Mid-Winner’s Night was a significant night for DEN003. That was the night he was given the honour of cleaning the docks! Directed to the Water’s Edge with a new special tool attached to the front of his body, his task was to scrape away any crud or crustations that clung to the wooden posts or decking of the docks.

  DEN003 allowed himself a little dance in celebration as he drove along the streets of the Under, jiggling his pod with joy at the distinction awarded him!

  He didn’t know how to get there from Home, but he followed the voice in his ear and found himself there. It took some time to work out how to clean the decking and pilings of the docks, but after an hour or so, he got the hang of it and served his Pandrakon with gladness.

  At some point during the night, there were dockworkers there, for the tides – and therefore the shipping – didn’t obey the Curfew. But they ignored him, and he kept his eyes focussed on nothing but the task before him – the ground, the decking and the wooden pilings – seeing nothing else. It was if the whole thing were a well-choreographed dance, the Talls and him manoeuvring around one another as if the other wasn’t even there.

  The third night cleaning the docks, DEN003 was startled as have his face ripped away! Knowing that there was no sound he was allowed to make unless someone asked him a direct question, he broke into silent tears.

  “What’s wrong, Denzin? It’s me! I’ve found you at last!”

  “My face,” he murmured. “Where is the rest of my face? I need my face!”

  “Hush, it’s not safe,” Chimma whispered. “Take some deep breaths. That’s right. Keep breathing. Don’t worry, your face is fine.”

  DEN003 tried to breathe – how could he breathe with half his face missing?! But he obeyed, as he always did. At her soothing words, his tears slowly eased, though the longing tugged at his very soul.

  He couldn’t speak. He didn’t want to speak. He just wanted his face back, with all his heart.

  But he trusted Chimma. She was working to free him.

  And he loved her.

  “Denzin, stop moving. It’s too hard to unhook your hand with you twisting and turning like this.”

  He was still running back and forth along the dock. He had two more to clean. For the third time tonight. Because they had to be perfect for his Pendraken. But because he trusted her, he obeyed her.

  “I couldn’t find you, Denz. Have you been here all three nights?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you tell me more, please?”

  “Yes.”

  She asked his name – DEN003 – and her name – Chimma – and where he was – the docks – and a whole bunch of other questions that gradually took longer and longer to answer. Question by question, his tongue began to loosen.

  Then she asked, “Why are you working here tonight?”

  “I’ve been given the wonderful honour of serving my Pendrakon by cleaning the docks. I’m so grateful to my Pandrakon, and I love serving him with all my heart. There is nothing I would rather do. And now,” Denzin took another deep breath, shook his head several times, and pulled himself to a stop. “Thanks. I can think again. That was so weird when my face … no, my …,” he shook his head, “my face came off. I can’t tell you how scared I was! Where is it, by the way? I need my face.”

  “It’s not your face, is it? It’s just your mask, Denz.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.” He shook his head a few more times, trying to get that word back into his mouth again. “My f… mask?”

  He drove himself to the edge of the dock. The Water was retreating quickly. Chimma released his hands from the handles and unlocked his fingers. It was too time-consuming to put the braces back on if they were removed, so they only did that rarely, now.

  Denzin clasped her right hand, and asked her to sit down. And she did, dangled her legs over the side of the dock beside him. Her left hand crept across her own lap and fastened itself securely, lovingly, to his.

  It did feel good. So good. He closed his eyes, enjoying the moment, her hand sending a wonderful warmth through his whole body just by laying there on his lap. He wished it was always there.

  Then he remembered why she had put it there. Oh well. It was an important reminder. He needed to be so careful with her. He needed to keep her safe, because he loved her so much.

  Opening his eyes, there was something else that worried him about her. The way she was sitting there. It reminded him of school, how they were always glued to their seats as soon as they sat down until their teacher said it was time to go. He’d told her to sit down. She wouldn’t get up again until he told her she could.

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  “Put your finger in your ear. It’s stuck there until I tell you to stand up.”

  Without hesitation, she pulled her hand from his, and inserted her finger in her ear.

  “I don’t think either of us should use the mask tonight. I’m worried about the effect it’s having on you,” he stated.

  “Don’t be silly,” she argued. “I can’t let you get in trouble again for not using enough of it. Here, give it to me.” But her left hand was still on his lap, and her right finger was still stuck to her ear, so she had no hands to take it from around his neck.

  “Chimma, take your finger out of your ear.”

  She tried, but she couldn’t. “I’m trying to obey you, Denz! Really, I am! Why can’t I do it?”

  Her moan nearly stopped his own throat as he swallowed a sob. She tried again and again to obey his command.

  “See what I mean? That’s why. Chimma, stand up.”

  She leapt to her feet, pulling her left hand from his lap at the same time as her right hand fell away from her ear. Audible defeat was exhaled from both sets of lungs.

  “Chim, you can sit down or stand up or do anything you want to.”

