Boy X

by Dan Smith

  It didn’t matter, though. He was out.

  22 hrs and 02 mins until Shut-Down

  Ash stared up, seeing not darkness, and not the blank walls of the research facility, but the expanse of a huge blue midday sky, dotted here and there with only the slightest wisp of cloud. He saw the endless greens of the trees and smelt the life around him, but couldn’t enjoy any of it because his shoulders were aching from the fall and his foot was in agony from the cuts.

  ‘¡Increíble!’ Isabel said. ‘You moved so fast. How did you do that? I’ve never seen . . . Madre de Dios, you’re bleeding.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Ash sat up and squinted against the sun to see her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And you can hear me?’

  Ash looked at Isabel and blinked in surprise. ‘Yeah. I can. That’s weird. I can hear fine.’

  ‘And you moved so fast. How did you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just . . . It doesn’t make sense. A few minutes ago, I was deaf and now . . .’ Ash turned his head this way and that, listening to his surroundings, picking up the chirrup of insects, the birds in the canopy, the distant grunt of something hiding in the forest. If anything, his hearing was even better than before. He could pinpoint a sound and focus on it with more control and less effort.

  He sat up further and grabbed his foot, holding it with both hands and twisting so he could see the sole. There was blood all over it, and when he wiped it away more oozed from several large cuts.

  ‘It looks bad,’ Isabel said. ‘Can you walk?’

  Ash winced as he picked out the glass. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t want to tell Isabel that. She was tough and he wanted to be tough too. ‘I’ll be fine.’ He removed the binding from his other foot and stood up. Pain shot through him in sickening waves. Trying to take his mind off it, he looked over at the helicopter lying crumpled at the far edge of the clearing. ‘We should check that out.’

  ‘I think they didn’t survive.’ Isabel turned away, not wanting to see the broken vehicle.

  ‘You don’t know that. They might have survived. And if we’re going to catch Cain and Pierce, we’ll need some help. Maybe they’ve got supplies we can use. You know, a first-aid kit or something?’

  All around, the forest was alive with alien sounds; whistles and calls and creaks and chirps. The whole place hummed, like it was singing its own song. There was movement too. Everywhere Ash looked there was something to draw his eye, and he had to control it the way he controlled what he listened to and what he could smell. It was as if he had to learn to use his senses in a different way, trying not to be distracted by everything.

  Limping closer to the helicopter, he sniffed the air, tasting aviation fuel, burning electrics and the hint of blood lying beneath it. He allowed himself to hear the gentle sounds of ticking, the quiet groan of metal expanding and settling into place under the heat of the sun.

  ‘It didn’t catch fire,’ he said. ‘Maybe they got out.’ Every helicopter he’d ever seen crash in a film had exploded in a ball of fire, so maybe this crash hadn’t been so bad. Maybe the pilot had escaped.

  He picked his way around the wreck, studying the helicopter as if it were a felled beast. The tail boom was lying close to the tree it had hit, tangled with what was left of the electric fence. It occurred to Ash that whatever they had been trying to keep out would now find it easy to get inside the compound.

  Though he had detected the scent of blood, he still held out some hope for the pilot and his friend, but when he approached he knew it was a lost cause. The crumpled fuselage lay on its side, and both men were dead. They were still held in by their seat belts, but they were slumped with arms hanging loose, and their faces were unrecognizable. The cockpit was a mess of twisted metal, broken plastic and blood. Smoke drifted from the controls – and Ash realized immediately that anything useful on board would have been destroyed.

  ‘Well?’ Isabel called.

  Ash shook his head and looked into the trees.

  ‘And the radio?’

  He shook his head again.

  ‘We must go after them ourselves, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ash walked away from the useless helicopter. The pain in his foot was subsiding now, weakening to a dull throb. ‘No one to help us,’ Isabel said.

  ‘No one to help us,’ he agreed.

  ‘I’ve been in there many times,’ Isabel said. ‘The jungle.

  With Papa, and sometimes on my own. It is very dangerous, but I know the island. We will reach the boat and we will get the cure. First we need to be . . . How you say? “Preparado.”

  ‘Prepared?’

  ‘ Sí. We go to my house first. Quickly.’

  From behind, Ash heard a muffled CRUMP! and he looked back at the hole in the BioSphere they had emerged from a few minutes ago. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘I don’t hear so good as you.’

  ‘I think it’s Thorn. He must have got the HEX13 – figured out how to use it. He’s coming.’

  ‘Then we must get what we need and go,’ Isabel replied. ‘He won’t find us in the jungle.’

  21 hrs and 42 mins until Shut-Down

  There was a narrow path cut into the forest, lined with fencing that was still intact, creating a corral for them to hurry along. Thick roots protruded from the compacted earth and new shoots broke the black dirt in places where the forest tried to reclaim what had once been its own. The hard ground was cruel to Ash’s feet after the soft grass of the clearing.

  ‘It’s hot.’ Isabel wiped a hand across her forehead.

  ‘I thought it would be hotter.’ Ash wondered if this was another strange effect the island was having on him. When he had first emerged into the clearing, before the helicopter crash and the shooting, he had felt the heat, but now he wasn’t much warmer or colder than when he was inside the BioSphere. His other senses had gone haywire, so why not this one too?

