Somewhere

Prologue

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

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

Prologue

A snowstorm lashed at the concrete walls of the prison, rendering the grey stone white. Hidden by acres of surrounding woodland, the building was almost invisible at the best of times. Then again, that’s the whole point, Henry thought, sitting against the wall of the underground cell. His white beard was flecked with blood from wounds inflicted by the guards when they’d caught him, when he’d been helping Jes and Ryan escape.

Luthan won’t just leave me here, he thought. He was sure the Guild would be doing everything they could to free him.

He looked up as the sound of footsteps came down the corridor.

The door opened and Susannah, the teacher, stepped inside.

‘Have you come to gloat?’ Henry said.

‘Felix is dead,’ she said abruptly. ‘And Stephen Nover has taken control of the Pledge. He’s insane …’ She paused, looking around as if someone might overhear. ‘Never mind. That’s not the only reason I came here. Something’s happening to the children. I need your help.’

Henry watched her carefully and nodded.

Susannah looked over her shoulder at the door. ‘Come in,’ she said.

A small frail-looking boy with pale skin entered. His nose was flecked with dried blood.

‘He’s passed out a couple of times,’ Susannah said. ‘He’s been getting quite confused.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you want to examine him or –’

‘I’ve seen enough,’ Henry said.

‘Very well.’ Susannah called to the guard, who appeared at the door. ‘Take this inmate back to his cell.’

The guard nodded and beckoned to the boy, who quickly left. As soon as their footsteps had disappeared, Henry sighed deeply and looked at Susannah, before saying, ‘The Ability is being overused. It’s making them sick. When reality is manipulated on such a scale, like you’re doing here, it causes the brain to just …’ Henry snapped his fingers.

‘What does that mean?’ Susannah asked. ‘What will happen?’

‘The nosebleeds will get worse. So will the blackouts until he’s either lost his mind completely … or he just doesn’t wake up. And not just the children here. My people too. The escaped inmates.’ He stopped and slowly shook his head. ‘It’ll kill them all.’

Susannah said nothing for a few moments. ‘Is there any way of stopping it?’

‘End the project,’ Henry said. ‘At once. Set them free.’

‘There’s nothing I can do,’ she said. ‘If I disobey Stephen, he’ll just get someone else to take my place. He won’t let it end –’

Henry narrowed his eyes. ‘We discovered the Ability, Susannah, all those years ago … and you let it fall into the wrong hands … You gave it to these psychopaths and now we’re all in danger: you, me, the country itself. The children –’

‘I know!’ she hissed, exasperated. ‘But it’s out of my hands now. I’m just as much of a prisoner as you are.’

Before he could answer, she turned and slammed the door shut.

Henry leant his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

1

A crow flew on to a lamp post and croaked as a car hurtled round the corner, its speakers blaring. The gust of wind blew a plastic bag on to the snow-covered grass. From the outside, the Guild’s building looked like a decrepit block of flats in a south London estate: the last place anyone would expect to find a training school for those who could manipulate reality itself. The only indication was the heavy security gate that barred the front entrance to the building.

Inside the dining room, Luthan, the acting leader of the Guild, studied the group assembled round the table as they ate lunch. A stocky bald man in his early forties with deep-set wrinkles around his eyes, he possessed the intensity of someone who was relishing his opportunity to take charge.

On his right was Elsa, the youngest: small, scrawny, with freckles and frizzy brown hair. The most innocent of the escaped inmates. The most naive, he corrected himself silently. A potential hazard. Jes, an attractive red-haired girl, was sitting beside her and indignantly prodding her lunch. She seemed to be growing more and more angry, but he admired her no-nonsense attitude. If her skill increased, she might some day make a fine member. Ryan, next to her, obviously had feelings for her – only a fool could not see it. But his aggression would need to be kept under control, or he might be a problem.

