by Joan Lennon
But before she could show them anything else, another panel emerged. A slot in the front opened and a tray with a bit of silvery material on it slid out.
Jay made a rude face at the dispenser, took the proffered patch and stuck it unceremoniously on the underside of the bench.
‘Um…’ said Eo. And that was?’
‘Patch dispenser. The sensor’ll have picked up a raised adrenalin level.’
The others stared, first at her and then where she’d dumped the patch.
‘Is that bad?’ asked Eo.
Again the question came to her. What game are you playing? Do you really expect me to believe you don’t know…?! There’s no city on earth that doesn’t monitor, that doesn’t patch…
‘Don’t mind us – if you’re supposed to be, er, applying a, um, thing, you just carry on!’ said Hurple. He seemed very polite, for a rodent. He also seemed completely sincere, as far as you could tell through the fur.
I just can’t believe they’re lying, she thought to herself. It feels like they really do not know! They really do come from.… somewhere else!
(It was at this point that something shifted permanently in her own brain. Instead of thinking, Wouldn’t it be great if these weirdos were, I don’t know, aliens or something, she was now suddenly, totally convinced that that was exactly what they were!)
‘Sure – go ahead!’ the boy Eo urged. ‘We don’t mind at all!’
‘What? Oh no. Look, it’s not like it’s the law or anything!’ She certainly sounded defensive, even to herself. This wasn’t the bit of her world she wanted strangers to focus on too much. And she didn’t want to even begin to explain how the Guardians always checked up on anyone who didn’t take a patch they were offered. ‘Patches are more of a… suggestion.’
‘Well, as the Professor said, don’t let us get in your way. Just you ignore us. You do whatever you do do… normally, I mean,’ Eo said, with good manners but not a lot of clarity.
The dispenser stuck out its tray again. There were two more patches on it.
‘Cool! For us?’ chirped Eo.
Jay swore, and slapped the patches under the seat as well.
‘Looks like the sensors haven’t noticed you, Mr Hurdle.’ She began to dig about in her bag.
‘Here – put these on,’ she said, extracting three gauzy rectangles from the very bottom of her bag. She showed the boys how to put the material over their nose and mouth. When they inhaled – somewhat nervously – it instantly dissolved. A moment later the dispenser retracted into the wall.
Adrenalin maskers,’ explained Jay. ‘Gets the dispensers off our backs, and the Guardians. I’m not planning on trying to explain you lot to anybody just yet!’
Eo and the ferret exchanged glances.
‘So… not legal, as such?’ the Professor asked.
Jay snorted rudely.
‘How did you learn about, um, this technique?’
She shrugged. ‘Kids at school. You can buy maskers easily enough if you know who to ask, but I get them from Mum’s work. The surgeons prefer to work on conscious candidates when they do implants – it makes it easier for some reason – but they don’t want every sensor in the place going crazy! Anyway, I know the code to the stockroom… Don’t worry, though, these’ll last for hours, and I’ve got more at home. If we need them.’
Every now and then either Eo or the ferret would have to stop and translate what was being said for the other boy. It didn’t seem to make him any less confused, however. His big plain face was all wrinkled up with bemusement. Then, suddenly, he asked Hurple a question.
The animal chuckled.
‘What’d he say?’ frowned Jay.
‘He was just wondering if you were a crazy person. He’s never seen a basically bald woman before, and you sound – to him – like you’re gibbering.’
‘BALD?!’ Hey! she thought. He called me a woman!
I like your hair!’ put in Eo hastily but Jay ignored him.
‘Well, I’m not crazy’ she said. ‘I’m not talking gibberish, and I’m not bald! This style cost me a lot of credit, I can tell you – andyou can tell him, he’s not so drop-dead gorgeous himself – no, wait, I’ll tell him.’
She pulled back her sleeve as if to scratch, but instead began to tap on her forearm, complicated patterns using index, middle and ring fingers, singly and in combination.
