by Teri Terry
I frown. Who could have sent them? I reach for the card, then curse when I catch my finger on a thorn. A drop of blood smears on the envelope when I open it, and I try to rub it off, then suck on my finger.
More lilies on the card. It says the usual Sympathy for your loss, and is signed – by Dr Rafferty. And inside the card is a folded sheet of paper.
I unfold it and scan the printed words quickly, but can’t seem to take them in. Then I read slower, but still the words jumble and dance.
Until two jump out stark and clear: Changed circumstances.
I needed the transfer to London University because of my grandmother’s illness. No grandmother, no transfer.
We agreed to that, didn’t we? And Dad signed the form.
I’m going to Inaccessible Island.
Tomorrow night.
21
Sally being nice is pushing me over the edge.
I finally snap when she insists she must refold my clothes neater in my suitcase so more will fit. ‘Stop fussing! I’ve got plenty. It says they’ll provide clothes anyhow, so I shouldn’t need that much stuff.’
She folds her arms. ‘Fine. Just trying to help,’ she says, and stomps off.
Dad gives me a look, and I sigh. ‘I know, I know. I’ll apologise before I go.’
I shut the case, zip it up. The real reason for not wanting a complete refold in her war against wrinkled clothing? The ANDs tucked away in odd corners of my case. There are more in my bag: who knows if they’ll be accessible on Inaccessible Island. And who knows what Sally’d make of them. Or is it Gecko’s warnings echoing in my ears that make me want to keep it secret?
‘Wish you didn’t have to go so soon,’ Dad says.
‘I know. Me, too.’
‘I’ve got something I want you to have.’ He reaches into a pocket, and takes out a silver necklace. ‘It was your mother’s.’
I hesitate, then take it, wanting to cradle it close and push it away at the same time. The cool, slippery feel of the beads in my fingers brings a rush of memories. She always wore it. She’d let me play with it, get me to count the interlocking silver beads, and trace their intricate patterns. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. She always said she wanted you to have it, to give it to you when you were older if anything ever happened to her. Shall I?’ he says. I nod and hold my hair out of the way while he does up the clasp. He lets go, and the silver slips cool on my skin.
Jason comes in. His imaginatively named soft toy dog is tucked under one arm. ‘Mr Dog wants to come with you,’ he announces.
‘Does he?’ I take him in my hands, hold him to my ear, and listen. ‘I don’t know. He says he likes looking after you.’
‘Well, I don’t need looking after any more.’
‘And I do?’
‘Course. Since you won’t have your brother there.’ He suddenly launches at me for a hug; as my arms go around him and tighten, so does my throat.
He pulls away. ‘That’s settled then,’ he says, and shoves Mr Dog unceremoniously in the already full bag I’m wearing across my body. His nose and paws peek out over the top. Great: Lunatic Luna is guaranteed to make a good impression, once again.
The electric transport pulls away from the drop-off point. I stare at Dad, Sally and Jason through the window, all waving in our version of happy families. Unable to take this in, and I’m fighting not to cry: an extended time away. How long is that? I’m shocked to think I’ll even miss Sally.
There are excited voices around me: all happy to be going, to be joining PareCo’s Think Tank. Hackers, every one of them. A few curious glances are cast my way but I avoid eye contact, and keep quiet.
Then we stop, and Hex gets on. ‘Luna! You’re coming, after all?’ He sits next to me, gives me a hug. ‘Sorry to hear about your grandmother,’ he adds, voice lowered.
‘Thanks.’
‘I didn’t know you were back on for this.’
‘They cancelled my transfer.’
‘You haven’t told Melrose?’
‘No. I just found out, late last night.’ I stare back at him, dismayed I hadn’t thought to call her. She won’t take this well. ‘I’ve been caught up with family today. Is she all right?’
‘Not happy about me going. She’ll be less happy when she knows you won’t be at uni with her, either.’
