The Illusionists (9 page)

It was time to try again.

He didn't care what Greta would say if she ever found out. He didn't care because he couldn't stop himself.

He had to know.

He'd always struggled with mind Jumps. Dream visiting White's little Talented group had required him to body Jump back to Red House; he'd always found it much easier to slide into people's minds if he was physically close to them. He'd only managed a mind spy once or twice with White in the past, and after leaving Angle Tar he hadn't dared try it again.

But just a little risk, now he was on top. It couldn't hurt. Maybe White wouldn't feel him this time. The Wren that had left Angle Tar was a weaker creature. He'd come a long way since then.

He didn't know what he wanted to see, exactly. He told himself it was to make sure that White wasn't coming after him in some way. He told himself that he just wanted to see how he was. If he was still a cold, miserable bastard or whether he was happy now.

He wouldn't be. White had never known how to be happy. It was almost like he held the power he had as some sort of awful curse, rather than the extraordinary gift it was. Too bad for him. Wren had no time for cowards. Taking Rue away had seemed perfect at the time – the most sublime punishment. White had thought Wren beneath him. Well, he didn't any more.

Did he?

It was an anxious, grubby kind of thought, lingering and dancing in the back of Wren's head.

What if he's fine?

What if he doesn't think you're powerful?

What if he doesn't even think about you?

Just a little look, then. Using White as the anchor, rather than a place on campus, was the key. Thinking about his face, his voice, the shape that he left in the world. The stiff coats he wore, and the shirts cuffed at his wrist bones. His stupid, prim clothes.

There – a faint glimmer of it. Don't think. Just let it grow bigger. Don't get excited.

In this way, he skirted around the edges of the shape of White. He knew it was taking a while, but he had no concept of time in this state. Closer and closer he grew to it – then a little ebb.

And then, all of a sudden, like a sneeze, he was there.

White was in a parlour. The bedroom door behind him was open just a little, showing a sliver of rumpled sheets. He sat at a table, poking his food listlessly with a fork and leafing through the papers scattered in front of him.

That smooth, pale skin. Liquid black eyes, creased in thought. His hair pulled back into its customary plait. He never let his hair out. Sometimes it escaped, tendrils sliding out from its bonds to dance and stick on his shoulders, but this time it was all in place.

One half of his face was in the dark. His nose was thrown into relief, cheekbones shadowed, angles that Wren had often found himself staring at when they had been friends. He was chewing delicately on his top lip. His eyes were cast down. He was reading.

Calm. You'll lose the control if you don't keep calm.

Wren circled, invisible and fascinated. He tried to catch sight of what was on the papers, craning as if White would feel his breath, tensing his muscles to move as softly as he could, and had to remind himself that there was no need. There was only his mind here. So he moved to the papers and drank them in.

There were bits of beautiful, half-hidden pencil drawings. Diagrams and rendered sculptures of human bodies. Notes, all written in White's alarmingly messy spider writing. He'd always found writing hard. It wasn't a necessary skill in World, learning to write longhand. Wren had laughed at him back then, but he could appreciate it now.

The notes were incomprehensible, though. If he had time to sit down and go through them, maybe – but White's idea of taking notes was to write a list of numbers and dates, and then break off in the middle of it all to sketch a hand, writing a paragraph across the palm on the early characteristics of Talent, and then cover every bit of white space around his scribbled words with ever-growing geometric doodles.

No drawings of Rue. Or not that Wren could see.

Somehow he'd expected some sort of sign that White was visibly affected by her departure. But maybe he'd miscalculated. Maybe White had just had a minor thing for her. He seemed to be getting on with things just fine here.

No. He'd seen the look on White's face that evening, after he'd taken Rue. It was a look he'd craved to see for such a long time – unguarded, defences utterly gone. White's defences were hard to crack, but he'd done it. He'd caused the misery in those eyes.

He watched White put down his fork, drinking in his face, unhindered by propriety. It was so freeing, watching someone who didn't know you were there. White turned a piece of paper over, turned it back again, and then, without any kind of warning, slammed his closed fist down on the table. His fork rattled and the plate jumped.

The noise it made was deafening in the quiet.

‘Get out,' said White. He spoke in World instead of Angle Tarain, addressing the tabletop. ‘I know you're there.'

Silence.

‘You think you can mind spy on me, and I wouldn't know? I can
feel
you, you fucking prick.'

Wren felt his heart give a panicky leap. He watched, struggling with the idea that he wasn't there, not really. So White couldn't hurt him. White couldn't do anything.

