‘Everything’s under control. Simmer down. We’re taking you to the Neo medical centre,’ one of the paramedics said.
Shuqba’s mug came into view. ‘They’ll look after you, Rassie. Your transfer to medical research has been postponed. You get better. All right?’
Ferrassie nodded and slipped back into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 37
The poisonous sterilising fog cleared from the city streets. An army of maintenance bots swarmed out to scrub solar panels and walls and to remove protective covers from FoxFire trees.
‘Nothing ever happens on night shift.’ Shuqba’s new Sapien partner, Officer Nguyen, pushed open the door of the guard booth.
Officer Nguyen was an older female with well-developed muscles and multiple augmentations. Even her gunmetal hair looked weaponised. She was pleasant enough though, and she treated Shuqba in a professional, even slightly friendly manner.
They walked out into the street to resume their shift.
‘How did you get stuck with a night shift?’ Shuqba asked.
‘I volunteered.’ The officer rolled her head around on her thick neck and cracked her knuckles. ‘The pay’s better and my husband needs a major HealthSentinel upgrade to fight an aggressive lymphoma.’
‘Oh. I hope he gets well soon.’
It was half an hour until their shift ended. Almost daybreak.
‘Since this is your first nightshift, let me buy you breakfast,’ Officer Nguyen said.
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘Yes I do. It’s a night shift tradition.’
Shuqba followed the officer to an automated cafe not far from headquarters. A No Neos allowed sign graced the front door. Shuqba hesitated.
‘It’s not a problem. The Neo detectors in here make an exception for Neo SFOs if they’re accompanied by a Sapien SFO. Just swipe your SF ID after me.’ Officer Nguyen touched the biometric panel and the door slid open.
Shuqba wanted to say, Stuff this – if they didn’t want Neos in there then she didn’t want to patronise their establishment. However, Officer Nguyen had already gone inside and her stomach was rumbling. Her resistance would have to begin at another, more convenient time.
She was kidding herself. LeaderCorp were too big and the Sapiens hierarchy and way of life too well entrenched for her to ever be able to make a difference. She swiped in and collected coffee and raisin toast from the vending machines.
They sat across from each other in a booth. The cafe was empty and spotless, every surface bright with primary colours.
Shuqba took a bite of her toast. Officer Nguyen stopped, her mouth open and her sandwich halfway to her face. Her eyes glazed over for a minute.
‘A message from headquarters?’ Shuqba asked.
‘No. Only an alert to put my implant on standby or sleep mode while the scheduled update and Demi calibration takes place.’
Shuqba sipped her coffee. The sky was lightening. A lone cyclist sped past the window.
‘Some bright-eyed Citizen is already starting their day,’ Shuqba said.
Officer Nguyen gagged on her sandwich. Shuqba gave her a moment to recover. In her experience most choking individuals were able to expel the obstruction themselves. The officer didn’t cough and her hands didn’t go to her throat. They went to her head and pressed. Shuqba put down her toast and stood.
Officer Nguyen was frozen, not even breathing. Shuqba ran through her first-aid training. First check for danger. The officer’s whole body was a spasm, like she’d been shocked with an electropacifier. Perhaps she had accidentally discharged her own weapon. Shuqba pulled the electropacifier from the officer’s belt and clipped it to her own. Officer Nguyen toppled sideways onto the floor. Blood trickled from her eyes and nose.
‘Officer Nguyen! Damn it. Officer Nguyen!’ Shuqba fumbled for the OmniScreen in her pocket.
The officer’s face and body softened. Shuqba grasped for a pulse while trying to flatten out the folded OmniScreen with one hand. Shuqba tapped in the code for the Security Force emergency line and rolled the officer into the recovery position.
‘You’ve reached the Security Force emergency line. Please state your name, rank and Citizen or clone number,’ an AI said.
Shuqba gave her identification information and explained the situation.
‘A request for medical assistance has been logged and permission to commence resuscitation provisionally granted.’
‘What’s the ETA for the medics?’
‘An arrival time of five to ten minutes should be expected.’
‘Good, thank you.’
