GLAZE (32 page)

‘You didn’t buy that cover-up bull did you?’ Shank throws his arm over the back of the seat. ‘Geez, you’s dumb.’

‘All right, smart arse,’ I say, the insult stinging. ‘Who was it then? A gang of terrorists?’

‘It was one girl,’ he says, holding up a gloved finger. ‘Thirteen, maybe fourteen. And one day, on her way to school, she brought a gun on to the underground and in the middle of a packed train:
brap, brap, brap
.’ He mimes pulling a trigger with his finger, shooting it over and over, finishing by turning around in his seat and pointing it at my head. He blows imaginary smoke off the top of his finger. ‘No one got out alive.’
 

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw it all when I hacked the transport authority account,’ Corina says.
 
It appears she found a little more than just how to change the display times.
 

‘But the news said terrorists released a gas that sent everyone mad.’
 

It had the only thing the channels had reported for weeks. Broadcasting images of emergency personnel in bright orange hazmat suits bringing out body bag after body bag. I’d had nightmares for weeks and had refused to take the Underground for months. There was a reason ‘going totally Metro’ was a phrase. We had to joke about it to make it bearable.
 

‘That’s because
he
owns the media,’ Corina says, pointing up at the roof emphasising the word he, like she’s pointing to God. ‘Couldn’t have the truth being reported, now could he? That the chip can send you crazy.’
 

‘The chip?’
 

Corina shakes her head. ‘Wow, are you really this naïve? Of course the chip. What do you think sent Ethan mental? And he said you were bright. This is what it does to people who resist it. Who don’t comply!’
 

I remember what Max had said to me, about what happened when the chip was used on under-age kids. Shocking side effects he’d said. He hadn’t even bothered lying. And I can guess who would have been responsible for coming up with the terrorist story to feed to the press. My mother. The PR queen.
 

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’
 

‘Well, you know one thing,’ she says, guiding the car to a halt and killing the engine. ‘You just don’t know you know it. And that’s the only reason you’re here.’ She taps at her head.
 

We stare at each other. Me, trying to find the words to explain that there’s no way to get back Logan’s message. That my chip is gone and with it any hope I had of picking up his slide. Her, like I’m a puzzle to solve. Not a person. Not an actual human sitting in a stolen car, with her mother and boyfriend unconscious beside her.

Although he’s not unconscious any longer. He’s stirring.
 

I slide away from him, pushing my back further against the window of the car, acutely aware of how small it is in here.

He coughs, blinks his eyes open. He looks around the van, his brow creased in confusion. Then he sees me.
 

The worry vanishes from his face and is replaced with a smile. ‘Petri.’

I don’t move. Not yet. I’m still not sure who he is.
 

‘Petri, you’re here. How are...’ He shifts awkwardly and then looks down at his bound hands and feet. ‘What’s going on? And… my feed.’ His expression is puzzled: his eyebrows drawn together. ‘It’s gone.’
 

‘I fried your chip when I zapped you,’ Corina says.
 

‘When you what’ed me?’
 

‘Zapped you. You tried to kill Little Miss Know-Nothing there and I had to stop you.’
 

‘I what? I would never, I couldn’t.’ He reaches out to me and I flinch, my hand instinctively going to my bruised throat.
 

He withdraws his bound hands and looks at them like they don’t belong to him.
 

‘I don’t think being on Glaze agreed with you.’

His cheeks have lost their usual red tinge and he looks like he might be sick. ‘Maybe. But do we really need this?’ He raises his hands, straining at the plastic ties. ‘It’s me.’
 

Corina looks to me for a decision. Ethan’s eyes are clear again. Whatever darkness had possessed him is gone. I nod.
 

Shank reaches into his jacket and pulls out a black handle.
With a
snick
a blade flicks out. He leans over and slices through the bindings.
 

Ethan rubs at his wrists and looks at me, a weak smile on his face. I force myself to return it.
 

‘OK, if you two lovebirds have made up, can we get back to the topic? That information. I need it.’

‘What for?’

‘For the cause.’

