The Dying Fall

Chapter 9: Pianos & Pat-downs

Song for this chapter:

Chapter 9: Pianos & Pat-downs

If music be the food of love, give me excess of it…

If music be… love, give me excess of it…

If music be… life… give me excess of it…

Until I die

Until I die

Until I…

Carrie paused, aware suddenly of her own whispered voice in the chilly afternoon air. She glance around her at the still woods and then got up to walk around the log she’d been sitting on. Although she had slept in, the late night at the undersound was making itself felt and all she really wanted to do was spend the day curled up under a blanket. Instead, here she was at Reddick Hill again, hoping Nano was going to show up with her cash and the password to the bookshop in Carsle. She’d left her mother a note on the kitchen table to say she was spending the day at a friend’s house. Part of her wished this was true. It would have been a much better idea than meeting Nano to exchange stolen goods for cash so that she could take a bus to the nearest sub-city, buy a banned text from a backroom dealer and smuggle it home, hopefully without getting caught by the Patrol. Carrie wasn’t sure what drove her to keep putting herself in such precarious situations; she just knew that if she didn’t find a way to get this song out of her head she was going to find herself singing it on the bus to work or in the street, and there was only one way that would end.

The muffled sound of voices nearby sent Carrie backing up against a tree, her eyes scanning for the source. About twenty metres through the trees ahead of her, she glimpsed a pair of figures heading in the direction of the public path. From the colour and style of their clothes, they weren’t Patrol officer or Rangers, but locals, who, like her, had risked the penalties of trespassing to escape from the surveillance of everyday civilian life. As the figures and their conversation disappeared in one direction, Carrie heard the sound of another set of footsteps brushing through the brittle undergrowth. A minute later, Nano appeared and Carrie almost smiled with relief.

“Made it home all right then?” Nano said.

Carrie came forward to meet him. “Have you got my money?”

“Do you even know how to say “Hello, how are you?” or “Nice to see you”?

“Do you know how to do a deal without winding up the other party first?”

Nano took his pocketbook and an envelope out of his jacket, tore a page out of the book and then held it out with the envelope to Carrie. “Weekly receipt and payment.”

Carrie checked the receipt and then counted the cash in the envelope. It wasn’t a life-changing amount but it was certainly more than she got paid for overtime at the Plant. She took out her green cloth bag, shoved the cash and receipt inside and pulled out the pieces she’d picked up on Thursday and Friday. Handing them to Nano, she waited as he made a note of them in his pocketbook.

“Okay,” Nano said, tucking the book and items into the inside pocket of his jacket. “That’s the boring bit done. Now, are you sure I can’t interest you in another sort of transaction?”

“I just want the location and password for the bookshop in Carsle.”

“Sure,” Nano said with a shrug. “But I’ll do you one better and take you there myself.”

Carrie was thrown for a second by his offer, delivered more as a decision than a suggestion.

“That’s not necessary,” she replied bluntly.

“Have you been to Carsle before?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a big place. I know where the bookshop is and I know the backroads if we need them—I’ll take you there.”

“Why would we need the backroads?”

“Have you thought about how you’re going to avoid a Patrol stop and search if you find what you’re after?”

Carrie hesitated and Nano gave her a long look before she replied.

“All right then.”

“I’ll meet you at bus stop eleven, in half an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to ditch my gear. Don’t worry, I won’t stand you up.”

He began walking away and Carrie followed quickly after him.

“You are going to give me the location and password still?” she asked.

“At the bus stop,” Nano said without looking round.

The decisiveness of his tone told Carrie there was no point trying to pester him, so she stood still and watched him disappear through the trees. On the one hand, she was uncomfortable with Nano tagging along on her quest for a music book. He was only going to tease her about it or use it to coerce her into some other illegal and addictive behaviour. But on the other hand, she was relieved she wouldn’t have to go to Carsle on her own. There was a greater Patrol presence in the sub-city, not without good reason, and travelling in a pair felt safer.

After she had given Nano long enough to get back to the public path so it wouldn’t look like they’d planned to be on Reddick Hill at the same time, Carrie made her way out of the woods and back down to town. Bus stop eleven was less than half a mile away so she didn’t bother hurrying. Cautiously, she let her thoughts return to their main preoccupation, giving them space to roll melodies and words together.

