Jay sighs. ‘That was the original plan.’
‘Louise is a part of this,’ Erica says. ‘She stays with me, or else you don’t have me.’
‘I can appreciate that that’s what you’re saying, yes. Except that my bosses won’t be too happy with it.’
‘What were you going to do? Whisk Erica away and pretend that I don’t exist?’
Jay squints at me again, still frowning, and then he turns and bends down towards his bag. I look at Erica, who shrugs. Jay retrieves some plain pieces of paper and goes to sit down on the bench.
‘You’ll have to sign some forms,’ he says.
‘What kind of forms?’ I ask, peering over at the white pages. They’re blank.
‘Confidentiality forms. They’re from Vigil HQ and are government approved. You sign them, we keep them. Understand?’
‘OK, but where are they exactly?’
Jay looks up at me from behind that ridiculous mess of brown hair and sighs again, obviously aggravated. I try not to care. Then he lays out a single sheet on one knee and proceeds to place both of his hands over it. There’s barely a sound, just a slight crackling in the air, and nobody has moved, but something has happened. I look towards Erica, confused, before turning back to Jay, who presents me with the sheet of paper, now covered in small and complicated-looking words.
‘How did you…?’ I start.
‘Jay has a superpower too,’ Erica finishes.
‘Is this another thing you’re not meant to tell me about?’ I ask her.
‘I have a photographic memory and can convey the images I see in my head to paper or fabric or stuff like that, by way of an ink my hands produce,’ Jay explains.
‘So you’re a human photocopier?’ I say.
He peers up, chewing his bottom lip. I feel as if I’ve hit a particularly painful nerve, because when he looks back up at me he’s sneering, like he wants to say something terrible to me.
‘Don’t call me that,’ he grumbles, biting his tongue.
‘But your Vigil codename is Copyboy, right?’ Erica asks.
‘That’s the name they gave me. Doesn’t mean I like it.’
I look down at the piece of paper, which is now a legitimate confidentiality contract, and remember that my dad once told me to always read something thoroughly before signing it. I fold up the paper and put it in my bag, explaining to Jay that I’ll read it properly when I get home. He looks furious.
‘So I guess you’ve seen Erica on the internet,’ I say, more because we’re all so uncomfortable around each other than because I actually want to chat. But I presume that’s why Jay has revealed himself now, and not before.
‘Something like that,’ Jay replies.
‘There’s something else I haven’t told you,’ Erica mutters. ‘But promise you won’t get angry, OK?’
I stare at Erica, wondering what on earth could possibly make me more annoyed than I am now, but she pauses, apparently unsure of what to say next. So Jay decides to say it instead.
‘The thing at the weekend, it was all a test. We needed to see what Erica could do. And she passed, so now here we are.’
‘A test?’ The truth doesn’t hit home at first. Then I realise: the fire was staged. Did Jay really commit arson just to draw Erica out?
‘They needed to see how I would cope under pressure,’ Erica tells me. ‘Jay knew about my powers, but he had to know how far they went, and what I could do in a crisis.’
‘People could have been hurt!’ I cry. There it is. The feelings are hitting me, loud and angry and appalled.
‘Nobody was hurt,’ Jay sighs, clearly bored of this. He rubs at his eyes like he’s trying to wipe away my presence.
‘That’s not the point!’ Why isn’t Erica more furious? ‘But they could have been! What if your arson plan had gone wrong? Or what if Erica couldn’t sort everything out? Or worse, what if she got hurt?’
‘There’s no point dwelling on this now,’ Jay yawns.
‘It’s fine, Louise, it’s really fine,’ Erica tries to calm me.
‘How can you say that? Is this what the Vigils do? Is this how they behave?’
‘I’m given my task, and I get it done the best way I know how,’ Jay explains. ‘Sometimes things have got to go a bit wrong for them to eventually go a lot right. Sometimes a bit of calamity is what it takes to make the good stuff happen.’
