The next day, at break, Noah and Emma direct me to the computer suite.

Emma is gushing about some party at the weekend, repeatedly inviting me in the hope I'll crack and say yes. I can't say yes. Even if I want to. Even if my whole body is screaming for me to tear myself from Alyssa's scheme and join the rest of the world. Except I cannot – I will not – abandon her. She wouldn't abandon me; she hasn't for all these years.

When I thought the worst of her, she was only trying to protect me.

She's only ever done what she thought was right.

Emma politely guides me through the ocean of lower graders, their stares more unnerving than Mr. Dark's ever were. Unconsciously, I shake my head. I have to stop calling him that. Noah remains by my side, casting me smiles, odd glances. This morning, he told me he wanted to talk to me at lunch, as soon as I finished third period. I'd asked Alyssa before agreeing. I'd asked Alyssa quite a lot lately. And, I realised as we reached an island of computers, it felt good. It felt strangely wonderful to have a consultant inside my head, one who knew me more than I could ever know myself. Emma scrambled for a trio of computers, practically lying on the desk. The librarian in charge of the suite shoots her a crumpled frown, but she grins back. Eventually, the librarian walks on. Noah slumps to my left, talking about his sister.

"The principle gave her a personal detention for it. Said she couldn't know at her age. She's been going on at our Mums about it since she was four," he is saying. Both Alyssa and I lean into the conversation.

"Then she knows who she wants to be – the school should accept that," Emma whispers. I nod. Noah's sister is eleven years old, as bold and bright as her brother. But she doesn't want to be his sister. She hasn't wanted to for seven years. She wants to be his brother and she knows, deep down in her heart, that she is. That she should be. From someone who knows how it feels to be trapped within your own mind, I can't imagine being trapped in your own body.

"We should mount a protest or get people to sign a petition," I find myself saying. Noah reels, while Emma smiles her approval.

"That's a great idea. We can make signs, maybe march outside the school". Noah bites his lip.

"I don't know. The parents, even the kids at that place, they're not... They don't understand". They wouldn't be human if they didn't understand. But if they aren't willing to... I shake my head.

"So? Make them understand. Your Mums don't need their acceptance and neither does your sister". Again, I catch Emma's smile. Her eyes – the twinkling in them – make me want to smile too. So, I do. This time, Alyssa can't stop herself either. Noah offers me a weaker version, but his thumbs begin to swivel.

"It'll be okay. They'll understand eventually and if not, there are plenty of other schools and communities that do," says Emma. We turn to face our screens; the bright white login page scorches my eyes. The tap-tapping of keyboards cause a buzzing in my head, as if a muffled alarm has been caught inside my brain stem. I blink, try to force my breathing into a steady rhythm. Up. Down. Up.

Emma is staring at me, so I smile and return my attention to the computer screen. I have a job to do. A mission, as Alyssa calls it. It's strange, but what we're doing doesn't seem to big now. It doesn't seem as monumental as it did before. The fact that there are at least two bodies in that van and a dead Doctor lying out somewhere in the wilderness just doesn't unnerve me the way it should have done. Perhaps it's the presence of those new memories. I say new, they're actually quite old. New to me, I suppose. Those harsh straps, syringes torn right out of a horror movie. My mouth dries up, while my hands start to shake. Breathe. I have to breathe. Be like a shark. If they stop moving, they die.

For a moment, I'm not sitting at the grey desk of the suite. For a moment, I'm not in a room of students. I'm in a room of possibilities, of demonstrated lies, of ways to find the truth. That's what I'm here for: to find the truth. And to answer emails. That too.

Emma toys with the mouse, while Noah plays on a computer game I'm positive I haven't heard of. Seconds are passing. Minutes flashing by. I have to do this. I'm not going to waste my chance. An email from Miss Kirby sits unopened on my dashboard. In the subject line, she's listed sports teams I should join. Swallowing, I struggle to read it. Alyssa reads it first, remarking of the inconsistencies.

'Terrible grammar, that woman,' she says. I know she's trying to cheer me up, but it isn't working. I'm unsure if anything really works in this situation.

'Try looking at the Academy's website. We can check which of the faculty are new, then we'll have a better idea of who to watch out for'. She carries on briefing me of the task at hand. New teacher could mean the Foundation. It could also just mean a new teacher. My fingers curl. The urge to tear my hair out intensifies. The Math teacher was new.

'No. They need someone adept, someone who will try to appeal to me more than you. They're the bait. What they don't know is they're not the trap. I am'. We are. I chew the inside of my mouth, thinking. Someone who could appeal to her. Not the Maths teacher then – she hates numbers, almost as much as I hate PE. She likes Physics though, but not biology.

