The bars on my phone still showed no signal, so I couldn't phone Special Branch, demand they check the GPS coordinates on my phone and pick me up immediately. And preferably slap handcuffs on my father's wrists at the same time.

While I muttered about not setting foot on any nuclear waste grounds, Jonno turned to the driver.

"Were you followed?"

The man nodded. "Yup. That burgundy Mondeo that always hangs around Maya was there."

WHAT? I shot out of the car. "Someone follows me all the time?"

They both looked at me. A duh look.

"Yeah," Jonno said, his grin far too Gregor like. "They like to keep track of the company you keep. You're known for having dodgy friends, aren't you?"

"Who's they?" I asked.

"Vampire Security. The National Conservatives. Sunshine Health. They all contribute to a surveillance fund that pays for the tracking of people they regard as a threat to their future wellbeing. For wellbeing read prosperity. Did you get rid of them, Jason?"

The driver—Jason, then—nodded. "Oh, aye. Roadworks just before the bridge and traffic lights. I made it through the lights before the Mondeo could follow me. I take it that was you?"

Jonno nodded back. My head kept whipping back and forth between the two of them, unable to believe what I was hearing. One, that Jason, the driver, had been looking out for me for a while. Two, that so many ginormous organisations deemed me worthy of attention, and three that my father could control traffic lights.

A whole committee existed in our government devoted to the smooth flow of traffic through the city. Once, I'd sat in on a meeting to show willing. Never again. It had to be the most boring hour I've ever had the misfortune to sit through, but my one take-away was that traffic lights were the key to everything. Any interference in their flashing red, amber, green sequences caused chaos.

"No sign of them since?" Jonno asked. Jason shook his head. "Nuh. That Mondeo's probably spinning around the roundabouts, trying to work out why it can't find me."

I picked up one foot, inspecting the sole of my shoe. Speckles of dirt. No fluorescent glow. "Can we clarify? The nuclear waste thing? Radiation sickness isn't on my top ten list of things I want to experience any time soon."

"Oh, no," Jonno flapped his hand. "You're perfectly safe. The sign's handy for deterring unwelcome visitors. Do you want to come in?" He swept a hand behind him to the warehouse.

"Okay."

The building's exterior belied its interior. Outside, a scruffy, long disused warehouse. Inside, the door sealed, and I found myself in what felt like a lab—scrupulously clean, with plain white walls and floors. Tiling everywhere. I followed Jonno down a long corridor. He paused before a door, a security number pad to the left.

"Jason, I've forgotten the code again."

Jason, following behind me, let out a sigh. "You muppet. 211004."

The number struck me at once. This must be an elaborate act where my long-absent father convinced his poor, neglected daughter that yes, he'd thought about her all the time since he'd left. This was the bit where I was supposed to say to myself, "Aw, so sweet! My dad used my birthday for the passcode."

I forced myself not to comment. Jonno winked anyway. He must have read my thoughts.

The steel-shuttered door opened painfully slowly, raising up centimetre by centimetre. By the time it got to a metre, I ducked underneath, straightening up the other side to...

... boxes, hundreds, no thousands of boxes, all neatly stacked and taking up the entire space of the room.

Nothing worth kidnapping me for.

The chill in the room made me pull my coat tighter around my waist. I marched up to one pile of boxes and read the writing on its side. 'Keep this side up. Store at 5 degrees Celsius and below.' A strip of brown tape stood between me and knowing what was in the boxes. Fancy cheese, perhaps, a product that needed chilled. Maybe my father had kidnapped me and dragged me across country to hand me stocks of food he flogged on the black market?

The tape across those boxes wrapped them up tight. I raised my hands up, the false nails razor sharp tips capable of slitting tape.

Jonno held up a hand. "Don't. I'd rather you didn't. Precious stock and all that."

"What is this then?" I asked.

"Lots of different chemicals," he said. "Aluminium hydroxide, which is commonly used as an antacid to relieve indigestion and heartburn, aluminium phosphate that you often find in dental cement, potassium aluminium sulphate, squalene. A few other substances I've forgotten the name of."

