by Natasha Ngan
‘There’s this thing we –’ Seven stopped abruptly. ‘This thing I’ve found out about. I dunno much except it’s called TMK and it’s got something to do with these people known as Candidates.’
He searched the Librarian’s face for any signs of recognition, but the man’s face was unreadable.
‘You don’t like to give much away, do you?’ said the Librarian. ‘You really are like Carpenter. No matter. Just so happens I don’t need much to go on.’ He ran a hand down his beard and winked. ‘I’m that good.’
Turning back to the computer, he started typing. His fingers danced across the keyboard. As Seven watched, his stomach kept doing uneasy flips. This is it, he thought. If nothing comes up, I’m screwed. There’s nothing more we can do.
Given his luck, he wasn’t hopeful.
Alba would no doubt be just fine living without knowing the truth about TMK – she was only really affected because her father was involved – but Seven didn’t know how he could go on being aware he was a Candidate but never understanding what that actually meant. He felt as though his whole life had been stolen from him. Past, present and future, all taken away in the space of a few weeks. A world he’d thought he knew (even if it wasn’t one he liked) crushed to nothing.
And then the clattering of typing fell silent, the Librarian turning round and smiling toothily at Seven.
‘Good news, boy,’ he said. ‘We have a match.’
40
ALBA
She could tell it had gone well as soon as she saw him. Even in the pitch black of the stormy night – she really should thank Mother Nature for making these night-time trips such a pleasant experience – with rain lashing the trees, leaves whipped into the air by the wind, Seven’s grin was so wide and bright it was as though it’d been cut from a piece of the moon.
‘You found one!’ Alba cried, letting out a small laugh that was part relief, part happiness at seeing him again. She’d run the short distance from the house to where he was waiting under the line of elms, but already her raincoat and black trousers were soaked through. She flicked her wet hair out of her eyes. ‘Another memory about TMK. You actually found one!’
Seven cocked his head. ‘Come on, Princess. You know you didn’t doubt me for a second.’
Alba smiled, holding back the truth that she’d worried sick about him all week. Stealing a memory about TMK seemed ridiculously dangerous, especially since the raid, and even though memory-thieving was his job she still couldn’t quite marry the picture of the awkward, gangly boy she knew with one of a sleek, stealthy thief. Every night at dinner she’d asked her father for news on whether the London Guard had made more arrests.
Her parents were delighted, of course. They no doubt thought she was finally starting to appreciate the severity of the crimes of memory-thieves. If only they knew she was friends with a boy she was helping to steal memories.
‘How did you find it?’
Alba almost had to shout as she followed Seven through the dark grounds of Hyde Park Estate, bent against the wind and driving rain. Their boots squelched in the mud. They were huddled together, and whenever one of them stumbled on the uneven ground they’d bump into each other, sending an electric pulse through her body, and she’d forget for a moment how to breathe.
‘There’s this man.’ Seven gave a strangled laugh. ‘The Librarian.’
‘What’s funny?’
‘Nothing. Well, actually, kind of everything. He’s a right weirdo. Anyway, he can hack into memory-machines and banks and stuff and get all their data. He found two skids about TMK. One was your father’s, so we already know about that one.’
Excitement fluttered through Alba. She licked her lips; they were wet with raindrops. ‘And the other?’
‘It was just in some flat in South.’ Pride touched Seven’s voice. ‘I’ve stolen skids from the poshest houses in North. Compared to them, stealing it was a breeze.’
‘Have you surfed it yet?’ Alba asked eagerly.
He didn’t reply for a few moments. ‘Er … well, I kinda thought you’d wanna be there when I did,’ he said eventually, in an odd voice, and somehow it was that more than anything that made her feel as though Seven was finally allowing her in.
Alba smiled into the darkness.
When they were almost at the fence, a thought hit her.
‘Seven?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What did the Librarian man want in exchange for giving you the location of the memory?’
