Mind Games Read online

  ‘I dropped it. That’s all!’

  She shakes her head. ‘Don’t bother, Luna. So. My first thought: that isn’t clever. My second thought: it is irrational. Or is it? What would leaving evidence of your identity behind at the scene of your breaking and entering, and assault upon my person, actually achieve? And I’ve come to one conclusion. You wanted to get caught. But why?’ She pauses, as if waiting for an answer, but I’m too stunned she worked it out to come up with anything.

  ‘The answer is obvious. I’m not giving you what you want, Luna. Your elaborate plan has failed. You won’t be expelled.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be punished, oh no. Once the tests are under way next week, we’ll find some interesting extra lessons for you to do for the rest of the school year. I haven’t decided quite what yet, but they will be very…interesting. You can alleviate your fate, in part, if you identify your accomplice.’

  ‘I acted alone.’

  ‘Oh, really? You, a Refuser, hacked into the school security system? And not only that, you did it at the very same time as entering my office?’ She shakes her head. ‘Even you aren’t that clever. Now get to class.’

  She has Robson escort me to my classroom door. When I open it, every face looks up with shock. It seems consensus was that I’d never be seen again. I sit down, and Rachel squeezes my arm.

  I’m a minor celebrity. Even though I don’t confirm or deny anything, everyone put Goodwin’s clown face and Robson hauling me off at lunch together, and by the end of day came up with the right answer for a change. Students who’ve ignored my existence for years break into spontaneous applause when we go down the stairs.

  Despite being totally weirded out by what Goodwin said, worried about what will happen next week and, most of all, upset that I didn’t get expelled so I could spend the last pointless months of school before work placements away from this place, it is kind of fun.

  Until I get home.

  3

  My stepmother Sally is waiting for me as soon as I walk through the door.

  ‘Bea tells me you were trying to get expelled. Are you insane?’

  There is a very big disadvantage to having my stepmother going to the same virtual gym as my head teacher. I walk through to the kitchen to get a drink, and she follows.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ she says. ‘I’ve a good mind to get your father in here, and—’

  I look up. I know an empty threat when I hear one. ‘Please do. I haven’t seen him in weeks.’

  There is a giggle from the corner, and I go and slip an arm over Nanna’s shoulders. She switches back to humming, rocking back and forth slightly in her seat.

  My stepmother flops down in a chair in front of us. ‘Luna, I just don’t understand. Why would you try to get expelled?’

  And she looks genuinely distressed, and worried, and I’m contrite.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally. I don’t want to upset you. But what is the point to finishing the year? I’m well out of the grade bracket to get a Test appointment. The rest of the year is just all the failures marking time, before whatever dire work placement headed our way begins.’

  ‘If she’d expelled you, that’d be on your record forever, Luna. We’ve got enough problems in this family without you adding to them more than you have already.’

  And I stiffen. Now and then I think she is human, but it always comes back to that: her shame at being associated with our gene pool, that her son is tainted by it forever – by a half-sister who is a Refuser, a grandmother who is away with the fairies. And then there is my infamous mother.

  Sally stands up again. ‘Whatever your reasons, you’re grounded. Forever.’

  ‘Well, since I have such an amazing social life, that’ll really hurt. Got anything else? Deny me virtual access, maybe?’

  She stomps off. Nanna sticks out her tongue, and I stifle a giggle.

  Dinner: no Dad as usual, and Sally is giving me the silent treatment, but Jason doesn’t notice. How such a cute kid came out of such a miserable woman is one of life’s great mysteries. Jason babbles on about Virtual Harry Potter World: at ten years old, a few months ago, he finally got access to more levels. And he was SO excited to meet Luna. My namesake. He can’t understand why I won’t plug in and play with him.

  ‘Couldn’t you, just this once…’ Sally says, finally breaking the wall of silence.

  ‘No. I can’t. In case you might have forgotten, that is kind of what being a Refuser is all about.’

