Blood Ransom (30 page)

‘You’re hurt,’ I said.

‘Could have been worse.’ He shrugged, then slid his fingers off my face and took my hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to get out of here.’

‘No.’

Theo stared at me, his expression incredulous. ‘You want to
stay
?’ he said. ‘Listen, don’t worry about protecting me any more. I’ll take my chances. We can
hide from Elijah. You and me. We’ll find somewhere he can’t reach us. We’ll—’

‘It’s not that.’ I explained quickly about the Eos protein. ‘Elijah’s doing something really bad in here.’ I indicated the bunker beside us. ‘He just
got Milo to kill that woman from RAGE because she found out about it and came here to destroy his work.’

‘The woman with red hair? Amanda Lennox?’ Theo blew out his breath. ‘Man, I thought I heard a gunshot.’

‘Yeah, well, before she died she told me Elijah was doing something evil in here. She said to “kill it” but I don’t know what she was talking about. I’ve never seen
anyone apart from Elijah coming in and out of here.’

Theo looked at the bunker door. He frowned. ‘How do we get inside?’ He dug in his pocket and took out a hairgrip. ‘I’ve been using this to open doors recently, but
it’s not going to work on this one.’ He offered me the grip.

With a jolt I realised it was one of my own, with a tiny diamante arrow at one end.

‘I got it from your house,’ Theo said gruffly. ‘Now, how do we get inside?’

I smiled at him, pocketing the hairgrip. ‘It’s okay, Amanda Lennox gave me the entry code.’

‘A code?’ Theo stared at the concrete bunker door and the small blank screen beside it. ‘You mean like a pin number?’

‘Yes.’

‘But where do you input the numbers?’ he said, frowning. ‘Rach, I understand you wanting to stop whatever Elijah’s doing, but we can take all this to the
police.’

‘No,’ I insisted. ‘Elijah always gets round the police. He’s got people in the government who protect him. It’s up to us to stop him. For good. Right here. Right
now.’

Theo stared at me. The look of shock in his eyes gave way to determination. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Where
is
Elijah?’

‘Out for the next fifteen minutes or so. With the guard,’ I said, examining the screen by the door again. Theo was right. There was absolutely nowhere to input the numbers Amanda
Lennox had given me.

‘Maybe it’s a retinal scanner,’ Theo said. ‘Like the ones Elijah’s used before.’ He walked right up to the screen, but it was level with his waist, not his
eyes. He crouched down, so the screen was at eye-level. He waited a second, but nothing happened.

I reached round him and prodded the screen.

Still nothing.

‘Try your palm print,’ I said. ‘That’s how they did it in
Avatar
.’

Theo pressed his fingertips against the screen.

It remained blank.

‘Maybe my fingerprints aren’t the same as Elijah’s – just because we’ve got the same DNA doesn’t mean all the tiny marks are identical.’

He removed his hand. As he did so, the screen flickered for a fraction of a second.

Theo looked at me. ‘Did you see that?’

I frowned. What kind of scanner
was
this? ‘Try waving your hand in front of it.’

Theo did as I suggested, holding his palm a few centimetres away from the screen.

Nothing happened.
God,
this was frustrating. I tried to clear my mind. What had Theo done when he took his hand away from the screen that he wasn’t doing now?

‘Turn your hand round,’ I suggested.

Theo presented the back of his hand to the screen. ‘I can’t see how this would work—’ He stopped, his mouth agape, as the screen flickered fully into life. Green lines
ran across it.

‘What’s it doing?’ he said.

I stared at the back of my own hands. How were they different from the front? Well, for a start I could see the veins standing out slightly under the skin.

‘It’s a
vascular
scanner,’ I said. ‘It’s reading your blood. Which is the same as Elijah’s blood.’

As I spoke, the green lines flashed and the screen shone with a steady glow. A second later, the concrete door slid open.

Theo glanced at me. He looked exhausted. There were dark rings under his eyes and grime mixed with smears of blood on his face. And then he grinned and my heart lurched with how gorgeous he was.
Even in the middle of all this danger.

‘After you,’ he said.

88

I followed Rachel into the – what had she called it? – the bunker.

