by Teri Terry
And at first he kisses back. Then gradually, gently, he pushes me away. Shakes his head. ‘Not like this.’
And I start to cry. Why? Another loss, another cold space. He pulls me to the sofa, wraps a blanket around me. ‘Don’t go,’ I say.
‘I’m not going anywhere. Ever. As long as you don’t want me to.’ But he stands up. ‘Back in a sec.’ He goes down the hall, and comes back with a guitar in his hands.
‘I don’t play very often, but it always makes me feel better. Close your eyes, Kyla. Tomorrow will be a long day. But we’ll get through it. And I’ll be there.’
And he plays: he’s good. Some songs I know, some I don’t. And somehow my eyes close. I slip to a dark, dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
* * *
The promised wild weather has arrived. The cold wind whips branches off trees and swirls dead leaves as I run.
I’d slept late, and said I just needed a run, bolting out, not able to meet Aiden in the eye after last night. Half expecting an argument, or an escort. But they let me go.
My feet fly up the canal path, pushing hard to make everything go away, but it’s not working. I dig deep for more: more effort, more speed. And the miles fly by, and it gets closer. This run wasn’t only about escape and release. Will I be able to find it?
Not at first. I know I’m close to where it should be, that there was a particular bend of the path, a climbable tree not far from it. I slow to a jog and retrace my steps until finally I think I see the right one.
The wind is crazy as I climb up the branches, like it’s going to pull me off and throw me to the ground. I squint to avoid getting grit blown in my eyes. How far up was it? I think I’ve come too far, and look back. Anything could have happened to it: a bird or a squirrel with an eye for shiny things could have taken it; the branch it is on could have been victim to the wind. It might be the wrong tree. Now that I’m not running, I’m freezing; I feel around with numb hands, having trouble keeping my footing when I can barely feel my feet. I’m about to give up when my fingers brush something cold, something metal.
I twist to reach it better, and pull it off the branch it is hooked around: Emily’s ring. Clutch it tight in my hand a moment, then start down.
Back on the ground I peer at the inscription: Emily & David 4ever. I took it off her hand after they both died, victims of Lorders and Slating like so many others. They were returned as contract breakers when she got pregnant: their only crime was falling in love. I need her ring: I need a reason I can hold on to, to get me through what has to be done today. I start to put it in my pocket, but then slip it on my finger, instead, and start the long run back.
After a shower I come out to the kitchen, where Mac is making sandwiches. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asks. Then retracts. ‘All right, stupid question. Anything not okay that I can do anything about?’
‘No. Thanks.’ I smile at him.
‘At last: a smile. Of sorts. Sit down and eat up, it’s about time to go. Aiden? Lunch,’ he calls.
Aiden comes in, squeezes my shoulder with one hand, sits down opposite. He looks into my eyes, nods once, and his steady gaze says things are okay. A knot of anxiety inside me eases; just a little, but it’s enough.
‘Welcome to our movie studio,’ Mac says, and opens the door to a rundown farm outbuilding. Up a path a few miles from his house, from the outside it looks abandoned, but as I step through, I gasp. Inside is like an Aladdin’s cave for computer geeks: there are bits of kit everywhere.
‘You clearly didn’t just set this up for today,’ I say.
‘No. It’s been one of MIA’s hidden tech centres for ages; there’s all sorts of different stuff to play with out here. Movies are new. But we’ve got the transmitting equipment here to link up with DJ’s relay to the satellite. And Jazz and I cleared a place to do recordings last night.’
Aidan and I follow him around a crammed high row of shelving; behind it, there’s a clear area with a stool, a tarp hung to block equipment behind it. And a camera on a stand in front with lights.
‘That looks a bit more high tech than my little camera,’ I say, touching my pocket where it is once again, returned this morning after they copied the relevant content last night.
‘Nah, it’s easy. I’ll show you, then we can record my part.’
Mac starts to explain the controls to both of us when there is a loud knock.
