‘I don’t doubt that you worked hard, Ivon. Or that you believed that doing so was your choice. But I’m sure as well that you couldn’t have stopped yourself, even if you’d wanted to.’
‘Oh, yes, I could! I did! Don’t worry! I know how to enjoy myself. It wasn’t all work.’
‘Then you worked just as hard as you wanted to. Like everyone. But where that balance lies at any given moment in any person’s life is a function of personality and conditioning, both of which are visited upon the individual. To think otherwise is to see yourself as purely self-determining, unaffected by genetics or environment – in other words, outside life. Which is an absurd idea. You can take no credit for who you are, Ivon. It has simply happened to you. And in your case the prime materials were supplied, I understand, by two elite cricketers, Dee Januarie and Ricky Tribute, bred by this very commune. So you belong to London more than you know.’
There is a clatter as Ivon rises sharply enough to send the carbon-fibre chair he is sitting on flying across the room. ‘My mum and dad were turned away from London!’ he cries. ‘I was rejected by London before I was even born! Don’t you dare tell me I belong to you!’
He turns and strides from the room.
Lana shakes her head and returns to her work. ‘We would have to assimilate him, Dusty. You know that. Is this worth it?’
‘Let me talk to him.’
As he leaves the room in pursuit, Dusty’s first instinct is to wonder what implications this hot-headedness might have for Ivon’s future in London. He should not try to become a batsman.
‘You don’t believe any of that shit, do you?’ Ivon says, when Dusty has caught up with him in the stairwell.
‘Let’s talk about this. I told you you’d find things different here.’
‘Different?! That’s some fucked-up view of the world your friend has there!’
‘It is a fundamental tenet of Perpetual society that we belong to our commune. There is no such thing as acclaim for the individual here. If an athlete is productive, they are serving their purpose. They will not be celebrated, as I saw them celebrate you in Wales. They are just an asset of the commune that has produced them.’
‘Look, I don’t need adulation or anything. But no one owns me, OK?’
Their fevered descent slows, and Ivon turns to Dusty on the next landing down.
‘And what about you, Dusty? You scored how many runs? Did they own you?’
The two men face each other, until Dusty flinches at the younger man’s glare and continues down the stairs. Ivon follows.
Outside, Dusty saunters in the warm air. When he looks again, he catches Ivon gazing at Lord’s with an expression of wonder on his face. One moment the young lad is staring him down, all fire and shifting colour, the next he is a picture of innocence and wonder, a glow on his cheek.
‘It’s impressive, isn’t it?’ Dusty says, as if to remind himself.
‘And you play cricket in that?’
‘Yes.’
‘It makes the Millennium Stadium look like a bungalow. And look at the size of that statue!’
Dusty tries to remember when the statue went up. There was a time before it, definitely. But, no, he can’t. Recollection is a skill, like a cover drive. His needs more practice. ‘One of the largest of its kind. If only we had the results these days to go with it. I find it comforting, though. Something about a cover drive…’
‘Good technique. For a big man…’
They stand in silence for a moment.
‘I want to play rugby,’ says Ivon. ‘I know you’re a cricketer, and Mum and Dad were too. I’ve tried to go along with it, but if I have to choose – rugby’s my game. It’s the Welsh game.’
‘I think you would find rugby in England even more of a culture shock than cricket. It’s a brutal arena for someone from the Lapsed Era.’
Ivon grins broadly. ‘You’re not putting me off, Dusty! Bring it on!’
‘The elite rugby athletes here have been bred specifically. They’ve spent a lifetime in the academies. I’ve seen the rugby you’re used to. Well, they’re bigger here. Much bigger. They’re ruthless, disciplined, robotic.’
‘Ha! I make it my business to play against robots. I make fools of robots.’
‘Not Perpetual Era robots.’
‘Bring. It. On.’
It’s a sport that requires belligerence, thinks Dusty, and the kind of spirit he can all but see now rising from Ivon like the hot breath of a bull. ‘I don’t know anyone in rugby. At least, not directly. It’ll come down to your cat scores.’
