by Sarah Govett
‘You know they can make you talk?’ He was whispering now. Almost like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. ‘Give up the girl’s location. Please. It’s not a betrayal. Everyone talks in the end. The things they do…’ His voice trailed off and he began to clean his glasses again, like it was some tic he’d developed when he approached the outskirts of any emotion.
‘I don’t actually think they can.’ A calm fell over me and I felt the truth of my words. ‘You’ve already hurt every person I love. I don’t think there’s anything else left for you to do to me.’
The Minister stood and looked at me and I watched our power reverse. He saw the determination in my face and was scared. Probably for the first time in his life. He was scared that he was going to miss out on this opportunity. One more push was all that was needed.
‘You can test her DNA though.’ I handed over the three hairs Lee had plucked from Nell’s head. ‘Run it and you’ll see a new gene there, one no one’s seen before.’
His child-size hand, cradled the phone, hesitated and then picked it up.
Make the call, I prayed. Please, please make the call.
‘I need a DNA test … expedited … now means now.’
Without even looking up at me, he hung up and made another call.
‘I need an ambulance, now. Yes. The Ministry… And notify your best surgeon. He’s needed.’
It was like someone had liquefied all the bones in my body, reducing me to a jellied mass of unsupported flesh and blood. I’d done it. They were going to operate on Raf. They were going to save him!
The ambulance men arrived within minutes and Raf was carried away. I started to go with him when the Minister stopped me.
‘No, not you. I know you’re worried about your friend, but the best thing that you can do for him right now is to stay here. Show that you’re cooperative. Pliant.’ His voice was kindly, even if I didn’t like the words that accompanied it. Pliant? Pliant?
‘Jack, you go,’ I urged, but Jack shook his head.
‘I’m staying with you. Raf’s unconscious. He doesn’t need me.’
I wanted to scream at him, but I knew it was pointless. And anyway, if it was all a trick, if they were just pretending to operate, what exactly could Jack do? He couldn’t take out the whole of the Ministry’s security. He’d just end up dead too.
‘Don’t move, either of you. Please.’ With that instruction, the Minister left the room, ordering the policeman who was still lingering around outside, no doubt waiting for his reward, to guard the door.
There was only one chair in the room, the Minister’s leather swivel chair by his desk. It felt contaminated somehow, like particles of the Ministry and everything it stood for were still hovering next to it, fog clinging to a hillside. Neither of us wanted to touch it, let alone sit in it, so instead we sat on the floor, leaning against each other as a side support. We weren’t really talking. It was too serious for that. We just sat and stared at the clock, watching the minutes tick by. Waiting for news about the DNA. About Raf. Two o’clock became half past two became three o’clock, still with no sign of the Minister.
I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I knew, Jack was nudging me awake.
‘Look!’ he was exclaiming, pointing wildly at the clock. ‘Look!’ I followed his finger and gazed at the round face and black arms.
‘What?’ I didn’t get it.
‘It’s four-thirty, Noa!’
‘So?’
‘The upload! It’ll be sitting in Scribes, ready. Right now Childes everywhere will learning the truth, discovering that they’ve been systematically brainwashed by the Ministry.’
‘If your dad’s held out long enough. If they’ve managed to transmit it.’
‘They’ll have done it, Noa. I know they will.’
He had such faith and I envied him for a moment until realised that I felt it too. Knew it too. They’d have managed it. Whatever it took.
We just sat there, letting the enormity of it sink in. Upwards of two hundred thousand kids having their lives turned upside down. Questioning the extent to which their thoughts and opinions were or ever had been their own.
‘I can’t imagine it, finding out that your life has been a lie,’ I said at last.
‘I can,’ Jack replied sadly.
‘How do you think they’re going to feel?’
‘Angry. Really, really angry.’
No one came for us and afternoon drifted into evening. At about eight, the door was opened and a tray with some bread and Mucor bake was pushed inside.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked the retreating hand. But no response followed and the door was shut with a clunk and then locked.
