by P. S. Lurie
Theia
Doctor Jefferson’s voice is loud enough to be carried above the crowd, as if the words themselves float upwards until they reach the ears of President Callister. My eyes flick to one of the screens as she looks down towards the man that not even an hour ago I entrusted with my sister’s life. There’s nothing I can do but watch on.
I feel Selma’s hand on my arm. She must be aware of who he is as she looks on at what he has of mine. I can feel her shake; this concerns her too.
“This is most unusual,” President Callister says through the speaker.
“I have something you might want,” Adam Jefferson shouts back. He holds up Leda farther into the sky, a toddler who has no right being on the ground floor of the arena, to the gasps of every single person here except for me and Selma. And Melissa, who has silently appeared by my other side. I glance at her, aware that we are all implicated in this and we will all be punished.
“Go,” I whisper to them, but neither budge, either because they want to support me or have accepted that there is nowhere to hide.
“Bring the child up here.”
A guard moves through the crowd and tries to take Leda, at first gently then by force. “I want to be promoted,” Doctor Jefferson shouts.
We’re all being moved onto the Utopia but that is not enough for him. He couldn’t prove his loyalty through being a surgeon, and instead he wants to rise up to the Upperlanders’ status in a dastardly, mean-spirited way. It’s a risk but President Callister entertains him. “Explain and we can decide. But quickly as people want to pack.”
No one is in a rush to go anywhere. This is drama at its best for the Upperlanders.
“I know who smuggled her in.”
“Tell me who betrayed us all during the Great Cull and you will be promoted. Your loyalty to us will be proven.”
I hold my breath but I know what he will say next.
“Theia Silverdale.” I have been betrayed.
On the screen a guard just within shot standing next to President Callister types something into a portable device and I feel my body tense up because this next part won’t take any time at all. They won’t have to work hard at detecting me.
Right away my watch starts making a piercing noise. ‘Here I am,’ it calls to my captors.
Within seconds, guards grab hold of me but that is not the end of it.
“Who has shared her room in the barracks?” President Callister says calmly to the guard, but still loud enough for all of our benefit.
The man replies after a bit more fiddling. “Melissa Wren. Selma Gould. Harriet Cormac, who has already, and wrongfully, been promoted.”
A cry comes from the crowd above us. Harriet, who was privy to our secret, has lost any of her privilege due to association. Through the stillness two more watches beep next to me as well as one from above.
We are all guilty of disloyalty and a lack of gratitude. We survived a year and nothing more. We face drowning or being sent to prison before the Fence is detonated. Either way, it doesn’t matter. This is the end.
Selene
I watch on as the people from my past are dragged away, first Ruskin whose parents were made an example of and then my mother and Theia with another woman in the Middlelands and one some distance from me on my level, who I quickly recognise as the woman who came to my apartment this morning. She knew who I was. She tried to warn me. Fortunately, Nathaniel doesn’t pay her any attention and has no idea of my link to them.
So Theia managed to smuggle in Leda. Ronan too, but there is no mention of him. I wonder why the man who revealed Leda has her and why Theia had allowed this to happen. We were all going to be allowed onto the Utopia so why has this man acted now? Was he that desperate for promotion? I guess loyalty towards the Upperlands trumps loyalty elsewhere.
One little mercy is that President Callister ends her speech on the following. “There is no time to execute these people as I want to dismiss you all immediately to go home and pack, and then make your way to the Utopia. This man will be promoted and the baby cared for but other promotions will be put on hold until next month’s announcement. I will be closing the doors to our new home at three o’clock this afternoon. Any stragglers will not be waited for. Shortly after five, the strategically-placed bombs along the Fence will be detonated and the seas will raise the Utopia and begin her on her maiden voyage. Those needing medical attention will continue to be helped and those in prison will be dealt with separately. Good luck to all of us and thank you for your continued loyalty and gratitude.”
I unwillingly clap along with everyone because anything else would look suspicious. Nathaniel puts his arm around me and I have to do everything I can not to seize up. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. We can get married, princess.”
He looks at me with concern because I don’t respond. “Are you not excited?”
I have to play this wisely whilst I make sense of what is happening and come up with a plan. I smile, not at him but at the strength I can feel returning to my spirit. “I’m thrilled.”
“Let’s go pack.”
He leads me away from the arena as I think two things. One is that I have to rescue Theia and my mother. The other is that, from what I am remembering about Nathaniel from the night of the cull as well as what he has done to me this past year, I will kill him before this day is over and I will feel no remorse.
10 A.M. – 11 A.M.
Theia
We are dragged, the three of us, away from the arena to the prison. Trying to save Leda has punished the three friends I have here beyond repair. Selma’s need to find what happened to Selene will go unresolved. Melissa will not have the chance to be promoted. Harriet has lost her promotion. My attempts to protect Leda and locate my brother are over. Dreams of boarding the Utopia have been taken away from all of us.
