The Chosen Seed (35 page)

And as the name registered, so his world fell back into place:
Cass Jones. Luke. The Bank. The dead
—

He groaned.

‘That will pass,’ Mr Bright said. ‘We may have to carry him out of here.’

The straps on his arms came free and Cass struggled to haul himself up. He blinked through the black patches at the corner of his vision and his mouth moved with the ghosts of a thousand questions, but nothing recognisable came out.

Leaning heavily on the stranger, Cass turned his head to
see Mr Bright crouched by the body of a swarthy, well-built man. He was removing something from around his neck. When he stood up, Cass could see he’d been in a battle of his own; there were streaks of dried blood on his cheeks and his normally impeccable clothing was rumpled and stained. What had happened in here? And more importantly, what had happened to
him
? The room was baking, but he shivered. Cold had settled into his bones and his feet were numb – the cold from the void. He wondered if he’d ever be warm again.

‘There are no Walkways,’ he rasped, finally finding his voice. ‘It’s a trap.’ Mr Bright and the stranger paused and looked at each other.

‘We can talk about that later,’ Mr Bright said. ‘For now, let’s get you out of here. We haven’t got much time.’

Cass almost laughed. Go with Mr Bright? He’d rather take his chances here. He got to his feet. He’d rather—

—and the world spun and stars flashed in his vision—

—and a million miles away Mr Bright said calmly, ‘Catch him. He’s passing out.’ The words sounded like trumpet music, and then blackness took him again.

The old man was like an excited child as they left the small attic apartment for the last time and headed towards the car she’d procured for them. He leaned on her quite heavily and their progress was slow, but his eyes were alive and his weakness was, at least temporarily, leaving him.

‘I can’t wait to see him,’ he said, for the hundredth time. ‘It’s been so long – I can’t wait to see him, and I can’t wait to get home.’

‘Me too,’ she said, smiling. Her hair was shining, and a bright titian red again: as the First got stronger, so did they. She hadn’t realised how much she had lost hope that they
would ever get home again, until she got it back. Her nose stung and began to run in the biting cold. She’d be glad to be back in the endless warmth. She’d be glad to be herself again.

‘And you think you know where Jarrod Pretorius is?’ he asked as they turned off the main road and down a side-street. She didn’t look at him as she pulled the car keys out of her pocket.

‘I think so,’ she said. He hadn’t asked her about Jarrod Pretorius before, and for that she was grateful. In the end, she’d had to look for him in the old ways, and her abilities were so weakened that it had taken days before she got even the faintest of images. But since then, more and more had come to her – faces, places, buildings, names – until she had been left exhausted, and last night the old man had had to look after her instead of the other way round.

She wondered how much of the tiredness came from the search itself, and how much from the heartache it produced. She wondered if those who had marched off so long ago without a backwards look ever missed those they had left behind as they themselves were missed. Perhaps forgetting was easier if you were far from home … She had never forgotten, though. He had always been a strange one, but she had loved him, even when they had taken different sides as they were duty-bound to do. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, of that she was sure, even after all this time, but he’d done it anyway.

Inside the car, she turned the engine on and cold air hit her face from the vents, but she didn’t close them; she
needed
the cold. She needed to be as strong as possible. Her strange new heart thumped loudly and she told herself it was the excitement of seeing the First, which wasn’t entirely a lie. Now that their meeting was so close, her heart was leaping
for it: it had been so long, and he had always shone so brightly – and she, like all the rest, had missed him.

But it was Jarrod Pretorius she needed her steel for.

She pulled away from the kerb and out into the traffic, then turned the volume up on the radio. She needed the festive good cheer. She found herself enjoying seeing the old man’s foot tapping along as the singer screeched ‘
Merry Christmas!
’ at them, and then it was replaced with something older and mellower, but still full of warmth and love, and it made her think of Jarrod Pretorius again; it made her think of love. Perhaps
they
were right in that – perhaps true love never did really die.

She thought of the Architect, and all the others. She wondered if they would ever understand that
he
was so bent on the destruction of them and all they had achieved because
he
had loved them and
he
had missed them, and
he
would not ever forgive them for that.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘I
took it from the one who was guarding Cassius Jones in the Experiment.’ Mr Bright held up the silver datastick.

