The Biggerers

by Amy Lilwall

  ‘Ed,’ Jinx said to herself, knowing that he’d come from the next cage. There was something wonky about his face that made his whole body look a bit broken… ‘Are you Ed?’

  ‘I am,’ Ed smiled. His teeth were yellow with tiny brown lines. ‘I’ll guide you both down. It’s a bit daunting the first day.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jinx, wondering what ‘daunting’ meant. She watched as Bonbon started to climb down first; her face all opened up and frightened, her head bobbing lower and lower slowly, carefully… That’s what daunting meant, probably, she thought as Bonbon’s head disappeared, it meant scary. Jinx started down. All those heads at the bottom made Jinx think of their basket on stone day. Bonbon was already climbing down the last box, two boxes below theirs. Jinx looked up. Another two boxes were stacked above their own and a line of legs and bottoms was quickly getting bigger. She sped up, wincing as the wire pressed into the circle of holes on her foot.

  She got to the ground and looked around for Bonbon. A crowd had formed just next to the opposite wall and words rose out of it and wove their way into her ears; hello, welcome, hi there, pleased to meet you, good to have you here… As well as: we’re going to help you, you’ll see, you’ll realize, you’ll understand, we must work together, we’re a team, Bonbon…

  Bonbon! Jinx made her way over to these words. The crowd turned towards her, opening up and re-forming around her like the arms of a cuddle. ‘Jinx! We’ll help you, you’ll remember, you’ll know the secret, you’ll pass it on…’ Touches, strokes, a few kisses, grins, squeezes… Jinx smiled so much that it became hard to see through the tiny slits that her eyelids made. They laughed when she rose onto tiptoes and spun on one leg. They copied when she reached her hands so far into the air that her shoulders squashed her cheeks and her heels came off the ground.

  ‘Welcome!’ said one deep voice and the crowd grew quieter and quieter until it was silent. The voice’s body appeared next to them. It had thick red hair, spiky like AstroTurf. His body was also thick, Jinx thought, especially in the places where Chips’s was thin, and also very hairy in the places where Chips’s was shadowy.

  ‘I am Mop,’ he said. ‘I am not a leader; I’ve just got the biggest mouth.’

  The others laughed. He opened his mouth to continue but another voice sang out from behind the heads of the crowd. ‘He’s the best at keeping his memory.’

  Mop bowed towards the direction of the voice, pleased that someone had said this about him. ‘The first thing you will notice here is that when one person has something to say, everybody listens.’

  The word ‘leader’ translated in Jinx’s head, but was too difficult to understand. How could one person be in charge of a group of people? Why would they all do what one person said? What if they felt like doing something else, like sleeping or jumping or… spinning in a circle?

  ‘The first thing that I noticed is that you use lots of words we don’t know,’ said Bonbon. Jinx stared at her, blinking.

  ‘Don’t know straight away,’ she added.

  ‘You have not been stimulated enough by your biggerer,’ said another voice. ‘You have only relied on your internal guide.’

  ‘In two days,’ said Mop, ‘you will see how listening and speaking and sharing new words will have you talking like us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said another voice. ‘It’s all about exchange. We have much to learn from you too.’

  The others clapped; they agreed with this. Then they started to sit down on the floor, crossing their legs in front of them. ‘It’s time to tell you about our battle,’ said Mop. He bowed to the group, then tiptoed his way through the heads and sank into a space.

  Jinx sat down. So did Bonbon. And one at a time, the littlers spoke. No one said ‘quiet’ or ‘it’s my turn’; they spoke one at a time while everybody else sat and listened. This meant that the conversation would wind in different directions as each one waited for their turn to speak. ‘Erm, with regards to what Osmo said when we were talking about “two orange pills” half an hour ago…’ Jinx and Bonbon didn’t know how long they sat there that first evening, listening as they told stories of what had been happening that week. ‘One of the pills was definitely off-white, Osmo. That’s what you told us when you came back from the lab. And Mop said the same thing.’

