‘Leonard?’ whispers Maggie, shaking as Beauty nuzzles her arm.
I hear the sound of heavy-booted feet, and every second Leonard doesn’t call out to us, I know with more certainty that Roth won the shoot-out.
Maggie starts to cry and grabs Gabby’s other hand. ‘He’ll find us!’ she squeaks.
From my toes to my hair, I’m frozen, like death is reaching out its fingers and taunting me as Roth moves quietly through the room. And my Shadow can feel every bit of it. He feels it himself. Like he’s right here with me.
‘Gabby!’ shouts Roth. ‘Come out now, and your friends go free.’
And my Shadow’s there, at the front of my mind, seeing the colour of the linens all around me, feeling the sweat of Gabby and Maggie’s hands in mine. I can see it all through eyes that aren’t mine, evaluate it all with a wisdom that took decades of fight-or-flight to build up. My Shadow’s wisdom.
Gabby’s grip on my hand loosens and she moves to lift the tablecloth. I pull her back saying, ‘He’s lying.’ Only I don’t know if it was me who said it.
I must have, cos she answers me. ‘There’s nothing else we can do.’
There has to be. My mind races, searching for something, anything, that will keep her from Roth.
There’s a loud crash as Roth flips over one of the tables. ‘Gabby!’ he roars.
And words, like flames, shoot into the front of my mind in such thick black angry smoke that it’s hard to know what they are until they fall out of my mouth. ‘Rip him apart,’ I hiss.
Gabby and Maggie look at me, surprised, and my heart pounds as I realise the words don’t belong to me. The idea isn’t mine. It’s my Shadow’s.
‘Rip him apart!’ I say again, understanding what my Shadow means.
The girls wince beside me as another table crashes.
‘Gabby,’ I say quickly, ‘you’re connected to him again, right? And Maggie too?’
They both nod slightly.
‘Move him,’ I say, shifting onto my knees and holding their hands tighter. ‘At the same time, you have to Move him.’
‘What?’ says Gabby. ‘Pat, he’s here.’
‘But you’re still connected! If you’re connected, you can Move him.’
‘To where?!’
‘To you! And Maggie will too. If you each grab onto him—’ I let go of their hands and lock my fingers together in front of me to show them what I mean, ‘and Move him to where you are.’ I tear my hands apart and Maggie gasps.
‘I—’ Gabby stammers. ‘I don’t know. I’m only Phase 2.’
‘You have Maggie,’ I say. ‘She’s strong, she’ll help you. Just concentrate.’
‘I don’t know if it works like that.’
I don’t either. But the certainty is there, inside my head. It’s coming from my Shadow. My Shadow knows this will work.
‘Just try!’ I beg her. ‘Feel it, feel that nagging part of you that can do it, the part that wants to Move.’
Gabby swallows because she knows exactly what I’m talking about – that twitching, instinctual feeling in the deepest part of every Mover’s gut, that itch we all have from birth, the one we’re taught over and over to ignore. The itch we’re told to pretend isn’t there.
Her mouth sets in a determined line. She nods. No more pretending now.
There’s a blast from the Punch and I hear glass shatter. He’s taken out some windows now.
Maggie’s sniffling behind Gabby. ‘No, Pat,’ she says. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’
‘Yes, you do, Mags,’ I say, grabbing her face in my hands. ‘Look at me. Yes, you do.’
‘No, I was scared last time! It was an accident!’
‘Are you scared now?’
She nods.
‘Then you’re good to go,’ I tell her, my heart bursting at the idea that this might work.
Maggie takes a deep breath, her cheeks puffed out as she tries to calm down. Finally she lets it go and wipes her eyes. When she’s done, she looks at me and forces herself to smile.
I look at Beauty, hiding in my sister’s arms. ‘She’s got a part in this too.’
She pulls the bird close and for a second I don’t think she’ll let her go, but when her eyes meet mine she nods and hands me Beauty who, by some miracle, keeps her beak shut. It’s like she already knows what she needs to do.
I tuck her under my arm and lift the corner of the tablecloth.
‘Where are you going?’ whispers Gabby.
‘When I say …’ I tell her.
‘Pat!’ she squeaks, and I spin back on my knees to face her. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘Don’t thank me yet.’
‘No, not for this,’ she says.
‘For what?’
She shrugs, her chin quivering. ‘For being my friend.’
She keeps her eyes on the floor and I want to tell her to take it back, tell her not to thank me for being what she should have had all along. I want to tell her I’m sorry, for not being there for her until now, for everyone who was ever mean to her, for leaving her alone in her mind with Roth. But I don’t. There isn’t time.
‘OK, when I say,’ I tell her. ‘It’s gonna work.’
Gabby nods.
I keep low, crawling on my elbows with Beauty cradled to my chest, moving as close to Roth as I dare. I stop and I can see him, only a few steps away, throwing chairs and turning over tables. He’s getting closer to where the girls are hiding and I know we’re running out of time.
