The Whisper (6 page)

“Yes,” he replied.

“Do you think your parents would appreciate ten thousand credits?” Gorman prompted.

“Yes, sir,” Mika answered.

“Good,” Gorman said. “So I’ll tell you how you can get it. I’m going to send you over The Wall to the home of Raphael Mose. Raphael Mose is the leader of the World Conservation Club. He’s the most powerful man in the South and he lives in a mansion, a hundred miles from The Wall. When you get there, I want you to show it to me. I want you to walk around the grounds and the house so I can look at everything. You’ll have com equipment and headsets, so everything you look at, I’ll be able to see through my desk and we’ll be able to talk to each other.”

The twins felt confused. Gorman wasn’t talking about killing anyone, which was good, but this didn’t sound like a war mission. It sounded personal.

Ellie glanced at his desk and saw an open folder of … fabric samples?

I know what he’s doing,
she thought.
He’s using us to go house hunting for him. We’re taking him on a guided tour of the mansion he wants to live in!

Perp,
Mika thought.

At least we won’t have to kill anyone,
Ellie reasoned.

It was irritating. While they were off house hunting for Gorman on the other side of The Wall, the implanted army
would be waiting. The twins had more important things to do. Like get rid of Mal Gorman and take his fortress away.

But then Gorman added a detail that would make their mission worthwhile.

“And when you’ve shown me the house,” he said, “I want you to search for something in it and bring it back to me.”

He looked a bit wild now, his eyes hot and his tubes twisting.

“What?” Mika asked bluntly.

“This,” Gorman replied, picking up an Everlife pill. “But much, much better.” He crunched it and his light brightened for a moment. “Everlife was invented by the scientists on the other side of The Wall, but they won’t let us have the good stuff, only this, which is the first version, made forty years ago. It hardly does anything. I want you to find me Everlife-9. I know Raphael Mose will have some.”

“What does it do?” Ellie asked.

“It doesn’t just stop you from dying,” he replied excitedly. “It reverses the aging process. There are people living on the other side of The Wall who look twenty-five but are older than me. Raphael Mose is a hundred and three years old and I bet he looks thirty. Everlife-9 is amazing.”

“So if you take Everlife-9,” Ellie continued, “you won’t need that life-support system anymore? Or the doctors or anything?”

“Exactly,” he said. “If you bring back Everlife-9, I’ll never need this chair again. I’ll be young, fit, and strong. So … what do you think of your mission? Think you can do it?”

“Yes,” Ellie replied.

“You’re not scared?” Gorman asked. “Of going over The Wall? It could be dangerous.”

“We want to go,” Mika said.

Gorman was impressed by the twins’ resolve. “You’ll get all the training you need, just quicker than the others. You’ll spend the day learning how to use your new equipment and I’ll send you over first thing tomorrow morning. Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Mika said.

Gorman watched them leave, thinking what a nice, polite boy Mika Smith was.

Mika followed Ellie into the elevator and they were taken by armed guards down the fortress to a training area, where they were left in a classroom. The men with guns settled at the back and leaned against the wall.

Ellie sat down and put her feet up on one of the desks. This was a familiar environment to her — she’d worked in classrooms like this for over a year — but it was not familiar to Mika. He milled around the desks, remembering their old classroom in Barford North. The bitter cold in winter, the unpainted concrete walls, the Plague posters, and Mrs. Fowler, who sat at the front wearing a pom-pom hat and mittens. The contrast between old and new was stark: This classroom was warm and bright, and full of expensive equipment.

And Ellie.

He glanced at her.

She smiled.

The door opened and a woman entered. She was dressed in white, with short gray hair, and she had the familiar sharp look of all the instructors they’d met. Jabbing a tablet with one finger, she hurried past them toward the desk at the front of the room.

“Find a place and sit down, Mika,” she said. “My name is
Rona Strap. Hello, Ellie. Get your feet off the desk. Those screens cost several thousand credits.”

