Boy X (10 page)

Just one.

It was the most painful step Ash had ever taken. He trod as lightly as he could, but when the glass cut through his skin, it was like fire enveloping his foot. He gritted his teeth and pushed down, launching himself head first at the hole in the metal shutters.

Arms stretched in front of him like he was diving into a swimming pool, Ash burst into the sunlight. As soon as his fingers touched the grass, he tucked in his head and tried to roll, but was moving faster than he realized. Instead, he landed in an undignified heap, his legs flipping over so he came down hard on his shoulder and landed on his back.

It didn't matter, though. He was out.

22 hrs and 02 mins until Shut-Down

A
sh stared up, seeing not darkness, and not the blank walls of the research facility, but the expanse of a huge blue midday sky, dotted here and there with only the slightest wisp of cloud. He saw the endless greens of the trees and smelt the life around him, but couldn't enjoy any of it because his shoulders were aching from the fall and his foot was in agony from the cuts.

‘
¡Increíble!
' Isabel said. ‘You moved so fast. How did you do that? I've never seen . . .
Madre de Dios
, you're bleeding.'

‘Mmm.' Ash sat up and squinted against the sun to see her.

‘Are you OK?'

‘I think so.'

‘And you can hear me?'

Ash looked at Isabel and blinked in surprise. ‘Yeah. I can. That's weird. I can hear fine.'

‘And you moved so fast. How did you do that?'

‘I don't know, I just . . . It doesn't make sense. A few minutes ago, I was deaf and now . . .' Ash turned his head this way and that, listening to his surroundings, picking up the chirrup of insects, the birds in the canopy, the distant grunt of something hiding in the forest. If anything, his hearing was even
better
than before. He could pinpoint a sound and focus on it with more control and less effort.

He sat up further and grabbed his foot, holding it with both hands and twisting so he could see the sole. There was blood all over it, and when he wiped it away more oozed from several large cuts.

‘It looks bad,' Isabel said. ‘Can you walk?'

Ash winced as he picked out the glass. It hurt like hell, but he didn't want to tell Isabel that. She was tough and he wanted to be tough too. ‘I'll be fine.' He removed the binding from his other foot and stood up. Pain shot through him in sickening waves. Trying to take his mind off it, he looked over at the helicopter lying crumpled at the far edge of the clearing. ‘We should check that out.'

‘I think they didn't survive.' Isabel turned away, not wanting to see the broken vehicle.

‘You don't know that. They
might
have survived. And if we're going to catch Cain and Pierce, we'll need some help. Maybe they've got supplies we can use. You know, a
first-aid kit or something?'

All around, the forest was alive with alien sounds; whistles and calls and creaks and chirps. The whole place hummed, like it was singing its own song. There was movement too. Everywhere Ash looked there was something to draw his eye, and he had to control it the way he controlled what he listened to and what he could smell. It was as if he had to learn to use his senses in a different way, trying not to be distracted by everything.

Limping closer to the helicopter, he sniffed the air, tasting aviation fuel, burning electrics and the hint of blood lying beneath it. He allowed himself to hear the gentle sounds of ticking, the quiet groan of metal expanding and settling into place under the heat of the sun.

‘It didn't catch fire,' he said. ‘Maybe they got out.' Every helicopter he'd ever seen crash in a film had exploded in a ball of fire, so maybe this crash hadn't been so bad. Maybe the pilot had escaped.

He picked his way around the wreck, studying the helicopter as if it were a felled beast. The tail boom was lying close to the tree it had hit, tangled with what was left of the electric fence. It occurred to Ash that whatever they had been trying to keep out would now find it easy to get inside the compound.

Though he had detected the scent of blood, he still held out some hope for the pilot and his friend, but when he approached he knew it was a lost cause. The crumpled fuselage lay on its side, and both men were dead. They were still held in by their seat belts, but they were slumped
with arms hanging loose, and their faces were unrecognizable. The cockpit was a mess of twisted metal, broken plastic and blood. Smoke drifted from the controls – and Ash realized immediately that anything useful on board would have been destroyed.

‘Well?' Isabel called.

Ash shook his head and looked into the trees.

‘And the radio?'

He shook his head again.

‘We must go after them ourselves, yes?'

‘Yes.' Ash walked away from the useless helicopter. The pain in his foot was subsiding now, weakening to a dull throb. ‘No one to help us,' Isabel said.

‘No one to help us,' he agreed.

‘I've been in there many times,' Isabel said. ‘The jungle.

With Papa, and sometimes on my own. It is very dangerous, but I know the island. We will reach the boat and we will get the cure. First we need to be . . . How you say? “
Preparado.
”

‘Prepared?'

‘
Sí.
We go to my house first. Quickly.'

From behind, Ash heard a muffled
CRUMP!
and he looked back at the hole in the BioSphere they had emerged from a few minutes ago. ‘You hear that?'

‘I don't hear so good as you.'

‘I think it's Thorn. He must have got the HEX13 – figured out how to use it. He's coming.'

‘Then we must get what we need and go,' Isabel replied. ‘He won't find us in the jungle.'

