The Impossible Boy (15 page)

On the computer monitor, Chas narrowed his eyes. ‘What’s going on? Who’s that?’

‘Hi, Chas,’ said Barney. ‘We’re here to help.’ He held up the silver locket. ‘We can use this to open up a doorway to your universe. You don’t need to
overload the reactor.’

‘Why, Mr Barney Watkins!’ cried Chas cheerfully. ‘What a pleasant surprise! I do hope you’re enjoying the use of your EGG now it’s been returned to you. You should
have brought it with you. Would have given you something to do in the three minutes you have left before you die.’

Gill looked at the controls on the console. ‘The reactor’s overloading. There doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping it.’

Barney nudged Gabby. ‘What’s got into Chas?’

‘He’s a lot more evil and selfish and horrible than we thought he was. Than
I
thought he was, anyway.’ She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with the back of her
hand. ‘Oh mate. I’ve been a total, total idiot.’

Barney nodded. ‘You’ve been an absolute jerk, Gabs. No two ways about it.’

Gabby nodded dumbly.

Barney stared at her a long time, then his face softened. ‘But these things happen, don’t they? No point worrying about that now if we’re about to get blown to smithereens.
This is Gill, by the way.’

‘Hi, Gill,’ said Gabby. ‘In case you’re wondering what the four awful squidgy wobbly personlike things are, they’re people who’ve been caught in a 4-D trap
and made to look all squidgy and wobbly by Chas.’

‘Thought it might be something like that,’ said Gill.

Barney addressed Chas on the monitor. ‘Look, mate. We can end this business without anyone getting hurt. Please. Show a little respect for us 3-D beings.’

‘Respect?’ said Chas. ‘You don’t respect an ant when it crawls out in front of you. You just step on it and go on your way.’

‘I don’t step on ants,’ said Barney. ‘I like ants. They can carry stuff fifty times their own weight. They actually farm other species of insects the way we farm
livestock. They’re pretty cool. And so are we, when you get to know us.’

‘You know a lot about ants,’ said Gabby. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘Did a project last year.’

‘Do you know why I did those magic tricks?’ asked Chas.

‘Is the answer because you’re a repulsive attention-seeking bighead?’ said Gabby.

‘Haha,’ said Chas flatly. ‘I nearly split my four-dimensional sides. No. I did it for the challenge. Yeah, it was a challenge to restrain myself into doing stuff that small,
that pathetic. I could have levelled mountains. I could have made your sun vanish. I could have turned this entire planet inside out like a sock. But no. I kept it small. That was what amused me. I
was kinder to you ants than you realise.’

‘And yet you still gave yourself away,’ said Gabby. ‘You couldn’t just blend in with us human beings, could you? The stuff you did may have been small but it was still
impossible.’

A siren blared. Gill looked at a read-out on the console. ‘That’s it. The reactor’s overloading. We’ve got about thirty seconds.’

‘Please, Chas!’ cried Gabby. ‘I’m sorry for insulting you earlier.
Please!
’

‘Blimey,’ said Chas. ‘You ants aren’t half boring sometimes. See you, losers.’ The image of him on the monitor vanished.

Gabby and Barney stared at each other. Neither of them knew what to say. It occurred to Barney that he should probably hug Gabby, what with this being their last few moments alive and all, but
the thought that she might not want him to nagged him. It also struck him as fitting that the last thoughts ever to flicker through his mind would be ones that were confused and a bit awkward.

‘Open the locket.’

Barney seemed to snap out of a trance. ‘What?’

‘Open the locket,’ said Gill. ‘It’s our only option.’

‘But that won’t stop the reactor from overloading.’

‘No,’ said Gill. ‘But it might attract the attention of someone who can.’

Barney frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘We can debate the details afterwards – if there
is
an afterwards! Just open the damn thing!’

‘OK, OK. How do—’

‘Twist the two metal catches at the same time and press the little button on the back. Hurry! We’ll be dead in a few seconds otherwise!’

‘Right. Blimey. This thing is really fiddly, isn’t it?’

‘Just do it!’

