‘We can start from there, I agree,’ says Apollo, as if a breakthrough has been made. ‘To win is to justify all we do, and all we do must be judged against the directive to win. With that in mind, we may choose to prescribe you certain hormone supplements or genetic modifiers to improve your overall productivity. I believe you have a slight VO2 Max deficit, for example, and there are various ways to address that.’
‘You mean drugs?’
‘Supplements, modifiers.’
‘Cheating.’
Apollo laughs gently.
‘I work with what God gave me,’ continues Ivon. ‘Nothing more. I will not pollute myself.’
‘And did your god give you a rugby ball? Did he give you boots to kick with? You will have noticed, no doubt, the enhancements to productivity in Perpetual Era footwear – did your god supply you with those? No, these too are the inventions of humankind.’
‘None of it changes me,’ says Ivon, pounding his breast. ‘I remain the same. In here.’
‘I assure you what I’m suggesting is perfectly safe. The technology is far in advance of anything you will be familiar with from the Lapsed Era.’
‘It is changing me! Changing my molecules!’
‘Your body does change when you become fitter. I cannot deny this.’
‘It is introducing alien substances into my body!’
‘So is eating.’
Ivon slams his fist on the table, spilling hydro-sacs onto the immaculate glass. ‘It’s cheating!’ he shouts.
Apollo purses his lips and gathers the errant sacs, popping them into his mouth with nonchalance. ‘You are from a culture that conceived of sport as recreation,’ he says. ‘Essentially – how do you say in Wales? – a “romantic” pursuit. You may think you take your sport seriously, but you are…well, yes, you are playing at it.’ He leans forward to fix Ivon with a glare and pats his chest with a heavy hand. ‘We…we…take our sport seriously, Ivon. It defines who we are and why we are. You talk of your god; we talk of the sacred directive to go faster, stronger, more productively. We share a common history, your world and mine, in which our ancestors of the Lapsed Era urged their champions on towards similar frontiers of achievement, sometimes with maniacal fervour…then quibbled about how they reached them. With the establishment of the Perpetual Era, we cut ourselves free from such hypocrisy. When we urge our champions on, when we urge ourselves on, we mobilise every energy and device at our command towards that end.’ He taps his finger on the spotless table. ‘This world is where sport is taken seriously, Ivon. I do believe you want to prove yourself in it, and I urge you to keep an open mind.’
Dusty is disturbed at the way Ivon is staring. Is it at the hydro-sacs? He thinks it may be slightly to the side of them. He thinks it may be beyond them. Somewhere way beyond, beyond the floor they’re sitting on, straight through Parliament towards the dirty bed of the Thames itself. His head is cocked, his mouth set straight.
‘I need a piss,’ he says under his breath and rises to leave the room. After a few paces, he turns back. He is tall, flaring and magnificent. ‘I can’t talk like him, I know it. I don’t have the words. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. And when I talk with these,’ he says, holding out his hands, ‘and these,’ pointing to his feet, ‘and this,’ beating his chest, before standing defiant and nodding his head, ‘I win my arguments.’
He has been gone for a few seconds, before Apollo speaks. ‘Do you think he’ll come quietly?’
Another pause settles between the two men. Dusty feels sick. He wants to take Ivon away from this. He wants to take himself away. There’s no hope for Ivon. Dusty can see that now. Apollo looks across at him. His face has suddenly changed. Gone is the kindliness, gone the sparkle. His eyes are cold and ruthless. They demand a response.
‘He is set on proving himself here.’
‘Yes, but will he conform?’
‘If he wants to make elite, if he wants to strive for England, he’ll have to.’
‘It’ll be harder for him to ignore the instructions of ProzoneX. As long as his chip has fully taken.’
‘My only concern is how he’ll handle being away from his home.’
Apollo cocks his head, as if he hadn’t thought of that – what Perpetual citizen would? – but a man in his position knows something about the ways of the Lapsed Era.
Dusty continues: ‘I can see him becoming restless already. Ambition is keeping him focused for now, but at some point he will long for his homeland. The bond between him and his progenitors is strong. He has already asked me about contacting them.’
