‘Hello, Son!’ their mother says, a smile spreading across her wrinkled face. She’s ready to go out, evident in the semitransparent bindrings over her shoulders, the bottoms of which hang down well past her bosom. The Widow Mark on her forehead indicates her status, as do the metal rings on each of her fingers. A necklace with a circle on it announces her imminent rapture – a badge of honor for the people of the Stayed.
Sterling is aware of the truth regarding those who are raptured. The pool of candidates is formed almost exclusively of Uppers, who are granted more rations, better living conditions, better access to healthcare at the Off Limits and better standards of living due to the nature of their employment.
More than half of the Northern Uppers perform administrative and managerial duties. The others are unemployed until a position opens up and their employment number is called, which is why Sterling hasn’t had a proper job in some time – every time his number gets close, he wins someone else’s number in a wager because Sterling hates managers, management and managing. He’d much prefer to work with his hands to do something useful, something tangible, like the builders and the various manual laborers. But that’s Lowers’ labor, and he’s an Upper – his work must be appropriate to his station. It’s unheard of, unthinkable, blasph for him to even want to downgrade his position. So he games the system, stays gainfully unemployed and receives the same rations and same benefits he would if he was working.
‘Hi, Mom,’ he says as he bends over to kiss her on the cheek. The faint smell of cactus flowers lingers around her; she’s had the same scent for as long as he can remember.
‘I heard some commotion last night… is everything okay?’
‘Everything is fine,’ he says a little too firmly as he sits down.
‘Are you sure? You got in awfully late.’
‘It happens.’
‘Any word from the Employment Bureau?’
‘Still waiting to hear back from them,’ he mumbles. His sister kicks him under the table and he gives her a dirty look. Beige is aware of his never ending unemployment status and she makes her position on the subject known at every opportunity.
‘That’s good. Well, get some mush.’ His mother nods towards a single bowl on the table. Mush is made by moistening ration bars with water and setting them in the sun to warm and soften. Both sides of the Great Demarcator flavor the food with various things, including red root, cactus, lizard meat (a controversial delicacy) and special sand only found on the western end of the North. Those with an artistic bent will sculpt the resulting mush into geometric shapes or images from nature – anything to make it taste different, or at least, seem different in some way. Still, mush is mush, and Sterling’s been eating it his entire life and hating it equally as long.
‘We’re going out after lunch,’ Beige announces. ‘Maybe that would be a good time to see to your situation.’
‘Situation?’ Sterling grins tightly at his mother. She is the exact image of Beige as she will be, half-a-head shorter than him with broad shoulders and a neck a bit longer than most other denizens of the Canyon. Age is most evident at the corners of her mouth. A few whiskers on her upper lip, only visible in certain light, have caught and held Sterling’s attention for years, reminding him that the similarities between men and women are many. ‘I’ll figure it out.’
‘We’re getting ready for Stayed Day.’
‘When is that again?’ He chews his mush quickly, hoping to get it down. Dust on the circular windowsill catches his eye. The dust is ever-present, as much a part of the Canyon as the Stayed and their various incarnations – Uppers, Lowers and the Devout.
‘The war is in two days,’ Beige tells her brother, ‘but a few ceremonies have already begun. You should know this – we’ve been speaking about it for weeks!’
‘That’s right… ’ Sterling has always been fond of the ceremonies that take place before Stayed Day. Lots of men drink themselves silly during this time – easy prey for a decent gambler. ‘Shame I’ll miss it.’
‘Where are you going?’ Beige asks.
‘Miss it?’ His mother shakes her head. ‘You can’t miss it, Son... it’s one of the most important days of the year!’
‘There’s some type of holiday every sixty days or so. Sure, Stayed Day is the best – for me, anyway,’ he winks at his sister, who answers his wink with a skeptical look.
Beige has been ambivalent about her brother for the past couple of years. Most men his age have their acts together, have a family and are moving towards the upper echelons of their social groups. Not Sterling. He’s been no better than a rat missing its tail ever since his wife died five years back. No kids, no mention of remarrying, nothing but gambling and general debauchery. Beige will one day become the matriarch of the Northrope family, and is well aware that the biggest thorn in her heel will clearly be her older, perpetually unemployed brother.
‘Where are you going again?’ she asks.
‘Places.’ He shovels more mush into his mouth, ready to be done with the slop.
‘What place is more important than Stayed Day?’ his mother asks, clearly shocked.
‘I’m heading north for a day.’
‘You’ll be back in time,’ his sister says sharply.
‘Heading North? But why? There’s nothing up there aside from some Forehead Drillers and a few scenic points.’ She squints at Sterling, as if looking at him closely enough will reveal the reasoning behind his position.
We won’t have time to go to Stayed Day.
‘I… ummm… won’t be back in time.’
‘Why?’ Beige asks. ‘Do you have plans with someone?’
‘You could say that,’ he tells her.
‘Plans?’ His mother places her hands over her chest. ‘Have you met someone?’ Her smile is suffused with hope.
‘Yeah,’ Beige says in a mocking tone, ‘Have you?’
