“Hi.” Her voice is tentative but friendly, like shy arms extended, hopeful for but uncertain of an embrace.
We look at each other. I try not to stare, but my eyes keep snapping back towards her. “You found the beam.”
“Hard to miss. But what’s it all about?”
“You don’t know the half of it. So much more than meets the eye.” I walk over to where she’s standing. “At just the right time of day, the beam shines at the far wall” – I walk her over – “then reflects off this small mirror, creating a second beam that shoots off to another mirror over there. It then hits this spot right around here, on this bookshelf right at this journal—”
It’s gone.
“Oh, you mean this journal?” she asks, holding it up in her hands.
“How did you—”
“It was the only book not shelved, just lying here on this table. It’s been here for a while, even back to when the Director met us here. So I put two and two together. You must have forgotten to put it back.”
“Have you looked inside it? The Scientist guy, he wrote a whole bunch of stuff in it. Pretty out there.” I look at her. “He was just like us, you know.”
“How so?”
“You know.” My eyes look down.
“Oh,” she says quietly. “No way.”
I nod. “But he was really strange. Must have spent months just writing up that journal, copying excerpts into it. Everything from textbooks to scientific treatises to ancient religious texts. And then there’s this really weird blank page—”
“You mean this one,” she says, opening the book to the blank page. And before I can say anything, she continues, “The page that reveals a map when you hold it up to the sunbeam?”
I pause. A map? “Exactly,” I say in a low voice. “That’s exactly the page I was talking about.”
She stares at me, a smile cracking through her face. “Liar,” she says. “You so didn’t know about the map.”
“OK, you’re right,” I say to her broadening smile. “I didn’t know about the map. But give me a look-see. Hold up that page to the beam. Sun’s going down, we don’t have much time.”
Sure enough, once she holds it up to the sunbeam, a map bleeds out of the page. But more: not just the outline of a map, but a tapestry of rich colours splashing across the page like a painting.
“You should have seen this map five minutes ago when the sunbeam was stronger. The colours were flying off the page, they burned into your eyes.”
The vista depicted on the map is detailed and comprehensive. In the bottom left corner, I see the grey slab building of the Heper Institute. Right next to it is the Dome disproportionately large and sparkling. The rest of the map captures the land to the north and east, the stale brown of the Vast transforming into the lush green of the eastern mountains. Most curious of all is a large river flowing south to north, painted in a verdant deep blue. My finger trails along it.
“The Nede River,” Ashley June says.
“Thought it was just a myth.”
“Not according to this map.”
My finger pauses. “Hello, what’s this?”
Where the Nede River slants towards the eastern mountains, a brown raft-like boat is drawn. It’s anchored beside a small dock. Also noticeable is a thick arrow drawn from the boat and up along the river channel, towards the eastern mountains.
“I know, I was confused when I saw that, too. It’s as if it’s saying that the boat is meant to journey down the Nede River. Towards the eastern mountains.”
“Doesn’t make sense. Rivers flow from mountains, never up them.”
“Do you think” – her voice lights up – “it was his escape route? The Scientist’s?” She sees my confusion. “Everyone says he got burned up by the sun. But if he really was a heper like you say, there has to be another explanation for his disappearance. Maybe he got away. By boat. This boat.”
Possibly, I think. But then I shake my head. “Why would he leave a record of his escape route? Doesn’t make sense.”
“I suppose. But one thing’s for sure.”
“What is?”
“This map is for only hepers to see. Nobody else would be able to see this, even accidentally. Not as long as you need sunlight to view it.”
I bend over to study the map more closely. The amount of detail is astonishing the closer you get. Fauna and flora reveal themselves with surprising specificity. “What does this all mean?” I ask.
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say.
She’s quiet, and when I look up, her eyes are shiny with wetness. She’s smiling. “I like it,” she says, “when you say we.”
My eyes linger on the small creases at the ends of her lips. I want to extend my hand, trace those small creases with my fingertips. I look into her eyes and smile in return.
