GLAZE (36 page)

‘Are you ready?’ Ethan says.
 

We’re standing in a queue of people waiting for visiting hour. Mothers trying to hide their shame. Girlfriends trying to hide their excitement.
 

‘No,’ I say, squinting through the gap in the scarf.
 

A loud buzzing sounds and the queue moves forward. Through the gate, I see a round, white building sits in the middle of a grey yard. There’s one heavily guarded door and not a single window.
 

What was I thinking? The chances of us making it out of this place, let alone getting six hundred boys out too, are almost nil.
 

I stop in my tracks, fear freezing me in place. The woman behind bangs into me. ‘First time?’ she says, in a tone kinder than her face.
 

I nod.
 

‘Boyfriend?’ she says, peering at my eyes through my disguise.
 

‘Friend,’ I say as quietly as I can.
 

She sniffs. ‘Well, don’t expect them to be happy to see you.’ She strides past me. ‘They never are.’
 

‘It will all be OK,’ Ethan says into my cloth-covered ear. He reaches up and tucks a lock of my hair back under, then places a hand on the base of my spine and gently moves me forward.
 

We’re scanned and our bags searched as we pass through the door. The guard pulls out two tangled tampons then drops them like his fingers are on fire. I smile beneath my veil at the blush in his cheeks.
 

I gather my stuff and walk towards the door. The second guard pushes it open, but doesn’t step out of the way, so I have to squeeze past his large gut to get through. The visiting room is surprisingly bright and cheery. There are no booths with glass separating the inmates from their guests as I had imagined. Only tables with a few chairs scattered around. It could be a classroom.
 

We’re directed to a table in the corner and sit down. Slowly, the other seats fill up with visitors. They all sit, hands in laps or fiddling with jewellery, watching the double doors through which, I assume, the boys will arrive, or gazing at the clock that’s ticking away on the wall.
 

A second loud
buzz
, followed by a
clunk
, the double doors open and the boys traipse in.
 

One boy with blonde hair shaved close enough to reveal a tattoo inked on to his skull sees Ethan and smiles. He walks over and takes his seat like he’s walking into a restaurant where the best seat is always reserved for him.
 

‘Fisher,’ he says, lifting his chin in a casual greeting. ‘Who’s the ghost girl?’
 

‘This is Petri and you might want to show a bit more respect, Charlie. We’re here because of her.’
 

His arrogant expression softens and he leans forward in his chair, eyes darting across my veiled face, trying to find a way in.
 

‘Nice to meet you, Petri.’ He reaches out a hand. I go to shake but I’m interrupted by a loud thump.
 

‘No touching,’ the fat guard shouts, banging his baton against the wall.
 

Charlie leans back, stretching out in his chair, and throws his arm over the back of the seat. ‘Have to say I was surprised to get your message, Fisher. We all were. Damn near freaked us out. Been years since we heard anything delivered… like that. We thought White was back.’
 

‘I’m sorry. It was the only way we could think to communicate with you,’ Ethan says.
 

‘How did you do it?’

‘Our friend tracked the receiving frequency.’

‘I kinda missed it, you know?’ Charlie says.
 

‘I know,’ Ethan says.
 

‘Was that your voice broadcast?’ he says looking at me again, his head tilted.

‘No. It was our hacker friend, Corina.’

‘Shame. So is this Corina as hot as she sounds? Cos if so, you’d totally better hook me up. It’s been way too long since I got me some—’

‘Can we focus, please?’ I say.
 

Charlie bursts out laughing at my discomfort. ‘All right. So, are we going to do this?’ he says, clapping his hands together.
 

‘Is everyone in?’

‘There’s only about three hundred of the original programme still here. But the rest will have got your message wherever they are.’

Charlie scratches behind his ear at the implant. Just like I’ve seen Ethan do over and over since we tested whether his implant still worked. The look of bliss on his face when we sent the test message was almost as bad as the anger that replaced it.
 

‘The rest of the kids here are new, although everyone here is fitted with blanks. So you won’t find any White fans. We’ve spread the word. They know what to do. They’re itching to do it, in fact. As for me, the only thing that’s kept me going in this shithole is the thought of payback. So you come through, then you got yourself a fracas on order.’

The clock in the room clunks from 11:55 to 11:56. I stare at it, wondering why it’s so old-fashioned. Then I remember that this place is completely isolated from the digital world.
 

In four minutes, that won’t be the case. Four minutes. Two hundred and forty seconds.
 

There are two guards in here. Another two outside. According to Leon, there will be at least another five in the main wing, but he said they mostly stay in their lounge unless trouble starts. A lounge with a computerised lock that could be accessed from the outside.

Corina had laughed when she hacked the systems. ‘I should have thought of this before
.
’
 

11.57.

I reach into my bag for Corina’s gift. That girl really was a genius. My hands wrap around the soft, pink plastic and, weirdly, it gives me a feeling of strength.
 

11.58.

I stand up and walk over to the fat guard. ‘I need the bathroom.’
 

He turns to point me to the exit and I strike, pushing the ends of the wired tampons deep into the folds of flesh at the back of his neck.

 
A pink stinger, Corina had called it. ‘Just don’t mix it up with the real thing, hey?’

The guard shakes and collapses to the floor. Fifty thousand volts of electricity flowing through his system.
 

The other guard looks over, his sagging jaw hanging open, unable to believe what he’s seeing: a girl in a hijab knocking out his colleague with a couple of tampons.
 

Before the guard can react, the clock flips to 12:00 and half the boys in the room flinch at the voice I know is now playing in their heads. I can’t hear it but I know what the message is.
 

‘
Now
.’

