Anja took a photo of a weird-looking sculpture in the centre of the park. She was planning on sending it to Rufus later. If he couldn’t be there with her, she would still make sure he felt a part of it.
Her head was spinning in all directions, allowing her to take in every small thing. She went to a market a few streets away and bought some basic food, then returned home to cook lunch.
When she arrived back at her apartment building, she noticed a blonde boy standing by the reception desk. Instead of stopping to talk to Miles, she made her way to the bottom of the stairs.
“Anja…” Miles called.
“See, getting my name right isn’t that hard.” She laughed, turning around to face the desk.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Miles’s voice tremored.
She spun around at the same time that Jabez Atgas turned towards her,
“Nice to see you again, Anja Scravers,” he said, extending his hand.
Anja’s mouth fell open. Then she remembered her manners and closed it. She politely shook his hand, flashing Miles a “What the hell is going on?” look.
Jabez carried on as if he was used to this reaction.
“I’m here to talk about your new job.”
Miles butted in, “Shouldn’t you have security with you?”
“They’re outside. I can invite them in if you’d like.”
Miles shook his head quickly.
Jabez turned back to Anja, “Could we talk somewhere private?” He glanced towards Miles, who was loudly chewing his gum.
“My apartment’s empty.”
While heading up the stairs he didn’t speak—but Anja wasn’t sure she would be able to form the words to reply if he did. To say Jabez was intimidating would be an understatement. He had the overconfidence of Carl but he held himself with a lot more self-respect than Carl ever had. Anja had never met anyone like him.
When they got to her apartment Jabez looked around and lifted his nose high into the air.
“They make you live here?” His eyes landed on the furniture and faded wallpaper. She tried to not be offended by Jabez’s verbal slap.
“For now. It’s nice to have a place to myself, I shared my old room with a roommate and it could get pretty cramped.” Willow is going to freak out when I tell her about this!
He continued to examine the apartment while running his hand through his hair. Anja remembered watching a news report about him bleaching it platinum blonde, and when he’d shaved the sides the girls in Anja’s class had labelled him, ‘the perfect bad boy’.
Jabez seemed reluctant to sit down. “We were impressed by your school grades,” he told her, skipping straight to the point. Anja noted the use of we. “It’s obvious you’re a hard worker and so naturally you were our first choice as an intern with our coding team.” He paused, pulling his eyes away from hers. “We also noticed a few inconsistencies in your brother’s exam results throughout his years at secondary school. One of our team looked into it and it seems that you’re responsible.”
She held her breath.
Maybe he’s going to refuse me the job…
But instead, he said, “So, you’ve already proven yourself to be very capable and we think that you would be a great addition to our team.” That was not what Anja had expected him to say.
“Um, wow. I’m glad I’m not going to jail.” She attempted a laugh but stopped quickly at the stern look on Jabez’s face
“I also should remind you that you’ll be doing a lot of the work from this apartment. But with time we think you could move your way up and maybe even get a desk at our Okland building.”
“May I ask a question?” He looked at her with his flat stare. The question had been bugging Anja, but she had to ask, even if there was a chance it would offend him. “Why did they send you?”
His eyebrows furrowed. He took his time to prepare his response. “After seeing you on the train I looked you up and requested making the scheduled visit myself.”
Anja blushed. “Well, I have to say I was surprised to see you on the train, do government officials often travel publicly?” She’d been trying to prevent the silence from settling but as she said it she realised how badly her question could be interpreted.
Jabez didn’t seem to mind though, “I do have people who drive me but when making visits to towns on the border it’s often easier to take a train. I also believe it’s important for everyone to merge together, otherwise, you get a dangerous divide in society.”
Anja nodded along.
He seemed to decide that it was best to end the conversation. “We’ve got your email, all your assignments will be sent through there.” He cleared his throat, “I am glad to have seen you again, Anja.”
“You too,” she replied as he walked out. The door slammed behind him.
He may be attractive, Anja thought, but he acts like a robot pretending to be a human.
She sat cross-legged on the bed, her phone already in her hand, ready to send a text to Willow. She was interrupted when someone knocked at her door.
“Enter at your own risk,” she called. Miles’s grinning face appeared. He was out of breath as if he’d run up the stairs.
“Woah, I didn’t realise you were a celebrity.” His grin grew even wider. “To make a personal visit like that, you’re either secretly famous or he has a crush on you.”
“It’s neither,” she said, falling back onto her bed. “It’s only the second day I’m in this city and I meet Atgas’s son for the second time. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow it will be Atgas herself.”
“I mean, she does work around here,” he chuckled, his shoes shuffling back and forth on the floor. How does he manage to have even more energy than Rufus? He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“I was just coming up to make sure you were alright, he was kinda scary.”
“I’m all right. I can also be scary.”
She bared her teeth at him, he snorted, making her laugh.
Miles saluted her dramatically as he left.
* * *
While eating, Anja’s hand kept playing with the necklace. She was so used to the warmth it radiated that she didn’t notice it anymore.
