Read Acid for Free Online Page A

as he says, feeling more bemused than ever.

CHAPTER 7
    GOING OVER MY new identity takes nearly all morning. Steve lets me read through the details on his holocom, then quizzes me on them over and over. I’m the same age, but with a different birthday; my parents are warehouse workers; I have no siblings; I went to one of the huge city schools in Zone P, which I graduated from without any qualifications, and I’m going to be living in Zone M, in a place called Anderson Court, with a job in a factory in Zone R that makes parts for magtrams. Oh, and I’ll have one day, Sunday, off every week.
    ‘We can’t link the information to your komm, I’m afraid – ACID might find it – but I’ll ask for a holocom to be set up in your room later on so you can look at everything again,’ Steve says as I rub my temples, where a headache is starting to niggle. ‘And I’ve asked people to fire random questions about your identity at you so that you get into the habit of being able to answer them on the spot. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of this, but when you get out of here, it could be ACID asking you those questions.’
    I nod.
    ‘Another thing to remember is that the arrests system works slightly differently in Outer. People who get into trouble with ACID in Upper are given two warnings before they’re arrested—’
    ‘Amber and red,’ I say, unable to hide the boredom in my tone. I’m hungry again, and my headache’s getting worse; I don’t mean to sound so grumpy, but I’m starting to feel like crap. ‘But in Outer, they just swoop in and grab them. I might have grown up in Upper, but I’m not totally naive, you know.’
    I remember what my father told me when I was thirteen, and he caught me reading a hacked link on my komm I’d found by accident when I was looking for some stuff for a homework assignment. It had been a page about how the IRB used to be called the
United Kingdom
, and about how, when it was, people had the right to vote and to travel freely to other places outside the IRB, including Europe and America – places my teachers had told us were evil, full of crime and poverty and hate. As I read it, my heart began to pound. How could any of this be true? And yet, there was something about it that made me think it
was
, and I started to wonder what life would be like if we could choose who was in charge; if there wasn’t a Fence; if we could go and see those so-called evil places for ourselves.
    I was so engrossed, I didn’t hear my father come into my room. ‘What are you doing?’ he said. Guilty and terrified, I tried to cut the link, but he was too quick, ripping my komm out of my ear. He screamed at me for half an hour solid, finishing with, ‘I should report you and get you an amber warning, just to teach you a lesson.’ Then he took my komm away.
    Shortly after that, I met Dylan for the first time, at Nadia’s birthday party.
    ‘I’m being serious, Mia.’ Steve uses my new name without missing a beat, jolting me back to the present. ‘The one thing we cannot change about you is your DNA. If you get arrested, all ACID have to do is take a blood test, and you’ll be back inside before you can even blink.’
    I look down at the surface of the desk.
    ‘From now on, Jenna Strong no longer exists,’ Steve says. ‘Is that clear?’
    I nod, still staring at the desk.
Jenna Strong no longer exists
. Wow, that feels weird.
    ‘Well, it must be nearly lunch time,’ Steve says more brightly. ‘Shall I call Mel to take you back to your room, Mia?’
    I nod gratefully. Steve speaks into his komm, and a few minutes later Mel appears. Back in my room, lunch is already waiting for both of us – jacket potatoes with chicken salad – and while we eat, Steve comes in and sets up a holocom on a little table in the corner.
    ‘What are your parents called?’ he shoots at me over his shoulder as he walks to the door.
    I look up at him, startled. ‘Um . . . Martha and Anthony,’ I