by Kim Curran
I plodded into the kitchen, opened the fridge door and stared in. Nothing in there looked edible. My body ached, but not as much as my brain. In the space of two days I had found a dead body, been tortured by a psychopathic cannibal, been responsible for the capture of a terrorist cell and lost my best friend. As weeks went, this one sucked big time. I made myself some tea, pushed some bread into the toaster and broke down in sobs.
Becoming a part of ARES had given me a sense of belonging. Focus even. The very thing all my teachers had always banged on at me about. But now I felt totally lost again. I was caught between the two worlds of authority and friendship. And didn’t know which way to turn. I started to play over in my head all the decisions that had led me to running up those steps to the church tonight. There had to be a Shift I could make. When I’d finally got home and crawled into bed at five am that morning, I’d wanted to stay there. I’d wanted to hide under my duvet and let the world do without me for a day. So why didn’t I? If I’d not been at ARES, then Morgan couldn’t have played me like a puppet, and I’d never have led them to the church. But then, would the SLF really have attacked ARES HQ like Abbott believed? Would Aubrey have gone along with them? Helped them even? I knew she resented ARES for taking her away from her parents. But I didn’t believe she hated them. Not really. But was it a chance I was willing to take? Would I save my friend and risk the SLF hurting more people, even destroying ARES?
I lay my head on the granite counter top, trying to let some of the stony stillness flow into me. A knock at the door shook me out of my misery. I prayed it was Mum and Dad, home early after a huge row.
I threw open the door and looked down to see a sandy mop of hair. Jake stood on my doorstep. His usual grin was gone and his mouth was fixed in a thin, stoic line. His eyes were red and I could tell that he’d been crying too. The acid guilt bubbled in my stomach because I knew whatever pain he was in was all thanks to me. He spoke first.
“Rosalie’s been arrested.”
“Yeah I know. Come in,” I said, standing aside and pointing him towards the kitchen.
He walked in like a robot, as if it was taking all of his energy just to put one foot in front of the other.
“Do you want a cup of tea? The kettle’s just boiled.” My mother always made tea whenever things went wrong, as if it could cure all of the world’s ills. I think it would take more than tea to sort all this out.
We sat at the kitchen table, both staring into our mugs.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Jake finally said.
“Hey, no problem. But… how did you find me?”
“Hacked your files,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing ever. I didn’t bother asking him how. “What am I going to do?”
“I don’t know, Jake.” I couldn’t lie to him. His sister was a terrorist and that meant she’d be locked up till entropy and he would be left alone. “Do you have anywhere to stay?”
He shook his head. “I could go back into the dorms. But I used to get nightmares. That’s why they let me live with…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say his sister’s name.
“You can stay with me.” I tried to sound upbeat, as if it would be a great adventure. I’d always wanted a little brother who I could play with and, if I was really honest, win against, because it had been a long time since I’d beaten Katie at anything. I didn’t want to think about what my Mum would say when she came home to find a homeless kid in her kitchen. I’d deal with her when I had to. Worst case, I’d move out and find a flat and we’d both live there. Now I was a Bluecoat I was earning enough money. Maybe Aubrey could move in, too. That’s if ARES let her go and if she would ever talk to me again.
“Did you know Aubrey was arrested too?” Jake said, looking up at me from behind his shaggy fringe. Had he known what I’d been thinking about?
“I heard,” I said. “But Abbott said he’ll try and get her off.”
“That’s good. Aubrey’s cool.”
“Yeah, she is.” We both gazed back into our mugs. The tea had gone cold.
“I wonder if I’ll see her again,” Jake said, sadly.
“Aubrey? I’m sure you will, mate. Like I said, Abbott–”
“Not Aubrey. My sister.” His bottom lip started to wobble. “I might not even get to say goodbye.” Huge tears rolled down his face.
I hesitated for a second, and then decided to forget all the rubbish about manliness. I leant over and gathered Jake into a big hug. His tiny shoulders shook in my arms.
