Rion picked up the album on the top of the pile, the one with the red cover. Opening it, he flicked through the pages of faces, each one familiar to him, each equally cherished. He was saying goodbye. Then, when he was finished, he flipped back to the front page of the album and the newspaper clipping of his mother. He slid it out of its plastic sleeve and tucked it carefully into a plastic zip-lock bag, which he put in the front flap of the backpack.
There was nothing left to do except take the albums to Lydia and be on his way. Pushing the trolley through town, he wondered if he’d ever see this place again.
“You’re here,” she said when he arrived at the power substation. “My, that’s quite a stash.”
“Years of work there,” he muttered. Lydia wheeled the trolley into her back room where she stored her most precious things. He felt kindly toward her for that.
“One last drink,” she said. “I’ve got something special for you. Vodka. It’s a cheap brand though. Ever tried it?”
“I don’t think so.”
The label was faded. Lydia must have been holding onto this for a long time. The bottle was still sealed. She unscrewed it and poured a splash into two plastic cups.
“Cheers,” she said, gulping the vodka down. She coughed. “It’s got something of a kick.”
Rion sniffed the vodka and tossed it back. His throat was on fire. “It’s horrid!” he said.
Lydia burst out laughing, her mouth a black hole. “You don’t drink it for the taste. Here, you take it.” She handed him the bottle and he stashed it in his pack.
They sat quietly for a while, neither knowing what to say.
“I knew your mother slightly,” Lydia finally said.
“I know. You’ve told me before.”
“I didn’t even know she had a son,” she said. “If I’d have known… ”
“It’s all right,” Rion said. “You’d have done something for me. But you’re doing something for me now.”
“Not much.”
“It’s all right,” he repeated. He was starting to feel light-headed from the vodka, and there was a pleasant fire inside him.
“Be careful out there, Rion. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
The sky was ashen as he made his way down the hill toward the old grain silos and the abandoned rail hub. Rion liked the tall, grey structure with its curved surfaces and small windows. It looked a little like a castle, and he imagined the windows would be a good place for a sniper to hide. He used to come here as a child. This had been a place of regional importance, where trucks loaded to the brim with grain had converged. Once, those silos would have been filled with grain. Now the processing facility was deserted, like almost everything in this sad, dying town.
It felt good to be moving. For so long now he’d done little but shuffle around the oldest, dirtiest parts of town, but now the brisk air would revive him. Rion did his best to empty his mind of thoughts as he made his way along a dusty access road. Another bridge, this one in poor condition, and he hit the main highway. He headed west in the direction of the coast and Sylvia Baron.
14. Controlled Dreaming State
It was Friday, the first of many Fridays to be spent in this country. Jiang Wei hadn’t seen his fiancée for more then four days now. Fridays would henceforth be his favourite day, the only day of the week where he was allowed, for a period of one hour, to be with his love. There were one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week, and only one of these would be worthwhile. He would exist for this hour.
“You’ve done something with your hair,” Wei said. “It looks nice.”
Lui Ping touched it carefully. It had been curled into tight ringlets and perhaps the colour was a shade lighter as well. “You like it?”
“You look beautiful.” He meant it. The two of them were in an expansive space together, far removed from their cramped Chongqing apartment or Wei’s equally cramped army-style bunk. They were sitting on a wooden bench in a sun-drenched field, but the sun did not sear them. Birds chirped in the trees above, and a gentle breeze flowed across them. There were mountains in the distance, a forest nearby. A sumptuous picnic lunch had been laid out on the table, but neither of them felt like eating just yet.
“Tell me everything,” Ping said. “I want to hear your voice again.” Though Wei did not like to admit it, her figure was fuller and her skin more lustrous than it could ever have been in real life. But who could blame her? He had made himself an inch taller and an inch broader too. And he’d fixed his teeth, something he’d never been able to afford to do in real life.
“I don’t want to waste our time,” he said.
“We’ve got plenty of time.”
But the hour would pass quickly; he felt sure of that. He told her of the journey and his unexpected assignment. To think he’d been signed up as a technician. Not wanting to worry her, he glossed over many of the more troublesome details of Controlled Waking State.
“I’m so happy,” Ping said when he’d finished. He’d wasted ten minutes.
She had news of her own; she was being transferred to a common room. Wei had known intellectually that, with him away, Ping would have to give up their apartment, but he hadn’t expected her to be evicted so quickly. He said something to this effect.
“I don’t care,” she said. “When you get back, we’ll be assigned a bigger apartment than ever before, for our baby. I feel sure…”
“It could be three years from now,” he said.
“I could wait thirty years for you.”
“Don’t say that. Listen, is there anywhere more...more private?”
She put her hand to her mouth. “There’s no one here. On the grass would be nice. I brought a blanket.”
