Sparrow (2/2)

[rosiphelee]

Sparrow learns her captors' plans. Elaine and Andy join the League in the desperate search to save her.
If you enjoyed this try Pale Sisters, the sequel.

August 18, 5am, Police HQ, Central Atlantis

By the time Elaine and Andy reached the top floor of the great skyscraper the sun was rising, somewhere out to the east, over the grey sea. The building was so tall she could see the sea. She hadn’t thought that was possible from this far into the city.

The world seemed very quiet to her. The soft thud of their own footsteps on the soft plastic of the stairs; the occasional murmur of voices where people were working early or late; the hum of the wind along the glass. She couldn’t hear any voices in her mind. The wall Andy had taught her to build hung heavy around her thoughts, like a metal belt would around her waist. And she felt as if she was slightly deaf. Uneasily, she wondered just how much she had heard without realising and how long she had been eavesdropping. She had always been renowned and teased for her keen hearing and now she wondered…

The only sense she had that anyone else existed in the world was the warm grip of Andy’s hand on hers. Her grip tightened slightly and he turned to her and said, “Sorry about the stairs. The lifts only work half the time.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Welcome to Atlantis.”

He chuckled slightly and said, “How are you?”

“Better. I think. Confused. I thought League people were taught to do this stuff.”

He shrugged and something oddly bitter flickered across his face. “That’s the big argument. Do we tell the general public that the person sitting next to them on the tram may be an untrained mage or do we keep it secret from everyone, including those like you and me and your sister who need to know?”

She thought about it and then began, “From personal experience…”

“But your experience, though you may not be happy to hear it, was not so traumatic. At a guess I’d say you’ll be a pure mage – communication magics, some pure energy manipulation, truthsaying. That’s most common. You probably won’t be suited to swinging the streets. Very few of us are. But there are firestarters. Combat mages. Weather witches. I have a friend here who discovered his powers when he woke up one morning to find every cockroach in Atlantis in his room.”

“Arrh!” Elaine said involuntarily and shuddered.

“They’re still spreading back to their original habitats. Why do think property prices have risen in the south-west? No cockroaches.”

“Okay – that’s too much. I don’t believe you any more.”

“It’s true,” he insisted. “I’ll introduce him to you. Here we are.”

He pulled her along the corridor and through a pair of swing doors that were marked with a line-drawing of a steaming plate. As they went through the doors she smelt the old school-canteen whiff of over-boiled vegetables and soya mix.

Then she heard the shouting and the wall in her head creaked and bent. Whiffs of anger and fear broke through it and she panicked.

“Thicken it!” Andy said sharply. “Another row of bricks.”

So she built steadily until she was back in that silent world. It took an effort this time and she was surprised to feel sweat beading on her brow.

“Well done,” Andy said. “I’m sorry. My fault. Everyone’s upset and everyone’s broadcasting. I should have warned you.”

“You said to me this morning that you wanted these fuckers caught!” The voice was female and furious with a slight British accent. “You dared order me to send my people in and now you won’t give us what you’d give any other member of this fucking force!”

“Give me some goddamned evidence!” The man standing at the far end of the room was ruddy-faced and sweating as he glared up at the young woman. “I will not authorise an armed raid on nothing but your opinion! And don’t you use language like that to your commanding officer, young woman!”

“You’re not my commanding officer, commissioner. The League work in conjunction with your force but we answer to the International Law Enforcement and Security Organisation.” The tall blonde took a deep breath and then said more calmly, “Commissioner, you know what we can do. We’ve proved it to you time and time over. You base your plans on it and you ask us to do things based on your knowledge of our skills. Like infiltrate a goddamn assassin-cloning factory!” Her voice was rising again. “And when my officer, who is not an undercover operative, who is not trained to do the job you have blackmailed us into doing, finds what you want, identifies and locates a farm, you are abandoning her. If she dies, if we can’t get her out and I really, really don’t know that we can, her death will be your fault!”

Elaine felt it like a blow. She didn’t hear the man’s reply but Andy’s arm went around her and she heard his voice in her mind, urgent and honest, We’ll get her out. We’ll get her out if we have to rip Atlantis apart to do it. Tiger never left anyone in enemy territory in her life.