Sterling pushes himself away from the table, stands. ‘I’m going back to my room. I need to rest.’
‘But you haven’t finished your mush and… ’ His mother’s eyes narrow as they catch something they should have caught before. ‘What’s happened to you? Is that… do you have a black eye?’
‘Is it black?’
‘It’s purple,’ says Beige. ‘Sterling got in a fight last night and lost by the looks of it.’
‘A fight? You’re almost thirty years old! You shouldn’t be fighting, you should be… you should be… ’ His mother chokes back a sob. ‘What kind of son have I raised? Gone for two, no three, days and out fighting his way across the Canyon… Sterling, have you been gambling?’
‘He can’t be racing lizards,’ Beige says matter-of-factly, ‘He lost Delix in a bet a while back. Maybe he’s visiting a flesh room.’
‘A flesh room!? Please, stay away from those places, son!’
Sterling places both hands on the table, leans towards his mother and sister. ‘Both of you have no idea what I’ve been through over the last couple of days. So quit making assumptions and mind your own damn business. And you… ’ he glares at his sister. ‘Keep your fucking mouth shut. Got that?’
His mother flinches; his sister looks down into her lap, away from her brother’s fierce gaze.
‘Sorry for cursing, Mom.’
***
‘Thanks a lot,’ Sterling says as soon as he steps into his bedroom. Halo is in her usual position on the bed, sitting straight with her chin slightly extended.
It’s better this way.
‘Says the woman – yeah, woman, not girl – who doesn’t have a family.’
I have a family.
‘Goddesses don’t have families. They are… I forget the word for it.’
Immaculately conceived.
‘Exactly.’
And you believe this? You believe that a woman can just become pregnant by an invisible force?
‘I’ve seen you control people’s minds with an invisible force, as you call it. Why shouldn’t I believe this?’
I see your point.
‘You can’t see anything.’
I feel your point.
‘What were you saying, though?’ Sterling asks as he approaches her. ‘Weren’t you immaculately conceived?’
I wasn’t, and no Goddess has ever been born in such a fantastical way.
‘Time was!’
Hardly. The Goddess of the North’s father is Zander Damien. Her mother is an Upper woman named Age Goldendust.
A few days ago, Sterling would have raised his fists at the disparaging words directed at Time. After all, that’s how most people argue in the Canyon – with force. If one is uncertain, righteous anger is always a good way to counter the other person’s argument. Things are different now. He still isn’t sure what to believe, but he’s seen enough to know that there are either two Goddesses or – and it pains him even to admit this in the deepest recesses of his mind regardless of how irreligious he may be – Time is a fraud.
Normally, Goddesses are conceived by the head priest of the church and a woman chosen by the various councils. In the North’s case, the head priest was nearing rapture age so the Northern Council made an exception. As head of the Northern Council, Zander was an obvious choice.
‘That bastard has his finger in everything up here.’
Not just here.
‘Who’s your father, then?’
Halo is silent for a moment. Sterling imagines something flicker across her blinders, indicating eye movement. She’s a shade paler than she was just moments ago.
He’ll be dead soon.
‘And your mother?’
The South kills the mother after the Goddess is born. This is to prevent any confusion, or more accurately, to aid in the confusion. As you know, Goddesses lose their status once they have their first bleeding.
‘Which you’ve managed to cover up.’
I found it necessary regarding what I now intend to do. A new Goddess is always planned several years before the incumbent Goddess reaches the age of maturity.
‘Is there a Goddess waiting to take over for you?’
No, there isn’t.
‘Why?’
I have personally seen to it that things stay just the way they are. What we are about to do is by far the riskiest thing ever attempted by the Stayed. Dealing with another Goddess, or the loss of my status, would have been a distraction.
‘And where do I fit into all this?’
You are my agent, the person created to help me in this endeavor.
‘Your what?’ Sterling sits on the bed next to the Goddess. The energy he’s felt several times before radiates from her skin, makes the hairs stand on his arms.
Do you like sitting next to me?
‘I, well… ’ He smoothes his hands over his pants. ‘Yeah, I do. Just the… irony in it, the irony in all of this.’
I am glad that you are entertained by the peculiarities of life. This is something lacking in many of the Devout, especially the inner circle that cater to me.
‘What can I say? I’m a real human.’
Halo drops her hand onto Sterling’s thigh. She keeps her sightless gaze facing forward, her nose held high.
We are both real humans.
.3.
‘How did I get here?’
Sterling sits onto his haunches in the dirt, wipes his oily fingers against the sides of his R Boots. The sun is at its apex in the sky, although he would have sworn that it was still mid-morning. It isn’t quite muggy – it never really is – but there is enough humidity in the air for him to notice a tangible difference in his breathing.
He watches as a gust of wind lifts sand in the distances, twists it into a small spiral. Sterling naturally pushes his face cover up to his nose with the back of his hand. He thrusts his head down and the Leaks on his forehead drop, covering his eyes. Wind blows all around him, screams in his ear, pelts him with tiny encumbrances of soil. He places his arms over his knees and takes the zephyr full-on. Memories of his childhood flash before him. He recalls sitting on this very same stretch of land as a teenager, watching the wind blow from the North, serrated by the Northern Hillocks. He’d make Paper Flyers back then, tie them to string collected from old seersucker clothing and let them loose in the winds.
