The Vanguard Read online

Chapter Two

  I always found the problem with parties was that half way through I realised that the proportion of people I couldn’t stomach to booze I could stomach was all wrong. There came a point where it didn’t matter how much alcohol I poured down my neck, people still had an unerring ability to irritate and repulse. I was seldom found at parties I wasn’t throwing myself, only accepting very particular invitations. A great party is rare and beautiful thing and I just knew the party we were on our way to wasn’t going to be any of those things. I consoled myself. There was a certain pleasure to be had spending an hour at a function standing around with close friends making cruel and sarcastic comments about the other guests and their inability to dress, dance and, in the end, stand up. Besides, we didn’t need to stay long.

  We borrowed a car that was parked near the hotel. It was old, almost abandoned, and would only get us as far as the party. Not that there would have been much point giving it back after Roach ripped the door off while Minos was rooting around looking for something to pop the lock with.

  ‘Where to?’ Roach said as we all clambered in. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘To the Basin. It’s an old warehouse under the Flyover,’ Lola said. She was wearing a pair of skin tight jeans and a t-shirt with a revealing slash from the neck. ‘Will you sit still?’

  Minos was fidgeting around beside her. A fidgety Minos was a bad thing, an accident waiting to happen. ‘It’s this cash, it’s uncomfortable.’

  ‘It’s in his underpants,’ Casino said.

  ‘I’m worried about it falling out of my pockets,’ Minos said. ‘It’s safer there.’

  ‘Poor Doodle,’ I said. ‘As if he hadn’t got enough problems.’

  ‘It will be nice to go to a party, ‘Lola said. ‘It’s been a quiet week.’

  ‘I can’t believe we have to go to an arty party when we could be at Loop’s birthday party in Queens,’ Casino said. ‘That’s going to be the party of the decade.’

  ‘Oh, I’m terribly sorry,’ Lola said. ‘I’m terribly sorry that I managed to get us tickets to the exact party Doodle picked as a drop off. How awful of me to bail us out of that particular hole. And Stark, he’s desperately sorry as well.’

  It was a fair point. Doodle was helping out with the catering at an Arts Academy party in the Basin, he wanted us to meet him there and give him the cash. He said he felt safe there because there was lots of security and it was a very exclusive guest list. It was a sensible place to meet, it would be heaving with people oblivious to anything that happened outside of their day to day worlds, a good place to keep a secret. Stark was very, very high up both in the Academy and Lola’s estimation so he got us tickets. We did say we didn’t need them but he insisted. He hadn’t reacted very well to having to bail Lola and me out of an Enforce lock-up last time and, I guess, he was anxious to avoid having to bail all five of us out. He was, in many ways, our next of kin.

  Roach drove in a most sedate manner and took the narrow lanes and backstreets to avoid any unwanted attention. My bike was stashed in my room, hanging from two hooks above my bed. Sometimes even me and the bike needed a break from each other. I missed it, of course, but I’d cope for a night. We passed through Queens on the way, prompting Casino to start complaining again until Lola silenced him with one of her looks. I liked Queens. It was a typical Friday night, quiet in the streets, too quiet some would say, but behind the closed doors I knew it was jumping. You could lose yourself in Queens, and people did. Sometimes a person would walk into Queens on a Monday and not emerge until Friday. Friday in a whole different year, sometimes a different decade. There were wall to wall musicians building new instruments out of whatever they found and playing them until they fell apart again. In a house on one street, near the old park where all the tents were, a DJ had been playing a set for almost seventeen years. Qool DJ Qronos just kept looping and scratching his only remaining vinyl through his computer set-up, and people kept coming to hear him to do it. I would have died of boredom if I were him. He did it in his sleep and survived on food people bought him because they wouldn’t let him leave his decks. He got so fat one year that Minos helped put together a treadmill for him, it doubled as a handy generator.

  The warehouse was under a tangle of flyovers and train lines, on an old industrial estate. There weren’t legitimate wares to house there, so it had been colonised by various bootleggers and pirates, apart from one hangar-sized space which was used by our beloved administrators for cultural functions. The location was cheap but they could get round that embarrassment by claiming it was edgy. It was this illustrious space that the Arts Academy had commandeered for the evening. We abandoned the car just around the corner from the warehouse. The place looked deserted but standing there on the kerb I could feel a faint throb rising up through my feet, suggesting that the party had started, or at least the music had.

