Mind Games (22 page)

36

Ding.

I jump, open my eyes. My head aches with the light and I shut them again.

Where am I? Pillows, blankets. Softness and warmth. I’m in bed. Where?

I open my eyes more cautiously, and peer through my lashes. It’s my bedroom at the PareCo Centre. Inac. That’s where I am. The wall window is set to outside view, and it is a dazzling sunny day.

I want to get up and tap the window, change the view. Or dim it down at least. But I feel weak, too weak to stand.

A screen appears in front of my face.

What? I blink; it’s still there. It’s a mini version of the interface window. Can I dim the screen from here? A rocker dimmer switch lights up.

I reach out a shaking hand towards it, but there is nothing there – my hand passes through the screen. But I can still see it. I think
dim
at the switch. It taps a few times and the room darkens.

What the hell?

I fall back against my pillows.

My memories are a mixed-up daze. The combat world. The tower. My cut leg, blood running down it; the silver door; going back. We won. The beach world that followed; the love/fear exercise. It felt like days. Weeks, even.

Then Dr Rafferty unplugged me.

He said I needed an Implant.

I sit up fast, and my head whirls. Do I have…an Implant?

Yes
flashes in front of my eyes.

Ohmygod
.

Did I agree to that?
Yes
again. Not good enough; I struggle to remember for myself. I did give consent, didn’t I? I was so completely exhausted, I’d thought I was dying, that it was the only way. Can you die from lack of sleep?

As soon as I think the question an encyclopedia entry scrolls past my eyes. Yes. You can, apparently.

Wow.

Will an Implant stop all that? Will I be able to plug in all the time like everybody else now?

No data
.

Before I can absorb that, there’s a sort of
ding
in my head again. Is that what woke me up before?

Luna?

I jump. Was that Hex? I look around the room. I’m still alone.

‘Er…yes?’ I say.

He appears in front of me. Sort of. Like, he’s not there, but I can still see him. I realise he can most probably see me as well, and hurriedly pull the blankets up.

‘Luna! Hurrah, you’ve got an Implant!’

‘Yeah. It’s spinning me out.’

‘That’ll only last a few days, until you get used to integrating everything. Are you all right?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. I think so. Maybe.’

‘Dinner is in an hour. Get up, you’re coming. I’ll knock just before.’

‘OK. Sure.’

He says bye, and vanishes.

That is super
weird
.

I get up slowly, cautiously. I can stand, but feel all out of balance. I manage to shower. Find a clean soft tunic and trousers, and pull them on. Everything feels wonky, like my body and brain are not quite in sync.

I’m ready early, and take a deep breath. Can I work out how to do this? Do I just think it, or is there something else I need to do?

Dad?

Seconds later he
pings
, and appears in front of me.

‘Wow! Luna! You’ve got an Implant?’ His current face is Doctor Who no. 46, but astonished just the same.

‘Yeah, apparently. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.’

‘You look well.’

‘Er…I do?’ I stand as I’m speaking to him, walk to the wardrobe. There’s a mirror on the inside of it. I touch the door to open, and stare at myself in shock. I’m
tanned
. How’d that happen?

The beach. I was sun-baking forever on that beach with Sparky.

But that was
virtual
. I wasn’t really there. But I’m…tanned?

‘Luna? Are you all right?’

‘Sure. Fine, sorry. Feeling a bit dazed with the Implant still.’

‘Don’t worry, that’ll pass quickly.’

‘I’ve got to go to dinner soon. Is everything all right at home?’

‘Yes, everything’s good. Though Jason got some school detentions. Something to do with freeing frogs from the virtual science lab. And Sally’s been doing a little home renovating.’ A pained look.

‘Sure, is she turning my bedroom into a gym or something?’ I say, kidding, but a look on his face says
nail on the head
. ‘Oh. I see. She is.’

‘Not a gym, but, well…’

‘No worries. It’s not like I’m using it.’

‘Sorry, Loony-Tunes.’

There’s a knock on the door, and I plaster a smile on my face. ‘Gotta go, Dad. Hex is here. Byee!’ I sign off.

The smile slips away. No room at home? It’s not like I thought I was going back, necessarily, but – I shrug. Anyhow, this room is a hundred times better than that one. This is my life now. Here. There is no going back to what I was, not any more.

