Adaptive Consequences

by Lucy L Austin

  ‘I don’t like this, Jun. I’m coming with you,’ Fan insisted.

  It wasn’t often she stuck him out like this. ‘No…’ She paused. ‘I… I need to do this by myself. Will you be alright?’

  ‘I’ve got to read and analyse a stratospheric sulphate aerosols report. It’s not me you need to worry about,’ Fan said, slamming the trunk door and handing her a parasol. ‘Don’t think twice about calling me. I mean it, Jun, any funny business…’ he said and squeezed her arm.

  The Intuimoto had parked itself near a free-standing rock formation. That would help navigate her way back. She waved goodbye to Fan’s agitated face and set off.

  The stretch of the Ghetto was probably bigger than Chun, but sparser; less rigid and without order. Jun began to walk towards the hundreds of mobile homes, scattered like marbles, all different shapes, sizes and ages, a world apart from the identikit homes in Chun. It reminded her of some of the coastal cities destroyed by Typhoons, or towns that had been snapped and shook by earthquakes. But in place of debris and wreckages, were mobile homes, and signs of life. The Ghetto wasn’t so much about destruction, but discord.

  Two unruly men sauntered towards her and stared, mutely. Their faded shorts at one time had been blue and green respectively; their vests once white had yellowing patches under the arms and were punctured with rips and holes.

  Jun wanted to ask the direction of, what had Solo called it? The Circolo Della Libertà. Daring to snatch a glance at their gruff leathered faces, unimpressed and impassive, she decided against it. She pulled her parasol firmly down over her head, nervous about what the men might do. She strode on ahead but heard one of them aggressively call after her.

  ‘Leave her,’ a young girl’s voice emerged from the din, loud and unapologetic. ‘She’s expected.’

  Jun hadn’t noticed a girl, hidden behind a vintage car. She lifted her parasol. The girl had a familiarity about her, with her pin-thin legs bowed together, and soil-smeared hands that tried to shield her eyes. She was too young to be here by herself.

  The girl waved at the men, who nodded in return, positioning themselves next to the rocks, keeping a watchful eye on Fan inside the car. Jun gulped for air. This hadn’t been a good idea after all.

  ‘Are you meeting someone at the Circolo Della Libertà?’

  All Jun could muster was a nod.

  ‘Then follow me…’ the girl said, and beckoned Jun over to her.

  Now she was closer, Jun could study the girl’s face. She had braids and feathers in her hair, and there were small shaved patches on her head. Though discreet, there were fresh sutures on the pterion region of her head. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen; no child should look like that.

  ‘Come under this, you’ll bake standing there without protection,’ Jun said, reaching out her hand to the girl, and stretching the parasol to cover them both. ‘What’s your name?’

  The girl smiled and pressed ahead. Jun followed, snaking through the maze of caravans and mobile homes, gingerly stepping over a puddle of liquid, pinching her nose against its acrid smell. The trickle’s source was from a conspicuous hut; she hoped they had sanitation.

  Some of the mobile homes seemed more than twenty years old, with blistered flakes of paint, bleached and scorched by the sun. There were spontaneous vegetable patches, and photovoltaics attached on mob-homes like braces on teeth. An awning hung like a dislocated arm.

  As they crabbed across the rough pathways, Jun discreetly took in as much of her new companion as she could. She wore clothes that were in decent condition but needed a wash; her teeth were brilliant-white. Despite the sutures, she looked otherwise healthy, but where was her family?

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘About a week.’ The girl kicked a stone across the desiccated and dusty plain. It hurtled between a windsock and a washing-line pole, acting as obliging goal posts. ‘You’re here to see Solo, right?’

  Jun nodded. She was a curious girl, both young and old for her years. She tried to remember Kau at her age. Mainly he’d been hungry and spoke only when forced to.

  ‘Solo’s anxious to see you. She’s been very kind to me even though she has troubles herself.’ The girl folded her arms over her chest. ‘She and her husband are having problems…’

  So Solo was haunted by the living, as well as the dead. It was funny how children lived a life unfiltered, often unaware by what they should and shouldn’t say.

  They emerged from the labyrinth and stopped at a mini-windmill, its sails as beaten and weathered as the mob-homes.