The grass had been freshly cut, and they laid out the soft blanket beneath a sweet-smelling tree. Ping shed her clothes modestly, as though not having convinced herself that no one could see her nakedness. Then she lay down with her legs slightly splayed. Wei stepped carefully out of his own clothes and lay beside her. Her skin was warm. She was wet for him, so he lay on top of her and found his way inside. She moaned, spoke his name, and curled her legs around his. Wei forged ahead and soon he was whispering her name too, as well as a number of other things. Ping’s body trembled, building to its own crescendo. Her spasms pushed him onward to his own explosive conclusion. Then he clutched her like a drowning man to a bobbing buoy. In this way they lay together, in a state of rapturous rest.
It could not last long. Already the minutes were ebbing away, too slippery to grasp.
“What’s wrong?” Ping asked. “You’re sad.”
“I don’t want to be away from you,” he said. “I can’t.”
“Is there anything else you need to tell me? Something else has upset you. I know it has.” She stroked his hair.
“I’m scared,” he admitted.
“Of what?” She was propped up on her elbows now, her hair cascading down over her petite breasts. “Tell me, Wei. Tell me quickly.”
So he told her about Jun Shan. “He’s cracking up,” Wei explained. “He’s developing all sorts of nervous tics. He taps incessantly, he talks in his sleep, and he barely finishes one cigarette before he starts on the next. He thinks people are out to get him, and when he wakes up he doesn’t know where he is. I have to bunk with this guy. I don’t want that to happen to me.”
“Then report him. If he can’t handle it, he can be put on another work detail. Really, it’s your duty to report him. What did you say the supervisor’s name was?”
The rest of their time was spent in this way, with her drawing conclusions and him nodding in agreement. Yes, he would do as she said. But it was his own fault for bringing it up, so he kept his mouth clamped and let her talk. By the time Ping was finished, she had convinced Wei that Jun Shan was dangerous. For all he knew, Ping might get it into her head to report him herself.
The words TWO MINUTES flashed up in red. Wei swatted it down. “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “I didn�
��t mean to bother you with it.”
“I’m glad you did. Now I want you to arrange a meeting with this Yang Po as soon as possible. I’m counting on you. Remember, we won’t get that apartment if you can’t hold onto this job. And I want a baby before I’m thirty. Am I making myself clear?”
Yes, he nodded.
“Good. I love you, Jiang Wei.”
“I love you too.” The scene faded out, obliterating their embrace.
Wei slowly became aware that he had almost slid out of the chair, despite the restraints. His back was sore and his penis was sticky with semen. Waking from this was like emerging from a cocoon: first there was bodily awareness, followed by an awareness of that which bound you. Then there was the veil, which hid the fact that you were in a dark, stuffy booth. There was the unclipping and unfolding of buckles and the skull cap. Finally disconnecting the crotch attachment, which he was now required to wash. Only then was Wei free. He needed a shower.
They were on a strict roster, which meant that as blearily-eyed men stumbled out from the booths, the next round was impatiently waiting to get in. Perhaps by coincidence, but perhaps not, Jun Shan was scheduled to use Wei’s booth next.
“How was she?” Shan grinned.
“None of your business. What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
Shan scowled. “Who said I had one?”
“I’m sorry.” Wei tried to move along, but Shan wouldn’t let him past.
“It’s better this way,” Shan said. “This way I can be with anyone I like. And I don’t need to talk about it after. Am I right?”
Wei shouldered past the smaller man in the direction of the showers.
15. David
By Saturday morning Sylvia was in a terrible state. David had not been home since the previous morning and she’d received no word from him. Had he been arrested? Or had he, after working extremely late, simply fallen asleep at his desk? The night had been agony – sleepless and fraught with worry. She remembered the anxious messages she’d left both at the office and on his personal phone. But then, toward morning, she must have finally slept, for now it was after nine and there was still no David.
As it was Saturday, there’d be no one at his office, so she’d have to go down there herself. In her haste she made a mess of breakfast, spilling milk everywhere. Slapping the mop across the kitchen floor, Sylvia only succeeded in making the problem worse. She walked away from it. The apartment was a shambles, but it’d wait.
How long had it been since Sylvia had been to her husband’s office? Months. But she still knew where it was, on the corner of Drassen and Cambria in the heart of the Amber Zone. Outside, the sun was shining, people making their way to and fro. The bus was almost empty. Just a couple of elderly women going to the Red Zone for a tour. No driver of course; the buses in Yellowcake Springs were all automated. The novelty of that had long since worn off.
This was the bus she took five days a week, and today made it six, but it was different without the other workers around. The bus felt lifeless. She had not previously noticed how small it was. Somehow, the dozens who normally sat here made it seem larger. And it was ugly: squat, square and grey. She avoided making eye contact with the old timers, flipping down her eye-gear instead. She watched a music video to pass the time, a glitzy blaze of exploding colours.
Then, without warning, there was a face hovering over her. A transit guard. Sylvia paused the vid and flipped up the eye-gear. The bus had stopped.
“Arms out,” the guard, a woman with a serpent tattoo on her arm, said. Sylvia did as instructed and the guard ran the scanner over her. Green.
“Something happened?” Sylvia asked.
