A Mind of its Own

by Martyn Ford

  All these options and he picked, drumroll, nothing. Yep. He just stood there, frozen. Frozen by fear and confusion. Mostly by fear.

  ‘Tim,’ Dee whispered from the side of her mouth. ‘Gonna need that solution ASAP.’

  Clarice stepped forwards. ‘It’s all right,’ she said over her shoulder when her bodyguard protested. ‘What were you doing in there?’ she asked them.

  ‘Hiding,’ Dee said. ‘I mean, it’s the only place to hide in here, so you should sack him for a start.’ She pointed at the bodyguard, who frowned.

  ‘Why were you hiding in there?’ Clarice asked.

  She had arrived in front of Tim and crouched, so her eyes were lower than his. He was still unable to do anything, unable to create, unable to move. But, steadily, something strange began to happen. The fear drained away. There was something in Clarice’s eyes that comforted him. She truly meant no harm. If anything, instead of anger, there was kindness in her face. Clarice Crowfield, a woman Tim had assumed was irretrievably evil, looked like she was worried for him.

  ‘We … we came to see you,’ Tim said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because …’ He glanced at Dee and found a little bolt of confidence. ‘Because we know what you did.’

  ‘I assure you, young man, I have never punched a—’

  ‘No, not that. Rick Harris. The imagination station. Ring any bells?’

  ‘The … what?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb,’ Tim said, trying to sound surer and braver than he felt. ‘You stole the imagination station from TRAD and created all of this. This crazy world of yours where you’re Prime Minister and everyone loves you. It’s all a lie.’

  Clarice took Tim’s hand and cupped it in hers, then slightly shook her head. ‘Is this why you broke into Crowfield Tower? It’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘Sometimes a troubled mind can play tricks on you. Things can seem real when they’re not.’

  For a moment he felt completely safe. In a strange way he kind of wanted to hug her. She had that slightly glazy warmth he’d only ever seen once before, in Elisa’s eyes. But then he snapped out of it and snatched his hand away.

  ‘Stop, I know the truth,’ he said, speaking fast. ‘You kidnapped Professor Eisenstone. You accidently created a monster that destroyed your house. That was the contents of your mind, of your personality. That is what you are.’

  ‘W-what are you talking—’

  ‘You had Fredric Wilde killed, and blamed it on us,’ Dee added.

  ‘No, no—’

  ‘You tormented your own son,’ Tim went on. ‘I saw his memories. I saw how you treated him. You blamed him – his birth – for all your failings. You hated Stephen. You hated everyone.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘And he hated you,’ Tim whispered.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Clarice said in a firm but caring voice. ‘There has been a lot of crazy stuff said about me, but one thing I can tell you for sure is that I don’t hate Stephen. I love him, he’s the … the apple of my eye, my inspiration. His birth was the happiest day of my life. Everything I’ve ever done, has been for him.’

  It was possible that Clarice had erased her own memories – maybe she didn’t want to remember how she got to where she was. But surely there was no way she would make herself so fond of Stephen?

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Tim said. ‘I … I just …’

  However, then, like a forgotten name sailing home to your mind, it was so clear and so obvious. Of course, Tim thought to himself, feeling frustrated that he hadn’t figured it out sooner.

  ‘It’s not her,’ Dee whispered, realising it herself.

  ‘This isn’t the world you want,’ Tim said, his eyes scrunched in defeat. ‘It’s the world Stephen wants.’

  ‘What?’ Clarice was still just as confused.

  ‘It’s your son we’re after,’ Tim explained, thinking aloud. ‘He stole the imagination station. He changed everything. And … and he gave you all you’ve ever wished for, even after everything you did to him … All he wanted was a happy mother who would love him.’

  Sighing, Tim laughed to himself. He had to. It was either laughing or crying.

  ‘Where is Stephen?’ Dee asked. Her eyes were still very much on the prize.

  ‘I suspect he’s at his home, or at GGHQ.’

  ‘GGHQ? What does he do?’ Dee said.

  ‘He’s … he’s in charge of the Grey Guards,’ Clarice said. ‘Why does it matter?’

  ‘What about George Eisenstone?’ Dee asked. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Listen,’ Tim said, staring into Clarice’s eyes. ‘We need to go and speak to Stephen.’

