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performing telekinesis earlier.’
    ‘Ah,’ Jack said. ‘We’ve had some complications on that front. I told you that Medusix makes adults unconscious for a few mintues. Well, it knocks kids out too. The upside
is that children show signs of psychic ability first. The downside is that they don’t regain consciousness so easily.’
    Tania gasped. ‘So . . . Bradley is unconscious .’
    ‘Who is this “we” you keep referring to?’ Nico added. ‘Who else is involved?’
    Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘I can’t tell you any more now, but please understand we have no plans to hurt you. We’re just trying to work on the drug.’
    ‘Are you going to experiment on us as well?’ I asked.
    ‘Of course not.’ Jack looked surprised. ‘We’re going to learn from you.’ He beckoned to the guards to lead us away.
    At first I thought we were all being taken to the same room, but once we had gone through a couple of heavy wooden doors, Jack and Knife Man took Ed and Nico away. I opened my mouth to protest,
but they were gone too fast, leaving Cal, Dylan, me and Tania with Broken Nose. He forced us down a steep flight of stone steps to a narrow corridor where we had to walk single file. Cal was in the
lead. I could see his head darting this way and that, clearly looking for an escape route, but the walls looked a metre thick, and there were no windows whatsoever. After a minute or so of walking
like this, down more steps and along another corridor, we reached a cell.
    Broken Nose shoved us inside. Scowling, he took swabs from inside our mouths, plus a scraping of skin from our arms. Nothing that hurt. It took a few minutes, after which he locked the door and
left.
    The cell was just a few metres square. No furniture, no windows. A single lantern, complete with sputtering candle, stood beside the column that rose through the centre of the room. It cast
spooky shadows around the room. It was still early morning outside, but down here it felt like the middle of the night.
    Tania sank onto the cold stone floor. Tears were leaking out of her eyes.
    ‘Bradley is really ill,’ she wept. ‘This is not what Mr Jack promised.’
    I bit my lip, feeling sorry for her.
    Dylan looked at her with far less sympathy. ‘Well, that’ll teach you,’ she snapped.
    ‘I wonder who Jack’s working with,’ Cal mused.
    ‘It’ll probably be a scientist,’ I said. ‘Jack knows a lot about IT, but he’s no expert in genetics. Whoever is trying to make the Medusix work would need to
be.’ I paused. ‘If only we knew what they were trying to do with it.’
    Cal walked over and squatted down in front of Tania. ‘Hey, that boy – Bradley – who was given the Medusix drug . . . what did he do after he’d taken it? Anything . . .
odd? I mean, before he was taken ill?’
    Tania looked over at me, confused.
    ‘Odd? What kind of odd?’
    I thought back to the news item Ed and I had found – about the car that seemed to moving telekinetically across the car park and the workman’s tools dancing around each other.
    ‘Could he move things?’ I said. If we knew more precisely what the boy had done, we might be able to work out what Jack and this other man planned to do with us all. ‘You know
. . . could the boy they gave the Medusix to move something without touching it?’
    Tania stared at me as if I were mad.
    ‘If we hadn’t been sprayed, we could just show her,’ Dylan said gloomily.
    ‘We’d need Nico to demonstrate telekinesis,’ I muttered.
    ‘We don’t need Nico,’ Cal said. ‘Pretend to move that lantern, Ketty. I’ll lift it up – normal style – to show Tania what we mean.’
    ‘Go on, Ketty,’ Dylan urged.
    ‘Okay.’ I shrugged. I couldn’t really see how us acting out a bit of telekinesis was going to help, but I supposed anything that might prompt Tania to give us more information
was worth a try.
    Cal had picked up the lantern and stood out of sight behind the column.
    ‘Ready,’ he