Control (Shift) (12 page)

I walked upstairs, my legs like jelly, to the top of the landing. As I walked past Katie’s room I heard a soft sobbing from inside.

I hesitated for a minute outside, letting my breathing calm down. She probably didn’t want me bothering her. She probably just wanted to get on with feeling miserable for herself. I know I would. But she was my little sister and I couldn’t just let her be alone.

I knocked softly.

“What?” Katie shouted.

I opened the door slightly and pushed my head in. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” she said in return.

There was no point in asking whether she was OK. Or if Mum and Dad were driving her mad. Of course she wasn’t. And of course they were.

“How was school?” I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

“Sucky.”

“What happened?” I sat on the side of her bed and picked up one of her teddy bears and stroked its ears.

“I got into St Francis.”

“What? I didn’t know you were applying.”

“Yeah, Mum made me. Went on and on about my future. So I sat the exam last week and got in.”

“That’s amazing.”

“Only they’re not giving full scholarships. Which means Mum and Dad will have to pay. Which is why they’re screaming at each other again.”

“Mum and Dad are screaming at each other because of Mum and Dad. They’d be screaming if you didn’t get in as well. I guess they just like to scream.” I took hold of her teddy’s arms and used it as a puppet version of Mum and Dad freaking out.

She laughed a little. “I don’t even want to go to that stupid school. Only weirdoes go there.”

“Hugo goes there,” I said.

“And?”

She had a point. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, you know?”

“Are you kidding me? They’ll make me. I’ll get the talk about not wasting my life like Dad from Mum and the one about not squandering my potential from Dad. I wish I’d never sat the stupid exam.” Katie scrunched up her eyes and clenched her fists hard. Like she was willing herself to undo the exam. Suddenly everything went quiet downstairs.

I felt a flutter in my stomach and looked at my little sister.

“Katie, did you just…”

It couldn’t be. Had my sister just Shifted?

“Did I just what?” she said, her big blue eyes clouded with tears.

I heard a thumping and Mum started yelling at Dad again.

“Nothing. Don’t worry.” My ability to sense Shifts was way off. Lucky I was a Fixer rather than a Spotter. I ruffled Katie’s hair and stood up. “I need a shower.”

“You’re telling me!”

I threw the teddy at her head. She caught it and squidged him under her chin. It reminded me of the yellow bunny from earlier. I wondered if the girl with the bunny mask still had it out there, somewhere.

“You can’t change it, you know?” I said.

“Change what?”

“Mum and Dad.”

Her forehead wrinkled and she scrunched up her little nose. “You’re so weird, Scott.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said as I closed her door behind me.

 

Back in my room, the buzzing in my head was louder than ever. How and why had Anderson tracked me down? What did he want, apart from spewing crazy stuff about witches and rainbows? And what did he want with Aubrey?

I kept hearing the name “Thomas Aubrey Jones” echoing in my head. What if… what if he hadn’t been lying?

I pushed a pile of folded clothes Mum must have left on my desk onto the floor, pulled my laptop out of my rucksack and ran a search for Thomas Aubrey Jones.

A file came up, with a picture of a young man wearing an ARES uniform. The picture must have been taken decades ago judging by the uniform and haircut. I looked at his dark hair, slicked over his forehead, his grey eyes, and imagined the face older, scarred and covered in dirt. It was just possible it was the man I’d met.

I slumped back in my chair. Had Aubrey’s dad really been a Shifter? It did run in families, I knew that much. Like Jake and Rosalie.

All of the information on Thomas Jones was redacted. Blacked out with a thick pen so all I could read was his name and rank: Mapper, Fifth Class. That was high ranking. I didn’t know anyone in ARES higher than Fourth.

“No,” I said out loud, shutting down the file. It couldn’t have been. The name Thomas Jones hadn’t been on the list of candidates for Project Ganymede. And I was almost certain I’d sensed the man in the alley Shift. Almost certain.

But maybe I’d been wrong. There’d been no register of the Shift. Maybe he’d just been able to move that fast naturally.

