Free Dangerous Reality by Malorie Blackman Page A

can imagine your expression on reading the above!) I’ll phone you later. After breakfast, you’re to go straight to school and then come straight home again. Either I or your granddad will come to pick you up and drive you to the hospital. Avoid mischief and stay out of trouble!
    Love, Jack
.
    P.S. And before you get in a huff and mumble about me not being your dad yet, let me tell you that ever since Carol and I started going out together, I’ve always thought of you as my son
.
    He really did know me well. I was just thinking that very thing – about him bossing me around and not being my dad yet – and here he’d written it down. I smiled and took the note down off the door. With Jack out of the way that left me free to carry out my plan.
    I went into Mum’s work room and linked up to the VIMS unit. I didn’t make one single mistake. I was a boy on a mission. When at last the monitor screen flickered into life, I got straight down to it.
    ‘VIMS, this is Dominic Painter, Carol Painter’s son and I want you to listen carefully. VIMS, I want you to leave the Desica building – low mode, maximum stealth, silent running – and I want you to make your way due south to Bailey’s Point. VIMS, are you water-proof?’
    ‘I am designed for mountainous, desert, land and submarine operations,’ VIMS’ monotone informed me.
    After a quick think about it, I decided that submarine meant underwater, so he was.
    ‘VIMS, do you have a internal map of how to get to Bailey’s Point?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Good. Then here’s what I want you to do. VIMS, when you get to Bailey’s Point, I want you to roll down the beach, making sure that no one sees you of course, and I want you to hide in the sea. VIMS, make sure you’re completely covered by sea water and you’re to wait in the sea until I give you further instructions. Is that clear?’
    ‘I understand,’ VIMS replied.
    ‘VIMS, you’re not to take orders from anyone else but me – OK? I’ll give you a password. VIMS, the password is …’ I racked my brains for a really good one. ‘The password is “Have you heard the one about the painter, the decorator and the window cleaner?” Do you understand?’
    VIMS didn’t reply. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out why. I’m not at my best first thing in the morning.
    ‘VIMS, repeat the password.’
    ‘Have you heard the one about the painter, the decorator and the window cleaner?’ VIMS asked in his deadpan voice.
    ‘OK, VIMS, off you go – and remember, you’re not to move or do anything until I or someone else gives you that password first.’
    ‘Understood.’
    I would’ve loved to stay and watch VIMS make it to Bailey’s Point but it was over seven kilometres away from the Desica International building and I was already late for school. If I waited to make sure that VIMS got there safely, I’d get it in the neck from my teacher, then from Jack and my mum. Besides, I had every confidence that VIMS would get there. He didn’t need me watching over him.
Him
… I gave a start of surprise. I’d started calling the thing – ‘him’.
    Switching off the computer system, I got down to the next most important task at hand – wolfing down my breakfast. As I chewed my wheat flakes, I tried to work out what I should do next. I had no doubt in my mind that in spite of all of Mum’s precautions, the saboteur had still managed to get VIMS to ruin Mum’s demo yesterday. Someone seemed desperate to make sure that the VIMS project didn’t go any further. Or maybe I was looking at this the wrong way. Maybe it was more personal than that. What if someone was out to make sure that Mum got hurt? The thought turned my blood to ice water in my veins, but now that the idea was in my head I couldn’t get it out. Did someone on Mum’s project really hate her enough to do this to her? I shook my head. I couldn’t believe it. Mum didn’t have an enemy in the world.
    But then I thought of her with that drip in