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We went to the ganger lines at Tate and I took my place in the queue. When I saw the man at the head of the line was the same one I had spoken to before, I thought fate might be looking after me for a change, and even more so when he recognised me.
‘Get your registration sorted, boy?’
‘Yessir,’ I answered, smiling. ‘They told me it’s fine now.’
‘Well, you know the drill,’ and he held out the thumb pad. I did what was expected of me, and felt the world crash around my ears when the damned scanner farted at me. The ganger’s face clouded.
‘Wasting my damned time, boy? Get out of the queue and don’t come back.’
‘Please, it should be right. What does it say?’
The ganger flicked a glance down at the terminal, then looked more closely. ‘Hmmm. Okay, you are registered, but you have no permit to work because your food ration is suspended?’ He glanced up at me. ‘Who’d you piss off, boy?’
‘Can I work and you just give me the ration?’ I pleaded. I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and my stomach was hurting-hungry.
The ganger shook his head. ‘Can’t do it. You’re no use to me. Get out of the queue and go find somebody else to annoy. I don’t want to see you back here again.’
As I was drawing breath to argue somebody behind me pushed me out of line, and I decided that if I didn’t want to get thumped, backing off was the best idea. Didn’t make me any less hungry, though, and now it seemed I had no way of earning food either. Or maybe there was one place. I hurried back to the safe house Corina had found for us. It was only ten minutes from Tate at a quick walk, and I wanted Corina to be back on charge before I left her.
Her body flickered into existence as soon as I hooked everything up, and she glared at me. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Can’t tell you.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘Either. Look, I don’t want to risk taking you with me, or even wearing the halo.’
She looked stricken, afraid. ‘Jax, you know I don’t like it when I’m not connected to you.’
‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Can’t you read a book?’
She curled her lip at me. ‘I could read my whole library before you could get back.’
I stood up and lifted my hand to tap the halo, but she called out to me.
‘Wait. Disconnect me first.’
'But-?’
‘Please don’t argue. Whatever you are planning has to be dangerous or you would take me, so there is a chance you won’t come back. If you leave me on charge, I’ll go mad, and I’ll be mad for ever and part of me will know it and you can’t do that to me. Disconnect me, then if you don’t return at least I won’t have to suffer that.’
‘But I’ll be back. I promise.’
‘Unplug me, Jax.’
The panic was gone. She looked determined, but pale, and I remembered how bad she had been the last time she had thought she was cut off from the world. I nodded and pulled the white box away from the wall. As I reached up to take the halo off, I got a mischievous urge to blow her a kiss, and the last thing I saw was her face light up with a smile.
The same two heavies were on station at the end of the alley that led to Eddie’s compound.
The blonde nudged his partner’s arm. ‘Looks like the fresh meat couldn’t take a hint.’
Dick stood away from the wall he had been lounging against and moved to block my path. I stopped before I was anywhere near him and spread my arms. ‘Miss Eddie said to come back once I got my registration sorted.’
Blondie came to stand next to Dick and they both looked me up and down in a way that was both insulting and scary at the same time. Dick had his lips pursed like he was going to kiss someone, and I got a feeling that I should make sure it wasn’t me. ‘Do we let him through? She won’t be amused if he’s lying.’
Blondie curled his lip. ‘Worth letting him through to see what she does to him.’ He swaggered away from the middle of the alley and opened an old metal box on the wall. He touched something inside then started talking. He was too far away for me to hear what was said, but he kept looking at me from the corner of his eyes. He shrugged, closed the box, and turned to face his friend. ‘She says to frisk him and send him down.’ Dick’s smile made me shiver.
It didn’t take long, although both of them touched me in places they shouldn’t have — too long and too often. Dick sent me off along the corridor with a swat to my backside and a cheery ‘Hurry back.’ I decided to try to find a different way out rather than go past those two again.
Eddie was sitting at the table by her trailer. She was wearing much the same thing as the last time I saw her, except the blouse was a deep, shining blue and her hair was held back by a clasp that sat at the nape of her neck. She rose when she saw me and climbed the two steps into her trailer. I waited outside until she appeared with the scanner, and I pressed my thumb to it. It farted and she scowled at me. ‘I thought I told you not to come back—’
‘Until I was registered. I am registered.’
She looked surprised and I thought it might have been a while since somebody interrupted her, but she turned back into the trailer. A couple of minutes passed before she stepped outside again, looking puzzled.
‘Well, you are the mystery, aren’t you? First time I’ve ever seen that.’
‘I need work. Even though I’m registered, they won’t take me because they can’t pay my credit into the food bank. I can work, but I need paying in rations, not credit.’
‘And what is it you think you can do for me?’
‘Word is you’re a wrangler. I do rides. I’ve been a mule for years, and never a complaint.’
‘I have all the mules I need, little boy. Unless you’re prepared to give something a little... different a try?’
