Lenora

Where did Wally go? I twist on the spot, craning to see over a man balancing a three-year-old girl on one shoulder and a pedal-driven sewing machine on the other. The girl is grizzling, clearly tired, and sucking on her thumb.

“Up there, on the right,” Hugo gestures towards another street and I shove my way through, trusting Hugo to keep track of Wally as I avoid the small scuffles breaking out on the street. Hugo had clued in to the Mediators using my followers as eyes to trace my whereabouts. It’s easier now I’m no longer sharing everything live.

There’s panicked shouting and a muffled crash, a shattering of plastic and metal that sounds like a metal pipe full of marbles. I twist around, almost tripping. The sewing machine is in pieces on the ground, the little girl, white-faced and fearfully quiet, is tucked securely against her father’s chest while two young men harass them, a third raiding the backpack still strapped to the father’s back. With every rough pull and tug the father stumbles, as all his worldly possessions – carefully folded shirts, spindles of coloured thread, photo frames, a doll whose face is covered in a child’s inky scribbles – are scattered everywhere, kicked about by the constricting press of people that move with a simmering tension, ready to boil over and erupt into mass hysteria.

“Best you keep walking,” Hugo says as the father falls to his knees after a particularly forceful jerk, embracing the little girl protectively. The crowd surges like crashing waves on a storm-wall.

“Leave them alone! Get off them!” I shout.

The pair disappear beneath it all and I struggle to push towards them, but I’m pressed in on all sides and it’s a battle just to keep on my feet, dragged backwards by the crushing tidal force of bodies.

“Come on, Nora, this way!” Hugo shouts, yet I’m unable to see even him. The crowd makes it impossible for him to manifest, however there’s a tugging, like a magnetic pull, towards a barely-there path opening ahead. I hesitate, yet there’s little I can do for the child and her father. I follow, feeling impotent, guilty and angry all at once.

After a few daunting near-hits, people the size of giants bumping together with the gentleness of mountains, and myself in between, I finally reach the side of a building and keep one shoulder pressed against it, seeking somewhere to catch my breath.

Are they okay? I ask, my chest twisted tight. This is my fault.

“They’ll be fine,” Hugo says, yet I suspect he’s lying.

And did we lose Wally?

“Are you sure now’s the time to be chasing after him?”

I’m certain. Where is he?

“He’s not far. He’s talking to some … oh,” he breaks off, distracted.

Hugo? What is it? I duck into an alcove, wedging myself into a corner to avoid a fast food booth on wheels, loaded with rattling pans and large tins of cooking oil. Hugo appears opposite me, his hat sitting perfectly on his head, not a hair out of place. He’s close enough his jacket buttons are vanishing in and out of my chest every time I breathe, bringing me that much nearer.

“Zipper says Bryn and Greyson have reached Level Zero, the control deck.” He’s not looking at me. Instead, he’s scanning the crowd, never pausing, trying to stay one step ahead of my father’s Mediators, while making sure to keep me safe in the fearful crush.

That’s good, right?

“Yeah, but there’s a problem. The beacon’s signal is too faint, and without it they can’t land the ship at the chosen site.”

Ship? What do you mean ship?

“Nora, I must help,” he says, ignoring my confusion. He looks at me, face inches from mine. I can almost imagine his breath brushing against my lips, the chaos around us fading until it’s just the two of us. There’s no denying it. Hugo loves me. It hardly matters he’s not real, or has no body, and we can never touch, never hug, never kiss. Whatever programming that forms Hugo also makes him love me and, while a part of me is thrilled, I want to scream. I don’t want him forced to love me.

What’s stopping you? I say and Hugo flinches.

“I need to transmit myself to the Professor’s location and boost the signal from his end.”

What do you mean?

“I have to leave,” he says and my insides turn cold.

I thought Greyson’s device, the invention, is meant to do that.

“Not quite. Okay, think of it like a railway line from point A to point B. The Triumph is point A and the landing point the Professor has chosen is point B. They’re connected, yes, by the track, but to send messages between the two points, you need to attach a train to carry it. I’m the train.”

Why does it have to be you?

“Greyson’s device should’ve done the trick, but I guess it’s just a carriage. It needs me to push. I’m programmed for this, Nora. I’m the Professor’s Plan B. This’s what I was made for.”

“Stay,” I implore.

“Nora.” His voice is strained, pleading, and then someone throws a glass bottle and it smashes near my head, a glass shard clipping my cheek. A centimetre higher and no modes, and I would’ve lost an eye. I press a hand to the sting and draw it away, my fingers smudged red. Hugo’s lips tighten, his eyes feral, as he glares at the turmoil around us.

“You’re right. I can’t go.” He smiles at me, even though there’s a tightness around his eyes when they drift to the scratch across my skin. “Not yet, anyway. It’s too dangerous to leave you alone here.” He’s ignoring his programming, purposefully choosing to, for me. Maybe that means he chooses to love me, too?

