‘Except I have no idea how to do that, and I reckon we’re going to have about thirty seconds before Cato Bell presses her magic button and clean-slates us again.’
I nod and look out over the sea of blackness. ‘We need a diversion.’
‘It’d have to be a pretty big diversion.’
‘How long do you think you’d need to hack into the bands?’
‘And totally alter the IFTTT chain? A few hours.’
‘That’s too long. I could probably buy us fifteen minutes.’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s too much. I can’t do it all.’
I frown. ‘What if you didn’t do it all at once?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Could you alter just one of the triggers? Could you make it so that we don’t get our memories wiped?’
She thinks about it. ‘Maybe? But what good would that do? As soon as she realises that it hasn’t worked, she’ll use her override.’ ‘What if she doesn’t realise? What if we look like we’ve lost our memories?’
Nia goes quiet. ‘Do you think we could get away with it?’ she asks eventually.
‘If the script is the same as last time, she’ll be pretending to be asleep for the first hour or so. She won’t be expecting you to hack into the tablets until day two.’
‘What about the others? Will they play along? And how will we make a diversion at the beginning?’
I grin. ‘Leave all that to me.’
Nia snorts. ‘You want me to trust you?’
‘What choice do you have?’
‘You make a point.’
‘Good. And put that back together so it works,’ I say, indicating the tangle of wires on the plinth. ‘We might need it.’
I see respect in Nia’s eyes, as well as the same strangeness that was there before. Is she afraid of me? ‘You’re very good at this,’ she says.
‘So are you.’
She follows me down the steps and into the entrance chamber. I pause and let the beam from my torch bounce into the other room, briefly illuminating the words that I carved into the crumbling concrete.
BEWARE THE BLUE FAIRY
15
DAY 4
23:04
As I’m returning to Camp Eleos, I pause to yank out some of the cabling by the communications tower. Red lights start to flash, and I hear an alarm going off inside the main building. That should keep Cato Bell busy for a bit while I stop by Edwin’s room to explain the plan.
I find him sitting crosslegged on his bed with the polyester blanket pulled over his head like a hooded cloak. He’s picked a hole in his mattress, and made a little pile of foam in the foil tray his dinner came in. He doesn’t notice me come in. He rubs the blanket into his hair and then touches the aluminium tray right next to the pile of mattress foam.
Spark.
He rubs again, and creates another spark.
‘I feel like this isn’t the most efficient way to set your room on fire,’ I tell him.
Edwin jumps, startled, and looks up at me. His face is tear-streaked, his eyes haunted. He is definitely not in a good place.
‘I want to burn it all down.’ His voice is expressionless, which makes it all the more chilling. But if he wants moody and dark, then I can do that.
‘Sure, me too,’ I tell him. ‘But you’re not doing a very good job.’ He laughs, a hollow, bleak sound. ‘There are a dozen ways I could light a fire in this room,’ he says. ‘I could dismantle that fluorescent tube and use the magnetic ballast. I could shove a sock into the light fitting. I could tear up this foil tray and poke bits into an electrical socket.’
‘So why don’t you?’
‘Because people died. I lit a fire in my school and people died.’
‘Maybe they were jerks? Lots of people are jerks.’
‘They didn’t deserve to die.’
I can’t argue with that.
‘I have learnt precisely two things about myself. Firstly – I like fire. Secondly – I used to worship Cato Bell, who turned out to be a monster. I don’t want to overstate the matter, but I’m having a rather unpleasant day.’
‘Please see my previous comment re people being jerks. Cato Bell is a jerk.’
‘I think I saw myself in her – weird and smart and not good with people. I believed she was going to change the world.’
‘I mean, in her defense she probably will. She just doesn’t care how many people have to die along the way.’
He looks up at me. ‘You believe her plan will succeed? The Erasure Initiative?’
‘No. I think that people are more complicated than that. Look at how much trouble we’ve gone to, in order to figure out who we are. People aren’t going to meekly settle down into new lives. They’re going to put everything on the line to find out the truth.’
