iBoy

At 01:16:08 I learned how to hack into the personal computers of CID detectives at Southwark Borough police station, and I found out that three individuals suspected of carrying out the rape and assault of Lucy Walker were still under investigation, but that the Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Superintendent Robert Hall, was not expecting any imminent arrests.

The three individuals named were: Eugene 'Yoyo' O'Neil, Paul 'Cutz' Adebajo, and DeWayne Firman.

Other individuals suspected of being involved, but with no evidence against them, were Yusef Hashim, Nathan 'Fly' Craig, and Carl 'Trick' Patrick.

Between 01:49:18 and 02:37:08 I learned (by experimenting with both a penknife and an old toy gun that fired plastic pellets) that when my iSkin was turned on, my whole body was shielded with an electric force field.

And at 02:57:44 I learned (from an article called 'Electric­ity is Human Thinking', by H. Bernard Wechsler) that:

Every thought, feeling and action in Homo sapiens orig­inates from the electrical signals emitted by our brain cell circuits ... Remember that your brain communicates with each cell of your body through electrical impulses (hormones, enzymes and neuropeptides). Further, we believe Consciousness is electrically producing mental- imagery in the occipital lobe and precuneous of your brain. Our commonality with our computer, TV, video game player, and telephone is in the use of electricity and electromagnetic fields as a source of energy.

Electricity is the movement of a charge down a wire. In our neurons (nerve cells) the electric signal moves in the form of an Action-Potential. Inside the nerve cells is a negative charge produced by nano pumps moving charged Ions out of our cells. We are constantly involved in polarizing and depolarizing Ions through Gates in our nerve membranes causing our muscle contractions for locomotion. Impulses are sent electrically from the Brain to all parts of the body through these Action-Potentials by signaling our Central Nervous System.

Membranes have two types of proteins: Ion channels for Sodium (Na) outside the cell, and Potassium (K) inside the cell. When the nerve cell receives a stimulus, it opens some of its Ion channels. The second protein is called Transporters. ATP transports chemical energy within the cells for Metabolism.

And although that didn't explain how the shattered fragments of a 3.7V 1219 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery could meld with the organic electrical energy of my brain (or my body) to produce a level of power that was above and beyond the linear sum of the two original powers, a level of power that was sufficient to produce a powerful electric shock and create a protec­tive force field ...

Well, actually, it didn't explain anything. But, to be honest, I'd pretty much given up on explanations by then. I mean, Spider-Man never bothered too much with expla­nations, did he? He just got bitten by a genetically engineered spider, acquired his super-spider-powers, frowned about them for a minute or two, and that was pretty much it. He didn't spend hours and hours trying to understand them, did he?

'Spider-Man?' I heard myself mutter. 'Jesus Christ...'

I couldn't believe that I was comparing myself to a fictional superhero. It was ridiculous. Absolutely ridicu­lous.

At 03:04:50, after forcing myself to stop thinking about the reality and non-reality of superheroes, I intercepted a video being sent from a mobile phone to Lucy's mobile. It came from a girl called Nadia Moore who lived in Eden House, and she'd added a text message to the video. The message read: jst 2 rmind u agn wat a fuckin hor ur.

I had a pretty good idea of what the video was going to show, and I didn't want to watch it, but I knew that I had to. So after I'd blocked it from reaching Lucy's phone, I braced myself, pressed the play button inside my head, and set about watching a blurred and shaky video of the attack on Lucy and Ben.

I can't describe the worst of what I saw. There aren't words sick enough.

I cried so much it hurt.

I couldn't watch all of the video — there were some scenes that were simply too vile ... too heart-breaking to witness — but after watching most of it, I knew that the police were only partly right. The six individuals they suspected of being involved — O'Neil, Adebajo, Firman, Hashim, Craig, and Patrick — they were all definitely there, and it was definitely the first three who'd done all the really bad stuff. But they weren't the only ones who'd been there. There were others. Some of them had been there from the start, and others had come later, in response to texts and calls from both Carl Patrick and Nadia Moore, who apparently were boyfriend and girlfriend (and, unbeliev­ably, it was Nadia who'd actually done the filming). Even while the attack was going on, they were sending out texts and calling their friends, inviting them to come along — homporn 4u!! lovit haha! ... cum c da fun! — as if it was some kind of circus or something. And their friends did come along. By the time O'Neil and the others had finished with Lucy and Ben, there must have been at least six or seven others in the flat.

Some of them had their faces covered, so I couldn't make out all of them from the video, but I recognized most of them. Jayden Carroll was there, and a couple of brothers from Addington called Big and Little Jones. There were a few youngish kids — no more than twelve or thir­teen years old — who I didn't know, but I'd seen them around. And Davey Carr was there too. It was Davey who'd taken the iPhone out of Ben's pocket and thrown it out of the window. He was laughing when he did it.

I wanted to delete the video, to erase it from my head. I didn't want it to be there any more ... I didn't want it to exist.

But I couldn't delete it.

Not yet.

I might need it.

Inside my head, I reached out in anger to Carl Patrick's mobile and instantly sent a text from his phone to his girlfriend's, Nadia Moore. leona, I wrote, gotta cu agin soon. ur SO xxxx hot!! trkxxxxx

It was a pathetic thing to do, I knew that. It was petty and stupid and utterly pointless, and it didn't make me I feel the slightest bit better. But what the hell? It didn't make me feel any worse either.

At 03 :41:29 Lucy logged on to her MySpace profile, opened up her blog, and started writing. As far as I could tell, it was the first time she'd ever written anything in her blog. I knew that I shouldn't be spying on her, and I did feel kind of sneaky and ashamed of myself for doing it, but however much guilt I felt, my desire to know how she felt, to know what she was thinking, was that much stronger.

She didn't write very much. i don't know why i'm writing this, she began, cos i know nobody's ever gonna read it, but i think i just need to write down what i'm feeling. i need to tell someone even if it's only me. i feel dead, i hurt, nothing's ever going to be good again, nothing means anything anymore, all the good things are gone.

T was good and it was really nice to see him, he made me feel not so dead for a while, but tonite in the dark it all comes back and i can't see any light anywhere, there's nothing to feel, i want to hurt them, kill them, i hate them, i want them to die, to suffer, but what good would it do? they'll always have done it and i can't make that go away.

I waited for a while to see if she wrote any more, but after about fifteen minutes or so, she logged off MySpace and shut down her laptop. I waited some more, thinking about what I could do, what I should do, what I wanted to do ... and then, at 03:57:33, I closed my eyes, re-entered my cyber-head, and created a MySpace page