‘What cause?’ I say. ‘There’s no cause left. There’s nothing left worth fighting for. Don’t you see? It’s too late. Everyone is on Glaze and they’re happy.’ There was no point in fighting it.
 

‘They’re sheep.’

‘They’re wolves,’ I say. ‘Moving in packs. It took me a while to realise what was going on, but when I was chipped I saw it. How the cliques formed and grew, drawing people in and binding them together. Like with like.’

‘Keeping people who didn’t agree away from each other so there would be no conflict,’ says Ethan. ‘Like he did with T-Raz.’

‘Exactly,’ I say.
 

‘From conflict comes change,’ Corina says, quoting her rebel manifesto. ‘The old order.’ She holds up one fist. ‘The opposing order.’ She holds up a second. ‘A new order.’ She brings her fists together in a clashing thud. ‘Conflict is life. Without it, everything stagnates and dies. And that’s what they want. To keep us happy and content and unquestioning.’ She spits the words like they offend her.
 

‘That’s all I wanted, too. To be happy and content. To be a part of it.’

‘And now?’ Ethan asks.
 

‘Now…’ Tears sting my eyes. ‘Now, I know too much.’
 

‘Knowledge is a curse, yo,’ Shank says with such a theatrical sigh that I find myself laughing through the tears.
 

‘Speaking of which,’ Corina says, flicking Shank in the ear. ‘The information Logan sent you, what was it?’

‘I told you, I don’t know. My chip never worked so I never saw what it was.’

‘And he didn’t say anything?’

‘Not really. He was kind of distracted by the hole in his chest.’

‘Petri, try and think,’ Ethan says. ‘There has to be a way to find that message.’
 

‘Why? Why does there have to be a way? I used to think that, you know? That if you wanted something enough you could find a way to get it. But life doesn’t always work out like that. Sometimes, it’s better to let things go.’

A police car speeds past, its sirens wailing. Corina and Shank duck down in the front seat. We wait, listening to the Doppler effect taking place as the sound diminishes in the distance.
 

‘I don’t believe you for a second, Petri,’ Ethan says, quietly. ‘You’re the most tenacious person I’ve ever met.’
 

‘And look how that’s worked out. For me and anyone I’ve touched. Look at Zizi. And Logan. I did that,’ I say, between the gulping sobs. ‘I got him and his friends killed. I have their blood on my hands.’ I shake my hands at him, wanting him to somehow tear the flesh off them. To take all the pain away. Instead, he pulls me into a hug. ‘Even his stupid dog,’ I say, some of my anger seeping away from me and into Ethan’s embrace. ‘I even killed the dog.’ The image of Proxy, her skull crushed, flashes before my eyes with a tiny detail I never took in before. A tiny glint of metal amid the bone and blood. An idea comes to me.

I push myself away from Ethan. ‘There might be a way,’ I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘But I need to get to Logan’s flat.’

29

CORINA STARTS UP THE VAN
again and pulls out into the traffic, heading east. She didn’t ask why I needed to get to Logan’s. Maybe she’s already guessed my plan.
 

Shank, however, is not so happy to trust me. ‘What you want at Logan’s, then?’

‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’ I have no idea if my plan will work. I’m trying to sound confident rather than terrified.
 

Shank kisses his teeth in response. ‘Be all mysterious then.’
 

Ethan smiles, warm and encouraging. But I can tell he knows I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. I can’t remember the last time I did.

A man in a sleek black sports car pulls up next to us, his hands stroking the faux-leather steering wheel, even though he’s not the one in control of the car. He turns and scowls through the window. Whether it’s at Corina, because she’s clearly too young to be driving, or Ethan in the back seat, his eye puffy and purple from where I hit him, I don’t know. His eyes meet mine through the tinted glass. I’ve never been looked at with so much hatred in my life.
 

It’s a relief when Corina screeches away the moment the light turns green, leaving the man and his look behind.
 

