The Boy I Am

by K. L. Kettle

  “Maybe, but you still can’t help everyone on your own,” she says. “You were right too. We need to help. Nothing will change if we don’t work together.”

  “But your mum?”

  “If she’s alive, I’ll find her one day. We’ll all go. You, me, your friends and a thousand more, as many as we can get out. So many inside just need an excuse, one act of defiance.”

  I don’t want to deflate her but, “Ro, I can count, you know.” I look at the small remaining gang. “Even if all of us go back…”

  “We’ll get the others from the outpost,” Cora interrupts. “If anyone can persuade them, it’s our Ro.”

  “And there’s plenty of people in the mines too, hundreds,” Haz jumps in.

  “But they’re men. Don’t you want to protect—”

  “Of course,” Ro says. “But we’ve also seen Eli fight.”

  “No matter how many people we have … we can’t just go in without a plan. We need a distraction,” I say.

  “A distraction?”

  “Like … like the Lice did with Walker. Like when we danced. She needs to be unprepared, looking the other way.” An idea’s forming in my gut, Ro can tell.

  “You? You want to go back?” she says. “Now?”

  “Aspiner said the vote would be after the auction. Another day or two and it’ll be too late.” I try to count the nights since the ball on my fingers. “The Chancellor. She still wants me, right? Why else would she send those notes? She wants to win me back.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Trust me, please. I can do this.” I need to do something on my own. I need her to believe in me.

  “Just … survive,” she insists.

  “It’s what I’m good at.” However strong I try to appear, I know the chances are slim. This is what I’m really worth – a day, two, as much time as I can stall the Chancellor. It’s more than enough. It has to be…

  “At the auction I get the mic, like at Reserves. Except this time I’ll tell a story. About you and Vik and the Gardener and Walker, the Roids, Vor. I’ll tell them all her lies.”

  She wraps her arms round me, holds me tight. I’ve never felt that wave inside before, heat, like everything will be OK.

  As they pack up to leave, we plan how I’ll get to the Tower: the best route, how to get back in, ways for me to get a place in the auction.

  The sky clears as I head towards the hospital – there’s time before the fog returns, as if the world wants to help. Even the wound in my side, the pain in my legs, seem to pass. There’s a feeling like I’m flying: those hands that once suffocated me have started pushing me forwards, holding me up.

  The night of last year’s Reserves.

  That night.

  Reserves had finished two hours ago.

  “Seriously, kid, you can do better than the Chief of Agriculture. Bocharov’s a rude old clot. You need to learn some showmanship,” Walker said, leading me down the cramped, damp concrete stairwell. The rough blocks of stone were as familiar as the dorm. We descended fast.

  Madam Bocharov had reserved me for five merits. Despite waiting for her in her rooms for hours, when she arrived, she passed out drunk but not before calling to cancel the reservation. The man that came to collect me wasn’t Father Jai. A cold sweat broke on my neck as I recognized the face at the door. Mr Walker. His hair was black then, his nose fixed, the thin moustache on his lip like a drawn line. On trend. Straight teeth and smile.

  You were the boy he’d favoured. He should have gone to fetch you! I was just an amusement to him years ago. You’re the one he’d been working with all that year.

  Go back, you interrupt. What happened before Bocharov?

  His slicked hair was mussed up so he ran his fingers through it before tidying it with a comb. “Put on a show. Where’s that movement I saw, all that pizzazz?”

  I swear he’s speaking another language. “I don’t … I don’t do that any more,” I said. “Where’s Father Jai?”

  “I offered to let him rest – busy night. I gave you a chance, kid. What would you say to some private lessons?”

  What about you? He was helping you?

  “No need to look so nervous, kid. I hate to see promise wasted. And you owe me, or did you think I forgot? Well, that’s the price – teaching you how to use what you’ve got.”

  Alarms squealed up and down, up and down the endless staircase in a wail. Walker shook his head, sighed and swore. He led the way down a few more stairs. “Keep up, no dawdling!” he shouted until I caught up with him on the ground floor, the one with a big 0 painted on the wall. Walker flashed a plastic card against the security pad of the nearest door. “Stay here,” he said. “I have a horrible feeling she made him run.”

