by Kevin Brooks
“I didn’t,” I said simply.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Can I see your hands, please?”
“What?”
“Your hands . . . please. I’d like to see the palms of your hands.”
“What for?” asked Gram.
Johnson sighed. “Please, Ms. Harvey. We can either do this here, with no fuss, no bother, or I can take Tom down to the station with me. It won’t take a minute. All I’m trying to do is eliminate Tom from our inquiries. Believe me — if he’s innocent, he’s got nothing to worry about.”
Gram looked at me. “It’s up to you, Tommy.”
I shrugged and said, “I don’t mind,” and I held out my hands, palms up, for Johnson to study. He didn’t touch them, he just leaned down and looked very closely at them. I think he even sniffed them, too.
“Turn them over, please,” he said.
I turned them over.
“What happened there?” he said, pointing to a patch of singed hair on the back of my forearm.
“Nothing,” I shrugged. “I got too close to the fire, that’s all.”
“What fire?” Johnson said, glancing over at the radiator against the wall.
“At Lucy’s,” I told him. “She’s got an electric heater. I sat too close to it.”
He stared at me for a few moments, disbelief showing in his eyes, and then eventually he said, “Thank you . . . now, just a few more questions, and I promise that’s it. All right?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Right . . .” he said, hesitating slightly. “I need to know . . . and I realize that this might sound a bit strange . . . but I need to know if you own a mask.”
“A mask?” I said. “What do you mean?”
“A mask . . . you know, a toy mask. Superman, Spider-Man, anything like that.”
Gram laughed. “Is that who you’re looking for — Superman?” She laughed again. “You really think Superman’s going to move from Gotham City to Crow Town?”
“That’s Batman, Gram,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s Batman who lives in Gotham City, not Superman.”
“Really? Where does Superman live, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Metropolis,” Webster said.
We all turned and looked at him.
Blushing slightly, he said, “Superman lives in Metropolis.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Johnson sighed. “Can we please stay in the real world?” He looked at me. “If you could just answer the question, Tom.”
“Sorry,” I said, grinning. “What was it again?”
“Do you own any masks?”
“No,” I said, still grinning. “I don’t own any masks.”
“Would you mind if DC Webster took a quick look in your room?”
“No, no problem.” I turned to point out which way my bedroom was, but Webster was already leaving the kitchen. Gram started to follow him, but Webster said, “It’s all right, Mrs. H. I’ll be fine, thanks,” and he shut the kitchen door behind him.
As I turned back to Johnson, he said to me, “Do you know what a Taser is, Tom?”
In an instant, an article from a website flashed into my head:
A Taser is an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles. Its manufacturer, Taser International, calls the effects “neuromuscular incapacitation” and the device’s mechanism “Electro-Muscular Disruption (EMD) technology.” Someone struck by a Taser experiences stimulation of his or her sensory nerves and motor nerves resulting in strong involuntary muscle contractions . . .
“Yeah,” I said. “I know what a Taser is.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who owns one or has seen one?”
“No.”
“Aren’t you curious as to why I’m asking you about Tasers?”
“Not really, no.”
He didn’t say anything for a while then, he just sat back in the chair, crossed his arms, and looked at me. I could almost hear his mind ticking over — trying to work out if I was telling him the truth or not . . . and if not, why not? Did I know anything? Was I too scared to tell him anything? What could I be hiding? Who could I be hiding?
I emptied my head, emptied my eyes, and stared back at him.
After a minute or two, DC Webster came back in. Johnson glanced at him, his eyebrows raised expectantly, but Webster shook his head — letting him know that he hadn’t found any superhero masks or Tasers in my room.
Johnson sighed and got to his feet. “All right, Tom. That’ll be all for now, thank you. We’ll be in touch.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that,” Gram said to me after she’d shown Johnson and Webster out. “Are you OK? You look really tired.”
“Yeah . . . I am a bit. I’ve got a really bad headache coming on, too. Maybe I’ll go back to bed for a while.”
“I think you should. Have you still got enough of those painkillers that Dr. Kirby gave you?”
I nodded.
She said, “OK, well, take two of those and get yourself off to bed. Do you want me to get you anything else before you go?”
“No, thanks,” I said, getting up.
She gave me a hug and a kiss on top of my head, and I went down the hall to my room.
I really was tired. All those questions, trying to work out how to answer them . . . and all that lying to Gram, too. It had really drained all the energy out of me.
That and the last ten days.
As I lay down on the bed, there were so many things I had to think about, so many unknowns — what did Johnson know? what did he suspect? what did he think? what was I going to do about the money in Gram’s bank account? what was I going to do about everything? — and I knew that I ought to start looking for answers right now. I ought to start scanning and hacking and searching and listening . . .
But as soon as I closed my eyes, that was it.
