by Eliza Green
She peeked out from under her arm and saw Sheila sitting up in bed. Looking like a goddess, her long, wavy hair cascaded around her shoulders. Sheila caught her staring and cast a long, cool look her way. Anya held eye contact until Sheila laughed and looked away.
She looked across the space to the boys’ section and caught shadows moving across the frosted glass. Anya pulled back the covers. She still wore her tunic dress. Changing in such an exposed sleeping area hadn’t appealed to her. She stood up and the dress fell neatly around her body.
‘I’ve been to the factories that make this material,’ said Sheila, examining the fabric of her own dress. ‘It’s as light as silk, but impervious to stains, wrinkles, and always looks as good as new, even if you forget to wash it.’
Anya had never aspired to own such a fabric. Special stain-free clothing wasn’t important to town residents, who lived poor but purposeful lives compared to those in Praesidium.
Anya slipped her feet into her sandals and glanced at the giant inky-black screen in the void between the dormitories that was easier to see in the harsh illumination. As she stood by her bed, the smell of fresh coffee, toast and bacon reached her and made her stomach rumble.
She looked around and saw Yasmin, the wiry blonde from the first floor who had convinced her to go against Tahlia. The hole in her fragile heart tore and let in a fresh wave of guilt.
A second blonde stirred in the bed next to Sheila. June. Anya’s subdued spirits lifted. Had Frank not just died, she’d have been thrilled to see her.
Lilly hovered like a bird at the end of Anya’s bed. In contrast to Lilly, June got up and moved with a confidence Anya had only seen glimmers of before. How had she ever thought these two girls were similar?
Three unknown girls brought their total to eight. After quick introductions, Anya followed the smell of food to the third door underneath the screen, next to the his-and-hers bathrooms.
Lilly hung onto Anya’s good arm. But the extra weight irritated her, and she eased Lilly off. Anya slipped to the back and pulled June along with her.
She told June what had happened to Frank. They hugged. ‘Poor Jerome,’ said June. ‘Who’s going to tell him?’
‘I will. I was the last one to see him alive.’
They entered the dining hall. A range of smells hit Anya all at once: strong, bitter, sweet, sugary, hot, buttered. Her mouth moistened. Sheila and Yasmin arrived first at the counter. The food, normally presented in an open cabinet, had been separated into portions behind glass covers. The boys, dressed in tunic separates, were already there and carrying trays.
Anya’s fingers fluttered against her neck when she saw Jerome. His jaw was clenched, his head hung low. At least he had skipped the horror of the third floor.
Dom turned and her heart raced for a different reason. He nodded at her arm. She smiled and mouthed, ‘Better,’ even though it still ached. Dom gave a quick nod in Jerome’s direction.
He’d told him. Her grip tightened on her tray.
She wanted to go to Jerome, to explain what had happened. But would he even hear her out? She’d allowed the boy who’d been like a brother to him to die.
Warren, who was just ahead, left the queue to stand beside Anya.
She gave him a brief hug. He frowned.
‘What happened to your arm?’
‘An accident. I cut myself.’
The line moved forward, and Anya noticed the boys were using the chips in their wrists to open the food coverings. Some were marked with labels: one point for standard servings, half a point for lesser portions. Her stomach rumbled to the point of distraction.
‘Well, you seem to be flying through the floors,’ said Warren, smiling. ‘Maybe I’ll stick with you.’
Anya avoided his gaze. She hadn’t mentioned their pact to finish the floors together to anyone. She was starting to rethink their alliance.
‘Maybe. How was the second floor?’
Warren rolled his eyes. ‘Brief. Didn’t get to do much. What was on the third floor?’
Anya noticed Dom turn slightly, as if he were listening.
‘Nothing. It was some sort of maze.’
‘A maze?’
‘It was less interesting than it sounds, believe me.’ Her eyes flickered to Jerome. He was turned away from her, but she caught the tension in his shoulders. She wanted to tell Warren the whole story, but not with so many people around, and Jerome listening.
