Erica worked more quickly than we thought.
No more than two days after the meeting, she burst into breakfast looking completely dishevelled, fuelled by frantic energy.
"Hey!" she called, dragging the attention of the dining hall towards her. "Can you guys come look at something?"
It was hard to work out whether her frenzied manner was the result of that something, or if it had more to do with a lack of sleep. Either way, the only way to find out was to do what she wanted and follow her.
Ten minutes later, and we were all in the security pod, huddled around the seat Erica had taken in front of all the screens. Some of them were completely blank, while others buzzed with static – but even of the screens that were showing some kind of vague picture, none of them looked like what I might have seen on TV back home.
It was then that I noticed Erica's workspace – in other words, the desk in front of her. To say it was messy was the understatement of the century. Scribbled notes, balled up pieces of paper that hadn't made it anywhere near a bin, old wrappers and used cups – however Erica's mind worked, it clearly didn't need a tidy space to think.
Nova spoke for all of us when she asked: "So, what's going on?"
Erica pushed some of the mess away and reached for the mouse. "There's something weird going on here," she said. "I don't know what it is. You guys should take a look."
Her hand moved at lightning speed across the keyboard, a series of tap-tap-taps ringing out loudly across the room. My eyes darted from screen to screen without really knowing where to look.
"So I'm getting the signal from the capital," she said. "Or at least somewhere near the capital. The range seems about right, and it's the strongest thing out here for miles, so I'd place a pretty hefty bet on it. Look, let me just pull up the location..."
Another succession of taps, and the screen in front of her became illuminated. Displayed on it was a map: one of the entire country, spaced far enough back to see the outline of all the isles, as well as our approximate location in the midlands, which was marked by a blinking red dot.
"I'm getting the signal from here..." The map zoomed in, heading further south until a signal point appeared in the south east. "That's definitely New London. And yet, when I try and pick up what it's transmitting..."
She clicked once more, and the map disappeared.
Only to be replaced by something completely different.
The sound of raucous, fake laughter hit us first – and not just because it seemed so absurdly out of place in the quiet room. It was the type of cheesy, recorded response that would only feature on some over-the-top, overproduced telesales programme.
And, weirdly, that was exactly what was onscreen.
Nova said what we were all thinking. "What on earth is this?"
My eyes went to the screen. It was suddenly lit with a burst of bright colour: an artificially lit set complete with equally brightly-dressed hosts. A woman with the smoothest blonde bob I'd ever seen stood there grinning in an orange sunflower print dress, beside a male co-host who seemed unable to bend over on account of his immaculately pressed suit. He was grinning, too – and with such a wide, dazzling smile that it seemed to risk blinding someone.
The whole setup was... odd. It looked like a typical telesales programme, with a glittering set and overenthusiastic hosts, but there was something off. Like all the components were there, but somehow they'd been hashed together in the wrong way.
"So, Jim, are you ready to hear about the ah-mazing offer we've got here today?" the woman asked, managing to get the words out without compromising her ear-to-ear smile. "You won't believe it!"
"I sure am, Betty! What have you got there?"
"Well, hold onto your hair, because you're going to be blown away by this deal!" The camera followed as she flounced over to the table in the middle of the set. On it, something was hidden beneath a checked cloth, and she leaned forward to pull it off with exaggerated flair.
It was a small box, relatively nondescript, except for the side that was covered in colourful buttons. A piece of paper poked out of the top, like some kind of printer.
"Hey! What's that?"
"Only the most incredible thing you'll see all day," Betty said, still grinning. "Now, this is a state-of-the-art piece of kit, and let me tell you, there are plenty of people wanting to get their hands on these babies. Now, if you're a bit of a self-confessed science geek, you're gonna want to listen up. Have you ever wanted to know what exactly is in your DNA? Any secrets it might be trying to tell you?"
"I know I have," Jim chipped in.
"Well, then you need the GenKit Five Thousand!" Betty declared. "Now I know it might look a little retro, but this piece of kit is top of the range. It'll tell you all you need to know."
Jim leaned in closer. "So how does it work?"
"I'm glad you asked! Let's give it a try."