‘You can hear me, too. I know you can,' said White. ‘So hear this. If I ever find you, I will kill you.'

Wren wanted to laugh. He wanted to taunt, and show that he wasn't afraid. But he couldn't do any of that. He was powerless.

‘I'll kill you, Wren. And I'll enjoy it.'

He still stared at the tabletop, his face perfectly, calmly set.

Wren started to lose his grip.
No
, he thought, but his heart was racing too much, and something
pushed
at him.

‘Get out,' said White.

Something
pushed
at him again, like a gale, buffeting him back with invisible hands.

‘Get out,' White repeated.

The push became a shove. And another. The room lost focus, blurring.

‘GET OUT.'

The shove became a punch.

It was fast and awful and Wren didn't even understand what had happened until after it had. When he knew anything more, he was slumped in his room, slicked in sweat, and his hands were trembling.

Holy. Shit.

It was not fear. He was not afraid. Simply surprised.

How had White done that? How had he
known
how to do that? What else could he do that he kept to himself? It wasn't fair. Power should be given to people who had the guts to use it. It shouldn't languish within a coward.

If you were still friends
, his mind posited,
maybe you'd know about what he could do. He would have taught you.

I don't want to be his student
, he snapped back.
Just because he has more raw ability than me, doesn't mean he's better than me.

He leaned his head back against the wall, trying to calm down.

Somewhere, buried under the shock and the jealousy and the shame, he felt the tiniest bit relieved. Because at least White still thought about him.

He risked a look down at his hands.

After a long moment, they stopped trembling.

Cho had disappeared.

No more calls. No wry messages in Rue's Life account with links to strange music and even stranger art videos. No meet-ups in energetic, fractured Life cafés that were art gallery, restaurant and dance hall rolled into one. Cho drank a lot, Rue had come to realise, and took drugs almost absent-mindedly. But then everyone seemed to do that, here. They took what they called supplements for everything – to feel less tired, to feel happier, or calmer, more revitalised, or sleepy. They liked to change moods as quick as changing clothes. It was normal to them.

It had been a precarious kind of fun, at first – making friends with hackers, hanging out in strange, luminous places, as if she were trying to become the kind of fire that Cho was – but no more. Cho was far too indiscreet. What if she'd got into trouble?

Rue had only found out that Cho was going to a party this evening when one of her friends sent a message about it to a whole group of people, accidentally including Rue. So she'd go, too. All casual. Just to check on her. She didn't care much for the stupid system that said she couldn't. Who was to stop her, anyway?

Rue stared, checked the address she'd written down again. It was definitely the right place. But instead of grey, listless walls, the entire building was elegantly carved out of what looked like white marble, though when she examined it she could see it was a kind of strange, light stone that she couldn't place. It was set off the main street in a private cul-de-sac. Colonnades clustered around the front entrance – there was most definitely a front entrance. Curved steps like stacked smiles led up to a large, imposing door. It was the most familiar-looking place Rue had seen since coming to World. It seemed that Worlders were not quite as equal as they first appeared to be.

Her feet crunched on the gravel driveway. She took the steps, forcing confidence into her posture, and rang the door alarm.

A moment, and then it was flung open. The girl standing in the doorway was a curvaceous thing with chocolate-coloured skin and a mass of dark hair like a cloud around her head. She looked Rue up and down.

‘Yes?' she said. ‘I can't access you. Aren't you jacked in?'

‘Oh, I don't have an implant,' said Rue brightly. ‘I'm from Angle Tar, and I only moved here recently. They haven't given me one yet.'

‘They haven't  … ' the girl paused, confused. Rue saw her advantage and pressed.

‘I'm here with Cho. Cho Peven. She might already be inside – I'm a bit late, sorry.'

The girl's eyes glazed. ‘You're not on the list,' she said. ‘Everyone's already here. What's your name?'

Rue hesitated. They swapped their names around, here. She still hadn't gotten used to it. ‘Rue Vela,' she said.

‘Um  … '

‘Maybe you could get Cho to vouch for me?'

‘Well  … '

Rue smiled sweetly. ‘It'd be quicker.'

The girl's mouth twisted, and she closed the door.

Rue stared at it for a moment.

Well, she'd just keep ringing, was all.

As she raised her hand, the door opened again. The girl was back, and this time she had Cho with her.

Rue couldn't help it; she broke into a smile at the sight of her.

‘You're okay!' she said.

‘What?'

‘I've been trying to get hold of you.'

Cho shrugged, looking uncomfortable.

‘So, you do know her?' said the first girl, with a raised brow. She looked amused.

