ADAM 0532
By Nick Frampton
Text copyright © 2017 Nick Frampton
All Rights Reserved
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Also by Nick Frampton:
The River (Book One of The Cities of Life and Death)
Your Big Adventure: An essential guide to travelling, backpacking and gap years
Table of Contents
Adam 0532
Author’s Note
The River (sample)
About the Author
1
It’s hard not to think of Ella. As I lie awake listening to the gas junkies in the flat above kicking six grades of shit out of each other it forces my mind to wander. I find myself beside a dark lake rippled with moonlight, whilst long brown hair wraps around my shoulders. The broken curfew is electric in the air and only the looming storm of dawn dampens the mood. But thinking is one thing and dreaming’s another; one helps, the other only hurts.
These nights she seems to creep in no matter what, rising above the yells of the petrolheads as they argue over who had the biggest huff, until the thought of her is everywhere.
4am hits and the junkies’ cries are replaced by the waking screams of the kids next door. I lost count at seven, fuck knows how many of them live there now; ten, eleven, twelve. It’s bad enough having to walk through the filth of it every day; the soiled clothes and gnawed to the bone chicken wings that spill out in to the corridor. But I can’t imagine living in it; all those bodies crushed together in the one room, trying to scrape a life out of the dirt. I wonder how they do it, I wonder why – why they’d bring others in to the world we’ve been left.
Maybe they think one of them will make it…have enough children and one’s bound to cross the line. Perhaps they’re hoping that one lucky kid will drag the rest of them out of the gutter in the process. Mum, dad, brothers and sisters all hanging on to their ankles as they claw their way to the Heights. But if one of them really were to escape, who’s to say they wouldn’t just look back at all the shit they left behind and just be glad to be free of it, family and all?
I drag myself from the sofa and shove the bedding to the floor before opening the window. It rained overnight, so at least they’ll be enough water to wash with this morning. I pull the bucket inside and dip a finger in to the half full pail, recoiling with distaste at the biting cold.
I could heat it up - and for a moment I close my eyes to imagine it: warm water running over my skin. And I could do it; there’s a little fuelscrap left, enough for a fire at least. But then the fear sets in, the thought of being without. Always there is the worry of getting sick and not being able to work. Fevers swarm the Zone; plagues and viruses sweep through us like rats aboard a freighter. You can keep your distance; sidestep the coughs, the sweating brows and the blackened fingers, but it’s always there, waiting in the shadows, stalking the corridors and worrying the streets. So I leave the crumbling block of fuel where it is, slowly reducing to dust, praying that when I really need it there’ll still be enough.
I step in to the bucket, toes curling against the soles of my feet to squeeze in to the cramped space and crouch in the freezing cold. If nothing else the water wakes me up. The shock of icy fingers raking my skin drags the sleep from my aching limbs and forces me in to morning.
It’s been days since it rained so much and my relief at being able to clean myself so thoroughly soon turns to disgust as I watch the water turn grey beneath me. A layer of mud and grime films on the surface and already I feel dirty again.
Shivering, I stand for a moment wrapped in the threadbare towel and wait for the feeling to return to my fingers. I should savour this moment and enjoy the sensation of cool, clean skin. In an hour the sun will be up, burning us all under its rays and bathing our clothes in sweat. In a few hours I’ll long for this moment and the memory of icy feet and shivering limbs. But for now all I want is to be warm and for the icy chill to leave my chest before it can take hold. Nothing lasts in the Zone, feelings are fleeting and we never want what we have.
My thoughts return to Ella as I dress. It’s impossible not to wonder which of my threadbare clothes will impress her most; which shirt is least faded; which shorts smarter. In the end I opt for a crisp black tabard style top with a low collar and high cut sleeves. I know I’ll regret it and that the dark material will draw every last ray from the sun and trap its heat against my blistering skin. But vainly I put it on, knowing that the black will frame my dark hair and chocolate eyes, just as well as it masks the bruises on my arms and the scratches on my neck.
2
In the corridor I pass one of my neighbours. A tired rim of black soot frames each of his eyes, but he still smiles at me as he runs through a familiar routine.
‘Evening,’ he says.
‘Morning,’ I reply.
I knew his name once, but now it escapes me, buried under the dirt and grime that fills our lives. But still I’m glad of this, whatever it is; this nod to some shared history when one of us must have made this joke for the first time. Now only this fragment of conversation remains, a remnant moment that slipped through the cracks and gained permanency.
Morning, evening – who knew what it was…who cared? Whether we worked through the day or the night it was all much the same. And if we weren’t happy there were plenty of others who would readily take our places.
‘Best hurry. Transporter’s shut.’
‘Shit.’ I hadn’t planned for that…hadn’t allowed the time. ‘Why?’
‘Some Zoner took a shine to this old lady’s necklace last night. Snatched if from her at the station in the Heights and jumped straight on to the transporter. Never found him or the necklace.’
‘You believe that shit?’
‘Don’t matter if I do. Gotta walk all the same.’
