14: Freedom
The trip to the local nick didn't do George any harm, and once he'd calmed down he reckoned it was actually a bonus to his street cred. Alice had picked him up after a couple of hours sweating in a foul-smelling cell and a caution from an ugly-looking female cop, and his pretend aunt didn't seem too concerned about it. The only downside was the fact that once Katie got wind of what had happened, she teased him mercilessly.
"Getting away from the police really isn't your specialty, is it?" she said, grinning as she inspected a few of his bruises.
On his first mission George had tried to run from the police and had ended up landing in a skip full of foul-smelling slop, but enough time had passed that he saw the funny side.
"At least this time isn't as embarrassing," George said, pulling down his t-shirt once Katie was satisfied that no major damage had been done.
Katie laughed. "Maybe now you'll learn your lesson about getting arrested every time you run."
"I didn't run this time, they just picked me up. Some idiot tried to grab me instead of getting away himself," George told her. "It was only a caution, so it's not like it matters."
"Want a cup of tea or something, jailbird?" Katie asked, flicking the switch on the kettle. "There's biscuits and cake and stuff on the side."
George felt a bit better as Katie made him a brew and he filled himself up with a huge slice of a chocolate sponge.
"I don't think that has much impact on the mission so I won't report it to Pete," Katie said, pouring milk into mugs, "But just remember that you could've got quite badly hurt in a brawl like that."
"I know," George replied after finishing his mouthful. "I'll try and be careful in future. Anyway, can I borrow your laptop? I want to check my email."
"Knock yourself out."
It was in sleep mode so Katie's desktop flashed up as soon as George opened the lid, presenting him with wallpaper of a shirtless man reclining on a bed.
"Nice background," George grinned, opening the internet browser.
Katie tutted. "Don't get cheeky with me. In a year or two you'll probably have a half-naked girl as yours."
Six weeks passed in a blur for George. Since he was only seeing Riley at school, he took the opportunity to hang out with the local teenagers and try and ingratiate himself with some of the local gangs, but it wasn't a fast process and he spent a lot of time in the park, enjoying the warm weather. Gruelling lessons on campus meant he was miles ahead on all of his easy-by-comparison schoolwork and CHERUB hadn't got round to organising any extra for him to do. It was about as good as a mission could get, so George made the most of it, working up a good tan and improving his swimming technique until he was almost as fast as Katie and way faster than Alice.
Katie had begun doing all of the hard work in the mission. Her job at the travel agency was yielding all kinds of information that ASIS didn't know and she was often up until the early hours dictating to George, who typed it up into a daily report for Linda and Dawn to read. He'd taken a couple of touch-typing courses online on a wet day and was starting to build up an impressive speed.
"If you want to get to bed, then just go, I'll finish it," Katie said, watching the lock on her phone tick past one a.m.
"If you don't mind, then I will," George said, stretching as he got out of Katie's desk chair. "Riley's first day of freedom is tomorrow and we're planning a celebration."
"Nothing too wild," Katie warned, but she was too tired to say anything else and just slumped down into the chair, facing the prospect of another forty minutes of typing.
"Don't work too hard," George said, blinking hard as he strolled back to his room. Two hours in front of a screen had tired him out and he didn't bother getting undressed before bed; it was a struggle to clean his teeth with his eyes open, so he just crashed on the bed.
Riley was in a jubilant mood all day at school. Six weeks was a long time to be grounded at any time of year, but with the summer starting to get hot it had been more like torture.
"I was thinking we could go into Melbourne and go on a shopping spree," Riley suggested during a history lesson. They were supposed to be drawing a chart showing the development of Australia, but neither of them had even made a start and George was pretty sure he'd lost his only pen.
"Sounds good to me," George replied. "I haven't got much cash, though."
"My mum stopped my allowance when I was grounded, but when I complained to my dad he gave me a pile of cash and said not to tell her," Riley grinned. "So now I'm loaded and I'm looking for about ten new games."
The teacher shushed them, but all of the teachers had given up on getting them to do any work long ago and it didn't take George and Riley long to go back to talking.
"Anywhere you particularly wanna go?" George asked, slouching in his chair.
Riley shook his head. "We can go anywhere. Six weeks of allowance pays for a lot."
The afternoon was P.E., so once they'd changed into their cooler P.E. kit the two boys bunked off, stuffing their uniform into their backpacks and climbing over a chain-link fence to get out.
"These clothes look stupid but it's better than uniform," Riley said, scratching his chest under his polo shirt.
George had originally been given a pristine set of Melbourne Academy P.E. kit, but he'd ditched half of it and preferred to wear his own t-shirts and trainers, so he blended in quite well with the shoppers out in Melbourne. He already felt like he wanted a shower, but a trip home would take over an hour, so once they were on the train he grabbed his deodorant out of his bag and gave himself a good blast all over.
They went into central Melbourne and hit the shops, Riley insisting on paying for everything. George didn't want to seem like a freeloader and he hadn't brought much money with him, so he didn't buy anything, but Riley's wallet was bulging. He bought six PlayStation games in one shop before dropping twice as much on a pair of remote-controlled cars. They stopped for a burger, which they ate on a food court which overlooked a group of upmarket clothing shops.
