GLAZE (6 page)

‘You’re with the eCrime Unit?’ Zizi says, the ice in her voice melting a fraction.
 

‘We have reason to believe that the NF are behind a series of high-level hacks. I would have thought that as a director of a multinational corporation,’ Lee says, playing Zizi’s own words back at her, ‘you would care about such things.’
 

He was right. Zizi did care. Only last month she’d ranted about how when she’d been a hacker they used to believe in something. About how they used to have manifestos and consciences. But now all they wanted to do was wreak havoc. She hadn’t been impressed when I asked what her old hacker buddies thought of her selling out and working for their biggest target. Glaze was the hacker’s holy grail after all.
 

‘Why should we?’ Max says, stepping in front of Zizi. ‘Glaze is hacker proof. Now, if we can return to the issue at hand. The attempt to taser a minor, simply because she didn’t appear on your register... Well, that is not what we had in mind when we agreed to your request for assistance in this operation.’
 

So that’s why WhiteShield were there. The police had needed their help.

‘
Our
request?’ Lee says, his eyebrows practically jumping off his forehead. ‘The way I heard it, it was WhiteInc who stuck their noses in. Now why was that?’
 

Max waves the allegation away. ‘Yet again, Detective Lee, you aren’t in possession of all the facts. Decisions like this get made way above your pay grade.’ And Max says it with exactly the right touch of disinterested superiority to suggest that every decision is made way above Lee’s pay grade. ‘Now, back to the issue at hand. While I appreciate all the fine work the Metropolitan Police Force does, it does concern me that your people can’t tell the difference between a dangerous criminal undermining society and a girl who isn’t old enough to be chipped. Perhaps if the Met agreed to full integration with the Glaze network everyone would be working with the correct data … ’ He leaves the sentence hanging.
 

‘So everyone in the force could all be bombarded with useless information 24/7? We’re fine with the limited access we have, thanks.’ Lee’s hands clench around the rolled up tab.

‘Apparently not,’ Max says, nodding his head towards me. ‘Now, I really hope I don’t have to get a company lawyer...’ He leaves the sentence hanging again. WhiteInc employs the best and meanest litigation lawyers in the country. Max makes sure of it.

Lee pats the tab against his leg, his knuckles white. Max has him rattled and he knows it.
 

‘Right, Petri,’ Max says, turning away from the detective. ‘Look at me and tell me the truth. Are you a revolutionary bent on bringing down the social order?’

I stand up and look him squarely in the eyes. Max says the eyes never lie. That to look a person in the face and lie goes against all that we are. Which is why he always insists on doing business face-to-face.
 

‘I’m not a revolutionary,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to bring down anything. The only thing I want is to go home.’
 

‘That’s good enough for me.’ He turns to look back at Lee. ‘Detective? Will that be all?’
 

The two men stare at each other. Max is taller than Lee, but he doesn’t have the detective’s bulk or youth. Not that it’s going to come down to a physical fight.

‘Do you think you’re above the law, Mr White?’ Lee says, the tendons in his jaw flinching.
 

Max pauses for the longest time, an amused expression playing about his face. ‘Not
above
it, no.’

‘Oh, so it doesn’t apply to people like you? Talk about the entitlement of privilege. Well let me tell you, Mr White…’

‘Do you know the true meaning of the word “privilege”, Detective Lee?’ Max says, cutting Lee off.
 

The detective hesitates, confused by this curveball.
 

‘I didn’t think so. So few people have a classical education these days. Maybe you should look it up. Petri, let’s go.’
 

I stand up, programmed to follow Max’s instructions.
 

‘Stay right there,’ Lee snaps, and my knees bend. Calmness returns to Lee’s expression. He turns to me. ‘Petri Quinn, in accordance with section 29B of the Criminal Justice Act 2017, I am hereby issuing you with a civil disobedience order.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Max snorts. He grabs hold of my arm, his leather glove creaking.
 