Apollo is in thought, but waves his hand towards the interior and says as an aside, ‘I have a Lapsed Era telephone in my chambers. He can use that if he wants.’
‘I just wonder,’ says Dusty, before pausing. How can he make the following not sound ridiculous? ‘I just wonder, would there be any virtue in letting him return to Wales for a short break? Before he turns elite. If he can relax, it may help his chip complete its insinuation.’
It’s a suggestion that inclines Apollo to look at him at least, but there is contempt in his face. He does not deign to answer.
Does he want this, does he want this. Ivon’s feet flash across the matt-white bathroom floor. No sound, no slipping, the traction is perfect between footwear and flooring, two surfaces made for each other. Like everything round here. A perfect fit. Nothing wasted. Efficiency gone mad.
He wants to make noise, so he slams his palms against the smooth white wall the third time he paces up to it. The walls are hard. The thud is weak. He will not be made to take anything. He’s not a robot. He’s not a cheat. He has been engineered once, by a higher power than these pale-faced slaves to instruction. Enough.
He breathes in slowly and fully, head bowed between two arms. Come on. They want you. You’ve made it to elite. The next stage. They’re starting to turn. Those people at the club. The cries of your name at the stadium. That’s more like it. Some signs of life. Humanity. A beating heart. These things are eternal. Like the games. Like play. Bring out the humans. Win back the lost ground. Play.
Ivon crouches in the corner of the bathroom. It is white. He feels the power in his haunches and soon he is bouncing on them. He is in the shape of his life, but if they want him fitter he will train harder. If they want him more disciplined he will smile and cooperate – until he sees the moment, then bang! Let’s see them discipline him for winning matches.
They will never have his soul.
As a boy he thrilled to the exploits of legends on the field. As a player he thrills to be on the field himself, to move with the rhythms of a game and to shape those rhythms, the inspiration within balanced against the inspiration without. That, too, is eternal. He will show it to them. There is magic in what they do. Enchantment. Eternal.
‘Here he is!’ Apollo rises to his feet. The voice is full again, the features animate. Dusty’s pall of sickness deepens. ‘We’ll get you set up with London Rugby tomorrow. It’ll mean more tests, but bear with us. You’ll see action soon. Possibly as early as Saturday, which is London’s next match, I believe.’
Ivon nods once, efficiently. ‘Cool.’
‘Dusty tells me you would like to make contact with your progenitors. I have a phone in my chambers that is compatible with the relevant pathways.’
Apollo leads them through a door at the far end of the room and down a sunlit corridor animated with faint flourishes of aquamarine. He steps into another wide room overlooking the river, this time offering a glimpse of High Chronos to the left. The room is dominated by a reproduction of The Victor, in acrylic resin by the look of it. Ivon is immediately drawn to the statue and stands silently in front of it, raising his fist to mimic the pose. There is a desk in each of the room’s interior corners, one dynamic, one static. And over by the window, proud as an ornament, sits a Lapsed Era telephone. The confidence of its blackness is a delight, as are the bold straight lines. Set against which, the quaint buttons, round and innocent, mak
e Dusty yearn for more forgiving times.
Apollo lifts a part out of itself and offers it to Ivon. The kinked chord attaching the two parts strains at the separation.
‘You’ll need the right code, of course,’ he says.
Ivon is confident with the telephone. He presses the buttons in what looks like a specific sequence. Holding it to his ear, he waits, then turns to the two men.
‘Let’s leave him to it,’ says Apollo, motioning towards the door. Just as it closes behind them, Dusty hears the words, ‘Mum, it’s Ivon.’
Apollo shows Dusty to a reception room in his chambers. ‘Why don’t you wait here. I have a few matters to attend to.’
Dusty settles on one of the exercise bikes in the waiting room and begins to pedal, but his heart is not in it. Apathy is creeping over him again. Is this all they are? Slaves to energy. Quantity, quantity, quantity. That Lapsed Era telephone had a purpose once, but it is beautiful, too, isn’t it, a quality beyond its function. What quality does Dusty have beyond his function? Once he accumulated runs; now he ushers poor fools to their final resting place; always he has generated energy like the rest of them. Everything has been measured in joules. He sits on the bike, refusing to work it. He realises that as soon as Apollo returns he will pedal as if he has been pedalling all the while. He is pathetic.
