by P. S. Lurie
I return to stand in front of the mirror and go to take a replacement pill. I stare at my reflection and feel disappointed that after months of being medicated I still look frail. Then I’m confronted by another snapshot of myself in the sea. I was thin in this image but there was something different about my face. I know I’ve never been past the Fence, and even if I had then obviously not since the Great Cull and the world flooded, but I can’t shake how strong and determined my face was. My mind is playing tricks on me and I only wish I knew what it was trying to convey.
I am about to swallow the pill when someone announces their presence at the door one more time. I put the pill on the side of the porcelain basin and answer the door, not because I want to but as a test to myself because if I can’t handle a single person how will I tolerate the crowds and the raucousness today? I’ve seen highlights of the announcements on the evening’s television news and the noise was deafening. It has taken a lot of courage to decide to go to the arena and I don’t want to back down.
I crease my eyebrows at the presence of the same woman as before. This time she looks worried.
“Selene.” It is not a question. She categorically knows who I am.
“How do you know my name?”
“Your mother is alive. You don’t remember, do you?”
I feel my legs begin to buckle. “My mother died years ago. I have no family, except my fiancée.”
Now the woman looks as confused as I do. “Can I come in?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“You need to understand. I’m risking my life by being here. I promised her.”
The woman takes a step towards me and I put my arms up in defence. She looks surprised that I thought she’d attack me. I want to close the door on her but none of this makes sense and I know I would feel better if I could clear up the confusion.
“What’s going on, little lady?” Nathaniel says to the woman, announcing his return. He’s sweaty from the gym, carrying a large flat bag I don’t recognise, and sounds irritated that he has arrived at this scene.
“Nothing,” I say before the woman can restate her allegation, unsure how to explain but aware that I don’t want this woman to ask any more questions in his presence.
“Wrong door,” the woman says, colluding with me. She glances at the number on the panelling. “I was looking for apartment seventy-six but I’m one floor out. Sorry to bother you.”
The woman walks away, taking with her an explanation and no way for me to contact her because I don’t know her name or where she came from.
Nathaniel slides past me, letting go of what just happened, then stops in the doorway and kisses me. I feel his breath on my neck as he leans into my ear. “I thought you’d be dressed by now. I need to shower and then how about we get ready together?” He licks my neck. “Plus, we have enough time for some fun in between.”
Theia
I raise my watch to the panel by the lobby entrance, wait to be told my status and walk out onto the street. I have nowhere to hide my sister so I carry her in broad daylight. Cameras will show that I am holding her in my arms and since I have no way of scanning her out I have to hope no one is monitoring that feed. If anyone checks they would see she doesn’t have an identification device but as she is wrapped in a blanket it’s not immediately obvious. I’m on the move so it’s unlikely to be a problem until I arrive at the hospital.
My destination is close: I have no privilege or money for a taxi, so it’s one stop on the train or a brief walk and even in the biting cold I opt for the latter, avoiding any unnecessary scanning in and out, because the fewer places I am listed as venturing the less interest I’ll drum up.
I walk fast and keep my head down. I don’t acknowledge the other Middlelanders who also haven’t been promoted. We barely talk as it is in the barracks and are even more careful in the open for fear of being overheard and deemed to be disloyal or ungrateful. Those two words are drilled into my head. The irony of mandatory gratitude and loyalty is lost on Kate and the other Upperlanders. I have to hope that the person I’m going to see shares my sentiment on loyalty.
Most people seem to be moving in the other direction, towards the arena. I can’t think too much about today’s special anniversary announcement. I’m struggling with Leda as well as trying to find out any information about Ronan without the imminent threat of being relocated to the Utopia coming into play. As an added complication, for those of us still in the barracks there’s not even the promise we’ll be allowed onto the ocean liner.
Finally, in front of me, the hospital glistens in the morning sun, with its glass panes constructed at slight angles all the way down. I scan in; fortunately, everyone is too busy to notice that I don’t hold Leda’s arm up to the panel.
I know that Melissa works on the seventh floor, and I’ve only seen her once at work. I brought Cassie here a few months ago to the paediatric ward when a fever ran high because Kate had a coffee morning she couldn’t get out of and asked me to ‘run the errand’. I’ve also picked up medication from the pharmacy near reception but, apart from the medical test a few days after I arrived and when I had my injection to fight the fever Leda now has, I don’t know my way around the hospital. A flash of my mother in her scrubs. I used to spend a lot of time in medical settings. My mother would have been an excellent addition to the Upperlands. Wasteful hatred removed a good doctor from their service.
I glance at the floor-plan and continue past the elevators, straight towards Accident and Emergency. My mother’s area of specialty, and where one day she expected me to end up.
Just not in these circumstances.
I am obviously out of place because around me the world moves fast. The havoc of people suffering brings back the reminder that in spite of the Upperlanders’ quality of life they are people after all, not immune to injuries and ill health.
