The Glimpse (20 page)

Up close, she could see the scar through his left eyebrow, the dent in his chin, the square tattoo on his neck. Invol-178

untarily, her eyes rested on the curve of his lower lip. The lip rounded into a smile. Suddenly realising she was staring, she puled away.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What did you think of it?’

She twisted towards the fire and watched the flames behind the blackened furnace door.

‘When I hear a piece like that,’ she said, ‘I find it hard to believe that there isn’t something more than this.’ She waved a hand at the cabin, at al the material things surrounding them. ‘Something we haven’t begun to understand, but it’s captured in the music. It’s there. You can feel it.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Exactly.’ Behind her, the piano stool creaked and something rattled. He began rummaging through a wooden storage shelf nailed into the wal and retrieved a thumb-sized disc case. ‘It’s a recording of

“Second Sight”,’ he said passing it to her. ‘You can keep it.’

His dark pupils were holes, puling her into him. She stood up and reached out to take the recording.

‘You . . . you wrote it,’ she said, suddenly understanding.

Their fingers touched. He smiled. For a second she Their fingers touched. He smiled. For a second she gazed into the black holes and gravity abandoned her.

She was faling. She was faling and it was the scariest and most thriling feeling she’d ever had.

‘You should give it to someone who can do something with it,’ she stuttered.

‘That’s why I was giving it to you.’

‘Me?’
Why her?
Cole must know plenty of proper pianists that could perform it for him. ‘I—’ She curled her fingers around the disc case, skimming his skin. ‘I’m not sure I understand. But thank you.’

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Cole gathered the sheet music and shoved it inside the piano stool along with a large messy stack of similarly drawn-up pages.

She stepped closer, resting her hand across the closed piano case. After three days’ withdrawal from her piano practice, and with so many emotions and ‘Second Sight’

bubbling inside her, the desire to play was overwhelming.

‘May I?’ she asked. He nodded. She opened the key cover.

He moved aside, giving her room to perch on the piano stool.

Gently, she struck a key and began to pick out his melody.

‘Do you stil plan on trying to find Jasper?’ he asked.

Ana tinkled on the keys, considering. There were at least sixty loony bins in the Greater London area. The Psych Watch or the Wardens could have dumped him in any one of them. Or they could have done something else with him entirely.

Jasper must have been out of his mind to even consider going up against the Board. But maybe that’s why he’d chosen to bind with her, to remind people the Board could make mistakes and if they could make mistakes then they weren’t infalible.

Jasper had as good as lied to her by not teling her about his brother’s evidence. He’d also risked his own life in an attempt to pass on evidence he thought proved the Pure test was fraudulent; evidence that affected over fifty-five milion people.

‘I can’t leave him rotting in some psych dump,’ she said.

‘This evidence he supposedly has. Where’s it meant to have come from?’

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‘His brother,’ Cole said. ‘Tom Taurel had a degree in biochemistry.’

Ana thought of Tom’s accident. Tom had just begun working in Novastra’s research department before he fel off a cliff in the abandoned county of Dorset and drowned.

Had he discovered anomalies in the Pure test? Had he been kiled for trying to expose them?

For a moment, Ana pushed aside her anger with Jasper and instead tried to put herself in his shoes. He’d wanted to avenge his brother’s death by undermining the Board.

Granted, his relationship with Ana had facilitated that –

binding with the girl whose original Pure test had somehow been faulty – but deep down she felt sure it wasn’t the only reason he’d gone ahead with it. In the handful of times they’d seen each other after her fifteenth birthday, he’d never pressed her for information about her father. And he must have believed he could hand over the evidence to the member of the Enlightenment Project (or ex-member) without being caught. If things had gone to plan, at some point in the days leading up to their joining, the ‘truth’

would have become public knowledge and the Board would have come under attack. Jasper had never intended to join with her under false pretences. She would have known the truth about the Pure tests, perhaps he’d have confessed to her what he’d been up to.

‘Are you and the guy Jasper met with stil part of the Enlightenment Project?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I thought you weren’t alowed to leave the compound.’

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Cole raised an eyebrow. ‘And yet here I am.’