“Screw this,” I said after letting him cry for a bit. “They can’t stop you seeing your sister. I mean, prisoners have rights, right?”
He sniffed a bubble of snot back into his nose and his eyes brightened.
“We’ll go to HQ first thing on Monday morning and demand to see her.”
“Do you think we can?”
“Hey, I’m a Bluecoat. No one says no to a Bluecoat.”
As it turned out, everyone says no to a Bluecoat.
Jake stayed with me over the weekend. I told Mum and Dad he was a kind of IT Savant who was studying at ARES, which wasn’t exactly a lie. Surprisingly, Mum fussed over him and decided he needed feeding, while Dad got Jake fixing his computer, the one thing he never allowed me to touch. Katie pretended to ignore us but I kept seeing her glancing at Jake when they were in the same room. I teased her about fancying him and she threw an apple at my head.
On Monday morning, we’d started asking everyone we knew about Aubrey and Rosalie and were getting nowhere fast. They either acted as if they didn’t know what we were talking about, or they told us to shove off. I’d even tried Shifting a few times, taking different tacks, the least successful of which had been when I’d tried to flirt with one of the girls in Analysis and got called a creep.
We were sat in the canteen, poking at our breakfast, feeling exceedingly sorry for ourselves. News travelled pretty fast around here. The place was buzzing with the news that the SLF had been caught. Although, luckily, no one seemed to know about my involvement. That wouldn’t last long.
“I’ll try Abbott again,” I told Jake, pulling out my phone. Not that I thought it would do any good. I’d been told he was off site and he wasn’t answering. Yet another person stonewalling me.
I threw my phone on the table. “Nothing.”
“Oh,” said Jake, his zombie expression was back. It looked like his belief that he would see his sister again was fading with each minute. But I wasn’t even nearly ready to give up.
“We need to talk to someone who actually knows what’s going on around here.” I remembered something. “Come on. I have an idea.”
I dragged him up two flights of stairs to the IT department. Carl was sat at his desk, a computer tower in bits in front of him.
“Hey, Carl. How’s it going?”
He looked up from the tangle of wires and circuitry and squinted at me. “Sorry, do I know you?”
I tugged at my jacket. “I was here a few days ago. With Aubrey.”
Her name worked better than my supposed Bluecoat authority ever could. He smiled at me. “Oh, yeah. You were the one after the fat guy.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I smiled and moved closer to him. Then I pulled up a chair and lowered my voice. “I need a favour. Well, not me. Aubrey. She told me that you were the only one she could really trust.”
He leant in even closer. I smelt stale coffee on his breath. “It’s so weird, because I’ve been trying to get hold of her all day. You know she asked me to do some digging into Heritage? Well I found something. Big.”
“What?” I asked, deciding not to tell him quite yet about Aubrey being locked up and it being all my fault.
“Heritage was involved in a top-secret programme of ARES’ and when I looked into it, Aubrey’s name popped too.”
“What was it?”
“That’s the thing. I can’t find out any more than that. Whatever other files they have aren’t on the standard network. You’ll need access to the
private network.”
“How do I get on to that?”
Carl laughed. “You don’t. It can only be accessed by BCI.”
“What’s BCI?”
“Some Shifters can’t be kept out of regular computer networks,” said Jake. “Hacking passwords and whatever are just way too easy. We just Shift till we find the right combo, going through each variation in turn, and bam! We’re in.”
“Exactly,” said Carl. “So we created a different way of storing and accessing information, with an interface that picks up brain signals. Brain Control Interface.”
“You just think ‘open’ and the file opens. It’s pretty cool. We were shown how to use it last week.” Jake was sitting on one of the desk, playing with a mouse shaped like a car.
“Hang on, does it look like a skullcap thing?” I said, remembering the stims Zac used at the casino.
“The old models were. Now, the receptors are implanted into the brain of the operators just under the skull. There’s less interference that way. But you might still be able to use one of the old stim sets to access the network. It wouldn’t be as quick of course.”
