by Eliza Green
‘Underground? We have no dealings with that movement. What business do you have with them?’
‘Please, I need to find her. It’s important. I won’t speak to anyone but her.’
Sal sighed. ‘I can’t imagine what you need with the movement but I’ll ask around. Discreetly. You probably have a better chance of finding this Jenny Waterson than you do your husband.’
Isobel looked away.
Ben touched her shoulder and she accepted what he hoped was a comforting touch.
‘I’ll help you find him.’
He thought about his own mother. If he found her and she tried to explain why she’d abandoned him at the orphanage, would he forgive her?
But the situation with his mother and Isobel’s husband were different. For one, Ben’s mother had known exactly what she was doing.
‘I’ll start looking tomorrow,’ said Ben. ‘Write down some details for me now.’ He opened a drawer and rooted around for something to write on.
Sal stood up quickly and pulled his hands out of the drawer containing her smelly tea leaves. She ushered him into the hallway.
‘Tomorrow. Isobel needs to get some rest and you should get going. Curfew isn’t that long now. Stay off the main streets and avoid the guns. And tell Albert to come see me in the morning.’
‘Why?’
‘Waverley business. None of your beeswax.’
At the front door, Ben hesitated. He pulled his mask out of his coat pocket.
Sal frowned at him. ‘What is it, boy? Do you need another canister?’
‘Uh, no. Do you have any spare clothes to give to Isobel?’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘The World Government uniform. The people who changed her used to wear it.’
Sal pressed her hand to her mouth. ‘Yes, of course. I didn’t think of that. I’ll see what I can find.’
Ben jogged all the way back to the tavern. He kept to the side streets and looked out for patrol cars while avoiding the locations he knew the rooftop guns covered.
On the way, he thought about Isobel’s husband.
If Ben found him, would he be pleased to be reunited with his wife after eight years apart?
10
With a worn grey satchel slung over one shoulder and carbon-fibre hiking sticks in his hands, Albert exited through Waverley’s gates and began his journey to the black market. He had dressed quietly that morning, keen not to disturb Ben and Kevin who slept.
It was before curfew had been lifted, but Albert as a registered business owner could break early-morning curfew if he needed to visit the black market.
The market was located two miles away in the Old Jamaica area. Albert maintained a steady pace, scuffing his heavy boots along the ground and leaning on his sticks when needed. Without access to a car, Albert walked everywhere. He was fit for his age and if the air hadn’t been so damn poisonous, he would probably be walking in some remote mountainous area with nothing around but trees and birds and peace.
He walked along the car-free road, past buildings close to collapse; some had boards or padlocks across their entrances, or billowing tape marked ‘Condemned’, from the old World Government days. Before the government had left, it had switched off life support to certain buildings to contain the people inside the controlled zones, which used to be refugee camps. New neighbourhoods like Waverley that the Kings controlled became the only place to live.
Nobody lived outside the large walled enclosure. The condemned buildings outside Waverley could not support life. The streets beyond the neighbourhood served no purpose other than providing a means of access between King-controlled businesses. Only Waverley and the other controlled neighbourhoods guaranteed a way to live.
Albert came upon the Old Jamaica area that contained several abandoned warehouses, each with their own life support. The Agostini family had set up the market there to give them control and reduce the risk of attack from the residents, whose oxygen supplies wouldn’t last long caught in the middle of nowhere.
The Kings owned all food replicators since the World Government left in their ships. Each Compound in Waverley received monthly food rations. Albert received a separate stock of alcohol for the tavern, to water down.
He approached the giant red-brick and mortar building that was around half the size of an old football stadium. The King’s black market store sold replicated vegetables and fruit—produce not included in the monthly food rations—to remind the residents who was in control. There were also spare parts for the ageing generators. The Kings gave everyone just enough to live on, then tempted them with items they couldn’t get elsewhere. Albert knew the temptation was too great for some who took odd jobs on the side for the Kings, jobs that paid enough to afford a little luxury or repair the unreliable machines.
The open-front market revealed the stalls inside. Albert pushed through the weak environmental force field and removed his mask. He turned off his oxygen to preserve it.
The dimly lit space contained ten rows with about eight stalls in each. Generators set up at the back of the warehouse to run the lights made a racket in the quiet space.
Albert perused the stalls without prices that changed daily. These sellers markets rarely did business ethically. But it had become the only place for Albert and the others to still buy the rare items they once took for granted. Industry was gone. The World Government had abandoned Earth and handed control of the planet to the criminals, who ironically, the government never wanted in power.
Albert ambled over to one of the food stalls. Wooden crates were stacked, three high, in front of a long counter. They brimmed with produce the criminals replicated daily and sold for five times their estimated value.
Albert was old enough to remember a time when replicator machines didn’t feed the people; people did.
