by John Gribbin
Later, Dad said someone–Suzi’s dad, business friends, someone, anyone–had intervened to make this go away. He trusted that wink.
It was a mistake. He had misread it. Yes, it did mean the test was a formality and the results a foregone conclusion, like he told Mom. But not in the way Dad had hoped.
The results arrived a couple of days later.
Two percent.
Mom, Dad, me–we were all ‘two percenters’, HSI-2.
Homo sapiens inferior.
Class 2.
Dad explained it to me with a choke in his voice. “Everyone whose ancestors moved out of Africa six hundred centuries ago has a little Neanderthal DNA in them.”
Neanderthal? This made no sense to me. Neanderthals were all dead long ago, weren’t they?
“Yes, but they left us a little gift, one that keeps on giving. When our ancestors left Africa, they met Neanderthals. There was interbreeding. Their offspring spread across the whole planet. So everyone has a little Neanderthal DNA in them, just one or two percent–everyone except those whose ancestors stayed in Africa and never met Neanderthals. The stay-at-home Africans are ‘pure’ Homo sapiens sapiens. You, me, your mother are not. Not a hundred percent pure. Two percent of our DNA is Neanderthal.
“Call it ancient revenge. After all, we did wipe them out.” His chuckle was forced, his smile was fake. He saw my expression and turned away to hide his face. Later, I found an empty whisky bottle in the lounge.
So according to the Purity Laws, I was not totally human; I was a little bit Neanderthal. Like most people on Earth, I was Homo sapiens inferior.
In my case, Class 2.
I showed my new ID card to Suzi. She was puzzled, then smiled her big, wide smile. “This is just silly. You are still YOU. How can you be other because of a piece of paper?” She shook her head, dismissing the information. “I got a new ID card, too. Let’s see what I am.” She pulled it from her shirt pocket, that magical smile spreading across her face. It was still a game to her.
Mine was grey cardboard, its corners already starting to shred. My photo was roughly stapled on. Hers was a laminated photo card.
I wondered why mine looked so cheap, so temporary.
She giggled as she held hers under my nose. It was upside down.
“Clown!” We both laughed in the bright sunshine, as I took her card and turned it around so I could read the words. I remember the moment so clearly, frozen in my inferior brain. There would not be much more laughter.
HSS. Homo sapiens superior.
Suzi was pure human.
*
I heard Mom crying again. She’d heard about disappearances, camps, deportations, property seizures… I peeped around the doorway. Dad held her close. “That’s in other countries, not here. People here have more sense.” He could not hide how empty he knew those words to be.
“But what about the Jensens and the Ashokas and the other foreign neighbours? And your friends at the Chamber? They’re all moving away, going somewhere safe.”
“They are not foreigners; we are not foreigners. We were born here. This is our homeland. These are our people.” He paused for a long time, then spoke quietly. “And where would we go?”
Later, I found him in his study, at the open safe, sorting through papers, selecting things to pack into his briefcase.
I tiptoed away.
Next day, Suzi met me at the lakeside. Our guards sat huddled in the shade of a nearby tree, smoking and gossiping, their rifles resting across their knees.
She was full of smiles. “I talked with Dad, told him to fix it. He said there was a vote about it in Parliament. He said that years ago, scientists took DNA samples from all over the world and those thal string things were only in the people not in sub-Saharan Africa! That’s where we are. So everything’s all right!” Her voice carried a triumphant note.
I wanted more. “What about the vote? The Purity Law?”
“Oh, he said he was very busy and we’d talk later.” She thought for a while. “But you are African. Why are you HSI-2? I don’t understand.”
Neither did I, really. I understood the rules, but not why it was so bad to be me.
Another question came to me. “What about those taken to other countries? The Caribbean, America…?”
