“Hey, sometimes you have to lose to win.”
The kids all looked at me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The cool air outside the Pyramid was an instant relief. A larger crowd of people had gathered and were being kept at a safe distance by police. Press photographers tried to lean over the barriers and were being pushed back. There was a flash of camera bulbs as they raised their cameras high in the air while calling the Prime Minister’s name. He raised a hand and waved at them, keeping up his profile.
All eyes in the crowd were on the PM and the President. Apart from one man. He was tall, so tall he could see over the gathered people without straining. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. It was because he was staring straight at us. No, not us. He was staring at Aubrey.
He had dark, closely cropped hair, heavy stubble and light grey eyes, that weren’t blinking. There was something familiar about him. I looked from him to Aubrey. She hadn’t noticed the stranger, she was too busy rolling her eyes at Miller’s media-whoring antics.
When I looked back the man was gone. I was trying to seek him out in the crowd when I saw a blur of movement from the left. Both the Little Guards and the Prime Minister’s security team flinched. It was just a small girl wearing a rabbit mask running towards us holding a bright yellow stuffed bunny.
“Stand down, everyone,” Miller said, with a laugh. “It’s just a little girl.” He bent down as the girl approached. “And hello there. What’s your name?”
The little girl said nothing. She just waved the teddy at him.
“Is this an Easter present?”
The girl nodded.
“Is this for me?” Miller said.
The girl hesitated. Looked from Miller to the bunny and then shook her head. She pointed at President Tsing who was standing behind Miller.
“Oh, right. It’s for him, is it?” Miller said with a sniff. He straightened up a looked over at the President. “Seems you have a fan, President Tsing.”
The old man walked forward and bent low to greet the little girl. She copied him, giggling as she straightened up. She then stretched out her hand and gave him the toy.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting it solemnly with both hands. “I will take good care of him.”
The girl giggled again and then skipped away, back towards the crowd where she was met by a young girl with long, light-brown hair. I couldn’t see the other girl’s face as she had already half-turned and was walking away.
Tsing tucked the bunny under his arm and headed back to the limo. Just as the door was opened for him, he started to cough. A small cough at first, as if something was irritating his throat. But it quickly became heaving and desperate. He held onto the car door, wheezing and gasping for air.
The Little Guards ran to him, looking frantic and confused. They called out to him in rapid Chinese and I could tell they were begging him to tell them what to do. He pushed one of the girls aside, as if she were the one denying him the air, knocking her to the ground.
The President clutched at his throat and the bunny he’d been holding fell to the ground. I could see it had specks of blood on its yellow fur. Blood was flowing from Tsing’s eyes and his nose. His face had gone pale and the bags under his eyes were sagging lower than they had any natural right to do. His mouth was hanging low on one side, as if he was made out of wax and was melting. White bubbles formed around his mouth and he was thrashing his limbs as if being electrocuted.
“Um… Somebody?” Miller said, staring at the President, unable to move.
The Little Guards were screaming and panicking now. Each of them shouting at the other.
“What’s happening to him?” CP asked, sounding as scared as I felt.
“I don’t know. Someone help him!” I shouted, desperate to make whatever was happening stop.
Ken-ze ran over and started shouting at me, tears falling down his cheeks.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I said.
He shook his head and scrunched up his face, as if he was trying hard to remember something. He clenched his fists and banged them against his legs, hard. “No move. No Shift!” he said, finally.
“You can’t Shift?” I said.
Ken-ze nodded frantically at me and pointed at the other guards who were now trying to hold Tsing up. The President’s eyes were rolling in his head and his lips had gone a terrible shade of purple.
“None of you can Shift?” I shouted.
Again Ken-ze nodded, even more furiously this time.
“Scott, are you Fixing?” Aubrey said.
“What? No. I mean, I don’t know,” I said.
Was I? Was I holding events in place? That only happened when I wanted to keep a reality in check. But why would I want the President to be writhing around in pain on the floor?
