The Illusionists Read online

  ‘I hate this game,’ he muttered, out loud and barely conscious of it.

  ‘It’s nearly over,’ said Frith. ‘One way or another.’

  White’s heart spiked in fear.

  An image of a golden-skinned boy, dappled by sunlight and laughing as he disappeared, flashed into his mind.

  More scenes came to him from Frith’s drunken confession that night a few months ago. A crowd of children, a young Frith in the middle, small and sweet-looking, gazing at the golden boy’s proud face. Ruining his life, and doing it because he couldn’t get what he wanted. Because of love.

  A knock came from outside the bedroom door. After a moment, Frith got up from the bed.

  ‘Come in,’ he called.

  The door opened inwards and an older face peered around the edge of it.

  ‘Syer?’

  ‘Take this, would you?’ said Frith, pointing at the man crumpled on the floor. ‘See that he’s secure. I’d like to talk to him when he wakes up.’

  Two men came in. They must have been well trained – neither of them showed the slightest hint of surprise at the man. They took hold of him and dragged him out. He still hadn’t woken, or moved. Whatever Frith did in those short seconds had been effective.

  And just how had Frith called them in, anyway? White hadn’t seen him do it. They had simply shown up.

  ‘Well,’ said Frith brightly, when they had left the room. ‘I think your sleep has been disturbed enough for one night. I’m going to go and see what we can find out from him. I’ll come and find you between classes in the morning. Try not to worry. It won’t happen again, I can assure you.’

  White nodded. He felt like a child, and a pet, and a prisoner, and something else darker that he couldn’t even name.

  He watched Frith leave, and then waited as long as he dared.

  He had to be sure, even if there was a chance they were still watching.

  He started with the bed. He ran his fingers across every surface of it, checking the headboard, and the sides, and underneath the mattress. He stood on it, skirting over the lamp bracket on the wall above his head.

  He moved to the bedside table, feeling its smooth insides.

  He checked every wall for bumps and holes, sketching his fingers lightly across the wallpaper.

  He started to think that he had been completely, utterly and embarrassingly wrong, when he found it. Nestled in the wooden bracket of a wall lamp and about as big as a fingernail. It looked fairly innocuous. Even in daylight it could be mistaken for an imperfection in the wood. But buried in the hole at the edge that pointed towards his bed and the rest of his room was a tiny, tiny lens.

  Frith had a camera in his bedroom.

  Frith had a camera.

  In his bedroom.

  Frith could see everything. Frith watched him. He watched him in his own private space. He might sit there for hours, watching him sleep. Who knew what he did in his sleep?

  Frith had been watching him sleep tonight.

  World technology in Angle Tar. It utterly failed to surprise him that Angle Tar would possess such a thing at the same time as it was illegal to even know about technology like that. It would be bought on the black market, but only those little things that would aid the government in protecting its citizens. Of course. Cameras would fit in nicely with that.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, his hands clasped tightly together on his lap. His stomach rolled, and for a moment he thought he would be sick on the rug, right there. The urge passed, but the nausea remained.

  He felt very small, and very alone.

  Are you going to do something about this, finally?

  His thoughts turned fierce and snapping, like a cornered dog, but just as quickly they fled. They came occasionally, these angry waves of rebellion, and he had no choice but to let them pass. They didn’t help him.

  He remembered Frith’s words. ‘It’s nearly over, one way or another.’

  He was afraid. Truly and completely.

  CHAPTER 9

  WORLD

  WREN

  Greta Hammond’s avatar was beautiful, even by World standards.

  Today her gold hair was artfully pinned to look precarious, as if it would spill down her neck at any moment, and she wore a loose, open-necked shirt that hugged her tiny frame perfectly. She was lovely.

  She was also the most devious bitch Wren had ever known.

  He watched her lean forward on the screen stuck up on the opposite wall. A loose hair curl brushed lazily against her neck.

  ‘How’s our latest recruit?’ she said.

