Show Stopper

by Hayley Barker

  It was easier not to know.

  I keep hearing the words Hoshi said yesterday: Your mum tortures Dregs, did you know that? She’s the person responsible for hundreds of Dreg deaths a week.

  She was right; it’s true.

  Only last week, I heard her on the phone, issuing orders: Their numbers are growing too rapidly. We need to cut costs, manage the situation. What did she actually mean by that?

  I don’t need to think about it too hard. How many times has she told me that Dregs aren’t really human, that they don’t deserve any rights? She says we don’t go far enough at the moment. She thinks Dregs should be, somehow, eliminated. That’s the phrase I’ve heard her use, again and again – at conferences, at dinner parties, at family barbecues.

  The public admire her because of her tough stance on Dregs. That’s why she’s the front runner for the leadership.

  I love my mother.

  I loved my mother.

  I don’t love her any more.

  How can I love her now, after everything I’ve seen? After everything I know? How can anyone love someone who has been responsible for the repression and victimization of all these people?

  I can’t.

  My childhood, my past, my whole life… when I look back, it all feels tainted, sour.

  I remember all the times she’d be on the television, or the news feed on the PureWeb. How excited I’d get, seeing her face.

  Sometimes, I used to hide outside and spy on her when she was working in her office. I’m sure she knew I was there really, peeping through a crack in the door, as she made her phone calls. Minister Baines: access code one-four-nine-eight-six.

  Access code one-four-nine-eight-six.

  No one’s supposed to know that code. She should have been more careful, I guess, but she trusted me. Why would she need to be cautious around her own son?

  A possibility starts to form in my mind. It’s not a way to save Hoshiko, but it is a way to be heard. To do what I should I have done long ago: to speak out, to stand up.

  There’s not much in the little room I’m hidden in. A kettle, a desk, a computer.

  “Jack? That computer. Is it connected to the PureWeb?”

  “It is. Why? Fancy a little look at yourself? Don’t turn it on unless you do, you’re a celebrity now.”

  “So we could get a live feed up?”

  He flips open the laptop. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because I’ve got an idea…”

  HOSHIKO

  I can’t really remember much about my real mother, no matter how much I keep trying. She’s this soft feeling I get inside when I try to look back: soft and sweet and insubstantial, like the candyfloss they sell here.

  When they took me from her, Amina filled the big hole inside me. Amina’s been a kind mother, a wise older sister, a best friend. Amina’s been everything.

  All I want to do is curl up and die, howl myself into oblivion.

  I can’t though. One thought manages to penetrate the grief. It starts off as a whisper, but then it gets louder and louder, so that it’s a shout, a scream, a siren going off in my head. Greta.

  Greta will be next.

  Silvio knows how much I love her – everyone knows.

  I have to concentrate on Greta now, have to take that wracking pain, so raw that I feel like my insides are being ripped out, and bury it away to take out and deal with at a later date.

  I look up for the first time.

  Where am I?

  The room is large and poorly lit. I can make out rows of shelves stretching away from me and strange shapes lining the walls.

  There’s a switch by the door and, when I press it, the room is bathed in a clinical light from the old-fashioned fluorescent tube lights which reach down each row. What did Silvio call the place?

  The Recycling Room.

  At the very front, bound by a chain to a table, there’s a large book. It looks expensive. I peer at its title. “Deposit Ledger. Only authorised personnel to enter details.” I touch its front cover. It’s bound in a very soft, very light material. It’s not like leather and it’s not like fur, but it’s not like cotton either. It’s warm, almost, to the touch.

  It feels a bit like skin.

  My hand shoots back.

  I’m being ridiculous.

  I walk slowly down the first row. It’s lined with big chest freezers, quietly humming to themselves. I pause at the first one. It’s got a big label above it: Research Matter. I’m scared to open it.

  There was something about the excitement in Silvio’s eyes when he locked me in here that, even amidst all the pain, managed to penetrate.

