‘It was able to hide,’ Trey explained. ‘Amelia thinks it’s in some ways intelligent.’

‘What? Like an intelligent tiny bug thing from outer space?’ Lewis nodded his head, grinning. ‘Cool. I mean, bad, yeah, but cool.’

‘Well, maybe not intelligent like we’d understand it,’ said Amelia. ‘But it knows how to survive.’

‘When the parasite gets into you, it can control you,’ said Trey. ‘It was like the bugs hot-wired themselves into people, started becoming part of them, part of their brains, part of their bodies. They were able to mimic human cells, disguise themselves as, like, blood cells or whatever.’

‘Individually they’re nothing,’ said Trio. ‘But once they get inside enough bodies, once there’s millions of them out there, they create a sort of super brain. A neural network. Like how scientists sometimes link up loads of different computers to work together solving massive problems.’

‘And hackers,’ said Lewis. ‘Mate of mine was a hacker. Used to link up computers from all over.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ said Amelia, and Lewis felt proud he’d understood some of this.

‘Think of the parasites as hackers,’ Amelia went on. ‘Or as a computer virus, a Trojan Horse, getting inside every computer in the network and controlling it, able to stop any antivirus software from detecting it and destroying it. It was most important for the disease to hide, to keep itself secret until it was strong enough. That’s what was going on with Promithios. We used to have dealings with them and I always felt that there was a lot they weren’t telling us. I could never have known that what they weren’t telling us about was you.’

Amelia was looking at Trinity with a look of sympathy and wonder.

‘It was only our parents,’ said Trey. ‘Nobody else in the company even knew. Our mums and dads realized there was something wrong with us even before we were born, and they closed up tight, hid themselves away. Hid us away … The Twisted Kids.’

‘It was the disease working,’ said Amelia. ‘Controlling their minds. And it’s almost as if you were a sort of experiment, as if the disease was …’ Amelia suddenly stopped speaking, gave a little gasp and put her hand to her mouth. She half rose from her seat, staring at Trinity.

The Twisted Kids had collapsed, so that they were bent double, their faces resting on the table.

Amelia slumped back into her seat, too exhausted to get up.

Ed came over, looking concerned.

‘What’s happened?’

‘They suddenly went all wobbly and faint,’ said Amelia. ‘Their eyes rolled back in their heads and down they went. I think they’ve passed out. Are they all right? I hope they’re all right.’

And then she gasped again. There was something moving on Trinity’s back.

‘Oh. My. God,’ said Lewis.

Mister Three had woken up.

Chapter 43

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