The Dog Who Saved the World Page 14

  “What do you mean?” I turn my head to look at her. The pale light creates deep lines on her face and forehead. She honestly looks about twenty years older.

  “Find the cure. I know it’s not just me but—”

  “It’s not your fault, Jessica. None of this is your fault. It’s…”

  I stop myself from saying, “It’s mine.”

  Jessica sighs. “It’s not yours, either.”

  She’s wrong there. Dead wrong. But I can’t tell her. Instead, I’ll just have to put it right.

  At that moment, that instant, an idea begins to form in my head.

  I can hear the familiar music of the ten o’clock news from the TV downstairs, but I don’t feel like listening to any more stories about dogs being shot, and people dying, and reporters being gloomy.

  I roll back over and close my eyes, as if I’m going to sleep. A moment later, Jessica gets up from my bed and leaves the room. My eyes are wide open, and my brain is fizzing with the thought of what I have to do.

  But I might never have done it if my phone had not pinged beneath my pillow at that moment, with an incoming message.

  It’s a very short message.

  READ THIS.

  There’s a link to a Web page, which I click on.

  MYSTERY OF THE BILLIONAIRE RECLUSE

  by our Norway reporter, Nils Oskarssen

  With enough money, they say, you can be who you like.

  OSLO: Dr. Erika Pettarssen—the inventor of the global social-media platform, ChAppster—certainly has enough money: more than enough to disappear completely from public life. Where she is, however, is unknown, leading to the belief that she may have changed her identity in order to hide.

  Her $1.2 billion fortune makes her one of only 5,000 billionaires in the world, although her whereabouts seem to be an unfathomable mystery.

  Until 2012, the successful games and app designer—regarded by many in the industry as a genius—lived alone on a small, private island in the Oslofjord between Norway and Sweden. She had no close family, and few friends. Neighbors—and there weren’t many—said she swam frequently in the chilly sea. They described her as “intensely private.”

  Her groundbreaking work on 3-D virtual-reality installations such as Disney’s Surround-a-Room had already made her wealthy. But it was her ownership of the social-media app ChAppster that saw her riches rocket when she sold the company five years ago.

  DANGEROUS EXPERIMENTS

  Since then, her island mansion has stood empty, and Dr. Erika Pettarssen has disappeared.

  In a rare interview with the Oslo Times in 2005, Dr. Pettarssen hinted at her future.

  “I have plans I want to work on. One day, I may just take off, you know? I have an idea—a model, if you will—that could, well, change the whole future, ha ha. There are possibilities arising with 3-D modeling, and quantum computing, that are hugely exciting.” She added, “I work best on my own, without commercial pressures.”

  Born in England to a Norwegian father and a South African mother, the young Erika Pettarssen moved to the USA as a young child and grew up first in Ohio and then Florida. She was an outstanding student and gained a scholarship to the California Institute of Technology.

  A doctorate from Harvard followed, and a career in academia beckoned. A young Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was a student, and she liked to joke, “I taught that Bill everything he knows!”

  Then came a move to Norway during the tech boom of the early twenty-first century.

  Shortly before her disappearance, she launched the Erika Pettarssen Foundation, a charitable organization providing scholarships for underprivileged students from Africa. The foundation runs independently and says it has “no contact” with its founder.

  Oslo Police Department issued a statement saying, “We do not know where Dr. Erika Pettarssen is, but why should we? Unless she breaks the law, this is not a police concern.”

  The article is accompanied by a grainy color photograph of a woman who may—or may not—be Dr. Pretorius. She is black and slim, but the woman in the photo is wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, and appears to have short, cropped hair. A second photograph shows a large, low house surrounded by big lawns—the kind of photo taken from a helicopter or drone.

  I read the page again, and then again. I check the source: it is definitely the website of the newspaper. I check the newspaper: it is real and “reputable.” This is all basic stuff from our Online Education lessons, but it has never seemed important till now.

  You still there?

  Then Ramzy’s face pops up wanting to LiveTalk. I turn his volume down low.

  “Told you it was important. What do you think?”

  “Is it her?” I whisper. “Where’d you find it? How?”

  There’s a pause, and then we have the strangest conversation, which goes like this:

  Ramzy says, “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean—how did you find that article?”

  “But you know—you were there. When I found that envelope in Dr. Pretorius’s room.”

  “What envelope? What room? Stop it, Ramzy.”

  “Georgie? Are you messing with me? The envelope with the name on it that I said I’d check out. Georgie!”

  And I have a horrible feeling that a chunk of my memory—a tiny chunk—has been wiped out. Ramzy is so insistent that I have to believe him. It’s happened two or three times in the last few days. Yesterday I said to Dad, “Will you pass me the…the…the, erm…tsk, the…butter!”

  We just laughed but he did give me a funny look. And the day before I walked past the barn and was on the street before I remembered that I had a bagful of dog food for Mr. Mash and had to turn back.

  Lying in bed, talking to Ramzy, I have this sensation in my stomach that this might keep happening, and I know exactly why: I have damaged my brain. Meanwhile, Ramzy is still on LiveTalk.

