UK2

by Terry Tyler

  "Here," he says, and flicks to the penultimate page, the one before my witnessed signature. I haven't got a clue what it says, because I didn't do anything more than glance through it. I just signed my name.

  I didn't bother to read the contract properly because they were making such a fuss of me, I'd just met my handsome prince and I was in a fluffy romantic cloud.

  I never even asked for a copy.

  "I'll tell you what it says, in case you've forgotten. You've signed an agreement to say that you will become pregnant within six months of signing—"

  "Yes, and I did, in the first week!"

  Now that I look at it again, I am not sure I ever saw this page he's showing me, but I can't be certain.

  "You've also agreed that you will start trying for another baby as soon as possible after the birth; you're allowed a full six months in which to commence your second pregnancy. Should you reach the end of five months without a result, you will both have a full physical examination, and partnership relations will take place under medical supervision. In other words, you and Chester will be required to reside in the Juno medical centre for the duration of your ovulation period. Your temperature will be taken several times a day during this time, and intercourse will occur on multiple occasions until fertilisation is successful. Obviously couples might find this supervision invasive; it's your incentive to ensure that pregnancy occurs under more amenable circumstances."

  The thought of having sex under supervision is so revolting that I can't get my head around it; the six-month limit is bad enough.

  I feel faint. "I never agreed to this."

  He shrugs, still smiling, and waves my signature at me. "Sorry, darling, it says here that you did. It's witnessed by Erika, too."

  "But—Alex, I don't want to be pregnant again straight away—"

  Again, he carries on as if I haven't spoken. "After the second baby the process will be repeated for the third and maybe further still, though it's not cast in stone; we can't predict how smoothly your pregnancies will go. But the unforeseen disaster of the virus means that world population has fallen way below required levels, and living conditions have made the pregnancy rate plummet, too. The purpose of the Juno Initiative is to breed a new generation of healthy children with good genes, who will be brought up under UK2 guidelines, then grow up and form their own partnerships, taking us up to the twenty-second century and beyond. You're an important part of this, Flora. You're the first."

  "But I want time to enjoy my baby, to get used to motherhood—"

  "And so you will. With the help of your ICA. She will be with you only until you are have passed the crucial three-month stage of your next pregnancy, and you have nothing to worry about; she will be fully trained in the UK2 parenting culture."

  How can I make him understand? "Alex—surely the pressure to get pregnant will be a hindrance, and if Chester and I feel like we're under obligation, it'll take away everything natural and spontaneous." I think of Mummy and Daddy, of my lovely, happy childhood, and my eyes fill with tears. "It won't be normal."

  "Please understand, Flora. This is your new 'normal'." He pats me on the knee. "I'm giving you a chance to let it happen the 'natural' way. To have an ICA to take the pressure off, so you and Chester can enjoy a bit of romance. Now, I know you're having problems. Chester's been a naughty boy, hasn't he? So we'll deal with that. Now, you must do your bit."

  I feel weak, my head all swimmy. "So when does it stop? When do I stop having children like I'm some—some sort of baby-making machine?"

  "You said you wanted a large family."

  "Yes, but can't I have least a year between them? Would it matter so much?"

  He looks tired, all of a sudden. "Flora, I run UK2, yes, but I have a job to do; my orders come from my own superiors. This isn't your personal fairy tale. You signed up for this, and you're a lot better off than most people in this country, so you need to stop acting like a spoilt child, and get on with it."

  "But I—"

  "You don't want to play by the rules? Fine, move back into your Rez Zone flat, and get a job in Supplies, eight hours a day, up until the birth. Bring your kid up on your own, on subsistence level credits. Because that's what's on offer for any of you who don't want to play ball. Or, you can do it the Juno way."

  He stands up, and now there is no smile at all, no nice warm Alex. It's like the battery has worn down, and the mask has fallen off.

  "Basically, love, as soon as you've knocked this one out, we require you and Chester to get fucking again, pronto. No excuses. Or you're out. And you won't see Chester again, either. He's an Odenkirk; he may be the third son and not, it's true, his father's favourite, but he's still Maxlo royalty. He was sent here to get Juno up and running, and we'll simply pair him with another girl who's more willing. We did you a great favour, because you've got the looks, and the right attitude, and you're a feisty little thing when you get going, aren't you?" He laughs, and I feel even sicker. What does he mean by that? And how do they know that Chester's been misbehaving? Do they watch us?

