'Did you hear what he said, mate?' Tim added after a short silence.
Zach spoke for the first time. 'I'm not your mate.'
'Listen, transfuck, do we have spell it out for you? Like in the toilet?' Tim said.
Owen raised a hand. 'This is a private club, Zach,' he said, his voice conciliatory. 'There are lots of places where augers can go. Don't make trouble.'
Laura winced at Owen's casual use of the word. In school he wouldn't have got away with it, at least not if there'd been a teacher nearby. And the worst was, he wasn't being deliberatively provocative or nasty. It's just what they all said.
'What do you think, Laura?' Zach was watching her with the same intensity with which he'd listened to her talk about her family.
The narrow path was slippery with ice, a jagged rockface on one side and a steep precipice on the other. Laura shivered, she wasn't used to such hard climbs.
'Nothing to do with Laura,' Owen said.
Zach lifted an eyebrow and waited.
'I-I guess-' Laura dropped her eyes. Better know what you're doin', girl.
'Fuck you too,' Zach said very softly, but not softly enough.
Tim stepped in close, balled his hand, and with a loud 'fucking auger cunt' slammed his fist into Zach's solar plexus. Zach grunted softly and sagged for a moment against the wall, then straightened. His eyes never left Laura's.
Smiling broadly, Tim directed a vicious punch to Zach's jaw, which cracked his head round into the plaster. This time he gasped and closed his eyes.
'No!' Laura cried, and would have darted forward, but Owen took her arm and shook his head in warning.
Zach licked his lips. Slowly he opened his eyes, slowly he twisted his head back again, his attention entirely focused on Laura. She could see a bubble of blood at the corner of his mouth, which with agonising sluggishness beaded, then trickled down his chin and hung trembling for a fraction of a second before dripping onto the floor. Laura suddenly understood he would stand there taking it till he collapsed. So long as she witnessed the attack.
'Enough, Timmy,' she said. 'He's not worth it. Someone will ring the police, and there'll be a lot of unpleasant questions. Come on, let's have a drink, these devis leave a foul taste in my mouth. And the band's about to crank up again.'
She leaned over and kissed Tim on the cheek. 'Thanks,' she said.
Then she turned away, her arm hooked through Owen's, and was gone. Downhill always seemed easier.
Chapter 4
Next morning Ethan is feverish, shaking with chills, and so dizzy when he stumbles into the living room that Zach sends him straight back to bed. Though conditions are meant to be as realistic as possible, Zach is disgruntled by the delay and can't help wondering about this unexpected development, the second in two days. Illness isn't unheard of in Fulgur's little cyber realm, but never during the acclimation phase, which is stressful enough on its own.
In the kitchen he finds a stock of herbal remedies and brews a pot of lemon balm, yarrow, and ginger tea, well sweetened with honey. Ethan drinks only a few sips before knocking the mug aside, rambling on about harpoons of acid blue light and batmen and a shapeshifting ice cave, but soon falls into a doze while Zach mops up. Despite official assurances, Andy has warned him to be on the watch for anomalies, particularly cognitive dysfunction, which might indicate a programming glitch. There's always the backfeed for reporting minor problems, but persistent hallucinations could necessitate a premature shut-down. Any simu who aborts a run without good reason assumes its entire cost. You'd be in debt to Fulgur till too old to notice. There are no aborts.
If it weren't for Laura, Zach would have stuck to his resolve never to do another run again. And once they find out what he's up to, there'll be no other. Let them banish him to custodial duty; he'll scrub their toilets with savage glee. They wouldn't dare to assassinate him outright-not now, not with so much unrest. A martyr's death would suit him just fine.
At breakfast Chloe appears in a cherry-red tracksuit whose thick fleece might as well be diaphanous silk, or nothing at all, the way she turns sleepy eyes and moist pout and an aura of torpid conquest on Zach. He finds himself colouring, at which she laughs complacently. The run is fast becoming a disaster.
Lev rescues him by suggesting Chloe stay indoors with Ethan while the two of them try to bring down a polar bear.
'What for?' Zach asks bluntly.
'We ought to take advantage of the good weather. It's stopped snowing.'
'You know that's not what I mean.'
