The Roar (18 page)

‘Wow,’ Mika said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

‘And soy cheese!’

‘Right then, everyone!’ the Hat Man shouted. ‘It’s time to take the competitors to our
special competition centre
, so say goodbye to your parents and follow me!’

The Hat Man left the stage and walked towards a door at the back of the hut.

‘Goodbye, darling,’ Asha said, holding a piece of cheese in one hand and her cocktail in the other. ‘Good luck!’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Mika said. ‘I’ll see you later, on the beach for the barbeque.’

He walked with Audrey through the door at the back of the hut feeling as if they were passing through a portal into another world – on one side, warm and colourful, and on the other, cold and blank. They found themselves in a white room that contained nothing but grey plastic chairs, and when the door closed, the happy sound of their parents’ laughter abruptly halted.

22

HAVE A NICE HOLIDAY

I
n the white room, the hundred competitors were told to sit on the rows of chairs and wait for their names to be called. Audrey left first and she looked at Mika anxiously as she was led away by a man in a YDF uniform. Mika felt his stomach twist as the door closed behind her and it suddenly occurred to him that they weren’t competing as a team any more – they were on their own. With her gone, he felt darkness draw in on him as if his nightmares were showing through the fabric of the day and he heard the mutter of the Telly Heads, watching.

He was glad when his name was called. He followed a man through the door and they walked along a shrub-lined path bathed in fake sunlight towards a pair of metal gates with razor wire at the top.

‘After you,’ the man said, as the gates swung open. He put his hand on Mika’s back, encouraging him to walk forward towards
a low white building, its mirrored windows reflecting the surrounding shrubs and palm trees. It looked formal and secretive, and inside the smell was medical. The man left him in a room that reminded him of his doctor’s surgery in Barford North, only there wasn’t any mould on the walls and everything was new.

There were two people in the room, a man and woman in white coats. They didn’t introduce themselves. They fitted him with a yellow wristband, which had a bar code on it, then told him to stand in a glass cubicle that looked like a shower. He heard a whining noise and a slice of light moved slowly down his body. It didn’t hurt, but he felt it right inside him, hot and prickly. After this he was told to pee in a bottle, which he found very difficult. He had to think about dripping taps and gushing fountains while they huffed outside the door.

After his pee was labelled and put in a fridge, they looked at his webbed feet. He had to lie on a metal bed while they stared at them and whispered, and this was even more embarrassing than peeing in the bottle. By the time they’d finished, a three-dimensional model of his webbed toes rotated on a screen.

‘Is that it?’ Mika asked, desperately, as they dropped their gloves down a waste chute.

‘Not yet,’ the woman said. ‘Wait here.’

As she walked out of the door, Awen appeared and nipped her on the backside. The dog disappeared instantly, but Mika could hear him snuffling around the floor as if he was doing some detective work. Mika sat on the edge of the bed, wondering why the YDF were interested in his mutation. It was nothing compared to some, like Lara with her sweetcorn teeth, and Audrey, who was born without eyes. While Asha was in hospital giving birth, the woman in the bed next to her had a baby covered in fur and they had to shave her to see what she looked like.

Awen sneezed as if he had fluff up his nose, then rubbed his muzzle against Mika’s leg.

A man entered.

‘Come with me,’ he said.

Mika followed the man deeper inside the building and into a dark room. In the middle of the room was a reclining chair, like those used by dentists, but this one was black and had straps hanging off the arms. Mika looked at it and felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead. Another man in a white coat stepped forward to greet him.

‘Hello, Mika,’ the man said. ‘Relax. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

Yeah, right, Mika thought, looking at the straps on the chair. He wondered what his parents would think if they could see him at that moment. They were probably only a few hundred metres away drinking cocktails on the beach thinking he was playing a game. Strange game.

‘I want you to lie on the chair and make yourself comfortable,’ the man said.

Mika tried to do as he was told; he lay on the chair, but there was no way he could make himself comfortable on it, his body was rigid with fear.

You’d better be grateful for this, Ellie, he thought. You’d better be nice to me after this.

‘Relax,’ the man insisted, seeing the distrust and fear in Mika’s eyes.

