Pep Squad (3 page)

Talk about feeling the impact
, Jess thought bitterly to herself as she landed her final flip about a foot from the edge of the building and dived off the top, turning a single somersault in the air and landing on her feet in a low squat. It was a long drop and her ankles rammed painfully into the ground, but she ignored the pain and repeated her somersault over the edge, landing equally painfully on the next floor down.

She pressed herself up against the wall and looked through a window. More gun-brandishing businessmen were inside the building and running towards her. She had to move. She peered over the edge of the building. There was a window-cleaning platform another floor down with a canvas tarpaulin stretched across the bottom of it. Having already proven to herself that she could land safely, although painfully, over such a vertical distance, Jess decided to take the plunge. Being so small, the platform didn't offer her much room for error or rolling space to break her fall, but it was either that or crash out of the test.

She took a deep breath and dived off the side of the building – but she didn't calculate the spin correctly and landed heavily on her back on the platform.

Again, the pain was very real, but she had no time to recover from it. Her pursuers had come to the edge of the roof and were firing down at her. She rolled as close to the building as she could for protection, her ears ringing from the impact of bullets on metal.

Surprisingly the men didn't seem to be aiming for her. Jess wasn't sure what they were doing until one of the bullets made a different sort of twang as it hit the cable from which the platform was suspended.

She watched in horror as the bullets severed the wire strand by strand. She looked around desperately and noticed the control box on the opposite side of the platform. If she could just reach the Down button. Jess stretched out her arm, but the gunmen were quicker and blew the control box apart.

The platform started to tilt and she knew it wouldn't be long before the cable broke completely, sending her plunging to the street below. She was still well over thirty metres high. There was no way she could survive the fall.

As the platform tilted, a loose corner of the tarpaulin billowed in the breeze. Jess reached down and touched it. It certainly felt real enough through the glove. She closed her fingers around it and yanked. To her surprise and relief, the tarp came away from the platform floor. Working quickly, the tilt of the platform growing ever steeper as bullet after bullet severed more strands of cable, Jess undid her trainers and tied a corner of the tarp around each foot. She stuffed her feet in their tarp socks back inside her trainers and retied the laces quickly. Then she grabbed the other two corners of the tarp in each hand and jumped.

Base jumping was something that had always appealed to Jess, but she'd never expected to be trying it for the first time with a home-made parachute. Spreadeagled, Jess felt a jerk as the updraft caught in the tarp, yanking her upwards. She felt the corners of the tarp start to slip out of her shoes and looked at how far she had to go. Nine storeys, eight, seven … Jess looked from the building to the ground below. The breeze from the river was pushing her towards a street lamp.

Five storeys, four … Jess tried to steer the makeshift parachute away from the lamp but the right edge caught on it. The sudden stop yanked the tarp out of her hands and pulled her trainers off. She crashed barefoot onto a coffee cart below.

As she picked herself up she heard the audible pedestrian-crossing signal and dashed across Burgh Quay, nearly getting mowed down by a lorry that ran the red light. A big crowd was gathered on O'Connell Bridge, watching a street performer who was asking for a volunteer from the audience to assist with a magic trick. As Jess tried to push her way through the crowd, the magician grabbed her and manhandled her into his supposedly magic box.

Jess quickly felt around the inside of the box but couldn't find any lever or fake wall that would free her. Luckily the box was made of a lightweight material and reasonably roomy. Determined not to waste any more time, she raised her leg and kicked as hard as she could against the front of the box. The wood cracked. One more kick and she was free.

Jess shot out of the box and raced north across the bridge and up O'Connell Street. The lights at Eden Quay were red, and O'Connell Street was blocked by traffic. Jess wove in between the unmoving traffic, trying to cross the road diagonally, and almost got taken out by a bicycle courier. She ran up the west side of O'Connell Street, having to dodge the usual Dublin bustle. The pedestrian lights changed to orange and Jess put on an extra burst of speed to try to make it across Abbey Street, but she was fractionally too late and a left-turning white van screeched around the corner in front of her. Jess pulled up just in time, feeling the breeze from the van's passing against her face.

As she waited for the lights to change, she heard footsteps pounding on the pavement. At least six suited gunmen were running towards her down O'Connell Street from the direction of the GPO, blocking her access to the front of the building. Thinking quickly, Jess ran around the corner after the van, picking her time to weave through the moving traffic as she crossed Abbey Street. She could hear the gunmen behind her, but she had a good lead on them. She ducked into William's Lane when suddenly a motorcyclist turned in behind her, gunning his engine and chasing her along the footpath. Jess made a beeline for a large rubbish bin, leapfrogging it at the last second. The motorcyclist ploughed straight into it and was launched through the air, landing spreadeagled and clearly stunned only millimetres from Jess.

