (But you can.) She paused, putting all her confidence into her thoughts. (You'll pull your people together. You're strong and you're not afraid to share that strength. The Toronto Lab is gone, Abby, but your people are still out there and they still need you.)

Abby's mental touch was shaky and virtually unshielded. All her despair and grief flooded across Kershia's mind. But Kershia had been teaching untrained telepaths for half her life and let the sensations wash over her defences.

(I can't do this alone,) Abby whispered telepathically. Images of Marc flooded the link between the two women and Kershia couldn't quite suppress the thoughts of David that rose in response: David kissing her, David shooting her, David raising the gun to point at Abby. Abby saw them and looked up, startled and frightened.

She watched as Kershia pushed the memories aside, her thoughts ringing through their mental bond. (No. Those aren't emotions I can deal with now.) She would have time to think on that later. (For now, Abby is the important one.)

Abby heard each thought through her low shields and felt a curious surge of warmth at Kershia's obvious concern for her. It gave her courage to ask the one question she'd been longing to ask ever since the moment Kershia had arrived. "Marc?"

"Captured," Kershia told her, and Abby felt a shiver flow down her spine, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. She had no illusions about the kind of treatment a captured Lab leader might expect; after all, both women knew what had happened to Stephen during his brief stay in the hands of military intelligence, but still, it was better than the alternative. There was so much Abby hadn't had the chance to say to him. At least now she could hope that the chance would come. Kershia took her hand and spoke earnestly. "We will get him back. Him and all the others. It won't be today, but we're not going to give up on them. We'll find a way. This won't go on. We won't let it."

Abby looked her friend in the eyes and demanded the honesty of one powerful telepath to another.

(Do you really believe that, Kershia?)

Kershia nodded slowly.

(We thought that breaking up Operation Malthus and destroying the ST4 was a triumph. We thought it would be enough to tell the Saps that we weren't about to fade away quietly. We were wrong. But, Abby, so are they. We know now just what this is going to take, but we're the future, whether they want to believe it or not. And that's a future I'm prepared to fight for. And so are you.) Kershia projected an image of Abby haranguing her, furious with her for giving up when the pair of them had been surrounded by molten lava in this very spot. (You're not a quitter, Abby.)

Abby smiled a tired smile. She tried to push herself to her feet, but neither her arms nor her legs seemed to have the strength.

(If I'm going to pull my people together tomorrow, I guess I'd better get some sleep,) she told Kershia, with a new determination in her voice. It trembled as she thought for a moment about the night that so many of her people must be experiencing, but Kershia nodded, helping her to her feet.

"I'd better get you back to our new Lab for the night," she told her. Abby gave her friend a blank look before memory stirred.

"London was raided too! You have a new Lab?"

Kershia nodded and smiled sadly.

"The London Lab was destroyed. You know everyone's been wondering why the old folk have been away so often? Well, the senior TPs had a secret surprise up their sleeve. We were able to evacuate to a fully prepared, safe new Lab."

Abby suppressed a moment of jealous anger. The events in Toronto had occurred too quickly to consider a full evacuation, and besides, something in Kershia's tone suggested that this new Lab had implications beyond the local care of the London Tomorrow People. She forced another smile.

"So, whereabouts in Britain is the new headquarters?"

Kershia looked up at the waxing moon, her expression mysterious.

"Oh, I think you're going to be in for a surprise, Abby, " she told her as she jaunted the pair of them - at last - to safety.

Epilogue:

Luna Lab, 3.45 am Eastern Daylight Time, October 8th 2019 (8.45am Local Time)

Abby gazed out of the heavily reinforced window at the midnight-black starscape. The constellations out there were familiar. At times she could even convince herself that she was in the dark wilds of rural Canada, far from the light pollution of the city, where the stars could shine with unnatural glory. But a million fainter lights in the night sky outside were constant reminders of the truth. Those dim stars would never be seen through the thick blanket of atmosphere that protected the Earth's surface. Here, on the ever-dark side of the moon, there was no such blanket.

