“Do you smell something?” asks the woman in front of me. I’ve been dancing with her for the past minute, but it’s only when she asks that question that I really see her for the first time.
“No, not really.”
“Smell of heper is so strong. Don’t know how you can all concentrate with that odour around. So distracting. I know they say you get used to it after a while, but it’s so potent it’s like it’s right in front of me.”
“Sometimes when there’s a westerly wind blowing, the odour blows inside from the Dome,” I say.
“Didn’t seem to be much of a breeze tonight,” she says, glancing out of the opened windows.
The next woman is even more direct. “I say,” she declares, “there’s a heper in this hall somewhere. Smell’s quite pungent.”
I tell her about the westerly wind.
“No, no,” she says, “it’s so strong it’s like you’re the heper!”
I scratch my wrist; she follows suit. Fortunately.
After the song ends, she curtsies and I bow; the next woman in line is already heading over. There’s a swift movement, and someone else cuts in. It’s Ashley June. Looking in her eyes, I can tell she knows exactly what’s going on and she’s worried. The other woman is upset and about to complain until she realises who it is. She backs away. Ashley June and I begin to dance. Some cameras start clicking again.
This time, the dance lacks enjoyment. We’re too conscious of the people around, too fearful of a sheen of sweat that might appear on my face any moment, of the odour I’m emitting. I’ve danced too hard. When the number ends, I say (loudly, so others can hear) to Ashley June that I need to use the restroom. I’m not sure what good that’ll do me, but I can’t exert any more energy dancing. Got to get away, give my body a chance to cool down. She tells me she’ll wait for me.
I’m cooling down and doing my business at the urinal when somebody walks in. He stands at the urinal next to mine even though the whole row is otherwise unused. The whole restroom is empty, in fact.
“How long you going to last?” he asks.
“Excuse me?”
“Simple enough question. How long are you going to last?” He’s a tall and imposing man, broad-shouldered. A prissy pair of glasses sits on his nose, completely at odds with the burly brawn of his body. The tuxedo is ill-fitting, a few sizes too small and bunched under his arms.
I decide to ignore him, instead focusing on hitting the target sticker in the urinal. That’s what you have to hit, supposedly the lowest splash zone that gives optimum drainage. In most places, the sticker is of a fly or bee or soccer ball. Here, it’s a picture of the Dome.
“Long or short?” the man says.
“What?”
“Long time or short time?”
“Look, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man sniffs. “I predict short. Maybe thirty minutes. Soon as you hunters are out of sight, that’s when the other hunters take you out. You and the girl both.”
A reporter. Probably a paparazzi hack who’s snuck in using fake credentials, jonesing for an inside scoop. This is how they work: throw out an outrageous story to get a reaction, then report on the reaction. The best thing to do is ignore him.
I zip up and walk over to the paper towel dispenser by the door.
He zips up and pulls up next to me, hand under the dispenser, blocking my way out. The dispenser spits a short towel into his hand.
“Use the FLUNs, that’s all I’m telling you,” he says, crumpling the towel in hand. “Use them early, use them without hesitation. The hunters, especially the collegiate kids, will want to take you out early in the game. Be very careful.” Not once does he look at me as he speaks, just at the dispenser as if it’s a teleprompter.
“Who are you?” I ask. And how does he know about the FLUNs?
“Word to the wise?” he says. “Things are not as they appear. Take tonight, for example. Look at the glamour of this banquet. What did they tell you? That it was a last minute decision to host it? Look at the food, the wine, the décor, the number of guests, and you tell me if this looks like something slapped together quickly. And think about the so-called lottery – as manipulatable a scheme as they come. Think you’re here by chance? Things are not as they appear.” He puts his hand on the doorknob, about to leave. Then he turns back to me.
“And the girl. The pretty one you were just dancing with. Be careful about her.” His eyes flick to me for the first time. I expect to find sternness in them, and it’s there. But the hint of kindness, I did not. “You need to watch out. She’s not who you think she is. Don’t let her lead you astray.” And with that, he brushes open the door and disappears.
Freakin’ weirdo, I think to myself. I grab a paper towel and am about to scrub my armpits when a party of four or five come boisterously in. They’re loud, unsteady, and clearly inebriated. I step out. I scan quickly for the paparazzi guy, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Come with me.” It’s Ashley June materialising out of nowhere, whispering at my side. “We’ve done our due diligence. Everyone’s so hammered, they won’t notice we’ve gone. Come,” she says, and I do.
She leads me out of the hall, her slim figure weaving right through the dance floor, between dark moving shapes. Outside the banquet hall, the corridors are empty and the music grows dimmer the farther we walk away. I think we’re heading to her room, but on the stairwell we walk past the second floor and continue heading up until there are no more flights of stairs to climb. At the very top, she pushes open a door on the landing, and a burst of starlight falls on us.
“I’ve been up here a few times. Nobody ever comes,” she says softly. The Vast lies spread before us like a frozen sea, its plates calm and smooth. And above us a slew of stars, shimmering slightly, suggestive of an even deeper emptiness.
She leads me to the centre of the roof, the small pebbles beneath our feet shifting as we step. She stops and faces me.
