by Karen Healey
While I cleaned my teeth—very slowly—I decided that I should act just like a girl who’d had a slumber party interrupted.
Surly, sleep-deprived, and uncooperative.
So I stomped down the stairs, offered Captain Miyahputri polite but brief thanks, and scowled my way out the door before Dawson could do more than offer me morning greetings.
I slouched in the backseat of the big black car, then glared at Dawson when he joined me.
“What?” I demanded.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your visit,” he said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
“It was okay,” I conceded. “Would have been better if I could have stayed for the end. Joph was going to make pancakes.”
Zaneisha was driving. I relaxed a little when we swept past the turnoff that led to the army base.
“The fact is, Tegan, an excellent opportunity has arisen. We have a wonderful chance to get your story to the world.”
“How do you mean?”
“We’ve arranged an interview for you with one of Australia’s most-watched tubecasters. We go live next Thursday.” He smiled in apparently genuine excitement.
My first reaction was relief that he wasn’t taking me to some interrogation room to have a long conversation about breaking into hidden databases and trespassing on government property.
My second reaction was pure horror.
“I can’t do that!” I said.
Dawson ignored me. “We’ve had hundreds of offers, of course, but we wanted to be very selective, especially for the first official interview. Your public-approval rating is very high, you know. You make an appealing face for Operation New Beginning.” He made a wry face. “The truth is, Tegan, we can feed people all the facts we want, but until you personalize a situation for them, they usually don’t care. You personalize revival.”
“I don’t want to do an interview.”
His gray eyes glinted steel. “Now, Tegan, you’ll recall that you did agree to make yourself available for supervised media contact.”
“But I don’t know how,” I wailed. “Look what a mess I made with Carl Hurfest before! And I was an idiot in class, twice on my first day! I’ll say something stupid, and people will hate me!”
He actually patted my hand as we pulled up outside Marie’s place. “We’ll take care of that, Tegan. It will all be fine.” He jumped out, and I scrambled after him.
Marie was standing in the kitchen, pouring tea into a mug for another woman.
Dawson beckoned me in. “We’ve hired the best media specialist in the business, Tegan. Meet Tatia.”
I stared at the strange woman, and then at Marie, who shook her head ruefully.
Oh, just hell.
Tatia was short and plump, and her skin was pale and glowing—I mean, she was actually glowing, an effect achieved through the microwires in her long, flowing gown. Her lips were painted black; her eyes were fitted with purple contacts; her eyebrows were covered in something that looked like silver tinfoil; she wore wrist-length lacy, glittery gloves; and her tight black curls were locked in place, refusing to move even when she bounced to her feet.
“Hello!” she perked at me. “Delighted to meet you, chicken. Let’s feed the eyes.”
She circled me, making a complete scan of my body. Instinctively, I crossed my arms over my boobs, and she tutted and pulled them down. When she was finished, she tapped a sparkling lacy finger to her lips. “Bones are good; skin needs some work; breasts a little spoffy, but don’t worry, there are plenty of designers who owe me giggles—we’ll find something! Shame about the lack of height. Now the hair—the hair is feral. Disaster, Teeg!”
“Tegan has been concentrating on her studies,” Marie put in. “And on adjusting to unfamiliar circumstances.”
Tatia shot her a dark look, then waved her hand. “Of course, marvelous, she’s making a fantasmical effort to assimilate. I can certainly do something with that. But we must always make time for style. I wonder, could Teeg and I speak alone?”
“I—” Marie started.
“Of course,” Dawson said. “Why don’t you both go talk in her room?”
Marie shook her head slightly, but her eyes were resigned. “I’ll be right up here if you need anything,” she promised me.
Tatia dragged me off as I tried to mentally convey that what I needed was a device to teleport me far away from this situation. Surely they had that kind of thing in the future.
Tatia was unimpressed by my bedroom decorations. “All these old, battered buildings!” she exclaimed. “Not quite the giggle, chicken.”