Shuqba turned Officer Nguyen onto her back and applied compressions to her metallic reinforced chest. Shuqba breathed in and out deeply, trying to keep panic at bay. She didn’t want the officer to be deceased. Officer Nguyen was decent. She had a husband who needed her. Also Shuqba couldn’t explain this death. She could be blamed and sent to medical research with Ferrassie.
Shuqba tried to clear her head and concentrate on the task in front of her. Between sets of compressions she opened the officer’s mouth and blew air into her lungs.
Shuqba tried for ten minutes. Officer Nguyen’s heart and lungs refused to move on their own. And still no Security Force medics had arrived. The officer needed to be in a proper medical facility where they could interface with her implant and restart her vital functions. Soon. Before her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long. Shuqba called the emergency line again.
‘There’s still no one here. Put me through to one of the medics or an SFO on duty at headquarters.’
‘As you wish, Officer Shuqba. Please wait one moment.’
Shuqba paced the room. Her knees and back were stiff from leaning over the body.
‘Officer Shuqba?’
‘Yes?’ Shuqba knelt and picked up the OmniScreen.
‘I am unable to make contact with any Security Force members at headquarters. I am transferring you over to the Building Intelligence System for further assistance.’
Shuqba shook her head. Someone was going to face disciplinary action for not being at their post when an emergency occurred.
‘Officer Shuqba?’ The distinctive voice of BIS came through the OmniScreen.
‘Yes, BIS. I have an emergency here. Can you send a medic out, or even a med droid? This officer requires urgent attention.’
‘Officer Shuqba, the Sapien Security Force Officers present in the headquarters building all ceased vital functions fifteen minutes and twenty-four seconds ago. All med droids are currently attempting resuscitation.’
‘What?’ Shuqba fell back against the toasted sandwich machine. The air whooshed out of her lungs.
‘Do you need me to repeat the information, Officer Shuqba?’
‘No, no. They’re all deceased?’
‘Correct.’
‘But … what … I …’ The Sapien Security Force Officers had all died. She felt cold all over. ‘I mean, why? What killed them?’
‘I cannot confirm the cause of death at this stage, however, no biological, chemical or physical dangers have been detected.’
‘Damn it.’ She had to get over there. She could assist. She could bring a med droid back for Officer Nguyen. ‘What about the other Neo officers?’
‘They are all well and maintaining border security or assisting with resuscitation attempts.’
So it was only Sapien officers then. Shuqba brushed hair from the officer’s forehead. Her hands shook and her toast was threatening to come back out of her stomach. ‘Can you request they report to headquarters?’ Together they could assess the situation.
‘As you wish, Officer Shuqba.’
Shuqba disconnected the call and went out into the street. It was almost full daylight. She set off for headquarters.
‘Officer, help!’ a voice called out behind her.
A Neo female with blood smeared along her forehead and down the front of her pink aged-care worker uniform ran towards her. Her face was as white as a Citizen�
��s teeth.
‘My apologies, Miss. I have an emergency to attend.’ Shuqba turned and ran. She could only deal with one situation at a time.
‘They’re all dead. All the Sapiens. They’re all dead,’ the Neo shouted. ‘I didn’t do it. You have to tell them I didn’t do it.’
Shuqba stopped. Usually by daybreak there would be pedestrians, cyclists and solar cars on their way to early work shifts. Delivery and advertising drones would be filling the skies and armoured trucks starting their journeys in and out of the city.
The cyclist who’d sped past the cafe had collapsed and lay unmoving further up the road, the wheels of his bicycle still spinning. Her breath caught. Something had happened to all the Sapiens.
CHAPTER 38
As morning approached Alida could finally make out the stairs and the lump of Zave. How could he sleep leaning against that jagged, crumbling wall with his arm chained? Alida concentrated on the smidge of dawn sky visible at the top of the stairs to distract herself from the screaming of her arm muscles as she moved her SmartCuffs back and forth over the sharp piece of chain.
She burped the stench of the dicey purified river water. Her guts gurgled and cramped.
‘Hey, up there!’ she yelled. ‘I have to take a shit.’
