Chapter 7

Chapter seven

Matthew woke up on the floor. He lay there, groggy and heavy-eyed, as he tried to remember the night before. He lifted his head, cracked his eyes open and stared at somethin beige and blurry. Tentatively, he ran a hand across it. It felt rough and fluffy, like a carpet. He forced his eyelids open, to no avail as the colours blended. Beige, blue and yellow mixed, took strange shapes. He tried to push himself off of the floor, but something landed on him. He felt hands on his back as he was forced onto his stomach.

            “I’m terribly sorry, Matthew,” said a voice, “but I’m afraid that this is necessary: you and I will not be in college today as you are a potential weapon.”

            “Wha-?” Matt gasped. “Ryan?”

            “Yes,” Ryan hissed. “How much do you remember from last night? Where did I take you? Where did we meet? What happened between you, your father, my uncle, my father and Terrance?”

            “Huh?” Matt tried to think back to the day before, when he had been in Literature Studies with Ryan. He remembered finding Ryan waiting for him outside their French class.

            “Old Henshaw requested an ultimatum, I presume?” Ryan had asked, almost spitefully.

            “I... guess,” Matt had answered uncertainly. “He said you’re not permitted to speak in his class again.”

            “Ha!” Ryan had laughed. “The senile old... Anyway, I suppose I should fare better in a class where the content of the lesson is more structured than a mockery of the homework the fool had set the lesson previously. Ah, Français, mon amor... Madame Cartier is by far the example of the ideal teacher...” he had mused. He looked at Matt. “Allons-y, chien! Allons-y!” He had opened the door with relish and bounded inside with a peculiar lust.

            “Oui, Ryan.” Matt had sighed dejectedly, following his friend into a room decorated with red, white and blue paper flags; French words in red, white and blue paper; colour pictures of people enjoying the French culture. One side of the room was dedicated to the verb tables, the imperative conjugation. The conditional verbs. The other was dedicated to making the student feel worthless and hopeless in their study of French. There were quiz-sheets attached to the cork notice board with quotations. Every French student was, at some point, asked to translate the quotations on the notice board. Matt had been called up before, and had failed. Madame Cartier regarded Matt as he shuffled in and took his seat.

            “Mathieu,” she had said, “you are not enthusiastic today.”

Oh, really? Matt had thought. Madame Cartier had her arms crossed. She was a small woman with dyed red hair and beady brown eyes.

            “Mathieu,” she had said in a commanding tone, “translate the fifth quotation from the third sheet on the board.”

Matt sighed.

            “Non, Madame,” he had said. “I’m not up to it, today.”

            “‘Le discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la verité dans les sciences,’” she recited. “Qu’est-ce que c'est?”

            “I’ll tell you what it’s not,” Matt had said with a cheeky grin, “it’s not a quotation. It’s the title of a book by Descartes. We studied it in Philosophy.”

            “Then you should know what it means.”

            “Yeah, I didn’t pay attention to that part.” Matt had admitted.

            “But the words” Madame Cartier had challenged, “they are not so different from the English!”

            “I don’t know what it is,” Matt had challenged, “why are you picking on me?”

Matthew! The discourse on method of rightly conducting the reason and seeking truth in science!, a voice in his head had told him.

            “I am not-” Madame Cartier had begun with a look of irritation, but when Matt repeated what the voice had said, her expression softened and she appeared pleased.

            “Tre bien,” she said mechanically, turning away. She faced the whiteboard where she began to write a number of ‘essential phrases’ that the French students would need if they were to successfully talk about their future plans and aspirations in the ‘present perfect’, or whatever it was called. The other six students entered, and the lesson was conducted with eight people- including Madame Cartier- speaking fluent or near-perfect French while Matt struggled with verb conjugation and sentence formation, almost relying on the occasional voice in his head to help him out.

