Shift

by Kim Curran

  “Oh, right.” I shuffled in my seat. “And what exactly do I do?”

  “You,” Aubrey said standing up and hitting me on the chest with a pad of paper, “take notes.”

  The room was almost identical to the one I had been interrogated in. Same buzzing lights and large mirror. Now that I was on the other side of the experience I had a satisfying sense of control and confidence. I swaggered into the room, dragged out the seat and sat down. Aubrey casually smacked me on the head with her files as she took her seat next to me. She leant in and whispered, “Take it easy, he’s only six.”

  I looked at Tommy Brookes. He was a tiny little thing, half-hidden by the desk, wearing a black sweatshirt and faded jeans. He was banging his heels against the legs of his chair, over and over. His mother was standing, pressed into the corner, wringing her hands around an old hankie.

  “You’re just children,” she said. “Where’s the charming young man, Mr Morgan?”

  “Commandant Morgan is busy,” said Aubrey. “So he sent us to have a chat with Tommy about what it’s like here.”

  “Oh, right. Like teacher’s aides?” Mrs Brookes asked.

  “Precisely nothing like that,” Aubrey said brightly. The woman registered Aubrey’s tone, but not her words, and nodded. Aubrey turned to the kid. “Hey there, Tommy,” she said. Tommy let his jaw hang open and stared at her.

  “Tommy, say hello to the nice girl,” Mrs Brookes said.

  “Shut up. Shut up!” Tommy shouted at his mum. She squeaked in response and held her hankie to her face.

  “Oh, Tommy doesn’t have to say hello,” Aubrey said. “In fact, Tommy doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to. And isn’t that exactly the problem?”

  Aubrey lowered her head so her eyes were level with Tommy’s. His only reaction was that the banging of his heels got louder. I really didn’t like the boy. I scribbled down “Annoying brat” on my notepad.

  Aubrey clapped her hands together. “Right, do you fancy playing a little game, Tommy?”

  There were three white plastic cups on the table; one still had some water left in it, and another had Mrs Brookes’ red lipstick on the side. Aubrey emptied the first and wiped the lipstick off the second, then turned all three upside down on the table. She reached over and tore out the first page in my notebook, giving me a meaningful glance after reading my note, and scrunched the paper into a small ball. She put the ball under the first cup.

  “Have you seen this game before?” she asked Tommy. “You have to watch the cups and then guess where the ball is. OK?”

  He shut his mouth and shuffled forward on his chair a little, which I guess meant he was interested. Aubrey moved the three cups around and around in little figures of eight. Then she stopped and waited.

  Tommy reached out a stubby finger and tapped the middle cup. It’s where I thought the ball was too. Only when Aubrey lifted the cup, the ball wasn’t there. She lifted up the cup on the left, revealing the crumpled paper. She must have Shifted, only I hadn’t registered it.

  “Try again,” she said, replacing the cup.

  Again she moved the cups around. Tommy’s dark eyes watched them intently. When Aubrey stopped, he reached out his hand and tapped the end cup. Aubrey picked it up. Empty.

  They played the game twice more and each time Tommy failed to spot the ball. By the last attempt he was getting angry. The cup he’d chosen came up empty again and he grabbed it and threw it at the wall. “Dumb game. You’re dumb, you’re all dumb.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Brookes. I think we’re done here.”

  “Wait. What? I mean you haven’t had your chat. You are going to take him, aren’t you?” She stood behind her son’s chair.

  “I’m afraid not,” Aubrey said.

  The woman went stiff and started shaking. Her knuckles turned white as they gripped the back of her son’s chair. She raised her hand and slapped Tommy around the back of the head. Aubrey flinched.

  “What did I tell you about behaving?” the woman roared. “You’ve embarrassed me in front of these people!” She dragged a bawling Tommy off his chair and pushed him out the door. Her shouting and his wailing echoed down the corridor.

  “So, he’s not a Shifter then?” I asked, ready to scribble a note on my pad.

  “Precisely what I was about to ask.” A voice came from a speaker in the room. The mirror rippled and turned to glass, revealing Morgan. He’d been watching everything.