Zave grumbled and his lump moved around before settling and resuming the deep breathing of the zonked-out dimwit.
‘Can anybody hear me?’
‘There’s a bucket in the corner,’ one of the trolls yelled down the stairs.
Alida groped around in the dark, her stomach contents sloshing and fizzing, until she found the metal bucket. She leaned over the bucket to push herself up. The stench of old piss and shit wrenched at her guts. Spew hit the bottom of the bucket like hail on the market roof. Alida wiped her mouth and pulled down her pants. Her muscles clenched, squeezing liquid shit out of her. She hunched forward holding her stomach. Shitting had never been so painful. It reeked like some sick animal had crawled out of a sewage-infested swamp and up her butt to rot.
‘Jeez, Al. What’ve you been eating?’ Zave’s voice came out of the dark.
‘It’s that nasty water. Cagey jerks charged a fortune for a bullshit purification.’ Alida’s intestines convulsed but the pipes were clear. ‘Hell, I don’t even have anything to wipe myself with.’ She shook off as much as she could, pulled up her pants and stashed the bucket as far away as she could reach.
‘How are you feeling?’ Alida rinsed her mouth out with a sip from her waterskin. She spat it out again, too afraid to drink. If clearing the tunnel didn’t kill her then dehydration would.
‘I’m not feeling too slick in the guts either,’ Zave said. ‘But I don’t think I’m as messed up as you. My piss might not be as toxic as your river water. Do you want some?’
‘I’m not that desperate just yet.’ By the next morning, she reckoned, she might be.
Alida worked the release catch on her SmartCuffs against the sharp chain again. ‘Go back to sleep, Zee.’
The sky brightened minute by minute. The foyer of the old train station appeared in pale-coloured detail. Chunks of tile and plaster had collapsed in piles all over the floor. Fragments of shredded posters from the era before LeaderCorp clung to the walls among snatches of graffiti. Alida read the messages from the characters of the old city while she worked on her SmartCuffs.
Revolt against the Revolting. Our existence is resistance. Rally 2 p.m., 3 June.
Two for the price of one!
Blood and soil!
No jobs on a dead planet.
Let them stay.
Affordable health care and housing for all.
Sexify!
Jobs for locals only.
Punch Nazis!
Terrorists out.
Mother Earth is crying.
Alida inspected the SmartCuffs. All her efforts had done no more than etch a shallow groove that filled in and smoothed in front of her eyes.
‘Bloody hell!’
She kicked at the chain and yanked her captive arm around in an imitation of one of Graycie’s tantrums. She was really stuck. She’d never been so trapped and helpless before.
She should’ve stuck with Freel. At least then she’d be paid for her labour and have a source of safe water. Her life had been totally messy since Mum died.
Pain spiked in her head and tears blurred her vision. Red tears. She rubbed her eyes. Had she busted an eyeball with her tantrum? The pain and red blurring cleared.
Zave whimpered beside her, every muscle in his body tense.
‘Zave.’ She nudged him gently with her foot. She and Graycie had always woken each other if they’d suspected a nightmare.
Zave moaned again and went limp. His eyes popped open. Blood trickled from his nose. Alida had never seen Zave with a blood nose before. How did you get a blood nose from sleeping, anyway? Blood pooled in his eyes and spilled onto his cheeks.
She yelped. ‘Shit, Zave. Wake up.’ She kicked him but he just juddered on the floor. ‘Help,’ she yelled. ‘Help, help! Please.’ There was no answer. Not even a shut up. She yelled again a few more times. Not a single noise came from above.
Was Zave sick? From the bad water maybe? But he’d said he wasn’t feeling that messed up and he hadn’t dropped his guts in the bucket like she had. And why would bad water make him bleed out of his face?
A lone voice screamed in the distance. Something was going on. Maybe everyone had drunk bad water. If it even was the water.
‘Somebody bloody help me!’ she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Zave hadn’t moved and his chest was still. She reached over and held her free hand over his nose and mouth. He wasn’t breathing. She grabbed his arm and groped around for a pulse in his wrist. She couldn’t find anything, but it wasn’t like she was a medic. She stretched as far as she could towards him and lay her head on his chest. No heartbeat and no breath. His crotch was wet and he reeked like he’d shit his pants.
