Wants of the Silent

by McPartlin, Moira;

  ‘Do you have it?’ I asked. I shucked to sitting, trying to hide how weak I felt, but I caught her looking. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Where’s what?’

  I tapped my wrist, my communicator. ‘I want it back.’

  ‘I don’t have it.’

  ‘Well, who does?’

  She shrugged, a discernible little lift of the shoulders but the eyes were to the floor.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Stop harpin on. I told you you’ll get it back.’

  The girl lifted her head and stared me down with those wise dark eyes that made her appear older. She might even have been older than me.

  She held my stare then turned to leave. ‘I’ll bring some food. Stay here. It’s not yet safe for you to show yourself in the camp. We don’t normally have Privileged guests.’

  ‘I’m not Privileged,’ I shouted out. There, the truth was out my mouth. Only a few months ago I would have baulked at such a statement. The truth. How much had changed. A few months ago I would have demanded better treatment from these natives. A few months ago I was a spoiled military kid. Ishbel attended to my beck and call. But Black Rock had changed all that. The discovery I was part native, a discovery that changed my future forever. There was no choice any more, there was no going back.

  My true DNA passport, the one showing my native heritage, the holograph of Vanora, the secret documents that revealed Ishbel as my aunt, was safe in the keep at the rebel base. My tainted family. My sweet mother, Kathleen, sold to the Military as a child, given her life for the State as Hero in Death, blown apart with her victims. Now, with the passport safe and my communicator gone, I had no identification, no way to prove who I was. I had to either escape or trust my captors.

  So far they had shown me only kindness, no sign of hostility and yet the girl said it was not safe to venture into the camp.

  She came back carrying a steaming bowl. I expected only grain, but the grain was coated in a film which gave away the fact it contained the banned substance meat.

  She met my questioning gaze with the answer.

  ‘It’s forbidden,’ I said.

  She said nothing. I knew the Noiri dealt in meat. Ishbel had provided me my first taste of it on the way to Black Rock.

  ‘What was in the van? Meat?’ I asked.

  ‘Boxes.’

  I touched my bruised back. Too true! ‘But what was in the boxes?’

  ‘Noiri contraband.’

  ‘You kept it.’

  ‘What’s it to you? You know the Noiri? You part of the gang?’ She squared her shoulders, trying to look tough, it didn’t work. ‘Looks to me like you were a captive of them, jammed in a space no bigger than a rat cage.’

  I was tempted to boast I’d been on my way to visit the big boss but the girl’s hostility towards the Noiri stayed my tongue.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Harkin.’

  ‘Harkin?’ I never intended to sound sharp, it just came out like that.

  When she narrowed her eyes she resembled a wild cat. ‘It was the name my mother gave me,’ she said.

  ‘Harkin back to the past?’ A wave of pain passed over her face. She jumped up and made to leave. I grabbed her arm. ‘Sorry.’ The word felt weird. When was the last time I’d said that – if ever. ‘It was meant to be a joke.’

  ‘Anyway, Sorlie is just as odd,’ she said brushing my hand off her arm. So they knew my name.

  ‘It’s the anglicised version of Somhairle.’ Harkin laughed so hard she rocked back on her heels, but remnants of pain remained.

  ‘It’s Sorlie Mayben,’ I stumbled on to stop her laugh. ‘I’m from Camp Dalriada.’

  ‘You were born in a camp, like me?’

  ‘It’s a Military Base, not a reservation.’

  She nodded.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

  ‘I just said, I was born here.’

  ‘In a tent?’

  ‘So?’

  I looked around at the space, one big room separated by curtains to partition off different sections. There was no heating, no place to cook, no privacy, nowhere to hide. Cold crept through every corner. It was bleak, even with its many gaudy colours.

  ‘Why aren’t you at work?’ All natives, male and female, were required to work from the age of twelve. She didn’t answer the question, as if weighing the consequences of the answer.

  ‘What’s your work?’

  ‘I’m studying. My examination is soon.’