  I open it slowly. It’s crammed full of transparent bags, each one bulging with its tightly packed contents. I reach slowly in and lift one out. It’s heavy, and inside is a frozen mass of purple. It’s labelled, and I lift it up further towards the lights to read what it says.

  Liver, lungs, heart: Slavic. 29/3/2135. I drop it, quickly, and it lands with a clunk on top of all the other bags, rocking gently.

  I take a deep breath and force myself to pick up a bag from a different section of the freezer. Kidneys: South Asian. 16/2/2135, it reads. I shiver, and place it gently back down. I stare at the rest of the bags. I can’t bring myself to pick any more up. There must be at least fifty in this one chest alone.

  I slam the chest shut.

  I don’t want to see any more. Don’t want to go on, but I have to. I have to know what else is in here, the dark underbelly of the Cirque.

  The next chest has a different label above it. Animal/Dreg Food: Flesh.

  I don’t spend long looking into that one. I don’t need to and I certainly don’t want to. One glance in is enough to confirm what it holds. More transparent bags, bulging with diced meat.

  The whole row is filled with chests like this. I count them. Ten.

  Ten chests full of meat for the animals, full of meat for us, to eat. Where does it come from? My brain is screaming the answer at me. I shut it down. Breathe. Somehow. Keep walking down the long stretching corridors.

  At the top, I turn around and head down the second aisle. There are no freezers in this row, just shelves, lined with jars. Jars with things floating in them.

  I don’t want to look.

  I have to look.

  I carefully lift down the first heavy jar. The labels on it are completely unnecessary. Dozens of eyeballs stare back at me, suspended in a vinegary liquid.

  I drop the jar. It falls to the hard ground with a smash, the vinegary contents sploshing out, up on to my legs. Some of the eyeballs roll down the aisle, under the counters, but most of them stay there, looking at me in a mushy, accusing cluster.

  I step over them, whispering an apology.

  There are loads of jars on the shelves, at least twenty. More eyeballs. Fingers, disjointed and lost, for ever separated from the hands they once belonged to. Dismembered tongues, long and obscene looking.

  What do they do with them all?

  There are boxes too. I take one down. “Ivory.” It rattles as I lift it. I prise open the lid. It’s full of teeth. Big brown rotten ones. Tiny white milky ones. I slam it shut.

  Further down there’s a new section. Huge horizontal lockers line the sides. It takes all my strength to pull one open. Eventually, it springs out, nearly knocking me over.

  Dozens of human skulls leer at me.

  Who were they? Did I know them?

  I must have known them.

  I think about all the friends I’ve lost, over the years. Petra. Michaela. Andrez. Paul. Raj. Dozens of faces flood my memory. Is this what became of them all?

  There are sacks hanging up in the next aisle. One is labelled Brown, another Black, another Blonde. I take down the first one, pulling it open by the drawstrings which seal it. I reach my hand in tentatively, jolting back when it touches something. It’s like a big soft nest. It’s hair; the sack is full of hair. Why? What’s it for?

  The final aisle has a large plastic sign a
ttached to the shelf fronts, the same one on both sides. The writing is in thick black capital letters, underscored in red.

  CIRQUE CADAVERS. FOR AUCTION. DO NOT TAMPER WITH.

  There’s something up on the top shelf but it’s too high up to see what it is. I grab a stepladder from the corner and mount the steps. There’s a huge jar, but it’s facing away from me. I prise it back round.

  A decapitated head, floating in liquid.

  I read the label. “Violent Death. Not in performance. Estimated value: 45-50K.

  The next jar is bigger. There’s a whole body crammed into it. I know who it is as soon as I see jagged tears on the flesh. It’s Sarah: Emmanuel’s partner. “Under auction,” the label reads. “Performance death. Current bid: 300K.”

  There’s another jar, next to it. It’s got two corpses floating in it; they fit in there easily because there’s not much left of either one. Astrid and Luna, or all that remains of them.