  ‘Young man,’ she said, tilting his pirate hat back. ‘They say I have a heart of gold, but even my tolerance has its limits. This is the end of your exploits.’

  Tim stepped back, towards the door.

  ‘Ah, no,’ the bodyguard said, grabbing him. ‘You kids aren’t going anywhere.’ He looked down at Tim. ‘Why are you wearing two hats?’ And, before Tim could use creativity to escape, both his pirate hat and reader beanie were whisked off his head. Then the man lifted his wrist to his face and said into his hidden radio, ‘Agent C6, Unit 2. I need immediate backup in the VIP green room at Black Feather Studios. I have Timothy Hart and Dee Eisenstone in custody.’

  The dressing room was full of people within a minute. Tim and Dee were in handcuffs and being told they were in an enormous amount of trouble. They just listened and nodded. As Phil was still hidden in that costume wardrobe, Tim made a special effort not to look at it.

  One of the police officers who had arrived spoke with the bodyguard near the door.

  ‘Security level five, eh?’ the policeman said. ‘What does that actually mean?’

  ‘Who knows?’ The bodyguard shrugged. ‘But, if we lose ’em again, we’re all out of a job. So take ’em somewhere secure and quiet for now and wait for further orders from GGHQ.’

  ‘There’s only one place for you then,’ the policeman said before throwing a mean smile Tim’s way. ‘You guys familiar with a place called Hawk Peak Prison?’

  Chapter 19

  The tall metal door slammed shut and a loud lock clacked into place. Then an electronic mechanism clamped with a buzzing sound.

  ‘I really do think we should be able to speak to a lawyer or something,’ Dee said through the bars.

  There was no response. Instead, the prison guard just whistled and strolled off up the corridor, his truncheon scratching along the walls and echoing off each metal door as he went.

  When he was gone, all Tim could hear was a pipe trickling somewhere outside. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  He sat on the mattress and cupped his head in his hands. The police had driven them here in the back of a van and shoved them roughly inside. Usually Tim would have used the fact that he was a child to get a bit of slack. But after everything they’d done, it seemed the police weren’t feeling particularly sympathetic. And, after all, they were working for Stephen Crowfield – following his orders, carrying out his bidding.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  That nervous young man Tim remembered popped into his mind. He assumed Stephen had stolen the imagination station and then, instead of handing it over to his mother, decided to use it himself. Maybe he realised what damage she might do. Maybe this was the lesser of two evils.

  Tim had always felt sorry for Stephen – he wasn’t a bad guy, really, at heart. He was a victim of his mother – every wrong thing he’d ever done was because of her. If anything, having seen Stephen make Clarice disappear in her teleporter, Tim thought of him more as an ally than an enemy. Of course, Stephen couldn’t have known at the time that Rick Harris would later fix the device and effectively bring Clarice back from the dead. As far as he was concerned, he was killing her.

  ‘I always thought of Stephen as a good person,’ Tim said, thinking aloud. He was having to change his entire opinion of the man. ‘But … he pretty much murdered his ow
n mother.’

  ‘In the broken teleporter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But you said she abused him his whole life?’ Dee added.

  ‘I’m not a fan of Clarice,’ Tim said. ‘But is death a fair punishment?’

  ‘Whole family are nutjobs,’ Dee said. ‘That’s all we can say for sure.’

  So, as well as fear and sadness, Tim was filled with curiosity. He desperately wanted to ask Stephen why he’d made the universe this way – why he’d created a world where Tim’s friends and family didn’t recognise him. Where he was totally alone again. Why would Stephen want to punish him?

  ‘Well, anyway,’ Dee said, glancing around their gloomy, narrow cell with her hands on her hips. ‘Here we are. Remember what I said last night, in the field?’

  ‘Which bit?’ Tim asked.

  ‘The bit about getting annoyed if you were giving up.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Now would be a reasonable time to say something negative. About this being hopeless … if you fancy it?’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Tim said. Although he had to admit, if Dee thought things were bad, they were probably worse.

  ‘Suit yourself. I will then. We are completely ruined. Done. It’s over.’ Dee tutted and sighed, but not with any real emotion. It was more the kind of sigh you do when you realise all the best flavours are gone from a box of chocolates. ‘Yep.’

