The Territory

by Sarah Govett

  I must have looked like a right confused denser as I assumed this was some sort of trick question. Everyone did the same as us, didn’t they? We’d never studied it at school, never talked about it at home (and it’s not as if there’s any way of just looking stuff up other than through Dad’s massively out-dated encyclopaedia from the stone age), but I’d know if there were other ways, wouldn’t I?

  Apparently not. Raf had found out by accident. His dad was working at his computer – laboratory heads are treated like top Ministry peeps: they get their own computer, even at home, database access and everything. But they have to keep them in a locked room, password protected, far from the eyes of the ‘common people’. Anyway, Raf’s dad had got distracted, went downstairs to have a fight with Raf’s mum or something. Raf says they fight a lot.

  Raf wouldn’t tell me what he’d searched for. The most he’d reveal was something about how uploads work and studies from other countries (which seems like the weirdest thing ever to search for if you’ve suddenly got access to massive amounts of information, but hey) when he’d come across information about other countries’ ways of killing off their population. And it wasn’t pretty.

  ‘The States do the same as us. We basically nicked their system. Brazil, which lost less land in the floods, has a lottery system. Everyone gets entered and if your number comes up you get sent to the flooded west coast, which is also pretty much like a death sentence. There are no freakoids in Brazil. No company bought the technology as without the test there was no real demand for it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a world without freakoids.’ I said. ‘You excepted, of course. And at least everyone’s got an equal chance of staying safe.’

  But then, as Raf pointed out, some of Brazil’s most intelligent and gifted scientists, thinkers and writers had been lost to their Wetlands and that had hurt its recovery. One guy who was sent was just about to crack a new form of fusion that could have released more energy than ten fission power stations and create no radioactive waste at the same time.

  ‘Well they should have kept him, obviously,’ I interrupted.

  ‘But that wouldn’t have been fair, would it? To have one rule for some and another for others? I mean a ‘freakoid’ is more likely than your cousin to solve our energy problems, just because they’ve got more information in their head and have been taught more. Does that mean it’s better to ship her off?’

  I had no answer for that.

  ‘What about somewhere else then. What about France?’

  ‘They kill older people instead. Compulsory euthanasia for the over 40s. But they’re looking to change their system. Seems that if people know they’re not going to live that long, they act more wildly and have loads of kids to sort of continue their legacy. France’s population’s massively expanding at the moment.’

  ‘What about Australia?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Oh, there you just have to buy a space. If you can’t, you’re sent to the desert zones. So there’s no test – you’ve just got to be rich.’

  ‘India?’

  ‘I don’t know. My dad came back in before I could find out any more and went mental. He broke my finger.’ Raf said it like it was a joke, but I’m not sure it was.

  ‘Why do you think they don’t tell us this stuff?’ I asked. ‘Surely it’d be good for the Ministry if they could show other countries doing horrific things?’

  ‘That’s what I thought too, at first,’ Raf agreed. ‘But, then I realised … they don’t want us to compare, to question, ’cos we might keep questioning. They just want us to accept and obey.’

  ‘But all of this, it still doesn’t make the TAA right,’ I said.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ Raf agreed. ‘I hate this system. More than you can know. But it’s not simple either. And if you really want to attack something you need to be able to bury your anger, to look at it coldly. To decide exactly what’s wrong with it and why and then destroy that.’

  And there was something about the way he said ‘destroy’ that sent a surge of adrenaline through me.

  Oh, my God! My mum just slapped me, and I’m talking a full whack across my face. She never hits any one. She believes ‘violence breeds violence’. Or at least she did. My cheek stung and I brought my hand up in shock, tears forming in the corner of my eyes.