Dragging my eyes away from the screen, I took a glance at the people around me, trying to gauge their reactions. Their faces were a mirror of my own confusion – so I at least had to take comfort in the fact I wasn't the only one without a clue what was going on.
"What is this?" Art asked.
"I don't know," Erica muttered, "but it's freaking me the hell out."
"One of the best things about the GenKit Five Thousand is how easy it is to use," Betty continued. "No instructions needed – you'll get the hang of it in three easy steps!"
"Three easy steps?" Jim echoed.
"Three easy steps," she said, still smiling. "Number one, place your finger on the red button on the side here. Come on, Jim, there's no need to be scared."
He reached out and lay his finger against the button.
"Number two: you'll feel a slight prick on your finger as the machine draws blood. You'll barely feel a thing."
There was a sharp click, and suddenly Jim had wrenched his hand away, leaping into the air like he'd suffered an electric shock. It didn't seem like the slight prick Betty had promised, and I guessed that was why he tried his best to downplay it.
"Took me by surprise there," he said, still grinning, though he'd since hidden his hand behind his back.
"Number three," Betty continued, unfazed, "we press this button here" – she reached for the blue one – "and in less than sixty seconds, you'll have a printout summarising your entire DNA sequence."
"My entire DNA sequence?"
"That's right," she said. "Oh, look, here it comes now!"
Their attention turned to the machine on the table, which had started to emit a low whirring noise. They watched intently as its light started to flash, before the printer came to life with a judder, and the paper started to emerge.
"That fast?" Jim said. "That's incredible!"
When the paper came to a halt, now a trail long enough to fold in on itself, she reached over and tore it from the top of the machine. "Now let's see what the GenKit Five Thousand has to say about you..."
She scanned the paper for a few seconds, while Jim watched intently.
"So, according to this... you're lactose intolerant, you're at a slightly elevated risk of prostate cancer and... I'm afraid it's bad news, Jim. Seems you're also at risk of male pattern balding."
"What?" His hands flew up to his perfect quiff, held in place by what had to be an industrial-sized vat of hairspray.
Betty laughed exaggeratedly. "Only kidding."
There was an increasing sense of unease growing inside me, and I couldn't put my finger on why. This couldn't be what was being shown on the capital's TV networks, which meant it served some other purpose. And I had no idea what that was.
"Betty, I've just got to get my hands on one of these," Jim said. "But something like this has got to cost thousands, right?"
"Well, Jim, that's where you're wrong! You might want to sit down for this one, because today we've got the GenKit Five Thousand on offer for the unbelievable price of just ninety-nine ninety-nine!"
"Hold on, ninety-nine ninety-nine?"
"Ninety-nine, ninety-nine," she confirmed, with an unwavering smile. Music had started playing in the background, an overly peppy tune that only seemed to emphasise the strangeness of the whole thing, and a banner with a phone number appeared onscreen. "To take advantage of this incredible offer, all you have to do is call the number onscreen now. We'll put you right through to one of our friendly operators to place your order and your GenKit Five Thousand will be with you in no time at all."
Erica turned the volume down and turned to us. "Mental, isn't it?"
"That can't be a real TV programme," Thomas pointed out. "It's ridiculous. No one in their right mind would believe they're serious."
"Well, it's coming from their network," Erica said. "Unless they're putting out some kind of dummy transmission, to hide what's really going on."
Nova placed her hands on her hips. "It's got to be hasn't it? This isn't New London TV. I know they've got their fair share of cheesy telesales programmes, but this is on a whole other level..."
"I just don't understand why," Erica continued. "If they wanted to block their signal, there's a million other ways they could've gone about it. They could've stopped me from even picking it up in the first place. But putting out something like this... it's just weird."
"And if they're trying to throw people off the scent, they're doing a pretty terrible job," said Nova. "They could've used a real show."
"Maybe that could give too much away," Jace suggested.
"But they still could've used telesales," Nova countered. "Real telesales. They don't even have to be up to date. They're not going to reveal any major city secrets, are they?"
Suddenly, a voice behind me spoke, louder and clearer than all the rest. When I turned, Art was staring at the screen like he couldn't tear his eyes away. "Call the number."
