I looked up and there, heading towards us, were more and more Unit Officers. Their faces were hidden under full helmets, their bodies covered in padded armor. Riot Officers. My whole body pounded in fear. This isn’t right, this isn’t right, I kept thinking.
They shoved at us and yelled, Line up, line up, but people got scared and confused, which made the officers even more frustrated, until they were almost picking people up and putting them into place. There was a lot of shouting and people fell over each other and cried out.
‘Fascist pigs,’ Lizzie spat at an officer who hit her, hard, with a baton. She fell down and officers surrounded her and I had to keep hold of Mila to stop her going in there.
When the officers cleared, Lizzie was nowhere to be seen and Mila started screaming her name and I thought, What have I done? I shouldn’t have let them come. It was getting out of hand.
Somehow, among all the shoving and shouting, Mila and Z stayed with me. They each took one of my hands and we held on tight. We were all crushed up together and the heat was suffocating.
The officers walked up and down the line, telling everyone to have their IDs ready. Mila was helping me with my backpack when I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. Hard. It was an officer. I couldn’t see his face, only my distorted reflection in his visor. I looked like a ghost. He pulled me out of the line and dragged me, roughly, away from the crowd. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I could hear Mila and Z behind me, calling my name. Asking the officer, Wait, wait, sir, please wait.
I twisted around to try to reason with him. I wasn’t going to miss this chance to get home. Not because of some idiot officer on a power trip. I kicked. I tried to squirm out of his grip. The officer just shook his head and continued to drag me further and further from the Checkpoint.
‘Stop!’ I said, my voice finally coming back to me. ‘I want to go home.’
He pushed me into the grounds of the university and I could feel my body fizzing. ‘Why are you doing this?’
I was probably causing a scene and being too emotional and pissing him off. All those things Mum always warned me about. But I didn’t care. And I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to pull his stupid helmet off his stupid head and kick him in the balls and stomp on his toes.
‘Santee,’ the officer said quietly.
Everything stopped.
‘Get out of here. Now,’ he said, and lifted his visor so I could see what I already knew.
It was Peter.
I almost screamed his name but he quickly returned to officer stance, tall and rigid and so unlike the Peter I’d grown up with. ‘You can’t be here,’ he said.
‘I have to –’ I tried to explain, but he wouldn’t let me finish.
‘Go,’ he said, and shoved me. It wasn’t hard, but it caught me by surprise.
‘What the hell?’ I shouted. That was not the Peter I knew and loved like a brother.
‘Piss off,’ he hissed, and turned his back on me like I didn’t exist. Maybe I didn’t to him. Not anymore. I went to shove him back cos I didn’t give a shit about his stupid uniform and his stupid job but Z and Mila gently pulled me away.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Z whispered.
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to get back to the Checkpoint. Rejoin the queue. I had to. It was my only way home. And I was about to run back there, away from Z and Mila, when I saw them. The Unit. They were marching away from the Checkpoint, heading towards us. I panicked. Had they heard me shouting at Peter? Had they come to arrest me? Surely that wouldn’t take so many officers. They had all moved away from the wall and onto the lawns of the university where they gathered in groups, hands on guns as if waiting for something. All their attention was focused on the queue.
I wanted to think this meant the Checkpoint was about to open. That they’d done their job, created the queue and now we’d be allowed to pass through. Orderly. Neat. The way they liked it. But it didn’t feel right.
‘Something’s wrong,’ Mila said.
I was going to say, Yeah, or, Time to go, or something like that. But I never got to say anything.
There was a dull thud.
A sound I couldn’t quite place. Flat. Crack. Boom. The ground slipped out from under our feet. And then the smoke appeared. White and howling and filling up everything.
A bomb. In the crowd. Right near the Checkpoint.
The world turned into static. I could taste it, see it in the black spots that rippled in my eyes. I blinked and blinked. My whole body thumped. Time stood still and the earth jolted on its axis and I forgot how to move, how to breathe, and there was nothing but the humming of the static and I wanted to close my eyes and never open them again.
