iBoy

Inside myself ...

I could see the present too. I could see two dead bodies lying in the mortuary: Gunner, with half of his chest blown away, and Eugene O'Neil. The blast from O'Neil's phone had severed his femoral artery and he'd bled to death on the warehouse floor.

I could see Hashim and Marek still in their hospital beds, both of them seriously injured and scarred for life, but at least they were probably both going to have a life.

Tweet's injuries were so severe that it would be a miracle if he survived.

And Howard Ellman ...?

I couldn't see him.

After undergoing emergency surgery to his chest, heart, and lungs, Ellman had been moved to the intensive care department of a private hospital in West London. That same night, although still in an 'extremely critical' condi­tion, and despite the police guard outside his door, he'd somehow managed to escape from the hospital and disap­pear without trace. The police had no idea how he'd got away, or where he was, and neither did I. But the prevail­ing medical opinion was that without expert care — and probably even with it — he'd be dead within the next twenty-four hours.

I opened my eyes for a moment, remembering my complete lack of feeling as I'd watched Ellman's chest explode ... and I wondered now if I still felt (or didn't feel) the same. About Ellman, O'Neil, the others ... dead or alive ...

Did I care about them?

Did I feel any remorse, any guilt, any shame?

The answer, whether I liked it or not, was no.

And I didn't like it.

I didn't like what it made me.

I closed my eyes again, looking for the presence of Lucy ... and I knew she'd be there. I could always see Lucy in my mind — her sunset eyes, her lips, her smile, her drowning tears — but my mind wasn't reality. My mind wasn't the truth. And the truth was that I just couldn't see how I could ever be with Lucy again. Why on earth would she ever want to be with me? I'd almost got her raped and killed. I'd put her through the very same hell that she'd already been through once. I'd failed to protect her. I'd lied to her, tricked her, betrayed her... and all for what? For revenge? To make me feel better? To make me feel like a hero? Shit...

I wasn't a hero.

I was never a hero.

I was nothing.

No good to anyone.

I was a freak.

A mutant.

A murderer.

I was losing my mind ...

And, even worse, my heart had grown cold.

I'd lost myself.

No matter what I did, I could never be Tom Harvey again. Even if I told everyone everything — Gram, the police, Mr Kirby — I could never rid myself of iBoy. He was with me for ever now. He was me, and I was him. And eventually — inevitably — the rest of the world would find out about us ... and when that happened, our life really would become a freak show.

And I wasn't sure I could live with that.

And despite everything that my rational mind kept telling me, I just couldn't stop thinking about the unthink­ able possibility — no matter how unlikely it was — that Ellman hadn't been lying... that he really was my father. And every time I thought about that, I remembered what I'd said to him in the warehouse: If you were my father, I'd kill myself.

I opened my eyes again and gazed down over the edge of the roof. Thirty floors up ... it was a long way down. And as I looked down through the darkness, I began to picture myself down there on the day that it happened, all those weeks ago ... walking home from school, feel­ing pretty much the same as I always felt... kind of OK, but not great... alone, but not lonely ... thinking about Lucy, wondering what she wanted to see me about ... then hearing a shout from above and looking up and seeing the iPhone hurtling down through the bright blue sky towards me ...

And now, as I gazed down from the roof, remembering the past, something strange happened. My perspective suddenly changed, and instead of picturing myself as me, looking up at the iPhone, I was picturing myself as the iPhone, tumbling down through the sky towards the other me, the me that was down there ... only the sky wasn't blue now, it was black. It was night-time. And it wasn't all those weeks ago ... it was now.

Right now.

And I was falling ... down, down, down ... down through the silent darkness ... hurtling down into oblivion ...

And I could see something on the ground down below. A light.

There was a light down there.

Just outside the entrance to the tower, thirty floors below, someone was riding a bike across the square. And as I leaned further forward and peered over the edge of the roof, I could see the front light of the bike moving slowly over the ground, directly beneath me ... and then, all at once, I was seeing myself falling again, only this time I wasn't the iPhone, I was myself ... I was Tom Harvey, I was iBoy ... I was both of us ... and we were falling from the roof, dropping like a stone ... down, down, down ... heading straight for the light of the unknown cyclist... and we knew that we were going to land on him, or her ... we were going to land head first on them, and our iSkull was going to crack open their skull, and their brain was going to be lacerated by broken iSkull fragments and pieces of us ...

And as I leaned even further forward, almost toppling off the edge now, I heard myself laughing. At least, I assumed it was me, because I was the only one there ... and it sounded vaguely like me ... and I could feel my throat moving, my vocal cords vibrating ...

Yes, it was definitely me.

I was laughing ...

I didn't know why.

And, for some reason, that made me feel incredibly sad, and all at once I wasn't laughing any more, I was crying ... sobbing uncontrollably ... the tears streaming out of me like the tears of a frightened child.

I didn't want to die ...

But I didn't want to live ...

I just didn't know ...

'Tom ...?'

The voice came from behind me.

I waited a moment, trying to steady myself, wiping the tears from my eyes, and then I slowly turned round and looked up ... and there she was, gazing down at me with a worried frown.

'Hey, Luce,' I said.

'Are you all right?' she asked softly. 'You don't look so great.'

I sniffed, wiped my eyes again, and smiled at her. 'I'm fine ... I was just, you know ... just thinking about stuff...'

'Yeah, I know,' she said, sitting down next to me. 'It's all been a bit much, hasn't it?'

'Yeah, you could say that.'

'I just did.'

I looked at her.