Future Friend

But Pip’s mum and dad hadn’t given up on inventing. They just did their work by themselves (which was why they were running out of CryptoCoin), researching and experimenting at home. Both of them still thought there was a way to make the outside world better. Even though there wasn’t much sign of that when you looked out of the window.

On the day Pip was having her history lesson, Pip’s mum and her dad – Ivan@256X#YY.3_7 – were in the LabSpace. It was actually just the SpareSpace in their HouseUnit, but since no one ever came to stay her parents had put all their science equipment in there. Sometimes the space went very dark, and then, through the small round window in the LabSpace door, you could see lots of lights twinkling on and off.

Recently, Pip had noticed – and noticed again as she came into the MainSpace, having finished her lesson – that her parents would go in there and not come out for hours. Which was why Pip 2 had been doing so much of the housework.

‘Oh my days, what even is this?’ asked Squeezy-Paws.

‘It’s KitABeef Product 67.’

Pip, in the MainSpace, looked over to the FoodSpace. Squeezy-Paws was sitting by her bowl, staring up at Pip 2.

‘KitABeef Product 67 tastes like kitty litter. That I’ve weed and pooed on. I like Kitty Chunks!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Pip 2, blinking. ‘I’m afraid I have run a search through every available cat food and KitABeef Product 67 is the foodstuff recommended for a cat of your size.’

‘It isn’t even made of real cows,’ said Squeezy-Paws, sniffing her bowl unhappily.

‘Of course not!’ shouted Dag from his cube. ‘A cow is Chancellor of the Exchequer now. And a very good one she is too, in my opinion.’

‘Yes, okay,’ said Squeezy-Paws. ‘But meanwhile you know I hate it.’

Pip 2 shook her head at the cat. ‘I do not know that. You have never told me.’

‘Meow,’ said Squeezy-Paws, which she sometimes still said, although always in a deadpan way, like someone saying something they don’t really mean. ‘I must have told the real one then.’

At this, Pip 2 made a face. It seemed, to Pip, looking through from the other room, like an angry face. This confused and concerned her. She knew that one of the most basic rules, written into Pip 2’s core software, was that a RoboClone never reacts angrily to anything said to it by a living creature. Pip came through to the FoodSpace. She bent down to the cat.

‘Please don’t call me the real one in front of Pip 2,’ she whispered, glancing at Pip 2. ‘I don’t think she likes it.’

Squeezy-Paws looked up at Pip 2. ‘Hmm. I guess it does look kind of upset.’

‘Shh!’ said Pip. ‘But, yes, you did tell me about your food. And I said you should eat KitABeef Product 67. Stop trying to trick Pip 2.’

Suddenly there was a loud bang from inside the lab. Pip looked over.

‘What’s going on?’ she said.

‘IT’S OKAY!’ shouted Ivan.

‘EVERYTHING’S FINE!’ shouted Nina.

But then they started to do a lot of coughing and the small round window went black. Pip 2 immediately ran over with a cloth and reached up to try to clean it. Which was a bit silly because a) it wasn’t dirt – it was smoke, and b) all the smoke was on the other side of the window. But Pip 2 was a RoboClone that needed upgrading.

‘Mum! Dad!’ shouted Pip, trying to see past Pip 2.

‘You are not allowed in the LabSpace,’ said Pip 2, pushing her away.

‘I know that! But—’

Pip 2 pushed her again, quite roughly. Once more Pip thought that was really odd: anger against humans was prohibited for a RoboClone, and of course violence even more so. Pip tapped her G-Glasses to try to MindLink with Pip 2 so she could figure out what was going on with the RoboClone—

But just then the LabSpace door opened, and a huge cloud of black smoke billowed out. Pip’s mum and dad stumbled into the MainSpace, coughing and spluttering. Everything went very dark.

‘Pip! Where are you?’ shouted her mum.

‘Here!’ shouted Pip.

‘Okay!’ she said. ‘I’ve got you!’

‘Come this way!’ shouted her dad. ‘Don’t worry! We’ll just go and sit in another space and wait for the smoke to clear!

