GLAZE

by Kim Curran

  I’m hit with that familiar sense of relief. Max is here and now everything will be OK. Then I remember my dream, and the scenes from the lab, and I’m sickened with myself once more. I want to scream. To hit Max and throw things at him. But I’m too afraid, which makes me hate myself even more.

  ‘Morning, Petri,’ Max says, handing me a mug of coffee, like everything is perfectly normal.

  I reach out and try to say thank you, but my lips won’t move. My mouth is dry; my tongue sticks to my teeth. My bottom left molar feels wobbly. I search through the fog in my brain. My cheeks are numb. A tube sticks out of my arm. Anaesthetic?

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘In WhiteInc HQ. Receiving treatment.’

  I notice another thing. The flow of images has stopped. There’s nothing, not even the blinking cursor of light that never went away. I reach up to the back of my head and touch a large bandage at the base of my neck.

  ‘Yes, we had that chip taken out, Petri. It was sending you mad. We do warn people about tampering with the chips, but they don’t listen.’ He sighs.

  I don’t want to listen either. I stare into the blackness in my mug. He carries on regardless.

  ‘Did you know the teenage brain changes shape? No, neither did I, not until we got reports back on some of our early test subjects. For some there were some rather... shocking side effects. That’s why we have to wait till the customer is older. It’s why you should have waited. Would five years really have made a difference, Petri? Or should I call you Petra?’

  Events are starting to fall into place. My visit to Logan. Dr Hwang. The virus. The screaming. I shut my eyes, to try and block the memory, but it’s even stronger with them closed.

  I sip at the coffee. Just to wet my mouth. It’s sweet. Strong. The heat burns my throat as it goes down. ‘You know then?’

  ‘I know you had your blank chip hacked, if that’s what you mean. And that you were friends with the people who released the virus.’

  ‘That wasn’t me. I didn’t know anything about that.’

  I want to accuse him of killing them. I want to ask him why he thinks he’s above the law. I want to scream and tell the whole world who he really is, but I don’t have the strength.

  ‘Of course not,’ he says, patting my knee through the covers. I pull my leg up to my chest to keep it away from him. ‘I’m sure they manipulated you. Told you that they were your friends. Led you to believe you could trust them. Why else would you do what you did? You’d never do anything to hurt your mother, would you?’ There’s a hint of something in his voice. An undercurrent of a threat.

  I’m too tired to work it out. My head pounds. I reach up and rub at the back of my neck again. There’s a smooth patch where they’ve shaved my hair away and a small bandage, no bigger than a coin.

  ‘Once that’s healed we’ll get you a proper chip. After your real sixteenth birthday that is. We’re about to release the upgrade. It’s very exciting. We had a few niggles with the beta, but they’re all ironed out now. The new system has a biofeedback mechanism that will monitor people’s blood for indications of diabetes, cancer. It’s going to save thousands of lives.’ He sounds almost giddy.

  ‘What about my CDO? Don’t you think the police are going to have something to say about my blank being removed?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about them. As I said before, the police are becoming increasingly irrelevant.’

  ‘So why work with them at all? The blanks? The help you gave them at the riot?’

  ‘It was an experiment, Petri. To see if we could work together. However, the police have proved themselves to be an outdated institution, which insists on following the old ways. No, we’re much better off operating independently.’

  ‘So it is true. That anyone with a police record won’t be allowed on Glaze.’

  He looks at me, his grey eyes unreadable. ‘It’s up to me who does and doesn’t join the Glaze family. Why would I want criminals and drug addicts ruining it for everyone?’

  ‘I’m a criminal.’ I don’t mean the mix-up with the riot. I mean everything I’ve done since, but I don’t tell him that.

  ‘You’re innocent, Petri,’ he says, flattening a curl of my hair.

  ‘But Zizi said...’

  ‘Zizi always did worry about PR a little too much. Besides, she’s hardly in any position to stop you now, is she?’

  Everything feels like it’s moving too slowly. Objects in the room leave weird vapour trails and when I stare at Max his face starts to melt.