  ‘So, I hope you’ll tell her what you know.’ The girl scanned her face, assessing if Jun had anything to tell. ‘The Circolo Della Libertà is just up there.’ She pointed at an incline, beyond the anaemic trees and gorse bushes where they stood. She began to walk away, and Jun found that she didn’t want the girl to go.

  ‘You’ll see me again, don’t worry,’ the girl said walking backwards.

  Jun felt for a loose thread on her dress, but there wasn’t a snag free to pull. She took her first steps along the pathway to the Circle. The sun’s burning momentum had peaked and forced the Ghettoites to seek shelter. Compared to the noise and pandemonium of when she first arrived, the silence was unnerving.

  A man-drone circled up ahead. What was that doing here? Despite the stalemate, the UA didn’t venture on Ghettoite lands or airspace across the world. There had been reports that every time they attempted, they were shot down, and even the airspace was reported to have a band wave shield, which even the most powerful satellites couldn’t penetrate. With usually at least four Ghettoes per Province, and there being only ten habitable Provinces now, that ruled out at least 40 areas where the UA and Global Governance Alliance had no jurisdiction. Albeit, in the grand scheme of things, they were small areas. The angry-red orb bobbed and faded into the sky, and then the circle finally came into view, where a woman sat waiting.

  Jun had hoped to see a familiarity, a likeness to what she remembered of Odgerel. In place of Odgerel’s dark, dense curls, which she draped freely, this woman wore her hair short and clipped. Solo was as petite and lithe as her mother, but where Odgerel had been a tough yet approachable, Solo was severe. Perhaps Fan should have come after all.

  ‘So you are, Dr Xie,’ Solo said flatly.

  Jun knew that this wouldn’t be a comfortable ride. ‘I was…am, but call me Jun,’ she said, unsure whether to shake Solo’s hand or go for an embrace.

  Solo quickly sat back down, and Jun was spared of the decision.

  ‘My name is Solongo, but everyone calls me Solo,’ she thundered.

  Jun wasn’t sure if it was her nerves getting the better of her, or the combination of heat and fatigue, but her knees buckled. She perched on one of the tree stumps next to Solo. It was worn and grooved from years of gathering over uprisings and revolts. There were fifteen, twenty of them, spread out in a circle. Twenty years ago, perhaps there would have been a fire-pit in the centre, now there was just a hardened mound of earth, brown and coarse.

  As if reading her mind, Solo said, ‘When it was deemed safe after the radiological contamination, the Ghettoites reclaimed this territory. They conserved this whole area, reinvigorated it. They chose this as their meeting spot – the Circolo Della Libertà. It’s where the Autonarmy began.’ There must be some Italian connection.

  Jun thought of Mikhail and his family, some of the original resistance pioneers of the Province, if not the world. She motioned to move her parasol to cover them both, but Solo dodged from beneath it. There was the man-drone again, a ball-fly in the distance, darting back in the direction of where she’d come from.

  A chasm of silence split between them. Out of respect for Solo’s mother, Jun knew she had to be the one to begin. She chose her words carefully; the woman had waited all this time to get in touch, there must be something on her mind. ‘I can’t imagine how you’ve felt. I hope what happened hasn’t cast a shadow over your whole life. I didn’t
know your mother for very long, but I know she wouldn’t want you to be hurting…’

  Solo looked straight into Jun’s eyes. ‘I need to know why my mother killed herself.’

  The sun found an exposed area on Jun’s back, uncovered by the parasol, and the skin began to prickle.

  Solo shook her head and half-smiled, one Jun didn’t trust to be genuine. ‘I got in touch because, as you put it, it has cast a shadow, a tall one, for a long time.’ Solo struggled to find the words, so stopped and drew a deep breath. ‘My husband and I are trying for a baby. I’ve had some tests, and it’s doubtful whether we can organically have children…’ Solo kicked the ground with her heel. ‘In my culture, yes some of us still have our culture, there is no greater honour than to be a mother.’ Solo’s head hung in her hands for a moment before flinging up to the sky.

  But biofertilization was commonplace. After all the natural disasters, plagues and outbreaks, and the global population plummeted, they had depended on it.

