For the briefest second, Shank held Wrench’s glare. She then laid her knives on the table and lowered her gaze.
“So how do we stop it?” Pierre said.
Frankie shrugged. “Maybe we need to get ready for war. Maybe it’s time the Blind Spot reached out farther than this little corner of the city?”
Frankie wanted a war. And if anyone could replicate the bolts on Wrench’s legs, who else but his best friend?
“A war will get us all killed,” Jean said.
“But I think Frankie has a point,” Wrench said. “We need to get ready for it at least. A last resort, but it may be our only option. Pierre, can you alert all the hackers on your rounds tomorrow? If we get attacked, the city’s going down with us.”
Pierre nodded.
“I want you to take Marcie with you,” Wrench said. “She needs to learn more about the Blind Spot.”
“And she needs to stay out of the damn city,” Frankie said. “Whenever she goes out there, trouble happens.”
Or she finds evidence that he isn’t quite as straight up as he claims to be. And she gives his son another reason to dream. Hope might be a flickering flame, but she wouldn’t let Frankie blow it out for Sal. And she wouldn’t let him get away with being a rat. She had to be careful what she told Sal. The boy told his dad everything, and she couldn’t ask him to do any different.
Regardless of what had just been said and the footage they had of her, Marcie still needed to get out into the city. Her dad had caged her for too long, and now the fate of the Blind Spot rested on her. The footage might have shown someone with cybernetic enhancements, but the camera didn’t have a clear enough image of her. And she needed more evidence against Frankie. Of course he had the greatest motivation; how had she not seen it before? As he’d told her, getting replacement lungs into the Blind Spot cost a lot of credits. There were plenty of people in the city, including the city itself, who would pay big money to end her district. Could she blame Frankie for wanting to make sure Sal had a better quality of life?
But before she accused her dad’s best friend and Sal’s dad of being a rat, sentencing him to the same punishment reserved for anyone bringing surveillance into the Blind Spot, she had to be sure, and she had to know whom he was working for. A replica bolt and Frankie having a chip on his shoulder didn’t exactly provide the foundation for a strong case. Hopefully, she’d find something to prove her theory wrong, because if she didn’t, her dad might never forgive her, and Sal certainly wouldn’t.
Chapter 22
They were about ten minutes into their journey, and Nick continued to stare out of the window. No matter where you were in the city, the Apollo Tower stood like a pin in a map. Scala’s magnetic north, everyone knew where they lived in relation to it. It shot into the sky like a rocket. A phallic boast of chrome and mirrored windows, it stood in defiance of gravity. During high winds, the thing developed a hypnotic sway as if nodding a concession to nature. One day the winds might blow too hard.
Vehicles zipped through the skylanes both above and below. If the traffic mainframe failed, they’d be screwed. In the early days of hover cars, they had no guidance system. A lot of people met their ends in high-speed collisions, and many more from the falling debris. In the past fifteen years, there had been just four hover car accidents. All of them had been the result of human error. But the option to take control was still included in every vehicle. They call it peace of mind. To know you have some agency over your journey, or at least to believe you do. Commerce at its finest: sell the punter something they thought they needed, even when detrimental to their well-being. Their way of preventing people from making the choice of using the manual override was to send the data directly to the police. You’d best make the correct choice because someone would be watching, and they had no problem prosecuting a bad decision. Through fear of losing sales, none of the car manufactures had the courage to completely remove the feature, but the threat of being turned into an obsolete had so far proven a worthy deterrent.
“How many wickets are you going for today?” Bruce said, snapping Nick from his daydream.
The lift on Karla’s phone might have been from Bruce, but how could Nick know what he’d said? And why shouldn’t he be able to say nice things about her? “I’m not sure.”
“You okay, buddy? Karla talked to me about the attack yesterday. Two so close together, you have to be the unluckiest man in Scala City.”
“Or the luckiest.”
“Ever the optimist! So, you okay?”
The anonymity dome over the Blind Spot on their right. A mess of blurred neon beneath it. Slack-jaws, gamblers, and johns moved in and out. The sooner the city shut that place down, the better. The reflection of Bruce’s car ran across the mirrored surface of the tower on their left. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not your usual chatty self.”
“I’m just a bit tired.”
“Tired from a late night? I hope it was worth it?”
“Just …” The question came too quickly. Why did Bruce care about Nick and Karla’s sex life? Nick forced a smile. “Yeah, it kinda was.”
Bruce’s face flushed red.
The click of Bruce’s car signalling went off like a mallet against a wooden block moments before they turned into the cricket pitch’s parking lot. For what good it did. Automated journeys courtesy of the mainframe left little need for mirrors and signals. “Are you sure you’re up for it today?” Bruce said. “We could make you a sub if you like? It’ll save you having to do any running.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I saw the footage of you running from the cinema last night. That must have taken its toll.”
“Because I’m fat?”
“It would have taken its toll on anyone. Add the stress of the past few days …”
The stress of wondering if you’re trying to fuck my girlfriend? “I can still run a few metres,” Nick said, even though the aches from last night suggested otherwise, but Bruce didn’t need to know that.
