The Illusionists Read online

  His hand went down the inside pocket of his trousers, and there, lying against his inner thigh – relief. He still had it. They hadn’t taken it. Maybe they didn’t know about the pocket. If they’d kept up with the latest fashion, they would have.

  He fished the bottle out and gripped it in his fist.

  ‘Do you have an itch?’ came Greta’s annoying grate.

  He popped the cap open and shook out two.

  Three.

  Four.

  Five pills.

  ‘What’s that?’ she said, her voice suddenly sharp.

  ‘Something you missed,’ he whispered, and swallowed the pills.

  His eyes went up to the screen. She was looking at him in complete, naked shock. The sight would sustain him for a long time to come. She knew what the pills were. She knew he’d lied about the technician. She knew everything, suddenly. It was all over her face.

  ‘What have you done?’ she said.

  He lay back.

  ‘You’ll overdose!’

  The door opened, and a technician came running in. He went straight to the drip, his eyes glazed with Life.

  It was all over, and there was only one place left to go.

  ‘Stupid boy,’ he heard Greta say. She sounded strange. Almost sad.

  The drug kicked in. It was like being slammed full-body against a wall. He shot across the universe, racing the stars. It seemed a long time before he reached the Castle, arriving out of breath, everything moving too slowly for him, as if he were galloping far ahead and time and space were behind, shouting at his back to wait for them.

  He had no idea how long he had. If four times the drug would give him four times the length of stay, or if he would simply burn out four times as quick. Or if any of that stuff even mattered here. He came out of the room he found himself in, a room that was a parody of the hospital room he’d just left, complete with a ghostly shadow technician, like a sentry made of smoke next to his bed.

  The corridors were endless, but he would search them all.

  He set off, calling hello as he went in the loudest voice he could. He realised it wasn’t sound he was making. He was calling with his mind, and his mind echoed off the walls of this place, carrying through the stone, or the paper, or the wood, or whatever the walls were made of. He suspected they weren’t made of anything he would know. The wood and the stone were what he saw. Other visitors would see whatever made sense to them.

  He wondered what the monsters saw.

  It didn’t take long, or it did – he wasn’t sure which. But after a time, he knew he was being followed.

  He stopped.

  Whatever it was stopped with him.

  He turned around, insides lurching.

  It was a mirror.

  No.

  It was him.

  He’d expected black sticks creeping across the walls again, or wet jelly eyes bigger than his head, or something with tentacles. He’d never liked tentacles. But what stood in their place was a very ordinary looking human figure. His height. His face. His body.

  Wren stared at himself.

  His copy stared back.

  He felt an awful sinking feeling, a cold wash of realisation swim behind his eyes.

  ‘You’re the Ghost Girl,’ he said, his voice savage. She just loved to change her look, didn’t she? She’d never turned into him before, but there was a first time for everything.

  The Wren copy tilted its head.

  ‘What?’ it said, in his voice. ‘Oh. No, this isn’t her. She’s a visitor here, like you.’

  Wren stared at it, untrusting.

  The Wren copy looked back.

  ‘But you can change shape, like she can,’ he said, accusingly.

  ‘Everything can change shape here. You can change shape here.’

  ‘What? I can?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve never tried? No. You’ve never tried.’ It answered its own question, as if suddenly receiving it from some invisible source.

  It’s copied your memories, said his voice. It can see you’ve never tried by looking through your memories.

  ‘The shape you wear here is just a habit,’ said the Wren copy. ‘You adopt it unthinkingly. But you could change it if you wanted.’

  Wren couldn’t stop looking at it. Was that really how pointy his chin was?

  ‘But … then I wouldn’t be me,’ he said, still cautious.

  It looked human. It even seemed like it had the weight and texture of a human. He could feel his fear draining away rapidly, now he was faced with something he understood.

  That was dangerous, wasn’t it? Because underneath, it was still a monster.

  ‘Of course you would,’ said the Wren copy, impatient. It sounded impatient. Presumably the same way he did. ‘You are you. Shape means too much to you, when it should mean nothing.’

  ‘Why did you choose to look like me, then?’

  ‘So we can understand each other better. It’s easier to talk to you in a shape you recognise.’

  ‘Why have you never done this before?’

  What kind of thing chooses to look like a monster?

  The Wren copy put its head on one side, as if it was considering what to say.

  ‘Well … I wanted to eat you before,’ it said. ‘Can’t eat you in this kind of shape.’

  Wren took a step backwards.

  ‘What do you want?’ he faltered.

  ‘What do you want?’ it shot back. God, it was … it was really him. It was the strangest feeling, to stare into yourself. Watch yourself talk and gesture, watch emotion cross your own face. ‘Last time you were here you said you wanted to open the Castle.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It smiled.

  ‘That’s easy,’ it said. ‘Do you know how?’

  ‘No,’ he said, while inside he skipped with excitement. ‘Can you teach me?’

  It laughed.

  Did he really laugh like that? What a strange, fake sound.

  ‘There’s nothing to teach,’ it said. ‘I can simply show you.’

