My fingers were twitchy, and adrenaline was pumping through my veins. I read and re-read the email, although I already knew it word-for-word. There was barely anything to it, but each word had been chosen to grab my full attention.

>Alice. My name is Sebastian Kane. I have information on Section 13. Meet me at 7PM at the park gates.

“How naïve do you think I am?” I muttered as I typed a reply. “Who meets a stranger from the internet in a park at 7 in the evening?”

>I don’t think so. Costa on the High Street 7pm.

I sat back in my seat, my shoulders tense. I breathed in, counted to five, making sure that my stomach expanded the way they taught us at kickboxing, and breathed out for another five.

Better.

Right, who was this guy? I typed his name into the search engine, and all that came up was a one-off fictional character from the Superman spin-off Smallville. I typed in Sebastian Kane UK and got nothing concrete. Sebastian Kane government, and still no results.

So I was meeting a guy who was either not using his real name or kept himself off-grid as much as possible.

It has to be a spook, I thought.

A government spy, one of the greysuits I’d heard whispers of. The British men-in-black equivalent, that did all the shutting down, covering up and witness intimidation on behalf of Section 13.

But that seemed unlikely. The greysuits, from what I understood, had more of a ‘knock on the front door’ or ‘tap on the shoulder’ type approach. If I had ended up on Section 13’s radar for my breaches, they wouldn’t be wasting time baiting me into a trap. They’d just shut me down directly. Probably lock me up and throw away the key.

Sebastian Kane knew who I was and knew something about Section 13. And that last part was really freaking me out.

I mean, I’m good, but it had taken me months to match up the coded files from Section 13’s database to the incidents covered up by the media. 

To see the pattern.

The werewolf attack reported to be a lion escaped from the zoo. The ghost sightings twisted around to resemble a case of mass hysteria.

There was a pattern to the whole thing, and it went like this: 

Incident begins, red flags start pinging up at Section 13. Their servers go into overdrive, targeting a specific location where something weird was going on. Coded messages are sent back and forth – codes which took me weeks to unravel – indicating the nature of the problem or threat. All social media activity in the target location is killed as they shut the internet down across a five-mile radius around the Incident focus point. Troops are deployed: black boots on the ground to deal with the problem and grey suits at people’s front doors to shut up any witnesses. A few hours after the incident is resolved, and the monster eliminated, the internet works again, but all references to the incident have been scrubbed. The next day there’s a report in the media covering the whole thing up and providing a ‘rational explanation’ for the phenomenon.

And that, ladies, gentlemen, non-binaries and others, was The Pattern.

Some people would call it a Conspiracy Theory, but that assumes there’s no proof.

I preferred to just think of it as a conspiracy, full stop.

The nature of the files meant any hackers would assume the supernatural hunting organisation was all an elaborate hoax. I did at first until I matched up the news reports with the surge in activity at Section 13 a day earlier.

Sebastian Kane’s message sounded like he knew the same things I did.

Not for the first time, I cursed my curiosity. How many times had I told myself to shut it down, walk away, forget about it all and write it off as an elaborate prank?

Too many times, that’s how many.

My curiosity won out every time.

Which is why I agreed to meet him.

I shut my laptop down, practised some spins and kicks. If this guy was just some random creep, he’d get one hell of a shock if he tried to jump me. I might not have looked like I packed a punch, but I could do if I needed to. Plus, I had no issue fighting dirty in real life. If it’s a fight for survival: groin, nose, eyes and, for god’s sake, when your opponent is down, make sure they stay that way before you walk away.

I’d lost count of the number of times I’d seen a woman on television overcome her attacker to only then inexplicably run away, giving him the chance to get back up again.

Just keep hitting him until he stays down, you idiot!

At six-thirty, I headed downstairs. Tilly leapt off my bed and followed me with an arch expression, like she couldn’t believe I’d be leaving the house whilst she had napping to do. There were noises in the kitchen, Tilly heard them too. She stared at the door, waiting for me to check things out first.

I tiptoed to the open doorway and peered around the doorframe. My dad was spooning coffee into the cafetiere, his briefcase on the floor at his feet.

“Dad?” I said. “What are you doing home?”

My dad had his own business setting up and fixing computer networks and worked all the hours. The only time we ever got to spend some time together was on a Sunday afternoon when we curled up on the sofa together with mugs of tea and a packet of custard creams and watched Harry Potter. My dad loved Harry Potter. I think he was gutted he wasn’t born a wizard.

The fact he worked so hard and the work was all computer based was, I guess, what put me on to computers myself. It had just been me and him for as long as I could remember after Mum left. I think learning all about computers was my way of staying close to him when he was burying himself in his work to avoid feeling sad. They fascinated him, they helped him, so they fascinated me, too. Give me the comforting hum of a computer and the predictability of code over the messiness of people any day of the week. Dad was the same. We were a pair of nerdy geeks at heart, but as Dad was fond of repeating, 

“The nerdy geeks run the world now.”

I’d never told him about my hacking shenanigans, and I was sure he wouldn’t approve.

Surprise registered in his eyes, and then he smiled. “Hello, sweetheart. I’ve brought some contracts home to read through in peace, a few big jobs. I thought we might get a takeaway later. What do you reckon?”

“I’m off out,” I say, “Not sure how long I’ll be.”

“Where are you off to?”

“I’m meeting Hannah to go bowling.” I swallowed and hoped that he didn’t see the heat in my cheeks.

