

## Peddling Doomsday

### Petra Jacob

Copyright © 2018 Petra Jacob

All rights reserved.

For Rufus Penzance

Dear reader...

Thank you for purchasing this book. I hope you enjoy it. If possible, please can you post a review at your favorite retailer? It helps me out!

### CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About the Author

Acknowledgments

1

'I can feel them busy inside my head,' he whispered. 'They're rearranging things.'

'Yes,' she said, holding her feet to stop more from getting in. She leaned against him, wanting to hug him, but unable to move her hands. The curly muddle of his hair tickled her shoulder. Around them was the steady thunder of twenty people chanting. Their mouths were warped with suppressed screams and their eyes inhuman with fear.

She tried to think of happy, harmless things. The knitted gecko tea cozy she'd made with mismatched feet. The way the sky looks when it's raining and the sun comes out. Her dad's first attempt at baking a cake. How a duck moves. But the happy, harmless things were repeatedly shoved from her attention by the scratching sound inside her skull. She felt as if a fingernail were busying away at her thoughts, eroding them one scrape at a time. _The smell of elder leaves, Bugs Bunny's Easter Special, finding a conch shell on the beach,_ she thought to herself furiously. It wasn't working. She leaned her head on her knees, making the saucepan wobble, and forced herself to breathe.

'There are too many in my skull now,' he said, forcing the words out over a thick tongue. 'My brain's wrecked. Are we going to be ok?' She looked up at him from under her saucepan. His eyes were straining and bloodshot and his skin was furrowed, raked through with panic.

'Of course, of course we are,' she lied.

And the scratching continued.

One Month Earlier: Monday

The printer was flashing a blue light, which made a change from the red light it usually flashed when refusing to work. However, it was still refusing to work. Deirdre looked around for assistance. But in the open-plan office, sixteen people were suddenly talking on the phone or staring at their computers to avoid having to face the fiendish machinations of the printer.

Deirdre sighed to herself and went through the usual routine to get a printout. She pressed each button in turn, switched it off and slapped the top twice. Then she unplugged it, slapped it again, plugged it back in and turned it on. What she refused to do was think happy thoughts while she did this, despite the written instructions on the wall telling her to do so. Deirdre found that small, unobserved rebellions caused less trouble.

The printer had arrived three months ago. Deirdre's boss's boss, Dove, marched into the office in his leather trousers, a printer-laden minion struggling behind him. Dove had stated this was the absolute latest in artificially intelligent technology. This printer would eliminate the need for excuses. This printer would not simply print when they pressed a button, but would anticipate, adapt and evolve to create the perfect printing experience.

'In time,' Dove had said, swaying on his hips, face shiny with the excitement of his own importance. 'In time, you'll see this as the most vital member of our little team.'

The reality was that the printer simply would not print when they pressed a button. It took a good twenty minutes of cajoling, resetting and violence.

Whenever Sarah, Deirdre's boss, tried to persuade Dove the printer needed fixing, his argument was, 'It's a highly sophisticated machine, Sarah. It requires highly sophisticated usership. You need to take a step into the technology of tomorrow. I'll book you onto a seminar.' Seminars were how Dove battered dissent out of his employees, their will broken by tedium; trodden into submission by PowerPoint presentations and flipcharts.

'But it doesn't work,' Sarah had persisted.

'It knows you're complaining about it. Try asking it nicely while thinking happy thoughts. Negativity is the enemy of success!'

Deirdre's office was at Stronk and Lowry, the backwater branch of a corporate advertising agency, and happy thoughts weren't easy to come by. However, Deirdre's colleagues all tried, and then blamed themselves when the ink refused to flow.

'I think I'm thinking happy thoughts, but what do happy thoughts, you know, feel like?' said John, a creative, his quirky hat perched to hide his balding head. Deirdre didn't have an answer and shrugged.

When Deirdre had discussed the printer with Henry, her erstwhile boyfriend, he was convinced artificial intelligence hadn't been invented yet.

'And definitely not artificial sulking. Why would they bother?'

'What about psychic artificial intelligence that senses negative thoughts?' Deirdre had asked, and Henry gave her a look.

Together they Googled the make of printer and discovered it was a perfectly normal, cheap printer that happened to not work very well. Erstwhile Henry found this incredibly funny and had fallen off the sofa with laughter. Office insanity had been bearable when she could use it to make Henry laugh. Now there was no one to laugh with, and Deirdre kept her head low and pretended that foolish things were a natural part of working life. She let her inner mockery wither.

Wherever possible, workers in the office did their work-printing at home and brought it in the next day, meaning printing costs at Stronk and Lowry had dramatically decreased. This was seen as a win by management and the one-printer system spread throughout the branches.

Deirdre gave the machine a kick. It whirred indignantly and then deposited the letter she was printing at a diagonal. She shrugged. That would have to do. Mission accomplished, she got herself a chocolate Hobnob. They had been her dad's favorites, and she sucked on it as he would have done. As she passed, she picked a few cigarette butts out of the peace plant growing on the windowsill of the kitchen, and returned to Sarah's office to chop the letter straight.

Sarah was tapping loudly at her computer and ticking off her To Do list. She didn't waste a moment on thought or doubt, and wanted Deirdre to understand this. They both knew, although never acknowledged, that Deirdre would redo all the tasks properly later, so Sarah made triumphant noises with each button press to assert her part in the process.

The room was hot, adjusted to Sarah's sensibilities and in contrast to Deirdre's own. The stuffiness made Deirdre itchy and nervous, poking memories that lay in the dusty corners of her mind. It also smelt vaguely of farts.

It was 11am, and Sarah hadn't once asked how Deirdre's day was going. This wasn't a situation confined to her boss, most people swept their attention past Deirdre. Her insignificance had started with her name and expanded from there. Like a tree grown bent beneath railings, her character warped, as she ducked from attention out of shame. She believed this situation wasn't helped by unruly hair that needed constant taming, a face that was too round for cheekbones, and a squishy nose. It didn't matter what she did, or how well she did it, she had been assigned mediocrity.

She sat down at her smaller desk in the corner and huddled over her biscuit. Then she plotted how long she could drag out the pretense of working before making another cup of coffee.

Tuesday

Deirdre applied her mid-morning face cream while she waited for her smoothie to mix. She'd already washed all the mugs and plates in the sink, cleared away the passive-aggressive notes telling others to wash all the mugs and plates in the sink, and said hello to several colleagues who weren't exactly sure who she was. These routines reassured her that all was as it should be, no matter how awful that was. Deirdre's hay fever was playing up and she had a vague feeling of coming down with flu. This was also normal. Arabella walked in with a waft of perfume and made herself herbal tea, while Deirdre attempted to wipe a Sharpie doodle off the leaves of a potted geranium.

'Stars can't shine without darkness, Deirdre,' Arabella stated meaningfully. Deirdre smiled sweetly and wondered if this new platitude would become part of Arabella's latest campaign for lipstick. It was a weak line, and Deirdre knew when she suggested a better one in a few days, Arabella would steal it and credit it as her own. She was the closest Deirdre had to a friend these days, but didn't know Deirdre's beloved father had died three weeks ago. Or that she'd kicked Erstwhile Henry out of her life in a grief-ridden panic. Arabella assumed that Deirdre was as fine as could be expected and didn't bother checking if this was the case.

Deirdre took out a donut to offset the healthiness of the smoothie and face cream.

'I think when you've experienced as much darkness as me, you either learn to shine or you give up and become a bitter wreck,' said Arabella. Then she looked at Deirdre with a slight sneer. 'No offense.' Deirdre took a bite of the donut and let a blob of jam sit on her chin while she ate, enjoying this small defiance.

Wednesday

Deirdre glanced at herself in the computer screen and gave a little wink, but it looked pathetic, so she carried on organizing files. Sarah had decided to streamline their filing system and passed the previous afternoon renaming, recycling and editing client details. As usual, when Sarah had been proactive, Deirdre spent the following morning undoing the chaos. It was a tedious and depressing task, in a tedious and depressing job, in a tedious and depressing life. So Deirdre tackled it the way she did everything else, with as little thought as possible.

_Hello_...

The word appeared on her computer screen in a small text box, black writing on a gray background. Deirdre expected to hear a snigger from Sarah's desk, but Sarah had started a power nap. New words appeared in the box:

How are you?

Deirdre had attended a few seminars about the dangers of hacking and phishing, about how all staff should shut down their computers and contact IT if any suspicious activity occurred. She moved to do so. One thing made her stop: no one ever asked how she was. Ever. But this small text box was asking, so instead she wrote:

I'm lonely.

Then erased it and wrote:

I'm fine.

She pressed enter and then felt annoyed at herself.

No really, how are you?

She took a quick glance to check that Sarah was still asleep, and then wrote:

Tired, stressed, miserable.

Sounds tough. Here is something to cheer you up.

Deirdre decided this must be a viral advert from one of her colleagues. She would shortly be assailed with a video of rabbits dancing in a fountain. Except what appeared, was a cheaply shot video of a man sitting cross-legged.

'I know this is unexpected,' he said, 'but we're trying to reach you. See, you're in the wrong place. You're capable of many incredible things. You're spectacular, yet there you are, living an ordinary life. That isn't your destiny. So, ask yourself: are you happy? Do you like your life? And if not, why stay there?'

_This is a terrible campaign_ , thought Deirdre. _I have no idea of the product and the styling isn't distinctive enough to carry through a series of ads. This was yet another misguided creative who'd missed the point of advertising_. She closed the video and carried on working.

Wednesday Evening

Deirdre was drunk. The more fruit-flavored vodkas she downed, the more she was convinced her dragon slaying abilities improved, but the more the dragon knocked her off her horse. After six or seven tumbles, she staggered away to a cave to lick her wounds. Then she sat back from the TV screen and popped open another vodka, kicking the microwave lasagna tray to the 'rubbish corner' of the room. When the 'rubbish corner' encroached on the 'TV corner,' she would tidy up. Oddly, when Erstwhile Henry had lived there, Deirdre was the one who tidied and cleaned, and had a constant itch of irritation that Henry didn't. Now he was gone, she'd taken over his role.

A small clearing had been made in the rubbish, in which she'd placed her dad's ashes in a small urn. At least she hoped they were his ashes. When her mum had handed them over three weeks ago, in a curry-stained Tupperware box, she'd been vague. Deirdre wanted to scatter the ashes, but she couldn't decide where. Her dad was never one for the outdoors or ostentatious displays. His favorite places were the sofa and the local corner shop. So, she kept his ashes on the floor, and a wave of grief and exhaustion washed over her each time she looked at them.

As she took another swig of alcohol, a familiar gray box appeared on the TV screen. It said:

You're in the wrong place.

She cocked her drunken head on one side and wondered if this was a normal thing to happen. She picked up the keyboard and replied:

That doesn't surprise me. Where should I be?

The cave on the TV disappeared, and she was looking at a blurry video of twenty people standing in a grassy clearing, wearing robes. All had blissful smiles on their faces, and they looked up to the sky. One made a strange chanting noise, rolling his tongue in his mouth, almost gurgling out the syllables. Another joined him, singing a single note in harmony. One by one, each of the robed figures started chanting so the sound became intricate and beautiful, straining the speakers. As the voices stopped and they dropped their heads, the singing whirled around Deirdre's thoughts. It was a taste of glory and calm.

Then a woman in blue silk robes stepped forward and walked from one person to the next, touching their foreheads with her palm. Each reaction was different. One tipped her head back and raised her arms, her face filled with joy. Another crumpled to the floor laughing. A third swooned and was caught by the those behind him.

The video ended, and the cursor flashed again. Deirdre wasn't sure what was expected of her, so she wrote:

That was tuneful. Who are they?

The response came:

Your salvation.

_Ah. Where are they?_ asked Deirdre.

The Center.

The center of what?

Of Truth. Where people find hope and meaning.

The gray box vanished, leaving Deirdre bereft, drunk and confused, but with a small frond of interest unfurling. It seemed like years since something unpredictable had happened, since she'd experienced anything at all inexplicable. She smiled into her bottle and thought, _I bet this wouldn't happen to Henry._ Then fell into a drunken snooze.

Thursday

Everyone on the train to work was tapping at a device: their phone, a tablet, a laptop. Eyes down, concentration taken. Stations came and went. People shuffled in and out with muttered apologies and grunts of irritation. Deirdre hadn't slept much the night before, and while hangovers didn't affect her anymore, she had a weary, leaden sensation. Her sluggish mind attempted to work through the loss of her father, but got nowhere. She'd always believed death was a tragedy, something dramatic, romantic even. What had shocked her about her dad's was how mundane it was. He'd had a heart attack while watching the news, wearing slippers and drinking tea. He'd been a kind man, she'd loved him, but he'd slipped from the world as if he'd never mattered at all.

After the funeral, she was sitting watching TV, when she had a sudden, horrific vision of her life ending up the same as his: inevitable, well-behaved, and entirely without surprise.

She'd looked at Henry sitting next to her, realized he embodied of all those things and dumped him. Since then, she'd spent every day regretting it. Henry was a kind man too, and now they were both gone.

Her phone beeped the arrival of a text, from an unknown number. It said:

Hello. So, are you happy?

Crankily she wrote:

Who ARE you?

Without an answer, a video played. A small man sat staring into the camera as the seconds passed. When he started speaking, the words danced from his mouth in a rhythm.

'Society is going wrong, but you already know this, don't you? Your wisdom goes beyond the trudge of daily life. Others don't ask the kinds of questions that you do: Why is no one happy? Is this all there is to life? Who is really running things? And why are they doing it so badly? You ask these questions, and you see these flaws because you have a gift, many gifts. With us you could be fixing the problems of humanity, using your brilliance. But you don't get to use it, do you? Perhaps you don't even know what you're capable of. That isn't your fault, people with the shine are taught to suppress it. You get beaten down. One day your light will go out, and you'll become like everyone else.

'Don't let that happen.'

He stopped and looked at the camera, a slow, steady gaze that stared right into Deirdre's eyes, and made her a little dizzy. Then he continued in his calm, husky voice.

'Here we can teach you to find and use your potential. Come to the Center of Truth and discover your destiny.'

For the rest of the journey, Deirdre battled to get her phone to Google the Center. All the while she happily rolled around her head the idea she was somehow special.

Two Weeks later

Work was typical, and Deirdre acted as expected. Sarah strode about making decisions for the sake of it. Everyone claimed the printer had responded to a workplace-meditation-healing-session and was now working slightly better. Deirdre carried on redoing her colleagues' work without credit and tried to keep office plants alive.

However, beneath her bland exterior, she had changed. She'd found the website for the Center of Truth and tumbled into its intriguing message of hope with glee. But there wasn't enough on there.

There was a picture of the buildings that made up the Center, where people lived. There were news stories about wars and famines happening across the globe, with added notes hinting humanity was heading for a great disaster. A couple of written paragraphs from Myra, who seemed to be the leader, about how the human race must evolve to survive. And an article entitled Interference that described mental blockages without which everyone would be happy and have special powers.

The website itself was clunky and ugly, but after working in an environment of slick manipulation, the clunkiness felt like proof of authenticity. The message was true, so the authors didn't need to dress it up in fancy fonts and white-toothed smiles. She knew her colleagues would sneer at such an idealistic attitude, but that made her love it more. Their sneering didn't make her happy and the Center insisted being unhappy was wrong. It claimed she didn't need to drag herself from one joyless activity to another, blotting out her emotions with alcohol and donuts. Now she knew there was an alternative. She didn't understand it, but the fact it existed soothed her.

She'd had a few more text conversations too. The benevolent hacker repeated the messages of the videos, telling her she was different, special, and she needed to escape the mediocre life before she lost her uniqueness. When she tried to pin down what that meant, the text in the little gray box remained vague. To fill in the gaps she would daydream the possibilities.

So when the gray box appeared on the screen that morning, she had a hiccup of anticipation and leaped forward. The text made a demand without preamble.

We need to stop talking. It's time to decide. Do you want to release your true potential? To start living? You need to be here.

Go to the Center? And leave everything?

Deirdre was already imagining herself running out the office front door, kicking off her uncomfortable shoes and slinging her sensible cardigan over a road sign before escaping into the traffic.

Why not?

Reality screeched Deirdre's fantasy to a halt, as she remembered her flat, her lucrative-but-hated career, and the years of unhappiness she'd invested in exchange for security.

But I can't, can I? I have commitments. I can't.

One final video and I will leave you in peace.

She didn't want to be left in peace, but before she could write this, the screen filled with YouTube. She put in an earphone and watched as a young woman with a calm, somewhat wonky face appeared. There was something soothing about her. She spoke with a slight southeast Asian accent, and with warmth and intensity,

'I'm Myra. I run the Center. You're watching this video because you're struggling, knowing you belong with us, but too afraid to leave. You think you're making the logical choice, to stick with what you know. But it's not logical to watch time tick away while you live in misery. If you aren't where you want to be, why stay? Don't let fear waste your chance to be spectacular.'

Myra paused and looked away. When she returned her gaze to the camera, she spoke as if sharing a secret.

'Our planet is in trouble, people can't carry on like this: so frantic, so greedy and violent. At the Center, we've found another way, but we need your help. We need you to take that leap, before it's too late.' As she finished speaking, Myra raised her hands out toward the camera and Deirdre found herself reaching at the screen.

Then she realized Sarah was speaking.

'For fuck's sake Deirdre, get with it. We've got that meeting with Dove in ten minutes and I need you alert.' Deirdre blinked away all thoughts of the Center and returned her concentration to her job.

Dove sat behind his desk with egotism pulsing from him. Sarah hunched over her crossed legs, trying to maneuver herself into a dominant posture, but the weight of her insecurity kept twisting the attempts.

These are tough times,' Dove was saying. 'Times of austerity. We all have to tighten our belts, make sacrifices.'

'But the company figures are pretty good, our profits-'

Dove cut in. 'Profits? I shouldn't think you know much about our profits with the amount of time you waste on Facebook!' Dove snapped.

'But I don't-' Sarah whined.

'Oh, don't you? I have records that say otherwise,' jeered Dove. Then he slipped the aggressive expression off his face, the features softened, and his voice dropped.

'Look, Sarah, you're one of our valued managers, and we expected great things of you. However, there needs to be compromise, a sign you are truly committed to the success of Stronk and Lowry.'

Deirdre watched as Sarah tried to collect her wits and keep track of the conversation. Dove was using a method those in the office called The Abusive Boyfriend. It involved constant switches of emotion, moving back and forth between fast aggression and excessive reasonableness. Management used it to confuse an employee into submission, and it was working well on Sarah.

'What do you want me to do?' pleaded Sarah, attempting to sit up and look determined.

'We're scrapping bonuses this year. There's a recession out there. So, I want you to inform your team that additional moneys will be suspended for the foreseeable future.'

'Ok, well, of course I'll do that, but I'm not sure how they'll react. I mean everyone's been working very hard-'

'I want it to be a motivating event, something to boost productivity, raise competition in the team. Get some brainstorming going, a few cheers. This is a chance for you to utilize your leadership skills.'

'But, how can-' Sarah tried to protest, but Dove waved his hand to dismiss her. The conversation was over. She nodded and got up in a daze, turning to leave.

Deirdre also stood and nodded politely at Dove, who smiled back saying, 'Nice to see you, Denise.'

She was touched he managed to get two letters of her name right.

Sarah sat with her head in her hands, 'I can't do it. I mean, how can I? How can I tell them there's no bonus, that management doesn't give a shit for all their hard work, and then get them to cheer about it? How can I do that?'

'Sure, you can,' said Deirdre, confident now she was dealing with somebody else's problems rather than her own. She took Sarah's hand and said, 'You can do anything. Remember your training? Don't think, do. Only pigs wallow. You can do this. I'll be with you.'

Sarah shook her head and sniffed. 'Go and power meditate for seven minutes,' said Deirdre. 'I promise you, after that, you'll be ready.' Sarah nodded and left Deirdre sitting staring at the wall, trying to sort through her conflicting thoughts. She imagined what her dad would say to her if he'd heard that conversation, but her dad had only ever had one job, and he'd hated it. And died hating it.

Seven minutes later Sarah emerged from the meditation room focused and freed from empathy.

'I hope you're ready to whoop,' she said drily, and they walked out to the open-plan office to call a meeting.

In the airless conference room stood twelve employees yawping with joy at the sheer privilege of being denied their bonuses. This development opportunity had enriched the workplace and given them new drive. Each face showed forced good cheer, lines deep around their mouths, their eyes empty. Sarah had done it. She'd given them the bad news while rallying them to holler their allegiance to the company. Then they'd brainstormed ideas for why not getting a bonus was a positive sign. She'd crushed complaints with a viciousness that excelled anything she'd achieved before. And Deirdre had helped her do it.

Deirdre could feel her soul drop away as she stood on the brink of turpitude. As if she was in the queue for Hell, edging toward a moral doom. As each of her colleagues did a Mexican wave of celebration around her, she crept out. The self-disgust started to subside as she picked up her coat and snuck out of the office. All the while emailing her resignation from her phone.

2

Deirdre came to the end of a long train journey to the outskirts of nowhere. Her stomach tipped from one side to the other as her mood swayed between doubt and excitement. She'd quit her job, put her possessions into storage, and the flat was lying empty. She'd scattered her dad's ashes at the local graveyard, and written a triumphant goodbye email to Henry, telling him she was going off-grid.

All stability had been slung aside, and now she was arriving at a small station, far from civilization. But she felt proud. This was her chance to reinvent herself. From now on she was going to be fearless, to stand up for herself. This was where she took her life by the horns and grasped the nettle. If only those metaphors didn't sound quite so painful.

The station was nearly deserted, but on the dusty platform a figure stood in a brown cowl. The head was down and the hood up, so the face was in shadow. It was like a scene out of an amateur horror film.

Not knowing what else to do, Deirdre walked up to the figure and said, 'Erm, excuse me?'

The head raised, and she saw a man's gnomic face with one eye stretched wide and the other squinting. Gray wisps of hair wafted around his head, and his skin was tanned and weathered. He said nothing but beckoned at her before turning and trotting off down the platform. Hesitantly, she followed him.

'I'm Deirdre,' she said as they walked past the ticket office.

He snapped a response. 'From now on that doesn't matter. From now you are a subscholar. A wannabe. You have no name.' For Deirdre, who longed to abandon her name, this was an exciting piece of news.

'What's a subscholar?' she asked. He didn't answer but carried on swishing his way toward the ticket office. She tried another question. 'So, we don't have names?' she said. Then she paused confused, as they stepped outside the station and what should have been a road turned out to be a wood.

The Captain didn't stop, but said, 'No. _You'll_ have a _new_ name. _I_ am the Captain.' He was now leading her across a path covered in brambles. Frequently Deirdre had to disentangle her wheeled suitcase. The Captain said no more, but his irritation was evident as he watched her.

The Center itself was down a long gravel drive, an enormous, sprawling Victorian building with bow windows. It reminded Deirdre of a posh boarding school and without thinking she hunched into herself, feeling shabby. A large sign announced:

THE CENTER OF TRUTH. Time to be free.

As the Captain opened the front door, he said, 'This is where new followers can discard their consumer detritus.'

The walls of the corridor beyond bowed inwards with glued junk: an eyeshadow palette, an umbrella, shoes, a calculator, a few books. Some objects were embedded in the plaster, and others were pinned and dangling. Deirdre spotted an iPhone and was tempted to pocket it. She couldn't imagine being so unbothered by possessions that she would stick expensive technology to a wall and walk away.

The corridor was oppressive, but it opened out into a tree-lined courtyard. She stepped into the sunshine. To one side, there was a small cluster of people wearing robes. They stood with their hands raised. A low rumbling seemed to swell up from the ground like a lorry thundering past, and the robed figures shook their hands until it stopped. Deirdre tried to get a proper look, wondering how they could create such an effect. She turned to ask the Captain, but he was tutting at her impatiently, so she hurried on.

'And this is our domicile,' he said with a flourish, as they reached a small building. It was like a temporary classroom, made of ply board and concrete blocks. Inside was sparse. There were bunk beds set close together. No chairs, no tables or cupboards. The only decoration was a cheap, gray, kitchen clock hanging on the wall. The room was hot, and Deirdre began to feel itchy and claustrophobic, as if the furniture were jostling her for space.

'Perhaps we should open a window,' she said.

The Captain studied her. 'No,' he said. 'This is your bed, and the garment on it is your robe.'

'Right,' said Deirdre.

'You will change into it later. Any questions?' Deirdre picked up what appeared to be a pile of clothes but was only a single robe in patchwork. It looked as if someone had stitched together the contents of a wardrobe.

'Why isn't my robe brown, like yours?'

'I am fully fledged scholar, and you're a beginner. You'll see many colors here. Once you have started to evolve, you will become Primary Echelon and will wear brown. Then you'll gain defts to achieve Second Echelon, before becoming a Free Echelon.' Deirdre nodded at this but didn't understand what the Captain was talking about. He continued, chuckling, 'Imagine! You'll be released from the mire of your human state, after a lifetime of drowning in the self.'

'I don't think I do drown in the self,' said Deirdre, peeved.

The Captain appeared not to hear her. 'I shall return in an hour,' he said.

With that, he left, and Deirdre was alone, not knowing what to do. She scrutinized the room. It was drab, the walls were a pale green. Each small chip in the paintwork had been colored in with a felt-tip pen, which seemed like an odd way to pass the time. Behind her, the clock was ticking too slowly to be counting seconds. Looking more closely, she saw it didn't have any hands, just numbers.

Then a voice behind her said, 'It's not for telling the time.'

Deirdre turned and there was a small woman, aged thirtyish, with a cautious expression. She already wore the patchwork robes.

'Oh, hello. So what's it for?'

The woman shrugged and walked closer. She leaned in, covered her mouth and whispered, 'My name is Nuan.'

'Pleased to meet you,' Deirdre whispered back. Then added, 'I thought we weren't supposed to have names.'

'I know,' said Nuan with defiance. 'But ever since I came to this country, people have told me to change my name. They say it's too Chinese and they can't remember it. At my work they called me Chloe. But I like Nuan. It's who I am.'

'I expect you can keep it if you explain,' said Deirdre.

Nuan looked away and said, 'Do you want to go outside? There's a beautiful garden.' Deirdre grinned a reply. They walked out from the dingy room. 'How do you feel?' asked Nuan as they sat on a patch of grass. Deirdre glanced back toward the dorm, with its bunk beds and stained walls.

'That I've lost my mind!' she said.

Nuan laughed.

'I felt like that at first. Then last night I saw Myra, experienced the Shadows, and suddenly it all made sense.'

'The Shadows?'

'You'll see. They're like a beautiful light. They're here to help us.' As Nuan spoke, her face glowed.

'Oh. So how long do you want to stay here? Do you know?' asked Deirdre.

Nuan picked a daisy and began removing the petals. 'No,' she said. 'I feel there's so much I can learn here, and it will take time.'

Deirdre nodded, her mind drifting.

'I saw something earlier,' she said. 'Some kind of weird ceremony.' She described it, while Nuan gazed at her eagerly.

'I saw the same thing. But then one started to lift up, and he was floating!' said Nuan.

'What? Levitating?'

Nuan nodded.

'Unbelievable, isn't it? This place is special. I could sense it when I arrived. It has a,' Nuan frowned, 'an energy.'

'You could sense it? Are you psychic?' asked Deirdre.

'I don't think it's as strong as that. It's one reason I wanted to come here, to develop it. My grandmother was the same. She always knew things. If somebody was telling lies or pregnant, she knew it.'

'My mum is psychic too,' said Deirdre. 'She sees ghosts. Sometimes, when I was a kid, she'd wake me up in the middle of the night to go into the garden and chase away spirits. Not that I saw anything, I never had any sixth sense. Perhaps it skips a generation.'

Nuan looked up and pointed behind Deirdre, to where the Captain was striding through the trees. A small crowd of people in patchwork robes followed behind him. He stopped, stood on a tree stump and stared impatiently at Deirdre and Nuan, who hurried over.

He didn't wait for them, but they could hear his sharp voice bursting with inappropriate machismo.

'What you will experience for the next few months will be tough. You need to overcome decades of conditioning. A lifetime of being suffocated by luxuries. They taught you that shopping and eating sugary treats were the high life, so why weren't you happy? Because it was all a lie. They didn't care about your happiness, they only wanted to fill your mind with distraction, what we call Interference.

Without Interference clogging up your thoughts, you are capable of incredible things, these are your defts. Gifts of telepathy, healing, time travel. Anything is possible when your mind is free.

'But evil rules over us. They don't want you to be powerful. They want you to be dependent; living puny, cluttered lives. Here we teach you the truth, train you to access your strength. As I push you to excel, you may come to hate me; but know, I am your one chance for freedom.'

Deirdre found the speech ludicrous, all pomp and melodrama. She looked over at Nuan, but Nuan's expression was serious.

'As you evolve, you will start to notice small changes,' said the Captain. 'Alterations in your senses, tingling in your skin, strange thoughts. This is the sign of your defts forming.'

Deirdre studied the other subscholars taking in the variety: coiffured blonde locks, wild, curly hair, afros, braids and bald. Some were bewildered, others stood up confidently.

The Captain was still talking and she tried to concentrate. 'Shortly I will give you a new name that describes your true self. But before that, newcomers must visit Tide. You first,' he said, pointing at Deirdre. 'Change into your robes.'

Deirdre wanted to ask who Tide was, but the Captain's left eye began to bulge with irritation. Instead, she turned to walk away, and nearly bumped into the man standing behind her. She looked up straight into his deep blue eyes as she apologized.

And everything stopped.

His gaze collided with hers only briefly, but it was an expression of warmth and good humor. A smile hovered at the corner of his mouth, a hint of dimples in his cheeks. He was, quite simply, beautiful. Deirdre was flabbergasted and hurried back to the dorm grinning. Now she knew she was in the right place.

Deirdre sat hunched in a squishy chair in a windowless room. She was trying to perch but kept sinking into the fabric. A soothing man sat opposite her exuding understanding, and it made her uneasy.

'My name is Tide,' he said. 'And I shall be your guide on this journey. At the Center, we are people of science, but science that connects to our spiritual selves rather than being removed from it. Does that make sense?'

'Ah,' said Deirdre. It didn't make sense at all.

'To calibrate your thoughts, and sense your inner being, I want to hear about your childhood? Was it happy?'

'Sure, great!' said Deirdre, trying not to sound sarcastic.

'You seem uncomfortable. Are your family complicated?'

'No. They're great.'

'Hmm. I'm sensing that sadness, perhaps even torment, is causing a blockage deep in your mind and creating Interference. As people of science, we can use technology to help us.' He reached behind his chair and pulled out a large, clear orb, which he placed on the table in front of her. Lines of blue light flashed and squirmed inside the ball.

'Oh, I've seen one of these before. Isn't it a plasma ball?' said Deirdre.

'No, no it isn't,' Tide snapped. 'I believe there was a copy released as an executive toy, but it wasn't the same technology as this. A follower with a psychic deft acquired this design from the minds of a top-secret MI5 program.'

'Oh, right,' said Deirdre.

'Now, put your hands on the orb, close your eyes and breathe deeply.' Tide's voice slowed and deepened, as if he was warping time. 'Breathe, disconnect and let go. Breathe, in and out. Enter a deeper state of calm as I count down. Ten...nine...eight...'

As Tide counted, Deirdre didn't feel herself entering a deeper state of anything, but to keep him happy, she went along with it.

'You're sitting at the dinner table, with your father. Can you see him?'

'Yes,' said Deirdre, although they only ever ate dinner on trays in front of the television. She imagined him next to her, arranging his vegetables into smiley faces to make her laugh.

'And what is his expression? Is he angry?'

Deirdre knew Tide was trying to edge her toward a tragic childhood memory, but all she could think of was her father telling her bad puns through mouthfuls of potato.

She felt a shock of grief and said, 'Never.'

'And your mother, tell me about her.'

'Aurora! Oh, she's lovely!' exclaimed Deirdre, grief and pretend-trance shoved aside in her hurry to speak. 'Special, that's what my dad always said, "Your mum's special, we must take care of her." She's got many gifts, she's like a lovely ray of light!' While speaking Deirdre had taken her hands off the globe to straighten her robe, and on her face was a fixed grin. Then she shrugged awkwardly, trying not to look at Tide's exasperated face.

The session with Tide had been silly, but she reassured herself it was only one small component of her new life. Since the next component involved changing her name from Deirdre, she had no problem dismissing it from her mind.

The Captain instructed the new followers to sit in quiet contemplation, staring at the clock without hands while he called them one at a time.

'This clock isn't about time,' the Captain had said enigmatically. 'It's about freedom.' Everyone stared at it, hoping freedom would appear.

The beautiful man visited the Captain first. As he walked out with effortless grace, Deirdre found herself grinning again.

When he returned, with a clear, plummy accent he announced, 'My name is Adam.' Everyone around the room half-raised their eyes, giving vague smiles, and then returned to contemplation.

Nuan was next, and when she came back, said, 'Lilith, my name's Lilith now,' and sat down.

Deirdre leaned close to Nuan and said, 'You'll always be Nuan to me.'

Each, in turn, visited the Captain, and left their old identities behind.

'Bear,' said a large man resignedly.

'Night,' said a twitchy young woman, who choked on her words.

'Cabbage,' said a young man with a corkscrew mop of curly brown hair.

'Cabbage? How the Hell did you end up with that?' asked Adam.

'The Captain wanted to go with Raven, but you know, that's a bit Goth for me.'

'And he listened?' asked Lilith.

'Well, I said with a more vegetable-y name, I'd keep my arrogant nature in check, and he liked that.' He shone a big grin at the other subscholars, not showing a shred of arrogance.

Deirdre tried not to get too excited about her new name. However, she felt she was on the verge of wriggling free from her insecurities caused by the cumbersome weight of 'Deirdre.' When the Captain beckoned her into his small and pungent room, she feigned calm.

'So,' said the Captain, putting his clipboard down, 'what should your name be?'

She shifted in her seat and sent psychic vibes telling the Captain to give her the name Delilah, or Ophelia.

'Erm, I don't know,' she said. _Delilah_ , she thought. The Captain acted pained, and picked up the clipboard again, glancing at it.

'Deirdre. Deirdre.' He rolled the name around his mouth like a boiled sweet. 'Do you like your name?'

'No! It's dull!' she said excitedly. She noticed the Captain wince at the noise, then he folded his hands.

'I think it's excellent,' he said. 'With a name like that you can't hide from your flaws. You are Deirdre, and you will stay Deirdre.'

She let out a small yelp and spluttered, 'But I don't want it!'

The Captain looked deep into her face without emotion, as if scanning a bookshelf for a particular book.

'Want is Interference,' he said. 'Learn to suppress it.'

'Please,' she said, but the Captain was already writing something on his clipboard.

Without looking up, he said, 'You may go, Deirdre.'

When she returned to the room, the subscholars had abandoned any pretense of quiet. They clustered in their patchwork robes around Adam, who was sitting back with his arms and legs spread wide.

'Yeah, well, I once dove 40 meters into the sea without a tank, nearly died. But hey, I figure if I can do that, imagine what I could do with psychic powers, right?'

'Without any breathing apparatus? Why?' asked Night.

'To prove it was possible, you know? It's like, that's what it's all about: pushing yourself to the limit. I could never sit back on the dole watching daytime TV and getting fat. I have to achieve, but maybe that's just me.'

So, she thought, _I'm still called Deirdre, and the beautiful man is a dick._

Half an hour later everyone but Deirdre had a new name. She'd forgotten most of them. The Captain returned to strut up and down.

'Your first task is small. I want you to get up and wander, listen. Listen for a silent voice, a living being to connect to. Don't choose the first thing you see.'

Deirdre thought these instructions were incomplete. What was a silent voice, anyway? But the others were already walking away, their hands sweeping through the air as if searching for vibrations. Not wanting to be the idiot, Deirdre decided she'd better pretend, and hope it made sense in a bit.

There was a small group of trees beside the path. She always had a strong feeling of safety when stood near trees. Their leaves would rustle a welcome as they stretched majestically up into the sky, unafraid. She put her hand on an oak. Its trunk was gnarly and thick. People had often mocked Deirdre for being solid. She'd never been fat, just stocky. Yet here was a tree with the same quality but carrying it off with grace: uncurvy yet beautiful. She reached her hand out to the fissures in the trunk and touched the rough surface, the pits each telling a story with dignity.

'You can't connect to that tree. It's too big,' barked the Captain from behind her. 'Try a dandelion instead.' Then he strode away without looking back. Deirdre took a deep breath and walked away to find something small.

She saw Cabbage lying on his stomach, a paving slab flipped over, while he watched the wriggling of exposed worms and earwigs beneath. He gave her a big grin, and she sat down beside him, pretending to read the thoughts of a worm, as if that was a thing.

The attempts to connect ended when they were called to a dinner that was too small. Conversation bubbled with excitement, and Deirdre smiled and nodded, but her thoughts swung back and forth in her mind like pendulums of doom. _I've made a terrible mistake. This place is a cheap cult and I fell for it. I'm hungry, and these people are mad_.

She wanted desperately to run but knew she could never go back to her old life. She'd given up everything. She couldn't admit to her colleagues, and to Henry, that she was a gullible idiot. She could barely admit it to herself. Instead, a slow wash of shame flooded through her. As the meal finished, regret made it difficult to stand. Then Lilith, once Nuan, appeared beside her, squeezing her hand.

'You'll be ok,' she whispered. 'I promise.'

Deirdre hoped she was right.

As dinner finished, the Captain announced they would attend a gathering.

'There are many rituals you must learn, but for now, copy me. Quietly!' he barked, as if they had already offended him with their noisy ignorance.

The gathering was in the Grand Hall. Compared to the grimy dorm, the room echoed with splendor. If the Center had indeed once been a school, they held assembly here. She could sense the ghosts of hymns as they bounced around the large domed roof. The floor was polished wood, and the air crisp and free of dust. At the back, sat thirty people, in robes of orange or green silk, which flowed out from the seated figures like pools of liquid. Deirdre's mood lifted a fraction. This was better than looking at a worm.

The Captain motioned at them to follow him, and walked from the door around the walls until he reached the platform. He crouched down, threw his hands wide and his head back, then fell forward so his forehead touched the ground. Then he got up and walked, following the edges of the room, before sitting down on the floor, cross-legged. A tall man stepped hesitantly forward from their group, his patchwork robe of yellow corduroy and pig pajamas swishing against his legs. He copied the Captain's path. Then each of the other subscholars did the same.

As Deirdre sat on the floor, the tension was like a drum roll. Lilith, next to her, was holding her hands together so tightly that the skin had turned white.

Then a small, dark-haired woman dressed in blue silk walked onto the stage and there were audible gasps. Deirdre recognized Myra from the video.

The air was charged, with Myra at the heart of the current and Deirdre couldn't see why. Myra was unspectacular, with a squat body and a slight belly bulging her robes outwards. Her teeth were crooked, as was her nose.

'My new friends,' Myra said. 'For a lifetime you've been broken down, your brilliance wasted.' When she spoke, she hung onto each word a second too long, as if savoring it. She didn't need to shout, because her voice resonated, gathering power as she spread her arms wide and began to walk across the stage.

'But now you've started on your journey toward freedom. There is sorcery in here. Can you feel it?' Myra swung around, sweeping her hand through the air. Deirdre heard sobs and saw the heads of those around her move like puppets. Despite her ordinary appearance, Myra was magnetic. Deirdre started to feel a bit giddy.

'Before you came here, you were caught in a trap! There was food, entertainment, but you were always bored. Always hungry.' A few followers cried out in agreement. 'You hid in computer games, in Facebook, in TV; an endless chatter so your mind never rested. Until the Center, did you ever know peace?'

A few scholars were sobbing now, holding onto each other, untethered emotion spilling out. They didn't care how foolish they looked. They were just incredibly happy.

It was odd, but Deirdre felt a childlike exhilaration too. Her legs were shaky, and she told herself it was the lack of food, but the sensation was growing. Her skin was fizzing, and she kept forgetting to breathe.

'Forever busy with technology, a noise that blocked you from hearing the voices of the Shadows, from knowing their presence. But you can sense them now, can't you?' Myra's voice had distorted. It twisted and turned through Deirdre's brain like a physical thing. She was pulled into the warmth of the words and wanted the syllables to last longer and longer.

'You'll learn to hear the Shadows whenever you need, but here, with our power united, this is when their call is loudest. We are a mechanism that can free the world. Each of you one cog that helps to turn the whole.'

Myra had walked to the front of the stage and crouched down. Deirdre took a deep breath, and it sent sparks of light through her blood. She gazed around, wide-eyed, trying to work out what was happening to her, and realized everyone felt the same: blood becoming electric, gravity losing its pull. Even Myra was flushed and excited as she touched fingertips with her followers.

'The Shadows are here! They're releasing the potential in each of you. They're changing you, so you can change the world. Can you feel it?'

'Yes!' people shouted back joyfully.

'Your minds are freeing themselves of the pain, of the noise, the panic. You are becoming free!' Deirdre had a sudden urge to shout out, to be part of the jubilance. 'The Shadows are here!' said Myra, lifting up her hands. 'Feel their love!'

Buzzing sped through Deirdre's fingers, her toes, her knees. Each breath in brought a rush of euphoria, and each breath out a slow easy calm. The man next to her grabbed her hand and gave her a grin of such innocent delight that she hugged him. She wanted to hug everybody because everybody was wonderful. She laughed with the brilliance of it, and a few others laughed with her. A wave of giggling delight spreading through the hall.

'Yes, laugh! Release it! This is who you are! This is who you should be!' shouted Myra. Then Deirdre saw Lilith and held her close as another warm rush of pure bliss flowed up from the floor. She no longer cared about anything else, about the life she'd abandoned, about her hunger or uncertainty. She'd never experienced anything as perfect as this, so intense her whole body hummed. Now there existed possibilities beyond drudgery and routine, there was wonder. She looked at Lilith whose happiness glowed around her like a blue light. They clung to each other while the room pulsed.

And Deirdre knew she was finally alive.

3

The second day began after too little sleep and with the Captain barking, 'Get up! Get up!'

Deirdre was groggy, and when she looked under her bed her shoes weren't there anymore, but she had a small flutter of excitement as she remembered the night before. The same flush showed on the puffy faces around her, mixed with the fuzzy struggle of morning. She caught Lilith's eye, and they grinned widely at each other. She pulled on her robes and walked outside, to where the Captain stood trying to keep the attention of people too excited to listen.

'Today you continue your journey on the road to becoming a true scholar-' he said.

Then one woman with a lopsided morning quiff and pillow scars said unquietly to the other subscholars, 'Guess what, I dreamed about Myra. We were at a swimming pool, and she walked on the water!'

'Today you continue-' the Captain tried again.

'Well yeah, in my dream she chose me as a mouthpiece for the Shadows,' said Adam.

The Captain tried clearing his throat, but the chatter only swelled. Then in a high-pitched voice he shouted, 'Silence!' The talking stopped. 'Your prattling is Interference, learn to control it! Today you will connect to an inanimate object.'

'Do objects have thoughts for us to tune into?' asked an indignant woman called Forge. Her speech had slowed so the syllables dragged just like Myra's the night before.

'All things have a vibration; don't you know _that_?' said the Captain.

'Yeah, but if we're trying to connect to the Shadows? I mean, they're as far from inanimate as it gets!' said Adam, and others muttered their agreement.

'Just do it!' shrieked the Captain, his face a furrowed fist of fury.

They spread out, but no one paid much attention to what they were doing. Deirdre tried to connect to a brick, but she agreed with her dorm-mates. Inanimate felt a long way from her experience the night before, and she found it difficult to care. Adam debated over whether the sky was an inanimate object, and Cabbage joined in, insisting his shoes were not. It was a fun morning of wistful silliness, an ocean away from any kind of trouble.

When the Captain walked up to them, only Deirdre raised her head.

'You,' he said, pointing at her, 'shall serve those of the upper echelons.' He handed her a map and told her to pick up breakfast from the kitchen and go to Discussion Room Five.

Discussion Room Five had an excess of oak paneling; the chairs had cushioned backs of green leather, held in place with brass studs. Deirdre guessed that this was where the school board would have met. She could imagine school governors sipping tea, trying to live up to the grandeur.

Inside sat a man in flowing green robes, who she'd seen as they walked to the Grand Hall the day before. The way the Captain had bowed in his presence, made it clear he was important, yet he carried himself with no arrogance. He had the air of someone who couldn't quite remember what he was supposed to be doing, and she found that reassuring. He was studying a bulging book, open to a page with maps covered with odd squiggled lines that didn't look like any language she recognized. She tried to put the food down without disturbing him, but he looked up, relieved.

'Hello,' he said, 'I'm Torque.' His features were Asian, but his accent was pure North London. His sleeves were pushed back and written in Sharpie on his hand was a doodle of a flower and the word _breakfast_.

'Oh, hello. I'm Deirdre.'

'Is that your new name?'

'No, I didn't get one,' she said, sighing.

'It's nice, a good name. It sounds like the beginning of a letter. "Dear Dree."'

'I've never liked it. I wanted it to change.'

'Maybe you don't need a new name, just a new way of thinking about it. Become Deirdre the Triumphant, Deirdre the Warrior.'

'Oh,' said Deirdre, standing up a bit straighter as Torque's concentration drifted away. 'What's the book?' she asked. He sighed and pushed it across the table like a teenager who's sick of homework.

'A prophecy. The Shadows gave it to us.'

'A prophecy? Really? What does it predict?' she asked.

'We're not sure because it's all in code, we can only understand bits, but they say something bad is happening.'

'Bad like what?' she asked, but he wasn't listening.

'It's good you kept your name, you can lose yourself in a place like this,' he said.

'I thought that was the point. Or at least to evolve out of yourself and become one with...' Her words dwindled when she realized she didn't know what she was talking about.

He smiled sympathetically, then handed her a piece of toast as he returned to his book. She crept out, chewing on the toast and wondering what the prophecy might be.

A few people from Deirdre's dorm were chopping vegetables in the kitchen. She wanted to share what she'd learned, but they were working beneath the watchful, bulging eye of the Captain, so she stayed quiet.

They were standing in a production line between a big pile of unwashed, unpeeled carrots and a large pot filled with more carrots, diced. Deirdre joined them.

While most production lines speed up a process, this one seemed only to slow it down. The large man named Bear would take a carrot from the pile, wash it in a bowl of water, and pass it to Cabbage. Cabbage would cut off either end and hand it to Lilith, who would peel it. Then she'd give it to Deirdre, who would chop it into pieces. Finally, Deirdre would pass it to Forge, who would put the pieces in the pot. The Captain stood over them watching, occasionally shouting out orders. He was indignant the system worked so badly. He snapped at Lilith for being slow and holding everyone up, ignoring the obvious flaw that peeling a carrot takes much longer than cutting off its ends. Cabbage and Deirdre slowed down their chopping to give Lilith a chance to keep up.

The subscholars wanted to get to know each other, and tried to start conversations, a few now using dragging syllables like Myra. However, almost anything they said was met with a withering comment from the Captain.

