The Whisper (17 page)

“Yes, do that,” Audrey said, brightening. “He doesn’t know about that yet.”

“We can do this,” Leo said. “It’s not going to be easy, but we can do it. He did listen to me for a minute.”

They heard a noise; a faint rumble on the south side of The Wall. Startled, they walked across and looked down through the darkness at the strip of no-man’s-land. On the south side, it was covered in dead leaves and the lights of small animals and insects. The rumbling noise was coming from beneath it.

“What is it?” Mika said.

They began to see movement.

Leaves slid, insects scattered, and a line of giant square
holes opened up in the ground, all along The Wall. They listened to the rumbling noise for a few moments more, then saw the tops of giant silver cubes rising up from the darkness.

“They must be some kind of weapon,” Ellie said.

“Berserker borgs,” Leo replied. “Mose said that if our people take one step beyond The Wall, they’d be eaten by wolves, crushed by berserker borgs, or poisoned like rats.”

When the cubes had risen to their full height, they looked strange against their dark forest background. Their silver surfaces were ghostly pale, their edges hard and sharp, like a warning from the future to the victims of the past. They were immense, their bases as big as a tower and half the height of The Wall.

Suddenly they shifted, with one quick, synchronized movement, expanding and splitting into many more, smaller cubes that shuffled in the air and settled again, as if giving the children a demonstration.

“Oh, frag,” Mika said. “I don’t like the look of those. Santos, you’ve got the best head for engineering: Look into them and try to figure out what they do.”

“OK,” Santos said.

They left the Hawk Boy staring at the cubes and walked to the other side of The Wall. The people of Mainz had now ventured halfway across no-man’s-land. It wouldn’t be long before they covered it.

“It’s OK,” Mika said. “We just have to stay calm and wait until we can talk to Mose again.”

“Yes,” Audrey said. “We just have to stay calm and everything will be fine.”

K
obi sat on his bed, waiting for Mika to call him back. He couldn’t believe he was still waiting. He’d called his best friend, begging to talk to him, and had been told Mika was too busy. And because he was riddled with panic and crazy with impatience, he couldn’t stay quiet enough to hear The Whisper, so he was cast out, with something terrible happening downstairs.

“Call me,” he said, glaring through his hair at his companion. “Come on, Mika, call me back, you perp!”

Eventually, he couldn’t sit still and ran down the stairs to the meeting room. There was a gathering of children outside the door, wondering what had happened to their parents. Some clutched badly made sandwiches. Others looked tired and confused. Oliver was holding a baby that was screaming its head off.

Kobi tried the door. It was still locked. He pressed his ear
against it but because the baby was screaming, he couldn’t hear anything.

“Oliver,” he said. “Whose baby is that?”

“My baby,” Oliver replied desperately. “It’s my baby sister. My parents told me to look after her, then they went into the meeting room and haven’t come out. I don’t know what to do with her.”

He was holding the baby under her arms, so she was almost dropping to the floor. Her diaper was sodden and hung between her legs as if it had a bucket of pee in it.

“Give her to me,” Kobi said. “And go and find her a diaper.”

Oliver ran off and returned a minute later, then Kobi laid the screaming baby on the floor and Oliver gave him the diaper. But when Kobi unfolded it, he had no idea how to put it on. He turned it over in his hands, mystified.

“If I can make kittens out of vacuumbot,” he muttered. “I’m sure I can do this.”

After several minutes of failed attempts and help from all the children, the diaper was on and the baby had stopped crying.

“Thank odd for that,” Kobi said, handing her back to Oliver. “She screams louder than a Plague siren.”

He stood up and pressed his ear against the door. Now he could hear what was happening.

“What are they saying?” Oliver whispered.

“Shhh,” Kobi replied.

He could hear the boy muttering deliriously, unaware what was coming out of his mouth. Everyone else was listening. Occasionally an adult would ask a quiet question, then there would be a rush of incredulous whispers, then more muttering from the boy. A dreamlike jumble was pouring out of
his head, but the adults were beginning to make sense of it.

Kobi realized that if he didn’t stop it now, it would be too late.

“Stand back,” he said to the children. They shuffled back with wide eyes. Then he began to kick the door, making them jump with fright.

But he was too late.

The voices grew louder on the other side of the door. Shouting began, then yelling. Kobi stood back and listened, wondering if they were yelling at him, then he realized they hadn’t even heard him kick the door. They were so full of rage, they couldn’t hear anything else.