The static gave way to the screams and cries. Human but not human. The kind of sound that pierces the spine and hurts your bones and sits inside your skull echoing on and on forever. You can never forget that sound. Terror and pain all mangled together into one cry. And it grew louder and louder as the smoke billowed across the city.
There were people there, under that smoke. People we had just been waiting with, talking with, getting excited with. Lizzie. Children. Families. Grandparents. People who had only wanted to go home. People like me. I needed to get to them. To help. But the Unit moved in before I had a chance to get anywhere. They cut off the screams and the smoke with their sirens and lights. There was no way to get past them to the people who needed us, the people crying out for help.
Peter was gone. I remembered Astrid’s words to him: You have a choice. He’d chosen to save me from what he must have known was about to happen. But he had also chosen to hurt all of those others. He was part of it.
Z and Mila were by my side, but we couldn’t speak. It was as if my throat had closed over and my brain had turned to mush. And then we were walking, somehow, and I felt heavy and so, so tired as we walked through the university and back through the city and away from all the noise and screams and smoke. It all slowly faded away behind us, as if it hadn’t happened at all. A kid rode her bike up and down the footpath. A man walked a tiny fluffball of a dog and said good girl, good girl as they trotted past. A couple in big floppy hats were pulling out weeds from their lawn. Two women laughed in the entrance to their apartment.
I wanted to spit in their faces. I wanted to tell them to wake up. What the hell is wrong with you? Shake them. Slap them. The world was breaking in two and they were all being so … normal.
But I said nothing. None of us did. We just kept walking. I concentrated on staying upright and putting one foot in front of the other, cos if I fell down I wasn’t sure I’d ever get up again. Or want to. The sounds of their screams clung to our bodies. The smoke stained our eyes.
Diggs was waiting for us outside the apartment. When he saw us he didn’t say, I told you so. He didn’t say anything at all. He just hugged us. Even me.
None of us could speak. And Diggs didn’t make us. He fussed around. Got us water and sat us down and offered to make us something to eat, but eating seemed pointless. Everything seemed pointless. He kept touching Mila’s head like he couldn’t believe she was still there and he held Z’s hand and I wanted my mum to touch my hair and hold my hand and tell me everything would be OK.
‘Bloody hell, you lot.’ A woman rushed into the apartment, dropped her bags and pulled Mila and Z into a massive embrace. ‘You gave me a heart attack.’
She was a hurricane swirling between them, crying, then telling them off, then hugging them, then crying again. It was their neighbour. I thought of my neighbours back home. I wondered what rumours they were whispering to each other about where I was and what I was up to. I couldn’t imagine them caring like this about me or anyone.
‘Darling girl,’ the woman said, and cupped my face in her hands. ‘I’m Pip. And you gave me a bloody heart attack, you know that, don’t you?’ She pulled me into her arms. She smelled like soap and lavender.
‘Is she your grandma?’ I whispered to Z and he gave me an almost smile and shook his head
.
‘I am not anyone’s Grandma,’ Pip said. ‘No thank you.’
And she hurried off to the kitchen to put some food together because she was having none of this not-eating business (her words, not mine).
That evening, the News reported the bomb as a Threat attack. They said, This is why we need the Safety Border. They said, It could have been a lot worse.
‘This last-ditch attempt by the Threats to destabilize our security was swiftly controlled by the Unit,’ the News anchor said. The footage showed the smoke, which didn’t look as bad on TV as it did in real life. ‘The Checkpoint operations were considered widely successful, with families now reunited.’ And here the footage switched to smiling families embracing by the wall.
‘I reckon that’s about enough for one day,’ Diggs said, and turned off the television. If he hadn’t, I might have kicked the screen in.
Mila had fallen asleep on the sofa. She hardly stirred as Diggs scooped her up and carried her out of the room. My dad had done that. I used to pretend to fall asleep in the car just so he’d have to carry me inside and tuck me into bed. My eyes filled with tears and I tried to blink them away.
