Pangaea

by Annie Partridge

  The truck jolted to a stop, and Lucy nearly rolled through the tarp stretched across the back. After righting herself, she cautiously crept forward and put her eye against a hole in the tarp. They were in front of a large brick building, arched round like a horseshoe, with a white clock tower at its head. At its front center were four white pillars, streaked with dirt and dust from decades of wear. There were other smaller brick buildings, but Lucy did not have a full view of these. The entire complex was surrounded with an iron fence.

  12.

  Clara sat in the chair before Dr. Gilac’s desk. Although her eyes were fixed directly on his furious face, her mind remained distant as ever: filled with the thought of the basement, its dozens of unopened file cabinets, and those bags of liquid. And the smell of the spilled syrup had caught in her nostrils: it had a horrible smell—not like raspberries, but a sickening metallic odor.

  “You have caused a major security breach,” Dr. Gilac rambled onward. “I doubt I can protect you from consequences any longer. But whatever happens to you, it is all on your head.”

  Clara remained silent.

  “What is wrong with you?” Dr. Gilac yelled.

  She would not answer. The more she thought about those bags of liquid, the more unsettled she felt.

  “Well, if you won’t speak,” Dr. Gilac continued, “I’ll have you taken to solitary confinement, where you can think about what you’ve done.” He tapped the white machine behind him. “You should be thankful that we don’t use this anymore on uncooperative people like you. Do you know what this is?”

  Again, Clara did not reply.

  “This is an electric shock therapy box,” Dr. Gilac said. “They used to zap people’s brains with it, so they would forget…so they would cooperate. Fortunately, I put a stop to that barbaric practice. I saw how it damaged the brain, how it mutilated the soul. Contrary to what you might think, I do care about you employees.”

  No, Clara thought bitterly. You only care about us being able to work for you.

  The phone rang, and Dr. Gilac picked it up. “Hello? Oh, Dr. Lucusta.” He sat up straighter in his chair and straightened his collar sheepishly, as though the doctor were somehow watching him through the phone. “Yes.”

  A long pause followed, during which Dr. Gilac nodded quietly. “Of course,” he finally said. “Yes, whatever I can do to help. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone, and looked directly at Clara. “That was Dr. Lucusta,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “He has asked that you go for your blood test.”

  ~

  As the tarp was lifted, Lucy crouched down among the Styrofoam boxes. She could see that a nurse had arrived, and was beginning to remove the boxes. It was only a matter of moments before she would discover Lucy.

  Lucy stood upright.

  The nurse glanced up at her, shocked. “How did you get in here?” she demanded. “What are you doing?”

  “My job,” Lucy said curtly. She lifted one of the boxes and handed it to the nurse. “Quit asking questions and help me.”

  “You weren’t here before!” the nurse exclaimed. “And you don’t work here, either! I know all the nurses!”

  “I’m new,” Lucy snapped. She set the box onto the floor. “But if you don’t want me to do my job, I’ll go take care of some other work. There’s more than enough to do.” She jumped down from the truck and sauntered away towards the building.

  “Come back here!” yelled the nurse angrily. “Come back this minute, or I’ll report you to the supervisor!”

  With a satisfied smile, Lucy headed back towards the truck.

  ~

  “This way, please.”

  Dr. Gilac opened the door, and Clara entered the room.

  It was a small room, with no windows—only solid white walls. To the left was a small metal table. Against the far wall were three leather-padded chairs.

  “Sit down,” Dr. Gilac directed.

  Clara slid into the center seat.

  The door opened, and a nurse entered, with a large white box. She set the box onto the metal table. “I’ll take it from here,” she said to Dr. Gilac. “You can go now.”

  Dr. Gilac grabbed the doorknob, but he did not leave right away. He glanced back at Clara, and then he looked at the nurse. “Please,” he whispered, in a voice so quiet that Clara barely heard him, “not much.”

