Snakeskins

by Tim Major

  Taking advantage of the distraction, she left the ticket office and scurried along the road, keeping close to the overhanging foyer roofs. Now the soldiers and civilians were within earshot.

  “But I don’t understand!” one of the women being bundled into the van shouted.

  “I told you,” one of the pair of soldiers replied tersely. “It’s a bloody radiation leak. Don’t you care about those kids of yours? Now get in!”

  The woman gazed up at the streaks in the sky. “But they’re—”

  Her answer was cut off as the soldier slammed the rear door. Then the van sped away along the seafront.

  “For pity’s sake,” the soldier said to his colleague. “How many more streets to go?”

  The other man held up a hand to silence him. He was listening to an earpiece. His shoulders slumped. “You’re not going to like this, Vern. Sounds as though the radius has got bigger again in the last half an hour, even though the ETA's still oh-eight-thirty. We’re to keep going as far as the castle up on the hill there. Come on, we’d better catch up.”

  He set off at a jog after the line of soldiers. The other man stood for a moment with his hands on hips, shook his head, then set off in pursuit.

  At least the soldiers’ direction of travel made Caitlin’s task easier. It would be far more difficult to reach the agreed rendezvous point if she were trying to make her way against the flow of oncoming soldiers. She winced as she realised that Kit must be doing exactly that, travelling south to the pier. Still, better Kit than her. The more time they spent together, the more Caitlin was convinced that Kit was the more resourceful of the two of them. She no longer felt any envy. She just wanted to survive whatever was happening and, somehow, find her way home.

  She made her way cautiously along the seafront towards the pier. Though she kept checking the side streets to her left, her eyes were more often fixed on the green slashes above the sea. Around thirty trails were visible now, of varying intensities. Their reflections, in the calm between waves, made the water appear to be filled with spindly creatures.

  When she came level with the pier she hurried out of cover and across the road. Then she yelped and ducked right. Before the harbour wall stood a soldier in a black uniform, surveying the empty street. A long, black automatic firearm was slung around his neck and held in both his hands.

  She looked up at the building that had provided her cover. The Museum of Automata sign was unlit. The thin lettering tubes that she had only ever seen burning with neon light were filthy black. Her dad had told her that the museum had closed the previous summer and that there had been local petitions to reopen it. Several times, she had daydreamed that they might raise the funds themselves, take it on as a family business. Now, it was grotesque in its abandoned state.

  The padlocks made it clear that there would be no chance of entering by the front door. She slipped along the side of the building that wasn’t visible to the armed soldier, then hugged the wall and watched the soldier carefully for any sign of movement as she teetered on the edge of the concrete pier at the rear of the museum. Sure enough, there was another door here. It hung ajar very slightly.

  “Hey, slowcoach.”

  Caitlin started at the voice. “How did you get here so quickly?”

  “How did you take so bloody long?” Then Kit’s face crumpled. “It was terrifying. Patrols everywhere, and have you seen that maniac with the itchy trigger finger? I’m just glad we both made it without being spotted.”

  “But we were wrong,” Caitlin said. “This isn’t about us, really, is it?”

  “All we can do is stay safe until it’s over,” Kit said. “Forget the plan to skip town for now. Everyone’ll be waiting for the Fall, and when it ends they might well bugger off home.”

  She led the way deeper into the pitch-black museum. They had crept through the gift shop and emerged into the museum proper before Caitlin registered that something – someone – was moving in the darkness.

  SEVENTEEN

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both, finally,” Gerry said. “Hold on. I’ve been tinkering with the backup generator. Let there be light.”

  She tugged at the master switch behind the admissions desk. Lights flickered on, revealing the clouds of dust that hung in the still air of the museum. She checked that she hadn’t also operated the outside lights and hoped that the shutters covering the museum front would hide any sign of illumination.

  She crossed her arms and examined the two girls. They had done a reasonable job of appearing distinct from one another. The girl wearing the green dress appeared quite prim, whereas the other was more boyish in her tracksuit. Nobody would give them a second glance. In her teenage years, Gerry had had friends who dressed, looked and acted more like each other than these two girls.

  “Who the hell are you?” the girl in the green dress said.

  “I’m Gerry Chafik. I promise I’m here to help, so please don’t do anything silly.”

  With the lights on she was able to take in her surroundings for the first time. The museum exhibits were cloaked in dust. There was more variety than she had expected – alongside the Victorian diorama cabinets there were more modern automata, including a spindly mechanical cat and a bald-headed robot on a plinth that had no eyes in its smooth face, but which had complex-looking hinged limbs and fingers. A giant Archimedes screw stretched from floor to ceiling with the purpose of transporting coloured balls from a pit and into plastic chutes.

  “So. Are you going to tell me which of you is the Charmer, or shall I guess?” she said.

  Both girls watched her warily.

  “It’s okay, I promise,” Gerry said. “I’m not from the Party. I’m a journalist, or at least I was.”

  “Just as bad,” the tracksuited girl said.

