by Jon Robinson
‘Yep. I heard him say under no circumstances to let us go. That isn’t what we signed up for. I mean, what about the others? What about the Pledge? We can’t just sit back.’
The sound of Henry’s footsteps made Ryan lower his voice. ‘I’m sick of being a prisoner!’ he exclaimed. ‘I say we go ourselves, and forget about this whole Guild thing. What do you say?’
26
‘Sit,’ Stephen said, as Susannah cautiously opened the door to his office. A giant portrait of him grinned at her from the wall, and seemed to follow her as she walked over to his desk.
‘I’m sorry I’m late, Mr Nover,’ she said. ‘The helicopter couldn’t take off until the snowstorm settled.’
Ignoring her, Stephen swivelled his chair to the side. ‘It seems like you’ve had quite a time up there with all the action.’
Stephen reached into his desk drawer and removed a snarling fox mask. He held it over his face, watching Susannah. ‘It’s for the masquerade ball,’ he explained. ‘Some stupid charity affair later this week.’
‘It’s realistic,’ she said, looking a little uncomfortable. ‘Very realistic.’
‘Because it’s real, that’s why!’ He giggled and tossed the mask across to her. It landed face up in her lap. ‘Daddy got it for me while he was hunting. I made the taxidermist make it look as fierce as he could.’
Susannah ran an uncomfortable finger along the fur.
Stephen leant back in his chair. ‘What? You don’t like it?’
‘I quite like foxes,’ Susannah replied.
‘Oh. Well, in that case, put it on.’
‘I’d – I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’ She picked up the mask between her forefinger and thumb and placed it on his desk.
Stephen smirked playfully. ‘I’m not going to tell you again, Ms Dion.’ He picked up the mask and presented it to her. ‘Put it on.’
Susannah reached out reluctantly to take the mask. As her fingers neared, he let out a loud bark.
Susannah jumped and Stephen threw his head back, giggling. ‘The look on your face,’ he said. ‘A picture!’
‘Has there been any progress with finding the inmates?’ Susannah asked, keen to change the subject, as Stephen placed the mask on the desk again facing her.
‘Not yet. But our men are closing in.’ Stephen smiled. ‘It won’t be long now before they have something, or someone, to show.’
Susannah exhaled. ‘Thank God.’
‘Hm. Yes, anyway, I just wanted to check up on something – our arrangement regarding Felix’s company.’
‘What about it?’
‘I want you to increase the subliminal messages. I want ten frames per lesson, showing the value of his company decreasing.’
Susannah pondered. ‘Ten frames is a lot,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you understand, but using the Ability that much to manipulate reality has consequences for the children …’
‘Oh, I understand perfectly well,’ Stephen said. His eyes were unblinking. ‘It gives them headaches. It exhausts them. It makes them weak. Nonsense! The little rascals have never done a day’s work in their lives, unlike some of us. Increase the frequency, Ms Dion. Do it immediately. At once. I need to overtake Felix as soon as possible!’
Susannah sighed. ‘I’m just not sure it’s a good idea …’
Stephen held up the fox mask in front of his face. ‘Do it, Ms Dion,’ he said in a pantomime snarl. ‘Do it or I’ll come and eat you while you sleep!’
‘How long?’ she asked wearily.
‘A week!’ Stephen said. ‘Now go to the roof. The helicopter will be waiting to take you back to the prison.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Susannah stood. ‘What about my bonus, Mr Nover?’ she added hesitantly.
‘Make sure Felix’s fortune suffers, and you’ll get your bonus. Cheerio.’
Susannah nodded and hurried quickly out of the room.
Stephen squealed with delight and picked up the mask, poking his fingers through the eyeholes like writhing worms.
27
‘SIGIL is a British technology company, dealing with cutting-edge research,’ Harlan read from the computer screen in the empty Internet cafe. ‘It is one of the numerous companies owned by Stephen Nover –’
‘Oh, anyone but him,’ Julian muttered, folding his arms.
