Kindred Spirits - The Path Ahead
By Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway
Part 1 of 15 - The Heist!

(10: 00 pm GMT. Eight hours before the raid.)

Immersed in his task, the young man stretched out his awareness until he could sense the very essence of the objects in the room. He stood with eyes closed in the lee of the small wooden hut, ignoring the gentle rain that soaked into his hair and clothing. With his consciousness stretching to its very limits, only a fragment of self remained within his body. As the seconds ticked by, all physical sensation drifted away, until the warm musty atmosphere inside the hut was more tangible than the cold dampness of the night air outside.

An onlooker would have laughed at the expression of utter concentration fixed upon his boyish face. But unless they too understood the nature of a TP's talents, they would hardly comprehend his behaviour. This was perceiving without seeing, feeling without touching, reality without physicality - enticing him forward until he lost himself in the addictive sensuality of the moment.

Adjacent to his position behind the wall was a filing cabinet, the smooth coldness of steel fascinating him momentarily as he brushed its surface with his mind. A few feet beyond that was the curved mass of oak that formed the desk. It felt heavy and welcoming to his outstretched senses. As he skimmed the top of the desk he became aware of something new and gasped as he absorbed the nature of the object. Lying open-paged on the warm leatherette surface was a copy of 'The Sun' newspaper, complete with semi-naked starlet smiling out from its sleazy pages. With an effort, he pulled his mind away and reached beyond the paper to feel the thick-soled boots of a sleeping security guard. With legs raised on top of the desk, the guard was leaning back precariously in his chair, head drooping, his arms folded across his chest.

Rejecting the temptation to cause the guard to fall by using a carefully placed telekinetic nudge, he chastised himself. This mission was far too important to be spoiled by childlike and irresponsible notions. At all costs he must not alert security to his presence and that of the other TPs.

Dragging his awareness further into the small room, he passed the computer, telephone and other office paraphernalia that sat idly in the corner, and at last located his goal. Halfway up the far wall was a square pegboard upon which were mounted a dozen small metal hooks, and above each was a plaque containing a seven-character code. Searching through the various combinations, he finally located what he was looking for and breathed a mental sigh of relief.

Now he had found his prize, a tingle of excitement passed through the energy that cloaked the room's contents. Fearful of waking the sleeping guard, he immediately stifled the sensation and intensified his efforts. Gently the ignition key rose into the air, hovering momentarily as the accompanying key fob lifted and unhooked itself from the metal peg. Slowly, as if guided by invisible fingers, the neighbouring keys also lifted from their resting places and followed one another in a silent procession towards the door.

With his brow deeply furrowed and his mouth twitching anxiously at the corners, he motioned in the air with his right hand, as if conducting an invisible orchestra in some silent symphony. The keys suddenly halted in their progress and the door quietly opened.

He knew he was stretching his mental abilities to their very limits and found himself wishing he had listened to Paul's insistent urging that he practice his skills more often. All I have to do is maintain concentration for a little longer, he thought, as the keys emerged into the damp night air and floated around the security hut towards where he stood, hidden in the shadows at the rear of the building. Refusing any outside distraction from his errand, he kept his eyes tightly shut, concentrating his entire mind's eye upon the task at hand. With a flick of his stubby fingers the three key fobs passed the corner of the hut and picked up speed. His own excitement was mounting now as the keys flew straight towards his outstretched hand.

"What have we here then?"

The voice stabbed at his consciousness like a knife, tearing at the fabric of his outstretched awareness and forcing his mind back into his skull with a jolt. The intruder couldn't have halted his plan with any more certainty than if he had hit him with a blunt instrument. Once the telekinetic energy began to dissipate, the keys' fate was assured. They wavered momentarily in mid-flight, then plummeted towards the ground.

Suddenly alert, Ben opened his eyes with a start, just in time to see his father catch the three key rings as they fell. "Well, well, well… and what would you be doing here in my yard after all these years, and stealing the ignition keys to three of my best trucks to boot!"

******

The security guard hurried from the hut, relieved that, despite being caught sleeping on the job, he had not been sacked. At first, when Mr. Smith marched noisily into the security hut, dragging his son by the arm, the guard had thought the shocked look of indignation on his boss' face was directed at him. Then, noticing the atmosphere between Mr Smith and his son as they stood facing one another across the desk, he dismissed this idea. Mumbling about taking the dog for a walk around the yard, he left the room as quickly as he could.

These two had not seen one another for over five years, and he had heard some scary gossip, regarding Ben's sudden disappearance, being passed around the day shift of the haulage company. There had been rumours growing for years that Ben was one of those anarchist-terrorists the Government kept warning them about. It was only last week, when he met Frank down the local pub, that they talked about the lad who'd grown up playing in or around the depot. They both agreed that he'd been a nice kid. That was, until he became a teenager. Most parents expected difficulties with their children, but this lad had become surly, withdrawn and argumentative almost overnight. Then one day he upped and disappeared, leaving his dad all alone. And now, five years later, he had the cheek to turn up unannounced in the middle of the night! And was caught stealing from his own father! Well, it just goes to show you can't trust anyone these days, the guard thought, pulling up the collar of his jacket and hurrying across the yard.

Harry Smith stared at his only son. Five years was a long time and, despite his anger, he also longed to reach out and give the lad a hug. But he's not a lad any more, he mused, he's grown into a fine young man. Mulling over how to handle this meeting, Harry decided that it would do little good to reopen old wounds. Smiling at Ben, he took the seat that the guard had just vacated and motioned for his son to also sit down.

"Sorry, Dad," said Ben quietly. "I don't have time for that. I know that I owe you an explanation, but I'm on an urgent mission and can't hang about."

Harry felt his anger rising. "Urgent mission!" he exclaimed, unable to curb the disapproval in his tone. "You come waltzing in here after all these years away, God knows where, and announce you're on a mission!" Mr Smith jangled the three key fobs in his hand, then opened it palm upward as if presenting the keys to his son. "Have these got anything to do with this mission of yours?"

Ben nodded and took a tentative step forward, his face betraying his deep longing to heal the rift that had grown between him and his father. "Okay," he said after a pause. "I'll try to tell you a little." Ben thought for a moment. How could he possibly explain all that had happened to him since his breakout? His father was a good man, and Ben knew in his heart that he would never wish harm to his son, but life for the family of any Tomorrow Person had become almost as dangerous as it was for the TP themselves. "I'm sorry I had to go in such a hurry. I know that you'd tried to keep things together after Mum's death and were hoping for me to help out at the yard once I was old enough, but for me to stick around here was too dangerous for both of us."

Harry Smith nodded in agreement. "They came here, you know. Those people that you warned me about. It was the day after you left. I didn't believe you at first, but when they started snooping around the business, asking my men questions about whether they'd ever seen you do strange things…" His voice trailed off as a shudder ran up his spine. He knew what his son was capable of. Ben had demonstrated most of his TP talents in the weeks immediately following his breakout, but since then the papers had been full of tales about the evil deeds of the Tomorrow People. Harry never believed for one minute that his son was capable of all the things the Government claimed, but why were they making such a fuss about the TPs if they were as harmless as they appeared? Realising that Ben was waiting for him to continue, he gave a weak smile. "Strange things indeed," he chuckled to relieve the growing tension in the room. "You know me, Ben. I don't take kindly to anyone snooping about in my family affairs. I threw them men in black coats out of my yard. I told them that you'd gone off hiking in the Himalayas." Noticing the look of disbelief on Ben's face, Harry chuckled once again. "They didn't believe me for an instant, but it got them off my back and after a few more months their surveillance teams even gave up following me about." He paused and looked into his son's eyes. "Can you tell me where you've been all this time?"

Ben shook his head dejectedly. "Sorry, Dad. I can't breach security. But I'm amongst good and loyal friends and I am happy." He sighed. "For the most part."

Pulling himself up in the chair, Mr. Smith shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Well, son. That's good enough for me. Now, would you mind telling me what this mission is all about and why you need three of my largest trucks?"

"Sorry, Dad," Ben repeated. "I can't tell you that either. But it is a matter of life and death. We'll only borrow them for a few days, that's all. If all goes well, I can drive them back to the depot - well, me and a few friends - tomorrow evening. We came to you because we can trust you not to ask too many questions, and not to call the police. Please, Dad, we're running out of time just standing here. Let me borrow the trucks for forty-eight hours. I promise that when this is all over I'll stay for a while longer and tell you some more about my new life."

Harry Smith rubbed his stubbly chin as he thought about his son's proposition. "I'd love to help you out, son, but those trucks are already loaded for a run up to Birmingham tomorrow. There's three million quid's worth of computer stuff in them and I just can't afford to let you take it like that. What about taking six of my smaller trucks?"

Ben sighed. "We need them, Dad. We need the biggest ones you've got. And we need them now!"

The conversation went back and forth for a few more minutes. Each time Mr. Smith made a suggestion, Ben had a counter-argument. He couldn't risk compromising their mission by telling his father any more than Jimmy had sanctioned, but also knew that his father could easily go bankrupt if he failed to make the delivery of computer supplies on time. "Can't you tell the police they were nicked?" he suggested in desperation. "That way you can claim on the insurance."

"I could…" Harry paused momentarily. "If I could afford insurance. But that's not the issue. You said I mustn't involve the police."

"I know I did, but you could always delay… give us enough time to do what we've planned, then report it."

"And just how do you expect me to explain what's going on to the night shift? Bill saw you. He knows you tried to steal them. He'll tell the police all about it and that'll just make the situation worse."

Ben's frantic mental deliberations were suddenly interrupted by a sharp thought from Jimmy. (What the hell are you doing in there? I gave you three minutes to get the keys and get out. Steph and the others can't hide in the yard all night, you know.)

Harry noticed the faraway look in his son's eyes that always heralded the onset of a telepathic conversation. Even though they had not seen one another for five years, that look still stirred poignant memories for him. It was just after Ben started to hear the voices in his head that he had been taken away from his family and home. Not physically taken away, at first, but somehow the rift between them had begun the day his emergent powers manifested themselves. If only Sylvia had been alive, he mused. She'd have known how to handle the boy. But that was just wishful thinking. The cancer had taken her six months previously and despite Harry's best efforts to be a good father, the lure of those distant voices had been too strong for Ben to ignore.

