by Jule Owen
Lestrange steps into the corridor. Kilfeather, Jonah, Drake, George and Clara all crumple to the ground unconscious. Lestrange untangles Mathew from Hoshi’s already disintegrating body.
He hefts him into his arms and carries him, stepping carefully over Director Hathaway and Dr Mathew Erlang, through the three doors, across the floor of the lab, beside the screens on the walls where the sixteen are busy wiping all traces of their existence from local storage, into the bedroom at the back of the lab and back into the Darkroom in Pickervance Road.
35 Nonstarter
DAY THIRTEEN: Saturday 4 December 2055, London
Daylight streams through the curtains. Mathew stares at it, not quite sure for a moment where he is and why he is in bed in the middle of the day. The dream was incredibly vivid. His hand instinctively reaches for his wounded side, but of course, the gaping red hole isn’t there. He is swamped by loss and sadness as he remembers Hoshi being shot - the Hoshi who is and is not his mother. He is both relieved and sickened to realise she is not dead, but is instead lying in a hospital bed across town, still dying.
Swinging his legs from under the duvet onto the floor, he sits up, rubs his face with his hands and sighs.
Puzzled to find he is staring at his boots, he remembers he got into bed fully dressed. But then he also remembers he woke and got up. So why is he now in bed? His brain wobbles. He gets to his feet.
His Lenz tells him it is nearly five and he needs to relieve Gen at Panacea. The car is twenty minutes away. He needs to move.
In the bathroom he has déjà vu undressing and showering. In the kitchen it’s the same thing, but when he shovels cereal into his mouth from a bowl while standing up, Leibniz doesn’t warn him he has already eaten, nor does it warn him to seat himself to aid digestion. He leaves the Canvas off. What does the war matter now?
When the car arrives he is waiting for it. His Lenz blinks with seven unanswered messages. He ignores them until he is seated. Clara, his grandmother, Eva, Gen, Wyatt and Lydia from school, and then Nan Absolem.
He checks the message from Gen first.
She says, “The hospital have let me take and make calls downstairs. I’ve sneaked away for five minutes for some food, a drink and to call you. She’s still the same, but at least it’s not a change for the worse.”
A wave of gratitude overwhelms him. Tears sting his eyes. He blinks them away, takes a deep breath and checks his other messages.
Ju Shen is concerned because for days neither her grandson nor her daughter have responded to her attempts at communication. “Is everything alright? I’m going crazy with worry. Please, one of you, call. ”
He must steel himself to call her. But not now. Not now.
He listens to Clara’s message. Her voice is new to him, as if it wasn’t the day before when they last spoke, but a lifetime ago.
“I wanted you to know I am thinking of you and praying, even though I don’t pray, for your mum.”
Wyatt and Lydia have both left notes saying they are sorry to hear what has happened to his mother. How do they know? He wonders. But then he remembers he told Nan. But I couldn’t have told Nan. I was asleep. He tries to piece together what happened when he got home, retracing his steps from the car, through the front door, grabbing O’Malley. I went straight to bed. Then I woke up, ate breakfast and sent a message to Professor Absolem. But he couldn’t have done this. He was still dressed when he woke. He sighs and decides he is too exhausted and stressed to think straight.
The fact is, Nan got his message, so he must have sent it.
Nan’s message is short. It tells him not to worry about schoolwork until his mother is better. She has notified the relevant authorities and his credits will not be affected. She also says she hopes he doesn’t mind, but she has notified his friends at school in order to encourage them to support him. He is vaguely annoyed she has done this, but at the same time touched that Wyatt and Lydia would write to him.
It is early evening when the car winds its way through dark streets, lit by street lamps and window-light. Under normal circumstances at this time the roads and streets would be bustling with cars and people, even on a Sunday. But the roads and pavements of London are deserted. People are huddled in their houses, confined by the Curfew and fearful because of the war.
A drone flashes by, hunting for those breaking the Curfew and for people who are either not chipped or not on the list to be chipped.
The car turns onto a road that runs between high brick walls. There is a gate at the end, wide enough to let a truck through but innocuous and unmarked. There’s no Panacea sign, with the bright, cheerful company logo. They don’t want anyone to know this facility is here. The car winds along a short drive and parks at the back of the building, where his mother was wheeled from the ambulance only a few days ago. It seems like a lifetime. A nurse is there to greet him, holding the door to the hospital open.
The nurse leads him through the maze of shabby corridors to a lift. They go up a few floors and then they walk until they reach a room where he gets into his protective gear: a thin white boiler suit, a surgical mask, gloves, thin shrilk elasticated sleeves for his shoes. He follows after the nurse through double doors until he meets Gen on her way out. She holds and grips his hand, holding his gaze. He is embarrassed and overwhelmed and looks away.
“Thanks for your message,” he says.
She shakes her head, as if to say ‘It’s nothing.’ Aloud, she says, “Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” he says.
