Rather than run away to find a suitable hiding place, one where he could finally re-enter the world with his abilities intact, Thomas went to school. He doubted anyone would come to take him away forcibly if he was in class. They might wait all day for him and abduct him on the way home, but piling into school and dragging him away was not how they'd get him. They wouldn't want the publicity.

Granted, most of peers and teachers felt the same way about him as his father did –afraid, wary, some, perhaps jealous – but they wouldn't allow him to be hurt. Would they? They could see what was happening as the right thing to do. Thomas needed to be taken away. They'd watch him later on television, just to make sure he hadn't been hurt. That would satisfy their feelings of guilt. Then they could see him being shot or dismembered or attacked by the Wolves without his memory spoiling the show.

He often wondered why he still went to school. He was regularly set upon by other pupils and subjected to their 'pranks'. Just kids being kids, that was all. He'd been carried up to the top of the old flagpole and left hanging. He been held in place so securely he'd fractured his wrist whilst trying to break free. During that, particular ordeal, carried out by a pair of boys, His school trousers had been set alight while he was wearing them. One of the children, a Jacker in the making, had kept him still and the other, a Pyro, had started the fire.

Neither had developed their powers much further than their initial faltering steps with them, but they didn't need to. One was well strong enough to hold a ten year old and the other only needed to create a brief spark. Fire liked to consume and it could do so from the smallest infant flame.

Thomas had escaped with little injury and no tissue damage. He'd run into the nearest toilet block, stepped into the toilet bowl and flushed it. They still spoke about that a year later. They still smiled and pointed and pushed and tripped and punched.

Kids will be kids.

Thomas loved to learn, though. He told himself the bullying was part of school life. The tables had turned for the usual targets. Nerds were potentially more powerful than those who had made their lives a misery. School bullying had been reduced as a result, but there were still hot headed students who wanted to show and prove their supremacy. The entire school felt itself to be superior to Thomas.

After all. He'd be insane very soon. He had nothing in the way of powers. He'd be Spotted before long so there was no point in befriending him. His days were numbered. No one wanted their own reputations to be tainted by associating with him.

Yet, still he went and faced everything they threw at him. The days of hoping they'd get bored and move on to someone else were gone. It didn't matter how long he would be there for. During that time, he was the easiest target of all.

The school might offer some protection from them. The 'them' his father had called. It wouldn't be able to stop the other pupils aiming their attacks at him, but Thomas thought he could endure that if it delayed, or put a halt to, the Spotters. Besides, once he'd used Oscar's treasure, he could teach them all a lesson. Students and staff together.

He took a winding path to school each day, and the routes varied wildly. He wasn't overly concerned about being followed, but people could easily learn the habits of others. Groups of children and adults, similar to that which had taunted the boy the night before and paid the price, would take advantage of their advantages. He had been injured, chased and held captive on numerous occasions. His meanderings probably only delayed the inevitable. They certainly didn't stop it.

Still, he felt better taking different turns and twist, with some double backs thrown in. He had little to defend himself with. His mind, while he still had it, was his only real weapon.

This morning was quiet. Passers by ignore him. A homeless person curled up in the doorway of a derelict tanning shop, first asked him for money then spat at his feet. He kept close to the buildings, stopping every so often in a recessed doorway. Being ignored wasn't something he'd wanted when he was younger. He was going to fight crime once he had his powers. He was going to be famous. Now, the townsfolk's ignorance was all he could wish for. The best he would get wasn't fame, but infamy. For a short time, he'd be on the millions of television screens with millions more screaming his name.

They also be baying for his blood.

He took his time. There was no sense in rushing and he didn't want to draw attention to himself. Many people, too many, knew what he was. A failure waiting for the inevitable tower of sanity to come crashing down. A fifteen minutes of fame wannabe who would get a taste of glory in his final moments. Not that he'd recognise them as such. His mind would be a pile of rubble his thoughts were having trouble climbing over. He didn't keep track of his path, and turned down random streets along the way as long as he was always going in the right direction. He thought that, if he didn't know which way he was going to go, no one else would.

Not everyone knew he had no powers, of course. You didn't wear a badge proclaiming the particular ability you had. He could get to school without anything happening to him. It was, however, a dangerous world. He risked being drawn into the squabbles of others or becoming collateral damage in a fight no one was likely to win. On only four occasions during his journey to school had he encountered the sort of people his father would have called Undesirables. That was four too many but, even so, he'd been lucky.

The first had been Billy Almington. It had to be. The single most hated boy in the school.

Billy had come into his powers at a young age. He'd been only five when sparks started to appear at his fingertips when he was grew angry, and Billy was never a particularly happy individual. He parents were still together. His father could fly and his mother could breathe underwater. They were happy together and had a lot of both love and time for their only son. He didn't reciprocate it, though. He knew the words to say and the gestures to make, but they were empty. Flaccid. His parents failed to notice, or ignored the fact, that he didn't seem to care. Not just about them, but about anything. He was a hollow shell that might have once contained a child – he showed affection in many ways when he was a baby, but it seemed as if his body could only contain so much.

