Skin Read online

  ‘These people are keeping a roof over our heads,’ he growled, before softening slightly. ‘Look, I get it. Really, I do. You’ve been locked away for so long that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to interact like this. Face to face. It feels scary. Wrong even. But I’ve already told you, none of this is really happening. You’re still safe in your little room. No one can make you sick here. This is just a fantasy. And it’s supposed to be fun! The only limits are your imagination. If you don’t believe me, look at this.’

  With that, Colin finally released my hand and took a step back. And then, with an ugly leer, he reached down and tore away his trousers, exposing himself. I gasped. I’d never given much thought to Colin’s penis before. I mean, it was fine. Unremarkable. Neither especially big nor embarrassingly small. The thing between Colin’s legs, however, was like no penis I’d ever seen before. As long and thick as my arm, it twitched menacingly in my direction, its tip glistening with a foul-looking fluid.

  I did the only thing that came to mind.

  I swung out my stiletto and kicked him as hard as I could between the legs.

  Colin let out an agonised scream as he crumpled in two. ‘Jesus, Angela! What the hell is…’

  I didn’t hear the end of his sentence. Instead, I tore off the VR headset and threw it as hard as I could across the room, Colin and the awful nightclub disappearing with it. My hands were shaking so much that it took me a while to get out of the gloves and wetsuit. Once I was free of them, I hurled them towards the furthest corner of the room.

  And it wasn’t until later, when I stood trembling under the shower, that I realised I was crying.

  THIRTY-TWO

  IT WAS DARK by the time we finally pulled up to the car port below our apartment block. There seemed to be some problem with the electric key fob, so Colin had to get out and manually force the gate open. Once we’d parked up, we found the lift wasn’t working either, and so we took the stairs, Charlie skipping excitedly ahead, the temporary hazmat suit he’d been given at the Decontamination Zone swishing with each step. When he reached the double doors at the top of the stairs, though, he turned and ran back to us. Even behind the mask, I could see he was nervous.

  As I pushed open the double doors on to the third floor, I could see why. The flickering lights overhead lent the trashed hallway a surreal, nightmarish quality. As Charlie stooped to pick up a discarded Action Man doll from the floor, Colin yelled at him. ‘Leave it. Don’t touch anything, do you hear me? It could be very dangerous.’

  Charlie dropped the doll and the four of us picked our way quickly across the hallway and into the apartment, which to my relief looked exactly the same as we’d left it. Only now we were each viewing it through the reinforced polycarbonate visor of our respirator masks.

  As Colin shut the door behind us, Amber tugged at the sleeve of my suit. ‘Will you give me a hand with the straps, Mum,’ she said, tugging at her mask. ‘I can’t get it off.’

  I reached down to help her before Colin stepped between us, pulling us apart. ‘What do you think you’re doing? You heard what the man said to us earlier. It’s important we leave our gear on while we’re in the same room.’

  ‘But Dad, I can’t breathe.’

  ‘You’re being silly, Amber. I need you to be a big girl now. Look at your brother. He’s not complaining, is he?’

  As if on cue, Charlie picked up his imaginary machine gun and emptied an invisible chamber into Amber’s chest. ‘Look, Daddy. I’m a soldier!’

  ‘You see, Amber?’ Colin continued. ‘You just need to stay positive. This isn’t forever. It’s just temporary until we can get our rooms converted properly. Besides, it probably won’t even come to that. There’ll be a vaccine soon enough and then things will go back to normal. You’ll see. Now, let’s work out where everyone’s going to sleep, shall we?’

  THIRTY-THREE

  IT WAS LATE by the time I stumbled out of the apartment, the streets totally dark. It was raining, too, water running down my visor, making it hard to see. Not that it made a difference. I knew exactly where I was going.

