by Claire Merle
Her gaze rested on the image of Jasper. Pressure filed her chest as she imagined him stuck in some underground hole, blindfolded, thirsty, beaten up or worse, much worse.
She had to try and help him.
Ana initiated the interface virtual keyboard by pretending to touch-type. The keyboard appeared on the dark coffee table in front of her. She tapped in the words
‘abduction’, ‘Novastra’, ‘Benzidox’. The projected words hovered 60
distortedly in front of her chest. She pinched their virtual forms with her fingers and dragged them up to the search engine box on the flatscreen. Within seconds, dozens of pages from al over the net appeared on the screen.
TOMORROW’S UNITED CHRISTIANS CLAIM
NOVASTRA’S BEN-ZIDOX DESTROYS FREE
WILL.
HUSBAND OF NOVASTRA EMPLOYEE SAYS
DANGEROUS EN-LIGHTENMENT PROJECT
SECT ABDUCTED HIS WIFE.
ANOTHER NOVASTRA EMPLOYEE
DISAPPEARS, ESCALATING
FEARS OF A BRUTAL ABDUCTION.
Ana scrutinised the results. She’d known controversy surrounded Novastra, but counting Jasper, that made three abductions for the pharmaceutical monopoly in the last twelve months. Her fingers hovered in the air in front last twelve months. Her fingers hovered in the air in front of her.
She thought back to the concert. When Jasper had said he was in trouble, he’d spoken of an acquaintance he’d met yesterday morning. The acquaintance had gone mental in the street and been picked up by the Psych Watch. It seemed probable Jasper’s abduction was somehow connected. The situation wasn’t as simple as Warden Dombrant wanted her to believe. The Warden had been concealing something, waiting, watching, calculating. Which is why he hadn’t puled her up on the lie. With a shiver of anticipation Ana typed ‘Enkidu’ and
‘Psych Watch’.
The top search result referred to an ancient Mesopot-amian poem about a king who befriended a wild man caled Enkidu. Al the other results referred either to the poem or 61
to the establishment nine years ago of the Psych Watch, the Board’s right hand, enforcing their dictates and keeping the streets free of dangerous Actives.
What she needed was a list of al the Psych Watch arrests in London yesterday morning. She navigated to a missing persons website, one she’d become familiar with last September when she’d been searching for information about Tamsin. The website published the names of those seized from the streets so families with missing relatives could trace a loved one that had been taken by the Psych Watch to a Mental Rehab Home.
There were thirty-six entries for yesterday morning between nine and eleven-thirty. Ana scanned through the names but there was no one caled Enkidu. She started names but there was no one caled Enkidu. She started over again at the top of the list, clicking on the provided links for more information. Some included eye-witness accounts of the seizures, some of the more violent episodes had smal articles written about them. Ana was about a quarter of the way through the list when she came across a short piece which had featured on several local news sites: Yesterday morning, an ex-member of the Enlightenment Project experienced a sudden psychotic break and pounced on an unsuspecting young Pure man. The Psych Watch arrived in record time to halt the attack.
This morning I met an acquaintance in the City, Jasper had said. One minute we were talking, the next he was flipping out, going mental. The Psych Watch arrived within seconds.
Perched on the end of the sofa, Ana stared at the flatscreen. The circumstances fitted exactly. She would check the other remaining names listed, but what were 62
the chances of another Pure being involved in an incident where the Psych Watch showed up so promptly? Which meant Jasper’s acquaintance was an ex-member of the Enlightenment Project. And Jasper had got himself mixed up with a dangerous sect. The sect members lived in seclusion, hidden within the wal surrounding Hampstead Heath; the same wal that demarcated the southern border of the Highgate Community; the same wal that Nick drove alongside every time they went to the checkpoint. The Enlightenment Project leaders brainwashed their folowers, starving them and locking them up until they yielded their minds to the sect’s teachings; teachings that included a prophecy of a future where the Project would save the country from the evils where the Project would save the country from the evils of modern society.
