GLAZE (9 page)

‘Petri, right,’ he smacks himself in the forehead, ‘Sorry. I had a cat called Petra, you see.’

‘A cat! Charming.’ I pull my sketchbook out of my locker and slam it closed.
 

He places his hand on the locker beside mine, an inch away from my head. ‘I’ll have you know I loved that cat.’

‘Oh, right.’ I cough, and find myself fiddling with my hair.
 

‘Good day?’ he says, not moving his arm.
 

‘Oh, you know. Long. Boring. Like the last, long boring day. And the trail of long, boring days before that. One more lesson and then I get to go home, where more boredom awaits.’

He laughs, like I’m joking and not like my life is utterly pathetic.
 

‘Well, I think I might have something that will make things a little more interesting,’ he says, finally dropping his arm. ‘Can we talk?’

‘Isn’t that what we’re doing?’ I say, trying to stop my pile of books sliding out of my sweating hands.
 

‘Somewhere private.’

At that moment, Amy walks past and throws us an evil stare.
 

‘Well, your girlfriend doesn’t look too pleased about us talking.’

Ryan plays with the zip on his jacket, opening and closing it in quick succession. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

‘Oh, right. So you ended it then?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘She? Dumped you!’

‘Hey, no need to look so happy. I’m heartbroken you know?’ He presses both hands against his chest.

‘Are you?’ I ask.
 

‘Not really.’ He wrinkles up his nose and watches her walk away, her ponytail swinging. ‘She’s been really dull these past couple of weeks. Anyway.’ He looks left and right, checking that we’re not being watched. The corridor is full of kids on their way to their next class. They’re not paying any attention to me or Ryan, which is weird. Ryan was always the centre of attention before.
 

‘I think I can help you. Or at least, I know a man who can.’

‘What do you mean?’

He leans in and I can smell the musk of his aftershave. ‘Glaze,’ he says. ‘You want on?’

‘Of course I do,’ I say, leaning away as the close proximity to him is doing weird things to my stomach.
 

‘Well, I can get you on.’

Our eyes lock. I can see myself reflected in his pupils.
 

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Totally. Look, it’s not exactly legal. That’s to say it’s not illegal as such, just a bit below the radar. I can understand if you’re not interested.’
 

He moves to go and I grab hold of his leather jacket. It’s stiff, like holding a handful of cardboard. ‘No. Wait. I am interested.’

‘Meet me behind the bike shed after school.’

He winks and my heart flutters. Stupid heart.
 

I’ve never been behind the bike shed before. It’s such a cliché, I never really knew if it existed. But it does. And it’s everything I imagined it not to be.
 

The ground is littered with fag butts and there’s a suspicious puddle in the corner against the fence. The bikes are mostly rusting and punctured. As a location for many a fumbling teenage tryst, it’s not the most romantic of places.
 

I’m wondering who might own the trainers that have been thrown on the roof when someone jumps me.
 

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Petri. You’re even paler than normal,’ Ryan says when he stops laughing.
 

‘Yeah, great. Thanks.’
 

His bike is one of the only new ones left. He punches a series of numbers into his bike lock: 1602. I start scanning for patterns again. But this one is too easy. His birthday.
 

He drags the wheels free of the stand. The light on the front has been smashed and the front guard looks bent.
 

Ryan notices me looking at it. ‘Yeah, Dave Carlton gave it the once over.’

‘Why?’ I say. Dave Carlton makes a thing of kicking in the new bikes. But I never thought he’d touch Ryan’s.

‘He was bored, I guess. But it still rides sweet.’ He throws his leg over the bar and stands with a foot on the ground and one on the pedal. ‘Get on.’

A backy? With Ryan McManus? I don’t know what to do with myself.
 

I reach into my pocket for the crumpled paper with Ethan’s address. I stroke the torn edge of the paper with my thumb. It feels like a feather. It will have to wait.
 

I clamber onto the saddle and try to work out what to do with my arms and feet when Ryan pushes off. I start wobbling and nearly slide off.
 

‘Hold on,’ he says.

With only a little reluctance, I wrap my arms around Ryan McManus’s waist.

8

CAFÉS AND BOUTIQUES FADE
away to be replaced by dull concrete buildings. Ryan mounts the pavement, the bump sending a shock through my tail-bone, and speeds down an alleyway and past a primary school. Poster-paint pictures of monsters cover the windows.
 

