Jun tried to get Kodi’s attention. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing,’ Kodi said, her eyes still looking at the floor. ‘I didn’t mean anything.’
‘It isn’t nothing. Tell me what’s going on?’
‘There’s nothing. I promise… break?’ she finally looked up at Jun, but behind her eyes, there was nothing at all.
As Kodi ran out of the tunnels to Solo’s mob-home, Jun was left with more than a bad taste in her mouth; a visceral understanding of why she’d erased her memory. A light had switched itself on, and she felt it like a shiver through her body. She had been truly able to walk away from the pain, the fighting and the fear. She let the idea of it sit with her, and imagined herself back in her classroom, the student’s absent-minded chatter, her battling to get their attention. Kau would be safe. And she would be with him. And though she didn’t know it yet, a new life was quietly being built for her.
Instead, there was the life she was living now, which shouted and screamed, and was intent on tearing her down. Though its importance was laughable compared with everything else going on, the same question kept surfacing like a song on repeat.
Who would be taking her lectures now?
* * *
Even with the air conditioner’s steady disbursement, the West bunker still had a musty tang of sweat and desperation.
‘What’s the latest?’ Jun said and slid Chandra a glass of Batz’s rich Chatsarganii shuus. His hair was less top-knot, more sloping-tangle, with wisps of hair feathering his shoulders.
As one of their first actions after their regroup, they had contacted Kau for more clarity on what had happened, and if he had any information on the virus.
He’d sent them a brief comm explaining what happened – that he hoped they’d understand. It wasn’t him; it was the UA. That giving Kodi back was for the best. That he would look after her, make sure she was alright, but she’d die otherwise.
Jun had read those words and they struck like a punch in her heart.
‘Nothing else from Kau…’ he said, adding the ‘yet’ on as quickly as possible. Last night Chandra admitted that he’d been hateful to Kau when he’d delivered the news. She didn’t blame him, how could she? Not with the bomb that her son had dropped. He was living behind enemy lines and she knew, though no one had said it outright, that some Ghettoites questioned his allegiance. Maybe if Kau had come to the Ghetto by himself instead of being flanked by Police; perhaps if she’d heard word from him warning them, or if he hadn’t sent a complicit-sounding follow-up note. But she couldn’t think about that now; she had to focus on finding that virus.
The next step they’d taken after messaging Kau, was to speak to Jonquil.
‘If Jonquil could get some diagnostic equipment…an electron microscope would do, if there was morphological classification to go with it,’ Jun had said, the words almost trapped in her throat. ‘I still think the virus will be an unknown synthetic one, but we have to try…’
Chandra gave the first smile she’d seen in 13 hours. ‘Jonquil’s got a blood analyser coming to us through one of her contacts. She’s moving mountains to get it to Eli to bring it to us tomorrow. Earliest we’ll have it is…seven pm,’ he said. ‘Will that work?’
‘It’ll have to,’ her bottom lip was pitted with teeth marks. ‘Anything from the network?’
‘Nor-Am thinks Mid-Am has a virologist. Because we rely on Aiesha and the Nor-Am guys to distribute communication, we’re waiting to hear back from them. Even if they don’t,’ he said and squeezed her hand, ‘We’ve got word out to everyone. Someone has to be able to help us.’
An idea of who else that someone could be percolated into Jun’s consciousness. ‘I wondered,’ she said, ‘could you tap into the PSA grid and contact my old colleague, Delphine?’
Chandra folded his arms. He didn’t like the sound of it, Jun could tell.
‘I know it’s risky to try and talk to her, but she might have seen or heard something. And if she hasn’t, I’d bet the Adaptive Strategies team is still in her lab… maybe, just maybe, she’d be willing to try and find out what they’ve infected Kodi with.’
‘It’s a risk, Jun. Is it worth it? Is she likely to know anything, and better yet, put her neck on the line for us?’
It was unlikely that Delphine would know, but she, they, needed all the help they could get. ‘I think it’s worth a shot,’ she said, more encouragingly than she felt.