The queue of boys ahead of her moved on. Warren turned back.
‘I’d better go before I lose my place.’
‘Okay. See you.’
He slipped back into line and used his chip to open a portion of scrambled eggs, bacon and a slice of buttered toast. He selected a coffee from the machine at the end.
Sheila stopped at the bacon. She touched her wrist to the box but it wouldn’t open. She tried it again, but the cover stayed in place. She tried a different box, then slid her slender fingers under the lip and pulled. But the lid wouldn’t budge. Anya and Yasmin tried their chips next, but it was the same for them.
Anya walked over to the coffee machine. The smell made her stomach hurt. She tried it, but nothing happened.
The boys watched from their table. June glanced at Sheila.
Lilly started to cry. ‘I’m so hungry. Why aren’t the boxes opening for us?’
Dom jumped up and walked over to them. ‘Probably just a mistake. Let me use my chip to open them.’
One of the older boys with blond hair stood up and rested his hands on the table. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
‘Why not, Ash?’ said Dom. ‘Their chips aren’t working. What does it matter if I open a few?’
‘You’re not supposed to help them,’ Ash said.
‘They need to eat.’
Dom ignored him and used his chip to open several boxes, but then it stopped working. He glared at Ash. ‘Why can’t I open more?’
Ash sat back down. ‘Because you’ve used up your rations for the day. It won’t work again until tomorrow morning.’
‘So what are their rations? Surely everybody can spare a box, can’t they?’
Anya saw Jerome glance at Warren, who stared at the table, fork in hand. The ones who had rotated from a lower floor looked like they might help.
Ash looked down at his food—food Anya wished she were eating.
‘The more you help them outside of the game, the worse you score. Trust me. I’ve been here one rotation too long.’
The lower floor boys settled back in their seats, their eyes apologetic.
‘I’m not letting them starve,’ said Dom.
Ash laughed bitterly. ‘You’ll change your mind, trust me. Besides, there are more official ways they can earn food.’
Anya’s ears perked up. Earn food?
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,’ said Dom, and rejoined his table.
Anya helped collect the plates from the boxes that Dom had opened. The girls shared the food out between the eight of them. There wasn’t much to go around, and Anya’s stomach still grumbled when she had finished her portion.
After breakfast, everyone converged in the main room in front of the giant screen; the girls stood on one side, near their section, the boys on the other side. Ash patted his stomach and grinned, attracting hateful glares from both Sheila and Yasmin.
The giant screen flickered to life and listed everyone’s names. The girls were in one column, the boys in the other.
The sexes are separated. The layout of his floor finally made sense to Anya.
The numbers beside each name confirmed this was indeed a game, as Ash had said. The girls all had a score of minus one. In the boy’s column, only Dom had minus one. The rest had been credited with plus one.
She still didn’t understand the reason for being denied food.
The scores disappeared and a face appeared on the screen. It was the female supervisor who’d brought them to the floor.
‘Welcome, participants. You may ha
ve noticed some differences in the dining hall and between the male and female dormitories. The Collective is curious about the differences between the sexes. The females will sleep in basic accommodation, use ancient technology and must earn food whatever way they can. The males will sleep in the best accommodation, use the latest technology and eat whatever they want.
‘But don’t be fooled. There is no easy way off this floor. There are disadvantages to having everything or nothing. The girls need the boys to survive and the boys need the girls to progress. The Collective wishes to observe how much you will sacrifice to get what you need. The greater the sacrifice, the more the points you’ll earn. You may choose to pair up with the boys or go it alone. Good luck.’
The screen went blank and Anya looked at Dom. His jaw was tight. She stared down at her feet.
‘Come on, let’s play some more games,’ one of the boys said gleefully. The boys disappeared inside the frosted room and closed the door.
Sheila snorted. ‘Seems like they have all the advantages, if you ask me.’ She walked towards the room with the typewriters. ‘Come on, there must be some instructions around here, some way to earn food.’
