‘This shit is stuck, See,’ grumbled Roy, dropping his arms. He glared at the stubbornly red keypad as if his eyes could compel it to turn green and open. Two seconds later, a firm hand grabbed Roy by the collar, startling him up to his feet.
‘To the corner,’ hissed Silica, snatching the combi reader off his hand and kneeling by the keypad. ‘Shit’s too posh for a tinhead like you.’ Roy stood up to take up watch next to the building.
‘’M not a tinhead, you’re the tinhead,’ he barely had time to whine before hearing the jingle that signalled the door’s opening and turning to see Silica wave to him impatiently with a smirk. ‘What the heck did I do wrong?’ he asked as they shuffled into the marbled hallway.
‘The channel was A4, not B7,’—even Silica’s whisper was tinged with pride—‘you were connecting to the garage. Also, it’s two codes with ten numbers, not ten codes with two numbers, tinhead.’
‘You never told me that, how was I supposed to know!’
They whisper-bickered all the way up the stairs. Every floor, Roy checked the detector, making sure they were alone on the stairs, and Silica activated the transmitter, deleting their image from every security camera and sensor. They always chose buildings with multiple lifts to minimise the risk of meeting anyone up the staircase. Despite Roy being only twelve and Silica fifteen, they had ample experience breaking and entering.
Checking the corridor from around the corner before the final sprint, Roy elbowed Silica.
‘What?’ she snapped.
‘Bet you there’s a screaming parrot like last time,’ he snickered.
Silica rolled her eyes.
‘That was ages ago.’
‘Was not—’ Silica slammed her hand on Roy’s mouth, muffling his protests, then tapped a few more buttons on the transmitter, staring at a grey rolling ball affixed to the ceiling. Her hand still on Roy’s mouth, she led the way on tiptoes towards the door at the end of the corridor. Then, she tapped one last button on the combi reader and pushed. Only once they were safely inside, did she let go of Roy’s mouth. Taking her clue to not make a sound, he checked the detector one last time and nodded: no signs of life. Silica locked the door and they both slumped to the floor.
‘What was that about?’ whined Roy.
‘A voice detector,’ frowned Silica, ‘and your yapping was about to get us caught, you poop-brain.’
'Never seen a voice detector in a corridor,’ grunted Roy, standing up and kicking his shoes off to the wall. Silica followed suit. The apartment was a fancy open space, which was perfect for them; easier to keep an eye on everything. Roy crashed on the sofa, stretching his limbs with a satisfied groan, whilst Silica made a beeline for the fridge.
‘Ham or turkey?’ she asked, pulling out packet after packet and placing them on the counter. A soft snore answered her. Silica chuckled and ripped open a bag of bread, neatly aligning the slices in two groups on the counter; she piled one of the lines high with cheese and meats, then closed the sandwiches, stuffing them into two food bags she found under the counter.
‘Now, breakfast,’ she whispered, grabbing a carton of eggs and a pack of sausages, and turning to the stove. It was voice controlled. Silica put down the food next to the stove and grabbed the transmitter from her belt again. She spoke into its mic, articulating carefully.
‘Chef, warm plate 3 for eggs and sausages.’
A different voice repeated the command, followed by a cheerful beep and a green light; Silica exhaled in relief, rustling in the cabinets for a pan.
Roy woke with a gloriously greasy scent under his nostrils. He looked up to find Silica holding a pan in front of his face full of sizzling eggs and sausages.
‘Come on, it’s getting cold.’
‘You’re such a mummy, See,’ he snickered, following her to the table.
‘Shut up, tinhead. I’m hungry.’
‘You even set the table!’
Scowling, Silica sat down and stabbed a sausage with her fork, devouring it in less than a minute. Roy hurried to pour food on his plate. They made quick work of the eggs and sausages, together with a whole bag of bread.
‘I made sandwiches for the road,’ said Silica when they were done.
Roy nodded, without teasing her again. After two weeks on the street without a break, they had to stock up on all the necessities. As the numbers of street kids—the press called them ‘hide-and-seekers’ because they hid in empty houses in search for food, clothes, everything—roaming the city grew, people installed more sophisticated security systems. Silica and Roy’s tools were in need of an update, but that would mean finding a technician in the underground who was both dodgy enough not to report them to the police and not so dodgy that they would force them into unpaid labour or worse.
‘I heard that Jim the Prick was taken,’ mumbled Roy.
Silica scoffed and pushed herself away from the table, balancing back and forth on the back of the chair. ‘Yeah, well, sucks for him,’ she sneered. ‘Sucks to be such a jerk that your own people calls the cops on you.’
