Acid (26 page)

My heart skips a beat, then starts thudding at twice its normal speed as I realize what I’m looking at. These must be crime stats, straight from ACID. I’m glad I’m not working with those. They’d give me nightmares. Frowning, I try to work out why the word
senttence
is marked up. Then I realize: the extra ‘t’.

At that moment, I hear the sharp click of Kerri’s heels outside in the corridor. I push my chair back a little and turn to face the door.

‘Ah, there you are,’ she says as she comes in. ‘I got called away, sorry.’ She sits down behind the desk and taps the screen to turn it off. ‘So, are you finding you can keep up with the work?’

I nod. ‘Yes.’

‘And what about that little . . . problem of yours? It isn’t interfering with anything?’

She means my meds. ‘No,’ I say, glancing at my mediband and remembering that it’s nearly time for my next dose.

Kerri sniffs. ‘Very well. You may go. We’ll have a proper performance review at the end of the week.’

I stand up. ‘Thank you,’ I say, then hurry out of the office, relieved; I thought she was going to give me a real grilling.

There’s still five minutes to go until lunch, so the corridor outside is empty, everyone shut away in their
offices
. I’m almost at the lifts when I start to get that weird slipping sensation inside my head again, like I did after my LifePartnering ceremony. I stop, frightened I’m going to fall over. Suddenly, I’m not in the corridor at all but a narrow, closed-in space lined with shelves. There’s sheeting draped overhead, the light’s dim and flickering, and there’s someone in here with me – a boy. I can’t make out his face but I feel an inexplicable pull towards him, a rush of intense love mixed with sadness and guilt.

I put my hand out, and when I feel the wall beside me, it breaks me out of my trance. My heart’s hammering, my breathing rapid. What
is
this? Where are these memories coming from? They’re much stronger than last time, when I was in the car with Evan after the ceremony.

My komm pings, and I feel the sting of my mediband’s needle sliding into my wrist. I wait, breathing rapidly, as the memory or hallucination or whatever it was is washed away by the chemicals flowing into my bloodstream. Then I stand there holding onto the wall for a few moments, composing myself. A quick glance up and down the corridor reassures me that no one saw me.

Relieved, I walk down to the lifts as fast as I can.

CHAPTER 42

‘OH, THAT IS
perfect
,’ Meredith says as I step out into the living room to give her and Hailey a slightly embarrassed twirl. The dress I’m trying on was at the back of my wardrobe, wrapped in plastic. It’s strapless, dark green silk with a full skirt, trimmed all over with tiny crystals that make it seem to shimmer as I move. The boned bodice hugs my ribs so tightly I can hardly breathe. But it’s beautiful. And perhaps, when Evan sees me wearing it, he’ll think
I’m
beautiful too.

‘Have you got any shoes to go with it?’ Hailey says. She and Meredith push past me into the bedroom and make a beeline for the wardrobe. They argue over which shoes I should wear, until Hailey triumphantly holds up a pair of silver sandals with a dark green crystal flower on the toe. ‘These!’ she says. She thrusts them at me. ‘Try them on.’

I sit down on the bed, feeling slightly bemused, but pleased. Tonight, Evan and I are throwing our Partnering party. Even though I’ve worked at the Stats Bureau for just a week, almost everyone from my office has said they’ll come. It’s all thanks to Meredith and Hailey; they encouraged me to get the invites linked out. And this
morning
, just as Evan was getting ready to go out for a run, they linked me to say they were on their way over to help me pick out an outfit. In a way, it feels like having Lucy and Eri back.

‘Yep, that’s it,’ Meredith says, standing back with her hands on her hips. ‘We’d better watch Olly and Tim around her, eh, Hales?’ she adds, winking at Hailey.

Olly and Tim are their LifePartners. I blush.

‘Are we done? I need
food
,’ Hailey says dramatically, flinging herself across the bed. ‘And aren’t there people coming in a bit to clean and put up decorations? We want to be out of here before they arrive.’

As I change back into my everyday clothes, she links for a car, and after Meredith’s helped me wrap the dress up again and I’ve placed it carefully back in the wardrobe, we head outside.

‘There’s a
gorgeous
little brasserie we always go to – you’ll love it, Jess,’ Hailey says as we wait outside the apartment for the car. ‘They do the most
divine
cinnamon lattes.’