'Practice. Teamwork and bonding in the face of a tough obstacle. Survival skills.' Lev says. 'Isn't that what you're here to teach?' There it is again-that brief glint in Lev's eyes, like a flash of metal through the trees. The scar makes it difficult to tell whether his half-smile is sardonic, or merely the result of reduced muscular control. 'Fresh meat.'
'A full-grown male can weigh as much as 700 kilos, occasionally more.' Zach falls back on a practical concern. 'You and I can barely drag a quarter of that between us.'
'We'll take whatever we can. Isn't that what humans always do?'
Chloe is becoming restive. 'I'm going to have a good wash'-her lower lip is a touch overripe for her smirk to be tasty-'and check on Ethan while you two machos work out your kill.' She saunters off in the direction of the bath, then stops on the threshold to say, 'I forgot, the bath is filled with Earl Grey, I'll have to use the teapot.' Lev gives Zach an indulgent shrug as she heads for the kitchen; there's no accounting for sense of humour.
'Killing a polar bear takes exceptional skill. How long have you been here anyway?' Zach asks once they're alone.
'Why don't you wait and see what I can do?'
'That's quite a lot to take on faith.'
'We're expected to trust you.'
'Not exactly the same thing, is it?'
'Have you forgotten that I could have left you in the snowstorm to freeze? Perhaps you ought to remember one of the cardinal principles of wilderness training-mutual trust.'
A test of some sort? Zach meets, measures, matches the daredevil in Lev's eyes. 'There are no firearms. So what will you use instead? A magical incantation?'
Lev gives the first laugh Zach has heard from him, a rough snort like an animal's-a polar bear's chuff. Lev lifts his long jumper, exposing an age-darkened knife sheath on a belt. Zach can see the Puma logo embossed on the leather, and the distinctive staghorn handle that generations of hunters have reached for.
'You must be sudsing,' Zach says. 'Easier to melt a glacier with a hair-dryer.'
'We'll see. Now eat up, we'll need the energy. I meant it, you know, about meat.'
They finish their coffee and bowls of salty porridge to the accompaniment of singing from the kitchen. Chloe has a lovely voice, Zach acknowledges silently, a rich alto just smoky enough to be at home in a dimly lit club. For a moment he imagines an old song, a bitter song, dark as stout and liquid as tears yet with a touch of sweetness, a song pursued by the pleading voice of the clarinet, its subtle and bittersweet disharmonies, but never diluted, never tainted, never contained; siren song.
Without comment Lev carries their dishes to the kitchen. The singing stops, and Zach hears low voices, though only snatches of what's being said. Lev returns with a bottle of dark yellow oil, which once unstopped gives off a strong fishy odour. 'Rub it on your skin,' Lev says. 'Polar bears have an acute sense of smell, even over vast distances.'
'I haven't agreed to this misadventure yet. Ethan shouldn't be left.'
Lev explains that Chloe will apply ice packs to Ethan's groin and armpits if his fever worsens. 'The therapy programme is built upon learning to assume responsibility, isn't it?'
'It's a bit early to expect any changes.'
'Chloe's prickly but not unfeeling. It's not for me to tell you your job, but there's nothing you could do for Ethan at this stage that she can't. And maybe you yourself ought to remember that she's more vulnerable than she pretends.'
Zach accepts the bottle in silence.
Chapter 5
For a week Laura was determined not to watch for Zach. Once she saw his distinctive hair skimming above the roil in the corridor outside the gym, but by the time she elbowed through the mass of kids, he was gone. Another time she was standing with Owen and Olivia in the canteen and could feel someone's eyes on her, but when she glanced round there was nobody of interest.
Owen asked one or two questions, which Laura dealt with effortlessly in her best offhand tone, breezy enough to power a small wind turbine. Olivia wouldn't have been fooled-or dishevelled-for a moment. As follow-up, Laura gave Owen exactly ten minutes in the infamous (and fetid) 'broom room' which was used by everybody for that purpose. Some kids even claimed the teaching staff knew all about it and were prone to retire there themselves on occasion, when they needed to blow steam after a stressy couple of lessons. Lots of the younger girls racketed on about sightings, about possible pairings, but except for a six-week period when she'd done a bit of dozy daydreaming over the new bearded DT head-half the school pitched up at auditions for Midsummer that term-she'd never been particularly keen on the secret lives of bees, or narwhals, or teachers.
