Note: I'll be adding the chapters gradually as I need to type them out of my note books, but I guess it will be a good way of keeping people interested.

Chapter 2
Prepare for landing

Not many noticed me creeping through the back of the school hall toward the golden cascade of hair that was Gemma Proudmore. Even from this far back I could smell the scent of her perfume, jasmine. My pent up teenage hormones couldn't take much of it in one gulp. With a brief check I advanced toward her seat, drawing a few glances from the back row as I approached. This was it, 5 weeks of recon, espionage and mostly painful work came down to this one moment. I went forth to return a hero among men or go up in a fireball of embarrassment and jasmine smelling smoke.
"Gemma" She looked round and frowned at me sitting on the floor behind her chair as the head teacher ranted on about something.
"Air, what are you doing?" Oh, she used my pet name, good sign.
"I was wondering if err, you might consider, well you know.." Bugger! Don't clam up, think of the perks! "If you might come out with me tonight." There it was, make of break. My dignity laid down before the line between me and boys. To anybody watching you'd think I was proposing a marriage.
"Yeah, sure." I blinked.
"Sorry?"
"Yeah I'll go out with you tonight." She smiled at me as I tried and failed spectacularly to speak. "Meet at the cinema, 6 o'clock?" I nodded dumbly. "See you then." She gave me another dazzling smile and turned back to the front. Suddenly aware of the twenty or so faces looking at me crouched behind Gemma's chair I stood and walked swiftly toward the door, a few whispers following me out. It took everything I had not to scream as I stood in the foyer, dumbstruck. She'd said yes! I was going out with Gemma Proudmore!
Beep, Beep.
I looked down at my watch, one thirty. I headed for the boys toilets just off the foyer and sat myself down in one of the unoccupied cubicles. From my belt I took a small Velcro pouch, it was similar to something diabetes sufferers carried but this was for a rare disease that if I ignored would kill me in a week. I was diagnosed on my tenth birthday when I blacked out and went into cardiac arrest, ever since I've had to inject myself three times a day like clockwork. The modified Epipen injector was bruised and battered but it had been with me ever minute of my life since my diagnosis. The needle barely registered as I stuck it into my femoral artery and the cartage discharged and popped out the top. I packed the pen away and reach down to pick up the discharged cartage. I stopped and frowned at the piece of thin plastic, it was red, not the usual blue. The doctor might have reloaded the pen with different meds, I'd have to check it wasn't going to mean any surprises like I had the first time I started. With that out of the way I headed out toward my next lesson, and as I walked I couldn't help remembering the smell of jasmine.

"I'm home!"
I dropped my bag onto the kitchen island and picked an apple out of the fruit bowl.
"Hi Air." Dad appeared round the corner with a tower of washing in his arms. "Good day?" He headed into the utility room and vanished from sight.
"Yeah, not bad, I'm going out later. Wheres mum?" I took a bite of apple and chewed on the soft fruit.
"In the loft, trying to find the suit cases for my business trip." I nodded with mild interest and headed upstairs. I didn't see dad as he looked round the corner of the utility room and gave me a hard calculating look as I vanished up the steps.
"Hiya sweety. Haven't see your fathers suit cases have you?" Her disembodied voice came through the roof hatch.
"Your asking me to find something?" I chuckled. "You have to joking"
"I did think it was a long shot." She admitted. "Heard your going out tonight, I want you back before eleven."

I retreated into my shower and spent a long time standing under the pounding water thinking about what the coming night with Gemma was going to be like. I don't know why but all all of a sudden it felt fake all of a sudden, all the preparation and work had come down to half a sentence which I had totally screwed up and by some miracle she had said yes. Was I doing this to be with Gemma or was she to be a hood ornament of my "conquests" through my teenage years.
"Ow!"
I jerked my arm over my shoulder and winced as a cramp ratcheted over my back. It felt like my shoulder blade had rubbed against another section of bone and it hurt like crazy. I spent a good five minutes standing in the running water, waiting for the pain to ebb away. Growing pains. Even if I was six foot tall already didn't mean I wouldn't fill out some more. And there was no way I was going to let growing pains ruin my date.

"You administered the primer?" The cold mechanical voice of the Uber-Director, or more correctly what was left of him, set Angela King's teeth on edge.
"Yes sir, we slipped into his normal injections."
"Excellent, all of my predecessors seemed too dependent on other plans rather than having patience with this master plan. And all of them thwarted by the very things we created, I think it is only poetic that they help with one." An inhuman chuckle, like bolts rattling in a can made King wince.
"Aires is going out tonight, but the primer shouldn't begin working until after twelve hours of activation." The Director might have been reduced even further from his Plexiglas containment unit but he still held the capacity to sneer.
"You named it? You named the animal?"
"He is.."
"Mrs King, you appear to have gone soft. Maybe I should consider sending in a retrieval team to take the subject off you hands before we have a problem as a result of your....sentimentality." The woman took a breath and welled up the reservoir of power and authority she had used to throw her subordinates from one end of the lab to the other. When she spoke again, ice would have appeared on The Director's visi-screens had she been facing him.
"Sir, myself and my husband took this assignment on the behest of Miss Janssen and with the interest of the company in mind. Though we have formed close ties with Aires, we will act accordingly with Itexicon's wishes. And if you think that we are truly selfish, the 14 years of work and commitment we have put into the project would dictate that." There was a long silence until The Director spoke again.
"Very well, inform the retrieval team within three weeks or I will send them for you." The line went dead and Angela was left in the loft of her home alone. She began to cry, what she had feared for 14 years coming to fruition in one phone call. Luckily the thick insulation smothered her sobs and her son's exit below her.