  Aubrey raised an eyebrow. I knew that look. That was her “you total idiot” look. I’d been on the receiving end of it a fair few times.

  “Well, he didn’t even try and change his choices when picking the cup.”

  “And you were Shifting where you put the ball, right?” I asked.

  “Nope. I just palmed the ball and popped it under the cup when picking it up.” She demonstrated how she’d hidden the ball under her thumb. “Why bother Shifting when you can just use magic!” She waved her hands and the crumpled paper had vanished. She reached forward and seemed to produce it from my ear. Then she threw it at my forehead.

  “So is he a Shifter or not?’ Morgan said, sounding impatient.

  “Definitely not. He’s just a mundane,” she said.

  I wrote “Not Shifter” on my pad and circled it.

  “Thank you for your assistance, Ms Jones, Mr Tyler.” I looked up. I hadn’t done a thing. “I have another assignment for you if you wouldn’t mind waiting.”

  The glass flicked back to mirror and Aubrey rolled her eyes. “Joy,” she said, quietly.

  Morgan joined us in the room and handed a file over to Aubrey. She opened it and read the name off the top.

  “Mr Heritage?” she said, her forehead wrinkling. I guessed she knew him.

  “Yes,” Morgan said, rocking back and forth on his feet. “Mr Abbott tells me he’s been having a few difficulties and asked me to check on him.”

  “So why don’t you check on him then?” Aubrey asked, handing the file back to Morgan. He pushed it back at her with a single finger.

  “Because I’m delegating to you, Ms Jones. I think I’ve made everything clear in the notes. I’d like the report on my desk by the end of the day.” He softened slightly under Aubrey’s glare. “If you please,” he added. He turned to go then stopped. “Oh, I forgot to say, congratulations on making Bluecoat Mr Tyler.” He spun around and mimed shooting me with a gun while his face spasmed in a wink. “I knew when I first met you that you would do well. And you couldn’t have a better partner than Aubrey here.” He patted her on her arm. Aubrey looked down at his hand as if it were something unpleasant crawling on her jacked. He snatched it away, coughed, and shuffled out.

  “What an asshat,” I said.

  Aubrey didn’t answer. She was examining the file.

  “So this Henry Heritage,’ I said reading his name upside down. “Is he some master criminal or something?”

  “He’s one of our top analysts,” Aubrey said. “He’s worked for ARES for years. He was a member of the Regulators until he left to join the army’s Intelligence Corp after getting shot at or something. And then he came back to ARES after leaving the army. He specialises in spotting trends in the market. Predicting financial climates and all that stuff.”

  I looked at the headshot photo clipped to the file. The man had bright ginger hair, a flat nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once, a small scar on his temple and a thick muscular neck. “So what are we supposed to do with him?”

  Aubrey was engrossed in the file. “Weird,” she said after a moment.

  “What is?”

  “He’s been making claims that he can Shift,” she said.

  “And can he?” I said, not looking up from the round, bland face.

  “Of course not. He’s old. But I guess that’s why Abbott’s sending me.”

  “Because you can sense if someone can Shift?”

  “Exactly. I’m a Spotter. It’s what we do.” She pulled the headshot photo away and revealed a second pi
cture. The set up was eerily similar to the photo Abbott had shown me a few days ago. Heritage, sat at a café, talking to a young man in a leather jacket.

  “Zac!” I said.

  “Yep,” Aubrey agreed.

  I grabbed the files off her and started to read them properly. “What would the SLF want with a financial analyst?”

  “I guess that’s one of the questions we ask him.”

  “Hang on,” I said, reading further down. “It says here he was screaming about being in control.” ‘I’m the one in control, you’re all my puppets,’” I read. “That’s odd.”

  “Well, yeah. He’s clearly a few pencils short of a case.”

  “Not that.” I looked suspiciously at the two-way mirror. Then leaned in closer to Aubrey. “The guy on the Tube. The one they say was the bomber. He started freaking out like that too and then his head blew up.”

  “It what?” Aubrey said, loudly.