  The nurse did not respond. She had already begun to tie a rag round Clara’s upper arm. “That hurts!” Clara cried. “It’s too tight!”

  “It’s supposed to be tight,” the nurse snapped. “Or else your veins don’t pop out.”

  Clara frowned. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to do. I’ve never done this before.”

  A crash sounded as the door was flung open, and a young woman dashed into the room. “Hello,” she panted breathlessly. “I’m Lucy. The nurses got a call to send someone up to help with the blood test. So here I am.”

  “Where is your uniform?” the nurse demanded angrily.

  Lucy glanced down at her faded dress. “Sorry,” she murmured sheepishly. “I’m new here—”

  “—Just shut up,” snapped the nurse. “Help me restrain the patient. Fasten those leather straps down.”

  Lucy obediently wrapped the leather pieces round each of Clara’s wrists to the chair arms. But Clara sensed something different about this younger nurse; there was a soft kindness in Lucy’s eyes, unlike the other staff who worked here.

  ~

  Geoffrey opened the office door, and peeked his head inside. He could see his grandfather, seated in the armchair behind his great wooden desk. The old man was reading a large book.

  “You asked to see me, Grandfather?”

  Grandfather glanced upward. At the sight of Geoffrey, he smiled. “Yes, my boy. I am going to be meeting with Dr. Gilac today. Please don’t enter my office for the next two hours.”

  Geoffrey nodded. At first he turned to leave, but at the last moment he spun around. “How long must you keep these meetings secret, Grandfather? Why can’t I ever stay to listen?”

  Grandfather paused for a few moments. Then he finally spoke. “Geoffrey, there are certain things you would not understand if you knew them now. You must trust me that I will reveal them in due time, when you are old enough.”

  “How old? How long?”

  The old man sighed tiredly and glanced at his watch. “Enough talk, Geoffrey. My guests are coming in five minutes. We will finish this conversation at dinner.”

  Geoffrey did not argue further.

  ~

  “How much longer?” Clara asked weakly.

  “Until it finishes,” the nurse said curtly.

  “Please,” Lucy interrupted, placing her hand onto Clara’s pulse. “Her pulse is getting weak. You’ve got to stop! She’s going to lose too much. She might go into shock.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” the nurse snapped. She swatted Lucy’s hand away from Clara. “Go stand over there until I’m finished.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened in horror. “But, ma’am—”

  “—Do as you’re told.”

  With an apologetic glance at Clara, Lucy reluctantly backed away and leaned against the wall.

  ~

  “We have a problem, sir,” Dr. Gilac explained.

  The old man frowned. “Yes?”

  “The Outsider country: the people are beginning to ask questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “About all the people going missing, sir. The Outsider folk are wondering where they’ve gone to, and why are they disappearing. And yet I can’t understand it: the other countries fell in line so easily.”

  ~

  Clara stared at the tube, watching the blood flow from her arm into the plastic bag. It reminded her of that cooler in the basement, filled with those bags of red and yellow syrup. She closed her eyes and tried to push the thought away, but it refused to leave. And then other thoughts drifted into her head: feelings of sadness…terror…dizziness.
Clara grabbed the sides of her head, trying to press the feelings away from her mind. No, she pleaded, no—that can’t be right. That’s too terrible…

  “Almost done now,” the nurse said.

  --A mosquito, sucking the blood from a vein—

  --A bat, licking blood from bite marks…

  --The old man, with his syringe of yellow fluid, just above his arm. He smiled at Clara, and pushed the syringe into his vein. As the syringe emptied, Clara felt her own strength draining away fast. Her mind seemed to grow more blurred with every passing moment. But then the clouds of confusion parted. The blaring light of truth screamed forth in her mind, and every nerve in her body felt electric with revelation.

  Clara blinked, struggling to focus, and looked directly at the nurse.

  “I know,” Clara murmured.

  “What?” the nurse asked.

  “I know what you’re doing,” Clara said, louder this time. “It’s not just me; it’s all of us. You’re taking our blood. You’re taking it for the Benefactors.”

