Delete: Volume 3 (Shifter Series) (3 page)

“Is he awake?”

I opened my eyes again as a woman walked into the room. She was a dark silhouette against the bright lights of the infirmary. When she stepped clear of the glow of the strip lights, I saw her face. She had a long, thin nose, full lips and clear eyes, chestnut hair pulled up into a messy bun. She was unnaturally beautiful, as if cut from stone. It wasn’t possible. It was Frankie Anderson.

I remembered falling, the glass wall of the Shard whipping past my face, Frankie spiralling beside me. She should be dead.

“No!” I screamed. I scrambled to get away from her, rolling off the bed and pulling the drip stand down on top of me.

“It’s OK,” Zac said. “It’s the doc.”

“It’s her fault,” I shouted, struggling to stand up again and failing. “Get her away from me.” If she used her power as a Forcer on me again, I would have no chance of escaping.

Frankie moved closer. She was wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope thrown over her neck and a pair of small, round glasses. She peered at me through them.

“It appears the Commandant is having an RA.”

“No,” Zac said. “It’s probably the drugs wearing off.” He crouched down next to me, a serious look on his face. “Keep your mouth shut, Tyler,” he hissed through closed teeth.

He helped me to my feet. I couldn’t take my eyes off Frankie.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, stepping forward. She reached a hand out to touch my eye, and I slapped it away.

“Don’t you touch me,” I snapped. “You evil, manipulative…”

“Repeat after me,” she said, cutting me off. “I am here, I am now.”

“What? What are you on about? You did this. This war, all of it is down to you.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pen torch, which she shone in my eye. I pushed her hand away again.

“If you keep struggling, I am going to have to sedate you. You are having a reality attack; do you understand what that means?” She pushed her glasses up onto her head, pulling her hair back from her forehead. The Frankie I had known had a scar running below her hairline. It was the same scar I’d seen on the head of every member of Project Ganymede, from the operation that had given them the power to Shift back. But the woman in front of me didn’t have it. Her forehead was as smooth as marble.

“I said, do you understand what that means?” she repeated.

I kept staring at where the scar should be. No scar meant no operation. Which meant no power. I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Do you know who I am?”

“You are Frankie Anderson.”

“Anderson?” she said, a dark eyebrow hitching. “Captain Black, can you give me a moment with the Commandant?”

Zac hesitated. “I’m not sure…”

“I will have you removed if I have to.”

“All right,” Zac threw his hands up in defeat “but he’s supposed to report to–”

“I’ll decide when he’s fit enough to report anywhere. Off you go now.” She scooted Zac away. He threw me a look from over her shoulder and pressed his finger to his lips. He was telling me to keep my mouth shut.

Frankie twisted the torch off, placed it back in her pocket, and then folded her arms. “I’m Doctor Goodwin. Anderson was my previous husband’s name. How did you know that?”

“I’ve read all your files,” I said, scowling at her.

“Which files?”

“From Project Ganymede.”

She blinked. “Where have I heard that name? Oh yes, the programme Doctor Lawrence ran before the war. Something about reinitiating the Shifting power. He tried to recruit me.”

“Tried to?” I said.

“Yes, but I said no. There were too many unknowables for my liking. I entered medical training instead.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said. “Then what about Pandora Worldwide?”

“Never heard of it.”

“Liar! You turned children into killers just to play your political games.”

She uncrossed her arms and gave me a patient if patronising look. “I can assure you I have absolutely no interest in politics. And my only interaction with children is to see that they get better. Which is what I would like to do for you, if you would let me.”

“No.” I was so confused. Could it be possible that the decision I’d forced Frankie to undo as we fell from the top of the Shard had led to this? Her as a doctor? Helping children, not using them? I wasn’t ready to believe it. “You can’t trick me again.”

“OK, Commandant Tyler. Let’s put your concerns with me aside for a moment. What else do you remember from your old reality?

“There was no war.”

She sighed. “No wonder you are struggling to accept the Shift.”

“I’m not struggling to accept it! I’m just not going to stay here.” I tried to tug the IV out of my arm, when Frankie gently pushed my hands away and did it for me, pressing a small bud of cotton wool over the puncture wound.