  ‘But it’s so much fun, Luna,’ Jason says, and starts telling me all about playing Quidditch, before disappearing to plug in and play some more.

  Before heading up for the night, I go to Dad’s office. Check his life support. His skin is pale, too pale. How long has it been since he’s unplugged? I check a screen log – weeks. I consider an emergency unplug, but what would my excuse be this time? Being pulled from whatever game he is guiding newbies through this evening would make him as grumpy as imaginable. These evening hours are prime time for paying customers. I blow him a kiss, and turn out the light.

  That night it’s the same nightmare, but knowing what it is doesn’t make it stop. There is no escape.

  I’m lying still. It’s warm, soothing; I want to sleep, to drift, to both plug in and disconnect at the same time. To be part of the Game at last.

  Click. The interface shimmers, my vision goes soft. But I’m not in; at least, not properly. The screens and room around me are all still here. But the virtual hallway beckons. My stomach lurches, and I fight to make reality disappear. I hate it.

  I stand, and enter the hall. One step; two. And stupidly, I start to hope. This time, it will be different. This time, I will belong. I hear voices, laughter through doors that beckon and tempt in the hall, and I reach to push one of them open.

  Then the floor shimmers, and disappears.

  I grasp wildly around me but everything turns to smoke, vanishes, and I fall. Hurtling down, faster and faster. Screams rush past me as the virtual world collapses, is gone, turns to nothing. And I know I will fall, gain speed, faster and faster until veins and skin and organs stretch out and burst apart; until I’m not a person any more, but a blur, a smudge.

  But then a hand reaches out.

  It grabs my arm tight, in a claw grip. My arm almost rips from its socket, but somehow it holds, and I stop: like slamming into a brick wall. From freefall to no movement at all, in an instant.

  The pain is so intense… I wake up.

  Not a dream, at least not that part of it: there are hands clenched on both of my arms now, digging painfully into my skin.

  Early morning casts enough light through the window to show wild, panicked eyes. Dark grey-streaked hair in wisps about a drawn face.

  ‘Luna, you’re in danger.’ A hissed whisper. ‘You must hide. You have to live; so much depends on you.’

  My heart thuds painfully in my chest from the fear of the fall, the abrupt end to the usual dream. I breathe in and out, try to steady myself so I can steady her.

  I reach my hands to hers, gently ease her fingers one by one from my arms until they release, and then hold her hands in mine.

  ‘Nanna, everything’s fine. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Don’t let them notice you, Luna, or all will be lost.’ Her eyes are bright, penetrating and focused. She is so rarely present this way, that even though I know it isn’t really her any more, that she doesn’t know what she is even saying most of the time, I can’t help myself. I hope. That she’ll come back to me, be the woman who made up mad adventures with me as the hero; who taught me about the beauty of numbers, and made every day add up to magic. Who told me I must keep my secret, hold it close and dear like life itself.

  Who held me, night after night, after my mother died.


  She starts to tremble, and I sit up and pull her next to me, slip an arm over her shoulders. She is so small, so slight now. It is hard to know where the strength came from to grip my arms so tight that the imprint of her hands is still felt on my skin. Interesting hand-shaped bruises are probably on the way: that’ll give school idiots something else to laugh about.

  ‘Did you take your meds last night?’ I ask her, but she is gone again. To wherever she usually goes. She starts to hum, smiling, rocking back and forth to music only she can hear.

  ‘Come on, Nanna,’ I say, and stand, pull her to her feet, and lead her back to her room. I help her into bed, pull the covers up. Soon her eyes close; her breathing evens. I walk back across the room, then hesitate by the door controls.

  The doctor says we should keep it locked at night. That we should tell him if she has any more ‘episodes’. That he can increase her meds.

  The ones that make her hum and drift in her own world more and more, until she almost never comes out.

  Stuff the doctor.

