The Roar (21 page)

‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Mika anxiously.

‘She freaked out down there. She’s the one who shot you. It’s all right, they’re going to give her something to calm her down.’

Moments later Yee fell silent. Mika watched her eyes lose focus and close, her body relax. She sighed as if she was lying down in a warm bath. Mika closed his eyes. The pain from his leg was everywhere – he felt it from the tips of his toes to the top of his head and it washed over him in delirious waves, sweeping up his body, and he wanted it to stop.

‘Make the pain stop,’ he muttered.

‘OK.’

He felt a brief prick on his arm.

‘My holopic,’ he whispered. ‘The lions in my pocket.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve found it. We’ll keep it for you.’

A second later he was falling with Yee into a warm bath of nothing.

27

KEEP THE BOY IN THE GAME

M
al Gorman sat forward in his chair. A close-up image of Ellie’s brother lying in a hospital bed filled most of the screen on his desktop, but in one corner was the image of a man with whom he was discussing Mika’s accident.

‘He looks just like his sister,’ Gorman said, thoughtfully. ‘What is it about this boy? He was the only one to refuse to drink the Fit Mix and now he’s got himself shot. Looks like trouble runs in the family.’

‘And so does talent,’ the man said. ‘He’s one of the best, sir. He could be just what you’re looking for.’

‘Really?’ Gorman was quiet for a moment, not sure if this was good news or bad. ‘Well, he’d better not be as difficult to handle as his sister. One stroppy little bog rat is quite enough.’

‘He seems calmer than Ellie,’ the man said. ‘And he works incredibly hard; his scores for focus and perseverance are the
highest in the group. There is one thing though . . .’

‘What?’ Gorman asked.

‘When we did the memory scan on him we hardly found anything. It was as if he was fighting against us even though he didn’t know what we were doing to him. He must have an incredibly strong will. The few scraps of memories we did find are so dark, we can’t work out what’s happening.’

‘Let me see them,’ Gorman demanded.

‘It’s hardly worth it, sir. They’re no more than a couple of hours of moving shadows.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Gorman. ‘Send them to me.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the man replied. ‘What do you want us to do about his parents? They’ve been yelling their heads off since the accident and they want to take him home as soon as possible. It was chaos in here; the mother was screaming, there was blood spattered up the walls – when we took the compress off the blood was pumping out the wound like a fountain. The harpoon bolt severed the main artery at the top of his leg.’

‘Why did you let the parents see that?’ Gorman said, angrily. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘We had no choice, sir,’ the man said, defensively. ‘The boy needed his father’s blood; without it he would have died. But now, of course, they don’t want him to compete any more.’

‘I don’t care what they want,’ Gorman said, coldly. ‘Think of a way to shut them up and keep the boy in the game. If he’s as good as you say he is then he must compete in the final round. We can make the parents disappear if necessary. If they haven’t changed their minds in a few days, let me know and I’ll arrange it. And don’t forget to send me those memories; I want to see what’s going on in his head.’

‘Yes, sir.’

28

THE HEALING CHAMBER

M
ika heard a hum, a warm comforting sound, and he felt vibrations in his leg. He tried to open his eyes so he could look at it, but he felt as if his lids were glued shut and after a while he gave up. He could hear talking somewhere, quiet voices, and for a while he allowed the sound of the conversation to merge with the hum and he didn’t try to listen to what was being said. The vibrations in his leg tickled and as his mind drifted further into consciousness he remembered the blood and the pain and felt a sting of panic as his head filled with sharks, their jagged teeth wafting strips of skin, and their dead black eyes metres from his own. But the pain was gone and the light through his eyelids was warm and bright. He tried to move his hand but couldn’t and had no choice but to relax and feel relieved that the nightmare was over. But was it? The voices belonged to strangers, a man and a woman. He decided to listen to their conversation
and the first sentence hit him like a bucket of ice water so he was instantly alert, praying they didn’t realize he was conscious.

‘His parents want to take him home as soon as he wakes up.’

‘Do they?’

There was a moment of silence.

‘But Mal Gorman said we have to keep him here, whatever it takes. He has the potential to be one of the best.’

‘So what do we do? The parents are already suspicious; they’ll go ballistic if we tell them they
can’t
take their son.’

‘We don’t have to say they can’t take him. We just need to buy some time. If we can keep them here until after the prize-giving dinner so they realize they’ve won a hover car and are in the running for a home in the Golden Turrets, they should change their minds. What if we tell them it will take until tomorrow evening for his leg to heal? They’re poor, they’re not going to know how fast the healing chamber works – they’re still using stitches and bandages in the refugee town hospitals. We’ll let him out today in a hover chair, but we’ll tell the parents he has to come back tomorrow after the prize-giving dinner for another treatment.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Look.’ The voice sounded closer, as if the woman had moved nearer the bed.

