by Teri Terry
I’ll find a way.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
* * *
Next morning comes early with a tap at the door. I open my eyes; Wendy is gone, and Florence is at the door.
‘You can’t sleep all day; there are things to do. Ten minutes and I’ll be back.’
I rush down the hall for a quick wash and put on top and jeans borrowed from Wendy. Not a bad fit, but too long – I roll up the bottoms.
Florence returns, comes in and shuts the door. ‘Aiden tells me you’ve expressed a desire to join MIA.’ One eyebrow raised ever so slightly shows doubt.
‘I want to help,’ I say, a little nervous what that may entail with Florence involved.
‘Well, you’re going to get your chance. We’ve got a few witnesses I’m having trouble getting stories out of. Aiden suggested you might be some help. Apparently, my bedside manner sucks.’
I struggle not to smirk. ‘You can be a little confrontational.’
‘Well, so what; I’m not a nurse or a doctor!’ Then she half laughs. ‘I’ll show you where to get some breakfast, sort your ID. They are issued by the college; keep it on you at all times. Then Aiden will take you and Ben later this morning.’
‘Ben?’
‘Aiden thinks spending time with you might tap his hidden depths.’ She rolls her eyes. Then focuses on me closely. ‘There is a condition. You’re in charge. If Ben does or says anything that worries you, or would worry us, you have to tell Aiden or me. Okay?’
‘Agreed.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Ben says, while I fiddle with my camera, set it to record mode.
‘Anything. I just want to make sure I know how to use it. Ready?’
‘Go for it.’
I hit the start button, look through the camera at Ben.
He’s leaning back on his end of the sofa, smiling, a little self-conscious, but there is still something about the way he is smiling that makes it hard to remember what I’m doing. Check the sound.
‘Say something.’
‘Something!’
‘Very funny. Tell me who you are, and what you are thinking.’
‘I’m Ben,’ he says, and leans forward. ‘And I’m thinking how gorgeous you are, and that even if I can’t remember before, I had great taste in girls.’
My stomach flutters, gentle butterfly wings inside.
He smirks. ‘Try to hold the camera steady.’
‘Sorry. I was blond back then, you know; I look really different now.’
Ben reaches out a hand, touches my hair and l give up and lower the camera. He moves closer and looks in my eyes; the butterfly from earlier has friends, is taking over, and I can’t breathe. I want to pull away from the stranger, and move closer to the Ben I knew and loved, at the same time.
The door opens and we bolt apart.
‘Ready to go?’ It’s Aiden.
We get up, walk to the door.
‘One hint I can suggest?’ Ben says in a low voice.
‘What’s that?’
‘When you’re finished, remember to stop the recording,’ he says, and I hurriedly hit the stop button.
I check the footage in the car on the way: it’s worked fine, the autofocus kept Ben in sharp focus and his voice is clear.
Aiden comes with us to the door of a house, introduces us, says he’ll be back in a while and leaves.
So Ben and I find ourselves in the front room of Edie’s house with her and her mother. Edie is five, and, according to Florence, saw Lorders shoot her brother in a park. He was nine. Her mother wants her to testify; she says Edie wants to, too, but whenever anyone has tried to record her or even just ask her questions, she has clammed up.
I feel in way over my head; Ben is also awkward, and making small talk with Edie’s mother while I try to work out what to say, how to even bring up the subject of why we’re here. Edie is small and silent, pulled into herself on a chair. It’s like there are too many eyes, and she is trying to hide.
‘How about you show me your room?’ I say to Edie.
She looks at her mum. ‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ she says, and Edie takes my hand, pulls me towards the stairs. I motion at Ben to stay with her mother.
‘It’s here,’ she says, and pushes the door open, but as I follow her in she turns and faces me.
‘Are you here to ask me stuff?’
‘I’m supposed to. But maybe I won’t. Because, you know, you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t?’ she says, eyes wide in surprise.
‘No. Absolutely. It’s up to you, no matter what anybody else says. Because I’m in charge, and I’m very bossy.’
‘Murray’s like that,’ she nods very seriously.
‘Who is Murray?’
She walks over to her bed, picks up a floppy teddy bear.
‘He doesn’t look bossy; he looks sleepy.’
She giggles. ‘He’s bossy if anyone tries to wake him up. Jack was like that, too.’
‘Jack was your brother?’
‘Yeah.’ Her smile fades, and she pulls the bear in close against her.
I know why we’re here. A little girl with a sad tale: good for public sympathy, like Florence said. But making her go there if she doesn’t want to is just plain wrong.
‘We don’t have to talk about Jack.’
‘Nobody talks about him any more. They whisper. But Mummy wants me to tell you; she said it might help stop it from happening to somebody else’s brother. But I couldn’t say anything before.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Mummy was listening. It makes her too sad.’
‘Oh, I see. How about if just Murray listens?’
She tilts her head to one side. ‘That might be okay. I can tell Murray anything.’
‘Are you really, really sure you want to?’
She raises an eyebrow, gives me a look that is way over five. ‘You’re not very good at your job, are you?’