She put on a fresh burst of speed, turning up Prince's Street and entering the GPO through the side entrance. She was searching desperately for a way up to the third floor when red lettering appeared in front of her, hovering in mid-air.
Time Remaining: 10
…

What the hell?
thought Jess.

9
…

Time remaining is in
seconds
?

8
…

Signora Enigmistica definitely didn't mention a time limit.

7
…

Jess saw a stairwell on the opposite side of the main hall and ran for it.

6
…

When she was halfway across the hall, three gun-brandishing businessmen came in the front door. They took aim, but Jess dived onto the highly polished floor and slid the rest of the way to the stairs on her belly as gunfire raked the floor behind her.

5
…

Jess slammed into the riser of the bottom stair and half crawled, half ran up the stairs.

4
…

One more level to go.

3
…

Footsteps clattered up the stairs behind her.

2
…

Jess ripped the microdot out of her sleeve.

1
…

Jess reached the top of the stairs, where Lieutenant Parry was waiting with his arm outstretched. Jess held the microdot out towards him. At the same moment she felt the muzzle of a gun between her shoulder blades. Then everything went black.

The door of the booth opened and Signora Enigmistica appeared with a glass of green liquid. Jess took a few seconds to adjust to the new reality.

‘Did I pass?' panted Jess.

‘Looked to me as though you were about to get shot. It's lucky you ran out of time when you did: it would not have felt pleasant,' answered Signora Enigmistica, the look on her face indecipherable.

‘You didn't say anything about a countdown,' said Jess, finally noticing the glass in Signora Enigmistica's hand. ‘Is that Memory Wipe?'

‘Drink it and see,' said Signora Enigmistica, holding the glass out to her.

Jess took one last look around her and drank.

Jess woke up feeling not particularly well rested but very excited. Signora Enigmistica and her simulation booth felt like a hazy dream. But that was all months ago, before the summer holidays. Now it was the first day of autumn term. Jess dressed in her Theruse Abbey formal uniform and smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

The same day that she'd passed the simulation test, an envelope addressed to her parents had arrived with the Theruse Abbey emblem on it. Jess had found the lengths to which her parents went to prepare her for the ‘news' quite amusing. They cooked her favourite dinner – complete with self-saucing chocolate pudding for dessert – and waited until Jess couldn't eat another bite before bringing up the subject.

Jess had tried not to smile as her parents looked at each other, both hoping the other would speak first. Finally, she couldn't stand it any longer.

‘What's up?' she demanded.

Her parents looked at her like naughty children caught in the act.

‘You've been acting weird all evening. Does one of you have cancer or something?'

‘No, no, nothing like that,' exclaimed Mrs Leclair.

‘Then what's with the burritos and the chocolate pudding? It's not my birthday, so that can only mean bad news.'

‘It's not bad news,' said Dr Leclair.

‘In fact it's good news,' said Mrs Leclair smiling sadly.

‘Then why are you pulling that face?' Jess asked her mother.

‘Well,' said Dr Leclair, ‘you know how you're always complaining about how much you don't like Kilmaire College?'

‘Yes,' said Jess cautiously.

‘We kind of went behind your back a little and enrolled you in a different school,' said Mrs Leclair.

‘Not Loreto–' began Jess.

‘No, it's not a girls' school. It's a school you probably haven't heard of before,' said Dr Leclair, passing Jess the parents' version of the Theruse Abbey brochure.

‘What's Theruse Abbey?' asked Jess, skimming through the pages as if it was the first time she had seen it.

‘It comes highly recommended and it's mixed,' said Dr Leclair.

‘Yeah, I can see that,' said Jess. ‘Where is it?'

‘That's the thing,' said Mrs Leclair. ‘It's out west.'

‘What? Blanchardstown?'

‘No. Really west. Near Dingle,' said Dr Leclair.

‘Dingle! But that's–'

‘Four hours away. You'd have to board,' said Dr Leclair.

‘Jess? How do you feel about that?' asked Mrs Leclair, laying a gentle hand on her daughter's forearm.

‘Um, it's a bit of a shock,' said Jess. ‘How did you even hear about this place?'

‘A walk-in client who needed some emergency work done. He saw your picture, asked your age and told me all about the school. He even had a brochure with him,' said Dr Leclair.

