Howard looked up from the screen on his lap. “Hi, honey, I’m home.”
She placed the glass down on the table, walked to the sofa and kissed him. Then she pulled out a chair, sat down and they watched each other.
“I knew coming back in RI was a bad idea.” Howard rubbed his stubble.
She sipped the water. Howard had wanted to leave RI for as long as she’d known him. He still did. If Alex had stolen their embryos, that wouldn’t make him want to stay.
“I’m not overreacting. I have good instincts, and I’ve just looked around Sean’s labs. Alex is building a spacecraft. Did you know anything about it?”
Since he had started his new job and Beth started hers he hadn’t moaned so much about leaving. She sensed that was about to change.
He folded his screen up and placed it down next to him. “Ah—you’re serious,” he said with condescension.
“Yes, I am. He’s finally got everything he needs to leave Earth. He’s probably taken your seeds.”
“My seeds?”
He wasn’t condescending anymore.
“If he’s taking human embryos, probably animal embryos too, he will definitely take your seeds if he hasn’t already.”
“Which embryos are these—not ours?”
“No, not ours.” She forced out a don’t be ridiculous laugh that made her sound ridiculous.
“For God’s sake, why would Alex do that?”
“Because he can.”
“When did can turn into should?” Howard asked.
“When Alex turned into a prick.” Beth looked at him over the rim of her glass while sipping her water. “He wouldn’t take our dodgy embryos. It will be the pre-thirty-five embryos he’s taken.” She tried to convince him, but she couldn’t stop her face twitching with the thought Alex may have taken theirs to grow inside a pod.
“I knew that was a bad idea too,” Howard said.
“But you wanted to freeze our embryos.”
He sighed. His part in the whole process had been insignificant. She knew he barely thought about the consequences. He did it to make her happy or shut her up, one of the two. Neither of them imagined Alex would take their embryos away in a spaceship legally. It was as unthinkable as the British window tax was, but this was life robbery not daylight robbery. The law really was an ass.
“Who would go with him in these seed-ships?” he asked.
“Men I assume. According to you, you’re programmed to sow your seed far and wide, and do you think he would have a shortage of volunteers wanting to leave the New Cities?”
“No, and I might have gone too—with my seeds.”
“Thanks a lot.”
He smiled. “You could come too.”
“That’s good to know. But I don’t think these space missions are meant for people without money or influence. And I’m not ready to abandon Earth yet.”
“Maybe being away from here would be good for both of us. You were having a nightmare again last night.”
“It’s too hot in the night, and when I get warm I have nightmares. The air conditioning is rubbish.” She bent to her side and waved her hand in front of the faint chug of air from the foot vent. “It’s pitiful.”
“Maybe you should talk to someone about it again. It’s been over a year now.”
“The air conditioning?”
“No. You know what I mean,” Howard said.
She did know what he meant, and she knew any therapist she spoke to would say exactly the same as Howard: It’s been a year now. It’s been two years now. It’s been three years now.
It would be said in a mock-sympathetic tone of course and punctuated with a smile that said, I feel you. But she knew what they really meant to say was, Time you got over it, girl.
No amount of therapy or tea and biscuits would make it go away; talking only made it worse. Better to squash it inside that huge box with her other to-forget memories, then set it on fire and push it out to sea. Compartmentalise.
She pushed herself up from the table, stepped towards the window and looked down onto the walkway. “I’ll never get over it, no matter how much time passes,” she whispered.
Minutes before Jason died she’d eaten pizza with Cait. Pregnant Cait. Cait’s child would grow up without a dad. If she’d checked Cait’s changes to the code, if she’d known the comms network was down, they could have done things differently, and Jason would still be alive.
“Do you think Meda knows about Alex’s plans?” Howard asked.
She turned back to him. “No, she wants to save the planet like me, not abandon it. Why would Alex think he could find a better planet than Earth? Earth is our home. It needs care and maintenance like any home does. Why does he want to spend money and time on space exploration when we have a perfectly good planet here? If it’s broke, buy a new one. If you screw it up, just find another one to screw up. Such fucking arrogance. I hate him.”
She took deep breaths. Her body trembled. Her eyes had welled with tears. She felt close to losing control again. Since the incident with Jason, she often found herself too close to losing control.
“I won’t let him steal the embryos. I’ve seen their research. They’re so close now. Life will go back to how it was before. I know it. We can have our own baby. We could adopt a baby growing in Lana’s lab. You should see them Howard. They’re so beautiful.”
He smiled at her but not with his eyes. She knew he wasn’t on board with that idea yet.
“Meda was so good after Jason died. She was right to abandon the project. It was too dangerous. We were mad to test on ourselves,” Beth said.
Howard’s sad smile became stern. “It was dangerous before Jason died. The warning signs were there, and Meda ignored them. For God’s sake, you kidnapped a child from the nursery while you were immersed, and I nearly tested unethically on children. You shouldn’t need a death before action is taken. Meda should have cancelled the project well before Jason died. She’s sadistic.”
Beth turned back to the window. “You can’t blame Meda. She feels awful about it too. I should have checked Cait’s changes to the code.”