With that, we’re soon ready. Murray helps me hold the camera. She looks straight at him. Tells him that her brother kicked a ball that hit a Lorder. When he refused to give it back, Jack chased them. That the Lorder took out a gun. Pulled the trigger.
I’m not sure I held the camera steady enough.
Back at the college that afternoon we check the footage with Florence.
‘I don’t know how you managed to get her to open up like that,’ she says.
I shrug. ‘Partly I told her she didn’t have to unless she wanted to. Partly she couldn’t talk about it in front of her mother, but could in front of her teddy bear.’
‘You’ve got yourself a job,’ Florence says.
‘What will happen to Edie and her mother when this footage is released? Shouldn’t they be in hiding, not left in their home?’
‘We offered this. Edie’s mother wants to stay with her extended family for now. Some do. When we’re ready to release the evidence, we’ll warn them and take them in then.’
‘Can you hide everyone? Can everyone be safe?’ I persist, unable to get Edie’s serious face talking to her teddy bear out of my mind.
‘We’ll do what we can,’ Florence says shortly, with a glance at Ben. ‘See you at dinner?’
Dismissed.
Later, Ben and I wander around one of the internal quads of All Souls College: a grey expanse of dead grass on a cold, grey day. Ancient college buildings rise on all sides, windows like eyes, and I’m suddenly aware of both exposure, and confinement. Anyone could be looking down on us, trapped in this place.
‘Can we talk?’ Ben asks, and I realise how quiet he has been, before with Florence and since.
‘How about there?’ I say, gesturing to a bench tucked by a wall, and we head over,
sit down. ‘What is it?’
Ben runs his hand through his hair. ‘How can you believe what that little girl said?’
‘What do you mean?’
He shakes his head. ‘That came out wrong. What I meant is that it is hard to believe anything like that could ever happen; that a Lorder would kill a child just for…’ And he shrugs.
‘Just for being a child?’ I snort. ‘They do that and much worse all the time.’
‘How do you know when people tell you stuff if it is real, or not?’ His eyes are intent, troubled; joking Ben is gone.
‘Why would a child lie?’
‘She could have been told to.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I was looking into her eyes; she was telling the truth. Anyhow, I’ve seen as bad or worse myself, so I know.’
‘Even if you see things yourself, how can you know what is behind what you see?’ Ben’s eyes are sceptical.
‘Look, I’ll show you.’ And I tell him the story of the Cumbrian orphanage, the Slated children. Get him to look into the camera at a photo of three smiling young boys with unnatural still expressions, silver glinting at their wrists.
‘But how do you know those are Levos?’
‘It was obvious they were Slated, from the way they were acting. There was no other explanation.’
‘But couldn’t they have been coached to act like that?’
‘Four-year-olds aren’t great actors. And why would anyone bother?’
‘To make Lorders – the government – look bad.’
‘Well, how about this then?’ And I tell him about Phoebe, a girl we both knew from our school, taken and Slated without charge or trial just for making offhand comments about Slateds being spies. About my art teacher, Gianelli, hauled off in front of the whole school when all he did was draw Phoebe and have an impromptu minute of silence for her. About the termination centre, where Lorders killed Slated contract breakers by injection and dumped them in the ground. And about Emily, killed by her Levo just because she was in love, having a baby, and not quite 21 and out of her sentence. I shy away from telling the rest of the story: that I was there with the AGT, attacking the centre.
Ben is quiet, drawn in.
‘There is one more story: do you want to hear it, or have you had enough?’
‘Go ahead; tell me.’
‘There was a friend of yours at school, another Slated: Tori. Her mother got tired of her taking attention, and had her returned to the Lorders. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She was taken to that termination centre I mentioned, and saw with her own eyes other…’ My words trail away. ‘What is it? Do you remember Tori?’ I’m stung: he doesn’t remember me, but something crossed his face with the mention of Tori’s name. He’d always said she wasn’t ever his girlfriend, but she loved him, and she was one of the most beautiful girls I’d ever seen. It was hard to believe.
‘Of course I don’t remember her,’ he says, but his face is guarded, uncertain. ‘It’s just…hard to hear all these sad tales. Tell me what happened to Tori.’
‘She saw other Slateds killed by injection, dumped in the ground. And then…’ I trail off. Ben’s look of confusion is gone; is there a flash of something else? What is it? ‘Look: these are all things I saw. Some of them you did, too. Don’t you believe me?’
‘I just…’ And then as if a switch is flipped inside, he smiles and takes my hand. ‘Of course I do.’
‘One day I’ll show you Emily’s ring; I hid it in a tree a few miles from home. It’s real. Don’t you see, Ben: it is all their stories that make what we are doing with MIA so important. They are worth risking everything: to make them heard. To make it stop.’
He hesitates, slips his arm across my shoulders and I lean against him, so aware of him, his warmth and closeness, that it is hard to continue to think straight.
Ben points out a tower visible over the roofs of All Souls. ‘See, up there? That is one of the tallest buildings in Oxford. St Mary’s Church Tower. The views are meant to be amazing. I want to go up there with you.’