Selma is tall but no match for the brutish guard that locks her wrists together. Melissa sobs because really, when Selma and I could be accused of taking our family’s place, Melissa’s parents gave her legitimate clearance into the Upperlands, and she has nothing to be guilty for except association with us and keeping my secret. Pitying sets of eyes follow our trail, each Middlelander aware that despite not having been promoted they can breathe a sigh of relief because they have avoided the sea once more. And us? Prison beckons but where does the leave us when the Fence is blown up in a few hours?
I turn my attention to the end of the tunnel where one more officer waits with a woman, older than Melissa and me, her head lowered to the ground. Harriet, who none of us has seen for months, has put on some weight and rounded out, wearing clothes I have never seen before, her hair loose around her shoulders, a few shades lighter. We agreed early on in our time in the barracks that if any of the other three were promoted then the rest of us would keep our distance and the promoted one of us should remove herself from worrying about Leda. I have destroyed any hope Harriet had of building a new life for herself. She looks at each of us but settles her gaze on me as I draw near; her eyes are bloodshot red, from crying but also from hatred towards me that asks why I gave up Leda and, in turn, her too.
Her expression reminds me of Mt Ethers’ gaze when he thought I was dangerous to him, despite him being the one holding the gun. There are so many loose memories that trickle in from my past, but every single moment from that night is, despicably, crystal clear; it is too easy to return there in my mind and I manage to dig my nail into my palm before the handcuffs come on, and wipe the image of my neighbour before I lose myself.
I can’t bear to look back at Doctor Jefferson ascending the Fence and handing over Leda. I have no idea what President Callister will make of a baby surviving the cull and what she will do with my sister. I am relieved that Doctor Jefferson seemed to be clueless about Ronan. From what Melissa could tell from the database that holds our records Ronan never admitted his real identity. Henry Argent exists in this world, still alive. Although the entire world now knows about Leda, at least no one will
ever know that I also smuggled in another sibling from beyond the Fence.
They were my responsibility and I have failed, not just them but everyone I know.
Selma will never find out about Selene. I will never be able to apologise to Ruskin. Harriet and Melissa will have watched their families die for nothing. We have all failed because of me.
A ridiculous thought enters my head and makes my cheeks burn. I am embarrassed that somewhere in the Upperlanders’ stands Kate would have seen all of this. I don’t know why I’m bothered about what she thinks but I am.
We leave the tunnel and walk the empty path towards the train station. A final cheer sounds from behind us in the distance, surely in response to something inspiring from President Callister and I imagine that quickly the crowds will disperse to pack their belongings for the Utopia. It will be more relaxed than when we packed up a year ago. They won’t have to argue for their survival or watch anyone they love die.
They won’t have to kill anyone to be Rehoused.
Then there are the rest of the Middlelanders and I hope President Callister was telling the truth that they will all be relocated to the ship but who knows what’s in store for them? The last Rehousing came with conditions so why would this one be different?
And then there will be us, in prison. Plenty of us, apparently, who have defied harmony in the Upperlands by not showing our gratitude or loyalty. Every month, if they weren’t drowned in the sea, people were imprisoned. I estimate there must be a few hundred but I don’t know what has happened to them in the meantime. Were they left to rot, killed, or attempts made to rehabilitate them as President Callister said of Ruskin’s parents?
And what happens if we’re not on the Utopia when the Fence comes down? Prison is just a holding ground for the next few hours. We will all be drowned, slowly and cruelly. Wouldn’t it be better just to throw us over the Fence and be done with it? I remember where we are: if we are to die today it’ll be the worst way imaginable because the Upperlanders wouldn’t allow our suffering to be quick and easy.
We step into the train although it is only a few stops to the prison, taking the branch that veers towards the outskirts of the city. Melissa tries to comfort Harriet but a guard nudges the butt of his gun into her side and she yelps so we spend the rest of the journey in silence. The train carries us past our barracks and the majority of apartments, including Kate’s – What will she say to her friends about me? What will her friends say about her? – and then a shopping complex and the hospital, which is where things went seriously wrong this morning. Did Doctor Jefferson decide immediately to give Leda up or was it a last minute risk to be promoted? If everyone was going to be moved to the Utopia why did he feel the need to punish me? Does he believe Leda is his daughter?
Then I realise why he did what he did. His betrayal is punishment for my mother not surviving. He must have seen the guilt across my face. He knew my mother died because of me. It took a year but he had his revenge. Desperately vying for promotion, I bet he couldn’t believe his luck.
Ruskin
I’m back in what I assume is familiar territory, walking the corridors of the prison that I guess I spent the past year in but, as I was in my cell for all of that time, I can’t be certain. Something tells me this is the same place. I hadn’t realised it before but there’s something about the smell: a faint musty stench of life passing by, forgotten bodies left to starve, minds left to rot, of those that should have been left behind one year ago but have managed to evade death indefinitely.