She peers at my face as if it were a page, like a toddler learning how to read, enunciating in her mind the syllables of emotion on my face.
I’m unsure of what to do or say next; uncertainty floods the moment. So I turn my stare down, pretend to study the map. “Where do you think they’ll be sending the hepers?”
“Could be anywhere. It really doesn’t matter, they could practically place an X anywhere on the map as long as it’s eight hours out. Not west, is my guess. They wouldn’t want the hepers getting too close to the Palace. On a windy day, their scent might be picked up by the Palace staff. They wouldn’t want to run the risk of Palace staffers sabotaging the Hunt.”
She’s doesn’t say anything for a long time. When I look up, she’s rubbing her bare arms.
“The other night,” she says quietly. “When the Director was here. Do you remember how he went on about the heper farms at the Palace?” She shakes her head. “He was just kidding, right? The whole thing about heper farms, the hundreds of hepers? That was just a figment of his sick fantasy, right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I couldn’t get a read on him.”
She keeps rubbing her arms. “It’s so freaky, just thinking about it. I’ve got goose pimples all over my arms.” She looks at me. “Do you get goose pimples, too?”
I walk over and stand close, looking at the tiny bumps on her arms. “I do get them. But I call them ‘goose bumps’, not ‘goose pimples’.”
“ ‘Goose bumps’.” she repeats. “I like that better. Doesn’t sound as nasty as ‘goose pimples’.”
Before I can stop myself, I reach out and touch her arm. With my fingertips. Her skin, so soft, shivers under my touch. She draws back.
“I’m sorry,” we both say simultaneously.
“No, I am, I shouldn’t have,” I start apologising.
“No, I – I – it wasn’t a flinch. Like, I wasn’t drawing back in disgust or anything like that . . . it’s hard to explain.” And then she suddenly grabs my hand and places it, open palmed, on her forearm.
A jolt shoots up my arm, a skein of heat and electricity. I draw back my hand, but her eyes are filled with invitation and longing.
“I just . . .” she starts.
The goose bumps on her arms pop up even more. This time, when the palm of my hand sinks into the soft give of her arm, she doesn’t flinch back and I don’t remove my hand. We look at each other, the tears in her eyes a reflection of the wetness in my own.
A short time later, she falls asleep on the sofa. It’s a total collapse. Her body folds up like a failed origami piece, her head twisted to the side against the top of the sofa. Her mouth is slightly open, small puffs of breath pulsing out. The way her body’s torqued, she’s going to wake up with a sore neck. I reach out to centre her head on the armrest. In her slumber she complies, shifting her head at the gentle urging of my hands. So strange to be touching someone else.
I sit on the other end of the sofa, my body heavy but relaxed. Above us, the sleep-holds hover on the ceiling, two unblinking ovals staring down like all-knowing eyes, leering at me with mocking accusation. They have taunted me all m
y life, those sleep-holds. There was a time when I harboured a fantasy. In that fantasy, I live the normal life of a normal person. Every night, I take to the sleep-holds, my baby twins – in my mind, always girls – asleep in the next room, their cherubic faces made chubbier as they hang upside down. And my wife sleeps, hanging next to me, her face pale yet luminescent in the mercuric night light, her long hair spilling down to just touch the floor, her feet graceful even in the straps of the sleep-holds. And in my fantasy, there is no pulsating push-push of blood into my upside-down face; no pain from the sleep-holds tearing into the skin of my feet; no drip of tears falling to the ground beneath me. Only calm and coldness and stillness. All is normal. Including me.
I glance over at Ashley June, so wonderfully drooped on the sofa, her chest rising and falling, rising and falling. Beneath closed eyelids, slight bulges of her eyes move side to side. A spittle of saliva sits at the corner of her open mouth. I finally let my eyes close, sleep tugging me into a deep, blissful well. It is new, this sensation. Of falling asleep, lying down next to someone. I drift asleep, as intimate and daring and trusting an act as I’ve ever risked.
