by Natasha Ngan
But Tanaka’s head had disappeared, he had died, and that was all on her.
After the search, the Elites had been ordered to their rooms to await further instructions. Ember had not returned to their bedroom, but that was typical of her, ignoring orders. Strangely, Senior Surrey seemed not to care when it was Ember who disregarded his instructions.
Silver was glad to have the room to herself. She had some time now to figure out what to say to Senior Surrey, to decide how to lie. Because of course she couldn’t be honest about what had happened up on Hemmingway House. How could she, when she had been right next to the assassin and it was only his strange, familiar smell and some funny look in his eyes that had prevented her from stopping him? When after he’d shot Tanaka, she’d let the assassin escape back into the building, too shocked and stunned to follow him?
Silver couldn’t believe she’d been so careless. All her training had led to this. Elites knew their first time working the parade was a challenge from the Council to prove their competence. To show that they could live up to their DNA, which had streamed them at birth into the Elite training programme due to superior levels in their genes of intelligence, adeptness, healthiness, loyalty, and other such characteristics. Butterfly had been assigned his first job at the parade when he was fourteen. Ember at thirteen. Because of her poor fighting skills, Senior Surrey hadn’t trusted Silver until this year when she was fifteen, and now she’d failed him. Worse –
She had failed Tanaka.
Over the next hour, Silver watched the night drain from the bedroom, the slow brightening as the room was pulled out of shadows and into soft morning sunlight. At some point, she must have dozed off, for the next thing she knew she was jerking upright as a loud beeping filled the room. She tossed aside her blanket and rushed to the comms panel beside the door, touching it to answer the call.
‘Silver,’ came Miss Apell’s crisp voice. ‘Please report to Senior Surrey’s office immediately.’
This is it, Silver thought, swallowing anxiously. She took one last look around the room, as if the answers to what she should say to Senior Surrey would somehow pop out at her. But they didn’t, so she just smoothed down her clothes and hair – her hands shaking – before nodding to herself and heading out of the door.
The Head of the Elites’ office was in the east wing of the Stacks. It was a large room, furnished to the highest standards, with an ornately carved maple-wood desk and leather chaise longue. In one corner stood a small acer, its slender trunk disappearing into the floor. Sunlight streamed into the room from tall glass doors set into the furthest wall.
Senior Surrey stood up from behind the desk as Silver entered, gesturing to the chair opposite him. ‘Please, sit.’
She took the seat he was indicating, watching him carefully. He was a handsome man, youthful for his forty-two years, with white-streaked black hair and a broad chest. Once, he’d been the best Elite the Council had, and she could sense that strength and sharpness in the way he carried himself.
‘I’m going to be frank with you, Silver,’ Senior Surrey said, leaning forward in his chair and wrapping his hands round a cup of teh. ‘It’s been a long night, and an awful thing has happened. You’re the last Elite I’m talking to. Let’s make this quick and easy, shall we?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said, hoping that would be true. She could feel her nerves like a hand squeezing her gut, and she struggled to try and appear calm.
Over the next fifteen minutes they discussed everything that happened the day of the parade. Silver oversleeping and being late for her assignment; she knew there was no point lying about that as the policemen outside had seen her, and luckily Senior Surrey didn’t seem too angry about it. Her journey to Pantheon Square, Tanaka’s speech. In fact, Senior Surrey was being so easy on her that Silver almost wanted to tell him the truth about what happened. She imagined him coming round the table as she dissolved into tears. He’d hold her in his large, fatherly arms and say, ‘There, there. You did as much as you could. You did your best.’
Just as her own father would.
But Silver wasn’t that naive. Despite his calm, pleasant manner, she knew how tough Senior Surrey could be, and the serious repercussions on her life as an Elite something like this would have. So she kept lying. It was all going well until Senior Surrey asked whether she’d heard any unusual noises on the rooftop.
Silver had let herself relax so that, without thinking, she said, ‘Yes, sir. A sort of clicking sound.’
