by Jack Heath
There was a pause.
“I didn’t expect – you know,” he said.
“What?” Ash asked, confused.
“You’re just, uh,” he said, “really pretty.”
No one had ever said that to Ash before. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Thank you, perhaps? But that sounded like agreement, which would seem immodest. So should she call him a liar instead? Surely that couldn’t be the polite option.
The boy looked like he wanted to prolong the conversation, but couldn’t think of anything to say. After a moment, he blushed and ran into the gymnasium.
Ash blinked. That was weird, she thought. I should find out who that was.
But not right now. It would be embarrassing to walk back into the gym, approach a girl, point to the boy and ask for his name – all while he was watching. And anyway, he looked a year or two older than her, so the girls in her year weren’t likely to know him. Back to the original plan. Sugar and caffeine.
The cafeteria tables were crowded with fidgeting, nervous-looking kids, too shy to brave the dance floor. Most groups had both girls and boys in them. Funny, Ash thought, how they’re happy to mingle outside the gym. I guess they’re not as scared of each other as they are of the music, the lights, the dancing and what it’s all supposed to mean.
She bought a can of an energy drink she’d never heard of, and sat down in a chair identical to the ones in the gym. She sipped, grimaced, and closed her eyes, listening to the conversation of the girls sitting on her left.
“...no, she only just messaged it to me.”
“She was there? She videoed it?”
“No, someone else sent it to her. Everyone’s messaging it to everyone. Everybody’s got it.”
“No one sent it to me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m showing you now, aren’t I?”
“Oh my god. Is that...oh my god!”
“I know, right?”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“It’s night, doofus. Who’s going to be in a library at night?”
“You’re a doofus. Shut up. What about, like, security guards?”
Someone was moving towards the empty seat on Ash’s right – a short ginger-haired boy who had dressed in a full-blown tuxedo. Ash avoided eye contact, took another sip from her can and willed him to go away. Don’t sit here, she thought. This seat is reserved.
“Hey hey,” the ginger boy said.
Ash looked at his face for the first time, and choked on her drink. “Benjamin?”
“Not if anyone asks,” he said, grinning. “Officially I’m Jerome Tanner, footballer, percussionist, and student at Narahm School for Boys.”
“What’s with the tux?”
Benjamin stared at her, as though it was obvious. “It looks good.”
Ash kept her voice low. “What will you do if the real Jerome shows up? You haven’t...poisoned him or anything, have you?”
“Of course not.” Benjamin plucked the can of drink from her hand and sipped it. “Urgh, gross. Of the one thousand and sixty-six students at NSB, nine hundred and eighty-one have Facebook profiles. Of those profiles, six hundred and thirteen have lazy privacy settings that make them publicly visible. And of those, one had a status that read, ‘Screw the social, can’t be bothered’. Hello Jerome, and here I am.”
He’s clever, Ash thought, but he sure does know it. “You really don’t look like a footballer.”
Benjamin laughed. “If anyone says that, I’ll just say, ‘That’s why I’m so good at it’.”
“I’m not sure that makes sense.”
“I’m not sure your face makes sense.”
Ash stifled a giggle. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see you, but why are you here?”
“I couldn’t bear to be apart from you for another second,” Benjamin said, sounding almost serious. “Also, I saw this.”
He pulled a phone out of his pocket, tapped a few keys, and suddenly Ash was watching a video of a bald guy talking in front of the city library.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Just watch.”
“Turn up the sound. I can’t hear what he’s saying.”
“It’s not important what he’s saying,” Benjamin said.
And then the library exploded.
Well, part of it. Ash recoiled as the side wall blasted outwards and an enormous ball of dust and smoke rolled out into the street. The man’s eyes bugged out as he whirled around to face the noise. The camera wobbled, turned to the ground, then flitted back up to the library as the cameraman realized that this footage might be valuable. Even with the volume down so low, Ash could hear screams and the bleating of car horns. A refrigerator tumbled out the hole in the wall and thumped against the ground, spilling jars of mayonnaise and artichokes as it went.
