Circus - Jace Cameron - Страница 18
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“My name is Alice.”
His eyes look like they’re about to get watery. A certain sparkle invades them. “I once knew a girl named Alice.”
“But it’s not me?” I hesitate, still standing, questioning if I am ever going to know if I am the Real Alice.
Professor Jittery watches me for a moment, as if he can’t tell. “Well, I was cursed not to recognize her face ever again, but no.” He shakes his head. “You’re not her. My Alice would have taken me in her arms and kissed my ears.” He lowers his head, looking at his chains. He seems sad. “I think she is dead, but I am not sure.”
I find it strange he is opening up to me so fast. Maybe it’s because he’s been locked away here for so long. There is no point in holding anything back. “Sorry to hear that.” Sorry to hear I am dead. Or sorry to hear she is dead, and that I am not Alice. Or sorry for anything that doesn’t make sense anymore. “Someone sent me to meet you,” I begin.
"Who?"
"A man who claims to be the Hatter."
His left eye twitches. "I don't who that is."
"Whether you do or don't, I really need your help.” I want to ask him why he is locked away, but I am not sure how much time I am allowed with him. My priority is to find the rabbit.
“I can’t help anyone.” He shrugs. “Because I can’t help myself.”
“That’s not what the Hatter—I mean whoever led me here—thinks.”
His eyes widen. But he says nothing.
"He stuffed a bomb inside a rabbit and let it loose in the city.” I talk slowly so he understands every word. “To find it, he has been sending me clues with a deadline. His last clue was to come and see you.”
“Why me?”
“He said you know where to find a place called the Snail Mound. I should find the rabbit there."
"Do you realize how confused you are?" he says. "One time you say the rabbit is all over the city, and the other time you say it's in this Snail Mound."
"I know it doesn't make sense, but I can't risk not following the clues and waking up tomorrow with children exploded because of that bomb."
"Children?"
"He sent me a video with children playing with the rabbit."
"This man really messes with your mind," he remarks. Coming from a man locked in an underground asylum, I feel like I have to admit my insanity immediately.
"Look, I'm trying to save the kids, so either you know where the Snail Mound is or you don't." I sigh. “I guess the Pillar was right. There is something wrong about this whole thing.”
“Ah, Professor Carter Pillar,” he says. “That’s what it is all about. Please don’t trust that man, young girl. He must be using you for something.”
“So you know him?”
“Of course I do. He knows me, too. That’s a long time ago,” he says. “He killed a lot of people.”
“Tell me more about him.” I approach the table. Sit down across from him. “Why did he kill those people? Why are they saying the Alice Underground book drove him insane? Whose side is he on?”
"Let's put it this way, the Pillar is on no one’s side but his own.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you should turn around and leave this place. Make sure you never talk to him again. And forget about anything he’s told you,” Professor Jittery says firmly. “The Wonderland Wars, if you’ve heard of them, aren’t a game. You’d be lost and lose your mind over it.”
“I am already—” I want to tell him that I am insane, but realize we’re off topic here. I need to focus on priorities again. “Okay. I will leave. Just tell me how to get to Wonderland. Isn't the Snail Mound a door to Wonderland?"
Professor Jittery laughs broadly. “I wish it was that easy.”
“So you do know where Snail Mound is. What do you mean you wish it was easy?”
“No one knows where it is now,” he says. “I, of all people, can assure you that. Because I have been searching for it for so long. But for starters, you need to find Six Impossible—”
“Keys,” I interrupt. “I know that. Then why did this man who calls himself the Hatter tell me he hid the rabbit in Snail Mound in Wonderland?”
“That’s impossible.”
“He was specific about it,” I say. “Come on, why don't you tell me how I can get to Snail Mound?”
Suddenly, Professor Jittery’s eyes dart toward the wall behind me. They’re bulging with curiosity again. Wait. That’s not curiosity. This is utter nervousness. Fear. He starts to stare up at the ceiling. Fidgeting in his place. “I can’t tell you,” he whispers. “They’re listening.”
“Who is?”
“Lower your voice,” he insists, his eyes still fixed up. “Come closer.”
I lean across the table.
“Whatever you say, and sometimes whatever you think, they know about it.” He shudders.
“No one can hear us,” I say. “I asked them to stop the surveillance cameras. I assure you, no one is listening.”
He chews on his lip and winces. The chains rattling. “You’re not listening to me.” He sighs. “Come closer.”
“I can’t come closer,” I say. I am on the edge of the table. Reluctantly, I stretch my palms across. I want to gain his trust.
“They don’t need cameras to see what’s in your head,” he whispers. My hands grip the remote tighter. I might need to press the button anytime soon. “They don’t need a recorder. They’re already inside your head. In mine, too.”
“You mean they planted something in your head?” I play along. Conspiracy girl sitting across from a lunatic scientist from Wonderland.
He nods, pupils wider.
“Really?” I am part curious, part acting curious.
“They always do, but most people don’t know it,” he continues. “Everyone is under surveillance all the time. They know what they’re doing. It’s how they control the world.”
“Who are they?”
“You know who they are.” He grunts, frustrated by my utter ignorance.
“Of course.” I keep playing along. “I just forgot their name.”
“They call themselves Black Chess,” Professor Jittery announces. His eyes shoot to the roof; he’s worried they heard him. I realize he is not staring at the roof—he is trying to look inside his own head. “They’re the ones who walk on the black tiles of the Chessboard of Life.”
This isn’t the first time I’ve hear this. The Pillar told this to me, and so did Fabiola, but I have no idea what that means.
“So Black Chess...” I begin.
“Lower your voice,” he says.
“So Black Chess planted something in your head to read your mind?”
He nods. Getting more fidgety and worried. Now sweating a little. “They want to steal my designs. They want to know what I discovered about this world we live in when I studied science. They want to know if I can expose them. Most of all, they want to know the secrets of my gardens.”
I remind myself that the Pillar told me Professor Jittery designed a few of the most famous gardens in the world. Why do I have a feeling I should know more about this? The haze in my head begins to slowly form again.
But before I lunge into another limbo of dizziness, I wake up to Professor Jittery pounding on the table.
“My gardens. They want to know the secrets to my gardens,” he slurs all of a sudden, drooling a little. He wipes his mouth. The chains give him enough slack to reach for his face. “They want to know about...”
Suddenly he stiffens, as if someone has shocked him with an electric prod. His eyes are fixed like arrows at the top of his head.
“They want to know about what?” I demand, infected by his nervousness.
“Can’t say,” he barely says through his teeth. “It’s on. They can see me now. They can hear everything I am saying. It’s on!”
“What’s on?” I press hard on the sides of the remote, arching my head forward.
“The thing in my head,” he says. “It’s on. They can see everything now.”
“What’s that thing in your head? Can you see it? What is it?” I am tense, as much as he is. I think the man’s going into a seizure. “What’s in your head?”
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