Grainy had got himself body-scanned in his twenties, just to be sure he wasn’t carrying the wasting disease. The robot had given him the all clear. And that’s exactly what nagged at him. Why wouldn’t the unwellness pass? He was too young to be moving into the second stage, let alone the final stage, of life. His genes were sound. His tumour rubbed the back of his knee, but it was small and lax. There was no good reason for him to feel the way he felt.
Perhaps, he thought, it was just that the air quality had been going through a bad patch, what with the increase in rain, what with the announcement that the authorities would be upgrading the domefield, what with the persistent high winds blowing in from the western badlands. The people who Grainy shared his life with all had their problems. His ex-partner Mace often had a severely swollen left ankle. He knew because he lived a floor above her: he often went down and shared an autoscreen at dinnertime with Mace and their child, who they really needed to name, given that she was nearly nine years old. Some days, he massaged Mace’s ankle while they ate, the little girl putting a hand on each of them.
Grainy’s friends — some from his work at the Institute of Peace Studies, some acquired during his years living in the Walker Home for Children of Parents of the Old Time Who Did Not Survive — were always complaining about transient aches or pain or stiffness. Periodic discomfort — low-level, a mere irritant — was normal. It was part of the business of having survived, of living in the New Time. Every doctor was a physio. Every partner was a masseuse. Every mattress vibrated hot or cold on request.
So Grainy hadn’t been worried, initially, that he felt off. But whatever ailed him did not come and go. Nor did it obviously announce itself. And the pain wasn’t predictable. It didn’t find a weak spot, like his tumour had done. Once the nagging feeling that he should be worried took hold, he’d tried to record his medical history. The problem had started, hadn’t it, with a dull ache in his gut, then his fingertips, all ten of them, mild but undeniable, then his gut again, then his right shoulder. But after that, the order became hazy. Now the ache had spread throughout his body. He felt wrong everywhere. And his skin was beginning to rebel. He’d never had sores, not even after that time, fifteen years ago, maybe more, that the domefield and the backup domefield had both malfunctioned and Rise had been sprinkled with a couple of minutes of light rain.
Most of all, whatever the nature of the illness, Grainy was desperately tired. He wasn’t spending enough time with the child, that light-filled girl who dreamed of joining the war. He was neglecting his friends. He was demurring when Mace asked him to rub her ankle, and he liked rubbing her ankle. He wasn’t pulling his weight at work. He knew it, and he felt awful. Peace was important. Peace was everything. Peace took time and effort, day in, day out, like breathing.
Finally, when he realised his gut was turning hard, the worry wore him down. He went to the doctor for the first time since he’d mysteriously snapped his Achilles tendon, before his twentieth birthday. He still had no idea how he’d done his Achilles. It hadn’t been fussed over at the time: old Doc Bille, a genius neurosurgeon in the Old Time whose hands, in the New Time, shook, just slightly but more than enough, had watched and nodded as a couple of trainee nurses ripped the old tendon out and slipped a new one in. Grainy was home before dark, and pain-free in thirty-six hours. Eventually, old Doc Bille had let his tumours kill him. Or so Grainy had heard.
Today, though, a new doctor, Dr Gee, ushered him into her room and gazed at him with a wounded look as he described his symptoms.
‘Is it serious?’ Grainy asked. ‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘Remove your clothes, please,’ Dr Gee said. She was all business. Under the circumstances, it was the only way.
‘What, all of them?’
‘All of them.’
‘Even my —’
‘All of them.’
‘Isn’t it customary to have a third person in the room, for such an … an extensive intrusive examination? I mean, we hardly know each other, and I’m a citizen and you’re a medical officer, and, and, and —’
‘Yes, quite right: Section 9.1.1.1 of the Medical Regulations of Rise. But, sorry, not this time.’ Don’t push me, she thought. Don’t ask questions. Don’t doubt me. Let’s just get through this, best we can.
‘May I ask why?’
‘I’m sorry, truly I am, but that’s classified information.’
‘Classified? But it’s my body.’
‘All I can do is refer you to Section 12.4.29, amendment 4.’
Section 12.4.29 flashed onto an autoscreen. Grainy started reading: ‘Exceptions to Section 9.1.1.1 can be made when a medical officer is instructed by unnamed authorities (see Section 13.84.2.77) that Section 44.1 can be invoked.’ On and on it went, exactly the sort of gibberish that the New Time, taking Walker and Barton’s lead, had abandoned.
‘That bad?’ Grainy said.
Dr Gee shrugged. ‘Please remove your clothes. Please just do it.’
As Grainy attempted to strip, he grew breathless. The zip on his shirt half-undone, he dropped his arms to his side.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m doing my best. I really am. I just need a moment. This is the problem, the exact problem, or part of it: I start things, but I don’t quite have the energy to finish them.’
‘Let me help,’ Dr Gee said. She already knew how this examination was going to end, and she was keen to get it over and done with — for her sake and for that of this nice young man. She pulled the zip, exposing Grainy’s torso, and pulled the shirt free. His slightly distended belly drew her hand. She shone a light camera on his chest. After a moment, an image, magnified 900 times, materialised before her. Don’t ask him any personal questions, she told herself. Just don’t.
