Disrupted (14 page)

“It’s a conspiracy,” declared Jazz.

“It’s not a conspiracy,” said Serena, rolling her eyes.

“Drustan’s not missing,” I assured them. “But we can’t return to his apartment right now and we don’t know how else to communicate with him. Gale must have trusted you—”

“Of course she trusts us,” said Dawn.

I gave Dawn my best smile. “Can you help us?”

“Dr. Stanton,” said Jazz, jumping up from the chair. “She’ll know.”

“Do you mind?” snapped Serena, bringing their body down into the chair again with a thump. “We don’t have to go this very second. Dawn hasn’t even had her tea yet.”

“Serena’s always been a little afraid of Dr. Stanton,” Dawn told me.

“I’m not afraid,” said Serena. “I just don’t like the woman, that’s all.”

“Who is Dr. Stanton,” asked Chris, coming to join me in front of the triplet.

“She runs the damn city,” sniped Serena. “Thinks she owns it too.”

“Actually,” said Dawn, “she does own Remnant City.”

To us, she added, “Dr. Stanton expanded the Institute to house those of us who couldn’t be integrated into society. Over time, a few houses grew into a few rows of houses and here we are.” She threw her arms out.

I cleared my throat. Looked at Marlin’s three-in-one mum. And groaned. “This institute, it wouldn’t happen to be some or other genetic research facility, would it?”

“Used to be,” answered Jazz. “Nowadays it’s mainly a clinic.”

“And Dr. Stanton knows Callum Jade?” said Chris.

I knew at once where he was going with this. Was not surprised to find out that, “Yes, certainly, they’re the best of friends.”

Considering everything Drustan had told us, even my scant imagination had no trouble making the leap. Put institute, doctor and three-headed triplet into one sentence and what do you get? Remnant City, of course. A hideout for the genetic throwbacks of some mad doctor’s foul experiments.

My earlier enthusiasm for genetic engineering, stamping, genetic anything, really, was on the wane.

“Toss up between the evil scientist and evil aliens,” Chris said quietly to me. And he wasn’t making a joke of it.

He also sounded as if he’d rather take his chances with the Razoks.

I was searching my brain for a convincing argument (because, honestly, what was done was done, and it wasn’t as if this Dr. Stanton was going to zap us into a three-headed toad- I hoped,) when he totally surprised me by saying, “I want to meet Dr. Stanton. Where is she?”

“Probably sitting on her throne,” smirked Serena, “ordering her minions about.”

“Oh, hush,” said Dawn.

“Dr. Stanton’s not like that at all,” Jazz told us. “Now drink your tea, Dawn, or Serena will keep us in this blasted chair forever.”

“I’ll take them, ma,” offered Marlin.

“What a wonderful idea,” gushed Serena, and sealed it with, “Marlin seldom gets a chance to spend time with kids his age.”

And it was settled.

Chris and Clarrie walked on ahead and I took Gale back from Marlin. They were talking in low undertones as well, and I wondered how much, or little, Chris was divulging. They paused just inside the door, though, to let Marlin and me out first.

The street had come alive while we were inside, and it was like the tent flap had been raised on an olden days circus freak-show.

Marlin heard my gasp of surprise (and horror) and said, “We’re a little shy of strangers. Dr. Stanton has the perimeter rigged to alert us when land hoppers approach. Don’t happen often, not much out this way for visitors.”

I gave Marlin a sideways look. “It must be harsh for you, living here, growing up here.”

He shrugged. “It’s what I knows. It’s not difficult.”

My gaze landed on a couple strolling towards us. The man was tall and thin, but he looked normal enough, until he lifted a hand to wave.

“Hi there, Marlin, alright?”

Marlin grunted at the man.

I didn’t have time to count, but there were definitely a couple of fingers too many. The woman walking beside him had two separate chins and a forehead that was so long and flat, she reminded me of a warped cartoon character. There was a pretty girl who wore a brightly coloured mini-skirt that barely skimmed her three thighs. And the man with three sets of ears either side his head.