  Carefully, she sat back down next to him, her right hand inserted back into his, her left hand comfortably on his pod.

  She leant her head against his shoulder. “Why do I obey you so easily? If anyone else tells me to do something, I don’t respond like that.”

  “Are you sure? Think about it a minute. Think through your day. And answer this question truthfully: are you more obedient to what others tell you than you used to be?”

  Her eyes flickered back and forth as if reliving her day. Then her jaw dropped, and she nodded slowly.

  “I’m not exactly obedient. But when someone tells me to do something at work, I seem to instantly snap to attention. It’s hard to stop until it’s done. I used to be so much more relaxed about my job. I thought it was just working Over the Hill. But now you’ve asked me that …” she stopped.

  Her left hand was right where he wanted it to be. Forever. Disgust with himself arose equal to his longing. He had imprinted that into her brain. He hadn’t protected her.

  “No more gas for you.” At least until he’d figured out how to free her. “How long has it been since you’ve seen me? Three days, you said? It’s been three days since you wore that yassing mask, and it still makes you respond like that. Let’s see if we can clear it out of your system by you not wearing it for a few more days. With these long nights, I’m sure I’m using enough of it to keep them happy. And even if not, being locked to that pole is better than seeing you run the risk of using it.”

  “You don’t mean that!” she cried. “Don’t you dare get yourself in trouble on purpose. Don’t you dare!”

  But he couldn’t let her risk her freedom.

  “Anyway,” he changed the subject. “There’s probably not much time left before I need to head back. How are you? How’s it going in the caff?”

  They talked about the normal things of life – well, whatever normal was. Nothing felt normal anymore.

  When they'd run out of normal, Denzin said, “You know what? I haven’t seen the sun in over six months now. I haven’t even seen the moon for ages. When I was cleaning the docks just now, and you spoke to me, I couldn’t take my eyes off what I was doing. Couldn’t make myself look at anything else.”

  Their eyes found one another, his, sheepish, hers, curious. There was something else there, as well. Not the glaze of the gas. There was something different.

  “Denzin, please took up at the moon. It’s beautiful tonight.”

  He didn’t want to.

  “Denzin, look up at the moon,” she commanded him.

  He wanted to obey her. He trusted her. He loved her. And because of that, he fought to convince his eyes – a fraction of a centimetre at a time – to turn themselves upward.

  A star hung in the blackness near the horizon.

  “I can’t remember the last time I saw a star,” he said wistfully.

  “Keep going. A bit further up.”

  He forced his eyes to climb a bit higher. There were more stars. So many more. The whole glorious Silvery Way rolled across the velvet night.

  At her encouragement – command – his eyes kept climbing.

  Then he found it. A little crescent, just hanging there amongst the stars.

  “Oh, would you look at that! Not you, Chim, me. It’s so beautiful. Thank you. I needed this. So much. To see the world beyond what is right in front of me. That there is more than being stuck in this thing, scraping up crud. What they keep trying to tell me I’m so yassing grateful for. Thank you.”

  He took her hand from his lap – he hardly thought of it as anything but his lap, now – and kissed it. Then Chimma carried it to her own own lips. As she did, the first reminder clenched his muscles, and she startled.

  “I need to go,” he whispered.

  “I know,” she replied. “Tomorrow, then. This is our new meeting place, right? I need to know, to make sure I wake up in time. This is the new place?”

  “Unless the dock workers are here. If they are we’ll meet….” He tore his eyes from the sky – the place she’d commanded them to – and scanned the area quickly. “Behind the dorm. I haven’t seen anyone go back there. Let’s try that.”

  He put his hands back on the handles, and she touched the pads that froze them in position, flipping the latches into place. Then she replaced his mask. Her face flinched as his contorted around the mouthpiece once more.

  Once he’d taken his first breath, she said, “Wait a minute.”

  She leant over and kissed his forehead. Then as he took his next breath, she said, “Denzin, remember this: I love you, too. No matter what anyone else says, always remember that I love you. And remember this: you are not to risk your own safety for mine. Not ever. Because I love you too much to let you do that.”

  Her words resonated inside of him, engraving themselves alongside every other message branded into his soul.

  “Goodnight, my love. Until tomorrow,” she whispered into his ear.

  Unwillingly, he allowed the next jolt to turn him away from her, and her hand fell from his lap as it did every night when he began to drive Home, to the increasing rhythm of the waves of electric current that coursed through his body.

  For someone who was rubbish at school, he knew so much. He was both DEN003, and he was Denzin Walker. He loved Chimma, and trusted her. And she loved him and would always help him. And because of their love for one another – and the words they’d spoken under the influence of that yassing gas – there was no way he could ever let her risk her freedom or safety for his own; and now there was no way he could ever risk his own safety for hers.

  How those two things could be compatible in the world they lived in was beyond him.

  The puzzle haunted his dreams all day, even when the gas was refilled.

  How he missed the sun.