‘I love a good cat score!’
‘What about swing bowling?’
‘I want to play rugby, Dusty.’
He won’t be a Perpetual citizen until he’s taken his central chip, they say. They inserted one two days ago, leaving it to insinuate itself among axon, synapse and dendrite.
‘Let’s see how we’ve got on,’ says the communications technician, settling down at a console.
Ivon lies in a reclined chair, as if at the dentist. His head and neck are cradled closely in a hollow of unknown substance, white, yielding, yet humming with function. And, like a dentist, the technician dictates notes of obscure meaning, as on a checklist, while, on his console, he flicks through the strata and substrata of Ivon’s being.
‘This seems to have taken very well. Limited connectivity with some peripherals, but that’ll come. Yes, I think we’re ready to turn you on. There we are. Welcome to the Grid.’
Ivon waits, but nothing happens.
‘So, what does this mean? I can send telepathic messages to anyone I like?’
‘This technology replaced the telephone, and it’s based on the same principle. You need a person’s name to contact them.’
‘Go on, then. Let’s make a call.’
‘Who would you like to speak to?’
Who indeed? He’d like to speak to Mum and Dad, now that he’s safely on the other side of the Fence, but that is not a call for a communications technician to sit in on. Otherwise, it would have to be Dusty.
But, no. This is his first call by telepathy. He’s got to be able to do better than that. Let’s make it a woman, at least. What was the name of that girl who came up with them from Wales? Alana, was it? Now, hers would be a mind worth getting into.
‘There’s a girl. She’s called Alana. Plays volleyball, I remember that much.’
‘What class?’
‘I dunno. Fit.’
‘Elite?’
‘Oh, yeah.’
‘Let’s have a look. There’s an Alanis Fountin in the elite volleyball squad.’
‘That’s her!’
‘Right. The first thing you’ll learn in training is to make contact with someone, but I’ll put you through for now.’
Almost immediately, a voice wafts into his consciousness, filling his head so softly. ‘Ivon, you’re on the Grid!’
He finds himself bereft of words for a moment. It is Alanis, as expected, and yet there can be no preparation for having her in his head like this. He is nervous, he now notices, like when he called Cerys in the early days.
‘They’ve just hooked me up. You’re my first call.’
Her laugh is gentle and soothing when released within his brain. ‘We call it a comm,’ she says.
‘Are you actually speaking out loud when you say this?’
‘No.’
‘So, what? You just thought the word “no”, then?’
‘Yes.’
It’s true, thinks Ivon. Her voice is clear and blemish-free, burgeoning throughout his soul as in a cathedral. It doesn’t sound quite real, but the idealised echo moves him. ‘And the laugh?’
‘That was out loud.’
The presence in the room of the communications technician starts to play on Ivon’s mind. ‘So I could continue this conversation without actually speaking aloud, could I?’
‘Why not? Give it a try. Tell me how you’re finding London.’
Ivon sits
up so that his head is lifted out of the cradle that has been holding it. He closes his eyes. ‘I feel like a performing monkey but I love it yes tests tests fucking belonged to her she did 190 miles play the sound of you in my head just play Mum never did say…’
Alanis’s laugh breaks into his head again. ‘OK, OK, slow down! There’s too much coming at me! I guess it’s hard for you, if you’ve never used a chip before.’
‘Can you teach me?’
‘No, but someone will. Just speak out loud in the meantime. It’s what we do when we’re stressed or unable to focus.’
‘You see, you’ve already taught me something about how it works.’
‘Well, I can’t teach you any more than that. But I’ve been meaning to ask if you’d like to meet me at the club. I can show you round there.’
‘I’d love it.’
‘Good. I’ll pulse you the details. Monday, 4 p.m.?’
‘What’s today?’
She laughs. ‘Friday.’
‘Monday’s good.’
He has a date. And not one with a scientist. London has accommodated him so far – gathered round and pored over him, even – but where is the beating heart of the place? Coolness and impassivity greet him at every turn. In Alanis, he has found a precious pocket of give. Around her, he might build something.
