Кевин Брукс - iBoy

We just have to go.

Get out of there. Leave them. Go...

... walking home in the early hours of the morning, both of us shivering with cold and shock, Lucy wearing my jacket over her mutilated nightgown ... hobbling awkwardly in my socks and trainers ...

Are you OK?

Yeah ... no.

Holding hands, holding each other, helping each other.

All right?

Yeah ...

We can't talk about it — what happened, what's going to happen, what I've done, what it means — it's all too much for now. Too complex, too confusing ... too many unanswerable questions.

We can't do it.

Not now ...

... Crow Lane, Compton House, flashing blue lights in the darkness ... the police are all over the place. I barely have time to say goodbye to Lucy before we're both taken away for questioning.

Questions. That's pretty much all there was over the next two days: questions from the police, questions from doctors, questions from Gram ... what happened? how did it happen? who? why? where? when?

What could I say?

I don't know ...

Can't remember ...

I'm not sure ...

It was never-ending. Question after question, hour after hour, day after day ... and it wasn't until the Thurs­day evening that I finally managed to get a bit of time on my own. I knew that I wouldn't have long — Gram had just nipped out to the shops, and the police were coming back later to talk to me again — so I didn't waste any time, I just grabbed my jacket, left the flat, and headed up to the roof.

And now, here I was again — sitting alone on the edge of the world, watching the sun go down. It was another mild night, the air clear and still, and the sky was layered with an evening redness that glowed with the promise of long hot summer days to come. But as I sat there on the roof, gazing out at the horizon, I couldn't imagine any days to come. Tomorrow, next Wednesday, next month, next year ... there was nothing there for me, nothing at all. There was nothing beyond the horizon.

Not for me.

My mind was still all in bits.

I closed my eyes and looked inside myself.

I could see a past, the last few days, yesterday ... I could see Gram sitting next to me on the settee in the front room, her greying hair shaved to her scalp around the stitched-up wound on her head, and I could hear myself telling her most of what Ellman had said about my mother, her daughter, and I could see the tears in Gram's eyes when I asked her if any of it was true.

"Georgie wasn't a bad girl," she'd told me, smiling sadly. "But she was always a bit wild, a bit rebellious ... not that I minded that, of course ... but when she was about seventeen she started taking things a bit too far, you know ... mixing with the wrong kind of people, getting into drugs ..." Gram shook her head at the memory. "She lost her way, Tommy. And you know what it's like when you lose your way around here ..."

"Did she know Ellman?"

Gram nodded. "He was the man , you know ... everyone wanted to know Howard Ellman. He had the drugs, the money, the cars, the girls ..." She sighed. "Georgie thought he was exciting. I tried telling her what he was really like, but she just wouldn't listen ..."

"Was she ...?" I asked hesitantly. "I mean, were they...?"

"Sleeping together?" She nodded again. "Georgie was out of her head most of the time — she didn't know what she was doing ..."

"Ellman called her a whore," I said quietly.

Gram looked at me, her eyes moist with tears. "Your mum made a lot of mistakes, Tommy. Like I said, she lost her way ... but in the end she found herself again. When she found out that she was pregnant, she pulled herself together, got off the drugs, got away from Ellman ... and that took a hell of a lot of guts, a lot of courage." Gram paused, putting her hand on my shoulder. "She was your mother, Tommy. If she was still alive now, she'd love you as much as I do, and you'd love her."

I could see us holding each other then, both of us crying our eyes out, and I could hear Gram saying sorry to me, over and over again, for not telling me the truth about Mum before, and I could hear her trying to explain that she hadn't kept the truth from me because she was ashamed of Mum or anything, but simply because she couldn't see what good it would have done for me to know all the ugly details of her life.

And I understood that.

Because, in exactly the same way, I couldn't see what good it would do for Gram to know all the ugly details of what Ellman had said about Mum. She didn't need to know that Ellman might have killed her, or that he might ... just might... be my father ...

She didn't need that pain.

So I kept it to myself.

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.