Breeder

by Honni van Rijswijk

  “It’s mainly for Zone A.”

  “But . . .”

  “C’mon, Will,” she says. “You’re the one who asked. Why does talking about this make you so angry?”

  I honestly don’t know. All those times I had to recite that crap about the End Times in school—I mean, I knew I wasn’t at a proper school, learning real things, like kids in Zone B or even Zone C. But I never thought they were actual lies. She shrugs. “Maybe let’s not talk politics today. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve left the Gray Zone?”

  She reaches into her pocket again and holds up two tiny syringes with large caps on them. “Scan patches!” she says, grinning. My stomach flips.

  “Are you crazy? Hide them!” She laughs and puts her hands under the table.

  “Come on, Will! With these patches, we’re two humble sewerage plant workers, and today’s our well-deserved day off. Party day. Don’t you want to celebrate with me? We have Zone C access!” she says.

  She’s nuts. It’s suicide. “What about your scar?” I ask.

  She takes a compact out of her bag. “Concealer,” she says. “Come with me.”

  She grabs my arm and her bag and we go to the bathroom, where Alex locks us in a stall. Then she flips open the compact and takes out a little brush, applying thick makeup to her face until one side is covered. She puts her hat on and pulls it down over the brand.

  “Oh, come on, Alex.”

  “What?”

  “That’s—that’s insanely risky.”

  “Risk is part of the fun.”

  “Shit.”

  She takes the cap off a syringe and expertly injects the inside of her wrist. Then she takes my wrist and I feel her warm hand as she tries to find the scanner chip under my skin. It would be fun, of course—we could run around and laugh at the crap posh people in the upper zones—and it would be a trip to hear Alex’s opinion of things she hadn’t seen, or hadn’t seen in a long time. But all she’d need is one CSO to look at her a little too closely, and she’d be in for it. She’s so used to the Gray Corps looking the other way, she’s become deluded that a little makeup and a hat will do the trick outside the Gray Zone. I push her hand away.

  “Come on, Will,” she says.

  I shake my head.

  “If you come, I’ll tell you about the Response. I mean, I know you’re in love with the Corp but . . .” She grins at me.

  She’s still holding my hand. My heart is racing, and I’m going to be sick. I think of the line of Shadows being thrown into the Rator.

  “No,” I say. I pull my arm away fast and leave the stall. She follows me back to the table, frowning.

  “It’s not that I love the Corp . . .” I say, as quietly as I can. “It’s just . . . I’ve seen the Response get smashed by the Corp. They don’t stand a chance.”

  She looks at me carefully. “We’re only getting started, Will. The Response is growing. Come with me today, and I’ll tell you more about us.” Us. I think of the protesters getting beaten. The slim spines of the women as I push them into the back of Rob’s SUV. I’m finding it hard to breathe.

  Then I notice the same large man who was looking at Alex before has moved places, and he’s now sitting at the table next to us pretending to enjoy his entertainment plug. He’s not a pervy Gray Corps affiliate after all—he’s a CSO. Fuck. Fuck. He doesn’t have a uniform or a badge, but it’s clear to anyone with the slightest clue that he’s security: a huge, stupid-eyed guy with massive arms and a mean mouth. They’re fucking everywhere now—the crackdown is real.

  Something alerts Alex to him too and her face changes to fear. She freezes.

  Ah, shit. “C’mon,” I whisper. “Do it. Inject me. Let’s go.”

  I can see her calming down. She smiles. “Really?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get out of here!” I pull her out of the booth and we go back to the bathroom and I feel a cold sting as she pushes the tiny syringe into my wrist and then she pushes a Jazz pill into my mouth and one into hers.

