State of Grace

by Hilary Badger

  ‘Viva, a.k.a Participant F37, Clinical Trial 1 of 2018,’ he says. ‘The Shepherd Corporation values your feedback. How’s Delusion Onset Therapy working out for you? Not so great, hey? Unexplained memories coming back? Check. Thoughts about killing yourself? Check. Unwanted sexual contact? Check. Bad luck your particular set of genes were less than compatible with our wonderful product.’

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ the girl says firmly. ‘The lab’s already developed a new implant for both non-responders. They’ll reenter the trial at Phase 2 to confirm it’s safe.’

  Another non-responder? It has to be Blaze.

  She checks the clock. ‘Let’s just get on with this check-up.’

  Alex shakes his head. He sticks his hand into his pocket. ‘I need a cigarette first.’

  ‘You’re not meant to –’

  ‘What, you’re going to tell on me?’

  The curly haired girl doesn’t seem to be listening to Alex’s scoffing. If she is, she isn’t responding. She just opens up one of my eyelids with a thumb, shines a light into my eye and makes a note of what she sees.

  ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses,’ Alex says. ‘Heard that?’ ‘Everyone’s heard that,’ the girl snaps.

  ‘Lainie Shepherd was just the first one to use it as a marketing idea.’

  The girl drops her little light with a clatter. ‘Maybe she’s one of the few people who knows the whole quote.’

  She studies Alex, kind of challenging him to tell her what it is. When he doesn’t, she gives this long, laboured sigh, like the whole thing is just so simple she can’t believe Alex doesn’t know.

  ‘Marx also said, “religion is the heart of a heartless world”. Believing gives people something to hope for, even he could see that.’

  ‘That’s Lainie,’ says Alex. ‘Sprinkling her magical hope dust wherever she goes.’

  31

  THIS TIME WHEN I wake, my eyes open almost the entire way. The blue room is a whole lot less swimmy. I’d even say I felt more like me, if I knew exactly who me was. I mean, am I Wren,Viva or someone in-between?

  Did Dot create me? If she didn’t, how did I get here? Wherever here is.

  Then my door opens. Someone’s coming into my room.

  Blaze? I imagine he’s found me somehow. Then he knows where we are and how to get out.

  But instead of Blaze, there’s a man standing in the doorway with his hands on a kind of wheeled chair. He’s all dressed in blue, just like Alex and that girl were, with the same rectangle on a cord around his neck. But this guy has hair on his chin, covered by a sort of puffy, gauzy mesh.

  The prenormal thing – the weird thing – is that there’s absolutely no hair on his head.

  ‘I know,’ he says, catching me gawking. ‘I’m a mess in this get-up. Health regs. Can’t contaminate our participants with a stray beard hair.’

  He pats the seat of the chair, ‘Ready for a little ride?’

  I prop myself up on my elbow. Could I run for it? Vault out of bed, past the man and away down that bright, white corridor with its flashing screens? If I’m still here, then Blaze must be around somewhere too. And if I can find him, then maybe we can go get Dennis. If it isn’t too late.

  The man’s hulking rounded shape takes up almost the entire doorway. The more I think about escaping, the more he seems to expand, blocking the exit.

  ‘Okay there,Viva?’

  I’m mute.

  ‘You’re going to the executive wing.’

  He hoists me off my bed and into the chair. ‘God herself wants to see you.’

  The man pushes me out of the blue room and into the long, straight corridor. The entire way, my head moves to each door we pass.

  Is Blaze behind that door?

  This one?

  I can’t ask because the man just keeps on talking. His name is Jordy, he says, and he’s an orderly. At least, I think that’s what he says, because the whole time we’re walking, the screens all along the corridor are blaring at me too. The effect is overwhelming but I find myself listening to the voice from the screens.

  Half of all respondents agree: shame and suffering are yesterday’s news!

  There are pictures on the screens. Two teenage boys holding hands. A girl slicing at her arms with a small knife.

  Announcing a sexy new player set to shake things up. Grace – a fun, convenient and modern way to fill that aching spiritual void!

