The Disappeared

by C. J. Harper

  What a bad-tempered girl. I dab a bit at the gunge. I can’t believe they expect me to do this. I’m not trained to. I see a shaggy figure at the end of my aisle.

  ‘Ilex!’

  He walks over.

  ‘Do you realise that rancid muck coming out of the taps is drugged?’

  Ilex screws up his face. ‘I don’t know your words,’ he says.

  ‘The food,’ I say pointing to the nozzles behind me. ‘It’s . . .’ I make my eyes go spacey and sway my head.

  ‘Oh. We say softener. There’s softener in this one.’ He points to the first nozzle. ‘It comes morning and lunch-time, not dinner.’

  ‘Why just the morning and lunchtime?’

  He shrugs. ‘They want to make us not fighting in the grid.’

  ‘Don’t they mind if you’re fighting after dinner?’

  ‘After dinner fighting is okay. The enforcers are thinking when the Specials are fighting after dinner then they don’t get fighting in the grid.’

  So they’re drugged to keep them quiet in lessons. I try to take it in. ‘What’s a Special?’ I say.

  Ilex breaks into a smile. ‘All Academy kids are Specials.’ He nods to a boy walking slowly down the aisle. ‘He’s a Special,’ he says. ‘I’m a Special and . . .’ He points a finger at me. ‘You’re a Special.’

  I look down at my slop-splattered grey uniform. I certainly look the part. But I’m not a Special.

  I’m me.

  Whoever that is.

  Ilex helps me to clean up the pods. I think we should just leave it, but he says you’ve got to do what the enforcers and the impeccables say or you get punished. I tell him no one is going to be giving me an electric shock, but I finish cleaning up anyway. Then we go back to the classroom, or the grid, as Ilex keeps calling it. I want to say I won’t go, but I realise that I don’t have any choice.

  The afternoon drags. We’re all locked back into our little compartments and have to use our computers to simulate assembling a motor. I use the time to have a look around their computer system. There isn’t much to see. A lot of programmes about parts-assembly and electronics. There’s also a communications system, but it’s flawed and outdated. I could have written a better one myself. And it’s internal only. A sickening coldness creeps over me as I realise that I have no way of contacting the outside world and no one knows I’m here.

  Finally the buzzer sounds again. My stomach contracts painfully. I’m starving. I follow Ilex out of the grid. The boy on the other side of me seems to have a chunk torn out of his ear.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ the boy says.

  ‘Your ear,’ I say. ‘I mean, more the part that’s missing, so really I’m looking at nothing,’ I babble.

  He scowls. ‘Don’t look at me. You look at me, I hit you.’

  Before I can reply he has walked away.

  ‘Why is everyone so rude?’ I say to Ilex. But he doesn’t seem to understand ‘How come no one is saying they’re going to hit you?’ I ask.

  ‘You talk. I don’t talk,’ he says.

  He leads me upstairs, asks me for my student number, and then shows me my dormitory. ‘I have to go,’ he says and then disappears into the throng of students. My heart sinks. I wish I was back in my own bedroom at the Willows.

  I walk into the dormitory. The walls are swamp-green and, like all the other rooms I’ve seen today, it’s huge. There must be fifty beds down either side. These are metal and they’re bolted to the floor. At the end of every bed is a small box-shaped locker. That’s it. There’s nothing else in the room. No cupboards, no pictures, no windows, not even a carpet.

  Something else is bothering me. Lounging on the beds and looking in the lockers are both boys and girls. This is a mixed dormitory. I feel my face grow warm. How on earth will I get undressed? And what about the girls getting undressed? Whoa. I run my hand through my hair and realise that I’m staring at a girl sat on a bed. It’s the blonde girl from the dining hall. She looks up and catches me gawping at her and I have no choice but to walk over.

  I raise my hand and spread my fingers in the national Learning Communities gesture of friendship. She doesn’t respond. She just stares at me.

  ‘I’m Blake,’ I say. ‘AEP score 98.5. I was wondering . . . I mean, I’d appreciate it if you could explain a few things to me.’

  She tilts her head on one side. ‘I don’t know your big words.’

  Is she giving me the brush off? ‘I want to talk,’ I say.