"Bet all these rich ladies would be easy to mug," George joked, watching a woman walking past in designer sunglasses. "I could make an easy grand."
Riley shrugged. "I'd probably just do it for the thrill. I mean, I've got enough cash as it is."
"Not all of us have a rich dad giving us money," George replied, squirting a packet of ketchup onto his chips.
"Your aunt is rich, though."
"Yeah, but I don't exactly see much of it."
Riley sucked up the last of his Coke. "Well, go and mug some rich lady then. You said yourself it would be easy."
George laughed. "It'd be easy, but there's CCTV everywhere. Cops have me on file now; they'd take one look and throw me in jail."
"I'd forgotten about your run-in with the police," Riley said, rolling up his rubbish and booting it over the balcony so it landed on some poor unfortunate walking below. "You should've called my dad, he can get you out of anything."
George wasn't convinced that Zach would bail him out if he tried to mug a woman, but he did have a taste for doing something dodgy. "You fancy helping me shoplift or something? I'm bored."
Riley had a criminal streak as big as his dad's, but he didn't have the same brainpower, so George wasn't surprised when Riley agreed straight away. "Which shop?"
"Don't know. Maybe an electronics shop or something so I can make a fat profit."
Riley got up. "There's one just around the corner," he told George, grabbing his bags. "Let's go."
Trying to steal from a shop without checking it out beforehand was madness, but the more George thought about it, the better he felt about it. If they got caught by the police, it might reveal how deeply Zach's influence in Melbourne went when he tried to get his son out of trouble. If they escaped, it would just make their friendship even tighter. It was a classic CHERUB technique and George was glad he'd thought of it.
The shop Riley led him to was a discount electronics retailers specialising in hi-fis and televisions. George knew it was futile to try and grab a giant TV off a wall and run for it, but they also sold high-quality headphones and George decided he wouldn't mind a pair. There was nobody else in the shop, so George stepped behind a display and pretended to be deep in thought about which headphones to buy while keeping an eye on the counter. The moment the clerk turned his back, he was planning to slip a box into one of Riley's bags and then pretend like he didn't have enough money and leave. It wasn't foolproof and George was expecting an alarm, but he didn't think it would be too hard to sprint away before anyone could catch up.
What he hadn't been expecting was for Riley to get bored of waiting for the clerk to lose interest and lob a portable speaker at the biggest TV on display. As it destroyed the LCD screen and knocked the TV off the shelf, George was frozen with shock for a moment. Riley grabbed his bags and ran for the exit. The clerk's yell brought George back to reality and he turned and ran, almost getting hit painfully by the automatic door which didn't open fast enough.
"You absolute nutter," George shouted as they pelted up the street, heading for the station.
Riley laughed and flicked George off. "You were taking too long."
George was the faster runner and caught up easily. There had been no alarms and it didn't look like anyone was following, so he slowed down as soon as they were in sight of the station.
"Best afternoon ever," Riley laughed, searching his pockets for his ticket. "If only you'd got away with something in your pockets."
"I might've if you'd given me a warning," George replied, seeing the funny side as he used his ticket to get through the barriers. Riley seemed to have lost his, but there were no station staff around so he vaulted the barrier to get to the platform.
"Want to go back to my place and lie low? We can try out the games," Riley suggested, leading the way over to a vending machine to buy a drink.
"Sounds good," George said, wiping sweat off his forehead with his sleeve. "I might need to change my shorts while I'm at it."
After spending the rest of the afternoon alternating between playing on the PlayStation and racing the new cars around the whole interior of Riley's house, George headed home, feeling pretty pleased with himself. Riley was a total idiot but the bonding experience meant that he totally trusted George, and racing the cars around had given George a good idea of the layout of Riley's house, including where Zach's office and bedroom were.
When he got in he found Katie and Alice knee-deep in paperwork."Had a good day?" he asked Katie, but she just gave him an irritated look and ignored him.
"Been a busy day, I think," Alice said diplomatically. "I hope you've got something interesting to report."
Alice was sounding more and more like a mission controller and George just shrugged. "Couple of things, yeah. I'll type them up once I've eaten."
"Dawn was on the phone earlier," Katie finally said, putting down the sheaf of paper she'd been looking at once Alice had gone to make coffee and microwave something for George. "We're going to have another briefing soon about how things are going for both of us. I've got to go through all of this stuff before that, which is everything I haven't been able to analyse properly."
"Can't ASIS get an expert to do this or something?" George asked.
Katie shook her head. "I've got to take it back in the morning before they realise it's missing, and we can't rule out the fact that someone may be watching the house. Any specialist ASIS send in is certain to be recognised and blow our cover."
"Tough stuff, eh?" George said, dumping his schoolbag on the floor. "I'll give you a hand, but I need a shower and bite to eat first."
"Thanks. It's all pretty boring, so prepare yourself."