“You can help, Tucker. I’ve just got to figure out what to do first.”
Six returned to the window and began picking her nose. They were both so tired, she thought. Neither of them had had any sleep.
She watched Tucker’s reflection in the window. He had begun eating one of the sandwiches the baker had given them on their way back from the bar and was staring at two green lights blinking on the control panel. She thought about saying something nice, maybe even thanking him for his help on the lake, but then bit into her own sandwich and swallowed the words. The gulf between them was widening. Six could feel it, but it was like, the more she needed Tucker, the more she resented him somehow.
Time passed, the full moon continuing to hover over the city, the great orb waxing as white as Neon’s eyes.
The trouble with the end of the world is, that it’s impossible to escape, Six thought as she finished the food and tossed its paper wrapping aside. And that’s all I really want to do. Run away. Far away from Tucker and Grandpa and telepaths and drowning princesses.
Far away from Lord Truth.
She closed her eyes again, and there in the darkness was the face of the monkey, always the monkey, with its blue fur and that insane metal grin, staring back at her.
But where would I go?
Jon Way ran from the hospital back to the castle, white coat tails trailing behind him.
“Tell me again what happened,” Tucker pleaded. “Tell me more about the bomb.”
Six sighed and pulled the blanket tighter around her arms. “It was locked in a brass case and hidden in Al’s office. Grandpa said we could never let it out and that it had to be our secret. That it was dangerous, and that the only other one like it had killed my grandma.”
Tucker’s eyes were already drifting back to the console and its blinking lights. Six wandered over, kicking him in the hope he would focus. “You remember his stories. How my grandma died when her skyscraper was attacked in Hong Kong. How he tried to save her but the building exploded?”
Tucker looked confused. “Well, yeah but...”
“Well, that was exactly what happened at Parliament, wasn’t it? The monkey wasn’t a toy, Tucks. It was some kind of robot, some kind of bomb. And I saw it again in London, the day Parliament blew up.”
“An exploding monkey?” Tucker’s eyes flickered once again over the control desk and then back to Six. “You know, I think it’s great you’re finally talking about what happened in London, Six. Really, I do. But robot bombs? Giles?”
“I know, Tucker, I know it sounds ridiculous but this is the secret I’ve been carrying around these last three weeks. And Grandpa, he had it, this thing, up in Al’s Bar!”
“Then how come I never saw it?” Tucker’s right leg was flipped over one side of the chair and it bounced up and down with nervous energy.
“I never showed it to you because Grandpa made me swear not to tell anybody. But there’s rust marks in the safe where it was hidden, and they’ve changed the combination. That’s suspicious enough, isn’t it?” Six felt the words coming faster as she knelt beside him. “So I had to break into it. I mean, I only used a tiny bit of semtex to take out the lock but straight away I knew I’d made a mistake. What if the monkey had still been in there and I’d smashed the case, letting him out?”
“Well yeah, what if it had gone off?” Tucker’s fingers rattled briefly across the keyboard.
“Oh no, it couldn’t have exploded. The bomb needs a special trigger.” Six answered.
“Needs a…” Tucker rubbed his eyes. “Hold up. You’re saying Giles, your grandpa, has been hiding a monkey bomb, like the one that apparently killed your grandma all those years ago, up in Al’s office?”
“Yes, and it was a horrible looking thing,” Six interrupted. “I mean, I know it sounds cute and all, but it had these gnashing stainless steel teeth and wretched blue fur and claws and…”
“And that you saw that same monkey the day Parliament exploded, killing just about everyone we knew, including Lord Truth, the world’s apparent Saviour and the most powerful man alive.”
Six nodded.
“And now you’ve been back to the office to check and it’s not there? The monkey bomb, I mean.”
“Well, of course it wasn’t there, thankfully for me. But that just proves it, doesn’t it? Grandpa must’ve taken it out and used it to kill Lord Truth. But he couldn’t have been working alone could he, there must be others?”
