I spent most of my last evening at the Reading Festival searching for Trancer, though I felt instinctively that the search was hopeless. Even if I had found him I wouldn't have known what to say to him and I dreaded seeing him again that way - like a body without a mind. Whoever he had turned into I was sure it wasn't the effect of drugs. In the few hours we had spent together I had developed a special link of trust and friendship with him. And I was convinced that whatever had drained him of his presence and energy was in some way connected with "the bad things" in his life. The things he came to the festival to get away from. Could he himself remember what they were? I doubted it. I felt he must be leading a double life, and I suspected that each of those lives knew little about the other one. But this was all guesswork. Trancer had disappeared again and I had no way of getting back in touch with him. Even now I still sensed that he and Jamie were the same person but how could I prove it? Back at home the phrase Trancer had used kept returning to me: I'm a transmitter ... transmission ... trance mission. Why did he say this and what did it mean? I thought about transmitters and decided to look up the word in my encyclopaedia. This is what it said: "transmitter (communications), in telephony refers to the arbon microphone or transducer that picks up sound waves and converts hem into electrical signals. In radio, it refers to the equipment or generating and broadcasting radio signals that form a part of the ommunications link." Physics isn't one of my strong subjects. I prefer Art and English and French, which were the subjects I would be taking for A-level. So I really had to puzzle over this definition before I gave in and decided to ask my parents. Dad's good at explaining scientific stuff but that didn't really explain how a human being could be a transmitter. It was actually Mum who seemed to understand. "I suppose what you're asking, Abi, is how can a person generate and then transmit signals like a radio transmitter does and nobody really knows the answer. "After all, science doesn't even recognise that people can do it. But the real mystery is that it does happen. There's enough evidence that the brain itself transmits, not just through the five senses of our body so that we can speak and move and act, but that people transmit their thoughts to others without physical speech - " "You mean telepathy." "Exactly." "So is that what Trancer meant when he said he was a transmitter - that he could transmit thoughts to other people." "Well, I don't know - " "Come on, Fiona," Dad sighed sceptically, "you don't know. No one does, and I don't think you should be putting those ideas into Abi's head." "You mean Mum's practising telepathy?" Sophie chipped in. "No one's talking to you," I reminded her. "Anyway, haven't you got a home to got to?" Sophie always fell for that one. "I live here," she replied indignantly. "Which is more than you do half the time. Anyway, haven't you got some homework to go to." "No, as a matter of fact, I'm still on holiday and we haven't been set our homework assignments yet, so why don't you crawl back under the paving stone you crawled out of." "Abi!" everyone shouted. "OK, I'm sorry, but this is serious, Mum. If you can transmit thoughts could you also transmit energy?" "Yes, I'm sure we all do." "But if Trancer ... let's say he was being used to transmit energy, do you think that could explain why he became drained of energy? Like he was when he turned into a zombie." "Abi, I really don't know," Mum said, but I could tell she had caught the look in Dad's eye that said "leave it", or words to that effect. "Is that how you turned into a zombie?" Sophie muttered. "Sophie!" we all shouted, and that for the time being was the end of it. A few days later a letter came from Duncan, addressed to "Paul, Fiona and Abigail Edwards". Sophie wanted to know why she hadn't been included and I had to remind her there's no point in writing letters to people who can't read. Dear Paul, Fiona and Abi, Apologies for not getting back to you earlier re my enquiries into the Canons. I've been up to my ears in sorting out our export sales in Germany, which are proving a nightmare because of the new EC regulations ... But you probably know my views on that already. As I expected, my original enquiries about the so-called "car crash" drew a complete blank, and it was only in the last month that I had time to visit Stuttgart where, as you know, the Canons moved to. Richard Canon and I appear to have (or have had in his case) a mutual friend ... well, acquaintance in my case, called Hans Schmidt, who I was able to get to see on my