Cracks (23 page)

‘You can’t help being owned by an ugly, bald creep, can you, puss?’ I look at the cat again and this time I notice its collar. I undo the little leather pouch. The small black
tracker is in there. It seems small, considering the damage it did when it was cut out.

I hold it up to the sky and shout again, telling Cavendish exactly where he can shove his tracker. I’m quite enjoying swearing at the sky like a madman. No men in white coats can come and
get me, can they? The men in white coats already came.

As I get closer, I can feel my feet getting heavy, just like in a dream, but I force myself into a run and even though it takes twice as long as it should, I finally get to the top of the
hill.

I go to the pile of bricks at the side of the house. I take aim and throw one straight through the window. It makes a satisfying sound, just like a real window breaking.

The front door hangs open and an eerie wind whistles through the rooms. Inside, it’s derelict now and broken glass and dirt crunches underfoot.

I’m going to fight Cavendish with everything I’ve got – trash his research and stop the nightmare he’s planning. It ends here. With me. I’m going to smash up this
fake world.

I go outside to the shed and throw open the door. I know there’s an axe in here somewhere.

The wind is whipping up now, buffeting against the metal walls. A high-pitched sound like distant screaming curls around me.

I see the axe resting up against the broken work bench and heft it onto my shoulder. A shadow passes across the open doorway, fast, like an animal. My mouth goes dry and my heart starts to
hammer.

‘It’s not real . . . none of it is real.’ I whisper the words quietly to myself but they don’t really help. It
feels
real, is the thing. The hairs on the back of
my neck are standing up for real and the wind is blowing in my face for real as I move towards the door, which suddenly slams shut. I stumble forward, trying to not fall on the axe and I reach for
the door . . . and then I hear quiet laughter behind me. All the terror of being shut in here all those times hits me like a tsunami and I fight down the urge to scream and shout. I make myself
close my eyes and keep my back turned, even though I hear heavy breathing and the warmth of another, bigger body behind me. I have no reason to be scared. But I can’t make it go away. Not
like I could with everything else.

That’s when I realise what’s really happening . . .

Cavendish talked about the next phase of this project, didn’t he? He isn’t just watching any more – he’s found a way to get inside and manipulate my thoughts. He’s
been rummaging around inside my head and looking for my weaknesses. He knows what buttons to press. He knows my fears and how to exploit them to his own advantage.

What better way to keep people down than planting scary images in their heads? Nowhere is safe. No
one
is safe. That’s what they want everyone to think. They can mess with
people’s minds and scare them into submission.

No. I can’t let them get away with it. ‘You can’t hurt me, Cavendish!’ I shout. ‘This Des isn’t real. He’s just a bad dream.
You
don’t even
scare me.’ The last part isn’t true. I feel hot breath against the back of my neck and a rough hand grabs a handful of my hair. It’s all I can do not to cry out or turn round.
‘You’re nothing,’ I say. ‘No one. You’re not even real. You’re nothing.’

I’m a millisecond away from freaking out and fighting back but I know if I do, I’ll be lost. I’ll have allowed myself to become part of this world again, just by accepting
it’s real. My heart is racing, I’m sweating all over . . . Got to hold out a bit longer. I can feel myself slipping. I’ve got to turn round! Got to fight him off! If I can just
hang on a bit longer. I close my eyes and say, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’

The door slams open again and I know I’m alone. I laugh out loud, euphoric at having beaten him.

I run out into the light. There isn’t much of it left because the sky is bunched with black clouds and thunder is rumbling away. It feels like a massive storm is brewing. The air tastes
metallic. I’m sweating all over as I go back into the house, the heavy axe on my shoulder. Outside Pigface’s room I swing it back and bring it hard into the door with a crunch. It melts
away like it was never there. I walk over to the broken Xbox, which is sitting just where I last saw it on the cabinet, split across the top. It’s been repaired. No damage from where the
weights fell on it. It looks different in other ways too. There’s no Microsoft or Xbox logo. It’s just a black box, with a whole load of tiny lights on it, flashing away. I’ve
seen it before, back in the room where my real body is lying like a corpse on a slab.

