The Memory Keepers

by Natasha Ngan

  And then lights clicked on overhead. Before either of them could say anything, people burst into the room, shouts filling the air, heavy footsteps crunching across the floor, and the last thing Alba saw was the flash of red jackets and Seven’s face twisting in fear before some sort of stunning weapon bit into her side.

  She fell to her knees, her body locking rigid, her vision blurring to black.

  77

  SEVEN

  For the second time that day he woke in an unrecognisable room, this time strapped to a chair. He tried to move but his arms were twisted behind him, and he felt the metallic coldness of handcuffs on his wrists. Plastic ties snapped his ankles to the legs of the chair, which was fixed to the floor with chains. Under his clothes goosebumps shivered across his skin. The air was cool.

  Seven twisted his head to look round but there wasn’t much to see. The windowless room – more like a cell – was small and bare, the walls painted a dull grey. A strip of white light ran across the ceiling. There was a single door opposite where his chair was set in the middle of the room, and when he craned his neck down he could see a grated drain-cover beneath his feet.

  Fear shot up his spine. What did they need a drain for?

  He knew what, of course. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it because then he would be even more scared, and he couldn’t be even more scared because he had to live, had to find a way to escape.

  The door to the cell opened.

  Alastair White’s face was expressionless as he strode inside. The stark light cut the edges of his hard features. He was wearing the black robes and charcoal suit of his office; at the centre of his collarbones, the bulldog clasp glinted gold.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If it isn’t our lost Candidate Seven. We’ve been looking for you quite a while, you know.’

  Seven’s heart stuttered. He’d been clinging to the miniscule hope that his captors wouldn’t know who he was.

  He cleared his throat. ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Blood never lies.’

  Seven cast his eyes down and spotted the dot of dried blood at the crook of his elbow. The London Guard must have his DNA profile from when he was first introduced as a Candidate.

  ‘Let me tell you how this works,’ White said coolly, moving forward. ‘I ask the questions, and you answer them. It’s better for us both if you answer me promptly and truthfully.’

  Seven scowled. ‘Two things I’m pretty crap at, I’m afraid.’

  White paused, watching him. ‘Well, perhaps this will help you improve.’ He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a toothpick.

  ‘My teeth are clean, thanks,’ Seven said, trying for a grin but ending up with a twisted half-smile (he was thinking of all the places on a body sticking a toothpick in would hurt. Surprisingly many).

  White’s face darkened. He stepped round the chair, out of sight. ‘Why do you make jokes when you’re scared, Candidate Seven?’

  ‘I make them all the time, really.’

  ‘See? That’s what I mean.’

  There was a long, heavy pause.

  ‘In case you are wondering, Alba is safe and well at home.’ White shifted. His shadow slid across the floor like spilled ink. ‘She won’t tell anyone what you were doing in my house. She won’t say anything. But it doesn’t matter – she will eventually.’

  Seven snarled. ‘If any of you touch her –’

  ‘We won’t need to,’ White interrupted smoothly, ‘because we have you.’ He moved closer, his shadow falling over Seven. ‘We also have Alba’s handmaid, Miss Rose. She was rather quick to tell us she was the one involved with you, not Alba. She denied any involvement on Alba’s part – though we know she’s lying. It’s a shame. Miss Rose was a good servant.’

  Dolly, thought Seven, feeling sick. She had warned them and they hadn’t listened. Now she might be paying for it with her life.

  He wanted to rip the handcuffs off his wrists and claw White’s eyes out with his fingernails.

  ‘You dare – you effing dare –’

  ‘Oh, like I said. We have you. There’ll be no need for anyone else to get hurt. You will tell us everything we want to know … won’t you, Candidate?’

  ‘Yes,’ Seven forced himself to say, as White stepped out of sight, behind his chair.

  The thing was, Alba hadn’t been quite right earlier when she’d said he didn’t owe anyone anything. There were a few people he owed.

