The Perimeter (35 page)
Other titles by Shalini Boland
Outside (Outside Series, Book 1)
The Clearing (Outside Series, Book 2)
Hidden (Marchwood Vampire Series, Book 1)
Thicker Than Blood (Marchwood Vampire Series, Book 2)
A Shirtful of Frogs – a ww2 timeslip adventure
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About The Author
Shalini Boland lives in Dorset, England with her husband and two noisy sons where she writes novels (in between doing the school runs and hanging out endless baskets of washing).
Connect with Shalini Online:
Twitter
http://twitter.com/ShaliniBoland
Blog
http://www.shaliniboland.co.uk/
Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/ShaliniBolandAuthor
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Massive thanks and love to my husband, Pete, who has lived and breathed this series with me since 2006 when I first had the idea. Thank you for looking after the children while I ‘just finish this chapter’. Thank you for making dinner and getting me chocolate and making cups of tea and reading the scenes I wasn’t sure about. Thank you for your help with all the battle scenes and the complicated technical bits. But most of all, thank you for being my best friend and for making me laugh when it all got a bit much.
Thanks, Mum, for always been so enthusiastic and encouraging and for telling me everything is brilliant. Even though I know you’re my mum and you kind of have to say that, it’s still amazing to hear.
Recently, I was lucky enough to find a fantastic copy editor, William Donnelly, from
Donnelly House
. Bill, it’s been a pleasure working with you. Hope this is the start of a wonderful adventure in commas ;)
Thanks to my beta readers Julie Carey, Amara Gillo and Peter Boland. I’m so grateful for your eagle eyes. You never let me down!
I’m lucky enough to have an incredible author support network. People who will drop everything to help with writerly issues and dilemmas: B. Lloyd, Poppet, Suzy Turner, Amanda Cowley, Sarah Dalton, Reggie Jones, Robert Craven and so many more. I love you, guys!
While researching information for my novels, I sometimes hit a brick wall. Thank you to the following people for your solid advice: Weapons guru K.P. you’re a legend. And Poppet, you got me out of a hole. My snipers and I thank you!
Thanks also to the stupendously talented Simon Tucker for yet another awesome book cover.
To my readers: I absolutely adore you. I love it when you stop by online to say hi. I love it when you leave reviews. And I’m forever grateful that you choose to read my books. Thank you.
Check out this awesome new dystopian sci fi serial:
The Spiral Arm by Peter Boland
Who wouldn’t give up everything they owned for just one more day of life?
Chapter one
I don’t sleep. I never sleep. Every night it’s the same. Lying on my bed, staring up at the damp spot on the ceiling. I know it intimately now. Every dirty curve and tendril. Sometimes I think I can see things in it, like one of those Rorschach ink tests. Tonight it’s a grim-looking face with wings sticking out the side of its head. Maybe I’m going crazy. Perhaps I should paint over it and then I’ll get some shut-eye, but I know it won’t make any difference. Nothing does. Insomnia has been my unwelcome companion since I can remember. It’s a wonder I manage to function during the day. I’m so used to it now; it’s just something I am. A part of me; like having freckles or a tattoo.
Pity I’m not the party type. I’d be really good at it. I could go on night after night without any side effects. A hardcore party animal, I’d be the last person standing, calling everyone else a lightweight for succumbing to sleep.
But parties are the last place I want to be. Actually I’ve never been to one, never get invited to any. From what I can gather it wouldn’t be my scene; stuck in a place with all the beautiful, perfect people from my school, while I do my best to blend in with the wallpaper. No thanks.
The worst thing about not sleeping is the boredom. There are hours and hours of dead time to fill. Every night I become a ghost, invisible to the slumbering world, with an eternity of time on my hands. So I spend most of it reading, easily demolishing a book a night.
I squeeze the com chip in my left hand. A nanosecond later it projects a flat square of colored light inches above my wrist. The holographic touch-screen hovers in front of me. I check my message box – empty as usual.
Touching my book icon, I drag my index finger down the screen, scrolling through the massive library of literature I’ve downloaded. There are some novels, but mostly I like tech manuals. Yeah, I know, weird right? Most people use their com chip to chat or watch movies or post dumb stuff about what they’re doing at this precise moment. But me, I use it to read – call me old-fashioned but there is a method behind the madness; or there was.
I started reading tech manuals in the hope that the tedium would send me off to the land of nod. It had the opposite effect and I got hooked on reading about how everything with an ON button works. Tonight, it’s how to dismantle the propulsion system of a ground shuttle.
As you can probably guess, I don’t have many friends. It’s okay, don’t feel sorry for me; that’s the way I prefer it. Nice people say I like my own company; mean people call me a freak, a weirdo, or worse. Not many people are nice to me, so it’s usually the latter, which is mostly why I avoid people.
It’s so damn hot in here that I polish off a liter of water while reading. After an hour my bladder’s full so I swing my legs out of bed and walk across the apartment, although cubicle would be a more accurate description, it’s so tiny.
There are about four thousand of these little people-hutches in our block, and at the last count we had 217 floors. They keep building more floors on top to fit more people in, but it’s never enough. It’s overcrowded the second they’re finished. The top of the tower sways, it’s so high. Most people are frightened to go up, especially the ones who live there. The residents’ handbook says it’s perfectly normal for it to do this, and is part of the design. Being a geek, I checked all the physics calculations, just for something to do one night, and they all work. I think it’s kinda cool having a bendy building. Better than one that could snap like a twig.