Mika’s heart started to race.

‘His fingers twitched, do you think he’s coming round?’

‘Possibly. His heart rate’s gone up. We’ll talk more later.’

Mika listened to the squeak of their shoes on the floor as they walked away, and his first response to what he’d heard was anger. How dare they speak so disrespectfully about his parents? As if they were stupid because they were poor and wouldn’t realize they were being tricked! But when his anger subsided, he felt a dark thrill.

They think I’m one of the best, he thought. I’m still in the game! He smiled inside, relief and happiness crowding out his fear.

But what about his parents? What would he do if they didn’t
change their minds and they refused to let him continue?

Mika worried himself to sleep and several hours later opened his eyes to see a white fan gyrating above him, bathing his face in cool air. He turned his head to see Ellie’s mountain lions leaning against a jug of water by the side of the bed and he felt relieved he hadn’t lost it.

A nurse stepped quietly towards him with a tablet in her hand.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Can you feel any pain?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘It tickles.’

Mika lifted his head to look at his leg. It was encased in a glass bubble.

‘Good,’ said the nurse. She looked at the control panel on the glass bubble and pressed a couple of icons.

‘What is that?’ he asked.

‘A healing chamber,’ she replied. ‘It’s a sort of microwave oven for wounds. It heals in super-quick time.’

‘How long will it take?’ he said, waiting for the lie.

‘You’ll be able to go back to the beach today, but you’ll need another treatment tomorrow night before you go home,’ she replied, without looking at him.

‘Oh,’ said Mika, thinking what a bad liar she was.

‘That wound would have taken weeks to heal a couple of centuries ago,’ she continued. ‘That’s if you hadn’t bled to death to start with. And then you might have got gangrene and had it chopped off.’

She grinned.

‘That’s a nice thought,’ said Mika.

‘You were lucky. The bolt clipped the bone but didn’t break it. You lost a lot of blood, but luckily your father was on hand. You’ve got half a litre of his. Remember to be a good boy and say, “thank you”.’

‘Where is he?’ Mika asked.

‘In the waiting room, with your mother.’

‘Can I see them?’

‘Of course, I’ll tell them you’re awake.’

Asha’s eyes were red and her face was blotchy from crying. David looked pale and angry.

‘Oh Mika!’ Asha cried, grabbing his hand. ‘Tell me exactly what happened!’

‘A girl shot me by mistake,’ he replied. ‘It was an accident, Mum. I’m fine.’

‘But what were you doing? I thought this was supposed to be a game!’

‘We were just shooting targets,’ Mika said flippantly. ‘We’ve been training for days. It was just a freak accident.’

‘Well there won’t be any more “freak accidents”,’ David said angrily. ‘Because we’re taking you home!’

The nurse stepped forward and said the doctor wanted to talk to them, and they left reluctantly. Mika could see them through a window, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. At first the conversation looked heated and his parents looked angry, but by the end of it, they were nodding with resigned expressions on their faces.

‘We can’t take you yet,’ David said, when they’d come back to his bedside. ‘But as soon as you’ve finished your treatment tomorrow night, this is over. Even if you have got through to the final round, you’re not competing any more, it’s not safe.’

Mika left the hospital unit in a hover chair. His leg didn’t hurt at all because it was completely healed – he’d checked when he was in the toilets, and there wasn’t even a scar to show where the bolt had ripped into his leg, but he made a show of wincing now and then to corroborate the lie his parents had been told. All he could do was pray that when they found out about the hover car they would change their minds.

He zipped along in the chair and they found an ice cream hut and asked for strawberry cones. Mika licked his once and the ice cream fell off the top and landed on the sandy path with a splat.

‘Frag,’ he said.

Asha laughed. ‘That happened when you were little; it was so tragic you cried your eyes out!’

She walked back to the ice cream hut and got him another one, and he watched her from his hover chair feeling guilty. When they reached the beach Audrey ran across the sand to meet them.

‘Cool chair!’ she said. ‘Let me see your leg!’

Mika pulled up his shorts so she could see the bandage and her eyes widened with morbid curiosity.

His parents walked ahead to talk to Tasha and Una by the huts.

‘How many sharks did you kill?’ Audrey whispered.

‘Two,’ he said, grinning.

‘And me,’ she said, with her eyes shining.

They shared the details of their games in hurried whispers as they moved towards the hut, then Audrey fell silent and Mika realized she’d had the same kind of problems with her mother and aunt, and that it was not a good idea to talk about flesh-ripping borg sharks, harpoon guns and nearly bleeding to death in their company.