We’re getting increasingly close to a looming wall. It’s 30-feet high, covered in razor wire and bristling with things that look like microphones. A fading red sign on the wall announces we’ve reached Ivy Towers. Next to the welcome sign is a large, orange warning that declares this area to be a ‘no assistance zone’. A speaker barks out a muffled announcement saying the same thing, in case the NAZ sign wasn’t clear enough. It means if we get in trouble here, the police won’t be coming to help.
 

He pulls the bike to a halt in front of a distressed metal door in the wall. ‘We’re here,’ he says, unnecessarily.

My school skirt catches on the mudguard as I struggle to get off the bike. Once I’m back on ground I pull it back down and hope no one saw my strawberry-print knickers.
 

‘Er, Ryan,’ I say, looking up to re-read the sign to be sure it really says what I thought it says. It really does.
 

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Ryan says. ‘I come here all the time. Never had trouble before.’
 

Next to the door, there’s a small flat screen. It’s covered in scratches, burns and graffiti but it still works. Ryan lays his hand against it, then punches in a series of numbers as it flickers to life.
 

‘When are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I hiss.
 

‘I already told you. We’re here to see a guy about getting back on—’ His explanation is cut off by the crackle of a speaker. A face fills the screen and, thanks to some cleverly positioned graffiti, the guy is wearing a large moustache for eyebrows and a cartoon penis on his head. Despite this he still manages to ooze menace through the screen.

‘Speak,’ he says.
 

‘Hey, Logan. It’s Ryan.’

The figure behind the screen kisses his teeth and the screen goes black.
 

The door buzzes and Ryan opens it with a grin.
 

Ivy Towers, it turns out, are three looming blocks of flats. The walls, like most of the buildings around here, were once painted white but are now the colour of wet pavements. But it’s the windows I can’t stop staring at. They shine in the low sun, as if they’re covered in gold leaf. If that wasn’t weird enough, the three blocks are covered in brightly-coloured satellite dishes—making them look like some kind of robot hedgehog.
 

‘What the...?’ I say, gawking up at the flats.
 

‘Anti-surveillance measures. Any drone tries to capture what’s going on in this place, all they get is static.’

Now he’s mentioned it, I can hear a low hum coming from the buildings. A buzzing just out of hearing range, like the sound of a beehive in the distance.
 

‘Is this place still owned by the council?’ I say, as Ryan navigates a bashed up shopping trolley.
 

‘Sure. Last one in the city. Although I don’t think they’ve paid them a visit in a while.’
 

I remember Zizi complaining about the government moving everyone on welfare to Birmingham after they launched the high-speed train link. Cleaning up the capital for investors and home owners. This place must have put up a fight.
 

A couple of kids are throwing stones through the already smashed-out window of a car. A gang of girls—all earrings and eyeliner—watch us pass with narrow eyes and tilted heads, more curious than aggressive.
 

We walk towards the block marked with a large blue number one. Ryan pulls open the glass doors and lets me go first.

Our footsteps echo too loudly up the stairwell as we walk inside. Shouts and crying come from the floors above us.
 

I grab hold of Ryan’s jacket. ‘I’m not sure about this.’
 

‘Relax, Petri.’ He punches the call button for the elevator. The white plastic triangle is covered in brown stains from where people have stubbed out their cigarettes. I’m surprised it still works. But a few seconds later, the elevator vibrates, the silver doors judder open and Ryan steps in.
 

I am expecting the elevator to smell of piss, like almost every public elevator I’ve ever been in. Instead, it smells of bleach. This may be a NAZ, but its residents take enough care not to use their public areas like toilets.
 

Ryan punches the number seventeen. My favourite number, I think dully as the elevator doors, close trapping me. My stomach lurches as we whoosh upwards. Ryan is grinning, looking at the floor display changing faster than I can keep up. The stop is abrupt and I stagger forward, knocking into Ryan. He grabs my elbow to steady me. ‘Easy there, Bambi.’
 

Great, I think. First he compares me to a cat and now a helpless deer. I hate to think what Zizi would say.
 

Ryan leads me out of the elevator. The corridor ahead seems to stretch and shrink. An overhead camera whirrs and tracks our progress towards the door at the very end. Number 1701.

