The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  Monday, 29 November 2055, London

  Relief floods through him. Relief at not being murdered by Borodin. Relief because it was a game, after all – the world is not ending – he is back home.

  Looking around the Darkroom, he breathes deeply, his heart still racing in his chest. Now he’s safe, he is able to marvel at how true to life the experience was, and he wants to tell someone, anyone. Lestrange, or whoever he works for, has invented full-immersion virtual reality!

  Issuing voice commands to his Lenz, he’s still unable to get a network connection, but he connects to his Lenz interface. He checks the time. And checks again. The evidence of his eyes defies his senses. It’s nine o’clock.

  But nine o’clock on what day?

  He checks the date. It’s Monday, 29 November 2055. Of course it is! It was a game he was playing; he wasn’t away for days. But even if he was playing a game, hours must have elapsed, surely? According to the clock, no time has passed at all. Rising from the chair, he walks to the door and into the hallway.

  The house is in darkness. Lights flicker on as he moves around. Still no one is home.

  “Mr Lestrange?” he calls.

  The door to the library is open. A book is open on the table. It’s the book called Fin that he had been studying before he went into the Darkroom and forgot to put away. Then he remembers The Book of Mathew Erlang with a shudder.

  He picks up Fin. The page it’s open at reads:

  Through 2472 and the last days of human civilisation, Polkovnik Grigory Dragomirov tirelessly attempted to track the Lamplighter across Russia and into Siberia. However, he was actually following a breakaway section of the Kind, and the Lamplighter escaped to the American continent four months before Wormwood. The breakaway group, which included Angel Leventis and Peter the Sleeper, built a refuge inside a mountain in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, where they waited for the end of history.

  The streetlights are blazing. The curtains are drawn, and he pulls them to one side and peers out at the little street and the row of silent houses. The road is just as it was before he fell through the conservatory roof. It’s night-time. All the curtains and blinds in the windows of all the other houses are drawn. Above the rooftops grey clouds travel across the sky. Stars twinkle in between, mysterious, far away.

  Going over to the shelf, he puts Fin back in its place. It’s the strangest thing he’s ever come across to have self-writing and rewriting books linked to a game. He trails his hand across the covers of the books until he finds The Book of Mathew Erlang. His fingers grasp the spine, and he starts to pull at the book and then stops.

  This is weird stuff, and it will mess with your head. None of it is true. What does Lestrange want with me? Does he work for the government, or is he some genius crazy man?

  Mathew sighs. It’s inevitable that Mr Lestrange will come home and find him unless he finds an escape route. In the hallway he steps to the front door and, not expecting it to open, tries the handle once more.

  It opens. He’s free to go.

  Standing for a moment, he gazes into the ordinary London street, not sure of himself. Then he steps out, pulls the door shut carefully behind him, and turns to his own front door a few feet away. Standing there, he realises he left the house in a rush and of course failed to take his key fob with him. Knowing he won’t find it, he searches his pockets anyway. The back door is open, but the houses are terraced, and there’s no way for him to get to it. He supposes he could knock on Gen’s door and climb her fence. But the door lock clicks open as he moves slightly towards it. Of course! The locksmiths changed the locks. The door now opens to his bioID. He’d forgotten.

  The house is silent. Walking straight through to the kitchen, he pulls the back door closed.

  Then he remembers.

  “O’Malley!” But he doesn’t expect his cat to appear.

  His mother will kill him. He closes his eyes and runs his hands through his hair.

  Leibniz, idle and charging in the corner of the room, wakes, alerted to his presence.

  “Hello, Mathew. It is late, and you have not eaten this evening. Would you like me to cook you dinner? Your medibot says you have a remarkably balanced metabolism. Congratulations! You can have anything you would like from our stores. Should I display the menu in your Lenz?”

  “No, thank you, Leibniz. I’m not hungry.” The meal with Tristan only a few hours ago was enormous.

  What am I thinking? He catches himself. I haven’t eaten since lunchtime.

  All the same, he isn’t hungry.

  Then O’Malley comes into the kitchen from the direction of the front room, crumpled and sleepy-looking. Stretching, he lazily saunters to Mathew, rubbing against his ankles and purring. Mathew bends down and scoops him into his arms. He seems like he’s been settled and asleep for hours.

  “You are a horrible cat!” Mathew says. “Bad, bad, bad cat.” But he holds him to his chest and hugs him, incredibly grateful he isn’t lost.

  A wave of exhaustion washes over him, and he wavers on his feet.

  “Are you not feeling well?” Leibniz says. “Your health indicators all show you to be in remarkable health. Is there incomplete information?”

  “No, Leibniz. I’m fine. I’m tired. I think I need an early night. Will you tell Mum I’m sorry I missed her, but I decided to turn in?”

  He heads upstairs, carrying O’Malley with him, strips down to his t-shirt, and gets into bed.

  “System. Lights off,” he says to the household control centre, and the room is plunged into darkness.

  For ten minutes he lies awake, vivid images from the game churning through his brain. As he’s falling asleep, it crosses his mind to wonder whether tomorrow Mr Lestrange will come calling to complain about his conservatory.

