by Nick Gifford
She was shaking her head. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I can’t do it. I can’t go up there, with all those...” She shuddered, and turned her head away from him.
“You have to confront your fears,” Liam said. “Think of your talent, your gift. You can turn your fears into your greatest strength. You can beat them.”
She met his eyes again. He was winning. She was going to have a go.
“Luc’s up there now. I’ll come up the rope behind you. We won’t be up there long, and then we’ll be free. You can beat it, Hayley. Okay?”
Just then, they heard someone outside in the corridor.
Liam raised a finger to his lips, hoping the footsteps would carry on past the door. He gestured at the hole in the ceiling and, after another long pause, Hayley nodded, and reached for the rope.
The footsteps halted outside.
There was a rattle at the door, a key in the lock, and the handle turned.
Liam darted behind the door just as it swung open. Hayley stood in front of the knotted rope, as if somehow she might hide it. She stared at whoever was in the doorway, then ... glanced at Liam. Immediately, the door half shut and Liam saw Principal Willoughby with one of the Mr Smiths at his shoulder. Briefly, the Principal looked surprised, then he caught himself, composed his features, and shook his head slowly.
“Really,” he said. “I had hoped for so much more.”
They stood for a few seconds in silence.
Liam smothered any thoughts of Luc up in the roof-space, and hoped Hayley had been quick-witted enough to do the same. If they didn’t know Luc was there, maybe he would be able to come up with something.
Willoughby looked at Liam. “It looks to me as if you have made your decision, Connor. It is a shame that we won’t be able to continue our experiment. You really were doing rather well. I thought you might be a significant figure in the future of our kind.” He glanced at Mr Smith, smiling. “Instead ... another of Sir Peter’s Follies, eh?”
They both laughed.
Liam looked at Hayley.
She looked mad. She looked furious. And she was looking right at Sir Peter Willoughby.
He seemed to sense something. He stopped laughing, and met her look, an eyebrow raised.
Something was happening. Liam had a sudden memory flash of a session in the psiLab over at Wolsey Camp. Hayley was focusing her fears, projecting them.
A spider the size of Liam’s fist appeared on Willoughby’s left cheek. It had thick, bristly legs and a fat, bulbous body.
Willoughby barely flinched.
Casually, he raised a hand and flicked the creature across the room. It struck a nearby wall, and fell to the ground.
Liam watched it fade slowly from existence.
He had felt it. He had felt the turmoil in Hayley’s mind, sensed it taking shape ... he had tasted that rush of energy as she had hurled her fear at Willoughby!
Her talent – he could have reached out and touched it, embraced it.
He could have made her strong.
“You should never have been a Senior,” said Willoughby to Hayley. “You really were never good enough.” He dismissed her from his attention, unworthy, and turned his look on Liam.
Liam shook his head, showing a confidence he wished he felt. “No,” he said. “Not so quick. Hayley, do it again.”
She looked at him, puzzled, and then at Willoughby.
Liam narrowed his eyes, and allowed a part of his mind to open up to all the thought-shapes surging around the room. Anger, rage, fear. It was all so clear now. He remembered the sense of power he had felt when he had been encouraged to do this in the psiLab. He focused, until he found the seething mass of emotions in Hayley’s mind. Her fears. Her rage. And they became his.
Hayley sensed that something was happening, he knew. She must feel her strength multiplying!
He had been right.
His father had been terrified of him, of what he might become. He had called Liam’s gift channelling. They had always been careful to keep Liam’s implant locked down, only opening it up to free his powers under tightly controlled conditions. I want you to unlock my implant, Liam had told his father, back in his room. I want you to trust me to use my talent. I want control. All this time they’ve been restraining me. Release me! Let me be what I am.
Until this moment, when he tried to seize and direct Hayley’s fears, he had not been sure. He had not known whether his father had really done as Liam asked, or if he might merely have humoured him.
But now he knew.
Another spider materialised, this time on Willoughby’s shoulder. He reached to brush it away, but before he could do so, another appeared, on the back of his hand. He looked at it.
He knew something was different this time. Something was wrong.
He shook the spider off the back of his hand just as two more appeared on his jacket.
At his side, Liam could sense Hayley’s confidence growing, as she pushed her new strength to the limit. He could feel it in the shapes of her thoughts, as she hurled her fear and her anger at Willoughby. He felt it all being channelled through him and it felt good!
More spiders appeared. On Willoughby’s head and face, on his chest and arms and hands. He flicked at them, and flapped at them, but there were too many.
They crawled over the Principal’s body and face, and Liam saw red marks where they had bitten their host.
Willoughby cried out, and staggered back against the wall.
Behind him, Mr Smith stepped clear, staring wide-eyed at what was happening.
Willoughby slid to the floor, clawing at his face, scratching and scraping at the layer of spiders smothering him. Trails of blood indicated the tracks of his scratching, tearing fingernails across his own skin. He had stopped crying out now, and only made strained sobbing, gasping sounds as he struggled.
It was becoming hard to see the man beneath the heaving layers of spiders.
Desperately, Willoughby crawled out through the door, trying to flee.