‘There’s something inside your arm?!’ gasped Eo.
She looked up. ‘My computer,’ she said. ‘What do you think I am – some kind of child?!
‘What are you doing?’ asked Hurple.
‘I’m accessing a language program for – what is that he’s speaking? Some sort of antique Gaelic? So I can tell him to his face my opinion of him!
‘You can do that?!’ The animal seemed extraordinarily excited by this.
‘Well, yeah. Languages are all pretty much the same. Download some vocabulary, a bit of grammar, guide to pronunciation – the brain uses the same pathways for Swahili as it does for Mandarin. Anything he can speak, I can speak!’
‘Astonishing! That it should be so easy, I mean! In my time, humans’ understanding of their brains was that they were a complete jumble of incredibly complex relationships, with the simplest thing making synapses fire all over the park!’
Jay looked over at him. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘That’s how it does work. But –’ and here her voice seemed to shift – ‘it’s no problem navigating if you’ve got a decent map! Isn’t that true, Adom?’
‘That’s right,’ said Adom. ‘What?!’
‘He understood you!’ exclaimed Eo and Hurple.
Jay gave them a smug grin.
‘I have the software for every known language, written and spoken, in this arm, and I’m not afraid to use it!’
Nobody seemed to think this was funny, but Adom might not even have heard. He’d grabbed Jay’s sleeve – the one on the arm without the computer – and, eyes huge in his face, asked, no, begged, ‘Could you do that for me?’
‘Do what?’ said Jay, surprised and uncomfortable with his intensity.
‘Enchant my arm so that I have the gift of tongues,’ said Adom, his voice low with longing.
‘Enchantyour – ?!’ She paused and thought through the kind of vocabulary old Gaelic had on offer. ‘Well… yeah, I guess. Sort of. But why?’
‘It’s a long story’ interrupted Hurple.
She looked down her nose at him. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you – setting aside you talking at all – how is it you can speak my language and his language and presumably rat language…’
Hurple shook his head. ‘Long story.’
‘Is that right? And what about you?’ Jay turned to Eo.
‘That’s a long story too,’ said Hurple, making it absolutely clear there were going to be no explanations.
FAQ 306: How is it that the G are so good at languages?
HURPLE’S REPLY: Languages hold no difficulties for shape-shifters, since the G brain is happy to accept imprints from the ambient electrical patterns which words and the use of words leave in the air. In the old days it was believed that language was actually inhaled (hence that old G expression, ‘Big nose, big… vocabulary’), a little in the way humans once thought breathing in bad smells made them ill. Now, of course, it is understood that the G’s acquisition of languages is not such a crudely physical process, and the nose has pretty much nothing to do with it!
Suddenly Jay reached over to the control panel and tapped in another sequence. Almost immediately their pod detached itself from the train, slid over into a side tube and stopped.
‘Are we there?’ asked Eo.
She shook her head.
‘Do we get out now?’ asked Hurple.
‘No.’
‘So… what’s happening now?’
‘Nothing,’ Jay stated firmly. ‘Nothing whatsoever of any shape or description is going to happen until you have told me exactly everything.’
Hurple tutt
ed and humphed and tried to bully her into starting the pod up again, but Jay was having none of it.
‘I don’t care how long your stories are,’ she said firmly. ‘We’re going nowhere until I’ve heard the lot.’
That was clear enough, so, with extremely bad grace on the Professor’s part, they began to talk…
By the time they’d finished, Jay was leaning forward, elbows on knees, chin in hands, eyes wide. She made several attempts at speaking, but delighted laughter kept getting in the way.
‘That is the most… outrageous story I have ever heard!’ she eventually hooted.
‘It’s not just a story, child,’ said Hurple sternly.
‘Quiet!’ Jay hissed abruptly, focusing over his shoulder.
Before the animal could react to her rudeness – she could see his mouth all set to start – she had reactivated the pod and swung it back into the main tube, where it attached itself neatly to the end of a passing train.