If music be life, give me excess of it

Until I die

That strain again…

It had a dying fall…

When the bus stop came into sight, Carrie cut the exercise short. She took a seat on the bench where a couple of other people were waiting, and concentrated on sitting still and watching the foot traffic on the street. Everyone looked as if they had something on their mind, hurrying along the pavement with focused expressions, their eyes cast downwards. No one was out for a stroll, to enjoy the cool autumn air, or look about them at the amassing clouds on the horizon and the weak fall of sunshine on the grey surroundings. Carrie wondered whether, behind any of those serious faces, there were minds alive with thoughts as treacherous as her own. How many of those passing by had an addiction that brought them both private joy and crippling shame?

The numbers at the undersound had surprised Carrie. They represented a tiny fraction of the local population but there had still been more of them than Carrie would have ever expected. Surely the Patrol had to notice when that many people crept out of their homes after curfew? Carrie could only assume that Dryce had a few Patrol officers in his pocket if he was able to run such an extensive operation. Carrie’s stomach flipped a little as it occurred to her she was now part of Dryce’s empire—not just as an undersound attendee but as a scrap dealer too—one rung below Nano on the ladder of the crime hierarchy. As far as she was aware, even Savannah hadn’t gone this far in her illicit activity.

Nano arrived just as the bus to Carsle pulled up at the stop, and he had to queue a couple of people behind Carrie. Carrie chose a seat near the front and Nano slid in next to her as the bus pulled away.

“What’s the address and password?” Carrie asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get to Carsle.”

Carrie immediately got up to move to a different seat but found Nano’s legs in her way, where he had his feet planted on the back of the empty seat in front. Nano grabbed her arm and pulled her back down into her seat.

“All right!” he said. “I’ll tell you now.” And he leant in and whispered it in her ear.

Carrie gave him a sceptical look. “That’s it? That’s the password? What does it mean?”

Nano shrugged. “It’s a password—does it have to mean anything?”

“And the address?”

“It’s on Reuel Street—Lewis’s bookstore.”

“You’ve been before?”

“Once, to pick up a package for Dryce.”

“Is there anything you don’t do for Dryce?”

“If you’ve taken money from Dryce, and he asks you to do something, you do it.”

“Even if you know it’s wrong?”

Nano looked amused. “Are you questioning my moral compass?”

Carrie folded her arms and leant back in her seat. “Just wondering if you have one,” she said.

“Sure,” Nano replied. “And it works about as well as yours, I imagine.”

Carrie glanced sideways at him but said nothing and directed her attention to the passing scenery outside the window.

They arrived in the centre of Carsle fifty minutes later and headed to Reuel Street. The sub-city was busy with weekend shoppers and eventually Nano took Carrie’s hand to move them more deftly through the streets and over the tram lines. Carrie was too consumed by her anxiety to pay much attention to the sub-city centre as they crossed it. She’d been to Carsle before, so she already knew that it was as grey and worn as her home town. There was a fountain in the square, surrounded by stained and weathered historical buildings, and a covered market where you could sometimes get imported fruit or cheese for a fifth of your monthly pay packet. Just a little way out of the main square were the Eco Offices, an Enviro-Corps build constructed on the site of an old shopping centre, towering over the surrounding streets like a watchful parent.

Reuel Street was a little way off the main thoroughfare: a road of small businesses, where the owners lived above their shops and every other one seemed to be on the verge of closing. The bookshop was hugged in the middle of the street by a repurposed-furniture shop and a snack bar. Like most of the businesses on the street, the bookshop had a dowdy front, a narrow door and one window, which had Lewis’s Books etched into the glass. As Carrie and Nano went inside, a little bell ‘ting’-ed above the door and a slightly damp and dusty smell greeted them. The shop was sparsely lit by uplighters, spaced between the wooden shelves, and a single circular light hanging from the middle of the ceiling. The shelves were neat and labelled with beautifully hand-painted signs: autobiography, biography, domestic crafts, health & wellbeing…

The majority of the books were second-hand, their covers faded, spines bent and pages yellowed. The newest publications were displayed on a table in the middle of the shop floor with the sign Environmental History hanging beneath the light fitting. As well as books, small cabinets and tables offered stationery, like pens, notebooks and bookmarks, all relatively plain-looking. There was a counter at the far end of the shop, on the right-hand side, and to the right of the counter a curtain was drawn across the other half of the back of the shop. Signs nearby indicated that behind the curtain was the Reference Only section.