  30 Bad Head

  DAY NINE: Tuesday, 30 November 2055, London

  Mathew is underwater, trying to swim towards the light. It’s dark and cold. There is luminescence on the surface of the water, but no matter how hard he tries to swim towards it, it gets farther and farther away. He needs to open a door. Someone is banging on the door, but he is so far underwater it’s beyond reach.

  “Mathew! Are you awake? Mathew!”

  Waking suddenly, sitting, gasping for air, disorientated, he realises he is in his bed. The bed sheets are sodden with sweat, and he has twisted them around him so his legs are bound together. Pulling them off his legs, he swings his feet to the floor. His head feels awful. He gets to his feet, staggers to the door, and opens it.

  “Mum!” he says, peering round the door.

  “Don’t seem so surprised – this happens every morning. I’m running a bit late. The car is here. Are you okay? You look terrible. . . . Did I wake you?”

  “Yes. Overslept,” he murmurs. “Bad dream,” he clutches his head. “Headache.”

  “A headache? Your medibot must be faulty. Better make an appointment with Dr Girsh.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mathew says. “Probably nothing. If I still have it at lunchtime, I’ll make an appointment.”

  “You shouldn’t have a headache.”

  “No . . .” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a headache. Or when he’d slept so deeply. He feels drugged.

  His mother says, “Let me know if it doesn’t go away.” She moves to go. “Oh and thanks for helping with the locks. They’re working fine. They let me in without a hitch when I got home last night.”

  “The locks!” Mathew says, remembering. “O’Malley. . . . Oh, god. Where’s O’Malley?”

  “He’s there,” his mother says. “He’s stolen your bed.”

  Mathew turns his head gingerly and glances back into his room. O’Malley is curled in his bed, asleep.

  “Did something happen?”

  Mathew is confused. “I’m not sure.”

  A horn sounds on the road. “Okay, now my driver’s pissed off with me,” his mother says.

  Mathew raises an eyebrow, and his mother grins. “Language,” he says
.

  “Caught red-handed. But I don’t think you’re well at all. Make the appointment. Better safe than sorry.”

  She leans towards him and kisses him on the forehead. “Take it easy today, okay?”

  Mathew nods. She turns. He watches her walk down the stairs and hears the door slam, the strange sound of the new locks bolting in place.

  Slowly, he makes his way downstairs. Leibniz is in the kitchen, cleaning up after his mother.

  “Good morning, Mathew. Should I fix you breakfast?”

  Mathew sits down at the table. “Yes, please.”

  Leibniz isn’t surprised at this change in the routine, but then why would it be? It’s a machine.

  “What would you like?”

  “Hot rolls.”

  The lights on Leibniz’s chest interface flash on and off for a moment. “We have the ingredients for hot rolls. Breakfast ETA four minutes. Do you want butter and jam?”

  “Yes please, Leibniz.”

  “Coming right away, Mathew.”

  The Canvas is on, tuned in to the news channel. There is film footage of a young woman in handcuffs being bundled into the back of a police car by uniformed policemen. The headline scrolling along the bottom of the picture is: “Seventeen-year-old Reagan Feye arrested on suspicion of being a member of dissident Blackweb group Psychopomp.”

  “Breakfast is served,” Leibniz says.

  Mathew sits at the table. “Thank you, Leibniz,” he says.

  He starts to eat, watching the screen. He increases the volume of the Canvas via voice control.

  Prime Minister Saul Justice is being interviewed. He says, “I am sensitive to the arguments concerning freedom of speech. We live in one of the oldest and most advanced democracies in the world and, unlike our enemies, we respect the right of our citizens to express opinions. But this must be balanced with the need for national security. We are at war, and at times like these the people of this country need to understand who the enemy is. We don’t have time to squabble internally. If we do, we will lose this war. Psychopomp, as many of you will know, has a history of leaking state secrets.

  “We cannot afford to allow this organisation to exist beyond the laws you and I obey each day of our lives. So we are shutting it down. Reagan Feye is accused of being a member of this organisation. She will have a fair trial. But if she is found guilty, we will use the new powers Parliament has given us to bring the full weight of the law down upon her and any other members of this group we find. Let this be a warning.” Saul Justice is staring dead at the camera. “We will not tolerate traitors and dissidents. We will find you, wherever you are.”

  The journalist is flustered and disturbed. The commentators in the studio talk all at once, trying to explain what has just happened. Mathew turns off the Canvas.

  He finishes his breakfast and allows Leibniz to clean.

  His head is pounding. He goes upstairs, finds his Paper and checks in to his medibot. There is an alert. It says:

  Unidentified chemical disturbance prefrontal cortex, neocortex, parietal lobe, and hippocampus. Recommended remedy: two paracetamol. Select print to send request to edible carbon compound printer located in room: kitchen.

  Mathew accepts.

  The medibot interface says,

  Request sent. Thank you. Please make an appointment with your GP if symptoms persist.

  A text message comes through on his Paper via the Blackweb network asking if he’ll accept a call. He gets the usual security warning. He thinks it might be Eva or Wooden Soldier, No Right Turn, or whatever he is called today, but it’s his grandmother.

