by Joe Ducie
‘Not in the car, please,’ Tristan said.
‘That light in your arm … you summoned a guardian,’ Noemi breathed, awed. ‘Guardians are so rare that they have become legend, but they are mentioned in the storied histories of the Path of Yūgen. Our ancestors, great wielders of the power, were said to command the loyalty of such creatures.’
‘You make it sound like the damn thing is alive,’ Tristan whispered.
Drake gave him a serious look and shook his head. ‘How do we know it’s not?’
Noemi giggled – one of the few things she’d done, Drake thought, that made her seem her age. ‘You are destined for greatness, William Drake.’
Drake tilted his head and gave her a stern look. ‘I’m destined to be an example of what happens to the idiots that stand up to the Alliance.’ That bastard Skeleton Man had certainly managed to survive. We’ll see him again … ‘How did they find us?’ Drake asked. ‘Skeleton Man derailed our train, crashed our plane, and caused me a great deal of pain. Is it … could he be doing it the same way you did, Noemi? However the hell you did it? You said that those who knew how to look could find me half a world away.’
‘I couldn’t say for certain.’ Noemi grimaced and stroked the hilt of her katana. ‘It is possible.’
‘It’s also possible that the exposure to Crystal-X,’ Tristan said, ‘lets him glimpse the future.’
Drake pondered that. ‘Seems a bit too absurd, even given everything else that’s going on.’
‘You’ve been doing it, mate.’
‘Michael …’ Irene warned.
‘What? He has been. Earlier … Christ, it was only earlier today. Earlier you answered a question Irene didn’t even ask outside that bank. You didn’t even know you were doing it.’
Drake frowned and glanced between his two friends. ‘I did?’
Irene hesitated and then nodded, a curtain of her auburn hair hiding half her face as she looked over her shoulder into the back.
‘Blimey.’ Drake chuckled nervously. ‘Kind of hope it’s the first option then, eh? If the Alliance can see the future …’ Then there’s nowhere we can hide.
‘Seers are a rare breed,’ Noemi said.
‘As rare as legendary guardian parrots?’ Drake quipped.
She ignored him. ‘And often their visions are open to vast interpretation.’
Takeo pulled onto the highway outside Buffalo and joined sparse traffic – a few trucks and caravans, given that it was heading towards midnight. A reflective green road sign that they zoomed past at a hundred kilometres an hour claimed it was 372 miles to New York.
The Big Apple.
‘We’re not far from New York City,’ Takeo said. ‘Haven maintains several safe apartments within the bounds of Manhattan we can use until we can figure out our next move. Perhaps call for reinforcements.’
‘New York.’ Drake chuckled and rubbed at his forehead. ‘That’s a poor joke, right? As much as I want to see the Statue of Liberty and eat pizza, that city is Alliance headquarters.’
‘And the last place they’d expect us to run,’ Noemi said. ‘We could hide within the shadow of the beast.’
‘Not if the beast has super-duper magic powers that can sense me wherever I am.’ Drake pointed out. ‘Or can see the future. Or perhaps just has a good old-fashioned network of spy cameras.’
‘What else would you have us do then, William Drake?’ Noemi asked.
‘I don’t know. Do you have, like, another jet?’
Tristan laughed, but there wasn’t much humour in it.
‘Not that we could access in a reasonable time frame,’ Noemi said. ‘And given how the last journey ended – the loss of Grace and Toby – we need to rethink our means of escape to Japan.’
‘Well if it’s escape you want,’ Tristan rolled his eyes and waved dismissively in Drake’s direction, ‘you’ve come to the right guy.’
Chapter Twelve
Scar Tissue
Sometime after midnight, as the miles ticked idly by and Tristan dozed against Drake’s shoulder, snoring softly, Takeo pulled into a twenty-four-hour service station to put some fuel in the car.