Mika sat next to Ellie and they watched Rona Strap search for their lesson plan.

“I thought I was going to get a week before your first mission,” she said, sounding flustered. “But we’ve only got one day, so we’re going to have to get through everything quickly. It’s going to be hard work.”

Once she’d found their lesson plan, she looked at Ellie again. “Is there something wrong with your eyes?” she asked. “You look a bit … tired.”

“I’m fine,” Ellie said.

“OK,” the woman replied. “But you must concentrate, both of you. Welcome, Mika.”

“Hi,” Mika said.

“OK, let’s get on with it. Tomorrow, you’ll be dropped on the other side of The Wall with equipment you’ve never used before. While you explore the mansion and search for Everlife-9, you’ll be close to Raphael Mose and his family. You’ll be breaking into his home and encountering the security systems that protect it, including animal borgs you may not have interacted with before. Raphael Mose is a very dangerous man, and a very important one at that, so if you want to survive, you’re going to need to know your equipment well.”

She paused. They were watching her steadily with those weird, mercurial eyes. She’d just told them they were facing danger and they hadn’t blinked. She still doubted they were fully concentrating. She had planned to show them the drop capsules first, but she decided to save that lesson until later
and show them something more interesting; something that would wake them up.

“Your biggest advantage on the other side of The Wall,” she said, “will be that the borgs believe you’re animal, not human. And we’ve designed something else that will offer protection from Mose’s bodyguards.”

She turned. On the wall behind her desk was a safe. She punched a sequence of numbers into the control panel, and the door swung open. Inside was a white case. She removed it and opened it and walked toward their desks to show them what was inside. The case contained eight silver orbs. She removed one and held it up. It was about the size of a golf ball, with a thin chain hanging off it.

“This,” she said, “is an invisibility shield.”

That woke them up. Their eyes were suddenly intense and curious.

“You wear it around your neck,” she said. “And when you need it, you press the top.”

She put it on. A small hole appeared and a cloud of tiny fragments puffed out like a swarm of shiny flies. They surrounded her, shimmering like millions of mirror fragments. Then they linked, flashed, and vanished — and she vanished with them.

“Each fragment of the shield is a tiny screen,” she said. “And each screen has an even smaller camera lens right in the middle of it. The fragments work in pairs, transmitting an image to its counterpart on the opposite side. So whatever angle you look at my body, you see only what’s behind it.”

Her voice moved as she walked around their desks.

“The only fault with the shield is its fragility. The linked surface is not very strong. So if you bump into something, it will break apart for a few seconds, and you might be exposed. You must make sure this does not happen.

“Mika,” she continued, “move your hand in front of you.”

Mika swept his fingers, and the air stirred like water. They caught a glimpse of the woman’s arm through the hole in the shield’s surface.

“Do you want to try it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

There was a whooshing sound as the silver orb sucked up the tiny screens, and Rona Strap appeared again. Then she took the chain from around her neck and passed it to Mika, letting Ellie take another one from the case. The twins stood up, put them on, pressed the tops, and vanished.

It happened so fast that Rona Strap felt a surge of panic, despite the presence of guards at every exit. As if guards could offer protection from mutants like these.

“That’s enough, children,” she announced nervously, her eyes scanning the room. “Turn them off.”

The twins reappeared. She held out the case, and they put the silver orbs back.

“Right, that’s your first piece of equipment,” she said. “Now let’s look at your headsets. They’ve got a navigation system different from the one you’re accustomed to using in Pod Fighters.”

Mika and Ellie watched her return the invisibility shields to the safe. She shut the heavy door and set the lock. Then her light pulsed with relief, as if she felt safer. As if such things as doors and codes offered protection from children like these.

A
udrey took Mika’s hand and looked into it, at the golden light, at the way he was made. Skin, bone, muscle, blood — she could look atom-deep into his body now.

It was early morning. They were sitting on his bed again. In an hour he would be taken away and dropped over The Wall.

