The Roar (11 page)

13

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY

M
ika couldn’t understand why nobody else seemed to notice that the arcade felt cold and the staff never smiled. It was as if the YDF put something in the drinks that got rid of common sense. No one seemed to see the mirrors above the shops and the restaurants and on the dark walls of the game room, but Mika saw them. He sensed people behind them, lots of people, watching. What did a bunch of twelve-year-olds have to offer these hidden strangers? The thought of them scared him, but he pretended to see nothing like everyone else.

Just play the game, keep your eyes down and your mouth shut.

He went to the arcade every night, and as the weeks passed it was busier than ever, as if addiction to the place had spread like a virus. The Fabshake makers ran dry, the burger flippers ran out of
buns, and most of the crowd wore Pod Fighter T-shirts in a variety of colours and styles.

Everyone knew who Mika was after his first night in the arcade. Everybody wanted to know the black-eyed boy who’d walked in after a week and beaten them all, and for the first few days, he pushed through the crowd beneath the screen displaying the scores and left, not wanting to face them. But he soon discovered that apart from Ruben, who hated his guts more than ever, they were being friendly, they were curious, even respectful. There was no hidden, sadistic agenda, though maybe a tinge of jealousy, which was understandable, but Mika countered this by sharing his knowledge with them. After all, his objective for playing the game was different to theirs, so it was easy to be generous with his help. He didn’t care about being the best; he just wanted to find his sister.

Six weeks after the arcade opened, he walked in with Kobi one Monday night, to find several hundred children standing silently in the middle of the mall, staring up at the screen over the game room doors.

‘Weird,’ Kobi said, burying his hands in the pockets of his long black coat. ‘Look at them all.’

They seemed hypnotized, unblinking, the darkness of space and twinkling stars on the screen reflected in their eyes.

‘Have you ever wanted to do this . . .’ a low cinema voice rumbled, and an image of a Pod Fighter suddenly appeared, skimming over the sea, ‘. . . for real?’ The Pod Fighter shot up into the sky and belted towards a pale full moon. ‘The Youth Development Foundation would like to announce the launch of a competition with prizes beyond your wildest dreams! Win a new generation phone companion! Win a holiday for your family! Win a top-of-the-range hover car and a home in the fabulous Golden Turrets of London! And best of all, get to fly a
real
Pod Fighter! All this can be yours if you’ve got what it takes to win. You’ve played the game for fun, now play it for prizes. The competition is open to all twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. Entries
must be submitted by the end of February. Terms and conditions apply . . .’

Mika watched images of exotic holiday destinations and Pod Fighters flash across the screen and felt his heart fill with hope and fear. Helen had told him to trust his instincts, and his instincts were telling him that this was what he’d been waiting for; that this was the path to Ellie. He glanced up at the row of mirrors above the shops and restaurants and sensed the strangers watching as the crowd erupted around him, and while everyone started to push and talk loudly, he felt a cold chill. He noticed Kobi’s eyes follow his up to the mirrors and Mika looked away.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Kobi said, as someone shoved into him. ‘Everyone’s going to be even more bonkers than ever now.’

They entered the game room and joined a group of friends standing around the feet of the simulators in the darkness. A girl called Maddie approached them. Mika had flown with her a few times – she was a good gunner.

‘Isn’t it amazing!’ she cried, grabbing Mika by the arm. ‘Imagine if we won and got to fly a
real
Pod Fighter! Who are you flying with? I’ve read the terms and conditions and we have to compete in pairs.’

‘I don’t know,’ Mika said, looking around. He knew he would-n’t team up with Kobi because they both preferred to fly, and he was aware he must choose carefully.

Maddie’s face fell. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re thinking about someone else,’ she said.

There was an awkward pause. Even though she was a good gunner, Mika didn’t want to fly with her.

‘I’m not sure, Maddie,’ he said, feeling mean. ‘I haven’t had a chance to think about it. I’ll let you know.’

