Rise & Shine

by Patrick Allington

  The image shifted again: a curtain behind the feeding men and women opened, revealing a mass of starving people crammed behind a pane of hard clear plastic. The starving masses screamed silently at the eaters. The film jumped from desperate face to desperate face, finally focusing on the exposed bloody teeth and gums of a woman whose face was pressed hard against the clear partition. She was stuck there, unable to break the clear wall, unable to take a step back.

  Base propaganda, Dinn thought, and yet she could not fail to be moved by the starving masses. She realised, as the opening chords of ‘Let’s Be Tender’ played, that watching the film had filled her up. Such is life, she thought, permitting herself a belch.

  The screen went black, followed by the messages ‘Brought to you by the City-State of Rise’ and, after a moment, ‘Thanks be to Walker.’ Not ‘Walker and Barton’, Dinn noticed. Just ‘Thanks be to Walker.’

  As soon as the autoscreen disappeared, Dinn’s cell door beeped and opened. When no guard entered, she got up and stood in the opening, peering out. The doors of the nearby cells had opened too, and her co-conspirators stood looking at each other. For a moment, none of them dared leave their cell, sensing that the guards were trying to trick them, that this was a test or the beginning of an interrogation. But then Dinn began walking, and the others fell in behind her.

  They picked their way through the prison. Dinn kept finding unlocked doors and open gates that finally led them outside. They saw no one, which by now Dinn realised was not an accident. She didn’t know why, but the voice, Holland’s friend, had set them free.

  Outside, the air had a musty odour and an opaque quality: the domefield was on. It cheered Dinn to know that it was raining above her. She longed to feel water landing on her bare arms.

  A vehicle waited, the keys in the ignition. Dinn sat behind the wheel. The others piled in. They drove out the open front gate, the sentries turning their backs as Dinn turned onto a one-way road.

  ‘Where are we going?’ one of the others asked. ‘Where can we go?’

  ‘No idea,’ Dinn said, speeding up. ‘But we’ll be okay.’

  ***

  The first official act of hostility in the Spinach War occurred soon after Commander Sala drove ex-Commander Holland out of Walker Compound in a military jeep, escorted by an armoured vehicle. Neither Sala nor Holland spoke as they curled down the hills and onto the great flat plain of Rise. But the mood between them was convivial. Sala stayed quiet out of respect for Holland’s momentous day: it wasn’t every day that a hero became a traitor. She got that. Holland gazed out of his window, weighing the disappointment of his great friends — oh, how Hail had wailed when they said their goodbyes — but he also took the chance to sniff the air that surrounded Sala. She was an instant leader, his nostrils told him, unbound by old conventions, old struggles, old victories. She had his measure, unless he changed … unless he used his superior years, his long experience, to forget what he knew and start again.

  They were passing through the sparsely populated fringe area of District 113 when a vehicle slammed into the armoured escort. Sala hit the brakes and reversed hard, but another vehicle emerged from a side road and forced her to stop.

  ‘This is where you get off, I think,’ Sala said. ‘All right, you’d better hit me. Quick. We want this as authentic as possible.’

  Holland stared straight ahead, half-lost in a tide of sadness that it had come to this: a defection, and a violent one at that. But he shook himself — time to save the world, again, he told himself. And then he elbowed Sala in the nose.

  ‘FUCK. You’re strong for an old man,’ Sala said.

  But when she examined herself in the rear-view mirror, there was no blood.

  ‘Dammit. You’ll have to do it again. Harder, this time. Harder.’

  ‘It’s not about “how hard”. It’s about taking proper aim,’ Holland said.

  ‘Thanks for the tip.’

  This time, the point of Holland’s elbow pushed deep into her nose, and, mercifully, blood streamed from her nostrils.

  ‘Christ, sorry!’ he said. ‘I really am!’

  They shook hands. They hugged, briefly. Sala wiped her bloody nose on Holland’s shirt.

  ‘Nice touch,’ he said.

