The Shining Wall

by Melissa Ferguson

  Alida closed the message. What did Shuqba mean by a mass action? Did she think LeaderCorp was planning to kill them all? How would they even do that? There had to be laws, or whatever, against that sort of shit. Thank Christ Graycie was safe in plastic-land.

  ‘Hey, Al.’

  Alida blinked. She’d been absent-mindedly staring at dandruff on the shoulders of the guy ahead of her in the queue.

  ‘Zee. Long time no see.’ Zave had fading bruises all over his cheeks and forehead. She lifted her fingers to touch a peeling scab on his nose. The sight of him still triggered a jolt of joy in her, the way only a loved one could.

  Zave smiled and shifted a jug of dark yellow liquid from one hand to another. ‘I know. Our hang-out plans got kind of interrupted by all this shit.’ He swept his hand around to encompass the nearby ruins.

  ‘Here, get in the queue with me.’ Alida shuffled over and Zave moved in beside her.

  ‘Bloody kids, always cutting in. In my day …’ someone grumbled behind them.

  ‘So … how’s things?’ It never used to be awkward to chat with Zave. So much had happened in the last few weeks. Neither of them were the same characters anymore.

  ‘Well, the whole Rewilder thing was pretty shit.’

  Alida laughed and put her arms around Zave’s waist. That was exactly what she was going to say. Mum used to reckon they were like some wrinkly old couple who finished each other’s sentences. She glanced at the jug in his hand.

  ‘You really have to keep more hydrated, Zee.’

  He stuck out his tongue. ‘Cheers for the tip.’

  A notification flashed on Alida’s vision panel. A message from Zaneela. Finally. She opened it immediately, her heart racing.

  Lovely to hear from you, Alida. We are still interested in a surrogacy arrangement. Contact me once you’ve found a way into the city. Regards, Zaneela.

  Bloody hell. Getting through the wall and into plastic-land was the bit she needed the most help with. She couldn’t ask Freel and Ganya for help. They’d made it pretty clear they no longer wanted anything to do with her.

  ‘What was that? You get a message?’ Zave asked as they shuffled forward in line.

  ‘Yep. Did I have brain-dead implant look on my face?’

  Zave laughed. ‘It’s pretty easy to pick. I bet that’s how the Rewilders clocked who had an implant and who didn’t.’

  From what Alida had heard, they attacked anyone and everyone without bothering to work out if they had an implant or not.

  For a group who gabbed on about what Mum had called hippy-dippy back-to-nature shit, the Rewilders were single-minded and violent when it came to slaying anyone who got in their way.

  They stood silently for a second. Alida chewed over ideas for getting into plastic-land. She remembered Zave had done it without Freel.

  ‘Hey, Zave?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘You know those gigs you had, the ones without Freel?’

  Zave raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Some of them were in the city, weren’t they?’

  ‘Only one. The one where I wasn’t paid because the law turned up and turfed me out. But at least I wasn’t beaten up.’ Zave shuddered.

  ‘That’s messed up. Maybe you don’t wanna gab about that shit, but I was wondering how you got into the city without Freel’s contacts. I have to get in there … to find Gray.’ It was only partly a fib.

  They reached the front of the queue. A guy with a handgun waved them into a sweltering housepod that reeked of piss and rot. Three bedrolls leaned up against one of the smooth interior walls and light filtered down from a skylight. Alida handed her water skin to a teen who handed it to a white-haired bird sitting in front of a water purifier. The teen disconnected the sludge tank and replaced it with an empty, still grimy, tank. Alida licked her lips thinking about the water she’d soon be gulping.

  ‘Empty that down the river, Missy,’ White-hair said.

  Missy nodded and shuffled out with the full tank hoisted up on her shoulder. White-hair held out a credit scanner and asked for a shitload of credits.

  ‘Are you for real?’ Alida said.

  ‘You want water. That’s what it costs. You’re welcome to drink your piss straight from the source if you’d prefer.’

  Alida worked her mouth to get a little saliva happening. She’d cark it in days without water.

  ‘Hell.’ Alida scowled and held out her wrist.

  ‘I don’t have that much dosh.’ Zave scratched his head and screwed up his face.

