Saving Thanehaven (13 page)

It isn’t long before armfuls of clothes are tumbling down the laundry chute, ripped from their hangers
and balled up like rags. Load after load disappears into the gaping shaft until Rufus cries “Stop!” and grabs Noble’s wrist. “Now you. Off you go.”

“But—”

“Quick! Get in there!” Seeing Noble hesitate, Rufus promises that no one is going to get hurt. “You’ll be hitting a pile of clothes, remember?”

Noble isn’t concerned about where he’s going to land. He’s concerned about getting stuck halfway down. Nevertheless, he climbs into the chute as instructed—and soon realizes that he’s not too wide for it after all. Clinging to the lip of the squared-off opening, he’s able to wriggle around quite freely. His feet flail about in empty space. The cold, clanging metal feels slippery against his skin.

“What am I supposed to do when I reach the bottom?” he asks Rufus, who gives a snort.

“If I were you, I’d get out of the way,” Rufus replies. “Unless you
want
Brandi to land on you.”

“Yes, but—”

“It’ll be fine, I promise.”

“But what if something bad is down there?” Noble struggles to hold on, his voice tight and creaky. “Shouldn’t we work out a signal, in case I need to warn you?”

“Don’t worry about it, okay? There’s nothing bad down there. Just go.
Go!
”

It’s no good trying to argue with Rufus. So Noble heaves a sigh, loosens his grip, and drops like a stone.

N
oble plummets down a shiny metal shaft that dips and swerves just enough to make his descent a high-speed slide, rather than a straight-out fall. But he’s still moving so quickly that when he hits the bottom—
whoomp!
—he finds himself buried deep in a pile of dirty clothes.

As he claws his way to the surface, Brandi plunges into the clothes beside him. There’s a brief moment of confusion while Brandi thrashes about and Noble dodges her flailing arms. At last, however, he manages to push through the top layer of garments, emerging from the pile of clothes into what looks like unlimited space.

Above him is nothing but a pale, wintry sky. Around him is a vast rubbish dump, stretching off
to the horizon. Giant trucks are unloading heaps of discarded objects, which are being shoved around by other machines armed with enormous scoops.

“We have to stay away from the bulldozers,” Rufus suddenly remarks—and Noble, turning, sees that Rufus’s head has popped out of the clothes behind him like a shooting bean sprout.

“What’s a bulldozer?” asks Noble.

“That is.” Rufus extricates his arms and points. “That’s a bulldozer dumping a big load of memory into that truck over there. And we don’t want to end up in that memory dump, because it’s probably going to be recycled.”

“I don’t understand.” Noble is hopelessly disoriented. “How did we even get here? Where did we come from?” He lifts his face to the sky, where no dangling laundry chute is evident. “I don’t see a hole up there, do you?”

“Maybe the hole’s underneath us,” says Yestin, appearing from the pile of clothes. “Maybe we fell up, instead of down.”

Noble has never heard anything so ridiculous in his life.
“Fell up?”
he echoes in disbelief. But Rufus simply shrugs.

“Maybe,” Rufus concedes, as Brandi’s glossy head bobs into view. “Now let’s get out of this truck, shall we?”

Noble blinks, then glances around. He realizes that they
are
in a truck—a truck with a kind of open box
on its back. While Rufus heads for the side of the box, half-wading, half-swimming through a tangle of clothes, Noble tries to feel around with his bare feet.

He can’t find a hole, though.

“Where are we?” Brandi wails. “This isn’t the
beach
, this is
awful
!”

“We’ll get to the beach. Don’t worry.” With his fingers clamped to the edge of the low, metal wall that’s enclosing them, Rufus glances around. “First we’ve got to find an exit, okay?”

He swings his legs over the wall and drops out of sight, hitting the ground with a
thud
. Noble follows, after helping Yestin plow his way through a tightly packed drift of fake fur and knitted items.

Brandi is last in line. She takes a moment to shove something fluffy into her bag. Then, because she refuses to jump down from the truck, Noble has to grab her as she lowers herself awkwardly over its side.

“Okay,” says Rufus, once everyone has joined him. “Now we have to spend a bit of time scavenging. And as you can see, there’s a lot to search through.” He waves an arm at the surrounding heaps of detritus. “But there’s also a lot we can use to get out of here, like keys and maps and tickets—especially keys. Default keys. Keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like a key. Or even half a key.”

