‘I’ve just moved something with my eyes,’ she whispered. ‘Did you?’
He nodded. They were quiet for a few moments and looked anxiously towards the beach.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘I did while I was doing it, but now I’m scared. What do you think they want from us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mika replied, feeling his chest tighten.
‘They’re watching us,’ she whispered. ‘There are cameras in the trees.’
‘I know,’ he replied. He looked around, wondering if they could be heard, even so far from shore. ‘Come on, let’s go back,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we should talk about it. It’s not safe.’
24
TARGET PRACTICE
The next two days were like a real holiday. In the morning, Mika and Audrey ate their breakfast in front of the huts and afterwards they joined the other competitors in the big welcome hut, where they were split into teams and taken out on boats. They learned to play water polo and had swimming races and dived for shells. The sea was only six metres deep, so it was light from the surface down, and the first time Mika dived off the boat and found himself swimming over a coral reef, he was staggered by its beauty. It teemed with borg fish, all sizes, shapes and colours. Everywhere he looked there was movement. To a boy who had grown up thinking water was naturally brown and slimy, it was beauty beyond imagination, and he had to keep reminding himself that it was fake, the fish had switches on their bellies, the coral was plastic and hollow inside and the seawater was actually blue if you put it in a glass and they’d been strongly advised not to drink it. There were cameras on the boats and in the water and he’d even spotted one in the lid of a food basket that contained their lunchtime sandwiches. But just like in the arcade, he pretended to see nothing.
Five boats went out in the morning, each carrying twenty competitors. They were white fishing boats, with wide decks, awnings and comfortable places to sit. They cruised around the island at a relaxed pace, passing the beach where the parents were eating their breakfast. Then, with the beach out of sight, they dropped anchor near a crop of rocks and a man stood amongst them on the deck and gave instructions. Mika and Audrey’s team was led by Justin – a serious man, but not unpleasant like Mr Blyte. He smiled sometimes and listened attentively to their questions.
On the third morning, as the boat prepared to leave, several long black boxes were loaded on deck. After they had dropped anchor, Justin opened one and took something out.
‘This is a harpoon gun,’ he said, holding it up so they could all see. ‘The barrel holds thirty titanium-tipped bolts and has a firing range underwater of fifty metres.’
The harpoon gun looked dangerous but really interesting, and the competitors whispered with excitement.
‘Needless to say,’ Justin continued, ‘anyone caught disobeying instructions or messing around while you learn to use them will be sent back to their parents on the beach. I think we’re all bored of diving for shells, don’t you agree?’
They all nodded and looked hungrily at the gun.
‘Good,’ Justin said. ‘Over the next two days you will also learn how to scuba dive, so on Saturday, you can use your new skills to compete against each other.’
They were split into smaller teams of four, and first they were taught how to use the scuba diving gear. They stood on the deck while the men moved from one competitor to the next, showing them how to put on their stab jackets, tanks and masks. Then they spent a few hours learning what each piece of equipment did and how to breathe through it and speak to each other underwater. The masks covered their faces, and Mika felt happy when he put his on and saw the display was similar to that in a Pod Fighter headset, with targeting and mapping systems and eye-sensitive icons around the sides.
‘Feel the weight of it,’ one of the instructors said, handing Mika a harpoon gun. It was very light. ‘Now feel the weight of this,’ he said, taking the gun back and giving Mika one of the titanium-tipped bolts. It felt as if he was holding nothing. He rolled it on his palm and touched the tip of it with his finger.
‘Now watch this,’ the man said. He took the bolt from Mika’s hand and slid it into the barrel until it clicked. He pressed a couple of icons on the control panel on the side of the gun, then aimed at the crop of rocks near the boat and fired. The bolt shot off with a whisper and penetrated the rock like a hot knife into butter.
‘Pretty good, eh?’
Mika nodded.
‘Now I want you to take the gun,’ the instructor continued, ‘and feel it over with your eyes closed. In the water with the mask on, your vision is limited so you need to get to know the gun with your hands. Practise loading and unloading the bolts, and feel your way on the control panel. Use the map in your visor to aim and let your hands do the rest.’
