by Kim Curran
Cleopatra Finn. Volunteer – Project Ganymede.
“No!” I screamed, picking my laptop up in my hands and shaking it, as if I could somehow wipe away those words.
Did that mean the project was still up and running? I did a search, and the agony over CP softened slightly when I saw that the programme had been shut down a year ago. Sergeant Cain had, the report said, uncovered what had been going on, and Abbott had been arrested and was now in prison for life.
Another click and I pulled up Cain’s file.
Sergeant Charles Cain: Deceased. Killed on Duty.
Like before, he’d given his life to stop Abbott. Only this time, he’d been too late to save CP.
Cain and CP gone. Jake, Zac and Rosalie safe.
I couldn’t put it off any more.
My hands shook as I typed the eleven letters. I closed my eyes. “Please,” I said. “Please. Please. Please.”
When I opened them again, I was looking at Aubrey’s face. It was the picture from her ARES ID, where she was scowling at the camera. I reached out and touched it, small rainbows of colour pooling out from where my fingers touched the screen.
Aubrey Jones, Spotter, 4th Class. Retired.
Commendation for her work leading to the uncovering of Project Ganymede. Suspected ties to the SLF. Observation recommended.
Aubrey was alive. She was out of ARES. And it seemed like she had been responsible for leading Cain to Greyfield’s. I tried to work out how she could have known about the project. Then I remembered. The night I’d gone to speak to her and Zac in the church, the night that ARES had followed me and arrested them all, she and Zac had been looking over plans of the hospital. They hadn’t needed me. Aubrey hadn’t needed me.
But that didn’t mean that I didn’t still need her.
I read through the rest of her file, to see if her address was still the same. It was, but it also gave a place of work.
I closed the laptop and stared at my wall. It was covered with pictures I didn’t recognise, including a photo of me looking uncomfortable next to Hugo and some girl. The girl, who was pretty enough, had her arm wrapped around mine and was gazing up at me with a worrying expression on her face.
Oh, God, I thought. Don’t let it be what it looks like.
There was only one way to find out. I rifled around on the papers on my desk and found my mobile phone. It was weird, looking at it. A model I didn’t recognise and so slim compared to the satellite phones I’d been using. It took me a few seconds to work out the unfamiliar operating system. I found Hugo’s number and hit dial.
He answered after a few rings.
“Scotty!” he said, in his usual posh drawl.
“Hugo, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.”
“Oh, funny, funny. Missing me after a few hours?”
I tried to laugh, but the truth was, hearing his voice was enough to make me want to sob.
“Are you OK, Scott?” Hugo said, genuine concern in his voice. “You’re not still upset over Emily? I thought you were relieved when she ended it.”
The girl in the picture. Emily. Yes, it fit. I hunted out the memory. We’d dated for a month, and she’d ended it last week. I could remember the relief. I’d not had the guts to do it myself.
“No,” I said, coughing to clear my throat. “It’s not that. It’s just…” How could I even begin to explain to Hugo? It’s just I’ve spent the last week watching people die, watching the whole country burn, and now I was back in a place where everything was safe and there was no war and I was aching to get back to that other reality because the girl I loved was there? There was no point in even trying.
“It’s just this physics homework is killing me,” I finished, finally.
“Well, that will serve you right for taking sciences, Scotty. You should have done humanities like me. Plenty more girls do humanity.”
I laughed. “Promise me something, Hugo?”
“What’s that?”
“Never change.”
“As if. Why would I mess with perfection?”
I laughed again. “I’d better go.”
“Catch you on later. And Scott,” he said, as I was removing the phone from my ear to hang up, “are you sure everything’s OK?”
“Everything is fine. Everything is perfectly fine,” I said, and hit the end call button.
I should be happy, I thought, as I struggled to clamber onto my bed, still clumsy on the false leg. The world was a better place because of the Shift I’d finally been able to make. Only… Only.
“Aubrey,” I said. And it came out as a sigh.
I would be a stranger to her. I should try to forget about her. Move on with my life and let her move on with hers.
Like that was going to happen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was an achingly cool café in Shoreditch, East London, filled with men with preposterous beards and women in jeans that looked like they’d been sprayed on. The walls had all been painted in blackboard paint, and quotes had been scrawled in yellow chalk.
I read one of them and raised an eyebrow.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. T.S. Eliot
What did that even mean? Were coffee spoons different than tea spoons?
“Are you in the queue?” a man grunted at me.
I mumbled an apology and stepped out of the way, promptly banging into a long table and spilling someone’s coffee. They were too engrossed in a book of poetry to even notice. I’d still not got the hang of walking with my prosthetic leg. I got into the queue while looking around. There were three staff members: two men behind the counter and a young, dark-haired woman serving the tables.
