Chapter 28

Ebony watched silently from the police car as, at a command from Zoot, the foot soldiers skated away from the side of the car and after an unfortunate local they had spotted. All around her she saw chaos, ruled over by brutish power. Power and chaos! The mantra she heard Zoot chanting over and over again. The reply he received from his followers. Power and chaos! The last time he had stopped the car he had turned to her for a reply. Waiting until she raised her arms above her head and copied him. Power and chaos! At every street corner. Behind every door. Power and chaos! In every face that looked at them, in fear or in awe. Power and chaos! Filling her mind and taking over her reason. Power and chaos!

Power and chaos!

xxxx

"What the...!" Lex's expletive was cut off by a snort from the horse he had found tethered to the fountain.

"Lex! You're back!" Tai San's voice rang down from the top of the stairs. She received a steady glare in return.

"Care to explain our four legged friend here?" Lex growled, carefully side stepping as the horse turned its back end towards him.

"That's just Apollo," Tai San laughed. "He's very sensitive apparently. Come up and meet his owners."

Watching the horse suspiciously, and keeping well out of range, Lex made his way round the dry fountain and up the stairs, followed silently by Ved. When he reached the top of the stairs he was greeted by the sight of a young man with blue-green, spiky hair sitting miserably between Cloe and a girl of about the same age, both of whom were giggling in a manner that spoke to Lex of fluffy pink teddy bears and love hearts on school books. He groaned wearily.

"Hey, Clo," Ved called over, pushing past Lex. "Who's your new friend?"

"Ved!" Cloe squealed, jumping up and grabbing his arm to drag him to the table. "Ved, this is Patsy and KC," she said, brandishing a hand in the direction of each of the newcomers as she introduced them. "KC, Patsy, this is Ved."

KC raised a hand in a morose salute. Patsy, on the other hand, took on a look of recognition and understanding that made Ved certain he had made up at least part of the animated conversation the girls had been having when he arrived.

As Ved got dragged into a chair, Lex leant over and whispered something in Tai San's ear. She chuckled and nodded, stepping back to let him past.

"Hey, kiddo!" Lex interrupted loudly, placing a hand on KC's shoulder and dragging him to his feet. "I want a word with you. In private!"

xxxx

Siva looked around the luxury apartment nervously. An entire wall had been devoted to the group's crusade. Either end of the wall had been taken up with information about people. At one end, those who had disappeared, at the other, those involved with the project. The middle of the wall held an interactive white board. Siva dragged her eyes away from where Patch was setting up his new toy and looked down to the checkerboard section of missing persons, where Dee and Ellie were pinning photographs up next to information. Every person there had a normal, everyday photograph, but some had a second picture next to their name. Those second pictures were taken from the computer systems at the project building and showed what those people looked like in the virtual world. Siva had only found a handful of them, mainly ones who had entered the project legitimately. Trudy, Bray and Brady. KC and Patsy. Lex and Tai San. They had all been easy to find, their information grouped together in bundles. She hadn't found any information about Salene, May, Ved, Cloe, Jack or Ebony. If they were in there, somebody didn't want anyone to know about it.

"I'm going in," said a voice behind Siva, dragging her out of her reverie. She turned to see Amber.

"You what?" Siva frowned, confused.

"I'm going to volunteer for the project," Amber explained. "Dal's coming with me. So is Jewel. We're hoping that we'll have a better chance if we go in together. From what you've told us about the other testers, they all got to choose a starting point, then all started in the same place. We're going to choose the city and work outward from there. It seems the most likely starting point."

"What if you get stuck there?"

"Somebody has to take the risk. If we get stuck there then, between the three of us, we should have enough skills to help us survive. At least until you figure a way to get us out!"

The warm smile at the end of Amber's sentence did little to reassure Siva and she gave a half-hearted grin in reply.

"Look, you know us now, right?" Amber put a hand on Siva's arm and led her to a chair. They sat down and Amber watched Siva's expressions closely. "You can monitor our progress while we're in the program. I know it's not much, but if we're in trouble, then you can warn the others and, if necessary, get the authorities involved. I know we haven't got much to go on just now, but with you on our side it should be enough to convince them they need to take a serious look at the thing."

Siva nodded and looked up at Amber, meeting her gaze.

"I can do that, Amber," she said. "But if Ram or Mega find out what we're doing, I might not have a chance to call the authorities!"

xxxx

"Jack, give up!" Jetta sighed, as Jack hurled his shoulder against the door yet again.

"It looks like wood, it feels like wood, it-it even smells like wood, s-so it should break like wood!" Jack ranted, his anger and frustration spilling over. "We h-have to get out of here. Don't you understand? Wh-whatever is going on out there is-is not good and whoever put me in here obviously doesn't want me messing with it!"

"So therefore that's exactly what you want to try and do?" Jetta queried.

"Exactly!"

Jetta got up and walked over to Jack. The bruises he had gained from their captors had faded, but she was quite sure new ones would now be forming on his shoulder and upper arm. Taking hold of both his hands she led him back to the bed in the corner of the bare room and pushed him down on to it.

"If there is a way out of this room, Jack," she said, sliding the shirt off his shoulders and reaching for the sponge she had used to clean his earlier injuries. "You are not going to find it by beating yourself to a pulp."

Jack winced as the liquid in the sponge stung a graze in his skin. He shook his head and tried to stand. Jetta pushed him back down onto the bed, pinning him there with one knee on either side of him.

"I'm not giving up," Jack told her as she reached for a towel to dry the new wound.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Jetta replied. "Just change your methods, that's all."

"What break my foot instead of my arm, you mean?" Jack quipped cynically.

"No," said Jetta, throwing the towel to one side and putting a hand on each of Jack's shoulders. "You're a clever guy, Jack. If you built a prison in a virtual world like this, would you put the door in the doorway?"

Jack considered this and tipped his head to one side.

"No," he replied. "That-that would be a bit obvious."

"And we can assume that the guys who built this virtual world are clever too, right?"

"Right..."

"So there's no point in wasting your energy on a plan that won't work." Jetta's hands moved up either side of Jack's neck to his face. Her fingers slid through his hair and he gasped as she pulled his head backward. Taking her chance, she captured his lower lip with her own, moving her head to deepen the kiss when she felt him respond.

"Er... Jetta," Jack stammered, pulling away, breathless. "Wh-what are you doing?"

"Seducing you," Jetta purred, pushing him down onto the bed.

xxxx

Locked in her room once again, Ebony sat mournfully on the luxurious double bed. Her eyes were drawn inexorably to the silent pictures on the plasma screen on the opposite wall. A gilded cage is still a cage and she would give up every scrap of luxury to change places right now with the treacherous, blue-haired harlot on the screen before her.

But for all the hatred and loathing she felt for Jetta, what had hurt her most was just how easily he had given in.

As the screen faded to black, a single tear slipped silently down her cheek.