Mind crackling, we type the Academy's HTML into the search bar. The website is plain, yet attractive, with the dark blue and black logo cascading across the top in an arch. The forum is overrun with charity events, reminders for the next ice-hockey match. I edge the mouse over towards staff profiles. The question was, how did we find out who was the newest addition? Next to me, Emma's clicking stops.

"What are you looking for?" she asks.

"Do you know which teacher joined the faculty recently?" Emma shrugs.

"The Academy hires new staff every month or so. They try to get the young ones who've come straight from University because it's more down with the kids". She imitates a gang sign which I'm sure is long since out of date. Coming from a coma patient, that says a lot.

"Miss Kirby is pretty new, I guess. She came in about a month ago. I like her," says Noah. Miss Kirby. The possibility hits me before the truth. Her profile is the smallest, her eyes are strained when she smiles at me. She wanted me to join a team. Wanted Alyssa. Appealed to Alyssa's love of sport. It must be her.

"Do you know her first name?" The question is a risk, we know that. But Emma scrapes out an answer.

"Joan? Something like that". An alias, then. It must be. I can't research her. There has to be something.

'There isn't. Not now'. Now Alyssa is starting to become the voice of reason. My hands threaten to shake again, and I mash the keyboard. Noah jumps back.

'Don't,' Alyssa warns but the warning comes too late. I have already typed in the words. The Gemini Project. As soon as I hit 'enter', the screen goes dark. So, does Emma's. Noah's too. A collective rumble of groans reverberate throughout the library as the entire system shuts down. Dies out. The mouse almost imprints onto my palm.

Desperately, I tap the keyboard, searching for any signs of life.

"What the hell? Is that a power cut?" Noah shoves the keyboard to one side, grumbling. As if acting as his mirror, Emma calmly places the keyboard to one side.

"Must be a power cut. Sorry about your game, Noah. I know you were trying to beat your high score. Did you find what you were looking for Alice?" She stares at me and in that moment, I realise that she isn't just another student. I realise how much she knows. How much she has already guessed about who I am. But she smiles warmly and stands up.

"Come along. Let's find somewhere else to waste time". Chuckling, Noah begins to follow. I remained seated, unable to tear my eyes away from the blackened screen. Someone cut the power. How did they know I'd typed those words? How did they know? Miss Kirby was most likely low-level, at the bottom of the food chain. She didn't have the clearance to monitor the internet. Then again, what do I know?

'Well someone does. And now that someone may alert the Foundation. We have to be ready for any repercussions,' Alyssa tells me.

The librarian, frowning at his desk, snatches up the phone to call the technician. The rest of the students, already speculating about the loss of power, fumble for their bags and begin to traipse out into the widened white corridor. Everything here reminds me of the facility now. Those years are part of me. This time, I don't want to forget. I want to remember every shiver that ran up my spine, every spike of fear. Otherwise, I won't be able to face them. To get my life back. To give Alyssa one of her own.

Looping her arm through mine, Emma guides me out of the crowd, breathing in time with my panicked rhythm. Somehow, she knows how to calm me down. She should have been my psychiatrist. Even as those words cross my mind, a rush of adrenaline surges. Bohemian. I clenched my fists, unclenched them. Slowly. Why does everything have to be so complicated? It's a silly question, the question of a child. But I ask myself all the same.

By the time we reach the corridor, a group of technicians have already seized the library. Power would be back soon, they said. Students grumble. What they don't know is the power won't be back soon. It will be back when the Foundation allows. They can't be running the Academy, even I'm not that paranoid. But they have leverage elsewhere. They have a woman on the ground: Miss Kirby.

'What are we going to do?' I ask Alyssa as Emma pulls us through the fast-flowing river of students.

'I'm working on it,' is the reply.

'Wow'.

'Wow what?'

Emma eagerly launches us around another corner. Noah follows, already out of breath.

'I don't think I've ever seen you without a plan before'. Alyssa chuckles.

'Yeah, well, it's not as if it happens often. Come on. Focus on what's happening now. Leave me to think of something,' she says. As soon as her voice fades, we emerge into the piercing sunlight, Noah practically crawling through the double doors. Emma laughs, checks the time on her phone. She turns to me.

"Break is almost finished. I'd better get to class – it's a hike. I swear they put the language block like, ten miles away just to call us out for being late". With a smile to Noah and a laugh for me, she disappears back into the crowd. By the time I find I'm able to speak, she's already gone. Leaving us alone. Noah shrugs, blushing a little. I force a smile back onto my face. Guilt stirs like the rise of a wave. He's my age, he's sweet. He is exactly the type of person I should be spending time with, not an unhinged Doctor who doesn't know how to feel about me. Who hesitated. But as Noah asks me if I want to walk to class with him, and as I say yes, I realise Bohemian Light is only person I want to be with. To talk to. To read with or watch TV with. To come home to. Wherever home is supposed to be right now.

