Havoc (27 page)

‘She'll have guessed that about me, but not you.'

‘What if Fyffe's been sent away, or she's not allowed to go out while all the protests
are going on?' Lanya started to pace around the room.

I sat on the couch and closed my eyes, wishing the dull ache in my head would go
away. The buzz of the day's relentless action had leached out of me and all that
was left was edge, and the bare fact that we were bargaining with our lives.

Lanya said, ‘I've been thinking: why don't you go back and ask Dash to give you a
vaccination shot?'

‘I'm not doing that.'

‘No, listen. It makes sense—and you're the one who's always wanting things to make
sense and add up. It only needs one infected person to threaten the city.'

‘Lanya. Don't do this.'

‘But—'

‘No.'

‘Why not?' she asked.

When I didn't answer she came to sit on the couch with me. She hugged her knees;
I could see her eyes glinting in the dark and smell the fresh cleanness of her pyjamas.
‘Tell me why not,' she said in a matter-of-fact voice as though we were discussing
why I didn't like swimming or cabbage.

In the street outside, a group of people was cheerfully breaking curfew. Laughter
and chatter drifted in through the open window—they sounded confident, jubilant even,
and why shouldn't they? They'd taken Sentian back. But inside in the dark we were
a long way from confident or jubilant.

‘I'm not leaving you,' I said.

Lanya watched me calmly. ‘If you go back to that med centre and get vaccinated then
you'll be able to go to the One City people and use their broadcasts to make a fuss
about Moldam.'

‘No.'

‘Because? Give me a proper reason.'

‘What does that mean?' I said. ‘A proper reason.'

‘It means a reason beyond being worried about me.'

‘I call that a proper reason.'

‘You need more.'

I have more, I thought. It's what my father had done. He left my mother and me because
it was the strategic
thing to do. It must have made sense to them both at the time,
but then the security forces picked us off one by one.

I said, ‘If I go and ask for the vaccine, they won't let me come back, and then you'll
be alone. Alone is too hard.'

Lanya said nothing for a long time. Then she put out a hand and I took it. She said,
‘Those people in the Marsh—they died blind and bleeding. This is a horrible disease.'

‘We could both go back to Dash and ask to be vaccinated.'

‘Is that what you want?'

‘I don't know what I want. I want this not to be happening. What are we supposed
to do?'

‘Listen to me. You don't have to be loyal to Moldam. You don't owe it anything. It's
not really home for you.'

The laughter outside receded down the street and faded to nothing. Now everything
out there was quiet and waiting: the army licking its wounds, Frieda sharpening her
claws, the activists inspecting their barricades.

‘Home,' I said. ‘Where is that?'

She turned my hand over in both of hers and studied my palm. ‘If it's not here, and
it's not there, it'll have to be halfway between, Bridge-boy.'

‘And you know what happened to the bridge.'

She smiled.

‘My home's not a place,' I said. ‘It's you, and Levkova and my father, I guess, and…all
those people who make
room in their lives for strays.'

The beads in her braids clacked as she shook her head.

‘You're not a stray. But I get what you mean. We go back with the vaccine for everyone
or we don't go back at all.'

We sat there, not wanting to move. At last she said, ‘You know how they say that
when you're about to die your whole life flashes before you?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I've discovered that it's not like that if you've got days to think about it. It's
not your life up to now that you see, it's the life you won't get to live that unrolls
in front of you.'

‘And how does it look?'

‘It looks sweet,' she said. ‘So, so sweet. It's full of places to explore and opportunities
to take and people that you love and who love you. It's impossibly full of amazing
things that will probably never happen but they make you think to yourself, if only
I get the chance, I won't waste a second of it.'

She looked at me with a smile then kissed my palm with featherlight lips.

CHAPTER 36

The pictures of the Marsh on the screen showed calm and clean, no protesters, no
looters, no burning buildings. Old stock footage, I thought, which made me wonder
what was actually going on there.

