Vulture's Gate

by Kirsty Murray

  He was shouldered aside. A tall and powerfully built drone swept Bo into his arms and carried her through the startled press of naked boys. At the doorway, she was wrapped in a blanket and slung over the shoulder of another soldier-drone. As the sound of the boys receded, the last voice she heard was Callum’s, calling her name, sharp and insistent. ‘Bo! Bo! Bo!’

  24

  MATER MISERICORDIAE

  Bo could hardly breathe. A prickly blanket smothered her face and she wriggled and clawed at the fabric until she made a tiny opening through which she could see. She was inside one of the small copters that Callum had called a Pally-val, and they were flying high over the water. Beneath them was an island, in the middle of the harbour, between the ruined city and the overgrown North Shore. Sheer stone walls rose straight up from the water, making it impregnable by sea. The copter landed in a walled garden in the centre of the island.

  As soon as the Pally-val touched down, Bo was hauled over someone’s shoulder, rolled out of the blanket and deposited naked on her back on a stretch of smooth green lawn. She drew her knees up to her chest and made herself small. Three strangers in long robes stared down at her. Their faces were soft and narrow, framed by tight wimples. Their lips were painted soft pink and their eyebrows were shaped in perfect crescents. They looked like characters from a storybook. They looked like women.

  One of the women reached down and tried to drag Bo to her feet but Bo pulled away. She wanted to bare her teeth, to snarl at them like Mr Pinkwhistle. The thought of Mr Pinkwhistle sent a wave of grief coursing through her.

  The oldest woman spoke. She was as weathered as Mollie Green, her face lined, her long eyelashes silvery-grey.

  ‘Come inside, child. You can’t sit here naked in the sunlight forever.’

  Grudgingly, Bo got to her feet. The woman tried to take her hand but Bo tucked them both under her armpits and let the blanket trail along the ground behind her.

  They crossed the lawn and climbed the steps of a shiny, shell-pink-and-silver building. In the foyer, a copper sign read Mater Misericordiae.

  Once the sliding glass doors of the building had shut behind them, the women took off their black cloaks. Beneath them they wore pale blue silk dresses that accentuated their hips and breasts. Their long, shining hair cascaded over their shoulders, reminding Bo of the queens and princesses she had seen in fairytale illustrations. They led Bo down bright corridors in silence, hemming her in on all sides. Bo tried to mask her curiosity but she couldn’t help glancing around at the strangeness of her surroundings. Nothing was broken in this building. Everything was clean and smooth and the air was heavy with cloying perfumes.

  The older woman opened a door to a large, airy room and then gestured for Bo to enter. She pointed to a white plush lounge suite beneath a barred window.

  ‘You may be seated,’ she said.

  Bo remained standing.

  ‘You have nothing to fear. You are in safe hands now. I am Alethea, and this is Verity and Meera,’ she said, gesturing to each of the two other women. ‘Do you have a name, child?’

  Bo stayed stubbornly mute. She registered a flicker of annoyance in the old woman’s expression. ‘Later, then,’ said Alethea. She nodded to the other two women and left the room.

  ‘We will help you wash,’ said Meera.

  ‘No!’ said Bo. ‘I can clean myself!’

  The two women looked at each other and smiled, which Bo found inexplicably annoying. They bowed in assent and led her into the bathroom, where they demonstrated how to use the taps and shower. Then they left her alone.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Bo felt her body relax. At last she could think. She sat on the end of the bed. It was impossibly soft. Everything about the room was soothing. The walls were painted pale green and the dusky-beige carpet felt lush beneath her bare feet. Bo went to the bathroom and touched the smooth white tiles. Every surface was so bright, so clean and shiny, that it almost hurt her eyes.

  Most alarming of all was a huge mirror that covered an entire wall of the bathroom. Now that she was alone she stood in front of it and stared at her reflection. Her hair was matted at the back and tangled into long rat-tails at the front. She felt startled by her own green eyes staring back at her. There had been a small mirror at Tjukurpa Piti but she had never seen her whole body. It didn’t look the way she had expected. The budding breasts and the tiny patch of silky dark hair at her crotch seemed as if they should belong to someone else. She bared her teeth and was disappointed to see they were discoloured and one tooth on the left was sharp and jagged, probably chipped in the crash of the Daisy-May.