I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
Buddha
I must have been even more tired than I thought, because when I finally woke up — and when my brain finally started working properly — I realized that it was 11:26:54 on the following day.
I’d slept for almost twenty-four hours.
And I still felt tired.
But at least the dreaminess/non-dreaminess seemed to have gone.
In fact, I almost felt quite normal.
Almost . . .
In the kitchen there was a note from Gram telling me that she’d gone shopping, and that she’d be back in a couple of hours.
I made myself some toast.
Ate it.
Made some more (I was really hungry).
Ate it.
Drank some orange juice.
Put the TV on . . .
Turned it off.
Then, not quite ready to do anything else yet, I went over to the window and gazed down at Crow Town. It was a really nice day — clear and bright, birds singing, the sun shining — and even the estate itself seemed a lot less depressing than usual.
There wasn’t much going on down there. A bunch of little kids were messing around on bikes, an old man in a battered old hat was walking his dog, and across Crow Lane a group of young girls were dancing and singing along to their iPods.
There was something about the whole scene that felt kind of strange — but strange in a good way. It’s hard to describe, but it felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as if, somehow, everything about it was the same as ever — the same buildings, the same roads, the same colors, the same shapes — but something else, something that was above and beyond the physical reality of the place, had changed.
Or maybe it was just the weather . . . ?
Or just me . . . ?
Or maybe it was nothing at all?
Just
one of those days.
After a while, I went back into my room, lay down on my bed, and — somewhat reluctantly — closed my eyes.
I didn’t really want to do any cyber-surfing/iBoy stuff today. I was sick of it all now, to tell you the truth. Sick of knowing everything, sick of not knowing anything. Sick of hurting people. Sick of all the secrecy and the lies and the utter pointlessness of what I was trying to do . . . whatever that was.
And that was the thing . . . what was I trying to do? Destroy the Devil and all his cohorts? Rid the world of all violence and evil? Turn Hell into Paradise?
That was never going to happen, was it?
For a start, as Gram had said, gangs are always fighting each other — it’s what they do. They fight, they rape, they kill. They’ve been doing it for hundreds of years, and they’ll carry on doing it until they’re all gone . . . which won’t ever happen. Because there’ll always be gangs of some kind or other — tribes, families, religions, nations, soccer hooligans — because, quite simply, humans are social animals. We naturally form ourselves into groups. We seek protection and security in groups. We find safety and status and purpose in groups. And, in order to reinforce everything we get from our group, we fight and kill and rape individuals from other groups.
It’s what humans do.
How could I possibly hope to change that?
And another thing . . . even if all I was trying to do was flush out Howard Ellman — and maybe that was all I was trying to do — what was I going to do with him when I found him? Or when he found me? Would I kill him? Lock him up forever? Beat him up? Fry his brains? Was I capable of doing any of that? Did I have it in me? And, whatever I did, did I really think it would actually make any difference? Whatever I did to Ellman, would it make other people stop doing terrible things?
Of course it wouldn’t.
And besides all that, I was sick of everything because I just wanted to be normal again. I wanted to be a normal kid, doing normal things — going to school, worrying about zits, being happy or miserable or crazy about things that don’t really matter. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to know everything. I didn’t want to have a mutant brain that was constantly evolving, constantly soaking up more and more information, constantly giving me a growing sense of wisdom . . .
I mean . . . wisdom?
I was sixteen years old — what did I want with wisdom?
I just wanted to be normal.
And I wanted to be normal with Lucy, too. I wanted to be Tom Harvey with her. Not iBoy, just Tom. I wanted her to be as excited by the real me as she was by the fake me who talked to her on Facebook. I wanted her to like me for what I was. I wanted us to be stupid and funny and embarrassed together. I wanted her to be how she used to be, and me to be how I used to be. I wanted us to be us.
But, like everything else, it wasn’t going to happen, was it?
I wasn’t just Tom anymore. I wasn’t how I used to be.
And neither was Lucy.
hey iBoy — did you see the story in the gazette? you’re famous! a superherosuperstar! and i know you! but don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.
aGirl xxxxxx
iBoy didn’t reply.
I wouldn’t let him.
I was Tom . . .
I was losing my mind.
To take my lost mind off everything for a while, I stopped thinking consciously about things and concentrated instead on letting my iBrain check the facts — the straightforward, no-nonsense, on-or-off facts — about what I’d been doing over the last ten days . . .
What iBoy had been doing.
What we’d been doing.
What we’d done.
Who we’d done it to . . .
Where they were now.
In what condition . . .
And so on.
It was as pointless as everything else, but I went ahead and did it anyway. And this, in short, was what I came up with:
• In the last seven days, reported crime at the Crow Lane Estate had fallen by 67%.
• Yusef Hashim had been arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm and was currently out on bail.
