by Ely, Jo;
STONE
SEEDS
JO ELY
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Copyright © Jo Ely, 2016
The moral right of Jo Ely to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-910692-87-5
EPUB 978-1-910692-88-2
KINDLE 978-1-910692-89-9
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Cover by Julie Martin
Cover image © Cyril Rana
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FOR ERIC, MAIA AND GINA
“A very accomplished prose stylist… Very talented.”
Acclaimed writer CM Taylor, author of Light, Grief,
Cloven and Premiership Psycho
“A very distinct voice … at times no less than stunning … wonderful, poetic prose … The subject matter is a stroke of genius. Fascinating.”
Bestselling author Sophie King
“You do not do, you do not do any more black shoe in which I have lived like a foot …”
Sylvia Plath
“All oppression creates a state of war.”
Simone De Beauvoir
“And he gave it for his opinion, that whosoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
“And it will rain so hard that night that morning will come.”
Unknown songwriter, Brazil
CONTENTS
WATER
BLOOD
THE FENCE
REPORT 1: SEEDS
THE GENERAL’S FEAST
REPORT 2: COMMUNICATION
THE GENERAL’S WIFE
THE MOTHER CUPBOARD
REPORT 3: MEDICINE
HUNGER
THE PLANTING
SMOKE
THE LIGHTNING BOX
CAT
SNAKE EGGS
BLACK FLOWERS
RATIONS
LEECHES
THE STAINING
FIRST KILL
PIZEN
THE SCHOOL ROOF
TRAINING DAY
THE EGG MEN
ONLY ZETTIE SAW
LAST LIGHT
GONE
REPORT 4: PLANNING
THE FORGETTING MEDICINE
THE REBOOT
THE GRAIN QUEUE
CRACKDOWN
THE GREENING
THE KILLING FOREST
THE LAST REPORT
WATER
ANTEK REMEMBERS IT WAS Jengi. Jengi, the shopkeeper’s assistant, who struck a match, eyed the workers. He said they looked thirsty. He said that the last guard had a whim to dock their water rations. And in this heat. Might lose a few.
Jengi shrugged. Then sloped off, the way Jengi does, as though disowning his thought. Antek remembers it was Mamma Zeina, the general’s Sinta slave-cook, who rolled the rain barrel over toward him, careful not to spill, and then abandoned it by his left foot. Left an ancient looking tin cup floating on the surface of the water. No word. No eye contact even. As if she left it there absent-mindedly. A mere suggestion. And the rest was up to Antek.
Antek knew it was against regulations but … Once he knew the gem miners were thirsty, he noticed other things too … became aware of the rows of eyes watching his hand as he raised his flask to his mouth. The trickle of cool water streaming onto his wrist, blotting his sleeve. And then staring at the water marks speckling his shirt front.
Antek was meant to be guarding the gem miners. Instead he’d played look-out whilst they drank the clean rainwater from the tin cup.
He was bound to be found out. The general always has a guard to watch the guards. Ever since the rumours started. The rumour being that an undercover Sinta infiltrated the labs before batch 47, Antek’s military unit, were hatched out. The rumour that batch 47, Antek’s batch, were … different.
The bottom line is that Antek has been a suspect since birth. That’s what the cameras and the listening devices, the endless testing and retesting in the labs are for … It’s to find out the truth about Antek and his batch of Egg Boys. The truth, one way or the other. Everything for Antek either is, or else might be, a test of his loyalty to the general. Including this, now.
Antek had been made to walk hot rocks all day for rehydrating the workers.
Soothing the burns on his feet with the cool mud from under the rain barrel, and when that dried in the welts on his soles, the moist waxen leaves passed to him quietly by the workers had, to his surprise, helped. Sap along the surface of the leaf almost healed his wounds.
Antek had thought at least that’s the end of it. But it turns out there’d been another witness to Antek’s wrongdoing. Someone more important than a second guard.
–––––
Sweat. The youth wing officer twitches. Metal blind snaps open. The left side of the officer’s face seems to light up, silver-white with perspiration. The mirage lasts a moment. The officer blinks and grimaces, changes his mind. Yanks the blind down hard, so it snags and droops on the runner, buckles and dips softly forward. Stripes of light through the gap at the top and down one side.
Antek notices a slick of sweat is seeping from the officer’s hairline, gathering in a soft sheen at the roots and then drips. One long slow trickle eases into the umbrella of the officer’s thick blonde eyebrows. And then escaping down his short curved pink nose. Gathers at its round, bulbous tip.
The officers are rarely Egg Boys like Antek. The general prefers to select his own tribe, the OneFolk, for the top jobs.
The OneFolk are one hundred percent organic, not manmade like the Egg Boys. Meaning they can’t stand the heat the way Antek, with his tweaks and regulation modifications, can.