Harlan looked at Julian. ‘You know him?’
Know him? Julian thought. You can barely open a newspaper without seeing his smug face. ‘The media fawns over him,’ he spat. ‘They never seem to tire of telling us how wonderful he is. He’s even got this army of militant fans. They call themselves “Nover-dosers”.’ Julian rolled his eyes.
Harlan returned to the screen. ‘You sound jealous.’
Julian glared at him. ‘I’m not jealous, Harlan. But I’m not surprised either. He’s the sort of person who would sell out his own grandmother, given the chance.’
‘I don’t know how you aren’t choking on your words,’ Harlan said, looking sideways at his companion.
‘Oh, just get on with it,’ Julian said, nodding towards the computer.
Harlan clicked on Stephen’s name and followed the link to a biography page.
‘Stephen Nover is an English business magnate, entrepreneur, television personality, ambassador and philanthropist …’
On the right-hand side was a photograph of a smiling Stephen, standing with a grateful crowd of children outside a hospital. A cartoonishly oversized cheque was poised generously in his hands.
Harlan shrugged. ‘Seems like a nice guy. Just look at the list of stuff he’s done for charity over the years. You think we might have the wrong guy, or –’
‘Or he’s got something to hide. Stephen’s company’s name is on the ibis. I’ve never seen or heard about an ibis outside the prison. As far as I’m concerned, that makes him guilty.’ And puts us one step ahead.
Feeling a little self-satisfied, Julian leant back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head.
‘Remember why we’re going after him, though, Julian,’ Harlan said. ‘I don’t want you turning this into some personal thing because you don’t like the guy.’
‘Promise,’ Julian said, crossing his fingers behind his head.
‘And whether or not he’s involved, we’ve still got a problem,’ said Harlan. ‘And that’s how we track down the second-richest man in the country.’
‘We don’t track him down,’ Julian said, pushing away from the desk. ‘We draw him out. And I know how.’
28
‘Just let me go,’ Elsa begged, trying to free herself. ‘Please … my house is just there … it’s just there!’
The young woman in the passenger seat looked at the man next to her, then turned her eyes back to the road. She picked up a list – Elsa could make out the word ‘Inmates’ at the top – and thumbed through a couple of pages. ‘Who else escaped with you?’
‘I’m not saying anything,’ Elsa sobbed. ‘You can’t make me say anything!’ She pressed her face against the window. If only I’d stayed with Harlan, this would never have happened. ‘You can’t make me go back to the prison. You can’t –’
The woman cut her off with a stare. ‘We’re not taking you back to the prison.’
Elsa caught her breath and looked up. ‘You mean you’re not them?’
‘We’re not them. We’re people like you. I’m Pyra. This is Anton.’
Elsa’s head throbbed. She wiped her face against the seat. ‘So where are you taking me? Why did you just drag me into the car? Couldn’t you … just have asked?’
‘In our experience that doesn’t tend to work,’ Anton said.
‘Why aren’t you telling me anything! Who are you?’
‘There’s a way we do things,’ he went on. ‘There are going to be things that we tell you that will turn your sense of reality completely on its head. You’ll need to be prepared and we don’t want to overload you with information.’ He tapped his head.
Elsa leant between the seat
s. ‘You want to know something? My sense of reality is already upside down. It has been ever since they put me in that stupid place.’
‘Which is why we need to take you now, to protect you,’ Pyra said. ‘And the others, as many of them as possible.’
Elsa considered this for a moment, and then spoke. ‘There’s Harlan, he’s been looking after me. And Julian. You’ll hate Julian at first; he has that effect on people, but he’s OK really. Jes and Ryan are still in the forest; I don’t know if they’re alive. And there’s Alyn; no one knows what happened to him either.’
‘Alyn’s fine,’ Pyra said.
‘You mean you’ve seen him? Where? When?’
‘We were taking him back to our base but he escaped. We don’t know where he is now.’
