Ways of the Doomed

by McPartlin, Moira;

  ‘Why can’t you take me?’ She looked shocked that I had the cheek to ask.

  ‘My bag.’ She held up her hand and I saw Ishbel move forward.

  ‘Not you, I meant Merj.’ Ishbel’s face flushed. She stepped behind the chair and stared at the books.

  ‘Bring me my bag Merj, dear. I have a present for Sorlie.’

  ‘You are to give nothing to the boy. He has all he needs,’ Davie said.

  Vanora gasped and set off another fit of coughing. Ishbel moved forward but Vanora pushed her away. ‘Get me a drink.’

  I caught that familiar scent of lavender as Ishbel tiptoed to where I stood by the table.

  ‘It’s good to see you Sorlie,’ she said in lowered tones as she poured a glass of wine.

  ‘You don’t smell of vinegar.’ It was astonishing.

  She laughed. This close I could see how tatty her uniform was. It was faded in parts and the emblem had been sewn over a bright patch that had at one time held the badges of the disbanded State of UKAY. The uniforms were a sham.

  ‘Ishbel?’ Merj called.

  She stared at the glass as if counting the bubbles in the liquid.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I whispered. ‘Why is she so horrible to you?’

  She smiled, almost to herself, and whispered, ‘You’ve not long to wait Sorlie,’ then rearranged her face into an expression of resignation so common of a native. Not much had changed in her world and yet the way she spoke to me told me that the woman who helped me escape was far from gone.

  When she returned to Vanora the older woman’s sweetness had curdled. She took the glass without acknowledgement and sipped before handing the goblet to Merj.

  ‘You are growing up fast Sorlie,’ she said to me. ‘You will soon be able to join me. I need another good lieutenant.’ She patted Merj’s hand. ‘I am not strong and my army in the north is growing.’

  ‘Pah, army,’ my grandfather said. She didn’t even grace him with a look.

  ‘Your mother,’ Vanora paused. My heart thudded.

  ‘What about my mother?’

  ‘Your mother should have joined me.’ Ishbel stood to attention, ignored. Maybe it was an act for Davie’s benefit, but in that case why bring Ishbel?

  ‘You’re so like your mother. Don’t you think so David?’

  Was that a growl from Davie?

  ‘Your grandfather needs to feed you up more.’ I felt like an army drone being fattened for combat. I wanted to speak but could find no words.

  ‘The boy is well cared for.’

  ‘Don’t get all defensive on me David. I’m just saying…’

  ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘No? Well no matter.’ She fluttered her fingers again and turned to Ishbel. ‘How does the boy look to you Ishbel? Is he well fed?’

  ‘He is a little peaky, could probably do with some fresh air.’ She smiled at me when she said this.

  ‘There…’

  ‘Don’t you tell me how to manage this boy’s life!’ Davie roared. ‘You didn’t want him when he was orphaned and now you come swanning in here accusing me…’

  ‘Let me go with them.’ At last I had found my voice.

  They both stopped and stared at me as if I had just committed a murder.

  ‘Well?’ I said to Davie. ‘You don’t want me. You hate me for being a native.’ There, it was out. Davie grabbed my collar before I knew what hit me and began dragging me from the room.

  I pointed to Vanora, ‘And if you’re so concerned for my health, take me.’ I dug my heels in and fought hard against Davie.

  ‘Take me, please!’ I screamed. Ishbel took a step forward but Vanora’s arm stretched out to halt her. This brought on another coughing fit.

  ‘Let go of me!’ I shouted trying to shrug Davie off. There was no backup from the assembled company and I knew then that they would not help. I was on my own.

  Just before Davie had a chance to push me through the door I glanced over my shoulder to take a last look at Ishbel, but her attention was on the coughing woman. As those warm grey eyes of Merj watched my removal, he smiled and gave me thumb and index OK and whispered something to the seated visitor. The head now lifted in a gasp for breath, an elegant neck stretched full and proud, a handkerchief held over mouth and nose. Those faded green eyes that looked at me wept old tears, but the act was blown. She couldn’t hide her true self. The body may be weak but the will was strong and Davie had no intention of letting me stay any longer in her presence.