Edwin sighs. ‘I suppose everyone is terrible. At least I’m not the only one.’
I hold out a fist and he gives a miserable hiccuping laugh before he bumps his own fist against it.
‘I believed that solving the puzzle would feel good,’ he says. ‘I wanted to feel a sense of wholeness, and I was truly convinced that understanding who I was would bring that. But now I feel more broken than ever.’
Not me. I feel amazing, as though I’ve been granted magical powers. I know how to get what I want, and what I want is to tell Cato Bell to go fuck herself, and then leave this island. I am Cecily Cartwright, and it’s time I took control of the situation.
‘I didn’t think about fire until she said my name,’ Edwin tells me. ‘Not once. I was Edwin Chen, much-loved star of musical theatre. Frankly, I liked being him. He had friends. He was good at something. Then she told me who I really am, and everything changed. I remembered what it was like, to start a fire.’
‘You had a flashback?’
He nods. ‘Playing with matches, when I was a child. Sitting in my bedroom, on the bed, like this. Striking a match and watching the flame burn down to my fingers. One after another. Strike, flame. Strike, flame. It was so beautiful. Something from nothing. A little spark in the darkness.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with that. Lots of kids like to play with matches.’
‘I don’t think most kids feel like this. I–I can’t stop it. Can’t stop thinking about it.’
He rubs the blanket against his hair again and reaches out to the aluminium tray.
Spark.
‘A spark can grow into something so powerful. Nothing else feels like that. Nothing.’
Edwin’s pupils are wide and black, his voice husky. He rubs his hair again and reaches out a finger, but doesn’t make contact with the tray. He keeps the charge inside. It takes a physical act of will, the strain clear on his face.
‘The neuromodulation makes us forget,’ he says. ‘I want more. A permanent dose. I don’t want to know about Li Zhong Yoh. If I forget who he is, then he won’t exist anymore. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else. I can be Edwin Chen forever. Or anyone else. Just not Li Zhong Yoh. I cannot bear to live with this hunger, when I know what it can do. What it can take away.’
‘That’s not what you want,’ I tell him. ‘You’re a good person, Edwin. I’ve watched you, the last few days, and I know. You care about people. You’re moral. Look at how upset you are about this – it proves that you’re a good person. You developed that random selection technique because your ethical code was so strong that you didn’t want to sentence anyone to death, even imaginary people. Even before – Cato Bell said that you didn’t know there was anyone in the music room. You thought the school was empty. You’re not a murderer. You have this compulsion, the fire thing. But that’s not your fault. You need to face it. You need to get off this stupid island, and face who you are. You can have the chance to atone for what happened, and then figure out who you really are, what you really want. Stop hiding behind Edwin Chen, and embrace Li Zhong Yoh. Make him into someone you can be proud of.’
It’s a nice speech, and it has the right effect. Edwin looks up at m
e, and I see the spark in his eyes.
Hope.
‘What do we do?’ he asks.
‘There’s a plan,’ I tell him. ‘But I can’t do it without you.’
His chin lifts slightly. ‘Tell me what you need.’
‘Can you light a fire on the bus?’
He recoils, and I watch emotions wash over his face. Eagerness. Fear. Self-loathing.
‘I know it’s your dark place, Edwin,’ I say. ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to ask. But we need this. It’s our only chance to escape. It’s your opportunity to right a wrong. So you made a mistake, once. You lit a fire, and people got hurt. Well, now you get to flip that on its head. You light a fire, and you help save us. You’ll be a hero, not a villain.’
He swallows. ‘What if someone gets hurt?’
‘They won’t. I promise. Do you think you can you do it?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’ His voice is barely more than a whisper.
‘Good.’ And I explain the plan.
‘You’re really good at this,’ he says, when I’ve finished.
It’s the second time someone’s said it to me tonight.
