“Here you go,” she said a few minutes later. With a forced smile she carried two mugs of tea into the lounge. Her Mum took hold of one and brought it to her chest. Alia sat down and let their shoulders rest against each other. Even this small touch was comforting. “I’m going out for a bit, Mum. For food.”
There was no reply.
“I’ll have to take some jewellery, but it’s just in case. Don’t worry.”
They sat in silence while Alia finished her tea. Her mum didn’t drink and Alia knew she would just hold it to her chest until the mug grew cold. There was a noise upstairs that made her flinch. Her mum heard it too and lowered her head while the mug trembled in her hands.
“It’s okay, Mum,” she said. “I’ll sort it.”
An hour later, she stepped out into a bitterly cold Straybeck morning. Alia fastened her coat as she walked away from their rented house. It was a squalid, damp-ridden place in the Slum District. Outside the front yard was a metal skip, overflowing with bags of refuse and remnants of broken furniture. It had become the official dumping ground for the entire street and Alia held her breath as she walked by.
The further she travelled from home, the wider the streets grew and the larger the houses. Before long she was moving between the offices and smaller factories of the Worker District. Alia considered crossing the checkpoint into Old Straybeck, but quickly dismissed the thought. She no longer had the strength to face whispered comments and scornful looks from people that used to be friends with her father.
Instead, she went to the Trade District and begged the buyall staff for credit. She told them the truth about her circumstances and when that didn’t work, she told them lies. She tried to barter with the jewellery but knew how it must look. A young girl with a handful of rings and necklaces. In their position she’d have thought it was a set-up too.
The fourth store she tried was small and the shelves stacked high with tins. Alia walked past a row of crates that were full of fruit and vegetables and ran her finger along their tops. She waited at the news stand, holding a copy of The Straybeck Times as if she were going to buy it. When the other customers left, she dropped the paper and approached the counter.
Behind it was a short, wiry man who was writing notes with the stub of a pencil. His sleeves were rolled up and he leant one elbow on the counter to stare at Alia. When she didn’t speak right away, he shook his head and chuckled to himself. It was a mocking laugh as if she was the punch-line to a joke.
“Do you let people have goods?” Alia said. “You know, on tab?” She was already sure of the answer.
The shopkeeper put the pencil behind his ear. “I knew you were one of them the moment you walked in here.”
Alia dropped her eyes. “I don’t usually do this,” she said, “I promise I’ll pay you back next week. It’s just that my mum’s not well and she’s been out of work. And my dad, well he’s…”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s terribly sad. But you’re the third one today. I’ve had all the sob stories I can take thank you.” He took down the pencil and resumed his writing.
Already burnt by the response at the other shops, Alia broached her next question carefully. “Maybe I could pay you some other way,” she said and reached into her pocket for the small cloth that contained her mother’s jewellery.
The shopkeeper put the stub of his pencil between his teeth. “I think maybe you could.”
Alia heard the suggestion in his voice and tried to hide her revulsion. She picked a ring from the cloth and held it out towards the shopkeeper. It was a gold ring with a blue stone set on top. “Would this pay for two weeks food?”
The shopkeeper snorted in reply and took the ring off her, taking care to slide his fingers over hers as he did so. He looked closely at the stone and then tossed the ring onto the counter. “It’s fake.”
“No it isn’t, it’s my mum’s.”
“That won’t buy you two days.”
“It’s worth at least a week.”
The shopkeeper leaned across the counter and beckoned Alia closer. Reluctantly she stepped towards him. “I tell you what,” he said. “How about I give you a week of food for that ring.”
Alia said nothing.
“But after that, no more jewellery. I want a different payment. You understand me?” He gave her a lingering smile.
Alia nodded her head, unable to form an answer. Leaving the ring on the counter, she grabbed as much food as the shopkeeper would allow and then ran from the shop.
As she carried the bags of food back through Straybeck, she checked her watch giving a start when she saw it was almost midday. The workers would be loose from the factories at any moment. Up ahead, she saw a gang of them already knotted around the doorway of a bar, blocking half of the pavement. Alia crossed the road between the slow-moving traffic and hurried down the other side. One of the workers called out, but she didn’t turn around. They whistled a second time and shouted after her, the voices sounding closer now.
A gunnerman truck idled towards her and she could tell from the driver’s face that he’d zoned in on the workers. Relief breathed through her. She turned back to them and saw that they had lost interest in her and were re-forming their circle outside the bar. With a vindictiveness she would have found unthinkable a year ago, she flagged down the truck and waited for the gunnerman to unwind his window.
“What?”
“I just thought you should know,” she said quietly. “I heard one of them talking about a gun. The tall one there. I think he passed something to one of the others.”
“Right,” the gunnerman said. He didn’t even want details. Just an excuse to lay into them and she hoped that they got what they deserved.
When she rounded the corner of her street, Alia unconsciously slowed her pace, prolonging her return for as long as possible. At the end of the yard she waited with her key in hand, feeling a sudden anxiety spread through her body. Her heart began to hammer, hands tingling with pins and needles. She fell against the wall and sank to her knees, unable to fight the throbbing in her head and chest.