Our footsteps sounded loud on the concrete floor. The low ceiling meant I had to stoop slightly. Dim light from the open door revealed a set of stone steps leading down to a dark corridor.

There was no sign that anyone else was down here.

Ahead of me, Rachel was limping.

‘What happened to your leg?’ I asked.

‘Hurt myself getting away from the house,’ she said.

I remembered the voices I’d heard earlier. ‘Who were you talking to?’

‘Milo.’ Rachel reached the stone steps and peered into the darkness below. Along the short corridor another door was visible.

Behind us, the bunker entrance started slowly closing. I glanced round, checking that there was a screen matching the one outside that we could use to get out. There was.

‘Milo’s in the woods?’ I whispered. ‘But he might have seen us . . . he’s probably calling Elijah right now to tell him we’re down here.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rachel whispered back. ‘He’s too scared . . . too scared of upsetting me to call Elijah.’ She paused. ‘Though he’s also too
scared of Elijah to help me. He was probably watching us outside the bunker, though.’

A shiver ran down my spine.
Great.

‘You do know that I made that up about liking him, don’t you?’ Rachel said softly.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve got you figured out. You’re like that door back there. Confusing until you understand how it works.’

‘And you know how I work?’ she said with a smile.

‘Yeah. You’re stubborn, full of stupid ideas and you’d rather stick pins in your eyes than ask anyone for help,’ I said.

‘So just like you then, don’t you think?’

I stared at her. ‘What I think is that we need to hurry up and get on through that door.’ I pointed down the stairs.

Rachel nodded, and we crept down the concrete steps. The door here was similar in style and width to the sliding door at the bunker entrance.

‘Careful,’ Rachel whispered. ‘If Elijah is working with other people then they might be through here.’

We stood either side of the door. Holding my breath, I tensed, ready to defend myself once the door opened, then held my hand against the screen attached to the wall.

Nothing happened.

I examined it more carefully. The screen on this door was much smaller than on the door above and positioned above it was a key pad. My heart sank.

‘
Now
we need a pin number,’ I said. ‘
Man
, and we’re really running out of time, too. Why couldn’t this door be like the one upstairs? Weirdo blood
scan machines are my new speciality.’

‘Well, cracking four-digit codes is mine.’ Rachel grinned. ‘Watch.’

89

2509
. The code Amanda Lennox had given me worked. We stood on either side of the door as it slid open.

‘
Elijah uses three different kinds of security in that place
,’ Milo had said.

I tensed, ready to attack if anyone – or anything – flew out at us.

But no one appeared. And there was no sound from inside the room, either.

After a few seconds I peered round the door. The room beyond was empty and still. It was some sort of lab.

A long table stretched through the middle of the room. Shelves to the side were ranged with microscopes and packets and jars of all sizes. A small box stood in the middle of the table. It was
filled with rows of microscope slides. Each one contained a red smudge.

I limped over and took a closer look. The slides were all neatly labelled with a time and a date and the letters
Art
.

Theo came up behind me. ‘What does
Art
mean?’

I thought for a second. ‘
Artemis
,’ I said. ‘My code name.’ I stared at the times and dates again. ‘These are my blood samples. This is where Elijah’s
been testing my blood for Eos.’

‘For
what
?’ Theo asked, examining another box on the ground.

‘The Eos protein. Elijah’s been trying to copy it.’

‘Right.’ Theo gave up on the box. He followed my gaze round the room and sighed. ‘This doesn’t make sense. All that security, just to shove a few slides under a
microscope? He could have done that in the house.’

I nodded. ‘There isn’t even a computer in here.’

Theo walked past a huge bookshelf, laden with what looked like scientific and medical text books, to a tall cupboard in the corner.

‘So why does Elijah want to copy this Eos protein?’ Theo said. ‘What’s he going to use it for?’

‘I don’t know, but Amanda Lennox said it was for something terrible.’

As I spoke I remembered how she’d urged me to ‘kill it’, and shivered. What on earth had she been referring to? There was clearly nothing else here.

Theo was examining the contents of the cupboard.

‘Anything?’ I said.

‘Oh
yes
.’ Eyes shining, Theo turned to me, a laptop computer held proudly in his hand.