“What can you see?” he asked.

“The patterns in your veins,” she whispered. “I was just thinking they’re the same as those in leaves.”

“And antlers,” he said.

“Yes. Like leaves and antlers and branches and rivers.”

She dropped his hand.

“I wish you were coming with us,” he said.

“So do I,” she replied, and he felt her try to suppress her thoughts, but she could not stop him from knowing them.

The first time Mika had flown over The Wall, Audrey had been with him and they’d nearly died. The Ghengis borgs on
The Wall had almost shot them down. Then they were attacked by an eagle borg and had fallen into a forest, where their Pod Fighter burned in the branches of a tree. It had been a very dangerous way to discover the truth about their world.

And now Mika was going again, without her.

And
she
was his game partner.
She
should be with him on the other side of The Wall. Audrey liked Ellie, but she couldn’t help feeling … jealous. This was not a nice feeling. She didn’t want to feel it and she tried hard to make it go away.

Mika took her hand again. Her fairy fingers were milk pale against his darker ones.

Ellie’s my sister,
he thought.
You don’t get to choose sisters. I love her, but I didn’t choose her. I chose you
.

Audrey, Leo, Iman, Colette, and Santos were taken away for a training session. Then the enclosure filled with adults who had come to help Mika and Ellie prepare for their mission. The children stood in the living area, feeling like dressmakers’ dolls while these people rushed around them. They were given thermal suits to wear under their uniforms, and armor to wear over them. The armor was made of a strong, white material. Chest and back plates, shoulder pads, elbow protectors, lower arm guards, and knee-length boots.

Then they were given their headsets and equipment belts, and concentrated hard as the adults recapped the elements of their training. They wanted to survive and they wanted to find the Everlife-9 as much as Gorman wanted to take it. Everlife-9 would make him younger so he wouldn’t need all those machines. Without realizing it, Mal Gorman was helping them get rid of him.

When they were dressed and checked, they were led out of the enclosure and down in an elevator to the hangar. Awen followed Mika with his nose glued to his leg.

In the hangar, they walked through the lines of shiny Pod Fighters toward a new craft called a Stealth Carrier. It had been designed specifically to carry them safely over The Wall. It had slim wings and a pale, metallic surface. It was about ten times the size of a Pod Fighter, but it had been built for the same kind of speed and agility. It was designed to get them over The Wall and back again as quickly as possible. The engine was silent. The surface was covered in tiny cameras and screens just like the invisibility shields that Rona Strap had demonstrated. While the craft rested on its launchpad, they could see it. The moment they boarded, it blinked and disappeared.

A drop capsule and several men joined them in the hold.

The Stealth Carrier rose silently. The children watched the fortress shrink until it was a black ring on the coastline. As they rose, the sun peeked up to the east, icing the tips of waves and the refugee towers. Then they shot toward The Wall and it all blurred into one gray streak.

They approached The Wall at high altitude. From this height it looked like a gray line drawn around the Earth just below the south coast of England and through the middle of France. The contrast between the landscapes was startling. Mika and Ellie pressed against the window, feeling rushes of anxiety and excitement.

“Put on your headsets,” someone said. “We’ll be at the drop site in ten minutes.”

The Stealth Carrier turned west, following the line of The
Wall across the Atlantic toward Canada. The children stood up and the men checked them over for the last time. When this was done, they activated their navigation systems. Suddenly, their visors were filled with green mesh light. When they looked down, they saw a string of red dots along the top of The Wall, showing the location of the Ghengis borgs.

They reached the east coast of Canada in just a few minutes.

“Climb into your capsule.”

The capsule looked like a mirror ball until the door opened. Inside were two seats. Mika and Ellie climbed in, sat down and fastened their harnesses.

“Remember, the parachute will open automatically,” someone said, “so you don’t have to do anything until you land. Then make sure you roll the capsule out of sight, because you can’t get back without the micro wings stored under your seats. Do you understand?”