'Here you stand at the very start of evolution, and yet you are blathering about the weather!' he would say. 'Oh, how fascinating, you used to work in an office,' he would sneer.

Eventually, Bear's patience broke, and he slammed a carrot down on the table.

'For God's sake! People are just talking.'

'Don't you understand?' shouted the Captain. 'I'm breaking you down! Making you free!'

'I don't see how shouting will free us,' said Forge.

'Because you don't have a clue what you're doing! You have no idea why you're here. You're idiots and we're crashing toward doom! I can't bear to look at you any longer!' He marched from the room leaving shocked faces behind him.

'Touchy, isn't he?' said Lilith, as Deirdre passed round some chopped slices of carrots to each of the others to eat. They chuckled with relief while they munched.

'And he was wearing my watch. I wondered where that had gone,' added Cabbage.

'I'm sure he wouldn't take your watch,' said Lilith.

Bear threw down his knife. 'Well, I don't care if he thinks I'm heading for doom, I didn't come here for this,' he said. 'I used to have a private chef, and now I'm peeling carrots. Which is doubly pointless since I'm fairly sure they're no-peel carrots.'

'Yes, why we can't just have the gatherings without all this. I could go back to my old life, and do the Interference removal as an evening class,' said Forge.

'And at least outside I could eat a good meal!' said Bear.

Cabbage cut across the mood, 'But this has to be huge, doesn't it? This isn't like learning macramé or French cuisine, this is about changing our lives.'

'By chopping carrots?' asked Bear.

Cabbage said, 'I don't think the actual thing matters, you know, as long as we're here, doing it together.'

'Well, he doesn't need to be so rude about it,' Bear said.

'Hmm, or to pinch my watch, I guess,' said Cabbage with a shrug.

When the carrots were finished, the Captain returned to shout orders to clean, tidy, wash-up; but his demands didn't make much sense. Bear was told to put the pans away dirty and then he ordered Adam to take them all out again and wash them. He instructed Lilith to put all the chairs in straight lines, and told Night to mop underneath them. If anyone questioned the logic of the Captain, he said this was Interference and they must overcome it by chanting, 'I will be free. I will be free,' until their dissent had passed. His attempts to assert authority only made the Captain more a figure of fun. They each did what he said, but with sly glances and sarcastic comments.

Deirdre stood cleaning a counter, hoping the Captain wouldn't notice her, then Cabbage tugged on her sleeve, jerking his head toward the door. Lilith stood behind him nodding. Deirdre was torn, she wanted to take the rules seriously, but the thought of escaping the Captain's sneering gaze was too tempting. She sidled out of the door. The three hurried to the safety of a clump of trees, where they huddled, sniggering like school kids sharing a fag.

'If he doesn't calm his pajamas, he'll have an aneurysm,' said Cabbage, as they sat on a patch of leaves.

'He enjoys it. Being irritated makes him happy,' said Deirdre. Lilith giggled, holding her hand in front of her face.

'He reminds me of my dad, needing to control everybody,' said Cabbage.

'You didn't get on with your dad?' Deirdre asked.

'He didn't get on with me. He thought I was a gadabout. You know, he wanted me to work with him in his plumbing firm? I was going to.' Cabbage plucked a leaf from the tree and ran his fingernail down the vein. 'Then I was at the bus stop, and I saw a sticker advertising the Center, and I realized, That's it! That's where I need to be! Then I put the address into my phone and came here.'

'How did he take it?' asked Lilith.

'Dunno, I sent a text and he didn't reply.' Lilith looked shocked.

'I could never do that,' she said. 'I felt terrible when I left my mum behind in China.'

'Can't you visit her?' asked Deirdre, Lilith shook her head.

'They wouldn't let me back in the UK after. I'm never sure how to fill out the forms properly. I don't know if my visa is valid.' She brushed imaginary dust from her robes. 'Still,' she said, 'as long as I stay here, I'm ok.'

Cabbage picked another leaf and chewed on it thoughtfully.

'Anyway,' he said, spitting it out with a grimace. 'Did anyone else notice the strange symbols on the wall outside the kitchen?'

'Yes!' said Lilith. 'And near the shower block. Do you think they're a protection spell?'

'Or a set of secret instructions,' said Cabbage. 'Or maybe it's about the doom that the Captain talks about.'

Deirdre's memory was sparked, and she exclaimed, 'Oh! I haven't told you about the book!' She described her visit to Torque.

'A coded prophecy?' said Cabbage. 'I knew it! Like Myra said, society is all wrong. Humans have been talking about happiness forever, so why haven't we found it yet? It doesn't make sense.' As Cabbage spoke, his face became animated with excitement.

'Did you get those weird messages to your computer about it?' asked Deirdre.

'Only ones offering to make my penis bigger,' said Cabbage.

'No, I mean, not emails, but appearing on your desktop, from the Center. As if they'd hacked in.'

'What did they say?' asked Lilith.

'To come here, and that society was in trouble...' Deirdre's voice faded as she realized neither of them knew what she was talking about.

'Isn't that illegal though? To hack someone's computer?' said Cabbage.

Deirdre shrugged and was relieved to let him tell a tale about the long email exchange he'd had with a Latvian woman called Lucya. She'd started out trying to scam him, but they just ended up playing chess together. Still, Deirdre couldn't help wondering, _Who contacted me? And now I'm here, why don't they try to find me again?_

That evening the Captain took them to another gathering. He tried to lead them in the rituals of the Grand Hall, but nobody was paying much attention and the chattering continued. The Captain no longer seemed irritated, his expression had become cold and watchful. Deirdre sat next to Lilith, and they nudged knees. After the wonder of the previous gathering, they weren't sure what to expect.

Then the lights dimmed. A spotlight shone onto the small stage where Myra sat in her blue silk robes. Tendrils of color rose from her like smoke, as if her energy were burning her robes. The theatricality of the scene silenced the room, and when Myra spoke, everything else around her ceased in importance. Deirdre no longer saw Myra's flaws, only how she radiated light. She no longer wondered why her voice dragged out the syllables, she relished it.

'You came here seeking truth and found the joy of the Shadows, but you know evil exists in this world too. Because how can we have come this far as a species, but continue to have wars? Why do we hate? Why do we feel so lost?'

She paused and looked out. Deirdre leaned toward the stage as if the ground had tipped. 'Because we aren't free. We've been controlled, _damaged_ since the beginning. The Interference that clouds your mind, the misery - these aren't accidents. They're _inflicted_.

'I was only a child when I first understood how messed up we were. I grew up on a peaceful river in Borneo, in a village on stilts. The mangrove swamp was our playground, and the monkeys our friends. I lost that peace when I was only seven, when we moved to the city, where streets smelled of death. Where the chatter of TV, adverts and opinions never stopped. How was this supposed to be better? People weren't happy. They were rude, depressed, angry! At first I thought: this must be what happens in the city, but then, my understanding shifted. I paid attention to the technobabble and propaganda. None of it was necessary, just a mantra of confusion.

'In the village, we believed spirits lived in the nature around us; but in the city, the spirits were weak. Even they were muzzled; broken down and branded. And I understood that controlling this city was something evil, something so huge most people couldn't see it.

'You're here because you noticed it too. In your own cities, you got glimpses. You saw something malignant.'

Around the hall people shouted out, Deirdre found herself nodding her head.

'The world is faulty, but humans are clever, why don't we fix it?' The cries got louder. _Then_ _why?_ Deirdre thought. Myra was striding about the stage now, drawing all attention to her. As she spoke, dragging each word, Deirdre could sense her passion, with every syllable hung on to because it needed to be heard.

'We think we're ruled by governments, by banks; but they're only puppets. Behind them are the true powers, unseen. We don't know their names, but we call them the elite, the bloodless rulers, elected by no one.' As Myra said the words, Lilith grabbed Deirdre's hand and they huddled closer together. 'They've worked to keep us distracted, to stop us paying attention. Because of their manipulation, we keep fighting with each other. These tin gods twist our minds with media, technology and drugs. I first started to understand as a child, but in time I learned about their vindictiveness. How they'd react when someone escaped their mental trap. I learned what they were capable of.'

The mood of the dorm-mates was high after the gathering. The thought of there being a clear and mighty enemy wasn't frightening, it was thrilling. They chattered in groups, practicing the heroic threats they'd make to the bloodless rulers. The Captain watched, saying nothing.

When Deirdre was told to go and visit Tide, she strode out, imagining Erstwhile Henry gazing at her in awe now she was fighting evil, Deirdre the Warrior.

In this pleasant reverie, she sat in the squishy chair and was completely blindsided when Tide, in a voice oozing sympathy, said, 'I'm sensing sadness in you. Can you tell me where it's coming from?'

'No, I'm fine. Everything is good!' said Deirdre.

'Thank you for sharing that. But I can sense sadness from before, something buried. I want to talk about that.' As he spoke, Tide looked deep into Deirdre's eyes, and she felt queasy and small.

'There's nothing. Everything was fine,' she said, her voice hollow.

'My psychic deft allows me to sense the memories around you, but I need you to help me. Close your eyes, allow yourself to drift.' Deirdre closed her eyes and said nothing, creating a blockade around her memories to hide them.

'You said your mother was special, tell me about her. What made her special?'

'Well, you'd have liked her,' Deirdre said brightly, squeezing her eyes tighter shut. 'She had psychic gifts, like you.'

'And what did her psychic powers enable her to do?'

'All sorts of things. She knew when I was lying. She could watch my dreams. And ghosts, she saw ghosts.' While Deirdre spoke, her throat got tight. She opened her eyes, not liking the darkness.

'And these ghosts, where were they?' Tide's ever soothing voice made Deirdre lightheaded.

'In my bedroom mostly. I was haunted by one. Only my mum could see it, but it was always by my bed.'

'Hmm mmm. What kind of ghost?' said Tide.

'A little child. Aurora, my mum, would hear her crying. She'd come running in when I was asleep and wake me up, saying, "Who is she? Why is she angry with you?" I didn't sleep properly for years. I kept imagining this angry little girl watching me.'

'Hmm. And your mother could watch your dreams too?'

'Yes.' Deirdre laughed too loudly. 'And it was all kinds of awful stuff. She said I'd dreamed of killing people or eating them. Horrible. Violent and sick, sometimes.'

'But you remembered having them?'

'No, I mean, you don't remember all your dreams, do you? I guess I just forgot the ones she saw.' Deirdre tried to swallow but couldn't. She didn't like the way Tide was staring at her in confusion, and she gasped that she needed to get some water. Escaping the claustrophobic room and the squishy chair, she only managed to breathe once she was outside the door.

Back at the dorm, she walked into a cozy scene. People sat on the beds and the floor, stretched out, cross-legged or back to back. They were chatting, meditating, Night was teaching Bear how to knit. It reminded Deirdre of when she had gone to Glastonbury as a teenager. That feeling of wasting time any old how.

Deirdre joined her friends on her bed. Cabbage sat at the end, facing away from Lilith, who explained, 'The Captain stomped off shouting, so we're just testing our psychic ability.'

Deirdre looked at the collection of objects on the blanket: a book, a shoe, a phone.

'See, I hold up an object and Cabbage has to guess what it is.'

'I'm not guessing!' he said. 'I'm using my latent deft.'

Lilith held up a book behind Cabbage's back. 'And?' she said.

'Mug!' said Cabbage, and Lilith replied, 'Wrong!'

'Liar!' he said, thumping the blankets with mock fury.

'His defts are _really_ latent,' said Lilith. Deirdre chuckled, and her spirits lifted.

'Now?' asked Lilith still holding the book.

Cabbage rubbed his head, then shook it.

'Just your hand,' said Cabbage.

'No, try again!' said Lilith. Deirdre wanted to be more a part of the game and started looking under her bed for items to use. She found a penny and a sweet wrapper and was just bringing them out when a sickness flooded through her stomach. Assuming it was only the memories shaken up by Tide, she tried to grin the emotion away as she pulled out from under the bed. Cabbage was rubbing his head again, Lilith patted him on the back with the book.

'No,' Cabbage whispered. There was sudden pain in his voice.

'Come on!' said Lilith, but her smile had stretched into a grimace and Deirdre's stomach lurched again. _Something is wrong!_

Around the dorm, sounds distorted, slowed, as one by one the subscholars looked at each other in confusion. The happy rumble of voices became panic. The air thickened. Breathing became an effort.

Lilith was still tapping Cabbage with the book, but she was close to tears now. Her movements were mechanical, as if she couldn't stop.

Cabbage turned. 'There's something in my head,' he said. 'Can you see it?' Terror was contorting his face as he swiped at his ears.

The panic was spreading like a gas. Someone stood up and backed against the wall with clumsy limbs. Another moved to the middle of the room, scared the windows might shatter. Others clutched one another and spoke frantically.

'What is it? Is something on me?' shrieked Night.

'It's coming from the floor!' shouted Bear. 'Everybody, get on the beds.'

'We have to get out. The room's gone bad.' said Lilith, her words slurred. She grabbed her friends' hands. They tried to move, but it was like walking through sludge.

'Don't go out there!' Night whimpered, but Lilith kept on dragging them, each step slower than the last. When the door opened and swung back with a crash, Cabbage screamed. The Captain stepped inside, dropped a plastic bag to the floor with a clang and threw his hands out wide.

'Be calm!' he shouted. 'We're in great danger, and if we do not stay strong, we won't survive the night.' This didn't help to calm anyone, and there were frantic sobs.

'What's happening?' asked Lilith. 'What even is this? Why can't we see it?'

'This,' said the Captain, 'is a psychic attack. Look at your arms, how the hairs stand on end!' There were moans of panic when they observed this physical manifestation of whatever was attacking them. 'The elite, the tin gods Myra spoke of, they know we are here, and that we are a threat. They have technology far beyond our imaginings and they will crush our brains to a pulp unless we protect ourselves.'

'How?'

'It's time to learn. Here,' the Captain strode around the room handing out large saucepans and tinfoil, 'use these to cloak your minds.'

'Tinfoil?' said Lilith.

'Do you know what a Faraday cage is?' asked the Captain. She shook her head. 'It's a means of protection. It's our one possible defense against the elite.'

'But they're already in my head,' said Cabbage. 'I can hear them scratching.'

'They attack like a swarm. If you can stop more getting in, you'll be able to fight those already inside.'

Night started screaming, clawing at her head and writhing.

'Somebody keep her quiet,' hissed the Captain, and Bear tried to soothe her as she shook.

'Right,' said the Captain. 'First, you must create the cage, and then we will chant together. Use every inch of your psychic strength!'

'I don't even know what that is!' wailed Forge. The Captain walked toward her and put his hand to her forehead, forcing her backward.

'Fight!' he hissed. 'Concentrate your energy on my hand and fight!'

As soon as Deirdre had put the plastic tub and saucepan on her head, the fear started to abate, becoming a distant thundering panic. She huddled against Lilith and Cabbage, and they held hands, eyes closed. Deirdre concentrated her thoughts so hard that her head pounded, and her teeth scraped with the effort. Around her, there were sobs and whimpers as the Captain walked between them.

'This is not a game. The Shadows don't speak to us for fun. We need them to _survive_. We do not gain defts to impress our friends at parties, but to give us the chance of fighting a terrible foe.'

'But what are they? What are they doing? Why can't we see them?' said Lilith, her questions tumbling over each other, her eyes huge beneath her tinfoil hat. The Captain moved close, his eye throbbing in its socket.

'You can't see them, because right now they're inside your brain and rearranging each connection, altering your perceptions. Can you feel them?' Lilith nodded. 'Then you must fight, or they'll destroy your personality, and you'll become a shell, controlled by the elite.'

Then he stood up and spoke to everyone.

'You have only just begun your training, but you are strong. As one, chant, "I am not afraid, the Shadows will protect me." Chant!'

As the chanting filled the air, Deirdre stared at the twenty people sat, speaking as one, their heads silvered.

'Lilith,' she whispered. Lilith looked up. Her face was stricken.

'Isn't this what mad people do? Have we gone insane?' said Deirdre. Lilith looked around,

'All of us?' Lilith asked. 'How could it be all of us?'

Deirdre nodded, and went back to chanting. She tried to think about happy harmless things, and not about what was scratching away inside her head.

4

It had taken eight hours of chanting before the Captain announced the attack had ended. Deirdre felt as if someone had not only sandpapered her throat, but each muscle and bone. Her legs were too stiff to support her, but she still staggered to her feet, wanting to reach Lilith, Cabbage, Bear, anyone. Needing the contact and needing to share the triumph.

Across the dorm, subscholars stumbled up and fell into one another's arms. Some crying as they pulled the foil from their heads, some laughing in disbelief that they were still alive. A few whispered with husky voices, what they were all thinking: 'We did it. We fought. We won.'

The Captain declared they were now fully-fledged scholars, but it was only a confirmation of what they already knew. They put on the brown robes in silence. Yesterday they had been twittering children, with no clue about the world, but now they had grown up and understood the dangers that lay in wait.

When the Captain informed them they wouldn't be sleeping that day, nobody grumbled. They could see clearly now: Exhaustion was Interference. The elite were the enemy. Interference was caused by the elite and they would never be free until they overcame it.

'Now we must evolve in order to survive. The evil is chased away, not defeated,' said the Captain.

'But what _is_ the evil?' asked Lilith.

'The more you free yourself of conditioning, the more the Shadows will speak to you and help you understand, but you aren't ready yet.' He put the clock without hands on the floor, still speaking. 'Last night the elite attacked, but they've always been with you, corrupting your thoughts. Now I want you each to search your memories, find where they have manipulated your thinking. Be methodical and use the rhythm of the clock to give you pace. Remember, there's no time here. Each moment follows the one before.'

They all sat around in a circle and connected with the timeless seconds. After hours of fear, it was a relief to concentrate on something simple and painless. Deirdre smiled to herself as the clock ticked and her head drooped forward with exhaustion.

_I am becoming a true warrior,_ she thought.

That day was spent training, and the next, and the next. Hours were passed learning physical strength from a taekwondo teacher, a small man who leaped about, swinging his feet high without ever tripping over his robes. There were hours spent staring at the timeless clock until the ticking wove around their thoughts and could no longer be heard. And hours chanting, 'I shall be free.' 'The Shadows will guide me.' 'I shall not weaken.'

Deirdre stumbled through flying sidekicks and ignored her burning throat as she rasped out the chants even after her voice had gone. Whenever she questioned her hunger or exhaustion, she would remember that night of battle, and energy would flood through her. Hunger meant nothing. She was stronger.

Even when the training eased off after a few days, no one relaxed. Instead, the rituals increased. Bowing, chanting and walking in specific patterns were now not confined to the Grand Hall, but introduced to the dorm, the kitchen, the garden. They would walk around the walls, then weave through the room as if in a maze. The Captain would watch, and if anyone forgot a step or walked too quickly, then they'd be ordered to begin over.

He also demanded a series of bows as they left the dorm: to the window, the door, and the window again.

'As you bow, find the vibration. Find the Shadows within the wood and the glass.' As they did so, they were aware of a faint hum of joy as those mysterious powers seeped into them.

The oddness of the rituals made them bond more. They knew outsiders wouldn't understand it, so they were united in their difference. They became a tribe.

With each passing day, Deirdre's learned to focus. Whenever she thought of her existence before the Center it seemed feeble and aimless.

She was evolving.

Every few days, Myra would call them to the Grand Hall, and Deirdre would marvel at the woman's power. Light seeped out of her pores like ethereal energy. Then the Shadows would fill the hall, and Deirdre was lifted and spun by wonder.

Strength came from her fellow dorm-mates too. Although they spoke less, they needed each other more. When there was a free moment, they'd sit together in a circle, fingertips touching. Deirdre would feel a buzz as she connected to the minds of others and could walk around their thoughts. She'd remember a teddy bear she'd never owned or see the image from a dream about monsters that she'd never had.

However, one question was still unanswered: who, or what, were the elite? Often a ritual or a chant would be interrupted by a scholar shouting out what they suddenly believed to be true. They were a jumble of contradictions: The elite were the Illuminati who'd developed extreme technology. Or they were soldiers trained in mind control by the CIA. Or they were genetically modified humans.

'The Shadows are playing games with you, stretching your minds with possibilities until you are ready to know,' said the Captain. Deirdre never shouted, but she was sure she knew. The elite could only be one thing.

The Captain no longer woke them with shouting, instead, he would stand in the middle of the room waiting to see if they sensed his presence. The first few mornings this happened, Deirdre hadn't woken until Lilith nudged her. But the Captain didn't shout, sneer or shriek. He'd merely regarded her thoughtfully, and she found this more disturbing. The stakes were too high now, she couldn't fail.

One morning Deirdre was the first to spring awake, and with relief pulled on her scratchy brown robes and rushed to join the Captain. He nodded at her, and she allowed herself to breathe. A few minutes later, they were all were up and waiting.

The Captain spoke, 'Today is an important day, I've trained you in the hope you're ready for the next test. But before we take another step toward your destiny, you've earned the right to answers.'

'The elite?' asked Lilith, with urgency in her voice. 'Are you going to tell us who they are?'

The Captain nodded, 'I think you're ready.'

'They aren't human, are they?' asked Deirdre, relieved to let the words out. The Captain nodded again.

'What?' exclaimed Adam. 'Are you saying they're aliens?'

'No, not aliens. They've been here since the beginning, before us. They're as old as time.'

'Then why are they messing with us now?'

'They've always messed with us. We'd still be living in trees if it weren't for them.'

This revelation only led to more questions.

'Then why haven't we heard of them before?' Adam demanded to know.

'Why mess with us at all?' asked Deirdre.

'When did we ever live in trees?' asked Lilith.

'Is that why we keep dreaming of pyramids? Did they make the pyramids?' asked Night.

But the Captain spoke over them, 'You will know in due time, but today you are taking a new, important step toward becoming evolved beings capable of the fight.' There were a few grumbles, but he ignored them. 'You're already learning how to focus your minds, but it isn't enough. Interference clouds your thoughts. Your fears rule you. Throughout your lives, the elite have built up flaws in your souls. To develop defts, to have wisdom, you must overcome these weaknesses. That's a journey different for each of you.

'Today you will receive your Trials. Your Trial is a lesson of my choosing that will train you to face your deepest fears and to conquer them. Spend the morning chanting to find your inner strength. You'll need it.'

Left alone for a few minutes, Deirdre didn't want to chant. She felt impatient. Vague telepathy was no longer enough. She wanted a deft, to feel the crust of Interference fall away leaving her a shiny new ability.

She leaned back against a tree and noticed a snail oozing its way toward her. She let her mind connect, feeling its tentacles grow and shrink, and its steady determination to keep moving.

Once inside its snail mind, she began to force its thoughts. Squeezing every inch of her will power out between her eyes, she told it to change direction. The snail was intent on snuffling its way through the grass, but Deirdre was sure she could manipulate it. She gritted her teeth, dug her nails into her hands, and grunted with the effort. The snail waggled its head in the direction of the tree and Deirdre could feel the power flowing from her to the snail's brain. Her head was starting to ache, and a pain climbed its way up the back of her neck.

'Pain is my strength,' she hissed. The snail shrunk its tentacles, curved its head around its shell and began to turn. Deirdre suppressed a yelp of excitement. She didn't notice Cabbage walking up until he turned in a circle in front of her, treading on the snail as he did so, while giving thanks to the Shadows.

Deirdre felt her heart break and was about to shout, when she noticed his glum expression.

'You alright?' she asked, without much sympathy. With his voice low, he hissed a reply, while wiping the snail slime from his foot,

'My fucking Trial. He gave me my Trial,' he said. She raised her eyebrows. He went on, 'I thought it'd be spiders or clowns or something, but he's chosen claustrophobia. Why can't I face clowns?'

'Are you afraid of clowns?' she asked.

'No! Clowns are great. Who could be afraid of clowns? Sitting in a box, that isn't great.'

'Did he say why?'

'He said claustrophobia was my Interference.'

'I suppose it's how you release the blockages,' said Deirdre. Cabbage plucked a blade of grass and poked his foot with it.

'Can't I just be deftless and not sit in a box?' he said.

Without a sound, the Captain sprung out from behind a tree, his finger already raised and pointing at Deirdre, 'You!' he said, and trotted away. She followed.

In his pungent bedroom, Deirdre and the Captain sat opposite each other while he tapped his teeth with a pen.

'The Shadows tell me many things about a scholar's capabilities, and their barriers to self-actualization. And you, they tell me you experience doubts. They show me you are mired in Interference. A yellow aura surrounds you, choking you. It will be difficult to untangle the complex heap of your weaknesses and free the shivering wretch beneath them, but they have shown me how.'

Deirdre wanted to argue, to explain about the snail. Instead she sat up straight, folded her hands, and tried to keep control as a warrior should, to be as unlike a shivering wretch as possible.

The Captain went on, 'You're afraid of discomfort, especially heat. Facing that will be a challenge for you.'

Deirdre felt the world drop away. She didn't like heat. She had very good reasons for not liking heat. Disturbing half memories started to gather around her, nudging her with sharp elbows.

'Your Trial is to spend the next week clearing out our attic. It gets toasty up there, especially in the afternoons.' As her panic increased, Deirdre's voice deserted her. She tried to think of a way to argue with him, something airy yet insistent, but she had only vague noises to help her. The Captain had chosen her two greatest phobias: heat and attics. Fears barged in from the forgotten past to invade the present. The dust, the roof crushing her, the lack of air. She wasn't ready for this, not yet.

'You'll be given some bags to help clear out the junk, plus the cleaning tools you need. You'll be allowed out to see Tide, eat meals and sleep, but that is all.'

She was still trying to splutter a refusal, but she had too much tongue and too little saliva. Those buried memories had finished nudging and were now screeching. Sensations flashed without explanation: her mother frantic and crying; a spider crawling up her arm; bright sun in an empty kitchen; the smell of rockwool.

The Captain was still speaking, 'And to add to the effectiveness of your Trial, you'll wear these.'

He handed Deirdre a pair of plastic shoes, a size too small, and with a handful of wet sand clinging to the sides.

'Learn to accept discomfort, find truth in it. You start tomorrow morning.'

Deirdre left in a blurry haze of shock. She tried chanting that the unpleasantness of the Trial was the point, and soon she would be free, but her unease chanted louder.

At their Primary Echelon table, nobody spoke much over lunch. They had all been given their Trials and were as miserable about them as Deirdre was. Even Bear was subdued, and the already nervous Night appeared tortured, with tics pulling at her mouth like unseen threads. Every now and then someone would protest to their lunch and mutter, 'But I'm not even scared of the dark, I just don't _like_ it.'

Or, 'Some fears are sensible, aren't they? They can't all be Interference.'

Deirdre was lost in her own dread. Every movement she made seemed to shake the dust off a memory, leaving it crouched and ready to pounce.

Forge, who was oblivious to the surrounding emotions, leaned over and said to Deirdre, 'You haven't seen my earrings, have you? They've disappeared.'

Before Deirdre could reply, the Captain interrupted, 'Perhaps if you were less focused on meaningless trinkets,' he said, 'your mind would be closer to a state of freedom!'

Forge huffed, but the Captain didn't stop.

'Go and pick every daisy and clover in the lawn outside the dorm. Perhaps that will give you a chance to work out how the Interference may be getting into you.'

'But it's raining,' said Forge.

'All the better to concentrate your mind,' he replied. He turned his gaze back to his lunch, while Forge slouched toward the door and out into the rain.

'What about you, Lilith?' asked Deirdre keeping her voice down low. 'What's your Trial?'

Lilith skewered one of the six peas on her plate with a fork, 'Apparently, I'm too focused on being useful. I need to slow down and do one thing with total concentration, even though it's dull and pointless.' Lilith dropped her voice and held her hand to her mouth, 'Maybe I'm being stupid, but I don't understand. I mean, what's wrong with being useful?' Deirdre tried to smile sympathetically, but so slightly that the Captain wouldn't see it from where he sat at the other end of the table.

'What do you need to do?' asked Deirdre.

'You know the gravel path that leads through the garden? The one no one uses because the gravel hurts our bare feet?' said Lilith, Deirdre nodded. 'I have to remove all the stones, clean them, sort them into size order and put them back.'

Deirdre nearly choked on her food as she swallowed a laugh.

'But why?' she said.

'There isn't a point. That's the point.'

When dinner finished, the scholars trooped out. There was a bitter wind, and they hunched against it, their bare feet numb. Deirdre saw the glimmer in Cabbage's eyes, and Lilith, without raising her hand, was pointing a single finger away from the others. As the line continued through the wood, the three friends ducked down a gap between two buildings.

'Do you think we should?' said Deirdre, fearfully.

'Just for a few minutes. If I don't get a break from that mood squashing down on my head, I think I'll go nuts,' said Lilith, lines of exhaustion on her face.

'Come on,' said Cabbage. 'I want to show you something.' And he clambered up some large bins, onto an uneven wall, over the slope of tiles and down to a flat roof out of sight of any windows. Deirdre and Lilith followed him. They had to jump down, their feet jabbed by the stones.

'How do you manage to escape and go exploring places?' asked Deirdre, trying to free her robe snagged on a drainpipe.

'The trick is to look like you know what you're doing,' explained Cabbage.

'But as soon as I try to go outside, the Captain demands I count all the flies. Or try to balance on one foot with an apple on my head. He won't even let me eat the apple afterward,' said Lilith.

'I put on a moody expression, like this,' he said pulling a face like a sulky teenager. 'And then I say the Shadows are calling to me,' said Cabbage. Then for a moment he stopped joking and he grabbed a hand of both Lilith and Deirdre, pulling them to the edge of the roof, and leaning over. Deirdre pulled him back in a panic, but he looked at her with his eyes wide and said, 'It's ok, this is where the Shadows really are. This is how you connect.' Again, he leaned, and this time Lilith and Deirdre held onto his hands as he stood forward, like a figurehead or an angel standing over a grave.

'The Shadows are in the concrete,' he shouted. They're in the dust! You just soak them up.' He leaned further, challenging gravity. Further, as if he would pull Lilith and Deirdre over with his weight, but instead getting heavier, he was lighter. It felt as if he was floating.

'Can you sense them?' shouted Cabbage.

At first, Deirdre could feel nothing but the cold biting at her face and her fear that Cabbage would fall. And then she could. A slow warmth was seeping up from her feet, as if the roof was heated. It spread to her knees and into her stomach. It was so delicious that she laughed.

'They're here!' she shouted, as her fingers, still clutching onto Cabbage's arm, began to tingle. When Cabbage finally stood back up, he looked serene, as if petty cruelties could never touch him. Next, it was Lilith's turn to lean, and she swung herself out without any hesitation. Deirdre looked nervously at Cabbage, but he nodded back, no trace of fear in his eyes. And Deirdre knew, with a sense beyond logic, that Lilith would never fall.

Deirdre's turn at leaning out into the air stole her breath. Her self-doubt dissolved, and strength flooded to fill the space. Even the pain in her arms as they took her weight, was like power.

'I am the conqueror!' she shouted, then felt silly, but Cabbage shouted, 'Yes, you fucking are!'

They didn't notice it had started to rain until they all sat back down and huddled together.

'How did you learn to do that?' asked Lilith, awed. 'I felt so free. It was beautiful.'

'The sky started calling to me,' said Cabbage, 'like it wanted me. So I followed.'

'Did you tell the Captain?' asked Deirdre.

Cabbage shrugged and started piling up gravel on his toes. 'I'm not sure he'd get it. He thinks the Shadows want repetition: say this, walk like that. I'm not sure he's ever felt them at all.'

'He thinks you're great though. He lets you get away with anything,' said Deirdre, teasing, still lightheaded with excitement.

'Is that why he keeps nicking my stuff?' wondered Cabbage, as he arranged the stones in a line. 'You know he's taken my compass now? My granddad gave me that.'

'Why would the Captain want to take your compass?' asked Lilith, with mock indignation.

'Well, it's either that or the pixies took it, because no one else has anywhere to hide stuff.'

'Or you just lost it,' said Lilith, Cabbage stuck his tongue out in response.

Walking back to their beds, they clung to one another for warmth. Deirdre was sure she could overcome any difficulty, even the horrors awaiting her in the attic, so long as she had Lilith and Cabbage. She tugged them both closer and her grin stretched her cold skin.

The loft was dusty and smelt like dead mice and moldy carpet. In the hot, airless room, Deirdre could sense the rustling of terror, like a sleeping fiend shuffling as it woke. From where she was poking her head through the hole in the floor, she saw it was stuffed with stacks of boxes spilling their contents out of soggy holes. There were piles of magazines, rolls of carpet, three TVs and an old sewing machine. With each step further in, she was less steady and more trapped. Itchy panic crept over her, a drench of hot and cold. She tried to reason with herself, _It's not even that hot, keep breathing_. But other thoughts clanged in her brain _,_ ones she didn't understand, _I can't get out! I need to get out!_

To steady herself, she thought of what she would become if she faced this, with abilities and knowledge most couldn't even dream of. She thought about her past empty life: the lonely flat, the computer games, the tedious job, a slow, cumbersome trudge toward death. She breathed, sucking the air deep into her lungs, and took another step up the ladder. Focusing on small, unemotional details, she looked at the grain of the wooden beams, the lines of light coming through the floor.

She chanted, 'I am not afraid. The Shadows are with me.'

Slowly the panic dissipated. She climbed into the loft, the wet sand grazed her feet. She lifted up one of the magazines, her movements mechanical. Keeping her thoughts blank, she tidied.

Her fingers soon became dry with dust and gritty with dirt. Her ankles swelled, her feet blistered, and her skin felt like a rubber suit two sizes too small. Disconnected memories seeped like dirty water through the edges of her thoughts.

She heard her mother's voice, pleading, desperate, 'You have to be quiet. I know, I know you're scared, but you must keep quiet. We can't let them take you.' While Deirdre continued to unpack and more neatly repack the contents of boxes, her breathing was shallow as she stared at her hands. Balancing on the beams, only slits of light and a bare lightbulb to see by, she pretended she couldn't hear Aurora choking back sobs. Or feel her clutching Deirdre's hands in a terrified grip.

Deirdre sorted through moldy books, clothes and shoes, ordering them according to subject, size and color. She threw books too warped to read, into a pile to discard. Then she folded the clothes, putting a few aside to wash. She put shoes in pairs and threw out any unmatched. As she moved a box, three cockroaches darted out in panic, so she put it back hurriedly.

And then the memory shifted. She wasn't in an attic anymore. She was in a strip-lit, clean kitchen, and her mum was sitting at the table, looking bored with a cup of tea. And then Deirdre remembered. Everything. She sat on a strut, wretched and alone, and sobbed.

Most scholars were given an hour's break at midday. Deirdre was relieved to be joining the others. In her enthusiasm to sit with them under the trees, she carried out the ritual of turning in a circle too fast, so the Captain made her collect a hundred twigs.

Task over, all she wanted was a hug and sympathy. But the other scholars were hyperactive with confidence, believing they had already conquered phobias through their Trials. Lilith and Cabbage weren't there, and Deirdre sat with people whose names she'd mostly forgotten. She wondered how she felt so close to the scholars when they sat meditating, but so distant when she heard them talking. She leaned against a tree and pretended to sleep.

'Well, in my Trial, the most incredible thing happened!' said Night. 'I was treading on the snails, and I thought I'd be sick, but then I sensed a beautiful light shining down on me. I gazed up and suddenly they were inside my eyes, changing them and you'll never guess what. It's unbelievable! Look at them. Look at my eyes! They're blue!' Scholars gathered around, peering into Night's eyes making awed noises.

Deirdre didn't bother going to look. She couldn't remember what color Night's eyes had been before.

Next to Deirdre, Bear, the big man who'd once had a chef, started muttering to himself, shaking his head.

'Are you ok?' asked Deirdre sitting forward and putting a hand on his shoulder, not sure how to help.

'This has happened before. This has all happened before. I saw it,' he whispered.

'Like déjà vu?' said Deirdre.

He nodded. 'But more, like it's been happening over centuries. I'm seeing memories that can't even be mine, but they're happening again.'

'Don't be scared. It's probably a deft forming, or something,' said Deirdre.

'Yes,' he said mournfully. She squeezed his arm; sad to see the large, confident man shaken. She noticed the Captain fixing them with his beady eye, motioning toward them.

'Adam, it appears we have a situation you can solve. A chance to show your new ability off to the group.'

'You have a deft, Adam? What is it?' asked Night. Adam answered with his typical faux modesty.

'Well, you know, I don't like to make too many assumptions, but yeah, I've developed something of a gift. It's that people do what I say. I give an order and they jump to it, like they've got no choice. I guess now is the time to try it out.' Adam sat back in his chair and fixed Bear with an intense gaze, 'You shall not be scared!' he said in a booming voice. Bear let out a sudden, involuntary laugh. Adam gave a small bow.

'Easy,' he said.

Bear leaned over to Deirdre and muttered, 'I only laughed because he looked ridiculous.' She patted his hand, thinking but not saying, that his pride was Interference.

Deirdre spent the afternoon sweating in the loft. She tried everything to calm the maelstrom of memories that threatened to pull her down. She chanted to herself, she chided herself, she sat and cried; but jitters flowed through her limbs with the blood. Whenever she managed to feel a moment of calm, she would hear a patter on the roof or a rustle in the corner.

'They're coming!' she'd whine, then try to reassure herself that there was no one to come. There never had been.

Finally, to banish the memories, she thought of Henry. Her long gone, Erstwhile Henry. She pictured his face, his big hands and clumsy feet. Henry wasn't a beautiful man, but he was gentle, and he accepted all Deirdre's flaws without criticism. After decades of swallowing her personality down, of orchestrating her behavior to be as invisible as possible, Deirdre learned to relax with him. She stopped wearing makeup all the time. She started arguing and found she was quite good at it. With his coaching, she learned to burp again. She'd relaxed enough to talk about her opinions and complain about her job.

Then she thought of Henry's twinkling brown eyes and the thick black hairs that twirled around his belly button. The ghosts of the attic were chased away by the reassuring memory of his laugh, always too loud and inappropriately timed. Deirdre's hands had stopped shaking as she continued to pack and sort.

But the memories kept going: Henry's ability to accept did not stop at Deirdre, he took all the flaws and inconveniences of life without complaint.

'That's just how it is,' he'd say, shuffling his shoulders and waving his hands. He accepted the broken washing machine, his lack of a pay rise, and the boozy habits of his friends. He accepted the flat belonged to Deirdre, but he didn't pay rent, even though he had stuffed it with his books and games. _If he was here now_ , she thought, _he'd be fine, rooting through the boxes, looking for treasure. He wouldn't even notice the heat._

Everything had always been fine with Henry, and it was a shock to see him not fine when she dumped him, to see him cry.

Now the fear had gone and in its place were guilt and regret. Deirdre felt weaker than ever.

The chore over, Deirdre walked back toward the dorm as the sun was ducking out of sight, her feet dragging, and her head hung low. It was an effort to lift her hand to open the door. She was about to walk inside when a hiss came from the trees to her left. Looking over, she saw Lilith and Cabbage behind a bush.

'Deirdre! Don't look sad, come and hide with us.'

'You're hiding?' asked Deirdre, scrambling into the bush. Twigs jutted into her back, and she gathered her robes around her.

'We have to hide. The release of Interference has made everybody hysterical,' explained Lilith.

'Their brains must be changing,' added Cabbage.

'Why? What's happened?'

'Night has a rash, which she thought was due to her own deft forming, but now Echo is saying it's his deft that's causing it,' he said. Deirdre tried to remember who Echo was but gave up.

'Why would Echo give Night a rash?' she said.

'He didn't choose to, but he hasn't learned to harness his skills, so they're leaking out all over the place,' said Cabbage.

'I think we're ok because we haven't got defts. They seem to be a bit fucked up. You haven't got one, have you?' Lilith asked with mock suspicion. Deirdre shook her head.

'Good. We should stick to being the deftless if we want to stay sane. We'll be the only ones capable of doing anything soon,' she said. Deirdre laughed. Sitting with her friends, she felt calmer, and asked, 'How were the Trials?'

As she asked, Cabbage's happy expression drained away and his face became fraught.

'Bad. It wasn't a box, it was more like a coffin, like I was dead and waiting for the worms to gobble me up. I was in there for hours, and kept screaming for them to let me out, but they didn't even respond.' He shuddered.

Cabbage gnawed on a fingernail close to crying. Deirdre rubbed his shoulder, and then turned to Lilith. 'What about you, Lil?'

'It was ok, not too terrible. Just a bit dull. I kept thinking of all the more interesting things I could be doing. And I kept trying to find ways of speeding it all up so I could get it done and move onto something else. I'd start using both hands to sort the stones, and I'd leave them to soak in the bucket instead of properly cleaning them. Then I realized, that wasn't the point, I had to do it for real. After that, it was easier, sort of calming. It cleared my head. Even if I didn't get defts, it felt right. And you, Deirdre? You looked a bit upset when we saw you.'

Deirdre took a deep breath and tried to think how to describe the experience, but her words didn't seem effective at all, 'It was hideous. It's...I just...awful.'

'How come? You're only sorting stuff,' said Cabbage, the color had flooded back to his face.

'Think of it as freeing yourself from your fears,' said Lilith, trying to be helpful.

'It's not what I'm doing, I don't care what I'm doing. It's being there...to be trapped in there, the heat, the lack of air. Something happened. I mean it didn't, but I thought it did.'

She said these last words in a hurried whisper, not sure how to stop them spilling out. She leaned close to Lilith and Cabbage, holding her hands in her lap, hunching over as if to make herself as unobtrusive as possible.

'What do you mean, something happened, but it didn't?' asked Lilith, her voice gentle. Deirdre sighed and tried to be calm, but the words frothed out of her like a toxin, and it was a struggle not to choke on them.

'It's difficult to know exactly, because everything was lies. How do I start working it out, when everything is lies? And I was always taught to block it out and pretend. It just became easier to accept the made-up stuff, and keep all the memories somewhere else in my brain. I wasn't...'

She got tangled up in her tongue and stopped. Then tried again. 'My mum always got irritated with me. She didn't like me around. She said I talked too much. Sometimes we'd play hide-and-seek, and she'd not come looking, just to escape.

'Then this one time, I must have been about seven, I went to show her a picture I'd drawn, but she was just sitting there, scared. I thought she was scared. It was the first time I'd ever seen her worried about me.'

Deirdre took a moment to let sick exhaustion blunder through her, the memory choking her like a mouthful of dust. Then she carried on.

'She dragged me upstairs telling me to be quiet. She said I was in danger, I had to hide, or they would kill me.'

Deirdre peered up to check her friends were still listening. They stared back at her, concerned and confused. A sob tried to drag itself up from her stomach, but she pushed it back down. 'She said there was this gang. They were attacking all the houses, stealing the children.' She looked up pleadingly, memories were gathering around her eyes like spots from a migraine, blocking her vision, and she could only see a little of Lilith's face.

'Deirdre, try to breathe,' instructed Lilith, and Deirdre did so with difficulty, knotting her fingers together.

'She said she'd seen them outside, these big men with beards and guns. That she'd seen them pull kids out of their homes and put them in a van. She said, "Can't you hear them screaming? The children are screaming," and I swear I could hear this terrible howling. Maybe it was the wind or the TV. Or I imagined it, I don't know. She made me hide in the attic. She locked the hatch. I remember the click as she locked it. I crouched in the corner, sure I could hear distant screams, even gunfire.'

Deirdre stopped. Sweat dripped down her face, and her hands were bunched into two fists, inside which her fingers were numb.

'One time I started shouting for her, and she came back, told me they were in the kitchen, smashing the place up. That if I didn't stay quiet, they'd find me.' Deirdre stopped talking and rubbed her face, but the skin still prickled.

'I was too scared to cry. Instead, I hid at the back of the attic, holding onto a beam. This spider crawled over my hand, and I was too frightened to even knock it away.'

'How long were you up there?' asked Lilith.

'I don't know. It can't have been more than a few hours, my dad would have come home and noticed me missing otherwise. But in my memory, I was there forever. Like I'd been trapped for a lifetime.'

'Then she let you out?' asked Lilith.

'She unlocked the hatch but didn't say anything. I just heard the lock click. I stayed still for ages, not sure, and when I got to the opening, she'd removed the ladder. I had to jump. I found her sitting in the kitchen, and I realized it was all lies.'

'How?' said Cabbage.

'There wasn't any damage. No sign anyone had been there, certainly not some dangerous gang. And she was fine, sitting looking kind of...bored, like she couldn't be bothered pretending anymore. She'd lied, and then got bored with lying.'

'But you didn't remember this until now?' asked Lilith.

'Because it would have shown up all her other lies!' Deirdre heard the whining in her voice. 'So I couldn't think about it. I shut it away in my head and pretended it didn't exist.'

'What else did she lie about?' asked Cabbage.

'I don't know! She said I had ghosts haunting me, that can't have been true.'

Lilith and Cabbage looked at each other awkwardly, and Lilith took Deirdre's clawed hand.

'She sounds like a prize bitch,' said Lilith, as Deirdre hid her face in her knees.

'Maybe she was ill,' said Cabbage.

Deirdre couldn't speak. She felt as if she was crushed in a mangle. She wanted to vomit, but her throat was too tight. She had a vague awareness that Lilith was stroking her hair, trying to soothe her, but her senses were in the attic. Her skin stung with the heat, her stomach hurt from wanting to pee. She believed she would die there in the dust, yet the whole situation had been faked. The most horrific event of her childhood, when she'd lost all sense of safety, had never happened at all. Aurora made it up. For fun. Because Deirdre knew with absolute certainty her mother wasn't ill. She did it out of irritation, and because she found it funny.

Back at the dorm, Echo was confined to a quarantine space in the corner. He was trying to stop his leaking deft affecting Night by holding his hands in his armpits and humming.

'It's not working,' shrieked Night, pointing at her arm. 'Look! It's spreading!'

'Now I'm getting it!' shouted Forge, pointing to a spreading patch of red on her leg.

'It's on your face!' another follower cried. Meanwhile Echo tried to make himself smaller and less likely to cause damage. Deirdre and Lilith exchanged looks of disbelief and they each climbed into their beds to hide.

'I told you,' whispered Lilith, peeking over her blanket. 'We're safer being deftless.' Deirdre tried to smile.

'My feet! Look at my feet!' wailed Night.

Then Adam, who'd been watching the drama with increasing annoyance, stepped into the fray and with his powerful-deft voice ordered, 'You will all now sleep!'

All the scholars dropped where they stood and started to snore. In their exhaustion, they were happy to take advantage of the order. The lucky ones were already near their beds and could tumble sideways onto the covers. Deirdre saw Lilith wink at her before she shut her eyes.

But for Deirdre sleep didn't happen. The depths of her brain hadn't forgotten the attic, and began to sift through her childhood, throwing up disturbing memories that made her stomach judder. It took until the false dawn to find calm again.

With the peace came an understanding: The Center might be strange, but there was love for her here. Sitting up in bed, she listened to the gentle breathing, snoring and shuffling of those around her, many still lying on the floor or leaning against walls. She let the sounds mingle with her breathing until she could sense herself flowing through the breath. She had love for every one of her dorm-mates. She would die for them and knew they would do the same for her. It was a solidarity she'd never experienced before.

