by C. J. Harper
‘She is. I know it. She is my sister.’ His whole body has gone tense.
‘Okay, okay. I believe you, I do. I just wondered because, you know, when you left your parents she wouldn’t have been born – she wouldn’t have been a baby. Do you understand what I mean?’
He stares at me and I’m not sure whether he hasn’t understood what I’m asking or if he doesn’t want to answer. He looks around when a couple of boys walk past, as if he’s hoping for an interruption.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s none of my business, it doesn’t mat—’
‘It’s the name,’ he blurts out. ‘Ali has my name. Not the Ilex name but the Dalton name. Ilex Dalton and Ali Dalton. I know she’s my sister.’
That doesn’t really answer my question, but he looks so uncomfortable that I want to let it go. Ilex and Ali both have someone to care about them. That’s not the case for most Specials. ‘Of course she’s your sister,’ I say.
The next day in the grid something is different. Usually when we come in, Enforcer Tong shouts at us for pushing, then tells us to start our first task on the computer while she becomes absorbed in her own screen. But today she’s stood up in her cage waiting for us to settle. She’s going to say something.
‘Quiet,’ she says.
No one was talking anyway, but now no one moves.
‘Specials, I have a good thing to say.’
The thing I hate most about Tong is this simple way she talks to us. It’s like she thinks Specials are so low that she won’t even share her vocabulary with them.
‘Lots of people are happy with Academies. They like the good factory workers that we make at Academies. They say that our factory workers are the best. So twelve more Academies are being made. Soon they will be opened and there will be a . . .’
She searches for basic words. ‘A good time with food for you.’
There’s a murmur of excitement.
‘Quiet. The Leader is happy about the new Academies. On the good time day he wants to come to an Academy and talk to some of the Specials and put it on the Info.’ She pauses and flicks her eyes around the room like a searchlight to ensure that she has everyone’s attention. ‘It’s good because The Leader is coming to this Academy!’
Enforcer Tong looks at us expectantly. I don’t know what she’s expecting. If she wanted a round of applause she probably shouldn’t have taught us that the slightest noise earns an electric shock. I keep my face smooth, but inside I feel a surge of hope. If The Leader is coming here I can speak to him. Tell him what’s happened to me. He could sort it out. He can do anything.
‘Well, you should all think about how lucky you are,’ says Tong. She sits down and turns to her computer. ‘Now start your work.’
The room is quiet again.
‘MORE EFWURDING ACADEMIES?’ someone shouts.
I turn round in my seat. It came from the back.
‘Who said . . . ?’ Tong springs to her feet. She reaches for the shock controls.
There’s the sound of scraping metal as a compartment door is wrenched open. Tong must have forgotten to lock the doors.
‘We don’t want more Academies. We don’t want more efwurding enforcers . . .’
‘LANC! Sit down now!’ Tong is frantically stabbing the shock button, but Lanc must have taken off his EMDs because it doesn’t stop him talking.
‘Stupid, no ranker enforcers who hit kids . . .’
I can see Lanc’s head and shoulders above the walls of the grid now. He’s striding towards Tong’s cage. She shrinks back into the corner and hits the alarm.
Lanc reaches the front. Behind him someone else is out of their seat. It’s Ilex. He puts a hand on Lanc’s shoulder to stop him, but Lanc shrugs him off. Then Kay is there too, tying to talk to him. I scramble out of my compartment to help and some of the other Specials follow. Then everything happens very quickly.
I see Tong’s face stretched in fear. Lanc turns sideways and slides something out of his sleeve. A stick. With something shining on the end. He thrusts it through one of the gaps in the cage and Tong screams. She’s got blood on her hands. The door slams open. The classroom fills with impeccables and a bellowing Rice. Most of the class have climbed out of their seats. I try to pull an impeccable wielding a truncheon off of Ilex. I take a hit on the shoulder and fall backwards into the narrow aisle. Someone crashes down on top of me. Rice. I put out my hands to push his chest away from me. He scrambles to his feet, pulls me up by my collar and hands me to an impeccable, who hauls me out of the class. At the door I twist back and see that there are only a handful of Specials left fighting. In the centre, balanced on top of the grid wall is Lanc. He swings his weapon at the two impeccables trying to bring him down.
