Delete: Volume 3 (Shifter Series)

by Kim Curran

  I didn’t belong here. I had to Shift and get out. Back to my old reality where I wasn’t running around with a bullet in my leg and didn’t have drones to worry about. But… I looked at Aubrey. She watched me with her one good eye, a curious smile playing about her lips. I smiled back. The Shift could wait. After all, I didn’t want to risk making the situation even worse.

  I tried to find some hidden reserves of energy as the group set off again, heading for the fallen building.

  Zac and Aubrey helped me crawl over girders and rubble to get through to the alley. The pain was biting hard again, and my vision was blurring around the edges. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep this up. The alley stank of piss and rotting food, like something had died down here. As we stepped over a large brown stain, I realised I wasn’t wrong about that.

  When we finally came out the other end, it opened onto a long, wide road.

  “They should be up ahead,” Turner said, excitedly.

  I heard a low whoomp, whoomp. Had the drones Cooper had been worrying about found us?

  A blur of metal appeared over the top of the empty shops in front of us. A black helicopter with the Union flag painted on its tail hovered overhead.

  “Damn,” Aubrey said. And reached up to her collar again. “Thirteen squad. We are one hundred metres south of your location. Request drop and wait.”

  “I regret, no can do,” a female voice crackled in return. I could make out the hint of an accent amid the static.

  “Then how the hell do you think we’re going to get to the Hub, Ladoux?” Aubrey shouted down her mic. “Walk?”

  “Relax, Jones,” whoever this Ladoux was said. “The Rhino is waiting. Couldn’t leave you out in the cold, could we?” Her voice crackled as the reception weakened. “We’ll light your way.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Aubrey said.

  “What’s the Rhino?” I asked.

  Aubrey looked at me like I’d asked a very stupid question. She was about to answer when she was cut off by a low, grumbling roar and the sound of metal grinding on concrete. “That,” she said jabbing her thumb back over her shoulder, “is the Rhino.”

  A huge tank rolled around a corner. Its tracks rolled over the remains of a car, flattening it like a tin can. It was so black it seemed to swallow up any light left on the street. There were no windows I could see. No slots in the armour. The only thing breaking the blackness was the Union flag painted on its side. It looked like something out of one of my old videogames. Like something from the future.

  The Rhino ground to a halt, cracking the concrete under its weight. A hatch opened in the top and a helmeted head popped up.

  “Well,” said a lilting voice I recognised. “Are you gonna stand there all day, or are we getting the feck out of here?” A tiny girl clambered out of the hatch to stand on top of the tank. She blew her long, brown fringe out of her eyes.

  “Thanks, Cleo,” Zac said. “I thought we were going to be walking home tonight.”

  “Sure, it was no problem. And I’ve been wanting to get behind the sticks of this baby for a while.”

  Without any hesitation, Zac, Turner and Cooper scrambled up the side of the tank and dropped in through the hatch. Aubrey hesitated, looking at me. “Are you coming, sir?”

  I couldn’t move. I stared up at the hulking vehicle and my old classmate, CP Finn, standing on top of it.

  “Scott!” The sound of my name snapped me out of it. I looked up at Aubrey, now standing next to CP on the top of the tank. “Are you coming?”

  I nodded and stumbled forward. The pain was back and then some, making up for its brief vacation with a vengeance. I tried to bend my leg to climb up onto the tank. And that was all I could remember.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I faded in and out of consciousness. Swimming to the surface before being pulled back into the darkness. I got a sense of movement: fast and bumpy. We were travelling through the streets of London at breakneck speeds. Faces swam in and out of my view. I caught snatches of muttered voices. They sounded worried. More sudden movement, and then everything was bright, blinding white.

  “The Com’s been shot!” someone shouted.

  The movement stopped, and my boots and trousers were tugged off. A cold hand lay on my leg and the pain was too much to bear. I gave in and sank down into the bliss of sleep.

