by John Moralee
“The police want anyone who saw him to report it,” Ryan said. “We’d better tell you-know-who.” He didn’t want to say the name Ravencroft in a public place with people walking past them. “He’ll want to see these headlines if he doesn’t know about it already.”
Mira must have been looking out of her window waiting for them, because she opened the front door as they approached the gates. She was wearing a black sweater and some well-worn jeans flecked with dried paint. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Hey!” she said brightly. “Come on in!”
“We’ve got some bad news,” Ryan said, showing her the newspapers. The headlines ruined her happy mood. “We need to see your grandfather right away.”
“He’s this way,” she said. Mira took them to her grandfather, who was in the library reading a massive book written in Latin. He snapped it shut when they entered. He didn’t look happy to be interrupted. “Grandfather, my friends have something important to show you.”
When Ravencroft read the papers, his eyes flashed with fury. “No! Not Vladimir.”
“Who was he?” Ryan dared ask. He was still a little frightened of Mira’s grandfather.
“Vladimir Kozinsky was a brave man. He once worked for the KGB, but he became disillusioned by the corruption in his home country. He had been a loyal member of the Alliance since the falling of the Berlin Wall. I don’t believe they captured him alive. He must have sacrificed his life to save ours – or they’d already be here. This story has been planted in these papers to cover up the truth.”
“Are we in danger?” Mira asked him.
“Yes,” he answered. “Someone could remember seeing him with other members of the Alliance. Several people may have seen him at Hobley Station meeting me. If they report it to the police, the Brotherhood will find out where we’re hiding. I’ll have to make preparations for moving to a new safe house. We must leave Hobley as soon as possible, my dear.”
Mira looked dismayed. “But I don’t want to leave Hobley. Especially not now.” She looked at Ryan and Saffron. “They can help us, warn us. We don’t have to run away. We’re safer staying here. Running is stupid. Running is what the Brotherhood want!”
Ryan nodded. “What can we do?”
“Well ...” Ravencroft said thoughtfully. “I will have to keep rather a low profile for a while. That means I can’t go out on errands. That means I can’t even go out to buy food. It would be a great help if you can shop for us, say, once a week.”
“I like shopping,” Saffron said. “Just give me a list.”
“Very well, I will. I’ll provide the money, of course.” He opened his leather wallet, stuffed with money. “I’ll give you two hundred pounds for the things we’ll need this week. I will devise a list by the time you go. How long do you intend to stay today?”
“We can stay about two hours,” Ryan said, accepting the money. He put it away in the inner zip pocket of his school blazer, where it couldn’t be lost. He had never carried so much money before. “What else can we do?”
“Well, you can also be my eyes and ears out there. Look out for anything unusual.”
“Like what?” Ryan said.
“The appearance of strangers asking questions, helicopters in the sky, vans with blacked out windows ... If you see anyone or anything suspicious, you can report it back to me, but do not under any circumstances let a stranger touch you. That’s how they’ll control your mind. Don’t go near anyone suspicious. Just report back to me.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “You got it.”
Ravencroft sighed. “I’ll see you before you leave ... with the list. Now please leave me to think.”
It was an order, not a request.
“Let’s go to my room,” Mira said, encouraging them to leave the library as quickly as possible. They followed her up the stairs. When Mira opened her door, Ryan noticed her eyes go to a photograph on her bedside dresser. It showed Mira, four of five years younger, in the sunlit gazebo, sitting on the knee of a man who looked like a young Sean Connery in the early James Bond films. It had to be her dad. Her mum was beside them, holding Mira’s hand. She had short dark hair and a wide grin. They were all smiling into the camera like a family at Disneyland.
Mira saw him looking. “That was taken the last time my parents came here. They stayed for a whole week. The best week of my life. Then they had to leave for South America. They write to me, but it’s too risky for them to visit. They send me birthday and Christmas presents ... but all I really want is to see them again.”