  "You've worked hard for us. We like you. Don't make us change our minds."

  And he walks out, leaving me sitting there open-mouthed.

  I'm going to have a newborn baby when Harlan is just a toddler. Then another, when the second one is toddling. I remember Mummy's friends talking about what it was like when you had a 'terrible two' and a newborn. How they were always exhausted, their nerves frazzled. I've got to have that twice over.

  For the first time, I really do understand. Chester may have liked the look of me, but he was given a job to do, that's all.

  And he'll do as he's told.

  There is no one I can go to.

  I trusted Dex, and Erika, and Alex—

  As I sit there, staring at the fan palm in the corner, I realise that Bronte and Nish are my only true friends in the world.

  Nurse Abbie pops her head in.

  "Are you okay, Flora? Do you want some more tea?"

  "No—no, thank you. I'm off home." I stand up, and put on my cape with the lovely furry hood.

  "You okay? You look a bit pale."

  "I'm fine."

  "Super loved up?"

  I force a smile. "Something like that."

  "I am, too! Or soon will be, I hope."

  I'm so deep in thought that I've hardly looked at her, but then I realise that she's waiting for me to say something.

  I force myself to look interested. "Are you? Good for you! Who's the lucky guy?"

  She's smiling all over her face. "One of the Hub security guards. Jake Treleaven. It's early days, but—well, fingers crossed!"

  She looks so happy that this time my smile is genuine. "I'm really pleased for you, Abbie. I hope it works out."

  And I'm envious of her, living in a Rez Zone and having a normal life with her normal boyfriend who wasn't sent to UK Central for the job of sweeping her off her feet.

  I wonder if Chester had to be forced. I wonder if he complained. I wonder if he really did choose me, or if he was never given an option.

  I say goodbye, walk out of the room and down the corridor of the plush, comfortable Juno Medical, but instead of leaving via the side door to go back to our complex, I push open the doors into the main medical centre.

  There is no wall-to-wall carpeting here, no soft lighting. The workers' medical centre has roughly plastered walls, and tiled floors. I walk down a wide, unheated corridor, past open arches into the waiting rooms filled with grey-looking people sitting on hard chairs, all dressed in the same sort of clothes: tracksuits, jeans, fleeces, hoodies. The whole place smells of cheap disinfectant and too many bodies crammed together, some of which might not be as clean as they should be. Outside the tiny pharmacy there's a long, long queue. A couple of men stare at me, and I know how I look, in my gorgeous clothes, with my shiny hair and make-up, but it doesn't make me feel happy. A pregnant woman mutters something to her friend, and they sneer at me. I feel ashamed. And I want to tell them th
at I'm not having it that good, either.

  I walk out of the front entrance, and down the main street. Usually I swan around, feeling special. Thinking about babies and Chester, and how wonderful my life is. Today, though, I look around me, properly. I see how drab the Supplies Zone looks, with rubbish lying around outside. There are two men, sweeping it up; they look cold, and tired.

  And I'm tripping along in my smart leather boots, going home to my luxury apartment to cook steak for my partner. I wonder if those men sweeping the roads can afford steak. Baked beans. That's what they'll be having tonight, isn't it? But at least their wives aren't under contract to churn out babies every six months for as long as they're physically able.

  Later, I ask Bronte and Nish if they read their contracts all the way through before signing.

  "No," Bronte says, and laughs. "Well, I skimmed it, but Erika said that it basically said everything they'd just told me, about getting pregnant within six months and not drinking and smoking. Those sort of things are always really long-winded, aren't they? Bor-ring!"

  I understand. Young, impressionable, naïve people like us don't bother to read the small print; that's who they choose for Juno. I thought Nish might have read it all, but he said he hadn't, either.

  "I did wish I had, afterwards; when I started to read it Dex got out all these photos of the Juno apartments, and I got distracted. Why?"