There was a sudden ringing noise and a strange man appeared beside Ben. This intruder was older and taller than his son and had an attitude about him that Harry instantly disliked.

Ben looked up and frowned. "Jimmy, this is my Dad."

Jimmy looked angry enough to explode. (What on earth were you thinking of - we don't have time for a cosy family reunion, you know.)

"I… I was just asking Dad to give us the tru…" Ben stuttered, intimidated by Jimmy's powerful stare.

Jimmy noticed the look of distress pass across Ben's features, but dismissed it. They were the primary TP security force and Ben better shape up to the responsibilities that the role involved, or he'd be out on his ear. Keeping all this to himself, Jimmy decided to take the initiative away from his friend. "I'm sorry about this, Mr. Smith," he said, pulling his stun gun from its holster.

"No, you can't!" exclaimed Ben, but it was already too late. The gun spat a stream of electrons towards the man behind the desk and he froze open mouthed, the key fobs still dangling from his outstretched hand.

Jimmy leaned forward in silence and removed the three key rings. (That's better,) he 'pathed to an astonished Ben. (Now can we get on with what we came here to do?) In the next instant he jaunted, leaving a stunned Ben alone in the room, staring at the corpse-like figure of his father.

********************************************************************
Kindred Spirits - The Path Ahead
By Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway
Part 2 of 15 - The Heist!

They stood huddled together in the narrow passageway between the parked trucks, each trying to shelter as best they could from the persistent rain.

"Okay, people," whispered Jimmy. "A slight change of plan." He glanced irritably across at Ben and his gaze was met by a stern and embittered frown. "I guess we've got half an hour at most before the police are on our tail. A convoy will look too conspicuous, so I suggest we split up and find our own way to the rendezvous point. Do you each have your maps?"

One by one the designated drivers held up a laminated map of the local motorway network.

"He wouldn't have called them, you know," said Ben out of the blue, his remark obviously directed toward Jimmy rather than anyone else.

They all turned to look at Ben, but it was Stephanie who spoke first. "Who wouldn't have called whom?"

"My Dad." Ben glanced back across the rain-drenched yard. "He's on our side, at least he was up 'till now. But Jimmy had to…" Ben's voice faltered and the others felt a wave of telepathic anguish spread from their friend, forcing them to raise their mental shields in self-defence.

Her anger rising, Stephanie focused her telepathy into a narrow channel directed towards Jimmy's mind. (What did you do to the boy?) she asked accusingly. (We need everyone working at maximum efficiency here, remember?)

Jimmy looked up angrily. (I didn't do anything to him. He was taking far too long just to get a couple of keys, so I jaunted into the security hut. I found him chatting with his old man. This is hardly the right time for a family reunion, so I did the most logical thing. I stunned Mr. Smith, grabbed the keys and…)

(You stunned Ben's father!) Stephanie was incredulous. (Right in front of him? Have you gone completely mad?)

By now the rest of the group had noticed the angry looks passing between the two senior team members and realised that a private telepathic argument was under way. Glancing anxiously from Jimmy to Stephanie and back again, it was Roger who eventually broke into their private squabble. "If you two would stop it for just a minute!" he barked. "Whatever Jimmy did, he probably had good reason. We can debate the rights or wrongs of it later, when we're away from here."

"Roger's right," added Cole. "Let's get moving and debate it once we meet at the rendezvous."

"I'm not going to the rendezvous." This remark came from Ben. "If Jimmy hadn't been so trigger-happy with his stun gun, I would've explained that these trucks are already fully loaded. We'll have to empty the cargo before we can use them."

The team looked across at their leader, waiting for his response to this new information, but all Jimmy could do was shrug in apology. "Okay," he mumbled after a pause. "I was probably too hasty, but this doesn't change anything. If we recalculate the matter-weight ratio of the transporters, we can take it all with us and dump it later on." There was a murmur of agreement from the others.

"The cargo in those trucks is valued at over three million quid," Ben informed them authoritatively. Josh gave a gentle whistle as he contemplated the huge sums involved, eliciting an irritated scowl from Ben before he continued. "My Dad'll go bankrupt if he doesn't make the delivery. I know how important this mission is, but I'm not gonna be party to sending my own father's company down the drain."

Jimmy opened his mouth and began to reply, but his sarcasm was stifled by another sharp telepathic dig from Stephanie. (Don't you think you've caused him enough trouble for one day? It won't take more than thirty minutes for us to unload the trucks. Not if we all work together. What difference will half an hour make to the overall plan?)

(I suppose you're right, Stephanie,) he capitulated.

She switched back to speech. "Okay, if we're going to save Smith's Hauliers from financial ruin, then we're gonna need a place where we can unload in secret. Any suggestions?"

Josh had remained quiet until now, choosing instead to watch with childlike fascination as the British security team bickered amongst themselves. "Why secret?" he commented unexpectedly. "If Ben's Dad isn't going to call the cops on us, all we have to do is leave the gear somewhere safe, then call him up and tell him where to find it."

"That's a good idea, Josh," remarked Stephanie, smirking at his boyish enthusiasm. "But that doesn't change the fact that we're stealing three trucks and even if Ben's Dad isn't the one to call the police, someone else around here will."

"You're damn right I will."

They spun around to see Bill the security guard standing behind them, struggling to control a slavering Alsatian that pulled excitedly on its leash. "I don't know what you folks are up to, and frankly I don't care. Ben may be the boss' son, but I'm not gonna let anyone get away with robbery on my shift." He let go of the sodden leather grip, allowing the leash to slip from his hands as the dog bounded forward towards the startled group of TPs.

Cole, who was closest to the advancing animal, recoiled in horror, stepping on Josh's foot as he stumbled backwards. Stephanie let out a yelp of surprise and also backed up the narrow passageway in some attempt to retreat from the rapidly approaching beast. It was Ben who stood firm, staring intently into the animal's eyes as it leapt towards its target. The dog was only a metre away when it suddenly yelped in response to Ben's psionic suggestion and recoiled in fright, its paws slipping uncontrollably on the wet tarmac as it tried to halt its forward momentum. One final nod from Ben and the dog turned around, then rushed back up the passageway between the parked vehicles.

Noticing how easily the intruders incapacitated his dog, Bill looked about him wretchedly. Assessing the situation, he knew that this youthful gang of would-be thieves outnumbered him and decided that retreat was the best course of action. He sprang into life, running as fast as his stubby legs would carry him around the nearest truck, and disappearing from sight.

"After him!" ordered Jimmy. "Don't let him get to a phone."

Cole immediately sprinted after the man.

Reaching out, Jimmy caught hold of Ben's sleeve just before he too could launch himself after the security guard. "Ben, no," he said with some urgency. "We need you to deal with the alarm. You do remember our original plan, don't you? You're the only one here who knows enough detail to override the security system."

Ben nodded resignedly. "Of course I do. You, Steph and Roger better start the trucks and head for the exit. I'll jaunt into the cab after you've cleared the gates."

Jimmy gave his friend a sympathetic look. "That's better - now we're working as a team." He switched to telepathy. (I'm sorry about your Dad. I was only…)

Ben gave his friend a half-hearted smile, all past anger dissipating in their mental link. (I understand. Can I suggest that if we're going to unload this stuff somewhere before daybreak, we'd better get a move on?)

******

11. 00 pm GMT. Seven hours before the raid.

The truck bounced off the kerb as Stephanie struggled to control the massive vehicle. "Hey!" complained Josh from the seat beside her. "I nearly hit my head that time."

She glared at her companion irritably. "Do you think you can do any better? It is raining, you know."

(Take the next left!)

(Right.)

"No, not right," explained Josh. "Jimmy said left." (Right?)

(Right! Left!)

(Left will take us to the M1,) came Cole's response, from the lead truck of the TP convoy.

The three vehicles thundered at speed down the dual carriageway of the A43, throwing up a cloud of spray in their wake, each driver fighting to retain control in these dangerous road conditions.

"Does Jimmy have any idea where we're going?" asked Ben, who, as a passenger in the truck driven by Roger, was having similar problems to Josh remaining in his seat.

"I guess Jimmy's having as much trouble as…" began Roger.

With the night gloom, the driving rain and the thick spray, Jimmy was struggling to see where they were headed, but was determined not to slow the pace of their getaway. Spotting the turn at the last minute, he threw his full weight onto the steering wheel and the lorry slid around the bend. (Whoaaah!) "That was close!" he shouted, glancing at Cole apologetically.

Roger guided his own vehicle through the tight bend before continuing. "… the rest of us, navigating in this weather," he concluded. (That sign we just passed said Junction 15. Is that right?) "And at these sorts of… (Watch out for the turn, Steph!)

(I see it!)

"… ridiculous speeds."

(No… I mean, yes. It's straight ahead,) replied Jimmy, tongue-tied by his own levels of concentration. (But this is the right road. Head north towards Rothersham services.) He pressed his foot harder on the truck's accelerator and pulled ahead of the others.

"Rothersham!" repeated Stephanie aloud. (Great idea. We can unload the cargo at the back of the lorry park.) She also skidded her vehicle around the turn and onto the motorway slip road.

(… and it's only fifteen miles from Northhampton.) Ben completed the sentence for her. (Dad'll be able to send out some other drivers to pick it up.)

"That is if we ever get there!" grumbled Jimmy, glancing in the rear-view mirror and noticing Stephanie's vehicle falling behind. "Can't she drive any faster?"

Cole also looked at the reflection of the two trucks behind them. "She's female - what do you expect? You should have let me drive."

(But you don't have an HGV licence!)

"Wha…!" gasped Cole, glancing momentarily across at his companion. "How did she know?"

(Some of us need to practice their personal shielding,) came Stephanie's curt retort. Her telepathy was suddenly cut short. "Bloody Hell!" she exclaimed.

Stephanie jerked the steering wheel and the truck lurched to the side, as a sports car nosed out from behind her and accelerated past. "Where did that car come from?" Peering out of the windscreen, she grimaced as she struggled to make out the car's features through the thick spray and glare of reflected headlights. "Does he have a death wish or something? I'm doing seventy already!" (Watch out, boys, there's some idiot in a soft top speeding up the inside lane. I almost didn't see him.)

(We know,) 'pathed Roger, his thoughts ringing with suppressed laughter. (We heard you swear.) He glanced across at Ben. (Some people around here need to raise their shields higher when they curse like that.)

(Touché,) remarked Jimmy, smiling.

