by Kim Curran
He was scribbling into a black, leather-bound book with a gold ink pen, pressing down so hard that speckles of black now covered his face.
I coughed to hide my laugh.
Sir Richard looked up and for a second looked surprised as if he hadn’t just asked us in here. “Yes, right. You two. As you all know, I’m meeting the Prime Minister today. This is huge. Huge, do you understand me?” His moustache quivered as he spoke. The big man was bricking it.
We both nodded.
“So, I’m relying on you two not to make a total mess of it all. I don’t want another fiasco like the races, do you understand me?”
Asking us whether we understood was his favourite phrase. We both nodded.
“Right well. I’ve just been informed that the President of China, who is visiting the UK at the moment, has also shown some interest in ARES. As I’m sure you’re aware relationships between the UK and China are somewhat strained at the moment.”
I wasn’t aware of any strained relationships between anything. But then, I got most of my news around the water cooler.
“Well, they did sell weapons to Borneo,” Aubrey said, who was clearly more up on current affairs than I was.
“I don’t want to hear anything about that, do you understand?” Sir Richard snapped. “That whole mess has been cleared up. Anyway, President Tsing goes everywhere with a Shifting unit called the Banjai Gonsi. They’re his personal guard, prepared to sacrifice their lives for his. They are, I have been informed, exceptionally well trained, not to mention deadly. He wanted to come and see ARES HQ, but God knows we couldn’t have had that. If he realised what a shambles this place is still, he might decide to declare war. No. We couldn’t have that at all. So, Number 10 suggested that some members of ARES accompany the Prime Minister as he takes Tsing on a prescheduled tour of the Shard. Two birds. One stone, you understand? So, I want you two to go–”
“Us?” Aubrey said. “But we have more important things to do.”
“More? Important? Than the Prime Minister?” Sir Richard bellowed, getting up out of his seat. “What could possibly be more important?”
“The containment of Project Ganymede personnel, sir,” Aubrey spat.
“Oh, yes…” Sir Richard sat back down in his seat, his moustache twitching again. “You brought in another of Abbott’s boys last night.”
Sir Richard had taken to calling the members of Project Ganymede “Abbott’s boys”. Most likely as an attempt to distance himself from the whole mess. Despite the fact that his signature had clearly been on the documents approving the project, he still denied all knowledge. I’d yet to decide if he was actually hiding things from us. Or if he really was so big an idiot that the whole project had gone on without him knowing. Twice. First when a scientist called Dr Lawrence started it up. And second when Mr Abbott decided to try it again.
Aubrey had made her mind up the day Sir Richard walked back into ARES. She didn’t trust him.
“Yes, sir. Mr Glenn has been processed, just as you required.”
“Good.” He regarded her with leery eyes and let the silence last for an uncomfortable length of time. It was like being with my parents again.
The lack of trust was mutual. While Aubrey was sure Sir Richard must have known about the experiments, Sir Richard believed Aubrey was hiding something about Greyfield’s. I was staying well out of it. The less anyone knew about my part in the whole thing, the better. I stared up at the ceiling and made pictures out of a damp patch in the corner.
Sir Richard finally broke the silence. “And you’re still not any closer to finding the mysterious Frank Anderson?” It was an inquisition, as if we weren’t doing our jobs.
“We’re following some leads,” Aubrey said, lying fluently.
“Well, you can get back to following your leads tomorrow. Today, you’re to pick a handful of reliable cadets and meet the Prime Minister and the President. It’s against my better judgement, but the request has come straight from Number 10. Apparently shots of him talking with children play well with the media.”
“The press will be there?” I said. “So we’re going public with ARES?”
“God, no. No, the press are there because the PM needs as much positive PR as possible at the moment. So, as far as anyone without clearance is concerned, we are a military school for gifted individuals.” He looked us up and down and then stroked his huge chin. “Gifted, you understand? So try and not to act like total idiots, yes? You’re to smile, nod, answer any question the PM or the President might have as quickly as possible, do a bit of Shifting, and shove off. And I’ll be there, so any sniff that you’re not playing this by the book and you’re out of ARES. Do you understand me?”
“Smile. Shift. Shove off. Got it, sir,” Aubrey said through gritted teeth.
“Good. Good,” he said. And then the silence again. I looked back at the damp patch. From one angle it looked like a rabbit. From another an old lady. Sir Richard hadn’t had much reason to speak to me before this and I wanted to keep it that way. Keep my head down and just hope he got bored of bossing everyone around and went back to falling asleep at the House of Lords.
“So, can we go then?” Aubrey asked with more hostility in her voice than I thought was wise.
“Yes, go. And I want you both in full uniform today. So you’d better spruce yourself up. Especially you, Tyler. You look like crap.”
And with that, we were dismissed.
The dress uniforms were ridiculous. Far too many buttons, stupid gold braid dangling off our shoulders and a too-tight collar. I could hardly breathe. My legs made small buzzing noises as I walked: the thighs of the nylon suit trousers rubbing against each other. But if I was uncomfortable, it was nothing compared to how Aubrey was feeling.
“A skirt,” she muttered. “A bloody skirt. They have to be kidding.”