‘Look, it's not like that,' Cho snapped. ‘She's just a friend.'

‘Oh, so I am your friend, am I?' said Rue. ‘Why have you been ignoring me, then? I was worried, you idiot.'

Cho glanced at the first girl, whose smirk grew as she walked off.

Rue watched her curiously. She'd been all prepared to get angry, but there was something about Cho's behaviour. She was almost dancing in the doorway, her body anxious, eyes tired and tight-looking.

‘What's wrong?' said Rue.

‘Nothing. Look, what are you doing here? You weren't invited. You're crashing. They don't let people crash.'

‘So what?' said Rue. Cho's eyes snapped to her, surprised, and she shrugged. ‘I wanted to see you. You disappeared on me.'

Cho was now practically jiggling on the spot.

‘Oh, just come in,' she said at last. ‘Just  …  come in off the street.'

Rue followed her inside, down into the mouth of a pale, airy corridor.

‘So where have you been?' she said to Cho's back.

‘You never stop asking questions, do you?'

‘Well, excuse me for caring.'

They moved into the main room. It was dark and stuffy. People murmured and laughed around them.

Cho rounded on her. ‘Why
do
you care?' she demanded.

‘What do you mean?' said Rue, taken aback.

‘Why do you even give a shit? You barely know me.'

That stung. Rue knew it had only been a couple of weeks, but it had begun to feel like they were close. ‘I  …  just do. Why does anyone care about anyone?'

Cho watched her for a long, long moment.

‘You shouldn't have come,' she said at last.

Rue had had enough. ‘Cho,' she said, her anger and worry blooming, ‘
what is going on
?'

‘Nothing. I can't  …  Nothing. I've just been really busy, okay?'

‘Stop it. Something's wrong. You're jumping out of your skin. Tell me.'

Cho opened her mouth, her eyes hard and angry. This was turning into an argument, and Rue had no idea how they'd got there. But she wasn't going to back down. She'd have the truth.

She saw it in Cho's eyes first. They changed, her gaze fell, glazed over, as if distracted.

Then Rue heard it, too.

The noise was low, really low, and it seemed to come from her feet. She hoped it wasn't the Vibe music that everyone seemed to be obsessed with at the moment. Some of the music in World was a revelation, a whole new way of hearing beauty. Music that could encapsulate an emotion so precisely, your heart ached when you listened to it. Infinite varieties that triumphed over staid Angle Tar music so completely she wondered how she could have ever thought it was anything but dullness itself.

Vibe wasn't like that. From what she had heard so far, it either sounded like people dying, or was so incomprehensible she couldn't say where the melody, voice or beat was, or what they were supposed to be doing.

But the noise they were hearing wasn't music.

Everyone in the room had puzzled frowns on their faces, their mouths open in the midst of words.

The noise was growing, rolling, moving. A growling, booming note, a steady far-away tiger roar that went on without end.

It was something from beyond the walls.

Cho muttered a sharp word under her breath. She took something small out from her shirt and pushed it into her ear. Rue watched her in astonishment.

‘What are you doing?' said Rue.

‘They're early.'

Cho turned and slid through the small crowd towards the door.

‘Wait,' said Rue, puzzled.

Thunder rolled through the room from outside. You couldn't hear it exactly. It was more that you felt every cell of your body vibrate with it. The room held nothing but statues, silent.

A voice spoke into the quiet. ‘Shit, I think it's –'

The walls shook. The low roar from the ground climbed higher into a scream.

People had their mouths open, crying out, but Rue could hear nothing over the noise, the colossal wave of sound that pushed over everything else and smothered senses. She clapped her hands to her ears, but it did nothing.

Everyone around her was dropping, falling hard, their hands clutching their heads, screaming silently, voices unheard.

Rue looked around in amazement. She was the only one left standing.

Everything told her to run. She stood, fingers in ears, fighting hard, fighting to stay, to think.

I've dreamed this
, she thought, filled with horror.

I've seen this before. People dropping. Only me left standing. In a grey place. Gods. A grey, empty place. I dreamed it. Months ago.

What in seven hells is happening to me?

She dropped to her knees, crawled to the nearest figure.

‘Are you all right?' she screamed at him. ‘What's wrong with you?'

He was moaning. She pressed her ear to his mouth.

‘MyheadmyheadmyheadHURTS' was all she could hear, over and over.

She stood up, panic bucking at her, a terrified horse.

Why was she unaffected? What was different about her? Immediately, the answer came.

You don't have an implant.