She knew she was going to die. Her heart was beating too fast and her breathing had grown rapid and shallow. The certainty of death was in itself quite soothing though and as the seconds dragged on, Alia’s breathing levelled out. The house bricks were damp and cooled her face. As her thoughts cleared she realised it was not death but another panic attack.
Her fingers closed around the pills she had bought for her mother. They were opiates, bought from the pushers for the cost of a silver necklace. Now, with shaking hands, she unscrewed the lid and poured one of the speckled white tablets into her mouth.
She waited, breathing in and breathing out. The wind bit keenly round her neck while the afternoon sun glared into her eyes. She focused on these sensations as she waited for the tightness to ease in her chest. It was almost ten minutes before she felt well enough to stand. Alia gathered up the shopping bags and was about to go into her house when she heard the sound of footsteps. She span round quickly and saw a worker sprinting towards her.
Chapter 6
It had been weeks since John found the pamphlet in his brother’s room. Weeks since that terrible fight and the fallout it had left. Ryan walked round like he was charged with electricity, while his dad became a ghost to them. John found himself chattering about anything and nothing, so long as it brought noise back to the house.
Today he was listening to an old war story on the radio and retelling the best bits to his dad in the kitchen. Suddenly the sound turned to static and the radio powered down. John flicked it on and off at the wall but it didn’t help. Not even when he banged on the top with his hand. In the kitchen his dad was washing the dishes, staring out of the window.
“Dad,” John said. “The radio’s broken.”
His dad dropped the plate into soapy water and leaned heavily on the sink. “It’s not broken. I’ve already told you our district’s on savings today.”
“Did you? I d
on’t remember. What should I do now?”
“I don’t know, John,” he sighed. “Read a book.” He shook the suds off his fingers before walking quietly upstairs.
John paced around the downstairs, trying to imagine where they might keep some books. Then he remembered the restrictions on his Dad’s ID card and stopped looking. Suddenly Ryan jogged down the stairs and grabbed his coat off the hook. John hadn’t realised he was still here.
“Where are you going?”
“Out,” the thump of the front door put an end to further questions.
John waited a few moments before following. By the time he had grabbed his own jacket and sneaked from the house, his brother was already at the corner and heading towards the checkpoints.
John had never been to the Worker District without his dad before and even then they had stuck to the main routes. He recognised Carragon Road, but after that the route became confusing and John grew worried. Just when he was about to turn back, his brother veered off the main road and towards a burnt out old chapel nestled between smaller shops and houses.
John hid in the alleyway opposite, peering from behind a stack of bricks and rubble. It was bitterly cold and he scrunched his toes up to stop them going numb. He waited for maybe half an hour as his breath come out like dragon smoke.
Eventually, Ryan emerged from the chapel and back onto the street. He was holding a bundle of papers that had been rolled into a tube. John watched him trap them under one arm as he fished around in his coat pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes and box of matches. He lit up, dropped the match onto the wet road and then set off towards the factories.
John crept from the alleyway and followed at a distance. The streets were empty though and it was difficult to stay hidden while Ryan was continually checking over his shoulder. The further his brother moved from the broken-down chapel though, the less he checked and John was soon able to walk with more confidence.
A sevener plodded slowly down the pavement towards him. They were the police in Straybeck who kept everyone in order. Danny Saunders at school said they were all related to giants and never grew old and had super human strength. He also said he’d found one of their secret tunnels that went under the city. John remembered how half the class had followed him after school to a dark staircase that led below an old factory. None of them dared to go down though, not even Danny Saunders.
As the sevener loomed closer, John gawped upwards, spellbound by the figure who was easily a foot taller than his dad. The officer’s blue tunic was buttoned smartly to his chin and as he passed by, he put one finger to the brim of his helmet, a wry smile on his face.
John hurried to the end of the road and saw his brother waiting at the edge of the factories, glancing warily in all directions. He jumped into the nearest doorway, pressing close to the walls as he peeped around the edge of the metal doorframe. He needn’t have worried though. Ryan seemed completely unaware as he pulled out another cigarette, lighting it between cupped hands before heading onto Foundry Lane. The heart of the Worker District.
John kept moving too and found himself on a long, cobbled road that stretched into the distance. Even from John’s position at the end of the street, he was stunned by the noise that pushed against him. There were dozens of gigantic mills and factories, each housing enormous machines whose combined movement seemed to shake the ground beneath his feet.
Opposite the factories, and running the length of the street, stood The gunnermen walkway. John eyed the wall of red bricks and saw two gunnermen standing near a watch hut. Ahead of him, Ryan was oblivious to the scene and hardly broke stride as he approached the first factory. From inside his jacket, he produced the roll of papers and what looked like a can of spray paint. He took a cursory glance at the gunnermen and then shook the can up and down and sprayed its contents onto the factory wall. It made a messy Z shape and Ryan slapped one of the posters on top, smoothing out the creases with his sleeve.
From his hiding place, John felt his stomach twist into knots. He watched helpless as Ryan went to more factories and glued more posters onto the filthy black bricks. He checked his wristwatch and saw that it was nearly midday. He knew the factories would stop for lunch and the street would soon fill with workers. He wanted desperately to go home, but knew he couldn’t leave his brother.