‘NO MORE ACADEMIES!’ he screams. His eyes are blazing. I think he’s lost his mind.
I’m dragged down the corridors and taken through a door next to the LER room. It leads to a long narrow passage with what look like animal cages branching off on either side. I’m thrown in one of these cages. There’s barely room to sit down. I can’t see any of my classmates, but I can hear them shouting and swearing.
The absurdity of my situation suddenly strikes me like a blow between the eyes. What is happening to me? I’m a Learning Community student with an AEP score of 98.5 being trained to be part of the Leadership. What the efwurd am I doing in a cage? I’ve been in this awful place for weeks. This mess should have been sorted out by now. What’s happened to my mother? Isn’t she ever coming to get me? I’m so angry that I do what the other Specials around me are doing and kick the door of the cage over and over again.
When my rage is finally spent I’m horribly tired. The Specials have quietened down too. While I’m slumped there, waiting to find out what Rice will do to us, I make a decision: I’ll hang on for one more week for my mother and then I simply have to think of my own escape plan.
Hours later, two impeccables return and start taking us out of the cages one by one. When it’s my turn, they push and shove me through the Academy until we reach Rice’s office. He keeps his back turned while the impeccables sit me in a chair facing his desk and stuff my hands through EMD bracelets. I can feel sweat forming under my arms. He’s going to hurt me.
‘Specials must not leave the grid during a lesson,’ Rice says. He’s not even looking at me. He taps the control pad. It’s like being hit by a truck. A thousand needles of pain fizz through me. When it stops, my teeth are ringing.
‘Specials must not fight.’ He hits the button.
I’m smacked back in my chair again. I think I’m going to be sick.
He puts down the pad and starts to turn away, but stops and looks at me full on for the first time. He picks up the pad.
‘And I told you to keep out of trouble.’ He hits the button.
And then he hits it again.
I stagger up to the dormitory. I feel like my wrists have been in a vice. Kay is lying motionless on top of her blanket. She’s even paler than usual. How could anyone shock Kay?
‘Are you all right?’ I ask, sitting down on her bed. It’s a stupid question.
She doesn’t answer.
‘You know Rice landed on top of me during that fight? He weighs a ton. Really sharp elbows. And his jacket pocket was right in my face and . . .’ I’m rambling. ‘Well, look. I got this for you.’ I hold out the biro that I grabbed from Rice’s pocket during our grapple.
Kay takes it and turns it over in her hands.
‘It’s nice,’ she says, but she doesn’t look at me.
‘What is it, Kay?’
‘Lanc’s not back.’
‘I guess his punishment will be lasting a bit longer,’ I say.
‘No. Rice told Ilex that Lanc won’t come back.’
I struggle to imagine what exactly this means. Will he be sent to another Academy? Or to the Wilderness?
Kay puts a hand on mine. ‘Give me a lesson,’ she says.
‘You want a reading lesson now?’
�
��I need one.’
Kay is right. We don’t see Lanc again. And nobody tells us where he’s gone. I sink into a depression after the whole incident dies down. I’d been kidding myself that somehow everything would get sorted out. But now I feel like everything is wrong. Why doesn’t my mother come? I’m starting to doubt that she’ll be able to help. I don’t even know if The Leader can help.
One good thing is that we don’t see Tong again either. I wonder if she quit or if she was pushed out. Instead of Tong we have Rice covering our sessions. We barely dare breathe.
Kay doesn’t get depressed like me. Instead she gets angry. She’s furious with Rice and all the enforcers about what happened to Lanc. It makes her fiercely determined to learn to read, if only to spite them. She starts recruiting others to learn. I want to give up on the whole thing, but Kay won’t hear of it. She reminds me of every argument that I made to her when we started. I let her talk me into it.
