Mind Games (19 page)

His dark eyes are serious, way too serious. This isn’t the Hex I know.

I punch him in the arm. ‘Chill out, mate. How’s Melrose?’

He shrugs. ‘She’s fine; she loves university except for the homework. She’s the same, but I’m not. This place changes you. It changes what you think you want.’ His eyes, still not laughing, hold mine, and for a moment I can’t breathe. The black swirls around his eyes have multiplied: there are more Hacker marks there now than there used to be. What has he been up to to earn them? My curious hand wants to reach up and trace them, and starts to move of its own accord.

I pull my hand back to my side, and stand up. ‘Right. OK. Good night, Hex.’ I practically run out of the place, this time not careful to silence my footsteps, but the clattering doesn’t hang loud in the stillness. Instead it is almost muffled, as if this austere space doesn’t allow it, doesn’t like messy people with their messy feelings and sounds. Behind me I hear Hex laugh.

32

‘Good morning! Today we begin phase one: Exploration. Also known as exploring strange new worlds!’ We’ve assembled as instructed in a meeting room, and the Beamer who greeted us on arrival is back: her smile is so wide and her teeth so sparkling, it’s almost hard to look at her.

‘We’re trying to find out where you are best suited to fit in PareCo’s organisation. There are many branches: from technicians all the way up to VeeDub controllers, or even working here at the Centre itself. Don’t worry about any of that today, just have some fun. You’ll have free access to all PareCo worlds, so knock yourselves out. See how many you can visit.’

Where you fit best?
Nowhere
has to be the answer for me. Unless it is working at the Centre: they must have cooks and cleaners here. Imagine if I ended up as chief Think Tank toilet scrubber? That’d make Goodwin from school
so
happy.

‘There are advanced MD-PIP stations here at the Centre: MD stands for multi-dimensional. They bypass Realtime and take you straight to PareCo’s Multi-dimensional Gateway to all the virtual worlds. For now, just explore as you like, but stay in pairs. Be back by eight for dinner tonight; after dinner, your time is your own.

‘The MD-PIPs run on Implant technology. Which one of you is Luna?’

Eyes turn towards me; I raise a hand.

‘For now, you’ll have to use an old-style PIP without an Implant interface. A senior intern will escort you to the Gateway.’ There’s a knock on the door; Hex peeks in. ‘And there is our volunteer now.’

We head down the hall as a group. I hang back and slip a few ANDs into my mouth behind my hand. The others disappear one by one into rooms with MD-PIPs on the way, until Hex and I are alone.

It feels a bit weird after running out on him last night. Why’d I do that? He’s just
Hex
. This is mental.

‘Sorry I dashed last night. All that stuff we talked about was a bit much.’

He grins. ‘Oh, really? I thought you were just overcome by my charms, and ran away.’

I roll my eyes, relieved he’s back to joking. ‘Sure, that’s it. So you got the short straw this morning?’

Hex shrugs. ‘You can’t use the MD-PIP so have to go through the void. The void is kind of the stuff PareCo makes all the worlds from – exciting!’

I look at him curiously. ‘Is this void thing new?’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘It’s been there
forever
.’

‘New to you I mean, idiot.’

‘There were rumours about it, but I’d never seen it until I came to Inac. It was part of the info dump you get when you arrive here. Which you’ve missed. Anyhow, best way to learn is to step out into it. But the void can be disorienting; I wanted to take you there myself.’

He’s looking all protective; I wonder what he’d say if he knew I’ve already been there with Gecko, and by myself? My smile falls away. I sigh. It’s lucky I can get out of the void by myself; maybe Gecko would have left me there, lost and wandering in the void forever.

‘What is it? Is something wrong?’

‘No, I’m fine. What are the MD-PIPs like? Are they better?’

‘They’re awesome. Instant connection to the MD Gateway to the worlds. We’ll still get you there now, it’s just more of a faff.’

He shows me to an empty room with a conventional PIP. ‘Meet you in your hallway in a tick?’

‘Sure.’

I settle into the PIP. It’s way, way grander than the one in my bedroom at home, with full life support for extended use. It’s plush, instantly responsive to my body. Even the neural net feels softer – warm, not jarring.

The hallway appears. I may have taken the tablets a little late; my stomach is twisting. I breathe, in, out, in, out, and it subsides, just as Hex appears through a
friends
door.

‘Hex, before we go, can I say hello to my dad?’

He hesitates.

‘Please? I haven’t been able to plug in since I left home. They didn’t tell my family I was missing; they must think I’m ignoring them.’

