I pushed through the crowd, making way for Aubrey behind me, waving at a few familiar faces as I passed, before finally reaching the bar.
Rosalie was on duty, wearing her tight ringmaster’s outfit, complete with small top hat and fishnet stockings. She was holding her hand up to her ear to listen to orders being shouted at her. I waved and caught her eye.
“Hey, guys,” she said, hopping up on the bar to give Aubrey and then me a kiss on the cheek. “Two cokes, right?” she said pointing at us.
“Actually, I think I need something a bit stronger,” I said, rubbing at the sticky wetness her kiss had left behind.
“You got any ID?” she asked.
“Oh, come on, Rosalie. Don’t be like that. It’s us,” Aubrey said.
“And I’m eighteen in a few months,” I said.
“Besides, we really need it.”
“Crappy day?” Rosalie asked.
“You have no idea,” Aubrey said.
“And I don’t ever want to,” she said, holding her hand up. “Every time I think about the stuff they put Jakey through… I’m just glad I pulled him out.”
“Shame Jake wasn’t so pleased,” I said, under my breath, assuming she wouldn’t hear me over the noise of the bar. I was wrong.
Rosalie scowled and threw a soggy beer mat at me. “Don’t you start! You’re the one who got him put into solitary with that stunt you pulled at the horse races.”
We’d found number two working at a horse track, gaming the betters and scamming the trainers. Jake and I had come up with a plan to catch him out, which included Jake posing as a jockey.
“I had no idea he’d actually end up winning the race,” I said. “Or that Sir Richard would be in the royal box with the Prince and the Prime Minister.”
Rosalie made a dismissive snorting noise and grabbed a bottle and two shot glasses from the bar. She hovered the bottle over the glass. “This could cost me my licence, you know? But you get one shot, OK? Just one. As long as you promise never to try and drag Jake back into the agency.”
I reluctantly nodded my agreement and Aubrey and I threw back the shots. The heat of the alcohol burned my throat and settled in my stomach. I shuddered.
“Just tell Jake that CP says hi. And she misses him.”
“Maybe.” Rosalie joined us in downing a shot, then returned the bottle to the shelf before heading off to go and serve her customers.
Aubrey and I headed for the stairs to the mezzanine level that looked down on the dance floor. It was where the clubbers came to get a break from the noise, but mostly to get off with each other. We found ourselves a place in the corner and sat down. Aubrey leant her head against my shoulder and we stayed like that for a bit, just watching the legs of people moving around us.
I buried my nose in her tangle of blonde hair and breathed in the smell of vanilla and the apple tang of her new shampoo.
“I know I keep saying this,” she said. “But I’m serious about after we find Anderson.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, lifting my head to look at her.
“Quitting ARES. I want a life, Scott. A real life. And maybe some fun before entropy kicks in.” She took my hand between hers, and started drawing patterns on my palm.
“So, why wait? Why not quit now?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Unfinished business, I guess.”
I’d been so caught up in my own need for closure I’d hardly stopped to think about everything Aubrey had been through. Being drugged and kidnapped by Abbott, nearly being lobotomised. What kind of boyfriend was I?
“I’m so sorry, Aubrey,” I said, holding her hand tightly. “I keep thinking back, wondering if there was a way I could have stopped it all from happening. A Shift I could make.”
“But if you did that, we’d never have found out what they were up to. Plus, maybe you and I would never have been.” She raised my hand to her lips and kissed each of my knuckles in turn. “It worked out for the best. It always does.”
“For us, anyway,” I said, thumbing her cheek. “Not so much for Zac.”
Aubrey stiffened and pulled her hand away. “Zac has only himself to blame. He had a choice: go straight or…”
“Go straight to prison, do not pass go,” I said.
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
That bubble of jealousy made a full comeback. “About you and Zac?”
Aubrey rolled her eyes. “I was wondering when we’d get to this.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Just tell me. Were you and him… a thing?”
Aubrey leant back. “Are you asking me if I ever slept with Zac?”
I coughed. “Well, not exactly. But did you?”
