What She Does Next Will Astound You Read online

  Right now, her brain was making the same noise. She’d just seen three creatures killed.

  She was covered in stinking flesh. Her gun wasn’t working.

  The Skandis had been killed by Miss Quill. Who was somehow here.

  What was going on?

  Wait, back up a minute. There was something wrong.

  Miss Quill.

  Had killed them. With. A. Gun. April blinked.

  Miss Quill was aiming her gun at her and the smile had turned into a grin. ‘Funny thing,’ she purred. ‘I saw the creatures attacking you and I wondered. I mean, they’d given me a gun, but I had no idea if it would work. What with the creature in my brain that’s supposed to stop me from using weapons. But there you were. About to be killed. And, oddly enough, because of the interdimensional fields, it turns out I can use weapons here. Isn’t that peachy?’

  When April replied her voice was ridiculously calm. The Queen at a Garden Party polite. ‘And are you going to shoot me?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, I’d love to,’ said Miss Quill. ‘But, sadly, I’ve come a long way to rescue you. I doubt I’d get any thanks if I brought you back dead.’ She tilted the gun up and looked at it wistfully. ‘No more fun for you, you poor little thing,’ she actually cooed at it. ‘It’s a very nice gun,’ she remarked.

  ‘Lovely aim, simple action, strong result, stunning battery life. Not that you’d appreciate these things.’ She smirked. ‘You’re too busy being all “Oh no, a GUN, euw, euw, euw, I must start a petition against it and maybe paint a little sign about it”.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ protested April. ‘I tried . . . I tried to shoot one of them. Just now.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Miss Quill asked.

  ‘Days,’ said April.

  ‘And you’ve only just managed to not shoot one of them?’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘How you lot ended up as apex predators I don’t know. I guess evolution has a wicked sense of humour.’

  For the first time in a long while, April felt a familiar emotional reaction. Trying to talk to Miss Quill both made her want to smile and stamp her foot. (Did anyone, ever, actually ever stamp their foot? Still, that’s how she felt.)

  ‘Look,’ April said, ‘it’s been difficult.’

  ‘I’m sure it has,’ Miss Quill oozed. ‘No scented bath salts or organic delicatessens here. You poor thing.’

  ‘How did you get here?’ April asked her. A change of subject sometimes helped.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Miss Quill acknowledged the move and fended it away effortlessly. ‘Let’s get you out of here and tucked up in your no doubt achingly princess bed. You can drink chamomile tea and compose a really scathing review for this place on Airbnb. Come on,’ said Miss Quill and marched off.

  ‘Right.’ April breathed out slowly and set off after her.

  She couldn’t believe it. She was leaving behind the shore, the alien corpses, this whole nightmare. She was going home.

  ‘Oh.’ Miss Quill stopped and spun round. ‘You know what? I just can’t resist.’

  She shot April in the head.

  FORTY-ONE

  IN THE TIME IT TAKES YOU TO READ THIS, SKANDIS WILL HAVE CLAIMED ONE HUNDRED MORE LIVES

  April woke up.

  Again?

  She was in a small white room. Charlie was there. Charlie smiled in her direction, using his warm, distant, seriously polite smile. ‘April,’ he said with the formal courtesy of someone still trying to get used to forenames. ‘You are alright.’

  ‘Miss Quill—’

  ‘Is outside. Keeping watch.’ Charlie sat down on the edge of the bed. He squeezed her hand, a very gentle, reassuring pressure.

  ‘She shot me!’ April protested in a whisper. Knowing Miss Quill, she could hear through doors.

  ‘I know,’ Charlie whispered back. He did not seem to be taking her entirely seriously. ‘She was disabling the camera in your helmet. We’ve removed it. You’re now off the network.’

  ‘Oh,’ said April. ‘She could have warned me.’

  A small ‘Hah!’ came through the door.

  ‘It is not her way.’ Charlie’s smile became rueful. Then he looked more serious. ‘Why did you come here? You have put yourself in great danger.’

  At first, April thought how sweet that was. Then she remembered that she was an unwilling pawn in an intergalactic war. If she died, so would her time-share heart, and then who knew what would happen to the Shadow Kin? Was Charlie’s concern actually for her at all, or simply for the balance of the cosmos?

