Special

by Georgia Blain

  ‘Not literally, but there are people who represent others when it comes to deciding. It’s not perfect but it’s better than anything else I’ve known.’

  I took lunch in to Lark each day. She was still recovering in the care unit, and although she was getting better, I knew she still wasn’t herself. She had her music with her, and as she regained her strength, I would arrive to find her practising her scales.

  ‘My voice is weaker,’ she told me. ‘I can’t seem to get it back.’

  ‘You will,’ I replied.

  She looked at me a little sadly. ‘I may not,’ she said. ‘I’m not healthy like you. I never have been.’

  She looked frail, but I always assured her she was as hardy as I was.

  ‘You don’t miss it, do you?’ I asked her. ‘Halston and all those music teachers?’

  I watched as she considered my question. ‘I’m not so sure. I found the intensity of it all too much. The competing in eisteddfods, the pressure to be the best – I wasn’t as cut out for it as you.’ She smiled at me then. ‘I love singing, but it’s a love that I can keep with me wherever I am.’

  ‘Even if you don’t get the opportunities for others to enjoy it?’

  ‘They don’t have to be grand opportunities,’ she said. ‘I enjoy singing to the few people I know – possibly even more than a large audience. I think my favourite times were those nights in Miss Margaret’s room when we would have small concerts. I liked that. I liked hearing the others as well. It felt as if I was doing what I was meant to do. Whereas competing …’ She shuddered. ‘It wasn’t me.’

  I asked Lark if she would sing to me now, and she shook her head. ‘I don’t mind if your voice is weak,’ I said.

  She’d been practising a piece she’d written just before she came here. In the quietness of that room, she began to sing the chorus, a slight crack in her voice, a huskiness that hadn’t been there before, but that only lent it a little more beauty.

  ‘Do you remember when we all arrived at Halston?’ she asked me.

  I nodded.

  ‘You always seemed so confident, so sure of your place there – just as much as the girls who’d paid for their designs. I never felt that.’

  ‘But you are so talented,’ I told her.

  She smiled again. ‘Maybe I just didn’t want that life. I don’t know. I missed my family terribly. Miss Margaret used to let me communicate with them from her room. I would sneak in there when you were asleep. She would check that Ivy was asleep and then she’d set up a line through the sieves. It was hard having to pretend that I was happier than I was. This was the life my parents wanted for me. And the truth was, I wasn’t so sure if I wanted it for myself.’

  ‘I never knew.’ I felt ashamed, just as I had when Ivy had told me about Wren running away. Lark was my friend, and I was meant to be able to read people with a superior skill. Ivy had been more aware than I had ever been.

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want anyone to know.’

  I told her about Wren’s attempts to escape.

  Lark wasn’t surprised. ‘Wren knew she was good but not good enough. She hadn’t measured up. To have to be a leader when you don’t feel you have it in you – it would be awful.’

  ‘Did she talk to you?’

  Lark nodded. ‘At first, when we were younger, and then she hid it. That’s what you learn to do there – to hide your fear of failing.’ She looked across at me. ‘You were one of the rare lucky ones. I don’t think you were ever afraid. I don’t think you saw yourself as having failings.’

  ‘But I did,’ I said. ‘More than you could imagine.’

  She squeezed my hand. ‘They’re trying to get me well enough to get out of here safely. I’m taking so much medication.’ She pointed to the medray feeding directly into her. ‘I get so tired.’

  Miss Margaret was standing at the door. She told Lark to lie down again, smoothing her pillows and sheets before moving her bed into the warmth. ‘Ideally, I’d like to send you off with the next convoy – perhaps tomorrow or the day after, but I’m not sure if you’re up to it.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, relieved we wouldn’t be separated.

  ‘I need to get you to Rahim – the man we were going to talk to before we were scanned. He’s some distance from here in a well-established community. There are a few of us going there. Some have left already.’

  ‘Marcus?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘He’s going elsewhere with Hamish, on one of the last convoys.’ Evacuation plans had been in place for some years, she explained. Communities like this were always prepared to pack up and leave. It was essential to their survival. ‘Rahim is waiting for us.’