“You must miss them,” Ryan said.
She nodded sadly. “So ... this is my room. I – uh – don’t know what you’d like to do. I’m not exactly used to having friends over. What should we do now?”
“We could listen to some music,” Saffron said. “What kind of stuff do you like?”
“Uh – all sorts. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart ...” She saw their unhappy faces. “You didn’t mean classical, did you?”
Saffron shook her head. “We’re not really into it.”
Mira looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“Classical’s okay,” Ryan said. “But we generally like more modern stuff. Chart stuff.”
“I have modern music, too. On my computer. Wait a minute - I’ll show you.”
There was a laptop computer plugged into a socket near her bed. It was charging the internal batteries. She unplugged it and looked for a space on her desk. The desk was cluttered with books and papers. She opened a drawer and cleared some space for her laptop. In her haste she accidentally knocked a small oyster-shell box onto the floor, spilling its contents - bright, glittering jewellery. The jewellery bounced and rolled all over the room.
“Whoops! I’m so clumsy today! Not used to guests!” She quickly bent down and gathered the jewellery up, but she couldn’t find everything. “My mum sent me a pair of earrings for a birthday present. Only one’s here. Can you see it?”
“We’ll help you search,” Ryan promised.
The three of them hunted for it on the carpet. Mira was quite anxious to find it. Eventually, Ryan spotted a glint of something under the bed. He reached under and took hold of it in his fingers. When he pulled out his arm, he saw it was a delicate earring with a diamond stud. He tried handing it to Mira, but she jerked away as if terrified of being touched.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Just put it in the box, please.”
“Okay,” he said, frowning. He remembered she had acted the same way in the greenhouse. “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing – it’s me. I didn’t want you to touch me – for your own safety. There’s something you should know about me. I’m a freak.”
“Freak?” he said. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not a normal girl. My DNA is not completely human. When I was born, I inherited some genes from Jonah as well as my parents. The Jonah genes made me different. For example, I can hear the voices of plants in my head, which nobody else can do. To me, the garden is never quiet. I can always hear what the plants are thinking and feeling, sort of like background noise.”
“Weird,” Ryan said, the word slipping out before he realised what he was saying. He realised it sounded like an insult. “Sorry. I didn’t meant that.”
“No – it is weird. I am weird. That’s another reason why I never could go to school with other kids because they’d think I was strange.”
“Can I ask something personal?” Saffron asked.
“Uh - I suppose,” Mira said. “What?”
“Do you ... have a tapeworm inside you?”
“Good question. No - but I do have the same hypnotic power as my grandfather.” Mira sadly looked down at her hands, turning them over to show both sides. “I can’t ever touch another person without harming them. Only people with tapeworms – like my grandfather – are immune to my touch. Touching me by accident would make you fall under my power, Ryan.”
It’s too late for that, he thought. I’m alr
eady under your power.
“Thanks for telling us,” he told her. “We appreciate your honesty.”
“I hope you don’t feel scared of me,” Mira said. “I’m just a normal girl, apart from my crazy DNA. I’ll wear gloves if you want, so there’s no chance of an accident. There’s some in a drawer -”
“There’s no need,” he said quickly. “Now we know, we’ll just be extra careful.”
There was an awkward silence, unfortunately.
“I’ll find some music now,” Mira said. She turned on her computer and played some good music. “You can contact me on Facebook and the other social netowrks using a name I invented: Claire Smith. I chose it because there are thousands of Claire Smiths.”
They swapped email addresses. Now they could communicate any time of day.
For a few minutes, they listened to the music, not saying anything. Mira looked uncomfortable, like she regretted inviting them into her bedroom. Ryan would have felt the same way about her seeing his bedroom. It was a private space, which they were invading. He needed to relieve the tension.
“What do you normally do when you’re bored?” Ryan asked next as a conversation starter.
