“OK, calm down a bit now, ay.”
She gave him a half grin. A knowing grin. She winked.
As he looked down at her face, his life flashed before his eyes. Although he couldn’t blame her for his broken leg and the end of his dream, he could blame her for their having to start all over again, and again, and again. They used to have stable jobs. If they had continued to work away, they would be in some mediocre compound by now, like some of his friends… and paying for it. They would be up to their eyeballs in debt, no doubt. That ‘suck up to your boss for a promotion’ life didn’t suit her, nor him either if he was honest with himself. He heard her words as if they were opening up a reservoir of repressed thoughts and emotions. She had the power to dive in and open up the self he kept hidden. Every time he thought he was gone, she pulled him back out. She was his mirror. Of course he believed she was right. He agreed with her. He was more like her than he was willing to admit, even to himself. She led the way, barging away all doubt, all fear. It was the only way. He was a willing participant, always was. She already had him on board. He was game. All he ever needed was her not-so-gentle push. Her passion, her rebelliousness, her eternal will to fight always intrigued him. He wanted to know more.
He shook his head as if some sort of annoying insect had landed on him, sighed, and drank some beer.
“You do realise Canada’s got its own problems?”
“I’m not an idiot. The whole world’s screwed. It’s just about finding the best quality. And that is not here.”
“OK then.” He swigged his beer and looked at the window. “What crime then?”
Five
Sadie slunk up her quiet suburban avenue, brushing up against the walls and bushes along the scorching footpath. She tried to hide in the shadows, out-of-sight of the hundreds of cameras. Sweat soaked through her blazer and over-coat, but to not wear them would be worse, what with the burn, and the dress-codes. She hung her head. Her eyes darted to and fro checking for witnesses, checking for curtain twitchers, checking for anything out of the ordinary. Someone down the street was having their solar panels fixed after the smog-storm the other night. The ones on Sadie’s house were still working; they were undoubtedly much better quality. She allowed herself a glance up at the gigantic steel wall in the distance. Machine guns with red-eyes were perched on top forever searching for movement where it shouldn’t be. The iron-curtain cut the street in two. Inside, outside, an inverse ghetto she’d heard someone call it. There was no in-between. Ghetto, ghetto, she repeated in her mind, she liked that word. Ghetto.
She kept at an even distance behind the driverless solar road sweeper. It was forever cleaning the invisible dirt from the immaculate streets. It should be outside in the real world, she thought to herself. She pressed her pin into the keypad, and the gate clicked open. Her Mother’s hydrogen car was in the driveway. A certain resignation ignited and dwelt in her mind. How could she explain her early arrival? The hydro-bus always dropped the children off at four. Would her Mother suspect that she had played truant and escaped the compound to go out to one of the Estates? No, no way, never.
Sadie shook her head and sighed. Why didn’t I do it? I should’ve done it. Wimp. For some reason she always chickened out of saying it, maybe next time, maybe tonight, it had to be soon, or else she would explode. Anyway, she shrugged her shoulders and concentrated, somehow, she would invent a reasonable excuse for being home so early. She breathed deeply and began skulking up the driveway hiding in the shadows beneath the trees. Slowly, she climbed the steps to the front door. At the top, she closed her eyes for a brief moment of peace before entering. In the distance, beyond the walls, she heard machine guns, again. She opened her eyes and leant forward and stared into the eye-scanner. It buzzed into life. A laser beam crossed her iris:
“Hello, Sadie,” it said, as the door unbolted and opened.
“Hello, house,” she muttered quietly.
Cautiously, she inched open the door and crept into the air-conditioned interior. There were no human noises. Perhaps, with any luck, her Mother was sleeping, or maybe she was at one of their neighbours. She turned and quietly pushed the door to. It clicked closed. She turned to run up the stairs, but, instead, she jumped backwards in fright, because silently standing in the hallway was her Mother. There was an unnerving moment between them, where they both just stared mutely into each other’s eyes.
“Come into the kitchen immediately, young lady.”
Her Mother stepped forwards, grabbed her arm, and dragged her down the hallway.