‘Hello?’ Jazz’s voice. And another: Mum?
I bolt around the shelves, and it’s not just Mum; Amy is here, too.
Amy runs over to me, and grabs me in a hug. ‘You crazy girl. Don’t you ever do that to me again!’
‘You’ve cut your hair,’ I say, shocked. Her gorgeous thick hair is gone: cut to a short pixie.
‘Heh, if I knew where you were to check for fashion advice and that I didn’t need a seance, I’d have done so. Besides, you’re looking a bit different, too.’
‘You’re both here?’ I say to Mum, who has held back, but walks up to us now for a group hug.
Mum smiles. ‘Both my girls together! I realised this was a family decision. I had to let Amy in on what was happening, and then we had a vote.’
‘And?’ Aiden asks.
‘Amy says go for it. I’m still not sure, but there are three of us. Kyla?’
And all eyes are on me.
No. Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me decide.
I swallow. ‘If this goes wrong, it could be a death sentence for everyone involved.’
‘Including you,’ Mum points out.
I shrug. I don’t want to say, out loud, that I don’t care any more about my own life. ‘It’s different for me. They’re already after me, anyhow.’
‘You told me once before that sometimes the most important thing is doing what is right.’
‘The problem is working out what is right, isn’t it?’ Amy says.
And I stare back at Mum and Amy, standing close together. Amy was Slated, assigned to her like I was, but that doesn’t change what they are to each other now. What we are. But we’re not the only ones. ‘This isn’t just about us. It’s about every mother and daughter, every father and son. Now and in the future.’
Mum looks back at me, slowly nods. ‘Okay, then. Let’s get this show on the road.’
Mac goes first while I operate the camera. He tells about the day his school trip went wrong; when stray AGT bombs took out most of a busload of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds. How he had a minor injury. How his friend Robby – Robert Armstrong – was hauled off the bus, away from his dead girlfriend. Screaming, but unhurt. Then later was on the list of the dead.
Then it is Mum’s turn to tell us about her son Robert. How she’d heard rumours for years that he’d survived and been Slated, but could find no trace of him.
She pauses, looks me in the eye behind the camera. ‘But that’s not the only tragedy in my life. You know who I am: Sandra Armstrong-Davis. My father, Prime Minister William Adam M. Armstrong, and my mother, Linea Armstrong, were murdered by AGT bombs when I was fifteen. But that is not the end of the story. My parents were preparing to expose Lorder atrocities; my dad, to resign as Lorder Prime Minister and dissolve the government. My mother confided in a school friend, Astrid Connor, who deliberately leaked the information of their whereabouts to the AGT to have them assassinated and silenced. You will hear about this from Stella Connor – a childhood friend, and the daughter of the Lorder who did this.’
She pauses. ‘How was that?’
Mac, behind the camera again, gives a thumbs up. ‘Brilliant. Thanks.’
I take a deep breath. ‘Is it my turn now?’
Aiden comes over. ‘I could do the bit on All Souls. I was there also.’
I shake my head. ‘I’m the one who took the footage, and I was looking through the camera
zoom and saw what happened, as it happened, in more detail than you could. I have to do it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. And there’s more I can testify about. Mum, can you and Amy stay? I want there to be no more secrets. This is all going to be out there; I want you to hear it from me.’
I settle on the stool under the lights. Amy straightens my hair. ‘It’s not a fashion shoot,’ I say. She sticks out her tongue, and gets out of shot.
‘When you’re ready,’ Mac says.
I stare down the camera, pretend I’m going to talk to myself. That no one else is here; that Edie’s teddy bear is staring at me behind the lens, and no one else can hear a word.
‘Hi. I’d like to introduce myself, but I can’t: I don’t know who I am. Before I was born, a woman you’ll hear from soon was a prisoner. Her name is Stella Connor. She’d found out her mother – a Lorder JCO, Astrid Connor – had engineered the assassinations of Prime Minister Armstrong and his wife. Stella was locked up by her mother to keep her quiet; she was pregnant at the time, and her baby died.