  ~

  “Pluck out the intelligent ones to keep for Pangaea’s rulership,” Dr. Gilac murmured to himself. “And leave only sheep among the Public. And it worked so well! But not for the Outsider. For every genius I remove, for every freethinker I take, another appears in his stead! And I know why it is: Because the Outsider does not depend on man for help. They rely only on their own thought—or as many of them call it, God. As long as they don’t depend on man, they don’t need us. They don’t want us in their lives. They will go on living apart from us, free to do as they choose and please. So many of them have given up on God, and want to be a part of us; and yet so many still cling to Him.”

  “But what about Clara’s prophecy!” the old man cried. “She said that the Outsider would be ours!”

  “You forget, sir: those prophecies are not set in stone. It is only the path on which the Outsider is currently going; if something should happen to change its course, a different fate would occur entirely.”

  ~

  “You’re draining out our life!” Clara shouted. “Giving it to the Benefactors, so they can live forever?” she tried to pull her arm away from the tube, but her arms were held down by the leather straps.

  The nurse backed away, her hands shaking. “No, you’re wrong—”

  “—Keeping us drugged and stupid!” Clara cried. “So you can feed off us again, and again, and again until we die. And none of us would even care!”

  ~

  “But if the Outsider does not join us,” the old man said slowly, “we won’t have enough blood to sustain both the Benefactors and Drusilla. Unless we expand the population. But no… that won’t work either. The population would grow to great to control.”

  “Well, sir, I have no answers. My area is science, not government. If you’re searching for a solution that draws on both, ask Dr. Lucusta.”

  “I suppose I will.”

  ~

  Clara tried to grab the plastic bag, but she had been too weakened from her blood loss. A dizzy feeling filled her head, and she fell back in her chair, moaning in deep pain.

  By now the nurse had packed up her box and exited the door, without giving Clara a second glance. As Clara lay motionless, the room seemed to spin round her faster and faster. Her eyes drifted shut.

  Suddenly she felt two hands grab her round her, and she was lifted up. Someone was carrying her.

  It was Lucy.

  14.

  “Don’t move,” Lucy whispered in Clara’s ear. “I’ll get you out of here. I promise. But you have to be absolutely quiet.”

  They continued onward through the hallway, towards the elevator at the end. Lucy did not know how she would be able to open the door; she still had no keycard. Maybe, if she moved quickly enough, she could slide in alongside one of the other passengers.

  “But Bertie…” Clara mumbled. “You can’t leave without Bertie. And the others…”

  “Others?” Lucy panicked. “How many?”

  “Dozens. I don’t know. Boys and girls, in separate parts of the building.” Clara’s voice grew fainter every moment.

  Dozens.

  Lucy panicked. There was no way she could escape this place with several dozen children in tow. How could anyone be expected to choose which lives to save?

  A man in a long white coat had just approached the elevator door and swiped his card. His back was turned to Lucy. As the door opened, she ran the last few steps and quickly darted past the man through the doors. “Thank you, sir,” she murmured. She looked up to smile at him.

  Her heart nearly stopped.

  The man was Dr. Lucusta.

  ~

  Geoffrey examined the book of fairytales opened before him. The story was the Pied Piper, familiar as ever to him. The Piper, dressed in striped cloth of green and red, parading up the mountainside with the row of children behind him, playing his flute, smiling widely…

  In the year of 1284, Geoffrey read, on the day of Saints John and Paul on June 26, by a piper, clothed in many kinds of colors, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen. From this fate were only 3 children spared: the deaf, the lame and the blind, who could not follow.

  The door creaked open, and Geoffrey glanced up.

  Grandfather had just entered the room. When he saw the open book in Geoffrey’s hands, he smiled. “Ah, your fairytales book again.” He settled himself into a chair. “I’ve something important to discuss with you, Geoffrey. I have recently been approached by your teacher Dr. Lucusta. He tells me that you have been giving him trouble in class; it seems that you disagree with the Pangaean principles and our economic system. Is this true?”

