Chapter 14

Sophie gave a start, realizing it was the girl with the ball. She had forgotten all about her.

”Hi,” she replied, more out of habit than from any real interest.

The girl had long, unkempt hair, and looked at her with open curiosity.

“You don’t sound like a tax inspection officer,” she stated.

”That would be because I’m not,” Sophie said. “It just happened that... “

The girl laughed scornfully: “Yes, of course, you just…” here her tone became rather cynical, "…forgot your food card"

“That’s what happened,” said Sophie, defensively.

The girl rolled her eyes. “No one is stupid enough to forget their food card.”

“Well I happened to be that stupid!” Sophie insisted.

The girl laughed again, and this time she seemed genuinely amused. “Well said!”

“How do you know that I’m not a tax inspection officer?” Sophie asked, mostly because she didn’t know what to say.

”They are much smarter than you,” the girl said, bouncing the ball and catching it.

Sophie was shocked by this lack of manners, and turned to leave. Certainly staying to argue was not worth the effort.

”Wait, where are you going?” the girl called out. “Didn’t you want to buy food?”

Sophie stopped: “Who would I buy it from?”

The girl shifted her weight from one foot to another: “From me.”

“Yeah, right,” Sophie said. The girl looked like she didn’t even have enough food for herself.

”Why not? Who else were you going to ask?“

“Um... “ Sophie was confused. “I don’t know, but... “

“Oh, come on. I'll get you a day’s ration. For advance payment,” the girl insisted.

“How much?”

“How much you got?”

Sophie frowned: “Wait, it doesn’t work like that.”

The little girl rolled her eyes: “Fine, fine... “ she sounded bored. ”Shall we say, fifty credits?”

“That’s robbery!“ Sophie protested. At the food distribution, a daily ration didn’t cost more than five or six credits.

The girl merely shrugged. Sophie pulled the bills out of her pocket: “Besides, I need two rations and I only have sixty credits.”

The little girl snatched the notes from her hand. “Perfect, thank you. See you in an hour,” she said, counting the money.

”Hey, wait, how do I know that you won’t just run away with the cash?”

“I’m not going to run away, trust me,” the girl assured her. “Where shall we meet?“

“My hotel is just down the street, on the corner of... “ Sophie began.

”What, and you tell me that too?” the girl snorted. “You just can’t take care of yourself, can you? Look, let's meet here in an hour, if you manage to get here.”

“Of course I’ll manage!” Sophie said, exasperated.

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

The girl walked away, leaving Sophie very frustrated.

She doubted she would meet her again. Most likely she had just wasted sixty credits for nothing. And she still had no idea where to get food.

It didn’t seem prudent to return to the hotel and then go out again, so Sophie decided to spend the next hour walking down the streets. She noticed, here and there, the identikit of the General plastered on the walls and, despite the fact that the posters seemed very old and nobody spared them a look, she dropped the hood lower over her face.

Maybe her own identikit was now hanging on a wall somewhere.

On occasions she was tempted to stop someone and ask where she could buy some black-market food, but the wary expressions of the people around her made her hesitate every time. She continued to wander aimlessly until, an hour later, she found herself really tired and numb. Her hands and feet were frozen, the fabric of her sweatshirt was soaked with damp, and to make matters worse she was feeling the pangs of hunger more strongly than before.

She went back to the alley where she had met the girl, but she was nowhere to be found.

Perfect, Sophie thought bitterly, how predictable.

She waited there for about half hour, walking back and forth, but nobody came. I might as well say goodbye to those sixty credits, she thought.

Eventually she was so cold that she decided to go back to the hotel. When she was about to turn up the hotel steps, she got the feeling that she was being watched.

She was walking with her head down, trying to attract as little attention as possible, when that odd feeling, like a tickle at the base of the neck, made her look up, and her attention was drawn by a familiar tuft of blonde hair.

It was Lukas, right across the road.

It all happened very quickly: their glances met before she could turn around, and she saw his eyes dilate in surprise.

