by Silk, Avril
‘Does the VMN know you’re here?’
‘’Course they do. They have a whole department dedicated to us – Destitutes and Dissenters, they call us. Out of the goodness of their black and wizened hearts they supply us with the absolute basics. ‘Course, we nick the extras we want. Well, the Ferals do. We were ordered to set up some factories down here in return, and the department’s always banging on about targets and quotas. It’s mostly metal-working and heavy industry. They don’t trust us with food production and vehicle maintenance which means they’re not completely clueless. I wouldn’t want to eat food prepared by someone who hated me or drive a car serviced by my mortal enemy. They keep threatening to do spot inspections, but they never follow through. They daren’t come down here on account of the cholera.’
Jo looked horrified. ‘Cholera?’
Brenda winked. ‘So they believe. And we don’t disillusion them. Keeps them well away, believe me. Nothing like a nasty dose of diarrhoea and vomiting to put a crimp in things. ‘Course, it cuts both ways. If they don’t come down here, we’re forbidden to go Overground. They want us to keep our germs to ourselves.’
‘So you’re prisoners down here?’
‘I’d rather be down here than up there. All those cameras and loud speakers and bastards with guns. They make Zebo and his lot look like debutantes. The Vermin wanted to install their spy stuff down here, but their engineers told them it couldn’t be done. I reckon they just didn’t want to risk coming down after we sorted out the first lot they sent... It’s not so bad. Years back, in the nuclear winter, if the blast didn’t get you, then radiation sickness, cholera, plague and starvation would, but we’ve come a long way since then. There’s a school, of sorts, and this little hospital’s not bad, if I do say so myself. I’ve got Bobby working here when he’s not off his head, and a surgeon and a vet come round once a week –‘
‘A vet?’ interjected Jo.
‘Quite a lot of cross-over with people and animals,’ said Brenda simply. ‘We’re lucky to have her on the team. Skilled people like her can make a lot of money working for the nobs. Most of them do. Anyway, they do the fancy stuff and Bobby and I do the basics. It’s amazing what good hygiene, clean water and sanitation can achieve.’
‘So tell me about the patients,’ said Jo.
‘We’ve got the lot,’ said Brenda slowly. ‘About thirty at the moment. Some gun-shot wounds if people go Overground and get seen. Paediatrics. Obstetrics. Schizophrenics. Diabetics. You name it. Everything but Geriatrics.’
‘Geriatrics? Old people?’ Jo hazarded.
‘Yes. It took us a long time to realise that the VMN were quietly getting rid of all the old and sick people left over after NW1. By the time we cottoned on, it was too late. I reckon me and Reg are the oldest people you’ll meet! It was a cull of a whole generation.’
‘They did that in the world I come from, too,’ said Jo. ‘Crazy Em had this little cottage, with hollyhocks and honeysuckle round the door – ‘
Brenda looked disapproving. ‘Don’t you go talking like that round the patients,’ she chided. ‘They’ve never seen any flowers except in books. They’ve got enough to worry about without wondering if you’re an escaped lunatic.’
Jo could not remember being so tired. Under Brenda’s eagle-eyed direction she had worked unceasingly to help maintain comfort and cleanliness on the wards. As Brenda had said, there were no elderly patients, although most of the people she tried to help seemed old beyond their years. Everyone looked as if they could use a good square meal and a hot bath; nevertheless, they had youth on their side and Brenda was upbeat about their recovery prospects.
Jo did not find the work as harrowing as she had feared. She wasn’t particularly squeamish, which helped, although the bed-pan round didn’t fill her with enthusiasm. Brenda saw her pull a face and soon put her right. ‘Don’t you dare take their dignity away,’ she admonished. ‘They haven’t got any choice in the matter, so you take it in your stride and be grateful that you can be independent when you want to use the toilet.’
What did surprise Jo was the mistrust and apathy she met as she tried talking to the patients who were her age or a little older. In the main her attempts to get to know them were rebuffed.
‘They don’t trust me,’ she confided to Brenda.
Brenda shrugged. ‘Any reason why they should?’ she challenged and Jo couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Crap.’
‘How can I help?’
‘Piss off.’
‘You know I’m not going to. Would you like a drink?’
‘Call that bilge a drink? Piss off.’
‘Are you subtly trying to tell me you want the bed-pan?’
‘Think you’re funny, don’t you.’
‘Well, do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Want the bed-pan?’
‘Piss off.’
That’s progress, thought Jo, smiling to herself as she finished bandaging Mandy’s arm, badly damaged in a run-in with a VMN thug. Yesterday Mandy wouldn’t speak to me at all. The sullen eight-year old rolled over in the bed, pointedly turning her back
At the end of the first week Brenda gave her a brief nod. ‘You did alright,’ she said, and Jo beamed. ‘I could do with a few more like you,’ Brenda added, ‘but there is one problem. You’re making the patients way too comfortable.’
Jo looked puzzled. ‘I thought that would help them get better,’ she protested.