I sigh; mentally add: And that I’ll be with you instead of her. Best not put it off. ‘Can you tell her for me, and that I’m sorry I didn’t tell her but I only found out last night? Can you be tactful about it?’
‘Tough assignment. But I’ll try.’ He unfocuses, and is gone for so long that I know a heated conversation is being had.
He comes back. ‘She’s OK. Just bent she didn’t know. But then apologised for said bent-ness. You’ve got a dead grandmother free pass on things still.’
I wince. ‘You really need to work on the tact thing.’
We make more stops, and at every one I watch for Gecko. The transport is nearly full now. Maybe he really is crazy; maybe he never was locked up and told he had to come whether he wanted to or not.
Maybe he made it all up.
But then we make one more stop. The door opens, and there he is. Two men stand behind him while he goes through the door.
His eyes are defiant. He walks down the aisle as the door swings shut and locks, and scans the seats. When he sees me, his whole body stiffens. He walks over, nods to Hex. ‘Is it OK if I sit with Luna?’
Hex looks to me. Not sure if it is wise or not, I nod yes.
Hex gets up, moves a few rows back. Gecko takes his seat, a deep frown between his eyes.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m happy to see you, too.’
‘Luna, why are you here?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night: my grandmother died. So I don’t get the transfer to London Uni any more.’
He looks so appalled I almost start to wonder if he knew her. He shakes his head. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thanks. So now I’m off to explore strange new worlds with PareCo; what the hell. It’s not like I was doing anything useful or interesting around here.’
‘We really need to talk. There are too many ears here,’ he says, his voice so low I can barely pick out the words.
‘Don’t worry; we’ll have plenty of time to talk. We’re off for an extended time, remember?’
‘Maybe,’ he says, eyes watchful, body tense.
Then the transport lurches, hard, to the left. It slams – did it hit something, or just stop? – and there are screams. Everything seems caught in a strange slow motion, as arms and legs and the people they’re attached to appear to fly and almost hang suspended in the air. Crash protection kicks in: giant air bags activate to stop people from slamming into each other or the walls.
But I’ve not flown out of my seat. A vice grip is around me; there is pain in my arm, my ribs. Gecko: he’s braced us both into this seat. He knew this was going to happen?
Then the emergency exits activate. Before anyone else can react he’s pushed me through the one next to our seat. He follows me out, and pulls me further into the night.
There is crying, shouting, sirens. Others are crawling out of the wreckage and I scan them anxiously until I see Hex emerge. ‘Run!’ Gecko says, still pulling my arm, almost dragging me away from the electric track.
‘What?’
‘I said, run. Run as if your life depends on it.’
But I’m stuck as if in syrup; in shock, confusion; my feet aren’t working, and I’m not sure I want them to. ‘Run? Why? What’s happening?’
He turns back. ‘You have to come with me: you’re one of us. Save yourself!’ The night is cold, clear; the stars are out, and show the silver etched on his skin, so like my mother that a different sor
t of pain catches inside.
‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about? I’m one of what?’
‘You’re one of us! That’s how you found me in the void. How you left through the wall of my S’hack.’ He reaches out his fingers, lightly touches around my left eye. His touch makes me shiver. ‘The marks, Luna. They’re here, part of your skin. Silver, like Astra, like me. I knew you must have them: only S’hackers can see them, and you saw mine.’
‘No. NO! This is crazy!’
And he turns me around violently to face the crashed transport, a broken glass window. Jagged glass reflects the moon, the stars – and distorts my white face. With pale grey eyes. Shot with silver, and silver winds around my left eye. Silver, like my mother? Like Gecko.
I’m shaking my head, denying what I can see. Am I injured; is some sort of concussion affecting my vision?
‘This can’t be right. How can I have marks on my skin that I didn’t even know about? They’re tattoos, aren’t they?’
‘Run now, talk later.’
‘No! I’m not going anywhere until I understand.’ And I struggle to pull away from his grip on my shoulders.
