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Two days later, Linnette arrived at the event area, with Forge pushing her in a manual wheelchair. Reece was still under arrest somewhere, and Shanna was in the middle of her third marathon session of party music, but all the rest of our corridor group gathered round Linnette to welcome her back. She was just explaining how she’d fallen on the downway, when the lights in the park ceiling suddenly flared from moon to full sun brightness.
Everyone shaded dazzled eyes with their hands, and cheered wildly. The music abruptly stopped, and a new tune started, the changeover so fast that Shanna had obviously prepared this in advance.
“The suns were shining in the park.”
The girl singing was rated Level 1 like Pasquale, but she’d only come out of Lottery the previous year, so this was her first song that had gained much attention. Some of the crowd knew it, others clearly didn’t, but by the second chorus they’d all got the hang of the tune and words and were singing along.
“The suns were shining in the park.”
Once the song ended, there was a crackle on the sound system, and a faintly embarrassed male voice spoke. “Attention everyone. Blue Zone now has power, but Emergency Services are requesting that everyone stays in the parks for now. Maintenance teams need to get all the upways, downways, and lifts back in action, and hasties have to check the corridors for hazards. They estimate that will take about four hours.”
The crowd booed.
“It’s no use complaining at me,” said the male voice. “I’m only the park keeper. The good news is that Blue Zone’s main freight transport links are already back in operation, and will be bringing in stockpiles of supplies from Turquoise and Navy Zones. We should be receiving a consignment of food and drink within the next two hours.”
There was another crackle and Shanna spoke. “You heard him, everyone. Free food and drink is on the way, and this is going to be real food not emergency ration bars!”
The music started up again and we all yelled the lyrics.
“The suns were shining in the park.”
Forge came to stand next to me, and stooped to shout in my ear. “I’ve just got to go and ...”
The rest of his words were drowned out by the next line of the song, and he hurried off. I assumed that he’d gone to join Shanna.
About an hour later, the crates of food and drink arrived. The people delivering them barely had time to take off the lids before they were mobbed by desperate teens who’d been surviving on water and emergency ration bars for two days.
Half of our corridor group joined the charge for the crates, but I didn’t have the build to fight my way through the crush, so I stood watching their progress with Linnette and Casper. My mind was fully occupied with the prospect of getting decent food at last, so I didn’t notice the music had stopped until Shanna arrived to join us.
“Where is Forge?” she asked.
I frowned. “I haven’t seen him since just after the power came back on. I thought he was with you.”
At that moment, the warriors of our corridor group returned in triumph with a crate that they tipped out on the grass.
“They’ve sent us masses of luxury food and drink!” I rejoiced.
“We deserve it after being starved for days,” said Margot.
“Melon juice, Violet Zone cheese, and Turquoise Zone blueberry crunch cakes!” I dropped to my knees to grab at the bounty. “What would you like, Linnette?”
“Anything will do,” said Linnette, “so long as it isn’t a ration bar.”
I put a random set of food packs and bottles on her lap, and saw Casper was standing looking doubtfully down at the assortment of food and drink. “Would you like to try some melon juice, Casper?”
“I want orange juice and the Blue Zone cheese with holes in it.”
“Melon juice tastes wonderful,” I coaxed. “So does Violet Zone cheese.”
Casper shook his head. “My budget says that I have orange juice and Blue Zone cheese for lunch today. Madeleine from Support Services runs my learning support group. She worked out my budget with me, and she’s says it’s important that I stick to it.”
“We don’t have to pay for these things, Casper,” said Shanna.
Casper still looked doubtful. “Reece told me something was free once when it wasn’t. We should check with someone official.”
Shanna looked irritated, and opened her mouth to say something, but a voice spoke from behind me. “The food and drink is definitely free.”
I knew that voice. It was Buzz! I turned round, and was confused to see she was wearing the red and blue, diagonal striped uniform of Emergency Services.
“Casper, this is like one of the Carnival events that have free food and drink,” she added.
Casper nodded, and smiled happily as he picked out a food pack for himself.
“What are you doing here, Buzz,” I asked, “and why are you wearing those clothes?”
“I chose to wear an Emergency Services uniform to reassure the people we were rescuing from lifts. Now the power is back on, there are a terrifyingly large number of Blue Zone teens that need a psychologist to assess their actions during the power outage and decide on appropriate treatment. I was automatically assigned all the ones in this area, because you’re still on my case list.”
“What? But I haven’t done anything wrong. It was Reece who frightened everyone, not me.”
Buzz laughed. “I didn’t say you’d done anything wrong, Amber. I said that you were still on my case list. The behaviour monitoring alert on you is still active, and has flagged you for multiple actions requiring my attention. I’m curious why you froze in terror on a cliff, but volunteered to wander round in the darkness searching for a lost girl.”
I shrugged. “I’m scared of heights, but I’m not scared of the dark.”
