Empress of the Sun (25 page)

‘You okay?’

‘Uh. Ah. What? That … He … you …’

‘Can you walk?’

‘Think so.’

Everything hurt. Ryun’s mind was still numb. It hadn’t been real. Couldn’t have been real.

‘We’ll need to get out fast. There’s one more thing I need to do.’

Through night vision, Ryun saw metal and plastic objects melt into the palms of Everett’s hands. The skin closed over them. The tips of each of Everett’s forefingers peeled back. Metal emerged, unfolded. Everett advanced down the allotment patch of badly laid concrete paving slabs. White-hot beams lanced across Ryun’s night vision, again and again, like swords of light. He pushed up his goggles to see Everett walk back towards him, silhouetted against the blazing garden shed. He held out a hand to Ryun. His fingers were whole again. But unnatural strength pulled Ryun to his feet.

‘The fire brigade’ll be here soon.’

‘Everett …’

‘Later. Why did you …? No. No time.’

It hurt to walk, hurt so bad Ryun wanted to cry out with every step. He had never been hurt in his life, Ryun realised. Not really hurt, body-harming hurt. He froze at the end of the terrace where it opened on to Clissold Close.

‘CCTV cameras,’ Ryun said. ‘They’ll have filmed—’

‘I took them out on the way in,’ Everett said. ‘I’ve been doing this a while. Come on. Let’s get you back to your place. You’re still kind of shocky. And there’s things you need to know.’

One thing Ryun did know. He didn’t like being a detective any more.

‘Can I see them?’ Ryun asked.

The room was warm and dimly lit and the familiar things on walls, shelves, screens made the thing in the shed seem unreal and distant, but Ryun was still shaky. So much, too much, too soon, too fast. Start with Everett. Start with the thing you know. Even if, as Ryun realised, he didn’t.

‘It’s kind of private,’ Everett M said. ‘It’s like the inside of my body.’

‘You didn’t mind back there,’ Ryun said.

‘I was saving your ass back there. You want to end up like Rat Killer guy, with Nahn for brains?’

Everett M had explained the Nahn, but there was so much rattling around inside Ryun’s head; hard, gritty things, like stone-washing jeans. The Nahn had taken over
one parallel world and wanted to take over another. This world. The Nahn were The Bad.

‘No. Of course no,’ Ryun said. ‘But I need to know what’s going on. You owe me, Ev.’

‘Okay,’ Everett M said.

He took off his top and sat bare-chested beside Ryun on the bed. He turned his forearms upwards. The lines Ryun had noticed in the showers darkened and split along the seams. Skin-panels folded and retracted. Ryun glimpsed spidery white devices inside the cavities. They unfolded out of Everett M’s arms, unfolded again; racks and clips.

‘They’re usually fitted with nanomissiles, but I used them all up on Earth 1. I’d have to go back to Earth 4 to resupply.’

To Ryun the weapons that unfolded out of Everett M’s body were the most beautiful and at the same time the most repulsive thing he had ever seen. He wanted to choke and hurl. He wanted to touch them. He extended a hand towards the white machinery. Everett M slapped it away. Ryun gasped and nursed wounded fingers.

‘You almost broke my fingers!’

‘Sorry. No, I’m not. Don’t touch me there.’

‘Does it hurt?’ Ryun asked. His face was a picture of wonder and horror, equally coloured.

‘Every time,’ Everett M said. ‘Every. Single. Time. The really clever stuff isn’t the weapon systems, it’s the stuff you can’t see. I’m faster than you, I’m stronger than you, I can go on for longer and I can hear and see things you
can’t. I’m faster and stronger and better than anyone on this world.’

‘See things? Can you, like, undress people like Superman’s X-ray vision?’

‘No,’ Everett M said. ‘I’ve tried. There’s other senses as well. I can hear radio. That’s how I tracked the Nahn down.’

Footsteps on the landing. The two boys froze. The feet could go two ways, to the bathroom, or towards the bedrooms. They were coming to the bedroom. Everett M snapped his ports shut and was wriggling into the T-shirt as Ryun’s dad knocked and opened the door. He did a quick double-take at Everett M pulling his T-shirt down over the waistband of his jeans.

‘Are you guys okay?’

‘We’re okay,’ Ryun said.

‘Good. Excellent. Um, Ryun. Those, um, night-vision goggles? Are you using them? Could I have a go with them?’

‘One thing I’ve noticed,’ Everett M said when Ryun’s dad had gone back down the stairs, goggles in hand. ‘You’ve stopped saying
um
.’