“Just a precaution,” the guard said, moving down the aisle. The old ladies weren’t about to blow up either and soon they were on their way again. The guard stepped off at the next stop.
Then Sylvia did make eye contact with the old ladies and, sure enough, she was invited to sit down for a chat.
“Treating us like criminals,” one of the women said. She had bright red hair and piercings all over her face. “It’s not right. And they don’t even say please and thank you.”
The other woman agreed. “I paid a lot of money to get in here. It’s supposed to be an exclusive place.”
“I guess it’s because of the reactor,” Sylvia said.
“They could at least be polite about it,” the first woman said. This was Sylvia’s stop, so she said goodbye and stepped down from the bus.
David’s building, the Scimitar, was an imposing looking building, all acute angles and jarring lines. He’d had a hand in designing it, in actual fact. In better times.
The reception was darkened, as she knew it would be. Sylvia had level two access to the Scimitar, which would get her into the building and David’s office on the third floor. The tinted doors closed behind her. The air-con was off, which made the building smell musty. There was something alluring about empty office buildings; it gave her an illicit thrill. Normally she’d linger down here for a while, maybe help herself to some coffee, but not today. She went straight over to the lift.
There was no one on the third floor either. In fact there did not appear to be anyone in the entire building. This seemed unusual to her, even for the weekend. Worse, when she ran her pass card through the reader on David’s door, it flashed red. Had he changed the code? If so, then how come she could still get into the building? Was it possible that he was asleep inside? Maybe hurt? Sylvia knocked on the smooth wooden door, but there was nothing. A dead end.
Half wanting some sign of him, and half just not knowing what to do next, she wandered along the hall. None of the names on the doors were familiar to her, but that wasn’t surprising, as she’d made no effort to get to know David’s colleagues over the past two years. He’d said himself that they were a tepid lot.
At the end of the corridor, Sylvia found a door ajar. Eagerly, she stepped inside, but was soon disappointed. The office was completely empty. It wasn’t even carpeted. It was just a vacant space with a window looking over the street below. There was no name on the door. Then Sylvia had a fantasy, one of her all too frequent flights of fancy. What if all the offices were empty like this? The entire building – nothing but façade. But concealing what? Her husband not an engineer after all, but...here her imagination faltered.
It took a moment for her to realise that the pinging she heard was real. Startled, she opened the flip-top and David’s hologram unfurled before her. She had the irrational urge to hug it, but she knew from experience that this only caused distortion.
“David!” she said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home.” He looked tired and was that a cut on his head?
“I’m at your office. I came looking for you. I left so many messages...”
“I know. They wouldn’t let me answer them.”
“They? David, what happened to your face?”
“It’s nothing. Have you seen anyone around?”
“No,” she said. “There’s no one here. And I can’t get into your office.”
His eyes widened. “What? Why not?”
“No idea. The card just won’t let me in.”
“Then it’s worse than I thought. Come home quickly.”
“Am I in danger?”
“Not you. Come home.”
The moment she walked through the door, Sylvia knew David had been drinking. The apartment reeked of bourbon. David was in the lounge room, clutching an empty glass in his oversized fist. The bottle was on the table. He had been drinking it straight.
Sylvia sat down next to him and prised the glass from his unresisting fingers. He was falling asleep. “David,” she said, speaking louder than she normally would. “You shouldn’t be drinking this early. Now tell me what happened. Where have you been?”
“Police station,” he muttered, his eyes closed. “Held overnight for questioning.”
“Have you slept?”
“Does it look like it?”
“Did the police hit you? Is that how you got that cut?” It wasn’t serious, but it would need cleaning.
He nodded. “Of course it was an ‘accident.’ Their word versus mine, and mine isn’t worth much right now.”
“What’s going on?” Her tone was pleading. She disliked it.
“Some water please.”
She got it for him. The kitchen floor was sticky and she couldn’t remember why. He took a sip. “I knew I was being investigated, but it’s more serious than I thought. That business with the pass card worries me. I wonder if mine will work now.”
“Go on.”
“So they took me in, asked all sorts of questions. Stupid questions mostly. What is the nature of my work? What are my spiritual beliefs? Stuff like that.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“I told them what they wanted. Turns out what they really wanted to know was about the work I did for the Socialist Alliance. Apparently it establishes a ‘pattern of undesirable inquiry.’”
“Aren’t they socialists?”
“‘Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun’ is their motto. That’s not socialism.”
“So it’s not about your current work?”
“That too. They think I’m a radical element. They got that part right.”
“But they released you.”
“They did. But I’ll be under observation. This place will be tapped if it isn’t already.”
“So what do we do?”
“Sit tight.”
“David,” she said, not quite knowing how to proceed. “I wanted to ask you about something. The other day, in CDS, I got a message from a man called Chris Roland. He wanted to talk about something called Misanthropos. Have you heard of it?”
“Misanthropos,” he said in a flat voice. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. What did this Roland character want?”
“He warned me to leave Yellowcake Springs. He said it wasn’t safe.”
“Well, it isn’t. Maybe you should go stay with your parents for a while, until this dies down.”
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