Night Witches by L J Adlington Read Free Book Online

shifts. Shop windows are all lit with adverts for new, exciting products designed by Rodina’s brilliant engineers. Screens update viewers on scientific advances occurring every day in the hub of laboratories at Corona City. Progress and Pride is streamed above the doors of all the city schools, now spilling out students at the end of the day’s lessons.
    This is the real world, where trees don’t grow, no birds fly and there’s never more than one, normal path to follow.
    Messages from school friends pour in and we drink them up – you’re back, was flying good? did you see that stream with marina furey? can you believe crux would dare set foot on our land? you missed the test today, lucky you – aura says you were allowed an extra day’s training at the air cadet base . . . jealous!
    This is when I first realise Aura can lie.
    We plough through the crowds and follow braids of light that trace our route back home.
    ‘Want me to come up with you?’ Zoya asks when we reach People’s Number 2032 Housing Block – my front door. ‘I can check with Aura, hang on . . . oh, sorry, my father’s home early. Gotta go . . .’
    She only lives a few blocks away, where the streets are wider and the buildings newer. Uncle Mentira is a chemical scientist so he can afford a bigger apartment with a view right out over the city centre to the industrial estates in the suburbs. As soon as we’ve said goodbye-and-go-well we wave. Zoya walks on a bit then messages.
    you going to be all right? she asks.
    fine. you?
    depends what’s for dinner i’m starving
    it’s been strange
    i know but everything’s normal now
    The lift is still broken so I run up the ten flights of stairs to our floor, not even out of breath when I make it to the landing. Before I can key the code to our apartment, the door opposite cracks open. Pedla Rue is twisted round it, beckoning.
    ‘Tsst, Rain – over here!’
    ‘Hi, Pedla, how are you?’
    ‘Ssh! Listen – your mama isn’t home yet.’
    ‘I know, she messaged she’d be at Glissom’s till late. I can get my own food packets sorted, don’t worry.’
    Pedla shakes her head. Her grey hair is so short and sparse I can see the blotchy skin of her scalp underneath. She’s always on at me to cut my hair. I’m glad I’ve got it stuffed under an Air Cadet cap right now so she can’t start on with the same complaint.
    ‘Watch yourself,’ she hisses. ‘Trouble’s coming . . .’
    ‘Aura says we’re not to panic about the Crux. They’re practically beaten already.’
    ‘Not them! There’s someone waiting for you. One of those Eyes in the Dark !’
    A Scrutiner! My heart leaps. It jumps, it soars, it flies without wings! I’ll find you , Reef says, and here he is already! Quick quick quick, I must try and smarten up, if that’s at all possible in these lumpy blue overalls. I’m so excited I practically fall through the door. There he is.
    It’s not Reef.
    A stranger in a white uniform stands in our apartment. He’s a bone-thin older man with lightless eyes, nothing like Reef at all.
    ‘Rain Aranoza.’ Statement, not question.
    I nod, shut the front door and lean against it. Why does it seem as though the room has shrunk? It’s suddenly so hot, so bright.
    ‘My name is Clint Roke,’ the Scrutiner says. ‘We’ll start with a normalcy test.’
    ‘I . . . I already messaged Aura about what happened.’
    ‘I know.’
    Roke sets a keypad on the table and points to a chair. I sit. First he shines a light right into my eyes and I just have to hold still and let him do it. Then he takes a needle and signs for me to remove my gloves.
    It’s not the needle that makes me yelp, it’s the vision that bludgeons my mind the moment Roke’s skin touches mine. I see him, absolutely see this Scrutiner, as a massive block of darkness slams down on him, breaking every piece of his skeleton except one of those tiny, delicate bones in his right eardrum. What’s wrong with me,