Mika took a deep breath but tensed again as he felt the man’s hands on his head.

‘I’m going to attach a few electrodes to your forehead but they won’t hurt, OK?’ the man said.

‘OK,’ Mika replied, but as he felt the cold electrodes press on his forehead, he wanted to rip them off and run away.

‘Right, that’s good,’ the man said, stepping back to admire his work. Mika could see wires in front of his eyes. The man moved them so he had a clear view of a screen on the ceiling above him.

‘I’m going to put the straps on now,’ the man said. ‘They’re only to stop you moving so our equipment can look in your eyes,
so don’t worry about them.’

Mika gritted his teeth as he felt the first strap tighten over his forehead. Then his arms were strapped to the sides of the chair, his legs to the end and another strap was tightened over his chest.

‘Can you breathe all right?’ the man asked.

‘Yes,’ Mika replied, shakily.

This is how I feel when the Telly Heads are standing around my bed, he thought: paralysed and about to be eaten.

‘I’m going to show you a film now,’ the man said. ‘It’s going to be like the cinema but with no popcorn.’

Mika considered making a sarcastic comment like, ‘Oh good, how fun,’ or, ‘I hope I haven’t seen it before,’ but swallowed instead and tried to ignore his heart, which was throwing itself around in his chest as if it was trying to break out. The man walked away for a moment and Mika tried to turn his head to watch him, but was unable to move. When the man returned he was holding a syringe.

‘What’s that?’ Mika asked.

‘I’m going to give you an injection,’ the man said. ‘You’ll feel a slight prick from the needle, but don’t be afraid, nothing bad is going to happen to you.’

Before he had the chance to speak, Mika felt the needle pierce the skin on his arm and the contents of the syringe enter his vein with a sickening cold sensation as if it was ice. He felt it move up his arm towards his shoulder and bit back the tears, feeling absolutely terrified.

‘How do you feel?’ the man asked.

‘Fine,’ Mika lied.

‘Are you ready for the film?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, I’m going to leave you now. The film will start in a few moments.’

Mika heard the door click gently and the screen above his head lit up and the film began. At the beginning, it was like watching someone’s memories speeded up, fragmented like
snapshots and film clips. He saw a birthday party with lots of small children with balloons, a herd of antelope on a grassy plain, a man and a woman cutting a wedding cake, a baby in a hover buggy with the rain cover down, a concrete wall covered in graffiti and a woman in a kitchen slicing tank meat. The images came faster and faster and they began to mix up and distort: he saw the birthday party again, but in the centre of the room amongst the children was a snarling plague dog. A hand peeled the skin off an orange, and the fruit was full of maggots. He saw a boat sailing on the sea with the sun setting behind it, then he realized there were dead fish floating on the water. A small child fell over on the walkway and when he got up, he was holding a gun and waving it around as if it was a toy. The images were horrible, sinister, and they began to flash past so quickly his brain screamed with the effort of trying to keep up with them. He tried to close his eyes to shut them out, but found he couldn’t, and even when the pictures moved so fast he was no longer able to make sense of one image before it was replaced by another, he knew he was seeing things he didn’t want to see, bad things. His breathing got faster, he pushed against the straps trying to break out of them, but there was no escape, he was stuck there until the film ended. Eventually the screen turned blank and the man came back into the room and leaned over him.

‘Well done,’ he said.

‘Let me out,’ Mika replied, flatly.

‘OK,’ the man said, smiling as he loosened the straps.

‘Can I go now?’ Mika asked. ‘Back to the beach?’

‘Yes,’ the man replied. ‘You’ll be just in time for the barbeque.’

‘What time is it?’ Mika asked.

‘Six o’clock,’ the man replied.

‘How long have I been here?’ Mika asked.

‘A few hours,’ the man replied, vaguely. ‘It didn’t feel that long, did it?’

‘No,’ Mika said, feeling a surge of panic as he realized what they’d just done to him. They’d given him a drug, then, while he
was semi-conscious, they’d been inside his mind while he had no control over his thoughts. What had they seen? Did they know how suspicious he was? As he climbed out of the chair he felt weak with fear.

‘Are you all right?’

The man was watching him.

‘I feel tired,’ Mika replied, trying not to meet his gaze.

