Budding Star (6 page)

Michael seemed horrified. “Of
course
not. What kind of Universe do you think this is? Tsubomi has been under intolerable pressure. We believe she was protecting herself the only way she knows how.”

“But she’s in danger, isn’t she?” I said anxiously. “Not just from the Dark Agencies. The longer her soul is separated from her body, the more difficult it will be to retrieve.”

Reuben cleared his throat. “Can I just ask a really obvious question? Tsubomi’s been in a coma for three weeks. Why didn’t some Agency guys go in straight away and get her back?”

Sam looked sheepish. “The thing is, she’s sort of given us the slip.”

I was gobsmacked. “You’ve lost a
soul
? I thought that was virtually impossible!”

“It is. But Tsubomi is an unusual girl. And remember we’re talking about a million plus Limbo dimensions. We don’t have enough personnel to search them all.”

It was down to me to ask the second most obvious question.

“So this wasn’t like, Tsubomi’s time to die?”

“No,” Michael said. “It isn’t Tsubomi’s time to die.”

“But she still could?”

“Yes, she still could,” he said very quietly.

“But if you don’t know where she is, how exactly are we supposed to bring her back?” said Reuben asking the exact same question that had been hovering on the tip of my tongue.

Michael took a breath. “There is one technique which might enable us to find her, but there would have to be a soul connection between the human and at least one of the agents.”

I shot up in my seat. “But there
is
a link! I’ve been feeling it for days. I just didn’t realise until tonight.”

“We suspected there might be.” Michael sounded relieved.

“It’s theoretically possible to locate a lost soul by using the principle of resonance,” Sam explained.

“Like sound, you mean?” I said.

“More like vibration,” he said. “It’s an ancient and extremely powerful angelic technique. I’d say it works nine times out of ten. The only drawback is, we wouldn’t be able to track you. There’d be no Agency backup.”

Reuben grinned. “No change there then!”

“How
will
we cope!” I faked a dramatic sigh

“Sam, have you noticed how trainees today have absolutely no respect?” Michael complained.

“Actually, I seem to remember you making the same comments about me,” Sam said tactfully. “So are you guys willing to give it a shot?”

“Yeah, we’re in, aren’t we, Mel?” said Reuben immediately.

“I’d like to hear it from Melanie, if you don’t mind,” Michael gave me one of his searching looks. “I heard you were thinking of changing options?”

Once again my inner angel got in first. “That’s OK,” she said, quickly. “I might as well go out with a bang.” It seemed like Helix REALLY wanted to go on this mission.

“Nobody wants to pressure you,” Sam said cautiously. “But pretty much everyone here feels you and Reuben are exactly the right people to help Tsubomi. You’re young, you both have a great love of music, and I think you’re on very similar wavelengths.”

Reuben sounded distressed. “It’s not just about Tsubomi, is it? In Heaven, everything reminds kids how magic they are. On Earth there’s just this constant pressure to forget. Tsubomi used her songs to help teenagers remember who they really are. Those kids need her, and they need her songs.”

That’s when it hit me just why Tsubomi Hoshi was so dangerous to the PODS.

The Dark Powers want humans to live in a kind of grey-green-khaki waking dream. Tired, depressed, confused. Just awake enough to work, shovel in food and watch TV, and just asleep enough to make them easy to control.

This extraordinary fourteen year old had the power to wake kids up all over the world.

We said goodbye to Michael out in the corridor. He’d been called away from some huge Earth project to deal with Tsubomi; now he had to go back.

“Sam will talk you through the procedure. It’s really very simple.” Our headmaster sounded like he was worrying that he was abandoning us.

To make him feel better I teased, “If we complete this mission, Michael, you have to take us to Guru for hot chocolate!”

He gave me a tired smile. “If you complete this mission, I’ll take you to Sugar Shock. Their hot chocolate is supposed to be out of this world.”

Then we tried not to notice we’d both said “if”.