  Wren shifted uncomfortably on the test bed. He hated pleasing her. He’d never really liked pleasing anyone, truth be told – but there was something in her, a god-awful knowing, manipulative core, that made him automatically want to do the opposite of anything she said.

  ‘Adjusting,’ he answered, eventually.

  ‘And the language pack is working out?’

  ‘Yes, which is a relief. It’s really quite irritating having to talk to her in Angle Tarain.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s your native language, Wren. Surely you’re used to the sensation.’

  ‘I prefer World. It’s … less restrictive. Talking in Angle Tarain is like having to dance with a stick up your backside.’

  Greta laughed. The laugh was careful, like the rest of her.

  ‘You are eager to shed the old Wren, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘I can understand that, after all you’ve been through.’

  Everything she said seemed to have several meanings at once. It was easier to keep quiet, but she didn’t like that. She liked to provoke until he talked. And he wasn’t very good at quiet, anyway.

  ‘There’ll be no problems from their end,’ she was saying. ‘Frith will keep his part of the bargain – no attempts on their side to get Rue back.’

  Wren snorted. ‘So we’ll just bow to their wishes like good little children and hide away over here? There’s a couple more I think I could get, if you let me try again.’

  ‘Our end of the deal was to leave White alone, not the rest of them.’

  He sat up straighter. ‘So I can go back?’

  ‘Patience. We have more pressing priorities right now.’

  Tests. Always tests.

  He felt sick, and suddenly violent about the whole thing. Greta was head of Talent research here – he had been handed over to her almost as soon as he’d arrived in World. Most people didn’t seem to care exactly how the Talented worked – especially not in Angle Tar. But Greta wanted to poke around inside, peeling back his layers until he spilled his guts out for her to root around in. Needles and drugs were commonplace to him now.

  He needed to be useful again. He needed to do. Poaching Rue from the Angle Tarain group for Greta had been the most fun he’d had in months. Surely they should be training him up as a spy? That was what Frith had been doing with his Talented – everyone knew it. But here they didn’t seem to trust the Talented. They saw them less like normal human beings and more like exotic creatures that had to be caged and understood.

  How dare they violate him. How dare they try to chain him. He should refuse. Today should be the day when he told her where to shove her tests.

  She saw it. ‘You’re going to have to make your peace with this, Wren,’ she said, a gentle warning note creeping into her voice. ‘If you want to stay. You’d like eventually to get permanent citizenship; I know you would.’

  More fool you, he thought savagely. I’m not your citizen. I don’t belong anywhere.

  But let her think that, if she liked. A practised grumpy expression flittered across his face. She saw it and seemed satisfied.

  He knew better than to ask; she didn’t enjoy his questions. But that had never stopped him before, so he asked.

  ‘What are you going to do with Rue?’

  He had begun to suspect something for a while now. Greta had never told him exactly why she’d wanted to poach from Angle Tar, or why she’d encouraged him to go for
Rue in particular. But he thought that it might have been the same reason that he had wanted to take Rue.

  Because of White.

  Greta raised a brow.

  ‘I’m just curious why you wanted her so much,’ he said, with a light smile. ‘It’s not like she’s amazingly Talented. She can’t even Jump without help.’

  ‘As I recall, you were rather eager yourself to go after Rue when we found out what she was to White.’ Greta smiled indulgently. ‘Your little feud.’

  He hadn’t bothered to hide it; that was true.

  ‘It’s not a feud,’ he said, affecting nonchalance. ‘Because it’s over. I don’t care any more. I won.’

  ‘And what if he ever came after you for revenge? He tried to kill you, didn’t he?’

  Wren felt his chest tighten – the memory of that gun pointed at his face, and White on the other end of it, his eyes freezing cold and black.

  But in front of Greta he yawned, passing his hand lazily over his mouth.

  ‘Well, I admire your confidence,’ she said.

  ‘You doubt my Talent?’

