“Consciousness?” he says, as if I’d asked a question. “They call it ‘the Hard Problem’. It’s such a fascinating question, don’t you think?” He crosses his legs and his trousers ride up to reveal threadbare socks. “Here we are, we intrepid explorers, already possessing knowledge that no other scientist or human in the world possesses. We make astronauts look like children playing in their sandpit, don’t we?” His eyes are shining and I can see at once that Abi is right. There’s no way he’ll give up on his great discovery, it’s worth more to him than his own life; more to him than any of our lives. “We are travellers in the Undiscovered Country. Did you ever consider that?”
We are the Founding Fathers, Kyle.
“But what happens if we dig a little deeper? If this world exists behind our ordinary world, maybe there’s another world behind this one?”
“I just want to get back to the one I’m familiar with,” I say.
“Really?” Benedict seems disappointed. “I want what every scientist wants: to get closer to the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Layers upon layers, I think. Like strata in the earth and beneath it all, what do you think we’ll find…? Bedrock? God, perhaps?”
“I don’t believe in God,” I say.
There’s silence and the music dances through alien landscapes around us.
“I don’t think it’s as simple as that,” Benedict says. “God is just a word. A word to describe a person or a force. I wish I knew which.”
“Why does it matter?” Chiu says.
Benedict turns to regard him. “Because if it’s a person, it can want.”
“What could God possibly want?” I say, laughing slightly.
Benedict’s eyes flash. Abi shifts uncomfortably.
“I have a theory about that,” Benedict says. “I think It wants the same as me.” He waits, holding back a knowing smile. “Let’s for a moment assume that It, in some form or another, exists. If so, It exists for ever. And It can no more imagine the finite than we can imagine the infinite. Don’t you think it would be curious to understand what death is like? Don’t you think it’s possible that It would create an experiment to find out?”
“You mean us?” I say.
“Exactly.” Benedict smiles. “The only creatures born with an understanding of their own finite nature.”
“You think It made us to know that we’ll die? To see what we’ll do?”
Benedict nods.
I snort, bitterly. “That sounds about right.”
“It’s just a theory,” Abi says. “You don’t really have any evidence.”
For a moment I’m afraid they’re going to fall into another of their debates, but they’re interrupted by a shrill buzzer – a rough, grating sound like an old-fashioned doorbell.
“What’s that?” I say.
Vikram and Marcus stop playing and Marcus leaps over the sofa to inspect the television. “Oh crap!” he gasps.
“Four of them,” Benedict says, joining him.
Suddenly Marcus, Vikram and Abi are in motion. They rush to their store of weapons and start pulling on their gear. Golf clubs. Cricket bats. Face masks.
“Ohshitohshitohshit,” Abi is saying.
The rest of us stare at the screen. I squint at the black and white image; the angle is too tight and the light too poor to make out anything other than the slow prowl of suspicious movements. Four? I feel an unreasonable shudder of relief. With Tongue dead, there was only Jonah, Levi and Ose, so this must be some other gang. Perhaps the people who attacked this place before? Dangerous, but not Jonah.
“Ready?” Vikram breathes.
“We’re ready,” Marcus says, pulling his hockey mask down.
“Go,” Benedict replies.
He flicks a switch and, on the screen, I see the edge of the second set of fire doors swing and latch firmly into place. Slow, suspicious movements turn into swift, angry, caged reaction. Like kicking over an ants’ nest. Then, a moment too late, I see the grainy image of a man turn and I realize that I’m wrong.
It’s Jonah.
“Wait, no,” I start. “You can’t—”
But everything is happening too fast. Benedict flicks a second switch and the screen is whited out and there’s a loud crack! crack! of the stun grenades in the airlock. Then Abi, Vikram and Marcus bundle in and the door snaps shut behind them.
Shouts echo, faintly, through the wall.
Marcus: “Get down! Get DOWN!”
A heavy thump that I hope is Marcus hitting somebody, hopefully Jonah. I glance anxiously at Farah. She’s pale, terrified. It’s impossible to see anything through the smoke except flashes of movement and shadow. In a fair fight Jonah would kill Marcus in a second, but like this…? Maybe, just maybe—
The smoke clears and I spot something new: somebody I don’t recognize. He’s slight, no taller than me, probably no older than me either. A slim, black smudge on the screen but it feels like an electric shock running through me.
Why is he so familiar?