She knew I couldn’t get food any other way. It was in her smile, but her eyes made me scared. I couldn’t ask what she had in mind, in case she kicked me out. I took a deep breath and said ‘yes.’
‘Five rations for two hours of full sensory interest you?’ Her tongue darted out to moisten her painted lips and I wondered if this might not end up all right after all. She reached behind her, then threw me a food ration.
‘Take a chair over to the far side of the yard while I make some calls, and eat that while you wait. On the house.’
It was nearly an hour later I saw Blondie and Dick enter the yard, both with huge smiles on their faces, and I realised that any happy thoughts I’d had about how this might go had been way too optimistic. Eddie appeared from the trailer dangling a halo from her finger, and she crooked the finger to summon me. ‘Put this on, now.’
The whump in my head was all wrong as the connection set itself up. It was gross, brutal, and made the skin down my back prickle. Eddie handed a holdall to Blondie, then told me to follow them. ‘The boys will show you the ropes,’ she explained with a smile. I nodded and turned to follow. Blondie and Dick had different ideas; each grabbed an arm and marched me out of Eddie’s yard.
I don’t know what the underground space they took me to was originally for, but it smelt of cold oil and rubber. They walked me down a ramp and across to the far side of the space, where light filtered down through grimy skylights and made everything shades of grey.
If it hadn’t been for the hands on my arms I would have run. If there had only been one of them, I might have tried to struggle, to fight free. These two knew what they were doing and whatever I did, it was going to happen. Whatever they had in mind was going to be ugly, and suddenly I wanted to go to the toilet.
Dick pushed me back into Blondie, who shifted himself so he had an arm between mine and my back. His grip was like iron and my feet barely touched the ground. Dick stepped in front of me, smiled a wide smile, and backhanded me across the face.
Nothing had ever hurt so bad, not even when I had been roughed up in the stairwell. My head snapped sideways so far and so hard I thought my neck would break. A hand grabbed a bunch of my hair and I realised that Blondie was only using one arm to hold my arms. With the other he pulled my head around and lined it up for Dick to slap my face in the other direction. Everything went blurry and I would have been on my knees if Blondie hadn’t held me up.
Dick slapped me back and forth. I lost count, but it was slow and deliberate and I realised they were pacing themselves. Made sense. Either of them could have snapped me like a twig, but the longer they could draw this out, the more credits they would get. Didn’t make me feel any better, though.
Blondie called out ‘Tag’ and pushed me towards Dick, who pouted — but still caught me, spun me around, and put me in an even tighter arm lock. Blondie eyed me for a moment, as if sizing me up, then his hand reached towards the waistband of my trousers.
‘Uh uh,’ said Dick, sing-song. ‘Bosslady she say none of that. They wouldn’t pay, and we aren’t to give it away for free.’
Blondie curled his lip, either in anger or disappointment, then swung a fist sideways into my ribs. I let out noise that was part grunt, part scream and went limp as a rag doll while I fought to breathe. Blondie waited, watching me, and at the exact moment I got my breath back, he punched me on the other side.
I had no idea how long the beating went on. At one point they hung me by my wrists from a thick pipe overhead and both worked on my stomach and back at the same time. For another time they tied my hands to my feet and lifted me from the ground as I screamed, as though they were trying to break my back. They kicked my legs, beat my arms with clubs, and ground my hands under their shoes before going back to my face and my ribs. All slowly, methodically, dragging me back from the edge of unconsciousness time after time, laughing as I soiled myself and begged them to stop.
There was a crack inside my chest while Dick was working on my ribs, and I let out a different kind of scream; higher, louder, more visceral. Dick pulled his next punch and looked up at his partner.
‘Tsk, tsk. I think you’ve broken our toy.’ I heard Blondie say behind me.
‘I’ll check,’ said Dick, ‘but I think we’ve done wonderfully well to make it last this long.’ He ran fingers up my ribs, on my left, and when he touched the tender spot I screamed again and flinched as far away as I could. ‘Oops, broke his rib. Real break too, not a crack. Sorry, dear.’
‘We could pretend we didn’t notice?’ Blondie suggested hopefully.
‘Against the rules, sweetie. Can’t kill them, remember? And this could puncture his lung if we wallop him there again. Shall we send him to sleep now?’
The evil chuckle from behind would have made me piss myself again if I hadn’t already emptied my bladder. Dick settled his grip on my arms even more firmly and Blondie ran his thumb down my ribs as he searched again for the exact point of the fracture. With his other hand he took a firm grip on my hair so I couldn’t turn my face away and said ‘this will hurt you far more then it hurts me.’
And then he pushed his thumb against the break. Bone grated against bone, and so much pain that I couldn’t breathe. For hour after hour, he ground his thumb against the crack, filling my body and my mind with white hot pain until my eyes were blind and my own screams echoed and re-echoed in my ears and I faded out.