“It could just be a coincidence. But think about it. In the old reality two people died. In this one, everyone’s OK. Charlotte and the President are still alive and relations between China and the UK are preserved. That has to be a good thing, doesn’t it? Whoever made the Shifts, even if they were connected, they did them for a good reason.”
“I guess,” I said.
“I hate to say this, but you really just have to–”
“I know.” I shut down the file and forced a smile. “Let it go.”
Only there was no way I was going to.
“Should I report it? I mean, the attack? If someone tried once, they might try again?” I said.
Aubrey sucked at her lip, thinking. “The Regulators will have probably registered the Shift anyway. But maybe leave out the mysterious Shifter stuff. Just say the attack happened and the Little Guards took care of it.”
I was already typing away, trying to get down every last detail before I forgot it.
“It will mean revealing to Sir Richard that you can remember old realities. Are you prepared for that?” Aubrey said, fiddling with a pen on her desk.
I hadn’t thought about that. I just wanted to unload this weight onto someone else. Someone who could do something about it. But maybe it was time I told. Maybe it could be of some use to the agency.
“Not really,” I said. “But I can’t keep something this big just between me and you. I feel like I have a duty.”
Aubrey laughed, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh, ARES sure has its hooks in you, Scott.”
I tried to laugh as well. But she was right. I was an agency man through and through now. “Towards the true way.” I really believed in that.
“Well, luckily Sir Richard is still at Number 10 being debriefed by the PM. Maybe you can slip that report on his desk and escape before he has a heart attack.” She mimed clutching at her chest and I laughed. For real this time.
I didn’t have a choice, not really. I had to tell someone. Besides, I’d feel better with one less thing to worry about.
After I finished my write-up on the events at the Pyramid and left it on Sir Richard’s desk, the rest of the day was spent sorting through other business. We got the psych evaluation back on Jack Glenn: definitely exhibiting the first signs of psychosis. They were going to remove the transplanted brain tissue and hopefully that would mean he was back to normal. It would also mean he wouldn’t be able to Shift again. But that was no bad thing. I marked his file “completed” and got on with the backlog of other things I had to do that had nothing to do with Project Ganymede.
By the time I finally finished it was already 6pm. Most of the other kids had either gone home or back to the dorms, and my head was pounding.
“I hate paperwork almost as much as I hate fieldwork,” Aubrey said, stretching out her arms behind her head. “And Sir Richard just can’t get enough of it.”
“Mmm,” I said, only half listening. Aubrey didn’t know how lucky she was. The amount of paperwork in the old reality was way worse.
“You’re really stimulating company today, Scott, you know that?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just really tired,” I said.
“Well, go home and get some rest. That’s what I’m going to do.” She stood up and pulled on her jacket. Looked around the room quickly and, seeing we were alone, planted a soft kiss on my lips. “Try and sleep,” she said, gently thumbing my cheek.
I watched her walk away, her jacket slung over her shoulder, the laces of her boots trailing behind her. They certainly wouldn’t have been allowed under the iron rule of the MOD. Or the mask of make-up she wore that kept the world from seeing the real her.
Things were back to normal now we had a new PM. I should be grateful. I should be. But something didn’t feel right. I kept prodding at the old memory, like a hole in a tooth. Like something was rotten.
I hit “submit” on the report and shut my computer down. I knew it was late, but I really needed to clear my head. Which meant going for a run.
Outside the building, I tightened up the laces on my trainers, pulled on my backpack, and went. It didn’t matter where. In fact, the thing I’d discovered about free running, the important thing, was not knowing where I was going. I’d just run till my heart started pounding in my chest and my lungs started to burn. I’d turn left or right, race down a side road, leap over walls and down staircases and find myself somewhere I’d never been before.
I felt the pavement beneath my feet, each pounding step sending shockwaves up my legs and into my body. I vaulted over a railing and rolled as I hit the street below, the momentum bringing me back up onto my feet. It sometimes felt as if free running had been made for Shifters. You took a risk – running full speed at a wall or launching yourself off a roof – and for most people it only paid off some of the time. Me? I could make sure that every move, no matter how dangerous, resulted in a safe landing.
