Something crunched under Ferrassie’s foot. She didn’t bother checking it out. Daft crickets were supposed to stay contained in their growing chambers and be transferred cleanly to boxes for transport to the processing plant. The reality was they were everywhere, chirping and hopping and making Ferrassie itchy and crawly every minute of every day, even when she wasn’t at work. The time display clicked over to nine minutes till knock-off.
She sang to herself – work was the best place to sing. Nobody complained about the noise because they couldn’t hear anything over the din of crickets, forklifts and raised Neo-Neandertal voices all bouncing off the corrugated tin walls and polished concrete floors. She flicked a lock of damp hair from her forehead. Soon she’d be back in the air-conditioned barracks, away from the heat that was awesome for crickets and crap for Neandertal workers whose ancestors had evolved during cooler times, in a cooler place.
Eight minutes till knock-off. A horn sounded and brakes squealed behind her. Ferrassie turned to check out what was going on. A forklift, moving a pallet stacked high with boxes of live crickets, lurched to a stop within centimetres of her. The boxes on the top wobbled and two of them tilted far enough forward to tumble onto her upturned face.
Ferrassie shrieked as a box broke open right over her head. A cricket leapt into her mouth and she spat it out. The bastards covered her face and hair. They slid down the neck of her green coveralls. She ripped her clothes off, batting away crickets and flinging her coveralls around. Even over the incessant chirping she heard the laughs. Everyone stopped to rubberneck. Their mugs split with smiles. They held their bellies or each other, shouting, whooping and wiping tears from their cheeks.
‘Woo, Rassie.’
‘Take it all off, baby.’
She curtseyed and pulled her coveralls back on. The voice of the little-brain foreman, up above them in his air-conditioned office, boomed out of the wall speakers. ‘No worker is leaving this factory until that mess is cleaned up.’
Ferrassie glanced at the time display again. Five minutes to go.
The Neos all set to work picking up the trays and scooping crickets from the floor, slapping her on the back and grinning as they worked. At ten minutes past knock-off the siren sounded and the exit door swung open. Ferrassie’s co-workers gave a cheer and filed out, a good number of crickets making the hop to freedom with them.
Only two armoured buses remained in the car park of the industrial food complex. As usual the Neo driver, who sat on her arse all day in an air-conditioned bus, exclaimed over their body odour and gave Ferrassie a high five as she stomped in.
Ferrassie took a seat by the window and Amud slid in beside her, a smirk on his mug.
‘Awesome show back there, Rassie.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Not like you haven’t seen it all before.’
He put a hand on her thigh and nuzzled into her neck.
‘Ew. We’re both ripe.’ She pushed him away.
‘I thought you were doing a striptease for me.’
‘Believe me, that wasn’t for your benefit.’ She shuddered at the memory of the insects scrabbling on her skin, their panicked ricochet between her body and the inside of her coveralls.
Amud laughed and pecked her quick on the cheek before she batted him away.
The bus moved past the tall, razor-topped wall into the Demislums. The rickety homes of the slummies lined the edges of the road. The little-brains out there lived in conditions as abysmal and crowded as those of the bugs in the factory. Ferrassie supposed she was lucky, living in a comfortable, climate-controlled barracks kept shipshape by a team of robocleaners.
A gang of anklebiters, covered head to toe in UV-protective SunSuits, jogged beside the bus, pulling faces. One of them leaned forward and pretended to drag his knuckles on the ground.
‘Check out these little arseholes,’ Ferrassie said.
Amud leaned forward and pressed his brow ridge against the window.
‘Hey, you – chinless fat head,’ one of the anklebiters yelled.
Amud stuck a finger up and they all screamed with laughter.
‘Don’t encourage them,’ Ferrassie said.
‘Big nostrils!’ another anklebiter yelled.
‘Real clever. Tell us something we don’t know,’ Ferrassie muttered.