Luthan then looked over at Julian, a slim boy with dark hair and pointed elfin features. He’d heard tales of how he was clever, but a traitor. Luthan liked to think anyone could change, but, if not, Julian might need to go; the Guild couldn’t risk someone like that among its ranks. But, despite his manipulative streak, Julian seemed less keen on altering reality than the others, to the point of self-righteousness. At the other end of the spectrum was Harlan, a tall, quiet Indian boy who kept himself guarded. He was desperate to join them. Maybe a little too desperate. Luthan noticed he’d been spending an increasing amount of time using the Ability. It seemed like it was starting to become an obsession.

‘Henry is a prisoner in Nowhere,’ said Luthan from the head of the dining table, ‘and the Pledge’s project is still underway. They might think they’re saving the country, but we all know what this is really about … power. And money.’ Luthan paused, as the group took in his words. ‘As long as they are around,’ he continued, ‘none of you will ever be safe.’

‘Neither are the rest of us now they know the Guild exists,’ said Pyra resentfully.

She was in her early twenties, wearing a leather jacket and tattered jeans. Her black hair was short and spiky and fell across one eye. Pyra had joined the Guild at a young age, and she too had taken a while to fit in. Now she was one of the most valuable members of the team. Quick, fearless. Willing to do whatever it took.

Ryan was slouched in his chair with his hood up and his hands in his pockets. He had barely touched his food.

‘What do you think, Ryan?’ said Luthan.

Ryan gave a feeble shrug. ‘Dunno.’

‘This is your future too,’ said Luthan. ‘Giving it some thought might not be such a bad idea.’

‘Look, mate, I don’t know! I don’t know what to say. Yeah, they’re all scumbags. Stephen’s a nutter …’

Luthan leant forward and locked his fingers together. ‘The inmates in Nowhere are forced to watch films containing subliminal messages: a way to harness the Ability without them realizing –’

‘To make things happen,’ Jes interrupted. ‘We know. We were there, remember?’

‘We need to stop the project,’ Luthan said. ‘But to do that we need to get inside.’

‘There’s a tunnel in the yard,’ Harlan said. ‘Was a tunnel. I’m sure it’s been blocked up by now.’

‘All of you are quite sure there’s no other way in?’

The group shook their heads. ‘Place is like a fort,’ said Ryan.

‘And to get into a fort, you need an army,’ Julian offered. ‘And you don’t have one. You’ve only got us. Sorry to break it to you, but Henry’s not getting out of there. And you’re not getting in.’

Half an hour later, everyone had finished eating and went their separate ways, without resolution. After some moments sitting alone, Luthan went into the corridor. When he was certain there was no one around, he walked over to a door in the middle of the corridor and knelt down, removing a small key from a secret compartment in the wooden skirting-board.

He unlocked and opened the door and entered. In the darkness Luthan could just make out the faintest hint of a shape, silhouetted against the wall. ‘Hang on in there,’ he said. ‘I’m doing everything I can to stop it.’

With that, Luthan stepped back outside, locked the door and put the key back inside the panel.

2

After their meal, Jes and Elsa went up on to the roof of the Guild’s building to practise the most basic test given to trainee members: manipulating a coin to land on its side.

‘It’s not working,’ Jes said after yet another failed attempt. She hadn’t kept count, thankfully. It would’ve only depressed her.

She looked over at Elsa, who was enveloped in Pyra’s leather jacket. ‘If I can’t even do this, what good will I be trying to get revenge on the Pledge?’

‘Revenge?’ Elsa looked confused. ‘I thought we were just supposed to be stopping the project and freeing the inmates …’

That too, Jes thought. But, after everything they had been put through, revenge was the more attractive option. She flipped the coin in the air and closed her eyes. It hit the roof, rolled slightly and fell flat.

‘You remind me of me,’ said Elsa. ‘I never thought I’d make it work either!’

She ran over to the roof edge and peered over. On the pavement below an elderly balloon seller, on his way to a children’s party, was struggling to control his colourful jumble of inflatables.

‘I’m going to get myself one of those balloons! Just watch.’ Elsa shut her eyes and whispered ‘blue elephant’, her locus, over and over to help her concentrate.