• Nathan Craig was in the hospital, recovering from a ruptured spleen and three broken ribs.
• Carl Patrick had been arrested and was currently in police custody for stabbing Jayden Carroll.
• Jayden Carroll had been discharged from the hospital after undergoing minor surgery on his stomach.
• DeWayne Firman had disappeared following the publication of grossly insulting comments about Howard Ellman on his Twitter feed.
• Paul Adebajo had been arrested for possession of, and intent to supply, Class A drugs.
• Big and Little Jones were under investigation by the Counter Terrorist Unit after a video on YouTube appeared to show them planning a suicide bombing.
• Troy O’Neil, Jermaine Adebajo, and the fat Korean guy (whose name was Sim Dong-ni, or just Dong to his friends) were being held in police custody awaiting trial for various offences, including possession of Class A drugs, intent to supply, and possession of unlicensed firearms.
And so on, and so on, and so on . . .
I’d done a lot.
We’d done a lot.
But had we really achieved anything?
No.
Had we turned Hell into Paradise?
No.
Had we found Howard Ellman?
No.
Had we made Lucy Walker feel any better?
Perhaps . . .
Had I started to think that she was falling in love with iBoy . . . ?
Shit.
. . . wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom . . .
E. E. Cummings
“since feeling is first” (1926)
At 19:45:37 that evening, freshly showered and dressed in clean clothes, I was standing outside Lucy’s door, with my heart beating hard, hoping that everything was going to be perfect.
I’d been busy all afternoon.
I’d got everything ready.
And now all I had to do was do it.
I took a deep breath . . .
Slowly let it out.
Then reached up and rang the bell.
I was planning on being kind of cool when Lucy answered the door. You know, like it was no big deal, I was just calling round . . . just wondering if, by any chance, you’d be interested in . . . blah blah blah . . .
It didn’t happen that way, of course.
Instead, when she opened the door and said, “Hey, stranger,” and I opened my mouth to say, “Hi,” something got caught in my throat and I started coughing and retching like a lunatic. By the time I finally managed to get some air into my lungs, my face was bright red and I was dripping sweat all over the place.
Very cool.
“Are you OK?” Lucy asked me.
“Yeah — hack! — yeah . . . I’m all right, thanks. Just . . .” I coughed again — hyack! “Just a bit of a cough, you know . . .”
Lucy smiled. “You should stop smoking your gran’s cigars.”
I grinned at her. “Yeah . . .”
She stepped back, opening the door to let me in.
“Uh, yeah . . .” I muttered, suddenly unsure how to say what I wanted to say (even though I’d been practicing all afternoon). “Listen, Luce,” I said. “I was wondering if you’d like to . . . well, you know . . . I just thought we might . . .”
“Are you coming in or not?” she said.
“Well, the thing is . . .”
“What, Tom?” She frowned at me. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing . . .” I took another deep breath, trying to calm myself down. Just take it easy, I told myself. Stay calm. Just open your mouth and say it. And that’s what I did. I looked at Lucy, opened my mouth, and said, “Do you fancy a picnic?”
She stared at me. “A w
hat?”
“You won’t have to go anywhere,” I told her. “Well, you’ll have to go somewhere . . . but we won’t have to leave the tower.”
She shook her head. “I don’t get it . . .”
“I know . . . I mean, I know it sounds kind of strange, but it’ll be all right. Honestly . . . trust me. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“But where . . . ?”
“I can’t tell you, can I? It’s a surprise.”
She shook her head again. “A picnic?”
I smiled at her. “Yeah . . . sandwiches, chips, Coke . . .”
“I don’t know, Tom,” she said anxiously. “I mean, it’s a really nice thought and everything, and it’s not that I don’t want to be with you . . . but, you know . . . I just . . . I just don’t think I’m ready yet.”
“Ready for what?” I asked gently.
“Anything . . . going out, being with people . . .”
“Yeah, but you won’t be going out,” I assured her. “And the only people you’ll be with is me. I promise. There won’t be anyone else near us. I guarantee it.”
“I don’t see how you can.”
“Trust me, Luce.”
She looked down at the floor, her face worried, her eyes sad . . . and for a moment I seriously started to doubt myself. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Maybe I was just being selfish, thoughtless, uncaring . . .
But then Lucy said, very quietly, “I won’t have to leave the tower?”
“No.”
“And I definitely won’t see anyone else?”
“Guaranteed.”
She slowly looked up at me. “What kind of sandwiches?”
Lucy’s mum was out at work, but Ben was in, so Lucy told him that she was going out with me for a while, and that she wouldn’t be long. She put on a coat and one of those knitted woolen hats with earflaps, and then — after I’d checked to make sure that the corridor was empty — I started leading her along to the stairwell.