‘Then Astrid gave Stella another baby: me. She threatened to take me away if Stella ever said anything, and then let us go. Stella and her husband Danny, who thought I was his, loved and raised me as their daughter.
‘When I was ten years old I was kidnapped by the AGT. I was subjected to conditioning to fracture my personality, trained by the AGT terrorist Nico, and then he deliberately set me up to be captured and Slated by Lorders when I was fifteen.
‘After I was Slated and assigned to my new family, my fractured personality and memories started to come back: even though I was Slated, my Levo stopped controlling my actions when my memories returned. The AGT plan worked. I rejoined the AGT, but Lorders threatened me to try to make me betray the AGT.
‘On Armstrong Memorial Day I was present at the speeches given by my assigned mother: Sandra Armstrong-Davis, who you’ll be hearing from also.’ I pause, unable to say what comes next, twisting Emily’s ring on my finger and fighting for control. ‘I’m sorry. I had a gun strapped to my arm. Mum – Sandra – was next to me, and if she didn’t say what the AGT wanted her to say, I was supposed to kill her.’ I blink hard, will myself to not look at Mum and Amy, to keep going.
‘I couldn’t do it. I didn’t stay for the second ceremony in the grounds; I ran back to try to save Dr Lysander, who had been captured by the AGT after I’d betrayed her. Later I found out that a com Nico gave me and concealed under my Levo was a remote-controlled bomb; he’d meant to set it off during the second ceremony, when I should have been next to my family and Prime Minister Gregory.’
I breathe in and out a few seconds, fight for control. Then continue. I tell them everything I did with the AGT and what happened with Nico; the bomb that the Lorders said killed me. Going to stay with Stella and finding out she wasn’t my mother, visiting the orphanage, seeing the Slated children and realising I was going to have to run, to take this information to MIA. Seeing Astrid and Nico together. Going to Oxford, finding Ben. That Ben had been subjected to unknown procedures by the Lorders; that he betrayed us. My voice wavers as I describe the massacre at All Souls College that I filmed.
Then I stare at the camera. ‘I still don’t know who I am. Or what Astrid Connor, Lorder and JCO, was doing with Nico, the AGT terrorist who trained me and countless others to attack the Lorders. But it’s hard to imagine she wasn’t involved in everything that has happened to me from the beginning, and the plot to assassinate my family and Prime Minister Gregory.
‘But one thing I do know: the truth needs to come out. All of it. If everyone knows what really happens, what Lorders really do, what happens to the missing, then they – you – will put a stop to it.
‘Everyone needs to know.’
I’m finished talking. Still and silent now, I can’t look up, can’t meet anyone in the eye. I’m aware Mac has stopped filming, but no one says anything. I hear footsteps: Mum’s.
She walks up to me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
She slips her arms around me; dimly I’m aware the others are walking away, out of sight.
‘Why are you sorry?’
‘I almost killed you, you and Amy. And loads of other people as well.’
‘You didn’t know you had the bomb.’
‘I knew I had the gun. I thought I was going to use it. I thought I had no choice.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘No. I couldn’t. But everything else I’ve done. And what happened at All Souls, because of Ben. It’s my fault.’
‘Caring for someone is never a bad thing, even if it doesn’t work out.’
‘It hurts,’ I whisper.
‘I know. I’ll tell you one thing for free.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If I could get Astrid and Nico in my sights right now, they’d both be dead.’
I half smile at the thought of Mum as avenging gunslinger: not a picture that readily comes to mind. ‘I’m not good at killing people. I’m better at getting them killed.’
Aiden steps back around, and clears his throat. ‘We’re going to get this movie into production now. Go if you want.’
‘I should get Amy out of here. We’re going to go stay in a quiet place with some friends for a few days, see what happens if – when, I mean – that hits the airwaves.’ Mum looks at me pleadingly. ‘Come with us? Please?’