It struck me that there always seemed to be more rather than less.

By the time we turned a corner right at the bottom of the hill to follow the road along the beach, I was firmly on Serena’s side. How could I like Dr. Stanton, when she’d messed up all these people?

“There must be a lot of resentment here for Dr. Stanton,” I said aloud. “She’s caused so much misery.”

“Dr. Stanton is a god,” contradicted Marlin. “Don’t go blabbing about stuff you don’t know. Dr. Stanton has saved every life you see here.”

I don’t know how that was supposed to make me feel better. Referring to a mortal being as a god was just plain devil incarnate spooky.

Chapter 15

T
he Institute was visible to the eye as soon as we rounded the corner. A sprawling single-story white building set almost on the sand. The walls were brick and white plaster. The only windows were narrow slits and placed too high to peer inside. I’d half expected a hi-tech towering glass structure overlooking a paved plaza with palm trees and marked parking bays. I’d got the equivalent of a communal beachside changing room, only much bigger and without the mandatory graffiti.

Weird.

It took us another fifteen-minutes fast walking to reach the main entrance. The front door had a complicated buzzer system, but Marlin seemed to know his way around it. He punched in a few numbers, and then we waited.

“S’pose she’s not in,” he said after a while.

“What’s happening?” asked Chris as he and Clarrie caught up to us.

“God’s on a break,” I said scornfully, and then interpreted with a sigh, “Dr. Stanton doesn’t appear to be in right now.”

“Maybe we could wait for her on the beach,” said Clarrie. She looked pale and cheerless. “I could do with a rest.”

“You shouldn’t stay,” said Chris softly. “I can walk you back to your hopper.”

Clarrie gathered the silky folds of her hair into a twist at the back of her head and tied a knot into them. “Why wouldn’t I stay?”

“Come on, Clarrie. You know everything now. There’s no reason for you to be in the middle of this mess with us. I want you to go home.”

“I’ll tell you what’s messed up,” stormed Clarrie, sounding not the least bit in need of rest. “You should have told me before—before everything.”

“How could I?” flung back Chris. “You’d have thought us nutters.”

“Perfect. That’s exactly what I should have been left to think.” She cut herself off on a ‘humph’ and marched onto the pebble beach.

Chris looked at me.

I rolled my eyes. “Go after her, you idiot.”

Okay, that’s not exactly the first suggestion that came to mind.

There’d been, ‘She’s a piece of work, isn’t she? Let her just get on with it.’

And, my personal favourite, the sneaky, ‘She’ll be fine, Chris. She’ll sulk around a bit and then leave in a fit or something if you ignore her. That’s for the best, isn’t it? It’s not safe for her to be here.’

I’m not entirely sure why I chose option three. Yeah, Chris, go after her.

Well, he did go after her. Somewhat hesitantly.

I turned on Marlin irritably. “Try the buzzer again.”

“What’s the hurry?”

I didn’t answer. I slumped down on the ground, put my back to the front door and dropped Gale into my lap. And then I watched Chris and Clarrie walk down to the water’s edge.

No hurry at all, I thought grumpily, I could spend all day sitting here, watching them make up.

Or make out, I corrected, as Clarrie’s arms slid around Chris’s neck.

Gosh, that didn’t take long, did it?

And this time Chris was less tree and all fumbling hands. No, not fair. His arms went around her waist, pulling her ever so gently closer as he dipped his head to deepen the kiss. Apparently he was a fast learner.

Or maybe he was more experienced than I’d thought.

I already knew Chris was more than the boy with a library tucked under his arm. Okay, he was as crap at flirting as I’d always suspected. But he was also brave enough to go fist to fist with Jack. Loyal enough to stand up for and protect that same heart-stabbing ex-friend. Fit enough to out run the Razoks without breaking into a sweat. The prime athlete kind of fit that suggested not all his hours were buried in books and studying.

I tingled at the memory of muscle sliding beneath me. But I could tingle all I want, it wasn’t happening for Chris and me.