As we’re driven to the commercial district, sun streams through the windows. I lean back in my seat, basking in it. Ever since my LifePartnering ceremony, the weather has been perfect, which I’m trying to take as a good sign. It’s been a much better week; I haven’t had any more of those funny turns and my meds aren’t making me feel as foggy any more.

The brasserie is tiny and old-fashioned, with real live waitresses dressed in black and white uniforms bringing
the
food to the tables, wood everywhere and the rich scent of coffee filling the air. We sit down by the window so we can people-watch. ‘Isn’t that Connolly Tayler?’ Hailey says, squinting through the glass as one of the waitresses hands us menus, which are old-fashioned too – actual printed, folded cards. Talk about quaint.

Meredith and I both look. Connolly Tayler is the daughter of an ACID chief. A few years ago, she survived a kidnap attempt by a group of anti-ACID rebels. She’s since written an eFic based on her ordeal and it’s become a bestseller. I read it last year, before the accident. It terrified me.

‘I don’t think so,’ Meredith says, frowning. ‘Her hair’s darker, isn’t it?’

I can only see the back of the girl’s head, and from here, she could be anybody – although there is an ACID agent walking a few steps behind her.

‘I wouldn’t like to be her at the moment,’ Hailey says in a lower voice. ‘Not when there’s been all that trouble with the Strong girl.’

‘You mean the murderer?’ I say, feeling a little shiver go up my spine like it did when I saw the report about her on the news screen the other day. ‘I thought she was back in prison? A high-security prison?’

‘Well, yes, but
Mileway
was supposed to be high-security, wasn’t it?’ Hailey says. ‘And she escaped from there. I wouldn’t be surprised if she got out again pretty soon.’

Meredith makes a face. ‘Ugh, don’t say that, Hales.’

Hailey shrugs. ‘Just telling it like it is.’ Then she frowns. ‘Hey, Mer, didn’t your cousin go to school with her or something?’

‘Oh, Toria, yes. She was in her class.’

‘Was she friends with her?’

‘I don’t know. She won’t talk about her. And my mum’s said I’m not allowed to ask her about her.’

‘She
must
have been friends with her then,’ Hailey says, nodding. ‘Can you imagine, hanging out with someone who was planning to do something like that?’ She gives a little shudder, glances around the café, takes a sip of water, then leans forward. ‘Anyway, girls,’ she says in a low voice. ‘You’ll never guess what.’

‘What?’ Meredith says, her eyes widening like they always do when she’s anticipating a juicy piece of gossip.

‘Tim and I have had our notification. It came last night.’

‘Already?’ Meredith squeals, so loudly everyone else in the brasserie looks round at us. ‘Sorry,’ she says at a more normal volume. ‘But ohhh, I’m so jealous! You’ve only been Partnered four months!’

Hailey shrugs. ‘I guess they thought we were ready. We’re having our implants deactivated next Tuesday evening, and after that, we can start trying.’

I don’t need to ask who
they
are, or what she’s going to start trying for.
They
are ACID, and getting their notification means Hailey and her LifePartner, Tim, have been given permission to have a baby.

I try to imagine what will happen when Evan and I get our notification. It could be soon – as soon as Hailey and Tim – or it could be years from now. But if it
is
soon . . .

Panic catches slightly at my throat. Although he sometimes puts his arm around me when we’re watching the news screen now, Evan and I are still sleeping on opposite edges of the bed every night. And I’m still waiting for that feeling, that
Oh! I love you
moment to punch me in the gut.

It’s only been a week
, I keep reminding myself. But I can’t help worrying that things aren’t going to change. What if we get our notification in a few months’ time and we still haven’t slept together? I really don’t want our first time to be because we have to.

Then, as I half listen to Hailey and Meredith talking excitedly about whether Hailey will be given permission to have a boy or a girl – as, although most people conceive naturally, they’re given hormone injections which determine the baby’s gender – a thought comes to me. What if Evan’s waiting for
me
to make the first move? What if he hasn’t done anything yet because he doesn’t want to rush me? All at once, my anxiety vanishes, and I nearly laugh out loud. Of course. That has to be it. How can I have been so stupid?

I think again about the green dress, the way it hugs my hips and the curve of my breasts, and a smile curves my lips. Could tonight be the night?

Meredith, glancing at me, frowns. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asks.