In the corridors, the artificial strip lights remove any sense of the passing of time. At least the cell had a window to watch the sun rise each morning and set each night but even that blurred into one eternal day. I only knew we endured a year because of Jack’s unflappable recording system. My heartbeat speeds up at the idea that I might see him.
“Can I go back to the same room?” I ask, but the request is lost on these men who are unlikely to care where I’m put even if they do know about Jack and me. As expected, they ignore me. They have no idea that I willed myself to return here because there is only one thing left in the world that I care about.
The problem is that each door we pass looks the same, except for a numbered code above the frame. A keypad by each door allows those with the password to unlock the cells but otherwise it is impossible for me to know in which room I was held. I had no idea until we approached the prison building that there were so many floors and I don’t even know if I’m on the same level as I was this morning.
I don’t know if Jack is still here or if he and his mother had to face the same fate as my family. Even if he is here, did he survive the blow to the head?
“I want to go to the cell I was in before. I have personal belongings there.”
“The other boy,” one of the officers says. “Now that he’s an orphan I’m not sure he’s in the best of moods.”
Just like that, I am burdened with more awful news to add to this day. They killed Jack’s mother. Did the two of them have to choose who lives? “I want to see him.”
The same uncaring outcome: silence.
Only that’s not exactly true. The prison isn’t silent, I realise, as we continue to walk down a new hallway but looking like a replica of the last one, because there is an additional sound that echoes on top of our footsteps. The prison was previously void of sound but now I can hear a static fill the air, recognisable from a long time ago: the same as the static that played through our television screens before and after the announcements during the Surges. To my knowledge, there has never been an announcement in the prison before. I didn’t even know this technology existed.
If I’m right I wonder if I’ve missed the message or if it’s yet to come. Either way, I can’t imagine it will be good news.
Then I realise something else: all of the grates are open under the doors. They only opened for us to be given food, so communication with other cells was impossible. I guess they want everyone to hear the broadcast.
The guards stop in front of a door and key in a code into one of the pads. I don’t see what it is, not that it matters. The door does the recognisable click of unlocking and jolts open. I am thrust in but don’t resist as I want to be inside. Before I have even steadied myself the door closes behind me and locks tight.
Apart from being dimmer than I recall it looks exactly like the cell I was in. I hold my breath as I try to convince myself that I am back. The same layout, the same barred window, the same two beds pushed apart.
And a boy on one of the beds.
He faces away but something is not right. The sheets are stained red and I follow the trail back to the wide gouge in his head.
Selene
The announcement ends with President Callister leaving to higher ground in the helicopter, this time accompanied by Leda and the man in the scrubs who betrayed Theia. I’ve seen previous events on the television, with people cheering respectfully under the din of the engine but there is too much excitement to stand still so the masses head for the exits to pack their belongings without any delay. We were told not to bother with furniture but just to bring clothes and other transportable possessions.
I think about my mother and Theia and Ruskin and wonder what awaits them. President Callister’s ominous message about what will happen to the prisoners worries me but also means they have some time before the Fence is blown up, otherwise they would have been drowned immediately. I mean, how long would it have taken to send them up in the elevator and throw them into the sea? I don’t believe there wasn’t time, which means President Callister has something else in store for the supposedly disloyal band of people I used to know.
Something worse, I begin to think, but Nathaniel cuts me off from developing any theories as to what it could be.
“Let’s go,” he says, tightening his grip around my hand.
I follow him, silently, squeezed down the stairwell amongst others eager to move to the Utopia. There is merriment all around, carefre
e excitement about the upheaval rather than heavy anticipation or sadness about being uprooted. No one seems bothered about leaving their houses behind; they have lived years with the mildest of fears about being made homeless and, with a safer haven to move to, there is no need to be sentimental about the buildings that will be submerged in a matter of hours. I’ve seen the designs for the apartments on the Utopia and they are grander, better furnished, and more spacious than the one Nathaniel and I lived in. If anything, we’re moving into more luxury.
Not that our living quarters weren’t comfortable before but Nathaniel and I would see out our lives even more comfortably. There’s just one problem: I will never let that happen.
Although my memory of the Middlelands is returning piece by piece, the past year is still hazy and I don’t understand how I was brainwashed into believing I was a different person. My stomach feels like a deep void, as if it stretches to the far reaches of the ocean floor, that odd sensation of feeling hungry but also full, but I figure it out as we make our way to the train station that what my body is actually craving is a pill. I’ve become addicted to them but have they been causing me to feel shaky as well as absent-minded? That must be it. Something in the pills has made my brain lose itself.
At the last minute before we reach the front of the queue to the ticket gates, under the sound of guards ordering people not to delay the momentum by ignoring the scanners, Nathaniel tugs my hand and we sweep off to the side and away from the crowds.
“I just realised something,” he says, barely loud enough for me to hear.
“What’s that?” I don’t bother raising my voice because I’m used to being ignored. Every decision has been Nathaniel’s and I don’t want him to think I’m acting any differently than in my usual submissive demeanour.