Traces of Yesterday, Touches of Tomorrow

NOTES

This is a sequel to my first Tomorrow People story, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow..." and this is one of those cases where you really _do_ need to read the first story before starting on the sequel. You can find "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow..." archived on the TPFICT website, or on my own at http://www.forty-two.co.nz/kerry/fanfic.html. If you can't access it from either of those places, email me (kerry@needlecraft.co.nz) and I'll send it to you.

Some thanks and acknowledgements:
- to Shaun Hately for letting me use an idea of his from his story "Exodus". However, I would like to state that my story has absolutely _nothing_ to do with his "A More Perfect Union" universe. I just borrowed a general idea and used it in completely my own way.
- to Ruby Red for letting me use a quote from one of her posts to TPDIS in part 10.
- to Michael Edmonds for being my beta reader. Naturally, the mistakes are mine, not his.

- I couldn't find a name or position for General Damon's aide Frank, so I made one up. If there is something canon out there and I've missed it, could someone please let me know and I'll make the correction.
- the only underground train system I've been to is the Loop under central Melbourne. So my descriptions of the London underground (part 11) are based on Michael's recollections from his time there, supplemented from mine of the Melbourne Loop. If I've got anything drastically wrong, please let me know and I'll correct it before Wendy archives the relevant chapter.

I've gone against what has become almost-convention and used colons to denote telepathy, ie :this:. Sorry if that confuses you, but it's what I'm comfortable with when I write (taken from a set of books I've read). Thought and emphasis are denoted by underscores, ie _this_.

Disclaimer: The characters of the Tomorrow People, both old and new, definately don't belong to me. They are used without permission, but with a whole lot of gratitude.

Oh, and I have to admit that I'm in the "I like Mike" club. You'll see.

1.

A man and a woman were sitting on a beach, looking out over the sea where the moonlight drew a silver path across the water. She was about forty, perhaps, her smooth, dark skin made all the richer by the moonlight that brushed across it, and her eyes watched the water with a hidden wisdom born of experience and maturity. Her companion was most likely a little younger, but the silver light found the same experience marked in the lines of his face, and here it brought strength and good sense and humour.

They had been there at least half an hour; just sitting, just watching, just being.

Until the woman leaned forward and began to untie her boot laces.

Her companion gave her a curious glance. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replied, a smile in her voice. "I'm taking off my shoes. Then I'm going to roll up my trousers and then I'm going paddling."

He shook his head, the gesture both disbelieving and amused. "We're here to do a job, Liz. And after a first glance, I'd say it's going to be a much bigger one than we expected."

"I know that, Mike," she agreed seriously. "But this is home, and I haven't been here in a long time. So first I'm going paddling."

Mike grinned and capitulated. "Then I think I'll join you."

2.

"She did _what_?!" General Bill Damon ran a hand through his hair and looked up at his aide in disbelief.

Frank Miller shrugged and held out a manila folder full of papers. "She burned it down to the ground. There's nothing left now but a collection of charred timbers. She just stood there and watched it burn. When I

confronted her about it she had no apologies, no excuses. She just insisted it had to be done and refused to move until the last of the flames died out. The only up side is that she waited until we'd finished. We'd learned all we could from the place - not that it was as much as we would have liked." He indicated the folder with one index finger. "It's all summarised in there. Just ask about anything you want more detail on."

Damon nodded. "Thanks, I'll do that. You've had a long flight. Go home and get some sleep."

Frank grinned. "Now that's the best idea I've heard in a while. I'm out of here." But at the door he paused and turned back. "General? How did she get over there so fast? You said that she'd been going through the photographs with you yesterday and I spoke to her myself. It's impossible to go that far, that quickly."

Damon sighed, mentally cursed Kay a little more and shook his head. "Beats me. Maybe she flew."

Frank laughed. "Yeah, right. And I'm Lois Lane. Good-night, General."

"Good-night." The door closed behind him and Damon opened the folder and flicked quickly through the layers of paper before starting to read the top sheet.

3.

Doctor Emma Stratton walked along the sterile corridor, acutely conscious of the silence and the security around her, listening to the sound of her heels clicking rhythmically on the polished linoleum. The capsule lay heavy in her lab coat pocket, seeming to drag her down on that side, tipping her over sideways until everyone might know what she had done.

Stage one accomplished. She still couldn't believe she'd done it. Could hardly believe she had even dared to contemplate it in the first place, and here she was in the process of doing it, past the point of no return.

It had been remarkably easy really. She had walked into the laboratory as if she had every right to be there - as indeed she did - entered her codes, opened the locks, walked into the sterile store as she had often done before. But this time was different. She hadn't taken a tiny sample, a few useful micrograms in a tiny plastic vial. Instead she had taken it all, every last freeze-dried fleck of powder, and still the capsule was no larger than her palm. Such a small container for something that could change the world so completely.

Her fingerprints were all over it of course, physically and electronically both. They would know she was the one who had done it, but it would be too late.

Stage one accomplished. On to stage two.

ONE

The Ship sighed and groaned, sounding for all the world as if it was trying to speak. Mike flicked some more sand out of the carved inlay that circled the central column and gave the surface a consoling pat. "Don't you worry, old girl. We'll have you fixed up and running properly again in no time."

Elizabeth was exploring the Ship's interior, her face carefully expressionless. She ran a finger along a wall and thoughtfully studied the accumulated grime - dust and sand mixed together, made pasty by the damp, salt-laden air. "It's not particularly pristine, is it?" she said finally. "When we found the beacon was misaligned, I'd hoped maybe that was the reason there hadn't been any signal." She sighed, her shoulders slumping a little. "I guess not. This place isn't exactly lived in. No more Tomorrow People."

"It hasn't been _that_ long since we left," Mike commented from across the main chamber where he was working his way around the carved circle. His pushing and tapping was giving him no better result than dirty fingers and he frowned, his expression frustrated. "Come _on_," he muttered to himself as he traced the next pattern with his forefinger. "_One_ of these should still work." He looked up, glanced across at Liz. "There can't have been enough time for the effects of the lyanthium to fade."

He poked and prodded at the next section of carving and finally got the result he'd been wanting. The entire ring rose about a foot and contracted inwards, exposing a jumbled tangle of wires and organic circuitry. Some sections were lighted, the shifting colours throwing dancing patterns on the floor and walls and ceiling, but far too many others were dark. Mike sighed. "What a mess."

Liz came closer, taking a look for herself. "It certainly is," she agreed. "What could have done this?"

"Earthquake maybe," Mike suggested with a shrug. "Someone probably should have thought of the possibility and allowed for it, but the evacuation _was_ planned and put into action in something of a rush."

Liz nodded. "I remember." She poked an experimental finger into the cables and snatched it back again when she received a shock. It was only a small one, nothing like the system could deliver at full power, but it was better than nothing. "There's still some power."

Mike was on his knees now, to better inspect the Ship's faulty innards. He nodded absently. "So the question becomes, does no signal mean a broken beacon, or does no signal mean no telepaths?"

"And how do we find out the answer?"

He prodded around a little more before replying, following one of the lighted relays halfway around the console until it faded and finally died. "The system isn't completely down, you know," he commented. "Far from it actually. All the communications relays are out, which makes it seem much worse than it is. If I can get that part of the system working we might be able to run some internal checks and just plain ask some questions." He got to his feet and leaned over to place a hand on the central column. "How would you like that, old girl?" he asked and the Ship groaned again, the sound almost wistful.

"I think it likes that idea," Elizabeth said with a smile.

"So would I if I'd been rendered speechless and couldn't do my job properly," Mike commented.

Liz laughed. "If you were ever rendered speechless, Mike, the entire Federation would hear about it very quickly."

Mike turned his back on the console, dropping down to sit on the floor and learning against the cool, living stone. He looked up at Liz and favoured her with a wicked grin. "That's a contradiction in terms," he pointed out. "And I think I'm old enough to know better than to rise to _your_ teasing."

She laughed again. "Can't blame me for trying though."

Mike shook his head, still smiling. "No, I guess not," he agreed. He leaned over, reaching for the tool box he had left further back around the console. It was just beyond the reach of his fingertips, but even as Liz leaned down to push it in his direction, it began to slide across the uneven floor towards him, its movement just a little erratic, scraping and scratching as it came. Liz straightened up again and waited until Mike had caught the box by one edge and was dragging it closer by more mundane means than the power of his mind alone.

"You don't really need me right at the moment, do you?" she said as he rummaged through the contents of the box. "Not until we actually get to doing something about this mess." She waved a hand in his general direction, the sweep of her arm taking in the tangle of wires, the silent Ship.

Not really," Mike agreed without looking up. "Why?"

"I thought I might go back to the beach," Elizabeth said quietly. "Dawn will be coming up soon, and I thought I might just go and wait for it. I'll call you for sunrise, if you like."

Now Mike looked up, his expression almost wistful. "While you're out, I don't suppose you could pop over to Tasker Street and bring me back some fish and chips, could you? Wrapped in newspaper, with salt and lots of vinegar."

"And dripping in fat," Elizabeth added with a shudder. "Yeech, think of your poor arteries."

"My arteries could do with the change. They're bored."

"Mike, I can't," she said seriously. "You know the rules. Earth is still a closed world and technically we shouldn't be here at all. But someone had to check out the beacon, find out why it wasn't transmitting anything at all, and so they sent us, because even if we don't belong here any more, we used to once. I'm afraid it's Federation rations for the both of us."

He nodded. "I know, I know. I got lectured to, too. I wasn't really serious." He found what he was looking for in the tool box and pulled it out. For a moment he just looked at it, as if he'd never seen it before in is life. "You know what I really wish?" he said finally. "I wish that I could go and see my Mum and my sister. Just to say hello again. I know I can't," he added before she could protest. "I just wish I could."

"I'm sorry, Mike," she said softly.

Mike switched the sonar-wrench to his other hand and looked up at her. He smiled, the expression ironic, but understanding. "I'll live. Go on. Go and enjoy the dawn. And yes, do call me for sunrise, please."

Liz nodded. "I promise." She smiled back, the expression saying she understood too, and disappeared, leaving him to go back to his exploration of the Ship's damaged insides.

TWO

For someone with as unusual an upbringing as she had had, Kay managed to play the truculent teenager with astounding ease. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, her feet braced against the chair legs, her arms crossed over her chest, her lips set in a thin line. She had been letting her hair grow out since she had found this new life and come to live with them and now, no longer spiky and wild, it fell softly almost to her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and an Egyptian tourist t-shirt showing the pyramids and camels, and pretty, filigree bells - a gift from the other Tomorrow People - hung from her ears and chimed softly whenever she moved her head. But getting free of the old life wasn't as easy as growing her hair and getting her ears pierced, and it would still come back to haunt her at unusual and unexpected moments.

_That isn't always a bad thing, of course_, Bill Damon reflected as he faced her across the pinewood desk in his study. The wonder on her face when she discovered something ordinary and everyday that she had never seen before was always a joy to behold. There were so many ordinary, teenage things she had never done. She had never had a room of her own to decorate and live in as she chose. She had never had an allowance to spend as she pleased. Now she had both, and she was slowly adding things to her bedroom upstairs, making it truly her own. So many things she had missed out on that she should have had the chance to do.

But then there were the bad times of course, when the memories were painful ones and she closed up on herself and refused to talk about it, still not used to the idea that there were people around her who cared for her, wanted the best for her, were ready to fight her battles with her, people she could trust. She wasn't used to trust.

Damon sighed and abandoned his standard disobedient-teenager speech. He could rarely even use it on Marma - on Megabyte these days. He wasn't the ordinary teenager he had been before he had become a Tomorrow Person, and while he was still very capable of doing stupid things and getting himself into trouble, it wasn't the same as it had been before. Kay had never been an ordinary teenager in the first place.

So he changed what he had been going to say, and just asked the question that was foremost on his mind. "Why, Kay? Why did you do it?"

She looked up from her focused examination of her shoes, her pale blue eyes determined, and he knew he'd made the right decision. Anything he'd said to her now would have washed right over her and had no impact at all. He'd got it right this time at least. Being a father was hard enough, being a foster parent to someone like Kay could be a hundred times worse and he just had to make it all up as he went along. Fortunately, he seemed to get it right more often than he got it wrong.

She didn't speak for a moment, just matched him, gaze for gaze. He waited, letting her answer in her own time. Being patient was something he wasn't particularly good at, but he was being forced to learn and he waited now with something that approached calm, even if it didn't quite reach it.

"To end it," Kay said finally, when he had almost forgotten the question. "I did it to finish things. So that I won't have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. So they won't be able to do it again, won't be able to make any more like me. So I burned it down. Someone had to do it, and it didn't look like you were going to."

"I might have surprised you if you'd given me the chance."

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then she nodded. "Yeah, I guess you might have." She gave him a candid look. "But...I _wanted_ to do it," she admitted honestly. "For what they did to me, for what they made me, I wanted to do it. I grew up there, and it was horrible. Watching it all burn, that was..." She hesitated, searching for the right word. "..._wonderful_. It was like being set free."