Not like it was happening for Chris and Clarrie.

The waves lapped teasingly near their feet. The sun sat low in the sky, shading a hazy glow of oranges and pinks to create a stunning backdrop. The universe had conspired to bring these two lovers together, I thought with bitter sarcasm, and nature was giving her nod of approval.

The sarcasm didn’t help.

Chris was proud and stubborn at the most impossible times, I reminded myself desperately. Rude and nasty when I least deserved it.

Kind and compassionate when I least deserved it, but most needed it. He was also seriously cute, once one made the effort to notice.

An ache started low in my tummy, and ground its way all the way up until it reached the epicentre of my new push-up bra. For all the good it’d done me.

The kiss ended.

And then everything got that much worse.

Chris threw his one arm over Clarrie’s shoulder, tucked her close into his side, and there they stood, with their backs to me and the world, gazing out upon the sea.

Why did it hurt so much? I mean, I wasn’t in love with Chris. At most, I might fancy him a bit, might imagine what the odd kiss would be like now and then.

I snapped my eyes down to Gale, refusing to subject myself to pain I couldn’t even explain. Her one arm had fallen aside, exposing the blinking cursor.

On. Off. On. Off. Chris. And. Clar. Rie. Sit. Ting. In. A. Tree.

CC. That’s how they’d be known back home. Not Biggs Hill home. My other home, the one that wasn’t really home anymore. At Greyling, my old school in Mayfair, couples were tagged by their initials.

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

Damn. I stabbed the stupid cursor with my thumb and held it there, cutting off the blinking rhymes.

“How long we’re going to wait?” Marlin wanted to know.

I glanced up at him. “For as long as it takes.”

“Dr. Stanton don’t live in Remnant City. What if she’s gone home for the night?”

“Is that probable?”

Marlin tugged at the ends of his nobbly cap, pulling it even lower. “It’s almost dark. Don’t see why she’d be coming back.”

I started laughing then. Because, really, how is it possible that absolutely everything went so horribly wrong? Maybe God was on a break, and I’m talking about the real one, not the devil pretender.

Marlin backed away, scowling at me.

I waved him off, cackling somewhat hysterically in between words. “Go on, go home, Marlin. We’ll be along when Chris and Clarrie are done.”

He couldn’t leave fast enough. He lived in a city full of freaks, but I was the only one who apparently freaked him out. How sad was that? For me, of course.

My cackling turned to a choke as Marlin sped around the corner, and then erupted into a screech as something squirmed in my arms. I jumped to my feet. Gale slid off my lap with a clunk.

Chris and Clarrie came running up. Hand in hand.

“What is it?” called Chris. “Where’s Marlin?”

“Gale,” exclaimed Clarrie, smiling, pointing. “Look, it’s Gale.”

Gale was sitting on the ground, her eyeballs spinning on short leashes while her arms stretched and retracted a few times. Streaky green threads slowly fed into the milky white until she was luminous lime all over once more. Her eyes stopped in their spin to freeze on me,

“You,” she accused, fluttering up into the air and at me. “You switched me off.”

“Willow didn’t switch you off,” said Chris, grabbing her by a foot.

Gale continued fluttering, desperate to get at me. “I hate you. I hate you. How can you be so cruel?”

“Shut it, Gale,” said Chris, holding Gale’s wriggling body a safe distance from both of us. “I told you, Willow didn’t do anything to you.”

This time Gale seemed to hear him. Her wriggling subsided and Chris looked at me. “What happened?”

“What did you do to her?” added Clarrie, which got Gale all antsy at me again.

“I don’t know.” I thought about it, then blushed as I remembered that childish rhyme taunting me. “I pressed the thumb pad.”

“The activator recognised your print?” Chris twisted Gale so that she was facing him. “Is Willow’s thumb print programmed to activate you? It is, isn’t it?”

My heart gave a funny little jump. Chris was right. My thumb print had activated Gale. Which I already knew, of course, but now I started to understand just what that meant.

My thumb print had activated Gale.

