Mind Games

by Teri Terry

  You must have joined with Marina, he Implant-whispers.

  Just for the first time. I want to try to do things myself, I answer the same way. And I wonder, in a closed-off place: is this because of what Marina said, that I should only do this with somebody I really trust? But I trust Hex. Don’t I? But he’s been weird since I’ve been here. Something – someone – makes me hold myself back: Melrose. Guilt stirs inside. I don’t know quite what is happening with them, but I can’t do anything as intimate as that with my friend’s boyfriend.

  Well, let’s see if you can cast a few spells.

  He explains, and I start to see: spells are just code changes, cast outwards, and concentrated on the object or person subject to the spell. And like the aquamarine sea, once I know how to work the numbers, it’s there.

  Colours are the easiest for me: a spell cast out that changes colour. Blue, once again. I change a pebble; Hex’s shirt; a chair.

  ‘I wonder if I could change the entire castle?’ I ask him.

  ‘Doubt it. But give it a try.’

  As it turns out it’s not any harder with something big than something small. Instead of concentrating the spell on a point, a single object, I set a chain reaction. It starts at my feet and fans out – the floor, the walls, accelerating as it goes.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’

  ‘What?’ I turn back to Hex. He’s blue from head to toe, clothes and skin – bright, deep blue, like a Smurf. I can’t help it: I laugh. ‘Sorry, mate. I didn’t do it on purpose. Was it because I cast it into the castle while you were standing in it?’

  ‘It was like a multiplying spell. I wonder if…? Come on,’ he says, and we step out of the castle and look around, and – as far as we can see? Blue. Landscape, trees, sea, people: all the same shade of blue, all sending Implant protests in our direction.

  ‘Whoops.’ I turn back to Hex. ‘How do I fix this?’

  ‘No idea. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He’s not happy, and it’s nothing to do with being blue. Is it because I’ve taken his thing – casting spells – and somehow done something different with it, something he can’t do?

  ‘I’m sorry, Hex. I don’t know what to do!’

  He shrugs. ‘Working on it,’ he says. After a while he returns to his usual self, then Implant-explains to the others how to de-Smurf themselves and their surroundings. Gradually the world returns to normal.

  There’s a ding.

  Time for someone else.

  And so Sparky shows me how to blow things up. Blood tries to show me how to smell the blood of the living, the blood of the dead, but when we get to the latter it so nauseates me that I refuse. Other skills follow: I learn how to hack doors and computer defences; and one of my favourites – how to fly.

  My tiring body back in the PIP is always there, a separate awareness. It reminds me to take ANDs now and then to prevent nausea from returning. It is getting weaker and weaker, sending protests, but I’m pushing them away. I don’t want to stop. Each change brings something new to learn, to master, and I don’t want to miss a single moment.

  Not everyone gets everything. I’m the only one so far who has managed to be a full mermaid; more have managed Hex’s spells, at a basic level at least. We keep vague track of our successes and failures via Implants. And the only one who has done it all – apart from Blood’s skills, and that is because I didn’t want to – is me.

  And somehow this new joy – manipulating the grids, the beautiful numbers, the things I can do that others can’t – is like a drug. Another one to add to all the ANDs I’m taking.

  I’m wired up to something amazing, and I never, ever want it to stop.

  38

  A hand pushes at my shoulder. ‘Luna?’

  I ignore it.

  It pushes again. LUNA! Via Implant shout, and that you can’t ignore. I jump and open my eyes. It’s Marina? Her eyes are anxious.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Sure. Fine. Why?’

  ‘You’ve been sitting there, rocking back and forth and humming. You freaked Zippy out and he whispered a message to me.’

  ‘I… I…’ I look between Marina and a boy whose vaguely familiar face is as anxious as hers. Is he Zippy? Yes. He’s in Hex’s class. My latest pairing in the skills-sharing world, he was supposed to be teaching me…it was something about… I can’t remember what it was. I’ve been in my grid, lost in it. With the numbers, beautiful numbers…

  LUNA!

