The Wilderness

by C. J. Harper

  ‘Come on,’ Ven says. ‘Keep your head. Follow my lead. And try to look confident, idiot.’

  It’s true that it’s not difficult to get into the factory. The security man on the gate waves us through as soon as he sees our uniforms. We get buzzed into the reception, but then the receptionist says something which sends a chill through me.

  ‘You’re a little earlier than we expected.’

  Ven ignores the remark and signs the screen she holds out to him with a confident slash of the stylus, but my skin is crawling. There were already guards coming to the factory today. What were the guards coming to do? Surely we’ll give ourselves away if we don’t know?

  The receptionist consults her computer. ‘The worker you wanted to interview is on the factory floor. Straight down the corridor, just keep going all the way to the end. I’ll let the foreman know you’re on your way.’

  Ven nods at her. She opens the double doors in front of us by clicking on her computer and I follow Ven through them.

  The door swishes closed behind us. ‘Ven,’ I say under my breath, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this. She said they were expecting guards. Real guards.’

  He shoots me a stern look and keeps walking. ‘Do you know? If I do end up believing your ridiculous story it will be because it’s hard to imagine that when the Leadership were picking out spies they went with a coward like you.’

  ‘You are so full of yourself,’ I say, ‘that you can’t even listen to good advice. Let me put this in terms that you might understand. We should make this quick. Otherwise you might get caught.’

  ‘I know that you’re already trying to maintain a feeble pretence at being a man and I can appreciate that a further layer of deception might just flip your tiny brain right out of your oversized head, but is there any chance that you could try, just a little bit, to act like a guard and not a squeaking mouse?’

  ‘Of course, it’s not surprising that you’ve got no difficulty playing a conceited, arrogant bully.’

  ‘Some of us are naturally gifted.’

  I can’t believe he’s treating this whole thing like a joke. ‘What are we going to do? If we don’t do whatever it is they are expecting, they’ll see through us.’

  ‘Then we’ll do what they’re expecting. Follow their lead. Then when we’ve finished that, we’ll find your friend. Keep your eye out for her.’

  The corridor stretches on. The factory floor is a long way from the reception and the other offices. As we draw closer it’s easy to see why. It becomes louder and warmer the nearer we get. We go through a sort of air-lock of double doors and on to the factory floor itself.

  It’s like slamming up against a wall of noise. It smells of hot metal. It sounds of hot metal, of pieces of steel sheering against each other. It’s a huge space with a high ceiling. There are many different types of machinery all being operated by navy-clad workers.

  I expect to find dozens of pairs of eyes on me, but the workers remain diligently bent over their equipment. They’re clearly trained not to be distracted.

  Immediately in front of us are several large cutting machines. Watching the workers move this way and that, flipping over sections of casing, is hypnotic. It’s only when I try to look more closely at what exactly it is that they’re cutting that I realise that one of the operators is missing a hand. He flicks switches and pushes levers using the stump of his wrist.

  I run my eye over the other workers in my line of sight. He’s not the only one with a missing body part. There are two women with the sleeves of their shirts pinned up. They’ve both lost a whole arm. Further away from us, where workers are dipping circuit boards in acid, one of the women has a livid purple burn on one side of her face. In fact these workers have a rash of chemical burns and patches of melted skin on every exposed part of their bodies.

  ‘How can they let people work in these conditions?’ I say under my breath.

  Ven raises a single eyebrow. ‘What where you expecting? A spot of light basket-weaving followed by a tea break?’

  What was I expecting? I should have known that factories run by the Leadership would be dangerous. ‘But . . . couldn’t they use machines for some of these jobs?’

  ‘Look around you, Blake. What you see are the most advanced and adaptable machines available. If you want a job done that requires judgement and flexibility, you want a human.’

  I stare at the busy workers. One of them is drilling holes into metal shells. Her movements are smooth and repetitive until she spots that two sections have got stuck together. She stops and pulls them apart, then returns to her previous rhythm. Ven’s right, there’s no denying that human flexibility is extremely useful in any kind of production. ‘But it looks so dangerous. And however skilled someone might be, humans make mistakes.’