  Gerry shook her head. “If there’s a story to be written about all this, that’s a discussion for another day. There are more pressing matters. Those meteors are still fairly high in the sky. We’re okay here for a while.”

  All three of them stared up at the ceiling as the thwack of a helicopter grew in volume and then subsided.

  The two girls exchanged glances. They both shrugged.

  “I’m Caitlin Hext,” the tracksuited girl said.

  “I’m Kit,” the other girl said.

  “Kit Hext,” Caitlin added. “We’re family.”

  Kit responded with an appreciative grin.

  “All right then,” Gerry said. “So what I need to tell you affects both of you, because it’s all about family too.”

  Gerry still found it difficult to know which of them to address. Flustered, she turned to examine the cabinet she was leaning against. Its crimson velour curtain was parted slightly. Inside, beneath a dark window, she could read an inscription: Behind You! Or, The Snake-Charmer’s Shock. Inside the diorama she could make out the silhouette of a figure sitting at the foot of a bed. This must be the same cabinet where Janet Hext had gone missing, all those years ago.

  “The Hext family aren’t special only because they’re Charmers,” she said. “It’s more than that. One of your ancestors was a shepherd in Ilam in 1808, at the time of the Fall.”

  “That doesn’t sound all that special,” Caitlin said scornfully.

  Kit shushed her. Interesting that the Skin might be keener on family history than the Charmer.

  “What’s important is that this ancestor, or maybe his entire family, lived up on the mountainside. That is, far closer to the meteor strike than any of the villagers. I think the Fall affected your family differently to other people.”

  “Like how?”

  Gerry frowned. “At first I thought it was about the longevity of your family’s Snakeskins.” Involuntarily, she glanced at Kit, who squirmed in discomfort. “I think I’m right in saying there’s been evidence of that in the past. Is that right?”

  The girls’ eyes flicked to the automaton cabinet behind her. So she had been right about their memories of Janet.

  “But it’
s not enough to explain all this,” she continued. “From what I know now, it seems that only a small proportion of Skins ash spontaneously.”

  The girls looked at each other. Gerry could imagine what they were thinking about. All those Skins in the January care home. The implications about how they might meet their end.

  Kit, in particular, was deathly pale. “So what happens to them?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you,” Gerry replied, “that Dr Victoria Scaife is even less pleasant than she appears.”

  “They were going to kill me,” Kit said quietly.

  Gerry nodded. “You escaped in the nick of time.”

  A strange expression crossed Caitlin’s face, and Kit shuffled awkwardly. Gerry had no idea what it meant.

  “And it gets worse,” she continued. “The decision to dispose of Skins that might cause any embarrassment is one that goes all the way to the top. The aim of some faction within our government is to keep Charmers’ real potential as a resource only for themselves. They’ve been culling undesirable Skins for decades.”

  Caitlin chewed her lip. “But those trails out there in the sky. Isn’t that—”

  Gerry nodded. “Another Fall. And you can be certain that this time it won’t be just a random collection of townspeople who’ll benefit.”

  “That’s what the barricades are for,” Kit said. “Right?”

  “Right. To keep people out – at least, the wrong types of people. I’d bet anything that Party officials, or whoever’s paid the government handsomely for the chance to be here at the right moment, are making a beeline for Scarborough right at this moment.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “What makes you so sure the government could have prepared for this? How could they possibly know?”

  “My guess is that all the space telescopes in the country have been pointing up there, waiting for this for generations,” Gerry replied. “The real question is, why all the last-minute panic? The army have been announcing radiation leaks even while the meteors are visible in the sky above. It’s all a bit crude.”

  Kit tapped her chin. “Because they knew when the Fall would be. They just didn’t know where.”

  Gerry had been processing all these clues for many hours, but Kit had caught up with her immediately. Caitlin, the real human, was much slower on the uptake. Perhaps the Snakeskin’s desperation made her synapses fire more quickly. Or perhaps Skins were superior to their originators.

  “Not for want of trying, though,” Gerry said.

  Kit murmured, “Of course!”

  “What?” Caitlin said indignantly. “Of course what? Want to let me in on the big secret?”

  Kit turned to face her. “Don’t you get it? We show up here in Scarborough and the authorities are hot on our trail. And then there’s those bloody fireballs up in the sky. It’s not a coincidence, Cait.”

  Now it was Caitlin’s face that turned ashen. “They’ve been tracking us. Because they realised we’re the key to predicting the location of the Fall.”

  Gerry was impressed. What she had told them was a huge amount to take in, but they were coping remarkably well. “I don’t think they figured out Caitlin’s significance right away. But when I was at your house I noticed the field behind your house was cordoned off – there were blue tarpaulins all over the place but no signs of building work. My guess is it was an attempt to secure as much of the area as possible around the projected location, ahead of time. And I believe that their tracking calculations would have been screwed up by the appearance of a brand-new Hext.”

  Caitlin looked as though she might be sick at any moment. “So you’re sure that the Fall is being guided by something specific to members of my family?” When Gerry nodded, she breathed, “Because… because…”

  Kit’s eyes widened. “Shitting hell.” She noticed Gerry’s baffled expression. “Our uncle. He died. Just after our shedding.”