  ‘I had to do something,’ she protested, and hoped that didn’t sound at all pathetic. ‘You were all talking and debating and people kept going missing. I couldn’t ignore it any longer.’

  Charlie frowned and turned away from her. He was looking at the wall, which was odd as there was nothing on the wall.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ she persisted. ‘It’s just that something needed doing.’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘You acted as a leader,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ April blinked. ‘Well, I suppose so. Something was wrong and needed sorting out and so I . . .’

  ‘Led,’ Charlie finished.

  ‘Not exactly.’ April wondered why she was so defensive, and why Charlie seemed so hurt. ‘I mean, I’d hardly call it great leading. I’ve not done much except get shot at.’

  ‘Leaders do not always make great decisions.’ Charlie turned to her, smiling sadly. ‘But they make decisions and others follow them.’

  ‘But . . .’ Others? What others?

  The door opened and in came Miss Quill, Tanya, and, obviously, Ram.

  Tanya did the explanations. Miss Quill announced that the room was crowded.

  Ram looked at April for some reason. And, for some reason, April looked back at Ram.

  Tanya explained that it took a couple of hours before they noticed she was missing. ‘And we realised why you’d been acting so strangely, and that the whole system could be gamed and that obviously we could do the same . . .’

  VIDEO CLIP UPLOADED TO TRUTHORDARE.COM

  (also available as a rather popular animated gif with the caption: ‘THIS IS HOW MUCH OF A TOSS I GIVE’)

  Tanya, Charlie, and Ram in a roller coaster. Tanya and Ram are screaming their heads off in giddy terror. Charlie is screaming in pure horror and alarm.

  At the front of the carriage is Miss Quill. She is completely calm, bored even, apart from a very slight smile. She is reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

  ‘Anyway, once we’d done that we came right after you.’

  ‘Long afternoon,’ said Ram. Was there candy floss on his shirt?

  ‘Afternoon?’ April said.

  ‘And quite a late evening,’ Ram said. He was sounding defensive, in the unique way that boys have of sounding defensive when they know that somehow they’ve done something wrong but aren’t sure what.

  ‘Wait!’ April sat up in bed and winced. ‘I’ve been here DAYS.’

  ‘No,’ Tanya corrected, ‘hours.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Hours,’ Miss Quill confirmed. ‘This is a slow dimension. It has all sorts of benefits.’ Again, that troubling smile. ‘All sorts. They’ve been able to assemble a fighting force capable of taking on an entire species using, really, little more than a handful of humans. Let’s face it, they’d need all the help they could get.’

  April took a moment to process that. As in, to stop her brain thumping against her eyes. Her friends had not forgotten about her, they’d not abandoned her, she’d been worried about her mum for no reason. It was all going to be okay.

  Apart from that they were trapped in another dimension. Yeah, that bit still sucked.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ April asked. ‘I mean, you’ve come here to rescue me. What’s the plan? How do we get out of here?’

  There was a moment of blank silence. Then Ram coughed awkwardly.

  ‘The thing is . . . um . . . Now that we know what the Skand
is are, we were thinking of fighting them.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ cried April. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Well.’ Charlie was looking at her very firmly. ‘The thing is, you’ve kind of taken the lead on all this, so well, we’re open to suggestions.’

  ‘Well, one option,’ said Miss Quill, ‘is to win the war. Have you thought of that?’

  ‘No,’ said April. ‘I’m not sure that war is the answer.’

  Miss Quill uttered a long, loud groan. ‘I really do think you’re the worst,’ she drawled. ‘Perhaps we should all sit around making placards. We could stroll onto the battlefield waving them. I’m sure both sides would listen. Maybe you could make up a lovely little song as well. Something we could all sing while they’re launching everything they’ve got at us.’

  Disappointingly, Tanya and Ram were nodding. ‘We saw some training footage,’ said Ram, ‘before we could come looking for you. Those creatures—they don’t look pleasant.’

  ‘Pretty grim,’ agreed Tanya. ‘Demon zombie octopus.’

