Synthetica (4 page)

And feeling an immense
satisfaction at the look on Mrs Persimmon' face, Anais leant forward
and closed the door between them.

He stopped in the middle of his work and slowly turned to the old
TV in the corner of the dingy room. His grey eyes gleamed as the
camera panned around and showed a black body bag on a hover
stretcher being taken away from the scene of the crime. On the other
half of the screen, a photo of the murder suspect flashed up – the
man was slightly scruffy looking, highly unusual for citizens of the
city, his mauve hair was greasy, and his eyes were curiously blank.
The photo vanished and the golden haired newsreader who set his
teeth on edge reappeared, smiling her silly, vapid smile.

A slow smile curled across his own lips. The test had worked.

He reached over the clutter of wires and pieces of plastic that
littered his desk, and picked up an extremely battered mobile phone.
Once again, old technology proved to have the upper hand in this
modern world that these despicable people had built for themselves -
mobile phone signals were no longer monitored. He punched in a
number with his gloved hand and raised it his ear.

Time for phase two.

Three

Anais sat under the shade of one of the neatly cut trees that lined
the edge of the quad, watching as students continued to flow in and
out of the City Hall. Those going in had looks of varying degrees of
nervousness on their faces; while those coming out were either
smiling and laughing happily, or dragging their feet across the
ground, looking dejected. Anais knew which camp she belonged to.

Despite the warmth of the day, Anais was cold inside. She had been
so furious with Mrs Persimmon, that it had taken all her willpower
not to wrench the door back open and shout at her some more.
Instead, she'd forced herself to walk away, back down to the
reception area. After a quick glance around to confirm that Dalla
wasn't there, she'd decided to get a drink from the vending machine
and wait for her outside. It did nothing to improve her mood when
the machine read her biometrics from her ID chip and refused to give
her a bottle of lemonade, instead choosing to dispense a lumpy
looking grey protein shake.

Anais took another sip of the shake, grimacing at the lemongrass
flavour. It did nothing to dispel the hard knot that had formed in
her gut. She still found it hard to believe that she was destined to
work in the picochip factory until the end of her days. She wanted
to march back into that room and scream, shout, plead and beg Mrs
Persimmon not to send her to the factory – but she also knew that
it was far too late. She had a horrible suspicion that even if she
hadn't applied for a position that was so obviously beyond her
means, they would've taken one look at her parent's backgrounds and
they would've done the same thing anyway. For one wild moment, she
had considered simply not turning up to her new job on Monday, but
she knew what would happen she did that. For every hour she didn't
show up, her parents would be fined an exorbitant amount, both their
jobs would be at risk and they'd most likely end up in prison, along
with her, for breaking the law.

Her dream of saving up and buying her own SLP was in tatters as
well. There was no way during this lifetime that she'd be able to
save up enough credits to buy one on her wage from the factory. So
there was no hope of progression and no hope of buying her way out.
No matter which way she looked at it, she couldn't escape her fate.

Just across from her, a couple had just walked out of the building,
the girl sobbing uncontrollably as her boyfriend tried in vain to
console her. Although the boy was making soothing noises, it was
obvious from his slight smug expression that he hadn't received bad
news at all. Anais was tempted to throw her half empty bottle at
him.

Her RetCom bleeped and she opened a new message from Xander without
her usual spark of excitement.

How did it go?? Will we be work
buddies too ;)? X

Anais didn't have the heart to reply. She'd already received several
messages from her parents, asking her how she'd got on, and she
hadn't replied to them either. She deleted it and sat back against
the smooth tree trunk, closing her eyes and wishing she could come
up with just one brilliant idea which meant she wouldn't have to go
to her new job.

“
Anais!”

Anais opened her eyes to see Dalla walking across the grass towards
her with a spring in her step. Anais' heart fell further. She knew
immediately what Dalla was going to tell her, and she wasn't sure
she wanted to hear it.