  I close my eyes and lean back into the pillow. My head feels like it’s filled with wool and I can’t think clearly. I feel warm and cosy and safer than I’ve ever felt. But there’s something I should remember. I try and piece things back together. The last thing I can properly recall is the taste of strawberries.

  I reach up and touch my lips. The numbness is starting to fade.

  ‘You’re tired, Petri. Rest, we can talk more tomorrow.’

  His face floats in and out of view and the fog pours back into my head. I try to swat the cloud away, but it’s too late. The last thing I see are his white teeth hovering before me.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but when I wake again the room is dark and my head feels clearer. There are still things I can’t quite remember, like how I got here. I reach up and touch the bandage at the back of my head. Where there had been a smooth patch of skin there’s now a square of stubble. The roughness under my fingers reminds me of something. But as I struggle to grab hold of it, it slips away.

  I sit up and pull the covers off me. I’m wearing a plain white nightdress with the triangle logo of WhiteInc over the breast. The tube has gone from my arm leaving only a dark bruise. My legs feel heavy and achy as I lift them and the floor is cold under my feet. It takes me three attempts to stand up. And even once I’m upright it’s like my muscles don’t want to listen to me any more. I take one heavy step and then another towards the door.

  I place my hand over the touch lock, expecting it not to respond. So when it clunks and slides open I almost fall over.

  Light floods into the room from the corridor outside. It’s glaring white from strip bulbs overhead, making it hard to see where the walls end and the floor starts. But other than the light, it’s empty.

  Leaning against the wall I make my way down the corridor, fingertips dragging across gaps in the wall where I assume doors open on to more rooms like mine. I try a few. The pads bleep softly and deny me access.

  The corridor opens up into a round room at the bottom, where a nurse is sat at a reception desk. I flinch, expecting to be shouted at, but when she looks up and sees me she only smiles.

  ‘Hello, Petri,’ she says. ‘You’re looking much better.’

  ‘Er, thank you.’

  She stands up and walks out from behind the desk. The name on her badge reads Catherine. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, I just... Can I go home?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re ready to go home,’ Catherine says, taking me by the elbow and gently turning me around. ‘Not quite yet. A couple more days to get your strength back. You’ve been through quite a lot, haven’t you?’

  ‘I guess.’ I let her lead me back down the corridor.

  ‘I know what will cheer you up,’ she looks at me kindly, biting her lip. ‘I probably shouldn’t, you know. I have strict instructions that she receives no visitors. But I think it would do her good. Do you good too maybe.’

  She drops my arm and places her palm against the wall. With a hiss, a door opens up revealing a woman sitting in a white chair. She’s staring at a picture of a boat being tossed about in a turquoise sea.

  ‘Zizi?’

  A gentle hand presses on the base of my back pushing me into the room. I take a stumbling step forward. ‘Zizi?’ I say again, my voice cracking.

  The woman in the chair is wearing a nightdress like mine. Her cropped grey hair is growing out of its style. She has four scars running down the si
de of her cheek. I reach out and brush her skin, following the tracks with my fingers.

  ‘I’ve cut her nails now, so we shouldn’t have a problem like that again.’ Catherine has followed me into the room and busies herself over at a small table. She takes a glass vial with a small dropper in it, and drips clear liquid into Zizi’s eyes.

  ‘Poor thing,’ she says. ‘She can’t even blink. But it seems so cruel to keep her eyes closed.’

  Catherine massages the drops in, then goes and stands back by the door.

  I look at my mother’s hand, lying gently on the padded armrest of her chair, and feel sick. Zizi wore her hair cropped short, refused to dye out the grey on principle, and always dressed in men’s suits for work, carefully tailored to fit her curves without looking overtly sexual. But she kept her nails long and painted a vivid colour. Electric blue or fuchsia pink. They were, she would say, a reminder to her male colleagues that she was after all a woman and, therefore, not to be messed with.

  Now her nails are bare, filed back to show what looks like too much flesh. She seems more naked than I’ve ever seen her. I take her hand in mine and squeeze it tight.