While Ryan had his back turned, John ran to the first factory and read one of the posters. His jaw fell open in shock when he saw the stark black and white image. It was a cartoon of Premier Talis with his pants down, taking a shit over Straybeck.
The dinner horns echoed up and down the row of factories. John ducked for cover behind a rusty set of stairs that climbed up the side wall of a factory. Workers poured onto the street, laughing and shouting at their friends. He lost Ryan in the sea of dirty overalls while the workers searched for a ledge to perch against while they ate their sandwiches. He caught an occasional glimpse of his brother’s black jacket moving in between the workers. Unbelievably he was handing out the posters as he moved along the street.
Most of the workers paid no attention to either Ryan or the picture. Some crumpled it up while others rolled their eyes and dropped it to the floor. Occasionally, John would hear a bark of laughter and see Ryan slapped on the back as he walked past. As he reached the centre of the crowd though, it all went terribly wrong.
“Hey,” a young worker shouted. “Hey you.” At first his words were drowned out by the general din, but John saw his brother’s stride quicken in response.
“Hey,” the man shouted again. More workers broke off from their conversations and turned to the noise. They saw Ryan retreating through the crowd and then saw the young worker waving one of the posters like a flag. “Someone stop him,” he yelled, gesturing for the gunnermen now and pointing after Ryan.
John stared up at the walkway. The two gunnermen at their watch-hut had stopped talking and were unhooking their rifles as they moved towards the steps.
“Stay where you are,” one called.
For a moment Ryan seemed to obey as he came to a stop and stared up at them. A moment later he broke free of the crowd and sprinted back up Foundry Lane. He passed alongside John’s hiding place and then ran out of sight. The gunnermen were down at street level in an instant and barrelling through the crowd of workers in pursuit.
Chapter 7
Still recovering from her panic attack, Alia gathered the fallen bags of shopping and retreated closer to her house. The footsteps grew louder and she looked up to see the worker sprinting towards her like his life depended on it. She thought back to the gang outside the bar and wondered if one of them was coming to take his revenge.
As he drew closer, she saw that he was older than her, maybe eighteen, and he was carrying a fist full of rolled up papers. She braced herself for an attack, but he barely glanced at her as he ran past.
Ahead of him lay a vast industrial estate with open plots that offered no obvious hiding place. The worker looked exhausted and stopped beside the skip at the end of Alia’s yard. He walked in a tight circle looking first at the industrial estate and then back up the narrow road. Eventually his eyes lighted on the skip and, as he grabbed hold of the metal rim, he looked directly at Alia.
“If the gunnermen come,” he said, “tell them I kept running.” Then he hoisted himself into the skip and burrowed beneath the bags of rotten food.
Seconds later Alia heard more footsteps and watched a thick-set gunnerman lope around the corner of the road. He was blowing hard by the time he reached her house and his rifle was hanging at one hip. Another gunnerman appeared at the top of the street.
“Go round,” the first one shouted, gesturing for him to circle behind the houses. Then he walked past Alia and scanned the empty industrial site ahead.
“If you’re looking for the worker,” Alia blurted out, “he went that way.”
She pointed across the wasteland, to the nearest collection of buildings, not knowing what had made her say it. The gunnerman waited in
silence, trying to judge whether or not the worker had been that far ahead.
Although his expression was full of suspicion, he gave a terse nod and began jogging across the industrial estate. Alia leant back against her wall, shocked at what she’d just done. She was an accessory now. What if the gunnerman came back and looked in the skip? He’d know that she had lied and she’d be arrested. What would happen to her mum?
As the gravity of the situation hit her, Alia dropped her shopping bags and ran forwards, delving into the stinking bags of rubbish. The worker’s face suddenly appeared, squinting against the burst of light. From his frightened expression it was clear he had been expecting the gunnerman.
“Get up. Quick.” He rolled awkwardly to his feet and peered above the side of the skip. “Hurry,” Alia said. “If he comes back he’ll know I lied for you.” While the worker climbed onto the road, she ran back to her house, relieved to be rid of him.
“Wait.”
To her horror, Alia turned to see him running into the yard. “What are you doing?” she hissed.
“He’s turned back. If I go on the road, he’ll see me.”
Alia couldn’t believe this was happening. She grabbed the key that she wore around her neck, rammed it into the lock and rushed into the hallway. The worker followed behind her and they bundled into the kitchen together. Standing in silence, Alia saw his eyes flick over the cramped space and shabby cupboards. Suddenly she was embarrassed and hoped that her mum stayed shut away in the lounge.
“I’m Ryan,” he whispered.
“Alia,” she said in spite of herself.
“Thanks for helping me.”
She shrugged, still angry at herself for doing something so stupid.
“Shall I go out the back door?”
“You can’t. There was another one that went that way.” She crept over to the back window and searched the alleyway running behind the house. It looked empty, but she couldn’t see further than a couple of houses in either direction. “Why was that gunnerman after you?”
Straybeck Rising Page 4