Then she noticed Cabbage wasn't in his bed, and got up to look for him, walking in zigzags to the door. Even at night the rituals were needed to keep them all safe.

Cabbage was standing outside, his hair like a curly halo around his head.

'Cabbage?' she whispered. He didn't turn. 'Are you ok?' He said nothing. Deirdre took a few steps forward, her heart thumping and breath catching in her throat. She touched his arm. He didn't turn.

'Cabbage?' she squeaked. Pushing her fists together, she walked around in front of him, imagining his face a hollow pit filled with ghouls.

She let out a small sob of relief when she saw he looked the same. He was just Cabbage. But his expression was blank, as if he was sleeping with his eyes open.

'Cabbage? Please say something,' she said. He didn't. He was peaceful, his face soft and his eyes distant. She couldn't believe anything bad was happening. The night was still, she didn't feel that lurching fear. Maybe he was sleepwalking, maybe listening to the Shadows. She sat on the floor next to him and stayed watching until she fell asleep into dreams of ghosts flitting past.

## 5

As the weeks passed, the scholars worked harder to free their minds with a routine of Trials, rituals and chanting. It needed constant effort, and spending time alone was a possible source of contamination when the bloodless rulers, could invade and possess their thoughts. If Deirdre found somewhere to sit by herself, then the Captain would appear and set her a freeing task. One time it was counting all the leaves on the apple tree. On another occasion she had to remove the toilet paper from the cardboard tubes and fold it.

The hot water disappeared, food rations shrank. At first, Deirdre found the difficulties a source of joy; the sense of pride in enduring, the frazzled delight in pushing herself to the limit and overcoming the complaints of her body. However, now Deirdre was getting tired of it. Conversations were only about evolving or the burgeoning defts that others had, and she didn't. Night had developed a healing deft, removing back pain and fever with just a touch. Bear would write coded prophecies on the walls at night in pencil, then Forge would translate them in the morning. Echo said he sensed his toes disappearing, and believed it was the start of a teleportation deft.

Deirdre only felt hunger.

The Trials continued. Deirdre came close to finishing her work in the attic, almost all boxes repacked and piled. Sometimes she felt in control, challenging her fears while she tidied. Other times she'd sit in the dust unable to move while the memories crowded around her.

One day, as she was sorting through old motoring magazines, a young woman appeared through the hole in the floor. Deirdre recognized her from the dorm but had never heard her speak. The woman stuttered that her name was Cinnamon. It was her job to throw Deirdre's carefully organized boxes and piles around so Deirdre would have to clear them up all over again.

'I'm afraid that's my Trial,' said Cinnamon. 'To annoy you.'

'It's perfect symmetry,' the Captain said that evening. 'One of you faces the Trial of pointless cleaning and the other the Trial of pointless destruction. I can see the Interference simply dissipating into the air.'

In the afternoons, they would carry out menial tasks to learn focus. Or stare at a hive of bees for an hour, trying to control the swarm. Or practice blindfold fighting and backflips.

She continued to see Tide and had learned to cherish it. So much of the training involved Deirdre losing herself. With the rituals she lost her autonomy. With the chanting to suppress hunger and tiredness her connection to messages from her body faded. She owned little, and aside from snatched moments with Lilith and Cabbage, there were few conversations with others. The sessions with Tide were when she could talk about herself. She'd discuss her childhood and Henry. Or reminisce about happy trivial memories of paddling in the sea or shouting at soap operas with a group of friends.

What she never did was talk about her doubts.

Nobody ever did now.

Once Bear had tentatively mentioned that perhaps he would be more able to do a spinning kick if he had more sleep. The Captain had launched into a ferocious tirade, accusing Bear of allowing the elite to contaminate his mind, of being diseased with doubt.

'You have endangered every last one of us! Your feeble mind has become a home for evil!'

Bear wasn't allowed to sleep for two days. Instead, he was told to sit in the branches of a tree so if he did nod off, he'd fall straight out. The other scholars would help keep him awake by sounding a klaxon horn or poking him with sticks. At first Deirdre felt sorry for him, but as the hours passed, she became righteously angry and poked him all the harder with a broom. He'd let them all down. He needed to learn a lesson. She'd never be that foolish.

And thank God it's not me, she thought while pushing the broom into his side.

After that, scholars kept their concerns to themselves.

A few of her peers had started receiving messages from the mysterious and blissful Shadows. During the gatherings, they would shout these out.

Some were generic thoughts about hope and love, but others were images of snakes, blood and an ancient evil weaving through history.

Myra would often walk to where the speakers were, and put her hands on their shoulders to embolden them. Their prophecies would continue until they collapsed to the ground. Without books or TV, these stories were the color in their days.

Both Deirdre's friends had evolved from their initial Trials onto new ones. Lilith was instructed to give a speech to free herself from shyness. Cabbage had to find his humility by cleaning the feet of the others. A job he took great pride in, throwing in massages and foot readings. Then Lilith needed to overcome her anxiety about upsetting people by writing a list of the flaws of each person in the dorm and reading them out.

Like Deirdre, they hadn't developed defts, but she wondered about Cabbage. He'd changed. His silliness was gone and sometimes he'd stare into nothing as if his mind had been taken somewhere.

One night, Deirdre found him outside again while everyone slept. He was clawing at the ground, crying.

'I know they're in there, why can't I find them?' he said. But when Deirdre asked, he didn't seem to know what he was searching for.

Lilith had also changed. Her lack of deft became a strength, and she bore her normality with pride. She had gained in confidence, hid her face less, and walked taller.

Deirdre arrived at a weaving session having spent the morning sweating and miserable with Cinnamon in the loft. Although she was sweet and friendly, Cinnamon was a constant reminder that Deirdre's Trial wasn't over, and she hadn't evolved. While the memories jostled violently in her head, the best company Deirdre could give was to not say anything. So she quietly packed the boxes, and Cinnamon quietly emptied them all over the floor.

Deirdre was relieved to escape and sit next to Lilith in the weaving room. Although it took five minutes of walking, chanting and hand-signal rituals to get there. Each scholar sat with homemade looms on their knees making brightly colored blankets.

There were followers not from Deirdre's dorm, many of them in colored robes. However, they kept away from the Primary Echelons, preferring to keep their more enlightened discussion private.

These sessions happened once a week, and the Captain instructed they should use the time connecting to the patterns in the blankets as they wove them. However, it was one of the few chances for everyone to talk and they leaped on it and this time, the Captain let them.

Adam wasn't weaving, but sat on a chair with his arms and legs splayed, telling stories about his deft.

'Yeah, so then I raised my hand, and Bear just jumped to attention, didn't you Bear?' Bear huffed. The Captain looked on from the doorway, starstruck. 'Sometimes I don't even notice I'm doing it. My deft leaks out and people do what I want before I even know I want it. It's pretty spectacular.'

'And this is just the beginning! Imagine if he could use that power to order the elite, they would never terrorize us again,' added the Captain.

Lilith looked at Deirdre and winked. Deirdre summoned up her energy to wink back and then tried to untangle her loom.

Behind her someone halfway through a conversation, raised his voice to claim everybody's attention. He was a squinty, excitable man with three hairs growing out of his nose. Deirdre had connected with his thoughts many times, as she had with everyone in the dorm, but she couldn't remember his name.

'And a portal opened and I could go anywhere,' said the excitable man.

'What's the point in that?' sneered Adam.

'While you're ordering the elite about,' said the man patiently, 'I can just vanish.'

'Well, how do we even know it's real? You might have been having a dream,' said Adam.

'No,' the man said, his eyes shining. 'Look.' He held a marble in his hand, a twist of blue at its center. Then in a moment, it had disappeared.

'Where's it gone?' asked Forge.

'The portal!' exclaimed the man.

There was bustling as scholars dug out coins, feathers and scraps of paper for the excitable man to send into his portal. Adam pretended to be bored.

'I think my fingers are going in!' exclaimed Echo.

'Yes, they have,' confirmed the excitable man.

'But they're still there!' said Adam, gesturing at Echo's hand.

'It's obviously just the beginning. They've not gone completely yet,' said Forge.

As the drama continued, Cabbage walked through the door and past them all. He slumped to the floor and poked at the carpet with his shuttle.

'You ok, Cab? Where have you been?' asked Lilith.

'The Captain gave me a new Trial this morning, I've been trying to get my head around it,' he said, dolefully.

'Not a good one?' asked Lilith.

Cabbage shook his head.

'Boredom, I have to be bored,' he said.

'Bored? How?' said Lilith.

'I've got to do nothing every day. No conversation, no distraction. Only nothing, forever nothing.'

'Well, that doesn't sound too different from that other Trial, and that was ok in the end, wasn't it?' said Deirdre.

'At least then I had the box. This time I don't even have claustrophobia to keep me company. Humans aren't meant to have nothingness like that,' he said, shaking his head. 'It's like looking into the hollow of your soul. You know, like you're dead but still awake.'

'Well, just give it a go,' said Lilith brightly with a trace of sarcasm. 'Who knows, you might even get a portal out of it.'

Cabbage instantly brightened, 'Yes! I could travel to other dimensions.'

'Or to where the Shadows are,' said Deirdre.

'But where is that?' asked Lilith impatiently.

'If I had a portal I could find out,' said Cabbage.

'I'd settle for any kind of deft right now,' said Deirdre. 'Even something useless like summoning flies.'

'Give it time,' said Lilith.

'Sure,' said Deirdre, and carried on with her weaving. It was a tedious and depressing task, one of many. Deirdre the Warrior felt like an impossible dream.

That afternoon Myra called a gathering. They had often met to call on the Shadows, but the Captain said this time they'd be learning important truths.

'Soon the facade of society shall be ripped away, and you'll see the warped mechanics beneath,' said the Captain. They giggled and scuffled into the Grand Hall like over-excited children, but Deirdre found it difficult to catch their enthusiasm. She was exhausted and hungry, but when she tried to chant away the gnawing in her stomach, it only made her crankier.

Myra sat in the spotlight, her head down. Deirdre appreciated the moment of theater but hoped Myra would speed through the talking to get to the Shadow-derived euphoria. Then she glanced around the hall in panic, worried someone might have read her unevolved thoughts. One of her dorm-mates glared over at her, his eyes blazing with fury. She quickly turned back toward the stage, mumbling a hurried chant to block his mind from hers and to keep her thoughts clean.

Myra started speaking. 'Each of you made sacrifices to come here. You left behind family, friends, careers; but you came because you needed answers.'

All of Deirdre's misery slipped away as she fell into Myra's words. She became caught in the dragging syllables, in each movement of her hands. As Myra's power hummed, Deirdre's bones did too.

'You came because a powerful force drove you. Your empathy caused you to reel in horror at the needless suffering people inflicted on one another. You've seen politicians start wars, then sell weapons to our enemies. And pharmaceutical companies invent illnesses so they can sell the drugs to cure them. You watched the people you love get addicted to medication that their doctor gave them. Or become trapped in a spiral of debt. All the while the politicians and the media told you this was just _how things were_. That this was life. But you wouldn't accept it.'

Myra stood up and walked across stage, the spotlight followed her as she sat down.

'I was eighteen when I left Borneo. It had shocked me to see how desperate and greedy my people were becoming. Even my family were turning away from nature, wanting only cars and gadgets. Something nasty was growing at the heart of my homeland and I wanted to get away before it swallowed me too. I thought here in the UK I'd be safe.' She stopped and gave a small shrug, and Deirdre felt her own shoulders move.

'I didn't realize - life is different in England, but the rot is just the same. And worse!

'The entertainment never stops, but everyone is bored. Information is in constant flow, but ignorance keeps on growing. Everyone is always eating, but no one's ever full. As you asked yourselves, I asked: why? What is this disease?

'And then,' Myra paused, nobody breathed, 'then the dreams began. In my poky flat in London, surrounded by peeling wallpaper and mold, something uncurled in my head; like a fist held tight around a secret, slowly opening.

'I knew the nightmares were powerful, but I couldn't understand them. Like the visions many of you have, they were filled with pain. The Shadows showed me the terrified thoughts from the mind of a woman trapped in the pyramid of Tutankhamun as the tomb closed forever. I heard the screams and pleading of a child as he was sacrificed by an Aztec priest. But I didn't understand why. These were long-ago horrors, why did they matter? When I woke up, I'd find scribbled notes, with the pen still in my hand.

'Many were meaningless squiggles to me, but I could interpret enough to see it was not a disease that plagued humanity, it was evil. Evil that came from a hidden power, one that has toyed with us for millennia.

'With those first notes, I started to see that misery and cruelty weren't an inevitable, unavoidable part of being human. They were trickery, they were intentional, and they weren't new.

'However, the Shadows weren't the only forces who sought me out,' Myra stopped and became blanched, scholars groaned and reached out. 'As the Shadows spoke to me, the wicked eye of the elite opened. While my nights were vexed by dreams, my days were plagued with threats. Small at first. One morning I found a trail of dead birds leading to my front door, their heads ripped from their bodies. Scorch marks appeared on my walls, and I'd take one of my books off the shelf to find the pages were burnt. Then the water from my sink turned to the color of blood.

'It got worse. Police raids on my home in the early hours of the morning. The house opposite burned down. Friends of mine would disappear from my life without a trace. Were they kidnapped? Had they been imposters all along? I had no way of knowing. I was more scared than I'd ever been.

'At the time I didn't understand what I was fighting. However, I decided if dangerous forces wanted me to stop paying attention to my dreams, then it was important I didn't. I had to stay strong.' Myra's voice cracked with emotion as she forced the words out. She sat still, letting her breath soften the lines around her mouth.

'The Shadows guided me. They taught me how to protect myself and become free from Interference. And they taught me the truth. Soon I met other people visited by the Shadows, who had their own visions and scrawled messages. These notes became our prophecy. I believe you're ready to see that now. Torque?'

Torque stepped toward her, his bright green robes of silk swishing as he walked. While Myra watched him, a look of irritation flashed across her face and then evaporated. He held a large book, the cover was dark red and copper, and decorated with cogs and jewels, thick with uneven pages. Another follower placed a chair in front of Myra, and Torque put the book on this, so it faced the crowd. Lilith grabbed Deirdre's hand and squeezed it. Deirdre tried to connect to the book, to sense its energy, but she felt nothing.

'This is the Cryptomorphica.' As she spoke, Myra leafed through the pages and they could see glimpses of symbols, diagrams and writing. It looked patchier than Deirdre remembered.

'Most of it is in code, much of it untranslated. Some pieces go back hundreds of years, writing that our scholars found at markets, or inherited from family. With the help of our followers, we are starting to interpret it. We believe it tells us, among other things, who the elite are and where they came from, but for now we can only guess the truth.

'It came from the Shadows, but they spoke through scholars like yourselves. And they haven't finished speaking. You are all here for a reason. You've been chosen because you possess a fragment of knowledge. Even if you haven't accessed it yet, it's there. The Cryptomorphica is our salvation. And you are part of it.'

Excitement amongst the scholars grew, as everyone stared at the pages filled with secrets, and that made Deirdre more aware of the hollowness in her soul. Her concentration drifted away, and she gave into the emotion which had been growing for days. A creeping sense of glory fading and weariness growing. She was like a bit part in a film - destined never to understand the plot, to be the hapless schmo killed off by the villains as soon as they entered the scene before the real battle had even begun. She felt tired and small. And very, very hungry. Is this the elite? Have they put doubt in my head?

Now everyone around her had started chanting as Myra strode up and down the small stage, shouting something about unearthing the treasures buried in their souls. Deirdre gave herself a mental slap to stop wallowing and pay attention. This was her destiny.

'Speak to me from the Shadows!' cried out Myra and voices shouted out in devotion. Some howled with a flow of syllables from a strange language, that were then translated by others equally possessed.

'The stars hold the truth!'

'They watch us. They've always watched us.'

'We must connect with love to find our strength!'

Deirdre wanted to let words flow from her mouth, to be part of the wonder growing all around her. She made a few tentative noises, but they sounded like a blatant pretense. She felt silly and stopped.

The next day the Captain was in a skittish mood, sending everyone out to empty the sky of clouds.

'Cloud busting is a noble art, and today we need a clear blue sky because we have new arrivals.'

Nobody had a cloud busting deft, and after half an hour of getting rained on, they gave up to play with their other abilities. Cabbage picked up a stick and conducted a swirling pile of leaves, while Night sat still in a puddle, and willed herself dry. With delight Deirdre watched as Night's clothes began to steam.

Then Lilith challenged Adam to a staring competition. There were mutters that she wouldn't last more than seconds, that Adam's deft would crush her.

Lilith stood squarely on with her fists pulled back, as if she was about to pounce. Adam returned the stare sarcastically. Seconds passed, then minutes. Adam's look of disinterest crumpled into a frown. Everybody stood watching and disbelieving as the minutes kept on and Lilith didn't give up. Clouds puckered around them as if sucked in by a vortex. There was no noise through the trees, and nobody moved.

'They've stopped the rain,' said Cabbage.

'I think they've stopped the world,' said Deirdre.

Still Adam and Lilith didn't waver, their eyes locked. The tension became like a distant howl of pain. Two scholars collapsed to the floor, distressed. Further through the trees, came a rustle and a thump.

'You need to stop,' panicked Night. 'Birds are falling out of the sky now.'

They didn't stop.

When the Captain walked out, he had no interest in the challenge that seemed to bend time and instead called them back inside. Adam and Lilith didn't move.

'It's a staring competition. They won't stop!' said Night.

'Oh, come inside. Adam is clearly going to win,' said the Captain.

'The Hell he is,' said Lilith through her teeth.

'We have more important things to do,' said the Captain.

Lilith kept her eyes on Adam, 'Not until you admit I've won.'

'Don't be so childish,' whined the Captain. Lilith didn't move. Adam lowered his eyes.

'It's ok, Captain, I'm happy to concede defeat if it helps soothe the atmosphere.' Adam chuckled. 'Come on Lilith, it's only a game.'

'And that's why Adam will always be the winner,' said the Captain, and then carried on talking, ignoring the ferocity on Lilith's face. 'As I was saying, today our little cabal is growing.'

Deirdre wondered how he could remain oblivious while Lilith stared at him with pure hate. He continued in a chipper tone, 'Of course, you may have noticed the Center has been growing for some time, but I have kept you focused on the process of evolution, without distractions. Now you are ready for six new subscholars to join us.' He led them inside, where six people waited.

Deirdre pulled Lilith with her, whispering, 'Everyone knows you won really, even the Captain.'

Inside the dorm, five of the six faces wore the same expression, one of befuddlement and alarm. Deirdre suspected it was the expression she had worn on her first day. The sixth face was serene. She had a slight smile, plus leather bangles and small dream catcher earrings. Her blonde hair looked as if it had just been blow-dried, and her skin had no freckles, spots or blemishes of any kind.

The newcomers each said a sentence to describe themselves. Five said self-conscious phrases.

'I'm here to find myself because I'm not sure who I am at the moment.' This was said by a young man with dreads and bright eyes.

'I suppose that goes for me too. My wife left me a year ago, and I'm hoping to figure out what it's all about,' said an older man. His skin was sallow and his belly was round.

And then the blonde woman, without a trace of insecurity, said, 'I was brought here to fulfill my destiny. Our planet is in turmoil, and only a pure soul can save it. With Myra to guide me, I know I can learn to embrace the goddess within me because my heart is bigger on the inside.'

'But your brain certainly isn't,' muttered Lilith, and Deirdre stifled a laugh.

'What wise words from our new arrival,' said the Captain, beaming.

The Primary Echelons needed to condense their few possessions into smaller spaces to make way for the newcomers. Deirdre handed her iPhone over to the Captain to be stuck in the corridor, hoping this was proof of her devotion to the Center. She'd agreed to share Lilith's bed and moved her pillow and blanket over.

Then Lilith exclaimed, 'Wait, where's my mattress gone?'

'It's there, Lil.'

'That's not my mattress. It's filled with straw. Look, it's all scratchy. Where did this come from?' The others in the dorm glanced up, then continued with packing.

Lilith noticed the Captain standing and staring at nothing with an unconvincing thousand-yard stare. As if the blame would pass him by if he didn't catch Lilith's eye.

'He's the one,' hissed Lilith to Deirdre. 'He's a bloody thief!' Deirdre was shocked at Lilith's anger, leaping out of nowhere.

'Why would he take your mattress? He'll have one of his own,' Deirdre said, confused.

'Because it makes him feel important, because he's a bully. Pretentious creep! Well, I've had enough.'

'Lil, don't! He'll hurt you!' wailed Deirdre.

'How? Don't you understand yet? He's Primary Echelon and wearing brown. He's no different from us. He only wants to be.' Lilith marched across the room, while Deirdre watched in awe. The Captain was staring out of the window, Lilith stepped in front of him, and he scrutinized the door. She spoke loudly, and everyone shut up and stared.

'Captain, do you know what happened to my mattress?'

'Mattress? No, what mattress?'

'The mattress I sleep on, obviously.'

'Have you mislaid it then?' he asked with unconvincing innocence.

'No, I haven't mislaid it. It was here this morning and it's not here now. It's been taken.'

'There's a mattress. Right there!' He was still trying to avoid her stare, maneuvering his body into increasingly contorted shapes to face away from her. Lilith kept moving around him in response.

'It's not mine. Did you take mine?'

'Earlier we had a clear out to get rid of spiders. Maybe you lost it then.'

'What? When? This morning?'

'No, it was a few weeks ago.'

'Obviously, I'm not talking about that. This mattress has changed today.'

'I think some mattresses got thrown away because they had bed bugs.'

'When?'

'Must be a few years past.'

'What's that got to do with my mattress?' As everyone in the dorm stared with disbelief at the argument, Deirdre was puzzled that the Captain didn't mention Interference, didn't pull rank or start shrieking. But as she watched them dance in verbal and physical circles, with Lilith's tiny frame angled like an arrow, she realized the Captain was afraid of her.

'Did you take my mattress?'

'You have a mattress,' he said feebly. 'It's right there,' his voice became faint. Lilith dug her bare heels into the ground, kept her breathing slow and focused her fury with the questions.

'That's not mine. Did you take my mattress?' Lilith's eyes were black. When the story was recounted later, hushed voices would talk of terrifying powers, and sparks flying from her fists.

The Captain shook off his pretense with a raise of his shoulders, and he looked at Lilith with a sly smile. His eyes were blazing as if to wipe her memory with one of his many defts. He failed. She kept staring.

'It's on the bed in my room,' he said.

She gazed back at him with a superficial calm. 'You're ridiculous, aren't you?' said Lilith, as she strode out to find her mattress. The Captain kept the smile frozen on his face, but his hands kept moving. To Deirdre, he looked like a child trying to front it out but fooling no one.

The next day, when Deirdre trudged up to the attic, she was feeling clumsy and inadequate. Seeing Cinnamon already pulling the stuffing out of a teddy bear and onto the floor didn't help. The apologetic smile that accompanied her actions only made the situation seem more hopeless. She sat down on a beam with her head in her hands and started to cry.

'Oh! I'm sorry!' said Cinnamon. 'Look the teddy's ok. I can stitch him up.'

Deirdre took the toy and buried her face in the fur. It smelt of mold.

'I'm not cut out for this,' she said.

'You're having a bad day. It'll pass.'

'No, it won't,' said Deirdre looking at the poor, ripped teddy. She sighed. 'See, I came here because I thought there must be more to me than just a nine-to-five job and playing computer games, but I was wrong. I think that was my destiny, and this is a mistake.'

'You don't believe anymore?' said Cinnamon, sitting down on the beam opposite.

'No, I believe. I can see Myra has incredible power. She's not like us. And the elite attack was proof of everything she said. It's real, but I don't think I'm the heroic type.'

'But the Cryptothingy, Myra said we each had a part of it in us, a part of the code.'

'Yeah.' Now that Deirdre had admitted her doubts, she felt drunk: sick and garrulous.

'The Cryptothingy. I'm not in it. I can sense its lack of me.' She threw the teddy bear to the floor. Then went on, 'To be honest, I always wondered why James Bond would bother, you know?'

'James Bond?' asked Cinnamon, confused.

'And Spiderman? I don't think I'd be off fighting crime if I was him. I'd swing around a few buildings, and then settle in for some TV and donuts. That's who I am.

'You know how many times I've tried to do a backflip and fallen over? Thirty-seven. You know how much time I spend not thinking about food? Not a single fucking second of the day. If the elite were to turn up now with a hamburger and a milkshake, I'd switch sides in a heartbeat.' Deirdre looked up.

'That's true for most of us, not only you,' said Cinnamon. 'We're all muddling through, that's how life is. There are a few lucky folks who know what they're doing, but everyone else is pretending and hoping they don't get found out.'

'But not this,' said Deirdre. 'This was supposed to be different.'

Cinnamon huffed. 'Spiderman especially, that was his whole character. He was permanently on the verge of giving up. Right!' she said, picking up the teddy bear, pushing back its stuffing and putting it in the box she'd taken it from. 'I have an attic to sort.'

'Sort? You're supposed to be making a mess,' Deirdre said wearily.

'Well, I've been thinking we've got this all wrong for a while. The Captain said he wanted me here because I like helping people. I hate it when people are unhappy, and he said that was my Interference.'

'That makes no sense. Why should caring about people be Interference?' said Deirdre.

'I agree. In fact, I think it's the opposite, that helping people is my deft.'

'What?'

'For you, sorting things is irrelevant, because it's this place that's the Interference. Not the boxes or the toys, but the attic itself. When you're here, it's as if your head gets whirled up into a tornado and you can't get it straight.'

'And?' asked Deirdre.

'We should swap. I should try to tidy this place up to exercise my helping-deft and you should do everything you can to destroy it.'

'Destroy it?'

'Yes. Smash, tear, throw things about. Get revenge on whatever shitty memories are wrecking your head.'

'But we're not supposed to,' said Deirdre.

Cinnamon smiled mischievously. She had more teeth than Deirdre had previously thought.

'I think we are,' she said.

Deirdre fulfilled her rituals as she entered the dining hall and slid into a chair between Lilith and Cabbage. The serene blonde newcomer had now been given the name Freyja and joined Adam and the Captain at the head of the table, gaining instant status. They sat listening while others were telling their dreams, then the three analyzed the meaning.

'That doesn't sound much like a prophecy. It sounds more like you've been smuggling cheese out of the kitchen to eat before bedtime,' said Adam to Forge, who was shrinking away from him.

'It wouldn't surprise me,' added the Captain, while Freyja made mmming noises and nodded sympathetically.

Lilith raised her eyebrows at Deirdre who turned and hugged her. She still wanted to be sat in front of the television eating donuts and studiously ignoring the doom of humanity. However, it had been a good morning, and she had a little peace of mind. Perhaps Cinnamon was right and smashing up the attic was the way to free herself.

When she'd taken a breather from kicking clothes around and upending boxes, she made the time to talk to Cinnamon properly. She listened while the young woman with the wide-spaced, innocent eyes had talked about growing up in care. About learning to please people in the hope they'd take her in. They never had. She'd left the home with no real idea how to survive in the adult world and no one to explain it to her. She'd floundered close to disaster until a small gray text box popped up on her laptop, offering her hope and a place to go.

And this was the point of the Center, to take people battered and neglected by life and help them find their purpose, to give them hope. _But maybe just not for me, the hacker got that one wrong_ , thought Deirdre.

She cut up her measly dinner into smaller pieces to make it last longer.

'Yeah, well we've all had the dream about the Sphynx, haven't we?' said Adam as if he'd never been more bored.

'Someone like him shouldn't have defts. He'll always abuse them,' said Lilith, with a hiss in her words.

'He'll get things done though,' said Deirdre, chewing on a tiny piece of sprout. 'I'd waste a deft like that. I'd be too worried about telling people to do the wrong thing. I'd keep apologizing. People who change the world need a bit of oomph.' Lilith looked at her doubtfully.

'And that new one, she's a silly cow,' Lilith whispered. As if an alarm had sounded, the Captain, Freyja and Adam all turned to look at Lilith who dropped her head.

To change the subject, Deirdre said to Cabbage, 'So how did the new Trial go today, Cabbage? Was it ok?'

Cabbage's face glowed with an evangelical light as he rushed to share his revelation, 'It was great! I mean it was like, hideous to start with. I thought I was being sucked into oblivion. Then she started explaining about boredom, how it's an exit, a way to escape all the clutter. Boredom is the real route to freeing your mind.'

'Who spoke to you? Myra?' Lilith asked.

'Things don't happen at random here,' Cabbage said, not listening. 'Coincidences connect like roads on a map. There's a pattern.' Cabbage's face seemed to glow from the inside, light escaping with his words.

'How do you mean? What kind of pattern?' asked Bear, leaning over, his curiosity tinted with awe.

Cabbage began waving his hands as he chattered on about the patterns through everything. Expressions distorted his face as if they were trying to escape, as one idea crowded the next. He rambled on about freedom found in the waggle dance of bees or the movement of clouds.

'Nothing here is random. It's different to outside, because everything in here repeats.'

'You mean because our days are repetitive? Perhaps you need a change,' said Lilith. Around her there were sharp intakes of breath.

Cabbage hadn't stopped speaking. 'No, my head is too full. The buzzing never stops. Can't you hear it? There's always buzzing, like the air is too alive. Interference isn't only about entertainment and phobias. It's everything, our senses, sensations, what we see, hear, what we feel. It means we never use all our minds. You watch Torque, he's the one that can do it. He stops and shuts out the noise and he can hear everything.'

'But it's good to have sensations,' said Lilith, with an edge to her voice. Cabbage stared at her as if she was making no sense. He waved his hands dismissively, then dropped his voice when he realized that Adam and the Captain were staring.

'No Lil, that's the old us. Now we can be free of everything.' His fervor gave his eyes an unnatural light. Deirdre was now sure Cabbage wasn't deftless at all but pulsing with brilliance that outshone everyone. For the rest of the day, she played through what he said, desperately hoping that inside his words was a clue that would return her fervor to what it was: _Everything repeats. You watch Torque he shuts out the noise. Boredom is the exit._ But she failed.

The next morning Deirdre had to go up to the attic alone since Cinnamon was declared evolved beyond their Trial. Deirdre had choked on her jealousy when Cinnamon told her, swallowing down the urge to accuse her of flirting her way out of the Trial. 'What did you do? Give Adam a blowjob?' she almost said. _Donuts and TV_ , she thought. _I'd be a nicer person if all I had to deal with was donuts and TV_.

She had an absolute lack of interest in tidying or making a mess in the attic. Instead, she sat on a box and stared at a beam, aimlessly connecting her mind with the junk in the boxes. Because she'd packed and repacked them so many times, she knew their contents well. There were magazines about travel; suede winter coats worn through in patches; broken plastic sandals; Tonka toys and cardboard cutouts; figures from cereal packets; a broken fan heater; a fold-away stool and some candles.

Now her mind was still, it occurred to her it was an odd collection of items to find in the attic of a religious organization. She'd assumed they were the cast-offs from when this was a school, but they seemed more like the junk found in a family home. Which raised the question: whose family? Myra's family was in Borneo.

The boxes gave off a gentle vibration, and she let it rattle her thoughts. Deirdre stood up and walked over to a box she'd sorted weeks ago. She opened it and took out a poster of Blondie and put it aside. She knew there were school notebooks underneath and she wanted them, although she wasn't sure why. The pulse got louder, making her hand buzz as she lifted one out and turned the page. Written in pencil were the words:

My name is Dylan. I am eight. I can write stories and count to ten in French and make the bed. I live with my mum and sister. I like frogs and stars.

She flicked through the book, it was unusually varied and eloquent for an eight-year-old, with star charts, and stories about escaping a fire on a dinosaur.

One page had strange drawings of distorted faces, at the top was written:

Things my mum draws.

On another:

_My sister does not like frogs. She cut up my frog._ Next to this was a cross with _R.I.P. Dorry_ , written on it.

Looking further in the box she found other notebooks, written by an older hand, although the name in the front of each book was Dylan Megat. These books contained scientific notes, biological diagrams, taxonomical charts and chemical equations.

Then a voice speaking close into Deirdre's ear said, 'It's nearly time.'

Deirdre leaped up, throwing the books in the air and bumping her head on a strut. She glared around the attic, but she was alone. She waited, and the silence waited with her. With a flutter of excitement, she thought, _Was that it? Was that the Shadows?_

Deirdre was already elated when she left the attic and then the Captain said Myra wanted to see her.

'She asks to see lots of Primary Echelons. It's nothing important,' he said dismissively. Deirdre tried not to grin too widely in response.

At the entrance to Myra's room, there was no door, just plastic sheeting covering a six-foot-high opening in what was either rock or painted polystyrene. Deirdre couldn't work out if she should knock or what she could knock on, so instead she lifted the plastic sheet and stepped inside. The heat and humidity smothered her in an instant layer of sweat and panic. She started to hyperventilate. Memories so recently uncovered began to crowd her. Then a cool hand held hers, and she looked into dark eyes filled with calm and compassion. The memories were silenced.

'Come and sit down,' said Myra, and they each sat on mossy patches on the rocks. Now that she wasn't on stage, Myra didn't drag her words, but spoke simply.

'I hope you like jasmine,' said Myra, as she prepared some pale pink tea.

'Yes, thank you,' said Deirdre, with awkward politeness, and looked around the bizarre room. It had walls made of bare, salmon-colored rock, with ledges chiseled, and plants set in the cracks. An iguana and several small lizards sat soaking up the heat. Orchids had their roots wrapped in a tight hug around a tree trunk. Brightly colored lichens, fungi and liverworts grew on the surface of rocks and leaves. Behind Myra's head, a spiny praying mantis stood with its forelegs raised, swaying from side to side, its eyes fixed on Deirdre.

'You've got a whole jungle in here!' she exclaimed, and Myra laughed, passing the tea.

By Deirdre's foot was a small black insect, like a splatter of ink, oozing along, its tiny head on a pin-width neck. When Deirdre poked it, the head retreated, and it became a blob.

'Are these insects from England?'

'No, every time I go home I bring something back.'

Deirdre couldn't help thinking this was wrong, weren't there quarantine laws? Tropical diseases? Then she looked up at Myra, who was still smiling, and none of it mattered.

'I've needed to talk to you for a while, Deirdre. Coming here can't have been easy. To leave an advertising career to come to the Center.'

'Yes, oh. Yes, I mean. You know who I am? I mean, what I did?'

'Nobody comes here randomly. You were chosen. Everybody is here because they need to be.'

'Are you sure?' The words sounded wrong the moment she said them, and she panicked, but Myra's face showed only curiosity and patience.

'You mean, am I sure about you?' asked Myra.

'Sometimes I don't know,' said Deirdre.

'Listen to me. You needed time to free your mind before I could tell you, but now you're ready for the truth. You're not like the others here. You have an uncommon power. It radiates out from you like an aura. I don't know exactly how yet, but you're significant. We need you.'

Deirdre could only squeak and fluster a response. Myra reached behind herself and brought out the large, decorated book: the Cryptomorphica.

Deirdre gasped.

'You're in the untranslated pages, I can sense it. Put your hands on the book. I want you to feel its power, for it to know you're here.'

Deirdre was afraid her hands would be too clumsy, and she touched it warily. It was not a single book that had been written in, like she thought, but many pages from different books. It was warm. The cogs on the cover were moving slightly, as if it was a living machine waking up from her touch.

Myra carried on speaking, 'You've struggled here because I needed you to struggle, I needed you to become strong.'

Deirdre suddenly understood what this meant. The constant uncertainty, the derision of the Captain - it was ok because it was leading to this. There were tears in her eyes when she glanced up, and through the blur, Myra looked bored. Deirdre blinked, and Myra's expression clarified into one of patience.

'Your time is coming,' said Myra.

Thinking she might burst into tears, Deirdre tried to pull the conversation back to something more practical.

'What's in here?' She wanted to turn the pages, but the book seemed too fragile.

'We're translating new passages all the time, but we still only know parts of it. We know there are pieces of our history, our future, instructions on how to live and survive. Most importantly, it holds your destiny, the part you must play.'

Deirdre let her fingers hover, feeling the coded secrets soak into her blood. She was so caught up in her curiosity that a question fell out before she realized what it was.

'How can you be sure the writing is about my future if it hasn't been translated?' Myra's warmth vanished, and she looked at Deirdre with pure coldness. Deirdre panicked and attempted to undo her disrespectful question.

'I mean, did the Shadows guide you and tell you that?'

The smile returned to Myra's face, and Deirdre allowed herself to breathe. She swore to herself she'd never make such a mistake again.

'They speak through many of us,' said Myra. 'We are learning all the time.' Then Myra leaned close. 'Be careful Deirdre, don't allow yourself to get distracted by details. We need you to be focused. Every day they draw closer, and we need to be ready.'

6

Deirdre sat connecting to grass. After weeks of practice, she no longer had to fake the sensations. Instead, she swept her hands over the cool softness while her fingertips picked up each subtle difference. She felt the leaf shapes of the weeds each fighting against the odds, the frantic rustling of insects, the optimistic fluff of a daisy. The sensations weren't only in the tickling of her fingers, but down into her feet as each soul possessed her. She was learning to live as sensations. So pure and free, it was like not existing at all.

And now she understood who she was.

After a lifetime of feeling out of place, she finally belonged, not only at the Center, but inside the sacred book of prophecies. Deirdre swept her hand once again over the grass and breathed in the texture. She hadn't talked to anyone about the meeting with Myra, it was too precious. Her friends had drifted away recently, the bonds of friendship were fraying. So she kept it to herself.

Then Lilith and Cabbage strode up, blasting her with their moods and shattering her own. Cabbage bursting with mischief and Lilith with fury. They walked in a quick circle and sat down, then swept their hands across the lawn to give the impression of joining in with Deirdre, but there was no gentleness.

As they battered the grass, Deirdre felt a crushing pain. Lilith didn't notice this, and leaned in toward her, face snarling. 'He says I have to serve her! That stupid blonde bitch! Serve!'

'Who, Freyja? It's not her fault she's blonde,' suggested Deirdre, dragging herself from the distress of the grass.

'He knew I hated her. He always knows things,' said Lilith.

'He has defts...' said Deirdre.

'Fuck defts! He has spies!' said Lilith.

'What does serving mean, anyway?' asked Cabbage. 'Have you got to make her breakfast and put her socks on?'

'I'm not going anywhere near her damn feet!' Lilith spat. 'Guess what he said, that pompous dick. He said, "Everybody loves her, except for you." Like I'm the one with the problem.'

_You are the one with the problem_ , thought Deirdre.

'And you know what her Trial is? He said, "Freyja suffers from crippling insecurity, no doubt due to the actions of people like yourself. To get past this, she must recite warm affirmations to herself every day." Warm affirmations? I had to wash stones! I've wrecked my nails forever! And she gets to tell herself how wonderful she is, every bloody day!'

Deirdre rubbed the blister scars on her feet, without thinking.

'None of this matters, Lilith,' said Deirdre. 'Why do you even care? It's like all the Interference has come back.'

'Oh, for God's sake!' hissed Lilith, and then said nothing more.

Deirdre snapped awake from a dreamless night, aware the Captain was waiting. She pulled on her robe and joined the others as they stood around him. The room was in darkness, and Deirdre felt she'd only slept for few minutes. A toxic blur of exhaustion was burning around her head.

The Captain announced, 'Myra has called a gathering. We have a guest who needs to speak to you, someone bringing revelations. Come! Chant as we walk to the Grand Hall, prepare yourselves for the wisdom we will hear.'

As they walked, their bare feet on the scuffed earth, but Deirdre was too excited to notice the stones bruising her soles and the cold wind nipping at her ears. Seeing someone new, hearing new information was a huge event. Maybe today she would learn the secret of the elite or understand her part in the prophecy.

While they walked into the hall and completed the rituals, Myra sat on the small stage watching them, her face furrowed and watchful. Once they were sitting on the floor, she stood up and paced the stage, stirring the dust and snatching attention so their hearts beat faster.

'I want you to feel safe here,' said Myra. 'You're away from their conditioning, their brainwashing. You live in a state of pure mental freedom, surrounded by love.'

A few people cried out, and Deirdre joined them, rejoicing. 'But the battle is still raging. Out there, an unseen, unelected authority destroys lives and families. Out there, atrocities happen every day.'

'So many, so many,' someone wailed.

'The tin gods keep humanity divided, fighting and hating one another. But why? And for how long? And how does our knowledge of Interference relate to our visions of pyramids and sacrifice?

'You are ready to learn more. And I am overjoyed to have one of the finest historians ever known to explain it to you.

'Professor Turner has seen through the lies of the history books and studied the work of the elite through a thousand archeological sites and first-hand sources. He is a man of great knowledge and defts and I ask you to listen to him carefully.'

She stepped back, and an unassuming man with wrinkled brown skin and white whiskers stepped forward. He was small and hunched as if he had folded into his work. His glasses were thick, and he spoke with an easy charm.

'Some of you will already know me. I am a scholar of the Center, and for seven years I have traveled the world, trying to unpick the trail of our bloodless rulers, to understand their plan. As Myra said, they have manipulated us for thousands of years. I'm proud to say it is, in part, my work that has revealed this truth. I'm not guided by the Shadows, at least, not noticeably,' he smiled wistfully. 'My guide was history.

'As a young historian, and then a fellow at Oxford, I studied the rise of nations and the movement of peoples. It's a fascinating field of study, but the more I learned, the more three questions kept occurring to me.

'The first is: Why, among all villages in a land, only one would grow in size and complexity, becoming a great civilization?

'These growth spurts didn't happen in the random, chaotic manner you might expect, but in almost an identical way each time. Across centuries and continents, the inhabitants of countries entirely unconnected, acted with one mind.

'While much of the human race was happy with their clubs and their caves, a single tribe would start making spears, building pyramids, inventing money and creating complex calendars that tracked the motion of the stars. It was a conundrum.' He looked up, startled so many were looking back at him, rapt. With a quizzical humph he carried on speaking, as images flashed up behind him.

'For example, we have the Sumerians from five thousand BC, said to be the first civilization. In the blink of an eye, they went from humble mud hut dwellers to, well, humble mud hut dwellers capable of building huge ziggurats.' Drawings and photographs of the pyramid-like buildings appeared on the screen.

'Even with our modern machines, building these edifices would be a near-impossible undertaking. These were people who'd never even made bricks before, yet they created temple complexes overnight.

'How could that be?

'And that wasn't the end of their unnatural genius. Although these people had no telescopes, no satellites, no computers, they made carvings that showed the existence of planets even modern scientists didn't know about until the last century. I asked myself, how was this possible?

'We have Egypt, again a civilization that grew from nothing to become a huge power. Again, the impossible buildings and inventions.' Behind the professor appeared images of the pyramids, followed by hieroglyphs showing helicopters, electricity, a huge lightbulb. 'Yes, the images you see are real, taken from the Temple of Seti I at Abydos. Of course, it is widely known the Egyptians were sophisticated, but none of us learned in school they had electric light! Imagine the kinds of Interference they might have had, distractions that perhaps even we could not conceive of.

'Then there is Ancient China. Again, we see the pyramids and anachronistic technology.' There was confused mumbling around the hall, and Deirdre found herself mumbling too. She'd never known the Chinese had pyramids. And when a diagram appeared showing the pyramids in Mexico, China and Egypt in the exact same formation long before travel between those countries occurred, her skin began to crawl. This wasn't a coincidence.

'The Aztecs and Mayans are no less of a puzzle.' An image appeared of a Mayan carving showing a man sitting in a detailed machine. Beneath the photo it said _King of Pakal c.612_.

'Could this king be sitting in something like a computer game? Virtual reality is the most advanced form of Interference. Perhaps the Mayans had it too.

'Despite many documents written at the time, historians seem intent on diverting our attention away from their true achievements. Could it be, I wondered, that someone wanted to keep us ignorant of our predecessors?

'Well, as I studied further, I noticed another peculiar coincidence, and this led to the second question. These ancient people were undoubtedly intelligent and wise. Aztec art is some of the most expressive and inventive ever created. Greek philosophy is the basis of our moral structure. So why did they all engage in something as barbaric as human sacrifice?

'Almost every great civilization of the past has sacrificed humans. Not only the Aztecs and the Greeks, but the Ancient Chinese and Romans too. So why the bloodshed?

'As dwellers of the modern age, it's easy to dismiss ancient peoples as savages. However, as you've seen, these were sophisticated people, yet they butchered their own. It was as if unseen hands were guiding pockets of humanity, pushing them to achieve, and then forcing them to kill.

'Which led me to my final question: Why is there no academic research asking the first two questions? If a humble professor such as myself can see the connections between these civilizations, then others can too. The whole of history makes no sense, but it's as if no one has noticed.

'As I asked these completely logical questions, the attitudes of my peers changed. I was no longer asked to speak at history conferences, my tenure at Oxford University was not renewed. My papers were no longer published. I was being removed from the world of history. It was a disturbing time, but I chose not to give up my studies. The more my work was dismissed without consideration, the more I suspected foul play. Something was meddling with us, but who? And how?

'Then I met Myra, and I learned of the elite. A powerful, but secret cabal who manipulate our modern media and behavior, and who drive us to war and violence. I thought to myself _Aha! Perhaps here is the cause. Perhaps these devious fellows have been manipulating us since the beginning of time!_

Cabbage was sitting next to Deirdre and put his hand on hers and they interlinked fingers. The contact was a relief. These were not curious abstract ideas and harmless theories. This was the uncovering of an evil that had squeezed their sanity and desecrated the world outside, making it a dangerous place filled with contamination. With the professor asking questions, Deirdre's own started clamoring for space: _What are the elite? What do they want?_

'Of course,' said the professor, 'once I could look at history with the spectacles of knowledge perched firmly on my nose, I was able to see new questions arise. What of these civilizations? They sprout up with such promise, with accelerated genius, where does it lead? Well, for some the end is a matter of public record: Ancient Egypt ended with apocalyptic destruction. The Greeks had their civilization wrenched from them in a terrible war, where many thousands were brutally murdered.

'However, for others we have no idea. The Nok Culture, an ancient African empire that created the beautiful statues you see now on the screen, mysteriously disappeared. The Sumerians vanished without a trace. Historians attempted to explain these away, one collapsed nation at a time, but they wouldn't look at the bigger picture, at the clear pattern that formed across the globe.

'It defied logic that tens of thousands, even millions of people could be eliminated in months, unless an evil power existed. One beyond our imaginations.'

The professor took off his glasses and began to clean them, his truths shared.

'But why?' wailed Night, her fists curled in anguish.

'That's a very good question, and one we don't fully know the answer to. We have only speculation. Many of you are connected to the Shadows, so perhaps you can tell us why. Why would these all-powerful rulers work to create huge empires, only to obliterate them?'

A woman shouted out, 'They're evil!'

'Yes, but what does that mean? Even evil has a motive,' he replied.

'They like the power! They want us to worship them!'

'Hmm, it may be an element, but why have they made such an effort to cloak themselves in modern times?'

There was silence, and then Deirdre shouted, 'Because they find it fun!'

The professor smiled and nodded. Deirdre's face flushed and she wondered if the Shadows had given her the inspiration.

