Wonderscape Read online

  “I also heard you got tattoos for your birthday,” Arthur mentioned. “Is that not true?”

  “These?” Ren held up her hand, showing the dark-brown diamond, spade, heart and club motifs on her knuckles. “They’re henna. My eighty-year-old next-door neighbour drew them on me!”

  The three of them burst into laughter. It felt good to release some of the tension Arthur had been carrying in his body since the race. For the first time, he felt like he was getting to know the real Ren, and she wasn’t half as intimidating as he’d initially thought.

  Ren threw a cushion at Cecily. “Hey, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier when you asked about my mum. I’m just used to people judging my family before they even know us.”

  “I get it,” Cecily said, smiling wearily. It didn’t take a Newton-level genius to sense that something was wrong, but Arthur didn’t press the matter. He imagined she was probably feeling as overwhelmed and as anxious as he was. She might even have the same horrible thought swimming around her head: that after everything they’d been through, they still might not survive this.

  After removing their outer layers, they all slid under their Wondercloaks, using them as blankets. Cecily’s sunflowers slowly closed their petals, changing from brilliant yellow to dusky gold; Ren’s blueprints shifted to show designs for a baby’s crib, complete with a bunny-shaped mobile. Arthur considered telling her about it when she woke up, but pictured the look on her face and decided he wasn’t brave enough.

  Too restless to settle, he inspected the inner lining of his Wondercloak, casting his eye over the countless realms of the Wonderscape. If Milo Hertz was returning to visit one of them, Arthur wondered which he’d choose. His gaze fell on a green planet covered in mountains and rocky canyons. The flashing label around the outside read, REALM 89: PLANET ATARIA, KALLEDRON GALAXY. With a deep sigh, he reflected just how far from home they were. Not only had they jumped four hundred years into the future, they’d also travelled to a planet outside the Milky Way.

  The task of getting home felt even more daunting.

  12

  Arthur slept soundly but woke with a start. For a blissful, hazy second, he didn’t recognize his surroundings – the distant coffered ceiling, the suits of armour standing guard, the dusty smell of straw – then the events of the previous day came flooding back to him and he sat bolt upright with a jolt.

  The orbs in the corner of the room glowed with dim green light. Cecily stirred on the futon next to him. “Arthur?” She rubbed her face, looking bleary-eyed. “Are you OK?”

  “Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  She propped her head up, resting on her elbows. “Is it morning? Have we overslept?”

  “I don’t know.” He pulled back his Wondercloak and got to his feet. Sleeping in the same clothes he’d been wearing since they’d left the Principia hadn’t exactly been comfortable, but at least he’d been warm. He slid open the shoji. The corridor outside was dark.

  Examining his watch, Arthur saw they had thirty-seven hours left to get home, meaning – he counted on his fingers – they’d slept for eight hours. “We have to get up!” he said urgently. “We still need to find Milo Hertz.” He wasn’t sure how they were going to locate the runaway now the Wonderdome was off-limits, but they could discuss all that once they were on the move.

  Cecily quickly arranged her hair into a single French plait. Cloud bounded onto Ren’s futon and dragged his pink tongue over her cheek.

  “Wher—? Wha—?” Ren sprang up, flapping her hands around her face. Her gaze flicked from Cloud, to the futon, to the suits of armour. “Are we still trapped in the future?”

  Arthur gave her a glum smile. “Afraid so.”

  She scowled and tightened her ponytail, then pulled on her gilet. As she reached for her Wondercloak, she hesitated. “Hey, are your Wondercloaks doing that too?”

  The blueprints on Ren’s cloak showed designs for a set of hazard warning lights. Arthur checked his sleeves and saw that the water was dark and churning with whirlpools.

  “It’s as if they’re trying to alert us,” Cecily said, examining the sunflowers on her own cloak, which were opening and closing very quickly.

  There was a clatter in the hallway and Tomoe Gozen came charging through the shoji with a long sword gripped in her hand. She had a white ribbon tied around her head and a large wooden bow slung over her brightly coloured armour. “You’re in danger,” she said, dropping a sack of shoes on the floor. “Put these on and follow me.”