“OK, so we just need to get an old BCI thing and we can access the secure network?”
“Whoa!” Carl held up his hands, as if blocking me. “There are only three BCI receptor points in the building. In Sir Richard’s office, but that one’s never been set up as he refused to have the implant…”
“And where are the other two?”
“In Mr Abbott and Commandant Morgan’s offices.”
“Do you have an old model we can use?”
“Well, sure but it won’t do you any good. The network is designed to recognise the operator’s brain waves. So you’d have to get Morgan or Abbott to access it for you. Or at least have them in the room with you.” I turned to Jake. “Do you still have your sister’s bag?”
Five minutes later we were standing outside Morgan’s office.
“You ready?” Jake nodded and I knocked and opened the door without waiting. “Excuse me, Commandant.”
Morgan span around in his chair so fast it almost spat him out. I’d clearly interrupted him in spinning it round and round and he was looking a little flustered. “Well, hello, Scott. No hard feelings about last night’s raid, I hope? All in a good cause.”
“Of course, Commandant. Glad to see those SLF scum where they belong.” I walked in slowly, trying to cover Jake who was crawling in behind me and hoping he hadn’t registered Morgan’s comment. I would have to tell him it had all been my fault soon enough. But first, we had a job to do.
I coughed and carried on. “The Regulators did a great job. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I know it’s early to be thinking about what I do after entropy, but I have to look to the future. Like you kept telling us in Integration classes.”
Morgan’s face lit up. “Well, I’m glad to hear it, Scotty. Of course, I knew you had potential when I first met you. But you’re not getting any younger, believe me, and your Shifting days are numbered.” He stood up and gazed out of his large window. “So many Shifters only think about shaping their past. We need to think about shaping our future. Of course, once entropy hits I will move to become head of the Regulators and Mr Abbott can finally retire.”
I decided not to say anything about Abbott only allowing that to happen over his dead body. He sighed. “I remember when I was your age…”
“Wasn’t that like three years ago?” I asked, and Jake hit my leg to shut me up. But Morgan wasn’t listening anyway.
“Tempus fugit. Tempus. Fugit,” he said, just as Jake pounced. Morgan only had the time to squeal as the syringe entered his thigh and the drugs took effect. He slumped into his chair, a huge dopey grin on his face.
“Nice work,’ I said, high-fiving Jake. “Now, let’s see if we can get an answer out of him.”
He was spinning around in his chair, giggling to himself. “Mr Morgan?” I said, trying to get him to focus on me. His eyes were rolling in his head and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth. He was well gone.
“OK, forget him. Do your thing,” I said pointing at Morgan’s monitor. “Carl!’ I shouted.
Carl opened the door an inch, then stepped inside. “What have you done?” he said, staring at the drooling Commandant.
“Don’t worry about him. Help Jake.”
Carl rubbed his face. “I’m going to get in so much trouble.”
“Do it for Aubrey,” I said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. That seemed to work.
“OK,” Carl said. “Push him in front of the screen and let’s see if this will work.”
I wheeled Morgan under his desk and slapped his hands away as he started stroking my face. Carl placed a skullcap on Jake’s head and stuck the receptors in place. A single wire, ending in an electrode, trailed out of the back and Carl pressed it against Morgan’s temple.
“This should pick up his signal and then you can piggyback it, I think,” Carl said, stepping back.
Jake stared at the screen, his eyes glazed. It blinked into life.
“I’m in. What do you want?” Jake said, sounding distant.
“Look for Aubrey’s file,” I said.
A second later a document popped into existence on the screen and opened with a little whoosh. I scanned it. Aubrey’s birth date, entrance to ARES’ training programme, promotion to Third Class. The last entry said “Volunteered for the Ganymede Programme.”
“What do you think Ganymede is?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think Aubrey is the volunteering sort,” I said.
