The Whisper (14 page)

K
obi returned to his own room to find Abe sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. Nevermore was perched on the edge of the desk, watching him.

“What’s up?” Kobi asked.

Nevermore
craarked
and his feet clicked as he walked across the desk.

“They want us to do something strange,” his father replied.

“What? Some woman downstairs said they have a job for us.”

“They want to take us to the underside of the platform to fix some bolt borgs. Apparently, they were used during the construction of the Golden Turrets. They tightened the bolts that hold them onto the platform.”

“Why do they want us to fix bolt borgs?” Kobi asked.

“Well, that’s it,” his father replied. “They didn’t say. But I’m worried that the SLF are involved and that they’re planning to
undo
the bolts. If the bolts are undone, the turrets will fall over. When I was in the bar earlier, they were talking again about threatening the government and forcing it to tell us what this war’s about. They’re coming to collect us in a few minutes.”

“Oh no,” Kobi said. “I told you the SLF were dangerous! You don’t want to get involved with that, Dad; there are thousands of people living in the Golden Turrets, not just the government.”

“I know,” Abe said.

“If you don’t want to do it,” Kobi said, “tell them. You’re not a terrorist.”

“How can I?” he replied desperately. “They’re helping us. They’re hiding you. They’re providing us with a home and food, and every time I go to the bar, one of them buys me a drink. They haven’t let me buy a drink since we got here, and they talk about you all the time. You’re a hero twice over for escaping from the game and saving the boy. We’ve got to at least go up there with them and find out what they want. Perhaps I’m wrong.”

“I don’t think you are,” Kobi said. “From the way you describe it, there are only two things bolt borgs do: tighten bolts and undo bolts.”

“Let’s just go and see, Kobi. Please, don’t make this more difficult. I’ll find a way to get out of it if necessary. We can’t fall out with these people. We have nowhere else to go.”

“OK,” Kobi said. “But I’m only going to look. I’m not fixing anything. They’re also trying to wake up the boy by giving him a coma drug. But he’s not in a coma.”

“They’re angry. They’ve run out of patience.”

“I know and I don’t like it.”

Kobi lay on his bed and waited. A few minutes later, a man
and a woman arrived, and Kobi and Abe followed them down to the eleventh floor. In the buffer zone, they were given wading suits that covered the lower halves of their bodies. Outside the door, a cold wind gusted up the stairs, carrying the stench of slime. In the foyer, they found the tide rising and the water waist-deep. It would have made sense to fly from such a place, but civilian pods were banned in The Shadows because of all the pillars holding up the Golden Turrets. So Kobi waded after his father, feeling uncomfortable and annoyed and hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.

They waded through deserted, flooded streets, east along the river through the old financial heart of the city. The water rushed around them, tugging with the tide. It coiled through the doors of the buildings as if searching for things to wash away. Sometimes it was difficult to stand up and they had to stop, swaying unsteadily, as the water wound around their legs.

Then they saw a pillar in the road ahead. When they reached it, they waded around it until they found steps leading up to a damp, black door. Through this they found themselves in a cold, dark space facing another door, to an elevator that was bubbled with rust. It opened creakily and they squashed inside. The walls were streaked with black mold.

“Don’t worry, it’s safe,” the man said. “These elevators were built for the engineers working on the Golden Turrets. They haven’t been used for years, but we’ve fixed this one.”

Kobi did not feel reassured by this statement. As they rose in that old, dark elevator, he could hear the chains creaking and the wind beyond the pillar wall. He had to close his eyes and tell himself that he would be out of it soon; that he was doing this for his father.

The elevator stopped and the door opened again. Now they were right at the top of the pillar, just beneath the huge, black metal platform supporting the Golden Turrets. Kobi followed the strangers and his father onto a steel mesh walkway that was suspended only a few feet below it. Kobi looked down and felt a surge of vertigo. He could see through the mesh as if it weren’t there. The River Thames twisted below them, dark and deadly.

“Don’t look down,” the woman said.

They began walking. The mesh creaked and Kobi began to wonder if he could do this at all. The walkway didn’t feel safe and here he was with his father, when neither of them even wanted to come. Eventually, they paused and the man and woman pointed toward a shadowy hulk above them. It clung to the underside of the platform like a giant cockroach.

“That’s one,” the man said. “They left several hundred bolt borgs behind when construction of the turrets ended. I suppose it was easier than getting rid of them. They have rotating jaws inside their heads, but because they haven’t been used for so long, they’ve seized up.”

“Why do you want us to fix them?” Abe asked. “I don’t understand.”

The man moved closer and his eyes filled with hatred. “The government took our children,” he said. “And put lumps of metal in their heads. The days go by and they still haven’t told us what this war is about. Do you know what the government ministers are doing while we wait for them to talk to us?”

“No,” Abe replied uncomfortably.

“They party,” said the man. “Every night, while we worry about our children, they gorge themselves on fine food and
wine. Our people wait at their tables; we’ve seen it with our own eyes. Now it’s time for the party to end. We want to know why our children were taken. We’re going to undo the bolts on one of the Golden Turrets so it falls over, and then, if they still refuse to talk to us, we’ll undo the bolts on them all.”