Dalla flopped down on the grass beside her, pulling out two bottles
of lemonade from her bag and handing one to Anais.

“
So
how'd yours go?” Dalla asked. Anais, who was taking a long drink,
shrugged.

“
Alright,”
Anais said finally, as she lowered her bottle. “How about yours?”

“
Well,”
Dalla looked as though she'd burst with excitement if she had to
keep it to herself a moment longer. “I've been accepted on
Civitas' Program Development internship! Isn't that great?
Apparently it was between me and this guy who's dad works for the
company, and he's some kind of genius at computing, but he got
ninety five percent on his exam and I got ninety seven! So they gave
the job to me! Isn't it fantastic?!”

“
That's
great, Dal,” Anais said, though her voice sounded hollow to her
ears.

There was an emptiness opening up in Anais' heart as Dalla went
over every little thing her advisor had said to her. Although she
was happy for Dalla, there was also part of Anais that was
undeniably jealous. And she hated herself for it.

They
had both grown up in the same part of the city, and while Dalla's
parents both had mediocre jobs working for the medical supply
company, MediTech, Dalla had always seemed to have that magic touch
that meant she sailed blissfully through life. She was top of the
class in most subjects, she was friendly and charming, and Anais had
always known that her friend would end up being a high flyer in the
city. While Anais would be stuck in that bloody picochip factory,
the mind numbing monotony gradually wearing her down day after day
after day.

But that wasn't fair of Anais. It wasn't Dalla's fault she'd been
born clever and charming, as well as being beyond the usual levels
of beauty that most people had. Although you could choose your
unborn child's physical traits, personality was unfortunately still
luck of the draw.

“
Sorry
babe, I'm going on again, aren't I,” Dalla reached out and
squeezed Anais' arm, jolting her out of her dark thoughts. “So
what happened at yours? Did you get into the Institute?”

“
No,”
Anais said with a heavy heart. “I didn't. They've enrolled me in a
program at the picochip factory.”

She swallowed the hard lump that formed in her throat at the words.
Dalla's hands flew up to her mouth.

“
Oh
honey, I'm so sorry. What happened to the Institute? Or what about
your other choices?”

Anais shrugged.

“
I
don't know. They said the Institute only accepts the top students,
but I've got 'perfectly good grades' to work at the factory,”
Anais took another sip of lemonade to stop herself from blurting out
everything that had gone wrong at her own meeting. Dalla wouldn't
approve of the outburst she'd given Mrs Persimmon.

Dalla's golden-flecked eyes were wide as she stared at Anais. Her
luscious brown hair waved slightly in the breeze and she tossed it
impatiently away from her face. The subtle hints of pure gold that
were woven through her curls caught the light and shimmered in the
dappled sun.

“
That's
awful.” Anais looked up at Dalla, surprised by the anger in her
low tone.

“
It's
not too bad, I guess. Think about the credits I'll save by commuting
to work with my parents,” Anais said, trying to keep her voice
light, even though the lump in her throat seemed to be getting
harder instead of going away. She only had to think about the
dismissive way in which the Mrs Persimmon had treated her and a hot
wave of anger flooded through her once again.

“
No,
really, that's horrible,” Dalla said. “What's the point in
asking us what we want to do, if they're just going to put us
wherever they want anyway?”

“
Yeah,
well, unfortunately there's not a lot we can do about it.” Anais
finished off her lemonade and threw the bottle into the bin next to
them, where it would be sent to the city's underground recycling
plant.

Before Dalla could reply, there was a shout and both girls looked
up. Anais heard Dalla swear under her breath. A tall, lanky looking
boy was bobbing towards them, a large rucksack slung over one
shoulder. He had canary yellow hair, and black thick framed glasses
that dwarfed his face. Anais could personally never see what Dalla
found so attractive about Marcus Smith; if his personality was only
half as nice as his looks it would be a big improvement.

“
Hey
Dals,” Marcus said as he flopped down beside Dalla, a look of
adoration on his face. He barely even glanced at Anais. “How did
your career's advice go?”

