Acid (2 page)

‘I tried to warn you,’ I say, my throbbing skin and
thumping
head momentarily forgotten. ‘Maybe you’ll listen to me next time, huh?’

I push my foot into his neck to emphasize my point. Coughing, he rolls onto his back, trying to twist away from me. Blood – his own – is streaming from his mouth; he must have bitten his tongue when he smashed his chin against the floor.

‘What’re you in here for, anyway?’ he mumbles thickly, spitting red froth.

‘You really wanna know?’ I say.

He nods.

I lean down until our faces are so close we could kiss.

‘I killed my parents,’ I murmur, and watch his eyes go wide.

CHAPTER 2

A GUARD’S SHOUT
jolts me back to reality. I straighten up and look around, wincing as fresh pain stabs through my head.

‘What happened?’ the guard says, disgust flickering across his face at the sight of the meat and blood sprayed everywhere.

‘Fat-arse skidded in some water and fell,’ I say.

‘Really.’ It’s a statement, not a question; clearly, he doesn’t believe me. But I hold his gaze, and it’s he who looks away first.

‘Get up,’ he tells Creep, curling his upper lip. Creep just lies there, groaning.

‘I said get up.’ The guard slams his boot into Creep’s ribs and Creep jackknifes, a sobbing grunt exploding from his lips. I close my eyes, pressing my hand to my forehead, feeling the heat pulsating from beneath my skin. When I open my eyes again, another guard’s helping the first drag Creep to his feet so they can haul him to the infirmary. I sag against the worktop, my remaining energy leaving me in a rush.

‘Get back to work,’ the first guard snarls at me over his shoulder as they leave, but he’s not really paying me any attention. Which is just as well, because I’m not sure I can
do
anything
right now. My nausea’s returned, assaulting me in steady swells. I try to take a deep breath, but the stench from the stewpots coats my tongue and throat. Cold sweat springs out all over my body. My hands are clammy, and even though I still feel hot, I’m racked with shivers. A sharp pain jabs through my stomach. Tearing off my meat- and blood-smeared overall, I run through the kitchen, head down, ignoring the cries of the other inmates and the remaining guards.

But the doors are locked. Of course they’re locked. They wouldn’t want one of us sneaking out of here with anything sharp, would they? I pound on the doors with the flat of one hand, gripping my stomach with the other. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ a guard barks at me, grabbing my arm, trying to force me to turn round.

‘Open the doors!’ I snarl at him. ‘Now!’

Another cramping pain squeezes through me. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.

‘Have you gone out of your mind?’ the guard snaps. ‘Get back to work!’

‘Seriously,’ I say through clenched teeth, trying to swallow down the acid rising in my throat. ‘You need to open these doors.’

‘Oh. Do I?’ The guard folds his arms. His pulse gun dangles from one hand, his finger curled loosely around the trigger. Behind him, the other inmates are watching us with interest. ‘Why?’

‘Because I’m gonna—’

My stomach spasms. I retch. The guard realizes what’s
wrong
and his eyes widen. But it’s too late. The acid burns up my throat and I retch again and bend forward, everything I ate for lunch splattering onto the tiles at his feet.

‘Oh, shit!’ I hear him cry as black spots flock across my vision and I collapse to my knees. I feel like someone’s trying to crush my skull between two rocks, and there’s a high-pitched whining in my ears. I vomit again and again, until there’s nothing left to bring up except saliva. Then I feel hands on my arms, lifting me to my feet, but my legs still won’t hold me and I stumble and sag forward. I’m lowered, gently, onto something soft.

‘. . . core temperature dangerously high . . .’

‘. . . need to get her stabilized . . .’

‘. . . get a medpatch on her NOW . . .’

Another tremendous bolt of pain stabs through my stomach, and I scream – it feels like I’m being torn in two. Something’s pressed against my neck. There’s a sudden spreading coolness.

Everything fades.

CHAPTER 3

I CAN HEAR
chanting. And shouts. I try to open my eyes, but it’s as if they’ve been glued shut.

The chanting grows louder. With a massive effort, I prise my eyelids apart.

For a moment, everything swims and swirls. Then, slowly, my eyes focus. I’m lying in one of the beds in the infirmary. There’s a blanket covering me up to my armpits and a needle, attached to a drip, disappearing under the thin skin on the inside of my elbow.