Not now that I’ve got an Implant.

37

This time I’m not last.

Marina is here; a few others. One by one the rest of them pile directly into the Multi-dimensional Gateway from their fancy MD-PIPs, and for the first time, so do I. Though it’s not that exciting. Once plugged in I go straight to the Gateway, no trip via hallway and void. Is that the only difference? There’s a vague disappointment inside at not going through the void.

Marina gives me a high five, and I smile and try not to look how I feel, because Dr Rafferty totally lied. Nausea rips through me, and I concentrate on breathing, trying to keep my face blank, while back in the PIP I reach for the ANDs I’d put in my pocket just in case. Lucky I did. So I still need to take them, even with an Implant: figures.

Are you OK?
Marina, via Implant whisper. A whisper is different from talking – it’s private, so no one else can hear it. I’m getting more used to the distinctions and uses of the thing but say ‘Yes’ out loud, and then realise the mistake. She laughs.

Today is skills-sharing day. We’re going to a blank world, and everyone is going to do their hacking thing, and see if anyone else can learn how to do what the others can. And we’re meeting the other group – Hex’s group – there also. We’re to pair off until a bell goes, then swap along to someone else, and all along the way there will be points for learning new skills, and points for teaching well enough that others can learn yours.

Pity I haven’t got any.

A door opens; Hex peers through. ‘Step right up!’ he says, and we go through the door.

‘I thought a blank world would be, well, blank,’ I say to Marina, as I look around at the varied landscape. It’s like a world in miniature – and there is a little of everything. A seascape, a hill, a forest, a desert, a village, a meadow, a ski slope, and more – but all small and ridiculously close to each other, like sections of a pie with the door we just came through in the middle.

‘No. It just means lacking in unusual code. Everything is simple here. There are no druids in the trees, no wine in the water, no talking birds. It’s normal stuff. It won’t be by the time we leave, though.’

Sure. It’s normal to have a miniature world divided into sections.

We pair off as instructed, head in different directions. Hex came towards us but I had Marina’s arm already, and no surprises: we’re heading for the sea.

‘Can you show me how to be a mermaid?’ I ask.

‘I’ll try. But that’s changing your own living tissue: it’s complicated. Let’s try something easy, first.’

‘Like what?’

She pauses, thinking. We’ve reached the beach. She takes my hand, pulls me to the water’s edge. ‘Swimsuits would be handy as a starting point,’ she says.

‘So what do I do?’

‘I’m not sure. This is weird.’

‘How so?’

‘Hackers generally start when they’re really young, first by joining with a teacher, often a parent. They go it alone once it becomes instinctive, once they can start tapping into code without thought. Like once you learn to tie your shoelaces, you don’t have to think about it any more. But I’m not sure if you can learn this stuff at your age. Or if you can, by what method.’

‘Maybe I can’t.’

She tilts her head to one side, considering, then shakes her head. ‘I’m sure you
can
learn. You were the one who could find doors to worlds you wanted in the Gateway, weren’t you? I can’t do that.’

And escape through silver into the void
, my thoughts add, but I’m not sure anyone but me knows I did that. Blood turned his head when the bridge exploded: did he see, or not? If he did, he never said.

She shrugs. ‘But we might as well try to join Implants and see if it works.’

‘OK. How do we do that?’

‘Close your eyes; let your mind go blank. You should be able to see the Implant grid inside you. It’s like a three-dimensional working space in your mind.’

I try. Eyes closed, mind blank…but it won’t go blank. There are too many things cluttering it up inside. Fear I can do this; fear I can’t. I sigh, and try to let it go, imagine as I’m breathing out that the fear is washing away on the water that is lapping at our feet.

Then it happens: I’m there. My eyes are still closed, but the reality – virtual reality, anyhow – of my closed eyes fades away, and I’m standing in a grid space, like some sort of weird 3-D map.

Somehow I’m
aware
of Marina. She’s there, a calm presence, one that is coming closer. Another grid, separate to mine. Then for a moment there are two grids superimposed on each other. Then they snap together.

I open my eyes. I can see out of Marina’s eyes, and out of my own; everything in a curious extra dimension.
Weird.

