by Kim Curran
Vine carried on talking but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, as the blood pounding in my head drowned it out. What if Katie was a Fixer like me? What if they took her and put her in this machine?
“I have to see her,” I said, cutting Vine off.
He looked a little shocked at my rudeness – he was obviously not used to people interrupting him.
“Well, if you think that it would help this situation.”
I had to bite down on my lip to stop myself from shouting that there was no way Katie was ever going to end up helping in “this situation”. I’d tear this whole place to the ground before I would allow Katie to come anywhere near it. I glanced at Benjo, his black eyes staring at nothing, at everything. This punishment, if that’s what it was, was the least he deserved. But there was no chance in hell I was going to let Katie end up the same way. I’d give myself up to this machine first.
I swallowed, pushing the rage deep down. “I have to see her,” I repeated.
“You will need to complete your report on the prisoner first,” he said.
“I can do that, sir,” Aubrey said.
I was overcome with gratitude and warmth for Aubrey. I knew I could trust her: in this reality and in every reality. There was nothing I couldn’t deal with as long as she was with me. I believed that together, we could find a way home. A way back for us both. But it would have to wait. Vine and Benjo and Aubrey all of this could wait. For now, I had only one concern: my little sister.
“Very well,” Vine said. “You are dismissed.”
I took one last look at Benjo and left.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The corridor walls looked like they were moving in and out like great lungs, expanding and then contracting in on me. I reached out and touched the wall on my left to make sure it was solid, that it was only my head messing with me. The slick dampness seemed to seep through my fingertips and up my arm to settle around my heart like a cold fist.
I forced myself to walk on till I got to the too-bright lights of the Hub. Throngs of S3 staff scurried around like ants. Everyone had a purpose, everyone knew where they were going. Everyone but me.
The tightness in my chest intensified. Pain shot down my left arm. I was having a heart attack. I was dying…
“Commandant?” a soft voice said. I felt a warm hand take my clammy palm.
CP was looking up at me, her large blue eyes peering out from under her long fringe, concern twisting her tiny mouth.
“Commandant, are you OK?” she said.
I laid a hand on her shoulder, marvelling at how her frail frame felt so solid, so real. She helped me straighten up.
“Yes, of course,” I said, changing my desperate grip on her shoulder to a reassuring pat. “I’m tired, is all.”
I tried to smile. But whatever expression took hold of my face only seemed to make CP look even more concerned.
“Can I get you something? A cup of tea? My Nan always said that a cup of tea would sort anyone right out.”
I laughed and some of the tightness lessened. “She was a wise woman, your Nan.”
“She’d want to get some food inside you too, sir. You look like a scarecrow.”
I was reminded of how much I thought CP and Katie would get on.
“There is something you can do for me,” I said, rolling my shoulders and straightening my clothes. “Are you staying in the academy?”
“No, sir. I moved into the barracks here when I graduated last month.” She tapped the first class symbol on her arm proudly. “Although I do miss it some.”
“Fancy paying a visit, then?”
CP blinked. “You want me to take you to the academy?”
“Well, as Commandant, I should probably do an inspection, you know? And as you were… well, as you were there most recently, you could fill me in on anything that’s changed.”
I could tell she didn’t believe a word of it. But she wasn’t going to question a superior officer. God bless the British army.
“Of course, sir. Shall we go now?”
“Yes,” I said, taking a full breath at last.
I let her go first, then wiped my damp palms on my trousers, hoping nobody would notice.
The academy, it turned out, was in Hampton Court, south-west of the city. CP had commandeered a car and she insisted on driving.
“You’re in no fit state, sir,” she said.
It took less than thirty minutes to get there with CP behind the wheel. I risked looking at the speedometer at one point and wished I hadn’t. It was easing into over a hundred miles per hour. She chatted cheerily the whole way, about the mission to capture George and how amazing Aubrey had been, about her time in training. I let it all wash over me, making the necessary noises of interest to let her know I was paying attention. It was nice to experience something so familiar, so normal, amid everything else that was going on.
We snaked along empty roads clinging to the river till the red-brick building with its twisting turrets appeared over a bridge. Once home to King Henry VIII and now home to a bunch of kids with special powers. I wondered if there were Shifters in Tudor times? And if so, were they conscripted to fight for the crown or were they left to live normal lives?
A handful of kids were doing drills in the yard as we drove in through the large, black gates. They marched up and down, their little hands pumping. The stone beasts that lined the entrance into the palace stared haughtily on.
An older girl of around eighteen shouted out instructions. I could hear the cracking of gunfire from somewhere nearby. I guess they were teaching Shifters to shoot now.
CP strode towards the large doors while I held back, watching how the expressions of the cadets changed from serious determination to distracted delight at seeing their old classmate, and then to outright curiosity at seeing me. A couple stopped marching to point and were promptly slammed into by the kids behind them. The marching descended into a chaotic mess of shoving and muttering.
We walked through the doors to the sound of the older girl now yelling for order.