“I think you look cute,” I said. And then instantly regretted it when she scowled at me.
“Keep up!” I shouted at the cadets behind us, quickly changing the subject.
We’d taken the Tube and were now crossing Tower Bridge, the Shard glinting at us on the other side of the Thames. I’d wanted to walk the whole way, not being the biggest fan of the Underground network since almost being blown up on a Tube last year, but Aubrey had said it was too far for the kids. Sir Richard, meanwhile, would be arriving ahead of us by limo. Way to build morale, I thought. I’d only just stopped sweating from the unpleasant journey.
“What do you think he will be like?” CP asked, catching up with us.
We’d brought her, Max and two new cadets along.
“The Prime Minister?” Aubrey said. “I don’t know. Paranoid? He sees danger everywhere, even at ARES. Someone said it’s because of what happened to his daughter.”
“What happened to her?” CP asked.
“She died on a school trip a few years back,” Aubrey said. “Although he said her death is what drove him into politics. To try and make the country a better place in her name. So, you know…”
We stopped talking as a family of tourists passed by, snapping pictures every few steps. They pointed at us in our blue uniforms and started waving their cameras at us.
“Picture?” the mother said. “Take picture?”
Aubrey plucked the camera out of the woman’s hands and threw it over the bridge, without even breaking her stride. We all gasped as it fell into the Thames below.
“Aubrey!” I said. The mother and daughter had started crying and the father looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to jump in after the camera or jump on us.
“Oh, alright,” she said.
A Shift later and we were posing for the tourists, unhappy grins on our faces. When they were finally satisfied we carried on walking.
“So, you two want in on the book I’m running on Sir Richard?” Max said, reaching into his jacket to pull out a small notebook.
“What’s the bet this week?” Aubrey said.
“I can give you twenty to one on a stro
ke. Fifteen to one on a heart attack,” Max said.
“Don’t,” CP said. “He cheats.”
“I do not,” Max said, aghast at the insult.
“You keep moving things in his room, just to tip him over the edge.”
“Can I help it if he freaks just because his paperweight isn’t in the same place he left it and he can’t work out why?” Max said, with a devilish grin. I wouldn’t trust Max as far as I could throw him. And given his recent growth spurt, that wasn’t very far at all.
“Well, you know what Fixers are like,” said Aubrey. “Nuts the lot of em. They can’t handle change.”
“Oi!” I said. “I’m a Fixer.”
“And your point?” Aubrey said.
The kids laughed and I was about to put them all in their place with a devastating retort when everything flipped. There was that now all too familiar feeling of being caught between two realities and suddenly we weren’t walking across Tower Bridge. We were all stood in front of a huge golden pyramid. I looked around and tried to get my bearings. The Thames. St Paul’s. We were still in pretty much the same location, but I didn’t know this building.
It wasn’t as tall as the Shard had been. But it was wider and made entirely from gold-tinted glass. I couldn’t see anything inside as the glass was completely mirrored. I saw my shocked face reflected back in one of the panes.
Sir Richard was standing on my right, with Aubrey, CP and two of the other kids on my left. But Max was missing and in his place, standing with a huge grin on his face, was Jake. He was in uniform, just like the rest of us. Although it was the everyday uniform: the one without the too-tight collars and mass of gold braiding. And he was wearing trainers, something that had most definitely not been allowed under Sir Richard’s titan rule.
“Jake,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Huh?” he said, looking up at me. He’d grown a few inches since I’d last seen him, and his previously soft face was starting to develop strong cheekbones like his sister. A few more years and he’d be breaking hearts. “I’m here to meet the Prime Minister, Scott. You know? Like all of us.”
I spun around and pointed at the bloody great pyramid.
“What happened to the Shard? What’s that thing doing there?”
“What?” Aubrey said, looking up at me puzzled.
“The Shard. Tallest building in Europe. Great big pointy thing. It was right here!”
Aubrey looked worried. She pulled me away from Sir Richard and the rest of the group. “Scott, are you having a reality attack?”
“I don’t know. I know I didn’t Shift. But someone else must have.”
Aubrey went to speak, but stopped as a long silver car pulled up next to us. “Just keep it together. We’ll talk about it later,” she said through clenched teeth.
The car doors opened and a young man, with slick brown hair and impossibly white teeth stepped out. He smiled up at the golden pyramid and gave a few waves to photographers who were standing behind cordon tape along with a crowd of people. Two men in black suits exited the car and came to stand by his side, eyes darting left and right.
Sir Richard stepped forward and stretched out a hand to welcome this man I’d never seen before. They shook hands and the man patted Sir Richard warmly on the arm. He then turned to us and smiled, his too-large teeth glinting in the sun. “And you must be the gifted children I’ve heard so much about,” he said, putting deliberate stress on the word “gifted”.
Maybe he was an advisor or something, checking us out before the Prime Minister turned up.
“Yes,” Sir Richard said quickly. “Let me introduce you to the children of ARES. Children, let me introduce you to James Miller, the Prime Minister.”