‘Hmmmm,’ she said, putting on a show for no good reason. She could see that he knew he was in deep trouble.
She pulled the zip of Grainy’s trousers and they fell to his ankles, revealing thin legs, bulging kneecaps, and a lovely round discolouration on his hip that would soon enough turn red and raw. She tugged on his underpants. They dropped without resistance.
‘Well? What do you think?’ Grainy asked.
‘One moment, please.’ She gave his stomach one last conspiratorial prod and then turned her back on him. ‘I’ve got a Code 427,’ she whispered into her wearable. Goddammit, yet another one, she thought to herself. Six in a week.
Barely fifteen minutes later, two orderlies dressed in sleek black overalls, masks covering their faces, strapped Grainy to a gurney. They placed an especially tight strap across his middle, pushing his swollen belly into his body cavity. Gently, they slipped a cloth mask over his head.
‘I’m so sorry about this, truly I am,’ one of the masked men said, as he adjusted the mask so that its two holes aligned with Grainy’s nostrils. ‘A necessary precaution, but I do apologise.’
‘I feel bad,’ the other man added, ‘but you can’t talk — please, not a word — until we tell you that you can.’
‘But where are you taking me?’ Grainy asked.
‘I’m most dreadfully sorry but, as I just said, not a word now.’
They carried him out of Dr Gee’s surgery via a rear door, loaded him into a windowless van, and drove away. Once they were moving, they lifted the cloth off his face.
‘Sorry about that. Truly. A regrettable but necessary precaution.’
‘But where are you taking me?’ Grainy asked. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’
‘Best-case scenario: you’ll be a picture of good health in no time at all.’
‘But why won’t you actually answer my question? Where are we going? Please tell me what’s happening. Have I done something wrong? Committed some crime? Oh, please tell me.’
‘No, no, you’ve done nothing wrong. Not in the least. We’re helping you,’ one of them said.
‘It is what it is,
’ the other one said, absently patting Grainy’s head. ‘Best to make the most of it. Think of it as downtime.’
‘But where are you taking me?’
‘We’re going where we have to go. It’s not a long trip. Sit back. Close your eyes. Enjoy the smooth road.’
‘You might find it helps to imagine something pleasant. A favourite battle scene, perhaps.’
‘Can you at least take these straps off me now?’
‘No no no: they’re part of the healing process, believe it or not.’
‘Is that a gun in your belt?’
‘A gun? I’d be very surprised if it was a gun.’
After a longer time than the hooded men had promised Grainy, the van arrived at an imposing gated building from the Old Time. Its old sign was faded but intact: ‘National Concert Hall’. The hall was fashioned from great chunks of sandstone, patched up here and there with clear plastic bricks. It was classic Rise architecture: the best of the old combined with the best of the new. The bright colours of the tall, enclosing fence suggested the barrier was a recent addition.
The van pulled up close to the building, and the two men carried Grainy inside. There was no need to cover his face, no need for secrets. He was at his destination and he wasn’t going anywhere. He lay silent as they carried him through the labyrinth, trying to keep track of the route: up, down, left, right, up again, down again, right, right, right. He’d forgotten it all by the time they banged through a set of ornate Old Time doors — actual wood, but now covered in thick clear plastic, squeaky on the hinges — and tacked down a slope until they found a free bed. Only then did they undo the straps and slide him onto a cool, dry mattress.
‘Good luck, friend,’ one of them said cheerfully, as he clipped Grainy’s ankle to the bed. ‘That’s just so you don’t fall off.’ And then they were gone.
Grainy lifted his head. He was in a vast room filled with beds and people. The floor angled like a grand curved staircase: there was a row for beds and equipment, then a row for walking, then a row for beds and equipment, then a row for walking, all the way from top to bottom. Dim lights studded the ceiling and the floor, leaving the space inbetween uncluttered, open, regal. Gloomy.
Most of the patients lay in their beds, but here and there one of them was propped up on elbows or sitting up, legs dangling off the side of their bed. A handful of patients — Grainy counted four of them before the gloom in the space defeated him — were wandering back and forth, back and forth, near their beds. Everyone that Grainy could properly see, anyone not camouflaged under a sheet, was terribly thin and wore a big, hard belly. Each of them, even the four or so who were walking, had a battle scene playing in front of their face. But there was no audio. The room was entirely silent, other than the shuffling of feet and bedsheets and the occasional whispered conversation between patients and nurses or doctors.
An autoscreen appeared in front of Grainy’s nose. He’d lost track of time, but he doubted it was dinnertime. Still, he was happy enough to watch as Sergeant Sala lost half her face, because why not, because he was so very hungry, because they obviously weren’t fussed about anyone overeating.
Beyond the screen, he saw a nurse walking towards him.
‘Welcome,’ she murmured. ‘We’re here to help. We’ll do everything to fix you that we can.’
‘But where am I?’