They nodded.

The door closed, sealing them in.

“Have you dropped them yet?” Gorman asked.

“In thirty seconds, sir.”

“Good,” Gorman replied. “How long before they reach Raphael Mose’s mansion?”

“Forty-five minutes, sir.”

“OK,” Gorman said. “I’m waiting. Tell me as soon as they reach the grounds and I’ll join you.”

Through the transparent wall of the drop capsule, Mika and Ellie watched the adults’ lights pulse with relief as they were
sealed inside. They felt a tug as the Stealth Carrier sprinted over The Wall, they saw hands press against the capsule, then they were hurtling toward Earth like an asteroid. The capsule was weighted to prevent it from spinning, but the g-force made them feel as if their innards were about to eject. The noise was intense, as if they were falling through a firestorm, and they could see the ground rushing up toward them. They heard a click and felt a sudden, violent jerk as the parachute opened. For a few seconds it dragged them back up, then the wind noise faded and they were falling again, more gently this time, and they watched through the floor of the capsule as the trees reached up to greet them.

They heard a crunch when the capsule hit the canopy. The scratch of small branches and leaves against it. Then it dropped again, hitting the ground with a soft thud. It rolled forward a short distance because it had landed on a slope, then it jerked to a halt as the lines of the parachute tangled in a tree.

It was dark inside the capsule. They could see nothing through its wall. They’d landed in North America, five hours behind Europe. It was still the middle of the night.

A voice spoke to them through their headsets.

“Are you down?”

“Yes,” Ellie replied.

“Turn on your night vision.”

They blinked at one of the icons on their visors and suddenly the trees beyond the capsule appeared as ghost-gray forms. They were different from those Mika had seen in northern France; these were Canadian redwoods, soft barked and colossal, their trunks rooted in the ground like mountains. As the children looked at the trees, they began to see their
living light. Soon their new environment turned from gray to gold.

“What can you see?” the voice asked.

“Trees,” Mika replied. “Giant trees. And a cluster of red dots. I think there’s a pack of wolf borgs approaching us.”

“They’re coming to check you out,” the voice replied. “Open the capsule so they can smell you or they might attack it.”

They undid their harnesses, but as Mika reached toward the lock icon, he saw something move to their left. A huge body of gold light was shifting through the trees.

“There’s something else here,” Ellie said.

“What is it?” the voice asked.

“A big animal,” Mika said. “Massive.”

“I’ll log into your visual so I can see with you,” the voice told them.

“It’s coming toward us,” Ellie said.

A few seconds passed and they watched the red dots of the wolf borgs grow larger as they approached.

“Ignore the wolves for the moment,” the voice said. “Look at the animal.”

“We can’t see it now,” Mika replied. “It’s dis —”

They heard a roar and a cracking thud as something hit the back of the capsule. It jerked forward, throwing them out of their seats.

“It’s attacking us,” Ellie cried.

“It must be a bear,” the voice replied. “It’s probably got cubs nearby.”

“What should we do?” Mika asked. With the night vision and their special sight, they could see the bear standing on its back legs and throwing its full weight against the capsule as if
it were trying to crack it like an egg. Its retinas glowed silver in a mass of angry, red-streaked light and its jaws yawned as it roared at them, its claws scraping down the wall of the capsule.

“Kill it,” the voice said. “The wolf borgs have nearly reached you. You have to get out of there. If you don’t kill the bear, they’ll attack you as well and they’ll damage the capsule. You know how. Just open the door and look at it.”

“No,” Ellie said.

“That’s an order!” the voice shouted. “If you don’t kill the bear, the wolf borgs will kill you!”

They looked to their right. They could see the giant silver wolves loping through the trees. They stood up, Mika hit the icon to open the door, and they both leaped out. The bear paused, startled by their sudden appearance.

You deal with the wolves, I’ll deal with the bear
, Mika thought.