"Kay, the Institute was empty when we got there," he said gently. "I told you that. They'd packed up and gone. They're still be out there somewhere."

"But I'm free now." Kay looked down at her shoes again, hesitant now, not defiant at all. "Thank you," she said suddenly, swiftly, without looking up. "For giving me an identity, and a place to live, and an almost-family. Thank you for not poking me to find out how I work, and for not telling anyone else about me." Now she looked up and gave him a shy smile. "Thank you for letting me call you Bill. I don't like generals very much."

"I'd sort of guessed that," he answered with a return smile. "And with one telepathic teenager in the house, it wasn't a great stretch to add one more."

She raised a hand to her mouth, the gesture automatic, wondering, and almost grinned. "It's kind of weird, having a family."

Now he had to laugh, all pretence of this being a telling-off abandoned. "Especially as weird a family as this one." He gave her a serious look. "Kay, this isn't going to become a habit, is it? Burning down residences you don't like, I mean." He glanced up, his gaze instinctively going to the crack in the ceiling where Millie had once thrown an illicit indoor ball a little too hard. "This one doesn't actually belong to me, so I'd like it to stay standing."

She laughed, as he had intended her to. "No."

"I'm glad to hear it. Don't go burning down any more buildings without checking with me first."

She grinned, the grin that was beginning to appear a little more frequently these days, apparently helped along by her recent experiment with pyromania. "Sure, Bill. No more fires without permission."

He waved a hand in the direction of the door. "Go on, get out. Leave me in peace."

As the door shut behind her, he heard Megabyte meet her in the hallway, probably to find out just how much trouble she was in. There was the smallest of smiles on Bill Damon's face as he went back to the report he was studying. His son was going to be disappointed.

THREE

It was dark outside, clouds hiding the moon so that the only illumination came from the light haze of the busy city, waiting just beyond the chain-link fence and a hundred miles away. Through the open window of her office, Emma could hear the distant rumble of the city, smell the almost brackish tang of the nearby river. She could imagine the people out there going about their business, sleeping, working, loving, crying, all unaware of the secrets hidden among them, the dark places lying down quiet cul-de-sacs and lurking behind guarded fences.

She shook her head, trying to clear it of such thoughts, struggling to calm her breathing, smooth her expression, excising the smallest hint of anxiety or fear. Without any conscious intention, her hand crept into her pocket, checking it was still there, seeking reassurance from its cool, tangible presence. Her fingers brushed across the small metal container, encircling it so that she could feel it, cold against the heat of her palm. It was still there of course, the same as it had been for the last half hour, the small, cold, seemingly innocent reason for it all.

She judged she had another 20 minutes before it was missed, no longer than that. She should have left her office at least 10 minutes ago, but Jay was late and she couldn't go without him. Her stomach clenched again and she acknowledged wryly that she really wasn't cut out for this kind of danger and intrigue. She was supposed to be a scientist, not a superhero.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor and she spun away from the window, opening her mouth to chastise Jay for being late.

But it wasn't Jay who came through her door. The newcomer was tall, easily pushing six feet, with close-cropped black hair and the I'm-not-exactly-rocket-scientist-material look that characterised the Institute's security officers.

Emma felt her heart-rate speed up, suddenly sure she had been found out. Her fingers closed tighter around the hidden vial, while her brain seemed to shut down completely. Her mouth was dry and when she opened her mouth, nothing at all came out.

"Did you send for this one, Dr Stratton?" the man asked casually, as if there was nothing wrong. "I found him in the corridors. He said you wanted to see him after he was finished with Dr Elnezaar."

Jay trailed in behind him, stopping just inside the door. Caught somewhere between tall and short, his height was made even more vague by the way he slouched in the doorway. His hair was cut in an army-regulation cut that didn't suit him, making his face look pale and sallow, washing the colour out of his cheeks and making his eyes look drawn and tired.

He was 22. Emma knew he was 22 because she'd read his notes - from cover to cover, forwards and backwards and then forwards again, just to be sure she hadn't missed anything. But he didn't look it. More like about 17, and a cowed and caged 17 at that, with something hidden in his eyes that suggested he'd like to be defiant as well, but he didn't quite know how to go about it.

Emma often wondered if the others had also looked like that, that caged-animal look shining in their eyes. But she had only meet three of them, one who was gone now and these two, the last the Institute had left. Something about them, something she could never name and doubted the other staff and researchers ever saw, had made her want to help them. And so here she was, about to throw caution and sense to the winds, risking everything on what was probably a fool's errand. _But sometimes_, she reflected, _a fool's errand is the best choice. Even the only choice_.

She took a deep breath, the kind the textbooks claimed were calming and relaxing, and nodded. 'Yes, I did," she agreed with a decisive nod. "I've got some tests I want to run with the pair of them." She gave him what she hoped was a conspiratorial grin. "And I've got some things I need carried to my car. I thought I could kill two birds with the one stone and get them to help me."

The guard looked around her little office, his gaze pausing at the stack of boxes piled up beside the overstuffed and overflowing filing cabinet. "Those?" he queried, indicating the collection with a short, staccato jerk of his head.

Emma nodded again.

He gave Jay a superior, supercilious look. "The runt won't be able to carry all those."

Emma bit back a sharp retort. Now was _not_ the time to let her emotions get the better of her. She was already considered soft by most of the staff and it would be more than foolish to let compassion betray her now. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of anything to say instead.

He didn't seem to notice. He loaded Jay up with boxes, gathered up the last few himself, and led the way along the corridor at a brisk pace. Jay trailed along behind, seriously overburdened with cartons, while Emma followed him, her hands free, feeling rather like a wicked stepmother who made the children do all the work.

They passed through two security doors with barely a pause, the guard sliding his key card through the swipe track apparently without needing to break stride. Emma's own card would have done the trick just as well, but this was an unexpected blessing. Now it was his name that would show up in the security records, not hers.

The corridors became considerably less well-kept as they walked, the walls fading to a dingy grey, the floor bare concrete now, naked light bulbs throwing grotesque shadows onto the cracked paint. The security guard finally stopped outside the last, locked door. It was as badly maintained as the rest of the corridor around it, making the shiny, state-of-the-art electronic lock look both incongruous and faintly ridiculous.

He slid his card through the slot and pushed the door open with one foot. The hinges creaked a protest - no modern, sliding technological jobs down here. The guard leaned one shoulder against the door frame and peered into the room, the superior look back on his face.

"Feeding time at the zoo," he commented in a mocking tone.

Emma saw Jay's back stiffen, but to her great relief he had the sense not to say anything. He just slipped past the guard into the room and dropped the boxes onto the narrow, hard sofa that was pushed against the far wall. Emma followed him in and stood just inside the doorway, feeling awkward.

As soon as Jay turned back, the guard shoved his few boxes in the young man's direction. Jay took them obediently, silently, and the other man laughed, the sound not amused but malicious.

Alice looked up at the intruder and glared at him, but clearly thought better of it quickly, because moments later she carefully smoothed her expression into something much more neutral. The guard saw it, and laughed again.

"You want anything else, Dr Stratton?" he asked, and his tone was a little more respectful as he turned his head to look at her.

Emma shook her own head. "No. I can manage." She nodded in Alice's direction. "She can carry the other boxes once she's done."

He looked a little dubious, but he nodded anyway. After a last glance around the drab little room, he sauntered off down the corridor.

Emma waited until she couldn't hear his footsteps any more, then risked a glance along the corridor. She saw one of the secure doors slide shut behind him and breathed a soft, silent, sigh of relief.

Inside Alice and Jay's room again, she said simply, "He's gone."

Alice stood up at once, her movement certain, her arms full. "Let's get on with it then," she said calmly. She jerked her head back towards a second room, separated from this one by a faded paisley curtain. "I left everything on the bed, Jay. Empty a couple of Dr Stratton's boxes and fill them with that stuff."

He smiled at her, that rare smile he kept only for Alice, and did as he was told.

Emma helped Alice empty another of the boxes and fill it again with its new, precious cargo. Jay reappeared moments later and the three conspirators exchanged glances, nervous, anxious, yet still filled with cautious hope. They were only going to get one chance at this, but they intended to make the most of it.

Surprisingly, it was Jay who took command of the situation. He handed the cartons he was carrying to Alice, who took them automatically, and then he carefully took the last box from Emma, cradling it protectively in his arms. "We should go now," he said quietly.

Emma nodded, swallowing down the fear that had taken up residence at the back of her throat. She glanced at Alice surprised again, to see the look of hesitation, almost of loss, on her face. "We should," Emma agreed. She looked at Alice again before nodding to Jay. "Let's go. And don't let her cry. If she does, we're in trouble."

Jay nodded gravely. "I know." And he squared his shoulders, and stepped out into the hallway.

To Emma, it all felt like it was much too easy. The made it right through the complex to the exterior door without even seeing anyone else, let alone being stopped. Of course, it was that dead time between the end of the day shift and the start of the night, which was why Emma had chosen it, but it still seemed too good to be true.

The security officer at the front desk, a shorter, stockier, less handsome version of the one who had escorted them to Alice and Jay's quarters, looked them over curiously as they entered the lobby. Emma supposed they probably did look a little odd - Jay and Alice might be what a large part of the Institute was all about, but most of the staff never even saw them. These two quiet, slightly scruffy young people, carrying a couple of large cardboard boxes each and following a short, slightly nervous looking scientist, most likely weren't what anyone really expected.

Emma marched up to desk like she owned the place, the way she had seen the other senior staff do and never quite managed to imitate before tonight. "I'm running some tests out by the river," she said crisply. "It looks like there's a main level correlation between night radiation and water damping effects. I want to get some epsilon category grid patterns mapped." The guard listened, getting a rather glazed look in his eyes, as if he didn't have a clue what she was talking about. Which wasn't surprising, considering that Emma was making it up as she went along. She leaned over the desk towards him and delivered the killing blow. "It's all cleared with the Colonel. He said you can call him for confirmation. He's at home tonight for his kid's birthday party."

The man blanched at the thought of bothering the irascible man during a family occasion. "Just go along, Dr Stratton," he said quickly. "We don't want to trouble the Colonel." He waved a hand in the direction of the main door. "You just go right along."

Emma did exactly that, before he had the chance to reconsider. They reached the door, and it clicked unlocked just as she placed a hand on it. She pushed it open and walked out into the featureless, anonymous carpark.

They were halfway to Emma's car when the worst happened. Teresa finally decided she didn't like all this, opened her little mouth and wailed, the cry drifting through the night air, mingling with the sounds of the river and the streets.

Jay stopped at once, turning this way and that, trying to see, to feel, if anyone had heard. Alice halted beside him, taking the box from his arms, and tried to calm the frightened, screaming baby. But Teresa was having none of it - it was cold, it was dark, and everything felt scary, even to a child of barely six months when that child had the potential for power that Teresa did. Alice's soft whispers did no good and across the asphalt the door opened again.

Emma grabbed the box herself and Teresa hiccuped and was quiet. Hidden among the blankets and computer disks, she looked like a fairy changeling, a miracle who had unexpectedly found herself in the mundane world. "Keep going," Emma said sharply and took her own advice, hurrying towards the car.

Alice hesitated a moment longer, and Teresa cried again, sensing her indecision. Emma started to run.

Finally, Alice turned to follow, but still Jay stayed, as if trying, desperately, to keep the security guard by the open door, to prevent him from realising this was an escape.

The guard shook his head, as if to dislodge something unwelcome that was trying to find its way into his mind. He jerked again and stumbled backwards, taking a moment to regain his balance. Jay gasped, and raised a hand to his forehead, staggering, unable to catch his breath.

Alice paused, halfway between him in the car, and turned back.

The security guard, recovered now, raised a hand that held something dark and glittering.

Emma reached the car, fumbled open the door and pushed Teresa, still in her box, into the back seat.

Alice started back towards Jay.

The gun fired.

And Jay fell.

Never even realising she had started running, Alice reached him and stumbled to her knees at his side, seeing the blood pooling on his shirt, unable to believe what it meant. He tried to focus his eyes on her, but couldn't quite manage it, struggled to smile. She could feel him fading away, receding into a distance where she couldn't follow, slipping out of her mind with a steady surety until there was nothing of him there anymore and she was left alone.

"JAY! NO!"

It was a cry from the heart, a wail of grief the whole of the world should have been able to hear, but that didn't seem to make it a single millimetre outside her skull.

Alice heard a noise in the distance, the sound of a car starting, and looked up with blind eyes, knowing it was important but no longer sure why. Dr Stratton's little brown Mazda lurched out of its parking space and started towards the gate that was slowly swinging shut. Alice thought she should have been able to feel Teresa, as she had been able to do from well before her daughter was even born, but all there was was an enormous, aching hole deep inside her. So many people gone and left her - Bill and Frank, Kay and David, and now Jay, her own, precious Jay, gone with no coming back.