  She turned on the taps in the shower and watched the water spilling onto the tiled floor of the cubicle. It flowed without stopping, like a waterfall, and the water was clear and sparkling, not like the murky brown bore-water of Tjukurpa Piti. She held her hand under it until she was sure there was nothing in it that would hurt her, then she stepped into the silvery flow. The water around the drain swirled brown and red as months of caked grime washed from her body. Her skin became lighter, like golden honey. She stood beneath the flow until all the dirt had washed away, until even the cracks between her toes were clean.

  When she returned to the bedroom wrapped in thick, fluffy towels, she discovered a tray of food on a small table beneath the window. Bo flopped down on the white sofa and stared at the food. Maybe it was poisoned. Maybe now was the time she should try to escape. Although the window was barred, the view was across a garden full of lush plants and bright flowers. Through the foliage, she could see the high, sheer walls that enclosed the island. There would be no easy escape from Mater Misericordiae.

  Steam rose from a bowl of soup and beneath a silver cover was a platter of meats and vegetables. Bo sniffed at the food. Her stomach grumbled. There was a small bowl of nuts and a larger one of fruit and a small, pink – what? A cupcake? Bo had never eaten a cupcake before, or even seen one, but she had read about them and the cake looked as foolish and wonderful as anything she had imagined. She picked at the icing, which burnt her mouth the same way that Callum’s donuts had, and then she picked up a spoon to try the soup. For a moment she hesitated; what if they wanted to kill her? But why would they do it so graciously? The smell of the hot soup was making her stomach ache with hunger. She took a small spoonful and let it rest in her mouth for a minute, savouring the rich, salty flavour.

  It took her a long time to finish the food. Part of her wanted to wolf it down but she knew better than to shock her body with a huge meal. She finished the soup slowly and then tasted a small portion of everything on the other plates. A cosy sleepiness began creeping through her limbs. She lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was covered in tiny, pale pink stars that were oddly hazy. As she gazed at the swirling patterns, all her worries drifted away.

  The sheet beneath her felt silky-smooth and the covering feather-light yet deliciously warm. She thought back over the events of the afternoon, trying to make sense of what had happened. Her eyes prickled. She pictured Callum and the Festers standing naked in that cold, drab room. When the soldier-drone had thrown her so roughly over his shoulder, she thought he was taking her away to be killed. But here she was, lying between silken sheets, being treated like a princess. Through the cloud of her sleepiness, all the stories she’d read of princesses came to her. Princesses who were tricked and deceived, made mute, poisoned and imprisoned. Princesses who were held hostage by beasts, witches or ogres. Princesses whose fathers abandoned them and whose stepmothers betrayed them. As sleep came to her, she dreamt of flocks of birds, of brothers turned into swans and ravens that circled their princess sister, crying out to her for help.

  25

  THE HARMONY ENHANCEMENT

  Callum felt his chest cave in when the doors swung shut behind Bo and the soldier-drone, as if he had been gutted alive. He buried his face in his hands and fought back tears.

  Roc tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘You don’t have
to worry about her,’ he said bitterly. ‘She’ll be fine. It’s us that will suffer.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’ll take her off to the Island and feed her up like a prize pig, but we’re not worth anything to them so they’ll kill us. There’ll be some sort of poison coming out of those showers any minute.’

  As if his words were a signal, the showers surged into life. The boys let out one loud collective scream as silvery-blue liquid sprayed across their naked bodies. It washed over them until the floor was flooded and they were all standing ankle-deep in the swirling blue.

  The liquid smelt tangy and sweet and Callum thought at least dying would smell nice. But no one was looking even faintly ill. They were definitely changing. Some who looked as though they hadn’t washed in years, emerged ghostly pale as the dust and dirt sloughed from their bodies. The room grew steamy and one of the younger boys started to giggle. Roc looked at them sharply, then at Tape and Ring, who had wide, stupid grins on their faces.