It was several seconds before Abe was able to speak.

“Let me have a look at it,” he said quietly. “Then I’ll need to go back to our room and get the right tools.”

“I thought you brought tools,” the woman said. “We were hoping you could start now.”

“I brought some,” Abe replied. “But I won’t know exactly what I need until I’ve looked at the bolt borg. I’ve never worked on one before.”

Kobi watched his father climb a metal ladder. In the dark space beneath the platform, he watched the beam of the flashlight dance as Abe removed a section of the bolt borg’s shell and looked inside it. After several minutes, he replaced it again and climbed down.

“We have to go back,” he said. “There are several tools I need.”

“OK,” the man replied, and they began the tiresome journey back to the Future Communication Building.

“You should have told them you don’t want to do it,” Kobi whispered furiously, as they waded away from the pillar.

“I didn’t know what to say to them,” Abe replied. “They looked so angry. I’m trying to buy us more time. We can go back for tools, pretend to try and fix it, then say that we can’t, that it’s broken beyond repair.”

“Great,” Kobi said irritably. “That will take hours.”

“I can’t just tell them,” his father said. “They’re scary.”

“I know,” Kobi said. “But I’m not coming back. I want to stay with the boy.”

“What has the boy got to do with this?” his father whispered. “I need you more than he does.”

“I’m not coming back,” Kobi insisted. “I don’t want anything to do with terrorists.”

His father looked sad. “This is crazy,” he said. “How did we end up living like this?”

T
he fortress looked quiet as the invisible Stealth Carrier approached Cape Wrath. Leo and Iman paused the craft over Sandwood Seven and they waited for a few minutes while a freighter dropped in and left again, having delivered a load of supplies. When they were sure the path was clear, they followed, dropping down into the hole through the middle of the fortress.

They landed the carrier in the hangar on its launchpad, then the children waited for another few minutes, observing the activity there. Delivery borgs droned around, moving palettes of supplies. The only human they saw was a woman with a battered tablet who sauntered past, yawning with boredom. She would not be doing that if anyone had realized Mal Gorman and his Chosen Ones were missing.

“Good,” Mika said, tugging Awen’s ears. “Let’s go.”

The children activated their invisibility shields.

The carrier door opened and Awen blazed a trail to the elevator.

When they reached the top of the fortress, they had a difficult moment when the door opened again. Two of Mal Gorman’s officers were waiting to get in it, and the children had to creep around their sides. Shaken by this close encounter, the children walked quickly away, with their blood rushing.

They reached Mal Gorman’s office to find the door locked. They stood against the wall as more staff meandered past, then Ellie opened it and they crept in. When it was locked again, she appeared with a flash, leaning against it. Then the others appeared, dotted around the office.

“That was close,” she said.

Puck dropped from her shoulder and scampered across the floor. The children worked quickly, looking into the walls for hidden cameras and melting the lenses with their eyes. Soon Mal Gorman’s office was theirs.

It was quite different without him in it, seething and glaring at everyone. Ellie pulled a chair up to the desk. Mika watched. He’d never imagined seeing his sister do this. It pleased him.

She touched the screen gently with her fingertips and it woke up, casting her in light.

“He’s still logged in,” she said. “Ha-ha. I wonder if he’s realized. I bet he’s regretting taking that Everlife-9 now.”

“I bet he’s regretting lots of things now that he’s sitting on a pile of straw,” Mika said.

They gathered around the desk and watched Ellie summon views from around the fortress and explore Gorman’s security clearance and software. She had access to everything: all the security systems, communication networks, and weapons. One
chain of feeds even monitored the
Queen of the North
, the space station in orbit around Earth, where she’d once been imprisoned.

For a while they just looked at areas of the fortress, figuring out where everything was stored and what the staff were doing. The men they’d locked in the gym were sitting on the floor, looking bored and anxious.

Then they explored the control panels for the alarm systems and the fence. When this was done, they focused on the children. The implanted army was sleeping peacefully. The other mutants, like them, who’d not been chosen by Mal Gorman, were stored in another enclosure, halfway up the fortress. These mutants were not implanted, but they knew what was happening and they were waiting too. They paced their enclosure, looking quiet and thoughtful.

“Good,” Ellie said. “We’re ready. Does everyone agree?”

They nodded.

“OK, let’s take over a fortress.”

She opened the alarm and security systems. Then she summoned views from around the fortress, so they could watch Mal Gorman’s staff in some of the larger areas: the dormitories, offices, and refectories. Next she searched through the alarm panel for the loudest alarm she could find. It was labeled D
EATH SIREN.

“That’ll do,” she said.

Then she wrote a security alert that would appear on every screen around the fortress.

Tank Meat Surprise was on the menu that night. Gorman’s staff walked away from the serving machines with white trays that
held a brown lump, a green heap, and a yellow blob. The staff looked half asleep. It was mid evening, almost the end of the second shift, and nothing interesting had happened for hours … at least not that they knew about. They walked through the rows of tables and sat down to eat. On the screens around them a game show played and they stared at this blankly, unaware that they were about to get more surprise than they were expecting with their meal.

