iBoy

11010

Questions. That's pretty much all there was over the next two days: questions from the police, questions from doctors, questions from Gram ... what happened? how did it happen? who? why? where? when?

What could I say?

I don't know ...

Can't remember ...

I'm not sure ...

It was never-ending. Question after question, hour after hour, day after day ... and it wasn't until the Thurs­day evening that I finally managed to get a bit of time on my own. I knew that I wouldn't have long — Gram had just nipped out to the shops, and the police were coming back later to talk to me again — so I didn't waste any time, I just grabbed my jacket, left the flat, and headed up to the roof.

And now, here I was again — sitting alone on the edge of the world, watching the sun go down. It was another mild night, the air clear and still, and the sky was layered with an evening redness that glowed with the promise of long hot summer days to come. But as I sat there on the roof, gazing out at the horizon, I couldn't imagine any days to come. Tomorrow, next Wednesday, next month, next year ... there was nothing there for me, nothing at all. There was nothing beyond the horizon.

Not for me.

My mind was still all in bits.

I closed my eyes and looked inside myself.

I could see a past, the last few days, yesterday ... I could see Gram sitting next to me on the settee in the front room, her greying hair shaved to her scalp around the stitched-up wound on her head, and I could hear myself telling her most of what Ellman had said about my mother, her daughter, and I could see the tears in Gram's eyes when I asked her if any of it was true.

"Georgie wasn't a bad girl," she'd told me, smiling sadly. "But she was always a bit wild, a bit rebellious ... not that I minded that, of course ... but when she was about seventeen she started taking things a bit too far, you know ... mixing with the wrong kind of people, getting into drugs ..." Gram shook her head at the memory. "She lost her way, Tommy. And you know what it's like when you lose your way around here ..."

"Did she know Ellman?"

Gram nodded. "He was the man, you know ... everyone wanted to know Howard Ellman. He had the drugs, the money, the cars, the girls ..." She sighed. "Georgie thought he was exciting. I tried telling her what he was really like, but she just wouldn't listen ..."

"Was she ...?" I asked hesitantly. "I mean, were they...?"

"Sleeping together?" She nodded again. "Georgie was out of her head most of the time — she didn't know what she was doing ..."

"Ellman called her a whore," I said quietly.

Gram looked at me, her eyes moist with tears. "Your mum made a lot of mistakes, Tommy. Like I said, she lost her way ... but in the end she found herself again. When she found out that she was pregnant, she pulled herself together, got off the drugs, got away from Ellman ... and that took a hell of a lot of guts, a lot of courage." Gram paused, putting her hand on my shoulder. "She was your mother, Tommy. If she was still alive now, she'd love you as much as I do, and you'd love her."

I could see us holding each other then, both of us crying our eyes out, and I could hear Gram saying sorry to me, over and over again, for not telling me the truth about Mum before, and I could hear her trying to explain that she hadn't kept the truth from me because she was ashamed of Mum or anything, but simply because she couldn't see what good it would have done for me to know all the ugly details of her life.

And I understood that.

Because, in exactly the same way, I couldn't see what good it would do for Gram to know all the ugly details of what Ellman had said about Mum. She didn't need to know that Ellman might have killed her, or that he might ... just might... be my father ...

She didn't need that pain.

So I kept it to myself.

Inside myself ...

I could see the present too. I could see two dead bodies lying in the mortuary: Gunner, with half of his chest blown away, and Eugene O'Neil. The blast from O'Neil's phone had severed his femoral artery and he'd bled to death on the warehouse floor.

I could see Hashim and Marek still in their hospital beds, both of them seriously injured and scarred for life, but at least they were probably both going to have a life.

Tweet's injuries were so severe that it would be a miracle if he survived.

And Howard Ellman ...?

I couldn't see him.

