by Kevin Brooks
I know what happened over the next ten days or so. I know what I did, and at the time I was perfectly aware of what I was doing. I was there. It was me. I was myself. I knew exactly what I was doing and why.
But now, when I try to recall those days (without the aid of my iMemories), all I can remember are bits of things that don’t seem to belong to me.
Fragments.
Snapshots.
Disconnected moments.
. . . in my room, sitting on the floor beneath the open window. Rays of afternoon sunlight are streaming in over my head, lighting up motes of dust. My eyes are closed and my iBrain is buzzing with a thousand million words. It’s listening to phone calls. Reading emails and texts. It’s scanning Crow Town’s underworld for anything it can use, anything incriminating . . . names, places, times . . . anything at all.
It’s a god, seeing everything, hearing everything.
It’s not me.
It’s an automatic police informant application: searching the airwaves, scanning the words, finding the bad guys — the thieves, the dealers, the muggers, the runners, the sol- diers, the shooters, the shotters. It finds them all and auto-matically rats them out to the cops.
All of them.
The application in my iBrain doesn’t care who they are or what they’re doing — it targets them all: eleven-year-old wannabe gangsters, delivering drugs and guns on bikes; gang kids — Crows and FGH — fighting each other just for the hell of it; and the older kids, the ones who used to be wannabe gangsters, the ones who used to be gang kids and muggers, the ones who now spend their lives doing what they’ve always wanted to do — dealing drugs, making lots of money, living the life . . . beating and killing and shooting and raping . . .
The application in my iBrain doesn’t care why they do it. It doesn’t care if they’re poor or uneducated or bored or addicted or troubled or lonely or if they simply don’t know any better. It doesn’t care if they come from dysfunctional families, if they have no one to guide them, no one to help them, no one to show them what life can really be like. Nor does it care if they’re none of these things, if they’re rich and well educated and they do know better.
It doesn’t give a shit.
But it doesn’t dislike them or blame them for anything either. It doesn’t make judgments. They’re just things to it.
It has no feelings.
It just does what it does.
And I just let it. Because I’m just doing what I feel I have to do: for Lucy, for Gram, for me . . .
For all of us.
I’m just doing it.
. . . iBoy at night, patrolling Crow Town with his iSkin on. He’s breaking up drug deals and fights. He’s burning cars and melting bikes and scaring the shit out of little Crow kids. He’s mugging the muggers, stealing their guns and their knives and machetes . . .
. . creeping into a flat in Eden. It’s 03:15:44. A drunken mother is asleep in her bedroom, her two boys sleeping in the room next door. I move through the darkness, a palely glowing ghost, and I find a rucksack in the kitchen. I take Troy O’Neil’s automatic pistol from my pocket, wipe it clean, and slip it into the rucksack.
Walking away from Eden House, I call the police.
“Flat three, fourteenth floor, Eden House,” I tell them. “Yusef Hashim. He’s got a gun. It’s in a rucksack in the kitchen.”
. . . and other flats, other nights, other sounds of sleeping. The pale ghost plants a bag of heroin here, a bag of cocaine there . . .
. . . timeless iHours spent working on the computer in my head: sending false texts and photoshopped pictures, posting videos on YouTube, spreading malicious lies in chat rooms and blogs. Lies become rumors, rumors become facts: Nathan Craig’s a grass; Big and Little Jones are terrorists; DeWayne Firman twittered that Howard Ellman is a queer . . .
. . . Sunday, 11 April, 19:47:51. Tom Harvey is sitting on a bench at the kids’ playground, thinking about Lucy. He hasn’t been to see her for nearly a week . . . and he knows that it’s iBoy’s fault. iBoy and Lucy have got into a routine of sending each other at least a couple of Facebook messages every day, and Tom keeps forgetting that he’s not iBoy, that he’s not talking to Lucy all the time, but that she doesn’t know that. So she’ll be wondering why Tom hasn’t been round to see her.
Or maybe she won’t . . . ?
It’s really confusing for Tom, flipping from iBoy to himself all the time, trying to remember who he is and what he’s supposed to be. And when he thinks about Lucy, it almost feels as if he’s cheating on her with himself . . . or maybe it’s the other way round? As if she’s cheating on him, but she doesn’t know that the other boy she’s seeing (or at least talking to on Facebook) isn’t actually another boy at all, it’s Tom.
He closes his eyes.
There’s a new Facebook message from Lucy.
hey iBoy, have you heard about all this stuff going on round the tower blocks?
what stuff?
you know, all the gang kids getting arrested and beating each other up and everything. it’s been in the local papers. all the dealers are getting busted and there’s rumors about some kind of superman going round kicking the shit out of the crows and fgh. do you know anything about that?
me? why would i know anything?
yeah, ha ha! why would you? btw ben told me nathan craig got beaten up yesterday. it was pretty bad, apparently. some of the older kids found out he narced on a deal and they beat the crap out of him.
yeah?
yeah. and the cops caught yusef hashim with a gun. and dewayne’s disappeared, no one’s seen him for days. funny. it seems like everyone who had anything to do with what happened to me is running into a lot of bad luck.
really? must be some kind of karma.
yeah, well . . . just be careful, OK?
aGirl xxx
i’m always careful. see you later.
iBoy xxx
It’s just then, after iBoy has logged out of Facebook, that Tom looks up and sees a bunch of FGH kids walking along Crow Lane. He knows they’re FGH because most of them are wearing Adidas gear, which is an FGH thing. There’s about eight or nine of them, and they’re heading south, away from the playground and down toward Fitzroy House. Most of them are around sixteen or seventeen, but there’s a few younger kids, too, and there’s also a couple of girls.
