“I think you look cute,” I said. And then instantly regretted it when she scowled at me.
“Keep up!” I shouted at the cadets behind us, quickly changing the subject.
We’d taken the Tube and were now crossing Tower Bridge, the Shard glinting at us on the other side of the Thames. I’d wanted to walk the whole way, not being the biggest fan of the Underground network since almost being blown up on a Tube last year, but Aubrey had said it was too far for the kids. Sir Richard, meanwhile, would be arriving ahead of us by limo. Way to build morale, I thought. I’d only just stopped sweating from the unpleasant journey.
“What do you think he will be like?” CP asked, catching up with us.
We’d brought her, Max and two new cadets along.
“The Prime Minister?” Aubrey said. “I don’t know. Paranoid? He sees danger everywhere, even at ARES. Someone said it’s because of what happened to his daughter.”
“What happened to her?” CP asked.
“She died on a school trip a few years back,” Aubrey said. “Although he said her death is what drove him into politics. To try and make the country a better place in her name. So, you know…”
We stopped talking as a family of tourists passed by, snapping pictures every few steps. They pointed at us in our blue uniforms and started waving their cameras at us.
“Picture?” the mother said. “Take picture?”
Aubrey plucked the camera out of the woman’s hands and threw it over the bridge, without even breaking her stride. We all gasped as it fell into the Thames below.
“Aubrey!” I said. The mother and daughter had started crying and the father looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to jump in after the camera or jump on us.
“Oh, alright,” she said.
A Shift later and we were posing for the tourists, unhappy grins on our faces. When they were finally satisfied we carried on walking.
“So, you two want in on the book I’m running on Sir Richard?” Max said, reaching into his jacket to pull out a small notebook.
“What’s the bet this week?” Aubrey said.
“I can give you twenty to one on a stroke. Fifteen to one on a heart attack,” Max said.
“Don’t,” CP said. “He cheats.”
“I do not,” Max said, aghast at the insult.
“You keep moving things in his room, just to tip him over the edge.”
“Can I help it if he freaks just because his paperweight isn’t in the same place he left it and he can’t work out why?” Max said, with a devilish grin. I wouldn’t trust Max as far as I could throw him. And given his recent growth spurt, that wasn’t very far at all.
“Well, you know what Fixers are like,” said Aubrey. “Nuts the lot of em. They can’t handle change.”
“Oi!” I said. “I’m a Fixer.”
“And your point?” Aubrey said.
The kids laughed and I was about to put them all in their place with a devastating retort when everything flipped. There was that now all too familiar feeling of being caught between two realities and suddenly we weren’t walking across Tower Bridge. We were all stood in front of a huge golden pyramid. I looked around and tried to get my bearings. The Thames. St Paul’s. We were still in pretty much the same location, but I didn’t know this building.
It wasn’t as tall as the Shard had been. But it was wider and made entirely from gold-tinted glass. I couldn’t see anything inside as the glass was completely mirrored. I saw my shocked face reflected back in one of the panes.
Sir Richard was standing on my right, with Aubrey, CP and two of the other kids on my left. But Max was missing and in his place, standing with a huge grin on his face, was Jake. He was in uniform, just like the rest of us. Although it was the everyday uniform: the one without the too-tight collars and mass of gold braiding. And he was wearing trainers, something that had most definitely not been allowed under Sir Richard’s titan rule.
“Jake,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Huh?” he said, looking up at me. He’d grown a few inches since I’d last seen him, and his previously soft face was starting to develop strong cheekbones like his sister. A few more years and he’d be breaking hearts. “I’m here to meet the Prime Minister, Scott. You know? Like all of us.”
I spun around and pointed at the bloody great pyramid.
“What happened to the Shard? What’s that thing doing there?”
“What?” Aubrey said, looking up at me puzzled.
“The Shard. Tallest building in Europe. Great big pointy thing. It was right here!”
Aubrey looked worried. She pulled me away from Sir Richard and the rest of the group. “Scott, are you having a reality attack?”
