promised his mum I’d look after him. Please, Mr Bernstein.”
Grinning, Theo clambered out of bed, the rabbit gripped firmly in his outstretched hand. “I’m going now,” he said. “But first, you’re going to answer a few questions. Who are you working for?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Theo pushed the rabbit into his face. “One.”
“Mrs Duchene-watsername. Honest.”
“Thank you. Where are we?”
“I don’t know. Really I don’t,” he added, as the rabbit’s ears danced like treetops in a gale. “I got given one of those SatNav things, it said turn left here and take the second exit, I just did like it said. Some place out in the country, is all I know.”
Theo gave him a ferocious scowl, but he was fairly sure the old man was telling the truth. “Where’s the car?”
“Round the back. Keys are in the ignition.”
“Fine. You’re a hostage. Move.”
“Mr Bernstein.”
“Don’t be a hero, old man,” Theo said. “Think of Art. Think of all the bacon sandwiches he’ll never eat if he’s blown to kingdom come.”
“It’s not that, Mr Bernstein. I just thought, you might want to get dressed first.”
A valid point. “Don’t move, all right?” Theo said. “Stay absolutely still. Don’t even breathe.”
“Right you are.”
Theo looked round. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my clothes are, would you?”
“In the wardrobe, Mr Bernstein.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
It was awkward, putting on his trousers and shirt with just the one invisible hand while brandishing Disturbed Rabbit menacingly with the other. Worth it, though. The alternative – staying put and having to cope with what he’d learned – didn’t bear thinking about. With any luck, his old job at the slaughterhouse might still be available. When he thought about it, those happy, stress-free days before he’d ever heard of YouSpace, the nostalgia was almost too much to bear. “Right,” he said, fumbling the last button into its hole, “we’re off. And don’t try anything, understood?”
“Whatever you say, Mr Bernstein.”
Theo waited for a moment, then snapped, “Move!”
“Sorry, I was waiting for you.”
“You go first. I follow you.”
“Ah, got you. Sorry. This is all new to me, I never been a hostage before.”
“That’s perfectly all right,” Theo said. “When you’re quite ready.”
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“The car,” Theo said.
“Sorry?”
“The car.”
“Right, yes. You want me to drive?”
“Yes. No. You sit in the back and stay absolutely still and quiet. Got that?”
“Loud and clear, Mr Bernstein.”
The house was huge. He’d felt twinges of agoraphobia the first time he’d been shown round the VVLHC site (the echoing man-made caverns, the vast, perspective-twisting white-tiled tunnels), but that was nothing compared to this place. God could’ve played hide-and-seek there and had a really boring time. What made it ever so slightly worse was the décor: pink, white and pale blue, with satin tiebacks on every curtain and enough scatter-cushions to fill the Mariana Trench. There was only one person in the world with taste that bad, and he’d known her all his life.
“Nearly there. Mr Bernstein,” the old man wheezed, as they clattered down a grand pink-marble staircase into a sitting room the size of Syntagma Square. “We can get out through the french windows and on to the drive, then round the side and we’re there. Mr Bernstein?”
Theo had come to a dead stop. He wanted to get out of there, in roughly the same way a bullet is anxious to leave the barrel of a gun, but there was a noise coming from the other side of a door, and somehow he couldn’t move past it without confirming his suspicions. He knew that noise. Only one thing had ever sounded quite like that.
“No, Mr Bernstein, you really don’t want to—”
But Mr Bernstein really did. He opened the door, and saw –
It all made sense, now he saw it. The whole house had been built around it, leaving a huge space in the middle, in which stood – well, you’d have to call it the Very Very Very Very Large Hadron Collider, or maybe even the Ridiculously Big Hadron Collider’s Big Brother. He was standing on the outer circumference of a circular room, looking up at the underside of a dome. Every surface was panelled with mirror-polished titanium alloy plating, and around the curved walls coiled a glowing blue transparent tube, spiralling upwards like a compressed spring. Far away in the dead centre of the chamber stood a glass and steel tower, glowing Mordor-green, partially masked by a swirling cloud of dry ice. The hum came from under the floor, ran up through the soles of his feet and out