Lads her age were so pathetic. There must be one token male in her year who didn't walk around with a permanent stiffy, but she'd yet to meet him. At least Owen played within the foul lines. She and Olivia spent a lot of time thrashing it over, but Livs had been going with older lads for ages, she was bound to see it differently. She'd come round Thursday after swimming club, bringing an extra-large packet of Laura's favourite crisps. They turned up the music loud, then louder.
'Pissed at your mum?' Olivia asked.
Laura turned the music up even louder and ate a fistful of crisps, and another.
'Save some for me,' Olivia said.
'Thought you wanted to lose two, three kilos?'
'Damien says he likes my womanly curves.'
'Your big tits, you mean.'
'You're just jealous,' Olivia said, hefting them in her hands.
They both giggled, nearly spilling a can of diet fizz, then crunched companionably together on the floor cushions-handsewn. They'd known each other since primary, and even Olivia, who'd never liked Laura's mum, was a bit envious of their tidy house and tins full of home-baking and T-shirts that were always ironed. Her own parents were divorced, and nobody much bothered in either of the flats.
During a brief lull between tracks they could hear Laura's mum shouting something from the downstairs hallway. 'Better turn it down,' Olivia said, 'not the right time to wind her up, is it?'
'What do you mean?'
Olivia licked some salt off her lips before answering. 'You know. The auger.'
'Don't call them that!'
'Hey. This is Olivia, remember.'
'Just don't use that word.'
Olivia picked up the remote and adjusted the volume on the system. 'OK, what's going on?'
'Nothing's going on. I just don't like that Purist crap.'
'It's not crap. My dad says-'
'Fuck your dad! Since when have you begun to quote him?'
'Listen girl, you'd better watch it, and not just your mouth neither. I don't have to tell you what's going to happen if you start going round with augers.'
'And I told you that I don't want to hear that sort of language. It's narrow-minded and ignorant and stupid.'
'You're calling me stupid now? You, who can barely pass a course at school?'
Laura rose to her feet, snatching up the unfinished packet of crisps, which she thrust at her best friend. 'Here, take them with you. You might get hungry on the way home.'
They stared at each other for a short while, then Olivia too stood up.
'OK, I'm going,' she said. 'But you're making a big mistake, and we've been mates too long for me not to warn you. Zach's poison. I mean it. Poison. There's girls who'll sleep with augers for the thrill of it, but they always-always-end up sorry. If you don't believe me, ask Jackie. Ask her why her sister quit school last year. Ask her where Anne is now. And most of all, ask her which mulac bastard fucked Anne so good that she locked herself in her room one Monday and swallowed enough pills to sort herself for good. Real good.'
Laura shook her head. 'He's not like that.'
'And you're calling me stupid?'
* * *
Although names were listed at most of the vid monitors, Laura recognised none of them and didn't fancy ringing indiscriminately. It was a roughish area near the East Street Canal. A boy in last year's blades, the left one with a broken buckle, had stopped trying to barrel roll on the pavement without falling and was watching her. She would have liked to suggest some basics, like bending his knees more, but he'd probably tell her to piss off. 'Rad skating,' she said. 'Much better than my brother.' In exchange for a packet of sweets he unlocked the front door to the building and directed her to the right flat.
'He's one of those weirdo mulacs,' the boy said. 'What do you want with him anyway?'
Weirdo mulacs. Laura bit the inside of her cheek till she could speak casually. 'I'm supposed to bring him some homework. He's missed a lot of lessons.'
'He probably won't bother to answer.' Thrusting the sweets into a pocket, he clumped down the front steps, his curiosity dampened by the mention of school. The door shut on his loud oath as he landed on his arse. Somebody ought to buy him a helmet, Laura thought. His brains are already scrambled enough.
There was no doorbell. Laura knocked several times, and after a five-minute wait, knocked again. Finally, ready to give up, she heard footsteps. When Zach opened the door, he stared at her without a word. Underneath the faint stubble she could see the angry bruise on his chin, like a slap in her own face. She lifted her hand towards it, but he stepped back and began to shut the door.