And he towed her across the room, pushing between tables, towards the crowd in the corner of the room. There were holoscreens rising out of the tables here, people crowded around each screen. The commissioner and the furious woman were surrounded by five other people in strange costumes. One of them was sitting down, his eyes half-closed, but she suspected that he wasn’t resting.

As they approached one of them, a sturdy man who looked as if he was clad in brindled fur, put his hand on the woman’s arm and murmured something soothing. She fell silent to listen to him and Elaine heard Andy sigh a little, as if in relief.

Then a shout arose from one of the computers.

“Boss! I’ve found a whole series of warehouse complexes two klicks back from the edge of dock four. General area fits the alert signal. Can anyone pinpoint with the map?”

The crowd around the computer cleared as Tiger swung towards it. And Elaine saw the woman sitting in front of it, her fist still in the air. Saw the almost white curls, the long brown limbs, the T-shirt with the retro style circuit board print which she’d found on a stall in Valhall Market.

“Spider!” she said, not resisting as Andy dragged her towards the screen.

Her flatmate, who should have been in Switzerland, whirled her chair around and stared. “Elaine! Oh, my God. Are you alright? What are you doing here?”

“She’s pinpointing Sparrow,” Andy said as Elaine’s tired brain whimpered. Suddenly she was convinced that none of this was real, that her mind had given in to craziness and constructed some strange fantasy. Her body was probably in some padded room somewhere, chewing her fists and drooling.

“So that’s where you got the rough location, dancer. Can you get a less fuzzy map?”

“I think she’s got it. I saw it through her. Get us a chair or two, someone.”

Elaine found herself sitting before the computer screen. Spider was at her elbow and Andy behind her and the crowd cleared to let Tiger to her other side. She stared at the map on the screen and it meant nothing to her. She remembered the series of maps Kezia had given her but couldn’t stretch her brain to make the link.

“Relax,” Andy said, rubbing her shoulders gently. “Remember your wall. Visualise the bricks. Now, change them. They’re made of glass now. Totally clear. You can see through them but nothing can touch you. Can you see that, Elaine?”

She struggled and tried but she was so tired and it hurt to force her brain into these strange patterns of thought. Spider took her left hand and she felt a burst of something, as if she had stretched cold hands towards a heat-brick, and she felt stronger. “Remember the quantum lectures, last year. The lecture room of the top floor. Remember the walls.”

She remembered more of the walls than the lectures. Glass bricks had given sweeping views over the city and with that it all fell into place in her mind. She looked at the screen again and said, “She’s not there. She’s not there at all.”

“Where is she, Elaine? Tell us where she is?” This from Tiger, all her fury vanished into gentleness.

“It’s hot. Salt in the air. Oil. Spices. It’s the wrong map! It’s the wrong map! She showed me all the maps! I need the first map!”

“Which is the first map?” Andy.

“From the sky,” she said, struggling.

“Hell,” Spider said softly, admiringly. “She’s sent her a locate-series. City-map on screen.”

A new map appeared on screen, small and round. A few roads were marked, the docks were numbered. Elaine lifted her right hand and touched a spot right on the edge of dock four. “There,” she said.

The map was replaced with another one, larger scale and again she pointed and said, “There!” Again it changed.

“There!” They were the maps she had seen in her mind. The maps Kezia had shown her and she went faster and faster now until they flickered on the screen. Around her everyone had fallen silent.

There was a low hum and Spider said very softly, “Final map.” Elaine ignored her; she already knew that. Instead, she lifted her hand and then let it drop.

“That’s the last she sent me,” she said. “She didn’t mark it.”

Andy’s fingers tightened on her shoulders and he said gently, “What’s happening to her now?”

And she was there again. She felt her head go back, her spine tighten, a scream break free. “It hurts! It hurts! My chest. My head. My back! Blood in my mouth! My feet! My hands! I can’t feel them! They should hurt too.”

“Wall of glass,” two voices murmured. Andy and Spider.