‘OK, OK. Ah, I think I’ve—’

The world suddenly became a much whiter, brighter place.

Outside, on Daisy’s back seat, Dave saw a shaft of brilliant white light burst from one of the windows in the reactor complex. A shiver coursed through his body. It was
exactly the same white light he had witnessed when Fleur vanished. However much his memory had deteriorated, he knew, he would never forget that.

A ghostly white owl that he had been watching flit from rooftop to rooftop for the past half hour took fright and darted silently away from the power plant. As it flew its movements seemed to
slow to almost nothing, as if it were suddenly flying through treacle. Its great white wings froze in mid-flap and the bird hung motionless in the air.

Dave stared at the owl, his jaw slowly opening. Something very odd was happening.

Now there was more of the brilliant white light. It was pouring through what looked like a rip that had opened up in the night sky above the power plant. The rip lengthened, releasing fresh
bursts of white light, becoming a twisting ribbon of unearthly energy.

Two enormous pointed shapes appeared through the rip, pushing their way into the universe, being born out of the night air itself. The rip convulsed and the two shapes emerged fully, revealing
themselves to be two enormous cubes, both a full mile in length across each face and made from some weird grey jellylike substance that pulsed and shimmered in the starlight. The huge cubes floated
silently towards Sanderling Ridge.

‘Blimey,’ whispered Dave. ‘There’s something you don’t see every day.’

The two massive cubes came to rest in the air directly above the power plant, hanging there silent and still as the mysteriously frozen owl. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then both cubes
twitched, as if sneezing. There was a thunderous rumbling noise and two smaller cubes – each no more than a metre across – detached themselves from the main pair. These smaller cubes
floated silently and without hurry down towards the reactor building from which the white light was streaming. When they reached the top of the control complex, they passed straight through the
flat roof as easily as ghosts and vanished within.

His heart pounding, Dave clambered into the front seat of the car and twisted the key in the ignition.

In the main control room, the white light suddenly snapped off. Gill, Barney and Gabby blinked at one another until their vision returned to normal.

‘Whoo,’ said Barney, rubbing his eyes. ‘When that light was shining I put my arm over my eyes and I could actually see the bones it. Powerful stuff, that Harland
radiation.’

‘Harland radiation?’ said Gabby, steadying herself against the control console.

‘It’s caused by the gravitational ripples that accompany the opening of a gateway to a higher dimension. I’ve been reading up on it. Gill and Dave have loads of notes on weird
stuff.’

‘Wow!’ said Gabby. ‘Someone’s really done their homework!’

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Gill, ‘but I can’t help but notice that we’re all, y’know,
still alive
. What’s happened to the reactor?’ She
examined the dials and read-outs on the console. ‘Funny.’ She tapped one with her finger. ‘Doesn’t seem to be responding at all. I wonder why.’

‘It’s because there’s been a localised rip in the fabric of space-time,’ came a voice from behind them. ‘Time has slowed almost to nothing here at the
plant.’

The three of them turned around in unison to find Dave standing in the doorway. Gill flung her arms around him. ‘Hello, darling! How did you get in here?’

‘Just walked past the security guards,’ said Dave, shrugging. ‘They all seemed to be wrestling on the floor downstairs. Didn’t even notice me.’ He smiled warmly at
Gabby. ‘You must be Gabby. Rufus was telling me all about you.’

‘Who’s Rufus?’ asked Gabby, frowning.

‘Me,’ said Barney. ‘Dave’s not terribly good at names.’

‘And they,’ said Dave, motioning to the four columns of grey-pink awfulness, ‘will be some people caught in four-dimensional snares, I take it? Fascinating!’

‘Great,’ said Gill. ‘Glad your mind is being stimulated by all this. Shall we all sit down and have a seminar about advanced hyper-geometry – or shall we try to figure
out a way that we can all go home? My back and legs are killing me. I haven’t moved this much in twenty years.’

‘I guess whether we leave is up to them,’ Dave said.

‘Who?’

He pointed upwards to where two greyish cubes were floating gently down from the ceiling like children’s helium balloons being tugged on a string. The cubes slowed their descent and
hovered in the centre of the room at roughly head-height.

