Wildlings

8: Digits

The man sitting in the booth opposite caught Sannah's eye and smiled. She looked down at the screen, not smiling back. She hated these dirty Internet cafes. Full of people doing things they shouldn't, the screens all caked with grime.

But she needed to work out how to get to Judit, and the first thing school would do if she disappeared would be to check the browser history on her screen, and then track it to see where it was. So she'd left it behind.

Sannah's eyes flicked quickly between the screen and her notebook. Sherbourne seemed to be pretty proud of this rewilding. There was stuff about it everywhere. The details were pretty shady, though.

She'd found the forest, and a good starting point for where Judit might be: an administrative document, hidden deep in a file of funding information, listed a finance manager's address as a Caledian Forest Field Station.

A quick search of satellite mapping showed a sprawling building tucked into the southern edge of the Caledian Forest, an expanse of green that covered the North of Albia right up to the blue of the sea, like the island was wearing a hat.

Sannah quickly noted down the coordinates and zoomed out on the map to find the nearest town. A bit of scrolling revealed a small settlement, about ten kilometres south. This had a train station, and a quick search revealed she could —yes!—get there from Westway Station. Not too far from here!

The train would take hours and was prohibitively expensive. It's okay, Sannah thought, grimly. I have the money.

There was no question she would spend it to get to Judit, but still...the thought of losing her Sherbourne application fee hit Sannah in the chest like a fist. Ironic, really. She was using the money to get to Sherbourne University, after all. Just not in the way she had imagined.

It's okay, she told herself. There's still weeks before the deadline. I'll get Judit back and I'll make it again. It would take hours of work, but she was young. She didn't need sleep. She'd been asked to write cheat essays once, even first year university stuff, and the money had been tempting. Maybe she could do that. No, she didn't want to. She could make money ethically.

Sannah noted down the train times. The first one was in the morning, at 5.45 am. It would take her about an hour to get to Westway Station, on two buses.

She didn't want to go back to school and try to sneak out in the middle of the night. If she was caught breaking curfew they'd tag her, and then it would be impossible to leave.

No. She'd go now, then pay for her ticket in cash at the station, so her MoneyID couldn't be traced. No one would realise she was gone until alarm call at seven a.m., by which point she'd be well on her way.

It was decided.

Sannah pushed her notes into her pocket and pulled her bag onto her shoulder, lifting the hood of her jacket to hide her distinctive Exotic hair from any drones that might be recording the street.

Going. It almost felt good.

Sannah exited the cafe, studiously avoiding the other customers, all of whom were men. She found a cash machine and, with her heart feeling like it was simultaneously in her mouth and shoes, put in her moneyID and withdrew her life savings.

She folded the notes carefully and put them into the inside pocket of her bag, tucked behind an old paperback book she'd found: if she couldn't have her screen, she at least wanted something to read. She walked towards a bus stop and stood in the dark, calmly going over her plan.

Bus number one. Bus number two. Then she'd get the train to that inconsequential town, get a taxi to the field station. Or even walk. Whatever. She'd cross that bridge—and what to do with Judit when she found her—when she came to it. She'd never not had a plan before, but it was alright. She was taking action. That's all that mattered right now.