by Emma Pullar
My boots slip on the grubby tiled floor, I regain my balance and something hard presses against my leg. The guard’s knife; I don’t draw it, I wait. Seconds turn into a minute. It’s gone. When I don’t hear Bunce’s screams on the other side of the block wall, the rise and fall of my chest slows. I take a cautious step closer to the door and reach out with my shaky fingers. I touch the grimy, square edges of a panel beside the door. Crap! I never use this block. The ‘deactivated’ palm-pads can sometimes reactivate and lock on the inside, only to be opened from the outside. Lucky for me, the Mutil couldn’t work that one out. No locks, no secrets. I wonder if Central knows that this block locks? They said deactivating the locking mechanisms was for our own safety, but I know it was for theirs. I hope upon hope that Bunce’s door is locked too.
The bathroom is cold, urine-saturated, empty, and safe. Dirty white tiles cover everything except the ceiling and the bath is stained brown. I imagine an elephant took a dump in it and then smeared it around with his trunk. The beam of light above the one cracked mirror is broken, and it flickers.
Glug, gurgle …
The toilet is talking. I step forward a few paces, lean over and peer into the off-white pot. Is the drain blocked? The water at the bottom of the bowl is rusty orange and rising. It thickens, darkens, emitting a wave of stench into the air, a stink worse than the trenches. Rats stuck in the u-bend?
The putrid liquid starts to rush, bubbling over the rim. Bits of dead rat float to the surface and crimson gloop spills over the edge. My nose wrinkles. I step back. Red water explodes upwards, spraying my face. The stink is a cocktail of excrement, blood, and stale urine. My stomach spasms and I dry retch as I feverishly scrap the splatters of rot from my face, dragging my nails down my cheeks, I want to scrape my skin off. The liquid oozes faster, gallons heaving up and out of the bowl. The dirty, white tiles awash with death from the sewers. Disgusting! I shuffle backwards and try the door – it won’t open.
Sweat panics through my skin, hands slippery with bloodied toilet water, my fingers slide across the palm-pad.
‘Dammit!’
I wipe my palms down the front of my cargo pants and position both hands up against the palm-pad. I push my body weight onto the panel. I shove and shove at it, scream and slap at the grimy pad until my hands redden and sting. Nothing happens, I can’t get out. The rancid river reaches my heels. I pivot on tip-toe, expecting to find the bodies of hundreds of rats flushed over the stained floor. Bile touches the back of my throat. The odour is dizzying and the blood-drenched floor grips me with fear. Not rats … thumbs, fingers, a floating ear, a severed hand; a slithering eel of intestine trail over the bowl and into the blood water lapping at my boots. I clamp my hand over my mouth and nose. What the hell? The damp of my socks makes me retch again. I have to get out … I don’t want to drown in this, my body a sponge for the liquid dead.
I scan the room, even though I know there are no windows, only vents in the high ceiling that I can’t reach. The door is my only hope. I slosh backwards, red water threatening my knees. I boot the door. Not even a dent. I wade backwards again. This time I line up my shoulder. Thud – splash. Fuck! I stumble backwards holding the pain to my upper arm. The door is rock solid. Despite the throbbing, I line up and run at the door again and again. Thud, splash, thud, splash; the door flies open, thump – whoosh. The water escapes with me, rushing around my battered body and mixing with the dirty ground to create a new vile odour.
I spit out dirt and the metallic taste of my own blood. My bottom lip ripped across the gritty ground and split, the delicate flesh burst open the way a grape does when pinched between the fingers. I crane my neck to look behind me. Bunce holds the heavy door open. A decaying ear floats up beside his green sneakers. He jumps backwards, releasing the door, it crashes shut. I push up onto my knees and brush the imbedded grit out of my palms, by wiping them down my thighs. Bunce reaches down and I reach up, his meaty hand encases my slender fingers and he pulls me to my feet in one swift motion. He almost lifts me into the air. He’s strong. Why does this surprise me? After all, he’s never been starved or sleep-deprived or worked to the bone. Why wouldn’t he be strong? Because I see him as weak? Weak mind does not mean weak body. Imagine what Bunce could do with a strong mind to go with his strong body.
‘What is that stuff?’ he asks, in disgust. ‘You smell terrible.’