  ‘Not at all. You’re the most Talented boy I’ve seen. Apart from him.’

  Bile flooded his throat, but he choked it down with an easy laugh.

  ‘Now you’re trying to make me angry.’

  ‘No, Wren. Just reining in that cockiness of yours. I think you’ve been too long used to power. People like you need people like him to remind you of your own mortality. You keep each other in check.’

  Greta laughed, the noise like a fluting bird. Venomous snake. Inside his head he thrashed and raged. He crossed his arms but said no more. He’d lost this round. She was a hard one to play the game with. Some opponents were more formidable than others. But everyone did it, manipulating where they could, all out for what they could get. If he faltered, he would lose. Only the weak lost.

  ‘Shall we begin today’s set?’ she said, nodding at the two technicians standing patiently in the corner of the room. They came forward and began to fiddle with a small set of machines on a table next to Wren’s test bed. He’d stopped watching them prepare by now – he couldn’t even begin to fathom how any of their equipment worked.

  ‘Begin procedure one,’ said the fatter technician, and he waved his hand in a curt gesture, activating something in Life that only he could see.

  The air over Wren’s body felt suddenly heavy and strange.

  It was like being stroked, at first.

  Such a light touch as to just raise the hairs on his skin and brush them, gently, gently.

  Then the touch grew a little heavier, more pressing than stroking. Something like pens being rolled down his arms.

  Then it started to pinch.

  Then it started to hurt.

  However much Wren tried not to give the two men watching him the satisfaction of listening to him whimper, those pathetic little noises always managed to escape between his clenched teeth.

  They talked in quiet tones above his head, as if he wasn’t there. They didn’t need to ask him questions about how he felt – all they did was toss brief glances to the side, eyes glazed as they checked the readouts in Life: his heart rate, body temperature, nerve responses, brain patterns. And he knew that each bit of data was being recorded, so they could look through it in more detail later. All they were really there for was to make sure that it didn’t go too far. That he didn’t become permanently damaged, or die.

  He knew this because they had explained as much to him the first time.

  He was supposed to take the pain. He was supposed to be strong, so they could measure how far he could go before buckling. They tinkered with his thresholds, adjusting carefully, testing and prodding. They did it as if he wasn’t even real.

  When he got home later and Rue caught sight of him, she would be all eyebrows up and looking at him with her stupidly open face, each emotion on display for everyone to see. Because he’d look awful. He always did, on a test day. She’d ask questions. The girl was one giant, irritating, relentless question mark. It was hard to keep smiling, keep telling her not to worry, when all he really wanted to do was crawl into bed and not exist for a while. Why didn’t she just accept things? Why did she have to know about everything?

  Complaining to Greta got him nothing; she didn’t care about him or Rue. All she wanted him to do was obey. Well, he had, hadn’t he, as long as it suited him?

  It was really beginning not to suit him any more.

  No choice there, though – not right now, at least. He had to bide his time. Biding his time was not something he was very good at.

  It’s not forever, Wren.

  Just keep playing the game until you can figure out your next move.

  The pain stopped, all at once.

  ‘How was that?’ said Greta, peering out from the holographic screen.

  ‘Fine,’ said Wren. But his voice came out broken, and he struggled with a sudden flare of temper.

  Never let them see your weakness!

  ‘No worse than childbirth,’ she replied. He didn’t know whether she was making a joke, or expecting him to reply in some fashion. He doubted anyone in World knew what childbirth felt like, let alone Greta. Sabine had told him a while ago about safe Cs – people had an appointment at the medical hall on a nice convenient date and a doctor removed their baby while they were unconscious. This culture didn’t understand pain. They’d carefully circumvented almost all circumstances in which you could be in it. It was an admirable thing to have done. Who the hell wanted to feel pain?

  Of course, they seemed to have no issue with inflicting it.

  ‘Tee eye two zero one,’ said one of the technicians over Wren’s head. The other nodded.

  ‘What?’ said Wren.

  No one replied.

