The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  Or so he hopes.

  He gets up from the scorched and smouldering earth beside the tree and gives himself a moment to glance back.

  Two dragons, as tall as London double-decker buses, shift on their feet, flex their claws, and flick their long, serpent-like tails ridged with spikes and plates. The power of a tail-swipe brings another tree crashing to the ground. It gets skewered by a cluster of spines, and the dragon thrashes its tail around until the tree, now uprooted and spraying earth and rocks and birds’ nests, is pulled loose.

  They are trashing Eva’s world.

  The larger dragon belches, and smoke billows out of her enormous nostrils. The male yawns, displaying a mouth full of splinter-sharp white teeth the size of large bottles and the blue tongue Mathew had been particularly proud of when he’d designed them.

  They have grown enormously. They are huge. And now, completely oblivious to the fact that he created them in the first place, they think he is dinner, and they are very hungry.

  He is fairly sure that he can’t die in Eva’s world, but just in case, he runs.

  He is dodging trees as he goes, stumbling over tree roots. A hot blast of air funnels past him with such force that it blows him sideways. He dares not stop to look, but as he steadies himself, the rough bark of a redwood scraping the skin on the palm of his hand, out of his peripheral vision he catches the image of a red glowing cindered tree crumbling into a pile of charcoal and ash.

  Up ahead, on the crest of a small bank, is an unusually large trunk, the width of several men standing shoulder to shoulder. In front of the tree he sees a young woman with very straight, thin, white-blonde hair and paper-white skin. She’s small anyway, but she seems tiny, dwarfed by the giant conifer. Behind her is a door.

  “Eva!” he gasps, lurching forward.

  He scrambles up the bank, yanking at saplings to pull himself up, his feet slipping on the loose earth and stones. His leg muscles are burning.

  “Thank god!” he wheezes, bent over double before her, grasping his knees.

  She grabs him, pulls him inside the tree, and shuts the door.

  He’s back in his Darkroom. The blackened bare walls and floor seem less real than the forest. He sits down heavily in the chair behind him, still catching his breath. In a large armchair in front of him, Eva is curled up in her pyjamas.

  “You do realise it’s four hours ahead here?” she says. “Bedtime. You were lucky you caught me. I was just brushing my teeth. Fifteen minutes later, I’d have been asleep.”

  “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble with your dad?”

  “No, no, don’t worry. He’s not here. Off again on his travels, immortalising the story of our great and glorious army to anyone who will listen.”

  “St Petersburg again?”

  “St Petersburg is done and dusted. Not sure where this time. He wouldn’t say. No doubt, we’ll see it all on the news soon enough.”

  “You’re sure you’re safe talking to me like this?”

  “As safe as anyone is these days.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “Best I can do. Look, Mathew, I think we need to talk about these dragons.”

  “It’s not turning out quite as I’d planned.”

  “Yes, well, that’s what’s confusing me. How did you plan it, exactly?”

  “I’m not sure I did that much, to be honest. Beyond getting them into a world where they could evolve.”

  “But in your programming, what did evolution consist of exactly? Growing endlessly larger?”

  “They are quite big, aren’t they? They should stop, though. I made them what I thought was dragon size.”

  “Which is? Forgive me, I’ve never seen a dragon.”

  “Oh, you must have, in films.”

  “I don’t watch those kinds of films.”

  “About twice the size of a large dinosaur.”

  “Right. Why did you do that?”

  “Because I could?”

  “What I mean is, what are you trying to achieve with this project?”

  “I was just trying to make dragons, using the new genetic coding program I had. And I wanted them to be able to interact with their environment and evolve their behaviour over time.”

  “You succeeded. Congratulations. So we can close the server down, then?”

  “No. They were meant to breed.”

  “They can breed?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want more of those things crawling about in that virtual earth of yours?”

  “Obviously, I don’t now, but when I coded them, I did.”

  “Wow. I don’t wish to put a downer on things, but a few more of them and you won’t have much virtual earth left.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “It seems a bit . . .”

  “What?”

  “Pointless . . .”

  “I know.”

  “You can still code them, can’t you?”

  “I’m not sure. I packaged them. Doesn’t that seal off the creation?”

  “Just go back to the source code, amend, repackage, and then redeploy.”

  “Won’t that overwrite them?”

  “Yes.”

  “It will kill them.”

  “They’re not alive, Mathew. Besides, they are fairly unpleasant, destructive creatures the way they are.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Why don’t you have a think about how you might make their behaviour a bit more interesting, rather than just predatory and destructive?”

  “Such as?”

  “For instance, if I was interested in creating fauna-type programs rather than creating worlds, I wouldn’t be interested in making stupid animals. I would see if I could make a mind more interesting and better than a human mind.”

  “But the best and cleverest scientists alive aren’t able to do that.”

  “So?”

  “So how on earth am I meant to do it?”

