The Territory (18 page)

Raf’s eyes blinked and his whole face seemed to go in and out of focus. Then the saddest smile spread across his face.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What did I say?’

‘Don’t worry, Noa. I guess I just wanted our parents to be alike. If they were both bad, then they wouldn’t be as bad, what they did wouldn’t be as bad, do you see?’ I did kind of understand his twisted logic.

‘But I still don’t get it,’ I continued like a moron, ‘your dad was probably doing it for you too.’

‘Noa,’ Raf spoke gently, as if I were some denser baby. ‘You and I might like to forget it and pretend it’s not true, but I’m a
freakoid
. I could go to any school, upload the information and pass the TAA. My dad doesn’t know I don’t upload. He didn’t do this for me. He did it for him. For the status. For the money. And I think he’s fine about that. Come on, I mean he took the job there a month ago, after they’d been doing this for years! He could easily have stayed at his old job if he’d wanted to. He was originally a mechanical engineer before he went into medicine. He could have designed robots for the refuse centre. He could have designed robots to look after old people. He just didn’t.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say so this time I put my arms round him and squeezed. He smelt of burnt leaves.

‘For what it’s worth, I’m pleased he moved jobs.’ I said and then cringed. A month ago I could never have imagined I’d turn into such a cheesemonger. And the worst bit is that whenever I try and say something real or sincere, my voice does this sort of spasm and I end up sounding massively insincere and a real phoney denser.

Raf laughed despite himself. ‘Wow, that sounded sarcastic.’

‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to.’

‘I got that. I know you pretty well now, Noa Blake. Your complete inability to sound sincere is one of the many things I love about you.’

Yes, he said love. And THAT word hung in the air like a little bubble between us. I didn’t know what to say, I just sort of stared past his face and focused on his right ear, as that seemed safely neutral. I couldn’t quite bear to look into his eyes as I felt it’d be just too intense and I might drown or spontaneously combust or something.

But what I really wanted to say was, ‘I love you too. So so much. And I’m so pleased your dad decided to move jobs and come and experiment on children because otherwise I’d never have met you and my life would be far worse.’ But I didn’t, of course. I said nothing and then the bell rang and the bubble burst.

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked as we headed up the main steps.

‘Nothing,’ Raf replied, ‘for now.’

‘And later?’

‘I’m going to bring this whole system down.’ And he spoke with such grim determination that I believed him.

Sometimes peace offerings come in circle-shaped boxes.

Raf walked me home after school. I’d wanted to spend the evening revising with him. Things are so awkward with Jack now that he doesn’t want my help any more. But Dad said at breakfast that he wanted me at home this evening. That he wasn’t getting enough time with his little girl. He was trying to sound all casual about it, because he didn’t exactly want to say, ‘In case you fail and get shipped off to die and this is the last time we spend together on nice dry land.’ But when I thought about it, I really wanted to spend the evening with him too.

Raf walked me all the way to the bottom of the steps to my block and kissed me goodbye. We must have kissed for a while before we were finally interrupted by a friendly, ‘OK, OK break it up then.’ I looked up to see Marcus’ smiling face and felt this shiver run through me. He acted like nothing had changed. Like he was still the friendly neighbourhood policeman. Like he’d done nothing wrong. And what was scariest was that I don’t think it was an act. I think he genuinely thought he was one of the good guys.

There was no way we were going to keep snogging with Marcus watching us, so I gave Raf a quick hug goodbye and ran into the building. Dad was already upstairs; he’d finished work early specially.

‘Come on,’ he said, his face hard to read, a screwdriver in his hand. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

We went into his and Mum’s room, me wondering if he’d finally cracked and was going to go all psycho with the screwdriver. I watched as he pushed the bed to one side and used the screwdriver to prise up a now exposed floorboard. And I’d thought we’d be making popcorn or chatting this evening.

Dad felt around in the hole under the floorboards and then smiled triumphantly and pulled up a dust-covered box with a super-large, super-grim spider on top. The spider fled. Dad stood up, sat on the bed and patted the duvet next to him.

I sat down.

‘I wanted to tell you about Max,’ Dad said quietly.

And for the next half hour Dad talked, pausing now and then to fish out another photo, blink back emotion or to give in to laughter, and I finally got to know the funny, kind, fiery uncle I’d never met. How he’d been really clever, saved Dad from loads of fights and always stood up to authority. He’d been against the idea of the Territory and the TAA and the idea of ranking kids. ‘You remind me of him,’ Dad continued. ‘He was always so full of life and just so interested in everything. He liked to know how things worked and so he collected all sorts of stuff. Old gadgets, instruments and music, he was mad about music. When we were boys, we’d always sit in the same room. I’d be reading and he’d be listening to music and his foot always used to tap the floor in time and it’d drive me mad. He’d drive me so mad…’ A sad sort of smile spread over Dad’s face.

‘This was his favourite gadget. Our granddad gave it to him. I think it was supposed to be a joke, but Max loved it.’ Dad fished in the box again and pulled out this circle-shaped box. He held it out to me and I opened it. Inside sat a silver machine thing about the width of my palm with headphones attached. Dad opened it up to check ‘if it had a disc in’ and to ‘put in some new batteries’.