“Sit down,” her Mother ordered, letting her arm go with a push.
Sadie obeyed and climbed up onto one of the barstools around the kitchen island. She slowly lowered her satchel by the strap, and let it drop on the floor with a hollow thud.
“Now I don’t want to hear any stories,” her Mother said, one hand on her hip, the other furiously rubbing her forehead.
Sadie watched her Mother as if thrown into some kind of trance. She had never seen her lose her cool like this before. It was hypnotising. Her veil of civility was being lifted, and she was glimpsing the chaos within. Sadie kept the happiness she felt at seeing this hidden. She was definitely not smiling outwardly.
“Truancy, Sadie,” her Mother shrieked, clearly unable to contain herself any longer. She threw her arms down to her sides, hands in fists. “Truancy!” she repeated, pacing around the kitchen island, circling Sadie as if she were her prey.
Sadie’s cold eyes followed her Mother intently. Her heart was racing. Yet, she stayed mute, sucking in her bottom lip. She held it between her teeth.
“I thought I knew you better. I simply cannot believe it. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was getting a call from the school and having no idea where you were? I was so worried about you, and you forced me to lie to them for you. Thank God things aren’t linked up properly yet. If this was a few months down the line… well…” She shook her head.
Sadie sat in silence. She could feel a chain reaction going off inside. Any minute now… She bit her lip harder.
“Don’t you understand, you stupid girl. This is your life we’re talking about. You really have no idea what’s going on, do you? This could’ve gone to the top. We could’ve been banished for something like this. If they hadn’t believed me…” Her Mother stopped pacing, and leant onto the island opposite Sadie and glared. “You’ve made me feel like some kind of neglectful, woeful, parent. You have made fools out of your Father and me, and I am not having it.”
“That’s all you care about isn’t it?” Sadie spat with such vehemence she caught her Mother off-guard. Her Mother stared dumbly, with wide, blood-shot eyes. “All you care about is how embarrassed you were. You have no idea, do you? I hate you!”
Her Mother reeled backwards as if punched in the stomach. Her face turned white, she stood statuesquely. Her glare dropped and was replaced by a look of fear. Silence lay between them like torture and grew heavier. Sadie’s stare hardened. Her whole face twisted in inarticulate rage, her lips pursed, her skin fired. Her Mother looked away and stared at a water droplet on the island’s surface. Sadie followed her Mother’s eyeline. The kitchen and their faces were reflected and distorted in the droplet’s beautiful curves. The world seemed to spin within it as if it were a fortune-teller’s ball. She was lost.
“What on Earth’s got into you lately? You’re acting very strange,” her Mother yelled suddenly, as if something had become alarmingly clear. “It’s that new friend of yours isn’t it? Elise, that’s her name isn’t it?” She smiled cynically and scratched her head. “She’s the one you’ve been disappearing off to have private conversations with, isn’t she?” She began circling the island again.
“Oh my God, have you been listening to my calls?”
“I couldn’t help but recognise a new name, Sadie. It’s her and her awful friends from… from the Estate,” she almost puked the word. “It’s them making you do this, isn’t it?”
“What?” S
adie spun her head to look up at her Mother.
“I can’t believe it,” her Mother yelled. “Oh my God, it’s true. I should’ve checked your microchip or your GPS but…”
Sadie held back a laugh. Fat lot of good checking that would be, she had already hacked into the system and overlaid yesterday’s data onto today’s reel. She always made sure the trackers were overlaid with innocuous data whenever she left the compounds. She knew how to hack the camera’s data too. No one in the compound was as good as the children when it came to computers. No one would ever know where she had been unless she wanted them to know.
Her Mother slapped her forehead with an open palm. “I’m so stupid. I trusted you. I thought, no, there has to be a reasonable explanation. I was too scared to look, but… And to think of all the things we’ve done for you, the sacrifices we’ve made… And still, you’ve been escaping the safety of the compound to hang about in that dreadful slum. There’s nothing for you out there! No good will ever come of it! They’re all no good, it’s full of death and disease.” She turned her nose up and shuddered. “What is wrong with you? What is wrong with the kids here in the compound?” She fell into an easy-chair and cupped her face in her hands.