  ‘I’ll cover this for you.’ Alida held out her wrist a second time as Zave handed over his container. She couldn’t let him die of thirst. And it wasn’t like he was taking grub out of Graycie’s mouth anymore.

  Zave lowered his voice. ‘You still have dosh from, you know, Graycie?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll be right for a stretch, but things are going to get nasty out here pretty soon if everyone’s gonna be bloodsucking leeches.’ Alida raised her voice at the end of the sentence for the white haired witch to hear.

  ‘Cheers, Al.’ He hugged her. ‘I’ll ask around about getting you into the city. When do you wanna go?’

  ‘ASAP.’

  ‘When’s that?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Chucklehead.’

  ‘I’m sending a message to someone who might be able to help right now.’ Zave stood blank-faced for a minute.

  Water trickled steadily from the purifier into Alida’s waterskin.

  They left the housepod carrying a litre of dicey-looking purified water each. Alida’s was still yellowish. She took a gulp. It tasted of fungus, and unidentified chemicals left an oily coating on her tongue. She hoped it wouldn’t make her sick.

  ‘Wanna come and sit on the hill with me for a bit?’ she asked Zave.

  ‘Sure. It’ll be like old times.’

  They trudged through the wreck of the Demi-Settlements, past Demis rebuilding their shacks and rummaging through the rubble.

  A message arrived from LeaderCorp on Alida’s MindLine.

  Demi-Citizens. Due to recent events LeaderCorp has deemed it unfeasible to maintain a presence in the region outside City 1’s wall. Your IntelliEnhance implants will continue to be functional; however, functions will be further restricted. The implants will go through a final calibration in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Please uninstall any illegal software as it may interfere with the calibration. Your cooperation is appreciated.

  So Shuqba was right. There would be chaos. She had to get into plastic-land or out of the Demi-Settlements altogether. She felt sick. She had no clue how to survive in the burbs or the wilds.

  ‘Did you get that message?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zave said. ‘So LeaderCorp is abandoning us. We’re fucked, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What do they mean by illegal software?’

  Alida flopped down on the dirt at the top of the hill. The hill was pretty much just the rubble of an old multistorey building to the east of the city. There was a view of the whole eastern and southern Demi-Settlements from the top.

  ‘Freel gave me some kind of illegal anti-tracking software.’ Alida would need it to sneak into plastic-land and she wasn’t sure how to remove it. She’d sort it out later. ‘Did you get it too?’

  Zave stood and paced. ‘Nah. That must’ve been after he fucked me off.’ Zave slid down beside her and hung his head between his knees.

  Alida looked out over the Demi-Settlements to the shining wall around plastic-land. Graycie was in there. Not that far away, but almost impossible to reach.

  ‘Just got another message.’ Zave looked blankly ahead for a few seconds. He took a breath and turned to her. ‘I can get you into Candyland tonight.’

  CHAPTER 35

  Alida met Zave at the border of the Northern Edge settlements. She carried her waterskin, Zaneela’s business card (which she kept like a good luck charm) and one of Mum’s favourite cardboard pictures: a photo of an extinct species of whale b
reaching in a bay surrounded by forested hills with Freedom printed underneath. She’d left behind her cooking utensils and burner, her lamps and all her bedding. She reckoned she wouldn’t need those things in plastic-land. After a few days her neighbours would nab whatever they fancied anyway.

  As they traipsed deeper into the Northern Edge Alida gabbed on to cover her nerves.

  ‘Cheers for helping me, Zee. This is a big deal for me.’

  ‘No probs.’ Zave kept his head down and his hands deep in his pockets.

  The characters of the Northern Edge settlements stared at them as they passed. They had obviously clocked them as outsiders. Alida avoided eye contact but kept track of them out of the corner of her vision.

  ‘So where are we meeting the truck?’

  ‘We’re not.’

  ‘What do you mean? How am I getting into the city without a truck?’

  The streets were familiar. The last time she’d been in this part of Northern Edge she’d been with Ganya.

  ‘The tunnel, Zee?’

  He nodded.

  He couldn’t be for real. ‘Didn’t it collapse after the supply trucks were bombed?’

