To Snatch a Thief (2 page)

They took the lift to the third level, set aside for recreation: already most of the gaming booths were occupied, screeching with the sounds of beeps and buzzes and electronic explosions as kids played out their fantasies.

‘Hey, King,’ a skinny lad in baggy khakis and bright orange kickers intercepted them as they wound through the war-zones to the simulator room. ‘Guess what? I just beat your best Hotshot score, level five.’ He stuck a cone of lime fizz in his mouth and sucked.

King slid his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels. Skye watched his eyes take on a competitive gleam. ‘No kidding. That’s solar, Davey. Really V.’ Casually, he smiled.

‘Hang around, I might have a game myself later.’ He continued walking and Skye feared Davey’s triumph was going to be short-lived.
What was it with males and their egos
?

Hunter was waiting at the sim console, one arm draped over the back of his chair, the other resting palm down on the controls. His head was down, his eyes lowered, studying his fingers which were tapping a rhythm over the display glass.

‘Skye, you first,’ he said, without looking up.

King rolled his eyes at her and sauntered to the observation area.

She stood where she was for a moment, one hand still holding the lift door ajar, afraid to have her escape route close behind her, and eyed the receptionist in the foyer.

Hunter’s disembodied voice came out of nowhere, like God. ‘Observe your surroundings. What do you see?’

‘Um, old bird in a retro twin set, motherly sort, non-threatening.’

The woman smiled a toothy welcome as she noticed Skye hovering, and pointed to a set of plush chairs. ‘Please take a seat.’ Her voice held a faint accent Skye couldn’t place.

‘Don’t take anything for granted,’ God advised, so she disengaged the safety clip on her weapon harness as she advanced. Her heart rate was up. If she fired now, she knew the tremor in her hand could be the difference between life and death – her own. She drew two steadying breaths, focussed. Behind her the lift doors closed then opened with a whoosh of compressed air. She spun, dropping low, her weapon already in her hand, her finger on the discharger. Two giggling children with rosy cheeks toddled out. ‘Discharge aborted!’ she yelled, then caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She rolled, gripped the weapon two-handed and fired from the ground. The stream caught the receptionist full centre, throwing her back and flinging the GIG-95 she was pointing at Skye, out of her hand. ‘Gotcha, you bitch.’

Kneeling, Skye grinned over to where she knew Hunter was manning the simulator controls. ‘Hand to hand combat might not be my strong point, but you’ve got to admit I’m a damn good shot.’ She heard a ripple of applause from some other kids who’d come in to watch, and took a bow. The knife thrust in her back was a shock and stung like hell but the embarrassing childish giggles that accompanied it were worse. The simulation shimmered, the foyer scenario dissolved.

As Hunter stepped towards her he smirked. ‘Like I said, never take anything for granted. Go again.’

.

CHAPTER TWO

Skye was late for supper, and it wasn’t her fault. If Hunter hadn’t kept her so long, the water in her shower wouldn’t have been lukewarm and might not have decided to ooze wearily from the jets a second after she’d lathered her stupid hair with shampoo. And she might not have been in such a bad mood when she finally barged into the refectory.

Her shoulder ached, and that was on Hunter too.

She shoved through the cluster of girls gossiping around the entrance and scored some colourful abuse. ‘Yeah, yeah, stick it,’ she muttered raising a finger as she strode towards the bank of infrawaves along the back wall. She’d almost made it, was thinking of snagging a soy burger and thick shake, when Chloe, a girl with a mouth the size of Neptune, swaggered up.

‘Hey, bitch. You been kissing Hunter’s arse again? Heard he’d got a new pet.’ She turned, grinning at her rat-pack hovering behind. ‘Given him a blow tonight?’

Normally Skye would ignore the jibes, they weren’t anything new but, hey, she was hungry, tired, and right now her hair was dripping soap down her neck. With teeth bared, she rounded on Chloe. ‘Why don’t you ask him yourself? Why don’t I drag you by your ratty hair and let you ask him yourself? C’mon, he won’t have left yet. Let’s go find him.’ She pretended to make a grab for the girl and, while Chloe squealed like a pot-bellied pig, lifted the contents of her pocket. ‘Aw, did you drop this?’ Skye waggled a packet of Banish - the latest fat-blaster pills - and watched Chloe’s face go puce. Skye smiled. ‘Guess you haven’t started taking them yet, eh?’