Ana flicked her eyes away from him. She wished he Ana flicked her eyes away from him. She wished he wouldn’t look at her and speak to her like
that
– it made goose bumps appear on the tops of her arms, the back of her neck; it made it impossible to be normal around him.

‘So, I guess the Psych Watch who spiked Jasper’s contact must have taken the evidence,’ she said, directing her gaze at the piano.

‘I believe there are two copies. Jasper had a second one.’

A wal of energy slammed into Ana.
Another copy!

Perhaps the evidence was stil out there. Jasper knew they were coming after him; he’d have had the time to hide the disc. If she found Jasper, not only could she tel his mother where he was but she could help him get back the disc proving the Pure tests were fake. Then she would know for sure that she’d never get sick.

‘We have to find him,’ she said. ‘We have to find out what they’ve done to him, so that his father can make a stand against the Board and get him out.’

Excitement buzzed through her as she began to play the part of ‘Second Sight’ she’d already unraveled. Without the Big3 hanging over her, she’d be a new person; she’d have a future; she’d never have to worry again about the day her own mind turned on her. The bitter-sweet melody tumbled from her fingers. Absorbed by the feel of piano keys she played until she’d woven each element of the piece back together, until the fire embers died and the cabin grew cold. When she stopped, it was long past midnight and Cole had gone.

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16

Benzidox

Hours later, Ana woke in her cabin, hungry and apparently alone aboard
Enkidu
. In the kitchen she found a piece of bread from the evening meal. The fridge and the cupboards were empty. She ate the chewy baguette, then showered.

Dressed again in her jeans and Cole’s chocolate-brown sweater, she ventured up on deck and was surprised to find they were moored back near Camden market.

Across the water, she could see stals jammed with people miling about, browsing, buying, seling. She could hear oriental music and the faint base beats of something electronic.

She returned to the living room and began searching for a key to close the wheelhouse hatch. She planned to head out and buy herself a late breakfast, then a large coat.

‘Hey!’ Lila caled breathlessly into the cabin. She clattered down the steps carrying a pizza box. Her interface projected animated gremlins. They ripped through the top of the cardboard box and audibly gobbled up the pizza.

‘Cole said you’d sleep late, but I wasn’t sure if I’d miss you.

I’ve brought lunch.’

Ana took the warm carton and the creatures disappeared.

disappeared.

As Lila jumped off the last ladder rung the box burst back to life with a jingle. Lila closed her thumb and forefinger 183

together across her chest. The hand gesture muted her interface sensor.

‘I was just about to go out, but I couldn’t find a key for the hatch,’ Ana said.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. People know us around here.’ She went to the bookshelf and dug out a key from a ceramic owl-shaped pot. ‘But here,’ she said. ‘For next time.’

‘Actualy,’ Ana said, ‘I was going to ask you about that.

Um . . . when do you think I’l need to find somewhere else? I get the impression that whoever usualy sleeps in the cabin wil be back sometime soon.’

Lila laughed. ‘Don’t you know?’ she said.

‘Know what?’

‘It’s Cole’s cabin. This is his boat.’

‘Oh.’ Flustered and embarrassed, Ana turned to get glasses from a rack beside the kitchen sink. ‘Yeah, I knew it was his boat, but I kind of thought he and Rachel were together. He didn’t say anything about the bed. I didn’t realise. I suppose I’d better try that youth hostel then, what was it caled? On Greenland road or something . . .’

‘Absolutely not,’ Lila said.

‘Absolutely not,’ Lila said.

‘But I couldn’t—’

‘Yes, you could. Cole wil sleep on the couch.’

Ana cringed. Not only had Cole evacuated his cabin for her last night, but her playing had prevented him from using the sofa. She felt awkward accepting the arrange-ment. She’d assumed Cole and Rachel, living together on the same boat, were an item. The prospect of Cole being single made her uncomfortable.

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Lila dropped the cardboard box on the kitchen table and tossed back the lid.

‘Did you two argue about something?’ she asked. A tangy odour of tomato sauce and tinned mushrooms drifted off the pizza. Ana’s stomach churned. No one in the Community ate fast food, especialy not girls of her age who had to think of their complexions and the health of their soon-to-be-child-bearing bodies.

