GLAZE (14 page)

‘Give it a push, will you?’ the voice I’m sure is Logan says.
 

Ryan lays his hand on my shoulder and pulls me aside. Fine. If he wants to be all alpha about it. He takes a few steps back, narrows his eyes and runs. Just as Logan shouts, ‘It’s OK, I got it.’

The door swings open just in time for Ryan to go flying through it.
 

He trips over a pile of letters and local newspapers scattered on the doorstep and lands on his face.
 

‘Thanks, Ryan,’ I say, stepping over him, trying not to laugh.
 

‘What the...?’ he says, getting to his feet. Then he looks up.
 

Inside is even grander than outside. Oak floorboards covered in faded rugs, ceilings that have to be at least fifteen feet high, and a huge winding staircase that goes up three, maybe four, flights. A soft cooing comes from somewhere and I notice splashes of white bird shit on the patterned rugs. Large paintings of medical scenes line the walls: men in black standing over operating tables; women in huge hats like swan wings, walking through corridors, the only light coming from their lanterns.
 

‘Was this an old hospital?’ I ask.
 

‘Something like that,’ Logan says. ‘Have you brought it?’

I open up the flap on my bag and pull out a small cardboard box with holes in it. The creature inside scrabbles frantically about.

Logan takes the box off me and peers through a hole in the side. ‘A hamster?’

‘A rat,’ I say. ‘Zizi liberated it from a WhiteInc lab and gave it to me as a pet. They were doing experiments on it.’

‘It should work. Come on. We’re downstairs.’
 

He crosses the hallway, Proxy at his heels, her nails clacking on the wooden floorboards. She squats against a marble plinth, which has the twiggy remains of a pot plant on top of it. The closest she can find to a tree I guess.
 

Logan leads us past the staircase to a small door at the back of the hall and Proxy trots after us.
 

‘Ladies first,’ he says, opening the door and gesturing for me to enter.
 

The staircase spirals so tightly each step hardly has enough space for my feet. I walk down it, using the brick walls on either side to steady myself.
 

Once free of the stairs, flickering strip lights reveal a long corridor with white-tiled walls and floors. There’s the smell of bleach mixed in with something else I can’t place.
 

‘This is some seriously sick stuff you’ve got going on, Logan,’ Ryan says from behind me. He looks more excited than I’ve ever seen him.
 

Logan pushes me gently out of the way so that he can take the lead. ‘We originally ran things out of my flat. But that was getting a little hot.’ He leads us down the corridor, which is lined with closed doors. I peer through the small windows in the doors as we pass. The majority are empty, but some have a single, leather-covered examination table in them.

‘And we’ve set up security, to make sure no one comes a-knocking,’ he says, patting a large black box with three aerials sticking out of the top.
 

At the far end of the corridor is a narrow doorway covered in strips of plastic that fall all the way to the floor.
 

Logan brushes aside the strips and holds them, letting me pass through. ‘Welcome to my lab!’

It might have once been the generator room. A large metal structure dominates the room. It has a long thin chimney leading to a hole in the wall and a glass panel in the front that looks like it’s been blackened by smoke from inside. An incinerator maybe. But burning what?
 

As well as Logan, the twins are here, leaning over what looks like an old-fashioned computer monitor, and a small, dark-haired man standing next to an examination table like the ones from the other rooms. He wears a white lab coat and bows as I meet his gaze.
 

‘Are we ready?’ Logan asks, handing the man the box with the rat in it.
 

The small man places the rat on a wheelie tray then moves to the head of the bed and rests his hand on the white sheets. He pats the bed, but that’s not enough to make me understand what he wants.
 

‘That’s Dr Hwang. He’s our chip guru. He’ll make sure we don’t fry anything,’ Logan says with a wink. When I still don’t move he gives me a shove. ‘Get on the bed, Petri.’

I stagger forward as he turns to the others. ‘Ryan, Milo and Mila there will sort you out.’ He gestures towards the twins. They smile identical smiles.
 

‘Ice,’ Ryan says, clicking both thumbs and then sticking them up.
 