‘Where will it go? Out of the window?’ said Nina.

‘Obviously not. We’re not allowed to open them! Up the ventilation shafts. Meanwhile, let’s get the pets and lock ourselves in our PodSpace!’

Scrabbling in the smoke, they made their way out of the MainSpace and into Nina and Ivan’s PodSpace, and shut the door.

‘Okay, good. Everyone here? Dag?’

‘Yes.’

‘Squeezy-Paws?’

‘Meow.’

‘Pip?’

‘I’ve got Pip,’ said Nina, who was still holding her hand.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ said Pip.

And Nina and Ivan were reassured because it certainly sounded like Pip.

‘Mum? Dad?’ said Pip, who was lying on the floor, trying to breathe. She had hit the ground and stayed there when the black smoke came out of the lab, and had heard her parents calling for her … but then noticed that they’d stopped saying her name. It was weird.

At least it was becoming a bit easier to breathe. She looked up. The smoke had cleared enough for her to see where she was: in the LabSpace. She’d fallen into it.

‘Mum? Da—’ she said.

Then she thought: Hmm. Maybe I’ll stop calling for them. Just for a few minutes. Because, even if Pip 2 was malfunctioning, the RoboClone had been right: Pip wasn’t normally allowed in the LabSpace and she was curious about what was in there.

She got up and looked around. It was a small room, crowded with all sorts of things. In one corner, there was a HoverCabinet, marked MEAL PILLS. She opened it: inside were some small lozenges. Hmm, she thought. Maybe her mum and dad were trying to make 3020 more like people had thought it was going to be in the olden days after all! She tried one – it tasted like egg and soldiers! She smiled with pleasure and stuffed a handful of them into the pocket of her ImageSuit.

In another part of the LabSpace, there were lots of black boxes with switches on them. Some had built-in lights that were flashing on and off. Others had tiny screens with rapidly changing numbers on them. There were several crystals suspended in the air. One of the black boxes looked like it had exploded: the top had been ripped off, and Pip could see that this was where the smoke was coming from.

But she wasn’t too worried about it: the smoke seemed to be dying down. And anyway she was more interested in what was behind that box. A large bright ring of green light seemed to be attached to the wall, but, on closer inspection, it was actually hovering a few centimetres away from it. There were two crystals on either side.

Pip peered into the ring and saw that the wall behind it simply wasn’t there. There was only darkness, a completely black hole inside the circle of green light. She frowned, and reached up to touch the blackness – assuming it was some kind of illusion – and her hand went straight through it. More than that: she felt her hand being pulled into it.

Quickly, Pip took her hand out and backed away. What is that? she thought.

Underneath the ring was a HoverScreen, on which someone – probably her mum, who tended to do the maths – had scribbled a series of really complicated equations. Beneath those was the word TRANSPORTER, underlined.

‘Oh!’ said Pip. ‘It’s a Transport Portal!’

One problem with a world in which no one went outside was that humans did still sometimes have to get to other places, which weren’t where they lived. The richer people had GravityLess Cars parked right outside their HouseUnits. They could go straight inside those through airlocks, and fly to wherever they needed to go without ever stepping outside. But most people either couldn’t go out, or had to brave the frightening heat.

So some scientists were trying to invent a machine that could transport people from place to place, and from building to building, without them actually going outside. So far no one had managed to make it work. And there had also been one very messy incident involving a scientist and a fly.

But Pip’s parents, it seemed, were still working on the problem.

Exciting, thought Pip, and it really was. She herself could not remember ever going outside. It felt so frustrating sometimes, having all this technology and only being able to use it indoors. What’s the point, she often thought, of having GravityLess Boots, and only ever using them to hover round the HouseUnit?

She wished she could use them outdoors. She wished she could hover high above the towers, and feel the air on her face as she flew. Just for a few minutes.

Pip looked around, expecting to see another bright ring somewhere. Because, she thought, her parents must be testing the transporter in the lab, and probably, what you did, was to go into this ring and come out another one. But there wasn’t another ring to be seen.

‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘That’s odd. Maybe it’s in another part of the HouseUnit.’

It then occurred to Pip that she was never going to know the answer to this because her parents didn’t allow her in the lab. So they’d never let her try out the transporter. This made Pip cross. It’s not fair, she thought. They get to try out all these amazing gadgets and I never get a go. I just have to stay in my pod and then be at school in the Learning Matrix, and listen to the cat and the parrot fight, while Mum and Dad get to do all the cool stuff.

The other ring must be somewhere else in the HouseUnit, she reasoned. Or, more excitingly, somewhere else in the block. Or even, she thought, somewhere else in the City! Maybe she would come out at the Stadium Above the Clouds! She’d never been there in real life, of course – only the very rich could afford tickets to see games live at the stadium, and you needed a TurboCharged GravityLess Vehicle to get there. But, once you were inside, it was so high that it was one of the very few places left on Earth that wasn’t hot, and no viruses could penetrate the sealed roof. You could watch a whole match without worrying!

By the time she’d finished thinking all this, Pip had convinced herself that this was definitely where the other ring was: that, if you stepped into the portal on the wall, you would instantly come out of another one in the Stadium Above the Clouds.

People do that sometimes. They wish the world was a certain way and so they decide that, yes, it is like that.

I’ll only have a quick look, thought Pip. Just at the view from the Executive Pods. Then I’ll turn round and come back straight away.

And, with that thought, she raised herself up, took a deep breath and climbed through the bright green ring into darkness.

It was Sunday, so Rahul Agarwal and his family were watching that TV show where people bring in antiques for experts to look at. A man with a beard was nodding at an expert in a bow tie, who was holding a vase and talking.

‘Look at him,’ said Rahul’s dad, Sanjay. ‘Look at his eyes. So bored. So full of, “Please stop explaining where it’s from – just TELL ME WHAT IT’S WORTH!”’

Sanjay looked over at Rahul, who normally laughed when he said this (which he did every time the show was on). But Rahul just carried on watching blankly.

‘Come on, Rahul!’ said Sanjay. ‘Cheer up!’

‘I’m fine, Dad.’

‘Are you sure?’ said his mum, looking up from the TV. Prisha was sitting in her favourite chair, the one underneath the large framed photo of her Uncle Raj.

‘Don’t ask me about my homework,’ said Rahul.

‘Who said anything about homework?’ said Sanjay.

‘That’s what Mum always means,’ said Rahul. ‘When she asks me anything.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Prisha.

‘“How are you feeling, Rahul?” means: have you done your homework? “Have you had a good day, Rahul?” means: have you done your homework? So I assume “are you sure?” means: have you done your homework?’

‘That is very unfair, Rahul. Isn’t it, Sanjay?’

Sanjay blinked.

‘I said, isn’t it, Sanjay?’

‘Um … anyway, Rahul, why don’t you go and invent something? You haven’t done that for ages!’

Sanjay was right. Some of you who read my last book might remember that Rahul liked to invent things. His greatest invention was a wheelchair that he turned into a supercar, and that his friend Amy Taylor had driven, with him in the passenger seat, all the way to Scotland.

But, since then, that car had fallen to pieces (on a race track in Scotland). And, although Rahul was proud of having made the Taylor TurboChaser, he felt that with it he’d taken inventing as far as he could. Which meant that now he’d sort of … retired.

Plus, Amy was spending much more time with her dad in Scotland, so although Rahul was pleased that he had helped her – a lot – he also felt a bit sad sometimes. Because he’d ended up losing his best friend.

‘I don’t really have invention ideas any more,’ he said.

‘Hmm,’ said Sanjay, looking worried. He was genuinely concerned, as he was of the firm belief that, one day, Rahul was going to invent something that would mean he didn’t have to work quite so hard every day. ‘Don’t say that. You’ll come up with something.’

Rahul didn’t say anything.

‘Why don’t you just go and have a look through all the gear downstairs? That’s how you usually get ideas.’