  I open my eyes again.

  ‘You were doing it again: humming.’

  ‘Really, I’m fine.’ I’m lying. I’m the opposite of fine, unfine, so lacking in fine that my mind can’t even come up with a word that fits. I stand and I’m shaking, my hands are shaking. I’ve been zoning out, humming, rocking back and forth, and—

  The shock slams into me, and I gasp. ‘That’s what Nanna used to do.’

  ‘Your grandmother? What did she do?’

  I look at Marina and realise I said it out loud. I didn’t mean to, but I did.

  My head is pounding and the double awareness – of here, of my body in the PIP – is slipping back and forth. It’s exhausted – my body. I’m completely exhausted.

  I’ve got to get out of here.

  The void is in my mind: the vast darkness. Peace. Away from all the clamouring numbers; the strands of the grid.

  I start walking away, up the hill. Marina follows.

  ‘What is it, Luna?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think maybe I need a break from here.’

  ‘Yes. Good idea. I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, don’t miss out. I’ll just unplug for a bit.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘No. I want to be alone!’ I snap, and her face is hurt. ‘Sorry. Really, I’ll be fine. I’m going to turn my Implant to no messages, so don’t worry if I don’t answer.’

  I do it as I say the words: Implant off. No messages. I even find the emergency message override function and disable it. As I do, I spot tendrils, a data trail: where does it lead? I follow the trail from my Implant to PareCo, along a hidden channel, and soon puzzle it out. It has tracking functions: every time I use my Implant they track what I do, and where I am. I disable that as well, and hide my interference: all the hacking practice here has honed my skills.

  We get to the door.

  ‘It’s only a few hours to dinner,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you there?’

  ‘Sure. OK.’

  I pull the door open and step straight into the void.

  The void? That’s weird. I struggle to focus on why it’s weird, thoughts slippery. Ah: this door should have gone to the MD Gateway, not the void? At least, it did when we came through it the other way.

  I’d been thinking I wanted the void, and here I am. Hackers can’t do that; I’ve learned a lot about what they can and can’t do lately. They can manipulate code in worlds and spaces built out of the void. They can’t control the void. Access to the void and creating new worlds within it are completely up to PareCo and their infinite memory and processing speed. Humans can’t do that.

  So how did I get here?

  Who cares? I’m happy to be here. I stand still, breathe deeply. There is a peace here that is nowhere else. Infinity. Nothingness. Contradictory, yet both are here at the same time.

  I wander about. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be here forever? It’s supposed to be terrifying to be lost in the void. But it’s so tranquil, so beautiful. All the tumult inside me quiets down.

  I swat in front of my eyes. A bead – I saw a silver bead? Like it was following me around. I don’t want it to; I want peace.

  I lie down. It’s so soothing, so lovely.

  Back in the PIP, my heart feels fluttery.

  The
re are footsteps there, voices. I don’t want voices; I want silence. My body is annoying with its complaints, its senses.

  ‘Not much longer, I should think.’ A cheerful voice. ‘She’ll be ready soon.’

  With a huge effort, I open my eyes in the PIP to a slit. Dr Rafferty is there, and a woman in a white coat. They’re checking screens. Murmuring words that aren’t making it through any more, to ears full of fuzzy cotton confusion.

  Listen, I tell myself, and I try, but it’s hard. I sit up in the void, open my eyes, willing myself to concentrate back in the PIP.

  …the beta Implant scheme…drug interaction…harvesting…

  They leave, and I’m relieved. All those troubling words worry at my thoughts, and like the phantom beads I swat away, I want them to leave me alone. I want to sleep in the void.

  But something pricks and prods inside. I stay sitting up, and look around me: at the unending darkness, the little silver lights that dance. At forever.

  They’re pretty, the flickering points of silver light. They seem completely random most of the time. But not now.

  Phantom spine spiders run down my back.

