There’s a part of me that agrees completely with them.
A part that doesn’t.
I take Adam’s hand.
And we run, leaving a happily chortling Wry Man behind us.
*
Chapter 21
He could turn into the Wry Man any minute!
Weren’t you listening earlier?
How do we know the Wry Man can’t see and hear everything we’re doing?
‘What happened back there?’ Adam asks. ‘I kept blacking out. Finding myself suddenly in a different position.’
He’s fighting for his breath, as I am.
We ran as fast and for as long as we could. (And I could run a surprisingly long way, farther actually than Adam.)
The Wry Man wasn’t in any rush to follow us. But we just wanted to put as much distance as we could between us and him.
‘You mean you don’t know what was happening?’ I ask him, trying to hide the suspicion in my voice.
He shakes his head.
‘I was confused: I saw that the Wry Man was swapping places with Graham, figured out I was involved in all this swapping around too. But I couldn’t figure out what it all meant. How could we all be the same person? I don’t feel like I’m either Graham or the Wry Man! I don’t sense any connection between us!’
Careful girl; he would say that!
Don’t fall for this goody-two-shoes act anymore!
He’s the Wry Man! He’s Graham!
‘Maybe it’s like you’re Jekyll and Hyde – only with three of you.’
‘And all visible at same time?’ Adam says. ‘I don’t see how it works at all.’
The good, the geek, and the evil guy.
Adam is not a geek!
So being a geek’s worse than being evil?
I’m keeping a little bit of distance between myself and Adam. I want to hold him – but I can’t get it out of my head that it could suddenly be the Wry Man I’m embracing.
‘If there’s no connection,’ I ask unsurely, ‘does that mean Graham isn’t the Wry Man either?’
He brought the Wry Man here!
He wanted us dead.
Well, or our looks damaged.
As we’ve already agreed; same thing.
‘I don’t see how he can be!’
‘But we all saw it; how you all changed, one from the other.’
‘But was it just a trick of the Wry Man’s? To confuse us?’
‘Why? I mean, why confuse us in that particular way?’
‘So we no longer trust each other?’
‘No no; I think that, somehow, you are all the same person.’ Aren’t I a prime example of how it’s possible to be three people all at once? ‘Although, how it works, I’m not too sure.’
We exchange puzzled glances. The girls are also unsure what we’re dealing with here.
‘When Graham was trying to make sense of it all,’ I say, ‘with all his holograms and what have you; did it make any sense to you?’
Adam frowns as he thinks about this.
‘Strangely enough,’ he answers after a pause, ‘now that I’m thinking about it again, some of it did. And I don’t quite know why; but I think it’s something to do with the equipment he has at the university.’
Hey, we’re going to university!
*
What are we doing here?
We’re heading down the back corridors of the university. We entered through a small back door, one for maintenance crews.
Time we went to the police.
Too true – what do I tell them?
Er...
That your life’s in danger?
Great! And who’s endangering my life.
The Wry – no! Graham, of course!
The geek, right? Who the police have already let off for making a movie we thought would get him locked up?
Well, okay – have it your way.
It’s not like we can die screaming in agony again, is it?
You didn’t die screaming in agony in the first place!
Didn’t I say I didn’t like tuna sandwiches?
And are you saying our deaths don’t really count if we didn’t die screaming in agony?
I’m not saying that at all, as you–
‘There’ll be a guard on duty up here we have to sneak past.’
Adam knows his way around these back ways, saying he’s worked here before. He knows roughly when the guard will be taking his break, when the best time is to slip across the hallway, when to get back inside the warren of corridors.
‘Did you always have to sneak past the guard when you worked here?’
It’s a joke, obviously: but as I say it, Adam narrows his eyes, like it’s a serious question he has to ponder before answering.
‘You know,’ he says, hesitantly. ‘I seem to remember that I did!’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
He shakes his head, looking as puzzled as I am.
‘You’re not kidding me?’
‘What would a maintenance man be doing sneaking past a guard?’
It’s the question I was just going to ask him; but obviously, he doesn’t know the answer either, seeing as how he’s just asked himself the same question.
*
When we get to this room of Graham’s, won’t it be locked?
And how come he knows where it is anyway?
‘Adam, are we going the right way?’
‘Sure, Graham’s room is pretty close now!’
‘How’d you know? How do you know where Graham’s room is?’
‘Because I’ve been there so many times before, of course, when I–’
He stops mid-sentence.
He looks at me, confusion in his face.
‘I have been here many times! But how–’
He is Graham!
‘You are connected to Graham in some way: you have his memories!’
‘But until I met you, I never even knew he existed! It’s not possible that I could be connected to him! In any way!’
‘How do we get into his room? Won’t it be locked?’
‘Of course it’s locked. But I hide the key–’
His eyes spring open wide in surprise.
‘I hide the key? You said, “I hide the key.”’
I don’t like the way this is going!