He lets go. ‘How old were you when your mother died?’ he says, words fast and desperate.
‘Four.’
‘You must have been a S’hacker even that young: they appear and grow as you manipulate the void. Can’t you remember anything about it?’
‘No!’ I deny his words, even as my mind sees the stars, the moon. We sat on the moon. But that was just a dream. Wasn’t it?
Sirens are closer now; Gecko whips round at the sound.
‘Run. You must! Please,’ he says. Somehow the desperation in his voice dislodges the shock just enough to make my feet start moving forwards, Gecko half pulling me along.
But as we reach the next junction my feet slow as reason returns. ‘Wait. Where we are going?’
He turns, pulls me close in the briefest of hugs. ‘Please, Luna. You have to stay safe. We need you. I need you.’ He looks back the way we came, and curses. ‘Trust me,’ he says, and leans down, and lightly kisses me so fast I don’t have time to work out whether to pull away or kiss him back. He points me to a dark lane, slaps something cold on my wrist. ‘Meet me in my S’hack when you can. Now, run to the end. A van will come. Get into it. Go!’
And I stumble down the lane in the darkness, mind reeling, not even sure why I’m doing what he says. I look back: he’s going the other way? And there are running footsteps, chasing after him. I stop, unsure what to do, when a dark van rips around the corner at the end of the lane, pulls in next to me, and a door opens. Arms grab and drag me inside. The door slams shut.
A man – twenty-something – stares back at me.
‘Who are you?’ I demand, caught halfway between anger and fear.
‘You’ve got Gecko’s tracker,’ he says. ‘Who the hell are you?’ An angry voice. Gecko’s tracker? And he reaches across and pulls the ring of metal Gecko put on me off my wrist.
‘I… I…he put it on me, told me to come here. I don’t understand. What’s going on?’
‘Where’s Gecko?’ another voice says. A girl. I turn to face her and despite everything else, almost gasp. Her hair is so white-blond it almost glows in the darkness, her skin even paler. ‘Where is he?’ she demands, panic in her voice.
‘Some people were chasing him; he ran the other way. Who was chasing him? Why?’
They look at each other.
The man curses. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. There’s nothing we can do for him now.’ The girl starts to argue, but he gets behind the wheel, and soon the van is pulling away, away.
I plaster my face to the window, but can see nothing following in the dark night. What is happening? Who are these people?
Where are you, Gecko?
There are four questions of value in life…
What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made?
What is worth living for and what is worth dying for?
Lord Byron
22
I’m shaking.
‘She may be in shock,’ the man says, and hands me a blanket. When I just stare back at him, he tucks it around me. Heywood: he said his name was Heywood. And the girl so pale she doesn’t look quite human is Crystal. She’s a silver Hacker: she got out of the van first, and I glimpsed her silver tattoos, different from any I’ve seen before – like interlocking snowflakes in her skin.
The look she gives me is colder than ice as they argue what to do with me. ‘You shouldn’t have brought her here,’ she hisses, and Heywood draws her further away. Their voices go lower and I can’t hear them any more.
I pull the blanket tighter around and try to stop shaking, to quell the panic inside. Despite Gecko bracing us before the transport crashed, pain has settled into my ribs and chest, and it hurts to breathe. That was no accident, was it?
What is this place? The van drove down unrecognisable dark streets for an age, then through a back gate. Once the gates clanged shut, Heywood pulled me out of the van, not unkindly, down a long garden and through a back door. Outside, under the stars, I kept my face turned away from Crystal, to hide the silver in my own skin. Heywood couldn’t see them; his face is devoid of Hacker marks of either kind, and Gecko said only S’hackers could see them. S’hackers…like me? No, it can’t be, it can’t. My thoughts veer away from that and back to here.
We went down a flight of stairs; we’re in a basement. It’s sparsely furnished, dimly lit. No windows. Crystal locked the door after us, tucking keys away in her pocket. The air is cold, damp. I sneeze.
