And with that, Walker slowly slid from the chair towards the ground. Barton caught his face before it hit the plastic tiles. When she rolled him over, her fingers had branded his face. He was conscious, up to a point.
‘Deep breaths, now.’
‘Such useless advice. If I could brea—’
‘In, out, in, out.’
‘I can see clouds. Oh God, is it raining?’
‘Keep your eyes open.’
‘I can’t.’
‘This is Barton speaking,’ Barton said into her wearable. ‘Curtin? Is Curtin there? Put her on immediately … Is it you? … He needs you. Now. No one else comes in.’
‘Here’s a thought,’ Walker murmured, ‘what about we —’
‘Shhhhhhh.’
‘— we get President Heelton to defect to you. Then you can retire him. Do you have a house with a view for him?’
‘Let’s call it a day, eh? We’ll talk more business tomorrow.’
‘Why do the people give me more credit than you?’
‘I really can’t imagine,’ Barton said. ‘Now lie still.’
***
Dinn left her vehicle a few blocks away from her destination — a futile gesture of subterfuge, she knew, but it made her feel in control — and walked through the pristine streets of an inner district. She found it an effort to walk because she was so tense. Mostly, though, she was worried about Holland. She was almost certain that he was going to disappear, to die, or, at best, to end up in some anonymous prison for whatever time he had left. It was his own fault, in so many ways, Dinn thought. And she knew — oh how she knew — what a magnificent achievement it had been for the most dogmatic man left on earth to change his mind, to see that the new way now needed its own new way. But, even now, he continued to see the world through his old alliances and through the facts of his great achievement. She understood that too: Walker — no, Barton and Walker — had indeed saved them all. Saved humanity. And Holland had helped. But that didn’t mean that they were going to be right about everything until the end of time … the end of time again. She knew that Holland wanted to do what was right. He really did. But he wanted to do it without breaking any old bonds. Without rejecting his mentor, his hero, his great friend. Dinn couldn’t see how that was going to be possible. She didn’t even want it to be possible. All this friendliness, all this compassion: in the end, it grated.
She wound through streets and around vehicles and past people, checking frequently to see if she was being followed. She believed — or hoped, at least — that she was in the clear. But she wasn’t. Wedge was there, closer than she could have imagined, bolder than he had been when he’d tailed Holland.
Dinn skirted down a laneway, narrow but brightly lit. A young man walked towards her. As they came together, they stepped into a doorway, facing each other. The man lifted Dinn’s shirt, ripped the corn cob free, and handed it to her. He then lifted his own shirt, and she stuck the corn to his torso. They carried on walking, away from each other. Cameras followed them both. Wedge saw it all. He followed the corn.
***
The Grand Lake Bar was packed on the first night of the peace talks, the mood celebratory. Sala had to stand wedged between two strangers. Neither of them took advantage of their proximity to her, but one of them made little effort to give her more space and let his arm dangle loose alongside hers. Sala’s friendly bartender chatted to her in between loading footage, the usual war scenes mixed with images of past peace conferences. He had a theory about a better type of domefield that he wanted to run by her. And he wanted to know if she’d ever met or seen or spoken to Cleave, because rumour had it that she didn’t actually exist. Sala liked his banter, his easy friendliness, his lack of an agenda, but she could see he was run off his feet. She thought about asking him his name. Instead, she slipped away while he was pulling up vintage footage of the first peace conference. She walked the unusually busy night streets for a couple of hours before she went home. After 300 sit-ups, she finally pushed towards something resembling sleep.
Grainy lay strapped to his bed, force-fed battle scene after battle scene. He’d lost track of how many days he’d been here, and had no idea it was the first day of the peace talks. Some days, he thought he was feeling better. Other days, he was too tired, too sore, too hungry to even sit up. His mattress was in permanent motion, warding off bedsores.
Geraldina and Flake, like many people in the districts, sat on the ground in front of their house. They chatted with their neighbours, they watched the purple sky fade to black while the children fell asleep at their feet, they gave quiet thanks for another year, and they remembered their loved ones. They leant against each other and told each other that their tumours were stable, more or less, and that life was good and would be even better for the girl and the boy.
Malee sat in her cell, watching Ajok’s report on the peace conference: good progress, positive signs, mutual goodwill, significant issues still unresolved. And lots of smiling.
‘Play last year’s footage,’ she yelled into the chasm.
‘Good idea,’ said a voice over the loudspeaker. And straightaway, there it was: good progress, positive signs, mutual goodwill, significant issues still unresolved. And lots of smiling. Malee sat on her bed, waiting it out. ‘Patience,’ she told herself. ‘Patience,’ she yelled into the night.
***
Cleave sat in her private courtyard, smelling the air. As she pondered her ageing nose, an alert went off. It was Walker, requesting an urgent conversation.
‘Why today? Why now?’ she muttered to herself. She thought this every time he intruded upon her. She sent him information and advice constantly. He always wanted something more, something specific, something prosaic. Awful. Sometimes she thought she’d get more peace and quiet if she moved back into the main compound.
