Mind Games (3 page)

5

The doorbell rings again. Where is Sally? I tear down the stairs, run across the front room and whip the door open.

Melrose?

‘Hi,’ she says and smiles. I stare back at her, mouth hanging open. She raises an eyebrow and I snap my mouth shut.

‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ she says.

‘Uh, OK. Sure. Come in.’ I stand back from the door, and she walks through it. When I don’t, she pushes it shut behind her.

‘Didn’t Sally tell you I was coming?’

‘No. Why would Sally…?’

She half frowns. ‘I messaged her, as there didn’t seem to be much point in messaging
you
. You haven’t answered any of my messages in about five years.’

‘Mel?’ Nanna says softly, looking up from her chair. ‘Melrose,’ she says, her voice stronger this time.

Melrose walks over to her, kneels down and puts a hand on hers. ‘Hello. Good to see you, Mrs Iverson.’ Nanna smiles, then her vision fogs away; she’s gone again.

‘She remembers you,’ I say, surprised. Nanna’s memory comes and goes, and significant people she should recognise, like Sally, or her doctor, she often doesn’t.

‘I did kind of half live here for years,’ Melrose says. And she did, with dinners and sleepovers several times a week, and when she wasn’t here it was usually because I was at her house.

But that was then, and this is now. ‘Why are you here?’

‘The Test? You may have heard of it?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘But do you know what is happening next week? Where you have to go, what to take with you?’

I stare at her blankly.

‘I didn’t think so. Sampson said that—’

‘Ah, I see. He’s put you up to this, has he?’

‘Don’t be such a dys. I went to see
him.
And I’m here because I want to be.’

‘Forgive me for being sceptical. If that is true, where’ve you been for the last five years?’

And Melrose pulls back, as if she’d been slapped. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. I called you again and again;
you
blanked
me
.’ She shakes her head, and starts for the door.

‘But you
ignored
me when we started high school, completely brushed me off. You had that whole group of brain-dead fashion clones as your new friends. How was I supposed to take that?’

She turns, faces me. ‘Not everyone can get by with just themselves, Luna. You were impossible. You deliberately alienated everyone – you were so prickly. Still are. Look, it’s fine you wanted to Refuse and do your own thing, not go along with the crowd. Even though you wouldn’t talk to me about it. But
you
went out of your way to avoid
me
. Not the other way around.’

She stares back at me and somewhere inside I start to get an uncomfortable feeling. Was it really like that? I’d felt like a camel with two heads that first year at high school, segregated into the freak show others pointed at in the hallways. But was that because of me, not them? And then I remember something else. I
had
avoided talking to Melrose about all of this. Because I couldn’t tell her the reasons. Maybe I’d avoided her altogether without realising that was what I was doing.

‘I… I…’

She half smiles. ‘You haven’t changed, Luna. Your face looks like it is going to crack because you can’t say
I’m sorry
, can you?’

‘I’m sorry.’ I manage to get the words out. ‘I didn’t see things that way at the time, but I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry, too. I knew things weren’t right with you, and I should have tried harder. I gave up.’ She holds out a hand. ‘Friends again?’

I swallow. There is part of me that doesn’t believe this. That wonders if she is just here because now that I have a Test appointment I’ve crossed the line from socially unacceptable to OK to acknowledge in public.

Then Nanna pushes me from behind. I ignore Melrose’s hand and give her a hug.

‘Aw, sweet. Have you two made up at last?’ Sally stands in the doorway, and we spring apart.

‘You didn’t tell me she was coming,’ I say, blinking furiously.

Sally raises an eyebrow. ‘Thought things might work out better this way. Are you staying for lunch?’ she asks Melrose.

‘Yes, if that’s OK. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Come on.’ She pulls me by the hand to the stairs.

‘Did you tell her?’ I whisper on the way to my room.

‘What?’

‘Did you tell Sally about my appointment?’

‘No.’ She frowns. ‘You’re not telling me she doesn’t know about it, are you?’

‘It kind of hasn’t come up,’ I admit, as I open the door to my room. Shut it firmly behind us.

‘Luna, honestly. You think she might notice when you’re away next week?’