The voice-over was cheery and reassuring.

…and you're back with Cityside News, your official guide to the stories that matter.
In reports just to hand, a spokesman for One City has conceded that yesterday's attempt
on Pitkerrin Marsh was a failure
—

A burst of static cut the picture and gave me a blank blue screen and a woman's voice.

Ha! No we haven't. Rumours eh? Are we on? Yes, we are ON. Good morning, everyone,
this is your One City wake up call! We will be keeping you posted today with some
real news about what's going on in your city. First up, the viral outbreak in Moldam.
Yes, it could be as bad as it sounds.
Worried? You should be. Want to know the full
story? Then stay with us. In the meantime, what should you look for? Fever, headaches,
muscle pain, a sudden rash. But better yet, look for a warehouse full of vaccines.
It's out there and just waiting to be
—

Another static burst, then nothing but blue screen.

‘Nik?' Lanya's voice croaked from the bed. ‘What are you doing? What time is it?'

‘Nearly six.'

She sat up, gazed at me blearily then flopped back on the pillow. ‘What's going on?'

‘One City's hacked the news channel. Not very successfully, though.' The Cityside
News guy was back.

Sorry folks, some technical trouble there. Let's take a look at the weather. Another
beautiful day…

Lanya peered at me from her nest of sheets. ‘Have you been watching that thing all
night?'

‘No. A couple of hours, maybe.'

‘Any news of Moldam?'

‘Nope. We're on, though, you and me. Every hour with the headlines. They're still
talking about searching door to door, but there's nothing about us being from Moldam
or being infected with the virus.'

‘She doesn't want to cause a panic.'

‘No. We'll have to cause it instead. And we could, if One City can just get wind
of us and get their hack sorted. D'you want some coffee?'

‘I hear sirens.'

‘Yeah. Not for us, though. When they come for us they'll be quiet. But stick your
head out the window and take a look—sirens, smoke, alarms, the whole deal.'

Lanya got up and peered outside.

‘Grief, what is going on?'

‘I don't know. Maybe Dash was right? One City's grabbing the chance to make trouble.'

She turned back to me. ‘They'll be far too busy to pay attention to us, won't they?
Why would they even listen to someone like Fyffe?'

We sat and watched the news channel report intermittantly, with transmission getting
cut and scrambled in a battle for signal between the official channel and the One
City hackers.

You're with Morrison's Morning on Cityside News. Let's go to our reporters on the
street. It's been one heck of a night, I can tell you. After failing to take the
Marsh yesterday, One City extremists have hit out across the city bringing disruption
and chaos. We'll go first to the Marsh. Carter, can you hear me? Carter? Are you
there'

‘Come in, Carter,' said Lanya. ‘Concerned citizens want to know.'

It's still burning, Peter! I'm standing outside the perimeter fence beside what
used to be Gate 14, but nothing's left of the guardpost. The army regained control
last night but the mob is back this morning, bigger than ever, and clashes
continue.
No one's available
—

‘I bet no one's available,' I said. ‘Frieda, where are you now?'

We seem to have lost the link there. But I think we've got Megan in Sentinel Square.
Megan?

Cut to a woman in a flak jacket pressing a hand to her earpiece and shouting at the
camera over the sound of a crowd chanting and riot police banging truncheons in unison
on their perspex shields.

It's tent city here in the square, Peter! Behind me, you can see about three hundred
tents. They went up overnight. Police are covering the Sentinel Parade exit to Watch
Hill, but people are still streaming in from Shale Street and they've hung a One
City banner from the upper balcony of the Old Town Hall. It looks like they've occupied
—

Blue screen.

‘Quit doing that!' I threw a cushion at the screen. ‘We want to see what's going
on!'

Whoever was hacking must have thought so too because the picture came back a minute
later.