  “What do you mean?” Arthur spluttered, grabbing his trainers from the pile.

  Cecily fumbled with Cloud’s lead as she fixed it to his collar. “Why are we in danger?”

  “There’s been a slight problem,” Tomoe replied. “I’ll explain on the way. Hurry!”

  They rushed out of the hall and into a long corridor displaying more of Tomoe’s weapons collection. Arthur heard the whir of hover-wheels and the clash of heavy weapons in another part of the house. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach. “What’s going on?”

  “This way.” Tomoe signalled left. “Stay close.”

  They hurtled around a corner …

  … and came face to face with two V-class mimics dressed in green overalls. One had a nasty gash in her waist; the other was missing an arm and had a bouquet of spiky wires protruding from the empty socket. Judging from the way they glowered at Tomoe, Arthur reckoned they’d both had recent encounters with her sword.

  “Is this the slight problem?” he asked in a high-pitched voice, backing away.

  “We’re taking a different route,” the warrior decided hastily. Sliding open a nearby shoji, she steered the four of them into another room covered in tatami mats. This time they ran across with their shoes on.

  Arthur glanced over his shoulder. The V-class units had given chase, but thanks to their various injuries were wobbling all over the place. “Why are they coming after us?”

  “Because I’ve broken one of Hxperion’s rules and they think I’ve told you why,” Tomoe said. She rounded another corner, opened a heavy wooden door and herded them into a cramped room containing a large ebony cabinet on one side and a folding screen made from six panels of painted silk on the other.

  Rules? Arthur didn’t follow.

  “We should be safe here for a short while,” Tomoe decided, bolting the door closed and hauling the ebony cabinet in front of it. “I need you to listen carefully.” She signalled to the folding screen. Painted on the surface was a hilly green landscape dotted with trees and rivers. In the centre, two mounted samurai armies charged towards each other. “This shows the Battle of Tonamiyama, in the year 1183.”

  Cecily’s face brightened. “I read about this! You led over a thousand samurais into battle. It was one of your most famous victories.”

  “Apparently so,” Tomoe said flatly. “I have no memory of the conflict. The night before the battle I was approached by a yamabushi, a mystic from the mountains. He offered to give me a blessing.” She scowled. “But I was tricked. The yamabushi was someone else in disguise. His ‘blessing’ put me to sleep and when I awoke, I found myself in the Wonderscape. Except…” Her voice faltered. “Except, I wasn’t myself.”

  With her back to them, Tomoe lifted her long black hair so that the base of her skull was visible. Arthur spotted something glinting in her hairline and squinted to see what it was. His blood turned cold when he realized.

  Tomoe’s skin had a zip pull.

  Arthur edged back in horror as the warrior tugged it open a few centimetres, revealing several paper-thin layers of metal and an intricate network of glowing wires – the inner workings of a complex machine. “You’re … a mimic,” he breathed.

  Emotion shone in Tomoe’s dark eyes as she turned back around. “All the heroes in the Wonderscape are.”

  Cecily’s jaw fell open. “I, uh … how?”

  Arthur was struggling to make sense of it all too. If Tomoe was a mimic, how could she also
be the real Tomoe Gozen?

  “There is much to say,” the warrior continued. “You three are the first wanderers I’ve ever spoken to, and therefore the first people I’ve had the chance to reveal the truth to. It was too risky to talk yesterday; there were V-classes everywhere.”

  Arthur remembered something the warrior had said the evening before, about a new opportunity that she needed to prepare for. This must have been what she meant. Perhaps that was also why Newton hadn’t told them the truth – because there was never a safe instance.

  Ren started pacing up and down by the cabinet-barricade. “I don’t get it. If you’re a mimic – and Newton too – then how are you so real? You have the same personalities, memories and skills as the actual people.”

