The next morning, we all crowded into Sarah Jane's small car and set off for the English DormiSalv factory. According to Mr. Smith it was somewhere on the outskirts of Eastbourne, nearly two hours drive away. That morning, we had had our first sort-of argument with Keira who said she would not be left behind. Sarah Jane had said they had tried to kill her once and it was like taking someone to their death. Keira said to stop being melodramatic (where did she even hear that word?) and to let her go with us.

So now she was sitting in the middle of the backseat between Clyde and Rani, grinning in a way that could only be described as smugly. She had a picnic hamper on her lap which she had helped Sarah Jane fill with food. We decided to get off early so once we'd finished checking out the factory we could have a nice day out to celebrate the Christmas holidays.

"Off we go!" announced Sarah Jane and pulled our car out onto the street. Clyde let out a "whoop-whoop" that made Keira cover her ears and Rani roll her eyes.

"Do you think this factory's alien?" she asked Sarah Jane as we trundled along. "It could be just humans experimenting on children this time. We haven't really had any evidence that its aliens doing this."

Sarah Jane thought a minute. "No, but how would you explain the clothes she was found in? Exactly the same to what the Bane used with Luke. And those computers didn't really look like anything from earth. They had a funny code on them that only Luke could read and somebody took them without being trapped by Mr. Smith's shield. I think everything points to that they are alien."

Rani nodded. Having everything summed up like that made me a little more sure, too, that this was extraterrestrial in origin.

We traded small talk for the two-hour-long drive, commenting on scenery and stuff like that. The drive was an experience for Keira who had always seemed to be asleep on most of our car journeys. Now, she looked out of the window, leaning over Rani, at the trees and the cows and the small villages.

When the roadside signs said it was four miles to Eastbourne, Sarah Jane told me to get the map out and give directions. I've always loved maps, their colour, their lines and symbols.

"Left at the next junction, mum." I instructed. "Then straight on for a mile or so. Why is the factory in the country anyway? We're still miles from Eastbourne. There it is!"

We all could see the large grey building now, soaring up above the trees.

"What's our strategy, then?" asked Clyde. "We gonna be nice and get invited in or are we gonna go in round the back?"

Sarah Jane considered for a moment as she parked some way off from the building behind a hedge. We all got out.

"If we go in as visitors, Keira can't come with us." She decided. "They'll recognise her and they'll know we're on to them. Let's split up. Rani, come with me. We'll go and talk to the bosses, while Luke, Clyde and Keira can go and look around. Here." She opened her bag and tossed her sonic lipstick to me. "You'll need it more."

I nodded. Most probably.

Sarah Jane and Rani walked up to a big door at the front of the factory, while Clyde, Keira and I jogged around the back behind some bushes. I couldn't see any security cameras, but that didn't mean that there weren't some concealed somewhere.

The factory was quite large, larger than it looked from the front and it took a while to get around it and locate a door. So far we hadn't seen anybody around the site. I was hoping we would stay as lucky. The door we did find was tucked away in an alcove and only took a second of sonic-ing to unlock. Keira held out a hand for the lipstick.

"Let me see?"

"Later." Said Clyde as he ushered us both in. He snatched the sonic lipstick and hurriedly locked the door behind us. I could hear now the approaching feet. "Someone was out there." He explained. "Come on."

We set off down a long, metal corridor. The air had a sterile smell to it; like a hospital. I could see Keira wrinkling her nose. The first door we came to seemed to be some kind of cupboard. It held generic cleaning equipment; nothing suspicious in there.

We walked up another corridor, checking round the corner first to see if anyone was there. All clear. The next door had a sign screwed onto it; 'Meeting Room." I peered into the window on the door and immediately pulled back. It seemed the reason we had seen nobody yet on our walk around was that they were all crammed into this room.

They looked human, but so had the Bane when we had first saw them. They had packed themselves around a table covered in sheaves of notes and pieces of paper. They looked like scientists; they wore long white lab coats and some hadn't even taken off their latex gloves and face-masks.

"C'mon." whispered Clyde. "Maybe they left their labs unattended if they're all here! Let's go see if we can find anything."

We crept away from the door and further along the corridor. We went past another cupboard, (what do they need all these cupboards for anyway?) and down another corridor, before we found a door which read 'LAB 4'. It looks deserted and all the lights were off, so we crept inside. Once we shut the door, my head flashed with images of some security alarm going off somewhere, but nothing was flashing inside the room that I could see, so I decided to look around. Clyde and Keira followed me in.

Clyde found a computer and waved me over. "Hey, man, let's see what's on this thing. He shook the mouse around a bit and the computer beeped, 'Please enter Password'. Clyde groaned. "We're never going to get into this. The password could be anything." We entered a few obvious things, like 'DormiSalv', 'dormisalv', 'dormi-salv' and 'ds', but nothing worked.

"Lets look elsewhere." I suggested. "We're not getting anywhere." I walked over to a desk where piles of paper lay everywhere.

"Sure." Answered Clyde while he homed in on another desk and started shifting through papers.

I looked at my desk. Something was niggling at the back of my head, but I was engrossed with reading the notes. Some were endless lists of chemical tests, their molecular structure so complex it made head hurt to think of them. And that's not something that happens everyday. There were others about nucleic acids and some notes about animal testing. And them some about…human testing.

Clyde got up from his desk and started roaming about, looking behind doors and under tables.

"Clyde, come and lo-"

Clyde opened the door we came from and looked out either way. Then he came back in and swore.

"Is someone coming?" I asked him, trying to get the notes back into order if we needed to make a run for it. I'd stuffed the notes on human testing into my jeans. We could hide in a cupboard if we needed to. There were plenty of them containing bottles of chemicals and lab coats.

"No." said Clyde. "You noticed someone's missing?"