Slated (30 page)

‘No,’ I say.

Aiden’s eyes are back to mine. Disappointment reflected in his.

‘Think of them, always worrying, wondering what happened to you. Maybe it is your mum, or your dad, who has never been able to get over losing you. Maybe you’ve got sisters and brothers who miss you, too. Maybe that kitten you are holding is now a cat, sitting on the doorstep of your house right now, waiting for you to walk up the street.’

‘NO. This is crazy. I don’t know anything about
Lucy
, or where she comes from. I’m not her any more.’

Aiden’s hand is poised over the mouse still, and I yank it away from him.

He sighs. ‘Think about this, Lucy.’

I start to protest the name again; he interrupts.

‘I will call you
Lucy
. No matter what you think
now
because of what was done to you, it is who you are,’ he says, and leans back against the desk, a thoughtful look behind his careful smile. ‘What do you think MIA is about?’

‘Trying to find out what happened to people, I guess.’

‘That is important, but it is just a small part of what we are trying to achieve. We are finding people who were taken illegally, so we can hold the government to account for it: expose them to the world. Without anyone standing up and saying “this is wrong”, nothing will ever be done to stop it. It is happening more and more all the time. They must be stopped.’

I gasp. ‘You’re with the terrorists, aren’t you.’

‘No.’

‘It sounds like it to me.’

He shakes his head. ‘No, I’m not. We’re not with the government; we’re not with the terrorists. We’re trying to find a better way.
Without
violence.’

Ben takes my hand. ‘Kyla, listen. This sounds just like what we were talking about yesterday. Maybe there
is
something we can do?’

I am starting to tremble, my Levo is dropping. It vibrates: 4.3.

‘Leave us alone a minute,’ Ben says. Aiden goes, shuts the door behind him.

‘You know he is right, don’t you?’ he says. I shake my head, feeling sick with a certain fear that the more we find out the worse everything will be; that nothing will be right from now on. Ben wraps his arms around me tight, rocks me back and forth, until eventually I stop shaking. My Levo starts a slow climb up to 5, and Ben calls Aiden back in.

His face is concerned. ‘Are your levels all right now?’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s a bitch, isn’t it. Being hooked up to one of those. But there may be a way to get rid of your Levos, before you are twenty-one.’

‘How?’ Ben says.

‘One of the things we found out when we started to look into missing people is that some of the ones who go missing are Slateds.’

‘Like Tori,’ Ben says, and then explains. ‘She was a friend of ours; seventeen years old. We think she was taken by Lorders.’

‘Sometimes they are taken by Lorders. Now and then there are problems with the Slating process that aren’t picked up before you leave hospital, some memory traces that aren’t eliminated.’
Regression
my mind whispers. ‘They are taken back to hospital, retreated, or…’ He hesitates.

‘Terminated,’ I say, then realise I said it out loud, not just in my head, and wish I hadn’t.

Aiden looks startled. ‘Yes, just so.’

These words were on my records on Dr Lysander’s computer. He looks about to ask why I know, but no matter how far from their side Aiden appears to be, I’m not saying.

‘You said that sometimes, they are taken by Lorders,’ I say, quickly, before he can ask. ‘What about the others?’

‘Some are taken by terrorists.’

‘Why? What would AGT want with them?’ Ben asks.

‘They’ve been working on how to disable or remove Levos. We don’t know all the details, but they have had some success.’

‘Really?’ Ben says, eager curiosity all over his face.

But any damage or interference with a Levo results in seizures and death to the wearer: we’re warned of this again and again before we leave hospital. What happened to the Slateds while they were working it out? ‘Some success?’ I say. ‘Probably more failure.’

Aiden looks grim. ‘True. They’ve tried different types of painkillers and physical removal; induced comas; Happy Juice and related medications.’ He drones on about analgesics, endorphins and synthetic brain chemicals, and I tune out.

I look at my Levo. Even slight pressure on it causes an extreme headache, makes my levels drop. It isn’t tight, but because of the pain I can barely turn it: the grip it has on my life is absolute.

‘The pain…the deaths they would have caused,’ I whisper.

Aiden doesn’t deny what I say and I know I’m right.

‘But think of the possibility of being free of it,’ Ben says, his voice excited. ‘It’s worth taking a risk.’

‘Not if those taking it aren’t given the choice!’ I snap. ‘And you just wait until you’re twenty-one. Not long to go to be sure of living, is it?’

But Ben looks enthralled. My stomach twists, my Levo vibrates: 3.9 this time.

‘Dammit,’ Aiden says. Ben hugs me, rocks me back and forth.

3.7.

‘Kyla, it’s all right; everything will be fine,’ Ben whispers in my ear, strokes my hair, but all I can think of is the
pain
…

3.4.

Vaguely I’m aware of Aiden leaving, returning seconds later.