“So what if it is,” said Gale, shooting the odd eyeball at me. Luckily the extensions didn’t reach far enough.

“You malfunctioned Gale, that’s what. It would have been nice to know that Willow could’ve turned you on again when we were stuck in the middle of nowhere and not knowing what the bleeding hell to do.”

“I malfunctioned?”

I nodded, since Gale seemed to be speaking to me. “You powered yourself down.”

“Oh, that...”

“Oh, what?” demanded Chris. From the flushed anger on his face, I’d say he was a breath away from strangling her. This time, I thought, I’d let him.

“I shut down in times of undue stress to preserve integral data and prevent anyone from hacking into my neural system,” she rattled with another quick glance at me.

“You might have mentioned that,” I said, “when we were running from the Razoks. You mean you’ll just power down any old time and probably when we most need you?”

“No, of course not.” Gale jerked herself from Chris’s grasp and dropped to the floor. She kept sending me strange little glances. “I over-reacted. It won’t happen again.”

Chris stood back, his arms folded across his chest, glaring at Gale. “We need to know, Gale. I need to have some bleeding warning before Razoks come after me and you lead us into Callum Jade’s den and I find out that I die again. I don’t care about Drustan and his rules and any stupid destiny. I JUST NEED TO KNOW!”

With that, he strode down the side of the building and out of sight.

Clarrie gave me a wide-eyed look before she started after him.

I stopped her with a hand on the arm. “Let me.”

She searched my eyes, nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay with Gale.”

Chris hadn’t gone far. Around the first corner, about halfway down the length of the building, propped against the wall and staring out into the dimming horizon.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” I said, leaning beside him, staring out with him. Thinking about Drustan and Callum Jade and Dr. Stanton, about the future Mr. Wood and Gale and Remnant City and how all their lives were so tightly intermingled.

Our lives.

Up until now, this had been Chris’s world, his future and his destiny. I was the outsider, a temporary visitor who didn’t belong and certainly didn’t feature in the long term dynamics. I mean, it’s not like Chris and I mixed in the same crowd back home. I wasn’t about to join the Math Club and he wouldn’t suddenly start hanging at Café Moccha after school.

But that had all changed.

In this future, I was an intrinsic part of Gale’s world, so much so that she was programmed with my thumb print. And if I was part of Gale’s world, then that meant I was irrevocable tied in with all the rest of them as much as Chris was. At some point, our worlds would collide, my life would mesh into the lives of all these people.

I wasn’t particularly sad about that. It fit. More so than returning home and going back to barely nodding at Chris in passing. No, I didn’t want that. I wanted so, so much more.

I wasn’t particularly happy about this impending collision either. Not to be a selfish hag or anything, but clearly Chris didn’t want to be anything to me, much less more. And straggling along the fringe of Chris’s destiny could not be good for one’s future health plan.

And if I had choice?

Did I have a choice?

“I lost it there,” Chris said dully.

I glanced at him, but he was still gazing out into the distance.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Willow. I’m trying to be okay with everything, but then this mad rage comes out of nowhere and I just want to- to hit something. Sometimes... sometimes, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I wish Drustan had left me alone, left me to die or whatever else was meant to happen.”

“That’s exactly what he is trying to do, Chris, return everything to the way it was meant to be. You weren’t meant to die at the age of sixteen.”

“Yeah, whatever.” His eyes stayed on the darkening shadows out at sea.

I stared at his rigid profile, fighting the overwhelming desire to reach out and ease the tension locking his jaw into a tight line. To imprint some courage and belief into his eroded spirit.

“Chris, you know I’m here, right, if you ever need to talk. I might not be much help, but I’m a really good listener.”

I wasn’t really. But I could become one. Mum believes talking is the answer to everything, from a bad hair day to global wars. I wasn’t sure about the wars. Actually, I’d never talked down bad hair either.

Chris slanted his gaze into mine. The fusion of conflicted anger and weary frustration glinted hard in his silver eyes.

My heart filled with the raw emotion he let me see.