Cloud 9

by Alex Campbell

  But then the next page steers off onto something else. ‘Cloud 9’ is underlined several times. The same file title from his laptop. Before he asks: Who are Cloud 9?

  A page later: They are the nine names behind Leata.

  I’m getting excited, working faster, when I get interrupted by a text from Hope. Don’t trust Mikey, it says simply. Echoing what Ralph already told me.

  My stomach tenses as she sends another in reply to mine.

  I’m not sure. I’ll see if I can find out.

  It messes with my head. Is Mikey in it with PharmaCare? Did Mikey betray Dad? I start to ring the shelter, then stop. He’ll only deny it, even if it is true.

  Fear’s made my mouth dry. I break off to get a glass of water. Mum’s asleep on the sofa downstairs, the moonlight falling on her through the lounge window. I pull the throw over her.

  Back in the guest room, I continue translating the last of the shorthand. Dad looks like he was starting to make a list of these nine names. He has four filled. John Tenby is number one. The CEO of PharmaCare, Perdita Brightsmith, is number two. Oliver Wyatt-Hall, Chairman, Merkins International Bank, is number three. The fourth: a man called Professor Simeon Blythe.

  Blythe? The familiarity of the name dawns on me slowly. Blythe! The house the sat nav took us to this morning! I lick my lips urgently. Dad’s drawn an arrow linking Blythe’s name back up to John Tenby’s.

  I tap onto the internet on my phone, searching for Blythe again, but this time with his first name and title. There he is! Some kind of political consultant. And a one-time Professor of Politics from Jesus College, Oxford. But I still can’t find any connection with PharmaCare.

  I search back through John Tenby’s Wikipedia entry. Breathing out slowly as I re-read a connection. John Tenby was also a Professor at Oxford University – before he invented Leata.

  I google the other two names next. Banging the desk with the result. Both of them attended Jesus College. 1985–1988. This has to mean something.

  I call the number Hari gave me, leaving him a voicemail to tell him I think I might have something for OpenFreeNet. Next, I respond to that Fran girl’s DM about where to meet (How about we skive school tomorrow?). Because this is suddenly more important than school.

  I start deciphering the final two pages. My head’s starting to throb from the earlier drinking. And my eyes are battling to stay open, but I’ve got to keep going. I’m finding answers at last. I know I am. My blood’s pumping fast through my veins despite my tiredness. Was this how Dad felt when he was investigating a story? Is that why he would do anything to get to the truth?

  Including sleeping with a woman who wasn’t Mum?

  And killing a man?

  I knock my forehead as if I can dislodge those last questions. I refocus on the final page of symbols.

  There are more questions about Cloud 9 and Leata side effects, as well as some notes on a journalist reported missing in France. I can imagine Dad scribbling, poised at the cliff edge of revelation. His script is becoming more erratic at the bottom of the page. I shake off the doubts from Ralph, that Dad was just delusional. Quickly I translate the final line.

  My eyes widen as if I’ve never been more awake.

  Someone bought a gun with my credit card. I’m being set up – someone is trying to silence me.

  Jack Wright?

  11

  Happiness can be caught if you don’t make waves

  Leata

  Him

  Monday. I wake up for the third time, prising tired eyes apart. This time it’s getting light. I can hear Mum moving around her room. But that’s no indicator, the time she starts work these days.

  Getting up, I’ve not got a hangover for once, but something else pumps my blood hard and fast through my veins, drumming behind my eyes: Jack Wright. I’m becoming certain Dad’s right. He’s behind this. That’s why Mikey wanted to avoid him that time.

  I take a deep breath. The dots are connecting fast. Jack Wright led the case against Dad five years ago. He must have been watching Dad since. The car crash; the gun bought in Dad’s name – that must have been Jack Wright, in his position as PharmaCare lawyer – to stop Dad going public.

  Why the gun though?

  I grab my notepad and make a rushed sequential list.

  Dad hounds John Tenby.

  Jack Wright buys gun and licence with Dad’s credit card details.

  John Tenby dead.

  Dad dead.

  The scattered pieces of the jigsaw in my mind are starting to slot together, possibilities squeezing my brain like an elastic band. Did Jack Wright shoot John Tenby to stop him talking?