'That's what we suspect. Like children building up a tower of bricks to see how high they can go, and then smashing it to the ground when they get bored. Only to build another tower straight after. Is this what we are fighting? Leaders so cruel our destruction is a pleasure to them?

'We don't know when the end is planned for our current civilization. There's no doubt we've been fed technology with sophistication way beyond our natural capability and at increasing speed. Certainly, we have become incredibly complex, a high tower indeed.' The professor left this comment hanging. His moth-eaten, shuffling demeanor did nothing to lessen the gravity of his words.

Myra stepped forward and spoke without light to her voice, 'Now, my friends, you know what we face. An ancient evil power controls us. Do they want to destroy us, as they've destroyed so many in the past?

'We are here to become free, but we are also here to survive. To find strength as a community and evolve together.

'I've seen your powers, but you're still tied to the outside world, and it reaches through the walls and corrupts you. You've each worked hard to free your minds, but the people you left behind, they are still contaminated and damaged. That spreads to you through your love for them.

'You've been safe inside the Center, becoming pure, beautiful souls. However, out there, the world is changing, the elite are spreading their rot, faster each day.

'A few weeks ago, I left the Center. From the moment I stepped outside the wood, the air was burning my skin, the claws of the elite sinking back into my thoughts. When I returned, I stayed in the woods for two days, calling on the Shadows to cleanse my mind, afraid I'd bring the danger back inside.'

Deirdre was sickened at the thought of Myra, mighty Myra, hiding in the woods.

'The loved ones from your old lives,' said Myra, 'that's the contamination they breathe every day. It corrodes their minds, their personalities. Family, friends, people claimed by the mechanics of evil. Your minds are bonded to theirs, and you must break those bonds before they destroy you.

'I know, I can sense your resistance. People who have cared for you, who love you, how can you reject them? But ask yourself, how can you rescue them, if you aren't free? And how can you be free, when they infect you via your love?'

Myra began to pace across the stage, scanning the crowd, the light from her eyes falling on every face.

'Do you want to be free?' she said, intensely.

There were cries from the scholars, Deirdre whispered a yes, then threw her self-consciousness aside and shouted it.

'Do you want to be with me? Do you want to be free?' Myra shouted. 'Then say it, say "I will be free," and shout the name of somebody who's keeping you caged.'

As the shouts started, Myra jumped down from the stage and wove a path between them. Any trepidation they had was lost as Myra's hands stretched out, spreading her energy among them. At first just a few called out, then the shouting intensified as the scholars gave up their loved ones and freed their minds.

Deirdre had no resistance and joined in gladly to reject her mother, Erstwhile Henry and various colleagues from work.

'We love you!' wailed Freyja, tears streaming down her face as she fell at Myra's feet, and others around her echoed the words.

'Our Messiah!' a man near Deirdre shouted.

Myra turned to him serenely and said, 'No.' Then louder so everyone heard. 'No! I'm not your Messiah. I am one of you. I am with you.' Then Myra turned to the man and held his hands. He fell back in a swoon as those around caught him and lowered him to the ground.

Deirdre felt a thrilled lightness when they left the Grand Hall, warm hands grabbed hers, and she kept stopping to hug people.

Clearly buoyed by the gathering, the Captain ushered them all outside and stood on a rock.

With Adam by his side, he announced, 'I suspect each of you is hungry.' Deirdre's stomach gave a small jump of hope.

'Yet it is not food that fuels us, but our strength as a group,' he said. 'To remind you of the ludicrous farce of stuffing your faces, we will have a not-breakfast. A chance to explore the sensations of self-control.' Deirdre's stomach gurgled sadly.

He then led them to the dining hall, where they sat at the table, empty plates laid out before them with only the crumbs of a previous breakfast on them. Glasses were smeared with the dregs of orange juice and the cutlery was stained. It was the remains of a meal more extravagant than any they had experienced inside the Center, and Deirdre had a pang of jealousy. She dismissed it as Interference. She was stronger now, destined for greater things than food.

'And now,' said the Captain, 'allow us to share in the morning ritual.' And he pretended to cut an imaginary piece of meat on his plate, took a fake bite and chewed. They each joined in, uncertainly. The chinking of metal broke the silence as the smell of congealing food wafted up.

It was bizarre, but so many of their rituals were, they soon adapted to it and began to relax and talk about the professor and his revelations.

'I always guessed they weren't telling us everything in history at school,' said Forge.

'Me too. Too much focus on Kings and dates and pointless details. It was a smokescreen,' said Bear.

Next to Deirdre, Echo scraped his chair back from the table and stood up, pointing at a smear of ketchup on his plate.

'There,' he said, with shock in his voice. 'There, the code! I can see the writing, Myra's code.'

Deirdre looked quizzically at Lilith, who frowned. Soon Echo had everyone gathered around him, all excited to see Myra's code.

'It looks like the code in the Cryptomorphica.'

'Well, of course. Didn't Myra write a lot of that?'

'You can almost sense the meaning. It's like Myra's spirit is flowing through the symbols,' said Freyja.

Deirdre peeked between their arms. The ketchup streaked and twisted with scratched symbols, almost like hieroglyphics. They glowed as if they were burning to be understood. If everyone just shut up, she'd be able to read them.

Cabbage stood up to look at the plate, then stepped back, angrily, knocking his chair over.

'It's not there!' he shouted. 'Why are you saying you can see messages? It's just some fucking ketchup!'

'Well, it looks like code to me,' said Echo, with weaker indignation, glancing at those gathered around him for support.

'Why do you say that, Cabbage? Is there something else you can see?' asked the Captain, leaning forward.

'The symbols are everywhere, but they aren't in food. Why would they be in food? Look at the cracks! At the sky!'

'No one else has seen messages in the sky,' said Echo, trying to regain his dignity, followed by others muttering and grumbling.

'Because they're too big. She's written them big so that the Gods can see,' insisted Cabbage.

'What gods? We don't have gods,' said Forge.

'Who's written them big, you mean Myra?' asked Lilith.

Cabbage sighed and retreated into himself.

'They aren't our Gods. They're in the walls. I can hear them humming. They get in through the plug sockets,' he said, and the Captain nodded thoughtfully.

'But do you mean Myra?' asked Lilith. Cabbage didn't reply. He was shrinking away from her, but she didn't seem to notice. 'And how can they be big and in the walls?' she asked. Cabbage frowned, grappling with his thoughts, close to tears. Deirdre reached her hand toward him, wanting to make him feel safe.

'They're in bits. They broke up with the vibrations,' he said.

'Why do you keep saying these things?' said Lilith. 'They don't make any sense.'

'No! You're not listening!' wailed Cabbage, his face like a frightened child. 'There's an invasion! I don't understand how you're all claiming these skills, but you can't see the obvious things. You don't notice the diseases in your heads.'

'Diseases can't get in your head,' said Lilith.

'Leave him alone! Stop trying to trick him into thinking he's wrong,' shrieked the Captain across the table, banging his fork against his plate, as if calling order in court.

'I'm trying to help him. Can't you hear he's getting paranoid?' argued Lilith.

'No, he's not. Nothing is wrong with Cabbage. Nothing. He's evolving.'

'I'm sure that's not what Lilith meant,' said Deirdre, wanting to mollify the Captain's rage.

'Yes, it is,' said Lilith. 'He's not hearing this stuff when we call on the Shadows. This is just him. He's sick.'

'Mental illness?' The Captain calmed himself and said the words with intrigue, clicking his tongue and smirking. 'Is that what you believe?'

'He's having delusions,' Lilith said.

The Captain stood up and walked around the table, tapping a fork against his hand.

'Many times I've had this conversation with those who are slow to free themselves, who cannot free themselves. Some of you who have evolved may already understand what is happening to Cabbage, any thoughts?'

'The Shadows are using him to give us information,' said Forge, picking up on the Captain's implications.

'Exactly. Perhaps you aren't aware, Lilith, that some of our holy book was written by a genius who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They medicated her, to silence her precious words. Mental illness is the label the elite give us to use so we dismiss the Shadows' attempts to communicate with us. Look through history, at all the wise and brilliant minds, ridiculed for their wisdom. Who knows how many times we have been given messages from the Shadows?'

He paused his speech and with a deliberate sigh he stared at the floor, shaking his head. 'And you would take this one from us, reduce his words to the babble of a fevered soul.' He shook his hand at Lilith with his head turned away, then he swept from the room.

Lilith's face was red as she stared at her plate, Deirdre patted her knee under the table. Cabbage didn't seem aware of the praise that had been sung of him, instead he gazed out the window, only blankness in his features.

Deirdre was leaving the kitchen when an arm grabbed her and pulled her behind the grubby shower block.

'Lilith! What?'

'Sorry, but we have to talk. Something is wrong with Cabbage.'

'But the Captain explained. He's just gaining defts.'

'No, he's not! He must've been fragile before, and this place is making it worse. He barely sleeps anymore, he's always connecting to weird things. I found him outside last night trying to talk to aliens. Myra's never even talked about aliens. Or Gods. It's all wrong.'

'But Myra said we didn't know everything yet. He could be tapping into a new source. You heard the Captain-'

'The Captain is an idiot!' said Lilith, her eyes looked wild and her fingers were digging into Deirdre's arm. 'You have to listen, Cabbage needs our help. He's ill. The Center is making him ill.'

'No, the Center is freeing him. We're away from all the harmful crap now. What could make him ill?'

'The stress, lack of sleep, always looking for signs of evil.' As she spoke, Lilith's eyes never quite looked at Deirdre, and her skin was waxy. _Is this what contamination looks like? Have the elite got into Lilith?_ thought Deirdre.

'Plus, you know how he keeps talking about a buzzing sound?' said Lilith, the words tumbling out at great speed now. 'I was looking under my bed and there are speakers, sound speakers. Three more are scattered around the dorm. There are some in the trees too. They're hidden but they're there. They're everywhere.'

'I expect they're from when there was a school here and they used them for announcements,' Deirdre said, not understanding why the conversation had switched.

'But they're on! There weren't any sounds playing, but they're on, and they're vibrating, as if something's playing, but we can't hear it. Maybe Cabbage _can_.'

'So what?' said Deirdre.

'What if the Captain put them there to send us mad?'

'Lilith, what are you saying? How can sound send us mad?'

'I don't know, but something bad is happening.' Lilith was pleading now, getting close to crying.

'Of course, the elite...'

'Not the fucking elite! Look I want to believe this is all true too. It makes sense, but it's got mixed up somehow. Please, we need to leave the Center. Get Cabbage out. Have a chance to think.'

'Are you crazy? We can't leave. We'll get contaminated!'

'Just a few hours, to clear our heads. Get Cabbage to a doctor, and find out if he's ok,' said Lilith.

'A doctor won't understand defts, Lil. Nobody outside will understand any of this. That's the point. The delusion is outside, not in here.'

Deirdre was scared. The way Lilith spoke wasn't right - her breathing was labored, and no light shone in her eyes.

'Look, Lilith, I know the Captain is a dick, he _needs_ to be a dick if we're going to survive. Why don't you understand? What's happening to you?'

Lilith looked feverishly at Deirdre, 'We can ask questions, can't we? We can ask?'

'No!' exclaimed Deirdre. _Not if they're not your questions_ , she thought.

'Right,' Lilith said. 'You're right. I'm tired, and it's difficult to think straight.'

'But that's Interference. You can get rid of it.'

Lilith sat down on a stone and rubbed at her eyes as if trying to knuckle the despair out of them.

'Sure,' she said. 'I'll do that.'

'We'll do it together,' said Deirdre and sat down next to her. 'It isn't easy Lil, but the Center needs you. I doubted too. I thought I wasn't even meant to be here. Then Myra showed me. I learned I'm part of this. The Center is the truth, and it needs me. What we're doing is good.'

Lilith looked at her, saying nothing, so Deirdre started to chant. Although she'd never experienced the direct stream of the Shadows before, that string of unknown vowels with hidden meaning, now the noises fell easily. Her fear that her friend was in danger broke down the barriers, and she found the words simply escaped. She glanced at Lilith to check she was joining in.

When Deirdre was satisfied that Lilith was connected and safe once again, they went back inside.

Inside the dorm Freyja and Adam stood together, holding hands, while the other scholars clustered around them. Forge was on her knees, crying while Freyja looked down at her benevolently.

'What's happening?' asked Deirdre.

'Freyja and Adam, they're going outside,' Night said tearfully.

'Into the garden?' asked Deirdre, thinking the fuss was excessive.

'Into town,' hissed Echo.

'Jesus Christ,' Lilith whispered under her breath.

'Aren't you worried about the elite? About the contamination?' asked Deirdre.

'We've begged them!' wailed Forge. 'They'll bring it back here. It could ruin everything!'

'Why are you doing it though? I mean, none of us has been out there. Not since we first arrived,' asked Deirdre.

'Precisely,' said Adam. 'We've been here...' he hesitated because no one was sure how long they'd been at the Center, 'months. But it's outside the Center we can do the most good. What's the point in getting defts if we never share them with anyone?'

'Have you told the Captain?' asked Lilith.

'We will in a minute,' said Adam, dismissing the question without even looking at her. Instead, he turned to Freyja and said, 'It's time.' She nodded solemnly, and they walked toward the dorm door. Forge let out an anguished scream, and the scholars began to chant in a jumble, each with their own words of protection.

The next few hours barely passed at all. Everyone in the dorm had a chant going in relay, wanting to keep the Shadows close. Deirdre was lost to the noise as it swamped all other thoughts, and when she looked around, Lilith and Cabbage had gone. She left the dorm and went in search of her friends.

There was no sign of them anywhere by the shower block or in the kitchen. She walked out between the trees, and halfway up an old oak, she saw something pink swinging back and forth. As she got closer, she saw it was a leg, attached to Cabbage. He was sitting in a tree wearing only his pants.

'Cabbage? Are you ok?' asked Deirdre, relieved. He was staring off into the distance with no expression, and other than the swinging of his leg, he was still. It took a long time for him to turn, and when he looked at her, his face was empty. Then he gazed back into the distance.

'You'll get cold up there,' said Deirdre. 'Why don't you come down, and we'll get you a jumper.'

'They're coming,' he said. 'I can hear them swarming.'

'That's alright. We can fight them, remember?' she said, wanting to believe it. 'We've fought them before.'

'How do you know? You've never even seen them. You don't know what they are.'

'We've got the Shadows for that, to guide us.'

'But you don't know what they are either!'

'Do you?' asked Deirdre. Cabbage looked away through the trees.

'Yes, but they don't fit the words. I don't think we've fought the elite yet. They were just playing. When they come back, no one will be safe.'

'Ok,' said Deirdre, noticing his skin had developed a purple tinge from the cold. 'Come inside, and we'll sort it out.' She picked up his robe from the floor and wrapped it around his feet.

'If I don't move, I can see them in the patterns of the wind,' he said.

Deirdre had no argument to this, so she stayed at the base of the tree. Occasionally she'd give a light tug on his foot. After half an hour, he climbed down and followed her inside.

Back at the dorm, everyone fretted, believing any moment the elite would barge in. When the door opened, and Freyja and Adam walked in, relief became alarm as Freyja crumpled, and Adam shouted, 'Stand back! We don't know what we've brought with us!'

He carried Freyja to his bed and laid her down gently. Both their clothes were torn. Adam had a bruise on his cheekbone and scuffs on his knuckles. A twitch kept tugging at his eyelid, and his features weren't hanging right on his face. It looked like his mouth had stretched into a scream but not bounced back. Freyja looked broken, her good looks sucked away in terror.

'What happened?' Deirdre said, walking toward them. She could feel the contamination seeping from them, and it made her skin itch, but they needed help.

'The elite, they've taken over the village of Dunville,' Adam said. There were sharp breaths. Night started shaking violently.

'It looked ok at first. There were people out, walking around the town, sitting outside the cafés. It was like normal, like it should have been. Then they looked at us, and we saw it.' He shuddered and began to rub his face.

'It was their eyes,' said Freyja, weakly. 'There was nothing human there. They were too blank. How can the elite do that? Just steal someone's soul from out of their skin.' Adam rested his hand on her shoulder.

'It must be the technology,' he said. 'We don't have any here, but in the village. It was like an infestation, phones and tablets everywhere. They were staring at the screens with dead eyes. Then one of them would look up and blink.'

'But they didn't blink like humans,' said Freyja. 'They blinked this white film over their eyes, like lizards.'

'And nobody was moving,' said Adam. We walked from street to street, and everybody was just stood with their eyes on their phones. Even the children weren't playing or talking. I tried to reach them. I thought there's something human here, maybe I can use my deft to get them to listen.'

'Adam was brilliant.' Freyja pulled herself up on the bed, although she struggled to keep her head up. 'He told them they'd been corrupted, that they'd been made into mindless zombies. He said they were slaves to the binary, and they needed to smash their phones and escape with us.'

'I guess that didn't help,' said Deirdre, trying to not sound sarcastic.

'I said we could help them,' said Adam. 'But they wouldn't listen. How could I appeal to their humanity when they were barely human?'

'And then they changed, as if something came alive in them, something evil,' said Freyja, her voice quivering. 'They were like snarling dogs. They gathered around us, their necks twisting and their heads hanging to the side. They were baring their teeth and their hands were curled like claws. They surrounded us, pushing against us, hissing. Oh, that noise! You can't imagine, so unhuman.'

'In the end, we ran. We had no choice. We shoved them aside and ran,' said Adam humbly, and Freyja kissed his hand.

'Well, you're home safe now,' said Deirdre. She noticed no one else was standing close to them. The other scholars had edged away.

'You should have stayed in the woods, like Myra. You should have called on the Shadows and stayed there,' said Forge.

Adam shook his head. 'You don't understand. We wanted to, but it wasn't safe there. That's not everything,' he said.

'When we reached the wood, we'd only walked a few feet through the trees when we found a dead bird. A blackbird. It had no head.' Now his voice wobbled. 'We thought we shouldn't cross its path, so we followed another route around. Then we saw a squirrel, the same: no head. And that howling began, in the pit of our minds. You know?'

'Shit,' muttered Deirdre.

'We tried to run, but our legs wouldn't even move, and that hissing getting louder. Every step was a fight, like walking through treacle.' He stopped, and rubbed his face again as if something clung to it and was seeping in. 'They've surrounded us.'

'But what are you saying? They've taken the village and now they're coming for us?' asked Echo.

'You shouldn't have gone out there!' said Forge.

'If they're surrounding us to attack, then we need to be ready,' Deirdre said grimly, deciding someone had to take control before hysteria claimed them.

'Adam, you need to talk to Myra,' she said. 'Tell her what's happening. Forge, find the Captain, we'll need his help too. The rest of us must call on the Shadows. We'll ask them for protection, to tell us what to do.'

Adam nodded and the others began to move.

Over the next hour, the Shadows gave instructions through the scholars:

'Shut the windows!'

'Put a circle of stones around the dorm!'

Deirdre sat back against the wall, her mouth shut, watching, breathing from squeezed lungs. She already knew it was pointless.

It was too late.

The elite were in the room.

Deirdre could feel the malevolent fingernail scratching, and the pain in her throat like a scream wanting to escape. She was sure each of her dorm-mates knew it too, even if they didn't want to admit it. Adam, Freyja and the Captain were standing over by the door, and Cabbage was looking at the floor, his face contorting, his eyes hollow.

And then the lights went out.

'They've cut the electricity. They're in here!' cried Forge.

'Keep it together, woman,' said the Captain.

'But they _are_ here,' Deirdre said. In the dark, half-shapes were moving, shifting, hands reaching out. An acrid smell had permeated the air and was burning each breath. Her throat was swelling up.

'What about the saucepans? The tin foil? Where are they?' somebody wailed.

'It's too late for that,' said the Captain. 'Use all your mental strength. Focus your attention. Do it!'

The lights flashed back on, and Deirdre started to breathe again, but the elite hadn't gone. Her hands were ice cold, and contorting, as if the bones were growing inside her skin.

'Seek them out!' shouted the Captain. 'Where are the elite are hiding? What do they want?'

'They want us to die,' said Cabbage flatly. 'That's what they want.'

'Are they telling you that? You can hear them?' asked the Captain.

'I can hear someone who wants us to die.'

'The elite,' said the Captain, grabbing Cabbage by his elbows. 'It's the elite!'

'I don't know,' said Cabbage tearfully. 'It sounds like my mum.'

'They can deceive and play tricks with you. Let them come to you, and we'll protect you.'

'I'm not sure I should,' said Cabbage. The Captain wrapped his long, bony fingers around Cabbage's face and pulled him down to the ground. Adam and Freyja stood either side, their words a thundering repetition.

'We shall defeat. We shall conquer. We shall defeat.' The Captain shook Cabbage's head against the ground and shouted, 'Bloodless rulers! I summon you. I do not fear you!' Deirdre began to stagger toward them, each step a slow drag to where they stood. Cabbage was moaning in fear, and now the elite did not seem like the danger in the room.

'Leave him alone,' she said, weakly. 'You're hurting him.' Then a crash sounded around them, shaking the floor, the windows.

'Yes!' howled the Captain. 'Speak!' Then he fell back as Cabbage stood up, his hair in every direction, a look of flustered irritation on his face. His eyes were wide, but not with fear.

With an indignant voice, Cabbage said, 'They don't speak to _you_! They speak to me!'

'Cabbage dear,' said Freyja, and Adam stepped forward, raising his shoulders to make himself big.

'Don't touch him!' shouted the Captain, in delight. Then reverently said to Cabbage, 'What must we do? How can we protect ourselves?'

Cabbage began to walk from bed to bed, glancing at the ceiling, the floor. When he spoke, he had no doubt.

'Switch off the lights. And cover the windows, with sheets, not blankets. We need blankets to keep warm. They multiply in the cold.'

The Captain flicked the switch, so the dorm was half in darkness, with only a dim light seeping in through the dirty windows.

'Multiply?' asked Adam.

'Like a sickness. Don't let your feet get cold, anybody. They'll get in.'

'What now?' asked the Captain.

'We have to get low,' said Cabbage. 'Nobody stand up.'

Deirdre crouched close to the wall, searching the gloom for Lilith, but she wasn't there. The pressure in her head made her want to retch, but she was calmer now Cabbage had taken control, knowing they would fight the danger together. She didn't have space in her thoughts for much else. A noisy fog had smothered her mind and was pressing against her eyes. Breathing felt unnatural, painful and forced. Her whole body seemed to be breaking down.

She sat on the floor and curled her arms around her knees and tried to chant, but the words only jumbled as she forgot what she was saying.

'Here,' said Cabbage, suddenly near and wrapping a blanket around her feet. 'Don't worry. They won't get us tonight.'

'Are you ok?' she said thickly.

'We're all ok,' he said, but his face looked stricken in the gloom. Then he crawled away on the floor like a sniper who's traded blankets for guns.

Alone in the silence again, Deirdre could see shapes forming and dissolving in the half-light, while her eyes strained to disentangle paranoia from the truth.

Then a voice from nowhere, soothing and low, said, 'This is how you learn to fight. This is when you become strong.'

Deirdre instantly knew: finally the Shadows had joined her, and everything was going to be ok. She could wait, because waiting was part of the plan. The Shadows were in control.

Once the gloom became total darkness, the only way of marking time passing was with the ticking of the handless clock. Deirdre tried to count the slightly wrong seconds, but she kept losing track. The voice spoke to her a few more times, with simple, calming words that eased the scratching in her stomach. Soon her only emotions were a mild curiosity as to where Lilith had got to and a desire to eat chicken stew. She got up, legs still shaky, and walked toward the door.

'Don't go out there!' hissed a scholar from behind a bed, but Deirdre wasn't afraid now the Shadows were with her.

'It's fine,' said Deirdre, easing the door open and stepping outside into a balmy, clear night. The grass was soft under her feet and bats flapped through the trees. She was only a few feet from the dorm when Lilith grabbed her. Her expression was disturbingly intense.

'Deirdre, we have to escape. The whole thing is a setup. It's all fake. We need to get Cabbage and run.'

'Lil, take it easy. It's all ok. I get it now. They've spoken to me.'

'You're not listening! We have to leave! None of it is real. The defts, the hysteria, it's all a lie!'

'Oh,' said a sneering voice behind them. 'Is that so?' The Captain stood with his hands on his hips and his head on one side.

Deirdre began a scramble to defend her friend, 'She doesn't mean it. She's just... she's a bit ill at the moment.'

The Captain's voice was hard as he addressed Deirdre, 'Do you think we haven't been watching you? That we couldn't see the rot in your hearts? You've brought this attack to our door! You've endangered us all!'

'I didn't do anything!' said Deirdre.

'It's true, she didn't. It was nothing to do with her,' agreed Lilith, her voice flat.

'I doubt that,' said the Captain. 'Still, we shall see. Get them out of my sight,' he demanded. Robed figures stepped from behind them and grabbed Lilith and Deirdre around the arms.

Lilith began to struggle, shouting and flailing, 'Stop grabbing me! You aren't the police. This is assault!'

Deirdre didn't fight, but tried to find words that might persuade her captors this was all a silly mistake. 'We were only talking,' she explained, but no one listened.

Lilith was dragged away, stamping at the feet of her captors, until one lifted up her legs and they carried her. As they left, Deirdre saw Freyja standing in the doorway, a slight smile on her face. When she saw Deirdre, she opened her eyes wide in a distortion of sympathy.

7

Deirdre didn't pay attention as they pulled her into the main building. She was too busy trying to not stand on her robe and then trying to get them to slow down a bit. They didn't respond, and hands were gripping her, hurting her arms and allowing no movement other than where they forced her to go.

'She's been upset, that's all. Can we stop a minute? I'll explain,' she said. They didn't respond, but kept walking, a steady pace along corridors she'd never seen before. They went down many stairs to where there were more chips in the paintwork, then they pushed her into a room without windows. Saying nothing, they shut and locked the door, and Deirdre was left alone.

She needed to panic, but she didn't know how to go about it. There was nothing for her to panic at, no one to plead with. In movies, captive heroes would always bang on the door while shouting, but there was no point in that. They knew she was here and didn't want to be.

She slid down the wall and sought to keep breathing steadily. Her thoughts were muddled, and she grappled to order them: _Where am I, anyway? Myra said I was essential to the fight, so why hasn't she rescued me? Is this all some sick game? I can't go back home. I can't go back to an office job._

She tried to imagine becoming an outsider again, but memories of her existence before the Center were half-sketched and ugly, as if it had been no life at all.

For a bit, she tried standing up, then tried sitting somewhere else. She did, eventually, try banging on the door and shouting, but the Captain didn't come back until she'd given up.

The Captain had been posturing for about half an hour now without flagging, but Deirdre was exhausted. Two hooded figures stood by the door with their heads bowed.

'Perhaps you could tell me, one last time, what you were planning to do.'

'We didn't...we weren't planning to do anything. Lilith got upset, and she hadn't told me why.' Deirdre couldn't keep the pleading from her voice, so she didn't try.

'Perhaps you are serving the elite and have been bribed into betraying your leader!'

'No! I just...'

'No, you just, what?'

'Nothing, this is all over nothing. Lilith got scared, that's all. We weren't, you know, we weren't plotting.'

The Captain strutted around the room, 'Lilith is so consumed by Interference it has become a disease. She's deluded, and you've been corrupted by her.'

'No, look, please, you don't understand. Let me talk to Myra, she'll tell you.'

'Myra?' he shrieked. 'You want me to pester Myra with the hysterical ramblings of a contaminated woman?'

'But I'm in the book. She told me, I'm in Cryptomorphica.'

'How dare you name our sacred text!'

'Just ask Myra, please. I'm part of the prophecy. I can't be involved in something bad,' said Deirdre.

'Silence! The contamination has distorted your brain so you'll believe any nonsense!' spat the Captain.

'But you're not listening. I... The prophecy. I mean... she said.' All possible words to explain her situation fell to the floor in a jumble, and she had no clue how to pick them up and arrange them into sense.

'Hopeless,' said the Captain, and waving his hand, he left. The hooded ones followed, locking the door from the outside.

After a tense ten minutes, the door swung open, Deirdre nearly vomited with panic, and then nearly vomited with relief when he said, 'It seems you have been cleared of wrongdoing. Cabbage has vouched for you.'

Deirdre began to spill out her thanks, but the Captain hadn't finished, 'You will now attend the sentencing of Lilith.'

'Sentencing? What? What about a trial?'

'We've had it.'

They entered another gray, windowless box of a room. Lilith stood against one wall, her eyes red and enormous, her face pale, her hands clutched. Four people sat around a table: three she had seen at gatherings, and Cabbage. The Captain motioned toward a chair for Deirdre to sit down. She sat, looking beseechingly at Cabbage, but he stared blankly at the wall. _Why is he here? Sitting with these strangers?_ she thought.

'Now is the time to decide what should happen to the one we named Lilith,' announced the Captain.

'Well, she needs to leave. She's poisoned,' said a harsh-looking woman, empty of compassion.

'Yes, she should leave immediately,' said a suave man, with green eyes.

'Agreed,' said a man with a bitter mouth. He rested his hands on his belly and drummed the fingers against his robe.

Deirdre tried to find words to argue, but couldn't. She sat forward in her chair and squeaked a protest, but no one took any notice. The three judges turned to Cabbage expectantly for the verdict.

Cabbage looked at Lilith's drawn face and said, 'This isn't her.' The three blustered in response, turning to the Captain as if he'd foolishly brought the wrong traitor to the sentencing.

'What?' they said.

'This isn't Lilith,' said Cabbage.

'I can assure you it is Lilith,' said the Captain, although a tinge of panic flicked his eyes to the ceiling like a child caught lying.

'No. She looks similar, but that isn't her, the face has changed. The elite have switched her.'

'Changed? When?' said the woman.

'It could have been months ago.'

'But who is she? How could she have changed?' said the bitter man.

'I don't know. Some kind of implant, bacteria maybe. But it's not Lilith.'

'Cabbage!' cried out Deirdre. 'What are you saying?'

Cabbage looked at her with disinterest. Then he said, 'Although I don't see how you can send her back outside. She'll tell the elite all she knows. Isn't that a problem?'

'No,' said the woman, with satisfaction. 'We have some interesting files collected since she's been here. New scholars can be surprisingly forthcoming with Tide. Lilith's immigration status is interesting.'

For the first time, Lilith showed anger, scowling as the pinched woman slid a folder over to Cabbage who looked confused and ignored it. 'If she isn't Lilith, what use are they?'

The three exchanged puzzled looks and mumbled.

'We need to get the elite out of her,' he said.

'How?' asked the woman.

'I don't know. How did they get in? If they got in through her brain, then...' He paused. The three strangers exchanged sidelong glances. Cabbage nodded his head as it became clear.

'We'll use electricity to burn them out of her. Have we got electrodes?'

'Well, we can get them,' blustered the woman, 'but I don't think we... I mean, it seems extreme.'

'She's a danger to the Center. There isn't any choice,' said the suave man.

Deirdre was struck dumb with horror, and made weak, meaningless noises. The screaming was only happening in her head. Lilith didn't even look up.

The other two shrugged. Not lifting her head and in a low voice, Lilith said, 'You won't do that, Cab. You won't.'

'Fine,' said Cabbage glancing at her without emotion, then looking away, bored. 'Throw her out.'

Deirdre shook with relief and sadness as they led Lilith away with no chance to say goodbye.

Deirdre was allowed to leave the room shortly after, but spent a long time wandering lost around the corridors before finding her way back. She returned to discover everyone in a state of excitement. No one appeared to have noticed she'd been missing. As her dorm-mates bustled back and forth, hanging up bunting and arranging flowers, it took several attempts at asking before someone told her why.

'Freyja and Adam have been declared Secondary Echelons, and they're moving up. Isn't it wonderful?'

'Is it?' Deirdre asked. She felt hollow. Nothing was wonderful.

'Yes, of course!' said Forge. 'This is proof that any one of us can evolve. We only need to believe.'

Deirdre walked into the Grand Hall and hovered near a large group of excited followers she didn't recognize. Freyja and Adam sat on a table on the stage in their new green robes, around them were scattered flower petals. Deirdre didn't stay for much of the ceremony, and nobody noticed as she crept to her bed.

Later that night, lying unable to sleep on a mattress of straw, Deirdre thought through how much information she'd given away in her sessions with Tide.

Myra stood and waited, her voice was sotto and distant.

'For the last few days, I've been beset by visions. The Shadows have shown me many things. I've seen cities tumble into the sea, fires raging across continents, whole oceans filled with blood. I've seen our future.

'When the professor shared with you the secrets of the elite, he didn't tell you when the end was coming, because we didn't know. There were signs, nothing more. But now we know: the end is close. The elite are lining up to pick our streets clean of life. They'll boil the skies, and bone dust will cover the earth.'

Myra's voice was starting to crack, as the emotion of the words took over. Around the room, were gasps and sobs. Deirdre listened to the hysteria as it ebbed and flowed around her, while she felt pleasingly numb.

'With knowledge comes danger,' said Myra. 'I'm aware of the risks I'm taking, but you need to know too. Now I've seen the devastation in their plans, we're a threat. When they bring the fight here, and they will, we need to be ready. They rule us, but we won't let them win.'

Even with the danger hanging over them, the days in the Center returned to a plodding monotony where Deirdre could hide her emotions in ritual. Cabbage, Adam and Freyja had not come back to the dorm, and she never saw them in the dining hall. There were rumors Cabbage was working with Myra now, and his visions were being used with her own.

The Captain announced that since Deirdre had become corrupted by her association with Lilith, she needed to be freed again. Now every morning Deirdre woke up earlier than the others and stood in the center of the dorm. As each of her dorm-mates got up, they gathered around her, reciting her flaws. At first, the insults bit deep.

'You're weak.'

'You're fat.'

'You're a coward.'

'You don't even have any abilities.'

Then as time went on, they ran out of flaws and shouted misdemeanors they'd learned using their defts.

'You dream about running away.'

'You sneered at the Captain behind his back.' Deirdre let the words become a rhythm, like the ticking of the handless clock, a noise to focus on in the hope of freeing her mind. Other than the insults, no one spoke to her or touched her. She moved like a ghost, walking slowly and evenly without ever looking anyone in the eye. A vague thought of leaving nagged at her, but beneath her misery she still believed Myra would rescue her. That the hacker's promise would come true.

As she walked a slow, empty pace with her eyes vacant, Deirdre chanted to herself. 'This needs to happen, so I can be strong.'

She had only to keep her head down and wait.

Deirdre's dread started before she entered the Grand Hall. Others seemed to feel the same, and the sense of foreboding spread like a wave. From the moment they saw Myra, they saw its source.

Myra wasn't ok.

She stood, but not straight. She coughed weakly, and her eyes were defocused. Adam supported her on the stage, and Torque stood a few feet away, looking confused. When Myra spoke, her words were crusty, and she struggled to force them from her throat.

'I've tried to protect you from danger, but I can't anymore. The visions came from the Shadows, but the fever was only ever from the elite, proof I was infected. It might be too late for me. I think you must continue without me.'

There were sobs as people shoved against each other to get closer to the stage. Some reached out their hands as if they could touch Myra and give her strength, even from twenty feet away.

'They're using new powers,' said Myra. 'Not the abilities you've all worked so hard to get. They've bought their skills. This is coming from technology somehow. But I don't...'

Myra collapsed to the floor, and everyone gathered around her wailing and shouting. Adam demanded they stand back. Torque didn't move, but stood watching Myra, his expression unchanged.

Back at the dorm, with crying and chanting all around her, Deirdre felt sadness sink deeper into her bones. The past few weeks she had moved like a wraith through the days, numb and empty. Now, emotion returned as anguish. Myra was the only hope she had left.

All the scholars worked themselves up into a frenzy, chanting, howling, sending psychic lightning bolts and protective shields. Deirdre didn't know how to tell them it was pointless. Myra had said they were using technology.

Whenever more information escaped about Myra's condition, they hurried to hear and clutched at each other, avidly listening.

'She chokes with every breath and has an impossibly high fever. No one can get close to her.'

'Her eyes have become totally black.'

'They say something is holding them back, a force.'

'What can do that?'

'Only her energy is keeping her alive.'

'No one else would have survived this.'

'The Shadows told me she was immortal. I don't believe she can die.'

'We must pray for her.'

'We don't pray, do we?'

'Tonight, we will pray.'

With Myra in mortal danger, she was raised to the status of a saint. When anybody spoke her name, they would drop their head back and raise their hands.

Deirdre started wandering the halls aimlessly. One of the Free Echelons found her sitting on the floor crying, although she couldn't remember how she got there. He brought her tea and cake. The tea was bitter and brackish, the cake was dry, and Deirdre had to force them down her throat; but she was so touched by the gesture, by the rare human contact, she did so with a smile.

That night, Deirdre dreamed in whirls of color and fever. She flailed and moaned, kicking off the blankets and shivering as her sweat cooled. She dreamed of mismatched items. A tree that grew under the ground as a river flowed through its leaves. A jumper made of plastic, worn by Lilith as it suffocated her. The air was thick as if it were made of toweling, and Deirdre struggled to breathe as her lungs clogged with fluffy, thick material.

She woke up choking and gasping, and it was a minute before her breathing slowed. Even then, colors and geometric shapes danced in front of her closed eyes, a twisting kaleidoscope.

She suspected she may have gone insane and realized she didn't mind at all.

Dishes had piled up in the kitchen with nobody wanting to clean them. Meals hadn't been prepared for days. Instead, people picked at the raw ingredients and left crumbs for the ants.

Altars were built in the hallways: photographs of Myra, surrounded by candles and written code, some translated into messages of hope. Groups stayed in the Grand Hall forming chant circles.

Deirdre saw a chance to be useful and did the washing up. Then she cooked up pot after pot of dahl and rice, until everybody had eaten.

The dream that night was as foolish as the last. Describing it to Tide, Deirdre shuffled out the words with her head hung low. Her confidence was still in pieces, but the images were clear.

'The Captain was shouting, "Guess my name! Guess my name!" while he stamped his foot. I ran to where Cabbage was staring at a small white door at the base of the wall. "That's how they get in," he said. Then dust swarmed around his feet. I tried to escape, flapping my wings, but I couldn't move, and when I looked back, they were all tatty. "They're in now," Cabbage said, and I just watched as the dust crawled over my toes, like ants.'

Deirdre finished and opened her eyes. Tide's face was blank.

'Well, that is certainly an interesting dream,' he said.

'It doesn't make much sense. I probably should have ignored it. But I've hardly dreamed at all since I came to the Center, and then I have two dreams like that. It feels...' Deirdre paused, floundering for a word that would sum up the intensity in her head, 'important,' she finished.

Tide stood up and walked around the back of Deirdre's squishy chair.

'Dreams are important,' he said, speaking from behind her. 'When we tackle a problem face on, with awareness, we can become bogged down in what we think should be happening, instead of what is happening. Dreams can bypass these expectations, connecting a follower to what is almost a pure form of the Shadows.'

'You think they've given me these dreams?' she asked.

'Oh, I know they have. What we need to work out is, what are they telling us?'

_Take care of your wings?_ thought Deirdre, wanting to giggle, bubbles of excitement were waking her up from her stupor. Tide walked over to a shelf.

'Do you know what this is?' he said, holding up a wooden board.

'A Ouija board?'

'More or less. It's our own version, but as effective.'

'Oh,' she said, as the bubbles of excitement popped.

'I hope you're not letting cynicism subdue you?' said Tide.

'Well, we used to play with them when I was a teenager. We all thought we were having conversations with the dead, but I think we were making the pointer move together, spelling out what we wanted to see.'

'Luckily, I can bypass that problem. The Shadows move the pointer through you while your eyes are closed. I'll write down what you spell out, and we'll go from there. It will enable you to connect on a level far deeper than most people experience.'

Deirdre felt silly as she sat, eyes closed and with her finger on the pointer; but it was a relief after weeks of emptiness and days of pain. She sat and waited for the pointer to tug in a direction as it had done when she was a teenager. Then Tide pointed out she needed to be the one moving it, so she did just that.

She didn't know what was happening, but Tide said she was doing fine, so she kept on doing it.

'Yes! That's it!' he exclaimed, as she let her hand spin around the board. She was breathless and giddy. She jumped when Tide grabbed her arms, shouting, 'Stop! Stop! Leave her now!' with an urgency to his voice.

She pulled back, opening her eyes to see Tide fall into his chair with relief.

'I thought they'd taken you. I thought you wouldn't make it back.'

Deirdre wasn't sure she'd gone anywhere. She felt fine. She almost said this, but Tide was looking at her as if she was impressive, capable of greatness. So instead she said, 'Did we get it? Did I...did I do it?'

Tide laughed, a hint of hysteria in his voice and his eyes wide.

'You got something, but I don't know what it is yet.' He showed her what he'd written.

Deirdre looked at the paper. There were many letters scattered randomly, and she saw no pattern. She looked at Tide, confused. He shook his head and said, 'Look in the middle.'

There, in with the jumble, was:

That's how they get in. That's how they get in.

'I spelled that out?' she said. Tide nodded. 'That's what mattered, what Cabbage said?' She felt deflated and not great at all.

Tide chuckled, 'You're disappointed. You were hoping for a full solution and a list of instructions?'

'Well,' said Deirdre.

'After such an intense and risky experience, I can understand why. But a pure message from the Shadows, it's a dangerous thing, sometimes more than a body can take. They know they must keep it short. We have to do the more mundane legwork ourselves. So, Deirdre, those were the words from your dream. Any idea where they come from?'

'Cabbage. I think it was something he said a couple of weeks ago.'

'Why? About what?'

'He's been saying some strange stuff recently, and one time he was staring at a plug socket and saying, "That's how they get in."'

'How what get in?'

'The gods,' Deirdre's voice faded as she said the word, then she leaped forward. 'The gods! I thought Cabbage meant like God, gods, but he meant tin gods, that's what Myra calls the elite sometimes, right? That's who Cabbage meant! That's how they get in. But it hadn't even happened then. Myra was fine.'

'Perhaps it was a prophecy. Now, don't get distracted. Tell me more, what do his words mean?'

Deirdre's thoughts surged and connected, one idea linked and led to the next.

'It's the electricity,' she said. 'Myra said they used technology, not magic. They're putting poison into the electricity somehow. We had a power cut a while ago, maybe they made that happen, so they could alter the energy source.'

'Why only Myra? Why aren't we affected?' asked Tide. Deirdre paused, then thumped the arm of her chair, surprising herself with the aggression.

'We're operating at different frequencies. Myra, she's more highly evolved than us. All they needed to do was tap into that vibration. If they have the technology, with a current as strong as Myra's, she must be blaring out like a foghorn.'

'How do we stop it?' he asked.

'Cut the power. Just cut the power.'

Within an hour all the lights were out. Deirdre sat grinning in the dark.

Myra's breathing was weak, her eyes glistened in the candlelight as she turned her head.

'I didn't want to disturb you. You need your rest,' said Deirdre, softly, scared even her voice might chafe.

'No. I don't want to rest. I want to connect. You saved my life, and now I want you to give me strength.'

'I still don't understand what's happening.'

'Well, how could you?'

Deirdre stepped forward, and Myra held out her hand, Deirdre took it.

'You won't be going back to the dorm. You're free now.'

'Free?' Deirdre had a sudden panic she was being banished from the Center.

'Free Echelon. You've evolved.'

'Shouldn't I be a Second Echelon first?'

'Sometimes a scholar has such talent they skip levels. You never had much faith in yourself Deirdre, but I knew. From the first time I saw you, spoke to you.'

'Then why didn't you help me? They locked me up, they were going to throw me out.'

Myra eased her head back with a look of exhaustion. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything,' Deirdre whispered, frantically. Myra grimaced.

'No, I'm sorry. The elite, they messed with all of us. We didn't understand how devastating, but also how subtle they could be. We've been weak and foolish, _I've_ been weak...' A tear eased itself out the corner of Myra's eye.

'No,' Deirdre said, moving closer, but Myra carried on.

'This is why I need you with me. You have great gifts, Deirdre. More than defts, powers. That's why the elite tricked us, to try to take you from me. We can't do this without you. We need you.'

'To fight the elite?'

'Yes.'

'What about Lilith?'

'They'd already got to her, and by the time we realized, it was too late. We couldn't save her, but we can stop them taking anyone else. They've brought the fight to us and it's time to take them on, to defeat them. We need more people.' As Myra spoke the words, a glint appeared in her eyes, and her voice got louder as she lifted herself from the bed.

'Are you with me, Deirdre? Can you stand by my side?'

With a sense of pride and certainty that she didn't know she was capable of, Deirdre said, 'Yes.'

'Then the Great War starts now.'

8

Deirdre was shown out of Myra's room by a scholar dressed in brown and taken on a meandering route until her sense of direction had entirely gone. She tried to glance out of windows to get her bearings, but the silent scholar shuffled at a great pace, something Deirdre didn't know was possible. She wondered if it was a deft.

They arrived at a room containing more furniture than she'd seen in a long time. There were books in bookshelves, a table with a jug of water, a wardrobe, even a set of drawers. She stood with her hand on a shelf, unsure whether to remove a book or not, and for a few minutes didn't notice the scholar had gone.

On the bed lay a newspaper, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. In the set of drawers were pajamas.

Deirdre sat down to think.

She was now a Free Echelon and had saved Myra's life. And she had pajamas. She had no idea how to process this.

She opened a few of the books but couldn't keep her concentration on the words long enough to understand the story. Reading the newspaper was like trying to interpret the culture of a distant planet. She recognized celebrities and fell upon the stories with relief. But they were so mundane, as if the journalists had forgotten to include the happening itself, and had become distracted by the celebrity's hairstyle or dietary habits. Knowing it was all conjured up by the elite to distract humanity from the impending doom gave her chills.

She then spent an hour flustered and pacing before understanding what she was feeling: important. Unfamiliar with the emotion, she couldn't decide if it was a good thing or not. A great war was starting, and she would play a part in it, destined to rescue the human race.

She chewed her fingers with excitement and wished she had someone to talk to, then squashed a pang of sadness that Lilith had gone. Sleep seemed far away, and she needed to do something. Still wearing her robes, she wandered back out into the corridor.

The building was eerily empty, and so Deirdre kept walking down the stairs and through a door to the outside. In the distance, the Captain led a wobbly line of brown-robed figures toward the Grand Hall. Getting her bearings, she had a sudden flush of mischief and hurried toward her old dorm. She wasn't sure what she intended to do, but she wanted the Captain to suffer, at least a bit. Perhaps she'd throw his mattress out of the window or get a tin of sardines to put in the lining of his curtains.

Creaking open the door into the Captain's room, it became obvious she needn't bother with the sardines, it would only improve the smell. Instead, she decided to find where he'd put all the objects he'd stolen from them. Maybe she could make a collage of them on his bed, as if he had a poltergeist.

The missing items were in the second place she looked: a box under the bed. There were about twenty watches, a pot of earrings, six books, a blue mohair jumper, a diary, a teddy bear and a whole assortment of personal junk. Each had a white tag, containing a name, a date and a fear. The dates went back seven years.

