The Roar (36 page)

‘Animals?’ Mika repeated incredulously.

‘Yes,’ Gorman said. ‘We used to believe your mutations were caused by pollution and that you were simply humans gone wrong, but now we suspect you are a new type of human, a hybrid. But we don’t know everything yet, we’re still doing tests.’

Mika said nothing, shocked by this information. But when the shock faded, he felt pleased that he was a different type of human to this awful man.

‘Because the animal borgs won’t kill you, you’ll be an ideal spy during the war,’ Gorman continued. ‘Your task will be to go over The Wall and bring back information. Will you do that for me?’

‘Yes,’ Mika lied, feeling the warmth of his invisible friends pressing against his body.

‘Good,’ Gorman said.

‘When are you going to tell everyone The Secret?’ Mika asked. ‘Our parents want to know who we’re fighting.’

‘We can’t tell them yet,’ Gorman said. ‘Imagine what would happen if everyone found out tomorrow what’s on the other side of The Wall.’

Mika imagined it and reluctantly agreed: if The Secret got out now, the consequences were too horrible to imagine. When everyone realized how beautiful it was on the other side of The Wall, they’d want to go back to homes that no longer existed. They’d try to climb over The Wall, and if they were lucky enough to get past the Ghengis Borgs, which was doubtful, Mika dreaded to think what would happen when the animal borgs found
them. He remembered the bloodied fangs of the giant wolves and shuddered. They’d be ripped to pieces. It was better they didn’t know.

‘So what
are
you going to tell them?’ Mika asked. ‘They want to know who the enemy is.’

‘We’re going to tell them we’re being invaded by aliens,’ Gorman said.

‘Aliens?’ Mika repeated. ‘They’ll never believe that!’

‘You want to bet?’ Gorman replied, raising his eyebrows. ‘They’ll see it on television . . .’

‘Will they?’ Mika said, with a resigned sigh. ‘Of course. They’ll believe anything they see on television.’

More lies, he thought disdainfully. All they do is lie and destroy.

He got up from the chair and gazed through the window at the sea.

Gorman watched him contentedly, thinking how perfect he was, and something made of forest air and silence filled the room. He had no idea Mika had just played him at his own game.

‘Can I see Ellie?’ Mika asked, quietly.

‘Yes, you can,’ Gorman replied. ‘In fact, I’m so very pleased with you, I’ve decided you can take her home to see your parents. Just for one night.’

‘Thank you,’ Mika said, with tears pressing in his eyes.

53

A GHOST COME BACK TO LIFE

M
ika waited for Ellie in the room at the top of the fortress, where he and the other finalists had watched the aurora borealis. It was only days before that he’d stood in that space with the silks wafting in the sky over the North Sea but it felt like a lifetime, even another lifetime. Everything had changed: the world he lived in, his future, but most of all him. He had touched earth, he had breathed forest air, he had discovered he was part of a beautiful world he’d thought was gone for ever, and he’d found Ellie. He paced and watched the sea and for a while he felt like a firework with its fuse lit, a bit dangerous – as if when she walked through the door he would erupt and fly around the room breaking the lights, setting fire to things and taking lumps out of the ceiling. Then he felt all soft and gooey, as if when she walked in he would melt and she would find nothing more than a puddle
of love in the middle of the floor. Then he felt both of these things, that he was a firework about to explode, but instead of sparks, he was full of love and it was all going to be a bit messy.

Awen appeared and stood by the door with his nose sniffing the gap. Suddenly his muscles tensed and the end of his tail began to flick.

‘Is she coming?’ Mika asked, and Awen looked over his shoulder with his mouth wide as if he was smiling. Then Mika heard her: she was running towards him. A man’s voice shouted, ‘Ellie! I said WALK!’ Mika’s heart began to bounce like a rubber ball. Awen took a step back and Ellie exploded through the door like a gust of golden wind with her black eyes burning and her hair and her clothes blown around in her storm. Then her light surged forward, reaching out for him.