  Their bodies are mangled red stumps but, for some reason, the sharks have left their faces alone and they remain intact from the shoulders upward. They float besides one another, mirror images even in death. This is how they started life, side by side, suspended in fluid. It’s how they ended life, immersed in water while the sharks tore them apart.

  Next to them is an empty jar. I rotate it around so that I can read the label. The ink is still wet; it must have just been written. “Death by hanging. Cirque veteran. Not in performance.”

  This jar is for Amina.

  I push it away, get down from the ladder somehow and fall to my hands and knees, retching, and that’s when I see it. Someone’s been in here while I’ve been looking around. Right in front of me, in the doorway, gazing at me with its one quizzical eye, the head of Greta’s doll. Just the head, the stuffing hanging from the bottom. Alongside, the pieces of her body. Arms, legs, a torso, all separated, in a neat little pile.

  The message could not be clearer.

  I start screaming. Once I start, I can’t stop. I run down the aisles, pulling everything of the shelves, out of the freezers, out of the boxes. I hurl it at the walls, throw it to the ground, all of it. I trample on it and crush it and grind it beneath my feet.

  I will destroy everything in this room. I will not let them make a penny’s worth of profit out of these people they’ve butchered.

  The door opens and three guards rush in.

  I’m by the ladder and I climb up it again as quickly as I can. They run towards me.

  I pick up the biggest jar I can manage, the decapitated head, unscrew the lid and rain the contents down on them. They’re covered in a flood of vinegar and the head hits one of the guard’s upturned faces before falling to the ground with a wet thunk.

  They grab me and drag me away. It takes three of them. I scratch and bite and claw; the Cat has turned wild.

  BEN

  We go over things one more time. What I need to say, what I mustn’t say, how I should look at the camera the whole time, how I should speak. Jack wants to write out a script, but I refuse. Better not to be too over-rehearsed, Mother always says – it never sounds as heartfelt if you are.

  Funny, that I’m following her advice – the very woman I’m about to expose.

  I take a deep breath. “OK. I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.”

  “You really think this’ll work?”

  “Unless her code has changed in the last two days.”

  Jack clicks on the PureWeb explorer button. The news stream is all about our story, like he said it would be. There’s a split screen: my face is on half of it, Hoshiko’s the other. Except it doesn’t look like the Hoshi I know at all, and it doesn’t look like me either.

  She stares menacingly at the camera, a huge scowl on her face. She’s got the look on it she had when she told me about how much she hates the Pures, about what they did to her. She looks kind of intimidating.

  The photo of me is about four years old. I’m all cute and baby faced. Grinning at the camera innocently, wearing my school uniform.

  We listen to the report for a few minutes. The search for Benedict Baines continues. Benedict, son of Vivian Baines, has been missing, believed abducted, since Saturday evening. Police are following several leads, and are now questioning the infamous Dreg Cirque tightrope walker, the Cat, in association with the abduction.

  There’s nothing there about me running away, or what I did to the security guy. It’s a cover up, like Amina said it would be.

  My parents come on the screen. My mother’s crying. I’ve never seen her cry before. She speaks, her voice wavering.

  “We just want our son back.” She looks at the camera. “Benedict, if you’re watching this, we will never give up. We know you love us. We know you would never do anything to hurt or shame us. It will be OK. We just want you home.”

  Her eyes bore into me. She’s telling me that she knows I’ve run away with the circus, that this is getting embarrassing for her and I need to stop being so silly and come on home. As soon as I do, it can all go back to normal. To how it was before.

  She forgives me, but I can’t forgive her. Not ever.

  HOSHIKO

  I calm down, eventually. They’ve locked me back in a cell. At least I’m not in that room any more.

  I need to think rationally.

  Greta or Ben: who do I save?

  I’ve got to protect Greta, she’s done nothing wrong. She’s just a child; she hasn’t even started to live yet, not that there’s a life worth living here. But there is always hope, even in the bleakest of days, that’s what Amina told me, time and time again. While Greta’s alive, there’s a chance, somehow, that things might change for her, might get better.

