GLAZE

by Kim Curran

  ‘Of course I want you to,’ Ryan says, looking almost hurt.

  I ignore both of them and storm over to the waiting Dr Hwang. I hop up onto the bed, my face flushed and hands shaking, and I glare at Ethan. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. Ryan gives me a wink and they both disappear with the whoosh of a hospital curtain that Dr Hwang pulls around the bed.

  Dr Hwang lays a small but firm hand on my shoulder. ‘On your front, please.’ He helps me turn over. The cloth beneath my face smells of antiseptic.

  Hwang walks behind me so I can’t see him, but I can hear the clinking of metal from the tray. I arch my back up to look around. A cold hand on my shoulder presses me back down.

  My heart is racing and my legs are twitching as adrenaline floods my muscles. I should listen to them. I should run. Out of here and never see these people again. Forget Glaze. Forget all of it.

  Forget your future? another part of me says and I try to steady my shallow breath.

  Hwang rolls up my sleeve and I look to where he’s holding a large needle with a glistening droplet at its tip.

  ‘Wait, what’s that for?’ I ask.

  ‘Sleep,’ Hwang says.

  ‘But I don’t need to sleep. No one needs to sleep when they get chipped. It’s in and out. Like getting your ears pierced? Right?’

  He smiles at me as he plunges the needle into the crook of my arm. ‘Sleep,’ he says again.

  And I do.

  13

  I’M FLYING. Soaring through little fluffy clouds. I reach out my hands and the wisps of air curl around my fingers, like candy floss. I spin and they wrap around my whole body, covering me in a cottony blanket. I’m so cosy, I don’t even care that I’m floating gently back down to the earth. I land on the soft ground—like jumping onto a hotel bed—and smile up at the sky above.

  Someone looks down at me from the clouds. Amber eyes sparkling in a face that is hazy around the edges.

  ‘You have really pretty eyes,’ I say, slurring my words. I’m faintly aware that might have been a stupid thing to say, so I cover my grinning mouth with both hands, giggling.

  ‘I can’t feel my lips. Or my face,’ I say, tugging at my cheek and then giving myself a slap.

  Ethan stops my hand, pressing his over mine, his thumb gently brushing my nose.

  I feel so warm, so at peace. This must be Glaze. I’ve been told about the sense of bliss you get from feeling a part of everything. And to think I almost never experienced it.

  ‘It’s the drugs,’ Logan says, appearing in my narrow field of vision. His dreads look like they’re writhing.

  ‘Your hair!’ I say, pointing at him, and giggling again.

  ‘She’s off her tits,’ Corina says, laughing. She’s sat on a table in the middle of the room, her legs folded under her, looking like a garden statue of a pixie on a toadstool. Rainbows of light radiate from the stud in her lip.

  ‘They’ll wear off,’ Logan says.

  Ethan puts his hand behind my shoulders and helps me sit up. There’s an itching at the base of my head and I reach up to touch it. My fingertips brush a bandage under my hair before Dr Hwang slaps my hand away.

  ‘Don’t touch, please. Twenty-four hours and then you can activate.’

  ‘What?’ I say the glowing feeling drifting away. ‘But everyone else only has to wait two hours and then they’re on. Like that!’ I try to click my fingers, but find they won’t work.

  ‘Well, this isn’t quite your normal chipping station,’ Logan says, indicating the basement lab. ‘Rewriting is a delicate process. Besides, it’s one day. Just in case.’

  I stretch my neck out, shaking away the pain from the tension in my shoulders. The bandage rustles under my hair.

  It’s over, I think to myself. Twenty-four hours and it’s over. ‘OK,’ I say, swinging my legs around and standing up. My knees give way and Ethan catches me before I collapse.

  I look up into his worried face and remember something. ‘Where’s Ryan?’

  Ethan’s smile slips away. ‘He’s over there.’

  Ryan is huddled over the computer screen with the twins. As if sensing he’s being watched he straightens up and looks at me. Not at me. Through me. That empty, only-half-there look of someone on Glaze. I feel a heavy weight sink into my stomach that has nothing to do with the anaesthetic.