“You? You’re going bowling? Who are you and what have you done with my daughter?”

I smiled, shrugged.

“Will you feed Tilly?”

He nodded. I should’ve already fed her, but I needed to go. Tilly, already irked by having her nap interrupted, was giving us both reproachful looks.

Dad nodded, “Sure.”

“Thanks, dad.” I blew him a kiss.

I looked at Tilly and she cocked her head at me as if to say, “And where do you think you’re going, missy?”

I thought about curiosity and how, as the phrase goes, it killed the cat.

As things turned out, it was an apt phrase.

If you replaced ‘cat’ with ‘Alice.’

*

There were half a dozen people sitting inside Costa when I arrived. Sebastian Kane was easy to spot; he wasn’t the silver-haired guy reading the Guardian, or either of the two young women with babies strapped into the squat wooden highchairs, or even the guy with thick black eyeliner and immaculate eyebrows, wearing a white gold-buttoned blazer. (Though I’d have been more impressed if it had been)

No, Sebastian Kane was the handsome guy in smart jeans and a black polo neck sitting at the table in the far corner. He smiled at me with perfect white teeth when I walked through the door. It was hard for me to judge his age. He could have been twenty-four, maybe twenty-eight, tops. Except that his eyes looked old. 

He had two coffee cups on the table, but I queued up for my own coffee, regardless. There was no way he would’ve ordered my usual and besides, I wasn’t taking any chances. As far as I knew, he was a crazy stalker psychopath who’d already drugged the coffee before I arrived.

As things turned out, that would have been a better scenario than the reality.

I told the barista my order, and he said, “Guy in the corner already ordered for you.”

I glanced at Sebastian Kane, who raised his eyebrows. I turned back to the barista. “I’ll take my own, thanks.”

Maybe I should have told Hannah I was coming here to meet him. Or my dad. I should have told someone. But there were other customers. The barista. A second barista who walked back behind the counter with a damp cloth. I glanced out the window and the darkened High Street was busy. I told myself I was worrying unnecessarily. I’d drink my coffee, hear what he had to say, and then leave.

Sebastian Kane watched me carry my coffee to the table.

“Alice,” he flashed a well-practiced smile that I bet he used on every girl he met. Charming and disarming and not to be trusted. “Thanks for coming.”

“Who are you? Why did you message me? How do you know who I am and what do you know about Section 13?”

Kane chuckled. 

“Straight to the point. I like that.”

“Well, I don’t,” I replied. “I don’t like any of this. How did you hack me, for starters?”

“I didn’t,” Kane shrugs, “One of my employees did. You covered your tracks well. It took us a week to track you down.”

I scowled. 

“You shouldn’t have been able to track me at all.”

“Don’t feel bad, Alice. I only work with the very best, and they have advantages you don’t.”

“Such as?”

Kane flashed me his charming/disarming smile again, but didn’t reply.

“In case you’re concerned, no, I don’t work for Section 13.”

“But you, what, monitor them?”

“I monitor a lot of things. Including promising young hackers who are drawn to finding out the truth. But to have pieced together so much by yourself… let’s just say I’m impressed.”

He was confusing me. I’d gone in with an attack position, planning to find out what he knew and how he knew it. Now I was feeling both flattered and defensive. I’d half expected a spotty teenager who’d just gotten lucky hacking me. I hadn’t been expecting this charming, composed, handsome man exuding confidence and wealth. The watch he wore was a Rolex, and on the high price end. Shoes by Gucci. He spoke in a formal, old-fashioned manner that sounded like he grew up in two centuries ago. Or was just really posh.

“So you’re here to what, congratulate me? Offer me a job?”

I was trying to be combative, but my voice sounded uncomfortably high-pitched and weak. As if I was asking for him to hire me. What was wrong with me?

Kane smiled again. 

“Oh, something like that, I suppose. One with perks you can only dream of.”

Again, I felt confused by the guy. Or, no, I just felt confused generally.

The edges of my vision had become blurred, the surrounding sounds were distorted. The sound of steam shooting out of the coffee machine was too loud. Kane’s voice was too soft, yet somehow rose above the other noises, drowning them out.

“I don’t…” I began.

“What you’ve uncovered is the tip of the iceberg, Alice. There are only a handful of people who know what you now do, but there is so much more. I’m going to show it all to you.”

He smiled. I smiled back at him, feeling stupid not to. Or at least I tried to. My lips felt numb. I reached for my cup and I caught it with my little finger. It jiggled on the saucer and Sebastian Kane caught it.

“Whoa there,” he said. “Nearly lost it. Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?”

“No,” I croaked. “I’m not hungry. I didn’t feed the cat.” 

Why did I tell him that?

Why did I feel so weird?

“Tell me about your cat, Alice,” Kane said, as if he was talking to a child. “Your cat. What’s she called?”

“Tilly,” I slurred. “I told my dad…”

“You need some air, Alice. You look pale.”

He helped me to my feet. The table was wobbly. They needed to wedge something under the leg to keep it still, I thought.

Outside it was even warmer than inside and I was sweating, and I couldn’t remember what I was doing here, but the guy I was with seemed to know things. I stumbled and Sebastian Kane caught me.

“Easy does it. Good girl.”

I knew something was wrong as he helped me into the back of a BMW, but I couldn’t work out what it was. Why was I getting into this car? What was…

And then it was lights out and goodbye Alice.

Goodbye, goodnight and God bless.

Except God had nothing to do with it at all.