The truth was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Her heart began to race as she realised what just she’d said, but she forced herself to look calm as Senior Surrey leant back in his chair, looking at her carefully with those dark, granite-flecked eyes.
‘A clicking sound?’
Silver nodded. ‘About halfway through Tanaka’s speech, somewhere to my left.’
‘I see. And then?’
‘I … I went over to have a look.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘Er … nothing,’ she answered weakly. She fiddled with the underside of the desk. ‘There wasn’t anything. It was probably just the wind knocking something over or –’
‘Which side of the building was this?’ Senior Surrey interrupted.
Silver thought quickly, tracking back through her lies to find the answer. ‘The west side.’
‘What happened next?’
‘Well, I … I was looking around when I heard the …’ Images flashed in her mind; head, no head, head. She swallowed. ‘When it happened.’
‘Tanaka’s assassination?’
No head.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
Senior Surrey pressed the tips of his fingers together. ‘I see.’ He said the words slowly, drawing them out like he really didn’t see at all.
Silver held her breath. She tried to prepare herself for what was about to happen; Senior Surrey pulling apart her lies, pushing her until the truth came out. But the next words he spoke were so completely the opposite of what she had been expecting that she didn’t hear them properly at first.
‘That is all,’ Senior Surrey repeated.
Silver blinked. ‘That’s all?’
‘You must be tired, and after everything that has happened I’m sure you need time to grieve and pray for President Tanaka. There will be no assignments or training tomorrow. Work will continue as normal on Thursday.’ He gestured at the door. ‘You may go.’
Silver almost jumped out of her seat in her haste to leave. Once in the corridor, she stopped to lean against the wall, breathing slowly to calm her heart. She couldn’t believe what had happened. She’d been prepared for an intense interrogation, and yet Senior Surrey seemed to have accepted her story with barely any question at all.
She started heading back to her bedroom. Flushed and happy with relief, she didn’t notice someone move out behind her as she passed a shadowy corridor.
A hand clamped across her mouth, stifling her scream, and an arm locked round her neck, dragging Silver from the corridor through a nearby door and slamming it shut.
4
Confrontations and Confessions
Silver’s captor twisted her round, keeping a hand tight against her mouth, and slammed her up against the wall at the back of the room. The coldness of the concrete shot up her spine. Her body stiffened with the shock of it, the shock of Ember suddenly here right in her face, a hand clamped over her mouth, the crazed look in Ember’s eyes.
Even in the dim light, Silver knew her captor was Ember. The sweet orange blossom fragrance of her perfume danced in the air as she moved, her red hair bouncing around her face like an excited flame.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Ember hissed. ‘Wanted to have a little interrogation of my own.’
Silver struggled against Ember’s grip. She could see they were in some kind of storage room, and the door out to the corridor wasn’t too far away. But it was impossible to move. Ember had an arm pushed hard across her chest and a
hand squeezed so tightly over her mouth, Silver could feel Ember’s long, tapered fingernails pinching her cheeks.
‘Don’t bother,’ Ember snarled. ‘You know that won’t work. You’re my junior after all. Just a baby. What can you do against me? Now listen carefully.’
Silver ignored her. She wriggled one arm free to scrabble at the wall behind her, but there was nothing she could use to defend herself. She squirmed, reaching out for the shelf to her right.
Ember sprang back and whipped her hand across Silver’s cheek, slapping her so hard that she barely had time to realise she was free before Ember was pressed back up against her.
‘What did I tell you? Now shut up and listen.’
Ember dipped her head to the pocket in her shirt. When her face lifted, there was a small, slim blade gripped between her teeth. A man’s shaving razor, by the looks of it. Ember let go of Silver’s mouth to take the blade in her hand, and Silver knew better than to try and scream for help. The next second, the cold point of the blade was pressed to her neck.
‘Oh gods,’ she murmured.