‘I’ll tell her. Eventually.’

‘When?’

‘Dad said he’d come for lunch tomorrow. I wanted to leave it until then. She’ll be all over me if she knows. This way gives me some peace and quiet until then.’

‘Really? You’re not just keeping it from her because you know it would make her happy? She’s not that bad.’

‘You don’t have to live with her.’ Sally had always liked Melrose, so she didn’t get the sharp side – Melrose’s dad is in the House of Lords and a NUN representative, and that put her in a more-than-acceptable-to-Sally social range. ‘Actually I’m surprised she even let you come over: I’m supposed to be grounded.’

‘I’m not surprised. That you’re grounded, I mean.’ Melrose looks disapproving. She was always one for following the rules, doing what everybody else did, but she still used to see the funny side. On the quiet.

‘And? Your thoughts on my…misplaced artistic abilities?’

She muffles a laugh. ‘That, was BB, babe.
Beyond brilliant.
Now. Before we get distracted, what are you going to wear tomorrow night?’

‘Tomorrow? But my appointment isn’t until Monday.’

‘We have to go the day before, and meet the other candidates at a big formal dinner – there are a number of schools at this one centre. Ours and three others, so about 200 of us all in.’

‘Formal?’ Horror must be etched on my face; Melrose smirks.

‘Yes.’ She hesitates. ‘I can tell you what we’re all wearing. If you want me to.’

My stomach is churning already. ‘A big formal dinner with candidates from four schools?’

‘It’ll be fine.’

‘Has Jezzamine got an appointment?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then this could be some other version of fine:
not fine
.’

She shrugs. ‘Just ignore her.’

‘And that’s just the start of it. What about the Test? I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘You’ll do fine, Luna. You were always smarter than me. Your grades were miles better when you bothered to try. Anyhow, you can’t study for an IQ test. And nobody knows what the RQ test is.’

I cross my arms over a churning stomach that is doing a good impression of a Realtime reaction even though I’m resolutely in the here and now. Am I smart? OK, I am quicker to work things out than some people, but that is only half of it. No one has ever accused me of being too rational. What the consequences would be of being branded clever-stupid, like Goodwin said, I don’t want to think about.

I shake my head. Nanna might have been having an episode in the middle of the other night with her warnings, but they echoed what she told me when she was totally with it years ago.
Don’t let them notice you
.

I can’t do well at this even if I’m able to, can I?
Don’t let them notice you’re different
.

There is only one answer: I have to fail the first test.

By the time Sally calls us to a late lunch we’ve managed to catch up on the last five years, and the very surprising fact that Melrose is v-dating Hex.
Hex?
A Hacker? Not sure what her dad’ll make of that, even if it’s just virtual. And we’ve worked out that I have nothing that fits our school’s agreed long midnight blue off-the-shoulder dress for the formal, and desperately need to go shopping. Melrose has persuaded me that there is only one way to make that happen.

‘Sally? There’s something I have to tell you.’

‘What is it this time?’ Her face is a picture of alarm.

‘I…ah…that is to say…’ Some devil inside makes me draw it out.

‘You tell me right now.’ Sally is starting to freak out; Jason stops eating to hear what it is. Even Nanna stops rocking in her chair.

Melrose laughs. ‘Spit it out already, or I’ll do it for you.’

‘I’ve got a Test appointment. Next week.’

Whatever Sally was expecting to hear, this wasn’t it. ‘A Test…?’ She looks to Melrose for confirmation.

‘It’s true,’ she says.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sally demands.

‘I just did. Tell you.’

‘You idiot girl. You clever thing!’ Sally says, gets out of her chair, and then her arms are around me for a too-tight hug. I roll my eyes over her shoulder at Melrose, who coughs to hide a laugh.

‘Mum?’ Jason says and a note in his voice makes Sally release me and us both turn instantly. Nanna’s arms are wrapped around her head. A high-pitched keening moan starts inside her.

I put an arm around her. ‘Nanna? Everything’s fine, OK?’

But my words and touch don’t soothe her like they usually do; she suddenly lashes out with both hands, swiping dishes off the table that crash onto the floor. She starts screaming.

