Mind Games (4 page)

7

‘Good ride?’ Dad asks.

Jason holds up a hand and Dad gives him a high five.

‘You should have unplugged earlier and come with us,’ I say. ‘Get some real sunshine.’ Dad is pale, his skin almost waxy: it hasn’t seen the sun in months.

‘Why not programme the PIP life support to give some artificial sunlight every day?’ Sally suggests.

‘Clever woman, that’s why I married you.’ Dad kisses Sally and I resist the urge to mime retching, but then Jason does it for me. I wink at him.

‘Maybe the real thing would be healthier. You used to take me to the park.’ I mentally add,
you and Astra
, but don’t say it out loud. Nothing would send Sally into a grump faster than being reminded of the more gorgeous, smarter and all-round better woman she can only fail to replace. And I don’t want to do or say anything to make Dad avoid unplugging for weeks again. Isn’t that the real reason why he married her? Once Nanna started to lose it, he needed someone to look after things, so he could hide away from troubling reality with a clear conscience.

‘Parks and sunshine are kid stuff,’ Sally says. ‘Jason is outgrowing them.’ Unsaid, but there, on her face: Jason is outgrowing
you.

I narrow my eyes. ‘There were no kids in the park today at all. Just babies, little ones. None near Jason’s age, or mine. Once they get Implants they don’t want to play any more.’

Sally frowns and I know I’m verging into her
not-in-front-of-Jason
areas, but I want to hear what Dad thinks about it.

‘They’re still playing – just not where you can see them,’ Dad says.

‘It’s not the same,’ I say.

‘Of course it isn’t,’ Sally answers. ‘It’s safer. No broken arms or skinned knees. And no passing germs around to each other. Especially at
your
age.’

I roll my eyes. ‘It’d be hard to break an arm cycling on an El. And there are plenty of opportunities to catch germs in school, y’know. If one is interested in
germs
.’ But she is right about one thing. It didn’t take Melrose’s updates yesterday, I already knew: the whole boy-girl scene at my school is virtual. Everyone looks better on a v-date than they do in real life; everyone has a designer wardrobe; everyone is a good kisser. If you don’t fancy meeting up with someone who exists, a whole range of fantasy boyfriends is available once you pass the under-sixteen blocks, and you can’t catch anything or get pregnant. What’s not to like?

Unless you happen to be a Refuser. Unless you would like something
real
.

‘Though germ opportunities at school may be gone by the time Jason gets to secondary,’ Dad says.

‘Who’d want germs anyway?’ Jason says, it all going over his head.

‘Why, what do you mean?’ I ask Dad.

‘You really miss out on the news by not signing up for feeds,’ he says. ‘Secondaries are being phased out.’

‘Really?’ Jason says. ‘No more school in another year? Awesome!’ He looks very happy, and Dad laughs.

‘No, you’ll still have to go to school. But as your education post-ten is almost all virtual now anyhow, you don’t need to
physically
go there. You can do it virtually at home, right?’

‘What about sport? What about actually interacting with kids their own age, at lunch if no other time? What about Refusers?’ I say, the questions coming out in a rush.

Dad looks uncomfortable. ‘Sport and social stuff are nearly all virtual now anyhow, and the cost savings will be huge. As for the other, not sure if they’ve worked it all out yet.’

‘Hmmph.’ Nanna’s dismissive noise sounds very like what I was just thinking. What about NUN’s International Bill of Rights of the Child? I glance at her across the table, but her eyes have slipped closed.

After lunch I’m up in my room, packing. Sally has passed a message on from Melrose: she is lending me a dress for the formal tonight, and has sent along a detailed list of what everyone is wearing the rest of the week.

Monday: smart black trousers, white shirt. And round glasses?
Really?
Given that all refractive errors requiring glasses have been corrected years ago, this, I’m guessing, is supposed to be the intelligent look. That’s the day of the IQ test. And no need to worry about packing beyond that, is there? I’ll fail it, and get an early ticket home.

