by Terry Tyler
"You go with Karena to dinner," I say to Sapphire, and I put what I hope is a reassuring hand on Karena's shoulder. "I'll go and plead your case, and I'll catch up with you in the restaurant."
I hurry out, and take the lift up to the top floor.
All is quiet up here; the only other rooms are used for meetings and storage. The light is still on in Whittle's lair; good.
I knock.
"Come!"
I open the door. She's clearly packing up for the day, standing by her desk and looking up at the wall, com in hand, taking a last nose at the security monitor.
"Oh. Tara. Can I help?"
"I hope so. It's about Karena's trip to have her braces fixed tomorrow."
"Mm-hmm?" She closes the monitor down without looking at me, and turns back to her desk, rearranging items and dropping some into her bag.
"She doesn't want Paulie to accompany her; she doesn't feel comfortable with him. She wants me to go with her—she's actually in quite a state about it."
"Karena's always in a state about something."
"Er, yeah; that's why she's here. I was thinking—wouldn't it be better if I went with her, as she requested? Going out is nerve-racking for her as it is, and I would've thought it'd be best if she went with someone she feels safe with."
"You would, would you?"
"Yes."
She glares at me as if willing me to liquefy in front of her. "Tara, you have no psychiatric education or experience, as I find myself having to remind you far more often than I should. Part of her programme requires her to get used to interacting with people she doesn't feel safe or comfortable with. She needs to push herself, step outside her comfort zone."
"I understand, but I don't think she's ready for this. It's too much, and she doesn't like the way Paulie introduces her to reception as being from a psychiatric clinic."
At that, she just rolls her eyes and laughs.
Fuck her. "I think I should go with her."
"Absolutely not."
"Can I ask why?"
She stops fiddling, and gives me a nasty smile. "I employed you against my better judgement, and it seems that my first impression of you was right. I'm not allowing the daughter of a valued benefactor of Aubrey House to take off on a jaunt with the offspring of drug dealers who has kept some extremely dubious company in recent years, and openly encourages Karena to break the rules."
Oh, that look of triumph. Like she's thinking, that's told her.
I bite back the words that scream to break free, and say, "I understand your prejudices—sort of—but isn't the most important issue that Karena likes and trusts me? That going out with me will make her feel calm and 'normal', whereas being accompanied by Paulie might have the very opposite effect?"
She takes a small step closer to me. "Paulie is a conscientious and qualified member of staff who obeys protocol to the letter, and works with me to ensure that Aubrey House retains its first class reputation; unlike some, he does not make up his own rules as he goes along, or disrespect my procedures." Her dislike of me is etched deep into her face. "Furthermore, he doesn't make up childish nicknames for me and teach them to the clients."
I don't mean to laugh, but it just comes out. "Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about."
She almost snarls at me, baring her sticky-out teeth.
I try again, because this is about Karena, not me winning an argument. "Come on, Dawn, forget your dislike of me for one moment and think about what's best for Karena. Let me go with her tomorrow; it'll increase her confidence if she goes into the outside world with someone who makes her feel secure. It'll be good for her. A step forward."
"Good for her?" Her cheeks redden. "To go gadding off with someone who, in her own teenage years, was completely out of control?" She looks me up and down, with what I can only describe as disgust. "What are you going to do, feed her blitz as soon as you get outside? The Bettencourts did their best with you, but the fact that they've disowned you says everything."
Oh. Now it's not funny any more. "Who the hell do you think you are?" My voice is almost a whisper; oddly, Ms Psychiatric Expert fails to sense how close I am to losing it. "You don't know the first thing about what went on in that house."
She shrugs. "I don't need to. You've done nothing with your life, despite the opportunities you've had—your résumé is a car crash. A private school, growing up in a gated community, prancing around as Miss Nucrop, and now look at you."
I laugh. "Oh, you're jealous. Now I get it."
She totters unsteadily on those stupid stilettos, such is her rage. "If I could sack you here and now, I would. You're scum. Hope Village scum."
You know how during a particularly vicious exchange, one thing can really touch a nerve? That's what does it for me. Hope Village scum. Reminds me of Jerome. I think of all the people I knew back then—Radar—who are worth a hundred of this bitch, and I see red; I don't think about getting the sack, I don't think about Karena.
"Go fuck yourself, you nasty cow. And FYI, half the staff call you Shittle, too."
For a split second we just stare at each other, and then—
—whack!
The slap of her hand across my face is so hard it almost knocks me off balance.
I hear myself yell an obscenity at her, and I push her, not hard, but enough to make her stagger on those shiny blood-red patent heels, and she falls—
—catching the side of her head on the sharp corner of the desk.
I growl, "Oh shit," and I reach down to help her up but she bats my hand away.
She pulls herself up and stands, swaying, frowning with pain like she's completely disorientated, hand to her temple from which blood is already seeping.
I go to pick up her com, suggesting I call for a medipod, but she shoves it out of the way, like she can't bear my filthy Hope scum hand touching her possession, and then she just sort of crumples.
Those heels skid on the polished floor, and she plummets like a stone.
Crack—
Her head crashes onto the wood-effect tiles, so quick and so hard it almost bounces.
