But the angry mob didn’t scare Mika and Audrey half as much as what now hung over it. They looked up to see dozens of army freighters hanging in perfect square formation over the park, their lights blinking and their engines rumbling as their enormous mouths opened to let the soldiers out.
‘We have to go now,’ Audrey said. ‘Or we’ll get caught in the middle of a battle.’
Heavily armed soldiers dressed in riot gear began to drop down on lines into the mob. Mika knew she was right and felt a wave of despair.
‘Please, Mika,’ she pleaded. ‘You won’t be much use to Ellie dead.’
‘OK,’ he replied, reluctantly. ‘But let me write a note for Gorman telling him where we’re going.’
‘Then you’ll leave?’ Audrey asked, hopefully.
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
‘OK quick,’ Audrey said, running back into the apartment. ‘Find a pen.’
‘I wish Gorman hadn’t taken our companions.’
They searched frantically through the party debris for an ink pen so Mika could write a note for Mal Gorman.
‘Where do you keep them?’ Audrey asked, opening and closing the drawers in the kitchen.
‘I don’t know,’ Mika said, putting his hand down the side of the sofa. ‘We only moved in today. This is ridiculous. Why can you never find a pen when you need one?’
He felt one with his fingertips amongst the fluff and lost things in the sofa, but when he pulled it out it, he found it was broken and completely useless.
Something crashed against the door of the apartment.
‘What was that?’ Audrey said.
‘I don’t think it’s room service,’ Mika replied.
For a moment they stood together frozen, wondering what to do, as the rioting mob began to bludgeon the outside of the apartment. Within seconds they heard a loud crunch and a hole appeared in the wall next to the door.
‘We’re trapped!’ Audrey cried.
‘Come here,’ Mika said tugging at her frozen arm.
He pulled her into the kitchen and opened the biggest cupboard, suddenly grateful for the tour his mother had given him earlier. It was a corner cupboard meant for storing the vacuumbot and just large enough for both of them. Mika pulled it out and Audrey crawled in first and he followed, closing the door just as the mob began to climb through the hole in the wall. Inside the apartment they exploded as if a match had been struck in an old-fashioned gas station.
It was terrifying. Folded up in the tiny space, Mika and Audrey could do nothing but pray they weren’t discovered as the mob smashed the apartment to pieces around them. Audrey pressed her cheek against Mika’s shoulder and gripped his arm and he heard Awen whimpering nearby. But worse than the violence and the fear of being discovered was the roar. Mika put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes tight, desperate to block out the feelings of the people around him, but their anguish and hatred seemed to bypass his senses and seep through his skin like osmosis. And in those awful moments he saw snapshots of their lives, the dark, filthy water, the barely edible food, the people coughing their lungs out in damp cold beds and children weeping for parents who had died and left them alone and it was so distressing he found himself gasping with pain. He was saved by an explosion in the apartment, followed by the crash of falling crockery and for a moment the roar was replaced by a shocked silence. Mika heard a familiar sound: a Pod Fighter engine, and he opened the cupboard door a tiny crack to see it hovering over the balcony pointing its guns into the apartment and the mob, with only bats and bars to protect them, running for their lives.
The soldiers climbed out of the Pod Fighter onto the balcony and ran after them and Mika quickly shut the door as a spray of bullets punctured the floor of the kitchen.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Audrey whispered.
Mika could feel her trembling with terror.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll think of something,’ he whispered.
He waited until the gunfire sounded further away then cautiously opened the door again and looked out. There wasn’t much left of their smart new home; the glass wall was gone, the kitchen lay in splinters and all the lights were broken so the apartment was dark but for the reflected glow of the nearby turrets. A bitter wind blew through the space finding the holes in the walls. The Pod Fighter was hovering silently over the balcony, waiting for the soldiers to return.
Suddenly Mika had an idea.
‘We could take the Pod Fighter,’ he whispered. ‘We don’t have to go far and we could use the communication system to tell Mal Gorman what’s happened to us.’
‘Do you reckon we’ll be able to fly it?’ she asked hungrily.
