Mandel throws up his arms but doesn’t argue any more.
‘Now, Mr Mermick,’ says Vaughan, ‘you demonstrated one such technology for Special Agent Hartman this afternoon, is that correct?’
I nod again.
‘Could you repeat the demonstration for us, please?’ Vaughan turns to one of his associates, who places the pungit ray on the table.
I look at it, not sure my plan was a good one after all. Something about the officialness of these guys. Bureau Ministers are all the way from the top floors. I reach out for the pungit ray slowly, a cold dread that I’ve started something too big to control seeping into my bones.
My fingers are trembling so badly it’s hard to align the delicate wires in the same way I’d seen Leonard do at the safe house. When the wires are in place, I click the on button and there’s a quiet hum, letting me know it’s working. I turn the ray machine round and point it into my own face.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Stunned oohs and ahhs, or maybe even cursing, but there’s no sound. Nothing. And I feel like crawling under the table to stop them all from looking at me so hard. All of their faces are blank, staring at the space above my head. All except Mandel, whose mouth hangs open dumbly.
‘May I?’ asks Vaughan, reaching for the pungit ray.
Unsure, I place it in his hand and he steps away from me.
‘Thank you, Mr Mermick,’ he says, waving his other hand at his colleagues, who file out without a word. ‘Sit tight, son,’ is all he says to me, and he follows the rest of them out, still holding the pungit ray, leaving the men with stun staffs posted on either side of the door.
I try not to look at them, though their being here is making me feel more than a bit uneasy. I wonder if the two officers outside the door are still standing there. If they are, this is a lot of security. Does that mean they believe me? About the cure? And now they have the pungit ray. What will that do to the future? Have I just changed everything?
Once again, all I can do is wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And the waiting is made all the more uncomfortable by the two uniforms watching me all the time. Or not watching. Every so often I glance at their expressionless faces and see them staring blankly at the wall ahead. They catch me staring, and I clear my throat, turning my head to try to find something else to stare at while I wait.
Finally a knock sounds at the door, and the guards let in an officer holding a brown paper bag. He plops it on the table in front of me. ‘Your sub.’
I can smell it already, and instantly my stomach is roaring so loud, demanding I stuff the whole thing into my mouth at once. I tear open the bag and unwrap the tin-foiled bundle of melty warmness. The golden crusty bread is still hot, the sides oozing tomato sauce and cheese. I rip into it with the biggest bite I can manage, savouring the cheesy tomatoey meaty goodness. And when I’ve managed to gobble the whole thing down, my stomach swollen with sub, I’m again back with nothing to do but wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And then there are voices outside and the door clicks open. Another uniformed officer enters, carrying a small computer. He sets it down in front of me and signals to the officers standing outside. They flick off the lights as the officer does some typing on the little computer. There’s a bloomp! sound, and a beam of light springs out of it, projecting a blank white rectangle on the wall.
‘So you can see the release, Mr Mermick,’ says the officer, and leaves me alone in the room with my two guards. The release? Are they really going to let my mother go?
The white screen dissolves away and a picture of the front entrance to the BMAC building replaces it. It’s just like I remember, the ugly triangle entranceway, the hibiscus and palms. And there’s a big black private car sitting right outside the doors. They must have shelled out big for a car like that.
I sit up a little straighter, my bum barely on the chair, and my leg shakes anxiously. I’m almost believing that this lie of mine might work. There’s movement at the front doors, and they open to reveal several uniformed officers, who march their way towards the car. Behind them is Hartman, scowling more than ever, and she’s got her hand firmly clenched around my mother’s arm.
Mom.
She’s fighting Hartman, probably refusing to leave without me, but Hartman doesn’t slow down, practically dragging her to where one of the officers is holding the door to the car open. Behind them I can see Vaughan and the other high-ups standing officially, and I know Mom must be having some kind of heart attack.
I watch as she pulls herself free from Hartman’s grasp, and I see her shaking her head, gesturing wildly, demanding I be allowed to come with her. Hartman’s shouting right back, and several of the uniformed officers step into the mix.