‘You’re right. To a point. The problem is, if it’s too cosy here, no-one will want to leave and we’ll have people faking illness to be admitted. It’s not a holiday camp. Life underground is tough, and we’ve got a fine line to tread.’
And so the days wore on. Jo spent her time cleaning the wards and caring for the bed ridden. She was so busy that the intense concentration needed to summon the healing lotus was just not an option. However, she learnt quickly that some of the adult patients and the little children responded very positively when she spoke quietly to them. Some started talking to her. Even those who didn’t answer seemed to be listening, so she carried on chatting. Sometimes she hummed a snatch of a song and discovered very quickly who liked that and who didn’t. Others – not all - visibly relaxed when she touched them gently. But whenever she was alone, Jo told herself that she was still asleep in Glory Heights and every time she went to sleep she prayed to wake up back there.
Jo awoke with a start from a dream of green leaves and blue sunlit skies. There was banging and shouting and movement all around.
‘Jo!’ yelled Brenda, ‘We need you, now!’
Snapping to her senses Jo dressed quickly and ran to the Infirmary. In shocked disbelief she took in the scene; soldiers. Lots and lots of soldiers. And they were dying.
‘What’s happening?’ she cried.
‘What does it look like? The Vermin were ready for us. I still don’t know what went wrong; I only know that if you don’t pull your finger out right this second that more of these brave young folk are going to die on my watch and I am not having it. Do you understand me, Nurse?’
‘Yes, Matron,’ replied Jo. ‘You can count on me.’ And with that Jo set to work. She held men down as Brenda operated. She sewed them back together. She mopped up the blood and then washed the bloodied towels.
She was holding the hands of a young girl who was howling in pain. Then the howling stopped and all Jo could hear was a dreadful dry, rattling rasp.
‘No!’ The word ripped from Jo’s throat on a wave of desperation, rage and prayer. The girl’s head lolled backwards. ‘Look at me! I will not let you die!’
The girl’s eyelids flickered for a moment, revealing eyes of a startling blue, edged with shimmering tears. As Jo stared into those azure eyes a soft pearly light began to shine from them. The tears seemed like petals. Jo was almost too exhausted to hope but to her joy the light began to crystallise into the healing lotus. Amid all the carnage and horr
or, Jo found her beauty again. She saw Death and she defied it with dignity.
The girl stopped crying and gazed in wonder at the lotus before her. It hung in the air, the softest, palest green light, glowing in the underground gloom. Her face softened and she looked down.
Where her belly had been torn open by shrapnel her skin was unmarked. Even the blood was gone. She looked at Jo and her expressive eyes said all there was to say.
Brenda just stared and said, ‘So Smokey was right.’ Quickly she gathered her wits and led Jo to the most critical patients. From there, more able patients came and linked hands with both them and the infirmary staff until everybody was connected.
And Jo sang. She sang of faraway worlds and missing family. She whispered of fear and of strength in the dark. She focused her mind on remembering her mum until she sang without words and with every rise and fall of her voice, the lotus exploded in great bursts of colour that swam round the room and warmed all that they touched. And Jo sang until she remembered everyone she loved and she poured out her heart and the warmth in the room grew greater and grand, until all of the soldiers were standing as normal, completely uninjured but still linking hands. And they were singing along with their great booming hearts until Jo, quivering with fatigue, finally let go and just listened as the warriors sang a song full of miracles and of wonder and of worship and of happiness and of love and of victory.
Until.
Until Quinn, stark, wired, ragged, but unharmed Quinn, appeared in the doorway. Slouched between him and a badly burned Smokey was Reg. And he was not moving at all.
Jo tried. She had nothing left and she still gave her all. She tried and nothing happened. The lotus would not appear no matter how much she tried, until in the end everyone cried with her. Brenda salved and cleaned Smokey’s wounds and applied clean, fresh bandages and confined him to bed.
And Quinn.
Quinn, well Quinn, he just stared at his fallen friend until, once everybody had finally left and all but the tiniest of sounds had settled down, he moved from the doorway and into the room where they had carried Reg away from him. And after all of that time and all of that watching and all of that being utterly unable to do one single thing to help he fell to his knees beside his best friend’s bed and he wept and he cried and he howled. He stared at his friend and his friend, he did not stare back. He did not move. He was cold. And when Quinn had run out of tears and wrung out his hands well, then, only then, did Quinn look up. He looked up through the gloomy ceiling, and he looked on up through the dank, dark ground above him and he kept on looking up and he looked through the ravaged earth above and he looked up. He looked past the burning wasteland and he saw through the poison rainclouds and he looked up through the pain and the shit and the lies and he looked up to the sky above and in his mind he saw the night time stars he'd seen so many long hard years ago and he looked up and he looked up and he looked up and he looked up and then Quinn, well then, Quinn, he said;
‘No more.’
‘No more for the Rainmaker.’
He rose to his feet and gathered his strength and said, 'This is War,’ to the empty room.
Jo was summoned to Quinn the next day.
‘I’ve underestimated you. I’m hoping we can start over.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Jo. ‘We got off on the wrong foot.’