  As we approached, a door opened in the huge, blank wall of the building. A man the size of Roach stood framed by the subdued light from inside.

  ‘Brother,’ he said.

  ‘My man,’ Roach said as they banged their fists together at the knuckles. Minos winced.

  Roach squeezed through the doorway while Lola produced her invitation. She showed it to the doorman.

  ‘No need, no need,’ he said.

  We filed past him, through the security arches which would scan us for contraband. He winked at me.

  ‘Hey you, all right?’ he said. ‘Enforce are in.’

  I nodded. ‘Thanks Charlie.’

  It was childish, but I got the giggles because the cash in Minos’s underpants was making him walk funny. It would be the most fun I had that night. We couldn’t agree on anywhere to stand so we walked him round and round until he complained about chaffing. By then I was in tears from laughing so hard. Roach deposited us near a sculpture made out of real human teeth and went to the bar.

  ‘So what is this monstrosity?’ Casino said.

  ‘Art,’ Lola said.

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘No idea,’ she said.

  ‘How come we don’t know that?’ Minos said, pulling at the crotch of his trousers like a small boy in urgent need of a toilet. ‘We pride ourselves on knowing everything, surely?’

  ‘It’s an opening party, they unveil some work, except this time they’re unveiling the artist,’ Lola said. ‘This stuff has been on display for ages. The surprise is who did it.’

  ‘Do these people not have anything better to do?’ Casino said.

  Lola looked at him in that way she did when she wanted you to know that she wasn’t going to be answering any more of your pesky questions. I shared Minos’s anxiety. We knew a lot of things and a lot of people. It went with the territory. As we perpetrated our various misdemeanours throughout the day, we all relied on a range of contacts, who in turn relied on us. We all fancied ourselves as significant nodes on the underground network. This was becoming a habit, this not knowing key bits of information. It was an affront, was what it was. We’d still had no success finding out who Doodle owed the cash to. We’d even considered the possibility that he was lying but it didn’t make any sense. Besides no one could fake fear like that. You could see it had settled just behind his eyes and become the lens through which he saw everything.

  ‘Will you stand still?’ Casino said to Minos a mere second before the whole sculpture behind us chattered into a pile of canines and molars on the floor. We melted into the crowd before us to find Roach and avoid the blame that was headed our way.

  Roach was not hard to spot. He was the mountainous fellow carrying a dainty tray of drinks above his head. We steered him away from Minos’s calamity and reassembled ourselves in a safe place, far from any art.

  ‘Whose art was it?’ Roach said.

  He got the look from Lola.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Have a drink.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know whose private view it is,’ Lola said. Stark didn’t know either. He just said it would be marvellous.’
>
  Lola modelled for Stark on occasion while pretending that they weren’t having a very serious relationship. A pretence we all supported with gusto because they were great together, and Stark gave us access to a different world. There were Academies for all aspects of art and culture, as well as some sciences. If you were a member of the Arts Academy you could sell your work and reap the benefits of a lucrative and closed market. If you weren’t, you could hang out in Queens and other artists’ communities and swap sculptures made of cables and bottle tops for drugs and liquor. Or, if fate had dealt you that hand, you could have an office job and be a plastic doll, artistic ambitions forgotten. I knew which I would prefer. Stark was forever on the verge of having his membership of the Arts Academy revoked and so had all the best gossip. They couldn’t get rid of him though, he was one of the cards that, if removed, could make the whole house fall down. The mystery artist was an Academy member, that much was certain. The smaller human body parts were very fashionable. Teeth, finger nails, hair – they were all the rage. There was a market for body parts, both the kind you could sell yourself while you were alive, and the kind your friends and family could harvest from your corpse. Times were hard.

  Minos knocked his drink back and made a sound like the last gasp of a dying lizard. ‘Rough,’ he managed.

