GLAZE

by Kim Curran

  A row of heavy black boots and a wall of riot shields block the path ahead. I risk glancing up at the line the police have formed. They look as panicked as everyone else as they frantically push back against the crowd. There’s nothing they can do: the line breaks and policemen stumble and fall beneath the human wave.

  ‘This is WhiteShield!’ A loud-hailer booms through the screaming and shouting.

  WhiteShield? That’s WhiteInc’s private security division. What are they doing here?

  ‘Everybody stand exactly where you are!’ The loud-hailer squawks again.

  Yeah, right, I think. Like that’s going to work.

  But I’m wrong. It does work.

  Everyone stops moving as if their feet have been frozen to the ground. The screams stop and the feeling of panic is sucked out of the air like a vacuum has been switched on. The crowd exhale; an enormous, collective sigh of relief.

  I glance back to Ryan, he looks as confused as I am, but he’s still moving. He nods frantically for me to go forward.

  It’s much easier going now that everyone’s stopped stampeding. I slow my pace to weave in and out of the legs. There’s a gap about 50 feet to the left. An alleyway, leading to I don’t know where. I don’t care as long as it’s out of here. I switch direction and head for it.

  ‘The police will be passing through you all and taking your names. Then they will let you all go, one by one,’ the man with the loud-hailer says. He sounds bored by it all.

  I stop as a pair of large black boots thud in front of me, missing my fingers by inches. Ryan crawls alongside me. I see my own fear reflected in his face.

  The booted policeman spins on his toes and walks away from us through the lines of people. This is my chance. I half-crawl, half-run towards the alleyway. It’s partially blocked by a large green wheelie bin turned over on its side. I scramble over it and duck down on the other side. My heart pounds and I fight to catch my breath, taking in ragged lungfuls of the stink of rubbish I’m sitting in.

  I rub some life back into my hands. They’re covered in cuts and bruises. I wiggle my fingers experimentally. Nothing seems broken. I look down at the spreading red patches around my knees. These are my favourite jeans and they’re ruined. I pull a lump of glass out of my knee, wincing.

  I hear a loud bang and look up as Ryan throws himself over the bin, crashing down next to me. He sits up, his back pressed up against the green plastic, panting heavily. He grins: manic and victorious. But the grin fades when he looks straight ahead.

  ‘We’re trapped.’

  I follow his gaze to the high brick wall blocking our exit. ‘Looks like it.’

  I risk glancing over the top of the bin. Policemen in riot gear walk through the crowd while helmeted figures in pale blue WhiteShield uniforms stand by, arms folded across their chests. No one in the crowd moves. It must be fear freezing them in place. But they don’t look afraid. In fact, they all look amazingly calm.

  I pick out faces I recognise. Pippa has stopped crying and is staring, entranced at a man beside her. He’s wearing a flowing shirt covered in pink flowers, and is cradling a broken guitar in his arms. So Pippa found Nathaniel after all. Karl and Kiara are standing next to each other. Karl has his arm draped around Kiara’s shoulder. I’m glad, I know how much they like each other.

  ‘Go Kiara,’ I say, softly.

  There are only one or two hooded kids in the crowd. The rest must have got away.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Ryan says, crouching next to me.

  ‘Nothing. I mean that’s what’s weird. They’re doing absolutely nothing.’

  A policeman stomps past the bin and we both duck back down, pulling our legs up under our chins. We’re pressed so closely together that the zip on Ryan’s jacket digs into my arm.

  ‘You’re Petra, right?’ Ryan whispers.

  I can’t believe he knows my name. OK, so I’ve been in the same year as him for four years, and my name is actually Petri. But still, it’s close enough. I never thought he knew I existed. I’ve had all these stupid fantasies about Ryan McManus. About him turning to me and taking my hand and saying ‘you’re not like other girls’, and then we run off together. But why did he have to wait till we’re both hiding behind a stinking wheelie bin to talk to me?

  ‘It’s Petri. Petri Quinn.’

  His eyebrow raises and my heart sinks at the realisation that I have to explain my name to yet another person.

