by Lara Morgan
Were there other people after her, like he’d said? It was hard to believe but he’d sounded so certain. She wondered briefly if she’d done the right thing by running away but he could have been taking her anywhere. There were plenty of stories in the Banks about people going missing and it wasn’t always the gangs who made it happen.
She got off at her stop, feeling strange and uneasy. The Banks station had a high domed roof and doubled as an undercover market. Stalls selling everything from noodles to robots were set up in a disordered maze and the dank air held an underlying aroma of dried seaweed and fried onions.
Dim solar lights barely seemed to penetrate the unruly mass of stalls and Rosie put her hat back on and clutched her bag close as she wound her way through the crowds. Mothers dressed in long robes, heads covered, snapped at their sullen children, while rowdy Feral boys chased each other. Silent dark-eyed men crowded next to a beer stall, observing all who passed, and at a retro dealer’s, children crouched on a mat, eyes glued to a huge screen, watching the bright colours of toon-tel.
Rosie felt exposed and hoped that if Pip was following her, she’d be hard to spot in the chaos. He might get on the next shuttle, or maybe he’d try it on foot, which meant she had a bit longer. Did he know where she lived?
Outside, the sun was starting to go down, and golden afternoon light softened the grubby buildings and lean-tos; the calling of the sellers from the floating markets was loud in the still, warm air.
She turned down Market Street towards her housing block. The walkways were crowded and she was constantly pushing past people and stepping over beggars. People on bio bikes crammed the street and she could smell the salty dank scent of the river. She glanced though the window of a junk shop as she passed, checking the time on the laser display clock. It was nearing six; her dad would be home soon. At least she’d make it back before him. She stopped. What about Juli? She’d not even thought about her. Would Pip try going after her?
Surely he’d never get past the security on Juli’s estate. Still, she should find a comnet and warn her. She raced back the way she’d come, bumping into people and getting abused for her efforts. There was a public comnet just inside the south entrance of the station, near the stench-ridden corridor that led to the toilets, and she had a surge of hope when she saw no one using it. But as soon as she reached it, she discovered why. An out-of-order sign was blinking, or more like stuttering, across the cracked screen and the keypad had been ripped out. Rosie smacked the useless thing in frustration. Why the hell did people do that? It was the only one in the station and some toxic loser had to wreck it.
What to do now? Think, Rosie – where was the next -closest one? She looked around the busy station. The beer stall? She took a hesitant step towards it then stopped. The stall was run by one of the gangs – there was no way they’d let her use it for free and she had nothing to bargain with. She swore. There was only one choice: she had to get home to her own com as fast as she could.
She spun around and ran back out of the station to the street. If Pip was following, she’d just given him a bit more time to catch up. Fear made her move faster and she raced along, cutting through an alleyway.
She emerged just around the corner from her block. There were few people about, just an old man poking about in a pile of rubbish and a couple of women leaning against a wall talking. It all seemed fairly normal for her neighbourhood, but something made her slow down as she approached the crumbling concrete pillars that marked the entrance to Housing Block B. Something felt wrong. There was no one in the park in the middle of the block. Normally, there were at least a couple of kids scratching around in the dirt, but it was empty. The whole place felt watchful – like it was holding its breath. There was no music playing, no voices raised, nothing. She walked slowly to the closest block of flats, the back of her neck prickling.
Housing Block B was three oblong blocks, each ten storeys high, surrounding a central area. The bottom flats were separated by low walls, but those above, rose smoothly up – small boxy dwellings with one window that looked out either on the central area or the back alley. Rosie’s home was on the second floor.
Nervously, she walked past the row of ground floor flats to the central staircase. All the doors she passed were tightly closed – even the old woman who usually sat in her doorway staring and spitting wasn’t to be seen. Rosie licked her lips; this kind of quiet only happened if the Senate guards or the gangs had been around.
She went up the stairs, trying not to smell the stale piss embedded in the concrete. She wanted more than anything to be in her own room with the door closed. But would that be a good enough hiding place? She pushed through the door to the second floor.
Her soft-soled sandals squeaked on the bare cement. She took off her hat and unlocked the door to her flat.
There was no power. She pressed the switch twice but nothing happened. That was strange when there was light in the hallway. She dropped her bag and hat on the floor and locked the door behind her.
The blinds were drawn but there was enough light filtering through for her to see that things were not right. Dark shadowy shapes cluttered the floor and to the right of the door the cupboard that usually sat against the wall was facedown on the floor.
Someone had been in the flat. The skin on her arms rose up in goosebumps. The door had still been locked. Gangs wouldn’t do that; they would’ve busted the door.
She forced herself to move towards the kitchen, banging her legs against the sofa as she went. The three drawers under the bench had been pulled out and the few utensils they contained were scattered across the floor. Reaching over the sink, she snapped up the blind so she could see better.
Everything they owned was knocked over, pulled out and strewn across the living area. Rosie felt a lump rise in her throat. Whoever had been there had been thorough. The sofa was upside down, the small table near it broken, and the boxes of old clothes and precious keepsakes that had been in the cupboard removed, littering the floor with bits of their life. She could even see the digi album lying against the far wall, the spine split and the memory card half hanging out. She ran to her room.