  She looks at me, but says nothing. Her lips are pressed together. Maybe I should have chosen a different girl to talk to. Maybe one that I didn’t get into trouble with a pool of lumpy brown stuff.

  ‘Sorry about everything earlier. I didn’t really understand how the system works,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know your big words,’ she says again.

  ‘I’m just trying to talk to you.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’ And she rolls over on her bed so she has her back to me. My eye catches the number printed above her on the wall: 1248. I turn round; the next berth is labelled 1247. My magic number. I sit on the edge of the bed. It sags under my weight. There’s a stiff green blanket and a limp, stained pillow. This place is disgusting.

  ‘Are there any single rooms?’ I ask.

  The girl turns back with a scrunched forehead, like Ilex. I can’t believe they have such trouble understanding me.

  ‘A small room. A bedroom with just one bed for me.’ I point to myself.

  She snorts. ‘No. No dormitories with one bed.’

  I suppose I already knew that. ‘Is there anywhere I can get something to eat?’

  ‘You eat in feeding pod,’ she says slowly, as if I am the stupid one.

  ‘Can’t I eat now?’

  She looks me up and down. ‘What place do you come from?’

  ‘I’m a Learning Community student. I’ve got an AEP—’

  ‘Oh, you’re a brainer.’

  The way she talks makes me bristle. It seems like Academy students really have got a limited grasp of language.

  ‘This place is so uncivilised,’ I say.

  ‘I feel sad-for-your-trouble,’ she says but she doesn’t look sad, she looks amused.

  And what on earth is sad-for-my-trouble? She sounds like an old lady. ‘What trouble?’ I say.

  ‘The trouble you’re going to get because you don’t know things,’ she says.

  Oh that’s great. Now I’ve got an Academy girl feeling sorry for me.

  ‘I know things. You don’t need feel sad for . . . you don’t need to feel sorry for me. I shouldn’t even be in an Academy. I’ve got a big future ahead of me.’

  She blinks at me. ‘In here,’ she says slowly, ‘you are nothing. You’ve got no fight ranking. You’re not a Red and I have the think that you’ve got no shrap either.’

  I stare.

  ‘I do feel sad-for-your-trouble because you don’t know what I’m meaning, do you?’

  I shrug my shoulders. How can I be expected to know what she’s on about? Not only is she an Academy ‘Special’, she’s also a girl. It’s like trying to talk to a double alien.

  ‘You think you know all things. Don’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Maybe not quite all . . .’ I say.

  ‘But you don’t know things in here.’

  ‘Well no, I don’t understand things in here, just like you lot don’t understand proper spoken English. It’s nice that you’ve made up your own language like little kids.’ A smile escapes me. ‘But you can’t expect me—’

  Smack. She punches me in the mouth.

  ‘Ow! What the hell did you do that for?’ The space where those men knocked out my tooth fills with blood.

  ‘I understand what laughing means,’ she says and walks off.

  I’ve only been in the dormitory half an hour when another buzzer sounds. I follow the others down to the dining hall for dinner. I remember what Ilex said about dinner not being drugged so I use my hand as a scoop to eat
what the nozzles produce. The first stream tastes like a bland vegetable soup and the second is some kind of mashed-up fruit.

  After dinner, I find Ilex in an almost deserted dormitory across the hall from mine. He lets me sit on his bed.

  ‘What’s a Red?’ I ask him.

  He looks at me in surprise. ‘Reds are leaders. They tell you what to do.’

  ‘Like enforcers?’

  He laughs. ‘No Reds are Specials. But they’re the big good Specials.’

  ‘Good at what? Science? Public speaking?’

  ‘Fighting.’

  ‘Oh. So to be in the Red gang you have to be a good fighter?’

  Ilex shakes his head. ‘You are a Red when, y’know, when you are a baby. When you start.’

  ‘When you’re born?’

  He nods.

  ‘That’s not a system that allows for upward mobility is it? What can you do if you’re not born a Red?’

  ‘All Specials fight here. If you get a good fight ranking you can be an Hon Red.’

  ‘What do they call the Specials who aren’t Reds or Hon Reds?’

  ‘Bad names.’

  ‘That’ll be me then.’

  ‘Me too.’ He stares at his hands.

  ‘So, you have these fights and if you win you get points?’