With a howl of rage Chloe came at her.

Anticipate, read your opponent.
She heard Hunter’s words in her head. Okay, the girl was top-heavy and clumsy but she needed to save face with her friends, and that made her dangerous. Skye couldn’t match her in brawn, so she’d have to be tricky. In a move Hunter would have been proud of she ducked under the grasping arms, turned and planted a foot in the middle of Chloe’s back, sending her several stumbling paces past where she crashed headlong into an empty table. As if by magic a circle formed. Chairs scraped back from tables, food was left half-eaten as the room scented a fight.

Surveillance was part of life: micro-chips, health checks, updates, permits, licences, screens, cameras. No part of human life was left unmonitored – so how, Skye cursed, could she forget the close circuit device in the ceiling currently screaming out a siren wail which had spectators scuttling back to their tables? Not smart.

Chloe righted herself and shot Skye a glare. ‘If I lose parole over this, you’re dead.’

The refectory door opened and a living corpse in ute boots and standard issue black body suit came in. In Skye’s opinion, job satisfaction had worn thin for Sergeant Goodwin years ago. If her body language was anything to go by, she had a complete lack of interest in her charges, and Skye figured only rapidly approaching retirement kept her turning up for work at all.

Her jaded eyes fell on Skye; she jerked a thumb. ‘You, out!’

The security monitor would have shown the whole action, but Chloe got off scot free. Skye was marched off to her room with packet sandwiches and a half-hearted dressing down from the ghoul.

It wasn’t so bad. Unlike her dump of an apartment in the city which, she assumed, her cretinous landlord would be keeping for her seeing as she’d unloaded a whole lot of global dollars onto his plastic before she was arrested, Skye’s cell here was tastefully decorated in pastel shades. Furniture consisted of a bed, small work surface with chair and a three drawer chest for clothes. There was a fitted wardrobe and tiny bathroom. Across from the bed was a small-pane screen. She lay with her head against the headboard chewing a nameless substance between two slices of cardboard. ‘Screen on,’ she ordered. The nightly news flickered on showing ever thickening snowfalls blanketing the country, snarling up traffic and disrupting power supplies as residents cranked up their heating.

‘
The annual winter migration from the north is being hampered by a goslow by air-traffic controllers.
’ Despite being swamped in a thermal survival suit, the presenter still managed to look sexy as she stood on the shores of a rapidly freezing North Sea. ‘
The President himself has intervened and threatened military action if management and staff cannot reach an agreement in the next twenty four hours.’
The camera segued to an instantly recognisable face. The whole country tapped their oath of allegiance into their wake-up call every day of their lives, while President Keating’s benevolent, baggy-eyed, father-of-the-nation features filled their screens. To the masses he was as familiar as soy milk, as unattainable as red meat.

‘
I am speaking tonight
,’ he said, from his cosy office. ‘
To reassure you that everything is being done to facilitate the rapid evacuation of those northernmost outposts which are under threat from the increasing bad weather. Our meteorology department predicts heavy falls as far south as Leicestershire. The Vale of York is already inundated, and those residents who haven’t left yet, are advised to make their way, on foot, to the A64 where an airlift will shortly be underway. Please take as little as possible with you. The reception points, here in the home counties, will be well equipped when you arrive.’

Skye flipped open the top layer of sandwich and rummaged amongst shreds of green for something resembling protein. Giving up, she took another bite. Slum-raised, food wasn’t to be wasted however revolting.