  I dreamt of battles and blood. Tanks and helicopters and fire. I woke to a face inches away from mine. “Aubrey?” I said through cotton-dry lips.

  The person laughed. “No. Jones is off being useful somewhere. Whereas I am playing nurse for you.” It was Zac.

  I struggled to prop myself up on the bed. “Where am I?”

  “In the infirmary. It was a close one, sir. You’d lost a lot of blood. Luckily, the doc was able to pump you full again.”

  I looked down at my arm where a tube filled with dark liquid snaked into the crook of my elbow. Below the IV tube, there was a black symbol inked across my upper arm: a stylised letter S with two double-headed arrows cutting across it. I rubbed at it. It wasn’t coming off. It appeared that I had a tattoo. Mum, I thought vaguely, will kill me when she sees this.

  I turned my attention to the room.

  It was bright white, with plastic sheeting covering rock walls. Wherever we were, we were underground. Why would anyone set up a hospital in a cave? Eight beds were arranged in a circle around the room. Children occupied four of them. Some of the children lay silent, wired up to drips. Others moaned softly in pain, bandages covering various parts of them.

  “What happened to them?”

  “You can’t remember?” Zac said, keeping his voice low.

  I shook my head.

  “These are some of your old ARES squadron,” he said slowly, as if trying to explain something to a child. “You led us in an operation last week to take a bomb factory. You were successful.”

  “Successful?” I said, looking at the injured kids.

  Pain cracked through my head and with it a memory flashed.

  I’m running towards a warehouse door ahead, a girl on my left and a boy on my right. I hear a crack and the boy next to me goes down. I keep on running. I think about Shifting, but we have to stick to the plan. It’s more important than one boy. I feel a mild sense of annoyance that someone will have to take his place in the plan. I look around to find where the shot came from and see a man, with a red scarf covering his face, standing on the roof overhead. I shout at the girl to cover the left flank and turn to the armed Shifters behind me, pointing up at the man on the roof. They take aim. A moment later and he’s falling, limbs splayed, holes in his head and chest. He is dead before he hits the ground in front of me. I step over him and push on.

  I press the PTT button at my neck and call in covering fire. There’s the sweet sound of rotary guns whirring as the helicopter lays down twin rows of bullets. It cut through the building in front of us. That should sort any remaining snipers.

  I’m almost at the door. And I’m smiling. Ready to take on who and whatever is inside. Ready to make them pay.

  The pounding in my head faded. That wasn’t my memory. It couldn’t have been. Who could be that cold? That ruthless? I could still smell the blood and cordite. And the rush – the joy of the fight. It couldn’t be me. I blinked the images away, and focused on the room again and the children in it. I recognised one of the faces from the memory: the girl who was running beside me. I realised with a sickening lurch that she was missing an arm.

  “Doesn’t look like we were successful,” I said.

  Those children who were conscious looked up at me, their tired eyes filled with excitement.

  “Commandant!” the girl said, propping herself up with her only good arm.

  The word was picked up by the rest of the kids and echoed throughout the room. They stared at me, eyes wide, not in shock but in awe. As if their favourite pop star had come for a ward visit.

  I was the Commandant? The head of ARES? How was that even possible? Nothing made sen
se in this reality. Children dying in a war I’d brought about? The city destroyed, all because I’d forced Frankie Anderson to undo her decisions. In unravelling all the subtle machinations she’d been carrying out for years – manipulating politicians and businessmen through their love for their children – I’d brought about this war. I’d thought I was stopping a monster Instead, I’d become one.

  Sometimes, we have to become the very thing we’re fighting against, a voice in my head said.

  I shook it away. I wouldn’t accept it. More than that, I didn’t have to. I was a Shifter, after all.