Except now I remember that I am not out of place because Leda needs to be here. I count to three before I march forwards.
I know how A&E works, and locate the whiteboard. Of course, being the Upperlands, this is advanced: the board is digital and red letters swipe across in rows, labelling patients and the beds they are in, as well as the doctors in charge of their care. I find the name I want, but the instant I read the words I am reminded of last year and grip hold of Leda because I know this sensation and I don’t have time to find a chair to lose myself to the past.
Too late.
I’m in my bathroom, alone, and the busyness of the ward is the farthest thing from my mind’s eye. I hold a walkie-talkie and hear a voice...
My own. “She’s dead.”
But the voice that comes back through the speaker is not who I expect it to be but instead it is my mother’s. “You’re putting Leda in danger.”
“Are you alright?” The nurse’s question breaks the flashback and I am once more in the hospital.
“Yes thank you. Running an errand.”
“You’d better hurry up. You should be heading to the arena.” The nurse carries on with her duties and I have no way of knowing whether she was originally an Upperlander or if she has been promoted; the latter lot, originally Middlelanders, have a funny way of distancing themselves from us. I don’t blame them when it also means distancing themselves from all the hurdles they have encountered to be in this position. It’s what their families would have wanted, but for themselves or for the survivor, it’s impossible to know.
I glance at the clock and there are a few minutes left before eight o’clock. One hour until the announcement.
“Ready baby?” I look down at Leda and her skin looks translucent. She breathes so slowly I have to wait six seconds to see her stomach rise. She’s become heavy in my arms and I want to rush her back to the barracks but I’ve come too far to change my mind. I wish I’d found Melissa first and at least had some reassurance from her but I can’t risk my friend being in more trouble than she already could be.
I walk to the curtained-off bed,
the second farthest on the left, which the board tells me is where I should go to find him.
I slip through the gap in the curtain and see the man in the blue gown hovering over an unconscious body, with his back to me. The only thought I have is that this doctor is in the process of saving a life but to get here he had to take away many, many more.
He turns to me and recognises who I am instantly. His face changes from expectation that I am a nurse or another doctor to surprise that it is me.
“Theia?”
“Hello Doctor Jefferson.”
8 A.M. – 9 A.M.
Ruskin
I rip the sleeve off my shirt and bandage my father’s leg but the grubby linen tourniquet does little to stop the flow and it soon becomes a soaked red rag. My father writhes in agony but I start to stand up, clasping my ankles with my head between my knees and take some deep breaths. I stop trying to help him because how could I save him over my mother, and what am I then doing to only prolong his suffering? I’ve had a year to become accustomed to the idea that the Upperlanders had no difficulty making us choose who lives and dies so I don’t doubt that they are serious now.
My mother faces the men dead on and begins an impassioned plea. “What are you doing? Shoot us if that’s what you have planned. Show what little mercy you still have.”
“Don’t,” I say, without leaning up. “Not yet. Not while we have a chance.” Then I join my mother and put my arm around her. She buries her head into my shoulder and cries.
“What chance?” she whispers, broken-voiced.
I don’t know how to answer or which parent to tend to, or how to explain this unfathomable situation to myself. It is incredulous that for so many years I couldn’t think of anything worse than living our miserable lives in the Middlelands, waiting for the flood to come, then life became more grave when I was faced with the interminable pain of being imprisoned, which lasted a whole year, and now the Upperlanders have found something even more unimaginably cruel than anything that came before.
“How disappointing,” the man who shot my father says.
His words don’t make sense. For a hopeful moment I wonder if this is all a test and they didn’t intend to harm any of us as long as we all showed care towards one another, but that doesn’t make sense because why would the man injure my father? No, the man is dissatisfied because they want us to kill one another or at least choose who dies; if we are not going to play by their rules then no wonder he is disappointed.
“Give me the gun and I’ll kill them,” I say in return.
It’s a ridiculous bluff because of course we all know what I’d really attempt with the firearm. I have no idea how to even use it but I’d give it a good go.
The men all laugh at me until one speaks up. “We’re disappointed because not one of you shows gratitude towards us. Although you don’t seem willing to kill, there is still the opportunity for one of you to live. You should be grateful for that luxury.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “You imprisoned us for a year and then want us to choose which of us die? And that leaves the remaining one with what? To go back to prison and suffer more harshness from you?” My voice grows louder. “And you expect gratitude?”
The men stare on sternly and the fact they are sincere in that at least two of us must die doesn’t just fill me with panic but terror that they actually believe the nonsense they’re spouting. I stare at my father, then my mother and know for certain that none or only one of us will be leaving this situation alive.
Theia
It was a few days before the great cull that I last saw Doctor Adam Jefferson in the hospital. The only interaction I had with him throughout the night my mother died was by means of the walkie-talkie, yet somehow his face is burnt into my mind as if I did see him during the cull. As if the conversation I had with him was face-to-face. As if he had left his killing spree behind to join me in the bathroom and personally tell me that he was winning and had come to take my mother away with him. As if I saw his disappointed expression that my mother wouldn’t be joining him when I told him she had died.