‘What are your gods going to do?’ Ember laughed, her bright green eyes flashing. ‘They’re a useless bunch – I don’t know why you Reds bother. Kitchen god going to come at me with some spaghetti? Monkey god getting ready to swing down from the heavens and shove a banana in my face?’
Silver didn’t say anything. She stared at Ember with silent hatred.
‘There you go,’ Ember smiled nastily. ‘Isn’t it easier to just do as I say rather than to try and think for yourself? We all know Reds don’t have much brainpower.’
Silver couldn’t help it; she felt the blush spread across her cheeks. The same thing she felt every time that word was directed at her. But this time, alongside the shame rose a hot, hard feeling –
Anger.
‘Must be why they assigned me as your junior,’ Silver snarled. ‘A Red was all you could handle.’
She got another slap for that. This time the blade in Ember’s hand nicked her skin, drawing a line of blood along her right cheekbone.
‘I’m warning you,’ Ember growled. ‘Now, tell me what happened at the parade. What actually happened, not whatever lies you fed Surrey. Or I’ll paint your other cheek red too.’
‘I told Senior Surrey the truth,’ Silver answered, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘During Tanaka’s speech, I went to investigate a sound on the west side of the roof. There wasn’t anything there, but it meant I missed what actually happened when the shot –’
‘Liar,’ hissed Ember. ‘You forget I was on the stage. I saw everything.’
Silver pushed on with her fake bravado. ‘Then why are you asking if you already know?’
‘All right,’ Ember said, her eyes narrowing. ‘I’ll tell you what happened. After the shot, I looked up to see you on a balcony on the north side of the building. The side facing the stage. Care to tell me what you were doing there?’
Silver did not.
‘What I believe happened,’ continued Ember, ‘is that either you personally delivered the shot to Tanaka, or you aided the person that did to get into the building and onto that balcony.’
This was so far from the truth that Silver couldn’t help but laugh. ‘That’s crazy! Why would I –’
Ember pressed the blade harder against Silver’s neck. ‘Why indeed? That’s what I asked myself. But I think the answer is clear.’
Silver stared at her. ‘I suppose you believe I’m working for an anti-birthchip group? That I actually harbour a secret hatred for the Council and am helping bring them down?’ She spoke almost jokingly, half rolling her eyes, but to her shock Ember let out a growl of anger.
‘I knew it!’
Silver’s mouth dropped. ‘I was joking, Ember! I’m an Elite! I’ve been working for the Council my whole life.’
But Ember didn’t seem to be listening. ‘You’re probably not even an Elite by nature,’ she murmured, speaking as though to herself. ‘An anti-birthchip group must have gene-hacked your DNA to get you streamed as one to act as an inside informant for them.’
Silver couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had spent the entirety of her life as an Elite fighting against anti-birthchip groups. She understood their cause; they wanted to do away with the compulsory DNA streaming that dictated the jobs every Neo-Babel citizen had, as well as the birthchips the Council implanted in the back of everyone’s necks at birth, which tracked movements. If a person was arrested for a crime, their birthchip records could be used as evidence in their case. But although she could sympathise with their arguments, that didn’t mean she supported the anti-birthchip groups. In fact, her experiences as an Elite had shown her that birthchips were vital to maintain the efficiency and safety of their city, and the laws surrounding their use kept the system fair.
‘You’ve known me since I was a baby,’ Silver said. ‘You’re with me half the time! When would I get the chance to meet with an anti-birthchip group?’
Ember ignored her. ‘I’m going to prove it. I can get those records, you know – your birthchip records. The Council will make an exception. They’ll release them for me, and when they find out you were there on that balcony …’
Silver felt a surge of panic. If Ember did manage to get the Council to release her birthchip records, she would be placed right at the scene of Tanaka’s shooting. Nothing could then stop a full-blown enquiry into her as a suspect of assassination. She groped frantically for something to say that wouldn’t implicate her further, some way of making it seem like this was all some big misunderstanding.
