CHAPTER 3
We all had to get off the bus. It was going no further. A line of Unit patrol cars with their lights flashing – Stay back, stay back – blocked the way. Officers paced in front of the cars, talking into radios and watching the growing crowd. Nobody was getting through that blockade any time soon.
Some businesspeople in expensive suits demanded to know what was taking so long because they were Very Important People with Very Important Work to do.
‘What’s the hold up?’ shouted a guy with a leather briefcase. Other people joined in. And despite all the shouting, the Unit somehow kept their cool. I tried not to think about how different it would be if it were people on my side of the city, only a bus ride away, shouting at officers like that. The Unit had guns. You didn’t shout at people with guns. I’d learned that the hard way. But I guess the hard way wasn’t something these people had to deal with. They’d never been stopped by the Unit just for walking down the street. They’d never been harassed by them. Searched and questioned and terrified of accidentally saying the wrong thing.
To these people, the Unit meant protection. The Unit was there to serve them, look out for them, keep them safe. I suppose that meant they could speak to the officers however they wanted.
How long is this going to take? I have a meeting. Let us through. They sounded exactly like the kids at school: rich and self-important. I wanted to tell them to shut the hell up. The officers said nothing, just let them get louder and more annoying.
‘Geez. Someone tell them to shut up already,’ said someone behind me.
I smiled a bit and started to say something like, You read my mind, as I turned around, and it was him. The new kid. The cute one. The one who’d called my drawing interesting and not spoken to me since. Not a word. But now he stood right next to me and grinned like we were old friends. I couldn’t finish my sentence and just stared at him like a freak.
‘Santee, right?’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m Z,’ he said, and held out his hand, which was bizarre. I mean, who actually does that? Handshakes were for politicians and important people in suits. Not me.
‘Hey,’ I mumbled and my face grew hot as I awkwardly shook his hand. What kind of name was Zee? Seriously?
‘It’s Zac, really,’ he said. Maybe he actually could read my mind. ‘I’m trying get Z to stick, you know, new school and all that …’ His voice faded away like he didn’t know what to say next. Neither did I. So we just stood silently, side by side, as the crowd grew louder.
In the distance but close enough to shut everyone up, there was a burst of gunfire. Almost like fireworks. But not as fun. I wrapped my arms across my face, covered my ears. Waited for it to stop.
‘You OK?’ Z asked me quietly.
I dropped my arms. ‘Yeah,’ I said like it was no big deal. ‘Are you?’
‘Sure, yeah, sure, uh-huh,’ he said.
He obviously wasn’t but then neither was I, not really, so I didn’t push it.
Everything had gone very, very quiet.
The air fizzed.
The officers told us, Be calm, don’t panic, we’re dealing with a serious Threat situation.
Drones hummed overhead and captured our faces. A record of who was there. I wondered if we’d be on the News with a scrolling caption – Terrified Crowd. The man with the briefcase pushed past me as he made his way towards the back of the crowd. Suddenly he wasn’t so eager to get to work. Funny that. He dropped his briefcase and sat down, head in hands. He looked smaller now somehow.
They weren’t used to it, the people who lived on the good side of the city. That sort of thing didn’t happen over here anymore. Magnus Varick made sure of it after the attack that tore up the city years and years ago. That’s when he created the Unit and the Curfew and the stop-and-searches and the cameras. All for our security. Some people used to complain about it but now everyone was grateful. That’s what we were told, anyway. Even though I don’t think the people on my side felt the same way. At all.
On the night of that famous attack I was at home. All of us were there. We had finished dinner and it was my turn to do the dishes. I was being a real brat about it and they left me in the kitchen and went to watch TV. I was still ranting about how unfair everything was when Dad shouted, Santee, quick, and I thought he was just playing a stupid joke on me to get me out of my mood. He did stuff like that sometimes. But this time, he wasn’t. He wanted me to see the news. The city had been bombed. Multiple locations. Collapsed buildings and burning cars and screaming faces filled the screen. A shiver ran through me. My whole body went cold and I hid my face in Dad’s chest.