‘Take one of these,’ he says, and holds out a pill, a glass of water. I shake my head
no
as my Levo buzzes again, loud; levels still dropping, my head is spinning, vision going funny…

He grabs my face between his hands, and before Ben or I can react, tilts it back with one hand and chucks the pill to the back of my throat with the other. I choke and cough, but it starts to go down.

‘Why’d you do that?’ I yell.

‘Didn’t want to have to get an ambulance out here. Think of Mac,’ he says.

I cough again, still almost choking on a pill painfully stuck part way down.

‘Drink this: it’ll help,’ he says, and holds out the glass. I take it and swallow the water, but before the pill has even gone down properly my levels are coming back up. Nothing to do with a small white tablet; all to do with the anger coursing through my veins.

‘What is it? What did you make me take?’

Aiden looks at me curiously: I can see his brain trying to connect the dots. Girl is Slated; levels were dropping; now she is angry, which should make levels drop further. Why isn’t she unconscious?

Kyla is different.

‘What did you give her?’ Ben asks.

‘It’s just a Happy Pill,’ Aiden says. ‘Similar to the injections they use at hospital. The AGT have been developing them in pill form.’

And I fill in the rest in my mind: developing them for their experiments on kidnapped Slateds. They’re just as bad as the government. And despite what Aiden says, that he isn’t with the terrorists, has nothing to do with them and their wicked ways, there he has their tablets in his possession.

‘Keep these. In case you need them,’ Aiden says, and holds out a bottle of pills.

‘I don’t want them,’ I say. ‘And I don’t want anything to do with you.’

Aiden sighs. ‘Listen, Kyla – if that is who you want to be – I can’t make you help us if you don’t want to. I think, for now, you just need to think about things some more. All right? Mac can always get in touch if you want to see me again.’

He turns to go.

‘Wait a minute,’ Ben says. ‘Maybe I can help. Am I on this website of yours?’

‘Want to find out?’ Aiden asks.

And as I stare at Ben, he nods.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask. ‘I thought you said you—’

He catches my hand in his. ‘Yes,’ he says, though he doesn’t look sure.

Aiden sits back down at the keyboard. Enters male – seventeen – brown hair – brown eyes. They scan pages and pages of hits that come up: none match. Not even close.

‘Shame,’ Aiden says. Ben’s eyes are a mix of relief and disappointment: because he can’t help MIA? Or, maybe, because nobody is missing
him
.

Aiden turns to go; Ben follows him out to say goodbye.

I stare at the screen; hit the back button until Lucy’s face returns, fills the screen with a toothy grin. All it would take is one click on ‘found’ to change everything, forever.

But there are so many things tied up with
no
. There is fear strong and certain that this can only lead to the Lorders throwing me in the back of one of their black vans; disappearing in a way that will make being Slated seem kind. Fear, also, that whoever is looking for Lucy will find me wanting, or I won’t want to know them, or both.

But under all these reasonable things is something dark, something buried. Deep in the pit of my stomach is a cold conviction: I don’t know
why
I was reported missing, because I’m pretty sure the government was right to Slate me. There is something wrong with me, deep inside, and I don’t want to know what it is.

Hush.

Things I can’t know seem just out of reach, just past my understanding. This must be what they are watching me for at the hospital: regression. Dr Lysander saved me once; but this time, if anyone notices, it will be termination.

Be still. Be patient.

If Aiden is looking for someone who wants to jump up and down and be noticed, he couldn’t be more wrong than to consider me a candidate.

Stay silent as the grave.

Later, before we say goodbye, Ben holds my hands in his. Looks at me with eyes I always want to agree with; that I never want to show disappointment in me or my actions. Just now they are trying to persuade. ‘I know this is scary, Kyla. But we could really do something, make a difference. Think of Tori, and Phoebe. Gianelli, too. Promise me you’ll think about it?’

And I make the promise, because, after all, it’s not like I’ll be able to think about anything else. He hugs me, holds me close, and I wish so many things. That we could stay this way. That we could be alone some place in a world with no Lorders, no Slating, no Levos. Or at the very least that I could say yes and do what he wants.

But I just can’t.

And think about things, I do: late that night. All through school the next day, wandering to classes, unaware of my surroundings.

The thing Aiden said that stuck the most is that whoever reported me to MIA may be missing me, right now. A mum, a dad, brothers and sisters? Even that grey kitten.

But unlike Lucy, this imaginary family is faceless. They are unreal; their feelings, abstract and removed. Yet, just the same, I can imagine the agony of not knowing what happened to someone you care about. Even with Tori and Phoebe, who I barely knew and, in the latter’s case, didn’t particularly like, I feel this way: it is the uncertainty, the not knowing. Or with Phoebe I
did
feel that way, before: because now I know what happened to her.

Maybe that is one place I
can
do something.

‘I’m going running,’ I announce in the car on the way home from school.