“I should have checked Cait’s code. If comms hadn’t been down. If I’d got to Jason with the deactivation panel.” He strode to the window and turned her towards him. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for everything. Let’s make a deal. I won’t blame Meda if you don’t blame yourself.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “But I do. I do blame myself.”
“Look at me.”
She looked up at him, tears falling down her cheeks.
He pulled her towards his chest and held her tight. “You have to stop. Remember what they told you in therapy.”
She sobbed. He clutched her tighter. Minutes passed before she was calmed by his comfort.
Beth stared into nothingness. Her mind had shut down and gone as blank as the walls.
“How will you get inside the Deceleration Zone tomorrow?” he asked.
His words brought her back to the present. She wiped her face. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Sit down.”
Beth sat on the sofa. He sat next to her and closed his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
“Thought-texting Callum. He needs to come here.”
Through her snot and tears, she laughed at him. “You don’t need to close your eyes to send thought-text.”
Ten minutes after Howard’s text to Callum, there was a knock at their door.
The fleeting thought that Damian was behind it rattled Beth. He shouldn’t know which apartment they were in. But after what she’d seen recorded in RI and what she’d recorded herself while working at ImReal, it wouldn’t be difficult to find out. Regular searches of their apartment had never unveiled any cameras, and after working for ImReal she knew all the hiding places. However, she still insisted on hiding under the quilt cover when naked.
Howard opened the door and let Callum in. They sat at the table.
“There�
�s a woman on the front desk in Zone 0 I could persuade. But unless she’s desperate that will take too long.” Callum leaned back in his chair.
Howard laughed, then rose and headed to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and removed three bottles of beer. “Who’s got access to the Deceleration Zone?” Howard flicked the bottle caps off with an opener.
Callum looked at Beth. “Remember the woman you saw today in the control room?”
“Rosie?”
“Yeah, she has access.”
“Good luck with her then,” Beth said sarcastically.
Howard handed Callum and Beth a bottle each.
“May as well be hung for a sheep. Lana won’t believe me when I tell her the team started the embryos growing while we were inside Zone 12 just like I told her they would.”
“She might, but she wouldn’t forgive you for screwing Rosie,” Beth said.
Callum fiddled with the neck of his beer bottle. “I’d say it was the other way around.”
They were silent.
“Haven’t you got access to the seeds inside the Deceleration Zone?” Beth asked Howard.
“I don’t do the donkey work. Someone brings them over when I need them. I’m not sure who has access. I could find out.”
Callum dropped his bottle on the table and cut through the speculation. “I’ll get the pass. Howard shouldn’t be involved. I don’t want you getting thrown out of here too.”
“Where was Lana when you left her inside Zone 0?” Beth asked.
“Outside Alex’s office. She’d told Alex she wanted to see the legal documents concerning the embryo transfer, and Alex said he knew she was Lucy Green. She tried to explain it to me, and I bottled it and left her.”
“She was confronting Alex?” Beth asked.
Callum nodded.
“I knew they’d know who she is.” Howard sat back in his chair triumphantly.
“Everyone else in RI is worried they might get transferred back to the New Cities. She’s got balls,” Beth said.
Callum sighed. “I know she has. I’m not ready to go back home yet, but I feel like a tosser for leaving her.”
“Just get me the pass to the Deceleration Zone, and I’ll find her. I have some sleeping tablets you can give to Rosie. Take her out somewhere then go back to her room, put them in her drink, and when she’s asleep steal her pass,” Beth told Callum. “Just don’t screw her.”
“You have sleeping tablets?” Howard asked.
“I never used them. The doctor gave me them after Jason. So what’s it to be, Callum?”
Callum took a swig from his bottle. He read the label then fiddled with it, trying to peel it off. “The in-house brewery isn’t bad. I might see if I can volunteer there.”
He met Beth’s no-nonsense gaze.
“I don’t need sleeping tablets, and I have no intention of screwing her. We need weapons.”
“I have a stun gun,” Beth said.
“You’ve still got it?” Howard asked.
“Yes; no one asked for it back. I keep it in my box of mementos.”
Beth pushed herself up and headed to their bedroom. She slid her personal box from the top of the wardrobe, sat on the bed and removed the lid carefully so as not to disturb the dust.
A photograph of her family was the first thing she saw. She lifted it out. It was taken a few months after Dad’s accident and before the war. They’d just walked off Sunday lunch around the lake near their old home. She closed her eyes. She could still smell her mother’s roast dinners now; strange what she missed.
Mum, Jessie, the twins and her brother were crouched on either side of Dad sitting in his wheelchair. Dad was smiling; he was having a good day. The little white therapy dog on his lap had become a permanent fixture.
After the fall, Dad was depressed, and a friend recommended the dog. Mum wasn’t pleased with the extra burden, but the dog did make a difference to his mental health. Dad discovered new things about himself, centred mainly around the dog. He became obsessed with people picking up their dog-shit or more precisely, not picking it up. He wrote poetry, sometimes even about it.