(Male chauvinist pigs, the lot of you!) came Stephanie's sarcastic reply.

For the next few miles the group remained quiet, their minds wryly amused by uncontrolled and somewhat childlike laughter, broadcast in a soft Canadian twang by the youngest of their team.

At last their collective consciousness was pulled together by Jimmy's authoritative transmissions. (All right, people, we're here. Pull up in the shadows and let's get to it!)

**********************************************************************

Kindred Spirits - The Path Ahead
By Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway
Part 3 of 15 - The Heist!

Parked close to one another beneath the shelter of an overhanging tree, the TPs looked about them nervously before venturing into the damp night air. As they disembarked from the trucks, Jimmy pulled out a bulky rucksack that he had stuffed behind his seat, and signalled for them to follow him into the light of the nearest lamppost. Careful to avoid any puddles, Jimmy placed the bag down on the tarmac and they all peered at the contents. Inside the bag were twelve ovoid matter transporters, each powerful enough to pull three tons in weight through the churning eddies of hyperspace.

"These," he announced, removing the first of the devices and turning it over in his hands, "were used by Mike's team to help in the construction of Luna." The assembled group mumbled softly to themselves. "If TIM has calculated correctly, four devices attached to the chassis of each truck at fixed intervals will be enough to transport them to the rendezvous point. Once they're all in place, I need to calibrate the transporter matrix to synchronise dematerialisation. But what we need to do first is place the devices around the trucks." He looked up and presented the device to Cole. "That'll be yours and Roger's job."

"What about the rest of us?" Ben asked impatiently.

Jimmy stared in earnest at the younger man. "You, Steph and Josh had better take a truck each and begin unloading straight away. If the computer gear isn't cleared in twenty minutes, then I'm calling it a day and we go with whatever's left, dumping it in hyperspace if we have to."

"We can't just leave the stuff here, in this downpour," complained Stephanie, glancing around her at the cascade of rain droplets illuminated by the eerie orange glow of the streetlight. "The stuff'll be ruined."

Jimmy looked up into the thick blanket of cloud cover. She was right. This rain didn't look like it would ease any time soon. Making a quick decision, Jimmy opened up his mind. (TIM,) he 'pathed, the suddenness of his telepathic voice making them all jump. (TIM, I need your assistance.)

(Jimmy!) came TIM's anxious reply. (Is there something wrong? I thought we decided upon complete telepathic silence during this mission.)

(Yes, we did, but there has been a change in plan and I've taken the risk, deciding to break protocol. TIM, I need you to send me some items immediately. Don't ask any further questions, just get them here fast.)

TIM's trained biotronic mind was immediately responsive to their needs (Of course, Jimmy, what do you require?)

(A mobile phone, three large waterproof tarpaulins and three lengths of rope.) They all felt the tingle of psionic energy and looked at their feet as the requested items appeared. (Thanks, TIM. Breaking off contact now.) With a flick of his eyes, Jimmy broke the telepathic link.

For a few seconds no one moved: no one really knew what to do or say. Then, slowly, Jimmy bent forward, picked up the telephone and tossed it towards Ben. "Here," he said, smirking slightly at the irony of the situation. "He's your old man, and after what I did to him I doubt he's gonna want to speak to me."

Assessing the impact of Jimmy's words, Ben swung around and immediately started dialling the number for his father's company.

With a collective sigh, they all relaxed. Roger nodded towards Cole and he snatched up the rucksack before they both headed off to place the first of the matter transporters. Josh also wandered back towards the nearest truck and started to unfasten the rear doors.

This left Stephanie staring at Jimmy, a grin spreading slowly across her face. "You're an old softie at heart, aren't you?" she remarked, before trotting across to help Josh in his efforts.

With a deep sigh, Jimmy rubbed his neck. His stress levels had been rising since the moment this plan had been conceived and he still wasn't certain that it was such a good idea. But the decision had been made by a vote, and once agreed upon, he knew as well as the others that there was no going back. Watching Stephanie work alongside the young Canadian reminded Jimmy of those first few days working together to thwart Operation Malthus.

When Stephen pulled this ragbag of a team together it had been as much out of desperation as because they held any special talents as security personnel. Those days felt like a lifetime ago now. So much had changed, especially in the past twenty-four hours. He had never sought to become head of security. But somehow, now that the role was thrust upon him, he knew that he was the right man for the job. Stephanie was great; she was the conscience of their team, but there were times when difficult, almost ruthless, decisions had to be made and she just wasn't tough enough to make them.

Tough decisions were nothing new to Jimmy, though. He had spent so much of his life hiding from himself that being somewhat ruthless soon became second nature. His breakout had been one of the most difficult and traumatic situations he had ever faced, but face it he did, and alone! It all started when he was just nine years old. His mother's youngest brother, Uncle Patrick, had come for a weekend visit. Uncle Patrick was Jimmy's favourite relative. He always brought a new computer game or piece of football kit as a present, and they would sit up late into the evening playing endless rounds of the game until Jimmy's father complained about the noise and dispatched them both to bed. But on this particular visit Uncle Patrick arrived empty-handed, and not only did he ignore his nephew, he quickly upset Jimmy's mother too. His surly, brutish attitude was totally out of character and was remarked upon at length once Patrick had returned home. The next visit, six months later, was no better and culminated in Patrick being asked to leave by a very angry Mr. Harrison. There were no visits for a long time after that, but Jimmy often heard his parents discussing how his favourite uncle had lost his job or been in trouble with the police. He knew he shouldn't have done it but, eavesdropping one day, he overheard them saying that Patrick had started hearing voices and was now seeing a psychiatrist on a regular basis.

Hearing voices didn't sound too bad to Jimmy. He'd read all sorts of children's stories where goblins and elves communicated with humans in magical ways. So when one day he returned from school to find Patrick waiting outside the house, he thought nothing of it and invited this familiar relative inside for a cup of tea. It was as they sat together around the kitchen table that Uncle Patrick really started to act crazy. Of course Jimmy now realised that Patrick was demonstrating the classic signs of paranoid schizophrenia. But as a young boy, hearing his favourite adult bewailing how the voices were controlling his every move, Jimmy was scared to death.

By the time his parents arrived home from work, Patrick had torn up the house, smashing the windows, tearing at the bed linen and sweeping the contents of the overcrowded bookshelves onto the floor in one huge tangled mess. All the while he had dragged a terrified Jimmy from room to room with him, forcing him to search for hidden microphones that the voices persistently claimed were there. When the police arrived to carry Patrick away, kicking, biting and screaming at the officers, Jimmy was near hysterical. He had to be sedated by their GP for almost a week after the incident.

It took a while for their lives to settle down once again, and sensing how upsetting she found it, Jimmy soon stopped asking his mother about Uncle Patrick's condition in the local mental hospital.

But that was not the end of it. Four months later Jimmy himself heard the first of his own voices. It happened while he was walking home from school, daydreaming absent-mindedly about Middle Earth. Suddenly an unknown girl's words were right there inside his head, almost as if he'd thought them himself. He ran home, crying all the way. By the time he approached the house, he'd decided that to reveal such things would be too difficult for his mother to cope with. Determined to keep the incident a secret, he was saddened when a few weeks later it happened once again. This time the voice was accompanied by an excruciating, stabbing pain in his temples, causing him to almost faint. With resolve outweighing his years, Jimmy knew that if anyone ever found out about these voices he'd soon be joining Uncle Patrick in the local mental hospital. So, without even knowing it, he rapidly learned to shield his mind, withdrawing from people every time the voices returned, until the day he could control them. The pain eventually subsided too and he continued to live for years in ignorance of what had actually happened to him.

The next five years of his life were the most lonely he had ever faced. Shutting such a fundamental part of himself away so completely also meant that he denied other aspects of his personality: his compassion and empathy were the first to go, followed by his happy-go-lucky playfulness. And throughout it all he kept the TP side of his nature locked up tight, living in constant fear that he had inherited his uncle's mental condition. Sometimes, when he passed strangers in the street, he would feel a tingle of something almost electrical at the edges of his consciousness, but with practice this was also banished into the unknown depths of his psyche.

That was until his sixteenth birthday. Denying himself any friends at school, in fear that they might realise his secret, Jimmy had thrown himself into his academic work. The upshot of this was his passing his GCSE exams with ten straight 'A' grades. Proudly his parents dragged him into a local travel agency, announcing that he could choose their summer holiday to anywhere in the world, no matter what the cost, as his reward. As he browsed around the shelves stacked with their brightly coloured brochures, each depicting a happy family frolicking in the gentle blue waves of some tropical beach, his concentration began to wander.

He had noticed the pretty young woman when they entered the shop, her curly shoulder length hair framing her gentle features in a way that he found very attractive. While his back was turned this woman approached quite close and laid a hand gently on his arm.

Her touch was electric. Tendrils of energy shot up his arm and across his shoulders, causing him to recoil in horror.

(Hello,) she 'pathed, smiling. (My name's Elena. You're new around here, aren't you? Where are you from?)

This was almost more than Jimmy could bear. To have this eye-catching woman's thoughts ringing inside his head and be powerless to stop them… Well, when he looked back on the situation now, his face must have been a picture. Elena was the most empathic TP he'd ever encountered and in the next instant she forged the final connections in his brain that he had denied himself all those years. Wave after wave of sympathy, understanding and love swept through his mind like a breath of fresh air.

She later commented on how lucky he had been to survive breakout at such a young age. To Jimmy this didn't matter; the knowledge that he was in fact sane made him feel as if he'd been granted nothing less than a miracle. Within a few weeks he had left home and ensconced himself into a new life at the London Lab. A life he had been waiting for, for as long as he could remember…

And now he was here, leading this team of TP agents on a dangerous mission that they all hoped would turn the tide of tyranny forced upon them by the Saps. But sadly Elena, Paul, Stephen and the others were no longer around to guide him as they had always done.

As he thought of the senior TPs, Jimmy sighed heavily once again. What on earth would the Tomorrow People do if the seniors never came back? If the Federation passed sentence on his kind and enfolded them in an area of space from which none of them could ever escape? The utter hopelessness that he felt washed across his mind as he contemplated life at the hands of the Saps, with nowhere to run to and no way to fight back!

Deep in his reverie, he hadn't noticed Josh cross the car park and come to stand beside him. "It's all going to work out, I'm sure of it," remarked the young man sincerely.