  “Mathew, I thought you and I were training to be the next generation of the best and cleverest scientists.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Shouldn’t we be cleverer than the last generation? Shouldn’t we be able to do things they can’t? Shouldn’t we at least be trying?”

  “I’d never thought of it like that.”

  “My father is always saying that the West is degenerate, and your schools and universities aren’t a patch on ours. I’m always arguing with him that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Please don’t let him be right. Look, why don’t you at least try and concentrate on improving the dragons’ minds and behaviour? Give them some higher reasoning, a personality, even? You must have done some personality-typing courses?”

  “Yes, but I hated them.”

  “There’s a surprise. Anyway, what do I know? They’re your dragons, and it’s your world, for however long it takes them to burn everything to a cinder. Next time you decide to go in there, can you make sure you check the time difference, though?” Eva yawns. “You wouldn’t want to be toasted while I’m asleep. It could be an uncomfortable eight hours. I’m off to bed. Night, Mathew.”

  “Night, Eva. And thanks,” he says, but the armchair has gone.

  2 Haunted by Dreams

  Mathew stares at the empty space in front of his chair for several minutes. He is exhausted and his body is battered and bruised. His nervous system is still trying to reconcile the physical punishment of the virtual forest with the banal reality of sitting too still in a Darkroom chair for an hour and a half.

  He considers deleting the dragons in Eva’s world, but he wants to have time to think it through properly, to work out if it’s worth saving anything from the work he’s done.

  Besides, it is dinnertime and he is starving.

  Before he leaves the Darkroom, with Eva’s advice still ringing in his ears, he makes a voice note to investigate synthetic biology and the human brain project. Perhaps he’ll learn something to encourage him to make the intelligent AIs Eva thinks
he should.

  In the kitchen he summons the news on the Canvas while he hunts around in the cupboard and the fridge for something to eat.

  Leibniz hovers above him and says, “Can I help you Mathew? It is dinnertime. Would you like me to cook you dinner?”

  “I’m finding out what there is,” Mathew says.

  “We have the ingredients to make fifty-six different meals, if you include the use of the SuperChef replicator. However, the information streamed to me from your medibot processed through my nutritional planning program tells me there are only ten meals to aid your health at this moment. Do you want me to list them?”

  “No. I know what your lists are like and I don’t want to eat any of those meals. I want to eat something I like.”

  “If you tell me what you would like to eat, then I’ll make something both nutritional and tasty.”

  “I don’t know what I want, which is why I’m searching in the cupboard. I’m hoping I will get inspiration.”

  “I don’t understand ‘inspiration’,” Leibniz says.

  Mathew sighs. “Can you make me a burger and chips?”

  Leibniz’s blue light flickers for a moment. “We have the ingredients. We had a delivery of fresh cultured beef yesterday, but Hoshi Mori instructed me to make sure you eat a balanced diet and your instruction would not comply with her request.”

  “Did she program you to treat her instructions with greater priority than mine?”

  “No, Mathew.”

  “Can I have a burger and chips?”

  “Yes, Mathew.”

  In the fridge, there are six cold cokes, the ones that claim to actively aid digestion, which his mother had agreed to add to Leibniz’s weekly TechnoFoods shopping list, after much badgering. He takes one, opens it, sits at the kitchen table, sips his drink from the can and watches the Canvas while Leibniz prepares his food.

  The newsreader says, “Today Turkey announced it has joined the US and their allies in the war against Russia and China. This follows the news that Russia invaded Turkish-controlled Georgia.”

  The image switches from the newsroom to shaky footage of Turkish foot soldiers retreating under a hail of bullets from the advance of a mass of eight-foot-tall Russians in exoskeletons.

  Leibniz sets the table, putting a placemat and a knife and fork in front of Mathew. It pours Mathew’s drink into a glass, removing the can.

  “Ketchup please,” Mathew says.

  “Yes, Mathew,” Leibniz responds immediately and goes to the fridge.

  The newsreader continues, “Yesterday the Ukraine capitulated to Russian forces and hypersonic air attacks were reported in Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and the Croatian plains, as well as Hungary and Slovakia. Military commentators predict this is to prepare the way for a land invasion.

  “Meanwhile, Poland has massively increased security along its borders and has sent troops to support its allies in Eastern Europe. They have formally requested on-the-ground assistance from the US and NATO.”

  “Your dinner is ready,” Leibniz says, putting down a plate.

  “Thank you, Leibniz.” Mathew takes off the top of the bun, liberally spreads it with ketchup, reassembles it and then greedily tucks in. Ketchup squeezes through his fingers as he bites.

  “Earlier this morning, the President of the United States issued a statement to say everything must be done to protect and secure Europe from invasion.”

  The burger and chips are gone too soon and Mathew is licking his fingers when a call request comes in from the Blackweb. It is Clara on the beebot, the tiny flying machine he made so they could communicate in secret. Mathew issues a voice command to dim the sound on the Canvas and accepts the call.