“Luc! Down here, now. You: into the room!”
Mr Smith obeyed him, instantly, stepping clear of Willoughby, sidling around the wall away from Hayley.
Luc dropped into the room, bringing the rope with him, so that there was no way back up into the roof-space. Liam took Hayley’s arm, and led her out into the corridor, where Willoughby was still crawling away under his blanket of spiders. Luc followed closely, pulling the door shut and testing to make sure it had locked itself.
Luc pointed. “This is the way,” he said.
He was pointing the wrong way, Liam was sure.
Luc shook his head. “We go that way, and there will be more of his people there, they will stop us. This way, and we go down the fire escape.”
Liam nodded. It made sense now.
They ran along the corridor until they reached the end, a heavy wooden door with a metal bar across it.
FIRE EXIT. THIS DOOR IS ALARMED.
Luc shrugged. “That is okay, I think. A little chaos may be our friend, no?”
He pushed at the bar and as the door swung open, fire bells rang out through the school.
~
“I thought we might be needing it again!” said Luc, as he dragged branches away from the car he had hidden in the trees. “So I hid it. It was a good move, no?”
Liam grabbed a big pine branch and pulled it clear of the front of the car. They were in a stand of pine and gorse a short distance behind the school building.
Hayley cleared more branches away, eyeing them carefully for bugs before touching anything. She seemed to be full of energy, on a high after her triumph over Willoughby. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s hit the road! I hope one of you guys can drive.”
Luc swung open a door and jumped in.
Then he climbed out and went round to the driver’s side. “You English,” he muttered, as Liam and Hayley laughed. “Always on the wrong side...”
Hayley jumped into the back, and Liam took the
front passenger seat, just as Luc fired the engine.
They accelerated forward, and then Luc pulled the handbrake on and wrenched the wheel to the right, executing a perfect handbrake turn. He smiled at Liam and Hayley, who were fastening their seatbelts in a hurry. He had clearly been practising.
They drove over a stretch of rough ground, then joined a track that led to the car park at the side of the main NATS building.
“The chaos,” said Luc, nodding ahead. “Maybe not such a friend, after all...”
Groups of pupils milled about on the gravelled track that led round from the car park to the front of the house. Others sat on the grass, or wandered aimlessly around.
Luc slowed, driving through the melee at little more than walking pace.
Liam studied the crowd, fearing that at any moment Alastair or the other Mr Smith or one of the security people would emerge and try to stop them. He thought of the flashing colours: one other thing his father had been able to do was disable that security mechanism. Alastair could not stop him with that now.
They reached the semi-circle of gravel before the house, and turned out onto the drive.
“Okay,” muttered Luc. “We will be okay now, I think.”
Then, a white car turned in, at the far end of the drive, and headed towards them.
“Oh no,” said Liam. “I know that car.” It was the one used by Alastair and the Mr Smiths.
They watched as the car turned and stopped so that it was blocking the drive.
“What now?” said Hayley. “They’ve got us, haven’t they? They’ve still got us.”
Luc had a thoughtful look on his face. “You know,” he said, “in the movies, where there is a road block, and you drive right into the middle of the car that is blocking the road and – bam! – the car has been blasted aside and you are clear? You know the movies I mean?”
Luc was speeding up.
Liam sat back, gripping the edge of the seat tightly. White knuckle tightly. “Yes?” he said tentatively.
“Well that is just nonsense,” said Luc. “It would never work. Both cars would be wrecked.”
Liam looked at his driver. “So why are you still speeding up then?” he screeched.
Luc was staring ahead, as if willpower alone would see them through.
At the last instant, Luc twitched the driving wheel.
The car swerved, and an instant later, struck the front wing of the white car in a loud explosion of noise. Liam was thrown against his seat-belt as the car spun, gripped, found the road again.
He looked back. The white car had been blasted to one side of the drive. They were past it.
Their own car had come to a halt.
Luc turned, smiling, to Liam and Hayley. “No,” he said. “Never ram them in the middle. You should always go for either end. Then, if you are lucky, you might just spin the other car aside.” He sat upright again. He indicated back along the drive, to where a small group of people were walking along towards them.
“Are you two okay?” he said. “If so, then we should resume our journey, no?”
He put the car in gear and started to accelerate. They were about half way along the drive.
And then he slowed, once more, changing down from third gear to second, then first, then neutral. He reached down and pulled the handbrake on.
“Luc? What’s the matter, Luc?” demanded Liam.
Luc turned his head towards Liam, but it was clearly a struggle. He looked puzzled, scared.
“I am sorry...” he said. “My arms ... my legs ... they are not my own any more.”
“What do you mean?”
“I ... they do things I do not want them to do. I cannot move them. I am sorry, my friend. I think my skills may have failed us.”
Liam climbed out of the car, still shaky after the collision.
A short distance back along the drive was the small group he had spotted before, heading towards them.
One of them was Willoughby. His face was covered in blood, the skin ripped open where he had clawed at the projected spiders.
And with him was Tsuki. He had a hand on her shoulder. A caring, paternal hand.
She was concentrating.