The stylish, red brick buildings of the west are slowly replaced by the grey blocks of the east. The further east we head, the more relaxed I feel. The less watched. And yet I still flinch at every speed camera, CCTV and drone. There seem to be hundreds of them. Watching me. I never realised how many there were, monitoring our every movement. Some cultures used to think cameras took our souls. Maybe that’s what’s happened to us. Maybe our need to document our every thought, our every emotion, has robbed us of everything. Stripped us down to nothing but pixels on a screen.
 

I crane my head to watch a drone buzz by overhead, wondering how many souls it’s captured tonight. I don’t see the car coming.
 

I feel the impact in my bones: a wave moving through my shoulder and out the other side. It throws me sideways like a rag doll discarded by an angry child. I don’t know if the screeching is coming from me or the metal of the van twisting around us. Glass rains down, biting into my skin.
 

Outside, everything’s spinning: the lights of the traffic and street signs blur into each other. In that moment, in those few seconds as we spiral across the road, a memory hits me of a fairground ride Zizi took me on once. All flashing lights and booming music. I’d bawled from the moment the bar was lowered over my shoulders, while she’d laughed.
 

And then everything stops. The roar of the crash is replaced by the creaking of metal and the pounding of my heart in my ears.
 

I turn my head to check that Zizi is all right and the movement sends a knife of pain down my neck. She’s leaning against the van door. If it wasn’t for the trickle of blood trailing over her eyebrow, you’d think she was asleep, bored with a long journey.
 

Corina’s crumpled over the steering wheel, her hands folded under her head like she’s crying. Shank, too, is slumped forward, the seat belt straining against his weight.
 

Ethan is leaning up against the seat in front of him. He coughs, a wet rasping sound. I reach my hand out, wanting to pull him upright, to see his face and know that he’s OK. That if only one person makes it out of here, it’s him. Even raising my arm is an act of will: me against the pain.
 

My fingers brush against Ethan’s shoulder and I feel the tightness of his muscles under his shirt. ‘Ethan, are you—’
 

I don’t have time to finish before hands punch through the remaining glass, grab me by my shoulders, and pull me out through the window. I scream as my spine is scraped over the window frame. I’m pulled to standing.
 

It’s the man from the sports car. He’s staring at me with even more rage and hatred. I look around and see what caused the crash. He must have driven his car straight into us. Its nose is crumpled like a ball of black tinfoil.
 

As I’m trying to find my balance, he lets go of me with one hand, then whips it back around again, slapping me across the face so hard my teeth clash.
 

‘You can’t hide from me, bitch.’ Spittle hits my stinging cheek. ‘After the things you’ve done, I should kill you now.’
 

‘I don’t know what—’ is all I can manage to say before he takes another swing. I twist out of his grip so the blow hits my shoulder rather than my face. The force is still enough to knock me to the floor.
 

‘It’s her,’ another voice says.
 

A woman appears from behind the man and looks down at me. Her eyes are as dark and rage-filled as his. ‘The one who killed all those people?’
 

She takes another step forward and leans over me. She’s rake thin, dressed in a grey skirt suit, with heels so high it looks like she’s balancing on pencils. Hate pours off her like a scent.
 

The man slips off his jacket, folds it up, and places it carefully on the roof of his ruined car. He rolls his sleeves up.
 

‘You have the wrong person,’ I shout desperately.
 

The woman raises her foot over me, and I’m strangely embarrassed to catch a glimpse of a suspender belt before she stamps down on my chest with her stiletto heel.
 

I’m lucky she’s so thin and not able to put much force behind the stamp. I grab hold of her ankle and pull. She topples backwards, falling against the car.
 

But now it’s the man’s turn again.
 

I scrabble away from him when he grabs my hair and pulls me back on to my feet. He balls his hand into a fist. I close my eyes and wait.
 

The pain is worse than I could have imagined. I’ve been punched by kids before. But this feels like an anvil’s been dropped on my face. I gasp, the shock stealing my breath away.
 

He pushes me backwards and I stagger into the woman. She wrenches my arm behind my back and pulls my hair back, pinning me in place. ‘All those children,’ she hisses into my ear.