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us have got some talking to do.’

Chapter 6
    T HURSDAY , M AY 7
98 DAYS
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Jordan for about the hundredth time. ‘I’m really sorry. I just – it’s this place. Ever since we moved here, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something not right going on.’
    â€˜Yeah, don’t worry about it,’ I said. Not that I appreciated almost having my head bitten off, but I was glad to not be the only one who thought something was off about Phoenix.
    It was lunchtime and the three of us were sitting in the back corner of the library, crowded around Peter’s laptop. Maths had been all pen-and-paper, so this was the first chance we’d had to figure out the memory sticks. Peter plugged Jordan’s stick into his computer, bringing up a single text file.
    intSC1002B_jburke.doc
    He opened it up. Gibberish, just like mine.
    â€˜See?’ said Jordan. ‘Nothing.’
    â€˜I don’t think it’s nothing,’ said Peter. He brought up the file from my stick and put the two streams of text side by side.
    â€˜What is it, then?’ I asked.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ said Peter slowly, squinting at the screen as though he was seeing something that we couldn’t. ‘But it’s not nothing. It’s definitely something.’
    â€˜Oh, good,’ said Jordan. ‘Thanks for clearing that up.’ She leant behind Peter to look at me. ‘Have you told your parents about this?’
    â€˜Nope,’ I said. ‘Dad’s back in Sydney, so obviously I can’t tell him. You know, with the phones and everything. And my mum’s not exactly –’ ‘How come your dad’s not here?’ Peter cut in, turning to look at me.
    â€˜My parents aren’t together anymore,’ I said, wondering why this needed spelling out.
    Peter shot me a weird look. ‘Oh.’
    â€˜That a problem?’
    â€˜No,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just a bit … surprising, that’s all. The other families around here are all – I think you might be the only one whose parents aren’t together.’
    â€˜Nice going, Weir,’ said Jordan. ‘Way to make him feel included.’
    â€˜I didn’t mean –’ Peter started.
    â€˜Forget it,’ I said.
    Peter turned his attention back to the computer.
    â€˜What about you?’ I asked Jordan. ‘Did you tell your parents?’
    â€˜No. I was going to. But they’ve got enough to worry about, so I thought I’d wait and –’ ‘Take me on yourself?’ I suggested dryly.
    â€˜ Well, yeah,’ she said, looking embarrassed.
    â€˜I guess that’s the point of all this, though, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I mean, someone’s obviously gone to a lot of trouble to bring us together.’
    â€˜What?’ said Peter, his head snapping up. ‘You two?’
    â€˜Right,’ said Jordan. ‘The initials. They wanted us to find each other.’
    â€˜And look at the file names,’ I said, pointing to the screen. ‘They’re labelled A and B, see?’
    intSC1002A_lhunter.doc
    intSC1002B_jburke.doc
    â€˜What if they’re two halves of the same message or code or whatever?’ I added. ‘Like, what if we both only got part of the picture so we’d have to put them together?’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Peter, pulling a face at the screen in front of him. He went to the top of my file and started adding what looked like more random letters to the first line.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ I asked.
    â€˜Hang on,’ said Peter absently, fingers flashing across the keyboard.
    â€˜What I don’t get, though, is why us?’ Jordan said to me. ‘Even if that’s all true, why did this person choose us two for … whatever this is? What do we even have in common?’
    â€˜You mean besides an irrational paranoia that this whole town is out to