  ‘Studying what? Do you have text?’ There was a belief among the Privileged that some form of informal education was given in the reservations but as long as it stayed there the Privileged weren’t too fussed.

  ‘You’ve a lot of stupid questions, don’t you, eh?’

  ‘When can I go? Or is that another stupid question?’

  ‘No, no, it isn’t. The healer wants you kept subdued for a while longer.’

  ‘Healer? Subdued?’ I looked to the empty bowl and felt the soup I had just devoured swirling in my gut.

  ‘Yes, Privileged, natives have healers too, you know, we get sick.’

  ‘But how..?’

  ‘Sake’s but you’re dumb.’

  ‘Can I see this healer?’

  ‘No, he’s busy. He has a much more serious case to deal with.’

  ‘Well, can I see the person in charge? I need my communicator, I can send a message. Someone will be in the area searching for me and my grandmother. They don’t know I’m alive. I need to find Vanora.’

  ‘Don’t know nuthin bout that.’

  ‘Can I at least go outside with you?’

  The music had stopped, a woman sang a slow melody in words I didn’t understand. There was a pattering on the roof. We both looked up.

  ‘Rain,’ she said. ‘Maybe when you’re better. Tomorrow.’

  She tidied the room the way all natives did and cleared imaginary crumbs into my bowl. I watched her slim hips sway in time to the music; the way she moved reminded me of Ishbel and Scud, tidying and fussing. School of natives, the phrase made me giggle and put me to sleep.

  A young boy of about twelve with a broad face and flattened nose brought me some kind of stinky soup. It looked as though it was made out of wood ash and smelled of rotting sea. When I screwed my nose at it he said it was ‘airtight’ whatever that meant. He said loads of things I didn’t understand, like he spoke in some secret code. My shoes had disappeared and my socks had been removed. When I asked him where they were he put his hand up as if to push me away, even though I was nowhere near him and said, ‘Kibble, Sor, I’ll swipe you some hicks later.’ He sang the words like he’d been on some hash binge.

  According to him the soup was ‘sound’.

  ‘Sound of what?’ I asked. He laughed and called me a bunny. This behaviour was a worry. A bunny what? Bunnies were the short name for the State-diseased vermin set out in the countryside to poison natives.

  He looked at me with a fatherly expression. ‘We can split some corn later,’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Even though I think he had assured me the soup was good, when I tasted it the warmth it gave me almost brought tears to my eyes. It was warm and comforting, like being wrapped in a big fluffy blanket. Something I hadn’t experienced since Ishbel and I fled the base. My stomach grumbled when the soup hit the decks but soon settled. I wondered if this food was drugged like the last, who cared? After a couple of minutes my head became swampy and dense.

  I tried to stand then flopped onto my cot. ‘Why do you keep drugging me?’

  Harkin watched from the tent door. ‘It’s for your own health.’ She said as she scooted the boy out with a friendly pat.

  *

  I opened my eyes to a crack of daylight squeezing through the tent w
alls, the smoky air blurred with the remainder of celebration night. Somewhere nearby I heard a rustling like an animal rooting about just outside. Someone coughed in the distance, a rough, hard to clear cough, deep down and deadly. When I moved my legs a pain in my ribs jabbed like an eager boxer. I gasped out.

  Close by someone turned in their sleep. Farts and bad breath fogged from a mass of humanity I sensed just beyond the thin tent door. When I exhaled clouds of vapour escaped my lips into the cold. I huddled under the ugg blanket and bulleted a few facts.

  Ridgeway’s dead (best not to think about that)

  Vanora’s missing, might be dead. Do I care?

  Joy riders crashed the van

  I’m in a place called Steadie

  Held captive by natives

  Friendly? They haven’t beaten me

  They’re feeding me food and drugs - could be pirates, holding me to ransom

  I told them I’m Vanora’s grandson – that was pretty dumb, Sorlie

  They’ve taken my communicator

  Am I really being kept against my will? Sure, I was being drugged, but I was in a tent, how hard is it to escape a tent? I pushed up to sitting, ribs flared as I swung my legs off the bed. Woah. My head swam like a turd in a puddle. What the snaf were they giving me?

