by Teri Terry
Something glints, and I look closer: silver is double-wrapped around his furry neck. Astra’s old necklace? What on earth is it doing here? I undo it and put it around my own neck under my clothes. The silver is cool against my skin, but somehow it zings, like electricity.
30
I glance at the ticket stamp, faint on my wrist: 49B – then back at the number on the seatback. It’s my seat, but it’s occupied. I clear my throat. ‘Excuse me, I think you’re in the wrong seat.’ A face that is pale even for a Hacker turns towards me, dark eyes wide under a shock of green-streaked hair.
‘Would you mind taking the window seat, instead?’ she says.
I shrug. ‘Sure. Whatever.’
She stands so I can get in, and she’s tiny: I tower over her by a foot at least. It’s an exit row, and for a moment, something about that twinges uneasily. I shrug it aside. Extra foot room – what’s not to like?
I sit down, and elbow the button on the seat arm for the automatic seat belt. Glance back at the girl next to me. Her hands are laced together, knuckles going white.
‘Are you OK?’
She jumps, turns to look at me. ‘Fine. Only…do you mind if we talk while the plane takes off?’
After being ignored by the tight group of twelve smug and happy Hackers in the airport departure lounge that I’d been herded into by Dr Rafferty, I’m about to return the favour and ignore her, but then I really look at her again. She’s breathing is short, sharp gasps. Her pupils are dilated. The engines rev up, and she jumps so much if her seatbelt wasn’t on I’m pretty sure she’d have hit the overhead lockers.
She’s completely freaked out.
‘Don’t like flying?’
‘I hate it. Please don’t tell anyone; it’s totally dys.’
I’m shocked. A Hacker who is afraid to fly? Fear is not allowed in Hackerville. A trace of sympathy registers inside. The others in our group are up and down this side of the plane in a cluster, Dr Rafferty and a PareCo official at the front; none of them are in our eye line. She might get away with it.
‘OK, sure. What do you want to talk about?’
‘Anything that doesn’t involve being here. Who are you, anyhow? Speculation as to why you joined us has been rife.’
‘So I didn’t just imagine that everyone was talking about me.’ Their tattooed eyes had all swivelled in my direction when I got to the airport, and real conversation had died. Vacant looks followed, indicating virtual conversation had taken over. Not possible now as Implants are blocked during flights; something about interfering with communication and navigation systems. So she has to make do with me.
She almost manages to grin. ‘No, it wasn’t all in your mind. We’d been in the same group together since we boarded the transport yesterday; then you appeared through a special door into departures, and you’re not even a Hacker. If that wasn’t enough you had a doctor in tow, and didn’t respond to Implant hellos. We were understandably a little curious.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘I’m Luna. I haven’t got an Implant, so sorry if I ignored anyone earlier. And I was supposed to be in the previous group, but got delayed.’
‘You haven’t got an Implant?’ The shock on her face is as severe as if I’d just said I haven’t got a brain, or a heart, yet somehow still manage to walk and talk all by myself. ‘And you were delayed, and they still let you come? What happened?’
I’m uneasy. What I just said was the Dr Rafferty-approved line; he didn’t say what to do if people ask questions, and they are bound to, aren’t they? Saying as little as possible sounds like a good idea. ‘There was an accident.’ No worries about getting into too much detail; kind of hard when I don’t remember a thing about it.
‘What sort of accident?’ Her eyes are more curious now, less scared, but then we start hitting speed for takeoff, and the fear comes back. She grips the arms of the seat hard, her eyes clenched shut tight as we lift off and the G-force pushes us back into our seats.
‘Flying is supposed to be safer than walking, you know,’ I say, trying to think of something helpful.
‘I’d rather fall over when I’m walking on the ground than drop like a stone from the sky,’ she hisses through gritted teeth.
‘Good point.’ I’d always liked the feeling of speed, and the boom when we break the sound barrier, but tend to not think of being in the sky and hurtling from said sky – it is more the rush of going faster and faster that I like.
