Ch 1

Ivy’s fists were on her hips and a frown was furrowing deep into her brow. She smirked, her half smile only showing some of her sparkling white teeth. Her dark hair curved over her left light blue eye. The rest of her hair was in a tangle of curls.
Behind her, one of the officers was about to rip off her “The Used” poster. She knew it and was wincing with anticipation.
“Careful with that.” Whoever was giving the orders told him. “We’re not here to destroy property. We’re here to search them. Remember?”
She looked up at him and was rather impressed. He had short spiked dark hair with blond highlight here and there, he had pierced ears and tiny silver rings through them and one through his eyebrow. His brown eyes looked at all of her posters. They varied; The Used, Madina Lake, Greenday, Slipknot and more. He was wearing a uniform, complete with the hat but still looked like he was making the connection with what kind of music she liked.
She was wearing her pyjamas and unamused, her night clothes comprising of an “Emily the Strange” vest and underwear type shorts. Under the little picture of Emily the Strange it said, in white, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”.
She went to sit on her bed once they’d put the mattress back down and took all of her unwrapped duvets and pillows. “I’ll sort these out when I come home from school tonight.” She told herself, annoyed.
It was seven in the morning, they’d made sure she was in then, and they were searching for she-knew-what. She acted the innocent when they started asking her questions.
“Where’s you computer?” A woman asked. She looked stern with blond hair almost greased flat on her head into a bobble. She couldn’t have been more than twenty five, though.
“I-It’s in the cupboard, there.” Ivy pointed to a built in wardrobe, with black wooden doors and plastered with band logos painted on by hand.
They opened it. It was a modern looking thing with a flat screen on a stand and a tilted silver keyboard and the actual computer as compact as they came. There was a cheep looking microphone, set of ear phones and web cam. Plugged in, via USB, was an I-Pod Original and a 250 gigabyte external hard drive and there was a small disc rack shoved to the corner. The modem was on a higher shelf. The whole thing was mixed in a network of black cables.
“Shall we start looking through all of this stuff, sir?” The woman asked the one seamed to be in charge and he glanced over it quickly.
He shook his head and looked back at Ivy, “Nah… Hey, d’you have any other computers?”
“My name’s not ‘hey’; it’s Miss Coleman to you.” She said, a little anger in her tone, but she couldn’t deny that she was having fun watching them. “What are you searching for? Wouldn’t I have been told if I was under investigation?”
“Maybe they couldn’t find you.” He said without caring about her reaction as he searched the wall above her head, by leaning over her bed a little.
“Nonsense, I’m starting in the station tomorrow.” She dismissed.
He glanced at her from above and quickly glanced away. “You are?”
“Of course I am. That’s what I said.” She reasoned, then mumbled something quietly like; “Stupid policeman, doesn’t even do his homework.”
“Clear. There’s nothing in here.” He said to the others, but he looked a little distracted. “Back to the van.” He told them.
Some of them started to move out and he gave the room a little look over again. He went to a wall and gazed behind the radiator for a few moments. Ivy felt the blood rush to her face and her heart beat a little faster.
Then he turned around and smiled at her with his head bobbing with amusement. “D’you know any reason for you to be under investigation, Miss Coleman?”
“N-No. As far as I know, I’ve got nothing to hide…” She stopped herself from shaking even the smallest bit.
He waited, a long, long time, and she felt her face burning up.
“Alright then.” He finally said and left.
That was it and she heard the cars drive away. In that quiet, she wasn’t going to risk it for an hour, so she got into her school uniform ready and washed. When she came back from the bathroom she sorted out her duvets and pillows and made sure her posters were all fastened to the walls properly. Then she pulled her chair out and stared at the computer for a moment.
She stepped onto the chair and reached to the top of her wardrobe and put her finger on the wood directly under the Slipknot logo. There was a flash of blue light to show that the finger print scan was done. A shelf dropped out and on it was her laptop and hand gun in its holster. She took both and put the holster on, on its tightest latch, around the thin of her waste so it didn’t show under her school shirt.
She took her laptop and put it in her shoulder bag carefully with its headset as well. She nearly stood on her shades when she crossed the floor to the wall with the radiator and immediately put them on.
“Open.” She recited clearly. There was a click sound and a line showed in the wall. When she opened it, the computer turned on automatically. The screen, which was set into the wall where the shelves had been cut out of, was at low light. On the shelf behind fake radiator were five external hard drives which turned on with the computer and received files via blue tooth.
She pulled a shelf out of the wall and on it was a mouse pad, graphics tablet, password panel and a keyboard which was wafer thin to compare with the ones that could be bought from a normal shop. It wasn’t touch sensitive because that would cause problems with the shelf being drawn out and all and the mouse being a mouse pad.
She took her chair and closed the wardrobe.
“What do you use the old computer for?” Her mum was standing in the doorway, in her pyjamas with her arms crossing her chest. She had dark hair and green eyes and was a little shorter than Ivy herself.
“Is it eight already?” Ivy looked straight at her watch and it was quarter to. “I just use it as one, a decoy, two, for games, three, research on non scythey stuff and for music. My laptop’s got all my school work on it and some personal files. This is for work.”“What did the police want?” She was concerned.
“Don’t worry mum, I’m not doing drugs or theft. It’s just that they might have come across some stuff about my other activities; my job.”