  ‘Cover your nose and mouth!’ called Roc, clasping his own hand over his face. ‘It’s the Harmony Enhancement.’

  ‘I thought you said they were going to kill us,’ said Callum, suppressing a giggle.

  ‘I’d rather be dead than harmonised,’ said Roc, his voice muffled by his hands.

  Callum couldn’t think what that meant but he covered his face in the same way as Roc and tried not to breathe too deeply.

  The water was nearly to their knees by the time the showers were turned off. There was a swirling, sucking sound as a plug opened and the murky water drained away. Callum followed Roc as he pushed his way to the exit. As soon as the soldier-drones opened the doors, he took a deep breath of the cool, sour air that flowed into the room.

  Callum felt some of the warmth seep out of him as the boys were herded from the showers and into another room where a row of men with clippers stood ready to shear their hair. The Festers, now uncharacteristically co-operative, sat side by side on a long bench as their tangled manes and dreadlocks were shorn off. Callum felt a breeze against his scalp as clumps of his hair fell from his shoulders under the buzz of the shears. When every boy was hairless, they were marshalled into another room where they were given a pair of loose drawstring trousers and a wraparound jacket made of dark brown fabric.

  ‘What did you mean when you said about us being “harmonised”?’ Callum asked Roc.

  ‘That shower was only the beginning,’ said Roc. ‘There were chemicals in the water, not just soap. Happy gases that make you think everything is okay.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Callum, still feeling a remnant of the warm glow that the showers had induced. ‘It felt good too.’

  ‘No, idiot, it’s living death. You turn into a zombie. You do what they say, and worse, you’re happy doing what they say. Next they’ll give you pills and jabs to make you mindless, to make you less a man and more a slave. It’s how they keep everything working in the Colony, how they make men and boys work for nothing. They’re filled up with drugs until they forget who they were, until they can’t hold other thoughts, other memories. You feel happy all the time. You may as well feel nothing.’

  Callum sensed the urgency of his earlier despair trying to push through the warm feeling inside him. Suddenly, he understood. He would forget Bo. He would even forget his fathers. The Harmony Enhancement would make him think everything was fine, that everything was as it was meant to be.

  ‘My dads told me something about “happy men”,’ said Callum, fumbling for the memory. ‘About how they were important for something. But I thought it was a story. Like girls, something they dreamt up,’ and he laughed, but it was a sharp, angry laugh that made him feel more like his old self.

  ‘My father told me everything,’ said Roc. ‘But he told me the truth. It’s why I started the Festers. So we could be angry instead of sloppy. Sloppy with happiness.’

  ‘You really did have a dad?’ asked Callum.

  Roc scowled. ‘You think you’re unique? I had two fathers, just like you, and a sister.’

  ‘Now I know you’re lying. Nobody has a sister.’

  ‘You had Bo, didn’t you?’ said Roc.

  ‘Yeah but she’s a freak,’ said Callum. ‘The last girl on earth.’ ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Other girls? How can there be other girls?’

  ‘Both my fathers were doctors. They helped make boys – chosen boys like you and me – and fodder as well, boys who would become drones, the Colony worker ants. My dads probably made some of the Festers. Maybe they made you. They brewed and hatched thousands of boys, but girls were what they dreamt of. They couldn’t believe their luck when they hatched my sister. When the Colony took her away from us, one of my dads went crazy.

  ‘He started talking too loudly about how women should be treated equally, how the Colony was corrupt. We tried to make him be quiet but they killed him anyway. Then they killed my other father.’

  ‘Who killed them?’

  ‘Colony drones. They were only following orders. The Colony would have made me into a drone too but I ran away.’ ‘What happened to your sister?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if I care. If it hadn’t been for her, my fathers would still be alive.’

  Callum took a deep breath and tried to make sense of everything Roc had revealed. He knew Roc was watching for his response but he didn’t know what to say.

  Finally, he mumbled, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t want your sympathy.’