I have, Ryun thought, and he knew exactly when he had and why. When: the moment he had seen the alien tech retract into the palms of Everett’s hands. Why: he knew now. There was no doubt. His suspicions were confirmed. Everett was not his best friend Everett. He was the double from a parallel universe. Everything Ryun had feared was true, and more. This Everett was not just a double, but an
alien-re-engineered cyborg agent. Working for the bad guys. Planted with the real Everett’s mum and kid sister. Who had tried to kill the real Everett. Who had sneaked brain-devouring alien nanotech from Earth 1 to this world and then accidentally let it loose.

‘Colette was right,’ Ryun whispered.

‘What?’

He hadn’t realised he had spoken aloud.

‘Colette. Your dad’s friend. I mean, your alter’s dad’s friend …’ It would always be an easy mistake, confusing alter for original. Especially when the question of who was alter and who was original depended on who you were and in what universe.

‘You saw Colette? Man, I wish you hadn’t done that.’

‘She didn’t tell me anything. She said it would be dangerous.’

‘It is. I am.’

‘I know.’ Everett M had explained the politics of Plenitude and the Order and Charlotte Villiers and her alter Charles and who their agents were on this world and who could be trusted and who couldn’t, but it wouldn’t all fit in Ryun’s head. He reckoned Everett M didn’t fully understand it himself.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ Everett M said suddenly.

‘You got the Nahn,’ Ryun said.

‘Yes. No. Maybe. Not the Nahn. Yes, the Nahn. Do I tell
Charlotte Villiers? If I do, what happens? She’s got my mum – my real mum, back there. And what about my mum here? What about Noomi? You. Us. I don’t know what to do!’

For all his powers, Everett M was powerless, Ryun realised. It’s the superhero problem. You can blast the energy of the sun from your hands, but that doesn’t battle starvation. You can throw skyscrapers into orbit, but that won’t beat creeping corruption. You can read the innermost feelings and desires, but that’s no good against homophobia. Superpowers make everything personal. Batman versus Joker. Fantastic Four versus Galactus. The Big G might be the Devourer of Worlds, but in the end he’s just a dude. Beat him and the problem goes away. But the real problems aren’t like that. You can’t solve them by hitting them. The real supervillains were the ones who had smashed Everett apart and rebuilt him and taken him away from everyone he knew and loved and sent him here and expected him to be their warrior. He had no power against them. They were people in suits who met in rooms and decided things. Destroy one and another would take her place.

‘I want it to stop!’ Everett M shouted.

‘Shh, Ev, keep it down, my folks …’

‘I don’t want all these things inside me,’ Everett M whispered. ‘I look at them and I hate them. They make me want to throw up. They filled me with … dirt. I never feel clean. I never feel warm. I never feel safe. I want me back. I want this all to end and I want to go home!’

‘Everett, Ev … it’s all right.’

‘I don’t have anyone. Do you understand that? There’s not anyone who knows, understands. I hate him, that other me, your friend. I’m here, I’m all this, because of him. But I can’t hate him … he’s me. I don’t have anyone. Every day, I’m alone. I can’t do anything, I can’t tell anyone.’

‘Everett, I know.’

‘No, you don’t. No one knows. No one can know.’

‘I know about you. I know
you
.’

When he had suspected this Everett was an alter, Ryun had looked for every possible difference from his Everett. Now that he knew the truth, Ryun saw the similarities. They were both clever but kept it hidden, both shy around other people, both brave when they had to be. But knowing that his Thryn tech gave him the power to do almost anything he wanted gave this Everett a flicker of arrogance and confidence. Ryun liked that. The other Everett would never have had the balls to take Noomi up on her Homework Date. The other Everett would have found a way to hack the Everett’s Hot Ass page and take it down rather than endure everyone rating his cute butt. The other Everett went home after football rather than sharing the shower with the guys. And the flipside of that confidence and arrogance was anger. Anger was the fuel that powered this Everett. Every time he opened those alien hatches in his body, every time he used his weapons, that anger boiled out of him.

Ryun knew what he had to do. He had never done it
before. It scared him. But now that the thought was in his head, it was the only thing to do. He shyly put a hand on his friend’s arm. Everett M tensed but didn’t move away. Ryun took a deep breath, then leaned in and put his arm around his friend. Everett M’s body was hard, and tight, and cold, and Ryun felt him stiffen and tighten further, then relax. Cold. So cold. The room was stifling but Ryun shivered. He felt Everett M shake.