Touching her felt like a deep sigh. As if at that moment of contact, the hook was removed from his heart, so that ache inside him, that throbbing wound that had brought tears to his eyes every time he thought of her, began to heal.

And Ellie; with one great sob of relief, she achieved the impossible, she was a ghost come back to life. With Mika’s arms around her and their lights coursing like two-way traffic, she was flesh and blood again.

Awen wedged himself between their legs and the man with the gun watched nervously. The room seemed brighter all of a sudden and it wasn’t because the sun had come out, it was because the children seemed to be . . . glowing. He didn’t like it and he wondered what to do. He sensed something had happened when Ellie and Mika touched. Something Mal Gorman wouldn’t like.

The twins pulled apart and looked at each other with tears of happiness in their eyes. There were so many important things they wanted to say to each other, but with a gun pointed at their heads, it wasn’t the right time.

‘I like your hair,’ Mika said, flicking it with his hand. ‘It suits you.’

‘You’ve grown,’ Ellie said, with a wobbly smile.

‘Yeah, so Mum keeps telling me,’ he said, grinning. ‘I’ve got Mal Gorman to thank for that. All that lovely Fit Mix.’

‘How are Mum and Dad?’ she asked, her eyes full of pain. ‘I miss them so much! They think I’m dead, don’t they?’

Mika nodded sadly. ‘But I knew you weren’t,’ he said. ‘And now I’ve found you, I’m taking you home.’

54

BORN IN THE DARK

T
he man with the gun was right to feel nervous while he was watching Ellie and Mika, because they
were
glowing, something
did
happen when they touched, and Mal Gorman was
not
going to like it. As the twins came together, a quiet shift occurred, as if a mechanism that had jammed on the day they were parted was free to move again. Initially, the signs of this change were subtle; as Ellie and Mika rose out of Cape Wrath in their chauffeured pod, Puck began to leap around his plastic tree leaving a cat’s cradle of golden light in his wake.

A few minutes later, something interesting happened on the other side of The Wall. Helen was escaping from her son’s house, where she’d been locked up like a prisoner for weeks. She climbed out through a window into a rose garden in her night-dress and yellow wellies, and just as her feet touched the lawn, she was astonished to see every bud on the rose bush next to her
burst into bloom as if she’d just flicked the switch that turned them on. Then, as she hobbled into the shrubbery, hundreds of birds began to sing as if they were celebrating her escape.

‘Nice to see you too,’ she muttered. ‘But I can’t stop and chat; I have a friend to find who needs my help.’

Far away, in the Golden Turrets, Asha and David were cuddling on the balcony of their new apartment. Behind them teams of glaziers and carpenters were fixing all the things that had been broken during the riot. Asha’s eyes were red from crying; they didn’t know yet that their children were coming home, but suddenly she smiled. ‘Flowers,’ she said, looking towards the distant horizon. ‘I can smell flowers.’

Even in The Shadows, which was now blocked off from the level above, signs of the change could be seen. Kobi Nenko and his father were wading quietly through the dark water in the streets of old Soho. Nevermore, the raven, peered out of Kobi’s rucksack, and the kittens he’d made for Audrey wriggled in his pockets. Suddenly, he stopped and looked down to see a ripple in the water around his legs.

‘What is it?’ his father whispered.

‘Something’s happened,’ Kobi said. He looked up at the metal ceiling above their heads. ‘I wonder what’s going on up there.’

Ellie and Mika were quiet as they flew towards London. They slouched, exhausted, across the curved seat of their chauffeured pod, with Awen sleeping on the floor in front of them and the man with the gun watching vigilantly, as if he was expecting daffodils to sprout out of their ears at any moment. He had a horrible feeling something was about to happen. And he was right.

‘Do you think Mum and Dad will recognize me?’ Ellie whispered.