21 hrs and 42 mins until Shut-Down

T
here was a narrow path cut into the forest, lined with fencing that was still intact, creating a corral for them to hurry along. Thick roots protruded from the compacted earth and new shoots broke the black dirt in places where the forest tried to reclaim what had once been its own. The hard ground was cruel to Ash's feet after the soft grass of the clearing.

‘It's hot.' Isabel wiped a hand across her forehead.

‘I thought it would be hotter.' Ash wondered if this was another strange effect the island was having on him. When he had first emerged into the clearing, before the helicopter crash and the shooting, he had felt the heat, but now he wasn't much warmer or colder than when he was inside the
BioSphere. His other senses had gone haywire, so why not this one too?

They followed the path for no more than five minutes before they came out into a second grassy clearing. This one was smaller and still surrounded by a high fence, but instead of a single large building of glass and metal this area was occupied by four comfortable-looking houses. Each one was a bungalow built to the same design, with a veranda and low wall running right around it. The roofs were tiled black, the woodwork painted dark green, and there were hanging baskets below the eaves, trailing bursts of flowers in the most amazing reds and yellows and whites. There were plants around each house, overgrown gardens that boasted mango trees, coconut palms and banana plants.

‘This is where you live?' It was hard for Ash to believe that not long ago he had been standing in his bedroom looking out at a grey autumn evening in England. This wasn't just another country; it was another world.

Isabel carried on into the clearing, marching like a soldier. She went straight to the first house, passing between a pair of laden banana plants, and climbed the green-painted concrete steps onto the veranda. The mosquito-netted screen door creaked when she pushed on it and hurried into the house. Ash followed.

‘You need clothes,' Isabel said, leading them through the sitting room. ‘And boots. I'll find you something.' There was a rattan sofa with yellow cushions, two matching armchairs and a glass-topped table. A dark wooden bookshelf stood
at the far end, heavy with paperbacks.

The black and white checked tiles were cool on Ash's feet as he followed Isabel through an arch into the dining room, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. From there, three doors opened into other rooms, and there was a screen door at the end, leading back outside. Isabel marched through to the right and into what Ash guessed was her bedroom.

It was a good size, with posters of film stars and rock bands covering the walls, and for some reason that surprised Ash. In some ways, it was just like his own bedroom at home – filled with books and CDs and the kind of knick-knacks that made it personal. There were a few soft toys and cushions on the bed, a chest of drawers topped with framed photos and pots of different flavours of lip balm, and a noticeboard with notes and pictures pinned to it. However, as well as all the usual stuff Ash would have expected in a girl's bedroom, there was also a rifle hanging on the wall and a large survival knife lying on the bedside table.

‘Try these.' Isabel yanked open the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of her trousers. She threw them to him, and he just managed to catch them before they hit him in the face.

Ash held up the trousers and glanced round the room. ‘Umm . . .'

‘I won't look.' She tutted and stuck her head back in the wardrobe, continuing to rummage. ‘I don't want to see.'

Ash turned around and slipped out of his pyjama bottoms, pulling on the trousers as quickly as he could.
They belonged to Isabel, so were a little too long, and he rolled them up before looking back to see Isabel holding out a plain black T-shirt in one hand and a pair of boots in the other.

‘You must clean your feet,' she said as Ash took them from her.

She didn't wait to see if they fit him, but went into the adjoining bathroom and switched on the shower. ‘In the forest it is hot and wet. The cuts will get . . . how you say? Infected.'

Infected.
Ash shivered at the word, and pulled on the T-shirt. It was a good fit, and felt snug around his chest and shoulders.

‘Clean them,' Isabel said, and hurried off to find a first-aid box while Ash went into the bathroom and stuck his feet under the shower, washing away the blood and dirt.

When they were clean, he inspected the wounds, finding them to be smaller than before. The pain had been terrible and there had been a good deal of blood, but looking at them now they weren't much more than bad scratches. He dried them with a towel, then glanced up at himself in the mirror over the sink.

That was when he remembered what Isabel had said when they first met. Something about his hair. He had been confused at the time, but hadn't given it another thought until now, so he scraped it all flat against his head and leant closer to inspect it. Instead of being completely black, there was now a faint streak of white, just left of centre and about two centimetres wide, running from the crown at the back
of his head, all the way to the front.

He leant closer still, putting a hand to the hair and lifting it, wondering how it could have happened, but when he looked himself in the eyes, he received an even bigger surprise.

Instead of dark brown, his eyes were now green.

‘What's happening to me?' he said, looking at Isabel's reflection when she returned holding a first-aid kit. ‘What's going on?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I . . .' He didn't quite know how to tell her. ‘My eyes . . . they're a different colour.'

‘They can't be.'

‘Two days ago they were brown.'

Isabel frowned and wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. ‘It must be the light. Sometimes it makes things look different.'

‘But they look
so
different. And what about my hair? It wasn't . . . I mean, where did
this
come from?' Ash pointed to the white streak. ‘It's supposed to be black.'

Isabel came forward and placed the first-aid kit on the edge of the sink. She looked exhausted, and her face was glistening with sweat. ‘I once heard about someone whose hair went white after an accident. It was stress, I think.'