He watched Mika feel over the gun.
‘And be careful. Make sure your gun is locked all the time until you’ve been shown how to use the controls. You’ll be taken down for target practice on the seabed, and only then, under strict supervision, are you permitted to fire.’
‘OK,’ Mika said.
The men dived down to the seabed to set up targets. When they returned to the surface, they told the competitors to swim down and stand on the red markers, which had been set out in a line at five-metre intervals. Twenty metres away were targets like those used for archery with a red bull’s-eye in the middle.
The instructors stood behind them and talked to them through their masks. When everyone was ready, they were given the order to release the safety catch on their guns and to fire. They had to shoot thirty bolts, and the first competitor to hit the bull’s-eye would win a special prize. Mika had just fired his first shot and missed the target by a metre, when a man said, ‘Well done, Audrey, you’ve just won your family two hundred credits!’
* * *
‘Two hundred credits!’ Una exclaimed, when they’d walked back to the huts and Audrey had given her the prize money. ‘What did you have to do to win that?’
‘Shoot at targets under water,’ Audrey said, enthusiastically. ‘I was the first to hit the bull’s-eye.’
‘What with?’ Una asked.
‘Harpoon guns,’ Audrey said. ‘With titanium-tipped bolts.’
‘You are kidding,’ Tasha said, horrified. ‘You’ve been using a harpoon gun? I thought you said you were diving for shells!’
‘That was a couple of days ago,’ Audrey replied. ‘But don’t worry, they’ve borrowed instructors from the army.’
‘So let me get this straight,’ Una said, incredulously. ‘They’ve got a hundred twelve-year-old kids under water with harpoon guns shooting titanium-tipped bolts?’
‘Don’t be like that, Mum,’ Audrey said. ‘It’s fun. And they’ve told us if we muck about they’ll send us back to the beach. It’s safe, I promise.’
25
IT’S ALL FAKE
‘Right,’ Justin said. ‘Let’s learn how to do something new.’
He flipped open the lid on one of the black boxes to reveal the rows of neatly packed harpoon guns.
‘Now you can hit a static target,’ he said, ‘we’re going to try something more interesting. Today you will be learning how to hit one of these.’ Justin opened another box and lifted something out with both hands. It was a silver fish, about thirty centimetres long.
‘What can you tell me about this fish?’ he said, holding it up.
‘It’s a borg,’ someone said.
‘Yes,’ Justin replied. ‘But it’s not like the other borgs here in the holiday complex, this is a very sophisticated piece of equipment. It thinks it’s a fish and behaves like one, but it’s a lot more than that, it can tell us who hit it and from how far away. If any of you manage to get one I’ll be very impressed; it’s not easy, they’re devils.’
Justin handed the borg fish round the group, and when it finally got to Mika he felt his arms tense under the weight of it. It was a mean-looking beast with serrated fins, a row of needle-sha
rp teeth sticking out of its fat lips, and eyes that glowed red.
‘Watch this,’ Justin said. He touched his tablet and the fish suddenly sparked into life and thrashed in Mika’s hands. Mika felt a sharp pain in one of his fingers and he let the fish fall. It dropped to the deck with a clunk and flapped frantically, gasping as if it was drowning in air. Justin grabbed it by the tail and threw it over the side of the boat, and they heard a heavy splash as it hit the water. Mika sucked the blood from his finger and cursed.
‘OK,’ Justin said. ‘Get your scuba gear on and the other instructors will come down and help you find your markers on the seabed.’
They changed quickly, dropped into the water and swam down to find the markers. They were different to the ones of the previous day. Each had an arrow on it pointing in the direction of the crop of rocks. Mika stood on the marker next to Audrey and waited for instructions from the men who stood in a line behind them.
‘OK, everyone. Make sure you’re all facing in the direction of the arrows. You may only shoot towards the rocks. When you see the fish, fire.’