  I felt as uncomfortable as Minos looked with his cash-packed pants. I was grateful that we were standing on the edge of everything with the wall at our backs, the better to see everyone else. The warehouse was a heaving mass of plastic dolls. A particular shape of nose seemed to be very popular among the women, while men were going for a chin with a dimple in it. There were two floors, one was a mezzanine level covering half the ground floor that we were on. Spotlights swept the dance floors, the bright, tight beams were casting the Imagination Industries logo. The DJ was one of Academy producers, he was mixing from the official list but people were dancing regardless. They didn’t know any better. Looking across the dance floor it was clear that the current dance craze was for fitting and spasming, a style Minos had been pioneering for years. It looked painful and a little dangerous. I sipped my drink, it was so strong I couldn’t taste the alcohol or feel the bridge of my nose. The bar ran the whole length of the room and the queue was about eight deep all the way along. All the bar staff were looking harassed. I couldn’t see any food, never mind an endangered caterer.

  ‘What do you think?’ Casino said.

  ‘About what?’ I said.

  ‘The art?’

  Every ten metres or so a sculpture like a melted candle would rise up out of the crowd, similar to the one Minos had knocked over. From here they looked molten and fluid but close up they were made out of hard materials, like the teeth. Some were bone, some made of things I didn’t recognise.

  ‘Horrible,’ I said.

  Casino nodded in agreement. We stood there trying to muster up the energy and bile to start ripping shreds out of our fellow party goers but our hearts weren’t in it. There was something not right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. At a party like this a few renegades like us would have crept in and a party within a party would start and that would be fun for a while. But we stood out as obvious as the sculptures. The only other people near our economic status were working as doormen or bar staff. Minos and Lola were arguing about something and Roach was frowning as he chewed on the celery stick from his elaborate, non-alcoholic cocktail.

  I finished my drink too fast and tried not to stagger at the white-hot hit of instant intoxication.

  ‘All right?’ Casino said, steadying me by the elbow.

  ‘That is some cheap, nasty rum,’ I said. ‘Let’s find Doodle and get out of here.’

  ‘You coming to Loop’s?’

  ‘Yes. Tell the others.’

  He relayed the message. Lola pouted.

  ‘Stay then,’ I said to her, knowing she wouldn’t. ‘You know people here. Surely?’

  Lola knew a more respectable class of citizen than the rest of us. She was one of them after all. We had been born down-trodden and restless but Lola’s father lived in the Riverside Sector with his fourth wife. No, fifth wife. Lola had been to a proper school, not that she’d studied there, but all the opportunities that life had snatched out of our reach had been afforded Lola. And she had turned up her little button nose at all of them. The only thing that Lola loved more than a glamorous pair of shoes and a night out was trouble, and trouble loved her much more than Daddy ever did.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s warming up.’

  ‘Yeah, we may reach tepid by midnight,’ I said.

  ‘We need to find Doodle,’ Roach said. ‘Let’s have one more and then go.’ He did like a compromise.

  ‘OK, let’s spilt up. Lola, you and Roach get the drinks in and the rest of us will find Doodle. We’ll meet back here in ten minutes with the noodle seller and the drinks, do what needs to be done and then go,’ I said. ‘Lola?’

  ‘You win.’ She tried a small pout but her heart wasn’t in it.

  We plunged into the crowd, all taking different directions. There’s an art to traversing a room full of dancing people. The trick is to dance a little bit too and fill space as it appears. It was difficult with the current dance trend putting the dancer in danger of dislocation and the traverser in danger of a black eye at every beat, but I made steady progress through the sea of strangers.

  ‘Ah, look see,’ said a voice. ‘It is Sorcha Blades. I am looking for you. It’s break time.’

  ‘Doodle. How’s it going?’

  He was standing in the middle of a group of identikit noses tottering on high heels who were dancing around him like he was a handbag. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘That stupid man got Doodle’s money?’

  ‘Yes. Come with me.’

  We disappeared back into the seething mass of sweating bodies. The music was faster, harder now and the crowd were working themselves up into some kind of frenzy that would be the talk of all the offices tomorrow. There were huge office blocks down south where hoards of these official citizens went to work. Who they worked for no one knew, but they generated more work and activity which kept the glowing green numbers flying around the world, making sure that it kept turning. They were like little bees flying about except there were no flowers and no queen. I guess they were more like wasps.