Sam led us along a maze of corridors to a row of lifts I’d never used before.

I couldn’t tell you if we travelled up or down to reach the Zone, as Sam kept calling it. When the lift doors slid open we were in a totally unfamiliar part of the Agency Tower.

A sign said: TRANSDIMENSIONAL TRAVEL ZONE PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT

All our previous missions had started in a bustling departure lounge. It’s mad up there, no matter what time you go: trainees dressed in costumes from every historical period you can think of, all queuing for angel tags, making last minute calls, joking with team mates, attempting to meditate while the maintenance guys hunt around for some crucial replacement part for your time portal.

In comparison, the Zone was as silent as the bottom of the ocean.

Sam unlocked a series of sealed doors made from some special celestial metal, ushered us through the final door and relocked it.

When I saw the flotation tanks, I understood why they were kept sealed off from the rest of Angel HQ. Those things were SCARY.

“Tank” generally makes you think of water, but these containers held a particularly high-octane cosmic energy. The minute I walked in, I felt my hair fizzing with electricity. Miniature bolts of lightning were literally crackling around Reuben’s dreads.

“OK, Beeby?” he inquired calmly.

“I’m fine,” I squeaked.

The energy in the tanks didn’t stay still for a second. It bubbled and swirled, constantly changing colour.

“You did say you wanted to go out with a bang,” Reubs commented.

I realised that was the first he’d heard of my change of plan.

“I was going to tell you, honestly—”

“Hey, I didn’t take it personally. My name’s not Brice! And it’s not Orlando, either,” he added in a meaningful tone.He was talking about the angel boy who’d broken my heart.

“You’re such a brilliant friend,” I told him emotionally. “You know what’s so great? There are never any silly complications. You’re like, the ultimate star brother!”

For a second there was this funny little vibe. Then Reuben’s smile was back in place. “Just my luck to be everyone’s favourite big brother!” he grinned.

Sam coughed. He was waiting to run through the procedure for this type of trans-dimensional travel. After that we’d be doing it for real.

Did I explain we had to totally immerse ourselves in this energy? It feels almost exactly like you’re drowning in light. Though when you’re drowning, you probably don’t feel your molecules melting back into their pure energy form?

I reminded myself sternly that this was an ancient angelic procedure. The concept of Extreme Angelic Melting was not exactly appealing, but if they’d been using it for aeons, it had to be safe, right?

Anyway, Reuben was in the tank next to mine, and there was absolutely no reason why I should have another cosmic freak-out. To give myself extra courage, I started to sing our anthem. “We’re not alone,” I sang squeakily. “We’re not alone.” Sadly, I’m such a wuss that I’m capable of singing uplifting anthems AND thinking scary thoughts simultaneously!

The lights above the tanks dimmed.

Not the best moment to remember Sam’s throwaway comment that this ancient angelic technique worked “nine times out of ten”.

OMIGOSH! I panicked. Suppose this was the tenth one today?

But it was too late to back out now. Numbers started flashing in the corner of the tank, some scary unstoppable countdown. TEN, NINE, EIGHT…

And then I saw her. I saw Tsubomi floating in front of me, like a ghost, that’s if ghosts wore Hello Kitty T-shirts, baseball caps and jeans.

“Tsu-Tsubomi?” I whispered. My voice sent gold and silver shock waves rippling through the tank.

Her lips parted, and I suddenly knew she was calling my name.

She
wants
us to come and find her, I thought.

…SEVEN, SIX…

Soul connections are a truly wonderful thing. Now Tsubomi had made contact I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t even mind that my molecules were dissolving into pure cosmic energy. I was free! Free to fly in any direction. Take me to her, wherever she is, I willed, take me to Tsubomi Hoshi now.

…FIVE, FOUR, THREE…

Something was happening, a fabulously thrilling sensation like a kite slipping free of its string. …TWO, ONE, ZERO!

The simmering shimmering colours vanished. Like a bird released from a cage, my soul went soaring off to a totally unknown dimension.