Yes, isn’t it?
she thinks, responding to my tendrils of thought.
To me also. This isn’t something we usually do; I haven’t done this for many years. You have to really trust somebody; they could mess with you like this. I just couldn’t see any other way to show you.

Show me what?

Watch. Don’t break the connection, even if it feels alarming. It isn’t real, remember?

I swallow.
All right. Do it.
I’m nervous; they said the combat world wasn’t real, and it nearly killed me.

The world around us changes – into a grid space like the one I saw inside. Everything: our bodies, the sand, the sea. Like lines drawn on an integration map in maths class. Colour isn’t perceived as colour, but as variations in code – the blue of the sea is a number, the sand a range. Marina’s green hair and my grey eyes. She’s talking inside me and I’m trying to listen, but all I see are the beautiful, elegant numbers –
everywhere
– and there is some place inside me that chimes, that
opens
. That says,
yes – 42.83.22 is that shade of blue
, as if I could see it. I pull the strands of the graph: a little more aquamarine would be nice? And it shifts – the numbers change. Nanna would have loved this.

Heh, I thought I was showing you stuff here?
Marina murmurs in my mind. She pulls strands of her own and our tunics change and dance with precision: two-piece swimsuits. I change mine to blue, Marina’s to green, deep green that matches the streaks in her hair.

Colours are your thing, aren’t they?
she whispers inside me.

Mermaid?
I ask, the word not a word but a collection of numbers that code to mermaid. And we’re still joined and stepping further into the sea – the warm sea that is more aquamarine than it used to be, through both my eyes and Marina’s.

Legs are numbers; skin, bones and muscle also. Legs can join together, bones change; skin skews to scales, to iridescence. Green, like Marina’s? No. I make mine deepest blue. I flop into the water and cough until I remember: gills. We float underwater. I see her with my eyes, me with her eyes.

Our grids still joined, there is a murmur of chatter from the others, but distant, detached; all there is, is Marina. I can feel her heart beating; it beats with my heart, the same
th-thump, th-thump
, in rhythm. Her thoughts wind around mine.
Curiosity
: she’s curious how I managed to do this so quickly. A little good-natured annoyance when it took her so long to learn. She’s looking inside me now like I looked inside her. There’s a ghost of another grid, a shadow superimposed on the one we both see when we look at the world’s code. A silver grid?

What is that?
Marina’s linked emotions overlay her words – surprise, wonder, curiosity.
I’ve never seen anything like it.

My feelings echo hers, so how can I answer? Before I can try, a wave catches me wrong and I flip over, gasp when I slap into the sand. The connection is wrenched away. An empty loss left behind. One heart that beats; one pair of eyes.

Marina looks at me. ‘Holy, Luna. You’re beautiful as a mermaid, but not very graceful,’ she says, as I flail in the water. She puts an arm around my waist, steadies me.

I look at my tail through the water. ‘Not bad,’ I admit. ‘But I can’t seem to work out how to swim without legs.’

A swimming lesson follows, and after a while I get it: how to use my tail as a single entity instead of fighting it. The joy of swimming deep underwater, no need to come up to breathe; eyes changed so they stay open comfortably underwater.

Time is nearly up
, Marina Implant-whispers.
Do you want to try to restore your legs by yourself, or should we connect again?

I hesitate. Part of me longs to connect, part says no.
Tell me how to do it myself.

Go to your Implant grid. Return all the code to the way it was before. Can you remember?

I’ll try.
But I have no idea, none. It was instinctive, isn’t that the word she used before? Can I do it without Marina there?

I find the grid. The world fades away – colours and substance gone, replaced by elegant numbers once again. And I panic: how were things before? And then, I know what to do. Use the second grid, the silver one – the wild one that hides inside me. It bends to my thoughts. It regrets my beautiful tail, but does as I ask. I open my eyes, and I’m standing on the beach. Legs as usual, two of them, and they seem to work as they should.

There is a
ding
.

‘Time to change,’ Marina says. She is looking at me, green eyes wide. She hesitates. ‘Luna – if you link Implants with someone, you’ll learn quicker. But only do it if you trust them completely.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘It’s dangerous if you have secrets. They might find them out.’

