Mindscape Page 6

  “English please, Pedro,” said Rex.

  “I speak more refined English than you will ever utter,” replied Sebastian.

  “Yes,” said Chris, ignoring Rex, “Sir Bentley said that there’s something else we can try. He didn’t say what, just that he’s going to talk to us about it after lunch.”

  “I think that means now,” said Daisy, standing up. Chris turned and saw Sir Bentley standing at the entrance of the classroom corridor, waving them down.

  • • •

  Chris walked into the classroom to find that Sir Bentley was standing next to Professor Ingleby, the programmer for the Myers Holt computer training program.

  “Pupils, I’m sure you all remember Professor Ingleby,” said Sir Bentley.

  The professor nodded enthusiastically at them all. “Welcome back, children. Lovely to see you all!”

  “Professor Ingleby will be talking to you in a moment about one of the new programs he has developed for your think-tank training,” said Sir Bentley, “but first I need to discuss with you what happened this morning. Christopher, did you explain about Dulcia blocking the Ability when we went to see her?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Chris.

  “Good. As you all know, then, Dulcia Genever has obviously been anticipating our use of the Ability on her and has been keeping a constant block in her mind. So, we need to get around it. Any ideas? Yes, Philip?”

  “What about trying when she’s asleep?”

  “That would be a very good idea, but unfortunately, it seems Dulcia is not doing much sleeping at the moment—or, at least, it’s hard to tell. She’s barely moved from her chair since she arrived at the prison. Now, assuming she’s asleep on our return tonight, it shouldn’t be too difficult to access her mind. If, however, she’s awake and still using her block, then we need to try a technique that you’ll be practicing in a moment in the think tanks. The technique is called a scramble block. I’ll give you an example. Lexi, start counting to forty, out loud.”

  “One, two, three, four, five . . .”

  Sir Bentley joined in loudly. “Six, seven, eight, nine, twenty-five, eighteen, seven, two, sixteen . . .”

  Lexi tried to continue but was clearly getting distracted. “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, nineteen . . . oh!”

  “And that,” said Sir Bentley, “is basically what a scramble block is. You’ll enter Dulcia’s mind using the block she’s using. Let’s assume it’s the same one all the time—‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ is that right, Christopher?”

  Chris nodded.

  “So, you’ll start by accessing her mind using the same song. This will trick her mind into letting you in. Once inside, I believe you’ll find that her Reception is completely blocking any further entry. So, to get rid of the block, you’ll have to start changing it up. That should confuse her mind to the point that the block weakens, and then you can enter her mind properly.”

  “How do we change it? Do we sing a different song?” asked Philip.

  “No, that would be too abrupt, and her mind will immediately resist. Instead, you’ll just sing the song in the wrong order. I think the best way to explain is to let you try it out for yourselves in the think tanks. Professor Ingleby?”

  “Thank you!” said the professor, jumping up from his seat. “I won’t add much to that except to say that the main difference with your training is that you’ll now be able to practice entering people’s minds in the think tanks. I have spent the last few months programming thousands of different mind maps into the computer so that, hopefully, you’ll be well prepared for any type of person you encounter. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to develop the scenario for today—I’ve done my best with the information Sir Bentley has given me but I’m afraid it’s going to be rather unsophisticated. However, I’m sure you’ll enjoy that you’re now able to link up to each other so that you can work together—lots of fun in store! I’ll say no more. Your think-tank teachers can explain the rest. Let’s go!”

  Chris led the way out of the classroom and into the darkness of the think-tank room, where the cubicles hummed quietly, each glowing in a different color. He went over to his, the red one, and turned the handle. Inside, Chris saw the familiar built-in black armchair. He took a seat, fastened himself into his harness, and leaned back, ready for the lesson to begin.