But it is Ivon who appears first. His face is blank. ‘Dad’s not well,’ he says.
Dusty stops pedalling. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
Ivon taps his head. ‘He’s losing it. Leaves the house first thing in the morning, comes back late at night, drunk. Doesn’t talk. Mum’s at her wits’ end. Fairly standard, really, in our house. All my fault, obviously.’
The feeling that there is a particular way he should react to this gnaws at Dusty. The relationship between Ivon, Ricky and Dee and these peculiar goings-on within it might be affecting Ivon more than Dusty can understand. It is another reason for him to return home.
‘Do you want to go back?’ he says.
‘I don’t think so. Not just now. I’m about to make elite. Dad’s done this before. He’ll be fine.’
‘Do you want me to go?’
That’s it! The scales fall from Dusty’s eyes. It’s not so much that he wants Ivon to return home; rather, it is Dusty who wants to go. He has crossed over. The Lapsed Era is where his heart lies now, in all its seedy glory, with its dirty, haphazard ways. He wants to see Ricky and Dee again and tell them what he knows about the TMS programme of 2111. He feels close to them, connected. Maybe this is how Lapsed Era relationships are meant to be. It reminds him of the feelings he was developing for Alanis before the trip to Wales.
‘If you fancy it. Yeah. Sweet.’
‘I’ve still got travel rights from my decommission, and I know someone in Resources. They’ll get me a permit by the end of the day.’
A solemn look crosses Ivon’s brow. ‘Tell them I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Tell them we’re changing things.’
Dusty smiles briskly. Does Ivon think he’s changing things? Does he even think he can? He has wrought a quantitative shift in London’s joule count. He has turned some of the more vulnerable elements of society, who will be corrected, if they have not been already. Dusty is afraid of the passion that simmers behind the swirling blue eyes. He is afraid of what might happen to a boy who thinks he can change things.
But Dusty has changed, because the idea excites him, too. And maybe Ivon can change things. Must non-conformists always be broken? Perhaps they can lead a people in new directions; perhaps they can break the system themselves.
Dusty smiles again, more slowly and warmly.
‘I’ll tell them.’
X
Oh, momentum! How strongly you gather behind those who work at you hardest!
There is only one week until the Spring Recess for elite women’s volleyball is at an end. If Alanis could change one thing about London’s upturn in productivity, it would be to have played her part in it by now on the court. She bristles at the thought. The adrenaline when she squares off with an opponent, the sting of a headlong dive across the floor, the release of an overhead smash – these sensations she will soon be able to relish once more. May the turbines turn when she does!
But this is indulgent, to linger on her personal preoccupations. Just being part of a commune whose confidence regenerates – she wouldn’t swap it for all the joules in Asia. And hasn’t London deserved this resurgence, never once losing faith, though the joules ran low! Now the momentum has swept up more of the commune’s units. Three more wins at elite level yesterday, including another for the men’s footballers, who have broken into the top four.
There’s no way London can be generating more energy from its cots than its stadiums now! Alanis never really believed that rumour, anyway. Still, when it’s happening in the stadiums, it so often happens in the cots. Another momentous bout with Ivon. It’s as if his coital productivity is somehow linked to London’s recovery.
He is slower to his shower than she to hers, but she watches as he strides across from the cot towards the cleansing station. His penis retains its glow and some degree of tumescence, happily flaccid, the assurance of a natural arousal. All too often these days, men resort to manipulation of the autonomic nervous system for their erections. It’s perfectly functional, but there is something affecting about a penis that rises without intervention from the central chip. One always gives one’s all, of course, but sometimes one’s all comes more naturally. Whenever it does, the display’s read-out bears testimony afterwards. This afternoon’s bout was no exception.
As Ivon steps into the shower next to her, he puffs out his chest and droplets of water begin to fall from the vents above him, dashing themselves on his muscular shoulders, seeping into and through his wild blond hair. He runs his hands through it, and Alanis watches a sleek, glistening orchestra of ripples play through his arms and, when he turns, across his broad back and down through buttocks and hamstrings that are befitting, indeed, of an elite. What a welcome addition to their ranks he will make, too full of potential to remain in the tertiary classes. She is pleased to be able to call him a cot partner. It’s time she introduced him to more of her class. Adriana and Ivon would respond particularly well to each other.
