Arcene: The Island (38 page)

"I told you before, this is not my fault. I have to get home. You think I can risk my life and leave my son without a mother? Should I do that, for you?"

"No."

"No. But... We would be grateful if you did. We are sorry, Arcene, so sorry. It's like I've been asleep my whole life, like something has been masking the truth, making me believe things I knew weren't quite right deep down. But now we have a chance to do something, to put it right. At last." Talia was reborn, strong and centered. Arcene liked what she saw.

"Okay, let's see how this goes then."

Arcene turned her attention back to the door. She peered through the glass partition and could see a platform and a train waiting. So close.

Should I do this? Am I mad for going back there? This isn't my fight, I should just turn around right now and leave.
She shook her head at the complex iris scanner lock, face a mask of indecision. Leel's hot breath tickled her nose she was so close. Leel whined and Arcene turned to her friend. "What, you think we should go back there?"

Woof!

"Okay, fine, but don't say I didn't warn you."

Woof, woof!

Arcene turned back to the door and stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth as silence enveloped her and she sank, once more, deep into the no place that was The Noise.

It felt different, not as welcoming as usual. Something wasn't right, a disturbance. Interference from outside forces trying to block the full power of what was available to Awoken when deep inside the Noise. Vorce.

Arcene struggled deeper, immersing herself in the very heart of the truth behind all reality. Energy, but more, swirled around her consciousness as she struggled down, like when she dove into the water and battled not to return to the surface. This was much harder, and the more she tried to enter the right mindscape, the harder it got.

All she wanted was the connection with the digital world, and finally she got it. Once more, binary code danced around her and flowed under her feet, a single current leading to the door, linking it to a remote server she didn't even bother to investigate. This was orders of magnitude harder than the previous lock, harder than corrupting regular data as what it was asking for was so complex.

She bent her head forward, eye closer to the reader, knowledge pouring into her. She looked behind the lock to discover what it wanted, at the impossibly complex configurations it required, waiting as if in a deep slumber, yet alert enough to take the information given in a moment and process it, deliver its verdict.

Arcene had been judged enough already and was in no mood for answering to a computer. She looked deeper still, into echoes of the past, code that floated in The Void like virtual ghosts of lives never lived, information fragments and binary deaths that never truly died, echoes always remaining somewhere, just more intangible as the memory of information faded.

Deeper, then at the bottom. Arcene was floating just above the bottom of a digital ocean, impossible pressure pushing down on her.

There was no easy escape from this virtual tomb, and all around her lay the broken fragments of 0s and 1s that could have been anything, were everything and nothing, waiting to be reborn as something new.

Corrupted eyeballs bobbed past her, broken eyes that saw nothing, milky white or putrid green, nightmare black or flayed flesh pink.

Shattered shards of past readings, a hundred ghosts of Vorce's unlocking of the door, forever fading but containing fragments of what the iris scanner wanted, hidden deep behind the unseeing virtual eye memories that could never be free from their unknowing existence.

Click.

Whoosh.
Warm air and a strong breeze greeted them as the door swung open.

Arcene collapsed against Leel, sending them both to the rough floor in a heap. Leel crawled out from under Arcene and stood over her, licked her face, eyes excited, waiting for the playful telling off. Nothing.

Leel whined.

Arcene breathed shallowly, face so pale her hair was dark in comparison. Blue veins throbbed gently under translucent skin.

Woof!

"What do we do?" Erato asked Talia nervously.

"I don't know, but we better do it fast. Look."

They turned. Black boots thumped on the steps, echoing across the open space.

"Vorce."

What Now?

"He's coming, he's coming. Hurry up. Quick, quick!" Talia was losing her newfound sense of strength and pride. Her head felt like it had cleared of fluff, like her life was a dream of a dream. None of it was real.

For a moment she had total clarity, and now it was all falling apart again, crashing down around her and they were seconds away from it all meaning nothing. She pulled harder on Arcene's arm, the hands childlike against her rough callouses from the work she seemed to be constantly involved in.