Drake had been fighting sleep himself – what little sleep he seemed capable of managing, these days – afraid of what he might see in his dreams, but as the car came to a slow stop and Takeo’s door opened and closed, his eyes snapped open out of a dull doze, and he was alert again. He nudged Tristan over onto the window and turned in time to see Irene exit the car, sniffing, and stumble away from the station front lot with her shoulders slumped.
Noemi watched her go with that eternally serene look on her face. She turned to Drake and gave him a knowing glance.
‘I’ll go and see what’s wrong, then,’ he said, nudging her knee. ‘Can you let me out?’
Drake’s clothes had dried a bit from the crash into the river, but they were still uncomfortably damp in places. He shook his arms and rolled his head around to wake himself up, not that he could fall asleep. He felt wearied and bruised.
He caught up with Irene sitting on a swing in one of those sets of plastic play equipment found at rest stops on long highways around the world, almost as if they were planted and grew from the earth. Somewhere for the kids to play while Dad fuelled up and Mum went and got coffee to keep them going for the next hundred miles. Irene swung gently, the creak of the rusty chains echoing all the way across the small deserted service station. A pool of light from the road cast the playground almost silver.
‘Hey, sweet thing,’ Drake said. ‘What d’you know?’
‘Please go away, Will,’ Irene whispered, her face hidden by her hair. She sniffed and wiped some tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I want to be alone.’
‘And I want to play on the swings.’ Drake sat on the swing next to Irene and kicked his legs, getting a bit of lazy swinging going. ‘So what’s on your mind?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Yeah, me too. Not a care in the world.’
Irene chuckled through her tears, and Drake planted his feet on the ground. Without leaving the swing, he pushed himself towards her, grabbed the chain on her swing, and pulled her close. She didn’t fight him as he gently brushed the hair back from her face and tilted her chin up into the light from the streetlamps.
‘Oh, Irene,’ Drake whispered. ‘Look what they’ve done to you.’
Irene saw the look on Drake’s face and pushed him away. The chains creaked as his swing bumped them back together. Drake pushed himself aside into awkward figure-of-eights.
‘I messed up,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to look at me like that!’
Drake got his swing under control. ‘Like what?’
Irene shook her head and got up. She hugged her arms around herself and fought back more tears. Irene wandered down towards where the highway crossed a small bridge, over a still river. Her wet sneakers squeaked on stone steps covered in dry and crunchy leaves. She didn’t care if Drake followed her.
She was tired of running and being afraid and having to deal with the walking trouble magnet that was William Drake.
That’s not fair –
Irene silenced her inner voice and sat herself down on a damp wooden bench overlooking the water. With the streetlights from the highway above shining down on the tiny river, she could see her reflection in the surface of the still water. The awful scar ran from above her eyebrow down into the corner of her left eye. It was red and bumpy, raised from her skin and, thanks to her healing, looked as if she’d had it for years. Irene thought it made her eye look droopy.
A few minutes passed before Drake came and sat down next to her.
‘What took you so long?’ she muttered.
‘Stopped to play on the monkey bars.’ He nudged her with his elbow. ‘Seriously, just giving you a minute. It’s not that bad, you know.’
She glared at him and brushed her hair down over the side of her face. ‘It’s hideous.’
‘It’s cool.’
‘
You’re hideous!’
‘I’m cool.’
Irene bit back a retort, even as he shuffled closer to her on the bench. She noticed he’d sat so that his real arm, not the crystal one, was next to her. Here I am, worrying about a scar, and his entire body is being changed.
‘It’s silly, I know,’ she said quietly. ‘But, even after everything, I’ve always thought I’d somehow go back to school, you know? College, even, in a few years. I’m only sixteen, but … but this is just another way I’ll never fit in.’
Drake chuckled.
She fought more tears. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Because fitting in is for chumps, Irene.’ He frowned. ‘Sorry. I don’t like that word. Chumps. What the hell does it mean? Doesn’t matter. Why would you want to fit in?’