‘What else have we been doing for the past few weeks?’ Mika replied. ‘And the YDF did promise us a flight in a real Pod Fighter and we haven’t had it yet.’
‘Yeah, they did,’ she said, bitterly. ‘Shame they didn’t tell us we’d have to go to war to get that part of the prize.’
‘Quick, before someone comes,’ Mika said.
He crawled out of the cupboard and Audrey followed. Then they ran across the living area onto the balcony and climbed up on to one of the Pod Fighter’s curved, black wings so they could see into the cockpit.
‘How are we going to get in it?’ Audrey asked. The wind-shield was shut and the lock icon on the outside was glowing red.
‘We’ll have to unlock it from the inside,’ Mika replied.
He moved round so he could clearly see the icon that opened the door in the arcade simulators.
‘Quick!’ Audrey said. ‘Before someone comes!’
‘Shhh,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to concentrate.’
He gazed at the icon through the windshield until it glowed with a pale blue light. Then he imagined pressing it down with his finger. It didn’t take long; after thirty seconds of intense concentration, the windshield slid back with a hiss and they were in. The helmets were waiting for them on the seats and the control panels were active, ready to go.
They fitted their harnesses quickly and the seats wrapped around them ready to fly. Mika closed the windshield and it sealed with a hiss.
‘OY!’
They looked back into the apartment to see two men in riot gear pointing guns at their heads through the windshield.
‘Frag,’ Mika muttered. He quickly turned the Pod Fighter ninety degrees clockwise and shot up into the night sky.
49
FIGHTING SMOKE
The moment Ellie entered Mal Gorman’s dressing room and saw his eyes, she knew the YDF had taken Mika. She felt the urge to vomit with horror all over his slippers, then weep with desperate relief. After living like a ghost for so long, she was about to be brought back to life.
But don’t hope for anything good out of this, she thought. If you get a glimpse of happiness, Gorman will suck it out of you then laugh in your face, and he’ll use Mika to manipulate you, just like he does with Puck. Mika will suffer, everyone will suffer – except Mal Gorman.
But we’ll be together, a desperate voice cried inside her, everything will be easier together.
‘Sit down,’ Gorman said.
Ellie looked around the dressing room for a chair, but there was only one and Gorman was sitting on it, so she sat at his feet on the rug in front of the fire. Like everything else in the dressing room, the rug looked borrowed from another time, a Celtic knot of rambling rose with thorns and orange blooms. The man with the gun leaned against the wall in the shadowy part of the room and melted into the darkness until he was almost not there. She gazed into the fire as it leapt and curled, aware that several Mal Gormans were watching her; the one in the gold chair with the blanket around him and others on the mantelpiece, all in uniform. From schoolboy to Minister of Youth Development, they frowned down on her from photographs and holopics. Gorman was the only person she knew who kept only pictures of himself.
He held out a silver bowl, so she took it. The bowl was also patterned with roses and it was full of plump pink and wh
ite marshmallows. In her other hand he placed a skewer. It was about thirty centimetres long and made of silver, with a gold handle shaped like a koi carp fish. She rolled it on the palm of her hand and thought it would make an excellent weapon.
‘It’s sharp, so be careful,’ Gorman said, watching her nervously.
She wondered what she was supposed to do with it.
‘Have you never toasted a marshmallow?’ Gorman asked.
‘No,’ Ellie replied.
‘Really?’ he said. ‘Let me show you.’ He took the skewer from her hand and impaled a pink marshmallow on the end it. She noticed his fingers trembling; he looked particularly frail that night. His hand almost dropped the skewer he was holding out over the fire, as if it was too heavy for him. They both watched the marshmallow as it was licked by the flames.
‘You know what I have to say,’ Gorman said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘No,’ Ellie replied, cautiously. ‘What?’
‘Mika’s coming to stay with us,’ Gorman said. ‘He’s one of six new children I’ve chosen. He’s with your parents tonight, but he’ll be coming back to Cape Wrath tomorrow. So if you’re good, you might see him. Here,’ he continued, holding the skewer so she could take the toasted marshmallow from the end. ‘Mind you don’t burn your fingers.’