Hunt Minus One Night
AT FIRST, NO one is particularly alarmed when Beefy fails to show for breakfast. He’s notoriously difficult to rouse from sleep, something his now departed escort often complained about. Only after the dishes have been cleared from the table and we’re all moving to the lecture hall is a staffer sent scurrying to his room to check on him.
There is surprise, but not sorrow, when news of his disappearance breaks out. We’re in the lecture hall by this point, listening to a senior staffer drone on about upcoming weather conditions (heavy rain and windy) and how they might affect the Hunt tomorrow night, when another staffer pigeon walks into the hall. He whispers something to his superior; the superior stands up and walks out, leaving the junior staffer at the lectern.
“One of the hunters has disappeared,” he says. He pauses, at a loss for what to say next. “Teams are now scouring this building in an effort to find him. Another search team is surveying the grounds outside. There’s a possibility of a sunlight disappearance. But there’s no need to be worried.”
Not that anyone is. No tears lost here: it only means less competition for the rest of us. But no cause for outright jubilation, either – it’s not as if Beefy were ever a contender. If either Phys Ed or Abs had been missing, there’d be an all-out celebration right now.
“I’m sorry to have to say this,” he continues, “but with all staffers preoccupied at this moment with the search, the lectures for the early evening are cancelled. You are free to do as you wish. Be mindful that the Gala begins in three hours at high moon, midnight on the dot. May I suggest you use this time to get some beauty sleep? You do want to look your resplendent best for the cameras and guests.”
Gaunt Man walks up to me as we’re all leaving. “Did you see the lectures that were cancelled?” He bends down to read the pamphlet in hand. “ ‘Taking Advantage of the Fauna and Flora of the Vast’ and ‘The Sociological Heper Tendencies in an Environment of Fear: How Best to Leverage Gain’. Remember how I said all this was a crock, that these lectures, this orientation, even the Hunt, was just a show?”
I nod, making sure to hide my irritation. I’m hoping to leave, but he’s planted himself firmly in front of me without the slightest inclination of letting me go. Once he gets going, Gaunt Man can go on for a while. From across the hall, Ashley June shoots me a knowing look. She leans back against the wall, settling in.
“Need any more proof?” Gaunt Man says. “They’re admitting this is all a sham by how easily they cancel the lectures. Without even batting an eyelash. It’s all just a joke.” His tongue slips out, wet and oily, lubricating his lips. “Release the hepers already. Just let us have at them.”
“What do you think happened to him?” I ask, trying to change the topic.
“The big guy? He’s a fool. He was trying to imitate me. Went out there trying to show ingenuity and nerve the way I did. But what an idiot. Probably went out there with his SunBlock Lotion foolishly thinking it’d help. For my money, the search teams should start looking for him outside – what remains of him, anyway – somewhere between here and the Dome.”
“Maybe,” I say non-committally I pause, waiting for him to go away. But he doesn’t. “What do they have you wearing?” I ask. Gaunt Man has shown such a disdain for the event, perhaps any topic related to it will cause him to pick up and leave.
“For the Gala?” He humphs. “A traditional, boring tuxedo that has ‘Irrelevant Old Guy’ written all over it. What about you? Something high-end and splashy, I’d expect.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Media’s been arriving in droves since yesternight. Reporters, photographers, journalists. This Hunt’s becoming more and more a media event by the hour. Heard they’re jockeying for post-Hunt interviews,” he says irritably. “And for the Gala, they’re gonna want to front the good-looking hunters. Including you, pretty boy; they probably have you in one of those dapper suits.”
“Hardly,” I say. But he’s right. My suit, Super 220 with worsted cloth and full silk linings with my name sewn into the inseam, felt like a regal carpet when it was fitted on me yesternight.
“So I’ve been hearing something about you.”
“What’s that?”