Jimmy looked up in surprise. He was certain that his personal thoughts had been well protected from prying minds. "What?" he mumbled.

Noticing the shock in Jimmy's eyes, Josh grinned. "Don't worry, you were shielding well enough. I just made a lucky guess."

"Oh," Jimmy replied, not too certain whether to believe this Canadian newcomer to his team. "And what gives you the confidence to know that everything's gonna be okay?"

"Because I've been there myself. I lived through the darkest days that the people of Canada have ever seen. When we escaped onto the streets of Toronto with a group of really young kids, we had no idea what to do next. But somehow we knew that there's strength of character to every TP. Perhaps it's because we've been persecuted in all aspects of our lives. I like to think it's because we know deep down that we're right. This planet, nature itself even, needs us and has provided us with the intellect and guile to take over. We've also been blessed with the best leaders we could possibly wish for. I saw Abby go to hell and back that day, after she destroyed her own Lab. I also saw the courage and determination that all TPs have when pushed to their limits. And I'm confident that similar depths are inside every one of us, even if we don't realise it yet."

Jimmy looked wide-eyed at this man. It seemed that Josh had grown up both physically and mentally somewhere in the middle of that last sentence. Or perhaps, thought Jimmy, he's always been this mature and responsible an adult - I just didn't want to see it before.

Peering past Josh, Jimmy noticed that Ben had now joined Stephanie at the rear of the closest truck. With eyes closed and their faces fixed with a frown of concentration, they stood balancing precariously on the tailgate as the boxes flew past them under telekinetic control and stacked themselves neatly beneath one of the tarpaulins. "You better get a move on," he remarked, nodding in Stephanie's direction and watching as Josh followed his gaze. "I only gave you twenty minutes and we've wasted five of that stood here already."

Obediently, Josh walked away and hopped onto the tailgate of a second truck, its contents already emerging into the cold, persistent rain.

************************************************************************

Kindred Spirits - The Path Ahead
By Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway
Part 4 of 15 - The Heist!

Midnight: six hours before the raid.

Walking around the mound of computer equipment, Stephanie checked the ropes were tightly knotted before looking about her. The rain had almost stopped now and she was relieved that, despite the bad weather and Ben's encounter with his father back at the yard, they were still keeping to the prearranged schedule. She watched as Roger and Cole clambered across the roof of the nearest truck, their theatrical gymnastics making the rest of the team smile. It was good to see everyone working so well together. Commandeering these trucks was the first stage of a much bigger and more dangerous plan. This light frivolity was just the lull before the storm, and everyone knew it!

Gazing reflectively across at her team-mates, Stephanie was reminded of her childhood home in a small vicarage in Cornwall. Shared as it was with three older brothers, antics such as those Cole and Roger were now engaged in were quite familiar to her. Although she had experienced a relatively sheltered academic upbringing - leading her to an almost inevitable interest in art, history and literature, and the logical progression from private boarding school to Cambridge University - being the youngest of the four children had encouraged her to develop another more unexpected interest. With three boys in the household, Stephanie had spent much of her childhood tinkering with engines, riding on motorbikes and building radio-controlled model aeroplanes. When her eldest brother took up stock car racing she was quickly coerced into working as team mechanic and later, when she passed her driving test just three days after her seventeenth birthday, she also became the team driver.

Stephanie enjoyed having this dichotomy to her character and would often shock the stuffy intellectuals on her course by revealing her knowledge of how to strip down an engine or change a gearbox. Unfortunately Stephanie's TP talents were not so welcomed by those around her. Knowledge of the Tomorrow People's development had been greeted by the parishioners of her father's church as an abomination in the eyes of God. It was during the Easter holidays of her first year at university that her mother had taken Stephanie aside and warned her never to reveal her true nature to anyone in the village. So when she graduated with first-class honours three years later, it had seemed natural to take up residency in the Bristol Lab rather than returning home. Apprenticing to John, Stephanie had soon learned the intricacies of TIM's biotronic circuitry, as well as most of the Lab's essential equipment. And moreover, she, above anyone else, was trusted by their revered leader to help maintain his private collection of vintage cars; an honour that she would carry with her always.

Dragging her attention back from these fond reminiscences, Stephanie looked about the rain-soaked car park, its uneven tarmac surface alive with patterns of light created by the street lamps as they cast their illumination onto glistening pools of rain water. From her position beside the stack of boxes she noticed a truck pull into a bay twenty metres away. Once the engine had died, the door flew open and the driver climbed out. Locking his vehicle, he began to walk away in the direction of the services building, then suddenly he stopped and looked around in her direction. He was - she noted with dismay - not actually looking towards her; it seemed to be Roger's acrobatics on top of the lorry that had caught his attention.

(Watch out!) She 'pathed the warning just in time, as the driver marched over to their position.

"Evening," he called with a nod. "Have you got a problem? D'you need any help?"

Cole looked down from his perch on top of the nearest lorry. "No, there's no problem here," he replied, rather too quickly. "Thanks for asking."

The newcomer didn't seem satisfied by this answer and continued to stare with great interest at the two people on the roof of the truck. "Are you from Smith's Haulage?" he asked after a while. "I know most of the drivers working for the Smith family, and you don't look familiar."

Stephanie felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, a sure sign that her psi-awareness could sense danger. Pushing off from the stack of computer boxes, she prepared to march across towards this enquiring stranger. Suddenly Ben trotted around the vehicle at some speed. "Hey." He waved as he came to a halt in front of the man. "I'm Ben Smith. It's nice to meet someone who knows my Dad."

The stranger looked this young man up and down, then smiled broadly. "Ben, my boy!" He rushed forward, his arms outstretched. "I hardly recognised you for a moment. Have you come back to help out your old man after all these years?"

Ben nodded emphatically and Stephanie felt a wave of telepathic relief pass amongst the assembled group. "Yeah, you know how it is. I heard Dad needed some help, so here I am."

"The last time I saw you, you were scooting about the yard on that three-wheeled toy truck of yours." He looked up at Roger and Cole, who peered down from the lorry's roof, then across at the stack of crates behind Stephanie. "Are you having some kind of trouble? "

"Nothing we can't handle," replied Ben, also glancing across in Stephanie's direction, as if looking for divine inspiration. "The cargo…" he mumbled at last. "The cargo shifted." His face brightened as the excuse formulated in his mind. "The late shift must have been in a hurry to knock off. They loaded the crates so badly that the whole thing shifted every time we went round a bend." Stephanie noted that Ben was still looking in her direction and he grinned as she nodded her approval at his quick thinking.

(Well done,) she 'pathed with a smile.

Ben also nodded, then looked back towards the stranger. "We came here to unload and repack the trucks." He paused for a moment as if considering something. "There is one thing you could do for us, though."

"Of course, Ben. What d'you want?"

"We've been working out here for half an hour now, and a hot drink would warm us up a treat." He pulled a wallet from his jeans' pocket and took out a crisp twenty-pound note. "Could you go inside and get us six cups of tea while we finish up?"

The man scratched his head, then reached out and took the money. "Sure," he said gently. "How d'you like it?"

Ben smiled. "Three with sugar, two without and one with no milk."

"I'll be back in a jiffy." Turning on his heel, the man plodded across the damp car park towards the services building.

They felt rather than heard Jimmy give a telepathic cough. (Ben's bought us five, maybe ten minutes. Let's get those last two matter transporters in place and get out of here. Josh, you and Steph had better keep an eye out for any more intruders.)

With no further comment they returned to their respective duties.

******

Entering through the sliding glass doorway of the motorway services, the lorry driver ducked out of sight behind an artificial potted palm and looked back towards the parked lorries. Never in his life had he seen a less likely bunch of drivers in charge of a convoy of heavy goods vehicles. They even had a woman amongst them, he thought with a frown. Watching surreptitiously from his hiding place, he saw the two men on the roof of the furthest truck moving about in some unknown activity. "Shifting cargo, my foot," he mumbled. "You lot are up to something; I can feel it in me water." The driver stood with his eyes transfixed on the tallest of the young men and was shaken when he suddenly vanished, then reappeared a few fractions of a second later beside the tailgate of the vehicle. A shudder ran down the lorry driver's spine. "Well, I'll be damned," he muttered, fear evident in his eyes. "Those rumours about Ben are true after all!"

Pulling a mobile phone from his jacket pocket, he flipped open the lid and began to dial 999!

******

Hannah Van De Mere pushed her high-heeled shoe harder onto the accelerator. Breaking the speed limit was no longer an issue. The police radio transmission that she had just intercepted said that a group of suspect Tomorrow People had been spotted at the Rothersham Services. It was just five miles ahead of her current location and she was determined to be the first agent on the scene, the first one to take this group of full TPs into custody and the one to get all the credit for it!

Speeding along the outside lane, she spotted the convoy of police and military vehicles ahead, their blue flashing lights and wailing sirens clearing a path through the sleepy drivers remaining on the motorway at this late hour. With a buzz of anticipation, Hannah pulled in front of the lead vehicle and radioed her presence. "This is Agent Van De Mere from SPS7," she called into the handset. "I'm taking charge of this assault team immediately. All police and military personnel are to follow me into Rothersham Services, remaining in their vehicles until I give further orders."

There was a moment's crackle, then the airwaves erupted with a shower of indignant messages from various senior personnel. Damn, she thought irritably, I don't have time for all this military posturing. Don't they understand that as a telepath I'm the only one here capable of handling these Tomorrow People? With a wicked gleam in her eye, Hannah Van De Mere came to an instant decision. These officers might outrank her, but none of them had her abilities and that was something she could easily use to her own advantage. She'd done it countless times before to gain favours from the right people, and saw nothing wrong with a little well-placed telepathic suggestion to clear a path through the stubbornness of the pedantic military mind.

Allowing the officers from the vehicles following her time to question her authority in this matter, Hannah eventually quoted the mandate of her warrant while simultaneously transmitting her authority directly into their minds, an action which quickly overrode their objections to her presence. Finally they agreed to follow her leadership and she gave a satisfied nod. Telepathy is such a wonderful tool for cutting through red tape, she thought with a wry smile.