‘Talk? Please,’ she says, eyes still shut. ‘About anything.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Marina.’
‘OK, Marina.’ I scan my memory banks for something that’ll distract her. It’s an obvious answer, really, and they’ll find out anyhow, won’t they? Somehow, Hackers always do. ‘How about we each say one surprising thing about ourselves?’
‘You go first,’ she says, her voice gaspy and not quite right.
‘My mother was Astra.’
Her eyes snap open. ‘What? Really? I love her interpretation of black holes. Is that why you’re coming even though you haven’t got an Implant?’
I shrug. ‘Probably. I don’t know. I did rather well on the IQ test also. Now it’s your turn,’ I prompt.
‘You’ve already got the only surprising fact about me. The flying thing. The rest is pretty boring. I’m just a Hacker.’
‘Obviously,’ I say, glancing again at the waves of black swirls around her left eye. ‘But is that all you are – a Hacker?’
She gives me a look, one that says – what else is there?
‘What’s your Hacker kick?’ I ask.
‘I’m into Atlantis mostly. Mermaids, too. Anything to do with the sea.’
We’ve levelled off now. Her colour is starting to come back, but she keeps her eyes turned carefully away from the window, from a London rapidly receding from view. I try not to visibly stare out of the window, wanting to reach out and touch home, one last time. My throat feels tight and it is nothing to do with fear of flying: we’re hurtling towards the unknown.
I turn back to her. ‘Do you know anything about where we’re going?’
‘You missed the info dump, didn’t you? We all got it through our Implants when we arrived in departures. About the trip and the island.’
‘Tell me about it.’
She starts going over what I’ve missed, and both her voice and her colour continue to improve. Is it just a taking off thing? Or maybe talking does help. She explains how we’re flying to South Africa, that Inaccessible Island – nicknamed Inac – is hundreds of miles from there. It is an extinct volcano, only about fourteen square kilometres. That we’re getting a boat from SA because air space is restricted above Inac, as part of a world heritage site.
‘But why is it a no-fly zone?’
‘It’s part of being a reserve: no unnecessary tech is allowed. So no flying.’
‘What about PareCo being there? They’re all tech, tech, tech.’
She shrugs. ‘They’re PareCo.’ As if that says it all.
And I wonder why PareCo are out in the middle of nowhere like this: are they up to things they don’t want anyone to see? It’s got to cost loads to transport people, equipment and supplies. Hex said it was part of them staying neutral, not being under any one country’s control, which makes sense. But there has got to be an easier way to do that.
But I’m excited just the same to see this remote place. ‘This island thing should be just right for you,’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mermaids – an island – the sea…?’ She looks at me blankly. ‘Shouldn’t where we’re going be perfect for all of that?’
She shakes her head a little. ‘Where we’re going, that stuff is real.’
‘Except for the mermaids. So?’
‘Virtual is bet
ter, Luna.’ She gives me a pitying look.
‘How so?’
‘Last I checked, I can’t breathe underwater in a real ocean; last I checked, I couldn’t be a mermaid, either. And I’ve heard that swimming at real beaches is awful. You get sand everywhere, and salt is horrible in your hair.’ There is a sense of repetition, as if she is parroting things she has been told. Her wistful face goes against the words, and the green streaks in her golden hair, like sun on seaweed, say she yearns for it to be real.
Now I give her a pitying look. ‘Try the real world some time. Have you ever been to a real beach?’
She shakes her head. ‘Have you?’
I nod. ‘Astra took me to Brighton once. I couldn’t have been more than four years old, but I still remember.’ And I describe chasing waves on the sand.
She frowns. ‘That isn’t much better than virtual, you know. That beach wasn’t naturally sandy – it was all shingle. They brought the sand in decades ago, before the Preservation Act.’
‘To four-year-old me it felt pretty real.’
‘You could go there again in virtual. At any point in history you want: a sandy beach, or a stony one; even before the new piers were destroyed in the war.’