  I’ve got to give Ben up. Got to talk. But how can I actually say the words that might kill him?

  I can’t.

  I can’t sacrifice Greta. I can’t give up Ben. There’s only one option. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get out of this locked room, find Greta, find Ben and run.

  BEN

  Last year, Mother was given a special award for services to the country. There was a big ceremony and a commemorative service. The rest of the ministers all clubbed together and sent a gift over to our house: a huge grand piano, the one that sits in the drawing room: the one that gave Priya the creeps.

  I’m not allowed to touch it; it’s too valuable, Mother says. It’s an ornamental piano, not one to be played.

  She plays it sometimes though, when we’re in bed. I’ve heard the tinkling keys, crept down and watched her, her fingers caressing the gleaming ivory.

  I heard Mother one night, discussing it with my father.

  “It must have cost a fortune,” he said. “Collecting together all those thousands of teeth. Treating them and polishing them, getting rid of all the decay and discolouration.”

  “I love it,” she said. “It’s a permanent reminder of all the good work we’re doing.”

  I crept back up the stairs. I pretended to myself that I didn’t know what she meant. I never even thought about it again. I woke up in the night a lot, sweating and feeling sick, but I pushed it all away.

  I ignored it, just got on with my life.

  I can’t sit on the fence any more, saying nothing about what they’re doing. Even if it wasn’t for Priya, wasn’t for Hoshiko, I’ve seen too much now. I know too much. I can’t be that boy any more. That privileged little rich boy, staring back at me, pleading ignorance.

  It’s all so easy. I click on a couple of links, type in her name, punch in the access code and that’s it. There I am, online. Free to speak: to my mother, to the world. Live. Uncensored. You should have been more careful, Mother.

  HOSHIKO

  The pain in my burnt feet is intensifying, but it annoys me that I even notice. How can I let a foot injury bother me after what I’ve just seen? After Amina is dead? When Ben’s in danger and, even now, they might have Greta?

  I’m trapped and it’s only a matter of time before Silvio returns. />
  Why’s he taking so long?

  Suddenly, I hear a shuffling noise from above. It’s coming from the ceiling, and it’s getting closer. I look up.

  Someone’s up there. Who?

  I crouch down in the corner, holding my breath as the noise gets progressively louder.

  There’s a hatch, right in the middle of the ceiling – one of the dozens of ventilation hatches letting air into the tunnels above which spread their way all across the Cirque. As I watch, it’s prised away, lifted out.

  Who’s up there?

  I stay still. Watch. Wait.

  A head appears. It peeps over the edge, then pulls back. Very cautiously, very warily.

  Some legs appear, followed by a torso. A body springs down into the room, light as a butterfly.

  It can’t be. It is. It’s Greta.

  BEN

  “Hi, my name’s Ben Baines, I guess you know that by now. I don’t have much time. Pretty soon they’ll wipe this from the PureWeb. They won’t report it, it’ll be like I never spoke. But, if you’re watching this, right now… Remember. Remember what I’m about to say. Think about it. Pass it on. Whisper it to others. Don’t forget. Don’t let them convince you it doesn’t matter, that it isn’t important. It is.

  “I wasn’t abducted. I wasn’t kidnapped. I ran away. I left home. I made a choice.

  “Everything you’ve been told is a lie. The Dregs who live all round you, in the shadows of your lives: they’re not evil. They’re not villains, they’re not dirty. They are people. Just like you. Just like me.

  “Here in the Cirque, they don’t just kill people; they beat them, they maim them, they torture them – again and again and again – and we pay to watch.

  “Is that right? Is it?

  “Maybe this makes you feel uncomfortable? Maybe you avoid the Cirque; it’s not your fault, you don’t do anything wrong. What can you do to change things anyway? Why is it your problem? You’re not the one who does anything evil, are you? No. Of course not. You just sit by and let it happen. What else can you do?”