Sanjay owned a big warehouse called Agarwal Supplies, which the family lived above. He was right. In the past, all of Rahul’s inventions had come from using stuff he found in there. Which fitted with the sign above the warehouse:

Although that sign had now gone missing.

‘I dunno, Dad,’ said Rahul, shaking his head. ‘I’m really not sure I’m cut out to be an inventor any more …’

His dad clearly didn’t know what to say. He looked very sad.

‘Oh well!’ said Prisha. ‘If you’re not going to be thinking about silly inventions, maybe you can sit down at the table and make sure you do your homew—’

‘I’ll just go and have a look in the warehouse,’ said Rahul, getting up.

Rahul sat on a beanbag – one of twenty, in all different colours – in the warehouse. One of his favourite planned inventions, in the past, had been bean pants, which would allow the wearer to have the sensation of sitting on a beanbag, but without the bag.

In the old days, he would’ve been prodding the beanbag to work out exactly what type of beans were in there, how many you would need per pair of pants, and then maybe going over to the hundreds of pants boxed up in the far corner to work out exactly how to sew an internal lining in them to hold the beans.

But today he was just sitting on the beanbag, looking at his phone. He wasn’t even jotting down ideas in his favourite notebook (seeing the last one – inflatable dartboard – only made him feel more depressed). He was just scrolling through some old messages from Amy, thinking about how much he missed her, and wondering if he’d stayed down here long enough for his dad to think he’d been inventing, when he heard a noise.

He looked up. It was a strange noise, a kind of whooshing, like it was windy outside and a window had been left open in the warehouse. Except it wasn’t a windy day.

Rahul got up from the beanbag (with a bit of difficulty – it was a big one and he was quite squashed into it).

‘Hello?’ he said.

No one replied. But the whooshing sound continued. He walked round to where it seemed to be coming from, which was somewhere near the extra-large toilet seats and the boxes of cough mixture that they weren’t allowed to sell any more.

‘Hello?’ he said again. The whooshing sound, he now realised, was accompanied by a bumping noise.

Bump. Bump. Bump.

Rahul walked over to that part of the warehouse. The whooshing and bumping got louder, but he couldn’t see anyone. All he saw was the row of extra-large toilet seats, none of which anyone had bought, even though Sanjay had been totally convinced that, with the amount people ate these days, they’d be selling like hot cakes.

‘Like the hot cakes people are eating so many of these days, Rahul!’ he’d added while Rahul had helped him stack them up against the wall.

But then Rahul looked more closely. In the middle of the row of toilet seats, there was one where the lid was not properly shut. Which was not particularly noticeable in itself – but what was strange was that it seemed to be … moving. The lid was banging up and down … as if someone was trying to open it from behind.

Which was odd, as all that was behind it was the warehouse wall. But not quite as odd as the fact that the rim of the toilet seat was lit up in a bright green oval ring.

Rahul thought about screaming. It was a strange moment because screaming – well, you might think that’s something that you do straight away, as soon as you’re frightened. You don’t stop to think about it.

But actually Rahul – who was a thoughtful fellow – was thinking about it. He was thinking: Oh my Lord, I’m frightened. But also, What is going on here? His curiosity, in other words, was battling against his fear and eventually it overcame it.

He didn’t scream. He peered down at the toilet seat, and put his hand on the edge of the lid. As his fingers gripped it, he muttered a short prayer: Please, whatever else comes out of here, please let it not be a huge wave of ghost poo.

And, with that prayer sent up to no one in particular, he pulled on the lid. It was easier to open than he expected. It was, in fact, about as easy to open as a toilet lid normally is; somehow he’d expected it was going to be much harder. Rahul was relieved that no ghost poo came out.

But he did scream this time because what did emerge from the toilet seat was a girl.

‘AAAARRGGGH!’ said Rahul, backing away fast.

The girl tumbled out and rolled over a couple of times. Then she sat up.

‘AAARGGGHH!’ said Rahul again.

‘Hello,’ said the girl. ‘Are you all right?’

‘WHAT! AARGH! NO! YOU’VE JUST APPEARED OUT OF A TOILET!’