By now the convoy had reached the slip road that led towards the services parking area. Glancing down momentarily at the Barlumin emitter on the passenger seat beside her, she knew that one pistol would not be enough to subdue an entire group of TPs, but at least she had the element of surprise in her favour. If she could just get close enough to release the powder into the atmosphere, even at low concentrations it would prevent their jaunting away and assure her of the arrest of a lifetime. "All right," she barked authoritatively into the radio. "Our targets are located in or around the three trucks parked ahead. I want the safety catches kept on all firearms until further notice. These are not killers, and I don't intend to be explaining any deaths to my superiors. I want to take them alive. All of them!"

********************************************************************

Kindred Spirits - The Path Ahead
By Jackie Clark and Elizabeth Stanway
Part 5 of 15 - The Heist!

It was Josh who spotted them first, standing as he was with his back to the rest of the team, staring out across the gloomy car park. (Look out, here come the cops!) he exclaimed telepathically.

Jimmy's authoritative voice rang in their heads. (Jaunt into your respective vehicles immediately.)

As she appeared beside Josh, Stephanie exchanged a worried look with the young Canadian TP. They all knew that the window for this mission was too tight for them to be delayed in a stun-gun battle with a bunch of trigger-happy Saps.

"So, what do we do now?" mumbled Josh, more to himself than his companion.

Stephanie was just about to respond when her thoughts were interrupted by Ben's shout of alarm. (Where's Roger?) They felt their adrenalin levels rise dramatically in response to the wave of anxiety broadcast by Ben. (He was with me on the roof fixing the last of the matter transporters just a few seconds ago.)

(And I'm still on the roof,) came Roger's curt reply.

(I thought I told everyone to get inside the trucks!) barked Jimmy, transmitting intense anger at Roger's defiance of his direct order.

They all felt Roger's frustration as he made his response. (We didn't come all this way just to give up at the first sign of a Sap threat. I'm having a bit of trouble with the magnetic clamps on this last matter transporter, but it'll only take me another few seconds to sort out. As I see it, I'm in no more danger up here than the rest of you are inside the cabs.)

By now the assortment of police and military vehicles had fanned out to surround them. Expecting a company of troops to disembark, the TPs were intrigued when one lone female stepped from the lead car, opened up a huge golfing umbrella and began to walk in their direction.

(What now?) remarked Ben.

There was a gentle ringing noise and Roger appeared beside him in the cab. (Now Jimmy calibrates the transporter matrix while the rest of us buy him some time.)

Jimmy took a deep breath in preparation for the task ahead. This was the most complex jaunt he'd ever had to calculate. With TIM's help it would have taken less than a few seconds to bring the transporters up to power, then align their biotronic processors to synchronise the matter stream for coordinated dematerialisation. But without such help Jimmy was required to calculate the complex hyper-spatial trajectories in his head, then use TK to activate the devices at precisely the same moment. (Okay, Steph,) he said as he closed his eyes and began to focus his mind inwards. (You have command until further notice.)

Looking out from their raised viewpoint, Stephanie inspected the approaching woman. Her neat grey suit and high heels seemed incongruous amongst the gaggle of military vehicles. (I wonder what she's up to?) she 'pathed absent-mindedly.

Roger summed up the situation in an instant, his police training giving him a unique perspective on this stranger's actions. (It looks to me as if she's coming over to talk to us. It's standard siege negotiation procedure. Keep your target focussed on you while you get the troops into place. Then, if an all out assault is necessary, you can move in quickly.)

(Well, this is one siege that isn't going to work out as the Saps plan,) responded Stephanie angrily.

Josh looked around at Stephanie and a fleeting sense of déjà vu passed across his thoughts. (She's a telepathic agent, I'm sure of it!)

(How do you know?) asked Ben.

(I've felt that mental signature before. Just after the raid on the Toronto Lab the city was crawling with agents for days. You learnt to suss out who was friend and who was foe pretty quick, if you wanted to stay alive on the streets.)

Stephanie nodded towards Josh. (Okay, I take your word for it, but if she's an agent then why's she walking out to speak with us? Why not just use telepathy?)

(Maybe she's scared to?) This remark came from Cole. (Maybe she knows what we can do to her mind if she drops her shields.)

(Yes, perhaps,) added Roger. (But it's more likely that she knows we're much stronger telepaths than she is. The link will work both ways and she won't be able to keep anything secret from us.)

Josh suddenly became very excited. (That's it! She's got a secret of some kind and is trying to hide it. It must be, there's no other logical explanation.)

While they had been discussing the situation the woman had walked to within fifteen metres of the trucks and it was now clear that she carried a Barlumin pistol in her left hand. "You are surrounded," she shouted. "My troops have got conventional weapons as well as Barlumin emitters. At present they are under orders not to deploy them, but at the first sign of anybody jaunting, they'll not hesitate to fire upon you."

Ben wound down the window of his cab and stuck his head part way though the opening. "Well, why don't you go ahead and use them then?" he sneered, much to Stephanie's annoyance.

(Ben, get your head back inside at once,) she ordered.

The woman raised the pistol into the air for them all to see, then bent down and placed it at her feet on the wet tarmac. (What on earth's she doing?) remarked Josh. He was just about to speculate further when the woman called out once again.

"Don't you think I know what Barlumin can do to you? Seeing a TP collapse into a radiation-induced fit is not a pretty sight, and one I'd like us to avoid on this occasion. You know as well as I that you cannot use your special powers when in close proximity to this mineral. So there's really nothing for you to do, other than comply with my orders in a sensible manner, stepping down from those vehicles and letting us take you all into custody before anyone gets hurt."

(If, as she says, she's got Barlumin with her, then how come we can still telepath to one another?) asked Roger unexpectedly. (It doesn't make any sense.)

(She's up to something, I'm sure of it,) replied Josh. He turned towards Stephanie and winked. "Why don't you read her mind?"

Stephanie's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Jerking away from him, she stared in disbelief at his proposal. "That is a highly unethical suggestion."

Josh shrugged. "And threatening us with Barlumin isn't?" His tone was scathing. "She's an agent, Steph. If our places were reversed, she wouldn't hesitate to do anything she could to get the better of us."

From his position in the cab of the middle truck, Roger looked across into the adjacent vehicle. (I don't know what you two are whispering about, but if you're gonna do something you better do it now!)

Stephanie hesitated momentarily, then submitted to the inevitability of Josh's suggestion. In the next instant her psi-awareness was nudging at the edges of the woman's mental shields and a microsecond after that she had broken through to touch the woman's mind. For a while she felt as though she was submerged in a tide of competitiveness. This woman's mind was characterised by an almost ruthless need to prove herself. As Stephanie probed deeper into the woman's psyche she became aware of familiar memories stored there, memories of the city of Cambridge and life at the University. She gasped and almost recoiled in terror as she revealed layer after layer of familiar sights, scenes and faces. Eventually summoning the woman's name, Stephanie was shaken to the core at the realisation that she had once before met Hannah Van De Mere.

******

It was in the year 2008, a few months after her breakout, that Stephanie first became aware that there were others like herself at Cambridge. She had enrolled into Selwyn College to study English Literature the previous October and after a pretty uneventful first term, she was determined to throw herself into the student lifestyle with more gusto. Arriving back from the Christmas break, she was fascinated, one evening, to see an invitation to join one of the lesser-known university societies pushed under the door of her room. Running out into the corridor, she was even more intrigued at how anybody could have delivered this message so quickly, then vanished without a trace.

As it turned out, CUPIDS was in fact the front for a group of Cambridge-based Tomorrow People who used it as a cover for meetings where they practiced their psionic talents in secret. CUPIDS stood for the Cambridge University Psychical Investigation and Discussion Society. Of course, these were the days before Mass Breakout when it was quite fashionable to show an interest in all things psychic. Distracted for a moment, Stephanie made a mental note to ask TIM whether the society still existed in today's more dangerous climate.

Having been initiated into the group with much hilarity, caused by her shocked expression when other members openly jaunted in front of her, Stephanie became a prominent member of the committee. It had been her job to monitor random telepathic signals transmitted by other students in the hope of finding new TPs before their breakout. She recalled visiting Hannah's college room on one occasion, to surreptitiously enquire about the nature of her telepathy. As it turned out, Hannah's latent talents were more diffuse and erratic than those usually exhibited by a pre-breakout TP. Stephanie had reported back to the others that Miss Van De Mere was nothing more than a Sap with some minor telepathic abilities. And now, after all these years, it was clear that Hannah's talents had drawn her into the world of espionage.

With a sigh, Stephanie put aside the memories of her college days, then refocussed her mind on the task at hand. She was just completing her probe when Hannah called out once again. "Look," she began, glancing across at the crowd of onlookers beginning to emerge from the services buildings, "we don't want to cause a scene. There are too many innocent people around here. And I'm certain none of you want their deaths on your hands. I'll give you one more minute to consider coming with me in a calm and rational manner. After this you'll leave me no choice. I'll give the order to flood the entire area with Barlumin and that will be the last time you experience rational thought ever again."

Stephanie's eyes gleamed with wicked delight. (She's bluffing,) she announced. (She's only got one small pistol with her. None of the soldiers are equipped with anything more than conventional weapons. She knows her backup is still twenty miles away and is desperate to entice us closer to her so that she can shoot us with the pistol.) Stephanie beamed at Josh triumphantly. (We can jaunt out of here any time we like and she'll be powerless to stop it,) she concluded.

(Well, if that's what she wants,) began Ben, his mind seeking approval from Stephanie before his next action, (then let's make her think that's what she's getting.) Winding down the window once again, he leaned further out this time before addressing the smartly dressed woman. "What sort of assurances can you give us that we'll be treated okay once we come out?" he asked, feigning concern for his own and the others' welfare.

Hannah looked momentarily stunned by his apparent surrender. "All I can offer you is my word," she replied with a smile. "I am prepared to discuss it further, if you wish."

Ben nodded and beckoned the woman towards them. She bent down and picked up the Barlumin pistol before stepping forward. "Just to be on the safe side," she remarked, conveying not only that she was pleased that they had entered into such a dialogue, but also that she still didn't trust them entirely.

(Careful, Ben,) warned Stephanie. (Don't make it too obvious that we know what she's up to.)

(I can handle it,) he replied confidently.

Hannah had approached quite close now. They could see her soft, round features clearly in the glow of the orange streetlight. (She thinks she's got us fooled.) Stephanie's telepathy was no stronger than a whisper. (She's going to invite us to leave the lorries, and then she'll shoot us all where we stand.)

