And All the Stars (31 page)

"Take me over slowly, instead of all at once."

"Your strength makes that a dangerous process. You cannot be kept permanently asleep – it
requires a conscious mind. Each time,
you need to be made safe to approach, prevented from attacking. You might choose to harm yourself. You might even manage to escape. And if you do any of those things, the Core
will hunt down your parents." At
her sharp look he shook his head. "He does not have them yet, though the Press very helpfully traced
them to Bathurst. Tell them to move, the
first chance you have."

What was he suggesting? Did he intend to help her escape? Madeleine stared, but he was no longer looking at her reflection, was
gazing down toward Hyde Park. She didn't
know how to feel. It would be stupid to
trust someone who had lied to her from the day they'd met. There was no way to simply step back into
absolute certainty. But something about
the way he held himself, shoulders tight as if braced for a blow...

"Do you have a name?"

His eyes came back to her reflection with a jerk. Startled. Had he expected her to keep calling him Fisher? Then, a thin, wobbling note, a sound she
would struggle to describe, and certainly couldn't reproduce. The name of a Moth.

"Call me Théoden," he said, with a shrug. "He was only possessed in the movie, but
it seems appropriate enough."

After a blank moment she realised he was talking about a
character from
The Lord of the Rings
. A fictional name, to emphasise the falsity of
the person she had known, telling her Fisher's hopes and dreams while carrying
out the Core's orders. And behind it, an
agenda of his own. She had been utterly
taken in, never for a moment suspecting.

"You act very–" She stopped, finding herself stupidly embarrassed. "Nash and Pan, the others. No-one from the school noticed any
difference?"

"Why would they?" Her question had conjured the ghost of a smile. "I'm not sitting in a little control
room in Fisher's head pulling levers. He
is...a layer of knowledge and reaction, a filter through which I experience
this world. Of course I would act
human."

His reflected gaze was unwavering, saying things words did
not. Madeleine wanted to look away, to
deny any kind of response, but she could not. Everything about this was wrong, based on five kinds of lie, and still
her heart raced looking into his eyes. This was a person who had connected with her on a level no-one else had,
and the air between them thrummed.

Beyond Théoden, a ribbon of light curled across the sky. He looked away from her reflection to watch
it twine once around the Spire, then dive and disappear.

"Time to start," he said, in a voice which sounded
short of breath. He stood, and Madeleine
was unable to stop herself from taking a step back, but if Théoden noticed he
gave no sign. "Go to this point on
the floor below."

Madeleine hesitated, then obeyed, perhaps because he was
walking toward her and she was not sure if she could deal with him any
closer. Her mind raced as she headed
down the stair, keeping well ahead while she tried to guess his plans. When she reached the window there was no sign
of movement in the park below, and so she watched the reflection of a boy
walking up behind her, stopping perhaps two metres away.

"Is it time for another of the challenges?" she
asked, mouth dry.

"Buenos Aires. The Core and two others of the Five will be gone till dawn. Think about how Nash survives."

She frowned at this apparent non sequitur, and behind her the
boy who was not Fisher held out a hand as if to brush fingers against the back
of her neck. He'd stopped too far away
to make this possible, but the angle of reflection made it seem that they'd
touched. She could not begin to describe
his expression.

I'm going to push," he said, barely audible. "You will react. But I am glad, Madeleine. Thank you for the courage to do this."

Turning sharply, Madeleine drew breath to speak, and let it
out in a gasp as a hammer-blow of emotion struck her. Grim determination. Fear. Fury. And wound through it all a
fine, cutting thread of concern.

"S-stop!" This was not like the Core's assault. She was not drunk, defenceless. The storm of identity collided with roiling strength, and it took
everything Madeleine had to hold back an automatic blow. "
Th
–!"

He struck again, intensifying the assault, and the roil of
power Madeleine contained hit back. Not
tangled with a shield, as had happened on the beach, but a blast of pure will,
of self, and it was like a starburst, a sudden blooming of white and blue, and
for a moment before her stood a boy, and above him a Moth.