The lights went out at around nine. Well, they switched into motion-detector mode to conserve energy so the only way to see was to jump up and wiggle your arms about. It was funny at first but soon lost its humour. We spent the night huddled together for comfort, trying to block out the not knowing. Not knowing if Raf had made it. Not knowing how the other ministers were reacting to the news of the gene. Not knowing if anyone had told my parents I was here. Not knowing if there were any plans to let us go.
It was morning when we were finally fetched. It wasn’t the Minister, it was three guys and two girls in black uniform who dragged us up to standing and ordered us to follow them. They carried guns, tasers and batons. Refusal wasn’t an option.
‘Ministry bodyguards,’ Jack hissed in my ear. This was serious. Properly serious. The bodyguards only accompanied the Head Minister. We’d come to the attention of the big fish in the pond. The shark.
They surrounded us, a rugby scrum in which we were the ball, ready to be hooked and pummelled.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
No response. Silently, we were marched to the far side of the building, to a different lift from the one we’d used before. Bundled inside, one of the guards inserted a key into a lock below the buttons, turned it and pressed level six. The other lift didn’t have a level six. My head was scrambling so I focused on my breathing.
IN – it’s natural that the Head Minister would be interested in this new gene – AND OUT– of course he’s going to want to question me – AND IN – oh God oh GOD! – AND OUT – it’s going to be OK. It’s all going to be OK.
The lift doors opened and we exited into a penthouse suite. Gone were the glass-walled office cubicles and admin staff. Gone was the occasional semi-dehydrated pot plant and water fountain. Here we were in luxury. Open-planned, wood-panelled luxury with a sideboard of breakfast snacks that weren’t Mucor or parsnip-based. A large dark wood table stood in the middle of the room, round which sat the ten Ministers – seven men, three women – some of whom I recognised from TV broadcasts, some of whom I didn’t. All well fed, well groomed, well dressed. Rationing, poverty, struggle, these were abstract concepts up here. To be read about rather than experienced. I acknowledged the Minister for Allocation at the end of one side but my eyes only rested momentarily on him before being pulled towards the head of the table. For there, in a chair marked out as more important by its arms and larger size, was the Head Minister. Tall, even more imposing in real life. I was five metres away from the most powerful person in the Territory.
Emotions fought for control of my head. Acute, bladder-squeezing terror wrestled with pure muscle-clenching anger. This was the face of our enemy. The face of the system that had killed my friends, sent children to their deaths and taken my parents. This was the face I wanted to claw to shreds, the green eyes I wanted to close forever.
‘So, Noa,’ the Head Minister stood up and walked towards us, circling us before coming to a standstill, his back to the window, king of his domain. His voice was soft, intentionally so. So that you had to lean in towards him to listen, a snake drawing its prey closer so they’re easier to eat. ‘It does indeed seem that you’ve stumbled across a new gene.’
Yes! My chest opened, my breath moved more easily. It didn’t matter that it had taken all night �
�� we’d convinced them.
He continued, raising his voice slightly. There was a growing buzz from outside, presumably down on the street and he needed to project to drown it out.
‘Obviously without the test subject present to examine, we can only take your word for the fact that this gene does indeed confer malarial immunity.’
‘It does. It really does,’ Jack broke in, only to be silenced by a glare and a raised hand.
‘So, it raises interesting possibilities.’
We’d done it. We’d done it. The TAA would end. The whole Childe programme would cease. The Fence would fall.
‘But,’ he continued, ‘on reflection we have decided not to pursue them.’
What? His words were a punch to the face. The sort that knocks out teeth and breaks noses. Not pursue them? Not pursue the chance to save thousands and thousands of lives? I stared at the faces of the other Ministers. No one met my eye. The Minister of Allocation stood up to speak but was pulled down by the minister next to him and silenced.