According to Silica, it was always the jerks, dumbasses, or dead weights who got caught.
Roy got up and spoke, almost to himself: ‘Stefan was not a jerk, though.’ Silica’s chair stumbled, nearly falling backwards, and landed back on its four legs with a thud that made his heart jump.
‘Go brush your teeth, Roy,’—his stomach turned to ice. She never called him Roy—‘you know we can’t go to the dentist. And don’t mention that name again.’ Crestfallen, Roy grabbed his small bag and headed to the bathroom, giving Silica a wide berth. She stood motionless, her eyes shooting daggers.
He didn’t know why he had made that mistake. Maybe because he had been thinking of Blue again. Wondering if she dreamed of Stefan like he dreamed of Blue. Of course, it was not the same—Stefan was older than Silica, and also, he was still alive—but Roy had been looking for a way to broach topic. To be under Silica’s wing, he had to follow her rules: ‘do what I say’ and ‘never look back.’ Silica was the oldest of the hide-and-seekers he knew, and Roy knew his best chances to avoid the system lied with her.
He was putting away his toothbrush, planning how to apologise and move on, when he heard thumping noises, and Silica screech:
‘RUN!’
Fumbling to put his backpack on, Roy darted to the bathroom window and opened it. His heart soared. It was a big fancy one with a wide windowsill for plants, and on the other side of it was the balcony of the apartment next door. Roy squeezed himself out, taking care to hold on to the wall as much as he could. He now heard banging noises from the other side of the house; Silica had to have bailed already. It wasn’t their first close call. Invisible alarms were becoming the bane of their existence.
Careful to keep his grip on the wall and not look down, Roy teetered to the side of the windowsill and jumped, landing softly on the balcony. Then, he climbed over the railing and down until he was dangling. He let go and landed on the balcony underneath. ‘Only three more,’ he whispered to himself. The back of the building was still quiet, but he checked before each jump to make sure the police was not coming around to find him.
Once his feet were safely on the ground, Roy rested against the wall for a minute, his heart beating in his throat. Then, realisation made it skip a beat, and he tore his backpack from his shoulders, rustling furiously, forgetting about the police for a moment. His small bag was still in the apartment. He had no transmitter, no detector, and no talking device. No way to contact Silica. Roy was alone.
Still, he couldn’t linger, so he peeled his back off the wall and hid under a hedge on the side of the property. Safely hidden, he debated his next step. Silica wouldn’t come back for him. If the police had found them, she would steer clear of the area for a while. ‘When shit gets hot, never stop,’ she had taught Roy. So, he left the property, his hands in his pockets and his backpack hanging by one strap, keeping the pace of someone who has somewhere to go and plenty of time.
Roy’s feet headed towards poorer, more familiar neighbourhoods. He let them. It would be easier to go unnoticed once he was out of the posh side of town. As the lights turned on and the streets emptied, Roy begun to scan the buildings. Soon, he found what he was searching. I’m a hide-and-seeker, after all, he smirked inwardly, I’ll show Silica. On his right, the top two floors of a run-down four-story house were completely dark. Roy found his way around the back to a dim-lit alleyway with dingy rubbish bins and leaky drainpipes.
Roy was a short and spindly almost-teen and could never quite afford to be afraid of much, so he made quick work of the climb up the pipes. Thankful that he always kept a Swiss knife in his shoe, he sneaked in the top floor through the window.
Once inside, Roy tossed his backpack away and sat down, fervently praying to anything that’d listen that this place didn’t have any fancy invisible alarm. And he still had to make sure he was truly alone in the house. Cursing his lack of devices, he crawled through a bedroom and peeked out. The place was dark and silent, but there was something wrong. It smells like shit in here, thought Roy, just before his hand sunk into something creamy. He pulled it back, grimacing, then a soft growl broke the silence.
‘Shit!’
Roy turned back, still on all fours. He barely had time to speed-crawl under the bed; the dog snapped at his shoes, but he managed to kick his head away. The space under the bed was poop-free, aside from his hand, which Roy rubbed on his jeans, his heart racing. He curled up in a ball in the corner with his back against the wall, closing his eyes to try and ignore the dog who still growled and barked. It was either too big or too dumb to follow him under the bed, and Roy didn’t much care which one. All his determination had evaporated; he broke down sobbing.
Unbidden, Blue’s eyes came to his mind, her smile when she used to grab his finger and try to eat it. Then, the day Silica and Stefan’s group had found him dumpster diving. Stefan had handed Silica a bottle of water and a loaf of bread and told her to hurry, they didn’t have all day. She had shoved the supplies in Roy’s hands grumbling: ‘you look like a tinhead, but you can come with us. Unless you fancy getting into the system.’