Then the light went out of them both, and they crumpled to
the floor.

"Stop," Madeleine repeated, and dropped to her
knees.

Fisher lay on his back, eyes open, blank. The Moth – Théoden – was just behind him, a
crumpled kite. She'd killed them both.

The tower was silent. Neither Moth nor boy moved. Madeleine knelt, at a complete loss, unable to understand why Théoden
would tell her to think of Nash, then–

Groaning, she scrambled forward on hands and knees. When a Moth left a Blue, the Blue died. There'd been no stories of a Blue living
through the end of possession. But when
had any Moth tried to revive one? CPR
was an obvious thing to attempt, but Madeleine had a better example. A leech Blue, needing a daily dose of energy
to survive. Théoden had all but drawn a
map.

How much? A
thread? A jolt? Surely not the crushing blow which had struck
them down. She pressed her hands
together on his chest, and measured out a dose of desperation and panic,
channelling it into him, the whole of his body shifting in response, as if he
were a balloon inflating.

Lifting her hands, Madeleine scanned him anxiously for any
sign of change. His eyes had shut, but
he was so still. Should she try again,
flood him with energy, or shift to CPR? But then his head turned, just a little, and his eyelids cracked. His chest rose as he drew in a slow breath,
life returning as gently as waking.

Madeleine drew back, suddenly unable to touch this boy she
had undressed, this stranger she had kissed so thoroughly. She looked instead at the crumpled creature
behind him. A flattened paper lantern.

Easing over to kneel beside that alien shape, Madeleine
studied the network of fading blue lines which suggested an almost humanoid
figure. But it was a pattern on a kite,
no true body. No eyes, no limbs, no
heart. She held out her hands anyway,
placed them over a central point. Her
palm sank into a chill surface, and she drew it back. Then, trying to keep to the very surface,
Madeleine sent out a measure of confusion and regret. With it came gratitude, and a deep note of
stronger emotion. Briefly the blue lines
took on a brighter hue, which almost immediately faded.

Tears wouldn't come. The need for them was a tight pressure in her head, her chest, but
Madeleine was at the bottom of a well, and everything was distant. To her right Fisher lifted a hand, turned it
to study the palm, opened and closed it.

"What did you do with that food?" he asked, still
lying on his back.

"...second floor freezer."

The words came out tiny, squeezed past the lump in her
throat, but he seemed to have managed to hear her, sitting up, then standing in
a single, fluid motion. He didn't turn,
paused only a moment to stare out at the Spire, then circled left along the
outer wall of windows.

Everything inside Madeleine had snarled into a tight,
vicious-edged lump, knotted beyond untangling. She watched the colour fade out of Théoden until, after what was
probably a long time, or moments, Fisher returned. He stood very still, looking at the creature
which had stolen his body then given it back.

Without comment he moved to Madeleine and held down to her a
plate. Once-frozen chocolate cake,
microwaved until the icing had melted and run. She had never felt less inclined to eat, barely turning her head enough
to see what it was. Fisher hesitated,
then took the plate over to the window, set it on the sill, and sat beside it.

"I know this is extremely hard for you..." he
began, then stopped. Long seconds ticked
by, and when he spoke again his voice was halting. "I have no idea how to feel about
you. There is...I have a great deal of
emotion for you, but I don't know how much of it is mine. I suppose you – I – " He paused again, then changed tacks
completely, becoming crisp and businesslike: "In around five hours the
Core will return. There's a great deal
to do before that. Although it's
possible for me to manage it without you, the chances of success are much
lower."

It made it easier to have him focus on the larger issues, to
not go anywhere near how either of them might feel. And through the barbed wire wasteland which
filled her, Madeleine had discovered a direction.

"I could do that for Noi, and the others, couldn't
I?"

"Yes." His
relief at her response was obvious. "In fact Noi
is
the
crux of the plan, since she's been taken by one of the Five."

"Does this plan include some way to get out of this
tower?"

"We jump off."