‘Guardians,’ she explained. ‘I saw their lights at the other end of the side tube back there.’
Hurple shut his mouth again, but still looked miffed.
‘Look,’ said Jay impatiently, ‘you do not want the Guardians getting their hands on you.’
‘We don’t?’ said Eo.
‘Well, put it this way, with a story like yours, it’d take a lot longer than the rest of this Tide to convince them to let you go again.’
She couldn’t help letting a bit of a shudder come into her voice. The boys didn’t pick up on it, but Hurple certainly did.
‘Thank you, then, for keeping us clear of “the awful people”, as I believe they have sometimes been called.’
Jay saluted cheerfully. ‘Yes, sir, Mr Weasel, sir. Glad to be of service.’
‘That’s Professor Weasel – I mean, Hurple – to you,’ huffed the ferret. ‘And as we explained, we haven’t got all day, so could you please finally take us to an appropriately powerful but safe adult, in the hopes that that adult will be moved to present us with a gift from this Tide?’
He watched the girl’s face lose its manic chirpiness and close up.
‘And now you’re going to say “yes” and mean “no”,’ he said, with a resigned sigh.
She stared at him.
He waved a paw. ‘I have met young creatures before, you know. So let’s just skip that part, shall we, and go straight to why you don’t want to take us to an adult.’
‘I… um…’ Jay seemed completely flummoxed. ‘Well…’
Hurple just looked at her and waited.
‘All right. OK. You’re right,’ she finally said. ‘I wasn’t planning on taking you to any grown-up. And it’s not because I don’t believe you. It’s because I do believe you and your crazy story and your mad monk boy there and the shifty boy and you – well, if I can believe in you, I can believe in anything, right?! But the thing is, I really truly can’t think of anyone older than me who would. Not anybody O-class anyway, and I don’t know anybody else.’
There was a pause while Eo tried to bring Adom up to speed on the conversation. Jay kept lapsing into English, and besides, many of the words she was using had no Gaelic equivalents.
‘Look, I’m not just making this up. Things like you really do not happen any more, you know. It’s not just the Guardians. There is no grown-up I could take you to who wouldn’t want to study you for the next decade – and besides, even if there were – I have no intention of letting you go!’ She didn’t know exactly when she’d decided she was going with them, but it felt as if had been forever. This was her secret, her unbelievable adventure, and there was no way she was going to let anybody else get their hands on it, for better or worse.
Hurple groaned. ‘No, no, no. Don’t you see? This isn’t a game! This is serious! Didn’t you understand anything we’ve been telling you? When the boy opened the way between the worlds, he condemned himself to almost certain death. And when he took on the Wager, he included everyone in his universe in the same danger. The same fate.’
Jay looked at Eo. The colour had drained out of his face and he looked as if he were going to be sick.
‘All right! she cried. ‘I get it! Leave him alone. But what you don’t seem to get is, I can help! Equipment? Technology? General all-round knowledge? I’ve got it all. You said wisdom was one of the things you were looking for, and I’ve got access to centuries of information you couldn’t possibly know about!’
‘So give that to us,’ said the ferret gently. ‘Let that be the Gift. Can’t you see how much more use that would be than, well, you?!’
In her mind, Jay knew he was right, but it just made her even more stubborn.
‘You took him,’ she said sullenly, pointing at Adom.
‘We didn’t ask for him! We were trying to be offered the help of a great man, a powerful man. Adom just… happened.’
‘Did you force him to come?’
‘No!’
‘Did you trick him into coming?’
‘I told you, no.’
‘So,’ said Jay slowly. Adom is with you not because you tricked him into coming, or forced him into coming, but because he offered himself. Voluntarily. Like… a gift.’
Hurple stared at her for a long moment. ‘Very clever.’
Jay took a deep breath. ‘I’ll teil you what I think,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve just made you an offer you can’t refuse.’