  As I splashed through dark puddles, it occurred to me that I’d never been out of the apartment at this time before. That was one of the first things they taught us at neighbourhood watch. Bad things happen at night. Not that I cared any more. Nothing could be as bad as Colin and his virtual sex club.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about how different he’d seemed there. Not just physically, but the things he’d said. The way he’d acted. He’d been unrecognisable. Or was he? The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if there’d been a different side to him lurking just below the surface all these decades. Just waiting for an excuse to present itself. I remembered the dismissive snort he gave in the cottage garden, right after he’d killed that man. The slight shrug of his shoulders, even as the man’s brains were leaked onto the grass. And the expression on his face. It wasn’t a smile exactly. More… satisfaction. As if he’d swatted an especially irritating fly. At the time I’d put it down to the stress of the situation we were in. The bravado was a coping mechanism. He was doing what he had to in order to protect his family. To survive. Now, though, I considered another explanation. What if Colin actually enjoyed exerting power over people? What if that’s just the kind of man he was when the chips were down? Someone who could crush a man’s skull without blinking. Who couldn’t see anything wrong with trying to force himself onto someone who clearly wasn’t interested. And without the pesky interference of the real world to keep him in check, maybe it was that Colin who had been free to fester and grow over the past five years. What was it he’d said about TouchSpace? That it allowed you to be whomever you wanted? Well if that was whom he wanted to be, we didn’t have a future together. I didn’t need someone like that. I needed someone kind. Funny. Tender.

  In other words, I needed Jazz.

  As I approached the school, I was distracted by a noise. A scratching in the shadows. The scrape of loose gravel. It was probably just a cat, I told myself. That, or my imagination playing tricks on me. There was nothing to be worried about.

  Seconds later, however, I heard another sound. This time, there was no mistaking it. Footsteps. Heavy boots on concrete, followed by a burst of radio static.

  Soldiers.

  I scanned the street for somewhere to hide. A doorway I could duck into. An alley I could slip down. I was too late, though. Across the road I saw the flicker of a torch light, a cold beam swooping the pitted tarmac, until it caught me. I froze on the spot, shielding my eyes from the harsh halogen glare, before a hard voice called out.

  ‘Hey! Hey you! Stop right there.’

  For a moment, I thought about complying. Perhaps I’d be given a chance to explain. I’d tell him about neighbourhood watch. How I’d got my patrol rota mixed up. Silly old Angela. We’d work everything out and he’d let me go with a warning.

  Then I thought back to the soldiers we’d met while trying to get back into the city all those years ago. Soldiers who didn’t think twice about pointing an automatic weapon at a defenceless child.

  No. There’d be no explaining. No letting me off with a warning. They’d act first and ask questions later. If they asked them at all.

  I pictured myself dropping to my knees, my hands in the air. A government issue boot prodding my face down into the road, settling briefly on the back of my neck. My hands wrenched behind my back and bound with cold metal cuffs before I was dragged screaming into a decontamination car.

  At this point, I’d like to tell you I was thinking of Amber and Charlie. Or even you, my poor sweet Egg. But it’s not true.

  As embarrassed as I am to admit it, I was thinking of Jazz. I had to see him.

  Even if it was just one more time.

  And so, as the soldier screamed at me to stay put, I turned and sprinted, bracing myself for bullets that somehow never came.

  I RAN AND I ran, the rain making it impossible to see where I was going. I hopped walls, scrambl
ed over fences, squeezed down alleys, while the torch light lurched behind me. The radio crackled. The soldier barked expletives. Any moment, I expected an eruption of gunfire, as my pursuer finally lost patience.

  ‘Hey! You! Stop!’

  I kept running, slipping and sliding on the wet tarmac, yet somehow I managed to stay on my feet, until eventually the footsteps behind me grew fainter and fainter and I could no longer hear the soldier’s cries or see his torch. As impossible as it seemed, I had got away.

  Eventually, when I was quite sure I was no longer being followed, I came to a stop. As I gasped to catch my breath, I looked around. To my surprise, I realised I was only a few roads away from the school. Even in my panic, I’d run straight towards Jazz.

  Sticking to the shadows, I splashed forwards until I caught sight of the familiar railings that surrounded the school. Before I reached them, however, I saw something was wrong. Very wrong. There were people in the playground. Vehicles. Lights.