Jes sighed and folded her arms sceptically. A moment later, a cloud drifted from in front of the sun, causing the misty winter light to glimmer on the surface of the road. A driver missed the traffic light that had just turned red. His car sped through the junction and almost collided with an oncoming vehicle, which in turn careered on to the pavement.

The old man turned and jumped backwards, momentarily letting go of his balloons. He reached up, managing to grasp all of the strings but one. A balloon floated up on a gust of air towards the Guild’s tower block.

Elsa pointed at the balloon, grinning, as it slunk silkily upward. ‘I made that happen. It’s just practice!’

Jes smiled but said nothing. She wasn’t used to being left behind; she had always been popular and socially and academically gifted. Exams came easily to her. She had often felt a pang of guilt around results time, when her friends, who worked far harder than she did, ended up with less to show for it than her. Naturally talented, her parents and teachers had said.

Except now.

‘I’ve been thinking about what happened in the opera house,’ said Elsa.

Jes nodded. ‘I just don’t know what Alyn was thinking. I mean, he was there – with Felix. The leader of the Pledge … the people who put us there! Why?’

‘People change, right?’

‘That’s what scares me,’ Jes said.

She too had changed. She had never been angry – far from it – but ever since they had been taken, the anger had been growing quietly inside her. She had spent months staring at the same grey walls, the same forest shutting them off from the rest of the world, the same shadow of iron bars falling across her while she slept. She wasn’t a bad person – was she? Back home, they’d told her how brilliant she was, and she had lived up to it. But in the prison she’d been told something else: that she was vicious, violent. Dangerous.

‘Things aren’t ever going to be the same, are they?’ she said, gazing as the clouds slipped back across the sun.

Elsa looked at her questioningly.

Jes went on. ‘With us, I mean. We tried to tell everyone in the opera house about the Pledge but no one believed us – they all just thought we were crazy. We’re never going back. This is it now. Us versus them. Even if we get home, things will never be the same as they were. If you think about it like that, I guess you could say the Pledge has won.’

Elsa tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace.

‘We know why they put us there. But we’re still prisoners, aren’t we? Until they’re all gone, we’ll never be safe.’ Jes looked at Elsa for a response. But Elsa was unscrewing a yellow bottle of children’s bubbles. She dipped the plastic stick inside, raised it to her mouth and blew. ‘You listening, Elsa?’

‘Huh?’

A web of quivering bubbles, gilded with oily blue and green, wobbled slowly across the white sky.

‘Bubbles,’ Jes said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Really …’

Elsa beamed. ‘Yup, Harlan bought me them from the shop.’ She dipped the stick back in and blew again. ‘I told him I always liked to imagine there’s a problem inside each of those bubbles and they’re just blowing away!’ She looked over her shoulder at Jes.

Jes got up and went and sat beside Elsa on the roof edge. She took the plastic stick from her and blew, then laughed.

‘See?’ Elsa said.

‘You’re easily amused,’ Jes said with a look that might have been envy.

Elsa seemed momentarily embarrassed.

‘No, no. It’s a good thing,’ Jes said. ‘Here, let me have another go.’

The two girls sat on the roof side by side, laughing at the bubbles while everything around them was beginning to fall apart.

3

‘So that’s really what it’s all about for you, Stephen?’ said Antonia, the third-ranking member of the Pledge. ‘Money?’

Stephen Nover, the twenty-one-year-old billionaire and new leader of the Pledge, leant back in his chair, his Italian designer shoes resting on the desk’s edge. Beneath them was a newspaper showing a picture of the now-deceased Felix on the front page. To his left sat Lord Blythe, a barrel-shaped aristocrat and the second-wealthiest man in the country.

‘Yes, Antonia,’ he answered coolly. ‘Money. What else would it be about? Truth? Justice? Equality?’ He tipped his head back. ‘Ha! Those are all just words. Meaningless words. Intangible. But money –’ he gazed out of the window, a broad smile creeping across his face – ‘money is real, Antonia. Money is the only thing it’s ever been about!’

