by Otter Lieffe
There's no way it ends like this, he decided. I'll die before I got back to the factory. I have to find a way out.
“Stop, you don't understand!” he shouted as the soldiers lifted their weapons. “I'm undercover.”
The troopers paused.
“I've been following the resistance for months,” Gus continued without skipping a beat. “I've been collecting information for the State.”
“Undercover, eh?” said one of the troopers, a corporal barely out of his teens. “Sounds fucking unlikely to me.”
Think, think.
“Lieutenant Green. 40793 Alpha Romeo.”
I should win a fucking medal.
From memory, Gus had just quoted the identity of one of his subordinates from back at the base: Lieutenant Green who had disappeared from one day to the next—with a sex worker according to the rumours.
And if they check, it'll be easy enough to fabricate a service record for the last year. It's the perfect cover.
“I report to Admiral Mako of the Thirty Second,” he continued. “And I doubt he'll be happy to hear about this. And you call me Sir, Sergeant.”
“But...erm...Sir...” the Sergeant stuttered, already looking less certain of himself. “Why were you running?”
“I got caught out. They figured out who I was and I had to get away. Then you guys came.”
“Kind of convenient timing…”
“Kind of convenient timing, Sir!” shouted Gus, pulling himself painfully up onto his ankle and leaning against the wall for support. He puffed out his chest. “Don't question me, soldier. I'm injured and unless you want Admiral Mako asking whose fault it was, I suggest you take me back to base so I can make my report.”
“I…well…” the Sergeant looked at his inferiors who looked back at him doubtfully. He realised there was only one way for him to save face. “Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir.” He turned to one of his inferiors and barked at him “Corporal! Get the Lieutenant a ride back to base.”
“Yes, Sir!” said the Corporal obediently before crossing the garden and disappearing back over the wall.
“Sorry about all this.”
“Forget about it,” Gus said hobbling over to the short wall and carefully climbing back over. He paused on the other side and called back. “Good luck with the raid, and Sergeant…?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Give those resistance bastards everything they’ve got coming to them.”
Chapter seventy-three
“Your toothbrush is in the usual place,” called Pinar from outside the bathroom. “And I left you some clean clothes outside the door.”
“Great, thanks,” Ash called back over the sound of running water.
Pinar was already back at her desk, surrounded by files on top of files. She had never been the tidiest student and with something as interdisciplinary as her latest paper she was forever jumping from subject to subject—biochemistry one second, physics and chaos theory the next—which meant even more files, books—and mess—than usual.
She knew she was obsessed with her paper. She had barely thought about anything else for months.
Pinar couldn’t imagine when she might finish it. For a woman in science to get published—even in 2017—was still an uphill struggle. But she was enraptured, enthralled. Every page she wrote was making love. Her thesis was elegant in its simplicity.
After nearly a year of research, she aimed to show how behavioural diversity—including sexual and gender diversity—formed an integral part of the biodiversity of life.
As such, she argued, it was essential to the adaptability of species, communities and ecosystems and to their long-term survival. All of which was precisely the opposite of what religious conservatives had been telling her her whole life.
Her paper was ambitious and courageous, but in a way, it was also a statement of the obvious: diversity is everywhere, and it's good for us.
Neuro-diversity, linguistics, culture, gender, sexuality: the more she looked, the more diversity and complexity she found. And—Pinar was beginning to realise—there were other new traits appearing which made the world even richer. She listened to Ash singing happily in the shower. The ability to move through time for example.
Five minutes later, Ash emerged from the shower in a cloud of steam wearing a satin, teal dress of Pinar's. It was a tight fit, but after a week of wearing pants, boots and a t-shirt she felt relieved to be wearing something that she actually liked again. Pinar was lost in her journals.
“Good shower?” she asked distantly.
“It was perfect. It's been a long time. And God, I didn't even know how much I missed toothpaste!”
Pinar gave her a curious look. “Maybe I should stockpile some in a bunker somewhere?” she suggested.
“Maybe you already have,” Ash replied with a mysterious smile as she cleared plates and papers off a chair and sat down. She picked up a journal titled “Animal Behaviour” with a photo on the front of two female squirrel monkeys mating. “So, how's your paper going?”
“It's slow. I have good days and bad days. My research has been pretty conclusive—behavioural plasticity, queer animal behaviour, heterogeneous causes of complex traits—I just need to bring it all together. It's getting kind of exciting!”
“Sounds fun,” said Ash vaguely.
“Yeah, well the current you isn't so happy about it either. But in a way you took me on this path. I mean I can't exactly mention your…unique behavioural trait in my paper but I'm more and more sure that moving through time is just a new piece of our behaviour, just one more part of our adaptive biodiversity.”
“And we're still having this conversation twenty-three years later…”
“I imagine! The current you is always arguing with me over it: she thinks that I'm trying to justify and explain queerness when no one ever tries to justify breeding or straightness or sexual reproduction in general. She calls it a double standard—one thing is marked and needs explanation, the other doesn't.”