Mika undid the safety catch on the harpoon gun without looking down, then felt it over with his hands to remind himself of the controls. He activated the target map by looking at the icon in the corner of his display and a grid of green lines appeared before his eyes with a red dot indicating where the harpoon gun was pointing. He watched the crop of rocks, waiting for the fish. A crab scuttled towards them making clouds in the sand, fronds of weed as fine as mermaid hair wafted in the warm water and the sunlight cast ripples on his arms and hands and the seabed. He felt as if he’d waited hours when a flash of silver darted out from behind the rocks. It was fast and erratic, darting to the left and right, and he felt the water warp around him as everyone raised their guns and fired. The bolts shot away leaving trails of white bubbles and blue light. When the water cleared the fish was gone.
‘You missed,’ a man said in Mika’s headset. ‘Wait for it to come back.’
A minute later it appeared again, glinting silver and darting playfully this way and that as if to say, ‘You don’t stand a chance.’ Again Mika felt the water warp with the sudden movement around him. He paused for a moment this time, determined to get a good sight on the fish before firing his shot, but before he’d even lined it up with the red dot the fish fell, suddenly limp, with a bolt embedded in its side. Someone else had hit it.
‘Audrey, well done,’ a man said.
Mika watched the man swim over to the fish and retrieve it, and for the first time he considered the possibility that Audrey would get through to the final round of the competition but he wouldn’t. He wasn’t good enough. He was going to lose, and Ellie would be lost for ever.
‘Are you all right?’ Audrey asked, as they were walking back to the huts along the beach. ‘You just trod on that lady’s hair.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Mika said, looking back to see an angry sunbather glaring at him.
Darkness fell and the still night air filled with the clink of glasses and the smell of barbequed tank meat. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, but Mika’s mood was bleak and their laughter made him irritable.
‘I remember nights like this before the Animal Plague,’ David said, piling tank meat on his plate. ‘The meat was real then, of course. It wasn’t grown on sticks in tanks of yellow fluid in the old days.’
‘I can’t believe people used to eat animals,’ Mika said. ‘How could they look at a living, feeling creature in the same way as a loaf of bread?’
‘Everyone did,’ Asha said. ‘I know it sounds strange now all the animals are extinct, but even you would have eaten meat if you were born then.’
‘No I wouldn’t,’ Mika said contemptuously. ‘It’s barbaric.’
Everyone went quiet and wondered why Mika was so angry. He stomped off and sat on his own to chew on a lump of bread.
When the meal was over, he walked down the beach. Audrey followed him and they lay on a blanket eating a bunch of grapes she’d brought with her.
‘You are good enough,’ she said, after ten minutes of surly silence.
‘No I’m not,’ Mika said. ‘I’m rubbish.’
‘You wouldn’t be here if you were rubbish,’ Audrey insisted. ‘You’re just being negative because you’ve had a bad day.’
‘Mmm,’ Mika said.
‘Look at the stars,’ Audrey said, dreamily. ‘They’re so beautiful! Do you think they’re in the same position as the real ones?’
‘No,’ Mika replied. ‘Look over there, the pattern is repeated, and there, and there.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s a shame, but they’re still lovely.’
‘It’s all fake,’ Mika said, irritably. ‘Nothing’s real any more.’
‘I’m real,’ she said. ‘Apart from my eyes.’
He could see her smiling in the darkness and suddenly realized he was being horrible to her and yet she was still being kind to him.
‘I’m glad I met you,’ he said, quietly.
‘Really?’ she replied, sarcastically.
‘Of course I am, noodle brain.’
He threw a grape at her mouth and it missed and hit her nose. She laughed as it dropped on to the blanket and she felt around for it with her hand, then she paused, sensing someone. They looked up to see a light trail moving towards them.
‘Who’s that?’ Audrey whispered.
Mika felt a chill run down his spine. The person’s light trail was tinged with red. He’d never seen that before and he didn’t like it.
‘It’s Ruben!’ Audrey whispered, her borg eyes identifying him before Mika’s could.