Crystal stomps out of the room, and Heywood comes over to the sofa I’m on, pulls up a chair. Gives back my bag that he took earlier. I’d been wearing it across my body so it came with me. Mr Dog is still sticking out of the top, but hind legs up this time: hiding his head in the sand? Good idea.
‘Sorry about that,’ Heywood says. ‘Just had to check for communication devices. Crystal has volunteered to make us some tea,’ he adds. I can hear loud clattering noises as cups are slammed about in the next room. He grins wryly. ‘Well, not so much volunteered, exactly. Now. Who are you? Why are you here?’
I stare back at him. ‘I’m here because you kidnapped me.’
An eyebrow goes up. ‘Oh, I see. And here I thought we rescued you. You were wearing our tracker; it was activated, sending a “please rescue me” signal straight to us, you see.’
‘OK, then; perhaps this is all a simple misunderstanding. Just unlock the door, and I’ll be on my way.’
‘I’m afraid things aren’t quite as simple as that.’
Crystal stomps back in, puts a tray of tea things on a table. She perches on the sofa next to me, and I shrink away. Heywood holds out a mug. ‘Go on. It’ll make you feel better.’ But I don’t take it.
He shrugs, puts it down again.
‘What have you done to Gecko?’ Crystal demands. I turn to look at her: palest blue eyes, white, almost translucent skin, but despite that, oddly beautiful. The cold fury in her eyes hides something else; some fear and feeling for Gecko. Ah. Is she a girlfriend? It twists oddly inside to think so.
‘What have I done to Gecko? What has he done to me?! I didn’t ask to come here.’
She shrugs impatiently, looks to Heywood. ‘She’s obviously an idiot.’
Heywood shakes his head. ‘Don’t be so fast to judge. Gecko must have sent her to us for a reason; we just have to work out what it is.’ He turns back to me. ‘As soon as we do that, you’re free to go. If you want to,’ he says to me, smiling kindly.
So, it’s good cop, bad cop, is that it? I can play along.
I let my face soften, just a little, and look back at him. ‘I don’t know why I’m here. Perhaps if I knew who you were, I might have a better idea?’
‘Fair comment,’ Heywood says, and when Crystal starts to sputter he raises a hand. ‘You trust Gecko, don’t you?’ he says to her. ‘So trust who he sends to us.’ He turns back to me. ‘I’ll answer your questions if you answer a few of mine, first,’ he says. ‘Deal?’
‘Depends what you ask me.’
He grins. ‘Smart answer, and an honest one. First question: who are you?’
No reason to hold back what he can easily discover. Once the fact that I’m missing hits the news, it’ll be everywhere. ‘I’m Luna Iverson.’
He tilts his head. ‘That name is somehow familiar. Why?’
I shrug. ‘How should I know?’
He unfocuses a moment, comes back. ‘Ah, I see. Daughter of Astra; correct?’
I nod, and Crystal looks at me with something like awe, but it vanishes so fast I’m not sure I saw it.
‘Well. Nice to meet you, Luna. I’m Roy Heywood – generally known as Heywood, as you know. And Crystal you met earlier. Now, how do you know Gecko?’ he asks.
‘We were at the PareCo test centre together. We’re sort of friends.’
Heywood raises an eyebrow. ‘You must be more than just friends to have been sent to us.’
Crystal bristles, and I can feel pink rising in my cheeks. He held me, he kissed me; he said he needed me. Wait: what were his exact words? He said we need you; I need you. Is this the ‘we’?
‘Look, I don’t understand why I ended up here. Gecko told me he was a prisoner, that he was being forced to go to Inaccessible Island. I gather that crash tonight was no accident; that you were meant to be his getaway. So why did he send me in his place?’
‘Exactly: that is the question. Gecko hasn’t been able to report to us in detail for some time; his Implant is being monitored. So he used code to activate an emergency plan, but couldn’t tell us everything that has been going on. You must know more than you are letting on, Luna,’ he says.