“I guess,” Tucker shrugged. “Cheese alone knows Giles wasn’t the only one who hated LT...”
“Well, like you, for starters.”
“Hey, I wasn’t the one using a crystal this morning to stop Jon Way reading my mind. You’re the big suspect!”
“What and you trust Jon Way? Who else had the power to challenge Lord Truth? Who better benefits from his death? ‘His friend’ or not he’s pretty much the city’s leader now,” Six hit back.
“Yeah but a killer?” Tucker shook his head. “He just doesn’t look the type.”
“And my grandpa does?”
“No, no, he doesn’t.” When Tucker finally looked at Six his face softened. “Can you prove any of this?”
Six frowned.
“So what do we do?” Tucker bit once again into his sandwich.
“I don’t know!” desperately, the knight stood up and began pacing the room.
“Ok, how about your tape library?” she tried. “You remember when you were going through that phase of trying to figure out how the world ended? I mean, we all do that, but you spent weeks up here going through all those old news shows. Wasn’t there anything about robot bombs? Or, I don’t know, exploding toys?”
Tucker shook his head as though he was explaining to a small child that Santa Claus didn’t exist. “I’m sorry, Six, but no.”
She persisted. “But there could be, right?”
“I guess so?” Tucker squirmed in his seat as he loaded up the tower’s inventory on the computer. “Yeah, I guess I could take a look.”
Six walked back to the window. Her blanket itched and smelled of mothballs so she shrugged it off and plucked a hooded black sweatshirt from the floor. She then continued to pace and watched, once again, as Tucker’s eyes darted between the computer screen and the two blinking lights.
“And we have to go back to the bar,” she said quickly.
“What?” Tucker coughed the last bits of bread and lettuce from his mouth. “But I thought you just said Giles murdered Lord Truth? That he tried to kill us?”
“Yes but we don’t know that for sure yet, do we?” Six stammered desperately. “I mean, not until we confront him? And who built the trigger, Tucks? Who planted it? We should go and help him serve breakfast, keep an eye on him and Al. See who they talk to.”
Tucker got up and walked towards her, gently brushing a feather in her hair aside. “Is that why you’re spending so much time there already?”
The knight nodded, her blue eyes pouring into him.
“It’s too much of a risk, Six. If what you’re saying is true, then…”
Six searched Tucker’s worried face. She could see his kindness within him, but she still found herself wondering whether he really believed her story at all.
Then a static noise burst from the speakers.
“What’s that?”
Tucker turned away from her, his attention caught once again by the twinkling lights on the control panel.
“One of the audio channels,” he said quickly. “Its line was broken so I asked the computer to try and patch into it.”
He ran over to the microphone. “Hello?” he said, his finger jamming down on the button. “Can anyone hear me? Hello?”
The fuzz returned.
“Cheesy crap!” Tucker swore, striding past her now. He grabbed an old army jacket from the pile of clothes on his floor, a fur-lined deerstalker for his head. “We’ve got to go out.”
“What?”
Tucker was already pulling on the tattered co
at. “Listen, if this all adds up the way you say it does, is there anyone, anyone out there we can trust?”
“I don’t know, Carol perhaps,” Six shrugged. “Or maybe Sir Justice? He was pretty impressive out there trying to save the princess...”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Although, so was your grandpa.”
“Yes but,” Six was exasperated. “Tucker, what are you doing?”
Tucker picked up his sword. Its blade shone in the moonlight as he sheathed it and strapped it to his waist. “I’m going to talk to Sir Justice.”
“What, why? You can’t tell him, not yet!”
“I’m not going to tell him anything,” Tucker promised. “But we’re still the last of the Knights of Truth aren’t we? And I think someone’s in trouble.” Six shook her head in disbelief. “Who?”
“Those communicator lights,” the boy nodded at the console. “See how they’ve been flashing ever since we got back? Someone must’ve taken a couple of units into the burial mounds and left them on, but somehow the signals got cut off.”
“So what?” Six replied stubbornly.