There were a couple of other customers perusing the shelves, so Carrie and Nano made a brief show of looking around before moving to the counter. A woman in her early twenties was behind it, unpacking a stack of boxes and checking off the contents on a data pad. She looked up as they approached and pushed her glasses to the top of her head.

“Can I help you?” she asked in a monotone, as if she wasn’t really that interested in the answer.

Carrie held a breath as the question hung in the air for a few seconds. She realised that if she had been on her own, she would probably have turned around and walked out empty-handed, too riddled with doubts to go ahead with her plan. What if the password was wrong? What if this was the wrong bookshop? What if another customer became suspicious? What if this was a trap?

Nano seemed to have no such doubts as he casually flicked some crocheted keyrings hanging from a stand on the counter.

“We’re looking for a particular book,” he said.

“What’s the title?”

“Room 101.”

“It’s in the reference section,” the woman replied with the same indifferent tone. She indicated the curtain.

“Thanks.”

The woman went back to her boxes and Carrie and Nano passed through the curtain into the Reference Only section. It was a snug area, with one wall of shelving, a couple of smaller bookcases and an old armchair and folding table squeezed almost on top of each other.

“What now?” Carrie whispered.

“Give it a second,” Nano replied.

Carrie glanced around her at the bookshelves and noticed that one was positioned half-way across a door. There was a thin crack visible between the door and the walls, which were all painted in the same pale green colour. Underneath the paintwork of the door was a shadow where there had once been a handle. There was no handle there now, but, as Carrie stared at it, the crack widened and the door slid silently to one side behind the shelving. A woman’s hand, with beautifully manicured nails, beckoned to them through the gap.

Nano immediately stepped forward and slipped between the bookshelf and the doorpost, and Carrie followed after him into a gloomy hallway. A woman in her fifties, with carefully coiffured hair, refined cheekbones and lipstick-layered lips, slid the door shut behind Carrie and it locked with a soft ‘click’.

“I’m Mrs Lewis. This way, please,” she said, leading them a little way down the hallway to another door. This one opened on a cleaning cupboard, which had another sliding panel at the back of it that opened on a steep stairway into the cellar.

The shopkeeper flicked on a light and led the way down the concrete steps into a low-ceilinged space under the shop. This space was nothing like the shop above. In the dim light, Carrie’s first impression was that she’d stepped into a junk room where a few decades of tat had been dumped. There were no signs, no neatly ordered shelves or displays. There were just piles and piles of books, with a few assorted items of furniture, rugs and paintings stuffed amongst them.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” Mrs Lewis asked.

Carrie hesitated for a moment, struggling to find the courage to voice her request to a complete stranger. “Do you have any books on music?” she asked tentatively.

“Yes.” Mrs Lewis began making her way through the stacks of literature. “What sort of music book are you after?”

Carrie followed after Mrs Lewis along the narrow path of the red-painted floor, her gaze drifting over the jumble of books in wonderment. The books here were much older and worser for wear than the books upstairs, and each title promised a forbidden fiction within its pages. Carrie could have spent hours perusing the ones that caught her attention if she’d had the time and if she didn’t fear starting another addiction.

“I have music history books, biographies of composers, instruction books for a range of instruments, theory books on genres or eras…” Mrs Lewis continued, stopping at a book-laden table and crouching down to pull several boxes from underneath it.

Carrie threw a quick glance at Nano, who was browsing through a pile of books across the aisle. “Do you have anything on how to write music?” she asked, lowering her voice a little.

“Might do,” Mrs Lewis said, heaving one of the boxes onto the table. “Try this box first.”

As Carrie stepped forward, Mrs Lewis moved aside and began rearranging the contents of another table. Carrie ran her fingers over the tops of the books stacked upright in the box and then plucked out the one at the front.

The Sound of Blue: a history of Jazz.

A track from a JAZZ bud stirred bitter-sweetly in Carrie’s memory. She ran her thumb along the open edge of the book. Buds in this genre were rare and extremely expensive and JAZZ was a distinctive sound she would have loved to explore further. But not today. Carrie slipped the book back into the box and turned to the rest of the titles.