Sadie stayed silent and stared at her Mother. The sound of her Mother’s annoying sniffs and moans faded into the distance as her recollections absorbed her and became her present. Every moment of the day that changed her life forever was captured in her memory and held in perfect detail. She replayed the moment again and again, and every time she saw it, her anger increased in ferocity. She gritted her teeth until her jaw ached. After that moment, she knew she would never be the same again. It was as though a spring had snapped inside her allowing her outward forces to expand, causing her mind to explode in a tornado of previously suppressed emotions.
She remembered the day so clearly. It had been a Saturday. Her Father was away on a business trip. Her Mother had finally left her at home alone after she threw a fit: there was no way in a million years she would ever be seen dead at a kid’s party. Curiosity got the better of her, what did they expect? She was fifteen. There was a drawer in her Father’s office he always kept locked. Why? As she thought about it, she realised she had always wondered, but her wonder had become so habitual that she had never given it any more than a passing consideration, until now. There was a growing niggling uncertainty lying inside her. A deep distrust was clawing its way out of the darkness of the past. This was the day she was going to discover the treasures inside it. She was compelled to find out.
She stood at the bottom of the stairs. They seemed to spiral up and up and up, eventually disappearing into a dark cloud. She gulped, held the bannister, and pulled herself up, one step at a time. Every time she placed her foot down, the stair seemed to bounce back at her, like she was treading on a trampoline. Nothing felt real anymore. She was no longer herself. She was someone else looking at herself through a mist of distant memories, all telling her to stop. The past, present and future seemed to be fighting against her. Ahead there was darkness, emptiness. But, she reasoned, sometimes you have to take a journey, even if it is a blind one. Her heart thumped. Blood rushed to her face, her fingers began tingling. A nervous giggle reverberated through her; the sound seemed to burst out of dormancy. Why was she feeling this way? She knew what she was doing was wrong, but this reaction was far more intense than she ever imagined. At the top, the hallway landing seemed to contract and retract all around her, engulfing her in new dimensions. Tunnel-vision set in. The hallway seemed to lengthen. A cold breeze swept across her from no-where, she shivered. She stepped lightly forwards. The hallway never felt as long as it did that day. It was somehow alive and all-knowing. Afterwards, she was almost convinced that the hallway knew this journey would change her forever. This was her test, her awakening, her becoming.
She willed herself onwards. She wanted to be bad for once; she wanted to break the rules and, damn-it, there were so many. It was about time she lost her goody-two-shoes image, even if it was only in her own mind. That was good enough for now, she thought. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally stood outside her Father’s office door. She grinned fearfully and pushed it open. There it stood, unknowingly, the desk. The huge old-fashioned desk. She tilted her head to the side and looked at it. Why did her parents keep that dusty old thing? It was so out of accord with the rest of the house, it didn’t suit them at all.
She blinked, shook her head, and crept inside the room. As she did, a wave of serene confidence swept over her. Instantly, she was warm. She licked her lips in anticipation as she dropped to her knees before the wide desk drawer. She imagined her Father sitting here, knees pressing up into the wood of the drawer as he worked. She touched the pattern in the oak, it awakened an ancestral memory. She knew what it was like to live in harmony with such things. The memory passed as she pulled the nail file and hair grip from her pocket.
Who knew that cracking this old lock would be so complicated? Those old archived videos, hidden and encrypted deep in the compound databases made it look so easy. Only then did she realise why they had this desk. This was alien territory; electronics would be far too easy for her. But perseverance was the key. It clicked open. All her life had been leading up to this moment. She felt free, almost as if she could fly. Her heart was fluttering like she had just fallen in love, liberating, frightening, wonderful. She stood straight, arched her back, then perched on her Father’s swivel chair. She leaned forward peeking inside the drawer.
