by Mike Essex
After we’d run through the ins and outs of each of Tobias’ plans and dissected their flaws he stopped talking and I tried to sleep. Although I lay there with my eyes closed for many hours, sleep never came. My mind spent the entire time running through how to ride the motorbike and my muscles twitched as I emphasised the movements.
As I was starting to wonder if perhaps I couldn’t sleep whilst occupying another body, Corinna came in to check on me. She explained that it had been six hours and that I needed to eat if I wanted to keep my strength up. On the side of the bed she placed a tortilla wrap filled with pieces of beef and lettuce. It was another dry meal but I was thankful for that, my stomach still didn’t sit right. I washed it down with two glasses of water.
Corinna tried to offer me more food and I said I’d let her know if I felt hungry. She seemed to enjoy mothering me or at least this body I was in. It felt odd to me that she could do such a thing, after all I wasn’t the person she loved even though I looked like him. It made me think about Rex and whether I’d do the same for him. Do we love people’s bodies or their minds? Ultimately it’s probably a bit of both, those two elements entwined with each other.
If I wasn’t physically attracted to Rex would I love his mind? Or if his mind started to go would I love his body? I’d watched people lose their minds and I’d seen people have their bodies destroyed and many of their loved ones didn’t stick around. Although Rex and I had admitted we had feelings for each other we’d never been able to give things a chance and see what could happen next.
For a long time I’d promised myself that if I ever got my body back I would find Rex and never let go of him. I’d supressed my feelings for him for so long and wasted a lot of time that could have been spent together. All I needed to do now was get off the floor and ride the damn bike.
With renewed vigour I threw the quilt to the floor and strode out of the garage. The bike was propped up against the wall and Cleon was turning a wrench against one of the tyres. He heard me scraping the gravel as I walked and he looked up towards me.
“Ah, there you are. I think I’ve cracked it,” he exclaimed. “Come on, give it a try.”
Whatever he had to show me, he was genuinely excited. He pulled the bike away from the wall and I placed my hands on the handlebars and sat down on the seat.
As I revved the engine I heard the sound of wind whoosing out from the sides of the bike. I turned my head to the side and saw that there were now vertical slits along each side that the air was escaping from.
I started to ride forward slowly and Cleon kicked the side of the bike, shifting my body weight to one side. As I started to feel the bike going over, a large blast of air got sucked in from one side of the bike and came out of the other side. It was just enough to help me right it again.
“Not bad, right?” said Cleon. “It’s similar to the technology they used to regenerate London. It won’t ride the bike for you, but if you start to tumble then it should help to stabilise you again.”
“Stabilise?” I replied. “That’s what it’s come to? You’ve fitted stabilisers to the bike?”
The fact I couldn’t do it on my own made me feel like a child but I was grateful to him for trying. If it meant I could get going quicker then I was thankful for the support.
With Cleon’s engineering work in place I started to feel like I had control again and that I wouldn’t have to resort to something as drastic as one of Tobias’ plans. With that feeling of confidence coming back to me I drove out into the forest and away from the house. I meant to shout something about being back soon but I felt so exhilarated that I forgot.
Charging through the trees woke me up completely as I felt the snatcher’s body getting used to the bike. I did moves I’d never have thought possible the day before; tight turns between trees and steep climbs up hills. It felt like I finally had the body to perform whatever my mind wanted me to do. Who cared if the bike was doing half of the work?
When I arrived back at the garage Cleon and Corinna started to clap their hands and cheer me on. It seemed like their plan was actually going to work. For the first time in this new body I smiled.
As the sun started to go down Cleon explained the timings that I’d have to follow to navigate the rail system successfully. He and Corinna would be in my ear the entire time but there was still very little margin for error. One mistake and I’d be squashed against a train, something Corinna asked me to promise wouldn’t happen. After I’d promised, Corinna kissed my lips and then hugged me tightly.
“I know you’re not him,” she explained after she saw how surprised I looked. “But I wanted to feel close to him for one last time in case anything happened.”
I wasn’t fond of the snatcher but I had taken a shine to Corinna and I didn’t want to disappoint her. Both of our hopes were now riding on this scarred body, the broken mind that controlled it and the monster that lingered inside of both.
SEVEN
When darkness had fallen I set out into the forest on the motorbike. So I wouldn’t be detected the lights on the bike were off and I wore night vision goggles to navigate my way through the trees.
The goggles painted everything in a multitude of shades of green, something Cleon had told me was chosen because there are more shades of green than any other colour. Despite this there didn’t seem like enough shades for my liking and determining between the many branches, leaves and trees wasn’t as simple as I’d assumed.
I reduced my speed to a slower pace to try and get used to the reduced visibility. At this speed I could just about make out the differences between the dark space I had to travel into and the dark green branches that would knock me off the bike.
“There’s a creek up ahead,” Cleon notified me through the comms unit. “You’ll have to increase your speed.”
