by Terry Tyler
I'm shaking.
Out in the café, I say to Aileen, "Let's go mad and have cakes, shall we?"
She insists on passing me her com to pay for them, given that half my wages has been lost in demerits this month. I approach the counter, where I stare blankly at the chilled cabinet.
"The carrot cake's particularly lush today, if you're having a hard time making up your mind," says the chap behind the counter. Young, Asian, hair in a Viking plait with the sides of his head shaved. Ear tunnel in each ear. I haven't seen him before. "Or the passionfruit cheesecake. That's my favourite."
I smile. "I'll have one of each, then. Separate plates." As he's sliding two slices out, I say, "I like that picture in the toilet. The little painting on the wall."
He glances up at me. "Cute, isn't it?"
"Your own work?"
"Friend of mine."
I take a deep breath. "Mole … net."
That makes him freeze for a moment, but he doesn't say anything; he just leans in closer, putting the plates on the counter.
I keep my voice low. "My name's Tara. Used to work in Nerve; I was known as Darcie. Do you hang out there, ever?"
We meet eyes, and he nods. "Now and again."
"You might know my friend Cosmo, he practically lived there. And Milo, who ran it up until the end of last year?"
"I know Milo." He lowers his voice.
"I used to come in here with my boyfriend. Ned. He worked as a driver for Roof. I don't think I've seen you here before."
"I haven't been here long. Used to work in Blue Monday. Got fed up with the noise."
Ah. Blue Monday is a club. Used to be run by a woman called Siri. "That was how I felt about Nerve. Does Siri still run Blue Monday?"
"No." He leans in closer still. "I haven't seen her since last autumn. Or Milo, now I think about it."
"Nor me. Nor Ned."
"I'm sorry."
I hand him Aileen's com to swipe for the cakes, and as he hands it back, he says, "I'm Kushal. Kush."
So far so could-be-perfectly-innocent. Do I risk it, or not? Is he waiting for me to take the next step?
I look around; aside from Aileen and me, only one of the eight tables is occupied, by a couple of teenage girls. I say, "Milo told me about Molenet."
We meet eyes once more, and he nods, as if to say, yes, it's okay, go ahead.
Could he be a bug? Fuck it. Nothing ventured. "Is Link still alive?"
"Yes. Just smaller."
"Within Roof?"
He shakes his head. "There's only one courier in MC12 now. Greenland Freezer Foods."
The door opens and four people walk in; three young guys, one woman. Early twenties. Kush gives me a little shake of the head. I take the cakes back to our table.
Aileen says, "He's a bit of alright, isn't he? Are you in there?"
I want to tell her the truth, but something warns me to keep quiet. If Aileen knows who Kush is, she may want to see if he can help her find Leah. Not that I'd mind or blame her for a moment, but I feel like my safety could unravel with the tiniest gust of wind, and I'm scared she'd be thinking with her emotions and do something that could get us into trouble.
I'll wait a while.
I smile at her and dig into my carrot cake. "I wouldn't mind; he's gorgeous, isn't he?"
I have a new Link contact. Today is a great day.
I go to see Kush on my own, and he tells me about a video he saw last November, made by the famous Xav—and I learn the horrific reason for the disappearance of the wastelanders.
"Xav and Jago watched it take place—some of the wastelanders were taken away in trucks, and others were locked in a hut." He shuts his eyes for a moment, and touches his hand to his chest. "A few minutes later, they started taking out dead bodies."
I gasp. "What, like a gas chamber?"
"Yep. Xav put the vid on some dark sites and it lasted for a couple of weeks before it disappeared. People were scared to pass it on in case it got them or the person they were sending it to into trouble, so although there are a fair few who've seen it, there's also a lot of scepticism; people say, 'oh yeah, the video that everyone has seen but no one can actually produce', like it's an urban myth."
"Does he know what happened to the ones who got taken away in trucks?"
"No." He pauses. "You're thinking about Ned."
"Yeah." And I tell him about my visit from Michael Goodman, National Security.
Kush frowns at this. "I'm so sorry. I'm afraid that when a guy like that says, 'You won't see them again', you need to believe it."
"Do you think he's dead?"
He shakes his head sadly. "I don't know the answer to that, Tara."
"Might Xav know more?"
"It's possible."
"D'you know where he is now?"
"He's in an indie off-grid, but he's not saying which one, or he might go from one to another. But he's still out there."
And at least he's still in the country.
"And what about Molenet? What's it used for?"
Kush stirs his half-drunk coffee. "Not a great deal yet, but it operates across Europe, and it means that if anyone wants to get out, they still can." He grins at me. "They thought they'd shut us down, but they haven't. We're still here."
Out of the blue, I hear from Zia, saying she's ready to talk, if I want to.
About thirteen years too late. I message back and say I'm a bit busy now, but I'll be in touch.
She writes, Make it soon—there's so much I need to say to you. I know it's a sensitive subject, but I do miss you, and my therapist says it would be a positive move for my emotional well-being if we reconnect.
Well, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I needed to talk to someone back when I was a kid, just sixteen, and there was nobody.