In the next few minutes several other people asked him and each time he said ‘No’. Kobi teamed up with a boy called Tom. They looked an odd pair, Tom as if his mother scrubbed him in Ultra Supa White and Kobi as if he slept in a skip, but they flew brilliantly together.

‘You’d better choose someone soon,’ Kobi said. ‘Or all the good gunners will be taken. Why don’t you fly with Maddie? She
is
good.’

‘I might,’ Mika said, but he didn’t want to. He felt as if he was waiting for someone, and when a girl walked up the red walkway talking into her phone companion, all sounds around him faded and he knew instantly that she was the one. She looked like a fairy; a punk fairy; her body slight and delicate, her jeans ripped at the knees. She had pretty hands and ears, and spiky red hair that framed her elfin face perfectly. She had Irish and Russian blood that gave her eyes shaped like almonds and cheekbones that looked carved from flawless stone. She was beautiful, Mika thought; he had never seen anyone like her. She glanced towards him and her eyes glowed in the darkness as if they were irradiated. He half raised his hand to wave, to beckon her over, then stopped, realizing how dumb that would seem – he didn’t even know her. Kobi offered him a sip of his drink and he poured it down his front.

‘Dammit,’ cursed Mika, rubbing the wet patch on his T-shirt and watching the girl slide her phone companion into her back pocket. He stepped forward, hardly aware he was doing it, and so did one of the girls.

‘Hey, Audrey!’ she shouted, and the strange girl looked towards them and then walked over. ‘Meet Audrey, everyone, she’s just moved here. This is her first night.’

She was spooky as her glowing green eyes cast over them, contrasting so vividly with her punky red hair. Her appearance shocked everyone into silence, and soon the sharp pale form of Ruben was drawn out of the darkness to appraise her.

‘Your eyes are weird,’ he said.

‘They’re borg eyes,’ she replied. ‘I was born with empty sockets.’

‘Oh,’ Ruben said, taking a step closer.

Get away, Mika thought, bristling with anger. Ruben began to circle the new girl like a predator around its prey and Mika
burned with jealousy.

‘Like wolf eyes,’ Ruben continued, staring at her. ‘Reflective on your retinas.’

‘Yes,’ she replied. Her voice was husky, with the trace of a Russian accent. She didn’t seem to mind being stared at. Everyone was staring and Mika supposed she was used to it. She was worth staring at.

‘Wolves could see in the dark,’ Ruben said. ‘Can you?’

‘Better than you,’ she replied. ‘It’s my payback for being blind for six years.’

‘Cool,’ he said, and Mika felt the urge to stick his fingers down his throat. Ruben’s sickly flattery was worse than his snide insults and it annoyed Mika that he wasn’t teasing the new girl for being a mutant just because she was pretty.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked him, her smile illuminating the space around her.

‘Ruben,’ he replied.

‘Hi, Ruben.’

She looked around at the rest of them. At Kobi in his ragged clothes and scruffy hair, then at Mika, her glowing eyes boring into his as if she could see inside his head. It was intense, and he enjoyed it for a moment, but after a few seconds, he felt overwhelmed and had to look away.

‘Hi,’ he muttered.

The next few minutes were agony. Now other people were talking to Audrey and she was laughing with them.

She’s going to think I don’t like her, he thought. You fool. I’m going to lose her if I don’t do something, and Ruben will get her.

He watched helplessly as Ruben continued to talk to her.

‘What do you do?’ Ruben asked, as if he was in charge.

‘I’m a gunner,’ she said.

‘You any good?’ he continued, his sharp eyes darting all over her face. ‘I haven’t got a partner yet.’

‘I’m OK,’ she replied. ‘We should fly together and see.’

No. She can’t fly with
him
! Mika thought. He had to do
something fast. He stepped forward.

‘I’m looking for a gunner too,’ he blurted out, ‘why don’t you fly with me?’

Ruben shot Mika a look like a flurry of poison darts. Audrey smiled at Mika and he thought he detected a hint of relief in her eyes.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Why not.’