  I hushed her. “About a minute before the big bomb went off, this guy flipped out and then… pop!” I mimed the top of my head exploding.

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I don’t know. It was all kind of hazy. And I didn’t want anyone to know about me Shifting without a licence. Someone told me that could get me in serious trouble.”

  “Shifting to save your life is allowed, you idiot.” She punched me absentmindedly, pulling the files out of my hands.

  “Oh. I probably should tell Abbott then.”

  Aubrey hesitated. “Let’s go and see Heritage first.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  We left ARES HQ and stepped onto the street, instantly having to dodge a guy cycling a BMX on the pavement. Aubrey waved down a passing black cab and we crawled in.

  “Shire Road, Maida Vale,” she said, giving Heritage’s address. The cabby grunted and pulled away. I sat on one of the fold down seats, while Aubrey sat in the middle of the back row.

  “So, this is cool. Us off on fieldwork. It’s like being spies,” I said, a little too enthusiastically.

  “Fieldwork blows,” said Aubrey looking out of the window.

  “Well, it’s better than training. So far no one’s shouted at me or tried to knock me out.”

  She smiled. “It’s early yet.”

  I laughed. “Actually I think I’ll miss the kids. And Cain. And CP, now she’s off in Australia.”

  “Australia?” Aubrey said, her eyebrows knitting in concern. “One of the freshers has gone ‘Down Under’?” She put bunny ears around the words ‘down’ and ‘under’.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “It’s just… I’m really sorry, Scott, but that means she’s dead.”

  “What? No. They said her parents had taken her out of school and she’d emigrated.”

  “It’s sort of code for when a kid dies. I’m sorry, but it happens sometimes. Sometimes the brain just can’t take the power.”

  I stared out the window at the drizzling rain. I felt empty and numb. I didn’t quite believe it, I didn’t want to. “Cain said she would be boxing kangaroos,” I said, sadness catching at my throat.

  “He said you might just be the best he’s ever trained, did you know that? Cain I mean. I probably shouldn’t have told you, you’ll get all cocky now.”

  “I won’t. I promise,” I lied, and I’m ashamed to admit it but it made me feel a little bit better. I tugged at my new jacket and stroked the single gold stripe on the arm. The collar was digging into my chin and the little metal ARES scratched at my neck, but I already loved it. I was a Bluecoat now. A Fixer. There were only two other Fixers at ARES. Morgan was one and I’d not had a chance to meet the other one yet as she was on assignment somewhere in Africa.

  I reached inside my jacket and pulled out a small black wallet. I flipped it open. It held a licence that declared me, Scott Tyler, to be a Shifter First Class. I hadn’t been able to stop grinning when they took the photo, so my picture on the licence made me look like a complete idiot. As usual. Opposite my name and photo, ARES’ motto was stamped into the leather: Ad verum via. Towards the true way.

  “I guess it doesn’t always have to turn out…” Aubrey paused.

  “Badly?” I finished, slipping the wallet back into my jacket pocket.

  She gave the tiniest of nods. As she gazed out of the window I snuck a chance to really look at her face. It was small and heart-shaped and she had tiny, almost translucent ears that merged into a soft jaw. It was the face of a young girl, younger even than her fifteen years. It was her eyes that threw you. They looked as if they’d seen too much.

  “Aubrey,” I said, my voice cracking and dry. “If you hate ARES so much, why don’t you leave? You can, can’t you, after finishing training and getting your licence? That’s what Jake told me.”

  She used the heel of her hand to wipe away some of the steam on the window. It was fogging up and it was hard to see where we were going.

  “I…” she started. “It’s all I know.”

  The cab jerked to a halt. “I can’t go any further than this, love. They’ve dug up all the roads,” the cabbie barked through the intercom.

  Aubrey snapped out of her daze. “No problem,” she said. “We can walk from here.”

  She passed him some notes and waited while he performed the usual cabbie slow hunt for loose change. It was raining heavily when we emerged from the cab. I squinted and wrapped my jacket around me tighter, but it didn’t seem to bother Aubrey one bit. She turned her face to the sky and let the drops fall on her face.