‘OK. But be quick, and I have to come with you.’

‘Why?’

‘I promised I’d see you to the Gateway, and not let you out of my sight.’

I roll my eyes. ‘If you must.’

I hit
respond
to Dad’s message. Answer with
are you there
?

Moments later he answers back with a
yes
.

I open his door, and there he is: today he is Sherlock, complete with silly hat.

‘Dad!’ And this time it is me that runs to him, hugs him. ‘I miss you. Is everyone OK at home?’

He pulls away a little, looks in my eyes. A little disconcerting when he is rather gorgeous as Sherlock no. 27. ‘Everyone is fine. And just starting to wonder how you’ve been getting on. Is everything all right?’

Hex coughs.

‘Sorry. Dad, have you met Hex? We’re on our way to some training thing, but he’s snuck me in for a minute to see you.’

They shake hands. ‘Thanks for bringing her by,’ Dad says. He turns back to me. ‘Listen, you: I know trouble is your middle name, but try to stay out of it.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I’ll try.’ But trying doesn’t always help.

He winks, as if he heard my thought. ‘Do what you can.’

‘We should probably go. Sorry,’ Hex says.

Dad reaches out a hand to my cheek, then touches my necklace. ‘That looks good on you, but somehow different.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’m taking my super-sleuthing too far. I imagined it looks longer than it used to. Must be because Astra was taller. Take care.’

Hex and I step back through the door to my hallway, and I wave goodbye as the door shuts. ‘Can I answer Melrose’s messages?’

‘Only if you’re very, very fast. I’m going to be late for my session.’

There are three from Melrose now. All a variation of
are you OK, how are you doing over there?
Hidden in the words:
how is Hex
? I sigh. Quickly answer:
I’m fine, I’ll call to chat as soon as I can.
Hit
send
.

‘Done. Now what?’ I say, expecting a silver hatch and a ladder to appear in the roof.

‘Your Realtime has been upgraded. You’ve got a void access door.’ He gestures down the end of the hall, but it’s a proper door. It’s not even silver. I’m sort of disappointed.

We step through it and straight into the void. The door swings shut behind us, but doesn’t vanish like the hatches. It’s outlined in darkness.

The void is as always: a limitless space. Darkness that becomes lighter as eyes adjust, lit by whistling silver static that rushes in all directions. Strange winds that whip my hair around. I breathe in deep, reach back to hold my hair and find it is tied. I have a strange sense of familiarity and belonging.

‘You’re calm,’ Hex says.

‘Am I?’

‘It usually freaks people out the first time.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Follow the yellow brick road,’ he says, and gestures. I look down at our feet and see there are vague outlined rectangles, linked together. We walk along it a few moments until we reach another door, one that looks much like the new one to the void in my hallway.

‘Here we are!’ Hex opens it, peeks in and waves to whoever is there. ‘This is where I say goodbye. Wait here at the end of the day and I’ll come get you and take you back.’

‘I can follow the yellow brick road quite all right by myself, you know.’

‘Sure. Of course you can. I’ll see you then.’

I roll my eyes, step through, and there is Marina.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Have you been waiting for me?’

‘Yes. I was about to raise the alarm that you were lost in the void! Then I thought maybe you and Hex wanted to get lost together for a while.’ She smirks.

‘No, thanks.’

She raises an eyebrow.

‘Seriously! He’s a mate. He’s dating my friend. At least, I think he still is.’ Mental note: visit Melrose at first opportunity. ‘How’d you get here?’

‘Easy. Plugged in, and here I was. I volunteered to wait for you.’ She looks aggrieved.

‘You know you don’t have to keep doing things for me. I won’t tell anyone about the flying thing.’

‘I know. I wanted to.’ And she smiles.

‘Thank you. So what do we do now?’

‘Pick a door, check things out, come back and do it again.’

I look around properly now. We’re in a strange sort of room, full of doors. It looks ordinary enough, but when you focus closer you see that the sides curve up from where we stand. There are doors everywhere: all sides, floors, ceiling. The room is deceptive; bigger than it looks at first, as everywhere I look the doors seem to multiply.

‘What are the options? Go for random, or what?’

‘If you walk up to one, it reveals itself. Kind of like a flasher.’

I’m intrigued. We walk up to a door together: an image appears on it. Snow. Ice. ‘Brrrrr. Next?’ I say.

A circus.

Then a cocktail party – maybe later?

‘If
all
VeeDubs can be accessed from here, it can’t just be random,’ I say. ‘If you wanted to find somewhere in particular, there’d have to be a way to find it or you’d be here for years.’