  ‘Much as I’d normally call this parochial speciesism, I have to agree,’ said Miss Quill. ‘The Skandis have to be wiped out. They’re heading towards the Earth. What do you think they’re going to do when they reach it? Hold a car boot sale?’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ April argued. ‘I think this is all about perception. What have we been told about them?’

  ‘That they’re going to destroy the Earth,’ said Ram.

  ‘Do we know that that’s what they’re doing?’ April said. ‘I mean, has anyone in this room—the nonhumans—heard of them?’

  Charlie and Quill glanced at each other.

  ‘Well, no,’ admitted Charlie.

  ‘Isn’t there an intergalactic Wikipedia?’ April pressed on. ‘Something you can look them up in?’

  ‘Let’s go check Wikipedia!’ Miss Quill tutted. ‘What a typical student response.’

  ‘But if they’re a race of predators, wouldn’t you know about them?’

  ‘The universe is best assumed to be a hostile place,’ Miss Quill said firmly. ‘If strange craft appear in your system, man the defences and start shooting.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit shortsighted? How does it go down?’

  ‘Not at all well. But if your visitors are intelligent they will see it as a perfectly sensible response. You humans flatter yourselves that you have the monopoly on brutality and greed. You don’t.’

  ‘Well, I think we need to find out more,’ said April. ‘Think before we shoot.’

  ‘Oh, look at Miss Moral High Ground.’ Quill laughed. ‘What were you doing before I rescued you?’

  April looked at the floor, suddenly angry. ‘I was in a combat chamber. I was trying . . . I was trying—’

  ‘You tried to shoot one of these monsters. I saw you,’ Quill said triumphantly.

  April looked up and knew she’d lost the room.

  ‘Yes!’ Tanya was grinning. ‘This is what all these evenings of World of Warcraft have been leading up to,’ she said. ‘Finally I get a proper gun.’

  ‘No,’ April insisted. ‘Tanya. Can’t you see that you shouldn’t be doing this?’

  ‘I shouldn’t?’ Tanya’s face set hard quickly. ‘Because I’m younger than you?’

  ‘No! None of us should be fighting. Why isn’t this scheme picking on adults? We can’t even vote, but someone thinks we’re the best to fight an alien war. That’s . . . ’

  Tanya groaned. ‘Look, it’s an outsider’s view—maybe not the right one, but someone’s decided that we’re the best people to fight this thing. So maybe we should.’

  Ram nodded, and April felt her stomach sink.

  ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned these last few weeks,’ he stumbled, ‘it’s that the rest of the universe is pretty mean. And it seems to have no problems killing kids.’

  ‘Exactly, Mr Singh,’ said Miss Quill.

  Tanya nudged Ram in the ribs. ‘Come on. I’m going to get a gun and find out how this system works. You game?’

  She pushed on the door and went out.

  Ram stood there, hesitant, hanging back but obviously eager to go. ‘Just so you know,’ he said, sounding a bit mumbly, ‘Miss Quill has a point. If those things are coming for the Earth, I don’t want to say I stood by and let it happen.’

  ‘Sure,’ April said, not even looking at him. She didn’t even have to try to make her voice bitter. ‘Absolutely. Go fight your war.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ram, going for a joke. ‘Tanya’ll so think we’re best friends now.’

  He went through the door. April looked up. ‘Is that how you think women relate to you?’ she wondered. ‘Side with them, they’ll get a crush on you?’

  She turned back to Charlie and Quill.

  ‘Well,’ she said to the two of them. ‘I think I can guess what Miss Quill’s going to do.’ She pointed to the door.

  Miss Quill barked with laughter. ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ April said firmly. ‘You’re going to go and slaughter those monsters.’

  ‘I’d considered it,’ Miss Quill admitted, ‘but I’ve come up with something a little bit more fun.’

  And then she raised her gun and pointed it at Charlie.

  FORTY-TWO

  MANY PEOPLE WOULD BLAME THIS ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY. BUT WOULD YOU?

  They came in from the day’s kills exhausted. They were sweaty, grimy, and bleeding. Their helmets hung limp from their hands, broadcasting swaying, unusable footage of the floor. The troopers poured into the Big White Room, all of them thoroughly, utterly shattered.