  ‘Yes, Osmo. One off-white and one orange,’ said Mop. ‘Tell us the story again, correctly.’

  ‘It’s like they’re trying to practise their memories,’ Jinx whispered to Bonbon.

  ‘They’re weird,’ replied Bonbon. ‘What does “off-white” mean?’

  They did this every evening, Mop explained. It always had to happen after five, except on a Tuesday when Moira arrived late. They had to be back in their cages before eleven, as this was when a ribbon of light would scan them to see if they were hungry or thirsty or ill. The big black panel on the wall by the lift displayed the clock time and they would take turns to sit in front of it and make sure they didn’t forget to go back to their cages.

  ‘We can read now,’ said one of them. ‘After you’ve been here for a few days, you realize you can read everything that is stored inside the black clippy square.’

  The inside of Jinx’s head translated ‘read’. ‘Bonbon can read,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t know I could, but I can,’ added Bonbon.

  ‘You must have been stimulated. Your brain must have grown,’ said one.

  ‘When something difficult happens to you, you find that you start to think differently.’

  ‘Everything suddenly becomes clearer,’ said another. ‘Your guide becomes your friend,’ said Ed.

  The others clapped.

  ‘Who is the guide? Is it the littler in my head?’ asked Bonbon.

  They told Bonbon that they didn’t know who it was, but they all agreed it definitely felt like another littler; it couldn’t have been their own thoughts because they were thinking things that they didn’t even know about.

  ‘Soon you will be seeing pictures,’ said one of the littlers. ‘Soon you’ll be so close to your guide that he’ll show you his world.’

  ‘She’ll show you where she lives.’

  ‘You’ll see everything he does, and you’ll feel everything he feels.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s very challenging,’ said Ed. ‘It’s as if you are feeling your own sadness or your own love.’

  ‘But it’s a great thing! We must work together so that we don’t lose it,’ said Mop.

  ‘Why would we lose it?’ asked Jinx. ‘Why would we forget when we’ve just started to remember?’

  Bonbon and Jinx would be taken up in the morning, they said. They would be interviewed, separately, to see what they already knew, they said. They must pretend not to know very much at all, they said.

  ‘But we don’t know that much,’ said Jinx.

  ‘And anyway, isn’t that lying?’ asked Bonbon.

  But, it was necessary, they explained, because these people wanted to steal their memories, and without memories, how could they know the truth, and without the truth the whole world would be lies!

  ‘Tomorrow, you must do what I did if they give you two pills,’ said Loop. ‘You must snort the second into your nose.’

  ‘You must!’ called Piddle. ‘I have had to learn everything all over again this evening. I feel like I’m hearing all of this for the first time… The memories are so faint.’ He shook his head. ‘So faint… Like shadows.’

  There was silence as everyone seemed to think about how horrible this was.

  ‘But if we lose our memories, we can go home,’ said Jinx.

  ‘Nobody goes home,’ said another. ‘Home is a lie.’ Maybe their home was all nice and clean and full of flakes but many of them had horrible homes… Jinx thought of Chips, dropped her chin to her shoulder and kissed it.

  And anyway, they went on, even if they did have nice homes, were they allowed to walk up and down the street and talk to people in shops? No, they weren’t.

  ‘And we can’t use s
poons,’ yelled Bonbon. ‘Even though we have the same bodies, we are forced to eat with our hands!’

  Everybody clapped.

  ‘We are a bit like pets, but it shouldn’t be like that,’ Jinx joined in.

  ‘Because we’re the same. Because we are human.’

  More clapping. They agreed. They were human, but a different species of human, maybe. A few of them believed that they had been designed specifically to live with humans and fulfil the role of pets. On hearing this, some of them covered their ears. The thought of being designed as entertainment for a higher being was too horrible, they said, they still had to think about it some more before they could believe it.

  ‘Bonbon says we used to live in a shop,’ said Jinx.

  They discussed shops for a while. It was quite a common memory to have after ‘brain-growth’. This was why the being-designed-for-entertainment theory was so popular.