“Something nutritious?”
“Cereal,” he says.
She raises an eyebrow but stays silent. Who is she to tell him what he should and should not do right now?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says and goes off with another nurse, who holds the ward door for her to pass through. Mathew watches her go.
The nurse who had greeted him downstairs stays with him. She says, “Okay?”
He nods and they go to Hoshi’s room.
She is so small, dwarfed by the bed, hooked up to various machines. Asleep or knocked-out by drugs, her face is turned away from him. He sinks to his seat and takes her hand.
“Mum?” he says, but there is no response.
“I’m going to leave you to it,” the nurse says. “If you need me, use the call button.”
“Thanks,” he says. “I know the drill.”
He settles into his chair and observes the drip and the morphine as it trickles into her, watching the time flick by.
Silence fizzes the air. The lights automatically dim for the night. For hours, not a soul passes by. He tries to read something on his Paper, but he can’t focus, reading and re-reading the same line again and again. Resting his elbow on the bed, he watches Hoshi’s sleeping face, the flickering of her eyelashes, her mouth twitching. She is dreaming.
He recalls the last few years, how angry he has been with her for carrying on after his father died and he feels sick with himself because what else could she do? Then he remembers the documents he got from the Lich King and wonders what it is inside of Hoshi killing her, and how it got there. He imagines the thing, the virus, whatever it is, coursing through her veins, poisoning and corrupting her body. Now he knows why she screamed at him and tried to get him to go away. She had realised, at the last minute, what was happening to her. She was trying to protect him.
Mathew’s head buzzes. His heart races. It is anxiety, he realises. He must calm himself. And he tries to clear his mind, closing his eyes, breathing deeply, relaxing his body. Unconsciously, he grips his mother’s hand harder.
She stirs. Her head turns; her eyes open and light up as they recognise him.
“Mum,” he whispers.
She smiles, squeezing his hand. Her grip is weak. “You’re here,” she says.
“Of course.”
“What time is it?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you too.”
/> “I am glad I got to see you,” she says.
“Me too. But when you are better you will be sick of me again.”
Her eyes fill with tears.
“Don’t,” he says.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll never be sick of you.”
“I’ve been a horrible person.”
“No you haven’t. Don’t say that.”
Mathew’s throat tightens.
Hoshi’s eyes droop and he thinks she has drifted off, but she says, still with closed eyes, “Tell your father I am sorry.”
For a moment, choked, he can’t speak; then he says, unsteadily, “Dad’s dead.”
She doesn’t seem to hear. She says, insistent, “Find your father.”
“Mum, your medication is very strong. Dr. Assaf said you may say strange things.”
“You must find him and tell him.”
Her grip weakens and for one terrifying moment he thinks she has gone, but her breath heaves and then softens into a rhythm, and he relaxes and slumps back.
But he’s dead. He’s dead.
And his heart beats faster, his nerves are on fire. There is nowhere to go. No one to turn to. Then he is struck by a thought with an unearthly force.
But what if she didn’t mean find him physically? What if she meant, find out about him?
This thought stops his anxiety in its tracks. He says, “I will find him.”
THE END
Book Three
The Moon at Noon
1 The End
DAY TWENTY-THREE: Tuesday 14th December 2055, London
Mathew stands by the dragon Yinglong’s massive head. She might be sleeping. Her eyes are closed, her neck rests across one foreleg, her long tail curls around her body like a sleeping cat. Though she has been dead many years in the time of this world, she still looks whole. Untouched, her scales will not easily decay, but if he pushes at her with any force, she will crumble to dust. Her mate, Shen, lies ten feet away, resting less peacefully, splayed out on the ground, a broken leg awkwardly angled away from his body.
They rampaged through their world, eating whatever they found, destroying anything they couldn’t eat, until there was nothing left. Then, starving, they turned on one another. At the end of their last battle, Shen came crashing down to earth with Yinglong hurtling after him. Finding him already dead, broken on the ground, she was too weak and exhausted to eat him. Instead, she curled up at his side, nursing her own wounds, and went to sleep forever.
Mathew walks around their bodies until he can no longer stand looking at them. He kicks at the ground, stony and cindered, black with charcoal from thousands of incinerated trees. It crunches under foot. As he steps back, he puts his hands behind his head, and looks about. The whole world is burned.
On the mountain in the distance a line of black tree stumps rears against the sky. Fog rolls down between the bare rocks. Now there are no trees, no living things at all. There is nothing to stop the wind blowing across the hills and the mountains and howling between valleys. The forest that once grew lush and green is all gone to ashes. Behind him the hunting lodge Eva built for him is reduced to its stone foundations; the carcasses of armchairs stand forlornly by the charred stone fireplace. Everything is burnt. Everything is destroyed. He surveys the world Eva left in his care with dry, hard eyes and thinks, bitterly, how appropriate. There is a flat low rock nearby. He goes and sits on it and contemplates the things he made, neglected, and through neglect, destroyed.