  “…I think it’s probably her but I’m not certain.”

  I force myself back into the conversation. “She has the same initials,” I say, “and we know Dr. Pretorius likes swimming.”

  Ramzy lets the silence hang till I admit, “That’s not proof, is it?”

  “We could just ask her?” Ramzy says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Excuse me, Dr. Pretorius, are you secretly the billionaire recluse, Dr. Erika Pettarssen?”

  “Don’t be silly,” I say—but it’s a typical Ramzy idea. No social filter, you see. He would totally do it.

  I’m only half concentrating on what he’s saying, though, because the article is echoing in my mind, joining with the thought I had after Jessica was in my room. Can I do it? Can we do it? Ramzy keeps talking for a bit. I hardly even remember to say good night.

  Afterward, I lie in bed, my arm dangling over the edge, and in my imagination I feel the comforting rasp of Mr. Mash’s rough tongue on the back of my hand.

  To be honest, I don’t really sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept a full night for ages. Instead, I wriggle and turn and sweat, and have bad dreams that I can’t even remember. I wake up with a dry mouth and a damp, cold duvet sticking to me again.

  Dr. Pettarssen’s words from the article echo in my mind.

  Change the whole future.

  My wild idea turns over and over in my head.

  The next day I’m up at seven to go and check on Mr. Mash in the barn.

  It’s one of those summer days that’s hot even before the day has really started. When I come downstairs, Jessica and Dad are both up already, and things have worsened overnight.

  “Shush,” says Jessica, holding up her hand. She’s listening to the radio.

  “…the government announced at midnight. Unless a cure is found within a week, all interna
tional travel will be suspended. Furthermore, in an attempt to slow down the spread of the illness to humans, a cull of every dog in the country would begin.

  “Veterinarians have already begun a limited program of euthanasia in some dog shelters close to the center of the outbreak. This would be extended nationwide if—”

  Jessica switches off the radio angrily.

  “I can’t stand it anymore! It’s as if we’re being blamed! We are trying. We are working our hardest…” The rest of her sentence is lost as Dad puts his arms round her and she buries her face in his shoulder.

  I do feel sorry for Jessica. She’s not my favorite person in the world, but if anyone knows it’s not her fault, then it’s me.

  The words of the woman on the radio ring in my ears as I walk down the lane to the barn.

  A cull of every dog in the country would begin.

  A cull. A mass killing.

  Unless a cure is found within a week.

  A WEEK! That means we don’t have long, and I have no idea if the thing that was spinning round and round in my head as I twisted in my hot duvet is even going to work.

  I cheer up a little bit when I see Mr. Mash. Being cooped up does not suit him, though: it doesn’t suit any dog.

  Mr. Mash wags his tail hard when I go in and rolls over on his back for a tummy tickle.

  “It’s for your own good, Mashie,” I explain to him again and again. I throw the ball for him around the barn, but it’s no fun for a dog like him, who wants to run and run on the beach, biting at the waves as if they’re attacking him.

  “He’s looking better,” says a boy standing in the doorway of the barn.

  I look up, startled. I know the voice. It is familiar.

  He’s wearing a face mask and thin latex gloves. “Aunty Nush,” he says by way of explanation, and I nod my understanding. It’s Ramzy, of course. How could I…? What…is happening to me?

  “Come, Mashie,” I say. I loop a bit of old string through his collar and tie the other end to the handle of an old car door. Mr. Mash settles down, with a sigh.

  Is that it? he seems to say to me. Some pal you are.

  “You do know, though, the disease isn’t airborne?” I say to Ramzy, indicating his face mask. I don’t dare tell him that I forgot his name just now. It’s way too strange. “You can’t get it by breathing. You have to—”

  “I know,” he says, pulling it down over his chin to free up his mouth. “But do you want to argue with my aunty Nush? Go ahead: I’ll bring the popcorn.”

  “Anyway, I thought you were grounded?”

  “I am. But some things are more important than getting told off.”

  I think about what could be worse than getting told off by the terrifying Aunty Nush and can’t really come up with anything. But then Ramzy is braver than me.

  He sits on an old oil drum, his feet not quite touching the floor, and says, “So? You want to talk to me about what’s going on with you? I can tell when you’re working on something.”

  “Huh?” I say.

  “Last night on the phone, you went all distant. What are you planning?”

  Well, I’m going to have to tell him my plan at some point.

  So I do, although “plan” is an exaggeration. It’s more of an idea, and he helps me figure it out as we go. Soon we have something resembling an actual plan.

  Ramzy calls it “adventurous,” and I agree. Although better descriptions would be: reckless. Stupid. Unworkable:

  We test whether or not Dr. Pretorius’s dome really did take me a week into the future by checking the lottery numbers in the draw tomorrow. If they match, then we know it was real. As a bonus, we also buy a lottery ticket, which will make us millionaires. Yay to that, at least.

  If it turns out that what happens in the dome really is the future, or at least a very accurate prediction of it, then we use it to go a whole year into the future and bring back the cure for CBE.