  Kola was one. Kola had helped them escape when the London Guard came for Seven at the flat. He’d said, Do you want to fight them? on that warm afternoon on the rooftop all those weeks ago, and for the first time in his entire life Seven hadn’t felt quite so alone.

  Dolly was another person he owed. She loved Alba, and Alba loved her; that was enough of a reason to protect her. But she had also helped Seven after he’d been attacked by the dog, then helped Alba and him find out more about TMK, even though she had asked them not to.

  And then, of course, there was Alba.

  She had done more than anyone else. Simply by being there, by trusting him. She had given him a reason – every reason – to keep fighting.

  Seven made up his mind. He would tell White enough to keep him from hurting Dolly, but he would lie about everything else.

  A few days. That’s all Kola and the Movement needed. A few days until the Winter-turn Ball, and then White would be ruined.

  There were footsteps as White’s figure came back into view. He stopped in front of Seven, bending slowly and setting down the toothpick. When he straightened, the faintest trace of a smile played on his lips.

  ‘Someone will come by shortly,’ he said, before leaving Seven alone in the cold, horrible cell, with nothing to look at except the single toothpick on the floor.

  78

  ALBA

  ‘You’re going to have to speak at some point, Alba.

  ‘Tell me what happened. Explain how that South thief ended up in our house with you. You’re lucky your father granted you immunity. You could be in the London Guard’s interrogation cells too right now.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Alba. Are you going to ignore me for the rest of your life?’

  Alba kept her eyes squeezed shut. She was scared that if she opened them, if she saw her mother and her own bedroom, and the fact that Dolly and Seven weren’t here any more, she’d start crying and never stop.

  Whatever she did, she would not cry in front of her mother.

  Oxana had been talking at her for what felt like hours. Alba thought she sounded more tired and resigned than angry now. And she didn’t dare believe it, but maybe there was even a hint of fear in her voice. What was her mother afraid of? Of all of North finding out her daughter was involved with a South criminal? Of ruining their marriage arrangement with Thierry’s family?

  ‘I’m going to make a call. You’re going to talk when I come back. And don’t even think about escaping – the house is being protected by the London Guard.’

  Alba heard her mother’s sharp footsteps click across the floorboards. The door creaked open and there was the rise of voices – her mother and the guards outside exchanging pleasantries – before it slammed shut.

  Finally, Alba opened her eyes.

  Her mother had been here for hours. Outside, the sun was rising. The curtains were half open, and the milky orange light of the wintry morning poured into her room. Birdsong sounded from a distance. There were occasional coughs, staccato bursts of voices, but for the most part the house was quiet.

  Alba rubbed her side where the stunning weapon had caught her. It was still stinging. Peeling up her jumper, she saw a bruise staining her skin.

  A little wobbly on her feet – she was still weak from the stunner’s shock – she got off the bed and went over to the windows. Her stomach dipped at the sight of red-jacketed men moving among the sloping green lawns surrounding the house. So the London Guard were keeping watch. She wouldn’t have the faintest chance of escaping.

  This is it, then, Alba
thought. She was trapped, Seven and Dolly were gone, and there was nothing she could do about any of it.

  For a second, she broke down. Then, with a gasp and a skip of her heart, she remembered –

  The tablet Kola had given them.

  Use it only in an emergency.

  Breathless, Alba rushed to her bed and pulled up the mattress, snatching the tablet from where she’d hidden it between the slats in the bedframe. She touched the screen. A single glowing word sprung across the black: CALL. Beneath it were the symbols for a cross and a tick.

  Hoping she was doing the right thing (there wasn’t really any more wrong she could do now, surely?) Alba pressed the tick.

  For a while, there was only silence. Then Kola’s voice sounded from the tablet, quiet but clear.

  ‘Seven?’

  ‘Kola! Thank god. It’s Alba.’ Crouching over the bed and grabbing a fistful of her duvet, she cocooned the tablet, muffling the sound. ‘It’s an emergency,’ she whispered. ‘We need your help.’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, voice sharp.