“They’re getting better at finding us scythes.”
“Really?” Ivy scoffed. “The good-looking one’s bent, he knew I had some more stuff behind the wall but kept it to himself. I think it’s because he got to look down my top. Kinda funny, really.”
“I see.” Tina rolled her eyes and moved from the door.
“That reminds me.” She reached into the crevice between her breasts and took out what looked like a small cuboid shaped piece of plastic. “Chameleon off.” She said and it clicked. It turned silver and when she clicked the top button it seamed to grow into a flat panel, with a touch screen and a small camera lens on each flat side. Her background was a picture of the band Madina Lake. There were no new messages, it told her. She closed it back up and the chameleon re-engaged.
The computer in front of her opened up messenger and Alice was online.
“Did the police come around?”
Ivy put it onto web cam and placed on the small headset that sat on the shelf next to her and stared into the dot above the screen. Alice was drinking milk shake through a straw in her room. Her blond hair was held back in a bobble and her fringe was pinned to the side. She didn’t even concentrate on the camera with her blue eyes. It was as if she was more interested in her drink.
“So did they?” She asked again.
“You knew?” Ivy was furious.
“Aha, it’s no biggy.”
“Mum was worried, and this is the first time I’ve been searched… don’t you know I’m trying to get a job as a police officer or at least a file clerk so I can be getting info from the inside? You know this might stop it! Couldn’t you have done some of your tricks and sent them to someone else’s house by mistake?”
“Look. It’s healthy to get searched now and then, if you get searched once and it comes back clean then you’re not likely to get searched that much again.”
“Oh and this is Miss “I get searched every three months” talking!”
“That’s different.” Alice laughed. “You’re not down as a computer hacker, they obviously don’t know that I don’t need any specialist equip to be in their computers in less than three milliseconds.”
“Three entire milliseconds? You’re getting slow, Alice! Really short shelf life, eh?” Ivy said sarcastically.
“Alright, so they didn’t find anything, did they?”
“Hence I’m here.”
“Good.” Alice was about to get something from underneath the table when Ivy remembered.
“Well… There was one, he was in charge and I think he knew I had something behind the wall… He didn’t say anything.”
Alice looked up very quickly. “Huh?”
“I don’t think he’ll do anything.”
“One sec…” Alice closed her eyes and the screen turned a little static within her silhouette. Her shape shrank very quickly, until it was just a dot, then grew again and she was back. “His name’s Steven Jenkins. There’s nothing on him criminal records wise and he works on… well, I stumbled across a little list of those who investigate scythes. He works private within the station so he ports a uniform but he doesn’t need to be too formal about things. Apparently he’s successful. The people he catches are usually sent in about six months into the investigation. Even though he takes his time, he’s got the highest success rate there is for those of his kind which is 76%... most range between 7 and 15%...”
“So, in other words I’m done for?” Ivy couldn’t believe it.
“It’s time for school, Hun!” Her mother called from downstairs. It was quarter past eight and she had to start walking to her bus stop.
“Damn! I haven’t even had breakfast yet!” She scooped up both her rucksack and her shoulder bag as she got off the seat.
“They’ll come back again, probably… so you make the scene look as innocent as possible.”
“Great.” Ivy mumbled. “I’m dead.”
She pulled the seat back and opened the doors to her cupboard, switching on her computer and taking her i-pod with the earphones. She took the headset off and turned off messenger and the webcam. “Computer off.” She said clearly. It all turned off and she pulled the wall closed. “Lock.” There was a click and the wall looked like it was completely sturdy.
She put her phone back into her bra and picked up her other phone and put it in her pocket with the i-pod and earphones.

“Hey!” Lilly called to her once she reached the bus stop. They were both in sixth form. “I heard about the police.” Her voice was lower once they were bother close to each other.
“Great.” Ivy mumbled, unenthusiastically. “No one tells me anything.” She frowned and she was very angry.
“So it didn’t go well.”
“You know, if I get found in possession of the stuff I have it’ll go down on my PR? Then I won’t be able to be our man on the inside in the police station.” She ranted quietly. “Today, they’re going to come back and rip the shield off my wall and find my computer, my guns, my knives and… the other stuff.”
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with having jet fuel in your bed room.”
“Great, you’re all barmy.” She shook her head. “You’ll be one member down and no one seams to care? Am I expendable or something, it’s just that I thought if any one was expendable it would be-“
“Be fair! I’m on your side.” Lilly objected.
“I don’t feel quite like any one’s on my side at the mo’, alright? I don’t feel like I want to be fair right now.”
“Calm down, babe. Alice will have it all sorted, she can shift all the records and it’ll all be fine. She promised that she’d protect you when she suggested that we did not tell you.”
“She did wh-“
“If we’d told you, what would you have done straight away?” Lilly reasoned.
“I would have made my room look as perfectly innocent as possible and not been wearing those particular PJs…”
“Don’t tell me you were…” Lilly giggled a little.
“Yep, I was half naked.” Ivy clapped her hands at her sides.
“Anyway, if you looked like li’l red riding hood, wouldn’t they have searched the place harder and found the computers, looked through all of your files and even found your piks you made for Mike when you were still going out…”
“I wouldn’t have minded that much, the head was hell fit.”