Inside, there were more kids, weaving around the staircases in silent single-file rows. Even when Sir Richard had been in charge, I’d never seen discipline like this. They looked more like robots than children.
As I followed CP into the centre of the hallway, the cadets slowed their pace and many stopped altogether to see who we were. A whisper began and was picked up and repeated throughout the room: Commandant.
“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice shouted. “Don’t you all have somewhere to be?”
Richard Morgan, my old commandant and son of Sir Richard, the old head of ARES, pushed his way through the groups of staring children. His jaw nearly hit the ground when he turned his gaze on me.
“C-Commandant Tyler,” he stuttered. “I wasn’t expecting…”
“Dick!” I said, genuinely pleased to see him.
He flushed at the ripple of laughter that passed through the group. “Excuse me?” he said, his nostrils flaring as he tried to restrain the anger from having been embarrassed by a senior officer.
I took pity on him. “Mr Morgan,” I said, after quickly scanning his arm to check he had no rank. Dick had gone through entropy already, which made him an NSO – a Non-Shifting Officer. I walked forward to meet him, my hand outstretched. “It’s good to see you again,” I said.
He took my hand, looking at me sideways. “Well, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I said, unable to keep the smile off my face. Same old Dick.
“So, are you here to do an inspection? You’ll find everything in shipshape order.”
“Ah…” I’d only come here to try and find Katie. I scanned the gathering of cadets to see if I could spot her among the curious faces. She was nowhere to be seen. “Yes, that would be good. Only if it won’t inconvenience you.”
“Anything for the famous Commandant Tyler,” he said, but it was through gritted teeth.
“You can stay here,” I said to CP, who lo
oked relieved that she didn’t have to be subjected to any more of Morgan’s lessons.
I followed him up the stairs and the tour began.
He droned on for a good thirty minutes about the history of the building and how ARES moved the training here after the strike on Old Street, punctuated with – I counted – five mentions of his father’s name.
His father, it turned out, had been the Minister of Defence until a year ago when he retired. But, Dick assured me, he was still very much hands-on with the war effort. I remembered what a blustering fool Sir Richard had been, and couldn’t help but wonder if the war could have ended already if he hadn’t been in charge.
I was getting tired of Morgan’s waffle and was about to ask him to shut up when we finally came to the training room.
It was a large, square metal building, about thirty yards by thirty yards, and it looked totally out of place amid the historic brickwork. I could hear the sounds of shouting coming from inside.
“This area used to be the tilting yard,” Morgan said, opening a door, “where they used to joust. But we had this structure put up, as we needed the space.”
Inside, I was faced with a row of children going through a series of fighting moves. Morgan placed his finger over his lips, telling me to keep quiet, and then led me up a staircase and onto a raised metal walkway for a better look. There must have been at least a hundred, maybe more; all stood in neat lines as the instructor at the front yelled out orders. They moved in perfect synchronicity, punching and kicking, a loud “huh” rising up with the finish of each sequence.
As I watched, a memory hit me.
My thighs are burning from the stance and my hands are shaking. I’m struggling to keep up with the older kids on either side of me. Sergeant Cain is barking orders and I’m so scared he’ll see me and pick me out again. Last time, a girl beat me up and everyone laughed. Not this time. I have to do well. I have to be better than all of the rest. I cannot fail.
That fear, the fear of getting it wrong and crashing out of ARES was so powerful, it was like experiencing it fresh for the first time. Tears pricked at my eyes and I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from crying. Because what scared me most, more than that remembered terror, was that it was not my memory. It was his. The me from this reality. His past was leaching over into mine. The two realities fighting for dominance in my mind. The one reality in which I’d been a part of ARES since I was a little kid, growing up to become a warrior, a leader of men. And the other, my memories, where I had joined only a year ago and didn’t know the first thing about how to command.
That meant I was starting to accept this reality. If I didn’t fight it, it would take over me and I would lose myself completely.
“Everything OK, Commandant Tyler?” Morgan said.
“Yes. Fine,” I said, looking down at my hand and the red half-moon marks in my palm. “What’s next?”
“The final phase of the programme.”
“Which is?”
“The simulators.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Simulators. Twice in one day. I sucked back two more pills, not so much to quieten the pain in my leg but because the floating, numbing feeling they gave me helped. The bottle was getting empty. I’d have to find another doctor to re-prescribe them, as there was no way I was going to talk to Frankie again.
At least the simulator room here was a little less intimidating than the one back at the Hub. It looked more like a games room than an execution chamber. A row of black leather chairs lined the wall, the kind that had been the envy of boys at my school three lifetimes ago. Only these kids weren’t playing Duty Calls. Helmets with trailing wires were pulled down over their heads, so all I could see was the lower half of their faces. Jaws were clenched in fear or pain. Or both.
Three adults wearing lab coats moved silently from bay to bay, making notes on clipboards.
“What are you doing to them?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Making them face their greatest fears, fight for their lives. Same old, same old. The main difference from when you and I went through the tests is that we’ve become more sophisticated at registering their scores. You can see the read-outs there.”