  • • •

  ‘Let me go!’ My foot stamped like a child’s but I didn’t give a monkey’s balls.

  He stopped so suddenly that I jerked back on my heels, battering against the fist that gripped my collar. He started shaking me but in his rage his face twisted in fear. Unbelievable – this tyrant, this madman was quaking in the face of a withered old creature in a Hebridean hood.

  I tried to break free, but like a rope in a cog his grip grew tighter.

  ‘Stop this insolence,’ he hissed.

  ‘Why? What are you going to do? Get one of your guards to beat me up?’

  He dragged open the door to my quarters and hurled me in so hard I fell against the desk and dunted my head. I was stunned – not just from the blow but from the violence and anger directed at me. He stalked after me. As he approached I grabbed the desk and tried to pull myself up, but before I could get to my knees he hooked my tunic in his fist, hauled me to my feet, and slammed me to the wall.

  ‘Your days here are numbered, young man.’ His eyes sizzled with hatred. ‘Don’t think that you are in an honoured position here. If it were not for that mutant back there you would have been dead long before this.

  ‘Mutant! She’s my grandmother.’

  His eyes sparked around the room, but more in confusion than rage. Still I kept shtum about Ishbel; I had no idea if he knew of her identity.

  ‘And what do you know of that meddlesome old hag?’

  ‘Not much, just what my father told me.’ My back was pressed against the wall my feet planted ready to spring – the door was still open.

  ‘And did dear daddy tell you she has designs on being a great revolutionary, and hides on a ravaged island where she builds imaginary armies to take over the world?’ Spittle flew round the room. ‘That she has disciples who worship her, are brainwashed by her lies of native equality?’ He slammed the door shut barring my escape route. ‘No, I bet he didn’t. She’s a fraud. A mutant who thinks she can destroy the truth. Does she honestly believe natives can resume their professional status? When the natives find out she has been cheating them I hope they tear her into little pieces and send her to the recyk midden for reprocessing.’

  As he worked his lather up I shrank further into the wall.

  ‘Oh she’s got a nerve coming here, heavy-handed, demanding to see you. Tricking me with Noiri contraband, goading me.’ He pointed a shaking feeble finger at me. ‘And what does she care about you?’ He snapped his fingers, almost clipping my nose. ‘Nothing. The whore brought you to me, remember, because Vanora doesn’t want to be bothered with a child. But we’ll show her. You’re going to find me that bird.’

  That did it for me. The bird, like his reason, was absent, but for the purposes of my health I merely nodded like a good little grandson with an evil grandmother. His anger seemed dampened by thoughts of the bird.

  ‘Now, I’ve had enough of your snivelling, moping and mourning. Get over it.’ Spit hit my face. ‘Soon my job will be done and I’ll have nothing to lose.’ He reached down and hauled me to my feet. I couldn’t speak for fear and from his stranglehold pinning me to the wall. The only sound I could make was a pitiful mewing, like a cub. But it was enough. A puzzle moved on his face, he opened his fist and I was dropped to the ground like a turd he had picked up my mistake. When his foot lifted and pul
led back ready to kick me, I cowered to protect my head against the blow that didn’t come. He spun on his shiny boot heels and locked the door behind him, leaving me to wonder what the hell had just happened.

  I wiped the spit from me and found it mixed with my blood. It was then that I started chittering so violently my teeth rattled. Sitting by the wall under the starburst window, I curled into a ball and cried, letting the tears and snot run free. After a while I heard the Transport take off. There was the whirry at the window. I didn’t look.

  ‘Go to hell!’ I screamed to the room. They could have taken me but instead they left me to rot with the rest of the prisoners. The only encouragement I had to hang onto was Merj’s OK sign and Ishbel’s strange words.