She built it up, thick block by block. Blinking, she began to talk, quick and desperate to break free. “She’s tied to the wall. Chains. There’s blood all over her. It’s a big, big room. Metal and concrete on the walls. There are glass – containers. Vats. Attached to the wall. There are things growing in them. Little girls. The floor is metal. That criss-cross pattern. The wall she’s held to – there’s empty space behind it. I can feel it. I can hear the sea. High up. Close by. The floor’s damp. She knows I’m here. Tell me where you are! Don’t push me out! No!”

And she was back in her body again, shaking and shaking.

“What have we got?” Tiger said.

“Hokusai Row,” Spider said. “Just off the waterside. There’s an old loading bay. Looks like it was part of the ’52 renovations – its doors are partially below the waterline. Rusted shut. Bloody useless for anything now. They’ve built around it – and over it. Bloody rabbit warren. Ah – spicy, Elaine?”

“Sort of,” Elaine said, making herself sit up in her chair and open her eyes. Andy had gone and for a moment she panicked, looking around for him. Then she scolded herself and tried to take a few deep breaths.

“Dockside front is a curry stall. Caters to the dockworkers. There was a door there which led into a storeroom which had a trapdoor into the staff area of the old warehouse. Most recent blueprint is ’60 – planning app for the stall. Guess we can assume modifications. Black, six sugars for her, milk and no sugars for me!”

“Good.” Tiger, standing up. “Well, Commissioner Josef. Convinced, yet?”

“The girl’s impressive. She obviously believes what she’s saying.”

“Decision time. We’re going in. Do you support us or do I tell InterEarth that Atlantis PD isn’t capable and get the army involved?”

“There’s no need to take this too far! I’ll have the squad here in forty minutes. But if you’re wrong I will it clear to the investigatory board that it is entirely your fault!”

“But as we’re right I’m sure you’ll take the credit. Thirty minutes. Inside the Matisse district police station.”

“Fine.”

Tiger turned back to them. “Ariadne. Good work.” Spider beamed while Elaine blinked and tried to catch up. She’d never met anyone who used Spider’s real name. Then Tiger was looking at her. “Elaine Laurent,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You’re very like her. You have impressed us all tonight. I know it’s been hard but rest now. I have to ask you to stay here in case we need to call on you again but get some sleep. Ariadne, make sure someone offers her the choice, if they haven’t already. I don’t think you’ll need to hunt for sponsors, though. I’ll just have a word with Andy and we’ll be gone. Elaine, we will do everything we possibly can.” And then in her head, the same voice, Your sister is precious to us.

And she was gone, snow and honey hair swirling around her. Everyone was moving and Spider had to nudge Elaine twice to move her from the chair. Immediately it was filled by someone fresher looking. Spider towed her away to a long seat by the window and they sat out of everyone’s way. Amazed, Elaine watched as the six costumed heroes went diving out of the window. The last of them seemed a little nervous before he jumped and as she watched the man in the white tunic, with white-gold curls floating out behind him as he went out the window, she recognised him.

“Spider?” she said. “Is that…?”

“Yeah,” Spider said with a warning glance. “Tiger had just met us off the plane when the distress signal came through.”

“What is he wearing?” She’d known Percy Erikson as long as she’d known Spider and she’d never dreamed…

“He’s calling himself Perseus,” Spider said with a wide grin which turned into a gaping yawn. “Sorry. Hell. Crisis on top of jet-lag is not good.”

“Bet it beats crisis on top of hangover,” Elaine said.

“Ow. I thought you looked rough. Hey, you never told me you knew Andy. When did that happen?”

“Tonight. Don’t make faces at me, Ariadne Erikson. You never told me that you could do magic. When did that happen?”

“It woke up when I was with Grandad Erikson in Oxford that summer we were sixteen. I couldn’t tell you. I would’ve. I just had to wait. You’ll learn – you can see the potential in people. I knew it would hit you sooner or later. I was planning to around to drag you out of trouble.”

“Bad timing.”

“Told you should have come to Europe. I’m sorry. Was it awful?”

Elaine thought back over the last few weeks. “Yes.”

“Oh. Here comes Andy with the coffee. Quick, before he gets back. How did you meet him?”

