Transferral

by Kate Blair

  TRANSFERRAL

  KATE BLAIR

  TRANSFERRAL

  Copyright © 2015 Kate Blair

  This edition © 2015 Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc. First published in the United States in 2016 This is a first edition.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.

  The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Culture, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit Program.

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Blair, Kate, author

  Transferral / Kate Blair.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77086-454-2 (paperback). — ISBN 978-1-77086-455-9 (html)

  1. Title.

  PS8603.L3153T73 2015 JC813’.6 C2015-905378-1

  C2015-905379-X

  United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2015949543

  Cover photograph and design: angeljohnguerra.com

  Interior text design: Tannice Goddard, bookstopress.com

  Printer: Friesens

  Manufactured by Friesens in Altona, Manitoba, Canada in August, 2015.

  This book is printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper.

  DANCING CAT BOOKS

  AN IMPRINT OF CORMORANT BOOKS INC. 10 ST. MARY STREET, SUITE 615, TORONTO, ONTARIO, M4Y 1P9

  www.dancingcatbooks.com

  www.cormorantbooks.com

  To my favorite soon-to-be teens

  Olivia Boulton and Danielle Clayton

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  PENTHOUSE FLAT, BANKSIDE, LONDON

  TWENTY-FOUR DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE ELECTION

  THE KITCHEN IS CROWDED, as usual. I swallow a cough as I enter. I don’t want to disgust them.

  Dad is half-hidden behind a newspaper with his picture on the front. He spots me and folds it before I can read the headline. That can’t be good.

  Alison, Dad’s executive assistant, sits across the breakfast bar. She looks me up and down, apparently surprised to see me in my pajamas. But this is my home. What does she expect?

  “How’s the throat today?” Dad asks.

  “Worse.” I touch my neck gingerly. The glands on either side of my windpipe are swollen and sore. “My head hurts too.”

  Dad comes over, places a sympathetic hand on my shoulder.

  Piers, Dad’s campaign manager, turns his body away, not looking up from his laptop.

  “Have we got time to drop Talia off at the hospital for a Transfer?” Dad asks.

  Alison pulls out her phone and jabs at it. Her hair falls over her face, perfect as usual, but she’s wearing the same suit I saw her in yesterday. Didn’t she go home last night? Did she spend it with Piers? Doubtful. A volunteer back at campaign HQ?

  “Sorry. We have to be at Victoria Library at 9 a.m. To hand out literacy awards.” She smiles at Dad as she says it, as though handing out literacy awards is tantamount to climbing Everest.

  “And I need to brief you before then,” Piers says. “A volunteer can take her to St. Barts.”

  Dad runs his fingers through his graying beard. “Piers, you said when we launched the campaign that we’d make time for Talia.”

  “And we do. Just not this morning.”

  “You can brief me in the car. St. Barts is a quick detour en route to Victoria.”

  Piers shakes his head. “She’s probably contagious. We don’t have time in the schedule for you to get the Transfer. You should step away from her.”

  “I’m standing right here,” I say.

  “That’s the problem,” Piers says. “If Malcolm gets it from you, and can’t get it transferred right away, he might get caught on camera coughing or wiping his nose. He’d look like a criminal.”

  “We can use hand sanitizer and masks,” Dad says. “Talia, can you be ready in five minutes?”

  “No problem.” I run upstairs before Piers can argue, glad of the opportunity to spend some time with Dad, even if it’s just a car ride.

  It takes me less than five minutes to put on a pencil skirt, a lambswool top, and a dash of makeup, but by the time I’m back downstairs, Dad’s waiting in the doorway of our flat. Piers is holding the lift open with his walking stick. I grab my jacket, shrugging it on and buttoning it up as the lift doors close and we descend.

  I sniff and the others move away from me. I don’t blame them. The sound grosses me out too. But Dad smiles at me, and I appreciate him making the effort.

  The doorman nods at us as we step out together, into the hissing bluster of a spring day.

  The wind throws my long hair in my face. I try to smooth it down, to keep it from exposing the scar that runs across my scalp. The driver waits with the limo at the curb, holding the door open. Alison gives me a mask as I get in. It’s a big car, with an L-shaped seat. I pull the mask over my face as I head for the corner.

  Dad slides his tall frame across the back seat next to me. Piers puts his cane in the car ahead of him, climbs in, and sits on the other side, at right angles to us and as far away as he can get. Alison jumps in last, next to Dad.

  The London traffic is relatively light, and I stare at the muddy Thames as we cross Southwark Bridge, my head thumping along with my pulse. I can’t wait to get this disease transferred. Around me, the others put on their masks and pass around the hand sanitizer. I try not to be offended.

  “How are the polls?” I ask, voice muffled by the mask.

  Dad doesn’t answer, so I sink back in my seat, seeing my visions of us living at 10 Downing Street slide out of sight. “That bad, huh?”

