Cracks by Caroline Green Page B

be this lab-rat boy with a computer chip in his head. I don’t even want to be in 2024. I just want to be back in my own life,
mucking about and laughing in Amil’s kitchen. But I know that’ll never happen again. Never happened in the first place. There’s only here. Now.
    I lean in and examine my reflection. My face is pale, apart from the grey racoon rings around my eyes. I fill the basin with cold water and plunge my head into it. The shock makes my innards
shrivel but I’m hoping it will help me get it together a little.
    I dry my face on a hand towel that smells of washing powder and ordinary, normal things. My hair’s sticking up and I push it back tentatively from my forehead. I lean in even closer.
    It’s there. I can see it.
    A silvery-white scar along my hairline. The image of them cutting me open floods into my mind again. I drop my hair back and stand away from the mirror, heart banging. I can’t pretend
it’s not real now. The evidence that they were inside my brain is right there, etched into my skin forever.
    I close the toilet seat and sit down. My mouth floods with spit and my stomach heaves. I just focus on breathing slowly for a while.
    They messed with my brain. They filled my head with memories that aren’t mine. They looked in there whenever they wanted, like it was some sort of open room.
    I can’t handle it. But I have to.
    If what Helen Bonaparte says is true, they can only access the Revealer Chip when I’m in that pod. And I’m not there now. Maybe I can trust Torch to help keep me safe. I think about
my plan to go to Brinkley Cross and find Amil and his family. Torch might help me do that. It’s not much of a plan. But it’s the only one I have right now.
    I sit up a bit straighter. One thing’s for sure. I’m never going back into the Facility again. They can kill me if they want. But they’re not getting to that Revealer.
    Looks like I don’t have a whole lot of choice about trusting these Torch people right now.
    I head back downstairs. Tom’s cooking and Nathan is looking out of the window. His face is still like thunder and when he sees me, he gets up and then goes outside. I can see him through
the small leaded window in the living room. He’s smoking a cigarette and pacing up and down.
    ‘Is laughing boy ever going to let it go?’ I say and Tom looks up. Steam billows around him and his hair is sticking to his forehead. He blows up from the side of his mouth but the
hair doesn’t budge.
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘You’re not the problem.’ He carries on cooking.
    It feels like something unspoken is hanging in the air. Tom sighs and stops what he’s doing to check the back door is properly closed before speaking again. ‘He’s just realised
that today’s . . . an anniversary of something. Something painful.’
    I don’t say anything. Tom goes over to look out of the window, checking Nathan is still outside. He returns to the cooker and carries on stirring. ‘His younger brother was killed
exactly two years ago today,’ he says quietly. ‘He was about your age. I hadn’t realised earlier or I’d have been a bit more gentle on him. He’s just a bit pompous
sometimes and I can’t stop myself from winding him up. But I should have realised.’
    ‘Oh,’ I say. A wave of guilt washes over me when I think about the van door hitting him. ‘How? How was he killed?’
    ‘Officially he died while resisting arrest during a demonstration,’ says Tom. ‘He wasn’t even part of Torch. Just an engineering student trying to protest on the
streets against the regime.’ He sighs. ‘That’s the kind of people we’re —’ He stops abruptly as the back door flies open.
    Nathan comes in smelling of cold air and fag smoke. He looks at us both suspiciously.
    ‘Right!’ says Tom in a too-loud voice, rubbing his hands together briskly. ‘It’s ready. Brace yourselves, lads, we’re going in.’
    It’s not too bad, despite all his