“In the Blue Pulse, wasped out of my skull. I jumped him, dragged him home and threw up all over him before I passed out.”

“Elaine!” Spider wailed. “In this universe! Come on, I’m serious. Tell!”

“So am I serious,” Elaine protested but somehow she felt better for Spider’s disbelief. She still had to deal with the secrets her friend had kept so long but somehow, with Spider back and the knowledge that her sister, though in desperate danger, was sane, the world seemed a little less shadowed.

“Here we are,” Andy said. “One normal coffee and one coffee flavoured syrup. I don’t think she needs that much sugar, Ariadne…”

But Elaine, overjoyed, had seized the mug and downed the hot, sweet liquid. The moment it hit her stomach, she felt better.

Spider made her usual face. “She might not need it but she likes it. I don’t know about you two but I need sleep. Has that stuff woken you up or…”

But Elaine, finally given the chance to sleep, had already curled up on the seat and closed her eyes. She didn’t feel it when Spider summoned a cushion and tucked it under her head and, luckily for her nerves, she didn’t hear it when Spider turned to Andy and asked, “So, how did you meet my best friend?”

August 18, 5.30am, somewhere off Hokusai Row, South Atlantis

The female clone had hatched a while ago and been hurried away from the main chamber. She had looked vaguely familiar to Sparrow as she stood and blinked in the fresh air – some actress, she thought. She had stumbled at first but then her stride had taken on a lithe confidence until she moved with a swift, dangerous elegance that Sparrow recognised. The clone walked like a trained killer. She knew it because she walked the same way herself if she wasn’t careful.

But she was always careful. Steady, careful Kezia. People liked her although they rarely remembered her name. She was quiet, reliable, a little dull. Unambitious. A keen, but undiscerning, reader. She didn’t drink. She didn’t date. She politely discouraged friendship. Only in the night was she free. Only in the night could she swing above the streets, as if she was flying. Only in the night could she really change the world. She had become apolitical, ceased to vote; she who had once aspired to government. But down here, in the night streets, her existence had meaning. She had saved lives and she was proud of it. She had taken lives and was less proud.

But it was here, out in the night, that doom had overtaken her.

The eight little girls were growing steadily, with a couple of technicians monitoring their nutrient levels and programming. They looked like Elaine had at the same age, but not quite. She couldn’t make herself believe they looked like her. She was sure she hadn’t looked like that. But who ever really knew what they looked like to others’ eyes, however sophisticated image reproduction grew?

There was a little light creeping through some slit somewhere in the roof so she knew the sun was up. The chamber seemed less ominous with daylight touching it, a little more tawdry, a little more tatty. But she reminded herself that her first impression was right. This was a place of danger and terror.

It was very quiet now – just the hum of the machines and the sounds of gulls crowing outside. She knew they weren’t far from the waterfront although the twists and turns within the building had confused her sense of direction slightly. She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious or how far they’d moved her. She guessed it wasn’t far – they’d surely use most of their space for growth. She should have been able to hear the docks. The machinery was loud. There should be human voices, the rumble of deliveries and the hoots of the trams arriving with the first shift of the day. But she could hear none of it. Either the light was deceptive and it was earlier than she thought or the streets outside were empty.

Hope flared in her, followed by fear and caution. She tried to reach out but whatever drug they had used on her still fogged and blurred her mind. She wished she’d been able to get a sample – the people back at HQ would want to concoct an antidote. Then she dragged her mind back to the main issue and began to kick idly against the wall where she was bound. It clanged in response, confirming her guess that it might have been doors once. One of the cloners turned and swore at her but another caught his arm, laughing and said, “Na. Whosa gonna hear? Letta pretty bird testa wings. Letta get useta cage life. Long, long life to come.” And she grinned at Sparrow, showing pointed teeth and long canines.

Sparrow looked back at her and spoke and to her surprise her voice sounded as it always did as she said, “What do you mean? You cannot keep me here.”

Horrible scenes whirled through her mind – one of these girl-clones infiltrating the League or her parents’ home and her body rotting here. Or horde upon horde of them harvested from the information in her blood.