“Stop it!” Aubrey shouted at me.
“I’m not doing anything,” I shouted back.
I kept looking between Ken-ze’s terror-filled eyes to the President who was thrashing on the floor.
Miller was backing away as if worried he might get some of Tsing’s blood on his too-shiny shoes.
I closed my eyes and tried to Shift, sorting through the day’s events. Trying to think of something I could undo to stop all of this. But with all the screaming and panic I couldn’t focus clearly.
“I’m sorry about this, Scott,” I heard Aubrey say, just before I felt pain exploding in my jaw.
Lights sparkled behind my eyes and my knees crumpled under me. Everything tilted and I could see Aubrey shaking her hand like she’d hurt it and the Little Guard bowing low in front of her, thanking her for something.
My shoulder hit the pavement, followed by my head.
“At least you won’t remember,” Aubrey said, as I blacked out.
A moment later I was standing upright again, next to Aubrey, CP and Jake. The Prime Minister was pacing back and forth looking furious.
I looked around. Tsing and his Little Guards were nowhere to be seen. I stretched my jaw, expecting pain. It was fine.
“Right, I’ve had enough,” Miller said, “We’ve waited an hour and he’s not coming. That rude, slitty-eyed bastard. Well, see how he likes our treaty now.” He stormed off to his limo without so much as a backward glance in our direction, muttering all the way.
“Who isn’t coming?” I said softly, but no one answered.
Sir Richard turned to us. “None of you are to talk about what you saw or heard today, do you understand me?”
“You mean we’re not to tell anyone that the Prime Minister is such a tool that the President of China stood him up?” Aubrey said.
Sir Richard wagged a warning finger at her. “Not a word.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Then walked off to where his car was waiting.
“What a dick,” Aubrey said when we were alone again.
“Which one?” Jake asked.
Aubrey rocked her head back and forth, considering. “Both of them.”
The kids all laughed. I shook my head, trying to settle everything back into place.
So the President hadn’t turned up. Which meant we hadn’t all watched his face melt off. Which must have meant his Little Guards had been able to Shift, after all. And all because Aubrey had knocked me out with one punch.
No wonder I felt dizzy.
“What was that ‘You’re not the Prime Minister’ gag all about?”
“Huh?” I looked at her. “Oh, I don’t know…” I felt a dull ache in my lip. “Did I get hit in the mouth?”
“Hit? No. Scott, are you OK?” Aubrey said.
I tongued the ragged hole in my lower lip and tasted blood. Blood. Something was wrong. Something I had to remember. The Prime Minister. The Shift.
“I can’t believe I forgot!” I shouted. “That guy isn’t the PM. Or at least he wasn’t this morning. It was another guy called Vine who was the Prime Minister. But on our way here it all changed. And that!” I said, pointing at the Pyramid. “That was not here either.”
“Scott, keep your voice down,” Aubrey said, nodding to the cadets, who had wandered off to check out a fountain in the courtyard.
“But a minute ago the President of China was dying, right in front of us.” I pointed to the ground where he had been writhing and foaming at the mouth. There wasn’t a single mark. “And his Little Guards couldn’t Shift because I was Fixing them and you hit me.”
“I hit you? Calm down, Scott. I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” Aubrey said.
“But don’t you see? Someone Shifted and the bloody Prime Minister changed. That’s… Well it’s huge.”
“Not necessarily, it could have been a really small Shift. Or Scott, you could just be confused. Remember your training – just let it go.” She squeezed my arm, trying to make me calm down.
“I’m not confused,” I snapped. “It happened. I know you can’t remember, but that’s not my fault. And I kind of wish you wouldn’t keep trying to make me forget. Because I don’t want to.”
I felt a buzzing in my head as if I was listening to music too loud and couldn’t concentrate. Aubrey trying to reassure me, the kids play fighting, and the light reflecting off the Pyramid seemed too strong.
“I have to… I have to go…”
“Scott, wait!” Aubrey called after me.
“No. I just have to be alone!” I shouted.