  ‘Which is where we come to the greatest advantage here of man over machine. Unlike an expensive imported piece of equipment, these workers are entirely expendable and totally replaceable. They have that special quality that ensures every factory manager is happy to use them: they’re cheap.’

  All the protests and exclamations I have about how horrible and inhumane that is die on my lips because my words are pointless. Here they are; working in these conditions and suffering like this. ‘It must be stopped,’ I choke out eventually, but saying the words does nothing to lift the net of impotency and frustration that I feel myself caught in.

  ‘Yes,’ says Ven. ‘It must.’

  A man in the navy uniform with an orange stripe across his chest approaches us. Ven stiffens up.

  ‘You’ve come for worker 136 from E section, sir?’ he asks.

  ‘That’s right,’ Ven says.

  I have to supress a smirk at this poor man calling Ven “sir”, but Ven’s cool, authoritative face doesn’t even quiver. He’s probably enjoying it. I remember that I’m supposed to be looking for Janna. I go back to scanning the room.

  ‘Lunch session has just begun for that section. I’ll get security to take you over.’

  ‘We can find our own way,’ Ven says.

  The foreman hesitates, bringing my attention back to him. ‘You’ll need security to locate the worker.’ His voice rises at the end, suggesting that he is asking rather than telling, but it feels like a test. He’s surprised because Ven has said something he wasn’t expecting.

  Ven senses danger and says, ‘Of course.’

  Which means we’re stuck with a security guy leading us to the dining hall. I attempt to catch Ven’s eye as we make our way down another corridor, but he stares resolutely ahead. Goodness knows what he’s going to do when we’re presented with this worker. We turn on to another long corridor and the sound of the factory floor fades away.

  In the dining room I expect to see rows of feeding pods like at the Academy, but instead the hall is filled with long tables and benches. The workers queue up around the room to be served from recesses in the wall. The recesses stretch the entire length of one side of the hall so the line moves briskly.

  ‘I’ll fetch the worker,’ the security man says and walks away.

  ‘Stop twitching,’ Ven whispers.

  I hadn’t realised I was. I straighten my back and try to look like a guard. In the corner of the hall is a tower with two more security men sat at the top of it. They’ve got guns.

  ‘Can you see her?’ Ven asks without looking at me.

  ‘No.’ I scan the tables, but the hall is packed, it would be easy to miss her. ‘Where’s the security man?’ I ask.

  ‘Talking to another security guy, probably comparing the size of their hats. Either that or deciding which one of them is going to shoot you first.’

  I squirm. I feel so exposed just standing here. We’re at the very end of the line of recesses. All the workers have to pass us before taking their seats. Dozens have already walked by. I keep expecting one of them to say something to us, but most of them trudge along with their heads kept well down. When one of them does catch my eye he looks away quickly as if he’s afra
id of me.

  I watch the next worker approach the recess closest to me, the last in the row.

  It’s a girl. Her shoulders are hunched over and she drags her feet, but she’s young, it can’t be long since she left an Academy.

  “Remain still for retina scan,” says an electronic voice in the recess.

  The machine bleeps recognition. “Sixty-four units completed.” There’s a click and then a wet plopping, as whatever they’re having for lunch is dispensed from a spout into a bowl. The girl lifts out the bowl, looking eagerly inside. As she passes me I can see that it’s only half full.

  The next worker, a thick-necked man, quickly takes her place. “Remain still for retina scan,” the machine repeats. “One hundred and twelve units completed.”

  I watch the same process several times, but it’s only when a woman with her arm strapped up in a sling reaches the recess that I understand what’s going on. “Twenty-three units completed,” the machine says, followed by a single wet squelch. The woman stares into her bowl with horror. As she passes I can see just a spoonful of food at the bottom of the dish. The workers’ rations are in proportion to the amount of work they’ve done today. The more you work the more food you get. And if you’ve broken your arm then you’re not going to get a lot to eat.

