Acid (24 page)

‘Hmm? Oh, no, it’s all right. I’m going to the gym in a bit, and then I’ve got to call on a friend. I’ll eat there, probably.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘That OK?’

‘Um, of course,’ I reply.
Except I thought we might spend the evening together, eat a meal, talk
 . . . I add silently in my head. It’s the first time we’ve ever been properly alone together, and I can’t help feeling disappointed that Evan doesn’t want to make the most of it.

I remember what my teachers used to say in our Preparing for LifePartnering classes at school.
Your relationship with your Partner will take time to grow. You’ll need to be patient with each other and give each other space to get to know each other. Don’t feel as if you have to do everything together, or find out everything about each other straight away. Let your relationship develop naturally
.

Of course. We’ve only known each other a month, after all, and we’ve never been alone together before. This probably feels as strange for Evan as it does for me.

I take a deep breath. ‘Sure,’ I say again, trying to make my feelings match the brightness of my tone. ‘Will you be back late?’

‘Not sure. Don’t bother waiting up if I am,’ he says, getting up and stretching. As he passes me he gives me a quick peck on the lips. ‘See you later.’

I gaze at the door as it closes, fighting a sudden rush of loneliness.

Don’t be stupid, Jess
, I tell myself as I walk back through to the kitchen with my arms hugged around my middle.
You don’t own him
.

And besides, I’m lucky to be
alive
, never mind have a LifePartner.

Reminding myself sternly not to forget that, I pull open the fridge to look inside.

CHAPTER 37

AFTER I’VE EATEN
– a small bowl of chicken stir fry – I run the jacuzzi, pouring a capful of scented bath oil into the water. Then I soak for almost an hour, surrounded by clouds of foam.

When I get out and I’ve wrapped myself in one of the fluffy towels from the heated rail near the door, I go over to the mirror and rub away some of the condensation. My reflection gazes back at me and, for a moment, it’s as if I’m looking at a stranger’s face. This has happened a lot since the accident. It no longer frightens me, though; it’s just annoying. To shake my sense of disorientation, I go through the steps I worked out with my counsellor back at the rehab unit.
I am Jess Stone
, I think, looking at the mousy brown hair that hangs in tendrils around my face, already starting to take on its usual slight wave even though it’s still wet; then at my eyes, which are a nondescript colour that’s somewhere between grey and green. My face is thinner since the accident and there are shadows under my eyes that weren’t there before, but they’re the only things noticeably changed. I still have a straight, narrow nose and my left ear still sticks out slightly more than my right. When I feel like myself
again
, I turn away from the mirror and grab another towel to wrap around my head.

I spend the rest of the evening in bed, re-reading one of my favourite eFics on my komm. It’s a romance called
Hidden Hero
where the young heroine, Kelsie, is LifePartnered to an undercover ACID agent, Brad. He can’t reveal his true identity to Kelsie in case it blows his cover, as she works with people he’s investigating, so all sorts of misunderstandings occur as he’s called away for his work, and can’t tell her where he’s going or why. In the end, though, the people Brad is watching realize Kelsie is linked to ACID. They kidnap her and demand a ransom, and when Brad finally rescues her, she finds out who he really is. I re-read the last line three times:
LifePartnering had not only found Kelsie her true love, but her very own hero too
. Then I switch off my komm with a happy sigh.

Please let me and Evan feel like that about each other
, I think. I close my eyes, trying to relax, but I can’t fall asleep. I’m thinking about when Evan gets home, about when he gets into bed with me. Will he want to have sex? I know what I’m supposed to do, I think. Lucy and Eri and I used to talk about it when we were sleeping over at each other’s houses. But what if we were wrong? There’s never anything about it in eFics, and the only stuff they ever taught us at school were the biological bits and about our contracep implants, which stop us getting pregnant before we receive our notifications. Mine was put in just before I met Evan for the first time.

Evan gets home about midnight; I can see the time on the little holoscreen on the wall. I watch him undress in the semi-dark, my heart racing. Then he goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. I see a line of light appear underneath it, and hear the shower running. When he comes back out, I close my eyes, pretending to be asleep, feeling the mattress dip as he climbs in beside me. I lie there with my arms rigid against my sides as I wait to feel his hands on my body, his lips against mine. Will it hurt?

