Havoc by Jane Higgins Page B

touch him. A neat trick: he’d become sacred
by association. He walked down the queue talking to people and nodding like he understood
their problems and was sure he could help them, for a small price no doubt.
    He saw me watching him; I should have just left but when he got to the end of the
queue I said, ‘Why do you do that? Feed people that stuff? You don’t believe any
of it.’
    He looked at me, sly and sideways. ‘Nik Stais, right? Why do you care?’
    â€˜Did you really see her—the girl?’
    â€˜Who wants to know?’
    â€˜Me, obviously.’
    He looked around and waved at someone in the queue. ‘And why would you be interested
in her?’
    I nodded towards the tent. ‘How did you even get in there?’
    â€˜Well,’ he looked extra pleased with himself, ‘I rescued her last night. Risked my
life to do it.’
    He peered at me. ‘What’s funny?’
    â€˜Nothing. Never mind. Did she tell you anything, apart from that she was sent by
an angel?’
    He turned his back to the crowd. ‘Look, these people have just had the shit kicked
out of them and they’re locked in like it’s the Marsh or something—they want to be
told everything will be okay. I’m telling them. You got a problem with that?’
    â€˜No, no, you go for it,’ I said. ‘But I know who got her off the bridge and I know
a medic who will swear it wasn’t you.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So, tell me what she said to you. Did she say where she’d come from? How she got
here? Why she’s here?’
    He shrugged. ‘She might have.’
    I closed my eyes, which wanted to be still sleeping, and tried to get a grip.
    â€˜I’ll do you a deal. Tell me what she said and I won’t let on that it wasn’t you
who rescued her.’
    He thought about it and shrugged again. ‘Couldn’t understand much of it. Her Breken
is really stink.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s probably cos it isn’t Breken.’
    He sneered and stepped away. ‘Okay, be a jumped-up little Citysider then.’
    â€˜No! Wait. Sorry.’
    â€˜You want to hear this or don’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, I do.’
    â€˜Well, okay. She’s real sick, so mostly she’s rambling and talking gibberish—I don’t
think she’s one of ours, I think she’s from City. My best guess—she was on a boat
from City and it got swamped by the wave from the bridge going up, she gets thrown
out and lands near the riverbank, crawls ashore.’ His eyes narrowed at me. ‘Is it
a boat you’re after? Think you can get outta here on a boat?’ He hooted with laughter.
‘Things getting too tough? The City boy wants to go home.’
    â€˜Yep, that’s right.’ I turned away.
    He said, ‘You think I’m just a scavenger. You know the only thing worse than a Southside
scavenger? A Citysider pretending to be one.’
    I walked away, but he must have rethought the possibilities because after a minute
he was back beside me saying, ‘Hold up! Wait! I’ll help you find the boat if I can
go with you. It’ll probably take two to handle it anyway.’
    â€˜Sure,’ I said. ‘We’re under lockdown and you think we can just row away from here
without being shot by a Cityside grunt or blown up by a river mine. Besides, why
leave when you’ve got such a nice thing going here?’
    â€˜Why leave? Why leave? Let me count the reasons.’
    He stopped and his eyes got positively misty at the thought of the pots of gold just
out of reach on the other side of the river.
    I walked and didn’t answer. But he caught up again.
    â€˜You know, that boat’ll be long gone by now. There’s scavengers here that put you
and me to shame. It’ll be under lock and key for sure, if it’s still in one piece,
smashed for scrap if it’s not. That’s if the