  •

  We put on our masks and run down to the main road and then out the gates of the Gray Zone. We keep running until we get to a bus stop and we jump onto an orange Transit-bound bus that’s about to pull away from the curb. I scan my wrist against the scanner and it beeps and then I watch Alex push her wrist against it too and am relieved when it beeps her through. She laughs happily and I go down the aisle, dragging Alex behind me, holding her firmly by the hand. For a moment, I feel giddy with happiness. I’ll lose one hundred units for missing my morning shift, but I’ll make sure I’m back for the afternoon shift, and I’ll tell them I was sick—I haven’t had a sick day in three years. I get to spend a few hours clear with Alex. I feel a pang about Ma not seeing me come home from the Gray Zone before she goes to work, because she’ll worry. But if I send her a message, it might be intercepted, and I can call her later from work. It’s better if she thinks I’ve been held up at the Wall. Ma would worry much, much more if I told her I was “hanging out”—given that I live life as a forty-year-old, she would smell a rat.

  Right now, I can’t stand the thought of people touching me—but the bus is packed with men and boys, so I give up and just try to ignore the pressure and smells and sounds of all those bodies. A tall man pressing against me is clearly another CSO. Fuck. Again, there’s no uniform or a badge—it’s obvious though: a huge, well-nourished, stupid-eyed guy with expensive sunglasses.

  I look around to see if he’s already tracking anyone and notice there’s a Shadow on the bus. She’s in her late twenties, very thin, standing near the back door, with a foot-wide space around her—none of the men want to touch her. Her eyes are bright with pain. A Mood. She hasn’t noticed the CSO—she’s staring out the window, frowning and fretting as though she’s lost something and is searching the pavement for it as we drive along. Still watching her, the CSO takes his phone out of his pocket and taps something into it. It looks like he’s waiting for her to do something wrong, like committing an act of public nuisance—which technically could be something as small as talking to herself out loud, or wearing too much deodorant. CSOs tend to target Shadows for minor infractions much more than they target the rest of us. Or he might just hassle her for no ostensible reason at all, just because he can. I catch Alex’s eye and she nods; she’s clocked both the CSO and the Shadow. I look at the CSO again and he must feel my eyes on him because he gives me a good stare, which sends a shot of panic up my spine. He could ask to scan my ID, frisk me—hell, he could arrest me, no questions asked, and give me a cavity search if he wanted. CSOs have a right to detain you for as long as they want; Ma has drilled that into me since I could walk. He’s still staring at me.

  Then I feel a warmth flow up my body, from my toes to the top of my head and I no longer give a shit. It’s the Jazz. Alex is grinning at me. It’s as though something deep inside me drops out—there’s a feeling that somehow, I don’t have a pilot anymore. I’m thinking about Alex and the waking nightmare of my night with the Shadows and the Breeders and wishing I could just make something good happen. I watch myself from a distance as I take a step around the CSO, blocking his view of the Shadow at the door, and I look him straight in the face and say, “Excuse me?”

  Someone nearby clears his throat: a middle-aged man dressed in a nice suit, who is gently shaking his head at me in warning.

  I turn back to the officer. “Excuse me, do you know which stop I’d get off for Edgecombe Road?”

  The man in the suit grabs my arm as though to steady me. The CSO pushes him away. “You stay out of this!” he snarls at the older man and then he says to me, “What exactly is your problem?” My heart’s going mental and my brain is telling me that it would be much more sensible to walk out into the badlands if I want to destroy myself, rather than allow some CSO bastard to get his hands on me, but my brain is somehow not in control. I can see Alex whispering to
the Shadow, who glances up, her face full of terror, and locks eyes with the CSO.

  Around us there’s one of those waves of freaking out, as each person takes a proper look at the CSO and realizes what he is—and they all scamper to the other end of the bus. Who knows how many Gray Corps and smugglers are traveling with us this morning? The crackdown is so real.

  Cavity search! my brain screams at me, as the bus stops, the doors fly open, and half the passengers get off. The CSO stands there, looking at me with quite a bit of hatred, and that makes me feel very happy—I’m full of Jazz and I am a complete moron. I’m fine with that. I don’t care. You fucking moron! But my brain’s not in the driver’s seat and I’m smiling, not giving a crap. I’m waiting for him to grab my arm and scan my ID. It will be a fucking relief when he does. Then he remembers his target; I can see the struggle in his eyes. He turns around, sees that the Shadow has left with the crowd, and jumps off the bus.