  “Who?” I asked, but Walker had already made his way through the door into the atrium.

  It was the first time I’d seen front of house. The only way out. I could run. I looked down at my slippered feet. We were meant to run together. Or did I dream that? Was it just me wanting it to be true?

  The front-of-house doors to Outside flew open, hard. I froze, held my breath. The fog would come in and drive me mad, or rot off my skin.

  A steaming swarm of Lice piled in and I choked. I couldn’t hold it long enough. For a breath, I could taste the dry Outside air, sandy and cold.

  The Lice lunged on something. No. Someone. One of the madwomen maybe? They were shouting and kicking and swearing.

  Not a Hysteric.

  “Vik?” I called out, but didn’t feel my lips move. Everything was disconnected.

  You saw me. You stopped kicking.

  “Jude?” Was it surprise in your voice? Worry? Anger?

  Whatever it was, that’s the moment the Lice struck, pushing their batons into you, firing electricity into your veins.

  I hadn’t had a single misdemeanour since the dogs. I’d been a good boy. Not any more. My numb legs carried me forwards fast, but Walker was faster. As your body juddered and gave up on the marble, Walker caught me by the collar and dragged me into the stairwell. The black cloud of officers swarmed round your body.

  “There’s nothing to be done. He’s gone,” Walker said as he shut the stairwell door with a clang.

  Gone.

  Not dead.

  Go back.

  “They can’t do that!” I’d break my way through the door. “Let me go!”

  Every single bone inside me was shaking with that familiar anger as I beat on the door, punched and kicked the glass until my knuckles crunched. He pulled me away. My fists hit him then and kept on hitting. I didn’t care what punishment I’d get, but the way he looked down at me, that was new. None of the House Fathers ever looked at me that way, none of the boys in the dorm, or the cooks back in the kitchens. Weirdly, I thought maybe he was proud.

  Eventually, there wasn’t any fight left in me. “It’ll get you in trouble that temper.” Walker smiled.

  Smile twenty-one, his I-can-work-with-this smile.

  “You can help him, right?” I said. “You have to.”

  Walker tidied his moustache. “No, but I expect you can help me.”

  You skipped over it, you interrupt again.

  No.

  You skipped it! Go back.

  The rain falls warm on my skin, washing me clean. Each drop drawing away the prickling dust, the smattering of other people’s blood; the heat from the wound in my side; the sweat and the muck and the dance and the doctors’ stitches, tweaks and drugs; the Roids’ bruises… Until there I am in the garden, afraid to my toes, remembering the Chancellor saying, Don’t worry, I’ve got you. I won’t let you go. She needs a new ward. She wanted a challenge. I’m ready, even if she plans to pinhead me.

  I couldn’t save you but I can save my brothers.

  Soaked through, splashing through puddles on the stone steps up to the hospital doors, I clutch my side and stumble in the rubble the Lice left behind.

  The skin on my arms prickles. It’s getting dark and another w
ave of fog is coming in – too fast for me to make it to High House. The air tastes like the kitchens, boiled-up eggs. Holding my breath, I search for Aspiner’s fog mask in the hall. Finding it, I loop it round my neck then climb the central stairs, hunting for the box of medicine Ro said was in the room where they took Walker. Dizziness is setting in but finally I make it upstairs, past the hole in the floor, sliding along the wall to keep me up.

  My bloody hand paws through the box as the other tries to hold tight to the wound in my side. The blood’s dry now, the cotton of my shirt stuck to it. Pain rips through me as I tug the fabric free from the bloody gash; gummed closed with sand and blood before, it bleeds fresh and hot. If I die of an infection before the night is out, then all the plans in the world will be for nothing. Chewing down a big pink pill that I hope will stop an infection, I tear a hole in the lining of my waistcoat and throw in a handful of pills and a few of Walker’s things. Then I search for something to bite down on as I pour alcohol on the gash, before squeezing a tube of wound-glue into the hole. It stings so much I discover I have a gift for swearing that’d make Father Jai blush.