“I remember that argument.” Ash smiled and poured herself some coffee from the pot on the table. “I had a point, you know, but I also know that that wasn't what you were trying to do with your paper. I was pretty defensive those days.”
“And now you're all grown up?”
“Something like that!” laughed Ash.
It was early afternoon and the spring sun was streaming in through Pinar's open skylight. Ash stood and put her head out the window. She heard wood pigeons calling in the poplar trees outside. The air was sweet and cool.
“Well, as I don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon…” she said. “Shall we take a walk?”
Pinar smiled.
“You never did like to be cooped up inside.” She stretched, yawned and looked around her at the mess. “Sure thing. Let's get out of here. I need to get some groceries anyway.”
Ash looked down at the dress she was wearing.
“Do I need to change?” she asked with an edge to her voice that Pinar knew only too well.
Ash had rarely felt safe wearing feminine clothing in the street. It saddened her every time she self-censored at the front door and put on something more conforming to society's expectations, but she had resolved long ago to do what she had to to avoid the violence of standing out.
Maybe the world just isn't ready for stubble surrounding lipstick, a balding head with long earrings or silk dresses flowing over a muscled chest.
“We can both get changed if it's more comfortable for you?” Pinar suggested.
She knew how painful it was for her friend to constantly monitor her femininity and had soon got into the habit of matching her style. If Ash didn't feel safe in a dress, then Pinar would slip out of hers too and wear jeans that day. Pinar refused to talk about it—for her it was just basic solidarity.
“I think I'm too old to care,” said Ash. “Besides I'm kind of invisible, right?”
“Kind of. And things are a little better th
ese days. Since Sense8 and the Wachowskis and Laverne Cox and Julia Serano and Chelsea Manning. And with all the celebrities coming out recently, trans has suddenly become hot news. They’re calling it a tipping point. Nothing really changed obviously, but suddenly everyone's talking about trans women like you just didn't exist five years ago. It's something like the gay movement but forty years late.”
“I remember vividly. It's 2017?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it's as good as it's ever going to get,” said Ash in an ominous tone. “Let's go.”
Pinar wanted to ask more but thought better of it. She opened the front door and held it open.
“You look gorgeous.”
Ash stepped out of the door; her head high. “I know.”
Chapter seventy-four
It was a perfect afternoon. The sun was warm, and the streets of the City were quiet in the short lull between rush hours. Pinar and Ash walked hand in hand and Ash was enjoying the feeling of the breeze over her legs and bare shoulders. She studiously avoided eye contact with people in the street and they in turn seemed to not notice her at all.
Anonymity, she remembered, was the best I could ever hope for living here.
Pinar stopped suddenly and turned to her friend; her eyes bright with excitement.
“Ash, I forgot to tell you! There's a femme pride march planned today. It should be starting soon downtown. Shall we go?”
Ash looked into the distance thoughtfully for a moment.
“Is it April by any chance?” she asked.
“Yes…”
“Then let's go!”
Pinar gave her an intrigued look and they turned left at the next junction. They could hear the police sirens before they even reached the square. Lights flashed off skyscrapers and they could hear—and feel—the familiar rhythm of a crowd chanting. Pinar was also pretty sure she heard someone screaming.
“My god, it sounds big.”
“It is,” said Ash with a knowing smile. “It really is.”
They turned another corner and Pinar's eyes opened wide in surprise. The square was a mess of people, police cars and flames. Her eyes watered instantly from tear gas.
“Ash. What the h—” Pinar stopped mid-sentence.
Next to her, lay the satin dress in a pile on the pavement. She sighed sadly and bent down to pick it up.
“Good luck hon...” she whispered. She picked up the dress, put it into her handbag and headed for the square.
Chapter seventy-five
Ash was lying somewhere cold and hard. And she was blind. She moved her hands in front of her face. Nothing. She sat up and looked around her. The world was completely dark. She reached out with her arms. She was somewhere open; there were no walls. No light. Nothing to give her a clue where she might be. She'd been in the past too long—had the State caught up with them? Was she in a prison cell? Had something happened to her eyes?
Her heart was racing. She didn't know if she should call out. Maybe it was better to just stay quiet until she knew where she was.
The floor was cold and damp and her old bones ached. Her arthritis had come back and was slowly reclaiming her joints, waves of dull pain moving through her body. She stood up to get away from the cold, carefully shielding her head in case there was a low ceiling of some kind. There was only air above. She stood in silence, surrounded by nothing except a faint breeze blowing over her cold body.
Just a moment ago I was at a turning point of history, the beginning. And now this.
Ash was overcome with a desperate desire to journey again.
Past or future, I don't care. Anything has to be better than this.
She strained and hoped and willed herself to go, but nothing.
Ash had never felt more alone.
* * *
Her hands held out in front of her, Ash tentatively stepped forward. Another step. One more. Still she touched nothing. She turned slowly around, her hands still waving in open air. She took a step in another direction and immediately banged into something large and hard.
