City of the Falling Sky (32 page)

Eiya took out her mobile phone and took a few
snapshots of the glowflies, then she pulled Seckry close to her and
took a picture of them both.

After a while, Eiya said, ‘Would you like to
dance?”

They held hands and swayed clumsily. It was
awkward and messy and Seckry nearly tripped over Eiya’s dress a few
times, but he never wanted it to end.

When they did stop, they remained standing
the same distance apart from each other. They were too close to be
comfortable, but neither of them moved away. Seckry could almost
feel Eiya’s heart beating. She was so close to him that he could
smell the saltiness of her skin, and the dampness of her hair. Her
skin was pulsating with the reflective cyan radiance of the
glowflies.

Eiya closed her eyes and smiled.

“
What are you thinking
about?” Seckry asked.

“
Do you ever get this
feeling that, the very moment you’re in, you’re going to remember
it for the rest of your life?”

“
Yeah,” Seckry said. “Yeah I
do.”

“
It’s like we’re in our own
dreamworld down here,” she said softly, and Seckry felt her breath
against his collarbone, cherry scented from the cherrysuckers she’d
been drinking. Seckry watched her semi-translucent lips move as she
spoke.

A glowfly hovered around her face for a few
moments before settling on the tip of her nose. Eiya crossed her
eyes to focus on it and they both giggled, before she shook it
off.

“
Earlier tonight,” she said.
“I thought that this had been the worst night of my life. Now I
think . . . it may be the best. Seckry . . . when I find out what
my name used to be . . . I don’t want to go back to that. I’m Eiya.
That’s all I know and all I want to be. Will you still call me
Eiya?”

“
You’ll always be Eiya to
me, Eiya.”

They stood for a while longer, looking into
each other’s eyes.

“
Have you heard about that
song they’ve all been talking about,” Eiya asked. “
With Me
Tonight?
”

Seckry laughed. “Yeah, Tenk told me all about
it.”

“
Oh, Gedin, I was dreading
it so much,” Eiya said exhaustedly. “I thought I was going to be
stuck with Thom Malerk and I wouldn’t be able to get away. Just the
thought of it was making me ill. Do you know what,
though?”

Seckry waited for an answer.

“
Now that he’s not going to
be with me when it’s played, the thought of that song doesn’t
bother me so much.”

Seckry looked at his watch. “I bet they
haven’t played it yet. It’s only half past ten.”

Eiya smiled. “Would you like to go back?”

They said goodbye to the glowflies, and made
their way out of the disused chamber and headed back to the school
under the late night air.

As they entered the hall, Tenk came rushing
over.

“
Seckry! My good friend
Seckry. And my good friend Eiya.” He draped his arms over their
shoulders and hung his head in between them both.

He suddenly seemed to notice something.

“
Hey! You two are . . . you
two . . .”

“
It’s okay, Tenk, we’re good
now.”

“
Really?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Well that’s the best news
I’ve heard all evening.” He slapped his own leg.

“
Tenk, you’re absolutely
wrecked aren’t you?” said Seckry, reeling from the acidity of
Tenk’s breath.

“
I am indeed, if I do say so
myself,” Tenk said proudly, trying to puff out his chest and nearly
falling backwards as he did so.

“
Where’d you get alcohol
from?” Seckry asked.

“
Shhhh!” Tenk said, waving
his finger somewhere in front of his lips. “Don’t tell anyone . . .
but Tippian smuggled in some of his dad’s finest whistlebloo . . .
he thought it would make it easier for him to kiss Curly
Hetchings.”

“
Where is Tippian, by the
way?”

“
Last time I saw him he was
. . .” Tenk rolled his eyes around in their sockets as if trying to
locate his own brain. “Being sick in the loo I think. Seck . . .
have you told her yet?”

“
Told me what?” Eiya
asked.

“
You haven’t told
her?”