Aubrey gasped, her mouth making a perfect “O”. “Of course not.”
“Oh, good. So, what did you do then?”
“Stop it, Scott. You don’t want to know.”
I really did want to know. “You can tell me. I’ll be OK with it.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, trying to reassure her that whatever she had to say would be OK. Even though I was dreading the answer.
“Nothing ever happened with us. Well…”
“Well, what?” Her pause was enough to make the blood drain from my head.
“There was this night, when Zac had just got hold of the simulators and we messed around with them. We did some stuff. But it wasn’t real, you know?”
That’s what Aubrey kept saying about the sims. That whatever you experienced while hooked up wasn’t real. But Zac had said they were as real as it gets. I twisted away from her, trying not to think about the kinds of stuff she and Zac might have got up to.
“Scott, look at me.” It was a struggle but I managed to face her again.
“It was nothing. I was a stupid kid who wanted to try everything, experience everything just once. And the sims seemed a good way to do that. But it just felt… fake. What we have, Scott, you and me,” she rested her hand on my chest and I could feel my heart pound beneath it, “is real. More real and more intense than anything I ever experienced while hooked up to a bunch of wires. OK?”
I placed my hand over hers, not wanting her to go anywhere. Not wanting this moment to end. “OK,” I said, after a while.
She smiled at me and rested her head on my shoulder again. I reached into my pocket. There was something I’d been carrying around for weeks, waiting for the right time to give to Aubrey. I pulled my hand out. It could wait.
“Aren’t you worried about people seeing us?” I said, nudging her slightly.
“Screw ‘em,” she said, entwining her fingers between mine.
“But I thought you were embarrassed to be seen with me?”
Aubrey laughed and looked up at me. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I understand, honestly. I mean,
I’m
embarrassed to be seen with me most of the time.”
Aubrey shook her head a little and smiled at me. “Oh, Scott. Have you seen you?”
I chewed my cheek as I looked at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes,” she said, leaning in for a gentle kiss. “And that’s exactly how I want to keep it.”
She kissed me again and the world melted away. All the worries about Project Ganymede, about the Prime Minister’s visit tomorrow, all of it disappeared as I drew her into me. Nothing was too much to deal with as long as I was with Aubrey.
I felt a buzzing in my jacket and tried to ignore it. But Aubrey pushed me away gently. “It might be HQ,” she said.
I checked my phone. It was a text from Katie.
MUM AND DAD ARE AT IT AGAIN. WHEN ARE YOU COMING HOME?
“Everything OK?” Aubrey asked.
“Yeah, it’s just Katie. I should probably head back. Sounds like she’s having a rough one.”
“Your parents? Things between them still not going well?”
“Not so much. At least they spend less time shouting at each other and more time doing that frosty silence thing that’s so much fun to live with. They can go for days without saying a word to each other, using Katie and me as their messengers. They’re like kids. Only most kids have more sense.”
“I’m sorry. It must be hard.”
“I just wish they’d have the balls to get it over with and get a divorce. It’s not like they love each other. They’re just together out of, I don’t know, fear? Habit? It sure isn’t for Katie and me as we’ve told them enough times we’d be happier if they split up.”
“You should move out. Then you wouldn’t have to put up with them.”
“I don’t think I can leave Katie alone to deal with all that. She’s still just a kid.”
“A kid who can kick your arse though,” Aubrey said, laughing.
Aubrey had come round to see my house and Katie had insisted on giving us a demonstration of what she’d learned at kickboxing that week. With me as the test subject. I’d ended up flat on my back and Aubrey had laughed louder and longer than I’d ever seen her laugh. Naturally she’d become Katie’s instant hero.
“You know, you can always crash at mine, I mean, if you need,” Aubrey said, looking down at her hands.
That was the first time Aubrey had mentioned me staying over since we’d started going out. And it was so loaded with possibilities that I felt my mouth go dry.
Before I could think of anything to say that wouldn’t utterly kill the moment, my phone buzzed again.
OMG. IT’S THE XMAS PARTY THING. AGAIN. KILL ME.
“You really should go.”