  4

  Today I feel conspicuous in jeans and a long-sleeved top that covers the bruises on my arms. The other girls are all in black skirts with outrageous animal-print tights and tops, and the boys are hunters, complete with fake bows and arrows. Some not-very-subtle Friday theme dreamed up this morning in Realtime? Though something is up. There is none of yesterday’s applause, and hostile glances are cast my way. I start to walk past them, and head for the stairs.

  ‘Heh, Lunatic. Wait,’ one of them says. I keep walking.

  ‘Luna?’ Another voice, one I know. Melrose. We were friends when we were younger, but not any more. Now she generally treats me like I’m contagious, like the rest of them do. As if crazy could be catchy. ‘Luna, please,’ she says.

  For some reason, some soft note in her voice, I stop. Mel is smiling. The others aren’t.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Haven’t you checked the school feed?’

  I shrug. Not stating the obvious: Refusers don’t plug in before breakfast like the rest of them. ‘Why?’

  ‘The Test appointments are up today.’

  ‘So?’ I glare back at her, sure what is coming but even though I shouldn’t be, hurt that Mel would stoop to that, to mocking my failure in front of them all. Did Jezzie, the one smirking at her shoulder, put her up to it?

  ‘You’ve got one.’

  ‘What?’ Now my face is as shocked as the rest of them. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘That’s for sure.’ Jezzie this time. ‘There’s no way a nutcase like you could possibly—’

  ‘That’s enough, Jezzamine,’ says a voice beyond the crowd. It parts to admit Mr Sampson, School Test Coordinator. ‘You have expressed an unsubstantiated opinion. You’d do well to remember to leave bias behind in the rationality quotient phase of the Test. If you make it that far. Now, everyone, get to class. Except you, Luna. Come with me.’

  He walks towards Goodwin’s office, and I follow. What is going on? My head is reeling. Has Goodwin found something even worse than the interesting classes she threatened me with? Has she somehow got me a Test appointment so I can fail in a public and spectacular way, be branded irrational and locked in a loony bin forever? No way. I can’t believe even Goodwin has that kind of power. This must be some kind of sick joke.

  I follow him to her office. He opens the door. Goodwin is there; a few other teachers. He points at a chair opposite the row of them, and as I sit in it the bell goes.

  Goodwin is less clown-like than expected. Her hair is combed forward to hide the snakes. She scowls and her face moves strangely, and appears to almost crack: ah. Heavy concealing make-up.

  ‘Luna.’ She spits out my name. ‘Explain yourself!’ She’s not in calm control like yesterday, and I’m glad the others are here.

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘This Test appointment.’

  Baffled, I look back at her. ‘Is it true? I thought they were joking.’

  ‘Of course: you won’t have seen the school feed this morning,’ Sampson says. He taps on a handheld screen, turns it to show me:

  PareCo Test appointment: Luna Iverson. Monday 9 a.m. at NUN test centre 11, London.

  I stare until the words start to throb on the screen. Real words, not something they made up. Goosebumps walk up my back.

  ‘This is for real?’

  ‘It is,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t understand. Only about the top third get appointments, and I’m nowhere near.’

  ‘There have been a few discussions about it,’ Goodwin says, and the Medusa snakes I painted on her forehead are still in operation, despite being covered up: her look could turn the unwary to stone. ‘But you tell me now if you’ve had anything to do with this, or so help me—’

  ‘How could I?’

  ‘Your Hacker friend, maybe?’

  ‘What: hack into PareCo? Are you kidding?’ I look back at Sampson. ‘I don’t understand how this happened.’

  ‘Neither do we. Checks have been made. You really do have an appointment.’

  ‘But my grades aren’t—’

  ‘Grades aren’t the only factor. There are algorithms and analysis of a host of factors, environmental and genetic potentialities, and—’ He stops abruptly when he realises what he said and who he said it to, and I flush. Sympathy crosses his face.

  Goodwin snorts. ‘On every measure, you’re a failure, Luna. So are you denying any involvement in tampering with PareCo protocols?’

  ‘What? I’m denying any involvement in anything.’