‘That’s how you’re justifying arson? The means don’t matter, only the end?’ I just can’t believe that is right. I’m thinking about Erica, and how nervous she was, and then the panic and the fear of the passers-by and the involvement of the emergency services. And finally I’m thinking about my costume and all the months of work that went into it, completely ruined.
‘I had a job to do, and I got it done,’ Jay reiterates.
‘It’s OK, Louise, it really is. I was worried and scared at first. But Jay only did it because he knew I could handle it. He wouldn’t have put me in any actual danger, not really, but he had to know what I could do.’
‘Erica, that just doesn’t seem right. People could have got hurt. And all the damage that was done? Aren’t the police investigating?’
‘It’ll all be sorted out,’ Jay says cryptically.
‘I just can’t believe that the Vigils would endorse this,’ I sigh.
‘It’s done. Get over it.’ Jay’s tone is final, and it scares me. Who is this guy?
‘How do we even know that you’re really one of them?’ I ask. I wonder if Erica has even thought about this, or whether she’s been too starstruck and smitten to care.
‘On Thursday, Erica’s coming down to the base in London. She’ll have a chance to check out the operation, meet some of the team, and then we’ll decide where to go from there.’
‘Lou, this is what I’ve always wanted,’ Erica says, coming right up to me and holding on to my arm. ‘It’s actually happening.’
‘I think I should come too.’
Jay almost bursts out laughing. ‘That would be impossible.’
‘Jay, maybe Lou should come? She’s a part of this, and it wouldn’t be right without her.’
‘Are you kidding me? They’d never let her anywhere near the building.’
‘Well then, I won’t be going near the building either.’
I look up at Erica, being bold and standing her ground. For the first time this afternoon I feel like we’re actually a team.
‘Please be kidding me right now,’ Jay groans, clicking out his fingers. I shudder at the noise.
‘Come on. She’ll have signed the confidentiality thing by then. Surely it wouldn’t be all that difficult to get her in.’
‘She’s not even meant to know about this!’ He practically yells it.
‘Well, she does. And if you don’t have Louise, you don’t have me.’
Erica’s hand is still clutching my arm. She’s getting stressed and overheated. Her grip, although light, is already starting to burn.
‘You need to calm down,’ I mumble to her, but not softly enough, because Jay still hears.
‘You see, this is exactly the kind of thing that my people will be able to help you with. They’ll train you so that you’ll have complete control over your powers, and will push you to see exactly how far you can go. You do realise that you’ve not even begun to explore your own potential, right? Only the Vigils will be able to help you to do that.’
‘We’ve been doing a pretty good job so far,’ I say.
‘You’re just a couple of kids,’ Jay practically spits.
Erica lets go of my arm and starts to pace, trying to burn off the energy inside her without resorting to conjuring a flame. I can see that she’s trying to prove that she has her powers under control, that she won’t literally flare up every time that she’s annoyed or aggravated. She looks up at me, watching me in a way that makes me think she’s seriously considering travelling to London with this freak, alone.
‘You shouldn’t be alone with him. If you’re going to L
ondon, then I have to go with you.’
Jay throws his hands up in the air as he stands up. He starts talking to Erica quietly and seriously. I can’t believe that he’s actually trying to steal Erica away from me, right in front of my eyes.
I look down at my own hands, willing them with all my might to make a fireball. If only I could do something, anything, to be necessary. Just being involved doesn’t feel like enough right now, and I wish that I could offer something more than friendship. But I know that Erica needs me. We’ve been in this together since the beginning, and I’m not prepared to give up on that now.
When I look back up, I notice Jay walking away across the field, his black trench coat billowing behind him like an unnecessarily dramatic cape.
‘Where is he going?’ I ask.
‘Home. He needs to pack up his stuff. He doesn’t have to be undercover in our school any more, so he’s got to move back to London. I can’t believe how angry he is,’ Erica says.
‘He has no right to be angry. He’s the one that’s messing everything up!’