It’s the girls that draw Tom’s attention.
They’re both about thirteen or fourteen, both dressed in short skirts and skinny little tops, and they’re both trying very hard to look as if they’re enjoying themselves — shouting and laughing, messing around with the boys — but there’s something about them that doesn’t seem right to Tom. He isn’t sure what it is, but he can sense something wrong about the whole situation. The way the boys are looking at the girls, their eyes cold and empty, even when they’re smiling at them. The way the girls keep looking at each other, looking for reassurance, as if to say — this is just a bit of fun, isn’t it? And the way some of the boys keep looking back down the road, while the others are keeping the girls surrounded, blocking them in as they walk along . . .
It just isn’t right.
Tom gets up off the bench and starts following them.
He doesn’t recognize any of them, and he’s pretty sure that none of them know him — they’re FGH, and the FGH don’t usually mix with the kids from his end of Crow Town — so he doesn’t bother turning on his iSkin for the moment, he just follows them as Tom.
Nothing much happens for a while.
The boys and girls keep walking, and as they get closer to Fitzroy House, the girls start getting a bit more anxious. They try stopping and turning back once or twice, but the boys just grab them and pull them along. They’re all still laughing and smiling, even the girls, and Tom starts to wonder if he’s made a mistake. Maybe it is just a bit of fun? Maybe the girls are just playing hard to get, and the boys are just playing hard? Or maybe, he suddenly thinks to himself, maybe it’s just you. Maybe you’re just a ho
peless and pathetic romantic who believes in treating people with respect. I mean, you were brought up by a single grandmother who writes old-fashioned love stories for a living, weren’t you? And she did used to read you those love stories at bedtime . . .
Christ, he thinks, pausing for a moment, is that what this is all about? The whole knight in shining armor/superhero thing — putting wrongs to right, saving fair maidens, slaying evil dragons — is that what I’m trying to do?
It isn’t a comfortable thought. In fact, it’s kind of embarrassing. And for a moment or two, Tom seriously considers turning round and going home. Why not? Just forget about the two girls, they’ll be perfectly all right. Just forget about them. Forget about everything. Just turn round, go home, and spend the night with Gram watching crappy TV.
And he’s just about to do it, he’s just about to turn round and start heading back home . . .
But then he sees the van.
It’s a white Transit, and it’s speeding down Crow Lane from the north side. As it approaches the FGH boys, four of them suddenly grab the two girls and start dragging them over to the side of the road. At first, the girls just think that the boys are messing around again — just playing rough, having a laugh. So the girls screech and curse a bit, and they struggle and fight against the four boys, but they don’t do it with any real sense of urgency. They still think that it’s all just a game. But Tom knows that this isn’t a game anymore. He can tell by the sudden change in the boys’ demeanor — their mouths set tight, their movements quick and furtive, their eyes darting around, looking for witnesses . . .
Tom’s iSkin is on now, and he’s already running when the van pulls up at the side of the road. The back doors swing open and two more FGH kids jump out of the back and start helping the others as they bundle the girls toward the van. The girls have finally realized that this is deadly serious. They’re being dragged into the back of a van by a dozen or so young men, and no one’s laughing anymore. They’re panicking now, trying desperately to get away. They’re kicking and writhing, squirming and struggling, trying to scream for help . . . but two of the boys have their hands clamped hard over the girls’ mouths.
iBoy is running as fast as he can now, his feet slapping hard on the pavement. He’s about thirty feet away from the van when one of the younger boys spots him and yells out a warning to the others. They stop and turn to face iBoy, and when they see what’s running toward them — some kind of fluorescent mutant in a hood — they all just stand there for a second or two, too stunned to do anything. But then one of them — a really nasty-looking guy with deathly white skin — barks out, “You lot get ’em in the van! The rest of you get this fucker!” And the sound of his voice spurs the rest of them into action.
Six of them turn and form a line behind the nasty-looking guy, blocking iBoy’s way to the Transit, while the others carry on manhandling the girls into the back of the van. iBoy knows that he doesn’t have much time now. If they get the girls into the van and drive them away, it’ll be too late.
So he doesn’t waste any time thinking about what to do, he just does it.
He keeps running, heading straight for Nasty, and just as he reaches him, just as Nasty is pulling a knife from his pocket, iBoy screams like a madman and throws himself at Nasty and blasts out a huge burst of power. An earsplitting CRACK! rips through the air, and just for a moment everything disappears in a blinding flash of electric blue. The power and heat of it is so intense that it singes the hairs on the back of iBoy’s arm.