  Whatever class of mimic the heroes were, Arthur figured it was a lot more advanced than the others they’d met so far; except maybe Cloud. Ideas burst like fireworks at the edge of his mind as he endeavoured to puzzle it out. He felt the same tingle at the base of his skull as he had before the race, and looked at the sleeves of his Wondercloak to discover Newton’s handwriting swirling in the water…

  At that moment, the walls tremored like a heavy lorry had just driven by outside. Tomoe scowled. “Listen carefully: this body may have been manufactured by Hxperion, but the spirit inside it is real.” She pounded a fist against her heart, making the three of them flinch. “I am Tomoe Gozen, First Captain of Minamoto no Yoshinaka. My memories, emotions, fascinations, dreams and passions – they’re all mine. But I can’t be myself.”

  Arthur didn’t understand how that could be true. Then he felt the base of his skull prickle again and before he knew it, thoughts floated to the surface of his mind. They were all about computational neuroscience, which he’d never heard of before, but suddenly realized he knew a lot about.

  “Inside our brains is a network of billions of neurons,” he said to Ren and Cecily. “By sending chemical signals to each other, they enable us to process information. Computers work in a similar way, except they use transistors to send signals around a circuit.”

  Ren’s gaze shifted to Arthur’s Wondercloak; the water flowed with Newton’s handwriting. “OK…”

  “Our consciousness, which contains all our memories and personality, is stored in our brains, like files are stored on a hard drive,” Arthur continued. “So what if it were possible to copy all the files in someone’s brain and download them somewhere else? What if this stranger disguised as a yamabushi was sent back in time to make a copy of Tomoe’s mind, bring it to the Wonderscape and download it onto a mimic?”

  Ren stopped pacing. “That would mean the original Tomoe Gozen claimed victory in the Battle of Tonamiyama and continued her life on Earth, while the other version –” she glanced shyly at Tomoe – “moved here.”

  “And it would explain why Newton was wearing unicorn slippers,” Arthur said. When the others frowned at him, he added, “What I mean is, the heroes in the Wonderscape aren’t the same people they were on Earth. Waking up to realize you’re a mimic trapped centuries in the future must change you.”

  “Is that true?” Cecily asked Tomoe, her voice tinged with disbelief. “Is that what happened?”

  Tomoe rubbed the back of her neck. “This world and its science is far removed from the one I left. I do not know how this happened, but I do know who is responsible. The stranger who came to me disguised as a yamabushi – his eyes are everywhere in the Wonderscape.”

  Arthur could only think of two people who had their eyes everywhere, and one of them was a woman. Which meant… “Tiburon Nox,” he said grimly. “He did this to you.”

  “And to every other hero, I assume,” Ren said, tightening her fists. “At some point in his life, Professor Newton must have encountered Tiburon before waking up here as a mimic. Tiburon has torn them all away from their families and friends, from their whole lives!”

  Cecily’s nostrils flared. “How could anyone do something so cruel? They must feel so trapped, so alone. And all for a game!”

  Arthur tried to imagine how he would feel if the “original” him was currently getting on with life at home with his dad, while his consciousness was imprisoned inside a robot body, forced to entertain people in a game. It made him flush with anger.

  Just then, voices sounded in the corridor outside. Arthur thought he heard the words “trapped” and “wanderers”.

  Tomoe drew her sword. “We have run out of time.” Using the tip of her blade, she reached above the ebony cabinet and slid open a hidden panel in the wall, revealing a square, shadowy tunnel the width of a wheelie bin. “This will lead you outside. Hurry.”

  Hearing the hum of hover-wheels near by, Arthur didn’t need to be told twice. “You said you broke one of Hxperion’s rules. What was it?” he asked, weaving his fingers into a basket in order to give Cecily a boost.

  “I didn’t attend the first race of the day. A V-class would have driven the White Tiger in my place,” Tomoe said, passing up Cloud. “Every hero is expected to participate in realm-challenges; to keep the secrets of the Wonderscape; and to never, ever venture outside of their realm. Those are Hxperion’s three conditions.”

  Cecily poked her head into the tunnel, scrunched her nose and crawled inside. Cloud trundled after her.

  “And … what will they do if they catch you?” Arthur asked, quieter. There had to be a reason the heroes were afraid of Hxperion, especially someone as fearless as Tomoe Gozen.

  As Ren clambered onto the cabinet using the handle as a foothold, the ancient warrior gazed over at the silk screen with a haunted look in her eyes. “My two older brothers are generals in Yoshinaka’s army. If I disobey Hxperion, Tiburon Nox will ensure they perish in the Battle of Tonamiyama, and their future lives will be unwritten.”