As Chandra worked his fingers furiously on the Interface, Jun conjured Delphine’s face. That over-eager smile, the newer lines on skin and a sense of anxiousness that persisted like the smell of chlorine post-swim. If Delphine could help them, she would, Jun was sure of it.
‘Okay, in we go…’ Chandra said, and the Interface flickered into a kitchen. It could have been Jun’s kitchen from her old home; the standardised CMCD formula. But where her kitchen corners were garnished by flowers, or her sideboard seasoned with utensils, Delphine’s were austere. Some buns sat expectantly in their packaging on the worktop. Oil, like a faded bottle of sunshine, stood next to them. Some sandals rested by one of the stools. There was an eeriness about it, like life had been packed away into the cupboards and wiped down off the counter.
‘No one’s home…’ Chandra mused. ‘I assume she’s at work. It is mid-morning on a Thursday…’
That was true. The days had blended into one, and without her lecturing schedule, there was nothing to anchor Jun to the rhythm of CMCD life. That didn’t stop the feeling that something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Looking at Delphine’s kitchen, she wondered how well she really knew her. Was it right, for example, that considered Delphine had left the buns out on the worktop when everything else was packed away? Those sandals underneath the counter a little odd, for midday, midweek. Jun caught herself; was she looking for things that weren’t there?
‘We can try again later when she’s finished work, if you’re set on contacting her?’ Chandra said.
His words fell away, and she couldn’t stop looking at the screen. It was just like any other kitchen, but then why did something feel so wrong about it? ‘Can you zoom in on those buns?’
The screen magnified and was filled with pillowy-white buns flecked with teal.
‘Mould,’ she said. ‘Those buns are stale.’
Chandra zoomed in further, and green pocked the screen. ‘Do you think…?’
Her throat tightened. Not Delphine. She was innocent; she hadn’t done anything wrong. Just like Pav. Jun prayed she was jumping to conclusions, that maybe Delphine had gone on holiday, or perhaps she’d got wind of what was happening and got out while she could.
‘I don’t know,’ Jun croaked and shut her eyes. ‘Can you switch it off please?’ she said, her heart couldn’t take much more of this. Something rose up from her stomach to her throat; she knew she had to run.
Out of the bunker, out into the air, out, out, out, and she might just never stop. She didn’t know where she was going, and she didn’t care. She ran out of the Ghetto, out of the invisible fences and fortresses that protected them; her bones jolting and aching, out into the nothing. Into the flat plains of fawn-shrivelled grass and dust that stretched far and wide, broken only by the access road that drew like a battle line – us versus them. The air smelled differently, and there was a lightness and verve like someone had opened a window somewhere, and real air, not conditioned, was circulating. The midday sun blistered down – she didn’t have her parasol – but she didn’t care.
The poker-hot pains and the fatigued-muscles cried for her to stop running. So she did, and stumbled to a walk, but kept onwards. Though her muscles moved slowly like stirring molasses, something inside said, keep moving.
‘Jun! Are you mad?’ A voice shouted after her, distant, like it was from another part of the world. ‘You’re going to get yourself killed!’ Solo ran till she caught up to Jun’s side. ‘Where are you going? Do you even know?’ Solo struggled to catch her
breath.
It didn’t matter; she needed to get out of there.
Solo pulled on her arm, forcing Jun to stop. ‘Chandra told me about your friend. You don’t know…’
‘I don’t know what?’ Jun said, and carried on walking up the access road. Its hexagonal tiles shimmered brightly beneath the sun. ‘If Delphine’s not dead, it’ll be Kodi. If not Kodi, my son, if not my son-’
And the slap came so hard across her face that at first, she didn’t know what had happened. An acid-sting spread across her cheek, a metallic ache seeped into her teeth and bones.
‘We need you!’ The aggression from Solo’s face slipped into sadness. ‘You can’t leave us,’ her voice broke.
But she couldn’t do this. Another fight where the odds weren’t in their favour. If Kodi died because she couldn’t figure out the virus… well, Jun would rather die than have more blood on her hands.
