Cracks (16 page)

He swears quietly and gets out his phone, then points it at the nearest wall. A crystal clear projection the size of a computer screen appears on the wall with a slightly different Google logo
than the one I know. Despite everything that’s happening, the normal part of my brain itches for a phone like that too. He mumbles ‘Brinkley Cross’ grudgingly. A 3D map instantly
appears. It shows a satellite image of a town. According to the sidebar it’s just fifty miles north on the motorway from here.

My knees almost give way.

It’s a real place! I didn’t dream it. I want to laugh and punch the air and do a silly dance all at once. It’s not much to go on but it’s something! I feel like
it’s calling me, pulling me back. I have to get to Amil’s place. They have some connection with my real life, I know it. If not, then they’ll help me, I’m sure. Maybe
there’s even a family waiting for me there. But first I need money and fake ID.

I hold out my hand to shake.

‘I’ll do it,’ I say, ‘but two weeks only. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.’

Zander grins slowly, his wolfish teeth glinting in the darkness. He takes my hand and shakes it hard.

I
’m sure it’s five minutes later when someone is shaking me awake. I feel like I’ve been hit all over with a baseball bat. I
groan and try to focus on who’s next to me. It’s Jax, leaning in a bit too close and looking annoyingly well rested. His big brown eyes are centimetres from mine.

‘Come on,’ he says, ‘got you this.’ He puts down a cup of tea in a cracked, stained mug next to me. ‘Zander says I’m to show you the ropes.’ He sits
back on his haunches and watches me as I sit up and take a grateful slurp of the hot, sweet drink. Kyla is fast asleep next to me, her breathing a bit noisy but steady in rhythm. Jax reaches down
and tenderly pulls her sleeping bag up a little higher, tucking it under her chin. He catches me watching, and blinks, then looks away and gets to his feet.

‘So, drink that, yeah? And we’ll get started.’

I’m worrying a bit about what I’ve got myself into as I wash my face in the bathroom. The mirror is dappled all over with rust and black mould. The hand towel is soaking wet.
Whatever colour it once was has long faded. I give it a sniff, grimace, and then drop it back where I found it. I use my sleeve to dry my face instead.

Lots of people are still sleeping as we leave the quiet house.

Outside it’s grey and overcast. There’s a smell of warm concrete, burned rubber and wee. The estate doesn’t look much better in the daytime. The windows of most of the houses
are smashed and some are streaky with black smoke damage. We only see two people – an old lady slowly carrying a bag of shopping, and a boy about my age who scurries into a house with his
hood covering his face.

We get to the canal again and step down onto the crumbling path. It’s wider than it seemed in the dark but the smell is just as bad and quickly coats the inside of my nose and throat with
something stagnant and rotten. Huge warehouse-type buildings with broken windows loom on the other side of the water. We have to fight through nettles and thorny fingers of plants that reach across
the path. The water looks even higher than it did before and slops over the towpath at certain points, soaking my trainers.

Jax is almost silent. He lopes along in front of me, all arms and big feet, head down. He’s fast because of his long, skinny legs and I have to hurry to keep pace with him.

‘So how long have you worked for Zander, then?’ I say, hoping some conversation might help with the jangling nervous feeling in my belly that isn’t just from the lack of
breakfast.

He flicks a look back over his shoulder. ‘Few years. Dunno,’ he says and then stops abruptly. ‘Look, I know what you think.’ He turns to me. His dark eyes are serious. He
swipes a hand across his chin.

‘Uh . . . what do I think?’ I say with a small laugh.

‘That I’m nuts to be working for a creep like him?’

‘I’m not thinking that,’ I say feebly.

He swoops his eyes. ‘Sure you ain’t.’

We walk along in silence for a minute and then he stops abruptly. ‘I do it so me and Kyla don’t have to live on the streets, OK? I gotta look after her. I promised her
mum.’

‘OK!’ I say, palms up. ‘Jeez, I didn’t even say anything!’

‘No . . . well, that’s all right, then,’ he says grumpily and carries on walking, a bit slower now. ‘You prob’ly have no idea what it’s like for us. Expect
you’ve always had a nice home and never had to look after yourself.’

I sigh. ‘You have got
no
idea,’ I mutter.

He just snorts in disbelief. He’s completely different to how he was last night. Maybe he’s planning to shop me. Maybe him and Zander are up to something between them. I look around,
half wondering whether I should try to go right now and make it on my own.

We’re at the end of the towpath and I can see large metal sheds that look like factories ahead. Jax mutters something under his breath.

Tiredness and irritation surge up inside me, forcing words out. ‘Look, what’s your problem, Jax?!’ I say. ‘You invited me back in the first place!’

He stops and we face each other, both breathing heavily, eyeballing each other. He makes a frustrated noise and his shoulders drop. ‘I’m just . . . it’s . . .’ He runs
his hands through his hair. ‘What am I going to do if she dies, man?’

So that’s it. This is really about Kyla. I think about what Zander said about kicking them out, and the horrible noises coming from her lungs last night. Any lingering doubt that I did the
right thing in giving away the medicine fades. On cue though, my cut throbs and I give my hand a dismissive shake.

‘The people who gave me that medicine,’ I say, ‘they said it was good stuff. Hard-to-get stuff. It should help her. She’s not going to die. I’m sure she’ll be
OK.’

Jax gives a weak smile. ‘You really think?’