  ‘I’ll leave you,’ the nurse says. Either uncomfortable at this show of emotion, or careful not to intrude.

  ‘No. Stay,’ I say. And not because I want her with me—I’m filled with hatred for this woman and her cheery kindness—but because I don’t know what I’ll do if she leaves.

  I stroke the back of Zizi’s hand with my thumb, watching as the skin rucks up and slowly slides back into place.

  ‘Zizi,’ I say, for the third time. ‘Can you hear me?’

  There’s no change in her dead eyes.

  ‘Do you think she can hear me?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she can,’ Catherine says. But I don’t believe her.

  I follow Zizi’s gaze over to the picture of the boat. The stupid boat on the stupid sea. I run over to it and yank it off the wall and throw it across the room. The nurse barely flinches. She stays standing against the white wall, her hands together. In her white uniform and hat she blends into it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, when I’ve found my breath again. ‘But she’d hate that picture.’

  ‘Well, maybe you can pick out a new one?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know what to pick.’

  She doesn’t say anything. I look from her smiling expression to Zizi’s blank one. ‘She must be so bored,’ I say, placing Zizi’s hand back onto the armrest. ‘She never could sit still for longer than a minute.’

  ‘We’re streaming content to her chip. I understand she was fond of Corner Office?’

  Zizi’s favourite soap. I wonder if, somewhere in there, she’s laughing and shouting at it still.

  ‘I guess. She used to watch it after a particularly crappy day.’

  ‘Well then. Maybe a break from the stresses of her job will do her good?’ She has to be joking? But no. She’s still smiling, dumbly. I almost envy her stillness. It reminds me of someone. Someone I’ve forgotten.

  ‘Ethan!’ I say. And with his name comes a rush of memories so powerful it’s like being on Glaze again. How could I have forgotten him? I run towards the door but the nurse moved to block my exit.

  ‘Where are you going, Petri? Don’t you want to see your mother?’

  ‘I have to go,’ I say, trying to move her out of the way. She looks frail but she isn’t budging.

  ‘Do we have a problem here?’ The nurse moves and I fall straight into Max’s chest. He grabs me by my shoulders. ‘Petri, what are you doing out of bed?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr White,’ Catherine says, sounding mortified. ‘I didn’t know… I mean, she was wandering the corridors and I thought it might be beneficial for her to see her mother. I hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.’

  ‘No, of course not, Catherine. Don’t worry. I’ll take Petri back to bed.’

  Nurse Catherine walks past us and lays a hand on my shoulder. I shake it off, resenting the intimacy. I watch her walk back to her desk.

  Natalie and Jonathan stand behind Max. Or at least I think it’s still the same two assistants who were at my house the night of the attack. He might have replaced them already. Neither of them look especially happy to see me.

  ‘My friend, Ethan, where is he? What have you done with him?’

  ‘Petri, calm yourself, I have no idea who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Ethan Fisher. The boy I was with when your men tracked me down.’

  ‘Ethan Fisher, where have I heard that name before?’

  I wince as his eyes fog over and Natalie and Jonathan’s eyes do the same. ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ I say. ‘He’s not on.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Now I know why the name is familiar. He’s that boy. The one who’s been causing so much trouble making crazy accusations against WhiteInc,’ Max says.

  ‘We have issued a cease and desist order, Max,’ Natalie says, although Max waves her away.

  ‘Are you saying he’s lying?’

  Max’s eyes clear and then fix on me. ‘Oh poor, Petri.’

  ‘What? What happened to him?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened to him. He escaped. But don’t you see? He used you.’

  Natalie and Jonathan both look at me with mock pity on their faces.

  ‘Used me? But he’s my friend.’

  ‘Let me ask you this, Petri. How did you two meet?’

  ‘I … I don’t understand. We met at the riot when he saved me.’

  ‘Don’t you think it was a little convenient that the very boy who’s been trying to cause the company so much trouble conveniently turns up at the riot and saves you? What are the chances?’

  Everything starts to feel light and too bright. ‘One in a billion,’ I say.