The security lights were all coming on, lighting up the expanse of concrete as brightly as if the sun had suddenly decided to shine in the middle of the night. But the car was already moving, the engine growling loudly, painfully as Dr Stratton floored the accelerator without taking the time to change the gears. It reached the gate and didn't pause, crashing into the wire gates, wrenching them off their hinges with the force of its passing. The staccato sound of gunshots echoed through the air, but they were too late, a requiem to failure as the red tail-lights disappeared into the distance and the roar of the labouring motor faded into silence.

Alice dropped her eyes and bent her head, resting her cheek against Jay's still chest, surprised to find her face was wet, and hoped Dr Stratton would keep their precious Teresa safe. And while she knelt there, cradling Jay's cooling body in her arms and crying, the security men came, and found her, and took her away again.

FOUR

Mike rocked backwards, from kneeling up into a crouch, and placed his hands against the small of his back. He rose carefully to his feet and stretched in satisfaction. "There," he said, his tone just a little self-congratulatory. "That should do it."

There was no reply.

He glanced across the Ship's main cabin, looking for Elizabeth. After a moment he found her, sitting in one of the recessed alcoves, her long legs tucked up under her, her head resting against the plasglass. At first he thought she was staring out into the dark water beyond the porthole; a moment later he realised she was asleep.

She looked peaceful and very young. Her face was hidden in the shadows and he wondered if that was what was causing the illusion. Or maybe it was just being here that did it. He could easily imagine her waking, yawning, and turning to face him, the bright, young school teacher he had first met. Her hair was shorter now, styled in the tidy, minimalist cut that was currently all the fashion in certain parts of the Federation, and her clothes were different, but the passing years all seemed to have faded away and disappeared, so that it was easy to imagine that the Lab was still there, hidden under the London streets, and all he would have to do was visualise the old, familiar co-ordinates and jaunt, and there would be TIM, ready to scold him for being late.

He had to smile at that, the expression a wry, amused curve of his lips. There had been a lot of scolding, and not just from TIM. He smiled again, almost laughed. And he had probably deserved all of it - and more.

"Penny for them?"

He looked up to see Liz watching him curiously. With her waking, the illusion of yesterday had almost vanished, only the slightest hint of that long ago Elizabeth remaining. She was the cosmopolitan Federation representative again, who had friends on a dozen different worlds and knew the ways of the galaxy. But she was still Liz.

"I was just thinking," he answered. "About the old days." He threw her a grin. "I was an obnoxious brat, wasn't I?"

Liz laughed, the sound echoing around the Control Room. "Yes," she agreed. "You were."

Mike sighed, looking just a bit affronted. "Well, you didn't have to be _quite_ so quick to agree."

"But you've turned out all right," she added. She stood up, uncurling gracefully off the ledge, and came to join him beside the console ring. She slipped one arm around his shoulders, hugging him slightly. "Truly, Mike," she said, and now her smile was gentle, her voice serious. "You turned out so much better than we could ever have imagined. I have been so very proud of you over the years." She chuckled, turning so that she was facing him directly. "After a somewhat shaky start."

Remembering those first days on the Trig after evacuating Earth, lost, lonely and resentful, he wasn't sure whether to laugh or cringe. "That's a polite way of putting it."

"I'm a polite sort of person," she told him. "Now, how are you doing with the Ship?"

"Getting there. I've got the self-repair protocols functioning again. It's mostly a matter of waiting for things to fix themselves now."

"That's all we can do? Twiddle our thumbs and wait?"

"No, we can do a bit more than that," he answered with a shake of his head. "The command interface is pretty much running, although we won't have voice communication for a while yet." He ran a hand across the carved surface of the main control console, and it lit softly under his touch, the lights tracing the path his fingers had taken.

"Can we get it to do a scan?" Elizabeth asked. "A ... Oh, I don't know ... a telepathic one first I guess. See if it can pick anyone up."

Mike pressed here, tapped there, stroked the stone somewhere else, a thoughtful frown on his face. Finally, he nodded. "But to find anything it'll have to be some kind of active telepathy or we won't pick it up. We haven't got that kind of fine tuning back yet. Nothing passive, nothing latent, we won't even be able to register a telepathic aura, only someone actually talking."

She nodded. "I understand. Let's try anyway. It's still worth a shot, and we can always try again later, when the system is running better."

"Okay." He entered a further string of instructions, brushing past Elizabeth to reach another part of the carved surface. The Ship moaned again, and now there were almost-words in its rumbling voice, distorted and unintelligible still, but with the promise of meaning, if only the hearer knew how to listen.

"It'll take a moment for it to calibrate before it can begin the sweep," Mike said as he came back to her side. "If we link, we'll hear better."

She nodded and raised one hand, and he did the same. They held them together, palms almost touching, and an aura of palely glowing pearl light joined their hands as their minds melded into each other, comfortably, easily, familiarly.

For a long time there was nothing. Just cool emptiness, a gentle awareness of the billions of silent, ungifted people that lived on the blue-white planet called Earth. But no-one like them, no-one reaching out to greet a friend, physical distance no barrier to the power of their minds, no-one starting a mental conversation or a psychic argument, no telepaths talking.

:Nothing,: Mike said with a sigh, and began to pull his mind away.

Nothing,: Liz agreed and started to disengage her mind from his.

And then they heard it.

It was a scream, a mental cry of agony and pain, full of hurt and anger, confusion and loss, that bounced around their heads and hit them behind the eyes with a force that made them gasp.

The link snapped back into place.

:What's wrong?: LizMike asked. :Who are you? Tell us where you are. We can help.:

But the voice was gone again. As suddenly and unexpectedly as it had come.

With difficulty, MikeLiz unwound itself, unwrapped itself, pulled itself apart.

Elizabeth found she was gasping for breath and feeling like she had just completed a five mile run. Beside her, Mike didn't look or sound much better.

"Who was that?" he managed to ask. "That was so strong I feel like I've just been run over."

"That's because it was so tightly focused," Liz said as her breathing began to return to normal. "We only heard it because we had the Ship running a scan and we were listening. If we'd been standing beside her we probably wouldn't have heard a thing."

"Her?"

Elizabeth nodded slowly, looking a little surprised. "It _was_ a her. Don't ask me how I know, but it was. And Mike she was in such pain. Where is she? We have to go and find her."

With one hand on the console ring to support himself, Mike used the other to trace a different pattern on the carving. "I can't get an exact fix. The contact was too brief and in its current state, the system needs more information. I can say London with certainty, but beyond that I can only get a general location that's probably within a few square kilometres of the source."

"So what are we waiting for," Liz demanded. "That'll do."

"What happened to staying here on the island and not interfering with a closed world?" Mike asked.

"You heard her," she said, glaring at him. "We can't just ignore a call like that. She was in _pain_."

"I know," he agreed. "I'm on your side. I just wanted to make the point. For the record."

"Fine," Elizabeth snapped. "I'm the one who decided to break the rules. For the record. Now give me the co-ordinates."

It was an argument Mike didn't want to win anyway, so he just did as she asked, dropping the location directly in her mind and following after her when she jaunted.

They materialised in a deserted street. Cracked and broken streetlights cast a sullen, fitful orange light where they could manage it and left the grubby footpath in darkness where they couldn't. There were no houses here, only tall, windowless buildings and high fences hiding who knew what. A taxi cruised past, the only traffic to be seen, and slowed as it saw them, but Mike waved the driver on and he accelerated away, seeming to be glad to be gone.

:Not exactly a salubrious district, is it?: Elizabeth commented.

Mike glanced around once more, just in case things had improved. :Not at all,: he agreed when they hadn't.

Liz pulled her coat tighter around herself and shivered. "So now what?"

"Well, we're not going to find her just standing here," Mike pointed out. "Now that we're closer, perhaps if we link and do a scan we'll find something."

"Let's find somewhere a bit more private first," Liz said tightly. "I don't feel very safe out in the open like this."

In the end, they huddled in the doorway of a deserted shop, with peeling paint on the door and boarded up windows. To a casual observer they wouldn't have looked anything out of the ordinary - a man and a woman sheltering in a recessed doorway, trying to stay warm out of the chilly wind perhaps, or snatching a moment alone before they were forced to return to their separate lives and responsibilities.

The truth was invisible, and far less simple. Together, linked, they were so much more than just Mike or just Elizabeth alone, the whole greater than the sum of its parts. They could search the area, over, under and through, without physically leaving the spot where they were standing; looking for some sign of whoever they had heard calling, psychic traces, mental touches, the way a bloodhound might scent the air to discover which way its quarry had fled.

:That way,: whispered one part of the whole.

:That way,: the other agreed, and they spiralled closer, coming to a halt outside a chain link fence that shut away an expanse of dirty asphalt and a collection of distant buildings. Beyond the fence the trace faded and vanished, and try as they might, they could not find it again.

"We lost her," Elizabeth said in disgust, shaking her head to clear it and accustom it to being a single entity once again.

"She might be in there," Mike said, leaning back against the old door, as if for support, but his voice was dubious.

"It's a place to start though," Liz said firmly. "How about we come back in the morning and have a closer look. I don't know about you, but I'm far too tired to do anything more tonight. I'm going to start making mistakes soon."

Mike grinned, but it was a weak effort. "We've had a very busy day."

Liz tiredly rubbed a hand across her face and grimaced. "No kidding." She turned her head in the direction of the distant buildings, several streets away and invisible. "I just hope she's going to be okay."

Mike looked that way too and nodded. "Me too." He placed a gentle hand on her arm. "Come on, Liz. We should get back to the Ship."

She nodded, but she was still looking towards the place they had found when she jaunted.

FIVE

Emma felt lost. And alone. Both of which were odd, since she was standing on a street she had walked along regularly for years, surrounded by people. It was early enough on a Thursday night that the streets were still busy, cars growling up and down, people spilling out of the cafes and bars onto the pavement in knots of conversation and laughter.

Standing there with Teresa in her arms, her work clothes crumpled, the vial dragging down her skirt pocket, Emma felt she must stand out like a sore thumb. It hadn't been supposed to work out like this. Not anything like this at all.

At first everything had seemed to go as planned. Stealing the catalyst had been easy. Getting Jay and Alice and their daughter out of the Institute building had gone without a hitch. It was only once they were out in the car park that things had started to go wrong. And now Jay has dead (_Oh God, Jay was dead_), Alice was lost, and she and Teresa were stranded on this street, surely with people out looking for them.

The car had died, no more than a few blocks away from the Institute. Emma had prepared for the night's escape - she'd filled the tank, she checked the oil and water, she even had her local mechanic give it the once over on the excuse she was planning an extended motoring holiday and wanted it in shipshape condition. It shouldn't have failed her, but it had. She could only suppose she'd damaged something when she drove it through the closed gate.

A couple was walking in the opposite direction to Emma, heading for the late night cinema she had passed a block back perhaps, or maybe just looking for a taxi. The woman slowed, drawing away from her companion to approach Emma, with a curious, concerned look on her face. Her partner frowned and pulled her back to his side again. She went without complaint, but she continued to watch Emma until they were past, continuing on up the street.

Shaken, Emma hitched the sleeping baby into a more comfortable position and started walking again. She wondered what she must look like - a lone woman with a child in her arms and most likely a haunted, hunted look on her face. She had had the sense to leave her stained old lab coat in the abandoned car, and after much deliberation she had left Teresa's cardboard box behind as well. She had shoved the precious vial into one skirt pocket, the three most important computer disks into the other, picked up Teresa and started walking, wondering what she had been thinking of when she had started off on his mad scheme.

Naïve, that was what she had been. She had imagined she could smuggle two adults and a baby out of the Institute, drive them to a secret location (Aunt Martha's seaside cottage), and use her possession of the catalyst to coerce them into leaving the four of them alone. A child's game, that's what it had been. The powers that be at the Institute were far more deadly than that, grown up, ruthless and dangerous. _Jay's dead, oh God, Jay's dead_, said the little voice in her head again. She shivered and swallowed nervously. They would go to any lengths to find her, Teresa and the catalyst.

Even before the car had died on her, Emma had realised that Aunt Martha's was a bad idea. They could find out about it far too easily, find _her_ far too easily. She just couldn't think of anywhere to go instead. So when her transport had failed her, she had started walking. It was better than doing nothing, better than just waiting for them to find her.

She was leaving the cafes behind now, coming to the markets, still open, busy and bustling for another hour yet. Teresa stirred in her arms, but she didn't waken, just yawned mightily and settle back to sleep again. Grateful for one less complication, Emma turned into the nearest aisle, past a donut seller who smiled broadly at her and tried to sell her a bag of his wares. The hot, sugary smell tempted her, but she shook her head and brushed on past. Undeterred, he turned his attentions to the man behind her.

Once inside the cavernous hall she slowed, trying to look like she belonged. But she kept throwing nervous glances over her shoulder, sure she saw an Institute security guard behind that rack of coats, or the Colonel himself, loitering among the t-shirts and posters. Perhaps sensing her unease, Teresa finally woke and began to whimper softly.