  Daybreak sounds filtered from outside. The rich smell of burning wood elbowed the body smells into yesterday. My legs wobbled as I teetered to the door. I pulled across the tent flap expecting a guard to push me back. Instead I was knocked back by the sight before me. A city of green and white boxes arranged in a grid, with streets narrow and intersections so precise they would make any urban planner swell with pride. I looked up at my tent and saw the same green and white exterior.

  ‘Freight containers,’ I said out loud, not quite believing I was awake. But not all were solid. Many like the one I recovered in were heavy plastic tarps.

  The grid was not as uniform as I first thought. Many streets led to an open area where a statue of a man stood. His features weren’t clear but he looked neither Privileged nor native.

  Some of the containers had ripple tin roofs, pierced through with crooked metal pipes that belched grey plumes of smoke, clearly defying the Clean Air Directive. A few small kids aged about four or five chased what looked like a wolf cub. It yelped and jumped and seemed almost to be smiling.

  I didn’t notice her until she and her smell were right by my side; a sweet smell of sweat and smoke but not stinky, pleasant like the smell of the island’s peat bogs after torrential rain. She was small and old with a wrinkled face and a deepset mouth that turned up at the side in a perpetual smile. And although she was old her chipped yellow teeth were strong, as if they could tear knots from driftwood. Her eyes were rayed with wrinkles of mirth. She was an oldie who should have been sectioned or released years ago. So why was she still living among the useful? I waited for her to speak, but she remained silent and smiling.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked at last. A reservation, Harkin said, but the containers stretched for kiloms until they reached a conglomeration of buildings in the distance. An Urban? I always believed reservations were erected far from main Urbans. This scene had no resemblance to the clean, ordered housing and happy smiling natives I had witnessed on Academy cultural fields trips.

  ‘What’s that Urban called?’ I asked the woman. She followed my gaze to the horizon and chuckled.

  ‘Is no Urban, boy.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  She reached to touch my hair, I backed off so she dropped her hand and looked at it.

  ‘They say you’re Privileged.’ The burr in her voice scratched my hackles. ‘I see…’ She pulled her rough jacket round her shoulders. ‘Celt,’ she whispered. Could she hear my heart thundering?

  If she could see, who else could?

  ‘I’ll let Harkin know you’re about.’ She stumbled towards the silent crowd that gathered to stare at me.

  She weaved her way through the now six-deep mass (and growing) and pushed out the other side. Children mobbed her, the wolf pup yapped at her heels, she dug into her pocket and threw something to the animal and it snapped, catching the morsel mid-air. If that woman had been at Base Dalriada, she would have been removed as a ‘past date’ long ago.

  A rock landed at my feet.

  ‘Who threw that?’ I tried to roughen my voice against thudding heart. Blank faces with brows arched over wide eyes turned in my direction. Men, women, oldies, seniors, kids. Not one smiled. They all wore tan overcoats with the familiar bar badge stuck to the pocket. A couple of oldies opened pained grins, like the old hags and dafties who cleaned the latrines at the Base. I could smell their hostility. I tried to find the woman with the smiling face but she’d gone. Fear bile bubbled in my stomach. I backed into the tent. They moved en masse, keeping step with my step while maintaining the native distance of a metre length, bred into their genes and fixed for life. Stones however can cross where no native can and with that thought I failed to dodge the one that belted me in the arm.

  ‘Stop this,’ I shouted in true Privileged voice. Even though my mouth was filled with fear, my weak words still held clout. ‘Go about your business, I’ll not harm you.’ I pulled the tent hap closed to shut them out, aware of how flimsy it was. If they chose to step over their class line they could rip me apart limb from limb. A scan of the tent gave me nothing else to arm myself with but soft pillows and blankets, even my eating utensils had been cleared away. This was a rest tent. My knife had gone the way of the communicator. I grabbed a blanket and twisted it in a loop, knotting it several times, it would do some damage but not much. There was a scuffling and murmurings from the tent door, I wound the blanket round my wrist, knotted end ready to strike. The tent flap flew open and Harkin stepped in. She stopped short when she saw me with the blanket and blinked.