‘Of course they will!’ Mika laughed. ‘I can’t wait to see their faces when
you
walk in the door. They’re going to be so happy, Ellie. They’ve kept all your things. Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.’

Ellie bit back tears of relief and put her head on Mika’s shoulder, able to relax for the first time in over a year. They gazed out of the window, waiting for the first glimpse of the golden city, and Mika remembered how Audrey had described it, with its third, invisible level, where even richer people lived, and felt a fresh wave of astonishment, that they had never realized it was there. Then he remembered the children in Cape Wrath and wondered how they were feeling, so far from home with their dreams shattered. He heard Ellie speak to him, silently, as she shared his thoughts. ‘
They’ll want to help us
,’ she said.

‘I know,’
he thought. ‘
But will they be able to?’

‘I hope so,’
she replied. ‘
We need them.’

He remembered flying over The Wall and how he’d felt when he saw trees on the other side and wished his friends knew that their world was still beautiful. He wanted them to know where the real treasure lay and not to give up hope, because they still had a prize worth playing for, and without realizing he was doing it, he told them.

Far away in the fortresses, the children were sleeping, laid out on rows of hard white beds in identical long white gowns. They had been told to sleep until they were needed and so they did, trapped in the moment the implants had been fitted to their heads while the Telly Heads stood around them, licking their wrinkly lips.

But as Mika remembered flying over The Wall, wanting them to know what was on the other side, it was as if a door opened between his mind and theirs. A soft light grew in their dreams and the Telly Heads faded away and suddenly
they
could see the dark trees below them and
they
were discovering the astonishing truth about their world. They ran through the dark forest and felt the cold nose of a wolf borg pressed against their hands. They watched dawn light pour through the trees, dappling the carpet of bluebells and they stood by the burned oak looking into the eyes of a deer while everything around them glowed with a soft golden haze.

The dimly lit dormitories in which the children lay were as quiet as tombs. The only movement came from the nurses who walked through the rows of beds checking the wounds around the new implants for signs of infection. In a dormitory in Cape Wrath, a familiar form appeared; a woman in a white dress with a blue belt and smart black shoes. From behind she looked like Mary Poppins, but when she turned, she looked like a corpse: her eyes faded by Everlife pills as if she took them out at night and soaked them in bleach, her skin stretched tight like tea-stained tissue paper and her lips bony and hard. It was Briony Slater, the Fit For Life nurse, who had come to Mika’s classroom all those weeks ago. And she was the first person to notice the change in the way the children were breathing.

‘There’s something wrong with them,’ she said, watching a boy gasp in his sleep.

‘Perhaps they’re dreaming,’ another nurse suggested.

‘All at the same time?’ Slater replied. ‘I doubt it.’ She adjusted the blanket over the boy with claw-like hands, but immediately he wriggled, messing it up again. ‘Damn you,’ she cursed. ‘Stay still.’

She watched him frown in his sleep, but he seemed to obey her and settle.

‘Good boy,’ she said firmly. She stood by his bedside and began to make a note, but before she finished it, she was distracted by a girl whispering behind her.

‘What’s she saying?’ the other nurse asked, looking towards her bed.

‘Wake up?’ Slater replied. ‘I think . . .’

The girl pushed her blanket back as if she was hot, and moved her head from side to side on the hard pillow.

‘Wake up,’ she whispered feverishly. ‘We’ve got to . . . wake.’

‘Can they wake up?’ the other nurse asked, watching the girl nervously.

‘Of course not,’ Slater scoffed. ‘They’re not allowed to do anything unless we tell them. Be quiet!’ she shouted. ‘Lie still!’
She glared at the girl until she obeyed.

The nurses continued to walk between the beds, inspecting the wounds around the implants, but after a while, it became impossible to concentrate. All around them, children were moving restlessly and whispering in their sleep.

‘They’re scaring me,’ the other nurse said. ‘I want them to stop. What if they
do
wake up?’

She jumped nervously as a child whispered behind her.