  ‘Recently, something made me question what I believe, believed, to be true,’ Solo said. ‘So, talk – did she know there was something wrong with me? That I’m…’ Solo stopped herself and drew a slow breath in, and then out again. Her foot drummed the ground like a heartbeat racing and pacing, but she did not cry.

  Jun swallowed the tears that had begun to form. The last thing Solo needed was that. ‘Your mother had an extraordinary brain. Far superior to the brains of most people. The typical signs that we would use to detect suicidal-’

  Solo sprang to her feet. ‘Spare me! Tell me the truth about what happened! Did she take her own life? I’ve always thought it was because I wasn’t what she expected, that she was ashamed, but now, I’m starting to question…’

  Is this what she had been tormenting herself with? That in some way she was to blame? Spinning the same narrative in her head for so long that it had marooned her in another reality. ‘It wasn’t your fault. She loved you and was keen to get home to you.’

  ‘Keen to get home?’ Solo’s voice lost some of the aggression.

  ‘Yes,’ Jun said and touched her hand. It flinched but let Jun’s stay there.

  Solo sat down again, and whispered, ‘What did she say about me?’

  Jun tried to flesh out her memories, but they were faint and faded like ancient K’o-ssu.

  ‘Did she say anything about me? Any predictions or intuitions?’

  ‘She only ever spoke fondly and lovingly about her “little Solo”,’ Jun said softly. ‘She made no predictions about you.’ There had been predictions, but none that concerned Solo, that much she remembered.

  ‘I was only a toddler when she died. I just remember glimpses, bits and pieces here and there, not enough to tell me anything. I’ve relied on my father, family and friends… but it’s never felt quite… right. Like they’re telling me what I want to hear.’

  From her words, Jun expected Solo’s voice crack with pain, but instead, resentment dripped, and her face raged. Jun couldn’t remember them talking much about Solo, bits and pieces here and there. ‘When she mentioned your name there was always a tenderness. She was reluctant to stay because she wanted to get back to you–’

  ‘Reluctant?’ Solo’s eyes narrowed.

  The question hung in the air for a few beats, its tone a warning siren. Treating her words like footsteps, Jun was careful and as delicate as if avoiding broken glass. ‘Not at first, but she understood and appreciated the importance of our work. We were making excellent progress; she was a unique Subject–’

  ‘Subject? Is that what you called her?’ Solo’s body shook. ‘What were you doing to her?’

  ‘We were monitoring and observing, undertaking tests–’

  ‘They’re just fancy words for doing. What kinds of tests were you doing?’

  ‘Your mother wasn’t worried or upset by them. She was keen to get home to you, of course. That was the main reason she didn’t want to stay, that’s the important thing to remember here.’ Jun’s voice faltered.

  ‘So, you were responsible… what did you do to her?’ Solo’s hands rubbed her head as though the friction from it might spark a fire. ‘People don’t just kill themselves. This is making so much more sense now, all this time I thought it was me… when really,’ she said, and stopped her pacing to look at Jun. ‘It was you.’

  Jun scoured her dress frantically for a loose thread but couldn’t find one. In its absence, she dug her nail into her skin.

  ‘She didn’t even leave a note. A woman who loves her family leaves a note. She didn’t. That tortured me, the not-knowing. I was recently told something which I thought was ridiculous, that I couldn’t believe…’

  Jun’s eyes teared-up. ‘Who, told you what?’ She moved to put her hand on Solo’s shoulder, but Solo batted it away.

  ‘Don’t touch me… you have my mother’s blood on your hands.’

  The skin around Jun’s eyes swelled. Warm, sticky tears leaked down her face. ‘There isn’t anyone to blame. It was an unfortunate thing-’

  ‘Don’t you dare say it was unfortunate. Don’t be so…dismissive,’ Solo spat. ‘It might have been unfortunate for you, but for me, it was devastating.’ She grunted and punched her fist in her hand. ‘Don’t think this is the last of it Doctor – you’ll be hearing from me.’ Her eyes drilled into Jun’s as though grinding them to powder. She turned on her heels, her feet perforated the ground, dust erupting in her wake.