‘Nothing,’ I say quickly. ‘I was just thinking about tonight.’

I try to make my expression sober again. But inside, I’m still smiling.

CHAPTER 43

I GO TO
Meredith’s after lunch, not wanting to get in the way of the party preparations. Hailey and I help her pick out a dress, and then, on the way back to my apartment that evening, call in at Hailey’s so she can collect her outfit.

By the time we get back to my place, it’s been transformed. Tiny lights have been strung up across the ceiling and around the window in the living room, and there are vases of white roses everywhere, filling the air with scent. On the table are covered dishes and bowls of brightly coloured punch. I can hear people moving about in the kitchen, and when I look round the door, I see two guys and two women, dressed in neat white uniforms, preparing more food on the kitchen worktops. They don’t look round at me, just carry on working as if I wasn’t even there.

‘This looks
incredible
,’ Hailey says. ‘What time is everyone arriving?’

‘I told them any time after nineteen hundred,’ I say.

‘It’s eighteen fifteen already!’ Meredith says. ‘We’d better get ready!’

Hailey insists on doing my make-up for me, and won’t
let
me look in the mirror until she’s finished. ‘Stand
still
,’ she says as she strokes a mascara brush through my eyelashes. ‘Otherwise I’m going to end up stabbing you in the eye.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. I’m not used to having this much stuff on my face – all I wore for my ceremony was a slick of coloured lip gloss and a touch of pale purple eye shadow.

‘There,’ she says after she’s lightly dusted my shoulders, collarbone and cleavage with some sort of sparkling powder. She turns me round so that I can see my reflection in the mirror behind me.

I gasp. Because the girl in the mirror isn’t me. Her normally pale skin has a rosy glow, accentuated by the sparkle on her chest and the blusher that’s been subtly applied to her cheeks. Her eyes, ringed with black kohl and smoky silver-grey eye shadow, look almost the same shade of green as her dress. Her hair is swept back elegantly, a few softly-curling tendrils teased out and tumbling around her face.

Hailey – who’s wearing a deep rose-pink dress, her hair held back on one side with a gold clip studded with diamonds – hands me my silver shawl. ‘You are going to knock. Him. Out,’ she says.

‘Too right,’ adds Meredith, who’s wearing a simple midnight-blue dress with a pencil skirt and ruffles down the front. Then she touches her ear; her komm’s going off. ‘Hi, Olly! Yes, we’re already at Jess’s. Are you guys on your way? Cool! See you in ten!’

She turns back to me and Hailey. ‘Olly and Tim are
nearly
here. Come on, let’s go and pick some music. I bet everyone else will arrive soon too!’

She’s right: as soon as we go back into the living room, the door buzzer sounds. Over the next hour or so, the apartment begins to fill up. People I only know from seeing them in the restaurant at work compliment me on my dress until I start to feel dizzy with all the praise, and gifts begin to pile up at one end of the dining table – envelopes, mostly, wrapped in fancy paper and ribbon.

The only thing that keeps me from feeling completely happy is the fact that Evan’s still not here.

As it gets to twenty fifteen, then twenty thirty, I start to feel more and more anxious. Meredith notices me looking flustered and tries to reassure me. ‘I’m sure he’s on his way,’ she says. ‘Guys are
always
late for stuff like this.’ But her words don’t comfort me. I want to link him, but I’m scared to. What if something’s happened to him?

At twenty forty-five, just as I’ve decided I
will
link him, the apartment door opens and Evan steps through. He’s wearing a shirt and dark jeans, his hair carefully gelled and mussed up. There are a lot of people here from his office too. They greet him as he comes in with cries of, ‘Evan!’ and ‘Hey, where have you been?’

I stand near the table, waiting for him to notice me. But he takes a glass of punch from one of the white-clad waitresses, then starts talking to a guy with short red hair.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Hailey says, elbowing me in the ribs. She waves and, pitching her voice over the sound of the music and chatter, calls, ‘Evan! Over here!’

Evan turns, and I see him do a double take.

He comes over. ‘Jess,’ he says. ‘You – you look amazing!’

He looks me up and down, his usual indifferent expression replaced by something keener, almost hungry, as he takes in my dress, my hair, my make-up, the glitter dusted across my chest.

‘Wow,’ he says again. I feel a blush spread up my neck and into my cheeks. I suddenly feel very warm, even though it isn’t particularly hot.