‘We have this one.’ Brian Freeman held up a matching item. ‘It came from your friend Mr Craven. He’s dead now.’ He delivered the last line with a smile, but it didn’t appear to bother Mr Bright.

‘That was inevitable given his condition. And colleagues we may have been, but I have never counted Mr Craven among my friends.’ He returned Freeman’s smile with more warmth than the one he’d received. ‘I am glad you have it.’

The two men held the items up as if they were cowboys brandishing Colts in a duel. All Cass wanted was to sit down and wait for his terrible headache to fade. He was exhausted. The journey here had been a blur, and he had no recollection of giving the address to either Mr Bright or Mr Vine, as the stranger turned out to be, but at some point he must have done. He could remember seeing their faces, looming over him as he drifted in and out of consciousness, but the rest was a blank.

As reunions went, it had been a strange one. Cass had stumbled through the door supported by Messrs Bright and Vine, and the ensuing silence had been almost palpable. Dr Cornell had broken it: he’d crept up to within two or three
inches of Mr Bright and then raised a trembling hand and touched his face.

‘You,’ he’d breathed eventually. Cass had thought he might have a heart attack with the shock, but instead he scuttled to safety behind Brian Freeman.

‘You bastard,’ Freeman had said.

‘I’ve been called worse, and I suppose I’ve earned that,’ Mr Bright answered quite cheerfully, ‘but we did a deal, Mr Freeman. You took my offer. You can’t blame me if for some reason you feel sour about it so many years later.’

Freeman had gone for Bright, but Cass forced himself between them, though his head almost exploded in agony at the sudden movement. The situation was fucked up enough without them fighting each other – right now, at least. Before anything else he needed to know why Mr Bright had rescued him.

‘I have all the answers,’ Mr Bright said, pulling the datastick from his pocket. ‘I can tell you everything you want to know.’

And here they were, Cass thought, datasticks drawn at dawn. He let himself flop into an armchair as Mr Bright peered around the room at the photographs and documents that covered every flat surface. ‘Although you seem to be doing a remarkably good job of trying to find them yourselves,’ he finished, sounding almost impressed.

‘Your friend Solomon killed my niece,’ Brian Freeman spat, and Mr Bright’s eyes widened slightly and then, after a moment, twinkled.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘and now this change of heart makes sense. I should have researched his victims more thoroughly.’ He trod carefully over the piles of papers until he reached the large board of photographs and newspaper cuttings propped up against a wall. ‘I’m sorry he did that to you.’
His voice was soft as he studied the pictures. ‘Although I can’t help but be pleased that even at the last, when he’d gone quite,
quite
mad, Mr Solomon didn’t entirely lose his mastery of the game. I’m not afraid to say I miss having him by my side.’ He turned back to Freeman. ‘As things have turned out, your re-involvement might not have been the negative that Mr Solomon intended.’

‘How do you see that?’ Freeman growled.

‘Because right now, and whether you like it or not, we’re all on the same side.’ Mr Bright came closer to Freeman. ‘I’m sure you would like to kill me – or at least
try
to kill me – but I am also sure that you are a pragmatic man, Mr Freeman, and one who would not carelessly lose an ally with my knowledge and in my position.’

‘What do the datasticks do?’ Dr Cornell was oblivious to the tension between the two men standing on either side of him. His eyes glittered with obsession tinged with madness.

‘What do you mean, we’re on the same side?’ Freeman didn’t even glance at Dr Cornell, and neither did Mr Bright.

‘Our own petty quarrels have been somewhat dwarfed by impending events,’ Mr Bright said softly, ‘and for now I suggest we put aside our differences and work together.’

‘What impending events?’ Cass asked.

‘The small matter of Armageddon.’

Brian Freeman snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘Yes. Right.’

‘It’s true,’ Mr Vine cut in, speaking for the first time since his introduction. ‘The House of Intervention saw it.’

‘And I bet you have only his word for this?’ Freeman sneered.

‘I trust his word – I always have.’