I turn my head. That’s an effort, too; it feels as if someone’s poured concrete into my skull. When I see that the other ninety-nine beds in the infirmary are empty, and that there’s no sign of Creep, I feel a stab of disappointment. I was hoping I’d really hurt him.

Standing at one of the tiny, barred windows that run the length of the infirmary is Dr Alex Fisher, the prison medic, his back to me. When I first came to Mileway – until I learned to punch and bite and kick and snap bones, and the other inmates realized it would mean less trouble for them if they picked on someone else – I was forever being brought here with burns and fractures and concussions and God knows what else,
and
it was Dr Fisher who fixed me up every time.

I struggle upright. ‘Hello?’ I call. My throat hurts, and my voice sounds scratchy.

Dr Fisher turns, and when he sees I’m awake, he hurries over. ‘Lie down, Jenna,’ he says. ‘You’re too ill to be sitting up.’

Reluctantly, I do as I’m told. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ I croak. The pain in my head has dulled to a low throb, but it’s still there.

‘I’m not sure,’ Dr Fisher says. ‘We’re waiting for some test results.’ His eyes, which are green, the irises flecked with gold, are almost kind – something you don’t see very often in this place. He gives me a small smile, something else you never see. ‘You’re doing OK, though. Try and get some rest.’

Then the lights flicker and go out. The shouts and chanting – which are coming from outside – rise to a roar. ‘What’s happening?’ I say as the emergency lighting kicks in, bathing the room in a weird underwater glow.

‘The inmates are rioting,’ Dr Fisher says. ‘The prison staff have shut them out in the yard.’ His smile has vanished. He runs a hand through his thick, dark blond hair, frowning.

‘Why?’

‘This time?’ Dr Fisher shrugs. ‘They didn’t like the food, apparently.’

I remember the foul smell of the stewing meat. No wonder.

Dr Fisher walks back over to the window. ‘This is too
much,’
I hear him mutter during a lull in the noise outside. ‘ACID will be here too soon.’

I stare at his back. What does that mean? ACID always get called in when there’s a riot. They’re the only ones who can handle it.

Closing my eyes, I pray he’ll find out what the hell’s wrong with me quickly so I can get out of here.

I hear Dr Fisher walking back across to my bed, and open my eyes again. He presses a scanner to my throat, checking my pulse. If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t let them within two metres of me. But it was Dr Fisher who, back in those early days, suggested I start using the gym, arranging to have one of the more sympathetic guards standing watch so that the other inmates wouldn’t bother me. It was he who coached me in self-defence and martial arts, telling me it might help if I knew a few moves. Once, when I was in really bad shape after another inmate had pounced on me in the laundry, he even gave me the flask of soup his LifePartner had made him for lunch.

I still wonder, sometimes, why he did those things, whether he ever told his LifePartner he’d given me his soup. Was it because he felt sorry for me? But I’ve never talked to him about my parents’ deaths. By the time I got here, I’d given up trying to tell people that what happened was an accident. No one else believed me, so why would he?

Dr Fisher tilts his head. His komm must be going off. ‘Yes?’ he says. He listens for a moment to whoever’s on
the
other end. ‘Where? OK. Thank you.’

He turns back to the bed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a medpatch. ‘I want to give you another sedative, Jenna,’ he says. ‘Things could get very nasty around here once ACID arrive, and I don’t want you to get worked up – you’re in too fragile a state right now.’

I frown, hoping he’ll explain what he thinks is going to happen, but all he says is, ‘Please. It really is for the best.’

I turn my head to the side so he can place the patch, which is less than half a centimetre square, on my neck, in the hollow just below where my earlobe meets my jaw. As the coolness spreads across my skin and my eyelids grow heavy, Dr Fisher turns away from me again. In another brief lull in the noise from down in the yard, I hear him say in a quiet but urgent voice, ‘She’s more or less out. We’re on our way.’

What?

I reach up and, although there’s already enough of the sedative in my bloodstream to make my arm feel like it weighs several tonnes, I manage to tear the patch off my neck, folding it into my palm. When he returns to the bed, I close my eyes so he won’t realize I’m still awake. I feel him placing something soft across my face, a cloth or bandage, which he wraps around my head and ties at the base of my neck, leaving my mouth and nostrils free so that I can breathe. I want to reach up and pull it away, but I’m so woozy from the sedative now, I’m struggling to stay conscious.

