Cherry looked at his Meddlums and at her Loneliness, then over at the mirror. ‘No, it hasn’t. They’re controlling what we see! Don’t you understand? It’s the lenses! They’re filtering out everything good you’ve got going for you so they can trick you into thinking you only have bad feelings. They need you. If they get rid of every bad thing you feel it’ll be easier to manipulate you. I don’t know what for. I can’t figure out why any of this is happening but I just know you’ll be playing into their hands!’
‘I just… want to be better. I want to be good enough.’
‘Oh, Chase,’ she whispered. ‘This doesn’t make you better. It makes you… a coward.’ Her voice faltered on the final word. She didn’t want to say it but she had to make him see sense.
‘A coward? How the hell does wanting those monsters gone make me a coward?’
‘Because this is easier! You can’t even accept your own flaws. You can’t just work on them and make yourself a better person by learning how to live with them. You just want them gone, never to be seen again – but that’s not a solution, Chase.’ Chase’s eyes darted briefly to his Meddlums but his face contorted and he lowered his eyes to the floor, not able to stand the sight of them. Cherry tried again, ‘Imagine never getting frustrated again? Imagine having someone treat you like shit and you have no choice but to stand there and accept it because Frustration doesn’t know how to latch itself onto you any more. And… and if you’re never cynical of anything ever again you’re just going to trust everyone, including all the people you shouldn’t trust. That protective instinct will be gone. And Chase… it would kill me to never hear that mischief in your voice again. To know I’d never see that playful, cheeky smile again… it breaks my heart.’ Cherry laughed through her tears. She hadn’t even realised she’d started crying. ‘And I wouldn’t wish that heartbreak away, either! Because it means I care about you and even if I have to leave here with heartbreak instead of you, I’ll just be glad to that we met and that you changed me.’ Tears caught in the corners of her lips. They tasted of Sorrow.
‘Are you coming?’ Cherry stood over him and Loneliness joined her side. Chase shook his head but didn’t look up at her. ‘Then I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘For not letting you get what you want.’ Cherry looked up at Loneliness and nodded. Loneliness ran to the wall opposite the mirror and began rubbing its back against it. It cracked its neck. ‘You see,’ Cherry said, ‘they’ve made a slight mistake in all of this. It’s quite dangerous to make a Meddlum real so it’s not limited to its owner.’ Loneliness started panting. ‘Especially one that’s as big as Loneliness. Especially one with incredibly sharp claws and three rows of teeth, I believe?’ She looked at Loneliness and it grinned, showing every pointed tooth it could. ‘And it’s especially dangerous to make one real who belongs to someone so desperate never to be lonely again that she will do whatever it takes to save you, Chase.’
Loneliness howled and pushed off from the wall, launching itself into the mirror. It shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces and revealed four men in white coats on the other side. Loneliness was sprawled over three of them, and the fourth was reaching for the phone when Loneliness bit his leg, pulled him to the ground and head-butted him so hard he passed out.
‘Chase. I swear to you we will get rid of your Meddlums together but right now it’s time to GO!’
Chase looked at Cherry then and like a bolt, he knew he couldn’t leave her. What was the point of anything if she wasn’t with him? He took the hand she held out for him and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to be free.’
‘You will be free,’ Cherry said. ‘I promise. But we have to go. Come on!’
They jumped through the hole where the mirror used to be into the next room, Mischief, Cynicism and Frustration tumbling after them. Chase grabbed a key card from the pocket of one of the unconscious men and used it to open the main door.
‘LONELINESS!’ Cherry called as the door was closing behind them, the red strings tightening and pulling at her arms. Loneliness’s hand stopped the door from shutting fully. It pushed it open and ran after Cherry, Chase and the rest of the Meddlums.
‘It won’t be long before they realise we’re missing,’ Cherry said. She pulled Chase into a small alcove between examination rooms. ‘And it’s harder to hide because of them. There’s six of us now.’
‘And we can’t split up because there won’t be any guarantee that we’ll both get out.’