last night in Stuttgart. Schmidt was able to shed some very interesting light on the matter. It seems that Richard died eighteen months after the Canons arrived in Stuttgart, possibly of a heart attack. Frances, widowed and alone in a foreign country with two young sons, was befriended by a couple of bereavement counsellors - and get this - the names of these wonderful warm-hearted sharing caring people were none other than Gerald and Monica Polson. The Polsons, it seems, are psychologists, and they have had their fingers in a lot of pies, research into ageing, genetics and so forth; they were also running one of those "human development and personal growth" courses and raking in a lot of Deutschmarks by all accounts. They also seemed to have been dabbling in some kind of psychic research. Anyway, as I said they started counselling Frances for bereavement, but Natalie, the daughter (as of course you know) seems to have been peculiarly resistant to the Polsons' dubious charms. She may even have fallen out with her mother over their growing influence on the rest of the Canons. Natalie may have returned to England but it is more likely she decided to travel with the inheritance from Richard's will. After that, I'm afraid, Schmidt told me the trail went cold. However, you may remember that I told you I had a colleague who works on Der Spiegel, and by chance he has located a cutting regarding the death of an unidentified woman in a Stuttgart apartment block two years after Richard's death. I am enclosing the cutting and leave it to you to decide what it means. Schmidt had one final piece of information: "Steer clear of the Polsons," he warned me. "They're dangerous people. What's worse they have powerful connections in high places." I'm afraid he didn't elaborate. Nettie sends her love and has asked me to remind Abi that she's welcome to come and stay any time. Regards Duncan The newspaper cutting was of course in German, which Dad translated. All it said was that the body of the woman, who was believed to be in her early forties, had not been identified. But what was more interesting was the accompanying photo of the police and ambulance taking away the body on a stretcher. There, in the watching crowd, I could make out two figures who, though the photo was blurred, could have been the Polsons. They were holding hands with an older and younger boy. The more I looked at the photo the more I was convinced the two children were Jamie and Mark and that the two adults were the Polsons. I looked from Mum to Dad, shocked at their complete lack of reaction. "I knew they were lying," I said vehemently. "Can't we go to the police?" "On this evidence?" Dad said and shook his head. "They'd laugh at us. Abi, you've got to leave this thing alone." I could have screamed. Couldn't they see how it all fitted? I was now sure that the Polsons had brought Jamie and Mark back to London and were keeping them prisoner in the house across the road from our old flat. But how in that case could I have seen Jamie - or someone who looked exactly like Jamie - three times in different places? There had to be a way to get to Jamie and Mark. What was happening in that house? What were the Polsons doing to them? If Trancer really was Jamie, could it be the Polsons who were responsible for "the bad things". Was it because of the Polsons that the life had seemed to drain out of him? I suddenly felt a terrible sense of something evil going on in that house. And I knew that Jamie's life was in peril ...
I spent most of my last evening at the Reading Festival searching for Trancer, though I felt instinctively that the search was hopeless. Even if I had found him I wouldn't have known what to say to him and I dreaded seeing him again that way - like a body without a mind. Whoever he had turned into I was sure it wasn't the effect of drugs. In the few hours we had spent together I had developed a special link of trust and friendship with him. And I was convinced that whatever had drained him of his presence and energy was in some way connected with "the bad things" in his life. The things he came to the festival to get away from. Could he himself remember what they were? I doubted it. I felt he must be leading a double life, and I suspected that each of those lives knew little about the other one. But this was all guesswork. Trancer had disappeared again and I had no way of getting back in touch with him. Even now I still sensed that he and Jamie were the same person but how could I prove it? Back at home the phrase Trancer had used kept returning to me: I'm a transmitter ... transmission ... trance mission. Why did he say this and what did it mean? I thought about transmitters