Dab, dab, dab goes the officer with his damp rag and Antek has to look away now.
The officer eyes the door several times more, adjusts its angle. Half open and half closed, nudges it back and forth minutely. The officer never seems satisfied with that door.
Antek, who is at his happiest being ignored, is right now doing his best impression of a piece of furniture. Pulls his long and boney legs up, hugs his knees and stares at the window: rain combing down it. He’s briefly mesmerised by the stripes of water. Now the officer’s moving softly round Antek’s room.
“Shhhh,” the officer says. “Shhhh.”
Who knows what it all means.
Antek’s heard the stories. Many of the OneFolk senior officers were forest workers in the previous era. Charged with tracking and culling the runaways. Rewarded for their patriotic work with status positions in Bavarnica’s army, the food rations to go with
the promotion. They were the ones who rounded up the Sinta, hidden in the copses, undergrowth and trees when the revolution failed, and the general declared the Sinta an illegal cult. Killed those escaping, made those who couldn’t run slaves to the village. Slaves to the OneFolk.
Of course there were some of the OneFolk who let Sinta go free, run into the killing forest in The Before. Some live there still, that’s always been the rumour. Gradually becoming immune to the poisonous plants which the general thickened out the forest with, the nipping saplings. They’ve learned how to avoid the huge snakes. Evolved quickly, like the rest of the killing forest. Changed. “Into something rich and strange,” that’s the whisper on the Sinta farmsteads.
Fairytales, Antek thinks. The killing forest is not a home of any kind, it’s just a trap. And the runaway Sinta are dead, the sooner those left behind realise it … Even guarding the fence beside the forest you can see it’s just a set of manmade jaws that will lure you in and close its poisoned teeth around you.
The main thing to take home from all this is … You can’t know what you’re dealing with, what or who. Not in Bavarnica and not with an organic. And especially not with the OneFolk. The general’s tribe. Leastways that’s how Antek sees it.
Antek can hear the sound of his own heartbeat, stomach pumping. Inside sounds. The officer moving slowly through his things. Picking up this and that and eyeing its contents. Because nothing should be private in the army, for the general’s Egg Boys. The youth wing, batch 47.
The officer speaks in a strange, wistful voice. As if hoping for some kind of signal from Antek. As though provoking Antek to disagree with him. Watchful for any small sign that he does.
Antek doesn’t like being watched.
He looks down. He can’t say what he feels at this moment. Winces as he laces up his left boot.
The officer’s tone hardens. “The youth wing is ripe for exploitation by The Underground, The Sinta Resistance, ripe for their lies. Private is bad, Antek.” And then in a different voice, “At least that’s the drill in sector three now.” He sniffs. Checks his notes. Takes a key out of his pocket, un-cuffs Antek.
There is a long pause in which the officer appears to be trying to decide something. “Village shopkeeper.” He gets the words out. Low voice. “Name of Gaddys,” he says. “She informed on you. You’re on a list now, Egg Boy. That’s bad.” And then softer, “That’s bad, Antek. The shopkeeper’s power is growing.”
The officer closes Antek’s door behind him gently. Antek hears whispered voices in the corridor outside. He looks up.
Antek’s digs are up in what the Egg Boys call the crow’s nest, meaning the upper reaches of the soldiers’ barracks. Naturally the Egg Boys’ only window faces inwards. They’re on the left side of the look-out towers, their view: rows and rows of brick and corrugated steel, far as eye can see. Metal pipes run across the rooftops, sliding in the cracks between the buildings, dark red as if to acknowledge they’re the veins of the system.
Egg Boys like Antek don’t get to see the huge industrial equipment that drives the system, but Antek with his specialised ears can hear it. Groans and clanks of the mechanism, lulling him into a fitful sleep at the end of a long job.
Yesterday was Antek’s first guard duty at the gem mines. Until yesterday he’s been mostly sent to guard the clean-up crews, on the edge farms. These crews are people, organics, edge farmers certified tame. The crews are untrained amateurs, mostly will accidentally kill those whom they’re trying to save from the rubble. But they’ll sweep up the bomb damage, the way that the general likes.
The edge farms are lands outside of Bavarnica-proper, they lie just beyond the living fence of the killing forest, which was built to keep the hungry folks out of the village. Even amongst the most hardened Egg Men, this post is known to be … Well. Antek finds it best not to dwell on what it is, or what it isn’t.
Guarding the gem mines, on the other hand, is generally considered to be a plum job for an Egg Boy. Only a handful of guards are deemed necessary to guard the edge farmers working the gem mines, on account the miners are given a slave’s pay, meaning food, and only just enough to survive on. They are hand-picked by Gaddys, the village shopkeeper. Generally expected to be compliant with their guards. It’s a useful way to train the newly hatched guards from batch 47. At least that’s the idea.