‘Just go, Mom,’ I whisper to myself. ‘Get out of here!’
It takes three of the officers and Hartman, but they manage to force her into the car and shut the door in her face. I take a deep breath, proud that I’ve done it. She’s safe. Maybe now she can find Maggie. I imagine Maggie crying, so happy to be scooped up into Mom’s arms, and Mom thanking Leonard for taking care of her. And Gabby – maybe Mom can help her. But there’s a painful swelling in my throat, and I can’t help being aware of how alone I feel. Mom’s safe, but she’s gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The swelling in my throat extends to the rest of my body and all of me feels sore, heavy, like the full force of the giant shit-storm that’s about to come my way is pushing against every part of me. When they find out I lied – I grab my hair in my fists and rest my elbows on the table – Vaughan could have me Shelved for a thousand years.
It won’t be long before they come for me. Vaughan, his minister buddies in their fancy suits, Hartman, an army of uniformed officers – all of them will stand here, waiting for me to tell them the big cure. What am I going to say? I have to tell them something, if only to buy enough time for Mom to go find Maggie. It’s not like I can just say, ‘I lied.’ I bite my lip. Hartman would strangle me on the spot. Before I get a chance to wonder if any of the nearby uniformed officers would bother trying to pull her off me – probably not – there’s a thumping sound out in the hall. I look over at the officers standing beside the door, but they’re looking at each other, just as startled. Another thump.
Thump-thump.
BAM!
The three of us are silent, looking at each other nervously, waiting for Vaughan or Hartman to open the door. Nothing. Just quiet. The guard on the left nods to the one on the right, and he knocks on the door three times.
Silence.
He knocks again.
Nothing.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I guess the guards are just as uneasy cos they let their stun staffs drop from across their chests into their hands. The one on the right twists his wrist, bringing the electric current to life. Before the one on the left can do the same, the locks click and the door opens.
There’s no one there.
And then I see the boots. I shove myself back from the table at the sight of the lifeless legs and arms of the guard outside, now lying just beyond the door. There’s something above them, like a ripple in the fabric of the air. I blink. The guard on the right doesn’t wait to find out what it is, stepping into the hall with his staff at the ready.
But he doesn’t get to use it. There’s a blast of white-hot blue, a ribbon of lightning that harpoons him in the gut, and he suddenly goes rigid, as the other guard rushes to help him.
‘Wait!’ I shout, but I’m too late, and another flash catches him in the head. They both crumple, like coats falling off hangers, into a pile in the doorway. I stumble back, pressing myself into the corner as if somehow that will hide me.
The lightning leaves no doubt.
Roth is coming.
And then he’s there, standing in the doorway. His face is all heavy, sharp angles, with a razor nose, like a perfect L, and brow ridges that cast a sh
adow over his dark eyes. His mouth is set in a fine line, expressionless, as his gaze falls on me.
All I can do is stay there, hunched in my corner, staring at him, waiting for the lightning. I can see the strange contraption strapped to his open left palm, buzzing with the angry current that took out the guards. The Punch.
He just watches me, like he’s in absolutely no rush, and I don’t know if he’s waiting for me to try to run or to say something. His left hand twitches, and the middle finger jerks, barely at all, but when it does, the current disappears and the buzzing goes away.
‘Get up,’ he says, his voice grinding like truck tyres on gravel.
I don’t. I don’t want to. I want sounds, any sound other than my own panicked breath – the pounding of BMAC feet thundering down the hall, an emergency alarm, anything.
‘Get up,’ he says again.
Where’s Hartman? Or Vaughan? Or the army of BMAC agents that should be coming to save me? My brain clings to the hope that they’re on their way, but Roth’s cool, detached expression tells me that’s not going to happen.
He’s here for Gabby.