  I don't want to tell them why. They're happy, and I want them to stay happy. I don't suppose it matters, anyway, and it doesn't matter whether or not that penultimate page was ever in the original contracts. If we don't play ball we're on our own, with a baby to take care of in a desperate world. Faced with a choice, they'll go for comfort and safety.

  Just like I have.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  An island somewhere in the Pacific

  Ludlow drags his luggage down to the beach where the boat is waiting. The pull-along suitcase bumps over the sand; he drops the heavy holdall for a moment to shove the strap of the third bag back on his shoulder and wipe the sweat from his brow. Bloody humidity, he'll be glad to get somewhere cold.

  He senses Tanya behind him even before she starts yelling, and he knows what she's going to say because he's already heard it, over and over.

  She can't have caught it, she hasn't left the building.

  He turns.

  "You look like shit. Sorry, love, I can't take the risk."

  "But it's impossible! Can't you see that? It just isn't physically possible for me to have caught it! I look like shit because I'm not sleeping, and this heat—you've got to let me come with you, I'll die if I stay here!"

  "Stay away."

  She moves closer, and he has no choice. He takes his gun from his waistband, and points it at her.

  "I'm sorry, Tanya. I'm warning you. Don't come any closer."

  Her mouth drops open. "You can't leave me here!"

  "Mr Ludlow. We go." The islander who will take him to safety is impatient, and Ludlow backs up to the boat. Tanya sobs, and he feels wretched for her. They've worked together for four years. Even fucked a couple of times.

  And then he remembers.

  "You have got it. You took in a delivery of fruit and veg from the market, didn't you? That's how you caught it." His genuine sorrow takes him by surprise. Tanya is going to die.

  The man stops hauling his bags onto the boat. "She contact?"

  "Yes, but—"

  The islander leaps forward, cocks his gun, and shoots without warning.

  Her body drops like a stone, and Ludlow's initial impulse is to rush over, to see if she's still alive, but he knows he mustn't, knows it would be both pointless and potentially fatal.

  He whips round. "The fuck did you do that for?"

  "She ill, she dead. Fuck her. You contact with her, fuck you, too." He heaves Ludlow's bags out of the boat, hurls them onto the sand, turns around and starts up the engine.

  Ludlow makes a grab for the side, but the man holds his gun out, his hand shaking.

  "You contact. You stay fuck away!"

  And in a moment his getaway is gone, cutting a swathe through the water, out to sea and the safety of the next island, two hours away.

  Ludlow stands, helpless. There are no more boats; over the past two days, the few still healthy people have taken them and left. He tried to stop them, telling them they could be carrying it, could spread it to the other islands and beyond, but nobody listened. Ludlow hung on, waiting for instructions that never came, until he realised his only hope was to save himself. He paid the islander with his laptop and his Rolex watch.

  Now he doesn't even know what the fucking time is.

  Ludlow stands by the water's edge with his luggage. All he can hear is the squawking of sea birds and the rush of waves crashing on the beach, and all he can see before him is vast, silent ocean.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Lottie

  March 2027

  Pinch punch, first day of the month, and no return.

  It's Phil's birthday, and we're having a special dinner for him, because it's not only his birthday but his big five-o.

  When I was a kid—I mean, before bat fever—I used to think that anyone over forty was a total fossil and not worth talking to because they didn't know shit about shit. Excluding my grandparents, of course, who were reasonably cool, though they were not really down with what occurred in the hood, yo.

  Now, I love talking to old people, because they have experience and a broader sense of the world; they can teach me things. I suppose that's what happens when you grow up. You start to understand that old can mean wise, not just one foot in the grave. Also, 'cause all that TV, pop culture and other retarded internet bollocks no longer exists, it doesn't matter if they haven't heard of some dumb US teen actor. Two and a half years ago that dumb US teen actor probably lay in bed groaning as all his organs failed, so who gives a hot damn about him, anyway?

  So, Phil is fifty, and Mum and Kara make this ace dinner for him. It's mostly pasta and tuna and olives with white sauce from a jar, and a tart with almond paste and the last of the wonderful cherry jam, and tinned custard, and masses of wine, and it makes my mouth water just looking at and smelling it; we all saved up our food allowance for a couple of days, eating crap like noodles for every meal, so we could do this without cheating anyone else out of their fair share. That's how it works, now.