The bell sounded, signalling the end of the lesson. Matt sighed gratefully and packed away his books. He couldn’t think of what else he had after French, so he decided to go home. Even if he remembered that he had actually had a lesson after French- which he later did, but it was just Religious Studies so it didn’t matter that he had missed it- he would be at home, wishing for snow and butterflies.

            “Remember class,” Madame Cartier had said, “you will be required to perform your French monologues within the next two weeks. Please see me for more detail!”

Matt was out of the class room in a matter of seconds, with Ryan right by his side.

            “‘Please see me for more detail!’” Ryan repeated, imitating Madame Cartier’s accent. “She sounded like an advertisement for a retailer. ‘This is a remarkable deal! See in store for details!’”

Matt looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

Ryan smiled, and Matt felt butterflies dance in his tummy.

            “Shall we go to my home?” Ryan asked, placing a friendly hand on Matt’s shoulder. The butterflies were beside themselves with excitement. Matt debated going to Ryan’s home as they walked out of the college and to the bus stop. He realised that Ryan had never been to his flat, not that it mattered. It did matter in a strange way, because they had been friends for about a year. Or, at least, since Matt had started attending the college. If Ryan had visited Matt’s flat, Matt might have felt embarrassed- it was small, and his bedroom was half-disaster and half-OCD. Not to mention, Richard might be there. On the other hand, Matt taking Ryan home might improve their relationship, but that might have been what Ryan was trying to do as they waited at the bus stop. Matt had seen that Ryan’s bus was coming, and decided.

            “Sure,” Matt had said, “I’ll come with you.”

When they got to Ryan’s home, Matt began to have second thoughts. Should he go in? Ryan’s house was a short walk from the bus stop. It was detached, red-brick and two storeys high. Lace curtains could be seen from the windows. Snow rested on the steps leading up to the front door, lay undisturbed on the grass, resting on the window sills. It had started to snow again, this time in small flakes that fluttered in the wind. They had walked up the steps, holding each other for support for the snow on the steps had iced over during the day. Ryan had opened the door, and they had gone in, and Matt gasped at the warmth that immediately embraced him. He had not realised how cold he was. The walls were amber and the carpet was similar to gold. Sconces lined the walls on either side at regular intervals, but they were not on.

This was what Matthew remembered before waking up, and was what he told Ryan. Ryan seemed content enough with this, and let Matt up into a sitting position. Ryan sat on Matt’s right, keeping an eye on him. He rubbed his head and looked around, saw that he was in a room with black walls decorated with white stars. The carpet was similar to silver in colour, but it looked like it had faded to grey. It was dark in the room- Matt saw closed curtains and a light-switch in the ‘off’ position.

            “Terribly sorry, Matthew,” he heard Ryan say. “Ever since Father told me about your tree dream and our little telepathic episode in French yesterday...” he trailed off, staring at Matt in a strange way. Matt’s stomach clenched.

            “Wait,” he said, “our ‘telepathic episode’? That voice I heard was you?”

Ryan chuckled. “Of course it was! I thought it a ‘long shot’, but it worked! I had never been so relieved to be a telepath as I had been at that moment!”

            “Yeah...” Matt said, slightly dazed, for his head was hurting. Ryan gave him a sympathetic look, and Matt, without quite knowing why, leant forward and kissed his friend softly on the lips. He closed his eyes and held his breath. Pulling away, he opened his eyes and breathed in shakily. The kiss lasted a second, but the moments after felt like an eternity until Ryan leant forward and pecked him on the lips. Soon, they were holding onto each other for dear life on Ryan’s bed- still fully dressed- with Matt’s head on Ryan’s chest and Ryan stroking Matt’s hair. They exchanged occasional kisses. Ryan’s hand found its way under Matt’s shirt, travelling smoothly along the skin. Matt felt electricity as Ryan smiled down at him, his grey-hazel eyes warm and loving. Ryan removed Matt’s red jumper with little resistance from the latter, but when he tried to remove the black shirt, Matt rolled off the bed and landed on his front on the floor.