‘Hey,’ Z said gently, and pulled me into a half hug as we sat on the couch. I curled into him.
‘How can Peter work for those bastards?’ It was the first thing I’d said in hours.
‘What?’
‘He knew, he knew that was about to happen and he just let it …’ I’d been trying so hard not to cry, but up it came in huge sobs that ripped through my chest.
Z didn’t know what to do. He was saying something but I was crying hard and I couldn’t hear him and in the end he just held me. And maybe that was better than saying anything at all. We stayed like that until Diggs’s voice, more quiet and gentle than I’d ever heard him before, broke into our little world.
‘Santee?’ Diggs said. ‘Who’s Peter?’
And somehow I managed to find the words and not cry, too much, as I explained how Peter had found me and dragged me out of that queue. And how the Unit had all retreated at the same time and watched, from a safe distance, as the bomb went off.
‘I’m sorry, Diggs. We shouldn’t have gone. I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What if Peter hadn’t –’
‘But he did. Don’t start that what-if game, Santee. You’ll never get anywhere playing that one. Believe me,’ he said.
That night, in the bed that wasn’t really my bed, I tried to imagine the clouds gently rolling by. I tried to count from one to ten, slowly, slowly. Calm down, I imagined Beth saying. Calm. But Beth’s clouds kept turning into smoke and screams and explosions. And the tears wouldn’t stop sliding, hot and silent, down my face.
‘I just wanted to check on you,’ Z whispered from the doorway. ‘Can I come in?’
He lay behind me, his body against my back. His arm reaching out across my chest, his hand holding onto mine. His heart beating into my spine. And I thought about how I shouldn’t feel like this right now. Everything was so wrong and confusing, but I wanted him to be there. To feel his arm around me, his breath on the back of my neck, a constant reminder that we were alive.
CHAPTER 20
The network was back. Sort of. Heaps of websites now only displayed ERROR! messages. And those sites where people with more friends than me had shown off photos labelled BEST WEEKEND EVER or commented about how awesome or awful their day/lunch/coffee/best friend was didn’t exist anymore. All that stuff had vanished into blank nothingness. Our phones let messages through and our emails worked but I got nothing from Mum or Astrid and had no idea if they were getting my messages or if some creep in one of the Security Offices was reading and blocking everything I wrote.
Varick didn’t even pretend shit like that wasn’t happening. He actually announced heavy surveillance of all communications (his words, not mine) as part of his Security and Safety Plan.
‘If you’ve got nothing to hide, I can assure you that you haven’t got anything to worry about. This is in the best interest of all Good Citizens,’ he said, and everyone around him nodded. Everyone always agreed with Magnus Varick.
Z got a heap of text messages because he was Z and he actually had friends who wanted to hang out, as if this was a carefree summer break and not the hell we’d somehow landed in. Diggs had gone back to work but had been pretty adamant that we get outside and get some fresh air. Since the bomb, I hadn’t wanted to leave the house. None of us had. It had been two days of not being able to get out of bed and staying wrapped up in the doona with the air-con on full blast and, even when the network came back to life, it was hard to get enthusiastic about anything.
‘We’re going to play soccer with the guys,’ Z said, throwing me a pair of sneakers that were definitely not going to fit me.
I didn’t want to go, but Mila did, and I hadn’t seen her want to do anything lately – not even play her violin – so I agreed. We would play soccer with Z’s friends and pretend that the world wasn’t falling apart.
Riley and Imara were already there, kicking the ball back and forth between them. They looked happy to see us, even me.
‘Are you OK?’ Imara said, and it sounded like she actually cared, which was something I wasn’t really used to from the people at my school.
We told them a bit about what happened. Well, Z and Mila did. I stood back and listened.
‘Heavy, guys, that’s so heavy,’ Riley said.
Dickhead, I thought, but nodded and said, Yeah, it was, cos what was I going to do? Tell him he had no freaking clue and heavy didn’t even begin to describe what we’d seen at the Checkpoint, let alone before that?