During the months before the war started, Dad observed the amount of discarded dog-shit steadily rising. He said human nature varied as a normal statistical distribution and the amount abandoned reflected on the state of society.
There were three groups of people. The first group picked up other peoples’ dog’s-mess and their own, the second group picked up their own, and the third group never ever picked up. He said the second group, the picker-uppers, were merging with the third group, the never-evers.
People were becoming increasingly disillusioned, and when that happened society broke down.
Dog-shit was a litmus test for civil unrest.
He philosophised on it like Confucius once philosophised on the Golden Rule, and Beth could remember their conversations. If you installed security cameras, everyone would feel like a criminal or a child—and who knowingly wanted to live under surveillance. But without cameras the group that never picked up would continue to get away with it.
When hills were renamed dog-shit-hill and slipping and sliding on the stuff became the norm, installing the cameras might be the only option, and that was a sad and possibly irreversible situation for everyone.
So, until it became intolerable and people decided they no longer could, they must rely on the good nature of most people and accept that a minority would never pick up. That acceptance brought a welcome perspective to those that might otherwise have found themselves exasperated—like Dad.
She lifted out the sonnet he wrote:
The blades of grass are coated white with frost.
The turf has frozen hard; the steam rises.
The sun blinds; my focus is briefly lost.
I stalk the ground with commitment to the crisis.
Through my clouds of breath, I find where it lay.
From my pocket, I pull out my defence.
Bitter cold circling; no delicate soiree.
I push the cover over the offence.
Spring is here; the rain is without ending.
The temperature rises; the turf now mud.
The trail lost but I’m not one for offending.
A zigzagging squelch I avoid the flood.
Sadly, not everyone has my grit.
So I wrote this for them: pick up your dog’s shit.
Of course, in his wheelchair, Dad couldn’t pick it up so that was always left to Mum. She wasn’t happy about having five kids, a husband in a wheelchair and a sodding dog.
No animals are allowed in the New Cities, so when they were evacuated he had to give the dog up. He bought an RI robot-dog and that sorted out the dog-shit problem. She put the photograph aside and rummaged in the box.
She placed the stun gun in front of Howard and Callum and retook her seat at the table. She must have reminisced a while; they’d drunk another two bottles each.
They watched the stun gun like it might explode.
“I don’t know if it still works. It’s wireless and works up to twenty metres away apparently,” Beth said.
“We could test it out on Damian.” Howard winked at Beth.
“Yeah, I’ll keep it on me just in case I bump into him.” To Callum she said, “I’ll meet you outside time adjustment, 8:50 a.m. tomorrow with the pass. Don’t be late. If Lana doesn’t come out, we’ll go inside Zone 0.”
“Okay.” Callum drained his bottle and clanked it down on the table. He rose and scratched his arm, roughly, on the way to the door.
“Got fleas?” Beth asked.
With one hand on the door handle, Callum said, “Yeah, something like that. See you tomorrow.”
“With the pass,” Beth added.
Callum mock saluted her, and the door closed behind him.
“Do you think he’ll back out?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know,” Howard said, rising and belching. “Depends if he opts for more Dutch courage.” He took the bottles
to the kitchen.
“He’ll need it. I’ve seen Rosie.”
Chapter Eighteen
A queue of thirty people waited to go inside time adjustment. Beth and Howard were leaning against the wall opposite them.
Beth’s gaze flipped between the entrance and the walkway. Callum was late.
Time adjustment arrived. The metallic scrape of the lever lifting fixed Beth’s concentration on the door. It swung open. Their eyes homed in on a woman as she strolled leisurely out, shielding her eyes. Such a difference to the manic panic on the other side of time. The next person filed out, then the next.
Time adjustment had emptied, and Lana wasn’t in there.
Beth scowled up and down the walkway. “I knew he wouldn’t turn up.”
She checked the digital clocks on the wall: 8:57 a.m. “He’s got thirty-seconds to get here, then I’m going in. Either he got pissed last night and is sleeping off a hangover, or he’s bottled it again because he’s too scared about getting sent home.”
When sprinting footsteps slapped along the tiled floor towards them, the line of people had shortened to five.
Without making eye contact with Callum, Beth jerked up from the wall and joined the back of the queue.
Howard followed her.
“You nearly missed time adjustment, mate. Lana hasn’t come out yet,” Howard said.
Callum folded the piece of yellow paper in his hand and stuffed it inside his trouser pocket.
“Did you get the pass?” Beth asked Callum.
“Yes, I’ve got the pass. I lost track of time in the lab. I had to tweak a few settings in case I’m away longer than expected. I don’t want the babies baked before I get back. Hopefully, the team won’t notice I turned down time acceleration.” He scratched his arm.
The emptiness of his words floored her. That’s exactly what he was doing. If they did adopt a lab baby, one day she’d have to explain to them that they were grown inside a pod unbeknownst to their real parents at the government’s say so, and she’d been overjoyed about it, ecstatic even. Of the infinite number of ways to screw a kid up, that had to be high on the list. She couldn’t see Howard going for adoption.
Started with Errors (Relative Industries Series Book 2) Page 13