“Can’t I go around it?” I replied.
“It snakes for miles in each direction. We’re leading you to the narrowest part but you’ll still need to jump over it.”
We hadn’t practiced anything more advanced than steering and staying on the bike. I contemplated taking the detour.
“You’re losing a lot of time, you really do need to pick up the pace,” said Cleon.
“OK,” I replied. “I’m not losing another day.”
Displayed on the screen within the goggles a target speed indicator appeared next to the directions Cleon wanted me to follow.
“Hit that speed and you’ll jump over the creek,” he explained. “Any faster and you’ll crash into something on the other side, any slower and you’ll land in the creek.”
He made it sound so simple, as if there weren’t trees all around me. I revved the bike and started accelerating towards the target speed. The tyres did their best to grip to the floor but every dip and fallen bit of detritus from the forest also did their best to knock me off balance. The bike shook from side to side and the air jets worked excessively to counterbalance the effects.
“You should be able to see the clearing now,” said Cleon. “The water should show as a very light green.”
“I can’t see it past the trees,” I explained. “How far is it?”
“Just 200 yards, are you sure you can’t see it?”
“Positive.”
“Keep the momentum going. Oh and when you reach it be sure to pull up.”
“Right,” I replied as I looked ahead and saw the many shades of green of the forest but nothing as light as water should have been.
As I got closer I started to see why I couldn’t spot the creek. A large bramble bush had become overgrown and was blocking my view ahead. If I tried to go around it I’d lose momentum and have to backtrack in order to get the speed I needed. There was no option but to push on through.
I accelerated to more than the recommended speed, assuming that the bramble bush would slow me down, but not so much that I wouldn’t make it across. It was a complete gamble but not being in my own body gave me an irrational sense of invincibility and although I had no i
dea how far back the bush went or what was waiting behind it I was willing to risk everything if it meant even a small chance of success.
The rumble of the air jets grew louder as they were put under more and more pressure by the uneven terrain. Cleon started to shout in my ear for me to slow down but I was too deep in concentration to explain to him what I was up-to. I braced myself for impact as my front tyre ploughed through the bush.
The bike made short work of the bush, cutting a path directly through it. My legs were not so lucky, with several prickly brambles either side digging their way through my trousers and gashing my skin. As I broke free the brambles snapped off, sticking into my legs for a few moments before the forward momentum pushed them away from me.
The bush was smaller than I’d expected and the bike maintained far too much momentum for the jump. I tried to brake but it was too late, I had just enough time to raise the bike into the air before I hit the edge of the creek, which sent me soaring uncontrollably towards the trees.
As the bike hurtled through the air the speed indicator pulsed violently as a reminder of just how much faster I was going than Cleon had recommended. I looked ahead and saw a large oak tree, at least three times as wide as the bike, directly in front of me. In the air there was no way to steer the bike and no way to avoid the tree.
I held my body down towards the handlebars, ready for the impact and hoped the crash helmet would protect me. Just as it felt like the tree was filling my vision one of the airjets kicked into action and sent the bike careening to the left side. I quickly raised my body up and held the handlebars tightly, ready to hit the ground.
There was no jet underneath the bike to soften the landing. The tyres hit the ground hard, sending the frame of the bike down towards the floor and then quickly back up again as the suspension recoiled. My body did the same, first dragged down and then back up. As I landed back on the seat I heard Cleon scream into my ear “Brake!”
I pulled hard on the brakes sending the bike skidding to one side. I shifted my weight to the other side to try and counterbalance it and felt the air of the jets kicking in as they whooshed past my face. The combination of the jets and my leaning was too much and as the bike clipped a fallen branch I felt it ripped from my grasp.
I clattered to the floor, my head protected by the helmet but still hitting the ground hard and blurring my vision. The bike soared up in the air for a second before smashing against a tree and then landing on the forest floor with a deafening thud that sent birds flying from the treetops in unison.
“Emmie, are you ok?” asked Corinna.
I lay there unsure whether to reply or even get up again. The air jets had saved my life and then almost taken it away seconds later. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life relying on mechanical aids and other people’s bodies. I wanted my own body back.
“I’m ok,” I replied as I lifted myself up. Under normal circumstances I would have called it a day but I’d fallen off so many times in the last twenty four hours that one more time didn’t bother me.
“We’ll send a team out to get you, it’s foolish to carry on now,” said Corinna.
“No,” I replied as I checked the bike. I turned the accelerator and heard it roar to life. “The bike is ok, I’m going to go on.”
I heard Cleon and Corinna bicker. I wasn’t sure what they were saying to each other but I suspected Corinna wanted me back and Cleon wanted me to continue. Eventually only Cleon returned to the comms unit. “Carry on,” he told me. “We’ll support you from here.”
There was some surface damage to the bike and the side where it had landed sported a large dent from crashing down onto a rock. I turned the handlebars to make sure that the tyres still moved and checked that they still had air in them. I’d been lucky and it seemed like the bike would hold out for the rest of the journey.