  ‘I was named after my dad,’ I start. It’s an old joke of Zizi’s that she thinks is simply hilarious. Along with the ‘half price on ginger sperm’ line she uses every single time she introduces me to someone.

  Ryan looks confused and so I take pity on him. ‘I was a test-tube baby. Petri dish. Get it? Zizi, my mother, thought it was funny.’

  ‘Oh,’ is all he says.

  And I’m aware of both how unfunny and desperately sad it is. To have never known my father. To have a mother who has to turn everything in her life into a political statement. Even the naming of her child.

  ‘Zizi as in Zizi Quinn, Creative Director at WhiteInc? She’s your mother?’

  I groan inwardly. I thought everyone at school knew my mother was a board member of the company that made Glaze. When it first got out people kept asking me to hook them up with upgrades and exclusive content and what have you. The reality is, I can’t get so much as a branded pen for myself, let alone them.

  ‘Yup, that’s her.’

  He looks at me for what feels like the longest time; the muscles around his eyes twitching. ‘Cool,’ he says, finally, and turns away.

  Reading people’s expressions doesn’t come naturally to me. So, like everything else that I wasn’t immediately good at, which is pretty much everything, I studied. Hard. I read books on microexpressions, watched documentaries on body language. Despite all of that, whatever Ryan’s thinking is totally lost on me.

  Ryan leans up to look back over the bin and I copy him. The policemen are passing each person in turn, staring at their faces, then nodding.

  ‘They’re matching faces to the Glaze database,’ Ryan says.

  ‘They can do that?’

  ‘Of course. Anyone chipped can.’ He smiles at me, his brow furrowed like he doesn’t know if I’m joking or if I’m an idiot.

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve read about it,’ I say and look down at my trainers.

  Ryan slaps his forehead. ‘You’re not hooked up! Amy said you were still a kid.’

  ‘I’m fifteen,’ I say, indignantly. ‘Sixteen in three months, five days and 36 minutes. That’s 2,280 hours, 136,836 minutes, 8,210,160 seconds.’

  He laughs. ‘Yeah, she also said you were freaky good at maths. The human calculator, she called you.’

  I look down, embarrassed. Ryan reaches over and hooks his finger under my chin. ‘Hey, being smart is a good thing, you know?’

  All I know is I’m blushing the colour of my hair.

  ‘Thank you for your cooperation at this time.’ The voice behind the loud-hailer belongs to a man wearing a dark suit and a hi-vis vest with the three triangles of WhiteInc’s logo on the front. I think I recognise him from a work do Zizi dragged me to. I’m still confused as to what he or anyone from the company is doing here.

  ‘Why aren’t they running?’ Ryan asks.

  I don’t know. I want to go home. I’m freezing, dripping wet and I really, really need a wee. ‘I think we should hand ourselves in.’

  I go to stand up but Ryan grabs my arm, pulling me back behind the bin. ‘No! Don’t.’

  ‘Why not? It doesn’t look like they’re actually arresting anyone.’ I gesture to the policemen.

  ‘No, but it will go on our record,’ Ryan says. ‘And I can’t have that. I mean, we, we can’t have that.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, looking down at his fingers, which are digging into my arm.

  ‘Stay here. With me. We’ll be fine.’ He lets go and I sink back down next to him. Only now it doesn’t feel quite so cosy behind the bin.

 
; ‘You there!’

  We both flinch, trying to make ourselves as small as possible. Not hard for me at five foot one if I’m wearing shoes, but not very easy for Ryan, who’s about six foot.

  ‘Do you think they’ve seen us?’ I whisper.

  ‘You, behind the bins. Come out now!’

  I guess that answers that.

  I’m resigned to handing myself over. The only thing I can think about right now is a clean toilet somewhere. I start to stand up slowly.

  I can’t see the policeman’s face behind the helmet. But I smile, a sort of ‘hey, fair cop, I was hiding out behind the bins and you caught me’ kind of smile.

  His head tilts for a second and then snaps back to centre. ‘This one’s not registered!’ he yells. ‘We’ve got a ten-thirty.’