‘Beauty treatment of course,’ I say, flicking a slither of rotten flesh from my shoulder. ‘All Skels wash in blood and severed body parts, didn’t you know that?’
‘Excuse me?’ he says, wrinkling his piggy nose.
‘I don’t know what the fuck it is, Bunce, okay!’ I say, while I wring out my sopping pony tail, my blond hair now a dirty pink.
‘Okay,’ he says defensively, ‘You don’t have to swear.’
I roll my eyes.
‘Guards? Mutil?’
‘Gone, I heard the guards beat the Mutil and drag it away,’ He shrugs, but the casual movement doesn’t cover up his nervous shuffling from one foot to the other. Stay still! He shoves his hands into his pockets in an attempt to stop his twitchy legs. ‘W-what happened in there?’
‘I dunno,’ I say, and I don’t. I look down at the trail of blood water coming from the closed block door. I kick at some entrails with my boot. ‘The sewer backed up or something and suddenly, river of death. I’m never washing in a block again. I’m going to the pond.’
I stride away. An aching pain in my ribs stops me for a moment, I hold my right side and carry on walking but Bunce doesn’t move. I turn around.
‘Come on!’
‘I can’t go there!’ Bunce wrings his chubby hands. ‘It’s in the slums, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘Eremites don’t like outsiders and they hate Morb …’
‘Everyone hates Morbs!’ I say it with more malice than I intended.
Bunce looks away. I don’t have time for this.
‘We’re not going to tell them you’re a Morb, are we,’ I say, softening my tone. ‘We’ll say you’re from a High-Host family.’
‘No one will believe that!’ Bunce says, kicking at the ground as I did. Red jelly from the blood water sticks to the tip of his sneaker; he hops about and flicks his foot around, flinging off the bloody inners. ‘Look at me, I’m paler than the moon.’
‘No one’ll believe a Morb is outside!’ I say impatiently, the guy is the same age as me yet he acts like a giant toddler. ‘We’ll tell people you’ve been sick or something. Let’s go.’
The patter of Bunce’s sneakers joins the rhythmic clonk of my boots as we cross the deserted road. He stays close to me, taking struggled breaths every so often. It’s getting easier for him to breath out here. He’s adapting quickly. He gasps and ducks down when crows caw overhead. I whisper that it’s okay but I wonder if he has been taught about the past. About the birds?
Hundreds of beady-eyed, black crows plague the city skyline, constantly staring, making my skin crawl. They perch on cubes, bridges, and the sky track, in trees, on fences and on severed heads at Rock Vault prison, but never on Morbihan apartments or Central buildings. They only dare to perch on buildings of little importance, ones they can shit on without getting shot.
Apart from us, the crows and rats are the only other creatures around. Still, I should use a little more stealth; the guards will be looking for us by morning if they aren’t already. That siren clearly wasn’t for us, we’d be on our way back to Rock Vault and through the front doors if it was. I can only imagine the siren sounded in order to scare Cara into giving herself up. I wring out the last drops of blood from my shirt and snood as we head towards the tip. My cargo pants stick to my legs like a second skin, I peel them away but they snap back and cling to me. Misty rain hangs over the silent streets. I sense a storm and pick up speed. Bunce keeps up, wiping his face every few seconds, the moisture in the air new to him.
The pond is roughly six blocks away. The quickest route is through the park
, but we can’t go that way, the park is always crawling with Mutil. I peer down the dark alleys and unused roads as we pass, so as we don’t get jumped by anyone, or anything, lurking in the shadows. Our footsteps echo and there’s a manic flapping of wings above us as the crows hurry for cover. Guards ignore most night crawlers, patrols are usually sent to find hard-working useful Skels who Central do not want becoming back-alley dealers. I wonder why they attacked that Mutil? For fun? Guards can be cruel but they don’t normally go around beating up Mutil. They need them to keep the gangs and Eremites under control, heaven forbid the guards have to do any real work.
The stars are slowly being blocked out by a layer of fog and the Sky Train tracks are hidden in the gloom. There aren’t any night trains, no one is at the controls until first light. Control. I hate being out of control. That’s why I hated being a host. I cannot control the city, I tell myself, I can only control my own actions and thoughts. I glance down at the storm drains, beneath are the sewers. I shudder. I don’t know what caused that vile toilet explosion or where it came from, or why.