Lee ignores him. ‘Now, we have a choice,’ he says, turning to Zizi. ‘We can remand Petri in custody until such a time as she can have a court hearing, which, given how swamped we are since the events of this afternoon, might be a week, maybe two. Or we can fit her with a blank now and you can all go home.’

‘What’s a blank?’ I say. ‘What does he mean?’
 

Zizi breathes in, the air whistling through her tight lips. I can hear Max’s teeth grinding from here.
 

‘A blank chip?’ Zizi eyes gloss over, accessing data. Why will no one tell me what they’re talking about?

Lee takes pity on me and explains. ‘It’s a simple procedure that negates the need for any sentencing. It means we can track you, monitor your activity, but … ’ and Lee turns back to Max. ‘It will mean a five year ban from Glaze.’
 

‘Hang on,’ I say looking from Max to the Detective. ‘You can’t ban me. I’m not even on yet.’

Zizi chews her finger, looking from Max to Lee and back to Max. Max stares at the door. No one looks at me.
 

 
‘So,’ Lee says. ‘What will it be?’

5

SHAKING, I FOLLOW LEE
out of the room. My head feels like someone’s filled it with concrete; heavy and dense. The pounding rush of blood in my ears is so loud I can’t hear what Zizi is saying, only see her lips moving. I turn away, unable to even look at her.

I begged her to let us contest this, to get Max to set his super-lawyers on the police, screamed about the injustice of it all. But she ignored me. Max tried reasoning with her too. He kept saying he could fix this. That she wasn’t to take her problem with him out on me. Zizi countered by saying it had nothing to do with him and it was her decision, not his.
 

 
‘You’re right,’ Max had said, his voice smooth as marble. ‘You are her mother. So why don’t you act like it for once?’

That had only served to make her mind up. ‘Do it,’ Zizi said to Lee. ‘Do it now.’
 

Now, Max has given up trying and looks distracted, as if I’m eating into his precious time. Which I guess I am. He’s busy checking his feed and, if I know him, already back to business.
 

Zizi is talking to me, trying to explain I guess. All I hear is white noise.
 

Lee ignores them both as he strides down the corridor. Leading me to my fate. He stops in front of a door, punches in a new set of numbers, which I don’t even have the energy to register, and stands aside. What choice do I have? I walk in.
 

Zizi tries to follow us, but Lee stops her with a raised hand. Her face crumples as the door swings closed. Locking her and Max on the other side.
 

Lee turns to me. He smiles, kindly, like a nurse about to give an injection, like whatever he’s about to do may hurt, but it will be for my own good.
 

He says something, but I still can’t hear, and points behind me.
 

I turn around.
 

I know what the official chipping shops are like. I went with Kiara when she got hers done. The shop was a glowing beacon of white, impossible to miss as soon as we walked into the shopping centre. Up on the third floor spilling light and loud music into the soulless atrium. It called to me like a Siren.
 

We had to queue for three hours for Kiara to get her turn in one of the four chipping docks—large leather chairs that looked more like something out of an old-fashioned barbers, all white leather and chrome. There was a hole in the headrest to give the operator access to the back of the head. I watched as Kiara sat down and laid her head against the padded rest. The operator, wearing a pale blue t-shirt with the Glaze logo—three overlapping triangles—emblazoned on his chest, brushed aside her hair and placed the gun at the base of her skull. There was a hiss of compressed air, a dull thunk, and that was it. Kiara was chipped.
 

She was given a free t-shirt, told to wait two hours before trying to access Glaze, and sent home.
 

This place is absolutely nothing like that.
 

It’s small and grey with a single window high up in the wall peeking out on to a slate-grey sky. An old cell given over for the purposes of chipping people, I guess.
 

There’s a large chair in the middle of the room and a woman standing behind it. But she’s dressed in a policeman’s uniform rather than a WhiteInc shirt. And she’s not smiling.
 

‘Take a seat, Petri. This won’t take long,’ Lee says. My hearing has finally come back.
 