  Did Jack Wright shoot Dad because of what he knew?

  I ball my hands up tightly. Anything to stop me going over there right now and pummelling Jack Wright’s pompous face till he answers me, ‘What did you do to my dad?’ I’ve got to get more hard proof first. If the police believe Dad killed John Tenby, I need conclusive evidence to make them see differently. Right now, what I know seems torn and blurred at the edges.

  I swipe my phone. I’ve got a Snapchat from Hari. Send bullet points what you have so far. I reply, then tap out a quick email from Mum’s account to make my excuses to school – sore throat. Before checking out the latest message from Fran. She’s suggesting a place to meet. Some café in Guildford.

  I get showered without even needing a drink to start the day. I’m intoxicated enough already, with this new feeling taking over, firing me up, driving me forwards. Towel drying my hair, I return to the bedroom, trying to plot what I do next. I could ring Professor Blythe. Try and find out more about this Cloud 9 group. I get dressed, pulling on a jumper of Dad’s that still smells of him, mint and smokes. I’m going to bring PharmaCare and Jack Wright down, Dad. I will. I must.

  I grab my phone, tapping in the number I wrote down for Professor Blythe’s consultancy business yesterday. There’s just an answerphone, saying he’s out in meetings all day. I leave my name. With a message that insists Blythe call me. I make no bones about what I’m calling about. ‘It’s connected to Matt Riley’s murder.’

  Rash maybe, but sod it, I need urgent answers. I need people to sit up and take notice of me. Downstairs, I pick up the keys to Dad’s car from the hall bowl.

  Her

  ‘That last post? Have you lost your mind or what?’

  Millie, Bels and Kat cast a shadow over Hope’s table in the library. She’d thought she was safe in here. Millie has never liked the old part of the school, its panelled wood and stained glass. ‘Gloomsville’ she always calls it.

  Before Hope can answer, Millie steps aside, announcing, ‘Look who’s back.’

  Tara appears from behind them. ‘Hi, Hope,’ she says, blinking round eyes at Hope. Her face holds the same stunned expression as that girl Eliza Jenner whose panic attacks got cured by a Health Farm visit. A week ago Hope would have said it was a miracle; now all she sees is Tara looking lost. Like someone’s snatched away her map. Not happier, just like she’s forgotten what she’s unhappy about.

  ‘How was it?’ Hope asks Tara. There’s a faded pink mark round Tara’s forehead as if she’s recently been wearing a shower cap.

  ‘Relaxing. I think. I don’t remember much.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘Not really. The whole stay’s a bit of a blur,’ Tara says vacantly. ‘There was lots of lying in bed and listening to sounds and messages on headphones. It helped loads.’ Tara shrugs and bites her lip.

  ‘Maybe it’s time you had a spell in there too after the stuff you’ve just shared online,’ says Millie. ‘Tara’s better, but she’s clearly passed on her disease to you.’

  Hope meets Millie’s fierce gaze. The sticky-pink pout.

  ‘I’m just speaking from the heart,’ Hope replies, flushing as she realises that’s what Tom said.

  ‘So your heart is … ugly-miserable?’

  Behind Millie, Kat giggles. ‘It’s like you want to be seen as a NAD yourself
, Hope!’

  ‘It’s mournful! Your followers want feelgood, not feelbad,’ Bels chips in, with a tut at the librarian as she shushes them.

  ‘You might have noticed I’ve taken off all my links to your site,’ Millie continues in a pipe-hiss of a whisper. ‘But people are asking what’s with you on my channel – how do you think this makes me look?’ She plants manicured hands on her short, pleated skirt.

  ‘I’m just admitting life can be swell but it can also suck,’ Hope answers.

  ‘What the …?’ Millie rolls her green-painted eyes. She pulls the others away. ‘I’ll leave you to your new friend, de-pression. But if you choose to continue down this path, Hope, I will have to seriously consider collaborating with you again – online or in life. I have a brand as well as my happiness to consider. You might want to think about that.’

  Hope stares at the four of them as they leave. Perfect hair, perfect clothes … even Tara’s auburn bob is shiny again. Continue down this path. Millie’s words start drawing a crossroads in her mind. The desolate kind with tumbleweed and a creaky sign. Which way?

