The Offset

by Calder Szewczak

  When she finally shuts off the water, the pads of her fingers are puckered and the callouses on her palms have softened and turned white. The dead skin is beginning to peel away, exposing pink tissue beneath.

  It occurs to her then that she doesn’t have anything to dry herself with, but there is a small hand-towel by the sink. She takes it from its hook and pats away the droplets of water from her skin. Once she has pulled her greying underwear back on, ignoring the crust of dirt across the gusset, she does what she can to towel her hair dry, teasing out the tangles as best she can with her fingers. She wipes the mirror above the sink and frowns at her reflection. Her hair is still too wet to tell exactly how much of the dye washed out, but she thinks she looks a fraction better than before – distinctly cleaner if not entirely presentable.

  As soon as she has said this to herself, she gives an involuntary grimace. Presentable. Appearing presentable was always something Jac cared about. Miri can’t think how many times she must have heard the same old lecture; we all have to put our best foot forward if we want to give a good impression of our family for the Borlaug donors.

  Not presentable, then, she thinks. Just more myself.

  She frowns again. That’s not right either. She’s still not sure what that would look like. But even if she can’t find the words to explain the alteration, there’s an undeniable comfort to being clean and warm. Once she took both those things for granted, but that feels like a long time ago now.

  As she stares into the mirror, her mouth gapes into a wide yawn, revealing yellowed teeth and pale gums. The effort of her ablutions has sapped her energy. Bare skin prickling as she steps out of the steam and into the sudden cold of the corridor, she shuffles automatically back towards her old bedroom, carrying her clothes in her arms. The white rat, she sees, is still curled up asleep on the bedside table, the fleshy ear arching along its back rising and falling with each breath. Hugging her bundled clothes to her chest, she sits on the mattress and stares at the rat for a long minute before finally dropping the clothes to the floor in a careless heap and climbing beneath the bed covers. She has her appointment with the Celt to keep, but given that it is scheduled for the evening, there’s time enough yet. She can afford to rest for an hour or two.

  The last thing she’s aware of as her eyes close is Alix, staring in at her from the door, brows knitted together in concern. Miri tries to protest as her mother slips onto the end of her bed and presses a warm hand along her face, but it’s no good. Before she can say anything, she slides uneasily into sleep.

  09

  A flash of her Borlaug ID and a stern expression is enough to get by the armed guard at the facility gate. It’s a long walk from the perimeter, but when the guard offers to call up to the main office and have a solar buggy sent down for her, she refuses. Fortunately, the rain is easing off, and a strong wind is gusting the clouds away across the grey sky as abruptly as it brought them in from the sea. The wide stretch of land that circles the facility has been seeded with a short, thick grass that Jac does not immediately recognise. Seeing how quickly the earth dries out, she figures that it is some hybrid she hasn’t come across before, no doubt specifically designed to draw up standing water and protect against flooding.

  At one time, she remembers, several laboratories competed to produce a variety of plant strains with such abilities, but after the Wash in East Anglia finally broke and the fens were lost, their funding was cut. Perhaps, she thinks, one of the labs found an alternative backer and managed to release a successful strain after all. Or perhaps the local grass has naturally evolved to be flood-hardy. Without closer examination, it’s impossible to tell.

  The facility itself is a massive complex of concrete and reinforced glass. The levels of the building are set back from one another, layered like the steps of a Mayan pyramid. Although broad glass panels run along the front of every tier, the complex looms so large and dark against the landscape that it gives the impression of there being no way for natural light to enter the building. The design was inspired by the Hanging Gardens of Babylon: “An old, ecological vision for a new, greener future”, that was the line in the architectural pitch. There were plans to plant the outer walls with ivy and clematis but no one realised until too late that the concrete had been treated in such a way that rendered the stone impermeable to plant life. Knowing this makes the complex look strangely bare, like a cable stripped of its insulation or a skull with the scalp ripped back.