  They followed the path for no more than five minutes before they came out into a second grassy clearing. This one was smaller and still surrounded by a high fence, but instead of a single large building of glass and metal this area was occupied by four comfortable-looking houses. Each one was a bungalow built to the same design, with a veranda and low wall running right around it. The roofs were tiled black, the woodwork painted dark green, and there were hanging baskets below the eaves, trailing bursts of flowers in the most amazing reds and yellows and whites. There were plants around each house, overgrown gardens that boasted mango trees, coconut palms and banana plants.

  ‘This is where you live?’ It was hard for Ash to believe that not long ago he had been standing in his bedroom looking out at a grey autumn evening in England. This wasn’t just another country; it was another world.

  Isabel carried on into the clearing, marching like a soldier. She went straight to the first house, passing between a pair of laden banana plants, and climbed the green-painted concrete steps onto the veranda. The mosquito-netted screen door creaked when she pushed on it and hurried into the house. Ash followed.

  ‘You need clothes,’ Isabel said, leading them through the sitting room. ‘And boots. I’ll find you something.’ There was a rattan sofa with yellow cushions, two matching armchairs and a glass-topped table. A dark wooden bookshelf stood at the far end, heavy with paperbacks.

  The black and white checked tiles were cool on Ash’s feet as he followed Isabel through an arch into the dining room, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. From there, three doors opened into other rooms, and there was a screen door at the end, leading back outside. Isabel marched through to the right and into what Ash guessed was her bedroom.

  It was a good size, with posters of film stars and rock bands covering the walls, and for some reason that surprised Ash. In some ways, it was just like his own bedroom at home – filled with books and CDs and the kind of knick-knacks that made it personal. There were a few soft toys and cushions on the bed, a chest of drawers topped with framed photos a
nd pots of different flavours of lip balm, and a noticeboard with notes and pictures pinned to it. However, as well as all the usual stuff Ash would have expected in a girl’s bedroom, there was also a rifle hanging on the wall and a large survival knife lying on the bedside table.

  ‘Try these.’ Isabel yanked open the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of her trousers. She threw them to him, and he just managed to catch them before they hit him in the face.

  Ash held up the trousers and glanced round the room. ‘Umm . . .’

  ‘I won’t look.’ She tutted and stuck her head back in the wardrobe, continuing to rummage. ‘I don’t want to see.’

  Ash turned around and slipped out of his pyjama bottoms, pulling on the trousers as quickly as he could. They belonged to Isabel, so were a little too long, and he rolled them up before looking back to see Isabel holding out a plain black T-shirt in one hand and a pair of boots in the other.

  ‘You must clean your feet,’ she said as Ash took them from her.

  She didn’t wait to see if they fit him, but went into the adjoining bathroom and switched on the shower. ‘In the forest it is hot and wet. The cuts will get . . . how you say? Infected.’

  Infected. Ash shivered at the word, and pulled on the T-shirt. It was a good fit, and felt snug around his chest and shoulders.

  ‘Clean them,’ Isabel said, and hurried off to find a first-aid box while Ash went into the bathroom and stuck his feet under the shower, washing away the blood and dirt.

  When they were clean, he inspected the wounds, finding them to be smaller than before. The pain had been terrible and there had been a good deal of blood, but looking at them now they weren’t much more than bad scratches. He dried them with a towel, then glanced up at himself in the mirror over the sink.

  That was when he remembered what Isabel had said when they first met. Something about his hair. He had been confused at the time, but hadn’t given it another thought until now, so he scraped it all flat against his head and leant closer to inspect it. Instead of being completely black, there was now a faint streak of white, just left of centre and about two centimetres wide, running from the crown at the back of his head, all the way to the front.

  He leant closer still, putting a hand to the hair and lifting it, wondering how it could have happened, but when he looked himself in the eyes, he received an even bigger surprise.

  Instead of dark brown, his eyes were now green.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’ he said, looking at Isabel’s reflection when she returned holding a first-aid kit. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I . . .’ He didn’t quite know how to tell her. ‘My eyes . . . they’re a different colour.’

  ‘They can’t be.’

  ‘Two days ago they were brown.’

  Isabel frowned and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. ‘It must be the light. Sometimes it makes things look different.’

  ‘But they look so different. And what about my hair? It wasn’t . . . I mean, where did this come from?’ Ash pointed to the white streak. ‘It’s supposed to be black.’

  Isabel came forward and placed the first-aid kit on the edge of the sink. She looked exhausted, and her face was glistening with sweat. ‘I once heard about someone whose hair went white after an accident. It was stress, I think.’

  ‘What? Just like that?’

  Isabel put out a hand to touch the white streak. ‘It looks cool.’

  ‘Will it all go like that? All of my hair?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But it did for the person you heard about?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Ash continued to stare at it. ‘But it’s so . . . perfect. Like a perfect streak. The same all the way along. And that’s not the only thing.’ He tore himself away from the mirror and sat down on the toilet, turning his foot for Isabel to see. ‘Look at this.’