  ‘There is one littler who knows everything about where we came from,’ explained another. ‘We were brought here on the same day; his name is Nemo. He told me that he knew we were born in shops and designed for entertainment.’ As the littler explained this, a few of the others put their hands over their ears. ‘He was treated as an equal by his biggerer. They had a whole sign-language system worked out between them, they could talk about anything. His biggerer even explained to him that he’d been bought in a shop. He knew so much that they isolated him completely a few days ago.’

  ‘But why couldn’t his biggerer get him back?’

  ‘Because…’ More littlers put their hands over their ears. ‘Because when we are bought, our biggerers have to promise to give us back in case of a design fault.’

  Jinx and Bonbon thought for a moment about what that could mean, before letting their mouths drop open and covering their ears.

  ‘You only have to hear some things once to remember them,’ said Ed.

  ‘But what will happen to us?’

  ‘We have one week here, maximum. Then we’ll be taken to the silence-room.’

  ‘Two more got taken away this morning. They just couldn’t fight the memory drug any more.’

  ‘That’s why we have to fight. Our memory is the only chance of…’

  ‘Time!’ a voice called out over the room. It was the clockwatcher. The crowd got to its feet.

  ‘We must go back to our cages now,’ said the blonde, curly littler who reminded Bonbon of Blankey.

  Bonbon nodded and climbed back up to the cage, thinking carefully about which one was theirs as they all looked the same.

  ‘Where do you think they are?’ Jinx asked as she climbed in behind Bonbon.

  ‘I don’t know, Jinx.’

  ‘Will we ever see them again?’

  Jinx had said ‘them’ but Bonbon knew that she meant Chips. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’ll see them as soon as they are better.’

  * * *

  ‘Final time before I buzz.’

  Isabel rolled her eyes. ‘Drew, I’m sure.’

  ‘Sure sure, or just sure?’

  ‘Sure, positive, certain. Can we please go in?’

  Drew pressed the buzzer. Isabel passed her hands over and around each other, then up her wrists towards her elbows. Her hands did that fairly often, now that they didn’t have a dog to stroke… One quarter of her little world had dissolved that night. Afterwards, she’d followed Drew around for hours, clinging to the back of his jeans like she used to when she was a child. She shouted and spat when they suggested she get another pet; and clenched her fists until her shoulders shook when Drew said he was having second thoughts about turning himself in to the authorities. ‘Do you still have his card?’ he asked, one day.

  ‘Yes,’ Isabel had said, without asking whose card he was talking about.

  ‘Now might be a good time to see if he still wants to take you on, you know, on to pastures new an’ all that.’

  The door clicked open and they walked along a corridor towards Dr Hector’s office. Scenes of memories superimposed themselves over the floors and the walls. Shadows of former colleagues ghosted through the swing-doors. He kept his eyes on the little being who marched along in front of him. ‘Shall I carry you?’ he’d offered. She glanced up at him, and for a moment he was sure that she’d say yes. But she shook her head.

  ‘Isabel!’ Dr Hector stood up from behind his desk, his face looking at her the way it had when he’d first seen her: as if he were starving and she were a nice fat sandwich. ‘And… Drew. This is pleasant.’

  ‘Good evening,’ they murmured, one after the other.

  Dr Hector sat down. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, mostly to Isabel but flicking his eyes over Drew as he did. They sat down. Hector mopped his head with a handkerchief. The silence pulsated like the pressure in his fake lips. ‘You said there was something you wanted to discuss.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her fingers creased her skirt into pleats. ‘I’d like to work for you.’

  Dr Hector’s eyes twinkled. ‘Well, that’s…very good news.’

  Drew snapped forwards. ‘But we need to know what exactly you’re going to do with her.’

  ‘Oh… Well. You know.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘My intention was to use her… erm… use her help answer several questions I’ve had regarding my project.’ He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk.

  Drew glowered. Isabel trembled.

  Dr Hector scratched the bag under one eye with a craggy nail and continued. ‘That’s to say, just how she came to be. Was she a lucky miracle?’ His hand fanned out as he said ‘miracle’. ‘Did she even come from my laboratory?’ He dipped his chin and stared over his glasses at Drew.

