Out Of Time (Book 0): Super Unknown (9 page)

“Give
me your money,” snapped a gruff voice behind her just seconds later.

“You
have got to be kidding me.”

She
looked up to see a boy a few years younger than her holding a knife.

“Give
me your money,” he said again, much more sternly.

“I
don’t
have
any money,” she snapped.

She’d
had just about enough of today and there was no way she was letting this kid
get away with mugging her.

“Don’t
give me that,” he snapped. “You look rich enough.”

Scarlett
stood up and emptied out her pockets.

“Look.
Three pounds and a button. Take them.”

“Don’t
lie, who comes out without money?”

“I
am
not
in the mood for this,” she yelled, while performing a perfect
spinning kick that landed squarely on his chest and knocked him to the floor.

Scarlett
was pleased her mum had made her take those self-defence lessons now. There was
no time to stand around and bask in the glory of her expert ninja moves though.
She realised it would be wise to put as much distance between herself and the
mugger as possible, so she started running across London for the second time in
as many hours. She snaked into a back street to make sure she lost him and
several twists and turns later, she felt safe enough to pause for breath.
Finally, she’d given him the slip.

“Alert!
Alert! Alert!”

“What
now
?” she gasped. “For heaven’s sake, I can’t take any more.”

Scarlett
looked up to see a small, spherical, robot-like machine floating towards her.
It was about the size of a football and made entirely from metal and shiny
wires.

“Alert!
Fugitive number 3274 identified.”

“Now,
hang on a minute…” Scarlett thought, “a number
what
?”

“Status:
highly dangerous.”

Well,
the machine had that right and she intended to show it why.

“Action:
neutralise.”

Now
that bit, she didn’t like the sound of so much. What exactly was it preparing
to neutralise – her?

“This
has got to be a dream,” she decided. One of those horrible, relentless
nightmares that feel like they’re never going to end. She’d watched one too
many sci-fi movies lately that was all. She just needed to wake up.

Scarlett
pinched herself, then looked around.

Still
here.

She
tried a slap round the face.

No
joy there either. She was still in the middle of her nightmare and, more
worryingly, the weird death robot thingy was moving towards her and it looked
set to fire.

Scarlett
looked behind her to search for an escape route, but it was a dead end. Great.
She ducked under the robot in a bid to run past it, but it was far too fast for
her and it had her cornered against a wall within seconds.

“Neutralise!”
it shrieked, before opening up to reveal a red laser. Scarlett covered her eyes.

Boom!

She
peered through her fingers, which were very much still in touch and
‘unneutralised’.

“Scarlett!”
a voice exclaimed from behind her as she stared at the death robot on the floor
– she was relieved to see it had exploded into a million pieces. She looked round
to see a very hot boy with short, wavy brown hair smiling at her.

“Scarlett!”
he repeated. “We thought you were dead!”

“I
can’t believe it!” said the boy, who Scarlett thought looked about her age. He
ran his hand through his hair and stared at her in stunned disbelief.

She
looked from him to the death robot, which was fizzling and whirring pitifully
as its power died out, and back again.

The
boy knew her name and he was staring at her like they were old friends, but she
swore she’d never seen him before in her life. She was sure she would have
remembered if she’d met a boy this good-looking before.

As
he got closer, she couldn’t help but notice his gorgeous green eyes and, as he
met her gaze, it felt like they were piercing right through to her soul.
Scarlett blushed with nerves.

“Wh...
what did you do?” she asked, struggling for something to say.

“I
iced it,” he said matter-of-factly, like it was no big deal. “And that made it
short circuit and explode.”

She
must have misheard him. She could have sworn he said he’d ‘iced it’. What on
earth did that mean? The hot boy didn’t notice the look of confusion on her
face though, he was too busy waving to three other teenagers.

“Team,
come over here,” he yelled.

Two
girls and another guy ran down the alley towards them.

“Scarlett!”

They
were gazing at her happily as though they knew her too, but she didn’t have a
clue who they were.

“I
can’t believe it,” one said.

“You’re
alive!” yelled another.

“Oh
my goodness!” the third exclaimed.

“It’s
so good to see you,” a beautiful girl with flowing blonde hair said as she
raced forward from the group and hugged Scarlett.

Scarlett
pushed her off and took a step back. She needed some space. She stared at the
four teens suspiciously, trying to make some sense of the whole situation.

“We
thought you were dead,” the hot boy said.

“Yeah,
I’d kind of guessed that,” Scarlett replied as she peered at him shyly through
her jet-black fringe. Her stomach was flip-flopping all over the place and her
cheeks were burning with embarrassment. Why did she always fall to pieces when
she fancied a boy? She knew she looked dumb just standing there and she had to
say something. Anything.

