The Rainbow Maker's Tale (5 page)

I thought it best to appease
her for now – make the most of our conversation while it lasted, as
it would be the only one – and so I steered us away from this
contentious topic. “I suppose you’re right. Anyway, that’s all a
bit deep for a post-exam conversation, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Cassie looked relieved
that I was not going to press the issue.

“What are you going to do with
the holidays?” I enquired, opting for a nice, safe topic. It was
not something I would normally be interested in – my ability to
make small-talk was extremely limited – but once I’d asked the
question, I realised that I might actually be interested in
Cassie’s answer. Until she pulled a face that is…
How did I
manage to keep getting it so wrong?

“I’ve not got any holidays. I’m
going straight to my first work placement with my parents,” she
revealed. “There was the option to start the rotations early if you
were going for placements in the medical or engineering fields.
Seeing as I had to do both, I thought it would be better to start
sooner – more practice, or something like that.”

This calmed my initial doubts
that I had said the wrong thing again. Cassie was not happy with
the situation, rather than me. This realisation prompted me to
laugh – at myself, of course for jumping to conclusions – but then
I had to disguise it as a reaction to her words. “Why the face – it
can’t be that bad can it?”

“No,” she admitted, although I
got the feeling she was holding something back still. She shrugged
dismissively – a sure sign that she meant something more serious
than she was about to say. “It’s me being a whining teenager I
suppose. It’s just as you get that bit older you realise that
you’re going to become your parents one day – in some way, shape or
form – and that’s quite scary. Going to work alongside them makes
me feel as though it’s the first step on that slippery slope!”

So, Cassie was scared of
turning into her parents? That sounded truthful enough and the
awkward smile that appeared on her lips as she said this convinced
me of it even more. I felt like Cassie had told me something she’d
not shared with anyone else before – I couldn’t be sure of course,
but I’d never seen her look sheepish when I’d watched her with her
friends – and the thought of that made me intensely happy. “I
suppose you’re right.” A grin stretched my face as Cassie laughed
with me.

We were still walking. Cassie
was so close beside me I could feel the warmth of her body as my
arm brushed past hers. It was hard for me not be distracted from
this but I was, because I just realised that this would be the end
of our conversation. We were close to the centre of the park now,
and a short distance away from us a group of young people were
sitting around enjoying an afternoon of freedom. They were
our
classmates, but her friends. I would not be joining
them.

Unwillingly my feet slowed not
wanting to leave her, but unable to go on further. One or two
members of the group looked up as they recognised Cassie
approaching – both of them boys. It did not surprise me that their
faces wore particular expressions of interest.

“Are you not joining them?”
Cassie asked, noticing my pace slowing.

I hoped I heard a trace of
disappointment in her words.
“No, I’ve got a better idea – why
don’t we go somewhere else – just us…”
I wanted to say, but of
course I didn’t. I couldn’t. One time only, remember.

“It’s a little…crowded for me.”
I said instead, smoothing my face into a mask so that I could not
betray myself any further. This had been a mistake – a pleasant
one, but a mistake nonetheless.

“You don’t have to go,” Cassie
murmured as I was preparing to leave. I barely heard her words: my
mind was elsewhere now, disengaging rapidly as I planned my
escape.

“I have to get home,” I replied
flatly. No other excuses presented themselves and it seemed
pointless to even try. I was already walking away. “I might see you
on work experience if you’re with your parents.” I knew that I
wouldn’t. I wasn’t taking an early rotation. “Bye Cassie.” It was
an afterthought…a final polite farewell to close the
conversation…you can’t finish without saying goodbye.

“Balik?!”

I heard Cassie call my name and
pushed my feet faster, moving me away as swiftly as I could without
running. If I turned around, I wasn’t sure I could actually control
myself.

Did she call out to me
again?

I couldn’t be sure, but thought
I heard my name a second time. Raising my hand briefly in farewell,
I continued in the opposite direction and did not look back at
Cassie.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I scolded myself viciously as I
stamped in the opposite direction than the one I really wanted to
go in. My feet made dull
thump
sounds against the plastic
pavement as I went, angering me even more. The noise reminded me I
was in a fake world. It reminded me of why I shouldn’t be talking
to Cassie.

STUPID!

A woman I rushed by jumped away
from me looking startled, as though I’d shouted the words aloud,
yelling them into her bland, emotionless visage. The furious
expression on my face must have been frightening to elicit such a
strong reaction from someone. Immediately I fought to regain
control of my facial muscles, forcing them back into place,
reverting to my usual neutral mask.

I was so angry!
Why did I
even open myself up to temptation?
I had no answer to that
question. I had no answer! And that rankled, just as much as my
irritation at allowing this lapse in my well-cultivated behaviour.
There was no point in any of this. It was too late.

Well, I can make up for it now,
I muttered silently, knowing that there was no reason at all for me
to have to speak to Cassie ever again. I’d spent long enough living
inside this stupid resin world – alone – to need her company
now.

What could she possibly know
about the SS Hope that I didn’t already?

I immediately dismissed the
question. I could not imagine Cassie holding the key to the secrets
of the station I had tried to unlock, no matter what Scarlett had
believed. No. I should never have tried talking to Cassie. It was
over.

To reinforce my stance on this
matter I made a mental list of reasons why that was the case:
school was over, so no more classes with her; we both lived in the
Green Zone, but never saw one another outside school…or rather she
didn’t see me, it wasn’t perfectly true that I never saw her…
Stop it!
I shouted, immediately aware that I was straying
from my original objective. Another woman turned to stare at me as
I went by, her expression clearly shocked. It was strange, just as
before it was as though I’d yelled the words out loud. I shook my
head distracted as much by her odd behaviour as I was with thoughts
of Cassie. Shaking my head to clear my mind, I continued with my
list.