‘Take Jason,’ I say to Melrose. She’s frozen. ‘
Do
it!’ And she pulls Jason into the other room. I wrap my arms around Nanna and try to rock her back and forth, but she struggles. Sally is on the phone to the doctor before I can say
wait, see if she settles
, but she’s not settling: she’s screaming louder and louder as if she is being tortured by my touch, and tears are starting in the back of my eyes and spilling out.

The doctor must have been lurking in the bushes, he is there so fast. He makes me hold Nanna tight while he gives her an injection. She struggles, and I feel like a traitor.

She gradually slackens; her eyes start to close, then flutter open. She stares into mine. ‘Eleven,’ she says, and then she’s gone. Unconscious.

Unease walks up and down my back with cold feet.
Eleven is a warning: danger, or treachery
.

Sally and the doctor talk in low voices by the door; some of their words penetrate.
Psychotic episodes. Delusional. Safety…

Sally and I help Nanna to bed.

‘She’s getting worse,’ Sally says.

‘I know.’

She doesn’t say anything else, but it is all there on her face. Nanna should be in an institution where they can look after her: that’s what the doctor said at her last review. Calling him today will raise that all over again.

She touches my shoulder. ‘Don’t forget your friend.’

Melrose: she’s been with Jason all this time. They’re both silent and pretending to watch a vid when I get myself together enough to go back downstairs. I sit next to Jason, and he slips a cold hand in mine.

‘Thanks,’ I say to Melrose. ‘I’ll take over now. I think the shopping trip is off.’

‘No worries. I’ll lend you something.’

‘Sure. Whatever.’ She gets up to go. ‘Don’t tell anyone about Nanna. Promise?’

She looks shocked. ‘You don’t need to ask. Of course I won’t. Do you want a lift tomorrow?’

‘Are you sure that’s OK?’

‘Of course. We’ll come at four.’

‘Thanks. See you then.’

Later, I watch Nanna as she sleeps. Is she really psychotic and delusional?
Away with the fairies
– that was the expression I liked. When I was little she used to whisper that she believed in fairies, that they lived in sunlight and shadows. That they told her the secret numbers of the sun, the moon and the stars: that mine was the most magical of them all. But numerology is totally dys, isn’t it?

Jason doesn’t really remember her as she was. He’s just afraid of her. This time, I lock her door when I leave.

6

‘Come
on
. Before she changes her mind,’ I say, and hold out Jason’s bicycle helmet. Sally’s get out of jail free card could be pulled if she thinks about it too much; she’s only let me go despite being grounded because she’s still happy about my appointment, and that Dad is coming for lunch.

Jason yawns. ‘Can’t we go later? It’s practically the middle of the night.’

‘The sun streaming through the door says otherwise, lazybones. And, no, we can’t go later. I’m going away for the whole week, leaving this afternoon. Remember?’

He relents, finally takes his bike helmet, puts it on and starts to follow me out the door. There used to be a time when Jason would plead with me to go on safari every weekend: our bicycles were our 4x4 jeeps, Richmond Park our game reserve, and squirrels and deer our lions and elephants. But now that they’ve lowered the age of consent for Implants from twelve to ten he’s been plugged in every chance he gets since his birthday. Park adventures have been left behind.

Just as I’m about to pull the door shut behind us, Sally appears in the hall. ‘Stick to the Els,’ is all she says.

We have a way to go before we reach the closest El. The streets are quiet. There are no Sunday morning ball games in front gardens, even though the sun is shining and no April showers are in sight.

We pass a local primary school, and I’m surprised to see a chain across the fence, a closed sign. I slow down to let Jason catch up.

I gesture behind us. ‘Didn’t some of your friends go to that school? When did it close?’ I ask him.

He shrugs. ‘I dunno, a few months ago.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘They said it was surplus. All the students from there are going to my school now.’

A surplus school? I frown. ‘They all fit into your school?’

He nods. ‘Classes fuller now, can get away with more.’ He grins.

‘Excellent. Come on.’