  “There are twenty-four days until the election. Don’t worry,” Dad says.

  Piers butts in. “Now Malcolm, about those ads.” He starts talking about key messages and strong visuals. I want to focus, but my head is full of aching mist. So I tune out the discussion as London flashes by, blurring into a mass of gray.

  After a while, Piers falls silent, and Alison’s voice cuts my mental fog.

  “Where do you think you got it, Talia?”

  “What?”

  “This illness. It’s not like you’ve been hanging out with criminals.”

  It’s a rude question, but a fair point. It’s been over a year since I was last sick. Since everyone I know gets their illnesses transferred at the first symptoms, I hardly ever catch anything. People are at their most co
ntagious when their noses are running and they’re hacking up clouds of germs, and only criminals end up like that.

  “That drunk man on Bridge Street last week,” Piers says. “Remember? He sneezed as we were walking by.”

  Of course. He stank of stale beer and was ranting and swearing at passersby.

  “I told you we should have crossed the road to avoid him,” Piers says.

  I wish I’d listened to him. My throat really hurts. We sit in silence for a minute.

  “Want to interview me?” Dad says.

  He’s trying to cheer me up. It’s a game we’ve been playing since he became a politician. I pretend to be a hardball interviewer. Ask questions to help Dad practise. He has real media people for this, of course, but it’s still nice to be included.

  “Sure.” I make my hand into a loose fist and stick it in Dad’s face. The invisible microphone.

  “The National Law Party are well behind the Democratic Justice Party. What makes you think you can still win?”

  Dad puts on his serious face. “Because we have to. Otherwise Sebastian Conway and the Democratic Justice Party will take this country straight to hell. He’ll cut funding for universities, for schools, for the National Transfer Service, and invest it all in criminals.”

  I bring the invisible microphone back to my face. “What would you say to those who claim he’s tackling inequality?”

  “I’d say they were idiots,” Piers mutters. But Dad keeps a straight face. Keeps on playing his role.

  “Poverty isn’t to blame for criminality, and it’s an insult to the poor to say so. When I was a child, my parents hit tough times when my father lost his business. We were often hungry, but we never broke the law.”

  I’m nodding. It’s hard to keep up the tough-interviewer facade. Especially with this headache. But I keep going.

  “The current government still hold on to some core support, in spite of their convictions for embezzling public funds. Do you think they could win?”

  Dad shakes his head. “They’re corrupt. They stole from our country. You can’t have criminals running the UK.”

  “But without those convictions, you would be the leader of a third party, with no chance in this election. Some would say it was only an accident of circumstances that you’ve got this far.”

  “It’s no accident. The choice is between us, the convicts of the current government, or Sebastian Conway and his criminal-friendly Democratic Justice Party. The choice is between law and order and criminals.”

  “You’re saying ‘criminals’ too much,” Piers interrupts. “Vary your word usage. Thugs, convicts, lawbreakers, crooks, violent felons, killers, rapists. And Talia, you’re a terrible interviewer. You go too easy on him. Practically feed him lines.”

  “You were great,” Dad says, eyes smiling over his mask.

  Piers is right, of course. But playing devil’s advocate is tough when the other side is so unreasonable. There are rumors that Sebastian Conway wants to get rid of the Transfer system altogether. How can he be winning?

  We turn at the entrance to St. Barts, a magnificent white building with an archway watched over by the stern gaze of Henry VIII, hands on wide hips.

  “When will I see you next?” I ask Dad.

  He glances at Alison, who produces her phone again. “We’re having brunch with supporters in Knightsbridge at ten o’clock. If you’re done in time, you can join us there. But we’re leaving for Manchester right after that. We won’t be back until past your bedtime.”

  “I’m sixteen. I don’t have a bedtime.”

  “Sorry. No offence intended.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “I’ll send a car for you,” Piers says. “If it’s past ten it’ll take you home. There’s no point in coming to Knightsbridge if we’re nearly done.”

  “I’ll be done by then.” It hurts a little when I speak.

  In the courtyard we pull up outside the shiny glass of the new wing. Piers has called ahead and there’s a security guard waiting outside for me. Dad twists to the side so I can push past him on the way out of the car. I want to give him a kiss but my mask is in the way. And I’m contagious.

  I follow the guard into the lobby. His footsteps echo through the glass-and-marble space at a marching pace. I trot behind him, too ill to keep up. This sort of special treatment makes me feel weird. But it would be dangerous for the daughter of a prime ministerial candidate to wait with everyone else.

  The security guard gets me checked in at reception and leads me up to an assessment room. After he leaves, I perch on the edge of the bed, stare at the antiseptic white space, and check my phone. Eight-fifty. I can easily be done by ten.