‘So, did you enjoy the rugby the other day?’ he says, turning in towards her, as his first injection of gel is released from the vents.
For a moment, Alanis is not sure what he means. Then she remembers the last rugby match she comped at. ‘Ah, 56–12? Yes, what a workout! But then every match lately seems to bring a bonanza for the commune.’
‘Yes, but what about the game itself? Sorry, I mean the match.’
They stand beneath their showers, facing each other. He is so close to her that his shower cloud has very nearly merged with hers. Instinctively, she takes a step away from him, and her shower follows. ‘It was a wonderful result.’
‘But what did you think of the match?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.’
‘Did you think I played well?’ Ivon says. He smiles and looks down briefly, then back at her again. ‘I mean, do you think I…contested…productively?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see, Ivon. There was so much pumping to get through.’
Ivon stares at her with a faint smile, but intensity, such intensity, in those eyes of his. As if he were trying to intimidate her from across the volleyball net. But, no, not that. She doesn’t feel hostility from him. Just that intensity. His head is angled so that the eyes sear at her from beneath a wicked eyebrow ridge. For a moment she forgets where she is.
‘You really must pay closer attention,’ he says, as he takes another step towards her.
Now their showers are as one. On every conscious level, her soul screams at her to step away again. But her back is close to the wall and, anyway, something unconscious inclines her to stand her ground. He leans in. She can’t imagine what he’s trying to do. Slowly he presses his lips against he
rs. It is a curious sensation, highly, highly irregular, but still she holds steady, as if staring into the sun. She feels his hand in the small of her back. He pulls her in, pressing harder against her lips, now invading her mouth with his tongue. Against her pelvis, she feels his tumescence, fully restored. And warm.
They’re off the Grid. She breaks away. His grip on her is firm, but he releases it without a struggle. Was it the unharnessed warmth of his penis that reminded her where they were, what they were doing, who she was? Or was it the unsanctioned physical contact, or that…that thing he did with his mouth and tongue (she can’t think how to describe it)? She’ll never know, but as she tumbles away from him, out of the shower zone, the thought crosses her mind for a flit of a second to lay herself out on the cot once more. Almost as soon as it is formed, though, the thought has gone, and she ducks left into the dryer.
She is perfectly composed. As the warm jets rise up around her, she turns towards him, standing alone under his cloud.
‘Have you met my comrade Adriana?’
Dusty feels as if he can breathe again.
Again? Has he ever felt like this? Focused, invigorated, excited and, yes, happy – these are humours that have defined his life. But never a sense of freedom. Only now, only here in Wales, does he feel light and unencumbered by duty or institutional intimidation. He feels in tune with their ways. He is a Welshman.
Returning is what has done this. He was seduced the first time, but disorientated by the shock of it. Now, in the flush of familiarity, Wales presents itself to him as home. And nowhere more so than the place where it all began, that low-slung, primitive stadium of St Helen’s, the playground of Ivon, which appears now up ahead.
There is a gate open in the old brick wall at the cricket end of the complex. Impulsively, Dusty pulls off the road and parks the aero beside it. He passes through the gate onto the cricket outfield, marvelling at the possibilities for life under a big wide sky. To his right, from out of the chaos of Lapsed Era housing rises the clubhouse, the words ‘Swansea Cricket & Football Club’ set against the white paint in letters of friendly blue. And then, straight ahead, the big field closes in around the rugby pitch. Dusty smiles again at the coming together of sports on one field, just as they come together in Ivon’s soul. He walks on towards the turf on which he first saw the boy in action. Over there in the corner is the gate where Alanis and Dusty slipped in to watch the remarkable rituals unfold. The rugby posts are down, but the pitch is clearly marked, and Dusty walks upon it. The smell of the natural grass drifts through him blissfully. Under foot, the turf is pleasingly solid and without spring. He is stirred by the living green of it.
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