  At registration, Ms Jones handed us all these bottles of the foulest-smelling insect repellent. She said, in her best fake hushed voice, that some government spod had just discovered that a few mosquitoes carrying the Milo virus had entered the Territory from the Wetlands. We therefore have to coat ourselves in this rank yellowish fluid to protect ourselves from ‘bleeding eyes, body sores and immuno-breakdown’. Nice. Apparently mosquitoes find young people’s blood particularly delicious! She also banged on about how we had to protect each other as this virus is like some super-powered bug and can spread really quickly. ‘One rotten apple can destroy the basket,’ she said.

  She’s always so melodramatic. They all are. Just to make you think that you’re really lucky to be in the Territory. It’s bound to be lies too. We all know there are massively high electric grids between the Wetlands and Territory ready to zap any evil bug-carrying flies. Also she’s just such a hypocrite. Always saying we need to protect each other but then thinking it’s OK in June to turn half of us into Fish who are bound to die from this evil bug thing anyway.

  Well, it only took ninety minutes till first break for Amanda to rinse the stuff off in the loos. I guess she thought it might put the amaaaaaaazing Hugo off. Yeah, like he’s interested in her anyway! Thought she’d have learnt that his thing seems to be watching Norms getting groped at parties. I thought about rinsing mine off as it kept on nearly making me gag, but Jack and Daisy kept theirs on and Raf said that Amanda was an idiot for doing it. Raf looked pretty cool today. He wore a greeny-blue jumper that really brought out the green of his green eye and the blue of his blue eye.

  When I got home I told my mum about the repellent and Amanda and she started doing her super-straight back thing. I said I had nearly washed the stuff off it was so grim and that’s when she slapped me. Said I must never, never do anything so ‘damn bloody stupid’ and stormed out of the room crying. She never normally swears either.

  Maybe she’s going through the menopause. Daisy’s mum is going through the menopause and keeps getting even more stressy than normal, if that’s actually possible.

  Mum apologised later. That was even scarier though. She sat next to me on my bed and kept stroking my hair saying over and over again how I must never ever wash the repellent off.

  Raf doesn’t upload. And he kissed me.

  I can’t quite believe it, either part, but it’s true, both parts. And I can’t tell anyone about it. I swore I wouldn’t.

  I spent the afternoon at Raf’s again. We didn’t have any major homework for tomorrow other than obviously to revise as if our lives depended on it (ha ha), so we were just talking and listening to music. I thought I could study later, all night if necessary, I just wanted to spend some time with Raf now. Then he put on Kaio and I told him about how we’d danced to it at Daisy’s and then got really embarrassed as I realised how lame that sounded. I mean that’s what ten-year-olds do.

  Raf smiled that sexy smile he does sometimes. The smile that turns his eyes to slits and widens his jaw. Like I said, it makes him look a bit like a wolf, which shouldn’t be sexy, but it is.

  ‘I’d like to see your dancing,’ he laughed.

  I told him that I looked like a denser when I danced. That he should see Daisy dance.

  Raf gave me one of his sideways looks. ‘If I wanted to see Daisy dance, don’t you think I would have invited Daisy round? You’re far sexier than Daisy and it’s even sexier that you don’t even know it.’

  Then before I could even get one of my awful red blushes out, Raf had jumped up, turned the volume up and started doing these weird shaking jumps. Dancing like he was electrocuted. ‘Are you embarrassed?’ he shouted. ‘Is yo
ur dancing worse than this? I bet it’s worse than this.’

  I couldn’t help myself. I joined in. And then we had a competition as to who could do the worst dance to the track while the other commentated like on sport on TV.

  ‘And here representing the First City in Free Style Dance is our very own Noa Blake…’ he’d say and then I’d dance out from behind his curtain trying to look as ridiculous as possible.

  We were laughing so much at one point that we both collapsed onto his swivel chair and that’s when he kissed me. And we didn’t bump teeth. And he tasted of gum rather than melted cheese. And it was amazing.

  But mid-kiss the chair swivelled into the desk, crashing over the pile of books that had sat there, and exposing his Port and the wires leading to it. Which were cut.

  We stopped laughing and the room seemed really silent despite the booming music.

  ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ Raf said – quiet, serious, frightened.

  I nodded, confused and scared too. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it was a big deal. That something momentous had just happened, but I was too much of a denser to grasp exactly what it was. Then we sat on the floor and he started to tell me everything.

  It all began with his sister, Chloe. Raf and Chloe had been really close when he was much younger. Not quite like friends as she was that bit older, but he really looked up to her and she protected him. She was a Childe as well and started uploading aged nine like every other Childe. They can’t upload earlier as the nervous connections aren’t fully formed and the tissue around the Node is still growing. As Chloe began to upload, Raf started to notice her change. It was very gradual, he said. His parents didn’t see it and none of her friends saw it as they were changing too. But Raf noticed. It was the little things. She didn’t laugh as much. She stopped making up songs; stopped impersonating the teachers; stopped making her own clothes. Instead she stayed in, studied, had clone friends and clone interests and stopped questioning anything. Raf’s parents told him he was being silly. That Chloe was ‘becoming a woman’ or something equally cringeworthy and parent-like. But Raf decided that he wouldn’t let it happen to him. He wouldn’t upload and let them alter his thoughts. Make him into a human robot.

  Suddenly everything that I’d noticed about Amanda and Hugo and all the other freakoids seemed to tie in as well. My dad’s original fears seem to have been realised. Uploading information was one thing, but having your whole mind controlled… You’d be thinking you were uploading some facts about Noble Gases in Chemistry, but at the same time you’d be learning to always obey authority and that Norms were a sub-species. I felt sick.

  ‘So that’s what you were trying to search for on your dad’s computer?’

  Raf nodded.

  ‘But why aren’t they more identical then?’ I probed, wanting Raf to be wrong. ‘Why’s Amanda so boy-obsessed? Why’s Barnaby quite nice while Hugo’s so awful?’

  ‘Look, I’m not claiming to have all the answers, Noa. This is just something I’ve been piecing together. I guess, they can’t control every element of what makes you you. God, I don’t think anyone really knows exactly how personality comes about. I think they just upload certain ideas, facts and beliefs and hope that your brain kind of accepts them. Some people are probably easier to brainwash than others. And some people are naturally kinder or nastier or more elitist than others. Maybe the uploads are more in tune with the mindsets of the Hugos and Quentins of this world.’

  ‘But you’re so … independent,’ I said blushing scarlet (and adding ‘independent’ instead of ‘cool’ or ‘amazing’ to try to look like less of a loved-up loser). ‘An upload wouldn’t change you.’

  ‘My sister was pretty “independent”,’ Raf replied quietly. ‘And they got to her.’

  I nodded, unable to absorb everything he was saying. But what I still didn’t get completely were Raf’s demands for secrecy. I mean if Norms couldn’t upload, why would it matter if one freakoid chose not to?

  ‘Because it shows I don’t trust the Ministry,’ Raf explained. ‘Through the TAA they’re effectively weeding out the Norms.’ I must have looked offended as Raf said, ‘Sorry, ‘weeding’ was a bad choice of word but you know what I mean. Most young Norms are failing and as older Norms still in the Territory die, we’re going to end up with a land filled with Childes. Who’ve all uploaded since they’re nine. Who’ve all been brainwashed more or less into thinking the Ministry’s great, that the TAA’s fair, and that all they should do with their lives is work hard, obey the rules and help the Territory succeed. Basically they’re creating model citizens.’

  I stared at him in disbelief. Well, not disbelief, I totally believed everything he was saying, but in shock anyway.

  ‘I mean you can understand it from their point of view – there’ll be no crime, no one will join the Opposition. Everything will run really efficiently and if people just spend all their time working, they will probably discover cures and new energy sources quicker.’

  I shuddered. I knew Jack and Daisy and I always joked about it, but to think they’re making human robots – for real.

  ‘If Childes started to choose not to upload, people would start to question everything. Their plans would fall apart. So that’s why you can’t tell anyone,’ Raf repeated. ‘Not even your mum or Daisy or Jack. No one.’