  ‘If you have winned lots of fights then you get a good rank.’

  ‘What rank are you?’ I ask.

  ‘This time I’m a three-fifteener.’

  ‘That’s . . . nice,’ I say.

  Ilex laughs. ‘It means I fight fifteen fights and I win three.’

  ‘I see.’ That’s one fight in five. I’m not sure I could manage that. Ilex is kind of slow, but he’s pretty hefty.

  Ilex eyes my long, skinny legs then his head jerks up. There’s a lumpy-looking boy standing next to me. I turn to look at the boy and he grabs my arm.

  ‘You come downstairs,’ Lumpy says.

  ‘I think I’ll stay here,’ I say.

  The boy blinks at me. ‘Come now.’

  ‘Blake . . .’ begins Ilex.

  ‘No, really, Ilex, I think I’ll stay here,’ I say. I’m tired of being told what to do.

  Lumpy’s mouth drops into a shocked ‘O’ and he lumbers off.

  ‘Blake, he works for the Reds. You have to do the thing they say.’

  ‘I don’t have to do any—’

  I’m grabbed roughly from behind by my shoulders and forced on to my feet. There are two huge boys on either side of me.

  ‘Hey!’ I shout, but there’s hardly anyone in the dormitory to take notice – except Ilex, who just shrugs and follows behind as they manhandle me towards the door.

  ‘Downstairs,’ says one of the oafs.

  I’m half dragged down the stairs and along a corridor to a large, cylindrical room. There are tiers of seats around the sides, all full of Specials, who are cheering and hooting at two boys fighting in the centre of the room. I look around for an adult, but there are none. The Specials watching are jumping up and down, smashing their own fists into their palms and screeching at the fighters. The dark-haired fighter has blood pouring from his nose. He grabs the other boy by his blond hair. Blond Boy tries to twist away. Dark Boy kicks the back of his legs so that Blond Boy is knocked to his knees. Dark Boy drops down beside him then he lifts Blond Boy’s head and smashes it against the ground. I feel sick. A broad-chested boy blows a whistle. The crowd start bellowing again. I turn towards the door, but one of the oafs blocks my way.

  ‘Listen, I’m not really into spectator sports,’ I say. ‘I think I’d just like to get back to the splendour and comfort of the dormitory.’ I try a smile.

  ‘No, no going,’ he says.

  ‘Why ever not?’ I ask.

  His pudgy face moulds itself into a smile. ‘Your turn now.’

  I’ve got thin arms and legs. And a thin all the rest of me, come to that. I’ve never wanted big muscles, but now that I’m about to have the first fight of my life, I can’t help wishing I was stronger. I look at first one oaf and then the other, trying to work out which one is the brains.

  ‘What if I won’t fight?’ I say

  ‘Then your fighter is going to have a good win,’ says someone behind me.

  I turn round. It’s the boy from the corridor, Rex. He looks even bigger and more powerful than he did earlier.

  He sucks his teeth. ‘What’s your name, boy?’

  I don’t think he even remembers me from before.

  ‘Blake,’ I say, squaring my shoulders. He can’t be much older than me.

  ‘You have to fight, Blake. All Specials fight. You fight, you get a fight ranking.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, I really don’t mind about the ranking – you can just put me at the bottom. You can leave me off the list altogether,’ I say.

  He squints at me. I feel like I’m talking Cantonese in this place. ‘You talk good,’ he says, like it’s something horrible. ‘Do you fight good?’

  ‘I don’t want to fight,’ I say.

  He shakes his head at me and walks away into the centre of the circular floor.

  ‘Hey all,’ he shouts. ‘Hey Reds, Hon Reds and the crimson Dom . . .’ A strawberry-blonde girl in the crowd stands up and blows kisses. Rex pauses to leer at her, then goes on. ‘This fight is Deon Collins . . .’ A squat boy, built like a bull, leaps out of the front row of seats. ‘And first-fight boy Blake!’

  The Specials scream and shout and Deon walks towards me. His walk turns into a charge. I jump to my right just as he reaches me, but even so he smacks into my left side with such force that it spins me round. I spread my arms, try to regain my balance and . . . crack! He punches me in an upwards movement under the chin. It feels like my head has snapped off my neck. I fall backwards and taste blood from where I’ve bitten my tongue.