All around her, Abby could hear the noises of the busy Lab. Even with the entire population of the huge London Lab displaced up here, the gleaming-new facility was more than half empty. Somewhere nearby Kershia and her charges occupied a secret wing that had been theirs even before the Lab was constructed around them, but they wouldn't be able to remain isolated for long. Soon enough, as this haven gathered in displaced and endangered Tomorrow People from across the world, the Lab would reach its full capacity. It would take in more and more refugees until the air reprocessors screamed in protest. Abby didn't need precognitive gifts to see that far into the future. She hoped and prayed that this secret war had already seen its darkest day; however, she knew that the situation would remain bleak for months or even years to come. Her fists clenched with resolve. John and the other senior Tomorrow People had provided this haven. They had guided their people through so many trials over the years. Now, the children of the Mass Breakout - Abby, Kershia and so many of their generation - were finally learning what their seniors had learnt through decades of anguish and persecution. Setbacks were inevitable, but there was always a path back through the pain and Abby was determined to find it.

She glanced up at the array of clocks on the wall of the observation room. A clock showed the hour for each and every time zone on the planet below, as well as the British Summer Time that Luna Lab observed - a reminder to its occupants of the world they were fighting for. Three forty-five, Eastern Daylight Time.

"A week." Abby whispered the words aloud. It was a week to the minute since TIM had picked up the desperate alarm that Abby had broadcast. A week since the life she'd immersed herself in for the last seven years had come to an end.

"Abby." TIM's voice from the wall speakers was gentle and apologetic, aware that he was interrupting her meditation. "Travin and Josh have arrived to speak to you. And Kershia has just asked if you would like to meet her for lunch."

Abby smiled despite herself. Her friends knew her too well to leave her alone on even this minor an anniversary, but she didn't resent their intrusion. Travin seemed to have taken on young Josh as his protégé, and together they had spent the week helping Abby to assemble and relocate the remnants of the Toronto Lab. With the telepathic team who had spent a day attuned to her mind still active in Canada, Abby's ability to help on the ground had been limited. Josh and Travin's assistance, along with that of the hundreds of Tomorrow People who had answered her plea for aid, had proved invaluable. With a major Lab and six minor Labs abandoned, the Canadian Tomorrow People had been in a flurry of disorganised panic, but Kershia had turned out to be right. Abby had been stunned and flattered to discover that her mere co-ordinating presence at the link tables of the Luna Lab had been enough to bring that panic under control. Already the Canadians were planning the construction of a set of new, smaller Labs. Labs that would be less vulnerable to the devastating attack Toronto had seen. There was too much to do for Abby to dwell on the past. She knew now that when her people were settled and safe, there would be other crises to deal with and other plans to make.

Marc and two thousand of her people were still in captivity, their prison in the hands of some intelligence bigwig called Trent and a British observer, both stuck in the camp - as far as TIM could tell from the computer records - as punishment for losing Abby. Kershia had grown very quiet when TIM's remote cameras had beamed back their first images from the camp. Abby had recognised the man on screen as the one who haunted her friend's thoughts. She had had little time to dwell on Kershia's distress though, as she had seen friend after friend, pale and tired, appear on the screen. Eventually TIM's tiny remotes had found Marc, bruised and unwell, but very much alive. At first, Abby had been incensed to see Thomas sitting on Marc's bed, but the boy's eyes were haunted and Marc touched his hand with such caring reassurance that Abby had felt the mountain of her fury crumbling away. She had exchanged looks with Kershia, only then beginning to understand the British woman's compassion for the other Malthus children. It was so like Marc to see beneath the surface while Abby was stubbornly holding on to her first impressions.

"We will get them out, Abby." John himself made the promise as they studied the images, trying to learn all they could in preparation for the day when they would be strong enough to free their people from the Barlumin-saturated camp.

Abby believed it. Labs all over the world were taking more precautions than ever before and now the last Malthus threat was gone. Never again would the Saps have the opening they had had a week ago. There would be other setbacks. There would be more people captured and lives lost - perhaps in their thousands. But despite everything, Abby had to believe that the worst was past.

She smiled up at TIM's cameras.

"Tell Kershia I'd love to meet her, please, TIM," she said, heading towards the door that led to the main common room. Travin and Josh would be waiting for her there and there was work to do.

The End