It’s a trap!
He’s led you here on purpose!
No, no: I don’t think so.
Adam seems genuinely confused, genuinely worried.
He’s trying to work out what’s going on, how it could be that he remembers the way Graham sneaks into the university, where he hides his key.
‘My times at school, this wonderful school I told you about? I’m...I’m no longer sure they are my memories?’
‘How can’t they be your memories?’
He still appears bewildered. He’s still struggling to work out how he knows so much about Graham.
‘Because now, when I try and think of more of my life; there’s just an awful lot of big gaps in it. Yet all that about Graham getting treatment over the years? I can remember some of that!’
He now looks like he’s wondering if he’s going crazy.
‘But I can’t remember now how I supposedly got all that info about Graham from the police computer. I think, now, that I was just telling you what I already know!’
He looks me directly in the face, innocently wide eyed.
‘Oh God, Amina! I don’t know how; but somehow, I reckon I really am Graham!’
*
Chapter 22
Told you!
And we kissed him! Yukkk!
It makes me want a shower; really!
Graham’s room looks like the storage facility for a laboratory, with every type of computer you can think of crammed in here.
The most striking feature is two massive slabs of crystal, each higher than a man, connected by multiple wires to the machines. Even though the electricity isn’t switched on, the crystals gl
ow like huge sections of pure ice.
I was hoping it would be a bit more Frankenstein-like in here.
Yeah, all flashing electrodes–
Dead body pieces.
Igor.
‘How do we switch it on?’
‘Over here.’
Adam clicks a few switches, pushes a few more buttons.
The monitors start up. I don’t know what I was expecting to come up on the screens, but it just seems to be scenes from games Graham has been playing.
‘That’s it?’ I say disappointed. ‘From what Graham had said before, I was hoping this could be some form of beam transporter.’
As I stare at the crystal blocks, they begin to glow even brighter, even to crackle, once again like ice.
‘Even Graham thought that was beyond him,’ Adam chuckles. ‘But he saw the lattice structure of the crystals as a way of storing massive pieces of information; even his own memory impulses, his thoughts. So that playing the games became a virtual reality, with no controls.’
‘He was connected to his machine?’
‘By thoughts, not wires.’
‘Hmn, you really do have this inner geek, don’t you?’
‘Thanks,’ he grins. ‘You really do have a way of flattering people, don’t you?’
No kissing, please!
He considers the glowing crystals intently, frowning in concentration, like he’s trying to recall Graham’s memories of how it works.
‘This inner geek – or Graham, as we call him – based his experiments on the fact that space is actually malleable, like jelly...’
The jelly bit I understand.
‘...pushed and shaped by the gravity of every object; an interference of the gravity field, the particles making up gravity.’
That’s it; now he’s lost me.
‘Now if objects can do that, just think what something as powerful as a mind – especially a warped, incredibly furious and unique mind like Graham’s – can do to those fields. And what did he want more than anything?’
He turns to face me.
‘Revenge on us?’
‘He wanted you! But yes, as he couldn’t have you, as you hurt him, he wanted you to suffer. It began as a game, conjuring up someone he could use to plague you with, someone he could call on for help–’
‘The Wry Man.’
‘And somewhere along the line,’ he gently touches the great sparkling, crackling slabs with respect and awe, ‘that man was beamed into existence.’
*
‘But how come Graham hadn’t recognised that he’d created the Wry Man?’
‘Would you like to admit you’d created someone like that? Seems to me it was the Wry Man who worked it out before Graham did. Maybe because it was the malign parts of Graham who’d actually wanted all this to happen in the first place; sort of subconsciously forcing Graham’s experiments in this direction. But the important point is, if the power of the mind has created this man – well, then maybe you can use your mind to interfere with his creation.’
We have to fight him with our minds?
We’re doomed.
‘And you can help, right?’
‘Er, I’m not sure I can...’
‘Why not?’
He gives me a wry grin.
‘Graham didn’t just want to conjure up into existence that evil side of him that would exact revenge. There was also the side of him that loved you: the person he really wanted to be.’
His eyes are sad.
‘You,’ I say as it dawns on me at last. ‘He created you too!’
*
Chapter 23
‘So if we kill the Wry Man – we also kill you too?’
Don’t worry about it, Amina: we aren’t going to kill the Wry Man.
He’s going to kill us!
Again!
Adam shrugs.
‘I’m not supposed to exist anyway.’
‘But you do exist! You’re here, now!’
‘I can’t see how we can kill the Wry Man and yet I end up surviving.’
He gazes forlornly at the large crystals.
Couldn’t we just destroy the machine?
Wouldn’t that be easier than using our minds?
Sure, and then Adam does die!
We don’t know that for sure!
‘What happens if the machine is destroyed? Or even if the crystals are damaged?’
He looks at me like he’s a little upset that I’ve already contemplated such a thing.
