With a sudden, urgent feeling of having said too much, Miri lets her eyes drop to the ground and shifts her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. The Student stays quiet for a long minute. Then, at last: “He is still responsible for his actions.”
“I know,” says Miri. “But I think he deserves some slack.”
Eventually, the Student agrees that she won’t call the pigsuits. Miri watches her closely as she walks back to the Borlaug, not tearing her eyes away until the girl has disappeared from view. At last, she looks back towards the bench for the Thief – only to find, with a jolt, that he’s gone.
19
It’s Miri’s seventeenth birthday, but she didn’t tell the Thief that when she invited him to the rave. He’s already half-cut, constantly sipping from a bottle that hangs lightly in his hand, the brown glass grubby with fingerprints.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Here, try it,” he says, head weaving as he hands her the bottle. Miri takes a tentative sip. It’s stronger than she’s expecting; the alcohol burns her tongue, her palate, the back of her throat. She splutters into her hand, eyes watering.
The Thief laughs. “Fucking lightweight.”
Determined to measure up, Miri tips back the bottle again and swallows a generous mouthful. This time she’s ready for it, bracing herself against the sharpness of the liquor. Only a small shudder escapes her as she hands the bottle back.
“Alright, alright,” says the Thief, still grinning. “You’ve proved your point. Let’s go.”
The rave is due to take place in an abandoned building at the edge of the Southwark wastes. Miri and the Thief head south until they reach the ruptured dome of the old cathedral that now houses an aquaponic farm; the nave of the building is lined with vast tanks of tilapia alongside grow beds of cabbage, okra and kohlrabi. It is here they turn and cross the river.
Reckless with drink, the Thief tears across the bridge, not caring when it begins to shudder violently beneath his feet. There are gaps in the aluminium walkway where entire sections have been ripped up and the railing on one side has all but corroded away. Trying very hard not to think about the swollen river below, Miri races after the Thief. When she reaches the firm ground of the opposite bank, she lets out a sigh of relief.
“Scared?” asks the Thief.
She snorts. “Of course not.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, head weaving. “Come on. We’re nearly there.”
The site is not far from the bridge, a vast hall of brick that has half-collapsed into the river. Miri can just see where a tall chimney once rose into the sky, now nothing more than a crumbling stump. It had been a power station once and, after that, an art gallery. But that was some time ago now – the building has been empty for as long as Miri remembers. Longer, even.
Before the city first began installing environmental defences, a fire had broken out in an old timber-framed theatre and quickly spread across the whole of Southwark, turning the entire district into a blackened wasteland. It’s only in more recent years that activity has started to return to the place: anti-natalist rallies, teknivals, the occasional bare-knuckle fight. Nothing of which Miri’s mothers would approve.
Inside, the building is one cavernous room, the walls braced with rusting steel girders. The concrete floor slopes down to where a crowd is gathered, many of them marked with the sign of the ouroboros, which stares back at Miri from a hundred places, tattooed onto biceps and forearms, painted onto faces, stitched onto the backs of jackets.
The Thief, spotting a group of people he knows, takes Miri by the hand and drags her through the crowd. In a moment, he’s lost to her, absorbed in conversation with someone Miri doesn’t know. She shuffles anxiously on the spot, unsure of what to do or who to talk to, barely able to hear anyone over the repetitive pulse of the music that reverberates from the surrounding speakers.
As if in response to a cue that Miri has not heard, the crowd goes quiet and turns as one to the far wall, where a spot of white light has appeared high above their heads and spreads into a wide rectangle. It’s the light of a projector. An image flashes up of a burning forest and is quickly replaced by another, and then another and another: rotting crops, mudslides, drowned land, whole towns that have been flattened by storms. Miri recognises some of the scenes from the news and others from history lessons. Now, as the music begins to build, she sees yet more images she recognises: black and white shots of the mass graves that are found across the Federated Counties and beyond.
All at once, the music cuts and the flickering images give way to a single loop of film. To Miri, the footage is sickeningly familiar. She makes herself watch, determined not to give herself away by flinching back or running out into the night.
“This is for my daughter,” says Jac, her amplified voice booming across the crowd. “This is for us and all who come after: the children of the Arborocene.”
There’s a loud jeer as Jac’s words fade out, but it’s not over. In the next moment Jac’s voice returns, remixed over a heavy bass, her words cycling around and around. “The children of the Arborocene… the children of the Arborocene…” New images flash up on the wall, one after the other. Though they originate from across the world, they all show a variant of the same thing: a child, thin-faced with malnutrition and disease, alone and dying.
The music is building to a fever pitch. Miri can almost feel it, the swelling excitement of the crowd, the desperation that anticipates the coming drop. She wills herself to go along with it, trying to tap into that shared delirium in the hope that it will drown out the shame. Miri has always known that, for every well-wisher, for every admirer, there was someone who loathed Jac. She tries to convince herself that she’s glad of it, delighted that there are others who can see through her mother’s charade. But this is the first time she’s seen that hatred presented so starkly, and all she can think is: They aren’t showing the whole story. They aren’t being fair.