When the car stopped in the bay, Bruce reached across and patted Nick’s leg. His trademark brilliant white smile, he snapped his head to the side, flicking his parting across without touching it, and said, “Just give me a wink if you need to come off, yeah?”
After Bruce had gotten out of the car and slammed his door closed, Nick muttered, “I’ll give you a wink all right, you fuck.” He then got out of the car too.
The second Nick stood up, Bruce threw his cricket gear at him. The heavy bag slammed into Nick’s chest, and he stumbled backwards several steps. What the hell? Bruce, not normally one for machismo, got his own bag from the boot and held Nick’s stare.
Neither man spoke as they walked towards the pavilion. But they were going to have to play together, and it would be selfish to let the rest of the team suffer because they weren’t getting along.
“Look,” Nick said, squinting against the low winter sun. He didn’t know what Bruce had said on the app. “I’m sorry if I seem a bit cranky. Last night stressed me out. To know how close Karla and I came to being inside that building when it collapsed … it’s messed with my head a little, you know?”
“Don’t sweat it, mate.” Bruce reached the retina scanner first. While pushing his face into it, he pressed his thumb against the fingerprint pad.
Nick reached into his bag while he waited and freed an antibacterial wipe. Roll on summer. During the colder months, his hands cracked and bled from cleaning them so much. Adrian Swint came up on the screen and he smiled. “It doesn’t matter how long I’ve known you for, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that name.” Nick balked when Bruce’s fine flashed up. “Three hundred credits! What the hell did you do?”
As he swiped his credit card through the machine, Bruce shrugged. “I kind of expected it. I did tell the ref to go fuck himself last week. On top of the standard fines for swearing and sledging … it all adds up.”
Nick had a one-hundred-and-twelve-credit fine.<
br />
On the other side of the gates, Nick walked beside his friend and let the tension slip from his body. He’d seen a lift from Bruce on Karla’s phone, nothing more. They’d been friends since school. It would be stupid to let his paranoia jeopardise that.
Chapter 23
Nick spent another night on the sofa because Karla needed it. The terror attack had exhausted her and left her cranky. She couldn’t get any rest with him tossing and turning beside her and snoring like a power saw. Besides, he slept like the dead after a few drinks anyway. If he’d laid on the driveway last night, he could have gotten his full eight hours.
Fresh from the shower and his lifts, Nick rested on the breakfast bar, the rain slamming against their large kitchen window. A sip of his black coffee, the bitter liquid turned through him on the way down and curdled in his stomach. Maybe he’d had more drinks than he thought last night. He pushed the mug away.
Only fourteen lifts today, and none from Karla. Not unusual when he came home late from cricket. She hated it when he drank. It probably made it worse that he’d sent her at least fifteen yesterday. More than he’d sent her in a long time. Alcohol always loosened his tongue.
The click of heels announced Karla’s arrival moments before she entered the room. An expanse of white between them. White surfaces, white floor, white furniture. “Are you going somewhere today?” They normally lazed about on a Sunday. “Did I forget something?”
“Did you have a good game yesterday with Bruce?”
“Sorry it ran so long,” Nick said. “We had a few drinks afterwards. I’ve forgotten something, haven’t I? We’re supposed to be doing something today.”
“Sorry I went to bed early. I was tired.”
Nick got to his feet, threw his coffee down the sink, put his mug in the coffee machine, and pressed the latte button. While it brewed, Karla put in her headphones and walked to the window. She smiled before she’d even turned on the Wellbeing app.
The order set up and ready to go, Nick hovered over the deliver button on his phone before pressing it.
Thirty seconds later, the doorbell rang.
Karla leaned forwards to see the driveway better. When she pulled her headphones out, Nick said, “It’s flowers. For you.”
“Oh, um …” Karla put her phone down and ran for the front door.
Despite aching from the terrorist attack and cricket, Nick darted for her phone, slipped the earbuds in, and pressed play. If she had nothing to hide, he could grovel his way out of it, but he had to know.
The next lift started. Bruce’s voice, breathy with exercise, hissed through the headphones. Had he been sending her lifts while they played cricket?
But then the words came through and Nick’s stomach locked tight. His best friend. The person who’d been there for him when no one else had; not even his parents. The person he’d travelled to work with every day. “I’m imagining you sitting on my face right now like you did on Friday,” Bruce said. “I can still taste your juices …”
“What the hell, Nick?” Karla stood in the kitchen doorway, her face as crimson as her bouquet of roses. She dropped the flowers and stormed over to him.
A shake ran through Nick’s forearm from where he gripped onto her phone. “You disgust me.” Before he could launch the device, Karla snatched it from him, tearing the earbuds from his ears. The click of her heels left the room. But then she stopped, turned around, and came back in.
“There’s no point in apologising,” Nick said.
Her apathetic sigh tore his stomach out. He could have coped with her rage.
Karla sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “My dad used to always compliment me.”
Just the mention of her dad twisted Nick’s guts.
“In an insincere kind of way. A desperate way because I knew who he was underneath. What he was capable of. Now, I’m not saying you’re my dad.”
“Good!” Nick said.