‘To be honest – I’m not sure. Maybe it works: we both vanish. Maybe as we’re already created, it has no effect. And it may be you’re destroying the only thing that might have some control over him.’
‘But do we know how to work the machine to control him anyway?’
I look over the machine’s countless controls and switches.
Adam shakes his head miserably.
‘Not even Graham would know that: he didn’t even realise he had created the Wry Man, remember? So he wouldn’t know how he did do it, or how the connection between him and the machine works. Graham can’t have seen the Wry Man being formed; I suspect he just appeared when Graham felt most desperate for his help.’
‘Like you appeared when I was desperate for help,’ I say with a light-hearted laugh, recalling the relief I’d felt when Adam had come to my rescue when I’d felt threatened by Graham.
He grins, no doubt glad to see that I still think of him as one of the good guys.
Then his eyes narrow a little, like he’s thinking things through once more. And I think I know what he’s thinking.
‘Did I create you Adam? Not Graham?’
*
‘I don’t see how it’s possible; you’re not connected to the machine.’
‘But then, neither is Graham; not with wires and electrodes anyway. As you said, it now all works through thought patterns.’
‘Yeah, but he’s been on this machine so long, he’s become a part of it.’
‘And didn’t you say he loved me? Didn’t he play out his fantasies of getting his own back on me on here? All his memories of me; all stored in the mind of this machine.’
‘But I’m a part of Graham...’
‘The good part. The part of Graham I needed when he was threatening me. The memories and thought patterns of the good Graham were all stored somewhere in the machine; and when I needed you, you came into existence.’
I look over towards the glittering crystals with a newly discovered awe and understanding. I approach them, stroke them, sensing the incredible power lying within them.
‘And as Graham also hated Pearl and Chloe...’
I whirl around, excited.
‘They also contain memories of Pearl and Chloe.’
‘Which means?’
I pause, biting my lips. I feel so close to resolving something, and yet...
‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘For a brief moment, I just felt sure I could...’
‘Just wishful thinking probably, I’m afraid.’
He smiles sadly. I want to hold him, yet...I’m not quite ready for that just yet.
Have you two finished yet?
Talk about leaving us out of the conversation.
I didn’t understand most of that!
Yeah, how come you’re suddenly taking an interest in all this geek stuff?
I’m hoping to get rid of the Wry Man, of course!
Some hope!
See, I’ve been working on a foolproof plan! And, well, the easiest and best way, you ask me, is to just kill Graham.
You’ve had that plan for years!
No I haven’t! Well, not literally! But now we have good reason for it!
It’s not that easy.
Oh, I’ll do it!
How hard can it be whe–
I mean if getting rid of the Wry Man would be that easy, don’t you think he’ll make sure Graham comes to no harm?
Might not.
And he’s still a weak spot, isn’t he?
/>
‘Adam, do you think that killing Graham might...’
I leave the rest unsaid. If killing Graham kills the Wry Man, it might also kill Adam.
‘It’s...it’s something you do have to consider!’
‘You’re going to kill me?’
Graham appears alongside us out of nowhere.
And with him, grinning with satisfaction, is the Wry Man.
*
Chapter 24
‘That’s what the Rye Man had warned me! That you’d be wanting to kill me!’
Graham’s both furious and yet tearful.
He’s hurt by the knowledge we were prepared to kill him. And now he wants to hurt us for daring to think such a thing.
‘It’s only right, isn’t it,’ the Wry Man sneers, ‘that I warn my creator of his imminent doom? Particularly when your so-called plan won’t actually work: destroying the creator doesn’t destroy the created.’
‘We have your word on that, do we?’ Adam asks scornfully.
In a way, I hope what the Wry Man is saying is true: because that surely also means, of course, that Adam won’t be destroyed either if Graham is killed.
Somehow, the Wry Man is implying, they have each become separate from each other.
The good. The geek. And the downright evil.
Three manifestations of Graham: but each now completely different.
‘And you!’ Graham storms at me. ‘Why did you create him!’
He indicates Adam with an irate nod of his head, glaring at him as if prepared to kill him at any moment.
‘He’s me, isn’t he? So why couldn’t you love me?’
‘If...if I’d known there was so much goodness in you...’
‘Goodness?’ He laughs bitterly. ‘Oh, that’s what makes him so attractive, is it?’
‘Goodness! We are letting our tempers fray a little here, aren’t we?’
The Wry Man smiles like he’s the nicest person you could possibly want to know.
‘Oh, and you’re right about your friends!’ Graham snaps at me scornfully as he reverently draws closer to the looming crystals. ‘Everything about them, it’s all in here; photos, videos, class records, medicals. I purchased or took everything I needed to recreate them in my games.’
‘Then...then they could be recreated, like Adam...?’
I have to be careful that I don’t allow Graham to work out what I might be intending – hoping – to be able to do.
The Wry Man sniggers maliciously.
‘Ah, you see yourself as an accomplished creator now, do you?’