Deirdre's sense of mischief faded, and she was uneasy. Looking around, there was nothing personal of the Captain's: no photos, ornaments, nor books. She knew this should have been proof of his complete freedom from Interference, but it felt lonely.

She stood up and looked through the drawers of the tatty desk in the corner. Most were empty, but inside one there were about twenty assorted pages; some were neatly typewritten letters, others were scraps of paper with scrawled pen. She read a smart letter first, the date declared it was eight years old:

Having reviewed your request to move up to the state of Second Echelon, I have decided you are unsuccessful at this time. I don't feel that you have fully evolved to such a position and would benefit from continuing in a Primary Echelon state.

She picked up another written on a torn sheet from a notebook:

You're just not a Second Echelon type.

Another on a post-it: _Sorry, you're not ready._

Melancholy swept through her. She put the letters back in the drawer, the box of stolen items under the bed, and quietly left the room. Outside, she saw the wobbly brown line following the Captain back toward her and hid behind some trees. Then she slipped past them into the Grand Hall.

It was a surprise to find Cabbage lying in a patch of light where the moon was shining through the window. His arms and legs were spread out like a starfish.

'Hi,' she said, walking up to him.

'I can't hear you. You're too far away,' said Cabbage. Deirdre sighed and sat down on the floor, not sure what her feelings were. She accepted Cabbage had been right about Lilith, but he'd been so cold about it. He hadn't cared at all.

'Didn't you hear me calling you?' he said, grabbing her hand and holding it. 'I need your help.'

'Calling me? How? Look, Cabbage, you can't just...You can't pretend it's all ok, not after what happened.'

'We haven't got time for grudges. We've got to find Lilith. She's out there, I can hear her.'

'How? I mean, out there as what?'

'Dunno, a spirit, an essence. Sometimes I could sense it before; a Lilith-ness would sweep past me. It's how I knew that carcass they called Lilith wasn't her. Everyone has a kernel, a nugget that's purely them, and hers wasn't in her body anymore.'

'Like a ghost?'

'Maybe. Maybe that's what Shadows are, people forced from their bodies by the elite and left wandering.'

'Oh,' said Deirdre.

'Help me find her, so I can tell her it's ok. Can you do that with me?'

'You think she's out there? That we can reach her?'

'Think about it, since her body got thrown out, do you ever think you see her? Just out the corner of your eye? Or hear her speak to you?'

'Yes, sometimes,' said Deirdre.

'Then you know.'

So, Cabbage and Deirdre lay on the floor beneath the light of the moon and tried to find Lilith's ghost. Occasionally they would get the sense of her wafting past and they would send happy vibes her way, although Lilith never stopped moving. It felt like a goodbye.

Deirdre didn't get much sleep that night, but she still woke with the morning sun. There was no Captain at the end of the bed now, but the waking panic jumped her. Once awake, excitement about her new life kept her moving. She got dressed and the new clothes fit, but the restriction of them after the freedom of the robes was odd. She found herself wriggling and stretching, like someone wearing a polo neck for the first time. Exasperated, she pulled the robes back on.

She wasn't sure whether to go in search of food, or where to go. For so long she'd only followed instructions. She'd lost the habit of making decisions.

Then a knock came at her door. A hooded figure led her to a comfortable day room. It was like a lounge in a house of wealthy students. The chairs were plump and brightly colored, and angular vases held orchids and Heliconia. Myra sat on a large, purple sofa, wearing black trousers and a jumper, her legs folded up beneath her. Around her were Freyja and Adam, wearing suits, and Cabbage and Torque, still in their robes. The visiting historian, Professor Turner, was also there, wearing tweed and sitting next to Myra. Deirdre felt as if she'd wandered into a general managers' meeting with two rogue monks.

'Good morning,' said Freyja.

Deirdre wanted to say something witty and calm, but instead blurted out, 'You look like normal people. You're not wearing robes. Why aren't you wearing robes?'

Myra chuckled and said, 'They aren't necessary now, although Cabbage and Torque seem to like theirs.' Myra gave Cabbage a fond glance. She showed no signs of the Hell she'd been through, her defts healing her body with awesome speed.

Deirdre sat down while her mind floundered and tried to gather her reality around her. She didn't know how to do this, so instead picked up a cushion from the sofa and held onto it.

'Salmon canapé?' asked Adam and proffered a plate of exquisitely arranged snacks. Deirdre started to pop them into her mouth whole, while Myra explained.

'You know how tough it is to remove Interference. If we didn't give people some drama to help them keep the faith, I doubt many would last. Rituals, robes, even the chanting, that's what gives people a framework so they can believe.'

'But I saw Free Echelons wearing robes...' Deirdre was clumsy with her words.

Myra leaned forward and said, 'It's ok, the Center is as you left it, Deirdre. But here, in the Circle, the heart of truth, robes aren't necessary. I've chosen you to help me because you're special. I told you before, you have abilities we need.'

'You mean because of the dreams?' asked Deirdre.

'No, because of your skills as someone who's worked in the advertising industry,' said Myra.

Deirdre pulled the cushion closer to her.

'But I left _that_ ,' she said, 'to come _here_.'

Professor Turner spoke with his calming air, 'The world is in trouble, Deirdre. You knew that before you got here, before we taught you about the elite. Truths have been suppressed, the public has been manipulated to the point where they cannot even imagine a life of freedom. People need help. As they are dumbed down, as their ability to reason is destroyed by the elite, they become unable to survive the impending slaughter. The world needs a new leader, one who understands what's happening and has the charisma to guide us. The Messiah.'

'Myra?' asked Deirdre.

'Of course.'

'The Messiah?' asked Deirdre.

Adam leaned forward, his face flushed with wonder, and said, 'This is huge, Deirdre. We aren't some bunch of numpties playing at getting superpowers. Myra is chosen. We all are.'

The Professor carried on, 'Increasingly people are realizing Myra's significance, contacting her, coming to listen as she speaks in churches and community buildings around the country. What you've seen of her, and of scholars here, is only a fragment of what we've become. The word is spreading. It's not just this Center now, there are over fifty centers in seventeen countries. What we're calling the Sphere of Truth and Freedom. Thousands of people are learning to free themselves from Interference. However, this isn't enough. We're running out of time, and if we don't speed up this process, then we're damned.'

'Which is where you come in,' said Myra.

And Deirdre got it.

'You want a campaign, to sell the Center, to sell you, Myra.'

'You've seen how dangerous the bloodless rulers can be,' said Myra. 'You've seen me take them on. I'd be dead if you hadn't helped me fight them. Now I've collected together the finest scholars of the Center to create this Circle, and we must work together. Are you ready to do battle with the rulers of the world?'

'Yes!' Deirdre squeaked. She felt important again and put the cushion down.

'Then we must start thinking. You need to create the greatest ad campaign of your life. Adam has contacts in the media and his deft means we can easily persuade people to do what we want. If we work together, we can achieve this. We need a horde, a worldwide army.'

Next Professor Turner took their attention, 'I appreciate this must be a great deal to take in. Perhaps if I give you a sense of the wider context that will help you all understand how we've got to where we are, and what the elite are doing.' He looked up quizzically above his spectacles. The members of the Circle nodded.

'Well then, let us talk about human sacrifice. I believe I mentioned before it has played an inexplicably persistent part in human history. How could sophisticated cultures such as the Greeks engage in such horrors? The kings and priests of those times were clear about why: their Gods demanded it, and in return, they could have technology and knowledge.

'Modern cynics have dismissed these gods, believing them to be figments of the age. But what if the Greek Gods were not only real, but the _same_ as the Aztec Gods? Different stories, maybe, different symbols, different names, but the underlying message is the same, the fiendish bargain. And to bring this into the present, what if our modern gods, who demand not sacrifice, but genocide and Holy War, are also the same? Well, of course, these gods, that have existed since the dawn of humanity, are the elite.'

The professor paused. Deirdre was balanced on the precipice of understanding everything and wanted to shout at him to stop stalling. Instead, she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, then sat frozen still as he continued.

'Interestingly, the historians of the West have attempted to claim it was the primitive tribal cultures that engaged in human sacrifice. They accused African tribes, Aborigines and Native Americans of this, but there's no evidence they did any killing for its own sake. It's true, primitive societies didn't make the same technological advances as the civilizations. They didn't invent and build, or create maps of the stars. However, they also haven't murdered their own en masse.'

'The elite didn't visit them?' asked Freyja, her eyes wide.

'Perhaps. Or perhaps the leaders of these tribes refused to make a deal, refused to offer up the lives of their people in exchange for knowledge.'

'But wait, no elite would mean no Interference. Aborigines would have had defts. They can't have had defts!' said Deirdre in disbelief.

'Why not?' asked the professor placidly.

'We'd know!'

'Everything we understand of history comes from written language, which is controlled by the elite. There are spoken stories passed down through the generations of tribal people flying and healing. We have cave paintings of the Shadows. Yet without a written explanation or recorded history to back it up, these facts get dismissed as the crude make-believe of savages.'

'Why would the Native Americans have let the British kill them off if they had superpowers?' asked Adam.

'There's a lesson for us there. These tribes were small. They had gifts, but the elite-fueled nations had the technology, and an evil power to help them,' said the professor.

'This is why we need more followers,' said Myra. 'If those tribes could be overcome, we have to be stronger. A few thousand believers aren't enough.'

'But for what? What are they planning?' asked Freyja.

'You're not ready for that,' said Myra gravely. 'To hear this knowledge all at once could wreck your minds.'

'But you're going to tell us?' asked Deirdre, her curiosity was bursting at the seams.

'In time.'

The rest of the morning continued with a dissection of the changes the elite were wreaking across the globe. They saw evidence of preparations for a huge war. Many countries were stockpiling tanks, weapons and even coffins. It was clear the elite were planning something huge, and something global.

Deirdre felt a dizzying shift in scale as she understood the enormity of the battle, and the enormity of her part in it. She didn't even understand what this battle was, but already she'd metaphorically pulled tight the laces of her boots and strapped on a machine gun.

By lunchtime, Deirdre was in a furor, her internal organs seemed to flip-flop and spin, while her thoughts raced and stumbled, then raced again. Joining the Center, she'd felt close to the spectacular, but always as a speck, like an astronaut looking out into space and realizing her insignificance. Now she was one of the vast and the mighty, sitting with them, discussing with them as an equal, Deirdre the Warrior. She was still dwarfed by the size of Myra's spirit; but dwarfed, rather than shrunken to nothing.

With so much information crowding her brain, it was a relief when the discussion stopped for lunch. Deirdre got up in haste, then wandered aimlessly about the corridors before finding a door to outside. The Center had been easier to navigate when she only needed to walk to the Grand Hall and back. Cabbage and Torque were sitting on a grassy bank, looking through a biology textbook. When she joined them, Cabbage looked up with a grin that spilled easily across his face.

'Torque's teaching me biology. Want to learn something?' Deirdre thought it unlikely she'd learn anything new today, but sat down with them.

'You studied biology, Torque?' she asked.

'Only to GCSE, when I became, well, less able to. I was quite clever before then.'

'Oh,' said Deirdre. She didn't know what the polite response to this might be. Instead, she gave in to curiosity. 'What happened?'

'I don't remember anything about it, but apparently I fell and damaged my brain.' His words came out thickly.

'What you just fell over?' asked Cabbage.

'Not exactly. I was mucking around on an empty building site with my sister. I don't know how it happened. I guess, I fell through a hole in the floor or hit my head or something.' Torque looked off into the distance.

Cabbage mulled this over.

'But you can still understand biology,' Deirdre said brightly, to sweep Torque's sadness away. She picked up the textbook and flicked through it. The pictures of cells and amoebas had a reassuring familiarity. On the first page of the book was a school label with a list of names: _Derek, Therese, Sean,_ and the last name, _Dylan_. Torque was still explaining, and Deirdre kept her expression attentive, although her brain was ticking over another thought.

'I can concentrate and understand things. It's like I can fall into the information and it makes sense because I'm in it, like a landscape. Then I forget other things, like how to make tea.'

'What's a biology landscape look like?' asked Cabbage. 'Does it have animals?'

'It's more a place of information, abstract stuff. After the accident, I spent most of my time in those. I couldn't do much else.' Torque shrugged. Cabbage patted him on the shoulder, and then changed the subject.

'We're reading about viruses,' said Cabbage, showing the book to Deirdre. 'You know, we're filled with them? They change our DNA. They get right inside our cells and alter anything, our behavior, our bodies. It's pretty incredible. Tell her, Torque.'

Torque's expression looked faraway, as if he'd forgotten to drop the anchor and was drifting. Cabbage tugged Torque's robe.

'You're tired, and it's been a long morning. You should go rest.' Torque nodded, stood up awkwardly and, leaning to one side, walked back toward the building.

'He's got a brilliant mind, you know?' said Cabbage. 'There's so much knowledge in there. He just can't always find it when he wants to.' Cabbage pushed the textbook over to Deirdre. On each page were scribbles: writing and drawings in the margins. They looked familiar. 'Some of these notes I can't read, because of the code,' Cabbage went on.

'It looks like the Cryptomorphica,' said Deirdre.

'Yeah, Torque contributed some of it. The Shadows must have been speaking through him before his accident.' Deirdre was confused, surely that would mean Torque was already in the Center as a teenager. _But Myra looks younger than Torque, and wasn't she an adult when her dreams started?_ she thought. Then she shook it away and asked another question that had worried her all morning.

'Those people, at Lilith's sentencing, are they part of the Circle too?' The thought of facing them made her stomach upend.

'No, they were the old members, but they were too unevolved to handle the knowledge. They became corrupted. It's why Myra needs us. She's created the new Circle so there's a group of trustworthy scholars around her.'

'But what happened to them?'

'They're still here. I think they've been demoted to Primary Echelons. They need to work their way up again.'

'Oh. Good.'

Cabbage had returned to looking at the textbook, but she was curious about something else. She absent-mindedly pulled out a clump of grass and asked, 'You know this big battle we're preparing for? Fighting the elite and stuff. What comes after?'

'After?' asked Cabbage.

'Yes. I mean, are we fighting for Myra to take control? For some kind of worldwide paradise?' she asked.

Cabbage grinned. 'Imagine if Myra ruled the world,' he said. 'We'd all be so happy. No more starvation, no more bigotry, free of Interference. A human race with defts, used to care for one another.'

Deirdre rolled onto her back and gazed up at the sky, imagining Myra standing on a cliff top, people gathered below her, birds perching on her outstretched arms. Deirdre would stand behind her, while Myra commanded the crowd. They would bring endless wonder to humanity.

'But how would it work?' asked Deirdre. 'I mean, would we still have countries and presidents and kings? Would we become the new elite? Ruling the world from the wings? I don't know how to do that.'

'We don't need to know, just to feel,' said Cabbage. 'The truth is in our bones, but the plan is in the hands of the Shadows.'

She lay back and grinned, certain everything was going to make sense.

After the meeting, Deirdre was given a laptop and a phone, both blessed by Myra to keep them safe from the elite, plus access to the Internet. She locked herself away to construct her campaign. The biggest shock was discovering she'd only been at the Center for a year, even though it felt like decades.

Although the Sphere of Truth and Freedom had grown and spread across the world, its website, which first drew her in, hadn't changed. It had only a few new personal testimonies and videos. There was a half-hearted attempt at a forum, but not many users, and the last post was a month ago.

She did some exploring throughout the Internet landscape. Enjoying the chance to leapfrog from one social media website to another. Seeing the subtle changes time had wrought: new memes, new villains, new ways to connect. And new rage at the new memes and villains. It was frantic and busy. She saw whole forums dedicated to hate-groups, to fans of children's toys, even to hate-groups of fans of children's toys. But it was all just noise. These people needed saving. The Interference was so thick she could hardly see the humans beneath.

Deirdre explored religious and paranormal websites, observing patterns in personality, seeing who believed, who was skeptical and why. From one believer to the next, flaws in a religion were ignored, doubts quashed with the need to have faith. She had a glow of satisfaction that her own belief was real. With the Shadows and Myra, she was nothing like the gullible saps she was reading about.

She started to see how a campaign could work. How campaigns that Stronk and Lowry had created for crisps and trainers could be adapted to sell a Messiah, no matter how ridiculous that sounded.

At Stronk and Lowry, Deirdre had kept herself in the background, while her colleagues had shoved and undermined one another. She'd listened, learned the language and the tricks, and often employed them when her colleagues were too hungover to do it themselves.

Having learned manipulation was a formula, a pattern of behavior, she'd figured out the routine. Her old job had seemed unethical, but at the Sphere it wasn't about using advertising to make money. It was about freeing the world and conquering tyranny. The good fight.

In the cheerful day room, there were treats: still-warm cookies were arranged in a neat heap, and a heated pot of fresh coffee was bubbling. Cushions were plumped, and there wasn't a speck of dust on the carpet. The Circle was the same as before, with Adam and Freyja, Torque and Cabbage, Myra and Professor Turner. Freyja was drawing colorful pictures on a sketchpad, Cabbage and Torque were cheerfully bickering about biscuits, and Myra was irritatedly watching them.

Deirdre was to speak first and had a moment of disturbance in her stomach, then took a deep, panic-defying breath as they all looked up at her expectantly. Before she could chicken out, she leaped in with both feet.

'Right. Now is the right time for us. Outsiders can see something is wrong. They see the emptiness in their own lives and are crying out for someone who will rescue them, show them the way. However, these are cynical times, and most people are suspicious about powers or conspiracies, so we must be cunning. We can't assume that as soon as people see Myra, they'll understand her importance.

'I reckon to start with, we don't mention Myra or the Sphere at all, we save that for when we have a captive audience. In fact, we don't do the speaking, instead we let the media do the groundwork for us.' Deirdre nodded at the puzzled faces of the Circle.

'We have many dramatic facts to share, and proof of the elite's meddling, so we release these to the media as newly uncovered news stories, and they report it.'

'Why would they do that?' asked Myra.

'The papers want to sell themselves. The information we're going to give them is exciting. They'll buy it because the public will want to read it. Then, once the ideas are out in the world, they'll spread. It doesn't matter if other sources dispute the stories. The public will continue to believe them because they sound right. And of course, they sound right because they're true.'

'Won't the elite stop us?' asked Adam.

This time the professor spoke, 'I doubt it would occur to them to be checking the news. It might be a while before they realize.'

'Brilliant!' said Myra, and Deirdre flushed. 'What's next?'

'Then we make people aware of Interference. We need them to focus on how much suffering Interference causes them: aches and pains, tiredness, lack of sleep, and so on. Once the focus is on the problem, we appear with the solution.'

'This sounds convoluted. Shouldn't we be trying to get people interested in the Sphere as soon as possible?' asked Freyja.

'And say what? We know the secrets of the world? All religions do that.'

'But we do!' said Freyja, looking around for support. Deirdre lowered her voice, a trick she'd seen Sarah use with exasperated clients.

'You're thinking like a convert. You know it's true, so it seems obvious other people will too. However, the world is already saturated with belief systems, if we want to stand out and make people listen, we can't simply tell them the truth. We need to make them feel. Making people happy is tricky because they don't have access to the Shadows yet, but most people already feel bad because of Interference. We simply give them the real reason why.' Deirdre paused a moment and picked up a biscuit, more so she had something to fiddle with than because she was hungry.

'Deirdre's right,' said Myra. 'The elite have flooded the world with empty promises and complicated explanations about nothing. That's too much noise for us to compete with. We need to make people aware of the suffering clouding their souls.'

Deirdre wanted to clap with delight at hearing her ideas expressed with such poetry. Instead, she gestured toward her Messiah and said, 'Then once we have their attention, we can bring in Myra, our figurehead, our savior. She's our brand. Once we've got the public aware of how much they need her, of how she can save them from their misery, it'll be simple.'

'A brand? Like Coca-Cola?' said Cabbage as if he had a foul taste in his mouth. Deirdre faltered, but Myra flapped at him to shut up, so she continued.

'Coca-Cola is known and loved, throughout the world. If we could achieve that kind of popularity, then saving humanity would be easy. Which is the point, right?'

She spent the next hour filling in details of the plan: how they would use newspapers, social media and forums to spread their truths. What they wanted to achieve was huge, but Deirdre believed it was possible.

With the campaign sketched out Myra gave them a five-minute break. Deirdre allowed her confidence to collapse and returned with relief to her naturally undramatic self. She found Freyja sitting on a bow windowsill in the corridor with her sketchbook, and wandered over.

'What are you drawing?' Deirdre asked. Freyja smiled sympathetically, although Deirdre wasn't sure why.

'The Shadows speak to me through my art,' explained Freyja. 'They show me the future, my destiny. The destiny of all mankind.'

'That sounds brilliant!' said Deirdre, trying to get a closer look, but Freyja angled the pad away and gave Deirdre the patronizing smile again.

'I don't think you're quite ready for this yet,' she said.

The break over, they returned to the day room to find Primary Echelons had changed the half-eaten plates of cookies for savory biscuits and sandwiches.

'So, Freyja and Adam, you're next. What do you want to say?' asked Myra. Adam stood, legs apart, while Freyja sat by his knees looking up.

'Myself and Freyja are going to remain pretty cagey about our plans, for now. There are too many variables to play with. This needs to be big, so we'll be working with politicians and the media, seeing what backing we can get. Freyja can, of course, see who we can trust, and I'll use my command-deft. Plus we have Cinnamon now.'

'Cinnamon?' asked Deirdre, confused.

'Cinnamon's defts will prove invaluable to the cause,' said Adam, then sat down with a wave of his hand before Deirdre could question him further.

'Ok then. Cabbage, you're next,' said Myra.

Cabbage didn't stand but sat forward in his chair and rubbed his knees.

'The tin gods, they're still getting in,' said Cabbage. 'We cut the electricity, and we use a generator now, but I've felt them in my head a lot recently, and I've seen them trying to take over others. They took Lilith, and I've been trying to work out how, and why her. You probably aren't aware of this, but before coming to the Center, she never drank milk, and then, once here, she did. I guess because there wasn't a lot else to eat. I think because she wasn't used to drinking milk, it made her more susceptible to what they put into it.'

'You mean drugs?' asked Myra.

'No, viruses. Torque showed me how it might be possible. To change her from the inside like that, they had to get into her cells, change her DNA. Viruses can do that.'

Myra looked at Cabbage, then at Torque, her expression wary.

'But we're all drinking the milk,' said Adam.

'Yes, and it's affecting you, I can see it. You're more resistant, but your cells are starting to change. We all need to stop, get rid of the milk.'

'I drink soya,' said Freyja smugly.

'Is that the only way they can attack? If we stop drinking milk are we ok?' asked Deirdre, putting her coffee down and feeling a bit sick.

'For the moment. But they keep inventing new ways. They attacked Myra with electricity, so we stopped that. Then they got Lilith through the milk, so we stop drinking it, but there will be other ways.'

'But you can figure out how? You can protect us?' asked Myra.

Cabbage frowned, he looked like a young boy trying to work up courage. 'I'll try,' he said.

'Good,' said Myra, then sat back in her chair and looked at each of them, making sure she had their attention. 'You must now enter a new level of truth. You've taken on board so many revelations, but I've protected you from the worst of it. Today that ends. You need to know the ultimate plans of the elite, and who the Shadows actually are.'

Without realizing it, they all edged forward.

Myra placed the Cryptomorphica on the table between them and opened it up to a page of loops and curls in an unfamiliar language. Diagrams, chemical formulas and equations were interspersed with squares containing intricate drawings.

'It has taken some of our finest, most deft-ridden followers, years to interpret these pages,' Myra said, as she flicked through them. 'Torque made a start, but others took over, adding in details as the Shadows guided them. When I first started the Center, aside from my own notes, these pages were all I had. They were given to me by a brilliant mind, connected to the Shadows, but distorted and destroyed by medication. That,' said Myra, her voice heavy, 'was my mother.'

Myra paused. Freyja and Deirdre made sympathetic noises, but these were brushed away, Myra had no interest in sympathy.

'They called her schizophrenic, but it's clear to me she was weighed down by the visions the Shadows gave her, visions they needed me to know.' She flicked back to the first page and pointed to a picture of an Egyptian style drawing.

'You know about our past now, about the origins of Empires, and the deaths the elite demanded. What you don't know is why. Until this last week our knowledge has been patchy, but with Cabbage as our newest prophet, we managed to piece together some important details in the translation.' Myra paused and folded one hand into the other, staring at them with an expression of pure calm.

'Professor Turner?' she said. 'This is more your area of expertise.'

Professor Turner's eyes twinkled. He was clearly delighted to share more information. He began, 'Yes, thank you. You know now what our bloodless rulers have done throughout time, but who are they? And why would they do this? The Shadows haven't yet translated for us the origin of the rulers. However, we know they were here long before Homo sapiens evolved. In fact, we suspect they're the reason we evolved. A missing piece in the puzzle of evolution.' The Professor turned a few pages of the Cryptomorphica, showing detailed drawings of cells, animals, plants and continents.

'The elite are ancient, but they're also dull and slow. They have a thuggish ability, millions of years' worth of technology, but no flair or creativity. They don't possess the human vivacity or spirit, and they want it. If young, fresh humans are sacrificed, by whatever means, they can feast on those poor victims. For a short while, they absorb and taste the glory of being human. Like Elizabeth Báthory bathing in the blood of the innocent to stay young, the elite soak themselves in our genius souls.

'But it's temporary, a taste of our life force, an apéritif. For the main course, they want to gorge. So, as we see throughout history, they tease a small village into a magnificent thing. They plump it up, feeding it the knowledge they've collected from previous cultures so each new civilization grows quicker than the last. And when that civilization has reached its peak of genius, of sheer numbers; the elite swoop in and destroy it.

'They pulp the brains of the humans, blend them into nourishing goo and drink it down.'

Professor Turner sat back, his story spent, and the truth before them. The room was silent.

Then Adam said, 'I suspected it would be something like that.' Deirdre wanted to shout, _How could you have imagined such a mind-boggling history?_

Torque looked comfortable with the revelation, and it was likely he already knew. Cabbage looked pensive, not sure how his contribution would be taken. Freyja was shaking her head, studying the pictures, as if she might see some clues missed by others.

Deirdre tried to fit this new information around what she'd already learned. It was like trying to build a television from a smashed-up washing machine, all the pieces were wrong.

She cobbled together a question and voiced it gingerly, 'Why do they make us sophisticated if they plan to destroy us?'

'To experience the finest genius of humanity. Remember when they feast on us, they are feasting on our thoughts. The more complex we are, the more exquisite the meal,' explained the professor.

'But then,' continued Deirdre, 'why have Interference?'

Myra snapped a response, 'The same reason they stun cows before they slit their throats. They want us to have complex brains, but they don't want us to use them because if we did, we might realize what they're doing and fight back. Billions of people with powers would easily overcome the elite.'

Deirdre nodded as if she understood, and kept all her other thoughts hidden.

'Who are the Shadows then?' Adam asked.

'Not all the pulped remains are drunk, because some are used to create the next civilization, to speed up the process. The science of this we're beginning to understand now. Race memory, the collective unconscious, we believe these may be due to our origins. Each new populous grown in the goo, like seeds in agar jelly, absorbing the knowledge. We don't know how long the elite have been carrying out their terrible plan. Even the primordial ooze from which we evolved may have been the crushed souls of an alien race.'

'This makes a lot of sense,' said Adam.

'But it's terrible!' wailed Freyja, close to tears. Deirdre nodded, her expression serious, but one thought was zipping back and forth in her head like a fly in a closed room:

Goo? The elite want to turn us into goo?

9

As the revelation about goo sunk in to the sound of Freyja's distress and Adam's anger, Myra watched Deirdre, while Deirdre kept her face neutral.

Finally Myra spoke, 'Today you've been told a truth not many could cope with, and it won't be easy to accept. If we're to survive what's coming, then we need to be unwavering in our belief. Like true warriors, we must remain focused on our enemy. I want each of you to swear an oath now you will stay true to the fight. Stand and say, "I will not weaken in my faith, I will fight to the last against the elite."'

Having seen doubt destroy Lilith, Deirdre was determined to banish all confusion about goo out of her mind and swear the oath. As the members of the Circle chanted, the words themselves were a haven where everything was clear.

Once the chanting was over, Adam took Deirdre to meet the people who'd help her with the campaign.

'This is the most important thing you'll ever do,' Adam said to her as they walked to her new workroom. 'This isn't about selling shoes, this is about survival. The elite will know we're on to them soon enough, so we have to move fast.' She was nodding while he spoke, but she was only thinking about how she was going to be a boss.

Her team were from outside the Center, people with normal lives, who commuted from home every day. Their faith was work, a minimum wage job listing spiritual peace under its contractual benefits. They were devoted to Myra, but they still had families and hobbies. Deirdre struggled to imagine the relative ordinariness of their lives. They all had regular names like Becky and John.

One was called Matt and was bulky, with a fulsome beard and an awkward shuffling demeanor. He'd worked for the Center for several years. On his résumé he had hacker listed alongside his other skills. Deirdre tried asking him if he'd ever hacked into the computers of outsiders, but each time she asked, he shuffled away.

The campaign required that first they became familiar with the landscape they'd be working in. They needed to join social media networks, create fake personas, make blogs, and post on forums.

'Right,' said Deirdre, hoping she sounded more like a boss than she felt. 'We're going to carry out a two-pronged attack on the press. I'll feed stories to them directly by just calling them and saying I've got a scoop. You'll act like normal people chatting away about life at first, and then once you're accepted, you can start creeping our message into your posts. The press trawl social media for stories, so we'll give them something to catch.'

The five faces of her workforce were rapt and eager, and Deirdre decided to try posturing, 'This is our chance to conquer evil, let's get it right!' she said forcefully. The rapt faces wobbled a little, a tinge of pity in their eyes. Deirdre turned back to her computer knocking over a pot of pens in the process. She decided to forgo machismo in future.

For the next few days, Deirdre and her team released the scientific theories of the Sphere to online newspapers, who rarely checked their facts. Then they used social media to try to stimulate discussion. The hope was one of the lit matches of conversation they threw down would begin to burn. Yet each thread, post and tweet would fizzle out. The well-seasoned denizens of the Internet thought them laughable and were delighted at the chance to scoff at them.

Although Deirdre was aware of how important the work was, all the online sneering and arguing, the logging on and off, was wearing her down to a bloodied stump. The dusty room was pressing in on her, and her feet were hot and itchy.

The Center's computers weren't particularly sophisticated. When the one she was using crashed, she slapped the table and walked outside, leaving her team to soldier on, hunched and despairing without her.

She found Cinnamon sitting on a wall smoking a cigarette. She'd changed since Deirdre last saw her. Her hair was now dyed with streaks of blonde and red, her nails had been manicured. She sat in a way that reminded Deirdre of Freyja, as if posing for a photograph.

'Long time no see!' exclaimed Deirdre.

'Hey, I hear you're all important now,' replied Cinnamon, not smiling.

'And you're a smoker?'

'I figure if I'm going to battle the villains, I need a vice.'

'Very wise.' Deirdre sat down on the wall and enjoyed the moment of sun.

'What have you got to do? Freyja said you're working with the media,' asked Cinnamon.

'Yes. I've got a team!' said Deirdre with mock earnestness. 'How about you?'

A sneer twisted Cinnamon's face.

'Helping Adam. You know, with stuff he can't do.'

'I thought he could do everything,' said Deirdre, trying to get a smile to break Cinnamon's expression, but she failed.

'No. No, he can't.'

'Are you ok? You seem stressed,' asked Deirdre.

Cinnamon sighed.

'I didn't think it would be like this,' she said. 'I thought fighting evil would be...bigger, more dramatic. Less,' Cinnamon took another drag on her cigarette and let her head fall back as she exhaled, 'grubby.'

'You think it should be more movie-like?' asked Deirdre, wanting to break Adam's rules about secrecy and find out exactly what Cinnamon was doing.

'I spend time with all these important people, politicians and princes, and they're as unlike the movies as you can get,' said Cinnamon. 'They're so unimpressive.'

'Must be exciting though. I mean, you're seeing the mechanics behind everything, how it all fits together. Not many people get to do that.'

'I wish I didn't know,' said Cinnamon, with a vitriol Deirdre didn't like at all.

'Ok, it sounds like you've been hanging out with assholes long enough. Let's go find Torque and Cabbage.' She couldn't imagine Cinnamon's bitterness surviving when faced with those two.

Cinnamon looked bored at the suggestion but reluctantly followed Deirdre inside.

They found them in an oak-paneled room with an antique dining table and oil paintings of horses on the walls. Cabbage and Torque sat on the floor in casual defiance of the finery, hunched over a deck of cards.

'What are you playing?' Deirdre asked.

'Well, Deirdre, this may look like a game,' said Torque, with a twinkle in his eye, 'but in fact, it's a highly evolved translation technique.'

'I see,' said Deirdre, and picked up a few cards. Some had symbols copied from the Cryptomorphica, others had pictures, and still others had words such as prediction, elite, Myra. A few Tarot and playing cards had been mixed in.

'Then, what? You pick them randomly and sling them together?' asked Cinnamon looking at the complicated arrangement on the carpet.

'Not exactly random, the Shadows choose the order, tell us, and we go with that,' said Cabbage.

'Here, take a few cards. We're going to play top trumps,' said Cabbage.

'Top trumps?' asked Cinnamon.

'Sure, the Shadows have a sense of humor you know?' said Cabbage.

Although the intent was to access the message of the Shadows, the four took the opportunity to be silly and forget about doomed humanity. Playing top trumps was impossible with cards that had no numerical value. Instead, Cabbage would freestyle the rules, so the other three soon lost all interest in winning and just threw out cards with abandon. Meanwhile, Torque wrote down any significant card combinations that may contain information.

There are few things as delightful as battling the bad guys while clowning with your friends, and they had soon forgotten all stress and sadness. The bitterness had evaporated from Cinnamon's expression, and Deirdre kept giggling.

Suddenly the heavy door crashed open. Adam and Myra burst into the room, shaken, moving fast and urgent in the calm. Myra held her right hand by its wrist, the fingers curled.

'They're here. They've surrounded us again,' said Adam, his face drained, his eyes intense. He didn't sit down, instead, strode back and forth beside the table, while Myra stood, fiery and still, holding her hand like a broken gift.

Deirdre jumped to her feet, fear pressing down on her eyes like a heavy weight. Cinnamon ran to the window and shut it.

'They're in the trees,' said Myra.

'What's happened?' Torque asked.

'Freyja found something odd this morning,' said Adam. 'There were three dead birds out the back. Then driving home, as we entered the grounds, we could feel it, like a pressure crushing us. It had to be the elite. And then Myra's hand started twisting.'

They all looked to Myra's contorted fingers, but she shrugged dismissively. 'It will pass,' she said. 'They're warning us.'

'Why? Why not just attack? They have before,' asked Cinnamon.

'It was the same when I moved to London,' said Myra grimly. 'They want to toy with us, terrify us. They're bastards.'

Adam turned to Cabbage.

'We need answers. Use your connections to the Shadows. If we don't know what's going to happen, we can't be ready. And Cinnamon, we need to get to work tonight. We need someone on the inside.'

'Inside of what?' asked Deirdre, confused.

'And Deirdre,' Adam went on. 'You've got to speed up your plan.'

'Speed it up? I can't make people listen just because I want them to.'

'You'll have to. We need followers.' Deirdre looked from Adam's glaring to Myra, holding her broken hand. She had an overwhelming desire to whimper.

Then Myra spoke, her voice was quiet but searing, 'They're coming for us, Deirdre, and we've got no way of fighting them. We're just an isolated group of weirdos. They could wipe us out and no one would even realize. People need to know we're here. They need to care. We've got to be big or we don't stand a chance.'

The next morning was a surreal lull in the panic. Deirdre sat in the day room staring into space trying to work out how to introduce the Sphere to a scornful world. Freyja was drawing. Myra was getting a foot massage from a robed follower, whose hood partly obscured his face. It wasn't until he turned to pick up some massage oil that Deirdre saw he was the suave man with the empty green eyes from Lilith's sentencing. Bitterness showed in new lines on his face as he carried out his lowly, humiliating task. Deirdre let smugness warm her. She imagined how desolate it would feel to know the terrible doom that awaited them but be unable to take part in stopping it.

Then, while Deirdre was staring vacantly into her third cup of coffee at the twist of cream spinning round, Adam strode in and announced, 'Get your dancing shoes on, Myra. You're on TV tonight!'

'Oh Adam! You're so brilliant!' said Freyja.

'Wait, it's not time. It's too early!' said Deirdre. 'No one knows her yet.' Adam ignored her and began to outline the interview on a chat show. The interview was to be with a cheerful ex-Big Brother contestant-turned-host called Tanya Topper, known for her insightless interviews that centered on makeup, babies and relationships. Interviewing Myra was Tanya's jaunt into new territory.

'She wants to be more hard-hitting and investigative,' said Adam, strutting around the room and slinging out words like the cards in a winning hand of poker. 'Interviewing a religious leader whose centers are spreading across the country is perfect for her.'

The afternoon was a mad commotion to plan and discuss tactics. As campaign manager and someone who had spent time at TV studios in her job, Deirdre was assigned the role of making Myra TV-ready. This meant telling Myra what to do, and Deirdre withered at the thought.

Each step toward the room where Myra was waiting, was a step more hesitant than the last. Deirdre chanted the thoughts, _Don't think, do. Only pigs wallow_ , and then pushed open the door.

Two hours later, and Deirdre wanted very much to be a wallowing pig. In her old job, Deirdre's boss had worked with awkward clients, but never someone with such integrity it outweighed all sense.

She'd managed to persuade Myra not to wear her robe. Instead, she'd wear karate clothes in blue silk, loose and flowing. She'd succeeded in altering Myra's posture, even convinced her that some makeup might be necessary. However, guiding her on what to say was like trying to herd a mountain. Deirdre knew Myra's stubbornness was proof of her faith, but that wouldn't matter on television.

'Perhaps if we could avoid a few of the alienating words,' said Deirdre, 'like scholars, or evolution. Stick more to the familiar.'

'Those words are sacred,' stated Myra.

'No, they're only words,' said Deirdre, treading carefully. 'What's sacred is the message, and nobody will hear it if the words cause them to stop listening.'

'What about authenticity?' Myra asked.

'On TV, authenticity is only convincing if it's faked.'

Myra looked at Deirdre in disgust and snapped, 'You seem to have little faith in me.'

'No Myra, I believe in you, but I also know TV. It doesn't care about the message, or those speaking it. All that matters is the spectacle. If you don't play it right, the spectacle will be you, tricked into making a fool of yourself.'

Myra's face emptied of all expression, and she stared at Deirdre with dead eyes. Deirdre persisted. 'You asked me to help you because I know this. We were always getting our clients on chat shows to sell their products. Television, and those who work in it, only care about whether you're entertaining to watch.'

Part way through this rant, Deirdre was aware Myra had stopped listening and didn't care. The interview would go ahead as Myra wished and Deirdre would have to cross her fingers and wait.

Stepping outside the Center to go to the TV studio, Deirdre felt as if she was walking onto thin glass. As she walked to the Center's creaky Fiat, she chanted to herself, unsure of what she would find in the big outside, where the elite ruled.

A mile down the road, she stopped the car and got out. Suddenly the world was too huge and spacious as the horizon stretched the sky. She felt queasy. A year's confinement had boxed up her head, and now her senses were spilling out.

'This is hardly the time for an afternoon stroll,' shouted Adam through the window. Deirdre wobbled back to the car and started driving again. She drove through the village without incident, trying not to look at the hollow eyes staring in at her.

The TV studio was bustling with cheerful people in a great rush. They had no idea that sinister forces threatened their very existence. With their frantic hyper-enthusiasm, they seemed halfway to goo already.

While lighting was adjusted and furniture was tweaked around them, Deirdre sat beside Myra on the sofa and whispered, 'Remember to say, "We welcome everybody." Ok?'

Myra gave her a scathing stare, then asked a runner to get her coffee.

'And, "We can make you free." Try to get that in,' said Deirdre. 'And don't look into the camera.' Myra's fingers curled into claws, her eyes flashing like light bouncing off a knife. Deirdre took the hint and hurried to find Tanya's assistant to suggest the kind of questions Myra would respond well to.

Adam was backstage barking orders at an irritated camera crew. Deirdre smiled brightly as she pulled him away, muttering through her teeth like a ventriloquist, 'We've got to keep everyone happy, Adam. A bad close up could make Myra a YouTube joke.'

Tanya was perky and empty, with a smile that switched on and off depending on where the camera was pointing. Deirdre knew the type: an intelligent woman who had realized nobody liked her intelligence. Someone who'd spent her life underselling herself in order to succeed, and then resented anyone who hadn't done the same.

'When Tanya realized Myra would not play the part of aphorism-spouting life-coach, she decided to assign her the role of religious nut. Sitting up and crossing her legs, she fired out snide questions:

'What do you say when people call you a cult?'

And, 'But this is all a bit foolish, isn't it? A _Messiah_?'

Myra became visibly confused and unwilling to play, so the audience laughter increased, and Tanya leaped on the vulnerability with glee.

'Don't you think the British public is a bit too smart to fall for this?'

Myra expected to be listened to, her words venerated, not picked apart, and she didn't know how to react. Her expression was still and wary as she tried to re-use the speeches that had raised such devotion at the Center.

'Look at all the pointless decisions we make,' said Myra. 'With all the problems in the world, we're asking ourselves: Am I a chocolate-cream-latte-with-hazelnut-sauce person or a skinny-mocha-with-squirty-cream-and-sprinkles girl? Food should be fuel, not a lifestyle choice. Slogans have become part of our communication. They tell us greed is good, that we're worth it. But none of it makes us happy.'

'Well, I think people like their Starbucks, what's wrong with a nice coffee?' said Tanya. 'And advertising is a part of society, I mean we need to know what to buy ourselves, don't we?' The audience laughed, and Tanya looked to the camera with a conspiratorial raise of her manicured eyebrows. 'If you want to take away our coffee, what do you offer us instead?'

'Meaning, purpose, the ability to think freely,' said Myra.

'I think most of us have that already!' exclaimed Tanya.

'Then why do you have an autocue? Why spend longer choosing lipstick than researching my work?' she said, almost hissing the words.

'Well, most women feel appearances are rather important,' said Tanya with a sidelong glance of exasperation.

The interview continued for several more excruciating minutes, as Myra said less and less, looking more like a sulky child than a religious leader. As the interview ended, Deirdre's fingers were no longer crossed, they were chewed to bleeding point.

When it was finally over, and Myra walked off set, Adam shoved past Deirdre and threw his arms around their Messiah. 'That was magnificent, simply brilliant. They'll have to listen to that,' he said.

Deirdre was left wondering what she had just seen.

Deirdre was glad to drive the car home. With her mind half on the road, she could enjoy Adam's enthusiasm, happy to doubt herself and believe the interview had gone well.

'Tanya was a fool,' Adam declared. 'She hasn't a clue about matters of the spiritual. But you demolished her, utterly demolished her, with your wit and your honesty.'

As the car traveled through country lanes toward the Center, the road weaved, split and continuously flummoxed the Sat Nav. However, it was a clear night, with stars winking on and off in a velvet black sky. Now that she'd adapted to how colossal everything was compared to the Center, Deirdre felt like they were unstoppable and soaring through the night. The crisp voice of the Sat Nav suggested they take the left fork in the road, and too late Deirdre realized it was unlit. Light bounced off the tarmac as Deirdre's heart thumped. She only had moments to see each hairpin bend.

She took a corner a little too wide, leaves and branches scratched at the car, screeching on the paintwork.

'Slow down!' shouted Adam.

'Where the fuck are we? We shouldn't be on a road like this,' said Myra.

'It's where the GPS told me to go!' said Deirdre.

'This is them. They've got in the Sat Nav. They've brought us here,' said Myra. 'We're in trouble.'

'What? How can this be them? What do we do?' said Deirdre, questions tumbling out.

A car drove up close behind them, flashing its lights.

'Is that them?' said Deirdre.

'Drive!' shouted Adam.

'Drive faster!' shouted Myra.

Deirdre picked up speed again, trying to ignore the rising panic. Then something hit the windscreen with a shocking thud. A hairline crack appeared across the glass. Adam screamed, and Myra shouted, 'What the fuck was that?'

'Do I stop?' shouted Deirdre, gripping the steering wheel. The car behind flashing once again.

'No,' said Adam. 'Keep driving. Just keep driving!'

Deirdre could feel her legs shaking and her hands starting to cramp and she fought to keep the car steady. Adam kept glancing behind them, while Myra was stoic and doom-laden, staring straight ahead.

'Did you see it?' asked Deirdre.

'It didn't have a head,' said Myra 'They always tear off the head. We knew this would happen,' she said, thumping the seat.

'The elite?' asked Deirdre. 'Maybe it was just a bat hitting the windscreen.'

'Oh, come on!' said Adam, the fear cracking his voice. 'First, they mess up the Sat Nav and lead us to this dirt track, then they send their minions to chase us. Now they've smashed our windscreen. This is because Myra was on TV. They can't let that go.'

'Are they out there? Are they following us?' asked Deirdre as dread thudded her heart even harder. She checked the door was locked, the windows fully shut. Even though it was pointless, they could step right inside her head if they wanted. That malevolent fingernail had started scratching. The steering wheel was suddenly loose in her hands, and the car was pulling to one side.

'You're losing control!' shouted Adam, and Deirdre yanked them back to the proper side of the road.

'I can do it. It's ok. I can control it,' she said, gritting her teeth, as her fingers began to twist with cramp. _Is that cramp? Or is that them?_ Deirdre thought. She peered so fiercely into the gloom her eyes hurt. Each tree seemed to loom over the verge like it wanted to pounce. She glanced into the mirror. Myra and Adam sat in the middle together, as if the elite were pressing in on the car from outside. Their eyes were black shadows.

Deirdre dragged her attention back to the road, needing to concentrate, to get them through this. Ignoring the pain in her fingers, she kept driving, feeling as if she was moving the car with willpower and fear.

As the minutes passed, and nothing more happened, Deirdre started to breathe with more than the edges of her lungs. Myra and Adam relaxed too, moving to look out of the windows.

'Is that it? They're fading, aren't they?' said Adam. 'Are we out of their range?'

'Maybe it's only a warning,' said Deirdre. The car was no longer veering, the pain in her hands had gone.

' _Another_ warning. They're going to get bored with playing,' said Myra. 'Soon they'll strike. People are going to get hurt.'

'Then we have to stop them!' said Deirdre. If they'd only played so far, what would happen when they got bored with the game?

'Don't mention this when we get home,' said Myra. 'The others don't need to know. A scare could seriously affect Cabbage. We need him now more than ever.' She leaned forward and put her hand on Deirdre's shoulder. 'We'll find a way to keep safe. Stay strong.'

It was a struggle to concentrate on the road as they drew into the town of Dunville. It was absurd to be worrying about mundane details such as traffic lights and speed limits. Those rules shouldn't apply to people doing battle with evil. She was glad to get home.

Back at the Center, a crowd had gathered by the door, and any doubts Deirdre had about the interview were swept away in a tide of adoration.

'I cried, I did. I mean, it was beautiful,' said Freyja, and she started to well up.