  I lay back down, turning away from Zac and the injured children. I couldn’t bear to look at them any longer. I had to think of a decision I could change. Something that wouldn’t make everything worse – if that was even possible. I picked over the last six months of my life, plucking at memories and then discarding them, like flicking through an old photo album. But everything I thought of led back to that moment at the top of the golden pyramid with Aubrey lying in my arms, dead. I knew that was crazy. There were a hundred different paths I could have taken. I could make sure Aubrey was never at the Pyramid. I could have chosen not to confront Frankie Anderson – let her carry on using children as political assassins. I could have never gone looking for her in the first place – simply closed the file on Project Ganymede and moved on. Not to mention the hundreds of tiny decisions I could undo, each one creating a new ripple, a new version in reality. Aubrey dying wasn’t a fixed moment. It could be avoided. I just needed to find the right pressure point and push. But I couldn’t get a grip on any of my memories. Each moment I thought of dissipated, as if I were trying to hold smoke. All because my mind kept returning to the agony I’d felt when I realised I’d lost Aubrey.

  “Is he awake?”

  I opened my eyes again as a woman walked into the room. She was a dark silhouette against the bright lights of the infirmary. When she stepped clear of the glow of the strip lights, I saw her face. She had a long, thin nose, full lips and clear eyes, chestnut hair pulled up into a messy bun. She was unnaturally beautiful, as if cut from stone. It wasn’t possible. It was Frankie Anderson.

  I remembered falling, the glass wall of the Shard whipping past my face, Frankie spiralling beside me. She should be dead.

  “No!” I screamed. I scrambled to get away from her, rolling off the bed and pulling the drip stand down on top of me.

  “It’s OK,” Zac said. “It’s the doc.”

  “It’s her fault,” I shouted, struggling to stand up again and failing. “Get her away from me.” If she used her power as a Forcer on me again, I would have no chance of escaping.

  Frankie moved closer. She was wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope thrown over her neck and a pair of small, round glasses. She peered at me through them.

  “It appears the Commandant is having an RA.”

  “No,” Zac said. “It’s probably the drugs wearing off.” He crouched down next to me, a serious look on his face. “Keep your mouth shut, Tyler,” he hissed through closed teeth.

  He helped me to my feet. I couldn’t take my eyes off Frankie.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, stepping forward. She reached a hand out to touch my eye, and I slapped it away.

  “Don’t you touch me,” I snapped. “You evil, manipulative…”

  “Repeat after me,” she said, cutting me off. “I am here, I am now.”

  “What? What are you on about? You did this. This war, all of it is down to you.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen torch, which she shone in my eye. I pushed her hand away again.

  “If you keep struggling, I am going to have to sedate you. You are having a reality attack; do you understand what that means?” She pushed her glasses up onto her head, pulling her hair back from her forehead. The Frankie I had known had a scar running below her hairline. It was the same scar I’d seen on the head of every member of Project Ganymede, from the operation that had given them the power to Shift back. But the woman in front of me didn’t have it. Her forehead was as smooth as marble.

  “I said, do you understand what that means?” she repeated.

  I kept staring at where the scar should be. No scar meant no operation. Which meant no power. I took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You are Frankie Anderson.”

  “Anderson?” she said, a dark eyebrow hitching. “Captain Black, can you give me a moment with the Commandant?”

  Zac hesitated. “I’m not sure…”

  “I will have you removed if I have to.”

  “All right,” Zac threw his hands up in defeat “but he’s supposed to report to–”

  “I’ll decide when he’s fit enough to report anywhere. Off you go now.” She scooted Zac away. He threw me a look from over her shoulder and pressed his finger to his lips. He was telling me to keep my mouth shut.

  Frankie twisted the torch off, placed it back in her pocket, and then folded her arms. “I’m Doctor Goodwin. Anderson was my previous husband’s name. How did you know that?”

  “I’ve read all your files,” I said, scowling at her.

  “Which files?”

  “From Project Ganymede.”

  She blinked. “Where have I heard that name? Oh yes, the programme Doctor Lawrence ran before the war. Something about reinitiating the Shifting power. He tried to recruit me.”

  “Tried to?” I said.