“I don’t know. I know I didn’t Shift. But someone else must have.”
Aubrey went to speak, but stopped as a long silver car pulled up next to us. “Just keep it together. We’ll talk about it later,” she said through clenched teeth.
The car doors opened and a young man, with slick brown hair and impossibly white teeth stepped out. He smiled up at the golden pyramid and gave a few waves to photographers who were standing behind cordon tape along with a crowd of people. Two men in black suits exited the car and came to stand by his side, eyes darting left and right.
Sir Richard stepped forward and stretched out a hand to welcome this man I’d never seen before. They shook hands and the man patted Sir Richard warmly on the arm. He then turned to us and smiled, his too-large teeth glinting in the sun. “And you must be the gifted children I’ve heard so much about,” he said, putting deliberate stress on the word “gifted”.
Maybe he was an advisor or something, checking us out before the Prime Minister turned up.
“Yes,” Sir Richard said quickly. “Let me introduce you to the children of ARES. Children, let me introduce you to James Miller, the Prime Minister.”
“Prime Minister?” I gasped looking up at the grinning buffoon. “But you’re not the Prime Minister.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was an uncomfortable silence as Sir Richard and Aubrey gawked at me. Then the man started laughing. Sir Richard picked up his cue and started laughing as well. Followed by the men in black suits.
“Children, hey?” Sir Richard said, patting me on the shoulder so hard it felt as if he was trying to crush my collarbone.
The blow actually helped a bit as the jigsaw started to reveal itself. The man flashing a dazzling smile at the press was indeed the Prime Minister. He’d been voted in last year and was proving pretty popular. Especially with the female voters. Personally, I thought he was a bit of a git.
And yet I still remembered the old guy so clearly. He’d not been so popular. His grey hair and sullen smile didn’t play well with the voters. It didn’t play with anyone at ARES either. He’s been the one who’d put the agency on lockdown: introducing all the security; bringing the NSOs in; insisting on complete containment. He was paranoid about everything.
Someone had Shifted and the world had changed: all these new events rippling out from that one moment. Only I had no idea who or why.
I had to concentrate to hold onto the previous reality, which was the very thing I was trained not to do. Fighting against the current of a new version of the present could lead to a reality attack. And that could be bad news. I’d interviewed a Shifter, a kid who was only about eight, who suffered so badly from a reality attack after a Shift that he’d been locked up in a mental home. I worried that that’s where I’d end up one day too.
I didn’t know why I had this weird ability to remember alternatives for longer and stronger than anyone else. Most people just held onto glimpses, echoes, that they quickly dismissed. With me, the old reality didn’t fade that easily. Sometimes, it was like waking up and not being sure if what you’d dreamt was real. It could take me days to sort through versions, finding places for all my memories. While for everyone else it just happened instinctively. A touch of
déjà vu, maybe. A shiver down the spine as if someone had walked over your grave. And that was it. They just accepted the new reality as quickly as the old one collapsed. But not me. I had a serious problem with letting go. I’d never told anyone this, even Aubrey, but I felt this weird sort of responsibility, as if someone had to hold on to the old realities. If only just to understand why they’d come about.
I could feel the two versions of “now” fighting for place in my head. I wanted to hold on to both of them. The problem was, when a reality is shared by lots of people, it’s so much easier to accept. The personal stuff, things that just happened to me or people I cared about, that I could hold on to for as long as I wanted. Much longer than I wanted in a lot of cases. But when it was something big, something public, when there were so many people observing the event, so many ropes pinning it in place, it became irresistible. And there wasn’t anything much more public than a Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister stopped laughing and stretched out his hand to shake mine. I started to panic. If I shook his hand, it would make him real and harder to remember what had happened. I had to leave myself a message. Something that would put a pin in the old reality so I could work out if this new one was the better. I could hardly write myself a note. I looked at the guards in their black suits and wondered how they would react if I suddenly reached inside my jacket.