After undergoing emergency surgery to his chest, heart, and lungs, Ellman had been moved to the intensive care department of a private hospital in West London. That same night, although still in an "extremely critical" condi­tion, and despite the police guard outside his door, he'd somehow managed to escape from the hospital and disap­pear without trace. The police had no idea how he'd got away, or where he was, and neither did I. But the prevail­ing medical opinion was that without expert care — and probably even with it — he'd be dead within the next twenty-four hours.

I opened my eyes for a moment, remembering my complete lack of feeling as I'd watched Ellman's chest explode ... and I wondered now if I still felt (or didn't feel) the same. About Ellman, O'Neil, the others ... dead or alive ...

Did I care about them?

Did I feel any remorse, any guilt, any shame?

The answer, whether I liked it or not, was no.

And I didn't like it.

I didn't like what it made me.

I closed my eyes again, looking for the presence of Lucy ... and I knew she'd be there. I could always see Lucy in my mind — her sunset eyes, her lips, her smile, her drowning tears — but my mind wasn't reality. My mind wasn't the truth. And the truth was that I just couldn't see how I could ever be with Lucy again. Why on earth would she ever want to be with me? I'd almost got her raped and killed. I'd put her through the very same hell that she'd already been through once. I'd failed to protect her. I'd lied to her, tricked her, betrayed her... and all for what? For revenge? To make me feel better? To make me feel like a hero? Shit...

I wasn't a hero.

I was never a hero.

I was nothing.

No good to anyone.

I was a freak.

A mutant.

A murderer.

I was losing my mind ...

And, even worse, my heart had grown cold.

I'd lost myself.

No matter what I did, I could never be Tom Harvey again. Even if I told everyone everything — Gram, the police, Mr Kirby — I could never rid myself of iBoy. He was with me for ever now. He was me, and I was him. And eventually — inevitably — the rest of the world would find out about us ... and when that happened, our life really would become a freak show.

And I wasn't sure I could live with that.

And despite everything that my rational mind kept telling me, I just couldn't stop thinking about the unthink­able possibility — no matter how unlikely it was — that Ellman hadn't been lying... that he really was my father. And every time I thought about that, I remembered what I'd said to him in the warehouse: If you were my father, I'd kill myself.

I opened my eyes again and gazed down over the edge of the roof. Thirty floors up ... it was a long way down. And as I looked down through the darkness, I began to picture myself down there on the day that it happened, all those weeks ago ... walking home from school, feel­ing pretty much the same as I always felt... kind of OK, but not great... alone, but not lonely ... thinking about Lucy, wondering what she wanted to see me about ... then hearing a shout from above and looking up and seeing the iPhone hurtling down through the bright blue sky towards me ...

And now, as I gazed down from the roof, remembering the past, something strange happened. My perspective suddenly changed, and instead of picturing myself as me, looking up at the iPhone, I was picturing myself as the iPhone, tumbling down through the sky towards the other me, the me that was down there ... only the sky wasn't blue now, it was black. It was night-time. And it wasn't all those weeks ago ... it was now.

Right now.

And I was falling ... down, down, down ... down through the silent darkness ... hurtling down into oblivion ...

And I could see something on the ground down below. A light.

There was a light down there.

Just outside the entrance to the tower, thirty floors below, someone was riding a bike across the square. And as I leaned further forward and peered over the edge of the roof, I could see the front light of the bike moving slowly over the ground, directly beneath me ... and then, all at once, I was seeing myself falling again, only this time I wasn't the iPhone, I was myself ... I was Tom Harvey, I was iBoy ... I was both of us ... and we were falling from the roof, dropping like a stone ... down, down, down ... heading straight for the light of the unknown cyclist... and we knew that we were going to land on him, or her ... we were going to land head first on them, and our iSkull was going to crack open their skull, and their brain was going to be lacerated by broken iSkull fragments and pieces of us ...

And as I leaned even further forward, almost toppling off the edge now, I heard myself laughing. At least, I assumed it was me, because I was the only one there ... and it sounded vaguely like me ... and I could feel my throat moving, my vocal cords vibrating ...