He stands there for a few seconds, waiting for the afterimage of the flash to fade from his eyes, and then he looks down at the bodies on the ground. There are seven of them. Some are still semiconscious — groaning weakly, coughing and spluttering, rubbing their eyes — but most of them have been knocked out. They’re just lying there on the ground, perfectly still. Nasty has taken the worst of it. He’s lying on his back, about six feet away from iBoy, his face burned red and his eyebrows smoldering. His nylon hooded jacket has melted into his skin, and he’s bleeding from his ears, nose, and mouth.
iBoy looks up at the others — the ones at the back of the van with the girls. The two nearest to him are on their knees, holding their heads in their hands. Another two are already running off toward Fitzroy House. And the last two are still holding the girls, but not making any effort to move.
“Let them go,” iBoy says.
They let them go, and the two girls stagger toward iBoy.
“You OK?” he asks them.
“Yeah . . . I think so,” one of them says, gazing around at the bodies on the ground.
The other one doesn’t say anything. She’s crying.
“Where do you live?” iBoy asks the first one.
“Disraeli.”
“Are you all right to get back on your own?”
She nods.
“Sure?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Go on, then,” he says gently. “You’ll be all right now. Just go straight home, OK?”
She looks at him, hesitating, and iBoy can see the questions in her eyes — who are you? what are you? what have you done to these boys?
“I think you’d better get your friend home now,” he says to her. “She’s pretty shaken up.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, of course,” the first girl says, moving over to her friend and putting her arm round her. She says a few comforting words to her, wipes some tears from her face, then turns back to iBoy. “Thanks,” she says, smiling. “I mean, whoever you are . . . thanks.”
He smiles back at her.
She nods, turns round, and the two of them start walking back.
iBoy watches them for a moment, making sure that they’re both OK, then he turns back to the two boys at the van. They haven’t moved.
“You waiting for something?” he says to them.
They shake their heads.
“Well, fuck off, then.”
They run.
iBoy walks round to the front of the van. The driver’s door is open, but there’s no one inside. Whoever was driving must have run off at some point. iBoy leans in, pulls the keys from the ignition, and drops them to the ground. He puts his finger to the ignition and gives it a quick zap. The dashboard glows, the engine roars, then sparks start crackling and popping under the hood. Within a few seconds, smoke starts rising from the engine and flickering blue flames begin to appear.
iBoy shuts the van door, spits on the ground, and walks away.
He doesn’t look back.
CROW LANE “SUPERHERO”
Local police are concerned by reports of a so-called “superhero” fighting crime on the Crow Lane Estate. Witnesses have described several incidents in which a mysterious figure has been seen taking the law into his own hands in the vicinity of the notorious high-rise tower blocks. One resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Southwark Gazette how she was recently saved from a mugging by “a masked man in a hooded costume.” “He just appeared out of nowhere,” she said. “There was a bright blue flash, which blinded me for a moment, and the next thing I knew the muggers were running away.” When asked if the police condoned the “superhero’s” deeds, a spokesman said, “While the intentions of this individual may be good, the way he’s going about them is wrong. The police strongly advise against all forms of vigilante action, and we would urge this person, whoever he is, to let the police do their job.”
http://www.southwarkgazette.co.uk/home/090410/local
When I woke up on Monday, I felt as if I’d just woken up from a very long and intensely vivid dream. It was a really strange sensation, because I knew that the things in my head that felt like dream memories were actually real memories — memories of the last ten days. And I knew that I hadn’t been dreaming for the last ten days . . .
But I still felt as if I had.
I lay in bed for a while, trying not to think about it, trying instead to just feel perfectly normal . . . but it’s hard not to think about something when you’
re lying in your bed, just staring at the ceiling, acutely aware that you’re trying not to think about something . . . and it’s even harder to feel perfectly normal when it’s perfectly obvious you’re not.
So, in the end, I gave up.
I got out of bed, took a shower, and got dressed.
When I went into the kitchen, Gram was sitting at the table, holding what looked like a bank statement in her hand.
“Morning, Gram,” I said, sitting down. “How are you —?”
“What’s this, Tommy?” she said sternly.
“Sorry?”
“This,” she repeated, waving the bank statement at me. “Fifteen thousand pounds, deposited anonymously into my bank account on the thirty-first of March.” She glared at me. “Do you know anything about it?”
“Me?” I said, feigning surprise and indignation, while at the same time mentally kicking myself for forgetting all about it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about this,” she said, passing me the statement and pointing out the deposit. “Look . . . see? Someone’s put fifteen thousand pounds into my account.”
I smiled at her. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
She glared at me again. “Not if I don’t know who it’s from or what it’s for.”
I shrugged. “Does it matter? I mean, money’s money —”
“Yes, Tommy. It matters.”
I looked at the bank statement. “Maybe it’s from your publishers,” I suggested. “A bonus or something . . .”
“A bonus?”
I shrugged again. “I don’t know, do I?”
“It’s not from my publishers, I’ve already checked. And the bank can’t tell me who it’s from either.” She looked at me. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about it?”
“Why would I?”
Gram hesitated.
“What?” I asked her.