But a half-empty suitcase might raise suspicions. I throw in a few tops and jumpers, jeans and skirts, in a haphazard, random fashion, ignoring the list past the first day.

There is a light tap on the door just as I’m zipping up my case. The door opens; it’s Dad. He comes in, shuts it behind him and sits next to me.

‘Heh,’ he says. ‘All ready to go? It’s almost four.’

‘Think so.’

‘Don’t look so worried. You’ll do well.’

‘No. I won’t.’ I sigh, look at my shoes. I won’t do well because I won’t allow myself to do well. But I can’t tell him that, can I?

‘None of that negative stuff, Loony-Tunes,’ he says, a name he hasn’t called me in years. ‘Your mother would be so proud of you.’

Some lump twists in my throat, and I blink. He picks up her photo from my dressing table. Looks at me, then at her. ‘You look more and more like her every day.’

‘I do not! She’s gorgeous.’ I stare at the photo of Astra in his hands: the long thick dark hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, the mischief in her pale grey eyes. The Hacker’s intricate black swirls around her left eye, more than I’ve seen on anyone else, stand out stark on pale skin. Was she naturally pale, or was that just from spending too much time plugged in? Like Dad.

‘You’ve got her eyes, her hair. And her smile. Not that you use it enough. You know, Luna, you don’t have to keep doing this for her. Avoiding plugging in. She wouldn’t want you to limit your chances.’

I stare back at him, and I’m
this close
to telling him that the way she died isn’t the reason I Refuse.

But then there are footsteps on the stairs, and Dad hurriedly puts the photo down. Sally appears at the door. ‘Car is here,’ she says, smiling. ‘Wait till you see it!’

‘Knock ’em dead,’ Dad says. ‘Now I’m off to explore strange new worlds and all that.’

‘Trekkie Sunday?’

‘That’s it!’ He leans in to give me a hug, and says low in my ear: ‘And, Luna? No matter how it goes, she’d still be proud of you.’

I bite back the words, but can’t stop them inside:
if she was so concerned about me and my future, then maybe she should have stuck around
.

Out front is not just a car but an official government car: a long black electric limo with the dual flags of the UK Union Jack and the NUN Rainbow. A uniformed driver takes my bag and holds the door for me. I climb in, surprised to find not Melrose, but her dad in the back of it.

‘Hi, Mr Asquith,’ I say, a bit uncertain. I haven’t seen him in
years
, unless you count on the news when he got elected to NUN’s executive council. Even when I was in and out of their house he was rarely there except late at night, always off at government meetings. And who knows what he thinks of Refusers.

He smiles. ‘Hello, Luna, good to see you again. Hope you don’t mind: Melrose has been shopping in the city, so it made sense to collect you first. And I’m on my way in to NUN Towers for a meeting.’

‘Of course, it’s fine. The meetings aren’t all virtual now?’

‘The international ones are, by necessity. Moving all national divisions to virtual is under debate. But some of us like to know our private conversatons are still private.’ The car pulls away. ‘And I’m glad we’ve got a moment to talk.’

Ah. Is that why he’s really in the car? Here it comes. He’s not happy with Melrose and me taking up our friendship again. He doesn’t want to upset her, so he’s warning me off. I’m not surprised.

‘Are you excited about the Test?’ he asks.

I stare back at him, not sure where he is going with this.

‘Or scared, maybe?’

‘This isn’t about Melrose?’

‘She’s neither excited nor scared. Daft girl – but I expect she’ll do middling to well, and be happy to get into university. It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘You’re worried about
me
?’

‘Don’t look so amazed.’ He laughs.

‘Why?’

He shrugs. ‘General weirdness,’ he says. And I remember the late-night drop-ins he’d have to our sleepovers if we were still awake when he got home. Telling us tales of his day, of trying to juggle UK and NUN interests, and of PareCo’s meddling:
general weirdness
. That’s what he used to call it. Melrose’d get bored and tell him to stop, to go away, but I was fascinated, and if you asked him a question, about
anything
, he’d always answer it.