and decided to look up the word in my encyclopaedia. This is what it said: "transmitter (communications), in telephony refers to the arbon microphone or transducer that picks up sound waves and converts hem into electrical signals. In radio, it refers to the equipment or generating and broadcasting radio signals that form a part of the ommunications link." Physics isn't one of my strong subjects. I prefer Art and English and French, which were the subjects I would be taking for A-level. So I really had to puzzle over this definition before I gave in and decided to ask my parents. Dad's good at explaining scientific stuff but that didn't really explain how a human being could be a transmitter. It was actually Mum who seemed to understand. "I suppose what you're asking, Abi, is how can a person generate and then transmit signals like a radio transmitter does and nobody really knows the answer. "After all, science doesn't even recognise that people can do it. But the real mystery is that it does happen. There's enough evidence that the brain itself transmits, not just through the five senses of our body so that we can speak and move and act, but that people transmit their thoughts to others without physical speech - " "You mean telepathy." "Exactly." "So is that what Trancer meant when he said he was a transmitter - that he could transmit thoughts to other people." "Well, I don't know - " "Come on, Fiona," Dad sighed sceptically, "you don't know. No one does, and I don't think you should be putting those ideas into Abi's head." "You mean Mum's practising telepathy?" Sophie chipped in. "No one's talking to you," I reminded her. "Anyway, haven't you got a home to got to?" Sophie always fell for that one. "I live here," she replied indignantly. "Which is more than you do half the time. Anyway, haven't you got some homework to go to." "No, as a matter of fact, I'm still on holiday and we haven't been set our homework assignments yet, so why don't you crawl back under the paving stone you crawled out of." "Abi!" everyone shouted. "OK, I'm sorry, but this is serious, Mum. If you can transmit thoughts could you also transmit energy?" "Yes, I'm sure we all do." "But if Trancer ... let's say he was being used to transmit energy, do you think that could explain why he became drained of energy? Like he was when he turned into a zombie." "Abi, I really don't know," Mum said, but I could tell she had caught the look in Dad's eye that said "leave it", or words to that effect. "Is that how you turned into a zombie?" Sophie muttered. "Sophie!" we all shouted, and that for the time being was the end of it. A few days later a letter came from Duncan, addressed to "Paul, Fiona and Abigail Edwards". Sophie wanted to know why she hadn't been included and I had to remind her there's no point in writing letters to people who can't read.
A few days later a letter came from Duncan, addressed to "Paul, Fiona and Abigail Edwards". Sophie wanted to know why she hadn't been included and I had to remind her there's no point in writing letters to people who can't read.
The newspaper cutting was of course in German, which Dad translated. All it said was that the body of the woman, who was believed to be in her early forties, had not been identified. But what was more interesting was the accompanying photo of the police and ambulance taking away the body on a stretcher. There, in the watching crowd, I could make out two figures who, though the photo was blurred, could have been the Polsons. They were holding hands with an older and younger boy. The more I looked at the photo the more I was convinced the two children were Jamie and Mark and that the two adults were the Polsons. I looked from Mum to Dad, shocked at their complete lack of reaction. "I knew they were lying," I said vehemently. "Can't we go to the police?" "On this evidence?" Dad said and shook his head. "They'd laugh at us. Abi, you've got to leave this thing alone." I could have screamed. Couldn't they see how it all fitted? I was now sure that the Polsons had brought Jamie and Mark back to London and were keeping them prisoner in the house across the road from our old flat. But how in that case could I have seen Jamie - or someone who looked exactly like Jamie - three times in different places? There had to be a way to get to Jamie and Mark. What was happening in that house? What were the Polsons doing to them? If Trancer really was Jamie, could it be the Polsons who were responsible for "the bad things". Was it because of the Polsons that the life had seemed to drain out of him? I suddenly felt a terrible sense of something evil going on in that house. And I knew that Jamie's life was in peril ...