“They test everyone who wants to travel here. People with a non-African ancestor are forbidden to come. They have corrupted DNA, you see, so they are Inferiors, just like you–” She froze at my stare. “I didn’t mean… I meant… Oh, I am so sorry. Let me hug–”
I felt a kick in my heart. I put up my hands in front of my chest, as if defending myself, pushing her back without touching. It was too late. The word had been spoken; it could never be taken back. She was beginning to use their vocabulary. Somehow, I knew it was just the first step towards a deeper change.
I scrambled backwards up the slope. I ran from her and the word, outrunning my guard, who strolled casually in my distant wake. I raced across the fields to the house, ran upstairs, slammed doors, ignored stunned servants. I shut myself in my room and threw myself on the bed. I lay in mental agony, testing the sense of loss I felt, my thoughts touching and drawing back from the imagined future like a tongue exploring a broken tooth.
I was losing her.
*
I overheard the staff talking about the rumours and the special ‘Purity Action Force’ being recruited. Cook yelled that they were stupid, slapping her hand hard onto the kitchen counter.
“It isn’t true! My sons are in the army. My boys would never do such terrible things.” Her voice rose to a screech. “Get out! Get out!” She chased them from her kitchen, scattering them like frightened hens. I heard the hack-hack-hack of cleaver blows, butchering some beast for our dinner. “People don’t do these terrible things!” She said it over and over, as if to convince herself, to make it go away, or to make true something she feared was not.
That evening, the meal seemed extra-specially good and plentiful, as if…
*
Dad was wrong. Cook was wrong. Ordinary troops, ordinary people, might not do bad things, but the government had found people who would. After all, there was no other work since the factories closed.
The soldiers arrived in an open truck, drawing up outside the house in a swirl of dust and shouting. There was no warning. Their uniforms were new, with bright Purity Action Force flashes on their shoulders. We had ten minutes to pack.
Ten minutes. Two bags each.
They guarded the doors, as if we would try to run. Where could we run to? The sergeant flopped heavily into an antique chair, cocked one leg over the arm and lit a cigarette. The servants and guards didn’t respond to our calls; perhaps they knew in advance, perhaps they were just scared and hiding.
The phones didn’t work. The sergeant smiled smugly as Dad tried to contact Usebi, or the Ministry, or anyone…
“Oh, see how fast time passes. And how you waste it.” He watched us gathering what we could in the time we had, flicking his ash onto the carpet and humming tunelessly, making a show of glancing at his watch.
Family photos, jewelry, legal documents, business records, clothes… all jumbled into bulging suitcases too full to close properly. Mom flapped about, asking if we should bring food or water. The soldiers looked at each other and laughed. One shrugged, as if to say, “Who cares?”, without summoning up the effort to put it into words.
The sergeant called his men in before the time was up. “Your transport awaits, thals. Kiss your pretty house and land and factory goodbye. And keep a tight hold on those bags!” He kicked the nearest case. His laughter was contagious among his men. Something in his manner suggested we’d identified our most valuable and portable possessions for him.
Ashamed, mocked, robbed, we struggled outside with our cases. We threw them onto the back of the truck and struggled up to join them. Mom cried; Dad tried to reassure her, but he had nothing to offer except a hug and more empty promises. The soldiers followed, casual, careles
s, watching us like the helpless creatures we had become.
We bumped along the roadway into town, towards the camps, the station, the docks, the airport? No-one would tell us, no-one would answer our questions.
We sat, dejected, suitcases at our feet.
Something ahead caught Dad’s eye. He gestured. A rising dust cloud ahead marked the approach of vehicles. Several vehicles. A convoy? Perhaps Usebi’s convoy?
The distance between us grew smaller; the approach felt painfully slow.
Nearer and nearer.
Dad stood and waved both hands above his head like a madman. A soldier gestured with his rifle, cocked it.
Dad sat, white-faced.
We could see the approaching vehicles. Yes, it was Usebi’s convoy. He was a government Minister. Surely he would stop this craziness?
The vehicles drew ever closer, their dust-trails looming larger, rising into that big, empty sky.
Mom was sobbing against Dad’s chest. His gaze was fixed upon the approaching convoy.
The oncoming vehicles did not slow. The convoy guards who had so recently protected Dad ignored us.