She pulled the sticky, hot marshmallow from the skewer and Gorman watched her face as she ate it. Her happiness was so intense, he almost remembered what the emotion felt like, but the flicker of warmth in his heart was snuffed out immediately by a tap on the door.
‘What?’ Gorman shouted, making Ellie jump.
Ralph entered, looking peevish. ‘There’s a man here, sir. He wants to talk to you and he says it’s important.’
‘They always say that,’ Gorman snapped. ‘Tell him if he’s any longer than thirty seconds, I’ll hang him on the outside of Cape Wrath with a cloth and a tin of polish.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ralph replied.
A few moments later, the man entered the dressing room as if he was being pushed from behind. Anticipating bad news, Gorman’s eyes froze. ‘Spit it out,’ he said coldly.
‘We have a problem, sir,’ the man said. ‘There’s trouble in London; the Shadows people are complaining because they want their children back.’
‘So?’ Gorman snapped. ‘That’s not my problem. My job was to collect the children and prepare them to fight, not deal with their moaning parents. Get the police to do it. Arrest them all and throw them in prison.’
‘The police are trying, sir,’ the man continued nervously. ‘And the army. But there is rather more trouble than we were expecting. The people have come up from The Shadows and they’re rioting in the Golden Turrets.’
‘Are they?’ Gorman asked, and his heart began to gallop like a horse with a broken leg. ‘How many?’
‘Over a hundred thousand,’ the man replied. ‘And more are coming up by the minute.’
‘Let me see,’ Gorman demanded.
There was a screen on the wall facing the fire and the butler quickly found a news report. They watched the human tornado as it ripped the golden city to pieces.
‘My children,’ Gorman said. ‘Where are they?’
‘Well, that’s why I’m here, sir,’ the man replied. ‘That’s the problem . . .’
‘What’s happened?’ Ellie cried. ‘Is Mika in danger?’
‘Shut up!’ Gorman snapped, turning to glare at her. ‘How dare you interrupt!’ Then he fixed the man with a look that shrank him to half the height. ‘Where are my children?’ he snarled.
‘We’ve found four, sir,’ the man replied hopefully, as if Gorman should be glad they’d found so many. ‘They were with their parents at the top of the building on one of the pod strips, waiting to be rescued.’
‘Four?’ Gorman yelled. ‘FOUR? I don’t want FOUR, I want SIX! Where are the others?’
The man’s face bloomed scarlet with embarrassment. ‘We’re not sure, sir,’ he blustered. ‘The riot happened so quickly, you see. All of a sudden there were thousands of people running around smashing everything, and the police you sent to watch the apartment got distracted and—’
‘Stop waffling, man!’ Gorman roared. ‘Just tell me where my children are!’
‘We think they’ve run away, sir,’ the man said sheepishly. ‘In a . . .’
‘What?’ Gorman snapped impatiently.
‘In a Pod Fighter, sir,’ the man muttered.
Mal Gorman gripped the marshmallow skewer and held it up as if he wanted to stab the man through the heart with it. ‘In a Pod Fighter?’ he roared. ‘HOW THE FRAG DID THEY GET A POD FIGHTER?’
‘Our men left it on the balcony of the children’s apartment,’ the man replied, quickly. ‘But it was locked. It should have been safe. No normal person could have stolen it; the children must have used their special powers to undo the lock from inside. Their parents didn’t know anything about it. They thought the children had followed them up to the roof with the others.’
‘So these two thought they’d sneak off, did they?’ Gorman roared. ‘And run away while no one was looking! Which ones are missing? I’ll skin them alive!’
‘Mika Smith and Audrey Hudson, sir,’ the man replied.
Gorman was silent for a moment and Ellie watched the firelight flicker in his eyes. She had never seen him look so angry before.
‘No!’ she cried, frantically. ‘Mika wouldn’t run away, and he’s never stolen anything! There must be a mistake!’
‘I thought I told you to SHUT UP!’ Gorman roared, throwing the skewer like a dagger and just missing her eye. It clattered on to the hearth, and as he watched her shrink away with a sob, the darkness of her brother’s dream closed in on him. He saw the face of the Telly Head reflected in her tears, heard the slither of vines coming from the fire and suddenly he was engulfed by a terrible sense of foreboding. He closed his eyes for a second and saw Mika looking down on him, with a smile on his face.