Sixth Form College was going to be very demanding. It wasn't just adapting to the new curriculum, more essays and more homework, but also adjusting to a new class. There would be new faces, students from different schools. Some of them I had seen around town, others were complete strangers. I knew I should be starting to prepare my schoolwork but all I could think about in the week before I went back was Jamie - or Trancer who looked like Jamie. I was having strange dreams and once again I dreamt that Jamie and I were playing hide and seek in my old flat. The dream was almost a complete re-run of the one I'd had in France, except that this time as I fell through the gap in the floorboards I heard Trancer's voice saying Somewhere down there ... you've got the key... I woke up sweating and terrified, the words still ringing in my ears and as I lay in bed thinking of the old days I suddenly remembered. I did have the key. At least I knew where it might be. Why hadn't I thought of it before? I rang Nettie and reminded her of her offer to let me come and stay, without Mum or Dad or Sophie. Nettie was delighted and not too surprised at my next question. No, Duncan still hadn't sorted out the nursery - my old bedroom. The baby was due in December and if he didn't get round to decorating it by the end of October they'd have to get the professionals in, although Duncan was convinced they were all cowboys. At least cowboys did the work when they said they would, she added sniffily. And yes I could sleep in it if I didn't mind the mess. I told Mum and Dad I was going to spend the day with Nettie. They raised an eyebrow or two and cautioned me to keep away from the Polsons and I said of course not, I'd just like to spend a bit of time there and then they said well, don't bother Nettie too much and I said of course not etc. I don't like lying to my parents but I knew they would try to stop me going, specially because of what Duncan had said at the end of his letter. In my shoulder bag I had packed a chisel, a small saw, hammer, torch and magnet. I hoped that was all I would need. It was a Wednesday and I arrived at the flat at midday. Nettie made me very welcome and we sat and chatted for a while in her trendy wine-bar sitting-room. "It looks as though the Polsons must have persuaded that poor woman to give them the deeds of the house," she said, when I turned the subject to Duncan's letter. "Still, as you know, Duncan's friend thinks we should all steer clear of them and I hope you'll take his advice, Abi." She looked at me narrowly for a few seconds and I felt distinctly uncomfortable. "Don't worry, Nettie," I lied. "I'm not going to do anything stupid." "I'm sure you're not," she replied and for some reason I knew she had her doubts. But she didn't say any more about it and then she went off to do the shopping. Immediately she'd gone I sprang into action. Even more junk had found its way into my old bedroom and it took me a full ten minutes to clear away the cardboard boxes and old furniture so that I had access to the floorboards along one wall. I was relieved to find that the floorboards were in several pieces, which would make it easier for me to lift out and put back the one I needed. With the fork end of the hammer I yanked out the nails and prised up the loose board with the chisel; then I shone the torch along the filthy joists. Dipping the magnet inside the gap, I slid it up and down the joists, fishing for loose bits of metal. To my satisfaction I felt and heard the tiny clinks as they jumped to the magnet. Eventually I pulled out the magnet. My heart sank as I pulled off the debris of filthy metal that clung to it. I felt like a fisherman who finds an old boot at the end of his rod. Again I trawled the magnet under the floorboards. My misery increased when I drew out the magnet with only a couple of nails and a drawing pin sticking to it. Then I shone the torch through the gap again. The quest seemed to have proved futile when, at the furthest end of the joist beneath, the torchbeam picked up something that gleamed dully. Holding the magnet at the end of my fingertips I stretched my arm down and along as far it would reach and held my breath. Suddenly there was a small clank. Gingerly, I pulled the magnet out. I'd got it. space=1 src="dotc.gif">The rusty key must have lain there for eight years since the day Jamie dropped it by mistake through a hole in the floorboards while we were playing hide and seek. "If you find it," Jamie had said all those years ago, "you can burgle my house - if you can get past Jonah.' Jonah, as you may remember me telling you, was the Canons' Jack Russell terrier who yapped a lot and terrorised the postman but was otherwise harmless. The Alsatian wasn't. I had no idea how I would get past Big Bad Jonah, but I'd made up my mind that I would cross that bridge when I came to it. It was time to replace the floorboards. This would mean hammering and that meant I had to get it done quickly before Nettie got back - or before one of the tenants in the flat above or below turned up to complain. The floorboards were back in place and the key safely in my jeans pocket by the time Nettie returned. She had said I could come and go as I pleased and not to worry about her, so I sat at my old bedroom window and waited. I remembered what Duncan had said on our previous visit: the Polsons left the house every Wednesday between three and six. Today was Wednesday and at five past three I saw the Polsons' car emerge from their driveway. I watched as the passenger window slid down and Mrs Munster opened the driveway gates with a remote-control device. The gates swung shut as the car exited and I could see Polson in the driver's seat. They turned into the side road and I waited until the car disappeared up the hill. I intended to leave thirty minutes before they returned, so I had exactly two and a half hours ...