I whisper to Beauty, ‘For Maggie,’ and the bird makes a little cluck. ‘Don’t get shot.’
I give her tail a little tug and the bird explodes from my hands with a shriek that makes Roth turn away from the girls’ table. He fires the Punch wildly and Beauty keeps flying, screeching and ducking each blast.
In the chaos I take my chance and hurry under the next table. I pause, trying to spot Roth’s feet from under the cloth, but I’ve lost sight of him. I’ll have to risk it again. Beauty’s stopped screeching. I peek my head out but there’s no sign of the bird, or Roth, and the carpet here is covered in shattered glass. I snake my way along and duck under the tablecloth of the next one.
I can’t hear anything.
Just wind.
And then there’s a roar and everything goes bright as the table is thrust onto its side and I’m face to face with a furious, psycho-smile Roth. He holds out his hand, the Punch in my face.
‘Now, Gabby! Now!’ I scream, just before I see the ripple in the air, and the light in the centre of the Punch explodes.
And its fire, shooting through my veins. My limbs lock up and my muscles clench and it feels as if the meat on my bones is being cooked from the inside. I try to scream but I’m paralysed, my brain swelling like a balloon ready to burst. And there’s a spot, right in the deepest meat of my brain, where a hole is burning through. And I know it’s the pungits. I can feel them grinding to a halt and piling up against this one spot in my brain before they swell out, reversing direction. It’s sharp and it’s hot and I want to scream so loud and I can’t.
And then it’s over. I drop to the ground and I can feel my limbs again. My lungs gasp in air and my eyes blink back stars. My head feels like mush, as if whatever the lightning did cooked my brains.
And my Shadow’s in my head – just as confused, just as cooked. But he’s there. He’s with me.
Roth takes hold of my shirt, hauling me to my feet. He’s breathing heavily, and a single laugh escapes him as he gets a firm grip on my neck.
‘Time to play your part, Patrick,’ he says, and from his hip he pulls out what looks like a crown – just like the one Leonard said Roth used on his friend, Misha – and puts it on my head. ‘Time to give up your pungits.’
The wind in the room whips my hair into my eyes. It’s cold and strong – it’s the Eventualies, the Movers’ wind – and all I want to do is breathe it in, but Roth’s grip on my neck won’t let me. His veiny eyes, wild and crazy, bore into mine as he holds the glowin
g Punch to the crown. I feel the crown heating up, and feel that hole in my mind opening up again. And my Shadow’s screaming somewhere on the other side, screaming at me to stop it, to hang on. But I can’t hang on. All I can feel is the burning, the horrible hideous burning.
Roth smiles a big toothy grin, crooked and hideous as he watches the crown glow a brilliant electric blue.
This is my chance.
I swing up my knee as hard as I can, connecting with his crotch, and he releases me with a grunt.
I drop to the floor, gasping in the frigid air before I scramble away. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a flicker of black outside the window – Beauty riding on the churning wind. When I whirl round, I see them, Gabby and Maggie, holding hands and staring down Roth who’s watching them dumbfounded, the hair whipping around their faces like the wind belongs to them.
It does.
This is their Move.
Roth starts to scream, gripping onto his head as the girls pull his pungits in two different directions, his voice like an animal’s as he pushes on both sides of his skull, desperate to make it stop. But they don’t stop. Both of them are concentrating so hard, their faces blank and their eyes unfocused as if they can’t even hear what agony they’re causing him.
Roth falls to his knees, and the tower shudders so violently that I let out a scream. I can see the lightning outside, shooting in blinding streaks towards the ground. And then Roth is glowing, his head haloed with white, crackling sparks. The sparks lash out in bolts of their own, and Roth rears back. I watch, knowing this is it, knowing the Move is happening. But then he’s reaching, reaching his arm out towards Gabby and Maggie, and I remember he’s got the Punch.
I scramble to my feet and launch myself on top of him, wrestling his arm to point in any other direction. He bucks beneath me, but I hang on as the lightning coming from inside him burns my eyes and my chest, and my Shadow’s in my head, panic clouding whatever he’s trying to say.
‘Pat!’ shrieks Gabby, and I look up to see her face, her hair loose and flowing as tears streak down her cheeks.
There’s a roar from Roth and then a snap.
And everything goes quiet.
THIRTY-ONE
A snap.
Or a wink.
On, then off.
And it’s quiet.
Quiet and dark.
I’m on my back, greedily breathing in the air but it tastes different now. It’s heavy and damp, and there’s a smell like mould.
Roth is gone.
I don’t hear Gabby, or Maggie.
I’m dead.
I try to lift myself onto my elbows but a pain so intense shoots up from my gut and rips through my head that I collapse again with a groan. I pant from the effort, and I grab my head, relieved to feel my fuzzy hair, the sweat on my forehead. I’m alive. I’m pretty sure I’m alive.
