GLAZE

by Kim Curran

  He drags the wheels free of the stand. The light on the front has been smashed and the front guard looks bent.

  Ryan notices me looking at it. ‘Yeah, Dave Carlton gave it the once over.’

  ‘Why?’ I say. Dave Carlton makes a thing of kicking in the new bikes. But I never thought he’d touch Ryan’s.

  ‘He was bored, I guess. But it still rides sweet.’ He throws his leg over the bar and stands with a foot on the ground and one on the pedal. ‘Get on.’

  A backy? With Ryan McManus? I don’t know what to do with myself.

  I reach into my pocket for the crumpled paper with Ethan’s address. I stroke the torn edge of the paper with my thumb. It feels like a feather. It will have to wait.

  I clamber onto the saddle and try to work out what to do with my arms and feet when Ryan pushes off. I start wobbling and nearly slide off.

  ‘Hold on,’ he says.

  With only a little reluctance, I wrap my arms around Ryan McManus’s waist.

  8

  CAFÉS AND BOUTIQUES FADE away to be replaced by dull concrete buildings. Ryan mounts the pavement, the bump sending a shock through my tail-bone, and speeds down an alleyway and past a primary school. Poster-paint pictures of monsters cover the windows.

  We’re getting increasingly close to a looming wall. It’s 30-feet high, covered in razor wire and bristling with things that look like microphones. A fading red sign on the wall announces we’ve reached Ivy Towers. Next to the welcome sign is a large, orange warning that declares this area to be a ‘no assistance zone’. A speaker barks out a muffled announcement saying the same thing, in case the NAZ sign wasn’t clear enough. It means if we get in trouble here, the police won’t be coming to help.

  He pulls the bike to a halt in front of a distressed metal door in the wall. ‘We’re here,’ he says, unnecessarily.

  My school skirt catches on the mudguard as I struggle to get off the bike. Once I’m back on ground I pull it back down and hope no one saw my strawberry-print knickers.

  ‘Er, Ryan,’ I say, looking up to re-read the sign to be sure it really says what I thought it says. It really does.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Ryan says. ‘I come here all the time. Never had trouble before.’

  Next to the door, there’s a small flat screen. It’s covered in scratches, burns and graffiti but it still works. Ryan lays his hand against it, then punches in a series of numbers as it flickers to life.

  ‘When are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I hiss.

  ‘I already told you. We’re here to see a guy about getting back on—’ His explanation is cut off by the crackle of a speaker. A face fills the screen and, thanks to some cleverly positioned graffiti, the guy is wearing a large moustache for eyebrows and a cartoon penis on his head. Despite this he still manages to ooze menace through the screen.

  ‘Speak,’ he says.

  ‘Hey, Logan. It’s Ryan.’

  The figure behind the screen kisses his teeth and the screen goes black.

  The door buzzes and Ryan opens it with a grin.

  Ivy Towers, it turns out, are three looming blocks of flats. The walls, like most of the buildings around here, were once painted white but are now the colour of wet pavements. But it’s the windows I can’t stop staring at. They shine in the low sun, as if they’re covered in gold leaf. If that wasn’t weird enough, the three blocks are covered in brightly-coloured satellite dishes—making them look like some kind of robot hedgehog.

  ‘What the...?’ I say, gawking up at the flats.

  ‘Anti-surveillance measures. Any drone tries to capture what’s going on in this place, all they get is static.’

  Now he’s mentioned it, I can hear a low hum coming from the buildings. A buzzing just out of hearing range, like the sound of a beehive in the distance.

  ‘Is this place still owned by the council?’ I say, as Ryan navigates a bashed up shopping trolley.

  ‘Sure. Last one in the city. Although I don’t think they’ve paid them a visit in a while.’

  I remember Zizi complaining about the government moving everyone on welfare to Birmingham after they launched the high-speed train link. Cleaning up the capital for investors and home owners. This place must have put up a fight.

  A couple of kids are throwing stones through the already smashed-out window of a car. A gang of girls—all earrings and eyeliner—watch us pass with narrow eyes and tilted heads, more curious than aggressive.