I'll bet he did
, thought Jess. Instead she said, ‘You've enrolled me there already?'

‘We could tell you're not happy at Kilmaire,' began Mrs Leclair.

‘And this new school seems to cater well to students with your temperament. The teachers are enthusiastic, and the students seem happy and challenged,' continued Dr Leclair.

‘The only thing is that it is so far away,' said Mrs Leclair. ‘But looking at all the possible options, this one seems to be the best.'

‘So what do you think?' asked Dr Leclair.

‘It's a lot to take in,' Jess replied, which was quite honest. A mere thirty hours before she had been totally unaware of Theruse Abbey or P.E.P. Squad and thought she was doomed to spend the next three years at her current school. Now she had a life of thrills and espionage to look forward to.

‘We really do think it's for the best,' said Mrs Leclair.

‘Look,' said Dr Leclair. ‘You don't have to decide now. This is only an offer of enrolment – you don't have to accept it. And it's not too late to apply to other schools.'

‘I'll think about it,' said Jess, sliding out from her seat at the table, taking the brochure with her. She barely managed to run upstairs and close her door before bursting into fits of laughter.

As she zipped up her suitcase and looked around her room for the last time, she felt incredibly nervous.

‘Jess! Are you ready?' Mrs Leclair called from downstairs.

‘Coming,' said Jess.

She dragged the suitcase downstairs, glad that her textbooks and most of her uniform would be waiting for her at school. It just wouldn't do to have copies of books with names like (she was guessing)
How to Disarm and Disable Enemy Agents
lying around, and her parents might have become suspicious if they'd had to launder combat fatigues.

The four-hour drive to Theruse Abbey seemed to last four weeks. It wasn't just that Jess was excited about her new school and anxious to get there, but her mother droned on and on about how far away she'd be, and how much she'd miss her, and how they could come and collect her at any time if she was feeling homesick.

‘Now, they say that it's easier for the students to adjust to boarding school if we limit phone contact to once a week,' said Mrs Leclair for the eighth time.

‘You told me that already,' said Jess wearily, catching her father's eye in the rear-view mirror as he shook his head.

‘But that doesn't mean I won't be thinking about you every single minute …'

‘Aiysha, relax,' said Dr Leclair.

‘But she's our baby,' said Mrs Leclair, wiping her eyes. ‘I just didn't expect it to be this hard.'

‘You'll be fine, Mum,' said Jess, while thinking,
If only you knew.

They finally made it to the school and joined a short line of cars waiting to turn into the gates. A teacher was standing at the gate with a clipboard.

‘Who do we have here?' asked the teacher.

‘Jessica Leclair,' said Mrs Leclair.

‘Leclair … Jessica … here you are. Transition year. Welcome to Theruse,' said the teacher. ‘The car park's down the driveway and on the left. The welcome assembly starts at 2 p.m. sharp in the auditorium, just inside the main entrance of the abbey. Students only, I'm afraid, Dr and Mrs Leclair. It makes the separation, especially for first-timers, easier. Have you labelled your suitcase, Jessica?'

Jess nodded.

‘Just leave it in the foyer before assembly. You can say your goodbyes there,' said the teacher, waving them through.

They drove up the gravel drive between freshly manicured lawns. The school building was a beautifully restored abbey, with various towers jutting over a high stone wall. They drove through an archway in the wall, following the red-and-white painted sign to the car park.

‘Well, here we are,' said Dr Leclair as he pulled into a parking space. ‘Looks like most of the parents are saying their farewells here. Do you want me to carry your suitcase for you?'

Jess scanned the car park quickly. It was fairly empty. The few kids who were there were waving goodbye to their parents and walking over to the abbey alone.

‘No. I'll be fine,' said Jess, hopping out to grab her suitcase from the boot.

Both her parents got out of the car.

‘I know it's school policy for you to stay here over mid-term,' began her mother, ‘but if you're really missing us–'

‘I'll be OK, Mum. Honestly,' said Jess, as a couple of boys, so alike they had to be brothers, walked past.

‘I'll miss you so much,' wailed Mrs Leclair, flinging her arms around her daughter.

The boys looked over at Jess and grinned.

‘Mum,' hissed Jess, ‘you're embarrassing me!'

‘Sorry,' said Mrs Leclair, taking a step back and sniffing. ‘Now I know they said once a week, but you know you can call us any time if you need to.'

‘Yes, Mum,' said Jess. ‘Are you sure
you'll
be OK?'

