by Claire Merle
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Wind chimes! She tried to slump her shoulders but her whole body went rigid. Tension buzzed through her.
A girl, not more than sixteen, perched on a stool at the back of a narrow alcove. A dozen mobiles of various sizes hung from the alcove’s black velvet ceiling. The girl’s dark clothes and bobbed, jet-black hair merged with the back-drop, so that for a moment it seemed as if she was emerging from a shadow world, face luminous as the moon. A band of eyeshadow, like a superhero mask, streaked the girl’s blue eyes. Her hennaed fingers plaited strands of colour into a bracelet.
As the browser who’d set off one of the wind chimes moved away, Ana entered the nook.
She blew against a mobile, sending it gently swaying.
Notes of the D-minor harmonic reverberated at random.
As they faded, Ana tried another – a pentatonic scale, evok-ing a distant time when people were more connected to the earth and the seasons.
‘Perfect pitch,’ she muttered, amazed at the clarity of the notes. The girl looked up from her foot-bracelet.
‘My brother makes them.’
‘He’s got a good ear,’ Ana said.
‘He’s got two good ears,’ the girl quipped with a grin.
Ana puled her mouth into what she hoped resembled a smile . The girl continued plaiting.
‘He must be very musical,’ Ana said. The girl nodded.
Ana looked closer at the pretty, heart-shaped face beneath the makeup. The girl probably wasn’t even beneath the makeup. The girl probably wasn’t even sixteen. A lot of City children left school early to help their families make a living.
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‘Does this one have a name?’ she asked.
‘Earth Song,’ the girl said. ‘It’s an ancient melody.’
‘Are there any others in A minor?’
‘A what?’ the girl asked.
‘I might like one in a Dorian scale. Does your brother make them to order?’
‘I expect he could.’
‘Perhaps I could talk to him?’
The girl stopped plaiting. Ana slouched and tried to make her body language appear open. She was used to being scrutinised, but not when she was in disguise. For almost three years, she’d been consciously perfecting the art of passing as a Pure, constantly suppressing any negative thought patterns or behaviour that could be deemed inconsistent or irrational. And now she was pretending to be no different from the other Crazies. She wondered if they could sense she wasn’t realy one of them. She tried to put aside the self-conditioning and tune in to her genetic makeup. But it scared her.
The girl stared at Ana for a moment as though looking for something. Abruptly, she smiled, the smile lighting up her blue eyes.
‘I’l ask him about the B–Borean scale. If you can, you should come by tomorrow and I’l let you know what he says.’
Ana nodded, not bothering to correct the girl’s mistake.
She knew she wouldn’t return. Neil would hardly let her through the checkpoint a second time.
‘Thanks,’ she said, barely holding back the disappointment. She turned and trudged towards the tunneled exit.
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‘See you tomorrow,’ the girl caled after her.
In the bustle and noise of the market outside the Gilgamesh building, Ana typed in the code for her bike and puled off the release pin. Fluorescent and neon lights from the street stals pulsed in the dwindling daylight. She checked her watch. It was only five p.m., but thick cloud smothered the sky, promising rain.
Lifting her bike from the rack, it became obvious the tyres badly needed inflating. Ana sighed. The uphil mara-thon home would be a nightmare unless she found someone to lend her a pump. She crouched down, delaying the moment she’d have to ask a Crazy for help.
A whirling siren, the sort you’d expect to hear during a prison break, stormed up the main street. The crowd scattered. An instant later, a black van veered on to the pavement. The back doors swung open and two men climbed out folowed by a third in a doctor’s coat. Ana clasped the handlebars of her bike. The Psych Watch!
She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, wiling herself not to be intimidated.
The siren crushed her ability to think. The men strode towards her, the eye emblem of the Psych Watch projecting from their interfaces. She held her breath. For a wild moment, she thought they’d come for her. But they marched right past.
People darted out of their way, clearing a path to reveal a hunched, middle-aged man only fifty metres away, swinging a hammer and lunging towards anyone who dared come close. A second man already lay knocked out on the ground in front of him.