After checking the remaining links to the other Psych Watch seizures and finding nothing, Ana sat quietly and considered what might possibly have led Jasper to take up such an acquaintance. Could he have been helping the ex-member that flipped out escape the sect? Someone caled Enkidu? It would explain why he hadn’t sought help from the Wardens. The Wardens and the Enlightenment Project had some sort of understanding.
The Wardens steered clear of Project business, and the Project folowers never breached the wal into the Highgate Community.
If the Enlightenment Project had Jasper, the Wardens wouldn’t attempt to get him back. Jasper would be tortured and brainwashed. They would twist his mind until he wouldn’t even want to leave. Ana couldn’t let that happen.
What she needed was someone with insider information or someone who could get it. She would need to confirm 63
whether Jasper was a prisoner behind the wal and if so, where. The Wardens wouldn’t rescue him, but Jasper’s in-fluential father would. Just under three years ago, David Taurel lost his oldest son in a freak accident; surely he wouldn’t let his only other son go without doing everything he could to prevent it. But first Ana would have to prove Jasper was in the Enlightenment Project because there was no way David Taurel, the CEO of pharmaceutical giant Novastra, would make a stand against the Wardens and risk alienating the Board or the government, on hearsay.
government, on hearsay.
Ana tapped in ‘Enlightenment Project’, ‘abduction’, and
‘ex-member’ on the virtual keyboard. She dragged the suspended words up to the screen’s search-engine and a moment later, scanned the results. Her eyes settled on one in particular.
NOVASTRA EMPLOYEE DISAPPEARS,
ESCALATING FEARS OF
BRUTAL ABDUCTION.
An ex-member of the Enlightenment Project, COLE
WINTER, was taken from his Camden residence for questioning, after another Novastra employee was reported missing.
Camden. A word Ana had seen scribbled on a piece of paper Jasper read moments before leaving the concert. It seemed like a fortuitous coincidence. There might even be some sort of connection between the two. At any rate, an ex-member, stil harassed for abductions linked to the Project seemed like a good place to start. He might be wiling to talk.
After running a search on Cole Winter, Ana disabled the 64
link synching her interface computer to al the flatscreens in the house. A flatscreen couldn’t store web information, but she didn’t know if her father could use the established link to recover her search history. This way she eliminated the possiblity. Because she definitely didn’t want him to find out what she was up to. She was going to sneak into the City and enlist Cole Winter’s going to sneak into the City and enlist Cole Winter’s help.
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7
Wind Chimes
Ana spent the morning preparing to put her plan into action. After lunch, she checked the news again for any developments concerning Jasper’s abduction – nothing.
She dug out her old bike from the garage and sat for two hours plucking up the courage to go. Eventualy, she wheeled her bike across the brick courtyard and down the drive. The security gates swung back, revealing the wide avenue and a neoclassical mansion across the way.
She peered into the street. No sign of reporters. Wel, she deserved some compensation for having Ashby Barber as a father. Requests for media permits to camp outside their house had to go through a special government-approval process. It had been like that ever since the national tabloids attacked her father – the trustworthy face of the government’s Separation Survival Campaign –
for falsifying his daughter’s Pure test.
It was warmer today. A reminder that they’d already passed the first official day of spring. Sparrows and finches rustled in the sycamore trees lining the avenue.
Ana propped herself on the angular bike seat. She hadn’t ridden for a couple of years, and she felt awkward and sily in the old jeans she’d found. They inched up her ankles, chafed 66
her inner thighs and made it hard to bend her knees. She wobbled off the pavement, fumbling to get her feet on the pedals. But then she was off. Her sense of balance, the pedals. But then she was off. Her sense of balance, the sensation of the pressing wind, the feeling of freedom, were al at once un-forgotten.
Ana sailed to the end of the road. Without stopping, she careened left on to Hampstead Lane. The ten-foot-high wal running the perimeter of the heath loomed on her right. The wind whipped up around her. Beyond the wal, it soughed through the heath trees. She shuddered and pedaled harder.