He stares at me while he works out what to say. Eventually he raises a half smile. “Congratulations,” he says, insincerely.
It’s the first time I’ve seen him since that night, having never bumped into him at the announcements, and the word cuts deep. He’s brutal. Congratulating me for surviving is not something anyone else in the barracks would have the gall to say, mostly because they wouldn’t want to hear it back. There was nothing celebratory or triumphant about outlasting that night. But I suppose that might not be true for Adam Jefferson. If you forget his victims were previously his patients and co-workers, then the people he killed weren’t his family and I can imagine how with each kill he allowed it to become less bothersome to him. He wasn’t just surviving for himself but for my mother. Maybe he even told himself that his status as a doctor deemed him worthy of living on. At least that’s how I’ve made sense of it when I thought about him over this past year.
But then I look at him and he seems, well... normal. Doing his job, empathic and sincere to his new patients, and not distressed. I wonder if I look like that on the surface. I wonder if he disappears for minutes on end like I do.
“Theia?”
I’m back with him.
“It’s been a year. I saw on the records you were the Silverdale to survive the night.”
He doesn’t know about Ronan. Of course he doesn’t. Melissa confirmed that much once she started working at the hospital and checked the electronic database: Ronan assumed Henry’s name and kept it up. I’m relieved, as much as I can be, for my missing brother by this fact that he is alive somewhere. Selene Gould is nowhere to be found in the records. Neither is Leda.
“Aren’t I lucky?”
“You mean you’re grateful,” he says wryly.
I almost want to smile because it’s exactly what I’d say out loud if I had the courage. Doctor Jefferson and I stare one another down. So he feels the same as me about the Upperlanders. I wonder if he’s the one person I could openly spill my vitriol out to against our oppressors – I mean saviours – and not have to worry that I’ll overstep the mark. What’s the saying, your enemy’s enemy is your friend? I’m not sure what Doctor Jefferson is, but right now I need him and don’t want to lose focus. “Of course. Loyal, gratitude pending.”
“Theia, what brings you here? I’m assuming after all this time it’s not a courtesy call. You’re not here to finally tell me what happened to Penelope?”
I hold Leda in front of me. “She’s ill.” He doesn’t pay much attention to her, and why would he?
“Paediatric department is a few floors up. The daughter of someone you work for?”
I don’t reply. I bite my bottom lip but I don’t lose his gaze. It takes a few seconds but I don’t need to say anything because his eyes start to widen and now he is in on the secret.
Doctor Jefferson stares for a moment and I sense that his gaze takes him somewhere into the past, that he is not just figuring out what is happening now but he has gone to a dark place in his mind. I allow him to come back to the present without hurrying him and wait for his reaction.
“Come with me.”
Relief washes through, as step one of my plan is complete. Confronting Adam Jefferson was the easy part. It’s what I need to say next that I’ve been dreading.
Selene
It is only when Nathaniel has closed the door and I am inside our safe haven with him that I comment on what he has draped over his arm. “That’s not your gym bag.”
“Surprise, princess.” He holds it out to me, as the material spills down, almost as tall as him, and I see that he is holding the top from a hanger.
“What is it?” I reach out to take the bag from him but he snatches it away.
“I bluffed about the gym. I ran to the mall and back. I wanted to get this for you but you’ll have to wait until after my shower because I’m sweaty.”
“That’s
really kind of you.”
He walks over and kisses me passionately. “I’d swim the ocean for you.”
His words send my mind into a quick tailspin. “I tried to have a bath but I didn’t feel good.”
Nathaniel pulls his top off and his toned body never ceases to make me swoon. “Join me for a shower then.” He pulls me in close and wrestles with my robe until he can slip his hand under, wraps it around my waist and massages my lower back. “You’re so beautiful.”
I smile awkwardly because I believe he means it even if I don’t see it myself.
We move to the bathroom and he runs the tap. We undress and step inside. The space is big enough for the both of us but at close quarters. We kiss under the water and I try to keep my eyes open for as long as I can because I love the way his eyes are firmly shut when he kisses me, like he is totally lost in the moment. But my mind is fighting this and all I think about is the woman at the door with the message about my dead mother being alive.
I battle with myself about telling Nathaniel but decide it would only irritate him. The woman must have been confused, probably one of the Middlelanders to survive the Great Cull and not able to move on from it. Nathaniel would only say she’s ungrateful for not settling into our community and that we should report her because we don’t need her sort on the Utopia when it finally sets sail.
But then again I figure I’m a little, what did Doctor Graft say, “off”, so what would Nathaniel say about that? Unlike the woman, I am grateful for my life here and don’t want to cause trouble. That’s the difference between us.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I lie, but I step out of the shower away from him and wrap a plush towel around me. “I’m just nervous about the arena.”