What about the signal? You said you were the train!

“This place is going to land one way or another, with or without my help. I doubt there’s any stopping it now. You want to talk to Wallace?” Hugo asks. His question is so out of left field I’m left blinking and wondering, Wallace who? “Because there he is.”

Thank you for staying with me, I whisper, looking up at him. Even though he does not blush or his heart rate increase, I can tell he’s pleased, and maybe a little shy. His gaze flickers to my face and away before returning to rest on my eyes, intense, even through the barrier of my modes.

I rock onto my tippy-toes to see above the crowd.

“Wally!” I shout before I’ve even spotted him, trusting Hugo when he points in the opposite direction to the one I was heading. Wally has circled around to appear from an adjacent street, face thin and tattoos pulsing. He’s not alone any more. There are about a dozen other bodyletters with him, people who’re wearing other people’s bodies like skins. Like a flock of birds, Wally’s at the point of the arrow and the rest spread out behind him in a lazy formation, cutting through the crowd and intent on something out of sight.

Stolen novel; please report.

“What’s he doing?” I whisper. When Wally glances towards me, I wave. He looks right through me. “Wally!” Somehow, I draw his eye again. He nods to his crew and swerves towards me, moving awkwardly yet with an aggressiveness I’ve never seen in Wally before.

“I don’t think that’s Wallace,” Hugo says, stepping in front of me as the man reaches us.

“Hello there.” Wally’s voice is all wrong, deeper, and there’s a strange lilt to it. “You’ve got to be Lenora Rey. Our bright and shining star responsible for all this!” He sweeps out an arm, indicating the Bottom Dwellers madly trying to get out of the way. A whole squadron of Mediators has arrived and is facing off against the bodyletters, two opposing armies across a battlefield. They’re all wearing dark modal suits except the Mediators wear the full head gear, waving their batons menacingly, and the bodyletters’ skins are pulsing with inky veins. I shrink further into the doorway and the person wearing Wally’s face smirks. “All this is your doing.”

“Who are you?” I hiss. The man using Wally’s body laughs, watching me through Hugo’s shoulder.

“Rayburn,” he ducks his head cheekily and bends at the waist to offer me a mocking bow.

“Rayburn,” I echo. The name’s familiar. Bryn and Greyson had mentioned him.

“Proud Undercamper and leader of the Resistance, at your service!”

“What?” The word startles past my lips.

“Surely an Airhead like you knows about the use of bods like these?” He waves a hand down Wally’s chest. “It’s your kind that has the most use of them.”

“No, what are you doing here?” I clarify, annoyed.

“What do you mean?” Rayburn chuckles. “I thought that’s fair obvious. You know what it’s like to be Evicted, and by your own father, if the rumours are to be believed. With Bones gone, there’s no one on this side to send the Evicted to Undercamp. It’s happening earlier than we’d planned, but it’s now our turn to ensure these Evictions are stopped.”

“By hurting people,” I growl. “Hurting Wally.”

“Wally?”

“The body you’ve stolen.”

“I’m not hurting him. He’s still in here. I’ve allowed him to watch and he even agrees with us. He’s worried about you. Are you friends?”

I hesitate before nodding and he snorts.

“I didn’t think you people knew what the word friend meant,” he says just as one of the other bodyletters, a man who moves as though his body is bigger than the one he used, lets out a battle cry and the two sides clash together.

“You shouldn’t be here!” I grab Wally’s jacket to stop him from joining the fray. He scowls, jerking out of my grip.

“And what would you know, eh?”

“The Triumph is landing. Bryn and Greyson, you know them, right? They’re using this machine Greyson’s father built to land us.”

“You’re lying.”

“How could I even begin to come up with a story this insane?” I snap, watching as elbows met jaws and batons hit ribs, and an all-out brawl threatens to sweep up the poor people who’ve yet to get out of the way.

“Your father’s here, Nora,” Hugo says and points. It’s hard to miss him. He’s the only one not wearing a helmet and the other Mediators form a protective half circle around him, even though he stands almost a head taller than them all. It’s like a formation of hills trying to protect a mountain.

“Flynn! To me!” Rayburn shouts over the noise and a woman peels out of the melee with a grin spreading from ear to ear, making her tattoos ripple across her hairless skull.

“Yeah, boss? Kind of busy.” The voice is pitched wrong for such a petite body.

“Check in, will you? Bryn and Grey may’ve left us a message.”

“You just want all the Mediators for yourself,” Flynn grumbles and the borrowed body sags, mouth slack, before the owner re-gains control.

“Wait, what?” the woman murmurs.

“Hang on.” Rayburn grasps the woman’s wrist to stop her from doing a runner, though she looks too dazed to try. A second later, her features stiffen and Flynn’s back in control.

“Glitch, boss, we have to go! The station’s landing!”

Rayburn studies me intently. “So maybe everything being said about you is true then, huh.”

