Blood Redemption

anyone about this?

No

Well, you can. If you want. You don’t have to carry this by yourself.

You can tell whoever you want.

Yeah? Well u tell me first Wot do we do????? Before I tell anyoneabout u why don’t u tell me?? Wot now??? Because that has got 2

come from u No one else can decide that In her room, Lucy lit a cigarette.

I’ve got to sort out a few things first.

Are u going 2 tell me wot?

Family things, mainly. A few things for myself with my dad.

Why? Firewall don’t do that 2 yourself Don’t waste your time Yourdad = 1 big fat 000000 He is not worth ruining your life 4 That’s yourrevenge on him My dad says that U dont let them hurt u Otherwiseall u do is hurt yourself

It’s not just him. I’ve got a friend I’ve got to think about too. I’ve got to make sure he’s okay before I do anything else. But the thing is I don’t know how. I’ve got my gun but I’m stuck back home again and I don’t how I can use it to help him. You know, I feel so … Do you still think I should go to the police?

Yes I do I do. Because maybe they can help your friend Sitting at her desk, Lucy laughed aloud.

I don’t think so. They’re the last people to do that. But I am going to go public, Turtle, one way or the other. Whether I go to the police or the media, I don’t know yet.

Why media????

So everyone will know why I did what I did. I’ve got to explain it to them.

U really think they care Firewall? Really think they care???????

They won’t understand where u are coming from U have to see thatIt won’t change how they think about u

They can’t ignore me. Not after this. I wasn’t killing for the sake of killing someone. That’s what she does, she kills. I’m protecting people. So no one has to go through what I went through.

Not your job

If it’s not mine, then whose is it? Don’t say the police again because all they ever do is bash you up. And don’t say they don’t. I know they do, because I’ve seen them do it.

Lucy waited.

Turtle, are you there? Have I lost you?

I’m still here Firewall u can’t think like that U don’t kill people U

know wot people say about me? They come up 2 my dad and theyask him why didn’t he let me die when I was a baby They say it infront of me They don’t think I can hear them Wot’s the fuckingdifference??? Killing me and killing her?

She was evil. You’re not.

Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit amp; I don’t believe u think like that U tell mewhat u think 4 real U tell me that

Do you really want to know? I wish I’d never shot either of them, Turtle. I really do. Maybe I could’ve lived with just shooting her. I don’t know. But shooting that man, I wish, I just wish I’d never done that.

It’s as simple as that. I told you it was simple from the start. It’s just that there’s nothing I can do about it now.

You got 2 go 2 the police Go now!!!! Just call them I can’t. Not now, not yet. I just can’t …

Before Lucy could type any more, Turtle stopped her. Endfirewall, their emergency close-down signal, flashed across her screen. She backed out quickly and found herself on his home page.

It was a dazzling place: seas of high glass-blue Japanese waves with the wind blowing the foam back, seagulls swirling about the sky, and a small boat with transparent sails, sailing into the bright red sun. A figure in the boat waved and smiled out of the screen. ‘Hi, I’m the Turtle,’ the figure said as he sailed against a bright sky.

Then the image dissolved into a photograph of a boy in a wheelchair with the written words: Hi, I’m Toby Harrigan. I callmyself the Turtle, because I’m like a turtle on its back when I’m outof my wheelchair. I can’t move at all then except to shake my handin the air, but out on the Net I can do what I want. I can sail, fly,do anything. Come and talk turtle to me because inside I’m justlike anybody else. The buttons, Meet Me, Meet My Family, Life at Cotswold House, Why I am the way I am, flickered into being one after the other but Lucy had other places to go. She wanted to work on her own site and slipped away out of cyberspace, taking the precaution of working offline on her own machine where no one could disturb her.

The kaleidoscope of her interior world opened out and she immersed herself in its electronic images, unwinding the tension in her neck, assuaging some of her grief and reducing the world outside to a succession of shadows. As she worked, she passed quickly over her representations of Dr Agnes Liu. Lucy was looking only for consolation.

15

‘What’s all this?’

Toby felt his father’s hands on his shoulders, the familiar light pressure of the heel of his father’s palm on the muscle, it was their greeting. He knew his father’s individual odour, a tinge of sweat mingled with his familiar aftershave. His father’s presence, the sound of his voice, and the touch of his hands soothing the twisted muscle down Toby’s spine, were his first memories. His good hand flickered over his custom-made keyboard with its built-in mouse but it was too late to close the window. His father was reading aloud from the screen.

‘She was evil. You’re not. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And I don’t believe you think like that. You tell me what you think. For real. You tell me that. Do you really want to know? I wish I’d never shot either of them, Turtle. I really do. Maybe I could’ve lived with just shooting her. I don’t know. But shooting that man, I wish, I just wish I’d never done that. It’s as simple as that. I told you it was simple from the start.

It’s just that there’s nothing I can do about it now.’

Harrigan repeated the final words and then stood there in silence.

His spoken greetings, his apology for arriving unannounced like this, were lost.

‘What is this, Toby? Is it a joke? Are you and a friend doing a bit of role-playing over the Net? Is that it? Or are you going to tell me this is real?’

Toby had a file in which he kept his one-way conversations with his father, a silent recording without a playback option, a series of responses which begged the other side of the conversation. He opened it to a smaller window. He reached out to type, Yes just a joke dad, and stopped. His father pulled up a chair beside him, they sat in their common silence. Harrigan, who had never really heard his son speak more than a few disjointed words, always listened in his mind to the voice that he imagined Toby might have had.

‘Do you want to tell me?’ he eventually asked.

If I do, Dad, will you cut me out of this? If I could have just one more talk to her, then I could get her to give herself up to you. I could have said to her, you call my dad. He’ll come and get you, he’ll make sure they won’t hurt you.

Words which Toby did not type, which instead, like so much of his speech, found no way into the atmosphere, living and dying like small moths in the hermetic seal of his thoughts.

If I tell u — then u have 2 let me talk 2 her when I want 2

‘Talk to who, Toby?’

U have 2 promise

‘I can’t stop you doing anything on this machine. We’ve been down that road before. That’s your world in there, not mine. I know that.’

How come you’re here anyway???