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Without any preliminaries the male nurses approached the hunched figure from two sides with electric-shock Stingers. As the man took a swing at one of them, the other nurse leapt forward, prodding him in the rib cage.
The man’s body jerked wildly, as though he was having a fit. The nurses each took hold of one of his arms. A third man – the psychiatrist – stroled up and thrust a needle into the deranged man’s leg. The man struggled until his body grew limp. Then the psychiatrist tore the hammer from his fingers.
Shocked, Ana stepped backwards and bumped into someone behind her.
‘Sorry,’ she stuttered. Her voice didn’t carry over the siren. She glanced around to gesture her apology to the person behind and saw the wind-chime girl – Cole’s sister –
standing a little further to her left.
The girl didn’t notice Ana. She too watched as the nurses carried the deranged man to the van and threw him inside.
The doors slammed shut. The siren broke off, leaving a silence as intense as darkness.
Ana felt nauseous. They’d taken the guy having the mental fit, but what about the unconscious man – he needed help too – why had they left him?
‘Never to be seen or heard of again,’ Cole’s sister said.
The van receded into the empty road. As people resumed their activities, Cole’s sister bolted in the opposite direction to the Gilgamesh building. With a glance back at the injured man, Ana scrambled after the wind-chime girl. The girl’s sharp, determined movements were nothing like the laid-back teenager minding the stal.
She resembled a mis-76
sile. Perhaps Ana hadn’t fooled her, after al. Perhaps Cole’s sister recognised Ana from al those pictures of her and her father in the news three years ago, and was rushing to warn her brother.
Ana hurried through the crowds, pushing her bike.
Cole’s sister threaded a path towards the brightly coloured buildings of the main high street, then veered off at a converted warehouse. For a moment, Ana lost sight of her in a confusion of secondhand clothes stals. But then she reappeared, jogging across a canal footbridge.
There were fewer people around the canal, making it There were fewer people around the canal, making it harder to pursue discreetly. Ana hung back as much as she dared. From the footbridge she watched as the wind-chime girl leapt on to a black barge, one of several boats tied along the bank.
The girl entered the boat’s wooden wheelhouse and descended through a hatch. Ana edged closer. She scanned the hul, searching for movement in the portholes.
She was stil in shock from Jasper’s abduction, from being in the City and seeing the man carted off by the Psych Watch. She had to be, because at first the red capital letters on the narrow band at the top of the boat’s exterior didn’t make any sense: E . . . N . . . K . . . I . . .
D . . . U.
It took several seconds for her mind to join the letters together, to form a word, to realise that Enkidu was not the name of a person but a boat.
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8
Noodles and Giants
Ana barely noticed the uphil ride home, she was too distracted with thoughts of Enkidu. Enkidu belonged to Cole’s family and Cole was an ex-member of the Enlightenment Project. Finding the boat seemed to confirm that Jasper
was mixed up with the sect, and also suggested there might be some kind of organised group helping others escape it. Why Jasper would become involved in the first place, and why Warden Dombrant was looking for ‘Enkidu’ but didn’t know Enkidu was a was looking for ‘Enkidu’ but didn’t know Enkidu was a boat, were questions she couldn’t answer yet. It was possible the Wardens’ ‘no interference agreement’ with the Enlightenment Project went much further than most people in the Community thought. If the Wardens were actualy protecting the Project in exchange for – wel, it sounded farfetched, but something like getting rid of Pures the government didn’t want around – it would explain why Jasper hadn’t turned to them for help, and why Dombrant was now tracking down Enkidu in the hunt for other ex-members.
Ana considered going to see Jasper’s parents and explain-ing to them what she’d discovered. But implicating the Wardens in dark dealings with the Enlightenment Project probably wouldn’t go down very wel. David would require 78
more than speculation. He’d want hard proof, especialy considering the improbable information was coming from her.
No, she needed to pursue this herself. Tomorrow, if Nick was around, she’d persuade him to drive her to Camden, hide the car, and watch over her while she questioned Cole.