I know this is harsh, but she never gets in touch just to see how I am. Now she's got the go ahead from her therapist, though, and Zia always does as she's told.
I say, I'll let you know when I've got some time.
She replies, Great stuff! Hope you and Ned are okay. Xx
She doesn't even know about Ned. I know what she's going to tell me, anyway: yes, she too was abused by the man who was supposed to be taking care of us, who cleverly waited until we were sixteen so it wasn't actually illegal and he could play the 'consensual' card if he was ever caught.
If only she had talked to me way back then, when I needed her to, our relationship would have been so different. Just thinking about this brings back all the irrational shame I felt. Like I was dirty and somehow at fault. And I had to go through it on my own.
I can't be bothered with her. Her therapist can deal with it.
Chapter 22
Aileen
August 2062
The date is the 10th of August. Today, my daughter is sixteen. Today, she can legally insist on being given my contact details.
I'm not holding my breath.
Unlike three years ago, I am not taking the day off to wait for her call. I'm doing a ten-hour shift. Seven until seven. I'm not allowed to have my com on me while I'm working, but have left a message on there, just in case she calls, to let her know.
Tara is working with me for part of today; we take Rhea, Karena, Emily and Sapphire for a lunchtime picnic in the grounds. It's a good distraction. I notice that Tara keeps giving me concerned looks; from anyone else it would annoy me, but I am truly grateful for her friendship. Cheryl and Marc remain friends but, you know, life moves on, and I no longer go on the Heart2Heart forums because they make me obsess and despair. I am filled with boundless gratitude for the help all those users gave me, and have told them so, but explained that I need to stop my entire life revolving around the loss of my daughter. Most understood, but a couple were quite nasty, and accused me of being shallow. One even said that Leah was better off without me, if I could shrug her off this easily.
I wanted to say, if I stay here I might become like you. That's why I'm leaving.
Tara knows that if I want to talk about
Leah today, I will. I don't think I do.
It's odd that she and I have become so close; we're not alike, at all. Pathetically, I feel almost honoured that she wants my friendship. Aside from the fact that she's years younger than me, she's the sort of woman of whom I would have been in awe when I was her age. Cool, 'street smart', and all the rest of it, but she's not like she looks, if that makes sense. She's deeply scarred, like me—I guess that's where we meet emotionally. Except that she's strong, and I feel like a big mushy thing a lot of the time. She says I'm strong, too. I don't feel it, but she says she doesn't, either. Perhaps 'strong' is just a façade we present to the world.
Bad day.
It doesn't go away. It never goes away.
Today is the 12th of August. Leah has not been in touch. I suppose that's that, then. I have one last avenue of hope—the Link network. I just want to see her. Talk to her.
My daughter has now been sixteen for a whole week, and while we're having breakfast in the restaurant, I take the plunge and ask Tara if there is any way via Link that I could find out where she is.
If only I could be assured that she's safe, happy, all the rest of it.
That she isn't involved with that Clinton Bettencourt scheme.
That's something I can hardly bear to think about, not now that I know all about him.
Tara stirs her muesli round and round and says, "I do know a guy … I could find out."
She doesn't sound too sure. "Were you hoping I wouldn't ask?"
"Yeah." She smiles. "But I don't mind."
"I'm intrigued—who is it?"
"I can't say. You know. Like Ned told me when I asked about stuff."
"Link's 'need-to-know bubble'?" We both laugh at that.
She pours more coffee for both of us. "I'm off on Sunday—I'll go have a word with him then."
Today is Thursday. Three days. "You sure you're okay with this?"
She nods. "Yes, but, like I said before—"
"Don't build my hopes up."
"That's right."
My mood is elevated by this conversation, which immediately rings alarm bells. So many, many times over the years something has given me hope and I've allowed it to cheer me, only to be pulled back down when nothing changes.
I can't go on like this. If not for NPU, I might have met someone else, married again, had more children. But I still have a choice. I can live in anguish, or I can just live.
I'm forty-five, single, and work at a live-in E grade job. Not how I would have seen myself at this age, two decades ago. I say all this to Tara, lovely Tara who is only twenty-nine and doesn't know what it is to be five years off fifty and wonder what the hell you've done with your life.
"Forty-five, whatever," she says. "You still look good, and that's not just me trying to buck you up; you do. I mean, what the fuck and who gives a shit? You've got years left, years and years."
It's good to have a real friend.
Chapter 23
Tara
August 22nd, 2062
I asked Kush if he knew of someone Link-friendly in any NPU Teens in any megacity, but he doesn't; he said that, as far as he knows, it's impenetrable.
"I think they're in the gated communities, and we've never had access to them."
I hate having to tell Aileen this. I know she had a hard time in the days following Leah's sixteenth birthday. Poor thing. I also know that Leah is why she is so good at our job, better than me. Last week she got a one-point demerit for giving Rhea Davis advice about boys; it was just a light-hearted girly chat, but Rhea mentioned stuff she'd said in Needle Fiend's hearing, and of course it got reported. When she came back from Whittle's office, she was in tears.
"I couldn't believe it. She said, you're to treat these girls as clients, not substitutes for the daughter you abandoned. If you need to work through your guilt, get a therapist."