‘Semper ad meliora,’ Antonia said coldly. The disdain was clear on her face. ‘It means “ever towards better things”. That’s what we agreed, Stephen.’

‘Yes, when Felix was in charge. And look where that got him!’ He threw his head back, giggling with delight. His movements were floppy and exaggerated, like a child who had not yet mastered control of his limbs.

Antonia watched him silently and started fiddling with her diamond bracelet. ‘There are still six escaped inmates, and this other group – the Guild – who seem to be helping them.’

Blythe scratched his grey moustache. ‘And we have their leader – this Henry fellow, don’t we? They’ll be coming to us. And we’ll be ready for them!’

‘I’ve already made plans at the prison,’ Stephen said. ‘If Susannah Dion is to be trusted, some of my changes will be coming into effect very soon …’

Stephen clasped his hands behind his head, smirking. The solution seemed simple: there were just too many people fighting over too few resources.

‘And if she isn’t to be trusted?’ said Blythe.

Stephen opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. It was true, Susannah had seemed less than thrilled with his plans. If she developed a conscience now, it would be a terrible inconvenience. ‘I’ll have someone watch over her,’ he said, pondering. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

‘My concern is Felix’s adviser,’ Antonia said. ‘This Emmanuel character. After what he did to Felix …’

‘Quite! I’ve never trusted him either,’ said Blythe, burping into his hand. ‘Always thought there was something strange about him. I told Felix I thought he might be using us all for his own purposes, but the old boy didn’t listen.’

Stephen put a hand to his chin. ‘I’m not going to do anything rash just yet. But leave Emmanuel to me. I’m sure I’ll be able to make him see my point of view.’

‘Felix tried that,’ Blythe answered. ‘Didn’t end well, did it?’

As much as it pained Stephen to accept that the others were right, Emmanuel was a growing concern, a dangerous enigma without an obvious motive.

‘If it comes to it, Emmanuel will have to be removed,’ Stephen answered, although he suspected that it might be a little more difficult than that.

4

‘This way,’ Emmanuel said, holding a lantern in front of him.

Dressed formally in a grey suit, his tidy black hair and calm demeanour gave no clue as to his intentions; he was a blank canvas, a seemingly ordinary man, the kind of man you might pass on the street and give no further thought to. Still, Alyn detected something cold yet strangely compelling about him.

Something dangerous.

‘You can stay here with me,’ Emmanuel continued. ‘This is a safe place, somewhere the Pledge will never find you.’

Alyn followed him through a narrow arch, brushing his dark fringe out of his eyes.

Everything had descended into chaos last night at the opera house. Felix had planned to vote Stephen out of the Pledge, but Stephen had secretly been using Nowhere to cause Felix’s fortune to crash. That was the last time Alyn had seen Felix alive. He paused and leant against the wall. His friends had been there too: Ryan, Harlan, Elsa, Julian … Jes. And he’d saved them. Alyn shut his eyes, but the scene repeated itself again and again: the brass chandelier plummeting down on to Stephen’s men, the screams and the shattering of bones …

‘Come on,’ Emmanuel said over his shoulder.

Alyn walked after him in silence and soon they entered a large chilly room. The wind howled through the crumbling stone. Emmanuel placed the lantern on a hook and slowly the darkness peeled away, revealing a derelict church.

Alyn walked between the rows of pews, shivering. Strange, sinister-looking glyphs were etched on the walls in chalk, the graffiti of a deranged and dedicated mind. A few leather-bound books were scattered on a broken chair in a corner at the front. Alyn lifted one up.

‘You don’t have much to say,’ said Emmanuel, watching Alyn carefully.

‘I’m more interested in what you have to say,’ he answered. ‘I want to know who you are. I want to know how to destroy the Pledge. I don’t care what it takes. I want them gone so me and my friends can get back to our lives. I want to know when all of this is going to end.’