Ana cycled up Highgate High Street. Wisps of grey streaked the gloomy sky. In the Community, the streetlights would be coming on around now, but out the in City, government cuts meant that the only unnatural sources of light came from interface projections and roadside fires burning the day’s rubbish. Motion advertisements, government slogans, music videos and tweets rippled and shuddered on passing cyclists and traders as they packed away their stals. It’s like an electronic ghost world, Ana thought. A distorted, electronic ghost world, Ana thought. A distorted, empty reflection of real life, which took over as the day seeped away.
She stopped just before the roundabout and hunched over to catch her breath. Then she switched her mother’s leather jacket for her school blazer. She puled off the bel hat and shook out her long hair. Keeping to the inside of the pavement where it was darkest, she wheeled her bike towards the checkpoint. Neil’s cabin glowed blue. He had his back to her; a dark figure bent over the coffee machine. She propped her bike against the wal and sidled to the window facing the hil. She was about to knock when headlights swung on to Hampstead Lane. The saloon car climbed the rise towards them. The security guard straightened.
In a heartbeat, Ana dropped out of sight. Back pressed 79
against the wal, her legs shook so hard she thought she’d fal. She was in trouble. Big trouble. That was not Neil.
It was only twenty to six, but the night shift had already arrived.
From the shadows, she watched the Pure car pass through security. Once it had disappeared into the City, she got back on her bike and pedaled with only one thought in her head – to put as much distance as she could between her and the checkpoint. The wind zigzagged through her unbuttoned blazer. Her heart hammered painfuly. Her legs and arms trembled with fright and adrenalin. That had been too close. Far too close.
One thing was for sure, she couldn’t go back. At least One thing was for sure, she couldn’t go back. At least not until 9 a.m. tomorrow morning when Neil’s shift started. Otherwise, Neil would be fired for helping her, and her father would snatch away what smal freedom she had in the Community. It wouldn’t be beyond Ashby to lock her up for the next four weeks until the joining day or, in the likely event that didn’t happen, until the day after, when she turned eighteen and the Board came to escort her out of the Community for good. She wasn’t about to sit staring at wals while Jasper was being beaten, drugged, reprogrammed. But where could she go?
Halfway down Highgate Hil she approached the right-hand turning at the church with the green dome and giant petal-shaped windows. Earlier that afternoon she’d turned right down Dartmouth Park Hil. She did so again now. As she cycled, she struggled to surmount the fear and think things through. Tonight, if her father folowed his usual routine he’d be late home from work and he would do what 80
he’d done countless times. He would climb the stairs, discover her light off, hover for a minute or so outside her door, then go and lock himself in his office for a couple of hours. He wouldn’t knock for her until morning.
She dipped a hand inside her tote bag to check for the fist of roled-up notes. At least she had the wad of cash she’d taken from her father’s sock drawer before setting out.
Though ilegal, cash remained popular among the Crazies.
They didn’t like the government keeping track of everything they bought, everywhere they went. She’d everything they bought, everywhere they went. She’d always thought it a bit paranoid of the general public to think the government would bother with ordinary citizens, but now she felt grateful. She would use it to pay for a room.
And if worst came to worst, she could probably track down Nick and stay at his. But she didn’t like to do that.
Nick wouldn’t refuse to help her, but she didn’t want to risk getting him into trouble.
Half an hour later, Ana huddled out of the wind under the awning of a takeaway van in Camden, fist curled around a ten-pound-note as she waited for a cup of tea and a carton of noodles. Nearby, a troop of street performers finished constructing a platform in the middle of the road.
The crowds had thinned and people seemed to be miling about now, rather than going places. In the twilight, as the performers embarked on their mime act iluminated by giant fire torches, Ana watched, amazed at how good they were.
She felt on edge and was anxious about finding a hotel for the night, but the buzz in the atmosphere excited her too.
Nothing untoward had happened since the Psych Watch 81
episode. She was beginning to hope the City wasn’t as bad as the news always made out.
‘Ten,’ the dark-haired woman behind the counter said.
Ana handed over the note and took the tea and carton.