Liam remembered the way she had controlled that Grunt, telling his muscles what to do.
He looked back at Luc, still sitting upright in the car, confused about why his own body had stopped obeying him.
Beneath his bloody mask, Willoughby was smiling. “Did you really think you would get away from me, Connor?” he said, as he came near. “Did you think you ever stood a chance?”
23 Sensitivity
Keep chipping away and, finally, you will break free, you will find that outer layer and realise that there are no more. Only air, and sunshine, and the birds singing in the trees.
~
They stood, facing each other, as the crowd gathered around them. It was like a cowboy movie, the final showdown.
Willoughby wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand.
“More spiders, Connor? Is that what you’re going to try? Is that the best you can do?”
Liam shook his head. He saw his father in the crowd, talking to Mr Pullinger and one of the security guards. Father and son met each other’s looks and nodded. His father had been terrified of what Liam might do with his powers when they were unlocked, but he trusted him now.
Liam returned his attention to Willoughby. The man was talking to Tsuki, explaining something to her. Then the girl turned and looked at Liam, narrowing her eyes and tipping her head to one side in concentration. She was smiling, too. She seemed to be enjoying this.
Liam felt the tension stealing into his muscles, starting to lock him in place as Tsuki took control.
It didn’t matter. She could lock his muscles, but not his mind.
He might not be one of the special ones of Lost Families legend ... he might just be another of Sir Peter’s Follies ... but he did have a particular, and rare, talent.
He opened himself up. He could feel the shapes that came out of people’s minds, all around him. The hubbub of the crowd. The bitterness and resentment so many of them felt towards Willoughby and the way he treated them. Their anger and their fear.
The crowd was waiting, suspended, as if no-one knew what to do. There were divisions here: Sir Peter and his mad, obsessive followers, but also ... the undecided. Watchers. People trying to work out if now was the moment to act ...
Liam fed the anger back at them all, directing every one of those swirling thought-shapes back into the crowd. He felt chaos swelling, ready to break out at any moment. He could guide one person’s talent, but could he handle a crowd?
Alastair pushed at someone, then ran away, but a foot snaked out and tripped him. Mr Pullinger landed on Alastair’s back, pinning him down in the mud. Pushing and shoving broke out, and voices erupted. Liam saw his father grab one of the Mr Smiths in a neck-lock, as more scuffles started up between members of crowd and even some people Liam had never seen before.
Still, the grip on Liam’s muscles tightened, so that he was gasping for breath. He looked at Willoughby.
He needed to finish this before Tsuki squeezed the life out of him!
He reached out for all those angry mind-shapes again. He sensed the swirling current of energy, trying to work out how to handle it, how to stop it overwhelming him.
And then he channelled his own sensitivity, magnifying and multiplying that angry energy, over and over. Redirecting it so that it all flowed towards a single point.
He saw Willoughby’s eyes open wide, then wider, his mouth sagging open as it struck him, the onslaught of all those minds, channelled into his head. Hating him. Tearing him apart.
Sir Peter put his hands to his temples, trying to shut it out, but still they flooded in., multiplied again and again by Liam’s talent.
Liam could feel the mad rush, as he directed it all into Willoughby’s mind.
And as he sensed Willoughby’s extreme anguish, Liam took this, to
o, and channelled it, multiplied it, sent it back into the Principal’s head. Round and round, stronger each time he relayed it.
Something would give. Something had to give, and it could only be Willoughby.
~
Liam felt hands on his arms. Hayley, Luc, his father.
“It’s okay, Liam,” said his father. “It’s over now. You can stop.”
Willoughby lay on the ground, breathing shallowly. His eyes were wide open, reflecting the intense blue of the summer sky. The man lived, he breathed, his body continued to exist. But he was not there.
Liam was reminded of his mother, his biological mother. She had been just like this.
“There’s a place for him,” said Liam. “There’s a place already set up for people in his state.” Let him see out the rest of his days as one of Sir Peter’s Follies.
~
It was a blur after that. He had not expected it to wear him out so much. He remembered seeing Alastair and at least one of his Mr Smiths being led away by Mr Pullinger and a security guard. Others, too.
“Come on,” his father had told him. “Time we slipped away from all this, I think. I don’t want to get drawn in.”
Liam looked around, wondering just how many of the adults at NATS had, in fact, been working under cover in one role or another. “Who are they all?” he asked.
“Police, some of them,” said his father. “Mostly agents with Special Intelligence, the government agency that keeps our kind in our place. And then there are all the Lost Families people. They’ve been monitoring things – ready to act when it was decided Sir Peter had finally gone too far. They’ll clear everything up between them. No need for me to stick around.”
“No? Maybe you should,” said Liam. “You seemed to be pretty heavily involved...”
They locked eyes. Eventually, Liam’s father shrugged and looked away. “I’ll talk to them if that’s what you want. I’ve only ever tried to do what’s right. If you believe only one thing I’ve told you, you should believe that.”
“You seemed happy to let me pay the price of you doing ‘what’s right’,” said Liam.
“Not happy, son,” said his father, meeting his look again. “So, what’s it to be, then?”