Alida met Zave at the border of the Northern Edge settlements. She carried her waterskin, Zaneela’s business card (which she kept like a good luck charm) and one of Mum’s favourite cardboard pictures: a photo of an extinct species of whale breaching in a bay surrounded by forested hills with Freedom printed underneath. She’d left behind her cooking utensils and burner, her lamps and all her bedding. She reckoned she wouldn’t need those things in plastic-land. After a few days her neighbours would nab whatever they fancied anyway.
As they traipsed deeper into the Northern Edge Alida gabbed on to cover her nerves.
‘Cheers for helping me, Zee. This is a big deal for me.’
‘No probs.’ Zave kept his head down and his hands deep in his pockets.
The characters of the Northern Edge settlements stared at them as they passed. They had obviously clocked them as outsiders. Alida avoided eye contact but kept track of them out of the corner of her vision.
‘So where are we meeting the truck?’
‘We’re not.’
‘What do you mean? How am I getting into the city without a truck?’
The streets were familiar. The last time she’d been in this part of Northern Edge she’d been with Ganya.
‘The tunnel, Zee?’
He nodded.
He couldn’t be for real. ‘Didn’t it collapse after the supply trucks were bombed?’
‘Yeah, but the tunnel trolls got it cleared out again.’
‘I dunno about this.’ Last time she’d had Ganya and Freel’s clout to get past the tunnel trolls. She couldn’t imagine them taking a clown like Zave seriously.
Up ahead three dark figures stood in the glow of a barrel fire. Alida stopped walking. This was bad news.
‘Come on, Al. It’s legit. I’ve sorted it all out. They’ll want some dosh for passage. That’s all.’ Zave dragged her along by the elbow.
‘Sure, okay.’ That was fair enough. They were business people. She still had heaps of dosh.
The two guys and one chick around the fire stopped chatting and watched them approach.
‘This the girl, Zee-bag?’ One of the guys scratched his beard and sneered at her.
Zave nodded and studied his feet.
‘We hear you want use of our tunnel,’ said the other man, a tall skinny guy with tatts on his neck.
‘I do. How much are you asking?’ Everything was about dosh with this kind of character. A simple commercial transaction.
‘Show us what ya got and we’ll nut out a fair price.’ Beard waved a credit scanner at her.
Alida grit her teeth and held out her wrist. She was about to get fleeced. It was stupid to transact with tunnel trolls without any real clout to wave about. The chick – about Mum’s age, but harder and made up of sharp angles – crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
Beard looked down at his scanner and sucked air through his teeth. He showed the scanner to his buddies. Flames lit their faces all sinister from below. ‘Top work, Zee-bag. You weren’t wrong when you said she was loaded.’
‘What?’ Alida whirled around to the so-called mate who had sold her out.
Zave looked briefly into her eyes then down again. ‘You said you had to get into the city. This’ll get you into the city and help me a little bit too.’
‘You still taking that passenger shit?’ Mum had always told her to never trust a junkie. Even if they were someone you loved. Especially if they were someone you loved.
Zave shrugged.
Alida tilted her chin up. It was no time to show fear. ‘How much do you want?’ she asked Beard.
‘I think we’ll take it all,’ Tatts said.
‘I should’ve guessed.’ Alida held out her wrist again. ‘Take the bloody credits and I’ll be on my way.’ Hopefully Zaneela would help her out financially once she was in the city.
Beard scanned her chip and grinned as the invisible currency disappeared from Alida’s wrist and travelled through the air to his. He put a hand on her lower back. ‘Let me show you to the tunnel.’
‘That’s okay. I know where it is.’ She didn’t have a torch. How would she get through in the dark? Why hadn’t Zave told her to bring a torch? That was the least he could have done if he was setting her up for a mugging. ‘Can I at least get a torch thrown in?’
Beard clamped his arm around her waist. She tried to shrug him off. He grabbed her forearms and Sharpface ran up and slapped something plastic on one of her wrists. There was a flash of warmth before the SmartCuffs moulded to her skin and hardened.
