Читать книгу Giant Killer - John McNally - Страница 18

There were too many variables, thought Li Jun.

There were six small children and approximately six thousand polyurethane spheres in the ball pool, featuring nine different colours with a predominance of red, blue, green and yellow. Four per cent of the spheres were misshapen or dented. Every movement caused a chaotic chain reaction through the surrounding balls that was predictable only to a low standard deviation. Too many differential calculations were required.

But what was causing Li Jun’s real distress was that the activity of the six small children in the ball pool had no point or goal. She looked out of the ball pool to where Grandmother Allenby stood with the other adults.

In an exaggerated mime, Grandma clutched her diaphragm and said, “Breathe, dear.”

Li Jun took a deep breath. She should be able to cope. She had a formidable mind. She had been Kaparis’s chief technician, after all—

“INCOMING!” Hudson cried, sprinting towards the edge of the pool while holding on to his glasses.

Grandma watched the speeding dork bellyflop in, causing an explosion of colour.

“Hudson! Really!”

“Come on, Li Jun! Get your shoulders under!” said Hudson, and he began to splash her with balls, an activity enthusiastically taken up by the little ones, so that Li Jun soon stood, uncomprehending, in the centre of a mad fountain.

“Is she … quite normal?” asked one of the other parents, looking at the slim teenage girl who seemed to be part Asian, part alien.

“She’s from another culture,” explained Grandma, biting back the urge to call Hudson and the toddlers off.

Li Jun was, in fact – thanks to Grandma – the world’s only liberated Tyro. After they had been rescued in the South China Sea, she had managed to provide vital information about Kaparis and his Tyro programme, but more lay buried in her mind and scans proved her brain had been deliberately manipulated. How could they unlock the memories within it? Grandma had a simple strategy: Li Jun had to be normalised. So Grandma had taken her home to clean sheets, fresh flowers, and fun. Finn’s best friend, Hudson, was brought in to act as a surrogate sibling and she had begun “play therapy”.

Li Jun bloomed, even if she hadn’t opened up completely yet. But most of all, it was good for Grandma, who liked Li Jun. She kept her busy and she kept her from thinking about Finn.

“INTO THE CASTLE!” cried Hudson, leading a Pied Piper charge on the coloured rope ramparts of the Maze Adventure. Li Jun stared after him like a frightened cat.

She is a jigsaw, thought Grandma with a sigh. Like any teenager. Except that with most young teenagers the edge pieces and corners were mostly in place, even some of the sky. In Li Jun’s case, the bits that were in place were few and far between and the pieces looked as if they all came from different sets …

“HELP!”

Hudson, far too big for the soft play apparatus, had managed to get himself stuck.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake …” said Grandma, and she started to wade through the coloured ball pool to rescue him.

It was while Hudson was being released – by Grandma, a four-year-old boy called Donald and a member of the security detail that followed them everywhere – that the first breakthrough occurred.

Li Jun had stepped out of the ball pool to wave goodbye to the other children. As their parents led them back through the shopping mall, the children played a game, which Li Jun instantly saw the logic of. The floor was made up of a series of tiles; the object of the game was never to step on the lines between them.

Li Jun looked down and centred her feet in the tile squares … and a thread tugged in her mind … She saw mountains … felt cold …

She moved forward, step by step, avoiding the lines. And with every step, stone slabs started to appear in her mind’s eye and fit together to form … another floor, in another place …

“Li Jun? What is it, dear?” asked Grandma as she reappeared with Hudson.

“I don’t know, Grandmother,” she whispered. Then she asked in a trance, “Hudson? Do you have your tablet?”

Hudson took his iPad out of his pack and gave it to her.

Li Jun opened the Minecraft app. She took a step. Remembered a stone. Laid it in a blank landscape. Then another. Then another …

Grandma and Hudson watched.

“‘Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’,” said Grandma.

“What?” said Hudson.

“Call Al.”