Mysterious strangers are never a good thing, particularly if you have a secret to keep.
Laughing together the two teens ran for the last gate to be locked, making it just in time. In the shadows under the trees a figure watched them leave, before turning and melting away in the darkness.
"Right class !" said Mr. Flatley enthusiastically clapping his hands together. "The science fair. We really are lucky to be invited to this special event," he burbled happily. They were all standing outside the Glasgow exhibition centre in a bitterly cold wind. Dozens of busses were parked in lines in the nearby car park and groups of secondary school children were streaming into the building. "Now, this is a very large event, so I want to arrange our rendezvous time and place before you all disappear. He pulled up his jacket sleeve. "We will all meet up at 12:30 pm at the official meeting point. All right everybody ? Have you all got that ?" he asked. There was a general murmur of consent. Everyone was dying to get indoors out of the cold. "Right, this way everybody !" called Mr. Flatley leading the way.
"Oh superb !" exclaimed Tom as soon as they were inside the main hall. He darted off into a throng of teenagers without a glance over his shoulder to see what the others were doing. Dan, Aneisha and Keri looked at one another.
"Tom has died and gone to heaven," said Aneisha.
"I don't think we're going to see him again until 12:30," said Dan. "Shall we browse ?" he asked. There was no answer. He looked around and realised that Keri and Aneisha had also walked off towards a display about the reproductive cycle. Huffing to himself, Dan decided he may as well make the best of it and see if there was anything he was interested in.
Tom was playing on a demonstration for creating holograms. They were quite realistic, but not perfect. Ignoring what everyone else was doing he started to search for the source code on the laptop he was using. Finally he found the code and started running through it to see how the holographic simulations were being generated. Deciding to make it a bit more interesting he pulled out his mobile phone and found a short piece of video of Dan doing backflips in the gym. He loaded the video on to the laptop and started messing with the code so that it would use his video clip. After a couple of errors he managed to get the code working on his video clip and he sat back, arms folded to appreciate the results of his work. A tiny hologram of Dan started doing backflips across the tabletop behind the laptops.
A gasp of admiration behind Tom suddenly brought him to his senses. "Wow ! I didn't know Dan could do that !" exclaimed Roly. "Where did he learn to do that ?" he asked. Roly was quickly joined by a gaggle of their school friends.
"Crazy flips !" said someone admiringly.
Tom was now starting to get a bit annoyed. He had just generated a far superior holographic simulation and all that anyone had to say was about Dan's athletic abilities. Admittedly, they were pretty spectacular, but what about the programming ? This wasn't simple stuff ! Nobody ever seemed to notice what he could do ! Then Tom heard a familiar voice hiss in his ear.
"Tom ! What do you think you're doing ?" hissed Aneisha. "That's Dan doing his MI High training. You've got it on view for everyone to see !" she squeaked, looking around at the large group of people who were now clustered around the stand. Tom saw how worried she looked and it dawned on him finally that this might not have been such a good idea.
"Oh, maybe not so clever," he admitted, before switching off the image and with rapid fire typing, setting the display back to the original settings. Disappointed with the much more dull display, the crowd slowly dissipated.
"Tom, come on. Maybe you'd better stick with us," whispered Aneisha, pulling his arm and dragging Tom along with herself and Keri. Dan strolled towards them with his hands in his pockets.
"Everything all right ?" he asked, looking puzzled by Aneisha's worried expression and Tom's guilty one.
"Yes. It is now," said Aneisha, glowering at Tom. He mouthed 'sorry' to her and was grateful when she didn't tell Dan what he had been doing. The four agents walked off together chatting about the various demonstrations on offer.
As they walked away from the holographic display they didn't notice the inconspicuous, suited young man who sat down at Tom's laptop and replayed the holographic sequence he had left on the machine. "Hm, interesting," muttered the man, before downloading the software and images on to his mobile phone. He glanced at the retreating backs of the four teens, stood up himself and drifted through the crowds behind them, unnoticed.
Aneisha was getting the weirdest feeling that they were being followed. She glanced behind her, but couldn't see anyone she had seen before. She was obviously getting paranoid if she thought anyone was going to bother following them around in this huge hangar filled with the throng of teenagers. In any case, why would anyone bother. Apart from Tom's silly mistake they hadn't done anything odd and only a handful of people would have noticed the hologram. She rubbed her forehead. She was starting to get a headache. The noise in there was deafening.
"Are you all right Aneisha ?" asked Keri, sounding concerned.
"Getting a bit of a headache," said Aneisha. "It's so noisy !" she complained.
"What was that ?" asked Dan, trying to be heard above the noise.
"Aneisha's getting a headache from all this noise !" Keri shouted back to him.
"Oh, right," said Dan, looking around him. He then pointed to a set of doors at the side of the hall, and waved the others towards them. Tom paused and pointed to a display nearby with programmable robots, but Dan grabbed his sleeve and hauled him along after the girls.
"Hey, I was interested in that !" complained Tom as they all exited the hall through the swing doors at the side. The noise level dropped enormously as the doors swung shut behind them, leaving them standing in an empty corridor lined with doors.
"You're interested in everything here," said Dan. "Aneisha's got a headache. Let's have a bit of a break," he said, glancing at his watch. "We have to meet up with Mr. Flatley in twenty minutes anyway."
"Oh, you Okay ?" Tom asked Aneisha.
She rubbed her forehead and nodded tiredly. "Yes. Sorry, I just can't take the noise," she said.
"It's pretty deafening isn't it ?" agreed Keri.
"That's not the only thing," said Aneisha reluctantly. She wasn't sure about telling them about her suspicions, but decided it would be best to share her fears. "I thought for a minute that someone was following us," she explained.
Dan and Keri frowned and looked at one another. "Did you see anyone ?" asked Dan.
"No, there didn't seem to be anybody obvious. It was more of a feeling," said Aneisha apologetically.
"Hm. Your feelings are usually pretty accurate," said Dan thoughtfully.
Keri looked surprised. "But why would anyone bother. I mean, we're just a bunch of teenagers at a science fair full of teenagers," she said.
"True, but Aneisha has the best instincts of any of us," said Dan. "Let's keep our eyes open," he said, glancing at his watch again. "We'd better find Mr. Flatley. Come on."
Pushing the doors open they re-entered the hubbub of the hall and headed for the meeting point. Keri still looked doubtful, wondering why a simple feeling of paranoia by Aneisha would make the other two take notice. Dan had never struck her as someone who was swung by people's 'feelings'. Maybe there was something they knew that she didn't.