iBoy by Kevin Brooks

walking back toward Crow Town, I tried to forget it all. I tried telling myself that it was no big deal, that people get stabbed around here all the time . . . that you can’t do anything about it, it’s just how it is . . .
    But the words in my head sounded pretty empty. They were the kinds of words that Davey would use — it’s just the way it is, it’s just what they do — words that mean nothing. And maybe, in a funny kind of way, that’s why he used them. Meaningless words for meaningless actions.
    I stopped thinking about it then.
    Lucy was logging on to her Facebook page.

     
    While I waited for her to read my message (iBoy’s message), I dialed Gram’s number in my head. As it rang, I suddenly realized that it’d look a bit strange if I was walking along talking to Gram without either a mobile or one of those stupid hands-free/Bluetoothy things stuck in my ear, so I quickly pulled out my mobile and held it to my ear.
    “Tommy?” Gram answered. “Where are you? You’re late.”
    “Yeah, sorry, Gram,” I said. “I bumped into Mr. Smith, you know, my English teacher . . . ? He just started talking to me about stuff, and I couldn’t get away. I’m on my way back now.”
    “You’d better be. Where are you?”
    “Just passing the garage. I’ll be five minutes.”
    “Right . . . well, don’t hang around.”
    “I’ll see you in five, Gram.”

     
    Lucy had replied to my Facebook message. iBoy , she’d written, i can’t talk to you. please don’t write again .
    And I guessed that was fair enough.

     
    Just before I got to Crow Town, I took a quick detour down Mill Lane, a little back street that leads down to an old part of the industrial park that isn’t used anymore. There’s not a lot down there — abandoned warehouses and factories, vast stretches of wasteground — but it’s the only place I know around here where you can’t get a signal on your mobile, and I wanted to check what happened to the iStuff in my head when there wasn’t any mobile reception.
    It’s not a very nice place, the old industrial park. It’s sort of gray and flat and lifeless, and it always has this weird kind of dull silence to it . . . in fact, even when it’s not actually silent, the whole place seems to be muffled with a cold and empty hush. Although it’s not used anymore, there’s always a lot of stuff going on down there, especially at night. A lot of the local kids hang around in the old warehouses and factory buildings, just doing what they do — taking drugs, having sex, partying, fighting — and sometimes you hear about more serious stuff going on — gang stuff, shootings, stabbings, dead bodies.
    So, no, it’s not the nicest place in the world, and I didn’t like being there, but I carried on walking — with my iBrain turned on — until I reached a point where the signal receptor in my head faded to zero, and then I stopped.
    No signal.
    No reception.
    No iBoy.
    I looked around. There was a block of old factory buildings behind me, towering concrete structures with even taller brick chimneys, and on either side of the road there was nothing but vast stretches of wasteground. About a hundred feet up ahead, I could see a disused complex of industrial units and warehouses.
    I tried reaching out inside my head, searching for a signal, a network, anything . . . but there was nothing there.
    My iHead was empty.
    My iSkin non-functional.
    The electric was off.
    I walked back the way I’d come, and after about thirty feet or so, everything switched back on again.
    I stopped and looked around. There was no one in sight. No cars, no bikes, no nothing. I stepped off the pavement and crossed over the wasteground to a blackened patch of earth — the remains of an old bonfire. I stooped down and picked out some charred tin cans from the ashes, then I went over and placed them on a huge slab of reinforced concrete that was lying nearby.
    I looked around again, making sure that I was still alone, and