Yes, it was definitely me.

I was laughing ...

I didn't know why.

And, for some reason, that made me feel incredibly sad, and all at once I wasn't laughing any more, I was crying ... sobbing uncontrollably ... the tears streaming out of me like the tears of a frightened child.

I didn't want to die ...

But I didn't want to live ...

I just didn't know ...

"Tom ...?"

The voice came from behind me.

I waited a moment, trying to steady myself, wiping the tears from my eyes, and then I slowly turned round and looked up ... and there she was, gazing down at me with a worried frown.

"Hey, Luce," I said.

"Are you all right?" she asked softly. "You don't look so great."

I sniffed, wiped my eyes again, and smiled at her. "I'm fine ... I was just, you know ... just thinking about stuff..."

"Yeah, I know," she said, sitting down next to me. "It's all been a bit much, hasn't it?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"I just did."

I looked at her.

She smiled at me. "You've got snot all over your face ... come here." She pulled a tissue from her pocket, licked it, and started cleaning all the snot and tears from my face. I winced a little as she wiped around the knife cut on my forehead. "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "God, you're a mess."

"You don't look too great yourself," I said, glancing at the cuts and bruises on her face.

"Thanks a lot."

"You're welcome."

"There," she said, giving my face a final wipe, "that's better."

"Thanks."

She nodded, putting the tissue away, and for a few seconds she was quiet. Then, without looking at me, and with her voice perfectly calm, she said, "You weren't thinking of jumping off the roof, were you?"

"What?"

"Because if you were ..." She looked at me, her eyes suddenly bright with anger. "Listen to me, Tom Harvey. I know you've been through a lot recently ... I mean, we both have. And I know you're probably feeling really confused right now about all this iBoy stuff, all the shit you've got in your head and all the shit you've had to deal with ..." She paused then, moving her face to within an inch of mine, and her voice became slow and deliber­ate. "But if I ever catch you even thinking about killing yourself ... well, believe me, I'll make sure it's the last thing you ever do."

We stared at each other for a while then, and as Lucy's eyes drilled into mine with an intensity that was almost physically painful, I honestly didn't know if I had intended to jump or not. I didn't know if I could have jumped or not.

I just didn't know ...

All I knew — and all that mattered — was that I hadn't jumped, and that Lucy was here, sitting beside me.

I looked at her, smiling. "The last thing I ever do?"

She shook her head. "It's not a joke, Tom ... I'm serious."

"I know ... but you're kind of implying that if you ever catch me thinking of killing myself, you'll kill me, which sort of defeats the object, doesn't it?"

She couldn't help grinning. "Yeah, all right, Mr Super Brain ... so I got my words mixed up a bit —"

"A bit?"

She looked at me, still smiling, but there was genuine concern behind her smile ... and that really meant a lot to me. In fact, it meant everything.

"I'm sorry, Luce," I said quietly, looking back at her.

"It's all right, I'm always getting my words mixed up —"

"No ... I mean about everything." There were tears in my eyes again now. "I'm just so, so sorry ..."

"Shhh ..." she said gently, putting a fingertip to my lips. "You don't have to be sorry ... you don't have to be anything. Just be with me, OK?" She took her finger away, leaned in close, and kissed me. "All right?" she whispered. "Just be with me."

I nodded, still crying.

Lucy smiled. "Let's get comfortable."

As she slowly leaned back and lay down on the roof, looking straight up at the sky, I didn't move for a moment. I just sat there, staring out at the dying horizon, wonder­ing if perhaps there was something out there for me after all, a future beyond the horizon ...

And then Lucy tapped my backside with her foot and said, "Hey, Super Brain, it's getting lonely down here."

And I leaned back and lay down beside her, and she took my hand in hers, and we just lay there together in a dream of silence, gazing up at the stars.