  Jordy keeps pushing but slower. He’s still talking about something called a wart, which he just had frozen from his toe, but it’s almost like he doesn’t expect me to listen. On the walls, the screens show the newfruit grove.

  Grace is all natural. It’s extracted from a superfruit called newfruit developed exclusively by the Shepherd Corporation, then concentrated many thousands of times.

  A smiling girl holds a tiny object between her thumb and forefinger. She turns and looks at it with delighted surprise.

  The Grace formula enters the bloodstream via a discrete implant in the neck. It targets the frontal lobe to create a powerful belief in a brand new divine creator. It’s called ‘Delusion Onset Therapy’.

  I see words on the screen. DELUSION ONSET THERAPY. Then most of the words disappear, leaving just three letters.

  DOT.

  I guess I make a kind of gurgling noise, because Jordy says, ‘Right down there?’

  I shake my head from side to side. ‘Stop,’ I manage to croak.

  And Jordy does. He parks me near a screen. I’m staring at it so hard my eyes practically drill holes in it.

  DOT is the result of countless hours of consumer testing. A seamless blend of ethnicities, DOT is designed for maximum appeal to today’s global consumer. DOT is the deity troubled folk will love to love!

  Now the smiling girl appears on the screen dressed in the kind of sungarb I recognise, bright purple silk with a silver trim. Her long hair swings down her back so her neck’s all covered up.

  One hundred eager volunteers are going to prove it. They’ll live for a year in Shepherd’s luxurious testing facility, modelled on the original Garden of Eden but brought into the twenty-first century with a lagoon-style swimming pool, declawed exotic animals, five-star accommodation, organic food and inspirational music.

  The girl walks through a grove of trees blazing with multicoloured blossoms. She pauses, picks a single, perfect silver fruit and slips it into a picking bag.

  Throughout the trial, simple, enjoyable tasks will give volunteers purpose. Otherwise, our lucky one hundred are free to enjoy themselves exactly as they please.

  A guy walks into the picture. He and the girl join hands and wriggle off their sungarb.

  Our volunteers will experience none of the usual prohibitions on natural human desires. No shame or sin or fear. We’ve even developed a whole new vocabulary, removing all negativity. Volunteers won’t endure darkness; they’ll revel in the prelight! And they’ll never think of themselves as stupid, sick or miserable. Instead, they’ll never feel presmart, prehealthy or prehappy – thanks to Dot! Plus, volunteers won’t worry about physical attractiveness. Nudity is celebrated as the wonderful, natural state that it is. All bodies are beautiful according to the Books of Dot, our extensively focus-grouped manual for believers.

  The couple disappears and the rectangle changes to show a perfect cloudless sky.

  In the unlikely event of a death during the trial, volunteers will pass away peacefully, believing totally in a blissful place beyond the trees, where life continues eternally.

  A string of flashing words appear on the screen.

  Grace truly is a total belief solution! The formula will soon be available nationwide. And while teens are the core target, the formula also works on adults and the elderly! In months to come, stand by for a new product in the Grace range, specifically designed for infants …

  Jordy’s voice snaps me back. ‘Moments away,’ he’s saying. He starts pushing again. ‘Can’t watch corporate propaganda all day,’ he explains. ‘God
hates to be kept waiting.’

  We reach a thick set of doors. Jordy waves a card at them and they open. He wheels me through and the doors close soundlessly.

  Beyond the doors, there’s another door. And for a moment, me and Jordy are alone in this small, airless space. Now’s the time to ask him. Ask him if everything on the screens is true. Ask him if he knows where Blaze is and what happened to Dennis.

  But there’s so much I don’t know, I have trouble figuring out where to start. And before I can even open my mouth, the second door opens and a girl appears and ushers us through.

  She murmurs into a tiny black thing clipped over her ear so it hovers just in front of her mouth. She nods at Jordy but apparently can’t be bothered smiling.

  The place beyond the doors is still and plush. There’s thick, pale stuff on the floor.

  Carpet. And instead of being glaring white, like the corridor, the walls here are sky blue with a pattern of clouds. I don’t notice straightaway, because it’s so soft, but there’s music playing too. Soothing, gentle, floaty sounds.