  After a few seconds, the walls of the cubicle started to brighten, and the soft sound of birds singing filled the space until the screens around him transformed themselves into the English countryside—so real it was hard to believe that if he reached out, he would be touching glass. He felt himself being gently lowered until he was sitting in the middle of a field of buttercups swaying gently in the breeze. Chris turned his head, and the chair moved smoothly round until he caught sight of Cassandra, his teacher, sitting on a rock by a slow-moving river. She looked up, smiled, and waved him over.

  Chris leaned forward slightly, and his chair tilted in the same direction. He glided forward until he reached the river and leaned back. The image around him stilled.

  “Welcome back, Chris,” said Cassandra, her voice soothing, her smile warm. She stood up and straightened the red skirt of her dress. “How was your vacation?”

  “It was okay,” said Chris, “I’m glad to be back.”

  Cassandra nodded, as if she understood exactly what Chris meant. It was hard to believe that she was no more than a piece of programming, thought Chris as he turned his head to follow her along the riverbank.

  “We have a lot of exciting new things for you to try this term,” said Cassandra, picking up a pebble and tossing it sideways into the river. The pebble jumped three times across the water and sank.

  “Your turn,” said Cassandra.

  It was so simple. Pick up a stone with his Ability. He knew he could do it, so finding himself frozen with nerves came as a complete surprise.

  “What’s the matter, Chris?”

  Chris realized he was shaking. “I don’t know. . . .”

  But Chris did know—he just didn’t want to admit to Cassandra how much his failure that morning had bothered him. Or how he was growing more nervous every day about the power of his own Ability since the death of the boy. Or how his anger had a way of taking over and making him lose control. He could think of many reasons for his nerves, but not one that he wanted to share with a computer that would almost certainly relay anything he said back to his teachers. For all his concerns, Chris was certain of one thing: He did not want to be thrown out of Myers Holt.

  “Chris, are you okay. Do you want to stop?”

  Chris shook his head, but he didn’t say anything.

  “If you don’t feel you can talk to me,” continued Cassandra, “maybe you could go and have a word with someone else, Sir Bentley per . . .”

  Chris’s head shot up. “No. I’ll do it.”

  Chris looked down at the ground and found a small stone. He imagined it rising, and immediately, it did so, until it was hovering in front of him. Chris pushed it forward with his mind, and the pebble suddenly flicked over to the water, bouncing across the surface five times before disappearing. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Very good!” said Cassandra. “You clearly haven’t lost your touch. Now, today, we’re going to work on a scramble block. Let’s go meet up with the other students and try it together. How does that sound?”

  “Okay,” said Chris. Cassandra eyed him with a puzzled expression, so he forced himself to smile. “I mean that sounds great. Will the others be real, or are they programmed?”

  “No, Lexi, Daisy, Philip, Sebastian, and Rex will all be here in person. The professor has created a network that links all your think tanks—you’ll be seeing what they’re seeing and vice versa.”

  “Cool,” said Chris, and a part of him meant it. He had always loved the professor’s think-tank tricks—he just wished he could shake off his unsettledness.

  “Very,” said Cassandra, laughing. “Let’s get started. Sit back—you’re goin
g for a ride!”

  Chris leaned back in his chair, which tilted all the way back until he was staring at the screen above him—a perfectly cloudless blue sky. The seat began to rumble gently, and then, suddenly, it felt as if he had been shot up into the air. Chris instinctively grabbed at the sides of his chair before remembering that he wasn’t really flying. Suddenly, the chair tipped up straight, and Chris looked down at the fields below his feet, whooshing past him until houses began to appear, dotted far from each other at first and then gradually closer together until they were in the middle of a city. Chris’s chair tipped forward and shot down to the ground, toward a large compound of buildings.

  It was only when he landed and looked around that Chris saw he had been standing at the exact same spot that morning.

  “We’re at the prison?” asked Chris, surprised.

  “Yes,” said Cassandra, appearing next to him. “As you can imagine, the professor hasn’t had very long to put this together, so the details may not be exact—they’re based on Sir Bentley’s description. However, we thought it best for you to practice in as similar a setting as possible. Let’s go inside.”