‘Interventionists,’ Cass whispered, ‘that’s what Hayley Porter was becoming, wasn’t it?’ He rubbed his aching head
and swallowed down another rush of nausea. Whatever that machine had done to him, it wasn’t good. No wonder the students had killed themselves after being repeatedly plugged into it. Whenever he closed his eyes he could still see the universe of colours.

‘Fucking Armageddon, my arse.’ Freeman stepped in closer to Mr Bright.

‘Charming as that expression is, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s coming.’

‘There is something coming,’ Cass said, suddenly, ‘there was something there, on the other side. I heard trumpets.’

Mr Vine visibly paled.

‘What the fuck are you on about, Charlie?’ Brian Freeman said, unconsciously slipping back to the old name.

‘I don’t exactly know,’ he whispered miserably. And that was true, partly because his brain recoiled in horror whenever he tried to think clearly about what he’d been put through and focus on what he’d experienced. ‘But something’s coming.’

‘Why come here?’ Freeman said. ‘I may have an inflated sense of my own value to the world, but I doubt you’d share it, so explain to me: why rescue Jones and bring him here? You’ve got enough power of your own; you don’t need us.’

‘He’s not running the Inner Cohort any more,’ Mr Vine said. ‘Mr Dublin has taken over. They were torturing him and I set him free.’

‘
Inner Cohort
?’ Freeman snapped. ‘Mr
Dublin
?
Inter
-fucking-
ventionists
? Do you even speak English?’

Mr Bright flicked a hand to silence them, the gesture of a man used to being obeyed. ‘None of that matters at the moment. What matters is that you have to get me to the boy – we’re running out of time.’

Cass looked up, all memory of the chaos in the darkness forgotten. ‘You want me to take you to
Luke
? My
nephew
? Are you crazy?’

‘You haven’t got your nephew.’ Mr Bright spoke softly, and Cass’ world tilted all over again.

‘What do you mean? Of course it’s Luke. He looks exactly like Christian. If he wasn’t Luke, then why did you have him hidden away at that facility? You’re always twisting things, but this time I’m not believing you.’

‘I’ve never lied to you, Cassius Jones. I’ve played games with you, yes, and you may hate me for that, but I have
never
lied to you. I have been
very
careful not to.’

‘That doesn’t mean you’re not lying now.’ Cass’ heart was racing. It had to be Luke. It
had
to be.

Mr Bright looked again at the photos pinned up on the board. His eyes lingered on the old black-and-white newspaper print of him with Mr Solomon and the broad, dark-haired stranger laughing outside the stock exchange.

‘That’s who you have.’ He raised a hand and pointed at the central figure. ‘The First. He’s in Luke’s body and Luke is in his. I imagine you found it easier than you had expected rescuing him. He will have made it so.’

There was a long pause and Cass felt as if he’d been punched hard in the solar plexus. It was
crazy
. Mr Bright had cracked – he must have done.

‘You’re out of your fucking mind,’ he growled, ‘and I’m not falling for anything as crazy as this.’

‘The boy you have is not your nephew,’ Mr Bright said, slowly and clearly. ‘This situation was planned long before you were born – long before your parents ever met, even. Some among us had started to die. It was a concern, but they were few and the time between the deaths was very long. Also, none of them were First or Inner Cohort, so we
thought perhaps it was a weakness in them rather than something that could touch us all. When the First suddenly began to grow older and weaker, however, we needed a plan: we could not lose our leader, and he had no intention of giving up his life, not after everything he had achieved. So I started to trace the bloodlines.’ His eyes had narrowed and instead of looking at Cass, he browsed the events on the wall as he spoke.

‘It was a long and arduous task, as you can imagine. There were a lot of false starts and dead ends, but eventually’ – now he looked around and smiled at Cass – ‘I found Evie and Alan and put them together. Their blood was almost pure, and their children? Well.’ He shrugged. ‘You know how powerfully you feel the
Glow
, Cassius.’ He looked at Cass thoughtfully. ‘I find myself wondering just how much
more
there is that you could tap into that you haven’t accepted yet.’

‘A body swap?’ Brian Freeman stared at Mr Bright. ‘It’s like something out of a science-fiction film.’