‘General weirdness…something about PareCo to do with
me
?’

‘Do you know why you got an appointment?’

‘Teacher said it might be a glitch.’ I shrug. ‘I shouldn’t have.’

‘PareCo doesn’t have glitches.’

I stare back at him and my stomach lurches. ‘If it isn’t a glitch, then why?’

‘I don’t know. They want you there for some reason. But what could it be?’

‘You’re asking me? I’ve got no idea.’

‘It worries me. Take care, Luna,’ he says, and his eyes are on mine, steady and serious.

The car is slowing, stopping. The door opens, and Melrose gets in, bags of shopping in her arms.

‘Just a few essentials?’ her dad says, and she thumps him on the arm.

She smiles at me as the car pulls up the road. ‘And off we go! All ready?’

‘Guess so.’

‘You got through Queen’s Road El OK this morning?’ she asks.

‘Yes. Thanks. When did they gate the El there? Makes it hard to access the park.’

Her dad looks embarrassed, shrugs. ‘That was kind of the point, I’m afraid. There have been problems.’

‘With Implant Addicts? We saw some today when we were cycling to get around the gates.’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘Just so.’

Melrose looks shocked as the pound drops. ‘You only went one way through the El. Tell me you didn’t cycle all those miles round the other way when you got there!’

‘OK. I won’t tell you.’

‘You did, didn’t you! And you saw addicts? They’re dangerous. Tell her, Dad.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t recommend getting too close,’ he says mildly. ‘Not sure about dangerous.’

‘More like upsetting,’ I say. ‘I saw a girl in a group of addicts. She looked younger than me. I thought Implants were limited usage until eighteen?’

‘They are,’ he says. ‘Maybe she looked younger than she was? Addicts are often so malnourished.’

‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I say. ‘Why does everyone get Implants if addiction is on the rise? Doesn’t it show Implants are dangerous?’

‘What makes you say it is on the rise?’

‘You’re not denying it.’

‘Officially, the numbers are declining, though observation seems to suggest otherwise.’

Melrose shakes her head. ‘The number of addicts must be declining. It is only the mentally deficient that become addicts, and they’re screening them out as MEs now.’ This is the official line.

Then I realise what had niggled at me about the addict Jason and I saw in the cemetery. ‘Really? So, say, Hackers couldn’t be addicts. Could they? They’re the smart ones.’

‘Of course not,’ she says, dismissing the notion with a flick of her hair.

‘I saw a Hacker who was an addict.’

‘How did you know?’ she asks.

‘The usual ways. Clothes. Tattoos around his eye.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Mel says.

‘General weirdness?’ I venture to say, and her dad raises an eyebrow.

A long pause. ‘Maybe,’ he says, at last, and I’m shocked. What could PareCo have to do with the impossibility of a Hacker being an addict?

Then I can’t stop myself from asking one more question. ‘What about the school closures? A primary near our house. And I heard secondaries are being phased out.’

‘That is still under debate,’ he says. ‘There are outstanding issues before it can be implemented. There are appeals by religious groups going through to NUN right now. As far as surplus primary closures go, people are having fewer children. So fewer schools are needed.’

The car slows, stops.

‘I believe we’re here. Do your best, Melrose,’ he says, kisses her cheek. He holds a hand out to me, and I take it for a formal handshake. ‘Take care, Luna,’ he says again, holding my eyes with his a moment, as if he is trying to tell me something, but I don’t know what.

The driver opens the door, hands us our bags from the boot. The car waits until we disappear through the front door of NUN test centre 11.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise
.

Victor Hugo

8

‘Heh, you scrub up OK,’ a voice says behind me, and I turn: it’s Hex.

