Out Of Time (Book 0): Super Unknown (11 page)

“Menace
or heroes?” asked the title of a blog. Displayed below were the first words,
which read: “The government are quick to persecute the so-called super-power
menace, but how do we know they’re bad? Well, maybe they’re not if you
believe…” Scarlett hit the link to read the rest of the article, but it wasn’t
there. There was just a blank screen saying “This page has been removed”.

Curiouser
and curiouser, as Alice would have said as she ventured into her Wonderland.
Why had a positive article about the super teens been removed? Why were her
family reported as dead? And why didn’t she exist? It was a mystery. Scarlett
was beginning to realise that nothing was as it seemed it this twisted world.

She
hit the back button again to try to find more, but at that second, the glass
front of the café shattered as a policeman came flying through it and landed by
her computer. Scarlett span around in disbelief, checking herself for cuts. She
should have known things wouldn’t stay quiet for long. She was beginning to
hate this place, wherever it was.

She
looked outside. Dozens of police were marching to the scene – she could count
at least ten rows of them. Well she thought they were police anyway. Their
black, military-style outfits and the helmets that covered their faces made
them look so much more imposing than any cops she’d seen before and the sight
of them striding towards the building carrying guns scared the life out of her.
Since when were they all armed? Remembering that she was a wanted woman,
Scarlett decided to make a quick exit amidst the commotion. She logged off her
computer, then snuck out into the crowds.

Chaos
was reigning. A group of troublemakers about her age were fighting with the
police. Scarlett couldn’t believe her eyes – they had super powers, but it only
took her a second to realise they weren’t the teenagers she had met yesterday.

“Who
are they then?” she wondered. Something told her she didn’t want to hang around
to find out, so she put her head down and kept on walking. But it was too late.
She’d already been spotted.

“Hello
Scarlett,” smiled a girl with curly dark hair who had flown from nowhere to be
hovering in front of her. “Well, well, we never expected to see you again.”

“Yowch!”
Scarlett yelled as the crazy flying girl slapped her round the face. Something
told her that, whoever this teen was, the two of them weren’t friends.

“Ethan!”
the girl shouted. “Look who I’ve found. I told you she wasn’t dead.”

Scarlett
turned round to see the boy she was talking to. He was about her age, 5ft 10in
with a blond floppy fringe that moodily covered one eye. He was throwing little
round bombs around left, right and centre, before stopping to run over to them.

“Hi
Scarlett,” he said with an unwelcoming tone. “You survived then?”

“Survived
what? Do I know you?”

“I
think she’s gone mad,” the flying girl laughed as she eyed Scarlett up and
down. She sure was pretty, if you liked sexy stunners with killer hourglass
figures and bouncy curly hair. Scarlett fingered her own super-straight locks
with envy.

“Shut
it, Sasha,” Ethan snapped. “It’s obvious she’s bluffing.”

“No
I’m not! I honestly have no idea where I am, who you are, who anyone is.”

“Yeah,
you would say that,” he laughed.

“What
are we going to do with her?” the girl she now knew to be called Sasha asked.

“I
don’t know.” Ethan scratched his head. He looked around at his two teammates,
who were still fighting the police. A stunning Japanese girl was outsmarting
the officers with some impressive, nifty moves and a bulky, brunette guy was
beating them all to a pulp. He looked almost invincible, their punches and
bullets didn’t make a dent and almost appeared to make him stronger. He must be
super tough too because he was tearing pieces of metal off an unfinished
building and throwing them at his attackers.

“We
should be helping them, not standing here chatting,” Ethan added.

The
Japanese girl spotted Scarlett and effortlessly somersaulted her way through
the air to reach her. She kicked her flat in the chest and pinned her to the
floor.

“Ow!” 
Scarlett yelped.

“Where
is he?” the girl screamed.

Scarlett
sighed. This lot were all crazy and, like most of the people in this world,
talking utter nonsense that she didn’t understand.

“Get
off me!” Scarlett screamed, flailing her free hand in a desperate bid to hit
the crazy ninja girl round the face. She missed, so she swung her arm again.

“Oh
damn it,” Scarlett muttered.

Suddenly,
a huge piece of metal flew at all three of them, sending them flying and
setting Scarlett free.

That
was a stroke of good luck.

Ethan,
Sasha and the other girl got to their feet and momentarily forgot about
Scarlett while they screamed at their strong friend.

“What
the hell did you throw that at us for?”