  We walk towards the block marked with a large blue number one. Ryan pulls open the glass doors and lets me go first.

  Our footsteps echo too loudly up the stairwell as we walk inside. Shouts and crying come from the floors above us.

  I grab hold of Ryan’s jacket. ‘I’m not sure about this.’

  ‘Relax, Petri.’ He punches the call button for the elevator. The white plastic triangle is covered in brown stains from where people have stubbed out their cigarettes. I’m surprised it still works. But a few seconds later, the elevator vibrates, the silver doors judder open and Ryan steps in.

  I am expecting the elevator to smell of piss, like almost every public elevator I’ve ever been in. Instead, it smells of bleach. This may be a NAZ, but its residents take enough care not to use their public areas like toilets.

  Ryan punches the number seventeen. My favourite number, I think dully as the elevator doors, close trapping me. My stomach lurches as we whoosh upwards. Ryan is grinning, looking at the floor display changing faster than I can keep up. The stop is abrupt and I stagger forward, knocking into Ryan. He grabs my elbow to steady me. ‘Easy there, Bambi.’

  Great, I think. First he compares me to a cat and now a helpless deer. I hate to think what Zizi would say.

  Ryan leads me out of the elevator. The corridor ahead seems to stretch and shrink. An overhead camera whirrs and tracks our progress towards the door at the very end. Number 1701.

  Ryan knocks, and leans casually against the doorway. But I can tell by the slight tremor in his hands that he’s nervous, too.

  The door opens to reveal the face I saw earlier, minus the moustache and cartoon cock. Logan is shorter than Ryan although broader, with high cheekbones and neat dreads that fall down over his shoulders.

  He looks me up and down like he’s scanning me for risk, weighing up my threat level. I must have ranked pretty low, as he gestures us in with an upward nod of his chin.

  The room is packed with screens broadcasting TV channels, CCTV footage, strings of code. On the largest screen on the far wall there’s a frozen image of video game—a man holding an impossibly large gun and running through deserted streets.

  Whoever this guy is he likes it old school. Almost everyone else I know streams their content straight into their brains now.

  Against one wall there is a stack of black metal boxes. Tangles of wires run from box to box. Even over the sound of music playing, I pick out the low hum of electronics.

  Logan jumps on to the sofa and places a headset over his head. Sounds of screams and explosions fill the room as the video game comes back to life.

  ‘Yo, blood, what’s happening?’ Ryan says, shouting to be heard over the game and music.

  Logan turns to face him, his face fixed in a frown of disgust. ‘You can drop that homie bullshit straight away. What do you think this is, a rap video?’

  ‘Er, right sorry, Logan.’

  ‘And now you made me lose.’ On the screen the man with the gun is lying in a pool of blood. Logan pulls his headset off and throws it on the floor. ‘What do you want, McManus?’

  Ryan walks around the sofa and sits on a chair opposite. I stay in the doorway, looking at the number-filled screens trying to find a pattern.

  ‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ Ryan says.

  ‘I doubt that,’ Logan reaches for a pack of tobacco and rolling papers on the table. ‘But go on.’

  ‘The big “G”. I’ve been blocked and Karl told me you knew a way around it.’

  ‘What if I do?’
He licks the edge of the paper and seals the rollie.

  Ryan looks confused. ‘Well, could you help me?’ I cough. Ryan remembers that I’m here. ‘I mean us. Help us. This is Petri. She’s been blanked.’

  Logan twists around to look at me. He takes in my school uniform. ‘How old are you, kid?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ I say.

  ‘Logan sucks in air through his teeth, like a mechanic looking at an old car. ‘Blanked before you even got on. What did you do?’

  I take a few steps forward. ‘Started a riot.’

  Logan smiles. A gold tooth shines. ‘Yeah, that’ll do it.’ He rubs at his face, thoughtful. There’s the beginning of a beard growing.

  ‘Well, can you help?’ Ryan says.

  ‘You. Yes,’ Logan says, pointing at Ryan but not taking his eyes off me. ‘Her, will be a little more... complex.’

  ‘What do you mean complex?’ I ask.

  ‘How badly do you want on?’