“You plan on Shifting to an alternative reality that is closer to your old one?”

I nodded, resenting the whirlwind in my head. I had memories of this Frankie taking care of me – stitching up wounds, patching up my team – swirling in with the memories I had of Frankie sneering at me. Telling her children to beat me up. Forcing me to run till my feet bled.

“Then why haven’t you?” she continued. “You got shot in the leg? Why didn’t you Shift then? Go on, do it now. Collapse this reality and save us all a lot of pain.”

“I… I…” I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t explain that the only reason I hadn’t undone everything and stopped this war from ever starting was because I didn’t want to lose my girlfriend.

“Mmm,” Frankie said, drumming her fingers on her folded arm. I wanted to hit her. “This is quite fascinating. I’ve never seen a patient with such a firm hold on an old reality. Are you experiencing any other side effects? Headaches? Hearing voices?” My shocked silence was answer enough. “I see.” She placed her glasses back on her nose and pulled a pad and pen out of her pocket “I’m going to write you a script for some antipsychotics. If they don’t work, we’ll have to try simulator therapy.”

I froze. The last time I’d been hooked up to a simulator had been one of the worst experiences of my life. The images I’d seen had driven me to the point where I’d begged to end my life. I still remembered Benjo Green leaning over me, his obese face contorted in a hungry grin, his blade inching ever closer to my eye. And Mr Abbott, my old teacher, coldly watching, waiting for me to die. But that was nothing compared to the things I’d done myself while hooked up to the machines. The ways I’d hurt the people I loved. My sister Katie and my family. I’d done unthinkable, inhuman things. It was the darkness I’d glimpsed in my own soul that haunted me most. I shivered at the memory. Where were Katie and my family now? Out there in the ruined city? Or even worse?

Frankie tore a page off the pad and handed it to me. I grabbed it resentfully. I couldn’t read the name of the drug she’d written, but I could see the instruction to take it three times a day. There was no way I was taking her drugs. Or being subject to a simulator again. All I wanted to do was get the hell away from her, find Aubrey and work a way out of here.

“Can I go now?”

“You’re lucky. The bullet passed straight through your leg. It could have been much worse. Perhaps it was much worse?” She raised her eyebrows as if expecting me to answer. “If you Shifted to save your life, it would explain the force of your Shift. I understand it registered a sixteen? The hypnic jerk is a powerful defence mechanism.”

That made sense. The hypnic jerk – the reflex reaction that in normal people sends a signal to make their limbs twitch, but in Shifters sends a signal to the brain to Shift – had saved my life before. It was a Shifter’s ultimate defence mechanism.

“Can I go now?” I repeated. Even looking at her was making me dizzy with confusion.

“Take these for the pain.” She threw me a small orange tube. White pills rattled around inside. “And remember: you are here. You are now.”

I recognised the phrase from training. It was what we were supposed to tell ourselves if we were having a reality attack. But I didn’t want to be here or now.

Frankie turned, reaching up to adjust the drip next to one of the kid’s beds. “Patching up children and sending them back out to fight,” she said with another sigh, “exactly what I trained for.”

I took this as a yes. I yanked on a pile of clothes I guessed must have been left for me along with my boots, and limped for the door before she had a chance to say anything else.

“Goodbye, sir,” a girl said, as I reached for the doorknob.

I stopped. I knew which kid it was. The one without her arm. I couldn’t face her. I threw the door open and left without a word.

CHAPTER THREE

I walked out into a tunnel illuminated with a sickly green light. It looked and smelt like something from a fairground haunted house.

“I didn’t think she would let you go,” Zac said, stepping out from a shadow. “Last kid I saw had a reality attack, they hooked him up for three days solid. And even then…” He shrugged.

“I’m not having a reality attack.” I said, looking at the pills Frankie had given me. The label said Tramadol. I didn’t trust her as far as I could throw her, but the pain was a distraction I didn’t need. I popped the lid off with my thumb and dry-swallowed two of the white tablets.

“Whatever. We’re wanted in the command room.” He nodded to the left and led the way up the tunnel.