It feels like things have gotten worse since I’ve been away. I’ve been gone just ten days and even so the city feels more deprived, more dangerous, deadlier. Maybe it seems that way because I’ve been living in a different world, a safer world, where people aren’t mutilated, beaten, or worked to death. My confidence wanders off. I haven’t been away that long, so why do I feel like an outsider? I’ve changed but I mustn’t let my emotions consume me. I hold my head high. Even though we don’t control it, Skels run this city and I will not feel intimidated by the impossible situation I find myself in, or the task ahead.
11
Clover
Eremites are normally up past midnight, after that, Slum Lords take it in turns to guard the place. As we near the top of the grassy knoll which overlooks a sea of ramshackle, plastic houses, the floodlights shoot stars into my eyes. I blink and hold my right hand to my eyebrows in a permanent salute, it’s enough of a shade that I can just about see through the blinding light, while Bunce makes a binoculars shape around his eyes with his porky hands. The unusual brightness and stillness puts me on edge. I scan the town, once completely white, the plastic houses stained orange from the years of violent dust storms. It reminds me of the white tubs I steal from the factory and use to store pumpkin soup in, forever stained orange no matter how much I wash them.
The slum is ringed, to keep out wild animals, except these days, the Vector Ring isn’t live and there aren’t any animals around. I’m sure there must be some somewhere because I work at the meat factory but I’ve never seen anything other than dogs, snakes, rats, and crows. Eremites don’t live by the same moral code as Skels. They’ll kill anyone who dares set foot on their territory uninvited. That’s why the gruesome Mutil – those disfigured Skels who have been experimented on until their bodies can’t take no more – don’t come here. Even at night they don’t come. Another example of instinct prevailing over lack of brain-power.
I draw my snood around me, a shield against the cold. In the daytime, it serves to keep the harsh sun from my head and during the night, the cold from my bones. Tonight, the air is brisk, not cold, but still I shiver. Probably because I’ve spent the last few hours soaking wet; first from the sprinklers, next the menstruating toilet, not counting the wispy rain which lingers, spotlighted as it passes by the floodlight bulbs and now I’m about to hit the pond. I hope I don’t catch cold. That’s all I need.
There’s a strange atmosphere, different from the last time I was here. Something’s not right. Nothing is ever right but just now, something is very wrong. The drizzle turns to the odd droplet of fine rain, and I’m disappointed, a downpour would have helped wash the filth off. Eyes adjusted to the light, Bunce inches forwards to get a better look at the makeshift homes, slanted at different angles.
‘Stop!’
I throw out my arm and Bunce’s chest rebounds off it.
‘What is it?’
‘Not sure.’
He stands perfectly still while I survey the compound. The air smells burnt. I stare hard into nothingness. Unfocusing my eyes, I squint. It’s no use, I can’t see or hear anything but I can sense it. How did they get enough to charge the VR? Gale City is surrounded by desert, the sun providing a limitless supply of energy, but it’s controlled by Central. The solar grids are for Morb use. Skels can use electricity during the day, but it’s lights out by nightfall. The only reason the tip is illuminated is so Central can spy on the Slum Lords. An alarm sounds in my head. We should leave… I can’t. I stink. I need to wash the blood and guts off. The pungent smell clinging to my clothes is making me want to heave.
‘The ring is live,’ I tell Bunce.
‘Pardon?’ he says, confused.
‘The –VR – is – live,’ I say, stressing the words. ‘You know what a VR is, right?’
‘Yes, I know what a Vector Ring is,’ he says, crossing his arms and huffing, ‘but you must be mistaken, it was turned off years ago, and Eremites can’t generate power, can they?’
‘No, they can’t … at least, not enough for the VR.’
I search over my shoulder and under my arms, then crouch down and brush my hands around the slightly damp yet brittle grass, unable to grow, shrinking in the dry ground, waiting for a storm that didn’t come. I spot something grey; a dead rat. I pick up the maggot-infested rotten pile of fur by the tail.
‘Don’t touch that, it’s not sanitary. Think of the germs!’