"Are you making bombs?" I asked. At school, I'd dropped out of chemistry classes early on, but weren't phosphates a common ingredient in bombs, especially the home-made variety?

"No, I'm not making anything. Kirsty is, though, isn't she?"

Realisation dawned. "Are these the chemicals she needs for the vaccine?"

"Ten out of ten."

"Where did they come from?" I had my suspicions. Vast quantities of chemicals hidden in a tucked-away warehouse on an old estate that warned of nuclear waste.

"Liberated property," Jonno said, grinning once more. In the subdued lighting, he was easy to mistake for Gregor, and must have looked exactly the same at Gregor's age. Waves of something seemed to radiate off him, too—an invisible cord that connected the two of us. Someone trying to bend my mind to his and make me trust him?

"Stolen, then," I said. "From Sunshine Health?"

"Got it in one. They're the parent company for a few chemical manufacturing plants. I'm the guy who organises the supply chain. Have been for the last 10 years. I hope that explains my absence. I was, as they call it in the industry, deep undercover."

"Explains, doesn't excuse," I said. The boxes, now I studied them, bore a discreet Sunshine Health logo at the bottom.

Jason cleared his throat. "Boss, we'll need to go soon. If I dinnae get Maya back to her home by seven o'clock, it'll arouse suspicions."

Presumably he meant the Vampire Security/Sunshine Health goons who normally followed me. But Kyle wouldn't be pleased either, particularly if he had tried to phone me. I knew which way his fevered mind would go. Straight to picturing me and Justin meeting up, sharing secret kisses and more.

"Fair enough," Jonno said. "Can you drop me off on the way and I'll explain to Maya what I want her to do."

Stomping out in front of them to the car, I remarked he had no right to tell me to do anything, given his long absence from my life. The only people I worked for were the citizens of Dunrovia, who'd elected me to make life better for them.

"And this will, won't it?" Jonno argued as I took the passenger seat next to Jason. Jonno was going to sit in the back so he could duck down out of sight if necessary.

We headed back to Dunrovia, the city lights twinkling in the distance as we got closer to civilisation once more. I sensed it again—that cord between us which promised Jonno was a trustworthy guy. Even though he'd lied to Gregor and his mum and abandoned two children.

"You want mass vaccination for Dunrovia's citizens, don't you?" he continued. "I've got vast quantities of the supplies but if I go through the official channels to present it to the government for them to use it in the vaccine development programme, I'll be forced to admit where it came from."

"And our government can't accept stolen property," I finished for him.

"No, but you can talk to Kirsty. Get her to move her lab from the Argist Academy to here—unofficially, she'll still need to look as if she is working at the Academy—and get on with mass producing a vaccine."

God. What made him think I'd be able to talk Kirsty around? She was straight as a die. The idea of working with stolen property would appal her. And how were we meant to arrange the subterfuge—everyone assuming Kirsty was working at the academy when in reality she was sneaking half-way across the country day after day?

"How do you—"

"You'll come up with something," Jonno said, the cheeriness jarring. "I've done all the hard work. Now someone else has to take over. I need to return to Sunshine Health, otherwise they'll get suspicious."

And with that, the car came to a halt in front of a perimeter wall. Jonno got out and slapped the top of the car. He leant in through the open window.

"I forgot to say. You can't tell anyone. Except Kirsty."

"What about Gregor?"

Jonno shook his head. "He's too loyal to Nell. And if he tells Nell, then she'll feel duty-bound to pass the news on to Cheryl. Who'll refuse to allow Kirsty to use stolen goods."

"Why do you think I won't tell Nell or Cheryl? I'm a respectable person these days. A mum, a wife, a member of the assembly."

He shrugged, that by now incredibly irritating grin starting up. "You're a chip off the old block," he said. "Someone who recognises you need to do a bit of ducking and diving if you want things to happen."