Grade 6 Cello.

Rock Gods and Their Legacies.

The Birth of Music: the sounds of the ancient world.

It was hard not to get distracted by each one, particularly those that offered tantalising glimpses into a lost world where the object of her obsession had once been a permissible pleasure. When she was nearly halfway through her first box, Carrie found Nano suddenly at her side.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked.

Carrie ignored him as she scanned the last few texts and then put the box on the floor and picked up the next one.

“Have you read one of those before?” she asked, indicating the book in Nano’s hand.

“A fiction book? No.”

“That’s a shame,” Mrs Lewis commented from her table. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“More trouble, probably,” Carrie murmured.

“Have you read all of these?” Nano asked Mrs Lewis.

“Most of them,” Mrs Lewis replied.

Carrie paused in searching through the second box and half-turned to look at the shopkeeper. There had to be thousands of books in this cellar. “Do you remember all of them?” she asked.

“Of course,” Mrs Lewis turned to face them both and leant back against her table with one ankle crossed over the other. “I remember every plot, every character, every world. Forgetting them would be like forgetting old friends.”

Nano weighed the book in his hand. “Can you really get a high from this?”

“Yes,” Mrs Lewis replied softly. “But it’s not just about the high is it? It’s everything else you get from it—the freedom, the escape, the things you learn that you never knew you needed to learn, the inspiration... the story becomes part of you.”

Nano cast his eye around the treasure trove. “That’s a lot of inspiration.”

Carrie turned back to her box, thinking about the quote on the first page of Savannah’s journal—the one that had become melded into the song she was trying to exorcise. Where had her sister read it? Carrie knew of Shakespeare, of course: they had sometimes been made to watch state productions of his plays at school, but they were always bleak and relentlessly political. A popular one was A Midsummer Night’s Dream: a story about the delicate relationship between humans and nature, and a warning to stay out of the woods on Reddick Hill and off protected land. As far as Carrie was aware, there were no faeries in the woods, just Rangers with radios and firearms, who’d report you to the Patrol if you were caught trespassing.

‘That strain again! It had a dying fall:

… like the sweet south

That breaths upon a bank of violets.’

Carrie had no idea what a bank of violets looked or smelled like, and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be allowed within a mile of one if it existed. When she was little, she had spent summer evenings poring over a flora and fauna photography book her mother owned, gleaning some sense of pleasure in the fact that the wild plants between its pages were out there somewhere, protected by the laws that kept her confined to the state-designated areas for human residence and activity. But not long after her father left, she started to wonder if those pictures were just fairy tales and she fell out of love with them. How could you love something when you didn’t know how it smelt or how it felt between your fingers? If you had no experience of it, what did it matter if it existed? It was a heretical thought—but then there wasn’t much left in her life that wasn’t a heresy.

Carrie’s fingers stopped their search through the books in the second box as a title caught her eye. My Notes: step by step junior music guide. Eagerly, Carrie scanned the first few pages. The book was designed for children but that was perfect, since she was starting from scratch and this looked easy to understand. She tucked the book under her arm, put the box back on the floor and looked around for Mrs Lewis and Nano. The latter was working his way to a corner of the cellar with a quick step, as if he had spotted something interesting, and Mrs Lewis had moved from her table to follow casually after him.

“Holy Earth!” Nano exclaimed, stopping in front of a large object that was covered by a sheet. “Is this…?” He hesitated and looked around at Mrs Lewis, who nodded.

“Go ahead—take a look.”

Nano took hold of the edge of the sheet and lifted it back to reveal an upright piano. Carrie’s chest tightened with a stifled gasp and she found herself crossing the cellar to stand next to Mrs Lewis.

“Does it… does it work?” she asked.

“Yes.” The thrill was evident in Mrs Lewis’s voice. “You wouldn’t believe what had to be done to get it here—or how many people I had to bribe. But it does work and it’s tuned.” She stepped toward the instrument as Nano moved aside for her, and played a few bars of a simple folk tune.

“You can play,” Nano said, almost breathless with surprise.

“If you read the right books you can learn anything,” Mrs Lewis replied. She looked at Carrie. “Want to try?”