  Some had been here for weeks, it seemed. Some only for hours. But the fighting was getting worse. Whereas previously the battle computer had sent them into combat with only one, or maybe two Skandis, they were now up against groups of anything from three to a dozen.

  To start with, it had been a bit more fun. A change was good, after all. They called it ‘levelling up,’ and those who came back boasted of having Done the Boss. The problem was that fewer and fewer of them were coming back. And troops who’d levelled up found themselves going straight back into combat.

  If they’d been expecting a different scenario, or to encounter Skandis with different weapons or something more novel, they were disappointed. There were simply more of them. And they were angrier and more vicious.

  When they’d thought war was a bit like a game, it had seemed thrilling. Now, every hour of every day was spent going through a door to fight more and more of the enemy. It would only stop for rest breaks, for food and for sleep, and then it would start again.

  The ones who lived were the ones who thrived on the routine. They took even more risks, they found the familiarity comforting, they pushed back against it, but they never forgot the skills they’d learned.

  The ones who didn’t come back were the ones who found it boring. Who found it draining. Who thought that it was unfair. You weren’t banned from complaining about the challenges over your helmet camera—that was fine, although it might be edited out of Seraphin’s recaps. What was curious was that, if you did complain, your chances of stepping through the door into a battle with five or six Skandis rapidly increased.

  The videos were becoming grimmer. The troops sat around, trying to keep their eyes open, as video after video slid past them on the great wall. Sometimes they saw themselves and cheered. Sometimes they saw friends and realised they’d never be coming back and they booed the enemy. They hated the creatures they were fighting against, and they did it with an instinctive, weary, ingrained hatred. The more routine, the more dull the war became, the more they’d carry on with it because they had to.

  They were, Seraphin thought, becoming a tougher crowd. It was harder to get a laugh out of them.

  As the broadcast switched on, he looked out across the hall at all their faces—teenage faces scarred with combat, with dirt burnt into them and massive purple bags under their eyes. They looked gaunt and wired. Somehow it
was his job to keep them going.

  ‘Heeeeeeey! Evening, everybody!’

  Seraphin was standing in his room. He had piled his hair up on his head, and was laughing. ‘I’m henna-ing my hair. What is up with my life? I’m almost out of cereal. Anyway, how’s the battle going? We’ve some really good kills going on here today. Some excellent kills. Really lovely stuff. Shall we have a montage? Yeah, let’s . . . wait—’

  Seraphin stopped and licked his lips. For a moment, just a moment, he seemed uncertain. Curious. Brave.

  ‘Hey, have any of you lot seen April recently? You know, the troublemaking one? She’s fallen off my radar. Hope she’s okay. If any of you see her, you’ll let me know, okay? Right. Anyway. The latest fighting. Cue clip show.’

  Scenes from the day’s battles played across the huge screens, accompanied, for no reason other than because he enjoyed it, by Seraphin playing ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’ on his ukulele.

  Charlie shouldn’t have been surprised. Not really. Ever since he’d been assigned Quill as his bodyguard, he’d known that she would someday point a gun at him. In theory her head should right now be exploding with pain. It wasn’t. She was simply holding the gun without even the slightest wince. Actually, she was smiling a proper, warm smile. Any second now she was going to kill him.

  At moments like this, Charlie felt like the loneliest person in the universe. He’d lost his family, his friends, his world, and the only person left who remembered them was his bitterest enemy—his reluctant bodyguard, who wanted, more than anything, to kill him.

  Charlie was not unaware of the irony. It was made more curious by the mode of speech that humans used. They were persistently violent in conversation, which often confused or alarmed him. When someone would say, ‘My mum is going to kill me,’ he couldn’t help automatically picturing Miss Quill pointing a gun at him. That image haunted him. For once, when a human said something, he knew exactly how they felt. A curious sensation of dread, of inescapable inevitability. Sometimes he forgot about Quill’s nature—sometimes they were almost like friends, with more in common with each other than with anyone else on the planet. But that image was always there to remind him. Because one day, she’d find a way around her processing and shoot him.