A group of school kids sitting on a wall shouted something as I approached. I sprung off two walls, pulling off a sweet Tic Tak, leapt over their heads and was gone before they’d recovered.
It was seven miles to home. On a good day it took me just over an hour to get back. Except when I got really lost and had to unravel my path. That happened a lot when it was dark and I would follow some lights ahead and end up... somewhere. Tonight, a full moon was rising in the east. I made sure it was directly behind me and headed west. My only focus was not focusing. Not choosing. It was the only time when I wasn’t trying to plot every single decision in my life. The only time when I felt free.
The further I got away from ARES the further I got from the pressure that I wasn’t only responsible for my actions, but the actions of so many other people. It was crushing. And I was so tired. All the time. The nightmares were getting worse. I kept having one where a burned and scarred Abbott would come to me and say “What have you done to me, Scott? What have you done to yourself?” And he’d remind me of all the things I’d done while on the simulator one by one.
Along with all the stuff that had happened today, I wanted a moment that belonged to just me. Where I couldn’t affect anyone and they couldn’t affect me.
A cat wandered in front of me and hissed as I sprung over it.
I took a left, sliding over the bonnet of a car that blocked my way. It blasted its horn. I started to recognise roads, and knew home wasn’t far away, which always made it harder to stay in the moment.
I turned right, into the alleyway that would lead to my road, and slammed into a man who I knew hadn’t been standing there a second before.
CHAPTER NINE
I staggered back, my fists raised instinctively, and glared at the stranger.
He had badly cut dark hair and looked like he’d shaved with a knife. His grey eyes bored into mine.
“You,” I said, recognising him now, both from outside the Pyramid earlier and from the club a few days ago. “You’re a Shifter.”
It wasn’t a question. I was sure I’d sensed a Shift when he’d appeared at the top of the alley. An adult Shifter. Was it possible that the man we’d been hunting for had come for me?
“Anderson?”
The man flinched at the name and batted his hands in front of his face, as if trying to ward off invisible attackers.
“Are you Frank Anderson?” I said.
“No!” he roared. “Never. Never. Killer.”
He was clearly unhinged. Late stages of psychosis most likely. I’d have to get him back to ARES for an eval. “It’s OK,” I said, sliding off my backpack. “I’m going to get you help.”
I looked down to find my phone and suddenly my bag was wrenched out of my hand and thrown away.
“I don’t need help. I’m here to help you. Help you help her,” he said, his face an inch away from mine. His breath stank.
I stepped away, looking to my bag behind him. I could easily overpower him and get it back. But I wanted to take this one nice and slowly.
“It’s OK, Anderson.”
“Stop. Stop saying that name. I’m not Anderson!” He flinched again, holding his hand to his head. As he brushed the shaggy strands of hair away from his forehead I couldn’t see any scar. But it had to be Anderson.
“Sure,” I said softly, as if trying not to spook an animal. “What shall I call you then?”
“Jones. My name is Jones. Captain Thomas Aubrey Jones.”
I let what he’d just said sink in. Then snorted. “Aubrey Jones? Yeah right.” How he knew Aubrey’s name I didn’t know. Or where I lived, for that matter. But I was sure he was the man we’d been hunting for and I was going to bring him in. I laid a hand on his arm, in preparation to cuff him. I just had to get to my bag. He was faster than me. He twisted out of my grip, grabbed hold of my hoodie, and pushed me up against the alley wall.
“She’s dead. She killed her,” he said, stinking spittle covering my face.
“Who’s dead?” I said, still shocked from how quickly he had moved. I had to focus harder, to find a Shift that would get me out of this situation.
“She died in my arms. Only a child. So tiny. So perfect.” He let go of me and looked down at his empty hands.
“Who?” I said, readjusting my hoodie and slowly sliding away.
He looked up at me, tears filling his eyes. “Aubrey. Aubrey is dead.”
My mouth was suddenly dry. “She… she can’t be. I just left her.”