After she finished eating Anja had nothing else to do so she unlocked her laptop and started scanning police radio frequencies. It was a pastime that kept her informed on what was going on around her. She was looking forward to the new laptop she’d get with the job. But Anja wasn’t convinced that she could trust anyone in this new world yet, and who knew what they would put onto the laptop to keep an eye on her.
Anja tried something that she hadn’t done before, she synced her phone up to the laptop so she could check the police radios on her phone whenever she wanted, all she needed was a signal.
She began listening to the police radio. On the other side of the line, the police were busy keeping a small crowd that had gathered in the park under control. They were protesting again. Something about more people disappearing. The police had orders to keep things peaceful, at least while the public was watching.
Anja listened in and heard angry voices on the other end.
“They won’t stop chanting,” one voice said.
“Can’t we just shoot a few? That’d get the rest to shut the hell up,” grunted another.
“The president wants freedom of speech, so we have to keep putting up with their idiocy,” complained a third.
Over the next hour or so Anja kept checking back in until eventually, things calmed down, and the police were able to disperse the crowd.
* * *
Anja’s feet moved cautiously down the stairs, careful not to step on any creaky floorboards. She moved around the door to reception, then sprinted the last few steps before grabbing Miles’s arm and shouting loudly in his ear.
His scream of alarm reverberated around the room.
“Did you really have to do that?” he screeched, clutching his heart.
“You can’t blame me for entertaining myself.
I’m going crazy up in that apartment.”
“Sure you weren’t crazy before?!” His retort earned him a rough shove. “Also, what even is your job? Because you don’t seem very busy to me.”
“I’m developing a new cryptographic standard that will make the government’s firewalls almost impossible to penetrate.”
“Sorry, I zoned out after the second word.”
Anja rolled her eyes. Her gaze landed on the bowl of salad on his desk. “You want it?” he asked, “My girlfriend got it for me. I think she’s trying to kill me.”
Anja took the salad. “Last time I heard, salad doesn’t kill you. It makes you live longer. But the most important thing is, does this girl need help?”
“What?” Miles looked confused.
“I mean is she mentally ill?”
“Why, because she brought me a salad?”
“No, because she’s dating you.”
Anja laughed as Miles threw a pen in her direction, missing her by a wide margin.
Her cackling echoed in the stairwell as she dashed up the stairs, still clutching the pile of rabbit food Miles’s girlfriend had given him.
Chapter Seven
During her first two months in Okland, Anja’s job kept her constantly busy. Working from her apartment meant that she was able to spend the free time she had with Miles. Apprentices in the Cyber Security Directorate had to prove their worth working mostly remotely before they’d be allowed in the high security environment of the government offices.
During her chats with Miles, he would talk for hours about his dad’s farm, where he worked before getting the job in Okland, showing Anja pictures of his four-year-old sister. When he wasn’t sharing pictures of his family he was talking about his girlfriend and how much he loved her. It was so sweet that it made Anja want to gag. “I guess it’s too late to tell her to run,” Anja said as she perched on the front desk while Miles worked.
“I’d follow her wherever she went.”
“Wow, that’s really creepy!” She laughed. Miles just looked frustrated.
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“You’ve never actually told me her name, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” He looked up from his computer. “That’s because you’re a crazy hacker and I know that if I told you her name, you’d track her down.”
“And why would that be so bad?” Anja giggled. The beer she was drinking had gone to her head quicker than she’d expected.
“Because if you met her and don’t like her then I’ll have to break up with her.”
“What the hell, Miles? If you like this girl as much as you make it sound like you do then my opinion doesn’t matter.” Anja gulped the last of the beer down.
“But what about the whole, bros before…?”
She threw the empty can at him, his hands flying up in defence. Her heart ached as she laughed alongside Miles. He was always saying things that reminded her of Rufus.
Soon. He’ll be here soon.
* * *
A dinging noise filled the apartment as the laptop on the desk started up. Anja moved around the counter and grabbed it, then went to sit on the sofa.
A notification filled the screen. She clicked it and a cluster of tabs popped up. The notification was a message from another government coder, explaining a problem they’d found. The tabs were the work they’d already done, but they still couldn’t find a solution. It took Anja a while to figure it out.
Finally, she was done. She rubbed her eyes before getting up to stretch her dead legs and moving into the kitchen.
She had been so busy with work that over the last few days her food supply had gone down, and now she had nothing left. So, she grabbed her purse from the counter and went to the Okland market square.
The pop-up stalls were scattered all around. There were a few dozen in the area, not all of them being used at one time. Sellers would move around the city to different markets each day, hoping to increase their sales.
It took a while but finally, Anja had everything on her list, from healthy vegetables to just plain junk food. She then decided to make her way around the city, visiting the solo shops as she went.
After she had been wandering for a while, she came across a large crowd. She could hear their yelling and cursing before she saw them.
It looked like another protest had formed. The people in this crowd were dressed like Okland residents. Over the last two months, Anja had begun to be able to tell the difference.