'You won't have been alone in that,' added Adam.

'Well, we watched the show in the Grand Hall, and there wasn't a dry eye in the place!' exclaimed Freyja.

Deirdre couldn't sleep. She wanted to be brave and know that taking on the elite was her destiny, but she felt small and incapable. The pressure behind her eyes seemed to be mounting as if devilish hands were squeezing.

'Then close to her ear, a voice said, 'Your faith protects you. They shall not pass.'

It had been weeks since Deirdre last heard the Shadows, and she'd forgotten the strength of the relief that followed the voices. She changed into her robes and went down to the Grand Hall. Some new subscholars were embarking on a midnight ritual. They stumbled their way around, tripping over their robes. They kept forgetting which foot to start off on, and whether to turn in a clockwise circle before putting their hand on the ground or after. Watching them blunder their way through the rituals, Deirdre felt intensely protective. They only wanted to become free and to help others, but monstrous forces clamored around the building waiting to crush them, to steal away their souls. Once the gathering was finished, Deirdre stayed, unmoving. This was her purpose: to protect the scholars, to keep Myra safe.

The elite wouldn't win.

First thing the next morning, Adam called Deirdre to a room hidden away at the back of the Center. As they stood outside, he gave her an article to read.

A Messiah or a Mess?

By Herbert Dibstaff

As the world creaks on its hinges, it becomes troublesome to determine just where the satire ends, and reality starts. Having surveyed the footage in detail, I have come to the sorry conclusion our latest deity, Myra, is not a clever parody of a bad prophet. She is merely a bad prophet. A pound shop preacher. Of course, she ticks all the appropriate PC boxes. She's a female of color who escaped the slums of Borneo. However, a genuine leader requires something more than an ethnicity and gender for our times. Watching this presumptuous brat tripping over her pulpit and spouting pseudo-mystical drivel, made me cringe myself into a spasm.

She was outwitted by Tanya Topper for pity's sake! It beggars belief how she succeeded in commanding a following, and I assume it is yet another damning indictment of our education system that thousands have fallen for it.

Sacrilege though it may be to say it, perhaps the reason women don't become religious leaders is they aren't any good at it. It has been shown countless times that when put in a situation requiring strength and common sense, women crumble quicker than stale cake under a blunt knife. Look at a few of our historic heroines, Joan of Arc? Set on fire at the first sign of trouble. Florence Nightingale? Spent half her life in bed, wallowing in depression.

But let's not get bogged down in history, instead we can look at the performance of our new Jesus. Once she'd overcome her obvious stage fright, our little heroine took the route most brats take when the harsh spotlight is on them, they become belligerent and odd. She was an embarrassment and her words were weak.

So what now for our thimbleful of zealotry? Never fear, I suspect she'll be back on the tills at Asda by next week, and we'll all get on with our lives as if nothing much has happened.

Adam snatched the paper from her before Deirdre could finish, but she'd read enough.

As they entered, he hissed at her, 'Get it right!'

'What do you mean?' she asked, but he'd already turned away. Inside, Myra was pacing. The room was painted a lumpy, pale green. It matched the pallor of Adam's face and contrasted with Myra's mighty fury.

'He has the wit of an ignorant imbecile!' The door hadn't even shut before Myra started shouting. ' _A stale cake under a blunt knife_. What does that even mean?'

'He's a cretin, you shouldn't lower yourself to thinking about him. You're a hero. He's a nothing,' fawned Adam. Deirdre was thrown and stayed quiet. 'Your words are anything but weak! The man is a racist and a misogynist, and he can't cope with your strength,' added Adam, emphatically.

With each compliment, Myra's rage slid back further, and she raised her shoulders higher.

'The man's name is Herbert, and he is a Herbert. A fourth-rate hack. He couldn't even get near to your level of brilliance,' said Adam.

'He would collapse at my feet!' said Myra, her fists raised to the ceiling.

'He would disintegrate a mile away from you. Your presence would cause him to spontaneously combust at the door,' added Adam.

Myra turned her gaze to Deirdre. Her eyes were empty, as if undecided about what extreme emotion she should receive. 'And you Deirdre, what do you think of this article?' she asked.

Deirdre looked back and smiled, 'He's irrelevant, Myra. He doesn't matter. The interview was bad, but that's irrelevant too. _This_ , your passion, your belief, this is how you're going to be next time.'

She was aware of Adam making panicked faces at her at the edge of her vision, but she ignored him. Myra wasn't some spoilt kid in the playground, she was the future of humanity. Their Messiah. And Myra knew it.

'What?' said Myra.

'This is how a Messiah acts, with _power_. We'll use this. And at the next interview, you're going to slay them.'

With her voice quiet, and her face almost still, just a twitch of a smile, Myra said, 'Yes.'

Since she last spoke, Myra had stared out the window, while Adam and Deirdre had stood, not sure if they should leave or not.

'Finally, Myra said, 'Deirdre, I want you to come with me, so we can talk.'

Deirdre swallowed her heart back down and they walked past Adam's glowering jealousy to go to Myra's jungle room. As they moved through the corridors, followers flung themselves to the floor at Myra's feet or stood frozen unable to move. _I'm with the Messiah!_ thought Deirdre.

They reached the plastic sheet that covered the entrance and stepped inside. The heat and humidity hit them like a sweaty slap, and they both sat heavily on the moss. Myra reached out a hand, and a chameleon climbed onto it from a ledge, waving its head enthusiastically.

'Life is so much easier when you're a child, isn't it?' said Myra. Deirdre agreed. Although for her it hadn't been true, it became true because Myra was saying it. 'I remember I'd swim out to the mangrove swamp and play in the trees. The most distressing thing I'd have to deal with was when a monkey would steal my banana.'

Deirdre leaned back on the moss wanting to hear stories of growing up in Borneo, to escape into them like a fairy-tale. However, Myra leaned forward, suddenly serious.

'You had trouble learning about the fate the elite have planned for us, didn't you?' Deirdre's eyes opened wide as she started to splutter a denial, but Myra stopped her. 'It's ok. I laughed when I first heard it. They want to turn us into _pulp_?' She sat back, a big grin on her face. 'I thought it was totally idiotic, a lunacy. That's why I waited until Cabbage came forward, even after I'd accepted it. It seemed too strange to tell anyone else. Then he translated a passage we'd had for two years. A scholar wrote it while in a fugue state, and we didn't have a clue of the content. As soon as I saw Cabbage's notes, I knew it was a confirmation of the elite's plans, and that the Shadows wanted me to share the truth.'

'But you already knew something about it?'

'Yes. It was when I lived in London, and the Shadows had only spoken to me a while. I had a few followers, all devoted to understanding the truth. One had a dream about the elite and goo, and I thought she must be crazy.'

Deirdre laughed, as relief unknotted the tight ball of anxiety that had sat in her stomach since the revelation. She'd convinced herself it was ok, she believed, it didn't matter, it was fine. But it hadn't been.

'Since Cabbage's revelation,' said Myra, 'I've uncovered more evidence. I've learned there are problems that have vexed scientists for many years. Biologists, neurologists, even physicists have been asking: How can humans be so incredibly smart? How can a person's vastly complex mind fit inside such a tiny head?

'They've all been throwing out theories: that our brains are holograms beamed from the other side of space. Or that we're all part of a giant computer game. Wild, desperate ideas to explain the impossible.

'And then there's Jung's collective unconscious and Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory. Attempts to understand why humans know so much more than they should.

'Interference stopped scientists from working out the truth. But as soon as I read their ideas, I got it. The only explanation that made sense was that our brains contained the thoughts of so many gone before.'

'Yes,' whispered Deirdre in awe.

'And if that's possible, if knowledge can be taken from one person and given to another, then, of course, the elite want it. Of course, that dull, ancient race will want to drink it down. They aren't just bloodthirsty, but spirit-thirsty. They want our essence, and they've found a way to steal it.

'You've seen what they can do. You saw them steal your friend's soul right out of her body. Their power is limitless, and what they intend to do to the rest of us is butchery and bloodshed. That is why we must stop them.' The stillness in the room was complete and all Deirdre could see was the fire in Myra's eyes as it burned through her thoughts.

'And we will stop them,' said Myra. 'I want to show you how.' Myra stood up, 'This is about more than words, it's time you saw what we're capable of. To feel the power we have, and the power that you have.'

Myra and Deirdre walked the corridors not speaking. At first, each scholar they met would shrink and bow in front of them, but Myra swept her hand through the air, beckoning them to follow her. One by one, they gathered. Each was silent and spellbound. With every corner they turned, the crowd grew. Some were dripping insects from their Trials, some had mud encrusted fingernails from working in the garden, but all were silent and rapt.

Myra stopped and reached out her hand to a young man with ginger hair and bright eyes, he wore the brown robes of a First Echelon. He drew close, and she put her palm to his forehead.

'My scholar, what is your deft?'

'Well, I guess...I mean I-I-I've had a few predictions, but sm-small,' he stuttered.

'Throw off your weakness. Your deft is strong! You have the gift of fortune-telling. What do you see?'

His awe of Myra clashed with his insecurities, and he stood frozen. Myra boomed, 'Speak!'

'Burning!' he shouted, as his eyes flickered shut. 'Children running, their eyes are... I can see buildings collapsing. Screaming.' He fell to the floor, the images spent.

'This is the future,' said Myra, somberly. She looked at Deirdre. 'He's weak now. Give him his power back.'

'I don't know how,' protested Deirdre.

Myra gazed at her, and said, 'Yes, you do. Now is your time.'

She swept on. Deirdre put her hand to the man's sweaty forehead.

'You can get up. You have all the energy you need,' she said. This sounded unconvincing to her, but he looked up smiling and stood, as if he'd only tripped slightly on the way down the hall. Deirdre heard gasps behind her and scuffling as scholars tried to get close. They wanted to touch her because she had power. Myra chose another.

'You!' Myra said, pointing at a woman with a graying afro. 'Your deft!'

'I can read minds,' said the woman, timidly.

'Then read the mind of your Messiah!' boomed Myra.

The woman fell to her knees, crying out, 'So much wonder, so much power.' Her eyes rolled back, her face coated with sweat, and she shook as if possessed. Deirdre stepped in, her hand on the woman's shoulder until the shaking soothed.

Then Deirdre turned to the entranced faces looking at her with desperate hope. She held out her hands to them and smiled. They clung to her, falling at her feet. Myra stood back watching, as they began to pull at Deirdre's clothes, and put their hands on her face. She felt as if she was caught in a zombie attack. The scholars were barely conscious, lost to wonder, pawing and grabbing. Suddenly Myra was close behind her, tugging at her sleeve.

'Come on, I want to show you something.' They ducked down a corridor Deirdre had never noticed before and ran, feet slapping against the blue tiled floor. Adrenalin was skidding through her, she was giddy with it, never wanting to stop. She believed she never had to stop but could keep running until they ran out of world, then could pitch into the sky and soar the stars. They turned a corner and charged their way up a winding stone staircase.

As they moved higher, Deirdre thought, _This is my deft, to never tire again_. Even the burning in her legs was like the jet of a rocket ship, propelling her on. She felt supreme and heroic. That sensation only got stronger when Myra threw open a pair of rickety wooden doors that led out onto an equally shaky wooden ledge.

'Are you afraid of heights?' asked Myra, her eyes sparking.

'Right now, I'm not afraid of anything,' said Deirdre. Myra grinned a wild grin, and they stepped out, the wood creaking, a warm wind catching at their hair. They were a hundred feet in the air, and below them, they could see scurrying figures who all looked too small to be going anywhere.

'It doesn't look real,' said Deirdre.

'This is as real as it gets,' said Myra. 'We're above the Interference now. The air is too thin to hold it.' For a moment Deirdre doubted the logic of that, but then realized what Myra was saying was right. She could feel it. The freedom was buzzing her blood and humming her eyeballs. She wanted to holler with delight.

'See this world?' said Myra, sweeping her arm around her. 'All this belongs to us. Nobody can stop us. Queens, presidents, whoever we want, they will all bow to us. Once we defeat the elite, we'll have all the power.'

'It'll be beautiful,' said Deirdre.

'Yes. It will.'

Walking back through the Center, Deirdre felt jet-powered, even without Myra by her side. She wasn't ready to shut herself in with her team and stare at a screen again, so she was relieved when she saw Cinnamon hanging out a window, smoking.

'Still puffing away?' Deirdre said mischievously, leaning on the windowsill beside her.

'It passes the time,' said Cinnamon. 'How's the Internet?'

'Repetitive and huge, I expect. I haven't been doing that though. I've been with Myra. You know just hanging out, releasing defts and stuff, and we went onto a roof. It was amazing!' Realizing she was probably babbling, Deirdre stopped.

'Sounds good,' said Cinnamon without enthusiasm, and toked hard on the cigarette. 'Do you think it's working?'

'Releasing defts? God yes! I was healing!'

'No, the Internet. Are you getting through to anyone?' Deirdre stumbled in her bluster and had to re-find her footing.

'Well, not yet. They're all so busy fussing about memes while the Apocalypse creeps up on them. People are stupid, so I need to find the right trick to catch them out. Dangle the right carrot. I'll do it.'

'Right. So, you trick idiots and dangle carrots. Adam orders everyone about using his deft, so they have no choice but to do what he says, and I...help him in that. Then we destroy the elite, and we create this wonderful new world without Interference, where everyone is nice to each other...'

'Yes!'

'This brave new world, where everything is lovely, do you think they'll even want us in it?' Cinnamon said, looking at Deirdre.

'What?'

'Because it's starting to seem like if we want to fight the elite, we have to become as cynical and manipulative as they are.'

'They're going to _kill_ people!'

'I know, and I know we don't do that,' she took another drag. 'Yet. Don't you worry about it though? About who we're becoming?'

'Listen,' said Deirdre fiercely, adrenalin turning to righteous anger. 'I always used to think if you treated others with kindness you'd make the world a better place, but that's crap. If that's all you do, you achieve nothing. If you want to change the world, you must be strong enough to do difficult things. Sometimes you have to sacrifice little morals for a greater good. This is tough Cinnamon. We're trying to survive against an ancient evil that wants to destroy us, of course it's tough. Whatever doubt is getting into your head, whatever doubt they're _putting_ there, you have to crush it, or we're fucked. Ok?'

Cinnamon stared at her for a long time, then nodded and lit another cigarette.

It wasn't long before Adam managed to use his deft to arrange more interviews. Deirdre was once again called on to coach Myra, but this time it was fun, like play-acting. As they had mock interviews and voice-warming exercises, Myra listened and learned how to seduce the cameras. However, every now and then she would break the rules by sticking out her tongue or flinging her arms about. Or she'd answer unexpectedly with nonsense.

'Why do I distrust our politicians? Well, that's because I've watched them eat! They don't even use cutlery. They stick their faces into their meals and chomp like dogs!'

And Deirdre would laugh hysterically, as much with relief as with humor.

By the end of the afternoon, Deirdre was convinced Myra could stroll easily through an interview.

When they walked into the day room to join the other members of the Circle, bantering and teasing each other, Deirdre was aware of the glow of jealousy pulsating from Freyja and Adam. She liked it.

The talk show appearances went well, and Myra used all Deirdre had taught her. She repeated themes, but not anecdotes. She never strayed too far into one emotion and was always ready to laugh at herself. Most important of all, Myra spoke with sincerity and intelligence, but using phrases that could be chopped up and made easy to quote.

'Why aren't there more female religious leaders?' asked an interviewer.

'Women are told to be passive, to not challenge,' replied Myra. 'They worry so much about looking pretty and not offending anyone, it doesn't leave much room for the kind of fervent concentration needed to be a leader.'

'And you took the path less traveled by?'

'I didn't take any path,' said Myra calmly. 'I hacked my way through the jungle with a machete.'

'Don't you think that's a bit arrogant of you?'

'Arrogance is an important skill. Without it, we're just quivering drones repeating the mistakes of our ancestors, afraid to step out of line. Arrogance is strength. Just as unity is strength.'

Myra was careful to return to the truth the public could best relate to, that of a sinister elite, manipulating the populace.

'They want to make us distracted so we don't question them. They dangle shoes, celebrities and iPhones in front of us to keep us occupied. Do you see how Facebook is designed to make us think constantly about popularity? Something that should be unknowable has become countable. So, we spend our time competing for friends and thinking up puns for strangers to like. The trivial has become the source of our self-worth.'

Across the Internet these nuggets were swapped, short video clips were compiled, GIFs created.

'I didn't take any path. I hacked my way through the jungle.'

'Arrogance is strength, just as unity is strength.'

'The trivial has become the source of our self-worth.'

The irony that people took Myra's message about triviality and made it into soundbites wasn't lost on Deirdre, but it was necessary. Most of all, Deirdre felt overwhelming pride as the world took notice and the message spread. The Sphere was growing, and she was at the heart of it.

A breakfast interview was the last in the series, and when they got to the studio, Deirdre suspected a setup. Myra was to sit on the sofas for most of the morning, while other guests cooked up recipes or joined them for discussion about their latest book. However, one of those other guests was Herbert Dibstaff, the journalist who had been so scathing of Myra's first interview. He'd apparently been brought in to add tension. The production staff were hoping for an argument, and Deirdre didn't want a situation that might make Myra look foolish.

'Herbert was sitting in makeup when Deirdre found him. She attempted polite small-talk, but he made it clear he considered conversation a distraction from his enjoyment of looking at himself in the mirror. Eventually, Deirdre summoned up her righteous indignation.

'You were nasty about Myra. It was mean,' she said. This was less forceful than she'd hoped, and Dibstaff flapped his hand dismissively while the makeup artist fluffed up his skin with powder.

'That's show business, honey. Get used to it or get another job.'

'This isn't my job! This is _everything_.' To Deirdre the words were huge and they blotted out any argument, but Herbert didn't bother to speak to show his derision. A look was enough.

Deirdre tried to work out a convincing way to explain to him that his job was worthless when faced with the elite, that they would obliterate him and all he cared about. However, he didn't believe in the elite, and she suspected he would ridicule threats about goo. She was still chewing through the frustration when Myra walked in on an advert break to check her hair and chug some espresso.

Deirdre was willing Myra to turn vicious, to snarl and spit while fire sparked from her fingers. Instead, Myra smiled politely, sat in the chair next to Herbert and briefly eyed the mirror. If Myra knew who Herbert was, it didn't show on her face.

Suddenly she sat up and stared at him with intensity.

'What?' he said nervously, shifting in his seat and wincing as some face powder went his eye.

'You,' said Myra. 'Do I know you?'

He shrugged, 'Probably.'

'He wrote that article about you,' said Deirdre, enjoying her role as a tattletale. 'He called you a pound shop preacher.'

'No, it's not that,' said Myra. She looked at the mirror, then back at Herbert. 'You have great power, don't you?'

'Huh. Tell that to my wife.'

'You don't know? I can see you hide it, but it still spills out. It's like an aura. I've never seen anyone with the kind of natural energy you have. It's incredible. It's beautiful. You're not here by chance, I needed to meet you.'

Herbert was thrown as his cynicism wrestled with his ego.

'Even now,' Myra continued, as she gazed up at him with a look of childlike awe, 'you're trying to hide it. Have you ever tried to use it? To develop your psychic abilities?'

'Well, sure, any journalist needs a bit of a sixth sense.'

'No, this isn't a trivial thing. Why downplay it?' Myra paused and shook her head. 'Often when someone has great power, others try to hurt them because they're afraid. Maybe you started to show signs of your ability once, and it scared those around you, so they told you to stop, to hide it.'

'Well, my dad was fairly no-nonsense, a practical man.'

'Yes, your brilliance must have threatened him.'

Deirdre watched, humbled, as Myra twisted Herbert around her little finger. Complimenting and consoling until he agreed to sign up for a stay at the Center and write about it for the paper.

By the time the two of them joined the presenters on the sofa, Herbert was an acolyte. He was a man whose dignity was tightly woven with his cynicism, so he was reluctant to show more than grudging respect and wary interest. But from Herbert Dibstaff, that was enough.

After the success of the interviews, the number of scholars and Sphere-curious, as they were known, had grown. More people started turning up to hear Myra speak and each of the centers was full to bursting, but it was online the spread of Myra's words was unstoppable. A thousand memes hatched and spawned a thousand more. Myra-related blogs appeared, and GIFs sprouted up to mock them. Bored followers uploaded videos of Myra's speeches auto-tuned into a song, or images of Myra superimposed next to the Dalai Lama or riding on the Sphynx.

'The deft hashtag has been trending on Twitter now for three days,' said Deirdre proudly at the next meeting. 'Twitterers are attributing even irrelevant things to Myra. They teach the cat to use the litter tray? Hashtag deft. They learn to juggle? Hashtag deft.' Then she sat back smugly to daydream while Adam talked profits.

Cinnamon was right, she thought, fighting evil was nothing like the movies. It never occurred to her it would involve meetings.

Perhaps that was the point, she thought. The elite made movies to dupe the populace into believing heroism was all about battles and guns, so nobody would develop the skills they really needed. Skills such as staying alert in times of boredom or staying healthy in the face of biscuits. Certainly, in all her years of sitting in meetings at Stronk and Lowry, she'd never learned how to achieve these things. Instead, she'd mastered how to look as if she was listening, when her mind was elsewhere. She realized that while mulling these thoughts over she hadn't heard a word, and she tuned back in.

'I've been studying the accounts,' said Adam. He clicked through graphs on the giant screens, showing bar charts, pie charts and graphs that compared donation sources and expenses. 'Our figures are good, with income increasing 4.3% over the last six months. However, if we are to divert as much money as possible into promotion, then we need to cut away some dead wood and pointless expenditure. Reduce food costs with the subscholars, for example.'

Deirdre drifted away again. Torque and Cabbage hadn't turned up, which didn't help. Sometimes watching Cabbage doodling an egg sprouting a fish-tree was the only thing that kept her awake while Adam was talking. Now, her eyes were crossing with the effort of staying open.

A plan was half underway when she focused on the conversation again. 'This is about utilizing the moment,' Adam was saying.

'Yes, it's time our followers stopped thinking of the Sphere as a fun game they can play,' said Myra. 'Defts are not toys, they are weapons. People need to be afraid.'

'You agree, Deirdre?' asked Freyja.

Deirdre didn't want to admit that she'd lost track of the conversation, so she used flattery, which was always popular, 'They need to understand the importance of your message, Myra.'

'Exactly,' said Adam. 'We're fighting total annihilation. We need an army, not a playgroup. If they don't understand their oppression, our new followers have no reason to grow up, and if we want them ready to fight, they need to be adults.' Around the room, everyone nodded, and Deirdre nodded with them, but she had a bad feeling about what she was agreeing to.

'Then we're decided,' said Myra. 'It's time to rack up the fear.'

'Deirdre,' said Adam. 'Get your team to start releasing personal stories on social media. Anything that makes our followers seem targeted,' he said.

'Targeted?' asked Deirdre. Her bad feeling turned into a flush of panic.

'It doesn't have to be big: bad dreams, stares in the street, threatening letters from the council. Throw in a couple of physical attacks. Build the paranoia. Everyone loves the chance to be a victim. Utilize the shit out of that,' said Adam.

'Right,' said Deirdre. Her panic was now in its second flush. 'You mean invent stories of persecution.'

'We need to jumpstart a positive momentum. You know the way this works. It's pretty routine,' he said.

'Yes, but that's wrong, isn't it? I mean that involves deliberately scaring our followers,' said Deirdre.

'And what's the alternative? Let everyone waltz merrily to their doom, is that better?'

'Don't weaken now,' said Myra quietly. 'We're getting close. Use your faith to give you strength.'

Deirdre nodded, earnestly. She continued to nod earnestly until each of them had left. She kept on nodding awhile, and then simply stared. Cinnamon's words sashayed back and forth mockingly in her head:

This brave new world, do you think it will even want us?

10

Over the next week, Deirdre's team conspired to create a climate of fear. Deirdre had expected them to resist, and she was ready with a rousing speech, 'We are fighting annihilation, we need an army, not a playgroup.'

'However, they had only shrugged, and Matt said, 'I've done worse,' before returning to his computer screen.

So Deirdre's team wrote on forums, Facebook, and under news articles about being shouted at in the streets for being followers of the Sphere. Or claimed they'd missed out on sure-thing promotions due to their beliefs. They described sinister tales of finding dead, headless animals on their doorsteps, and sudden attacks of exhaustion or nausea. The stories were small, but they started to build.

Once the seed had been planted, scholars across the Internet watered and fed it with their paranoia. Being a follower ceased to be about gaining defts, it became about the struggle. They all stopped bickering and competing. Instead they began to huddle together for support, their persecution bringing them closer. After a while, Deirdre's team no longer needed to introduce stories, the followers wrote their own, describing the strange problems happening in their lives.

Does anyone know how to make my car more secure? I think someone's been fiddling with the engine. It makes a weird clunking noise when it starts.

And:

I've been coughing up phlegm, and my throat is always sore, can they put Interference in the food?

And:

They're giving me migraines. I can hardly think for the pain.

As the stories increased, Deirdre's team guided responses, assuring people that by working to remove Interference and donating money, they could protect themselves. She worked in a daze, focused on the details of her work, keeping her guilt on the downlow.

Then, one day Matt said, 'I don't think this us anymore.'

'What?'

'There are too many stories coming back, and they can't be imagining this stuff. I mean, this guy's car just exploded, you can't imagine that.'

'It's true,' said Claire. 'There's been a spate of fires that only affects our followers in Wisconsin. Their local paper reported on it. And I've been reading the blog of a teenage scholar. She says her friends have been having nightmares and fevers, but only the ones who chant at school. I think this is the elite. I think they're attacking our followers on the outside.'

'Are you sure?'

'Maybe they figure if they can't stop people listening to us, then they can scare them away.'

'If you aren't causing this, what are you doing?' sneered Adam suddenly from behind them. Moving quietly had never been a characteristic of his, but there he stood with hands on hips, big and disapproving. Deirdre dragged him outside the door.

'I'm not sure it's very helpful to be shouting at my team,' she said.

'Not helpful? This isn't some beatnik love-in, Deirdre. People will die if you don't get through to them.'

'We are getting through to them! Our numbers have grown massively. It's gone global. This is it. It's happening.'

'Not fast enough! And according to your staff, you're not even the ones causing the fear, that's the elite. They're the ones calling the shots.'

'What do you want us to do? People are already scared.'

'Then make them more scared! Don't piddle about with drivel like "Ooh my cat did a shit on the carpet, it must be the elite,"' said Adam in a mock-whiny voice. 'Start saying people have gone missing, the police have arrested scholars, or they've been refused medical treatment. Make an effort!'

'Adam! I won't do that! What are you thinking?'

'Oh, fucking what? That's the problem with you people, you can never get anything done. You seem to think saving the human race is all rainbows and teddy bears. You need to wake up to reality soon, or there won't be any reality left to wake up to.'

Then Adam spun on his heels and marched away down the corridor. Deirdre sighed and went back to her workroom.

'Fire! Get the fuck out!' a voice shouted.

Deirdre woke up, and everything was wrong. It was hot, the air was too thick, and the smell was acrid. Distant shouts and screams mixed with the yelling coming through her door and banging on the walls. Deirdre lost her haze of sleep and fright took over. She needed to escape. She tried to pull on a pair of shoes, but her fingers seemed made of rubber and her feet too clumsy to fit. She flung them aside.

Only aware of one route out of the building, she ran into the corridor to take it. She saw no sign of flames in the stairwell, but the smoke billowed up, curling around the banisters and twisting up the stairs. Heat evaporated the sweat from her face. Deirdre slammed the door and ran back in the direction of her bedroom.

She realized she was stuck. Shaking, she stood still a moment to panic, but breathing was a struggle, and her eyes were starting to sting. Then she staggered on blindly. When a coughing fit made her head spin, she began to fall over very slowly.

'Thank fuck!' shouted a voice, and she looked up to see Adam, wearing his robes, with a wet scarf over his mouth. He grabbed her hand, pulled her into a room and out of a back door onto the fire escape. The cold night air was beautiful, and she wanted to stand and gasp it into her burning lungs, but Adam pulled her on. She must have stubbed her toe and bashed her wrist a dozen times as they ran down the stairs, but she felt nothing but the dull clang of metal.

When they reached the ground, Deirdre's knees buckled, but Adam grabbed her legs and swung her up into his arms. As he strode around the side of the building, flashes and shouts appeared around them. Adam put her down and ran back without pause. Deirdre found herself looking blearily at newspaper reporters with cameras. They all shouted questions at her, but she couldn't understand them with the roar of panic in her ears.

On the driveway were ambulances, gurneys and followers moving about. With an attempt at dignity, she pulled her pajamas around her more securely and hobbled over to them, coughing. There was a constant noise of sirens, moans and crackling that made it difficult to think about anything but fear.

With relief, she found Cabbage sitting on a gurney wrapped in a blanket, and Myra dressed in her blue silk robe and breathing through an oxygen mask. But no Torque.

'He'll be somewhere, probably snoring through the whole thing,' said Myra. Deirdre looked at Cabbage who stood up, throwing off his blanket. Deirdre picked it back up to use as protection, and they ran inside. Torque's bedroom was away from the fire, and they burst into his room to find him sleeping.

'Torque, we've got to go,' said Cabbage shaking him. But Torque didn't move or stir. 'Wake up you fucker!' Cabbage shouted. 'Oh my God, he's dead! They've killed him!' he screamed. Deirdre pulled him aside and tried to ignore the thundering of her heart.

'He takes medication, Cab, that's all. It'll be alright.' Then she shook Torque violently until he grunted a protest. They both breathed a sigh of relief, and half-dragged, half-carried Torque down the stairs. Kicking open a door, they stood barefoot on the gravel holding onto one another, while all around them bellows of horror and pain continued.

Myra was now moving purposefully with Freyja and Adam. They swept through the scattered injured victims in their robes, while cameras flashed around them. They had no hesitation in knowing what to do. Myra walked up to a terrified, naked man, shivering under a blanket and coughing. She held his head and whispered something in his ear, his coughing subsided as he looked up her in wonder. She moved onto the next, a woman with her arm wrapped in gauze. Myra touched fingertips with the woman, who collapsed into sobs, falling to the floor. A paramedic stepped in and tried to drag the woman back onto the gurney, shouting at Myra to go away, but Myra ignored her and carried on.

Meanwhile Adam was walking from one injured scholar to the next, shouting at them to 'Heal thyself!' and 'Get up and walk!' Deirdre tried to join in, using her newly released ability to heal. She walked up to the nearest scholar, a young woman with a soot-streaked face, terrified eyes and a head wound.

'Everyone was freaking out,' the woman rasped, her lungs sore. 'And I fell.'

Deirdre hovered her hands above the woman's bandaged head. 'You're ok. You're going to be ok,' she said, knowing this was a weak reassurance and she was making it all up. The woman looked up and smiled.

'Thank you, I feel much better,' she said, unconvincingly. Deirdre gave up. Whatever power she had was gone, sucked away by fear. She joined Cabbage and Torque who were dazed and shaking, staring at the spreading wreckage of the Center.

'This was them, wasn't it?' whispered Deirdre, not sure if she was whispering in shock or because of the burning in her throat. 'This was the elite?' Neither answered, but Torque's wretched expression couldn't mean anything else.

As the hours drew on, they got a sense of how bad the fire damage was. In the more ornate part of the buildings, where Deirdre had her bedroom, they had managed to stop the fire when there was only smoke. However, in the newer, cheaper section, flames still licked at the black-streaked walls, as windows split and collapsed.

It wasn't long before TV crews arrived. Freyja started crying while journalists took her photo. There was a smudge of soot across her cheekbone, and her hair was wild. Adam gave an interview, speaking intensely.

'We expected to see this kind of attack, but we didn't expect it so soon. This is proof we're a threat to our hidden, unelected rulers. They see our power, so they're fighting back. We will not crumble. People watching this, go online and register your support for us. Show them you won't be intimidated. Show them you stand with us.'

Two weeks later, building works had already started to repair the damage of the fire. The new buildings were larger and better equipped, as a hefty insurance pay-out was expected.

In the next meeting of the Circle, the day room was split into those still in shock over the fire and those wanting a party.

Myra, Freyja and Adam all sat with notebooks, exchanging ideas with excitement. Freyja took the lead, showing her sketched designs for decorations.

Meanwhile Cabbage, Torque and Deirdre sat slumped and dazed. Cabbage hadn't looked up from the floor since the meeting started, and Torque was watching him, but neither said anything. Since the fire, Torque had spent much of his time staring out the window. Anything he said took a meandering route without logic. Several times he'd left the shower running, and his arms were covered in sharpie notes to himself. He looked lost in a swirl of confusion.

Freyja was not lost, and spoke while ticking off a list.

'I was thinking we might have people dressed all in black, performing dance moves around the party, to represent the Shadows,' she said. 'They can hand out the amuse-bouche. We'll rent a hall. In Chelsea, obviously.'

'Good. I know some damn high rollers there. Plenty of minor royalty too,' said Adam.

For the past week, Deirdre had spent most of her time with Torque and Cabbage, and had been slow to return to the Internet. While the fire was still raging, Adam had pushed an iPhone into her hands, insisting that she, 'Damn well, tweet something!' But her numb fingers kept slipping against the screen, and she'd given up and gone back to staring at the smoke and flashing blue lights. It was several days before she looked online and, by then, the change had already happened.

The seeds of fear she'd planted with her team over the last few weeks had now sprouted into triffids and were lurching across the web, blinding all in their way. Conspiracy theories had spread and grown. Talk of a sinister elite battled by the plucky oddballs was pulled into arguments on everything from McDonald's to the royal family.

Deirdre found it a relief that the public finally knew the weight of truth she carried with her every day. Myra was a hero. If the suffering of scholars in the hospital was discounted, then the fire was a win for the Sphere. Now this win would be celebrated with a party.

Of the three who didn't want to celebrate, only Deirdre had the mental strength to explain, so she did.

'Our people are in the hospital. We should be focusing our energy on healing them, shouldn't we?'

'This isn't just about a few individuals. This is about humanity, about survival,' said Myra, irritated.

'A party isn't going to help us survive!' exclaimed Deirdre. Myra's expression vanished, and she looked blankly at Deirdre, but Deirdre wasn't ready to give up. She tried a different tack, 'Think how this will look, we'll seem heartless.'

Myra's eyes filled with life again, and her voice softened. Taking Deirdre's hand, she said, 'We need to be united. This is our chance to prove to outsiders, but also to each other, that the elite can't break us, can't divide us. A party will prove our solidarity and celebrate the brilliance of the Sphere.'

'But with an exclusive guest list,' added Adam.

Throughout the Center, there was hustle, bustle and intent, and Deirdre felt lost inside it. Outsiders in business suits strutted about with scholars in robes having intense conversations about budgets and safety requirements. Subscholars hurried up and down the corridors carrying boxes of plates and tinsel, while Free Echelons shouted at them to 'Be careful!' and 'Move faster!'

Deirdre never usually walked further than the Center buildings or the patch of trees that Cabbage liked to climb, but she needed to get out. Wandering down the first path she came to, she carried on walking until weeds and scrappy shrubs gave way to trees. With each step further into the wood, her thoughts got lighter and her breathing got deeper.

Letting her hand sweep across the trunks of the trees and through the leaves, she shut her eyes and kept walking. Her arms were up so the breeze brushed against them. She took a deep, happy breath in and her bare foot knocked against something solid.

She expected to look down and see a log covered in moss, but instead there was a crow, its head ripped away and its intestines spilling out of the hole in its neck. Spatters of blood had smeared onto her toes. She reeled backward, and the familiar scratching began in her head, and then became like the loud screech of a nail on glass.

She turned to run, but her robes pulled her back. At first, she thought they must be snagged on a branch, but as she pulled at them in terror, she saw gnarled fingers tugging. Wild eyes gazed out at her from the undergrowth. With a scream, she ripped the robe free, and tried again to stagger away, but her legs didn't seem properly attached anymore. She saw more spindly fingers rising up from the leaves ahead of her.

With a whimper, she dragged herself from tree to tree, bile bubbling into her mouth and the air too thick to catch a breath. Her senses were battered by screeching, too high and unnatural to be heard. She didn't stop her desperate, awkward lope until she reached the Center.

Deirdre didn't tell anyone about what had happened in the wood. The memory was muddled in her mind and she couldn't be sure of what she'd seen. The only certainty was that something terrible was waiting for her and would wait until she was vulnerable and alone to strike again. She needed to stay focused on her work in the Circle and on fighting the elite. She needed to trust the only people who truly knew what the elite were capable of.

Unfortunately, she still didn't know how to help with the party. She tried to get swept up in the activity, but only ended up stumbling around annoying people.

When she and Henry had held parties, they consisted of crisps, fairy lights and an Xbox. This party involved seating plans and a schedule. It was bewildering.

Subscholars were now running back and forth with their boxes. The 'Shadows,' dressed in black, were practicing dance moves in the corridors, elegantly tip-toeing and twirling. Walking anywhere involved constant dodging and weaving between frantic people in robes and sweaty dancers in lycra. Adam spent a lot of time shouting into the phone.

Eventually, Deirdre took to hiding in her workroom, losing herself to the dense jungle of the Internet.

She was putting together a timeline of the elite throughout history, spanning the globe and the centuries. She was so lost in dates and cultures, it was a few seconds into the shouting before she realized something was wrong. Then there was an anguished scream.

She ran out, followed by Matt, who had grabbed a stapler for defense. In the corridor was Cabbage, who looked halfway through a furious row with no one. His eyes were swollen and red, his mouth moving, while he banged his fist on the wall.

'Cabbage, you ok?' Deirdre put a hand on his arm, but he backed away in fright.

'Get away from me! You're all on me. I want you out!'

'You're safe. No one's going to hurt you.'

'You are hurting me! You're all a mess. Why have you made this mess?' He put his hand to his eye and shook it so that his head rocked around like a loose post.

'We'll sort it out,' Deirdre said soothingly.

'And Lilith needs to shut up!'

'She's there?' asked Deirdre, sprouting a sudden hope.

'I've told her I'm sorry,' he said. 'And now she's just broken.' He pushed his fingers into his eyes, so Deirdre grabbed his hands and then pulled him down the corridor.

'Ok. It's ok. We'll go see Torque. He'll be able to help, won't he?' Cabbage calmed when he heard Torque's name. He nodded forlornly and let her lead him. They found Torque sitting in the sun, his back against a wall and his gaze far away. He focused his eyes when he saw Cabbage, who was now brushing his hands over his head as if he'd been caught in a swarm of flies.

'They're all angry with me. I didn't even do anything!' said Cabbage.

'Is he talking about the elite?' asked Deirdre, confused. Torque ignored her and walked Cabbage toward his room. She followed.

'Remember, this is always ok, the voices will go. Stop fighting them,' said Torque.

'But I don't like this. Why is it happening?'

'This is your Interference, remember? You have to work through it,' Torque said.

'I'm not going back in that fucking box!' screamed Cabbage.

As they reached the stairs, Deirdre let them go. She sat on the step and waited, trying to muddle through an understanding and getting nowhere. _Why are the Shadows hurting Cabbage? Is this the elite taking over?_

Half an hour later Torque came and sat beside her.

'Has that been happening a lot?' asked Deirdre. Torque sighed and shrugged, leaning back against the doorframe with his eyes closed. 'Was that coming from the Shadows? It's almost like something else,' she said.

Torque didn't open his eyes.

'Like what?' he asked.

'Like mental illness, or something.' She regretted the words as soon they fell out. They were unevolved, dangerous - Cabbage was a visionary. She switched to a safe conversation. 'You're good with him. When he saw you, he relaxed,' said Deirdre.

'He can be calming too,' said Torque. 'When he's ok. He has such a big heart.' Torque opened his eyes and picked at a hangnail. 'He reminds me of my mum. She heard voices. With her, they called it schizophrenia.'

'That must have been tough for you,' said Deirdre, finding her own words trite as she said them, but Torque was unflustered.

'Sometimes life is tough, isn't it?' he said. Deirdre smiled sympathetically, but her thoughts were already away, because something Torque said had confused her.

While walking back toward her workroom, a thought was tickling at the back of Deirdre's mind. She'd spent so many months at the Center, feeling and not paying attention, but now alarms were going off in her head, because something odd was going on.

Deirdre was so caught up in the whirl of half-thoughts she didn't realize she'd taken a wrong turning and was walking toward the attic, but she kept going, suddenly sure of her intent.

_Now there are two schizophrenic mothers, how unlikely is that?_ she thought. When she reached the attic, she didn't even register the heat prickling at her skin, she was too intent on her sleuthing.

She went to the box with the used exercise books and searched through until she found the ones owned by Dylan. She'd never looked deeper into the box because the Shadows had interrupted her, but now she pulled out the notebooks at the bottom.

They were the kind that came from a supermarket in packs of five, and the notes inside were typical of a young teenage boy. There was a jumble of ideas: band names and song lyrics, doodles of dragons, an octopus and drawing of Audrey Hepburn. The words _Juju is a turd_ , were crossed out and _Dylan is a wassock_ , written underneath in a different hand. Deirdre grinned to herself. Then she stopped grinning as she thought about the way Myra looked at Torque with the kind of well-worn irritation that comes from years of bickering.

Torque doesn't look much like Myra, but they have the same wonkiness to their features.

She believed she knew who Dylan was, but Juju? She reached the end of that notebook and picked up another.

This had the same drawings of cells she'd seen in Torque's biology textbook, plus a few sketched symbols, like the young Dylan had been trying to invent a code. Information slotted into place, one piece after another, but there were still too many holes. She picked up the final notebook, this one had multi-colored biro drawings on the cover. A pencil-written title declared it to be _DM and JMM's investigation of the Truth._

_J for Juju and M for Megat_ , she thought, and flicked impatiently through the pages. Inside were scribbled notes about the Illuminati and Bohemian Grove, and an article about the _13 Families Who Rule the World._

She turned to the back page of the book where there was a crudely drawn copy of an official document, written by Dylan irritated by his sister's meddling. It said:

This is a legally binding contract to certify that the undersigned Juju Myra Megat will not touch my stuff or break into my room while I'm away.

Beneath this, the young Juju had signed the promise to her brother, the wassock. The last piece fell into place.

Deirdre ran back to the steps where Torque was sitting and waved the notebook.

'What's going on Torque? How do you know Myra?' Torque looked up at her placidly saying nothing, so she said, 'She's your sister, isn't she? Your name's Dylan.'

Torque shrugged, 'Didn't you know?'

'No! What? Why did you keep this a secret? Why didn't she say?'

Torque sighed, 'She's always been weird about it. I think she's a bit ashamed of me.'

'Why?'

'I suppose she expected more of me.' Deirdre felt silly being angry and sat down next to him. 'We came up with a lot of the belief together, originally,' he said.

'You mean you started the Center with her?'

'In the beginning, there was no Center. It was just the two of us as teenagers, thinking, _What if we're being told lies? What if mum isn't paranoid, but seeing the truth?_ I did some of the research, although I never liked the codes much.' Torque's attention was starting to wander.

'This was all when you were kids? Before your accident?' asked Deirdre. Torque stared at his hands. He ignored her and carried on speaking, his voice getting fainter.

'Then Myra had this theory about unlocked abilities, that we should find a way to access them. How there must be a way to free up the brain.' His voice drifted away, and Deirdre left him staring into space. A can of worms had opened in her head, and she couldn't fathom how to clear it up.

It was difficult to believe anybody liked fancy parties. A drafty, echoing hall of people stuffed full of expectations and hidden rules, then drowned in alcohol. Still, Deirdre thought, some guests appeared comfortable. They shimmied from one trivial discussion to another that was almost identical. They brayed with easy laughter, asked appropriately empty questions and never seemed to fret about having food stuck to their faces. They understood the dance of social interaction.

The party was spectacular in the ways expensive parties are supposed to be: wasteful and indulgent; glamorous, yet quirky. Chandeliers made of intricate origami hung between glass icicles, and shreds of silver and white paper tumbled from the air vents periodically. Young women dressed in black as Shadows brought around trays of Kobe beef and moose milk cheese, or ironic octopops stuck in a grapefruit, with camembert on sticks. Deirdre stood caught between several groups of people not knowing which way to turn.

Freyja and Adam fitted into a party of this kind. They didn't need to fake ease or stutter over their words. Freyja was purring with wide-eyed sweetness. While Adam strutted, flexing his demand deft and smiling, getting guests to fetch him drinks or write checks.

At one end of the exquisitely decorated hall, a commotion was occurring. By an exit, Deirdre saw Torque blocking, guiding and then shoving Cabbage, hissing frantically. Then Deirdre realized Cabbage was trying to get into the party completely naked. Surrounded by expense and politeness, this was the most perfect entrance anybody could have made. Deirdre hid behind a glass of champagne to chuckle. Freyja's expression was one of pure distaste. Once Cabbage had been herded out, the dance continued, with Deirdre out of step and wishing she, too, had thought to strip off and get ushered out.

When Cinnamon swished into the party wearing a long, red silk dress that trailed behind her, there was a hush. She moved with a grace she'd not had before. The dress was cut to show off her curvy figure, and her honey-blond hair was piled high. Her lips were red and her eyelids smoky. Deirdre experienced a jarring mix of delight, jealousy and confusion, as Cinnamon glided around the polished floor, smiling too much. As she reached Deirdre, she leaned in close, and Deirdre could smell the strawberry perfume wafting up from her cleavage.

'I reckon I've got about ten minutes before I trip over and land headlong in a tray of drinks,' whispered Cinnamon. Deirdre burst out laughing, as Cinnamon was pulled away by Freyja who simply had to introduce her to a media tycoon.

As Freyja guided Cinnamon across the room, Deirdre heard her whisper, 'Director at CNN. _Try_ to act adorable.' Cinnamon affected a pout, and lowered her head, simpering as she met the director. It looked forced, as if she was channeling Princess Diana through the eyes of a cartoonist. However, the director seemed happy to lap it up, chuckling and kissing Cinnamon's hands while his eyes flicked around her body enthusiastically.

Deirdre wanted to mingle, but all conversations around her were about takeovers and Ferraris, held by spoilt, vacuous people who she believed were perfect for turning into goo.

'Make a bit of fucking effort,' hissed Adam, at her shoulder. Deirdre stood up straighter, and using her cocktail as a talisman before her, started a conversation with a lady nearby. The woman's plastic surgery and fake tan made her look like an orange fish in a wig.

'Are you enjoying the party?' asked Deirdre.

The woman sighed and spoke with a bored drawl. 'Well, I suppose it's good to get away for a while, my portfolio is taking over my life at the moment. Although, I'm not impressed with the music, couldn't they have got an orchestra in?'

'Oh, you like music?' asked Deirdre with fake interest. As the woman droned on, she let her mind drift away while her mouth made appropriate noises.

According to Freyja's meticulous party timetable, a change in the air came at nine o'clock. Extra oxygen was released, and the Mozart that was playing distorted to cause a trippy sensation. Freyja, Adam, Cinnamon and Deirdre all stepped back from the conversations they were having.

