GLAZE (28 page)

‘Are you even a doctor?’
 

‘Yes, I am,’ he says, snapping his head up. ‘In my home I was a very famous doctor.’

Unbidden, I’m hit with fresh information about Hwang, including photos of him walking out of a hospital, his hands failing to cover his face.
 

‘You were struck off?’

‘It was a misunderstanding. I was conducting experiments into how to boost the power of the chip and there were some… errors.’
 

‘How many
errors
?’ Ethan asks.
 

Dr Hwang closes his eyes before he answers. ‘Sixteen.’ I don’t know what he means. Then I pick up images from his feed: dead bodies under white sheets.
 

‘That’s why you’re not on. And you were using me to find a way back.’

The waterfall I’ve been watching shifts as the patient walks into a small room, where a black chair and a tray of tools wait. I drop the feed with a shake of my head. I’m drifting again, trying to find something to hold on to.

 
I find someone watching a film: an old movie I’ve seen time and time again. I cling to that feed and turn back to Dr Hwang.
 

‘If you can’t wipe it,’ I fight to say, the weight of the feed crushing me again. ‘There’s information.’

‘You need me to get information off the chip? I’m afraid that’s Mr Logan’s area of expertise.’

‘The message was from Logan and now he’s dead. WhiteShield killed him and his friends because they found out something about Glaze. They think I have that information too, so my only hope is to find the message Logan sent me and use it to stop them.’ The words come out in a rush. I don’t know how long I’ll be in control.
 

‘They are after you?’ Hwang says, his jaw tightening. ‘Then you must go now.’

‘You’re not getting rid of us that easily,’ Ethan says.
 

‘No!’ Hwang shouts getting to his feet. ‘You must go. Now.’

He’s right to be afraid. I see images from the CCTV outside. WhiteShield gathering at the door, readying themselves to smash it in.

‘Way out?’ I say, fighting to speak.
 

‘This way.’ Dr Hwang pushes us both out the door and points towards a window at the far end of the corridor. ‘I will attempt to delay them.’

He runs in the opposite direction as something heavy thuds on the door downstairs. Ethan and I race down the corridor. Ethan yanks at the window, but it won’t open.
 

‘Out of the way.’ I grab hold of a fire extinguisher and throw it with all of my strength through the window. We follow it through.

A metal ladder runs from the window to the floor. I start to clamber down but Ethan stops me. ‘They’ll be waiting. Go up.’

I pull myself up the ladder, rung by rung. Ethan is right behind me, urging me on. I make the mistake of looking down and the floor spins beneath me. I freeze.
 

‘Come on,’ Ethan says. ‘Keep going.’

 
My legs are jelly and my hands shake so much I can barely hold on, but finally I make it up.
 

I sprawl on the rooftop, feeling the comforting solidness of the concrete beneath me. I don’t have long to catch my breath.
 

‘Come on, Petri.’ Ethan jumps over me and keeps running.
 

‘What is it with you and roofs?’ I shout, getting to my knees and then my feet.
 

I chase after him, as he runs gracefully across the roof, hopping from chimney to chimney. My path is not so agile. I knock over a bucket of tar, left by someone repairing the roof, I guess. It’s still liquid. The blackness rolls down the slope and pours over the edge. An angry cry comes from below. It must have landed on someone following us.
 

Good, I think, and put on another burst of speed.
 

Ethan keeps stopping to check he hasn’t lost me, then races away to find a clear path. We’re two buildings away from Hwang’s office, running through an office block that is still under construction, when I realise we’re not alone. Something scrabbles behind me and I’m hit by a slide from a WhiteShield officer informing everyone of our position. I can even see my terrified face caught from way up high. A satellite feed perhaps?
 

There’s a deafening
whoop whoop
and a blinding light. A helicopter hovers in the sky like a great wasp, ready to sting. A man leans out of the open doorway, a gun in his hands. It’s pointed directly at me.
 

I turn to Ethan. He’s standing with one foot in a builder’s debris chute looking up at the helicopter, his eyes almost as wide as his mouth.
 