In Mal Gorman’s office, Ellie bit her lip and pressed S
END.

Immediately, the Death Siren began to wail, the game show disappeared, and her message began to flash against a red background.

The children held their breath and waited. They expected an immediate response, for this was a top-level alert. But for a good thirty seconds, all the staff did was look around and ask each other what was happening. The fortress was full of shrugging shoulders and raised eyebrows. Some even continued to eat, as if they were trying to finish their meal before they were forced to leave it.

“What are they doing?” Audrey said. “We’ve just told them the fortress is about to be hit by a megabomb.”

“Perhaps they think it’s a drill,” Ellie said. “Like the fire alarm drills we used to have in school. They probably don’t believe it’s real and they don’t want to go outside because it’s cold. We’ll have to scare them a bit.”

She found the control panel for the light network and turned them off. For a moment the whole fortress was plunged into darkness. Then the emergency lighting system came on and every room was lit by a bloodred glow. This seemed to make a difference. The people in the refectories stood up and began to walk toward the doors. But it was still like trying to start a stampede of sleepy buffalo. In the dormitories the nurses lingered around the beds, looking at the rows of children as if they weren’t sure what to do about them.

“Send the nurses a message,” Mika said. “Tell them to leave the children behind.”

It took a while, but eventually panic ignited and Gorman’s staff began to pour down to ground level like water running out of a punctured vessel, leaving all the children behind.

“Some officers are coming this way,” Leo said.

“They’re his chief officers,” Ellie observed. “We have to get rid of them.”

She moved her hands quickly over the desktop and added another alarm on the top floor. It was so piercing, it made them wince. Immediately, the officers turned and ran in the other direction.

“Nice,” Leo said.

Then Ellie summoned a view from above the fortress and they watched the staff pour out over the rocks and toward the electric fence. Thousands of soldiers, nurses, engineers, and maintenance staff, some still in their pajamas. The wind buffeted them. Their light was a mass of fear and panic.

“Keep going, keep going,” Ellie whispered.

She pressed an icon, and the giant electric fence began to sink into the ground. The staff ran over it, heading toward the
town. They were really scared now and running for their lives.

Eventually, the evacuation slowed down to a trickle. When Ellie was sure they were all gone, she made the fence rise again. The only adults left inside the perimeter were the seven men locked in the gym.

“That was tense,” Mika said. “I thought we were going to have to go out there and prod them with sticks.”

For a minute they watched the darkness on the other side of the fence, wondering if the staff would realize they’d been tricked and come back. But the darkness remained solid.

“Good,” Ellie said. “Now let’s deal with the
Queen of the North
.”

She set up a distress signal and sent it to the space station. Then they paced Gorman’s office while they waited for it to arrive.

Kobi and his father followed the man and woman through the metal door and into the buffer zone. After undressing clumsily because their hands were so cold, they left them and walked up the stairs to their room. They opened the door to find Oliver sitting on Kobi’s bed.

“Hello,” Oliver said. “Where have you been?”

“Just out for a bit,” Kobi replied.

The child fell quiet, sensing the strained atmosphere. He and Kobi watched Abe pack more tools in his bag, do it up, and sling it over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you later,” Abe said.

“OK, Dad,” Kobi replied. “Good luck.”

When Abe had left, Kobi immediately turned to Oliver. “Is the boy awake?” he asked.

“No!” Oliver whispered excitedly. “The medicine didn’t work! He’s still asleep! All the grown-ups are talking about it. I stood outside the kitchen and listened. They don’t understand why it didn’t work.”

“They wouldn’t,” Kobi replied.

“What do you mean?” Oliver asked. “I don’t understand either.”

“Nothing,” Kobi said.

He felt immense relief that he’d guessed right; that the boy would sleep until the others awoke, but he also felt the walls of the room closing in on him. He was trapped in a box in a building, with the weight of the Golden Turrets pressed down on his head and all these angry adults around him. And although he was glad the boy had not awoken, he knew he would awake, soon, in the wrong place. He needed help.

If Oliver had been older, Kobi would have told him everything at that moment. But Oliver was too young to understand how precarious this situation was. Kobi could not expect a seven-year-old child to keep his mouth shut if he knew the children of the North were about to stage the biggest rebellion in human history. And that there were forests and rich people on the other side of The Wall.

No, Oliver couldn’t be told that. But he looked upset. He knew Kobi was keeping something from him.

“I’m hungry,” Kobi said. “I could really do with something to eat. Do you think you can help me?”

“Yes,” Oliver said, immediately distracted. “I’ll show you where to make a sandwich. You don’t have to ask, you can just go to the kitchens and make it yourself. That’s what I do.”

He stood up and straightened his Pod Fighter T-shirt.

“Thanks,” Kobi said. “I’m glad I’ve got you to show me around.”

Then he followed the child down the stairs, with his head full of the sleeping boy.