Realisation slams into me. This is the brain of the Cracks programme.

Everything that happened to Alex in his real life got mixed up with what was happening to me as I hung, trapped inside that pod. The nurse mum. The cat.

The Xbox.

He broke Ryan’s Xbox and it set off a chain of events that ended up with him inside Riley Hall, a prisoner. His memories and my imagination combined and created a whole new reality.

The Xbox, the Cracks hard disk . . . they’ve somehow come together in my mind. I might not be able to touch it in this world, but maybe I can take away its power.

All I know is, my mind is my own now. I won’t be controlled by a lump of plastic, even a lump of plastic that can communicate with a chip inside my brain.

I look at the axe in my hand and there’s a moment’s hesitation. Will it hurt me to this? Will it set me free?

But then I realise that I don’t even care. If I have to die, I’ll die on
my
terms. In control.

I lift the axe up, ready to crack the box in two and then freeze. A strange sound fills the room. It’s a girl, crying, somewhere outside. It sounds like someone is hurting her.

‘Cal! Cal! Help me, please help me!’

It’s Kyla’s voice.

She’s not real, she’s not real
.

Wait. What if this is the real Kyla? What if my ears are hearing what’s actually happening around me in the Facility? My insides clench with fear. ‘Kyla!’ I call out.
‘Where are you?’ I turn around blindly and stagger into the hallway, trying to see where she is but the wind is so strong I can hardly stand up, even though I’m inside.

I realise then that the crying’s coming from ‘my’ bedroom. I push open the door and step inside.

The storm instantly stops, like someone switched it off. Instead, the sun is slanting through the window onto her face. She’s sleeping, one hand curled up under her chin. She’s
wearing some sort of short blue dress and her long brown legs seem to gleam. She’s smiling in her sleep and then she rolls onto her back and stretches sleepily, stretching her toes so her
dress rides up a little further up her thighs.

She opens her eyes. ‘Cal,’ she says dreamily. ‘I’ve missed you. Come here.’ She holds her arms out to me.

It feels like a giant magnet is pulling me towards her. I can’t stop myself. I don’t care if it’s not real. I could be with her, here, for ever. She wants me. She actually
wants me. Heart banging and palms sweating, I sit down on the edge of the bed and start to lean over. Her lips are slightly parted and she gives a little sigh as I get closer. My lips are just
about to touch hers when I notice it. The gap between her teeth has gone.

I jump back like someone has hit me.

This isn’t Kyla.

Her eyes snap open. ‘What’s the matter, Cal?’ she says. She’s smiling like I’m the most desirable thing she’s ever seen. Then I see that the teeth
aren’t the only thing wrong. She uncurls her fingers to reach for me and I notice her hands. Instead of bitten nails with chipped varnish, she has perfect, long fingernails tipped with
snow-white crescents. It’s all wrong. These aren’t Kyla’s hands. She’s too perfect now.

No, she’s the wrong kind of perfect.

I stand up, shakily. He’s somehow been in my mind while I was recovering, used that Revealer Chip and seen how I feel about her and he’s using it against me. For a second, I burn all
over with embarrassment and have to squeeze my fists tight. I close my eyes and swallow. What else did he see? Those thoughts are mine. They’re no one else’s. They’re not even for
Kyla.

A kind of white rage fills me up like light inside then and I know I can do this. ‘Forget it,’ I say, turning to leave. ‘This isn’t going to work.’ I don’t
see her move, but Kyla is suddenly right there, blocking the door now. Her eyes are half closed and sexy and she reaches for the zip of my hoodie and starts to pull on it.

‘Stay with me, Cal,’ she says. ‘Believe in me. We can be together always here. You know you want to. Just one kiss, come on . . .’