‘It’s okay,’ Ryun said. ‘It’s okay.’

Charlotte Villiers had made herself comfortable in a chair in Mrs Abrahams’s office. Her bag was on the principle’s desk, her hands folded in her lap, her legs crossed demurely at the ankles.

‘Ms Villiers is taking you out of school,’ Mrs Abrahams said in the tone of someone whose authority has been simply and efficiently overruled, in her own office, at her own desk.

‘I’ll return him as soon as my business is done,’ Charlotte Villiers said. ‘Everett?’

‘Can I go to the bathroom first?’

‘I’d prefer if he used yours,’ Charlotte Villiers said to Mrs Abrahams with a small smile. ‘Security.’ The final victory. Abuse of the executive washroom.

Everett M locked the door and whipped out his phone.
Message: contacts: NOOMI: CANT DO CAFE – MSSNG DAD STUFF. COPS. Truth, honesty, caring: he hit all of Noomi’s points. Sort of.

Message: contacts: RYUN: CV GOT ME. GPS ME. FOLLOW. His thumb hovered over the send button. What if Charlotte Villiers was monitoring his phone. She could do that. She should do that. If she was, then she knew about Ryun anyway. It got complicated when other people were involved: Ryun, Noomi. Laura, Victory-Rose. What did she want with him? Was it another off-world mission? He needed a witness, someone to notice, someone who knew.

Send.

A taxi waited at the school gate.

‘Where’s the Merc?’ Everett M asked.

‘I lost my driver,’ Charlotte Villiers said. She studied her face in the mirror of her make-up compact. Everett M noticed the wicked little gun in her handbag. He was meant to.

‘I thought we’d get some lunch,’ Charlotte Villiers continued. ‘Are you hungry? A decent lunch puts the day in proper order.’ The taxi driver negotiated the lunch-time traffic of Stoke Newington Church Street down on to Albion Road. Everett M glanced up at the front of Noomi’s house. ‘At least I no longer have to drag myself all the way up from that dank hole in the ground in Kent every time I need a chat with you. We’ve built a new gate, a little closer to the centres of power.’

This world was Charlotte Villiers’ First Contact, but she had heard from the Accession Team that had brought Earth 9 into the Plenitude that politicians were surprisingly easy to manipulate. Bring them to the Heisenberg Gate and let them look through to what lay beyond. The realisation that their concerns and ambitions were less than an atom of relevance in the vastness of the multiverse gave them a proper sense of perspective – and their own importance.

Charlotte Villiers snapped her compact shut. ‘The Plenitude is in peril.’

That made Everett M stop slouching.
She knows about the Nahn
.

‘Your alter has betrayed us all,’ Charlotte Villiers said.

Everett M’s heart started again.
Your alter
. Not him. Not
him
.

Charlotte Villiers went on: ‘Your own world, my world – even this world. Every soul in the Ten Worlds is in clear and present danger. You’re intelligent so I don’t need to spell out much more than the bare bones. In our worlds, the dinosaurs became extinct tens of millions of years ago. Imagine a universe where that didn’t happen. Now imagine sixty-five million years of evolution. What are the implications of that?’

Everett M’s head was reeling from the realisation that it wasn’t the Nahn. Thought was difficult. There was another threat out there? Bigger than the Nahn. What was she
saying? Super-evolved dinosaurs? ‘They have a sixty-five-million-year head start on us.’

‘Correct. Twenty times the entire existence of humanity as a species. This is Big Time.’

Traffic was stop-start, stop-start down Essex Road and along Upper Street.

‘Wait a moment though,’ Everett M said. ‘If they’re that advanced, why aren’t they here already?’

‘Good boy. Because they are aggressive and vicious – and divided. They are factional and warlike. Every time one of their factions gains an advantage, the others band together for a short time to destroy them before they are destroyed. Jiju civilisation has been built up and knocked down again thousands of times. Tens of thousands of times.’

‘Jiju?’

‘I need to tell you a bit of secret Plenitude history. In the early days of the Plenitude – before there was a formal Plenitude and before the great quarantine – when there was only Earth 1 and Earth 2, E1 sent probes on a series of random exploration jumps. They mapped several hundred planes. One of them was the plane of the Jiju. We had to destroy that probe before the Jiju learnt too much from it, but we got enough information back to make sure that we never went near that plane again. Your alter’s search for his father took him there. And he has let the Infundibulum fall into the hands of the Jiju.’