Part 4
"Jay, it's okay." Chris repeats more quietly, as if trying to soothe a startled animal. You look around nervously but feel yourself calming, believing.
There had been no uncertainty in the minds of the two men. They both believed with all their heart that the Tomorrow People would not only not hurt you, they would give their lives if need be to ensure that you were not hurt.
It's almost impossible to describe how that knowledge makes you feel, at once comforted, humbled and aware of the heavy responsibility that such knowledge lays upon you.
"Alright," You say quietly. "I'll come with you."
You climb into Chris and Ginge's jeep cautiously, looking from side to side, not sure whether you want this to remain a secret or whether you'd rather that someone, anyone, knows who you're with and where you're going.
You sit between the two men on the front row and try to ignore not only the claustrophobia of your position but also the random flashes of thought you can't help picking up from both men.
They drive you through London, through a maze of back roads and alleyways. You know that they're not doing this to confuse you, only to avoid the worst of the traffic but even so, you're soon lost. You may be a native Londoner but you're still far more accustomed to traveling underground on public transport than through the maze of surface streets. The area you end up in is run down, its heyday long passed. The streets have strange, foreign names and white brick buildings in a confusing mixture of styles surround you. They stop a few streets away from their destination and you walk along the quite roads, depressed by the litter and posters pasted to windows all around.
Ginge and Chris stop outside an old Underground station, long ago closed as the community it served moved away or just died out. The red brick front of the station and its London Transport roundel are familiar beacons in an otherwise barren concrete landscape. The gates to the station are locked, of course, and you're shocked when Ginge reaches down to fiddle with one of the locks.
"It's alright." Chris repeats. His eyes drift from side to side as if he's now the one who's wary of observers.
"How can it be alright?" You demand. "That's London Transport property." You set your chin stubbornly. You've been in scrapes before, every teenage boy has, but you're not a law-breaker and breaking and entering is not on the list of things you're prepared to do.
"Well, you see." Ginge says with a smile for your stubbornness. "The Tomorrow People and the Powers-That-Be, they've got, like, an understanding."
Chris nods confirmation and the three of you slip inside.
You gasp as the brick wall in front of you fades into invisibility and the metal wall behind it slides smoothly to one side. You gasp again as you squint to protect your eyes from the light pouring through the opening. After the slightly sad gloom of a deserted railway station, this room is startling.
Of course, you realise after several long moments of open-mouthed wonder, it would be pretty startling in any circumstances. The walls sometimes appeared white, sometimes swirling with colour. The tables and furniture were modern and angular, patterns of moving lights moved through what appeared to be computer banks along the walls. To one side of the room a raised dais glowed faintly and hanging above the entire room were great pipes and tanks of constantly moving fluid, all flowing into and out of a cluster of four hemispheres on a circular mount.
There are four people in the room, all looking at you happily and expectantly. A tall, handsome young man with dark hair is standing underneath the pulsing spheres and beside him stands a black woman also in her early twenties. on the other side of the room, perched on the edge of a sofa is a mischievous looking boy with brown hair and eyes perhaps a couple of years younger than your fifteen. Bizarrely he appears to be wearing a kilt. Nonetheless his clothing is a little less startling than that of the room's other occupant. Seated near him but sitting very properly in a straight backed chair is a young oriental woman, her steady black eyes fixed on you. From each of them a glow rises, a sense of presence as familiar to you as if you'd known it all your life. You know, somehow, that you're glowing too. That these others are like you in a way you cant even describe.
"Jay." The young man speaks, drawing your attention back towards him. "I'm John."
"I know." You tell him, realising as you do so that you know all their names from the mental link you shared. John and Elizabeth, Andrew and Hsui Tai. "What is this place? Who are all you people?"
"We're the Tomorrow People, Jay." Elizabeth tells you, drawing you further into the room. "The next stage in human evolution and you're one of us now."
You're silent for a moment, trying to take that concept in. It seems too huge to believe and you become aware of little things as you try subconsciously to distract from it. Ginge and Chris have come into the room now that you're clear of the doorway and the door itself slides smoothly into place behind them. Chris crosses to sit on the sofa beside the young boy in the kilt and musses up his brown hair.
"I thought we'd broken you of wearing that thing." The man laughs.
"I wanted to." The boy replies in a soft highland lilt. "And John said he thought it would be a good idea."
"Indeed." Says a new voice, rich and deep, it's tones precise. "We all wished to look our best to welcome Jay."
For a moment you look around in confusion before finding your eyes drawn to the spheres above John and Elizabeth.
"Welcome, Jay." The voice says and the spheres pulse with light in synchrony with the words. "I am TIM. Welcome to the Lab."
"Well, TIM." John interrupts, and now his voice is less formal, more relaxed. "It's the Old Lab really. We had a new Lab for a while and still use it occasionally," He tells you, "but it wasn't as convenient or comfortable as this one and it was much harder for our friends like Chris and Ginge here to come and visit us. We decided to move back here after a while."
"As I was about to say." TIM protests, his voice huffy and offended. Despite yourself you find that you're sharing a smile with the others. TIM, it seems, is easy to tease.
"Sit down, Jay." John invites with a smile and a wave of the hand towards one of the strangely shaped tables. "We have an awful lot to tell you."
You pause before accepting his invitation, only now aware of how easily you had been accepting everything you'd been told. At once you are aware once more of the barriers in each of the minds around you, hiding their true intentions from you. You look around the Lab, a secret base in the heart of London and instinctive trust wars with intellectual suspicion inside you.
And now, before you commit to anything even as simple as this you realise you've got a decision to make. Do you hold onto your caution, listening to the training of your lifetime, or release it, as you released your mind not long ago, and accept the new life that the simple act of sitting has so bizarrely come to represent?
Do you:
a) Remain suspicious?
b) Abandon your suspicion?
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