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not that secretly or I wouldn’t know.)
    ‘We’d better go,’ I said.
    ‘Have you heard of Gary McKinnon?’ said Ty quietly.
    Of course I had. He thought the US Government was hiding evidence of UFOs so he hacked the military computer system looking for proof and got himself arrested. So what? There are millions of hackers and Ty only knew the name of one.

11
    The parents were out to suffocate me. Two nights running I’d watched telly with Dad, summoned at bang on nine o’clock, and gone to bed straight afterwards – boring programmes seemed to trigger hibernation. Or maybe it was because the alternative was staying up and trying to sew together the archive material to follow where the van went. I’d seen the collision, which, weirdly, wasn’t as distressing as I’d expected. One second Ty was stationary, and the next the van had nudged him and he was on the ground, and then a person came running. That was it. All over in a second, and not a drop of blood on camera. It was tracking what happened next that wasn’t going so well – too many satellites sweeping the earth.
    I’d just hooked up with Angel online, when Dad appeared at the door
again
and even earlier than usual.
    ‘As El’s sleeping over at Gran’s, how about a grown-ups’ cinema trip?’
    ‘I’ve got work to do,’ I said, lying in bed with my laptop – no textbook, no exercise book, no calculator, no pen.
    ‘Come on, Dan. Thursday’s a great night to go out. Early start to the weekend,’ said Dad.
    Nothing I said made any difference to my cheery parents so I dragged myself downstairs and we trotted off to see a film about all the rich people living in a space station and all the poor people left behind dying of disease and dirt. They’d used that plot device where a computer deciphers the combination of a locked door in no time at all. I could point out the rest of the film’s flaws, but won’t – only the popcorn and bucket-size Coke were any good.
    On Friday I skipped school. A reward. What for?
    – for Ty finally coming home on Thursday afternoon. He kept being sick whenever he ate anything so had to stay in despite the successful peeing
    – for three nights of behaving like the parents’ idea of a ‘normal’ teenager
    – and because I was determined to find the right historical recordings and see where the van went even though navigating the inter-satellite handover wasn’t easy. The data files were huge and I was worried they might be erased at any moment.
    I was deep in code when Angel appeared, and lured me away.
    We chatted while we played
GTA V
. Thanks to our aimbots, we couldn’t miss. The other players got more and more frustrated, which upped the enjoyment level.
    Angel was impressed with a capital I at what I’d done:
    great job KP
    And chuffed that it was his comment that had made me have a go at the reconnaissance satellites in the first place:
    id better watch what i say – jump in a lake – funny me!
    And ‘amazed’ when I said I had the controls on my iPhone so I could manipulate the live feed. I don’t know why – that was the easy bit.
    I told him about Ty’s recovery too:
    he was lucky    – he said.
    he was unlucky actually    – I replied.
    true
    And I explained the running water trick to help him pee.
    LTS    – he replied. (Laughing to self, for recluses living in igloos.)
     
    I went out before Mum and El came home, same routine as before.
    ‘How was your day, Dan?’ asked Mum as I wandered back in fifteen minutes later.
    ‘Good. But I’ve got coursework to do.’ The magic word. And a lie.
    ‘That’s a bit much when they know you’re off on the geography trip on Sunday.’
    I’d repressed all knowledge of the impending trip, even though I’d heard it mentioned around school. Some kids were actually excited!
    ‘I’ll get it done,’ I said, ‘but don’t expect to see me apart from meals. Too much to do.’
    Mum nodded, pleased with my mature attitude to work.
    ‘I’ll