The Glimpse Read online

  The absence of conversation compounded the bleakness of their surroundings. The dream Ana had had on the train came snaking into her thoughts. She thought of yesterday afternoon, running from the courthouse. She wondered again at the zombie people, at what might have happened if Cole hadn’t arrived when he did.

  Lila began to scour the wardrobe, which took her al of a minute because it was smal and empty. Cole unpacked a camping stove, a pan and some tins of food.

  ‘That’s a waste of fuel,’ Lila said when she saw her brother intended to heat up their supper.

  ‘Tomorrow night you’l be in the Project,’ he said. ‘You won’t need to worry about fuel.’

  ‘What about Ariana?’ she asked.

  Ana plumped down on the corner of a springy bed and looked at Cole, curious to hear his answer.

  ‘Hopefuly we’l know where Jasper is by then, and she’l be talking to his father about getting him somewhere safe.’

  He twisted a metal opener across a giant tin of beans.

  She wondered if he realy believed that. She felt strangely empty at the notion of making contact with Jasper’s parents. And now she was uncertain whether Jasper’s father would be wiling to wage war for a son who’d jeopardised 218

  his own empire – without scientific evidence of mental disease, many people would stop their preventative and prescriptive medications and Novastra would lose milions.

  But she would have to go back and explain everything to them in the hope that Jasper’s mother could convince her husband to save their son. She would have to face her father and answer everybody’s questions. She wondered what would happen if once Jasper was released, he confron-ted Ashby with the evidence. What would her father do?

  After al, it was his research, his reputation that was on the line.

  Lila’s angry voice broke through her ruminations. ‘Don’t say that!’ she hissed.

  Ana wondered what she’d missed.

  ‘The future isn’t written,’ Cole answered. He poured sloppy orange beans into a pan. ‘That’s the point. A Glimpse is just a possibility.’

  ‘The most likely possibility,’ Lila argued.

  ‘A possibility,’ Cole said.

  ‘But everything—’

  ‘No.’ Anger lined Cole’s voice. The conversation was over. Inwardly, Ana shrunk, not quite understanding why.

  She didn’t like being the cause of Cole’s bad mood. And She didn’t like being the cause of Cole’s bad mood. And she felt guilty. He’d been supportive and helpful. She missed the closeness she’d felt with him earlier that afternoon after visiting his mother’s, even if it had been unnerving – the way he’d held her.

  ‘Yesterday, after the hearing,’ she said, changing the subject, hoping to ease the tension, ‘when you picked me up on your bike, who were those people?’

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  Cole shook his head, evidently not in the mood to talk about it.

  ‘What people?’ Lila asked.

  ‘When I discovered Cole had been folowing me the night Jasper was abducted,’ Ana explained, ‘it scared me. So I ran away and wound up in this street where al these zombie people were coming out of the houses.’

  ‘Arashans?!’ Lila gasped. Her head whipped across to Cole, then back. ‘You walked into a street of Arashans and managed to leave?’

  ‘What are Arashans?’

  ‘They’re an army experiment,’ Lila said.

  ‘Nobody knows exactly,’ Cole said.

  ‘There’s something transmitted in the air where they live,’

  Lila ran on, ‘that immobilises thought and movement.

  After living with it for a while, the person can act and think again, but they’re disconnected, slow, dreamy. The experi-ments are being run by a special Psych Watch experi-ments are being run by a special Psych Watch unit.’

  ‘Nobody knows exactly,’ Cole repeated. ‘It could be some type of new drug that makes them like that.’ He lit the portable stove with a match and set the pan on the metal ring.

  The flame danced beneath it.

  ‘There’s tons of stuff about it on the net,’ Lila said breathlessly. ‘There are documents suggesting that the government has pumped milions into financing a new army

  ‘peace’ weapon. They say the Board plans to use it in the loony dumps too.’

  ‘There were four guys that didn’t look affected at al,’

  Ana said.

  ‘I bet they were wearing hats, right?’