“
Tenk . . . I’m not sure
what you’re talking about,” Seckry said. He was pretty sure he
didn’t want to know, either. “Come on, Tenk, why don’t we go and
sit by the bar over there.”

“
Eiya . . .” Tenk said.
“He’s in love with you.”

“
Right!” said Seckry,
hauling Tenk away. “I think you need to sit down.”

Seckry cringed to himself while he dragged
Tenk across the dancefloor like a limp ragdoll.

“
Man, something really weird
happened earlier,” Tenk said, slurring. “Natania. She had some kind
of allergic reaction and her tongue, like, really swelled
up.”

Seckry tried to stifle a laugh but
failed.

“
Seriously!” Tenk said. “It
was hanging out of her mouth. It was like some kind of alien thing.
Her ex, Bobber, he was about to kiss her, and then this tongue just
came slobbering out. I thought he was gonna faint. He ended up
running away. He left the party.”

Seckry smiled and made a triumphant fist. He
didn’t often wish bad luck on people, but after what Natania had
done to him and Eiya, he couldn’t help but feel good after a little
bit of revenge.

At that moment, Tenk’s date, Poola Pinyada
hopped over and said, very excitedly, “Tenk! They’re about to play
the song! You gonna give me a snog or what?”

Tenk raised his eyebrows at Seckry. “Duty
calls,” he said, and staggered after Poola.

When Seckry returned to Eiya,
With Me
Tonight
began playing, and the atmosphere in the hall
immediately changed.

Seckry smiled at her and then immediately
averted his gaze out of embarrassment. His whole body was tingling
with excitement. He had wanted to kiss Eiya for so long, and now
was the moment he’d be able to.

He felt Eiya’s hands touch his sides and she
pulled him towards her, gently, until their lips could almost be no
closer without them touching.

Seckry had never heard the song before, so he
didn’t know when they were going to sing the famous line that Tenk
had told him about, but he didn’t know if he could wait any longer.
He could smell Eiya’s skin, he could feel the tip of her nose
brushing softly against his, he could almost taste the sweet
pinkness of her flowery, trembling lips.

“
You’re coming with us,”
came a deep voice.

Seckry was suddenly ripped away from Eiya,
and was being hauled backwards.

He looked around in shock and saw that two
Endrin employees were dragging him across the dance floor, towards
the entrance. Seckry tried to wrench himself away from them, but
they were strong, like bouncers.

“
What are you doing?” Seckry
said desperately, as everyone around him began kissing. Eiya was
trying to run after him but another man in a suit grabbed her and
held her back.

“
You’re needed urgently at
the Endrin headquarters,” said one of them.

“
No!” Seckry shouted. A few
people stopped kissing and saw him being dragged away, but they
looked too terrified to do anything.

“
Eiya!” Seckry shouted, and
he heard her cry his name back before he was ripped out of the
building and thrown into the back of a blacked out jeep.

“
I’ve told you already, I
don’t know where the worms went,” Seckry said. “Please let me go,
let me go back!”

“
It’s not about the worms,
this time Mr Sevenstars, there’s something even more disturbing
about your visit that has come to our attention.”

“
You can’t take me
anywhere,” Seckry said defiantly, even though his voice was audibly
shaking.

“
I’m afraid you don’t have
an option, Mr Sevenstars. I mean, you can jump out of this car if
you like, but . . . breaking into private property is a serious
offence, we wouldn’t want the Patrol finding out about your little
visit to us now, would we?”

As they arrived at the headquarters, Seckry
was led through a number of different corridors that he vaguely
remembered and thrown into the same room as last time, in which
Jenniver Layne was seated, almost like she had never left.

“
Seckry,” Jenniver said.
“It’s good to see you again.”

Seckry said nothing. He just shook his head
at her in disbelief, breathing heavily.

“
The reason why you’ve been
brought here this evening, Seckry, is that we’ve finally just
managed to restore some of the security footage of you breaking
in.”

Jenniver stood up and wheeled a small TV
towards him.

