I shook my head, gritted my teeth, and walked over to where Major Wilson stood. The floor of the roof span beneath my feet as dizziness and fear gripped me. I tried to ignore it, focussed on putting one foot in front of the other. For an insane second I considered jumping from the roof and seeing if I could make it. There was no chance. I had found out that my bones broke the same as anyone else’s after a cycling accident when I was fourteen. It had only taken two days for my arm to heal under the cast that the hospital put on, but it had still hurt like hell.

You can’t run on broken legs, I thought.

The base was quiet. Below us, another black van rolled through the gates and offloaded a squad. Two sentries manned the gate, which was lower than the rest of the fences. I could make out the shape of assault rifles carried by the sentries. So far, they were the only soldiers I’d seen carrying weapons inside the base. The rest of them had offloaded their weapons in the armory.

Better to try for the fence.

“What are those buildings over there?” I asked, pointing at three large warehouses. Playing along with whatever Wilson’s game was.

“Records, artefacts, grimoires. Documents of the past, from before these digital times. Some of it goes back a hundred years or more, I’m told. Most of it is worthless now. The things recorded there are dead. The lot will make a nice bonfire one day. We only keep them on the off chance they contain information we might need to take out a USE.”

“A ‘USE?’”

“Unidentified Supernatural Entity.”

“What about that?” pointing to the huge padlocked iron cage next to the drill yard.

“The cage,” Major Wilson replied in a satisfied tone, “Quite the feature, isn’t it? What do you notice about it?”

“It’s empty.”

“Precisely. Section 13 kills, we don’t capture. No prisoners, no mercy. That cage is a reminder of what we do and how we do it. The cage stays empty. No matter what.”

He turned to face me, his grey eyes boring deep into mine again.

He knows, I thought in a panic. He knows there’s something wrong with me. He’s just toying with me.

I couldn’t think of any reason for giving me this tour and telling me all these things. I stepped back from the wall, partly because the dizziness was threatening to overwhelm me, but mostly because of the fear that Major Wilson was about to toss me off the roof.

“Victoria Pryce,” Major Wilson began, ignoring the few steps back I’d taken. He turned round to face me, his thick arms crossed. “You’ve heard of Pryce Industries?”

“I think so. Aren’t they the pharmaceuticals company? Cures for cancer and all that?”

Wilson nodded, and a small piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Pryce Industries. Of course. I knew Victoria’s second name had sounded familiar. The corporation produced everything from vitamin supplements to cutting edge medical breakthroughs.

“Amongst other things, yes. Victoria and her brother own it. We suspect she’s capturing and harbouring vermin like the USE that almost killed you tonight. From what you’ve told me, my suspicions are correct.”

“Why would she do that?”

“One theory is she’s using resulting discoveries in chemistry and biology to make the breakthroughs that Pryce Industries is renowned for.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

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“It depends on whether that’s all they are doing. I believe there’s a lot more to it.”

“So why don’t you arrest her or, you know, whatever?”

“I can’t,” Major Wilson snapped, frustration edging his voice, “Victoria is protected higher up the chain. The Pryce family comes from old money. They go way, way back. Every time I put a request in to capture and seize anything connected to the Pryces, it gets refused by my superiors. I’ve had several warnings to leave them alone, and with no direct evidence, I can’t take things any further.”

I finally understood what this was all about.

I realised why Major Wilson was taking such pains to show me around and explain what Section 13 did and how. The penny finally dropped.

This was a recruitment speech.

“You want me to spy on Victoria Pryce,” I said.

Major Wilson nodded.

“Precisely. Assuming she makes contact again, as she said she would, I want you to report whatever encounter you have with her and her brother next. Every word, every detail. She’s taken an interest in you. For what reason is irrelevant at the moment, but I know Victoria. If she says she’s going to do something, she will. The fact is that she seems willing to involve you further. In doing so, she might let slip something I can use against her.”

Relief that the Major wasn’t planning on throwing me off the roof hit me. He didn’t know there was something weird about me.

He just wanted to use me.

“You need to understand this, Edward: Victoria Pryce is not to be trusted, under any circumstances. She’s devious, manipulative and will do and say anything to get what she wants. If it was up to me, I’d have made her disappear years ago, but it isn’t. Not without some solid evidence of wrongdoing. We’ve had no success getting any moles inside her organisation, though we suspect she has one in Section 13 - which would explain why she’s always one step ahead of us. So, as of this point, you’re working as an informant for us. You’ll report directly to me and no-one else. You will do your best to win her trust and confidence and find out what she’s really up to.”

“Oh? Really? What if I don’t want to?”

Major Wilson shrugged. “Then you’ll never see your mother and father again.”

Now I knew he wanted something from me I felt riled up again.

Since Section 13 had shown up, I’d had guns pointed at me, been examined, locked up, repeatedly threatened, spent most of the night in fear for my life and now here I was being intimidated again.

I’d had enough.

“I haven’t seen my father since I was two, so no big change there then,” I snapped back.

Major Wilson’s moustache twitched again. I swear the lunatic was starting to like me.

“Does that bother you?”

I shrugged, not wanting to give him any more ammunition.

“Do you even know who your father is?” Major Wilson asked. He wasn’t mocking me, nor was he concerned. He was just gathering information.

Reluctantly, I shook my head, but still said nothing more. Mum never talked about my father, and I’d been so young when he left I couldn’t even remember his face.

“Interesting. Come on,” Wilson said.

We left the roof and took the stairs back down to the command centre. In a single deft movement, Major Wilson pinched my unruly mop of brown hair and pulled a few strands out.

“Ow, hey!” I said, startled. Wilson ignored me and studied the few bits of hair he’d pulled.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Can’t do a DNA test without a follicle,” Major Wilson replied.

He grunted, satisfied with the strands he’d grabbed. He snapped his fingers at a man sitting at a computer and carefully handed him the strands of hair.

“I want a family DNA test run on these, looking for the father. Take them to the Brockhurst lab and tell them its top priority. Full sweep, every database. Nothing is classified as far as this goes. Do it now.”

“Now?” the tech guy said. “It’s two in the morning, sir!”

Major Wilson didn’t say a word or move a muscle.

The techie got moving.

“A paternity test? Are you serious? What the hell are you playing at now?”

“Finding out something you want to know. You’ve heard of the term ‘leverage’ haven’t you?” Major Wilson replied, “This is that.”

“Sure,” I shot back, “It’s right next to blackmail, threats and bullying in the dictionary, isn’t it? What right do you have to do this?”

Wilson glanced at me as if I was being stupid. I fumed, then another thought occurred to me.

“Hang on, how can you even do that? It isn’t as if the government has everyone’s DNA on file. They only have criminals’ DNA right?”

Wilson snorted a quick laugh that told me I was being exceptionally naïve, and then we were off again, out of the office building and into the drill yard.

Wilson entered one of the low Nissen huts and I followed him, still fuming, my powers riled up, my fists wanting to lash out. Being angry was better than being scared, I supposed, but I couldn’t afford to hit Wilson no matter how much I wanted to.

I thought Wilson was about to show off more of Section 13. Maybe take me to sign some documents and continue on his recruitment/blackmail roll.

Instead, he’d casually walked me straight into the base’s medical centre.

Doctor Pierce was there, ready to examine the now healed wounds on my chest and uncover my secret.

Two soldiers stood guard.

I’d been so busy being ticked off that for a few seconds I’d forgotten all about my need to escape.

And now it was too late.