Noble gazes around grimly at all the towering hillocks of
stuff
. He can’t imagine how they’re going to find a humble key among so many rolls of paper,
cardboard folders, nets, brooms, clocks, and broken picture frames. It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

“Are you
kidding
me?” Brandi whines, echoing his thoughts. “We’ll be here
forever
.”

“No, we won’t,” Rufus insists. To Noble he says, “I’ll check this pile. You check that one. Just watch out for the bulldozers.”

“Which heap should
I
check?” Yestin butts in. “That one there?” He points at a mountain of discarded sporting equipment.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Rufus flaps him away. Noble, meanwhile, has trudged over to his own designated mound of junk, which is much taller and wider than Yestin’s. Though it’s scattered with old brushes, scissors, and empty paint pots, the pile is composed chiefly of pictures—highly realistic portraits presented on shiny cards. They’re not drawings, or paintings, or engravings. Noble can’t figure out
what
they are.

“Look at these pictures,” he says. “They’re so perfect!”

“They’re photographs,” Yestin explains as Brandi stoops to extract a feathery, iridescent wing from a huge pile of punctured balloons and giant lollipops. The wing isn’t attached to anything.

She displays it gingerly, like dirty underwear.

“Can we use
this
to get out?” she asks Rufus. “Maybe if I find another one and put them both on …”

“No.” Rufus is as blunt as the broken sword that he’s just pulled from another trash heap. With a sigh, he tosses it away. “Keys, remember? We’re looking for keys.”

“I’ve found one!” Yestin pounces. “Here’s a key!”

“Show me,” says Rufus.

At that very instant, Noble spots something that makes him gasp. He darts forward and seizes a photograph.

It’s a picture of Rufus.

“Rufus?” he croaks. Then he holds it up. “Is this—is this
you
?”

Rufus lifts his gaze from the little silver key that Yestin has given him. “Nope,” he replies, without much interest, before turning his attention back to the key. “Good work, Yestin. Can you find any more?”

Noble studies the photograph again. It shows a skinny boy in a grubby T-shirt, draped across a leather couch. The boy appears to be slightly younger than Rufus, but he has Rufus’s cheeky grin and sly expression. As for his hair …

“Are you sure?” Noble presses. “This looks just like you.”

“It’s not,” Rufus assures him.

“Who could it be, then?”

“It’s the real Rufus. It’s the guy who came up with my programming.”

Even Yestin reacts to this piece of news. He stiffens, his jaw dropping, as Noble catches his breath.

“The
what
?” Noble splutters. “What do you mean, the
real Rufus
?”

“Here’s one!” Unlike Yestin, Brandi seems completely oblivious to all the drama. She’s just swooped on a heavy cast-iron key, which she’s now waving in the air. “Is this all right? Will this do?”

“It’s fine,” Rufus confirms. “I’ll take it.”

Yestin, meanwhile, has rushed to examine Noble’s discovery. “Is that your programmer, Rufus? Oh, wow,” Yestin squeaks. “How
weird
.”

“Yeah, I guess he sorta made me in his own image.” Having pocketed Brandi’s key, Rufus is now poking around in a mess of flat, shiny disks and broken musical instruments. “Maybe that’s what always happens when you’re an inexperienced programmer, working by yourself. Maybe he can’t keep his personality out of the programming.” With a sudden hiss, Rufus hunkers down to snatch up something small and silver. “Here’s another key!” he announces. “And it’s identical to the first one, too, which is
great
.”

“But … I don’t understand.” Noble is still reeling. “Are you a copy, then? Are you like the false Noble?”

“No, no. You’re not getting it.” Rufus straightens and sighs. “That guy in the photo—the real Rufus—he doesn’t live inside this computer with us. He’s out in the real world, where the Colonel doesn’t run things.” Nodding at the great rubbish heap behind Noble, Rufus adds, “Those are all photos of the real world, but they’ve been trashed. Binned. The files
have been deleted—I don’t know why. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. Not to us.”

“Yes, it does!” Yestin protests, as Noble struggles to understand. “It matters if the real Rufus owns this computer! What if he’s the one who’s been playing all the games around here?”

“He isn’t.” Rufus’s tone is flat but convincing. “This computer doesn’t belong to him. Believe me, if it did, I wouldn’t be needing all these keys. Because I already
have
Rufus’s current password. It’s bloodquest.”

“Then who does the computer belong to?” Yestin wants to know.