‘If you walk away now, you’re walking away from more than just this. You’re walking away from me, Chandra, my mother…you’re walking away from what’s right.’
She looked at Solo’s face and had expected to see her own fear staring back at her, laughing, goading, but from somewhere determination surfaced. She hadn’t been walking anywhere, because there was nowhere to go, but here. The only way out was to go back in, and deeper, and keep going till she found the way out. There were no shortcuts, and no other access roads. Breaking Kodi out had been the easy part, everything had been hard since then, but that had been her promise.
Jun nodded. ‘All roads lead back here.’
They walked back to Solo’s mob-home, where in her brief absence it seemed everyone had reconvened. Chandra and Lucas were sat cross-legged on the sofa; Batz and Kodi mirrored one another, leaning against the small kitchen cabinets, arms folded across their chest; only Chandra looked at Jun directly, his feline eyes silently asking hundreds of questions.
‘You can tell its lunch time,’ Jun said and smiled, forcing a hollow chuckle to the group. But they remained silent. It was only when Jun looked around them, that she realised she’d walked into something, and that something wasn’t good.
Batz put a hand on Jun’s shoulder. ‘There’s something Kodi wants to tell you.’
Kodi’s curious eyes were glassy. The slight tremble of her body told Jun not to come any closer.
‘Is this about what you’ve been holding back, sweetheart?’ Jun said, coaxing a frightened animal to trust her. ‘Did your P-EP tell you about being infected?’
She and Kodi were different sides of the same coin. She had wanted to run, but Kodi had wanted to keep so very quiet.
Solo, like a moth to a light, hung close to Jun. She wasn’t sure if it was out of protection or an ambush.
Kodi shook her head. ‘It isn’t that,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t get it, the responsibility of this thing. It’s difficult to tell you what I see,’ she said. ‘It can hurt.’
Jun felt her heartbeat climb. She looked to Chandra. His impassive face gave no reassurance. ‘Sometimes, yes, it hurts, but that should never stop you telling the truth.’
Kodi looked to Batz, who gave her a gentle nod.
‘The truth is, I knew Kau would be the messenger. I didn’t know what he’d say, but he’s the one holding back from you. Not me. Him! There’s something he’s not telling you…us. But I don’t know what it is,’ she shook her head and tears began to stream.
‘So you see. My P-EP isn’t very useful after all. I’m embarrassed I can’t see the virus, and that I didn’t know that I was infected. I can tell you all the insignificant prangs and bumps you’ll get, but anything important, and I’m useless.’
She managed to steal a look at Jun before she buried herself into Batz and cried. ‘All of you are fighting for me, and I can’t help you.’
Batz rocked her back and forth, and her breathing seemed to slow down; she regained some calm.
‘We should probably tell the UA,’ Kodi laughed and wiped her eyes. ‘They might not be interested in me after all.’
Jun thought about the first time she had spoken to Kodi, in this very space. She had been preoccupied with the fallout from Solo, and Kau and his new role. The realisation that he might not be so much like her after all. He was as much Fan’s son as he was hers. Had he been lying to her; were his loyalties with the UA after all? She couldn’t believe it, not with everything that he had done for them, not with how much he had risked, and his work with Larisa. But then she wouldn’t have believed it of Fan.
‘Was I right to tell you?’ Kodi asked, her eyes looked like they would tear again. ‘Are you okay?’ she sniffed.
‘Yes, you were right.’ Jun put her arms around Kodi, and though inwardly her heart was splitting, said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m absolutely fine.’
CHAPTER 31
Thursday 18th May 2062
48 hours to hand over Kodi
Five cancelled meetings in as many hours. One was commonplace, two was a coincidence, three or more, and it looked like what it was… mutiny.
All day Kau had tried to meet with his steering committee colleagues to finalise his report. Toshio – Head of Engineering, two project managers, Bethan – Head of the Infrastructure Team – and Dina from Communications, were all ill, in meetings, in an unscheduled conflict, and under a deadline respectively. Could they reschedule? So sorry to do this to you, Kau. I’m stuck! How was he supposed to amend his migration strategy by the nonsensical deadline, if no one would meet him? Perhaps that was the point. Maybe Anton had it cooked from the start, turning up the pressure notch from the inside out, hoping that like popcorn he’d burst.
