I walk over and pluck the multitool from his hand. “If you smash it, it definitely won’t work.” I cut the power to the panel and run my fingers over the circuit board until I find a blown chip. Behind the panel, a frayed wire provides the rest of the explanation. “Do you even know what you’re doing with this thing?”
“Do I look like an electrician?”
But he steps back, watching as I root in the box on the floor to find a new chip and replace the frayed section of wire. I flick the power switch back on and music pulses through the speakers in the other room. I find the volume control and turn it down.
“You should really update the system. It’s a fire risk, especially if you turn it on and off at the mains.”
A sheepish look crosses his face. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“My father taught me some things, and I figured the rest out myself.” I chuck the multitool back into the box. “I’m good at fixing things.”
I push past him and head to the door, but he calls me back.
“I’ll have a word with the boss. If you’re as good as you say, you might be able to work off the cost. Come back tonight. I’ll have an answer for you then.”
“Please, Ma, just eat a bit more.” I wave the spoon in front of her mouth, but she remains resolutely tight-lipped. Her gaze constantly flicks to the cupboard.
I drop the spoon into the bowl, causing the thin broth to splatter across the table. “Fine. Finish this, every bit, and you can have some.”
When Ma reaches out a trembling hand, I curse myself for giving in again. This has to stop. The addiction clinic had said that we needed to wean her off the tronk gradually, but it’s not working. Or maybe I’m just too soft. But if it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t eat anything.
The spoon makes it into her mouth, a trickle of liquid running down her chin. I resist the urge to wipe it off.
“Please, Rae.” Her eyes beseech me.
“All of it.” I turn away so I don’t have to watch.
The spoon finally rattles in the empty bowl and my mother looks around greedily. My feet are heavy as I walk over to the cupboard and reach up to the high shelf. I pull the small packet from its hiding place, but it’s empty. My heart sinks.
“Pa? Have you taken the tronk?”
He looks up from the sofa and shakes his head. “No, I haven’t touched it. I let you do all . . . that.”
You can’t bear to see your wife like this, so you refuse to even look.
I look down again at the packet in my hand, then stride over to the bedroom I share with Nessie. She’s lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling.
“Nessie?” I wave the packet in front of her.
She turns away, pulling her knees up to her chest. I grab her arm, yanking her out of bed and onto the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you want to be like her? We need you to get a job. Not throw away our money on tronk.”
She cowers beneath me, shielding her head as if expecting a blow. I want to hit her, I really do. How could she take it when she’s seen what it does to people, what it’s done to Ma?
But I know why. It’s the same reason so many people give in to it eventually. Tronk offers an escape from the drudgery of living, from the hunger that claws at your empty belly, and the despair of being unable to find work. It makes you happy, if only for a few hours.
And happiness is the most potent drug of all.
That’s why the streets Outside are lined with hobies—the homeless who haven’t been fortunate enough to secure a job and an apartment. People who don’t have a husband, wife, sister, or brother to look after them and choose tronk over food. Tronk over life. But I won’t let that happen to my family.
They can beat this. They just need time.
Nessie peeks out from between her fingers, her eyes swollen with tears. “I’m sorry, Rae. Don’t be mad at me. Please. I’ve been trying to get work, really I have . . .”
Guilt mingles with the fire in my veins, and I slump down beside her and pull her into a hug. Her thin bones poke out through her baggy clothing.
How can I blame her? Nessie’s like Ma. She needs something to live for, something to keep her going every day. If she could find a job, a sense of purpose, she’d be fine.
“You have to stop it,” I whisper, brushing back the hair from her forehead. “Please? For me and Pa? You’ll find something, I know you will. Just don’t give up, okay?”
She nods, tears still leaking from her eyes.
“Come and have some broth.” I stand, pulling her to her feet. “There’s bread to go with it. I know it’s not much, but maybe we can get more sausages next week.”
She wipes her eyes and follows me back into the main room. I fill a bowl with the soup and hand it to her, along with a piece of flatbread.
“Come and eat, Pa.”
He starts from his hunched position on the sofa and looks straight at me. His gaze is filled with such pain and heartbreak that I have to look away as tears spring to my own eyes and a sob rises in my throat, threatening to betray me.
Somehow, I must persuade the bartender’s boss to help me out. Otherwise, I’m going to lose them all.
Chapter 5
The bar is busier when I return, but still far from full. The pulse of the music seems to amplify my heartbeat as I walk across the sticky floor.
The man with the skullcap tattoo is serving a couple of guys my own age. One of them tries to catch my eye, but I ignore him and wait for the bartender to finish.
“You came back.”
I nod.
He says something into the comm band on his wrist and motions for me to follow. A woman replaces him at the bar as we walk across the empty dance floor to a concealed door on the far side. It closes behind us, the silence feeling like cotton wool in my ears.
The man grins at me. “Good soundproofing, isn’t it? I’m Bobby, by the way.”
“Rae.”
“I know.” He shrugs at my surprise. “Took a scan of your chip last time you came in. Follow me.”
“Are we going to meet your boss?” I ask, trailing him up a flight of stairs.