“That’s intriguing given Hive culture encourages a fear of darkness and the Outside.” Buzz sighed. “I wish I could discuss it further with you, but sadly I’m going to be far too busy with all my other cases. I came to see you first, because I hoped I’d be able to deal with your case extremely quickly. You’re uninjured and showing no visible signs of trauma, so I’ll sign you off and leave you to enjoy your meal in peace.”
There was a chime from Buzz’s pocket. She took out her dataview, checked it, and groaned. “A hasty just arrested yet another problem teen and is bringing him in for ... Oh, there they are!”
She waved an arm, and I saw a female hasty coming towards us. I blinked as I saw who she had with her.
“Forge!” Shanna, Atticus, and I chorused his name in unison.
Buzz gave me an amused look. “This is your friend, Forge? The one who rescued you from the cliff?”
“Yes, why has he been arrested?”
“Because a maintenance team caught him crawling through the vent system.” Buzz frowned at the display on her dataview.
I exchanged bemused glances with Atticus. Shanna was glaring at the approaching Forge, and he gave her a nervous look, but neither of them had the chance to say anything before the hasty started talking.
“This is Forge 2514-0253-884. What would you like me to do with him?”
Buzz looked up, studied Forge briefly, and then gave an abrupt nod. “We’re too busy dealing with cases who are a danger to others, to waste much time on a boy addicted to taking risks. We’ll settle for putting a tracking bracelet on him for a month.”
“What?” Forge looked appalled. “A tracking bracelet like the ones that little children wear? You can’t do that to me!”
Buzz grinned at him. “I think we can. You won’t be able to go anywhere you shouldn’t without setting off alarms. Hopefully that will encourage you to keep out of trouble in future.”
The hasty produced a bracelet from her pocket, and took hold of Forge’s arm. “I suggest you keep still and accept the inevitable, because any argument will just end in you wearing the bracelet for longer.”
Forge cringed with embarrassment as the tracking bracelet was fixed around his wrist.
The others had been watching this in silence, but now Margot spoke in a bitter voice. “I hope you’ll give Reece a much bigger punishment than making him wear a tracking bracelet. He terrified everyone. It’s his fault that Linnette broke her leg.”
“My job isn’t to punish anyone’s past actions, but to make sure their future behaviour is beneficial to the Hive,” said Buzz.
“So you’ll let Reece carry on without any penalty at all? What if he hurts someone again? What if he hurts Linnette again?” Margot put a protective hand on Linnette’s shoulder.
“Reece will be given corrective treatment to ensure that does not happen,” said Buzz gently. “Treatment is always more constructive than punishment, however Reece’s disruptive personality traits are likely to have a harmful impact on his Lottery result.”
“Disruptive,” Margot repeated the word eagerly. “You mean Lottery will make him low level?”
“It’s impossible to predict the outcome of a process as complex as Lottery,” said Buzz, “but Reece does not have the cooperative, conformist nature that is required for most positions in the Hive.”
“Good,” said Margot. “I hope Reece comes out of Lottery as a Level 99 Sewage Technician.”
Buzz laughed. “Perhaps he will. Goodbye now.” She turned and walked off with the hasty.
Forge gave a despairing groan. “If I have to wear this bracelet for a month, that means I’ll be wearing it during the next two swimming competitions. The other teams will make my life a misery.”
“Never mind your swimming competitions.” Shanna spat the words at him. “What about the Carnival parties? I’m going to look ridiculous dancing with you when you’re wearing a child’s tracking bracelet.”
She turned and stormed off.
Forge started moving after her, but then stopped. “I expect she’ll need a few hours to calm down.”
“I expect she’ll need a few weeks to calm down, and I can’t blame her for that,” said Atticus. “What were you doing in the vent system, Forge? You’d been stuck in there for days. Amber had to rescue you. Why go back in there again?”
“When Amber let me out of the vent system, I was so busy worrying about how we’d get Linnette to the park that I left my backpack behind. I didn’t remember it until I was having my leg treated by the medical staff. When the power came back on, I thought I could run back and retrieve it before there were any people around to see me.”
Atticus shook his head in disbelief. “What was inside the backpack that was so important?”
“It wasn’t what was inside the backpack,” said Forge. “It was the fact the backpack had my name written on it. I was worried that someone would find it and I’d get into trouble. Unfortunately, there was a maintenance team checking the downway, and they spotted me climbing out of the inspection hatch.”
Atticus sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing that you were caught. Having to wear that bracelet will teach you not to take silly risks in future.”
I didn’t say a word. I didn’t believe that having to wear a child’s tracking bracelet for a month would be enough to cure Forge of taking risks. As soon as it was removed, he’d be asking me to let him use the inspection hatch in my room to go exploring the vent system again. Even worse, I’d probably find myself agreeing to let him do it.