Erica looked confused. "What?"
"Call the number," he repeated. "The one on screen right now."
But she still just frowned. "Why? We're not about to order a bloody GenKit Two Thousand and One, or whatever they're trying to sell us. It probably doesn't even exist."
But something had shifted in Nova's expression – one look at Art, and she appeared a lot calmer, like the answer had become obvious. "He could be right," she said. "It could be how we get in. Where's a phone?"
"Nova, the phone lines here don't even..." Erica's voice trailed off as Nova yanked open the doors underneath the desk, rifling through their contents. After a couple of seconds, her hand emerged with an ancient-looking phone, complete with thick buttons and a black-and-white screen. Miles away from the slim pieces of glass we were used to back home.
I was sceptical, but there was a glint of determination in both Nova's and Art's eyes that I couldn't argue with.
We watched with bated breath as Nova punched in the numbers onscreen. For a moment, she put the phone to her ear, before hitting the speakerphone button and laying it on her desk. The phone lines weren't supposed to work here, but if that was the case... we shouldn't have been hearing a dial tone.
It cut off after a couple of seconds, replaced by silence. What followed was a loud beeping noise, and then a strange robotic voice.
"One... five... nine... eight... two... eight... zero... six..."
It blared through the phone's loudspeaker, forcing its way into the room like a verbal intruder. All I could hear was the random string of numbers, with a pause between them too short to work out whether there was any kind of pattern of repetition. The numbers just kept coming – like they meant something, and were mocking us for not knowing what to do with them.
"What on earth...?"
"Did we break something?" Art asked.
"Five... four... nine... eight... three... six... five..."
Erica grabbed the first pen she could and started scribbling. The scratch of the ink matched each number as she wrote them down one by one, trying her best to keep up, her finger trailing the list in search of a pattern.
I didn't need the pen or paper. The numbers etched themselves effortlessly into my brain, building up a neat sequence one by one. Memorisation had always come easy to me – but there was something about this that felt even more effortless, like this particular task was a perfect match for the natural ability coded into my DNA.
Voices were all around me, forming their own hurried conversations about what to do, but I forced myself to block them out. I needed space to think, to breathe, to separate my thoughts...
And then it came to me.
"It's a pattern," I blurted out, causing everybody else to fall silent. The voice continued to blare numbers in the background, but I didn't need them anymore. "It's repeating. Twenty-five numbers forward, then the same twenty-five in reverse. It's some kind of code."
"Wait a minute..." Erica said. She turned back to the screen, her fingers moving frantically across the keyboard again. "What if it's...?"
"What?" Art pressed.
"There was something else I noticed," she said. "Another signal. Tiny, barely even a blip – I just assumed it was a glitch. You wouldn't think anything of it unless you were looking. Now I'm thinking it could mean something..."
My eyes went to the screen, but it was changing so fast I could barely keep track. Betty and Jim's unnerving grins disappeared, replaced quickly by the nationwide map, which began to zoom in on the south east. A new dot appeared on the map: this one much smaller, barely visible until she'd zoomed in properly, so close to New London that you could see the Thames winding through.
"I'm going to try to hijack it," she said. "It's not an open signal, but if that code means something... maybe it'll let me through. Astrid – can you remember the code?"
"Yeah, I've still got it."
She made a gesture with her hand that told me to start reciting. Closing my eyes again, I pulled the numbers back to the conscious part of my brain, visualising them in the black space. And as each one arrived in my head, I delivered it to Erica aloud.
She punched the numbers into the computer, and then leant back, waiting for whatever was coming next.
For the first few seconds, nothing happened. The screen went dark, the map and everything else vanishing, and we stared on with bated breath.
But then it exploded into colour.
This time, it wasn't Betty and Jim, or anything as disturbing. There were no bright colours, no artificially dazzling smile, no peculiar mannerisms. It was an aerial shot of New London, taken from a helicopter, while a banner displaying headlines ran across the bottom of the screen. The logo in the corner confirmed it.
This was the news.
On real New London TV.
We were in.
The realisation seemed to spark something in Nova, who lurched forward as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Is this it?" she asked. "Are we in?"