Rufus shrugs. “Some guy called Mikey,” he says, leaving Noble utterly confused.

“Mikey? Who’s Mikey?” Noble can’t recall anyone named Mikey. “I thought you said the Colonel was in charge?”

“He is. He’s in charge of making sure that Mikey gets what he wants.” Seeing Noble’s blank expression doesn’t change, Rufus takes a deep breath, as if he’s about to elaborate.

But then, Brandi screams.

“Oh, wow! You guys! Come here, quick, this is so
freaky
!” She begins to back away from the colorful mass of junk that she’s been exploring. “Look! It’s alive! It’s coming out!” she exclaims.

Rufus and Yestin both hurl themselves toward her, but Noble hesitates. He’s seen another picture of Rufus—or at least, another picture of the “real” Rufus,
who looks almost as young as Yestin in this particular photograph. The young Rufus is shown sitting at a table behind a large blue cake, grinning happily, with his arm around the shoulders of another boy who has stiff black hair and high cheekbones. Most of the pictures seem to feature this black-haired boy, along with Rufus and a little dark-eyed girl. There’s also a white dog and a gray cat.

It occurs to Noble, as he inspects the photographs, that he’s looking at two boys growing up. Sometimes they’re young and sometimes they’re older. Sometimes they have short hair, sometimes long. Sometimes they’re sprawled on a messy bed, cuddling animals, while at other times they’re outdoors, at the beach or in a tree house.

Though the passage of time is a fairly new concept to Noble, these photographs illustrate it perfectly. They’re like a story in pictures. He can’t get over how long and rich a person’s past can actually be.

His own short history seems like a mere stub in comparison.

“Noble! Hey!” It’s Rufus calling him. Glancing up from the photographs in his hand, Noble sees that the other three are clustered around a kind of eruption in the side of a junk heap. Something about the size of a gargoyle is struggling to free itself from a press of candy canes and beach balls. Rufus has grabbed two pink legs with silver hoofs. Yestin has grabbed Rufus.

“One—two—three—
heave
!” Rufus sets his teeth
and drags at the stumpy legs, dodging a silver spike like a very thin, very elongated triton shell, which is also emerging from the junk pile.

Noble drops his photographs and hurries to help.

“Oh, look!” Brandi squeals. “It’s a unicorn!”

“Here.” Noble seizes one pink leg, jostling Rufus aside. “Let me do it.”

A single tug is all it takes. Noble suddenly finds himself sitting on the ground beneath a miniature horse with a horn on its forehead. The horse has a silver mane and huge, melting eyes. Its eyelashes are even longer than Brandi’s.

“Oh, it’s
gorgeous
!” she croons. “Isn’t it gorgeous? And it matches my unicorn pendant!”

When the animal starts to lick him, Noble pushes it off his chest. Then he climbs to his feet while Brandi and Yestin converge on the little unicorn, which is dancing with excitement.

“Hello! I’m Brandi! What’s your name?”

“I don’t think it can talk,” Yestin says doubtfully as the unicorn squeaks its response. “It’s got a name tag, though—look.”

Brandi promptly makes a grab for the little silver medal hanging on a pink ribbon around the unicorn’s neck. “Lulu,” she reads aloud. “Hello, Lulu! Where did you come from?”

“Some preschool game full of squeaky pink things,” Rufus volunteers, answering for the unicorn. He seems to think it’s funny.

Noble isn’t amused, though. He’s shocked to see an animal in a rubbish dump.

“No one threw
her
out, surely?” he demands, gesturing at Lulu. “She must have escaped. Like us.”

“Nah.” Rufus shakes his head. “She was scrapped.”

“But—”

“That’s what happens. I told you, the Colonel’s a tyrant.” Hearing Yestin’s gasp of dismay, Rufus tries to soften the blow. “I guess Lulu
might
be used again. She might not get recycled. I just wouldn’t count on it.”

“Poor Lulu!” Yestin cries. He throws his arms around the unicorn’s neck, while Noble gazes at Rufus, arrested by a sudden, disturbing thought.

If animals are being dumped in the trash, then why not people?

“Are you telling me this creature has been
replaced
?” Noble asks Rufus, jerking his chin at the unicorn. “The way I was replaced?”

“Uh … kind of. Except that this is a little different.…”

It’s not much of an answer, but it has to satisfy Noble. Because once again, without warning, Brandi hijacks the conversation.