The Wilderness

by C. J. Harper

  ‘So Blake, I’ll admit that you’ve stayed alive longer than I ever expected. I’m almost moved to congratulate you on your cockroach-like tendencies.’

  I give a half-smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Let’s move on from the pleasantries before I vomit on your shoes. I need to talk to you.’

  I shift uncomfortably. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My body is slowly falling apart. I’ve been taking a cocktail of drugs for quite a while now. They can keep me alive for some time, but pretty soon I’ll be useless physically.’

  It seems so wrong to think of Ven bedbound. I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not the confiding type, Blake, but they say that you should try new things before it’s too late, so I think I’ll try some confiding in you.’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘I had planned to die on the day after you arrived at the hospital. I should have died on that day. Then you turned up with your footage and I remembered that The Resistance weren’t the only ones that wanted to get rid of the Leadership; that some people out there cared too. I realised that maybe now was the right time to rise up and that I could still be there to help.’

  Things fall into place. ‘That’s why you were so insistent that we get on with it.’

  He sticks out his chin. ‘I thought it was as good a time as any to strike, I really did. I didn’t do it just to make myself look good.’

  I laugh out loud. ‘I’m pretty sure you’ve never done anything to make yourself look good, Ven. Even the way you say good morning makes you look like an arsehole.’

  To my surprise, Ven laughs too. Then he winces.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m dying, Blake.’

  I can’t help screwing up my face and saying, ‘It’s so unfair!’

  ‘There’s no denying that a mind and a body such as mine should rightly have been granted immortality. But I’ve had more than I ever expected. I was given an extra week. You can’t imagine what it’s like to live when you should be dead. To breathe and run and fight and laugh when you should be in the ground. Not many people get that.’ He twists his mouth into a crooked smile. ‘Bet you don’t.’

  My throat tightens. There’s so much of Ven. It seems impossible that all that brilliance and anger and wit could be bound by a failing body.

  Ven gives me an exasperated look. ‘As long as you promise to stand at the back so as not to detract from the aesthetic appeal, you can join the procession of beautiful young people who weep for me when I’m gone, but don’t start sobbing now.’ He fixes me with his dark brown eyes. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  Something about his sudden shift in tone sends a sliver of ice down my throat. Eventually I say, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I need a gun.’

  I look away. What do you say when a man who has just explained that his suicide is overdue asks you for a gun?

  I suck in my breath. ‘If you want a gun, surely you can go to the weapons store and get one. Not that you should have a gun. I mean, can’t the medics—’

  ‘I need a gun. Paulo’s got the keys for the weapons store. He’s not going to let me in. He’s afraid of being left in charge. I need you to get me a gun.’

  ‘I don’t think I can do that.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Blake, even for someone as useless as you, it’s a fairly small task.’

  ‘It’s not funny, Ven, I don’t want to be responsible for your death.’

  ‘I take responsibility for my own actions.’

  ‘And what are the rest of the Resistance going to say when they find out that I’ve given their brilliant leader a gun?’

  ‘They might be upset at first, but in the end they’ll understand. This is the way that it works here. You know that.’

  ‘I might know it, but I don’t understand it.’ I lean closer to him. ‘Your mind is fully functioning. You’re still an asset to this group. They need you. We need you.’

  ‘I’m a burden. I need drugs, I need painkillers, and I need the medics’ time. They could be using those things on the kids who were wounded. The kids who we need to grow up and carry on the Resistance.’

  I look out of the window. I know I’m not going to persuade him that this is the wrong thing to do.

  ‘Blake, soon I won’t be able to go to the bathroom by myself,’ he says.

  I unfocus my eyes so that the crumbling building in the distance blurs.

  ‘I’ll be dead within the year, anyway. Let me do it my way.’

  I want to tell him to ask someone else. I feel like a Learning Community boy trying to get out of his cafeteria duty.

  As if he reads my mind, Ven says, ‘I could ask Kay. She’d do it.’