‘Germs?’ I say, holding the rat up close to his face, ‘But this is our dinner.’
‘What?’ He covers his mouth, in case I might shove the maggoty-rat in there. ‘You can’t be serious,’ he says, voice muffled by his fingers.
I glare at Bunce.
‘Of course I’m not serious! You don’t actually think I’ll eat this?’ I say, indignantly. ‘Do I look like a Mutil?’
Bunce eyes the bits of flesh and entrails stuck in my hair.
‘Um …’
‘Um?’
His face flushes darker shades of scarlet with every passing second.
Rat held out, away from my body, the maggots wriggle from the gaping hole in its side, hit the yellow grass below and writhe around. I flick my lank ponytail over my shoulder with my free hand; cringing at its straw-like texture, damp and stiff, same as the grass, and as my hair flips behind me, a slither of toilet-vomited skin flies off and slaps against Bunce’s round cheek. Not wanting to touch it with his bare hands he uses the sleeve of his shirt to rub the putrid skin away, continuing to rub his cheek even after the skin has dropped to the ground. The fallen maggots immediately inch towards it.
Bunce thinks we’re all the same; the Skels, Eremites, and the Mutil. I suppose he’s right in a way, we all started out as slaves to the system. I broke Central law every night I refused to stay in my cube. It’s pure luck that I’m not a Mutil or living in the slums, which might be a reality if I don’t find the serum. I sniff. I may not be a Mutil but I am starting to smell like a one. I squeeze the dead rat in my hand and bits of fur and a claw drop down beside my boots.
‘You Morbs are so ignorant,’ I say. ‘Why bother spending your days in an education unit if you’re going to come out dumber than when you went in?’
I squeeze the ball of fur in my hands and more maggots drop out. I draw back my arm and throw it straight ahead. It impacts with the invisible wall, sizzles and drops to the ground emitting a rancid smoky smell. Bunce stares at the crispy rat.
‘Yep, the ring is live.’
‘How did you – I can’t see anything.’
Bunce stares and stares at the place where the rat hit the invisible barrier.
‘Kian,’ I say, crouching to tie my unravelled bootlace, ‘he taught me never to rely on my eyes and ears alone and showed me how to tap into my intuition. It’s kind of a sixth sense.’
I think of Kian. My one true friend. I wish he was here with me now. My mother died giving birth to me, my grandf
ather went twelve years later, and I have no idea who my father is or was, he could be dead for all I know. Kian is all I have. Others helped in my survival, giving me a job at the factory, trading with me at the market but Kian has always been the only person (apart from little Tess and my grandfather) who I’ve ever truly cared about. Except now I have a new purpose, someone I need to make sure survives, someone who could help bring about change for the entire city and who’s given me a reason to keep on living.
‘BUNCE!’
‘Hooo-weee! I gots me a Morb. What are the chances? How much you reckon this one’ll fetch when I ‘and him over eh, Skyla?’
I don’t move from my crouched position, I lock eyes with the tin-hatted freak show. Tinny holds Bunce by the throat and grins a toothless grin, tin cap tipped to one side, neck veins protruding, jerky body movements. He’s been using; high on glory, eyes all pupils. More colour drains from Bunce’s face with each slip and press of the makeshift cheese grater knife at his neck. Tinny’s long nose is always in everyone’s business, but I can’t believe he’d know a Morb was walking about the city. The only other person who knows about us is Kian and if Central has already worked it out, they wouldn’t want the rest of the city to find out. They’d keep that a secret at all costs.
‘Tinny,’ I say calmly. ‘Think about it. Morbs don’t go outside, he’s a High-Host. I found him, he’s my prisoner.’
‘Your prisoner, pfft!’ shrieks Tinny. ‘I is hearing things about ‘choo. Heard you is a host. Steal him from the complex, did ya? This Morb ain’t no more your prisoner than I am your friend, so don’t talk like we friends, coz we ain’t, and he’s mine!’
I touch the knife handle that protrudes from the top of my boot and look for the best place to strike. My options are limited. I need to know where Cara is but I cannot risk Bunce’s throat being slit. One false move and this unpredictable junky will plunge that jagged metal grater into my ‘ticket’ to a better life. I decide against brandishing the knife.