Carrie drifted forward until her fingers touched the ivory-coloured keys. She loved the piano. She loved its sound and its range—how it could express on the one hand a playful joy and on the other a deep melancholy. The soundtracks to state videos were all synthetic-sounding: A.I. created melodies that meshed brazen brass and tinny percussion, designed to signal the importance of a message, not elicit an emotional response. But the piano had a pure sound and Carrie had been obsessed for a long time with a CLASSIC piano bud she’d owned. The high had nearly made her sick with heartache. And then Savannah had borrowed it and been shot dead with its seduction in her ear.

Aware that she was holding her breath, Carrie pressed a key and the note rang out, flinging itself at the concrete walls and pinging back to the vibrating string beneath the old, rubbed wood.

“That’s an A,” Mrs Lewis said. She pressed a white key to the left of a pair of black keys with her thumb. “Middle C,” she explained as the piano sang the note. She moved her fingers along the white keys to her right, naming each one as she played it. “D, E, F, G, A, B, and C again. Now, you try.”

Carrie placed her music book on top of the piano and played the notes Mrs Lewis had shown her, repeating the letters as she did. As she hit the second C note, an instinct took over her fingers and they tentatively played out the first strain of Savannah’s song.

“That’s pretty,” Mrs Lewis said with a sober inflection in her voice that made Carrie look up at her.

“Can you repeat this on the keys?” Mrs Lewis asked, and she began humming another few bars of the folk song.

Carrie played the first half of the tune on the piano and then got stuck finding a note.

“Try one of the black keys,” Mrs Lewis intervened.

Carrie did as she suggested, found the key she wanted and played the tune through.

“You have a good ear,” Mrs Lewis said. “Ever played before?”

“No.”

Mrs Lewis nodded thoughtfully. “I have something you might find useful.” She moved down the aisle to where a couple of filing cabinets stood. She pulled out a paper booklet and returned to the piano. “Here,” she said, holding out the booklet. “My grandmother put this together.”

Carrie took the booklet—made of black and white photocopied pages stapled together—and scanned the first few pages to find it was a guide to making homemade instruments.

“You won’t get the same quality sound as this,” Mrs Lewis said, tapping the piano, “But you might find it useful if you’re creatively inclined.”

“Oh…” Carrie began to protest, “I don’t—”

“Of course not,” Mrs Lewis cut her off, with a smile. “No one does.” She closed the piano lid and handed Carrie the music theory book. “But just in case,” she added, “Better take it with you.” She pulled the sheet back over the piano. “I’ll get you something to put those in and then we’ll pop upstairs so you can pay.”

Carrie realised Mrs Lewis had been in the illegal book market for a long time as she watched her tuck the music book and instrument booklet into the customised cover of a state-approved gardening book. A sort of envelope had been made from the legal text in which to slide the illegal one, so that pages on planting seasons for vegetables covered over those on staves, quavers and semi-quavers. When they returned to the shop upstairs, the gardening book went through on its own barcode and Carrie handed over payment from the cash Nano had given her earlier that afternoon.

The shop assistant put the book in a brown paper bag before giving Carrie a brief smile. “Take care,” she said pointedly.

Carrie hugged her purchase to her chest as she and Nano stepped out onto the street.

“The next bus home doesn’t leave for forty minutes,” Nano said. “Want to get something to eat?” He indicated the snack bar next door to the bookshop.

“Okay.”

The snack bar was a little grubby and they were served by a disgruntled teenager who slapped the ingredients of their bean wraps together, overfilled their teas, and then handed them over with an unsavoury sniff before taking their money. Carrie took a bite of her wrap as they left the bar and realised she was hungrier than she’d thought as her stomach jumped to life. The mixed beans were bland and the wrap was a little stale, but she wolfed her way through it before Nano had got halfway through his.

“Ow!” Carrie cursed, as she chased down the last mouthful with a swig of scalding tea that burnt the top of her mouth.

“Buying black market texts makes you hungry, right?” Nano said before taking another bite of his wrap.

Carrie gave him a wry look but said nothing as they joined the main thoroughfare through the sub-city centre.

“That tune you played on the piano,” Nano began, after he’d finished his wrap. “The one you made up—”

“I told you, I didn’t ma—” Carrie tried to cut him off, but Nano continued right over her.