“Because the witch brought her back. Killed her, then brought her back. Wicked witch. Wicked. She made me her flying monkey.” He flapped his arms up and down, mimicking a flying thing. “She took my hope. My hope and my heart. Opened up the box and it flew up and away. Like Pandora. Like a monkey. Pandora, the witch.”
The fact he was clearly insane made up for the terror that had gripped my heart when he said Aubrey’s name. I took another step towards my bag.
“You have to stop her,” he said. “Not me. Not me. I have to stay away. To protect her. She’d take my baby away if I so much as tried. But you…” I froze in reaching for my bag as he looked at me again. Grey eyes the colour of a stormy sea. He reached out a gnarled finger. “You can stop her.”
“Stop who?” I said, hoping to placate him just long enough for me to call in back-up.
“The witch. The witch that killed my Aubrey. My daughter.”
“Your Aubrey? Are you… are you saying you’re Aubrey’s father?”
“Captain Thomas Aubrey Jones, Mapper, Fifth Class, reporting for duty.” He stamped to attention and pulled a salute that Sergeant Cain would have been impressed by.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at. But Aubrey’s father wasn’t a Shifter. He was a waster who walked out on her when she was four. Now, I’m going to reach into my bag here and–”
He squatted down so his face was level with mine. “I had to leave her. It broke my heart. But the witch made me. She took my child. She took all the children. Now you have to stop her.”
“OK, sure,” I said appeasing him. “I’ll stop her. Where can I find this witch of yours?” I was scrabbling around in my bag, trying to find either my phone or my cuffs.
“Over the rainbow. Red and yellow and blue and green. Green. You have to find green.” He was staring ahead, gazing into whatever madness he was seeing.
“I have to find green. OK,” I said, nodding. My fingers were just on my phone. I looked down to grab it.
“Don’t forget green,” I heard him say.
When I looked back up, I was alone in the alley.
I ran to the end of it and looked left and right. Nothing but empty streets.
He’d vanished.
“Damn it!” I said, kicking the wall.
I called ARES anyway.
“Good evening, the Academy for Revolutionary Engineering Sciences?” the voice on the other end answered.
“Scott Tyler, Fixer, Third Class. Put me through to the Regulators.”
A few beeps later and a female voice answered the phone. “Speak.”
I rolled my eyes when I recognised the voice. “Lane,” I said. “It’s me, Scott.”
I heard her grunt from the other end. “What is it now, Tyler?”
“I need you to run a cross check on a location for an unlicensed Shift.”
“As if I didn’t have enough to do.”
“What is it?” I heard Lottie’s voice in the distance.
“It’s Tyler. Got himself in trouble again,” Lane said, not even bothering to cover the mouthpiece. “Go on then, Tyler.”
I checked my phone and read out the GPS coordinates of my location. I heard the rattle of keys from the other end of the phone.
After a minute, Lane sighed. “Nope. Nothing registering in that location. Is that all?”
I hung up without giving an answer.
No Shifts registered. How was that even possible? I’d sensed the Shift myself. Whoever he was, I’d just let him slip through my fingers.
I picked up my bag, threw it over my shoulder and headed for home. At least I knew what he looked like, that was one thing. But what all of that crap about Aubrey had been I didn’t know.
I kicked at the ground, so annoyed with myself. I couldn’t even think of a Shift I could make that would allow me to get the upper hand on him as I’d spent the last hour consciously not making any choices. I’d screwed up big time.
I crossed the road and looked at my house and the houses next to it. It filled me with a mild sense of relief. Whatever else happened to me this place stayed unchanged. The same mid-range cars parked in the driveways. The same doors painted a series of safe yet stylish colours picked straight out of catalogues. The same middle-class families going about their business behind those doors. Funny, how I used to hate this place, how turning into the top of my road used to make me feel sad and pathetic and like my life wasn’t going to go anywhere. Now, I embraced the boredom.
“I’m home,” I said, as I let myself in.
There was no response. Mum and Dad were shouting at each other from the kitchen. I really needed a glass of water, but I just couldn’t face them, not tonight.