  ‘Precisely. Don’t you think it’s more likely he sought you out? Hoping he could find out information from you? It wouldn’t be hard.’

  ‘No!’ I don’t want to believe him. But… Why did Ethan come to my school only to leave again? Why did he help me in the riot? Had he only been trying to get close to me so he could get close to Max?

  My knees give way. Max scoops me up and carries me back into my room, his assistants trotting after him. He lays me on the bed and sits beside me.

  ‘You need to forget about this boy,’ he says, patting the air above my hand. ‘There are plenty of other boys, you know. I should arrange for some of your friends to come visit. Would you like that?’ It would be so good to see Kiara, to talk this all over with her and try and make some kind of sense of it. I know she’s in no state to be chatting, but if I could just see her.

  ‘Can I visit my friend Kiara? Mrs Roufail’s daughter?’

  ‘Ah, I’m afraid not. She’s receiving treatment somewhere else. Anyone else?’

  Apart from Kiara, I don’t really have any more friends. Unless you count Ryan, which I’m not sure I do. But maybe he could get a message to Ethan for me.

  ‘Ryan McManus?’

  ‘Natalie, have a car pick this Ryan McManus up and bring him in.’ Max turns back to me. ‘It will be good for you. No one should be alone, Petri.’

  With that they all leave. And I can’t help but think he might be right.

  26

  MAX IS TRUE TO HIS WORD. A few hours later there’s a knock at my door.

  Ryan looks tired: his eyes red-rimmed and sunken above dark purple bags. He’s either been crying or he’s not slept in days.

  ‘Hey, Petri,’ he says, as he steps through the door.

  I go to ask him what’s wrong and then I remember Amy’s face. ‘She’ll forgive you,’ I say.

  Ryan hitches his mouth into a crooked smile. ‘Can’t hide anything from you, can I?’

  ‘Can’t hide anything from anyone, Ryan. Not on Glaze.’

  ‘Is your chip working now?’

  I reach up and scratch at the bandage. ‘They had to take it out.’

  Ryan walks in and sits on the edge of my bed. ‘I’m sorry, Petri. I shouldn’t have taken you to Log
an. I shouldn’t have abandoned you after. I’m sorry.’ He laughs. ‘I’ve been saying that a lot of late.’

  My instinct is to forgive him. I bite it down. ‘The video went viral?’

  He nods. ‘I swear, Petri, I didn’t mean for it to happen. I thought I’d taken it down, but somehow, Dave-bloody-Carlton got hold of it and now the whole school’s seen it, and god knows how many other people. Amy was...’

  ‘Furious?’ I ask.

  ‘Broken,’ he says. ‘She won’t come to school. Won’t leave her house. I’m really scared. I don’t know what to do.’

  He looks at me like I’m supposed to have the answer. ‘You could apologise.’

  ‘What do you think I’ve been doing? I go to her house every day after school, but she won’t let me in.’

  ‘Not in person. To the world. Tell everyone what happened. Tell them it was you. Take it all on you.’

  He raises an eyebrow and nods, as if he genuinely hadn’t considered this. ‘You really are smart. But... I don’t know if I have the guts.’ He runs his hand through his hair.

  ‘It’s your choice.’

  ‘If only there was a way I could get the video taken down. Have it wiped from Glaze.’ He turns to me, looking hopeful, but there’s something else in his expression that makes me recoil. Guilt. And not over the video.

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ I say, standing up and moving away from him. ‘Did Max promise to take the video down? To wipe your slate?’

  He hesitates long enough for me to know it’s true. ‘No. It’s just that—’

  ‘The upgrade, is that it? You got it.’ Even without a chip of my own I can read him. ‘Don’t bother, Ryan. Please, you’ve done enough.’

  ‘It’s so good, Petri. Even better than before. You’ll see.’

  ‘I won’t see. I won’t ever be a part of it again!’

  He shakes his head. ‘Max said that Fisher kid had been brainwashing you. You can’t trust him, Petri. He was using you, you know that right? Him and Logan and the others.’