Chip off the old block! This from the father who hadn't seen me in years.

His expression changed—the eyes clouding over and the lines on his head deepening.

"Boss," Jason said, glancing in his mirror. "You need to skedaddle. Soon as."

There were no other cars on the road. The only sound audible was the roar of far-off traffic. But their caution made me jumpy. The sooner Jason got me out of here, the better.

"I used to subscribe to your MyTV channel," Jonno said, astonishing me. "And it made me ridiculously proud. Same with Gregor. Two extraordinary humans. I didn't plan this, but circumstances have changed, and that's why I need you to do the rest."

"I'll think about it," I said through gritted teeth, "and that doesn't mean I agree, seeing as you're asking me to break the law and come up with a wild plan all by myself."

The protest went unheard. Jonno had wandered off. As I watched him, twisted in my seat, he rang a bell on the door in the perimeter fence, but the car drove away too fast for me to see who opened it.

"Are you going to tell me anything more?" I asked Jason.

"Me? I know nothin'. And that's the way I like it."

I tried anyway, firing questions at him and tutting when he refused to answer. By the time we got to the Academy, I'd given up, mind too taken up with figuring out what I did next.

*****

Sharon shot me a flinty look when I knocked on her door. "You're four hours late! And you haven't been answering your phone."

Sure enough, when I checked it there were five missed calls. Sharon, but nothing from Kyle. Thank you thank you thank you universe.

"Gregor cornered me," I replied, "because he wanted to discuss our absentee father."

"That waste of space! You're both better off without him. Have you been drinking?" she asked, sniffing the air next to me. Sober Sharon had become that 'no prude like the reformed rake' person. The woman who'd used to neck so much gin, she would pass out.

"No!"—oh, that blasted whisky—"yes, Gregor offered me a bit of whisky."

The 11s between Sharon's eyes furrowed. "You're breastfeeding!"

"Fine, Mirac can have a bottle tonight. If he did that all the time, it would make life much simpler."

With that, I marched past her. In the living room, Mirac lay on the playmat, hands batting at the toys dangling from the mobile, Woofy positioned next to him, tail thumping from side to side, and Rosie glued to Minions on the TV.

The doorbell rang, triggering furious barks from Woofy who bolted for the front door.

"Mum," I said, dropping my voice so Rosie wouldn't hear. "Don't say anything to Kyle about me being late, will you?"

Sharon followed me out into the flat's hallway. She plucked at my coat sleeve. "Why not?"

The doorbell went again, setting off Woofy once more. "Just don't, please?"

She didn't like the secrecy, I could tell, but she nodded. Kyle in a good mood depended on many things. The one thing guaranteed to make him mad now was any suspicion I had been unexpectedly absent for a few hours. He would add up two plus two make seven and accuse me of sneaking off to another secret meeting with Justin, and if I confessed the truth, he wouldn't like that either. Besides, it wasn't fair to burden another person with knowledge of an illegal act.

"What took you so long?" he asked as I opened Sharon's front door, but the words held no accusation. "Sorry I'm late," he added, wiping his feet on the mat. "I bumped into Gregor, and he suggested we go over tutoring plans for next year."

Shit. That blew my alibi out of the water, even though that was where I'd spent the earlier part of my absence. But imagine if I'd used the Gregor excuse on Kyle. He would have known I was lying about part of the four-hour absence straight away, and exploded. Sharon's lips narrowed as she studied me. She opened her mouth. Unseen by Kyle, I shook my head.

"Do you want a cup of tea, Kyle?" she asked, beaming at him and glaring at me simultaneously.

I was off the hook for now, but the stress of the last ten minutes convinced me this clandestine stuff wasn't for me. Jonno could stuff those stolen chemicals where the sun didn't shine. I wouldn't be the one helping him out and would inform him of that as—

Blast him. How was I supposed to contact him?

AUTHOR'S NOTES - thanks for reading! All votes much appreciated. The next update will be Friday, 11 June 2021.