Thank you for the review and the favourite! I meant to warn people I was going to be away this weekend so might not get a chapter done, but as it turns out this was finished on time. Hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jedikiah sat at his desk, waiting patiently: He had been told someone was on the way to see him. He only had to wait a few moments more before John entered the room and stood to attention. Jedikiah raised an eyebrow. "You're looking well, John. I trust you had no difficulty carrying out your mission? Stephen and Cara are currently in our custody?"

John shifted uncomfortably. "Not exactly."

"Then what?"

"I achieved the other part of my task, disrupting the Tomorrow People's Refuge, but my attack on their leaders failed. I was captured. I only escaped because I managed to convince them they'd turned me. They think I came here to attack you. If you attack now, they won't be expecting it."

Jedikiah stood up. "That's a very interesting suggestion, John. How would you suggest we carry it out?"

"Like this." Quick as a flash, John's gun was in his hand. He aimed it at Jedikiah, his finger tightening on the trigger…and then his world exploded in searing pain. He hadn't felt it for more than ten years but he recognised it straightaway. The Prime Barrier. The gun fell from his hand as he collapsed, clutching his head.

Jedikiah looked down at him, his eyes filled with cold fury. "I don't make the same mistake twice, John. I let you betray me once before. A Tomorrow Person with the ability to kill, working against us. Not this time. When I altered your genetic code, I made sure to put certain safeguards in place. If you ever accessed the parts of your brain that I had hidden, if you remembered your rebellion and repeated it, then your ability to kill would be turned off. And now it has." He stooped to pick up John's gun, then threw it down on the desk in anger. "Why, John? You were like a son to me! It should have been the two of us together, safeguarding the human race! And you turned against me, again!"

John had his breathing under control now. He lay on his back, looking up at the man he had spent his adult life respecting or hating…sometimes both at the same time. "I've seen how you treat your son. You're not half the man your brother was. And that's not because he had powers and you didn't. He turned Stephen into a leader, a hero. You tried to turn me into a killer. Well, guess what? You failed. I'm not a killer. I'm a Tomorrow Person. You helped us stop the Founder and I was grateful to you for that. I convinced myself that being your son wasn't so bad. But you and him…you're just two sides of the same coin. And that coin's worth nothing."

Jedikiah grabbed the gun, pointing it at John…and John teleported away. It took him a moment to contain his fury, then he raised his voice. "Drill sergeant!"

The drill sergeant entered. "Doctor Price?"

"It's time to declare war on the Tomorrow People."

John sat outside the Refuge's conference room, Astrid next to him, holding his hand. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"You know the crazy thing? I feel relieved. All these years, I've felt like a fraud. I hid it from them for so long, the fact I wasn't like them, the fact Jedikiah had…changed me. It's like I'm finally one of them again."

Astrid smiled and helped him to his feet. "Let's go inside."

Stephen, Cara, Russell, Irene and Mike were already standing around the table when the pair entered. They took their seats, as did John and Astrid. "So you failed?"Mike asked acerbically.

John nodded. "Turns out I can't kill."

"Join the club."

"How are you?"Cara asked.

John gave her a grateful smile. "Good."

"So where do we go from here?"Russell asked.

John shrugged. "Jedikiah knows we're onto him. He'll probably attack us."

Stephen tapped a communicator pyramid. "Tim, I want all anti-telepath devices turned on straight away. Send out a message to everyone letting them know their powers won't work." He looked around the table. "This building was designed to stop people teleporting in. Time to make use of that."

"The instruction is carried out, Stephen,"came Tim's response.

"So now what?"asked Russell. "Jedikiah's people don't have powers, we don't have powers."

"You want them to be able to just drop in?"Cara retorted.

"This way, if they attack us, we'll have the home advantage and we'll know which way they're coming," Stephen replied.

"No powers sounds like a disadvantage,"Russell responded. "They can't get in but, no offence or anything, I'm not planning to lose, but we can't get out. What if we have to evacuate?"

"We can use the belts!"Irene realised.

Everyone looked at her. "Come again?"Mike asked.

"The belts, you remember? I've been working on a way to use them as power boosters. We all put them on, Tim can run continuous power through them, enough that our own powers are boosted enough to overpower the defences."

"We'll have powers and they won't!"Russell concluded. "Our very own jaunting belts!" He noticed the looks he was getting. "It's okay, I'm not sold on the name."

"So how long have we got?"Astrid asked.

"Until tomorrow morning, I expect,"John replied.

"Why so long?"Cara wondered.

"He'll want to make us sweat."

"We could go in immediately,"the drill sergeant suggested. "Catch them on the hop."

"They're expecting us,"Jedikiah reminded him. "John will have warned them by now."

"Then surely it's best to strike before they have time to prepare a defence."

"I think the better option would be to let morale drop. Their gambit failed, their assassin lost. I want them to dwell on that failure. You watch, during the night their numbers will drop away, more and more Tomorrow People cutting and running, until only the die hards remain. They're the ones that we have to get rid of. The rest of them…they'll see the light soon or later."

The drill sergeant bowed his head. "Of course."

"Get ready to move out at first light. There's a lot of people I'm looking forward to seeing again."