  ‘They don’t look too bad,’ Isabel said.

  ‘Exactly. But it felt so much worse. And I’m sure when I looked at them before, the cuts were bigger.’

  ‘Bigger how?’

  Ash looked up at Isabel. ‘Something strange is happening to me. I can hear better than before, smell things I couldn’t smell before. I can even see better. I look different, I feel stronger, and now it’s like . . . I dunno, like my feet are healing faster than they should.’

  Isabel shook her head as if she didn’t understand.

  ‘There’s something here,’ Ash said. ‘Something in the BioSphere, or something on this island, that’s changing me. There has to be; I can feel it.’

  ‘It hasn’t changed me. I think maybe . . . maybe you’re—’

  ‘I’m not imagining it,’ Ash said. ‘Don’t tell me I’m imagining it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to—’

  ‘This place is for research, right? Well, maybe there’s some kind of weird research going on; something in the air. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Isabel shrugged. ‘I can’t explain.’

  ‘Pierce said this was the Devil’s island, that there’s stuff out there . . . Maybe there’s something going on here that you don’t know about.’

  Isabel sighed. ‘Well, this island is different, yes, but not the people.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘The plants. And the animals.’

  ‘How are they different?’ Ash noticed that Isabel’s eyes were a little bloodshot, and her face was drained of colour. ‘It takes too long to explain.

  It is best to see for yourself.’ She opened the first-aid kit and handed him a bandage and a tube of antiseptic cream. ‘Finish fixing your feet.’ She placed another two bandages on the floor beside him. ‘And when you’re done, wrap these around your boots. You will leave not so many prints in the ground. It will make us more difficult to follow.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ash had been so preoccupied with himself that he hadn’t thought to ask. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘It’s been a hard day.’ Isabel raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah. I guess it has.’ But Ash watched her for a moment longer, seeing how hot and exhausted she looked. He had almost never felt stronger or fitter than he did right then, but Isabel looked terrible. And she had a new smell about her. The same thing he had detected when they first entered the lab area of the BioSphere: the odour of unburnt cooker gas.

  The sneering voice in his head spoke again, but this time it only had one word to say to him:

  Kronos.

  They didn’t stay in the house for any longer than necessary. Isabel grabbed what they needed and stuffed some of it into the satchel they had taken from the storage facility. She jammed the rest into a small rucksack that she threw over her back, then pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

  ‘You carry this.’ She gave the satchel to Ash. ‘And take this.’ She handed him a thick belt. ‘You don’t go out there without one.’

  Ash took the belt from her and buckled it round his waist before pulling the knife from the sheath attached to it. It was the same as the one now hanging from Isabel’s belt – with a black rubberized grip and a dark blade that looked huge in his small hand. It was serrated near the hilt, tapering to an upturned point. On the front of the sheath, there was a pocket containing a fire steel.

  Isabel turned and bustled towards the back door and Ash was about to put the knife away when he had an idea. He touched the blade against the edge of his palm and drew it across the skin in one quick, short motion. The razor-sharp steel sliced a shallow cut and beads of dark red blood welled up.

  ‘Come on,’ Isabel called.

  Ash shoved the knife back into its sheath and fastened the Velcro. He put the cut to his mouth, sucking away the blood, then followed Isabel out the back and let the screen door slam behind him.

  ‘He won’t find us in the forest,’ Isabel said as they passed the other houses, jogging across the grass towards the far edge of the clearing.

  Ash was grateful for
Isabel’s spare boots, even if they weren’t a good fit. With two pairs of socks and the bandages, though, they were snug, so his feet didn’t bother him as he ran. Over his shoulder, the satchel bounced against his back. ‘How will we find them, though?’ he asked. ‘Cain and Pierce?’

  ‘I know this forest.’ Isabel sounded out of breath already. ‘We’ll find them or get to the boat first.’

  ‘Then what? We have to get Zeus – the antiviral your dad told us about. The cure.’

  ‘I know that,’ Isabel said. ‘I just don’t know how.’

  ‘We’ll think of something,’ he said, as much to persuade himself as Isabel.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is that yours?’ Ash pointed at the rifle she was carrying. She had taken it from the rack on her bedroom wall as they were leaving. ‘Is it real?’

  ‘No, it’s a toy.’

  ‘So why did—’

  ‘ Duh. Of course it’s real,’ Isabel said.

  ‘Could you . . . could you kill someone with it?’

  ‘Easily.’ Isabel reached the door in the fence at the far edge of the compound and came to a stop. ‘Look.’ She crouched and pointed at a footprint in the soft ground close to a large root. ‘They must have followed the track out here. They came this way.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course.’ Isabel stood and unlatched the gate. She turned to Ash with a serious expression. ‘When we go into the forest, you must do as I say. Go where I go. Step where I step. Don’t touch anything. Don’t leave any trail for Thorn to follow. Always look before you sit. There are many dangerous things in there. Easy to get hurt, easy to get lost.’

  ‘All right.’ Ash nodded. ‘I’ve been in a jungle before and—’

  ‘This jungle is different. Do not touch anything. Step where I step.’

  ‘OK. I understand.’