All her belongings had been gone through. Her bed was shoved out from the wall at an odd angle, the sheets a tangled mess. They’d even pulled her precious picture of the Mars colony off the wall; it lay in a crumpled heap by her other pair of shoes.
She kneeled on the bed and checked the hiding place between her bed and the wall – the com was gone. In a panic Rosie began shoving things around, sifting through the mess, but she couldn’t find it anywhere. Whoever had come in here had taken it.
She sat on the bed hugging her pillow. What was she going to tell her dad? How would she explain it? She felt like crying, but stopped the tears before they could start.
She didn’t have time to sit here feeling scared; she had to contact Juli. She went back into the living area, then froze as she heard footsteps out in the corridor. It was a heavy tread, like men in boots.
Adrenaline swept through her. She launched herself across the room and grabbed her bag from where she’d left it near the door, picked up the broken digi album and ran into her dad’s bedroom.
It had been trashed as well, but she didn’t stop to look. Jumping over clothes and scattered articles, she dragged one of the two crates used as a side table to the corner near the bed, then stacked the other one on top. The boxes were flimsy but she was sure they would hold her weight.
She shoved the album into her bag and swung the pack on her back then climbed on top of the crates. They creaked and swayed but held. Her legs shaky, she reached up to the ceiling and dug her fingers into the groove between two of the panels.
All the ceilings in the housing block were made of interlocked panels of white plaswood, each about a metre wide. One panel in her dad’s room had been loosened to allow access to the cavity between the second and third floor. It was a hiding place, their escape hole. Her dad had done it. Not long after they’d
first moved in, the people next door had been broken into by the gangs. The father had been shot and the mother and two little girls raped and beaten. Rosie had seen them as the medics had taken them away; she couldn’t even recognise them. After that her dad had said he wasn’t going to let that happen to them and made a plan.
Rosie pushed hard upwards and the panel shifted, sliding back into the darkness above. The smell of damp and mice wafted from the hole. She grimaced but reached up inside anyway, feeling a wide beam of metal: the roof structure. She listened for the footsteps but there was no sound. The boots had stopped. But had they stopped outside her door?
She strained to hear over the sound of her own heartbeat and at first there was nothing, but then, faintly, she heard the stealthy scrape of metal on metal.
She thrust her head and shoulders up through the hole and pulled herself into the roof. Balancing on the wide beam, she reached down and pushed the top crate off the bottom one as hard as she could towards the bed. It toppled and bounced down onto the mattress then to the floor with a dull thump.
Rosie dragged the ceiling panel back, setting it into place as she heard the unmistakable squeak of the front door opening. Barely daring to breathe, she huddled in the darkness.
For a long moment it was quiet and she began to think she must have been mistaken but then came sounds from below. There was the deep rumble of a man’s voice, the scrape of something being moved across the floor in the living area and quite suddenly noise erupted. The front door banged, footsteps pounded over the floor and a man shouted in a voice she recognised – her dad.
“What the–” His cry was swiftly muffled and the sounds of a struggle broke out. Her dad shouted again and then something hit a wall hard. Rosie flinched and her hands slipped on the metal bar. Next came whimpering and she squeezed her eyes shut. She should try to help him, do something, but she was too scared to move. Thuds pounded the walls and her dad shouted out again, his cry abruptly cut off.
“Take him.” Rosie clearly heard a deep voice say and then a grunt and the sound of something being dragged and heavy boots going away down the hall. Up in the dark place, Rosie stared ahead shivering, clinging to the metal beam.
CHAPTER 9
Rosie didn’t know how long she’d been up there; her lower legs had gone to sleep and her knees were aching from the pressure of crouching on the metal beam. She knew she should leave, but she couldn’t make herself move. Somewhere to her right something was shuffling in the dark, a mouse or more likely a rat. Rats didn’t bother her, or cockroaches, but perhaps scorpions … Rosie jerked her mind back; she was drifting – she had to focus.
She couldn’t stay here. She was hungry and thirsty. But where could she go? She doubted the neighbours would take her in.
Juli’s? She still had the shuttle token and she had to warn her – but what would she tell her?
With effort she moved, and stifled a cry as feeling rushed back into her legs. She massaged her calves until the tingling subsided, then pushed her fingernails under the panel and levered it up. The room was dark and quiet. A faint glow of pale blue light from the kitchen window showed in a wedge shape on the floor near the door. That meant the streetlights were on.
Rosie made out the shadow of the one crate below. She was going to have to jump down onto it. She dropped her pack through the gap, then lowered herself down as far as she could, and let go. She hit the corner of the crate. It tipped and she fell to the floor, her shins whacking against the bed frame. She bit her lip trying to stifle her cry and lay there for a second, furious at the pain, before she got to her feet. She picked up her bag and looked out into the living area. The mess was still there and the front door was open.