He heard chairs clatter as they rose. Then the door burst open and they poured out like a pen of baited bulls. The younger children shrank back, but Kobi lurched forward and tried to grab his father’s arm. Abe shook him off as if he didn’t recognize him.

“Dad,” Kobi cried. “Stop!”

“No!” Abe yelled, his face contorted by rage. “Get out of my way.”

He shoved Kobi aside and began to follow the others.

Kobi ran after him.

“Where are you going?” he said.

His father turned on him. “To find the parts to build a bomb!” he yelled. “So we can blow a hole through The Wall!”

“Dad, no!” Kobi pleaded. He tried to grab his father’s arm again. “Please don’t build a bomb! You’ll start a war! You’ll start a terrible war!”

His father shook him off again. “Good!” he yelled. “There are forests on the other side of The Wall! Beautiful forests, Kobi!
And a few thousand rich people living in mansions! They stole our land and left us to rot! They murdered your mother! They killed her with greed and lies! What do you think of that, Kobi?”

Kobi looked away.

“Do you know?” his father roared. “You don’t look very surprised.”

Kobi didn’t reply.

“You do, don’t you? You’re doing that thing when you hide in your hair. Tell me, Kobi! Did the boy tell you?”

“Sort of,” Kobi said.

“How long have you known?”

“Not long,” Kobi replied. “A day maybe.”

“You knew? YOU KNEW! AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US? HOW DARE YOU?”

“Because look at you!” Kobi yelled. “Look at the state of you! You’re going to kill people now! That’s why I didn’t tell you! The army of children are out there, trying to solve this without fighting a war, and now you’re going to ruin it all. You’re going to start a war and make it ten times worse! Everyone will die! And those forests on the other side of The Wall will burn!”

“I am so ashamed of you!” his father yelled. “You stupid child! Now go and pack our bags! You’re coming with me to The Wall!”

“Please, Dad, no! Calm down and think about what you’re doing! I know Mum died, but killing loads of other people because of her doesn’t make sense!”

“Shut up, Kobi! You’re twelve years old. Just shut up and do what you’re told! I’m building a bomb to blow a hole through The Wall and you’re going to help me! That’s our land on the other side of The Wall! OUR LAND THEY STOLE!”

Kobi watched his father rush off, then turned to find Oliver trembling behind him, with his baby sister crying in his arms.

He crouched down. “Listen to me,” he said. “Don’t be scared. Somewhere out there is an army of children. All those children who used to play Pod Fighter are trying to stop this war. We’ll tell them what’s happened and they’ll help us.”

“Do it quickly,” Oliver cried. “I’m scared. I don’t want to be in a war! I don’t want everyone to die!”

“OK,” Kobi said. Then he removed his companion from his pocket and tried to call Mika again.

Once The Secret was out, it spread like a fire in a hay barn in the middle of a hot summer drought. It began in the meeting room in the Future Communication Building, then the heat threw it up into the air to fall all over the North and start many more fires. It wouldn’t be long before the whole northern hemisphere was burning.

On The Wall, Santos and Colette observed the giant cubes, while Mika, Ellie, Audrey, Leo, and Iman watched the crowd on the other side. Suddenly, they saw heat spots appear in the light.

“What’s going on?” Mika said.

They watched for another minute as the red patches spread and began to join up. Each time they blinked, there were hundreds more. Soon it looked as if molten lava was pouring through the streets between the towers. The children looked at each other. They knew there was only one reason why so many people would behave this way.

“Do you think they know?” Audrey asked tentatively.

“Surely not,” Mika replied. “It would be the worst possible thing that could happen. Our luck can’t possibly be that bad.”

They didn’t want to believe it. They continued to watch for a while longer, trying to stay calm and hoping this was happening for another reason. But when the crowd reached The Wall, it attacked it in a frenzy of fists, roaring, raging, hands bleeding, feet kicking.

“Oh frag,” Mika said.

They turned away and began to pace, breathing hard. All the other children were panicking around them and this was spreading through The Whisper, dousing it dead.

“We have to stay calm,” Leo said. “All of us. If The Secret’s out, we have no choice but to deal with it. This can’t be stopped now. Everyone, try to calm down so we can hear each other and work out what to do.”

They fought hard for quiet. The crowd was roaring below them and they could feel vibrations through The Wall as all the people pounded against it. They knew what this meant. These people would never listen to them while they felt this angry. The war was starting and Raphael Mose had been right. They couldn’t control their parents. It was all going wrong.

This thought was too much. They started to break apart.

Audrey put her hands over her face. Awen shivered with his tail between his legs. Mika watched Ellie blink; she was doing that bad blinking thing again. Then her face darkened and she took a step away from him. Immediately, he realized what she was thinking. Their parents would be part of that raging mob.

