living here now are ghosts.” And he explained how what he called their old comfort blanket had changed into a blanket of fear. “Who knows when this happened? Sometimes I think it began when they tarmacked the front gardens for their second or third cars, or perhaps it was when the kids and their mums and dads stopped playing together and disappeared into their bedrooms for hours on end to play computer games, watch TV, press buttons. Anyway, conversation stopped. Then I imagine how the children left, sucked down telephone wires or satellite cables into another dimension. Hear it now? No sound, no wind, no movement, no people. Just planes passing overhead and the distant complaints of sirens. Here we are,” he announced.
It was a dark, semi-detached house with its windows and doors all boarded up. I held my nose against the stench of blocked drains. We clambered through a hole in a board nailed over the back door. Johnny threw a connection switch on an electricity meter, telling me he’d wired it to a street lamp outside—free electricity. “Don’t know why everyone doesn’t do this.”
The lights blazed on and the blackness shrank into sharp shadows. I couldn’t hide my shock. He took my hand as I stumbled over rubbish on the floor—wet, broken plaster, rotten floorboards, plastic bags, empty bottles.
“But what is this?” I asked naively.
“A squat, of course,” he said, and I could tell that if his voice had been human, it would have betrayed a trace of contempt at my ignorance. “How d’you think I survived for two years?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
“The first few weeks were the worst. Looking back, I was lucky I wasn’t killed. One night I slept in the middle of a traffic island! I hid in the bushes, but it was hard to sleep cos of the noise.”
“That’s awful!”
“Then I met this guy, Turney. He was older, been homeless a while. He kind of took me under his wing. Saved my life really. Took me down to Southwark and found me a squat—the first of a string of them. To begin with I was sharing with about twenty others. At least I’m alone here. Turney showed me where you could get free food and clothes, and who was dangerous and who would be friendly. You see, there are cafés and shops which don’t mind hybrids coming in; some are even run by hybrids. He showed me how to keep away from the vigilantes who come hunting for us, the Gene Police, the drug pushers and the pimps.”
“Was he a hybrid?” I asked.
“No. But he kind of liked hanging out with them. He was about twenty, but he seemed a lot older. He used to say, ‘Johnny-boy, if I’m going to get it, I’m going to get it. Don’t matter what I do, my number will be up. So I ain’t going to let some crummy virus scare me’.”
Johnny led me upstairs: there were no carpets and our footsteps seemed too loud.
“He sounds nice. What happened to him?”
“Dunno. One day he just disappeared and I never saw him again. I looked for him at his usual haunts, but I never found him. Maybe he was picked up by the Gene Police and sent to the CGR just for the hell of it.”
Suddenly he froze. He signalled me to be silent. I could see daylight coming in from a bedroom. We continued slowly, treading on smashed glass. Johnny rushed into the back bedroom and I followed.
The room had been ransacked. I pinched my nose at the smell and saw excrement was smeared on the furniture. Graffiti on the walls shouted “Bye bye freaks”; “We’ll get you next time”; “Hybrid control—mission accomplished”. I saw Johnny stagger and rushed to support him, easing him on to a chair.
“My computers…back-ups…all gone…” he said. Equipment lay smashed on the floor. Papers were everywhere.
“What a mess,” I said. “Do you know who did it?”
He looked at me as if he’d forgotten I was there.
“What does it matter?”
“Did they take much?”
“All my files—writing. My databases, programs, all my hardware…No, not much.”
“Haven’t you got it backed up somewhere?”
“Well, yes and no. Some of it, almost, a bit.” On his screen a picture of an underground cave system momentarily replaced his standard screensaver of a stoned smiley face.
I began to poke around in the mess. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, no?”
“Yeah, but it was my rubbish.”
“At least you weren’t here when it happened.”
“I can look after myself.”
“I don’t think so. Come on.” I took a last look round, picked up a few papers and marched out of the bedroom. This time, he followed.
It was when we got into the front yard that they pounced. I think there were three of them. They must have only just left the house when we arrived, and had seen us, returning for an ambush. Screaming, they charged at us from the side passage, waving baseball bats and a crowbar.
I let out a shriek, grabbing Johnny’s hand instinctively. We ran towards the gate, hotly pursued just a few metres behind.
But Dominic had seen what was happening and had coasted the car up to the house. The 4x4’s brilliant lights flashed on and with a scream of tyres he swerved it across the road on to the pavement to illuminate fully the front garden.
Startled, our attackers paused, shielding their eyes against the glare. Dominic leant on the horn. We didn’t need a second summons. Racing through the gate, we jumped into the open door and Dominic crashed the gears into reverse, lurched back into the road, and then, with another squeal of tyres, sped off down the street, leaving the vigilantes staring at our tail lights.
The thought briefly occurred to me that she’d set this up on purpose just to make me homeless so I’d do whatever she wanted. Girls, I’d heard, can be devious like that.
I don’t believe in luck, fate or destiny; they’re all comfort words that humans have. It’s just you, what you’re like, that makes certain kinds of events happen to you rather than others. Me, I attract trouble cos I’m a hybrid. People like me give a new meaning to the word ‘dysfunctional’.
This time, as Dominic drove, Kestrella told me more about herself. She was different from anyone I’d met before. She’d seen the world, met all kinds—except dregs like me—and grown up in the type of universe where people fly their own jet to their own private island in the sun for a four-day party attended by tycoons, politicians and actors. In such a world, nobody asks too many questions and everyone feels safe. She said even I would fit in—with the right clothes.
“A hybrid?” I said. “Aren’t they afraid they might catch Something Nasty?”
She shook her head causing tangled black curls to wave around her face, and I began to think how beautiful it might be to run my hand through them. But that was a stupid thought.
“They
