Slated (27 page)

He lets go of my hands, leaving them cold and empty, and leans against the fence. ‘And I can’t stop thinking about what happened to Tori.’

I fold my arms in on myself to hold the pain inside. Tori is the ghost that always comes between us. Then I shake my head to banish the thought. No, not a ghost! She couldn’t be. Could she?

‘…and Phoebe, and your art teacher and everyone else that disappeared. And all the missing persons on those websites you told me about. From everything I’ve been able to find out, it is getting worse. More and more disappearances.’

‘Then come with me. After school on Monday, and you can see it for yourself. See if you are on the website.’ A broken promise to tell no one. This isn’t just anyone, it is Ben, and I trust him. But guilt hangs uneasy on my head just the same.

‘But the thing is, Kyla, I don’t want to! I don’t want to know.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘
You’ve
been reported missing. Somebody cares about you; they want you back. What if no one wants me, and that is why I’m here? Like what happened to Tori: her new mother decided she didn’t want her any more. What if my real parents just dumped me?’

‘But it doesn’t work like that. You have to have been arrested and tried for something, done something, to have been Slated.’ But as I hear myself say the words, they sound false. I begin to understand the implications of those missing children, like Lucy. That is the way it is supposed to be, but it isn’t always that way – not if those websites are for real. It’s not like you can complain that you shouldn’t have been Slated: once it happens, you don’t remember a thing. And anyone who has been properly convicted isn’t missing, after all. Their parents would know what happened to them.

‘You get it now, don’t you,’ Ben says.

I nod. ‘I didn’t think it through that way.’

‘So why should I find out? What good will it do? I don’t remember anything from before, anyhow; I’m not the same person. And my family now is all right; better than all right, really.’

And I realise I don’t really know anything about them. ‘Tell me,’ I say. And we start back for the road to get to Group, and Ben tells me about his dad, a primary school teacher who loves playing piano, and his mum who runs the dairy workshop, makes sculptures out of metal and can’t carry a tune. And they couldn’t have children of their own. After three years with them now, he cares for them: why upset things?

And while he talks I listen, but part of me is thinking of what he said to start with:
what if no one wants me?

And I think
I do.

But I don’t say it out loud.

The Lorders are searching cars at the hospital gates again today. Another two of them stand guard in the hall outside Dr Lysander’s office, and my skin crawls when I walk past. I watch them, unable to stop myself, from my seat in the waiting room. They are alert, you can tell: to every sound and movement throughout the hospital. But they pay less attention to me than if a tiny spider sat on the wall. Slated: unworthy of notice. Not a threat.

‘Come in,’ Dr Lysander calls at last, and I scurry away from them, glad to put a closed door between us.

‘Is something chasing?’ She smiles.

‘Of course not.’

She raises an eyebrow.

I sigh. ‘If you must know, those Lorders give me the creeps.’

‘I’ll tell you a secret, Kyla. They give me the creeps, too.’

My eyes widen. ‘Really?’

‘Really. But I just ignore them, pretend they are not there. If I don’t acknowledge them, then they don’t exist.’

She says that calm and certain, as if her lack of attention can make entire people disappear.
Go missing
.

I shudder involuntarily, then glance up quickly to see if she noticed, but she is busy tapping at her screen. She looks up again.

‘Last week you decided to focus on your art. How is that going?’

‘Not very well.’

‘Oh? And why is that?’

‘Art lessons have been cancelled. The teacher got taken by Lorders in front of the entire school.’

Shock travels across her face so quick it would have been easy to miss – eyes that widen, an intake of breath – then her face is back to detached, neutral.

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I’ve been drawing at home, but it isn’t the same.’

‘You misconstrue. How do you feel about your teacher?’

This is interesting. I know from everyone’s reactions that it is taboo to talk about what Lorders have done, and to whom. Yet here she is: asking me straight out what I think.
Be careful, Kyla
: they are just in the hall. Who knows what they can hear, or how?

‘I’m sure they had their reasons.’

‘Now, Kyla: it is obvious you have strong feelings on this subject.’

‘It is?’

‘Your eyes are the window to your soul.’

How annoying. I’ve been practising at home, in front of a mirror: to keep a ‘poker face’, like Mum said I needed. But as soon as I thought of anything I had feelings about, good or bad, I could see it reflected in the mirror.
Think about Sebastian.
That seemed to help.

‘Do I have a soul?’

‘You are getting too good at trying to deflect me. It is merely an old saying, a proverb.’

‘But can someone who has been Slated have a soul?’

She sits back in her chair, an amused half smile on her face. ‘Well, if one believes in the existence of souls, I cannot see any relevance of the Slating procedure to the presence or absence of one.’