His head tilts to the side, hair buzzed down so fine that the shape is like a square, and he seems to be waiting for me to do something. His left hand starts twitching again, and the circle in his palm buzzes to life. He lifts his palm towards me and I see a ripple of heat in the air around it. I curl up against the blast, and a piece of the wall beside me splinters as the lightning slams into it.
‘Get up!’ he growls.
My face is buried in my arms and I listen to myself breathe. My Shadow tugs at my brain and I reach for him, sending out every bit of how scared I am. He receives it all, absorbs it until I feel just the smallest bit of courage to move.
Slowly I slide myself up the wall until I’m standing, and Roth’s chest rises, a satisfied breath whistling through his large nostrils.
‘I don’t know where she is,’ I blurt out.
He answers with another blast from his palm, sending a chunk of wall exploding beside my head and I cower. The corner of Roth’s mouth twitches the slightest bit, as if his lips have forgotten how to smile.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says. ‘She’ll come to us.’
‘BMAC’s looking for her. She can’t just waltz in here and expect them not to—’
‘That’s why we won’t make her come here.’ He readjusts the weapon strapped to his palm, not so much as blinking at what I said. ‘She will come where I call.’
Where he calls? ‘She can’t hear you,’ I tell him. ‘She told me – the connection is a jumbled mess. She can’t understand you.’
‘Maybe not on her own,’ he says. ‘But with your sister’s help …’
Maggie.
‘… she’ll be a good girl.’ When he’s satisfied the weapon’s secure, he turns to the doorway. ‘Wait here.’
He steps into the hall and I watch the empty doorway. The boots of one of the fallen guards are shaking as Roth works just out of sight, and then there’s a quiet snap that turns my stomach.
‘Shall we, Pat?’ he says, standing in the doorway with a pocket knife in one hand and a severed finger grasped loosely in the other.
I want to puke. I want all the heaving juices in my stomach to spew out of me. I want to squeeze my eyes shut and the gruesome scene to go away.
‘Pat,’ he says again, ‘shall we?’
Pat. The way he says my name, familiar, sets my neck hairs on end, and I listen one last time in desperate hope that Hartman might be on her way. There’s only silence. I can’t do anything but obey.
We step out into the hall and there’s nothing but us and the crumpled guards. I look back towards the room with the cubicles, and through the windows in the doors I can see several other agents collapsed across their desks.
‘Are they dead?’
‘Unconscious,’ he says, shoving me in the other direction. ‘The Punch is designed for Movers, but it still has its uses with Norms.’
Punch. It’s too small a word for that thing in his palm. A weapon designed for Movers. ‘Does it kill Movers?’ I say, nearly choking on the words.
He shakes his head, but I don’t feel any kind of relief. If it doesn’t kill them, what does it do? Why would the Commander of the Shadow and Mover army need a weapon against Movers?
He shoves me around corners and down hallways until we’re standing in front of the doors to the covered bridge. He wants to go to the Movers’ Prison. When Hartman took me there, there was no one around but us and the sleeping Movers.
My Shadow is quiet inside my head, like smoke seeping through the crack at the bottom of a door. I can feel him prodding around in my brain, softly trying to get a handle on what’s happening. He doesn’t bother me directly. I need all my wits about me now, and somehow he can sense that. He’s just watching, like a fly on the wall of my mind.
‘What does it do?’ I blurt out, wanting to give my Shadow what he’s looking for.
Roth looks down at me with a blank stare. There’s nothing I can read in that face. ‘Reverses the pungits,’ he grumbles.
My breath comes in quick little bursts as he lifts the guard’s finger to the lockpad. Reverses the pungits? I remember what Leonard said, about Roth going back. Something to do with the Punch. Is he going to reverse someone’s pungits to Move him and Gabby back to the future?
Gabby.
‘She won’t come,’ I tell him. Not if it means facing her Shadow. Not if it means letting him control her. ‘She’s too smart for that.’
He grabs me by the arm and shoves me onto the covered bridge, his stony expression demanding I move forward. I do, but not before I make sure he sees the fury on my face.