“What’s the plan?” Flynn asks, the borrowed body vibrating with anxiety. No, not anxiety. Excitement. The woman cannot stop herself from grinning. What kind of person enjoys this chaos?

“Our people come first,” Rayburn says firmly. “Inform the others to unplug.” He turns to me as Flynn squirms through the crowd like an eel. “How long we got?”

“Nora, your father,” Hugo warns. As the Undercampers abandon the hired flesh, the Mediators move in like a sledgehammer, using the bodyletters’ moment of newly awoken confusion to their advantage as they slam them into the ground. There’s a gap in the crowd and my father spots me. His lips twist angrily as he strides my way, people parting before him like cleanbots escaping an electrical static wave.

“You need to tell me how long we’ve got!” Rayburn growls, grabbing my shoulders and giving me a firm shake. I can’t take my eyes off Father. Rayburn huffs, yet a second later he asks, “That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Nora, tell Rayburn you’ll tell him everything he wants to know after he gets you to the Core,” Hugo rushes. “Hurry!”

Rayburn eyes me shrewdly as I stammer through my demand, then nods.

“Alright, least I can do if what you’ve done’s true. Come on,” and he wraps an arm around me, hiding me in the sweep of his coat as he drags us through the crowd, ignoring the shouts of alarm from the people we knock over and the voice behind us yelling, “Lenora!”

Rayburn obviously knows his way around this level, avoiding bottlenecks by dragging me up stairs and across metal bridges, and even under the streets through tunnels smelling of musk and urine. I’m so turned around, I’m surprised when we reach the Core. Every lift entrance is surrounded almost fifty-deep by Bottom Dwellers, pushing and shouting as the doors refuse to open.

“They’ve shut down the lifts,” Hugo says. “The station’s in lockdown.”

Rayburn swears when I tell him.

“What do we do now?” I ask. The crowds around us are shifting nervously, and the feeling is addictive.

“I promised to get you here and I have. Tell me what I need to know,” Rayburn insists.

“My father would’ve followed us! It’s still unsafe!”

“Please, this’s fair bigger than you or me.”

I study his face, Wally’s face, and I can see a kindness that looks like Wally’s, yet belongs instead to this man. He allows me to see his fear, his determination, and his love for his people. In return, I feel ashamed.

How long, Hugo?

“Not long. Not long at all. An hour tops.”

I share Hugo’s words and Rayburn nods grimly.

“We’ve prepared for this.” He reaches out and touches my cut cheek gently. I only flinch a little. “Thanks, friend. Keep safe.”

And then he slumps, staggers until he bumps into a wall and shakes his head.

“Wally?”

“Hey, Lenora,” he replies, exhaustion coating him like a second skin. I want to hug him, reassure myself he’s real, yet would he let me? I’ve made such a mess of things. Instead, I allow myself to touch his sleeve, rubbing the material between my fingers, and force myself to be satisfied with that. “Hey,” he repeats and his smile warms me. “None of that.” He touches my cheeks, gently wiping away tears, and loops a hand around the back of my neck, tugging me forward. I sigh, relaxing into his embrace. When had I last had a hug in the real?

“I am sorry,” I whisper, and he squeezes me tighter.

“It’s okay.” Someone jostles us and we draw apart, Wally running his hands up and down my arms comfortingly. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“We need to get everyone up a level.”

“So it’s true. We’re landing?” Wally asks. “Is this level going to be crushed?”

“Not crushed. The station’s going to jettison air-tight sections, however Level Eight is in poor shape. It’s going to be like a level wide Eviction if people stay here.”

“Glitch, that’s insane!”

“But with the lifts shut down there’s no way we can evacuate everyone.”

“I’ve talked to Zipper,” Hugo says and I glance at him, half expecting him to be frowning at Wally’s and my closeness, yet instead he looks sad. “Seems she and Greyson spent a bit of time mapping all the secret passageways between the different levels.”

“So we share the routes with everyone!” I say and then explain the plan to Wally.

“But not everyone can receive it,” Wally says, tapping his modes.

“It’ll be a start.” Hugo broadcasts the easiest routes to the entire level, his eyes unfocused as he determines the location of every Bottom Dweller and sends them their closest route. Nothing happens near the Core but there’s a ripple in the crowd, as just over half tilt their heads as they access data before excitedly talking to their neighbours. Groups break off to reach the closest passageways. Those who don’t have active modes follow, and soon the area around the Core’s deserted. But not for long.

“Wally, stay here. People are going to be making their way to the Core and I need you to show the unconnected the way.”

“What about you?” Wally asks, gripping my arms firmly.

“I have to make sure everyone gets out.”

“You’re doing a good thing.” Wally hugs me close again. “Don’t doubt yourself.”

What can I say to that?

I hurry back the way we came, Hugo loping beside me. I stop and give directions to every person who looks lost and scared, and I feel good and strong and powerful. Then I turn a corner and run straight into my father.