Brotherhood of Shades. Dawn Finch

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СКАЧАТЬ tired of living.” She sighed. “Shouldn’t have that look at his age. He looked older than his years.”

      The senior nurse ushered her junior out of the room and once more the boy was left in peace. The staff had given him a side room, more to spare the emotions of others in the wards than to benefit the boy. This was the first time for a long time that he had a room of his own and he was too far gone into his coma to even notice; instead his thoughts drifted to all that had gone before. His memory ran through the violent foster home from which he had fled as soon as he had been able, to the bitter cold of the London streets where all he had to keep him alive were the handouts from strangers. It was a stranger who had found him that morning and he had a fleeting moment of recollection as she had called for an ambulance while her dog licked his blue-tinged face; then there was the noise and the pulling around . . .

      It was quieter now, but he had heard brief snatches of conversation as they tried in vain to stabilise his heart after the coronary. For a while he felt he was already dead as he drifted in and out of consciousness while the doctors worked on him. He could recall a few faces from that hectic room, but soon had no strength to resist the coma. Several people had rushed him through into the first room, the one with all of the machines and the constant noise and shouting, but only two nurses had wheeled him very slowly into this silent room and so he knew it would be his last. He didn’t mind; it was warm in here and, though he only felt he had the tiniest grip on life, he felt safe for the first time in years.

      “Sleep, young man; you need your rest now,” a nurse told him but, despite the warmth in her voice, cold had already begun to run in his veins.

      He gave up trying to fight it and, feeling the overwhelming drag of sleep, he gave in and the beep that accompanied him gradually began to slow down . . .

      Chapter Three – D’Scover

      “I cannot send anyone until at least next week, possibly Thursday; that is my final word on the matter.”

      The tall, thin man leaned across his desk and flipped the pages of a large desk diary lying in front of him. Loose black hair fell forward across his almost impossibly pale skin as he ran a lean finger down a list of diary entries. Using both hands, he pushed his hair back, frowned and adjusted his telephone earpiece as the voice on the other end of the line continued to speak.

      “What do you mean?” he snapped. “Why did you not say this before? This puts a very different light on the matter. You know full well that activity of this nature is dealt with by the lower departments.” He slammed the diary closed. “You can call them yourself and arrange an agent; Section One does not deal with matters so trivial.”

      He waited while the person on the other end responded.

      “No!” he suddenly snapped. “I care not which minor royal is involved. As a courtesy, I will put the alert through to Section Three myself, but there my involvement ends. Now, if you will excuse me, I have far more important work to attend to.”

      He disconnected the caller and tossed the earpiece on to the desk. Leaning back in his chair, he expelled a long, slow breath while rubbing his eyes wearily. Pulling out the drawer by his knee, he removed a small black cube, which he clicked into place in a niche at the far right of his laptop keyboard. The screen turned black as he reached out and pressed the middle finger of his right hand into the cube. It now turned deep purple and a map of the world appeared upon it. This was liberally decorated with red patches clustering tightly round all of the major cities.

      He touched the map over England and a more detailed one filled the screen; this he tapped again and raised a complicated mesh of lines representing London. The red patches split into hundreds of smaller points of light; these he watched for a moment before touching the image again and raising a detailed map of Gerrard Street and London’s Chinatown. On this screen the dots were fewer, just four or five, and they moved slowly around in a gentle waltz of colour. He tapped the keyboard and a single dot became a vivid yellow. When this was touched, the screen changed and went blank, taking on the purple shade of a day-old bruise. A single yellow-coloured word blinked in the centre of the display – Searching.

      “Come on, Marcus, I know you are there,” the man muttered to himself.

      He laced his fingers together behind his head, rocking his chair impatiently while he waited. A moment or two passed and the yellow word on the screen fractured into a spiral as the screen appeared to spin before settling itself on an image of a red-brick wall. He reached out for the keyboard and pressed a combination of numbers before speaking.

      “Marcus? I cannot see you. Point your CC the other way.”

      “What?” a distant voice said.

      “Your Communication Cube, point it the other way; you have it pointed at the wall,” he said through gritted teeth.

      “Oh yeah, right,” the voice said again. “Knew I forgot something.”

      The view of the wall swam past and the image of a chubby man of about twenty suddenly jumped into the frame. He looked pale and grubby and his hair was an unruly mess; he looked as if he had woken up in a gutter.

      “Hi, To—er, Mr D’Scover, sorry. How are you, sir?” he asked.

      “Marcus, why are you in Gerrard Street?” D’Scover asked, getting straight to the point.

      “Not sure exactly – think I had some drift last night after I Dispersed,” Marcus replied. “I just Dispersed in South Kensington as usual and when I pulled back, I was here.”

      “I do not see how you can have drifted such a long way, and I am not prepared to discuss it with you now – just get back where you belong and keep a lower profile.”

      D’Scover pointed at his diary and it obediently slid across the desk towards him and fluttered open at the pages for the following week. Scanning down the cluttered pages, he found a small, empty line towards the bottom of the second page.

      “I am calling you in next week,” he continued. “We need to have a bit of a talk about your drift problem, do we not?”

      “Yes, sir, anything you like, sir,” Marcus grovelled, but the face on the screen carried a flash of anger for a split second.

      “The sixteenth – do you have date awareness?”

      “Yes, sir, always know what day it is,” Marcus said.

      “Very well, I shall be in touch on the morning of the sixteenth to Hotline you back. Until then, stay in South Kensington. You are no use to the Brotherhood if you lose stability before your due time.”

      D’Scover touched the Communication Cube again and the screen once more returned to the stark white map of the world. Reaching out, he flicked his hand in a small gesture and a large brown box file dutifully rose from its position on a shelf on the opposite side of the room and slid through the air towards his outstretched hand. Laying the box file on the desk, he opened it and pulled out a file marked ‘Marcus Resnick’. Opening it, he added a note to a number of others on a page marked ‘Unauthorised Movement’. Closing it up again, he placed it in the bottom drawer of the desk before flicking his fingers to gesture the box back into its place on the shelf. It was halfway across the room when the office door suddenly opened. D’Scover flicked his right hand up in a circular motion so quick that it almost defied perception and the file plunged to the floor, fanning out its remaining contents across the carpet.

      “Oh!” The young woman who had just СКАЧАТЬ