  What planet did Vanora live on? Those uniforms were a joke. If what Davie said was correct, she was queen of the rebels yet still she abandons her grandson. She had looked so regal in her hologram, but her behaviour towards Ishbel was less so. Let them bow to my ass. I wiped my eyes and nose with the heel of my hand. My wrist was thin and white, tracked by protruding blue veins and a silver crust of snot. The utility tool was hidden with the passport; the puny knife could slice through those blue veins. Who would care? It would be one less native to worry about. All I needed to do was take out the knife. I ran my index finger across my wrist – X marks the spot. What stopped me was the memory of Davie’s fear. All was not right in his world, but that didn’t make it any prettier in mine.

  • • •

  My face looked like a bashed pumpkin; the skin was not broken on the graze on my forehead, but there was a bruise. Blood dripped from my nose. I could taste it in my mouth and throat. There was blood on the wall below the dot so I took a piece of towel and rubbed it off. What did Eye-Spy think of Davie’s violence? Were they subjected to it too? Perhaps there was no ‘they’. Maybe he kept this surveillance of me to himself. I gulped back this creepy thought and waited for power shutdown. If the only way out of here was to help Kenneth break into the system, then that’s what I would have to do.

  • • •

  During the night the alarm sounded. The perimeter lights were strong. A single shot cracked then all went quiet. In my mind the tyrant goose-stepped to the helipad where the prisoner might be detained. They might be begging for mercy. Davie would smirk, draw his old revolver and shoot the prisoner in the head. Or maybe in his own confusion he would put a bullet in his own brain, but that was too much to hope for.

  The whole incident lasted only minutes. The perimeter lights shut down to normal mode, which left me with the lighthouse beam clocking its path round the floor. Who could blame the prisoners for attempting a breakout after a full day’s cell confinement? They had little to lose.

  Scud woke me with a gentle shake on my shoulder, which was just as well because my body felt as though it had been wrapped in barbed wire before being thrown out a speeding Jeep.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked as he picked up the upended chair and the blood-smeared towel, which he only briefly examined before stuffing it in the laundry sac.

  ‘I walked into a door.’

  He twisted his mouth but said nothing.

  There was so much to tell him, but the stakes had been raised by my discoveries. Then there was Davie’s violence, but Scud’s careful examination of the room told me he guessed the situation.

  ‘There was a breakout in the night.’

  ‘Yes – sometimes the defences here are not as great as the regime would like us to believe,’ he said politely.

  I didn’t know what to say to this. It was one of his codes.

  ‘What’s with the funny accent?’

  He raised his eyes to the ceiling and again said nothing.

  ‘Em, tell Ridgeway he won’t be required today.’ I mocked his formal voice. ‘I need to read in the library.’ I rotated my arm and tried to ease my shoulder socket.

  ‘If you say so, sir.’ He never called me sir – was it another code? He seemed disinterested. He paced the room and picked at the broken glass on the window.

  ‘The visitors yesterday, sir?’ He said it casually but by the way he was holding his command band, he anticipated a zap.

  ‘I got to meet them,’ I said matching his casual tone. I knew then, at that moment, that my grandfather was not the one watching us from behind the dot. If he had been, Scud would have been writhing on the floor. ‘One was Ishbel, my native. I got to see her again.’ This was an innocent enough comment but the burst of joy in Scud’s eyes told histories.

  ‘That must have been nice for you,’ he drawled.

  ‘I thought they had come for me but it was a false hope.’ The bitterness in my voice did not pass him. He gazed out the window and began to whistle a nonsense tune. I did not mention Vanora because he had already gone too far. And knowing Scud, he probably already knew.

  His appearance had improved. His hair stubble was dark sand and suited him and his skin held a slight tinge of health, his eyes were still walnut. He was beginning to look almost Privileged.

  He made the bed and cleaned the washroom while I ate breakfast. My resolve not to eat had rumbled off into the distance; I was starving. If they wanted to experiment on me they could do it anyway whether I starved to death or not.