Bigger and better – that had been his goal his whole life. How large could he make a Paper Flyer? He constructed them from discarded R Boxes and other ration packaging, and he’d once made one that was nearly as long as he was tall. It didn’t fly, but Beige, just three years old at the time, loved watching him try to get it into the air.
The wind passes and Sterling remembers what he’d been thinking before it started. ‘How did I get here?’ he asks for the second time.
His last memory was sitting in his bedroom next to Halo, her hand on his thigh. The position of the sun, that glowing orb obscured by the constant mog of the Canyon, had definitely moved since the brief experience in his bedroom. Time had passed and Sterling couldn’t recall how or what had happened during the interim period.
Are you finished?
‘Finished with what? How did I get out here?’ he asks the sky, as if Halo were hovering at a point directly over him.
Sorry.
‘You can… do that?’ He uses his knuckles to return his Leaks to his forehead. ‘You can erase time?’
Time is never erased, simply overlooked. Sorry, I wanted to try something out.
‘Try something out?’ Sterling looks from the tools on the ground to the motocart in front of him. He’d definitely done something to it.
I wanted to see if I could implant expertise.
‘Do what?’ he asks, scooting away from the vehicle. He feels panic rise in his chest and quickly settle.
Relax. I searched the homes around you and found a mechanic working on a Northern Upper’s motocart. Sifting through his mind, I found that there was a way to increase the speed of a moto by making a few modifications to the engine. They weren’t very difficult, so I figured I would give it a try, or more appropriately, you would give it a try.
‘You found information in someone else’s mind and transferred it to mine?’
In a way, yes, but I oversaw everything.
‘Halo, I’m going to be honest with you.’
By all means.
‘I don’t see why you need me nor why you’ve – well, I don’t want to say chosen but I suppose this word will work – I don’t see why you’ve chosen me to do whatever it is you are trying to do when you can pretty much control anyone in the Canyon.’
There are people I can’t control.
‘Metal people?’
Others too.
‘This still doesn’t answer my question. Why me? You could have chosen any unsuspecting fool in the South.’
I’ve tried before.
‘Tried what? To break out of the church, and have someone else do it for you so it doesn’t look like you’re the one who planned it in the first place?’
There are numerous types of personalities that I’ve felt in the Canyon. Yours is unique, Sterling. You have the right mixture of disdain, know-how, strength and intelligence, at least for this. I’m not powerful enough to use my ability over extreme distances, but once I felt your presence in the South, I knew right away that you were the one I’d been waiting for.
‘So everything else was chance then?’
More or less.
‘What about my encounter with Bolt?’
That was random.
‘I don’t see how that could have been random. He helped me get you, he knew the ropes, he knew how to get to the church and what to do once we got there.’
There were other ways to get me. Bolt made things easier for both of us, I will say that.
‘So it was all fate?’
There is no fate but what we make for ourselves; rather, it is a triumph of the will. You had a very strong desire to save your sister and your mother. Bolt had a strong desire to make good in the eyes of a father figure. I had a strong desire to escape the Chur
ch of the South, so that I could do what it is I feel I’ve been put in this Canyon to do.
‘Which is?’
Help in the only way I can.
‘And your desire will become our fate?’
If we make it so.
***
Beige steps out of their dome-shaped home, ready to be seen.
She’s added double brows using tan make-up, which spread from the glabella edge of her eyebrows, continuing up at an angle across the sides of her forehead. Two rectangular black smudges extend from just below her eyes to just above her nostrils. She’s in a new type of bindrings that forms a knot at the center of her chest, something Sterling has never seen before. Her neck is obscured by several neck covers, Sterling’s old neck covers to be exact, which have been frayed and torn to give just a small glimpse of her skin.
‘Did Mom already leave?’
‘Yes, just a little while ago. Didn’t you see her go?’
‘I was distracted… I think. Did you see Halo?’
‘She went into your room; passed me without even saying hello. She’s so rude!’ Beige huffs as she takes a few steps towards him. ‘And you know, Mom is really upset that you’d rather go north with that… ’ She hesitates, clearly has no idea what to make of the woman.
‘Goddess. She is the Goddess of the South. Yes, it sounds far-fetched, but dammit I’m telling you the truth. If you knew the trouble I went through to get her here… ’ He turns, lifts the front of his shirt to wipe sweat from his face. ‘Did Mom see Halo?’
‘No! Hey… what are those?’ she says as soon as she spots the welts on his back.
‘Bullet bruises, from lumps of metal thrown at me with a bullet flinger.’
‘A what?’
Sterling turns to his younger sister. The shock and surprise on her face makes her look twelve years old again, reminds him of the girl he grew up with and the faces she would make when he showed her something especially troubling.
‘Who did that to you?’ she asks, her hand coming to her mouth.
The Zero Patient Trilogy (Book Two): (A Dystopian Science Fiction Series) Page 2