            “Are you okay?” Ryan sounded concerned.

            “Yeah- uh, yeah- I’m cool, pretty cool- yeah,” he lifted himself from the floor, grabbed his jumper and ran for the door.

            “Matthew!”

Matt stopped when he reached the door, turned and faced Ryan.

            “Please don’t leave,” Ryan said softly. He furrowed his eyebrows and his lower lip hung slightly, revealing his front teeth.

Matt drew a shaky breath. How long had it been? What had he and Ryan been doing? He remembered the kiss that had started what felt like hours of: gazing into each other’s eyes; softly-spoken sweet nothings; light, occasional kisses. Where had the time gone?

            “Sorry,” Matt whispered, his voice hoarse. He felt close to crying- the lump had formed in his throat, his eyes burned- but no tears were forming. His face felt hot with shame, his voice becoming tighter as he said: “I- have to...” and without much thought he pulled the door open, ran through the amber corridor, down a case of amber stairs and through the corridor which he had first entered the Mafuro household. He yanked the front door open and sped down the pathway into the street. He nearly slipped several times, but he kept running until he reached the bus stop. Moments later, a bus pulled up and he got on, not caring where it might take him. The bus was empty, cold. He sat at the back just as the bus pulled away. Matt turned and looked through the back window, saw Ryan run, reach the bus stop and halt, staring at Matt as the bus sped around the corner. Matt turned and sat in his seat. He felt awful. The tears that hadn’t formed earlier now existed, and spilled from his eyes like melancholic champagne. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. His gut felt hollow, but he wanted to be sick. Not for what he and Ryan had spent that past however many minutes or hours doing- for that, he felt comforted and genuine- but for the way he had left. He had just abandoned the boy- the man- he considered a friend. Matt loved Ryan- not only as a friend, but deeper; more potent than he thought he should feel for his friend. He loved Ryan.

He thought back to when he had first met Ryan, and recalled the air of indifference that Ryan had had around him at the time.

Their families had met at Heathrow on Matt’s first evening in the United Kingdom. It was a warm June evening, and Ryan had been wearing a red coat- the kind one would wear on such a warm evening- over a light shirt and dark jeans with white shoes. His father- Loki- was a tall, tanned man with whom he shared grey-hazel eyes. Ryan had brown hair, Loki had thick black hair, but Matt could see some grey shining through. Ryan was quite pale in comparison to his father, with a thin nose and almond-shaped eyes compared to his father’s soccer ball-shaped eyes. When Matt saw Ryan’s mother- a woman he later knew as Dagmar- he reasoned that Ryan was a boy whose appearance came from his mother’s side of the family. It was easy to see that they were parent and child, while the only thing which claimed Ryan as Loki’s son was the eye colour they shared.

Ryan had had a stern look on his face that warm June evening, making Matt suspicious. In the weeks that followed, most notably when they started at college, Matt had tried to avoid him, but Ryan was constantly shadowing him. He would always be there, waiting around the corner, smiling, breaking away from a slightly larger group of people to be with Matt. Whenever Matt dropped something- by accident or as a result of someone’s idea of a joke- Ryan would always be there to collect whatever it was that had been dropped. Gradually, they had begun to hang out with each other- restricted, of course, to the college grounds- and talk about poetry or music. Matt still had that tablature Ryan had given him... Nevertheless, Matt had made sure he stayed suspicious of Ryan, tried to remain stoic in his presence. Had he been a fool to let himself call Ryan ‘friend’? He had undoubtedly been foolish to let himself fall for the boy, but was he foolish enough to act more on what he was feeling? Matt reached into his pocket, dug deep until he reached the lining, to feel his little silver friend. It was thin, sharp, and stolen from Richard. He didn’t dare pull it out, lest it be mistaken for a weapon. Instead, he leant his head against the window and watched the slushy snow-covered streets roll by. Of all the bus stops the bus passed, only one had a potential passenger- an elderly woman in a silver coat- who stared directly at Matt as the bus passed her. Matt could swear her eyes glowed blue.

