Free Toxic Treacle by Echo Freer

she said pointedly, giving Monkey a sideways glance. ‘You know, as if I was thinking about my own future career.’
    â€˜Go on,’ Monkey said.
    â€˜Well, turns out, she had a client who was accused of stealing from the house of this post-nurturer who’s in The Assembly. She lives in a massive mansion about three Ks east of Beauchamp Park, outside town, and Security claimed that they had footage of Sal’s client entering and leaving the property. But Sal discovered that it was a fit up. And she proved it because none of the cameras work once you get out of the street light zone.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜It’s true. The cameras outside town are dummies; the cost of electricity would be too much to run them, so they’re just there as a deterrent.’
    Monkey’s mind went into overdrive. ‘Have you any idea what this information would do if it got out?’
    â€˜Exactly,’ Angel said. ‘It mustn’t get out. As a solicitor, Sal had to sign an Official Confidentiality Order. She only let it slip because we were talking one night after Alex had gone to bed and she’d had a couple of kegs. She’d lose her job if they knew.’ Angel looked at him anxiously. ‘Promise me, this is between you and me. You won’t tell the hood?’
    Monkey nodded slowly, taking in the information she’d just told him. ‘So, it doesn’t matter whether we go on the roads or the track.’ He smiled. ‘Whaled! Let’s take the direct route, then.’
    Most of the sleepers and train tracks had long since been removed from the embankment, leaving it overgrown and stony but, nevertheless, straight. Angel and Monkey kept up a brisk pace, sometimes chatting about people at school; staff and students, and their hopes for their futures, sometimes maintaining an easy silence. It was cold but the constant movement kept them warm. Monkey found it eerily quiet once they left the street-lit suburbs of town. From their elevated position, they could look down on the largely overgrown roads. There was no street lighting out in the rurals and they saw no State vehicles, either Security or official Assembly limos, to cast their headlights on the roads and offer some illumination. The moonless night afforded them plenty of cover but also made their progress slower than they’d hoped. It was pitch-dark but it was too risky to use the torch out in the open and they both stumbled on stones and potholes along the way.
    They’d been walking for just over half an hour when Angel’s ring-cam lit up; it was her nurturer. Angel dodged down into one of the bushes that had sprouted up along the track and answered.
    â€˜Sorry, darling, I’m going to need you to come home tonight,’ Sally said. ‘I’ve got a big case that’s in court on Monday and I need to work late tonight.’
    â€˜Sal!’ Angel couldn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Alex is twelve now, he doesn’t need me to be there.’
    â€˜Yes, he does. Now, don’t argue. You can stay over at Moni’s tomorrow night. Make sure you’re home by nine.’ The dial went blank.
    Angel kicked at a stone in frustration. Monkey felt sorry for her; that was the difference between being a pre-breeder and a pre-nurturer he supposed. There was no way he’d go home just because Vivian told him to but, then, his nurturer had no jurisdiction over him; in a few weeks he’d be a free agent and she knew it. Angel, on the other hand would be under Sal’s thumb for years, probably decades. Even when Angel was a nurturer in her own right, Sal would still be the head of the family, just as his grand-mov was (in theory, anyway) the matriarch in Vivian’s little kingdom.
    â€˜Come on, let’s go back,’ he said with resignation.
    Angel shook her head. ‘No, you go on. Take the torch and the map.’ She opened the paper and shone the thin beam of light