  ‘See you in the warzone,’ she said.

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re all aquiver.’

  Sala arranged herself on the seat, lying as if Holland had knocked her out. Holland hauled himself out of the jeep and ran into a doorway, ignoring the two vehicles that had engineered his escape. One of the vehicles sped away, while the occupants of the vehicle that had collided with Sala’s stood about, checking each other for cuts and bruises.

  Sala sat alone with her bleeding nose. After a moment, she spoke into her wearable.

  ‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘He’s gone. For Chrissakes, tell me that somebody got some decent footage of the carnage.’

  ***

  ‘A few thousand plants: thirty or so varieties,’ Barton had said when she and Walker sat together and created the future all over again. ‘We need to know what the dissenters know. We need to know more than they know.’

  ‘If we know what they know,’ Walker had said, ‘then we’re just the same as them. We’re just as bad as them. Aren’t we?’ He gazed at his open palm, the skin stretched thin. The webbing connecting thumb and finger began to bleed. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  ‘Maybe so,’ Barton said. ‘But you agree? It’s time we started a new war? A real war?’

  ‘Our war has always been real.’

  ‘You know what I mean: a war with new boundaries.’

  ‘If we do this, I want no killing. Not on purpose, anyway.’

  ‘We can write the rules. But it’ll need to be a different sort of war. There will be more errors. More mess. More losers. It’s inevitable.’

  ‘And it goes against everything we’ve built.’

  ‘And I say we can and should do our best. But think about it: we can’t fight this war out at Grand Lake. We’ll have to fight it everywhere. And it’s already started. It’s just that most of our citizens haven’t noticed.’

  ‘But who will police the new rules?’ Walker said, shaking his head. ‘Who will stop “whatever it takes”?’

  ‘We will,’ Barton said. ‘You and me.’

  ‘And what about when I’m gone?’

  ‘Then I’ll do it for both of us. And Curtin.’

  She took his silence as agreement.

  ***

  Holland jogged for an hour along an Old Time train tunnel. When he climbed back to the surface, the car Sala had promised him was waiting. The route towards Shine took him through the land he knew best: the dusty, bloodstained Grand Lake area, the scene of his triumphs, the landscape of his life. When he passed the set where Sala had lost her face, he winced. It would have been so fitting, he thought, if she had dumped him here. He was proud of her. He knew that she would lose this new war with magnificent honour and courage.

  ***

  ‘Oh, Willy. Your Willy,’ Barton had said to Walker at the end of the meeting, before she went home to Shine to wait for everything to change.

  ‘He’s not mine anymore,’ Walker had said. ‘In fact, I think he might be yours. If you want him, that is.’

  ‘Oh, but, it’s hardly … You’re offering him to me? You’re offering me Willy?’

  ‘Only if you want him. Maybe he’s damaged goods. Maybe he’s too old. Maybe he’s seen too much to be useful. Maybe he just needs the quiet life. Maybe he needs a bit of prison time. He certainly deserves it. But he’s yours if you want him.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll take him,’ Barton said. ‘But only if he’s willing.’

  ‘I haven’t asked him. But he’s willing.’

  ‘He’ll run my war very well, thank you very much.’
<
br />   ‘I thought as much. But what about Commander Flint? Won’t she be a bit grumpy?’

  ‘Oh, she’ll be fine. She’s been telling me for over a year that she’s sick of the fighting. The choreography. I’ve been asking her to hang on until I can find someone worthy of replacing her. She’s been willing — not happy, but willing — but I can’t ask her to take on our grand new plan. I’m hoping she’ll agree to take charge of plant production —’

  ‘I think it’s called “growing stuff”.’

  ‘If I didn’t want Holland, what would you really have done with him?’

  ‘I would have … I … I … would have … oh no.’

  Walker closed his eyes, swayed, and slumped in his chair.

  ‘You’re a terrible faker. Always have been,’ Barton said.