  More soldiers.

  Creeping closer, I saw the school’s front gate hung open, the metal posts lying twisted on the floor, as if rammed at high speed. As I reached the railings, I dropped to my knees, ducking out of sight. Sure enough, three military trucks were parked up in formation around the door of the main building, their engines still purring, lights flashing. Four suited figures stood nearby, automatic weapons levelled at the door.

  My first instinct was to tear off my mask. I needed air. I couldn’t breathe. I wiped the rain from my visor, trying to see. Perhaps Jazz had got away, I told myself. Maybe he’d heard them coming and escaped through the garden at the back. Seconds later, though, a cry went up from the playground. And then suddenly there he was, his limp body being dragged out through the door, a burly soldier on each arm. Was he alive? Dead? It was impossible to tell. Either way, he wasn’t putting up a fight, his head lolling forward, his legs scraping along the tarmac. He reminded me of the roadkill we sometimes used to pass on the side of the road back in the old world. The secret majesty of a deer or fox transformed into a sorry sack of fur and blood and bone. One of the soldiers moved to roll open the door of the nearest van, as the others bundled Jazz inside, slamming the door.

  Before I could react, a second cry rang out from the school. This time it was a female scream. I looked up just in time to see another figure being dragged towards the van. My head began to spin. What the hell was Jazz doing with another woman in there? A woman who, from the looks of it, was dressed only in gym shorts and a top. No mask. No suit. I peered closer trying to get a better look at her. I was too far away, though. All I could make out was a fuzz of dark hair, before she too was forced violently into the van.

  The door slammed shut.

  There was a squeal of tyres.

  A blast of a siren, before the van disappeared into the night.

  PART SIX

  THIRTY-FOUR

  FOR A WHILE , I thought about disappearing. Of just walking into the night and never going home. But then rational thoughts kicked in. What would I do? Where would I live? I didn’t have any answers. And so, with nowhere else to go, I began the long trudge back towards the apartment.

  All along the pitted street, stars smouldered in dark puddles. A world upside down. Heaven in reverse. I thought of Jazz’s fairy lights. How long would it take for his boat to rot away now that there was no one to care for it? Years? Centuries? Or perhaps the school roof would simply collapse, burying it under a ton of rubble. Splintered wood. Concrete. Dust. Either way, it would never see the ocean now. Not that it was ever supposed to. No. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that the boat wasn’t designed to sail. Rather, it was just something he’d built to impress naïve women. Like a peacock flexing his tail feathers, it was simply a brag. A boast. The towering mast only slightly subtler than Colin’s digital cock. And hadn’t it just worked a treat?

  Oh, what a fool I’d been.

  Of course there had been another woman with him there. There had probably been dozens of women. Hundreds. Every one of them led down the stairs to his gaudy little cabin. Every one of them hearing his sob story about the parents who didn’t understand him. Every one of them drunk on vodka.

  No, I realised. In the end, Jazz was no better than Colin. Different, yes. But not better. He only ever had one thing on his mind. I saw that now.

  A breeze was blowing and I felt a chill on my leg. Looking down, I saw the stitching on my suit had come undone, and was now gaping open, revealing my pale thigh beneath. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered.

  I kept walking.

  When the grey silhouette of my apartment block loomed into view an hour later, I almost turned and fled all over again. What was waiting there for me? Children who wouldn’t speak to me? A husband who’d rather spend his nights immersed in a fantasy world? I pictured the years unravelling inside my room while I moved from my desk to the kitchen to the bathroom to my bed and then back again, shackled to a screen.

  Work, eat, sleep, wash, repeat.

  Surely there had to be more to life than that? Or perhaps I was just being greedy. I was one of the lucky ones, after all. I’d survived. I had food. Shelter. A high-speed Internet connection. I had access to the sum of human culture at the click of a mouse. Every book, every film, every song. I could speak to anyone, anywhere. I could shop to my heart’s content. Hell, if I really wanted to, I could lose myself in a virtual world.