The Head Minister continued. ‘We believe that a life in the Wetlands, even without the risk of malaria, is not one which we should offer to our citizens. It is preferable to maintain the status quo, whereby the brightest citizens remain within the Territory and the less desirable are removed. This is the best chance for the long-term success of our nation.’
Every word was a pin in a voodoo doll. Piercing my organs, stabbing at my heart. I should have anticipated it but it had never once crossed my mind that they wouldn’t do the right thing. That they didn’t care. Didn’t care about ordinary people at all. As long as they and their cronies were safe, everyone else could go to hell. Heaven forbid one of their offspring or grandchildren should be given immunity and allocated to the Wetlands. Heaven forbid they should stop the Childe programme and end total freakoid obedience or have their friends’ food rations slightly reduced to make way for a larger population.
Without a flicker of emotion, the Head Minister continued. ‘You will now reveal the whereabouts of this girl to us as we obviously don’t want her … differences … to become common knowledge.’
‘Go to hell!’ I yelled at him. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything. You can torture me, kill me, I don’t care. You don’t get her! She’s a twelve-year-old girl, for God’s sake. Leave her alone!’
The Head Minister laughed. Well, he opened his mouth and a ha ha sound came out, but there was no merriment to it. No joy.
‘I’m not going to torture you, Noa. Or kill you for that matter. I like your brain too much.’
I should have felt relief, but I didn’t. There was something about his voice, his eyes that signalled this wasn’t a reprieve. He wasn’t handing me a get out of jail free card.
‘You’ve shown yourself to be resourceful, inventive. It’d be a waste to kill you. We need minds like yours in the Territory.’
‘I’m not going to work for you,’ I spat. ‘I’d never work for you!’
‘And therein lies the problem. We want your mind, just a slightly more pliant and obedient version.’
Pliant. That word again. He paused and the silence turned static.
‘You’ve been scheduled for a late upgrade this evening.’
‘NO!’ I screamed, my shout immediately echoed by Jack’s roar. ‘NO! You can’t. You can’t do this to us!’ Jack had balled his hands into a fist and leapt forward to hulk bash him. Two guards intercepted the blow and Jack’s legs were kicked out beneath him.
‘No, no,’ the Head Minister smiled cruelly. ‘You mistake me. There’s no “us”. You, Noa Blake, will have an upgrade. The best surgeon, mind you, no expense spared. You, Jack Munro – yes, we know who you are – you’re, how shall I put it tactfully … less obviously valuable.’
‘What are you going to do to him?’ I shouted.
But the Head Minister didn’t answer. He’d already turned his back on us, redirecting his attention to the street below, staring through the glass double doors and over the low wall of the balcony beyond. We were forgotten to him. Mere details, crossed off his to-do list.
‘I’ll remember!’ I yelled at the back of his head, as the guards took hold of my arms. ‘I’ll remember and tell everyone.’
The Head Minister didn’t even bother to turn round.
‘No, no, you won’t,’ he laughed. ‘Take them away.’
As we were being dragged back towards the lift, he couldn’t resist one parting shot.
‘Oh, and your other friend. He made it by the way. He’s already got a Node so we’ll probably just reprogramme him too. So you won’t be alone in your new life. It’ll be just like old times.’
Every step we took towards the lift was like a nail being hammered into a coffin. They were going to kill Jack. Jack and my parents would be dead. No more. Dust and bone. And me, it was almost worse. I’d still exist, in body anyway, but my mind, my mind would be theirs. To work in their name. I’d be reprogrammed to revere the Ministry. Maybe they’d even design an upload specially. Tailor-made just for me. They’d change my thoughts, my beliefs. Everything precious, everything that mattered to me would be erased. Gone. Would I even remember Jack and Mum and Dad or would they remove all trace of them? Would they make me think they were traitors? Their deaths deserved? The blood started to pound in my ears, boom boom boom.