  When, at last, she reaches the entrance, Jac is shown into a private office by an apologetic secretary and told that the Facility Manager will be with her shortly.

  The office is half the size of Jac’s own in London and it has no windows. But it is a neat and tidy space, one wall lined with shelves of lever-arch files, each one pristine and carefully labelled. As she waits for the Facility Manager, Jac’s eye is caught by a flash of movement. There is a monitor on the far wall, showing a live drone feed from the hypernovaforest in Greenland. Even from the distant aerial view shown on the screen, the trees appear healthy, their gracefully drooping branches thick with bristling silver leaves.

  As if in accordance with some unheard command, the drone descends for a closer look. It swoops down into the canopy and hovers at branch level to focus on a flash of movement in the undergrowth. A wide-hipped bipedal robot with no head and spring-coil feet bounds through the detritus of fallen leaves up to the base of the nearest willow. Extending two clawlike hands, it steadies itself against the tree trunk. The front of its carbon-fibre carapace hinges open, revealing a narrow metal shaft that abruptly fires into the bark of the tree like a cap from a pop-gun. Almost immediately, the robot yanks the shaft out from where it is buried and stows it away. As its carapace hinges shut, the camera catches a flash of the brand emblazoned across the front: BORLAUG. The drone, seemingly satisfied with what it has observed, drifts back up through the foliage. Then the feed cuts. It is a moment before Jac realises that the Facility Manager – an Alban woman in her seventies – has finally arrived. She’s holding a remote control in one hand, thumb pressed over the off button.

  “Good morning, Director,” she says, with a curt nod that makes her short silver hair fall across her face. She is chalk white, her expression severe. Although Jac has only met her in person a handful of times, they have been in constant communication for so long that she feels she knows the woman well. And she can tell at once that something is troubling her.

  “What is it?” Jac asks. “What’s happened?”

  The Facility Manager takes a deep breath and runs a hand through her silver hair. “There’s been an incident,” she says, not quite meeting Jac’s gaze. “One of the staff broke into the nuclear annexe. He… he wasn’t wearing a hazmat suit.”

  Jac stiffens. “Hadn’t he been vetted?”

  “What? Yes, of course. His record was clean.”

  “You’re sure about that, are you?” Jac crosses her arms over her chest. “He didn’t show any tendencies towards anti-nuclear principles or have any connections with rival labs?”

  “No. As I say, his record was clean. I don’t see–”

  “And yet he intentionally exposed himself to fatal levels of radiation?” Jac leans forward, placing her hands on the Facility Manager’s desk. “Something quite in keeping, I think, with the general manner of anti-nuclear protests.”

  A sudden look of comprehension crosses the Facility Manager’s face. “Oh, it wasn’t anything like that. To tell you the truth, I don’t think he had any idea what he was doing. The man was blind drunk. Grieving, apparently. Word amongst the staff is that his parent died recently, and that he took the loss harder than expected. He seemed alright in the immediate aftermath, but then his behaviour became increasingly erratic, culminating in a few days ago when he turned up barely able to walk straight.”

  Jac raises an eyebrow.

  “Or so I’m told,” the Facility Manager adds quickly. “I wasn’t there myself. The clean-up team certainly found crates of emptie
s in his flat afterwards.”

  Jac thinks fleetingly of the bottle she left in her room at the boarding house. “Why didn’t you send him home?”

  “We were going to. At least, that was the plan. Only it didn’t seem safe to send him back alone. We put him in one of the offices to sober up a bit while we found someone to accompany him. According to the reports, he can’t have been unattended for more than three minutes. But… it was enough. Perhaps he drunkenly decided it was time to get to work, I don’t know. He was assigned to work in the nuclear annexe that day, and he headed right to it. We sent people after him, of course, but they couldn’t get suited up quickly enough. By the time we did get to him… he had opened one of the test capsules with his bare hands.”