Dr Hwang waits by the bed like a sentinel, one hand in his pocket, the other lining up a series of tools on the wheelie tray. He could be an old-looking twenty, or a young-looking 40. And that smile isn’t giving anything away.
 

I take an unsteady step toward him, when the plastic strips covering the door rustle. A young man stoops to clear the doorway. Golden eyes widen in shock as they see me.

Perfect, I think. I’ve been trying to find you for weeks and now you turn up. Exactly when I don’t need you.
 

Ethan scans the room, looking from me to Dr Hwang and back to me again. In four quick strides he has hold of my arm and is pulling me away.
 

‘What are you doing here?’ he hisses through clenched teeth.
 

‘I could ask you the same thing,’ I say, trying to free myself of his grip.
 

‘What’s going on?’ Logan asks Ethan. ‘Has Corina sent you to spy on us?’
 

‘Please,’ Corina says, as she too steps into the room. ‘You think I don’t already know everything that’s going on here.’
 

‘So what if you do?’ Logan says, his jaw tightening.
 

Corina saunters past me and faces up to Logan. She’s easily a foot shorter than him, but it looks like he’s scared of her.
 

‘So…’ Corina says, removing a fleck of dust from Logan’s shoulder. ‘I’m in.’
 

A smile spreads across Logan’s face as Ethan turns back to me.
 

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he says.
 

‘Who is this?’ Corina says, jabbing a thumb in my direction.
 

‘I’m Petri,’ I say, reaching out my hand for her to shake. She ignores it.
 

‘She’s our little insider,’ Logan says.
 

‘Her? She gave you the intel?’ Corina says, tilting her head and considering me. ‘And what’s Logan giving you in return?’

‘He’s getting me on Glaze,’ I say, my voice a whisper.

‘What?’ Ethan says. ‘No. You can’t.’
 

‘It’s no big deal,’ Logan says.
 

‘Something wrong?’ Ryan says, coming to stand next to me.

‘No, it’s only...’ I stutter. There are too many people, too many voices. It’s making my head spin.
 

‘Are you sure you can rewrite a blank? Corina, didn’t you say there might be complications?’ Ethan says, still holding my arm.
 

‘What complications?’ I say, looking from Ethan to Logan.
 

‘Who said anything about complications?’ Logan says, throwing his hands in the air. ‘Chill, right? It’s all going to be OK.’

Ethan lets his hand slide down my arm and steps even closer to me. He smells of soap and dry leaves. ‘Petri, you don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t do this.’
 

‘Seriously, mate,’ Ryan says stepping between me and Ethan. ‘I don’t know you, and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave my girlfriend alone.’

‘Girlfriend?’ Ethan and I say in unison.
 

The very word I’d been dreaming about ever since Ryan McManus picked me in rounders in first year and now, looking at Ethan’s face, I wish Ryan would vanish.
 

‘Are you doing this... for him?’ Ethan says, his distaste for Ryan clear by the jerk of his thumb.
 

‘No, of course not,’ I say, angry at the mere suggestion.
 

But am I?
 

Ryan slips his arm around my shoulder in such a display of ownership that I cringe. ‘Shut up, both of you,’ I say, shrugging off Ryan’s arm. ‘I’m doing this whether you want me to or not.’

‘Of course I want you to,’ Ryan says, looking almost hurt.
 

I ignore both of them and storm over to the waiting Dr Hwang. I hop up onto the bed, my face flushed and hands shaking, and I glare at Ethan. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. Ryan gives me a wink and they both disappear with the
whoosh
of a hospital curtain that Dr Hwang pulls around the bed.
 

Dr Hwang lays a small but firm hand on my shoulder. ‘On your front, please.’ He helps me turn over. The cloth beneath my face smells of antiseptic.
 

Hwang walks behind me so I can’t see him, but I can hear the clinking of metal from the tray. I arch my back up to look around. A cold hand on my shoulder presses me back down.

My heart is racing and my legs are twitching as adrenaline floods my muscles. I should listen to them. I should run. Out of here and never see these people again. Forget Glaze. Forget all of it.
 

Forget your future? another part of me says and I try to steady my shallow breath.
 