But all he does is roll onto his side, taking most of the duvet with him, and a few minutes later he’s snoring softly. I gaze up at the ceiling, filled with a mixture of disappointment and relief.

CHAPTER 38

THE NEXT MORNING
, I get up early and prepare breakfast in bed for Evan: scrambled eggs on toast, a pot of coffee and a glass of juice, which I take to him on a tray. He sits up, blinking, as I set it down on his bedside table.

‘Wow, did you make all this for me?’ he says.

I nod.

‘Oh, man.’ He rubs his hands through his hair. ‘This looks great, Jess, but we’re going to Mum and Dad’s in a few hours. If I eat all this I won’t be able to manage lunch.’

Damn
. Sunday lunch. I’d forgotten all about it.

‘I – I’m sorry,’ I stammer. ‘I—’

‘It’s fine. I’ll eat half.’ Evan flashes me a smile.

Afterwards, I take the tray back into the kitchen and scrape the uneaten food into the waste disposal unit, disappointed and annoyed at myself. Surely a good LifePartner would remember important things like going to her in-laws for lunch? They only told us about it yesterday, after all.

‘I’m going for a run,’ Evan says, sticking his head round the door. He’s changed into tracksuit bottoms and
a
T-shirt. ‘I’ll be back in time to shower and change before we leave, OK?’

I nod.
It’s no big deal, see?
I tell myself.
He’s obviously not bothered about it
.

But it feels like a big deal to me.

When he’s gone, I dress, then clear up the last of the breakfast things and turn on the dishwasher. After that, I wander back out into the living room. There’s nothing to do, and the apartment feels too big with just me in it. I try to read an eFic on my komm, but I can’t concentrate, so I turn on the news screen.

As usual, it’s showing a mix of reports and statistics from ACID. ‘Crime in Outer has dropped to its lowest ever levels, thanks to increased stop-and-search checks by ACID,’ an agent is saying to the camera. She has shiny, bobbed dark hair and flawless, pale skin. The caption underneath her says
Sub-Commander Healey
. As I read her name, I feel a momentary flash of something – déjà vu? – which passes as quickly as it arrived. ‘This last month alone, arrests increased tenfold, with defendants being moved through the courts faster than ever thanks to new legislation brought in by ACID to cut red tape and get criminals off the streets as quickly as possible. A huge number of forged c-cards are being seized every week, and . . .’

I let her words wash over me, watching the pictures behind her, which show ranks of ACID agents marching through the streets; agents handcuffing scruffy, undernourished-looking people outside grim concrete
apartment
blocks; agents leading those same people to ACID vans. It makes me feel safe to know that these people are being dealt with so efficiently, yet alarmed to know that they’re there in the first place. Why do they break laws and fight against the system like that? Can’t they see that those laws are there to make our lives better? It’s crazy.

‘And now we have an interview with ACID’s chief and the President of the IRB, General Harvey, about the recent recapture of escaped murderer Jenna Strong,’ Sub-Commander Healey says as the picture behind her changes to show a burly man in his fifties with a neatly clipped moustache. I get another sudden wave of familiarity just like the one I had a few moments ago. It’s almost as if I’ve met them both somewhere. I shake my head. Ridiculous. Why would
I
know an ACID sub-commander, never mind the President? It must be because I’ve seen them on the news screens so many times.

And Jenna Strong. Why is that name so familiar? Then I remember. She’s that girl who killed her parents a few years ago, and recently escaped from jail. A little shudder works its way up my spine.

‘General, where is Strong now?’ Sub-Commander Healey asks.

‘She is in a specialist high-security prison,’ General Harvey replies. ‘The public have nothing to fear from her any more. She will remain locked up for—’

Then the sound cuts out and the picture begins to distort, Sub-Commander Healey’s and General Harvey’s
heads
stretching sideways and jagged white lines cutting across the top half of the screen. I frown, wondering if there’s a problem with the connection. But as suddenly as it started to flicker and jump, the picture stabilizes.

It’s not showing Sub-Commander Healey or General Harvey any more. There’s a head-and-shoulders shot of a person wearing some sort of mask, so that it’s impossible to tell whether they’re a man or a woman, or how old they are. They look to one side, then lean forward towards the camera. Their eyes seem to lock onto mine – but that’s not possible, is it? ‘Jess,’ they say. Even their voice is disguised, sounding gravelly and electronic.

