City of the Falling Sky (16 page)

“
Oh Gedin,” Tenk exclaimed.
“It’s not . . . it’s not the Hammer . . .”

“
Introducing–” shouted the
man who was at the centre of the crowd, “–the Hammer
Brothers!”

Tenk’s eyes went wide with awe.

“
Seckry! They weren’t
supposed to be released until next year. They must have brought the
date forward. Why didn’t they mention it in last month’s Friction
Fanzine? Seck, you have to buy a Hammer Brother!”

“
Let’s take a look first,”
Seckry said, and they made their way through the cheering crowd
until they could get a view of one of the large screens.

The Hammer Brothers were a collection of five
grisly looking humanoids wearing spiked black armour and wielding
deadly, blood stained axes.

“
Seckry, look at them, the
Brothers are calling you. They’re calling your name, just look at
those beauties.”

One of the Brothers cocked his head and spat
a gob full of green mucus away from him before snorting like a pig
and waving his axe aggressively.

Seckry wasn’t sure. They looked powerful and
mean, there was no doubt about that, and if he bought a Brother, he
doubted a Golboro would dare stamping on him again. But for some
reason, he turned his head and his eyes met those of the silent
cheetah-archer again, who was watching the commotion of the
emporium with his steady gaze.

Seckry made his way out of the crowd and
caught the attention of an assistant.

“
Excuse me, what can you
tell me about this one?”

“
Anikam?” the assistant
said, putting his hands on his hips. “An interesting one, this guy.
We got him back about . . . oh, it must be around two months ago
now. Don’t get much interest in him. Not a very lively one to be
honest. Doesn’t seem to want to show off his skills like the rest
of them. It was a bit strange when we got him delivered actually.
Most avatars are produced in batches, with a few variations on the
same model, like the Brothers here. But not Anikam. He came boxed
on his own. Only one size, only one edition. You gotta be a pretty
special avatar to be singularly boxed like that, but strangely
enough, you’re the first person to ask about him. Bit of an
enigma.”

“
I’ll take him,” Seckry
said, and he knew he’d made the right choice.

Tenk complained to Seckry about leaving the
Hammer Brothers behind the whole time he was buying Anikam, but as
they left the emporium Tenk was distracted by the welcome girl
again, who gave them a cheeky wink and handed them both a flyer for
some pre-order deals.

Eiya was in the living area when Seckry
arrived home, jotting down notes and flicking through ancient
looking, leather bound books.

“
Did you find anything
useful at the library?” he asked cheerfully.

“
A couple of things . . .”
she said uncertainly. “I managed to get a copy of the
History of
the Great Continent
, which mentions a bit about helitonium in
the Klaxion times, and another one called
Endrin: the Rise to
Superpower
, which chronicles Endrin’s journey to the top. The
only thing is, I can’t seem to find any link. There’s nothing about
people believing in the existence of helitonium in modern times and
there’s nothing about Endrin’s Divinita Project.”

She closed the book and a puff of dust wafted
into the air.

“
It was interesting reading
about the two guys that founded Endrin though . . .”

“
You mean the guys that made
those artificial babies?” Seckry said.

“
Yeah, they were both
infertile scientists who knew each other while they were working at
some other research facility and they decided to form their own
company called Endrin in order to research more into the process of
creating artificial life. Neither wanted to adopt because they knew
it would be someone else’s child that they were raising, but they
both wanted sons, and they convinced themselves that they’d be able
to create their own sons in their lab using some kind of synthetic
substances. They had a team working on it and somehow they managed
to create two babies. It said that they raised the two boys in
their building and they actually grew to the age of about sixteen
before dying of extreme medical difficulties. The two scientists
both committed suicide together shortly after, and the remaining
team formed what we now know as Endrin. It’s haunting isn’t
it?”

Seckry shuddered.

“
My mum reckons that my dad
used to go pale when anyone mentioned it on the news, and to be
honest, I think he’s passed it on to me, it just makes me feel
uncomfortable thinking about babies growing in a lab.”

Eiya was silent for a moment, then she said,
“Seckry . . . you’ve mentioned your dad a few times but I don’t
know anything about him . . .” She trailed off, her voice unsure
and unsteady.

Seckry had never talked about his dad with
any of his friends before, he had never felt comfortable enough to
do so. But with Eiya he was completely at ease. He felt as though
he could tell her anything. Maybe it was because she was also so
unsure about her past life.

“
I haven’t seen my dad for
nine years,” Seckry said. “I don’t really remember what he looks
like, only what my mum’s told me. He just disappeared one night.
Mum says it was like he vanished from the face of the earth. Every
photo of him was gone. Every photo of him and mum, every photo of
him and Leena . . . and every photo of him and me. There was no
trace of him.”

“
Wow . . .” Eiya said
softly. “Just like that . . .”

“
No explanation, nothing,”
Seckry said.

“
Do you remember anything
about him? Anything at all?”

“
I’ve got this vague picture
of him in my mind, though I don’t know whether it’s from my own
memory or descriptions of him from my mum. He’s tall with long
blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. What I remember most though is
picking berries with him. My mum says me and him used to go out all
the time into the ellonberry fields and collect ellonberries for
her to cook with.”

They didn’t have time to talk about it for
much longer, as they’d been given a substantially large piece of
inverse mathematics homework by Mr Cookrook which was due in first
thing on Monday morning.

As Seckry was trying to work out the square
root of 67498, he noticed Eiya was humming. She was doing it very
quietly but Seckry could just make out the familiar tune.

“
Lifted Light?” he said
suddenly.

Eiya’s lips curled into a guilty smile. “I
hope you don’t mind. I listened to a few of your CDs earlier. That
one stuck in my head. The . . . Broken Motion, is it?”