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  Ana thought back and remembered they had, in fact, been hooded.

  Lila took her silence as a yes. ‘They have some special kind of deflector that goes over the brain and stops the electromagnetic waves.’

  Cole pretended to concentrate on their dinner, but in the dim light of the candles Ana could see his interest rising.

  ‘Cole and I both went in and out of the street,’ she said,

  ‘and nothing happened. So it can’t be anything to do with wavelengths.’

  Cole stopped stirring the beans. ‘Actualy,’ he said, ‘I didn’t enter.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘No, not past the posts.’

  ‘What posts?’ Ana asked.

  ‘There were two grey posts at either side of the road.

  Like lampposts without the lamps.’

  Ana tried to think back but couldn’t remember them.

  ‘Wel,’ she said, ‘I walked about two hundred metres up the street and nothing happened to me.’

  Lila puled the key on her necklace back and forth across its chain. ‘Whatever they transmit,’ she said, ‘it makes thinking like trying to wade through treacle. And it disables the body’s motor-cortex.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice anything odd at al?’ Cole asked. Ana began to feel uneasy. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, but at least he was talking to her again.

  ‘The street felt emptier than it should have done,’ she said. ‘There were no cars. Then I noticed a man in a win-221

  dow. He gave me the creeps. So I turned around and started to make my way back.’

  ‘You didn’t feel any desire to, I don’t know, to stay?’

  Cole asked.

  ‘No way. Did you?’

  He observed her for a beat then puffed air through his nose and returned to stirring the beans and buttering bread.

  ‘You felt it, didn’t you?’ Lila asked her brother. ‘Even from behind the posts it was trying to lock you down!’

  Cole didn’t answer. Ana’s mind began to buzz. She thought of the zombie eyes, the sensation she had even now that they were stil looking into her mind. How come she hadn’t been affected?

  Neither Lila nor Cole said anything more.

  After they’d eaten, Lila rose to wash up. Ana, anxious about remaining alone with Cole, offered to help. Using a candle to light their way, they left the bedroom and passed through a door on their right. It led down a cobalt-blue corridor to a second, open door.

  In the bathroom, Lila rinsed the plates, using the water sparingly. She chatted as she did so.

  ‘Once,’ she said, ‘a house like this would have been for one family. Then maybe eighty years ago each floor was divided into flats. And now every room is a separate unit and everybody has to share a bathroom. I suppose the whole housing crash wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the petrol crisis. Only a smal percentage of the railways had already switched to electrical so commuting to the City 222

  became impossible from certain areas. Did they teach you about the 2018 Colapse in the Community?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ana cut in.

  Lila stopped the running tap. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘We only met in Camden Lock that day because I was looking for Cole. I thought he was an ex-member of the Enlightenment Project and that he could help me find Jasper. When Mickey told me there was a free room on a barge, I took it hoping to get closer to you al, and I helped you with Cole’s pre-charge detention because I thought he’d be able to give me inside in
formation about the Project.’

  ‘It’s OK. You got Cole off. You saved Rafferty. Besides you could hardly say, “Hi, I’m Ariana Barber, my father’s the mad scientist responsible for the Pure tests and I’m looking for the Pure guy that was abducted yesterday”.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ana said. A lump of anxiety inside her softened.

  ‘I prefer Ana.’

  Lila nodded. ‘No problem.’ She scrubbed a plate and put it on the side beside the bath to dry. ‘Are you in love with Jasper?’ she asked.

  Ana swalowed. Out of habit, she lifted her arms to pul back her long hair and found it al had been cut off.

  ‘When I was eleven I thought Jasper was the most amazing boy I’d ever met. I barely knew him, but I daydreamed about him al the time.’ She laughed at herself, then picked up a tea towel. Lila handed her herself, then picked up a tea towel. Lila handed her another washed plate and she began to dry. ‘I used to secretly watch the stars at night from my window and wish that I would have my chance –

  that he wouldn’t be joined before I turned fifteen. And then 223

  on my fifteenth birthday he sent me a binding invitation. I thought my dream was coming true. Three weeks later the Board came to my school and told me I wasn’t Pure.