“I like them.”
“Of course, Teeg, of course. You prefer Teeg, don’t you? Viewers love a nickname; it makes them feel more connected. We’ll use Teeg. That Living Dead Girl catch must go. Carl was such a gerty boy to flash it! Well, now we’ve a chance to ruffle his lemons, don’t we?”
I stared at her, and not just because she was using so much slang, I couldn’t entirely understand what she was saying. It was the way she’d inspected me, then my room, as if everything she saw were a flawed piece of furniture she needed to reupholster and polish.
“Teeg’s mostly for family and friends. I think I’d prefer Tegan or Ms. Oglietti.”
“Teeg is better,” she said, her face flashing steel beneath the sparkle, so fast I barely saw it. I felt the effect, though; it was just like misjudging a jump and catching a rail with my stomach instead of flying over it. Except I was prepared for that possibility when I tried to jump a rail, and not when a pretty, polished woman kicked me in the gut with a three-word phrase and a smile.
She didn’t pause to see if I had further objections; she was off again, talking about skin care and depilatory wands and a million other things I couldn’t care less about. It all washed over me, until I heard “speaking skills.”
“I don’t have any,” I told her.
“Oh, I’ll teach you all the razzle. We’ll rehearse the questions, your answers, and any possible surprises. I don’t think Carl Hurfest will toss you a real badger, but you can’t ever be certain with him, naughty boy.”
“Wait, Hurfest is doing the interview?”
Tatia smiled. “Of course. Who better?”
“Anyone!”
She waved the objection away as if it were an irritating blowfly. “He’s sent the questions; your replies are on your computer now. Today you’ll memorize them; tomorrow you’ll—”
“Hey,” I said. “Hey. You wrote my answers?”
“The army wrote them; I refined them.” She laughed, a tinkling, pretty sound. “You don’t think we’d just throw you to the sharks, Teeg? No, no, I’ll do all the work, I promise. You just have to repeat what I tell you.”
“But Hurfest—”
“It has to be Carl, Teeg. He’s famous, actually quite good at what he does, and irritatingly incorruptible. But most important, he ambushed you and aired it, and now he’ll make public amends. That will silence any number of objections to the operation.”
“No.”
She smiled, sat down at my desk, and pointed to my bed. “Let’s go over the questions now.”
“No,” I said, louder. “I don’t want to be a prop. I don’t want to be publicity.”
Tatia didn’t look angry at my defiance. She looked amused, which was much, much worse. “Darling, you can hold your breath until you turn blue, but I’m not going to dodge the whippet. You’ll do it my way, or no way. I don’t care how stubborn you are. I earn a truly staggering amount regardless of your tantrums. But if you walk into that interview unprepared, Carl Hurfest will eat your risen carcass like the nasty little scavenger he is. And if you don’t turn up at all, your face will be utterly broken. Smashed beyond repair. He’s probably hoping you won’t show, in fact; he can spin news out of that for days.”
I didn’t move. I barely breathed.
Tatia leaned forward, smile just as slick but, I thought, a little warmer. “Or you can listen to me and beat him. I’d be happy to help you
do that because between you and me, I have as much love for that man as I do for a malaria-ridden mosquito.” She leaned back again and looked elaborately unconcerned. “However, as I said, either way, I get paid.”
I knew I was being manipulated, but I still couldn’t help grasping for the carrot she offered me. “I can really beat him?”
“Teeg, my chicken, we’ll dust him dry.”
I had no idea what that meant exactly, but the context was clear. If I listened to Tatia, I could get some measure of revenge on Carl Hurfest. And another benefit had occurred to me: Cooperating with Tatia would show Dawson I was being a good girl, and certainly not someone who would sneak out of a slumber party, go hunting for the Ark Project at an address I’d hacked with Bethari’s computer, and then personally witness him up to something definitely dodgy.
