Read Mind Games for Free Online Page A

Implant access is restricted until age eighteen: it shouldn’t be possible.
    At last we reach the park gates. There is a moment of disquiet inside when they don’t swing open, but then, seconds later, they do.
    Once through the gates the park is as always, and gradually I relax. Here, there are no Els: the park has been maintained to be the same for centuries. There are crisscrossing cycling and walking trails, a road down the centre. All is peace and order. A few walkers push baby strollers; a bicycle goes past with a toddler in a seat behind the rider. We spot deer through the trees grazing on grass. Fawns will be born soon.
    We head for the adventure playground but it is almost empty, and we soon move on. When we go past the under-five playground it is busy with toddlers, parents and nannies. Nowhere do we see any kids near Jason’s age; no wonder he doesn’t want to come here any more. He doesn’t want to hang out with babies.
    It didn’t used to be like this here, even just a year ago. I frown to myself. Why the change? The Implant age . That’s it, isn’t it? I’d tried to argue with Dad and Sally about Jason having Implant surgery at ten, just months ago. Sally threatened unspeakable things if I tried to infect him in any way with my Refusing. But she didn’t have to. I want him to be happy, to fit in with the other kids his age. To not be a freak like his sister. But at ten ? How could he make such an important decision at that age?
    When we leave the park we divert without discussion to the nearby cemetery. Jason stops, leans his bike against the fence. ‘Now for a survey of the latest late,’ he says. And I nod, pleased this is one ritual he wants to keep.
    And we walk along, searching out the new graves, noting the names. We always did this, to imagine the recently dead in our zombie adventures. Jason has always liked his stories scary, the scarier the better. Back then he was imagining being able to play Zombie Wars version 12. Now he’s playing it, for real – virtually, that is – version 14.
    ‘Alexander J. Munch: zombie or vampire?’ I say.
    ‘ Definitely a vampire name,’ he answers. ‘But kind of old for killer status.’ The carved dates have Munch at over a hundred years old. ‘Though that could be creepy. Next?’
    ‘Here’s one. How about Rory Middleton-Smith?’
    ‘Zombie,’ another voice says, so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard or imagined it, but Jason has turned sharply at the sound. I reach for his arm to pull him back, but he’s sprung out of reach and is around the other side of the gravestone.
    I dash after him. A man lies in the grass on top of a grave, his face blank. Body wasted. His glassy eyes are moving back and forth so fast they must be unaware of their surroundings, but then he swivels his head to Jason.
    And his eyes still, and focus.
    ‘Zombie,’ he says again, more clearly. Then his head slumps back, his eyes start moving again.
    I grab Jason’s shoulder, pull him back.
    ‘What’s the problem?’ Jason says. ‘He’s harmless. He can’t even move. See?’ And he twists away from me and pushes at the man’s leg with his foot. He doesn’t register, just twitches, his eyes darting and dancing at things only he can see.
    ‘Jason!’
    Jason shrugs, steps back again. ‘Don’t freak out, he’s not dangerous. He’s always here.’
    By the looks of him, not for much longer. I’m shocked. I’ve seen Implant Addicts before, like on public service announcements of how to spot early signs of overuse in the mentally deficient, or from a train window, sprawled on railway benches, but always distant, removed. The ones we cycled past in front of that house today were the closest I’d been before now. And although his clothes are almost rags, I can still see the Hacker design. The swirls of tattoos around his left eye – his are white, to contrast against dark-as-midnight skin – mark him out. He was a Hacker ? And not just any Hacker: going by the extensive