“It’s been stuck in my head since I heard you singing it in the woods—though I can’t remember the words… but the tune I definitely remember.”

Carrie glanced around her and up at the Eco Office they were passing. “Nano—” she tried again, genuinely wondering if he’d lost his mind and fearful he was going to start humming in the street.

“If you’re going to keep telling me you didn’t make it up, Carrie, I’m going to keep calling you a liar.” Nano suddenly ducked in front of her so she had to pull up short. “Listen, I might be able to help you, if you help me.”

“I don’t need any help.”

“Then what is the music theory book for? If you want to get that tune permanently out of your head, I can help you do it.”

“You mean make a track?”

“Yes.”

“Really?” Carrie scoffed, stepping around him and increasing her pace as she carried on down the street. “You’re full of it, Nano.”

“I told you: with enough money and the right contacts you can get hold of anything you need, to do anything you want,” Nano persisted, keeping pace with her. “You have a tune; I have the production equipment—most of it.”

“I see,” Carrie replied, “I’m one of your contacts now, am I? You want stuff from the Plant.”

“You do it for Dryce already.”

“Are you going to pay me?”

“Shit, Carrie, is money all you care about?”

Carrie knew he was teasing, but she sensed a slightly edgier sentiment beneath his sarcasm and she felt instantly conflicted. She was tempted by Nano’s proposal, but she also knew he was offering her a line to cross from which there was no going back. If she wasn’t careful, in a few months she’d be lurking under bridges, dealing highs—and her mother’s fears would be realised. But if she let Nano help her turn Savannah’s song into a track, she’d have created something tangible for her sister.

Carrie slid her gaze across to Nano as they walked in silence to the square, where the fountain was splattering dismally: he had his hands in his pockets and his chin dipped into his collar. She knew his silence was only temporary, whilst he let his latest temptation break past her objections. They reached the fountain and sat on the lip of the bowl, watching a small flock of starlings peck at the cracks between the paving slaps.

“What do you need?” Carrie asked eventually.

“A CPU would be a good start. And some copper wire.”

“Is Dryce going to approve of this?”

“Dryce can’t approve or disapprove of what he doesn’t know.”

Carrie swore with a resigned sigh.

“He won’t care, anyway,” Nano added.

Carrie shook her head at herself. “I’ll think about it.”

“I’m going to take that as an admission you did make up that tune.”

“That is not going to persuade me to help you.”

“I think you’re already pretty persuaded.”

“Every time I see you I seem to be persuaded to do something stupid.”

Nano cocked an eyebrow. “I’d like to remind you that you came to me about trading scraps from the Plant.”

Carrie scrunched her nose because he was right. She was also the one who had asked about the book, and it wasn’t as if Nano had had to twist her arm about the undersound.

“Did Savannah ever go to Lewis’s?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Were you just her dealer or were you friends too?”

Nano’s brow creased as he watched the starlings. “We were classmates. We weren’t exactly friends, but weren’t exactly not either.” He gave Carrie a mirthless smile. “You know how it is.”

“Yeah.” Carrie shrugged. She hadn’t exactly cultivated any friendship for the past year and a half. Her relationship with Nano, despite its symbiosis, was probably the closest thing she had to a friendship: not exactly friends; not exactly not friends either. They needed each other in different ways but for the same reason: they were both hopeless addicts.

They didn’t stay much longer in the square and headed to the bus stop to wait for their ride home. As Carrie watched the clock on the electronic timetable tick over, she realised she was willing it to slow down. Each minute that passed brought her closer to walking back into her house, where she’d have to face her mother’s questions.

Just a few minutes before their bus was due, Nano suddenly tensed beside Carrie and swore between his teeth.

“Here we go,” he muttered.

Carrie followed his gaze to see a pair of Patrol officers coming down the street towards them. The book in her arms became a lead weight and she remembered with a sickening flash that she had a wad of cash in her pocket. Her instinct was to run. But that would obviously signal she had something to hide, so she fought it to remain seated.