  Wren tried not to crow into the ceiling. Nothing could stop this now. Just, please, let the drug keep working. Keep him here. Everything was riding on it. Hurry hurry hurry said his voice. Before Greta pumps your body full of some other drug she hasn’t told you about, some neutraliser designed to drag you back screaming into the real world.

  If you pull this off, you’ll never have to face the real world again.

  But still, there was something that pulled him back. A voice he mostly ignored that told him to think about this for a minute. Just think about what this might mean. Think about the fact that it was a monster in front of him, a monster that wanted to eat him.

  It seemed so laughable now, though. Now it looked like him, it just seemed like a joke they’d shared. No one ate humans. They were the top of the food chain.

  Monsters weren’t real. Well, okay, they were real here, but not really real. This wasn’t a real place. It wouldn’t be real until it was opened.

  The copy must have sensed his hesitation.

  ‘It’s really easy,’ it said. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’

  His copy’s body looked like it was straining towards him, pulling at a leash that he couldn’t see. But it didn’t move forward an inch.

  It’s trying not to scare you away.

  It looks like you so you’ll trust it and you won’t run and disappear like last time. It thinks you’re afraid.

  ‘What happens?’ said Wren. ‘When the Castle is opened. What happens?’

  ‘Everything you want. Everything you’ve always wanted. Everything normal stops. Everyone can explore. All the things you hate will go away.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  It was practically vibrating.

  ‘Why can’t you open it?’ said Wren.

  ‘It needs someone from outside it to open it. And you need to want to open it. Everything always runs. But you stopped running. You’re different. You’re special.�
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  Why is it flattering you so much?

  Because it wants something, Wren snapped back. It wants the same thing I do.

  ‘What do I have to do?’ he said.

  ‘Just stay still. That’s all you have to do. Stay still and let yourself open.’

  ‘Let myself open?’ Wren echoed. ‘How do I do that?’

  It paused. Maybe trawling through his memories again.

  ‘The way you feel when you’re in the blackness,’ it said, at last. ‘The feeling of possibility – the endless, boundless possibility of blackness and of nothing. You feel nothing there. It’s only when you think of where you want to go that you start to feel something. The weight of the real place that drags you back.’

  Wren found himself nodding along. That was it. That was it, just so.

  ‘Think of the nothingness,’ it said. ‘Think of it now. And that’s it.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Do it now,’ it said. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  The drug might stop working, urged the voice. And then you’ll go back to a world that has nothing for you, nothing except people like Greta who try to cage you and dissect you and don’t give one tiny little crap about you. People like White who cast you off like an old jacket with holes in, not a second goddamn thought.

  Stupid, stupid people everywhere, just screwing up the world, not because they can, but because they’re nothing more than thoughtless, mindless animals. They’re born, they eat, they work, they churn out more copies of themselves who will do exactly the same thing, and then they die.

  There’s nothing for you back there.

  Be something. Show them. Change it all.

  Don’t back out now, you fucking coward.

  Wren closed his eyes. It was easy to think of nothing here, in this strange nothing place that tried to be everything at once. He let go.

  And then he felt something touch his head. It was touching his head.

  He flinched automatically, but the touch didn’t go away. He tried to twist and turn, a fish on the end of a hook. He couldn’t see what it was. The pressure grew, gripping his skull, surrounding his head. No … it was in his head. He screwed his eyes shut, the pain throbbing into him, too much to think or do anything about.

  Then came a horrible, awful sucking sensation.

  It was sucking on his head.

  Maybe he was screaming. He could no longer tell. Nothing was everything. He felt like his mind was being peeled back, layer by layer, every discarded layer allowing more of everything in until it flooded him, everything. He could see and feel it all.

  Everything is everything, he thought, incoherent. I am everything.

  It’s all over.

  The last thing he thought of was White’s face.

  His long, shining hair.

  CHAPTER 27

  WORLD

  RUE

  They sat in a circle in Rue’s bedroom.

  Livie was there. Cho said she trusted her with anything. Hackers traded in secrets, secrets were currency, and they were making Livie rich. Livie, rather than feel annoyed at all this disruption to her life, seemed eager.

  White sat quietly, his hair pulled back into its customary plait. Rue was painfully aware of him. Every shift his body made, the sounds of him up close.

  She paused a moment, trying to ignore their eyes on her face, trying to order her thoughts. For a while, she’d thought about how much to tell them. How much to explain and how much to keep to herself. Not lie – she couldn’t do that. Just not say everything.

  But that was all wrong, wasn’t it? Truth was their only way out now. If people just told the truth from the beginning, things might be so different. If they thought her mad, then that was something she would have to deal with. But she had to try first. She had to give them that.

  Rue looked up.

  ‘I’m going to say something that will make you think I’m insane,’ she began, picking her way slowly across the words. ‘Some things for you, Cho and Livie, that might make you wonder what’s wrong with me. But there are some things that even you will have trouble believing.’ On the you she looked at White. He was gazing at her steadily.

  ‘Livie’s a gullible jack, she’ll believe anything,’ said Cho, and laughed. Livie shoved her. They were nervous. It showed in their shoulders, the way they set their mouths.