Emma tried desperately to calm her, quieten her, but the little girl had had too many strange things happen to her for one night. The whimpers turned quickly into sad, hiccuping sobs that grew steadily louder. Sure everyone must be looking at them, Emma ducked into the nearest stall, where she at least partially hidden by a hanging display of coloured beach towels. She rocked Teresa in her arms, patting her gently on the back, and wished for some practical experience on dealing with babies.

"Can I help you?" Emma just about jumped through the roof at the quiet enquiry. She looked around to see a woman standing beside her. She wasn't young, probably in her fifties, with a worn, lined face and greying hair. But the concern in her eyes looked genuine and something about her made Emma sure she wasn't just asking if she could sell Emma some towels.

"Ah..." Emma trailed off into silence, realising she had no idea what she should do now. Teresa stared at this newcomer, her wails easing as curiosity pushed away the fear.

The woman smiled, and touched Teresa lightly on the nose with one finger. The baby grabbed at, and once it was captured, refused to let go.

The stranger laughed. "She's lovely."

Emma nodded, not knowing what else to say. Glancing around a little wildly for inspiration, she caught sight of a familiar shape out among the crowds. It was one of the guards from the Institute, she was sure it was. But how had they managed to find her so fast? Even if they had found the car, she still should have had a good start on them.

She pulled back further behind the towels, hoping he hadn't seen her. The woman looked surprised, and glanced quickly behind them. Then she stepped up beside Emma, making sure they were both hidden from view. "Someone's looking for you, aren't they?" she said, and it was a statement more than it was a question.

Caught, all Emma could do was nod. Almost instinctively, she brush her free hand over Teresa's head, the gesture protective. "He wants to take us back," she said, a little horrified to hear her voice wobble.

The woman's face hardened. "Then we'll just have to make sure he doesn't," she said flatly, and there was something in her voice that made Emma think she had been in this sort of situation before, said such things before.

She turned back to where a second woman was sitting beside a table, reading a book and watching over the stall. "Don't look up, Aggie," she said quietly, and her friend nodded, her eyes never flicking up from the page. "Seems this lady here is in trouble," she went on in the same quiet, carrying voice. "Can you create a diversion, so I can get her and the baby out of here and back to the Shelter?"

Aggie nodded fractionally and grinned and calmly closed her book. Then she lunged across the table and grabbed the coat of some poor innocent man who was walking past. "Hey!" she cried in an aggrieved voice. "What do you think you're doing, stealing from my table?"

The man looked stunned for a second, then began loudly proclaiming his innocence, while Aggie continued to harangue him in a carrying voice. Attracted by the commotion, a crowd quickly began to gather.

"Come on." Emma's rescuer pushed aside a rack of dresses and led the way out through the back of the stall. Emma followed obediently, clutching Teresa tightly in her arms and hoping she wasn't making another mistake. Behind them, the hubbub got louder.

They wound their way around stalls, and occasionally through them. Emma's companion seemed to be well known, often receiving a grin and a greeting, and no-one tried to stop them. In a surprisingly short length of time, they found themselves outside the market, looking out on the carpark. Emma couldn't see anyone from the Institute, but that didn't mean they weren't out there.

The woman saw her hesitation and pulled her back a little so that they were still safely hidden from view. "I guess I should introduce myself, shouldn't I?" she said with her friendly smile. "My name is Miriam Nolan. I work at one of the local Women's Refuge's. That's how I knew you were in trouble. I've seen women in your situation before. So if you'd like me to, that's where I was going to take you. You can get all the help you need there, and your husband won't find you."

Only then did Emma realise what assumptions Miriam must have made about her situation. Yes, it was a lie, but it was a very useful lie - the answer to a prayer even - and she decided to let it stand. So all she said was, "Good."

Miriam grinned. "I take it that means you'll come."

Emma nodded. "We'll come."

"Good. Well, I'm going to go and get the car, swing back past here and you can climb in - just to be on the safe side." Seeing the worried look on Emma's face, she smiled again. "I don't really think there's anyone out here, I'm just being careful."

She slipped away, weaving her way in and out of the cars, and Emma was left to reflect on her last words. Vengeful husbands chasing runaway wives might generally strike out on their own, but Institute security was another matter. Emma reminded herself that they couldn't be sure she was here. They must still be spread very thin, trying to cover every possible place she might have fled to. She had almost convinced herself when a battered white Datsun rolled to a halt beside her and Miriam leaned over to open the passenger door.

"I've even got a baby's seat in the back," she said with a wave of her free hand. "Comes with the job. Climb in the back and strap her in and we'll be on our way."

Emma did as she was told, struggling a little to work out which strap went where. But Miriam leaned over from the front to help her, and Teresa was very quickly securely installed in the safety seat.

Miriam turned to the front again, put the car into gear, and they were quickly on their way. Emma turned her head to look out the back window, but no-one came running, trying to stop them. Even so, it was only when they were several blocks away that she began to relax, daring to hope that she really might have escaped.

She saw Miriam's ready grin flash in the rear vision mirror, but her voice was all business. "I think we're away safely. And you've got some friends now. You've got a safe place to stay, and once you're settled we'll see what we can do about helping you find a long term solution."

Emma couldn't quite see how she was going to do that, but she did seem to have provided her with some breathing space and a chance to plan. So she leaned back in her seat, looked down at Teresa's sleeping face with a soft smile on her own, and listened to Miriam talk.

SIX

"This is so _boring_," Megabyte said in disgusted tones.

"You can always go home," Ami pointed out.

"Yeah, sure," he retorted. "And leave you girls to do it?"

"Don't you trust us?" Jade asked dangerously.

Despite occasional appearances to the contrary, Megabyte wasn't stupid. He knew better than to answer that one.

Kay laughed. "You can go if you like. I won't tell Bill."

Megabyte sighed theatrically and shook his head. "I can just imagine it. 'Happy birthday Mom, here's a present Kay bought for you.' I guess I'll have to stay. But I vote we finish up at Kennedy's Ice-cream Parlour."

The girls laughed, a single thought passing between the three of them. :That's Megabyte, thinking with his stomach.:

"Hey, I heard that," he protested, which only made them laugh harder.

"There's a little curio shop on Tennant Street," Ami said between giggles. "I'm sure we can find something there that Mrs Damon would like."

"Another dolphin," Kay suggested. "To go with the one on the mantelpiece that she likes so much."

That sounded okay to him, and Mom _might_ even think he'd come up with the idea himself. Megabyte nodded in agreement. "Okay, let's go." He started walking purposefully along the street as if it had all been his idea in the first place, forcing his still-smiling friends to quicken their steps to keep up with him.

The shop was small, crammed to overflowing with a jumbled, eclectic collection of treasures, nick-nacks and just plain junk, as if some human-shaped magpie had collected it all and been quite unable to face the thought of discarding even the smallest, most insignificant little bit of it.

The front window was a glimpse into the magpie's nest. An old clock, missing one of its animal's feet, leaned a little askew in the centre. A stuffed koala bear, with worn fur and old cork stuffing spilling out one ear, leaned back in the other direction as if it was trying to hold up the silent timepiece. A barometer, its brass polished until it shone, correctly predicted the day's sunny weather and behind it a carved wooden box spilled old coins, costume jewellery, faded tassels and a whole collection of mother of pearl hair combs out onto a swath of dull green satin. The baubles were partly covered by the edges of a peacock feather fan that was spread out in all its glory, iridescent blue and purple and green not quite hiding the warm yellow of the ivory sticks. On the other side of the window sat a row of old children's books, their dusts jackets showing rosy-cheeked schoolgirls in old fashioned uniforms falling into adventures.

Megabyte was pushing open the door, listening to the echoing sound of a brass bell, before he realised he'd lost his companions somewhere. He looked back to see them clustered around the window, heads bent together as if they were discussing secrets. He considered joining them, then decided not to bother.

:What's so interesting?: he asked instead, one hand still on the brass door handle.

:The peacock fan,: Kay answered absently, and said something else to Ami that Megabyte didn't quite catch.

>From inside, an old man glared at him over the rims of a pair of half-glasses that appeared to be trying to decide whether or not they should slip off the end of his sharply pointed nose. "Are you coming in, sonny?" he demanded in a querulous, old-man's voice.

Megabyte glanced at the girls again, then nodded. "Yeah, we're coming in." :Come on, you lot. Gramps wants us to come in or go away.:

"We'll come in," Ami said out loud, and slipped past him into the shop's cluttered, poorly-lit interior. Jade and Kay followed her. Finally, Megabyte stepped over the threshold himself, giving the proprietor a hollow kind of smile. He got another glare in return.

A good forty-five minutes later, he finally made it back into the sunlight again, feeling considerably poorer. After a lot of discussion and frequent mind-changing, Ami, Kay and Jade had decided on the fan they had seen in the window. Whenever Megabyte opened his mouth (or his mind) to make a suggestion, they had ignored him and started having an animated conversation about some other potential present in the shop. Obviously shopping wasn't supposed to be a 'man-thing'. He considered calling Adam, maybe even just teleporting away when no-one was looking and finding someone to have a discussion with about fishing. In the end he settled on glaring. He was beginning to understand the owner's sour disposition, if this was what he had to put up with all the time. IIn the end, after a fair amount of haggling, Megabyte had obediently handed over the cash and let the old man wrap up the fan in faded tissue paper that looked like Mrs Noah had probably been using it to store the china on the Ark.

Now he was standing beside the shop window (which looked sort of unbalanced now the fan was gone), with Ami and Jade a couple of steps behind him arguing about whether or not Jade could stretch her allowance to cover the brass water bowl that very conveniently had 'Jessie' engraved on it. Kay was standing beside him, holding the well-wrapped parcel that was the peacock fan.

Or she was until she thrust the package into his arms and started running off down the street. Megabyte grabbed at the fan gingerly, afraid he might snap the delicate ivory sticks if he grasped it too hard. He caught it somewhere around his knees, and slowly tried straightening up again, gasping for breath. Kay's arm had caught him right in the solar plexus and his body was still trying to remember how to breathe again.

"Where's she going?" Jade asked from his side, water bowls forgotten.

Megabyte shook his head. "Don't know," he wheezed.

"KAY!" Ami bellowed, but the other girl didn't even turn. Ami looked after her and shook her own head, braids flying. "Well come on, then," she told the other two and started sprinting along the street. Megabyte and Jade exchanged glances and followed.

"Did you see her?" Kay asked as they reached her, not even turning her head to look at them. She was scanning the street as she spoke, her eyes flicking from person to person, resting a moment before discarding each individual and skipping on to the next. :Did you see her?:

"See who?" Ami demanded, her voice just a little sharp, a touch irritated.

"Dr Stratton," Kay answered as if that explained everything, never pausing in her survey of the street.

"And she is?" Ami prompted.

"She worked at the Institute," Kay answered in the same distracted voice. "She was nice." She said the last word as if it was being used out of context, didn't belong in the same breath as the others. "Little woman, wavy, sort of auburny hair, she looked like she was frightened of something. I'm _sure_ I saw her. And that means they're _here_. Where did she go?"

Jade could see someone that fitted Kay's description, not nearly as vague as it sounded because of the mental overtones that came with it. "Is that her?" she asked, pointing with a mental finger that showed Kay exactly where to look.

"Yeah," Kay agreed as she caught sight of the small figure trying to stay hidden within the crowds of Saturday shoppers on the other side of the street. "DR STRATTON!" she yelled at the top of her voice, causing more than a few heads to turn in their direction.

Dr Stratton started at the sound of her name, and bolted out of the crowd and down the nearest street, little more than a narrow gap between buildings.

Kay watched as she disappeared from view, then without a hint of her intention she teleported, the fading buzz and crackle the only indication she had ever been there.

"We'd better go after her," Megabyte and Ami both said at the same time, and looked at each other.

Ami nodded. "And we better do it the hard way," she added.

Jade was already weaving her way through the stalled traffic. "So what are you waiting for?"

*****

Emma couldn't believe it. They'd found her. She'd been sure it was going to happen, terrified it was going to happen, but now that it actually had she couldn't believe it. And all she could do now was run and hope they hadn't seen which was she went.

If she could just make it to the end of the alleyway before they entered it she might have a chance. They'd be forced to split their resources to cover all the possible routes she might have taken. She risked a glance backwards and was relieved to see that the street behind her was still empty.

When she turned back again there was a girl standing in front of her, blocking the way. No, a woman really. Or somewhere in between. Without even realising it, Emma stumbled to a ragged halt, staring at her.

"Hello, Dr Stratton," she said simply, and Emma stared a little harder, finally realising there was something impossibly familiar about her.

"Who...?" she stammered. "How...?"

The girl smiled, and the sense of recognition faded with the smile. "Who?" she repeated. "I'm Kay, Dr Stratton. And how?" Now the smile turned into a grin. "I teleported. I was afraid I wouldn't catch up with you if I ran."

Kay? For a moment Emma couldn't even work out what the word meant. When she did, she found herself shaking her head. It wasn't possible. Kay was dead. And even if she wasn't, this tall, confident, _smiling_ young woman couldn't possibly be Kay.