  “Is it far?” I asked, not so keen to be drenched.

  “No, just down there,” she said pointing down a treelined road filled with large, posh houses. “But do we have to rush? It’s so good to be away from that building.”

  I shoved my increasingly cold hands into my pockets and shrugged, like, sure I didn’t mind getting cold and wet, we could just stay out here all day. She smiled and linked her arm through mine. “Come on then.”

  Walking arm in arm with Aubrey was kind of awkward and I had to change my pace to match her small strides. But it also felt really good. Did this mean that she liked me? I mean, I knew she liked me, but did she like me like me? I was so busy thinking about keeping my bicep flexed under her curled hand that I didn’t see the puddle. My trainer was soaked as I pulled it out. Aubrey laughed, slid her arm away and ran off through the rain.

  I looked down at my feet and thought about Shifting. I had considered wearing my boots this morning.

  “What are you waiting for?” Aubrey shouted. “We’re here.” I squelched over and joined her in front of number 47. “OK, here’s how we’re going to play it. I ask all the questions and you keep your mouth shut.”

  “Fine by me,” I said. “I have no idea what to say to a nutter.”

  Aubrey reached up and banged the knocker. The door swung back on its own. We looked at each other.

  “Mr Heritage?” Aubrey called as she pushed the door open and stepped in. No reply.

  We walked down the hallway, past neat little picture frames holding photos of stern-looking men and women. I wondered if they were relatives of his.

  “Mr Heritage?” Aubrey tried again. Still nothing.

  We peered into the living room on the left. It was empty apart from a small sofa, draped with a crocheted head cover, a small TV set and a nest of coffee tables. I heard a mewing from the other end of the house. Aubrey and I pushed on further, peering into the rooms as we passed. I was starting to get a horrible feeling about this.

  I tripped on a rucked rug and banged into a bookshelf in the seemingly never-ending hall. Aubrey threw me a look of annoyance.

  A white cat came hurtling out of nowhere and launched itself at Aubrey’s head. It tangled its claws in her blonde mop and tried to scratch at her face. I was too shocked to do anything, and just stood there, my mouth wide open. Aubrey managed to pull the hissing beast off her head and threw it away. It span in mid-air and landed on its feet, hissed once more and padded off.

  “What
the…” I said, my heart thudding.

  Aubrey leant against the wall opposite me, taking deep breaths. Then her face contorted in disgust. “Can you smell that?” she said.

  I sniffed at the air and the stench hit me. It smelt like sewage and rotting food. We looked at each other, pretty certain we knew what we were going to find in the kitchen.

  Henry Heritage’s body was lying splayed across the white tiles of his kitchen floor. His legs and arms were stretched out at weird unnatural angles. Pots and pans lay beside him, as if he’d put up a fight and pulled his kitchen down on top of him. But it hadn’t done him any good. He was dead. The fact that he was missing the top of his head was a pretty clear sign of that. There were small tufts of red hair left either side of his ears and then nothing but a bloody mess.

  Judging by the smell and the ragged bite marks all over his body, it looked like he’d been dead for a few days. He had an expression of abject terror frozen on his pale face. Whoever said that death was peaceful had never seen a body like this one.

  A tabby cat appeared from under the counter and delicately walked across Heritage’s chest, causing a hiss of air to escape his decaying lungs. The cat jumped off the body and proceeded to nibble at its owner’s brain. Aubrey grabbed a nearby mug and threw it at the cat. It missed and shattered next to the corpse. The cat looked up, completely unfazed, licked its lips and sauntered away.

  Which was when I threw up.

  Chapter Twenty

  ARES’ forensic specialist arrived about twenty minutes later. He was a short man, with small, round glasses and a long nose. Aubrey and I were sitting on the doorstep, huddled against each other, as he stepped out of his small van.

  “Dr Kepple,” he announced flashing a badge at us. “Apologies for the late arrival. There were road works. Where is the deceased?”

  “In the kitchen.” Aubrey gestured down the hall with a jerk of her thumb.

  Kepple stepped over us and strode down the hallway. I twisted around to watch him as he disappeared into the kitchen.