  Hasn’t she already decided on the wrong route? Since yesterday’s blog post, the trolls are increasing; more followers deserting. Rats from a sinking ship. She’ll admit, half of her is tugging to go back the way she came. Where she is loved and people tell her she’s beautiful. Where she says what others seem to want to hear – that life is great and full of sunshine and there’s no need to be anything but positive! And happy!

  Except she’s no longer feeling either positive, or happy. No matter how many Leatas she takes, happiness is seeping out of her.

  She focuses back on the essay open on her laptop, as her phone buzzes. A text from Tom. He’s asking her to find out more about her dad’s legal brief for PharmaCare.

  She holds her head as if it’s suddenly heavy. She won’t spy on Tom any longer. But can she deceive her dad instead? She’s not seen Dad since yesterday. He came back late from dinner last night; left early for work this morning. Maybe her lie to him will reveal nothing. Logical explanation, she repeats in her head.

  Maybe Dad does just care about her neighbour’s son.

  Like she does. An alien, warm feeling spreads through her. She looks back at the crossroads in her head, and starts digging around in her bag. She should still have it in here. The PAL blogger list that was handed out at the Leata Blogger Quarterly. She finds it – the list is sub-titled Nasties who hate Leata. She can hear Toby, their Social Media Manager, reciting it. She clicks onto Google on her laptop. And searches for the first site on the list.

  Him

  The sudden rain means no one dawdles on Guildford High Street. People are simply blurs of colour, rushing past, umbrellas up, heads down.

  I find the café Fran suggested in her last message – an American diner with red leather booths and silver napkin dispensers. I take a seat, reluctantly take off Dad’s army coat, now soaked. I remove my glasses to wipe them, and when I put them on again, she’s there.

  ‘Hi, Tom. It’s so nice to see you again!’ She’s folding up a sodden umbrella. ‘What’s it been? Five years?’

  ‘About that,’ I say.

  She moves into the opposite seat, the thin metal bracelets she’s wearing colliding and rattling like a cutlery drawer. I finger my own, the inscribed bracelet Pavlin’s dad gave me. There is no beginning. There is no end. It calms me a little.

  ‘You look different,’ I say. I remember two plaits and a pancake-round face from Year Six. Now she resembles an extra from a vampire film. Pale make-up and blood-red lips. It might be an okay look but she doesn’t seem comfortable in it. ‘But good different,’ I add, because she’s tugging self-consciously on the dyed green-blue ends of her hair.

  A waitress wearing a ‘Made Happy by Leata’ badge, to go with her perma-grin, takes our drinks order. When she’s gone, Fran says, ‘I’m so glad you suggested this. I needed a day off school.’ Is she nervous? Her eyes haven’t yet made direct contact with mine. Her mouth stays almost ventriloquist-frozen as she talks.

  I start making patterns with some spilt sugar. I’ve got to ask the right questions. I’ve got to think like my dad did, as a journalist, if I’m going to find out more about what Jack Wright does for PharmaCare. If Fran knows nothing, I’m out of here.

  ‘I hate when people do that to little children,’ Fran says, rolling her eyes at a woman across from us. Sat opposite two young kids, she’s reading out a message from her Leata foil strip, as if it’s a bedtime story. ‘Get cross and you cripple yourself!’

  It makes me think of Hope, forever reciting messages. I find myself wishing I’d invited her here, picturing her sat opposite, with her smile – even the fake one – and her shiny hair and her scent of soap and something like honey.

  ‘Do you and Hope still hang out together?’ I blurt out, cursing myself for just wanting to include her somehow.

  ‘Me and Hopeless? You have to be joking. She’s a fully-paid up member of the Leata sorority. Yellow-brick road happy.’ Fran makes a sort of grunt. ‘I’m seen as the Wicked Witch at Beaton High simply for choosing to think for myself and not take the magic pill.’

  ‘Yeah, I know the feeling. My school’s not much better.’ I nod to make her feel better. ‘But Hope’s all right you know. Leata-obsessed, yeah, but she’s okay.’ Images of younger Hope start parading through my mind as if to prove that point. I used to think she was more than okay. I used to think she was the best. She was up there with my dad.