"I am hurrying. Pull harder. Leel, help us, girl. Can you do that?"

Woof.

Leel carefully grabbed a mouthful of leather strap that secured Arcene's sword to her back, and the three of them dragged her through the open doorway. Erato slammed it closed behind them and it clicked shut. It would buy them a second if they were lucky.

"What now?" asked Erato, eyes as wide as Talia's.

"On that, I guess. But I don't know how it works, do you?" Erato just looked at her like she was mad. "Right, of course you don't. But let's try anyway."

They dragged Arcene over to the single car train. Lights switched on as they moved, highlighting their way. As they got close, the train sprang to electronic life, the buzz of interior lights heard from the other side of the dark metal, an engine rumbling like an animal just waiting to get up and go.

Talia released her hold on Arcene and moved to what looked like a door. "There's a button or something, it's red."

"Well push it then, push it now!"

Talia slammed the heel of her hand into the button.

Whoosh.

The doors slid open. "Okay, get her inside. Leel, help us again, please."

Woof, woof.

Leel sat next to Arcene, guarding her.

"Um, I don't know what you are saying, but if you are asking if she will be okay, then yes, she will. As long as we get her out of here, and quick."

Woof!

Leel grabbed the strap and looked at Talia and Erato as if to ask what they were waiting for.

"Um, okay, let's do this." Erato grabbed an arm.

"And fast." Talia grabbed the other, and they spun Arcene around then bumped her over the divide between platform and train.

The moment Arcene's legs were inside, Talia punched the button on the other side of the open door, hoping it did what she expected.

With a squeal and a strange sucking noise the doors closed. Talia watched as the door into the station opened and a rather odd looking Vorce stepped through.

He wasn't running, didn't look unduly panicked, but was seemingly talking to himself as he rather strangely closed the door behind him as if he had all the time in the world.

What does he know? What is he doing? He seems so calm, but something is up. Why isn't he screaming and going mad at us? Doesn't he know what's about to happen? He doesn't care, he wants this.

Realization hit. He didn't know about the cameras. He was thinking they would all be exactly where he wanted them. Back on The Island, nowhere left to go.

"Vorce is in for a shock. He thinks he's won."

"Well he will if we don't get this thing going. Do you think it will just take off on its own or— Whoa!"

"It's going, it's going!" shouted Talia. "Hold on." Talia grabbed an overhead rail and clutched tightly, swaying side to side as the train picked up speed and an electric hum vibrated through the floor, making her feet feel strange.

Erato grabbed a rail too, and put a hand down to Leel to steady her.

Grrr.

"Um, okay, just trying to help."

"I think she's maybe a bit sensitive about being touched, just like Arcene."

Woof.

"Don't worry, Leel, I'm sure she will be fine." Talia glanced at Arcene, but she didn't look fine, far from it. Her face was still very pale and she was still out cold. Leel whined and bent her head as if listening for signs of life.

"I hope she comes round soon," said Erato. "I don't think Leel will be too happy being on The Island without Arcene awake. How long do you think this will take? I can't believe it, he's got transport. He can come and go as he pleases and he never said a thing."

"What's more incredible is that nobody ever thought about it. How is it possible for everyone to never question how he got to the mainland with people and weapons for The Hunt? We've all been so blind, so foolish." Now Talia thought about it the more absurd it seemed.

Every year he would go to the mainland and yet the discussions concerning how it was achieved always centered around mysterious currents that let him pass, or even magic. It was a huge talking point but nobody had ever, as far as she could recall, brought up the possibility that he had another means of going back and forth.

"I think Arcene was right. Vorce does something to us, to everyone, makes us kind of believe what he says, not question things logically. I feel like I've woken from a dream or something, like only now are things really coming clear. You?"

