They might…they might…I might be joining Bane. I might… Please…
But they didn’t. Doctor Vidran stopped reading, straightened the pages on his clipboard and glanced at the other inspectors. “Take them away,” he ordered.
He and the deputy headmistress swung round and went into the hall as though those of us left had ceased to exist. As we kind of had. The only decent thing to do about reAssignees was to forget them. Everyone knew that.
One of the inspectors took the wedges from under the doors and closed them. Turned the key, locking us apart.
My head rang. I’d thought I’d known, I’d thought I’d been quite certain, but still the knowledge hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water, echoing in my head. Margaret Verrall. My name. They’d not called it. The last tiny flame of hope died inside me and it was more painful than I’d expected.
One of the boys on the bench opposite—Andrew Plateley—started crying in big, shuddering gasps, like he couldn’t quite believe it. Harriet was hugging Caroline and Sarah was tugging her sleeve and asking what was wrong. My limbs felt heavy and numb, like they weren’t part of me.
Doctor Vidran’s voice came to us from the hall, just audible. “Congratulations, adults! What a day for you all! You are now free to apply for breeding registration, providing your gene scans are found to be compatible. I imagine your head teacher would prefer you to wait until after your exams next semester, though!”
The school laughed half-heartedly, busy sneaking involuntary glances to see who was left in the gym—until an Inspector yanked the blinds down over the door windows. Everyone would be glad to have us out of sight so they could start celebrating.
“After successful registration,” the Doctor’s cheerful voice went on, “you may have your contraceptive implants temporarily removed. The current child permittance is one child per person, so each couple may have two. Additional child permittances can be bought; the price set by the EGD is currently three hundred thousand Eurons, so I don’t imagine any of you need to worry about that.”
More nervous laughter from the hall. Normal life was through there. Exams, jobs, registering, having children, growing old with Bane…but I wasn’t in there with him. I was out here. My stomach fluttered sickly.
“ReAssignees, up you get, pick up your bags,” ordered one of the inspectors.
I got to my feet slowly and picked up my bag with shaking hands. Why did I feel so shocked? Had some deluded part of me believed this couldn’t really happen? Around me everyone moved as though in a daze, except Andrew Plateley who just sat, rocking to and fro, sobbing. Jonathan said something quietly to him but he didn’t seem to hear.
The inspector shook Andrew’s shoulder, saying loudly, “Up.” He pointed to the external doors at the other end of the gym but Andrew leapt to his feet and bolted for the hall. He yanked at the doors with all his strength, sobbing, but they just rattled slightly under his assault and remained solidly closed. The inspectors grabbed him and began to drag him away, kicking and screaming. There was a sudden, suffocating silence from beyond those doors, as everyone tried not to hear his terror.
Doctor Vidran’s voice rushed on, falsely light-hearted, “And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you can only register with a person of your own ethnicity. Genetic mixes are, of course, not tolerated and all such offspring will be destroyed. And as you know, all unregistered children automatically count as reAssignees from birth, but I’m sure you’re all going to register correctly so none of you need to worry about anything like that.”
They’d got Andrew outside and the inspectors were urging the rest of us after him. It seemed a terribly long way, my bag seemed to weigh a very great deal and I still felt sick. I swallowed again, my hand curving briefly, unseen, into the Fish. Be strong.
“And that’s all from me, though your headmaster has kindly invited me to stay for your end of semester presentations. Once again, congratulations! Let’s hear it for Salperton’s New Adults!”
The school whooped and cheered heartily behind us. A wave of crazy, reality-defying desperation swept over me—this must be how Andrew had felt. As though, if I could just get into that hall, I’d have the rest of my life ahead of me too…
Reality waited outside in the form of a little EGD minibus. Imagine a police riot van that mated with a tank. Reinforced metal all over, with grilles over the windows. Reaching the hall would achieve precisely nothing. So get a grip, Margo.
I steadied Sarah as she scrambled into the minibus and passed my bag up to her. She busied herself lifting my bag and hers onto the overhead luggage racks, beaming with pride at her initiative.