‘I’ve already told you,’ Slater snapped impatiently. ‘They can’t.’

The reluctant nurse approached the girl in the next bed and the whispering suddenly intensified so it sounded like the wind rushing through a copse of trees.

‘Wake up!’

‘Wake up!’

‘I think they
are
waking!’ she said anxiously. ‘Look!’

Slater walked impatiently across the dormitory to where the other nurse was standing and leaned over to look closely. The girl’s eyelids were flickering.

‘See,’ the nurse cried. ‘She’s trying to open her eyes! There must be something wrong with the implants.’

‘Maybe,’ Slater said uneasily. ‘Perhaps I’d better tell someone. I’ll get one of the engineers down here to take a look at them.’

She began to walk quickly towards the door at the end of the long dormitory, and the other nurse, not wanting to be left behind, hurried after her. Meanwhile, the children began to gasp and thrash as if they were fighting with their covers and before the nurses were halfway down the dormitory, the first child opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She put her hand to her forehead and winced with pain as she felt the implant buried in her skull. The last thing she could remember was walking into the arcade with her friends. ‘Where am I?’ she asked frantically, looking around the dimly lit dormitory.

Slater walked to the end of her bed and fixed her with an icy glare. ‘Go back to sleep,’ she demanded. ‘It’s not time to get up
yet.’

‘No!’ the girl cried. ‘What have you done to me? Tell me where I am!’

Slater ignored the girl’s questions and turned her back. She was scared now; all around her the implanted children were waking up and she wanted to get away from them. She moved towards the door again, but before she could reach it, several children managed to stagger out of bed to block her path. One of them was Tom, Mika’s friend from Barford North.

‘Go back to your beds!’ Slater shouted, trying not to sound as frightened as she felt. ‘All of you! At once!’

‘No!’ Tom cried, finding his voice. ‘Tell us what you’ve done to us.’

The throbbing pain in his face made it difficult to think and he felt rushes of panic and confusion as he tried to figure out how he had come to be in such a horrible place. He thought of his mother, sick and alone at home. He looked at the foreheads of the children around him, with their implants and fresh swollen wounds, and realized he had one too. He saw a girl he knew from their arcade, Ana. She climbed out of bed and ran to him sobbing and he put his arm around her. Gradually, the children began to remember the dream that had woken them. Then their panic and confusion turned to outrage.

‘Go back to your beds!’ Slater shouted, now surrounded by hundreds of children.

‘No!’ Ana cried. ‘There are
trees and animals
on the other side of The Wall!’

‘GO BACK TO YOUR BEDS!’ Slater bellowed again. ‘How DARE you disobey me!’

‘You lied to us!’ Tom said furiously. ‘You told us we were playing a game!’

‘You’re sending us to war!’

‘We won’t do it!’

‘We won’t fight!’

‘Yes, you will!’ Slater shouted. ‘How can
you
understand
about
war
? You don’t know anything! You’re just children and you’ll do what you’re told!’

‘We have to get out of here,’ Ana cried. ‘We have to stop it!’

‘Lock them in there,’ Tom said, pointing towards a storage cupboard. ‘Quickly, before anyone comes.’

The children closed in on the nurses and began to push them towards the cupboard.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Slater said, her heart beating wildly with fear. ‘Stop this at once. Get in your beds and go back to sleep and we’ll forget this ever happened.’

‘No,’ Tom said, firmly. ‘We will
never
forget this happened.’

Frantic with fear, the nurses lashed out, but the gentle force moving against them was too powerful and they couldn’t escape. They fell through the door on to piles of laundered gowns and it closed with a click, sealing them in darkness.

Then the dormitory was quiet again, but this time, it wasn’t because the children were sleeping, it was because they had gone.

* * *

The bark of the elder makes whistles for the children

To call to the deer as they rove over the snow;

‘I was born in the dark,’ says the Green Man,

‘I was born in the dark,’ says he.

Anon