  “What could possibly go wrong?” says Ramzy with an uncertain grin.

  But the middle-of-the-night idea is looking a lot less solid in the harsh light of day.

  “And exactly how,” I ask, thinking aloud, “are we going to ‘bring back’ the cure?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “It’ll be written down, right? Like a formula.”

  “Sure,” I say, rolling my eyes. “So I just go to the future and ask someone for the recipe for an incredibly complex antiviral drug and then memorize it. Simple.”

  He frowns and bites his bottom lip with his rabbit teeth.

  “And there’s worse,” I say as a thought hits me. “What if we can only get hold of…like…some actual medicine? Not a formula. A vial, or a syringe, or whatever. How would we get it back to now so that it can be, you know, examined and reproduced?”

  Ramzy thinks. Then he smiles. “But that’s obvious! You swallow it!”

  “Ramzy, have you gone completely nuts? There’s no way I can just—”

  “You can! Remember the peach? You swallowed a lump of peach and it came back inside you! It was the scorpion sting that—how did she say it?—‘breached the RL–VR gap’ or something. You’re the only one who can do it, Georgie! It’ll be in a little glass tube that you can swallow whole—you know: like medicines always are.” There’s a pause and then he adds, “Probably.”

  I take a deep breath. “It won’t work, Ramzy. We don’t know if Dr. Pretorius is even there in the dome, and, well…”

  “Well, what?”

  I sit down next to Mr. Mash and scratch his ears and I tell Ramzy about my memory blanks. How things are just disappearing. How I couldn’t remember who he was five minutes ago.

  He listens, then says, “That’s not good, Georgie.”

  “I know. I can’t do it again. I mean, that headache, and the memory thing…”

  We sit in silence for a while. Mr. Mash is still panting from the ball-throwing. He must be getting unfit. Eventually, Ramzy says, “Can I show you something? In town?” And he’s halfway to the barn door before I can reply.

  For the last two days, I haven’t been away from home. What I see next changes everything.

  In the space of two days, the whole town has become completely different.

  People don’t come to Whitley Bay on vacation anymore—not like they do to the more famous resorts, like Blackpool, or Brighton, or Bournemouth. (“Whitley Bay’s a resort,” Dad says. “The last!” It’s one of his favorite jokes, which tells you more about my dad than it does about Whitley Bay.) Still, on sunny, summer days, the area usually has a buzz about it. The RV park is busy, there are lines outside Bill’s Fish Bar in Culvercot, and a mini fairground appears on the Links, the wide stretch of grass overlooking the beach, with a ghost train and other rides, and fortune-tellers who can see your future.

  Today, though…

  After the announcement by the king, everything has changed. There’s hardly anyone about.

  We stand by the railing overlooking the beach. “See?” Ramzy says. “No dogs—just like in the 3-D game version. Why would it show that if it wasn’t true?”

  Ramzy has again yanked the face mask under his chin because he says it’s making him sweat. Of the few people who are out on the streets, about half are wearing face masks and latex gloves.

  “Check this out,” he says, pointing at a notice tied to a lamppost.

  The letters are in black and white against a blood-red background, and there’s a picture of a dog looking menacing.

  “Dog Plague” poses a significant risk to humans.

  Until further notice, all dogs seen outdoors will be regarded as strays and may be shot.

  Report stray dogs by calling this number:

  0800 777 4445

  Do not approach a stray dog under any circumstances.

  By or
der of HM Government

  We walk past the Spanish City—the cafes are closed with their shutters up—and continue up the road past our school and on to Norman Two-Kids’s shop, where Norman stands outside, arms folded, as if daring anyone to come in and buy something. Everything is there: the electronic calendar, the poster announcing the numbers for the previous Geordie Jackpot.

  The last time I saw Norman, I was throwing his fruit around the street. He glares at me, and I have to remind myself that the incident with the oranges is not due to happen for a few days yet, so he has no particular reason to give me the evil eye. It’s just how he looks at all kids.

  Thinking about the oranges makes me feel a bit dizzy. Of course, I’m not actually going to go back to Norman Two-Kids’s shop and throw his fruit around the street. So when did it happen? Will it happen at all? And what if I don’t do it?

  Is it possible to damage the future?

  I’m daydreaming. Ramzy is saying something.

  “…come on. I’ve got the money.”

  Norman Two-Kids sucks in his belly to let us get past and then follows us into the shop to make sure we don’t steal anything.

  Ramzy is all grinning confidence. He swaggers up to the Jackpot desk, where you pick out a piece of card and fill in your numbers with the little blunt pencil that hangs from a string. About the only sound in the shop is the whirring of small cameras above us—another of Norman’s anti-theft measures.

  Ramzy presents his card, along with a two-pound coin, to a scowling Norman, who is supposed to shove the card in his machine and give Ramzy the official ticket.

  “Whassat?” he rasps. He too has on a face mask and gloves.

  “I’d like a Geordie Jackpot ticket, please, sir!” says Ramzy.