New Keepers. Jayne Bauling

has to be you, because you’re young. Please say it’s you guys?” Her brown eyes sparkle with life. “The expedition? We can pay –”

      “You intercepted our messages?” Silver’s chair squeals on the floor as he jumps up. “Then who else might have done the same?”

      “I’m so excited.” The girl ignores him, shaking her head. “I can’t wait! You will take us, won’t you? Because I’ve got nowhere else to go except out. You see, I’ve run away from my owners. That’s how I saw your messages. They’re both CCC monitors, they get to work at home sometimes, and I was being a bad Pet, spying. Don’t worry, I’ve erased everything you said to each other, because I knew at once that I had to go with you, and I don’t want anyone catching me and taking me back. Then I ripped off my collar and took off. Hit my folks’ place, got my little brother, and came straight here.”

      “Brother?” Silver is disbelieving.

      “Little brother?” So am I.

      “All right, half-brother.” She gets what we mean. “I’m Ril. This is Boa.”

      He has followed her over to the table. Close up, you can see he’s younger than she is, but he’s a big, lumbering boy, as dark as me. He’s a Bleeder it looks like, unless he grazed his knuckles accidentally.

      “You’re a Pet?” Lizwi is sympathetic, looking at the girl. “You poor thing.”

      I know what she means. Everyone else is nominally free, including the dregs of the Margins and probably even those who’ve escaped into the Wildlands. Pets aren’t; they’re owned.

      “A Pet who wants to use us to help her escape,” I say, because she’s pretty much admitted it, this lively little girl, talking so fast.

      “Can you blame me? I can’t believe I’ve done it at last. Seeing your messages and what you were planning; it was like getting an answer to all the years of wishing.” She shakes her head again, and she’s smiling but amazed at the same time. “It’s like it was meant.”

      “But what will you do after the adventure?” Silver is suspicious. “You can’t stay in the Wildlands when the rest of us come back.”

      If we come back.

      “I haven’t really thought.” A little crease appears between her black eyebrows. “Maybe there’ll be a place? Or we could live in the Margins? Boa will look after me. But I need to disappear until they’ve had time to, you know, write me off? Hello? What are you saying?”

      She’s talking to Meyi who has been getting very loud. He seems excited, saying more of those words that aren’t words. It’s as if his tongue gets in the way of itself.

      “Please! He’s a retard.” Even I know Orpa is offensive.

      “Shut up.” Lizwi looks at me and Silver. “Meyi is saying we need to go. Now.”

      “Never mind him,” I say. “What about this girl? I agreed to take three of you into the Wildlands. You’re right about this not being legitimate, Silver, although I don’t know if it’s actually breaking any rules. But suppose it is, how do we know she isn’t a plant? Anyone could have intercepted our messages to each other, and not as innocently as she wants us to think she did.”

      Because now that I’m seeing possible threats, I’m also realising how important to me this business of finding my mountain is. I should have gone on my own, not landed myself with a bunch of innocent (or not so innocent) Sprawllers.

      I can still walk away from them.

      “Especially anyone in the Controlled Communications Centres,” Silver is agreeing with me.

      “The monitors she claims won’t be able to see what we were sending. Minder-class officials.” I look at Lizwi.

      “Totally everything is monitored and recorded,” Silver says. “Every word, every signal.”

      “Blame Ricochet and Leoli for the final clampdown.” I look at Lizwi again. “Remember? Nothing was private after that. Because that’s how the last uprising nearly happened. Ricochet and Leoli used texters to publicise their rally, and they were getting massive numbers planning to attend.”

      “Right, I heard that’s when the Minders started having everything monitored,” Silver says.

      “And we’re supposed to believe this – this Pet is here quite innocently?” I appeal to Silver. “She’s even admitted her owners are Minders.”

      “Former Pet,” the girl says. “I swear you can trust me, you guys.”

      “And me.” Another new voice, low and calm, making me think of that cream they manufacture in the Sprawll’s surrounding FacLab zone. “I’ve been listening to you all for a bit, wondering if I could trust you, and it’s exactly the same story. Well, not really. This CCC monitor was, you know, trying to flirt with me; he was distracted, so I happened to see. I really want to do this expedition you’re offering … But listen, I heard you mention Ricochet and Leoli? I’ve learned something. They’re still alive. They’ve been to the Wildlands. Can’t we stop and see them on our way out? I bet they’d have some great advice for us.”

      She has arrived so quietly, the most amazing girl ever.

      2

      “They weren’t put down?”

      I don’t get how Silver can give a single thought to Ricochet Thelezi and Leoli Leopara at a moment like this.

      I can’t think about anything except how stunning this tall, quiet girl is. She’s a sepia, so the pure white robe suits her; it marks her as a Prayer, although she isn’t carrying the book some of them do.

      “I can take you to them,” the girl says, pushing her masses of long, bright red braids back over one shoulder. “I’m Halo, by the way.”

      I think it fits her. Maybe it’s the serenity in her amber eyes, or just a vibe, but she comes across as a good person, which is weird, because goodness isn’t really something I believe in.

      Good, and totally sexy.

      We all introduce ourselves. When it’s my turn to say my name, it comes out sounding thick and awkward.

      So of course I have to try again and repair that first impression.

      I say, “Ricochet and Leoli? Where are they?”

      I like the way she doesn’t look at my Stain.

      “They are drawers at one of the Breeding Control Centres.”

      “I’ve never seen them,” I object.

      “Only some of the draws are screened live,” Halo reminds me. “They just read out the results for the rest.”

      “Those places.” Lizwi’s voice is flat.

      She and Halo share a look, and Ril sighs, while Orpa looks extra angry.

      “How do you know about them? Ricochet and Leoli?” I worry that my question makes it sound like I don’t trust Halo.

      “Oh … There was this Minder, someone important, and he was trying to impress me, you know?” Halo is hesitant. “So he was telling me stuff, and that was one of the things he mentioned.”

      “I suppose you get a lot of people trying to impress you?” Orpa is insolent.

      “Ignore her,” I tell Halo because she looks upset, and she smiles at me.

      “I suppose Ricochet and Leoli really could give us some useful tips about the Wildlands,” Silver says. “But it’s your expedition, Jabz. You’re our leader. What do you think?”

      “It can’t hurt to stop and ask them.” Halo isn’t insistent, and it hits me how miraculous it is that such beauty hasn’t turned her arrogant.

      “You’re