  It was like my world had been blown to pieces and nothing could make it right again. Not even Jasper.’

  Ana leant back on the edge of the bath, brushed a hand up the back of her neck. ‘After that everything got complicated. I was suspended from school until my father’s investigation had been concluded and a fortnight later, Jasper’s brother died. It was al a mess. And the only way to fix it was to bind with Jasper and hope he’d want to join with me.

  I stopped knowing what I wanted after that.’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be,’ Lila said.

  ‘I don’t believe in destiny. I don’t believe something’s meant to be or not meant to be.’

  Lila put aside her scrubbing brush and smiled. ‘What about Cole?’

  A prickly sensation roled across the inside of Ana’s stomach. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s been waiting for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Glimpse!’ Lila said, as though it was obvious. ‘He never said it,’ she continued, grabbing Ana’s hands in her own wet ones, ‘but I know you’re the reason he left the Project and got into al this political stuff in the first place.

  And then six months ago he came back from visiting Richard in prison and it was like he began preparing for you. He knew the time of the Glimpse was catching up with him. He split up with Rachel and took on more risky as-224

  signments because he knew you had something to do with disproving the Pure tests.’

  Ana’s heart skipped in her chest. Her grip on the plates turned slippery. ‘He knew I had something to do with disproving the Pure tests? What are you talking about?

  Cole told me he didn’t know who my father was. He told me he didn’t even know I was going to be bound to Jasper until he saw us together at the concert. And what’s this got to do with him splitting up with Rachel?’

  ‘Don’t you feel it even a little bit?’

  ‘Feel what?’

  ‘The connection between you and Cole.’

  Ana put down the plate she’d dried three or four times over. It clattered as it hit the shelf by the sink. Was that why her body felt so out of control around him? She’d always been attracted to Jasper, but with Cole it was like being with an oppositely charged magnet. A force she couldn’t resist drew her to him. But he was so cool and couldn’t resist drew her to him. But he was so cool and calm around her. Surely if he felt the same way, she would know?

  ‘What happened in this vision? What did Cole see?’

  ‘I don’t realy know. You should ask him.’

  Ana blew air through her nose and shook her head. If the Board heard them talking like this there wouldn’t be any need for creative or free-association tests; they’d both be certified Active.

  ‘Did you ever have the Pure test, Lila?’

  ‘Sure, I lived with my mum until Cole left the Project four years ago. You had to have it to go to school. They did it when I was five, around the time the whole country was getting it done.’

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  ‘And?’

  Lila shrugged. ‘No idea. School put it on their files. My mother burnt my envelope without opening it.’

  Ana felt as though there was a glitch in time. For a moment, everything seemed to freeze. Her own life had been ruined by a test that meant nothing to Lila.

  ‘You decide who you are, Ana,’ Lila said gently. ‘Not some test.’

  Ana’s lower lip began to quiver. Was that realy how it was for them? Could it be like that for her?

  Lila stacked the washed plates and cutlery. She smiled Lila stacked the washed plates and cutlery. She smiled warmly, then shook her head and slunk into the corridor.

  Ana thumbed hot wax dripping from the candle on the bath ledge. Lila’s claim that Cole had seen her in a vision and had been waiting for her was absurd. Impossible.

  But a week ago, everything about her life now would have seemed impossible too – she’d never have believed Jasper could be in a psych dump for trying to expose the Pure tests as phony. She’d never have believed that Crazies from the Enlightenment Project would be helping her to find him or that she could feel incomprehensibly, wonderfuly, dangerously drawn to someone the way she was to Cole. He made her feel as though until now she’d only been living half a life. It wasn’t anything like her crush on Jasper – Jasper had been a fantasy; like faling for a movie star, when what you’d realy falen for was the character the actor was playing. But Cole was real, solid. He made her want to explode out of herself, let go of everything she’d held back for so long.