We reach our branch of the Richmond El.
Safe Cycle Elevation
is emblazoned on gates that swing open when our registered bicycles are detected. Our wheels link securely to the moving track, and I sigh. I can get why Sally wants us to take the Els: it’s safer. No cars or collisions or falling off possible. I can also get why Jason likes it. Less effort, good views as it soars over the streets below. At maximum speed the whole thing is a bit like a rollercoaster. But somehow it still feels like cheating to me.

‘Wow,’ Jason says.

‘What?’

‘I’ve switched on
London Now and Then
. It’s cool. You can see St Paul’s without the dome. And how it was before, too: not so white as it is now.’

I stare into the distance at St Paul’s Cathedral, the NUN towers beyond it. The round white dome has always been as it is now in my lifetime, a landmark you can see from the El in recent years, and also from King Henry’s Mound in Richmond Park. I know from history class that it was destroyed in the third world war, then rebuilt, that this isn’t the original dome. But it’s the only one I’ve known.

Jason twists on his bicycle to look behind us, his eyes moving around at things only they can see with his Implant.

‘What are you looking at now?’

He shrugs, makes a small gesture and his eyes refocus to here and now. ‘You miss so much stuff, Luna,’ he says, not answering the question. ‘Why don’t you get an Implant?’

I look at Jason in surprise. ‘You know. We’ve talked about this before.’

‘That you’d rather see what is real all the time. But that’s stupid. And boring!’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘And you can still see what is real, and what isn’t. With Implant stuff it’s just like an overlay on things, you can switch it on or off. It’s not like being plugged in.’

The El drops to street level again, and then abruptly ends at a gate, one that wasn’t there the last time we came this way. We wait, but the gate doesn’t open.

Jason unfocuses, checks out the delay. ‘You need a pass code now from someone in the Queens Road community.’

Melrose lives there. She never mentioned they’ve extended the gates to cut off the El, but with five years to catch up on yesterday, it obviously didn’t rate with all the gossip and boys. I could ask Jason to message her; I
should
get him to do that. But needing my little brother to communicate for me rankles inside.

‘Let’s exit,’ I say, instead.

Jason grins. He likes doing things Sally says not to as much as I do; at least that is still the same.

Once off the El we have to go around the whole gated community. Jason takes off in front, and when he turns right at a crossroads, I call out for him to come back.

‘The park is the other way, isn’t it?’ I say when he reaches me.

He gives me a look, shakes his head.

‘I don’t know this way. Check your Implant map.’

He sighs, and unfocuses to switch it on, then looks back at me. ‘It
says
to go right.’

‘Are you sure?’

He crosses his arms. ‘There is an arrow on the ground in front of my bike that says where to go. If you had your own Implant, you could check it. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’

I roll my eyes. ‘OK, fine. You’re in charge.’

Jason heads off in front again. The road loops back around, so we are indeed going in the right direction for the park. As we go there are more and more houses that are closed up, dark. Shutters drawn or boards across windows, and for no reason I can identify, I start to feel uneasy.

I catch up to Jason and cycle next to him. ‘Maybe we should go back,’ I say.

‘Why?’

‘It’s kind of creepy around here.’

He gives me a look again. ‘We’re nearly there now. Come on.’

He picks up speed, and I follow. There are more empty buildings, others run-down. Rubbish on the street. We pass a house with a garden so strewn with junk that it looks like a tip. A movement flicks near the ground: a cat? I look again, and beady rodent eyes stare back. There are figures lying on sofas in the midst of it all, unmoving beyond twitching. Implant Addicts? Here, in Richmond?

Even as my legs pump the pedals faster to leave this place, my eyes are unable to look away. There are five of them. Two men, three women, and then with shock I see that one of them is actually a girl. She looks younger than me. But Implant access is restricted until age eighteen: it shouldn’t be possible.

At last we reach the park gates. There is a moment of disquiet inside when they don’t swing open, but then, seconds later, they do.

Once through the gates the park is as always, and gradually I relax. Here, there are no Els: the park has been maintained to be the same for centuries. There are crisscrossing cycling and walking trails, a road down the centre. All is peace and order. A few walkers push baby strollers; a bicycle goes past with a toddler in a seat behind the rider. We spot deer through the trees grazing on grass. Fawns will be born soon.

