They left the scene.
They left the bodies on the ground.
They turned away from the blood and the sobbing and what might have been the only slice of hope to be found in the wall.
CHAPTER 12
Everywhere we went, people stared silently at the wall. We saw cars and buses abandoned, engines left running and doors flung wide, as drivers and passengers stood on the road and just looked. Mouths open. No words. Numb. We tilted our heads back and looked up at the endless wall until our necks ached. Drones hovered overhead.
We wandered in a daze, neither of us really able to put together a sentence, let alone figure out what the hell was happening. I thought we might get some information from the big TV screens that constantly showed the News all through the city. There was one in the square that sat between expensive restaurants and sleek office buildings. We made our way there through streams of people, all heading to the wall looking excited, or terrified, or maybe both.
A small group had gathered in front of the screen. Nearby stood some Unit Officers. I couldn’t tell if they were watching the people or the News. Maybe they didn’t know what was going on either, and needed the News as much as we did that morning.
The News was showing images of the wall. A drone must have filmed the entire length of it. It looked like a scar running through the city and beyond. Then it showed us the parts of the wall still being built, and the high security checkpoints and the heavily armoured Unit Officers who patrolled them. Slabs went up quickly, efficiently, one after the other after the other, sealing us off or in or whatever the hell it was doing. Even with the proof of it right there on the screen, I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Magnus Varick’s face appeared on the screen. People called him handsome and I suppose he might have been, to some, but not to me. Not at all. He had this giant smile full of glistening white teeth – a smile that never quite reached his eyes. His hair was a wave of grey and he always looked perfectly put together. When Varick spoke, people listened. They always had. Even before he became Our Leader, Varick was a powerful man, rich and important and always in the news. Now he made the News.
It felt as if everyone stood a little straighter, a little taller when he appeared on screen. Z muttered something under his breath. I looked at him and whispered, What? He just shook his head.
Varick stood on a podium on the lawn outside Parliament. Around him were men in dark suits and high-ranking Unit officials. You could tell because their uniforms were much more full-on than anything I’d seen on the officers on the street. All gold chains and buckles and medals and crap like that.
‘Good Citizens,’ Varick said, and paused for the usual response.
‘Our Leader,’ people on and off the screen replied in unison. I mumbled along with them. I’d always hated saying it. It felt awkward and weird and I couldn’t understand why they’d started making us do it. Mum would say, Just go with it, Santee, stop asking questions. Z must have felt the same as me about it. He rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut. I hoped nobody noticed.
‘Today is a very special today,’ Varick continued. He spoke clearly, slowly, as if explaining something to a bunch of preschoolers. ‘The Safety Border is a temporary measure designed for your protection and security. Sadly, after uncovering even more Threats in our city we have had to implement this difficult yet necessary initiative. We do this for you, Good Citizens. Thank you.’ And the people on the screen clapped and Our Leader nodded.
That was it? What did that even mean?
‘Liar!’ a woman screamed, and threw a can at the screen. Cola burst out of it and fizzed everywhere.
The Unit Officers snapped into action. They pushed us roughly out of the way and tackled the woman to the ground. One pressed his knee into her back, another held her legs down, another kicked her in the ribs. She screamed and screamed and I wanted to help her but didn’t want to end up like her and I couldn’t look and yet I couldn’t look away. And then someone was moving towards them yelling, Stop, stop! and they sprayed something in her face and she cried out and stumbled away.
After that, everyone became very, very quiet, even the woman on the ground. They lifted her to her feet but she couldn’t stand on her own. She kept flopping over like she was asleep, and when they tried to make her walk her head lolled forward like she was watching her toes drag across the ground.
‘Get out of here,’ the Unit Officers shouted angrily as they stuffed her into the back of a van. ‘Go home.’
Home.
I couldn’t go home.
But Z could. I grabbed his arm and started walking. In all that was happening I’d totally forgotten that Z had a dad who would be just as angry and worried and upset as my mum.
CHAPTER 13
Z punched a complicated series of numbers into the security pad that unlocked the entrance to his apartment block, and we stepped into the foyer. Like I said, Z lived in a really nice place. I mean, for starters, there was a foyer. And every apartment had a welcome mat at the door and it felt like they meant it. Welcome. The whole place just had that feel, you know? Outside Number Six were pot plants and a garden gnome who sat on a little toadstool with his fishing rod. He was perfect and ridiculous and I kinda wished he were Z’s but we walked right past him.
‘What’s his name?’ Z said.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Your thing, you know, about naming things. What would you call the gnome?’
I had nothing. I shrugged and Z said we should call him George and I tried to laugh but nothing came out.
We stopped at the next door. Number Seven. There was no welcome mat there. Just a dried-up pot plant. Z hesitated.
‘You OK?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said, and grabbed his keys, but he hadn’t even put his hand near the lock when the door was flung open.
‘Bloody hell,’ a voice bellowed, and Z was pulled into a massive bear hug. The man was either embracing Z or squeezing the life out of him. Perhaps both. The man cried and Z mumbled, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ and it sounded like he was crying too.