  “Yes, but I said no. There were too many unknowables for my liking. I entered medical training instead.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. “Then what about Pandora Worldwide?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Liar! You turned children into killers just to play your political games.”

  She uncrossed her arms and gave me a patient if patronising look. “I can assure you I have absolutely no interest in politics. And my only interaction with children is to see that they get better. Which is what I would like to do for you, if you would let me.”

  “No.” I was so confused. Could it be possible that the decision I’d forced Frankie to undo as we fell from the top of the Shard had led to this? Her as a doctor? Helping children, not using them? I wasn’t ready to believe it. “You can’t trick me again.”

  “OK, Commandant Tyler. Let’s put your concerns with me aside for a moment. What else do you remember from your old reality?

  “There was no war.”

  She sighed. “No wonder you are struggling to accept the Shift.”

  “I’m not struggling to accept it! I’m just not going to stay here.” I tried to tug the IV out of my arm, when Frankie gently pushed my hands away and did it for me, pressing a small bud of cotton wool over the puncture wound.

  “You plan on Shifting to an alternative reality that is closer to your old one?”

  I nodded, resenting the whirlwind in my head. I had memories of this Frankie taking care of me – stitching up wounds, patching up my team – swirling in with the memories I had of Frankie sneering at me. Telling her children to beat me up. Forcing me to run till my feet bled.

  “Then why haven’t you?” she continued. “You got shot in the leg? Why didn’t you Shift then? Go on, do it now. Collapse this reality and save us all a lot of pain.”

  “I… I…” I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t explain that the only reason I hadn’t undone everything and stopped this war from ever starting was because I didn’t want to lose my girlfriend.

  “Mmm,” Frankie said, drumming her fingers on her folded arm. I wanted to hit her. “This is quite fascinating. I’ve never seen a patient with such a firm hold on an old reality. Are you experiencing any other side effects? Headaches? Hearing voices?” My shocked silence was answer enough. “I see.” She placed her glasses back on her nose and pulled a pad and pen out of her pocket “I’m going to write you a script for some antipsychotics. If they don’t work, we’ll have to try simulator therapy.”

  I froze. The last t
ime I’d been hooked up to a simulator had been one of the worst experiences of my life. The images I’d seen had driven me to the point where I’d begged to end my life. I still remembered Benjo Green leaning over me, his obese face contorted in a hungry grin, his blade inching ever closer to my eye. And Mr Abbott, my old teacher, coldly watching, waiting for me to die. But that was nothing compared to the things I’d done myself while hooked up to the machines. The ways I’d hurt the people I loved. My sister Katie and my family. I’d done unthinkable, inhuman things. It was the darkness I’d glimpsed in my own soul that haunted me most. I shivered at the memory. Where were Katie and my family now? Out there in the ruined city? Or even worse?

  Frankie tore a page off the pad and handed it to me. I grabbed it resentfully. I couldn’t read the name of the drug she’d written, but I could see the instruction to take it three times a day. There was no way I was taking her drugs. Or being subject to a simulator again. All I wanted to do was get the hell away from her, find Aubrey and work a way out of here.

  “Can I go now?”

  “You’re lucky. The bullet passed straight through your leg. It could have been much worse. Perhaps it was much worse?” She raised her eyebrows as if expecting me to answer. “If you Shifted to save your life, it would explain the force of your Shift. I understand it registered a sixteen? The hypnic jerk is a powerful defence mechanism.”

  That made sense. The hypnic jerk – the reflex reaction that in normal people sends a signal to make their limbs twitch, but in Shifters sends a signal to the brain to Shift – had saved my life before. It was a Shifter’s ultimate defence mechanism.

  “Can I go now?” I repeated. Even looking at her was making me dizzy with confusion.

  “Take these for the pain.” She threw me a small orange tube. White pills rattled around inside. “And remember: you are here. You are now.”

  I recognised the phrase from training. It was what we were supposed to tell ourselves if we were having a reality attack. But I didn’t want to be here or now.