Mind Games

by Teri Terry

  ‘PareCo faked my death, and extracted my brain from my body. My body is missing, presumed dead. My brain has been tanked and linked to a game world, where I’ve been incarcerated all these years, until my daughter helped me break out. Likewise, the PareCo interns on Inac are being brained – brains extracted and linked through bio tanks to run game worlds. Their bodies are stored in bio tanks until they’re shipped out, presumably to be sold for organs and other parts on the black market. The NUN tests have been manipulated by PareCo to get the best brains for their so-called Think Tanks, providing games that keep the populations of the world sedated and compliant. NUN avoids acknowledging what is being done in their name! Perhaps if you weren’t so worried about being considered rational all the time you might have noticed what is going on under your noses.’

  Cries of irrational, preposterous and other ruder things are called out around the house.

  ‘There was a scientific resistance group I was part of – the Council of Scientists. Some of you will know about that.’ Glances are exchanged here and there. ‘But in my absence, it’s been warped by one who is hungry for power – she was using my daughter to try to destroy the void.’

  I wave. ‘Yep, that was me. Sorry about that.’

  Arguments break out, and I start backing towards the silver door before they decide to arrest me.

  That’s when it happens.

  I don’t see her come in. She’s just suddenly there – in the midst of it all. Standing and spinning: Tempo.

  I try to call out, to warn everyone. A few words escape, then are pushed back down my throat. She’s spinning time.

  Media spots the danger. She tries to stop her, but I don’t see what happens next.

  Time is jumbled, and swirling back, back, back…

  Silver. I’m caught in silver, beautiful silver. Spinning faster and faster. The void with me, like the moon pulling the oceans. Soon it will be destroyed, all of it. And I’ll fall.

  But Tempo was wrong to think we could do this and just start over. I see that now. Our world is linked to the void, isn’t it? Just like I exist both here and there at the same time; like how my real body bled when I was injured in a game world. How can one continue without the other?

  I’m sad, but I can’t stop.

  Faster, faster…

  ‘Luna?’

  I frown. Who is that?

  ‘Luna, come back!’

  Jason. He’s in my S’hack.

  My thoughts are muddy, confused. How is he in my S’hack? I concentrate, try to work out what is happening.

  Tempo? She’s taken me back in time. To when I was spinning. Why do I remember Jason being there if that is true? That came after.

  It’s the silver. That’s how I know. She can’t hide: the time vortex is part of the void’s silver, part of me.

  I have to stop. I have to make her take time forward to where it should be.

  I cry. Silver tears. I can’t stop; I can’t…

  So much beautiful power. It needs a place to go, or I’ll implode and fall, taking the void and all its worlds with me.

  I must stop, but how?

  I concentrate, hard, on the cause of it all: on Tempo, and the time vortex she spins. I focus: and then, like she feels the scrutiny, she’s in my mind.

  Luna, don’t fight me. This is your destiny.

  Destroying everyone and everything?

  Your S’hacker name IS Anarchy! This is what you’ve been searching for. Destroy, and then we can start again. Our way. The S’hacker way.

  No! I say, but even as I protest, I spin faster, overwhelmed with more and more power. It won’t be long now.

  You cannot deny it. You were made for this.

  Luna, don’t listen to her. Astra’s voice? Tempo is wrong. I was wrong. Join with me, Luna. Let me help you.

  She wants to link grids, and I’m scared. She made me to be this weapon. What will she do? Will she take control? She spent so many years, so much effort, to reach out to me from her prison. But was that for me, or the weapon she could use?

  I struggle inside to find the answer to all my doubts; a reason to trust with all the reasons not to.

  I’ve been in her memories. I know what she’s done, but I also know how she feels. I don’t know what she will do, and I’m terrified of that. But I can’t stop on my own; I need help.

  Please, Luna; let me help you. I love you.

  Is that enough?

  Her silver grid is there, next to mine.

  A shift, inside me: to forgiveness. And a leap of faith.

  We join.

  Together, Tempo cannot resist us, Astra whispers. She lends me her strength to help dissipate the silver: it flies off me in sweeping arcs as my spinning slows. Tempo’s dim protests are ignored. Most of the silver goes back to the void, where it belongs: some we hold between us. Astra uses more and more of her strength to do these things, even as I see that hers is failing.

  She’s sad – a three-letter word that doesn’t begin to cover this agony of feeling as it washes through us both. I’m sorry to leave you so soon, Luna. But I’m not really alive, am I? That prison I’ve been in all these years was made of me. Shattering it began this ending; my virtual self can’t survive outside it, and I have no body to return to. Be strong.

  My pain turns to anger that wants to lash out, to destroy Tempo with the silver we’ve harnessed. But Astra has another idea, a better one. We make Tempo a S’hack, a small one. One made of Tempo’s own silver essence so she’ll never be able to escape. We extract it from her without needing PareCo surgery, using silver from the void. And we imprison her inside it.

  As soon as Tempo is locked away, screaming, time unravels like a snapped elastic. Back to the way things were before.