Chapter Four

L
ight flickered high above me. I could hear crickets chirping and the buzz of summer bees. The air was so hot and humid it was literally steaming. I was lying on warm damp earth, looking up into the branches of a tree. Sparkling drops slid off the leaves, and splashed on to my skin. We’d obviously just missed a heavy downpour.

“Phew! We actually made it to… wherever this is!”

I felt Reuben’s voice reverberating through my skull bones. We were lying head to head like little kids.

Bones
? I thought in surprise.
Heads
? Didn’t we just dissolve?

We sat up and stared at each other in dismay.

“Oh, well,” Reubs sighed. “Mustn’t be picky.”

“It’s all right for you” I moaned. “You don’t care what you look like!”

“What are you complaining about, girl? That straw hat is
totally
you!” He patted my bare foot. “Pity they couldn’t stretch the budget to include footwear!”

Neither of us had the slightest idea why we were dressed like poor Japanese peasants, but then absolutely nothing was what we expected.

The Limbo dimensions we’d experienced in simulations were creepy colourless places, almost like you were trapped inside CCTV. This world was GORGEOUS! It was literally like we’d fallen into an old Japanese painting, one of those old scrolls, with a v
.
deep poem written in exquisite Japanese calligraphy. It would have to be a summer poem, I decided dreamily. It would describe the way the sunlight made patterns on the forest floor, and the blissful warmth on our skin. Oh, and the mind-melting scent of flowers after the rain…

I should just mention that, despite its beauty, this world had the most peculiar vibe. Reubs and I both agreed that it was unlike anything we’d ever come across before. It wasn’t necessarily an
ominous
-type vibe, but it kind of made you wonder if there might be more to this place than met the eye.

At the exact same moment, we noticed the bag hanging in a tree.

“Oh, that’s for us,” I said confidently.

Reuben looked bewildered. “How can you possibly know that?”

I shook my head. “I just know.”

“Wowie!” he said sarcastically, as he unhooked the crude leather satchel. “The perfect accessory for our scuzzy outfits!”

“I thought we weren’t going to be picky!” I teased.

The bag turned out to contain another bag. It was actually more like a miniature sack, filled to the brim with what looked like peach stones.

“O-kay,” said Reuben. “I’m sure it’s very nice of the local spirits to give us their old peach stones.”

“Actual peaches would have been nicer,” I agreed, peering over his shoulder. “But then there’d be that age-old Limbo dilemma of; Ooh, should we risk eating them or not! What’s that other thing - the rolled up paper?”

“You girls are
so
impatient!” Reuben made a big deal of extracting the scroll from the bag, slowly untying the grubby piece of cord and unrolling the parchment inch by inch, until I threatened to thump him.

“Sweetpea if you don’t let me see it right NOW, you’re going to be so sorry,” I told him, genuinely peeved, as he held it tantalisingly out of reach. Then I saw his stunned expression. “What?”

“D minus for refreshments, spirits,” he murmured. “But a definite A plus for map making skills!”

I’ve had some bizarre experiences since I’ve been in the angel biz, but this was the first time either of us had come across actual magic. And the spirit map was magic, without a shadow of a doubt. The vibrant coloured markings were busily rearranging themselves even as we watched.

First they showed a close-up of our immediate surroundings then we got the aerial view of how it all fitted together.

“Oh,
man
,” said Reuben in a weird voice.

When I saw the tiny blue butterfly pulsing in the corner of the map, my heart actually stumbled over a beat. The mysterious map maker was showing us where to find Tsubomi!

Jessica had mentioned the possibility of running into helpful spirits in Limbo, but I didn’t remember her mentioning anyone drawing maps.

All my misgivings faded away. This was going to be a doddle! We’d survived Extreme Angelic Melting. We’d located exactly the right dimension by using our own natural magnetism. Now we had a helpful flashing butterfly to show us which way to go. Missions don’t get any more jammy than this, I thought happily.