  ‘So you are working in the library.’ His gaze flirted with the floor and the dot on the wall – shifty, that’s what Ma would have called that look. ‘What is it you’ll be studying – anything I can help you with?’ He was almost confident. The fingers of weirdom began to crawl over my neck. He was different in more ways than appearance.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ I said. Kenneth had told me Scud could help, but I didn’t know how. He was not permitted to linger in the library and even though Kenneth assured me there was no surveillance there, Scud’s command band would always reveal his whereabouts. I couldn’t risk it. And anyway, this new Scud was creeping me out of my skin.

  He studied the floor, the dot, the starburst with a sort of struggle going on in his face. It was the same struggle Ridgeway’s expression fought with.

  ‘No reason, just want to help that’s all,’ he said. We stood silent for a while. There was nothing to tell this new Scud and he yet seemed reluctant to leave. It was one of those sand-kicking moments that lasted too long.

  ‘Tell me about the bird,’ he said at last. Of course that’s what he was waiting for.

  ‘Yes, I think I might have found Him,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve found Him,’ I repeated. ‘Yes. Yes that’s what I need to do.’ I stumbled over words. ‘Check some things. About the habitat and all.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, Him being so close to the sea.’

  I hoped he understood my garbled message, but couldn’t be sure.

  I watched him as he turned Beastie on and began to clear my breakfast tray. What if the experiments were working and he’d morphed into a Privileged, not just physically but behaviourally? Surely that’s not possible. But if that were the case how could I still trust him? I mentally thumped my head. Why hadn’t I studied harder at genetics? I didn’t even know what dilution actually meant.

  ‘If that will be all, sir, I’ll go back to my cell.’

  That creeping sensation returned as one more of my allies deserted me.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The library was unlocked, deserted and foosty. It was impossible to do anything because Davie’s workstation was missing; all that remained of its presence was a small rectangle clear of the dust that covered the rest of the table. The old boy had second-guessed me and I had given up my outside recreation for a lousy dead duck deal. The room looked the same as always, minus the banquet table and the workstation of course, but the air felt thinner. The oxters of my work wear soaked and darkened with sweat – I had to get out. It was like being in one of those old science doc-yous where laboratory rats are set running round a maze and when one door opens an
other closes until suddenly they are in the middle with nowhere to go. And then I thought of the new Scud and the pseudo-regal Vanora and decided there was only one option left to me.

  I raced back to my quarters and hit the messenger on Beastie.

  ‘Call Ridgeway,’ I shouted. ‘Tell him to dress for outdoors.’

  While I waited I stared at the familiar scene from the window. The seascape was grey, rods of rain stabbed landward. Flecks of sunsheen struggled to get to grips with the day as night-time chased it under the horizon and a faint moon hovered just above the tossed sea. The wind was almost visible as it bowed and buckled the monochrome waves. Only the birds were oblivious to the darkening world, wheeling, dipping and gliding on the therms; an afternoon play. Then something flashed out there. I rubbed at the window for a better view, but the position of the fractured glass was a problem. It flashed again. A buoy bucked recklessly against the wind. Where had that drifted in from? The flashes were inconsistent, like the lighthouse, so I counted them to try to take my mind off Kenneth. He would be waiting in his cave for me, getting his hopes up, imagining me hacking into a workstation that was now missing. In terms of international espionage, Kenneth would be lucky to get a job purifying water. I lay my forehead against the cold glass. Where was Ridgeway?

  By the time he arrived ten minutes later I was prowling the floor, biting my already ragged nails and spitting the splinters of them into the sink. I could see by the cross of his brows that he was furious at being dragged out on such a dreich day even before he opened his mouth.

  ‘Are you mad? Look at it out there.’ If he noticed my bruises he didn’t let on – not even a blink.

  ‘I have to get out of here, even if it’s just for an hour.’

  ‘And do you have anything specific in mind? Apart from getting us soaked and possibly blown off the cliff, that is?’

  I almost chuckled at his insolence.

  ‘Be a sport Ridgeway, we’ll be wet in the first five minutes. After that it doesn’t matter.’

  • • •