Code Name X

9-We go snooping. We find some disturbing things. And something else...

"The struggle you're in today is developing the strength you'll need tomorrow."

Esme

"Esme I-don't-know-your-middle-name-or-your-surname, get out of bed!" Maren yelled.

"But I'm tired!"

"You're in enough trouble as it is."

I still wasn't completely sure what had happened, but according to Pierre, it was bad. The government were now aware that the resistance existed, and would be constantly looking out for us to mess up. They knew what Ben, Cameron and I looked like (even though I was sure no one had seen me, someone had matched it up). They knew we were planning something. They knew that it was something to do with the files we had taken (which Pierre still wouldn't tell us about, and was pissed off that I'd only got one) and they knew that it was going to happen soon.

In other words, we were basically screwed.

Ben had arrived back almost an hour after us, without any of the files he should have taken, and after eavesdropping on the conversation he had with Pierre, discovered that it was pretty much all his fault that we had been discovered, and the rest of it was just Pierre yelling at him in French.

The thought of what was in those files wouldn't stop nagging me, though. Surely they could tell us something about them, even if they were top secret. They must know that we were all good at keeping secrets.

I spent the day looking all over the base to try and find them, but they seemed to have vanished. I was just about ready to give up, when Cameron suddenly appeared.

"There's something you've got to see," he said, glancing around furtively.

"What is it?"

"I found the files."

He led me down to the basement, but instead of going straight ahead to where I had, he turned left along a small corridor I hadn't noticed before. It twisted and turned, but eventually led to a little room with a wooden door. Cameron picked the lock and we went in.

"Look," he said, going to the file that rested on the table. "Read it."

Project Loki
Phase 2 in progress.
Group A:

A long list of names of various people who were high up in the government before the war followed. Cameron showed me the second page.

There was a photo attached of a man in his late thirties wearing glasses, his face an expressionless mask.

Subject A12: Michael James
Serum produced fatal reaction.

The rest of the page was blank.

"What the hell is this?" I asked.

"It gets worse," Cameron said grimly.

I turned the page, and was met with another photograph and those same words. Serum produced fatal reaction. I flipped through the other pages, but they were all the same: a photo and those words. The final page was nearly identical.

Subject A62: Anna Baxter
Serum produced fatal reaction.

But underneath the photo of the dark haired woman was clipped another photo of a little girl no older than eight, with straight brown hair and glasses.

Amelia James-Baxter. Daughter of subjects A12 and A62. Released after a pressure point was no longer needed for subjects to agree to Serum. Current whereabouts: unknown.

"Oh my god. What the hell is Project Loki?" I said.

"Whatever it is, it's bad." Cameron said. "Anything producing a 'fatal reaction' can't be good."