  Using the torn fabric of my shirt, I tie the shredded fabric round my waist until it bites and grab Walker’s boot polish, needing the stench of the tangy fumes to wake me up, bring my brain bright. The perfume reminds me of the hours he spent working his shoes into a shine while I tried to remember his steps.

  Closing my eyes, swaying in the fumes, I see Walker leap out of the bunk like nothing happened, tap his heels on the floor and then stroll off to get his hair fixed. Come on, son, he says, work to be done.

  You’re seeing things, you say.

  I knew you couldn’t be far

  “I’m coming,” I tell you. “For all of you.”

  You don’t answer.

  By the time I’m downstairs, I can’t see the door. The fog thickens with every breath. My fingers shake as I stretch the cracking leather of the fog mask and pull it on. Finally I can breathe.

  Should I wait?

  Bandages, glue and painkillers aren’t enough. I need a doctor. With a pile of pills rattling in the lining of my waistcoat, a torch in my hand and a long beam from the fallen ceiling to help me walk, I head out of the front door into the cold desert night.

  Let’s see how far being pretty gets you, Aspiner said.

  The boy that took her eye, was that me?

  That boy … the things that boy could do.

  Dawn light diffuses through the thick fog. In the distance, there’s a faint, tall shadow getting closer with every slow step.

  High House.

  Ro explained the quickest way back is to avoid safe houses and head straight down the ‘main road’, a wide stretch between the buildings. It’s been hours in the fog, bumping into walls and moving aside. Feeling my way. My breath echoes inside the mask, warm round my cheeks. In. Out. The filter clicks. Swimming my arms in the fog as the walls guide me.

  Once the fog has gone, the sun is right above me. The baking heat begins to bite, cooking me from the inside out.

  I pull off the mask and drop it to the ground to bask in real air, sand battering my face as I arch my cheeks towards the sun to remember every second of it.

  Are those birds? High above. Black dots moving. Circling.

  Could I just stop, sleep?

  My bones tingle as I take one wavering breath, then another and another, blinded by the sting of the day.

  No, keep moving. Not far now. I wonder how long before the fog returns as I follow the walls stretching ahead, leading the way. My fingers brush shadows of old red, blue, yellow paint; they dance over tiles dotted like dark-text. Here, the air twists and changes with every street. The light moves with the sun until a huge shadow is cast by High House, swallowing me up. There’s the arm of that statue, drowned by the desert. Nearly there.

  Then the hairs on my arms stand up again and I turn to see the green haze flooding the street behind in a great sparking wave of sand and cloud. How long ago did I drop the fog mask?

  Run, a voice shouts in my ears but it doesn’t sound like you any more.

  I can’t run. There’s nothing left in me.

  Go back, you say. But I’m done being buried by the past. Done blaming myself. I don’t want to die today, not any day.

  Forwards, I have to keep moving forwards, but it’s too hot to move fast. The tiredness in my blood weighs like cement. The buildings around me get higher. Huge posters and paintings look down from every wall. Faded messages from the world that died while the Foundations held tight to hope below.

  Run! Is it the Gardener’s voice in my ears? Scratchy and dying.

  The vast burning glow of the sun is starting to green. I yank the cotton from around my waist, crying out as the wound in my side tears, and wrap it round my face. Try not to swallow the air.

  Run! Maybe it’s Ro’s voice.

  Move! Maybe it’s Walker’s?

  Can’t see the Tower now – my eyes are watering.

  Go back, you say.

  No. Even High House seems to hold its breath as the poisonous air reaches into me and takes hold of my lungs. Squeezing. Thanks to the Roids, I can hold my breath for a long time.

  Taking a deep gulp of air … one.

  Kicking off my shoes, I need bare feet to feel the world in the dark. For the first time in days, my feet feel like my own. Steps, I can feel steps.

  Two…

  Curl my toes in the burning sand.

  Three…

  Rushing, I can feel the soles of my feet blister in the hot sand then I crash into the marble steps. Even if I can’t see it, I can feel the Tower looming Saint-like over me. I stub my toes, cry with pain, knock to be let in, let me in, let me in.