‘It’s OK, Lou-Lou. I think he gets it. He’s going to talk to his boss and try to get you in. We’ll go down to London, and we’ll check this whole thing out, and everything will turn out fine, I promise.’
‘You can’t promise things like that right now,’ I warn her.
‘Maybe not, but I can promise you that this is the right thing. We always meant for the Vigils to find me, and now they have. Do I like the way they’ve done it? No. But we can’t change that. It’s happened. But maybe we can change the way it happens in the future for other people. I don’t know. But this is what we wanted. This is what I want.’
‘Why does it have to be Jay though? I can’t stand him.’
‘Lay off him a bit. He’s got his job to do, and he thought it was going to be a hell of a lot easier.’
‘You still fancy him, don’t you? Even after the whole arson thing?’
Erica looks away from me, guilty. ‘He’s not the guy I thought he was. And he’s a bit older, but there’s still something … I don’t know.’
‘It’s not a good idea,’ I warn her. ‘Jay means trouble.’
She sighs, and still can’t look me in the eye.
‘And besides, what if his stupid fingers get all inky on you?’ That she laughs at. ‘Does it even wash off?’
‘It’ll be fine,’ she says with finality as we set off back across the field. ‘I’m sure of it.’
We’re wandering along the street right outside the main building of King’s College, wondering if we’re in the right place. Jay gave Erica very specific instructions about where to be and at what time, but now we’re here, and he’s nowhere in sight. Erica is pouting, hands clasped around an iced coffee drink, and I’m just gazing at all the buses and the taxis rumbling by, trying not to think too much. The anticipation feels heavy in my stomach, like I’m on a crest of some theme-park ride and about to go over the edge. Except that there aren’t any safety harnesses and I don’t know how steep the drop is.
I’ve been into the city on school trips, and a couple of times with my family to go out to eat or to the theatre, but this is the first time I’ve ever been alone here. Everything seems so vast and energetic. Everyone else appears to be in some great rush, which makes me nervous. Everyone is taller than me, better dressed than me. I feel so small and insignificant.
‘Where is he?’ Erica huffs, peering down the street one way and then another, but it’s hard to make out anything among the crowds of students heading to or from the King’s university building, or the business people in their dark coats and frowns. Buses are continually blocking our view of the other side of the street, and my height means that I’m not ideally suited to looking out for brooding Vigil scouts. I lean back against the wall of the building, finding a patch of blue sky above to stare into, and pray that our cover story will hold up.
This is the first time in my life that I’ve bunked off school. Perhaps Jay purposely chose a school day for this visit because he thought I wouldn’t have the nerve to skive off. Not just a school day, but a library day. Without me there as a buffer, there’s every chance that Toby will get himself seriously scolded, or worse, fired. But this is ten times more important than library time with Toby, and definitely worth a few white lies. I texted him this morning to let him know that I was ill and probably contagious, and faked illness to my parents too. Weirdly, my mum was thrilled that I was taking the day off – she thinks I work too hard and put too much pressure on myself, and seeing as I’ve rarely taken a sick day throughout my entire time at secondary school, she was more than happy about calling the school for me. Both my parents work, so as soon as they left the house I snuck out. My only challenge will be getting back home before they do.
I know when Jay arrives just from looking at Erica’s face. She’s blushing right up to her ears. It’s obvious that she still likes him, despite me telling her in my most sensible voice that he’s definitely too old for her. Nevertheless, she flicks her hair back and away from her face and smiles so bright and wide that the corners of her eyes completely crease up. I wonder if he realises the effect he has on her, or if he even thinks of himself as leading her on. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t tried to put her off. Either he’s pathetically ignorant, or I have yet another reason not to trust him.
Right now he doesn’t look happy. In fact, he’s in Full-On Scowl Mode.
‘What are you doing here?’ He’s looking at me, and his voice is low, and somehow this is far more frightening than being yelled at.
‘You know that Louise is a part of this,’ Erica says, and even though I’m proud of her for defending me, I’m a little hurt that she hasn’t already got permission for me to be here. I thought she was going to talk to Jay about me? I thought everything was going to be fine.