“Well, when I’m bored, I like using my computer. It’s the only way I can see the outside world without putting us in danger. My grandfather is a fuddy-duddy about computers. He doesn’t like them or trust them, but I think they’re great. I can get almost anything I need by shopping on-line. I use fake names, of course. My grandfather has several bank accounts under aliases.” She patted her keyboard. “My computer was a birthday present from my parents. I’d like to be able to contact them on it ... but the Brotherhood monitors the internet for certain keywords, unfortunately. That’s why the Alliance doesn’t use phones or computers for important messages. They use human couriers to deliver information in person. Like poor Vlad. Now our connection to the Alliance is gone, we must wait until its safe before contacting them again. We might have to wait months and months. It’s okay, though. I’m used to long waits. It can be kind of boring being on my own so much, so I’ve learnt to occupy my time.”
Mira asked them what their day had been like. Ryan at first assumed she wanted to know if they’d had trouble keeping the secret, but she was more interested in hearing about what they had done at school. School was something he took for granted, but she was fascinated by it because she had never been in a real school. She desperately wanted to know details. Every word they said fascinated her, no matter how mundane it was to him. She had so many questions – but so did they about her life, which was ordinary to her but strange and interesting to them.
Her days were spent studying from books, on-line and with her grandfather, who was a human encyclopaedia. For fun, she had several hobbies including gardening and painting.
“Did you do those paintings in the art studio?” Ryan wanted to know.
Mira nodded modestly.
“They’re brilliant.”
“No, they’re not,” Mira said. “They’re just stupid pictures.”
“They’re not stupid pictures. They’re really good – like photographs. How’d you become so good?”
She blushed. “I have a lot of time to practice.”
He doubted even with a thousand years of practice he could paint like her. “You should see her paintings, Saffron. They’re incredibly detailed.”
“Why don’t you show me?” Saffron said to Mira.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never shown my work to anyone except my grandfather.”
“Consider us your first audience,” Ryan said. “I’d really like to see them again. I just had a quick look last time.”
“Okay,” she said, turning off her computer.
Her art studio was better equipped than their art room at school. Ryan took a second look at the incredible pictures he’d seen yesterday, of strange landscapes on alien worlds. Frankly, Ryan would never have thought someone his age could produce such accomplished work. The paintings looked like an adult had done them ... a professional artist.
“You painted all of these yourself?” Saffron asked. “They’re amazing!”
Mira nodded, her arms folded across her chest. “Do you honestly like them, Saffron?”
Saffron studied the pictures for some time before answering. “I really like this one of the palace on a cliff surrounded by sea. How did you come up with it?”
“It was in a dream,” Mira said. “All my paintings come in dreams. They are so real in my mind I have to paint them. I dreamt about the palace last week. When I woke up, I felt like I’d been there for real, a long, long time ago. I think that palace really does exist somewhere – on another world. I think the part of me that is from Jonah was once there. I think Jonah saw that palace from inside its host, when it lived there. I believe Jonah came to Earth through a gateway, many thousands of years ago. Something happened to prevent Jonah going back home. I don’t believe Jonah was always inside the belly of a whale. I think Jonah was once joined to another creature, an alien that lived in that sea. I believe Jonah remembers the lives of its hosts and passes on its memories through genetic memory. When I dream, my subconscious recalls those ancient memories.”
Ryan watched her staring at the picture, touching the thick oil paint that made up the wild sea. She seemed to be remembering something, her mind elsewhere, lost in thought. For about a minute, she was perfectly still. Frowning, he looked at Saffron. Saffron shrugged in reply. Then suddenly Mira returned to the present with a nervous smile. “Of course, I’m only guessing. I don’t know for sure. It could all be in my own imagination! The trouble is, we really don’t understand much about Jonah. Her DNA is a double helix, but it is unlike anything on Earth. My grandfather has spent years researching her origin, forming more questions than answers.”
“I’m curious to see what Jonah looks like,” Saffron said. “Can I have a look in the cellar?”