  ‘The London Guard has Seven. Dolly too. I don’t know where they’ve taken them.’

  There was a pause. ‘I know where. I’m surprised I haven’t heard about it from Nihail. He works in Interrogation. He must be busy.’

  Alba’s stomach flipped.

  ‘If he’s busy working on Seven and Dolly –’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt them,’ Kola reassured her. ‘At least, not enough to do permanent damage. He needs to keep up appearances for his own safety. But we will get Seven out of there, Alba. We will help him.’

  ‘And Dolly,’ she urged.

  ‘Yes. But we will have to wait until the night of the Winter-turn Ball. If we reveal ourselves too soon our plans will be ruined.’

  Alba let out a strangled cry. For a moment she was so angry she forgot all about the London Guardmen outside her door. Images flooded her: Seven and Dolly in cells, being hurt, not given food or water … and all the while she was stuck in her bedroom like a pampered Rapunzel.

  ‘But that’s four days away! They could be dead by then.’ Alba’s voice broke. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling the tears that had threatened to overcome her rush back. ‘Please, Kola,’ she breathed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alba. We cannot come any sooner. But the London Guard will not kill Seven – they need him. Too many of the working Candidates are dying from haemorrhages. They will want him alive and well.’

  Alba drew a deep breath. ‘He’s not some toy to be played with, you know. Seven deserves more than that. What you did, bringing him to Takeshi – it was wrong. It was as bad as them, making him alter memories for your own purposes.’

  ‘Forgive us,’ Kola replied after a long pause, ‘but we didn’t see any other way. We cannot let the London Guard continue to murder hundreds of innocents. You saw what happened with Takeshi. That sort of power – the power to change and manipulate memories – is too dangerous to be allowed to exist. In any capacity.’

  It took a few moments for his words to sink in. When they did, Alba’s breath caught in her throat.

  If the power to manipulate memories couldn’t be allowed to exist in any capacity, then what did the Movement plan to do with Seven?

  ‘Kola?’ Her voice shook. ‘What will you do with Seven when you’re done? What will happen to the rest of the Candidates?’

  But before he could reply, Alba heard the snap of footsteps approaching the door. She had just enough time to stuff the tablet under the duvet before her mother stepped into the room.

  ‘Are you ready to talk now?’ Oxana said, one hand on her hip, her long curtain of straight blonde hair rippling in the rising sunlight. She was dressed in a pair of flared silk trousers and a striped Breton knit. As always, she looked impeccable.

  Alba got to her feet. ‘Yes, Mother,’ she said, hands clenched at her sides. ‘But you’re not going to like what I have to say.’ Her words came out in a rush. ‘I’m not marrying Thierry, and I’m going to get Dolly and Seven back, and then I’m going to leave here forever, and there’s nothing you or Father can do to stop me.’

  Surprise registered in her mother’s eyes for the briefest moment before they narrowed, returning to their usual icy blue.

  ‘You are marrying Thierry, Alba.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Because you want to marry this Seven boy instead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alba blushed as soon as she said it.

  ‘Well,’ she amended, ‘maybe. I – I don’t know. But I do know that I want to have the freedom to choose who I marry. And I don’t just want to be another North society wife. I want to travel, go to university, learn things … I want to experience the world for myself.’

  She remembered what it had been like that first time, memory-surfing, jumping off the edge of the cliff into the waterfall, sun like liquid gold on her naked body, the water cool on her skin. How free she’d felt. Then she thought of kissing Seven. Even just his crooked, awkward, beautiful grin made her feel as though anything were possible.

  ‘I just want to be free,’ Alba finished.

  Oxana stared. Then, something in her eyes softening, she lifted her hand, reaching for her, but Alba shrank back.

  Her mother’s face clouded over. ‘That’s not something we can just choose,’ she said, and there was something broken in her voice. ‘Sometimes others make that choice for us. Your father and I are offering you a safe life, my darling. Wouldn’t you rather be safe than free?’

  ‘No,’ Alba answered without hesitation.