  Drew said nothing.

  ‘In which case, is she even human? She could be, you know, an extra-terrestrial.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Drew.

  ‘If it’s not impossible then what must it be?’

  They both blinked at him.

  ‘A possibility. Exactly. I want to explore every possibility that could have led to the making of this unique young woman,’ he straightened his shoulders, ‘before I consider the most ludicrous of them all; that I, the leading expert in this area, after all my years of lab work, have been beaten to the post by some ballet dancer beavering away in his own front room.’

  The doctor leaned back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. ‘How many embryos did you take home before you got this result?’

  ‘One.’

  Mark Hector sniffed. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘I thought you had “carefully detailed records”.’

  ‘Yes. That you made, Drew Mahlik.’

  ‘The buck didn’t start or stop with me.’

  Dr Hector shrugged then let his eyes stagger across the desk. ‘I know. I’m just so eager to find out the truth that—’

  ‘You want to explore every possibility,’ repeated Drew.

  ‘How long would you need me for?’ Isabel’s face rippled with twitches. Drew watched her as she tried to control her lips by folding them into her mouth.

  ‘I have no idea!’ Dr Hector laughed. ‘Until I stop breathing!’ Isabel’s eyes widened. He coughed and tried out a gentler voice. ‘I’d monitor your development, your deterioration, your brain function – everything. Everything that could possibly change over the course of your lifetime. And even after your death.’

  ‘But I’ll outlive you,’ she scoffed.

  ‘I hope so, my dear, but death is also an aspect of your existence that could be influenced by your physical state.’

  Isabel’s top lip twitched.

  ‘I’m sorry but it’s the truth.’

  ‘I know,’ she managed to wobble out of her throat. ‘I like the truth. I’m studying medicine, you know.’

  ‘Ah, well, there you go.’

  She nodded once and rearranged her hands in her lap.

  Dr Hector scratched his forehead with the nail of his little finger and blinked hard. ‘I’d like to employ you to take part in var
ious studies. There’d be no invasive procedures and nothing would be done without your permission.’

  ‘Right.’ Isabel paused for a very long time, gazing up and out of the window. From the corner of her eye she saw him scratch the middle of his forehead twice more while she hoped that Drew would step in and say something.

  ‘We have some conditions,’ said Drew.

  ‘Now don’t think you can start calling the shots.’ Two red scratch-lines glowed in the centre of his head. ‘I can’t help thinking that this is between Isabel and myself.’

  Drew carried on: ‘She will agree to participate in these clinical studies as long as she is paid like every other employee. As you have just mentioned, there will be no invasive or harmful procedures – that is the second condition. Thirdly, she will be chaperoned at all times by me or Watty.’ The doctor opened his mouth but Isabel held up her hand. ‘Fourthly, the chaperone will be paid too.’

  The doctor rubbed at his chin. ‘You grew a baby at home, Drew. What you did was massively illegal. She has biological parents somewhere in the world who would have had to sign consent forms in order for that to take place and…’

  ‘The sperm and egg cells were donated anonymously, surely?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Surely?’

  ‘In most cases, yes…’

  ‘And, in fact, as of 2025 the law would side with my decision not to terminate development.’

  ‘I think you’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘I’d get ten years,’ said Drew. ‘I’ve looked into it. And what is more, if anything untoward were to happen to Isabel, I’d out myself immediately.’

  Isabel’s heart thudded so far up her chest that her throat vibrated. Maybe she wouldn’t cry, or she’d probably just pass out. She held out her hand, indicating that she wanted to get down. Drew took her in his hands and lowered her to the floor.

  ‘Think about it, will you?’ Dr Hector said as he followed her descent, still looking like he wanted to eat her.

  Drew stood up straight and gave a firm nod.

  ‘Bye then,’ she quavered, as she walked back towards the door.

  ‘Wait!’ called Dr Hector. ‘You’ll need me to let you out!’ And he shuffled along the corridor after them.