iBoy (33 page)

I opened my eyes again and gazed down over the edge of the roof. Thirty floors up . . . it was a long way down. And as I looked down through the darkness, I began to picture myself down there on the day that it happened, all those weeks ago . . . walking home from school, feeling pretty much the same as I always felt . . . kind of OK, but not great . . . alone, but not lonely . . . thinking about Lucy, wondering what she wanted to see me about . . . then hearing a shout from above and looking up and seeing the iPhone hurtling down through the bright blue sky toward me . . .

And now, as I gazed down from the roof, remembering the past, something strange happened. My perspective suddenly changed, and instead of picturing myself as me, looking up at the iPhone, I was picturing myself as the iPhone, tumbling down through the sky toward the other me, the me that was down there . . . only the sky wasn’t blue now, it was black. It was nighttime. And it wasn’t all those weeks ago . . . it was now.

Right now.

And I was falling . . . down, down, down . . . down through the silent darkness . . . hurtling down into oblivion . . .

And I could see something on the ground down below.

A light.

There was a light down there.

Just outside the entrance to the tower, thirty floors below, someone was riding a bike across the square. And as I leaned farther forward and peered over the edge of the roof, I could see the front light of the bike moving slowly over the ground, directly beneath me . . . and then, all at once, I was seeing myself falling again, only this time I wasn’t the iPhone, I was myself . . . I was Tom Harvey, I was iBoy . . . I was both of us . . . and we were falling from the roof, dropping like a stone . . . down, down, down . . . heading straight for the light of the unknown cyclist . . . and we knew that we were going to land on him, or her . . . we were going to land headfirst on them, and our iSkull was going to crack open their skull, and their brain was going to be lacerated by broken iSkull fragments and pieces of us . . .

And as I leaned even farther forward, almost toppling off the edge now, I heard myself laughing. At least, I assumed it was me, because I was the only one there . . . and it sounded vaguely like me . . . and I could feel my throat moving, my vocal cords vibrating . . .

Yes, it was definitely me.

I was laughing . . .

I didn’t know why.

And, for some reason, that made me feel incredibly sad, and all at once I wasn’t laughing anymore, I was crying . . . sobbing uncontrollably . . . the tears streaming out of me like the tears of a frightened child.

I didn’t want to die . . .

But I didn’t want to live . . .

I just didn’t
know
. . .

“Tom . . . ?”

The voice came from behind me.

I waited a moment, trying to steady myself, wiping the tears from my eyes, and then I slowly turned round and looked up . . . and there she was, gazing down at me with a worried frown.

“Hey, Luce,” I said.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly. “You don’t look so great.”

I sniffed, wiped my eyes again, and smiled at her. “I’m fine . . . I was just, you know . . . just thinking about stuff . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, sitting down next to me. “It’s all been a bit much, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“I just did.”

I looked at her.

She smiled at me. “You’ve got snot all over your face . . . come here.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket, licked it, and started cleaning all the snot and tears from my face. I winced a little as she wiped around the knife cut on my forehead. “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “God, you’re a mess.”

“You don’t look too great yourself,” I said, glancing at the cuts and bruises on her face.

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

“There,” she said, giving my face a final wipe, “that’s better.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded, putting the tissue away, and for a few seconds she was quiet. Then, without looking at me, and with her voice perfectly calm, she said, “You weren’t thinking of jumping off the roof, were you?”

“What?”

“Because if you were . . .” She looked at me, her eyes suddenly bright with anger. “Listen to me, Tom Harvey. I know you’ve been through a lot recently . . . I mean, we both have. And I know you’re probably feeling really confused right now about all this iBoy stuff, all the shit you’ve got in your head and all the shit you’ve had to deal with . . .” She paused then, moving her face to within an inch of mine, and her voice became slow and deliberate. “But if I
ever
catch you even
thinking
about killing yourself . . . well, believe me, I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do.”

We stared at each other for a while then, and as Lucy’s eyes drilled into mine with an intensity that was almost physically painful, I honestly didn’t know if I
had
intended to jump or not. I didn’t know if I
could
have jumped or not.

I just didn’t know . . .

All I knew — and all that mattered — was that I
hadn’t
jumped, and that Lucy was here, sitting beside me.

I looked at her, smiling. “The last thing I ever do?”

She shook her head. “It’s not a joke, Tom . . . I’m serious.”

“I know . . . but you’re kind of implying that if you ever catch me thinking of killing myself, you’ll kill me, which sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

She couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah, all right, Mr. Super Brain . . . so I got my words mixed up a bit —”

“A
bit
?”

She looked at me, still smiling, but there was genuine concern behind her smile . . . and that really meant a lot to me. In fact, it meant everything.

“I’m sorry, Luce,” I said quietly, looking back at her.

“It’s all right, I’m always getting my words mixed up —”

“No . . . I mean about everything.” There were tears in my eyes again now. “I’m just so,
so
sorry . . .”

“Shhh . . .” she said gently, putting a fingertip to my lips. “You don’t have to be sorry . . . you don’t have to be anything. Just be with me, OK?” She took her finger away, leaned in close, and kissed me. “All right?” she whispered. “Just be with me.”

I nodded, still crying.

Lucy smiled. “Let’s get comfortable.”

As she slowly leaned back and lay down on the roof, looking straight up at the sky, I didn’t move for a moment. I just sat there, staring out at the dying horizon, wondering if perhaps there
was
something out there for me after all, a future beyond the horizon . . .

And then Lucy tapped my backside with her foot and said, “Hey, Super Brain, it’s getting lonely down here.”

And I leaned back and lay down beside her, and she took my hand in hers, and we just lay there together in a dream of silence, gazing up at the stars.

For their invaluable help

and technical advice,

I’d like to acknowledge Dave Brooks,

Helen Fernandes, Nitin Patel,

and Sanj Bassi.

iThank you.

The editor and publishers gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce copyright material in this book. Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders, but in a few cases this has proved impossible. The editor and publishers apologize for these unwilling cases of copyright transgression and would like to hear from any copyright holders not acknowledged.

Guardian
online article by Rose George, copyright © Rose George, 2004, reprinted by permission of the author; excerpt by Arthur Koestler from
The Ghost in the Machine
(copyright © Arthur Koestler, 1975) is reproduced by permission of PFD (
www.pfd.co.uk
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Supersizing the Mind
, copyright © Andy Clark, reprinted by permission of OUP; “Electricity is Human Thinking,” copyright © H. Bernard Wechsler, reprinted by permission of the author;
One Blood
by John Heale, copyright © John Heale, reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster; algorithm definition quoted from article entitled “Algorithm,”
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, made available for use under the terms of
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; the extract from “since feeling is first” is reprinted from
Complete Poems 1904–1962
, by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage, by permission of W. W. Norton & Company. Copyright © 1991 by the trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust and George James Firmage;
The Gang
by Frederic Thrasher, copyright © Frederic Thrasher, 1927, reprinted by permission of Chicago University Press;
The River of Eden
copyright © 1996 by Richard Dawkins. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group;
Terre des Hommes
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, copyright © Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1939, reprinted by permission of Penguin Books.