…tent city here in St John's Square too, Peter. And much the same story—the mob is
in control. And here's a strange development right out of the ‘what the hey?' box:
the minister of St John's claims to be offering sanctuary to known extremists, in
fact to those two young hoodlums we've been warned about. Can you believe that? Can
he even do that, Peter? I mean, is that still a thing? Sounds medieval to me…

‘Hey,' said Lanya. ‘That's kind. Do you know him?'

‘The minister? No, well, sort of. He was at the church yesterday when we were supposed
to be getting you back. Frieda locked him in the crypt to keep him out of the way.'

‘Oh, look at that,' she nodded at the screen. ‘That looks familiar. Isn't that just
down the road?'

…strangely calm here in Sentian, a known hotbed of One City extremists and Breken
sympathisers. A week ago this place was almost cleared and demolition of its slums
had begun. You can see the bulldozers parked over there. But now it's been reoccupied.
People have thrown barricades across the main thoroughfares, reigniting their campaign
to bring down the Cityside administration and open the floodgates to a Breken takeover.
Clearly, Peter, the sooner this place is levelled the safer we'll all be. Back to
you in the studio.

More static and the blue screen again. Then a woman's voice.

No, let's not go back to the studio. One City here again, people. Telling you things
you need to know. First up: what are we really after? In fact what we're after are
ceasefire talks and negotiation…

Someone knocked on our door and we looked at each other and got to our feet.

‘They won't knock either,' I said and went to open the door. It was Fyffe, looking
relieved and hassled at the same time. She swung a pack from her back to the floor.

‘Here are your clothes—the ones you came over the
river in. And here's some bread
and eggs and chocolate—it was all I could grab in a hurry. Dash came last night with
your note. How can I help?'

We explained what we needed—publicity and lots of it, via the One City hackers if
possible.

‘How did you get in here?' asked Lanya. ‘There are barricades and—'

Fyffe shook her head. ‘It's quiet out there right now. And people are quite friendly.
I got a wave and a few “good mornings”. And it's early so no one at home expects
me to be up yet. But I need to get back before they know I'm gone. So, we need pressure
on Frieda, right?

‘Right,' I said. ‘We need to make sure that everyone knows the Moldam quarantine
is broken and that Frieda is the only one who can release the vaccine. Also we need
an actual stock of vaccine. And, we need Citysiders, including the security forces
and the army, to agree to send the stuff over the river to the enemy. How likely
is any of that?'

Fyffe was nodding as though she could actually deliver on all of it. She had that
braced-and-ready look, like she was about to fly out the door and do battle.

‘Anything else?' she said.

I smiled. ‘That's not enough?'

She put the back of her hand against my forehead and on my cheek, the way I'd seen
Lanya's mother test for fever.

‘He's okay so far,' said Lanya. ‘So am I.'

‘I need to hurry though, don't I,' said Fyffe. She gave us a bright smile and was
gone.

Lanya and I looked at each other and knew that we'd both rather be charging off with
Fyffe to do something instead of hanging around waiting for the headache, the bruising,
the fever to arrive; or for the crash of the front door being bashed in and the thump
of boots charging up the stairs. It was hardly even morning and already the waiting
seemed endless.

Early in the afternoon we heard boots taking the stairs two at a time. Then our book
shelf door swung open. My father had arrived. He paused when he saw us, as though
he was expecting us to be half dead already, then ducked under the doorframe.

‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘Hello,' I said. ‘We're blackmailing Frieda, I guess that's what you mean?'

‘So I've heard. Corman sent a runner with the news.' He looked at Lanya, then at
me. ‘Are you sick?'

‘We don't know yet,' she said.

We told him what had happened with Jono in the underground room at the Marsh and
Dash riding to the rescue. He listened, tight lipped, scowling at me the whole time,
as though this was the worst idea anyone had ever had in many lifetimes of ideas,
so I finished by saying,
‘What would you have done?'

He walked over to the little window and stood there staring out at rooftops. When
at last he turned back to us, he said, ‘Frieda will call your bluff. She'll wait
you out. You don't know her.'