  I don’t even have to think about this. It’s only been a week since I was fitted with the blank chip and I’m already feeling like the whole of my life is slipping away from me. ‘Bad.’

  ‘There are ways. There are always ways. But it will cost you.’

  ‘How much?’ Ryan says.

  Logan looks at Ryan again like he’s an idiot. ‘I don’t trade in money.’

  ‘So what do you want?’ Ryan says, sounding worried.

  ‘Information.’

  ‘What kind of information?’ Ryan licks his lips. He’s enjoying this, all the games and running around outside of the law.

  ‘What kind do you think? The kind that’s not easy to get. Not that there’s much of that anymore.’ He turns back to his screens and waves his arms. ‘All this data flowing around the world, ready to be plucked by anyone who knows how. And people don’t even know they’re doing it. Giving away their names, birthdays, addresses. Mother’s maiden names!’ I think about the code on Ryan’s lock and how much I could do with just his date of birth. Logan laughs and continues. ‘Falling for phishing scams and spambots. Seriously, some people will do almost anything for a picture of a pretty girl. A couple of years back, that was all you’d need. But it’s not as easy as it was.’ He leans over to flick ash into an empty beer can. ‘Since everything went up into the cloud and WhiteInc put a klaxon warning on any sensitive data being broadcast. Now, you want to access the juicy info, you have to be hooked up. But like the abyss, if you gaze into Glaze...’ he looks up at me. ‘It gazes into you.’

  He takes a long drag and blows a cloud of smoke into my face. When I smell it, I don’t think that’s only tobacco he’s smoking.

  Ryan finally breaks the silence. ‘Yeah, and now there’s that annoying “are you sure you want to reveal this?” overlay. Like we don’t know what we’re doing.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ Logan says, taking another drag.

  I have to hide my smile. ‘That was Zizi’s doing. My mother,’ I explain, when Logan looks quizzically at me. ‘She brought that security in. She said something about false trust and oxytocin.’ I stop speaking.

  Logan’s brow furrows. ‘Your mother? Who’s your mother?’

  ‘Yo, that’s what I was about to tell you,’ Ryan says. ‘Petri, tell him who your mum is.’

  I look from one boy to the other, wondering whether I should tell them.

  ‘Zizi Quinn,’ I say.

  Logan points at the headset at Ryan’s feet. Ryan throws it to him and Logan puts it back on his head. The wires on the headset blend into his dreads, so I can’t see where it begins and he ends.

  He blinks, and in a matter of seconds all the screens are filled with various images of Zizi: articles she’s written, interviews given. A piece from Wired about her being one of 2015’s women to watch: ‘hacker turned corporate visionary’. Her hair was longer then. That photo was taken the day of my school play. Yet another thing she didn’t bother turning up for.

  ‘Your mother is that Zizi Quinn?’ Logan asks. ‘Now that is interesting.’

  ‘Not for me it’s not,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘Aren’t you chipped?’ Ryan asks Logan.

  ‘Of course I’m chipped, man.’

  ‘Then why the headset? It’s like, obsolete.’

  ‘Because sometimes I want access through a back door. Make it tricky to track me.’

  ‘But the only way to access Glaze is with a chip, isn’t it?’ I ask, wondering if I’ve missed something huge here.

  ‘True. True. But it doesn’t have to be your chip.’

  ‘You’re piggybacking someone else’s chip?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re smart,’ he says, gesturing to me with the tip of his joint.

  ‘Then whose?’

  He looks over at a dog I didn’t notice before. It’s curled up on a pillow next to a large speaker.

  ‘No way!’ I kneel down and take the dog’s small face in my hands, looking into its bulging brown eyes. They look back at me, empty. It could be brain-damaged. Although it’s hard to tell with spaniels.

  ‘Wait,’ Ryan says, finally catching up. ‘You chipped your dog?’

  ‘All you need for access is warm brain matter. It doesn’t exactly monitor the quality of thoughts being broadcast. If it did, the majority of people hooked up would be in trouble.’

  ‘That’s incredible,’ I say, stroking the dog’s soft ears. ‘But what about the ID.’