Dr Fisher gently tugs the drip out of my arm and lifts me up, tucking the blanket around me. Then he throws me across his shoulders with my head hanging down on one side, my legs on the other. He starts to walk very fast, bouncing me about; I feel the air rushing past me, hear a
clunk
and a
hiss
as the infirmary doors slide back and we pass into the corridor outside.

Fighting panic, I battle to stay alert, yet keep myself floppy so Dr Fisher will think I’m unconscious. More doors hiss, and although I can’t see anything, I can tell by the changing air temperature that we’re moving through the prison. When my nostrils fill with the piss-and-mould stink of the cells, I realize we’re in one of the incarceration towers. Then I hear something else: a low
thudthudthud
. Rotos.

ACID.

We’re heading up the stairs between levels; Dr Fisher’s slowed down, and the back of his shirt is damp with sweat. The sound of the rotos has died away now, and I can hear the clang of heavy boots striking the metal catwalks on one of the floors above us. Dr Fisher swears, lifting me off his shoulders. As he rolls me onto the floor, the bandage on my face shifts slightly, leaving a gap just big enough for me to be able to see out of one eye.

It takes a few seconds to make sense of what I’m looking at. We’re hiding behind an overturned table in the middle of one of the recreation areas, the chains that normally secure it to the floor ripped out like plant roots.
The
rest of the furniture has been tipped up too, the base units for the holopanel news screens smashed, and there’s food everywhere, dripping down walls and doors, the rancid stench of the stew almost overpowering. A few metres away from us, an inmate lies face-down, one hand outstretched as if pleading for mercy, his fingers slick with blood.

I can feel Dr Fisher crouched beside me, shaking. In my medication-fogged brain, the realization forms that he’s as scared as I am. But why? Then he reaches across and pulls me further behind the tables, tucking my legs up; I have to resist the urge to stiffen, to kick out.
What are you doing?
I want to ask him.
What the hell is going on?

The sound of pounding feet grows louder, and a tide of ACID agents in black jumpsuits and helmets with mirrored visors, which they always wear to hide their faces, pours down the stairs on the opposite side of the recreation area. They’re clutching pulse guns and tasers, and as I watch them, I feel as if I’m locked in a nightmare. I try to scream, to wake myself up, but I can’t even force out a whimper. Unconsciousness presses at the edges of my mind like a grey blanket.
Stay awake
, I tell myself fiercely.

Then, as suddenly as they appeared, the ACID agents are gone, heading down to the yard. Dr Fisher hoists me back onto his shoulders, stands up and runs to the stairs. This time, he pelts up them as if I weigh nothing at all. The effects of the sedative roll over me in waves; it’s
harder
than ever to stay awake. We reach the top of the tower, and go out onto the roof.

Outside, the air is cold and sharp. I can hear cries and screams and the crackle of gunfire as ACID and the rioting inmates face each other down in the yard. The roof is bristling with ACID rotos, gleaming black and silver machines almost the size of magtram pods. Dr Fisher ducks between them, making for a smaller, unmarked roto at the edge of the roof. Both its top and bottom rotor are going full throttle, and a pilot and co-pilot are seated inside. As Dr Fisher gets closer, the co-pilot grins and gives us a thumbs-up. I struggle to stay awake, reminding myself to keep still, stay limp.
Where are we going? What is he up to?

‘Stop right there!’ a voice barks behind us.

Dr Fisher stops. I see the co-pilot’s grin fall away.

‘Turn round!’

Slowly, Dr Fisher turns. There’s an ACID agent behind us, his face invisible behind his mirrored visor.

‘ID,’ he says, pointing his pulse gun at us.

Dr Fisher lets go of my legs to fumble in his pocket for his citizenship-card. The agent looks at it for a long time, turning it over and over in one gloved hand, before giving it back. ‘What about the prisoner?’ he asks.

‘I . . . I don’t have it,’ Dr Fisher says. ‘The inmates’ c-cards are kept in the admin block, and I couldn’t get there because of the riots.’

‘What’s the prisoner’s name?’

‘Adam Howell. Another inmate threw chemicals in his
face
in the prison laundry, and he needs urgent treatment that we’re unable to give him here.’

What the hell? Who’s Adam? I’ve never heard that name in my life. And why would he pretend I’m a guy?