‘They don’t need to see this, Joseph,’ Mum said and she used his full name so she was serious.
Astrid and I went to bed but we didn’t sleep. We whispered and cried and wondered what it meant. We could hear the hum of the TV all night. The next day, everything felt extra quiet but somehow the world got up and kept going. Over the next few months Magnus Varick made lots of speeches about our city and the state’s security limitations and expectations and plans for improvement and how it wasn’t good enough. People seemed to really like his speeches but they made Dad shout a lot and Mum would say, Not here, not in front of the girls.
My fingers shook as I texted Mum to let her know I was OK.
I knew she would be worried. I pressed send but it wouldn’t go. I shoved the phone back into my bag. Piece of crap.
Z gave me his phone and said, ‘Try mine,’ and I did but all I got was that little exclamation mark telling me Error! Error!
‘Shit,’ I said.
‘Network must be down,’ he said.
Nah, really? I thought. But I said, ‘Thanks,’ and handed back his phone, which was a hell of a lot newer than mine. The screen didn’t even have one crack in it.
‘Sorry,’ he smiled.
What was I supposed to say now? Ask about school? His favourite class? Teacher? It all sounded so dumb in my head. I looked around at the crowd. We must have stood out, me and Z, in our school uniforms. I wondered if he felt as out of place as I did, surrounded by all those suits with their takeaway coffees.
‘Reckon this’ll be you one day?’ I said.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You. In a suit. With your briefcase and coffee and shiny shoes.’
‘Nah. No way.’ He laughed. ‘How about you?’
‘Yeah. That suit, there, is my dream,’ I said, and pointed to a woman in the brightest, shiniest pink suit I’d ever seen. It was so bad it was actually kinda good, and I laughed.
He didn’t.
‘That’s my aunty,’ he said.
My stomach dropped and I started stumbling around for the right words, but then he started laughing. Like really, really laughing, and saying stuff like, You should see your face, and he went on and on like he’d made the funniest joke in the world. Seeing him laugh made me laugh and we tried to stop, but the more we tried the funnier everything seemed. I hadn’t laughed like that in the longest time.
When we finally calmed down I heard the couple near us talking really loudly.
‘I bet it’s one of them, from over there, causing all this trouble. As usual,’ the woman said as she sipped her coffee.
The man agreed with her and they started going on and on about how bad it was over there. How everyone from over there was a Threat. As if over there was a whole other planet, not a place where people lived and worked and had families and friends. People like me. I felt myself boiling up inside. Who the hell were these people with their ugly suits and loud opinions? Who did they think they were?
‘What the hell’s your problem?’ I said.
The couple turned around.
‘Excuse me?’ The woman’s face turned bright red. ‘What did you say?’
‘You’re both full of shit,’ I said.
‘OK, OK, sorry – she doesn’t mean it, she’s not feeling well.’ Z tried to pull me away, but I shook him off.
&n
bsp; ‘I’m fine,’ I snapped at Z. ‘It’s these two who are the arseholes.’
‘Care to repeat that?’ The man stood up a little straighter, his face blotchy and sweaty, and I wondered if he was going to hit me, or Z, or maybe both of us. ‘Come on, tough girl, speak up.’
There was a lot more I wanted to say but right then my mind went blank. I wanted them to know how wrong they were but the right words wouldn’t come, and static buzzed in my head, and all I could think of was the last time I’d tried speaking up and how it had made everything worse because I always made things worse, and Mum’s voice in my head said, Be careful, don’t make a fuss, and I clenched my fists as the static buzzed louder and louder and it felt like I was underwater. Drowning. My chest got tight like it was strangling my heart and I knew, I just knew, that I’d screwed up any chance I might have had with Z. I looked up at the sky and started to count in my head and when I got to ten I heard the man speak, and it sounded like he was underwater too. What’s wrong with her? he said. And I let go of the sky and realised everyone had heard him and they were all staring.