I shrug. ‘Whatever. I wish I was a Hacker. That’d make dressing easier. Not to mention walking.’ I look down at my shoes, and grimace. They match the deep blue of this beautiful dress Melrose lent me perfectly, but teetering across the quad from the girls’ residence was both slow and painful. Hex is dressed as usual – black jeans, trainers. Grey T-shirt, black scribbles around the edges that probably mean something but not to me. Hackers stand out because they aren’t fashion clones like everyone else: they wear whatever they want. They all have their own variation on a theme and get away with it, boys and girls both.

‘Sorry, I’m afraid as a Refuser you don’t pass Hacker basic criteria. Plugging in is kind of part of it.’ He winks.

I laugh. The room is becoming more crowded, and he is standing close enough that I’m suddenly aware that these shoes make me taller than he is.

‘Where’s Melrose?’ he asks.

‘I thought she was with you!’ The reason I’d come here on my own. They’d had to get together in person for a change: the whole test centre is Implant blocked, and no PIPs are available apart from for the test.

‘She was. She said something about having to straighten her hair.’ He looks pleased with himself, as if he’d had a hand in messing it up.

My eyes hunt around the hall for Melrose. It’s a massive space – tables set for dinner, complete with candles, at one end; the rest is a dance floor. Dancing, in public? In these shoes? I sigh. There are stairs that lead up to a second level that overlooks the dance floor; my choice of designated hiding spot for the socially inept. Except for Hackers dotted here and there, everyone else is colour-coded. Our school in blue, one in red, one in purple, one white. Others from my school glance at me, curious that there is someone in their dress code they don’t recognise. Then they realise who I am and look away.

Melrose comes through the doors and is surrounded by friends before I can catch her eye. That is when I spot Jezzamine. She starts speaking earnestly to Melrose; both look at me, then back again to each other. Disquiet settles inside.

‘Are you all right?’ Hex says. His arm curves comfortingly around my back.

I shrug. ‘Oh, yeah. I’m feeling right at home.’

‘Be like me: don’t give a monkey’s what the idiots think.’

‘Easy for you! Everybody loves a Hacker.’

‘What’s not to love?’

Melrose walks over. ‘Oh, there you are. Do you want to sit with us for dinner?’ she says to me, but her voice is strained, and she’s looking between Hex and me, an odd look on her face.

I start, and pull away from his hand on my back. ‘No, no; you go on,’ I say, knowing it is the right answer, but not wanting to say it.

‘Then come with me, instead,’ Hex says, and pulls me by the arm towards a table at the back. Hacker land.

I turn to look at Melrose, but she’s stomping off to the sea of blue dresses and tuxedos.

This is
so
not going well.

‘Hex, don’t be such a dys,’ I snap.

‘What?’

‘Melrose is jealous.’

His face goes from surprised to pleased. ‘Is she? Cool.’

I smack him. ‘Go make nice, or she’ll be not happy with me.’

‘OK, fine,’ he says. ‘Here, sit.’ He heads for two empty seats at the long Hacker table, and pushes me into one of them. A sea of surprised tattooed eyes swivel in my direction as he walks off towards Melrose.

‘Uh, hi, everyone,’ I say. ‘Is it OK if I stay here?’

‘Free country. At least, it’s supposed to be,’ a voice says to my left, on the other side of the remaining empty chair, and I turn. Here’s a surprise: no tattoos around his eye. But even though he’s not Hacker-pale, he
looks
like a Hacker, in that careless above-the-law-and-don’t-give-a-damn kind of way. Too long, dark, almost black hair curls around his ears, and eyes just as dark stare back at mine. There is something
exotic
in the way he is put together: part some interesting mix of parentage, part something all his own. He doesn’t need to go virtual to look good. He raises an eyebrow, and I blush when I realise I’m staring.

‘Fall out with your friends?’ he says, and gestures to the blue tables. ‘Should have thought of that before you picked wardrobe.’

‘I’ll try to remember that next time I’m getting dressed.’

His eyes widen, and sparkle a little. He leans in closer. ‘A clone with attitude? Curiouser and curiouser.’