She seemed to understand what Emma was thinking. "I really am Kay," she insisted. "You covered for me, that time I got caught in the Colonel's office looking for Carl's book."

Emma looked at her again, finding traces of the quiet, cowed girl she remembered in this stranger. Finally she nodded, almost laughed in her disbelief. "Hello, Kay."

Then Kay's face clouded. "You're here. That means the Institute's here now, doesn't it?"

Reluctantly, Emma nodded. "And they're looking for me," she added with an involuntary shiver.

Some of Kay's confidence slipped away at her. "Why?"

"I stole something from them," Emma said quietly. "Two somethings actually. It was supposed to be more, but it all turned into a disaster."

"We have to tell Dad," a strange, male voice said from behind them. "This sounds serious."

Emma almost jumped out of her skin at the sound. Spinning around, she found three youngsters standing blocking the alleyway. The speaker was a young man, red-headed with a face full of freckles and carrying a tissue-wrapped parcel. On one side of him was a black girl about his own age with a serious face and dark eyes. On the other was a younger girl, her long blonde hair hanging loose.

"These are my friends," Kay said, finally coming forward to stand beside Emma. She introduced each one in turn with a wave of her hand. "Ami. Megabyte. And Jade. They're like me." Megabyte opened his mouth to say something and Kay laughed. "Okay then, I'm like them. We're Tomorrow People."

"Tomorrow People?" Emma repeated in confusion.

"We're the next stage in human evolution," Ami explained. "Kay is too. We just haven't quite figured out if she was all the time, or if she had some help getting there."

"Doesn't make what they did to us right," Kay said in a flat voice.

Emma thought of Jay, lying there dying. Of Alice, crying as she was dragged away. Of Teresa who, when it got right down to it, had been born into slavery and was supposed to have been only the first of many. "It's wrong," she agreed, in a voice as cold as Kay's had been. "They have to be stopped."

"I told you," Megabyte said, his tone one of exaggerated patience. "We have to tell Dad."

Who's he?" Emma demanded suspiciously.

"General Damon is already investigating the Institute," Ami explained. "He's trying to find out where they went, so that they can stop them. If you can tell him that, maybe they can be taken by surprise."

"This general," Emma began slowly. "He's got men, resources?"

Megabyte grinned. "Yeah, he helps us save the planet now and then."

After a moment's hesitation, Emma nodded decisively. "Then he could help me rescue Alice?"

"Alice?!" Kay rounded on her. "Alice is _alive_? And you didn't tell me? Who else? Who else is still alive?"

"Only Alice," Emma said gently. She swallowed, still seeing the carpark in her mind. "Jay died when we tried to escape, and they caught Alice. Only I got away." She hesitated again, for longer this time. But this was Kay, and her friends, and she didn't have anyone else to trust. Not that she could tell the real story. Telling Miriam would probably get her another cup of camomile tea and a recommendation she talk to a counsellor. There was no-one else at all, only Kay and her friends. "And Teresa," she added. "I got Teresa away."

"Who's Teresa?" Kay asked. "There wasn't a Teresa."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Emma smiled. "There is now. It's a long story."

It was obvious Kay wanted to know all about all of it and right now, but she glanced around the alley and made a difficult decision. "Then I think we'd better go and get this Teresa and find Bill, and you can tell all of us everything."

Emma nodded, hiding a smile. She found she was looking forward to seeing Kay's face when she saw Teresa for the first time, and decided not to elaborate any further. And as for the catalyst, well, she would meet this General Damon and _then_ she would decide if she was going to tell him about it or not.

SEVEN

Bill Damon was looking forward to the quiet and solitude of his office. It had been one hell of a morning. First the Varetsky Courier case had suddenly gone up in flames around them. The conclusion _was_ satisfactory, but it was far from as good as he had been hoping. Then the Minister had called, wanting to be reassured that preparations for the trade delegation security were going as planned. Since she was much better at talking than she was a listening, it had taken him the better part of an hour just to say what amounted to a simple 'yes'. And to top it all off, half the cafeteria staff had called in sick, down with food poisoning after they had gone out to dinner the previous night to celebrate someone's birthday. He thought he'd dig out that pillow he had hidden in the back of a cupboard, put his feet up on the desk and try to get a few minutes peace and quiet before the next crisis came calling.

He spent most of the walk along the corridor waiting for someone to call out to him, for a worried voice to stop him and give him another problem to solve. To his relief, he made it to his office door without an urgent summons and slipped quickly inside. He peered into the corridor one last time - empty, thankfully - and closed the door, pausing to rest his head against it, his eyes closed, just watching the blackness behind his eyelids.

Behind him, someone cleared their throat.

He took a moment before he turned; a moment to compose himself, to wipe the fatigue and the frustration from his face, to banish his annoyance at the interruption. Then he straightened up and turned around.

Frank Miller and Laurel Hadley were standing awkwardly beside his desk, looking rather like a couple of schoolchildren who had been sent to the principal's office.

Trying to look as if hiding behind the door was something every normal person did as part of the daily routine, Damon crossed the carpet in a few quick strides and dropped gratefully into his chair. "Is there a problem?" he asked mildly,

Frank and Laurel exchanged nervous, awkward looks, as if they were both hoping the other would take up the task of explaining what they were doing here. Damon started to get the feeling he wasn't going to like this. "Sit," he ordered, pointing a finger at the chairs his colleagues seemed to have completely ignored.

They looked at each other again, considered the concept, looked a third time, and then sat. Nervously. No, he definitely wasn't going to like this. "Right," he said as cheerfully as he could. "At least I'm not going to get a crick in my neck looking up at you. So what's the problem?"

"Well, sir..." Frank began. "Ah...we think we've worked it out."

"Worked what out?" Damon asked blankly. "What are we actually talking about?"

"The Institute," Frank answered. "Their research. Kay."

"And the other children," Laurel added in a quiet voice.

Damon felt a nasty, icy, sinking feeling start somewhere around the location of his stomach. "What other children?" he asked carefully, unaware of just how forbidding his tone sounded.

"Ah..." Frank looked up to see the expression on his face and wound down to an unconvincing halt.

Unfortunately, Laurel was undeterred. "Your son. And his friends," she said in that same, quiet voice.

It was the general's turn to flounder helplessly. "Oh... Ah..."

"We haven't told anyone else," Frank added quickly. "We came to you first. We don't want to cause any trouble or anything, it's just that..."

"How the hell are we supposed to do our jobs if you don't give us all the data?" Laurel interrupted. "You talk about open discussion and full and free exchange of information and then you start keeping secrets on us."

"I don't..." Damon tried, but couldn't finish the sentence. When it came right down to it, she was right. From the day he had discovered that Professor Galt's research project had suddenly got very close to home, he had started telling less that the whole truth. When Kay had come along, turned out to be a Tomorrow Person and needed a place to stay, he had just extended the lie without really even stopping to think about it.

Laurel was a loyal, dedicated member of his team, with a passionate belief in the truth. It was part of what made her so good at her job, but right now he easily could have done without it. Beside her, Frank was looking uncomfortable, but still determined.

"Things don't add up, General," he said. "They haven't for a while. But with Kay and the search for the Institute, it's just got worse. Like the way she got to the States just hours after I'd spoken to her. How did she do that?"

Laurel turned her head to look at him, her profile sharp and clear. "We've already figured that out, Frank. Why are you suddenly afraid to say it?"

He shrugged and looked away, and she sighed. She turned back to Damon, her gaze steady.

"She teleported," Laurel said flatly. "It's the only answer. There is no record of Kay entering this country - not ever. But we know she was in the States. She told us where the Institute was, but she was here when she did it. She teleported. What evidence we have found about the Institute and its plans supports the conclusion. They were trying to create superbeings - telepaths, teleporters, who knows what else - and Kay is one of them."

"An interesting conclusion," Damon commented lamely.

"The only logical one," Laurel insisted before he could say anything more. "And it doesn't end there, either."

"Somehow I knew you were going to say that."

She smiled, a wry, acknowledging curve of her lips. "Your son and his friends fit the profile too, sir. We didn't see it until we had the Institute data to link it all together. They keep appearing, sometimes almost literally, at crucial moments, often knowing more about the current investigation than we do. Looking over the records we even found reports on a project overseen by a Professor Galt, into teleporters."

It was Damon's turn to smile, and his was much more wry and ironic than hers had been. "You've certainly done your homework."

Laurel looked steadily at him. "That's what you pay me for, sir."

He nodded. "Yes, it is, isn't it? That'll serve me right for hiring people with brains and initiative."

She almost laughed, but her voice stayed deadly serious. "How long has this been going on, General? Years? I still can't really see you as part of something like the Institute, or even the murkier aspects of Galt's work. Please tell me you're not."

"What?!" Damon abruptly sat upright. "You think I - " He spluttered a moment, indignant. "I assure you, I have never - " He paused, marshalling his thoughts and protests into some kind of order. "Only Kay has any connection to the Institute. Your conclusions are impressive and correct. _But..._" He emphasised the word, leaning over the desk towards them. "...what Kay _really_ needs right now is a chance to find out what just being human really means. She hasn't before now. She is helping our investigations where necessary, and she is under observation, informal observation, by me. I may have bent the rules a little, but I certainly haven't broken them."

Frank was nodding, looking relieved. Laurel looked mostly satisfied by his explanation, but she hadn't finished.

"And the others?" she asked.

"The others..." Damon hesitated, unsure what to say. These two were his inner circle, his deputies and most trusted aides. If it was only his decision, only his secret to tell, then he would give them the answers they were asking for. But this wasn't only his decision - in many ways it wasn't his at all. This was something for the Tomorrow People to decide, who and when and how to tell, and he had no right to make it for them. He just wasn't sure how he was going get Laurel out of his office if she didn't get the answers she was looking for.

It was at that precise moment that the door swung open and Adam Newman walked in. Under the circumstances, Damon supposed he had to be grateful the young man hadn't decide to teleport instead of using the door like normal people did.

He stopped as he realised the general wasn't alone. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled that engaging smile of his. "I'm sorry, General. I didn't realise you were busy. Megabyte asked me to meet him here. He said it was important." He gestured behind himself. "I'll just wait outside."

"Oh, don't do that." Laurel looked rather like she was closing in for the kill. "We were just talking about you."

Adam looked rather nervous at that. "You were?"

He glanced at Damon, who was forced to shrug. "Ms Hadley has been conjecturing. Some of it quite accurately, I'm afraid. All I can say is that she's quite trustworthy."

Adam stared at Laurel for a while, before turning back to Damon. "Ah, could we talk outside for a moment, please, General?"

Damon nodded, but before we could so much as stand, before he could even attempt convincing Laurel to wait, the door opened again. This time a veritable army trooped in, lead by his son. Ami and Jade followed him, and behind them was Kay, her hand on the arm of a woman Damon had never seen before. She was probably in her thirties, a little short, with soft, auburn hair that framed a rather plain face and made it into more than perhaps it really was. Right now, she looked tense, a little nervous, and somehow completely out of place.

"Dad, you'll never believe what's happened this morning," Megabyte announced. As Adam had, he jerked to a halt when he caught sight of the room's extra occupants, and the two of them exchanged glances that made Damon certain they were talking to each other.

"It's _important_," Kay insisted a moment later, apparently in response to some unspoken comment. She rounded on him. "Bill, we know where the Institute is now. You have to go and stop it."

"How do you know?" he asked calmly.

Kay pulled her companion forward. "This is Dr Stratton. She worked there, but she got away. And..." Kay's voice cracked suddenly. "...and Jay's dead, and they've still got Alice and there's someone called Teresa that I don't know, and..." She rounded on the other woman, her voice getting sharper, touching on hysterical. "Who _is_ Teresa? And where is she?" She turned back to Damon. "Someone should get a map, and..."

It was Laurel who stood and crossed to Kay's side. She took her by the arm and gently guided her to the nearest chair, helped her to sit. "It's all right, Kay," she said softly. "It's all under control. Frank's going to go and get a map. Aren't you, Frank?" she added pointedly.

"Uh, yeah," Frank agreed, halfway to the door before he even realised what he was doing.

"And then your friend Dr Stratton can show us where we need to go, and we'll go. Okay?"

Kay's breathing was steadying, and she nodded. "And you'll rescue Alice?"

"We'll rescue Alice," Laurel promised. She hesitated, suddenly uncertain when faced with the proof of her theories. "Is Alice like you, Kay? Can you talk to her, or can she...?"

Kay was shaking her head. "Alice can't do anything. I can't even feel her. That's why I thought she was..." She trailed off as she realised what Laurel had said. "How did you know?" She cast an accusatory glance at Damon, looking betrayed.

Laurel saw it. "The general didn't tell me, Kay. He didn't tell anyone. I worked it out for myself. And I won't tell anyone else, unless you say I can." She grimaced, as she suddenly realised she had just put herself in exactly the same position Damon had been in before. It forced her to have a lot more understanding of his hesitation than she really wanted to.