Five days after the Lanc episode, we’re kept waiting outside the grid longer than usual. Finally the door opens. As we enter there’s a ripple through the classroom and for a second I think that Tong must be back, but then I look up at the teacher’s enclosure and I realise why there is a stir in the class.
We’ve got a new enforcer.
It’s my mother.
She’s here. She’s finally here. I knew she’d come, but I still can’t believe it. I stop, staring at the side of her face. Someone behind bumps into me.
‘Move it, Blake!’
I stumble towards my compartment unable to take my eyes off her. I want to shout Mum! but I can’t make a sound.
Then she sees me.
She rises from her seat and reaches out an arm towards me before she knows what she’s doing. In that second I realise that we’re both in danger. We can’t let anyone know that we know each other.
So without showing any emotion I say, ‘Yes, enforcer?’
She sinks back into her seat. My mother isn’t stupid so she says, ‘You should be seated by now.’
And I know we understand each other.
The other Specials are whispering. A new enforcer is a big deal.
‘Silence,’ Mother says. ‘I am Enforcer Williams and this morning I will show you how to transfer information from storage to processor and then you will complete transfer exercises yourself. Before we start, make sure your EMDs are on,’ she says.
She says it just right. Firmly and matter of factly, like she expects it to happen. But she’s lifting her jaw a little higher than normal. I can tell that she’s afraid.
Mother takes us through an example of information transfer. I barely hear her. Part of me is happy that she is so close. I want to rush up to her and hug her, but the rest of me knows that this is a dangerous situation. Enforcers only survive if they are cold and hard and hate the Specials. My mother is way too kind to be here. They’ll tear her apart.
I try to concentrate on the numbers on my screen, but my eyes keep drifting up to look at her. She turns and catches my eye. She widens her eyes slightly, but I don’t know what she means. She brings her palms together under her chin. It’s not a gesture I remember her using. He eyes have gone back to her screen, but she separates then draws her palms together again.
I get it. She’s signing to me. Palms drawn together means meet. She wants to meet me. Still focusing on her screen she shifts so that her chin is leaning on the back of one of her hands. After a moment she extends her forefinger so it is pointing downwards. Here. Meet here. Her eyes flick to me to check she still has my attention and she moves her hand so it’s supporting her cheek. But only two fingers are raised. Two o’clock. In the morning, I suppose.
My insides surge upwards. I want to be able to talk to her so much. I want to ask her what I should do. I know that it’s risky. For both of us. But I have to see her, so the next time she darts a look in my direction I give the tiniest nod.
When we’re dismissed for lunch I pull Kay right into the middle of the surging scrum of Specials and whisper in her ear, ‘She’s my mother. Our new enforcer is my mother.’
Kay’s eyes bulge. ‘Don’t say it more times. Don’t say to any Special,’ she says.
‘I won’t,’ I say.
‘And don’t do a wrong thing. Don’t get into trouble.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ I say.
Kay squeezes my hand and for a moment I feel nothing but happy.
I work hard not to look at Mother for the rest of the day. I’m tired out by the time we go to the dining hall for dinner, but once I’m in my pod I let out a long breath and try to relax a little. We rarely see the enforcers in the evening so hopefully Mother is safe from any difficult situations for the time being. I’m secretly hoping that she has a really good plan that will mean she and I and Kay, Ilex and Ali will soon be leaving this place, but I doubt that things are going to be that straight forward.
I spend the evening with Ilex and Ali. Ali looks pale. Ilex shows me where a chunk of her hair is missing. He’s afraid that someone is picking on her, but Ali refuses to communicate about it. I look at their miserable faces. They need cheering up. I decide to tell them about my mother and how we’ll all be able to escape soon.
Blake’s mum is enforcer? signs Ali. Her eyes are wide with horror.
‘She’s not a bad enforcer. She’s an okay enforcer like Enforcer Baxter,’ Ilex says.