I am right behind her. Our shoulders touch as she turns, and she does not pull away. She is so close, I can feel her breath on my lips. When she looks up at me, I see the reflection of the stars in her eyes, wet as with the evening dew.
“Did your parents ever give you a designation?” she asks.
I nod. “They did. But then they just stopped using it one day.”
“Do you remember what it was?”
“Gene.”
She is silent for a few moments; I see her lips gently mouthing the word, as if trying it on for size.
“What about you?” I ask.
“I don’t remember,” she says quietly. “But we shouldn’t be calling each other by our family designations anyway. We might get careless and inadvertently call each other by our designations in front of others. It might draw unnecessary—”
“Attention,” I finish for her.
For a moment, we suppress the smile spreading on both our faces, as if my lips and hers are two sides of the same mouth. We stop ourselves, as we always have, and start scratching our wrists. “My father used to tell me that all the time. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself. All the time. Guess yours did, too.”
She nods, a sadness crossing her face. Together, we look out at the Vast, at the Dome sitting small in the distance. From below us, we hear a group of partyers heading out, probably to the Dome, their drunken voices slurred and garbled. Their voices grow dimmer, then fade out altogether.
“Hey, let me show you something,” Ashley June says. “Can you do this funky thing? We need to sit down first.” She then plants her right foot down on the ball of her foot and starts bouncing her leg up and down in a quick, vibrating motion. “When I’d get impatient or restless, I used to want to do this with my leg. My parents warned me against it, but I’d still do it when alone. Once your leg gets going, it goes on autopilot. Look, I’m not even consciously thinking about it, it moves on its own.”
I try. It doesn’t work.
“You’re overthinki
ng this,” she says. “Just relax, don’t think about it. Make quicker, shorter jerks.”
On the fourth try, it happens. The leg just starts hopping on its own, a jackhammer bouncing away. “Whoa-ho!” I shout in surprise.
She smiles the widest I’ve seen; a small sound escapes her throat.
“That’s called ‘laughter’,” I tell her.
“I know. Although sometimes my parents called it ‘cracking up’. Ever heard that one?”
I shake my head. “It was just ‘laughter’ for us. And we didn’t do it much. My dad – he was always worried I’d forget myself and slip up in public.”
“Yeah, mine too.”
“Every morning, he’d remind me. Don’t do this, don’t do that. No laughing, no smiling, no sneezing, no frowning.”
“But it got us here. Alive still, I mean.”
“I suppose.” I turn to her. “My dad had this one really odd saying. Maybe your parents used to say it to you as well? ‘Never forget who you are.’”
“ ‘Never forget who you are’? Never heard that one.”
“My dad would say it maybe once a year. I always thought it strange.” I stare down at my feet.
“When did yours . . . you know?”
“My parents?”
She nods gently.
I stare at the eastern mountains. “My mother and my sister, years ago. I don’t remember much about them. They just vanished one day. Then my father, about seven years ago. He got bitten.”
We fall into a silence after that, comforting and shared. Music from the banquet hall comes at us muted and indifferent, a thousand miles away. Eventually, our eyes drift over to the Dome, tranquil and sparkling.
“Ignorance is bliss,” she whispers. “Tonight, asleep, blissfully unaware of what awaits them tomorrow. The end of their lives. Poor things.”
“There’s something you should know,” I say after a while.
“About what?”
“The hepers.”
“What is it?”
I pause. “When I got water from the pond, I wasn’t like in and out. I actually interacted with them. Spent time there. And you know, they speak. They even read. They’re not the savages I thought they were, not even close.”
“They speak? And read?” She looks incredulously at the Dome. Nothing moves inside.
“They love to. They have books in the mud huts. Shelves of them. And they’re creative: they draw, paint.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. I thought they were raised like barn animals. Why were they domesticated and trained?”
“No, I know this is hard to grasp, but it’s not even about them being domesticated or trained like circus animals. They’re beyond that. They’re, like, normal. They think, they’re rational, they joke around. Like you and me.”
A frown creases her face. She is quiet, mulling something over. “So you haven’t told them about the Hunt,” she says matter-of-factly.
“They have no idea,” I answer. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”
“What did you tell them about yourself?”
“The Scientist’s replacement.” I hesitate. “It would have been too . . . awkward to say I was a heper hunter. Maybe I should have said something to them. Maybe I should have let them know about the Hunt.”
“No, you did the right thing,” she says. “What good would it have done? They’d still be as good as dead.”
A zillion million thoughts plummet through my mind over the next few seconds. Then: “Think we should do something?”
She turns to me. “Pretty funny.”
“No. I mean, seriously. Instead of our plan, should we do something to help them?”
Her eyes widen a smidge, then droop back down. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“Shouldn’t we . . .”
“What?”
“Do something to help them?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. They’re us. We’re them.”
Deep surprise sets in her eyes. “No, they’re not. They’re way different from us. I don’t care if they can speak, they’re still glorified cattle.” She grips my hand tighter. “Gene, I don’t mean to come over as cold-hearted. But there’s nothing we can do for them. They’re going to die during the Hunt whether or not we use it to our advantage.”