At me.
‘Check her backpack!’ The woman’s voice was shrill as it rippled through the crowd. People slowly edged away. She’s hiding something in her backpack. What’s she doing? What’s wrong with her? They thought I was a Threat. I could hear it in their whispers; see it in the way they backed off. They thought I was carrying a bomb that would shatter them into tiny pieces.
‘Officers!’ the man shouted. ‘We need some help here!’
I had to get out of there but my legs were like concrete.
And then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Z. He was still there, right next to me.
‘I know a detour,’ he said. He grabbed my hand and my body sparked. ‘Let’s go.’ And we did. Hand in hand.
CHAPTER 4
The city was a tangled maze of roads and alleyways and I had no idea how it all fit together but Z obviously did. It didn’t take long to lose the noise of the crowd. We slipped down an alleyway and I leaned against the cool bricks to catch my breath and slow my brain and get back to some version of normal. Whatever that was.
‘Sorry about all that,’ I said, without looking at him.
‘Why are you sorry?’ he said.
‘Um, I think my mum would call that causing a scene.’ I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He stared at me with this look on his face, like he was trying to figure me out. I’d seen that look before.
A week ago we’d all been in the library when Beth came to pick me up for our chat. Usually I’d slip out and no-one would notice. But not that day. That day, Tash made a big deal about it. Don’t worry, everyone, she said in this really exaggerated voice, Santee’s getting her meds. We’re safe! And everyone laughed. Everyone except the new kid. Z. He just sat there with that look on his face. In our session, Beth asked me to consider what I was doing to make my peers so antagonistic (her words, not mine). There’s a common denominator, she said. There always is, right?
Now I said, all cool and casual, even though I didn’t feel like that at all, ‘You just gonna stare at me all day?’ and tried to laugh. Z kept looking at me and my head pounded in the silence.
Finally he said, ‘Those people back there, they’re dickheads. But it’s not their fault, and it’s definitely not your fault. It’s the Unit and the whole Regime. It’s their fault. You know that, right?’
‘Regime?’ I said softly, hardly believing the word was coming out of my mouth. Hardly believing Z had said it, just like that, as if it were nothing. I hadn’t heard anyone say it since Dad had been taken away.
‘That’s what it is –’
‘You can’t say that,’ I said, because it was true. No-one spoke like that about Varick and his government. It wasn’t allowed. Who was this guy?
‘But you know that’s what it is, right? A Regime.’
‘I know I should keep my big, stupid mouth shut,’ I said, looking at the security camera above our heads.
Z smiled up into it. ‘Ready for that detour?’ he asked.
It wasn’t like I was dying to get to school, but what else were we going to do – sit there all day? No thanks. So I followed him through the alleyway (which, until that moment, I never knew existed) and out onto another street.
The sound of helicopters and sirens drowned out the city’s usual noises. Everything seemed slower somehow, like some kind of heavy blanket had been draped over the city. We slipped down another alleyway that looked exactly the same as the one we’d been in. I was sure we’d just done a circle.
‘You sure you know the way?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got a good sense of direction,’ Z said. I raised my eyebrows. ‘No, I do. It’s my thing.’
‘Your thing?’
‘Have a bit of faith, Santee,’ he grinned.
‘Dork,’ I said, and gave him a nudge. I didn’t say cute dork but that’s what I really meant. Because he was.
Here’s what I learned about Z during our detour:
One – He thought he was a lot funnier than he was and, because of that, you had to laugh. So maybe he actually was funny?
Two – He liked to talk, a lot. Mainly about absolutely nothing.
Three – He knew his way around the city.
Four – I liked being around him.
We eventually stopped in front of a wire fence.
‘Here we are,’ Z said.