“This footage was taken an hour ago,” Benjamin said. “It’s doing the rounds on the internet – when you next check your email, you’ll find a dozen copies of the link in your inbox, probably with the subject line ‘Terror attack at city library’. It’s already today’s most-viewed video on YouTube.”
The footage was still going. Ash stared at the fallen fridge, stunned. “What actually happened?”
“The cops haven’t released this yet,” Benjamin said, “but according to my police scanner, an old water main burst in the staff kitchen. The circuit breakers got flooded and the building lost power for thirty minutes or so. The water drowned the pilot light in the central heating system, and short-circuited the photoresistor safety mechanism that’s supposed to close the gas valve. So when the electricity came back on, the kitchen had filled with natural gas – which wouldn’t have been a problem except that someone had left a stovetop burner on.”
“Accidental?” Ash summarized.
“Definitely. There’s no way anyone could have known that tonight was the night that pipe was going to pack it in. And even if they had, switching on the stove and putting out the pilot light is a pretty unreliable way of making an explosion. Plus, what’s the motive? No one was in the building. They didn’t even destroy that many books, since the explosion happened so far away from the—”
“So what does this have to do with us?”
“Nothing,” Benjamin said. “Yet. I was just thinking about the hit list.”
Ashley glanced around the room. No one appeared to be listening, or watching them.
Five months ago, when they had tried to rob Hammond Buckland, they’d failed. But instead of punishing them, Buckland gave them a list of one hundred stolen artefacts, complete with their current locations, their rightful owners, and how much each would pay to recover them. Homer’s The Iliad and van Gogh’s ear were just two of the six items they had already acquired.
“Wasn’t there something in the city library vault that didn’t belong there?” Benjamin was saying slyly. “Something that we have a perfect opportunity to liberate, now that the explosion has knocked out the alarms? Something that someone would pay sixty-five grand to get back?”
He gestured at the kids at the surrounding tables, gossiping and fiddling with their hair and playing with their phones. “Unless, of course, there’s something else you’d rather be doing.”
“Let’s go,” Ash said. She was going to have some fun tonight after all.
As she followed Benjamin out, she paused to throw her energy drink in the bin. As she turned back towards the door, she collided with the boy again – the one who’d complimented her and then fled.
Now that she got a better look at him, she found him quite attractive in a scruffy sort of way. He had kind eyes, and longish hair that seemed to know how much better it looked when messy, and had therefore resisted all his attempts to neaten it.
But she had work to do. She tried to step around him.
He rested a hand on her arm. “Wait a sec,” he said. “I was thinking, that was kind of rude of me before. So maybe I could take you to a movie sometime? Like, to apologize.”
“It’s fine,” Ash said, “you wer
en’t rude. I’ve got to go.”
He beamed. “In that case, maybe we could celebrate my non-rudeness by, say, going to a movie?”
Ash heard echoes of her own voice. I’ll go. You’re right. I might make some new friends. Who would have thought that may turn out to be true?
She said, “You’re really keen on that movie.”
“I’m really keen on you,” he said, and then immediately looked embarrassed. “Okay, that was rude. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you by taking you to—”
She cut him off. “My name’s Ashley Arthur – email me your number through the school network, okay? But right now I’ve really got to go.”
He nodded. “Sure thing! I’m Liam, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Liam,” she said, meaning it. And then she ran out the door, where Benjamin was waiting for her.
“Who was that?” he asked, pointing.
Ash knew who he meant, but looked anyway. Liam was in the middle of some kind of victory dance, but stopped abruptly when he saw Ash staring. He jammed his hands into his pockets, trying to look casual, and failing.
“Uh, tell you on the way,” Ash said.