In the next moment, she is silently reprimanding herself for falling into Jac’s trap. She won’t be made a fool of like Alix. Besides, she’s learnt a great deal more since she left home. Who else is accountable for the resources that are snatched from starving mouths and diverted to Project Salix? Who else gives breeders the confidence to continue adding to the Earth’s burden? Jac is at the centre of it all; the target to aim for, the icon to be torn down.
This is her fault, no doubt about it; her arrogance is why any of them are here tonight, why Miri exists at all. Jac had made that much clear in their final row when, provoked by Miri’s screamed demand – Why did you have me? – she had said: Because I wanted to make the world a better place! There’d been no going back from that, from knowing that all she was and all she would ever be was a pawn in Jac’s game – a game in which the whole world is now ensnared.
When, at last, the music drops, the relief is absolute. Soon Miri is lost in the rhythm of the night, dancing alone where the crowd is thickest. Jac’s words stutter in and out as the DJ cross-fades to the next track. In another moment they are gone, replaced by the clipped tones of a politician.
“Breed fewer,” bellow the speakers. “Breed better.”
A new wave of anger crashes through the crowd. There is a wildness to the dancing now, both driven by fear and unbound by it: a fear of life as much as death, of the days that must yet be endured, and how – soon now – those days will come to an end.
20
Regarding herself in the silvered mirror that hangs in the bathroom of the Borlaug, Alix marvels at her ability to feel anything as mundane as embarrassment on the day before her daughter’s Offset. Miri, letting that cursed rat loose in the greenhouse. The curl of the personal assistant’s lip as he hustled them both out of the place that she – the director’s wife – had every right to be. After all this time, it is still painfully familiar to her: being judged and found wanting. A parent who cannot control her child.
What on earth was Miri thinking? Did the girl have any idea how it lo
oked? Then lying about it in that bold-faced way? Lost my grip. Alix hadn’t believed it for a moment. The girl wasn’t fooling anyone – apart from herself, perhaps. And all for what? To desecrate Jac’s work? Alix had glimpsed the sign of the ouroboros scratched into the bark of the willow tree and she cannot quite believe her daughter would risk so much to do something so petty. It troubles her more than anything she’s seen of Miri since bringing her home, confirming her worst suspicions. Bringing Miri to the Borlaug was supposed to change her mind. Now, Alix fears, the visit has only served to more deeply entrench Miri in her hostility towards Jac.
Alix sighs. In her more optimistic moments – admittedly few and far between these last two years – Alix has secretly hoped that being away from home would be good for Miri, that she would become more mature; better able to appreciate her mothers and the sacrifices she and Jac made on her behalf. Or if not quite capable of that, then at least more objective in her assessment of them, more aware of the responsibilities that come with turning eighteen.
More fool me, thinks Alix. If anything, the opposite is true. She’s loath to imagine what her daughter has endured or who she has spent her time with, but the experience seems to have made her angrier and more petulant than ever.
Alix still isn’t sure what sowed that first tendril seed of hatred in Miri’s heart, but now its roots have grown deep and strong; a stubborn weed that Alix fears she will never be able to extirpate, even if she were granted all the time in the world.
“What on earth did we do to her, Jac?” Alix mutters into the thin air. “How did we get it so wrong?” Her words echo off the hard tiles and reverberate around the empty bathroom. The strangeness of being in the Borlaug without her wife strikes her fully for the first time. Perhaps she shouldn’t have persuaded Jac to stay in Inbhir Nis. Even though Alix knows Jac would want to stop her from trying to change Miri’s mind, Alix still longs to see her wife. She aches for the reassuring solidity of holding Jac in her arms and being held in turn, for the ally who has always stood by her and whose strength has made even the darkest days bearable, for the woman she loves. Alone here in the Borlaug, Alix can’t help but feel untethered, free-floating. All at sea.
“I need you, Jac.”
Something tremors in Alix’s heart and she thinks wildly that it’s a sign, a tug at the ethereal connection between her and Jac, an indication that somehow, deep in her being, Jac has heard her plea and is, perhaps, sending some reply. But then the sensation passes. Just a palpitation, she realises. Another gift of the menopause.
Alix has never been prone to superstition. Perhaps she’s losing her mind. If she is, she has no time to contemplate it now. With a wry shake of the head, she dismisses the thought. Then she turns the tap of the sink and bends to splash a little cold water onto her face.
A few moments later, as she crosses the lobby of the Borlaug, she casts a final look over her shoulder at the splendour her wife’s work has wrought. She knows she will not return here again. Whatever happens, she is glad to have seen the place one last time. Reluctantly, she turns her gaze forward and goes to find her daughter.
21
The Archivist gives Jac a disparaging look. “You want to do what?”
“I told you. We need to work out how far back the problem goes.”
“We’ve been using your UVD ever since the pilot, haven’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Well then. There’s your answer.”
“We don’t know that for sure. A fault could have been introduced since then.”
“How, exactly?”
This catches Jac short. “It will be easier to deduce the cause once we’ve identified the precise point when the problem began,” she says eventually.