“You teacha little pretties,” the woman said reasonably. “Teacha how to call fire and wind and flashing lights, see. Pretty little witches all in a row.”

“I will not,” Sparrow said. She had sworn oaths.

“Then we hurt you more.” The woman turned back to the vats.

Sparrow sank back against the door, fought the pain in her chest to keep her dull fists tapping at the metal doors, and thought. When Tiger had come and rescued her from the hospital and told that the strangeness in her mind was not madness but magic, she had offered her a choice, the same choice everyone was offered when the League found them. To live her life in the service of good or to turn into the darkness. She had chosen good, of course, although she was still learning the full implications of that choice. There were those in the world who possessed the same powers as the League but turned them to darker ends. The League existed primarily to fight that darkness. But the oath meant more. She had promised to destroy evil and to act, if possible, to prevent it. The training she had received after she made that promise meant she could no more turn away from such a battle than she could take her own life in cold blood.

But now, with her nemesis growing before her, she learnt a little more of her oath and contemplated her own death. The people who held her prisoner were merely human and their evil was a mere, tawdry, human evil. But it could not be permitted to pass. Assassins with her gift, taught all she knew, would be nigh unstoppable. That was evil and must not be.

She had studied the room for hope of escape and found nothing. Now she looked again. The chains which bound her could wrap around her throat. The vats were made of glass – if she could get close enough she could break the glass and cut her wrists. She could, though she was not absolutely certain of her nerve for it, break open her skull on the doors.

But through the steady noise she was making she could still hear nothing from the docks and her hopes of a rescue grew. And hope weakened her resolution. If the choice was death or corruption she would choose death. But her life had meaning now. She had found her way out of despair and she would not throw her life away easily. There was a time, not so long ago, when she would have.

But then the decision was made for her.

The air was full of noise; alarms and sirens screaming and echoing. The cloners scattered to different corners of the room. Screens flickered up from the floor, showing armoured groups in tight corridors. Grey and rust stripes flickered in the corner of one picture and she heard herself screaming and screaming with relief, “Tiger! Tiger!”

August 18, 6am, Police HQ, Central Atlantis

The heat of the sun woke Elaine. She had been dreaming placid dreams, locked behind her own walls. But she could not sleep. She was too tense, too confused and too worried. Instead she sat up, carefully, aware that Andy was stretched out further along the window seat. She had thought Spider was sleeping too but as she sat up she saw her crouching over a computer screen.

Blinking sleep away, she looked out over Atlantis and drew her breath in. In the clarity of early morning the city glowed. Concrete greys became silver, glass glowed blue and gold and the sea in the distance swept bright and blue to the horizon. The walkways between the buildings seemed like ribbons laced between the towers.

For all its hidden horrors, this was her city and she was proud to be Atlantean.

Someone put a cup in front of her and she inhaled coffee fumes gladly. Spider laughed. “Drink quickly,” she said. “There’s something I must ask you.”

Elaine gulped the coffee down and then licked the last sweet dregs off her lips. Spider was hunched up on the windowseat beside her, pale curls falling over her eyes.

“I’ve never actually done this before,” she said. “It feels weird.” Then she drew breath and sat up. “Will you hear my words?” she asked formally.

Elaine nodded.

Spider looked at her solemnly and as she began to speak her words simultaneously sounded within Elaine’s mind, “Through all of time and through all the worlds there are and have been light has warred against darkness. We, who possess a real and dangerous power, have fought through all the days, sometimes in battle, sometimes in stealth, to hold back the advance of the dark and preserve both life and the hope of life.” She met Elaine’s gaze and held it and Elaine shivered. Then Spider dropped her head a little and said, “I think you probably realise that this power, once found, cannot be denied. You cannot refuse the power; you cannot remove it from yourself without killing yourself. And I’m afraid you can’t be neutral. If you try to stand aside the dark will find you and they will use you. So I must ask you to tell me now what your choice is: light or dark; good or evil.”

Elaine studied her. She seemed genuinely nervous but Elaine could see no true choice here. She might never swing the streets but she didn’t want to. Kezia could have the heroics gladly but there was still a place for her sister here.