“I
didn’t!” he protested. “I swear, I was aiming over there.” He pointed in the
opposite direction.

As
they rowed, Scarlett seized the opportunity to make a run for it while their
backs were turned. She bolted down the street and kept going until she was sure
no one was following her, then ducked into a small alley. Panting and out of
breath, she stared at her surroundings. The city was grim and unrecognisable
from the London she knew, but she was sure she was still in the City somewhere.
The narrow streets and mix of old-fashioned buildings and imposing shiny towers
told her that much.

“Urgh!”
she grumbled as something squelched under her Converse. What had she put her
foot in? She scowled at the masses of dirt and scum on the floor. And to think
people used to call the London she lived in dirty. This was positively
disgusting.

Scarlett
heard some people approaching and skulked further back into the shadows. As
they passed, she realised they were two policemen on patrol.

“Nope
nothing down here,” one of them said. “Shall we get some Detectobots sent in to
be sure?”

She
wanted to gasp with fear, but she knew she had to stay as quiet as possible.

“No
point,” the other cop said. “The trouble is all back up there and you know we
get punished when we waste resources.”

“You’re
right,” the first cop agreed. “Let’s go back.”

Scarlett
listened as they walked away in the direction they came from and waited for ten
long minutes until she was sure the coast was clear to step back out into the
street again.

What
did she do now? She had been hit by a lorry, woken up in a nightmare universe,
lost her best friend, found out her family were supposedly dead, she was
homeless and she’d been attacked by a bunch of super-powered maniacs. Things
couldn’t get crazier, or much worse.

She
couldn’t even call anyone or go anywhere because she didn’t have a mobile phone
or much of Neelam’s money left. Thinking of Neelam, she pulled out the gadget
she’d given her and remembered the girl’s words: “Press this anytime and we’ll
come running.” Scarlett ran her fingers lightly over the curious contraption.
Last night, she’d been a little scared of the weird gang of kids she’d met,
with their claims to know her and their special powers, but now she realised
they were the only people she could turn to. She closed her eyes, took a deep
breath and hit the switch.

A
gust of wind whooshed against her face and sent litter whirling down the alley.
Scarlett opened her eyes and saw the blond boy called Jay standing there. He
smiled at her, his chocolate-brown eyes twinkling with happiness.

“Scarlett!
You called? Have you remembered us?”

“No.”
She shuffled her feet apprehensively. “But I didn’t know where else to go.”

“So
you wanna come home?”

“Home?”

“To
our house?”

“OK…”
she still wasn’t sure, but it seemed like the best option.

“Come
on, hop on,” he declared.

She
glanced around, but she couldn’t see a bike, scooter, or indeed any kind of
transportation.

“Of
course, you don’t remember anything.” Jay smacked his forehead for comedy
effect. “Sorry, Scarlett, it’s hard to adjust, and I’m just so happy to see you
alive, my brain runs away with me.”

“That’s
OK,” she said uneasily, even though it wasn’t.

“I
run fast, very fast, that’s my power. That’s how I got here so quickly after
you called us. So if you just hop on my back, I’ll have you back at the house
in a jiffy.”

“Oh,
right.” She remembered Dylan saying Jay was super quick, now she thought about
it.

“Come
on, Scarlett!” Jay joked. “What are you waiting for?”

She
clumsily tried to climb onto his back, but she didn’t have much success.

“Don’t
clamber about like a feeble kitten,” he said. “Hop on!”

Scarlett
hopped. She fell.

“Oh,
come here, you silly girl.”

He
picked her up.

“Now
throw your hands round my neck, wrap your legs around me and hold on tight.”

Scarlett
blushed. She’d never been this close to a boy before. She’d never even had a
boyfriend because she’d been too busy studying, listening to music and reading
comics. She was too embarrassed to hold on
too
tight.

However,
once Jay started to run, she clung on for dear life. He sure wasn’t kidding
when he said he was fast, it felt like she was travelling at the speed of
light. She tried to focus on their surroundings as they whizzed past, but they
sped by in a multi-coloured blur.

“Here
you go,” he smiled, as he put her down outside a huge, old house seconds later.

The
world was spinning.

“I
feel dizzy,” Scarlett said. “And sick.”

Jay
laughed as he fumbled for his key.

“Sorry,
he said. “You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

Was
he kidding? There was no way she was doing that again. She looked up and down
the tree-lined street, trying to figure out where they were.