Gabby gasped. ‘What on Earth . . .?’

With a click, the computer monitor switched itself on. Chas’s smug face filled the screen. ‘Nothing on
this
sad little speck of a world. These creatures are from an
infinitely vaster realm. The one I inhabit. And boy – are you in trouble now! These things are even more powerful than me and they won’t like the way you’ve tried to keep me
captive in your crumby little universe.’

‘Who are they?’ asked Gabby, breathless.

‘My mum and dad,’ said Chas. ‘Well, two of them.’

‘Two of them? How many mums and dads have you got?’

Chas screwed up his nose in thought. ‘A little over three thousand, I think.’

‘Three thousand mums and dads?’ That seems—’

‘Rather a lot? Yeah, I suppose it is, compared to you 3-D beings. Things are a bit more complicated where I come from. Each hyperbeing has several thousand parents, each one being partly
male and partly female.’

‘That must be a bit confusing.’

‘It’s a nightmare when it comes to remembering birthdays.’

Gabby’s eyes suddenly blazed. ‘Hey! What was that rubbish you were just saying about us keeping you captive here? That’s rich! We’ll be glad to see the back of
you!’

‘Enough of your lies now, underbeing,’ said Chas coldly. ‘MumDad 357 and MumDad 2961 don’t want to hear your snivelling. I expect they’ll just want to crush this
world into a radioactive cinder and then we’ll be on our—’

As Chas was speaking, one of the floating cubes pulsated and a spark of white energy flew from one of its corners towards the computer monitor. When the spark touched the screen, something
extraordinary happened. Chas’s mouth began to shrink as he was talking, his voice growing rapidly quieter, until his mouth vanished entirely, leaving a completely smooth patch of skin under
his nose. Noticing this, Chas glared and shook his fists.

Now the two cubes shimmered and began to soften, melting and re-forming until they had formed themselves into two approximately humanoid shapes. Their features were blurred and indistinct. They
looked like a pair of clothes shop mannequins to whom someone had taken a blowtorch. Rough, squelching mouth-holes tore themselves open in the figures’ heads. They spoke in unison and their
combined voices sounded like water swirling down a plughole.

‘Good evening, creatures of this 3-D realm,’ gargled the hyperbeings. ‘Forgive us this intrusion into your dimension. We’ve taken the precaution of lifting this area of
your planet out of space-time for a little while. It will prevent us from being noticed by your fellow creatures and allow us a modicum of privacy while we deal with this matter.’

‘Umm, hello,’ Barney ventured.

Dave and Gill were clutching one another, both open-mouthed in silent awe. Dave waved limply.

‘So what’s going to happen?’ asked Gabby. ‘Are you going to destroy us like Chas said?’

The hyperbeings shook their heads and waved their crude, semi-formed arms emphatically. ‘Absolutely not,’ they said in unison. ‘You must ignore the pronouncements of the one
you call Chas. He is what you would call on this world “a total div”.’

‘A total div?’ repeated Gabby.

‘Is that the right word?’ asked the hyperbeings. ‘How about “twit”? “Lamebrain”? “Dimwit”? You get what we’re trying to say. He
exhibits foolishness on a grand scale.’

On the screen, Chas gesticulated furiously, his face turning red.

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ said Gabby. ‘He nearly destroyed everything within a thirty-mile radius.’

‘Chas is a mere child,’ said the hyperbeings, ‘and a difficult one at that. He’s scarcely a thousand years old. We left him partially inserted in your universe the way
you might leave a baby in a playpen – out of harm’s way for five minutes while you make a cup of tea, as it were. We thought your world would be an amusing distraction for
him.’

‘You gave him our world as a
toy
?’ said Barney. ‘Billions of people live here! Don’t you think that was maybe a
teeny
bit irresponsible?’

The hyperbeings shifted uncomfortably. ‘We did not expect him to be so
rough
with you and to try to escape. For that we apologise. Though your lives are incredibly short and your
mental horizons incredibly narrow, you still have value and should be treated with respect.’