  ‘Yeah, but the tunnel trolls got it cleared out again.’

  ‘I dunno about this.’ Last time she’d had Ganya and Freel’s clout to get past the tunnel trolls. She couldn’t imagine them taking a clown like Zave seriously.

  Up ahead three dark figures stood in the glow of a barrel fire. Alida stopped walking. This was bad news.

  ‘Come on, Al. It’s legit. I’ve sorted it all out. They’ll want some dosh for passage. That’s all.’ Zave dragged her along by the elbow.

  ‘Sure, okay.’ That was fair enough. They were business people. She still had heaps of dosh.

  The two guys and one chick around the fire stopped chatting and watched them approach.

  ‘This the girl, Zee-bag?’ One of the guys scratched his beard and sneered at her.

  Zave nodded and studied his feet.

  ‘We hear you want use of our tunnel,’ said the other man, a tall skinny guy with tatts on his neck.

  ‘I do. How much are you asking?’ Everything was about dosh with this kind of character. A simple commercial transaction.

  ‘Show us what ya got and we’ll nut out a fair price.’ Beard waved a credit scanner at her.

  Alida grit her teeth and held out her wrist. She was about to get fleeced. It was stupid to transact with tunnel trolls without any real clout to wave about. The chick – about Mum’s age, but harder and made up of sharp angles – crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

  Beard looked down at his scanner and sucked air through his teeth. He showed the scanner to his buddies. Flames lit their faces all sinister from below. ‘Top work, Zee-bag. You weren’t wrong when you said she was loaded.’

  ‘What?’ Alida whirled around to the so-called mate who had sold her out.

  Zave looked briefly into her eyes then down again. ‘You said you had to get into the city. This’ll get you into the city and help me a little bit too.’

  ‘You still taking that passenger shit?’ Mum had always told her to never trust a junkie. Even if they were someone you loved. Especially if they were someone you loved.

  Zave shrugged.

  Alida tilted her chin up. It was no time to show fear. ‘How much do you want?’ she asked Beard.

  ‘I think we’ll take it all,’ Tatts said.

  ‘I should’ve guessed.’ Alida held out her wrist again. ‘Take the bloody credits and I’ll be on my way.’ Hopefully Zaneela would help her out financially once she was in the city.

  Beard scanned her chip and grinned as the invisible currency disappeared from Alida’s wrist and travelled through the air to his. He put a hand on her lower back. ‘Let me show you to the tunnel.’

  ‘That’s okay. I know where it is.’ She didn’t have a torch. How would she get through in the dark? Why hadn’t Zave told her to bring a torch? That was the least he could have done if he was setting her up for a mugging. ‘Can I at least get a torch thrown in?’

  Beard clamped his arm around her waist. She tried to shrug him off. He grabbed her forearms and Sharpface ran up and slapped something plastic on one of her wrists. There was a flash of warmth before the SmartCuffs moulded to her skin and hardened.

  ‘Hey!’ Her whole body went cold. What the hell were they doing? She should’ve trusted her instincts and bolted the minute she realised Zave was up to bullshit.

  Sharpface and Tatts cuffed Zave. The characters outside the shacks around them stopped chatting and watched warily.

  ‘What’s this about? I gave you all my dosh.’ What else could they want from her?

  ‘And we thank you for that,’ Beard said in an attempt at a crisp Citizen accent. ‘Now we have a little labour shortage in our tunnel.’

  ‘The kids got smashed.’ Sharpface ground a fist into her other palm.

  ‘What does that have to do with me? Are you telling me the tunnel’s blocked?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you.’

  Alida tried to pull away but the guy held her tight. ‘Then let me go. Hell, you can keep the bloody dosh.’ She didn’t care about the credits or that her passage into the city was blocked; she just wanted to bolt. Zave was yelling gibberish as the two other trolls brought him over to the entrance of the tunnel. The characters from the nearby shacks cleared away their chairs and lamps and went inside their homes.

  ‘See, we would love to let you go, but we need flexible young bods to clear the tunnel.’

  ‘You jerks. Let me go.’ Alida screamed and kicked as Beard twisted her SmartCuffed arm behind her and shoved her towards the entrance.