There was a silence, then,
‘I think she’s got a point there, Professor,’ muttered Eo.
Hurple chewed uncertainly on a paw. ‘But surely it’s the technology we need from here?’ he said in a last attempt. ‘And – wait a minute – if you’re the Gift, won’t that mean Adom can’t have his arm enchanted? Because then that would count as our Gift?’
Adom looked stricken, but Jay gave him a reassuring pat.
‘You lot really aren’t used to working around rules, are you?’ she said. ‘One Gift for the Challenger, yes, and that’s me, because I’m offering and you can’t say no. But where does it say I can’t bring things of my own with me? And where does it say I can’t give things to the Challenger’s other Gifts?’
There was a pause. Hurple was not meeting anyone’s eyes.
‘Professor?’ said Adom.
With a sigh, the ferret gave them all an acquiescent wave of a paw.
‘YES!’ hooted Jay, and she planted a big fat kiss on Adom’s cheek, causing him to turn scarlet and forget his own name.
‘Ooops – sorry!’ she said.
‘No kissing me!’ chirped Hurple firmly.
Eo looked hopeful, but Jay just grinned at him and began to recode their route.
‘Right, my friends, first things first – Adom here needs his language capability extended by about four million per cent if he’s going to be properly in the loop. Luckily, when it comes to Assessment, Learning Programmes and the Glorious Greater Glasgow Way of Life – I’m your woman!’ She threw Adom a reassuring look. ‘In other words, one enchanted arm coming up!’
The pod detached itself, nipped along another side tube, paused a moment at the junction and then attached itself to the tail end of a train going in a different direction. It was a moment before the visitors realized what was odd about their new route…
‘Hey! The train – the water – it’s going up! said Eo, pressing his nose against the transparent wall.
‘But that’s impossible!’ spluttered Hurple. ‘Everyone knows water doesn’t just run uphill!
Jay snorted. ‘It does if you push it hard enough!’ she said, and, as the ferret drew an eager breath to ask questions, she stopped him with, ‘And if you think I know diddlysquat about hydraulic engineering or infrastructure technology, you can forget it right there. Half that stuff I haven’t covered yet and the other half I slept through!’
Eo laughed, Adom looked confused and Hurple tutted, appalled.
Jay just went on grinning, and their pod sped on past the sights of Greater Glasgow.
Even though it was already lat
e when they reached the Sector where Jay’s mother worked, there were still lights on in the Neural Assessment pod.
Jay swore. ‘Somebody must still be working,’ she said. ‘I’d hoped we’d have the place to ourselves. OK, never mind. Try not to be noticeable, and follow my lead.’ She paused and looked at her companions, Adom in his medieval habit and sandals, Eo with a live animal draped round his neck. ‘Well…’ she said. Just follow my lead.’
She keyed in a code to open the door of the pod and walked confidently in. A woman in a lab coat spun round, surprised.
Jay! What are you doing here?’
‘Hello, Mrs Chambers. I’m here for some stuff,’ said Jay with a straight face. ‘You know my mum has this conference…’
The woman rolled her eyes. ‘I swear your mother has the makings of a D-class, the way she manages to forget things! Can you find what you need by yourself, though, dear? Only I’m late leaving already.’
Jay reassured her, and promised they’d lock up when they left. The woman was clearly uncertain what to make of Adom and Eo, though. (Hurple was safely out of sight now in the bag.)
‘You’ve met my friends before, have you, Mrs Chambers? Amazing costumes, aren’t they?’ said Jay quickly, and the woman’s expression cleared.
‘Fancy dress party, eh? You’re sure to win a prize!’ she said, giving Adom a friendly shove with her shoulder as she passed.
Fortunately she was in too much of a hurry to notice his lack of reply.
‘Nicely handled,’ said Eo approvingly, once the technician was gone. ‘You didn’t actually lie and you didn’t tell the truth either. Well done.’
Jay gave him a mocking half-bow, and Hurple tutted.