“But you are desperate like him. Like you’re worried I’ll find out something about you, and you overcompensate by complimenting me all the time.”
“Well, screw me for being nice. Or would you rather screw Bruce?”
“It’s not nice, it’s unsettling. Creepy even. Haven’t you seen how people react to your faux sincerity? You do it to everyone. You’re a weirdo, Nick. Your compliments blinded me for the first few months. I sure as hell needed them after the relationship I’d been in. But I now see them for what they are.”
“Oh? What are they, then?”
“They’re your way of holding on to the people close to you. A way to control the world around you so everyone will love you.”
“So you’re trying to help me change by fucking my best mate?”
“It’s not my job to help you change; that’s on you. And we’ve been fucking for months. You were just too dumb to see it.”
Nick’s world blurred through his tears, the lump in his throat strangling his words. “So why tell me now?”
“Because I can’t stand to look at your pathetic face anymore.”
Nick fell into a seat at the kitchen table. “But—”
“Goodbye, Nick,” Karla said and left the room for a second time. Her voice echoed in the hallway. “I’ll get my stuff when you’re at work.”
A few seconds later, the back door opened and slammed shut.
Warm tears ran down Nick’s cheeks. If he was honest with himself, he’d seen this coming for some time. After wiping his eyes, he raised his voice over the rain hammering against the large window beside him. Fake it ’til you make it. “Adam’s such a great lad. I can’t wait to see him tomorrow.” A wave of heaving sobs left him. Hopefully Wellbeing cut the recording in time.
Chapter 24
“You screwed up by being caught on camera, kid.”
Her shoulders to her neck from the onslaught of freezing rain, Marcie quickened her pace to keep up with Pierre’s long strides. The man walked as if impervious to the weather, his hairstyle unperturbed by the heavy downpour. Despite his words, a hint of mirth sat beneath his moustache. Maybe this bollocking came by way of obligation. As one of the top table, he had a duty. “Not by being out in the city in the first place?” she said. “Just because I got caught?”
He shrugged, his gruff cockney accent in stark contrast to his appearance. “If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?”
“Huh?”
“The way I see it, sweetheart, is if you’re deciding where you wanna live, you need to check the place out. No one can begrudge you that. Just, next time, don’t get caught on camera at the scene of a terrorist attack.”
“Next time?”
“If there is a next time. Obviously, you’re not supposed to go out in the city again.”
“Okay,” Marcie said, another burst of pace to keep up with him. “Point taken.”
They were on the Blind Spot’s main street. No matter what time of day, the place always buzzed with activity. “Why do they all leave the city to come here?”
“I think that’s something for you to work out, sweetheart.”
While Marcie might have been anonymous in the city, she turned heads in the Blind Spot. For the residents at least. Despite spending so long as a prisoner in her own home, not everyone had forgotten her. The Apollo Tower shimmered through the lens of the anonymity dome. “The view from up there’s wonderful.”
“The Apollo Tower?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take your word for it. You know, the Blind Spot has quite a lot to offer too.” Pierre halted Marcie’s progress with an arm across her chest. A Scala citizen flew from an open door, hit the ground, skidded for several metres, and slammed into the large window of a slack den on the other side of the street.
The man’s trousers were wet with his own piss. An obsolete emerged from the den, switched the man’s anonymity mask on, and helped him to his feet before sending him on his way. Even when they threw them out, they looked after them. “I’ll take your word for it,�
� Marcie said.
The first business they visited looked like many others on many streets. Its signage showed its history. The place had once sold pets, clothes, nuts, scooters, and had currently settled on being a convenience store. A bell tinkled when Pierre opened the door. Marcie followed him in.
They were coming to collect credits, and Marcie tensed in expectation of a hostile reception. But the woman behind the till—a lady with a metal jaw, purple hair, and animatronic squirrel’s ears—smiled. “Pierre the Credit, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Pierre said, crossing the shop to the counter. Many washing machines looked the same, this one no different. The small black box in his hand, he waved it for Marcie’s benefit. “I should have come here yesterday to take our ten percent, but”—he turned back to the woman behind the counter—“as you know, there were a few problems in Scala City.”
“The terrorist attacks?” the woman said. “Do you know who’s doing them?”
The woman’s jaw held Marcie’s attention. What had happened to her to need it? She looked like she could chew through diamonds.
“We don’t know much at the moment, but we’re trying to find out.” Pierre then put his card into the shop’s washing machine, and numbers flashed up on the screen.
The shops shelves were stacked with the same foods Marcie had at home. The wild vegetables and fruit came in from the agricultural wastelands beyond the city’s walls. Not many went out there, and of those who did, even fewer returned. But a steady stream of produce always came in. The militia who ran the wastelands might have operated a brutal regime, but they were always open for business. As long as you paid for their goods and stayed the fuck off their lands and out of their politics, you didn’t have anything to worry about. Regardless of which leader controlled the areas outside the walls, the food always came.
When Pierre had finished—ten percent of the takings claimed for the top table, the rest of the credits freed up for the shopkeeper—he pressed his hands together as if praying to the woman. “I’ll try to be more punctual next time. Hopefully see you next Saturday.”
The Blind Spot Page 11