“We could, I don’t know, we could tell them not to leave the Dome. That the letter informing them about the Dome malfunctioning is all a hoax.” I run my hand through my hair, gripping it hard. “This is really hard, Ashley June.”
When she speaks again, her voice is softer. “If they die tonight according to our plan, then at least their deaths give us a chance of a real life. But if we just sit on our hands, their deaths are not only meaningless, but will ensure our deaths. We can make their deaths meaningful, giving us a chance of a real life, Gene.” Her eyes are wide and pleading. “Our new life, Gene. Together. Is that so bad, to make something good come out of this?”
I don’t say anything.
Tears start to well in her eyes, and perhaps for the first time in her life, she doesn’t hold them back. They stream out and trail down her cheeks. I reach out with my arm, meaning to wipe them away with my sleeve; but she grabs my hand and places it on her cheek, palm pressed right atop the trail of tears. Her soft skin, the wetness of her tears, tingling my open palm. My heart, melting everywhere now, her tears intermingling.
“Please?” she whispers, and the plea in her voice breaks me inside.
Our shoulders touch. When I turn, she has already turned to face me. So close, I can see a tiny mole at the corner of her eye. I brush it lightly with my fingertips, back and forth.
“It’s a mole. No amount of rubbing will wipe it away,” she whispers.
“I’m not trying to wipe it away.” I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that my heart is bursting out and overflowing, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
She lifts her sleeveless arm slightly. Her eyes are wide, inviting. The skin of her armpit is exposed, and she is waiting. She gazes at my elbow, then at me.
As gently as I can, I reach out and lower her arm. “Please,” I say softly, a whisper’s whisper, “don’t misunderstand. But . . . I never . . . it’s never done anything for me.”
Instead of hurt in her eyes, relief and emotion flood them. She lowers her arm. “It’s the same for me. I’ve always faked how much I enjoyed it.” She turns her head the other direction. “The times with the boyfriend, the one time with you in the closet. I felt like something was wrong with me.” She sighs with a shudder. “Of course something was wrong with me,” she says, her voice hitching. “I’m not normal. I’m a heper.” The last word comes out like a release, the final plea of guilt.
Hardly knowing what I’m doing, I grab her hand with my open palm placed on top of the back of her hand. I feel the small ripple of bones, the slight startle in her fingers. I pull my hand away, but she reaches for it. And places her open palm in my hand, the skin of her palm touching the skin of my palm, a full embrace. We stare at each other, eyes wide. The sensation, unlike anything I’ve felt before, is overpowering. I don’t dare to breathe. Her eyes close, her head tips upward. With that, her lips part, full and strangely beckoning.
And then her fingers interlace with mine. I’ve never seen that before, never knew such a thing was even possible. But the soft skin on the sides of her fingers as they graze the sides of my fingers is like the nape of her neck, tender and smooth, sending a chill and a heat up and through my body.
“Ashley June,” I whisper.
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps her head tilted heavenward, eyes closed. “I know,” she finally whispers, “I know.”
Stars blinking down. Ashley June’s head on my shoulder, her arm draped across my chest, still holding my hand. We haven’t let go, even as we lay down and drifted to sleep. I hear small puffs of her even breathing, the faint thump of her heartbeat against my rib cage. My eyes close. I fall asleep ag
ain.
When I wake up, the sky has lightened, the muted stars receded into the grey sky. The scent of dawn hangs ripe in the air. Ashley June is gone from my side. I sit up, the pebbles shifting under me.
She’s nowhere on the rooftop. I head over to the ledge, puzzled.
I see her in the distance. Walking, deep in thought.
Minutes later, I’m outside on the brick path, hurrying towards her. Evidence of the evening’s revelry is littered everywhere: paper plates, kebab skewers, wineglasses, empty bottles, strewn all along the path. Even puddles of vomit. As I draw closer to her, she senses me and turns around, waits for me to catch up.
“Hey,” she says with a faint smile, and reaches for my hand.
“Hope no one sees us.”
“Nah, everyone’s completely sloshed.”
“Hope so. What are you doing?”
“Something was weighing on me. I had to take a walk to clear my mind.” She squeezes my hand. “I’m glad you came. Come with me,” she says, and we head towards the Dome.
Hand in hand, we walk under the brightening skies, our hands fitting perfectly, our arms intertwining with surprising ease, her skin soft against my own. Our bodies tilt towards each other intimately as we approach the Dome. It is easy to forget what this day is. A day that will end in the Hunt, in violence and death.
And then we stop in front of the Umbilical.
“Open it,” she says.
Inside, sitting dead centre on the conveyor belt, is a large envelope. I look at Ashley June and she nods with her wide, penetrating eyes.
I take it out, feeling the large embossed lettering in all caps:
URGENT: OPEN IMMEDIATELY.
“I thought it would be here by now. It’s the letter informing the hepers about the supposed Dome malfunction. It’s what gets them out of the Dome, out into the Vast. It’s what turns them from the protected into unwitting prey. It’s what makes the Hunt possible. It’s what kills the hepers.”
The Hunt Page 20