“Do you think they’ll leave us alone?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Sure enough, the officers stopped in front of the bus stop bench. Carrie tried not to bristle as they looked her and Nano up and down. One of the officers held out a hand for their I.D. cards. Carrie stared at the pair as she handed her card over, trying to breath naturally and ignore her heart hammering in her chest. It wasn’t just her fear she had to control, but a potent anger that wanted to lash out at everything the black uniforms represented. Everything about the officers was in sharp contrast to their environment: so new, crisp and shiny, from their high-collared jackets, padded with bulletproof vests and decorated with gold emblems on their upper arms—one for the Patrol service, one for their region, another for their rank—to the weapons holstered in their belts and the way their gloved hands seemed to naturally rest there, ready for the slightest provocation… like a girl listening to a bud in the street, not a mile from her home…

The officer handed their I.D. cards back and signalled they were to stand for a search.

“What are you doing in Carsle?” the other officer, a man with grey-speckled hair, asked.

“Just doing some shopping,” Carrie replied as she put the brown paper bag on the bench and raised her hands from her sides.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Birthday present for my mum,” Carrie said, watching as the officer picked up the bag and took out the book.

He looked at the cover and then flicked it open. “Gardening book,” he told his partner as she patted Carrie down.

The female officer reached the bulge of cash in Carrie’s jacket pocket and pulled out the green cloth bag. Carrie suddenly remembered the receipt Nano had given her, which was folded up in the middle of the wad. The officer opened the bag and pulled the wad out. “That’s quite a bit of money,” she said.

“I’ve just been paid,” Carrie said smoothly, hoping the officer wasn’t going to open the wad and count out the notes. There would be no plausible explanation for the receipt. Carrie was aware that the gardening book had been placed on the bench and the other officer was now patting Nano down. She hoped to Earth he really had ditched his gear before he’d got on the bus to Carsle with her.

“Just been paid?” the female officer mused. “And all you’ve got your mother for her birthday is a book?”

“The rest is for the rent,” Carrie said, a little more acidly than she’d intended. She caught sight of their bus turning into the street.

“And what’s your story?” the greying officer asked Nano.

“Just tagging along,” Nano replied.

The officer squinted at him as he finished his pat-down. “Is this supposed to be a date?” he smirked.

“Well, she keeps asking,” Nano said dryly, “And there’s only so many times I can say no.”

The bus pulled up to the stop and a few people ducked out of it, keeping their heads down as they spotted the officers, and dashing off as fast as they could.

“This is our bus,” Nano said. “Can we go?”

The male officer looked at the gardening book, the wad of cash his partner was still holding, and then at Carrie and Nano. For a moment, Carrie thought he was going to search them again, knowing the bus wouldn’t wait for them; but instead he gave them a smart nod of consent.

“You can do better,” he said to Carrie with a wink and nod at Nano, as she grabbed the book from the bench and her money from the female officer.

Carrie couldn’t muster even a superficial smile as she darted after Nano. The bus was already moving when she slumped into the seat next to Nano, but she couldn’t relax until it had turned onto the main road and the Patrol officers disappeared from view.

“That was close,” Carrie said, leaning back in her seat and catching Nano’s eye.

“I’ve had closer.”

Carrie gave Nano a wry look. She wanted to believe he was exaggerating, but she honestly found it more incredible that he had got away with dealing highs on the street this long without getting caught. If he was caught, he would be sentenced to neurosensory corrosion and at least a decade in prison. The sentence was supposed to deter anyone from breaking the Degenerative Recreational Drug Laws, but judging by the black market world Carrie was sinking into like she was in quicksand, it wasn’t working as well as the state hoped. She and Nano were such small cogs in the underground trade, no one would notice if the Patrol plucked them out: the machine would keep grinding on. One day, Carrie thought, she might turn up at the railway bridge at the market and Nano wouldn’t be there.

The thought made Carrie shift uncomfortably in her seat and Nano caught her troubled look.

“Do you ever think of quitting?” Carrie asked.

“All the time.”

“But you don’t ever try?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Nano gave her a steady look. “You know why not.”

He didn’t need to say anything else; Carrie understood. They had the same problem: they couldn’t quit their habit, because, however dangerous, it was all they had to keep them going and get them through each day.

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Next: Chapter 10—A New Deal

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Author’s Notes:

Gold star if you can identify all the literary references in this chapter ;)

Chapter 10: A New Deal, coming next weekend.

PJ

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