“Scarlett, the police used to be good, but they’re not anymore. Don’t trust them.”
“What does that mean?” Scarlett thought.
“I’ll explain later,” Neelam replied.
“What is she, psychic or something?” Scarlett thought, again without speaking out loud.
Neelam looked at her.
“Actually yes,” she said in her head.
Scarlett’s eyes opened wide with shock.
“Did you just speak in my head?” she yelped in horror.
She felt like her personal space had been massively invaded.
“Scarlett, I’m so sorry,” she said aloud. “Please don’t panic. It’s so hard to adjust to you not knowing us. We used to be best friends.”
Neelam stared at Scarlett, her big brown eyes begging her to trust her. For some reason, Scarlett’s instincts told her it was the right thing to do. At least, she hoped it was her instincts and not Neelam playing mind tricks. She was very confused.
“Here we are,” the girl called Lucy said. “We’re at Frank’s now. Are you going to come in and have a coffee with us?”
The two boys pushed the door open and the warmth from the heaters inside escaped onto the cold, autumn street. It would be nice to go in there for a rest.
“OK…” Scarlett said, as she followed them in.
“Scarlett! Come and sit down,” the hot boy said as he gestured at a seat next to him.
She silently cursed herself for blushing again. What was wrong with her? She’d never felt so giddy and nervous around a boy before.
“Go on,” Neelam assured her. “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”
Scarlett stared at the wall above the counter. This place needed to get some better signs – one said a cup of coffee was £17 instead of the usual £1.70 or so.
“Can I have a hot chocolate please?”
“Sure.”
Scarlett weaved her way through the plastic tables to join the others at the back, near a run-down old jukebox. She pulled a chair out and sat down. Everyone looked at each other awkwardly.
“So, do you really not know who we are?” asked the blond boy. He was cute, but not as good-looking as the dark-haired one.
“No. Not a clue,” she replied.
Silence.
“Maybe they wiped her brain,” the hot boy quietly suggested, while leaning into the table so as not to be heard.
Scarlett glanced around, wondering who might possibly want to overhear them, but the place was empty bar the waitress and a couple in the corner.
“I’m Dylan,” the boy said. “That’s Jay,” he said, pointing at the shorter blond. “This is Lucy,” he added, gesturing to the pretty, funkily dressed blonde girl. “And that’s Neelam.” He nodded in the direction of the girl with long dark hair at the counter.
Neelam gave Scarlett a friendly smile as she brought the drinks over and sat down on the other side of her.
“Hi,” Scarlett said. She realised she sounded a little too surly, but she was so tired she couldn’t help it.
“So, who are you?” she asked.
“We all have special powers,” Lucy whispered.
“Lucy!” Dylan scolded in a big-brotherly manner. “Don’t go round announcing that.”
“And so do you,” Neelam added.
“Neelam!” Dylan sighed. “Cor, why do you two have to go right ahead and scare Scarlett by telling her everything straight away?”
“Don’t you remember?” Lucy asked, ignoring him.
“Girls!” Dylan was very cross with them.
Scarlett didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Sure, Neelam had talked in her head, but there had to be a rational explanation, surely? They were having a laugh, right?
She giggled.
“Scarlett it’s true,” Jay insisted.
She looked earnestly at Dylan, who seemed to be the group’s leader.
“Are they winding me up?” she asked him.
“Nope. Sadly not,” he replied. “Jay here can run faster than a high-speed train, Neelam is telepathic, Lucy can do some very impressive things with electricity and I manipulate water, which means I can freeze things…”
Scarlett stared at Dylan as though she didn’t believe a single word he was saying.
“Watch,” he said. He placed his finger on Scarlett’s mug and instantly froze the hot chocolate inside.
“Hey!” she protested.
He smiled playfully and touched the mug again, this time heating it back up until it bubbled. “I can make them hot too.” He smiled and pushed the cup towards her, but Scarlett jumped back and screeched her chair away from the table.
“Don’t be scared,” Neelam urged.
“That’s how I saved you earlier,” Dylan explained. “I used the water in the air to freeze the Detectobot and that caused it to explode. That’s a trick I’ve learned recently.”
Scarlett smiled at him. “You can really do all this?”
Dylan nodded.
Scarlett looked around the group and hutched her chair towards them a little to show she was warming to them.
“You guys have got to understand that you’re freaking me out a bit. You say we’re friends right?”
They nodded.
“And yet I’ve never met you. You tell me you have super powers and you thought I was dead? You did say that, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Neelam agreed. “We thought you’d been killed in a collapsed building four weeks ago.”
Four weeks? That was how long the nurse said she’d been unconscious for. That was a weird coincidence, if indeed it was a coincidence at all.
“We’re so shocked to see you, but over the moon to have found you alive,” Neelam added.
“I’m sorry, but I really do think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Scarlett protested for what felt like the millionth time.
“We haven’t, we know you,” Jay insisted.
“But I don’t know you. And I definitely don’t have any fancy powers.”
They all started trying to convince her at once, chattering over each other. It was suffocating.