  With one difference. Astra is fading. She is pale, then translucent. Silver shines through her hair and eyes.

  I give her what she wants, whispered inside with the name she most wants to hear. I love you too, Mum.

  Was that what she was waiting for? She’s gone.

  Now NUN appear to be taking heed of all she said. Media takes over where Astra – Mum – left off. Is it what PareCo has done with the interns on Inac that has shocked them into opening their eyes and ears, or that PareCo had teamed up with that madwoman, Tempo, who nearly made me destroy us all?

  Either way, I’m not sure how much good it will do. Does the world prefer fantasy to reality?

  I leave them to it. First I deliver Jason, whole and well, to Dad.

  Then I go to Gecko.

  49

  The second I’m through the silver door to Gecko’s world, we join silver grids. Linked as we are, thoughts and emotions, he sees and feels it all – everything that has happened.

  I’m sorry about your mother. He holds me. Gecko is full of wonder at all that Astra did, but not why. She loved you, Luna.

  Yeah. She really did. And I’m sorry about Crystal.

  We’re full of sorrow, both of us, but I have no jealousy for Crystal. I see how he feels about her. How he feels about me. But my sorrow is edged with guilt.

  It wasn’t your fault. With either of them.

  I’m dangerous. I was made to destroy. I even failed at that.

  No. You’re a S’hacker. No one tells you who you are, or what you’re for. You choose your path, your name.

  And I chose to stop.

  Yes.

  Your body, Luna? he reminds me. You need to get out of there.

  Oh, yeah. I unplug back in the PIP, but like before, we’re still linked. We’re both here in my body, and in the VeeDub together. What now?

  You know what I have to do. I can’t do it without you.

  I know. The only thing Gecko has ever wanted is freedom. He doesn’t want to be like this. But that doesn
’t make it any easier.

  Gecko taps into PareCo security through my Implant channel. There’s a lot of fuss happening. They really want to find you. Let’s see what we can do to confuse them. He sets off alarms in a path leading away from where we’re going. The one place I never want to go, ever again.

  Door 427.

  We hack the door again – but this time we unlock every door in the Centre. They won’t know where to check first.

  Gecko takes over my body so I don’t have to do it. I could fight him, but it is his decision. His right. I stay weak, dormant.

  Never, ever weak. His thoughts caress me. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.

  Is that why I’m crying?

  No. That’s because you’re also the loveliest person I’ve ever known.

  I stare at the gleaming equipment, the dark secrets contained in this room and many others like it. This can’t happen here, not in this nightmare place. Don’t let this lab be the last thing we see together. Can you make it slow?

  He pauses, peeks into my thoughts. A mental smile. OK.

  He does what he has to do.

  We creep back to the room with the bio body tanks, and across it to the lift. We press the button; go in, and up, up, up.

  It opens outside, away from the PareCo complex. There is an empty helipad – they must take bio tanks away by helicoptor. So much for the no-fly zone around Inac. Maybe that is just so no one spots body part-laden helicopters coming and going?

  It’s very early morning, the sky just starting to lighten.

  We walk. Gecko is weakening, so I run. The nutrients he stopped from going into his Think Tank are starting to run out.

  We hear the waterfall before we see it.

  I lie down by the pool. We watch the sun come up together, glinting on the water.

  What’s that? he murmurs.

  What?

  The sound. Above.

  I look up through the trees. A giant NUN helicopter is flying past, soon followed by another, then another. Looks like PareCo is in trouble.

  All down to you. You did say to send one. You should probably flag them down.

  It’ll keep.

  Back in his virtual world, he kisses me again. Thank you, Luna, he murmurs. Our arms are around each other, waiting for the end. A physical embrace, the kind he said was closer and more intimate than I could imagine.

  He was right.

  It finally happens: he slips away. My arms are empty. The instant our grid link is broken, I leave Gecko’s world. I am utterly alone in my mind and my body, here, by the pool.

  I cry.

  Epilogue

  If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is

  necessary that at least once in your life you doubt,

  as far as possible, all things.

  René Descartes

  It’s a while before I can make myself return to the void. Even as it calls to me, and sings in my blood. But there is something I have to do.

  At last I’ve chosen my S’hacker name. The search was difficult, but like most lost things it was blindingly obvious once I’d found it. And that’s what I do, what I’m really for, isn’t it? Finding things. Seeking out truths. Never easily; not without pain – but some things that you’d never miss for the world have to hurt, don’t they?

  But never, ever, to destroy. That is easier to do, but I choose not to.

  Friends are here around me, Marina and Media amongst them. With all the changes coming since PareCo was discredited, the old secretive S’hacker ways and barriers are coming down. I’d insisted on inviting non-S’hackers, too: Jason, holding tight to Dad’s hand, nervous to be in the void again but determined to be here. Roy Heywood. Melrose and her dad. Even Sally. They wait until I can turn to face them.

  The meaning being found was only part of the search: the name to represent it took thought as well. But in the end, the beauty was always in the numbers, wasn’t it?

  Seven: the seeker of truth.