‘Oh, sure, it’s OK for you!’ she said. ‘You’re Will Drake. You don’t worry about things, you just … you …’
‘Yeah, because going mad and turning to crystal isn’t something to worry about?’ Drake tapped her shoulder. ‘I worry about my mum, about what’s happening to me. Irene, I worry about you – about what you think of me.’
Irene blinked. ‘What I think of you?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve done things,’ he said. ‘Some not-so-nice things to people. Mostly to not-so-nice people, I know, but that doesn’t make it any better. And this crystal stuff is messing with me. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m working on this balance thing that Noemi told –’
‘What about Noemi?’ Irene asked, hating the edge of jealousy in her voice.
‘Noemi? What about Noemi?’ Drake’s brow furrowed. ‘Huh?’
‘Do you worry what she thinks of you? Well? You must have seen how she looks at you, like … like you’re the greatest thing she’s ever seen. You’re “destined” for greatness. Ooh.’
Drake laughed. ‘Irene, really? Noemi? She only wants me for my superpowers. And …’
‘And what?’
‘And, well, she’s not you.’ Drake released a long breath and rubbed at his eyelids with the palm of his real hand. ‘She wasn’t there in that elevator under the Rig, healing me when I fell, or there on the helipad when that crane snapped my leg in half. She wasn’t there slipping Tristan pills that kept me breathing after Brand knocked the teeth from my skull. She wasn’t on the Rig. What we have – friendship or … or whatever – can’t be trumped by a pretty girl who looks at me like I’m Superman or something.’
Irene glared. ‘You think she’s pretty?’
Drake snorted and threw his arm around her, pulling her in close on that cold, lonely bench below an empty highway a long, long way from home. She rested her head in the nook below his shoulder and listened to his heartbeat.
After a long minute like that, Irene pushed off his chest and leant forward to look at her reflection in the lake again. She pulled her hair back behind her ear and revealed the bumpy scar tissue over her eye. She sighed. ‘Well, no one could mistake me for pretty …’
Drake stood, took her hand in his, and pulled her up so they were face to face. She refused to meet his eyes. ‘If that’s a mistake, Irene Finlay, then I’ve been making it for a while now.’
He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and then hesitated, his breath warm against her cool skin.
‘Chump,’ she whispered. Irene yanked the tassels on his stupid hat to pull his lips down against hers.
‘We were just about to come looking for you two,’ Tristan said. He was leaning against the car, which was parked up in one of the bays alongside the fuel station’s forecourt. The drone hovered inside the car, and Tristan held one of the smart phones, obviously repaired. ‘All OK?’
Noemi and Takeo stood nearby as Drake and Irene cast each other a quick look.
Irene sighed and brushed her hair back from her face. ‘Something went wrong with the healing,’ she said. ‘And now I have this.’
Tristan was staring at Drake almost as if he were a stranger.
‘What?’ Drake asked. He can’t know that we kissed. Drake looked again at the drone in the car, the phone in Tristan’s hand, and thought that maybe he could know. Surely he didn’t …
‘Nothing,’ Tristan said quickly. ‘It’s not that bad, Irene. It’ll probably fade over time.’
Noemi inspected the scar, running her crystal fingers over Irene’s forehead. ‘A sloppy job,’ she said, as Irene swatted her hand away.
‘But, given your training, admirable under the conditions.’ Noemi rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and revealed a mess of scar tissue on her elbow. ‘Training accident. We are defined by our past, Irene. By scars that can be seen and even more so by scars that run deeper. Better the former than the latter, yes?’
Irene shrugged. ‘I’m not so sure.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ Drake asked. ‘I’m not a fan of the New York idea.’
‘I spoke to our people using Tristan’s phone,’ Takeo said. ‘One of our safe houses near Central Park will be prepped for our arrival. Travel time to the city should be about four hours, barring any unforeseen circumstances.’
Noemi stared at Drake, and he shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing, Noemi. New York it is. I guess if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere.’