‘Exactly. So we have to act fast.’
‘HEY!’ A distant voice yelled. ‘YOU SHOULDN’T BE THERE!’
Cherry poked her head out into the corridor and saw Loneliness biting at one of the windows, one of his crooked teeth cracking the pane.
‘Looks like we’ve got to be really fast,’ Chase said.
Loneliness pushed his shoulder through the broken glass and plummeted into the hall below. Cherry’s stomach flipped as she waited for the strings to tighten and take her with him but they seemed to stretch. Or maybe it’s like silk from a spider? she thought, Maybe the strings are never-ending. There wasn’t the time to think about that now. Cherry turned back to Chase.
‘We need to find the main panel that controls the lenses and shut it down.’
‘And then what?’ Chase asked, breathless.
‘Peter will take care of it.’
‘How will he even know?’
‘He has lenses installed too – he’ll know when they stop working. He’ll take care of it.’
More shouts erupted from below and yet there was nothing panicked or worried about them. The shouts were merely to alert security that something in their serene and robotic routine had been disturbed.
Chase and Cherry ran out from their hiding place and to the shattered window, Frustration, Cynicism and Mischief following closely behind. Loneliness was in the hall filled with desks, ripping computers from tables with one hand and he was gripping a blue suit’s neck in the other.
‘Loneliness!’ Cherry screamed. ‘Stop hurting people!’
Loneliness put the blue suit down just as another blue suit broke a chair over its head.
‘Unless it’s necessary!’ Chase called.
Loneliness grinned up at him and then swiped the woman’s legs out from underneath her, her head cracking against a desk on her way down. Cherry hit Chase lightly in the stomach.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Am I wrong?’
‘STOP THEM!’ It was Lonely’s blank, emotionless voice.
‘I’ve never hated anyone’s face more,’ she whispered to Chase and then yelled, ‘HELP!’ through the missing window. Loneliness dropped the man it was holding at its feet. ‘JUMP!’ Cherry yelled. She took Chase’s hand and before he was able to react, she toppled over the edge and pulled him with her. Loneliness got there just in time to catch them both. Cherry landed on its back and it caught Chase in a fireman’s lift. Chase’s three Meddlums landed in a heap on the floor but they had no chance to orientate themselves before Loneliness took off carrying Cherry and Chase, and dragged them behind it.
‘We have to find the control panel,’ Cherry said into Loneliness’s ear. It nodded enthusiastically, its long purple tongue hanging out of his mouth. Chase’s Meddlums crashed into desks, chairs, computers and people as they ran past, too fast and strong to be caught.
‘LEFT!’ Cherry screamed, seeing a door that was marked PRIVATE and taking a chance. ‘Anything that’s marked private in a locked underground bunker in the middle of nowhere is worth looking at,’ she said, feeling herself slipping further down Loneliness’s back. Loneliness barged, shoulder first, into the door, catching Cherry’s hand. She yelped and slipped and Loneliness slowed down, looking around at her. She climbed back up as best she could. ‘Keep going!’ she gasped.
Beyond the now-broken door was a short corridor. A man was standing at the other end, in front of another open doorway, pushing a cart covered in empty plates.
‘No!’ C
herry shrieked but she was too late.
Loneliness ran at full speed and kicked the cart into the man. He fell backwards down the stairs and landed with a gruesome crack.
‘No, stop it! How many more people are we going to hurt before we leave?’ She buried her head in Loneliness’s shoulder, hoping the man wasn’t dead.
‘Cherry,’ Chase said, panting. ‘I don’t think Loneliness thinks that way. It just wants to get out.’
‘So do I,’ Cherry sobbed, ‘but we have to stop hurting people.’
‘It’s going to take force to get out of here. They’re not going to just let us leave.’
‘We don’t have to push people down the stairs!’
Loneliness turned to look at Cherry and she was certain it understood what she was saying.
‘We’re already underground,’ Chase said. ‘How much further down can we go?’ He craned his neck over Loneliness’s arm but all he could see were stone stairs spiralling down in the dark.