  Her heel connected with his shin and he bellowed, ‘Kick me again and I’ll break your fucking arm.’ He twisted her arm higher up her back.

  ‘Okay, okay. Bloody hell.’

  Sharpface held a solar lamp and led the way down the stairs. Tatts dragged Zave down behind her. Zave’s yells and curses echoed loudly inside the stairwell. Beard pushed Alida and she stumbled, landing on her knees. He booted her in the tailbone and pain shot all the way up her spine like a jolt from an electropacifier. She crawled the rest of the way down.

  At the bottom Beard hooked their SmartCuffs to chains coming out of the tiled walls. The last time Alida had been there littlies had been at the end of those chains. They were dead now.

  Zave yelled and cursed. She wanted to wrap her chain around his neck to shut him up. This mess was all his fault.

  Tatts chuckled. ‘You should rest. Lotta digging to do tomorrow.’

  The trolls left, taking all the light.

  Zave stopped yelling a couple of minutes later. Darkness surrounded them. The jolly voices of the trolls filled the night above. The sounds of small movements came from further into the tunnel. Somewhere, water dripped.

  ‘I’m sorry, Al.’

  Alida didn’t bother replying. She had nothing to say to him. He was a jerk and she was a dimwit for trusting him.

  ‘I thought they’d take the dosh and let you through. I’d get some passenger and you’d get into the city and everyone would be better off.’ He nudged her with his shoulder. ‘I swear I didn’t know.’

  Alida moved as far away from him as she could. A jagged piece of chain dug into her arm. She wriggled around and scraped her SmartCuff against the sharp edge. SmartCuffs were notoriously tough, but if she had enough time she might be able to cut through it. She had zero other ideas.

  ‘I know I’m a dickhead, but I had to think about me. You were gonna go into the city and ditch me. I had to look after myself a bit.’

  Alida grimaced. She had planned to ditch him. Everyone had to hustle or have some kind of cagey angle to survive in the Demi-Settlements. Zave was no different.

  ‘Okay, Zave. Get some rest.’

  ‘I know I’ve been nothing but a problem for you lately, but –’

  ‘I don’t wanna hear it. Shut the hell up.’

  ‘Okay, o
kay.’ Zave sniffled. ‘Just thought we could talk about it. We’re both in the same shit here,’ he mumbled.

  Alida scrolled through the contacts on her implant. She couldn’t ask Ganya or Freel for help, and Zave’s father would be useless against tunnel trolls, as would all of Alida’s neighbours and mates. It wasn’t as though there was some kind of hero brigade or Demi security force she could call. She lingered over Shuqba’s number. Even if Shuqba wanted to help her she’d have to work alone, which would be dangerous and could put her in the shit with her commander. No. She couldn’t involve Shuqba. She definitely couldn’t contact Zaneela. She would cut her off at the first whiff of trouble.

  Alida scraped her SmartCuff against the chain again and again and again.

  CHAPTER 36

  Noises and voices echoed around Ferrassie. She couldn’t move. Her body tingled numbly. Her vision was clouded and her hearing came in and out. She blinked and struggled to make the world come into focus. Oil-on-water colours swirled above her. A high-pitched buzz filled her ears and her fat tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  Two dark shapes loomed over her, the light around them sharp in her dry eyes. She blinked.

  ‘Ferrassie, you have to wake up.’ Lars’s voice. His hand so cool on her burning cheeks. ‘Amud got in contact with the free-Neos. But we must depart tonight.’

  ‘She’s very crook.’ Amud’s voice came out of the blur.

  ‘She’s burning up,’ Lars said. ‘Can you walk, Ferrassie?’

  Ferrassie tried to sit up. A faint hum came from her throat.

  ‘Is she even conscious?’ Amud said. ‘This is not great.’

  ‘I could carry her, I suppose,’ said Lars. ‘This is our last opportunity to get her out.’

  ‘She’s gotta go to the medical centre. This kind of virus can kill a Neo.’

  Lars’s voice, warped and distant, lulled her back to sleep.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ferrassie awoke to two paramedics loading her onto a stretcher. She ached; her lips felt split and swollen and her head pounded. She was dying. Was she dying? She didn’t want to die. Not yet.