I step out of Edwin’s room and turn to go and see Pax. But I notice light spilling from the open door of my cabin. That’s not good. I hesitate, then head over to my door.
Cato Bell is perched on the end of my bed. She doesn’t say anything as I come in, and I feel weirdly like a teenager who’s been caught out after curfew. Which is exactly what I am, except I’m also in an abandoned military base in the middle of nowhere, and instead of an anxious parent, the person waiting for me is a genius billionaire murderer intent on saving the world.
I sit next to her. ‘Am I grounded?’
‘My lipstick doesn’t suit you,’ she retorts.
‘It doesn’t suit you either. Too dark. Emphasises the wrinkles around your mouth.’
She looks at me, her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re a very unpleasant young woman, do you know that?’
‘And yet you’re so keen to spend time with me.’
She chuckles. ‘There is a Greek word – mêtis – that means cunning and intelligence. Odysseus had it – he was a trickster. Good with words. You’re a bit like Odysseus. Clever. Manipulative. A long way from home.’
She’s right. I do have cunning and intelligence. I am a trickster.
I swallow. The file – sans paperclip – has slipped onto the floor, and I pick it up to read it. I’m done playing games.
It’s time for the truth.
…
After I’m finished, I put the papers down on the floor again, and silently think through what I know. I can’t run away from it anymore.
I take a breath.
‘I’m the Blue Fairy.’
Cato Bell nods, and I want to throw up.
‘I found out about Sandra and the election, so Paxton wished I was dead. But the wish came to me. I’m the Blue Fairy, and he didn’t know.’
Cato Bell doesn’t say anything.
‘I couldn’t not carry out the wish, because that might expose who I really was. But I couldn’t carry it out either, for obvious reasons. What did I do?’
‘What do you think you did?’
I consider it. ‘I guess I’d make it look like the Blue Fairy had tried to kill me, but it went wrong.’
A smile curls at the corner of Bell’s mouth. ‘You staged two attempts. In the first you were locked inside a floatation tank overnight, in your school’s wellness centre.’ A sardonic lift of an eyebrow reveals Cato Bell’s opinion on high school wellness centres. ‘But you arranged for another student to “rescue” you – a clever little piece of engineering by you featuring a school-run scavenger hunt, where the tank was one of the clues.’
‘And the second attempt?’
‘A hit-and-run.’
Nia’s flashback. Seeing me through a crowd. Running, a sense of urgency. And guilt.
The squeal of brakes.
Wet thud.
‘That’s how Edwin died,’ I say. ‘The real Edwin.’
‘He saw the car approaching, and pushed you out of the way.’
‘Did— did I plan that?’
‘You claimed you didn’t. The jury didn’t believe you.’
I close my eyes to stop the room from spinning. Someone died because of me.
The real Edwin died.
He thought he was saving me. But the car was never going to hit me. Did I get Nia to hack the car’s AI to orchestrate a convincing near miss? But the real Edwin ended up in front of that car and he died. I don’t remember him at all, and I’m glad. I couldn’t live with seeing his face in my mind. I remember my breezy comment to fake-Edwin, only ten minutes ago.
Lots of people are jerks.
But the real Edwin wasn’t a jerk. People loved him.
Did I plan the whole thing? Did I make sure that Edwin was there, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or was it really an accident?
A terrible part of me can see why Edwin’s death would have been advantageous. It proved that the attempt was genuine. Someone like Edwin, too – the resulting drama, the public grief, the outrage at Westbridge. All the perfect excuse for the Blue Fairy to regretfully inform Paxton that a third attempt would be impossible.
‘How did it start?’ I ask. ‘Why did I become the Blue Fairy?’
Cato Bell folds her hands in her lap. ‘There’s another Greek word – kleos. It’s also known as the fame that does not decay. It means glory, renown. A need to be remembered. Sandra wants kleos. So do I, if I’m being honest. Not you, though. You just have mêtis. You want to win, but you don’t need the trophy.’