  The doors shut and the bus takes off. Then I hear someone say, “That was a cruel thing to do.” It’s the older man in the suit. He’s not angry, but sad. I’m about to tell him to mind his own fucking business, when my brain locks back into pilot position and I realize what I’ve done: I’ve provoked the CSO, made him furious and violent, just as he’s about to arrest the grief-eyed Shadow. I stare out the window to see her walking quickly away from the bus, her fists clenched, still searching for whatever it is she’s lost, oblivious to the CSO pushing through the crowd toward her.

  Alex and I stand there, stunned. I can’t even look at her, I’m so ashamed. She doesn’t look at me either, and we walk to the back of the bus to one of the many empty seats and sit on opposite sides. She’s angry at me for what I’ve done; I’m angry at her for being angry at me. It’s stupid—that’s how it is.

  We sit there, stewing, for the next half hour. When the bus pulls into the Zone F Transit Station, I’m still buzzed, and also kind of depressed. I don’t want to get off the bus and go through the motions of our plan—get our interzone patches checked, catch a Mega bus to Zone C, go shopping, make fun of rich people buying froyo that would cost me two days of work units. I see that Alex looks depressed too, and that she’s still irritated with me, which is good, because I’m still irritated with her. The bus door flings open and we shuffle down the aisle toward the back exit.

  As I approach the steps, I hear a quiet voice behind me. “My name is Corporation Security Officer L. I need to scan your ID.”

  Obviously that CSO isn’t talking to me, I think, as I start to shake.

  I glance to the left and see a hand holding a large Corporate Security Officer ID badge. Then someone grabs my wrist to do a scan and I swing around—in front of me is another undercover CSO I hadn’t even noticed. A Shadow CSO, in fact, dressed in a dark suit like a semiprofessional from Zone C, or even Zone B. It’s only the really screwed up, self-hating, extra-sadistic Shadows who become CSOs, and they are fucking chilling. Behind me, Alex has been grabbed by another Shadow CSO in a profesh suit. We totally missed them—I guess because we were high, and fighting—and now one of them has got hold of my arm. The exit’s a foot away.

  “It will go better for you if you don’t draw attention to yourself,” Officer L says quietly. “Don’t run. CSOs are outside both bus doors.”

  I look behind me at Alex, whose eyes are deep in panic and I mouth the words, “Stay calm.” She nods. Her hat is still firmly placed on her head, hiding her concealer-covered Breeder mark. We’ll both be okay. They won’t necessarily realize Alex is a Breeder, if she just stays calm and does what they say. They only want to scan her ID and maybe ask a few questions.

  Officer L pushes me roughly down the bus stairs. I see the uniformed CSOs waiting at the bottom and I twist around to see Alex being pushed down the stairs behind me. One of the uniformed CSOs drags her away, along with the other undercover Shadow CSO, and soon they’re in the middle of the crowd and I can’t see them anymore. It happens so fast.

  “Where are they taking my friend?” I ask Officer L, trying to stay calm. “Our IDs are valid. Scan our wrists again! It’s our day off from the plant. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  And she just says, “Shut up.”

  I try to wrench free but she’s holding my arm really tight, and she is so strong. I’m dizzy and weak—idiot. I can’t think. One of the uniformed CSOs comes up and L salutes him. He walks beside me, holding my other arm. They push me down the platform until we come to a gray office door with a Corp Bus insignia on the front. Inside there are two chairs, a desk with a computer on it, and a bed covered in fresh, white sheets.

  When I see the bed, I feel a rush of nausea. I fight them and manage to get my arms free and I run toward the door, which has now closed. I scream. I scream so everyone in the bus station will know. And then they’re both on me, and L has her hand across my mouth, wedged against my nose so I can’t breathe. I try to bite her but can’t and she says, “If I take my hand away, will you scream?”

  I nod and she smashes her hand harder against my nose and I feel my lungs starting to hurt and I shake my head, side to side, and she releases her hand and I take big, painful breaths. “Let me out,” I say. “Please. I’m going to be sick.”

  “Vomit all over the floor,” she says to me. “I don’t care. I know why you’re sick. I know what you are.”