  I stood up. ‘What if I’d prefer to go with Marcus? Don’t I get any kind of say?’

  ‘Sadly, no.’ She didn’t look at me as she spoke, her words a quick dismissal of my protest.

  ‘Who the hell is Rahim?’

  The sharpness in my voice made Lark sit up again. She was chewing on her lip nervously.

  Miss Margaret pulled out a chair, telling me to do the same. ‘He was one of the leaders in BioPerfect’s design team. He was renowned for his brilliance and innovation. People referred to him as an artist.’

  ‘So?’ I said.

  She looked at me. ‘Like everyone here, he’s a questioner. A subversive.’

  Not like me, I wanted to tell her.

  ‘He came to the school once a year to talk to the teachers and carers. It was part of the company marketing but it was also part of our career development. He told us about their latest designs, the direction they’d taken, with the aim of helping us to make sure that each girl reached her full potential.

  ‘BioPerfect had to keep a close eye on their designs. They worked with the schools to gather data, and often the data wasn’t what they’d expected. Within each design, BioPerfect might be testing out a new genetic combination. We would be told to look for marked leadership, for example, or marked flexibility in decision-making. So, you might be sold a musical aptitude but within that you may also have an aptitude for compassion or empathy – and this was the area that BioPerfect was interested in monitoring.

  ‘People always think it’s just Lotto Girls and Boys that are used to try out new designs. But it isn’t – all children are an experiment of sorts. Yet there’s no doubt that the Lotto children are used most blatantly to test particular combinations that might produce traits that aren’t desirable within themselves but may be useful in another design – stubbornness, for example, or emotional detachment.’

  I’d felt more and more uneasy as Miss Margaret went on. In what ways had we been used? Next to me, Lark was leaning forward, her breath rapid and shallow.

  ‘Carers such as myself did some of the monitoring, and so did your other teachers.’

  ‘What were they looking for in us?’ It was Lark who asked the question, not me. Her eyes were fixed on Miss Margaret and her cheeks were flushed.

  Miss Margaret took her hand. ‘I first talked to Rahim at Halston. I questioned him when he came to speak to us. More to the point, I questioned the ethics behind the testing and trials that were taking place, frequently without any of the participants’ knowledge. He always defended BioPerfect’s practices. Nothing was outside the bounds of safety, everything was within the precepts of acceptability. The work they did was important, he would tell me. It was essential to ensure that they could continue to refine their designs to a level that was truly exciting. He responded with the company line completely, never expressing any doubt at all.

  ‘You can imagine my surprise when I first encountered him on the sieves. He was the one who contacted me, putting feelers out through the deepest networks. At first I thought they were trying to entrap me, the idea of him being a subversive was so preposterous …

  ‘Rahim and a group of other designers had a special project they were working on and they needed the input of carers – one from Halston, one from Redgrove.
/>   ‘We both took a long time before we truly revealed ourselves. We needed to earn each other’s trust. Their plan was a dangerous one – far more radical than any tinkering they had done to date. It was to involve the next batch of Lotto Girls and Boys.’

  Outside, the last of the infirmary was being packed up. Medvials and rays had been wheeled away, beds had been collapsed and loaded onto autocarriers. There was only a small amount of equipment left. Most of the staff had gone, leaving this area of the compound close to deserted. The woman who was clearing the final items opened the door to a young man I hadn’t met. He was pale, his eyes blinking nervously as he tapped on the glass. Miss Margaret looked up, startled.

  ‘We’ve had word that evacuation needs to be speeded up.’ The young man looked across at Lark. ‘An autocarrier has been prepared with a portable medray. They want the three of you to go this afternoon.’

  ‘Now?’ I uttered, surprised at how anxious I felt at the prospect of leaving. I stood up, agitated. ‘I’m not ready.’

  He looked from me to Miss Margaret. ‘Everything is loaded on.’

  Miss Margaret put her hand on my arm. ‘We have to go. It will be all right.’ She turned to Lark, who was still sitting up, her gaze fixed on Miss Margaret.