The others entered the room while Anya’s hand lingered on the doorframe. The outer wall was made of glass, like the dormitories. The other three were plain grey partitions. Ten worn, wooden desks sat inside the room, just like the ones from Anya’s school. Each had a typewriter, unlike the desks in her school, a bundle of paper and a hand-sized screen. Hard-backed chairs, similar to the ones at school, were pushed against the tables.
A larger screen covering one wall featured instructions for how to play the game. Sheila read them aloud.
‘Participants must earn thirty points or more to trigger rotation. Points can be picked up in multiple ways. There is a typewriter and screen on each desk. You can collect points by typing what you see on the screen. For every forty pages typed legibly, you will earn half a point. At any time, you can trade your points for food.
‘If you interact with the males on this floor, your chances to earn more points increase. There are several ways to improve your earning potential, not least servitude. If you choose to serve the males, you will secure your rotation faster. The males cannot force you into servitude. You must decide for yourself. But once you do, you cannot change your mind.
‘If you choose not to serve, you will collect points steadily, but you risk starvation. Choose wisely. Good luck.’
Anya reread the instructions to herself. Lilly stood beside her.
‘What do they mean by servitude?’
‘It means the boys can do whatever they want,’ said Yasmin, wrapping a strand of her straw-coloured hair between her fingers.
‘Anything?’ Lilly’s pale blue eyes were wide.
Yasmin stopped twirling and snapped her icy gaze on Lilly. ‘Yes, anything, little flower. Careful or they’ll end up trampling on you.’
Lilly moved closer to Anya’s arm. She wasn’t sure when Lilly had decided she was her go-to person. But she wished she would leave her alone.
A determined June stood nearby. Gone was the girl from the ground floor who had squealed when she’d seen blood on Anya’s uniform. Everyone was changing before Anya’s eyes. She wondered who else had been inoculated against Compliance.
June ran her finger over the top of one of the typewriters. ‘So what do we do first?’
Sheila sat down heavily in one of the chairs and scooted closer to the typewriter. ‘They can go to hell if they think I’m serving one of those losers.’
They all agreed, and with that the mood lightened.
‘Does anyone know how to use this thing?’ said June.
Anya grabbed a couple of sheets of paper and walked over to her. Her grandmother had a machine exactly like it. Anya used to make up stories in her head type them up.
‘You need to feed the paper into the top like this...’
The others gathered round. Anya allowed the roller to catch the paper, then turned the dial at the side.
‘Position it at the start of the page, but make sure the end is caught under this bar thingy to keep it in place.’
She pressed a lever and slid the whole roller across to the right so the printing blocks were poised at the left.
‘It’s like the keys of a piano. You hit a letter on the front here, and a corresponding arm shoots up and prints the letter onto the page using a strip of inked ribbon. When you come to the end of the page, just slide the roller back the start. To remove the page, pull.’ Anya tugged the paper and rotated the dial at the side. She repeated the instructions once more, then sat down at her own desk.
The room filled with the sound of typing all around her: slow at first, then slightly faster, followed by lots of cursing. Not many people knew how to type anymore.
Anya’s work began well. Hours of practice on her grandmother’s machine had given her the ability to type fast. She never thought she’d get to use it in a place like this.
Soon she was watching the screen as her fingers glided over the keys.
Anya noticed the room had gone silent. She looked up. The others were staring at her.
‘What?’
‘How do you work the machine so fast?’ said June.
Anya shrugged. ‘Practice, I guess.’
‘Well, I know who’s doing the typing for us,’ said Sheila.
Everyone laughed, except for Anya.
Ω
By the end of the morning and despite her early speed, Anya had barely managed twenty pages. Her hunger had sapped her strength. The last job was to feed the pages into the letterbox slot under the instructional screen and scan her chip on a smaller screen next to it. She flexed her fingers and cracked her neck. She would have to work right through the afternoon to complete the forty for her first half-point. She’d already planned to spend it on food.