“I choose light,” she said and found her voice had gone wispy.

Spider rocked back on her heels and blew upwards in relief so her fringe danced wildly.

Elaine started to laugh but found herself seized from behind. Andy swung her round in a wide circle, whooping with glee and then pulled her tight and kissed her. Last night, when his kisses made her head spin, she had blamed magic and alcohol. Now she had no excuse and so she just leaned into his kiss and enjoyed it.

“Tiger on Screen One!” somebody shouted and they both jumped and pulled apart. The big screen by the wall flickered and Tiger’s image appeared. She looked stern and furious and Andy’s arms tightened around Elaine.

Yet when she saw them she grinned, though there was an edge of ferocity in her smile.

“Did she choose, Ariadne?”

Spider nodded.

Tiger switched her attention to them and said, “Ah, Mr Jones?”

“Boss?”

“If you’ve finishing sponsoring our new recruit I need her here. Now.”

“What’s happened?” Elaine said. “Is she alright?”

“She’s not here. From what we can see they’ve released her and some of the clones. I need you here to find her.”

“We’re on our way,” Andy said and Tiger nodded and said, “Ravi!”

They left her conferring with Ravi as Spider ran up to join them on their way out.

“I didn’t hear your invitation,” Andy said.

She raised her eyebrows at them. “And? You two need someone sensible along.” And she dived in front of a crowd of uniforms to commandeer the only working lift.

August 18, 7am, Via Michelangelo, South Atlantis

She sagged against the wall, struggling for breath, and blinked at the street name flashing opposite her. She didn’t know the name; she couldn’t remember how far she’d run. She could be going in circles; she could be fleeing rescuers as well as pursuers.

The air was beginning to grow warm but the wall at her back was cool. She could feel it through the rents in her costume. She didn’t think she could run any more. Her legs no longer moved at her command, though they no longer seemed to hurt. She was unmasked but her cheeks were stiff and swollen and she suspected blood hid her features.

She saw a movement on the rooftop opposite and tensed, squinting to see if it was an enemy or merely a bird, skimming towards the morning sea. Again she saw that flicker of movement and this time she saw the light catch on familiar brown hair and recognised the lithe movements.

She could no longer run so she let the wall hold her up and called blindly, Tiger! Elaine! Anyone!

But she felt the call fade and die on the edges of her mind and could do nothing but watch. A second figure had joined the first atop the roof and as she stared a third appeared. They weren’t going to give her any chance to survive. But then, she thought bitterly, they did learn how to hunt before they were born.

August 18, 7am, somewhere off Hokusai Row, South Atlantis

The warehouse doors had been blasted open and light streamed into the room. The vats were all empty, their glass gleaming cleanly in the bright light. Tiger stood in the light, her head bowed. At her feet lay the body of a boy, barely out of his teens. Even from across the room Elaine could see that his neck was bent out of shape; that his limbs had slumped into death.

She hesitated and Andy, beside her, said suddenly, “Where’s Commissioner Josef?”

“Over there,” Spider said, gesturing. “Oh – I see what you see. Somebody doesn’t like the old man.”

Elaine glanced between the dead boy and the man who sat on the other side of the room, shaking and staring at Tiger. She saw the shape of their faces; the colour of their eyes and said on a gasp, “Assassin clones?”

Andy turned and said, “I need to help with Josef, I think. He knows me. Ariadne?”

“We’re both big girls,” Spider said and pulled Elaine across the room towards Tiger. Elaine let her and shivered as she looked around. It was all too familiar and once again it struck her with a strange force that she had looked through her sister’s eyes into this place.

Tiger looked up as they approached and she was crying. “Why do they always use innocents?” she asked.

“Commander,” Spider said. “We brought Elaine.”

Tiger nodded and stepped away from the body. “We’ve learnt that they released Sparrow and the clones they were making of her just before we took full control of the compound. Whatever they used to blur her mind earlier is still working. We need you to find her.”

Elaine’s throat tightened and she stammered, “Assassin clones?”

Tiger met her gaze and said, “We don’t know for certain.”

