by Claire Merle
Emerging
She glided through streaks of sunlight, through salty spray, and waves whipped into froth. A foamy bubble stretched around her, shimmering, rising, lifting her above stretched around her, shimmering, rising, lifting her above the sea. A bird swooped. In the spread of its wings glittering atoms vibrated. Voices whispered to her on the wind. ‘Things are not what they seem.’
And then she was submersed in water, not moving to save her breath, surrounded by a dim light. A shadow floated into the periphery of her vision. She turned her head. On the other side of a transparent wal, Jasper lay in a second tank. As though sensing her eyes on him, his face tilted.
Her heart raced. It wasn’t Jasper at al. It was Cole. She reached out, thrusting her hand through the thick, viscous barrier, but he was already drifting away, carried on a current towards the darkness.
And then she was flat on her back in a hospital room. A presence lurked close by. She tried to wake herself, puling her eyes as wide as she could. Her dream self fumbled for a bedside lamp, hoping her real arm was reaching out, hitting a light switch and the light would wake her up.
For hours afterwards, she trudged through white haze across a barren landscape. She was searching for 328
something, but al she found was a necklace of sharp metal vines that leapt to her throat when she held it high to see it better, and clung there.
The first time she knew she was truly awake, she was lying in a bed. Her father sat beside her, head bowed, holding her hand. His thoughts buzzed with remorse. She could feel them. Their shape, their weight. Like the vine necklace digging into her throat. But she couldn’t feel his hand, or the duvet on her body, or her eyes when she hand, or the duvet on her body, or her eyes when she ordered them to blink.
Look at me, she thought. But he didn’t raise his head, and the notion of her own paralysis choked her with fear until white mist flooded her sight and she was walking inside it again, searching for the way out.
The next time she stirred there was the pain and nausea to contend with. A smel of disinfectant and rubber wormed its way inside her. She attempted to raise her arm, press the cal button near her head, but her hands were slabs of concrete, her arms ship’s anchors. Simply breathing deeply made her ribs flare with pain. She gave up trying to move.
After that, she lay bound to the darkness with time in a bottleneck, the seconds feeling like hours.
Eventualy, she woke to sunlight. A room with three bay windows. Gossamer curtains lapping against white wals.
The luminous oblongs glowed like doors to other planes of existence, lingering remnants of the shadow world she’d been stuck in for the last few days.
Directly in front of her face, a pot of coffee percolated on a bedside table. A tang of roasted beans pricked her nostrils.
329
She tested her eyes and was pleased to feel the soft flutter of her lashes coming together as she blinked.
‘You’re awake,’ her father said. He was standing near the door. He smiled, disconcertingly unsure of himself.
the door. He smiled, disconcertingly unsure of himself.
‘You look much better.’ A nurse brushed into the room behind him.
‘Ah, there she is,’ the nurse said. ‘Let’s sit you up, shal we?’ She crossed to Ana, her voice bright and business-like. ‘Now this might hurt a little. You have a fractured rib that’s going to need lots of rest.’ She efficiently lifted Ana under the arms. Ana cried out in agony. ‘Would you do the honours?’ the nurse asked her father. Ashby came and plumped the pilows. When he moved away, the nurse rested Ana against them. ‘That wasn’t too bad, was it?’ she said, tucking a falen strand of Ana’s short hair back from her eyes. ‘Looks like your father was right. He said the smel of roasted coffee might bring you back. Just don’t try drinking any yet.’ She winked at Ana, before breezing across the room. ‘Buzz the red button if you need anything,’ she said, and the door closed behind her.
In the nurse’s absence, Ana’s father loitered awkwardly between the door and the bed.
‘The doctor said you’ve been showing signs of coming around for a couple of days. You’ve been in a coma for almost a week.’
A week! Ana struggled to grasp the concept. How could she have been out of it for a whole week?