She looked around the room. At least the others were getting the hang of it. Lilly, though, had managed only two pages.
‘Are you okay?’ said Anya.
Lilly stared up, her pale eyes round and glassy. She thrust her work at Anya. ‘Check these two pages. Please.’
Anya took them. They were full of spelling mistakes and half of the words were incoherent. ‘These won’t count. You’ll need to do them again.’ She handed them back to Lilly.
Lilly sobbed. ‘I did the best I could. I copied the words exactly as they appeared on the screen.’
The others glanced up from their typing, but didn’t stop.
Anya frowned at her. ‘Lilly, can you read?’
She shook her head. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed harder. ‘Or write. It took me the whole morning to match up the letters with the words.’
The girl’s illiteracy shocked Anya. She’d heard that some towns favoured practical jobs over academic learning. At least Brookfield favoured the latter.
Lilly rested her head on the table in front of her.
‘What am I going to do? I can’t serve the boys. I just can’t.’
Anya bit her lip and looked around at the others. ‘We can all help if we each do a little extra.’
Lilly lifted her head and sniffed.
Sheila laughed. ‘Count me out. I’m barely getting ten pages done as it is.’
‘Me, too,’ said June. ‘You’re the fastest, Anya. You need to help her.’
Forty pages a day? No problem. But eighty? She wasn’t that fast. She couldn’t see how to help Lilly earn her first half-point.
Ω
By late afternoon, Anya had done her forty pages plus an extra fifteen for Lilly before the pain in her injured forearm became unbearable.
The rest of the group had met their quota.
But Lilly wasn’t happy. ‘It’s not enough. You should have done more.’
Anger rippled through Anya. ‘Well, why don’t you do it yourself next time?’
‘You know I can’t.’ Lilly started to cry.
Anya sighed and nursed her sore arm.
&nb
sp; The scoreboard in the main hall showed their current scores. Anya glanced up at it as she shuffled to the dining hall. The girls were all on minus half a point. Lilly was still on minus one. The boys were all on three and Dom had cleared his negative score and was on two.
What the hell? It had taken her all day just to earn a half-point.
In the dining hall, Anya scanned her chip over one of the boxes labelled a half-portion. She chose wisely: a carbohydrate-packed pasta dish with a tomato sauce. But there wasn’t much in a half-portion. Lilly looked eagerly at the dish.
‘Half of that’s mine, right? I worked for some of it.’
Anya struggled to see the logic, but she nodded. It wasn’t Lilly’s fault she couldn’t read or write.
The girls sat down with their half-portions at a table far away from the boys. Anya saw Dom was the only one without food in front of him; Ash had said his chip had a working limit. But some of the others slipped food onto his empty plate.
The gnawing ache in her stomach grew loud as she shared her pasta with Lilly. Sheila and June each donated a forkful of food to the plate.
‘Thanks,’ said Anya. She fought against the tears that threatened to fall.
The girls ate quietly, while the boys joked around. After dinner, all the participants returned to their dorms, but the boys seemed wired for fun.
Anya and the others fell into bed. The lights remained on outside their dorm, giving them no relief from the brightness. Anya heard laughter coming from the frosted section. It was possible the control for the lights was in the boys’ section.
She yanked the covers over her head. The supervisor had said the Collective wanted to understand the differences between the sexes.
Boys were selfish and girls were more adaptable. What else was there to know?
But something more than the lights prevented Anya from falling asleep. If it was so easy for the boys to earn points, why did they need the girls?
And who the hell was the Collective?
38
The second the early morning bell rang, Anya and the other girls went straight to the typewriting room. She’d thought about doing the work after she ate, but the screens showing the words to type only activated between certain hours. Anya focused on her typing not her stomach as the boys emerged from their section, looking hungover and sleepy. The sooner she completed the forty pages, the sooner she could eat. Lilly had her head on the desk and was snoring lightly.