“Ellie, no,” he said.

She took another step back, as if to stop him from touching her.

“No, Ellie!”

“But they’ll come here!” she cried. “Everyone will come here
and so will Mum and Dad and they might get killed and I’ll never see them again! I have to stop them!”

She turned and began to run toward her Pod Fighter.

“No!” Mika yelled, sprinting after her.

She reached it and leaped onto the wing, and Mika found himself fighting with her, grabbing at her legs, trying to stop her from getting in. He pulled her down and they slipped over the wet, black wing, with Puck perched on the windshield, screeching at them. In a mad frenzy, they both fell down and landed on The Wall. Then they were wrestling in the puddles as they’d done when they were toddlers.

“You can’t do anything!” Mika yelled, trying to pin her down. “If Mum and Dad know The Secret, they’ll be just as angry as the rest! You don’t want to see them like that, Ellie. Stop it!”

“Get off me!” she screamed. “I have to find them!” She struggled against him, furiously, her wet hair plastered to her cheeks, but he would not let her go. He’d felt her break as she ran toward the Pod Fighter. In this state of mind, she’d kill herself. But then the fight got nasty. He felt a sharp pain in his eyes as hers locked on his, then he was gone for a moment, in agony, rolling over on the wet wall with his hands over his face. Then he saw flashes of white all around him. He opened his eyes to see Audrey, Leo, Iman, Santos, and Colette running in to help. But Ellie was now curled up in the puddles, weeping, with her hands over her eyes. She’d shocked herself back to sanity.

Mika stood up and pulled her to her feet. They were both sodden and filthy.

“I’m sorry,” she wept.

“So you’re not going to fly off like a perp on some kamikaze mission?”

“No,” she replied.

He put his arms around her. “OK,” he said. “But you can’t do things like that, Ellie. The best way to help Mum and Dad is to control yourself. Don’t ever hurt me like that again. You’re fragging dangerous.”

“I know, I’m sorry. It happened before I could stop it.”

The crowd was still roaring and battering The Wall. The sky to the north was full of pods. A mass exodus had begun. But somehow, in that moment, they did feel calmer. Ellie had freaked out on behalf of them all, and they were better for it. Soon all their parents would be part of that mob and they had no choice but to deal with it.

Then the pace cranked up again. Lilian yelled in Mika’s pocket. “Mika!! Mika!! Kobi Nenko’s calling! He’s begging you to help him! His father is planning to build a bomb and blow a hole through The Wall!”

The seven children looked at each other.

“Well,” Leo said. “They’re not going to get through it with their fists.”

“Let me talk to him,” Mika replied.

Kobi sat on his father’s bed. Although he’d told Oliver not to worry, he was panicking so much he could hardly hold his companion. The whole Future Communication Building was full of adults packing bags and preparing for the journey to The Wall. He could hear them all around him. Hear roars of rage from The Shadows as the fire spread. And here he was stuck right in the middle of it, having promised Oliver he would get help. That the army was out there somewhere and would come to help them. When he heard Mika’s voice, he almost cried with relief.

“Mika,” he said. “I’m in The Shadows. It’s a fragging nightmare here.”

“I know,” Mika replied quickly. “Just tell me everything. We know The Secret’s out; now we need to know about this bomb so we can figure out what to do about it. Don’t worry, we’re all here and we’re going to help you.”

“Good,” Kobi said. “I’m going nuts here on my own.”

He explained everything, about the boy and the bolt borgs and his father. And as he quietly uploaded all this to Mika, he felt his head lighten and his muscles relax. His thoughts had been there before, coursing through The Whisper with the rest, but channeled through his friend, they became loud enough for everyone to hear.

When he’d told Mika everything, Mika said, “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out how to make this work for us. The best thing you can do for now is tell the adults you’re going to help them. Tell your father you’re sorry and stay close to him. That way you’ll know exactly what’s happening. How long do you think it will take before he has all the parts to build a bomb?”

“A day,” Kobi said. “It usually takes him a day to source all the bits when he’s building something. As soon as he’s got them all, we’ll follow everyone else to The Wall.”

“Then I’ll come to you tomorrow morning,” Mika said, “while you’re still in The Shadows, and we’ll talk about what we’re going to do. I’m so glad we’ve found you.”

“So am I,” Kobi said. “You have no idea.”

The call ended.

Kobi lay back and closed his eyes, feeling relief although his world was burning around him.

At last he was part of the army.