Hwang rolls up my sleeve and I look to where he’s holding a large needle with a glistening droplet at its tip.
 

‘Wait, what’s that for?’ I ask.
 

‘Sleep,’ Hwang says.
 

‘But I don’t need to sleep. No one needs to sleep when they get chipped. It’s in and out. Like getting your ears pierced? Right?’

He smiles at me as he plunges the needle into the crook of my arm. ‘Sleep,’ he says again.
 

And I do.

13

I’M FLYING
. Soaring through little fluffy clouds. I reach out my hands and the wisps of air curl around my fingers, like candy floss. I spin and they wrap around my whole body, covering me in a cottony blanket. I’m so cosy, I don’t even care that I’m floating gently back down to the earth. I land on the soft ground—like jumping onto a hotel bed—and smile up at the sky above.
 

Someone looks down at me from the clouds. Amber eyes sparkling in a face that is hazy around the edges.

‘You have really pretty eyes,’ I say, slurring my words. I’m faintly aware that might have been a stupid thing to say, so I cover my grinning mouth with both hands, giggling.
 

‘I can’t feel my lips. Or my face,’ I say, tugging at my cheek and then giving myself a slap.
 

Ethan stops my hand, pressing his over mine, his thumb gently brushing my nose.
 

I feel so warm, so at peace. This must be Glaze. I’ve been told about the sense of bliss you get from feeling a part of everything. And to think I almost never experienced it.
 

‘It’s the drugs,’ Logan says, appearing in my narrow field of vision. His dreads look like they’re writhing.
 

‘Your hair!’ I say, pointing at him, and giggling again.
 

‘She’s off her tits,’ Corina says, laughing. She’s sat on a table in the middle of the room, her legs folded under her, looking like a garden statue of a pixie on a toadstool. Rainbows of light radiate from the stud in her lip.
 

‘They’ll wear off,’ Logan says.
 

Ethan puts his hand behind my shoulders and helps me sit up. There’s an itching at the base of my head and I reach up to touch it. My fingertips brush a bandage under my hair before Dr Hwang slaps my hand away.
 

‘Don’t touch, please. Twenty-four hours and then you can activate.’
 

‘What?’ I say the glowing feeling drifting away. ‘But everyone else only has to wait two hours and then they’re on. Like that!’ I try to click my fingers, but find they won’t work.
 

‘Well, this isn’t quite your normal chipping station,’ Logan says, indicating the basement lab. ‘Rewriting is a delicate process. Besides, it’s one day. Just in case.’

I stretch my neck out, shaking away the pain from the tension in my shoulders. The bandage rustles under my hair.
 

It’s over, I think to myself. Twenty-four hours and it’s over. ‘OK,’ I say, swinging my legs around and standing up. My knees give way and Ethan catches me before I collapse.
 

I look up into his worried face and remember something. ‘Where’s Ryan?’

Ethan’s smile slips away. ‘He’s over there.’
 

Ryan is huddled over the computer screen with the twins. As if sensing he’s being watched he straightens up and looks at me. Not at me. Through me. That empty, only-half-there look of someone on Glaze. I feel a heavy weight sink into my stomach that has nothing to do with the anaesthetic.
 

‘You’re back on?’ I ask.

‘Huh?’ he says, still not seeing me. He’s grinning, his eyes darting all over, accessing feeds he’s missed, like a dog let back into a house running around checking everything is still in its place.
 

‘Yep, he’s hooked up. Like you asked,’ says Logan.
 

The connection Ryan and I shared for the past week is gone. But what am I worried about? Twenty-four hours and I’ll be on Glaze too. And then we’ll have a new connection, just like I wanted.
 

‘Right,’ Logan says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. The loud crack makes me jump. ‘Petri, we’ve set you up with an account, username Petra Finn.’

‘But my name is Petri.’

‘Yes, I know that. But Petri Quinn is banned. Petra on the other hand...’
 

‘Oh, right. Sure.’

‘You’re running incognito, so you won’t automatically register as being on. Otherwise your mum or anyone with access would get wise. But you’ll be able to access everything on Glaze.’