‘Argue?’ she asked. Lila removed a slice of pizza and offered it to Ana on a plate. Ana prodded it.

‘Oh, maybe he’s just worried about tomorrow night,’

Lila said.

‘What’s happening tomorrow night?’

‘Wel, now he’s no longer in detention, he’s back to helping a Pure from one of the Communities get into the Project. A guy that wants to disappear.’

Ana remembered the three Pures working for Novastra who’d al vanished, reportedly abducted.

‘Why does he want to disappear?’

Lila shrugged and stuffed more pizza into her mouth.

‘He’s a minister. He’s got this ancient recording proving Novastra, the government, and the Chairman of the Board came up with the whole idea of Pures before that Nobel Prize-winning guy ever came close to discovering a genetic pattern for schizophrenia. Do you know what a Glimpse is?’

At the mention of her father, Ana’s cheeks flushed. But Lila didn’t seem to notice. ‘Uh, a brief look at something?’

‘No, I mean an Enlightenment Glimpse.’

‘As in the Enlightenment Project Cole’s a member of?’

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Lila nodded, chewing her pizza. ‘But it’s not what you think.’

‘I don’t know what I think any more.’

‘Wel, that’s a start,’ Lila said, smiling. ‘Originaly, the Project was one of the temporary camps set up by the government after the housing crash. Except that summer a flu virus spread through it. The media overdramatised the problem and the government ended up putting the camp under quarantine for six months. The government ensured the wals were impenetrable. They stopped anyone entering or leaving the camp. Finaly, nine months anyone entering or leaving the camp. Finaly, nine months later the camp got a clean bil of health and the government announced that they were relocating everyone up north. A lot of people in the camp wanted to stay. There were big protests, et cetera, et cetera, and finaly the government gave in and left them alone. Any of this sound familiar?’

Ana shook her head.

‘Wel, the camp worked on becoming self-sufficient.

Animals, crop farming and their own smal mils for electricity and wels for water. Several years later, when a document-ary crew came to do a folow-up story on them, they were living this idylic life compared to the chaotic madness of the City. This was al before the Pure Genome Split Re-ferendum. It was the media who dubbed the camp the

“Enlightenment Project”. Many of the things the people living there advocated went against what the government was doing. As the voice of the Project grew and became more political, Richard Cox, the Project’s spokesperson was attacked and defamed. They tried to make out he was a charlatan, anti-establishment and only interested in power.’

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‘Richard Cox, the terrorist bomber?’

‘If you believe what the government want you to believe.

He was innocent. Anyway, the media got hold of Richard Cox’s past – stock trader, lost milions, walked out on family and kids – he almost had another breakdown. But this Nganasan shaman turned up inside the Project.

this Nganasan shaman turned up inside the Project.

Came out of nowhere. I mean, we’re not simply talking about scaling a wal – the country’s borders were heavily restricted by then. You couldn’t just decide to go on holiday somewhere, or come into the country to visit long-lost relatives. Aside from the fact that the guy came from Siberia!’

Ana put down her pizza and folded her arms across her chest. Maybe the Project wasn’t as dangerous as the media made out, but clearly there was some weird stuff going on there.

‘Anyway, this shaman was able to enter the spiritual plane. He healed Richard, and showed him there was a boy he’d been looking out for, who could potentialy become part of a very important event in the future. As long as Richard continued to protect the boy and keep him out of trouble.’

‘And Cole’s supposed to be that boy?’

‘You said it.’

Ana bit the insides of her cheeks, annoyed with herself for jumping to the conclusion Lila was clearly trying to foist on her.

‘OK, so what’s an Enlightenment Glimpse then?’ she asked.

‘It’s a fleeting vision of a likely future.’

‘Oh right, so the Project leaders
do
say they can see the 187

future.’
No wonder they have a dodgy reputation if
they go about
spouting that sort of stuff.

Lila leant back in her chair. ‘The problem with a Glimpse,’ she said, ‘is it’s fractured. Like looking in a broken mirror with missing pieces.’

‘It doesn’t sound any different to al the other Beliefs,’