“
Yeah, that’s one of my
favourite songs!” Seckry said enthusiastically. “Do you like
it?”

“
I love it,” Eiya said,
sitting up. “When it first played I repeated the track, it was my
favourite one on the album.”

“
No way!” Seckry said. “It’s
mine too, even though most of the fans prefer Send Room, which they
released as a single.”

They chatted about The Broken Motion for
about half an hour, in which Seckry invited Eiya along to the
Broken Motion gig that was coming up, before remembering again that
they had a lot of homework to do.

During the middle of that night, while Seckry
was in the midst of a field with his dad once more, Seckry felt
something warm and soft touch his arm. His eyes flickered open to
find Eiya kneeling beside his bed with a torch in her hand.

“
Seckry,
” she
whispered. “
Look at this.
”

She was shining the light on The Broken
Motion’s first album,
Looking for Tomorrow
.

“
When was the last time you
listened to track four, A Time for Change?” she asked.

Seckry was confused. “Track four? I . . .
can’t remember. Why’s that?”

“
Here,” she said, and handed
him her earphones. “Listen to the lyrics.”

Seckry wiped the sleep from his eyes and
placed the earphones on.

Eiya fast forwarded the track until it
reached the chorus.

Sanfarrow, Darklight, Kayne, the three,

Who’ll unleash the dark heart, set the demon
free.

Seckry asked Eiya to repeat it, and he
listened once more. Darklight? This was a song about Kan Darklight,
the president of Endrin, and Seckry had never noticed it.

“
Who are Sanfarrow and
Kayne?” Eiya asked.

Seckry shook his head and got up. “I’ll do a
search,” he said, and switched on his computer. He found nothing,
though. His search engine just kept telling him he must have
misspelled his words.

“
I have the band’s email
address,” Seckry said enthusiastically.

“
Do you think they’d
reply?”

“
We could give it a
go.”

Seckry quickly typed a message.

Dear The Broken Motion.

My friend has noticed that on track four of
Looking for Tomorrow you mention two people named Sanfarrow and
Kayne along with Darklight, who we assume to be Kan Darklight, the
president of Endrin. We are curious to know more about the other
names. Could you let us know who they are?

Thanks a lot

Seckry Sevenstars

P.S. Congratulations on the new album, it’s
your best to date and I haven’t stopped listening to it since the
day I bought it (which was the day it got released!!!) And we’re
coming to see you on tour!

Eiya smiled as he typed the last sentence. “I
guess we’ll just have to wait and see if they reply.”

They both lay back down but Seckry had no
chance of getting back to sleep.

“
I’m wide awake too,” Eiya
said quietly.

“
Do you ever remember having
a midnight feast?” Seckry asked her.

“
I don’t think
so.”

“
Food tastes amazing at this
time of night.”

Seckry got some chocolate bars and a bottle
of fizzy pop from the kitchen and they sat cross legged on the
blankets, scoffing their faces. Eventually they both fell asleep
where they were.

The next day, Seckry had a single unread
message in his inbox. It was from The Broken Motion.

Dear Seckry

We’re glad you’re enjoying our latest
album.

In regards to your question, you may be
mistaken, as there is no mention of these names in any of our
songs. The track listings for Looking for Tomorrow are below.

Seckry frowned. No mention of the names? He
scanned through the track listings they had typed, but there were
only twelve songs when there should have been thirteen. They were
missing A Time for Change.

He reread the email again and again, confused
and disappointed. The only other piece of text on the page was a
quote from one of their songs.

If you read between the lines, you’ll find
the truth at last.

“
They’re denying that it’s
even on the album!” Seckry exclaimed to Eiya over breakfast,
feeling utterly disappointed that The Broken Motion would lie to
him.

Coralle handed them each a second helping of
marmalade lathered toast.

“
They can’t just pretend a
song doesn’t exist when everyone’s got the album,” Seckry said,
shaking his head.

Seckry spent the day feeling miserable, and
finding it hard to concentrate in any of his lessons.

At lunch time, Seckry told Tenk about the
email.

“
A Time for Change . . . I
don’t remember that one. Which track was it again? Track four?
Wasn’t track four Living Without Love?”

“
No, Living Without Love was
track five.”

“
You sure?”

“
Yeah, I’m sure!”

The next day, Tenk brought his copy of
Looking for Tomorrow to school and whipped it out during an
uneventful lesson with Mr Pegglewim.

“
Which one was it again?”
Tenk asked, but Seckry was dumbfounded. There were only twelve
tracks. A Time for Change was missing.

“
Never mind,” said Seckry
absent-mindedly. “I must be going mad.”

When he got home he loaded up his email
client and reread the Broken Motion email.

Could it be that his copy of Looking for
Tomorrow was different to everyone else’s?

He was just about to send a reply to them,
when he noticed his pointed cursor switch to a hand symbol as he
hovered over the middle of the screen. He looked closer. It seemed
that there was a slight gap between the listings of track four and
five, and whenever he rolled over it, the hand would appear,
indicating an invisible link of some sort.

Seckry reread the quote at the bottom of the
message.

If you read between the lines, you’ll find
the truth at last.

Read between the lines? He thought it was a
strange quote to have at the end of an email. They were telling him
to click this link.

With a new wave of excitement, Seckry clicked
it.

A new window popped open.

Hi Seckry

I sincerely hope that you manage to find this
link. We couldn’t think of any other way to get this message to you
without it potentially being read by the government.

Sorry that we had to tell you A Time for
Change doesn’t exist. Of course, it does exist, though you won’t
find it anywhere these days.