  It's the Elmfield gang, of course, with Mac and Myra, and Martin's managed to wangle himself an invitation, too. Mum wanted to invite Seren and Hawk because she's got a total crush on them, then Travis had to come because he and Seren are in lurrve, and it's ended up being a bit of a feast; the non-Elmfield people pooled resources, and Myra and Seren made another pasta dish with tinned ham and tomatoes, wine and basil. I wouldn't normally go on about food like this, but having special stuff to eat is a treat we all look forward to these days.

  It's only as we're sitting down for the first course that I notice Jax isn't here yet.

  I want to go and find him.

  "Don't," Mum says, "you know what Jax is like when he goes off. And you'll miss the party." She lowers her voice. "You know why he's struggling; it's almost a year."

  Since Heath died, she means. But Mum's dealing with it okay. Still, I suppose losing someone you were bonking for a couple of months is a bit different from losing a beloved father.

  When my dad died, right at the beginning of bat fever, I was upset, but it wasn't the end of the world. But Jax and Heath, they were super-mega-close, like me and Mum.

  He turns up when we're just finishing the tuna thing and the ham thing.

  "It's a bit cold now," Mum says. "I can warm it up, if you want, but it might get a bit dry."

  Myra sighs. "Remember microwaves?"

  "It's okay." Jax pulls a chair out. "I'm starving, I'll eat anything, and this looks awesome." We're quiet while he shovels in a few mouthfuls in, then he speaks. "Soz I was late, Phil. I-I dunno, I can't get it together today."

&nbs
p; "That's okay," says Phil, smiling at him in the candlelight. He picks up his glass of wine, and raises it to him. "We get it."

  We carry on talking about this, that and all sorts, and then suddenly Jax blurts it out.

  "I've got to find him. Dex. I don't think I'm going to be okay till I end it."

  "What do you mean, end it?" I know, of course, but I need to hear him say it.

  "I mean end him." He doesn't look at me. "I want to go down to that UK Central, look him in the eye and—I never got to see if Wedge knew it was me or not, but I want him to know. I've got to do it."

  No one speaks for a moment. Then Kara says, in a mild sort of way, "He's a big bloke, Dex. Tall, strong. And he's clever."

  Mum nods. "Too clever. I can imagine him talking you down."

  "Don't," says Scott. "It's not worth putting yourself in danger. And all that security they've got there—you'd never get past it."

  "I could make out like I want to live there, or something," Jax says.

  "Sounds a bit lame," I put in. "Like, with Wedge, we planned it, and you had Bette and Cleary's help. But if you go down there you'll be on your own. And he's probably got loads more like Bullshit Barney hanging around."

  Then Ozzy leans over, pours wine into a glass for him, and says, "They're right. Sometimes you don't get closure, mate."

  Jax looks up. He listens to Ozzy perhaps most, out of all of us. Oz seems aware that he has an audience, and looks around the table.

  With his long, fair dreads in the candlelight, he looks like a Viking at a feast, a thousand years ago. Not that Vikings had dreadlocks, but you know what I mean.

  "Can I tell you a story? Long time ago, when I was about your age, Jax, maybe a bit older, I had this chick who I had a serious thing for, you know? Like, she was my life."

  "Annalise," says Myra, with a moody sniff.

  Why do people get jealous about exes they never even knew? So tragic!

  Oz touches her on the shoulder. "Yeah, Annalise. Back in those days I hadn't, like, developed into the Ozzy y'all know and love. I thought I had to go work for The Man, earn a load of money, buy four walls and a roof, but in this case The Man wasn't such an asshole. He was Annalise's father. Like, I loved her, she loved me, and her pa had this nice little outfit running boat trips off a Greek island, and running this cool bar; y'know, ouzo and tapas an' that. He was seriously minted, and, 'cause I was the guy Anna loved, he offered to let me work my way into partnership with him. I had it all in front of me. The chick of my dreams, the job that wouldn't be like working, the island paradise, plenty of cash. Her pa was even talking 'bout putting me in his will once Anna and I got married; so yeah, I was up for the whole shebang."