Escalating

We'd spent a good few hours looking through the red file, but disappointingly, it didn't do more than confirm what I already knew: that the people of Project Lupus wanted to discover how my tricks worked, and replicate them.

By whatever means necessary.

Kate had grimaced at some of the methods they'd proposed using to extract what they needed - but I hadn't asked for an explanation. I didn't really want to know.

Between us, we'd worked out that my friend Mr Twat was, in fact, called Lewis as I'd thought. Mark Lewis, to give him his full title.

Kate hadn't had that much to do with him, but had always found him to be cocky and annoying, she'd said: "it was like he couldn't resist letting you know that he knew something you didn't."

If there'd been any doubt it was him, that would have settled it for me.

By the time we'd read through the documents in the folder, I was impatient to do something about Jen. Kate, however, was adamant that we needed to be prepared before we tried anything - which is why, two hours later, we found ourselves in a city centre shopping mall.

Kate had insisted on getting there by bus - after declaring that while I had nothing to fear from appearing in front of a speeding train by mistake, she wasn't in a hurry to find out how it might affect her. Until I'd done some more practising, she said, travelling by conventional means would suit her just fine.

To be honest, I'd rather enjoyed the chugging, boring bus journey. Plan and dull were just fine by me right now.

As we headed towards the big department store at the far end of the shopping centre, I asked her what we were looking for.

"All will be revealed," she teased. "But first things first: could you do with a change of clothes as much as I could?"



Story begins here.