I saw shapes, human shapes, behind the smoked glass of the government limo, sitting in the rear seat. Suzi and her dad?
I raised my head, squinting through the sun and the dust. I could see nothing clearly inside the big, heavy car.
I hoped, prayed, that it would slow down, would stop; that he would emerge and make things right and I would hold Suzi in my arms and everything would be all right again.
The convoy didn’t stop. It passed us by. It hid its disgrace behind the dust cloud.
I had to drag my gaze away, too hurt even for tears.
*
It plays out in my mind like a movie…
The beautiful girl in the long, black car watches the oncoming vehicle. She is thinking about meeting her boy. But then she sees that boy, bleak-faced, huddled among the cases in the back of the truck. She stares, disbelieving. She calls out to her father, tugs at his sleeve, points at the truck and its cargo.
He does not respond. He gazes unmoving out of the other window, away from the truck, perhaps to avoid seeing, perhaps to hide his shame, perhaps through fear.
She presses her face against the security glass, bangs on the window, breaks into sobs.
Tears run down her face. Drained, she whispers, “Goodbye, my ice-cream boy.”
The clouds of African dust fill the distance between them.
And he is gone.
Face the Music
by
Siobhan McVeigh
Siobhan is a writer, copy writer, digital producer and film maker who sometimes helps out at Hoxton Street Monster Supplies. She has worked all over the place including San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney and at the European Space Agency. She writes about robots, comets and broken weather, and her work was performed by White Rabbit at ‘Are You Sitting Comfortably’. She is currently writing her first novel, ably abetted by her cat assistant/assassin.
Jess put down her mug of tea mid sip and stared at the receptionist.
“Built for hardship, that generation. They broke the mould when that lot went,” the receptionist said. It could have been her dear old aunt talking. She had modelled some of the emotional range of the receptionist on her aunt Beatrice Antonia Fotheringale-Wight, but the similarity still surprised her. Not least because she had installed an algorithm based on how cats stalk their prey to improve response times on the switchboard and was in the middle of testing this very functionality. Aunty Bea had been by turns intrepid, wily, and stubborn but always very kind. The receptionist was a chip off the old block in many ways, reminding her so much of Bea that Jess smiled, then blinked back tears, as the familiar misery that old Fotheringale-Wight was dead and buried lurched through her.
“She’s not gone,” Jess said, sniffing. “You’re so like her it makes things better in some ways and worse in others. I sometimes wake up and think she’s still alive, that I’ll come into the kitchen and she’ll be there, you know.”
The receptionist nodded and made a sympathetic “Hmmmm,” as Jess had programmed it to, then paused, sensing how Jess was feeling, before passing her a tissue. The receptionist continued, “The first year is the hardest. And in the meantime, we will keep the business going. Remember our motto! We make more of you so you make more of you! Think about all the hard work you’ve put in over the years. Everyone knows that Sembler & Assemblage can handle anything! You have to fight to keep it going. It’s what she would have wanted.”
Jess yawned. More than anything, she wanted to sleep. The funeral last week had taken the last tiny bit of strength she had left. She still felt like she was spinning between work, her aunt’s bedside on the ward and hunting across the city for whatever medication Bea needed that the hospital had run out of. Sembler & Assemblage, the place she had started from scratch and loved more than any other, the best robotic biohack joint in Shoreditch no less, seemed strange and irrelevant. She glanced at the headlines scrolling across the screen in the reception area. ‘Arise, Sir Alistair’. Wait! What? Jess turned up the volume.
“In other news, Alistair Handy, Health Minister and CEO of Dalebury Bank, has been knighted in recognition of his services to the nation in reducing the deficit,” the newsreader said.
Jess whistled. Old Alistair Hands-In-The-Till Handy had pulled it off again. Rewarded for playing the sides off against the middle, in a desperate game where the real losers were people like her aunt, stoical to the end, her last minutes measured out by the rainwater dripping through a hole in the hospital roof into a bucket next to her bed. Jess wished she could change things.