As she stepped back in surprise, whoever, whatever it was, followed her and fell onto her. Ash screamed and struggled to get away but the new thing seemed to hold on somehow. She struggled, hitting at it until finally, it crashed to the floor.
Standing still for a moment, Ash waited to hear if the creature moved. She poked at it with her foot, but nothing.
Bending down, she moved her hands over its surface. It was cold and large, maybe the size of a person, maybe bigger. Her hands came to one end of it where there was some kind of sphere. Curiosity took over from her fear. She felt indentations, a lump sticking out, something cold like glass. And then softness, something long that lifted off the object. Something like…she yelled and jumped back.
Hair! It's hair!
She tried to steady her breathing.
What kind of hell is this?
Suddenly, blinding white light washed over her.
Instinctively Ash stepped back and shielded her eyes.
“What? Who…?” she stuttered; her eyes screwed up against the sudden sensory overload.
She braced herself then and prepared to fight.
Chapter seventy-six
“Ash, it's me,” said a familiar voice. “Are you okay?”
“I…I was blind…” said Ash, the words sticking in her throat.
“Oh my god, I'm so sorry,” said the voice. Ash noticed that the light became less extreme. “I left you with a couple of candles, but they must have burned out already. Look, it's me, Kit. It's okay; don't be scared.”
“Where am I?” Ash demanded. She was too shocked to be polite. Her eyes began to adjust, and she could see Kit's form, her familiar straight, dark hair. She was holding a candle in a jar, slightly shielded by her hand.
“We're in the mall. You've been erm…gone…for a few hours and we brought you in here to be safe while everything was happening. Are you okay? You look terrified…”
“I thought I was…I didn't know where…”
Ash shook herself off.
I'm fine. I'm safe.
She looked down at the thing that had fallen on her. At her feet was a naked mannequin lying face up, its arms straight out and its plastic hair splayed over the floor. She looked around her—several other naked mannequins were lined up staring out of a window. There was a broken till on a desk and piles of coat hangers on the floor. I'm in a clothes stores, just an ordinary clothes store. I was, at most, barely ten metres from the door.
Ash felt suddenly exposed and embarrassed by her panic.
“I'm okay, I'm fine. Thank you for taking care of me.” Shivers ran through her body. “Can we get somewhere warmer though? I'm half frozen.”
“Of course. Let's go downstairs. The others are just arriving. They're gathering in the main hall—”
Suddenly, Ash remembered where she'd been before she'd journeyed.
“—And Pinar? And the break-out?”
“She's here too. I just saw her arriving. The break-out was a complete success,” said Kit, smiling broadly.
“Please take me to her. I need her.”
“Right this way.”
* * *
Gus arrived at a guarded gate and following the single soldier who had been assigned to him, he entered the gardens of the City.
After the dry grass and weeds of Dignity Park, the gardens were impressive, immaculately maintained and full of colour. Everywhere, flowers bloomed in complex patterned beds and stone pathways cut across extensive, lush green lawns. Gus saw sprinklers everywhere keeping the lawns watered—so many that water splashed onto the pathways and into the little fishponds. The rest of the State might be in severe drought, but here in the gardens, there was always water to waste.
Gus began to walk over a delicate bridge that crossed a small stream. He saw well-fed koi swimming in the clear water and, for a moment, flashed on the catfish back in the forest.
The way those resistance idiots wasted valuable time saving a bunch of slimy catfish. The way they…
Gus paused for a moment, watching the fish.
…also saved my life. But then, the park…the troopers…
Gus shook his head and continued through the gardens.
As he and the other soldier arrived at the edge of the gardens, Gus felt a water droplet land on his head.
It must be a sprinkler, he reasoned, but as he felt another drop, he looked up and saw the sky was darkening, thick black clouds were pulling in from the east.
“Looks like rain,” he said to the soldier.
“Yes, Sir. Let's get you to the office.”
Another gate opened in front of them and Gus left the gardens. He glanced back before the gate closed and realised he felt a little sad to leave.
It really is beautiful here.
An hour later, Gus was leaning back in a reclining office chair, sipping from a glass of cool water. His ankle was throbbing again from the walk through the gardens but for now he was glad just to be safe and inside. He could hear what sounded like a month’s worth of rain thundering down on the roof of the State building.
So far, no-one had questioned his story. The State always had so many operations going on at once that few people knew about them all. Besides, everyone seemed too busy today to pay much attention to him.
Gus overheard two women talking to each other in the corridor.
“What do you mean the Life Accounts is down? How can it be down?”
“I tell you, I tried to go the bathroom about an hour ago and nothing was working. I couldn't even get past the turnstile.”
“Could it be the rain?”
“I heard a rumour it might be the—” she lowered her voice, “—resistance.”
“Don't even say it. Let's get back to the office.”
So that's it! thought Gus. I knew those resistance scum were planning something big. Well, good. That combined with the rain and the raid on the park will mean more distractions to cover me. I might even get out of this without ever seeing the inside of a prison again.