  ‘Yeah, it must be about time for my thirty minutes off,’ Walker said. ‘Curtin’s orders.’

  ‘Oh, I do believe that this is going to be a grand war,’ Barton said. She looked at Walker as he pretended to shake. ‘If you can hack the pace, old man.’

  Walker forced a grin. He now knew the new war had to happen, but he still wasn’t happy about it. He fought off a dry retch, which Barton took for more play-acting.

  ‘I think the time is ripe to finally give our presidents something to say,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ Walker said, his stomach heaving.

  ***

  ‘People of Rise,’ President Heelton said, in his best ‘this time, it’s serious’ voice. He stood elevated on a stage, elevated too by the spring in his step. Throughout Rise, autoscreens appeared, demanding the people’s attention. ‘Please allow me to interrupt you this afternoon to make an important announcement.’

  While he gave the city a chance to settle, his long moment of silence demonstrating the grave importance of the moment, he gazed to the back of the room, beyond the heads of the crowd assembled before him. He’d come to know that big announcements — and there was none bigger than this one — needed an audience, a breathing, heaving group of real people with real emotions and real faces.

  He caught the eye of Ajok from the Department of Communications and Candour. She’d made sure he had a full room to talk to at short notice. He was glad Ajok was here, to witness history. If anyone deserved some real action — other than Heelton himself, of course — it was Ajok. She’d smiled and smiled all this time, all these years. If there was a medal for smiling, Ajok deserved it. And maybe, he thought, she would think more of him now that she had the chance to see what he was capable of. Maybe, just maybe, she would admire him as much as he admired her.

  ‘People of Rise,’ Heelton told the room and the city, ‘it is my melancholy duty to inform you that last night our military guard was compelled to take Commander Holland into custody. Several hours ago, a specially convened tribunal found him guilty of treason. No trial was needed, and no legal or human rights were ignored: Commander Holland pleaded guilty.’

  President Heelton allowed himself a quick glance at Ajok. What a pro she was, wearing her public smile without a hint of worry or fear.

  ‘In consultation with Walker — thanks be to Walker — ex-Commander Holland’s commission has been immediately terminated and he has been sentenced to life imprisonment. His replacement as commander is …’ He paused, as an orchestral version of ‘Let’s Be Tender’ began to play. ‘… the one and only Commander Sala.’

  Heelton paused again while the crowd erupted, cheering and hooting and clapping at the image of Sala’s face that now appeared. Ah, he thought, such loyalty, such adulation, all for getting her face shot off.

  The screens switched back to Heelton’s face. ‘But wait, my fellow citizens of Rise, there’s more. Please, stick with me now while I tell you the hardest news you’ll ever hear. No, better yet, let me show it to you.’

  His face disappeared, replaced with the perfectly edited version of Holland’s escape: the violence of the rebel vehicles, the opportunism of Holland’s elbow in Sala’s face. Thirty seconds of action to signify a whole new world.

  ‘Immediately before speaking to you all, I unilaterally closed down the annual Rise–Shine peace talks,’ Heelton said. ‘President Rant’s permission to visit the city-state of Rise has been revoked. He is already on his way back to the city-state of Shine. Not only will there be no peace this year, but I can formally announce that we are in a new war. This is a war we can and must win. It is a very different war. It is a war that is everywhere. Keep your eyes open, my wonderful friends. Report any suspicious behaviour, but trust everyone. Barton, who we trusted, Holland, who we trusted, Rant, who we trusted, want to take away your right to watch war. To watch and to eat. They wish to attack your tenderness, your compassion. But we will prevail. Thanks be to Walker. Thanks be to the people of Rise.’

  The crowd in the room with Heelton roared their approval and rushed the stage, just like Ajok had rehearsed with them. Heelton abandoned the lectern, stepping off the stage into the crowd. They lifted him up and carried him out of the room and into the street, camera crews and drones capturing the moment from every angle.