“So what? So according to the inventory, they’re still out there! C’mon!”
Six stood motionless. “But what about the monkey? What about Grandpa?”
“We’ll get back to that,” Tucker hollered, his feet already bounding down the stairs. “We’ll figure it out later!”
Six paused. “You figure it out later,” she then yelled after him. “I’m gonna figure it out now!”
But Tucker had already gone.
………...
Neon woke as a black wave of water splashed over her bent arm, spraying her in the face. She could hear her mother and father talking about her. But she wasn’t with them.
“How is she, Jon?” her mother’s voice was wracked with fear.
“Well, there’s no external damage due to exposure. Her breathing’s returning to normal and her heart rate’s catching up nicely. Physically she seems fine…”
“But her eyes, Jon!”
Neon sat up and shook the white sand from her hair. Her eyes stung with salt but otherwise they seemed fine. She looked down at her white, glistening hands. Instinctively, she groped for Brian but she couldn’t find him. Instead she looked up to see a white beach, stretching for miles either side of her, a thick canopy of white leaves and black branches beyond it.
Her parents’ words lapped at her feet, swirling on the surface of the black ocean.
“Her brain’s been starved of oxygen, Serena. The long term effects of that I can’t be sure of, but for now her mind seems to have slipped into a coma.”
And with that her father panicked, fear scratching at his thoughts. “She’s not here, Serena, I can’t reach her.”
“It’s alright, I’m here, Daddy!” Neon answered. But the words echoed no further. “I’m on a desert island!” she muttered happily.
Neon stood up and surveyed the tropical black and white world around her. She brushed the sand and water from her dress, eager to explore her new discovery, yet slightly alarmed that the bear was missing.
“Maybe I should go home,” she wondered aloud, noticing that the cuckoo’s egg she’d pulled from the bush earlier was still safely lodged in her pocket. “I mean, if they’re worried...”
But no sooner had the question left her lips than a familiar voice answered it. “No my princess, please don’t go. Not yet, not when I’ve come all this way to find you!”
And there, standing at the prow of a mighty galleon, he sailed towards her. He had a smile on his young handsome face, and his white shirt billowed over a pigeon chest like the giant sails gathered around the rigging behind him.
“Ahoy there!” he waved.
In his right hand the black and white flag of a skull and crossbones rippled in the wind, the great ship crashing through the waves below him.
“Need a lift?” he shouted as the galleon careered into a sandbank, coming to a halt.
He scooped his white hair into a ponytail and used the flag to tie it back before diving over the side of the vessel. Past an extended plank and rows of cannons, he dived for what seemed like miles, until he entered the black water with barely a splash.
Neon watched as her Pirate Prince swam towards her, and smiled.
This is the Other Worlds, she thought. The place he’d told me about. The place where he said he’d find me. The place where we can play together.
Neon watched as the boy swam closer, his white face besieged with black freckles. He still managed a grin despite the small dagger clenched between his teeth.
No, he’s right, I can’t go back yet, she thought. Not now I’ve found him, not now I’ve found this place.
Because now I can save everybody.
Chapter Sixteen
HOW the hell do you tell your grandpa you suspect him of murder? Six thought as she watched the old man pottering around the kitchen of Al’s Bar.
I mean, it’s not the kind of question you can just slot in, in between ordering a burger and fries.
Giles lifted an enormous pie into an oven, his equally large bottom shifting from side to side as he hummed a tune his own grandfather had taught him. He seemed completely oblivious to Six’s presence.
“Hmm rabbit, hmm rabbit, run, run, run…”
The kitchen was huge, cold and grey but Giles only ever used one corner of it. He’d transformed that space into a snug little dining area complete with a wood-burning stove. A pink and white chequered cloth had been thrown over a cracked formica table. Pots and pans hung from the walls and a small bunch of dried posies sat over the sink next to a photograph in a rusting frame.
“Hey Grandpa, you sound chirpy,” Six said finally.
Giles wheeled around on his left foot, clearly startled. “Six, what are you doing here? You should be asleep.”