I back away from the chair and into a corner of the cell, shaking my head. ‘You can’t,’ I say. ‘You can’t do this to me.’ I try to grip onto the walls with my fingers, but there’s nothing to hold on to but flaking grey paint.
 

‘It’s an easy choice, Petri. A couple of weeks in a young offenders institute waiting for your chance to see a judge, only to be chipped anyway? Your mother is only trying to protect you.’
 

‘She’s only trying to protect herself,’ I shout. ‘God forbid she had to deal with the drama of her daughter being in jail.’
 

Lee tilts his head and looks at me, his face filled with patronising concern. ‘Come on, Petri. It’s only five years, after which…’
 

‘Only five years?’ I roar. ‘That’s practically a life sentence!’
 

He steps towards me and I push myself further into the wall. There’s no escape.
 

‘You can’t…’ I keep saying, over and over.
 

But he can.
 

Lee takes hold of my wrist, gently, and pulls me towards the chair, where the woman is adjusting the equipment. He makes soothing noises, like someone trying to calm a spooked horse.
 

There’s an inevitability to this. Me, this room, that chair, and the woman in the rubber gloves with the chipping gun in her hand. I wanted nothing more than to be chipped, and now I’m about to be. Only instead of giving me everything I wanted, it’s about to take it all away.
 

Talk about being careful what you wish for. I laugh, and it comes out in a strangled croak.
 

Five years till I can have the blank removed.
Only
five years, they say, like it’s no big deal. I’ll be nearly 21 by the time I’m actually able to get on Glaze. And what will be the point then? The hope of getting hooked up was the only thing keeping me going. Now I’ll never belong. I might as well stay in this cell for ever.

I stagger towards the chair and it appears to loom, growing too big to fit in such a small space. In my mind, it’s become an electric chair and I’m walking towards my execution.
 

I’m laughing, full out now, while tears pour down my cheeks. Lee and the executioner share a worried glance; they think I’m crazy. Unhinged. But what do they expect? For me to skip happily to my fate as they steal the most important years of my life?

But I know it’s futile to resist. I’m powerless. I’m just a kid.
 

I drag myself up on the chair and slide into it, feeling weird about placing my trainers on the clean seat covering.
 

The woman with the gun walks around me and places a palm on my forehead. I feel the chalky softness of the rubber glove against my skin. She brushes the hair at the back of my neck away and I flinch at the heavy presence of metal pressed against the top of my spine.

‘Breathe in,’ the woman says.
 

I obey.
 

There’s a hiss of air and I pass out.

6

‘SIX MONTHS BAN!
Oh, Ryan, what are you going to do?’

‘Oh, it’ll be OK. I guess I’ll be watching a lot of TV.’ He laughs.

I look up from the book I’m pretending to be buried in and over to where Ryan and Amy, and Pippa and Karl are sitting in the common room. The four of them have become the school’s latest power couples. They radiate smugness. I thought Karl and Kiara would get it together, after seeing them at the riot. But it appears Pippa had other plans.
 

‘So what happened?’ Karl asks. ‘We all had our names taken and that was it, they let us go. We didn’t see you after that.’

‘No, I got the hell out of there, you know? I didn’t know how it was going to go down.’

‘And they caught up with you and Petri later?’ Pippa asks. I’m surprised she even remembers I exist.
 

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

 
Amy throws her arms around Ryan’s neck and sobs into his neck. Ryan brushes her hair away and catches my eye over her shoulder. We’ve not spoken since the day I got arrested and this is the first I’ve heard about him getting banned from Glaze. It’s the least he deserves after snitching on me.
 

He smiles, his usual, lopsided grin that in the past would make me go a bit wobbly. Now, I want to punch him.
 

The projected clock over the doorway reads 12:44. Fourteen minutes of lunchtime left. I want it over.
 

In the past, I’d watch that minute hand slice up the fragments between the me I was and the me I was going to be. The me who would suddenly become cool and popular and would have five thousand people hooked to her stream following her every word. My whole life revolved around counting down those seconds. Now, each tick is a reminder that that future will never come. That I’m going to be me for ever.