‘Much,’ Achilleus muttered under his breath.

‘Then what are you doing here?’ came the voice.

‘Good question,’ Achilleus replied, quiet enough so that only the kids nearest to him could hear. ‘If this goes on much longer it’s no more mister nice guy. I am going postal on these noobs.’

‘We’ve come to get drugs,’ shouted Einstein. ‘Medicine. We’ve been trying to find out about the disease, maybe find a cure. We thought there might be, like, useful stuff here.’

‘Oh, there’s useful stuff here all right,’ came the voice. ‘But it’s not yours. It belongs to us.’

‘To be fair,’ said Blue, ‘it belongs to Promithios, but I take your point. Salvage rights. We get it. But maybe we can just talk?’

‘Come and find us then.’

‘OK …’

Silence. One by one the candles went out. Jackson edged closer to Blue.

‘We don’t know what they are,’ she whispered. ‘We don’t know what any of this is.’

‘If you’re telling me to be careful,’ said Blue, ‘save your breath. I’m always careful.’

‘I mean, like, did you see that thing?’

‘Yeah. It didn’t make much sense, but … Did it look dangerous to you?’

‘There were others. He might have been, like, a trap or something, a decoy, you know, like a lure, like hunters use.’

‘Torches on,’ said Blue. There was still a pale haze coming in through the skylights, high up in the roof, but they were dirty and didn’t let a lot of light in. Without the glow from the candles the place became even murkier. Blue fished out his torch and snapped it on. He heard Achilleus and Ollie and the other Waitrose kids winding theirs up.

‘Where do we go then?’ asked Einstein.

‘Towards the music, I guess,’ said Blue. ‘Stick close together. Ollie, watch our backs. Achilleus, take the right. Jackson, you can have the left. Let’s move.’

Chapter 58

58

Mick, where are you when I need you? Blue felt horribly exposed without his friend by his side. At least he was guarding their way out. That was comforting if they needed to make a speedy exit. But Blue hadn’t gone it alone like this for a long time. It was like blundering into a fight without a familiar weapon in your hand. He sent out a silent prayer for Mick to give him some of his strength.

The kids crept forward, eyes scanning the gloom. Trying to see if anything was hiding among the stacks of boxes.

Blue became aware of a movement, something shuffling on the other side of a row of shelves.

What was it …? Impossible to tell.

Somewhere he heard laughter, sounded like a girl; it seemed to skitter away and get lost in the huge space, and then there was a scraping sound off to their left.

‘Anything behind us, Ollie?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’