Ryan knocks, and leans casually against the doorway. But I can tell by the slight tremor in his hands that he’s nervous, too.
 

The door opens to reveal the face I saw earlier, minus the moustache and cartoon cock. Logan is shorter than Ryan although broader, with high cheekbones and neat dreads that fall down over his shoulders.
 

He looks me up and down like he’s scanning me for risk, weighing up my threat level. I must have ranked pretty low, as he gestures us in with an upward nod of his chin.
 

The room is packed with screens broadcasting TV channels, CCTV footage, strings of code. On the largest screen on the far wall there’s a frozen image of video game—a man holding an impossibly large gun and running through deserted streets.
 

Whoever this guy is he likes it old school. Almost everyone else I know streams their content straight into their brains now.
 

Against one wall there is a stack of black metal boxes. Tangles of wires run from box to box. Even over the sound of music playing, I pick out the low hum of electronics.
 

Logan jumps on to the sofa and places a headset over his head. Sounds of screams and explosions fill the room as the video game comes back to life.
 

‘Yo, blood, what’s happening?’ Ryan says, shouting to be heard over the game and music.

Logan turns to face him, his face fixed in a frown of disgust. ‘You can drop that homie bullshit straight away. What do you think this is, a rap video?’

‘Er, right sorry, Logan.’

‘And now you made me lose.’ On the screen the man with the gun is lying in a pool of blood. Logan pulls his headset off and throws it on the floor. ‘What do you want, McManus?’

Ryan walks around the sofa and sits on a chair opposite. I stay in the doorway, looking at the number-filled screens trying to find a pattern.
 

‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ Ryan says.

‘I doubt that,’ Logan reaches for a pack of tobacco and rolling papers on the table. ‘But go on.’

‘The big “G”. I’ve been blocked and Karl told me you knew a way around it.’

‘What if I do?’ He licks the edge of the paper and seals the rollie.
 

Ryan looks confused. ‘Well, could you help me?’ I cough. Ryan remembers that I’m here. ‘I mean us. Help us. This is Petri. She’s been blanked.’

Logan twists around to look at me. He takes in my school uniform. ‘How old are you, kid?’

‘Fifteen,’ I say.
 

‘Logan sucks in air through his teeth, like a mechanic looking at an old car. ‘Blanked before you even got on. What did you do?’

I take a few steps forward. ‘Started a riot.’

Logan smiles. A gold tooth shines. ‘Yeah, that’ll do it.’ He rubs at his face, thoughtful. There’s the beginning of a beard growing.
 

‘Well, can you help?’ Ryan says.
 

‘You. Yes,’ Logan says, pointing at Ryan but not taking his eyes off me. ‘Her, will be a little more... complex.’
 

‘What do you mean complex?’ I ask.
 

‘How badly do you want on?’
 

I don’t even have to think about this. It’s only been a week since I was fitted with the blank chip and I’m already feeling like the whole of my life is slipping away from me. ‘Bad.’
 

‘There are ways. There are always ways. But it will cost you.’

‘How much?’ Ryan says.
 

Logan looks at Ryan again like he’s an idiot. ‘I don’t trade in money.’

‘So what do you want?’ Ryan says, sounding worried.
 

‘Information.’
 

‘What kind of information?’ Ryan licks his lips. He’s enjoying this, all the games and running around outside of the law.
 

‘What kind do you think? The kind that’s not easy to get. Not that there’s much of that anymore.’ He turns back to his screens and waves his arms. ‘All this data flowing around the world, ready to be plucked by anyone who knows how. And people don’t even know they’re doing it. Giving away their names, birthdays, addresses. Mother’s maiden names!’ I think about the code on Ryan’s lock and how much I could do with just his date of birth. Logan laughs and continues. ‘Falling for phishing scams and spambots. Seriously, some people will do almost anything for a picture of a pretty girl. A couple of years back, that was all you’d need. But it’s not as easy as it was.’ He leans over to flick ash into an empty beer can. ‘Since everything went up into the cloud and WhiteInc put a klaxon warning on any sensitive data being broadcast. Now, you want to access the juicy info, you have to be hooked up. But like the abyss, if you gaze into Glaze...’ he looks up at me. ‘It gazes into you.’