The anklebiters fell away and the bus approached the shining fortress wall of City 1. The sun slipped down behind the high-rise buildings. Most days Ferrassie went to work in the dark and got back to the barracks in the dark. Most days all she had to look forward to was watching tubes and sneaking up to the greenspace for a screw with Amud before collapsing, knackered, into bed. Things had to change. She wasn’t meant for this kind of life. She was sure the cloning scientists had got it wrong when they’d coded her clone tattoo as labourer. They’d designed her DNA for talent. She knew it. She was meant to sing or entertain. Like one of those swapped-at-birth stories from the old tubes. Someone had made a mistake.
♦ ♦ ♦
Amud rolled off her and pulled on his boxers. Ferrassie flattened down her short hair and put on her singlet and underpants. After the air-conditioned dormitory, the air on the barracks’ roof was a warm blanket. All around them wind turbines churned lazily in the breeze and vegetable beds created leafy shadows. Ferrassie sat beside Amud, their backs against the wall, and stared up at the sky. Through the fuzzy film of smoke and dust from the Demi-slums she made out a few stars. The city below was mostly dark; only a soft green glow rose from the FoxFire trees.
She’d been unable to nod off, her brain churning with ideas of what else her life could be. When Neandertals were nothing more than bones dug out of the ground, paleoarchaeologists had assumed they had little ability for creative or symbolic thought. Either they’d been wrong or the portions of little-brain DNA left intact in her genome had given her an active imagination. As she’d lain in bed, a story about being discovered by a music producer who’d taken a tour of the cricket factory had unfolded in her mind. The producer sponsored her and set her up as a recording star. She had millions of subscribers to her tube channel, lived in a penthouse apartment and was best buds with the Keeping Up with the Cavemen cast. Of course cast member Akil became consumed by an insatiable lust for her. After a steamy fantasy about Akil she’d decided to get some air.
Amud had seen her creeping towards the stairwell and followed her, forever keen for a screw. Ferrassie was never one to say no, especially not after her fantasy about Akil. She had insisted Amud bring his illegal OmniScreen with them though. She had an idea.
Amud flattened out his scrunched-up OmniScreen and gave it over, planting his lips on her cheek. She pulled away. He was so daft and soppy sometimes.
‘What do you want that for?’ Amud rested his head on her shoulder and checked out the screen as she tapped it into life.
‘Where’s that Neandertal chat room you told me about?’
Amud took the screen, navigated to the site and gave it back. ‘Well, are you gonna tell me why you’re suddenly so interested in all this?’
Ferrassie stared at the screen. Letters everywhere. ‘How the fuck am I supposed to use this? How the fuck do you use this? You didn’t learn to read without telling me, did you?’
Amud touched the end of his finger to a piece of text and a voice came out of the OmniScreen: ‘Qasbish follows Shovakh around like he’s her baby, but he’s definitely the hottest of the blokes said Gingerhairedgirl.’
‘Neat.’ Ferrassie smiled. ‘They’re yakking about Keeping Up with the Cavemen.’
‘Yeah. Is that why you wanted this – so you could yak to folk about that daft tube?’
‘It’s not daft. And no, that’s not what I wanted this for.’ Ferrassie pushed his head off her shoulder. ‘I’m going to find a new job.’
Ferrassie had always been chuffed for the babies and toddlers and sometimes older kids who got adopted at the cloning orphanage. They got an education and a chance to make something of their lives. Unlike labourers, who
were expected to stay ignorant. Even though her clone tattoo had labelled her as a labourer from the time she was born, she had never fully believed that was her future. Even when she’d turned up for her first shift at the cricket factory, she still hadn’t believed it.
‘What?’ Amud screwed up his nose.
‘I hate that fucking factory. I’ll never be discovered by a music producer there. Neos can change jobs, as long as a new employer sponsors them.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Around. It has happened. They said Sapien recruiters sometimes check out Neo chat boards for new talent.’ She slapped at a mozzie on her arm and inspected the smear of blood by the light of the OmniScreen.
Amud groaned. ‘You’ll end up doing something dodgy like erotic entertainment or being a personal slave.’
‘Anything would be better than hauling buckets of cricket crap around for the rest of my life.’ Ferrassie ground her teeth together. ‘Will you help me?’