I stare at the screen.

‘Don’t believe any of it. None of it’s true,’ the masked person says. ‘You need to remember who you are.’

My heart starts to pound. Who
is
this person? Why are they talking to me?

‘Jess,’ they say. ‘Try to remember. You
have
to remember.’

I stand up on shaking legs, feeling a scream building in my throat. Can they see me?

‘Jess, you’re not really—’ the person in the mask begins. In two steps, I cross over to the news screen and tap the base to turn it off. The picture vanishes, taking that sinister, distorted voice with it, and I collapse back onto the sofa, trembling.

I’m still there when Evan gets back forty minutes later, staring at the empty space where the news screen picture was.

‘Are you OK?’ he says when he sees my expression.

I shake my head. I’m desperate to take another dose of my meds to calm myself down, but my mediband won’t let me; it’s too soon after the last one.

‘What’s wrong?’ Evan sits down beside me, frowning. He smells sweaty.

‘There – there was a – a –
someone
on the news screen,’ I say. ‘They kept saying my name and telling me I needed to remember who I really was.’

Evan’s frown turns into an expression of shock. ‘What?’

‘They were wearing a mask, and their voice was disguised – you couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman—’

Evan gets up. ‘Did you link ACID?’

‘Not yet,’ I say. ‘I – I was waiting for you to get back.’

Evan turns on the news screen. It shimmers into life, and a second or two later, I see . . .

Sub-Commander Healey, calmly reading out her reports, just like she was before.

Evan and I watch the screen for a few minutes in silence. Then he switches it off again. ‘Looks OK to me,’ he says, coming back over to where I’m sitting. ‘Jess, is your . . .’

He trails off. I see him swallow.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Is your – you know – working?’ He nods at my mediband.

‘Yes!’ I say. ‘Of course it is!’

Evan scrubs a hand through his hair. ‘Well, maybe it was just a – a glitch, or something.’ He gets up again. ‘I’d better get changed.’

He goes into the bedroom, and I hear the shower running in the en-suite.

‘Ready?’ he says when he emerges again, wearing a shirt and jeans.

I nod, smoothing my dress and trying to ignore the way my hands are still shaking. I can’t have imagined that person on the news screen – surely I can’t have. I’m not crazy.

Am I?

CHAPTER 39

AS EVAN AND
I travel across Upper – his parents live in another residential district on the other side of the zone – neither of us mention what I saw on the news screen again. Or what I didn’t see.

‘Darling!’ Evan’s mum says as she opens the door to us, hugging him as if it’s been a year since she last saw him, not less than a day. He extricates himself as quickly as possible, but when his mum goes to hug me, I’m happy to let her. His dad emerges from down the hall and greets us both with firm handshakes. Suki hangs back behind him and returns the smile I give her shyly. In her everyday clothes, she looks much younger than fourteen.

‘Our chef has made roast beef with all the trimmings,’ Evan’s dad tells me with a jovial smile while Evan answers his mum’s questions about our apartment. ‘I hope you’re hungry!’

I nod, trying to return his smile, and still unable to get what happened this morning out of my head. If that person I saw on the screen was real – and I still think they were, despite Evan’s doubts – then how did they know who I am? Do they know where I live? The thought sends terror knifing through me.

A bell tinkles somewhere, telling us it’s time for lunch. The meal is served by a maid who places the dishes on the table and serves the food without saying a word. Evan, Suki and their parents act as if she isn’t there, but I can’t help watching her out of the corner of my eye. I wonder if she’s from Outer. My parents’ staff were. I try to remember what Evan said his dad did; he’s the managing director of a sub food supply company run by ACID, I think. Everyone ACID employs at that level is always paid well.

After the maid leaves, I pick at my food, trying to ignore the anxiety that’s still fluttering inside me. Evan’s mum talks about the caterers she’s hired for our Partnering party, which Evan and I will be throwing at our apartment next Saturday, and the people she’s booked to put decorations up for us. ‘They’re very good,’ she says. ‘Very tasteful. I hope you don’t mind me booking them for you, Jess, but, well, you were in your facility . . .’ She says the word delicately. ‘That centre, I mean – and I wasn’t sure you’d want to be bothered with things like that.’