Instinctively she turned around, plunged down an alley at random, and started running, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. Her side hurt and she was almost out of breath, but she couldn’t stop.

She turned to a main road and saw that many people were watching her. Trying to feign calmness, she slowed her pace, then ducked into another alley and began to run once more.

Would Lukas follow her? Would he call the medical police?

Had he understood that she was about to enter the hotel? Would he talk to the owner? Would they connect her to Emma?

Lukas lived in the sixth ring, she knew it. She cursed herself for not having thought about it before. She looked back, still walking on: there didn’t seem to be anyone behind her. Was someone following? Would she find a police patrol at the next corner?

Suddenly, she bumped against someone and fell to the ground.

”Hey, what’s wrong with you?!”

It was the girl she had met before: Sophie noticed that she was holding a bag.

”Why were you running like that?” she asked.

Sophie stood up and dusted off her clothes: “I was in a hurry,” she murmured.

”Look, if you're running away from someone, going like that is the best way to attract attention,” the girl informed her.

”I'm not running away from anyone! What nonsense.”

“Yeah, right. I could tell that right away.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Yes you are!”

Sophie refrained from emitting a frustrated snarl. There was something about that girl that made her argue as if she was an eleven-year-old herself.

”I brought the stuff anyway,” the girl said.

”Stuff? What are you, a drug dealer?”

“I brought you,“ the girl raised her voice, “THE FOOD YOU WANTED ME TO ILLEGALLY SELL YOU!”

Sophie shuddered: “Shut up! Are you out of your mind?”

The girl gave an indifferent shrug: “You can scream all you want, no one will listen. If you go around like you do, like you have something to hide, everyone will begin to wonder. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“Would you please stop telling me I'm stupid?” Sophie protested.

”You kind of are,” the girl replied, matter-of-factly. ”You don’t know anything. I could get away with your money and you wouldn’t ever find me. Who pays in advance with no guarantees? No one is that dumb.”

That much is probably true, Sophie reflected.

”Look, it's a bit of a new situation for me,” she admitted. “By the way, do we really have to stay here in the middle of the road? You know, I wouldn’t want to stand out with the bags and everything... “

“Why, because perchance you’re running away from someone?” the girl teased her.

”No, of course, it's just... “

“Come on, let’s go.”

She led Sophie behind the corner of a house in a small deserted street: then she bent down and lifted the lid of a manhole.

”After you,” she said, indicating the tunnel.

”I’m not going in there!” Sophie exclaimed. “Where does this lead, to the sewers? Eww, that’s gross.”

The girl snorted: “See that you don’t know anything? It doesn’t lead to the sewers, it’s only a door.”

“A door where?”

“To the city under the city.”

“You mean to the subway tunnels?” Sophie asked, horrified.

”Yes, of course, to the subway, where else would you want to go?”

“But... it's a dangerous place,” Sophie said.

One heard all kinds of things about the subway tunnels: people who had got in and never found their way out, people who had been found with their throat cut, or eaten alive by sewer rats, or were infected...

“Not more dangerous than the city above,” the girl assured her. “Look, I'm going. You do whatever you want.”

Having said that, she slipped into the manhole and began to descend down a narrow iron staircase, very similar to the one Sophie had used to exit the tunnel hidden behind Amanda’s office.

Sophie looked into the manhole, uncertain: there was the deeply rooted fear of the underground city, and some primal instinct that suggested not to squeeze into that unpredictable and dark place; on the other hand, she could not return to the hotel to Emma, at least not yet.

Perhaps Lukas and the medical police were after her, and she was cold and hungry. Indeed, it was her insistently rumbling stomach that made the decision for her, because the girl was carrying the bag where the food was supposed to be.

So, cursing herself and muttering oaths in a low voice, Sophie lowered herself into the hole in the asphalt and she began to climb down.

”Put the lid back on!” the girl called from below.

Sophie dragged the heavy iron lid over the manhole and began to descend, now plunged into complete darkness.