I stormed off and headed for Tower Bridge. At least that hadn’t changed.
As I walked, banging into people I only half saw, I sorted through my memories, trying to distinguish the old from the new.
I kept seeing Tsing’s face, lips curled back in pain, a silent scream escaping from his mouth. But I knew that he was safe. His Little Guards had done their duty and he’d avoided danger by simply not turning up. OK, so the Prime Minister had been insulted. Far better that than the previous reality. As for the change in Prime Minister, for some reason it was that Shift that troubled me even more.
I had shadowy images of Benjamin Vine, the man I remembered as Prime Minister: at press conferences, on news shows, standing outside Number 10. But slowly all of those moments were wiped away and replaced with images of James Miller, the shiny jerk I’d just met. The ripples of reality settled and I could see things a little more now. I started to compare the two realities. We were still at war in Afghanistan, Miller refusing to pull our troops out, whereas Vine had brought that fight to an end six months ago, preferring to concentrate on the issues at home, such as making sure everyone at ARES behaved. Miller had recently signed some big deal on climate change, a deal I seemed to remember Vine not being able to get heads of state to agree with. Other than that, I didn’t really know. I made a mental note to start taking a more active interest in politics in the future.
It didn’t really matter to me what Miller had or hadn’t done. Or that life at ARES was back to normal, without Vine interfering. All that mattered was that the leader of the country had changed because someone had Shifted. I didn’t care what Aubrey or anyone said, I wasn’t going to let this go.
It took me over half an hour to get back to ARES, and Aubrey was already at her desk. She looked up as I approached.
“Scott, are you OK?” she said, sounding relieved. “I was worried about you.”
I placed a cup of takeaway coffee from her favourite café on the table in front of her. My peace offering
“I just needed to clear my head.”
“And is it clear now?” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Not really.”
She took a sip of the hot coffee. “Vanilla sprinkles?”
I nodded. “Of course. They’re your favourite.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t much help earlier,” she said, pulling her chair closer to me. “It’s just so weird, you know? You remembering all this stuff everyone else forgets. I just don’t know how to deal with it.”
“How do you think it makes me feel?” I said, rubbing at my pounding temples.
She looked left and right, checking we weren’t being watched, then reached out and squeezed my hand. “Let’s find this old PM of yours.” She nudged me out of the way so she could get to my keyboard and launched the ARES database. “What was his name?”
“Benjamin Vine,” I said, giving her a grateful smile.
A rattle of keys and a file came up.
Dr Benjamin Vine. GP. Born 1968. Married to Marie Vine, nee Lay. One daughter: Charlotte Vine aged eighteen.
“His daughter. She’s not dead,” I said, pointing at the screen.
“That must be nice for her,” Aubrey said.
“No, I mean, you told me she’d died in an accident. It’s why he went into politics.”
Aubrey opened her mouth to protest and then thought better of it. “Obviously not in this reality. What else can we find on her?”
Aubrey did a second search, her fingers dancing across the keyboard, this time for Charlotte Vine. There was even less information on Charlotte. Her birth date, schools she’d been to, and a picture of her from an article in the local press about a school trip accident. I scanned the article. They had been rock climbing and Charlotte’s rope had snapped. Luckily she’d only been a few feet off the ground when she fell, so escaped with just a sprained knee. The picture showed her standing on a cliff edge, blonde hair blowing in the breeze, one knee bent as if it was causing her some pain. She was wearing climbing gear and a hard hat, and her arm was thrown around another girl who had long, frizzy hair that fell over her face.
“Seems like a pretty average girl,” Aubrey said.
“Apart from the whole coming back from the dead thing,” I said.
“So someone Shifted and the accident never happened?”
“But why now?” I said. “Why did the Shift happen today? Why not six years ago straight after the accident?”
Aubrey shrugged. “Sometimes it takes Shifters time to find their way around events. They probably don’t even remember making it now.”
“And what about the attack on the President? They have to be connected somehow.”