  He’s right. She would do it. Kay is proud and she understands what it means to follow the expectations set by the community you grew up in. But if she does it then she’ll have to carry it with her for the rest of her life. I don’t want that for her. And anyway I’ve realised that it’s not as easy as I thought it was to decide what’s right and wrong. Or who is good and who is bad. One thing is for sure, you can’t make those decisions for other people. And being a friend means that sometimes you have to support your friends with their choices even if they’re not the ones that you would have made.

  ‘Don’t say anything to Kay. I’ll do it.’

  Ven nods. ‘Toren said he’s going to fetch me a wheelchair from the campus medical centre tomorrow. Could you come and get me in the afternoon?’

  I want to say no. I want to stop this from happening, but I nod my head.

  ‘Did you notice what I did?’ he asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I asked you for help.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Our last captain seemed to have some ludicrous concerns that I was an arrogant control freak. She always said that to be a really great captain I had to learn to ask for help. Well, there you go; I did it. Which probably brings me to the rank of best captain ever.’ He leans forward and whispers, ‘I’ve peaked. It’s best that I die now.’ Then he laughs long and hard. And it occurs to me that maybe the best way to deal with the hardest things in life is to find something to laugh at.

  The following afternoon I find Ven in the room assigned to the babies, with Toren. Ven uses a crutch to manoeuvre into his wheelchair and announces that he and I are going for a walk. As I turn the chair he reaches out and touches Toren lightly on the shoulder; I have to look away.

  Once we’re outside I push him in his wheelchair, still holding his crutch, away from the university and into the barren countryside.

  ‘There’s a quarry not far from here,’ Ven says.

  We carry on in silence along a road bordered by stunted hedges. I keep my eyes peeled for wild dogs or violent Wilderness types. No one is going to spoil this for Ven.

  As we approach the gates of the quarry, I feel dizzy. I ignore it and keep on moving. I swing the gates open and put my back into pushing the wheelchair up the incline until Ven says, ‘Stop. You can leave me here.’ He gets slowly to his feet, using his makeshift crutch, and holds out his hand.

  I take the revolver from my jacket and give it to him.

  ‘Since I’m trying out new behaviours, here’s another one for you . . .’ His lips twitch. ‘Thank you.’

  I nod. My throat is dry. I want to tell him something comforting, but my mind is racing around in circles. I can’t think straight. I’m in such a heightened state of awareness that it’s almost too intense to keep breathing. He holds out a hand again and this time I shake it.

  ‘I’ll take this opportunity to have the last word, Blake.’ He smiles at me – the first real warm smile he’s ever given me. ‘Just remember, I’m always right,’ he says, and he shuffles away from me using his crutch.

  I push the chair back down the slope and out of the gates, and I stand very still.

  Ven fires the gun I handed him.

  Walking back to the university is hard. All my attempts to make sense of what i
s happening crumble away. Why are we fighting when our bravest efforts only lead to death? Ven was so smart, but even he couldn’t find a way to fix things – and now he’s dead. What’s the point?

  It takes a lot of effort not to just lie down in the dusty road. Instead, I keep putting one foot in front of the other until I find Paulo.

  ‘Get Toren and Tanisha,’ I say, ‘and Kay.’ He doesn’t ask why.

  When they’re all gathered around me, I steel myself to break the ominous silence.

  ‘Where’s Ven?’ Toren asks.

  ‘Ven’s dead. He shot himself.’

  The sunny lightness in Toren disappears as if a switch had been flicked. His kind open face buckles like he’s been punched.

  Kay takes hold of my hand.

  ‘But he can’t have,’ Tanisha says.

  ‘Why did he do that?’ Kay asks.

  ‘He had the Sickness.’

  Tanisha nods. ‘But he was okay. The medics were managing it. I mean, he didn’t have to . . . He could have . . .’ Toren is rigid, but his eyes are wild with denial. ‘He can’t be. He wouldn’t.’

  ‘This is our way,’ Paulo says. ‘This is the way it is.’