  So why did I feel as if I’d been hollowed out? Why did I feel so utterly alone?

  As I drew closer to my apartment, I slowed and then stopped. Parked outside the front of the building was a police van. Of course, it could have been there for any reason. Perhaps one of the other residents had reported a break-in? A domestic disturbance?

  In my heart, though, I knew it was there for me.

  This time, running didn’t even cross my mind. I was so tired, handing myself in would almost be a relief. To defer all responsibility for good. To be told where to go. What to eat. When to sleep. Besides, I’d spent so long locked up by this point, how much worse could a real prison be?

  As I crossed the dark courtyard, the front door creaked open, framing a figure in the light. I froze, my hands in the air, ready to comply with the police officer’s commands. Ready to accept whatever punishment was coming my way.

  To my surprise, however, it was not a police officer who came lumbering towards me. No. Even though they were dressed in a suit identical to my own, I recognised the figure instantly as Colin, something long and metallic gripped tightly in his fist.

  Instantly, my mind flashed back to the nightclub. My stomach lurched. Was Colin out here in the real world to finish the job he’d started? Only this time he’d brought a weapon with him to make sure I didn’t fight him off. For the first time, I realised how scared I was of the man I’d called my husband all these years.

  I was about to turn and run when a light flashed on, and I saw it was a torch Colin was carrying. He called out to me then.

  ‘Angela? Jesus. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.’

  What could I say?

  ‘Don’t tell me you knew she was missing and didn’t say anything?’

  I stared at him, for a moment unable to make sense of either his presence there or of the scramble of words spilling out of him.

  ‘Missing? Who’s missing?’

  ‘Amber! I presume that’s why you’re out here, isn’t it? To look for her? Christ, the least you could have done is let me know. I’ve just spent the last hour upstairs talking to the police.’

  ‘Wait…’ I stalled, the pieces stubbornly refusing to fall into place. ‘Amber is missing?’

  ‘Of course Amber’s missing,’ he snapped. ‘She’s gone to meet up with that boy, Jamal. I just know it. I swear to God if I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him. I’ll actually kill him.’

  ‘But how did you…? When did you…? Missing since when?’

  ‘According to her computer logs, she’s not been onlin
e for nearly thirty-six hours. Apparently she left her treadmill running to throw us off the scent. In fact, if Charlie hadn’t accessed her system, we’d never have found out. He called me just after you… after you logged off. When you didn’t answer, I called the police. I thought you’d both… Never mind. There’s an officer still up there now, going through her things.’ Colin paused, as if something was only just occurring to him. ‘Wait a minute. So if you didn’t know about Amber, what are you doing out here.’

  ‘I, er…’ I floundered. ‘I had a bad feeling. Mother’s intuition.’

  Colin eyed me suspiciously. ‘Whatever. There’s no time to lose. I suggest we split up and start looking. If only we had an address for that fucking Jamal character.’

  I hesitated. ‘But the police… Have they said it’s okay for us to look for her? Won’t we be in trouble?’

  Colin glared at me, his scorn visible even through his clouded visor. ‘My daughter is out here alone. If they want to arrest me, then good luck to them. Otherwise, I’m going to find her and bring her back home. Now are you coming or not?’

  And with that, he turned and stalked off across the courtyard, shouting Amber’s name.

  WE STAYED OUT there for an hour or so, walking in circles until a suited policewoman eventually came down from the apartment. While Colin continued to search, she led me towards her van. Apparently she had a few questions she wanted to ask me. The officer took out her tablet to read her notes.

  ‘We understand this is a difficult time, Mrs Allen, but there are a few things we need to run through with you if that’s okay?

  I nodded.

  ‘The first thing to mention is that we found Amber’s hazardous materials suit and her respirator mask in her bedroom. As there’s no sign of a struggle, I’m sorry to say that we’re working on the presumption your daughter has left the residence unprotected, most likely of her own volition. Now is there any information you could give us that you think might be relevant? How were things at home? Was she happy?’