Silver secrets.

Next I’m with Hex – in a castle.

‘Nice digs,’ I say.

‘Thanks! I built it in the first round. From a rock.’

My jaw drops. He built a castle? From a
rock
?

‘But I wasn’t so busy that I didn’t have time for a quick peek to see how you were doing with Marina.’

‘And?’

He whistles. ‘You appeared to have a fishy sort of tail.’

‘It wasn’t fishy! It was beautiful. And great for swimming, once I worked out how.’

‘How did you manage that?’ He shakes his head. ‘Luna, whatever you thought before – you’re a Hacker. No one who isn’t a Hacker could do that. And few Hackers can easily master skills outside of their own area. Who knew you were a fish?’

I shrug. ‘So I’m a Hacker. Big deal.’ The words, said out loud, send a shiver down my back. A Hacker?
Me
?

He reaches out, lightly touches the skin around my left eye, tracing a slow circle that makes me shiver. ‘Just here: I’ll tattoo you myself when we’re done.’ He leaves his hand on my cheek. His eyes are intense, and I pull away.

‘Is that actually required?’

He’s surprised. ‘Well, no. You don’t have to. But it’s kind of a badge of honour.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, uneasy at the thought of black tattoos in my skin. I can’t picture them; it’d seem somehow
wrong
.

‘OK, let’s try this. Find your Implant grid,’ he says, and I close my eyes. This time it is instantly there. Then his is there, also; it bumps into mine. I push it away. Not before I feel an echo of hurt.

You must have joined with Marina
, he Implant-whispers.

Just for the first time. I want to try to do things myself
, I answer the same way. And I wonder, in a closed-off place: is this because of what Marina said, that I should only do this with somebody I really trust? But I trust Hex. Don’t I? But he’s been weird since I’ve been here. Something –
someone
– makes me hold myself back: Melrose. Guilt stirs inside. I don’t know quite what is happening with them, but I can’t do anything as
intimate
as that with my friend’s boyfriend.

Well, let’s see if you can cast a few spells.

He explains, and I start to see: spells are just code changes, cast outwards, and concentrated on the object or person subject to the spell. And like the aquamarine sea, once I know how to work the numbers, it’s there.

Colours are the easiest for me: a spell cast out that changes colour. Blue, once again. I change a pebble; Hex’s shirt; a chair.

‘I wonder if I could change the entire castle?’ I ask him.

‘Doubt it. But give it a try.’

As it turns out it’s not any harder with something big than something small. Instead of concentrating the spell on a point, a single object, I set a chain reaction. It starts at my feet and fans out – the floor, the walls, accelerating as it goes.

‘Thanks a lot!’

‘What?’ I turn back to Hex. He’s blue from head to toe, clothes and skin – bright, deep blue, like a Smurf. I can’t help it: I laugh. ‘Sorry, mate. I didn’t do it on purpose. Was it because I cast it into the castle while you were standing in it?’

‘It was like a multiplying spell. I wonder if…? Come on,’ he says, and we step out of the castle and look around, and – as far as we can see?
Blue
. Landscape, trees, sea, people: all the same shade of blue, all sending Implant protests in our direction.

‘Whoops.’ I turn back to Hex. ‘How do I fix this?’

‘No idea. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He’s not happy, and it’s nothing to do with being blue. Is it because I’ve taken his thing – casting spells – and somehow done something different with it, something he can’t do?

‘I’m sorry, Hex. I don’t know what to do!’

He shrugs. ‘Working on it,’ he says. After a while he returns to his usual self, then Implant-explains to the others how to de-Smurf themselves and their surroundings. Gradually the world returns to normal.

There’s a
ding
.

Time for someone else.

And so Sparky shows me how to blow things up. Blood tries to show me how to smell the blood of the living, the blood of the dead, but when we get to the latter it so nauseates me that I refuse. Other skills follow: I learn how to hack doors and computer defences; and one of my favourites – how to fly.

My tiring body back in the PIP is always there, a separate awareness. It reminds me to take ANDs now and then to prevent nausea from returning. It is getting weaker and weaker, sending protests, but I’m pushing them away. I don’t want to stop. Each change brings something new to learn, to master, and I don’t want to miss a single moment.