‘It’s me they want,’ I say. ‘Get out of here.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ he says.
 

‘Yes, you are.’
 

I shove him as hard as I can and he goes sliding down the chute. I make out my name being called over the whirl of the blades overhead. I turn around and raise my arms.
 

Three WhiteShield officers run towards me. The one at the lead is covered in tar. As I open my mouth to speak he punches me in the face. Lights dance before my eyes before blackness closes in.

25

I’M STANDING IN LOGAN’S FLAT
, watching him and his friends play a game on his enormous screens. They sit on his sofa, their backs turned to me, but I can tell they’re having a good time shooting everything that moves. Computerised men beg for their lives. Logan and his comrades don’t care. They blast off heads, then laugh and high five each other, leaving the headless bodies twitching in the dust. The team enters a building and it looks familiar, although I don’t know why. It’s old, with oil paintings on the wall and a large stairwell in the centre of the hallway. The paintings show scenes from what must be Hell: naked bodies being torn limb from limb by cackling red devils; people being roasted over flames. They press forward, heading for the first room on the left. A door opens and there’s nothing inside but a small dog, whimpering on an Afghan carpet. A computer-graphic boot comes crashing down on the dog. When the boot is removed, there’s nothing but a red stain on the rug. The team laugh.
 

They clear the room and move towards a fireplace in the far wall. It slides up as they approach, revealing a huddled figure, her hands over her head. I can hear her crying but I can’t see her face. A gun is pressed against her head. She looks up, tears in her eyes, and I recognise that pale face. It is me.
 

‘I don’t know. I don’t know,’ video-game me says, over and over.
 

There’s a loud bang and I turn my face away from the screen. Logan and his friends whoop in victory. When I look up again, they have all turned to stare at me. They have no faces. Three dead smiles grin at me from fleshless skulls. They crawl over the sofa, teeth clattering, skeleton hands reaching out for me. I run for the door but it’s locked. I bang and bang on the door, begging someone to let me out. The sound of their biting teeth is coming closer and I have nowhere to go. I close my eyes and wait.
 

The chattering of teeth becomes the gentle patter of rain outside a window. Light bleeds through my closed eyes. I feel cotton against my cheek. Something soft yet heavy pressing down on me. I’m in a bed. But not my bed, I’m sure of that. When I open my eyes, the images of the nightmare fade, revealing a small room. My initial thought that I’m in prison is quickly pushed aside. I doubt there are any prisons as nice as this.
 

The room is totally white: white walls, ceiling, even the glass in the window next to me is frosted white. The only shock of colour comes from the yellow flowers in a vase on a small white table.

As I try to focus on the petals a door opens in the wall. A tall man is silhouetted in the light pouring in from outside. He takes a step forward and I recognise the dark suit and the red handkerchief. I make out the shapes of figures hovering behind him before the door closes.
 

I’m hit with that familiar sense of relief. Max is here and now everything will be OK. Then I remember my dream, and the scenes from the lab, and I’m sickened with myself once more. I want to scream. To hit Max and throw things at him. But I’m too afraid, which makes me hate myself even more.
 

‘Morning, Petri,’ Max says, handing me a mug of coffee, like everything is perfectly normal.

I reach out and try to say thank you, but my lips won’t move. My mouth is dry; my tongue sticks to my teeth. My bottom left molar feels wobbly. I search through the fog in my brain. My cheeks are numb. A tube sticks out of my arm. Anaesthetic?

‘Where am I?’

‘In WhiteInc HQ. Receiving treatment.’

I notice another thing. The flow of images has stopped. There’s nothing, not even the blinking cursor of light that never went away. I reach up to the back of my head and touch a large bandage at the base of my neck.
 

‘Yes, we had that chip taken out, Petri. It was sending you mad. We do warn people about tampering with the chips, but they don’t listen.’ He sighs.

I don’t want to listen either. I stare into the blackness in my mug. He carries on regardless.
 

