‘They train us to believe what they want us to believe. We believe what they do and then work for them, giving up our very selves without ever realizing it.’
‘No, of course we don’t-’ The boy of green stood up and shook his head, as if to banish a cloying thought.
‘Weren’t you nominated for the Vonstryk award last week?’
‘Well, yes, but-’
‘It was for that commercial you worked on, wasn’t it? You advised on music, colours, set, everything.’
‘It achieved a ninety-nine percent success rate.’ A tone of defensiveness was creeping in now.
‘Exactly!’
On every floor, in every room of the Institute, would-be Thought-Makers were talking amongst themselves. They said things they had never before let into their world of knowing. Although retaining some of their powers (those that the Anonym found useful), none of them had been left with the vision to see the Institute itself for what it was – a prison of their own making. Their thoughts, souls, colours had been tamed with their consent. That consent was unconscious, unspoken, but present in a deep way.
Although the students were talking in a room far away from Mariella, she heard them all the same. Their words guided her to the memory of the days following those first tests. Days of prodding and pulling. She had found it fascinating that people would go to such lengths to create a world of illusions. They worked so hard to create specificities, taking the colours that were everywhere and locking them into hard-edged shapes. It had been discovered that Mariella was a Seer, a Thought-Maker in the making. Because she had grown up outside the system, a highly unusual upbringing, she was considered by some to be dangerous. She had never been Educated, never been exposed to the Rules. Would she absorb them as unquestioningly as the others? Foundation or reason never asked for, or needed? Did she know enough of fear? Without fear, all the persuasions and suggestions of the Anonym fell to pieces.
One week, then another passed by. In her roost high above the city, Sophie felt her reserves crumbling. Despite the years she had spent at her home in the trees, her return to this world in the city ground her like maize in the mortar. She had run away, and been dragged back. The measure of her courage had been spent.
But now she could not indulge in the comfort of ignorance. The sterility and emptiness of the distractions suggested by the Anonym, that which kept the masses content and quiet, sucked her dry of all feeling.
She went to see Mariella for their first monthly visit. They walked together in the grounds. Sophie walked any which way. Eventually Mariella took her by the hand and settled them on one of the neat grass squares.
‘Things are a little different here than I thought…’ Mariella began. She looked to her mother, wanting her reaction to draw her words outwards, to soothe the tumult of impressions she had made. For the first time in her life she was unsure of how she felt. But Sophie’s eyes were unseeing. She looked past Mariella, back at the smooth white building.
‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ she said, without turning to look up at the sun.
At once, Mariella’s confusion was replaced by sadness. Sophie’s blue cloud had gone. All that was left was a thin grey line hugging her form. It was the grey of emptiness. Wherever her mother had gone, Mariella knew she would not be coming back.
Mariella remained immune to her training. In the beginning, her centredness allowed her to seem pliable. No one noticed their words slipping around her like water passing a rock in a stream. Just as she had stepped back from the floating log that winked, and walked quietly past sleeping creatures, she drew inwards, away from their Rules, away from their fear.
As the Trainers began to notice her becoming less responsive to Activities, they called in the doctors. The usual chemical cocktails were stepped up. When they had no effect, their strength was increased. They seemed to make Mariella worse. She did not act out with anger or frustration, which were emotions the Anonym knew and knew how to use. It seemed to the Doctors that she became stupider, seeing less of what was around her. Her eyes became so deep and dark they became tunnels to her soul, tunnels that everyone else skirted cautiously, afraid of being drawn in.
These changes in Mariella made her colours swell and intensify. As her passivity increased, the Doctors locked her away in the white room, still fooling themselves with a semblance of control.
Isolated as she was, it was easier for the truth of things to slip from the grasp of the Anonym’s favoured Regulators. They spent so much time twisting and turning the realities of the people they controlled, they did not have the humility or the awareness to See when someone so much more powerful than themselves began to change the very nature of things. Mariella’s sterile confinement meant that the Regulators’ usual watchdogs – the Thought-Makers – did not see her colours growing. Despite the confluence of talent in that facility for Seeing, their Training had deadened many of their skills. They could not identify Mariella’s colours seeping through the building. Instead they let thoughts they never knew existed bubble to the surface. They held urgent whispered conversations about the truth of things. And the ruses of the Anonym affected them less and less.
Although they knew it not, already Mariella had begun to change them. Did she do it knowingly? Did she know her own power? Was she playing with them, as the Doctors did? The Regulators, the Anonym? Was she the same?
Outside the white room, the very bricks of the Institute began to hum.
Chapter 17
Wellington pedalled as hard as he could through the winding artery of the road, until it straightened out into the empty flat expanse he liked so well. He listened to his tires whipping across the tar. He listened to the Queen of Hearts rattling in his wheels. By the time he arrived at the station, the world around was still soaked in the first rays of the sun. Fresh and dripping, it was ready for the change Wellington could not yet see.