The trouble really began when the bus ran a red light and swerved off of the road. His breath caught in his throat and panic surged in his chest as the bus took to the air and sailed above Blackheath, picking up speed every second it flew, picking up height until Matt was sure he could see the stars.

Matt began to lose focus, lost his grip on what was real and what was fiction. He smashed the window and jumped from the bus. Only then did he realise how high up he was: he could see the snowed-over greenery that surrounded Blackheath; the buildings looked like a child’s toy city; the people below were minuscule; the cars that were about looked like insects, crawling slowly along. Matt thought that he could see Greenwich Park, wondered how high up he was, wondered how fast he was falling and if anyone would notice him. That raised the question: what would he say when he landed? If he survived?

Matt’s focus returned and he let out a scream so loud, it made no sound. The wind whipped at his hair, blocked out his hearing as he plummeted towards the Earth below.

And then, something inside him was activated. He stopped screaming and straightened his arms so that they were pinned to his sides, closed his legs and straightened them, and kept his mind blank as he waited to meet the ground below.

There is no easy way to communicate how Matt landed on his feet; how the landing resulted in a ten-foot wave that soaked the area surrounding the boating pond in Greenwich Park and cleared most of the snow; how Matt managed to land, relatively unharmed. He was standing in barely an inch of water, a slight aftershock creating small waves that beat at his ankles. His clothes were wet, stuck to his skin in a cold, choking embrace. He tried to stagger forward, but his legs were shaking too badly. He just fell to his knees, wrapped his arms about his body and shivered. Tears fell down his cheeks and landed in the inch of water he knelt in. A breeze passed him. He heard a soft sound, like piano music, being carried by the wind. It sounded sweet and soothing, stopped his tears. He closed his eyes and willed his spirits to be taken away with the music.

***

Thom watched as Matthew fell to his side in the water before snapping his thumb and forefinger, bringing the breeze to a stop. He looked around and saw that there were three people who had witness Matthew’s plummet, who had been soaked by the water. Thom had put them under his spell: the jogger, a few metres away from the pond, would go to his doctor in the morning complaining of fatigue, but would be diagnosed with a cold; the elderly woman sitting on the bench with her dog sitting beside her would think she had fallen asleep, would have had one of those dreams she knew she had had, but could not remember; and the woman by the park entrance was taking a scenic detour from work through the park, but had collapsed- nobody was around to see it and she would be fine, but she would go to her doctor anyway just to make sure.

He turned his attention to the boy- Matt. Matthew. Mattia. Mathieu. One boy with many names. Thom knew how that felt...

Although Thom enjoyed his ‘career’, he hated tampering with peoples’ lives. His father had complained several times to him about being a Tracker, and Thom was beginning to see why he had hated it so much. His mother had been a Watcher. The two professions both relied on astrological practises, but being a Tracker was much more demanding: it required will power; it required concentration; it required patience; but, most of all, the Tracker had to be prepared to make sacrifices. This was why there was such a gender divide in the Organisation between the Trackers and the Watchers. Thom remembered having to make his choice...

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket watch, opened it. Saw the picture of himself, Rebecca, Kelly and Stan.

Rebecca...

He snapped the pocket watch shut and pocketed it. He surveyed the surrounding area- there was no one to be seen. He erected a seclusion dome and advanced towards the boy he decided to call ‘Matt’. Thom stepped onto the water, concentrated and began to walk across it. He left no ripples as he walked on the water. He reached Matt and pulled him out, picked him up so he was cradling the young man against his chest. Thom took another step on the water and he was standing, still cradling Matt, in Richard’s flat. They were alone in the living room. He decided to take Matt to his bedroom, which he found by reading the sign on the door: “Matt and Ronny”. He put the young man on one of the beds- this time, he had to guess. He put Matt on the purple bed and undressed him, wincing at the red scars that ravaged his arms, circled his waist. Thom then dried and dressed the young man in a pair of pyjamas and tucked him in. He waved a hand over Matt’s eyes.