“I need the loo,” Scarlett said, making an excuse to leave the madness of the table. She needed time to take this all in. As she stood up, her eyes were drawn to a huge poster that was peeling off the tiles on the café wall.
“Wanted!” shouted its headline. And there below it was a picture of the four teens she was sitting with. They were criminals.
She pushed her chair aside, knocking the table in the rush, and ran out of the café.
“Scarlett, no!” she heard Jay shout.
“Let her go,” Lucy said.
She paused around the corner and considered going back. They seemed OK. Nuts, but OK. And Dylan was certainly more than OK. But then, you never could tell these days, could you? She started walking again.
“Scarlett wait,” said a voice in her head.
“What was that?”
“Sshhh, it’s OK. It’s me, Neelam. I promise I won’t hurt you or poke around in your mind. Please just wait while I catch up with you, I want to help.”
Scarlett stopped walking, hopefully of her own free will and Neelam soon appeared.
“I can sense you’re afraid at the moment, so it would be wrong of us to make you stay,” Neelam said aloud. “I don’t know what’s happened, but I believe you when you say you don’t remember us.”
“Well, you can read minds.”
She laughed. Scarlett almost did too.
“You weren’t lying then… you really do have powers.”
Neelam nodded.
“We all do. You saw what Dylan showed you. If you remember Dylan at all, you’ll know he’s a steadfast, honest guy who never lies.” She paused. “Scarlett, I want you to know that we love you. You’re part of our family. Whenever you’re ready to find us, or if you remember us or ever need our help, please do get in touch.”
“Here.” She placed a small green gadget in Scarlett’s hand.
“This is one of Lucy’s special inventions. Press it anytime and we’ll come running.”
“Thanks,” she said. She wasn’t sure what else to say.
Then Neelam thrust a thousand pounds into her other hand.
“Take this. It’s to help you find somewhere to sleep and eat. I want to know you’re safe. And whatever you do, don’t tell anyone your real name.”
That sounded ominous, Scarlett wanted to ask why, but Neelam hugged her and walked away before she had a chance.
“Thank you,” Scarlett yelled.
She couldn’t believe how kind Neelam had been. It certainly didn’t seem like anyone else in this crazy world was nice.
Scarlett stuffed the money and gadget into the inside pocket of her jacket. Maybe she shouldn’t have run off as quickly as she had, but everything that had happened today had made her super paranoid. She could go back, but she realised it was getting late. Now she had some money for a taxi, she should make another attempt to get back home to East Dulwich. Maybe everything would seem normal once she was in her own bed.
Chapter 3
Scarlett made her way back towards London Bridge station in the hope of finding a taxi office. There had to be one somewhere around there, surely? However, as she trudged past rows and rows of empty shops, she began to lose hope.
“Thank goodness!” she shouted as she spotted what looked like a cab office with a light on. It was dirty and dilapidated, but it would do considering the circumstances.
She pushed open the door and watched a grumpy old man look up from behind the window to his kiosk.
“Hello?” she said meekly.
“What do you want?” he barked. The place reeked of old cigarette smoke and the man smelt even worse. The walls had turned yellow, probably from years of being exposed to nicotine, and the wallpaper was peeling off in several places. Scarlett really hoped she didn’t have to wait here for too long.
“Could I get a cab to East Dulwich please?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’ll be £300.”
“What? The fare usually costs £30 at the most.”
He laughed. “Kids today, don’t know the value of money,” he muttered.
Scarlett suddenly recalled spotting the extortionate price of coffee in the café, and the homeless man demanding £50 at the station. It seemed that everything had got incredibly more expensive overnight. Was she in the future? No wonder Neelam had given her so much money.
Scarlett silently scolded herself for being so stupid before her thoughts ran away with her.
“You want a taxi or what, girly?” the man snapped, interrupting her thoughts.
“OK,” she said begrudgingly.
As the car sped through the streets of south London, Scarlett realised that the whole city looked different. Entire high streets were boarded up and prostitutes and drug dealers lined the pavements of what used to be nice areas. It was like a nightmare. She was so happy when the taxi pulled into her parents’ road, but relief soon turned to horror when she saw that there was no house there. Judging by the scorched floor and ruins, it had been burned to the ground.
“You sure you got the right address, girl?” the driver asked.
“Yes!” Scarlett didn’t understand.
“Well I’m pretty sure there’s no one home,” he joked.
She didn’t see the funny side. Where had her home gone? Where were her family? She got out of the taxi and took a look around the place where her house had stood. The ground felt cold and grass was growing around the charred ruins. It appeared that the fire had been much more than four weeks ago. It was weird. She glanced up and down the road and noticed the whole street seemed scary – it was nothing like the cosy, tree-lined road she knew. She walked back to the cab. There was no point in hanging around. In fact, she sensed that hanging around was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Can you drive to 14 Lingfield Avenue?” she asked, thinking she could see if her friend Millie was home.
The driver did the short five-minute journey, but there was no one in. She thought of trying to track down Alex’s family to tell them what had happened, but they lived in Didsbury in the north. There was no way she could afford to get a taxi up there. It would probably cost at least £10,000. Who else could she try? Maybe her friend Sarah from sixth-form English class would be home. She lived near here.