My body seems to have a life of its own because I feel myself melting towards her. What’s the harm? It’s just one kiss . . .

Then I picture the real Kyla, and Jax, who’s curled up in a prison cell. Does he have her too? Will he hurt them, like he’s hurt me? I force myself to shove the pretend Kyla out of
the way. She screams and falls back, hard, and it takes everything I’ve got to wrench the door open.

I take one last look back. Her eyes are burning into me.

‘Come on, Cal . . . what’s stopping you?’ she says, but she sounds weird. And then I realise; it’s not Kyla’s lovely voice I’m hearing. It’s
Cavendish’s voice.

All the hairs on the back of my neck go up. But it’s not going to work. Cavendish is just trying to scare me. He’s set traps for me here in this coma world, knowing I’ll fight
back. And I won’t let him win.

I run back to where I left the axe. I pick it up and start smashing it into the walls of the hallway.

Huge cracks appear along the walls and start to spread quickly. The ground starts to rumble under my feet like an earthquake. Plaster and dust patter onto my face and catch in my throat just
like it’s real. But the world has gone red and the rumbling turns into the sound of a heartbeat, loud and rhythmic, all around me.

I smash down the door to Ryan’s room and lift the axe over the black box. As the blade smashes down into the hard plastic, the world explodes around me and blinding light fills the
room.

This is it, it’s the end.

A sharp pain slices into my head and I crouch down, instinctively trying to protect myself. The world goes still and I look up, wincing at the brightness.

I’m in a perfectly white room, with no chairs or tables. I know somehow that I have to get out or I’ll die here. I lift up the chair and hurl it at the wall. Nothing happens and I
run full pelt at a window. I hear it break but it feels like something molten and I’m pushing against it, fighting it.

I shout, ‘NO!’ at the top of my voice, over and over again. My voice has gone all slow and drawly. I hear an almighty cracking sound.

F
or a minute I think I’m trapped inside a gigantic spider web. I can feel it everywhere, sticky and tangled around me. Then I realise
I’m back in the real world, inside the pod. I kick and thrash about and suddenly I’m free, slumping sideways against the moist glass surface.

I find the pod door and climb out, wincing at the worst headache of my life. The light of the room is pure violence but right at that moment there’s a weird
fpzzt
sound and the room
goes dark.

I feel a shudder of pure panic. Am I still in the coma? Did I make that happen? But no, I can smell things . . . bleach, disinfectant. . . smoke. It’s real. I really am back!

All of a sudden, lights come on again, but much dimmer and they keep flickering. Back-up lights, maybe. It hits me that no one seems to be watching me or they would have come in by now. Why?
This unnerves me more than almost anything else. I look around for my clothes and can’t see them anywhere, then spot a trolley over by the door. It looks like the laundry one I escaped in
before but when I open it, I see that it contains rubbish: old tissues, plastic cups and paper towels. Then I spot something that chills me to the bone. The toe of one of my trainers is just
visible, poking up from beneath a big wad of paper towels. I gingerly reach inside and find it and its partner. My clothes are rolled into a ball underneath.

It takes a second to make sense of the true horror of this.

They were throwing away my clothes. Throwing them away because I wasn’t ever coming back. There’s a white overall in the bin too, made of some incredibly light material. I’ve
seen some of the guards wearing them. It has a hood with a see-through mask at the front.

Shaking hard, I pull everything on, including the overall. I do up my laces with fumbling, sausage fingers. I step out into the corridor and listen. It’s eerily quiet.

Got to find Jax and Kyla and get the hell out of here. Cavendish said the Facility was built onto Riley Hall. I suddenly remember the old burned out wing that Loz and Alex must have helped clean
out. I wonder if that’s where they built the new wing? Got to get my bearings and find some sort of map.

Someone comes around the corner then, a guard, dressed like me, and my heart seems to stop.

‘Why are you still here?’ says the man. ‘They’re locking down this whole area. Has the boy been moved yet?’