Enforcer Baxter is Ali’s class enforcer. She’s not as vicious as some of the others. She rarely uses the EMDs. I’m glad that Ilex can see that my mum isn’t a monster. She’s having to act tough, but you can still see that she’s fair. Not like Tong.
‘I didn’t know your mum does enforcer work,’ Ilex says.
‘She doesn’t,’ I say.
‘Why is she enforcering here, then?’
‘She’s come to get me,’ I whisper, even though we’re alone. ‘She’s come to rescue me. And you two and Kay.
Ali looks questioningly at Ilex.
Ilex looks back at her. ‘That’s what mums do. They want you to be in the goodest place, I mean, the best place. What they think is the best place, that’s where they try to make you be.’
I’m not entirely sure what he’s going on about, but Ali seems to understand because eventually she nods her head.
‘Bed for Ali,’ Ilex stands up. ‘It’s a good for you to have your mum,’ he says to me and leads Ali out of the dormitory.
That’s not exactly the response I was hoping for when I told them that we’re going to escape.
I get into bed at nine-thirty when the senior Specials’ buzzer goes. Five minutes later the dormitory door is closed and locked. I’ve got no idea how I’m going to stay awake till two.
‘Kay?’ I say.
‘Mmm?’
‘What was your mum like?’
There’s a long pause. ‘I don’t know. I can think-back her hair, it was like my hair. But I can’t think-back more times with my mum.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. Do you remember anything about before you took the Potential Test and came to the Academy?’
Kay gives a sleepy groan. ‘I don’t know your words, Blake. What’s Potential Test?’
‘You know, the exam, when you’re five years old they test you and—’
‘No.’ She yawns. ‘I didn’t do testing.’
‘But everybody does the test. And then you get your score and they place you in the school where you can best fulfil your potential. Or, at least, that’s what they say.’ I haven’t seen any encouraging of potential since I arrived here. ‘Don’t you remember?’
She doesn’t reply. She’s asleep. She must have forgotten. She said herself that she doesn’t remember when she was little. Probably lots of people don’t recall the actual test. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t take it. Otherwise, how would they know where to send you to school? That’s why everybody takes the Potential Test.
Don’t they?
After a while the whispered conversations in the dormitory die down. I try to keep
my mind working. I run through the periodic table and then all the speeches I can remember from Hamlet. Kay’s breathing is deep and regular. I imagine her pale hair spreading across the pillow and I think about pushing down her blanket and revealing her bare shoulders and . . . That is not a helpful line of thought to take. Although, I’m certainly not feeling sleepy now.
I wait a little longer and decide I may as well be in the classroom, where at least I will be able to see the time.
I ease myself out of bed. It’s impossible to know whether everyone in the room is asleep, but have to assume that if they notice me they’ll think I’m going to pee.
The floor of the bathroom is icy on my bare feet. I should have kept my socks on. I check that the cubicles are empty before keying the code into the door and slipping out on to the landing.
Downstairs, I hesitate in front of the door to our grid. I’m always a little worried that, somewhere on a computer, door openings are recorded. I could wait till my mother arrives, but really the classroom is a much better place to hide than standing vulnerable in an empty corridor where an impeccable patrol might come round the corner at any moment. I type CLASSROOM and the door releases. I’m shocked by the volume of the clicking and hissing. I’ve never noticed it during the day when Specials are clamouring to get in or out of the room, but now I twist around, afraid that the noise will bring someone. I step quickly inside and close the door behind me, wincing at the sound again.
When the wall clock finally shows two o’clock, my eyes are trained on the classroom door, but a sound from the front of the grid makes me spin round. The door in the back of the cage is opening.
My first thought is Rice. But before I have time to duck out of sight, the door opens and there is my mother. Of course. There’s no reason why she should have to use the classroom door.
‘John,’ she says.
It’s strange to hear my real name. Even before, no one called me that. I struggle to get my chilled limbs out of my seat. ‘Mum.’
‘I’m so happy to see you.’ Her voice cracks and she presses a hand to her mouth.