Talia nodded. "The same. It's been happening for a while and just keeps, um... It's hard to explain. It's like the tide comes in, goes out, and each time it leaves a little more behind. More clarity. Like I'm able to think properly for the first time."

"He manipulates us. Everyone. But how? We are Awoken, it shouldn't be possible."

"I've been thinking about that. It must be to do with when we are young. I bet he inserts something into our minds when we are children so it's always there, a part of us."

"And the Elders?"

Talia shrugged. "Don't know. Maye they are a part of it, or maybe they are just people he knew he could manipulate if the need arose. Erato, this is horrible. Cashae is dead, she was our friend for over a hundred years and now she's gone. How can life be taken away so easily?"

Erato put an arm on Talia's shoulder and tried not to wobble too much as the train jerked a little from side to side. "Me either. She was our best friend in the world, and he killed her. She was trying to save me, and he stabbed her like it meant nothing. And the Elders too, they are dead."

"They deserved it." Talia frowned. "Maybe."

"That's it though, isn't it? Did they? Or were they doing things they had no choice in? If Vorce manipulated us all then maybe they weren't like that really?"

"It's too late now, but we have to warn everyone, make it right. We can't let him carry on like this, we just can't."

"We won't. We'll finish this today no matter what. When we—"

Woof, woof, woof.

They turned at Leel's bark; she was staring at Arcene. Her eyes were open and she was struggling to sit up.

Woof!

"Hey, Leel, how you doing, girl?"

Woof.

"Haha, I'm pleased to see you too. Um, are we there yet?"

"Not quite," said Talia. "I don't know how long it will take. We have no idea where The Island is, so it could take hours."

"Ugh, my head feels funny." Arcene shook, grabbed Leel's collar and pulled herself to her feet. "I think I've had enough of the digital world for a while. Immersed in it makes you lose yourself. And I doubt it will take long. He wouldn't have built it too far out to sea, and besides, it would only take a few hours to get to France, so it can't be that long a ride."

"France?" asked Erato.

Arcene looked at him strangely. "Yeah, you know, the country that's just across the Channel from us. Seriously, nothing?" Arcene looked from one to the other.

Talia finally understood the extent of the gaps in their schooling.

"Wow, what have you been learning for the last hundred plus years?"

"I think I'd like to find that out too. I get the feeling there's rather a lot about this world we know nothing of." Talia felt like a child in front of Arcene. Such a long life yet she knew less of the world then this girl who was barely a woman. No, that was unfair. Arcene was strong and smart. Cheeky, yes, but she was saving them, saving them from not only Vorce but themselves. She was their hope, their salvation, and she would not let Vorce harm her.

"Thanks," said Arcene with a smile, the color returning as much as it ever did.

"For what?"

"For saving me back there. I think I entered The Noise one time too many without resting and it didn't go well. Probably need some food. Um, maybe later," said Arcene hurriedly, as if thinking about what happened the last time she ate on The Island.

"Haha, don't worry, once this is over we will have a feast and you really can eat as much as you wish."

"Um, I think I'll pass."

Talia noted the shock on Arcene's face at her own words. She got the feeling it wasn't often Arcene turned down food. What did that say about her and her people, when someone trying to save them was still wary of their hospitality? That they had a lot to make up for, and it would begin today.

Well, happy birthday, Talia. It's a year you will never forget, that's for sure. If you survive.

Strangely Comfortable

In a matter of minutes, the train shuddered to a halt. The lights dimmed, the engine hissed and ticked and then there was silence. The three people looked at each other, knowing there was a little time. They had the train, and if Vorce walked it would take him hours.

"How does this work?" asked Arcene.

"What do you mean?" asked Talia.

"I mean the train. How did you get it to leave the station and come here? How does Vorce call it back? Can we stop it?"

Talia looked blank and turned to Erato for help. "Don't ask me, I've got no idea. Talia just pressed the button and the doors opened, we pulled you in, she pressed this button here and—"