At the time, Roy was not sure what the system was; she made it sound scary, like a beast who eats children without a family. So, he had joined them. Scavenged with them. Broken into empty apartments with them so they had a bed to sleep in. Crashed at distant relatives who’d turn the other way for a few nights. It had been six years. One by one, the kids had either left or been taken by police. Sometimes both, like Jim the Prick. Soon, only Roy, Stefan, and Silica remained. Then, Roy, Silica, and her anger. And now, Roy was alone in a stinky flat, cornered by a starving dog, with no food, no way out, and no more fight in him. The system it is, then, he thought, before falling asleep out of exhaustion.
Days passed. Roy could see blades of light streak the floor in front of the bed, then fade away with the hours. He didn’t count. Just lied and waited. The dog would come and go, but he never tried to escape from his nook. Whenever he stretched out or moved a little, the dog would trot back to the bed anyway.
It was clear to Roy that the inhabitants were not coming back. They had been evicted, or had fled for whatever reason, leaving their pet behind. He felt a hint of compassion for the dog. Locking it in to starve was crueller than letting it loose on the street. He wondered if it would still be alive by the time someone found them. If they both would be. Roy’s stomach complained louder, and his tongue felt more like sandpaper with every changing of the light on the floor.
Then, one day, a crash echoed in the apartment and the dog ran to the door barking. Roy closed his eyes. This was it. He heard shouts from the other side, and a voice that sounded oddly familiar.
‘You take care of the hound. I’ll have a look around this shithole.’
Leathery black shoes came into view, and a whimper escaped Roy. The shoes stopped. He could have sworn it was not the whimper, but his deafening heartbeat, which gave him away. Someone crouched down, peeking under the bed, and Roy almost screamed. It was Stefan, and he wore a police uniform.
‘Well, kid? Any strays? This sack of fleas is fighting like it just came up from hell, I need to take it down to the damn van. You good?’
Stefan sighed and shook his head.
‘Haven’t found any yet. You go ahead, I’ll finish sealing this dump and catch up.’
‘Suit yourself. Come on, pooch, it’s for your own good.’
Roy and Stefan looked at each other until the door slammed shut. Then Stefan crawled under the bed and grabbed Roy by the arm. Roy swatted it away and tried to retreat even more, but he was stuck.
‘We don’t have time for this, tinhead. You need to leave now.’
‘What?’ Roy managed to whine.
‘Damn, you were always a slow one. Come out, I’m letting you go, okay?’
Roy shook his head.
‘Fine,’ grunted Stefan, and stood up. ‘Stay in this shithole if that’s what you want. But if I were you, I’d look for Silica. You don’t do well on your own, tinhead.’
‘I lost my stuff, I can’t reach her.’
Stefan sighed and did not reply. Roy saw his shoes turn and march out of the room, then heard the door open and close again. He slowly crawled out from under the bed and stood up, half blinded by the light from the window. Then, a sudden adrenaline rush hit him. He was alone.
Roy started frantically exploring. The place stank of dog shit and pee, but it was empty. The police coming to seal it meant that nobody would come over in a while. Roy had time to catch his breath and think. He rushed to the kitchen but stopped in the doorway. On the dusty table was a water bottle and a bag full of sandwiches with a small note. Roy gingerly picked up the note, as if it could bite him.
You look like you need it. Stay here. Silica will find you.
It had to be from Stefan. Roy slumped on a chair, cracking the bottle open and downing half of it in one sip. He was more cautious with the sandwiches. He ate two and decided to save the rest, wondering if the house still had running water. He could use a shower. The thought reminded him of Silica. Despite their hardships, she hated feeling dirty and had a full shower whenever she could. ‘Dirt means germs. Germs make you sick. We can’t afford to be sick,’ recited Roy, wagging his finger at the empty room. ‘And you’re covered in shit, tinhead. You need a shower.’
‘Fine, I’ll see what I can do,’ Roy chuckled to himself, standing up and heading to the bathroom. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust Stefan, or if it would be better to leave quickly and try to find Silica on his own.
‘I’ll decide later,’ he spoke aloud, ‘first, let’s get this shit off me.’
Writing musings and news
Silica and Roy refused to be confined within a measly 3 000 words, the loose limit I imposed myself for standalone short stories. They demanded more and more space, until all I could do was give them two instalments. We’ll find out next month whether this satisfies them or not.
Not much else new. My novel has been suspended since December because of our move, but now that we are fully settled and I am finding my bearings again, I hope to be able to resume work on it asap.
Thank you for reading and I’ll catch you next month with another Oddball Tale!
Magnolia Fay