  Her mother looked away. ‘One day,’ she said softly before she left, ‘you won’t think that any more.’

  After the door clicked shut behind her, Alba stared at the place her mother had been, feeling a new emotion for her then –

  Pity.

  She was sad for her mother. She felt sorry for her, because she couldn’t think what had happened to turn her into this cold woman, into someone who thought living a safe, joyless life was better than an uncertain, free one.

  To Alba, the choice was clear. Anything else would be like living a lie, living out of sync with your own heartbeat. It would be living as a ghost. And she had felt haunted in her own life long enough.

  79

  SEVEN

  When the door to the cell next opened, Seven was so surprised at who walked in his mouth dropped open.

  Dolly.

  As she stumbled into the room – her hands were cuffed – a man followed her. Seven’s eyes widened with surprise at a second familiar face. It was Nihail, the dark-skinned man he’d met yesterday in the ruins of the Underground, who was secretly a part of the Movement.

  ‘Candidate Seven,’ he said, smiling. ‘A pleasure to meet you. My name is Nihail.’

  His eyes flicked to the ceiling. Seven followed them and spotted a tiny camera tucked in one corner of the room. He looked back and gave the barest of nods to show he understood: they were being watched.

  Nihail bent down and picked up the toothpick Alastair White had left, presumably as a reminder for Seven as to what would happen if he didn’t comply with them (it had worked – by now, Seven had thought of hundreds of ways pain could be dealt with a single toothpick).

  ‘I shouldn’t be needing this,’ Nihail said, slipping the toothpick into the pocket of his red jacket, ‘because you’re going to play nice today, aren’t you, Candidate?’

  ‘Yes,’ Seven answered dully.

  He caught Dolly’s gaze and smiled weakly. She smiled back. Or at least, it seemed like a smile. It was hard to tell. Her face was swollen, a dark purple bruise covering her cheekbone and jaw, and her lips were cracked with dried blood. Her hair had come loose from its usual buns; it fell in a straggly purple mess over her shoulders.

  I did this, he thought, feeling guilt like a sting. Whatever happens to her – it’s on me.

  Even though Nihail was on their side, Seven knew he wouldn’t be able to let them off. Alastair White was no dou
bt watching through the camera. Nihail would have to act as though Seven and Dolly were any other criminals he was interrogating.

  Nihail shoved Dolly forward. ‘I thought I’d bring Miss Rose along,’ he said, ‘just in case you need a reminder of what’ll happen if you don’t answer our questions. Mr White thought you’d respond better this way. Said South scum like you have so little to lose it’d be more persuasive if someone else was bearing the consequences of your actions.’

  Seven scowled. ‘That’s one thing Mr White has got right then.’

  Pushing Dolly aside, Nihail went over to Seven, clipping a small device to one of his fingers.

  ‘A lie-detector,’ Nihail explained, sitting on a chair he’d dragged in from outside the cell. He pulled out a tablet. ‘I’ll know if you’re trying to fool me, Candidate. For Miss Rose’s sake, I hope you save us the bother.’

  Seven swallowed. He only had a moment to try and slow his heart – it was skipping along at a thousand miles an hour – before Nihail started firing questions.

  ‘What is your full name?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Seven … ?’

  ‘Just Seven.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Nowhere now, thanks to you lot.’

  ‘Where did you live?’

  ‘Flat 23B, Southrise Residences, Vauxhall.’

  ‘Where did all the memories in your flat come from?’

  ‘They were stolen.’

  ‘Who stole them?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To surf. Sell on the black market. Don’t you guys know all this already?’

  ‘Who do you work for?’

  ‘Carpenter’s skid-thief crew. At least, until you shot him.’

  Seven saw no point in lying. The tattoo was right there on his chest after all. And Carpenter was dead. There was no Carpenter’s skid-thief crew any more (his stomach still did a painful flip whenever he thought about it).

  ‘Who else is in Carpenter’s crew?’

  For the first time, Seven hesitated. ‘Dunno. I’ve never met any of them.’