  ‘Don’t you care?’ Tanisha snaps.

  ‘Of course I care!’

  I’ve never heard Paulo shout before.

  ‘Of course I efwurding care. How are we going to go on without him? I just, I just—’ He gulps. ‘He wanted to do it this way, you know he did.’

  Tanisha presses her hands to her face. ‘Why now? We really need him now.’

  ‘We need him all the time,’ Toren says in a voice horribly unlike his own.

  ‘He didn’t want to use up supplies,’ I say, ‘or to take up the medics’ time. He didn’t want to be a burden.’

  Tanisha swings round to face me. ‘How could you let him? Why didn’t you stop him?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Tanisha,’ Kay says. ’Ven does what he wants to do, you know that. This isn’t Blake’s choosing. Blake has done a hard thing.’ She squeezes my hand and I know she understands. Thank God, I couldn’t have borne it if she hadn’t.

  ‘Kay’s right. This is the way he wanted it,’ Paulo repeats. His face is white and set. ‘I, for one, am glad that he got to lead us in the uprising and that he got to do this on his own terms.’

  I can only hope that one day this might comfort them. For now, I can see that no words can soothe the terrible loss.

  ‘I want him back,’ Toren says.

  And he begins to sob.

  Every gasp hits me like the sound of gunshot.

  The weight of grief that immediately descends over the Resistance makes me realise just how much Ven meant to everyone. He wasn’t just their boss. I can see now that even though his words were harsh, everything he did was to try to make things better for these people.

  Kay finds me a bed and sits beside me until I fall into an uneasy sleep, but when I wake alone, I get up and pace the corridors until I bump into Tanisha, who takes me to the new computer room where Paulo and Kay are already working.

  ‘We have to keep going,’ Paulo says. ‘Ven would say we can’t sit around crying like babies.’

  I don’t say anything. Kay gestures to me, so I go over and sit next to her. She brushes my hair out of my face. Kay means so much to me, and I’m grateful to still be alive and to be with her, and yet the knowledge that so many people weren’t as lucky as me, that Ven wasn’t, burns like a brand pressed to my skull.

  ‘We’ve got the computers set up,’ Paulo says. ‘Can you help us assess the reaction to the uprising?’

  ‘Why bother?’ I ask. ‘Everything on the Network will have been filtered by the Leadership anyway. They’ll just make us sound like bloodthirsty terrorists.’

  ‘We still need to know what they’re saying about us.’

  I don’t really want to have to wade through accounts describing me as a crazed gunman, but I don’t want to sit around thinking about Ven either.

  ‘All right,’ I say.

  I go to the Info’s main news site to get their take on events first. I flip through the headlines. There’s nothing there. I try a search. The only article about The Leader’s birthday is an account of a ball hosted by the deputy Leader. King hell, this can’t be right.

  ‘There’s nothing here!’ I say. ‘They’re pretending it didn’t happen.’

  ‘I can’t find anything either,’ Tanisha says.

  The blood has drained from Paulo’s face. ‘But . . . there must be something. We did so much . . . What about the explosions? The power station?’

  ‘The power company’s site says that disruptions to power are due to “necessary maintenance”,’ Tanisha says.

  ‘And apparently the gas explosions were caused by sparks from a malfunctioning machine. They’re trying to pretend that it never happened,’ I say.

  ‘But people know it,’ Kay says. ‘We saw people. They were fighting the guards. It was happening.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t as many people as we thought,’ Tanisha says.

  Paulo slaps his hands down on the table. ‘No! Everyone saw our film. Everyone.’

  I shake my head. ‘This is what the Leadership does. It hushes things up. People know what they’re not allowed to talk about.’

  We stare at each other.

  ‘I wish Ven was here,’ Paulo says.

  ‘It’s better that he went thinking that we’d achieved something,’ Tanisha says.

  ‘We have done something!’ Kay says, ‘People will be asking questions about the Leadership now.’

  There’s a tap on the door and Toren pokes his head into the room.

  ‘You okay?’ Tanisha asks.