  ‘Whoa!’ I say, putting my hands up. ‘I’m not a ten-thirty. I’m just a kid.’

  Ryan squirms on the ground beside me, still refusing to stand up.

  The policeman scrabbles at his belt and unhooks a bright yellow gun. He aims it at me.

  ‘Don’t shoot me. I’m not going anywhere!’ I screech.

  He ignores me and pulls the trigger, sending a large spiralling wire heading straight for my chest. Before it can hit, I’m knocked off my feet by Ryan, who’s finally leapt forward. The taser wire slams into the bin, making two neat holes in the plastic

  I have a split second in which I think Ryan’s saved me. Like in all my fantasies, he’s my hero. Then I watch as he races straight for the wall, jumps and pulls himself up. He disappears over the other side, leaving me lying there on the cold, damp pavement, surrounded by rubbish.

  ‘Wait, don’t move,’ the policeman says, struggling to plug another charge into his gun.

  ‘Forget that!’ I say, and scramble to my feet.

  I run for the wall and look up. I have no chance. Even if I had a springboard like the one I used in gymnastics, there’s no way I could reach the top, let alone pull myself over it.

  ‘Here!’ A voice calls out. I look around, trying to find the source, and see a black-hooded figured reaching down from a roof top. Amber eyes flash in the darkness.

  I run as the policeman takes aim again. He’s not alone. Five other cops are heading this way. I throw myself into the air and grab hold of the hooded boy’s hand. My hands are slippery with dirt and blood and I scream in pain as my little finger is crushed. But he doesn’t let go. He yanks me up, scraping my ribs across the rough brickwork of the wall, and onto the roof.

  I don’t even have time to catch my breath before he pulls me to my feet and we’re running over sliding tiles. Something whizzes past my ear and a hole appears in the chimney in front of me. I stop to look at the black slug embedded in the brick.

  ‘Rubber bullets,’ I say stupidly.

  ‘Come on!’ he shouts.

  With no other choice, I race forward. We get to a gap between the roofs and the boy leaps across like he’s jumping over a puddle. I skid to a halt.

  ‘No way! I can’t make it,’ I shout back.

  ‘Yes you can. Think of it as the long jump in school. I’ve seen you do it. Just jump.’

  Shouts and scrambling from behind me. The policemen are up on the roof now, but it looks like it might not take their weight. They’re looking down and have their arms stretched out, like they’re walking on ice.

  I take a step back. And another one. Till there’s no more back to go. Then I start to run, as fast as I’ve ever run in my life.

  I jump.

  I’ve misjudged it entirely and land hard and heavy, sprawled on my face. But at least I’m over the gap.

  I feel a sharp tug on my belt and I’m lifted to my feet once more and half-dragged, half-carried towards a fire door.

  The boy doesn’t slow down. He throws his shoulder at the door, slamming it open, pulls me through and then kicks the door closed behind us. The darkness echoes.

  3

  ‘SHUSH,’ HE SAYS, before I even have a chance to open my mouth.

  I try to quieten my breath, try to stop my heart industrially drilling in my chest. Surely they must be able to hear the pounding on the other side of the door?

  My eyes adjust to the lack of light and what was inky blackness fades into a dark grey. We’re standing at the top of a staircase and I have no idea where we’re heading. My rescuer, if that’s what he is, is standing with his ear pressed up against the door, his black clothes blending in to the shadows.

  He straightens and turns around. All I can see is a hood looming over me like the headless monk I used to dream about when I was six.

  ‘I don’t think they’ve followed us,’ he says, pushing past me and heading down the stairs. I feel my way after him, running my throbbing fingers against the wall looking for a railing to hold.

  ‘I normally like the dark,’ I say, annoying even myself. ‘I have schwarzglas in my windows so I can sleep. And these blackouts we’ve been having, well, I really like them because you can see the stars, you know?’ I’m babbling. I guess it’s the shock and the adrenaline and the fact that I’m following an unknown anarchist to an unknown location. He doesn’t say a word.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I manage to say after the first few steps.

  ‘Down.’

  ‘I mean, where are we?’