  She’s looking at me with real hate. I feel a sting of fear and then I calm down: she must be a crazy Mood. Maybe she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

  Then the uniformed CSO steps between us and says, “Just relax, okay?” He’s talking to Officer L, not to me, and I can tell he’s angry at having to work with a Shadow, and cranky about having to sort out a kid in a hot room at the Zone F Transit. And I start to think it might be okay. He says to me, “I’m Senior Corporate Security Officer Q. Why don’t you take a seat? This will be over with soon and then you can go.”

  He seems calm, sane, and on my side. I nod—I don’t really have a choice. And it’s probably better to cooperate. So I sit down.

  “Did you check the Grid for any priors?” he asks.

  “No, just a basic ID check,” L admits and he rolls his eyes and looks at me, muttering “Stupid Shadow bitch” under his breath. He grins at me, and I grin back. L hears him, and her face blushes red around her white, faded Breeder scar, under the Shadow tattoo stamped on top.

  I’m already holding my wrist out. He runs the computer’s scanner over it and waits for the results. Then he turns to L in irritation. “Grid says he’s fine. Why did you call me with a Code 522?”

  Officer L looks at me with even more hatred. Then I see her recover: her blush fades, her mouth sets. “I tracked them all the way from the Wall,” she says, her eyes bright. “I’m getting this one’s friend checked now. You’ll see.”

  L’s mobile phone buzzes and, as she answers, Q runs through the units, education, and work history of my fake ID implant. I can see from where I’m sitting that everything’s flashing up “Satisfactory” and that my ID belongs to somebody called “Mathew Ellington.” My heart beats frantically—Alex and I should have at least learned basic facts about our IDs.

  “Enjoy the sewerage plant?” he asks. He looks at the corner of the screen. “Mathew?”

  I shrug. “It’s work.”

  “Tell me about it,” he says, and smiles. Actually smiles. I’m wondering how I can work this situation.

  L is still talking on her phone.

  “Do you play sport?” Q asks me.

  “Yeah. Football,” I say, which is a total lie. I’m crap at just about every sport that has been invented. But I can tell that old Q, with his big arms and barrel chest, fancies himself a sporty sort of guy.

  “Good on you,” he says, and smiles again. We’ve officially formed a man-bond and it makes him happy because he’s been brought in here by a fucking Shadow and he hates that.

  I’m about to
spin some story about the game of football that me and the guys have down at the sewerage plant, and how sporty and manly and excellent it is, when I notice there’s silence. Officer L clicks her mobile shut. She looks really, really happy.

  “They’ve finished the exam and the other suspect is a Breeder,” she says. I feel something inside me slide. Oh god. Oh, Alex.

  Q looks at me and stiffens. “We’ll note this on your file, and you’ll be called before the magistrate to give testimony at a Corporation Sessions Hearing,” he says. “You’ll need to give evidence as to whether you were aware of this fact about your coworker and if you were, there will be serious consequences.”

  He stands up and goes to the door; opens it. I stand up and follow and I’m about to go through when L says to him, “Hey, sir! Just a minute!”

  Q turns to her, really pissed off at her being Bolshie with him. “What? We’ve got his ID. They’ll process him back at the Corporation.”

  She snorts. “I’m not finished with this one. Look at the eyes.”

  He hesitates. Then he looks at me. He turns to L. “What?”

  “Crystal,” she says. “I’m sure of it.”

  He looks back at me and I feel the man-bond between us vaporize.

  “Please,” I say, and I can see his eyes harden—begging was the wrong move.

  “Show me your eyes,” he tells me.

  I look up. The myth is that people who take Crystal have a tiny red spot, an imprint of the hormones, in the middle of their pupils. The myth is true. For me, at least.

  “Fuck,” says Q.

  L is almost dancing around the room she’s so excited. “You’ll need to do a body inspection, right?”

  Q nods, and L leaves the room as I’m ordered to strip. My face is burning, I take off my pants and shirt and fold them and put them on the table. Then I take off my underpants and put them underneath the folded clothes. I’m hunched over, hiding my groin.

  “Stand up. Move your arms to your sides,” he says.