  Doodle and I stood to attention waiting for the others to come back. The drinks returned first. Roach emerged from the crowd as dancing goons bounced off him instead of knocking him around as they had us. Lola popped out of the mass like a cork from a bottle, she looked dishevelled. Casino soon joined us. He hadn’t troubled the dance floor. Casino didn’t dance, he stood. He was known to pose on occasion, but there was never dancing.

  ‘Drink, Doodle?’ Roach said. ‘Pick one.’

  He held the tray down to Doodle and he swiped up two glasses and downed them one after the other. Minos tripped out of the crowd and skidded across the floor. Roach stepped out of the way and Minos hit his head on the wall.

  Lola nodded toward two figures approaching us. ‘What are they doing here? Honestly, what kind of girl does Stark think I am, inviting me to a party they’d go to?’

  ‘Kind who gets kit off for money,’ Doodle said. ‘That’s what I hear anyway.’

  Lola rose above this comment, not even bothering with a look for Doodle, she must have felt very sorry for him indeed.

  ‘Relax,’ I said. ‘They’re working.’

  Tixylix and Vermina were Enforce. They were high up in the division that covered the NW sector and therefore our patch. We crossed paths with monotonous regularity. They weren’t as violent as Latch but they could cause similar sized problems. Tixylix was average. He looked average, he talked average, he thought average. He was beige personified. Once he worked out that this was his greatest asset he would be flying, but he was too average to make that leap of logic. Vermina on the other hand was anything but average. She was extraordinary.

  ‘And what do we have here?
’ Tixylix said.

  We all stared at him with all the blank insolence we could muster, and we could muster a lot, it was almost a specialism.

  ‘How did you get in?’ Vermina said. She was wearing black. It was a good colour on her, just like all the other colours.

  ‘We were invited,’ Minos said, rubbing his head.

  ‘I find that very hard to believe,’ Tixylix said. He pulled a small scanner out of his pocket. ‘Could I see your invitations, please?’

  Predictable, I thought. They had Enforce working high level security and Tixylix wanted to play the bouncer. He got to me and I pulled my invitation out of the air. Stark had made them all out to us in person in his elegant handwriting.

  ‘A full house of invitations and a member of staff,’ he said. ‘Shame. That would have been worth a favour, eh Lola?’

  Lola gave him her bored face. It was the best work of art in the place. Tixylix arranged his own face into a study of averageness and strode off. Vermina peeled herself off the wall she was leaning against, but didn’t quite manage to wipe the sardonic smile off her face.

  ‘Attending official events now, are we?’ she said in my ear. ‘With the proper invitation. I would have said that wasn’t really your style.’

  She looked at me with that look that let me know that she knew I was up to something, then sauntered off in vague pursuit of her sidekick. The others were staring at me until I stopped staring after her and turned back to them, when they all looked away. They were very suspicious of me and Vermina and not without good reason. I shrugged and braved another swig of drink.

  ‘Where Doodle’s money?’ said Doodle. ‘This party is annoying me now. It’s much less annoying in the kitchen.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ I said.

  ‘Money, stupid man, give me the money,’ Doodle said.

  ‘OK, OK,’ Minos said, thrusting his hand into his trousers.

  Roach backed away with the tray of drinks he was holding so that he would still be holding them and not wearing them.

  ‘What you doing?’ Doodle said, unprepared for Minos to rummage around in his crotch.

  ‘The money, I’m getting the money.’

  ‘Money is in stupid man’s pants?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Minos pulled out an envelope and gave it to Doodle. ‘Safety first.’

  ‘It’s warm,’ Doodle sighed. ‘Everyday Doodle think things will improve. Everyday things get more disgusting and messed up.’

  ‘And what if I’d lost it?’ Minos said.

  ‘There’s more than two grand here,’ Doodle walked two fingers through the corners of the notes in the envelope.

  ‘Eight grand more,’ I said.

  ‘There’s ten?’

