Stefan's mouth couldn't ask why, so his eyes did it for him.

'Are you confused?' asked Faustino. 'Don't you understand what's happening here?'

They were all listening, fighting the sedative.

'It's like I told you, Stefan, you were working for me. All of you. The Supernaturalists were cutting corners that I couldn't. Getting jobs done that would take me months to get clearance for. And I don't have that kind of time.'

She paused in her narrative, ordering the vat man to the other side of the facility.

'This is top-secret stuff,' she explained. 'If he hears any more, I'll have to kill him, and good vat men are hard to find. Things were going fine until you developed a conscience. You found Un-Spec 4, just as I knew you would, and you set off the Energy Pulse. If I had tried to do either of those sneaky things, I would surely have been found out.'

Stefan didn't feel very sneaky at the moment. He felt gullible and naive.

'It could have been perfect: the Supernaturalists knock out the Parasites and my team collect them. I would have developed a clean power source and saved the Satellite. But now, suddenly, after three years, the obsessed Stefan Bashkir changes his mind and doesn't want to fight Parasites any more. Now the Supernaturalists are no longer a.s.sets, they are loose ends. And we all know what happens to loose ends.

They get cut. In a few hours there will be no trace of you or your little group. I even had my boys confiscate your equipment from Abracadabra Street. There won't be so much as a computer file or a fingerprint left by the time I'm finished.'

Stefan swung his lower body at the tank wall, but his rubber-soled boots bounced harmlessly off the plasti-gla.s.s.

Faustino laughed. 'Still the same little Stefan. Fighting all the way. Just like your mother.' She leaned closer to the tank. 'There are two more things you should know, just to punish you for slowing down my plan. Firstly, your team mate is correct. Of course Un-Spec 4 do not suck life force. Only an obsessive like you could believe that. We conducted tests on lab rats. Several rats were injured. Those kept in an underwater environment, away from Un-Spec 4, survived no longer than the ones helped by the Parasites. We also conducted human trials, on ... ah ... volunteers. The results were the same. Intervention by Un-Spec 4 actually lowered the subjects' stress levels. They take pain only. To cap it all off, their energy emissions actually seem to be repairing the ozone layer. That bit about them destabilizing the Satellite was just another lie to get you hooked. If it makes you feel any better, the Pulse did not kill them. Energy can not be destroyed: basic science. The Pulse does seem to have rendered diem sterile, so levels will quickly drop to normal.'

Cosmo felt his eyelids droop. Stay awake, he told himself. Or you may never wake again. Beside him, Mona was already unconscious. But Stefan's eyes grew brighter by the minute. Hate kept him going, as it had for three years.'You're really going to love this second piece of information, Stefan,' continued Faustino. 'If you ever bothered to check my academy record, Stefan, you might have seen that several other cadets suffered near-death experiences.'

Faustino watched Stefan intently, waiting for him to get it. Suddenly he did, jerking violently inside his cellophane coc.o.o.n.

Ellen clapped her hands. 'Well done. The penny drops. That's right, Stefan. I was already working for Myishi, even back then, and you were part of an experiment. I became a Spotter through a genuine accident, but you were created. I realized how Spotters were made and decided to make a few more. Did you never think it strange that the ambulance just happened to be around the corner? All arranged. Eventually I would have recruited you to my group, but you quit the force and started up a little group of your own. It was unfortunate about your mother, but it is against regulations to carry pa.s.sengers in a police cruiser, so you only have yourself to blame.'

Stefan stopped struggling abruptly, hanging from his suction cup. Bitter tears coursed down his cheeks, pooling in the cellophane.

'Aw,' crooned Faustino. 'Have I broken your spirit? What a shame.'

She snapped her fingers, summoning the vat man.

'Dunk them,' she ordered. 'I don't want as much as a back tooth left to trace them back to R&D.'

'No problem, President,' said the man. 'Consider them out of your life.' He climbed the steps to the suction cup winches, freeing the ratchets on each one. The cogs spun freely, submerging the Supernaturalists' heads in the giant vat of acidic compound.

'Nicely done,' said Ellen Faustino. 'Expect a little bonus in your pay cheque.'