‘You know, that was what’s so weird. He said I could have it for free,’ Seven said, glancing at her, ‘as long as I use it to find out the truth about TMK.’
They squeezed out their rain-drenched clothes in the quiet of his memorium, making puddles on the floor. Alba’s teeth chattered. She hugged her arms across her chest, trying to keep herself warm in her jumper, which was so wet the moss colour was almost black. They didn’t speak as Seven brought his memory-machine into the centre of the room and powered it up, its humming and ticking filling the air.
‘What do you think the memory will be about?’ Alba asked as she watched him strapping himself in.
Seven shrugged. ‘The Librarian said the skid was coded in such a way the data corrupted when he tried to download it. Apparently the other TMK skid was like that too.’
‘It sounds as though whatever TMK is,’ she said, ‘it’s big.’
He threw her a wide grin. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, Princess,’ he said, but in the split-second before the memory took hold and his lids fluttered shut, Alba saw fear flash in his eyes.
She waited a few more minutes until certain Seven was deep in the memory before reaching for his hand. Tentatively, feeling breathless, she twined her fingers with his.
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’m scared too.’
41
SEVEN
‘MEMORY ACTIVATED. EXPIRATION IN SIX MINUTES, FORTY-ONE SECONDS.’
Seven entered the skid running.
He was breathless already, chest aching, a stitch digging deep into his side. Everything around him was a blur of darkness and spots of stark white light. The wail of a siren screamed through the air. He swerved down endless narrow corridors: the person whose memory it was seemed to know their way around whatever building he was in. Their pace didn’t let up.
‘Shh. Hey, it’s OK!’ he shouted, his voice coming out older, deeper.
Seven wondered why on earth the man whose memory he was in was talking to the siren that way. And then he realised with a jolt –
He was talking to something else.
Someone else.
Looking down, he saw the baby cradled in his arms.
It was crying, its contorted face stained with the glaring neon-white of the lights. A blanket swaddled its body. One of its hands had worked up out of its binding and was waving around, grasping at the air.
Seven focused back on where he was going, confused thoughts swirling through his head as he ran on. What on earth was happening?
Ahead, the corridor ended in a door. Keeping hold of the baby with one hand, he held out the other, swiping a card across the door’s access panel. It beeped and he crashed through into a stairwell, still not slowing as he started up the stairs, taking two at a time.
‘Eddie!’
A door slammed open a few flights above. Seven craned his neck and saw a woman leaning over the railing, motioning frantically.
‘Hurry! They’re here –’
She disappeared as the sound of a gunshot tore through the air.
From higher up in the stairwell came the pounding of boots. Seven thought the woman had been hit, and his heart stopped, thinking of Carpenter and the night of the raid – No, not again, please no – but then she reappeared, pulling out a gun and arcing her arm up to fire returning shots.
Seven stumbled up the remaining stairs, jumping the last few to meet her. She stopped shooting to kick open the door behind her. A blast of chill night air hit him.
�
�Get the baby out of here!’ she yelled.
More gunshots studded the air.
Nodding a quick thanks to the woman, Seven ducked, running through the door and out into the rain-flecked night.
He was in a wide North street. Glittering high-rises towered around him like a forest of steel and glass. Clusters of people stood on the pavement, staring with wide eyes. Behind him, the wail of the siren spilled out of the building.
‘Eddie! Get in!’
There was a car parked on the pavement, engine growling, headlights dazzling in the dark. A man leant out, door thrown wide. Seven started towards him when he felt something punch into the back of his leg.
He was knocked to the ground. He rolled as he fell, using his body to shield the baby from harm. Pain like fire tore through him. He tried to stand and cried out; he’d been shot right through his kneecap. Blood was already pooling on the polished pavement. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to his feet –
Someone collided into him.
Seven fell back down. Twisting round, he saw a huge man in the red jacket of the London Guard scramble on top of him. The guard raised a gun to his face.
‘Wait!’ Seven cried in Eddie’s deep voice.