The president’s face had been replaced with aerial shots of a frozen countryside – white as far as the eye could see, except for the spiky branches of trees stuck through the snow and the odd chimney pot where a house lay buried. The shot panned in to a long line of moving black dots: rugged-up evacuees, struggling along in knee deep snow, waving frantically to the camera. Skye shivered and hoped they’d get picked up soon. President Keating was back on screen. He folded his hands on the polished table in front of him, and leant forward; his bushy eyebrows almost touching as he frowned. She groaned. That move was usually his cue to launch into one of his boring speeches. ‘
I know there will be many of you anxious tonight,
’ he began, his face carefully concerned. ‘
You will be asking yourselves how the country’s fragile economy will survive another winter where half the nation’s industries, including farming, are paralysed due to the weather? When technological advances have already seen the collapse of traditional blue collar jobs, how will our burgeoning population be supported? How will we deal with the housing crisis; homelessness; the soaring crime rate in our inner cities?’
He paused to put a hand over his heart. Gold glinted on his thick fingers and at his wrist.
‘My friends.’
He smiled.
‘Since my father led us to victory in those terrible days of two thousand and thirty four, the British public have faced, and will continue to face, massive changes to the way we live and think: the aftermath of that rebellion saw us turn from a monarchy to a republic; we combined our police and military forces into one, efficient peace keeping unit of which I have the honour of being its present commander in chief; we saw climate change increase sea levels, submerging coastal areas and contributing to the rising levels of our river systems, and now the challenge of a mini-ice age in the northern hemisphere.
’ With perfect timing, he fisted his hand and thumped his chest.
‘Rest assured, measures are already in place to overcome all…’

Skye yawned, had begun to open her mouth again to command a film channel, when she stopped. The captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen caught her eye. ‘Death toll rises to twenty nine; six new unexplained deaths in the Borough of Hammersmith; doctors baffled; foul play not suspected; General Redwood, head of Civilian & Military Combined Forces appeals for public calm.’

Feeling suddenly sick, she left the rest of her meal. She closed her eyes. The tight ball of fear lodged in her throat made it difficult to breathe. Memories flickered: hunger; her feet sore where her shoes rubbed; the cardboard Dad fitted over the gaps in her soles going limp in the rain. She felt her mum’s rough hand in hers as they trudged the streets scrounging leftovers from cafes and bars. ‘Don’t cry, Mum. When I’m grown up I’ll be rich and look after us all. I’ll buy a big house for you and Dad and me, and we’ll live happily ever after, just like in the stories.’

‘Shush, now, Skye. I’m not crying; I’ve just got something in my eye.’

A sob threatened, she choked it down.

Then, as if he were in the next room, she heard her father singing. It was one of the old fashioned songs heard a million times, but in the shabby pubs of Hornsey and White City people had paid him to hear it.

Tears burned behind her eyes. Pressing her fingers against her lids she tried to stop them forming. ‘Mum, Dad, I miss you,’ she whispered. Unable to sit still any longer she paced, trying to settle the feeling of dread inside her. The president had gone. The news moved on to the next story. ‘Screen off,’ she snapped, irritated at the media’s lack of concern. The poor were dying and it hadn’t even rated a comment.

Yanking off her shoes, she heaved them at the door. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How stupid to get myself caught and put him at risk. Supposing he died because I wasn’t there to look after him? The knot in her gut twisted. You’re over-reacting, the saner part of her said, but her heart ached with guilt.

She didn’t know how long she strode the room, but eventually came to rest by the window and leaned her throbbing head against the pane. Snow had settled on the outside sill. From out of a black sky, snowflakes continued to swirl. Nature was coating the twinkling city in white. Comfort, warmth, food - most of the capital’s twenty five million inhabitants would take those things for granted. Reluctantly, she looked towards the North West: fewer lights, little comfort, less warmth, less food.

She stayed a moment longer, then rolled into bed, pulled the covers over her head and prayed that the brother she’d left there was safe.

Seven a.m., Skye decided, should be banned. Someone should come up with a method of starting the day at ten. She opened one sandpaper eye. The monitor on her bedside table was playing the national anthem, the president’s face on the screen. She groaned. Bet he was still tucked up with his wife. Bet he got breakfast in bed. Bet he’d get a rise out of knowing some sadistic guard had programmed his fat moosh to get us up before dawn. Her neck wouldn’t work well enough to lift her head. A thin line of dribble had run from her mouth and dried on her arm. Well hell. That’s what you got for lying awake stressing half the night.

She raised herself on one elbow, held back her hair with one hand to squint at the glass, rammed her finger on the,
I do
bar and fell back relieved when the image blinked off. ‘As if anybody bothers to read the stupid allegiance crap anyway,’ she muttered.

Two fixers and a hot shower later she felt almost human, although her reflection in the bathroom mirror was not encouraging. It was then she remembered it was Saturday. Immediately, she brightened. Saturday was the one day a week when they got their communicators back to contact the outside world. Yay! She’d make the call, satisfy herself he was fine and her stomach would stop tying itself in knots. It was also a Hunter-free day. Double yay!