So many different tribes in Bavarnica that it’s hard to keep up. But all of them under the one tribe, the OneFolk, and the general. Under them in one way or another.
Tribes aren’t s’posed to mix, but Antek’s gotten to know a few edge farm faces from his guard duties.
And then there’s Tomax.
Antek hears the slow throb of the energiser, watches its fitful light coming back on. Yellow. Antek thinks. Like a bad omen. There are bright yellow seams running thickly down it, texture of molten gold. Now Antek hears the long low whir and thrum of the system, cranking into gear.
The officer doesn’t come back to Antek’s room until the lights are dim.
“You’ve been called for.” He says.
Antek gets up and follows him.
He wilts a little, outside the tall black door of the officers’ headquarters, his hands are clenched. Sweating. Antek makes up his mind not to mention Jengi or Mamma Zeina in his interrogation. They never told him to give the workers water, at least not exactly. No sense bringing them into this. It’s not in Antek’s nature to take folks down with him.
“Come.” Brisk, cold tone. Whoever is inside must have heard Antek’s feet. He knocks, belatedly. Tries the handle. The officers’ door is heavy, even for Antek. There is building sweat running down it from the vent over the door. The door handle is slick. Antek eyes the metal slats of the vent suspiciously. Thinks he saw something move inside it. A twisting, sliding motion. Sense of something heavy in the space over the door. Something big enough to shake the sides of the vent when it breathes.
He tries the door again. This time it opens. Hears the soft click as it closes behind him. Senses a hand on the other side, try the handle then wait. Whoever it was lingers for a moment. Fingers sliding over the steel surface of the door. Antek turns back toward the room. He closes his eyes.
Smooth, cold voice now, running down Antek’s left and inside ear, like it comes up from Antek’s own stomach.
Antek realises at once this is going to be what they call a soft interrogation. He hates those the most. A seeping familiar heat passes over his face. Blink, blink. He looks down. And as though he expected this, the senior officer smiles. Rubs his chin. “So. We heard you made a friend, Egg Boy.” The officer’s voice is soft, provoking. His long yellow fringe flops down over his left eye. Pale blue, squinting. He scoops his filthy hair between his fingers, presses it all under his cap. Checks the room, eyes the vent. Then he turns and looks at Antek coldly.
“Okay, Egg Boy.” He says. “Give me some names and it ends here.”
Antek eyes the vent over the officer’s head. Something wriggles in there, bangs the sides. Rattling against the opening and then stills. Antek can feel rather than see the huge creature watching. The officer winces. “Snake.” He says. Gazing at Antek. “It’s one of the general’s. He can open the vents from a button in central control, any time he likes.” He says it like he is apologising. The officer goes on gazing at Antek. Licks dry lips. He can’t speak for a moment.
Antek knows the threat implied by the snake in the vents of the officers’ quarters is a threat only to an organic like the officer. Snakes are no longer any danger to the Egg Boys, as Antek’s had cause to learn once or twice in his days working the fence to the killing forest which runs between the edge farms and the OneFolks’ village. He doesn’t know why the general’s lab technicians gave batch 47 the anti-venom feature. But the technicians will do nothing without a reason. Not even a small tweak. Maybe Antek’s mission will be in the killing forest some day. Who can say for sure what the Egg Boys are being repurposed for. Certainly not the Egg Boys themselves.
The senior officer has a window, it’s north facing. The view from here is vast, looking out beyond the barracks and over Bavarnica, right up to the long mountain range of The Reach and the dark lake in its shadow. The view gives the officers a certain perspective that the Egg Boys in their inward looking crow’s nest barracks are deprived of.
The skyline’s broken, the sun seems to Antek strange and huge behind it. The daylight moon too, visible edge the left and lower corner of his window.
“A reliable source has told us you been fraternising with the enemy. Talking to a worker you were s’posed to be guarding?”
Antek has learned better than to answer a leading question. He never speaks before he strictly has to.
“You been seen talking to the same worker. The same edge farm boy, Antek. Talking to him on both sides of the border.” Softly, “Antek. You know you’re not supposed to talk to them. Don’t try to deny it. They … We know who he is.” Pauses. Eyes the vent. “We have a name.”
Antek waits.
“Tomax. It’s Tomax, Antek.” He leans back, rolls his shoulders, “And you just got him killed.”
Antek feels a cold, sliding feeling in his chest. He hears his inside sounds now. Stomach pumping, churn of his blood. Gaddys. He thinks. It was Gaddys who told.
The room turns dark. It’s sudden.
–––––
“Wake. Wake.” The lab technician closes the door stiffly behind himself. Heat expands the doorways so the old doors don’t fit their hinges in the interrogation rooms now. The second lab technician approaches the bed and fingers the strap on Antek’s right arm. Secures it. Prods to check Antek for a natural reflex. There’s none. Antek wakes. Antek tries to wake.
