Free Heaven's Edge by Romesh Gunesekera Page B

teeth flashed in the dim glow of a paper moon pinned to the ceiling. ‘A member of her inner circle. But she took away my card last time.’
    â€˜Why? What did you do?’
    â€˜
Nothing,
sweetie. That was the trouble. I knew she wanted to change her pleasure puck, so I was a little ungenerous. Withholding, you might say,’ he sniggered. ‘Let’s go quickly. I feel kind of odd out here.’
    Jaz’s legs were bare. Thin and shaved. His feet were squeezed into gimcrack clogs that announced each step he took with a hollow clip and a clop. He went ahead, teetering, until we came to a separate unit painted black with several aerials sticking out at different heights. ‘This is the hut.’
    â€˜Won’t there be guards?’
    â€˜No. The card is the guard. We can get in. She’ll be in the salon for ages before meeting up with the boy, and he will be completely out of his head, poor thing.’
    Using the stolen card, Jaz let us in. The reception room was bare. There were paper-screen doors on two of the walls. Jaz knew which to open and took me down a hall to a large office. He went straight to a chunky computer console that looked like it belonged in a museum. He quickly donned a small headset. ‘This must be one that still uses passwords,’ I said.
    Jaz grinned. ‘Yep. She’s a lazy cow. She never changes them.’ He activated the screen with his fingers.
    Watching him log on, I thought this couldn’t possibly work. Even such old junk must have some built-in security. I was wrong. A couple of anxious minutes later Jaz had located the prison gazette. The knot in my stomach tightened. He searched for her name. Nothing came up. He flitted from one icon to another. ‘No sign of her,’ he said. He had reached the exit-box. Then he checked the news items. ‘Nothing.’
    â€˜Is there a command site?’ I asked. ‘Can we check who they are hunting?’
    â€˜Hunting is all they ever do, my dear. They hunt everything here.’
    He whizzed in and out of screens until he found a page of index photos. ‘These are the ones in purgatory. Maybe they put her in a camp like yours.’ Jaz simpered and zoomed in. It was my mugshot fixed against a red background. The caption gave the information about my capture and suspected involvement with a subversive. Underneath my number – 1661 – was a link to another page. ‘Maybe that link is the one we want.’ He clicked on it. I shut my eyes: green, green, let the background be green. When I openedmy eyes I saw her: her face sucked in, one eye half-closed, her hair tied into a flare against a pea-green background. The information was that she had been last seen at the Palm Beach Hotel. ‘That is a really old photo,’ Jaz laughed and turned around. ‘Your little angel is still free.’ I put my hands on his back, too grateful to think. Then he hit the reverse button. ‘Now with this one,’ he tut-tutted, ‘they should have taken a three-quarter shot and caught that little cheekbone of yours, at least.’
    Seconds after he spoke I heard a screen-door open. Jaz’s hands froze. I heard a squeak in the hall. I pressed the cancel button in front of Jaz and slipped off my stool, down behind a tall metal cabinet. A moment later two burly security guards peeped into the room. Looking through the steel mesh between the shelves, I could see they were combat-trained: they wore cat’s eye helmets, unlike Nirali at the hotel, and gripped their automatic weapons firmly, with both hands. One of them greeted Jaz by his name. Neither seemed surprised to find him there. But Jaz was clearly rattled. He pulled off his headphones and asked how they got in.
    â€˜The door was open. We knew she wasn’t here, and thought we better look. So you are back in now?’
    â€˜Waiting, you know …’ He managed a salacious grin.
    I tried not even to breathe. It