We were both due on placements
at The Clinic and within Engineering, but they would not be at the
same time. I thought back to our conversation: Cassie had applied
for an earlier residency to give her longer at each place, whereas
mine was on the standard rotation and not due to start for another
three weeks. The image of her face rose in my mind, her features
creased into a frown, unhappy at the prospect of starting at The
Clinic early.

There was nothing I could do
about that, I reminded myself, as an involuntary desire to help her
swelled inside me. It was frightening how much I had already
allowed this stranger to exert a hold on me. No. There was nothing
I could do, I repeated firmly.
Unless I changed my plans
… My
subconscious ambushed me with this errant thought, immediately
tempting me from my planned course.

No, I repeated firmly.

There were plans I had made and
preparations already undertaken. I was resolved to continuing with
them. Even though I had only formed them more fully in the last
three weeks since the accident with the viewing screen, the basic
idea had been developing in my mind for a long time: since another
accident
nine years earlier…

Park 17 was far behind me now
and my feet slowed to a more normal walking pace as my anxiety
lessened. I did not want to look out of place amongst the other
pedestrians. There were more people filling the avenues and squares
now, as the station inhabitants began to finish work and filter
homeward. With an upward glance, I confirmed my guess that it must
be about 5.00pm: the mirror-sky was still bright and clear, showing
no sign that the slow progression towards night had begun. At
5.30pm the artificial daytime would begin its retreat: the mirrors
high in the ceiling of the space station rotating slowly away from
the light of the sun, many thousands of miles away, and allowing
the darkness to take hold. But, for now there were no shadows
between the buildings, and I needed somewhere to hide out.

I barely noticed the buildings
around me as I passed by. To my eyes everything was the same here:
blank and characterless, made of the same pale, strong plastic
resin as virtually everything else on the space station. For all
the difference it made, I could be walking by apartment blocks,
municipal buildings or even pavement, turned on a ninety-degree
angle and run up the walls. It was all the same and it was
all
built on lies.

You can’t walk forever, I
reminded myself. That was true. Sooner or later I would walk into a
boundary wall, or perhaps a checkpoint that lead out of the Family
Quarter and into the Married or Retirement Quarters. But, I
couldn’t pass through any of those, could I? The laugh that bubbled
up my throat, acknowledging my painful joke, was more a strangled
cry; and like most of the emotions I ever felt, I swallowed it,
locking it back inside me, unseen by the world around me.

Stop!
It was a command
to myself. I didn’t need to wallow in self-pity, I needed to do
something productive. For the first time I looked around me –
really
looked – and recognising the buildings nearby, I
realised that I had not automatically run towards home, in fact, I
had gone in the opposite direction.

My second home
…I laughed
silently to myself as I continued walking – consciously now –
towards my favourite place on the whole space station.

I wanted time. Time alone to
get myself refocused on the plans I had been making for as long as
I could remember. And I wanted time to push away the distracting
thoughts of Cassie that kept ensnaring me as I ran away from her.
One conversation changes nothing, I reminded myself firmly as the
Red Zone Clinic and centre of the residential hub rose into view
ahead of me.

On a whim I turned back across
the plaza, taking a shortcut. Today I wanted time alone, without
questions and prying eyes; I wanted more time than a brief trip to
a park would give me. I needed
real
space, and to get that
space I would need to lay a false trail.

Paranoid
, I accused a
split-second after deciding on my route.

I didn’t care – I
was
paranoid. Since the incident with the viewing screen, when I found
the hidden transmitter, I suspected I was being watched all the
time. It was probably stupid to feel this way, but I couldn’t help
it.

My increased suspicion was the
reason I had resurrected one of my old experiments. When I’d first
understood the properties of the item – that now sat securely in
the pocket of my day-suit – I’d found it exciting to think that I
had in my possession something that could manipulate one of the
operating systems on the station, though I’d never put it to much
use before. During the last three weeks it had become my constant
companion.

In all honesty I’d virtually
forgotten about this tool until I’d found the second receiver
inside the viewing screen in my bedroom and became conscious of the
fact that all my conversations (not that I had many) were being
transmitted to an unknown communication system within the station.
But it was the first thing that sprang to mind when I’d realised I
would want to be able to move around without being tracked by the
scanner system if I was going to explore the issue further.

Being nothing if not thorough,
on discovering the problem with my viewing screen, I had decided
that further investigation was required to determine whether mine
was the only screen that had this unusual secondary system
connected to it. This was very unlikely in my opinion due to the
fact that there was obviously a wider network that my viewing
screen was connecting into and I doubted it would have been created
solely for me – or by accident. But opinion was not fact and so
following good research practices – as I always did – I knew I
would need to verify my initial findings and put my hypothesis to
the test.

But getting to other viewing
screens, without being seen or tracked, would have been impossible.
To confirm my suspicions, I needed to get at other screens,
dismantle them and check their contents. That’s when I’d remembered
my earlier discovery…

From a certain age I found
myself left alone quite a lot by my parents. They seemed content
that I was not engaging in any dangerous activities – although that
was often not the case – and were inclined to leave me to my own
devices. I didn’t mind this at all, though I suppose for some
people it would be upsetting to think that your parents didn’t
actually like you very much. I was reasonably indifferent on this
point: they seemed to find being in my company as difficult as I
found being in theirs.

With all this freedom, what was
I going to fill my time with?

That was easy. I investigated
and searched, planned and experimented, with anything and
everything I could find. There were no friends to distract me –
after I saw Scarlett
die
, I didn’t want to be around other
children: I didn’t trust them. Instead, I worked on finding out all
I could about the space station: how it worked, who did what, where
every type of network went to…