‘They wouldn’t do that,’ she said eventually. ‘The Council won’t look up my birthchip records without an arrest warrant. They wouldn’t.’
Ember let go of Silver, backing away towards the door. ‘You think you’re untouchable?’ she laughed. ‘You think that because you’ve got the other Elites wrapped round your little finger and have somehow made Surrey believe your lies that the truth won’t come out?’ As she opened the door, she added coldly, ‘You might be an Elite, Silver, but remember that in the end you’re nothing more than a dirty Red.’
The Stacks were busy as Silver rushed to Butterfly’s room, but she barely noticed, weaving her way past Council members through narrow walkways and corridors, her mind unable to escape the events in the storage room. She could still feel the pressure of Ember’s arm against her chest, the feel of the cold blade on her skin. Silver forced back the tears that were threatening to fall. She told herself she was stronger than that. When she reached Butterfly and his senior Cobe’s bedroom, she let herself in quietly through the unlocked door and slipped into her friend’s bedpod, where he was sleeping.
‘Butterfly?’ She crouched beside him in the dark curve of the bedpod.
‘Huh?’ Butterfly murmured. His eyes were glassy in the dim light. He went to sit up but she pushed him back down gently.
‘I’m sorry I woke you,’ she whispered. ‘Go back to sleep.’
Silver lay down beside Butterfly, their bodies inches away from each other in the small space. She tried to stop the tears that were filling her eyes, focusing on the comforting, soft smell of sleep that filled the bedpod and the familiar warmth of Butterfly lying near her. But she couldn’t help it. It was as though everything that’d happened over the past two days suddenly hit her at once, and her whole body shook with the awfulness of it all.
Butterfly seemed to have realised she was crying. He sat up, pulling Silver with him. His fingers brushed the smudged line of blood across one cheek. ‘You’re hurt,’ he said. ‘Did someone do this to you?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled.
‘No, it’s not.’
Silver saw the concern in his eyes, and she realised she couldn’t lie to him. She’d not lied to Butterfly once in all the years they’d been best friends. Even though speaking the truth out loud would make it feel more real, would make it impossible to escape, she had to tell him. Wiping her face with the back of her hand,
she began to explain what had happened at the parade, then Senior Surrey’s interrogation. Ember’s own private interrogation after.
‘She’s gone too far this time,’ Butterfly growled when Silver had finished. He touched the scar on her cheek again. ‘Does it hurt?’
She shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine. There are more important things, and they’re not like a cut. They can’t … ’ Her voice broke. ‘They can’t be fixed.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Butterfly dropped his head and ran a hand through his hair, his frown deepending. ‘There’s got to be something we can do. Are you sure you know the assassin from somewhere?’
‘I’m sure. I just can’t remember where.’
‘Maybe if you can remember, we can tell the Council about him,’ he suggested. ‘Then they’d overlook the fact that you didn’t get him on the day.’
Silver raised an eyebrow, smiling ruefully. ‘You really believe they won’t be angry that I let Tanaka get shot, and lied to Senior Surrey about it? Butterfly – saying they won’t be happy about any of that is an understatement.’
He fell silent for a while. ‘You’re right. We can’t let them know you were there.’ He hesitated, then added gently, ‘And we can’t let any of the others know.’
‘I know,’ she murmured. Silver felt her stomach tighten at the thought of keeping this a secret from their friends. Even though she was closest to Butterfly, she cared deeply for their Elite friends, and it felt wrong keeping this from them. She shook her head. ‘But what if despite all of this, the Council do manage to find out? They might work out where the bullet came from. Then they’ll want to question me further, and if Ember tells Senior Surrey about her suspicions and what she saw, and they look up my birthchip records …’ The tears came again then, hot and fast, blurring everything away until Silver couldn’t see anything clearly, and she wished for a moment she could live the rest of her life like that, always looking at the world through a mask, never having to face up to what she had done.