She is completely still.
Oh no. Oh no, no.
Oh shit, oh shit, no—
No, no, no, what the fuck have I done—
I bend over her, roll her onto her back, trying to remember where the pulse points are. I listen for a heartbeat, for any sign that she's still breathing.
I open her mouth, putting my ear close to it, to see if I can detect the sound of breathing.
There's nothing.
She's fucking dead. I've fucking killed her.
I lurch back, falling onto my arse, tears of shock and fear pouring down my face, panic surging through my whole body.
I've killed her. If they catch me I'll be locked up forever, forever and ever—
Think. Think.
My mind is blank, I'm done for—her NuSens will send out an alert that her heart has stopped. Someone could be picking it up, right now.
I don't know how long I've got—I spring up, and run.
There's no point in wiping away my prints, because some monitor somewhere will show me entering the room. I hurtle down the stairs in blind terror.
I can't be found. I'll go to prison for life.
What do I do?
I'm not going to get away with this. There's no way out.
But as I open the door to my room and throw myself inside, I remember.
Don't use it unless you need a way out. Only if you're desperate. If anyone can help, he can.
Before, I didn't understood what Milo meant by desperate.
I take the secret com out of its hiding place in a coat pocket, and don't stop to worry about what to say, because I don't have a second to waste.
No answer. No fucking answer.
I try again.
No answer.
So much for Xav.
I've got to go. Now. I've got to run.
I grab my bag and hare into the bathroom, stuff
in my toothbrush, toothpaste—Double Shot, I'll go to Double Shot and pray Kush is working—and just as I realise that my own NuSens will be showing my blood pressure and heart rate as off the fucking charts, the com rings, an unfamiliar tinkling noise. My head is so dizzy with fear and panic that for a moment, I don’t know what the sound is.
Then it dawns on me. I leap for it.
"Xav?"
A male voice: "Who's this?"
Deep breath. "My name is Tara. Milo Scott gave me this com before he was taken away. He told me to ring you if I ever needed a way out of MC12. I do, right now. I mean now." I clutch that com. "Please."
"Why?"
"I think I've just killed my boss. By accident."
"Where are you?"
"Care Village. Sector 13. I work in female psych, live-in. I'm in my room. It was a fall, bang on the head, no pulse or heartbeat, blood from where she caught her head on the corner of the table."
"Okay. Don't butt in, and do exactly as I say. The health department will get an alert that a heart has stopped, and a medipod will be sent, so you need to leave immediately. Once they get there they'll have to establish cause of death, and I imagine they'll look at the monitors so you need to be as far away as possible by the time that happens. Leave your official com in your room, but take this one. Dress normally, but wear a hat or hood; be aware of where the cameras are but don't look up at them. Take only a small bag with essentials, nothing that looks as though you're taking a trip."
"Okay, but where—"
"Someone will call you back in a few minutes and tell you where to go. Use that time to get ready to leave."
Scrubs off; jeans, t-shirt, boots and jacket on, clean knickers in bag—and oh, thank goodness, the com rings.
"Tara, my name is Marek. I'd say you've got fifteen minutes max to get on the zip and be away. Go to Sector 10, get off at Connect 14, head for Greenland Freezer Foods depot. Ask for me. You got a Healit pen?"
"Yes." Sector 10, Connect 14. Sector 10, Connect 14.
"Good—you need to take out your NuSens but not yet, because if it goes dead it’ll trigger an alert. On the first available zip north, go to the toilet and take it out by scoring your skin with a sharp point—it'll hurt—use the Healit, and change zip at the next connect. Remember, your main problem will be face recog. Go. Now."
"Thanks, but where—"
"Go."
And he rings off.
I shove scissors and Healit into my inside pocket.
I'm sweating with fear as I open the door, glancing up and down the corridor. Nothing. No one.
Aileen.
Karena.
No, I can't be that person you scream at in a movie, the one who escapes danger but makes a quick detour to say goodbye to her mum, and gets caught.
Fifteen minutes, he said. It takes five to get to the zip if I walk fast.
"Tara!"
I look round.
It's Aileen. Smiling at me, walking towards me.
"I'm just going down to dinner—where are you going? Hey—what's up? You look awful—sorry, that's sounds bad! I—"
I hurl myself at her, pull her to me and whisper in her ear, a thirty-second summary of what's happened and what's going on.
"I've got to go. Now."
For a moment she stares at me.
Blinks twice, frowns, like she's making lightning calculations.
"I'm coming with you."
"What? No! You don't have to do that—Leah—and if I get caught—"
"Maybe Xav can help me find Leah." She smiles. "And what sort of friend would I be if I let you do this alone?"
In the three minutes it takes Aileen to put on boots and a jacket and stuff her bag with clean knickers and pictures of Leah, I call Xav.
For a moment he doesn't reply and I feel sick, but then he says, "This is good—you can leave a false trail. When you take out your chips, your friend needs to leave her com behind, too, which might buy you more time. Now hurry."
Baseball caps on, a brisk walk out of Aubrey House (it's so hard not to run), and we're on our way to the ziprail.