  ‘What you gonna do? Smother them to death?’ She took the blanket from me and prized the knots open. ‘They won’t hurt you, they’re only curious.’

  ‘They threw rocks at me.’

  ‘Just to see if you were real. They thought you were a holo.’

  ‘Why aren’t they at work?’

  ‘Didn’t you see? They must remain here where no Privileged can see them. They are the specials.’

  ‘What’s a special?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They were born special. Their kind before them were the first to go during the initial purges. No use to the Purist economy they said, but they keep being born. The Privileged have tests, see, kill them before they’re born, but not for natives. Our tests come during the chipping. Killed after birth.

  In this reservation we believe everyone has a use so we hide them. They’re given special status, a safe haven. When the State carries out its annual census, they’re not declared.’ Harkin shakes her head. ‘Not that an annual census is carried out here. They hardly ever come here. The same with the seniors. I hear you met Bug-Eyed Betty.’

  ‘The smiling woman, is that her name?’

  ‘No, just what I call her. Her real name is Mary Eliza. She’s a senior.’

  ‘A senior? More like an oldie.’

  She gave a grave head shake. ‘Natives have no oldies, only seniors. Everyone stays senior. Once they reach a certain age we un-declare them from the census, deactivate their chips. The State never checks.’

  ‘So you keep saying, but why don’t they check?’ My mind was louping. What’s she banging on about?

  ‘You haven’t worked out where you are yet, have you? Come on, I’ll show you. You seem well enough today.’

  We walked out into dull light, drizzle dewed our clothes but Harkin didn’t seem worried. The specials had disbursed, some sat in a circle, matting what looked like grass. They seemed oblivious to the rain. She led me along duckboards made of hard plastic. A few tent doors twitched
as we passed. The green and white container walls swamped us. Close up I could see they were old, cracked and faded, patched in places.

  ‘During the native purge they put our families here, thinking the land was spoiled. At first our families worried. Some got sick but now…’ She stopped to give way to a tall special man carrying sheets of that ubiquitous green and white plastic.

  ‘Hey, Harkin.’ His voice was slurred but his smile was wide.

  ‘Hiya Joel,’ she said as he passed. ‘House maintenance,’ she explained before continuing. ‘We adapted to our poisoned environment. I’m nexgen, you know, next generation, and we are stronger. Stronger than most natives in other reservations. We grow good food and they leave us alone.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The land is contaminated by radiation. There was a big scandal many decades ago.’

  ‘That’s not taught history.’ But even as I said it I knew her word was gen. Hadn’t I had enough history debunked at Black Rock? Nuclear was banned over the world in 2030, everyone knew that, but that doesn’t prove anything. I touched the bar badge on my pocket.

  ‘This isn’t surveillance, is it?’

  She shook her head. ‘This place was a processing plant for the spent fuel. They put my ancestors here. I’m positive the State banked on mass death. They thrived instead. The ground isn’t as poisoned as everyone was told, food grows well.’

  I almost gagged as I remembered the soup I’d eaten, how delicious it was.

  ‘We’ve nothing to lose. And we have beachware. There’s a beach on the other side of the plant. Come I’ll show you.’

  ‘The containers – where are they from?’

  ‘At first lastgen were put in makeshift tents, inadequate against storms, flood and such. Conditions were monstrous, not even refugees from the floodlands would come here.’ She banged the side of one ringing it loudly.

  ‘Oi!’ someone shouted from inside.

  She almost smiled. ‘Some are solid. When transport was banned and the Local Produce law was passed, these things became obsolete.’ She nodded towards the male statue I spotted earlier. ‘Yer man there gave us these to build our city. His life here was over and he fled to goodness knows where.’