  An image of Clara in murky light flickers in front of him.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey. Where are you? I can’t see you very well.”

  “I’m in my bedroom.” She moves slightly into the light. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want a tour?” She stands and turns around slowly.

  At Mathew’s command, the beebot takes off from the palm of her hand and hovers by her shoulder.

  “My own personal domain,” she says, revealing a room, twelve foot square, with drawn curtains of indeterminate colour, a wardrobe, a bed with a duvet and a crumpled pillow. There’s a desk like his own, with a Swiss ball-type seat. On the desk there’s a rolled Paper scroll. The walls are decorated in the latest morphing wallpaper. As he watches, the view switches from a bird’s-eye view of a mountain range to a projection of a famous Hubble photo of a storm of turbulent gases.

  “That’s the Omega/Swan nebula,” Mathew says.

  “Is it? I’ve no idea, to be honest. It’s the latest free image pack shipped with the program. I did have holiday photos but I got sick of them. The defaults are cooler. What are you up to?”

  “Dinner.”

  “I should have thought. We don’t eat until half-seven. I’ll call back.”

  “No, no. I’ve finished.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Burger and chips.”

  “I thought you had that yesterday?”

  “Yes. I did. I love burgers. Could eat them each day.”

  “Clearly. Didn’t your mum program Leibniz to feed you properly?” Clara goes back to her bed, props her pillow and settles with her back against the wall, her knees drawn to her chest. The beebot flies, following her, and then lands on one of her knees, giving him a headshot.

  “Yes she did, but she didn’t set her instructions as priority. She probably doesn’t know she should do this.”

  “When was the last time your mum made it home for dinner?”

  “She has dinner at home every night.”

  “With you?”

  “Well, no. She comes in too late. But I often sit with her while she has her dinner.”

  “So you eat dinner alone?”

  “Not every night. We had dinner together last Saturday.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?”

  “I don’t have time to be lonely. I have Leibniz and O’Malley. Besides, there’s always someone to chat to. You, my grandmother, my school supervisor and Eva.”

  Leibniz appears and starts clearing away Mathew’s dishes. “That’s the HomeAngel making such a racket, by the way,” Mathew says.

  Clara says, “I can’t hear a thing.” Then, “Who’s Eva?”

  “Just this Russian girl I know.”

  “A Russian girl?”

  “Yes. She lives in Moscow.”

  “Isn’t it illegal or something, talking to a Russian?”

  “Probably. But then it’s not exactly acceptable to use the Blackweb either.”

  There is silence at the other end of the line. “So she’s a friend?”

  “Yes, I suppose she is. But not that kind of friend.”

  “What kind of friend?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “A girlfriend.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  There is an embarrassed pause.

  “My supervisor introduced us. We’re working together on a virtual reality project.”

  “And you’re allowed to, in spite of the war?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  “You know what you’re doing.”

  Mathew wonders at her confidence.

  “I met with her in her virtual world. It was a relief to speak to her. It made me realise where some of my weird dream came from.”

  “What dream?”

  “I was going to tell you yesterday.”

  “That’s why I called. You said something strange had happened.”

  “I got trapped in Mr. Lestrange’s house.”

  “Oh my God! How?”

  “I fell through his conservatory.”

  “You what?”

  “My cat, O’Malley, escaped again when the locksmiths came to change the locks. He caught a blackbird and jumped onto Mr. Lestrange’s conservatory. I w
as worried he would kill the bird. I climbed after it. I managed to catch O’Malley and free the bird but the glass panels on the roof of the conservatory collapsed under me. I totally destroyed it.”

  “Has he come round to complain?”

  “No. This is messed up. I was only trapped in the house for half an hour but it seemed like days. When I got home, I was incredibly tired and I went to bed early. The next morning, when I went to check out the conservatory, it was absolutely fine, like nothing had ever happened to it.”

  “He can’t have fixed it overnight.”

  “Of course he can’t. Yesterday, I had this crushing headache. In the afternoon I went to bed and fell asleep and had these vivid dreams.”

  “You think you dreamt it?”

  “Some of it. It’s all mixed up with things I know really happened yesterday, like I made the beebot for you, the locks were fitted and O’Malley escaped. But the other parts, which I know can’t be true, seem so real, like me being in his house. You know Gen said he has a library?”

  “Yes, she said she saw it.”

  “I saw it too.”

  “In your dream?”

  “I don’t know. In my dream. In reality. I saw it. There’s a book on each of my parents and my grandmother. There’s a book on you, Clara.”

  “On me?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did it say?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t read it.”

  “There were lots of other books too. History books.”

  “Gen said she thinks he’s a historian.”

  “I’m not sure what the hell he is. I read some of his book about me. It describes my death.”

  “What?! What did it say?”

  “It wouldn’t let me read it. It flung itself away from me.”

  “Mathew, you know this bit must have been a dream, right?”

  “It was so real.”

  “It’s just a disturbing dream.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a dream.”