It sloped gently upward, and the damp smell lessened as the tunnel grew wider.

We passed a few adults dressed in combats with military insignia on their arms. Each person greeted me with a sharp salute and a glowing smile. “Congratulations, sir,” and “good work,” they said, over and over, until I was sick of hearing it. Each of them looked at me like I was something special. A hero, even.

Zac chattered the whole way about my earlier Shift and what had been going on. About how we’d blown up an enemy base and how I was probably going to get a commendation for it, if they didn’t haul me over the coals for disobeying an order.

None of it sounded familiar. But unless I wanted to end up in Frankie’s hands, I was going to have to keep my mouth shut. I just needed enough time to find Aubrey again.

The tunnel opened up into a cathedral-sized space of heavy grey concrete. I stepped out and stared at the roof overhead. Four great pillars standing on a circular floor held up the domed ceiling. The floor itself was covered in black-and-white tiles that created an image of a cartwheel of arrows pointing in all directions. As well as the tunnel we’d exited, two more led off of the central hall, pointing north and west.

“Welcome to the Hub. Home of the S3.”

“S3?” I said, my jaw hanging open in wonder. I knew, somehow, that this whole place was deep under the streets of London. How long, I wondered, had this place taken to build? How long had we been at war?

“The SSS?” Zac hissed, looking around to check no one had heard me. “The Special Shifting Service? You really can’t remember?”

I shrugged. “Guess not.”

Green-tinged light illuminated the room, which was filled with bustling people: soldiers dressed in various shades of camo and armour; kids in black jumpsuits; and a host of other personnel, all moving with determined purpose.

I remembered the handful of NSOs – non-Shifting Officers – we’d had at ARES. Most of them were ex-service specialists brought in for our protection. But this was something else. There had to be two if not three hundred people here. Each of them very much still in service.

Zac shook his head. “I’d keep that to yourself for now. Come on, they’ll be waiting.” He headed towards a tunnel on the right.

At the bottom was a metal door with a red light above it. Zac paused and stood aside, letting me go first. I tugged at the handle. It was shut tight. There was an electronic pad on the side of the door.

“Let me.” Zac pressed his hand against the lock.

“Captain Black. Access level four,” an electronic voice chirped, and the door opened.

The room looked like the control of a rocket launch: screens lined the far wall, showing live video feed and streams of data; men and women sat behind desks, wearing headsets and tapping frantically away on keyboards. I recognised a few of the faces from
my
ARES as I was starting to think of the old reality. I wondered where my friend Jake was. I prayed that somehow he and his sister Rosalie had gotten themselves away from London and out of this mess.

To the side of the screens was a large circular table where Turner and Cooper stood, looking as confused as I was.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The Red Hand have pushed deeper into the city,” Turner said, pointing at the table. “I guess they didn’t appreciate us tramping around their area yesterday.”

The top of the table was a large touchscreen, like the tablets we’d used at ARES, only on a much bigger scale. It showed a map of London with the familiar loop of the Thames in the centre. Bright red squares were overlaid in what I assumed were strategic positions.

Zac leaned over and dragged a square so it covered an area in the east of the city. “That means they hold everywhere south of the Marsh Wall now.” He drew a line with his finger from one edge of the loop in the river to the other.

“And we,” a man said from behind me, “can’t allow that.”

I knew that voice. I’d both feared and loved it. But hearing it now wasn’t possible. He was dead. I’d watched him die.

I turned around to see a man whose face was a mass of scars, with one milky eye.

“Cain?” I said, stunned to see my old fighting instructor alive and, apart from a few new scars, well. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been lying in a pool of his own blood, missing part of his brain.

“Tyler,” Cain said, the only person not to address me as sir or Commandant. “I hear congratulations are in order after last night. Although we will need to have a word about you failing to follow orders. Again.”

I scanned his face, hoping for some kind of answer, and my eyes lingered on the scar across his forehead. The scar combined with the golden S pinned to his collar reminded me with a cold dread that Cain was an adult Shifter. That he was carrying part of a kid’s brain. In this reality, did Cain know the truth behind Project Ganymede? Did anyone know? And was the man behind the project still alive?