He marched to Anton’s office and asked the Personal Ai-ssistant if Anton was free, that he needed to speak with him urgently.
The Personal Ai-ssistant replied that ‘Sorry, Anton wasn’t in his office.’ Despite the PA’s protestations, Kau lunged for the door, but Anton wasn’t there.
‘Where is he?’ Kau shouted, ‘I need to see him urgently. It CANNOT wait,’ he blasted. For once in Anton’s office, it was his turn to have a clammy forehead.
‘Mr Cheyka is in a meeting with Ms Crosbie,’ the PA said. ‘But don’t storm in unannounced,’ they called after him. But Kau was already pounding his way to Celeste’s. The final insult… she was supposed to still be in Mars, but that apparently had been a lie. She had turned against him too; anyone but Celeste.
Lies, lies everywhere. Of course, the irony was that Anton, Toshio, Dina and Bethan were all right not to trust him, though the lie detector test should have sorted this. To still not be trusted, despite passing the test, signalled it didn’t matter about the outcome of Kodi – he’d be dead either way. All this confirmed they were reaching for the nails to his coffin. His father had said as much last night.
When Kau had found himself two minutes away from the house he’d grown up in, opening the door as he had done a million times, he was unsure why he was there. They hadn’t expected to see one another in a while, Kau and his father. They had stood there in the hall for a few minutes, so much to say, nowhere to start.
There hadn’t been the lingering smell of Qin’s cooking. Even with the air conditioner at full blast, Kau could usually smell what his parents had eaten, or what was set to be served. There was always a bowl dug out for him, overflowing with whatever Qin had prepared or could find, regardless of the time. Kau knew there would be no bowl that night.
His father had never looked unkempt in his life, but there was a greying underneath his eyes as if the skin had soured. Salt and pepper prickles had sprung on his usually smooth face, and there were new shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. He made for a shallow version of himself. Despite the shock of his father’s dishevelled appearance, an overwhelming surge of anger swelled inside of him.
‘You better come in,’ his father said.
Though the room looked the same, it felt different…off. Even the cushions, in their corners of the sofa sat awkwardly, like dislocated knuckles.
It seem
ed pointless to ask how his father had been, but there was nowhere else to start. How could he ask what would become of his future, without knowing his father’s past? But Fan, ever the pragmatist, cut to it straight away.
‘What do you want, son?’ he said, defeated.
‘I came to pick up some things for Mama,’ Kau said quietly. He felt awkward doing his mother’s bidding, but also totally justified for being fucked off at his father. ‘And to talk,’ he relented, because he wanted that too. He wanted to know everything. Where had the lies, and the double life begun? Why had he informed against his mother, and then for himself, how deep in the shit was he?
‘Perhaps we should move to the basement,’ Kau said, his eyes edged to the door. He didn’t want to be recorded, and that was the only place they couldn’t be heard.
‘No, there’s a speaker there too,’ his father’s eyes wouldn’t meet his. ‘I installed it when…,’ he gave a weary sigh. ‘Walk on the plantations?’
Amongst the canopied patches arranged like excavation sites, and the tufts of grass, brittle as horse-hair, Fan and Kau walked amiably with one another, their stroll matching the other’s beat for beat. The plantations stretched out bigger than 50 swimming pools, merging into public land and then the horizon, like the layers of a cake. A few dusty clouds blemished the early-evening sun.
Kau had never seen his father so morose before. Every step was like prising open a wound. He wanted to tell him everything, his father had said. Was he ready to hear it?
He had loved Kau’s mother from the first day he met her – she was headstrong and smart, she cared about making a difference. What wasn’t there to love? But where she was transparent, he was opaque. She, unwisely, had never been afraid to let her opinion be known, whether it was her distaste of the PSAs or her frustration with her lab colleagues. That wasn’t how you survived. You kept your real thoughts and opinions to yourself if you knew what was good for you.
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