  Coward.

  What?

  Ten… I don’t want to be out here, let me in. My trapped breath squeezes behind my ears.

  It’s like the day I killed the dogs. You don’t want to think about it. You skip over it. You don’t tell the story. You lie.

  Thirty… I pound at the great heavy doors, the ones the Lice dragged you through, after you ran.

  Fifty. Fifty-one and a half…

  Coward. You blamed Vor. You blamed the Chancellor. You blamed Romali. Walker. It isn’t their fault I’m dead.

  NO!

  The glass opens ahead of me and I’m stumbling forwards, pushing past shapes trying to hold me, gasping for air until it floods inside, and I blink through watering eyes at the bright atrium, the familiar murals staring down and every single woman staring back.

  The doors slam closed behind me, echoing through the vast space. Two Lice stand guard, but they don’t grab me. They hang back as I push my way in, eyes streaming from the fog. It’s almost like they’re expecting me.

  In the centre, the fountain of water trickles over black rocks stacked high. There are women moving round me, shapes through the sting of my eyes as I blink to see straight. I tear the bloody fabric from my mouth, my nose.

  “Please. I need…” I begin, coughing up handfuls of sand. The hall echoes as the women around me draw breath.

  This is where I last saw you alive. It’s where I danced with Ro.

  “The Chancellor. Please…”

  They pretend not to hear me but I know they do.

  My feet slip, squeaking through their space, then I stumble, grabbing the women’s robes. They push me away, unsure of what to do, a boy, his hands, the dust. I catch hold of someone to stop myself from falling and this time I won’t let go. The woman yelps and struggles to break free.

  “It’s important,” I say. “I need her.”

  I can smell the green water around the twinkling fountain. It’s a wide pool, leaves the size of plates floating on the surface. Orange and white shapes swim in the dark. My eyes are actually burning now so I let myself fall, crashing into the cold water. Swallow mouthfuls that taste of weeds, the copper cloud of blood from my side. The women peer into the pool. Their faces swirl into ribbons.

  And I smile.


  Smile number screw-the-list: kiss-my-ass.

  After they haul me from the fountain, the doctors are sent for as a handful of Lice hurry me to one of the appointment rooms. Out of sight. I am grateful. I am dignity. I am pure fogging obedience. You’d be so proud of my performance and Ro would laugh. Walker would raise both eyebrows and roll his eyes and ask me if I’d hit my head. The good boy I was once, asking for the Chancellor.

  The doctors arrive. White-coated, white-masked. Eyes and needles, that’s what they are.

  “Delirious,” they say as I ask to see the Chancellor again.

  I screw up my eyes, expecting their long needles, but I don’t struggle as they help me to a stretcher.

  When the elevator doors ping open, they rush me into the infirmary. High-merit women walk around in dressing gowns. Slippers shuffle like the ones they make us wear in the dorms.

  Ro said they’ll have to fix the wound in my side before they can do anything else. No point pinheading a dead man. While they get to work, gluing, stitching, sticking my arm with needles, giving me blood, fluids, I wait. Count the bolts in the ceiling when it hurts. There’s one missing.

  It’s a small room. The soft furnishings torn away, leaving the cold walls bare. It’s cramped, stacked with folders and medical machines that gave up working a long time ago. Now they’re used for hanging gowns, stacking glasses, dirty plates.

  One of the doctors remembers me and tuts to see what the desert has done, all her hard work ruined. They cut away my clothes but before they can take them away to burn I salvage the contents from inside the lining of the waistcoat – specifically Walker’s merit book. They aww and aah like I’m a wounded animal who needs looking after, sweet that he covets such little things. They ruffle my hair and mew over the trauma I must have had, stroke my cheek, all the time asking when I’ve got the emergency doctors’ all clear so they can take me upstairs for the full ‘procedure’.

  There’s a reason I need Walker’s book. It’s where he kept his security card, pushed into a pocket in the cover. If it could get him into front of house, it can get me out of the infirmary.