  ‘All of it,’ Roach said.

  Doodle blinked hard several times. I thought he might cry.

  ‘Do you need a ride?’ I said. I felt bad for him.

  ‘No, you best stay out of Doodle’s problems. Curiosity kills people too,’ he said. ‘Thank you for money. I know you get it.’

  ‘We all got it,’ I said as he wandered back to the kitchen.

  We finished our drinks, silent other than for the odd gasp and groan. The only thing rougher than alcohol with an official licence was the state of your tongue the morning after. There were a lot of expert homebrewers about but we got our booze through the dock where Minos worked. You had to drink it by the shipment, rather than the case, but sometimes needs must and we had those kind of needs. We made our way to the nearest fire exit hoping to make a discreet departure.

  ‘It’s locked,’ Minos rattled the u-lock.

  ‘Naughty,’ Roach said.

  ‘It’s to stop people letting their friends in,’ Casino said. ‘Although I’d only let in people I didn’t like.’

  ‘Let’s go out through the entrance,’ Roach said. ‘Charlie will let us out.’

  We were almost there, almost home free, when the music stopped and everyone turned towards the mezzanine level where the more exclusive invitees were ensconced. A man emerged from the huddle of his entourage, there was a lot of backslapping and handshaking as he made his way to the rail of the balcony. We stopped despite ourselves. The man was handsome beyond belief. It was quite wonderful. If he was real he was blessed with some amazing genes, if he wasn’t his plastic surgeon was a genius. It was his private view, his unveiling.

  ‘Oh, my,’ Lola said.

  ‘I hear you,’ Casino said. ‘He is beautiful.’

  ‘Ladies and gentleman,’ said a master of ceremonies who looked like a hideous mass of birth defects next to the exquisite Academic. ‘Give it up for Agent Tourniquet.’

  ‘Give it up?’ I said to no one. ‘Give it up? Who says that?’

  The crowd went crazy. Well, they went the Work and Labour, plastic doll version of crazy which is to say that they jumped up and down clapping and cheering. If we’d have been in Queens, or even at home, and the crowd went crazy at least ten people would need medical treatment and the next day the rest wouldn’t be able to raise their voices above a hoarse whisper. And the tinnitus would be epic and epidemic.

  Agent Tourniquet surveyed the crowd like he owned them, which in a way he did. Then he caught my eye and I realised that even I was staring at him. For a moment I thought I recognised him, not from a picture or the television but from somewhere real. But that was impossible, there’s no way our paths could have crossed and me not remember. His eyes were the colour of dark chocolate. He looked at me like he was answering a question in his head.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said, tearing myself away.

  Charlie moved the queue of people trying to get in aside so we could pass. He counted us out and let five people in. I could hear Charlie’s earpiece chattering non-stop, he gestured to let Roach know that he would be in touch. The queue was getting restless. At least this crowd wouldn’t protest, they would send a message of complaint somewhere, perhaps even employing the strongest terms, but they would never know the life affirming joy of an honest burst of heartfelt protest. We walked down the street in the opposite direction to the queue until the line of taxis and SUVs ended. Our car had gone.

  ‘People in this city will steal anything,’ Roach said.

  ‘Everyone’s a player,’ I sighed in agreement.

  As we wandered down the street in search of transport I could still feel the bass through my soles. It was a strange feeling, like it was trying to upset my heartbeat in some way.

  ‘This is a nice motor,’ Roach said.

  And it was. It was new. A pearlescent, ruby colour, sleek and extravagant. They made so few new cars they all had a number etched onto them, this one was 309/350. Minos insisted that Roach didn’t rip the doors off so we waited while he worked a piece of wire he found lying around down into the door panel and popped the lock. These new cars didn’t have alarms because alarms didn’t stop anyone from stealing the car and the parts were running out. Instead the company ran a whole campaign about how if the car was stolen they would replace it. The catch was that you had to get a crime number from Enforce to prove it and that took a lot of time and a lot of money. The company would make you another car under the same issue number. Some people collected issue numbers. The person who owned this 309 might have a few other luxury items numbered 309 knocking around back home. It was a strange hobby to have, but maybe there wasn’t much fun to be had in the Riverside sector.