  They’re forming letters, spidery silver letters. Too vague and insubstantial at first to read, then coming together, bit by bit.

  Luna.

  I smile. Yes, that’s who I am.

  It’s time to go.

  Go where? I frown.

  Go back to your body. You need each other.

  Yes, I should. Shouldn’t I? Go back to my messy body with the fluttery heart and cotton ears.

  But it’s hard. I’m so weak.

  Go back pulses in silver. Do it now.

  All right. The easy way, this time. I tell myself to reach to unplug back in the PIP. It’s not simple like it usually is; my hands feel weighted down. But at last I manage it. I push away the connection, and I’m back. Back in my body.

  It’s not a great reunion.

  I go to sit up and don’t quite make it, and have to push up with my arms. Finally I manage it, trembling from the effort.

  Eyes like sandpaper, whole body weak. Like a newborn kitten is weak. How long have I been plugged in? I frown. We were unplugging for dinner, weren’t we? But did we? Thinking back, I can’t remember. It was like it was always about to be dinner. But was it ever?

  I manage to stand on shaky legs, holding myself up against the PIP sofa, then take a few tentative steps to the PIP monitor. I used to check my dad’s monitor all the time. This one is different, but enough alike that I can work it out.

  Forty days. It’s been forty days since I unplugged? There’s been life support on, giving all the nutrients I need to survive. But with the double awareness I always have when plugged in, my body never sleeps like the others do.

  So: I haven’t slept for forty days. That can’t be good.

  Bed. Sleep. Yes; that’s what I need. I leave the PIP, head down the hall on wobbly legs, one hand on the wall, then make for the stairs that go up to my room. There are voices in the stairwell above.

  I go down the stairs instead of up. Hiding, but why?

  I feel kind of floaty, like I’m still not really in my body. It feels light, wrong. I pull at my tunic; these clothes feel wrong.

  After footsteps disappear down the hall above, I climb the stairs, up and up to my floor, each step taking more effort than the last. I make it to my room, shut the door. Take off all the PareCo stuff, put on my own jeans, top, everything my own. They’re heavier, but they’re more me. I feel more anchored to the world in them somehow.

  Time for bed?

  But I stare out the window, at the island. The green plateau and sparkling sea beyond. It’s another beautiful day, almost like PareCo programme the weather to ensure their giant domed entrance hall always reflects sunshine in an endless pattern as designed.

  And I’m overwhelmed by feelings of enclosure – the glass, the walls, the soft, warm blankets and pillows that are calling for me, all in muted colours like the clothes I discarded – all closing in on me in a beautiful, plush, crushing PareCo embrace. Can I be claustrophobic, in this giant bedroom?

  Yes. I want out of here, desperately.

  I find the map of the building that Marina minimised the day we arrived on my interface. At the bottom of our stairs is an emergency exit.

  Before I even finish the thought I’m out of my room, down the hall. I hear footsteps coming the other way, and duck into a doorway. I peek out. They stop at a door, and open it. Is that my door? Are they going in my room?

  I don’t want to be delayed. I need air, fresh air, real air. I wait until the door closes behind them, and change my plan. I won’t go down the closest stairs in case they’re looking for me; I’ll carry on along here, and take the next ones.

  I pass door after door – our wing of bedrooms, dining hall, kitchens, unlabelled places. I stop to rest now and then. There is strong temptation inside to curl up in a corner. Just here, on the floor. Sleep. Who’d know? Or lost in a corner of one of these endless rooms. I try a few door handles; all locked.

  When I reach the next stairwell I’m feeling all light again, even in my jeans, and moving slower and slower. That’s what saves me.

  There are motion detector cameras here, like the ones in my school. The ones I outwitted so many times to cut class. Move in slow motion, no sudden sounds or movements, and they don’t engage. Just as well my maximum speed right now is like syrup.

  So many stairs down. Too many stairs: I stop, sit on the top of a flight, head in hands. I can’t, I can’t…

  My chest tightens; I can’t breathe. I have to get out of here. I pull myself to my feet, slowly, using the banister. Keep going, Luna, you can do this.