‘Did you know the teenage brain changes shape? No, neither did I, not until we got reports back on some of our early test subjects. For some there were some rather... shocking side effects. That’s why we have to wait till the customer is older. It’s why you should have waited. Would five years really have made a difference, Petri? Or should I call you Petra?’

Events are starting to fall into place. My visit to Logan. Dr Hwang. The virus. The screaming. I shut my eyes, to try and block the memory, but it’s even stronger with them closed.
 

I sip at the coffee. Just to wet my mouth. It’s sweet. Strong. The heat burns my throat as it goes down. ‘You know then?’

‘I know you had your blank chip hacked, if that’s what you mean. And that you were friends with the people who released the virus.’

‘That wasn’t me. I didn’t know anything about that.’
 

I want to accuse him of killing them. I want to ask him why he thinks he’s above the law. I want to scream and tell the whole world who he really is, but I don’t have the strength.
 

‘Of course not,’ he says, patting my knee through the covers. I pull my leg up to my chest to keep it away from him. ‘I’m sure they manipulated you. Told you that they were your friends. Led you to believe you could trust them. Why else would you do what you did? You’d never do anything to hurt your mother, would you?’ There’s a hint of something in his voice. An undercurrent of a threat.
 

I’m too tired to work it out. My head pounds. I reach up and rub at the back of my neck again. There’s a smooth patch where they’ve shaved my hair away and a small bandage, no bigger than a coin.
 

‘Once that’s healed we’ll get you a proper chip. After your real sixteenth birthday that is. We’re about to release the upgrade. It’s very exciting. We had a few niggles with the beta, but they’re all ironed out now. The new system has a biofeedback mechanism that will monitor people’s blood for indications of diabetes, cancer. It’s going to save thousands of lives.’ He sounds almost giddy.
 

‘What about my CDO? Don’t you think the police are going to have something to say about my blank being removed?’
 

‘Oh, don’t worry about them. As I said before, the police are becoming increasingly irrelevant.’
 

‘So why work with them at all? The blanks? The help you gave them at the riot?’

‘It was an experiment, Petri. To see if we could work together. However, the police have proved themselves to be an outdated institution, which insists on following the old ways. No, we’re much better off operating independently.’
 

‘So it is true. That anyone with a police record won’t be allowed on Glaze.’

He looks at me, his grey eyes unreadable. ‘It’s up to me who does and doesn’t join the Glaze family. Why would I want criminals and drug addicts ruining it for everyone?’

‘I’m a criminal.’ I don’t mean the mix-up with the riot. I mean everything I’ve done since, but I don’t tell him that.
 

‘You’re innocent, Petri,’ he says, flattening a curl of my hair.
 

‘But Zizi said...’

‘Zizi always did worry about PR a little too much. Besides, she’s hardly in any position to stop you now, is she?’
 

Everything feels like it’s moving too slowly. Objects in the room leave weird vapour trails and when I stare at Max his face starts to melt.
 

I close my eyes and lean back into the pillow. My head feels like it’s filled with wool and I can’t think clearly. I feel warm and cosy and safer than I’ve ever felt. But there’s something I should remember. I try and piece things back together. The last thing I can properly recall is the taste of strawberries.
 

I reach up and touch my lips. The numbness is starting to fade.
 

‘You’re tired, Petri. Rest, we can talk more tomorrow.’

His face floats in and out of view and the fog pours back into my head. I try to swat the cloud away, but it’s too late. The last thing I see are his white teeth hovering before me.
 

I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but when I wake again the room is dark and my head feels clearer. There are still things I can’t quite remember, like how I got here. I reach up and touch the bandage at the back of my head. Where there had been a smooth patch of skin there’s now a square of stubble. The roughness under my fingers reminds me of something. But as I struggle to grab hold of it, it slips away.
 

I sit up and pull the covers off me. I’m wearing a plain white nightdress with the triangle logo of WhiteInc over the breast. The tube has gone from my arm leaving only a dark bruise. My legs feel heavy and achy as I lift them and the floor is cold under my feet. It takes me three attempts to stand up. And even once I’m upright it’s like my muscles don’t want to listen to me any more. I take one heavy step and then another towards the door.