  Our drinks arrive as the woman opposite solemnly hands her little kids a screen each as if it’s a copy of the Bible. I recognise the familiar tune of Head Rush. The free game app Leata came up with for children. Its TV strapline appears in my head like it’s been planted there. ‘To keep them quietly happy!’

  I tune back into Fran. ‘You think Hopeless Wright’s okay?’ she’s saying, her mouth drawn in a motionless line. ‘My mum and her dad work together, yeah? And from the sound of Mum’s conversation with Hope’s dad on Friday – I picked up the phone to make a call honest, Mum – Hope’s helping them with some seedy goings-on.’

  My fingers freeze in the sugar. ‘What’s she doing?’

  ‘From what they were saying she’s trailing some poor boy who they’re scared might cause PharmaCare a libel headache. Sounds like his dad’s died and he –’ Her mouth drops open at the same time as mine does. ‘Shit. It’s not you, is it?’

  Her

  Hope glances up at the clock above the library exit. She’s missed almost the whole of Geography, which is possibly a shame, seeing as she desperately needs some direction. An hour’s trawl of all things PAL and it’s as if she’s just come up for air from some underground hideout. She never realised there were that many people out there who don’t take Leata. It’s not what the media profess. Or Leata. She looks around her. How many students here don’t take it, yet pretend to so they fit in?

  The PAL network of blogs and channels she’s been viewing carry threads with all kinds of theories about Leata and PharmaCare. That Leata might be exploiting child labour … or chopping down trees in the rainforest … funding the Progress Party and other global political parties … or, yes, lying about its long-term side-effects.

  And there’s worse. Some of the posts and Twitter feeds read like horror stories. A sixteen-year-old vlogger from Paris has gone missing. The majority of the French press report he’s just run away. His family and friends clearly think differently on the ‘Find Andrei’ site they’ve set up. They say PharmaCare was accusing his vlog of libel. Just before he disappeared.

  Another blogger from Sweden is actually in hiding. She keeps changing her blog site so she can continue to post. She’s one of the voices claiming there are side effects. Though there’s a note on her last site that was posted yesterday from her family and friends asking her to make contact with them.

  Then a group of students in New York are currently being remanded on charges of inciting terrorism. Because of their blog encour
aging people to graffiti Leata posters and billboards.

  And Thenextbig‌secretafte‌rsmokingkills in Australia – he’s currently being sued for making claims it’s addictive; that once you start taking Leata, you can’t stop. And he states openly that he is being forcibly threatened to pull his channel.

  Inside her head, it’s like the light source has been changed. Why has none of this made mainstream news? She knew her dad was involved with shutting down newspapers and punishing media channels, for saying things against Leata. It’s work she was proud of. Since she decided to be proud. But hounding young people for having a voice? And why have some disappeared?

  She reaches down into her bag, pulling out the emergency box she always carries with her, unfolding the leaflet inside that she rarely examines. It holds sepia shots of attractive smiling people, interspersed between the science bit. She doesn’t know half the ingredients. The main one is a long Latin name she can’t pronounce. The plant source John Tenby manufactured which, mixed with a chemical concoction, creates Leata’s harmless magic.

  But what if the magic isn’t harmless? What if Matt Riley was right and there’s a time bomb ticking of future side effects?

  Hope chews down on the side of her mouth. In all of this, she’s never thought once about not taking Leata. It seems as alien as not spraying on deodorant each morning. Who wants to smell?

  She crumples up the leaflet and begins packing up her bag for English class. Her phone starts buzzing as she’s getting up to leave. A number she doesn’t recognise.

  ‘Is that Hope?’

  The voice is small and quiet; it takes Hope a while to recognise it. ‘Imogen?’

  ‘Out!’ The librarian points to the exit.

  Hope mouths a ‘sorry’, throwing her bag over her shoulder, walking away fast. ‘Are you okay, Imogen?’

  ‘No. No, I’m not. PharmaCare are still my employers – I had to admit to them that Tom visited me. But I never told them I revealed John Tenby was dead.’ Her voice escalates. ‘But they know. They know I talked! Was it you? Was it Tom?’