I shake my head. ‘It wouldn’t be the same. I prefer my own memories.’ My words smart, inside. Whatever happened to me before and after that transport crash, I’ve lost six days. Who knows what might be in the missing bits? It feels like something vital has been stolen, leaving a dull ache behind.
‘Memory is notoriously unreliable: why not see what it was really like?’
‘Who is to say that what is in Virtual Brighton is any more real than my memories? Isn’t it constructed based on someone else’s memories?’
She shakes her head. ‘There’s more to it than that,’ she says, an impatient look in her eyes; one that says if you were a Hacker, you’d understand. ‘Anyhow, you’ll have to find out more about how VeeDubs work if you’re going to work for PareCo.’
‘VeeDubs? What does that mean?’
‘Virtual Worlds, V-W: VeeDubs.’
I sit back again and look out the window, but all there is now is darkness. As if I could do anything useful for PareCo. Until seconds ago I didn’t even know what a VeeDub was. I don’t even know what Hackers really do, apart from the very little Hex has told me, about manipulating code in virtual spaces. VeeDubs, that is.
When we finally get to the approach at Cape Town, Marina goes through the whole panic thing again as the plane lands, and I try to keep her talking until we’re down.
We taxi to the gates, and the No Implants light goes off before the doors open. Marina’s face switches to blank, then comes back again.
‘Thank you, Luna. I really owe you one.’ Her eyes are anxious.
‘Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell anybody.’
But Marina seems to take discharging a debt seriously. Later she introduces me around to the others while we wait for transport to the boat. Hackers every one, and they can’t seem to believe I’m there, without a Hacker mark in sight. That I could possibly be a PareCo intern, like them. So that is what we are now: I’m a PareCo intern. Sounds weird. Why should they believe it when I can’t?
Including Marina and me there are seven girls and six boys; all look about the same age, seventeen or so. Marina also seems to have told them I don’t have an Implant, so now and then one of them talks to me out loud. Slowly, like I’m not quite there.
And she summarises the latest info dump they get on the boat. Over 1500 miles to Inac, so even on the latest and greatest high-speed skimmer it’ll take hours.
When the island finally appears in the distance, our eyes are eager. Inaccessible it is, and not just because of its isolated location. Steep cliffs rise out of the water. As we get nearer there is one narrow strip of beach we can see in the rocky coastline; sheer cliffs above. Marina gasps. ‘Beautiful,’ she whispers.
A smaller boat takes Dr Rafferty and us interns to the beach. We are tossed so on the sea that some of the others are sick, but I’m exhilarated. A tricky approach through rocks, and soon we are standing on the sand, salt in the air, and I breathe in deep to taste it. Surf thunders against the rocks. That and bird cries are all there is to hear. There is no traffic, no buildings or structures of any kind, no pollution. Nothing man-made in sight.
‘So. How is the real thing measuring up?’ I say to Marina, but she doesn’t answer. Her eyes are shining.
‘Luna!’ a voice calls out, and I turn in time to get crushed into an enthusiastic hug, nose crunched against shoulder: Hex’s shoulder. He lets go, holds me at arm’s length. Studies my face as if checking every detail is as it should be, then grins widely. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right.’ He pulls me close again, not so tight this time, and holds me. A warm hug, and I cling to him. My only friend from home in this strange place.
There are footsteps, a throat-clearing sound. ‘Time to go up,’ Dr Rafferty says. He walks towards the cliff, and the air shimmers. Changes. He pushes a button, and doors swing open. ‘Come along then.’
‘A lift? There’s a lift in the cliff?’ I say.
‘Of course there is,’ Hex answers. ‘Did you fancy climbing it instead?’
At a gesture from Dr Rafferty, I get into the lift with Hex. It only takes half a dozen at a time; Marina and some of the others get in with us. She raises an appraising eyebrow at Hex, and winks at me when he’s not looking, and I look at him again. Something is different. Is it just his clothes? He isn’t wearing his usual black jeans and weird scrawled T-shirt, he’s in some sort of soft green tunic that felt good when he hugged me, but looks even better. He’s somehow standing straighter, taller; his eyes are different, too; not so full of humour. More serious. And they’re looking back at mine. He grins and I jump, realise I’ve been staring. I turn away.