Amud smooched her on the shoulder. ‘Fine. Let me set up an account for you and you can post something.’
Ferrassie watched while Amud spoke into the OmniScreen and set up an account under the name SingingRassie. ‘Record your message now.’ Amud held the screen up to her face.
Ferrassie gulped. ‘Um. Hi. My name is Ferrassie. I work at the cricket factory. I can sing and I think I would be a good actor and dancer too. I’ll do any kind of work as long as it doesn’t involve insects. If anyone knows of anything for me, please, um …’Ferrassie opened her mouth and stared at Amud.
‘Leave me a private message,’ Amud mouthed to her.
‘Leave me a private message. Ta. Bye.’
Amud leaned over and touched the screen to stop the recording. They played back the message.
Ferrassie curled her lip. ‘Mm. My voice sounds dodgy. We should record it again. I should sing something so they know I’m talented.’
‘It’s fine. We both gotta catch some z’s before work in the morning.’ Amud tapped the screen and it made a whooshing noise. ‘There. It’s posted.’
Ferrassie punched him in the arm. ‘You numbskull.’ She stared at the screen. ‘How long does it take?’
‘You might not hear anything until tomorrow.’ Amud yawned and stretched. ‘You might not hear anything at all.’
This had to work. She had a feeling about it. She was going to be somebody.
Amud stood. ‘We’ll check it in the morning.’
The OmniScreen pinged and a red light flashed in the top left corner.
Amud raised his brow. ‘You have a message.’
CHAPTER 12
Alida lay on her back, holding her wrist chip display above her. She had reckoned the payment for her job in plastic-land was generous, but with all the expenses she had to shell out for, including fresh grub and Zave’s passenger habit, her credit balance was plummeting like a bird shot down crossing the city wall. Graycie snored beside her. She’d have to avoid Zave if she wanted her dosh to last. She’d never in her life avoided Zave. She’d regularly sought him out, to make life more cheery. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be with mates? Someone wasn’t really your mate if you didn’t want them around. She sighed and got herself out of bed. The queues at the hub would already be shitful.
In the space of a week her life had turned messy. Mum used to reckon life was beads of misery on a string, one after the other after the other. Alida finally understood what she’d been gabbing on about.
Alida tickled Graycie’s toes until she woke, then got her dressed. The rumours were that Freel’s caper would happen that day. In the past, ticking off LeaderCorp had resulted in shuttered hubs for up to a week. They couldn’t afford to miss even a single water or Nutri-Shake ration.
‘You’ve gotta stay close to me today, Gray. Some trucks might go boom, so don’t be frightened.’
‘I wanna see the trucks go boom.’ Chewed-up nutrition bar sprayed from Graycie’s lips.
‘Keep the grub in your mouth or we’ll have even more bugs and mice in here.’ Alida knelt down. ‘Hop on my back so I know where you are.’
She knelt down and Graycie climbed on. Alida’s heart clenched a little at how light and bony she was. Graycie buried her nose in the hair at the back of Alida’s neck and sniffled.
‘Don’t wipe your snot in my hair!’
‘I’m not!’ Graycie yelled in Alida’s ear.
Alida pulled up the hood of her SunSuit and grabbed their dunny bucket in one hand and a bag of garbage in the other. ‘Okay then, let’s split.’
The Demi-Settlements were filled with characters standing around quietly clocking everything, like fleshy surveillance droids. It was hot as hell and still too, like the Demis were all holding their breath. People usually tolerated the crowded streets by putting their heads down and not paying each other too much mind; now everyone made eye contact as though trying to read some hint of what was about to go down.
Alida and Graycie joined the queue for waste recycling at the rear of their LeaderCorp Hub. After about twenty minutes they reached the front. Alida scanned her wrist and tipped their dunny bucket and garbage into separate chutes for analysis and recycling. When it came to decomposition, nano-disassembly was like a super-powered Mother Nature: faster, more efficient and able to obliterate stubborn non-biodegradable synthetic materials. The balance on her wrist chip jumped up a smidge. A couple of small groups of Demis loitered nearby, speaking in low voices. A mum clouted her littlie round the ear when he tried to bolt away after a rat.