  “Yes, I heard. I’m sorry.” Gerry realised that she had never had a chance to investigate the specifics of Toby Hext’s death. “Was it in suspicious circumstances?”

  “Swimming pool, alone, at night,” Caitlin whispered.

  Gerry had no idea what to say. Toby’s death must have marked the point when the Party had identified the Hext family as crucial to determining the location of the Fall. Killing him would have been merely a convenience: one fewer data point screwing up the government’s efforts at triangulation.

  She was thankful that Kit broke the silence. “Hold on. You said that the appearance of a new Hext screwed up the calculations. So I count, even though I’m a Snakeskin? I’m partly responsible for drawing the meteors to Earth, along with Cait?”

  Gerry nodded. It had been after Toby Hext’s death that the Party had identified the urgent need to kill the Skin while she was held at the care home.

  Caitlin looked thoughtful. “A couple of soldiers out there were talking about a deadline – something happening at half past eight – and they mentioned a radius getting bigger.”

  “And I’m guessing they weren’t happy about it?” Gerry said.

  Caitlin shook her head.

  Gerry tapped her chin. “Did you guys split up at all over the last hour?”

  Their wide-eyed expressions answered the question.

  “There you go, then,” she continued. “The further you are apart, the harder it is for them to be precise in their calculations.”

  Caitlin nodded. “But that must mean they’re not able to track our locations, only the trajectory of the meteors. Now that they’re close to the Earth, they must be monitoring what they call the ‘luminous tracks’. I read about it somewhere. But it amounts to the same thing.”

  Gerry raised an eyebrow. Smart kid. Strange that the Skin hadn’t made the same observation. Though they shared the same memories, the ways in which they applied their knowledge appeared to have diverged already.

  Without warning, Kit turned and sprinted to the door.

  Caitlin dived after her. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Kit tried to struggle free. “Weren’t you even listening to what you just said? You guys had better come up with a plan right this second, because I’m out of here!”

  Gerry leapt to her feet too. She was an utter fool. She had been so intent on piecing together the puzzle that she had been blind to the immediate danger.

  “Kit’s right,” she said, running to shut off the lights. “The army’s out there, and the Party, and God knows who else – not to mention a sky full of space-rocks all hurtling towards us. And every second that you two are in the same place means that they’re all closing in on you!”

  * * *

  Russell watched as Party employees continued lugging equipment from the rear of the minibus. He had offered to help – inwardly cursing himself for his meekness – but Ellis had instructed him to stay sitting at the counter of the seafront cafe. Now the tables of each booth were strewn with computer terminals and wires. Those employees who had finished installing their equipment now bent before their terminals, absorbed in dense onscreen text and abstract, flickering diagrams. Ellis paced around, peering over shoulders. He kneaded his hands constantly and kept looking at the wide window to see the meteor trails still hanging like paper streamers over the sea.

  A police car screeched up at the kerb. A uniformed officer leapt out and immediately flung open the back door, then bent to pull out somebody who struggled and bit at him.

  To Russell’s surprise, he saw that it was Spencer Blackwood. The boy’s hands were bound before him so that when he was pushed towards the cafe it looked as though he were praying to it.

  Ellis saw him arrive, but he didn’t go to greet him.

  The moment he saw his father, the fight seemed to leave Spencer. His bound body slackened. It shook with heavy sobs.

  Without thinking, Russell dashed over to him. When the police officer tried to obstruct his path he shoved the man away. He held Spencer’s shoulders, first at arm’s length, then in a full embrace. Judging from his expres
sion the boy already understood what had happened to Nell.

  “I’m so sorry,” Russell whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  The boy twisted awkwardly, trying to look up at Russell. Russell realised with a start that Spencer might well think that he had been complicit in Nell’s murder and the deaths of Ellis’s Skins.

  “No,” he whispered. “I didn’t know. I swear.”

  Spencer gazed at him for a few seconds. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded and his eyes widened.

  Russell frowned in confusion.

  Spencer nodded again – or rather, he jerked his head to one side.

  “Left pocket,” he said under his breath.

  Without releasing his embrace, Russell moved his hand down to the pocket of the boy’s jacket. The police officer had turned his attention to Ellis. Russell reached into the pocket and pulled out something cuboid and cold. He put it behind his back and pressed it against his spine.

  “Over there.” The police officer pushed Spencer roughly towards Ellis. “He fought hard, sir.”

  Ellis appeared momentarily impressed. He had always complained that Spencer wasn’t a fighter.

  The father and son stood facing each other. The nearby Party employees bent closer to their monitors to avoid appearing interested.

  Russell took advantage of everyone’s attention being elsewhere. As he sidled to the cafe counter he snuck a look at the object he now held in his hand. It must be another of Spencer’s electronic projects, little more than a circuit board bulked out with wires and a steel chassis. Other than a nine-volt battery, only one of the components was at all familiar – a small nubbin with a wire-net hood. A microphone. With his hands bound, Spencer wouldn’t have been able to operate the recording device himself.