Her father fiddled with a vase of sunflowers on a chest of drawers. Then he ambled over to a coarsely textured armchair and sat down by her bed. ‘I’m so glad you’re OK,’
330
he said, reaching for her hand. Her mind commanded her fingers to move. They twitched struggling to remember how. With a burst of determination, her hand jerked and slipped down her thigh.
Her father coughed. He stood up, moved away. ‘They say it could be a couple of days until your motor cortex activity is back to normal.’ At the nearest window he paused, lifted back the flimsy curtain and looked out.
‘Do you remember what happened?’
Ana grunted. He turned to her. She dipped her chin to her chest in a nod.
‘Three Mils—’ His voice sounded muffled. He cleared his throat, let the curtain drop. ‘Once I knew you were there, I did everything, everything I could to get you out.
You have to understand, Ana, I couldn’t just walk in and take you. There are procedures.’
Like the tanks. She shaped her mouth to form the words, but a strange noise came out. She tried again, determined.
Her tongue flicked down and she spat through her teeth.
‘Ttt . . . aaa . . . kkss.’
Her father hunched forward, pressed his palms into his forehead. ‘If I could have stopped what they were doing
– believe me I tried. I paid off every nurse to make sure they changed the medication. But the tanks involved the psychiatrists. I made up a file, pretending I’d treated you before, pretending you were the daughter of a close family friend, but Charlotte Cusher wouldn’t even discuss family friend, but Charlotte Cusher wouldn’t even discuss your treatment. What on earth made you commit yourself?’
Carefuly shaping her lips into the right letters, Ana blew air through her mouth.
331
‘Jaa . . . ssh . . . per.’
Her father stared at her through spread fingers. Hurt filed his eyes. She’d never seen him so vulnerable. Despite everything, it moved her. She clung to her anger. She would never forget the horror of Three Mils, the place where he’d abandoned Jasper in order to protect his own reputation.
‘I ca . . . n’t ev . . . er for . . . give you,’ she said. The words were beginning to form more easily now. Stilted, but clear. ‘You . . . haf . . . to . . . leeet . . . me . . . go.’
Her father cleared his throat again. His Adam’s apple bulged as he swalowed.
‘Let you go?’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know exactly what Jasper’s told you. Or what those Enlightenment Project people told you. They think my work is a fraud. They think there are anomalies in the Pure test. What they don’t understand, what you don’t understand, is humanity’s capa-city for destruction. Mankind’s cruelty, hate, ignorance, has no limits. Every great civilisation has ended disastrously.
After the 2018 Colapse this country was on the brink of self-destruction.
‘My work was the start of controling that volatility.
When the first trial Pure tests started eleven years ago and people received preventive medication, crime began to go down in those areas for the first time since the Colapse.
Without the test we’d be back in the Dark Ages like the US. We’ve had vaccines for ninety years. Containing mental diseases was the logical progression.’
Ana listened, her sense of injustice sweling. She raised 332
her shaky arm. Pain shot through her ribcage as her fist thumped the bed.
At last Ashby stopped looking at her and began to realy see her. He flinched, recognising the rage behind her eyes.
‘Suicidal chil . . . dren! Mind con . . . trol! Street ab . . .
du . . . ctions!’ she spat. ‘How can . . . you . . . live
. . .
with yourself . . . knowing what . . . you know, seeing . .
. what . . .
you’ve . . . seen . . . at Three Mils?’
He gazed at her, speechless.
‘Have . . . you . . . realised?’ she continued. ‘Have . . .
you
. . . realised you . . . should have . . . let her . . . go?’
‘Who?’
‘Who?’
Ana glowered, wondering if he’d repeated the lies so many times he actualy believed them. Closing her eyes, she suddenly felt weary. The morning Ashby Barber had stood up on national television and caled his daughter weak and ignorant, she shouldn’t have taken it personaly. It was the way he saw people. He thought he knew what was best for everyone.
The armchair creaked. Wooden legs dragged a couple of feet across the carpet. Hands rubbed against cloth.
When her father spoke again, he sounded further away, exhausted.