Chapter Thirteen
Overlooking the Park
After the Rig and the relative emptiness of St. John’s and Niagara, Drake found the hustle and bustle of New York City almost overwhelming. He sat on the steps of the New York Public Library, an old building with stone pillars guarded by statues of proud lions, in the heart of Manhattan Island on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. A crowd of about a hundred billion people all in a hurry – scurrying through the ordered grids of streets, avenues and lanes that made up the island – paid Drake absolutely no mind.
Almost good to be ignored, he thought. Lost in a sea of faces … Once more he marvelled at the fact that only a few weeks ago he’d been a prisoner on the Rig, in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. He wouldn’t call everything that had happened since escaping particularly good fortune, but he was still alive, still had a chance at reaching London and his mother, and felt pretty good for the most part – when planes weren’t crashing around his ears and giant crystal eagles weren’t bursting from his palms. Bad with the good.
Drake’s small group of friends and new allies had driven through the night with only one or two rest stops, as Takeo shared driving duties with Noemi and Drake ate the greasiest food the highway had to offer, to get to the city for just after eight in the morning. Given the number of people looking for Drake, Takeo and Noemi had thought it best he hide out in the open – in the sea of faces – while they traded the stolen car for something more subtle in a less crowded part of town. Given that Irene’s blouse was stained and clumps of her hair were matted with blood, she had stayed with them, as they went to exchange cars. Tristan sat next to Drake on the stone steps of the library, playing with his phone. In his ragged jumper, torn jeans, and scruffy old hat, Drake imagined he looked quite homeless.
Drake pulled his hat low over his forehead and made sure his sunglasses from that op shop in St. John’s – What was that sales girl’s name? – were firmly in place. Out here in a city of millions, would the Alliance dare attack? Hell, if Drake were to stand up right now and create a fiery pillar of electric blue crystal in the middle of the road, would the Alliance be able to stop the truth from coming out?
His crystal arm twitched with anticipation, daring him to unleash the power – a power he still didn’t understand.
‘How many cameras do you think we’re on right now?’ he asked Tristan.
Tristan grunted. ‘Hundreds. Thousands. It doesn’t matter. We’re on the grid now.’
‘How long before they spot us?’
‘They already have.’ Tristan held up his phone and showed Drake a screen buzzing and bursting with conflicting red, yellow and orange blurs. ‘Those are the signals I can find. There’ll be more I’ve missed. We’re already marked. It’
s just going to take some human analyst time to sift through all the marked data and confirm what the cameras already know.’ He sighed.
‘World we live in, eh?’
‘There is nowhere we can run to, you know. Coming to New York was as good as anywhere, I suppose. But they’ll still get us in the end.’
Drake considered and then shook his head. An idea had been forming, along the drive to New York, a way to stay a step ahead of the Alliance. If I can’t hide, if I can only run until I drop or they drop me, then I need to outsmart them. Drake pulled out his phone, a little the worse for wear, and wrote down his idea on the notebook app. Better than saying it out loud … too many chances to be overheard.
‘Take a look at this and then delete it,’ Drake said, handing Tristan his phone.
Drake watched Tristan’s brow furrow, his eyes narrow, and then a look of worried realisation spread across his face.
‘That’s insane. It’ll never work … well, probably never.’ Tristan deleted the note and handed the phone back. ‘Will, that’s clever. But so much could go wrong. Are you sure about this?’
‘We’re trapped, mate, and this is the only way I can see that even gives us a shot. Like you said, they already know where we are. There’s no running this time. New York just became our latest prison. I got you out of the last one, so trust me on this one.’
Tristan nodded slowly and fell silent for a long moment. ‘I don’t want to die, you know, or end up back in some Alliance jail. Will, what are we doing here?’
Drake wasn’t so sure he knew, himself. For someone who didn’t trust quickly, he had taken to Noemi and Takeo and what they offered a little too easily. Perhaps that was because what they offered was the only option on the table. If not for Noemi’s intervention, Drake and his friends would have been icicles in the forests of Newfoundland and Labrador that morning, instead of within spitting distance of hundreds of delicious pizza slices.