She turned on an autoscreen. Walker’s face appeared. Devoid of make-up, it revealed his sunken eyes, his sore-infested cheek, his sparse eyebrows. Cleave didn’t speak. She just looked.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ Walker said. He took a few unsteady steps backwards and wrestled with the zip of his shirt. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘You need to help — can you help?’
Curtin came into shot.
‘Hey,’ Cleave said fiercely. ‘That’s against the rules.’
She disconnected the autoscreen and took several deep breaths. The air still smelt okay.
Walker buzzed her again, requesting another face-to-face meeting. She ignored him. A message came through: ‘It’s just me now. I promise.’
Reluctantly, she connected. ‘How could you let that happen?’ she asked. ‘No one sees me but you and Barton. That’s the agreement.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘No.’
‘I’m not myself.’
‘What’s wrong with your face? You should clean it.’
He stepped back and allowed the camera to dwell upon his bare torso.
‘Oh,’ Cleave said. ‘You’ve got it, then.’
‘It’s been a while. Months. But it’s getting worse.’
‘What’s going to happen?’
‘I’ll die.’
‘Who will I have to talk to then?’
‘It’ll be Curtin. Okay?’
‘She asks me so many questions. She’s always sending messages.’
‘It’s your job to answer her questions.’
‘So many interruptions.’
‘Things are changing. We’re going to need you more than ever.’
‘I work the way I work.’
‘When it happens, when I’m gone, will you talk to Curtin? Face to face? Like you do with me.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to.’
‘I suppose you will.’
***
Wedge, dressed in his purple uniform, and a small team
of military police broke into the room where Holland and Dinn grew their plants. In haste, they installed hidden cameras. They found a pipe that supplied water and, careful not to touch the stuff, took a sample. Wedge donned gloves and carefully removed a selection of leaves from plants. As they departed, Wedge sniffed a sickish-looking tomato. Another officer grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him away.
‘What are you doing?’ the officer whispered. ‘Those cameras are already live.’
***
At dawn the next day, Holland, disguised by his unshaven face lost in a hood, moved through the abandoned outskirts of Rise with an image of an Old Time map hovering before him. Soon enough, he found what he was looking for: an abandoned airport, outside the range of the domefield, the huge hangars perfect for a secret farm. He moved quickly from building to building. He could see it already. The next step. The escalation. They could convert the planes into sleeping quarters, offices, storage areas.
But the planes also shocked him: so well preserved, so forgotten but dangerously familiar. They needed a makeover — a plastic spray job, the wings detached, something, anything — or they would provoke grief and longing.
In one hangar, Holland disturbed a bedraggled group of people: two women and a few children of varying ages camping together, doing it tough.
‘I’m sorry, but you can’t stay here,’ Holland said in a kindly tone. ‘You’re in an “off-limits” zone. Strictly military police only.’
‘Don’t see any purple on you, fella,’ one of the women said, hauling herself up. Strong legs, Holland thought. He tended to judge people by their soldierly traits. The woman folded her arms and silently stared him down.
‘Did you hear me?’ he said in the same kindly tone. ‘You must leave. It’s for your own safety. It’s for the greater good.’
‘The greater good?’ the woman said.
‘The greater good. We must all do our part.’
The woman took a couple of steps forward. She reached for Holland’s face.
‘Hey — back off. Back off now, or I’ll be forced to take action.’ He drew his gun but pointed it at the ground rather than directly at the woman.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, put that fucking thing away, you fucking fucker,’ she said. ‘What am I going to do, scratch your eyes out?’
‘You just might.’
‘Yeah, and you might kill us all without a second thought.’
‘It’s a stun gun. It’ll give you a bruise, at worst.’
‘I might hit my head on the way down. You’d leave me here to rot, you fucking fucking fucker.’
‘What are you even doing out here? There’s no reason for it. There’s no need. There’s a place for everyone in Rise, no matter what your feelings about the past —’
‘You don’t know a fucking thing about me, fuckface.’
‘— no matter who or what you miss.’
‘Hey, you look familiar.’
‘It’s grief, isn’t it? Is that what’s forced you to live out here? I understand, believe me, I do. I think about the Old Time constantly. The people I lost. That we all lost. But there are ways of moving on. Procedures, if it comes to that. I’d be happy to help. Think about it, for the sake of the children, if not for yourself.’
‘I know you, don’t I? I want to see your face. Show me.’
‘No, I, stop that.’ She came at him again, with her fists. ‘Stop it, I say. Step back.’
‘Show me or you’ll have to kill me,’ she said, pulling at his hood.
‘Stun you.’
‘I’m unstunnable.’
He gave her a shove, harder than he intended. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stop. I’ll show you.’
He eased his hood back. The woman looked hard at him, and glanced behind, checking the other woman and the children.
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘You’re, you’re, you’re … you’re that Commander Holland, aren’t you? You’re fucking famous.’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. And might I know your name?’
‘We are in the presence of a bigwig. A fucking saviour. Bow down, people. Genufuckingflect AND THAT’S A FUCKING ORDER.’