They grinned at each other and Mika felt his face redden.

‘What?’ Ruben sneered. ‘Mika Smith is a perp! You don’t want to fly with him! You want to fly with someone who knows what they’re doing!’

Audrey’s eyes flashed.

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Mika said coldly, staring Ruben down.

Ruben’s pale hands made fists and Mika glared at him.

‘You’ll pay for that,’ Ruben snarled, and everyone around watched pensively, shocked by the odd way Mika and Ruben were behaving over the new girl. Nobody confronted Ruben that way, ever.

The group broke up and started walking towards their simulators, leaving Mika and Audrey alone.

‘We should get ready,’ he said, gruffly.

‘OK,’ she replied.

He walked ahead of her to an empty simulator with his heart banging, feeling a mixture of joy and foreboding. Ruben didn’t make idle threats and Mika realized he
would
pay for what he’d said, but did he care? Not much. He watched Audrey climb into the gunner seat, her eyes glowing and her delicate hands adeptly checking over her controls, and as he climbed into his seat, it was as much as he could do to stop himself laughing out loud.

He had to show off his flying skills, of course, because he couldn’t let her believe what Ruben had said about him. He shot off the launch pad seconds after he heard the click of her harness, and they were pirouetting above Earth a full minute before the others caught them up. The control panels lining the walls of the pod shone soft as fairy lights, the stars above glittered, the clouds
below were white as heaven, and it was all so quiet. They waited until the others were arranged in formation around them, then tilted again and roared into space ready for the first assault.

‘Watch out to the left,’ Mika warned.

‘I know,’ she laughed.

She was good, really good. She shot down the first three Red Star Fleet fighters before anyone else in the battalion had fired a shot, and the longer they fought, the more exhilarated Mika felt, until he
was
laughing out loud, he couldn’t help himself, and so was she; whooping with delight every time she hit something. She was a brilliant gunner, and Mika felt that with her, he flew as he never had with anyone else. What an amazing find she was.

They were fighting for over an hour, long after everyone else had been shot down. When they’d taken out all the Dragon Fighters on level three, instead of going to the next level, Mika flew into orbit and they hung to the left of the moon. He wanted to talk to her. They talked about the game first and then about her new school and her move from Plymouth. He loved the way she expressed herself; everything she said was suffused with an energy and enthusiasm that dissolved the concrete of Barford North, silenced the wind and dried up the rain. She made him feel happy.

‘So what about you?’ she asked.

‘What about me?’ he replied, warily. He didn’t want to blow this new friendship by letting her know he was a ‘freaker’, as Kobi had so eloquently described him, who slept at night with an imaginary dog on his bed and a Telly Head holding a cup of spiders in the cupboard.

‘You look as though you think a lot,’ she said.

‘Doesn’t everyone?’ he replied evasively.

‘No,’ she answered flatly. ‘What were you thinking when we met earlier?’

He squirmed in his seat. He didn’t want to tell her that she stirred him with her strange beauty and that he felt drawn to her like a moth to a light.

‘That you looked like a good gunner,’ he replied.

‘Oh,’ she said, grinning beneath her headset. ‘Thanks.’

‘We should fly down and have a look at Earth,’ Mika suggested, wanting to change the subject.

‘Good idea,’ Audrey replied. ‘We could look over The Wall and see what it’s like on the other side.’

They spent the next hour flying over South America. Where people had once lived the streets of the towns and cities were littered with bones, and everything was covered in yellow dust, which clouded the dark windows and piled in drifts in unused doorways. In the Amazon rainforest, nothing remained but the carcasses of trees standing like black skeletons in a desert. Everything was dead.

‘They say it’s going to be hundreds of years before its safe to come back here.’ Mika said, bitterly. ‘How could they have let this happen?’

‘I wish we hadn’t come,’ said Audrey, sadly. ‘Let’s go back, I can’t look at it any more.’

Neither could Mika. It made him feel so sad and angry he was struggling not to cry and he didn’t want to cry in front of Audrey, even with his headset on.