There he was.

My best friend.

Standing there.

He must have noticed my intense stare because he glanced over at me, Azad, and Xandra.

I didn't know what to say or do.

Does he recognise me? I thought.

But I could see there wasn't any recognition in Nathan's eyes.

As if pulled by phantom threads I turned away and started up the church steps. Azad and Xandra stayed close with me.

Right after the old wooden double-door entrance to the orange-bricked church was a narrow corridor. It was filled with people, most our age, flowing through the hall entrance to the right.

I followed the throng, and soon found the hall to be filled with a dozen or so tables with plenty of people already sitting down with polystyrene cups filled with tea, coffee, or some fruit cordial juice.

At one end of the hall left of the entrance was a large stage perched high enough that it required steps at either end. The big red curtains of the stage were tied open, and the backdrop of a warm summer's day on a farm hung at the back. In front of the stage were several tables where the volunteers were busily making drinks or handing out paper plates topped with snacks for those who had queued up for them.

We joined the queue, and shuffled along bit by bit. The whole time I was lost to my own thoughts, and painfully aware that Nathan had also joined the end of the queue several people down.

He looked gaunt, and skinnier than I had ever seen him. His head of brown hair, usually kept neat and short, was messy and almost past his ears.

And he's still wearing his glasses, I thought.

They were square-framed and black.

He doesn't have the power, I thought.

It was obvious enough, but between his gaunt, gray-faced look, his glasses, and the general scruffiness of his clothes he looked utterly run down.

It was cold in the hall, and had been cold outside too, but I hadn't really felt it thanks to the insulating nature of the power. But all the normal people we saw, including Nathan, were dressed in lots of layers to fight off the chill. Nathan was dressed in a large parka-style coat, with heavy black boots. On his skinny, five-foot-seven frame he looked smaller than usual. This, I also realised, was because I was several inches taller than my true self.

I hate this so much, I thought.

I knew this hall because I had been inside it many times, whether it was the period when I was around ten years old where I had joined the Scouts – which our age group was called The Cubs.

And during the numerous Christmas or Easter stalls which had been set up for families to sell their homemade food and knick-knacks for charitable causes.

It was then, as if I didn't already have enough on my mind, I saw Alex Landly of all people sitting at the end of one of the long tables. It was easy to spot his fair blonde hair. He was talking with a girl I also recognised from school. Alex, like Nathan and everyone else, looked just as tired and unkempt.

I wasn't sure what I had imagined for Alex Landly back when I had last seen him, way back in Lintern Village. I had been sitting in the backseat of a car with Blain, Tiffany, and Mikayla on the way to sign the contract that would eventually lead me to taking a helicopter ride to the Wedder Gorge facility.

I felt a tug on my arm. It was Xandra. She looked concerned.

"You okay?" she said.

I gestured with a nod to Alex Landly.

"I know him," I said.

I looked across the hall and said, "I recognise a lot of people here, actually."

Xandra gave my arm a comforting squeeze and we inched further along with the motion of the queue.

I took a paper plate which had three cookies, as well as a packet of crisps. And one of the volunteers made me black coffee in a polystyrene cup. I waited for Xandra and Azad to get their food and drinks, and then we moved to one of the few remaining empty spots at one of the long tables and sat down.

I sipped my coffee and had been paying attention to the back of Alex Landly's head one table over from us, when Nathan sat down opposite me at the same table in the last remaining spot.

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For a second he looked at me, and again there was no recognition in his eyes. If anything, he looked like he was sizing me up as if I might cause him trouble. He looked away and stuffed a cookie into his mouth and ate as if he were ravenously hungry.

He doesn't recognise me, I thought.

Of course he didn't. I hardly looked anything like my real self. I forced myself to look away from him and stared down at the black steaming coffee instead. In the coffee I saw some of my reflection – a stranger's face.

I sipped my coffee and had to hide the dismay I felt when Nathan continued to cram food into his mouth. He ate the three cookies which had been put onto his paper plate, and then he quickly finished off his packet of crisps. And then he gulped down every last drop of his cup of tea. There was an unsettled look in his eyes when he saw there was nothing left for him to eat. He looked over his shoulder at the clock on the wall above the doorway.

It was 7:32AM, a decent way off before breakfast would be served.

"Hey," I said, choking the word out to get Nathan's attention as if I had forgotten how to talk.

"Would you like my food? I already had breakfast."

Nathan looked surprised.

"Are you sure?" he said.

My heart sank. The look of quiet desperation on his face made me want to give him the hardest bro-hug I could manage.

"Yeah," I said, "Please."

I slid my paper plate with the food over to his side of the table.

He mumbled "Thank you," and started to eat the cookies and crisps with a slightly less ravenous appetite.

