Joyride

by Patrick Ness

  Maybe he should be shot of Banks and Taylor too? Yes! Why not? Clean slate. Get this place sorted from top to bottom, proper organised, and then make his money quickly and safely before setting fire to the lot and making a run for Dubai or somewhere.

  O’Donnell’s body. He’d just left that in the street. That was probably OK because there was nothing to link him to it, but still. Only an idiot leaves the evidence of his crimes in the middle of the road. Too late now, it’ll be found—probably has been already—and it’ll be written off as just another hit and run that would never get solved. You read about them in the paper all the time. Yes, he’ll get away with that. Probably. Hopefully.

  Slack again though. Proper slack. He’d got angry and the anger had stopped him thinking straight. He’s lucky he’s got away with all this as long as he has time to sort himself out.

  He goes outside to look at the car. It actually isn’t too bad. A major dent on the bonnet where O’Donnell impacted, but there’s no blood. He’d flipped right over and hit the road behind. What about when you reversed over him? he thinks. So he moves round to the rear and scoots down to examine the back wheel. There’s sign of trouble here alright, but you’d have to be looking for it. The inside of the wheel arches are splattered with blood and there’s some skin and hair in the tyre treads. Good going over with a pressure hose and that would be dealt with. Do that, and then he’ll just get shot of it. He knows a few people in the motor trade. As long as there’s nothing incriminating on the thing, he’ll happily let it go for a song, no questions asked. But he’ll do it today, as soon as he can, as soon as this business with the aliens is sorted, because he has to stop letting things slide.

  Good, yes, this feels good. This feels like an important new start.

  He checks his watch. What’s keeping them? Maybe he should have gone himself after all? Passing something like this off onto others, that maybe wasn’t such a good idea.

  Something else to bear in mind for the future.

  He stands up and he must have done it too quickly because all of a sudden his head is swimming. See? This is what happens when you don’t look after things, he thinks, his vision blurring. Garry Fletcher, you need to turn over a new leaf.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  IT IS NOW

  Quill and Charlie lead the way into the courtyard, Charlie constantly looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on Matteusz. He’s lost so many people he cares about. In fact, up until a few weeks ago he would have said he had lost all of them. But life doesn’t work like that, does it? Just when you think you have nothing left to lose, you stumble on something new to cling to, desperate, terrified, after a life whose main lesson seems to have been to prove the fragility of others.

  ‘Stop it,’ whispers Quill. ‘You’re only making it easier for them.’

  ‘What does it matter? They’ve got what they want.’

  She shakes her head. ‘We don’t know what they want yet, so stop telling them how they’ll be able to get it.’

  He can see the sense in this but it’s hard, he has no idea how she can remain so numb, so removed from everything. For all their arguments, he knows there’s another Quill inside the one she shows, another Quill she’ll never let him know.

  ‘Building on the left,’ says Tanya. ‘Get inside and stop muttering to each other. Play any tricks and I’ll get cutting.’ Quill opens the door to Fletcher’s building and pushes past Charlie so that she enters first. It’s an automatic gesture but he spots it all the same; she’s putting herself in the line of fire, defending him.

  The rest follow and Steve shouts out in Matteusz’s voice, ‘Sir? Mr Fletcher? It’s me, Steve. We’ve got them!’

  Steve looks at the two girls on either side of him, seeing them as Banks and Taylor and impatient to get out of their grip and back in a position of relative safety.

  ‘That’s enough now,’ he says to them. ‘We’re here, we’ve got them, and if you remember, I happen to work here.’

  Tanya laughs. ‘I wouldn’t employ you.’

  ‘Let him go, Banksy,’ says April, ‘he’s got a point.’

  Tanya shrugs. ‘Fine.’

  Charlie visibly relaxes as Steve walks past reception in the body of the boy he’d really like to keep alive.

  ‘Sir?’ Steve calls again.

  Fletcher appears from the transfer room. For a moment he appears almost surprised to see them. ‘Alright, alright, calm down, I’m here.’ He sees the rest of them. ‘And you’ve been busy, I see?’