The cellar? Ryan was alarmed. He didn’t want to see that monster again, even if it wasn’t dangerous. He hoped Mira would refuse.
“You’ll freeze down there,” Mira said. He thought that was a polite no, but then she added: “You’ll need to put some warmer clothes on first. You can get some from my wardrobe.”
Five minutes later, they went down the stairs into the cold, cold cellar. Saffron was wearing a heavy winter coat and a pair of thick gloves. Mira was also dressed in winter clothing. They were like Arctic explorers. Upstairs, Mira had asked him if he wanted to wear one of her grandfather’s coats, but he’d said no, wanting to appear tough in front of the two girls, but he was starting to regret his bravado now the cold was chilling his bones.
As soon as they passed through the plastic curtain, Jonah banged against the side of the tank. Ryan flinched despite expecting it. Saffron jumped a foot backwards. The giant tapeworm writhed against the glass, showing its teeth and malevolent eyes.
“Mira, is it safe to be here?” Saffron whispered, afraid the eel-like creature would overhear.
“Don’t be afraid. Jonah senses you don’t have tapeworms. She is actually scared of you.” When Mira approached the tank, the Jonah tapeworm stopped writhing and retracted its teeth. “See? Jonah knows me. She senses the part of me that is hers. It’s all right, Jonah. They’re not enemies. Relax ...”
Jonah swam away into the icy interior as though understanding her words.
“Why does it have to be so cold down here?” Saffron asked, shivering. Her nose had gone red with the cold.
“Jonah becomes agitated if the water is above zero. We have to add salt and other chemicals to keep the water from freezing solid at below zero. That equipment keeps the tank in Arctic conditions. For some reason we don’t really understand, Jonah prefers extreme cold when she’s not inside a host. She seems to go into a hibernation state, sort of like a bear in winter. She doesn’t require food or anything. My grandfather believes she would thrive if we provided her a new host, like a large whale. But that isn’t an option as long as we’r
e in hiding. Personally, I think Jonah hates being on her own without a host. She must be lonely. That’s why she’s so grumpy.”
Grumpy seemed an understatement to Ryan.
“How many offspring does she carry?” Saffron asked, the ever-curious scientist.
“My grandfather estimates about another thousand smaller tapeworm live inside her. They’re stored in a special pouch like kangaroo babies. One is released into a new host during the implanting process. If Jonah could produce many more symbionts – billions of them - my grandfather thinks we could give everyone in the world immortality, plus protection from the Brotherhood’s mind control.” Mira shuddered on saying the word. “But we can’t. Jonah appears to be unique. Her young will run out like the world’s oil if the wrong people find her. Imagine the trouble the Brotherhood could do if they implanted another thousand bad people.”
“They could make a thousand Hitlers,” Saffron said. She rubbed her hands together. “Brrrr! I can hardly feel my face now.”
“It’s bad to stay down here long,” Mira said. “Have you seen enough?”
“Definitely,” Saffron said. “I’m ready for a warm place.”
“We can go to the greenhouse,” Mira said. “That will warm you up.”
“G-good,” Saffron said, her teeth chattering.
As they headed for the archway, Jonah appeared at the glass, watching them silently, her jaws opening as wide as Ryan’s head.
She looked like she wanted to eat him.
He laughed nervously.
Then hurried up the stairs.
Chapter Twenty
“Uh - Detective Inspector,” a nervous detective constable said, entering Robert Morgan’s office after a polite knock. “We’ve got something solid on the dead terrorist.”
Detective Chief Inspector Robert Morgan was behind his large desk in his office at Special Branch waiting for such news. His real name wasn’t Robert Morgan, but his colleagues knew him by that name. It was one of his many aliases. Robert Morgan was in command of the task force investigating the terrorist incident on the train, an investigation that had brought in several leads since the public had been asked to provide information in the newspapers and TV news channels. So far, all the leads had proved to be useless. The general public were, on the whole, poor witnesses.