‘Really, there’s no need for —’ Holland began, but, before he could finish his sentence, she hit him flush on the jaw. At the last moment, he had seen the blow coming. He’d chosen to stand still and accept it, not because he wanted this woman to hit him, not because he was being polite, not because it had been so long since he’d seen, let alone been the recipient of, such straightforward aggression, but because, although he could see that the woman didn’t know it, he was probably on her side. She knocked him off his feet. She rejoined her group, and they shuffled away.
‘You never told me your name,’ Holland called out, dreaming of future recruits.
***
Fanfare heralded the second day of the annual peace conference. President Heelton and President Rant appeared, again, to music, flags, soldiers, children, and crowds. As they shook hands, pumping each other with great enthusiasm, banners unfurled that read, ‘DAY 2: NO MEANINGFUL PROGRESS’. Autoscreens everywhere played the highlights of the previous year’s fighting. A consensus seemed to have emerged: why mess with such a fine war?
***
‘I’m perfectly okay now,’ Walker told Barton, after they’d watched their presidents prance about.
‘Sure you are.’
‘Or at least well enough to talk. Come on — it’s too important. We’ve got decisions to make.’
Barton wasn’t convinced. Walker’s face was grey and his eyes were yellow — and yet his gut, his collapse the previous day, had reinforced to her what she already knew: their whole grand, glorious enterprise was under threat.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But I’m calling Curtin at the first hint of a problem.’
‘She’s hanging around outside anyway. Anyone would think she didn’t have important things to do.’
‘Let’s not tiptoe around the problem: what are your latest numbers for the sick?’ Barton asked.
‘Curtin’s got the detailed figures. Best we can tell, it’s pushing 4,000. That’s an estimate. We have evidence that some of them are keeping to themselves. Hiding in small groups, even. They have no idea what’s wrong with them.’
‘Ours is higher. Maybe closer to 5,000.’
‘Well, your population is higher too.’
‘How many dead?’
‘Oh well, we keep most of them going, one way or another. The ones we know about.’
‘Come on, how many? Are we having this conversation or not?’
‘At last count, a couple of hundred, give or take.’
‘That’s an underestimate, surely?’
Walker inclined his head to the door. ‘As I said, you’d have to ask Curtin if you want a precise number.’
‘So you’re underestimating,’ Barton persisted. ‘Surely you want to know the exact number. Surely you do know it.’
‘It’s tragic. But even if I believed your numbers, which I don’t —’
‘You don’t believe them or you don’t want to believe them?’
‘— either way, it’s a tiny problem. I’m not being flippant: I don’t want anyone to be sick. I mourn every death.’
‘I know you do.’
‘But our responsibility must be to protect the majority. The vast majority.’
‘But the trend is upwards. Undeniably upwards.’
‘Maybe.’
‘There’s no doubt: the people are losing their compassion.’
‘If that’s true — I’m not conceding, don’t look at me like that — then we must do better. We must give the people new reasons to care.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe compassion has run its course. Maybe we need to change tack entirely.’
‘Yeah, sure, let�
��s reverse the last thirty years. Give in. Go back to the way things were. Magically return to the Old Time.’
‘Maybe it’s time for us to plan a new New Time.’
‘Yeah, let’s do that.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘No, you’re not. You can’t be. It’d be the … you’d be razing everything we’ve achieved. And you’d be insulting the memories of everyone who didn’t survive. All of our loved ones.’
‘Not at all, and you can take that disgusting suggestion and go shove it up your diseased —’
‘Nothing personal.’
‘You’re a sanctimonious shit when it suits you. Especially when you’re wrong. Look, we’ve always known this day might come. For goodness sake, we’ve prayed for it.’
‘I don’t pray. You don’t either. There is no God. Not anymore.’
‘Goodness, aren’t you pent up today? Look, I’m sorry you’re on your last legs, I’m sorry you can’t feel anything for anyone, but it’s not all about you and your fucking legacy. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to think about letting a little peace break out.’
‘It’s too soon.’
‘“Not this year, maybe next year”, eh?’
‘It’d be a disaster.’
‘Who for? You? Me?’
‘Famine would rage.’
‘I doubt it. But maybe. And maybe we need a small catastrophe to save us from a big catastrophe.’
‘What do you want to do, start a revolution against ourselves? Flick the switch for the extremists?’
‘Isn’t it better that we do it ourselves? We’ve transformed the world before, after all. We can do it again. Why force others to revolt when we can lead the revolt?’
‘To test them. Their ideas. Their plans. Their infrastructure. Their leadership. Their courage. They are few, and they are weak. They will crumble. If they don’t, fair enough.’
‘Maybe. But their numbers are growing. Fast. We’re tracking nine different groups in our sector.’
‘Yes, I know all this. We have them too. We’re monitoring them, dealing with them when necessary. Don’t look at me that way: we’re just giving them a little fright now and then to keep them honest. But that’s not the point. The point is, can they feed everyone? Can they even feed themselves?’
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