The south-eastern checkpoint was just like the south-western checkpoint. It consisted of two square cabins on either side of the road, harbouring two guards. The pavements behind the cabins were sealed off, making it impossible to get in or out of the Community without getting your ID checked and logged.
The road to the checkpoint inclined steeply. Ana concentrated on getting her out-of-practice thigh muscles to complete the uphil task. She stil hadn’t found a feasible reason that would induce the security guard to break the usual run of things and let her through on her own.
A young guard – the one who was always beaming at Ana
– was sitting in the cabin on the left side of the road, the side she would have to go through. Perched on a high stool, he watched projected images flicker on the inner cabin wal.
Ana stopped beside the open window. ‘Helo?’ she caled.
The guard jumped, spiling his coffee. ‘Ow!’ He shook The guard jumped, spiling his coffee. ‘Ow!’ He shook his scalded hand, then mopped up the spilage with his 67
elbow. He turned to see who’d spoken and flinched again.
‘Blimey! It’s you.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump,’ Ana said. The security guard tugged out his earphones and waved a hand in front of his interface. The images ahead of him froze and blurred into slowly shifting patterns.
‘Where’s your car?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘No car. I’m on my bike.’ She wiggled the handlebars to draw attention to them. ‘You’re Neil, right?’
‘Bike?’ He looked at her blankly. Slowly, he took in her jeans, confirmed the lack of a chauffeur-driven car. ‘Oh right. I’ve never seen you on a bike before . . . Yeah, I’m Neil,’ he said, turning red. Ana smiled. She handed him her ID stick.
‘What’s that for?’
‘Uh . . . to get through?’
‘But who are you with?’
‘Nobody, just me.’
Neil seemed totaly baffled.
‘Listen,’ she said, leaning forward, suddenly coming up with an idea. ‘You heard the news this morning about Jasper Taurel’s abduction, right? And you know I was bound to Jasper yesterday . . . Wel, Emily what’s-her-bound to Jasper yesterday . . . Wel, Emily what’s-her-name
– you know, the TV presenter – is meeting me on the other side. She’s been in contact with Jasper’s kidnappers, and she’s organising a special live broadcast offering them a chance to be interviewed about their cause, in exchange for bringing Jasper back.’
‘Cool,’ Neil said.
68
‘It’s al totaly secret. No one can know, or the kidnappers wil get cold feet. You have to let me through, OK?’
‘Er . . .’ Neil rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You could get me in big trouble for this.’
‘It’s not ilegal for me to leave the Community by myself, is it?’
‘Not ilegal, but I’l have to flag it up,’ he said.
‘Flag it up?’ Ana didn’t like the sound of that.
‘Yeah, and then we’l both be questioned and it might mean forms to fil in.’ Neil began to frown.
‘Forms?’ Ana echoed. She leant into the window, opening her eyes wide and pouting. ‘Jasper’s life is at stake here, I think that’s worth a little form or two, don’t you?’
Neil turned away blushing. He fumbled about with Ana’s ID stick then, avoiding her gaze, handed it back to her un-scanned.
un-scanned.
‘Go,’ he said, gesturing towards the hil. ‘But you’ve only got a couple of hours. You gotta be back before I clock off at six.’
‘Thank you, thank you, Neil.’ Ana jumped on the narrow bike saddle, squeezed between the booth and the barrier, and pedaled like crazy.
At the roundabout she glanced back. The two security guards stil sat in their cabins. Neil wasn’t panicking and chasing after her. Ana smiled, but at the same time the adrenalin flowing through her turned sticky with anxiety.
She wheeled her bike out of sight and extracted her bag from the metal carrier basket. She changed her blazer for her mother’s leather jacket, then retrieved a bel-shaped hat she’d found in the attic. Once she’d pinned her hair to the 69
top of her head, she puled the hat over to hide it. Lastly, she put in brown contacts, turning her distinct grey eyes a murky taupe. She’d be stuck with the colour for a few days, until the contacts dissolved, but that was no big deal. There were other teenagers in the Community who used them.