  ‘You’re back on?’ I ask.

  ‘Huh?’ he says, still not seeing me. He’s grinning, his eyes darting all over, accessing feeds he’s missed, like a dog let back into a house running around checking everything is still in its place.

  ‘Yep, he’s hooked up. Like you asked,’ says Logan.

  The connection Ryan and I shared for the past week is gone. But what am I worried about? Twenty-four hours and I’ll be on Glaze too. And then we’ll have a new connection, just like I wanted.

  ‘Right,’ Logan says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. The loud crack makes me jump. ‘Petri, we’ve set you up with an account, username Petra Finn.’

  ‘But my name is Petri.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But Petri Quinn is banned. Petra on the other hand...’

  ‘Oh, right. Sure.’

  ‘You’re running incognito, so you won’t automatically register as being on. Otherwise your mum or anyone with access would get wise. But you’ll be able to access everything on Glaze.’

  It’s not ideal, but it will have to do. ‘OK.’

  ‘It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Petri Quinn. Or should I say Petra?’ He reaches out his hand. I hesitate, then stretch mine out to take it.

  ‘Got it!’ Mila says.

  Logan spins around before our hands have even touched. ‘They’ve hacked the DNA?’

  ‘I told you they were good.’

  Logan nods at Mila. She smiles and punches the keys on the old-fashioned keyboard, filling the screen with a jumble of As, Gs, and Ts. The building blocks of my mother unravelling before my eyes.

  Logan whoops in delight. ‘What did I tell you, Corina?’

  ‘You can crow once you’ve actually pulled it off.’

  ‘You’re only pissed cos this is going to blow your transport system hack out of the water.’

  ‘You hacked the display boards? That was you?’ I say.

  Corina shrugs, her eyebrow arching. ‘No big.’

  Logan snorts. ‘Then why do you go on and on about it?’

  ‘I thought the NF did that,’ I say.

  ‘They did.’

  I look from Corina to Logan. ‘You guys are the NF? The dangerous anarchist organisation the news keeps going on about?’

  ‘We’re not really an organisation. More a group of people united by a single cause.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To bring the system down,’ Logan says, drumming his fingers together like a bad Bond villain.

  ‘So you are going to do it?’ Ethan says.

  ‘What are they going to do?’ I say, trying to follow the frantic conversation. A headache is building and I’m starting to panic. I was out of my depth before, but now I feel like I’m drowning.

  ‘We’re sending a little message out to everyone on Glaze,’ Logan says, his teeth flashing. ‘Bouncing it off multiple locations so no one can track it to us.’

  ‘What kind of message?’

  ‘Porn!’ Milo says, giggling.

  ‘Classy,’ Corina says, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Shut up!’ Mila says, slapping her brother around the back of the head. ‘That’s so juvenile. And clichéd.’

  ‘As you see, what we’re going to send is still being debated. As for when: November fifth. Seems appropriate.’

  ‘Guy Fawkes’ Day? But Glaze isn’t parliament. It’s... people.’ I say.

  ‘People who need awakening.’

  What have I done? I wonder. What have I really done?

  ‘Uh oh!’ Milo says, looking up from the screen.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Logan’s eyes go wide. ‘Shit.’

  ‘What?’
Ethan and I say, together again, the only ones in the room now not hooked up.

  Without speaking a word, Ryan and the twins race towards the back of the room. Corina leaps off the table and follows them. I can see why. The monitors are showing CCTV footage of a policeman knocking on the front door of the house.

  ‘I’ll go check,’ Logan says. ‘Stay here, and keep quiet.’

  Logan races out of the room, leaving the plastic strip curtain swaying.

  A hiss and a loud clang of metal slamming shut comes from a dark corner in the basement.

  ‘Ryan?’ I say softly, wondering where he’s gone.

  ‘He has a habit of running off,’ Ethan whispers, voicing what I’m trying not to think. ‘Your boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I whisper back. ‘He’s...’ But I don’t know what he is. Or what I want him to be.

  Logan slips back through the plastic strips, his finger held to his lips, silencing us.