‘Hey!’ Her whole body went cold. What the hell were they doing? She should’ve trusted her instincts and bolted the minute she realised Zave was up to bullshit.
Sharpface and Tatts cuffed Zave. The characters outside the shacks around them stopped chatting and watched warily.
‘What’s this about? I gave you all my dosh.’ What else could they want from her?
‘And we thank you for that,’ Beard said in an attempt at a crisp Citizen accent. ‘Now we have a little labour shortage in our tunnel.’
‘The kids got smashed.’ Sharpface ground a fist into her other palm.
‘What does that have to do with me? Are you telling me the tunnel’s blocked?’
‘That’s what I’m telling you.’
Alida tried to pull away but the guy held her tight. ‘Then let me go. Hell, you can keep the bloody dosh.’ She didn’t care about the credits or that her passage into the city was blocked; she just wanted to bolt. Zave was yelling gibberish as the two other trolls brought him over to the entrance of the tunnel. The characters from the nearby shacks cleared away their chairs and lamps and went inside their homes.
‘See, we would love to let you go, but we need flexible young bods to clear the tunnel.’
‘You jerks. Let me go.’ Alida screamed and kicked as Beard twisted her SmartCuffed arm behind her and shoved her towards the entrance.
Her heel connected with his shin and he bellowed, ‘Kick me again and I’ll break your fucking arm.’ He twisted her arm higher up her back.
‘Okay, okay. Bloody hell.’
Sharpface held a solar lamp and led the way down the stairs. Tatts dragged Zave down behind her. Zave’s yells and curses echoed loudly inside the stairwell. Beard pushed Alida and she stumbled, landing on her knees. He booted her in the tailbone and pain shot all the way up her spine like a jolt from an electropacifier. She crawled the rest of the way down.
At the bottom Beard hooked their SmartCuffs to chains coming out of the tiled walls. The last time Alida had been there littlies had been at the end of those chains. They were dead now.
Zave yelled and cursed. She wanted to wrap her chain around his neck to shut him up. This mess was all his fault.
Tatts chuckled. ‘You should rest. Lotta digging to do tomorrow.’
The trolls left, taking all the light.
Zave stopped yelling a couple of minutes later. Darkness surrounded them. The jolly voices of the trolls filled the night above. The sounds of small movements came from further into the tunnel. Somewhere, water dripped.
‘I’m sorry, Al.’
Alida didn’t bother replying. She had nothing to say to him. He was a jerk and she was a dimwit for trusting him.
‘I thought they’d take the dosh and let you through. I’d get some passenger and you’d get into the city and everyone would be better off.’ He nudged her with his shoulder. ‘I swear I didn’t know.’
Alida moved as far away from him as she could. A jagged piece of chain dug into her arm. She wriggled around and scraped her SmartCuff against the sharp edge. SmartCuffs were notoriously tough, but if she had enough time she might be able to cut through it. She had zero other ideas.
‘I know I’m a dickhead, but I had to think about me. You were gonna go into the city and ditch me. I had to look after myself a bit.’
Alida grimaced. She had planned to ditch him. Everyone had to hustle or have some kind of cagey angle to survive in the Demi-Settlements. Zave was no different.
‘Okay, Zave. Get some rest.’
‘I know I’ve been nothing but a problem for you lately, but –’
‘I don’t wanna hear it. Shut the hell up.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Zave sniffled. ‘Just thought we could talk about it. We’re both in the same shit here,’ he mumbled.
Alida scrolled through the contacts on her implant. She couldn’t ask Ganya or Freel for help, and Zave’s father would be useless against tunnel trolls, as would all of Alida’s neighbours and mates. It wasn’t as though there was some kind of hero brigade or Demi security force she could call. She lingered over Shuqba’s number. Even if Shuqba wanted to help her she’d have to work alone, which would be dangerous and could put her in the shit with her commander. No. She couldn’t involve Shuqba. She definitely couldn’t contact Zaneela. She would cut her off at the first whiff of trouble.
Alida scraped her SmartCuff against the chain again and again and again.