I wondered if I’d have to re-evaluate Number Three on my things-about-Z list because at that moment he didn’t seem to know his way around at all. His detour had taken us to a vacant block between some high-rise buildings. The sign on the wire fence said KEEP OUT but I didn’t think anyone would want to go in there anyway. It was just a pile of weeds and rubble. Z peeled back a broken bit of fence as if he were holding a door open for me, like he was from one of those old-fashioned black-and-white movies.
‘Um,’ I said. ‘The sign.’
He shrugged. ‘You coming or what?’
‘The. Sign.’ I pointed at it for emphasis. But it didn’t matter. He ignored me and the sign and crawled under the fence. On the other side he stood, did a stupid, elaborate bow and waited for my applause. I stared at him through the wire.
‘Tough crowd,’ he said.
‘That is totally illegal,’ I said.
‘I do it all the time.’ He was still grinning.
I couldn’t help it: I liked his grin. I liked the way he didn’t give a crap about the KEEP OUT rule, which did seem kinda pointless. I liked the fizz in my stomach at the thought of breaking the rules with Z.
‘There’s no cameras here,’ he said.
‘So, perfectly safe then?’ I said.
‘Maybe.’
I pulled back the wire, pushed my backpack through and crawled under the fence and into the empty block. He held out his hand and helped me back to my feet and I liked the way his hand fit into mine but I could feel my face glowing, hot hot hot, and murmured a thanks and busied myself wiping dirt from my knees, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
At the far end of the block were two boring office buildings, grey and windowless. I wondered who the hell would want to work there. Not that they had a choice. Everyone had their job to do and Good Citizens did what they were told.
There was a narrow gap between the two ugly buildings and, of course, that’s where Z went. We had to turn and sidestep our way through, my back up against one wall, my nose almost touching the other, and above us a slice of blue sky. It felt as if the walls were closing in on me.
‘You OK?’ Z whispered.
‘Are you?’ I said. I kept my focus on the little piece of sky. It helped.
We shuffled along like that until the space opened slightly and we could walk a little easier. Facing forwards. I kept my eyes on Z. Noticed how his dark hair was shaved at the back of his head, the way it made a V shape, the muscles in his neck.
Helicopters flew overhead. The wailing sirens grew louder as we moved through the gap
. It sounded as if Z had led me right into the middle of the Threat situation we were trying to detour around. Maybe he had. I could feel the panic rising in me. Maybe Z was being a Good Citizen. Maybe all that stuff he’d said was just part of his act to get me to trust him and say things I shouldn’t and now he was going to hand me in, tell them I was a Potential Threat and then go to school and be the big hero. The gap was getting wider and the exit was getting closer and the noise was getting louder and louder and I knew we’d be seen by someone soon.
Unit patrol cars shot past in a flash of blue and red.
‘I thought this was supposed to be a detour?’ I tried to keep my voice normal to hide my nerves.
‘It was, I mean, I …’ As he turned to face me his words were swallowed up by the whirring of a helicopter. Closer this time. Too close. We stared at each other in silence while we waited for it to pass. He looked as nervous as I felt. There was something about that look that made me relax a bit despite the noise. I was being paranoid, as usual. Of course Z could be trusted. I looked at him and started to notice stuff I didn’t really want to notice. Like his eyes, and the way they seemed to smile before his mouth did, and how he bit his bottom lip, and the scent of his deodorant or cologne or whatever it was guys wore. It smelled good. Had I remembered to put deodorant on that day? Suddenly I was worried that I stank of sweat.
‘I’m just gonna take a look,’ Z said, moving towards the exit.
He stuck his head out between the buildings and just as I was certain it was going to get blown off right in front of me, he turned back, looking pretty impressed with himself. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ And, as much as my legs didn’t want to, I followed him out onto the path.
We were near Unit Headquarters. A huge, menacing building full of people who were meant to protect us. But I never felt particularly safe or protected when I had to walk past it. I’d put my head down, walk a little faster to get out of its way, as if it were some kind of sleeping dragon that might wake up and burn me alive.
Everywhere Everything Everyone Page 3