Ellie ran toward the wolves, and Mika turned to face the bear, then pressed the top of the invisibility shield so it whooshed out around him. With a shimmering blink, he vanished and began to run, leading the bear with his scent and sound, away from the capsule. It bounded in his wake, roaring and swiping with an immense, clawed paw. He thought the shield would offer some protection, because the bear could not see exactly where he was, but he felt a blow on his shoulder and was hurled forward to smack against a tree. His headset flew off and he landed on his back with the bear almost upon him.

“Kill it!” the voice yelled. “What the frag are you doing?”

Mika fumbled with the shield, trying to get rid of it again. The technology wasn’t helping. He heard a whoosh as it was sucked back in. He could smell sharp pine, hear the voice
shouting through his headset, but it had rolled down the slope and was too far away to reach. He could see the giant silver wolves in his peripheral vision, running circles around Ellie. The bear rose on its back legs, ready to drop its weight on his chest, and Mika looked into its eyes, asserting his strength. It turned its head to the side as if Mika were leaning against its jaw, and after a few seconds, it dropped to all fours and lumbered away. Immediately the wolves ran in to inspect him, silver lips curling over daggered snarls and red borg eyes glowing in the darkness. He stood up and let them smell his face. They were immense, each one a ton of flex metal muscle, that towered over him.

He waited while they decided what he was.

Not human.

Animal.

Allowed.

The snarls subsided. For a while they walked around him, looking into the dark forest, then they loped off, leaving him and Ellie alone among the giant redwood trees. He walked forward and picked up his headset, brushed the dead pine off of it, and put it on.

“Hello,” he said.

“Mika!” the voice yelled. “You
fragging
idiot! What happened?”

“Nothing,” Mika replied. “The bear’s gone. I’m fine.”

“You do what you’re told from now on!” the voice yelled. “Both of you. Do you hear me? If I tell you to kill an animal, you kill it. This is no time to be messing about.”

“I didn’t mess about,” Mika replied calmly. “I didn’t need to kill it.”

“Go and hide your capsule. Cut the lines of the parachute, pull it out of the tree, and roll it somewhere it can’t be seen.”

“What are we waiting for?” Gorman asked angrily. “You said forty-five minutes an hour ago.”

“They encountered a problem on landing,” the voice replied. “The capsule was attacked by a bear. But they’re approaching Raphael Mose’s estate now. You’ll be able to join them in about twenty minutes.”

Ellie and Mika stood together while they looked at their maps. Raphael Mose’s mansion was a mile away in the bottom of a valley. The forest sloped down toward it. Their feet slipped and crunched through a carpet of pine needles as they began their approach. They noticed the cold and turned up the heat of their thermal suits. But the rest of the gadgets they’d been given, they felt they could do without. The voice nagged them constantly, telling them to hurry up and watch out for bears. They turned down the volume so they could only just hear it, and turned off the night vision completely. They preferred their own method of seeing the trees: focusing on their trunks until they glowed with warm gold light, which was infinitely more beautiful than the gray ghosts of army night vision. Awen trotted before them, enjoying the walk, and for a few minutes, they marveled at the sheer beauty of it. They felt
right
here in this forest, calm and whole, as if
this
was home. The living light flowed through the ground and into their feet in the way it never did in the concrete towers on the other side of The Wall. This forest was part of them. They could see it. Feel it.
They were part of one great, complex organism.

And our parents don’t know,
Ellie thought.
They don’t feel connected to each other or this. They’ve broken it somehow
.

But they could never see it like we do,
Mika replied.
It’s not really their fault. We’ll find a way to show them
.

“Can you hear me?” the voice asked impatiently.

“Yes,” Mika replied.

“Good,” the voice said. “For a minute I thought you weren’t listening to me. You should reach the perimeter fence of the grounds soon. Be careful you don’t walk into it, because it’s electric to keep out the bears.”

They heard a bird clatter through the branches above and something scamper up a nearby tree. For a moment they wished they could sit down instead and watch the dawn arrive.