“I could only roughly find her before.”

Tiger took her hand and again Elaine felt energy fizz through her but where Spider’s touch had warmed her, Tiger’s was like a storm blowing over her. “What we’re going to try,” she said, walking Elaine across the room, “is our equivalent of a dog following a scent. Following her trail will probably lead you into danger. Are you still willing?”

Elaine looked up at her and said, “I said yes.” And for the first time, clumsily, she tried to speak silently, And she’s my sister.

Tiger looked at her approvingly and then said, “We think this is where she was held.”

Elaine turned on the spot and looked out across the room, recognising the perspective. For a moment she didn’t know what to do but Tiger whispered in her mind, Think of Kezia.

And she found she was walking across the room, stumbling a little, as if her legs were weak. Tiger moved beside her, still gripping her hand, and some part of Elaine wondered how much of the magic was hers and how much the superhero’s.

Tiger said something which Elaine couldn’t focus on and a group of others fell in behind them.

Out in the street Elaine quickened her pace, growing accustomed to the actual strength of her legs and the feeling that they were failing beneath her. Tiger, much taller, kept pace easily.

They turned towards the docks but then dodged back inland again. Twice Elaine found herself falling, as if her legs had failed. Each time Tiger caught her and each time she looked grimmer and fiercer.

Suddenly her grip tightened on Elaine’s arm and she gestured forward. Elaine followed her gesture to see a small, brown-haired figure duck around the corner. Even as she thought, but Kez hurts too much to move so fast, Tiger ran swiftly forward, calling softly, “Sparrow!”

“No!” Elaine said but the figure on the corner was already turning.

She had Kezia’s face: her sad eyes, the arch of her brows, the lock of hair that always fell out of place. But something in her face was empty and when she opened her mouth and cried out it was a newborn’s wordless wail.

And there was power in her cry and the street rippled towards them, all the air skewed as if by heat. And the force of it lifted them from their feet and threw them backwards through the air.

Elaine landed hard and even as she gasped for air the clone cried again and she threw herself backwards. The air above her flared blue and bright and she felt the lightning in the air reach for her before some soft force slid between her and the threat.

The clone cried out again and this time Tiger raised her hands in answer and the power swept to her and through her and returned to its source redoubled. The clone swayed and stumbled.

Tiger pushed to her feet and ran forward but already the clone was away, running faster than should have been possible. Tiger followed.

Someone pulled Elaine to her feet and she looked to see it was the superhero Perseus, who was Spider’s brother.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, still winded, and asked, “What..?”

“Our Sparrow’s a weather witch. Come on.” And he pulled her after the rest of the group, racing after Tiger.

August 18, 7.10am, Via Michelangelo, South Atlantis

She thought there might be seven of them now. It was hard to count them as they skulked on the rooftop. If she was still armed she might have picked one or two of them off and made the odds easier. But her weapon was long gone and she wasn’t even certain her arms would strong enough to aim it.

She thought it would be rather ironic if she died before they came for her. And she must have been even weaker than she thought for she laughed aloud at the irony.

Then there was a scurry of movement above and they came dropping off the roof. There were eight of them, all alike. It wasn’t quite like looking in a mirror. But it wouldn’t be, for they were replicas, not reflections.

They spread into a semicircle and began to approach her and she saw now that none of them were armed, that all they wore were simple grey coveralls. It was no comfort. She knew they could kill barehanded, as easily as she could. And then she would be gone and they would be hunted down, these killers with her face, and there would be nothing left in the world to show she ever lived.

And she heard herself say, as if in challenge, “My name is Kezia.”

One of them, the one who could see her face, hesitated.

“I have a younger sister,” she said, hoping the sound of her voice might slow them. “She’s three years younger than me. People say we’re very alike.”

They all stopped and she gabbled on, “Not as alike as you all are, but like me. It used to make her angry – she used to have tantrums. When we were very young. She used to stand there and scream and scream, saying, ‘I’m not Kezia. I’m not. I’m not. I’m me.’”

Two of them exchanged glances and then paused as if to study each other.

“And we are different. We are. I think we did it on purpose. We were so annoyed at being alike. Like – she can do maths in her head – me, I add up on my fingers.”

