Beacons

by Gregory Norminton

  But Ma’s not in bed that morning. Weird that. Never happens. And the Truth Channel’s off, so I go out on the balcony, the beach is right underneath but I look out to sea first and the sky says thunder coming, watch out, and the waves are crashing high and white, and the tide traps are bobbing and the wind turbs are spinning to the max. Then I look down and there’s Ma lying with her leg bent the wrong way and a sky-rat pecking at her eye.

  Five floors is a long way, if you’re someone falling.

  But here’s the thing about someone who dropped off the balcony cos she was wasted. She might still sit up and shout: Beep the big picture, sunshine! Vodkas all round! or Hey, kiddo. Guess whose Ma was Wet T-Shirt Queen!

  But no, she just lies there with the sky-rat pulling red stuff out of her eye and then a man on the jetty yells floatie alert! and blows his whistle. That slaps me awake all right. I run out and down, got to get there quick and tell them. She’s not a floatie, she’s Ma. Floaties are blown up double-size and stinking and wet and they come in at high tide from the raft-towns. I run, I run, I run. She’s an Islander, she’s one of us, she’s a Zero-Plus Non-Contributor and she’ll be fine, leave us alone, we don’t need you, we’ve got each other, beep off.

  I trip down the last bit of stairs and bash my elbow so hard I cry out but I keep running.

  Not fast enough, cos when I get there folk won’t let me near.

  ‘You’ve got to, she’s my mum!’

  ‘All the more reason, chixie. All the more reason.’

  The Crisis Centre has posters about civic pledges and fund cards and protein quotas and opt for the Op which is credits for not beeping the crowd index. Thunder’s growling outside now, and rain slamming in sideways from the wind.

  ‘Hey Maxwell, my name’s Aisha.’ Long black hair, stud implant. ‘I’ve been trying to trace your home unit narrative. Do you know your bio-dad?’

  ‘It’s not a crime to come from a single-adult unit.’ So beep off, goes Ma in my head. You can stick your beeping interrogations up your beeping beephole.

  ‘Correct. But Mummy’s gone, so it’s now a no-adult unit and my job’s fixing a new home for you. Good news is, if we can source you to bio-folk on the mainland you get an upgrade. Did she tell you Daddy’s name?’

  ‘No. He was never her co. End of.’

  When fish reproduce, the fem-fish lays the eggs and swims off, then the guy-fish fertilizes them and then he swims off too. So what, big deal, it’s a choice, so high fives to us and the System can go beep itself.

  ‘Someone in your bio-unit’s best but if not, there’s Care. Are you OK, Maxwell? Elbow still hurting? Here, painbuster. It’s been a shock for you losing Mummy, hasn’t it, chixie?’

  ‘If you tell me where she is I haven’t lost her, have I?’

  ‘She’s at the health station. In the morgue.’

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘It’s a cold place they store you. When you’re gone. Oh babes. Nine’s ever so young to be alone. Big, big, big sozz.’

  What’s she on about? I’m not alone. Ma’s in the morgue at the health station. If you’re injured they can freeze you and reheat you later. Everyone knows that.

  Aisha puts her hand on my head and strokes my hair that’s all bristly cos Ma shaved it last month same time she did her legs. Then she meets a mozzy scab and stops cos there’s more where that came from.

  ‘When’s she back home then?’

  ‘Oh Maxwell. Don’t stress, chixie.’

  ‘I’m not stressing!’

  ‘Poor wee skinny thing. Mummy stressed a lot, didn’t she?’ She’s clicking stuff in boxes on her screen. It says, Assessment.

  ‘You got a kill-you?’

  ‘Sozz babe, but you’re way too young.’ In the Emotional Deprivation slash Neglect box she does a tick. ‘Have some gum.’ I take it and chew. Vodka-lime. Nice. ‘Better?’

  ‘Ma only stressed cos of Mother Moon.’

  ‘Who’s Mother Moon?’

  ‘Her buddy. On Truth.’ I do the voice: ‘The Truth Channel. Making promises we keep.’ She smiles cos I’m good at voices. ‘Welcome to You, that’s her number one programme. Mother Moon boosts her.’

  ‘Mmmm?’ goes Aisha, doing more clicking. ‘You just said she was stressed.’

  ‘You’re never alo-o-o-one with Mother Moo-ooo-ooon!’ I sing, like I used to with Ma. ‘That’s from the theme tune.’