“Maybe.”
He motions for me to enter a small room on the next floor. There’s a chair and a table scattered with tools, electronic chips, and a couple of partially assembled devices. A cleaning bot stands to one side, its domed lid removed, exposing the wires underneath. It looks like a model 5.1. I thought they were obsolete.
I turn to ask Bobby what this is about, but the door clicks shut behind me.
“Hello?”
I scan the room for another door, but the walls are smooth and unlined. The only decoration is a large picture on one wall—a cheap replica of some masterpiece. It’s a view of London from the south bank of the Thames back when the river was confined to its banks and before some enterprising builder figured out how to build skyscrapers.
“Bobby said you could fix things. So fix them.”
I start and look around, but there’s no sign of the voice’s owner. If there are cameras in the room, they’re not visible. My palms begin to sweat.
Okay, another test.
I take a closer look at the objects on the table. A comm band, holopad, and something that looks like a gun, plus the cleaning bot. They’ve provided me with a full set of tools, a soldering iron, and a couple boxes containing replacement chips, circuit boards, and wires. If I had this kind of kit at home, I could make decent money fixing people’s broken tech.
My hand trembles on the microdriver as I reach for the comm band. Easy jobs first.
I soon become absorbed in the work, almost forgetting that I’m being watched. Fixing things is soothing. Every item is designed for a purpose. It has a pattern. It’s logical. Not like people.
The comm band takes me five minutes to sort out, the holopad a little longer. I leave the gun on the table and walk over to the cleaning bot. I’ve fixed more modern bots, but this one is almost an antique. I pick the dome up off th
e floor and run my fingers down the hairline crack in the plastic. It’s yellowed with age and would be better replaced with Plexiglas but doing so would take away from the bot’s character.
It takes me twenty minutes to figure out what’s wrong with the bot, another twenty to fix it. Finally, I clean the plastic dome with the hem of my top, fit it back onto the bot, and power it up. It hums into life and begins to move around the room, bumping off the table and wall.
Damn. Its antenna must be screwed up, too.
I cut the power to the bot and kneel in front of it, chewing my lip. A strand of hair sticks to my forehead as I shuck off my thin jacket. They could at least have put me in a room with climate control.
“Stop.”
The microdriver in my hand falls to the floor as I lurch to my feet. The largest man I’ve ever seen stands in the doorway. An Insider for sure. He has to duck to enter and his presence makes the room shrink. Thick dreadlocks hang to his shoulders.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He sounds amused.
I realize I’m pressing my back against the far wall of the room and take a step forward, shrugging.
“Do you always creep up on people?”
“Sometimes.” He nods at the repaired items on the table. “Why did you leave the gun?”
“I haven’t seen one before. Figured I’d fix what I knew, then work it out. Have I run out of time?” I bite my lip. He didn’t tell me there was a time limit.
“No, but I’ve seen enough.” The man picks up the holopad, swiping a thick finger across the screen. “I’ve been trying to get someone to fix this damn thing for weeks.”
“You gave me good tools.”
Remembering the microdriver on the floor, I stoop to pick it up. When I stand, he’s right in front of me. My breath catches in my throat. He smells like the fresh air after a summer rainstorm. With surprising gentleness, he takes the tool from my hand and places it on the table.
“Rae, isn’t it?”
I nod.
“Bobby told me you’re friends with Jed.”
“Kind of. We went to school together.”
Jed had been my first, and only, boyfriend. It had only lasted a few months before we realized we were better off as friends. And we’d tried to stay friends, though I didn’t see much of him anymore. His shifts at the factory overlapped with my cleaning job Inside. He hadn’t told me much about the man he’d said could help me. In fact, he hadn’t told me anything.
“Is Jed a friend of yours?”
“He works for me.”
“Oh.” Jed hadn’t mentioned that. “At the nightclub?”
“No.”
He doesn’t elaborate any further, which only sparks my curiosity. “So what else do you do?”
“This and that. Why do you want your chip removed?”
For a moment, I consider lying, but I get the feeling he’ll see right through me. Besides, I find myself wanting him to like me. It’s a disconcerting feeling.
“My father works at one of the mech workshops, fixing broken bots and machines. He injured his hand and has to wear a bone healer for two weeks, but unless he turns up at work on Monday, he’ll lose his job and we’ll lose our apartment. I thought . . .” My voice trails off as I realize just how stupid my idea sounds.
“You thought you could impersonate him?”
“Yes. I can do the work, and from what Pa said, the supervisors don’t take much notice of who’s in there. But they scan you in and out with your chip.” I look down. “Jed said you might be able to help.”
“And your father agrees with your plan?”
“Sure.”
The man’s eyebrows furrow and he folds his arms, like a school teacher chastising a pupil for lying. “You haven’t told him yet.”
“He’ll be fine.” I glare at him, daring him to disagree. I’d thought his eyes were black, like the rest of him, but they’re a very dark brown with flecks of amber. I find it hard to look away.