  I nodded my agreement, knowing that nothing would ever make me betray this guy. Nothing in the world.

  I’ve seen someone die. In real life. Not on the TV, but actually in front of me. We never watch the executions at home and even Mr Daniels isn’t sick enough to make us watch them at school. Death happens more easily than I thought.

  I was walking to school and had just turned our corner when I saw the protest up ahead on the other side of the road, outside some minor Ministry building. It wasn’t much of a protest at that. Just four guys holding banners and chanting slogans. They weren’t exactly hardened Opposition members as they didn’t chant that loudly and you could tell they were properly scared from the way they jiggled nervously and kept looking round themselves all the time, as if they weren’t even sure they really wanted the authorities to see their protest. I mean for real impact they should have been in the main square or outside a more major Ministry headquarters. But maybe this was the true face of the Opposition – a few scared people trying to stop what was wrong. Maybe a few was all it needed to kick others into action and start an unstoppable landslide.

  The banners all had things like ‘Ban the TAA’ and ‘Stop Killing our Children’. I knew I should have kept walking. Mum and Dad have always drilled it into me – survival rule number whatever: don’t even look at any Opposition activity. Guilt by association and everything. But I couldn’t seem to make my feet move away.

  I recognised one of the men in the middle – Mr Patel. I guess Sunaina will be taking the TAA next year and he must feel her chances aren’t great and he has to do something.

  Minutes later a policeman turned the corner, saw the protestors and started to jog our way, unhooking his baton as he ran. Two of the protestors fled and Mr Patel was hesitating when I recognised the policeman’s face. It was Marcus. Relief flooded me. I wanted to call out to Mr Patel to tell him to stand firm, that it was all going to be OK.

  I smiled because it was like Mr Patel could hear my brain – he seemed to stand up straighter and his voice rose as Marcus covered the last few metres. ‘Ban the TAA. Stop killing our children.’

  That’s when Marcus raised his baton. And then lowered it. A single sickening crunch and Mr Patel was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He didn’t scream or gasp out anything that showed that life had any meaning. It was like turning off a light switch. The others ran. Marcus didn’t bother to chase them. I guess it helps to have people spread the message about what happens to protestors. Makes the landslide pretty stoppable.

  A police van pulled up and another policeman jumped out. The two of them dragged the body into the back of the van. As Marcus reverse
d into the van, our eyes met across the street and I swallowed in fear. What would he do to me? He must have seen that I’d stayed and watched and not pretended not to see as you’re supposed to. Marcus waited for a car to pass then crossed the road towards me, maintaining eye contact the whole time.

  He only started to speak when he was standing on the pavement directly in front of me.

  ‘Sorry you had to see that,’ he said, softly. ‘You look upset?’

  I sort of mumbled some combination of syllables.

  ‘I know it looks brutal, love, but I’m just trying to keep these streets safe for you. Stop society from breaking down.’

  I just swallowed and looked at the pavement, trying to make my bottom lip stop wobbling.

  ‘I mean sometimes I think death is too good for these Opposition devils. Think about what they did to those babies. He’ll be burning in hell right now, that’s for sure.’

  And then he gave me a normal friendly wink, gave my cheek a pinch and strode back to the van.

  When you’ve grown up in a city seeing little more than the occasional rat and a couple of pigeons, a giraffe is pretty mind-blowing.

  At breakfast Mum announced that she’d bought tickets to the zoo. I know this might seem like the lamest thing ever, but embarrassing as it is to admit it, I was actually pretty excited. She’d planned a ‘proper family day out’ saying that she was worried I was going to ‘burn out early’, but I think it’s more likely that she was still feeling guilty about slapping me the other day. We don’t exactly do family things really – there’s always some emergency or other at Mum’s work or I’m studying or Dad’s working or, most commonly, all three. I hadn’t been to the zoo since I was about eight, and remembered properly loving it then.