That was enough to make her turn to him, and she suspected it
had been intended to. He was frowning at
her, that angry expression she'd learned could mean whole layers of
emotion. As soon as she let herself see
him, this tall, skinny, very smart boy she'd found herself adoring, her
wire-wrapped heart thumped and bled and she had to drop her eyes. She couldn't do it, couldn't face how much he
remembered, how he felt, dared not let herself study him for differences,
similarities. She would not look again.

"Tell me what to do."

ooOoo

Circling the upper turret of Sydney Tower was a walkway which
led to two glass-bottomed platforms projecting over the edge of the main
floors. The Skywalk. Madeleine and Fisher stood on the platform
facing south-east, a light breeze exploring the vulnerabilities of their
jackets.

"That hotel," Fisher said, pointing left and almost
directly below. It sat on Elizabeth
Street: two sets of terraced balconies joined by a rectangular main building,
all with an uninterrupted view to Hyde Park and the Spire. An immense distance down. "Noi is in the section on our
right. We'll be going in through an
access door from the roof. Aim for the
left of the central building, beside that pool. The shape you practiced should give good control of speed and direction,
but if you miss, head to ground level and meet me at the corner of Market and
Elizabeth."

Even in her bruised and locked-down state, Madeleine could
not simply jump off a building. Clutching the straps of her backpack, she peered at the array of roofs
doubtfully.

"I'll be going first." Fisher bent to study the beams below the
glass floor. "Looks like this will
be structurally sound without the railing, but stand back while I make a
gap."

"I'll do it."

Fisher hesitated, then moved away, silently acknowledging the
power differential between them. He
would need to save his strength.

The vertical sections of metal railing were thick and solid,
but a couple of well-aimed finger punches easily took care of the narrow
horizontal bar joining them. A tiny
piece of metal remained connecting the bar, and bent easily as she pulled it
inward. Then, stepping to one side, she
held her arm over the railing and punched the clear main panel inward.

"Practice again," Fisher said, still maintaining
the crisp, businesslike tone which made it bearable to be near him. "Get a feel for it at full size."

On another day, even with the two upright posts to hold,
standing on the edge of such a drop would have had Madeleine gulping, trying to
convince herself the floor wasn't tilting. But this night, in sight of the Spire, she was only allowing herself to
think of her friends, of Noi down there needing rescue. And of carrying out the plan Théoden had died
to set in motion.

Narrowing her eyes, she raised a shield a few metres in front
of her, then began to thin and shape it, so it became a massive curve facing
away from her, hopefully matching the form Fisher claimed would help her
control direction. It was difficult to
be sure: she had never tried anything like this with her shields, and its
near-invisibility made the process a kind of mental sculpture, theoretically
producing a combination between a sled and an oversized
paraglider
. The wind tugged at her, the tiny gust
suddenly immensely powerful, so she hastily released the shield and moved back.

"Okay," she said.

"Because of the size, your descent should be slow,
allowing you time to experiment with steering. It can be more responsive than a parachute, given you'll be on top, and
can alter it at will. Do you think you
can change the shape quickly?"

"Maybe." This still involved jumping off a building.

"If you find this too difficult to control, try shifting
to the more triangular glider shape I showed you. Even if you panic and let the shield drop,
just make another, as large as possible as fast as you can. It doesn't need to be complex – anything
large will give you the drag to slow down." He paused. "If you can't do it, signal once I've landed, and I'll get the lift
key and come for you."

She almost looked at him, then made the tiniest negative
motion with her head. "I can
manage."

"I'll see you down there, then," he said, voice
momentarily flattening. He stepped into
the gap, holding the upright supports tightly. Wind ruffled his mop of hair, and with barely a pause he tipped forward,
and vanished.

Catching her breath, Madeleine clutched the railing, and in
the night-time shadows spotted him only because he was falling, slowing as she
watched. He must not have spread the
shield till he was well on his way. Conserving his strength. He
curved toward the hotel, the movement controlled, effortless. She lost sight of him in the gloom as he
circled, then saw a tiny shape pass over the lighted rectangle of the rooftop
pool.