‘Okay; I’ll ask if we—’
‘No. Keep it as our secret; our special place. Leave it until I’m allowed out without a tail.’
Later, I mull over our conversation, what Ben said, the things he didn’t say flitting behind his eyes. I wonder if this is the kind of stuff Florence meant I should tell them. But that isn’t fair. He’s had his memory taken away; he’s figuring out the world, how it works, what happens in it. He has to ask questions to do that, doesn’t he?
But one point of discomfort niggles inside: he reacted to Tori’s name, I’m sure he did. Of course I never told him the rest of her story. That I was in the AGT as Rain; that Tori escaped from the Lorders, and joined too. And then there was the day that I was followed by Lorders, and Tori captured.
I shudder. I’ll never forget the pure hatred on her face, and it wasn’t just because she thought I betrayed the AGT: she’d found out from Nico I knew Ben was alive, and didn’t tell her. The venom in the words she screamed before being thrown in the back of a Lorder van rings in my ears even now: Traitor! Kyla, or Rain, or whoever you are, I’ll get you. I’ll hunt you down and gut you with my knife.
There is part of me that is relieved the Lorders caught her, that she’ll never get a chance for her revenge. There is another part that is ashamed for thinking so.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
* * *
‘Fancy a road trip?’ Aiden says, grinning, the next morning. ‘No need for crouching in the back of a telephone van this time; I’ve borrowed a rather impressive car.’
‘Sure! Where to?’
‘It’s a surprise. But it’ll be just us and Florence today,’ he says, and I bite back my disappointment: no Ben. Now that the sun is up, last night’s worries seem foolish. Ben couldn’t remember Tori; it doesn’t make sense. I must have been projecting my jealousy, and imagined his reaction. That is all.
The car is plush and powerful, borrowed from an unnamed fellow at the college. An hour later we’re past Oxford and driving through country fields, then pulling down a long lane to a farm.
‘Are we here to see another witness?’ I ask as we get out of the car.
‘Not today,’ Florence says. ‘Come on.’
She knocks once on the door, pulls a key out of her pocket and opens it. She walks in, Aiden and me behind her, and calls out, ‘Hello?’
‘Ah, there you are at last.’ In a doorway to the kitchen stands a man I’m very surprised to see: what is he doing here? I know the face, but the rest has changed.
‘DJ?’
‘Yes, ’tis I.’ He grins. ‘And there you are, Kyla: your hair is some of my best work.’
‘You’ve changed. No more purple?’
‘That is so last week.’ Today the IMET doctor looks more tiger stripes, both hair and eyes. ‘Did you forget your glasses?’
‘I kind of lost them; sorry.’
‘There may be something else you forgot.’
I look guiltily between DJ and Aiden. ‘Oh, no. I was supposed to tell Aiden you wanted to see him! I’m sorry. Was it a problem?’
‘Nice to see how reliable you are,’ Florence snipes.
‘No dramas,’ DJ says. ‘It gave me some time to look into things a bit more before we talked about it. To look into you a bit more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You, my dear, are getting curiouser and curiouser. Like Alice down the rabbit hole, nothing is as appears.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘When we were mucking with your hair genes we had to do a certain amount of looking at your DNA. I’m connected into Lorder systems as much as is necessary, to sort out if people are who they say they are: it is a safety precaution as much as anything else.’
‘And?’
/>
‘At lower system levels, your DNA is marked as unknown. At upper levels it gets more interesting: it is listed as classified.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘Not a clue, but I love a good mystery. And that isn’t all. There is coded protection on files relating to it, and not just any codes: so high up I haven’t been able to bribe anyone to crack them.’
All three of them are looking at me, and I cross my arms. ‘You don’t think I know anything about it.’
‘Of course not. But you know something, don’t you?’ DJ’s eyes are so weird: brown and amber stripes on orange. I can’t look away.
‘Why does this matter, anyhow?’
DJ shrugs. ‘To be honest? It may not matter. But – and it is a big one – it has been my experience that when Lorders try very hard to hide something, it is important to find it. Anything they don’t want known, I want to know.’
Aiden comes to sit next to me, slips my hand in his. ‘Kyla? Do you know anything that might help?’
‘I might.’
‘It’s okay to say anything in front of DJ. He’s one of us.’
I sigh. ‘Look. The main thing I know is that I don’t have a clue who I am. Happy?’
‘Hang on,’ Aiden says. ‘I’m not understanding this. Didn’t you just meet your mother in Keswick? Actually, wouldn’t her DNA be classified then, too – whatever that means?’
‘Aiden, I was going to tell you about this, but I haven’t had a chance to talk to you properly. She’s not my mother.’
‘What? She reported you missing on MIA. All the records show her as your mother.’
I shake my head. ‘Her baby died; I was given to her as a replacement. She doesn’t know where I came from.’
‘Given by who?’ DJ asks.
I swallow. ‘Her mother. Astrid Connor. She’s the JCO for all of England. Stella – that’s my adopted mother,’ I say for the benefit of Florence and DJ, ‘thinks Astrid might have got me from the orphanage there, but doesn’t know for sure.’