(Charming lady!) Jimmy's return from abstraction was a welcome relief to all present. (Let's see how she handles a dose of her own medicine.)

(You there,) he 'pathed intensely, on an open channel. Hannah dropped the pistol and raised her hands to her temples as his words thundered around her brain. (Ever wondered what it feels like to be influenced by Barlumin?)

Forcing herself to look her adversaries in the eye, Hannah glared at them with indignant rage. "How dare you!" she shouted, Jimmy's assault on her mind leaving her telepathy ineffectual. "I approached you in good faith and this is how you repay me!"

(Don't speak to us about good faith.) His loud, angry response made her wince with pain. (The Tomorrow People lost patience with the Saps many years ago.)

"But we can negotiate your release… I'll personally guarantee your safety…" They could all tell that Hannah's words came from the desperate hope that she wouldn't fail in this most important mission. Especially after Stephanie informed them of her inappropriate use of psionics to override the military officers and take control. "There's still time… we can talk about it…"

Jimmy's face lit up with a huge grin. (The time for talking is over,) he remarked bitterly. (There is only one thing I have left to say to you…)

Hannah's expression froze as her rational mind made the leap of understanding. All her hopes for future career success faded in that moment before the three trucks dematerialised.

(Byeeeeeeeeee) 'pathed Jimmy with glee, and they vanished into the swirling nothingness of hyperspace.

*********************************************************************

Kindred spirits - The Path Ahead
By Elizabeth Stanway and Jackie Clark
Part 6 of 15 - Decisions

Earlier that day - 7: 30 am GMT: 22.5 hours before the Raid

The control room of Luna Lab was quiet - the lull before the storm. Just one hour from now the large chamber would be flooded with people, and the challenges both of Luna and the Earth below confronted once again. For now, however, the room was all but empty, with just a few of the leading Tomorrow People already seated in companionable silence around the largest of the link tables. Kershia looked up with a smile as Abby entered the control room, waving her to a seat beside her. Nodding greetings to Kershia and the others, Abigail smiled in return. Gratefully she accepted the coffee and toast that TIM had materialised on the table's softly glowing surface.

She breathed in the vapour from the hot drink with a sigh of satisfaction and relief. "Hmmm, I need this."

Jimmy grinned, exchanging an amused look with the room's other occupant, Ben.

"Don't let Travin hear you say that," he laughed. The others chuckled along with him. There was a long-standing argument amongst the Tomorrow People over whether caffeine should be classed as a stimulant for them to avoid, along with alcohol, nicotine and other less legal substances. As a retired doctor, Travin, together with the most of the TP medical establishment, tended towards banning coffee on Luna; fortunately for Abby, the rest of their unofficial council was as caffeine-dependent as she was.

Sobering slightly, Abby looked around the room.

"Is no one else here yet?" she asked, sipping from the mug cupped between her hands.

"The others are late." TIM's voice, seemingly all around them, emerged from his concealed speakers; it was impatient and abrupt. Kershia and Jimmy exchanged a concerned look, sharing Abby's confusion. The biotronic artificial intelligence had been quiet since they had arrived that morning, his short-temperedness uncharacteristic. Usually he would greet each new arrival in his rich voice, his welcome making this metal shell of a room somehow more homely. Today he was silent unless spoken to directly, providing their usual morning food and drinks without comment. Abby threw her companions an inquiring thought, but they could only shrug their shoulders in response.

"I'm sure they'll be here soon, TIM," Ben soothed, even as Stephanie, Roger and Cole jaunted into the control centre from their own rooms on the level below. Things moved too quickly for any of them to enquire further after that. In quick succession, Travin, Josh and Don jaunted in from Canada, followed by Sophie and her assistant Zoë from the Californian Lab. The five of them accepted drinks and a late night snack from TIM, while the Luna residents ate their breakfasts. Time was at a premium for them all since the Seniors had left - it was only at TIM's insistence that they made time for breakfast at all. Although the Luna group met daily over the morning meal to deal with the problems of Tomorrow People worldwide, they tried to arrange a more general gathering at least once a week. Sophie, as head of the Tomorrow People's communication network, was essential at any such meeting, and Don, in his role as inter-Lab co-ordinator, was becoming just as indispensable. With Travin and Josh present to represent the concerns of the Canadian Labs and the network of Labs on Earth in general, they were able to tackle difficulties from a broad range of viewpoints and with a depth of experience that the relative isolation of Luna couldn't provide.

At last, everyone was settled around the largest of Luna's link tables, with food and drink of their choice. Zoë grinned at Don as they slipped into adjacent chairs, the two of them sharing the slight discomfort that came with being no more than occasional visitors to this select council. Only since the departure of the Seniors had the two of them been co-opted into more prominent roles by their respective superiors. It was pure luck that the overlap between their communication roles had given them the chance to become friends, and something more.

"How are things up north?" Zoë asked with a grin, brushing her curly red hair back from her face.

"Cold, raining and miserable," Don assured her. "As usual." He slipped an arm around her waist and she rested her head against his shoulder, running a hand through his still-wet hair.

"My poor, damp Donny!" she joked with a silvery laugh. "You're going to catch your death of cold."

"Perhaps I should just move down to California?" He paused thoughtfully, straight faced. "Or perhaps you should come up to Canada for a bit? See how the other half live. I'm sure we can persuade everyone that your relocation is essential."

"I think my Lab leader might have something to say about that," Zoë laughed. She caught Abby's quick glance. "And so might yours!"

The Canadian leader smiled tolerantly, exchanging a glance with Sophie. It cheered everyone's spirits to see that life and laughter could go on even in these difficult days. However, this was neither the time nor the place for laughter. With a deliberate cough Abby called them to order.

"Perhaps we'd better get started," she suggested, the Canadian twang in her accent cutting through the murmur of mostly British tones. Silence fell around the circle, all eyes automatically coming to rest on her. Abby's gaze though was fixed on the still quiet TIM. The hemispherical devices that marked the computer's physical presence in the Lab were suspended directly above the link table. They pulsed gently, their ever changing colours pallid and subdued.

"Where would you like to begin today?" he asked calmly, aware of Abby's attention.

All around the table Tomorrow People frowned, wondering how to get to the bottom of what was bothering their friend. Abby hesitated and Kershia leaned forward intently, her dark eyes full of curiosity.

"Have we heard anything from the Federation Inquiry, TIM?" the young woman asked in a moment of inspiration. The others nodded; they had all been racking their brains for what was wrong, but if anything was going to unsettle him, that would be it.

Careful not to let his thoughts show outwardly, TIM sighed to himself. Clearly he had not been able to hide his preoccupation from the others. At least, if Kershia had not seen to the root of his primary concern, she had given him an opening for the second, almost as grave. He sometimes wondered if the younger Tomorrow People had really thought through the consequences of this investigation. They so often pushed the issue aside, unwilling to talk about it. Perhaps they just didn't appreciate the scale of the potential disaster implicit in the Federation's plans. Perhaps, like TIM himself, they appreciated it only too well. He cleared his throat. At least today he had something to report. "We have indeed had a report on the first session of Inquiry ZD28-FV6."

Jimmy gave a mirthless laugh. "So they've finally got around to holding one!" he snapped. "I thought they were going to keep the Seniors waiting around on the Trig for ever."

"Typical Federation efficiency," Stephanie murmured a little sarcastically.

Abby couldn't help sympathising as the other ex-members of the London Lab voiced their agreement. Until she had spoken out at the summit meeting so long ago, John and the others had seemed as distant and unreal as mythical gods. Since then everything had changed. Even after no more than eighteen months of close contact with the senior Tomorrow People, she missed their guidance and the simple reassurance of their presence. Those who had broken out in Britain, with the Seniors there to guide them through the difficult process, were feeling the absence acutely.

Zoë nodded too, glancing at Sophie before speaking out. Her superior encouraged the younger woman with a smile.

"It would be helpful to have some of them back, at least." Zoë flicked her red hair, unconscious of the gesture. "Since news has leaked out about John leaving, morale …" Her voice trailed off, aware of the eyes on her from around the room.

"That's leaked?" Abby snapped the question angrily, putting down the mug she held. Her eyes shifted to Sophie. "I thought we had agreed to keep it quiet!"

"We did." Sophie met Abigail's eyes just as angrily. She'd come a long way from the frightened girl who had been involved in the Malthus raid four years before. The responsibility involved in her duties - both in clandestine encouragement of the ever growing pro-TP movements amongst the Saps, and in maintaining the morale and communications between the millions of scattered Tomorrow People - had given her the confidence she needed to snap back at the other leading TPs. "But we hadn't a hope once it got out up here. Do you think your Luna refugees don't talk when they go visit friends and relatives on Earth? It's been all we can do to keep the location of Luna itself secret; with your residents blocking that from the minds of everyone they speak to, other things leak out."

Don nodded. "I started to pick up rumours flying between the Labs almost a week ago," the Canadian volunteered, "even with official inter-Lab communications virtually non-existent. I've been liasing with Sophie's people ever since." Zoë gave him a grateful look, glad of the support as the Luna group exchanged chagrined glances.

"It's been general knowledge in the lower levels for weeks," Kershia admitted quietly. "Everyone who works here in the control centre knew about the Seniors leaving suddenly and somehow word spread that John wasn't with them." There was a tightness in her voice. The sudden departure of her mentor and their long-term leader had been a shock and was still unexplained.

Abby rubbed a hand across tired eyes.

"Well, I suppose there's nothing we can do about it. Don, do all the major Lab Leaders know about the Inquiry yet?"

Don nodded. He had spent most of the last month jaunting from Lab to Lab, passing on the word to their leaders in person. These days, with the numbers of Sap telepath spies increasing almost as if in response to the Mass Breakout, they could never be too careful with such sensitive news. "They'll be able to deal with questions from their people," he confirmed. "I glossed over what John was doing, though."

Cole raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not surprised," the quiet security agent noted wryly. "Given that we still don't actually know that ourselves!"

Despite the tension in the air, everyone had to smile. It was just like Cole to cut through to the heart of the situation with a little humour.

"Aren't we straying a little from the point here?" Kershia noted after a few moments.

Abby sent a mental touch of agreement to her friend. Telekinetically, she summoned a pen and paper and prepared to take notes.

