I nod. Aiden’s file also mentioned a certain community notice board. One where a coded note will reach his contact.
‘I hope this works out for you. I hope you find what you’re looking for. But if you don’t…’ His voice trails away. ‘Anyhow, best get going.’ But he still holds my hand in his, some emotion too raw and private in his eyes, but I can’t look away. Seconds slow and stretch until finally he lets go.
I clamber out of the van with my bag, shut the door, then turn and hold up my hand in a goodbye; a hand now empty and cold. Words are stuck in a throat that feels tight. Another friend I may never see again. I stare at him through the window, storing him up: the way he tilts his head to one side when he looks at me intently like he is now, the fiery glints of his red hair in the morning sun. Aiden has done so much for me, and all I do is make him worry and cause problems. None of this could have been easy to arrange, and I didn’t even say a proper thank-you.
But like he can see what is inside me, Aiden nods his head. It’s okay. Go on, he mouths.
I turn, square my shoulders and walk away from his van, to the front of the station. As I approach, the barriers open: Aiden’s file said they detect tickets and ID anywhere on your person, and operate automatically; they also scan for weapons. Guards in a booth glance my way and then back at their security screens. I’m through. An arrow coded to my ticket lights up at my feet, shows which way to go. I start to walk away from the barriers to the designated lift, still thinking of all the things I should have said…
DJ! What with first me being upset about my so-called funeral, then Aiden being angry I went to see Mum, I forgot all about the IMET doctor’s message. That he wants to see Aiden. I turn to look through the glass barriers, but Aiden’s van is already disappearing from sight.
Too late. I hope it wasn’t important.
CHAPTER SIX
* * *
The lift drops swiftly, and opens onto an underground platform. The train is already there; once again an arrow at my feet is coded to my ticket and points the way to the right car of the train, and then my seat. Other passengers move about me, following arrows of their own.
Have I ever been on a train before? If I have, I don’t remember.
I put my bag into the overhead, then second thoughts have me pull it back down to retrieve my ID and put it in my pocket with my ticket before shoving it back up again. I can’t lose my ID. Unlike most people’s, mine would be quite a bother to replace.
The train is about half full; no one sits next to me. I have a window seat, and when the train leaves moments later, a vid runs in the window: glorious countryside, or Antarctic glaciers, or a steamy jungle. All at the flick of a switch, and I can’t stop myself from trying them all. I’m glad Aiden’s file had explained this, or I would have been both alarmed and baffled. After a while I notice almost no one else uses the window vid, and I turn it off. I study fellow passengers, instead.
A few are younger and in jeans like me, perhaps students or off on apprenticeships, but most look like business people. Both men and women in suits, much like my assigned dad wore when he was off supposedly installing and maintaining government computer systems. Though who knows what he really did for the Lorders? He travelled all over the country, or so he said: a nervous thought makes me check every passenger I can see to make sure he isn’t here. He did travel by car to some places, and there were buses also for short journeys, like to London, but most long distance vehicular travel is banned now: all must travel by environment-friendly high speed train.
The minutes tick to an hour; the train stops several times at other underground stations. At one, a harassed-looking mother with a boy about four years old get on, his small hand clenched tight in hers. They sit a few rows in front of me. Before long his head peeks over the seat, dark eyes staring at mine. I smile and he dips down. Seconds later his head bobs up again, giggling and flashing a crooked grin this time, until his mother makes him sit down. He squirms into her lap and her arms go around him.
A mother holding her child close. Was that how things were with me and my mother? I blink hard, then stare at the window vid screen, as blank and dead as my memories of her. I close my eyes. Maybe when we see each other, it’ll all come back, like I am ten years old again. Maybe we’ll run to each other and she’ll hold me, and I’ll be home. I’ll know who I was, who I am.
Maybe, I won’t.
There is a panic inside, one that says run. That not knowing may be better than knowing; that things will change, and change isn’t always good. I’d been desperate before to know who I was, where I came from, why I was Slated. Finding out about Nico’s AGT and their plans for me didn’t make anything better, did it?
Some part of me notices that while I’ve been thinking, the train has stopped. For much longer than at any other stop. I open my eyes; the doors are still closed. We’re not at a station?
I glance about at the other passengers, and it is tangible, the growing unease. What is happening? The woman and boy get out of their seats, and walk to the connecting door to the next car at the front of ours. I’ve seen people go in and out of it, returning with steaming cups in their hands. But this time the door won’t open. They go back to their seats.
Moments later the locked door opens, and unease turns to dread. Lorders. Two of them, with steely, dead eyes. In black ops gear, vests. One has a weapon in hand, the other a small device. There is a train guard with them, a bead of sweat on his brow.
‘Get your tickets and ID out, folks,’ the train guard says, his voice not quite steady. And passengers shuffle, get cards out of bags and pockets. I get mine out, hand shaking. Get a grip. Aiden’s notes said a ticket and ID check is common. That mine’ll pass fine, to stay calm if it happens. But he never said anything about Lorders being involved.
The Lorder with the gun stays at the door; the other follows the guard. When they get to the first passenger, the guard scans his ticket and ID. Then the Lorder holds up the device he carries, and orders the passenger to look inside it until it beeps; first with one eye, then the other.