  The car still had that brand new smell and we all inhaled in thrall as we climbed in. Lola, as the smallest, got the seat behind Roach who had to push the driver’s seat right back so he could get behind the wheel. I sat between Lola and Casino in the back and Minos took the passenger seat.

  ‘That’s funny,’ Roach started the engine. ‘The clock says no miles.’

  ‘It can’t,’ Minos said. ‘The car didn’t fall out of the sky. Maybe the parts have run out and it’s just for show.’

  ‘Come on, let’s get to Queens,’ Casino said.

  ‘Do you realise that that was
the best party that some of those people have ever been to?’ Lola said. She’d come round to our way of thinking.

  ‘Probably the best they ever will,’ I said. ‘Even the party we had when that Enforce unit took all the booze and the sound system was better.’

  ‘That was a fine dominoes tournament,’ Roach said.

  ‘Didn’t you win?’ Casino said to Roach.

  ‘You know what they say,’ Minos said. ‘Lucky in dominos.’

  The car seemed to glide along as Roach took the road out of the city so we could see what it could do. Loop’s party would still be going on in two days time so there was no hurry to get there, not now we were having fun. The car could do very fast, is what it could do, and very, very fast. We were clear of the city in no time at all and flying along the old motorway out west. We raced some bikers on their customised machines but even their legendary speed was no match for our new car. Funny then, that we should have been followed.

  ‘It is following us,’ Roach said.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Lola said. ‘We’re too fast.’

  ‘I’m telling you, it’s been following us,’ Roach was insistent. ‘It falls back sometimes but then there it is again.’

  ‘Shall we go back to the city?’ Casino said.

  ‘Gets my vote,’ Lola said.

  ‘Mine too,’ Minos said. ‘I think Roach is right. It is following us.’

  ‘What if comes back to city with us?’ Casino said.

  ‘At least then we’ll know if we’re definitely being followed,’ I said. ‘That will be a comfort.’ I don’t subscribe to the ancient maxim that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

  Roach put his foot further down until the next exit, we took it at speed. He then took the eastbound route back to the city, losing speed until he could settle the car into the slow lane.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Casino said.

  ‘Waiting for our new friend,’ Roach said. ‘Just to make sure.’

  We all looked back through the rear window, Minos stretching around in his seat to see. The road behind was empty. We waited. When nothing happened the three of us in the back turned around.

  ‘See?’ Lola said. ‘You all worry too much.’

  ‘No we don’t,’ Minos was still looking out of the rear window. ‘Look.’

  Two headlights were behind us. And they were gaining. Roach floored the accelerator and Minos almost flew into our laps. Roach took diversion after diversion, doubling us back on ourselves but we couldn’t shake the car behind. It was following us, but worse than that, it was no longer hiding that fact.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Casino said. He could be a bit shrill in a crisis.

  ‘We’ll lose him when we get to the city,’ I said.

  ‘We better,’ Roach said. ‘Because the mileage thing isn’t broken and that makes me feel very suspicious.’

  ‘Stop the car,’ Lola said. ‘I want to get out.’

  ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Casino said.

  ‘Worse than nowhere,’ I said. ‘We’re in the countryside.’

  ‘Let’s not panic,’ Roach said. ‘We just need a good plan.’

  The car behind was getting closer and closer. It was upon us before we could muster even half a bad plan. Our only chance was the city and we could see the lights in the distance.

  ‘Take the Flyover,’ I said. ‘Go in through Hyde Gate. We’ve got more options down there. We can go south if we have to.’

  ‘You’ll have to direct me,’ Roach said, knowing that it took a courier to know the city.

  ‘Switch with me,’ Minos said.

  There was then a charming interlude during which Minos and I swapped seats, Casino got his manhood stepped on and Roach would have lost an eye had he been shorter. We did manage to stay on the road and Lola had a good chuckle despite herself, so it wasn’t all bad.

  ‘Take this exit and we’ll hit the Flyover,’ I said.

