Simphiwe ducked across the overgrown yard to the back of the building and beckoned Sasha to follow him. They tried to peer into the building but the windows were too high. They were about to give up and leave when they heard the clang of the door closing, and the rattle of a chain.

Sasha’s heart was pounding so heavily it felt as though it might escape from her chest. She wondered whether Prof V had noticed them and was coming to find them, but he obviously hadn’t seen them because a moment later she heard the roar of the M3’s ignition. Prof V drove off and Sasha heaved a sigh of relief. She and Simphiwe edged their way forward to the front of the building.

“Look,” Simphiwe pointed. “He’s put the chain back on the door but it doesn’t look as though he’s locked it. Let’s go check what’s inside.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Sasha asked. “He could come back at any moment and find us. Then we’d be dead. No. Now’s the time you call the police.”

Simphiwe shook his head. “What will we tell the cops? No, we need to go see if we can find any proof inside.” Simphiwe had a point.

“OK, but just a quick look.”

Simphiwe removed the chain and pushed at the door. It opened easily and the two found themselves in a cavernous room. Simphiwe felt along the wall until his hand flicked a light switch.

“Shut the door!” he hissed at Sasha. “We don’t want anyone knowing we’re in here.”

The fluorescent lights spluttered to life and revealed a scene completely at odds with the derelict outside of the building.

The inside of the warehouse had been kitted out as a high tech lab. Sasha wandered among the workbenches. There were buckets of blue tablets, blue sweets and blue sticks of chewing gum. Boxes containing packaging – tubes like the ones that Doreen had had, sweet packets, chewing gum containers – were stacked next to one workbench. Further along there were tubs of tiny metallic spheres, that looked similar to pin heads.

“I wonder what these are?” Sasha asked.

Simphiwe shrugged. He was looking at a computer at the end of a workbench. He moved the mouse and the screen flickered to life, asking for a password.

“We should go,” Sasha whispered urgently. “I’m sure this is enough proof.”

“It would be interesting if we could get into his computer,” Simphiwe said. Sasha shook her head.

“We can’t. We need his password and we don’t have time to load software to get past it.”

Simphiwe idly typed ‘Professor’ into the password box. The screen flashed: ‘Incorrect Password’.

Sasha nudged him out of the way and sat in front of the computer.

“Fine,” she said. “I don’t agree with this but since you insist on doing it let me see if I can get in. But you need to stand guard outside and warn me if he comes back.” Simphiwe smiled.

“I love it,” he said.

Sasha typed ‘Prof V’ into the password box, but it was also incorrect. There was no way she could randomly guess his password. It could be anything. And she couldn’t hack the computer without the software.

She thought about all the people who had unknowingly taken the drug, and banged her fist on the bench in frustration. It was ironic. The drug was spreading like a virus, and a virus was exactly what she needed to hack the computer. Almost without thinking she typed ‘virus’ into the password box. The screen flashed and icons started loading. Sasha gasped. She couldn’t believe her luck.

***

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