“Thanks, Sarah.” A soft white ball wandered into my vision—there was Jonathan Revan, the last left to get in after me. I almost offered help, then thought better of it. “Jonathan, isn’t it? Just give a shout if you want a hand.”
“Thanks, Margaret.” His eyes stared rather eerily into the minibus. Or rather, through the minibus, for they focused not at all. “I’m fine.”
His stick came to rest against the bus’s bumper and his other hand reached out, tracing the shape of the seats on each side, then checking for obstructions at head height. Just as the EGD inspectors moved to shove him in, he stepped up into the bus with surprising grace. I climbed in after him just as the school fire alarms went off, the sound immediately muffled by the inspectors slamming the doors behind me.
“Bag?” Sarah was saying to Jonathan, holding out her hand.
“Sorry?”
“Bag,” I told him. “Would you like her to put your bag up?”
“Oh. Yes, thank you. What’s your name?”
“Sarah.”
“Sarah. Thanks.”
Bet he wouldn’t have let me put his bag up for him! Sarah sat down beside Harriet, so I took a seat next to Jonathan. The first pupils were spilling out into the schoolyards and I craned my neck to try and catch a glimpse of Bane. A last glimpse.
“Any guesses who set that off?” said Jonathan dryly.
“Don’t know how he’d have done it, but yeah, I bet he did.”
The minibus began to move, heading for the gates, and I twisted to look out the rear window, through the bars. Nothing…
We pulled onto the road and finally there he was, streaking across the schoolyard to skid to a halt in front of the gates just as they slid closed. Bane gripped them as though he wanted to shake them, rip them off their hinges or throw them open…
The minibus went around a corner and he was gone.
***+***
2
THE FACILITY
There was a deathly hush in the bus as the familiar streets of Salperton-under-Fell glided past for the last time. This couldn’t really be happening… No, it was happening and I’d just have to deal with it. I kept seeing Bane, gripping those gates. My heart ached for him already and my head swam with fear. What might he do? Be careful, please, please be careful… You’ve got away with things before, but you wouldn’t get away with this.
You can go to Bane, you know, I told my guardian angel. I really don’t mind. I always have the impression his angel needs all the help it can get. But Angel Margaret wasn’t going anywhere and a selfish part of me was glad. Just now, I was probably going to need all the spiritual help I could get.
“I don’t think I’ve really met you properly,” Jonathan said, eventually breaking the silence. “I’m Jonathan Revan.”
“Margaret Verrall. But you seem to know that already?”
“Bane’s marvelous phone. Your voice is your ring tone.”
“Huh. Didn’t know that. What a sneaky fiancé I have.”
But I was neither offended nor surprised. Fiancé. The word felt right in my mouth and that warmth was back, thawing some more of the ice cube currently masquerading as my stomach. If only we’d had more time. If only I’d realized he didn’t realize… No, no if onlys. If onlys were a complete waste of time and as of half an hour ago my time had just become very precious.
&nbs
p; The minibus barreled along, following the railway up out of the valley of Salperton and into the Fellest. The scant winter snows were gone but spring hadn’t really begun. The ever-present mist shrouded the looming trees; shadowed the blood-soaked soil beneath them. Some of the simpler children—would-be adults—began to fidget, growing nervous, and Sarah reached across the aisle to pull on my sleeve. “Story? Story, Margy?”
I sighed, drawn from my own thoughts. “All right. Does everyone want a story?” There was a chorus of assent. “Okay, then. This is a story about the Fells or as we now know it, the Fellest. Now, many decades ago, there was a farmer called Bill who kept sheep, and his parents before him kept sheep, and their parents before them kept sheep. He had a family and a black and white sheep dog called Rex. There were a lot of farmers like him on the Fells and on the day this story begins they all received a letter from the EuroGov.”
Some of my captive audience hissed and booed. I shot a quick look at the sealed off cab, but the inspectors went on chatting amongst themselves, so if there were microphones, they weren’t switched on.