‘No. Sorry. I’ve got to see this through.’
‘Okay.’
Amy comes round; her eyes are red. She and Mum give me hugs, and go.
Mac and Aiden get busy on computers with the different bits of recordings, still photos, our pieces from today. After a moment pulling myself together, I walk over, watch over their shoulders.
Aiden catches my eye. ‘Thank you,’ he says.
‘For what?’
‘For having the courage to do what you just did.’
I shrug. ‘I’ve been a coward for a long time. You shouldn’t thank me for that.’ I look away, not able to look him in the eye.
It was Stella and Mum that finally made me face up to telling the truth. They both did, so how could I not? Staring at everything I’ve been and done, I struggle to keep myself contained when inside everything feels like shattering glass. There are no walls, no illusions left to hide behind. Mum knows. Aiden knows. Soon the whole world will know.
Finally Mac declares it done. ‘Do you want to watch a run-through? No problem if not.’
‘I’ll watch,’ I say. Mac projects it on the wall. At the beginning, titles run across the screen: Need to Know – a MIA production.
I try to watch the whole fifteen minutes of it dispassionately, objectively. Like I don’t know anyone in it, and I’m Joe Public sitting on my sofa about to get the evening TV surprise of a lifetime. But when the footage I shot from the Church Tower comes up, I can’t watch. I look away. A warm arm slips around my shoulders: Aiden. I want to look up at him, but I’m afraid what I’ll see in his eyes.
BANG.
A massive crash makes us all jump, then laugh when we realise – it’s thunder. The storm is here.
Aiden grins. As if on cue, his com rings: DJ? He answers. ‘Hello? Yes. It’s ready.’ He pauses, listening. ‘Got it, bye.’ He clicks end, then turns to us.
‘We’re to transmit at six, when the storm should be at its peak. It’ll be on then instead of the evening news. It will be the evening news!’ he says. He and Mac give high fives, excited, and part of me is, too. All we’ve worked towards is finally really happening.
But part of me is with all those who suffered, who died. Florence, Wendy, all the other students. Those small children who were Slated.
‘What is it?’ Aiden asks.
‘How can we celebrate? We can’t do anything for those who died, for
their families.’
Aiden slips an arm over my shoulders, and I lean into him.
‘We can remember them,’ he says. ‘And through what we’ve done today, make it stop. Make their loss have meaning.’
Without discussion, the three of us stay silent: a minute, two. Then another massive crash of thunder hits, and again I jump. I don’t mind storms; normally I like them, the wilder the better. Not today. I’m as jumpy as…
Skye.
I pull away from Aiden. ‘Skye will be scared alone with the storm. I’m going back to the house.’
‘Do you want me to walk back with you?’ Aiden asks.
‘No. Stay and have your moment. I’ll be fine.’
‘Wait a sec,’ Mac says, does something with the computer and my camera, then hands it over. ‘I put a backup copy of Need to Know on it. Just in case we’re struck by lightning.’
I scowl at him. ‘Don’t tempt fate,’ I say, and head out the door – fresh air, storm or not – and escape.
It’s about two miles back and just getting dark, but now and then the sky lights up with crazy, jagged lightning. Each time the thunder crashes, seemingly right over my head, I almost jump out of my skin, annoyed at myself for being so jittery. I’m about halfway there when it starts: huge, heavy, freezing cold raindrops. So I get cold and wet; so what.
As I run, I wonder at how I feel; I should be celebrating with both of them. Instead, I feel empty.
What is next? What is my future? How will Aiden feel now that he knows all the things I have done?
Mum said caring for somebody is never a bad thing, even if it doesn’t work out.
Do I care?
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
* * *
I’m nearly at the lights of the house when they go out, and all is darkness.
A power failure, because of the storm? I hope that doesn’t affect the transmission. Knowing Mac there will be a backup generator.