  ‘VICTORY,’ Heelton screamed. He meant his own victory, but it really didn’t matter. He dropped to the ground. The cameras turned away. He looked around for Ajok, but she was inside, already going through the footage.

  ***

  Wedge watched President Heelton’s historic address from the house he had by now decided was his own. He liked living on the fringes. He’d particularly enjoyed long walks in the district, which he found as good a way as any to keep up effective surveillance. He’d chatted with the locals often enough that some of them had started chatting back. They were still wary of him, but they were friendly. And they were so much closer to normal than he’d thought possible.

  On his walks, he’d started scavenging for building materials. Beggars can’t be choosers, but he liked the mix of Old Time and New Time materials he was collecting. He was going to build himself a nice house within the shell of the old house. He was going to build himself a nice life too. He’d stopped sending in his daily reports. Nobody had noticed, not even Annar, whose job was to tell him what to do, and not even Bull and Boosie, who he knew got so much pleasure from laughing at his efforts. Nobody remembered him. Nobody cared. He hadn’t defected. He was still drawing a salary, not that he needed it. He was available to fight in a war if anyone decided they wanted him.

  ***

  Malee walked to the prison gates, which obligingly eased apart long enough for her to slip through the gap and back into the free world. She had no idea why she was being released without charge. Without comment, for that matter. Like everybody, she’d watched President Heelton’s address. He’d been a little breathless, she thought. A little too eager. A little too bloodthirsty. But that was his job now, she supposed. This new war, if that’s really what it was, didn’t change anything for her. She had her own plans.

  She could have called for a vehicle to collect her, or strolled a few blocks to a train station, but she decided to walk home. She was so stiff, she felt the need to move and keep moving. She’d stretched and walked in the exercise yard every day since they’d locked her up. And one time, when a guard noticed that she was favouring a shoulder, they’d sent her a masseuse, who had worked on her for an hour or more. But still, she had spent most of her time sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall, thinking, plotting.

  It was early morning when she set out. It was dark by the time she arrived home. Walking through her home, everything seemed intact. The rooms were brighter than she’d remembered: had the authorities painted the walls in her absence or had she grown accustomed to the grey bricks of her cell?

  She stepped through the back door into the courtyard. There was every likelihood, she supposed, that the military police had installed a camera or two. But she didn’t care. They could watch her, arrest her again, lock her up, agai
n and again, if they really felt the need.

  She slipped a hand inside her top and felt around an armpit, in amongst the hair. When she removed her hand, it held a small packet of seeds. She’d stripped before Gaite when she arrived at the prison, but Gaite hadn’t searched her, had barely glanced at her skin. Malee had kept the seeds the whole time.

  She took one seed from the packet. Just one. The military police hadn’t returned her boot and had offered no compensation for what she considered as the theft of a genuine Old Time antique. But no matter: she lifted a paver from the courtyard and dropped the seed into the dirt. She lifted another paver, surprised to find her stash of vials of water intact. She counted the vials. There were extras. She was sure of it.

  As she dripped water onto the dirt, she half-expected the military police to come flying over the walls again. But no one came. She went inside, undressed, wiped herself clean, and fell asleep, exhausted, bemused, content. In the night, she woke, starving. She hated herself for it, but she propped herself up, cushions against the bedroom door, and watched ‘The Battle of Sergeant Sala’. Such a headstrong commander she was going to make, she thought. Not that she cared one way or the other.

  Several weeks later, in the dead of night, as Malee slept, a single police officer scaled the wall of her courtyard. The new seed had sprouted. A finger of green snaked up, and Malee had tied it to a plastic stake. A single tomato, tiny and hard, sat amongst the leaves. Silently acknowledging Malee’s achievement — a living plant in the middle of Rise — the police officer tipped a few grains of grey powder onto the tomato and slipped away.

  In the morning, the stem was twisted and limp, and the fruit had split open and turned purple as a bruise. Malee pulled the plant out by its roots. She dropped a new seed into the ground and watered it.

  ‘Patience. Patience,’ she told herself.

  ***