‘Do you believe in them?’

She half shakes her head. ‘You forget who asks the questions here, Kyla. Answer mine,’ she says with a warning note in her voice.

So I try to come up with something I can say about Gianelli that isn’t dangerous, but then think:
no.
He deserves better. He deserves the truth.

‘He was a good person. He cared about us, and now he’s gone. How do you think I feel?’

She frowns. ‘Answering a question with a question? You know better than—’

BANG!

A wave of sound ripples through the office. The building shakes, a shudder rumbles through the floor under my feet as fear rips through my body. Screams, distant and faint but not distant enough.

Terrorists?

The door springs open behind me, and I spin round in my chair: the Lorders from the hall. For the first time I am happy to see them. One talks into a headphone linked to his ear. ‘Come with us, now,’ the other says, looking at Dr Lysander, but she doesn’t move, seems frozen, face blank, behind her desk. ‘Now!’ he yells, and she starts, gets up and they flank her, start marching her to the door. Do I follow?

She half turns. ‘Kyla, go to the nurses’ station. Don’t worry, you’ll be—’

Then the Lorder grabs her shoulder and pushes her through the door.

The look of shock returns. She can’t make them disappear any more.

There are distant bangs, screams,
rat-a-tat-tat
noises like guns in old movies.
Guns
: where? I tilt my head: somewhere below, or outside. I cross Dr Lysander’s office to the window.

It doesn’t have bars; it overlooks an internal courtyard, several floors down. With plants and trees, benches. There are nurses huddled there; no signs of guns or who may be wielding them.

Dr Lysander said
go to the nurses’ station
. I start for the door, then stop. Her computer is on her desk. Still open.

BANG!

The whole building shakes; that was closer, this time.

I pause: panic says
run
but is doing battle with curiosity:
when will you get another chance like this?

And I’m trembling, my stomach twists like breakfast might be on its way up. What do I do? I stare at the door, my feet take one step towards it, one back again.
Who says it is any safer out there than it is in here?

I drop into her chair.

My photo is to the right of the screen:
Kyla 19418.
That is the number on my Levo. Left of the photograph are Dr Lysander’s notes: a very brief account of today’s interrupted conversation, though no mention of Gianelli. A list of dates runs down the side: last week is at the top. I hesitate, than click on it. And there it is: all we discussed that day. Her observations.

There is a menu bar across the top under my name, with headings: Admission; Surgical; Follow up; Recommendations.

I click on
Admission
. And there I am, in full colour. Me, but not me. On a hospital bed but it is different, there are straps on the sides of it. My hands are tied, my feet. My hair is longer, a tangled mess. I’m thinner than I am now. My face is blank, my eyes, vacant: not windows to my soul or to anything else.

And while I stare at the computer screen, some part of me still hears:
shouts, gunshots; a scream that chokes off
. But I am mesmerised. I scan quickly through my admission and surgical notes. Searching for any clue as to why I am here, but find nothing. Just mumbo jumbo about scans, complete with visuals of my brain.

Footsteps, shouts
. They are closer now.

But what is this? I clink on the link marked
Recommendations
.

And
louder
. I look up at the door.

Move, hide, now!
A voice in my head again. Where? I look around the room, glance down at the computer to close the windows I opened, but then the last link I clicked comes up on the screen: Recommendations. A table with actions and dates.

Board recommends termination. Dr Lysander overrules. Re-treatment undertaken. Monitor for signs of regression after re-treatment. Extra Watchers recommended. Board recommends termination if recur. The last is dated the week before I left the hospital.

Move, hide, now!

The door springs open.

Too late.

A man stares at me. He isn’t a Lorder: his hair is straggly, his eyes wild and his black clothes are meant to look like their operations gear, perhaps, but fall short close up. Some part of me still gathers these details while the rest focuses clearly on just one thing. A gun, in his hand, which he raises and points at me.

Another face appears over his shoulder.

‘Leave her! She’s got a Levo. She’s been Slated.’

Still he points the gun at me. ‘It would be kinder, wouldn’t it,’ he says.

I shake my head, backing up against the wall. Trying to speak,
no, please no
, but the words just form in my mind, get stuck in my throat and don’t come out.

‘Don’t waste the bullet!’ the other one yells, and yanks his arm. They take off down the hall.

I slip to the floor, shaking violently. My Levo says 5.1.
Explain that one
.

I can’t.

Before long, self-preservation takes over, goads me to get up. I shut all the computer windows I opened; leave the computer on the desk as it was, and peer out the door. The hall is empty; there are screams to the right where those men ran. I run the other way.