  When I finally turn and meet their eyes I smile for the first time in a long while. I may seek truth, but I still have my secrets.

  ‘My name is Seven.’

  Acknowledgements

  One thing I get asked all the time is where ideas for my stories come from. I can’t always trace the precise origins, but Mind Games was very much inspired by research into rationality and intelligence by Keith Stanovich, a professor at the University of Toronto. He proposed that the reason smart people can do stupid things is that intelligence and rationality are separate traits – that someone can be both intelligent, and irrational. And I thought, what would happen in a world where rationality was prized, much the way intelligence is today? One in which individuals who are intelligent but also irrational are considered dangerous to themselves and society? This is how Mind Games began.

  The second source of inspiration was the quotation from George Berkeley at the beginning: Truth is the cry of all, but game of the few. I found it in an old edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations that I often use for ideas – it was given by my mother-in-law, Joan, to her husband Eric, way back in 1969, and found its way to me many years later. I’ve dedicated Mind Games to their memory: I wish I could have got to know them better.

  I have to mention Inaccessible Island! I had a very clear picture in my mind what PareCo’s island should be like: very isolated, with sheer cliffs to make access or escape impossible. Convinced I’d have to make one up because none would fit the bill, I did an internet search on ‘inaccessible islands’, and there it was. A real place, and that is its real name. And it even has a waterfall.

  Special thanks to Sharon Jones, who said you must write this, and to my agent, Caroline Sheldon, for agreeing with her; to my editor, Megan Larkin, for championing the story, and her insightful editing; and to editor Rosalind McIntosh, designer Thy Bui, and everyone at Orchard Books and Hachette Children’s Books for their hard work and enthusiasm.

  Thanks to Scoobie (SCBWI) pals Addy Farmer, Jo Wyton and Amy Butler Greenfield for reading early versions and giving invaluable feedback. Thanks also to Liz and Paul Medhurst from my SF pub night, and to Anne Rooney for the Giordano Bruno quotation.

  Thanks to Christina Banach – a fellow author and Scoobie – for making the highest bid for a character name in the Authors for the Philippines Auction. I was very pleased to name a character for her father, Roy Heywood.

  Thanks and all my love to Graham, Banrock, and muses everywhere – even Dodgy Dog. I couldn’t do it without you.

  And finally, the answer to Lord Byron’s four questions. I didn’t complete the quotation, as Luna was – and Seven is – still working on the answers:

  There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.

  Lord Byron

  About the Author

  Teri Terry has lived in France, Canada, Australia and England at more addresses than she can count, acquiring four degrees, a selection of passports and an unusual name along the way. Past careers have included scientist, lawyer, optometrist and, in England, various jobs in schools, libraries and an audiobook charity. The footpaths and canal ways of the Buckinghamshire Chilterns where she now lives inspired much of the setting of Teri’s first books, the internationally best-selling Slated trilogy. Teri has won twelve awards including the Leeds Book Award, the North East Teen Book Award and the Rotherham Children’s Book Award (twice).

  Teri hates broccoli, likes cats, and has finally worked out what she wants to do when she grows up.

  Twitter: @TeriTerryWrites

  Facebook page: TeriTerryAuthor

  Website: teriterry.com

  If you enjoyed Mind Games, you’ll love Book of Lies by Teri Terry, coming so
on.

  Who lies? Who tells the truth?

  Death hangs on the answer.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek…

  Chapter One

  There are things you know you shouldn’t do. Like standing on the tracks when the train is getting too close. Or holding your hand over an open flame. You can wave it across fast and be fine, but something inside makes me hold it there a second longer, then another, and another. Train tracks and mothers are much the same as flames: too close, too long, risks pain.

  If I sat and made a list of all the things I shouldn’t do and put them in order, starting with the worst, being here today would be near the top. But I’m drawn to things I shouldn’t do. Is it just to see what happens, who it will hurt? Maybe.

  So no matter how much that inner voice of caution, of reason, says stay away; no matter how much I try to convince myself or hide the keys or deliberately don’t wear anything even vaguely acceptable, I was never going to be anywhere else, was I?

  How close, how long, is another matter. For now, I’m shivering under leafless trees on a hill above the crematorium, a splash of red in a colourless dark day. Considering my options.

  It starts to rain, and I’m glad. She hated the rain. Not just how most people grumble if they’re caught in a shower, or their garden party is ruined, or clothes soaked on the line – she proper hated it. Almost like she was made of something that would wash away, not sinew, muscle, and bone, all in hard angles.

  Maybe she was afraid rain would wash away her mask. Like the one she wears in the newspapers, smiling with a man I’ve never seen before. Smiling? I wonder if she smiles in her coffin, if they arranged her features into a pleasant lie for the afterlife, in hope it’ll persuade them to open the pearly gates instead of giving that final push for the long slide down. Or maybe there wasn’t enough left of her face.

  Cars start winding up the road. The first is long and black, a coffin in the back. When it pulls in front of the crematorium, it seems right that the rain goes from steady to more. It thunders down in sheets, and lightning splits the sky.