I needed to fend off any suspicions he might have to buy time for Bethari and me to find out what was going on.
So I said yes.
Okay. Abdi’s telling me that we need to move. He’s pretty sure they’re close to tracing our current location, and we need to get to Place B well before they hit the streets.
I’d like to give a big hello to those of our searchers who are watching this ’cast. Enjoying the show? I am.
I know you’ll catch us eventually.
But I will finish my story first.
CHAPTER TEN
Eight Days a Week
Okay. Hi again.
Sorry about the lighting; Abdi rigged it as well as he could, but we can’t take too much power from the grid, and we don’t want to give away too many details of our surroundings.
If I wriggle around a bit, it’s because I’m sitting in the water dripping off my clothes. It’s still storming out there, and the bike helmets did almost nothing to protect us from the rain, though they were pretty damn good at warding off the hail. Abdi got beaned by one big piece that went through an air slit. He’s okay; it’s bleeding a lot, but the cut’s shallow.
The lightning was really scary, but the big danger was not being able to see through the rain. Still, if we couldn’t see very well, then no one could see us, either.
Actually, I take it back. I just caught a glimpse of myself in my computer’s reflection, and I am not at all sorry that the lighting is so dim. I look like a drowned rat.
Where was I? Oh, right. I said yes to the interview.
And so began five days of torment.
It wasn’t enough just to memorize the answers they wanted me to give, of course. Oh no, I couldn’t be allowed to do something that simple. I had to practice the answers, over and over, until they sounded natural, which was not easy when I had to hit every pause, every glance and smile and solemn nod, right on cue.
Then I had to practice what Tatia called the “impro trees.” If Hurfest altered the wording or sneaked in extra questions, I had to be prepared. “No comment” was all right when being accosted by reporters; it was unacceptable when I was participating in an interview I’d agreed to, because it showed I had something to hide.
I’ve already said that I’m not a good liar. All the prepared answers were technically true—I think Dawson made sure of that—but the gestures and timing and expression practice made it feel uncomfortably like lying, which meant that it took me ages to get it right. And some of Tatia’s suggestions for impro trees were downright fabrication.
“But I did eat meat,” I told her.
“My little butterfly, you cannot—oh, all right, say that yes, you did, and now you deeply regret it, all right? You understand that you were the product of a terrible Earth-hating culture.”
“Do you know what’s going on?” I demanded. “Rich nations have been dumping radioactive waste off the shores of Africa for decades, and they’re still doing it! Talk about Earth-hating.”
Tatia shook her head, looking like a disappointed cherub. “Teeg, my sweet, number one: Who cares? And number two: What is our first rule?”
“Don’t lose my temper,” I said.
“Don’t lose your temper,” she repeated, nodding at me. Her eyebrows were metallic blue today, and they flashed as she turned her computer to the next impro tree. “Now, if you’re asked about Abdi Taalib…”
I twitched.
“… bench him.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
She fluttered her tiny glittery hands at me impatiently. “Say that he’s your classmate, and you respect his musical accomplishments, but you’re not friends. The last thing we need is you being associated with a thirdie.”
“We’re not friends,” I told her.
“Less defiant, more dismissive,” she said. “As if the thought had never crossed your adorable resurrected brain.”
I rolled my eyes, and we moved on to the next possibility.
The advertising for the upcoming interview began before I’d even agreed to it, and the famers were flocking like flies to a carcass. Soren was trying to get me to go to a party. Any party. He’d sent three messages to Koko on the weekend, and on Monday he waited in the hall, catching me before I could even get to class.
“Banger at my place next Saturday,” he announced. “You’ll come, won’t you, Teeg?” Then he did a double take. “You look great!”
After a weekend of endless criticism and nitpicking, I was not feeling my best. But Tatia had wasted no time in overhauling my style, and I did look much better. My hair had been trimmed, my clothes had been replaced, and a huge array of makeup—most of which I’d managed to ignore—had been purchased for my use.