  You should be, she thought.

  ‘There’s a place we call the Castle,’ she said out loud.

  Her eyes flickered to White. He nodded.

  ‘White and I, we’ve both been there. But I think you can get there even if you’re not Talented. You just need to be pulled there by someone who is.’ She glanced at Livie.

  ‘S’okay,’ said Cho. ‘She knows about the Talent.’

  ‘I have a cousin … ’ said Livie, trailing off.

  Good. It had just become a little easier.

  ‘Think of the Castle’, said Rue, ‘like a Life building. A Life building only exists in Life, right? Well, the Castle is like that. It exists somewhere, somehow – but maybe not in a way we conventionally understand. When you go there, you know that you’re not in a place that behaves like normal places. It’s filled with rooms. Rooms that show you your past. You could go into a room and it could be from your childhood, and you see your own memories unfold before you. Or you could go into another room and it shows you … it shows you the future. A future you, an older you, doing something you never remember doing before. And this place is endless, endlessly amazing. You could wander it for days, only days don’t pass there the way they do in the real world. You could get lost in it. Think of all the incredible things you could see.

  But you can’t. Because there’s something else in the Castle with you. They live there. It’s their home, the in-between place of all realities. And they are enormous. And they are terrifying. And what they like absolutely best of all is eating you.’

  She saw White’s outline twitch in the corner of her eye. He had closed his eyes for a moment, and his face had that strange sharp, shadowed outline when someone felt sick. Cho was looking at him curiously.

  ‘So you run. You have to avoid them, but it’s like they can smell you and they just keep coming after you. But it’s okay because you can leave the Castle if you want, and they can’t. You can wake up. But what if someone wanted to open the Castle?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Livie, who looked enthralled, as if Rue were telling a particularly good story.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Rue, honestly. ‘All I know is that it lets them out into the real world. She wouldn’t tell me much more. Just that there were hardly any humans left. That it was awful.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t tell you?’ said Cho.

  Here was the really tricky part.

  ‘A girl from the future,’ said Rue. She tried to make it sound as bland as possible, as if she were talking about some girl they all knew. In a sense, she was. But she couldn’t tell them who the girl was, not yet. She just couldn’t. In this airy, bright room, with the sleek trappings of technology all around them. In this kind of world, it sounded like a silly fairy tale.

  ‘Oh,’ said Cho, amused. ‘Right.’

  Livie tutted at her. ‘Hush.’

  ‘You’re not saying you believe this, are you?’ Cho rolled her eyes.

  Rue watched them anxiously. It was falling down, so soon.

  ‘Think of it like this,’ she cut in. ‘When I first learned of World, I thought it was magical. No, listen, Cho. Listen to exactly what I’m saying. I couldn’t understand food units, or Life, or implants. I still don’t, not really. But in the beginning all I saw was a magic box that gave me food from nothing. When I first went into Life, I saw walls come alive, and things so real I swore I could touch them, even though they’re not real. They’re just trickery projected into my brain. But I didn’t know that. If you don’t know how something works, if it’s beyond you, you’ll call it magic. D’you see?

  ‘I think the Castle is like
that. I think the Talented are like that. They’re beyond our understanding right now. So all we can see is magic. But if we knew more, we’d just call it clever technology. We’d look at a Talented’s make-up … the things, the things they’re made from … ’ She faltered and looked desperately at White.

  ‘Genetics,’ he said.

  ‘Genetics. We’d look at them and point to a spot and say “there”. That’s what makes someone Talented. And then everyone would know, and it wouldn’t look like magic any more.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ said Cho. ‘I mean, I’m not saying I … But I understand what you mean. Just keep going.’

  ‘So,’ Rue continued, feeling a small surge of relief. ‘This is where it gets to the part you might have trouble with.’ She forced herself to look directly at White.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You’ve met her before, the girl from the future. It’s the girl who looks like a ghost.’

  His face cleared, and for a moment he looked shocked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, fast.

  ‘Let me just get this all out. In the future, in her future, she says that you stay friends with Wren.’

  She couldn’t help it – she watched his eyes for a reaction. It was there – a flash – and then it was gone. Pain, or something. Anger.

  ‘You and he are great friends,’ Rue said. ‘And you both want to open the Castle. I don’t know why. Maybe you know, though.’

  He was silent.

  ‘Maybe you don’t know what will happen, not really. But when you open it, that’s it. That’s the turning point. Everything goes wrong from there. And she’s trying to stop it from ever going wrong.’

  Silence. All eyes were on White.

  ‘How?’ he said.

  ‘She separated you. She said that only you and he together were strong enough to open the Castle.’

  ‘Separated us how?’ he said urgently.

  Rue knew what he was feeling. She knew because she’d felt it herself.

  My life might not be my own. My mistakes might not be my own.

  ‘She helped Wren leave Angle Tar,’ she said. ‘She changed the past to stop the future.’

  ‘So … it worked,’ said Cho. ‘Rue, you’re away from this Wren guy now. And so are you, Jacob. So you’re separated.’