'Thank you, President, always a pleasure.'

But the vat man was talking to himself, Ellen Faustino was already gone. There was work to be done and she did not have a few spare hours to watch Supernaturalists dissolve in acid.

Of course, dissolving was the least of the Supernaturalists' problems. They would suffocate long before the acidic compound could get to work on their skin and bone.

The cellophane had relaxed its grip slightly, but not enough to allow them to climb out of the vat. By the time their limbs were free, any pockets of air trapped in the cellophane would have long since leaked out.

Cosmo struggled against sleep. The rest of the group had already succ.u.mbed to the cellophane's sedative; he could only guess that his own system was building a resistance to the chemical because he had been wrapped three times now.

Think, he told himself. It's up to you. There must be a good idea in your head somewhere. There must be something in that patched-up head . . . Wait a minute.

Something in his head.

A memory flashed across Cosmo's vision. In the warehouse, after his accident.

Mona had said something to him: Lucky for you Ditto had a couple of robotix plates lying around; he used one to patch your fractured skull. Those robotix plates are made of the same material used to armour a.s.sault tanks; when your skin heals up, Ditto says you'll be able to headb.u.t.t your way through a brick wall.

The robotix plate.

Cosmo wiggled his way across to the vat wall, drawing his head back as far as possible. Struggling against sleep, breathlessness and thick liquid, he b.u.t.ted the plasti-gla.s.s with all his strength. The tank wall flexed slightly and a bolt of pain shot through Cosmo's forehead.

The vat man wandered over curiously.

'Hey, sweetie,' he said, grinning. 'Are you trying to escape? I'm afraid skin and bone is not going to do it.' He rapped on the tank. 'Plasti-gla.s.s. Nothing short of an a.s.sault tank is going to get you out of here.'

Of course Cosmo didn't hear any of that. All he could hear was the shrill whine of his own headache. There was no option but to try once more. Gritting his teeth, he b.u.t.ted the plasti-gla.s.s again. When the pain receded, he noticed a tiny crack in the tank.

'Stop that,' said the vat man, rubbing the crack with his thumb. 'I have to clean this thing.'

One more, thought Cosmo. I have breath for one more.

Cosmo pulled back his head and with all the strength in his head, neck, chest and spine, b.u.t.ted the plasti-gla.s.s in precisely the same spot. A clang reverberated around the vat walls.

The crack widened, spreading to the outside of the tank.

One drop. Just one drop.

'Give it up, kiddo,' chortled the vat man. 'Just go to sleep. Make it easy on yourself.'

The crack spread some more, like the web of a silver-weaving spider. A single drop of yellow acid wormed through the gap, eating into the untreated interior of the plasti-gla.s.s pane.

The vat man frowned. 'How did you The plate blew. It probably took the cracks a few seconds to destroy the front of the tank, but it seemed instantaneous. The vat man's jaw had just enough time to drop open in disbelief before his mouth was filled to overflowing with acidic compound.

Several thousand gallons of acid followed the first spurt, careering across the facility floor into various corners. The Super-naturalists and their harnesses were borne along with the deluge, dashed on to the tiles like fish in a fish box.

The vat man fared worst. He met the liquid hammer blow head-on, not to mention several sections of plasti-gla.s.s that battered him halfway up an adjacent wall. He slid back down to the submerged floor, a lump already rising on his head.

I may as well go to sleep now, thought Cosmo. Everybody else is.

Of course, the Supernaturalists were not in the clear yet, hampered as they were by unconsciousness and cellophane wraps. At any moment another member of Myishi personnel could stroll into the vat department and discover the disaster, or security could switch on the monitor and realize that things were far from dandy in the bas.e.m.e.nt. But at least the Supernaturalists were alive for the moment, something no betting man would have put money on.

Minutes pa.s.sed slowly, ticking by to the tune of yellow gunge dripping from the shattered vat. As time moved on, the acid did its work, slowly eating through the cellophane wraps. It took forty minutes, but finally Stefan was free. As untainted air flushed the sedative from his lungs, consciousness returned. He punched his way free of the final cellophane strands, like a b.u.t.terfly shaking off its coc.o.o.n. He struggled to his knees, coughing up an acrid mixture of cellophane and acid fumes. Slowly his dreams were replaced by recent memories.