  ‘That’s pretty harsh—’ I start to whisper to Ven.

  ‘Sir,’ says the security man coming up behind us. ‘Here’s the worker.’

  I swing round. My mouth falls open.

  It’s Janna.

  Horrible thoughts swarm in my head. This is some kind of a set-up. They’re laughing at us. Fortunately, Ven is speaking so I keep quiet and follow him blindly out of the dining room, averting my eyes from Janna and trying to make sense of this.

  The worker that the guards were coming for was Janna. It’s not so crazy really. She’s just been involved in an anti-Leadership punch-up at the Academy. Of course they want to talk to her. Maybe about me. I bite the inside of my cheek. This is all so dangerous. I just want to be out of here. We’re lead back towards the front of the factory, past a couple of men in hard hats heading for the dining room, past a knot of people gathered outside an office, and past a man with a clipboard, opening the door to a yard with giant gas tanks in. I feel like each one of them is scrutinising me. I’m sweating again.

  Finally, we go up a flight of stairs into a room with a couple of chairs and a table. A breeze is coming through an open window. I take a gulp of fresh air.

  ‘That will be all,’ Ven says.

  The security man obviously wants to stay, but Ven gives him his most impervious look and the man backs out of the room.

  Janna turns to glare at me and takes in my face properly for the first time. She sucks in her breath.

  ‘You! What the efwurd are you doing here?’ she asks.

  Before I can even open my mouth she goes on. ‘I thought you’d still be at the warehouse.’

  ‘Guards came.’ I decide not to tell her anything else.

  ‘But you escaped? Oh, that’s just great. You’re the one that started that riot at the Academy and I saved you, but it’s me who’s ended up in an efwurding factory while you manage to give the guards the slip. The next thing you tell me had better be that you’re going to get me out of here. Did Ty send you?’

  Hell, she thinks we’re her rescue team. I look at Ven. He’s watching me with amused eyes. I don’t answer Janna’s question. Instead I ask, ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I was picked up by the guards the minute I walked into work three days ago,’ she says.

  Which explains why she never came back to the warehouse like she arranged. ‘Why did they do that?’ I ask. ‘I thought you said that no one knew that you were at the Academy.’

  ‘They must have scanned our press passes or something. They’ve clearly got a full list of everyone who was there.’ She raises one of her extremely arched eyebrows. ‘And it looks like they’re determined to find everyone.’

  ‘Do you mean that Blake really has got guards after him?’ Ven asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘I knew you were trouble,’ he says to me.

  He doesn’t mention that he thought I was an entirely different sort of trouble. It seems that at least listening to Janna might have helped convince him that I was telling the truth about what happened at the Academy.

  Ven jerks his chin up. ‘Enough of the chat,’ he says to me.

  Janna is watching him closely. ‘And who are you to be telling Genius Boy what to do?’

  ‘This isn’t about me,’ Ven says in a low voice, ‘it’s about you. We need something from you.’

  Janna stares at him from under her lashes. ‘I’m not in the habit of giving away anything for free.’

  I shake my head. We haven’t got time for Janna’s flirting. ‘We’ve got to get a move on,’ I say. ‘Janna, we need the password for your AV bug.’

  ‘The password for my AV bug? So that’s what happened to that. I should have known. You thieving little brat!’

  ‘Yes, sorry ab—’

  ‘Sorry? I could really have done with that footage as a bargaining tool. Have you any idea what it’s like in here? Do I look like the sort of girl who’s suited to working heavy machinery and splashing about in dangerous chemicals?’

  It disturbs me that Janna seems to be suggesting that there is a kind of person who is suited to that stuff.

  ‘You owe me,’ she says to me. ‘You’re in no position to be asking favours.’

  ‘There are some people,’ Ven says, ‘who might consider your little friend Blake here in an admirable position to ask you for anything his foolish little heart desires, since he’s got the freedom to walk out of here and you’ve got nothing to look forward to but acid baths and amputation. I would put those guys in the category of people with a grip on reality, whereas you—’

  ‘Have you actually got an escape plan?’ Janna interrupts. ‘One that involves me? One that we can carry out immediately?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ven says.