“You have a partner in crime. That the two of you’ll be going out in force during the Hunt. The dynamic duo, you and the pretty one.”
“The pretty one?”
“Right there,” he says, pointing at Ashley June, still waiting for me across the hall. “That’s the word on the street, anyway.”
“Where are you hearing all of this?”
“I have my sources,” he says. “So what’s your strategy?” His voice takes on an edgier tone. Now I know why he’s approached me: to talk about this. “Cut out fast, make us chase you both? Or start with the pack, beat us out with a gradual but methodical increase in pace?”
“Well, you know we—”
“Separate the heper pack into two groups, then divide and conquer? Or keep them together, play to their group hysteria?”
“It’s really something I can’t get into right now.”
He’s quiet, as if mulling this over. “Say,” he whispers, “got any room for an old geezer like me? In your alliance, I mean. I may not have the brawn, but I’ve got the brains. Not saying you and her ain’t brainy, but I’ve got street smarts only experience gives. Maybe I can help.”
“You know, we prefer to work in just a small group. Just the two of us, actually.”
“What is it they say? ‘Though one may be overpowered, and two can defend themselves, a cord of three is not quickly broken.’ ”
“Look, I don’t know.”
He stares at me, his gaze turning cold. “I see.” He begins to walk away, stops, half turns towards me.
“Things I know about you,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t notice heper smells coming off of you the other day. Don’t think I’m unaware that you’ve somehow got access to heper flesh. Really, just what is going on in that library during the day when you’re all alone? What kind of access to heper meat do you have in there? Is there a secret bootleg stash you’ve discovered? Information like this could come out to harm you.” He sniffs viciously, his nostrils shrinking inward. “I still smell it.”
A staffer approaches; Gaunt Man shoots him a look, then walks away.
“Yes?” I say to the staffer.
“Pardon me. I wanted to let you know that your tuxedo is ready and has been delivered to your lodging. Also, the evening gown for your date tonight” – the staffer looks quickly at Ashley June – “has been delivered to your lodging. The Director approved her request to get dressed there.”
“OK.”
“Something else. When you walk to the Gala from the library, the media will be lined up along the brick walk, waiting for you.”
“Is that really necessar
y?”
“The Director’s orders. Once he realised the two of you were going as a couple, he decided you’d make an entrance of the first order. ”
“I see.”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“You and the girl are not to spend the day in each other’s rooms again.”
“How do you—”
“How we know is irrelevant. But the Director is afraid of public perception. With the media here, he wants to avoid even a suggestion of impropriety among the hunters.”
“You’ve got to be—”
“Make sure you wake up in your own rooms tomorrow.”
“Listen, I—”
“The Director’s orders,” he says, and leaves. I watch him walk over to Ashley June. A short, clipped conversation later, he’s walking out. I head towards Ashley June.
As I walk past Gaunt Man, now talking to Abs and Phys Ed, I hear him giving the same spiel about joining their alliance. He’s desperate. Desperately hungry for heper flesh, desperately in need of help. He doesn’t stand a chance of getting either. That’s someone to keep an eye on. There’s no telling what a person can become capable of once desperation takes hold of him. Can’t put anything past him.
Back in the library, Ashley June and I get changed for the Gala, she in the periodical section, I by the front desk. My tuxedo, which I find hanging off the reserve shelf in plastic wrap, fits me to a tee. It comes with bells and whistles I could have done without: diamond-embedded cuff links, iron buttons embossed with the Ruler’s face. Despite these, it’s an impressive suit that compliments me well.
Ashley June, her voice travelling down the length of the library, keeps warning me not to sneak a peek until she’s ready. And she takes her time, much more than I think necessary to simply take off clothes and throw on a fitted dress.
Before she’s done, there’s a knock on the door. A retinue of staffers walks in. Each carries a small case in tow. “Make-up,” they say curtly, and I point them to Ashley June. To my surprise, one of them stays behind. “I’m going to do your face,” she says.
The Hunt Page 18