His hand was uncomfortably close now. I bit down on my lip. Hard. And tasted the coppery tang of blood. When my lip throbbed later it would remind me. I told myself over and over. Blood equals Shift. Blood equals wrong.
I reached out and shook the Prime Minister’s hand. He had a firm shake and surprisingly cold hands. As his fingers closed over mine I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was feeling so unsettled. He oozed natural charisma and it was clear why he’d won the election so easily. No, I was worrying for nothing. Not that I could even remember what there had been to worry about.
“Good to meet you…?” Miller said.
“Scott, Scott Tyler,” I said.
“And you are?” he said, letting go of my hand and turning to Aubrey.
“Aubrey Jones.”
“Wonderful. And hello you, little scamp,” he said, ruffling Jake’s hair. He half turned to Sir Richard and didn’t bother to lower his voice. “I’ll have to get a picture with this one later. Ethnics play well with my demographics.” He wiped his hand on his trousers. “So about this power, this… sifting?” he said, as Aubrey and I stood looking at him open-mouthed. That’s probably why I was so anxious earlier. He was a slippery git. But weren’t all politicians?
“Shifting,” Aubrey corrected him.
“Shifting, right. From what I’ve been told, you can undo any decision?”
“Pretty much,” Aubrey said, her jaw tight.
“I have to say, I’m a little annoyed that no one told me about this before.” He waggled a finger at Sir Richard. “But no matter. I know about you now. You kids should come in quite handy.”
“We try and just keep them out of sight and out of trouble, Prime Minister. Controlled and regulated,” Sir Richard said, sounding uncertain. “It’s what ARES was set up to do.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s right. And you’re doing a fine job of it, I’m sure.” Miller slapped Sir Richard on the arm. “Old Oxford boy, like myself.”
Sir Richard forced a smile.
Old
? Miller couldn’t be much older than forty.
“So, only children have this ability?” Miller said, looking back down at Jake.
“Yes!” Sir Richard said, a little too quickly. Clearly Miller had not been briefed on Project Ganymede.
“Shame. Shame. Can you imagine it?” he said, looking wistful. “Changing any decision. I mean, the women alone…”
I saw Aubrey’s fists tighten. If he wasn’t the Prime Minister, I was pretty sure Miller would have found himself on the receiving end of a Jones special. “We try and use it for more important stuff, sir,” she said.
“Oh, yes, quite right too. Quite right. It’s just…”
Before he had a chance to finish, a second limo pulled up next to the first.
The doors opened and four kids who didn’t look older than ten or eleven piled out. They wore green suits with high collars and small peaked caps with a red symbol on the brim that I couldn’t quite make out. They had the glazed expression of a Shifter weighing up their options. They were scanning the area, taking everything in. After a moment, in which the Prime Minister rocked back and forth on his feet, and Sir Richard clenched and unclenched his fists, the children stepped aside and a small, elderly man, dressed in a simple blue suit with a high collar, slowly eased himself out of the car. Two men dressed in simple black suits, both of whom had suspicious bulges under their left arms, then stepped out of the front. The President of China wasn’t taking any chances.
Miller stepped forward and introduced Sir Richard. President Tsing nodded slightly then stretched out his hand. Sir Richard took it and the two men shook. Although I noticed it wasn’t Sir Richard’s usual knuckle-crushing affair.
President Tsing then turned and walked towards us. He stopped in front of Aubrey and me, and bowed slightly. Not sure what to do, I bowed in return. The rest of the kids followed my example.
“I am interested to see what your ARES Guards are capable of,” Tsing said, turning back to the PM. “I had thought that only China had children with this special power.”
“Ha! No, of course not. Yes, these kids from ARES play a crucial role in protecting our fair nation. As I am sure do your
Banjo Gongy
,
” the PM said. I winced hearing his terrible pronunciation.
“
Banjai Gonsi
,
” the President said. “It means Little Guards. And these little guards have saved my life more times than I care to remember.” He smiled down at the boy next to him, who clasped his right fist in his left hand and bowed. The President rested a hand on his shoulder and the boy righted himself.