‘You’ve got no idea about the bigger picture,’ he said.
‘The world is heading for chaos. Total destruction.
Containing people is the only way we’l survive.’
‘You ground . . . the Benzidox . . . into Mum’s food,’
Ana said. Her eyes remained closed. It helped her to concentrate on getting the words out. ‘Maybe she was . .
. sad . . . depressed. But she loved me. Benzidox took . .
. the good and 333
. . . the bad. Left her nothing. So she . . . kiled herself.
And you . . . stopped me . . . from saying . . . goodbye.’
Silence folowed. The coffee machine hummed. Trays clattered in the corridor. Beyond the window a crow cawed.
‘It was too late,’ he said.
Ana opened her eyes. Her father slumped in the armchair, eyes glistening. She gaped at him, amazed. He armchair, eyes glistening. She gaped at him, amazed. He hadn’t cried at her mother’s funeral. But then it had been a sham.
Perhaps he’d cried the morning he’d puled her mother from the fumes, carried her dead body to his saloon.
‘You put Jasper in that place,’ she said. ‘Can you get him out?’
One tear dropped over the side of Ashby’s high cheek and vanished into his hair as though it had never existed.
He straightened.
‘Jasper didn’t understand what he was getting involved in. He needed a reality check. He needed to appreciate the life he has as a Pure – the life you’l both have. It was never my intention for him to stay in Three Mils for more than a couple of weeks.’
Ana’s stomach twisted and roled at her father’s inhu-manity. He toyed with people’s lives like they didn’t mean anything. But hope fluttered inside her too. If he could use his influence to have Jasper released, perhaps he could do the same for Tamsin.
‘So you . . . can get him out?’
‘It’s al been taken care of. Scott Rutherford turns nineteen in eight days. They’l release Jasper before then.
Three Mils patients are always released before they turn nineteen. Otherwise the Board goes in and does a thorough 334
evaluation to decide whether the patient should be moved to an adult institution. There are several doctors moved to an adult institution. There are several doctors working at Three Mils that can’t stand having to answer to the Board.
Even if they leave it right up to the last minute, they’l release him and Jasper wil have seven days to recover, before declaring he wishes to go ahead with your joining.’
A muscle in Ana’s neck clenched. Her head jerked. Her mind felt as though it had been rear-ended. Join Jasper?
Her father couldn’t be serious.
Ashby stood. ‘That was always the plan, Ariana. Jasper just needed some sense knocked into him. A bit of a scare to put everything back into perspective. He was about to throw your future away. I couldn’t let that happen.’
‘He wasn’t threatening my future, he was threatening yours.’
‘If the disc had got into the hands of the public, the Board would have learnt about the claims Jasper was making against them. A little stint in Three Mils would have been the least of his problems. And I can guarantee, you two wouldn’t have been joined.’ Ashby strode to the door, al earlier hesitation pounded down beneath a new sheen of confidence.
‘You’re ridiculous!’ she said. ‘Jasper won’t go ahead with the joining now. He’l probably disappear as soon as they let him out.’
‘Jasper’s very confused. He’l do as his father advises him.
him.
David, of course, is wel aware of what’s been happening.
He’l be keeping his son under close watch.’
‘Is David Taurel wel aware of what you did to Tom?’
Ana said, spitting out the last words.
335
Ashby stopped and turned. He shook his head like she was a sily, undisciplined child.
‘Those Project people are dangerous. They warped Jasper’s mind, but you’re smarter than that. Don’t let them warp yours too.’
Hate boiled inside her. Al the Project dealt in was ideas and ideals. It was the Pure regime that ripped people’s minds apart, that wrung people inside out with pils and electric shocks. Her thoughts turned to al the Pures sitting in their safe, luxurious homes, smugly congratulating themselves on their superiority: they would never be duped into believing something that wasn’t scientific, that couldn’t be proved. They were far too clever for that.
She tucked her fists under the bed covers and glowered at her father’s receding figure.