"I think it worked," Erica said. "We're in."
"What channel is this? Channel One?" Nova asked eagerly. "Is this all we have? Can we get others?"
"Let's have a look." Erica made a few clicks, and as she did so, the screen changed. The aerial shots were replaced by a talk show set. Another click, and it changed again: this time shifting to what looked like a documentary, with shots of scientists in white lab coats, playing around with pipettes. "Looks like we have. That's got to be the most bizarre way to get into a communications channel I've ever seen. They've got some strange imaginations in that city."
"Can you go back to the news?" Nova asked. "We might as well get a look at what's going on down there."
Erica obeyed, and the screen went back to the original channel. The aerial shots had disappeared, and it was now playing the introduction to the morning news – and when the newsreader appeared, her face was solemn.
"Another shock arrest was made today, connected to the highly controversial genetic modification epidemic sweeping New London," she declared. "This time, straight out of City Hall and linked to Mayor Shields herself."
As soon as I heard the words, my heart dropped. The thud-thud-thud started beneath my chest, quickening at an unnerving rate, catching the breath in my throat.
"Today it was revealed at that Orla Shields, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Mayor Shields, tested positive for illegally enhanced DNA," the newsreader continued. "She was taken away from City Hall earlier after what looked like an attempt by the mayor to keep her hidden. Following a callous display of disregard for both law and ethics in her position as leader of the city, the mayor today refused to comment on the arrest."
The shot changed to a shaky camera angle from outside City Hall. At first, it was difficult to make out what was going on; the camera was amongst a whole crowd of reporters all jostling each other, vying for the best shot. But then the subject came into clear view – and just like that, I felt ready to throw up.
"No..." I said, and it was only once several faces turned in my direction that I realised I'd said it aloud. "Not Orla."
She was being ushered down the steps of City Hall, hands cuffed behind her back and two police officers hanging onto both arms. She was barely recognisable from the last time I'd seen her. She'd lost weight, her features now weary and sunken, and the dark circles under her eyes made it look like she hadn't slept in weeks.
The camera moved with her as they reached the bottom of the steps, and she was manhandled into a waiting police car. She made no attempt to fight back.
The rest of the group were now watching me rather than the screen. It was only Erica that had the courage to ask. "Do you know her?" she asked tentatively.
"She's my best friend," I forced out, the words struggling to find their way up my throat. "This can't be happening."
The screen returned to the newsreader, but having Orla out of my sight didn't make me feel any better; the image was burned into my mind forever. "Max Snowdon, leader of prominent anti-modification movement BioNeutral, reinforced today that such modification of human embryos is illegal, and consequences remain severe, regardless of the individual.
"Miss Shields' arrest adds to a growing number of cases from all over the city. Also arrested in connection with the case were two students of the notorious modification hub, Kristopher Holland Academy: Verity Lai and Henry Whitmore."
If my heart had plummeted before, it now shattered into pieces.
"No!" I cried out, unable to contain myself. "They can't have taken them!"
"Astrid..." Nova started, but I didn't let the sentence go anywhere.
"How can they do this?" I yelled, lurching toward the screen, though I knew this would make no difference. "They haven't done anything!"
As my voice trailed off, and nobody else dared to speak, I let the despair wash over me. Reality was sinking in, the second wave after the rush of emotion, which left more space for rational thought. Something was staring me right in the face – what now seemed like the blindingly obvious.
It had to be.
There was no other explanation.
"He's targeting me," I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. "All three of them together, it's too much of a coincidence. Max Snowdon is trying to get to me."
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Hi, everyone! Slowly but surely, I'm working on this story again. My schedule has been ridiculously busy, with my priority being the imminent deadline for the revised version of TRAPEZE ready for publication (in bookstores across the US and Canada on September 10th!!!!!!). However, I just sent off the latest draft, which meant it was back to the Human Error universe again...
Although it's not been quite as long as last time since I uploaded, I'm aware it's still been a while... so if you forgot what happened again, I'm sorry. I hope the story is worth it.
As always, let me know what you thought -- your comments keep me going :)
- Leigh