I told Nettie I was going for a walk. The house across the road where the Polsons now lived was at the corner of two roads: Somerset Road on which Duncan and Nettie lived and Farley Rise, where the Polsons had driven their car. Farley Rise led uphill to a park and on the further side of the park was my old school. Sometimes Mum or Dad or Frances and occasionally Richard would walk Jamie and me up the hill to school, though more often we took the car. On the nearer side of the park was a network of back gardens and alleyways. If you had asked me to draw a map or give directions to anyone who wanted to get though this maze of alleys I would have found it quite impossible. But my feet or some other part of my anatomy seemed to remember instinctively and having walked up the hill to the park I then wove my way through the alleys until I came to the garden that was next to Jamie's old house. At the end of this garden there was a broken fence ... still broken after seven years, I was relieved to discover. I climbed through it into an area of thick undergrowth. In the midst of this was a clearing which Jamie and I had turned into our hidey hole. I vaguely remembered that we had once buried some "treasure" there in a plastic bag. I would like to have dug it up but there was no time for that now. The further side of the undergrowth was a mass of nettles, bushes and tangled branches and as I approached it I could feel my heart beating faster. Everything depended now on finding the gap in the fence of what used to be the Canons' driveway. Would it still be there or would the Polsons have mended it? They were obviously very security-conscious, as was proved by the surveillance cameras Sophie had spotted in the front garden. I surveyed the little jungle of undergrowth and tried to estimate where the gap would have been. Glumly I realised it was probably where the waist-high nettles grew thickest. At least I was well covered in my jeans and jacket. I put on my gloves and covered as much of my face and hair as possible in a scarf and waded in. When I came to the fence I had to kneel down to look for the gap and in spite of all my protective gear I winced with pain as the nettles stung my cheeks. But all my attention was now concentrated on feeling for the gap. As the minutes went by my dismay increased. The gap wasn't there! The Polsons must have patched the fence. How could I have been so naïve as to think otherwise! In desperation I shoved my body forward through the nettles ... and then felt something give. I had found it! The hole was there but in seven years a thick web of branches had grown round it. I yanked at the branches but they were so firmly embedded that I could hardly move them. Thankfully I remembered the saw I had packed in my shoulder bag. It took another ten minutes before I had sawed enough of the branches to make a hole wide enough to push my body through. By this time I was sprawled on the ground, levering myself with the palms of my hand inch by inch through the gap, as the branches tore at my body. My progress was painfully slow and I was breathing heavily. I knew that unless I put one massive effort into shoving myself through, it could take me hours. I rested for a minute and then, taking a deep breath, concentrated my mind on one last supreme effort. I was through. I picked myself up and surveyed the damage. My jeans were ripped at the knees (I could pass this off as a fashion accessory) and the top pocket of my jacket was torn, but it could have been much worse. My hands were bruised and my face still smarted from the nettles, but I could live with that. I gazed around me. I was now inside the Polsons' driveway, which had changed little from when the Canons lived there. This was separate from the front of the house where all the security was, although there was an alleyway connecting them, with a locked door in between. At the corner of the back of the house, next to the garage, I knew there was an old door that used to open into the utility room which annexed the kitchen. The key that Jamie had dropped through my floorboards belonged to the lock in that door. I prayed it still fitted. I switched on my torch and stealthily inserted the key in the lock. For agonising seconds it didn't move. I remembered not to force it, but instead jangled the key in the lock. At last it begins to turn with a loud creak and I gently opened the door. From within the house, probably in the hallway, I heard Big Bad Jonah begin to bark ... I was in the house. Or at least in the utility room. I shone the torch along the room to the far door and tiptoed towards it. I could hear the barking growing louder. To my horror I discovered that this door, too, was locked. Please, key, open this door, I muttered to myself. But this time my luck had run out. Worse, much worse, and what made my stomach churn, was the barking coming from the other side of the door. I could almost see Big Bad Jonah in my mind's eye, crouched on all fours and slavering as he looked forward to his next meal. If I did manage to get through the door I would have to act quickly to stop his next meal being me. I poked around at the bottom of my shoulder bag and finally found what I was looking for: a paper-clip. For the next few, interminable minutes I fiddled with the lock, all the while having to endure BBJ's bloodcurdling barking that grew in volume as he became more excited. My fingers were starting to tremble. Even if I did open the lock, how was I going to get past BBJ who I could already visualise pouncing on me and ripping me into tasty morsels? I had almost given up trying to turn the lock when, partly to my relief and partly to my horror, it slowly started to slide open. And on the other side of the door was BBJ ...