It felt good to run around and kick the ball. Somehow I managed to push aside the images that were keeping me up every night and the pain in my gut from missing Mum and Astrid and just focus on the soccer ball and running. Two things I could actually understand when nothing else was really making sense.
When I was a kid, Dad set up soccer goals in our shitty courtyard and we’d have these penalty shoot-outs, me and Astrid and Peter. It would get pretty competitive and usually ended in a fight. Dad would play with some of our neighbours. I’d hear them out there on warm nights, kicking the ball around and laughing and I’d sneak out to watch from the balcony. Dad was always the best at it. And I’m not saying that just cos he was my dad. It was true. Even Peter had said that.
Peter. The thought of him, yelling at me, shoving me, watching all those people …
The soccer ball hit the side of my head.
‘Wake up,’ Riley yelled, laughing, and Z jogged over in his awkward way to see if I was all right. I brushed him off and sat out for a bit, next to Imara and Bas, who were having some deep and meaningful conversation that quickly turned to silence.
‘Sorry,’ I said, and turned to go.
And that’s when I saw the Unit Officers. There were maybe ten of them, sweeping the park and approaching random people for an ID check. It looked so familiar that for a moment it was as if I were back on my side of the city.
‘What’s that about?’ Imara said.
‘ID checks,’ I said.
‘Oh, are they doing that now?’ Bas said. ‘Have you got yours?’
‘Maybe?’ Imara said. ‘Never had to worry about it before.’
Of course she hadn’t. They had no idea, the people who lived over here. I always had my ID on me. Anyone from my side did cos you never knew when you’d be asked for it, and not having it was not an option.
Not far from where we were hanging out, a man was arguing with the Unit. ‘I’ve got my ID, look,’ he shouted. ‘Look.’ And he waved his plastic card around.
‘Wrong ID,’ the officer said.
‘What?’ the man was still shouting.
‘You are currently in Region One,’ the officer said calmly. ‘But your address is in Region Two. This means you are now in direct violation of Sections 28B and 28C of the Movement Act. You haven’t registered, so we have no choice but to take you to the Processing Centre.’
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‘The what?’
The man’s friends started to argue too. They tried to explain there had been a misunderstanding and the man was a good guy and they would register him now, right now. But the Unit had already handcuffed him and were dragging him out of the park.
It felt as if everyone was looking at me, as if they all knew I didn’t belong there, that the address on my ID was wrong. I felt sick. I was going to end up in a Processing Centre, whatever that was. I didn’t want to find out.
‘I’m not feeling well,’ I told Imara and Bas. ‘Can you let them know I’ve headed back?’
I started walking towards the Drivers’ apartment and tried to ignore the panic washing over me.
‘Santee! Wait! Santee!’ Mila rushed up behind me.
‘I’m not feeling well –’
‘They took that man,’ she said. She never missed a thing. ‘Did you see? Did hear what they said?’
I nodded.
‘Dad will know what to do,’ she said as she put her arm around my waist, and we walked like that, together, to the apartment.
I was really freaking out. Mila rang Diggs as soon as we got inside and he said, Leave it with me, which was kinda ominous. I didn’t want to wait for him to come home. I wanted to know what I was supposed to do if the Unit burst through the door, right then, and demanded my ID. Every second I waited felt like a second closer to being sent to the Processing Centre. Mila played her violin to calm me down and Z told me terrible jokes and held my hand and said it would all be fine but it wasn’t until Diggs came home and I saw the look on his face that I could actually exhale.
He’d spoken to someone at work who’d spoken to someone who had a connection with someone else and it had been sorted (his words, not mine).
‘What does that mean?’ Mila asked, eyeing her dad suspiciously.
‘I spoke to someone high up at the Citizens Office, told them Santee was like a daughter to me, and we wanted to help her out,’ he said.
A daughter to him? Did he really think that? I mean, part of me liked that he thought of me that way but I also felt this pang of guilt, cos I was someone’s actual daughter and I missed my mum so much.
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