  My foot feels for a step that isn’t there and I do that falling from flat ground thing that’s so unsettling. He grabs my elbow and keeps me upright.

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumble.

  There’s a rattle of metal, a heavy clunk and then light floods into the stairwell.

  ‘Welcome to Gruber & Gruber Ltd,’ he says, with a wave of his hand. I walk through the doorway into a large open-plan office. Or what used to be an office. Now there’s nothing but tables stacked on top of each other and blue room dividers lying propped up against the walls.

  ‘They used to make film,’ he says picking up a black tube with a white lid and throwing it at me. I scrabble to catch it and fail. It bounces on the grey nylon carpet.

  ‘Film? As in movies?’

  ‘No, as in what they used to put in cameras.’

  I don’t know what he means, but I don’t want to sound any more stupid than I have already. ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘I like the view,’ he says walking towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the far wall. I join him and look out over the city. The cathedral shines in the distance. The Thames snakes past below us. The light glinting off the water reminds me.

  ‘Erm, is there a bathroom here?’

  ‘Somewhere down the hall,’ he says, pointing.

  I find the door and I’ve never been so glad to see that drawing of a stick woman in my life.

  When I return, he’s sitting on a low-backed executive chair, looking out the window, his feet up on a table like he belongs here. The silver scarf and hood have been pulled down, revealing his face in profile. He has a straight nose with a small bump at the bridge, cheekbones you could cut yourself on and long eyelashes that girls would kill for. The last rays of sunlight catch his light brown hair, making the tips look like they’re on fire. He spins around.

  ‘I know you!’ I say, pointing at him. ‘You go to my school. You’re in the year above me.’

  ‘And I know you, Petri Quinn, who is too bright for her own good and has a habit of getting into trouble by following strange boys places she shouldn’t.’

  I don’t know what he’s on about at first and then… I remember.

  Last year, I saw Dave Carlton and his gang—the Hoodz, which would be funny if it weren’t so depressing—follow a tall, brown-haired boy behind the games hall. The boy was new to school, and wearing a uniform that was too small for him. I knew Dave well enough to guess what he was up to. His mates chanting ‘get the pussy’ made it pretty clear.

  I’ve never been very good at controlling my temper. Not since I was bullied for months after I went up a grade and I learnt that a brilliantly witty comeback won’t stop girls from throwing your bag on the top o
f the bus shelter, but a swift punch to the stomach will. So I’d followed Dave to find his friends had cornered the new kid and were about to give him the usual City High welcome.

  I’d Frisbee’d a dustbin lid at Dave’s head before he had a chance to start throwing punches and knocked out his front tooth.

  Dave and I ended up in detention for a month after. I’d managed to stop him from fulfilling his promise of knocking my teeth out by doing all his maths homework for him. It was an uneasy truce. But I was still alive.

  I hadn’t seen the boy in the too-small uniform again. Not until now.

  ‘If you go to City why weren’t you with the official school protest? Why were you with those, those...’ in my bubbling rage I struggle to find the word.

  ‘Vandals? Thugs?’ he says standing up and sending the chair spinning behind him.

  ‘I was going to say dicks, but yes, OK.’

  ‘They’re useful.’

  ‘They’re idiots.’

  ‘It wasn’t them firing rubber bullets.’

  ‘No, but they were the ones throwing bottles and panicking everyone. If they hadn’t stormed in, then the protest would have continued peacefully and everyone would have been happy.’

  He laughs through his nose. ‘Happy, sure. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? As long as everyone is happy.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about,’ I say, annoyed because I get the feeling he’s mocking me but I’m missing the joke.

  ‘Glaze,’ he says, looking away from me and back out through the window.

  ‘Glaze? You have a problem with Glaze making people happy? That’s a new one. I’ve heard people being angry that it makes people stupid. But happy? What’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it make you happy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not on,’ he says, looking down at his feet.

  ‘You’re not on?’ I say, annoyed that I’m repeating everything he says like a moron. ‘But you’re, what eighteen?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  I’m shocked. I think he’s the first person I’ve met who could be chipped but isn’t. It should make us allies of sorts, outsiders together. But I just think it’s weird.