She was babbling but it seemed to be giving her a few extra seconds so she struggled to think of more. “She likes cabbage – I hate it. But she won’t eat toffee and I adore it – I had to see a dentist because I ate too many sweets. You all have perfect teeth – you have the teeth I should have had.”

The third one from the right smiled, baring those perfect teeth at her and she thought, Oh God, they’re actually listening.

“I did my hair pink once, when I was fourteen and she was eleven, to be different, and she cried for days because she thought I hated her. But I don’t. Of course I don’t. She’s my sister. We might fight but she’s always been there in my life. Even when I had no friends she was there. Like all of you. You all have each other. You all have seven sisters. And me. And her. All different.”

They were all stirring around her now, troubled. Her sight was fading, black clouds crossing their faces so she could no longer tell whether they moved or stood still.

She whispered blindly, “You’re not alone. You’re not alone.”

And the air seemed to stir around her and as she slid down the wall she saw them moving away from her, leaping up the walls and around the corner and away. And as her sight failed she saw Tiger come running around the corner, wreathed in light, and Elaine behind her. Again she thought dimly, Not alone.

August 21^st, 3pm, Herophilos Hospital, Arizona Road, Central Atlantis

Kezia Laurent seemed to be gazing out of her window. From here, high in the hospital, she had a view over the centre of Atlantis. But in the hazy heat she could not have seen as far as the docks, even with the window braced open.

Elaine hesitated in the doorway and said, “Kez?”

She turned slowly. Elaine knew that she was still weak; that it would be a long time before her body recovered. But she was more afraid for her sister’s spirit. She had disappeared into blandness again, just as she had after the mental hospital.

“The parents are about ten minutes away,” she said.

“Oh,” Kezia said and then, “Come in.”

Elaine took the seat beside the bed and studied her sister.

“What have you told them?”

“They’ve been told you fell down a fire escape.”

Kezia lifted an eyebrow and said, “You think that matches my scars?”

“Under all those bandages? Who can tell? People believe what they want to believe.” That brought her to something she needed to say. “Kez. I’m sorry. For believing you were…”

“Crazy?” Kezia smiled a little. “They even convinced me. Don’t feel guilty. I worked very hard to make everyone believe it.” Then she laughed a little and said, “So, Elaine. Andy Jones?”

Elaine blushed and fiddled with her hair, even though she realised her sister was changing the subject. “How did you know?” she said.

“Tiger keeps everyone up with the gossip. She’s been here a lot.”

“It’s all fine,” she said.

“Am I embarrassing you?” When Elaine glared at her she laughed and said, “What are big sisters for?”

Elaine laughed and said, “Borrowing clothes off. Loans. Taking the blame.”

Kezia laughed and then said, “Elaine. Before they get here there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Okay.”

“Tiger won’t tell me but I have to know. I have to. Where are they, Elaine. What’s happened to them?”

Elaine looked down at her and saw the strain in her face. “I don’t really know,” she said. “Tiger’s been trying to find them. They’ve disappeared into the street and you know better than I do how hard it is to find the vanished people. But they are still alive and we’ve heard nothing bad about them. Tiger is trying to find them.”

“She didn’t tell me.”

“You’ve only been conscious twelve hours. Perhaps she didn’t want to worry you.”

“I’m worried anyway.” And then her face changed and returned to blandness. “Mum. Dad.”

Elaine lingered with her parents for a while before she left them to fuss over Kezia. As she walked down the corridor she saw Andy waiting for her. He smiled at her as she drew level and she slipped her hand into his.

“How is she?” he asked.

Elaine sighed and shrugged. “Healing. I hope.”

He didn’t ask any more and she said, “I have to go to Switzerland.”

“To the training centre?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never been there in summer. I went in winter. Fantastic. We went skiing.”

She looked at him, nervous now. “And when I come back…”

“Yes.”

Her lips were dry. “It seems to me I need to dance more.”

He grinned and stopped, turning to face her. “Will you dance with me, Elaine?”

She smiled herself with joy and relief. “I’d love to dance with you.”