‘She will,’ he says to my back. ‘I know she will.’
I hate the calm confidence in his voice and want more than anything to shake it. ‘How?’
His head cocks to the side again, and this time there’s the faintest hint of a grin. ‘I’m her Shadow, Pat,’ he says, pointing to his head. ‘I’ve lived there. And I’ve seen how she feels about you.’
This hits me like a blow to the gut. No – deeper than that, like a stab, like he’s shot his Punch right into my belly, grabbed my stomach and squeezed. Gabby doesn’t feel anything about me, she can’t. We barely ever talked before the Move.
His faint grin oozes into a wide, toothy smile. ‘Trust me. For you, she’ll come.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Roth’s pace speeds up as we clang our way across the grated gangway of the Movers’ Prison. I barely notice the cold as I hurry by pair after pair of marbled white feet. Each belongs to a stranger, but a part of me feels like I know them. I guess I do. Their story is my story. The story of Movers.
Somewhere in his brain Roth must be thinking along the same lines, cos he’s practically running now, hating being near these feet as much as I do. Does his stomach clench with the fear of being Shelved? Does he worry his Move for Gabby will get him sentenced to sleep?
My heart pounds faster as I’m forced to keep up with Roth, each beat hurting as I tell myself not to think of her. He’s wrong about her. He has to be, and that’s it. Even if – my face feels hot against the ice in the air – even if some dark, selfish part of me hopes Roth is right, hopes she could care about me enough to come save me, I need him to be wrong. I promised her I wouldn’t let him find her. I promised.
Roth stops abruptly and I slam into his back, squishing my nose against his hard shoulder blade. The sting of it radiates into my eyes and Roth grabs hold of me, pulling me in beside him. There’s murmuring below us, and through the grate beneath our feet I can see a couple of what I guess are the prison guards, laughing about some dancing dog video they’re watching on one guy’s droidlet.
There’s a faint sound beside me, like a high-pitched surge, and I see the blue glow of the current in Roth’s hand. Without thinking, I grab his wrist to stop him and he cuts me a hard glare as he shoves me to the ground, rearing his arm back for the strike.
>
‘Look out!’ I shout, as the ripple in the world pulses out from Roth’s hand and the two guards look up.
They pull their rifles, but not in time, and the lightning lashes out at them, striking one in the face while the other manages to duck and roll.
Roth is on top of me, his giant fingers digging into my arm as he drags me along, barrelling towards one of the hatches I climbed through with Hartman.
And then the bang. That loud, sickening pop I heard back at school. It’s behind me now, and there’s a ping, and more pops, as the guard fires everything he has at me and Roth.
‘Open it,’ orders Roth, slapping the severed finger onto my chest. He shoves me at the hatch and turns back to fire on the guard.
Terrified of getting shot, I grab the index finger, so cold and obviously dead that I have to force myself to not drop it. The red light blinks white, and I let the hideous thing fall out of my hands, grasping hold of the wheel on the hatch and spinning it as hard as I can. It screeches as it turns, and there are more pops and shouts from below us. The guard has company now.
Roth lets loose another bolt, and the shouts are louder as the door finally gives and I dive through.
This is it.
Run.
Roth glances back at me, crouched inside the hatch.
Run!
I snatch the severed finger from the ground and reach out to slam the door shut on Roth, but he’s too fast, sticking his foot in before I can close it. He shoves me back, hard, bruising my chest, and kicks the door closed behind us.
He grabs me by the neck again, forcing me down the winding stairs, pushing me faster than my feet can go and I nearly wipe out, but Roth stops my fall.
‘Hold it!’ Three BMAC agents appear on the stairs below us, their guns pointed right in my face. I fall back into Roth, squeezing my eyes tight, waiting for the bullets, but he blows them back with a blast from his Punch.
‘Move,’ he orders, and shoves me so suddenly that I’m forced to step on one of the unconscious agents, nearly rolling my ankle as I try to manoeuvre over him and continue on our way down the stairs.
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