Emmanuel held a candle against the lantern flame until it took light. ‘It will end as soon as I take control of the project – of Nowhere.’

A creeping suspicion filled Alyn. ‘Why do you want control of it?’

‘To start a revolution. To tear down everything, to overthrow our rulers so we can start again. So we can start anew from the ashes. It’s what everyone wants, Alyn. Haven’t you noticed the anger? The hatred simmering beneath the surface?’ Emmanuel’s voice was quiet but cold. ‘I’m going to use Nowhere to cause a blackout in the city. It’s the only way the revolution can begin. In the darkness.’

Alyn looked at Emmanuel, unable to muster any words.

‘Society is a work in progress,’ Emmanuel went on, ‘and progress is the work of a blind sculptor. Once in a while it needs a helping hand.’

Alyn watched him closely. ‘That’s what the Pledge says.’

‘The Pledge is only concerned with keeping things as they are, so they can prosper. A true revolution would mean they too are overthrown. The Pledge was necessary. The project would have never got underway without the funds and influence of the wealthiest.’

And you were the one pulling the strings all along, Alyn thought. ‘So that means you want to get rid of them?’

Emmanuel lit another candle and placed it on the far wall.

‘Soon, Alyn. But I have another concern. A group who call themselves the Guild.’

A surge of panic rose in Alyn’s chest. ‘Never heard of them,’ he lied, and walked over to the wall. There was a mound of crinkled and cracked leaves, and weeds poked through the stone.

Emmanuel gave him a piercing look. ‘They’re planning to free everyone from the prison and expose the Pledge. But I can’t allow this to happen before my own plans are realized. Help me, Alyn, and you will never need worry about the Pledge ever again. And you and your friends will be free.’

‘What if I say no?’

Emmanuel smiled and walked away. ‘Rest now. And think carefully, Alyn.’

Alyn waited until Emmanuel was gone and lay down on the nearest pew, looking up at the stained and crumbling ceiling. Finally there was someone else who wanted to destroy the Pledge, the group who had kidnapped him and his friends – and many others – imprisoning them in Nowhere. As long as the Pledge was still around, none of them were safe. But could Emmanuel be trusted?

‘The lesser of two evils,’ he murmured, and closed his eyes.

5

Harlan stood in the dingy, noisy amusement arcade a short distance from the Guild’s headquarters. A crowd of people gathered around him as he fed another coin into the flashing machine.

‘Hey, you wanna give me some of that luck?’ said an overweight man beside him, laughing.

‘Me too,’ said another. ‘I’ve never seen anyone do this to a machine. The damn thing must be broken …’

‘It ain’t broken, unless every machine in the place is. This is the third machine I’ve seen this kid wipe out in half an hour.’

The other pair murmured and ran to the surrounding machines, fumbling in their pockets for coins.

Harlan shrugged. ‘Just one of those days,’ he said humbly.

He jabbed the red button and closed his eyes, willing the jackpot. Unlike his friends, Harlan didn’t need a locus – a word or gesture or tool to help him concentrate. It was being in the prison, with nothing more than a silver coin, where he had learned how to manipulate coincidence, to change the world.

As a clatter of warm coins cascaded into the tray, the young man beside him burst into laughter, patting Harlan enthusiastically on the back.

Harlan grinned. It wasn’t even so much the money that excited him, but the sense of winning, the feeling that he had broken the rules.

‘Hang on a minute, I know you,’ the young man said suddenly, frowning as he looked closely at Harlan. ‘You’re that missing teenager. I saw you on the news. I thought you looked familiar.’

Harlan froze. ‘You’re mistaken,’ he answered, shovelling the money into the makeshift pouch he’d made with his jumper.

‘Hey, that’s right,’ said the older man, who had given up on a machine behind the pair. ‘I’ve seen you too. What happened, you run away or something?’

‘I – I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Harlan said, and walked away anxiously.

Jon Robinson

SOMEWHERE

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

THE BEGINNING

Books by Jon Robinson

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5