We head for the adventure playground but it is almost empty, and we soon move on. When we go past the under-five playground it is busy with toddlers, parents and nannies. Nowhere do we see any kids near Jason’s age; no wonder he doesn’t want to come here any more. He doesn’t want to hang out with babies.

It didn’t used to be like this here, even just a year ago. I frown to myself. Why the change?
The Implant age
. That’s it, isn’t it? I’d tried to argue with Dad and Sally about Jason having Implant surgery at ten, just months ago. Sally threatened unspeakable things if I tried to infect him in any way with my Refusing. But she didn’t have to. I want him to be happy, to fit in with the other kids his age. To not be a freak like his sister. But at
ten
? How could he make such an important decision at that age?

When we leave the park we divert without discussion to the nearby cemetery. Jason stops, leans his bike against the fence. ‘Now for a survey of the latest late,’ he says. And I nod, pleased this is one ritual he wants to keep.

And we walk along, searching out the new graves, noting the names. We always did this, to imagine the recently dead in our zombie adventures. Jason has always liked his stories scary, the scarier the better. Back then he was imagining being able to play
Zombie Wars
version 12. Now he’s playing it, for real – virtually, that is – version 14.

‘Alexander J. Munch: zombie or vampire?’ I say.

‘
Definitely
a vampire name,’ he answers. ‘But kind of old for killer status.’ The carved dates have Munch at over a hundred years old. ‘Though that could be creepy. Next?’

‘Here’s one. How about Rory Middleton-Smith?’

‘Zombie,’ another voice says, so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard or imagined it, but Jason has turned sharply at the sound. I reach for his arm to pull him back, but he’s sprung out of reach and is around the other side of the gravestone.

I dash after him. A man lies in the grass on top of a grave, his face blank. Body wasted. His glassy eyes are moving back and forth so fast they must be unaware of their surroundings, but then he swivels his head to Jason.

And his eyes still, and focus.

‘Zombie,’ he says again, more clearly. Then his head slumps back, his eyes start moving again.

I grab Jason’s shoulder, pull him back.

‘What’s the problem?’ Jason says. ‘He’s harmless. He can’t even move. See?’ And he twists away from me and pushes at the man’s leg with his foot. He doesn’t register, just twitches, his eyes darting and dancing at things only he can see.

‘Jason!’

Jason shrugs, steps back again. ‘Don’t freak out, he’s not dangerous. He’s always here.’

By the looks of him, not for much longer. I’m shocked. I’ve seen Implant Addicts before, like on public service announcements of how to spot early signs of overuse in the mentally deficient, or from a train window, sprawled on railway benches, but always distant, removed. The ones we cycled past in front of that house today were the closest I’d been before now. And although his clothes are almost rags, I can still see the Hacker design. The swirls of tattoos around his left eye – his are white, to contrast against dark-as-midnight skin – mark him out. He was a
Hacker
? And not just any Hacker: going by the extensive interlocking swirls of his tattoos, he was on the absolute top of the Game. Why on earth be an addict when you can design your own worlds safe and sound in a PIP?

Then Jason’s words from before penetrate. ‘He’s always here? Have you been coming here on your own?’

Jason shakes his head. ‘No. Not on my own; with friends from school.’

So they’re not
always
plugged in, and while that is good to know, I’m sure this would be news to Sally. If she knew it’d be banned straight away.

‘It’s perfectly safe,’ Jason protests, reading my face.

‘Come on. Back to our bikes. We’re going home.’

This time we head straight for the El gate at Queens Road, and Jason uses his Implant to message Melrose to let us in. The gates swing open.

‘She’s out shopping. Says see you later,’ Jason relays.

As we ride the El back over all the beautiful, sprawling mansions and gardens of Melrose’s neighbourhood, I wonder: what if we didn’t know someone here, and couldn’t get the gates to open? Unless we repeat the way we went this morning, something I don’t really want to do – at least, not with Jason – the whole park is barred to us. My eyes search out the gates and barriers scattered about these exclusive neighbourhoods, the encroaching dying streets beyond.

Though close in distance, our own street is a million miles away from both Melrose’s mansion and the dark areas.

But the latter are closer.