He was right, maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t – maybe they just wanted to make it that little bit easier to keep us out. Either way I had a six-mile walk ahead of me, and time racing away faster than moonshine in a lockdown.
‘Stay safe out there brother. It’s going to be a warm one.’
‘You too,’ I said, my pace already quickening as I walked away.
The streets are busy, even more so than usual. The news that the transporters are down again has filtered through to the tired and the weary forcing them from their beds even earlier. The pavement disappears beneath a sea of workers, all of us hurrying; all of us worrying about what it will mean to be late. For once those that work in the Zone are the lucky ones. They would have been on foot anyway; no transport out here except to the Heights. One way in, one way out.
Olivia throws me an apple as I pass her stall. The long arc of her arm is an unexpected splash of colour in the grey of the Zone. She has always been like this; clothes stained in the rainbow coloured juices of oranges and blackcurrants, strawberries and limebeans. But more than this her face sings with light, giving off a rare vibrancy that seems out of place here. I manage a smile in response and shout a ‘thank you’ as her bright features disappear in to the crowd. ‘I’ll give you a credit next week I promise.’
‘Sure, and I’ll be living in the Heights by then.’ She laughs good-heartedly, knowing that the credit I promise her is the same as I said I’d give her last week and the one before that.
This payment that’s never made is a legacy and one I should never have started. Once, years ago I foolishly smuggled her back a rose from the Heights. I remember carrying it back with the carefulness reserved for
newborns: the petals cocooned beneath my jacket. I presented it to her knowing she’d never been to the Heights and never seen gardens overflowing with flowers. It was snow white; a single stem crisp and new, the petals still rigid, and its sweet perfume momentarily eclipsing the stench of the street.
I regretted it as soon as I gave it to her. Her smile told me it meant more to her than I imagined. That’s when the apples started: twice a week, every week. I should have said no the second time; once would have been ok – a favour for a favour. But now I’m in debt to her, and every week the burden grows.
Now the rose has become something heavy and dirty. My regret over it is another thing I can’t tell her, just as she doesn’t know that in the Heights the orchards are so full that apples fall to the floor and are left to rot in to the grass. Nor do I tell her that there are days when I’ve loaded sack after sack with them just to throw them away and all the time my stomach is rumbling and empty. She wouldn’t understand. Instead she pays a fortune for the worst of the harvest, walking each day to the gates and handing over more and more credits each time for a smaller and smaller hoard of fruit.
I kissed her once, before the rose and the apples and the growing debt between us. At least that was how it started. Of course it ended up being more than that, it always did. But it’s the kiss I remember, the rest fades in to the sweaty haze of youth; of beer soaked lips, hitched skirts and alleyways. But the kiss was different; unexpected, unfamiliar…unwanted.
She had broken rules she didn’t know existed and it was hard not to resent her for it. It’s bad enough having nothing, worse still when someone expects something from you and you’ve nothing to give. What could I offer her? A stolen rose, a few scraped together credits and the same dream that everyone else in the Zone had; that one day we’d get out, that one day it’d be different. But it never would. There’s too much in a kiss, too high a price to pay.
3
I know I’ll be late and that each minute will cost me. But if I turn up sweating, clothes wet with exertion and brow dripping with the ugliness of my exhaustion there’s a chance I’ll be turned away altogether. So I settle on a loping jog as the pavement grinds upwards in to my ankles and the heat comes down to push upon my shoulders. Already my knees hurt and a spike of pain snakes up my calf. Not for the first time I wonder if something is torn or broken; if some part of me is already wearing away. I try to push the thought from my mind. Already it’s so hard, day after day and I wonder how it will be when I’m 30, 40…50; how long before it breaks me, how long before I fall?
It takes me twenty minutes to reach the first checkpoint. Mick is on and already he’s waving people through without even looking at their papers.
‘Keep it moving people,’ he shouts. ‘Come on now.’
‘What’s the queue like at three and four?’ I ask.
‘Three’s a bitch, four…you should be ok.’
He buzzes me through and I walk through the gate. One checkpoint passed but still in the Zone. The whole thing’s a joke, I know it, Mick knows it, every fucking idiot in the Zone knows it. But they love it in the Heights, they lap this shit up like its cokedust; getting high off the gradual distancing of the Zone. More checkpoints, more control, fewer migrants. I’ve seen the headlines, it’s hard not to. They’re plastered on every billboard and transporter station from here to the top. And migrants? Just who are they kidding? How did walking across the city you were born in make you a migrant?
Of course there are protests, every time a new restriction is added the riots sweep the Zone. But nobody listens, the suffering shout over the suffering and the wealthy respond with sympathetic deafness. Only when the rebellion ends do they act; disorder has its price and the noose tightens a little more.
At the second checkpoint the rigours of the latest accords start to bite. Some new guy fresh from his training presides imperially over the littered floor and pummelled fencing. His uniform is still crisp and clean, temporarily free of spit and shame.
‘Name?’ he barks.
‘Adam 0532’ I answer, gritting my teeth.
‘Address?’
‘Unit 798, Outer Zone.’