  He watched them fiddle with a tiny bottle of colourless liquid, plunging a needle into its sealed top and filling the syringe.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘It’s a new version of the inducer,’ said Greta.

  ‘No.’

  Greta raised a brow.

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘I don’t want you putting that shit in me again.’

  There was a silence while everyone in the room tried to work out how to respond. He could see each option run through their faces. Restrain him? How? He was here by choice. If he wanted, he could simply Jump out of here.

  All right, ‘choice’ was a strong word. If he had choice, he wouldn’t be here at all.

  ‘It’s been improved, Wren,’ said Greta finally. ‘It shouldn’t have such unpleasant side effects this time.’

  ‘Oh good! That’s a weight off my mind.’

  ‘Wren –’

  ‘You didn’t have to endure those side effects, did you? No. I did. I’m not doing it again. Besides, it doesn’t even work.’

  ‘Think for a moment. This is an important step towards progress. If we can get this drug working, we can use it on the Talented who don’t have control over their abilities the same way you do. They can take the drug and induce the Talent, and we won’t have to waste precious time waiting around for them to learn how to do it themselves!’

  Her voice had become forceful. He couldn’t tell whether she really was impassioned or just faking to get him to do it. Either way, she’d misjudged him. He didn’t want hordes of drugged-up Talented running around. The only Talented he wanted running around was him.

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘And get that needle away from me before I start feeling violent.’

  The technician who had been surreptitiously hovering by his arm froze.

  Greta sighed.

  Her eyes slid to the other technician, who walked around the back of Wren. He tried to twist around but before he could move, arms came down around his neck and pressed into his chest, locking him into place.

  The pain from the previous test had made him weak. He struggled, but it was a pathetic attempt, all slow and trembling. The arms around him didn’t even shift. He felt his arm gr
ipped tightly against the chair rest. A sharp little pain on the skin as the needle punctured its way in.

  Nothing, for a moment.

  Then his heart slammed into his ribcage and every hair on his body stood on end and he felt charged, like he could run screaming headfirst into the ceiling. His mind was tumbling over and over, a slot machine spinning past choices and thoughts too fast for him to pick. He couldn’t think or decide and there was no path, there was just spinning, and he gasped to keep up but there was no keeping up with that. The drug pounded inside him, forcing him on, and he couldn’t fight.

  The Castle flashed briefly into his mind.

  And then the pain was gone, the lights were gone, the arms around him were gone.

  He wasn’t in the test room any more. He wasn’t anywhere in World.

  He was in the Castle.

  The cold prickled his skin.

  He stood up, carefully. The weight of the air here was heavier, somehow, lying like a coat over his frame. Closing in.

  He felt an enormous thrill run through him. Terrified and elated in equal measure. Here again, and so soon.

  He couldn’t believe it. He’d never once been able to come here without the Ghost Girl before, try as he might. She had always, always pulled him here. He looked around for her, but she was nowhere in sight.

  Jesus, Greta, he thought. Your drug.

  It works.

  A shuffling noise to his right made him whip around, heart pounding. It was the technician who had held him down. He was on the floor, his eyes wide and staring, his expression wild.

  ‘Ha,’ said Wren. His voice echoed around the room. The technician jerked.

  ‘Let me guess. You’re Talented.’

  The technician looked like he might be sick.

  ‘What?’ he whispered eventually.

  ‘We’re in the Castle. I’ve no idea how, but somehow I’ve pulled you here with me. I doubt I’d be able to do that with a Talentless.’

  Wren stalked up to the technician’s prone figure on the flagstones. Power over someone felt good here. In the Castle you were nearly always powerless.

  He crouched, and stared into the technician’s face.

  ‘So the whole time you’ve been sticking needles in me and electrocuting me and forcing drug cocktails into me, you were a hypocritical, lying little bastard,’ he said brightly. ‘And I’m supposing Greta doesn’t know about this. I’m supposing no one knows about this.’