Elsa exhaled loudly and flopped back in her car seat.
‘There’s somewhere we can go for now,’ said Pyra. ‘Somewhere safe.’
‘Hang on, does that mean we’re not safe at the moment?’
Anton caught her eyes in the mirror. ‘No. You’re not. And that’s why we need to find your friends as soon as possible. Because the people we’re trying to keep you safe from are already here. They’re already looking for you.’
29
Alyn waited until it was dark and walked back to where he could see Pillar rising high above the other skyscrapers.
If Felix even bothers to turn up, who’s to say I’m not going to get another barrage of lies? he wondered, torn between whether or not he should comply with the billionaire’s request.
He eventually sat on a bench overlooking the river, half expecting to see a gang of armed men approaching him from the shadows at any moment. Several times Alyn considered forgetting about the meeting and running away as far as he could. But then he’d never know. If Felix wanted me back in the prison, he’d have taken me already, he thought, unfolding the note.
Garlands of air flowed from his mouth. He fumbled with stiff fingers for the jacket zip and pulled it up to his throat.
‘Reminds me of the night we met,’ said a voice behind him.
Felix smiled and shuffled on to the bench beside him. He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses further up his nose and loosened the scarf beneath his overcoat.
You’d better say something, Alyn seethed inwardly, glaring at him.
‘I’m sorry, Alyn,’ Felix said eventually.
Alyn stood. ‘You’re sorry … you think that’s enough? You think that even means anything? After everything you’ve put us through? You think you can just say you’re sorry?’
Felix put a hand on the bench and followed Alyn to his feet. ‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions.’
‘Starting with why you took us and put us in that … place. Why did you do it? Why me? Why us?’
‘We took you against your will,’ Felix said. ‘We lied, yes. We deceived you. But there was no other way. We had to get you all together. We had to break you …’
‘Why?’
Felix took a deep breath. He passed a hand lightly across his white hair. ‘I started my own business in my thirties. Things didn’t really work out that well to begin with. I suppose I was moderately successful, but –’ he removed his glasses and fiddled with the handles – ‘but I wanted more. Call it ambition, greed, I don’t know. Through some fortuitous circumstances I was put in touch with a pair of researchers. Psychologists. They were studying luck, or rather the luckiest people they could find.’
‘I don’t see where this is going,’ Alyn said impatiently.
Felix ignored him. ‘As they continued studying these people, these almost supernaturally lucky people, they discovered something: that these people were able to change things. Reality. A lot of the time they had no idea they were even doing it.’
‘They could change reality,’ Alyn repeated. ‘You really just said that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like a superpower?’
Felix considered this for a moment. ‘Not really. Something a little more subtle. I understand your scepticism, Alyn. I was sceptical myself – as anyone would be.’
Felix rubbed his brow. ‘I was the only person in the world to know about this Ability, other than the pair who had discovered it. After some negotiation, we struck up a deal and I … I employed five of these gifted individuals to work for my company. We set up a very basic – perhaps a little crude – method of getting them to unconsciously alter reality. To nudge things in my favour, without them knowing.’
‘That’s how you became so rich,’ said Alyn quietly.
Felix nodded. ‘The strategy has its limits. It does not make miracles or subvert the laws of physics. It nudges chance to fall in our favour; it beckons fate with a playful finger.’
‘And that’s what you’ve been doing?’ Alyn said, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘You’ve been using us. Manipulating us. You spliced images in the videos … so people didn’t consciously see them. To make you richer!’