‘You’ll feel better in a few minutes,’ the man said reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. A man will take you to the hut to meet your friend, then to the beach so you can join your families. But first I want you to make me a promise.’

‘What?’ Mika asked, nervously.

‘I want you to tell your parents you’ve been playing puzzle games today. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Mika said.

‘There will be another test tomorrow morning,’ the man continued. ‘We’ll send someone to collect you after breakfast. Make sure you’re dressed and ready, and again, you’ll need to tell your parents you’re doing puzzles. Don’t forget.’

‘OK,’ Mika replied.

‘Have a nice holiday,’ the man said.

As Mika walked back to the hut, he was half expecting men in white coats to come running after him because they’d found all the suspicious thoughts in his mind. It was a horrible feeling, especially with the sun shining and the sound of the sea in the distance, and he was immensely relieved to reach the hut and Audrey.

She was drinking fruit juice from a glass full of plastic tropical fish, which swam around frantically as she sucked through the straw. They exchanged a look that communicated the horror of the past few hours, but they couldn’t speak because there were men everywhere, watching them, and one insisted on walking with them to the beach, even though there was a signpost outside the hut with a big, red arrow on it.

The path was wide and sandy and the sunlight filtering
through the palm trees was as warm as the embers of a dying fire. They took off their sneakers when they reached the sand, so they could feel it on their skin, and Audrey saw Mika’s webbed feet for the first time.

‘You’re a mutant,’ she remarked, smiling.

‘Yeah, a web-toed freak,’ he said. ‘At least, that’s what Ruben calls me.’

‘Charming,’ Audrey said. ‘I wonder what he calls me.’

‘Wolf eyes,’ Mika replied, his face darkening at the mention of Ruben’s name.

Audrey’s eyes flashed as she decided whether she approved of this nickname, then she shrugged and smiled. ‘I quite like it,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ Mika admitted. ‘It suits you.’

They walked along the beach looking for their families. It was perfect: the curve of clean white sand, the gentle sapphire sea, the rustic huts, so neatly spaced, and the shrubs and palm trees behind them. There were cocktail waiters walking along the beach, filling up empty glasses, and Mika found his mother lying on a sun lounger having her nails painted. He hadn’t seen his parents look so happy since Ellie disappeared.

‘You’re just in time for the barbeque,’ David said cheerfully, with a glass of champagne in his hand. ‘And I’m Head Chef.’ He had no shoes on and he was wearing shorts and a baseball cap. ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.

‘Puzzles,’ Mika said, avoiding eye contact.

‘You look tired,’ Asha commented.

‘I am,’ he replied. ‘They were difficult.’

‘Never mind,’ David said, kindly. ‘You can relax now. You can help with the barbeque if you like.’

‘OK,’ Mika replied, guiltily. He hated lying to his parents, especially when they were being so nice to him.

The manicurist finished Asha’s nails and left.

‘Look!’ Asha said, holding up her hand. She had tiny palm trees painted on the nails.

‘Lovely,’ Mika said, grinning.

‘They’re awful, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘I did want something a little more dignified, but the manicurist said all she could do was palm trees, parrots or coconuts and I felt sorry for her. But it was nice to be fussed over.’ She closed her eyes and lay back on the sun lounger, her white beach sari rippling in the breeze. ‘I can’t believe you won a holiday to a place like this,’ she sighed. ‘It’s heaven.’

* * *

Later, Asha showed Mika around their hut, which was large and comfortable, and as the fake sun set and his father cooked, he swam in the sea, punishing his lungs with dive after brutal dive. Below the surface was the only place he felt safe. He’d seen cameras in the palm trees above their hut and he was still worrying about what the YDF had discovered about him that day. Audrey had been lingering around as if she wanted to talk to him, but he avoided her. What was happening to them was too weird for words – what could he say?

When it was dark he returned to the huts and ate with everyone. It was a beautiful night; all along the beach, barbeques glowed and the sound of laughter carried on the breeze. The trees were hung with thousands of fairy lights and the sky above twinkled with stars. It all looked so perfect, but over the aroma of cooking food, Mika could smell danger as if it was rotting around the back of the hut.