He thrust the baby between them. It was just long enough to make the guard hesitate, giving Seven time to buck, pushing him off. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled the short distance to the car and fell inside.
Gunshots crunched on its metal casing as the car swerved away. The baby was taken from him and Seven sprawled on the leather seat, panting, clutching his injured leg with wet, bloody hands.
‘We got him,’ the woman beside him gasped, cradling the baby. ‘Candidate Seven. We fucking got him.’
42
ALBA
She hadn’t realised the memory would be so short. When Seven’s eyes began to flutter, Alba quickly let go of his hand. She twisted her fingers through her hair and smiled shakily.
‘Welcome back.’
He glanced at her but didn’t say anything. There was something hard and wild about the look in his eyes. Panting, he unstrapped himself clumsily from Butler, then stumbled off the stool, clutching his head in his hands.
Alba frowned. ‘Seven? What happened? What did you see?’
‘Me,’ he croaked.
She bit her lip, watching him nervously as he paced the room.
‘It was back in the labs, or some place like it,’ he explained breathlessly. The sounds of his footsteps mingled with the rushing of the rain still driving down hard outside. ‘I was running, carrying a baby in my arms, trying to escape. There were London Guards. They shot me, but I managed to escape. There was a car waiting outside and I got in and they took the baby from me, and they called it – they called it Candidate Seven.’
‘The baby was you?’ breathed Alba.
‘It was important we got the baby out,’ Seven went on. ‘I could tell. That was the whole point of the mission. I had an access card, so I must have been working in the labs. The whole thing was planned, Alba.’
She shook her head, dizzy with confusion. ‘By who?’
‘Dunno. It’s not like I had time to ask for a business card.’
‘But did they say why?’
Seven let out a strangled cry. ‘No, they didn’t effing say why!’
With a movement so sudden it made Alba flinch, he lunged forward and ripped the DSC from the feed cable connecting it to the memory-machine, throwing it to the floor and grinding it under his boot.
‘Seven!’ she cried. She ran towards him, but he flung his arms out, glaring at her.
‘Don’t you get it, Alba? I don’t wanna know. This was a stupid, stupid idea. Who gives a crap what happened to me in the past? Obviously no one cared enough about me or they’d still be here!’ He gave a harsh, barking laugh, his eyes wild. ‘Where are they now, huh? Where’re all these people who fought so hard to free me from TMK, then just dropped me like the piece of crap I am?’
Seven fell silent, chest heaving as he raked in heavy breaths. The grin twisting his lips looked painful. Alba realised with a jolt that his eyes were wet.
She was close to tears herself. As he dropped his head, arms going limp at his sides, she took a tentative step towards him. When she was confident he wasn’t going to lash out at her again, she reached out, fingers curling round his arm.
He flinched under her touch, but she held on.
‘Don’t ever think that’s what you are,’ Alba said sternly. ‘I don’t know what happened with those people, but I’m sure that if they were fighting so hard to free you they wouldn’t have just let you go afterwards.’
‘Then why am I alone?’
Seven’s voice was so small it broke her heart.
‘I’m here,’ she whispered.
And for the first time since they’d met, it was Seven who opened his arms and pulled Alba against him, his heartbeat fast where her ear pressed to his chest, the smell of mint lacing his skin and his strange, beautiful scent of boy closing round her like a kiss.
43
SEVEN
They said goodbye as usual under the elms outside her house. Starlight touched their faces: the storm had finally cleared. They were both soaked through, and Seven tried to avoid looking at all the places where Alba’s clothes clung tightly to her body – which was difficult, as they were practically flashing at him with signs saying, LOOK AT ME.
Alba smiled up at him through thick lashes. ‘Tomorrow, then,’ she said simply.
Seven loved how it wasn’t a question.
So this was what it was like having friends.
He grinned. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
44
ALBA
Sunday service at St Paul’s was more of a social event than a religious one, though of course none of the attendees would admit it. The cathedral’s breathtaking interior, with its gilded domes and carved columns and velvet sheets draped over white stone walls, were just a backdrop for the finery of North’s most prominent families, decked in their Sunday best.