"All right, back to business. TIM, why don't you read out the minutes, then we can deal with what's been happening in Luna, and then what's going on down on Earth." She looked around at the others. "Agreed?"

Jimmy waved a vaguely encouraging hand in the air. Kershia and Stephanie nodded, the others shrugging their agreement as well. TIM waited until Abby's confirming look before speaking sombrely.

"I fear that Zoë and the rest of Sophie's staff may have to wait some time before they report the return of Stephen and the others to our people worldwide," he warned, before clearing his throat. "'The Minutes of Federation Inquiry ZD28-FV6, Standard Galactic time reference 22375.55 - 22376.46...'"

******

They listened in silence as TIM outlined the arguments on one side or another.

"'His Excellency Timus Irnok Mosta upheld the Tomorrow People's request to be allowed to prove their differences to the other creatures of their home planet, and the meeting was adjourned while evidence was prepared,'" the computer concluded at last. The silence held for long seconds after he finished.

"It's not going well, is it?" Josh, youngest of the assembled Tomorrow People, voiced the question for them all.

"It didn't sound very promising," Travin admitted, laying a hand reassuringly on the shoulder of his young protégé.

"It sounded as if some of our neighbours are prepared to sit there for months arguing until they get their way!" Jimmy exclaimed.

"That is quite possible, Jimmy," TIM noted. "Federation Inquiries have been known to last years rather than mere months."

"And Timus is chairing this one," Kershia exclaimed, understanding beginning to dawn. "He'll keep them talking for ever before letting them do this to us!"

Abby frowned, shaking her head.

"I don't think he can risk that," she said softly. The others gazed at her questioningly. Of them all only Abby had training in the political sciences that were coming to govern all their lives. "If this inquiry were being held on Earth, at the UN or somewhere like that, the ambassadors would already have protested that the chairbeing is not impartial. From what little I've studied of Federation politics the same could still happen. If Timus shows us any significant favour then he'll simply be replaced. He might be tacitly in support of our position, but he won't be able to keep this in the air indefinitely."

"What will happen," Josh asked quietly, "if they do as they're threatening and set up this multi-whatever-it-was field? How will we cope with being locked in with the Saps - forever?"

The faces of Jimmy, Stephanie and the other security agents went blank, concealing their emotions behind unreadable masks. Sophie exchanged sombre looks with Don and Zoë, brushing her hair back from her face as she broke the unsettling eye contact with the two of them. Abby hesitated, looking instinctively to Travin, her one-time Lab Leader, for guidance. He met her gaze neutrally, with none to offer. She shook her head, her own expression becoming determined. Anger with the Federation and all its works crept into her voice. Why should they live their lives in fear on the whim of some distant race? They couldn't allow this inquiry to ruin their morale and render them impotent.

"That's not going to happen," she told them all. She forced confidence into the words. "Stephen, Elizabeth and the others aren't going to let it happen, and we aren't going to either."

Josh studied her face for a moment before nodding and letting the matter rest. Abby's words rang in the silence of the near empty control room, inspiring the courage to face what was coming with fortitude. A rallying cry for them all.

*********************************************************************

Kindred spirits - The Path Ahead
By Elizabeth Stanway and Jackie Clark
Part 7 of 15 - Decisions

8: 30 am GMT: 21.5 hours before the Raid

Abigail shifted in her chair, reading through the notes she had been making over the course of the last forty minutes. Having dealt with the matter of the Federation Inquiry, they had moved on to the troublesome details of running Luna: yet more refugees arriving and needing accommodation in the already seriously overcrowded centre; the difficulty of working with the unfamiliar and jury-rigged alien equipment that was all that kept the place ticking over; supply problems with water, air, power and any one of a hundred other consumables. Roger's report of ever decreasing morale, and even occasional violent outbreaks in the refugee centre, were frankly alarming. Certainly, the problems of the huge refugee centre were significant enough to unsettle any of them, but there was an added tension in the air today.

TIM was still quiet. They had expected him to cheer up somewhat after delivering his Federation news, but he had remained all but silent through their half-hour discussion of Luna's concerns. It suggested that there was something more - something he had yet to tell them.

Kershia glanced up anxiously at TIM's hemispheres and then sighed restlessly. As she looked down once again she caught Jimmy's eyes and they shared a rare moment of total understanding. Jimmy shrugged, the simple gesture eloquently expressing a frustration that mirrored Kershia's own. This meeting was exactly the kind of tedious discussion that both had been eager to avoid. None of the security-trained Tomorrow People were comfortable in the administrative roles they'd been forced into, which made them wonder if Stephen or Paul or any of the other Seniors had been any happier in their security roles.

"Where were we, Abby?" Kershia asked tiredly, eager to move business forward.

Abby looked up from her notes, meeting her friend's eyes. "About to ask you about the Malthus children - since Emina hasn't joined us today. How are things on the top level?"

Kershia frowned.

"A little unsettled," she admitted. "The kids are still coming to terms with Emina and her grandchildren. It's probably good for them. I hadn't realised quite how they act together until I saw them with Adi and Sanela. They're not at all accustomed to others."

Sophie leaned forward, attracting everyone's attention.

"Have we given any further thought to Emina's opinion that the Malthus children ought to be allowed to mix with the kids in the lower levels?" she asked.

"While they're still infected with the virus it's not even an option." Travin's voice was flat and uncompromising as he made the statement. "We can't be sure that the Saps won't redevelop the trigger agent."

"We destroyed all the research and the only stock in the Malthus raid," Jimmy told them all firmly. Stephanie, Roger, Ben, Cole and Sophie all sent their telepathic agreement. Not much had gone right on that disastrous raid, and there wasn't a moment of it they were likely to forget. "We're sure of that."

"You were sure you had all the children too," Josh noted, with just a touch of sarcasm in his voice. "That didn't stop the one you missed from destroying our home." The young Canadian let his bitterness show for just a moment, memories of that dreadful day replaying themselves behind his eyes, behind Don's, behind Travin's, and perhaps most vividly, behind Abigail's. Kershia looked at the white faces of the Canadians and also went pale.

"If you're going to blame anyone for that, Josh, blame me," she said quietly, but her eyes were on Abby. The Canadian leader herself remained silent, not willing to voice an opinion in the knowledge that she was far from impartial.

Troubled by the old guilt that filled Kershia's voice, Josh looked from Kershia to Abigail, her closest friend and Josh's own Lab Leader. If Abby had come to terms with this, who was Josh to argue? "It wasn't really anyone's fault, Kershia," he told her, waving a hand as if to dismiss the argument. "It's just hard sometimes - that so many of our friends are in the Camp."

"Have you finished discussing the Malthus children?" The Tomorrow People around the table nearly jumped from their seats in surprise as TIM spoke. Guiltily, he fell silent; he had not meant to startle them. Usually he would have participated far more actively in their discussions, but after his reticence today, his intervention had been unexpected. TIM hesitated, unsure how to go on. He had waited patiently as his friends had taken in the news from the Trig; he had delayed still further as they discussed the vital details that kept the thousands of Luna residents alive. Certainly, he had no eagerness to break the news that would make such things fade into insignificance.

Abby and Kershia exchanged startled looks, then Abby shrugged.

"I guess so. We're not going to reach any conclusions today and there's no time to sit here and argue about it." She hesitated. "We were about to move on to your report, TIM, on the Earth …" Her voice trailed off with a sudden note of fear. "And the camps."

"There's a problem in the Canadian Camp." TIM wasted no time on prevarication. It was obvious that every Tomorrow Person present had already come to the same conclusion.

Kershia leaned forward intently.

"The whole camp situation is a problem," she reminded him. "Could you elaborate?"

Now, TIM hesitated. He watched Abby and the other Canadians carefully as he continued slowly: "The Canadian Camp is still the largest. It has a larger number of pre-breakout children than any other."

"We know that, TIM," Jimmy interrupted, losing patience. He stopped suddenly, sensing the anxiety behind Abby's pale face.

"TIM told Kershia and me a few days ago that some of the kids were ill," she reported in a soft voice. She looked upwards, her eyes on the computer. "What's happened, TIM?" she asked quietly.

The room's main view screen lit with the image of a rain-drenched field and in its centre the child's coffin being lowered into its grave. Abby's eyes scanned the familiar faces of the two thousand of her people who had been snatched from the Toronto Lab, resting for a time on the faces of the child's parents before settling at last on Marc as he addressed his fellow prisoners.

Josh was on his feet, fists clenched by his side as he took in the scene. Without Zoë's hand on his arm, Don would have joined the younger man. Instead he gritted his teeth, his eyes flooding with tears. Travin too remained seated, painfully tearing his eyes away from the screen to study Abby instead. He watched as grief, pain and anger chased each other across her face, before she replaced them by sheer force of will with the practised neutrality of a politician. Travin nodded, both recognising and approving of her unwillingness to burden the others with her distress. Despite that, his gaze followed Abby's, back to rest on Marc and the other captives. Travin might not have been resident in Toronto when the Lab was raided, but he knew many of the captives nonetheless. After all, he had spent long, quiet years as Lab Leader before handing that burden on jointly to Abby and Marc. None of them had ever expected it to come to this.

Kershia exchanged quick, anxious and tightly shielded thoughts with the rest of the Tomorrow People in the room, urging them to give Abby and her people a few moments. London's main Lab had been abandoned the same day as Toronto, displacing many of its residents, but that had been a smooth transition, a far cry from what Toronto had suffered. The London TPs and the American Zoë hesitated, unwilling to intrude on their Canadian friends' pain. Finally, Jimmy cleared his throat.

"What happened, TIM?" he asked, repeating Abby's question.

"Her mind was destroyed by the Barlumin radiation that permeates the Camp," TIM told him flatly.

"But …?" Kershia's voice trailed off in confusion.

TIM finished her thought. "In adult Tomorrow People the radiation is not fatal. But these are not adults - they're children and they're trying to break out."

There was a moment of confused silence. Each of them was lost in the memory of their own breakouts; that joyful and terrifying moment of epiphany that had changed their lives. Groping for understanding, each of them remembered their fear and uncertainty at the first misfiring signs of their abilities. It was Travin, with his long experience of assisting nascent Tomorrow People, who saw the problem first.

"Uncontrolled telepathy and Barlumin," he said flatly, glaring angrily at nothing in particular. "Our people are only surviving in the Camp by suppressing their own abilities."