‘Aw, Zave. No, no, no.’
She ground her teeth together. She couldn’t do anything chained to the wall. She yanked at her cuffs again and turned on her implant. It was time to call in all the favours she was owed and a thousand more she was yet to give.
This function currently unavailable. Please try again later appeared in her vision panel when she tried to open MindLine.
‘Hell.’ She jerked against her SmartCuffs until her wrist was raw and bleeding. ‘Help, help. Please, somebody, help.’ She head-butted her knees and gave the cuff one more hefty jerk. The chain popped out of the wall in a shower of busted tile and plaster.
‘Whoa!’
She reeled in the chain still attached to her SmartCuffs. She was free. Mostly. She straddled Zave and gently slapped his cheek. His head rolled around limply and a gush of blood spewed from his nose.
‘Come on, you jerk. Wake up.’
People didn’t cark it for no reason. Not when they were young and healthy like Zave. This was all some big mistake. Some kind of joke. He’d been tiptop only hours before.
‘I’ll find help. Wait here, Zee.’ Some part of her guessed she was talking to a dead person. Nothing could help him now. It wasn’t like in plastic-land where people could be brought back from the dead if they were fresh enough.
She bolted up the stairs, the chain dragging and clanking behind her. Tatts sat alone by the fire, its flames upstaged by the light and heat of the morning sun. His head was tilted back, nose pointing to the sky.
‘You’ve got to get help. Something’s happened to Z–’ She stopped still and clapped her mouth shut.
Tatts had blood all over his face. A bottle lay at the side of his chair, the brew still soaking into the hard ground. She tiptoed slowly towards him, unsure what else to do. The settlement around her was quiet and still. In the distance, a pile of rags with arms and legs lay on the ground outside a shack.
Alida couldn’t breathe. Why was she always the one left behind? She sucked air into her lungs. She was suffocating. It wasn�
��t possible that everyone had carked it. She had heard those screams. What about Graycie? She was in plastic-land. Had this happened in there too?
A sudden burst of static filled her head. Was her implant meant to do that? Maybe it had shit-all to do with the water. Maybe it had something to do with the implants. Maybe she would bleed from her face any minute. She knelt and put her head between her knees until her breath calmed.
In front of her, hanging from Tatts’s waist, was a full mini water skin, sparkling with crystal-clear water. Beside it was a laser cutter.
She reached out and unclipped the laser cutter. Tatts didn’t move. She cut through the release catch on the cuffs and they softened and stretched. She freed her wrist and held it up. Blood dripped down her arm. The same colour as the blood on the faces of Tatts and Zave. She nabbed Tatts’s waterskin and drank deeply, soothing her parched throat. Then Alida did the only thing she could think of. She traipsed towards home, hoping she might find help on the way.
A few metres down the road someone moaned inside a blue canvas one-man tent.
‘Hey. Is someone there?’
The moaning continued.
‘I need help. My mate, Zave, he … Can you help me?’ She was being a dimwit. No one could help Zave. Even if they could, why would they bother? He wasn’t the only person struck down with this. Whatever this was.
‘Hey. Can you hear me?’ Alida didn’t care if this person could help her or not. She just wanted to see another non-corpse. They could sort something out together.
She slowly unzipped the tent. ‘I’m coming in, okay?’
Alida stuck her head inside. A green camo sleeping bag lay on the floor. Cooking equipment, sacks of rice, a solar lamp, a dunny bucket and some threads were stacked to one side. On the other side, squeezed right up against the corner of the tent, was a young chick with yellow spiky hair, wearing a blue singlet and underpants. She was curled around herself like she had a bad dose of period pain.
‘Hey. I’m Alida. Are you … are you okay or whatever?’
The chick moved her fingers over her face. Alida crawled inside and tilted her head to make eye contact. The chick removed her hands. Blood beaded in deep red furrows scratched into her skin.
The Shining Wall Page 19