  ‘I’m not just sorry for you. I’m sorry for me too. I always believed that the Colony men were the good guys. Now I don’t know what to believe. I don’t even know who I am, who you are – what it all means.’

  Roc sneered. ‘I know who I am. And I don’t care who you are or what you think. I don’t care what anyone thinks. But I care about the Festers. The Festers are all equal. We don’t need to bring girls back to make things work for us. Boys can grow in glass. They can survive anything. It was the old men that ruined everything, thinking that boys weren’t important, treating us like garbage. But no matter how much they try to squash us down, the Festers keep coming back like a disease they can’t cure.’

  A line of docile, shorn boys ambled past them into the dressing room. ‘I think they just inoculated against your disease,’ said Callum.

  Roc griped Callum’s arm, pulling him closer. ‘We have to get them out of here. We have to break out.’ His blue eyes glittered angrily. ‘If I can get out with a few boys, I can rally the Festers.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Listen closely,’ he whispered ‘They’ll try to sedate us in stages. They don’t like doing it in one hit, in case they damage our brains. First was the gas, next they’ll give us pills. Tomorrow they’ll inject us with a cocktail of drugs, send in a whole crew to do the harmonising. But tonight we still have a chance. When they come with the pills, take them but don’t swallow. Hide them under your tongue, or in the side of your mouth. Then, when they ask you to stick your tongue out to prove you’ve swallowed, do it quickly, but don’t let them see the pills. You’ve got to help me with this. Tell the other boys. As many as you can without making it obvious.’

  Callum and Roc wove their way through the crowd, trying to look casual as they chatted to the younger boys, leaning on their shoulders and talking cheerfully, as if they were sharing a harmonised joke. Callum counted the ratio of soldier-drones to boys. He didn’t like their chances of success. The soldier-drones stood in pairs at every exit. Even though their faces were impassive, they kept their tasers raised, as if waiting for an excuse to fire on the Festers.

  Two soldier-drones distributed the pills and water. Some boys, who hadn’t understood how to keep the pills under their tongue, choked and gulped them down. Others had their mouths squeezed open by soldier-drones and then were roughly slapped to force them to swallow. Callum felt a cold sweat break out all over his body as he threw back the pills and quickly manoeuvred them un
der his tongue.

  When the soldiers passed Callum, they demanded he open his mouth. Somehow, he managed to keep the pills under his tongue as he stuck it out. When he sat on the floor beside Roc, they both pretended to cough, meanwhile flicking the pills into their fists.

  ‘Roc, do you think that if we get out of here I’ll be able to find Bo?’

  ‘Bo,’ said Roc, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe you.’

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You don’t want to mess with girls. They’re dynamite.’

  ‘Bo wasn’t toxic. I didn’t catch anything from her.’

  ‘She was absolutely toxic. You should have traded her for whatever you could get. You had a girl! Every fool wants one.’

  ‘You mean sell her?’

  ‘Definitely. Girls are not worth the trouble. They mess with your brain. They ruin everything.’

  Callum stared up at the ceiling.

  ‘Forget her, Scab. They’ve probably taken her straight to the island, to Mater. It’s because of Mater Misericordiae that they filled the harbour with mines, to stop anyone getting out there. But one day I’ll get there. One day I’ll blow the place sky high.’

  ‘What about your sister? What if she is on the island?’

  ‘What sort of life could she have out there? I’d be doing her a favour.’

  Callum felt sick. He didn’t want to ask any more questions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answers. All he wanted was to find Bo before it was too late. Once they were together again, they would find his fathers and have them tell the truth. The truth about girls and boys, the truth about the plague, and the truth about the Colony. Slowly, he crushed the pills in his hands until they made a fine, thin dust.

  26

  GIRLFRIEND

  Bo didn’t want to wake up. She rolled away from the light that poured in through the barred windows and tried to make her way back into her dream. On the other side, in the darkness of her sleep, she could sense Callum. He had his arms around her waist and they were riding on the Daisy-May across a wide desert with Mr Pinkwhistle crouched between her knees. All that mattered was the journey.