There’s a shuffling noise to my left.
As my eyes adjust to the dark I see there’s a figure, hunched over, scuttling amongst some containers, and I want to call out for Gabby. I want her to answer me. But my throat hurts so much when I try that all that escapes me is a rasp.
The hunched figure freezes and turns towards me.
I tell my body to move, to run, but there’s so much pain that I groan again and stay where I am as the figure hurries to my side. It drops to its knees and shines a light into my eyes, dazzling me a moment before it places the light by its side.
And then a face comes into view, staring nervously at me. A wrinkled face, worry lines etched into its forehead, scowling down. A man. A man with patchy black stubble and black hair that’s receding ever so slightly. Eyes the colour of smoke.
I know him.
He grumbles something to me that I can’t understand. He doesn’t speak my language.
But I know him.
He holds some water to my lips and lifts my head to help me drink.
The water runs down my aching throat and soothes my frightened heart.
He speaks again, and while I don’t know the words, I can tell he’s asking if I’m OK.
And then he hands me a red ball and wooden paddle. The one I saw inside my head when Roth was taking me from the Movers’ Prison. My Shadow showed it to me, to calm me down.
My brain doesn’t understand what I’m seeing.
His face is the face of my Shadow.
THE HOURLY TIMES
The trial of 14-year-old Gabriela Vargas came to an end last Thursday after a speedy investigation following the Movement incident at the Avin Turbine. Vargas pleaded guilty to Moving the Shadow responsible for the attack on BMAC last month and, most shockingly, the murder of classmate and fellow Mover Patrick Mermick.
While the severity of Vargas’s crimes cannot be overstated, the country was nevertheless stunned when she was sentenced to BMAC’s high-security Movers’ Prison rather than a juvenile facility.
The decision, according to jury member Michael Winston, was made as a result of the extreme nature of Vargas’s crimes. As witness for the prosecution and best friend to the deceased Ollie Larkin put it to the press, ‘Movers are different from us. Pat taught me that.’
But should their differences as Movers make their age irrelevant? Not according to the victim’s mother, Isabelle Randle-Mermick, who despite having lost her son has publically expressed her disapproval of the controversial sentence. The blame, she suggests, should fall to BMAC, who kept her separate from her son just before he was kidnapped from their facilities by Vargas’s Shadow.
Responding to Mrs Randle-Mermick’s comments, Criminal Investigations Special Agent Beadie Hartman told The Hourly Times: ‘The only person to blame in this situation is Gabriela Vargas. Her actions put a great many people in danger and resulted in the deaths of Mr Mermick and several BMAC officers. But while Miss Vargas has taken from our community, Mr Mermick was able to give, providing BMAC with crucial insight into the Mover affliction. I believe his contribution to society will be remembered in times to come.’ When asked what information Patrick Mermick was providing, BMAC responded only that it would be the force behind significant changes in phase status testing.
In the meantime, history has certainly been made by Gabriela Vargas, the youngest Mover to ever serve time in BMAC’s Movers’ Prison. Right or wrong, the message is clear – Movers in Avin City, beware.
A MESSAGE FROM TOMORROW
My name is Pat Mermick. I was Moved to the year 2383 by my Shadow, after Commander Bram Roth reversed my pungits. And it’s nothing like Leonard said it would be. There’s no war. Just fear. Movers and Shadows living in secret, in hiding, from a BMAC that’s trying to ‘cure’ them all. To wipe Movement from existence.
Because Roth never came back. After what Maggie and Gabby did to him, there was no coming back for Roth.
The Shade Unit has been defeated.
Movers and Shadows are on their own.
I don’t belong here.
I have to go back.
Go back to save my family.
And to save my family, I have to save her.
The girl that started this whole mess. Everything, all of it. My dad, my sister, Rani and Leonard. Pungits. All of it goes away if I can just save her.
I’ve been looking for her. I’ve scoured every archive and census and library, doing anything to get my hands on information that can tell me what happened to her after my Move. It’s taken me months, but what I’ve discovered, I wish I hadn’t.
When my Shadow Moved me, I just disappeared. Everyone thought I died.
And she blamed herself.
She thought she killed me, and she let them punish her for it.
Because she always let them punish her – BMAC, her parents, her Shadow.
But I can change that.
If I can go back to the start of all of it, I can save her.
And then I’ll save us all.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are three people who helped me wrestle this book to the ground when it nearly got
away from me.
First – my amazing, brutal and brilliant editor, Charlie. You’ve made me better. I owe you.
Second – my best cheerleader and super-agent, Ali. Your readiness for pints and problem solving saved Pat and Gabby on more than one occasion.
And finally – my husband, Ian. You lived with this book as long as I did, and always, always listened. Thank you.
Phew. Time travel. What a beast.
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