Into the oxygen-pumped drama stepped Myra, and everyone shut up and stared. Myra's blue silk robes swept the stage, the hood hung down her back, and her hair was unstyled. Her calm, brown-eyed gaze swept over the crowd, as she walked with an utter lack of hurry to the stage. Adam started an applause that grew, then died down when Myra spread her arms and brought her hands together.

'My friends,' said Myra to the silence. 'Welcome to the Sphere of Truth and Freedom, where we uncover evil and right wrongs. Where we believe in unity with one another and connection to the natural world around us. Now many of you are only here for the food.' There were chuckles among the guests, jokes about greed were always popular with the rich. 'But I hope while you're here, you will take the time to learn about us. So many people never truly reach their potential, and so many spend their lives feeling hollow and lost. At the Sphere, you can find out how exceptional you really are. Our followers have gained incredible skills, from astral projection to precognition. And they do it within a community that nourishes their spirits as much as it nourishes their minds.

'Stay with us and discover a whole new you. Because now is the time for you to be free, and to learn what you can become with that freedom.'

Cinnamon, Adam and Freyja waited ten seconds after the applause had stopped before they swept back in to talk, and the hubbub of the party swelled once again. Deirdre stayed back, near the food, watching Myra glide through the chatter, bringing depth to every conversation she had. She embodied light. Her fluid dance through the crowd was never smug or insincere. Deirdre was proud to know her and sickened to see the vapid guests bestowed with a wisdom they didn't deserve and couldn't understand. She leaned against a table and reached behind herself to grab truffles and dip them in liquid chocolate.

'But what's the answer?' said a young man with more double chin than actual chin, his hair slicked and combed so that perfect lines formed from his forehead to his neck. 'Religions have been trying to solve the problems of humanity for millennia, and they've got nowhere.'

'Because they've been looking at the wrong problems,' explained Myra. 'The Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, all these great books contain words of wisdom, but the religions built up around them don't preach those words. Instead, they focus on pointless details like what day you should worship on, or your sexuality. These are just ways of driving us apart.'

'And what do you focus on?'

Myra said, 'We focus on releasing your true brilliance. We wash away all your doubt and pain. Everything that holds you back.' Myra spread her hands and spoke to everyone. 'Each of you has the power to be spectacular, you only need to know how to unlock those powers. Join us, and we will show you how.' Then Myra swept onto the next group, leaving an awed, and slightly confused, silence behind her.

Deirdre was on her fifth gold leaf truffle and seventh cocktail when she started to become a little unwell. She edged toward the nearest door and exited into a drafty stairwell, then sat on the stairs. She wished she was wearing jeans and trainers, so she could disappear into the street and get lost.

'Are you hiding?' Myra had entered the stairwell without a sound and stood staring at Deirdre calmly.

'Sorry, I'm not good at parties,' said Deirdre. Myra laughed.

'Me neither, awful things.'

'You seem relaxed,' Deirdre said, intending it to be a compliment, but as the words came out, she realized her tone was more like an accusation. Myra looked at her penetratingly.

'Is something on your mind, Deirdre?'

For once Deirdre's superego was too drunk to stop her speaking up.

'Well, maybe. I can't help thinking, you know, is this right? These people, are they who we want with us?' Myra looked at Deirdre without expression and Deirdre's blood stopped in her veins. 'I mean, they have money, and we need money, but...' She had nothing else to say after the 'but.'

Myra's face calmed, and she touched Deirdre's arm.

'We accept all people. Once we start excluding someone because they don't fit our criteria, then we've become something bad.'

'But won't these people be aligned with the elite? Won't they be working for them?' asked Deirdre.

'Who better to have on our side?'

'What is our side, Myra? Are we definitely the good guys? Because I'm spending all my time manipulating people. And I don't understand what's happened to Cinnamon, but it looks wrong.'

'You knew this wouldn't be easy. That's why we need to stick together,' Myra's voice was quiet, but there was a warning in there. Deirdre ignored it.

'Are we even together though? Because you never told me you were Torque's sister, did you?'

'So?'

'So, he grew up in London, which means all the Borneo stuff is lies!'

The words had splurged out of her, and she tried to ameliorate them with a weak smile. Myra stared back at her with an expression of utter disgust, as if Deirdre were a stain.

'For fuck's sake, you cowering twat! You stand before your Savior and dare to ask your pathetic questions?' Deirdre began to stammer out an apology as Myra thundered her words. They echoed, as the strip light above them flickered, subdued by Myra's fury.

'You think you know what truth is. That you know what I am? I give you as much truth as your feeble mind can take, to protect you. How many times have I had to coddle you through yet another fit of weakness? To cajole you while you whimper on?' Deirdre stood unable to move. A stupid, frightened expression contorted her face and her hands were frozen in front of her. Myra continued, filling the hallway with a tidal wave of anger.

'You've spent a lifetime scuttling in the wake of the mighty, taking no chances, making no decisions and you don't get to speak to me about good. _I_ am right, I'm the most right you will ever know. Be grateful for any crumbs of truth I throw to you because you would starve on your own.'

And with that Myra swept from the stairwell, slamming the door behind her. The strip light flickered once, and then went out, leaving Deirdre staring into the darkness unblinking.

She stood for several minutes with her thoughts petrified. Then she fled the building through a fire exit.

Once outside, she kicked off her ridiculous high-heeled shoes, and let the tarmac chill her feet. Still numb, she took random streets until she found the Thames, and stood leaning against the barrier listening to water lap at the stone walls below her.

She was drunk and didn't know where to go. She watched Londoners stagger around her clutching alcopops. The girls carried Hello Kitty balloons and wore sparkly dresses. While the boys sung football chants and made leery passes at the girls. They were acting like teenagers, but they looked weathered and old. Deirdre both pitied and envied them. They were clueless that their minds had been intentionally reduced to this, and weren't aware of the doom they faced. She'd be like an alien to them.

She needed to escape the noise and started walking, unsure which direction to take. Fate did its thing, and after a few minutes of weaving her way down the street, a car pulled up alongside her. Cabbage leaned out of a rear window and shouted her name.

Torque was driving the car, which even a drunken Deirdre found alarming. Cabbage had a blanket wrapped around him. Although she wasn't sure she was safe with forgetful, easily distracted Torque driving, it was getting cold, and she was lost. She climbed into the front seat.

'Excuse Cabbage,' said Torque. 'He's decided to abandon clothes.'

'They're wrong,' explained Cabbage.

'Wrong how?' asked Deirdre, glad to have a reassuringly ridiculous conversation.

'Morally. Like a thought got twisted and everyone went along with it, and now we're stuck with the wrong because nobody's speaking out. Well, I'm making a stand!'

Deirdre looked at Torque who raised his eyebrows. It was late in the evening, and as they drove through the London streets, people had no interest in sticking to the pavements or obeying traffic lights. It was easier when they left the city behind and could move more smoothly.

Deirdre forgot her nervousness and remembered why she was running away.

'Torque, I think Myra hates me. She called me a cowering twat,' said Deirdre. 'I think I've ruined it all.'

Torque turned to give her a sympathetic look and Deirdre panicked because he seemed to have forgotten about the road. Then he returned his attention to his driving and steered the car to the left of the white lines,

'She'll get over it,' he said. 'She gets angry then forgets about it.'

'Oh. And she lied about Borneo, didn't she?'

'She's always been one for make-believe. I wouldn't worry about it.'

'Oh.' The frenzied churning in her stomach subsided, and she looked out the window, trying to feel relieved, but instead she felt anger of her own.

'When she gave that speech at the party, she talked as if the Sphere was all superpowers and finding meaning, like some hippy commune. She knew they wouldn't like talk of a mean elite, 'cos that's what _they_ are! It wasn't about truth. She just wanted their money.'

Torque nodded but said nothing and Deirdre burrowed deeper into her thoughts, whirring through them like a drill.

'I mean, what are we, Torque? What are we doing?'

'Macramé and French cuisine!' Cabbage suddenly shouted from the back seat while punching the air. Torque smiled into the mirror and then asked Deirdre, 'What do you want us to do?'

'Fight the good fight!'

'Is any fighting good?' asked Torque, and Deirdre thumped the glove box with her foot.

'Yes! If it keeps us alive. If it stops evil!'

'Are we doing that?' Torque asked, and Deirdre's rage shriveled and fell off.

'I think so,' she whined.

She felt suddenly small, because Myra was right, she did spend her life in the wake of the mighty. She'd never spoken up, never fought back. Deirdre stared bitterly out of the window, as the suburbs, then trees and fields, whizzed past. The questions marched back and forth, and Myra's words danced a mocking dance. With all the contradictory movement, Torque had to stop the car a few times, so she could throw up.

Other than vomiting, the journey back to the Center was easy, Torque drove cautiously and conscientiously. It wasn't until they arrived home and he dropped his keys and forgot to pick them up, Deirdre realized it had been difficult for him. Thoughts clattering, she guided Torque and Cabbage to a comfy living room and left them, Cabbage chattering words in rhyme and Torque staring into space. Then she crawled to bed, the last drunken thought on her mind was, _If Myra only gives me the truth I can handle, what else don't I know?_

The next day Deirdre didn't feel much like talking. Her stomach lurched when she opened her mouth to speak and her brain had become like a heavy ball disconnected from her skull and rolling around whenever she moved. Memories from the night before swirled and dissipated like phantoms. She remembered how angry she had been with Myra, but was already shifting the blame to herself. She had been weak, again.

When her phone bleeped an incoming email, her mood sank further as she read about another meeting of the Circle.

In the day room, Deirdre did her best to shrink into herself, wishing her physical size correlated to her confidence. Myra acted as if nothing had happened and the argument had only been a drunken dream. Cinnamon was there. Even wearing jeans and a t-shirt she looked beautiful, her large, fragile eyes framed by an excess of hair. Cabbage wasn't there, so Adam spoke to Torque in his place.

'We need to find out from the Shadows what's going to happen next, and Cabbage is our best hope of doing that. We barely escaped that fire alive and several of our new subscholars have got ill, so clearly the elite are still getting in. It's only a matter of time before they get to us, to Myra. You're going to have to put some pressure on him, speed him up.'

Torque chewed his lip nervously. 'I can't, he's pushing himself too much already. He's becoming more erratic. It's destroying him. He needs calm.'

'There's no time for calm!' shouted Adam.

'There has to be, or you'll risk losing him altogether.'

Adam summoned up the entirety of his deft, broadening his shoulders and making himself big. Even his eyeballs seemed to get bigger so they bulged from their sockets. Torque didn't shift.

'The Shadows will speak to us as they need, Adam. If they're not talking to Cabbage, then we're not ready to hear,' said Torque.

Adam was bristling and clenching with the double indignity of being told he was wrong and having an order refused.

'Perhaps you should tell that to the poor soul who collapsed this morning. Although you'll find it tricky, from what I've heard he's not conscious.'

'The answer is no,' Torque said firmly. As soon as Adam looked away, he visibly shriveled, his skin turning ashen as he slumped into labored breathing.

'Fine,' said Adam. 'To other matters. Freyja?' Adam said, switching the tension off without effort.

Freyja was sitting close to Cinnamon, stroking her enormous hair, made luxurious with weaves and tonal dyes. The gesture was designed to appear affectionate and caring, but to Deirdre, it looked more like grooming, and instinctively she wanted to snatch Freyja's hand away.

'Well, Cinnamon will be working with our backbencher. We're hoping to get a question raised in parliament.'

'What question?' asked Myra.

'We haven't decided yet, but at first something small about charity status, just to see if it's possible. You know, Scientology succeeded in changing the legal definition of a religion? Imagine how much respect we'd get if we did something like that.' Freyja beamed at them all, her hand no longer stroking Cinnamon's hair, but clutching at it.

'But how can you get a politician to raise questions? What's Cinnamon going to be doing?' Deirdre said.

'She has defts that can sway the intentions of silly men,' said Freyja with a sickeningly sweet voice; tipping her head. She smiled at Cinnamon and took her hand.

'Sway them how?' said Deirdre.

'It's fine, Deirdre,' said Cinnamon. 'Sacrifice little morals, right?' She gave an embarrassed laugh.

'Exactly, babe,' said Freyja.

'And anything else from you, Freyja?' asked Myra, 'You were going to hold a focus group to work out what people wanted from the centers.'

'Oh yes,' said Freyja, flicking through her notebook. 'Very enlightening. We found that scholar wannabes were drawn in by tragedies, and convinced by the troubles we've experienced recently.' She looked smugly at Adam. 'However, sometimes they thought the gatherings lacked direction. Apparently, many people attending assumed Myra herself would be speaking. I was thinking we could arrange some kind of link up. You know, have Myra speaking live to gatherings at Centers all over the world.'

Myra nodded and said, 'Yes, that sounds ideal.'

'Plus, it became clear we should make use of angels. My focus groups are suggesting angels are very big right now.'

'Do we have angels? I thought we had Shadows,' said Deirdre.

'Well, angels are like Shadows, aren't they? I mean they're the same thing,' Freyja said.

'No!' exclaimed Myra in disbelief. Adam quickly laughed over her and started talking about his exciting new plans for management restructuring, and how initiating an organizational review was a positive and strategic step in the delegation and event facilitating process.

It was a relief to leave. For Deirdre the thrill of being part of something mighty was fading. Now she suspected the mighty could crush her and not even notice the crunch.

Despite the appearance of a truce with Myra, Deirdre's team shrunk over the following week. She now had only three to help her: Matt, Claire and Tom. In alarm that she was slipping from the Circle, she clung on tighter and tried to make herself and her team indispensable.

They worked at coming up with new merchandise: t-shirts and mugs declaring: _Time to be free_ , or _Myra the Messiah_ ; plus several books analyzing the history of the Center and Cryptomorphica's many codes. Deirdre also decided to get Matt to teach her basic computer surveillance methods. She told herself this might be a useful skill for a member of the Circle to have, a way to join the fight. Perhaps she could break into the mainframe of the elite. She ignored the fact that she didn't know what a mainframe was.

On one soggy, dull afternoon, Deirdre was struggling to write the advert copy for a smoothie, designed to release Interference by detoxing the body. She didn't notice the arrival until she heard gasps and scraping of chairs. She looked up to see the members of her team standing and bowing. Claire was crying.

'Hullo Myra, what brings you here?' Deirdre said.

'I thought this was a chance to spend some time together. Visit the new build,' said Myra flashing a smile, and Deirdre could see Claire's knees buckle. As her team quivered with awe around her, Deirdre absorbed their emotion and stepped out of the room with her Messiah, her thoughts twitching only slightly.

Following the fire, Deirdre hadn't often moved around the Center and was amazed at how much had been rebuilt. As Deirdre and Myra walked through a new, shiny wing, scholars fell to the floor and Myra would move her hand above them like a blessing. The followers even appeared to know who Deirdre was, and would look up at her with adoration then drop their gaze. She found herself strutting, waving her own hand, feeling important.

She'd expected this to be an aimless wander, but Myra was heading somewhere with purpose, and they arrived at a sign announcing _Trial Corridor_.

'This is new,' said Deirdre.

'Scholars were gaining defts too slowly, and we needed to speed it up. We've had such a surge in membership since the fire, but every time we get bigger, we're taunting the elite.'

'You think they're planning another attack? Another fire?'

'The fire was nothing. If they wanted to destroy the whole Center, they could have. A few fire engines wouldn't have stopped them. They haven't begun to show their power. They're waiting.'

'For what?'

'I don't know. Until we annoy them enough, perhaps. Whatever it is, eventually they'll move in for the kill.' Myra spoke matter-of-factly as they continued down the corridor with black and white checkered floor tiles. There were a series of doors leading off it, and in each was a circular window.

'You're talking like we can't stop them,' said Deirdre.

'We can't, not yet. First, we have to start thinking bigger. Be more efficient,' said Myra, peering in through the windows. Inside each room, a scholar was attempting to free themselves.

In one, an overweight, distraught woman was surrounded by cakes and mirrors. She plucked at her hair and rubbed her hands over her face. There were flies buzzing around the cakes, and Deirdre wondered how long the woman had been in there. In the next room, a man was rigid with terror while a hooded figure put large spiders on his face. It took a moment to see past the distortion in his frightened features, and realize he was one of the men from Lilith's sentencing, from the old Circle.

'Is that...?' she started to say, but Myra interrupted her while she walked on.

'It's possible to become re-contaminated with Interference,' said Myra. 'Those who question me must learn once again.' For the next Trial, the music to the Teletubbies was playing at full volume. Deirdre looked at Myra confused, then at the typewritten form in a clear plastic folder on the door. She read it aloud.

'Interference: childhood trauma due to abuse.' Deirdre was about to comment, but Myra had moved on.

'Claustrophobia is a pretty common source of Interference,' said Myra enthusiastically. She was standing in front of a doorless room. Inside was a wall of drawers. They were a few feet wide and high and covered in holes. Each room was labeled with a typical name, like 'Ogre' and 'Delight.'

'There are people inside?' said Deirdre, her voice had become hoarse. 'How long have they been there?'

'Since introducing a better system of freeing people, we've had a dramatic increase in defts - predictions, remote viewing, telekinesis. With a super-powered army, we _can_ stop them.' Deirdre tried to keep breathing.

'Is something wrong?' asked Myra. Deirdre shook her head.

'It's all got a lot _bigger_ ,' she squeaked. _And more insane_ , she thought.

Myra took Deirdre's hands and looked so deeply into her eyes she felt as if the contents of her head were spilling out and rolling down the hall.

'I brought you here because I'm worried about you, Deirdre. I need you to know what's happening and to be part of it. You used to have the energy, the strength, but now you're fading. I think the elite are getting in. I think they're infecting you. You have to fight them. Can you do that?' Deirdre nodded dumbly.

'Good. Tonight I'm broadcasting online, and I want you with me.' Then she turned and walked away.

Back at her workroom, Deirdre had given up pretending to herself she was working. Whenever she tried to focus on a new slogan, her mind would throw up signs the elite were invading her head. She thought of a strange dream she'd had where she pushed Adam off a cliff. Or the spots that kept sprouting on her chin. As a desperate distraction, she started searching Facebook for people she once knew.

She found Henry. He was running a shelter for homeless people in Manchester, those _trying to get back on their feet after home life upheaval_. His website claimed, _Here, vulnerable people can find security, advice, and somebody to lean on_. Henry's smiling face shone out from the corner of the page. There he was, her Erstwhile Henry, acting like a hero.

_How fucking easy_ , she thought, angrily. _Doing good things without complications_. _Helping the vulnerable, where is the challenge?_ While she walked a moral tightrope, in terror of falling into the abyss or being snatched by evil, he trundled along the well-signposted path of goodness. Her resolve hardened and set. _I fight the true fight_ _because people like you don't have the guts to do it properly,_ she thought.

Then she sat playing Candy Crush and tried not to think again.

After half an hour, the exploding fruits took on a new level of irritating. She shut down the computer and went in search of space.

Since the fire, many areas had been closed off for rebuilding work. Deirdre often became thrown off course and accidentally took new routes through dusty hallways or abandoned courtyards. Today she found herself walking down some brick steps into a garden of weeds and rubble, where Cinnamon was sitting on a wall with a cigarette. Deirdre hadn't seen her since the meeting and decided she had to find out what was happening.

'Hi,' she said.

'Hey,' said Cinnamon. They sat not speaking, listening to birds tweeting, watching a few fluffy clouds move across a blue sky. Cinnamon sat very still, but Deirdre could sense the truth inside her, wound up like rubber bands inside a golf ball, waiting to spill out.

'It's such a beautiful day, it doesn't seem like anything bad could happen here,' said Deirdre.

'Bad things happen everywhere,' said Cinnamon.

'Right,' said Deirdre. _Sod it_ , she thought. 'What is it you do for Adam?'

Cinnamon laughed without joy. 'You heard, I sway silly men.'

'Hmm?'

'They love me, for a few minutes anyway. Long enough for Adam to get them to sign stuff.' She took a drag on her cigarette. 'Checks mostly.'

'Right. What kind of men?'

'Rich, powerful ones. That's who I spend my time with now, rich, powerful men.'

'And what's that like?' asked Deirdre.

'The food is good. The conversation is dull. The jewelry is expensive.' Cinnamon wasn't looking at Deirdre. Her voice was flat.

'And the men?' asked Deirdre.

'Men are dogs, panting dogs who like to bark, but just do what they're told. No morals, no empathy,' said Cinnamon.

'Not all of them,' said Deirdre quietly.

'Maybe, but these are powerful men: presidents, Lords, princes even. They make the rules we have to follow. They should have empathy.' Cinnamon plodded through her words. 'You don't know these people. They throw away more money on a whim than we'll ever even see. Tens of thousands on a wallet they never use, millions on a house for a pet. They have this immense power, but they aren't any smarter than us. You know, I got a Lord to demand they use one of our Interference-removing water purifiers in the House of Lords dining hall. It's just a normal purifier, but for three times the cost. These are the ones we entrust our safety to, and I can make them act like idiots. No, that's wrong, they already are idiots.'

'Are you sleeping with them?' asked Deirdre, her words sounded inappropriately quaint for what they were talking about. Cinnamon gave a brittle laugh and sucked hard on her cigarette. 'You know, you don't have to do anything you don't want to,' said Deirdre. 'Nobody owns you. I know they bully you, but if you need help to stand up to them...' Deirdre's voice weakened as she tried to imagine standing up to Adam.

Cinnamon looked at Deirdre, and her expression was battered as if a thousand differing emotions had each left their mark. However, when she spoke her voice was gentle.

'No, you were right before. This is important. I hate what the world is, but not what we're fighting for. I've never been,' she paused, ' _useful_ like this.'

Deirdre nodded and understood completely, but saw the hollowness at Cinnamon's core, where once there was a heart.

She thought, _I helped talk her into this, it's my fault._

The setting up of the necessary technology was proving tricky. The only scholar who understood how to work the camera and connect it live to the Internet had taken ill and had his head hanging over a bucket. The sickness of the subscholars had been attributed to the increasingly cheap and suspect food they were made to eat.

Deirdre was trying every combination of wires to get a signal. Meanwhile, a few people bustled around Myra, bringing her soothing teas and giving her hand massages. These were not helping, and Myra was soon breathing like a bull about to charge.

'What imbeciles have I been surrounded by? What witless cunts are you?' shouted Myra. Everyone shrank away, but not quick enough. Myra grabbed the man who had been giving the massage and twisted his finger so he fell down whimpering.

'Are you here to taunt me?' she shrieked.

Adam stood up.

'Myra, be calm!' he commanded. Myra also stood, all five foot one to his six foot three. He looked terrified.

'Oh, it's working now,' said Deirdre cheerfully into the fray. 'All fine!'

It wasn't, but she figured Myra wouldn't have a clue, and there were still a few minutes to try to work it out. 'The Shadows told me how to do it. They say this is important, Myra. People need to hear you. I hope you're ready to speak. The world is listening,' Deirdre prattled on as she unplugged and plugged different wires at the back of the camera, out of sight.

Myra calmed herself and sat back down. Then Deirdre got the right combination, and the camera jumped to life, Myra's face appeared on her computer. Deirdre gave a silent thank you to the Shadows.

'Scholars,' said Myra to fifty-nine countries. 'Those who are right here with me and those watching online. I know many of you are finding your defts and learning about us. You've only just begun to know the disturbing truth behind our lives, but evil doesn't wait its turn. The elite are here, inside our walls, crushing us with their hate. We fight, use our defts to overcome them, but it isn't enough. We need your help. Our people have become sick. Ceilings have cracked. We find animals ripped apart and hung up in the trees and mysterious symbols written in blood. Now the evil is in here with us. It's like a fire in the air, a shimmer of cruel energy. Can you feel it?'

There were murmurs around the hall, someone collapsed and had to be helped out. Myra watched and shook her head.

'This terrible force comes from the elite, who want to crush our will and devour our spirits!'

Again, there was moaning and shuffling. Deirdre was watching the live feed. She could see the comments from followers streaming the video as they too expressed the evil they could sense in their own homes. One described their window slamming shut despite the lack of wind. Another said their cat kept hissing. More talked of odd sensations.

Myra walked across the stage and raised her hands. Someone in the front row started sobbing, and others held him while his body shook.

'To defend ourselves, we must draw the violence from the elite. We must take the deadly miasma that fills the air and focus it, contain it so it can't harm us. I can't do this alone. I need your power. Freyja will lead you in a chant, and then I want you to channel all the corruption from the air throughout the Center. The disease that runs through the electricity, through the water, the distortion in the walls around us.'

Myra pointed toward a chalk circle on the floor, and the camera moved to follow.

'Focus the evil on the circle. It may take time for our accuracy to be fine-tuned, but at least we can confine the danger to this room. For those of you across the world, join us. Please don't be afraid. Through our chanting as one, we'll connect with you. Combined, our ability shall be awesome.'

Freyja led the chant, her voice was reedy but pure, and the others soon joined in. At first, the words were sounds without meaning, then Freyja began to hiss a mantra.

'Come to us, come to us, we summon you, come to us,' and others started muttering similarly. Deirdre's stomach juddered, and a shiver spread down her arms and spine as she chanted, letting the words fall from her without thought.

Then a change began, followers were growling and wailing, some even screamed. The windows vibrated as scholars stamped, shook and fell to the ground, all reaching out their hands to the middle of the floor. The noise continued to grow until it was painful. Deirdre felt nauseous and disconnected. She'd stopped chanting and instead stood within the cacophony. Was this the tin gods howling through the scholars? Or mass hysteria?

Then over by the window, where nobody was looking, the curtains caught fire. With a whoosh, the material disintegrated, and everyone turned and stared, too shocked to scream.

'Yes!' shouted Freyja, 'We have contained the evil!' In silence, they all stared at the burning material, as ash floated up to the ceiling. Adam stepped forward and put the flames out with a fire extinguisher. The gathering was announced to be over, and the followers moved in a daze to the exits, still shaking, adrenalin turning stale in the blood. They helped one another to leave, some laughing, some sobbing, some blank-faced with fright. Deirdre looked from one face to another, but she saw no glimmer of the question leaping about in her head.

Since when did that window have curtains?

11

Although most hung about, in shock, Myra, Adam and Freyja didn't stay; instead they escaped out of a door at the far end of the hall. Deirdre slipped after them. Her carefully maintained barrier of denial had disintegrated with the curtain. Something was going on, and she needed to know what. The three were ahead of her and walking fast. Deirdre was no spy, but she could be unobtrusive. When she was a Primary Echelon, she once suggested invisibility as her deft, but nobody had paid any attention.

Deirdre crept at a distance as Myra, Freyja and Adam moved deeper into a part of the Center she hadn't seen before. They walked through areas with flawless paintwork and plush carpets. There were giant photographs on the wall of abstract images, stones and rusted metals, arranged to contrast texture and color. It reminded Deirdre of something, and it took a few moments to remember what. This was how Stronk and Lowry looked. This was how every soulless corporation looked. Deirdre realized she'd lost them but continued along the hallway until she could hear revelry behind a door. The thick carpet in the hall and the crates of champagne and vodka gave a hint of luxury that she was not invited to. The grubby, squalid sense of exclusion almost made her curl into a ball of self-pity. Instead, she grabbed all the bottles of vodka she could carry, and went back to her room to conjure up oblivion.

Deirdre woke sober, miserable and with disturbing clarity. She remembered Myra's bullying, the fake burning of the curtains, and not being invited to the party. Even with such damning evidence, she couldn't leave. She was part of the Sphere now, no longer an independent being. The outside world wouldn't know how to keep her alive. Believing her problem had no possible solution, she grabbed a bottle of partly drunk vodka and took a few gulps, then went to the day room in a pleasant blur. There was no sign of Cabbage or Torque. Deirdre pasted a benign smile to her face, but Myra, Freyja and Adam didn't notice. Adam had paused speaking, but now continued. Deirdre was scarcely listening.

'Our donations are looking good... current investment projects standing at forty-four million... need a further 13%...'

Deirdre took a fresh-baked biscuit without checking what it was, instead, she enjoyed guessing the flavors as she nibbled. There was ginger in there, perhaps some cherries.

Adam was still speaking. 'Now we want to utilize the popularity gained from last night. Deirdre, the viewing figures for the video?'

'Hmm?' said Deirdre.

Adam tutted, 'Well, do you have a few of the comments we received? Some video reactions?'

Deirdre started ruffling through her notes noisily, until Adam gave up.

'Fine,' he continued. 'Myra, let me tell you, that was a stellar performance and one we need to build on. Freyja, if you could arrange a few seminars. I also reckon it's time to step up Myra's image a bit.'

Myra looked interested.

'Deirdre might not have been paying attention to the Internet, but I have,' said Adam. 'People don't just look up to you, Myra. You're becoming like a God to them. They keep looking for proof of your divinity. They talk about how your eyes change color. They take stills from the videos that show lights shining oddly from your face. We'd be fools to ignore this.'

'What do you suggest we do?' asked Myra.

'We should create a few visual effects ourselves. In any new recordings we put in a few extras, flashes in your eyes, light-trails when you move your hands. That kind of thing. Nothing too definite. People are more convinced when evidence is vague.'

'We could do sound effects too,' said Freyja, 'so Myra's voice changes.'

'Yes,' said Myra. 'Good.'

'Deirdre, you need to step up the merchandise. Knock up some figurines that people can use in shrines,' said Adam.

Through the pleasant haze of the vodka, Deirdre thought, _Are we making Myra into a God?_ and suppressed a giggle.

'We should discuss the new scholars,' said Adam, looking at his agenda. 'Our entry level subs, they have much higher expectations than before. More people come, but more leave when they don't get the experience they want.'

'The food poisoning probably didn't help,' said Freyja, with a wary hint of criticism in her voice. 'People were pretty scared when they got sick.'

'It was an unfortunate one-off incident, Freyja,' said Adam. 'We can't afford to spend more on the food. We're a religion, and we haven't got the money to splash around. Especially now we've got a lab to fund.'

_A lab_ , Deirdre wondered blearily. _Since when did we have a lab?_

'But they're getting ill,' Freyja said.

'Then they need to overcome that illness with defts!' Myra barked. Freyja shrunk into herself, and Deirdre smirked behind her biscuit. Although she couldn't help remembering the plush carpet in the secret corridor and the bottles of champagne.

'We need to stir up loyalty, max it out,' said Adam. 'Have a few gatherings devoted to explaining the importance of the Sphere and the benefits of being here. Get subscholars to declare allegiance every day, that's a ploy that's been working in the U.S. for centuries.'

'People will stay if they evolve and know the truth,' said Myra, her words heavy with meaning.

'Yes, but until the lab finalize a method...' said Adam.

'We can't wait for that. We need every last follower, and we need to get them here and keep them,' said Myra.

'Fine,' said Adam. 'We'll give them a reason to believe. Freyja, get in a new stock of magic mushrooms, maybe some peyote, and stick them in the Center's water supply.'

Deirdre looked up from her blurry thoughts to see Freyja gesturing at her with a hand, her eyes fixed on Adam, her expression saying: _Shut up, she'll hear you!_

'Oh, don't worry about her, she hasn't a clue what's going on,' said Adam.

Myra nodded, and they left without saying goodbye. Deirdre just sat, wondering about her prophetic, hallucinogenic dreams that started and ended so suddenly when she was a Primary Echelon.

_Were they caused by mushrooms?_ she thought. Then, _Why do we need a lab?_

Deirdre returned to her workroom and explained to her team about the new merchandise needed. She asked for a breakdown of all YouTube figures for the curtain burning video, and for all comments that referred to Myra as a supernatural being to be collated. Once they were busying away, she went back to her bedroom, decanted some vodka into a small water bottle and put it in her pocket. That day she took a few sips every ten minutes, rationing herself. She thought of it as keeping the edge off, blunting the sharp corners of reality that made her wince. Since her life was unfixable, she chose to numb herself to it instead.

Over the next week, everything was a pleasant blur. Tom, Claire and Matt seemed happy to let her loll in a lightly drunken way. Occasionally, to pretend she was useful, she would start issuing instructions, and they would listen before carrying on doing exactly as they had been doing. It was an understanding.

One afternoon, with vodka-borne determination, she cornered Matt and asked him in slurred tones whether he had, in fact, been the hacker who had lured her there a lifetime ago. He'd given his usual shrug and kept his back to her while scrolling through a document, but he did answer.

'Dunno. There were a few of us, and we used chatterbots. Once we'd written the programs, we didn't need to read much.'

'It was a bot?' Deirdre thought this was both the funniest and saddest thing she'd ever heard and started laughing and crying at once. Matt looked alarmed and tried to wheel his chair away, but Deirdre grabbed his hoodie.

'Why me?' she asked.

'Algorithms. Programs searched Facebook for useful skills, collected all the personal contact info we needed, and we'd set the bots to do the rest.'

'But he couldn't be a bot. He understood me! He _got_ me!'

'Yeah, because it told you a load of stuff like: _You've got a gift_ , and, _Only you ask questions about why the world is so fucked up_ , right?'

'Yes!'

'Everybody thinks that, that they're special and observant and deep and nobody else is, but you're all just the same.'

'And you're not?' she asked.

'I wouldn't have fallen for a bot.'

'Because you created them!' Matt began to huff and edge away. Deirdre hung onto his hoodie. 'But you don't feel guilty about it? You tricked me into giving up my old life, and you're fine with that?' She wanted to shout the words, but she'd been suppressing her emotions for so long, she didn't know how to let them out. Matt huffed.

'Yeah, but what difference does it make? What else would you have done with your time?' Matt glanced at Deirdre's frown, and said, 'You got to feel special for a bit, most people never do. You should be happy.'

'It was all lies, though!'

'It always is,' he said. Then he flinched as if she'd given him the slap she wanted to. 'There's no point blaming me. We're all here because we don't know what else to do.'

Deirdre let go of his hoodie, and he shuffled away.

Since the meeting, Deirdre wanted to keep her head down. She kept to a few simple routes around the Center and it was rare she encountered anyone outside of her team and the Circle. However, with the vodka keeping her blood thin and her head woozy, and the rebuilt labyrinthine corridors, it was inevitable she'd wander off course.

She knew she'd got lost when she turned the corner and saw unfamiliar white walls decorated with intricate felt-tip pen patterns.

This wasn't the way to the kitchen.

She tried to retrace her steps, but each choice she made led to yet another unexpected color scheme.

Above her head, a speaker announced:

'Scholars! Great news! After consultation with the Shadows, the new deft of Crassula has been confirmed by Myra. Crassula succeeded in bending the very fabric of physics and can distort the path of water to her will. Remember, each of us is sixty percent water, so imagine the possibilities of this incredible new development. All power to Myra!'

From the floors below her, and out the window, Deirdre could hear the muffled response. 'All power to Myra.'

She sighed and walked to the end of the corridor and opened a door that led to a stairwell. The walls were spray-painted with unfamiliar symbols. At the top, on an antique table, was a collection of photographs, surrounded by fairy lights and stones. The stones were marked with symbols. She picked up a photo. It was of Adam. Another was of Freyja and a third of Deirdre. She'd stumbled on a shrine, and she was in it.

'Are you the truly free?' said an accusing voice behind her. Deirdre turned. A young man stood with patchwork robes and a green line down his nose. When he saw her face, he fell to the ground.

'I beg forgiveness; I didn't realize I was speaking to a member of the Sacred Circle.' Deirdre steadied herself on the shrine, squashing Adam's picture.

'What are these stones?'

'They contain the names of those who aren't free. We don't want them in our territory. The powers have learned to piggyback on the unevolved morons. We can't allow them to contaminate our stairwell.'

'Territory? What do you mean territory?'

The scholar looked confused and scared. His pupils were huge, and they seemed to be expanding. She decided to get away.

'Which way is the kitchen?' she asked.

'One floor down, left, then left again. You shouldn't go there, though. It's not safe.'

'Right, ok,' said Deirdre soothingly, and wondered how long it took for magic mushrooms to wear off. She left the man to his symbols and swore to herself that from then on, she'd be more careful to stick to the places she knew.

Early the next evening, Deirdre made the mistake of drinking glugs, rather than sips, of alcohol. The pleasant blurriness became a maudlin fug, and she staggered her way to the empty workroom, sat behind a desk, and called her mother.

Aurora was never pleased to hear from her and snapped that she was watching CSI. Deirdre, out of a habit learned young, began to flatter her.

'Well, it's always so lovely to speak to you and hear your beautiful voice,' gushed Deirdre.

'Yes, that's true.'

'I'll bet you've already figured out who the murderer was, anyway. You can always outwit the detectives.'

'Most people are easy to analyze. What is it you want then? Money? Attention?' snapped Aurora.

What she wanted was answers. _Why were you such a horrible mother?_ She hoped the explanation would be a cipher that would help her decode all the other nonsense in her life. However, Aurora wouldn't like a direct question so she proceeded with care.

'I just want to know, you have so many talents, why did you have me? It must have stopped you from doing all the things you wanted.'

'Yes, I could have been an actress. I had star quality. People want to be near me. To look at me,' Aurora said. 'Until you ruined my body, of course!'

'So why have a child?'

'Your father wanted one, and he was the one with the money.'

'Was it so bad though? Being my mother?'

'Ha! You've never had children. You can't imagine what it's like. If you hate your job at least you get weekends off, but being a parent, it goes on and on. Every day with this needy bag of noise and bodily fluids.'

'Is that why you tormented me? Because you were angry?' asked Deirdre softly.

'I didn't torment you! Don't be so melodramatic!'

'You said you saw ghosts in my room, remember? And the attic?' Aurora paused, and when she spoke there was a tone Deirdre didn't recognize.

'I just wanted you to _react_. You were always so weak and submissive, too scared to affect the world. No matter how I pushed, you never started anything, never argued, never fought. You told yourself I was the mean one, but without me, you'd have shrunken away to nothing, evaporated into thin air.'

As the conversation ended, Deirdre stayed sitting with her back against the wall until the dawn came up.

The evening the territories reached Deirdre's workroom, she was pleasantly woozy, playing Candy Crush over and over without a need for emotions. Adam had demanded a push on merchandise, so the team were staying late organizing product placement with Youtubers.

Deirdre's happy haze was rudely interrupted by shouting coming from outside. Tom went out to investigate and came back five minutes later with red paint dripping off the end of his nose.

'They've reached us,' he said bluntly, trying to wipe the paint off with a tissue.

'Those crazy scholars? They're fighting here?' asked Matt. 'They're supposed to stick to the dormitory block.'

'We should leave. This could get violent,' said Claire.

'It's all fine,' said Deirdre, not sure what they were talking about, but deciding to be the voice of reason. 'Let's all just sit down and carry on working.' She flapped her hand reassuringly. 'My defts will keep us safe.' If her team weren't convinced, they were too polite to say it.

A few minutes later, a loud bang made them jump, but she waved her hand as if bestowing a blessing, to let them know everything was ok. They needn't worry, all was fine. Tom locked the door.

As the noises continued throughout the evening, they busied themselves in the virtual world. It was only when Deirdre realized she quite urgently needed the toilet and would have to go out, that the situation snapped into focus. With a calming, unruffled air, she stepped through the door, warily walked along the empty corridor and toward her usual bathroom.

She kept her panic tightly wrapped when she realized a pile of wooden chairs blocked the way. Symbols were daubed in cake on the floor beneath them and something brown she hoped was chocolate sauce, dripped from the ceiling. She began to move a chair, but a firecracker landed next to her foot and exploded. Then came the sound of a war cry from behind the pile of furniture. Without a breath, Deirdre ran back to her workroom and slammed the door behind her.

Inside Tom, Claire and Matt looked up at her with polite surprise.

'They tried to blow me up!' Deirdre shouted.

'Yes, they don't like it when someone strays into their territory,' explained Tom.

'But explosions aren't ok!' Deirdre wailed. Claire patted her shoulder, Matt huffed and turned back to his computer.

'Mostly the weapons are pretty benign,' Tom said.

'I heard they were spraying each other's eyes with paint last night, that wasn't benign,' said Claire.

'Well, ok,' said Tom. 'But it's the elite's fault, they keep attacking so they've got the followers paranoid.'

'But why are they turning on each other?' asked Deirdre.

'At first they tried to protect themselves by making up new rituals and building hideouts,' Tom explained. 'After a while, they started arguing over what the rituals should be, and split into opposing groups, creating territories. Now they act like followers in a different territory are the enemy.'

Deirdre was spun. Apparently in her haze, she'd missed the start of a civil war. One crucial fact stood out from the others.

'I need the toilet,' she said.

'That's fine, there are some on the third floor,' said Claire.

'No,' added Matt. 'Those have been taken over by the water clan.'

'Water clan?' asked Deirdre, wearily.

'Water protects them, so they wanted a constant supply,' explained Tom.

'But how long is this going on for?'

'It will probably burn itself out by tomorrow,' said Matt. 'The paranoia seems to come in waves. Someone finds a dead fox in the woods or has a vision the elite are outside. Everyone freaks out for a few nights until they run out of steam and go back to normal.'

'But I need the toilet!' said Deirdre, hoping somebody would pick up on the urgency.

'There's one in the executive wing, that's near here,' said Matt. 'Just go through the fire escape, down the steps to the second floor, follow the corridor until you reach the third door on the left, go through that...' Claire saw Deirdre's stricken face and took pity.

'I'll draw you a map,' she said.

The journey was not a relaxing one. She crept down hallways, map in hand, and ducked into a room whenever she heard shouting or the thunder of feet. Two of those rooms were occupied by chanting scholars, who collapsed howling when they saw her face. At one point she passed a young woman crying and holding a dead, headless mouse, pleading with her to reanimate it.

However, with her bladder emptied, everything became easier to deal with. She was about to leave the hallway with its thick blue carpet, when Cinnamon ran out of a door.

'Now,' Cinnamon growled, storming toward Deirdre with big hair and a look like thunder. 'Let's go somewhere, now!' She grabbed Deirdre's hand and pulled her out of the fire exit, past a line of silent followers who had sprayed their robes pink, and onto a fire escape. Cinnamon lit up a cigarette and sucked its end into ash.

'Crazy night, eh?' said Deirdre.

'They'll get over it,' said Cinnamon.

'You alright?' asked Deirdre. Cinnamon nodded but said nothing. 'You want to talk?' Cinnamon nodded again, as her anger retreated into something more maudlin. She continued to say nothing for several minutes, then, 'I used to be a nice person. I wanted to help people. Now I'm horrible.'

'I told you, you can't let them make you do things you don't want to do,' Deirdre said, struggling with an excess of pronouns, and thinking more vodka would help. She wondered where she'd left her water bottle.

'Oh, they don't,' said Cinnamon. 'I did want to, that's the worst thing. In many ways it's amazing. Men adore me, and they give me shiny things.' She held out her hand and strings of tiny diamonds stretched from her fingers to her wrists. 'But then they get hurt.'

'The diamonds?' asked Deirdre, confused.

'The men!' Cinnamon crushed out one half-smoked cigarette and lit another.

'I thought they were all dogs,' said Deirdre.

'So did I! That's what made it ok. They were dogs, and I was training them, but one turned out to not be a dog.' Cinnamon's voice dropped as she played with the diamond strings.

'You fell in love?' asked Deirdre, gently.

'God no, he must've been a hundred! But until then I hadn't paid attention. I didn't think about _why_ they were giving me stuff. For most of them, it was fine, because they were spoilt, unpleasant shits who deserved to be toyed with. But there was this one guy, and he was sad and lonely. He didn't even want sex, only to connect with someone, and he couldn't figure out how. And when I said to Adam, we should leave him alone, he's too vulnerable, you know what he said?'

Deirdre shook her head, but Cinnamon wasn't looking at her.

'He said it was better if people were vulnerable because they'd be easier to exploit. To save us from a fate of fucking goo. I mean, goo, fucking _goo_. how could I have done all this for something so stupid?'

'It's not your fault,' said Deirdre.

'Yes, it is. Adam's a shit, and I never was. I knew better.' Cinnamon clutched Deirdre's hand. 'I have to get out. If I stay any longer, I'll get swallowed up completely. I'll become like them.'

'Ok, fine,' said Deirdre, a small knot of defiance tightening. 'We'll get you out. You'll be ok outside.'

'But where do I go? I don't have a family. I've got no one to fall back on.'

Deirdre sighed. 'I know somewhere, someone who'll help you. He's a good guy. His name's Henry. And you have those diamonds, so you can pay to get there. Do you have anything else you've been given? That you can use to sell?' Cinnamon nodded.

'Good,' said Deirdre, as the threads of a plan started to tie together, defiance weaving them into a lattice.

With the vodka and her lack of directional sense, it was down to Cinnamon to find the corridor covered with ephemera from the outside world. They plucked a few choice items for Cinnamon to use. The wall had become thick from the many new recruits, and they found a phone with battery and credit remaining. They also found the business card of a taxi driver and a ten-pound note.

Soon, they were standing outside the Center, knowing the taxi was a only a few minutes' walk away Deirdre hugged Cinnamon goodbye, making sure she had the phone number and address of Henry's shelter.

'He'll look after you. You just need to get to Manchester. You might need to persuade some kind souls to help you, but you can do that easily.'

'What about you? You're staying here?' asked Cinnamon.

'Well, somebody has to keep an eye on the place,' Deirdre quipped. The comment was meant to be cheerily dismissive, but Cinnamon misread it.

'Yes, you're right. Somebody should be on the inside. It's going to get worse. Here, take this, it might be useful,' said Cinnamon, handing a tiny device to Deirdre, who looked at it confused. 'It's a camera, it sends footage direct to the computer. Here's the pen drive to go with it. I used it to collect blackmail information on people.' She gave a guilty smile.

'Why give it to me?' asked Deirdre.

'We've done bad things. It's time we make them right. We need to expose what the Center has become.'

'That isn't really me,' said Deirdre.

' _Make_ it you! If there's one thing I've learned here, it's none of us is fixed, we can be anything, and this is your chance to be the hero,' said Cinnamon. Deirdre blustered, but Cinnamon ignored her and gave her a hug goodbye. 'If Peter Parker can do it, you can,' she said, and disappeared into the night.

Deirdre stood and stared up at the stars, letting them spin. At the top of the building she saw a movement, green flowing robes flapping in the wind. Torque had seen her help Cinnamon leave. Too drunk to panic, she found a fire escape, and climbed up to the sloping roof, where he sat leaning against a chimney. As she edged along the tiles toward him, she tried to conjure up an explanation, but whatever she said now, Torque would know the truth tomorrow. Anyway, he didn't appear angry or upset, only watchful. Reaching him, Deirdre raised her eyebrows, and he lifted his in response. She sat down next to him.

'She's gone then?' he asked, Deirdre nodded. 'For the best,' he said.

'Wait, what?' she said, turning toward him, her feet slipping. She steadied herself and stared at him incredulously.

'She's young. She can make a new life outside of here,' said Torque, unruffled.

Deirdre gazed into the distance in shock, her thoughts spinning. There was no tension in his voice, no grand reveal. He spoke as if people quitting the Center was normal.

'And you're saying that's a _good_ thing?' she said.

He shrugged instead of responding. She hugged her knees and asked, 'If it's a good thing, why are you still here?'

'I'm needed here. Cabbage needs me. Myra needs me,' he said.