Ethan and Charlie get to their feet, their heads tilted to the side as if waiting for, wanting, the next message. And I’m jealous. Like I was of Glaze. That they can share something I’ll never be a part of. Even now, even when I know what the consequences are, I still want to belong.

Ethan blinks and focuses on what’s happening around him. Three of the boys tackle the remaining guard with a little more enthusiasm than is probably needed. At the same time, the doors between this room and the guards outside clunk shut. The two guards outside bang on the doors to be let in. Corina was right, this is all too easy.
 

One guard is tied up with his own belt and tie, while the unconscious guard is dragged into a corner. A boy pulls his foot back ready to kick him.
 

‘No!’ I shout. ‘There’s no need to hurt him.’
 

The boy gives me a look of utter derision then lets his boot fly. ‘How’d you like this payback, bitch?’ he shouts into the guard’s face.
 

I look to Ethan, hoping he might be able to bring order to this chaos. But he ignores the guard, who’s now getting a serious kicking, and walks over to me. ‘Let’s get this done.’
 

The guard’s face is covered in blood. I’ve got a tiger by the tail and already it’s started to scratch.
 

We run to the doors to the main wing and they slide open at our approach. Clockwork precision. There’s already cheering and shouting coming from the inmates.
 

The main wing is surprisingly beautiful. A spiral of sweeping floors running from the ground, up five levels to the top like a nautilus shell. I can imagine Max standing where I am right now looking down on his creation.
 

Boys pour out of their cells, down the sloping floors and gather in the round pit at the bottom. They’ve started to smash and burn everything they can get their hands on, months of pent-up aggression exploding in an instant.
 

I pull off the veil and take what feels like my first breath. ‘Stop!’ I scream, my voice echoing around the curved walls. Amazingly, they do.
 

‘You know why we’re here. You got the message.’ It’s not a question but some of the boys shout their answers up anyway.
 

‘Well, this is your time. Your chance to prove you don’t deserve to be here. That you shouldn’t be locked up like the animals they think you are.’ I point at the door behind me. ‘Like the animals Maxwell White thought you were. Because that’s all you were to him. Lab rats. To be poked and prodded. To see what you would do. It’s what the whole world is to him.’

They stir and scowl. But they’re still listening.
 

‘So, what are you going to do? Are you going to act like he would expect? Fight among yourselves, burn his cage to the ground? Or are you going to come with us now and take the fight to him?’

I’ve got them now. I know they’re united in their hatred of the man who put them here.
 

‘I can’t ask you to do this peacefully. I haven’t been through what you’ve been through. All I ask is you don’t forget who your true enemy is. Not the guards. Not your inmates. But him. And don’t forget who you are. He might treat you like animals, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like animals.’
 

In the following silence I hear the echo of my last word and the crackling of flames.
 

Then the roar goes up. It starts with a few of the boys I think must be part of the original programme, such is the hunger for revenge. Then it spreads to the rest. I know they’re just along for the ride. But that doesn’t matter now. My enemy’s enemy is my friend. Max taught me that. He taught me everything I know. Everything I need to bring him down.
 

I turn and walk back through the doors, not needing to check that Ethan is behind me, or that behind him is my army.

34

‘CORINA SAYS SHE’S WAITING
on our signal,’ Ethan says in the weird, dead voice he has when he’s relaying what he’s hearing through the chip. ‘And that we might want to check the news.’
 

I can see how conflicted he is by having it activated again. How much he missed it and, by the flinch in his eyes whenever a message comes across, how much he misses the silence.
 

‘When this is all over,’ I tell myself again, not really knowing whether it will ever be over. Or if I’ll be around to see it. I think of the graffiti back in the playground. The adjacked messages at the riots. No future.

It’s been two days since we walked out of T-Raz. Two days of organising and hiding. Without Glaze to spread the word, we had to do it the old fashioned way: by word of mouth. The message and the plan for tonight has been passed from person to person. I have no idea how far it’s spread or even if any of this is going to work. I just have to hope.
 

I look around for a vidboard. There’s a bus stop across the street showing a flashing message.

 
IT’S DECISION TIME! VOTE TODAY!

 
‘There,’ I say, pointing at it.
 

We walk across the road, not even having to bother check for traffic as the streets were closed hours ago.
 

Ethan goes through the process of hacking the election advert to access the internet and then he pulls up a news channel. It’s a live report from a street not far from here.
 

‘I’m here at the town hall,’ the reporter says, ‘where people should be casting their votes, but instead, staff are having to board up the doors and windows as the protest that started peacefully this morning has increased in intensity.’

Boys in black swarm behind her, some carrying bottles with flaming rags coming out of the neck. They launch them at the building. I’m sure I recognise some of the boys from T-Raz.
 

The reporter flinches at the crash, but continues in her delivery. ‘Some voters have turned up, determined to fulfil their democratic duty. I spoke to some of them this morning.’
 

The screen cuts to an image that must have been filmed earlier in the day, judging by the brightness of the sun on the horizon.
 

‘Are you not put off by the protests?’ the reporter asks a young woman.
 

‘My great, great grandmother was a suffragette,’ the woman says. ‘She threw herself under a horse to get the right to vote. I’m hardly going to be put off by a couple of hoodies.’
 

It cuts back to the reporter live at the scene.
 

‘Whether voting can go ahead is yet to be decided. But one thing’s for sure: this has not been democracy’s finest moment.’
 

The reporter stands, staring into the hovercams flying around her head. And I can read in her smug expression that she’s not thinking about the riot going on behind her but the possibilities of awards she might win thanks to this story.
 

The feed cuts back to the newsroom, which looks too bright, too white, after the feed from the streets.
 

‘Thanks, Carol,’ the anchor says. ‘And as the riots spread across the country, the one question everyone is asking; where are the police?’