Shadows and mysteries. Everyone's afraid of what they can't see. I'm afraid the next chapter probably won't go up so quickly.

"If it helps to keep him calm it would be best," said the doctor. Dan started pulling against the two nurses holding his arms and kicking the blankets. "Yes, now please !" said the doctor. Frank ran out to find the team all sitting outside in the waiting room.

"Zoe, we need you please," said Frank. Zoe jumped up looking surprised and followed Frank. "Dan's very agitated and has a concussion. Could you try to calm him please Zoe ? I'm not having much success," said Frank as they reached the door to Dan's room.

Zoe looked at the three medical staff struggling to hold Dan in bed and went to his side. "Dan, it's Zoe. Can you hear me ?" she asked quietly. Dan immediately stopped struggling and looked towards her. "We're all here Dan. The SWAT team rescued you from the warehouse. You're in hospital," she added. She watched the tension draining from Dan's body.

"Zoe," he muttered. Zoe asked the nurse to give her Dan's hand. The doctor nodded his approval and Zoe wrapped Dan's hand in hers. She stroked his hand gently. It was as if she had hypnotised him. He relaxed completely and gazed at her, eyes not quite focussed. The two nurses stood back, but didn't leave the room.

"Thankyou my dear," said the doctor, smiling at Zoe. "Caring for MI9 agents can be quite hazardous at times."

Zoe smiled at him. "I'm glad you do," she said.

The doctor looked a little embarrassed. "Oh well, erm, let's give your young man a look over shall we ?" he said. He shone a light into Dan's eyes, checked his blood pressure and asked him a few questions. Some of Dan's answers were a bit confused.

"Do you know where you are Daniel ?" asked the doctor.

"Hospital," mumbled Dan.

"Very good. Do you know why ?" asked the doctor.

"The shadow," said Dan. The doctor looked at Zoe and she shrugged.

"I see. Do you know what day it is ?" asked the doctor.

"Not Tuesday," said Dan. "Is it history ?"

"Hm ?" said the doctor slowly, stroking his chin. He looked at Zoe who giggled.

"Well, I think we'll be keeping you in overnight Daniel. Plenty of rest," said the doctor.

"Sick," muttered Dan. Zoe was confused, but the nurses dived across to Dan, rolled him onto his side and held a cardboard bowl by his face just in time for him to be sick. Immediately after, he fell asleep.

"Can our friends come in to see him ?" whispered Zoe. "They're really worried." The doctor agreed and the others filed in to see for themselves that Dan was safe and sleeping.

Zoe noticed that Tom and Aneisha were holding hands as they all stood silently watching Dan sleeping. "Well ? Dan is safe. Shall we go now ?" asked Stella firmly. It wasn't a question, more of an instruction. Zoe took a deep breath, leaned over to kiss Dan's cheek and followed the others out of the room.

Their drive home in the MI9 van was very subdued. Tom was staring silently at the floor. Aneisha reached out, putting her arm round his shoulders. "Tom, it all worked out OK. Stop blaming yourself," she said kindly.

Tom looked up at her unhappily. "It might not have. I left him Aneisha," said Tom.

"Dan told you to," said Zoe. "Dan knew we had to get you out. We could have lost two agents and failed the mission. It's only logical Tom," she added.

"I know it's logical. Would you have been happy doing it ?" asked Tom.

"Tom, we did it too," Aneisha reminded him. "We all left him. And no, we didn't like it either." Zoe nodded in agreement. Tom reached over and squeezed the girls' hands.

The next day was a school day and Tom, Zoe and Aneisha were all in class as usual. Frank called them down during lunch break. "Frank, we've missed a lot of classes lately," complained Tom. "We've all got to catch up. Dan's going to freak out when he realises he's got a test of Friday."

"Well, I'm sorry Tom," said Frank. "I'm afraid that KORPS don't just work weekends," he said, raising his eyebrows.

"I know. It's just …. well," muttered Tom, dropping into a chair.

"It's not the same without Dan around," said Aneisha.

Frank looked at the remaining team and felt worried for the first time. He'd never seen them so demotivated. If Stella were there she'd probably give them all a little pep talk about responsibilities and duty. This would or course be the worst possible thing to do.

"Look," said Frank gently. "I know that what happened on Sunday with Dan was hard for all of you. We were lucky and he's fine. Now we need to concentrate on finding out exactly what happened. It looks like KORPS have a new weapon and it could be used on any MI9 agent any time now. It's up to all of us to deal with it. That includes you three," he said, pointing to each of them in turn. They were now all looking at him intently.

Aneisha spoke. "Don't you think it's strange that they took it back ?" she said.

"What do you mean ?" asked Tom.

"Well, this net thingy they tried to drop on you and Dan. They could have left it and escaped. Why did they come and get the net back ?" asked Aneisha. "They obviously didn't want Dan. Just the net."

"Maybe it's the only one they've got," suggested Zoe. "Because,"

"It's a prototype !" Tom finished her sentence. Zoe smiled at him.

Frank clicked his fingers. "That's it. It's a new weapon. Now Tom, go over again what happened in detail," instructed Frank.

"Well, I was typing and I'd just got the file on 'Shadows' that you asked for," began Tom.

"Shadows ! That's what Dan said," exclaimed Zoe, suddenly remembering.

"What ?" asked Frank.

"In hospital, when the doctor asked Dan if he knew why he was there, he said it was because of the 'Shadow'," explained Zoe. Frank and the others stared at her with puzzled expressions.

"Maybe he heard me talking to Frank about it," suggested Tom.

"Maybe," said Zoe. The others were staring at her and she was feeling self-conscious suddenly. "Anyway, go on Tom," she said, trying to divert their attention away from her.

"Well, Dan was complaining that something felt wrong," began Tom. "He was walking up and down really nervously. I wasn't watching what he was looking at when he suddenly told me to get up and run. I got up and ran, and then I wondered why and stopped. When I turned round this big grey silky net fell down on top of Dan. It sort of shrank and wrapped itself around him. He tried to pull it off but it was like it got tighter the more he pulled at it. I tried to grab hold of it to pull it off him, but it stuck to my hand and I had to shake it off. I had to pull myself off by holding on to the cabinet," he explained.

"You pulled yourself off ?" asked Frank. "Did you have to pull hard ?" he asked.

"Well, no not really. It came off as soon as I touched the cabinet," explained Tom.

"What sort of cabinet was it ?" asked Frank.

"A sort of metal filing cabinet," said Tom. "Why ?"

"I think you discharged some static electricity," explained Frank, stroking his chin. "You know, like cling film," he added.

Tom's eyes lit up. "Oh yeah ! Cling film clings on with static electricity. It you touch it with metal, it doesn't work because you discharge all the static ! Brilliant !" said Tom, sounding excited once again. Aneisha looked at Tom and thought how funny it was that all you needed to cheer him up was a little bit of random science stuff. Go team geek !