The corners of his lips twitch. “If you say so. But this isn’t something to do lightly. The technology we use is quite new. It’s not a case of simply switching your chips over. They’re attuned to your body and we haven’t figured out a way of overcoming that yet.”
“So how does it work?”
“We create a biobox that simulates your body’s environment, then remove the chip from your arm and place it into the box. Or a sleeve, if you have to have your arm scanned. As long as they don’t see your arm, you should be fine. But if anyone were to peel back your sleeve or the Metz got involved, you’d be found out instantly.”
And the penalty for that kind of transgression would be execution. Or banishment to the Farms or Labs, which amounts to the same thing.
I swallow hard. “I know the risks.”
He seems about to say something more but checks himself. I feel his eyes on me, appraising me, and I meet his gaze. I’ll be damned if I let him intimidate me.
“Do you know the Cazenove complex?”
I nod. It’s an entertainment house in Area Eight.
“Behind it, there’s a doctor’s surgery. Take your father there tomorrow afternoon at two. Be discreet.”
“A doctor? Not a medic unit?”
“Yes. He only does private cases. Some people still don’t like the idea of being treated by a bot. But he’s a scientist as well as practicing medicine, which makes him useful to me.” He turns to leave.
“Wait. What about payment?”
“I have a lot of things that need fixing.” His tone suggests he doesn’t just mean comm bands and holopads. There’s a flash of white teeth. “Let’s see if you survive the week first.”
“You don’t have much faith in me.”
“We’ve only just met.”
Irritation flares in my stomach. He seems to be treating this as a game. I move to stand between him and the door.
“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know your name.”
His eyes darken. “For now, you can call me boss. Now, I have other matters to see to.”
He reaches out and gently pushes me to one side. My skin prickles under his touch.
The room feels oddly large without him. I grab my jacket and head for the door, realizing that I’d never heard the click of a lock. It’s been open the whole time. I could have walked out at any point.
But I didn’t.
I must have passed the test.
A shiver runs through me as I wonder what exactly I’ve signed myself up for.
“I told you. I am not having this done!”
The doctor looks from my father to me, uncertainty etched into his features. I place a calming hand on Pa’s arm, but he shrugs it off.
“I’m serious, Raelee.”
Uh-oh. He never uses my full name.
I give the doctor a beseeching look. “Can you give us a minute?”
He frowns, then retreats to the far side of the room. “Two minutes. No more. And, if you don’t go through with it, there’s a charge for wasting my time.”
I smile, more confidently than I feel, and lower my voice. “It’s only for a couple of weeks, then they can put the chips back in. There won’t even be a scar. No one will ever know. You can go back to your job, fully healed.”
He shakes his head. “I can’t let you take that risk. Do you know what they will do to us—to you—if we’re found out? I won’t put my daughter in that position.”
“Not even to save your other daughter? And your wife?”
He flinches, and it hurts me to see the pain in his eyes from the failures he heaps on his shoulders. But he needs to hear this. My father has always been proud of his skills, proud that he was able to support his family when so many men Outside could not. But pride isn’t going to get us through the next few weeks.
“You can’t help us, not until you’re healed. And the likelihood of me getting a job tomorrow that will pay what we need is about as good as finding out we’re Chandella’s long-lost cousins. There’s no other o
ption. Unless you want to see us all out on the street, and you know how long Ma will last out there.”
He shakes his head again, but I can sense him weakening.
“Please, Pa.” I take his hand, running my thumb over the gnarled joints that protrude from the bone healer. “I can do this. I know I can.”
He grasps my thumb, squeezing it awkwardly between two fingertips. “So brave, my daughter.”
He lets go and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, just as he used to when he put me to bed at night as a girl. “You know I would not agree to this if there were any other option.”
“You’ll do it?”
“On one condition: we let my friend, Jason, in on it. When I was hurt, he nearly took out the guy who turned on the machine. Got a wrench in his head for his trouble.”
I remember the man from the hospital. “I think I met him.”
Pa nods. “Well, me and him are close. If he knows you’re stepping in for me, he can help you. People are used to the two of us keeping to ourselves.”
I hesitate. The more people who know about this, the harder it will be to keep the secret, and I don’t want Jason to get into trouble if I get caught. But Pa makes a good point. Having Jason help cover for me will improve my chances.
“Fine,” I say reluctantly.
“You pair made up your mind?” the doctor calls from the far side of the room.
I nod. “Let’s do this.”
Removing the chip barely takes a minute, but the preparation work—creating the sleeve for Pa’s chip and the biobox for mine—takes over an hour. The doctor takes samples of our blood and hooks each of us up to a kind of treadmill to monitor our pulse and breathing rate while we exert ourselves. He also gives us something I wasn’t expecting. A tiny box to strap around my throat. He makes Pa talk into a data pad that’s hooked up to it for ten minutes, then detaches the box and indicates that I should strap it on. When I speak, the voice that comes out is my father’s. It makes me jump.
“What about payment?” Pa mutters to me as the doctor shows us out of the clinic. The six-inch rubber band containing his chip compresses my forearm and I have to resist the urge to rub it.
On the Brink Page 3