I wondered if Mum was waiting just inside our door, too, frantic and scared and imagining the worst. I bit my lip and looked away. Z’s neighbour from Number Six stood in her doorway, watching the scene unfold. She smiled and nodded before disappearing back inside.
‘This is Santee,’ Z said. ‘Santee, this is my dad.’
He held out his hand the way Z had at the blockade. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Z’s dad wore an expression that you only ever see on parents: a mixture of relief and anger and love and disappointment. It’s a complicated face. My mum and Z’s dad were pros at it.
‘Sorry about all this, sir,’ I said, and shook his hand.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s get inside.’
Z and his dad went in. I didn’t know if I was supposed to follow them or not. I waited, awkwardly, in the corridor.
‘Santee,’ Z’s dad called out, ‘close the door behind you.’
I walked behind them down a long hallway. The walls were covered in family photographs and brightly coloured paintings.
‘Zac!’ A girl ran towards Z and jumped into his arms, nearly knocking him down. ‘I hate you so much,’ she said, but she was laughing and crying and hugging him as she said it.
‘Sorry,’ he said again.
She broke off from the hug and pushed him away to get a better look at me. I smiled, but she didn’t. She crossed her arms and looked me up and down.
‘Who’s that?’ she said.
She must have been only nine or ten years old. Her hair was a mess of curls and she wore cat ears on her head and a mismatched combination of a skirt over a dress over jeans. Others might have described her as cute, but I had the feeling she would have hated that word. She had way too much attitude to be called cute.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘I’m Santee.’ Even as I spoke I realised how lame I sounded. Like I was trying way too hard to be friendly. I was so bad at that sort of st
uff.
‘This is Mila,’ Z said. ‘My sister.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, and went to shake her hand like the rest of her family had done. I thought it was their thing. But she pulled a face as if she were allergic to me.
‘Santee’s my … my friend, from school,’ Z said.
He gave me a little half smile and raised his eyebrows and I had no idea what to make it of it.
‘What’s she doing here?’ Mila asked Z, as if she didn’t want to speak to me directly. I guess she blamed me for her brother going missing all night, so I couldn’t really blame her for hating me.
‘I can’t get home,’ I said. ‘Cos of that wall.’ My eyes suddenly became hot with tears. I stared up at the ceiling and tried to blink them away. As I did, I felt arms wrap around me and looked down to see it was Mila hugging me.
‘Sorry,’ she said, and it took all I had not to burst into proper tears right there in front of everyone.
There is nothing that makes you miss your family more than seeing other families in action. Even the really crap families who don’t talk much and kinda hate each other. Not that Z’s family hated each other. And that just made the whole I-Want-To-Go-Home feeling even worse. Z’s family sat at the table together. His dad made us bacon and eggs for breakfast and kept saying, You must be starving, and giving me sympathetic looks. It was so much food, more than we ever had at home, but all I really wanted was Mum’s porridge with cinnamon. As we ate, Z told our story – minus the kissing – and they all listened. His dad said we’d made the right choice to stay there overnight and Mila patted me on the shoulder and said, Don’t worry, you’ll be OK, don’t worry.
My mind wandered to Mum and Astrid. I imagined them pacing the floor as they waited for me to come home last night, jumping at every siren that screamed past our block, neither of them able to sleep or eat. I thought about them heading out as Curfew lifted, but instead of finding me they would have found the wall.
‘Is the network working yet?’ I blurted out. I needed to know if I could at least call Mum, tell her I was alive and safe and would be home soon.
‘No,’ Z’s dad said. ‘Nothing yet.’
They continued talking as I pushed the eggs around my plate. I was hungry but I couldn’t eat. The food felt weird in my mouth. I couldn’t swallow. It all felt so wrong.
‘You don’t like eggs?’ Z’s dad said gently. ‘I can make you something else. Anything you want.’
‘No, sir, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sir?’ he laughed. ‘You guys hear that? Santee called me Sir!’
He seemed to think this was a big joke. I could feel my cheeks burning and wanted so badly to just leave, get out of there, go home.
‘Ignore him,’ Mila said. ‘He’s so immature.’
He stopped laughing. Mila made a tch-tch noise and shook her head like she was disappointed in him. Who was the parent here?
‘Sorry Mr … um … Mr …’ I couldn’t remember Z’s last name.
‘Driver. But no, you can’t call me that. Mr Driver? Ugh. No, that’s no good. Call me Diggs.’
His kids groaned and rolled their eyes.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Your name is not Diggs, Dad,’ Mila said.
‘Yeah, it is,’ he insisted, but they kept laughing at him.
‘His name,’ Mila explained patiently, ‘is actually Douglas.’
‘Diggs is my nickname,’ he said. ‘Everyone calls me that.’
‘You’re too old for nicknames, old man,’ Z laughed.
‘Our old, old papa,’ Mila joined in.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Diggs laughed along with them. ‘I’m young at heart.’
They kept laughing and talking and despite everything else, it was nice just to sit among that noise. Z kept sneaking me looks and smiling, as if he were checking in on me, making sure I was OK. Then he’d get swept up in their family jokes again. It was pretty much the opposite to my house. At home it was all about being quiet and careful. Here they made as much noise as they wanted and nobody seemed to care what the neighbours heard or thought. The conversation moved to me and they asked an endless stream of questions about my family and home, which I tried to answer but wasn’t in the mood for. I pretty much let them do the talking. It was easier that way. My mind kept drifting back to the wall, to the bodies on the ground, to the blood and barbed wire. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out the images and focus on what they were saying.