‘Quite so. Listen, I heard you sing last night and man, I got to tell you, you were great. All of you. It was the sound of your voices raised that kept us all going. Smokey, Reg and me were dancing together, singing along.’
Jo said nothing. It was clear that Reg had died long before Quinn had dragged him home and that Smokey would certainly never sing and probably never dance again. But she said nothing anyway.
‘I heard you sing of Ali, too. You know her, I felt it.’
‘You did?’
‘I sure did. So listen, I heard you healed a whole regiment. Is that true?’
‘It is.’
‘You can do it again?’ The eager question was more like a statement.
‘I don’t know. I’ve only ever fully summoned the lotus once before and I’ve tried so hard since then until now trying to make it happen again. I just can’t control it.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of. Pity.’
‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ said Jo.
Quinn looked at her but said nothing. It was clear that he was brimming with rage. When he eventually spoke his voice was cold and bitter. ‘Dismissed, Nurse.’
‘You asked to see me, Sir?’
‘Come in, Nurse.’ Five days had passed. They’d taken Reg to the tunnel used as a graveyard and they buried him deep in the dark. The strong soldiers carried him with reverence the whole way.
Jo had relatively little to do in the ward now that the injured soldiers were all healed. Nearly every bed was empty, but none felt so empty as the bed they’d lain Reg upon. You could hear a pin drop. Despite their last encounter, Jo was relieved to be active again.
‘Can I trust you, Jo?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘But you know that you’re crazy, right?’
‘I don’t know how I got here, Sir. But here I am.’
‘Yeah, that’s not an answer. Cool.’
And with that Quinn started walking and he trailed Jo beside him. They walked out of his office and past the Infirmary and down to Munitions and alongside the Barracks and they came up to the Motor Pool and they walked straight up to the door.
‘We’re lost without Ali. Our intel is gone. Reg knew there was a spy among us but we could never figure out who. Still can’t. So many times we planned the perfect attack and at the last moment we’d hear word from Ali that they’re already waiting for us. Well, without her to warn us we’re going in blind and more often than not, we are losing. Now I only met Princess Jocasta for a few minutes when she was a small child but I’ve seen her on the news feed and she looks just like you. How is that?’
‘I can’t tell you. You’ll either laugh or get angry.’
Quinn looked at her and said, ‘Kid, I could do with either right now.’ And despite all his weariness he gave her a wink.
Jo took a deep breath. ‘OK then. In the place where I grew up King Paul was my father. Queen Lethe was my aunt and Ali my mother. You weren’t there.’
‘So Jocasta and you are half-sisters as well as cousins.’ Jo shuddered. ‘Sorry. I creeped myself out too.’
‘Sir, I can see where this is going. You need someone inside the Royal Court. You need someone who can act as if the King himself is her own father. You have a doppelganger at your disposal – me - and most of all you need to know if Ali is OK. And so do I.’
‘I can see you’ve been thinking about this too.’
‘It’s the obvious play, Sir,’ said Jo, smiling.
‘So you’ll do it? Do you think you can do it?’
‘Yes Sir. I can and I will. Just get me in the door and I’ll bring her home.’
‘Outstanding. Now, how the hell are we going to do it?’
Jo thought hard, then took another deep breath. ‘Sir, you’ve trusted me this far and I’ve trusted you. Don’t tell Brenda anything. In my time she seems every bit as loyal as your Brenda is, but there, she’s a traitor. What’s worse is she doesn’t even know it. Titus twists all her loyalty and uses her as a sleeper spy.’
Quinn froze. His face tightened. ‘What?’
‘I’m not saying your Brenda is a spy, Sir. In my world Brenda’s a very different person, just not quite who she appears to be. Because of Titus. I don’t get that impression here. But I can’t help wondering. As far as I know your Brenda has never even met Titus.’
‘Have you?’ snapped Quinn, suddenly. ‘Have you met Titus Stigmurus?’
Jo chose her words carefully. ‘I’ve met another Titus and he’s been several different versions of himself. He was a mix of an evil villain and a crazy scientist until he got locked in a cell strapped to a bomb for forty days and nights. That was down to Smokey
. After he was released he set about making amends for his hideous crimes. But he still runs the Vermin; they just changed their name. It’s sad in a way, as they manage to somehow pervert and twist all of his shiny new, good intentions. He tries to help people but he ends up using them all instead. He doesn’t really have any power now.’
‘Well think back to that crazy evil scientist and then give him the whole world. In this time, he has all the power.’
‘You speak as if you believe me!’ gasped Jo.
‘I believe what I see, Jo. You and Ali resonate the same way; you’re her family through and through. But you’re not from around here, and that kinda makes sense too, in the way that it doesn’t so it also fits. I can’t explain how you got here, but I know that you believe it and I asked you to trust me so I am doing the same.’
Jo didn’t know what to say. So Quinn said, ‘I don’t know how to get you back there either.’ He set off walking again, pacing up and down, thinking hard. ‘With any luck you won’t see him that often. It’s good that you know a side of him that we all don’t; it’ll help with your cover story.’
‘When I first got here everybody thought I’d hit my head. Maybe we could try the same thing twice?’