  You’d think Aisha’d know that. But she just says, ‘Well there’s more and more of these pirate operations. Folk beaming stuff from Christ knows where. It’s impossible to keep track,’ and she presses send. ‘Now I bet you like energies. Minibreak?’

  In the Rec Facility there’s a kid called Lola watching an old-world DVD about animals that used to exist. Or so they claim, but I never saw them except onscreen, says Ma in my head.

  ‘My daddy self-terminated with a banana machete,’ says Lola when it finishes. ‘I found him in a pool of blood so I’ve got post-traumatic stress.’ She says it like I should want some too.

  ‘Well my mum’s still alive but she’s in the morgue cos of an eye problem plus possible broken leg. They’ll defrost her when she’s mended.’

  ‘Jokes.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Nothing. Just, jokes. So what show’s she into?’

  ‘Welcome to You. With Mother Moon.’

  ‘A Friend in Need. That’s my dad’s. With Bud. Bud was supposed to help but he didn’t.’

  Maybe if Mother Moon did her job properly, Ma wouldn’t be lying in the morgue waiting to be fixed. But I try not to think it, cos what if thoughts can travel through ice?

  My bio-dad’s bio-dad is old and a bit yellow but he walks OK. They found him from DNA. He says this is all a bit of a surprise to him, he had no idea I existed. I say it’s a surprise for me too. About him.

  ‘Well in any case, hello Maxwell. Sorry, I mean hey.’

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘You can call me Grandad or Ramsay. You choose.’ He doesn’t do high fives so we shake hands like oldsters. ‘Look Maxwell, I messaged your father about you, but don’t hold your breath. The fact is, I’m sure he’s not keen to be a bio-dad. He swapped his repro rights for carbon so it’s complex, pledge-wise.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Ma said he was a beeping beephole.

  Grandad slash Ramsay shrugs. ‘Could be anywhere. I don’t know much about children, Maxwell. Apparently I didn’t make a very good job of fatherhood first time around. But I can try again with you. What d’you say?’

  My scab’s itching again so I give it a scratch and a bit of it flakes off and there’s blood on my finger.

  ‘How long does stuff last in a freezer?’

  ‘About two years. Maybe more. Depends on the use-by date.’

  ‘I’ll stay two years then. Maybe more. Depending on.’

  When she comes back she might be blind in one eye cos of the sky-rat. And she’ll limp for sure.

  ‘Good. As long as there’s life, you can always find something to celebrate, Maxwell. Even in the darkest times. Like now. That’s what I think.’

  Which is weird, cos when we get to the mainland I don’t see us celebrating, not the way me and Ma celebrate. Where’s the vodka and the kill-yous, where’s singing along to Welcome to You and listening to folk spilling their guts?

  And it’s supposed to be an upgrade.

  Oldsters prefer you to say beep instead of more florid language but otherwise Grandad slash Ramsay isn’t like the ones on Oral History cos he never talks about growth and import-export and hyper-malls. He used to be a geologist so he takes the long view and he’s got a rock collection.

  ‘Homo sapiens turned the planet into a crime scene, Maxwell, that’s the truth of it.’ He’s mending his shoe with glue. ‘Now if you believe in a god, you can say the extreme age we’re living in is part of a grand plan. But if you don’t, you just have to adapt as best you can and admire nature’s determination to thrive no matter what. Because I tell you one thing, it’s
cleverer than we are. If I didn’t believe that, I’d commit suicide on the spot.’ Then he stops and puts the top back on the glue and puts the shoe down on the table. ‘Oh. Maxwell. I do apologize. My stupidity can be colossal.’

  New word: colossal. He’s looking at me but I’m watching the sky-rats and trying not to think of pecked-out eyes. It’s not his fault he knows beep all about frozen people being mended and thawed out when they’re sorted.

  It’s always soup at meals cos of his teeth. Lentil and eggplant and soy tofu and blah blah blah.

  ‘Tell me about Emmilou, Maxwell. I’m sorry I never met her.’

  ‘She’s got mostly blonde hair and she weighs 80kgs but Mother Moon says being overweight’s OK cos it’s natural to indulge your human impulses.’

  ‘Mother Moon’s one of the therapists on the Truth Channel, is she not? I get confused with all these networks. I tried finding it, but it doesn’t transmit to the mainland apparently.’

  Apparently.

  ‘No, cos Truth’s just for Zeroes and sub-Zeroes. We get it Exclusive.’