I had to think fast. I couldn't just walk through the door into the jaws of a vicious guard dog, but I couldn't just stay imprisoned in the utility room. There was only one thing I could do. I stepped over to the inside edge of the door, where the hinges were, and stretched across to grasp the handle. As I turned the handle, I pulled the door open, swinging it right back so that I was hidden between the door and the wall. At the same time I threw the chisel from my shoulder bag right across to the far end of the utility room. Barking furiously, Big Bad Jonah leapt into the room, tearing across to where he had heard the chisel crashing on the floor. I didn't waste a moment. Whipping through the door, I bolted it behind me. I was now in the kitchen, and behind me back in the utility room I could hear Big Bad Jonah going berserk, barking and dementedly lashing against the door with his paws. I crept through the kitchen door into the hallway - at least that door was open, but all the lights were out. Before I switched on my torch I waited, listening for any sign of human life. But all I could hear was Big Bad Jonah, his barking now muffled between two closed doors. And yet I was still convinced that somewhere in that house I would find Jamie and Mark, or at least evidence that they had been there recently. I shone my torch along the hallway and then began to explore ... I'm not normally sensitive to atmospheres. Mum can go into a house and tell you whether the vibes are good or bad. That's how she chose our home in Swanleigh. She vetoed all the houses that Dad liked, and in the end he always gave way. In one house we went to when we were house-hunting she started crying and said that someone had died there in great pain. Later we later found out that was exactly what had happened. I think why I was able to feel the atmosphere in the Polsons' house was because it was so different from what I had expected. After all those years I would still have recognised the Canons' atmosphere, like you might suddenly recognise someone you thought you'd completely forgotten about. But it had changed. As I went from room to room - to my surprise most of them unlocked - I started to feel a strange tingling in my cheeks and fingertips and my head felt heavy, like you do before a thunderstorm. I can only describe the atmosphere as electric. Perhaps all atmospheres are electric but we don't register them until there's something very different about them. And then we don't know how to measure them or describe them. I didn't like it. It was what Mum would have called a bad vibe. But I had got this far and I wasn't going to chicken out now. I needed to find some clue to what was going on, what might have happened to Jamie and Mark. Besides, while I've said the overall atmosphere had changed, every now and again I was beginning to pick up a sense of someone I felt close to. I could feel Trancer. Don't ask me how, but ever since the Phoenix Festival I had been having flashes, hardly thoughts or images, but more like sensations that came to me unexpectedly. I had come to recognise Trancer's frequency just like you might pick up the taste of vanilla in a dessert, or a guitarist whose sound you know, even though you didn't know you knew it, if you see what I mean. In the back study I found shelves full of books - in German, Russian and English. Those I could identify - in other words, the ones in English - were on psychology, molecular biology, genetics and so on. There were other books on hypnotism, mind control and projection, and the development of psychic powers. There was even a shelf - and this made me shudder - on vampirism. Could the Polsons be vampires? The thought was preposterous. Vampires don't really exist. They're just something you get in horror films, like Dracula. Thomas, my ex-boyfriend had really been into all that. I tried to imagine the Polsons drinking Jamie's blood. The thought was so horrible that I quickly shook my head to get rid of it. Now was not the time for me to be getting squeamish or over-sensitive. There was a large walnut desk on which there was a computer whose screensaver was still running. One by one I went through all the drawers, riffling through letters and other documents for some sign of Jamie and Mark's presence in the house. There was nothing. I felt depressed and