Feeling a little more prepared for the City, she launched off the pavement, keeping to the left of the road as she joined the growing flow of pedal-powered contraptions.
Mobile food huts spiled into the street. As people waited to be served they checked mail and web-surfed against boarded-up shop fronts, stal sides and pubs. Every eye-level surface had been whitewashed to facilitate the interface projections. A stench of rubbish mixed with interface projections. A stench of rubbish mixed with burgers and fried onions saturated the air. Ana puled out the sleeve of her blouse from beneath her jacket. She cycled holding the material against her mouth and nose.
The crowd of people invaded her space, making her feel claustrophobic.
Anxiety washed over her in waves. Her eyes darted left and right, expecting an attack at any moment.
After another hundred metres the vilage street descended into Highgate Hil. Ana felt safer as she picked up speed and turned right at the domed church, down Dartmouth Park Hil. The wind pressed into her clothes. Her nervousness began to transform into a sense of excitement and exhilaration.
At Tufnel Park, she veered right folowing the same road for several minutes, until she reached a bridge over the canal into Camden. The slow-moving masses forced her to walk her bike, once again swamped by the crowds.
Alert and wary, she wound her way to Camden’s main artery. She 70
headed for an old railway bridge over Chalk Farm Road, trying to avoid the most demented people who argued with invisible adversaries and jerked or shouted without warning. Oncoming pedestrians jostled and shoved. Her foot acquired a soggy paper bag from the litter-strewn pavement. As she shook it off, somebody thumped into her. She stumbled. A muscular man with a bel dangling from his lip elbowed past without glancing her way. His interface projected the word ‘Chaos’ on the world walking towards him.
Rubbing where he’d bashed her and glancing around to Rubbing where he’d bashed her and glancing around to pre-empt trouble, Ana ploughed onwards, past the last of the brightly painted buildings which rose above jumbled shop fronts, towards a converted market warehouse. Ahead, in the glow of the low orange sun, a dozen creatures floated above the crowds. She squinted to see better. The nine-foot tal people wore white garments that bilowed in the wind.
They had smal faces and long, silvery-white hair. Their interfaces projected something that made the air around them sparkle and glitter. Ana attempted to veer around the eerie street performers, but one of them caught her eye and stopped advancing. The stilted woman crouched before her. In the palm of her hand she carried a
translucent bal. Ana gazed at the bubble. Words projected from it.
The glittery air somehow held them and made them clearly legible.
‘ Things are not what they seem. ’
The woman’s dark eyes gazed deeply into Ana’s. Ana shrunk away. The woman smiled then rose. With a few skil-ful leaps, she caught up with the others.
Ana loosened her grip on the handlebars and wiped her 71
clammy hands on her jeans. Everything in Camden has been turned inside out, she thought. The inner turmoil and instability of the Crazies was splattered across the town.
At the Gilgamesh building she found a parking rack for her bicycle. She programmed in a code to lock the metal release pin between the frame and the back wheel, and release pin between the frame and the back wheel, and stopped to examine the strange hybrid construction.
The ground floor of Gilgamesh was a continuation of the market stals. The next six levels were glossy mirrored windows. A canvas awning hung from the first floor.
Beneath the awning, neon shop signs and torn posters littered the wals.
Ana took a deep breath and headed for the stone-clad entrance. She knew exactly where she was going. Cole Winter had a website advertising wind chimes, which he made and sold. It was located somewhere inside the stone passages.
Oriental takeaway huts lined the tunnel walkways. A smel of noodles and spices wafted on the air. Gradualy, the food stals gave way to booths seling bags, jewelery, and rugs. Ana stopped beside a cylindrical display case and ran her hand over its intricate wood carvings. She didn’t recognise the strange symbols and shapes, but she noticed the wals too were engraved with the same magnificent detail.
As she traced the shapes, she focused on the touch of her fingertips, the way she did when she played the piano. For a moment she tried to empty her mind and absorb the coded language. It was beautiful, even though she didn’t understand it.
A disjointed tune broke her state of mild concentration.