  The little bit of fight inside me drains away, leaving behind a brand new feeling. Awe, I guess you’d call it.

  ‘Special delivery,’ says Jordy to the sour-faced girl.

  Before vanishing back through the doors he tells me, ‘I’ll love you and leave you. Good luck,Viva.’

  ‘Ms Shepherd is waiting for you,’ the girl tells me.

  She takes the handles of the chair, the same ones Jordy was holding, not really wanting to touch them, by the looks of it. She steers me through a billowing gauze curtain. Beyond that is a huge pale curved room with a woman at the other end, sitting on a golden, saucer-shaped chair.

  I’m too busy staring at the woman in front of me, all alone in this strange curved space, to notice the girl disappearing.

  Have I seen this woman before? Somehow I can see the two of us together, in a place as bright and white as the corridor I’ve just come from.

  Her hands are stacked neatly in her lap. She lifts one and leans forward, holding it out to me. Thanks to Dennis, I know what to do.

  I grasp her hand, the cool, soft skin, and pump it up and down.

  ‘Lainie Shepherd,’ the woman says.

  She angles her face forward and down. She smiles and I see an image, a flash of those lips forming a bunch of words.

  You look worn out … no wonder, with everything you’ve been through … I have an idea … a trial … recruiting volunteers now … no, no, absolutely free … I’ll send the literature to your device … talk it over with your mother …

  Lainie Shepherd’s sungarb is the opposite of any I can remember ever seeing. It seems soft like silk but it’s thicker, and black as the centre of Fern’s or Gil’s eyes. It comes right up her neck then rolls over itself again.

  Instead of loose and billowy, Lainie Shepherd’s sungarb is fitted close to her. Over the top, Lainie Shepherd’s wearing some type of shiny garland.

  Necklace.

  It has a silver chain and from the very middle point there’s a sparkling hook with a long handle. The hook itself is silver but the very tip is studded with a fat blue stone, glittering with different coloured lights. The way those chips of light flicker and dance, I can’t stop looking at them.

  ‘It’s a blue diamond. Very rare,’ she says when she catches what I’m staring at. ‘This particular cut is known as Fancy Vivid Blue.’

  She picks up the hook and turns it over.

  ‘Or do you already know that? The technicians couldn’t tell me how much information had broken through the delusion. The drug was intended to last the entire length of the trial! You non-responders were the exception. You and Luke.’

  She flips the hook again, throwing rainbow speckles all over my chair.

  ‘In case you don’t recognise it, this is a shepherd’s crook. They’re not usually diamond-set. This one was a little present to myself to mark Phase 1 of the trial.’

  There’s a slithering sound as Lainie Shepherd uncrosses then recrosses her legs. Her legs aren’t a normal skin colour. They’re tinted the same dark shade as her sungarb. That would be because of her stockings, I realise.

  Lainie touches a fingertip to her shoulder. She picks at the fabric, trying to remove a spot of something that isn’t even there. She smoothes her already smooth hair, blunt-cut to her chin and glossy as newfruit.

  ‘That might give you some idea of how important Grace is to this company. You and the other clinical trial participants are part of the greatest innovation in the treatment of depression and anxiety ever to go to market. This therapy is going to help millions of people just like you. Billions, potentially. Spiritual belief is one of the best predictors of a fulfilled and happy life, did you know that? Only, our core target audience is just a little bit too savvy for any of the existing products.’

  On the chair beside Lainie there’s a small, round table. On top of that, a bowl of newfruit, which accounts for the honey-vanilla smell that fills the room.

  ‘It’s difficult to believe something so small could be so powerful, isn’t it?’

  She takes a newfruit from the bowl, handling it as carefully as any of Dot’s creations would, examining every one of its little silver freckles.

  ‘Unfortunately, in your case, not powerful enough.’

  Lainie smiles. ‘Thanks to our genes we all metabolise drugs differently. Grace turned out to be less effective for you.’

  She pauses.

  ‘Or, if you like, you were better at fighting it off. Information from your past broke through the delusion when it should have been totally suppressed. Just bits and pieces, I’m assured, but enough to create doubt and confusion.’