When his powers came, there wasn't enough room in him for them and the decent, caring side of him. He had to make a sacrifice and love was cast aside easily. Perhaps he'd only been holding onto it until it was no longer needed.

Billy embraced his abilities. From fingertip sparks at five, by six, he was firing bolts of lightning. By eight, he could hit a target from the other side of the school playing field. By the age of ten, it was the right target.

Teachers and pupils were consistently surprised at his attendance. He wasn't there to learn, though. He was there to torment. Billy didn't show favouritism to other children. He would have no issues with directing his powers at the teachers. They'd tried to stop him, but to no avail. He didn't respond to kindness or discipline. Isolation didn't work, as he just waited until he got out. His parents were called to the school on many occasions, but it was too late. Here was nothing they could do. He just didn't listen.

Thomas was eight when he was walking to school. Iain had tried to insist that he took his son, but the boy wouldn't have it. He needed to stand up for himself and be a man. He needed to be there for his dad as much as the other way around. He could handle it. He knew how to cross a road and how to avoid the fights or explosions that littered the way there.

Being eight, he was still waiting to develop his gifts. They were gifts, there was no doubt. Iain described them as gifts from above. As a non religious man, he might have meant God or aliens or solar flares.

Dr. David Womack, creator and cause, was none of those. He was one of the top scientists in his field of genetic engineering, if not the top. Few could match his intellect or his ambition. Or his willingness to push the boundaries that physics and morals placed around him. After the Outbreak, little had been heard about him. It didn't matter. The damage was done, though he'd never admit to it being that.

Thomas knew his name. He was a subject in History. He was the reason Thomas would come to be so afraid. He was the reason buildings could fall in a second. The reason 'society' was a word that had once meant so much more.

He was the reason Billy could stop and restart a heart. The bully was yet to have discovered that aspect of his power, but it was only a matter of time.

It had been three months and a few days since Thomas's eighth birthday. Two months more for Billy. Thomas walked the way he always had. The way his father had taken him when Thomas let him. He was excited, with a permanent buzz of anticipation coursing through him. Some of his friends were already exhibiting the sporadic blossoming of what was to come. It would be any day now for Thomas. Any day. He was sure of it. He could feel it.

The boys had crashed into him as they fled, knocking him to the ground. He'd scuffed his knew but was more bothered about the tear in his trousers. He pushed himself to his feet and shouted after the group. It was the ineffectual curses of a child who was unused to doing so. Thomas got on with everyone. He had no need, and his upbringing helped with this, to fight or to insult. One of the boys shouted back a 'Sorry,' but they didn't stop to see if he was OK. Thomas turned to pick up his school bag and found himself almost nose to nose with another boy.

Thomas had seen him around school. He'd successfully avoided him as time progressed, his powers increased and his attitude deteriorated.

Billy Almington.

"Move," Billy said firmly.

Thomas thought about standing exactly where he was. Everyone backed down to Billy. Wasn't it time someone didn't? Maybe Thomas was that one. His feet had more sense and stepped to the side to let Billy pass. The boy didn't, though. He matched Thomas's steps to remain directly in front of him.

"I said move!"

"I did! You foll..."

Thomas didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Billy didn't give chances or, usually, warnings. He jabbed Thomas in the stomach and Thomas's world grew suddenly much brighter, then very dark. When he woke, he was at home in bed. When he was questioned, he kept Billy's name out of his story. He'd tripped and fallen, that was all. It didn't explain the twin scorch marks on his shirt or the small burns on his stomach, but his dad let it go. Thomas was told to be more careful – there's Undesirables out there – and the matter was dropped.

Billy didn't forget. Even though Thomas insisted he'd never said anything, he wasn't believed. Plus, he's got in Billy's way and, for that, he'd pay. He paid every time billy saw him, and continued to two years later, expect then it was wildly known at school that Thomas was late and was going to go crazy and, really, Billy was doing everyone a favour by keeping him in check.

He reached the school without, apart from the snot filled hack at his shoes, further incident. He didn't make eye contact with any of the other students, not wanting to bring their attention to him. He would often spend all day without looking directly at anyone. Pupils would deliberately bump into him, knocking him aside and sometimes causing him to crash into someone else. This could prompt an attack and no amount of explanation would get them to accept it wasn't his fault. They already knew it wasn't. They just relished the excuse to hit the 'weird kid'.

He was more or less ignored as he walked to his first class. He felt as if the world had taken pity on him. It was holding itself back to reduce the humiliation he so often felt. After all, it was a special day.