The girl frowned and looked round. ‘No, that’s a portal.’

‘NO, IT’S A TOILET! WELL, A SEAT! WITH A LID!’

Rahul started to think these were slightly strange words to be shouting. So he tried to calm himself down, in order to speak more quietly. But she spoke first.

‘No,’ said the girl, going over to it. ‘It’s definitely a portal. It’s got the ring of green light. And besides, obviously, we don’t have toilets any more. Our waste is just processed remotely and turned directly into biofuel. Not that it’s really helped the environment.’

Rahul shook his head and frowned. ‘Right, well, all those words were just noise. It’s a toilet seat.’

The girl looked at it again. ‘No. It can’t be. Apart from anything, it’s much too big for any normal person’s bottom!’

She moved away from the toilet seat and looked around. ‘Is this the back entrance to the stadium?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Or maybe the changing rooms?’

‘Sorry? What stadium?’

The girl laughed and said, as if it was obvious,

‘The Stadium Above the Clouds!’

Rahul frowned. ‘Um … is that a song?’

Now the girl frowned. ‘I don’t think so. But there might be one about it.’

Rahul came closer. She was quite a strange-looking girl. She had short hair, cut in an odd style he’d never seen before, as if she’d asked her hairdresser to shave it close, but leave little pyramids of hair sticking up all over her scalp. And her clothes were … weird. She was wearing a shiny silver one-piece suit, made out of plastic or Lycra or something, but it didn’t seem to have any zips or buttons. There was one pocket, but not on the side, in the middle.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’ she asked.

‘Um …’ said Rahul. ‘I was just about to ask you that.’

‘Is it some kind of retro day at the stadium? Like, are you part of a history parade or something?’

Rahul shook his head. ‘I really don’t know what this stadium thing you’re going on about is. This is just my T-shirt. Look. What’s your name?’

The girl frowned again. ‘Hasn’t it come up in your G-Glasses?’

‘My what?’ said Rahul.

‘Your G-Glasses. My name should come up as soon as you scan me.’

Rahul took his glasses off and looked at them. ‘I got these at Specsavers.’

‘Hmm,’ said the girl. ‘Well, anyway, my name is Pip@256X#YY.3_7.’

‘Pardon?’ said Rahul.

‘Pip@256X#YY.3_7.’

‘Yeah,’ said Rahul. ‘And mine is [e-mail].’

The girl nodded. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘No, it isn’t really.’

‘What?’

‘That isn’t my name. I was joking. Goodness! I’m the one people normally say doesn’t get jokes.’

The girl squinted at him. She reached into her pocket and took out a pair of glasses. She put them on and Rahul saw lights come on round the frame. The girl stared at him, moving her eyes up and down.

‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘You don’t have any readings. Have you gone off-MindLink?’

‘Look,’ said Rahul, ‘my name is Rahul Agarwal. And this is my dad’s warehouse, Agarwal Supplies!’

The girl took off her glasses. ‘It’s not the Stadium Above the Clouds?’

Rahul shook his head. ‘I don’t know where that is. But this is really not it. Apart from anything, we aren’t above the clouds. We’re very much on the ground. If you look out there, you’ll see the A41. And two chicken shops.’

‘Oh no!’ said the girl, looking suddenly worried. ‘Am I in Zone X? Are the chickens armed?’

‘Er … dunno about arms,’ said Rahul. ‘I think you can definitely have legs. If you order a Big Bucket.’

The girl looked troubled. ‘Right, I think maybe I should just go back home.’

‘Um …’ said Rahul. ‘Okay. But … how? It’s really late. Are your mum and dad going to come and pick you up?’

‘What?’ said Pip. ‘No. I’ll just go back through the portal …’

‘The …’

‘Look, it was nice to meet you, but … goodbye.’

She went back to the lit-up toilet seat and lifted the lid. Rahul noticed for the first time that, through the seat, he couldn’t see the wall of the warehouse. Instead, inside the ring, there was just a vast blackness. And a whooshing sound. That was where it had been coming from!