Ricky removes his helmet and shakes out his golden hair. His innings is over, but this time there is no dissent. He is smiling broadly, youthful again. The stadium is celebrating him. He holds his arms out wide, his bat in one hand, helmet in the other, and slowly he turns full circle, soaking up the approbation of the comps, who have stopped pedalling and rise as one to turn their attentions on him. It is rich and warm, the sound they make, a percussive symphony, like the one the Managers put on for Dusty in Parliament, so much softer than the harsh din of the pump boards, levers and turbines. Ricky feeds off it, visibly moved. He is standing still now, arms outstretched, head tilted backwards, eyes closed, chest rising slowly, as the acclaim washes over him.
He lowers his arms and turns to Dusty. There’s that smile again, the radiance of a man at peace, who knows who he is and where he is, which is at his labour’s end. Now he raises an arm again, but this time towards Dusty, beckoning him to step forward. Dusty does as he is bid, treading into the warmth. Ricky presents him to the stadium. The sound of their approval swells, so that the great vault is full with it. Still it grows, the air thickening until Dusty can make out nothing but the narrow pool of light he stands within, beyond which is a gorgeous chaos of good will and recognition. He longs to let go and plunge into it. He can hear his name rising, over and over again, a melody on the brave percussion. It was worth something, thirty-one years, 95 000 runs, a life. He wants to share it, so he turns to his comrade, but the statue of The Cricketer rears up where Ricky had stood, bold, communal and certain.
It is 5.23 a.m. He has another 37 minutes of sleep to observe, but Dusty is in decommission now, so he doesn’t follow his programme the way he used to. Why bother? No one checks up on a vet.
He rises from his bed, pulls on his day suit and commands the shutters in his home to lift. The light outside is blue-grey. From his south window-wall he looks to the left and can see the first smudges of dawn above the next home along. He orders up a morning shake and crosses to his dispenser to collect it. A beep in his head alerts him to an error message. There will be no fuel for him today before 9 a.m. Yesterday’s defeat to the South West in the elite men’s hockey requires further savings to be made. Dusty tuts. It is then that he notices a personal message waiting for him on his chip.
It wasn’t there when he went to bed. Why would anyone send a pulse during the sleeping hours? Then he sees that the sender is anonymous again. It was sent at 05.23, a couple of minutes ago. ‘Outside’, it reads.
Dusty can see nothing unusual out of his south window-wall, but to the north a lonely aero waits on the road. When he spies it, the passenger door, nearest to him, opens matter-of-factly. The invitation is obvious, and Dusty thinks nothing of accepting it, leaving his home at 05.25 in the morning.
Without checking the interior – or the driver – Dusty slides into the aero. Only then does he look across, as the door closes behind. He knows immediately, from the white suit, that he is in the presence of a scientist. What’s more, this man is clearly an Exempt, for he is well beyond stasis age. Dusty guesses he must be in his seventies. Diminishment has him. His hair is silver, and an aquiline nose lends him an air caught between the distinguished and the absurd.
‘Dusty Noble,’ he says, without looking his way. ‘One of my finest. You won’t remember me.’
The man is right. ‘Who are you?’ asks Dusty.
‘Syracuse Garbo,’ he says. If his profile is ambiguous, the voice is rich and authoritative. ‘I’m in Improvement. The records tell me you left the Academy in 2113.’
Dusty does not respond.
‘You were a most responsive asset. London owes a lot to the work we did around then. We were on the verge of several breakthroughs, which are taken for granted now. They were exciting times. You were at the heart of that.’
‘You haven’t visited me in the sleeping hours to tell me this.’
A smile breaks out on the old man’s face. ‘Responsive, but never passive. The secret to your productivity.’
‘Why have you been sending me messages anonymously? It is you, isn’t it.’
‘Tell me about the Welshman.’