  Tanya steps forward. ‘Told you we’d get them, didn’t we?’

  ‘Walk in the park,’ April agrees, ‘though I wouldn’t mind swapping back now if you don’t mind. Day’s getting on and this isn’t quite what I had in mind for my session, you know? I want to get myself inside someone comfortable!’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Tanya, ‘time for some real partying.’

  Fletcher appears to eye them up for a minute and then nods. ‘Of course.’ He looks at Steve. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’

  Charlie still can’t quite process how strange it is to see a face he knows so well move in so unfamiliar a way.

  Steve is shocked to be asked to operate the machine. ‘Me?’ he asks.

  ‘You can manage, can’t you?’ Fletcher asks. ‘Or do you need me to hold your hand?’

  Tanya laughs at this. ‘He’s got your number!’ she says. ‘You should have seen him out there,’ she continues, and this is enough to get Steve moving; the last thing he wants is for Banks or Taylor to start telling Fletcher how useless he is.

  ‘Of course I can manage,’ he says, interrupting. ‘Come on, then,’ he says to Tanya and April, ‘let’s get you changed back.’

  They walk past him and into the transfer room.

  ‘Not just changed back,’ says Tanya, ‘relocated! I’ve an evening of fun ahead of me!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Steve replies.

  ‘Good lad,’ says Fletcher. ‘And while you’re doing that, I’ll talk to our new friends.’

  Steve nods and follows Tanya and April into the transfer room. ‘Just give me a sec,’ he says, moving over to the machine. He hopes Fletcher knows what he’s doing; once he’s reversed these three transfers and sent Banks and Taylor onto God knows where they want to be, he and his boss are going to be outnumbered in here. It’ll be five on two if they decide they’re going to kick off. Steve’s not entirely sure he cares. As far as he’s concerned, today’s taught him something: his neck is on the line and what good is money if you’re too dead to spend it? He’s no idea if Fletcher will let him stop working here—probably not, he knows too much—but he’s put some of his wages aside. He could just do a bunk with it, take the wife and kids and maybe head north, to Manchester or Leeds. He used to have a girlfriend who came from Leeds, and it wasn’t a bad place. He’d keep his head down and make a fresh go of things. Maybe he’d finally be able to get over the drink too (though even thinking about it makes him thirsty for oblivion).

  ‘So where do you want to go?’ he asks the other two.

  ‘I’m not bothered,’ says Tanya. ‘I’ll make my own fun when I get there!’

  ‘Yeah,’ April agrees, ‘roll of the dice, like it! Just send us off and we’ll get the party started.’

  ‘Fine.’ God these two really are a pair of immature pricks. He wishes he knew how to get the machine to tell him the age of the viable transfers: he’d love nothing more than to dump them into the bodies of a pair of babies for the evening. They could sit there crying and filling their nappies.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Tanya asks.

  ‘Nothing,’ Steve says, and presses the buttons that will reverse the transfers. April and Tanya both look dizzy and stumble slightly. Steve immediately transfers Banks and Taylor back out.

  Tanya looks at him. ‘Matteusz? What just happened?’ Steve works quickly to reverse his own transfer. He doesn’t want to get stuck in a conversation with whoever these two really are. Let the boss handle it.

  He pr
esses the light that stands for Matteusz and then, for one happy moment, all goes black as he momentarily hangs between bodies.

  Then it’s light again and he’s lying on the bench, head swimming. It’s always so disorientating coming back from a transfer. It’s like coming out of a drink binge but without the blessed drink. He rubs his face, closing his eyes, willing the headache to calm down.

  Slowly, carefully, he sits up, removes his headset, and takes a few deep breaths. He needs to get it together quick, in case those kids try to cause any trouble.

  ‘Rise and shine,’ Fletcher says and already Steve is feeling that sinking dread that he’s grown to feel whenever his boss looks at him.

  ‘All done,’ he says. ‘Just feeling a bit woozy.’

  He looks up and sees Fletcher staring at him. It looks wrong though because the others, the woman and the four kids, they’re stood either side of him. They don’t look like prisoners, they look sort of like, well . . . friends.