  Jac winces. The idea of walking into the nuclear annexe unprotected is bad enough, but physically handling one of the core samples? It would be suicide, or thereabouts.

  “It was a mess,” continues the Facility Manager. “Severe burns to the skin, acute vomiting, diarrhoea. He passed out with a fever shortly after. We’re keeping him in isolation for the time being. His condition is stable for now, but the latent phase won’t last long. Given his level of exposure, we think he’ll be dead within a week.”

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Jac wonders briefly if that was what the man wanted all along. If, driven mad with despair and drink, he had settled upon the one course of action that would set him free. The idea offers little comfort. Whether it had been the man’s intent or not, his actions are as good as sabotage.

  The decision to plant the hypernovaforest out in Greenland was always one of the most contentious aspects of Project Salix. But it was the only viable space left. If it couldn’t happen in Greenland, it couldn’t happen at all. Like many others in the scientific community, Jac privately thinks that a marginally increased risk of radiation poisoning is a small price to pay for the survival of the entire human race, but the tide of public opinion is against her. The Borlaug has worked overtime to provide assurance that the planting site would only ever be operated remotely and that anyone handling the radioactive samples would be adequately shielded. If word gets out that a worker has suffered a fatal exposure, the entire project could be at risk.

  “Talk to me about containment,” Jac says. “How many people know what happened?”

  “Everyone on the staff, I should imagine.”

  “They’re under NDA. Does anyone outside the facility know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jac stifles a tsk of annoyance. If she were in the Facility Manager’s position, she would have made it her business to answer such questions precisely. “Does he have any family?”

  “No, none.”

  “Good. So the chances are that no one will come asking difficult questions or seeking compensation. But we’ll have to be on high alert.” Jac takes a breath. “I need to make a call.”

  The Facility Manager looks on bemused while Jac takes out her phone and calls the Head of PR in London. She relates the news of what has happened and is quickly assured that, at the first rumour of radiation sickness, her PR department will do everything in their not-inconsiderable power to quash it.

  Jac hangs up the phone and turns back to the Facility Manager. “There will have to be a formal report to the Board of Oversight, of course.”

  The Facility Manager gravely inclines her head.

  “You may be suspended,” Jac adds in an even tone.

  “Suspended? I was hoping–”

  “You will count yourself lucky to escape this with so small a punishment,” says Jac sternly. “An inebriated worker was permitted onto the premises, a man who will now likely die as a result. I don’t care where you were when it happened; you run this facility, you’re responsible for what happens here. Make no mistake, I would fire you if doing so wouldn’t draw more attention to the incident.”

  The Facility Manager’s eyes widen at that, but Jac ignores her. “Now, unless you have any other cases of gross negligence to share, I should like to press on with my inspection.”

  The Facility Manager shakes her head, struggling to recover herself. “Wh– What do you want to see first?”

  “The nuclear annexe,” Jac replies bluntly, aware that the Facility Manager will think she wants to check the scene of the incident. The woman blanches a little, but is in no position to protest, and so nods nervously. She presses a button on the intercom and speaks clearly into the speaker, summoning the staff member – a hazardous specimens archivist – who has been assigned to accompany Jac for the day. A few minutes later, he arrives at the office; a man about Jac’s age. He is of ancient Alban-Pakistani stock, with dark brown skin, fine black hair, and a heavy scowl etched onto his face. Jac recognises him at once and suppresses a groan. She should have known.

  “Jac, this is–”

  “We’ve met,” Jac quickly interjects.

  “That we have,” says the Archivist with a joyless smile. “You could say Professor Boltanski is the reason I’m here.”

  “Good to see you again,” Jac lies. She extends her hand to the Archivist, who takes it reluctantly, his face contorted into an expression of barely concealed loathing. It is a look that reminds her uncannily of Miri.