The lift zooms up so fast that my stomach lurches; then it swings sideways. Not just a lift, then? Marina is pale and keeps one hand on the side rail, but otherwise seems all right. The lift finally slows, and stops. The doors open.
We step out, blinking, into the light.
31
‘Welcome to Inac, PareCo’s premier Think Tank facility!’ A woman in a white coat beams at us. ‘If you find the Centre uncomfortable in daylight, there are sunglasses available.’ She gestures to a stand, and I and most of the others put them on and stare at the massive open space around us.
We’re in a glass dome, but the walls aren’t smooth: the glass bends and twists in angles, forms prisms that snake together to enclose a football pitch-sized space. They join maybe a few hundred metres above us, and every twist and bend of the glass reflects the sunny sky over and over, blazing sun and cool blue in an endless kaleidoscopic pattern. And underneath it all? Water splashes in an elaborate, statued and carved fountain that even my eyes recognise. ‘The Trevi Fountain? That’s an amazing copy.’
‘Not a copy,’ Hex says.
I frown, turn to him. ‘I’m sure it was destroyed during the third world war.’
He shakes his head. ‘It was taken into protective custody, and re-homed here. You could say it went missing.’
My jaw does that hanging open thing again. I shut it. ‘Serious?’
His eyes twinkle and I don’t know if he is for real, or not.
The white-jacketed beamer must have heard; she walks over, the rest of our group off the next lift in tow, wide smile firmly in place. ‘Yes, that really is the Trevi Fountain! Hidden, as Hex said, and gifted to PareCo by the Vatican for their assistance in rebuilding after the war. Not generally known.’ She winks. ‘Now, Hex: as you’re here, could you take the new interns to check in, please?’
‘Aye aye,’ he says, and swings an arm. ‘This way.’
We follow him across the shining marble floor. As we get closer to a wall we can see that the dazzling g
lass actually juts out in mirrored panels at the lower levels, hiding doors from sight.
We go through a door that leads to a more ordinary hallway, then up stairs to a check-in desk.
‘Gotta go,’ Hex says. ‘My free pass this afternoon to greet you is over. See you at dinner!’ And he’s gone.
We get our room assignments, and head up more stairs. I find my room and open the door to the biggest, most beautiful bedroom I’ve ever seen, but I head straight across to the window. To call it a window is wrong – the entire expansive far wall is glass. And beyond it? The island. We’re at the heart of Inac; PareCo has built on the centre of the extinct volcano that formed the island.
And beyond the PareCo compound is…nothing. Nothing by London eyes, that is – no people, no roads, no buildings. Wild green places stretch on and on to reach the sea, a distant shimmering blue that curves around the island. I’m transfixed. It’s beautiful, and more than anything I want out: to walk to the sea.
Then there is a low beep and the view is gone. Replaced by Marina’s giant smiling face, and I jump out of my skin. Or I would have if it were detachable.
‘Whoa! How’d you do that?’
She laughs. ‘Can I come over?’
‘Sure.’
Her face disappears and a moment later she comes through the door.
‘What the heck was that?’ I ask.
‘It’s an interface screen.’
When I look at her blankly, she walks over and touches the window, and the view vanishes once again. ‘It’s like a giant touch screen. You can put up anything you want on it, too. See?’ And her hands move rapidly, changing the outside view for other scenes: tropical; snowy; a jungle complete with monkeys. ‘Or put up your own photo or photo stream. Or, like I just did, use it to call other rooms or departments. Though most of the time I’d just message an Implant if I want to talk to somebody.’ She shows me how to call up the intern directory, and a list of names appears. ‘Like your friend Hex,’ she says, and points out his name. ‘Isn’t it awesome tech?’ She shuts it down and puts it back to the view of Inac.