  The Flyover was the highest road in the city. They shut it if the winds were coming from the north. There was a rare speed limit on some stretches to make sure the cars stayed on the road as it snaked through the western reaches of the city with its strange curved sides and stranger disregard for health and safety. It was the pinnacle of engineering when it was built before the flood, flowing through the city like the ribbon on a medal, but like everything else it had been left to fall apart. The inside of our car was lit up by the headlights of our pursuer’s. I could tell Roach dare not go any faster, not while there was no barrier between us and the massive drop over the edge. The car behind surged forward and I don’t think any of us could believe it the first time that it nudged our bumper. After the third time we got the idea. Roach yanked on the handbrake as the other car began to pull alongside and we spun around, only missing it by inches. I watched out of the passenger window as the other car passed us. It was like a ballet. The windows of the other car were blacked out. We came to an abrupt halt facing the way we had come. It felt like an age went by as we caught our breath and then we were off again, driving the wrong way down the road.

  ‘Is that the car that was following you the other night?’ Minos grabbed my arm. He was shouting.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Think, think.’

  I thought. ‘No. It’s not the same make. The other car was bigger.’

  Again the car caught us. Again they drove into us. Everyone was talking at once, plotting, trying to come up with an escape plan. It was alongside, nudging us over toward the edge until it swung away and then back hard. The second to last thing I remember was the noise the window made as my head smashed into it. It was an odd pop that I found surprising for some reason. I expected something different. The last thing I remember was the very strange whine the engine made as the wheels span and span as we fell through space.

  I could see Casino through my eyelashes. He was looking at me with his head on one side like a puzzled bird. I tried to open my eyes further but they refused. Everything hurt. It was all too sharp and bright. I closed my eyes and everything drifted away.

  ‘Hello?’

  Me?

  ‘Hello, can you hear me?’

  Yes. I can.

  ‘Sorcha?’

  That’s me.

  ‘Anything?’

  Where am I?

  ‘No, she’s still out.’

  I am. I’m still out.

  Roach was sitting up in bed reading. I’d never seen him with a book before. I banged on the window between the corridor and his room, regretting it as the sound pounded through my temples like a herd of something big and loud. He looked up, grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. There wasn’t a scratch on him. I suspected I should find it all most peculiar but my brain wasn’t working. It was like being thick and I was regretting all the mockery I’d directed at stupid people.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I pushed the door to his room open.

  ‘No idea,’ he shrugged.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘A book,’ even he sounded surprised.

  We were in a hospital. Everything was either white or shiny and it was all new, so new that some things hadn’t been unwrapped from the plastic they were delivered in. All the medical people wore paper masks over their noses and mouths and had their hair covered, so they were just pairs of eyes in scrubs. It was hard to tell who you’d already met and who you hadn’t. They all carried passes which they used to get in and out of the ward. It was impossible to tell what was on the other side of the door. Maybe we weren’t in a hospital, maybe it was a facility. I couldn’t gather my thoughts together enough to worry about it, even in a vague sort of way, like it was all off at some distance. I wondered in the idlest way who ran it and why they seemed to have equipment that the Welfare Ministry claimed not to be able to find, never mind afford to buy. I slept and I dreamt that everything was flying through the air except me. I was landing.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re more injured than Minos,’ Casino sai
d. ‘The whole world order has been rearranged.’

  My heart was still pounding from the fright he’d given me. ‘Don’t jump out on me like that,’ I said. ‘You could have been the death of me.’

  ‘I was right there,’ he grinned. He’d already customised his hospital pyjama top so it was nipped in at the waist a little. His trousers were rolled up too. ‘You looked terrible.’

  He was right, I did. The others looked like they always did, Minos managed to somehow look better, just a little bit sweaty. But I looked bad enough for all of us. I was all different colours; black and blue, red, a little bit of yellow. Occasionally I went white, then grey and then green. They said it would take me a little longer to recover, but they didn’t say why.

  ‘We can’t leave until we can all leave together,’ Lola said. ‘I can’t find out why, but there it is.’

  ‘So, you have to concentrate on getting better,’ Minos said.

  They were all looking at me with worried faces.

  I felt grey and then green again. ‘I need to lie down,’ I said. ‘And to be sick. But not necessarily in that order.’