The Vault
The city library was swarming with police. There were cops standing impassively beside the yellow crime-scene tape, cops shouting into phones on the library steps, and cops striding in and out the front door. An ambulance was parked on the grass just inside the tape, lights whirling atop it behind coloured plastic. Blue and red spotlights flitted across bystanders’ faces.
It was all for appearances, Ash knew. They’d already classified the explosion as accidental. But because it was a very public disaster, the local government would want a very public investigation. When the voters picked up tomorrow’s paper, they would see photos of numerous competent officers taking charge, doing everything that needed to be done.
Ash wondered how many people were being mugged and assaulted and killed elsewhere in the city while these officers were busy with their show of force. And then she remembered that she was a professional thief, and told herself not to be such a hypocrite.
“Wait – you said yes?” Benjamin sounded perplexed. “You’re actually going on a date with this guy?”
They were in a car parked on the opposite side of the street from the library. They’d broken into it, but not to steal – it was just a convenient vantage point. Ash had checked the parking meter while she chained Benjamin’s bicycle to it, and there were six hours left on the timer. The owner wasn’t coming back any time soon.
“He seemed nice,” Ash said, staring at the cops. A fake ID and some decent acting might have fooled that mine guard, but it wouldn’t work on these guys. She was going to have to get past them without being spotted.
“What about me?” Benjamin was saying. “Don’t I seem nice? What about the hundreds of times I’ve asked you out?”
“Thousands,” Ash said. “But that’s different.”
“It sure is. I’m a guy who’s been loyal to you for ten years. Whereas he’s a total stranger.”
“It’s different because you do it as a joke,” Ash said, becoming annoyed. “And he’s not a stranger. I know his name, I know what school he goes to, and I know he thinks I’m pretty.”
“Pretty?” exploded Benjamin. “You said yes to him because he called you pretty?”
“You’ve never said that the whole time we’ve been friends,” Ash pointed out, surprised by how hurt he sounded.
“No, I haven’t. I’ve said you were smart, I’ve said you were brave, I’ve said you were generous and reliable and one of a kind. But I guess none of that can compare to ‘pretty’, can it?”
“Will you just drop it?” Ash demanded. “We have work to do.”
“Fine,” Benjamin said, his voice bitter. “But for the record, I was never joking.”
Ash looked away. They had been friends for way too long to attempt a romantic relationship – ten years, as Benjamin had just pointed out. Two-thirds of their lives. Couldn’t he see that?
Had he really been pining after her since he first asked, when they were twelve? He’d never had a girlfriend, but Ash had just assumed it was for the same reason she’d never had a boyfriend. They had been way too busy for dating.
“You’re not going to be able to talk your way past those cops,” Benjamin said finally.
“No,” Ash said, relieved that he’d changed the subject. “I was just thinking that.”
“So you’ll need a way to get inside without them seeing you. Which means I need to provide a distraction.”
Ash shook her head. “That’s a twenty-metre gap between the tape and the building. It’ll take at least five seconds to cross it, in which every single cop and reporter and bystander on that side of the library would have to be looking the other way. I don’t think ‘Hey, look over there!’ will do the trick.”
“I know. I’ve got something else in mind.”
Two paramedics and an ambulance driver were leaning against the bonnet of the ambulance, eyes on the library, probably waiting for the police to tell them they could leave.
Benjamin watched Ash weave through the crowd towards them, trying to look as though her direction was random. She doesn’t need to worry, he thought. Everyone out here is looking at the library. Everyone except me.
He scuffed the dirt with his cross trainers. He thinks I’m pretty.
How could she fall for that? Ash was the toughest, cleverest person he’d ever met – but this Liam guy had turned her into such a...such a girl.
Benjamin knew he should let it go. He shouldn’t have made her feel guilty. But how could she do this? Why would she choose some random boy over him?
Some random good-looking boy, said a voice in his head. With bright eyes and broad shoulders and big muscles and perfect teeth.
Benjamin scrunched his hands inside his pockets.