  ‘Was it us?’ Lark’s voice was clear and sharp in the stillness. ‘Were we that special project?’

  Miss Margaret looked at us both and then looked away.

  ‘Tell me.’ Lark was standing now, unsteady on her feet, her gaze level with Miss Margaret’s, her eyes meeting hers with a flint I had never seen in her before.

  ‘Yes,’ Miss Margaret said. ‘You were.’

  When I wake, Chimo is not there. I’m in the hammock, swinging gently from side to side, one arm flung over the edge, the opposite leg also out, my foot touching the ground. I reach for him, expecting his warmth, but find only the frayed cloth.

  Around me, people are preparing breakfast, women are sweeping their small patch of courtyard, some are lighting fires, others are washing behind makeshift screens. A group of children are scrounging. I check that I still have my mobie. It’s folded up, strapped and locked on my wrist. I’ve seen how audacious they can be, once even witnessing a young boy trying to steal shoes from the feet of a sleeping woman. She woke, the flash of a knife glinting as she leant forward and grabbed his hair, great tufts of it left in her hand as he pulled away and ran.

  I sit up, the hammock rocking beneath me.

  A dog is sniffing around. I inch back, remembering how Miss Margaret had told me to avoid them. They are often diseased, she’d said. A bite could be fatal. Its hair is mangy, its tongue foaming, and when it glances up at me it curls its lip in a half-hearted snarl to reveal yellow teeth before slinking away.

  I need to line up for work.

  I stand slowly, my eyes still bleary from lack of sleep and the constant sting of dust in the air. I should wash but I know that finding an unoccupied and working waterflow at this time would be impossible, so I splash my face with the little that I keep in a bottle hooked onto my belt.

  ‘Always keep your water on you,’ Miss Margaret had told us both. ‘It is the most precious resource. Sleep with it close – one bottle for washing, one for drinking. Don’t waste the PureAqua as you used to do at Halston. Don’t waste a drop of it.’

  I wonder how Lark is surviving, where she is and what she’s doing. I pray they’ve come to get her because I doubt her strength would have held out for this long. She still hadn’t fully recovered when we were wiped and dumped. But if they came to get her, knowing she was weak, why haven’t they come for me? I shake my head, needing to rid myself of these thoughts.

  ‘You must keep yourself mentally strong,’ Miss Margaret had urged us. ‘That will be the most difficult task of all but possibly the most important. Don’t let doubt in – it will try to force its way through any chink you allow.’

  She was right. It is there in every still moment – doubt and fear stalking me, hand in hand.

  And then I see them – Chimo and Sala – under the scrappy shade of a saltbush. They are arguing. She is shouting at him, her hands raised in frustration. He backs away but she follows, arms now folded across her chest, voice fierce.

  ‘Listen to me.’

  These are the only words I catch, and she speaks them with such fury they carry across the compound.

  She opens her mouth to shout again but he has already gone. She hesitates for an instant and then follows, the anger in her small body visible in each muscle. ‘Chimo.’

  I slink down, trying to hide behind the swoop of the hammock. I’ll just go up to my room and get away from both of them, I think to myself, when I see Jiminy, crouched over their wok. He looks across at me and waves, beckoning me over. The tea he’s made smells sweet and spicy and the flatbread is warm and flaky.

  He holds up a plate and cup for me.

  ‘Don’t you want it?’ I ask.

  He tells me he’s already eaten.

  ‘Have I done something?’ I ask. ‘Is Sala jealous?’

  Jiminy is awkward at the best of times. He stutters and always speaks too quickly, nervously scratching at his skin. He has eczema, and there are red angry patches on his limbs and the backs of his hands. I’ve seen Sala rub cream into it for him, soothing him by singing, her voice deep and hypnotic. He is squatting by the fire, covering it with ash and moving his weight from one leg to the other. He doesn’t look at me.

  ‘Wh-wh-what do you m-m-mean?’ he asks, his eyes fixed on the ground.