The first thing she noticed were business papers with The Company logo printed at the top. They had a table of figures on the body. She pulled out the pages, glanced at them briefly. Why did he keep them in here? They said nothing to her. Underneath, revealing itself was a half-empty bottle of… alcohol. An icy hand materialised inside her, ripping her stomach apart. It travelled up to her brain. They didn’t drink. Did they? That was the pastime of the dispossessed, the others, those out-there in the land beyond the walls. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? A mass of hushed conversations and veiled grimaces flowed to the forefront of her mind. Where had these memories been hiding? Why could she see them so clearly now? What do they mean? Stunned, she lifted up the bottle, as if she were touching some kind of forbidden fruit. An aura radiated from it, she became hypnotised by the movement of the reddish brown liquid slopping about inside the bottle. She turned it over and over, inspecting every inch. She felt as though she was lost in a haze as if she were inside the bottle looking out through the bent, alcohol-stained glass. Everything was deformed. On autopilot, she unscrewed the lid and brought the opening beneath her nose. She grimaced, it woke her up. What was happening? She set the bottle down and watched the liquid settle.
Pushed up against the back of the drawer she uncovered three cartons of cigarettes. The ice rose again. It looped around her heart. Did they smoke too? Inside the compounds, cigarettes were illegal, outside they were like gold-dust, apparently. She shook her head and stared mutely at the cartons. One had the cellophane removed. Without thinking, she grabbed it and flipped it open. Half the packets were gone. They did smoke, didn’t they? Despite being so anti-drinking, anti-smoking, anti-outside, they were hypocrites after all, she smirked coldly. They had been lying her whole life, hadn’t they? Rising awe emerged from the ice. How smart was she really, if they could hide their true natures for so long? She felt lost in an unknown world; nothing was secure. She glided her hand over to an open packet. She flicked it open and pulled out a cigarette. It was the first time she had ever seen one in real life. The sweet smell of tobacco floated up into the air, disappearing into her nose; she liked it. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. Why had she never expected this? Maybe she had. Maybe that was why she had to discover what lay inside. Maybe… she will never know. She had never paid such close attention to things like this before. But she was now. Her parent’s veneer of gentility and decorum was being eroded. She was seeing through the cracks, losing sight of who they pretended to be. Is everyone a s
tranger? Does everyone play-act? What is real she wondered as she slid the cigarette back into the packet, then replaced it in the carton. She slipped a full packet, one still perfectly preserved in its cellophane, into her pocket; leverage, she thought, as if escaping the compounds was already a fully realised thought. She squinted, smirked and looked forward. What other secrets did this drawer contain?
There was a wooden box with a beautiful Celtic pattern carved into it. She ran her finger over the intricate decorations. This was human-made. It was too old and perfectly imperfect for the machines. She closed her eyes and imagined the life of the artist who carved it. How she would love to create something real like this. She cracked open the box. A stale, musty, archaic smell burst out from within. This was something she was not accustomed to in her sterile environment. She was thrown off guard, thrown back through the ages. A memory lingered on the peripheries of her mind; it was intense, misty. She was a child, crawling through a meadow, her face dusting blades of grass. Someone lifted her and kissed her cheek. A raindrop landed on her eyelid. There was laughing, crying, anger, and fear. There was so much fear. The walls were going up. There were fires in the distance. Explosions carried on the air. The ground shook. There was screaming. The memory faded. It was dying as the smell evaporated into the room, becoming a part of it, a new part of her.
She looked down into the box on her lap. On top was money, some of it foreign, Euros mainly. Her Father must have gone over to Europe before… before they grounded all flights, before the borders closed, before she could remember. Underneath there was some English currency, she counted it: £75. They still used sterling outside apparently, but what did he need this money for? Under the notes, there was a little packet. She grimaced as she lifted it out and opened it. It was a green leafy substance which had a strong smell. Oh no, oh no, it was drugs: Marijuana, it was, wasn’t it? There was no doubt in her mind. She shook her head in disbelief. The school had warned the children to beware of it, to call the authorities if they saw anyone in the compound with it. They were taught to spy on their own families, their friends, everyone. But, even now, she knew she could never get them into any trouble. She held her breath and resealed the packet, placing it next to the alcohol.
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