Two flights up from the thirtieth floor, I came to a padlocked iron gate. It was a full-length gate, reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and it was secured with a thick metal chain and a huge brass padlock. I took hold of the padlock in my hand, closed my eyes, and let the energy flow through my arm, into my hand ... and after a moment or two, I felt things moving inside the lock. I heard soft clicks, the sound of metal on metal ... and suddenly the padlock sprung open.
I unwound the metal chain and went through the gate, closing and locking it behind me, and now I was faced with a steel-reinforced door marked NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. It was locked, of course, but not with a padlock this time — there was a keypad on the wall. I'd need to know the security code to get in.
Not a problem.
I hacked into the council's database, searched through a load of security stuff relating to all the towers in Crow Town, and found the four-digit code. I keyed it in — 4514 — and opened the door. It led through into a little room filled with all kinds of stuff — cupboards and shelves, pipes and cables, heating controls. A metal ladder was fixed to the far wall, leading up to a padlocked hatchway. I climbed the ladder, iUnlocked the padlock, then pushed open the hatchway and stepped out onto the roof.
The rain had stopped now, but as I closed the hatchway behind me and walked over to the edge of the roof, I could feel the cold night air breezing through my hair. I was thirty floors up, high above the ground, and I could see for miles and miles all around. Lights were glowing everywhere — lights of houses and flats, streetlights, traffic lights, streams of headlights — and away in the distance I could see the bright lights of London — office blocks, luxury tower blocks, streets and streets full of shops and theatres and traffic ...
I'd seen it all before, of course. I saw it every day, every time I looked out of the window. But the view from up here — outside, on the roof — somehow felt different. It felt wider, clearer, bigger ... more real.
I sat down, cross-legged, on the very edge of the roof.
In the darkness below, Crow Town was getting ready for the night. Groups of kids were hanging around — on street corners, in the shadows of the towers, at the side of the road — and others were cruising the estate in cars or on bikes. Faint sounds drifted up into the night — shouting, dogs barking, cars, music — but up here, high above the rest of the world, everything was quiet.
I gazed up into the starless night, and all I could see was a boundless world of darkness and emptiness ... but I knew it wasn't empty. The sky, the atmosphere, the air, the night... the whole world was alive with radio waves. They were everywhere, all around me, all the time — TV signals, radio signals, mobile-phone signals ... WiFi, microwaves, VHF, UHF ... electromagnetic waves.
They were everywhere.
And although I couldn't see them, I could sense them. I could connect to them. I knew them.
I closed my eyes and tuned in, at random, to a mobile-phone calclass="underline" ... it's just past the post office in the High Street, someone was saying. You go past the post office and there's a pub, and it's just there.
What pub? someone else said. The George?
No, that's on the other side of the road ...
And another random conversation:... why not? You said it'd be all right if I didn't do it again.
Yeah, I know, but you did ...
And another:... take the fucker down, innit? He can't fucking do that, I'll fucking pop the fucker ...
Someone, somewhere, was sending an email to someone called Sheila, telling her that unless she sorted herself out, she wouldn't be seeing her baby again. Someone else was emailing someone in Coventry from a supposedly untraceable email address ... but I could trace it. the bio is easy, it read, anyone can make a germ bottle and drop it in the water supply and kill 1ooooo. the martyr would commit himself leaving no trace of j involvement.
And someone else was texting a really obnoxious message to a girl called Andrea, saying all kinds of nasty things to her ...
And on the web ... God, there was a whole world on the web. A world of so many things — good things, bad things, dull things, mad things — it was just like the real world. Just as wonderful, just as beautiful ... but also just as vile and sick and heart-breaking.
I stopped scanning.
There was too much going on out there, too much bad stuff, and I didn't know how to cope with it all. All the stuff I knew, but didn't want to know ... everything that wasn't good, that wasn't right, that wasn't fair ... I knew it. And I knew that I could do something about it... or, at least, I could do something about some of it. I mean, for example, I could find out who'd sent that obnoxious text message to Andrea, and why they'd sent it, and I could find out where they lived, and I could go and see them and try to persuade them that sending obnoxious text messages is a really shitty thing to do. But then what about the millions of other bad things, the things that are a million times worse than sending shitty text messages — the abuses, the terrors, the sick things that people do to each other — the things that I wouldn't be able to do anything about because I'd be too busy trying to help Andrea, like terrorist plots to kill 100,000 people with a biological weapon...?
What was I supposed to do about them?
I couldn't do everything, could I?
I wasn't God.
I was just a kid ...
And besides, I told myself, at least you're trying to do something about some of the bad stuff the stuff that happened to Lucy... and that's a hell of a lot more than God ever does. I mean, God does fuck all, doesn't he? He just sits there, luxuriating in all his superpowers, demanding to be adored ...
It was 22:42:44 now, and the night was getting colder. I pulled up my hood and turned on my iSkin, warming myself with the electric heat ... and as I gazed down over the edge of the roof, I wondered what I looked like from down below — a softly glowing figure, sitting cross- legged on the top of a tower block ...
Like some kind of weird hooded Buddha ...
A skinny, glow-in-the-dark iBuddha.
Or maybe an iGargoyle.
I closed my eyes again and opened up my MySpace page. There were two messages from aGirclass="underline" an old one that said have you gone?, and a slightly longer one from five minutes ago. The longer one read: sorry if i asked too many questions and scared you off or anything, but i was just curious about you. you have to admit you're kind of unusual! it's ok, i mean you don't have to tell me anything and i won't ask you anything else if that's what you want, but please don't go away, we can just talk about things. aGirl
Lucy was online right now, so I wrote back: no, it's ok, you didn't scare me away, i was just a bit busy for a while, i'm back now. so, anyway, how are you feeling? you don't sound quite so down as before, are things a bit better for you? hello again, iBoy. i'm glad you're back, no, things aren't really any better for me, and i don't think they ever will be, but i don't feel quite so empty and dead anymore, i think talking helps, talking to you, of course, and i have a friend called tom who is very kind and listens to me. can i ask you something about the boy you nearly pushed out of the window? do you know what he did to me? yes. were you really going to push him out? i don't know, what would you think if i said yes? i don't know. part of me thinks he deserves to die, but another part says no, that's wrong, do you know what i mean? yes, i know exactly what you mean. let's talk about something else. ok. what? where are you? i'm sitting in the sky. yeah, right, what's your real name? i'll answer that if you tell me about tom. what about him? is he your boyfriend? no! i've known tom for ever, we grew up together, he's not my boyfriend, he's just a very close friend, i like him a lot, and i think he likes me, but i don't think he likes me in that kind of way. he just cares for me. i care for him too. he's quite a sad person, i think. maybe he likes you more than you think, maybe he just can't work out how to tell you. maybe ... what's it to you anyway? nothing. i was just curious. all right, so i answered your question. now you answer mine, what's your real name? you already know it. see you later. iBoy