I discovered Diggs had a good job (like I couldn’t tell just by looking at their apartment) at the television studios and Mila was some kind of genius who could not only play the violin and the flute but also solved algebra equations ‘for fun’.
‘Seriously?’ I said.
‘I like to keep busy,’ she said like she was much, much older than she was.
‘Wow,’ I said, genuinely impressed.
‘Are you two in a relationship?’ she said, proving again that she was a thirty-year-old stuck in a kid’s body.
Suddenly I didn’t care that I couldn’t eat. I stuffed my mouth with toast and dealt with it. Anything was better than having to answer that question. I snuck a look at Z. He shrugged. Grinned at me. ‘I’m gonna get some more orange juice,’ he said.
‘That’s not an answer,’ Mila said, but Z ignored her and left both of us wondering what he thought the answer was.
CHAPTER 14
Diggs said I was to stay with them, for as long as I needed. I said, Thanks, even though it seemed like such a tiny word for such a big deal.
‘It’s the least we can do, Santee,’ he said.
Z and Diggs cleaned up while Mila showed me around the apartment. It was huge. I couldn’t understand why anyone needed so much room, but it must have been nice not to step on each other all the time like we did at home. They even had an extra room for guests and I wondered why something like that needed to exist but was happy it did. Mila proclaimed the guest room Santee’s Room and I got the feeling that once Mila decided on something no-one dared argue.
She grabbed an armful of clothes from her wardrobe, told me I could wear whatever I liked and showed me the bathroom, where she said I could take as long as I wanted. I took Mila at her word and stood in the shower for way too long. If I’d been home Mum would have knocked on the door. Home. I drew swirls in the condensation on the shower screen. I felt bad thinking it but it was nice here, in their big apartment with the pretty bathroom and fluffy towels.
The hot water ran cold and my fingers turned into shrivelled puffs, but I just stood there. The cold pellets of water felt good against my skin.
I forced myself out of the shower, dried off and looked through the pile of clothes. Mila’s clothes were, of course, Mila size but there was a purple-and-pink striped dress that almost worked. I put it on and felt like an oversized ten-year-old, but at least I was out of my school uniform. And clean. I’d never imagined it was possible to feel so grateful for clean clothes.
I found Z and Mila sitting in front of the TV, watching the News. A state of emergency had been called, meaning no school and no work Until Further Notice. Usually, a no-school notice would have made me very, very happy, but there was nothing to be happy about today. Except, it seemed, my outfit, which they all found totally hilarious. Z kept cracking up whenever he looked at me.
‘What?’ I said, smiling in spite of myself.
‘Ignore him,’ Mila said. ‘You look beautiful.’
And something about the way she said it, so sincerely, made me crack up laughing, too, and I felt a little better.
It didn’t last long.
Of course.
Here’s what the News told us:
One – It was not a wall and should not be referred to as a wall. It was henceforth to be known as The Safety Border.
Two – The Safety Border had been designed to minimise movement of potential Threats and increase our safety, hence its name.
Three – The majority of Threat activity was on my
side of the city, and Varick’s government had no choice but to separate Potential Threats from Good Citizens to ensure Safety For All.
‘For all? Safety for all? Bullshit!’ I didn’t mean to shout but I couldn’t help it. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. I felt stupid. I knew I wasn’t supposed to say stuff like that, especially not around people I didn’t really know. And even then, it was better not to take chances. That’s what Mum had always told me.
I noticed Diggs standing in the doorway. He’d heard my whole outburst. I felt my stomach turn. I apologised again. ‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ he said, and I relaxed a little. I definitely wasn’t at home anymore.
He watched the News with us. No, he didn’t watch. He commentated. Throughout the animated graphs and numbers that popped up on the screen to prove the increase in Threat levels from That Side (my side) and interviews with Good Citizens telling the camera why they felt so much better now the Safety Border was in place, Diggs had something to say. It went like this: Crap, lies, bullshit, don’t trust them, full of shit. It didn’t make any sense to me – I mean, how could he say that stuff when he worked at the studio where the News was filmed? I had so many questions and I couldn’t keep them all inside the way I was supposed to. So I didn’t.
‘Don’t you work at the TV studios?’ I asked Diggs.
‘Yep,’ he said. I must have looked confused, cos I was. He leaned in like he was letting me in on a big secret. ‘Know thyself, know thy enemy,’ he said.
‘OK,’ I said slowly, even though I had no idea what the hell he was going on about.
We spent that first day stuck inside the apartment, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Z gave me some of his clothes that fit me a whole heap better and Mila showed me some of her stuff on the violin (she was good) and we watched TV and talked crap and it was OK. I mean, if I couldn’t be at home at least I was somewhere safe. I worried a lot about Mum and Astrid but Diggs told me he’d work something out. And I believed him. What else could I do?
Everywhere Everything Everyone Page 7