Ruben stopped a few paces away and sneered down on them, his face dimly lit by the fairy lights hanging from the trees.
‘Mutant freaks,’ he said, then kicked out with one foot and hit them in the face with a spray of sand. It was so shocking and unexpected, for a few moments they did nothing but gasp and rub their eyes while he laughed at them. But as he walked away, Mika felt a tidal wave of rage and he leaped to his feet ready to run after him and pulp him into the sand.
‘My eyes!’ Audrey cried out. ‘Help me, Mika!’
Mika stopped at once, turned back and pulled her to her feet. ‘Let me look,’ he said, prizing her trembling fingers away from her face. ‘I’m going to kill him! What a fragging perp!’
‘I can’t see!’ she cried. ‘Perhaps they’re broken!’
‘I’m sure they’re not,’ he said, trying to comfort her. ‘They’re just full of sand. Come on, let’s go back to the hut and you can wash them.’
Their parents were still sitting around the table talking and laughing. When they saw Mika and Audrey approach, they stood up quickly so the champagne slopped from their glasses.
‘What happened?’ Una asked, anxiously.
‘Ruben!’ Mika raged. ‘He kicked sand in her eyes! I want to punch his fragging lights out!’
‘Who’s Ruben?’ Asha asked. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know!’ Mika ranted. ‘He’s a psycho!’
Una took command of the blind Audrey and led her into their hut, while Mika paced the sand with his blood boiling. He didn’t understand it – how could someone do that to a blind girl?
‘She’ll be fine in a minute,’ David said, kindly. ‘Don’t let this boy get to you. It sounds like he’s just trying to wind you up because you’re competing tomorrow. It’s just a game, Mika, and he’s playing nasty; it’s not worth it.’
But it’s not just a game, Mika thought, desperately, it’s much more than that; and he was unable to calm down until Audrey re-emerged, smiling again and able to see.
26
A CLOUD OF RED SMOKE
Mika was still thinking of Ruben as he fell asleep, and he dreamed he made a river with his own angry blood. It poured out of his mouth and down a mountainside in a raging torrent that ripped pylons and towers from the earth to form heaps of bloody concrete and twisted metal at the bottom. When the torrent s
ubsided, he wondered if he was dead. He felt empty, as if there was no blood left in his veins and his anger had burned up his insides so he was only a shell. He watched his hands as they crumbled to dust and the wind blew them away.
In the morning, he remembered the dream and what his father had said about Ruben, and realized he could not allow him to affect the way he played the game. He sat with Audrey outside the hut and ate two banana pancakes so he wasn’t competing on an empty stomach.
‘You can do it,’ Audrey said, watching him frown at the sea. ‘I know you can.’
‘It’s OK,’ replied Mika. ‘I feel better today. How are your eyes?’
‘Fine,’ she said.
Their parents wished them good luck and they walked to the Welcome Hut to meet up with the other competitors. The atmosphere inside was horrible and everyone looked as if they were about to have all their teeth removed with no anaesthetic.
They were split into teams of ten for the game and three teams had assembled and left when Audrey’s name was called. She walked up to the stage and moments later, Ruben joined her, and the first thing he did was look at Mika and smirk. Mika felt it like a punch in the stomach, but he watched them walk away knowing there was nothing he could do but try not to think about it.
Mika’s name was called in the fifth group and so was Ruben’s game partner, Yee. She walked to the front, swinging her hips and pouting as if she was on the catwalk in a fashion show. Mika took a few steps back so he didn’t have to stand next to her.
‘Leo Curtis.’
The boy stood up and Mika felt himself spark with interest as he had done the day he met Audrey. He was gold – not just his light trails, but his body too. He had golden skin and dreadlocks, which hung to his shoulders like rope. He was wearing a plait of black cord on his wrist and a gold ring on his finger, and as he wove through the chairs leaving twists of bright light in his wake, he had an air of quiet confidence that drew everyone’s eyes.
But not arrogant, Mika thought. Leo smiled at Mika, and his startling blue eyes brought the sea into the room.