  ‘Sir?’ he asks. ‘Is everything alright?’

  ‘It is now,’ Fletcher says, and punches him square in the middle of his blinding headache.

  TWENTY-NINE

  NO MORE TIME AT ALL

  A short while ago: O’Donnell hangs up on Fletcher and looks at the house he’s followed the aliens to. Can he trust Fletcher? He doubts that, doubts it very much in fact. Perhaps, though, he does owe him a chance to state his case. O’Donnell can hardly claim the moral high ground, not after the things he’s done. Fletcher wants a chance to walk away from all this without risking exposure to the authorities; O’Donnell supposes he can’t blame him.

  He imagines the consequences of this all being over. Making the decision not to keep this body now was one thing; accepting he might be stuck with the flabby reality of his own body forever, that’s something else entirely.

  He starts walking. He doubts the aliens are going anywhere, and even if they do, this is obviously where they live: didn’t one of them take a set of keys from its pocket and open the door? Fletcher has said he’ll be twenty minutes, so why waste those minutes just standing on a street corner? He wants to make the most of his time, even if that’s just by walking for a while, feeling how easy that is in this young body.

  He breaks into a jog, because he can. If he tried this in his real body he’d be breathless and hurting already, that big belly of his shaking and straining with every step. He really should look after himself more, he supposes, there just never seemed much point. Ugly on the inside, ugly on the outside—why pretend to be anything else?

  The jog turns into a run, the run turns into a sprint, and by now he’s on Great Eastern Street and people are staring because he’s actually laughing out loud. If this is his last moment of freedom, he’s going to really feel it.

  He runs from his life. He runs from his mind. He runs from his mother. He runs until he can’t ever imagine being still again.

  Then, all of a sudden, it feels as if something’s hit him, a colossal weight that threatens to send him toppling to the ground.

  The view has changed, he’s no longer where he was. How’s that possible? He looks down at his own body, suddenly, horribly, condensed around him again and feels the urge to scream. Not now! Not yet! He wanted more time, a few minutes, just a little more . . .

  He turns around just in time to see the car bearing down on him, the snarling face of Fletcher behind the wheel.

  And then John O’Donnell has no more time at all.

  THIRTY

  PICKING UP THE BASICS

  Ram had been running, running for his life from that bastard in the car. His borrowed body fighting him every step of the way, pulling, straining, wheezing, crying out, and then . . . he’s himself again, running down Great Eastern Street with absolutely no idea what’s just happened.

  He stops running, looks around, feels his own body returned to him, and, if people hadn’t been staring before, they certainly do now as he laughs and cheers and starts leaping up and down right there in the middle of the pavement.

  ‘Must be on something,’ a woman mutters as she walks past, giving him a wide berth.

  ‘High on being me, beautiful!’ he says, blowing her a kiss. She acts as if it might be toxic, flinching as if it hits her, and scampers away at top speed.

  He has no idea how this has just happened but couldn’t care less. He’s back.

  But could they change him again? With the flick of a switch he might find himself trapped in another body. No. Ram’s not having that happen, not if he can help it. These people need sorting. Hopefully Tanya is bringing help, and he needs to get back over there as quickly as he can.

  He starts running again, cutting through Leonard Street, aiming to get back to Swallow Avenue as fast as possible.

  When he arrives, he looks around, but there’s no sign of anyone. Maybe they’ve found the office? Or maybe Fletcher has tricked them somehow? He hovers in indecision. He should probably wait and see, but Ram isn’t in the mood for wait and see. He rarely is.

  Moving carefully, he enters the courtyard and creeps over to Fletcher’s building. He peers through the door: no sign of anyone. He takes a deep breath and tries the door: it’s open.

  He steps inside and moves through reception, bracing himself to run at the first sign of trouble. The place is silent—could it be empty? Have they all cleared off? Maybe that’s why he was swapped back? Maybe they just turned everything off and are now on the run?

  He reaches the transfer room and peeks inside. He can see three people lying on the benches: two strangers and Eighties Rock guy. So where’s the boss?