“Prime Minister?” I gasped looking up at the grinning buffoon. “But you’re not the Prime Minister.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was an uncomfortable silence as Sir Richard and Aubrey gawked at me. Then the man started laughing. Sir Richard picked up his cue and started laughing as well. Followed by the men in black suits.
“Children, hey?” Sir Richard said, patting me on the shoulder so hard it felt as if he was trying to crush my collarbone.
The blow actually helped a bit as the jigsaw started to reveal itself. The man flashing a dazzling smile at the press was indeed the Prime Minister. He’d been voted in last year and was proving pretty popular. Especially with the female voters. Personally, I thought he was a bit of a git.
And yet I still remembered the old guy so clearly. He’d not been so popular. His grey hair and sullen smile didn’t play well with the voters. It didn’t play with anyone at ARES either. He’s been the one who’d put the agency on lockdown: introducing all the security; bringing the NSOs in; insisting on complete containment. He was paranoid about everything.
Someone had Shifted and the world had changed: all these new events rippling out from that one moment. Only I had no idea who or why.
I had to concentrate to hold onto the previous reality, which was the very thing I was trained not to do. Fighting against the current of a new version of the present could lead to a reality attack. And that could be bad news. I’d interviewed a Shifter, a kid who was only about eight, who suffered so badly from a reality attack after a Shift that he’d been locked up in a mental home. I worried that that’s where I’d end up one day too.
I didn’t know why I had this weird ability to remember alternatives for longer and stronger than anyone else. Most people just held onto glimpses, echoes, that they quickly dismissed. With me, the old reality didn’t fade that easily. Sometimes, it was like waking up and not being sure if what you’d dreamt was real. It could take me days to sort through versions, finding places for all my memories. While for everyone else it just happened instinctively. A touch of déjà vu, maybe. A shiver down the spine as if someone had walked over your grave. And that was it. They just accepted the new reality as quickly as the old one collapsed. But not me. I had a serious problem with letting go. I’d never told anyone this, even Aubrey, but I felt this weird sort of responsibility, as if someone had to hold on to the old realities. If only just to understand why they’d come about.
I could feel the two versions of “now” fighting for place in my head. I wanted to hold on to both of them. The problem was, when a reality is shared by lots of people, it’s so much easier to accept. The personal stuff, things that just happened to me or people I cared about, that I could hold on to for as long as I wanted. Much longer than I wanted in a lot of cases. But when it was something big, something public, when there were so many people observing the event, so many ropes pinning it in place, it became irresistible. And there wasn’t anything much more public than a Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister stopped laughing and stretched out his hand to shake mine. I started to panic. If I shook his hand, it would make him real and harder to remember what had happened. I had to leave myself a message. Something that would put a pin in the old reality so I could work out if this new one was the better. I could hardly write myself a note. I looked at the guards in their black suits and wondered how they would react if I suddenly reached inside my jacket.
His hand was uncomfortably close now. I bit down on my lip. Hard. And tasted the coppery tang of blood. When my lip throbbed later it would remind me. I told myself over and over. Blood equals Shift. Blood equals wrong.
I reached out and shook the Prime Minister’s hand. He had a firm shake and surprisingly cold hands. As his fingers closed over mine I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was feeling so unsettled. He oozed natural charisma and it was clear why he’d won the election so easily. No, I was worrying for nothing. Not that I could even remember what there had been to worry about.
“Good to meet you…?” Miller said.
“Scott, Scott Tyler,” I said.
“And you are?” he said, letting go of my hand and turning to Aubrey.
“Aubrey Jones.”
“Wonderful. And hello you, little sca
mp,” he said, ruffling Jake’s hair. He half turned to Sir Richard and didn’t bother to lower his voice. “I’ll have to get a picture with this one later. Ethnics play well with my demographics.” He wiped his hand on his trousers. “So about this power, this… sifting?” he said, as Aubrey and I stood looking at him open-mouthed. That’s probably why I was so anxious earlier. He was a slippery git. But weren’t all politicians?
“Shifting,” Aubrey corrected him.
“Shifting, right. From what I’ve been told, you can undo any decision?”
“Pretty much,” Aubrey said, her jaw tight.
“I have to say, I’m a little annoyed that no one told me about this before.” He waggled a finger at Sir Richard. “But no matter. I know about you now. You kids should come in quite handy.”
“We try and just keep them out of sight and out of trouble, Prime Minister. Controlled and regulated,” Sir Richard said, sounding uncertain. “It’s what ARES was set up to do.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s right. And you’re doing a fine job of it, I’m sure.” Miller slapped Sir Richard on the arm. “Old Oxford boy, like myself.”
Sir Richard forced a smile.
Old? Miller couldn’t be much older than forty.
“So, only children have this ability?” Miller said, looking back down at Jake.
“Yes!” Sir Richard said, a little too quickly. Clearly Miller had not been briefed on Project Ganymede.
“Shame. Shame. Can you imagine it?” he said, looking wistful. “Changing any decision. I mean, the women alone…”
I saw Aubrey’s fists tighten. If he wasn’t the Prime Minister, I was pretty sure Miller would have found himself on the receiving end of a Jones special. “We try and use it for more important stuff, sir,” she said.