  He points up and silently mouths a word. ‘Fed.’

  We all look up at the concrete ceiling. Metal tubes criss-cross each other, snaking off into various rooms in the building. There’s a thud, and a sliding noise, followed by the steady creak of footsteps walking on old floorboards above.

  ‘Hello?’ the policeman says, his voice muffled through the layers of brick.

  I look at Logan’s face, which has gone the colour of tea left out overnight and I realise I never stopped to ask him exactly how illegal this whole operation was. Mostly because I already knew the answer. Very.

  A metallic clang comes from behind us and we all spin around to glare at Dr Hwang. A tool is lying on the floor. Hwang shrugs then carries on tidying his station.

  ‘Hello?’ The policeman calls out again, louder this time.

  I look over to the doorway. ‘Is there another way out?’

  ‘Not that way. Here.’ He gestures for us to follow him in the same direction where the twins and Ryan ran. Maybe there’s a back door that leads on to the street.

  We turn the corner into a dark alcove, with no sign of an exit. Logan pulls aside a large cloth, which I had taken for a brick wall. Camocloth, I realise. Behind it there’s a large, metal door.

  ‘The no good, back-stabbing, piece of...’ Logan mutters, not bothering to keep his voice down. He slams on the metal door with his fist. ‘Bastards!’

  ‘Hush!’ I say, pulling him away from the door. The policeman is sure to hear us.

  ‘What is it?’ Ethan says, laying his hands on the metal.

  ‘A panic room,’ Logan says, pushing his dreads back so hard it pulls on the corner of his eyes. ‘My god damn panic room.’

  ‘And Ryan and the others are in there?’ I say.

  Logan ignores me. He’s too busy shouting up at a camera above the door. ‘Saved your own hides, you dirty—’

  ‘So get them to open it up,’ I say, before Logan starts screaming again.

  ‘It’s got a security lock on it. Can’t be opened for ten minutes after it’s been shut.’ He slams on the door again, and it echoes through my already pounding head.

  I press my hands against my temples, trying to push the pain away.

  Logan steps back and looks up to a camera above the door. He holds up one finger on each hand to the camera, showing his displeasure.

  ‘What do we do?’ I ask.

  Logan shakes his head the smallest of fractions. He’s as out of ideas as I am.

  We walk back into the main room where Dr Hwang is watching the computer monitor. He places a finger to his lips and then waves us closer with a graceful curl of his hand.

  The policeman is missing from the downstairs cameras. He is probably on his way down the back staircase at this very moment. Any second now, he’ll walk through that plastic curtain and arrest us all. I look at Ethan and Logan. They’re strong. They could overpower him. But he’ll be streaming everything live back to base, so there would be no point.

  Dr Hwang pushes a button on the computer and the image on the screen changes. We’re looking at a different hallway. The first floor, maybe, and the policeman is walking up and down, looking through doors. He turns around and shrugs to himself, before disappearing off screen.

  It’s Logan who punches the button this time. The policeman is back on the ground floor, heading for the door. He walks back out onto the street.

  We wait, all frozen staring at the screen, not sure if he’s coming back, if he’s called someone.

  After five minutes, Logan straightens up and whistles loudly. ‘Well that was fun,’ he says.

  I want to punch him. I press my hand against my head: with the fear fading, the pain has come back in a wave.

  Dr Hwang taps me on the shoulder and places two white tablets into my hands. He nods stiffly, and then leaves through the main exit.

  ‘Do you think it’s safe for us to leave?’ Ethan says.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Logan says, tapping away on the computer. ‘But be quick about it. You head now, and I’ll follow in another few minutes, not to draw any attention.’

  ‘And what about Ryan, Corina and the twins?’ I say.

  Logan straightens up. ‘I’ve reset the lock controls on the panic room. It won’t open for another hour. That should give them enough time to think about what they’ve done.’ He grins, happy with his revenge.

  Me, I’m not so pleased. I pop the pills Dr Hwang has given me into my mouth and force them down.

  ‘Go on, get out of here. And take your rat with you.’ He hands me the box.