  Which is news to me.

  ‘If you’ll just tell us the password then—’

  ‘I’ll tell you the password when you get me out of here.’ I supress a smile. Ven won’t get far if he thinks that Janna can be fooled that easily.

  She holds up her wrist. There’s a raised red bump. ‘There’s a chip under there. If I try to leave these walls the external gates will be triggered. Have you allowed for that?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ven says.

  I look out of the window in the hope that I won’t give away the fact I am almost certain that that is a lie. It’s the narrow top section of the window that’s open. It’s no use to Janna with her chip, but maybe Ven and I could squeeze out of it.

  ‘But I’m not prepared to assist you,’ Ven says, ‘unless you tell us the password first.’

  Now they’re in a deadlock. All this is taking up time. I need to get back to the hospital. I should have made Janna listen to me. If she won’t give us the password, how am I going to free Kay?

  A high-pitched beeping emits from a speaker in the corner of the room. I jump. They’re on to us. ‘Is that . . .?’

  ‘It’s the end of the lunch period,’ Janna says, and she shares a look of amused contempt for me with Ven. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ she asks him in a low voice.

  There’s a tap at the door.

  I twitch.

  ‘Enter,’ Ven says in his best commanding tone.

  The receptionist peers round the door with a flushed face. ‘Sorry to interrupt. It’s just that . . . Well, there are some of your colleagues here and they’re saying . . .’ She flutters her hands about, trying to fr ame whatever it is she wants to say delicately. ‘There seems to be some confusion over who is responsible for the interview with worker 136.’

  Panic forms ice crystals inside my lungs.

  Ven sighs as if he is put out. ‘I’m sure this can be easily resolved,’ he says ushering the receptionist out of the door before him. As he
disappears he turns and gives me a hard look. But it’s like he’s said a foreign word. I have no idea what the look means. Does he want me to get the password out of Janna and fast? Or should I run for it? I stare after him. The door closes.

  ‘Now you’re in trouble,’ Janna says.

  I hardly even hear her. I need to think. What do I do? Eventually I say, ‘I really need you to tell me the password.’

  Janna snorts. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘So that I can bring down The Leader. Don’t you care about stopping him?’

  ‘What I care about is myself.’

  That’s when I remember that this isn’t all about Ven. I don’t have to try to second-guess what he wants. I can make my own decisions. What’s important is that I get back to Kay. I open the door a crack and peer out. Two grim-faced guards are at the top of the stairs heading straight for us. I duck back into the room. What the hell has happened to Ven? I’m trapped. There’s nowhere in the room to go . . . except out of the window. I push past Janna.

  ‘What happened to the escape plan?’ she asks.

  I climb up on to the windowsill and look out. Below is the pavement at the front of the factory. It’s not that high, I tell myself. Gripping the edge of the open top section of the window I scramble a leg up and over it.

  ‘You have got to be kidding,’ Janna says. ‘What about me?’

  I’m now straddling the top section. One arm and leg are out of the building and the others inside. I work my other leg over. ‘I’ll get you out,’ I say. ‘I really will.’ I manoeuvre on to my stomach so my upper body is sticking into the room while my legs are out in the breeze. ‘Just draw the blind. Please.’

  Janna pushes her tongue behind her teeth and shakes her head, but she reaches out and lets down the blind.

  I ease backwards until my feet hit the outside sill. It’s not very wide. I have to turn out my feet as far as I can to fit on it. I keep a tight grip on the edge of the window. I mustn’t look down.

  I hear the door crash open. ‘Where the hell are they?’ a man’s voice asks.

  I hear Janna’s smooth, low voice but the wind is rushing around my ears and I can’t make out exactly what she’s saying. My fingers are turning white from gripping the edge of the window so hard. What the hell am I going to do? I won’t be able to hold on like this for long and even if the guards leave, how am I going to get out of the factory without being noticed?