Bodies pressed into themselves, curled on the ground like beetles.

She searched for Cho, but couldn't see her in the dimness. Just still bodies. Some with their mouths open and their eyes screwed shut, moaning soundlessly.

The rumbling went on.

Rue ran to a window, her heart pounding at what she would see outside. A face appeared, and Rue felt her heart stop.

It was Cho. She jerked her head impatiently.
Come outside.

Rue ran to the door, hauling at it.

The noise was so loud.

She pressed her hands to her ears, tears streaming from her eyes.

Cho appeared, her face urgent. She gripped Rue's arm, tugging her out of the driveway and along the grey streets.

Others were running, too, but not many. Most, supposed Rue, were still curled on floors, trying to process the shock of whatever had been done to them.

Pounding feet. Cho's back just ahead. Rue focused on it. Cho's determined back and small shoulders would get her through this.

There were two, three, four booms then. More felt than heard.

Cho sped up. So did Rue.

They came to a building that had the distinction of a startlingly blue segmented globe symbol set into the door, overlaid with a curly, three-pronged design. Rue had never seen anything like it before.

The door opened. A man stepped out, moving his hand frantically at them to hurry. Rue could see running people swerving from the street into the open door, relief on their faces. The relief spurred her forward.

She passed through the door, Cho just ahead. They shuffled through a brightly lit hallway that sloped gently downwards. She could hear the frantic chatter of people ahead of them.

‘He just dropped. I mean dropped, like his legs had been cut out from under him. I've never seen anything like it.'

‘On the floor and in so much pain and I didn't want to leave her but –'

‘I was just about to jack in. JUST about to.'

‘I'd only just jacked out, and that's only because Evelina was shouting at me to eat dinner in the real as usual.'

They trooped ever downwards, voices like panicked birds around them.

Rue reached forward and tapped Cho on the shoulder.

Cho turned her head. She was fiddling with her ear. The hallway was wide enough for two. Rue squeezed in beside Cho as she slipped a little disc out from her ear and put it back in her shirt.

‘Cho. What is going on?!'

‘Don't worry, it's over. We'll be okay down here anyway.'

‘Cho.'

But she didn't reply. Someone behind them piped up.

‘Do you know what's happening?'

Rue looked over her shoulder. A well-groomed woman with her hair striped like a tiger cat was peering at them both, her face shifting desperately between a patina of calm and frightened misery.

‘No,' said Rue. Cho was silent.

‘Oh my. Oh my,' said the tiger woman, muttering. ‘Oh, it was nearly me. I was nearly – I mean – oh. What if he's dead?'

Her voice had risen.

‘He's not dead,' said Cho. ‘No one's dead, okay? Stop panicking.'

The tiger woman looked at her, caught by the anger in her voice.

‘But what if  … ?' she said, lamely, and trailed off. ‘I just left him there.'

‘You did the right thing. You remembered the training and came to a safety hall. He'll be fine. Don't worry.'

‘But what happened?' said the tiger woman. ‘What happened? Why aren't they telling us what happened?'

‘It was Technophobes,' said someone else behind her. ‘Isn't it blindingly obvious?'

‘No, it isn't,' said a third. ‘That's everyone's hysterical fallback to everything, that is.' The stranger's voice took on a whiny, sneery tone. ‘It's the
Technophobes
. Your Life account loads slower than usual – it's the Technophobes. Your dinner comes out warm instead of hot – Technophobes. Don't you think they have better things to do with their time?'

‘What, other than disrupt technology?' said the second man's voice, sharply. ‘Which is basically what they exist to do?'

‘But they've never done anything like this before,' said the tiger woman, bewildered. ‘All that happened before was that they'd manage to shut off Life for a few minutes. You just couldn't jack in, that was all. This was  …  this was horrible.'

Rue glanced at Cho. Her face was carefully rigid.

After several minutes of walking downwards, they came out into a medium-sized hall. It was a white and austere tiled blankness, with a vaguely concrete floor. Dotted about were angular tables and chairs. A few people were milling about or sat down, talking. The atmosphere seemed shockingly, positively relaxed. Rue looked at the thin crowd. Some people were even smiling and laughing.

‘Why is everyone so happy?' said Rue.

Cho muttered something under her breath. ‘Because they're stupid,' she said out loud. ‘And probably because they've taken calmers. Look, you can see a drug-dispensing machine over there. These halls are always filled with them. It's mandatory, in case people turn hysterical. Wouldn't want that, would we?'

She sat at an empty table, and Rue slid into the seat next to her. The chair was hard and cold against her back.