  ‘Sala and Chimo.’ I shrug, sipping my tea, and as I do so I wonder whether he saw me watching them fight. Maybe it was why he called me over here with the offer of food to distract me. Trust no one, I remind myself.

  As he gathers their shared cooking gear together, I ask him if I can give him some data in return for the breakfast.

  ‘I have a little left,’ I say, ‘and I’ll have more after this morning’s shift.’

  He looks embarrassed, shaking his head. ‘Y-y-you’re one of us,’ he says. ‘W-w-we share.’

  I ask him if he’s always lived in this compound and he looks surprised by my question. This was where he was born, he says. His parents died when he was young. ‘S-s-sala looked after me.’

  ‘So she and Chimo were born here too?’ I remember Chimo’s story. I hadn’t known whether he was telling me the truth or just making up a tale, a fantasy as we lay together, words spinning around us both, playful, meaningless.

  Jiminy nods, a little too eagerly. Perhaps he is simply saying what he has been instructed to say.

  I’m tired and paranoid and it’s probably too late. Chimo knows enough to deliver me up to BioPerfect. What worse could they do to me, anyway? Wipe and dump me again with absolutely no data and no identity? Miss Margaret and Rahim would never be able to find me, but maybe they were never going to come.

  I sink down, exhausted.

  Jiminy reaches for my cup and washes it for me, his smile kind as he hands it back. ‘It’s not s-s-s-so b-b-bad here,’ he tells me. ‘W-we have f-f-food, water and f-f-friends.’

  I help him pack away the cooking gear, the pair of us carrying it to Chimo’s room. He punches in Chimo’s code and opens the door. I’m about to follow him in when he stops me, taking all the gear from me and quickly putting it inside the entrance as though there’s something he doesn’t want me to see. But, again, I’m probably just being paranoid.

  ‘So, she lives here with him?’ I ask. Sala’s clothes are draped across a rack and on the double mat on the floor, a place they must share when the monsoons come. Their few possessions are jumbled together on the floor, an intimate tangle. One of her boots lies under the window, laces undone, flung to the ground as she got into bed, I presume.

  Jiminy looks surprised I didn’t know.

  ‘Still?’ I ask.

  He nods, a flicker of confusion on his face.

  ‘So what’s he doing with me?’

  We were loaded onto the autocarrier that aftern
oon. Lark refused any offer of assistance, insisting she walk herself. I stayed right behind her, one hand on the small of her back, keeping her upright, letting her know it was all right, that at least we were still together.

  ‘And Ivy?’ Lark asked, barely able to look at Miss Margaret as she spoke.

  Miss Margaret shook her head. ‘She will be going to a different community.’ She let her palm rest for a moment on the side of Lark’s cheek. ‘I know you’re angry –’ The rest of her words were drowned out by the roar of the airstream.

  ‘So, she’s not coming to Rahim? Even though she’s one of us?’ This time I was the one who asked the question, shouting above the building noise, but not loud enough to be heard. Miss Margaret closed the door, indicating that she would be in the front compartment.

  The last time we’d been in an autocarrier Wren had died. Neither Lark nor I said anything, but it hung heavy between us, the medray beeping loudly.

  Lark looked across at me. Her eyes were dull, the black circles making them appear even larger than they were. ‘Tell me a story.’

  I remembered when she was young, when we were both young, sharing a room at Halston, the window open to the cool night air, soft and dark. Sometimes, when she couldn’t sleep, she would ask me to tell her a tale, and I would make up visions of our wonderful life; how we would live near each other on a BioPerfect compound, how she would be world-renowned for her beautiful voice and I would be creating images and text that would capture the splendour of the world; its beautiful, wild glory.

  I smiled as I remembered. How young we were.

  ‘Once there were two friends,’ I told her, squeezing her hand, ‘and their names were Fern and Lark. They had known each other for as long as either of them could remember, perhaps even before their memories were fully formed.

  ‘They grew up together, like sisters, sharing the same roof, the same meals, the same sleeping quarters. They lived like royalty, in rooms of mother-of-pearl, the softest green moss underfoot, beds of silk and duck down, and fountains of almond milk for them to bathe in.