            You have been sleeping all day, he thought to Matt, you have been dreaming. You did not feel well today, so you stayed home from college. You will go in tomorrow, for when you wake up, you will feel better. An entire day of rest did the trick. Today was just a dream- your mind may have grown bored with the lack of physical stimulation.

Thom smiled and stepped back, turned to face the door. He walked out and surveyed the area: no one. He closed the door. The coast was clear. He went to the living room and turned on the television; saw that it was a news programme.

            “… devastation caused by the Old Bailey bombing,” the newsreader said, “has been followed by yet another attack. Tower Bridge has been the subject of an attack, which the public believes may have been caused by use of the same or similar technology to that used at the Old Bailey,”

The scene cut from the newsreader to voxpops.

            “If you ask me,” said a man who looked like a security guard, “we didn’t see anybody with suspicious technology.”

            “The whole thing is ridiculous!” said a French-sounding woman with red hair. “Why would anyone suggest thought-powered technology?”

            “Well,” said a man with grey hair and a North England accent, “science’s advancin’, an’ so are them in that CERN thing, right? Wouldn’t put thought-powered technology past this century- ain’t those military folks tryin’ to prove we can enter other people’s minds or somethin’?”

The scene went back to the newsreader.

“The death toll is yet to be taken,” she said, “but officials on the scene have issued the following statement:

            ‘The bombing of the Old Bailey was a tragedy in itself with few survivors. It is, however, unlikely that anyone would have survived such a large-scale attack on a location such as Tower Bridge. We have yet to evacuate the area fully until we can begin to search the ruins.’

            “More on the bombing as the story progresses.”

Thom sighed as the news programme continued.

Thought-powered technology. Mortals were so gullible. They would believe anything which, in a way, made Thom’s job simpler. His job was to rewrite history, in a manner of speaking. The Watchers came up with the theory and the Trackers put it into practice. An excellent coalition, in Thom’s opinion.

Then he heard something which made his hair stand on end:

            “Breaking news on the Tower Bridge bombing!” the newsreader said, “An internet blog has sourced an institution which is- apparently- known for its use of non-traditional technology.”

            “Delores will be pleased,” Thom said out loud.

            “One moment,” the newsreader said, tapping her ear and looking at the floor. Moments later, she looked back at the camera and said: “Apologies- the blog does not list the name of the institution, but has been sourced to the e-mail address of a south London prankster. Apologies for the inaccurate information.” She looked embarrassed.

That was close, Thom thought, so damn close! I must contact Loki!

No need, Llewellyn, Thom heard inside his head.

Telepathy is a strange thing. Loki had said that he would be able to contact them at anytime, anywhere. Thom sighed.

Telepathy is strange, he thought.

Indeed it is, Loki mused, and I must concur- this was indeed very close.

I’m sorry, Loki, Thom thought apologetically, I thought I had tied everything up- Matt decided to be suicidal.

Yes, Loki said, about that- it appears that several mortals are talking.

It was a UFO sighting, Thom thought sternly, nothing more.

Excellent, Loki thought. There was a change to the atmosphere which made Thom think that Loki was smiling, or pleased. And what of the boy?

Resting, Thom thought, in bed. He dreamt the entire thing.

Good. Now- advance to the HQ!

Thom felt the connection dissipate, turned on his heel and summoned a shadow. He had read about shadow travel in a book once, many years ago. Through casual interest and training, he had managed to replicate it. The shadow formed in front of the television, dark and deep. He concentrated on the HQ and fell forward into the shadow, landing hard on his stomach on the stone floor. A pair of beige shoes appeared in front of him.

            “Llewellyn,” said Loki, “hello.”