“Where’s
my key?” he muttered.

At
that second, the door flung open.

“You’re
home!” Neelam announced, as she stepped onto the doorstep to give them both a
hug.

Scarlett
instantly tried to lock her thoughts up tight. She couldn’t help but feel
uneasy and exposed around Neelam and her telepathic powers.

“Did
you read our minds, to know we were outside?” Scarlett asked suspiciously.

“No!
I heard you silly. You weren’t exactly quiet. Now come inside before someone
sees us. Lucy and I use our powers to mask our presence in this area, but we
can still never be too careful.”

Scarlett
followed Neelam and Jay through the grand entrance hall.

“Where
are we?” she asked. “Am I still in London?”

Neelam
giggled. “Of course we are, even Jay can’t run that fast. We’re in Highgate,
you know, in north London.”

“Oh
yeah.” She mentally pictured it being near the top of the Northern Line on the
tube map. “I’ve never been here before.”

Jay
looked at her confused. “You used to live here!” He turned to Neelam. “Why
doesn’t she remember?” he asked impatiently.

Neelam
gave him a stern look. “Stop pressurising Scarlett. This is hard for her,” she
chastised him.

They
walked into the living room, where Lucy and Dylan were sitting by the fire
reading.

“Hi!”
they exclaimed. They jumped up ready to get excited, then suddenly acted more
composed. She sensed that Neelam had used her power to tell them to behave and
go easy on her too.

“Sit
down,” Lucy encouraged her. “I’ve got a lasagne in the oven cooking for later,
I know it’s your favourite.”

“Thanks,”
Scarlett smiled as she hesitantly perched on the edge of a sofa. Lasagne
was
her favourite. It baffled her how much they knew.

“Wait
till you’ve tasted it,” Jay laughed. “Lucy doesn’t cook very often.”

Lucy
scowled.

“I’m
sure it’ll be lovely,” Scarlett assured her. She stared around the room as the
others sat down around her. The room had cream and pale green walls, which she
found to be quite calming. The curtains and sofas were a quite old-fashioned
shade of dark green, while the floors were wooden with a large Chinese rug in
the centre. It didn’t seem like the kind of house you would find a group of
teenagers living in.

“So,
who are you… we?” she asked.

“Well,
we don’t exactly have a name,” Dylan explained. “We’re a group of people with
special powers. I guess you could say we try to make this country a better
place.”

“And
keep out of trouble when necessary,” Jay added.

“Yeah
a lot of people have it in for us,” Dylan agreed. “So we have to lie low, but
we still do our bit to, you know, save the world.”

“If
you’re –
we’re
– the good guys, then why are the police after you?” she
asked. “I saw a wanted poster for you, and read some articles on the internet.”

“Propaganda,”
Neelam said angrily. “The government have made us look bad for their own ends
and that’s why the cops have it in for us too…”

“It’s
a long story,” Dylan said, cutting Neelam’s rant off.

“Well,
can I hear it?” Scarlett asked. “Please?” she looked around at the four of
them.

There
was no response.

“Oh,
come on! You say you all know me, but I don’t remember any of this. I’ve been
chased by funny robots and attacked by some crazy ninja girl, so I’m clearly in
danger. Why can’t you tell me the truth?”

Neelam
was alarmed. “What? A girl attacked you?”

“Ninja
girl? As in super-skilled at martial arts?” Dylan asked.

Scarlett
nodded. She should have guessed they’d know her.

The
four of them stared at each other – they looked pretty worried.

“Toshiko,”
Neelam sighed. “Was she alone?”

“No,
she was with three friends.”

Dylan
had his head in his hands. “I can’t believe they came after you.”

“Well
they didn’t really, I kind of ran into them… they were fighting with police
when they spotted me. Two of them, they called each other Ethan and Sasha,
seemed to know me, then the other girl – who you call Toshiko – saw me and
attacked me like a crazy thing. Then the funniest thing happened, just as I was
trying to slap her, a big piece of metal flew at them from nowhere and I
escaped. It was so lucky.”

“Yeah
lucky,” Lucy said rolling her eyes. “It just flew from nowhere.”

“Who
are they?” Scarlett asked, letting Lucy’s strange comment go.

“They’re
like us,” Neelam said. “They used to be with us, but they took a different
path.”

“OK,
I’m starting to get lost now,” she said, pressing her thumbs on her temples.
Her brain was close to exploding with the ridiculous overload of information.