“Well,
I’m very much alive,” Scarlett mumbled as she looked down to avoid the boy’s
gaze. She noticed a bit of death robot on her arm and brushed it off. It was
freezing cold. She hadn’t misheard him – he really had iced it.

“Thanks
for saving me from the death robot,” she added.

“Detectobot,”
corrected a beautiful Asian girl with long dark hair.

“Yeah,
whatever,” Scarlett said shrugging her shoulders. “Look, I really appreciate
your help, but I don’t actually know you.”

They
all looked at Scarlett like she was crazy.

“Of
course you do, you’re one of us,” the blonde said.

“Us?”
What were they exactly? She cautiously took a step away from them.

The
friendly girl noticed that Scarlett was rattled and took a less intense
approach.

“Let
us take you for a coffee, you look like you need it.”

Scarlett
paused to consider the offer. She didn’t know these kids and she knew better
than to go off with strangers. However, the world had gone crazy and she had
been attacked way too many times in the past hour or two, so where else was she
going to go? These four seemed to think they knew her.

“Come
on, Scarlett,” said the boy who’d saved her. “We’re your friends, we’d never do
anything to hurt you.”

She
turned to look at him and her heart started pounding. She didn’t know why, but
she had a strange feeling that she could trust him. As she stared at his 6ft
frame and broad shoulders, her mind started to invent sickeningly soppy
fantasies of him being her strong hero, who would protect her from anything.

“Scarlett?”
he said gently, jolting her back to reality.

She
went bright red, hoping desperately that he couldn’t read minds as well as
freeze things.

“Are
you coming with us?”

“OK,”
she reluctantly agreed. How could she turn down such a handsome stranger?

“Shall
we go to Two Sugars?” the blonde girl asked the hot boy.

“No
way, I’ve seen the cops milling around that place lately. Let’s try Frank’s
Café. It’s pretty quiet there.”

The
group started walking down the street, so Scarlett followed them.

“Why
are you afraid of the police?” she asked. They all turned and gave her that
collective look of disbelief again.

“Everyone’s
scared of them, Scarlett. They’re evil. You know that.”

Actually,
she didn’t know that.

“My
uncle’s a policeman. I always thought they wanted to help and protect us.”

“Scarlett,
are you crazy?” the blonde asked. “Did you bang your head? Maybe she banged her
head. Neelam, do you think she banged her head?”

“Lucy,
go easy on her,” said the girl who Scarlett assumed to be Neelam.

“Scarlett,
the police
used
to be good, but they’re not anymore. Don’t trust them.”

“What
does that mean?” Scarlett thought.

“I’ll
explain later,” Neelam replied.

“What
is she, psychic or something?” Scarlett thought, again without speaking out
loud.

Neelam
looked at her.

“Actually
yes,” she said in her head.

Scarlett’s
eyes opened wide with shock.

“Did
you just speak in my head?” she yelped in horror.

She
felt like her personal space had been massively invaded.

“Scarlett,
I’m so sorry,” she said aloud. “Please don’t panic. It’s so hard to adjust to
you not knowing us. We used to be best friends.”

Neelam
stared at Scarlett, her big brown eyes begging her to trust her. For some
reason, Scarlett’s instincts told her it was the right thing to do. At least,
she hoped it was her instincts and not Neelam playing mind tricks. She was very
confused.

“Here
we are,” the girl called Lucy said. “We’re at Frank’s now. Are you going to
come in and have a coffee with us?”

The
two boys pushed the door open and the warmth from the heaters inside escaped
onto the cold, autumn street. It would be nice to go in there for a rest.

“OK…”
Scarlett said, as she followed them in.

“Scarlett!
Come and sit down,” the hot boy said as he gestured at a seat next to him.

She
silently cursed herself for blushing again. What was wrong with her? She’d
never felt so giddy and nervous around a boy before.

“Go
on,” Neelam assured her. “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

Scarlett
stared at the wall above the counter. This place needed to get some better
signs – one said a cup of coffee was £17 instead of the usual £1.70 or so.

“Can
I have a hot chocolate please?”

“Sure.”

Scarlett
weaved her way through the plastic tables to join the others at the back, near
a run-down old jukebox. She pulled a chair out and sat down. Everyone looked at
each other awkwardly.

“So,
do you really not know who we are?” asked the blond boy. He was cute, but not
as good-looking as the dark-haired one.

“No.
Not a clue,” she replied.

Silence.