He slipped his hand into his pocket and touched the notes he’d brought with him. Most of the savings he had left over after paying for Isobel. Marcus paid him an ‘associate’ fee each month; barely enough to buy anything at the market. But over time he had saved up enough. One thing he refused to do was bolster his income by doing jobs for Marcus. Albert had once wondered why the Agostini family would bother paying any fee every month. But when he saw the black market, he understood. Everything the Kings did was to keep control.
Albert planned to buy something special for dinner. Ben and Kevin had been through so much change with Isobel’s arrival, and Kevin’s continuing frosty attitude towards her disappointed him. But Kevin’s cool attitude also extended to Ben, and that had surprised him.
He blamed himself for Kevin’s intolerance. Kevin’s father, his son, had been the same way. Seeing his grandson mirror the behaviour of his own son spurred him on to make a change, to do things differently—to be a better man. Ben’s more open attitude had shamed him into action at the auction. But a long-standing habit was not so easy to break. Yet their lives could barely be called lives. Introducing an Indigene—albeit a devolved one—into the mix could hardly make things any worse.
He searched for something nice in the food stalls. He stopped at the potatoes and was about to pick one up when the woman at the stall spotted him.
‘You handle it, you buy it.’
He withdrew his hand. ‘How much?’
‘Fifty for five.’
He frowned. ‘Last month it was twenty.’
‘Yeah, well. Times are tough for all of us. You gonna buy here or not?’
‘I only have thirty on me.’ It had taken him eight months to save the money up for his emergency fund. An uneasy feeling had prompted him to cut back here and there to keep money back—and he had blown it all in one morning at the auction.
‘Two potatoes for thirty.’
‘Now hold on a minute. That’s a bit steep—’
‘I don’t set the prices. Marcus does, and everything’s gone up as of today. If you don’t like it, you and everybody else can take it up with him.’
Albert moved away and browsed some of the fruit stands. H
e pointed to different items, careful not to handle anything and to ask first about the price. The first vendor was right: the price of everything had increased.
He shook his head and settled on a handful of strawberries and a few apples that would not last long in his house. The fruit stall vendor wrapped them up and he paid her all the money he’d brought with him. She gave him a receipt that he would use to show to the guards at Waverley gate.
The two-mile journey back to Waverley neighbourhood took Albert forty minutes at his steady pace. He queued at the entrance. The guard scanned his identity chip, checked his bag, checked the receipt and waved him on. Albert gripped the strap of his bag that should have weighed more. A month earlier, his thirty would have bought him five potatoes, a watermelon and three onions. He shook his head at the ever-increasing prices. If they went up any more, there would be nothing left for him to buy. They could survive on the replicated rations the criminals delivered monthly, but the rations didn’t include any fruit or vegetables.
From the gate he walked along the bruised and battered road, past red-brick houses and multi-storey apartment blocks that had been abandoned after their life support failed. At the point where the road split off towards two of the four Compounds, remnants of the old neighbourhood—before the walls went up—were visible: cracked pavements where residents had once walked their dogs; fractured tarmac roads where they had driven cars.
Albert took the well-worn route to East Compound. Low buildings hugged the battered road, their paint peeling and facades cracked; some had red and rusty signs that identified the street. The scene reminded him of an old Western movie where the bad guy and the good guy face off with guns. Albert had to give money to Marcus regularly. All the business owners did. Did that make him a bad guy, or just a man who would do just about anything to survive?
But now that he’d taken in Isobel, what kind of man did that make him?
Albert sighed. Rescuing one devolved Indigene would not change the world, or him.
The tavern came into view, with its rusted door, red-brick exterior and rickety overhead light. The lights were on; it was only 9am but the sun was hidden behind heavy clouds that never lifted from one end of the day to the other. They lived in perpetual twilight, and the dark and depressing streets could be dangerous at any time of the day. It reminded him of the place where he had rescued Ben, around six years ago.
The World Government had announced it was closing all the orphanages; a final act to mark the end of their reign over Earth. People had been relieved at the end to their domination, but what had slipped into the void had been far worse.
Preoccupied with the final transfers of selected people to Exilon 5, The World Government had left behind a skeleton police force to protect the industries still worth something. The people who owned replicators hadn’t noticed the change at first, until their technology broke down with nobody around to fix it. That’s when the criminals had come out of hiding, seeping into every healthy crack of civilisation to infect it with their lies and brutality.
According to the Light Box that still reported news, the closest orphanage was in Rochester, in Western New York. Kevin was just ten years old and living with Albert after the death his father—Albert’s son.
Albert had watched the report impassively, wondering if Earth would ever recover from this latest change. But it was the look in his grandson’s eyes when he’d asked why the orphans were being abandoned that had shocked him into action. Had Albert not taken Kevin in, would he have wound up in a place like that?
Getting to Rochester had been easy, but the walk up to the entrance was harder. He had ached at the sight of so many boys and girls set adrift. Some stood inside the protective force field, visibly frightened. Others were outside with masks, acting rude and aggressive. Other adults took the frightened children away. But the aggressive ones... nobody came for them.