I dropped my head into my hands. Nothing was making any sense. On top of the mess in my head over the man in the alleyway, the memories of Vine as Prime Minister and the attack on the President were eating away like at me like a maggot.

To distract myself from stressing over Captain Thomas Jones, or whoever he really was, I pulled up another search: Benjamin Vine.

The files Aubrey and I had been looking at earlier appeared again. I enlarged a photo of Vine at a village fête, mentally layering the old image I had of him over the one on screen. The memory I had of him was of a stern man. Tired and worn out and always sad. But in this picture, as he held up what looked to be a Victoria sponge, he looked so happy.

I launched the file of Charlotte Vine and stared at the image of her on the edge of a cliff till I could see it when I closed my eyes.

Why wasn’t this enough for me? A good thing had happened and yet here I was picking at it like a scab. A dead girl had been brought back and was now living a life of meaning and value. A President had not been killed on foreign soil. Whoever had made the Shifts had brought about a better reality. Did I want to take that away just because I wanted things to stay as they were? Maybe Aubrey was right about Fixers being weird because we don’t like change.

She was right, I should just focus on the job at hand. Anderson. I should also tell Aubrey about how I’d met him. If that really was him.

I pulled out my phone, brought up her number, then stopped. What was I going to tell her? That a man claiming to be her father had turned up and told me she was dead.

If I called Aubrey at – I checked my watch – close on midnight, she’d freak. No, I’d have to wait. I’d tell her in the morning. I should just try to get some sleep and maybe everything would make sense tomorrow.

I closed down the computer, pulled off my clothes, and threw myself into bed.

“Green. Don’t forget green,”
the man’s voice echoed around my head.

As I lay there, the memory of another “green” came into my mind. Benjo Greene. The cannibal who’d been Abbott’s henchman, doing his dirty work for him. The man who’d tied me and Aubrey up and threatened to eat our brains.

I’d had my revenge on him, just like I had Abbott.

Bile rose in my mouth as I remembered the report from Greyfield’s – the photo of a charred body found strapped to a metal gurney. Mr Abbott, the head of the Regulators. The man I had killed. There was a second picture in the file Sir Richard had made me read, scouring my face for the slightest twitch that would give me away. The second picture was of the body of Sergeant Cain, a man who had been my teacher and friend and who had died trying to protect me.

I’d spent the first few weeks after the fire trying to find a way I could bring him back. Aubrey and I had talked it over and over, trying to find a Shift to undo. But anything we could think of would either end up with Aubrey being operated on or us never uncovering what had been going on.

“Cain wouldn’t have wanted that,” Aubrey had said. “He’d rather have died than that.” And I agreed.

Only two bodies had been recovered. Greene’s body had never been found. We’d assumed that it was because it had been burned up. All that fat would have made him go up like a candle. He was dead, I was certain of it. Certain.

I threw my arm over my face and willed myself asleep. Maybe by tomorrow I’d have forgotten all about Vine and the attack. And as for the man in the alley, well, I wouldn’t let him get away a second time.

I took a deep breath and tried to let it all go.

Half an hour later I was standing outside Benjo Greene’s building.

 

CHAPTER TEN

 

The building was covered with large stickers declaring it to be “dangerous” and “condemned”. I peered in through one of the broken windows and saw nothing but darkness inside. Nothing stirred. Not even a bird.

What had I been expecting, really? Benjo up on his sofa, tucking into a fresh brain dipped in mayonnaise? The man was dead. Coming here to an empty warehouse wasn’t going to make me any more sure of it. And yet, I’d had to come.

You’re an idiot, Tyler. What are you?
 

I leaned my head against the window and was about to Shift my decision to come here, when I heard a squeaking from inside the abandoned warehouse, the high-pitched sound carrying on the still night air. It had to be a mouse, or a rat. That place had to be filled with them. But if I just took a quick look inside…

I checked the street was empty and ducked under a strip of cordon tape, yanked aside a plank of wood covering over the doorway, and squeezed myself inside.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The only light in here was the shine of the moon breaking through from the gaps in the roof overhead. The old machinery and piles of rubbish I’d seen the last time I’d been here had been cleared. The warehouse was empty.