  “And what if I do?”

  Grandfather glared. “Geoffrey, you are a future Benefactor. If you disagree with our country’s core system, you can’t be trusted to maintain it.”

  “What if I don’t want to maintain it? What if I want to create something better?”

  “There is nothing better. We have the happiest people on earth. We have the most equal economy on earth.”

  “Did you ever think that it’s more than just how it looks on paper, Grandfather? People aren’t charts. People aren’t cogs in a watch. Cogs don’t have dreams and hopes; people do. Some want more, others want less!”

  “Don’t be so emotional. That’s no way for a Benefactor to talk. He’s got to think of the whole, not the part. Besides, our people are happy. We have the statistics to prove it.”

  “No, they’re not! They’re drugged, just like you drug Clara whenever she comes here. They’re drugged on Fern Cigs and—and something else. Something much stronger. I don’t know what it is, though.”

  The old man scoffed. “Ridiculous. How am I supposed to discuss important things with you when you keep bringing up such wild ideas?”

  Geoffrey hardly heard him. “Maybe something in the water,” he murmured to himself, “or some kind of gas. It could be anything: painted onto the edges of books, or in the ration boxes—anywhere.”

  “Enough of this nonsense, Geoffrey. We have to discuss your future position as a Benefactor. Now, Dr. Lucusta has told me that your hesitation stems from a desire to protect the Public, and to give them more freedom.”

  “Yes. Their freedom. They’ll never be free as long as their minds are imprisoned…and drugged. Oh, what could it be?” he rubbed the sides of his head.

  “If it is freedom that concerns you, rest assured—the people are quite free enough. We provide everything they need.”

  “That’s not freedom.”

  “Well what do you call freedom, then, boy?”

  “Free to think. Free to choose. Without force.”

  The old man sighed irritably. “For goodness’ sake, Geoffrey. I don’t want to hear another word of this nonsense. The people are happy, but you just don’t want to accept that, for some reason. Maybe you just can’t stand the idea that someone could possibly be more content than you are…
”

  Geoffrey leaped from his chair and grabbed the old man’s shoulders. “What is it?” he shouted. “Stop lying to me! I know there’s something else you’re doing to those people! For God’s sake, what is it?”

  The old man looked at Geoffrey silently. His eyes shivered, as though he were struggling with revealing some great secret to the boy.

  “How are you doing it?” Geoffrey cried hysterically, shaking the old man’s shoulders. “What are you doing to their minds—!”

  “—Music!” the old man sputtered frantically. He pushed away Geoffrey hands and stepped backward, gasping for air. “The music, Geoffrey!”

  “But that—that’s not possible,” Geoffrey stammered. “Music can’t control minds.”

  “No. It can, and it does.” Grandfather sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “I did not want to tell you. I wanted to tell you when you turned eighteen, and you were to take my place as a Benefactor. But I see that you’ve grown too impatient to wait any longer. What really makes Pangaea work so well: the music that we play for the People, all across Pangaea. It keeps them happy. But above all, it keeps them from asking questions. I can do whatever I want, and they never bother to question it. We give them drugs too, like Beethoven’s root and FernCigs in the ration boxes, but that’s only a part of it. The mind is so complex, so resilient! You can’t just destroy it with drugs. If you want to control it, you’ve got to strike it from multiple angles, and rewire it with psychological conditioning. Control them with music, from us. Control them with the ration boxes, from us. Make them believe they can only depend on us! Not on their own desires and choices! Not on God! Make them believe there is only here, only now, only the physical, only us to help them! But as I’ve grown older, all these efforts have taken their toll on me, despite my efforts to stay healthy and strong—the supplements of blood can only do so much. I have been growing tired of this body; and that’s where you come in, boy. You see, you’re much more than my descendant, or a future Benefactor. You are the replacement. You are, as the laymen call it, my clone.”