  Ren froze mid-climb. “What?”

  Cold fingers traced the length of Arthur’s spine. Tiburon is controlling the heroes by threatening to go back in time and murder their loved ones? It was so wicked and deplorable a scheme he could barely believe it. “That’s… I mean… He’s messing with history! He’s a maniac!”

  “With a time-key,” Ren murmured bleakly. She threw a meaningful glance at Arthur, who instantly got her gist. If Tiburon Nox had been zipping backwards and forwards in time creating all the hero-mimics, he had to have a time-key.

  Which meant Milo Hertz had made more than one.

  “I’ve never faced such a powerful or dishonourable enemy,” Tomoe admitted, giving Arthur a shoulder to lean on as he scaled the cabinet. “That’s why I need your help. You see, to have a chance of vanquishing Tiburon, I must leave this realm with you. There is a Wonderway beyond my garden, on the edge of the forest. We can use the realm-key you’ve won to open it.” She held her blade aloft. “Now you’ve talked to me, Hxperion will see you as a threat – that’s why you’re in danger. I’ll head Valeria’s forces off at the front while you sneak around the back and run across the garden. I’ll meet you at the Wonderway.”

  13

  The tunnel was dark, cramped and reeked of bird poo. Arthur presumed it didn’t get cleaned much since the mimics probably weren’t aware of its existence, and Tomoe was always off racing. Pinching his nostrils shut with one hand, he shuffled forwards on the other, tailing Ren.

  Thoughts swirled like windswept ashes in his head. The heroes are all mimics… Time is running out… Tiburon Nox has a time-key… He wondered how Tiburon had got hold of it and whether it was somehow connected to Milo’s decision to run away.

  Light shimmered in the distance. “There’s a shaft here that opens onto the sky,” Cecily called from the front. “And a ladder. Can you back up a little?”

  He and Ren reversed a few paces to give Cecily more room. Dust fell from the tunnel walls as she and Cloud wiggled into the opening and disappeared.

  They emerged onto a flat square of concrete in the middle of the roof. Mossy black tiles sloped down on all sides towards Tomoe’s garden, and in the distance a strange double-sun was dawning throug
h the trees, casting long shadows across the warrior’s plants.

  “Erg!” Cecily moaned, holding one hand over her eyes and another out to balance. “Everything’s spinning.”

  Arthur grabbed her arm just as she was swaying towards the edge. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

  Ahead, the road they had driven in on was obscured by forest. Arthur couldn’t see or hear any sign of Tomoe Gozen, or the two wounded V-class mimics that had been chasing them earlier, which made him nervy. Over his shoulder, he spotted the top of a wooden ladder peeking above the guttering. “It must be this way. Come on!”

  Then the roar of engines sounded from the road. “Get down!” Ren cried.

  They dropped to their knees as a pack of open-topped buggies blasted through the trees and swerved into Tomoe’s garden. Arthur recognized their design from a vehicle he’d seen in the race, but these were painted bottle-green, not red, and plastered with Valeria’s triangle. Half a dozen V-class mimics dressed in race overalls sat in the back of each, clutching spanners, tyres or paint cans.

  Once the buggies had come to a stop, the mimics filed out and rocketed straight to Tomoe’s front door. Six units wearing khaki combat apparel emptied from the lead vehicle and started shouting orders. Glossy red ponytails swung from their baseball caps, where the word SECURITY was stencilled in glitter.

  “Find the subordinate!”

  “Use the weapons on the walls!”

  Arthur noticed black utility belts strapped around their waists, containing perfume bottles, hairbrushes, lipsticks and compact mirrors. For a moment he wondered if they were intending to style Tomoe Gozen into submission, but then Cecily grabbed his wrist. “Are those make-up themed weapons?” she hissed, sounding horrified.

  Squinting, Arthur realized she was right. The hairbrushes had razor-sharp spikes; the perfume bottles were actually grenades with gold pull rings, and the lipsticks were rounds of ammo. There was something extra chilling about the creepy creativity that had gone into their design.