GLAZE (27 page)

It’s quieter here, but we’re still not alone. Never alone.

‘Stop,’ I say, clutching at Ethan’s arm.
 

A drone glides overhead. It picks up our image and starts zoom in. Two kids standing in a park, with nothing to do. It’s suspicious.
 

I pull Ethan onto a nearby bench and wrap my arms around him. Watching us embrace from above is dizzying. Seeing how the hardness in Ethan’s face softens like when he’s sleeping. How I resist total surrender, my arms awkward and stiff around his neck. We look like strangers. I almost feel guilty watching this intimate moment.
 

It seems whoever is operating the drone has the same reaction. The image zooms out again and continues on its journey.
 

I break away from Ethan with a gasp. He licks his lips as if trying to taste the last of the kiss. For a moment, it’s just him. No bombardment of images, no unwanted feed, just a boy and a girl on a bench. It’s so perfectly normal, I wish this moment could go on for ever.
 

‘Come on,’ I say, getting to my feet and holding out my hand.
 

He takes it and I don’t let go.
 

We’re a street away from the church and the building next to it, where I saw Hwang go. I focus on the doctor, trying to pick up his feed, and I’m looking at a desk made of white glass. A man’s hand holds a silver pen and scribbles away on a notepad. The words are in Korean and too scrawled for the translator to work. The hand puts down the pen. It rolls onto the floor. He doesn’t follow it. Just stares down at the white paper, before folding three times and sliding it into a crisp, white envelope. He glances out of a window. Through it I can see the spire of St Barnabas.

‘He’s still there, but we have to hurry.’
 

The only thing between us and Hwang is a street filled with people and covered with cameras.
 

I focus on the feeds from the cameras. They track up and down the street, panning left and then right, on a perfectly timed loop.
 

‘There’s a blind spot in the pattern,’ I say.
 

‘What pattern?’ Ethan says.
 

‘The cameras. There’s a blind spot. If we’re careful, we can avoid being seen.’
 

‘But what about all the people?’ he says. ‘We can’t avoid being seen by them.’
 

‘We need a distraction.’ I look around, both with my eyes and the digital eyes I’m piggybacking.
 

Three kids sit on a wall, returning the scowls of passers-by. They can’t be much older than twelve, fourteen, tops. Although they’re trying to pretend that they’re older than that. That they’re trouble.
 

‘Those kids,’ I say.

Ethan turns to where I’m pointing and doesn’t need any more of an explanation. ‘Wait here.’
 

I lean up against a wall, making sure my hood covers my face, before sliding slowly to the ground, giving into the flow, letting it wash over me.
 

// O
THER
PLANETS
CANNOT
BE
AS
BEAUTIFUL
AS
OURS
. //

// S
HE
’
S
SO
BEAUTIFUL
. I
DON
’
T
KNOW
HOW
TO
TALK
TO
HER
. //

I hear the high-pitched chime of metal on concrete and a coin bounces off the paving stone and into my lap. I look up to see who’s decided I need their charity. There’s nothing but turned backs as people walk by. It could have been any one of them.
 

‘Three minutes!’ Ethan runs towards me, out of breath. ‘Three minutes and we’ll have our distraction.’
 

‘What did you tell them?’ I say, clambering to my feet once more.
 

‘I told them how to adjack. And said they might want to cause a distraction while they’re doing it. They’re arguing over who gets to throw the brick at the shop window right now.’
 

We walk to the edge of the park and wait, counting down the seconds. It’s not been even two minutes when there’s a smash followed by the screech of alarms. All eyes on the street turn in the direction of the noise. The opposite direction to where we’re heading.
 

I try to block out the feed coming from everyone around me and focus on the CCTV footage, trying to stay in that space between the feeds.
 

‘Stop,’ I say, holding Ethan back as the camera swings to cover the ground a few feet in front of us. ‘Now,’ I say when it starts to turn.
 

It’s like a dance, between us and the cameras. Quick, quick, slow. Quick, quick, slow.
 