‘What is it I want to win?’
‘Your family lost a lot of money and reputation after their skincare business went bankrupt. Not that they had much reputation to start with – it wasn’t a very good skincare company. So you weren’t as rich as the other students at Westbridge. You didn’t have access to the same kind of influence. You understood better than most that the playing field wasn’t level. Even a high-status boyfriend didn’t help elevate you to the positions of power to which you aspired. So you decided to change the rules. You threw a grenade into that maelstrom of privilege and watched it rain down around you. And the more successful you became, the more you wanted to burn it all to the ground. You saved everything – every message, every text. You knew that these spoilt brats would one day ascend to seats of power, and that you would have everything you needed to control them.’
I remember the wishes. Drugs for a party. Disgraced teachers. Students with gastro. Exam answers.
I did that. All of it. Despite my mounting horror, I’m impressed by my own skill.
I wish Edwin Chen wasn’t the lead in the school musical.
‘You hid your tracks so well. You established relationships with the people who could get you what you needed – drugs, secrets, exam papers. All while maintaining total anonymity. The Westbridge students paid you handsomely for your services in an untraceable cryptocurrency. You were unstoppable.’
‘But I’m here.’
Cato nods. ‘One mistake. You made one single mistake.’
‘Which was?’
‘You fell in love.’
She glances down at the papers on the floor, and I know she isn’t talking about Paxton.
‘Nia. I fell in love with Nia.’
‘You employed her as a hacker. She attended a nearby community college, and was seething with resentment at Westbridge and everything it stood for. She was more than happy to help. Your relationship deepened to the extent that you took a risk and met up with her in person. You both fell for each other, hard. You told her everything. You kept playing the game, going to prom with Paxton, playing the role of the perfect girlfriend, the good-but-not-outstanding student. But you added a secret affair to your secret identity, and it was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down.’
‘I need to see her,’ I say to Cato. ‘I–I need to tell her. She thinks she’s the Bl
ue Fairy.’
Doesn’t she? I remember the look Nia gave me, up in the watchtower. Did she already know?
Cato shakes her head. ‘You don’t know everything yet, Cecily.’
‘I know enough. Let me see her.’ I stand up and push past Cato to the door, but her words stop me.
‘She turned you in.’
My hand is on the doorknob, but I let it fall back to my side. I turn to see Cato, unmoved, sitting on my bed like she hasn’t just dropped the biggest bombshell yet.
‘Why?’
‘She had a line, and you crossed it. She was happy to mess with the lives of rich kids. To throw privilege into turmoil. But she drew the line at murder. It’s one thing to stick it to the man, another entirely to kill him.’
‘You don’t know it was murder.’
‘Nia could have programmed that car not to hit you,’ Cato Bell says. ‘But you didn’t ask Nia. You got someone else to do it. Someone you met on the dark web.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. It still could been an accident.’
Cato Bell smiles, her lips a thin, dark line like a smear of old blood. ‘If it helps you sleep at night, sure.’
The world falls away for a moment, and everything is black. I remember the look on not-Edwin’s face, minutes ago, as he made sparks and wished he could burn it all down. I felt sorry for him, then. I knew who I was. I felt strong.
What do you do when you learn that you’re the villain of your own story?
I need … something. I need to scream or smash or punch. There’s something inside me that needs to escape, and if it doesn’t, I’m going to explode.
Nia. I want to see Nia.
But I can’t. I can’t face her.
I feel something break a little, on the inside. Did it feel like this when she did it? When I first learnt that she betrayed me?
‘Let me see Paxton,’ I say, suddenly.
Cato Bell looks momentarily taken aback. ‘What? No.’
‘Let me be the one to tell him about Sandra,’ I say.
‘Why bother?’ she asks. ‘He’s going to have his memory erased tomorrow.’
‘Please. You owe him that, after everything you’ve done.’
The Erasure Initiative Page 19
