Free Havoc by Jane Higgins Page A

all.’
    â€˜She’s from the Dry,’ said Lanya.
    â€˜Oh, yeah? How do you know?’ said Sandor.
    She gave him her best glare. ‘Because when Nik hauled her out from under the bridge
she was talking a whole other language and yelling for the angel that they worship
out there, that’s how.’
    He glanced at me. ‘So it was you?’
    I shrugged and looked away, and found myself staring at Fyffe’s name. The Hendry
name, that is, right there on a poster.
    â€˜Let’s go,’ said Lanya.
    â€˜Hold on,’ I said. ‘Look at this.’
    Beside the Nomu posters was a line of Report Deserters! posters stuck across a steel
roller door that had seen more than a few attempts to batter it down. Someone had
written over it in red spray paint: Who are the real deserters? Then diagonally across
each poster, in smaller, more careful letters, they’d written a name, different on
each one: Hendrys, Venables, Coultens, Marstersons, Hallidays … On it went. In the
bottom corner of each one was a C with a 1 inside it—the One City symbol.
    â€˜Who are these people?’ asked Lanya.
    â€˜Families,’ I said. ‘High-up families.’
    â€˜What d’you mean high-up ?’ asked Sandor.
    â€˜I mean, everyone knows those names.’
    He pushed in front of us and peered at them, poster by poster. ‘I don’t. Never heard
of them.’
    â€˜Everyone on Cityside knows those names.’
    â€˜Why?’ he asked. ‘Who are they?’
    â€˜They’re the Cityside rich list,’ I said, frowning at the Hendry name. What did it
mean ‘the real deserters’? What had they deserted? Were they the ones who’d torpedoed
the ceasefire?
    â€˜How rich?’ asked Sandor. He was staring at the names as though he was trying to
memorise them. ‘Are we talking small scale, like fancy computers, or big, like buildings?’
    â€˜Bigger,’ I said. ‘Computer networks and whole chunks of the city.’
    He straightened up and turned to look at me. ‘Are they friends of yours? Go on—say
they are!’
    â€˜Sure they are,’ I said. ‘No, of course they’re not. The Hendrys maybe. Once.’
    The Hendrys, Thomas and Sarah, were uber rich and their kids—Lou and Fyffe and Sol—had
been friends of mine. They’d opened up their family to me, let me spend summers at
their house, sent presents on my birthday, food hampers during exams.
    Then, when Sol died on the Mol in the exchange-gone-wrong, Thomas and Sarah Hendry
decided that they couldn’t stand the sight of me.
    â€˜I knew it,’ said Sandor. ‘I knew it.’ He slung an arm around my shoulder. ‘Let’s
go and find them.’
    â€˜Oh, grief!’ said Lanya and walked away.
    I shrugged Sandor off and followed Lanya, but he marched up beside us.
    â€˜Seriously, why not?’ He was practically waving his arms in excitement. ‘You front
up to them with the whole I’ve been stuck on Southside and now I’ve made it home
and I need help to get back on my feet. That could work. Why not?’
    Lanya rounded on him. ‘You have no idea why, so shut up.’
    He did this exaggerated shrug at her as if to say, ‘What’s eating you?’ and said
to me, ‘If you’re friends with these people—’
    â€˜I’m not!’ I said. ‘Listen, we’re about to go through Bethun. No way do we look smart
enough or cool enough to be wandering around that part of town, so we’re going to
split up.’
    â€˜You’re not losing me that easy.’
    â€˜Otherwise,’ I went on, ‘We’ll just look like a bunch of brown kids on the prowl.’
    â€˜Bethun home to the rich list, is it?’
    â€˜Pretty much.’
    He nodded. ‘Sounds like fun. I’ll go on the other side of the road and about half
a block behind you. That do?’
    â€˜I guess. Try not to