‘Must be something they really don’t want us to find.’ Cherry squeezed her heels into Loneliness’s sides and it continued on down the stairs. Frustration, Mischief and Cynicism stumbled down each step, each falling over the other two. A stench filled their nostrils the further down they went and Cherry gagged.
‘What does this panel look like?’ Chase asked.
‘I don’t know. Peter didn’t say exactly. He kept calling it a control panel so I’m guessing something with lots of buttons?’
‘Surely he would know what it looks like,’ Chase reasoned. ‘Why didn’t he just tell you what to look out for?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think he had seen it himself, otherwise he would have said…’ Cherry said, not doing a very good job of convincing herself, let alone Chase.
‘Peter isn’t exactly a fount of knowledge, is he?’
Cherry opened her mouth to defend Peter but was distracted by something at what she assumed was the end of the staircase. Several streams of white light danced about the floor, crossing over one another and flickering.
‘Can you see that? It’s beautiful.’
Loneliness stopped on a step a few from the bottom and put Chase down. Cherry climbed off its back and walked into what appeared to be a large, empty cave. She checked to make sure their strings weren’t in too much of a tangle.
‘Cherry…’
‘One sec,’ she said, fiddling with a string that had become twisted.
‘Cherry… Look!’
‘What is it?’
She looked up at Chase to see that the tiny rivers of light were dancing over his gown, weaving in and out and under and over.
‘Oh God, Chase!’
‘It’s OK, Cherry. It doesn’t hurt, but look.’
Chase touched her shoulders and she turned to look at where he was pointing. She gasped. Ten pairs of brightly lit eyes were glowing in the dark.
24
The Control Panel
‘Why have you come?’ said a voice. It was soft and sang like a wind chime and reverberated off the walls. Cherry stepped forwards. ‘Stay back!’ warned the voice. ‘We are not to be seen.’
Chase reached for Cherry’s hand and pulled her closer to him.
‘Who are you?’ the voice said.
‘We don’t work for the Guild. We were brought in. For experiments,’ Chase said, his hand sweating against Cherry’s.
‘As were we,’ the voices said.
‘Experiments?’ Cherry asked. ‘Are you all right?’
‘We are what we are. Nothing can change that now.’
‘So… you don’t work for the Guild?’ Chase said.
‘We are kept here against our will, caged up like animals. We do what we must to survive but no one in this room is loyal to the Guild.’
‘We’re trying to find the control panel. We want to shut off everyone’s lenses so we can get out of here,’ Cherry blurted out, relieved at the glimmer of hope that these people, whomever they were, might offer them some help.
The eyes grew brighter and a chorus of voices rang out as they all said, ‘You have found us.’
‘What do you mean?’ Cherry said, frowning.
‘You have found us,’ they repeated.
‘We’re looking for the control panel. For the lenses,’ Cherry tried again. She had to make them understand.
‘You have found us.’
‘My friend Peter…’
‘Peter?’ one of the voices said.
‘Yes…’ said Cherry. ‘Do you know him?’
One pair of lights blinked and when they opened again, instead of light pouring out, they projected an image of Peter’s face onto the floor. In it, he had a black eye, his hair was charred and sticking up and Cherry could see that he was wearing one of those hideous green gowns but despite all of that, he was smiling.
‘Peter,’ the voice said and the picture came alive. Peter was laughing and speaking in the video but there was no sound. ‘He was kind.’
‘He’s safe,’ said Cherry. ‘And when I get out of here I will make sure he stays that way but I need your help. I need to find the control panel.’
‘You have found us,’ they said again.
‘Cherry… I think… I think they are the control panel.’
‘You have found us,’ one of them said.
‘Come closer,’ said another. Cherry stepped forward and pulled Chase with her. ‘Just the girl.’ Cherry tried to let go but Chase tightened his grip.