On the steps of their hut, David found a basket left by the Youth Development Foundation. On the handle was a card. The message said, ‘The Youth Development Foundation would like to apologize for the inconvenience caused by your son’s accident. We hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.’ There were plastic flowers and perfume for Asha, a Youth Development Foundation baseball cap and pen for David, and another pen for Mika.

‘Fantastic,’ Mika said sarcastically, clicking the pen so the nib shot in and out.

‘Yuck,’ Asha said, sniffing her perfume with her nose screwed up.

29

JUST TRY AND STOP ME

T
he Welcome Hut looked beautiful for the prize-giving dinner; hundreds of orange lanterns had been strung through the rafters, the tables were decorated with garlands of plastic flowers and when the food arrived, it looked so lovely on the plate, Asha took a photograph so she could remember it when she got home.

Everyone was dressed in their best clothes and Mika thought his mother looked amazing; her skin glowed in the candlelight and the beads on her new red sari glittered like rubies. But there was a hard edge to her smile and she looked impatiently towards the door now and then as if she was keen to leave as soon as possible. His father hardly touched his food and didn’t speak a word for the whole meal and Mika realized the hover car was going to have a hard job changing their minds.

The waiters cleared the desserts from the tables and the Hat
Man took to the stage.

‘Hello, everyone!’ he shouted, throwing his arms in the air. ‘So this is it! The moment of truth! In a few minutes you will know if you are going home with a top-of-the-range, Jaguar hover car!’

The wooden doors swung open to reveal the hover car again, and this time it had a teddy bear sitting in the pilot seat.

‘Just imagine driving that, dads!’ the Hat Man said.

‘Dads?’ Una whispered irritably. ‘What does he think I’d do with one? Paint my nails in it?’

‘Twelve competitors will win a hover car and go through to compete in the final round! But on behalf of the Youth Development Foundation, I would like to say well done to everyone for getting this far! You have all been fantastic competitors and every loser will be getting one of these amazing consolation prizes!’ He held up a box and everyone tried to see inside it. ‘A luxury, four-piece cutlery set! Engraved with the Youth Development Foundation logo! We hope you treasure this gift as a memento of your wonderful time here!’

‘A cutlery set?’ David repeated, angrily. ‘I think Mika deserves more than that!’

‘I don’t know,’ Asha said, sarcastically. ‘We could do with some new cutlery.’

Mika would rather have had a metre of stinking floodwater in their apartment than a Youth Development Foundation cutlery set, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

The Hat Man called the losers to the stage and one by one they collected their cutlery set and left with tears in their eyes.

‘This is painful,’ said Una, ‘Do we have to watch eighty-eight kids go through this?’

‘Looks like it,’ Asha replied. ‘Surely they could have given them the cutlery set later and not made them walk to the stage in front of everyone.’

‘They’re so big, you forget how young they are,’ Tasha mused, gazing at Audrey with misty eyes.

It was a strange experience for Mika watching it all knowing he had won. As the tables emptied around them Audrey gripped his fingers tighter and tighter until he had to prize them off and tell her she was hurting him.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

Eighty-three. Eighty-four ran out of the hut without collecting his cutlery set. Audrey and Leo were still there but so was Ruben. Please let eighty-five be Ruben. No. Please let eighty-six be Ruben. No. Eighty-seven. No.

The last losing name was called.

‘Mark Thomas!’

Poor Mark Thomas; he walked sadly to the stage as the winners began celebrating. Some climbed on the tables and danced, some ran across the hut and threw themselves on the bonnet of the hover car, and before Mark Thomas had left the stage with his Youth Development Foundation cutlery set, a team of waiters were pushing an ice sculpture of a dolphin into the centre of the room and all around the bottom, sitting in glittering diamonds of ice, were bottles of champagne with Jaguar key cards tied to them.

But amidst the joy, three people remained in their seats: Mika, stuck in his hover chair, and his parents.

‘You did it,’ David said quietly, watching one of the dads throw the teddy out of the hover car and climb into the pilot’s seat.

‘So?’ Asha said, angrily. ‘What price did he pay? I don’t care about the hover car; this changes nothing. I mean it, David, he is
not
going to compete in the final round.’

One by one the winners’ names were called by the Hat Man and they walked up to the ice sculpture to collect the bottle of champagne and the key to their hover car, which would be delivered later to their homes. Some faltered for a moment, their faces bathed in icy light while they decided which bottle to choose, which was dumb, because they were all the same. Ruben grabbed his and shook it as if he was a racing driver. Audrey hugged hers
to her chest and bounced back to their table like Tigger. Leo took his quickly and slipped away to the corner of the room. Mika was so overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings he couldn’t remember how he got there in the hover chair, let alone how he picked up the bottle. His mother’s last words were ringing in his head: ‘He is
not
going to compete in the last round.’

Well you just try and stop me, he thought.