“You reckon so, do you?” says the Archivist, corners of his mouth twitching. “Well, you’re going to have a hard time checking. We’ve only got cores from the last few quarters here. Everything else is buried deep in the Gunnbjørn Mountain.”
Jac curses silently. Of course, it’s the standard procedure; once a case of sample cores has been measured and logged, it gets sent back to the ARZ for secure disposal. And if she wants to identify the root of the problem, she’ll need to test cores far older than anything held in the facility. It will be the work of months to recall and test representative selections from the deposited cores. Although… An idea hits her. She might not have time to revisit all historical measurements, but there is a way she can test the UVD. “I want you to get the sample cores from the pilot,” she says.
“What?”
“They’re held here, aren’t they? All the samples from the pilot are protected by a historical preservation clause – we’re obliged to keep them on the mainland. I signed the contract myself. They’re here in the annexe. They have to be.”
“Ye-es, you’re right,” he says, brow furrowing. “They’re in a separate chamber. But I don’t see–”
“All the measurements for the pilot were taken by hand. We can remeasure the samples with the UVD and compare.”
“We’ve only got the cores. The project files aren’t kept here.”
“That doesn’t matter. I have everything else we need. Provided I can get something from my bag first, that is.”
His obvious consternation increases. “What?”
“A lab book,” she says, and briefly explains about the report charting the growth of the first Project Salix trees across the five long years of the pilot project. He looks like he’s about to argue with her, but then he seems to change his mind. “Fine. If you want to dig your grave a bit deeper, that’s your concern. But you’ll have to leave the book behind when we’re done so it can be safely decontaminated and destroyed.”
Jac shrugs. There’s bound to be another hard copy of the pilot study in the Borlaug library. Even if there isn’t, she has no choice. If she has a hope of getting to the bottom of the discrepancies, she needs the lab book.
He switches over to a different channel and radios up to the Facility Manager on a private frequency to explain the situation. The next time Jac hears his voice buzz in her ears, it’s to say that the Facility Manager, though reluctant at first, has agreed to send someone down on the understanding that this is being officially authorised by Jac.
While they wait, Jac has the Archivist take her to the side chamber where the cores from the pilot study are kept. Selecting a crate at random, she helps him to shift it onto a trolley and wheel it back through to the room with the glove box. Then his radio goes. It’s the Facility Manager.
“Your book is in the airlock,” the Archivist tells Jac. “Much good it’ll do you.”
Ignoring this last, Jac leaves him to finish setting up and heads over at once. The lights running up the sides of the steel door are green. When Jac hits the button, the door slides up to reveal an airlock that is empty but for her lab book, which has been carefully laid on the floor.
Stooping clumsily, she lifts it up and runs a gloved thumb over the title. Project Salix: a preliminary study and report. It has long since been decommissioned. She brought it with her for luck as much as anything else. With some difficulty, she flicks open the cover. Tucked between the first pages is a postcard from the Engineer.
Jac studies the front of the card. In the last few days she’s received hundreds of cards like this, all wishing her well for the upcoming Offset. They are all of a type: classical imagery, prosaic biblical sketches, sentimental Oedipal daubs, Tullia Minor driving over her prostrated father. The card from the Engineer, however, sent more than a month ago, makes no explicit reference to the Offset and is much more muted. A simple, etched vine pattern in black and white runs across the front. It looks handmade. In her heavy gloves, Jac cannot pick up the card to turn it over and reread the few words scrawled across the back – but there’s no need. The message was terse and formal, with little to indicate what she and the Engineer had once meant to one another. The significance it bears is its lack of a counterpart: she was not amongst the well-wishers who se
nt congratulations on the occasion of Miri’s birth. In fact, this is the first contact she’s had from the Engineer in a little over eighteen years. Jac knows what that means. The Engineer’s views about reproduction have not changed in the long years since they parted company. She wonders whether Miri will likewise remain true to her anti-natalist principles. When they discussed it privately, Alix always dismissed their daughter’s tendency to such extreme views as a phase. Jac was never so sure. If Project Salix comes crashing down, she fears the girl will only be vindicated in her beliefs. And now that is a real risk. If all the measurements are wrong, it could take significantly longer for Project Salix to become effective. Jac’s not sure how long yet, but perhaps enough that conditions will deteriorate sufficiently to further dampen progress. They’ll have to plant more trees. Presuming, of course, that the current strain will be able to survive with the higher CO2 concentration – if not, they’ll have to develop a new variety and replant. It will be like starting from scratch.
She snaps the lab book shut. She thinks of the Engineer and her eagerness to distance herself from the project. Did she know there was something wrong with the UVD all along? It would certainly explain her reluctance to put her name to the paper. But, try as she might, she can’t think of a reason why the Engineer would seek to actively sabotage the project – even if she was angry with Jac, there would have been far easier ways to mete out her revenge. And besides, despite her clashes with the Laureate and the rest of the team, she was never anything but completely sincere in her desire for the project to succeed. Or so Jac thinks. Really, she doesn’t know what to believe anymore.
The Offset Page 13