  Chris followed Cassandra through the door. This time, there were no security guards, and the doors opened automatically to let them through into the stark corridor. Chris took the lead and went up to the door of the observation room he had sat in that morning.

  “Ah, it looks like we’re the first here,” she said, stepping inside. She flicked a switch, and Dulcia’s cell appeared.

  Everything about the room was almost correct, but not quite. The doorway in the room was a little off center, the chair turned to face the wrong way, and the walls were painted a few shades darker than he remembered. Most jarring, however, was Dulcia herself. She was slightly shorter, her jumpsuit was orange rather than blue, and, strangest of all, she was pixelated. It was the first time Chris had seen anything in the think tank that was obviously a computer animation.

  “Chris!” said Daisy, walking in. Although he knew that she, like him, was at this very moment sitting down in her think tank, in here Daisy was standing, and she was wearing a pink dress that Chris recognized as one she hadn’t worn since the previous term.

  “Hello, Chris,” said a woman standing behind Daisy. “I’m Astra, Daisy’s teacher.” Chris smiled. She was just as he had imagined: like a fairy godmother, in a pale-pink dress that sparkled in the dark room.

  “Greetings!” said Sebastian, walking in behind someone who looked like a swashbuckler from a black-and-white Hollywood movie in a flowing white shirt, a large gold belt buckle, and tight black trousers.

  “Buenos días. Me llamo Balthasar,” said the man, running his fingers through his long hair and leaning up against the wall.

  “Sebastian, you’re wearing your old clothes,” said Daisy, laughing. Sure enough, Chris looked over at Sebastian and saw that the bright-blue suit he had been wearing that day had been replaced with a plain white T-shirt and jeans.

  Sebastian looked down at his clothes and curled his lip. “This does not please me whatsoever,” he said. “I will be having discussions with the professor.”

  The others joined them a few minutes later, and the room was soon filled with chatter between the six excited pupils standing next to the strange assortment of teachers. Chris looked around. Even if they hadn’t walked in together, Chris would have had no trouble matching teacher to pupil. Lexi’s teacher, Prometheus, was a tall, no-nonsense-looking man in a black suit. He didn’t speak, instead choosing to survey the room with his arms folded. Rex’s teacher was equally, if not more, intimidating. Almost as wide as he was tall, his muscles stretching against his army uniform, Mars cut a terrifying figure. Rex, unusually, stood silently next to him, back straight, awaiting orders. And finally, all the way from ancient Greece with his long white beard and flowing robes, was Philip’s teacher, Zeno, nodding quietly in conversation with Cassandra.

  “Shall we get started?” asked Astra finally, clapping her hands. Chris, who was standing next to her, turned and waited, but most of the others, not having heard her, continued to talk.

  Chris watched as Mars took a step forward, arms to his side, and shouted.

  “STOP!”

  Immediately, the whole room fell silent.

  “You are all wasting time!” shouted Mars, despite having everybody’s full attention.

  Behind him, Rex rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders as if to apologize for his teacher. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten that his teacher was computer generated and could see everything.

  “Rex King, don’t you dare disrespect me!”

  “Sorry,” said Rex.

  “ ‘Sorry’ what?”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Rex and, despite themselves, they all grinned. Chris could see why Mars had been chosen as his teacher.

  “Right, everybody,” said Prometheus, stepping forward into the center of the room, which appeared to have expanded to accommodate them all. “Your teachers will explain what you have to do, and then we’ll begin.”

  Cassandra turned to Chris as all the other teachers turned to their own pupils.

  “You’re all going to . . .”

  Chris tried to lean in to hear the rest of what Cassandra was saying.

  “I can’t hear you,” shouted Chris. Cassandra looked around and then snapped her fingers. The noise around him completely disappeared.

  “That’s better,” said Cassandra as everybody around them continued their conversations in silence.