  Tim stepped to the tiny window, near the ceiling – there were thick bars on the inside and the outside – but all he could really see was another brick wall. If he arched his head, he could almost see the sky, but not quite. ‘Phil’s still out there, somewhere.’

  It seemed silly, but he imagined how Phil would handle himself if he had to live alone in the wild. He had visions of him trying to negotiate the sale of nuts with a squirrel, or naively knocking on a beehive to politely ask for some honey. Tim hadn’t meant to, but he had created a creature that couldn’t fit into the animal kingdom, or live a normal human life. A being without a home. The idea that Phil could get hurt, or worse die, made Tim’s chest ache. Not just from grief, but because ultimately it would be his fault. Elisa was right: he really was responsible for Phil.

  ‘Hmm, yeah,’ Dee said. ‘But this is Hawk Peak Prison. As much as I love that furry little guy, I somehow doubt he can bust us out of here.’

  ‘Hey, kiddies,’ a creepy voice said from a nearby cell. ‘Hey, kiddieeeees.’

  ‘It really is not OK to lock us up in an adult prison,’ Dee said.

  ‘Hey, kiddies,’ the croaky voice yelled again.

  ‘Shut up,’ Dee yelled back through the door hatch. ‘We don’t want to be your friend.’

  ‘Why not?’ The man sounded genuinely hurt by that remark.

  ‘That’s what you’ve got to do in prison,’ Dee whispered to Tim. ‘Be hard. Don’t take any nonsense. Or they’ll shove you about, steal your porridge and probably do worse stuff too.’

  ‘You know that’s old Wild Freddie’s cell,’ the voice said.

  He was referring to Fredric Wilde. Glancing around Tim realised this was, indeed, Fredric’s cell. He had an eerie feeling when he saw the ‘NO MUSIC’ sign on the wall. What a mean-spirited punishment, he thought again, to ban music. The only melody they had was that infuriating drip, drip, drip of water outside.

  ‘They made him disappear,’ the man shouted. ‘That’s what happens here. People come in, but ain’t no one gets out. You hear me?’ He sounded insane. ‘No one gets out of Hawk Peak!’ He laughed.

  The guard appeared at their door. ‘Change of plans,’ he said. ‘You kids are getting transferred. Transport will be here in an hour.’

  ‘Oh,’ the crazy man said. ‘Well, usually no one gets out.’

  Again, the guard wandered off.

  ‘Transferred where, I wonder?’ Dee said.

  ‘To a graveyard?’ Tim replied. ‘And in an hour? Why not wait until the morning? It’s the middle of the night.’

  Drip-drip, drip-drip. It was getting faster now.

  ‘You kids like cabbage?’ the voice said again.

  ‘Leave ’em alone,’ another inmate shouted. ‘Just ignore Stabby Pete – he’s always mean to new faces.’ These different voices came echoing down the hall – Tim couldn’t be sure how many prisoners were out there in this wing. For now though, only two were speaking.

  ‘This guy sounds nicer,’ Tim whispered.

  ‘My name’s Hammer,’ the kinder voice said. ‘End of the hall there’s Screamy Joe.’

  A man let out a short scream – ‘Ah!’ – as an introduction.

  ‘Go away,’ Dee yelled back.

  ‘You don’t need to do the tough talk,’ Tim said. ‘We’re not staying here.’

  ‘Still. Hammer, Screamy Joe, Stabby Pete?’ Dee said. ‘These don’t sound like the kind of people you invite round for dinner.’

  ‘You know there’s a place downstairs,’ Stabby Pete said again in his taunting voice. ‘A place no one’s allowed to go. If you ask about it, you get a week in solitary. Rumour has it, that’s where they send people. Down into the secret, dark hole. Maybe that’s where you’re being transferred. Ain’t no one knows what happens in there. But I’m guessing it ain’t good.’

  ‘Mr Stabby, Pete, whatever your name is,’ Dee said back. ‘We know you’re just trying to scare us. Grow up, mate.’

  ‘I’m just tellin’ you how it is.’

  ‘Well, we don’t believe you,’ Dee said.

  ‘Nah, it’s true,’ Hammer added. ‘There is an off-limits basement, but it’s nothing but a storage area – no ghosts, no nothing.’