  She tips her head to one side and smiles again. ‘It must have been very difficult for you.’

  Lainie gets up. Instead of windows, she has gigantic curved screens fixed to the walls, stretching all the way from the ceiling to the floor. Lainie waves a hand in front of them and at once I see the old, familiar lawn. Even though I know I’m not there, it’s like I’m looking across the rocky plain at the top of the escarpment and beyond that, into creation itself.

  ‘You must miss it. You were happy there. At the beginning of the trial, at least.’

  Lainie waves her hand again. Now the screens divide into thousands of smaller squares. Inside each one is a little Wren, dancing, swimming, laughing, hooking up. Everything I ever said or did in the garden is playing back in front of me.

  ‘The butterfly drones capture footage twenty-four hours a day,’ says Lainie. ‘The Books are quite accurate when they say Dot’s always watching. There’s a complete library of footage of all trial participants.’

  When Lainie waves her hand again, I see she’s right. There are pictures of the gazebo and the lagoon. People horse-riding and sleeping in their huts. And as well as all the ordinary, everyday stuff, there’s me supporting Dennis on our first trip from the lagoon to the empty hut.

  There’s Gil smashing up hut after hut. Gil and his cool fingers all over Fern. Gil, Dennis and the coconut knife. All of it, captured.

  I utter my first words since getting here.

  ‘You knew Dennis was there the whole time?’ It comes out in a whisper.

  I’m still trying to catch up with what this Lainie Shepherd is telling me, with everything I saw on the screens. I’m still trying to understand how it could be true.

  The blue diamond at Lainie’s chest sparkles. Fancy Vivid Blue.

  A thought occurs to me.

  ‘You sent Dennis?’

  ‘Not Dennis in particular. I simply seeded small amounts of information on several forums. It was Dennis whose interest I piqued.’

  Lainie is calm. She sits perfectly still in her golden chair.

  ‘The footage indicated you and Luke were fighting off the drug. That’s certainly how it looked. But we had to be sure.

  ‘I could hardly interrupt a multi-billion dollar clinical trial and just walk up and ask you, could I?’
/>   ‘So you watched while Gil …?’

  ‘Don’t be upset about Dennis. We believe he is fine, although he wasn’t on-site when we searched.’

  ‘He was bleeding. He wasn’t moving!’

  ‘My actions seem wrong to you.’

  I think of Gil and me, of Gil and Fern. I think of twisting and clawing my skin until it bled. The time I almost jumped from the escarpment to make everything stop.

  My head fills up with newly remembered words to describe Lainie’s actions.

  Hideous. Revolting. Sick.

  ‘This is overwhelming for you,’ Lainie says. ‘But you need to trust me. I created you, or Wren at least. Your happiness is my greatest preoccupation.’ She gives a tinkling three-note laugh.

  ‘Even if it doesn’t seem that way to you right now.’ A billion questions pop into my head. Arguments might be a better word.

  What about kindness? Dot’s supposed to be kind to all her creations. What happened to Fern and Dennis? None of it was kind.

  But Lainie Shepherd’s so smooth and cool and perfect it’s impossible to ask.

  Lainie’s on her feet now.

  ‘Try not to let little inconsistencies bother you. Accept Dot’s comfort and don’t upset yourself asking why things are as they are. There are reasons for everything, but they’re for me to know. Everything’s wonderful, truly. You’ll see that. Have faith in me.’

  In the room, something chimes.

  ‘Hear that? The newfruit harvest is in,’ Lainie says. ‘We’re making more implants for Phase 2 of our trial. All thanks to the efforts of our wonderful Phase 1 volunteers!’

  Lainie walks towards me. She perches on the arm of my chair and puts a hand on top of my head. She gives it three quick pats before saying, ‘I have some really wonderful news.’

  She waits for me to say something like What? or Tell me! but I keep quiet and look at the plush floor.

  So Lainie goes on, ‘I’d like to show you something before I tell you what it is.’

  She waves a hand at her screens and brings up image after image of all creation. The huts, the lagoon, the gazebo. Only this time, everything’s deserted, empty. Everyone has gone.