‘Shhhhh,’ she said, ‘or you’ll miss the good bit.’ She slid an earpiece into his ear canal just in time for him to hear the bullet thud into Sala’s face and for the sergeant to grunt in her ‘oh well, it had to happen sometime’ way. ‘Don’t worry,’ the nurse said. ‘It’s on a loop.’
‘But why am I here?’
‘Oh, they should have told you that before they brought you here. I’ll have a word with them, make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ she said. And with that, she turned and walked away.
‘Can I contact my daughter?’ Grainy called after her.
‘She knows you’re safe,’ the nurse said, without stopping or turning. ‘That’s good enough for now, I think you’ll agree.’
***
Walker and Hail walked slowly through the lower level of Walker Compound, a series of rooms and buildings, all connected by corridors, tunnels, paved walkways. They received an occasional nod or ‘Hello, boss’. One young woman pulled Hail up to get his signature for a fleet of drones to move into a new sector of the former Pacific Ocean.
‘Goddamned micromanaging. If Cleave wants a drone, she gets a drone,’ Walker muttered.
‘It’s not about second-guessing anyone. Especially Cleave. It’s about balancing resources. It’s about keeping track. It’s about understanding the big picture. It’s about having some idea what she’s doing because she’ll sure as hell never get around to telling us herself.’
‘That’s just the way she works, thinking only about the work.’
The young woman looked embarrassed: she didn’t really need to witness the great Walker and the near-great Hail bickering. Hail signed with a flourish, and released her to the corridor.
‘I don’t want to do an interview today,’ Walker said.
‘You don’t want to do an interview any day,’ Hail said. He tried to take Walker’s elbow, but Walker parried him away. ‘I wonder if we should touch up your face before they film you.’
‘Didn’t I do one last week?’
‘It’s been nearly three months. It’s got to be done. A chance for the masses to hear some words of comfort and grace from the great man ahead of the peace talks —’
‘Peace talks blah blah blah. Isn’t that why we decided to have a president: to give a running commentary on life, the universe, and the peace talks?’
‘Up to a point. But the people do love to hear from you. They need it. As you well know.’
They passed the corridor that led to Cleave’s private compound. Walker always felt distressed when he passed it. She’d locked herself in over twenty years ago, built her own micro-world of a few rooms plus a private courtyard. She and Walker spoke when necessary: sometimes three times in a week, sometimes once or twice a month. They had an open line of communication — Cleave could be chatty, when in the mood, at least briefly — and Walker had learnt to make it clear when he needed her urgently, even if she wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t quite understand why she’d cut herself off. He hoped it was because her brilliance needed solitude. He suspected it was because she couldn’t bring herself to be around the rest of humanity when she knew how tenuous life now was. He worried that she was lost in grief, unable to move on from the Old Time when her life’s work was to understand what the Old Timers had done to the earth. He had never, or at least not after the first couple of years, tried to talk her out. He liked to think that he respected her decision. Her need for isolation. But that wasn’t it. Without her work, they never would have made it, even though she never thought about the practicalities, never understood Walker’s priorities, never really connected her work on the world to the health of Rise and Shine. So if this was how she worked, Walker had decided long ago, then so be it.
‘It’s not a live interview, is it?’ Walker asked Hail.
‘Of course not. Ajok will edit it herself and submit it back to me for approval. But she’s very good. She knows what we need her to do.’
‘You should get her to edit some battle scenes. Shake things up a bit.’
‘I’ve been asking her to do that for years. She always says she’ll think about it. You could always order her to do it.’
‘Don’t be unpleasant.’
‘Once she’s done with you, around 10.45, there’s time for Curtin to check you over, if need be. And for you to have a quick nap.’
‘I told you, no more naps. I can’t be seen to be sleeping all the time. The staff will notice. There are already rumours.’
‘After your nap —’
‘No na
p.’
‘Curtin has explained the need for naps to you. You’ve agreed to naps. We’ve factored naps into your schedule.’
‘Well, I un-agree.’
‘Don’t be petulant: Curtin says it isn’t good for your heart.’
‘My heart.’
‘Look, we’ll stop calling them naps if you think that’ll help. All you need do is close your eyes for fifteen minutes. Twenty, tops. Only you’ll know if you actually sleep.’
‘Curtin will know, with those smart patches stuck all over me.’
‘Think of it as an investment in the rest of the day.’
‘And you can fuck off with that Old Time management speak. That’s how we got into this mess.’
‘To be frank, naps are keeping you alive.’
‘I thought that dog was keeping me alive.’
‘After your nap with a new name — let’s call it a “power pause” — we need to go out to Grand Lake. I’m sorry, boss, but I have news: but there was another death overnight. Another soldier.’
‘What? You’re only telling me this now? Why didn’t you tell me when it happened?’
‘It happened late last night. I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘That’s not your decision to make.’
‘First things first: I wanted you to get some sleep, and after you’d done that — Did you sleep? Did you? Yes, you did — I wanted to try to get you fed. Did I get you fed? Did I? You’ve had that dog four days in a row, so, yes, I did.’
‘You want me to sleep, you want me to talk to Ajok, you want this, you want that, you want to withhold essential information from me.’
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