336
28
Searching
Searching
Folowing their first conversation, her father’s visits fel into a pattern. He popped in early before work, brought flowers, more coffee, fresh fruit and old paper books.
Long after she’d eaten her hospital supper, he’d appear again on his way home. He never stayed more than fifteen minutes.
They talked little.
Ana’s fractured rib made it difficult for her to move. She spent hours sitting by a window reading or with her eyes closed, face tilted to the sun. She practised the breathing exercises she’d been shown to strengthen the fracture, and brooded over her predicament. She’d escaped Three Mils, but not her father, or the Board, or the joining. Jasper and Tamsin were stil stuck in the loony dump. And Cole didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know she’d been held in Three Mils, or that she’d been in a coma for a week. She missed him. She felt like she’d been returned to the half-life she was living before they met. Except now she knew the way she could feel if he was around, the loneliness was unbearable.
On the fourth day after emerging from her coma, the nurse took pity on Ana and lent her an interface while she was doing her morning rounds. Ana spent precious minutes 337
agonising over whether to contact Jasper’s mother, and if so, what to say. The Wardens were undoubtedly keeping a close eye on al the family’s communications. In the end, she sent Lucy a message, simply stating that she’d seen Jasper; he was alive.
Next, she trawled the net for news of Cole. Apart from Next, she trawled the net for news of Cole. Apart from his stature as prime suspect in the murder of Peter Reed, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, ex-Secretary of State for Health, she couldn’t dig up anything. She wondered if he’d escaped with the minister’s evidence against the Pure test. Wherever Cole was hiding, either the Wardens hadn’t found him yet, or they were waiting to bring him in. She imagined he’d returned to the Project with Lila and Nate. The authorities wouldn’t storm the sect unless they were certain Cole had the minister’s evidence and was attempting to disseminate it.
So that left Tamsin. Last September, when Ana had stalked missing persons websites for news of her best friend, she’d also searched for Tamsin’s family in an online directory compiled from the country’s electoral rols, hoping she would find them settled in another Pure Community. From what Tamsin had told her in Three Mils, her best friend’s
vanishing should have been headline news, but it appeared Tamsin’s parents hadn’t reported it to the Wardens. Somehow, the Psych Watch managed to remove the whole family from the Highgate Community and coerce Tamsin’s parents into silence.
Even if Ana found them and told them where their daughter was, it seemed unlikely that they’d speak out now when they hadn’t seven months ago.
Ana wondered whether her father could petition the 338
Board for Tamsin’s early release. But what would he ask for in exchange? And how long would that take? She remembered a case on Jasper’s law sylabus that had dragged out for over a year and the patient was never freed. There had to be some other way. Cole might have an idea or know someone who could help. If they could hack into the Three Mils data system, they could change hack into the Three Mils data system, they could change Tamsin’s age. But the Psych Watch had stolen her ID, and Tamsin had probably been entered as a Jane Doe –
no official ID; no official date of birth.
Ana would have to be patient. She would have to get herself out of her father’s clutches and then tackle the problem.
She spent her remaining time on the borrowed interface listening to Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A, thinking up wild scenarios of psych dump break-ins. The music felt different to her now. It slithered under her skin and seemed to wrench her open. By the time her father arrived after supper, bearing news that Jasper had been released from Three Mils, she felt odd, off-kilter. The country had been informed by the media that an anonymous phone cal to the Wardens had resulted in Jasper’s safe recovery. Apparently, no one was questioning the lie.
But it was the news she’d been waiting for. At least with Jasper home, Ana was now free to escape. She tried to avoid the finer details of the situation – Jasper with his brain shot to pieces and dependent on the father he’d inadvertently been making a stand against. Traveling too far down that path of thought would probably end in her feeling obliged to stay and continue helping him. To say nothing of what 339
might happen if Jasper ever remembered who had committed him to Three Mils, and why.
No, Ana had done what she’d set out to do. Jasper was home safe, and now while her father was under the impression she was crippled, was the perfect time to forge a getaway.