“Maybe
they wiped her brain,” the hot boy quietly suggested, while leaning into the
table so as not to be heard.

Scarlett
glanced around, wondering who might possibly want to overhear them, but the
place was empty bar the waitress and a couple in the corner.

“I’m
Dylan,” the boy said. “That’s Jay,” he said, pointing at the shorter blond.
“This is Lucy,” he added, gesturing to the pretty, funkily dressed blonde girl.
“And that’s Neelam.” He nodded in the direction of the girl with long dark hair
at the counter.

Neelam
gave Scarlett a friendly smile as she brought the drinks over and sat down on
the other side of her.

“Hi,”
Scarlett said. She realised she sounded a little too surly, but she was so
tired she couldn’t help it.

“So,
who are you?” she asked.

“We
all have special powers,” Lucy whispered.

“Lucy!”
Dylan scolded in a big-brotherly manner. “Don’t go round announcing that.”

“And
so do you,” Neelam added.

“Neelam!”
Dylan sighed. “Cor, why do you two have to go right ahead and scare Scarlett by
telling her everything straight away?”

“Don’t
you remember?” Lucy asked, ignoring him.

“Girls!”
Dylan was very cross with them.

Scarlett
didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Sure, Neelam had talked in her head,
but there had to be a rational explanation, surely? They were having a laugh,
right?

She
giggled.

“Scarlett
it’s true,” Jay insisted.

She
looked earnestly at Dylan, who seemed to be the group’s leader.

“Are
they winding me up?” she asked him.

“Nope.
Sadly not,” he replied. “Jay here can run faster than a high-speed train,
Neelam is telepathic, Lucy can do some very impressive things with electricity
and I manipulate water, which means I can freeze things…”

Scarlett
stared at Dylan as though she didn’t believe a single word he was saying.

“Watch,”
he said. He placed his finger on Scarlett’s mug and instantly froze the hot
chocolate inside.

“Hey!”
she protested.

He
smiled playfully and touched the mug again, this time heating it back up until
it bubbled. “I can make them hot too.” He smiled and pushed the cup towards
her, but Scarlett jumped back and screeched her chair away from the table.

“Don’t
be scared,” Neelam urged.

“That’s
how I saved you earlier,” Dylan explained. “I used the water in the air to
freeze the Detectobot and that caused it to explode. That’s a trick I’ve
learned recently.”

Scarlett
smiled at him. “You can really do all this?”

Dylan
nodded.

Scarlett
looked around the group and hutched her chair towards them a little to show she
was warming to them.

“You
guys have got to understand that you’re freaking me out a bit. You say we’re
friends right?”

They
nodded.

“And
yet I’ve never met you. You tell me you have super powers and you thought I was
dead? You did say that, didn’t you?”

“Yes,”
Neelam agreed. “We thought you’d been killed in a collapsed building four weeks
ago.”

Four
weeks? That was how long the nurse said she’d been unconscious for. That was a
weird coincidence, if indeed it was a coincidence at all.

“We’re
so shocked to see you, but over the moon to have found you alive,” Neelam
added.

“I’m
sorry, but I really do think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” Scarlett
protested for what felt like the millionth time.

“We
haven’t, we know you,” Jay insisted.

“But
I don’t know
you
. And I definitely don’t have any fancy powers.”

They
all started trying to convince her at once, chattering over each other. It was
suffocating.

“I
need the loo,” Scarlett said, making an excuse to leave the madness of the
table. She needed time to take this all in. As she stood up, her eyes were drawn
to a huge poster that was peeling off the tiles on the café wall.

“Wanted!”
shouted its headline. And there below it was a picture of the four teens she
was sitting with. They were criminals.

She
pushed her chair aside, knocking the table in the rush, and ran out of the
café.

“Scarlett,
no!” she heard Jay shout.

“Let
her go,” Lucy said.

She
paused around the corner and considered going back. They seemed OK. Nuts, but
OK. And Dylan was certainly more than OK. But then, you never could tell these
days, could you? She started walking again.

“Scarlett
wait,” said a voice in her head.

“What
was that?”

“Sshhh,
it’s OK. It’s me, Neelam. I promise I won’t hurt you or poke around in your
mind. Please just wait while I catch up with you, I want to help.”

Scarlett
stopped walking, hopefully of her own free will and Neelam soon appeared.

“I
can sense you’re afraid at the moment, so it would be wrong of us to make you
stay,” Neelam said aloud. “I don’t know what’s happened, but I believe you when
you say you don’t remember us.”

“Well,
you
can
read minds.”

She
laughed. Scarlett almost did too.

“You
weren’t lying then… you really do have powers.”