Eva has not come. She knows when to leave him alone. He does not want company.
He waits for a long time until it starts to rain, hard driving icy rain numbing the skin on his face, and then he stands and walks back to the lodge, stepping over broken glass, stooping beneath the felled charred beams of the roof, heading to the back of the house and the door out of this world, standing oddly untouched in its frame. He steps through and closes it behind, knowing he will never return.
Then he is sitting in a chair in the Darkroom in his house at Pickervance Road.
It really is my house now.
Initiating the program managing Eva’s world, he finds the delete option and selects it. A prompt is thrown up,
Please enter administration password.
He enters the password and submits it.
Proceeding will delete all files. Do you wish to continue?
“Yes,” he says.
Deleting…
And he watches the dead world disintegrate, crumbling into sand until finally there is nothing left, just a bare black room with some cameras and technical equipment.
In the kitchen, the robot HomeAngel, Leibniz, is making lunch. When his food is ready, Mathew sits and eats in silence. The Canvas is off. He doesn’t care about the news now. He finishes, and lets the HomeAngel take his plates and cup, stack them in the dishwasher, switch on the thirty-second wash cycle and then put away the clean, dry dishes. As Leibniz finishes, Mathew says, “Leibniz, go and fetch your docking station and then follow me.”
Without questioning, Leibniz goes over to the wall where it normally recharges, bends and picks up the wireless power pack from the floor. Then it follows Mathew out into the hall, carrying its charger.
O’Malley is asleep on the sofa in the front room. Mathew picks him up, and holds him, kissing his head. “Come on, old friend. Come and see your new home.”
The three of them make a strange little caravan, out of the front door, down the short pathway, through the gate, onto the pavement in the street, along and around into Gen’s front garden. She opens the door almost immediately.
“That was quick,” he says.
“I was watching for you in the window. I didn’t want you to have to wait outside with O’Malley. Come in.” She observes curiously as the robot lifts its legs high over the unfamiliar step and she stands back against the wall as it moves inside.
“Go to the kitchen, Leibniz,” Mathew says. “Straight ahead.”
“Yes Mathew,” the robot replies, and it does as it is instructed.
Gen shuts the front door and Mathew puts O’Malley down. The cat walks about on short cautious legs, sniffing. “You’ve been here before, old fella. Remember?” he says to the cat. But O’Malley seems to have no such memory.
“Shall I keep him in one room for the time being?” Gen suggests.
“Great idea. Front room okay?”
“Perhaps if I put the lid of the piano down,” Gen rushes over and covers the grand piano up.
“I’ll get his bowl and litter tray just now. Leibniz deals with it all, feeds him, cleans his box. He even brushes him and administers basic vet care. The robot will order anything the cat needs.”
They shut the door on O’Malley and go into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry you have to leave your cat, Mathew.”
“It’s only for a while, until I’m settled. I’ll send for him.”
Gen nods. “I’ll take good care of him in the meantime. Don’t worry.”
“I know you will. Thanks Gen.”
In the last few weeks, Mathew has come to understand what his mother had meant when she said Gen was kind. He doesn’t know how he would have survived without her. He wants to tell her this, but no longer trusts himself with any conversation involving emotion.
They shut the door on O’Malley and go into the kitchen. Leibniz is standing in the centre of the room, still holding its power pack.
“Where’s good for it to put its charger?”
“What about over here?” Gen asks, walking over to the far wall and indicating a gap between the fireplace and the fridge. “Will it fit?”
Mathew walks over. “Yes, I think this is fine. Leibniz, your new charging station is here. You can put down your power pack.”
Leibniz walks over and does as it is told.
Mathew says to the robot, “You will stay in this house now
and look after Gen Lacey. Normal duties apply here and once a fortnight I want you to go next door and dust and do any maintenance necessary to keep number nineteen running. Do you understand?”
“Yes Mathew.”
“Is there anything I need to know in order to look after him?” Gen asks. “Any instruction manual?”
“It is self-maintaining. Unless there’s a chronic system failure, you shouldn’t have to do anything. There’s an emergency number and its model and individual serial number on a panel on its back, here. To instruct it, you speak to it normally. It takes instruction in plain English, although you can’t have a philosophical conversation with it. It’ll crash if you try. If it crashes, it will automatically reboot. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s currently set to clean the house, do household maintenance, all of the grocery shopping, and look after the cat. It will ask you about your shopping preferences the first time it makes a shopping list. After that, it will adjust only if you specifically request it to do so, but it’s hardwired to your bio-chip so it will automatically adjust meal planning to best suit your personal nutritional requirements. It can also do gardening. If you don’t want it to do something or you want to change what it is doing, tell it.”
“It?”
“It’s a machine, not a person.”
“I see.”
“You’ll find out.” Mathew says.