Think positive, Mum used to say. When the world seems to be crushing you, think of one positive thing and focus on that, keep it in your mind’s eye and then amplify it, expand it so it fills your whole field of vision and then, for that moment, there’s nothing bad left to worry about. I tried to think about getting to spend my last few moments with Jack. About how lucky I was to have a friend who cared this much for me, who’d risked his life over and over to keep me safe. I tried to think of Raf. About the fact that he’d survived the operation. That I’d get to see him again. But the images never stuck. They’d expand and then pop like a balloon on a pin and be replaced with visions of my parents, thin, broken, dying, and images, flashes of what waited below.
‘Jesus!’ A shout broke into my thoughts.
The lift doors were an open mouth but no one was pushing us forward. The Ministers, the guards, everyone’s focus had been pulled elsewhere. To the newly opened balcony door where the Head Minister stood. To the sight and sounds of the street.
Me and Jack used the distraction to head over there ourselves. To see what the stress was about.
My eyes couldn’t quite absorb it all so they blinked, refocused and blinked again. There, six floors below us, the street was a mass of people. People as far as the eye could see. People swarming up the steps, people balancing on bollards, people holding up placards and shouting. Shouting at the top of their lungs.
‘Jasmine’s work?’ I whispered to Jack, awed.
‘I don’t know,’ he whispered back. ‘She’s never managed something this big before. Nothing on this scale.’
I scanned the tiny faces and my heart’s rhythm went all experimental jazz. Two faces made it stop beating altogether.
‘Look there!’ I instructed Jack. ‘To the left of the stop sign. Isn’t that Hugo?’
Jack squinted through the window, straining his eyes. ‘You’re right,’ he said slowly. ‘And that looks like Charles to his left!’
Freakoids.
Childes had joined in a demonstration against the Ministry. For the first time ever. The Ministry’s hold was crumbling. Our upload must have worked! Then I started to read the hastily made placards, to really listen to the chants.
Use the Gene
Stop your Lies
Colonise the Wetlands
Uploads are Evil
Cells are the Future
Let Noa and Jack go!
It wasn’t Jasmine. It was Mina. Mina who’d been so desperately worried that we wouldn’t have any witnesses. Mina who’d created two hundred thousand witnesses of her own.
‘She changed the upload!’ I crowed, not bothering to whisper anymore. ‘She added information
about the gene, about our sharing it with the Ministry!’
The Head Minister swivelled round and stared at me, eyes flashing.
‘What have you done?’
A radio transmitter was produced and commands were being fired down it to the police patrols and army squadrons that were arriving at the scene.
‘Disperse the crowds!’
‘Break them up!’
But the numbers were too great. The concentrated mass of protestors, bodies, both a weapon and a shield.
‘They know,’ I said, calmly and clearly. ‘They know you’ve been brainwashing them. They know about the gene. They’re not just going to go home this time.’
The other Ministers had joined the Head Minister by the window and they were desperately discussing strategy.
‘We need to mow them down. Send a message,’ the Head Minister was urging.
‘I agree. Open fire,’ from the weasely Minister for Communication.
But other faces were more wary. Uncomfortable.
‘No.’ To my surprise the Minister of Allocation refused to be silenced this time and his voice had stolen some authority, borrowed a measure of passion. ‘If we kill this number of people, the Ministry is over. There will be a full-scale rebellion. Their friends. Their parents. We’ll be back to the dark days of in-fighting and war. And look at us? This isn’t why we went into governance. Remember? We formed this government to end the violence. We wanted to provide a better life. There were harsh choices. But the original aim was to do good. To restore order. To save our country.’
‘You always were too squeamish,’ the Head Minister retorted. ‘Never fully behind the Childe programme. Critical of the TAA. Just because you don’t have children. Have nothing to protect. And what do you suggest we do then? Lay down a red carpet and welcome them inside?’ The Head Minister’s tone was icy.
‘We do what we’ve always done,’ the Minister for Allocation replied, matching him ice for ice. ‘We control the situation. Fire one shot and you’ve lost control. Forever.’