' _Myra_ needs you? She's a narcissist; she doesn't need anyone,' said Deirdre, the sacrilege of the words sweet in her mouth.

'Surely a narcissist is the neediest of all?' Torque sighed and picked at a bit of moss. 'She's my sister. She looked after me when I wasn't able to.'

'I can't imagine Myra looking after anyone but herself,' Deirdre said. Torque flicked the moss down into the guttering.

'Maybe it was self-interest. She was convinced I could be useful. She thought someone with brain damage could access parts of the brain others couldn't. Gain defts.'

'Do you still believe all this?' Deirdre couldn't even find the edges of her confusion to peel it away. _If Torque doesn't believe, does anyone? Has everyone been pretending?_

'I suppose life is just whatever stories we choose to tell ourselves at the time.' There was still no emotion in his voice.

'Answer the question!' she said.

'Do you?' asked Torque, calmly dodging again. Deirdre ran out of indignant puff as she tried to rearrange her memories into something that made sense.

'I don't know! I can see how we lied to ourselves about some things, but all of it? I saw people levitate. And heal!'

'Did you?' asked Torque.

'Yes!' But now she was thinking about it, she wasn't sure. The levitation had always happened in darkened rooms, and it's easy to feel cured of back pain when everyone is expecting you to be.

Did we only see defts because we wanted to?

There was nothing innately magical about getting a rash or dreaming, but caught up in the hysteria of the dorm, those things took on significance. Leaves were always moving whether Cabbage stared at them or not. Déjà vu was common with or without the Shadows. Then there was the marble, which she knew didn't go into the portal because she saw it roll across the floor. And if some evidence was wrong, why not the rest?

'But what about the elite? They must be real, you can't fake everybody experiencing something that intense, and _physical_ , at the same time. And the Shadows?' Before Torque could answer, another question shoved its way to the front of the queue. 'Wait, does Myra believe?'

Torque picked at the hem of his robe. 'She believes she's the Messiah, that she has access to a greater truth.'

'Then why does she lie? Why use magic mushrooms?'

'Sometimes people are too stupid to _see_ the truth, and she has to manipulate things, so they do,' said Torque. Deirdre put her head in her hands and tried to rub away the confusion.

Torque carried on speaking. 'She always had an energy to her. When we were growing up, other children listened to her. She'd command the playground. Our mum used to tell everyone Myra had gifts and bad people wanted to steal her away because she was special. When doctors told us mum was just ill, Myra didn't want to lose the belief that it all meant something. That she was important.'

'Maybe she is,' said Deirdre. 'Maybe most of it's true, but things got out of control. I mean that's possible, isn't it?' She looked at Torque in desperate hopefulness. He said nothing. Exhaustion had wiped the expression off his face.

'Go to bed,' she said. 'There's nothing more we can do tonight.'

Torque nodded and limped back to the fire escape, but Deirdre stayed sitting, staring up into the night sky, wishing the vodka would empty from her thoughts. A light rain began and turned the roof tiles a dark gray. It fitted her mood well.

Down below she heard a car pull up and peeking over the guttering she watched as a limousine parked in the driveway. Myra and Adam walked out of the front door. Adam was holding an umbrella above Myra's head as they walked the few feet to the car and got inside.

_Why would a God even need an umbrella?_ she thought.

Walking back into the bowels of the building, the cold rain had washed her sober. She wasn't tired or sad, she was indignant. She had thrown aside her life to pursue something good and had ended up stuck in another cynical corporation. One capable of doing even more evil because 'We're saving the world!' is a great justification. She'd seen good people crushed, warped and used. The public had been tricked and lied to, and she'd played an important part in that. She didn't sleep much that night. Occasionally she would doze, and then startle herself awake, as she realized another way she'd been duped. _But then, what about the elite?_ The thought would flash across her reasoning, and she'd start again picking through her memories looking for clues. _Anyone can behead a crow._

Most of all she remembered her weakness, all the times she should have spoken up and fought back. She'd never stood up for Cinnamon, Lilith or even Cabbage. She'd never pushed a donut into Freyja's stupid face or kicked Adam in the shins. And now that had to change.

_I can't plead innocence anymore,_ she decided. _I need to work out how to fight the real enemy._

12

When she woke, the guilt was gone, and instead, Deirdre felt a heady mix of mischief and fury. She drank no vodka and had no desire to. A meeting of the Circle had been called, and she was looking forward to it. Now she had a new role: to be the traitor. She grinned while pulling on a t-shirt and jeans.

Without a clear plan in mind, she attached the minuscule camera Cinnamon had given her to her belt buckle. She checked in the mirror that it was mainly unobtrusive and set the computer to receive. Then she strode in the wrong direction with purpose. Moments later she doubled-back, checking her watch.

Walking into the day room was like watching an old television program in high-definition. After seeing the members of the Circle through a haze of alcohol, now they were crystal clear with their flaws exposed. Freyja looked uptight and prissy, Adam was stressed and blotchy, and even Myra seemed especially wonky and podgy. They were all small and imperfect, and she wondered how such ordinary-looking people could have conned so many.

They showed no sign they knew about Cinnamon's disappearance, no worry or anger, so Deirdre acted as if nothing untoward had happened. Once they'd all sat down, Adam started following a printed agenda, reading out impressive figures of new membership and centers built in thirty new cities.

'I've got a list of big businesses that want to back us, but that has flagged up a development opportunity. We need to speak more to corporations. At the moment, we offer a seductive package to many CEOs. We can give them not only peace of mind but also defts. Yet we don't reach out to the businesses themselves. Any suggestions?'

'How about team building days?' said Freyja. 'For a fee, we get a group of people in to work at removing Interference. They'll learn to work together, but also might end up psychic, which is a bonus for the company.'

Adam made notes. 'Yeah, nothing like a little fortune-telling to keep you dynamic in the marketplace,' he said.

'It seems to me,' said Deirdre, careful to keep her face straight, 'that we have the best resource right here: Adam. Just imagine if he went out into businesses and used his gift, showing how he can control people. He could order people to cluck like a chicken or do handstands.' Adam looked suspiciously at Deirdre, but she was enjoying herself too much to stop.

'You'd be amazing. No one would be able to dispute your abilities. You could even go into troubled inner-city schools and lead children from delinquency into achievement. They could film a reality show of it. _Adam Commands the World!_ What a way to demonstrate the magnificence of defts!'

'Well, I shouldn't think anyone would want me on TV,' he said. His delight was scarcely hidden by his fake humility, the sheer ridiculousness of the idea flattened by his ego. Deirdre looked on sweet and adoring. Meanwhile, she daydreamed the reaction if Adam had tried to command the children at her secondary school. His cries as he ran out the door under a hail of thrown shoes and insults.

'Good,' said Myra. 'Adam, get one of your teams on it. Right, anything else?' Deirdre nodded and leaned forward. She needed to do some damage limitation.

'I should think you've all noticed, I've not been myself the last week. I've had...' she paused, trying to find the right evolved language to use, 'a war between the elite and the Shadows going on in my head. It took time...' She let her voice break a little, then she composed herself. 'But I've returned, and I have a new clarity and resolve. I'm ready to fight.'

'I knew you'd get there,' said Adam.

Myra put a hand on her shoulder and said, 'Welcome back, we need you.' Deirdre found them unconvincing but gave humble smiles in reply.

'It must be so awful,' said Freyja, her voice dripping snide pity. 'The elite seek you out at every turn, don't they?'

'None of us is safe,' said Myra.

'Yes, these are dangerous times,' said Deirdre, ducking her head, to hide a mischievous smile. 'I suppose that's why we need to use everything the Shadows give us. Each prophecy, each clue.' She spoke with a heavy dollop of meaning and glanced up at Freyja.

'Do you know something?' Myra asked. 'You've heard about a prophecy?' Deirdre shrugged and gazed at Freyja again. Myra also turned to look at her, and Freyja gave a tinkly laugh.

'Well, I suppose I do have _something_ of a prophecy.'

'What? Since when?' said Myra.

'The Shadows have been speaking to me for some time. They flow through my hands when I am drawing. They guide me.'

'And?' Myra was getting impatient, looking at her watch. Freyja didn't notice. Instead, she gave another of her tinkly laughs, pulled a sketchpad out from beside her chair and started flicking through the pages. Deirdre was disappointed that the drawings were quite good in a smudgy way, but Myra didn't look impressed.

'Is that a rainbow?' Myra asked.

'This shows Adam and me,' said Freyja. 'The Shadows told me we'd be leading the world in a new race of people, enlightened by our defts.' Freyja turned another page. 'This is a picture of our first child. He'll be a star child. And this is a foretelling of the Center for Truth as it will be in a hundred years.' In the drawing, people with flowing hair sat beneath stars, while butterflies fluttered about their heads.

'This is important,' said Adam, in his command-deft voice. 'We should use these in the Cryptomorphica.'

'No,' said Myra, looking at the pages with distaste. 'They're shit. Right, I have a massage appointment to get to.' She stood up and walked out, without giving Freyja another glance. Deirdre looked at Freyja's tearful face with a wide-eyed sympathy, while the glow of revenge warmed her cockles.

When she arrived back at her workroom, Deirdre found her team clustered around one computer, showing a mix of emotions. Claire fretted, Matt had his feet up on the desk, and Tom had an excited glint in his eye.

'What?' asked Deirdre.

'We're not sure what you're going to think of this one,' said Matt. 'I'll send it through to your laptop.' Deirdre opened the link curiously. As she started reading, a wave of cold panic flowed over her, followed by pride.

'I said they'd do something like this,' Tom was saying while Deirdre attempted to read. 'They'll stop at nothing to attack us.'

'We don't know anything about it yet,' Matt said. Clearly, this wasn't a new argument between them. 'Not every criticism is automatically the fault of the elite.'

The website was called _Truth About the Sphere_ (aka TATS). They had a picture of Dora the Explorer with _Myra the Messiah_ written on it, for a logo. The story on the front page was called: _The Bad Guys Want to Turn Us into Mush!_

Deirdre had heard about TATS before. It was one of many anti-Myra websites and one that had been growing. The story was written in its typically childish style, but the information could only have come from one person: Cinnamon.

She emailed Freyja, Adam and Myra, saying to meet her. She couldn't keep this a secret. While the story printed, she searched every inch of the website, looking for any kind of clue. She found no reference to Cinnamon, but why would she? The Captain called her that, it wasn't her real name. She got her team to trace links, servers and domains on the site until she had a list of possible writers. She saw one that stirred a vague memory, _Nuan_ , but couldn't remember where she'd heard it before.

The three members of the Circle sat in silence reading the printout while Deirdre slurped coffee. The mood had been tense when she'd arrived, a half-hissed conversation had stopped. Deirdre had ignored this to hand out the printed sheets, she wanted to see the looks on their faces as they read.

The Bad Guys Want to Turn Us into Mush!

Dramatic news is breaking my little Scolariffic Rebels. I'm not going to say where it's coming from, but it's a reliable source. I don't want to wreck anyone's life here, so I won't say any more about them.

Anyway, it turns out the dangerous elite Myra's been banging on about, aka the bloodless rulers, are not human. They come from a time before humans. They are technologically advanced, but also dullards, and they want our fizzing human spirit to brighten up their dullard lives. To do this, they don't invite us over for drinks like any normal non-human being would. No, instead they stick our brains in the blender and drink the juice. Now, that's rude, I'm sure you'll agree, but that isn't everything. After all, we're over-populated, if they want a little human smoothie, who are we to complain? And what's all this fuss about a big battle?

' _Well, looking back through history, they go through a cycle. For a while, they build a civilization up and only pick off a few stragglers to keep themselves fed. Then occasionally they go the whole apocalyptic hog, liquidize everyone and start again. I'm not talking metaphorically here, they literally liquidize people. Which is about to happen, apparently._

Only with the whole human race heading mushwards.

' _TLDR? An ancient alien race is planning a mass goo-making session, and if we don't gain superpowers quick smart, we'll be squashed in the extra-terrestrial blender any day now_.

Freyja was the first to finish reading. She put the sheet aside and waited patiently.

Myra was next and didn't hesitate, exclaiming, 'How the fuck did they get this?'

Adam skipped the end to respond to Myra, 'It must be Cinnamon, I knew we shouldn't trust that chavvy bitch,' said Adam. Freyja gasped and ran out the door, tears already on her face. Myra and Adam didn't seem to notice or care.

'Oh, has Cinnamon left then?' asked Deirdre innocently. Adam replied with a sneer.

'So, what do we do about it? She's clearly a liability,' said Myra, her voice could split bricks.

'Don't worry,' said Adam. 'We have plenty of dirt on her, I can ruin her. More important is damage limitation for this story.'

'Right, and?' asked Myra.

'Well,' said Adam, splaying his legs wide and leaning back. 'I've got a few politician friends who've dealt with ugly rumors about their personal interests. I know the routine. We keep it vague. Don't answer and don't deny. Avoid the question.'

'How does that help?' asked Myra, tetchily.

'Because we need to keep it open. If we give a solid answer then later, if more proof is leaked, we look like liars. If we don't answer at all...'

'People assume we're lying!' interrupted Myra.

'No,' protested Adam, and Deirdre was struck by how vulnerable he looked when Myra disagreed with him. 'That's not how it works. People only remember certainties, people are stupid.'

Deirdre understood Myra's irritation, but she was fairly sure Adam was right. Cinnamon had made a brave decision to cause trouble, and Deirdre didn't want the gesture to get squashed.

Myra moved forward in her chair, and Deirdre noticed Adam flinch.

'Deirdre, you've been watching this online, you see how people react, what would you do?'

'Own it,' she said. 'Don't lie. Don't fudge it. Own it. Start telling them the truth and use it to increase support. After all, we're under a definite threat, and if people know why they should be scared, then they'll want us to rescue them.'

'Deirdre's right,' said Myra. 'We need to stop hinting. I'm going to make a speech. I'll announce this isn't some foolishness about human smoothies. This is about the looming annihilation of the human race, and if we're to survive, we must be ready. They need to learn the endgame.'

'I'll get on to Trevor at the BBC, set up an interview,' said Adam, trying to regain control.

'No,' said Myra, swiping it away from him again. 'I'm going on the Internet. TV twists things. I'll go online, and the word will spread. Deirdre, start the publicity. I'll speak tomorrow.'

As Deirdre was heading back to her workroom, she remembered who Nuan was. The realization came in a sudden blast of happiness, _Lilith! Nuan is Lilith!_ She sped back to her computer, gave instructions to her team to build up expectation for a Myra speech, and then opened the TATS website forum. She set up an account, calling herself theconquerer! and started a thread:

Calling Nuan!

_I need help! I joined the Center because I wanted to do good, but all I found was power trips and manipulation. Everything I thought turned out to be wrong: the chanting, the defts, it was all lies. Myra is just a normal bitch. I made two great friends, but one got ill, and the other got thrown out for trying to save him. And I did nothing. And I'm sorry about all of it_.

The rest of the day was irrelevant, time that had to be passed through to reach the moment when Nuan would reply. She flicked through reactions to the TATS exposé, but the story hadn't changed anything, it only served to entrench whatever opinions people already had. Those who didn't believe used it as proof of how comical Myra was. Followers used it as evidence of how the elite wanted to discredit Myra's words. Deirdre checked the TATS website again. There were a few sympathetic responses, but they showed no sign of being Nuan.

She looked up to see Freyja standing over her, sniffing.

'Hi Deirdre,' she said mournfully. Deirdre cocked her head to one side and stared up with exaggerated concern, her voice seeping sincerity.

'Hi Freyja, are you _ok_?'

'I don't know. I think my heart is broken. How could Cinnamon do this! I nurtured her as if she was my child.'

_And got her to fuck men in exchange for power_ , thought Deirdre.

'Oh Freyja, it must be so _hard_ for you,' she said. 'After all you did for her. Sometimes people are just too damaged to appreciate our love.'

'Yes, it's true,' said Freyja, taking a moment to wallow in the betrayal fully. 'Thank you, Deirdre. You know, we're so happy to have you with us again. For too long we thought you were lost, but now you're home.'

'Part of me was always with you Freyja,' Deirdre said. 'I needed to take the journey alone for a while, that's all. Fight my demons, find the truth. Now, I'm back, and I feel...pure, again.' Deirdre enjoyed the sight of Freyja lapping up her pretentious nonsense, and all the while she thought, _Yeah, psychic deft, my arse._

Deirdre was checking TATS when a private message appeared. She did a small dance of joy and dropped the phone on the floor, cracking the screen. Fortunately, it still worked.

Hi Deirdre? Is that you? Are you ok? Are you still there? Cinnamon is here. Did you see our story? Love Nuan (Lilith).

Deirdre responded, scattering words over the page in a muddle:

Nuan! Yes, it's me! I'm fine, still at the Center. Can't talk much. Is Cinnamon ok? I have videos, evidence and want to bring down Myra. I need your help.

Now that Cinnamon was with Nuan, she knew what she had to do.

The time had come for Myra to tell the Internet about goo. Deirdre was organizing the cameras and was trying to find a balance between doing her job poorly, but not so poorly it looked suspicious. She gave Myra a few false starts so when her face appeared online, it was moderately red and sweaty from screaming at Deirdre that she was a waste-of-breath shit who deserved to die. Deirdre had also set up two cameras, one for close-ups that stared up Myra's nose, the other a long shot that was ever so slightly on the wonk. Despite this, Myra still came across well, calm yet strong, wise but not elitist. Deirdre watched the comments appearing beneath the video, and they were emotional snippets from followers who were too busy feeling, to analyze.

'People throughout the world, you may know who I am. You may be a believer or a skeptic. I am speaking to anyone who sees this. There's no time to be selective. We're all in danger, and we need each other. Our time has run out. This might be my last chance to speak to you. Some of you have read about the bloodless rulers, the hidden power behind our elected leaders. They believe we belong to them and they want to destroy us.'

Now that Myra's magic didn't blind Deirdre, she understood the tricks she used. The way her hands moved to emphasize what she said, the dragged-out words that were oddly hypnotic, the sudden intense stares into the camera. Myra was a performer. Maybe it had taken her a little while to figure out TV, but she'd always known how to fake authenticity. Deirdre tuned herself back into Myra's words. She needed to focus.

'They've brainwashed us, subdued us, fed us with lies to make us stupid and now they are planning the final destruction of our species.

'For some time, the elite have tormented my followers. Destroying their minds, their families, their homes.

'But this is only the start. The dangers will soon spread outwards from my people, until all humanity is at risk. However you describe their intentions: mush, human smoothies, whatever; it will involve our deaths. There's no time left for cynicism. You must prepare yourselves. Know who you can trust and where you can hide. Be ready to pack up your lives and run. Start training yourselves for combat. Most of all, join us in any way you can.

'In the words of Gandhi, that wise man who fought the elite, "First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Until now, we have been ignored, now they laugh, next is the battle.'

That afternoon Deirdre's team were monitoring reactions to the speech, and Deirdre was joining in with small, appropriate comments.

'It's weird how even Christians are supporting Myra. I think they want this to be the Apocalypse,' said Claire.

'She shouldn't have used the Gandhi quote, that's been used to justify every idiot opinion of the last ten years,' said Matt.

'Lots of Myra GIFs on 4chan,' said Deirdre. She hadn't checked, but it was a safe bet. Actually, she was breaking into Adam's computer to find files incriminating Cinnamon and deleting them. Using the password reset disk Matt had made for her, in minutes she had broken into Adam's account and was wandering around. Blackmail material disposed of, she'd become distracted by finding Adam's personal collection of nude selfies. These involved him in groveling, spread-eagled poses at the feet of Freyja, who was wearing a medieval peasant's outfit. She asked herself, _How petty am I?_ Then decided, _Petty enough_ , and scrambled on her desk for a pen drive. Finding one, she pushed it into the USB port.

She was tossing happy plans of how to ruin Adam's reputation around her imagination when her computer made a small ding. Deirdre switched to the TATS website still open in the background, where a box was in the corner of the screen: _New message._

Her heart thumping, she clicked the box.

Evidence is great, but shouldn't you be trying to ESCAPE? She looks unhinged. This won't end well.

Deirdre wasn't sure how to reply and decided to keep it brief.

It's what I have to do. I helped cause this.

Then she set about taking screenshots of Adam's computer files, before diving into his emails.

When Deirdre woke up in the early hours of the morning, she knew something was wrong. She had flashes of memories from the fire, but there was no smoke. A profound unease had crawled under her skin. _I know this,_ she thought. Her stomach was too big and heavy, and her breathing shallow. _This is the elite._

A storm was raging, with the heavy batter of rain and the faint howl of wind. She flicked her light switch and nothing happened. Fumbling in the dark, she pulled on slippers and a coat, grabbed her phone and stepped out into the corridor. It was so dark that she shuffled her feet and flailed her arms in front of her, trying to find where the stairs started. Then she remembered her phone had a light and switched it on, but it did nothing to calm her hysteria.

Reaching the banister, she clung to it, struggling to breathe. Her anxiety had become monumental, and the phosphene patterns in her eyes took on the shape of hands swiping at her face. She kept ducking in panic making whimpering sounds. After reaching the bottom of the stairs and walking along a few corridors, she could hear shouting and banging. Even the aggression of the noise didn't drown out her relief at hearing other people. She quickened her step toward the commotion, finding herself in the corridor that led to the Grand Hall.

There were perhaps thirty people there. Several were hammering planks over the windows, while the rest stood in a line as if forming a queue. Many were chanting, their hands raised. The storm now had such ferocity it rattled the walls. As Deirdre continued down the corridor, a young woman stepped away from the window and walked toward her, streaks of blood across her face and clothes.

She whispered, with sweet concern, 'You have to disguise yourself. They're outside, and they're breaking in,' she said. 'If you're covered in my blood, they won't be able to find you.'

Deirdre started to back away. The woman became more insistent.

'Can't you feel them? They're getting in, and we have to protect ourselves.'

'Nobody else is covered in blood,' said Deirdre, looking around.

A man hammering at the window stopped and turned, ash was smeared across his face, leaves taped to his cheeks.

'We all have protection,' he said.

The man next to him also turned. He was sopping wet.

'The Shadows have shown us all a way of hiding,' he said. 'I can use my water deft. You have to use something. They're outside.'

Deirdre nodded and made meager noises of agreement, then she opened the door nearest to her and dived inside, shutting it behind her. She found herself in a small, empty office, with a few desks and a large window. The storm was quieter in here, which was odd; although she still experienced the same unease, as if her blood was jumping. She slid down the door and unlocked her phone, whispering to herself, 'Please be awake.'

She sent a PM to Nuan:

_Something's happening. I feel sick, don't think they're drugging us. This must be the elite outside, trying to get in. Something is happening, can't be just hysteria, before I even saw the others, I knew it. Was terrified. Am terrified_.

Deirdre leaned her head back against the door and wished she had a God to pray to. Instead, she muttered what her father used to say to her when she was too scared to sleep, 'It's ok, Diddle-bit, it's only darkness. It can't hurt you.'

A window smashed somewhere further down the corridor followed by screaming and scrambling. Deirdre tried to breathe again, but there wasn't enough air.

'Block the hole! Block the hole!' somebody wailed outside the door. The ding of a PM arriving caught Deirdre by surprise. Nuan had replied, writing:

_It's not the elite, they aren't real. It's Myra, she's messing with you. You have to be strong. I never got to tell you what I found, the night they caught us_.

_??_ wrote Deirdre, thinking now was not the time to be dragging up sad memories.

A link appeared in the next PM, along with the words, This is what they were playing through the speakers. I found their CD.

Deirdre clicked the link and saw a website selling sound effects CDs. The page was titled _Infrasound: Sound of Fear._

The blurb said:

Infrasound is a low-frequency sound. It's below the level of human hearing, but its effects are enormous! People experience unease, awe or that supernatural forces are afoot. Ideal for Halloween!

Deirdre tried to think, but clarity wasn't happening, the panic had taken over. She replied:

It can't be that, it's too real. There's something out there. It's making my stomach churn.

Nuan wrote back:

Your mind makes it real, I've been reading up on this stuff. They use it to mess with soldiers. You have to fight it. Keep telling yourself it's a lie.

Deirdre was sure from the bottom of her gut that Nuan was wrong, but that version of reality was still more bearable than her own. So she sat trying to concentrate on all the unconvincing details in the nightmare: the changing volume of the storm; the idea that nailed up windows would deter the all-powerful threat; the blood and leaves.

Once her breathing had steadied, she activated the camera on her phone and opened the door to the corridor. The queue had moved on, with some who'd been nailing windows now standing in line. She kept her phone recording surreptitiously.

'Why are you waiting here?' Deirdre asked them.

A woman who had tomato ketchup smeared across her face turned.

'Myra's in the Grand Hall,' she said. 'She's calling on us to release our defts, so she can fight the elite.' Then she lowered her voice and said, 'I'm going to show her how I can levitate.' Deirdre recognized the woman's voice and looked closer. It was the hard-faced woman from Lilith's sentencing. She had an expression of such desperate hope it made it difficult to look at her, but Deirdre was curious.

'You can levitate?' asked Deirdre.

The woman nodded.

'The Shadows taught me. Look.' She raised her arms up and stood on tiptoes, a rapturous look on her face. As her legs shook with the effort, she lifted up on to the very tips of her feet and then no further. After a few seconds, the woman slumped to the floor. She looked up at Deirdre with the humble pride of a woman who has completed an impossible feat, but doesn't want to brag about it.

'Will you tell her I'm here? I can help,' the woman pleaded. Deirdre smiled without sincerity and walked down the line to the hall.

Inside, by candlelight, Myra stood surrounded by people quaking, juddering and moaning, their eyes open and fixed on their leader. Myra pointed to one and boomed, 'Speak!'

'I can astral project, I go to where our rulers live,' he said, the words gargling in his throat. Myra walked toward him, put her hand on his forehead, shoving him backward, then gripping him with her other hand, so his body wobbled.

'Then tell us their plan for tonight. Go!' she said.

'I-I'm lifting up through the building and up into the sky. There are bats and clouds,'

'I don't care!' screamed Myra. 'Fly faster!'

'Oh-h, I'm above their building. It's like a fortress, and there are dragons on the roof. I-I can see inside, and they're not human. There's an altar, candles. They want to take us back there, sacrifice us.'

Deirdre looked at the man's face, and saw that psychic knowledge didn't grip him, only his fear and adoration of Myra. He was obviously making up stories to impress her and stop her shouting at him. Deirdre had a sudden overwhelming sense of how pathetic it all was, how unnecessary. They could all be tucked up snug in bed with a good book, or out helping the homeless. Instead, they were here, doing this, to no useful end at all. She was embarrassed to be there. Embarrassed for the last years of her life utterly wasted. Deirdre left, ignoring attempts to cover her in blood or pleas for her help. There was one last, unexplained thing, and she had an inkling of the solution.

At the back of the Hall, there was the usual clutter you'd expect for school assemblies. Spare chairs and discarded vacuum cleaners were piled up by air vents and an alternative entrance. She'd never used that door but had a hunch which corridor led to it. This meant stepping over a couple of sobbing scholars, but the room was right where expected, and she went inside. Hearing Myra's voice from behind the wall made her shiver.

She thought, _Sometimes I'd feel the Shadows outside the Grand Hall, but it wasn't the same as when we were all together. The giggling, how people glowed, it was only ever in the hall._

The air smelled sweet, making her lightheaded. She couldn't find the light switch, so she used her phone to fumble to the other side of the room, where the air conditioning unit hummed. It wasn't an easy route, and she stubbed her toe on a box and knocked her hand against the edge of the unit. Then her foot hit something, making a loud clang. Her first thought was to panic that Myra had heard. Her second was that she'd just found what she was looking for. She crouched down, shone the light from her phone onto the canister and read: _Nitrous Oxide–Do not inhale_. Behind this was a makeshift pump stuck to the air-con with gaffer tape.

Deirdre backed out of the room, went back upstairs and got into bed, pulling the duvet over her head.

13

It was late in the morning when Deirdre's phone woke her up with its beeping, letting her know she had a crisis confab to get to. She pulled on jeans and a shirt. Stepping into the corridor, she climbed over a broken furniture barricade and around a follower who was turning in non-stop circles, caught in a ritual-loop. At the meeting, Myra, Freyja and Adam were brainstorming something called the _New Phase_ , according to the flipchart.

'We knew this time was coming, that the battle would come to our door,' said Myra. 'Last night was proof. We've been building an army across the world, and now we need them here.'

'Yes, the time has come,' said Adam, who'd exchanged the corporate swagger for a righteous one. His face was a picture of stoic good looks and fortitude, his voice a movie-hero whisper. 'After fighting the elite in the woods last night, I know how true that is.'

'You were fighting them?' asked Deirdre, noting slight red marks on his face.

'Somebody had to stop them getting in,' he said.

'What do they look like?' Deirdre asked, partly out of insolence, partly out of curiosity. Although she was careful only to show the curiosity.

'I couldn't make out much. It's like fighting ghosts, you see flashes of their eyes as they knock you down, but that's all.'

'Right now, we don't need war stories,' said Myra. 'We need action. We need to tell our followers to abandon their lives and join us.' The calm Myra had shown for the last few weeks had vanished. She was speaking with the rage of a holy power, and Deirdre realized with shock, _Torque is right, she believes! She may have faked some details, but Myra believes_.

Which led her to the chilling conclusion, _If this isn't just about money, then she really does intend to start a war_.

'Where will we put them when they get here?' asked Deirdre, trying to keep grounded, but she was distracted by the writing on the flipchart:

7:07pm Deft release, force ability, purge the unevolved.

Monday: Create a new act of fear

Target refugees

Children? Schools?

'We'll find space,' said Adam. 'And getting them here is your job, Deirdre. Start spreading the word. I recorded some footage of last night's battle. It's blurry but should give an idea of what we're facing.' Deirdre looked at the fuzzy video playing on Adam's phone. It didn't show much of anything, but it didn't need to, to do its job. Then her eyes returned to the board.

'What's the deft release?' she asked.

'Scholars have been evolving too slowly,' said Adam. 'We've had our science team in the lab studying methods of accessing abilities from the brain. Precision stuff, and now they're ready to try them out. With Myra's defts to guide them, of course.'

'And the purge?' Deirdre heard the alarm sneaking into her voice.

'Followers who don't evolve will be cast down!' said Myra.

'What does "cast down" mean?' asked Deirdre.

Myra turned to her, eyes pulsing, 'Are you questioning me?'

'It depends on what "cast down" means,' said Deirdre.

'You dare to question me? Your God?' Myra's indignation was like a sonic blast, and Deirdre had to fight to stop herself from reeling backward.

'Is that what you are?' asked Deirdre.

The scream that exploded from Myra seemed like it could rip open the walls, but Deirdre stayed motionless until Adam dragged her outside. He was shouting, but there was pleading in his eyes.

'What the shitting fuck are you doing? Don't you know what's at stake here?' he said.

'What the fuck are _you_ doing? We can get followers without putting people at risk.'

'What like you? Playing about on the Internet? Is that what we should be doing? You spent weeks trying to get nerds to back Myra. We succeeded in one night!'

'What do you mean "in one night?" What did you ever do?' She asked confused. Then she had a memory flash up: Myra, Adam and Freyja dressed in robes and giving interviews. And she got it.

'You started the fire. You tried to burn the Center down.'

'Of course, we started the fucking fire! How stupid are you? You weren't getting anywhere, and we had to take over.'

'People ended up in the hospital. They almost died!'

'People are going to die! All people are going to die, very soon. That's what we're trying to prevent. This is war, there will be casualties, and if you're too busy fussing over individuals, you will lose.'

Deirdre stared at his red face and bulging eyes, and sneered, 'You're pathetic! You're a nasty little boy telling himself he matters, but you don't matter. Myra could replace you with another thug in a moment, and she probably will. As soon as you make a mistake, she'll send you back to being a Primary Echelon, and you'll be scrubbing floors!' The words felt powerful, but Adam just waved his hand.

'You're weak,' he said, and there was nothing left for Deirdre to do but walk away.

Finding Torque and Cabbage wasn't difficult. Cabbage was sitting naked in his favorite tree, while Torque sat on the roots, Cabbage's robe on his knees.

'So,' Deirdre said, trying to remember how to have a normal conversation. 'What's up?'

'Cabbage is catching the tin gods moving the stars around,' explained Torque. 'Apparently, it's happening during the day.'

Deirdre was exhausted by the gulf between what needed to happen and all the nonsense that was actually happening. She hushed her voice and hoped Cabbage was too lost in the invisible stars to hear her.

'Torque, wouldn't Cabbage be better off outside the Center, where he could get help?'

Torque stared into space for a moment, then said, 'That's very unevolved language.'

'You don't believe that bullshit any more than I do. I get why you don't want to leave, but Cabbage isn't well. He needs medication.'

'You've never been properly ill. You don't know how medicine affects you,' said Torque.

'I've been ill!' said Deirdre. 'I nearly died from whooping cough as a kid!'

'That's easy. You're sick, you get treatment. It works, you get better. Real illnesses aren't like that. Real ill-people get sick and no one believes them. They get sicker, then get misdiagnosed and get the wrong treatment, so they stay sick.' The words were spilling out of Torque in a frenzy, and Deirdre wanted to shout that this wasn't the time, but he wasn't stopping. 'Then they get re-diagnosed with the right thing, but there are twenty possible treatments, and all have awful side effects. They get fat, and they get patronized, giving up hope a thousand times.'

He paused to breathe. 'I saw my mum go through it, over and over. I hated it when she started getting delusions. It was frightening. But they were the only times I ever saw her feel alive.' He stopped and looked up into the tree, trying not to blink. 'This might not be the right place for him, but I'm not sure psychiatry is any better. He has a purpose here, and he matters. If he was outside, he'd be labeled a scrounger and a crazy person, medication would dull him. I don't know. I'm sorry.'

Deirdre was leaning forward to hug him, when suddenly, from a dozen points all around them, Myra spoke. Deirdre's kidneys lurched in panic, and then she realized the voice was coming from speakers in the trees.

'Scholars, it is time. Tonight we shall be crushed and bullied no more. At seven minutes past seven, be ready in the Grand Hall. Bring your defts, bring your faith, and be ready to fight.'

'Torque, this is getting out of hand,' hissed Deirdre.

'It'll blow over. Once she's let off steam, she'll calm down,' said Torque.

'No. She has too many people feeding her ego now, and it's escalating. Do you know what she's planning tonight?' Torque looked away without answering, and Deirdre gave up.

She'd always relied on her team to be a pocket of sanity, but when Deirdre got back to her workroom, they let her down. As she opened the door, Tom turned from where he was shouting at Matt, to shout at Deirdre.

'Claire's gone!'

'What? Why?' asked Deirdre.

'Because this place is trying to start a war,' explained Matt, mildly exasperated.

'We didn't _start_ the fucking war!' exclaimed Tom. 'We're just trying not to lose it!' Matt looked at Deirdre, who looked at Tom.

'Of course, Tom is right,' she said cautiously. 'If the human race is going to survive this, we need to fight. Tom, they want you in the Grand Hall, to help prepare for tonight. Myra told me she's noticed your devotion, and she wants you working where the action is, not hidden away on a computer. You need to go to her.' Tom's eyes were shiny with pride as he marched out.

'Seriously?' said Matt.

'No, not fucking seriously. Or at least a different kind of seriously.'

'What?' he asked, and Deirdre sighed.

'I was never any good at macho speeches. Matt, I'm in trouble. We're all in trouble, you know that, right?' He nodded warily. 'Thank fuck. I need your help.' Deirdre switched on her computer and began pulling out wires from the tangled pile in her desk drawer.

'What are you plotting?' asked Matt. 'I don't like creating drama.'

'It's ok, we won't. We're just going to give people a chance to think for themselves. That's a good thing, right?' Deirdre lied, because soon all manner of drama would occur.

It was six o'clock in the evening, and the corridors were empty. Deirdre had a strong sense of foreboding. She didn't know if it was the result of a CD or a logical way to feel when a building that was usually bustling with people and noise, was eerily silent. She'd prepared all she could with Matt and had an hour to work out what would happen that evening.

There had to be a limit to what Myra could get away with. Probably this evening would be just another spectacle. Perhaps this time Myra would make a mistake and a few cracks would show. They would start asking questions.

_These are intelligent people_ , Deirdre thought to herself. _All they need is for Myra to get carried away and mess up_.

She found herself outside the Grand Hall, the windows in the passageway were still boarded over, but the floor had been swept clean. She could hear muffled speech and walked with trepidation to the Grand Hall doors, then pulled one open enough to glimpse the followers inside. Adam stood on the stage, he spoke, and they repeated.

'When my god calls, I shall listen with a pure soul.'

'When my god calls, I shall listen with a pure soul,' they said as one, without hesitation.

'I shall not let the tin gods taint my thoughts with doubt.'

'I shall not let the tin gods taint my thoughts with doubt.' Deirdre could see from their rapt faces and shining eyes that they believed absolutely.

'Myra is my guide. The Sphere is my being. We are one.'

'Myra is my guide. The Sphere is my being. We are one.'

Deirdre's foreboding swelled and burst into panic. These people wouldn't be capable of questioning anything. She needed to find Myra. She sent a quick message to Nuan:

Myra is getting ready to drink the Kool-Aid. I'm going to escape, but first I'll be uploading live for the next hour or so. I'll get what I can. You'll have to decide what to do with it.

_See you on the other side_.

With sudden clarity, borne of panic, Deirdre knew where Myra would be. She headed for the one place where the Messiah seemed truly happy, the jungle room.

Walking to find Myra, Deirdre prepared herself for what to say. Her fear of Myra had been crushed by her panic, and now her panic was kicked out of sight by her fear of Myra. She was operating in an emotionless no-man's-land. She needed to get it right, to cajole and flatter, to take all guilt and imperfection on herself. After growing up with Aurora and using the same routine, she knew the rules. Pulling the curtain aside, a blast of humidity brought a flush to her face, but she was glad to have an excuse to sweat. Myra sat inside, unruffled in the heat, and turned to her with an expression that was completely empty. Deirdre hunched up, distraught, then began to eat humble pie.

'Myra, I need to say I'm sorry. I was terrible to you earlier, and it's destroying me. I was scared, and I lost it. It was unforgivable.'

Myra looked at her in disgust and said, 'Tell me why I shouldn't strike you down with a bolt of lightning?'

_Because you don't have the ability_ , thought Deirdre.

'Because you are a patient and benevolent God,' she said. Myra was unimpressed. 'And because you wouldn't want to waste your precious defts on a useless underling like me,' Deirdre plowed on, and Myra sniffed with satisfaction. 'You were right about getting people here. Of course, we must welcome everyone if we're to build an army. Tonight will be the culmination of all our hard work.'

Deirdre spoke slowly, hoping Myra's impatience would lead her to interrupt with some incriminating evidence, or information about what would happen at seven minutes past. 'I got disheartened because I feel so inadequate.' Myra looked away, bored. 'I used to be of use to you, but now...' Deirdre dropped her gaze.

'Everyone has their time,' Myra said without warmth.

'My useful time isn't over yet, I can help. If you'd only include me in your plans for tonight.'

'Then what? To stand beside me needs strength.'

'I can't be as brilliant as Adam, but I can do something. I can work with Torque,' Deirdre let a note of desperation enter her voice. 'Only this evening I was helping him as he tried to find evidence of the tin gods in the stars.'

'What's the point in that? He's supposed to be translating code!' said Myra. Deirdre sensed a slight chink in Myra's armor and eased it open a little more.

'He does get confused sometimes. Perhaps the elite are misguiding him.'

'He's not misguided, he's fucking useless. He always has been. I thought he had potential, I gave him the chance to use it, and he squandered it.'

'You gave him a chance?'

'He was supposed to access more of his brain. It was something my mother did, and it seemed obvious Torque would follow on.'

'After all, you needed communication from the Shadows. How else could you save us all?' said Deirdre.

'He was so slow! He kept fussing about scientific method and graphs. I thought I'd fixed that, but it made him more hopeless.'

Deirdre spoke like she was walking along a cliff edge, feeling for each step. 'Of course, it was part of your plan, and you needed Torque to be free from the constraints of his brain. He needed an injury to do that.'

Myra narrowed her eyes at Deirdre.

'I suppose you're going to start whining about human rights in a minute.'

'No! This is war. Only a genius would work it out. Who else could have realized that by giving your brother brain damage in that derelict house, he had a chance to connect directly to the Shadows?'

'Yes. Exactly.'

'Like what's happening tonight, there have to be sacrifices.'

'Yes.'

'Because this is a greater truth. So, that's what you're going to do? Give your followers brain damage?'

'I'm going to free them.'

'Using science? Like what? Surgery or something?' Deirdre had let her mouth run away from her, and now Myra stared with a steady, watchful gaze, an echo of the praying mantis on her shoulder.

Deirdre was acutely aware of the tiny camera clipped to her shirt collar. She'd been careful to hide it, but under scrutiny it could still be discovered, and she needed more proof. She decided to change method, to distract Myra.

'It doesn't worry you though?' asked Deirdre, affecting a humble concern, the question of a weakling, the cowering fool Myra expected her to be.

'What worries me is our impending annihilation,' replied Myra, scorn rolling the words around her teeth. Deirdre thought, _In for a penny, in for a pound._

'It's just that sometimes,' said Deirdre, 'it seems the greater truth is whatever it suits you to believe.' She kept her expression mild, but Myra almost evaporated with pure anger.

'What?' Myra asked, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

'Perhaps the reason Torque can't translate the Cryptomorphica is that there's nothing to translate, because it's only random squiggles written by ill people.'

'How dare you!' shrieked Myra, grabbing a lizard from the ledge beside her and crushing it in her hand, its tiny pink mouth gaping in shock. She threw it at Deirdre while howling, 'How dare you taunt your God!'

'You aren't my God,' Deirdre said, ducking the lizard. 'You're not anyone's God. You're a spoilt brat who drugs your followers to give them mystical experiences. If you were genuinely divine, you wouldn't need to.'

'You think? None of you think! You all adore me, you all want to be special, but you're pathetic cretins who'd never gain powers without my help. I give you brilliance you couldn't even dream of without me.'

'You give us drugs,' said Deirdre.

'I give you what you crave! A chance to be spectacular!'

'Because that's all you wanted for yourself, to be spectacular. But you aren't, are you? You are a pound shop preacher, you're mediocre.' Myra flew at Deirdre, her hands in claws, kicking out from the ground and screaming.

Deirdre didn't put up any kind of fight, instead, she fell to the floor and covered her face, while punches thudded against her head, her legs, the ground. She whimpered and pleaded, but it was a distant sound. Myra marched out, and Deirdre checked the camera was still running. She needed to get out. It would be only minutes before Myra realized their argument had been blasted from speakers throughout the Center. Even now, scholars would be reeling from the shock of being called cretins by the leader they adored. And they'd be working to twist what they'd heard so their beliefs remained intact.

It wasn't easy to stand and stagger from the room. Her body was aching, her knees locking and a bruise on her forehead was pounding at her vision with purple lights. She had a strong need to curl up and hide until her mind had calmed, but she knew that would never happen inside the Center. She started to run, hoping her sense of direction would kick in and she would find the front door without getting lost.

It didn't.

She limped down a few empty corridors praying to whatever god might be listening that she wouldn't meet anyone. One leg was buckling beneath her, a sharp pain kept stabbing at her side, and she was scared Myra had given her more than bruises. Spots were crowding her vision, and she had an overwhelming desire to sleep. She turned the next corner.

'Shit,' she muttered, as five huddled scholars swung round to look at her, their eyes were swollen from crying. They stared at Deirdre in confusion, and one started to point accusingly when the speakers jumped into life.

'Scholars!' said Myra's voice, distorting through the coil. Deirdre ducked through a nearby door, and found herself outside, as Myra's voice carried on. 'The elite have infiltrated our home! As we ready ourselves to fight, they try to rip us apart. Don't be fooled by their games.'

Deirdre ran to Cabbage's tree with a vague plan. He was still there, swinging his bare leg and staring up at the stars. Torque had gone. She tugged on his foot.

'We can go now, Cabbage,' she said. 'You can come with me.' He didn't move or reply. She tugged again, then muttered an apology and picked up his robe lying at the foot of the tree. She put it on, pulling the hood up to hide her face. The bruises were starting to set into her bones, and it was a struggle to move again. Her knee was grinding, sharp twangs of pain took her breath, and lights sparked her vision.

Hobbling back through the passageways of the Center, trying to hold the frayed ends of her consciousness together, Deirdre could hear scholars reassuring themselves as she passed them.

'Of course, Myra wouldn't hurt her own brother.'

'I always knew it wasn't her. It didn't even sound like her.'

Deirdre kept going, her feet dragging. After hitting a few dead ends, she found herself near the front door in the corridor of glued junk. She had a small leap in energy on reaching the final hurdle, the outside world just inches away, only a group of scholars blocked her.

'You! You're the betrayer!' shouted a bulky ogre of a man, rage gnarling up his face.

'She's become a tin god,' whispered a young woman with stars drawn on her cheeks. 'She's the one who's been spreading lies.'

'I _know_ that!' hissed the ogrish man, then swayed his angry gaze back at Deirdre.

She took a step toward them, trying to look menacing, then rested her hand against the lumpy wall and waited for the spots to clear. This needed a better strategy. She leaned toward them.

'You've heard Myra's explanation of the recording?' she said. 'You know the tin gods have infiltrated us?' They nodded.

'She said you were one of them. That you'd been taken over and corrupted by them,' said the star-faced woman.

'Not me.' Deirdre shook her head, then steadied herself again. 'They used an imposter, I had to fight them to escape.' She gestured at her battered face and hoped they wouldn't try to analyze her explanation too much.

'So where are you going? Shouldn't you go to Myra, to explain?'

'Yes, of course. But first I need some air. Clear my head.'

'You can't go out there,' whispered the young woman, with pupils which grew and shrunk as she stared. 'You'll get corrupted. They'll steal your soul.' The woman shrank back from the door as if evil was seeping through the paint. The others nodded, making fretful glances toward the door. Then one leaned forward, her eyes were ready to pop from her head, and she spoke in a slur that seemed to warp time.

'They can get into you. They'll twist your mind!'

Deirdre blinked, and for a moment everything was in darkness.

_What if they already have?_ she thought. _What if the elite got in and infected my mind, turning me against Myra?_

She opened her eyes again and looked hard at the scared followers staring back at her, each was a thousand miles from being a warrior, their will broken.

_Does it even matter?_ she thought.

'I'll take that chance,' she said, and resolutely taking her life into her own hands, she hobbled past them, through the door and into the night.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Petra Jacob's previous book is **Riddled with Senses** , a magic realism story of love, drugs and a dance with the Devil.

She can also be found at http://inkbiotic.com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Without the following people, this book would have stayed a messy jumble of disconnected ideas. So thank you to Gareth for helping me understand commas, a bit. Also for feedback, laughter and sanity. Thank you to Saiqa for all the wise writing advice, and just generally being great. To Carey Harrison for his encouragement. To my family, for their unflagging support and patience.

You all help to make life a joyful place to be.

And a final thank you to Vila Design for the excellent cover.

She can be found at www.viladesign.net