‘Your brother has betrayed me!’ he yelled. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him!’ Then he turned to the man and shouted, ‘Find those children and KILL THEM! And get this girl OUT OF HERE!’
* * *
High above the Golden Turrets, Mika and Audrey hid in the darkness while Mika tried to figure out how to use the communication system so he could tell Mal Gorman where they were. It was quiet above the city, but chaos still reigned below. The mob had reached the upper floors of the Turrets and was smashing out the windows of the government minister’s homes. But in the streets below, the army was gaining control, beating back the mob with their electric batons and shields and pushing it towards the tube stations, where it could be forced back down to The Shadows.
‘It looks like they’re fighting smoke from up here,’ Audrey whispered, as she watched the mob swarm backwards through the golden streets. It looked as though the stations were sucking it in.
The Pod Fighter’s com wasn’t as easy to use as they’d hoped.
‘Why does it keep asking for a stupid code?’ Mika said, jabbing the control panel impatiently. ‘It won’t work without a code! Frag! I’ve tried everything I can think of. What are we going to do?’
‘We might be able to go back soon,’ Audrey said. ‘They’re forcing the people down into The Shadows.’
‘How soon?’ Mika said anxiously. ‘If Mal Gorman finds out we’ve taken a Pod Fighter, before we can tell him we’re not trying to run away, he’ll go ballistic.’
‘But we didn’t have a choice,’ Audrey reminded him. ‘At least we’re still alive. Look, is that a police pod flying towards us? Perhaps we could ask them for help.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ Mika asked irritably. ‘The com doesn’t work, remember?’
‘Damn.’
They saw a flash of light to the left.
‘They’re firing at us!’ shouted Audrey.
‘Oh, great,’ said Mika. ‘Now we’re in trouble.’
He flew under the police pod and banked steeply up behin
d it. By the time it had turned to look for them, they were two kilometres away.
‘They’ll be able to track us with their mapping systems,’ Audrey pointed out, ‘like in the game. We’ll never get away from them.’
‘I think we should go back to the apartment,’ Mika said. ‘This was a really bad idea.’
‘OK,’ Audrey said, fearfully. ‘Quickly, before they find us again.’
But as Mika flew down towards the Golden Turrets, they saw a squadron of Gorman’s men waiting for them. Within seconds, they were being chased by dozens of Pod Fighters and the air around them was blistering with laser fire.
‘Go down!’ Audrey screamed. ‘Fly through the Turrets!’
* * *
Ellie rocked on her bed in the darkness, tugging at the roots of her hair, and as she wondered desperately what was happening to Mika, she felt the dark noise between her mind and his dissolve. It was what she had wished for since the day they were parted, it was as if she was retuned like a radio so that suddenly, she was right there with him, seeing what he could see: the Turrets glowing like a heap of hot treasure, the air roads winding streamers of gold and blue light around them and the Pod Fighters chasing him like a flock of carrion birds. She felt what he felt like a flicker book of emotions: the rushes of adrenalin, the brief moments of fear, panic and relief and his utter desperation to cling to life, not just for his own sake, but for those he loved. His mind was as sharp as a scalpel, but his heart was falling to pieces and she was worried he would make the same mistake she had and try to escape through The Shadows. She had a better idea; she knew a safe place he could go. It would be risky trying to get there with Mal Gorman’s men chasing him, but he had a much better chance of survival than trying to escape in The Shadows. So she did what she could to save him by reciting a silent mantra.
‘Mika, please, go over The Wall. Go over The Wall.’
* * *
After ten minutes of flying with a squadron of fighters on their tail, Mika knew it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake. He was blinded by laser fire and they faced death at every turn, and not just from Mal Gorman’s men; the whole city had been stirred up by the riot; horns blared, sirens flashed and the air roads had broken apart so all the traffic was flying in the wrong direction. Civilian pods kept dropping like stones right in front of them and buildings full of rioting people appeared out of nowhere.