Azad quickly finished his plate of food, and Xandra was satisfied with eating just a single cookie.

Throughout all this I realised I was not, and could not, reveal who I really was to Nathan. Not yet, not with Azad and Xandra present.

"Are you guys from around here?" said Nathan.

The food and drink had returned some colour to his face.

"I'm from Ripperly," I said, telling a half-truth, "And my friends are from further outside Stowchester."

Nathan offered me his hand to shake.

"I'm Nathan," he said.

I shook his hand, which was oddly cathartic considering back at the abandoned mansion I had even questioned his entire existence as some false-memory cooked up by the power. His hand was firm. It was real.

What wouldn't have been visible to Nathan was how I had just slowed down time to a crawl to give myself time to think over a fake name. Slip, well aware of my predicament, offered one up.

"Ethan," I said, after my sense of time snapped back to normal.

Nathan took his hand back and helped himself to another cookie, and whilst he ate he offered his hand to Xandra.

"Polly," said Xandra.

Xandra had her shirt-sleeves covering her hands as she shook Nathan's.

And finally Azad, still holding onto his cup of coffee, simply bumped-fists with Nathan instead. I caught a flicker of unease from Nathan after this fist-bump, no doubt because of how cool to the touch and hard Azad's fingers and knuckles must have felt.

"Troy," said Azad.

I could tell both Azad and Xandra were rather enjoying coming up with new fake civilian names, and I might have too if I weren't sat across from my best friend and couldn't even show it.

"So, erm…" said Nathan, "...did you guys get evacuated?"

"No," said Xandra, "I avoided it."

"Same," I mumbled.

"Same," said Azad.

"You?" said Xandra.

"I tried," said Nathan, "Went on the run, but the Pipers caught me after a week."

"Did you," I said, and I had to stop myself short and collect myself because I had sounded too eager with my question, "Did they make you do any tests?"

Nathan sneered a little.

"Yeah," he said, "First they made me run on a treadmill until I collapsed. Made me run for hours. I thought I was going to die."

"I heard about that," I said, "The treadmill tests. Those bastards."

"Yeah," said Nathan, "They put this little device on my wrist that showed whether I was in the danger-zone of blowing up. After I recovered from the treadmill test the first time, they made me do it two more times on different days, and the little orange light on the device just kept blinking – After three days it finally stayed green."

"How long did you manage on the treadmill?" I said.

Azad and Xandra shot me a look. I was prying too much.

"About six hours the first time, less and less time after that. It was back to back days." said Nathan

He looked from me, to Xandra, and then to Azad.

"So you managed to avoid the Pipers this whole time?" said Nathan.

"Yeah," said Xandra, "We stayed out in the countryside, mostly. We're just in Stowchester on our way elsewhere."

Nathan nodded, and had the sense not to pry about where elsewhere might be.

I wanted to ask Nathan more pertinent questions: are you alone? Why aren't you with your Mum and Dad and sister? Where are you staying right now?

But I couldn't.

I would have to find a way soon. Just me and him. I made up my mind right there and then as a forgone conclusion that I would find a way to speak with Nathan alone. It was just a matter of how I would manage to do it without giving away to Xandra and Azad that I knew him.

"Have you seen the crazy stuff on the news about the Mice?" said Nathan, "Like, the stuff that happened in Wales with the teenagers that turned into were-cats?"

"Oh," I said, scratching a non-existent itch on my chin, "I think I saw something about that, yeah. What did you make of that?"

"It's scary," said Nathan, "I just…"

He trailed off, thinking better of finishing whatever it was that he intended to say. I wondered if he was thinking of me. Maybe he had noticed I was in that very same footage that had been shown on TV. The footage of what I had experienced in the Wedder Gorge exercise area first hand. An eagle eye could have spotted me in that footage that was released to the public.

Did Nathan spot me in the footage? I wondered.

"Hey," said a familiar voice.

Alex Landly had approached the end of the table we were on.

"Hey, mate," said Nathan, "How you been?"

"Yeah," said Alex sheepishly, "Not bad."

He looked like he was fighting off a serious cold.

And he also had a thick stack of flyers in his hand. He slipped one down in front of Nathan, and then set several more down for the rest of us to take.

"There's going to be a march in Stowchester Central," said Alex, "We're protesting the discrimination against Piper Pass holders."

I looked over the flyer.

"What about the discrimination against Mice?" I said.

"We're not them," Alex said, with barely contained derision. He moved on, passing out more flyers around the hall.

"Charming," said Xandra.

It was then I saw Xandra's doe-like eyes go wide, her pupils dilating. And then my ears pricked and I heard what she had heard a few moments before me.

It was the sound of distant gunfire, tyres screeching, and screaming.

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