“
Fine,”
Dalla said in clipped tones. “How was yours?”

“
Haven't
had mine yet. Hoping to get into WireX Industries. If they try and
force me to go to Civitas, I might have to start a protest,” he
sniggered. Dalla remained stony faced.

“
What's
wrong with Civitas?” Anais asked.

“
What's
right
with that company?” Marcus looked at her pityingly. “
All
they're concerned about is
fashion,
not technological advances. Haven't you noticed that the last two
products they brought out were just a re-hash of an earlier model?
The only reason people buy their products is because they think they
have to. Now, WireX Industries, they're the real way forward -”

“
The
SLPs are new,” Dalla pointed out. “I don't recall anyone else
coming up with anything like that.”

“
Perhaps,”
Marcus lowered his voice so Anais had to strain to hear. “But I
heard a rumour a while back that Civitas didn't come up with the
idea - they stole it from someone else. And did you hear? Their
research labs got broken into last night. If you ask me, they're
really starting to lose their touch.”

Anais was surprised by this piece of news. The rumour didn't
surprise her – there was always rumours flying around about the
three tech companies that practically ran the city, and they hardly
ever turned out to be true. But surely a break-in at the city's
largest technology company couldn't be kept quiet for long. She
racked her brains, trying to think whether or not she'd heard
anything about it on the news that morning, but she could only
remember hearing about that grisly murder. Before she could ask
Marcus where he'd heard about the break-in, Dalla spoke.

“
Who
would be stupid enough to break into Civitas?” Dalla asked,
looking as horrified as if it had been her own home that had been
broken into.

“
Dunno,
but they were obviously after something pretty important to attempt
it,” Marcus said. He didn't look remotely concerned about the
news; if anything he seemed even more smug than usual.

Dalla eyed him suspiciously.

“
What
are you so happy about?” she asked.

“
Well,
you know the SLPs? I've already bought one,” he said triumphantly.

Anais stared at him, shocked. Dalla's mouth dropped open.

“
What?”
gasped Dalla. “But – but, they're not going on sale until next
week!”

Marcus nodded smugly.

“
True.
But I managed to get a pirate copy – there's a guy selling them
down at the market. He told me someone managed to get hold of one of
the prototypes and they're making their own version. Selling them
five times cheaper than the Civitas ones will retail at.”

“
But,
isn't that dangerous?” asked Anais, still in shock. “How do you
know it's safe?”

“
Don't
I look okay to you? I'm telling you, this is the only way forward.
To just download information and instantly know everything about a
subject...it's so cool.”

“
Prove
it,” Dalla demanded. “What do you know?”

“
Permítanme
demostrar. Mi nombre es Marcus y yo puedo hablar español
,”
Marcus said smoothly. This time, Anais' jaw dropped.

“
Spanish?”
she managed to choke out. “You know Spanish?”

“
Sí
.”

“
Where
did you get it from?” The sharp question caused Marcus and Dalla
to look round in surprise at Anais, who refused to lower her gaze.
“What shop?”

Marcus raised an eyebrow.

“
Why
should I tell you?”

A hot stab of anger pierced Anais. Marcus was smirking at her, as
though he could tell how badly she wanted the information. She
clenched her jaw, biting back a retort, as Dalla reached out and
caressed Marcus' knee.

“
Come
on, Marcus, let us in on your little secret,” she coaxed, looking
at him in admiration. “We won't tell anyone; we're just curious.”

“
Well...I
wasn't going to tell anyone, but I guess it would be okay if you
knew,” he spoke solely to Dalla, his eyes softening as he gazed at
her adoringly once more. “You know the food court down by the
market? If you go past the juice bar, there's an electrical shop on
the right. Go in there and ask for Denzel. He's the one who hooks me
up with all my goods. Like this - I refused to pay Civitas' prices
so he got me this RetCom for cheap.” He pointed to his eye.