‘Not to make me richer –’ he gestured around him – ‘for the sake of everything. For the greater good. We’ve seen the results. It works, Alyn. It really works! We’re changing the world. You are changing the world and if it weren’t for you, the country would be in ruin already. This time last year, one of our largest banks was on the verge of collapse, which would’ve devastated our already fragile economy. Using your Ability, which we’d harnessed, we were able to influence some key players to keep their money invested. That bank has now almost recovered. We’ve had assassination attempts on politicians thwarted – bullets that have missed, bombs that have failed to detonate. A war almost broke out in one of our overseas territories until we used you all to influence peace. What could have been a massacre ended after forty-five minutes with barely a casualty. The unrest is beginning to subside. Things are getting better, Alyn. They aren’t there yet, but two years – that’s all it will take – and we’ll enter a new era … an era of peace and prosperity, and it’ll all be down to you, and the other children who are still there.’
He really believes it, Alyn thought, backing away. He sounds like some crazy cult leader …
‘Why did you have to put us through all of this – kidnapping us – lying to us?’ Alyn’s voice began to rise.
‘It was for the greater good!’ Felix said, justifying himself.
‘There are nearly a hundred kids trapped in that place, scared to death, believing every word of it! What about them? What about their parents? You’ve caused so much suffering –’
‘What other way could there have been, Alyn? We knock at the door and ask your parents for their permission to take you? This had to be done in secret. The lies were all necessary to keep you in place. And, for the most part, it seemed to work … You and the rest of those children have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.’
Alyn stared vacantly at the glowing buildings around them.
‘There is another group, the Guild as they call themselves, operating in the shadows with a far darker aim. The Pledge is trying to bring about order and harmony … to make the country, the world, a better place. But the Guild has been trying to attack and hinder us at every turn. And that’s why we need you on our side, Alyn. That’s why we need all of you.’
‘Why are you here …? Why are you telling me this?’
‘That night I took you, I saw your father – the way he treated you. I felt desperately sorry for you. My ex-wife and I, we were never able to have children. I have no heir, no inheritor. What I want is an apprentice. And one with your gifts would be extremely encouraging.’
Felix pointed to a nearby skyscraper, overlooking the Thames. ‘Do you see that penthouse, Alyn? Right at the top there?’
Alyn shielded his eyes and nodded.
‘Say yes, Alyn, and it is yours. The apartment, an excellent wage, prestige. You’ll never need nor want for anything ever again. Say yes and all of it is yours.’
30
Ryan beckoned for Jes to slip out of the door after him.
Shiveri
ng, the pair tiptoed down the corridor, shifting on to the balls of their feet round the puddles.
Jes manoeuvred past one of the larger patches of water and gripped the ladder. The lid was already half-off.
We’d better be quick. He probably wasn’t planning on being gone long, Ryan thought.
He followed her and waited as she began to climb. At the top, Jes pulled herself on to the snow and lay holding her side.
He appeared a few moments later and crawled towards her. ‘You OK?’ he asked.
Jes nodded and rose up slowly.
Ryan leant down and dragged the lid across the hole. Good riddance to him and his stupid magic tricks, he thought.
When he turned back round, Jes was reaching into the snow. She removed a large jagged rock the size of a tennis ball and brushed away the snow with her fingertips.
‘What’s that for?’
‘In case we get into any trouble,’ Jes answered coolly.
Ryan felt a little uncomfortable at hearing this. He said nothing and headed through the trees. Snow was swirling in front of him as the wind picked up. Behind him, Jes’s footsteps crunched and squeaked in the snow.
‘You know the way, Ryan?’ she called across to him.
‘This is the only way I haven’t been yet.’
He removed the ibis from his pocket. They were exposed here, vulnerable, and a run-in with the guards wouldn’t end well. Maybe Henry had a point.
They walked together for another hundred or so metres when Ryan spotted a familiar black uniform.
Ryan lifted the ibis in both hands and closed one eye. He was about to squeeze the trigger when he spotted a second guard, and then a third.
‘We should probably run,’ Jes said behind him, lowering the rock.
She grabbed Ryan’s arm and turned, to find a guard standing directly behind them. The man raised his ibis, but Ryan fired first. The man flew back into a tree.
‘There they are!’ shouted one of the men in the distance.
We’re trapped, Ryan thought. We’ll never get away.