  ‘You don’t know,’ Stabby Pete yelled. ‘You don’t know what’s down there.’

  Dee sighed and sat next to Tim on the bed. ‘Let’s just ignore them,’ she said.

  The dripping was now full-flowing water, as constant as a running tap.

  ‘It’s raining,’ Tim whispered, looking up at the window.

  After a while, the inmates quietened down and the weather took over – a heavy storm with swinging winds and fast rain.

  It was all so loud that they didn’t hear a banging on the glass.

  However, Tim glanced up after a particularly long round of thunder and saw a shadow. Something was moving outside on the windowsill. He leant closer. Something small. And then a vivid flash turned the frame a sudden blue and there he was – a perfect silhouette standing between the black bars.

  ‘Phil,’ Tim whispered. He tapped on Dee’s shoulder. ‘Look.’

  They dragged the bed across the floor so they could stand on it and be at eye level with him. Even though they could tell the monkey was yelling, they couldn’t hear a word he was saying over the storm’s music.

  Realising, he scuttled away and returned a short while later with something in his hand, a small device, which he placed on the glass. Then he pulled something over his face – a strange metal mask with a horizontal slit, the kind you wear for welding.

  ‘Yes,’ Tim whispered.

  A tiny bright red laser appeared, fizzing and sparkling against the window, steam lifting away in the wet weather.

  After a few seconds, a perfect coin of glass fell inside and the monkey removed his welding mask. There was a cold whistle at the hole, like air blown over an open bottle top.

  ‘Good evening,’ Phil said, poking his head through. ‘Did someone order a finger monkey?’

  Overjoyed to see him, Tim quickly grabbed the creature and held him in the palm of his hand. His fur was soaked through and he was shivering, his heart beating like a worried mouse.

  ‘How did you get all the way here?’ Tim asked.

  ‘You made me a flying contraption, of course.’

  ‘And where did you get the miniature glass-cutter weldy thing?’

  ‘Alas, I invite you to gaze upon my most mighty wonder.’ Phil leapt up and scurried back outside, then returned with a small metal cube. He placed it carefully on the windowsill.

  ‘Is that …’ Dee lean
t closer to look at the tiny gadget. ‘Is that an imagination box?’

  ‘Why, yes it is,’ the monkey said, puffing his chest with pride. ‘You left your one in the dressing room and for the life of me I just could not decide what jailbreaking equipment I might need. The logical answer was to keep all my options open.’

  ‘Nice one.’ Tim knew Phil could use the technology too (he had created bear-sharks in the imagination space, after all), but he was still impressed to see a to-scale version of the machine. He stroked it with a careful fingertip. All the detail was there, perfectly recreated. Its reader was no larger than a thimble, the box itself the size of an ice cube – it looked like a delicate toy.

  ‘Hang on,’ Dee said, straining in thought and turning to Tim. ‘The finger monkey you created in the imagination box, used an imagination box, which you created in an imagination box, to create an imagination box?’

  ‘Exemplary summary,’ Phil said. ‘Akin to Russian dolls, but with cutting-edge science in lieu of curvaceous, perpetually pregnant wooden women. Fantabulous times. But listen, after you were arrested, back at the studios, I eavesdropped on one of the officers speaking to Stephen Crowfield on the telephone. I did not catch the entire conversation, but he sounded seriously perturbed – he said he was coming here himself. I would strongly advise you to explore options of escape.’

  ‘Phil, this prison is renowned for being the most secure place on earth,’ Dee said. ‘Getting out of this cell is virtually impossible, getting out of this corridor is virtually impossible – how long would it take to cut through all those bars? Then you’ve got a ten-metre perimeter fence with razor wire and armed guards posted in towers. Then you’ve got another perimeter fence outside of that. Spotlights, motion sensors, CCTV, growling German shepherds chasing you – that’s just the security we know is out there. And we have, like, twenty minutes.’

  Phil turned to his creation. ‘Hello? Imagination box. Let us say I fabricate some kind of tunnelling device, or some sort of skeleton key, or explosives?’

  ‘We’d need to …’ Dee pouted. ‘Teleport.’

  ‘The teleportation sphere,’ Tim said, excitedly. ‘Tell me you brought that with you.’