  Almost immediately, the door swings open. A black guy stands in the frame. I think he might be a nurse at first, but he’s too young, and wearing jeans, not scrubs. His eyes catch my attention, a startling shade of emerald.

  “Hi,” I say, trying not to look at his chest. His T-shirt fits him well.

  “Umm.” He glances around, then his green eyes meet mine. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen a big guy around, have you? Might be acting a bit weird.”

  “No. I haven’t. Or, well, I don’t think I have. What does he look like?” I’m babbling. Why am I babbling?

  “This tall.” He holds a hand above his head. “Darker skin than mine. About so wide.”

  I nod my understanding, trying not to cough. I don’t want to scare him away. His eyes widen. “You’ve seen him?”

  “Oh, no, sorry. I meant I’ll keep an eye out for him.”

  His shoulder slump. “Thanks.”

  I don’t want him to go. I don’t get a chance to meet guys these days.

  “What should I do if I see him? Should I, um, call you or something?”

  When did I become a stammering idiot?

  “Nah. I’d better just keep looking.”

  Then he sneezes. I lean back, even though he’s yards away. Try not to look disgusted. After all, I’m sick too. We’re all here for the Transfer.

  Before I can say anything else he ducks back out. The door slams shut, making me jump.

  Well, I messed that one up. He must think I’m a total airhead. It’s good I’ll probably never see him again.

  I exhale, kicking my feet. I keep checking my phone. Nine-oh-two … Nine-ten … Nine-eighteen … Finally, the nurse comes in. She pushes her frizzy hair behind her ears as she examines the chart she’s carrying.

  “Miss Hale?”

  “Call me Talia.”

  She walks over, flipping through the chart. “Right hand please, Miss Hale.”

  I hold it out. She produces a needle, then pricks my finger. I’m careful not to flinch at the sting of it.

  “Have you been working here long?” I cringe at the words coming out of my mouth. It must be the pounding in my head, making me dumber than usual.

  “Yes,” she says as she squeezes, producing a berry of blood. She smears it on a testing strip, pops that into a glass tube, seals it, and sticks on a label.

  “Do you like your job?” I sound like some out-of-touch minor royal. But I’m starved for conversation with someone other than Dad and his staff.

  “It’s fine.” She grabs a cotton ball and presses it to my finger. “Hold this,” she says. “Back in a few minutes.” And she’s out the door before I can ask her how long “a few minutes” will be. I rest my aching head in my hands.

  Nine-twenty-five. This is one of the last days Dad will be based in London. Parliament will be dissolved soon, then he’s roaming all over the country on that garish campaign bus and I won’t get to see him at all. Nine-twenty-nine.

  I look up at the Transfer machine.

  I stare at the clear tubes, the wires and electrode pads, all feeding into the mechanical heart of it. The display screen is black now, waiting to come alive, waiting for someone to feed it their illness. I can see how people would be frightened of it.

  They had good cause, once. Many lives were lost trying to replicate t
hat first, accidental Transfer, back in the Victorian Era, when people experimented with blood, electricity, and live volunteers. But these days you only have reason to be afraid if you are on the receiving end.

  It started as a purely experimental process, but when a diphtheria epidemic began claiming the children of Edwardian Parliamentarians, the Transfer was a way both to save the children and provide an alternative to the gallows for criminals. So the National Transfer Service was founded.

  Tubes and wires lead into the wall behind me, to the other side of St. Barts. The other side of the law. The other side of right and wrong.

  After the initial success of the person-to-person Transfer, scientists spent untold fortunes trying to find a way to transfer a disease to animals, to cell cultures, to corpses. But the Transfer can’t make a virus jump to other DNA unless it’s human, and alive.

  I check my phone again. Nine-thirty-four. The Transfer takes about twenty minutes to pump most of my blood through the machine. My body’s defences can remove the rest.

  I’m relieved when the nurse comes back in. She doesn’t look up from her notes.

  “You have the start of a rhinovirus. The common cold. You’re lucky. There are always people ready who have been sentenced to colds. They’ve matched you with one.”

  She turns on the machine and it whirrs into flashing, spinning life. She hooks me up, sticking the cold pads on my skin, pushing a needle roughly into the back of my hand. I don’t flinch.

  “It’ll take about twenty minutes,” she says, clearly starting a familiar spiel. “There is no discomfort on this side of the Transfer, although you may feel some odd sensations during the process.”

  The clear tube fills with red, and she squints at the display, pressing buttons, adjusting dials. The tingle starts, like a shiver running through my blood.

  “I’ll be back when it’s finished,” she says, already heading out the door. And then I’m alone again, in the white room, with nothing but the hum of the machine for company, and that odd tickle under the skin that shows the Transfer is working. I don’t understand the science, but my headache is fading already as the electricity and magnetism at the heart of the machine transfers my virus through the membrane that separates my blood from that of a criminal.