‘Reason for entry?’
‘Gardener.’
‘Papers?’
I don’t answer, just silently hand them over and wait while he looks me up and down.
‘This is a transporter access pass?’
‘’You can’t be serious. Look around you – half the Zone’s here!’
‘Are you raising your voice to an Official?’
‘No Sir.’
‘What was that?’
‘No, Sir,’ I repeat, the words creeping quietly from my lips.
He presses a button and the plastic cylinder in front of me swivels to reveal an opening. I step inside and am immediately hit by a wall of stale heat and body odour. The once clear plastic is scored and scratched and clouded with unknown body fluids. A fly buzzes angrily back and forth, the humming drone magnified in the small space of the tube. It lands upon the curved plastic in front of me and then propels itself agitatedly around the confined space before landing on my face. Six legs briefly crawl upon my cheek before I can brush them away. And then the door opens and we are both expelled in to the cooler air of the greenbelt. The fly disappears but I can still feel it on my cheek and I rub anxiously at the spot where its legs rested.
Someone shoves me from behind urging me away from the gate and I carry on in to the strip of undeveloped land that acts as a buffer between the Zone and the Heights. I move on, but a part of me is stuck in the gate, gasping for breath in the suffocating heat, the dirty shadow of the fly creeping across my face and infecting my thoughts.
4
I see the queue for the third checkpoint long before I reach it. An angry snake of Zoners spreads outwards from each gatepost like a dark vein endlessly feeding the Heights with fresh blood.
I pick the wrong queue, but it’s too late to change by the time I realise who lies in wait. His name is clearly printed on the lapel of his uniform but no one uses it. He’s got more names in the Zone than the rest of the guards put together.
Best just to stay silent, head bowed and teeth gritted. He doesn’t ask questions, he isn’t interested in what we have to say. His hand brushes my cheek as he reaches for the collar of my shirt. His fingers trace a line from just below where the fly landed to the nape of my neck, his thumb gently padding at the curl of hair on the nape of my neck.
He runs his fingers below the collar, lingering on my shoulders and the rising slope of muscle at the base of my neck bone. What weapon I could possibly conceal here escapes me. But security isn’t his real interest.
Next he moves on to the arms; feeling the bicep and leveraging his touch between the shirtsleeves and my skin. I tense the muscle to block his explorations, but it’s not enough, if anything it spurs him on.
He takes advantage of a missing button on my shirt and slides his hand into the opening. He suddenly races, excitement barely contained as his fingertips hurry across the soft down of my chest before stopping at my nipple and flickering back and forth across the hardening tip. I cough quietly, hoping to draw the attention of one of the other gate staff, but all eyes are downcast. The guards aren’t interested, and the other Zoners are only grateful that it isn’t them.
I can’t look at him, even though I feel his hungry eyes trying to catch mine. He regards me with the same misplaced lust of a Zoner on their first trip to the Heights. He shows no shame or guilt, there is only the thing he wants and the knowledge that no one will stop his pursuit.
When he finally withdraws his hand he pats down the material on my shirt as if chastising me for the missing button…as if it is my fault. He doesn’t check my sides; doesn’t feel for holstered guns or strapped on knives. What does he care if I blow the brains out of some entitled Heights guy later that day? Plenty more of them, even more of me.
As he traces the lines of my abdomen his grubby thumb edges beneath the waistband
of my shorts and I think of Ella again. Where the guard’s hand is rough and selfish hers was so tentative, so unsure. Her eyes wide open in wonder, a warm mouth upon my neck.
The guard roughly swings me round, away from the waiting queue so my back is to him. He presses his body against mine and his flabby belly pools in the small of my back. His crotch, aroused and urgent presses at the seat of my shorts. A hand reaches round and plunges beneath my underwear and he grabs at me, fingers greedily pawing the soft skin.
A shout breaks out from the queue. I don’t hear what’s said; whether solidarity or impatience has saved me. Shame mutes the world, it is all encompassing. But whatever it was it does the trick. A moment later a firm shove ejects me from the gatepost and in to the waiting reach of the Outer Heights.
My skin feels as if it’s on fire, loathing eclipses the sun, the heat: everything. Waves of rage crash over me and threaten to break me apart. I feel like I can barely contain them; that if for a moment I let go everything will come crumbling down around me. And so I press on, eyes locked to the floor, head bowed beneath the beating sun, because to fight is to fail and none of us have energy to waste.
5
Beyond the checkpoint the streets open in to wide tree-lined plazas. These are not like the scant bushes of the Zone. The trees here serve no purpose, they yield no fruit and I have never seen a single one felled for fuel. They are simply nice to look at; broad branches dripping in oversized leaves reach skywards in an ordered line of colour. And that is enough here. Beauty is prized and cherished in the Heights, even on the fringes.
The space given over to a single tree is at least as big as my apartment, double if you consider its height. Yet nobody lives here. The wide marbled squares and streets are nothing more than a pleasant backdrop for those in the Heights unfortunate enough to have to trade with the Zone.
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