Mrs Leclair nodded as she wiped another tear away.

‘Mum. It's only boarding school. It's not like I'm joining the army or anything,' said Jess, wondering whether the army would be less gruelling than what awaited her in agent training. ‘I'll be back at the end of term for sure.'

‘I know,' said Mrs Leclair. ‘But you're my baby …'

‘Mum!' groaned Jess, worried that her mother would make a scene.

‘Alright. I'm all right,' said Mrs Leclair, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. ‘Take care, darling.'

‘I will, Mum,' said Jess.

‘Work hard,
ma petite
, and enjoy yourself,' said Dr Leclair, kissing Jess on the cheek.

‘I will, Dad.'

She pulled up the retractable handle of her suitcase and dragged it through the car park, following the tiny trickle of students making their way towards the building. As she reached the door, she turned and waved at her parents, who were still standing by the boot of the car. Then, with a growing sense of anticipation, she stepped through the front door, dumped her bag with the others in the foyer and walked into the auditorium.

The stage was semi-circular and three sections of seats descended towards it. Jess did a quick calculation and worked out there was seating for at least two hundred people, although less than fifty of the seats were taken and all of the students were seated in the first few rows. Jess chose to sit in the fourth row. As she walked towards the centre, she immediately regretted her decision, as the boys she'd seen in the car park were sitting in the middle of the row. Her first urge was to sit down immediately and pretend she hadn't seen them, but then she thought that wasn't the sort of thing a gutsy secret agent would do and decided to sit right next to them.

‘Hi,' she said. ‘I'm Jess.'

‘I'm Ben,' said the boy seated beside her, offering his hand.

‘And I'm Matt,' said the boy next to him, reaching across his brother to shake hands with Jess.

Now that she was up close to them, she was sure they were twins. Both were blond-haired and quite tanned, with broad Australian accents. The only distinguishing factor between them was muscle mass, with Matt looking like Ben on steroids.

‘Before you ask,' said Ben, ‘yes, we're identical twins and, yes, we're from Australia.'

‘Before you ask, yes, that was my mum and, yes, she's always like that,' replied Jess.

‘Nice to know she cares,' said Matt.

‘That's one way of looking at it,' said Jess, feeling her cheeks burn just at the thought of her mum's display in the car park. ‘How did you Aussie guys end up at a school in Ireland?'

‘Both our parents work in the oil industry. We've been in Kuwait for the last three years. Rather than sending us to what they consider to be one of the exclusive international schools in Kuwait–'

‘Oh, the irony,' interrupted Matt, smiling broadly.

‘–our parents wanted us to be educated at a normal school in an English-speaking country. Ireland's only seven hours away by air, which is half the distance to Australia, so it was the obvious choice,' finished Ben.

‘Yeah, we'll get to go back and thaw out in the holidays. Seriously, do you ever get summer in this country?' asked Matt.

‘We had two sunny days in a row last week in Dublin!' said Jess defensively.

‘Not a good idea to offend the natives,' Ben muttered.

‘So how did you hear about this place?' asked Jess.

‘This seemingly random chick approached us at GameCon to see if we'd design a game for this new VR cell her company makes.'

Jess had no idea what they were talking about. ‘What's GameCon? And what's a VR cell?'

‘GameCon's a convention for computer-game industry professionals,' explained Matt. ‘And VR stands for Virtual Reality.'

‘What were you guys doing at a convention for computer-game industry professionals?' asked Jess.

‘We, uh, own a gaming company,' said Ben.

‘Oh,' said Jess. ‘How old are you?'

‘Fifteen,' said Ben.

‘I'm four minutes older,' volunteered Matt.

‘Hang on,' said Jess, remembering the simulation in the final testing phase of her recruitment. ‘
You
guys wrote that game with the gunmen on the roof of O'Connell Bridge House?'

‘No, we didn't write that one, but we did get to play it,' said Ben. ‘Pretty annoying, really. It's amazing technology and I had all these great ideas for how we could develop it further but, as you know, it was just the last step in recruitment and no one seemed all that interested in my suggestions.'

While Jess and the boys had been chatting, more students had arrived. However, the auditorium was less than half full when the back doors closed and a hush fell around the hall.

Down on the stage a group of adults filed in and sat on a row of chairs that spanned its width. They were men and women of all different nationalities, but the one thing they had in common was that they all looked very, very fit. Jess recognised Lieutenant Parry and Signora Enigmistica. They were sitting either side of a young woman with beautiful, long, shiny hair, who kept glancing apprehensively at the students.