  ‘And your mum was very attached to it, eh?’

  ‘It’s on twenty-four-seven. Sometimes it makes her cry but she says that’s part of facing reality. Mother Moon helps her with that, it’s her job to shine a light.’ I do the voice. ‘Because the truth shall set you free.’

  Grandad slash Ramsay takes another spoon of soup. ‘Tell me more about Mother Moon.’

  ‘Her face is round like the moon, it’s Ma’s screensaver. You click on it and she talks.’ I’m colossally good at doing Mother Moon. Ma hates it, she says shut it, kiddo. This stuff’s getting through, but Grandad slash Ramsay’s going to like it. So I take a breath and go, ‘Hello friend. Hard times. I know. But Mother Moon feels your pain, and she’s opening up her sunny heart to you tonight, sweetheart. She’s listening.’ His eyebrows go up, so I do some more. ‘You are a courageous person, I am proud of you. It’s individuals like you who go unsung in this world, performing the heroic acts of martyrdom that enable future generations to blossom and walk free. Bless you, Child of Light.’

  He stops his spoon half-way to his mouth. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Sometimes after the show they’ll talk online or Mother Moon makes her click boxes and she’ll cry her guts out. And I’ll say to Ma, just stop talking to her, she’s a stupid beeping beep. But Ma says, some things you got to face.’

  He goes ‘Hmm,’ and puts the spoon in and then he finishes the rest like he’s in slo-mo and then he washes up even slower and I get scared cos oldsters can zap out bam, just like that. And what if that happens while Ma’s still frozen?

  They’ve started a support group for relatives. The first meeting’s at ours. There’s me and Lola and Vivvie with red hair and Georgi who’s brought diagrams of a sub-sea fish cage he’s designing with his uncle he’s apprenticed to cos he’s fourteen. We’re upstairs but if we put our ears to the floor we can hear them cos Georgi says it’s typical crap prefab. Some folk cry when they talk about their loved one but not Grandad cos he never knew Ma, and not Lola’s ma cos she hated Lola’s bio-dad and not Vivvie’s stepdad who says it’s all suspect. He says the epidemic of self-termination is suspect just like gigs of Zeroes and sub-Zeroes all catching rat flu is suspect. The buddies are suspect, the pirate channels are suspect. Who’s really behind them, who’s co-ordinating them? That’s what he’d like to know.

  Then they call us downstairs to ‘join in the chit-chat’ and they want us to sit on the sofa together, but Lola climbs onto her ma’s lap like a sub-Zero retard baby.

  ‘Maxwell’s told me about Mother Moon but I wonder, can you tell us all something about Bud, Lola?’ goes Grandad.

  Her mum strokes her hair like Ma did to me when I was little, before she started shaving me cos of mozzies and nits.

  ‘When the monkey was on dad’s back he talks to Bud about it after the show. Like mates,’ says Lola, and sticks her thumb back in her mouth. I hate her.

  Georgi says, ‘My dad’s soulmate, Wise Eagle, he said his door was always open for Dad. Day or night.’

  ‘So these mentors or buddies or therapists or whatever we’re going to call them, what’s their job, exactly?’ says Grandad. ‘How would you all describe it?’

  ‘Mother Moon gave Ma strategies. About how to contribute,’ I say.

  ‘My mummy didn’t have a strategy. She had Plan A,’ says Vivvie. ‘She worked it out with Dr Holmes. He’s her guardian angel. But she never got to do it cos she zapped out from swallowing five hundred and eighty-four painbusters. The red and blue ones.’

  The grown-ups all look at each other and then Grandad says,

  ‘Maxwell why don’t you show the other kids my geology stuff while we carry on in here? Take the peanuts with you.’

  Lola says Grandad’s rocks suck, even the amethyst, but Vivvie says they’re cool and Georgi borrows slash nicks two of Grandad’s gas canisters for blasting rockface, and then we go back upstairs and flick nuts at each other lying on the floor.

  ‘They were talked into it!’ says Lola’s mum.

  ‘Hey,’ says Georgi, fiddling with the canister. ‘I could rig this up and make a bomb.’

  ‘Incentivized,’ says Grandad.

  ‘Or guilt-tripped. If you’re told it’s the only way to help your kid—’

  ‘Or threatened.’

  ‘From what my grandson says, Mother Moon’s agenda seems to be to persuade her followers that suicide is an act of self-sacrifice and therefore the ultimate in responsible parenting.’