  10

  It’s gone ten by the time Miri wakes and, when she does, her head is strangely clear. The effects of the tranquiliser, she supposes, must have finally worn off. But it’s more than that. Her thoughts, which for so long have been fractured and scattered, now seem to bear a calm order. They are precise. Focused. For a moment, she is aware of every muscle and sinew of her body beneath the sheets. It is damaged and thin, but it is hers; for once she is anchored in her own physicality rather than simply seeking to escape it. It gives her a sense of deep calm. She doesn’t feel at all like the trembling girl who aimed a heavy ceramic dish at her mother’s head.

  On the bedside table, the white rat stirs, whiskers twitching. Then with a chirrup of greeting, it clutches its tail between its front claws and starts to lick away at the barely discernible patina of dirt.

  “Hello to you, too,” she says.

  Getting up, she ignores her dirty clothes where they lie sprawled across the floor and goes to the cupboard. She digs out an old steel-blue jumper that once fit snugly and now hangs loose from her body and a pair of jeans that she has to cinch at the waist with a woven belt to stop them from sliding down over her bony hips. Picking up the rat and lifting it to sit on her shoulder, she goes to find her mother and apologise.

  Leaning against the kitchen counter, Alix gives her a tight smile. “Let’s say no more about it, shall we?” Then she casts an appraising eye over Miri’s appearance, taking in the clean skin, the fresh clothes.

  “You seem in better spirits.”

  Miri shrugs. “I guess. The sleep must have helped.”

  Silence falls. It should be uncomfortable, the feeling of not knowing what to say to her own mother, but with her newfound sense of calm Miri finds that it doesn’t bother her.

  “Sit down,” says Alix. “Let me brush your hair.”

  It’s a peace offering of sorts, a gesture towards moving past what happened that morning. Miri doesn’t have it in her to refuse.

  Soon they are in the living room, Alix on the sofa and Miri at her feet, her bony tailbone protected from the hard floorboards by a satin-covered cushion, her back pressed against her mother’s shins. Alix, glasses perched on the end of her nose, is gently teasing a comb through Miri’s hair. There’s something about it that Miri finds intensely comforting, though she isn’t sure whether it’s due to the intimate touch of her mother’s hands, or simply because it reminds her of the times when she was a little girl and they would sit like this for hours together: chatting, laughing. Happy.

  “I can plait it for you if you like,” says Alix, when she finishes combing.

  Miri nods, reluctant to move away. She feels a soft tugging at the roots from where Alix is running her hands through her hair, deftly dividing it into sect
ions to be laced and woven together.

  For the first time, it occurs to her that Alix is home in the middle of a working day. She has been so out of it since she arrived that she hadn’t considered it before now, but it is distinctly unusual. The Alix she remembers, the Chief Consultant Paediatrician at Great Ormond Street, had a zealous commitment to her patients and often worked long, irregular hours.

  “How come you’re not at the hospital?” Miri asks.

  For a moment, Alix falls quiet. Then: “I retired.”

  “When?”

  “About a year and a half ago, maybe a bit longer.”

  “Oh.” Miri doesn’t know what else to say. She had never thought of Alix as the type to retire early. As much as she wants to ask what happened, Alix’s silence gives Miri the distinct impression that she doesn’t want to talk about it.

  The white rat is crawling over Miri’s lap, occasionally racing down a leg of her jeans to make an exploratory circuit of the room but always returning, the ear quivering on its back as it runs. When the rat climbs up Miri’s jumper to sit on her shoulder and nose at a loose strand of hair, she feels Alix shudder. Wordlessly, Miri takes the rat and keeps it secure in her hands, running a soothing palm along its back.

  “I found it yesterday,” she says, in a bid to shore up the shaky peace that lies between them. “Must be from a lab. Maybe there was a break-in? I mean… look at it. It hardly got free by itself. Someone must have decided to release it into the wild.”

  “It shouldn’t be hard to work out which lab it’s from,” says Alix after a moment. “We could call your mother and ask. She’ll know exactly where this kind of experiment is being run.”