Her stomach growled with hunger.
‘You don’t know anywhere I can get a room for the night, do you?’ she asked, taking a sip of her tea.
‘You could try the hostel, Greenland Road. Six to twelve bunks in a room, but clean.’
‘OK, thanks.’ Ana puled apart the wooden chopsticks and gulped down several mouthfuls of food. She paused as an after-taste of curdled milk, grease, and unwashed beans filed her palate. Tilting the noodles towards the counter strip light, she picked through them for a better look. A painful spasm gripped her stomach. Deciding she’d rather be hungry than poisoned, she reached over and threw the carton at the bin hanging off the side of the van.
A large hand caught the noodles as they fel.
‘Waste not, want not,’ a gruff voice said. Ana felt warm breath on her bare neck. It smelt of days-old sweat and boiled cabbage. She lowered her head, avoiding eye contact. The man’s large bulk boxed her in. She edged up against the van, trying to put more space between them.
The man slurped and sucked. Revolted, Ana glanced up.
Noodles spat from his mouth. Sauce dribbled down his bristly chin. But it wasn’t his manners that made her queasy, it was the size of him. Wel over six-and-a-half foot, he had broad shoulders, a long neck, and a giant head. His biceps bulged against his short-sleeved T-shirt.
Around his waist 82
hung a frayed blanket. His hair looked like it had been cut by a blind person.
cut by a blind person.
‘Excuse me,’ she mumbled, crushing her shoulders up to her ears so that she might slip through the gap without touching him. He moved back to let her pass. She slackened her facial muscles, careful not to show her fear.
Head down, she began walking away, when the woman running the fast-food van caled to her.
‘Hey, you’re the one said she wanted a room, right?’
Ana turned and nodded.
The woman pointed at the giant. ‘You’ve got something haven’t you, Mickey?’
‘Sure, I
’ve got something.’
Nerves began to pinch Ana’s stomach. She didn’t fancy folowing Mickey down some dark aley. The woman behind the counter laughed.
‘Got the looks of a wolf,’ she said, ‘but he’s a puppy dog.’
Mickey puled a mad grin, which didn’t help boost Ana’s confidence in him.
‘I’ve got a couple of hotels to try, thanks,’ she said.
‘You wanna watch out. Things get pretty booked up around here, specialy that youth hostel I was teling you about.’ The fast-food woman turned to serve another customer.
‘Place I know is cheap and comfortable,’ Mickey said.
‘Place I know is cheap and comfortable,’ Mickey said.
‘It’s two minutes from here. Nice barge on the canal. I take you and you give me ten pound cash for my trouble.’
Ana’s stomach did a little somersault. ‘Where is it?’ she asked. He pointed south, roughly in the direction she’d walked when she’d folowed Cole’s sister. A barge on the 83
canal near Enkidu. It was the perfect opportunity to find Cole Winter. She nodded, indicating she’d go with him.
He’s a puppy dog, she thought in a feeble attempt to reassure herself . A puppy dog dressed as a wolf.
Mickey strode ahead, a dark giant merging with the night. Ana folowed, wheeling along her bike. They turned down a street and approached a row of warehouses. Several broken windows flickered with firelight. Ana quickened her pace to catch up.
Beyond, in a dark alcove, she caught sight of a glow-in-the dark cat. She watched it slink around a colection of discarded wine barrels. Geneticaly engineered pets were popular in Asia, but they were ilegal in England. The nose, mouth, ears, and eyes of the Siamese shone phosphorescent green. The white whiskers were like luminous sticks.
I’ve slipped through a crack into a whole other world, she thought.
Passing under a smal bridge between two warehouses, they entered a large courtyard encircled by derelict buildings. Electronic music emanated from a circus tent in the yard’s centre. As the tent flaps caught in the wind, the yard’s centre. As the tent flaps caught in the wind, Ana saw people inside dancing like they’d been hypnotised. She stared at them as she hurried along, unable to draw her eyes away. She didn’t see the woman with the burnt face, until she felt a hand close around her wrist.