Morgan pointed to a screen behind each station. LED lights flicked up and down like the display on a stereo. Some were edging into the red, while others barely made it out of the green zone. As the lights danced, another memory struck me.
It’s over. My body is shaking and I fight back the urge to be sick. The things I’ve seen are worse than I could have ever imagined. But it’s over now. I’m alone in the darkness. And I’m safe.
Someone pulls the helmet off my head and I have to squint at the sudden light. When my eyes adjust, I see them, smiling.
A bead of water drips down my temple and I catch it in the corner of my mouth with my tongue. I lick the dampness away and taste salt. Sweat or a tear, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’ve passed.
I gasped at the freshness of the memory, and the nausea that had threatened to overtake me then hits me again now. The terror of what I’d been through mixed with the joy of knowing I’d passed.
The kids were going through what I’d been through. What every ARES officer had been through. Part of me wanted to rip all the wires off their heads and save these kids from whatever mental torture they were experiencing. But another part of me, a part that was growing stronger and stronger, knew that this was how it was done. It was cruel, maybe, but necessary. And it wasn’t as if it caused them any physical damage.
War is about sacrifice. These kids needed to learn that. If the kids didn’t pass, then we couldn’t have them dragging the rest of us down. It was the way things were. You were useful or you were out.
“What kind of numbers are you getting?” I said.
“We’ve got a good batch this year. Some of the cadets are registering sevens and eights. We only had a twenty-five percent dropout rate.”
“And what happens to those cadets?”
“They’re sent to the reintegration programme, naturally.”
“Naturally,” I said. And I meant it.
A kid screamed and tore at their headset. A tester ran over and tried to stop them from pulling it off. Their lights had stayed green. They’d flunked.
“Of course, nobody has come close to your score of eleven, sir,” he said, an edge of bitterness clipping his words. “We had hoped that maybe your sister… but she’s proving challenging.”
The mention of my sister’s name changed something in me. Reminded me why I was here.
“About Katie. I would like to see her.”
“Well, I’m sure you know the policy about cadets fraternising with their family.”
I continued to smile. Trying to keep my expression unreadable while fear bubbled away in my stomach. What if he wouldn’t let me see Katie? What was I going to do then?
“But,” Morgan continued, “as you of all people are hardly likely to distract Ms Tyler from the true path…”
I smiled. “Well, quite.” My voice was low and steady. I almost didn’t recognise it.
Morgan led me down a tight corridor and we stopped in front of a door. I could see through the window that there was a class going on inside. Physics, I guessed, as my old teacher Mr Jarvis was at the front fiddling with a laser. My heart almost crashed out of my chest when I saw Katie sitting at the back of the classroom, staring out of the window.
Morgan opened the door.
“Apologies for the interruption, Mr Jarvis. Can we have a word with Katie Tyler, please?”
Katie turned at the sound of her name and looked at Morgan with a totally unimpressed expression on her face. It was the expression she normally reserved for me.
“What is it?” she said.
“Ms Tyler!” Mr Jarvis snapped. “Show Mr Morgan some respect.”
I laid my hand on Morgan’s shoulder and moved him out of the way so I could have a clearer view of my sister. She looked paler than usual, and her
long light-brown hair had been cropped to above her shoulders.
I beamed and waved her over to me. The attitude she’d been directing at Morgan vanished. Her face turned to stone.
“Commandant Tyler would like to speak with you, so if you could gather up your things…” Morgan said.
Stiffly, Katie pushed herself up out of her seat and picked up her bag. All the eyes in the room followed her as she walked through the class and towards the door, her arms stiff by her sides.
“Katie,” I said, scared at the change in my sister. Where was the Katie who would roll her eyes and call me a twat? Who would test out her latest karate moves on me? I didn’t recognise this quaking creature.
“Commandant,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She clicked her heels together and saluted.
The classroom burbled, amused and curious at the same time.
“Is there somewhere I can talk to Ka… Cadet Tyler?”
“The room across the hall should be free,” Mr Jarvis said, looking from me to his student.
“Well, show the Commandant the way, then, Tyler,” Morgan snapped, pushing Katie forward. “And if I find that you have been causing trouble again, there will be consequences.”
Katie gave him the dirtiest side eye I’d ever seen her give and stomped through the door.
I nodded to Morgan and Mr Jarvis, and followed her out.
The opposite room was almost identical to the one we’d left, but instead of oil paintings of Tudors, the walls were covered with etchings of famous Shifters, including Lord Cuthbert Morgan-Fairfax, the man who had set up ARES, and, I was mortified to realise, a picture of me. It was the image Zac had described: me standing in a field, the British flag waving behind me. Although I thought I looked more constipated than heroic.
Light spilled through the leaded windows, throwing Katie into shadow and making diamond-shaped patterns on the floor. She stood, her hands clasped behind her, facing away from the door.
“Katie,” I said. “It’s OK. It’s me.” I laid my hand on her shoulder and she flinched. “Don’t you know me?”