What a cow!
Yesterday I played Scrabble on one of the game tables in the day room, with Aileen, Karena and Sapphire; Sapphire is in here for attempting suicide after being bullied at school.
Her father has a low-grade government job that only just qualifies him for a place in a gated community, and he can't afford to buy her absolutely every new item of clothing as soon as it's trending, so the vipers made her a target. At a party, they put something undetectable into her drink (she thinks; she can't remember anything after the first one), and she was gang-banged by three boys, who recorded it, made some nifty alterations that made her look as if she was loving it, and sent it to the whole school. If this was a fair world those three rapists and the vile bitches who made it happen would have been prosecuted, but they had super-rich fathers whose lawyers painted her as a sorry little slapper who volunteered for group sex then screamed rape when everyone laughed at her.
The rich are different, as Clinton Bettencourt once told me.
Now her poor parents are scrimping to keep her in Aubrey House, whereas if there was any fucking justice in this world she'd have seen her abusers banged up, and be able to get on with her life. At least she's got some good friends here, who understand.
We had a fun afternoon, and it was good to see both Sapphire and Karena smiling and relaxed. I amused them by tapping rude words onto the table screen (when you've got the letters L, L, O, O, B, C and K, and there's an S sticking out, it's got to be done), but when the board flashed a red 'inappropriate word choice' warning, Karena panicked.
You get a green warning for words like 'cow' and 'bitch', that could be construed as insults in this place, and an amber one for 'breast' or 'erect', etc., that have sexual connotations. Whoever decided all this must have a particularly warped mind.
Never had a red one before, though. I was proud of myself.
Karena whispered, "Take it back! You'll get in trouble!"
I laughed, thinking she was just being paranoid. I was just about to go off shift when I received a message that Dawn Whittle wanted to see me. I walked up the stairs to her top-floor office rather than take the lift, to give myself time to compose appropriate retorts.
"You again," she said, shooting ice cold daggers at me across her desk, as soon as I walked in.
"Yup, me again." I allowed my lips to curve into a smile.
Her cheeks flushed red with anger. "Using inappropriate language when playing games with vulnerable clients is a serious matter. Consider this your first official warning; two more, and we terminate your employment. Your actions have earned you a three-point employment ethics demerit, and the appropriate funds have been debited from your account."
What? "Three points? For a Scrabble word? I thought a three-pointer was for violence, or stealing—something that matters. Karena and Sapphire thought it was funny."
"That's what you think, is it? Karena was highly distressed by the incident."
"No, she wasn't. She panicked about me getting into trouble, but that was all."
She sniffed. "She is, at this very moment, in the nurses' station, receiving medication to calm her down after witnessing vile language from a carer in whom she has placed her trust."
"Bullshit. You made that up. I was with her only ten minutes ago and she was fine; she told me how much she'd enjoyed the game."
Bad move. She spoke into her com, eyes gleaming. "Polly, please administer a further three-point employment ethics demerit for Tara Jackson. Reason: Accusing a senior member of staff of deliberate misrepresentation of facts, and using bad language while doing so. I authorise the debit of the appropriate funds from her account."
I didn't dare react any further.
"Can I go now?"
She smiled, almost pleasantly. "Close the door on your way out."
So now I don't think I can actually afford to eat properly for the next month. Six points is half my pay. I'm not telling Aileen—a) she'll want to help out and I don't like being beholden to people, b) there's no reason why she should go without to make up for my actions, and c) if her com shows that she's been buying more food than usual Whittle
will know why, and will mark her down for negative social interaction.
Jesus, this fucking place. The megacity in general, I mean. This isn't living. It's creeping around, scared of uttering a forbidden word, working hard for shit pay, and if you don't like it, you know where the road to Hope Village is.
I feel like screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming.
Chapter 24
Radar
May ~ August 2062
In May, Jerome Bettencourt visited the barracks in MC5, and summoned Radar for a meeting.
As ever, Radar feared the worst.
"Don't worry, it's nothing bad," Jerome said. "I'm just curious; I was streaming the iSyncs from your last outing, and I couldn't help wondering. That girl, the one you felt bad about sending to Hut K—what was it about her?"
Radar felt sweat pricking at his skin, all over. Like he'd been caught out doing something he shouldn't. "W-What do you mean?"
"The girl. The one you kept looking at." He noted Radar's bemused expression, laughed, and tapped his eyebrow with his finger. "Your iSync. If necessary, I can see what you're seeing."
Eh? "I didn't know that." Fuck. If they could see what he saw via his iSync, and know via his NuSens how his body reacted to it, they were only one step away from actually being able to read his mind. "I thought it was private. Like, just for us."
"Oh, it will be; once the Hope Village streamlining is complete, you'll have the same rights over your personal data as any other megacity resident."
If he'd known iSync wasn't private, he'd never have agreed to it. Thinking back to when it was inserted, his thumbprint had been required under a big load of writing on a screen. When he started to read it, the technician told him it was just the usual official mumbo jumbo. Those were her exact words. But she'd lied. No, not lied, exactly. Just persuaded him not to find out.
"So, anyway, what was it about that girl?"