We near the church, its tall spire casting a long shadow on the pavement in front of us. It’s blasting out a single sermon.
 

// A
ND
THE
L
ORD
SAID
, ‘B
EHOLD
,
THEY
ARE
ONE
PEOPLE
,
AND
THEY
HAVE
ALL
ONE
LANGUAGE
,
AND
THIS
IS
ONLY
THE
BEGINNING
OF
WHAT
THEY
WILL
DO
. A
ND
NOTHING
THAT
THEY
PROPOSE
TO
DO
WILL
NOW
BE
IMPOSSIBLE
FOR
THEM
.’ //

The door is up ahead. I recognise the flaking red paint and the brass sign screwed into the brick wall from the footage of Hwang.
Gentle Dental
is engraved in thin, sharp letters, followed by three names, all with Dr at the front and BDS at the end. Dr Hwang’s name isn’t among them.
 

As I reach my hand to the buzzer there’s a blast of sirens. At first I think they’ve found us, that it’s all over. Then I realise the noise is coming from behind us. Back where the window was smashed.
 

‘Were we wrong?’ I say, looking up at Ethan. ‘Using them like that?’
 

Ethan shrugs. ‘They were going to get themselves in trouble anyway. This way, at least it will have been for a reason.’

I press the doorbell and a few moments later there is a buzzing sound. I push the door open.

24

THE CARPET ON THE STAIRCASE
smells of rubber and is so clean I wonder if we’re the first people to tread on it.
 

Sitting behind a reception desk is a small, dark-haired lady. She’s knitting while gazing into the middle distance, probably watching a soap or something.
 

I cough.
 

She pulls her attention back to the real world, an instinctive smile on her face. The smile fades as she looks Ethan and me up and down. ‘Yes, can I help you?’

‘We’re here to see Dr Hwang,’ I say.
 

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, not sounding sorry at all. ‘There’s no one here of that name. You must have the wrong building.’ She looks back down at her knitting and tuts.
 

Ethan smacks both hands on the desk in front of her, which shocks her so much she drops her ball of wool. It goes rolling out from under the reception and towards my feet.
 

‘Tell Dr Hwang that if he doesn’t come out soon, we’re coming in.’

The woman looks scared. I’m impressed. Ethan can be a real badass when he wants.
 

‘Um...’ she says, turning her head ever so slightly to the side, her eyes darting towards a door on the left.
 

‘Thanks,’ Ethan says. He grabs my hand and pulls me towards the closed door.
 

As Ethan raises his foot, the door swings open. Dr Hwang stands there. He looks paler than when I last saw him and his confident smile is gone. He glances from Ethan to me, bending his head slightly to look beneath my hood.
 

He nods. ‘Come.’
 

I throw the receptionist a last look. She’s lost in Glaze again, her hands a blur and her knitting needles clattering against each other, too absorbed to realise there’s no wool left on the needles.
 

Dr Hwang leads the way down a corridor that smells like rubber and bleach. The smell sets something off and I’m hit by images of hospitals and waiting rooms and dentists. So much anxiety.
 

// I
T
’
S
THE
SMELL
OF
THESE
PLACES
I
HATE
. //

// W
ISH
ME
LUCK
FOR
MY
OPERATION
TOMORROW
. //

// …
THERE
WAS
A
DEMAND
FOR
MORE
BODIES
TO
OPERATION
ON
,
THE
R
ESURRECTION
MEN
SAW
AN
… //
 

Ethan grabs me as I fall against the wall and manages to keep me on my feet. ‘Hold on, Petri.’

I search among the mess for a single image to grab hold of; a water fountain in a room somewhere, a wall with water flowing down it. I don’t know how long it will last.
 

Dr Hwang gives me the briefest of concerned looks then enters a small office. There’s a glass desk, a chair and a tall lamp that bends in a smooth curve in front of the window. He sits on the chair behind the desk, turns an envelope over to hide the address, and looks up at us. I’ve never been very comfortable with silences. And this one is stretching forever.
 