Ash was now standing as close to the ambulance as she could get without crossing the yellow tape. She’s in position, Benjamin thought. He took a deep breath, and waited for the signal.
Ash looked across at him, and nodded.
Now!
Benjamin threw himself forwards, plunging through the throng of bystanders. Someone said, “What the hell?” as he ducked under the tape and sprinted towards the library.
He could feel the eyes of the crowd on his back. The yells and gasps became more and more distant until he couldn’t hear them over his own furious panting.
The cops reacted quickly, running towards him only a half-second after he’d crossed the tape. “Stop right there,” the nearest one roared. Benjamin only ran faster, heart thundering in his chest.
He almost made it to the steps before they got him. He felt a massive hand grab his shoulder, and another one close around his opposite forearm, and then he was being wrestled to the ground, one arm twisted behind his back.
“Stay down,” one of the cops growled. Then, to the others, “I got him.”
Don’t screw this up, Benjamin told himself. Ash is counting on you.
“Let me go!” he screamed. “I have to find him! Let go of me!”
He felt handcuffs closing around his wrists. That was quick, he thought. I figured they’d just put me back behind the tape.
“Please, let me go!” he begged. “I have to help my grandpa!”
“This is a crime scene,” another officer said. “What the hell are you trying to do?”
“He needs my help,” Benjamin sobbed. “I need to find him!”
“Slow down, son. Who are you trying to find?”
He could hear the change in their voices – they weren’t thinking of him as a teenage prankster any more. They thought they were dealing with a crazy person.
“My grandpa,” he said. “I told you. Get off me!”
He was hauled to his feet. “Your grandpa’s not here, kid,” a policewoman with a pointed nose said. “Can we uncuff you, or are you going to make more trouble?”
“He’s in the libra
ry,” Benjamin wailed. “He phoned me, he’s trapped, he needs help! Please!”
The police officers looked at one another. One of them said, “Get the paramedics.” Then, to Benjamin, “Did your grandpa say where he was trapped?”
“Bottom level,” Benjamin said. “The military history section. He said there was an earthquake or something, and a shelf fell on him.”
The policewoman turned away and started talking into her radio. A stubbled cop with a thick neck said to Benjamin, “Come with me.”
As Benjamin walked, he glanced over at the ambulance. Ash had vanished. He hoped he’d given her enough time.
It’s up to you now, gorgeous, he thought. Good luck.
Ash watched the floor of the ambulance slide away, to be replaced by tyre-tracked grass. The legs of the gurney, emergency-yellow, unfolded in front of her until the wheels were resting on the ground. And then, with a clatter, she was on her way.
She felt horribly exposed, lying face down underneath the mattress, supported only by the frame of the gurney and the straps designed to restrain patients if they were seizing. She was pretty sure the two paramedics couldn’t see her – her presence made only a slight lump in the mattress – but she was terrified of the police and the crowd of onlookers.
How would she appear to them? A dark shape, barely visible behind the frame and easily mistaken for part of the gurney? Or a completely visible teenage girl, strapped to the underside of it?
Turning her head, she couldn’t see anyone else, just straps and bars. So they probably couldn’t see her either. Probably.
Suddenly there was concrete under her rather than grass, and the gurney lurched and tilted so the blood flooded to her head and the straps bit a little tighter into her torso and thighs. She was going up the wheelchair ramp. If the paramedics were going to notice the gurney was forty-five kilos heavier than it should be – she’d removed the fifteen-kilogram defibrillator kit from under the frame to make room – it was going to happen now.
She clenched her fists by her sides. A while ago Benjamin had made a network of tubular balloons to go inside Ash’s clothes, attached to a canister of compressed hydrogen sewn into her pocket. When she hit a switch on the canister, the balloons would inflate, halving her weight, doubling her jumping height, and increasing her running speed – as well as making her puff up like the Incredible Hulk. Unfortunately, hydrogen was extremely flammable, and the bulging clothes made her an easy target. They’d tried helium, but it was only half as effective.