Maybe the file was wrong. Maybe she no longer worked here. I was about to turn and leave when she came out of the kitchen carrying a try of steaming muffins.
“Mind your backs,” she said, “hot stuff coming through.”
This made everyone around the counter laugh, as if it was an old joke shared among them.
Her hair was pushed away from her forehead and tied with a blue-and-white scarf, making her look like a little like a 1940s Land Girl. Her face was perfect. No scar from Benjo. No missing eye. She looked exactly like she had the very first day I had met her. She nudged a barista out of the way with her hip and placed the muffins in the glass counter, then wiped her hands on a white apron tied around her waist. She looked beautiful. She looked happy.
The plan had been to come here and see her, then go. And I’d done the first. I should turn around and leave her to her new life. I had brought her nothing but pain. She would be better off without me, I was sure of it. But my feet refused to listen to me. I kept staring at her as she came to stand behind the tills and started taking orders. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, even as the person behind me coughed loudly to suggest I move forward in the queue. Then she turned to look at me, fixing me with the full wattage of her smile. And I had no choice.
“Next,” she said.
I staggered forward and tried to think of what to say. What words could convey everything my heart felt? How could I make her realise who I was, who she was to me, who we were together? It would take days, months, and I had only seconds.
“What can I get you?” she said.
“A large latte with vanilla sprinkles,” I managed to say.
The male barista scoffed at my order. “We only do black and flat whites here, mate. If you want crap like that, you’ll have to go to the chain across the road.”
But Aubrey wasn’t laughing. She cocked her head to one side and smiled at me. “Vanilla sprinkles?” she said.
“A coffee’s not complete without vanilla sprinkles.”
This made her laugh, a warm, friendly laugh that sent a wave of happiness flooding over me.
“The best I can do you is a white coffee and a splash of vanilla essence. Will that do?”
“For now,” I said.
She told me the price, took my money and poured my change into m
y hand, then busied herself with making my order.
I moved along the line, watching her over the chrome coffee maker. She kept glancing up at me, then down to the coffee.
“Vanilla sprinkles,” she said again, shaking her head.
She poured milk from a silver jug into the black cup of coffee, wiggling the flow of milk to make a pretty leaf pattern.
“Hang on,” she said, then disappeared into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a small brown bottle. She twisted off the lid of the vanilla essence and let three droplets fall onto the white foam, then popped a plastic lid on top and handed it over to me.
Our fingers met as she handed it to me, and she flinched, as if getting a static shock.
We stood there, both of us holding the cup, staring at each other. The moment was broken when a customer banged into me, causing me to spill a drop of the hot coffee over Aubrey’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said as she shook the liquid off.
“Don’t worry about it. Enjoy your coffee.”
She hesitated. I knew that she was about to go back to her work and I would never see her again. I racked my brain trying to think of something to say. I could tell her that I was a Shifter. That I knew all about ARES. All about her.
But I didn’t have to. She turned to me and looked me up and down through narrow eyes.
“Do I know you?” she said.
“No,” I said, with a smile. “But you will.”
Don’t miss the other books by Kim Curran
Shift
Control
Glaze
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing the last book in a trilogy is a bittersweet moment. It’s been an amazing, thrilling rollercoaster of a ride. But I’m sad I won’t get to live with these characters any more. I like to think Scott and Aubrey and the others have lots of adventures ahead of them, it’s just that I won’t be the one to write them.
The publication of this book has had its own rocky journey. For a while there, I didn’t think I it would happen. Endless thanks to Calee Lee and the team at Xist for making it happen. I couldn’t have found a better home for the book.
To Lou Morgan, for talking me off a cliff when I was about to burn the whole book and run away and become a Mongolian Eagle Hunter. To Laura Lam for your feedback and pointing out my obsession with the word ‘just’. To Regan Warner, who is the best work partner anyone could ask for. And to Chris, my husband, for your patience – I know I’ve really tested it this time around.
But the most important person to thank is you, the reader, for sticking with me and Scott over the last three books. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I have loved writing it. And I hope you stick with me with whatever I write next.
About the Author
Kim was born in Dublin and moved to London when she was seven. She got her first typewriter when she was eight, had a poem she wrote about a snail published in a magazine when she was nine, and that was it – Kim was hooked on writing.
Because she never thought she’d actually be able to make a living as a writer, she decided she needed a trade to fall back on. So, naturally, she went to Sussex University to study philosophy.
While Kim’s plan of being paid big bucks to think deep thoughts never quite worked out, she did land a job as a junior copywriter with an ad agency a week after graduating. She’s worked in advertising ever since, specialising in writing for videogames.
She can be found at www.kimcurran.co.uk and on Twitter @KimeCurran.
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