  “Did you see the news?” she says.

  “Yes. Briefly. How did they catch her?”

  “Ironically, she’s the daughter of a senior politician in Saul Justice’s government. The SIS put surveillance on him to protect him and caught her accidentally.”

  “Do you think she’ll betray the others?”

  “I hope not. We live in frightening times. Have they chipped you yet?”

  “Yes.”

  Ju Chen is silent for a few moments.

  “Hello?” he says.

  “Sorry. I’m shocked they’ve done it so quickly. Are you okay?”

  “I feel a little strange today, I have to admit. I had an incredibly vivid dream. You know those dreams that are so vivid they feel real?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It was extraordinary. But I can’t remember it. It’s bugging me. I played a new type of virtual reality holovision game yesterday. I think it has messed with my head.”

  “I keep telling you those holo-things are bad for you.”

  “Yes, you do,” he says.

  “But you should trust your dreams, Mathew. Sometimes they work in mysterious ways.”

  “I might consider it, if I’m ever sure of the difference between dreams and reality again. Things are so weird here I don’t think I know the difference.”

  “You need to play fewer Darkroom games,” his grandmother says.

  Mathew has worn Soren Erlang’s spare Lenz and e-Pin ever since his father’s death. Lenzes are made to personal specifications to exactly match eye colour and retina pattern. When he disappeared, Mathew’s father was using his corporate communication equipment, and he left his personal devices at home. Mathew adopted them, and for some reason, even though it was obvious he was wearing his father’s Lenzes, his mother never objected. However, she gave him a new pair for his last birthday, to match his own eye colour, with a fashionable e-Pin. Now he removes his father’s Lenzes and replaces them with the pair his mother had made for him, peering into the mirror, into his own brown eyes for the first time in two years.

  Downstairs he collects his paracetamol from the printer and takes them with a glass of water from the kitchen. He stares out of the kitchen window at the garden. Finding himself staring at the garden wall, the one separating their garden from Mr Lestrange’s, something flashes in his head – a series of images: a blackbird with a bright yellow beak. O’Malley with a bird in his mouth.

  I climbed over the wall last night.

  The conservatory . . .

  I fell through the conservatory!

  Running upstairs, two stairs at a time, he bursts into his mother’s bedroom and goes to the window. Mr Lestrange’s conservatory is as it ever was. It isn’t broken. His mind bends.

  In the bathroom, he starts the shower running, undresses, and examines himself in the bathroom mirror. His ribs are a little more visible than normal. He tells himself he must try to eat more. Food is always the last thing on his mind.

  On his shoulder he notices a tiny red line he’s never noticed before, like a scratch or the scar of a scratch. Running his index finger along it, he has another one of those flashes.

  A cat, he thinks. A cat did this.

  A vivid image flashes into his mind of being knocked off his feet by a large wildcat, being chased through a jungle. It was in the game. A game, Mathew, he says to himself. It’s a coincidence. O’Malley must have scratched me in the night.

  He’s had O’Malley on his mind for days. His head is pounding, and he closes his eyes and leans against the sink. I need something stronger than the paracetamol. Maybe I will make an appointment with Dr Girsh.

  After he showers, he goes back to his room and logs in to the school register on his Paper. He remembers he initiated some courses on quantum computing and security. It seems like a long time since he has considered these things. His mind wanders, and he feels restless.

  Opening Charybdis, he logs into the Blackweb and starts a MUUT session. MUUT is ugly and difficult to use, deliberately so, he guesses, as he starts a search on military virtual reality programs.

  Leaving it to run, he goes downstairs again, to the Darkroom. O’Malley runs inside in front of him, straight for his litter tray. For a moment Mathew is confused. Why is O’Malley’s litter tray in the Darkroom? But then he remembers the locksmiths. The locks did get changed, and he did put O’Malley in the Darkr
oom, after all. O’Malley finishes in the box, and Mathew takes it back to the utility room, where it’s normally kept. Leibniz immediately sets to work cleaning it. O’Malley’s water and food bowls are also locked in the Darkroom. The poor cat was probably hungry and thirsty. Mathew puts them in their usual place and tops up O’Malley’s food bowl himself, giving him some enviro-chicken from the fridge to apologise for the delay to his breakfast. O’Malley eats gratefully. Mathew stands thoughtfully watching him. In his mind he’s retracing the events of the day before. The locksmiths came, he locked O’Malley away, and sent the beebot to Clara. Did he do this?

  He decides to call Clara on the beebot and goes back to the Darkroom where he starts the control software and makes his call. She answers immediately.

  “Hi,” she says. She sounds pleased to hear from him.

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “No. It’s a great time. I’m halfway through a music theory video lesson and bored to tears. It’s probably something you’d like. It’s on mathematics and music.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “I wish you could take the test for me at the end. Do you have video activated on your end? Here, I’m going to move the beebot, so you get a better picture.”

  “I did a voice call. Hold on. It’s activated.”

  “Is that better?”

  “Yes. You’re still in your pyjamas.”