He had the decency not to smile, only nodded gratitude for her swift defence and turned his attention a few feet to Laurel's left. "Dr Stratton?"

The little woman started, as if she had forgotten there was anyone else in the room. Damon offered her his best attempt at a reassuring smile. "No-one's remembered to introduce us, but I'm Bill Damon. I've been leading the team looking for the Institute since we found Kay."

"To stop them?" Dr Stratton gave him a searching, piercing look that didn't seem to match with her slightly dippy appearance. "Or to try to use their research? Kay and the others like her?" Her gaze swept across the Tomorrow People and back to Damon. "I don't know how you made them, but I won't let you use them. I won't let _anyone_ use _any_ of them any more."

"Made them?" Damon repeated blankly. Then what she had said sank in. "I never _made_ anybody anything," he said furiously. "If you so much as think - "

"Dad!" Megabyte interrupted loudly, just as Frank slipped back into the room, clutching a sheaf of maps and papers.

The room was silent. Emma was waiting to hear what was said next; the young people were standing quietly - they had moved together until they were standing in a group, a united front, Kay on her feet again and one with them as if she had never been anything else. Laurel looked rather like someone who had opened the locked door and wasn't sure she liked what she had found; Frank looked a little lost.

Finally, it was Adam who spoke, obviously reluctantly, the other Tomorrow People silent support behind him. "We're no-one's experiments. Kay might have been once, but now she's one of us. And we won't be controlled by anyone. Not even General Damon. He's protected us and helped us, and we've helped him. But he doesn't order us or control us."

"But it's true?" Laurel said quietly. "You're...?" She looked steadily at him. "Just what _are_ you?"

"We're the next stage in human evolution," Ami answered.

Laurel looked almost awed, reality different from theory. "Telepathic? Can you teleport? I know Kay must be able to."

"Yeah, all that," Megabyte agreed, sounding almost bored. "What about the Institute? Isn't Dr Stratton going to show us where it is? Then what? Where's this Teresa?"

"Who's Teresa?" Damon interrupted, when his son showed no sign of stopping.

Emma took the seat Kay had vacated, her decision made. "Teresa is Alice and Jay's daughter," she said simply. "She's six months old and right now she's safe in a women's refuge shelter."

Kay's jaw was hanging somewhere around her ankles. "Jay and Alice have a _baby_?"

Emma nodded. "I tried to help the three of them escape, but it all went wrong. Jay was killed and they caught Alice again, but I got Teresa away." She thought of the catalyst, safely hidden, and wasn't quite sure she chose not to speak of it. "I'll show you where the Institute is, and you can rescue Alice."

Damon nodded, and gestured Frank and his maps forward. "We'll send someone to collect the baby as well. She needs some proper protection."

"We'll go," Ami said quickly. "We can bring her back safely, and without looking conspicuous."

"I'll have to come with you," Emma agreed. "They won't let anyone else take her."

"I'll send some men," Damon said.

Emma shook her head. "That wouldn't help at all. The girls and I can go." She swallowed a little nervously. "We'll be fine."

Damon didn't like it, but he could see her point. "All right. But Laurel goes with you instead. And you can show us where the Institute is first."

Dr Stratton nodded and came to look at the maps spread out of the general's desk.

"We'll come to the Institute then," Megabyte said enthusiastically.

Damon looked at his son. "You will _not_," he said flatly. "This will only be reconnaissance anyway, and you are _not_ coming."

Megabyte looked like he was going to protest, but he suddenly shut his mouth, so that Damon wondered what Adam - if it had been Adam - had said to him.

Emma pointed a finger at an intersection of lines on the map. "There."

EIGHT

The buildings beyond the chain link fence looked plain and ordinary. A series of low, blocky buildings made of concrete and aluminium, joined by a series of interconnecting walkways, fronted by a vast asphalt parking area. Signs wired to the fence proclaimed it to be the home of Typhon Chemicals and warned potential trespassers to say out in no uncertain terms. It appeared to be deserted except for the two security guards on sentry duty at the front gate.

Bill Damon had his people spread around the block that comprised the Institute, studying the situation and attempting to blend into suburbia with varying degrees of success. The information coming in made no sense as yet, but it wasn't supposed to at this point. The point in gathering intelligence is to go away, think about it, correlate it and develop an overall view of the circumstances, followed by a course of action. On the spot decisions and seat-of-the-pants responses were something else again, and Damon was seriously hoping they could be avoided.

>From his position in the front of the nursery van, the general had a clear view of the main entrance, with its locked gate and bored-looking sentries. He barely head the low hum and crackle behind him, as the information came in, whispered into hidden microphones by the observers outside and fed into this temporary command centre, its high-tech equipment hidden among rose bushes and flowering shrubs. Behind him, the two surveillance experts added that information to their growing collection of facts and conjecture, building up a hopefully coherent picture of their target. And if the weather continued to improve, they might even get some satellite photos to add to the mix.

Damon's eyes went back to the silent and shuttered buildings. This wouldn't be an easy nut to crack, but it shouldn't be impossible, and right now they had the element of surprise, which was always worth more than most people imagined. He absently propped one foot up on the dashboard and carried on watching, while the information continued to flow in behind him.

On another street, on the other side of the block from the parked van, a woman was gazing through the fence to the buildings beyond with similar attention. Subliminally aware of the electricity coursing through it, she stayed a pace away from the wire, staring past it, searching for someone she didn't know.

And in a dark corner inside the Institute, beside a locked back door and an overflowing, smelly garbage skip, there was a flash and a pop as two figures materialised out of the empty air.

They looked around, looked at each other, and Megabyte nodded in the direction of the door. "In there?"

Adam nodded, and tried the handle. It rattled, the sound seeming unrealistically loud in the silence, but didn't open. He hesitated for a moment, a frown creasing his forehead, but it cleared a instant later as he pulled his hand away from the handle and stopped it again just inches from the metal. The frown returned as he concentrated, and a globe of soft green light pooled around his hand. Long seconds later there was a short, sharp click and the light faded. Adam gave the door a push and it swung silently open.

"Nice," Megabyte commented approvingly and slipped past him into the building.

The corridor was wide and white, with soundproofing tiles on the ceiling and polished linoleum on the floor. There were closed, unmarked doors at regular intervals along it, and a security camera in the ceiling, panning towards them in its pre-programmed arc.

It was Adam who saw the camera, just as Megabyte was about to walk into its line of sight. He grabbed his friend by the arm and hauled him unceremoniously backwards. Megabyte stumbled and opened his mouth to protest, probably loudly, but Adam forestalled him with a hissed, "Look!", and pointed towards the ceiling.

Megabyte's eyes widened as he saw the camera, still rotating, getting closer and closer to seeing them. "So how do we get past?" he whispered.

Adam shrugged, then grinned as the answer occurred to him.

A second later, Megabyte worked it out too, and grinned. "After you," he said quietly, and gestured Adam forward with an overdone sweep of his arm.

There was a slight flash and a quiet _pop_ and Adam was suddenly further on down the corridor, safely on the other side of the camera. The lens moved another few programmed degrees, reaching the point where Megabyte had been standing, but he was gone, safely beyond the camera's purview.

They tried the doors as they went by, on the watch now for any more security cameras, but most were locked, some by old-fashioned lock and key, others with state-of-the-art and beyond electronic locks. Behind the only door they managed to open was a janitor's closet, filled with mops and brooms and buckets.

"This is hopeless," Adam said in disgust, shoving a dirty mop that looked about ready to start walking under its own power back into its corner.

"Yeah," Megabyte agreed. "We're never going to find her like this."

Adam frowned, Megabyte kicked at the pile of unwashed hand towels near his feet, and they both looked at each other, identical expressions on their faces.

"Of course, we could always call her," Adam said slowly.

"It's worth a try," Megabyte agreed. "Together?"

Adam nodded, and they both turned their concentration inwards, sending their thoughts outwards.

:Alice? Alice? Can you hear us? Alice?:

*****

Outside, Elizabeth frowned.

*****

But there was no reply.

They looked at each other across the cleaning equipment, and finally Megabyte shrugged. "I guess we keep doing it the hard way."

The corridor was still empty when they re-entered it, this section's camera pointing in the opposite direction. They managed to slip around a corner before it turned in their direction, and found themselves in another corridor, almost identical to the first one, except that it was shorter, the floor was little more polished and the paint a little newer and brighter. But the doors remained blank and closed, and there was still no-one to be seen.

They had almost made it to the end of the corridor when they heard footsteps and voices coming towards them from around the next corner. They exchanged quick glances, not even needing telepathy to ask each other swiftly, 'What now?'

More as a matter of course than from any expectation of success, Megabyte tried the nearest door. It would be locked - all the others had been - and they would really be better to teleport away, even if it did mean abandoning Alice. But to his surprise it opened, swinging silently inwards.

Adam grinned at him, and was through it in a flash, leaving Megabyte to follow him. It was clearly a conference room, with a long, oval table taking up most of the space. Plain, functional, high-backed chairs were set around it at precise angles and there was an equally plain, equally functional podium at the far end of the room. Beside that was a blackboard, and a little further along the wall a pull-down screen was half unrolled. It was a strangely out-of-place piece of chaos in an environment that was otherwise precisely neat and controlled. Beside the door, a set of stairs led up to a mezzanine gallery.

Megabyte grinned and opened his mouth to say something clever, but before he got the chance they both heard the quiet sound of footsteps and voices on the other side of the door stop. He froze, the words unspoken, waiting for the steps to start up again, walking away from the door.

But they didn't, instead they came closer still, until it was clear this room was their destination, the reason the door had opened, just as it was about to do again at any moment.

Megabyte was poised on the balls of his feet, ready to run - or to teleport. :Let's get out of here.:

Adam shook his head, indicated the stairs with a jerk of his shoulder. :Up there. Let's see if we can hear what they have to say.:

They barely made it onto the balcony before the door opened and the first person walked through it. Megabyte wasn't sure which had been louder, his footsteps on the wooden stairs or the thumping of his heart, but it didn't seem possible that they hadn't heard at least _one_ of them. But luck was with him and they carried on towards the conference table without pausing.

>From their aerial position, Adam and Megabyte could easily see the people gathered at the table and, with a little more effort, even hear what they were saying. There were five of them, four men and a single, stern-faced woman. The oldest man took a seat at the head of the table. He looked like he was probably about sixty, with steel grey hair cut short and an equally neat, equally short grey beard. He was dressed in a dark, dark green jacket and matching trousers and he wore them like they were a uniform. The woman and another two of the men wore long, white lab coats that hid anything else they might be wearing. The last man was wearing brown trousers and a tight fitting khaki pullover. He took a seat beside the older man and the others found seats on the opposite side of the table.

They had barely had the time to pull up their chairs when the first man spoke, his words directed to the man at his side. "So have you found them?" There was a faint edge to his words that suggested he wasn't particularly hopeful of getting a satisfactory answer.

However, the younger man wasn't fazed by either his tone or stern look. "I'm sorry, Colonel," he answered with a shake of his head. "Not yet, but we're still looking. Even somewhere the size of London, it isn't easy for a woman to stay hidden for long, especially when she's burdened by a baby." He smiled, a sardonic twist a his lips. "And I doubt the good doctor has much experience when it comes to babies."

:He must mean Dr Stratton and Teresa,: Megabyte commented wordlessly.

"Mmm," Adam agreed quietly. :But shut up, Megabyte. I'm trying to listen.:

Megabyte shut up.

"Well, find them," the Colonel said crossly. "There's not much point in having a head of security if he can't secure anything." He gave the man beside him a cold, steady look. "Is there?"

He swallowed and shook his head. "No, Colonel."

"Emma Stratton is going to regret this brief burst of conscience." The Colonel frowned. "But most of all I want that baby back. I've invested a lot of time and money in her and I will be most disappointed if I don't see any results. I can't exactly find out how she works if she isn't here, can I?"

:Ugh,: Adam said. :Kay was right, they really do think of them as experiments.:

The Colonel clearly didn't expect an answer to his rhetorical question, and he didn't get one. Instead, he turned his attention to the three scientists. As one they all almost imperceptibly leaned back in their chairs, as if trying to lessen the contact by a fraction of added distance.

"What about the catalyst?" he demanded. "Did she leave any behind?"

There was a long, reluctant silence that pretty much spoke for itself. When the Colonel began to look annoyed, the woman finally answered the question. "No," she said simply. "She didn't."

"Can you make more?"

"Possibly," the woman answered cautiously. "She destroyed a lot of the notes. We found them shredded this morning and she dumped the disks in the lab sink. Last night we were too busy concentrating on the catalyst itself think about the notes. There are some on the main computer, but they're not complete."

"We'll be short of a number of reagents too," one of the men added. "We hadn't restocked because we thought we were beyond the initial prep stages."

"What will you need?" the Colonel asked. "I'll make sure you get it."