A portable retinal scanner?
This is not a standard check. Swirls of fear turn to panic. Glasses must come off to scan retinas; they’ll see my eye colour is masked. If only I’d let DJ change them to grey permanently, not mask them: vanity to keep my eyes green might kill me. I could take them off before they get here, hope they don’t notice, but then I panic further: who knows if my retinal key will show up the wrong name, that of a dead girl, Kyla Davis? We had them done at school. And at the hospital. I glance back, but there are Lorders at the back door also. Blocking the way.
Nowhere to go. Trapped. As a Slated, seeking out my past life is completely illegal. Not to mention the IMET and travelling under a false identity. After everything, is this as far as I get? Keswick should be just minutes away now. Did my fake ID trigger some warning? Are they looking for me?
They get closer, row by row. The guard checks each ticket and ID; the Lorder operates the retinal scanner.
Something bumps my foot and I almost scream. I glance down: the small boy? Crawling under the seats. Ahead they have reached his mother. Her face is beyond pale, more grey, and her shaking hand holds out ID and ticket. The guard scans them: they pass. But the Lorder’s lips curve in a small smile of satisfaction. He knows. He is certain he’s found the one he looks for. It’s not me. He holds up the retinal scanner to her eye. Instead of a beep, it buzzes. His smile widens.
His hand clamps on her shoulder, pulls her up. Pushes her into the aisle. ‘Walk!’ he barks. They start towards the front of the car. There is a small cry behind. I don’t dare turn, but she does, and her face crumples. Moments later one of the Lorders from the back of the car walks past, dragging a small boy along with him.
They disappear through the front connecting door. No one says anything; no one looks at anyone. I’m horrified, but also relieved. They weren’t after me. Not this time. But if my seat had been before hers, and they’d scanned my retinas…I quake inside.
And then I’m ashamed. What will happen to them now? I’ll never know if she did anything bad enough to warrant being hauled off by the Lorders like that; I’ll never know what happens to her, or her son. What if everyone in this car had said, together: no, you can’t take them. Could we have stopped it?
The answer might have been yes, for a few minutes. But they’d have reinforcements at the next station; we’d all be arrested and taken away. We’d face the same fate she will. Is that a good enough reason to say nothing?
What if every person in the country said no, all at once, like Aiden thinks they will if they know what really goes on. They can’t arrest every single one of us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
* * *
I step out of the dim station lift into dazzling sunshine. Keswick sunshine. It is cold, crisp; the air is so chill that breathing it in almost makes me cough. No snow on the ground here today, but above? White-peaked fells. There is a prickle on the back of my neck, my spine, but not from the cold. It is a physical reaction to being in this place, to breathing this air. I stand stock still, gaping up at the mountains, until a whisper of sanity draws me back to here and now. Don’t draw attention. I force my eyes to drop and look around me.
Only a few other passengers have come off here, and they are walking swiftly away. There is a Lorder van parked next to the station, blocking the view of one of the lifts: are they taking their new prisoners from the train? I walk away from any watchful eyes. Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I find and follow the town centre sign Aiden’s notes said would be there. There is no recognition inside me now, of this station, or where to go. I glance back, and over the archway containing the lifts and ticket office is carved ‘2050’. This station didn’t exist when I lived here. It’s new.
Ten minutes later I’ve reached the centre of town, and the prickling feeling of wonder, of both knowing and not knowing this place, comes back. There is a crowded pedestrianised area leading up to the ancient Moot Hall building with an information sign. Cobbled stones crumble under foot, with a vague sense they are smaller than they should be. Because I’m bigger now?
I shake my head. Am I imagining things? There is no definite memory, only shadows that seem to mist away if I stare. Maybe it is just the longing to know this place.
On arrival in Keswick I’m to go to Waterfall House. And my mother. I swallow; the word sounds all wrong. The house is along the shores of Derwentwater, on almost the opposite side of the lake from Keswick. I memorised maps how to get there: about three miles’ walk on footpaths. Or there is a launch across the water. Or a bus on the road.
Walking takes longest. Walk it is. Roads then paths lead out of the town centre, past a ruined theatre and down to the lake; paths wander through woods with views over the lake, then drop to cut down to the water. There is ice silvering out from its deep blue edges; the ground underfoot is hard frozen. There are people, some with dogs, ambling on paths in all directions, breath puffing out white around their faces. They dwindle away the further I get from Keswick. Soon I’m alone.
My feet move slower and slower, head full of a peculiar madness. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. I want to touch every tree, every rock, on the way. I want to know them, to take them into me so they cement out whispers of memory. My head feels full of fuzzy cotton confusion, of wanting to remember being here before, but nothing is definite. It could just be the wanting that makes me feel this way, that makes my feet long to walk back and forth over the same places to make me remember them, if not from before, from now.
I shake my head. Aiden told me she knows I am coming: she’ll wonder what has happened to me…again. I start walking at a proper pace. What could it have been like for her? For my mother. I say the words over and over inside my head, tasting them, but they still don’t feel right, don’t sound right. I’m her daughter – that feels weird, too. I disappeared when I was ten years old. Seven years ago. How do you get through something like that? And then her husband died, a few years after I vanished, when he tried to rescue me. My fault. She might blame me.