Cleon guided me through the rest of the forest at a steady speed in the hope I could make some time up later. Following a few close encounters with potholes and a blocked path with a fallen tree I made it to the edge of the forest. Through the night vision goggles I saw nothing but the darkness of the sky and the light green blades of overgrown grass that flowed out across the field for miles.
I’d seen the countryside many times before whilst travelling from Smyth West to meet up with other groups of have-nots but had never really travelled across it, instead always sticking to the motorways that connected the country together. In a way it felt nice that no matter how bad things got at home there was always a bit of untouched nature nearby.
A flicker of light appeared in the far right side of the visual display and I turned to face it. It grew larger and larger until it felt like it would consume me. I stopped the bike, closed my eyes and braced myself to be dragged back to the machine.
EIGHT
I stood perfectly still hoping to go unnoticed. The light expanded until it sent a wave of brightness across my vision rendering the goggles temporarily inoperative.
I lifted the goggles up and saw that the bright light was not Eli trying to regain control of me, instead it was a nearby train illuminating the tracks ahead. After the train passed I put the goggles back on and travelled across the field chasing after the train.
The display on my goggles helped me stay far enough away from the frequently passing trains so that they wouldn’t be able to see me in the darkness of the field. I rode through corn fields, vegetable plants and strawberry fields, feeling a small pang of guilt for the poor farmers whose crops I had destroyed along the way.
Despite the earlier setback the bike felt very responsive and was easily able to handle the high speeds now that I was travelling along much flatter ground. It handled even better when I sped down the tarmacked streets of one of the now abandoned have-not towns: Revis East.
A couple of years into Eli’s first term he closed down many of the have-not towns and moved the residents into newly built housing in the larger cities. He wanted to bring together haves and have-nots to live side by side and break down the barrier between the two. The first town to be moved was Smyth West, which voters saw as a beautiful tribute to the town where he’d once lived.
Although the buildings of Revis East were still in place it wouldn’t be long before they were demolished and this part of England was eventually turned in to a new city. Smyth West had already been demolished to become part of the ever expanding city of Southampton, that had already expanded to bring together the coastal regions of Portsmouth and Bournemouth. It was well on its way to becoming another State in much the same way as the rebranded London.
With my home gone I knew I’d have nowhere to return to once Eli was stopped. Perhaps I’d live in Southampton, or maybe I’d move to London if that’s where R&R and Grace decided to settle once the fighting stopped. I knew I wanted my body back but didn’t know what I wanted to do with it.
The miles remaining counted down until Cleon informed me that the outskirts of London were only half an hour away. There were still a couple of hours before daybreak, plenty of time to make it in unnoticed.
Corinna checked in again, mainly interested in whether the cuts from the brambles had bled and if I’d treated them with the first aid kit she provided. I promised I’d do it as soon as I got to London, not wanting to waste a second on such trivial things until the job was done. She wasn’t happy but Cleon talked her round.
On the horizon I could see the seemingly endless wall that surrounded the State of London; that would do its best to keep me out of it. A countdown timer in the goggles indicated I had a little time to spare so to keep my strength up I pulled over and propped the bike up with its kickstand. Inside the backpack that Corinna had prepared for me were two ham sandwiches, three bottles of water, a bar of chocolate and an apple.
I drank half a bottle of water and tried some of the chocolate. It looked like it would be very rich and sweet tasting but it also tasted bland. I bit the apple and rather than the crisp and sour taste that its Granny Smith label promised it
had very little taste. I moved the snatcher’s tongue around his mouth and remembered how he’d tried to shut down his senses. As far as taste was concerned it seemed he’d succeeded.
There was one feeling that did remain active which I’d been trying my best to avoid but which wasn’t going away. I desperately needed the toilet but the very idea of going in someone else’s body had felt so wrong I’d put it out of my mind. Eventually I couldn’t ignore it any more. I checked no trains were coming and I dropped his trousers and went right there in the field.
Being able to pee standing up was something of a novelty although it only added to the absurdity of the situation. When I’d finished I tried not to look at his parts as I tucked them away inside his underpants again. I washed my hands with the other half of the bottle of water and dried them on the outside of the backpack.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to do that again anytime soon.
With that uncomfortable moment out of the way I ate one of the ham sandwiches trying not to think about where my hands had been. I packed everything up including the night vision goggles as I wouldn’t need them for the next step, and got back on the bike, this time making my way towards the tracks.
Without the goggles to illuminate the way I used the faint lights that ran along the tracks to guide me as I headed towards the giant wall looming ahead. There was no way I’d be able to make it through one of the checkpoints without identification so the only option I had was to pass through one of the tunnels the trains used to enter London.
The tracks guided me to one such tunnel, a dark looking hole, wide enough for two trains to fit through side by side and not a lot more. I’d have to time my entry to the tunnel just right.
“Is it safe?” I asked Cleon.