They traipsed around to the front of the building, where the rations gate of the hub was opening for the day, and joined the end of the water and Nutri-Shake queue. The chick in front of them reeked like shit.
‘Aww! I smell poop,’ Graycie yelled.
Alida shrugged, turning her nose downwind of the stink. They shuffled forward, bit by bit, kicking up little clouds of red dust.
‘Poo poo smell, poo poo smell.’ Graycie danced around for a stretch and then tugged at Alida’s arm. ‘Is that a Neo? Mum said they’re not allowed to be out here.’
Alida scoffed and took a sideways step to see where Graycie was pointing. Graycie had been obsessed with Neos since she was titchy. Sometimes she hung around the gates, beyond no-man’sland, just to clock one. Flanking the hub door were two Security Force goons: an android and one, sure enough, that looked to be a Neo. Alida blinked.
‘No shit. I think you’re right, Gray.’ This was the first time Alida had seen a Neo in the Demi-Settlements.
She shuffled forward again, half a sideways step out of line. The chick behind her grumbled. The quickest way to make enemies in the Demi-Settlements was to mess with the queueing process. Queues were like SunSuits: a thin, flimsy-seeming measure that prevented a whole world of hassle.
Alida stared openly. The Neo swivelled her head, constantly on alert. Alida wondered what it was like being cloned from an extinct species and knowing the characters they made your blueprint from had carked it thousands of years ago. She wanted to rap her knuckles on that big forehead to see if the Neo’s massive skull sounded hollow.
Murmurs of the news of a Neo in their midst headed down the line like an electric pulse.
‘A Neo, in the Demi-Settlements – the Security Force must want her dead.’
‘They’re even uglier up close.’
‘I don’t want her touching me when she scans my wrist. Who knows what germs she has.’
‘What do we do? Do we go to another hub?’
‘Can she speak or does she only grunt?’
‘I’ve always been against Neandertal cloning. It’s unnatural.’
‘There’d be plenty jobs for us in City 1 if the Neos didn’t take ’em all.’
Alida blushed as the Demis got jerkier and louder. She shuffled forward until there were only four people left between her and the Neo goon.
‘She’s looks sweet,’ Graycie said. ‘Do you reckon we’d be allowed to have a Neo?’
She did look sw
eet, and a little scary too. So weird and so buff. People called them animals. But this Neo seemed smart and thoughtful. Same as a regular human – or Sapien, as they referred to themselves now that Neandertals lived again.
Alida dived headfirst into her fear. Until her brush with passenger, fear had been the closest thing to a drug for her. She really fancied a chat with the Neo. Graycie could hold her place. Line-minding was frowned upon, but Alida could handle a few tuts and dirty looks.
‘Ugly bloody Neo,’ someone yelled.
Jeez, Demis could be jerks. Alida stepped out of the queue. It was time someone extended hospitality to their Neo guest.
CHAPTER 13
Shuqba and three android officers arrived at one of the LeaderCorp Hubs in the Demi-Settlements first thing in the morning. She hadn’t told anyone in the barracks about her posting (mostly because the other Neo SFOs wouldn’t talk to her); still, word had got around. They’d whispered and glanced at her all morning as she prepared for her shift. She overheard one of them say the Demis would eat her alive.
Shuqba took her position at the rations gate. A line had already formed outside. The sun was rising over a guard tower in the city wall and shone right into her eyes. She ignored the sweat building up under her collar. Feeling comfortable was not an SFO priority.
The streets outside the wall were chaotic. Her throat constricted at the odour of toilet waste mixed with body odour and acrid smoke from fuel lamps and barrel fires. People were everywhere. Shuqba struggled to concentrate and not flinch at every movement in her peripheral vision. A canine ran up to sniff at her leg. At least they had something like wildlife out here. The canine growled and the android guard rolled over to give it a belt with an electropacifier. Shuqba didn’t even have a weapon. If there was any kind of incident she would have to rely on her own strength and hand-to-hand combat skills and the assistance of the androids.
The Shining Wall Page 6