Who had taken her dad? Was he still alive? Don’t think about it. Rosie felt as though there was a hand around her throat. She crept towards the open door. The light was on in the hall; a dirty yellow glow. She put a hand on the wall then stopped. There was a smear of something on the doorframe. Fingerprints. Blood. Something snapped inside her and, without thinking, she ran out into the hallway towards the stairs.
Panic filled her, but then her brain kicked back in and she stopped a few steps down. What was she going to do – fight them? Her dad hadn’t been able to.
What if the men were waiting for her at the bottom? She stood, indecisive, taut with fear. Then she remembered the fire-escape. She ran back. She climbed up on the sink and unlatched the window with shaking hands. There was the ladder: a thin frame of steel, leading down to the alley. Rosie swung out and began climbing down. Below, the alley was empty but for a stack of rubbish against the wall that surrounded the housing block.
Around and above her small squares of light showed most people were at home, but she knew she couldn’t count on anyone helping her.
The metal felt greasy and something buzzed around her head as she reached the alley and jumped to the ground. One of the streetlights on the wall buzzed then went out, plunging her end of the alley into darkness. She clutched at the bottom of the ladder, trembling. Rosie hated the dark. It meant danger, the unknown, death. She pressed her face against her hand, willing herself to calm down. Her fear was threatening to swallow her.
High above, the thumping sound of a helijet came from the direction of Central. A bright searchlight swept across the clouded night sky. Like a white wing of light, it arced across the Banks, the helijet invisible behind it.
Rosie turned her face to it, the light steadying her somehow. Pull it together, Rosie. She forced herself forward and, keeping close to the wall, crept towards the mouth of the alley. Further along, the heap of rubbish, twice her height, half blocked the way out. As she got near, she heard a dull scraping sound come from the other side and a long shadow stretched towards her.
She stopped, frozen against the damp grime of the wall.
“Rosie?” It was Pip. He came around the stack of rubbish towards her, his hands up as if she might attack him. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”
He’d lost his headscarf and his dreadlocks were a mass about his head. The whites of his eyes seemed bright in the darkness. “You all right? I saw ’em go into your flat – thought they might’ve got you but …” He stretched a hand towards her.
“What’re you doing here?” She flinched back, her heart racing.
“You skipped out on me, remember? I was following you for my boss.” He checked over his shoulder. “Probably a good thing too. Come on, we shouldn’t hang around here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Rosie took a step away.
“Well, where else are you gonna go – your friend’s place?” His tone was derisive. “You think they don’t already know where she lives?”
“You seem to know a lot.” Rosie could hardly believe he had turned up here so conveniently, ready to help her. She watched him warily and said, “How do I know you’re not working with them?”
“If I was, don’t you think I’d have knocked you out or something by now? I wouldn’t be offering to help you, would I?”
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?”
He ran a hand over his dreadlocks and said slowly, “Rosie, you’ve got no choice. Just come with me. The boss won’t hurt you; he just wants to talk. Where else have you got to go?”
“You just want to get paid,” she said.
“Sure, whatever you say.” Pip sighed. “Let’s just get going.”
Rosie was filled with indecision. She didn’t know if she could trust him, but he was right. She had no idea where to go. Aunt Essie wasn’t due back until tomorrow and she didn’t want to sleep on the street. And perhaps this boss guy knew something about what was happening and who had her dad.
“All right,” she said quietly, “I’ll come with you, but I need a comnet.”
“What for? Those men who took your dad could trace it. All the public ones are linked.”
“Maybe not all of them.” His superior tone annoyed her and she wasn’t going to give up on trying to contact Juli just be
cause he said so.
“Fine. The boss probably has one you can use. Just come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Are we taking a shuttle?”
“Yeah, right. How easy do you think it would be to spot you on one of those?”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? She bit back the smart reply that sprang to her lips. She suddenly felt very tired and despite the humid warmth of the evening, a shiver ran through her.
Pip jerked his head towards the mouth of the alley. “Coming then?”
Rosie nodded. He turned away and she followed.
The central park of the housing block was empty and they jogged silently across it and headed towards the riverfront through the maze of housing blocks and shops. They emerged in the street that ran between the markets and the jetties. It was chaotic with night-time trade. Bars were open and people wandered in noisy groups from one to another. Neon holo signs, surrounded by insects, lit up the night.
“This way.” Pip stepped out into the crowds, walking fast towards the jetties.
Rosie followed, bumping into people as she tried to keep up. A man dressed in an overcoat and stinking of stale beer spat on the pavement near her, and she lost sight of Pip when a group of young men cut across her path, staring at her with leering eyes. “Slow down,” she called.
Pip stopped and waited for her. “Hurry up, will you?” he said as she caught up. “We can’t hang around here.”
“I’m trying.” She spoke through gritted teeth.
“Try harder.” Pip glanced over her shoulder. “The men who took your dad could be around here somewhere and if they see you, they’re not going to play nice.” His blue eyes were dark and Rosie was chilled by the look in them. He knew something.
“Who are they?” she said. “Are they Senate?”