Wellington put away his bicycle and fetched his broom. He whistled softly as he moved, confident that his music would play somehow, and melt its way into the other sounds. Although he took just as much care – wiping, sweeping and scrubbing as he always did – a realisation as yet undawned tugged at the edges of his being. Every so often he stopped and looked around. He could see nothing amiss; he could see no one watching. He shrugged lightly and continued with his work.
It was only when he finished his chores and stepped outside with bread in hand that he realised what had been nudging at his consciousness. It was silence.
There had been no chirping or chattering to greet his arrival. There had been no pattering or rustling as small feathered bodies awaited their breakfast. The cool sun-speckled morning was quiet, and empty.
He stepped forward and rubbed the bread between his fingers, hoping to coax the birds from wherever they had gone. He could not imagine them not being here, with him. He came to the last of the bread and stepped back. He crouched down, the last of the crust clenched beneath his fingers.
Suddenly he breathed in, in a sharp and ragged movement that pained his chest and throat.
Glossy black wings glided down against some invisible force and settled some metres from him. Little eyes like molten black rock watched him. It took a few bird-paces forward. Wellington stared and stared at his friend. His heart was beating wildly. Slowly he stretched out his hand, and uncurled his fingers from the morsel inside.
The myna stared back at him. Eventually it unfolded its wings and flapped gently to cross the distance to perch on Wellington’s thumb. It ignored the offering and instead pointed its yellow and black face at Wellington’s. He looked hard for meaning, but what could one decipher from a bird’s expression? What expression was there without human eyes, a human mouth? Wellington found no answer. Some time passed but Wellington had lost track of such things.
I want to understand. The thought burst in his head with the pop of a ruptured bubble. The sound covered any possible reply. His friend stretched out his wings and lifted himself into the sky. Wellington rose too, and
stopped at his full height, his hands dropping dully on either side of him. He felt inexplicably and dreadfully sad. He stood and watched the myna fly towards the heart of the city. He stood and watched until there was nothing more to be seen in the endless, opaque sky.
Sophie was sitting in the dark. High above the city, in her sparkling angular apartment, she sat without any hope of light. Burning as the sun that was not there, were lights of other buildings, blinking of life outside. But she did not see them. She was alone and quiet. Despair was eating her up from inside. If Mariella could have seen her now, she would have struggled to make out Sophie’s colours at all. But Mariella was not there. Sophie had not been able to save her. She was not even able to save herself.
Here she sat, in the dark. She had not escaped by running away. She had not escaped by trying to change who she was. Now, this time, in this darkness, she had nothing left.
Sophie gave up – her soul, her fight to save it, her sanity – and she felt darkness invade every crevice inside. She watched it move in. She felt its form, cottony and black. She smelled its smell, dank and sweet. Little black hands were creeping all over her skin, claiming her, and she let them. A part of her welcomed their weight. It was real and sharp in a world that had become a confusing maze of shadow and soft walls. She had done all she could and it had not been enough. If this was the end, she would receive it with warmth. She would receive it, for the first time, with freedom.
Chapter 18
Even within the cold white walls, the sun still fell just so. Mariella still breathed.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Her belly swelled beneath the bedclothes, drawing life into the centre of her being. And released out again.
‘Do you hear that?’
The doctor walking slightly in front stopped and turned. The woman behind him stopped too. ‘What is it?’ she asked irritably. The doctor with her had been acting unusually lately. It was starting to get on her nerves. ‘What is it?’ she asked again of the vacant look filling the man’s eyes.
‘There’s a noise. It’s like the ocean…or…or something breathing.’
The woman pulled her lips in a tight frown. ‘Come on, we have patients to see.’
As Mariella’s presence in The Institute endured, the shackles of the Thought-Makers’ conditioning fell away, and they saw things they could never have imagined.
One of these was the boy with the green cloud. His name was Thornton. Although he had resisted his awakening at first, he soon came upon an idea. All the things he had begun to see, and hear, and feel through other ways of knowing, had shown him a door. He was sensitive enough to know that this door would take him all kinds of places, places where he could be more than he had ever been. Even a few tentative steps in its direction brushed away the cobwebs of the years, allowing parts of the truth to shine through. But this glimpse of a new vision terrified him. All that he had learned stood up and baulked. But he could not unSee it.
But if he showed others this door, he would not have to go alone. He would help them through it, and through doing so maybe squeeze in himself.
At the arrival of this idea all his Training rushed to its aid. It was good and right to work for the good of all, was it not? Was it not the way of things to help others before oneself? The desire to show others the door and help them through it blossomed in urgency. Yes, he would help them, he must.
He stood up decisively from where he had nestled himself in the corner of his room. He walked away from this space the way he liked to walk – with purpose. He would free them.
Down in the Socialisation Room, Thought-Makers sat in tight groups, talking quietly. Unease was in the air. Those with animals kept them close. They were now living within reach of Mariella’s colours, although they did not know it. The world was changing and they felt afraid.