‘It’s okay.’ Cherry raised his hand to her lips, planted a kiss on his knuckles and let go. As Cherry stepped forwards, all the eyes turned to her and illuminated her face.
‘My name’s Cherry.’
‘We know,’ they said.
‘How?’
‘We see everything,’ said the wind chime. ‘We are the Guild’s greatest experiment and the Guild’s greatest secret. I am Experiment 341 and we, in this room, were the first to be installed with the sight. Our eyes are linked to the others. We watch over our kind.’
‘You’re kept down here?’ Cherry asked.
‘We see everything. All the time. The darkness helps us to focus. We are alone here, free from distraction.’
‘Don’t you want to leave?’
‘No one leaves the Guild.’
‘They do! You can!’ Cherry took a step forwards but all of the eyes flickered so she stayed where she was. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. But I can get us out.’
‘No one is allowed to leave.’
Cherry blew out her cheeks, frustrated. ‘You can see anything one of our kind has seen, right?’
‘We see all through the lenses,’ Experiment 341 said.
‘Can you rewind?’
‘We can see into the past but not the future.’
‘Then look back to what Peter saw yesterday.’ Was it yesterday? Cherry thought. How long have we been here? ‘Maybe not yesterday. Check the last twenty-four hours and look for Peter and a bad feeling the size of a house.’
‘That is not possible,’ Experiment 341 said.
‘Let us try,’ a different voice said.
‘We cannot,’ Experiment 341 began again but was interrupted by another voice repeating, ‘Let us try.’
All of the eyes closed, apart from one pair. Experiment 341 hesitated and then she closed her eyes, too.
‘We see it,’ they said. ‘It’s monstrous.’
‘And can you see Peter?’ Cherry asked eagerly.
‘We can.’
‘Then you see that you can leave,’ Cherry said. ‘Please help us and we’ll take you all with us. You can leave the darkness behind.’
The eyes bobbed up and down, nodding their heads in agreement. ‘There is only one way to turn off our sight.’
‘Tell us how,’ Cherry said. ‘We’ll turn it off and then we can leave.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not your decision,’ one of them said. ‘It’s up to us.’
‘What does that mean?’ Chase said, moving to stand ne
xt to Cherry. ‘Surely it’s simple to switch your lenses off?’
‘We do not have lenses,’ they chorused.
‘Come closer,’ Experiment 341 said, closing her eyes. Cherry took one step forwards and the other lights guided her across the dark floor until she was standing in front of Experiment 341, close enough to touch her. ‘Do not be alarmed.’ Cherry felt 341 put her face next to hers and she opened her eyes, careful not to blind Cherry with their light. And then Cherry saw that they were not eyes at all. They were glass orbs, millions of images dancing across them all at once so that they blurred into one glowing light. The pictures flickered so fast that Cherry couldn’t focus on one at a time. Loneliness whined.
‘Our eyes were taken and replaced with orbs. They are like your lenses but on a much stronger level. We see everything. You see what we want you to see. We are the filters to your sight.’
‘How can you take all of that in? There are too many and they move so fast,’ Cherry said in awe.
‘We’ve been down here a long time. Practice makes perfect.’
Loneliness groaned again, scratching his back up against one of the walls.
‘But Peter said there were people who watched screens all day. To watch over what everyone like us is doing. He never said it was like… this.’
‘Not everyone here knows about us. Secrets and theories become urban legend and everyone thinks they’re the truth. Peter didn’t know about us.’
‘How do you know that? Did you know Peter?’
‘I used to,’ 341 whispered.
Cherry looked into the orbs again, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what she was seeing. How did they live with this, day after day? ‘Is there any way to make it stop?’ she asked.
341 took Cherry’s hand and squeezed it. Cherry looked down at her black skin contrasting against 341’s caramel tones. 341 pulled her hand away and Cherry thought she saw a glimpse of yellow around her wrist but couldn’t be sure.
‘The only way to stop the sight is by shattering our orbs,’ said 341, her voice steady as the other experiments nodded.
‘But… you’d be blind,’ said Chase.