‘This has to be it,’ I said, clearing a space on the table for him to set the laptop down. ‘This has got to explain everything.’

Nodding, Theo put the computer on the table, opened the lid and switched it on.

It took a few seconds to warm up, then the main desktop screen appeared.

It was empty, apart from the HD icon in the corner. Theo clicked this open, but all it revealed was the usual list of folders: Application, Library, System, User Guide. Theo clicked each one in
turn, but they all just contained basic computer info, though the list of apps and software programmes was enormous.

‘It’s like it’s just come from the shop, all loaded up and ready to go,’ he said, looking bemused. ‘Why would Elijah keep a brand new computer in his
cupboard?’

I slumped into the single chair at the table. My ankle throbbed with pain. There must be something here we were missing. But
what
?

90

It didn’t make sense. I paced round the lab, trying to work out why Elijah had built himself such an elaborately secure unit just to run basic blood tests.

‘There aren’t even any interesting-looking chemicals here,’ I said, taking in the bottles on the shelves. A few were labelled with names that looked like they came off the
periodic table, but they were all empty and, anyway, I had no idea what the names meant. The woman in the shop had said Elijah bought a special chemical – some kind of acid. Where was
that?

‘I don’t get it.’ Rachel limped over to the sink in the corner of the room. She turned on the tap but it just vibrated, making a low chugging noise. No water appeared.

‘The pipes can’t be connected up,’ I said.

That was weird, too, wasn’t it? I’d never been in a science lab that didn’t have running water before.

I examined a big tank set into the wall between the bookcase and the sink. It was labelled
Hydratoroxide.
What was that for?

Rachel went back to the table and sagged into her chair. She rested her head in one hand and checked her watch. ‘He’ll be back in ten minutes, and we haven’t found out
anything.’ She sounded completely defeated.

I bit my lip. Most of me just wanted to insist that we left while we had a chance, but the words Rachel had said outside, about Elijah, were still echoing in my ears.

It’s up to us to stop him. For good. Right here. Right now.

Despite my anxiety for her safety – and my own – I knew she was right. We’d been living in fear since we escaped from the Washington complex last year. That had to end. And
this was our best chance to end it.

I picked up the laptop again. It was a Vaio – a state-of-the-art model. Why would Elijah keep an ace computer in here with no data on it? Unless . . .

‘Maybe he downloads the data onto something when he leaves the bunker,’ I said. ‘That’s why the computer’s empty, but loaded with apps and software.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘Then where’s the download?’

‘I don’t know. Man, it could be anywhere.’ I groaned. ‘It’s probably
on
him.’

‘Okay, but he must keep a backup here.’ Rachel looked round. ‘This is his safe place . . . it
has
to be here. It wouldn’t make sense for him to take
all
the
data out of this bunker.’

I followed her gaze round the messy room. I was standing close to the large bookshelf that occupied the end section of the wall. I pulled out several rows of text books, but no storage device
emerged, so I turned my attention to the cupboard next to the sink. This was crammed with all sorts of scientific bits and pieces: from syringes and Bunsen burners, to a selection of rubber gloves
in varying stages of disrepair.

No sign of a CD or a USB flash drive.

My guts twisted into knots. The data Elijah had downloaded could be hidden anywhere. Across the room, Rachel picked up a sheaf of papers from the table and shook them. Nothing fell out. She
turned away, heading for the cupboard next to the table. I let my eyes travel round the room. If I were Elijah, which I genetically was, where would I hide something? Where was the last place
you’d expect to find a fragile container of top-secret scientific data?

My eyes rested on the water tap above the sink. A water tap with no water.

Of course.

I strode over to the sink and turned the tap on again, hard. Again the pipes juddered and gurgled, but no water came out.

‘Something’s blocking this,’ I said. I bent down, under the sink. The switch behind the U-bend pipe immediately below the bowl was switched to the ‘off’
position.

‘Why are you looking there?’ Rachel sounded incredulous.

‘Elijah’s turned off the water supply for some reason,’ I said, examining the pipe. I grabbed a pair of rubber gloves off the table and twisted the nut positioned just above
the U-bend. I knew there would be water in the bend itself but what about just above that?