“Katie’s a big girl. She’ll be fine,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. “About this crashing at yours…”
Aubrey laughed and pushed me away. “Get going. Oh and Scott,” she said, as I reluctantly started to get up. “No girl would be embarrassed to be seen with you. Get it?” She pulled me in for a last, long kiss and my stomach danced faster than the people downstairs.
The first thing I heard as I let myself into my house was Katie laughing. I stopped in the hallway, without saying a word, just to listen to it. High-pitched and breathless, with a slight piggy snort, which I used to make fun of. It had been so long since I’d heard it. The rest of the house was empty and dark. So unless Katie was chatting with Mum and Dad, which was unlikely, she had a friend over.
Then I heard a second familiar laugh.
“What the…” I said, running up the stairs.
I opened the door to Katie’s bedroom but it was empty. The laughter started up again. It was coming from my room.
I threw open the door to find Katie sat cross-legged on the floor, a game controller in her lap, and Hugo, my old best friend from school, sitting on my bed.
“Scotty! My man,” he shouted as I stood in the doorway trying to work out what was going on. I gave up trying.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Well, I came over here as I thought it would be harder to avoid me in person like you’ve been avoiding all my calls…” He looked at me over the top of his glasses, fixing me with a disapproving glance. “Only you weren’t in. Surprise, surprise. I was about to walk all the way home on my own, in the dark, when Katie suggested I come in and wait, as you’d just told her you were on your way.”
Katie held up her mobile phone, displaying my last text to her as proof.
“And we got to talking about her kickboxing, and while I agreed that she could easily beat me up for real…” Katie nodded at this statement, “I told her that no one could beat me on
Fists of Rage III
, the classic video game. Only it turns out I was wrong. What’s the score now, Katie?”
“Two one, to me.”
“Hmm, right then. Well, I went easy on you on that last round,” Hugo said. “This time, prepare to reap the whirlwind.”
Katie started up the game again and in seconds the two of them were bashing away on the controllers. I sat down next to Hugo on my bed, slipping off my jacket and shoes. It had been a long day. A long couple of days.
“Where are Mum and Dad?”
“Dad went to the pub. Mum’s in the shed. Take that!” Katie said, not taking her eyes off the screen.
I craned my neck to see out of my window, which looked onto the garden below. The small windows of the shed were glowing and I could see Mum moving about inside. She’d be taking her frustration out on some innocent lump of clay.
“No!” roared Hugo. “You cheated. Scott, you have your controllers set up weird.”
“Yeah, sure,” Katie said. “Blame the controller, Hugo.”
“OK, well, I was going easy on you playing as the Enforcer. But no one, no one can beat me when I play as Ra.” He exited the game and flicked through the characters, stopping on a girl with black and red hair, enormous eyes and a ludicrous sexy nun’s outfit. He hit “select” and she made a worrying grunting noise and punched the air.
“Get ready to be crushed,” Hugo said, grabbing a fistful of air.
Katie snorted her derision. “OK, Ra. But I need a drink. You want one?” I looked at her in confusion. She’d never offered to get me a drink before and I can’t remember the last time I’d seen her smiling this much.
“I’m fine,” I said, smiling back.
“I’d murder a cup of tea. White with two sugars, if that’s not too much trouble. And then… we fight.” Hugo said.
Katie skipped off laughing.
“She’s never made me a cup of tea, you know?”
“That’s because you, Scotty boy, don’t have my way with the ladies.”
“Knock it off! That’s my sister you’re talking about.”
Hugo shrugged, as if he was helpless to control his power.
I let it slide. “It’s good to see her laughing. Thanks.”
“Hey, it’s been fun. Looks like you could do with a few laughs yourself.”
I sighed, and leaned back against my bedroom wall, the poster of a Manga robot crumpling behind my head. “I know. It’s…”
“Work. I get it. You’re out there in the big world, now, you don’t have time for us silly school kids.”
“No, Hugo. It’s not like that at all.” He raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Honestly,” I said. “It’s just all so… real.”
He fiddled with the controller for a bit.
“Did I tell you that St Francis’ are letting in girls?”