iBoy

10011

I must have been even more tired than I thought, because when I finally woke up — and when my brain finally started working properly — I realized that it was 11:26:54 on the following day.

I'd slept for almost twenty-four hours.

And I still felt tired.

But at least the dreaminess/non-dreaminess seemed to have gone.

In fact, I almost felt quite normal.

Almost...

In the kitchen there was a note from Gram telling me that she'd gone shopping, and that she'd be back in a couple of hours.

I made myself some toast.

Ate it.

Made some more (I was really hungry).

Ate it.

Drank some orange juice.

Put the TV on ...

Turned it off.

Then, not quite ready to do anything else yet, I went over to the window and gazed down at the estate below. It was a really nice day — clear and bright, birds singing, the sun shining — and even the estate itself seemed a lot less depressing than usual.

There wasn't much going on down there. A bunch of little kids were messing around on bikes, an old man in a battered old hat was walking his dog, and across Crow Lane a group of young girls were dancing and singing along to their iPods.

There was something about the estate that felt kind of strange — but strange in a good way. It's hard to describe, but it felt both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, as if, somehow, everything about it was the same as ever — the same buildings, the same roads, the same colours, the same shapes — but something else, something that was above and beyond the physical reality of the estate, had changed.

Or maybe it was just the weather ...?

Or just me ...?

Or maybe it was nothing at all?

Just one of those days.

After a while, I went back into my room, lay down on my bed, and — somewhat reluctantly — closed my eyes.

I didn't really want to do any cyber-surfing/iBoy stuff today. I was sick of it all now, to tell you the truth. Sick of knowing everything, sick of not knowing anything. Sick of hurting people. Sick of all the secrecy and the lies and the utter pointlessness of what I was trying to do ... whatever that was.

And that was the thing ... what was I trying to do? Destroy the Devil and all his cohorts? Rid the world of all violence and evil? Turn Hell into Paradise?

That was never going to happen, was it?

For a start, as Gram had said, gangs are always fight­ing each other — it's what they do. They fight, they rape, they kill. They've been doing it for hundreds of years, and they'll carry on doing it until they're all gone ... which won't ever happen. Because there'll always be gangs of some kind or other — tribes, families, religions, nations, football supporters — because, quite simply, humans are social animals. We naturally form ourselves into groups. We seek protection and security in groups. We find safety and status and purpose in groups. And, in order to reinforce everything we get from our group, we fight and kill and rape individuals from other groups.

It's what humans do.

How could I possibly hope to change that?

And another thing ... even if all I was trying to do was flush out Howard Ellman — and maybe that was all I was trying to do — what was I going to do with him when I found him? Or when he found me? Would I kill him? Lock him up for ever? Beat him up? Fry his brains? Was I capable of doing any of that? Did I have it in me?

And, whatever I did, did I really think it would actually make any difference? Whatever I did to Ellman, would it make other people stop doing terrible things?

Of course it wouldn't.

And besides all that, I was sick of everything because I just wanted to be normal again. I wanted to be a normal kid, doing normal things — going to school, worrying about spots, being happy or miserable or crazy about things that don't really matter. I didn't want to be differ­ent. I didn't want to know everything. I didn't want to have a mutant brain that was constantly evolving, constantly soaking up more and more information, constantly giving me a growing sense of wisdom ...

I mean ... wisdom?

I was sixteen years old — what did I want with wisdom ?

I just wanted to be normal.

And I wanted to be normal with Lucy too. I wanted to be Tom Harvey with her. Not iBoy, just Tom. I wanted her to be as excited by the real me as she was by the fake me who talked to her on MySpace. I wanted her to like me for what I was. I wanted us to be stupid and funny and embarrassed together. I wanted her to be how she used to be, and me to be how I used to be. I wanted us to be us.

But, like everything else, it wasn't going to happen, was it?

I wasn't just Tom any more. I wasn't how I used to be.

And neither was Lucy. hey iBoy — did you see the story in the gazette? you're famous! a superherosuperstar! and i know you! but don't worry, your secret's safe with me. aGirl xxxxxx iBoy didn't reply.

I wouldn't let him.

I was Tom ...

I was losing my mind.

To take my lost mind off everything for a while, I stopped thinking consciously about things and concentrated instead on letting my iBrain check the facts — the straight­forward, no-nonsense, on-or-off facts — about what I'd been doing over the last ten days ...

What iBoy had been doing.

What we'd been doing.

What we'd done.

Who we'd done it to ...

Where they were now.

In what condition ...

And so on.

It was as pointless as everything else, but I went ahead and did it anyway. And this, in short, was what I came up with:

• In the last seven days, reported crime on the Crow Lane Estate had fallen by 67%.

• Yusef Hashim had been arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm and was currently out on bail.

• Nathan Craig was in hospital, recovering from a ruptured spleen and three broken ribs.

• Carl Patrick had been arrested and was currently in police custody for stabbing Jayden Carroll.

• Jayden Carroll had been discharged from hospital after undergoing minor surgery on his stomach.

• DeWayne Firman had disappeared following the publication of grossly insulting comments about Howard Ellman on his Facebook page.

• Paul Adebajo had been arrested for possession of, and intent to supply, Class A drugs.

• Big and Little Jones were under investigation by the Counter Terrorist Unit after a video on YouTube appeared to show them planning a suicide bombing.

• Troy O'Neil, Jermaine Adebajo, and the fat Korean guy (whose name was Sim Dong-ni, or just Dong to his friends) were being held in police custody await­ing trial for various offences, including possession of Class A drugs, intent to supply, and possession of unlicensed firearms.

And so on, and so on, and so on ...

I'd done a lot.

We'd done a lot.

But had we really achieved anything?

No.

Had we turned Hell into Paradise?

No.

Had we found Howard Ellman?

No.

Had we made Lucy Walker feel any better? Perhaps...

Had I started to think that she was falling in love with iBoy ...?

Shit.