I push my hood back. ‘Fix it. Now.’

‘You are experiencing difficulties with your chip?’ Dr Hwang says, slow and deliberate. He pulls a notebook towards him and looks around the gleaming desk.
 

I laugh. ‘Difficulties? You have no idea. And the pen you’re looking for is on the floor.’

He blinks, then folds his hands in front of him. ‘Tell me.’

‘It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It’s just noise and—’

‘Adjustment period.’
 

‘Don’t give me that adjustment period crap. Whatever you and Logan did, it’s broken. I can see everything. Everything except what I want to see. There’s no filter, just millions and millions of voices. All the time! And I can’t take it any more.’ Tears roll down my face.
 

‘Ah, and this is since the virus?’ he says.
 

‘No,’ Ethan steps in as I’m too angry to speak now. ‘Since the start. What did you do to her chip?’
 

Hwang unfolds his arms and places his hands on the table. ‘The blanks the police use are almost identical to the usual Glaze chips. They’re even manufactured in the same factory. The only difference is they are designed to transmit data rather than receive it. The Glaze chips are then programmed using a virus injected into the bloodstream at the same time as the chip is implanted. That’s why you have to wait a couple of hours before accessing Glaze, so the nanobots can do their job.’

How did I not know about this? I thought I knew everything there was to know about Glaze.
 

‘But the nanotech can also be exploited by using a virus. Which when injected into the host body targets the chip. This is what I did with you, Miss Quinn. I injected the virus into your blood stream and the nanobots rewrote your chip’s programming.’
 

‘And did you cook up this virus yourself?’ Ethan says.

‘I replicated it using plans from the WhiteInc factory in Korea. It should have worked.’

‘Well, it didn’t,’ Ethan says.
 

‘We followed the plans exactly. Are you quite certain that this is not an after-effect of the attack?’

‘Positive. What do you know about the attack?’

‘I had nothing to do with that.’

‘OK, let’s pretend I believe that for a second. But what do you know now, why is it affecting some people and not others?’ Ethan leans his fists on the table.
 

‘How do you mean, affecting?’
 

‘My mother, my friend, people on the street, they’re all in comas,’ I say, holding my head in my hands.
 

‘I read rumours, but there have been no official reports.’ Hwang sounds interested. Excited almost.

I slam my fist against the wall leaving a dent in the thin material. ‘No!’

// N
O
. // N
ON
. // N
EIN
. //

‘Don’t you dare treat this like some experiment. Some game. This is my mother we’re talking about.’
 

‘I’m sorry,’ Hwang says. ‘But without any of the patient notes I cannot help you. Perhaps if you could get them for me I could ascertain what happened to your mother. Where have they taken her?’
 

‘WhiteInc,’ I say. ‘The hospital wing at WhiteInc.’
 

We all know what that means. It means there’s no chance we’re getting anywhere near her.
 

‘Was your mother on any medication?’

‘I don’t know. But I think my friend Kiara was. She said she’d started receiving treatment for depression.’
 

‘There have been some cases where an overdose of serotonin has led to comas, but I don’t see what that could have to do with the attack. I’m sorry, but without more information, I can’t help you.’ Hwang doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds like a doctor delivering news to a terminal patient. Which, in so many ways, he is.
 

‘What about Petri’s chip?’ Ethan says, looking at my face. I feel the blood leave my head. ‘Can you fix it or not?’

‘Perhaps I could run a scan and ascertain if I can get it operating correctly.’

‘No. I want off Glaze. For ever.’ Even if that means never being able to play a part in society, even if that means being an outcast, I’d rather that than what it’s doing to people. I turn back to Hwang. ‘Wipe it.’

‘This will not be simple.’

‘Why not? You made it sound simple enough.’
 

‘You’ve already been infected with a nanovirus from when I rewrote your blank chip. To do it again… there may be complications.’
 

‘More than what she’s already experiencing?’

Dr Hwang looks back down to his hands.