Hex comes back, takes the empty seat between us. ‘Jeez, you were right,’ he says. ‘She’s pissed off with me. She thought I was going to sit with
them
.’ He shudders.

I roll my eyes. ‘Obvious, Einstein, don’t you think? You probably shouldn’t sit next to me, either.’

‘Happy to oblige,’ the dark-eyed guy says, and gets up to swap seats with Hex, a knowing grin on his face that says
you just said that because you want to sit next to me, didn’t you?
‘I’m Gecko,’ he says. ‘And you are?’

‘Luna,’ I say, trying to hide curiosity from my eyes. Who is this guy? This
Gecko
. Weird name, but then Hackers, like Hex, like my mother, Astra, choose their own names as part of what they spin virtually. Astra was the queen of space games; Hex is into magic games featuring curses and spells. What would a Gecko be into?

Waiting staff come in and start putting plates of yummy food in front of everyone, and conversation reverts to
pass the pepper
kind of stuff for a while. I glance at Gecko surreptitiously between mouthfuls. It’s not just the lack of tattoos that marks him out; there is something
else
. Others on the table are chatting about meta this and beta that, but keeping an eye on him a lot of the time, too.

‘Heh,’ he says in a low voice. Leans closer to me. ‘Is there something stuck on my nose?’ He brushes at it.

‘What? No.’

‘Or in my teeth, is that what you keep looking at?’ He smiles, teeth showing. Like a wolf.

I roll my eyes, sit up straighter, look resolutely straight ahead at the wall over the girl opposite. Whatever he may be to these Hackers, he’s a jerk.

When dinner is over, it is announced the dance is about to start. Gecko and most of the Hackers scatter: not into dancing? I wait until Hex leaves to get drinks so he won’t try to stop me. I’m getting the hell out of here. I start to walk across the floor to the doors all the way on the other side of the massive hall. I have to go past the sea of blue dresses, and suddenly one of them detaches from the rest and stands in front of me.

‘What were you thinking, Lunatic, wearing that? Did you think it could possibly make you one of us?’ Jezzamine. Conversations quieten down around us, heads turn.

I don’t answer, turn to the side to get round her.

‘Honestly. It’s hard to imagine what they were doing, letting you in here. Not just a Refuser, but with your
genes
.’ She titters.

My hands form fists, and I turn back. ‘Excuse me, Jezzamine? What did you say?’

She smiles. With her perfect, swept-up blond hair and blue eyes, she looks angelic in this shade of blue: bet it was her who mandated it. ‘Well, from what I heard you’ve got insanity on
both
sides of your family. First your mother kills herself, then your dad’s mother was screaming the place down and having a psychotic fit, just days ago.’ There is dead silence around us. Not just those in blue, but other schools too, are listening, eyes looking to and fro.

My eyes open wider in shock. They hunt for Melrose, and when I finally find her, she looks away. She told Jezzamine about Nanna? She promised she wouldn’t. She
promised
. The hurt is taking over the anger, and I push past Jezzamine, and half run towards the door. A heel catches in the hem of my dress and I trip, sprawl across the floor with a painful thud. The whole massive room is quiet now.

I struggle to pull myself up in the narrow skirt, eyes blurring with tears. A steady hand reaches out.

‘Let me help you. Come on.’

I grasp it, am pulled to my feet. It’s Gecko? The mocking is gone, replaced by kindness, but it’s too much. I kick the shoes off and run barefoot all the way to the girls’ residence.

I throw the dress on the floor of my room, glad now that Melrose wasn’t assigned to the same one. Jezzamine was right about one thing: what was I thinking? How could changing my clothes do anything to make me one of them? I’m still Lunatic Luna underneath.

Even without Implants, gossip as good as this travels at speeds unknown. By the time my roommates return, they all know. It’s in their eyes, in their silences. It’s in the one closest to me pulling her bed as far away as she can, and pushing it against the wall.