*****

The radio in the back of the nursery van crackled into life again. Damon stretched, trying to work the crick out of his neck, and half-listened to the activity going on behind him. The front gate was as quiet and innocent-looking as it had always been, and none of the reports to come in so far had had anything of much interest to say. Typhon Chemicals looked quiet, boring and law-abiding. Damon had serious doubts it was any of those, but that was how it _looked_.

"General?"

He squirmed around in his seat until he was facing the back of the van. The young man wearing headphones and looking at him with earnest, puppy dog eyes didn't look old enough to be out of high school, let alone be a qualified (if inexperienced) intelligence officer. It made him feel old.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"There's a report from Mr Miller, sir," he answered, and his voice was earnest too, and just a little breathless.

Damon raised an inquiring eyebrow, and the boy flushed, and stammered out a flustered answer.

"He's picked someone up, sir. A woman. He says she won't give any credible explanation for being there and he thinks you should go around and check it out for yourself, sir."

The general turned back to look at the quiet front gate. It didn't look like anything was going to happen there any time much before the second coming. He nodded, flicking his gaze back to the young man behind him, waiting patiently for his reply. "Where is he?"

He looked blank for a moment, the realisation flooded into those expressive eyes, making Damon hope no-one ever picked him for any kind of undercover work. "Oh. You mean Mr Miller, sir. He's about a block away, near the Vallance Road/Douglas Street corner."

Damon called up a metal image of the map as it had been lying across his desk with Dr Stratton bending over it, pointing out entrances and security posts. It wasn't far and he didn't appear to be needed here. And the exercise would do his good.

He opened the van door and swung a leg out onto the footpath. "I'll walk," he announced a little unnecessarily and finished clambering out of the vehicle. He was several paces away before anyone could protest, even if his driver did give him an exasperated kind of look. Puppy-Dog-Eyes and his friend in the back wouldn't have dared.

He just hoped this woman had something useful to contribute.

*****

Whoever this 'Colonel' was, he clearly had extensive and highly specialised resources. The three scientists had diffidently demanded a whole range of things neither Adam nor Megabyte had ever heard of, and that they wouldn't want to be asked to spell. The old man had stared at each of them in turn until they squirmed and then agreed to every thing they asked for. Or every thing but one.

Time.

On that subject he remained immovable. No matter what they asked, they always got the same answer.

You have one week.

Finally, the man on the left sighed and leaned back in his chair. "All right, Colonel. We'll do our best for you in one week, but we're not going to have the kind of specificity and accuracy we did before. Emma was the primary genius behind this. She knew what to destroy as well as what to take. You'll have your catalyst, but I won't be answerable for any unexpected side-effects that might crop up."

:What's this catalyst?: Megabyte asked. :Dr Stratton didn't say anything about a catalyst.:

:I don't know,: Adam answered. :And I'm trying to listen. Shut up, Megabyte.:

"You'd do better to try to get the original stock back," the woman commented.

"Won't Stratton have destroyed it?" the security man asked.

She laughed and shook her head. "Not Emma. She's fundamentally incapable of throwing out anything that might be useful. And it gives her a bargaining chip, along with the baby. That's why she took it instead of just destroying it here and making it obvious what she'd done."

The Colonel smiled - if it could be called that. It was a particularly unpleasant expression. "Then we'll just have to find a bargaining chip of our own." His sharp gaze flicked to his chief of security. "Where's the subject you did manage to hold on to? She's about to get her chance to show she's worth keeping around. If anyone can find Stratton and the baby, it ought to be her. And if she can't, well..." His voice trailed of menacingly.

:That's Alice,: Megabyte said unnecessarily.

:And Kay said she doesn't have any special powers,: Adam agreed. :We have to get to her first.:

:How? We don't know where she is.:

:Then we have to find her. Come on.:

And Adam teleported. Frowning, Megabyte followed.

They rematerialised back beside the garbage bin and the back door. Adam immediately started walking towards the end of the alleyway and the compounds main courtyard. Megabyte followed, protesting.

"They'll see us if we go out there."

"We'll be careful," Adam snapped back. "If we go out there, that security guy will have to come out of the building to go and find Alice. We wait at the end of the alley, wait, and then follow him."

"Maybe she's in the same building and he won't come out."

"She's not," Adam said firmly.

"How do you know?"

He shrugged. "I just do. And besides..."

He didn't get the chance to finish. A large, ugly, yellow forklift came lumbering around the corner, clearly heading for the rubbish container. The driver braked instinctively as he saw the two young men, and the machine slowed. But then he must have realised there was no way they were supposed to be there, and he hit the accelerator again, heading directly for them.

With barely the chance to think, Adam and Megabyte turned tail and started running in the opposite direction.

*****

Whatever else might have changed on Earth in the last decade or so, it didn't appear to have been the military mind. The man doing all the talking didn't seem to be overly military, but the younger chap with him certainly was. He had that straight-backed stance and the I-don't-do-my-own-thinking-so-don't-try-me look that tended to characterise the armed services. And now there was a general on the way. Elizabeth didn't think she had anything to say to a general.

She was tempted to just jaunt away. But considering she wasn't supposed to have left the beacon and its little bit of Pacific paradise, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to draw attention to herself. She would just have to talk to this general when he showed up.

"What's going on, Frank?" a pleasant voice asked, and she looked away from the compound to see that they had been joined by another man. He looked to be in his forties, with an oval face and brown-auburn hair. He appeared friendly, almost inoffensive, and Liz wondered what he was doing here.

"We found this lady, General," the man called Frank replied. He jerked a shoulder towards the fence. "She seemed to be watching the compound and she won't tell us what she's doing here."

Elizabeth was surprised. This was the general? Maybe things had changed after all.

"This is a serious security matter, ma'am," he told her with quiet authority. "We need to know what you're doing here. Do you have any connection with or information about the institution on the other side of that fence?" To her surprise he still didn't give her that prickly feeling at the back of her neck, as if her instincts found him a threat and were telling her to run. Instead, she almost wanted to help him, would almost have answered his questions if her answers hadn't been quite so totally unbelievable and likely to land her in the nearest loony bin.

He frowned when she didn't respond, and his voice grew a little harder. "Then I'll have to ask you to come with us." He placed a hand on her arm, his grip surprisingly firm. Or perhaps in should have been unsurprisingly, Liz reflected, trying not to pull away.

It would be easier just to go. She could always come back later, and there didn't seem to be much of anything going on here just now. Whoever was inside, they weren't broadcasting at all any more. There hadn't been another peep from them since that first, aching cry. It would be safer just to go.

But that was when she felt it. Something, coming from inside the compound. It wasn't fear, quite. It wasn't panic, quite. But there was something of both of those. A surge of adrenaline rendered into feeling, a taste, a breath, a touch, present in the air if only you had the senses to receive it.

Not even realising she was doing it, Elizabeth pulled free and stepped closer to the fence, straining to feel something that came and went like the breeze.

"Ma'am." The general's voice was sharp now, and it blotted out the almost-presence with a force that surprised her, far stronger than she would have expected from a sap, especially one in the military.

But he hadn't run out of surprises for her yet. He gave her a very searching look and sighed. "You know more than you're telling about what's going on in there, don't you? I really would appreciate a little assistance. There's a least one person on the other side of that fence in serious trouble, and I want to get her out. So I'll take any help you might like to give."

Again, Liz found she wanted to help him - just preferably without getting herself committed, arrested or dissected. And ex-Federation Ambassador or not, she didn't feel up to the job. Which meant it was time to call in the cavalry.

:Mike? Are you busy?:

The answer came quickly, easy and laconic. :Almost done. Why?:

:I'm outside those buildings - I know, don't tell me off - and I've got a general here who's very interested in both me and the other side of the fence. I thought you could come and talk to him. You always were good at talking your way out of trouble.:

There was a mental chuckle threaded through Mike's reply. :I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.:

:Please, Mike. He's starting to give me suspicious looks.:

:All right, I'm coming.: On the other side of the planet, Mike brushed his hand across the carving of the Ship's command console one last time, his fingers tracing a specific, pre-determined pattern. That done, he jaunted.

Behind him, the empty Ship began slowly coming to life.

*****

Jaunting in at a safe, theoretically undetectable distance, Mike could see Elizabeth surrounded by three men, their expressions ranging from stern to exasperated. As he walked up to them, one of the men - the one looking exasperated - shook his head and frowned.

"Look, lady. Either you talk to us now, or you come with us and you talk to us later. Why don't you make it easy on all of us and talk now?"

Mike put on his most ingratiating smile and joined the group. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

*****

The forklift rounded another corner, Adam and Megabyte a few, precious metres in front. Running took up all their consciousness, leaving no room for anything else. Pounding feet, thumping heart, harsh, rasping breathing, aching legs, swinging arms. The whole world was running, except for that little bit that was aware of the towering, lumbering threat behind, that for all its ungainly awkwardness, was still gaining, steadily, steadily, steadily.

Far off to one side was the outer fence, twisted metal wire the only barrier to the sanctuary that was the street outside. But it was too far away. Too far to be reached, too far considered, yet only a glance away.

Coming up in front of them was a wall - rough unplastered concrete, grey and ugly. Coming up behind them was the forklift - its forks lowered, shiny, dangerous and lethal. No time to change direction, no time to jump aside, no time to think.

And finally, at the last possible moment, when sense and reason and rational thought had failed, blind instinct kicked in.

They teleported.

The forklift hit the wall.

And did some serious damage.

*****

Mike had paused, mid-glib explanation, as two people had come pounding around a corner inside the compound, closely followed by a large, yellow forklift that looked like it meant business. Elizabeth's head came up sharply, turning towards the running figures without being prompted. Beside him the general - Damon he had said his name was - had gone quite still, watching.

They ran almost blindly, taking the only direction left to them, caught between the barrier in front and the danger behind, and then, suddenly, they had disappeared, with a pop and a snap and a flash.

Surprised despite himself, Mike blinked. "What was that?"

"That was my son." The general sounded resigned more than anything else. Not surprised, not afraid, not even angry, just resigned.

Elizabeth gave Damon a thoughtful look. His son? Deciding it was an acceptable risk, she spoke her next sentence out loud instead of silently, privately, as she had been intending to. "They jaunted, Mike. I think we've found our telepaths."

Mike nodded.

The look on Damon's face was comical.

NINE

Blind or badly visualised teleports land you in the sea. That was a fact plain and simple. Even Adam still did it now and again. If you hadn't been concentrating as you dematerialised; if you had something more important on your mind; if you were running on blind instinct; then that strange, determined pull of the hidden spaceship dragged you into the warm, southern ocean.

Adam's subconscious was bracing him for the plunge, the sudden loss of air, even as he began to materialise. But this time there was something wrong, something different. His feet unexpectedly hit something solid and his knees buckled so that he found himself collapsing, ungraciously and unceremoniously, onto the floor. There was a thud and a thump from beside him as Megabyte made the same unexpected landing.

"Ouch," he said in a disgruntled voice.

Adam looked over at him and for the first time actually noticed where it was they had landed. They were at the spaceship. But they were right inside it, sitting on the floor in the main control room, on the raised dais in the corner that they had never managed to determine the use of, each nursing a sore backside and a vague sense of dislocation. "Well, at least we didn't get wet," he commented.

Megabyte looked up and Adam saw the same realisation dawning on his face. "Yeah," he agreed. "You'd think whoever built this thing would have planned it better."

"Of course they did," said a smooth, cultured, vaguely female voice, coming from all directions and no direction at the same time. "The beacon was designed to guide any new break-outs to the internal jaunting pad."

Megabyte gave Adam a cautious look. "Did you say anything?"

"Not me."

"I did," said the same voice. "I would have introduced myself long ago, but I'm afraid my self-repair systems were damaged in the same earthquake that set the beacon off-target."

Adam and Megabyte exchanged a further look. "I think it's the spaceship," Adam said dubiously.

"Of course I'm the Ship." The voice was starting to sound a little exasperated. "What did you think I was? One of the hermit crabs that took up residence in my secondary generator space last summer?"

Slowly, in unconscious unison, the two teenagers turned to face the room's central column. Usually it had a strange, fitful almost-glow about it, while the stone circle around it stayed cold and dark. Now, the column was alive with light, colours shifting and changing, sweeping up and down the cables within the pillar. The console glowed gently and the stone seemed alive, with a cool, translucent sheen to it. The same glow, seeming to come from deep within the stone, permeated the walls, lighting up the room with a light that was bright but unexpectedly gentle.

Soft laughter filled the air. "You do look surprised. Thought I was just a pile of junk, didn't you?"

"Ah..." said Megabyte uncertainly, not prepared to admit that was a pretty accurate assessment.

Adam, who had always had a better connection to the spaceship, smiled. "So why haven't you talked to us before?" he asked curiously.

"Well, I would have done." The answer actually sounded defensive. "But my communications circuits were damaged in the upheaval. Now they've been repaired, I'm introducing myself."

Now it was Megabyte's turn to be curious. "Do you have a name?"

"'Ship' will do," the voice said calmly. "It's short, simple and to the point."

Adam stood up. "Hello, Ship. I'm Adam."