“
I want you to take a look
at this. There is something very strange about the footage we are
about to show you, and we’d like you to explain exactly what is
happening here.”

Jenniver pressed a button on the remote and
CCTV footage appeared on screen. Footage of Seckry. It was strange
watching himself and he felt incredibly uncomfortable.

There he was, digging for the worms. But
there was some distortion on the tape, some bright light beginning
to bleach out the right hand side of the screen. He was looking at
the light, moving towards it.

It was where Eiya had been.

“
What is this light?”
Jenniver asked.

Seckry was silent, watching the tape.

He was pulling the light with him. There was
no doubt that this bright, blinding light was Eiya.

“
You took something with
you. Something other than the worms. What was it?”

Seckry was lost for words. Why was Eiya
emitting light like that?

“
Seckry, whatever that
bright light is, it made our security tapes melt. It could be
something incredibly dangerous.”

“
I don’t know what that is,”
Seckry said, his bottom lip visibly trembling. “I took the worms
and left.”

Jenniver turned the television off and leaned
back in her chair.

“
Seckry, whatever you took
with you that night needs to be brought back here. It needs to be
brought back here and destroyed.”

Seckry’s stomach did a back flip.

“
Destroyed?”

“
Yes, destroyed.”

Something inside of Seckry erupted then, and
he couldn’t stop himself.

“
What’s going on here?” he
shouted, close to tears. “What is all this about? Why is it
dangerous? I know that the white chip was a load of nonsense. You
weren’t protecting us from leaked toxins, there
was
no leak.
You were searching for helitonium, weren’t you? What are you doing?
What is the Divinita Project? And why is the logo for it the same
one that’s on that old painting of Seckraman?”

As soon as Seckry stopped talking, he knew
he’d said too much.

“
The Divinita Project is
none of your concern,” Jenniver snapped. “And I’m not sure what
you’re talking about in regards to the logo. That logo was designed
by our graphics team here from scratch.” She pressed a finger to
her ear. “Mr Darklight, sir, the boy knows too much, permission to
use the hypnosis headset? . . . Thank you. Seckry, I’m sorry we
have to do this.”

“
You’re going to hypnotise
me?” Seckry said, aghast.

“
You know too much about
proceedings here, I’m afraid. You shouldn’t even know the name of
the Divinita Project, never mind be enquiring about it. The
hypnosis tape will make you forget all of it, and then . .
.”

“
And then what? You still
need me to tell you what that blinding light is on the video, and
how can I tell you if you erase my memory?”

“
And then we’ll find out
what it is you took with you by breaking into your home and
searching it.”

“
You can’t do that! You’re
not hypnotising me!” Seckry said sternly and made to get up out of
his seat.

The four security guards stationed around the
room suddenly had guns pointing directly at his head.

“
I’m afraid it’s not an
option for you, Seckry,” said Jenniver.

An employee entered the room with the
headset, walked behind Seckry and fastened it tight onto him.

Stay alert
, Seckry told himself
.
Just stay wide awake and alert and you won’t go under. You can
fight this.

The first sound that Seckry heard through the
tape was a mellow, ambient music, followed by an irregular pattern
of clicks.

But as Seckry was concentrating with all his
will not to be affected in any way by it, the music stopped
abruptly and there was silence.

Then came a voice. Jenniver’s voice.

“
Seckry, I want you to stay
calm and focused. Whatever you do, do not look alarmed. Nobody
knows you are hearing this, and they cannot find out. I want you to
listen very carefully to everything that I say.”

Seckry’s eyes locked on Jenniver’s. What was
this?

“
I have recorded over the
hypnosis tape. You are not going to be hypnotised. I want to assure
you of that before I tell you anything more. It is the only way I
could think to get this message to you without Darklight knowing
about it. If it’s got to the point that you are wearing this
headset then my plan has gone accordingly. Just keep looking at me
and listen carefully.”