  ‘Get out. But you haven’t heard the last of this.’

  I head for the door; Sampson follows me out. ‘Come with me a moment, Luna.’ In another office, he gestures at a chair. The final bell goes.

  His eyes unfocus, then come back again. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve messaged your teacher. You won’t get a late.’ He grins, and I’m unsettled.

  ‘So, Luna, you’ve got a chance. A Test appointment.’

  ‘I can’t take this in; I don’t understand. How’d I get an appointment?’

  ‘Maybe there’s been a glitch somewhere.’ He grins again.

  ‘A glitch? In PareCo’s latest and greatest protocols? No way.’ I can feel my mouth hanging open.

  He winks. ‘Incredible it may be, but anything is possible. But listen to me, Luna.’ All trace of humour leaves his face. ‘No matter how or why this has happened, don’t waste this opportunity.’

  He doesn’t have to say any more: I know. All the top university and training places are taken by those who do well on the Test. Part of me grasps at it: could there be a chance? One chance, and one only. One was Nanna’s favourite number: one is action, new hope, and new beginnings. But most of me quashes the hope down.

  ‘Mrs Goodwin will never let me—’

  ‘It’s not in her control. Ignore her sputtering and raging: she can’t do anything about it. Who gets an appointment is decided by PareCo, and PareCo alone. When she found out about your appointment she even tried to have you expelled for yesterday’s mischief, and it was refused. One more thing.’ He hesitates. ‘I know you aren’t an RE. Or an ME.’

  I raise an eyebrow. In my class of REs, MEs and the excluded, there is only one Unclassified: Lunatic Luna.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Doing the test with pen on paper is harder. With the virtual test you can manipulate patterns, give instant answers, get through the questions quicker. And scores have time bonuses or penalties. Think about it, Luna.’

  It’s harder with him than Goodwin. With her, even if there wasn’t good reason to keep silent, sheer contrariness is enough to make me refuse to give a reason. To hang it on my rights and let her seethe about all the wasted resources. But with him I wish there was something I could tell him
, some way to make him understand. But then we’d be well past potential genetic issues, and into something else entirely. Some secrets are better kept.

  I say nothing, and head for class.

  That night, Sally is out. So her good friend Bea didn’t tell Sally about my appointment? If Sally knew, there’s no way she wouldn’t have been here when I got home. I guess Bea only passes on the bad news.

  I make dinner for Nanna and Jason, but don’t dare eat myself. Nanna goes to bed and Jason plugs in to play Quidditch. And now it is time to try, for the first time in so long.

  There is still a PIP in my room. I haven’t got an Implant, so have to plug in the old-fashioned way. When I sink into it, the moulded sofa adjusts to my body – I was smaller the last time I used it. I close my eyes and try to relax as the warm fuzz of the neural net closes around me, to let the sensory and neural connections happen, not fight it. My room is as dark as I can make it: I even unplugged the vid screen so there is no little light on the bottom of it, and stuffed a towel under the door to block any stray light from the hall.

  Click.

  The interface shimmers, my vision goes wrong. The dark room is still here, but I can almost ignore it.

  Dizzy, hesitant, I step into the Realtime hallway. Being here is all kinds of wrong. I can make my feet take me forward, but it all feels detached and jerky, like I’m half here – half moving by remote control. There is nothing less real to me than this place. Was it some sort of sick humour that made PareCo name their social portal to the virtual worlds Realtime?

  I walk past doors for every group I belong to, unread message numbers flashing above them. Most of them are things like the school feed and the library, where as a student I’m an automatic member, whether I ever go there or not. There are several unanswered group invitations also, from fan clubs of my mother; I flick no as I go past and the doors disappear. How these nutcases find me with all the privacy locks on I have no idea. And there are a few friend groups from years ago, like Melrose’s: her door is still there, no locks, and I can hear laughing voices through it. I’m surprised she hasn’t blocked me by now, but I suppose there’s no point when I’m never here.