‘Good point.’

I concentrate on Gecko’s waterfall world: I can’t stop myself. Probably a
very
bad idea to go down that particular memory lane. My eyes skip across the room, and
there
. One of the doors is brighter than the others. It’s on the floor. I walk backwards, away from it; Marina makes a funny face, then does the same. And the room is like a giant hamster wheel. It revolves as we walk, until the bright door is in front of us. With a vision of pool and waterfall on its surface.

‘Nice,’ Marina says. ‘Shall we?’

With all sorts of reasons to say no, I nod, and she opens the door.

Like before, it’s hot, and we’re in instant swimsuits. Marina dives in the pool. I follow, but she swims underwater so fast I can’t keep up. She doesn’t surface, and I lose sight of her. Just when I start to get worried, something taps on my shoulder from behind. I spin around and there she is, laughing. Marina, but not Marina. Her hair is longer, greener, and her eyes also, but that isn’t the surprising part. She’s got a long shimmering tail that she slaps lazily on the surface of the water, a beautiful half girl, half fish. She’s a mermaid.

‘That is
so
cool. How do you do it?’

She shrugs. ‘It’s code, but it’s kind of my thing. I can do it without thinking now.’

‘Can you breathe underwater too?’

She nods, plunges under and swims circles around me, jumps up again.

‘But you’ll need legs for the waterfall,’ I say, and I climb out of the pool, up the steps alongside the waterfall. I reach the top, and dive down.

‘That does look like fun!’ Marina half frowns like she is concentrating really hard, then climbs out of the pool and onto the steps. She has legs again but they’ve got shimmery scales on them, like she couldn’t be bothered with a complete change. She dives down from the top and changes to tail halfway down the waterfall, swims underwater to the other side of the pool and back again.

‘I wish I could do that.’

‘It’s not the most useful skill. God knows what they’ll have me doing here. Sorry,’ she adds, hastily, like she just realised who she said that to: the one intern with
no
skills, useful or otherwise.

‘I don’t understand why they’ve brought me here. I can’t do stuff. I’ll probably end up serving dinner.’

She tilts her head to one side. ‘I think there’s more to you than meets the eye.’

‘Huh. How would you know?’

‘Why would you be here otherwise? But if you don’t want to end up serving dinner, you should get an Implant. Why haven’t you got one?’

I stare back at her, and for once, I haven’t got an answer that makes any sense. All that stuff from Nanna about avoiding plugging in and not getting an Implant – was it part of her delusions? Maybe it’s time to leave them behind. They didn’t do Nanna any good. ‘It’s kind of a long story. I was a Refuser at school.’

‘So you don’t really know what you could do here if you had an Implant. You might be an awesome Hacker, if you tried. Maybe PareCo has somehow sussed that out, and that’s why you’re here.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Listen to me; I’m good at picking things up about people. Like you and Hex.’

‘There is no
me and Hex
. He’s a friend.’

‘There is definitely some intensity in the way he looks at you.’

I shake my head. ‘No way. Not interested, can’t happen. Don’t want to go there and even if I did, wouldn’t do that to my friend. He’s hers.’ But despite my words, there is an uneasy feeling inside that says Marina is right. Something
is
different with Hex. OK, I kind of stared at him a little, but I was just trying to suss out what it was. No matter how confusing it felt last night, I really, really hope he hasn’t gone all dough-brained on me. I want to keep my friends, both him and Melrose. I don’t have that many of them.

We swim for a while longer, and I think about what she said. Hex has advantages over Gecko: he’s here. He’s not, generally, bonkers, and I’ve never noticed him kidnapping anyone. But the eyes that haunt me aren’t his. They’re Gecko’s.

When Marina surfaces again, I call her over. ‘Shall we go, try another door?’ I say, suddenly impatient to leave this place and my thoughts behind.

‘Sure.’

We climb out of the pool, Marina more slowly as she has to morph from tail back to legs. While she does that I wish my hair dry and gorgeous like the last time, and –
hey presto!
– it is.

Marina is startled. ‘How’d you do that?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t know. Can’t you?’

She pulls a face. ‘No. There you go, I know what you’ll be!’

‘What?’

‘Chief hairdresser.’

We go back to the Gateway, and it’s Marina’s turn to pick a world. She concentrates on Atlantis, one she’s visited before, but can’t find the door. She describes it and I soon find it. She gives me a strange look. ‘Another thing you can do that I can’t.’

We hang out in the underwater kingdom for a while, and then head back to the Gateway: it’s time for dinner. Marina goes ahead while I wait for Hex.