‘Louise can’t be here. You don’t understand how sensitive these things are. We can’t have just anybody waltzing into this place!’
‘I’m not just anybody,’ I say. I want to sound proud and brave, but I fear I sound just like the mouse I feel I look like.
‘I didn’t mean …’ Jay sighs and runs his hands through his hair. He looks like he wants to scream. ‘Look, the others won’t be happy about this.’
‘What am I meant to do? Hang about on the streets and wait for you to finish up?’ I ask.
‘We’re not leaving Louise out in London on her own,’ says Erica. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with her being here. She’s been there for everything else. Besides, I insisted that she come with me, so it’s not her fault. Let your bosses shout at me, OK?’
Jay makes some sort of frustrated grunting noise, then says, ‘Fine. Have you at least got the confidentiality agreement I gave you? Have you signed it?’
I reach into my backpack and hand him the signed contract. I’m hoping that he’ll be impressed that I’ve put it in a plastic file wallet, sandwiched between two blank sheets of paper so that nobody could tell what it was if it fell out of my bag. Jay doesn’t seem to care.
He turns round and leads us just a few hundred metres to a narrow building, the first two storeys clad in shiny maroon brick, the levels above looking just like all the other buildings around here, beige and ancient. The entrance is barred, but a clear sign in the brickwork above says ‘Strand Station’. Jay takes a simple key out of the pocket of his trench coat, unlocks a door in the grille of the barrier and gestures for us to follow him inside.
It’s an old London Underground ticket office, dark because the semicircular window above the doorway is coated in grime, and every surface is covered in dust. Not the fine kind of dust you get at home, but proper grey balls of fluff that roll across the tiled floor like tumbleweed as cold air from the open door comes in. It stinks in here too. Stinks of what I imagine stale mouse droppings would smell like, as well as something burnt.
Once Jay has closed the door behind him and tapped a code into a modern-looking control panel on the wall, he finally turns to bot
h of us. ‘This is the Strand entrance to Aldwych tube station, once a part of the Piccadilly line, but essentially defunct since 1994. We commandeered the entire site when it became available and developed it into an expanded base for Vigil London. Above the ticket hall are some of our offices, and below us the complex comprises all the old disused tunnels that once served the tube. With some adaptations.’
Erica and I look around the disgusting space and then back at each other. This really doesn’t look like the entrance to a top-secret superhero base. But maybe that’s the point.
‘This place is known to governments around the world as the Strand, owing to our location,’ Jay continues. ‘Primary access is through this ticket hall, but there are also access points at Holborn tube station and Temple tube, through the tunnels, should this entrance be compromised.’ He turns to Erica alone. ‘Don’t worry – you’ll get a full induction.’
Jay takes out a mobile phone from his jeans pocket and calls someone. The things he says are mostly in code, but I do pick up one phrase: ‘She’s here too.’ I force away the feeling that I should have offered to stay back, because I’m pretty certain that I definitely should be here. I won’t let this stupid boy with his stupid coat make me feel uncomfortable. Erica wants me here; therefore I should be here.
‘OK, this is where we split up,’ Jay says. ‘I’ve had my orders. Louise, we’re going to take you upstairs to the office. You can stay there while I take Erica down to the tunnels.’
‘She can’t come with?’ Erica asks.
‘She doesn’t have the right security clearance. Orders are orders.’
‘Don’t worry, Lou,’ Erica reassures me as I slump and sigh. ‘We’ll be back really soon, I promise.’
‘So what’s in the offices upstairs then?’ I ask Jay.
‘All the most essential parts of the operation: payroll, accounts, HR and general admin.’ Despite calling it ‘the most essential’, he doesn’t exactly sound enthused.
‘How long will you be downstairs?’
‘It’s just a quick tour, a meeting or two.’ He smiles at Erica, who’s avoiding my gaze. ‘The preliminary stuff.’
Othergirl Page 8