  Suddenly he hears the sound of a door opening further down the corridor. If he steps out of the transfer room, he’ll be seen. Does he mind that? Is he happy to take Fletcher on? Part of him certainly is, but another part of him wonders whether it would be better to hang back, see what’s going on, and then act. Tanya and the rest of them aren’t here (or are they now locked in that little room like he was?).

  Feet are approaching along the corridor. He makes a decision. When he first woke up he was frustrated by how dark this room was; now it’s a blessing as he rolls under one of the benches.

  Fletcher walks into the room, glances at the three men already connected to the machine, and then starts tinkering with it.

  ‘What went wrong with you?’ he says and Ram half expects the machine to answer him back. It doesn’t, but Ram watches closely as Fletcher starts working his way through the controls.

  ‘Map, yes . . .’ Fletcher says, and Ram can just about see a stylised map of the area appear on the screen. ‘Then scan,’ Fletcher continues, pressing a button. At this point the map fills with little points of light.

  ‘There we go,’ says Fletcher, ‘lots of viable transfers. Choose your location . . .’ Ram can see him scrolling across the map as if it were a touch screen: zooming in, scanning left and right. ‘Pick one . . .’ Fletcher taps on one of the lights. Ram watches as the light swells and then appears to zip round to the next panel.

  ‘And Bob? He would be your uncle,’ Fletcher says, ‘while Fanny is most definitely your aunt.’

  It’s harder for Ram to see now, but Fletcher clearly taps on the light.

  ‘Transfer selected,’ he says, ‘channelled through to headset . . .’

  Fletcher moves around again and once more taps the panel. ‘And boom . . .’

  He goes to tap one last time but holds off. He steps back and sighs.

  ‘Simple, it’s really, really simple, so what am I missing? How did that happen this morning? What else can this thing do that I’m just not seeing?’

  He kicks at the base of the pyramid. ‘Balls to you.’ Ram wonders whether he can surprise Fletcher, but from his position under the bench it would take too long to crawl out and get to his feet. It doesn’t matter anyway as Fletcher suddenly walks out of the room.

  Ram gets out from his hiding place and moves to the doorway. He can hear Fletcher going outside. Maybe he could lock the man out? T
hreaten to destroy the machine? No, who knows when the other three might wake up? He’d soon be outnumbered then.

  Then he has an idea. He almost dismisses it; he’s just got his body back after all, does he really want to risk losing it again? Still, if he pulls this off, he’ll be able to do whatever he wants. He’ll be the boss!

  He moves over to the machine and retraces the steps he’s just watched Fletcher go through. He needs to be quick: Fletcher could come back any minute.

  He brings up the map, finds this building on it, then zooms right in. He can see one light inside—that must be me, the others aren’t . . . what was the word Fletcher used? Viable. Yes, the others aren’t viable because they’re already connected.

  Right outside the building there’s another light. That has to be Fletcher. He taps it. The light moves around to the next panel. This is where Ram couldn’t see quite so clearly but interestingly there’s a tingle in his head, a sense that the machine is trying to help him. There’s a strange collection of letters next to the light now; they mean nothing to Ram and yet somehow, thanks to that tingling, he knows they mean ‘confirm’. He taps them. The light swells and moves to the next panel.

  Now Ram can see ten different icons, three of which are blue, the rest are red. The headsets he thinks, this is how you choose which headset. The three in blue are the three already in use. So I need to pick one and . . . he holds off from tapping it. He needs to be wearing the headset, doesn’t he?

  He looks around, grabs the closest one, puts it on, and then matches where the cable connects on the machine with the diagram in front of him.

  If he wasn’t panicking about Fletcher returning, this is the point where he might still have backed out, but he’s rushing, he’s desperate to get this done before he hears the front door open again. He taps the icon for the headset he’s wearing and a warm dizziness settles through his head. Is this it? Is it working? He glances at the screen to see that strange collection of writing again, the same as he saw on the other panel. Of course, Fletcher was about to tap one last time, his finger had hovered over the screen. Ram taps on the graphic he somehow knows means ‘confirm’ and then his body falls to the floor, empty.