  Toren comes in. ‘I just needed to tell you,’ he says to me, ‘Ven said . . .’ He bites his lip. ‘I didn’t realise what he was going to do! I thought it was just a conversation . . .’

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Ven said that if anything ever happened to him . . . that you’re in charge.’

  Tanisha gasps.

  I look at Paulo. There’s nothing but relief in his eyes. He nods. ‘Yes. Yes, it’s got to be you.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No way.’

  ‘He said you’d say that,’ Toren says. ‘He told me to tell you to remember that he’s always right.’

  That was the very last thing he said to me. Typical Ven. Sneaky bastard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘This isn’t what I imagined happening next.’ I look at Kay. She had her doubts about the Resistance before. Is she going to want to stick around now?

  She nods her head decisively. ‘You should do it,’ she says.

  An unbearable heaviness settles on me. ‘What’s the point?’ I say. ‘The revolt was a disaster. Resistance members were killed; members of the public were killed. And what for?’ I throw a hand out in the direction of the computer. ‘The Leadership have buried the whole thing. You can see why people are too afraid to stand up and fight. Look what happens when they do: they get knocked down.’

  Nobody speaks.

  ‘Hey!’ Kay says pointing at Tanisha’s computer screen. ‘Go back! Go back to that thing.’

  ‘What?’ Tanisha asks. She clicks back to the previous screen and we all look at Kay.

  ‘There!’ Kay says.

  I turn to watch the news report playing on the screen.

  ‘What? What are you talking about? It’s just the reporter glossing over what really happened, the same as before,’ Paulo says.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ I say. I push Paulo aside and tap the screen. ‘His tie.’

  Kay nods vigorously.

  ‘Let me enlarge it . . . See?’

  They lean in around me to get a closer look.

  ‘Sweet efwurd,’ Tanisha exhales. ‘Has he got a Resistance symbol worked into the pattern of his tie?’

  He has.

  Paulo tilts his head on one side. ‘I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s just part of the design.’

  ‘It’s a deliberate par
t of the design,’ I say. ‘He’s got that there on purpose. He’s making a statement.’

  ‘It’s a bit . . . subtle, isn’t it?’ Paulo is still frowning.

  ‘He’s a reporter! He can’t wear a T-shirt saying “I’m a Resistance supporter”, can he?’

  ‘We’re going to need more help than one subtle reporter,’ Paulo says.

  ‘Maybe it’s not just him, maybe there’s more,’ Toren says. ‘Let’s look.’

  ‘Where?’ Kay asks.

  ‘News sites. Community sites. Anything you can think of,’ I say.

  Paulo frowns. ‘All those things are monitored by the Leadership.’

  I turn back to my computer. ‘That’s why you’ll have to look carefully.’

  The longer we look the more we find. On a gardening site there’s an artistic shot of a tree in flower, but on the wall behind there’s a small splash of red graffiti, which is definitely the symbol. Then on a Learning Community site we find a scan of a child’s report of The Leader’s birthday which is all about the picnic she ate, but when you look closely at the number four in the date, at the top of page, it’s another symbol.

  ‘There’s another one here,’ Toren says.

  ‘This is one,’ Kay says.

  ‘And here.’ Tanisha points.

  We search on and on, and all night Resistance symbols pop up like spots of light in the darkness.

  We’re not alone.

  The people want to take back this country.

  ‘Will you be captain now?’ Toren asks.

  Could I be captain of the Resistance? I’m not a natural leader. I’m not at all like Ven. Although, as it turns out, I didn’t really know what Ven was like.

  ‘Please?’ Tanisha asks.

  ‘I don’t know if I’m the right person.’

  ‘Ven seemed pretty sure that you were,’ Paulo says.

  This is all getting a bit much. ‘Can I just have a moment?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure,’ Paulo says, but his face falls as I turn towards the door.

  Out in the corridor I feel Kay’s cool hand on my arm.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t know why Ven wanted me. I couldn’t command people the way he did.’