*
Alistair Handy knew he was going to change things. Of that there was no question. The only thing he didn’t know was how much time he had. All the way to Silicon Roundabout, Alistair gripped his wallet so hard his thumb and fingers whitened. The traffic held him in an embrace tighter than a trader holding stock in a bull market. He flicked through messages on his glasses, blinking to delete and winking to reply, as he muttered his instructions - a deal here, a small amount of pressure there, a reminder of past indiscretions for this man, a promise of lunch for that one. And each and every one of them now under investigation. At least his knighthood showed everyone that he still had the right friends. His chauffeur edged through the traffic and Alistair released the tension in his fingers, forcing himself to relax. Breathing deeply, he focused on the texture of the leather beneath his finger tips, stroking it gently. The finest calfskin, expertly treated and crafted into something that held his favourite thing. Money. Except his fingers kept returning to one point, where the leather had scuffed on something. As soon as he thought he had smoothed it over, he noticed the snag again, and try as he might he could not get rid of it. After what felt like an eternity they pulled up outside an imposing curved glass building overlooking Old Street and Alistair strode through the automatic doors.
“Sembler & Assemblage, how may I help you?”
Alistair looked at the receptionist. Her black skin glowed with an amazing lustre, each pore radiating beauty, and her makeup was so flawless that she seemed more like a doll than flesh and blood. He stood up taller, sucking in his slight paunch. He smiled and said, “I hope you can.”
He hadn’t made an appointment, but then as CEO of Dalebury Bank he didn’t need to. He asked for the service that was not advertised. The one that everyone thought was impossible. He had barely sat down in the gothic wing-back chair in reception when a stocky middle-aged woman burst out of the lift and rushed over to him.
“Hi, I’m Jess,” she said, thrusting out her hand and shaking his firmly. Her nails were short and the cuticles chewed raw. “I’ll take you to the studio.” She ushered him into the inner sanctum of the main studio, a secret room on the roof surrounded by bamboo with pink and blue leaves (“an early test subject,” Jess was quick to explain as she saw Alistair looking at it). Alistair noticed that Jess was babbling with nerves, he
r pale skin blushing.
“Shall we get started then?” Jess said, finally.
“I’m waiting for you to get your boss, J. Ackland,” Alistair said, frowning.
“I’m J.Ackland. You’re talking to the Chief Technology Officer and CEO of Sembler & Assemblage. At your service.”
Alistair refused to be disconcerted, though he blinked twice to alert his glass to order his security staff to pick up the researcher who’d given him the contact details and drop them from a lethal height. The name they had given him was correct, but still. He told J. Ackland that he needed their most deluxe, exclusive, discreet and complete service. The total resemblance model. The thing they called the Sembler.
*
“So Alistair, as long as you’re happy, sign our NDA and contract, transfer the funds and we’re good to go. Discretion is our middle name.” Jess sounded bright and cheery, though inside she wondered what her Aunty Bea would have made of it all. She could imagine her snorting “Honestly Jess! Discretion is my big hairy behind!”Jess cursed herself for sounding like a complete idiot, an eager to please total idiot. What was happening to her? The old Jess would have made Alistair beg for her help. She didn’t know if this was how her life was going to be. Was this what the receptionist meant when she said the first year was the worst? She watched Alistair scrawl his signature with his Mont Blanc pen and wondered how much of herself she had buried alongside her aunty. She wished that she’d asked him to leave when she still could.
*
As the weeks sped by, Alistair thought about what he would do once his Sembler was in place, duplicating him in his old life so he had more time. More time in the sun. More time on his yacht. More time with his family. More time with his mistress. More markets to explore. With Mars and the Antarctic opening up, he needed to be free to make the most of them. After months of deadlines, scandals, and government inquiries, Alistair was finding his big city bank platinum directorship tiresome. It wasn’t the investigators, he knew all of them well. It was the protestors. They were beginning to find all the virtual hidey-holes where he stashed his cash.