“Bill’s letter said he had to accept a subsidy—that’s money—to have trees planted all over his land. Because the Fells were the place where the reForestation program—which was necessary to take all the carbon out of the air and save the planet—was to start.
“But no one in the world had any money, largely because they’d run out of oil. Not the USNA Bloc, the USSA Bloc, the African Free States, nobody. Certainly not the EuroBloc. Nor any jobs. Yet the EuroBloc offered Bill too little money to live on. So Bill can’t possibly accept this subsidy, can he? Not with a wife and four children.”
“Four! Four? Is he rich?”
“Yes, four, and no, he’s very poor, but people were allowed to have as many children as they wanted, in those days. Anyway, Bill says thanks, but I’ll keep my sheep. So does the EuroGov send another letter offering a fair price? No. They send a letter saying take the subsidy or else. In a much longer and more boring way, but that’s what the letter said. But can Bill take it?”
“NO!”
“No. The EuroGov is mad, he thinks, I’ll write to Parliament and get them to sort it out. So Bill and the other farmers write to Parliament.”
“What’s Parliament, Margo?”
“Parliament was a group of people who used to run the department back when it was an independent kingdom,” I explained. “All the adults would choose these people to run the country on behalf of the King.”
“Why didn’t he run it?”
“It was too much work for just him. Anyway, this was actually the moment when everyone discovered we weren’t a country any more, just a department of the EuroBloc.
“Parliament couldn’t do a thing, you see, and when they tried, the EuroGov dissolved them—that means they sacked them and sent them home—and locked up the King. And do you know what they did to Bill and the farmers then?”
“They killed them all!” cried Andrew Plateley.
“Not quite all, but unfortunately you’re getting close. Bill’s out tending his sheep one day when he sees this huge machine crawling relentlessly over the Fells, tearing up the ground and leaving rows and rows of saplings behind it.
“Bill’s horrified. The machine’s on his land, destroying his livelihood! How will he feed his family? He rushes back to his house to get his shotgun. He’ll put a few rounds into the machine’s treads, he thinks.
“But when he gets over to it, he finds there are soldiers with the machine and they’re shooting his sheep. Just shooting them dead, as they stand grazing with their lambs beside them…” Oops—Harriet’s eyes were swimming with tears.
“Bill loses it a bit. He heads for that machine—he’s going to stop it—he starts firing at it like a madman. But the soldiers just shoot poor Bill dead and his faithful Rex beside him. And when his oldest son—about our age—runs out to try and stop them, they shoot him, too. And the same happens to a lot of the other farmers, and the Fells are completely covered in young trees.”
Harriet was clinging to Sarah, crying. Rex and the sheep was more than she could bear.
“Then what happened?” asked one of the boys eagerly, though he knew perfectly well.
“Well, elsewhere, farmers had to take the pathetic offer to keep their lives. When the machines had gone, they did what Mrs. Bill did: they went out and cleared a few trees and settled down to eke a living from the soil.”
Sniffs still trickled from Harriet.
“Look, there, by the road.” I spotted some woolly shapes. “They didn’t manage to kill all the sheep, see, and today the forests are full of them, wild and free.”
“Sheep!” said Sarah happily, craning to look back down the road. Harriet brightened a little.
“Anyway, the story gets a bit happier,” I went on, when the others made impatient noises. “Eventually things improve a bit in the world and some people in the big cities have jobs again, and money to spend. Bill’s surviving son and his two daughters set up a mountain biking center, and their neighbors build a high adventure course in the trees and other neighbors make hiking trails.
“In fact, Salperton was luckier than many of the small rural towns that now stand abandoned, because Salperton could claim to be the Cradle of the ReForestation Project. Of course, they don’t mention anything about the massacre of the Fell farmers and their sheep in the visitor center. Or anywhere a tourist might set foot. But we know, because our great-grandparents’ generation saw it and thanks to the EGD, many are still alive to tell us all about it.”