  They ruled pre-disposed suicide. It wasn’t her fault. They had an understanding. Odgerel would have said something, wouldn’t she? But why should she have said anything? They had persuaded her to stay when she didn’t want to. The pressure of it could have been too much. Jun’s thoughts consumed her like a fever. No, no, no; it couldn’t be true.

  The sun had slipped across the sky, arching its rays fully behind Jun, while her parasol redundantly slumped in front of her. Fan had been right, again. How after all these years was she still getting it wrong?

  Solo’s words had swallowed the air, hazing the circle, and arrested her body. The shadows of tree-stumps stretched like tombstones, the parasol a wonky spire.

  Before she realised what was happening, Jun was on the ground, the sandy earth warm against her cheek, her sight, a mirage of reality. There was a dull ache from her shoulder, which had conjoined itself with her neck.

  She couldn’t be sure if the other shadow displacing the tombstones was real or an illusion. Jun felt a hand on her shoulder, hoping, rather than thinking it was Fan, but she couldn’t summon the strength to pull herself up from the ground. Was it Solo, coming back to take revenge?

  A body swooped down, and someone was crouching on their ankles to meet Jun’s eyes. She sluggishly registered the face belonged to the young girl from before.

  ‘Well,’ the girl said, her voice deadpan, ‘that could have gone better.’

  * * *

  The girl thrust a glass of water in Jun’s face, and Jun noticed she had sutures on her wrist, matching those on her head. It was an offence to remove your health chips. A week in the Ghetto, and she had already gone rogue.

  ‘Drink this – you don’t look well.’ The girl pushed the glass to Jun’s face again. An air-conditioning unit gave a tinny moan.

  Jun gulped it back, and the coolness of it stung like acid. Now she felt a bit more human, Jun realised they were inside one of the mob-homes. It had a peculiar charm to it; its elliptical windows were like monocles nestled in eyes. The girl leant back, humbling the just-right-sized-cabinet doors. But the usual signs of domestic normality were absent. No family Pix, no shoes by the door. It was like an upside-down children’s game, where the girl was a real-life doll, playing in a pretend house.

  ‘I saw Solo get in her Intuimoto. She looked pretty angry.’

  Jun’s eyes began to stream again, but she dried them. Tears in front of strangers were a calling card of the foolish. She wasn’t ready to talk about what happened, and certainly not without knowing more about the girl. ‘Who are yo
u?’

  She seemed to think it over before she relented. ‘Kodi. My name is Kodi.’

  The name sounded familiar, but so many half-memories had plagued her since Solo’s mail. She could no longer pick the real from the imagined.

  ‘Thank you, Kodi, for taking me to the circle and bringing me here. You asked me before if I was here to help Solo.’ Jun clasped her hands together and stroked her thumbs around the skin. ‘I think I’ve made things worse.’ Jun told Kodi the story, too exhausted to edit any of the information.

  ‘How did…’ Kodi asked slowly, carefully drawing out the syllables. ‘Solo’s mother’s ‘brain sophistication’ show itself?’

  ‘We didn’t get a chance to see her Pre-Emptive Perception manifest in day-to-day things, just lab-specific tests.’

  Kodi looked lost in thought. Her silence prompted Jun to say, ‘It sounds complex. I suppose I’d forgotten, just how exciting it can be.’ It had been a very long time since Jun had flexed those muscles.

  ‘It’s not complex,’ Kodi said in an assured tone. ‘Was she afraid of being manipulated?’

  ‘Manipulated by who?’

  ‘The UA, the forces that be…whoever you want to call them.’

  Jun shook her head. ‘No. Not at all.’ Something stopped her from interrogating Kodi’s question. A voice in Jun’s head had always told her that Odgerel hadn’t killed herself because of the team and their work, but now that voice had quietened to a whisper. After twenty-five years, here she was clutching at what she’d thought was an unmovable object only to find it a mirage.

  ‘Do you feel responsible?’ Kodi said.

  ‘Not until now, no. It never processed in my head that we were responsible, but now I’m not so sure. This new uncertainty gives way to guilt. But I can’t fully take ownership of it, you see,’ Jun looked down at her calloused finger and stroked it. ‘I remember it differently.’ She thought of Fan and wished he was here to take her hand and scoop her away.