  ‘You chipped him?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m not sure he’s that happy about it. But it’s not like you want him going anywhere.’

  I peel open the lid of the box. The rat is lying, legs splayed out, his chest going in and out like a bellows, his little pink eyes staring dead ahead. There’s a large gash between his two ears. I close the lid over as a wave of nausea hits me.

  ‘What happens when he…’

  ‘When he dies? You come back to me and we do it again.’

  I nod, wondering what it will cost me next time.

  ‘Oh, and Petri,’ Logan says as I turn to go. ‘Twenty-four hours, remember. And then... it’s welcome to the family.’

  Ethan and I head back up the stairs and into the hallway. I peek through a boarded up window before I risk opening the door. There’s no sign of the policeman or anyone else for that matter. We quickly open the door, race down the pathway, and leave the spooky building behind.

  ‘Are you going to talk to me at all?’ I ask after we’ve been walking for ten minutes and Ethan still hasn’t said a word. It started to rain five minutes ago and I don’t have an umbrella. I tucked the rat box under my jumper in an attempt to keep it dry. Which is more than I can say for me. My hair is already sticking to my forehead and I’m freezing. ‘I know you don’t want to be on Glaze, but you can’t push your ideas—’

  ‘It’s not that at all,’ he snaps, turning to face me.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Ethan chews on his lip before speaking. ‘I thought you were supposed to be smart, Petri. But I can’t believe how stupid you’ve been. Rewriting a blank? You have no idea if it’s going to work, or fry your head.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I say, hoping he doesn’t notice the wobble in my voice.

  ‘And is betraying your mother fine too?’

  My stomach contracts. Guilt or anger, I don’t know. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘My whole life my mother has put Glaze before me. Well, now, it’s her turn.’ The venom in my voice surprises me.

  Ethan stares at me, shaking his head. ‘I just don’t get it. All this and for what, so you can chatter with people you’ve never met about what you’re having for lunch.’

  ‘That’s such a cliché, Ethan. Glaze is much more than that. It’s life. Modern life, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it.’

  ‘Fine!’ I say, shrugging so hard it hurts the back of
my head. ‘That’s your choice. If you never want to have a voice in society, never want to be able to affect things, then fine. Be the disgruntled silent minority.’

  ‘You don’t get it? You really don’t get it!’ He growls in frustration, his jaw clenched. ‘I thought you, of all people, would see what’s really going on here. Sure Glaze gives you a voice. Their voice.’

  ‘That’s paranoid crap.’

  ‘Is it? Can’t you see it all around you? People changing?’ He holds his hands out, indicating the people walking by under their umbrellas. Of course, no one on Glaze would leave the house without knowing it was going to rain. No one gives us so much as second look.

  ‘All I’ve seen is people being nice to each other. What’s wrong with that?’ I remember Alexa and how she helped the old man on the bus, and the news report on the decrease in racial attacks. I want to believe that Glaze makes people better. I have to believe it.

  ‘The way they all stopped at the riot?’ Ethan says. ‘Like zombies. You didn’t think that was weird? Or wonder what WhiteShield were doing there?’

  ‘WhiteShield was assisting the police, why is that such a big deal? They are a security company after all.’ Ryan snorts. But I ignore him. ‘And as for why everyone stopped? They were scared. I was scared! I’d have stopped and given myself up too if I wasn’t dragged onto a rooftop by some nutter!’

  ‘I should have let them shoot you then?’

  ‘Yeah, you should have. If it wasn’t for you none of this would have happened.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s my fault you’ve had who knows what done to your head!’

  The tablets have yet to kick in and my head feels like it’s going to split in two. ‘You’re bitter. And jealous. That I’m going to be on and you’re not. And that I’m with Ryan.’ It’s the worst thing I could think to say.

  Ethan looks like I’ve slapped him. His eyes are wide and his mouth hangs loose. Slowly, he swallows, and it looks like he’s trying to stop himself from being sick.

  ‘I thought you were different, Petri,’ he says, his voice coming out so quiet and soft that it’s so much worse than the shouting. ‘But you’re just like everyone else. Just like you wanted.’