Noah reaches for my hand, but I pull away. For every movement, I see the phantom hands of Doctors and Nurses, their fingers beset with syringes.

Noticing his mistake, Noah pulls back, shaking his hand out as if trying to swat a fly. For another few minutes, he doesn't speak. Instead, we watch the sky as the hyacinth blue is shattered by the clouds. I open my mouth. Close it. I want to tell him everything; the urge burns like molten ash in my stomach. But I can't.

Noah turns, as if about to say something, but I hear nothing the moment I see her. Standing by the cream cement, staring at me, but pretending to be checking a clipboard. But I know she's looking at me. I know she is. Before I can do anything, the bell drizzles its warning and I'm separated from Noah – and Miss Kirby – by a throng of backpack sporting students with fresh tans. I meet up with Emma an hour later, in Maths. She's smiling as always. Poised, yet relaxed, with shoulders like the Taj Mahal. Too beautiful a person for me to be seen with.

"Trigonometry. My favourite," Emma groans, though she breezes through the questions. This time, it takes me twice as long to finish a page in the workbook.

Halfway through the lesson, Alyssa's voice breaches our mind.

'I have a plan,' she says.

'I was afraid you were going to say that.'

'Don't judge, alright? You don't need to do much. Just think. Think about everything that's happen. Think about it.' I curl my lip. My life is the last thing I want to think about right now. The thoughts bombard me all the same. The memories, cutting like penknives into my sternum. Syringes. Dr. Steele, stroking my cheek and whispering sweet nothings as if I were a doll in a shop. Memories. Too much. Too fast. I can't breathe.

I don't realise I'm having a panic attack until Emma is calling for the teacher. Around me, whispers rise like steam in a sauna. Sneering lips and snarling faces wobble like liquid glue. Muttering. Talking about me.

My body stands of its own accord, shaking rushing from the round before anyone can say a word. Even if the teacher did call out, I wouldn't have heard them. Slipping into the main corridor, which is awash in silence, I slump between two columns of lockers, trying to get my breathing under control. The grey cylinders of the wall behind me are twin boats against my back. Slowly, but surely, using the breathing techniques Dr. Light taught me, I bring my raging lungs to a slow rise and fall. Slower, slower, slower. Inwardly, I growl at Alyssa.

'That was your fault'.

'I got us out of Math, though. Didn't I? Now get up. Go the P.E. office. We have work to do'. Shakily, leaning on the lockers as if they were one long walking stick, I rise to my feet. Stand in the corridor for a minute or two, breathing evenly through my nose. Mouth. In. Out. The corridor, blank and cement laden, stares emptily back at me.

'I memorised the schematic from the school website. They have a PDF for all the parents to see. The P.E office is a few minutes to your left,' says Alyssa. I do as instructed. Slink along the too-bright corridor all the way to the standard paisley doorway entitled P.E staff. A gentle knock. A muffled reply. I open the door, my hand creasing against the frame. Step inside.

The staffroom is a den of stacked coffee cups rimmed with stains. On both sides of the rectangular room sit grey shelves upon which lever arch files are stacked like Jenga blocks. There are two desks, one of which – Miss Kirby's – is unoccupied. The other is occupied by a man in a light blue tracksuit, who is pouring through a folder with a BLT trapped between his fingers. He looks up and almost drops the sandwich as I enter.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, lowering my head. "I was just looking for Miss Kirby". The man swallows his portion of the sandwich and licks his greasy fingers. I look away.

"Don't worry about it. You just missed her. Shall I pass on a message?" he asks.

"Could you tell her that the Callett Sisters want to talk to her?" The man nods. He soon returns to his sandwich without another glance in my direction. I sigh. I don't blame him – I wouldn't want to be involved either.

'But you are,' snaps Alyssa as we closed the staff room. 'Now, check your back pocket'. I want to ask why, but all too soon by fingers dance to my trousers, pulling out a small slip of paper. Opening it, I frown.

'No,' I echo back. 'Where am I supposed to leave this?'

'In the plant pot outside the office. If she's really been monitoring us, she'll know where to find the message when everyone has left for the night.' For the night. My neck burns. Another one of her schemes is rising, I can feel it.

My shoulders sag, while I thumb the paper for a minute or two. Looking at the clock on the wall, Math is halfway through. I need to make this quick. Hunkering down next to the succulent, I fold the paper into a treasure map and slip it beneath the soil. If Miss Kirby is who we think she is, she will know where to look. She will know who we are as soon as she the note.

I stand up and brush the soil from my fingers.

Hello Miss Kirby. We found you.