"And the new breakouts don't have that option," Ben exclaimed. "Their minds must be struggling against the radiation constantly."

"Marc and the other Tomorrow People have been forced to sedate the affected children," TIM told them all. "According to the Camp's records and what I can determine from my remotes, the second-in-command - Major David Barton - has authorised the treatment against the will of Commander Trent. Until now it seemed to be working."

"But now we know." Travin's words were deliberately clinical. "The trauma of Barlumin-inhibited breakout can be fatal."

"TIM," Kershia asked uneasily, "how many children is this going to affect, in camps worldwide?"

"Perhaps a hundred and fifty children of Tomorrow People in the Canadian Camp will reach breakout age within the next two years. In camps worldwide? There are almost five hundred other children in the same situation."

"And those would be concentrated in the other two large camps, wouldn't they?" Roger asked with a frown, trying to get to grips with the scale of the problem.

"The camp in China and the largest of the European isolation centres," Sophie agreed. "They both took most of their populations from Lab raids. The other camps mainly picked up Tomorrow People a few at a time - and relatively few complete families."

"We have to get the kids out of there." Josh's demand cut across the discussion. They paused, staring at him.

"Attack a camp?" Stephanie asked, disbelieving. "Josh, don't you think we've considered it before? With Barlumin radiation saturating the place, we haven't a chance of even getting close before we collapse."

Josh shook his head stubbornly.

"There has to be some way of doing it. We block other forms of radiation." He made a vague hand gesture, indicating the metal-lined cave they inhabited. "Could any of you live up here without that?" He looked around the circle of grave expressions. "Abby?" he appealed.

Abby tore her gaze away from her fellow Lab Leader's image on the screen. She turned her head away, unwilling to meet anyone's eyes.

"But surely Marc and the others found that sedatives will stabilise most of the children?" she asked TIM in a hopeless tone.

"Obviously not in every case." Kershia spoke unexpectedly and they all turned back to her in surprise. Attracting Abby's attention with a thought, Kershia spoke directly to her friend. "I agree with Josh on this, Abby. We need to get the kids at risk out and to safety."

"The sedatives aren't the answer." TIM had remained silent as the first shock of his news had sunk in. Now he replaced the image of the camp on the view screen with one of a memo on some kind of headed notepaper. Even as they all peered at it, trying to read and interpret the dense text, he summarised it for them. "The Canadian Government is cutting funding for medical supplies to the 'detention centre' - over the protest of the Camp's second-in-command. I quote: 'The per capita expenditure on individuals detained under the recent national security provisions is far exceeding that in the general population, largely due to an unreasonable demand for powerful opiate derivatives and other analgesic or sedative substances. Future requisitions for such supplies will not be approved.'"

"That's ridiculous!" Don couldn't stifle his outburst, jumping from his chair and pacing the room in frustration. "How could they deny a request for medicines?"

"The people of Canada would go through the roof if they knew what their government was doing," Sophie exclaimed, leaning back in her own chair to get a better view of the document on the screen. "There's already a lot of discomfort in Toronto in particular about the Camp, even if ninety percent of the population doesn't know what it's for. If word of this got out they wouldn't stand for it." Her sentence ended on a rising note, making the statement almost a question.

"And a fat lot of good that's going to do the kids," Travin snapped at her. "The Government would just deny it or claim the entire population of the place is addicted to painkillers or something! Look, we can't just stand by and let this happen!"

"I don't see what we can do," Jimmy told them all, his voice still level after Travin's outburst. "Stephanie has a point about the Barlumin." He hesitated, looking around the room at the team he had led through the Malthus raid. "Even if she didn't, there's another concern. The only security agents I'd even consider sending into a situation like that are all Luna-based. Do we dare risk the control centre and refugee complex here - even for this?"

"I don't think we can," Abby said quietly, her mind tightly shielded from them all. She turned to her fellow Canadians. "I have to see the bigger picture now. I can't put all the Tomorrow People in the world in danger just for our friends."

"If we do nothing, those children are going to die." Kershia's stark statement of the problem hung in the air between them. She stood, drawing a deep breath. "Don't tell me it's impossible! When have we ever let that stop us? When did John, Stephen and the others let it stop them? Abby, you said that we wouldn't let the Federation isolate us. How is this any more difficult? We'll find a way. We've been standing on the sidelines for too long now. We've been running scared since the Malthus raid, terrified of risking another such Pyrrhic victory." She saw the indignation on Jimmy's face and dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "What have we been doing really? Snatching a few people here and there to safety? Laying down false leads for one Sap agent or another? Don't get me wrong here: it's been worthwhile, yes. We've saved lives - hundreds of them - but what is the good if we stand by now and let our next generation die? We've abandoned Marc and the others to their fate for too long." Her brown eyes glanced around the circle, holding the gaze of some, forcing others amongst them to look away. "We're handing victory in this war to the Saps. We've not been acting - merely reacting. It's time we stopped and fought back."

Josh cheered, his approval bursting out of him. Don and Travin broadcast their agreement telepathically. Abby just stared at her hands resting on the table in front of her, rather than meeting Kershia's eyes. Kershia threw her an anxious look. Usually the British woman would never challenge her friend's leadership like this, but Abby was too close to this problem. One of them had to speak out.

"TIM." Kershia spoke sharply. "If we raided the three largest camps, how many of the kids could we get to safety?"

"Three hundred, perhaps," TIM told her. "But - "

"But John would never approve of taking this big a risk," Stephanie interrupted with complete certainty.

"John isn't here now." Abby's voice was still quiet and tightly controlled, giving no indication of her thoughts. She looked around the circle of faces, wondering if they would ever be fit to follow in the footsteps of John and the others.

"No," Kershia told her. "We are."

Jimmy looked from Abby to Kershia and back again. In the past month this select little council had found themselves increasingly following the paths suggested by the two women. Now, with Abby and Kershia in apparent disagreement, the path ahead was far from clear…

"Abby, you can't seriously be considering this!" he urged.

Abby hesitated.

"It's too big a decision for any one of us," she told them finally. "We'll vote on it."

There was a moment of confusion - under the influence of the Seniors, the Tomorrow People had never been a democracy - but then Jimmy nodded gravely.

"I vote against," he told them simply.

"And I say yes, we go for it," Kershia returned immediately.

Abby nodded neutrally, making a note of the votes.

"Stephanie?"

"Against. I'm sorry, Abby, but the security implications..."

"Josh?"

"In favour!"

Slowly the others began to voice their opinions.

Roger and Cole, both sad but certain: "Against."

Travin and Don, equally sure: "We go for it."

Sophie's eyes were filled with compassion, her gaze on Kershia: "I say yes, we have to try."

Zoë hesitated, looking first at Don and then Sophie. The young woman shook her head helplessly, unwilling to stand both against her superior and the man she loved, but unable to support them: "We can't take the risk."

"I agree with Kershia. We can't do nothing," Ben said quietly, last of the security agents to speak. He was aware of incredulous looks from Jimmy and the others, but ignored them. "If we let this happen then we'll have given away everything we're fighting for."

Abby stared at the paper in front of her. Six to five.

"TIM?" she asked, desperate to delay her own vote.

"Abby," TIM's voice was heavy with regret. "I am more sorry than you can possibly imagine. I have to see this in the context of the millions of Tomorrow People whose lives are at risk. I cannot approve of such a dangerous mission. I must vote against."

Six to six. Abby froze, her heart in her throat. All her emotions, everything inside her, pulled her in one direction, but she knew where her duty lay.

The others watched, shielding to give her the mental privacy she deserved, waiting for her to cast her vote

*******************************************************************

Kindred spirits - The Path Ahead
By Elizabeth Stanway and Jackie Clark
Part 8 of 15 - Decisions

"Abby," Kershia said gently, "don't let your love for Marc condemn him."

Abigail's head jerked upwards, horrified eyes settling on her friend's face.

"I … I don't know what you mean," she protested quickly.

"If this were any other camp, any other Lab Leader, you would throw caution to the winds and agree to make this move." Kershia's voice was pain-filled as she watched her friend being torn apart. She seldom spoke out this way in their councils, but she couldn't allow Abby to make the wrong decision now. It would destroy her. "Yes, it's risky - none of us are denying that. But you know as well as I do that it's a risk worth taking. We're never going to achieve anything sitting here in Luna, tucked away in our safe haven. I think that even John understood that at the end. We have to be bold and now is the time to start; there are lives at risk and we have no choice. You're telling yourself that these are Canadians and you have to be impartial. You think you don't dare to show your people any favour. Well, be impartial! Look at the big picture: it will show you the same. This is the right thing to do and if this had been any other group of children you would already have agreed."

Abby gave a half-hearted smile as Kershia's words sank in.

"Have you ever considered taking up politics yourself, Kershia?" the young woman asked. "That's your second fine speech in under an hour." She looked around at the group: each with a different opinion, but all of them feeling for her dilemma. Abby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "All right, people," she said simply. "We're going to do this."

They scattered after that, breaking into small groups that wouldn't get bogged down in argument and discussion. There was undoubtedly sufficient work to do and plans to make to keep them all busy. Now that the decision to proceed had been made, other questions remained unanswered. How were they to do what had always before been considered impossible, and perhaps as importantly, when? As Sophie pointed out, no Tomorrow Person had perfect mental shielding. Sooner or later word of the plan would leak out, and who knew what the consequences of that would be? Even if word didn't reach the Sap spies that they all dreaded, how would their own people react? Sophie shuddered to think of the thousands of desperate pleas they might receive to rescue friends or relations from the camps. Even their most optimistic plans could do no more than save a few of the children. Whatever preparations they decided upon would have to be made and carried out rapidly.

******

Josh and Stephanie yawned simultaneously and then exchanged guilty looks. While the others investigated just how a raid could be organised, how the children they rescued might be treated, or looked into the implications that such a raid could have, the two of them found themselves deep in the bowels of the Luna Complex, brainstorming on the most fundamental issue of all.

"So we definitely need some kind of radiation protection?" Josh summarised the last ten minutes of fruitless discussion. He stretched awkwardly, trying to shake off his feelings of claustrophobia. The confined atmosphere of Luna was even worse than normal here in the small utility room to which they had retreated in search of privacy. It was a far cry from the rural solitude of Pinewood Lake, where he lived with Travin. In the years since he had fled Toronto he had seldom visited the big city, and the pressure of minds he sensed