My last words were heavy with irony and the bus erupted into boos and hisses of a completely different scale. I saw the inspectors look back and a voice came sharply over the speakers. “Quiet down, back there!”
Silence fell. Slowly.
It didn't last long, as everyone began to talk among themselves, discussing the reForestation and vilifying the EGD. It was better than the uneasy hush earlier.
I looked out at the passing forest for a time, though the stupid bars obscured the view. As though the Resistance would actually bother rescuing reAssignees! Sorting was pretty low on their list of grievances. Like most members of the Underground, I wasn’t too fond of the Resistance—didn’t agree with their methods, to put it mildly. But just then I wouldn’t have minded finding myself in an ambush, risk of being caught in the cross-fire or no. At least we’d have a chance.
But we drove on, unopposed. Jonathan sat beside me, lost in his own thoughts. I eyed him surreptitiously, not sure if he would somehow know.
I was looking at his hair, mostly—it really was like autumn leaves—rich, vibrant russet, but sun-streaked with a beautiful array of lighter browns and golds. His fair skin was lightly tanned by the same sun and his nose was smaller and better formed—less sharp—than Bane’s, his cheekbones and brows also less pronounced. He was probably more handsome in the classic sense of the word, but beauty really was in the eye of the beholder and I preferred Bane’s face.
“Little Hazleton’s a hotel, isn’t it?” I asked him, eventually. Well, I knew it was—Bane’s mother worked there.
He turned his head, clearly to point both ears at me, since his gray-blue eyes didn’t so much as flicker. “Yes. My parents are the on-site managers, so we get to live out there.”
“It’s supposed to be one of the prettiest hotels…” Oops, stupid remark!
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t know. I do know the streets are full of the scent of flowers and the sounds of wildlife; fascinating carved stones on many of the cottages, something to feel wherever you go. I can believe it’s pretty, whatever that means.”
“Have you…always been blind, then?” Could it be possible?
He nodded.
“However did you survive long enough to be born?” Those with the most serious defects were generally dispatched before they could even draw their first breath. Or just after.
His lips twisted. “I was lucky.” He tilted his head away sl
ightly, as though listening to the other sounds inside the bus and I sought a safer question.
“Do you have a sibling?”
He gave a tiny, rather mysterious smile. “An older sister. Unfortunately she’s…officially dead.”
So much for a safer question—that meant there hadn’t been enough left for a firm ID—or to bury. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Your older brother is…officially dead as well, isn’t he?”
“Oh. Yes. Officially dead.” I tried not to squirm in my seat. Always awkward to talk about Kyle, since I knew jolly well he wasn’t dead.
No, not true, unfortunately, I only knew he hadn’t died when everyone thought. He probably was dead by now. Most of those who faked their deaths and went to follow their vocation ended up dead for real. It was a long way to the Vatican Free State, across the entire EuroBloc. Still, we had it easy compared to some of the other streams of the Underground. The closest Islamic seminary was in the Arab-OilBloc and Hindus had to get all the way to the OceanicBloc’s Indian department!
I was still trying to think of a genuinely safe question when we turned off onto a smaller road running into the depths of the Fellest and then all too soon we were heading down into a cleared area. There sat the Facility, a grim, brooding blot on the forest-scape, its solar panels glinting ominously from the rooftops. Silence fell like a blanket over the bus.
Nam inimicus persequitur animam meam; collocavit me in tenebris sicut pridem defunctos—the words slipped unbidden into my mind—see how my enemies plot against my life and set me down in dark places, like the long-forgotten dead. Yes, it was a very bleak place.
“What’s everyone looking at?” Jonathan asked.
“Our new home.” My voice didn’t quite shake.
“Is it nice?”
“Oh, yes. If your taste runs to twelve meter concrete walls with razor wire and machine gun towers.”
“Oh. Sounds lovely.”
But as we drew nearer and the dreadful silence in the bus went on and on, he leaned closer to me. “As we go in, make sure you memorize any detail that can’t be seen from outside, hmm?”
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