I smile back. ‘Yeah, I really do.’

It feels like the right thing to say.

Turning off the towpath, we come back into the place we met again last night, among factories and warehouses. Vans and lorries snake around the roads and there are a few people in overalls about
the place but it’s mainly quiet.

We go to a spot near the back and Jax explains why we’re here.

Seems that most areas of the city don’t have the sophisticated cameras on the outside like in the plaza that Zander took me to last night. They have them inside warehouses and factories
but on the outside they have regular CCTV. Zander’s gang has developed a method to moving around and staying below the radar. One of Zander’s crew worked out that each camera operates
on a cycle of, say, one minute on and one minute off. Some work for longer, some less. There have been electricity shortages and all sorts of power surge problems so this has been the only way the
authorities can keep so many going at once. So when you’re in built-up areas, you look to see how long a camera goes still for and then you can dodge them. That’s why Jax was walking in
that weird way last night when we were out in the open.

Some of the cameras are broken in this part of the estate, so it’s a good place for Jax to show me the ropes, he explains.

‘So go on,’ he says, ‘I want you to pretend those cameras there and there,’ he gestures with his head, ‘are on a cycle where the nearest one switches off after
three seconds. Then you move and count to three for the next one. And again. And keep close to the shadows. See if you can get all the way across to the fence.’ He pauses. ‘Got
it?’

‘Er, I think so,’ I say.

‘Go on, then.’

It’s a lot harder than it looks. I’ve only walked about a metre when Jax makes a noise like a loud klaxon and waves both his thumbs down.

‘Fail!’ he says happily. ‘You walked right into the open there.’

I try again, this time pressing myself close to the walls, counting, then darting across to the next building. I look at Jax who is expressionless. Must be doing it right this time.

I repeat the process until I get to the next building and then the next. I get to the other side and turn round, flushed and triumphant. I really think I’m getting the knack of this.

But Jax starts slowly shaking his head.

‘Matt, Matt, Matt,’ he says, with a heavy sigh. ‘They just got a clear shot of your ugly mug.’

Irritated, I have another go.

He makes the klaxon sound again. ‘They already got you tied up in some cell,’ he says. He screws up his eye, as though listening to something. ‘I think you’re being
beaten up by a big, bald guy called Skin about now.’

I glare back at him although a tiny part of me wants to laugh too. ‘All right, genius,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you show me how it’s done, then?’

Jax wiggles his fingers and shunts his arms forward so the sleeves of his hoodie rise up, exposing his knobbly wrists. ‘Prepare to watch a maestro at work,’ he says and glides away
from the wall.

All of his awkward gangliness seems to disappear when he’s doing his stuff. He moves smoothly, darting and slinking along, almost like he’s made of something fluid rather than flesh
and blood.

I watch and concentrate as the seriousness of this takes hold. I have to get it right. If I mess up when Zander sends me out on a job, I’ll get caught. And if I get caught, they’ll
take me back to the Facility. I swallow as an image of that pod swims in front of my eyes. My hand involuntarily goes to the scar on my head.

I can’t – won’t – allow that to happen.

‘Right,’ I say, ‘Let’s have another go.’

It’s not perfect this time but it’s better. I do it again and again and by the time Jax announces it’s lunchtime, I can see a bit of grudging admiration in his eyes. He takes
me to a dodgy-looking burger van on the edge of the estate. I’m so hungry I’d eat the polystyrene box the food comes in. I realise I have no money as Jax orders.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says, glancing at me and reaching into his pocket. ‘I trust you.’

I smile weakly. Trust me? He doesn’t even know my real name.

I
learn quickly.

Jax and Zander teach me a whole range of skills I might have missed out on with a normal education. Not just about avoiding CCTV.
Also how to climb through broken windows without getting sliced to bits. I learn about a whole range of digital alarm systems and the passcodes needed to disable them. He gives me a set of lock
picks and I find myself pretty nifty with the old fashioned sort of lock too.

That’s my job, circumventing the laser security and getting inside to turn it off, making it safe for the others. Zander has a team of eight, who he rotates. He teases Jax cruelly, saying
he’s clumsy and his big feet get in the way but he’s obviously valuable to him because he’s often included on the jobs we do. I like it best when Jax is there. We tease each other
and joke about a bit. It feels good. Like I’m a normal kid, despite all evidence to the contrary. He never asks me questions, although sometimes I see him watching me. When I catch his eye he
gives a big grin and cracks a joke but my guess is that he’s wondering where I came from. But people in this house don’t ask questions. Sometimes he stares into the distance and I
wonder if he’s picturing some other life too.

As for Kyla, the antibiotics do their stuff and after a couple of days she’s able to get up. She looks frail and still coughs a bit but her eyes are brighter.

She does this stretching thing, standing on her toes like a dancer, moving her long neck from side to side. If she catches me staring, she smiles as though it’s funny and I look away,
cheeks burning. Because she’s not strong enough yet to come on any jobs, she stays at the house while we work. She likes making cakes. Which would be great, but they’re really terrible
cakes – either so hard you’re in danger of losing a tooth, or undercooked with craters in the top where they haven’t risen. I eat them anyway. Jax teases her and she rolls her
eyes a bit and clouts him round the back of the head with her hand.

I can’t make out what the story is between her and Jax. He looks at her with puppy eyes quite a lot but I don’t think she feels the same. Not that it matters to me. It’s not
like it’s got anything to do with me.