‘Put the headphones on and press the black button,’ he said. The button had this arrow on. I raised one eyebrow but did what he said. There was a static noise and then the music started. Massively angry and loud and nothing like the music we got on our Scribes. The sort of music you have to dance to, but sort of fist-punch-in-the-air dancing. Not cool but you sort of have to. I got lost in it and got a massive shock when Dad tapped me on the shoulder and signalled to me to pull the headphones out.

‘I’d like you to have it,’ Dad said. ‘I’d like you to have something of his.’

I was so touched.

‘And here are some of his favourite discs.’ I must have looked a bit dense as he explained, ‘They’ve all got different music on. Different bands.’

‘I can’t wait to show everyone,’ I said excitedly.

Dad looked unsure. ‘Best keep it hidden, love. I’m pretty sure it’s banned material. You don’t want to be getting into trouble now.’ He looked at his watch and seemed horrified it was so late. ‘God, you’d better get back to studying, baby. Or your mum will kill me.’

I woke early from another nightmare. I’d been standing next to Jack in front of this massive clock. Marcus was facing us and had this psycho clown grin. He was pointing his gun from me to Jack and back again in time with this booming ‘tick tock tick tock’. Marcus kept on grinning throughout and saying, ‘Who shall I shoot, love?’

To shut out the images I reached under my mattress and pulled out Uncle Max’s Discman. I listened to two whole discs before breakfast and by the time I met Daisy on the steps on the way into school, I had this weird faint ringing in my ears. We’ve started meeting on the steps most mornings so that we can at least catch up a bit before class. Her parents have banned us from even speaking on the phone at night, in case it, ‘distracts her from her studies’.

I felt like I hadn’t spoken to her for ages. Not properly. Jack too. It’s like there’s this gulf between us now. I can’t tell them about Mum and the Laboratory as Raf and I had made a pact not to tell anyone. I didn’t want to get Mum into trouble and truthfully I’m too big a coward to risk upsetting the Ministry. I don’t want to disappear. Also the last thing Jack and Daisy need to worry about at the moment is becoming pustule-covered human experiments if they fail. Because they are likely victims after all. Neither of their parents would go with them. No one would know.

I searched for something to say. ‘How’s the neek?’ I managed. Daisy just rolled her eyes and said, ‘Gugh.’ We both laughed but it was more for the sake of it than anything. There was no real joy in it.

I noticed that Daisy had a new necklace on. A gold butterfly on a pink ribbon. It looked small and discrete. In other words, massively expensive. Normally Daisy would have been strutting about showing it off, but this time she looked a bit small. Like a little girl wearing her mum’s jewellery. When I asked her about it she said it was a present from her dad.

‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘If he’s on side maybe he’ll make your mum sack
Gugh
and we’ll get to study together again for the final few days? It’ll be like old times.’

Daisy shook her head. ‘It’s because he got a bonus,’ she almost whispered.

I didn’t get it at first. Just stared at her like a complete denser.

‘A BIG bonus, Noa.’

I finally computed what she’d meant. A big bonus meant that the unaffordable was now affordable. The unimaginable now an option. My joint best friend in the whole world was going to get a late upgrade.

I stared a desperate, ‘No way,’ at her but Daisy just nodded.

‘When?’ was all I could manage.

‘Tomorrow morning.’

It was like a blow to my stomach but much more painful than the actual blow Jack gave me that time. A sort of dull ache like a stone being lodged and twisted.

‘That’s soon.’ I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

‘It’s so they’ve got enough time to upload all the notes for the last five years. And then they do all these tests to check it’s worked and the stuff’s in my head.’ Daisy instinctively rubbed the back of her neck as she spoke, then caught herself and did a little shiver. ‘The surgeon’s supposed to be really good. Dad says he’s the best money can buy.’ Daisy’s voice was high and brittle with a trace of mania. ‘God, Noa. They’re actually going to make me one of them. They’re going to turn me into a freakoid and there’s nothing I can do to stop them.’

Daisy started sobbing uncontrollably, her body doing these frightening little spasm shakes.

I wanted to cry too. I wanted to rage and rant and scream. They were taking away my best friend. They were going to change her mind. Take the Daisy I knew and loved and leave a breathing shell with a computer brain. But I couldn’t say any of this. I knew I just had to comfort her.

‘Maybe it’s OK.’ I said, hugging her tight. ‘At least you’re going to pass now, right? Virtually guaranteed. No, stick that up your jumper. Actually guaranteed, as you’re really bright to start with so now you’ll be like super-you. And that’s better than failing and being a Fish right? And they might put all this information into your head, but you’ll still be Daisy. And I’ll still be Noa. And we’ll be best friends forever. And that will never change. OK?’

‘Promise,’ Daisy whispered. ‘Promise they won’t change me.’

‘I promise,’ I whispered back. What else could I say?

‘Raf’s a Childe and he’s not like the other freakoids, is he?’ Daisy’s eyes craved reassurance. So I couldn’t tell, could I? Couldn’t tell her that Raf didn’t upload. Couldn’t tell her about his sister Chloe. Couldn’t tell her anything.