  And finally, I reach the bottom of the last set of stairs. And what is there? A dead end. A blank brick wall.

  I almost scream in frustration. Did I get it wrong when I looked at that map? Wasn’t there an emergency exit at the bottom of all the stairwells? Not a bloody brick wall. The mere thought of having to climb all those steps up again has tears leaking out and trickling down my cheeks, but I’m too tired to raise a hand to wipe them away. I could link to my interface screen with my Implant to check the map, see if there is another way, but if I use my Implant, the tracking functions will re-engage. They’ll know what I’m doing, and where I am.

  A brick wall. An Implant.

  I stare at it: it looks like an ordinary brick wall, but why would there be a brick wall here? Why would stairs lead to a wall? It doesn’t make sense.

  What if it isn’t real?

  There were brick walls at the test centre – ones I couldn’t see, but Gecko could, because he had an Implant and I didn’t: the wall he saw was an Implant image. I’ve got an Implant now. Though Gecko said Jezzamine and Danny – who also had to take ANDs to plug in, like me – could tell Implant images weren’t real. This brick wall looks real enough.

  But Dr Rafferty said I’ve got a beta Implant – different from the ones Jezzamine and Danny would have had. Has PareCo managed to overcome the fault?

  But how would they know I might try to escape, to modify my Implant to stop me with a fake wall? Though maybe they didn’t. Maybe the emergency exits always have false brick walls, and they just disable them if there is a real emergency. Maybe this is coincidental, and they’ve given me other tests – fake walls, or fake people. Or fake anything, really. How can I even know what is and isn’t real any more?

  Gecko told me that the way to get through a force field was not to push. I struggle to remember exactly what he said. It was something like merging with it, to get through.

  But Gecko tried, and he couldn’t overcome what he could see with his eyes – couldn’t push into the wall, like I could – even when he knew what it was. So how can I?

  Wait. Can I see what surrounds m
e through my silver grid, even though I’m not in virtual now? I close my eyes, and reach for silver: it wavers, a ghostly shadow. I focus on it, pull the strands, and it strengthens. I stand in my grid. Open my eyes. As in the VeeDubs, the silver grid overlies all I can see. The Implant brick wall image is still there, but twinned with a strange pulsing light. It is a force field.

  I place my hands against it gently. Like at the test centre, there is a little give, then it pushes back. Again and again I try, different ways, different approaches, but every time it pushes back.

  I lean against the wall, and give up. I can’t do it. All I want is to rest, not solve problems; not even move. The silver fades away, and my mind vagues out.

  I slip into waking sleep. It’s warm. Warm like that force field at the test centre. Warm…sleep…and I fall.

  What? Jerked awake, I spin around. I’m on the other side of the wall. Did I fall asleep against it, then pass through? Is that the secret of how to get through a force field without pushing: fall asleep? I touch the wall and my hand easily passes into it. So, it’s a one-way problem: from this side, easy to get through. From the other side, difficult.

  I turn away from the wall, and there is the door. To the outside.

  I can’t see any alarms. Perhaps they thought a fake brick wall was enough? I reach a shaking hand to push the door. It opens, and I step out into dazzling sunshine.

  I close the door and lean against it, and breathe, deep into my lungs: fresh air, real air. The knots inside start to unwind, just a little.

  I walk. Away from PareCo, out on the volcanic plateau. Although it looks almost flat from the windows above, close up it is rough walking, picking an uneven path through scrubby low trees, hopping between clumps of grasses to avoid wet ground between them. Bird calls, my hard breathing, and the ever-louder surf crashing into rocks are the only sounds, as I get closer and closer to the cliffs and the sea. I jump at a movement, and focus in time to see a small bird run across the ground like a mouse.

  I stumble, last remains of energy fading. I don’t know why I keep going. If I look back I can still see the glass eyes of PareCo staring at me: is that it?