  “As the pupil with the strongest Ability, you are going to enter Dulcia’s mind on your own to retrieve the information.”

  Chris tensed, and Cassandra, appearing to notice, put her hand on his shoulder. “However, the others will be in Reception should you need any help. If you do, you can go and get them at any time. That part will be fine, I’m sure—you already know what you’re looking for. Yes?”

  Chris nodded.

  “Good. All that we need to practice today is the scramble block, which will allow you to get access to her mind in the first place. One of us will count you in, and then you’ll all start simultaneously accessing her mind. You don’t need to make too much of an effort—I believe you tried that already this morning and found out the consequences of fighting a strong block—”

  Cassandra stopped, as if something had occurred to her.

  “Is that what it was, Chris—what happened this morning?”

  Chris wondered whether to say anything. In the end, he just nodded.

  “You don’t have to do it. We can choose somebody else. Sir Bentley will understand.”

  Chris shook his head. He knew, however difficult it might be, that accessing Dulcia’s mind, and finding out if the boy was okay, was his responsibility. And the only way to lay his demons to rest. “No. I’m just a bit tired right now, but I’m fine—I want to do it.”

  Cassandra smiled. “Very well. Take it slowly and you’ll do great. Once in, you should find yourself in her Reception with the others, and you’ll all be singing the same song. The room will be foggy, but you should be able to see the others standing with you. At that point, having made sure everybody is there, you will give the signal—just a thumbs-up. That’s when you’ll begin singing the words in a different order. Don’t do it too obviously, just quietly—otherwise you’ll find yourself pushed out. Then, as you hear her singing start to falter or get quieter, you can start making it louder. Try to sing different words from the others: The more confused the song is, the quicker her block will disappear. After a few moments, the fog in the room should clear and you can run toward the door leading into the rest of her mind.”

  “Okay,” said Chris, running through the steps in his head.

  Cassandra clicked her fingers, and the noise of the room returned. They waited until, after a few minutes and some more shouting from Mars, everybody was quiet.

  • • •

  “Let’s begin,” said Cassandra, addressing everybody. “I’ll count
you in.”

  Cassandra looked over at Chris, gave him a thumbs-up, and disappeared. Immediately, the other teachers vanished also, leaving the six pupils in the room alone.

  “This is weird,” said Lexi, stepping up to the glass.

  “It’s even weirder when you’ve seen it for real,” said Chris.

  “We wouldn’t know,” said Rex, “seeing as you’re always the one they choose to do everything.”

  Chris looked over at Rex to see if he was joking, but the frown on his face gave Chris his answer.

  “That’s not true,” said Chris. “I don’t always get—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of Cassandra’s voice. “Are you all ready?”

  “Yes,” they all replied.

  “Good, everybody look at Dulcia.”

  Chris reminded himself that Rex always sulked when he wasn’t chosen to do anything, turned his attention to the badly animated figure in the corner, and let his mind lose focus.

  “And three, two, one, go. . . .”

  Chris felt the room around him disappear as he placed all his focus on the back of Dulcia’s head. And then, just as had happened that morning, Chris began to hear singing.

  “ ‘. . . what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, twinkle, twinkle . . .’ ”

  The voice was monotonous and dark, just as he had described, but it didn’t feel as haunting as it had when he had heard it earlier, perhaps, he thought, because this time he knew it wasn’t real.

  Chris waited for the verse to end and then began to sing quietly. Seconds later, and much sooner than he had expected, he was transported into a room—a large, fog-filled chamber filled with the sound of the haunting voice. This time, however, there was no pain. He concentrated on keeping in time with the voice that filled the room until, a few moments later, the others joined him.

  Chris looked around as they all began to line up next to him, the sounds of their voices muffled by Dulcia’s singing. Rex was the last to appear, still pouting. Chris waited for him to take his place at the end of the line, and then he raised his hand to give the others the thumbs-up.