“Can you go to 19 Murray Common please?”
The driver sighed.
“I promise this is the last place I’ll try.”
He reluctantly sped to Sarah’s house and Scarlett was delighted to see there were lights on. Someone was home.
She bounced up the driveway excitedly and punched the doorbell. Sarah answered the door.
“Hi!”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Do I know you?”
“Stop kidding around!”
Sarah gave her a look that assured her she wasn’t joking.
“Oh for goodness sake, Sarah, please tell me you know who I am.”
“But… I don’t. Sorry.”
“We sit together in English!”
“Are you mad? I don’t even study English.”
“At sixth form…”
“I left school at 16 to work with my dad. The sixth form shut down when the government cut education funding two years ago.”
“What… but…”
“Sorry. I don’t know you. Please go away or I’ll fetch my father.”
Then she shut the door in Scarlett’s face.
Scarlett trudged back down the front yard to the waiting car.
“This not your house either then?”
She shook her head dejectedly.
“Come on girl, are you drunk or something? Don’t you know where you live?”
“I… I’m sorry. Can you please drive me to a hotel back in London? A cheap but decent one.”
“Alright, girl, but it’s gonna cost yer.”
“Doesn’t it always?” she thought as she sunk into the seat and flung her head against the hard leather defeatedly.
Half an hour later, Scarlett was standing in a Travel Hut near Liverpool Street Station, but check-in was taking longer than she would have liked. After ten minutes of being ignored by the shoddy receptionist, who seemed far more intent on flirting with a customer, she rang the little bell for the third time.
“What?” the surly blonde snapped as she shot Scarlett a dirty look.
“Can I have a room for the night?” Scarlett asked, staring at the receptionist defiantly. There was no way she was letting this catty little madam intimidate her.
“Yeah,” she glowered. “Take room 475. What’s your name?”
“Dorothy Dove,” she lied, recalling what Neelam had said about not giving out her real name.
“Alright, Dorothy. Here’s your key. The stairs are on the left.”
The world’s worst receptionist then threw the key at her and returned to making gooey eyes at her love interest.
“Thanks,” Scarlett snapped sarcastically.
She headed up the stairs and made her way to the room. It was damp, mouldy and smelly and the dirty cream décor left a lot to be desired for, but it was better than being out on those crazy streets.
She picked up the remote, flopped on the rickety bed and switched on the TV. It looked like an old set from the 1980s, so she was pretty amazed that it worked as it clicked into life to show some boring drama. Scarlett changed the channel with a flick. Boring soap full of people shouting at each other. Flick. Boring manufactured girl band pouting and miming like robots. Flick. Boring news. Flick. Hang on, maybe she should watch the news to see if she could learn a few things. She clicked back to the previous channel.
A woman was reporting from a riot in Sheffield. From what she could gather, hundreds of people were ambushing the home of a gas company boss in protest. Something about the prices having got so high that only the rich could afford them.
Another journalist was at a homeless shelter on the outskirts of Birmingham. It wa
s full to the brim of poor families who had lost their homes and jobs. One member of the public started to say something about the jobless being made to do time in a workhouse to earn their benefits, but the reporter wound the story up right away.
The next story focussed on a group of anti-war protesters in Trafalgar Square. The police were being horribly heavy handed. It sickened her. Surely that wasn’t allowed? But an official was defending their behaviour as being necessary – he was even commending the officers and the journalist was lapping it right up.
The world had gone mad and horrendous overnight. What could have happened?
Maybe she had travelled to the future. After all, this was like the world she knew, but a million times worse and it couldn’t get this bad overnight. Surely more than four weeks must have passed. Scarlett laughed at her own theories and again wondered if she’d been watching too many sci-fi films. She wished Alex was here. He’d talk some sense into her and tell her to stop letting her overactive brain run away with her.
She suddenly had an idea. She picked up the TV remote again and switched to Teletext. There in the right hand corner was the date: 15 November, 2013.
A quick calculation told her that was right. It really was just four weeks after her birthday back in mid-October.
Why was the world so different then? She didn’t understand. Her brain hurt with the confusion and possibilities and she rubbed her eyes with tiredness and frustration.
“Maybe I’m still asleep?” Scarlett decided. “In a coma or something. Or maybe I’m on another Earth? Maybe I am in the future, but someone is trying to hide the fact from me… or maybe… maybe I am exhausted and thinking nonsense.”
“Get some sleep and think about it in the morning,” a wise voice inside her head said. She was never going to achieve anything while she was so manically tired, so she’d might as well get some rest. Tomorrow, and possibly every day to come, was going to be a long day.
Scarlett woke at 7.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep. After wondering what to do next, she remembered seeing an internet café near reception, so she headed down there.
She paid ten pounds for an hour and sat down. She looked in her purse and realised she was getting through the money Neelam had given her far too quickly. This hellish place sure was expensive. She switched on her computer, logged in and typed “Scarlett Shortt” into the search engine. Nothing. No Facebook, no Twitter, no official records. No mention of her at all.
Out Of Time (Book 0): Super Unknown Page 9