Albert approached the large building, fearing what awaited him inside. Boys as young as nine hurled abuse from open windows. Others cried and cowered in corners.
He kept moving, even after one boy had thrown a rock at his head.
Inside wasn’t much better. Upturned tables and chairs gave him a snapshot into the lives of the orphans. Light fittings dangled from wires. The keepers of the orphanage—robotic beings, similar to the tin men in the termination rooms—lay in pieces on the floor. Older boys threw books and footballs at Albert’s head. He swatted the missiles away and carried on. A few girls stood inside the door, giggling at the boys’ antics.
Curious and mistrustful eyes followed Albert as he ventured deeper into the hellhole. The walls in the foyer were daubed with graffiti. He passed by a group of boys more interested in short-term acts of vandalism than in looking to their future.
The foyer narrowed into a corridor that branched off into several rooms. Albert saw mattresses and food inside most of the rooms. A strong smell of urine accompanied the disarray. The remnants of the old factory were still there, from the time before it had been turned into an orphanage, and old sewing machines had been piled up in corners of the room.
He kept walking, until he came across a black-haired boy in one room.
Ben Watson sat on the floor with a pen in his mouth, surrounded by maps, charting a route out of the city. He barely looked up when Albert approached.
‘Hello.’
Ben ignored him until Albert sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.
‘If you’re looking for someone to take care of, you’re wasting your time,’ said Ben. He continued to draw neat lines on the map, circling points of interest. Near those points he had written ‘Rest stop’ or ‘Change vehicles here’.
‘Where are you going?’ said Albert, admiring the detail the boy had put into his plan.
He replied without looking up. ‘Toronto.’
‘What’s there?’
‘The last of the passenger ships. They’re still taking people off the planet. I’m going to sneak my way on board a spacecraft.’
Ben spoke as if escaping was a regular occurrence for him.
Albert rested his hands on his folded legs. ‘And what will you do if they don’t take you?’
‘I know how to take care of myself.’
Albert felt a strange connection to the ten-year-old boy before him; a boy who had lost his way in the world and had nobody to care for him. A boy who reminded him of Kevin and who would never ask for help.
‘How about we make a deal,’ said Albert.
‘I’m not interested, old man. Some of the boys around here aren’t fussed who takes them or what they’ve got to do for their freedom, but perverts aren’t my thing.’
‘Hear me out. Please.’
Ben put down his pen and crossed his arms. ‘I’m listening.’
‘How about I take you to Toronto and wait to see if they’ll take you? If not, you come live with me.’
‘I’m not interested in another family. I had one and it didn’t work out too well for me.’ He waved his hand around the hospital-like room.
Albert stood up, stiff from sitting on the floor too long. ‘You seem like an intelligent young man and you know your chances of getting out of here with a family are low. I’m not here for the things you think I am. I’m a decent, hard-working man who sees a boy in trouble. I’d like to offer you an alternative to a life of maybes and slim chances. If you come with me, I’ll treat you like the young man you have been forced to become, through no fault of your own.’
Ben got to his feet, keeping his eyes on Albert. He folded the map and put the pen in his pocket.
‘I guess you can take me there.’ He tucked the map under his arm and shrugged. ‘I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there anyway.’
Albert took Ben to Canada as promised, using his son’s car. But the military had created an impenetrable police barrier around the docking station at the former Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Ben reluctantly agreed to go back to Waverley to live with Albert.
A few years later, Ben told him that he’d planned on ditching Albert at the first rest stop, but changed his mind. Albert had reminded him of a man he’d once known and it had been a while since anyone had shown him the same interest and kindness...
The sight of the tavern snapped Albert back to the present. He still had an hour before opening time and he needed to talk to Sal. If anyone caught him out before curfew, he could pass off his visit as a business meeting. For looking after Marcus’ money, Sal and Albert were granted a little more freedom than others.
On his way to Sal’s, he thought about Ben and how easily he trusted Isobel. Maybe if Albert were a younger man, he would be more tolerant. But he’d seen and lost too much to trust anyone off the bat. Still, Ben had been through a lot with his mother and the orphanage, so age had nothing to do with it; people could lose everything at any stage in their lives. He was grateful to know Ben a little better.
Sal’s tiny cottage looked so out of place among the modern buildings to its left and right. It was an act of defiance, she’d said. Albert was proud of her for sticking it to the criminals in her own way. They’d been friends for a long time, and had even considered a more romantic relationship after both their partners had died. But after an awkward evening of dinner and conversation and expectation, they’d reached an agreement to be just friends.
He knocked on the door and waited. He would give Isobel a chance and would make sure Kevin did the same.
Sal opened the door but the look of worry on her face quickened Albert’s pulse. He’d only ever seen her this worried twice before: once when the World Government had left and again when the Kings announced they would build a giant wall around Waverley.
She ushered him inside without a word.
Her cottage, usually so quiet, was filled with murmuring voices that came from the kitchen. Albert tensed.
‘What’s going on Sal? Who’s here during curfew?’