I was wearing a retro silver jumpsuit with blue highlights, and platform wedges to disguise my shocking lack of height. Tatia had tried me in heels, but after the third time I’d deliberately fallen out of them, she’d given up and gone for thick soles instead.
“Thanks,” I said, and glanced at Zaneisha, who moved forward, forcing Soren to back into the classroom. Undeterred, he followed me to my chair, where Bethari and Joph were already waiting in the seats on either side.
“It’ll be a dazzler,” he said, hitching one hip casually onto my desk. “I always supply the best stuff, don’t I, Joph?”
“I don’t supply you anymore, Soren,” Joph said. “Last time you gave my breathers to fourteen-year-olds.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The age limits aren’t just there to make parents feel good,” she said with as much bite in her voice as I’d ever heard her manage. Bethari shot her a startled look. “There are important differences in hormone loads and brain chemistry. Those boys could have gotten very sick.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“You should have. It’s on every label.”
“Will you supply me again?” he said hopefully. “You make the best.”
She pursed her lips, noticed Bethari staring, and gave him a vague smile. “Oooh, I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll come, won’t you, Teeg? Bethi and Joph, too, of course.”
I looked at Bethari, who shrugged. Soren was at least open about my fame being my main attraction. I was going to be in this world for the rest of my life; I’d better start learning how to work it.
“I’m a little busy right now,” I said, and tried a smile.
He looked hopeful. “But later?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.
Abdi came in then, and I couldn’t help the way my eyes darted to him. Soren noticed it, too.
“And Abdi,” he assured me, and called across the room, “Hey, Abdi, come to my party on Saturday.” He dropped one hand onto my shoulder. “Teeg’s coming.”
Abdi looked up and saw Soren draped all over me. Something flashed in his face before it returned to his normal polite blankness. “No. Thank you.”
Soren rolled his eyes. “Aw, come on, you can climb out of your shell for one night. We’re okay with thirdies, aren’t we, Teeg?” His hand squeezed my shoulder.
Abdi said nothing, and Soren’s voice got louder. “We’d have to hose y
ou off before you walked in, though. All that thirdie pollution might stink up the place.” His gang giggled.
“Get off me,” I snapped, and tried to shrug away from Soren’s grip.
His hand followed my motion. “Just a bit of fun, Teeg. Thirdie dirt grinds in, you know?”
“It’s not funny, Soren. Let go!”
Zaneisha was clearly wondering whether it was time to take steps, but Abdi didn’t hesitate, closing the distance between us. “Tegan said let go,” he said softly.
Soren took his hand away with exaggerated care. “Like that, is it? Makes sense. Thirdie loves freezie. Why don’t you take her home to your seventeen brothers and sisters? You can show her your mud hut and—”
Abdi was fast, but Zaneisha was much faster, deflecting the punch he aimed at Soren and trapping his arm. “Take a walk,” she suggested, her voice calm. “If you fight in here, someone could get hurt.”
He closed his eyes and nodded. Zaneisha let him go, and I shot to my feet and followed him out the door.
“Hey,” I called, but he gave no sign of hesitating. I jogged after him through the thankfully empty halls. “Don’t make me chase you down,” I said. “You know I can do it.”
Abdi stopped. “Go back to your famer friend,” he said without turning around. “He can help you with your interview.”
“That asshole is not my friend! And I’m not—you can’t think I’m doing that interview because I want to.”
He turned. “What do you want, then?”
“To tell you I think Soren’s a racist jerk and I’m never going to his parties.” I looked over my shoulder. Zaneisha was right behind me, but no one else was around. Yet. “Look, if you want to hide for a while, I know a good place.”
I took his arm, and though the muscles were rigid under my hand, he didn’t resist when I tugged him into the janitor’s closet I’d fled to on my first day. Zaneisha raised an eyebrow but stayed outside when I gave her a pleading look.