"I know," the Ship agreed. "You might not know me, but I've known you ever since you first found your way here. Megabyte too."

"Yeah, well..." Megabyte commented absently, trying to work out what it was he was missing. There was something wrong with this scenario, and he just couldn't quite put his finger on it. Adam seemed entranced by this new spaceship-with-personality and was busy talking to it instead of taking a sensible moment to be cautious like he usually did.

Then it came to him. "Hey, wait a moment," he interrupted. "Who repaired you? Who's been here and fixed you?"

Adam turned to frown at him, but stopped in surprise, staring at something over Megabyte's left shoulder. Suddenly feeling his shoulderblades itching, the redhead jerked around.

"That would be us," said the man standing in a corner of the room. The composed, elegant woman beside him smiled at the pair of them and nodded. They were both old, something like Megabyte's dad's age, but somehow they were kind of ageless at the same time. The man was wearing jeans and an open-necked red cotton shirt, the woman a long skirt that swirled around her ankles and a lacy white blouse. Getting a crick in his neck from looking up, Megabyte pulled himself to his feet, never taking his eyes off the strangers. There was no way they could have come in through the portal and got past Adam and Megabyte without being seen, which suggested... Megabyte ran down at that point, not quite up to making the final connection.

"And who are you?" Adam demanded.

The man shrugged. "We're Tomorrow People. We're the next stage in human evolution."

Megabyte grinned and nudged Adam in the ribs with one elbow. "Hey, isn't that your line?"

Adam was shaking his head. "You can't be Tomorrow People. You're too..."

"Old," Megabyte blurted.

The woman laughed. "I guess to you, we are. You could say that we're the Tomorrow People Mark I. You must be Mark II. I don't know if we're exactly the same or not, but we'll certainly be very similar."

"But who _are_ you?" Adam repeated.

The man stepped down from the low platform and held out a hand for Adam to shake. "I'm Mike Bell." He smiled at his friend and offered her his other hand to help her down. "And this is Elizabeth M'Bondo."

She smiled pleasantly at them. "Hello."

"Hi," Megabyte agreed. He'd given up on trying to work everything out and was just going with the flow. Someone, most probably Adam, would explain it all to him later. "I'm Megabyte Damon."

"Ah," Elizabeth said knowledgeably. "You're the general's son."

Adam stopped frowning thoughtfully for a moment. "You've met General Damon?"

"We've just left him," Mike said. "He wasn't particularly impressed by your stunt at the Institute. Neither was I," he added in a stern voice. "I don't suppose you stopped to think about how dangerous your exploring might be. You could very easily have been killed. What if that forklift had been just a little faster, or if it had taken you just a little longer to jaunt away. The whole thing could quite easily have been a disaster. And now the people inside know there's someone who knows about them."

Elizabeth's mental voice, tinged with bright laughter, slipped into his mind, interrupting him. :You do realise, don't you Mike, that you sound just like John? Back when he used to bawl you out for acting irresponsibly.:

The man, Mike, closed his mouth so abruptly Megabyte wondered if he'd been suddenly struck dumb.

Adam's back stiffened automatically, so that he stood a little taller. "We were looking for Alice," he said with quiet, firm dignity.

"Alice?" Liz repeated. "Is she the person inside that compound? The one we heard cry out?"

"We haven't heard anything," Adam answered. "But Kay told us she was there and Dr Stratton told us where she was. We really have to find her now, because I think that Colonel might kill her if she can't help him."

"And we have to make sure Dr Stratton and Teresa are safe too," Megabyte added.

Adam nodded. "And find out what this catalyst Dr Stratton's supposed to have stolen is and what they want to do with it."

Mike threw up a hand. "Hang on. Slow down a moment. You've left me behind. First, tell me who Alice is, then go on to the next thing. Then the next and the next so we know what's going on."

"If I might make a suggestion," the Ship's smooth voice interrupted.

Mike grinned across at the lighted column. "Of course, old girl. Now you can, you make as many suggestions as you like."

"Clearly, no-one here has the full story. I don't know who Dr Stratton is, but it sounds like she has useful information to offer. If General Damon is involved, he should perhaps be included in any discussion, and Kay certainly should be. I suggest a pooling of ideas."

Adam nodded slowly. "We should tell the general what we heard. And we should ask Dr Stratton about the catalyst." He looked up at Liz and Mike. "Are you really Tomorrow People?"

"We are," Elizabeth agreed seriously.

"You're telepathic and can teleport and stuff?"

She nodded.

"So why haven't we met you before?" Megabyte demanded.

"That's a long story," Mike answered with a grin. "The short answer is because we haven't been on Earth for the last 20 years or so."

Megabyte whistled. "So where _have_ you been? And can I go visit?"

Despite looking intensely curious, Adam refused to be shifted from the situation at hand. "Will you come with us and explain?" he asked. "Will you help us rescue Alice?"

Mike glanced at Elizabeth. "We're going to help, aren't we?"

She laughed. "We must be in so much trouble already, a little more isn't going to hurt."

"I am sure, once the situation is explained, the Federation authorities will understand," the Ship offered helpfully.

Liz laughed harder. "Are you talking about the same Federation I am?"

But Mike's lips quirked and he chuckled, his laughter much more genuine that Liz's had been. "Translation: You like these young people and think we should help them."

"I know Kay's background and you don't," the Ship said. "She should be helped and the people who created her should be stopped."

"Created?" Elizabeth sounded aghast.

"Created," the Ship agreed. "Will the Federation assist?" it asked formally.

Liz didn't hesitate. "The Federation will assist," she agreed firmly, authoritatively.

Mike laughed again. "Closed worlds? Rules? Phooey. Who needs 'em?"

Megabyte looked at Adam. "I don't have a clue what they just said, but I think they're going to help us."

"We're going to help you," Mike agreed. "Come on, let's go and have that pooling of ideas the Ship suggested."

TEN

Pretty much everyone was gathered in General Damon's office. Since it was a fairly small office and there were quite a lot of them, it made for a rather stuffy, crowded atmosphere. There could have been still more, but Damon had managed to convince Adam to talk most of the Tomorrow People out of joining them. Jade was sitting in one corner of the room, trying very hard to look inconspicuous so that no-one would think to tell her to leave. Damon considered it, but he couldn't help feeling that that much effort deserved some kind of reward and he said nothing. That just left Adam, Megabyte and Kay, and Damon thought they would prove to be more than enough.

Then there was Emma Stratton and the baby - and a very charming and appealing baby she was too. Kay was holding her, looking as if she thought she had a creation of spun sugar and blown glass in her arms, that might shatter and break at any moment. Teresa was totally unfazed by the whole situation and currently was sleeping happily, her long lashes brushing across her cheeks. Laurel and Frank were present of course, and the mysterious man and woman from the Institute. And Damon himself. Rather more people that could comfortably fit in one little office. If it had been a lift, it would have been unsafe to use.

And now they were all there, no-one seemed quite to know where to start or what to say.

It was Megabyte, the irrepressible, who broke the uncomfortable silence.

He looked at the man Damon had met at the Institute - Mike Bell he'd said his name was - and fired off a series off rapid questions that left his father flat-footed and opened mouthed, despite the fact he had thought he'd reached the point where nothing his son said or did could surprise him any more. "So how can you be Tomorrow People, how come we've never met you before and what did you mean you weren't on Earth?"

Mike looked at Elizabeth, suddenly unsure. :Do we tell them?:

:We said we'd help them. Yes, we tell them.:

:An awful lot of people are going to have fits about this. Important people who can get us into a whole lot of official trouble. You do it.:

She smiled, a tiny, secretly amused smile. :What's the matter, Mike? Getting law-abiding in your old age?:

He refused to be baited. :You tell them.:

:I tell them,: she agreed, still sounding amused.

"Oh, we're Tomorrow People, all right," she agreed to the room at large, favouring Megabyte with a friendly look. "We were supposed to be the next stage in human evolution; telepaths who could teleport, with some other useful skills like telekinesis and a little healing." She glanced around the young people in the room. "Does it all sound rather familiar?"

Adam grinned. "Yeah, it does. Did you break out like we do?"

"I don't know," Mike answered with a shrug. "How do you do it?"

"Under stressful or threatening circumstances," Megabyte said firmly. "I was hanging over a balcony at the time."

Damon almost closed his eyes involuntarily, trying not to remember the image of his son he could never forgot, of him being dangled over thin air as Gloria threatened to drop him.

Adam nodded. "And then we teleport. To the island. We always landed in the sea before. Maybe we won't now."

"You shouldn't," Mike agreed. "Between us, the Ship and I should have properly realigned the beacon."

Elizabeth was shaking her head. "I don't think any of us ever broke out under those sorts of circumstances. It tended to be a lot more gradual, even if it didn't feel any more gentle at the time. I developed telepathy first."

"Telekinesis for me," Mike said. "I could open locks without a key. Got me into all sorts of trouble," he added reflectively.

Emma Stratton had the most fascinated expression on her face. But there was a respect there, as if she was content to let these wonders explain themselves. She did not need to pull them apart herself to find out how they worked, but was willing to take their word for it. No wonder she hadn't fitted in at the Institute. "But Kay says she's the same as her friends," she said slowly. "Why should you be different?"

"I don't know," Elizabeth admitted. "But when we left, we made sure no-one else would break out - not for a while at least. Maybe Nature altered her blueprint in the meantime."

"Left for where?" Damon asked. "Why? How? You haven't really answered the question at all."

Mike and Elizabeth exchanged short, telling glances, that made Laurel, sitting quietly and making copious mental notes, smile inwardly. "If it's any consolation," she commented from across the room, "the general isn't exactly forthcoming with his information. He's not going to be rushing off and telling anyone else what you say."

"We had to pry it out of him with a crowbar," Frank agreed.

"We're a little suspicious of the military," Mike commented. "We have reason to be."

"I'm fairly freelance these days," Damon said. "And I'm allowed and expected to use my discretion."

"In other words, he hasn't told anyone else about us, and he won't about you either, not without your permission," Megabyte added, then gave his father a worried look. "Will you, Dad?"

"No, I won't," Damon agreed. "I'm keeping so many secrets about the Tomorrow People already, adding some more won't make much difference."

After a moment that Damon guessed was full of silent conversation, Elizabeth nodded decisively. "All right. We're breaking a lot of rules ourselves, making contact with you. We were just supposed to fix the beacon and leave again without anyone knowing we were here. But at the Ship's request, we've offered you Federation assistance. I guess we'd better tell you what the Federation is."

She paused a moment to look around the room, as if trying to gauge what their reactions to her explanation might be. Emma still looked fascinated, with Laurel's expression much the same. Frank waited, quietly, as ever. Jade looked like she was about to explode from curiosity, and finally, it got the better of her. "And?" she demanded. "So what is the Federation?"

"The Galactic Federation is a Federation of telepathic civilisations from across the Galaxy," Liz said simply, and smiled at the progression of jaws that dropped around the room.

"You mean there are other civilisations in the galaxy?" Adam asked. "Aliens? Telepathic aliens?"

Megabyte grinned. "I guess the truth really is out there."

"Oh yes," Elizabeth confirmed. "Lots of them."

"So why haven't we ever seen any?"

"Earth is a closed world," Mike answered. "That means no-one is allowed to come here. Earth is left alone to continue to develop. When there are more Tomorrow People, lots of Tomorrow People, that may change."

"You're here," Damon pointed out.

"We have dispensation to repair the beacon. When we left, we left the Ship and the beacon so that when there were new Tomorrow People, the Federation would be notified," Liz explained. "Unfortunately, we didn't allow for the possibility of earthquakes. The beacon got knocked out of alignment and there was no signal."

"And," Mike added, "we don't have any sort of dispensation to go around telling people about the Federation."

"But no-one could have predicted a situation like this one," Liz said. "Of course we have to help."

Mike held up his hands in a protesting kind of gesture. "Hey, I'm not arguing."

"We're getting off the subject," Damon interrupted. "You say you left Earth. Why? How?"

"How's easy," Mike answered. "We jaunted." Seeing the blank looks his answer produced, he amended, "Teleported. We teleported. Why's a little bit more complicated."

"We'd had to reveal ourselves to too many people," Liz went on. "Especially in the military and the government, who wanted to study us or use us." She looked at Damon. "You know about that, I think."

"Too well," he agreed.

Adam nodded. "Been there, done that. But the general's helped us. And we've done okay so far."

"It got to the point where we weren't doing okay. So they decided to evacuate us. But if more Tomorrow People broke out and we weren't there, things would have been even worse. So a chemical was released into the ecosystem that inhibited telepathic development. The idea was to give everyone some breathing room, and when the effects faded, there could be new Tomorrow People." Elizabeth smiled at the teenagers in the room. "And here you are."

Kay looked up from Teresa's face. "And then there's me," she pointed out. "They _made_ me."

To everyone's surprise, Emma shook her head. "I don't think they did, you know," she said thoughtfully. She looked a little disconcerted by all the intrigued faces that turned in her direction. "Oh, before today, I