They were huddled around a white-haired teenager. It took her a second to recognise him.
Jabez.
Anja moved nearer, rearranging her shopping bags to keep the circulation flowing in her arms. Jabez was trying to talk to the crowd but his voice was swallowed up by their shouting. Guards flanked either side of him.
The crowd calmed down slightly, letting Anja finally hear him.
“You don’t need to worry. My mother’s men have been working hard to see that this city stays clean of magic. The council is working on measures against them- weapons,” he added.
The crowd fell silent, hanging on his every word.
“Trust me when I say that my mother is doing everything she can to take them down. Today was an anomaly and will be dealt with. We won’t let Sorcerers use their magic in this city.”
Someone in the crowd shouted out a question, Anja couldn’t make it out but she did hear Jabez’s reply. “We have doubled street patrols and the Sorcerer Special Unit has been called to find them.”
“Them? You said there was only one in the apartment!” Another crowd member piped in.
Jabez didn’t miss a beat, “We need to be open to the idea that the Sorcerer was a part of a small group of rebel Sorcerers.”
The crowd gasped, resuming their angry yells.
“But,” Jabez shouted over them, “We will find them. We will not stop until we’ve wiped out the scourge of magic in this country. They broke the law and they will be found and punished.”
Before the crowd could turn violent, Jabez stepped away from them, flanked by his guards. He was whispering orders to one of them when he spotted Anja, he changed direction and moved straight towards her.
“Anja.” He nodded politely.
“What happened?” she asked.
“An apartment a few streets away from here contains a Sorcerer, the neighbours alerted us to their suspicions that there were secret meetings going on inside the apartment. But when we got there the place was cleared out. My mother sent me to try to calm down the residents of the building.”
“I wouldn’t say you calmed them, more informed them.”
Jabez placed a hand on his forehead, “There’s not much I can say that will calm their nerves.” Jabez glanced behind his shoulder at the angry crowd. “I don’t know how to talk to them,” he admitted, his shoulders collapsed inward and he seemed to deflate. “Whatever I say reflects on the government and my mother. Which means I can’t mess up. I wish I could tell them it will be okay but I honestly don’t know. So now I’ll leave and they’ll start a riot, which my mother will blame me for…”
Anja moved before she had time to think. She jumped up onto a bench next to where Jabez had previously been. The crowd fell silent, staring.
Anja put on the commanding voice that she used when Rufus was misbehaving,
“Listen up!” she shouted, “I know you’re worried and so am I, but you’ve got to calm the hell down. Instead of being out there finding the Sorcerers, Jabez has to listen to all your bitching. Wouldn’t everyone’s time be better spent finding them?” The crowd remained silent. “Now clear off so he can do his job.”
Anja jumped down from the bench and made her way back to Jabez. Mutterings followed her as the crowd dispersed.
Jabez looked impressed. “You didn’t calm them down either but you efficiently shut them up.” A look of gratitude replaced his usually blank expression.
“I expect a pay rise for this,” Anja joked but Jabez nod
ded.
“It shall be done.”
The guards followed him as he walked away, leaving Anja laughing silently to herself. She rushed back to tell Miles in detail about what had just happened.
* * *
Later that day Miles barged into Anja’s apartment.
“How did you…?” Anja started saying.
“I’ve ‘borrowed’ the emergency key.”
“Isn’t that a breach of policy?”
Miles shrugged.
“Oh, guess what Miles?” She didn’t wait for a response, “You know how Rufus finished his exams? Well in a month he’s coming to live with me while he finds a job here!”
Miles grinned, “That’s amazing! But he doesn’t have an ID card, does he?”
“Not at the moment but he’ll mooch off mine. Once he’s earned enough freelancing, he can apply for one.”
Miles nodded. “Well, right now we’ve got something else to do.” He grabbed Anja’s coat which was hanging on the back of the sofa, “Get up. You’re meeting my girlfriend.”
Anja leapt off the sofa, and followed Miles out the door, snatching her coat from him as they left.
She followed him to Charlie’s. The pizzeria was packed as usual but there was one table that wasn’t full. Sitting at the table was a curly-haired girl, wearing a short turquoise dress.
“Saskia?” Anja blurted, moving towards the girl to make sure it was really her.
Saskia stood up and rushed forward, embracing her in a huge hug.
“See I said that Okland wasn’t that big!” She winked.
“What the fuck?” Miles announced, loud enough for half the pizza place to turn and stare. He repeated himself in a stunned whisper.
“Sit down and we’ll explain,” Anja pulled Miles over to their table. Anja turned to Saskia, “Just getting this straight… you’re dating Miles?”
“Yup.” Saskia pushed her long curls from her face. “It’s lucky I care about what’s on the inside.” Her smile lit up her stunning face.
Miles could not hide his irritation. “So, all this time of telling you nothing about her identity was pointless?”
Anja nodded, “I guess so, considering I already knew her.”
One Wish, One Choice Page 5