Fractured by Teri Terry Page B

blood and muscle all thickening, slowing, stiffening. Becoming metal. The trap isn’t around me. It is me.
    The sky is not my friend any more. Air whistles past, and trees rush closer. Plummeting down, down, down….

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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    The next morning Mum is driving us through London streets that I now see with different eyes.
    I see the menace. This close to the hospital, there are Lorders in black operations gear at every corner. They stand in twos and threes: more of them than the last time we came this way. With machine guns. I see the signs of conflict: boarded windows, damaged and abandoned buildings spaced between ones full of life. And most of all I see the real damage, the eyes of a beaten people. In the way they hold themselves, where they look, where they don’t. It is much worse in London than in the country.
    ‘All right?’ Mum asks, and I nod. ‘Your dad will be home when we get back; he called earlier.’ She says the words casually, almost too casual to be anything but contrived.
    ‘Is something wrong?’ I ask, the words out before I can censor them.
    ‘Why do you ask?’
    ‘You seem funny when you mention him, that’s all.’ And I remember how she changed the subject the last time his name came up.
    She doesn’t answer, eyes straight ahead on traffic, until I think she isn’t going to.
    She sighs. ‘Grown-up stuff. It’s complicated, Kyla,’ is all she says.
    We continue in silence until the hospital rears up, a great ugly sore on the landscape amongst old buildings and twisty streets: a modern monstrosity. This hospital is a Lorder symbol of power: it is an obvious target, where Slating takes place.
    I study the number and positions of towers on the perimeter. I promised Nico accurate maps, outside and in. I am going to deliver. Anyone could note this, and I’m sure they already have. The inside arrangements, likewise. Someone in the multitude of medical and other staff could be bought. Nico must want confirmation from eyes he has trained; eyes he trusts. Mine.
    We continue to the main entrance, and get in the queue. Lorders at the gates are searching cars. Visitors must get out and go through a metal detector on foot, before getting back in their car and driving it below to park.
    Unease twists my stomach. What if Nico is wrong, and the com on the underside of my Levo isn’t undetectable? Maybe I should have taken it off before I came. Can I even get it off? I haven’t tried.
    We inch forwards. Finally, it is our turn; the Lorder on this side of the gate puts up his hand to stop us. He makes a deferential gesture to Mum, as daughter of the Lorder hero: hand touching heart, then held out. An apology on his face that this time we must comply like everyone else.
    We get out of the car and my feet are like lead as I walk to the metal detector. An alarm goes off as I step through, and I almost panic, until I realise it is my Levo. A Lorder with a handheld scanner gets me to hold out my arms and runs it across my body. It beeps again at my Levo and he nods for me to go through.
    That was it? Inside, I snort. How obvious is it that the one place to hide metal on a Slated is on or in their Levo? What if it was an explosive?
    Though the com is well disguised. If I didn’t know it was there, I couldn’t even find it by touch. And I suppose it wouldn’t be possible to have something like this on most Slateds. If their Levo is working properly, putting it on would cause pain and levels to fall.
    We get back in the car and spiral underneath the hospital to park. Nerves are twisting in my stomach: can I pass muster in Dr Lysander’s eyes? Every Saturday I see her; she digs and pokes around in my mind. Checks up on me, looks for cracks. Places where I am different to other Slateds.
    I am so different now. How will I get through this?
    She is smart, the brainiest person I’ve ever known. She sees what you try to hide.
    Easy. Don’t hide anything. Tell her about your inner terrorist .
    Yeah,