The connect is jam-packed with people going home from work. We lose ourselves in the crowd for thirty seconds, until the first northbound zip comes along.
We push through the crush to the toilet.
"Marek didn't mention how much blood there would be," I whisper. The NuSens is just under the surface of the skin, but it hurts like hell.
"How did people ever manage without Healit?" Aileen says, as she mops me up. Our wounds mended and anaesthetised, I feel the zip slowing down. We flush the sensors down the loo, leave Aileen's com on an empty seat, and get off. Two minutes and forty-five seconds later we're on Zip 147 to Sector 10, squashed up against the door by three Chinese lads who don't stop talking for the whole journey. In exuberant Chinese, all at the same time.
The five-minute walk from the connect to Greenland Freezer Foods feels like the longest journey of my life. By now it's forty minutes since I (probably) killed Dawn Whittle, and everywhere must be on high alert for us; my eyes are desperate to look up to check for drones, but Aileen's com is currently travelling to Sector 6, so hopefully that's where they'll concentrate their search.
Aileen doesn't speak. I think she's struck dumb with fear. I'm so paranoid I daren't speak to her, either; I keep thinking there must be some other sensor in my body somewhere, that I've forgotten or don't know about, that's recording my every move. Crazy.
Aileen points. "Up ahead."
Ah, the sign for Greenland, the back of a huge warehouse, and I long to run, but I know we mustn't. I see a camera, and as we come close, I whisper to Aileen to look in her bag for something, to keep her head down and shielded by the brim of her cap. I have a coughing fit so I can cover my face with my hand.
The gates to the parking area and the doors of the vast, strip-lit warehouse are wide open. There are bound to be cameras everywhere inside. And out.
The sound of a horn, to my right across the tarmac, almost makes me jerk my head up, which would have displayed my face to robot eyes on the gates. My heart thuds, my limbs feel like jelly and I'm so scared my face starts to quiver, like I'm going to cry.
This is so not like me, but I've never killed anyone before.
"Tara." Aileen grabs my arm. "Over there."
A man is gesturing to us from the window of one of those old-fashioned lorries like I remember from when I was a kid, the sort that deliver to Hope Villages.
Aileen clutches my arm. "It's him. Got to be."
Marek is comfortably nondescript. Best way for a Link op.
As he opens up the back of the van, we're greeted by a blast of cold air. This isn't going to be pleasant.
I ask, "How come you're still here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Three of my friends—my boyfriend. He did … what you do. But he disappeared—"
Suddenly I feel like my whole face is filled with tears that are about to gush out of every pore. I've got to get a hold of myself.
Marek touches my arm and says, "I'm sorry. I really am. There are a few of us here—our manager is on the Sector 10 Council." He grins. "She's also Link."
"Handy."
"It is. Come on, we need to get going."
Aileen asks, "Where to?"
Marek jumps up inside the back of the vehicle and starts moving stuff around. "North. As far as I dare take you off my route, after which you'll hide in a safe house, and Xav will pick you up in the early hours of tomorrow morning. In twenty minutes we'll be out of the megacity, and you can breathe again. If they've already set up a perimeter search we might be stopped, but don't worry, you'll be well hidden. I've adjusted the heat to minus eighteen, which is the highest I dare without everything thawing, and you'll be well wrapped up, so you should be okay!"
Aileen looks at me, horrified.
Should be okay?
Minus eighteen?
Am I escaping life in a prison cell, only to freeze to death?
Chapter 27
Ezra
Tuesday, September 19th, 2062
Ezra Bettencourt knows something about Jerome and Clinton that is worth more than gold. A piece of information so juicy it oozes blood, so hot that Ezra sweats just thinking about it. If it got out, it would be the downfall of his family. No Bettencourt would survive the resulting holocaust, their names forever tarnished by association.
Ezra wouldn't care. He accepts now that he will be forever overlooked. He isn't confident, slim or handsome enough to rise to the top. He does, however, have money tucked away; now that he is out of Caleb's favour, most of his free time is spent at home alone, and he has made good use of it—he has become a whizz at playing the cryptocurrency markets. He has a modest villa in southern Spain bought under his new identity, both of which were paid for with a large wad of that lovely, untraceable crypto.
Then there is the source of income that should materialise, if the worst (or best?) happens.
Ezra taps on his com, and once more studies the latest communication from Fareed Hijazi, the Saudi Arabian multi-billionaire who wants in on Nutricorp UK. Hijazi has promised a fine commission for Ezra, should he deliver the right information at the right time.
Most of all, Ezra can't wait to see Jerome, the cuckoo in the nest, get what he deserves. Bad enough that he stole Caleb's favour and Phase 11 from right under Ezra's nose. Worse still is that he lied to him. Pretended he was discovering his latent sexuality, hinted at the possibility of a deeper relationship in the future, made Ezra fall in love with him, while all the time he was merely gaining a foot in the door.
Now, Jerome doesn't even bother to talk to him. At Freya's birthday party in the summer, Ezra overheard himself referred to as 'that desperate old queen'.
But Ezra doesn't care any more. Because Ezra knows about Laser62.
Part Four
Laser62
Chapter 28
Leah