  She ran the bath tap. Steam drifted off the water. She 226

  vaguely wondered how much it might cost to have a hot bath. Picking up the candle, she rose and went to find out.

  As she walked down the corridor, she heard the front door slam. From back in their bedroom, Lila’s voice penetrated the wals.

  ‘She’s confused. You can’t give it to her! She doesn’t know who she is.’

  ‘Stop it, Lila.’

  ‘You can’t!’

  Ana reached the bedroom door and paused on the threshold. Cole and Lila fel silent.

  ‘Give me what?’

  ‘This.’ Cole slotted a mini-disc into the side of his interface. He walked over to her and put his interface chain over her head. She swalowed, steeling herself to look at him. But when she did, the expression in his eyes made her forget her awkwardness. What he was giving her had something to do with Jasper. She could sense it.

  Cole continued to go out of his way to help, despite the fact it never seemed to be what he wanted.

  ‘Have you looked at it?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s just been dropped off.’

  Ana set down the candle on the mantelpiece and turned to face the wal. Projected in front of her was a copy of the London Mental Rehab Home admission records for the evening of March 21st and early hours of the folowing morning.

  ‘We’ve managed to get more details from eleven institutions in the London area,’ Cole said. ‘Not just the names, 227

  but exact times they were signed in, who signed them in and what they were diagnosed with on admission.’

  Ana searched the entries looking for the John Does Cole had mentioned before – there had been two the night of Jasper’s abduction, one at St Joseph’s in Putney and one at Three Mils in the East End. The St Joseph’s John Doe at Three Mils in the East End. The St Joseph’s John Doe had been signed in at 8.44 p.m. Too early, she thought.

  She skipped over the rest of the submission data – ‘Last Name, First Name, Legal status of admission, Date, Time, Diagnosis impression at admission, Doctor Admitting patient’

  – down to the information from Three Mils. As she did so, she noticed that nine admiss
ions for St Joseph’s had al been signed off by the same doctor, which was odd because most institutions had at least half a dozen psychiatrists attached to them, to say nothing of the fact that the admission process was supposed to take at least an hour.

  In the silence, she could hear Cole’s soft breathing. He read over her shoulder. His closeness was like heat from a fire. She thought of Lila’s claim. He must have seen her in one of those awful news headlines three years ago, and her face had subconsciously stuck and melded over time with a girl he’d had in some vivid halucination as a teenager. But why did she feel such a pul? Like he was the moon and she was the sea.

  She inhaled deeply and returned her focus to the admissions list. The Three Mils John Doe had been signed in at 7.07 p.m. while she and Jasper were stil at the concert.

  Cole took back his interface and studied the list again, systematicaly crossing off names. He quickly covered the 228

  forty-or-so entries and by the end there were only five left un-struck. He looked over at her, cocking an eyebrow.

  ‘It seems the insane keep office hours,’ he said. ‘Look, out of forty-three admissions here, only five happened between 9.15 p.m. and 7 a.m. the next morning.’ Ana moved closer, noticing his fingers, the strength in his hands as he gestured to his interface projection. The first admission that hadn’t been ruled out was for a psych dump in Barnet. The admission time was 9.19 p.m. That would have given the abductors less than thirty minutes to get out of the Barbican, travel fifteen miles north to Barnet and get Jasper signed into the hospital. Even with clear roads it was unlikely, if not impossible.

  Cole scroled down the page to St Lazareth’s in Elephant and Castle.

  ‘This time is feasible,’ he said.

  Ana shook her head, acutely aware of the way her body angled towards his. ‘The diagnosis is “Undifferentiated schizophrenia and psychoneurotic depressive reaction”.’

  ‘You what?’ Lila said. ‘What would that be when it’s at home?’

  ‘It’s as complicated as it sounds. But for our purposes, it means the guy must have been admitted voluntarily. If Jasper was supposedly voluntary, he’d have been drugged or unconscious and incapable of answering any questions.