  ‘So the victims gravitate towards whichever mentor appeals to their personality profile,’ says Vivvie’s stepdad. ‘Neat.’

  We listen some more except Vivvie who doesn’t want to. They’re talking about how many, and where, and the System pretending it’s a bunch of pirate operators when it’s very clearly micro-managed, and it’ll be dangerous to mention it outside the group, we must take precautions.

  Lola yawns. ‘So, Georgi. You know stuff. What exactly is a cull?’

  ‘Have you come for the meeting? Cos it’s nearly over,’ I tell the man who’s rung the doorbell. He’s tall so he squats down to my height. His eyes are the same blue as mine.

  ‘What meeting?’

  ‘The support group.’

  ‘No.’ He’s looking at me weird. Where have you been my blue-eyed boy. ‘I’ve come for something else. Something I need from Ramsay. An admin thing. You must be Maxwell.’

  And then I get who he is. And I feel like doing a giant puke.

  My bio-dad’s eating our cheese. It’s not even his kitchen. Get the beep out of here.

  ‘Look, Maxwell, I’m sorry about your mum zapping out.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘Sorry. Passing.’

  ‘She didn’t do that either.’ Beep off and never come back, you beeping beephead. ‘She’s just in the morgue. In the reheating queue.’

  ‘Well whatever. Look, Maxwell. Ramsay—’

  ‘His name’s Grandad.’

  ‘He’ll have told you where I stand on this. I tell you, it’s a big shock, discovering your genes have been stolen.’

  Nobody stole your beeping genes. You beeped Ma, that’s all. You beeped her and fertilized her beeping egg. And here I am. So beep off, you beeping beephole.

  ‘Why did you come back then?’

  ‘State bureaucracy. And to say hello and goodbye to my DNA footprint.’ He smiles. ‘Which I guess would be you. And hey. Just look at you.’ He makes a click with his tongue. ‘Handsome kid.’

  When I tell Grandad who’s out there in the kitchen pigging our protein, he goes oh this is the last thing and has a word with Lola’s mum who stands up quick and says thank you for the meeting everyone, time to go, and Grandad says best get to bed, Maxwell son, and I don’t argue like I usually do but when I’m up there I still hear them even without my ear to the floor, cos soon they’re yelling.

  ‘You mean you think it’s acceptable?’ If oldsters shout, they might have a hea
rt attack and zap out, that can happen, true story.

  ‘Radical problems demand radical solutions.’

  ‘And you played no part in inflating the index?’ Still yelling, which he mustn’t or he’ll—

  Gigabeep.

  ‘I was eighteen, for Christ’s sake. She told me she’d had the op and I believed her because she had a skin-stamp. OK, so I was naive. She wasn’t contributing so she must’ve known she’d get Zero-rated and end up as a uni-breeder in some loserville.’

  ‘So I imagine you rejoice in this new initiative of our enlightened system, then? So-called therapists who use the airwaves to encourage islanders to top themselves?’

  ‘Islanders. Come on, Ramsay. They’re Zeroes and sub-Zeroes. So yes. I think, hey. Whatever it takes.’

  ‘Forced ops are bad enough, to my mind. But human culls? There’s a boy here—’

  ‘About that. Look, why I came. If you fingerprint this, he’s yours.’

  There’s no noise for a bit and then the voices go quiet and then the door slams shut and I put the pillow over my head and I lie awake thinking, I didn’t hate anyone till tonight. But now I hate two people. Mother Moon and the blue-eyed beephead who beeped my Ma.

  Maybe I could get an iris tint.

  I’d choose red. That’d scare him.

  But next morning Grandad promises he’s never coming back and it’s just him and me from now on. So high fives. That’s one down and one to go.

  Georgi says if you kill someone before you’re fourteen, you’re not responsible for murder. He’s too old but I’m not.

  ‘I rigged this up for you. You activate the explosive mechanism by remote control.’

  It’s the gas canister, the one for blasting rockface. There’s a switch taped to it, with wires coming out.

  Cool.

  ■

  And then you do everything Georgi said. You take the E-train and the ferry and then you walk over to the Folk Centre and there’s Mother Moon coming out of the show with all the Zeroes screaming how much they love her, but they’re not allowed into the lobby which is where you’re waiting. And you follow her and there’s troops but Georgi’s right, no one notices a little kid so you share the lift with Mother Moon up to the fifth floor but when she gets to her door she turns round.