‘What on earth was Hilary Goodwin thinking when she got dressed this morning?’
‘Heavens knows. She looks like an overstuffed pumpkin. That shade of orange belongs only on a child’s Halloween costume.’
‘Well, that dress could certainly pass for one.’
Alba resisted an eye-roll as she passed rows of gossiping women to the high-backed wooden pew at the front of the nave. She didn’t think she could cope with all the bitchiness and social strutting that came with Sunday service today. Her life in North was feeling ever more like some faded dream; one she couldn’t wake from until she ran out into the moonlit grounds of the estate and saw Seven waiting for her under the elms.
‘Watch your dress,’ her mother muttered as they took their seats. Oxana slipped out of her fur coat and folded the delicate chiffon of her dark red dress around her. Her hair was pulled up into a sleek bun. A flick of black liner defined her eyes. She gave Alba a sharp look. ‘Chartreuse creases easily, and I don’t want people to think we employ incompetent servants. Though it often feels like it.’
Not wanting to give her mother any reason to become angry with her, Alba rearranged her dress so the fabric wasn’t crumpled. She stifled a yawn. Earlier this morning – and just hours after she’d got back from South – Dolly chose a beautiful yellow dress for her to wear. It fitted snugly around her waist before spreading out in a structured fan-like effect over her legs, stopping just past her knees. Tiny jewels were sewn into the fabric like drops of dew on sunflower petals.
Despite everything the dress stood for, Alba couldn’t help but feel pretty wearing it. It hid her plumpness and elongated her figure. She also liked how Dolly had done her hair in a twisted braid wound over her head, a few soft curls falling free around her cheeks.
I wonder whether Seven would like me in this, she thought. Then she sighed, giving a little shake of her head. What was wrong with her? Seven probably wouldn’t even notice if she was wea
ring a bin bag right now. His whole world was tipping sideways, everything he knew – his job, his security, his past – slipping out of reach.
Alba snuck a glance at her father. He was sitting on her mother’s other side, head bowed as he talked to the person beside him. The low rumble of his voice cut under the noise of the hall, like a threat lurking, waiting to break free.
What are you doing? she wondered. What secret are you hiding in Lab 32? What’s TMK?
And what is Seven’s part in it all?
Alba was so lost in thought she didn’t notice the boy who had sat down next to her until he spoke.
‘What a bore, don’t you agree? I’d still be asleep if I had my way. But we must keep up appearances, I suppose.’
She looked round, mouth falling open when she saw who it was.
Thierry Burton-Lyon.
As in, the Thierry Burton-Lyon, son of the city’s Lord Minister, Christian Burton-Lyon, who had ruled London for the past twelve years.
Thierry looked much like his father. He had a round, unattractive face with squashed features: dark beady eyes and a large, flat nose. The shiny olive suit he was wearing turned his flushed complexion a sickly shade. His brown hair was smoothed back over his head, the comb-lines still evident. Unlike his father, however, he was tall and strong-looking, the hint of muscles under a suit a size too tight.
Thierry’s lips stretched in a lazy smile as she met his eyes.
‘Miss White.’ A French accent curled his words. He reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers. ‘I am so pleased to finally meet you.’
Finally meet me?
The phrasing seemed odd. Alba didn’t know how to respond.
‘Oh, um … ’ She forced a smile. ‘Thank you. I – I haven’t seen you at Sunday service before … ’
Thierry clicked his tongue. It was a sound she associated with her mother, and did nothing to help her warm to him.
‘Religion. A mode of practice for those too poor and spineless to afford their own sense of self. I have no time for it.’ He shrugged, breaking eye contact to scan the room. ‘My parents wanted to debut my return to London, and it seems this is where high society goes to show off their children. After all,’ he added, smiling again as he turned back to her, ‘look at you.’