Six leaned against the doorway, trying to look casual as she attempted to tie a small apron around her waste without getting it tangled on her sword. “Oh, you know, thought I’d better come in and do some waitressing to start paying for the mess I made last night,” she said sheepishly.
Giles turned back to the bacon, eggs, tomatoes and sausages he had grilling on the counter. “I’ll say you had, young lady. You’ll have a lot more shifts to cover as well if you insist on wearing those pearls around your neck.”
Six bowed her head, fingering the jewels she’d stolen from the safe earlier in an attempt to cover her tracks.
The old man shook his spatula at her with his four-fingered right hand. “Just what were you thinking, eh? I mean, I know things have been tough lately but that’s no excuse for smashing the place up, is it? Al’s really upset. I suppose you roped Tucker in on your little midnight raid too, didn’t you?”
Six looked down at her feet. So far, so good, she thought. He’s obviously fallen for the necklace story and made no mention of the monkey. Plus, he hasn’t tried to kill me.
“Just how did you get into the office anyway?” Giles continued, flipping over a burger.
“I, er, I…” Six paused. With everything else she’d to worry about she’d had little time to concoct a complete cover story. Still, she didn’t want to give up her forged keys. “Hair grips,” she said suddenly.
“Pardon?”
“The little metal ones. Lord Truth taught all the knights how to use them to pick locks.”
“Oh, right.” Giles slapped some more bacon onto the grill, pushing some crispy slices to one side as his mood visibly darkened. “Yet another life skill that grey bastard taught you, eh? Not satisfied by luring my granddaughter into his little cult, he then taught her how to break and enter. Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead or anything.” Giles smiled, stabbing a pile of raw sausages with his fork.
Hmmm, maybe so far, not so good, Six frowned. She’d known for a long time that her grandpa hated Lord Truth. She’d never quite understood why. But enough to plant a bomb to kill him? Six stood stiffly, her hands clasped behind her back. I gue
ss that’s what I have to find out, she thought, crossing her fingers. But please, please don’t let it be true. I’m not sure I can take it.
“Listen Grandpa, we need to talk,” she stuttered.
But Giles’s attention had already switched to a pot of boiling porridge, which he now stirred ferociously with a wooden spoon.
“Damned stuff, why does it always burn?” he sighed, sweat collecting on his plump red brow as he dug the utensil into the pan’s edges.
Six tried again, even more reluctantly this time. “Grandpa, I said I think we need to talk.”
“Yes, yes,” Giles answered from the sweltering pot. “But let’s wait until I’ve fried enough eggs and burnt enough porridge to fill everyone’s bellies, shall we?”
He smiled again, the two tears tattooed on his cheek creasing. “Now, you’d better go out there and start taking orders, it’s still dark so we’ve got a long way to go before breakfast’s over.”
“But Grandpa, I…”
“And take off that sword will you, sweetheart, this isn’t the place for that kind of thing. We all know you’re a knight here - everyone’s heard about your heroics last night. I think you’ll find peoples’ attitudes may be a bit brighter now.”
He wiped his hands on his large, grubby apron as Six picked up a notebook from the dining table. It was true, people had seemed friendlier after their adventure on the lake. The baker had even given them those sandwiches.
Maybe things are going to work out? she thought as she unclipped her sword. Maybe things will change for the better? That’s if...
“Oh and Six?”
“Yes Grandpa?”
And before she knew what had happened, the cook had wrapped her up in one of his delicious hugs. The kind that used to make her feel so warm and safe. The kind that only he could give: the man who’d raised her, the man who’d always loved her, the man - Six thought with a start - who probably killed Lord Truth and tried to kill her too.
“I’m proud of you,” he said as he bent down to kiss her forehead. “So proud of you for saving Princess Neon and Sir Justice like you did.”
“Erm, thanks.” Six wiped at her fringe and forced a smile, almost tripping over the step as she backed away from him.
The Last Days Page 12