Dusty looks across at him again, and this time Garbo returns his gaze. The extra years weigh heavily on him. Dusty can see the extent of it now. As an Exempt in science, he must be one of the finest minds of a generation, but physically he is a grotesque, his face drooping around that defiant, hooked nose. It occurs to Dusty that Exemption is as much a curse as otherwise.
‘His name is Ivon. I discovered him on the fields of Wales.’
‘I hear he is the progeny of two former colleagues of yours from the Academy all those years ago, Enrico Tribute and Delilah Januarie. Can you confirm this?’
Dusty looks away again and says nothing.
‘Dusty, you must know that this is a matter of state security. Not just London. This goes to the top. The PM is to be briefed. A Welshman has been introduced into society, which is one thing, but if the rumours about his provenance are to be believed, Ivon could represent a significant threat to societal stability.’
‘What’s his provenance got to do with it?’
‘Is Ivon on the Grid yet?’
‘He successfully took a chip yesterday.’
‘Well, that’s a start, but I doubt he’ll prove a receptive subject. Not at this early stage. He’ll have to be watched. There’s a lot we don’t know about this.’
‘You’ll leave him alone, won’t you? Just let the boy prove himself.’
There is silence in the aero. Dusty is well aware of the authorities’ aversion to the unknown. A soft but rising panic has built within him these past few days. What has he done?
‘What’s his provenance got to do with it?’ he says again, more aggressively.
Garbo cocks his head. His thin lips stretch and whiten for a second, part smile, part grimace. ‘How are you feeling these days, Dusty? Has everything remained regular since decommission?’
‘Everything’s fine.’
‘It was an interesting decision of yours. To bring a Welshman to London. An act of looseness, don’t you think? One might almost describe it as reckless. Unconventional, certainly.’
‘You told me to do it!’
‘And if I told you to jump off a cliff?’
The old man’s delivery is quiet and pointed. Dusty stares straight ahead through the aero’s windscreen, down the immaculate street. Garbo is right. Dusty wanted to bring Ivon back. A properly aligned citizen would never have done such a thing. The messenger simply provided the means. Was it just a trick?
‘I think you know why Ivon’s provenance is important,’ he says. ‘You should do.’
/> ‘Why should I?’
‘Did you talk about much in Wales with Tribute and Januarie?’
‘Some things.’
‘The TMS procedure of 2111, for example?’
Dusty is seized for a moment, as if by a vision. That’s what has been niggling at him since his reunion with Ricky, the strange bond he felt they shared beyond their hours at the crease together. There was something.
‘Ricky and I…’
‘You were among the first to undergo Transmigration of the Skill therapy. One of those breakthroughs we made back then.’
Ricky and Dusty were put forward for it from their batch. Of course they were. Dusty remembers now the pride, the sense of responsibility.
He remains motionless.
‘Perhaps I’ve underestimated your discipline,’ says Garbo. ‘It always was remarkable.’
‘What?’
‘Have we placed the Welshman yet?’
‘We’ve tried him in cricket, but he wants to be in rugby. The Welsh are passionate about rugby.’
‘Let him. He should be indulged for now. Make him feel at home.’
‘For now?’
Garbo raises his hand impatiently. ‘It’s time you were back in your home. The sleeping hours are almost up. But I need you to confirm how he was conceived. I could take him in and do it myself, but it would be easier for all of us if you just told me.’
‘It sounds as if you know already.’
‘Tribute and Januarie.’
Dusty nods.
‘That is all,’ says Garbo.
‘Don’t touch him,’ Dusty urges, but it is with an air of truculence, defeated truculence. ‘Just give him a shift. See what he can do for the commune. That’s all I ask. He has something. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. A kind of…of happiness.’
The door on Dusty’s side of the aero swings open silently, and Garbo breathes in through pursed lips. ‘Could it be that your discipline is weakening, after all? I’d feared this might happen. Look into your soul, Dusty. Deep into it. You may find some undesirable inclinations in there. Ivon almost certainly carries the very same, and cares not to bury them so conscientiously. Quite the contrary. But we shall see.’
IVON Page 8