  Get up! I think. I don’t know why I worried about my arms being too weak; at this rate I’m not even going to get to swing a punch. I struggle to my knees as Deon is gesturing to the crowd that he’s going to grind me into the ground. He powers a punch into the side of my face. Just how mangled will I have to be before they call it off? My head is ringing.

  I’m going to be beaten to a pulp. Again. Think. I can only remember one thing about fighting and that’s a conversation between the girls at the Willows about self-defence. I’m swaying on my knees and Deon is towering above me, jeering and yelling out to the crowd while he’s deciding how to finish me off.

  So I take the only piece of combat advice I’ve ever been given and punch him in the balls.

  Luckily for him he realises at the last moment what I am going to do. So he doesn’t get the full force of my noodle arm. But he does crumple over and lie clutching his stomach. I get to my feet. Someone in the crowd is booing. Have I broken some rule? But someone else in the crowd catches my eye. He’s miming for me to kick Deon. I look at my opponent. It seems unfair to kick him while he’s down. Couldn’t we just finish it here? I look about for Rex. He’s talking to the pretty strawberry-blonde girl and has his back to me.

  Umppff! Deon flings his arms around my ankles and yanks my legs out from underneath me. I crash down, crunching my shoulder against the ground so hard that I cry out. Deon doesn’t stop to wonder whether it’s ethical to kick a man when he’s down, he just lays into me.

  All of a sudden I’m back in the corridor with those men, thinking that I’m going to die. But I survived that and I’ll survive this. I’m not going to die here. I’m not going to be forced into some dirty little brawl with a boy I’ve never even spoken to. I scramble to my feet and try to run for the door.

  But he won’t let me go; he’s caught hold of the back of my shirt. I thrash wildly, trying to pull away from him. We veer so close to the front row of the crowd that I see some of them drawing their feet up out of the way. Deon is still trying to pin my arms down or to land a punch on me, but I just keep moving. I put my head down and thrust an elbow backwards into his stomach. There’s not enough power to really hurt hi
m, but it makes him wobble backwards and trip over someone’s extended foot. He falls, trying to take me with him, but my shirt tears out of his hand.

  ‘Idiot,’ he says as he goes down and, as soon as he hits the ground, I throw myself on him. I kneel on his chest and smack him around the head as hard as I can. Then I hear the sound of the whistle and Deon pushes me off and stalks away. I try to stand up without letting anyone see how much I am shaking.

  Rex appears and lifts my arm. I’ve won. I think Rex missed most of the action while he was chatting up the girl called Dom, so I’m not sure he’s best placed to make a decision, but still . . . I won. I feel almost pleased.

  ‘Not bad,’ says Rex. ‘You look angry now. You fight gooder angry.’

  Damn right I’m angry. Nobody calls me an idiot. Especially in here.

  My pleasure drains away as soon as I walk off. I can hardly move, I hurt so much. I’ve never been in a fight before and in the past few days I’ve been attacked twice. I’m tired and I realise that I really need to work out what I am going to do to get out of here. I head for the door, but I spot Ilex sitting a few rows back. He waves me over. I clamber between Specials and squeeze into a space beside him.

  ‘You’re not good,’ he says.

  ‘I don’t really care if I was good or not. It’s ridiculous,’ I say, ‘forcing someone to fight. I object to being treated like a stupid bull. Look at all this.’ I gesture to the room.

  The next two competitors are up. Two girls. Surely they’ll be less aggressive? The whistle blows and the taller girl screams, ‘Take that, you tight-legger!’ and kicks the other girl in the face.

  This is horrible. The Specials’ noise rises to a roar.

  ‘It’s bedlam,’ I shout to Ilex. ‘Where are the enforcers?’

  ‘No enforcers at fights.’

  ‘Well, I’m not doing it again.’

  ‘You have to. It’s gooder if you just let them win you in little time.’

  ‘We shouldn’t put up with this,’ I say. ‘Why don’t people say no to the Reds?’

  ‘You can’t fight the Reds.’

  I turn to look at him properly and I realise that there’s a little girl of about seven or eight sat next to him. She’s leaning her head on his shoulder.