  ‘Simple.’ With a wave of his hand, the images of Zizi change to show a picture of a young man.

  ‘Liam Fox. My big brother. Not the big brother currently in prison, with whom no one messes. The other one,’ Logan says. ‘The one who died of SIDS when he was three months old, which was nice of him. So all I had to do was delete his death certificate, create a life for the past eighteen years, a bit of Photoshoppery to make an up-to-date photo of him, and I have my very own ghost to ride.’

  ‘Ghost riding,’ I whisper. I’d heard of it a while back but never really believed it was true.

  ‘Is that where celebs get people to write books for them?’ Ryan asks.

  ‘Riding. Not writing, you nob!’ Logan says.

  ‘How did you get your hands on the chip? WhiteInc say their stores are the only place you can get fitted.’

  I know almost everything there is to know about the chip. Like most of these things, the tech originated for military use in the west. But when WhiteInc adapted it for the commercial market, it was mass-produced in the east. China, Korea and Taiwan was where most of the chips were made. There had been some PR scandal a few years back involving suicides in one of the company’s factories. An undercover journalist sneaked in to try and cover the story and hadn’t been able to get out for three months. She said it was like a concentration camp behind the gates.

  When the story hit, Zizi flew over there to sort it all out. When she returned she looked older. Like she’d seen too much. She and Max had lots of arguments, first via Glaze then in person over our dinner table. In the end, the factories were closed and new ones built. Now, they were shining examples of best practice for multinational organisations. And Zizi was seen as a champion of workers’ rights in the corporate world.

  ‘Ways and means, kid,’ Logan says. ‘Ways and means.’

  I smile thinking what she would make of this. She would go totally Metro.

  ‘You don’t have to use an animal, of course. It works even better with a human to bounce off, if they’re willing to let you. Coma victims work well. Or people desperate enough to let you rent their brain by the hour. And some people will do anything for money. But I like to have my ghost with me. Portable like. Don’t I, Proxy?’ he says in a cute, baby voice to his dog.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Ryan asks,

  ‘Ghost riding is where you piggyback someone’s signal on to Glaze,’ I say, standing up. I don’t think I like the sound of this. ‘Is it what you plan on doing with us?’

  ‘No, for you, Petri Quinn, I have other plans.’

&
nbsp; He looks back at the screens. They’re now filled with pictures of me. iSocial profile, school ID, birth certificate. I turn away from the heavy blank next to ‘Father’s Name’.

  Logan claps his hands together and the images vanish. ‘Juicy,’ he says. ‘I think we can do business.’

  I don’t like the glint in his eyes. ‘You’re not going to hurt my mother?’

  ‘Of course not. I only want an eeenie weenie something of hers to help with an ongoing project of mine.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Her DNA.’

  I am still angry with Zizi. For not pulling strings I knew she could. For turning yet another tragedy in my life into a piece of PR about her. For always putting her job before me. But I wasn’t ready to betray her. Not yet.

  I shake my head.

  Logan looks disappointed. ‘Well, if you’re happy never getting on Glaze...’

  ‘What do you mean “never getting on”. I’ve only got a five-year ban and after that I get on. That’s what they said.’

  ‘And you believed them, did you?’ Logan says. ‘Have you read the small print in the Glaze contract? No one with a record is allowed access. Not even a CDO.’

  ‘Bull,’ I say. ‘There’s no way a Civil Disobedience Order would be enough to keep someone off Glaze for life.’

  ‘Swear. It’s part of some government crap to stamp out terrorism and anti-social behaviour.’

  He pauses to let this sink in. I don’t know whether to believe him. I mean, why should I believe him? I can’t believe him. I shake my head.

  ‘Shame,’ he says. ‘We could have made a great team.’

  ‘Hey, what about me?’ Ryan says, his bottom lip sagging. ‘What do you want from me?’

  Logan blinks and looks at him like he’d forgotten he was even here. ‘Well, I could ask for that video that got you banned, but everyone’s already seen it.’

  Ryan’s eyes widen.

  ‘What video?’ I ask. ‘Did you film the riot?’

  Logan snorts with derision. ‘He didn’t tell you? Why he got kicked off?’