'Faustino,' he breathed, gingerly releasing the vacuum cup on his head.

Ditto was next to wake.

'What did I tell you? Who's the traitor now?'

Stefan ripped the remaining cellophane from the Bartoli Baby's frame.

'Seems like all my friends are lying to me these days.'

Ditto cleared his lungs loudly. 'The ambulance that picked you up. You have to believe me. I didn't know.'

Stefan patted his shoulder. 'Of course you didn't. She used all of us.'

Bashkir pulled Mona from beneath a plasti-gla.s.s plate.

'How did we get out of there anyway?' he asked. 'I thought we were dead for sure.'

Ditto turned Cosmo over. A sliver of metal was visible through the torn skin of his forehead.

'Believe it or not, I think the rookie saved us again. He used his head.'

Ditto placed a hand on Cosmo's forehead. A slight silver shimmering played around the contact.'I can take some of his pain, for a while. The healing he'll have to do on his own.'

Stefan sat Mona up. 'You should have told me, Ditto.'

'You're right, I should. But now that you know, what are you going to do about it?'

Stefan pulled a capsule of smelling salts from the medi-kit on his belt. He snapped it under Mona's nostrils.

'I'm going to find out why Ellen Faustino is collecting Parasites.'

Mona woke up shouting. 'No way, Moma,' she cried. 'No way am I going to wear that dress.'

Stefan picked her up, laying her on a low surgical table. 'OK, Mona. It's OK.

You're with friends.'

Mona squinted suspiciously. 'No dresses?'

'No. No dresses. Just relax. Try not to move.'

Mona's face was decidedly green. 'OK if I throw up?'

'Be my guest,' said Stefan, taking two steps back.

Cosmo flapped on the floor like a fish, fighting off a nightmare enemy.

'The kid has been through a lot in the past few weeks,' said Ditto.

Stefan hoisted Cosmo on to another surgical table. 'After tonight, it's over. Normal lives all around.'

Ditto shook ropes of acidic compound from his hands.

'Really? Where have I heard that before?'

The vat man was not overly eager to share any information, but one look at the Supernaturalists' faces weakened his resolve.

'I don't even work here full-time. Sometimes I do some special work for President Faustino. Off the books, you understand.'

'I understand,' said Stefan. 'We were very nearly off the books ourselves.'

'Nothing personal, just doing my job.'

'Yeah, yeah, nothing personal. Anything for a little something extra in the pay cheque.'

The vat man was lying in a pool of acidic compound. The yellow liquid was beginning to burn the folds in his flesh.

'Two questions,' said Stefan. 'And you better answer me straight away, because if you do not, the consequences will be dire.'

The vat man nodded so fast his chin was a blur. 'OK, ask away.'

'One, where's our gear?'

'Gear? You mean equipment, rods and computers?'

'Rods are the priority right now. Where are they?'

The vat man raised a finger. 'Is that the second question?'

Stefan closed one eye; the other bulged dangerously. The scar stretching his lips twitched. 'No, idiot. That is still the first question. Tell me where our stuff is. Now!'

'OK, OK. Over there, in the blue bins. I was supposed to incinerate it after I had flushed your molecules down the drain. No offence.'

Stefan nodded at his team mates. They rifled through the blue bins, selecting rods, clips, holsters and phones.

'Better take the fuzz plates too,' said Mona. 'We don't want to be caught by surveillance cameras.'

They hosed each other down and strapped on their gear, feeling very much like foxes in a bolthole, surrounded by baying hounds. Well-armed foxes.

'Second question,' said Stefan, hoisting the vat man upright by the collar.

'Where's Faustino?'

The anguish in the vat man's eyes showed that he didn't really want to answer the question.

'I wish I could tell you, I really do. But ..."

'This better be a really good but,' warned Stefan. 'Your immediate future depends on it.'

The vat man's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat like a tiny alien trying to get out.

'It's a big facility. President Faustino could be in her office, or the conference room, or on her rounds. I don't know.'

'At this time of night? Rubbish.'