Some were thrilled by the atmosphere of terror, and the cracks in the boundaries of their world. Near the middle of the room a young woman talked a little louder than those around her. Her auburn hair had frizzed out, and her eyes were both bright and glazed at the same time. Her eagle had spent most of its life perched on her wrist, missing only the falconer’s glove and tether. Now it dipped and wheeled between the heads of other Thought-Makers. Her hands swooped excitedly as she talked.
Others had no experience with this kind of fear. By the window a man stood facing out. His hair had been carefully combed back, revealing the baldness that was claiming his head. A shimmering dassie was balanced on his one arm, and he stroked it absentmindedly with his other hand. Secret tears dripped into its fur while he kept his back to the room.
Everyone’s colours were changing from one hue to another, flickering like sunlight dancing through a pool. No matter what or how they were, all the colours were growing, blending into those beside them. The room throbbed with so much colour it was hard to breathe without taking in mouthfuls of tinted air. Thoughts, feelings, intentions, beings. Their reach and their influence were growing faster than anyone had ever seen. And Thought-Makers were unlike those that walked the streets of the city, although they were part of the change too. What those outside could only feel, the Thought-Makers could actually See, and unprepared for such knowledge as they were, they were terrified.
The door of the Socialisation Room banged open, and everyone turned to see Thornton stride through. He did not hesitate but walked straight to a counter flanked by small stools and climbed on top of one.
‘Attention, everyone.’ His voice had a calm and measured tone that ensured him the floor. ‘What I had to say affects us all. We have all been lied to. We have all been oppressed. Anonymous powers have imprisoned us here, and what they have succeeded in hiding from us all this time, is that we are more powerful that they are. Without us and our tacit consent to be fooled, they have nothing. Those who want to seek the truth, and discard the lies we have been fed since birth, follow me.’
Thornton’s back was straight and proud as he spoke, his hands drawing his words after his voice. His colours pulsed green and brave. Who could deny such confidence? The Thought-Makers, crouched in uncertainty, the very foundations of their world cracking beneath their feet, assented to his leadership without murmur. One by one they rose from their places at the tables, on the couches, and gathered around his stool. Others came from elsewhere in the building. Soon the room was so thronged with people it was no longer possible to turn around. Thornton stepped down and lead them towards the great front door, through which they all had come, as malleable children.
Doctors, Trainers and other of their keepers tried to stop them as they walked en masse through the corridors. Thornton merely put up his hand, palm flat. The others, following his lead, felt refusal grow around them. The staff of the Institute, awed by their power, stood back with their hands by their sides. They could do nothing.
Thornton led them but a few steps from the great door. The Thought-Makers flowed slowly but steadily from the Institute and pooled on the neat patches of lawn hemming its perimeters. When they were all gathered, Thornton’s clear voice rang out once again.
‘We will not leave the camp of the Enemy, for he must see us and know our power. We will not run away. We will show them the Truth. Our Truth. And with such knowledge, we will be mighty.’
Chapter 19
Wellington was dreaming. He saw himself in a narrow passage, the walls made of dense weathered stone. There were wide cracks where the rough-hewn rock came together. Dust had gathered there. The place seemed ancient, as if it had always been. The floor sloped in front of him, becoming an uneven staircase. He began to climb.
His feet were bare and the stones felt warm beneath them, as if they had been standing sentinel in the sun. But the passage had no windows. It was dim, like a forgotten place.
He moved up and up, his sense of urgency growing with each step. There was something waiting for him up there. He did not know what it was but it was something marvellous. It was something more wonderful than anything he had
ever experienced before. It was his destiny, or his spirit, and it was there at the top of the stairs. His feet slapped against the stones as he climbed faster and faster – he was running now. His breath grew quicker and shallower, until it crashed in his ears like waves on a beach.
And then he was there. There was nowhere further to climb. In front of him was a solid oak door. The planks had the pattern of fingers pressed into them and drawn down; the marks of decades passing. In the middle of the door was a heavy brass ring. He lifted it and let it fall. The dull thud reverberated through the wood and shook the shadowy air. Even his own bones trembled with its weight.
He did it once more, and then again. But no-one was there. He was alone in this place. He placed his open palms against the door and ran them over every part he could reach. He was feverish now. He must get inside. Nothing had ever been so important.
Eventually he found it, his thumb slipping in through the space. A large black keyhole. He turned quickly, casting around for the key. He felt his clothes, rubbed his pockets. Nothing.
His memory creaked. He knew about this key. It was his. Who took it from him? Did he lose it?
Still staring at the door, he stepped backward until his back touched the adjoining wall. The stones felt cold now. He sank down, his hands coming to his face as he fell. He remembered. The key had been his. And he had given it away. He had not understood it or its purpose and there had been others who had been more intent on it than he. Others had wanted it; they had cried for it; had shouted for it. And so although it was his alone he gave it to them.
He felt sick, his body screaming with the pain of his soul. He had given away the most valuable thing he had possessed and without a thought. It had not been the treasure they had wanted. They had wanted only to stop him having it. He had escaped the Rules; he had escaped everything. But he had sought nothing. He was outside, and there was no way in.
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