disheartened. There was only one other source of information in the room and I approached it nervously, wishing my Dad was with me. He's a whizz at getting into programs and games and it was one thing he had in common with Thomas. I've never really taken much interest, apart from using the word-processor for my essays and notes, though I enjoy screen painting, which Dad has given me a lot of help with as he's a graphic designer. I pressed a key, knowing that's how you get out of the screensaver, and my heart sank. It was a bare screen apart from two words: ENTER PASSWORD: I sighed. It was hopeless. How on earth could I hope to guess what the Polsons might have chosen for a password? I decided to do what we did at school when we started a new subject, which was called brainstorming. You just think of any idea, however bizarre and way out, that you associate with a subject, and it helps you to start thinking about it. The trouble with brainstorming is it works best with a group of people so they can all contribute ideas. But now there was only me and my very little brain. And then of course my little brain went a complete blank as it always does when I tell myself I have to use it. I tried to relax my mind, which was what you're supposed to do but all I could think was that it was now four-fifteen and I only had another hour or so before the Polsons would be coming back - if not before. Come on, Abi, I told myself. Think. I thought of all the words I could connect with the Polsons. Polson, Polsons, Munsters, vampires, evil, surveillance, psychic, trancer ... The image of Trancer floated back into my mind: I'm a transmitter ... transmission ... trance mission... I had nothing to lose. I entered the word: transmitter I held my breath and pressed the return key. INCORRECT I sighed and had another go. transmission INCORRECT I breathed deeply. I could spend the whole day doing this and not get anywhere. Without even thinking I typed: trance mission In a flash the screen went blank. I had failed. Then, seconds later, to my astonishment the screen lit up in multicoloured graphics. I had got the password! I could hardly contain my excitement. I had felt all along that there was a connection between Trancer and Jamie. Now I knew for sure. Maybe he had been guiding me to him ever since the day I saw Jamie dancing in the window. Perhaps he had even talked to me in my dreams. All the old questions about Jamie and Trancer returned to my mind, but now I might start to get some answers. I looked at the screen and clicked on to SEARCH and entered: canon There was a pause while the computer did the search and then a new screen came up. CANON, JAMES WILLIAM: PROFILE appeared at the top of the screen and underneath was Trancer's face, front and profile, in full-colour graphics. It was not the happy, animated face I knew from Reading, nor the zombie he had turned into at the end of the day, but somewhere in between. He looked solemn and what little expression there was in his face seemed sad. Beneath this were details such as his birth date, age, weight, blood type, blood pressure, pulse rate and even biorhythms and DNA analysis. Oh, Jamie I whispered to myself, what have they done to you? I paged down and came to spreadsheets and graphs which at first seemed to me like complete gobbledygook. Then I examined the data more closely. A series of numbers were listed in rows and columns, with dates and times in the left-hand column. The last date was today's. The headings above included: alpha and beta rhythms, brain performance indicators, fatigue factors, ECG and PSI ratings. The bottom row of data was actually changing as I watched it. On the next screen was something even more startling: there, moving up and down in regular waves was a moving chart which I later discovered was called "an electrocardiogram". This showed the strength and frequency of Jamie's heartbeats. With a shock I realised that the screen was monitoring a process that was going on at this moment somewhere in the house. I paged to the next screen. This gave similar data for CANON, MARK GORDON His face was less familiar and I had to remind myself that the last time I saw him he was six. I checked my watch - it was four forty. I had less than an hour left. I closed the file and switched it back to the original screen. It was time to go upstairs ...