“That’s the name of the programme I was telling you about,” said Carl. “Total security blackout. So I couldn’t find any more than that. But now… Try and find anything on Ganymede, Jake.”
Jake blinked and a file called Ganymede whooshed open. Inside were three documents. “Overview”, “Volunteers” and “Candidates.”
He opened the Overview file first.
PROJECT GANYMEDE
CLASS FIVE PERSONNEL EYES ONLY
Inception date:
12/10/86
Project Remit:
Investigation into: The origins of the ability known as “Shifting’; the nature of entropy; the potential to militarise the power.
Project Leader:
Dr Michael Lawrence, MD, PhD, DoR.
TOTAL CLEARANCE:
APPROVED
“Well, that doesn’t tell us much,” I said, reading it for the second time. “Open Volunteers.”
The Volunteers file was a list of names and dates ranging back to the 1980s. Aubrey’s name appeared top of the list.
“Rosalie’s name’s not there,” Jake said, shaking the monitor as if it would reveal its secrets that way.
“Don’t worry, Jake. We find Aubrey, we find your sister. Try Candidates.”
The file was almost identical to the previous: a list of about twenty names and corresponding dates. But next to the names it said either “In active service” or “Retired”.
I scanned the list and the first name that jumped out at me sent a shiver down my spine. “Henry Heritage. Retired,” I whispered. Six names above him was another name I recognised. “Clive Warner. Retired. That was the man from the Tube.”
There were five other names marked Retired.
I rubbed my face and stared out the window, ignoring Morgan’s jabbering next to me. Two men, who ended up with their brains missing, on the same list. Both candidates for some programme that involved experiments into sustaining Shifting. I thumped the glass. Zac had been right. ARES were up to something and Aubrey had got caught up in it.
“Er, Scott,” Jake said pointing at the screen. I looked back and followed his finger to see a third, all-too familiar, name on the candidate list.
“JON CAIN. IN ACTIVE SERVICE.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“To what do we owe this pleasure, Mr Tyler?” Cain said, smiling as I entered the training room. “It’s not often we ha
ve a Bluecoat in our midst.” The group laughed and some of the kids waved. Distracted, I waved back.
“Sir, I need to–”
He held a hand up. “Sergeant Cain now, Scott. I think I have to call you “sir”.”
“Sergeant Cain,” I tried again, more urgent this time. “I need to speak to you.”
Cain hesitated, looking me up and down. “All right. Class, carry on sparring. But don’t think you can slack off. I might not be watching, but I’ll know.” He pointed to his foggy, ‘all-seeing’ eye. Then he led me to a corner of the room.
“Is this about Ms Jones? I heard that you’ve been trying every which way to get in to see her. I’m afraid I can’t help with that.”
I shook my head. “No, sir, I mean, sergeant.” I swallowed hard. I knew that what I was about to reveal could get me in some serious trouble. “It’s about Project Ganymede.”
Cain’s face was totally expressionless, which in itself was a pretty big giveaway. He should at least be looking confused. “Go on,” he prompted. Clearly he wasn’t going to let anything slip till he knew where this was going.
“I know you’re a part of it. One of the candidates.”
He couldn’t hide his feelings this time. Blood rose red in his cheeks and his jaw clenched so hard the tendons fought to escape his skin. For a second I was worried his head was about to explode.
“I don’t think that is any of your business, Mr Tyler,” he said when he’d recovered. “Now, I have a class to get back to.”
“They’re dying.” I said to his turned back. He stopped. “The other men on the project. Seven of them are already dead.”
He spun around, slowly. Blinked twice. And then spoke. “Tell me what you know.”
With a glance at the sparring kids, I pulled Cain to the side. “I found the files on Project Ganymede. Don’t ask how, I just did. And there was a list of candidates. Your name was on it and next to six of the other names it said ‘retired’, and we’re not talking the pottering around in your garden wearing slippers kind of retired. It’s the dead kind of retired. Head exploding dead.”
“What are you on about, Tyler?”