That was it. I was done. I closed my eyes and felt for the decision that led me here. With a thought I would be back in my bed and hopefully asleep.

“I wondered when you’d come looking for me.”

The shock of the voice made me jump so much, I almost fell over. I spun around to where the small, croaking whisper had come from. Out of the shadows stepped a man. At least, I thought it was a man.

He was a bag of flesh and bones. Even in the half-light I could see folds of skin hanging low on his cheeks. Only the black, button eyes looked familiar.

“Benjo?”

The last time I’d seen him he’d been munching his way through a table of surgical tools. It didn’t look as if the meal had agreed with him.

He must have lost at least twenty stone. Although it had left him with rolls of skin, now hanging empty around his body.

He chuckled, the sound a wet, horrible rattle in his throat. “Who else did you expect?”

“You escaped?” I said finally.

“No thanks to you,” he said. His voice was dry and speaking seemed to cause him pain. His dark eyes were madder than I’d ever seen them. “How did you do that to me? How did you make me do… those things? And poor Abbott. Perhaps I should have tried to save him. But the fire was so strong. He died screaming your name, Scott Tyler. Did you know that?”

Heat burned at my cheeks, but it wasn’t as bad as the ice in my stomach. Guilt.

“Where have you been for the last six months?” I asked, avoiding his question.

“Here. Hiding. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For you, my fresh Shifter. Only…” he sniffed at the air. “You’re not so fresh now, are you? Reckon that power of yours is running out. Tick tock. Tick tock.” He rocked his head back and forth, the action sending the flap of skin under his chin swaying. He stopped and smiled, his mouth a dark hole, then took a jerking step forward.

I fumbled inside my pocket for my phone. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe!” I shouted, suddenly realising I hadn’t actually planned for what I would do if I found Benjo.

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t put up a fight.” He stood with his hands by his sides, looking up at the holes in the roof.

I punched the number to speed dial ARES and the call was answered after two rings.

“Scott Tyler, Third Class. I need immediate assistance. Grouber & Sons Upholstery, East Street,” I said to the ARES receptionist on the other end of the phone.

“The Regulators will be with you in five minutes,” her soothing voice came over the phone. “Anything else I can help you with?”

I hung up.

“Third class? Impressive. I always knew you’d go places,” Benjo said, a small grin hitching up one side of his drooping mouth.

“Just shut up. Don’t say a thing.”

“Oh, but I’ve been so lonely. With no one here to talk to. Just me and my rats.” He held out the furry body of a rat. Small bites had been taken out of its stomach.

I turned away in disgust.

“Don’t look away, Scott Tyler. You did this to me. You,” he shouted, throwing the rat at my feet. “I’ve been forced to live off rat’s blood and marshmallows. Eating causes me pain. You’ve robbed me of my only pleasure.”

“If that means you can’t eat people’s brains any more, I don’t know if I feel too bad about it. You’re a killer, Benjo. And you expect me to feel sorry for you?”

Benjo snorted. “I would never expect someone like
you
to feel anything other than disgust. You were always so limited in your understanding.”

He was right. I did feel disgusted by everything he was and everything he’d done. But I felt sorry too. And terribly guilty as I looked at him, almost buried under the weight of all his useless skin.

“The Regulators are coming and we’re going to take you in and you’ll be punished for your crimes.”

“Good.”

I blinked, confused. “Good?”

“Yes. Good. It’s so cold here. And damp. And I can’t go anywhere without people pointing and screaming. No, a nice clean cell and soft, squidgy prison food… Yum, yum.” He said it with a glazed look on his face, as if he was describing a beach holiday.

I couldn’t quite believe that he was here. As much as I’d come here looking for him, I hadn’t actually believed I’d find him. I was coming just to put my mind at rest. Like when you worry you’ve left the iron on and you know, really, that you haven’t, but you just have to check. But it seems as if I had left it on after all. And maybe I’d found the answer to my questions right here.