Once a day a few Mods arrived in an aircar and opened the camp gate. The prisoners rushed to surround them like a pack of dogs converging on a kennel keeper with their food. When talking to each other the Mods used a language of their own, but they spoke English fluently to us, and they always behaved with careful dignity when Mongrels were watching, like aristocrats acting a part for the benefit of their serfs. After the Mods arrived I'd join the crowd, carrying a cardboard box I used to store whatever treasures I'd pried from the trash. Perhaps I'd found a broken computer monitor or flat-screen TV - that would have selenium or telluride; occasionally I unearthed intact mobile phones, Blackberries, an iPod - those contained tantalum and other useful metals. The Mods would scrutinize my finds dispassionately while I watched like a defendant waiting for a verdict. If they liked it, they took it and rewarded me with a food ration for each useful item I brought. If they didn't like it, they tossed it back down to me.
"Mongrel,” they'd call me. They spat it at us like an epithet, a racial slur or a curse. “Take your trash back. It doesn't have any GIPTS in it. No zinc.” Grumbling, I'd slink away and endure another hours of maddening hunger - unless I could catch one of the thieving squirrels that sometimes paid the dump a visit. And through this informal education, by going hungry whenever I failed, I learned to tell which items contained precious metals and what was worth looking for. Hunger is a fast teacher.
Could we have fought our captors? I don't think it ever occurred to us. There were easily over a couple hundred of us to only three of them, but they well armed, and even if they'd been weaponless, fighting an Mod was like picking a quarrel with a bear. They were strong enough to break your arm in two, quick-witted enough to dodge the fastest punch you could throw. They could think and move with an agility that left us feeling slow and feeble. They could see infrared light as another colour invisible to us. Their massive arms and broad chests, their excess height, their elongated skulls were only so many outward marks of innate superiority. It was difficult to know exactly how far inferior we Mongrels were to them, because of all the rumours you heard - they were conceived by IVF, they could think in five dimensions, their clothes were crafted from fabric a few dozen times stronger than steel, they used fusion power to make antimatter, they were terraforming Venus and Mars. I couldn't tell how much of this was true.
And yet, even if we'd been able to fight the guards I think we'd have refused. We'd grown up believing we were the inferior species, that Mongrels like us had natural masters. That was why they remained aloof from us, lived apart from us, segregated themselves from us – to impress on us the gulf between us and them. And the knowledge of our inferiority poisoned our minds, sapped our powers of resistance. In knowing they thought we were despicable, we began to see ourselves the same way. Treat any one of us like a dog for long enough, and we end up cringing like a cur. The human mind is more malleable than we imagine.
The Mods that visited the camp were usually the same two or three individuals. I couldn't tell whether they were male or female – both genders of homo excellens were so alike to my eyes it made no difference. They wore uniforms that changed colour to match the light that struck them, like a shadow flitting across a landscape. They seemed to regard their visits to the camp as a necessary chore, although they managed to find some fun in it nonetheless. If food rations were left undistributed they'd sometimes call out “Here, Mongrels, fetch!” and chuck them into the crowd. Then they'd laugh quietly as we scrambled for it and watch us with idle curiosity, like people feeding monkeys at the zoo.
There is one such scrimmage that stands out in my mind. It was in the afternoon. The Chinese lady I'd noticed on the first day stood at the back of the crowd, gnawing her food. Her attention was so absorbed that when the guard flung a piece of biscuit across the crowd, she remained motionless. Even before it landed a mad rush began, of course. Someone standing next to the Chinese woman gave her a shove to help her out of the way; she stumbled and fell beneath them, and the crowd of prisoners trampled her like a carcass in a trough. I saw it but could do nothing. Interfering with a crowd is like trying to stop a stampede. When the woman finally staggered to her feet she seemed dazed, her face daubed with mud and streaming blood from cuts in her skin. She must have fallen on scrap iron.
"You all right?" I asked her. She nodded, stupefied. The landfill surface was a few feet below ground level, and as I swivelled I saw one of the Mods watchhad with interest. Quickly I turned away.
In spite of their contempt for us, my worst problem was never the Mods; it was the other prisoners. Theft was a constant threat. I learned to gobble my food immediately, since storing it merely made you a target. I had to be especially careful whenever I found anything that had platinum in it, too, because the guards would give us two food rations for platinum, so if someone spotted me with a worn-out spark plug, for example, I'd have to watch my back. The first time I crossed the camp for water, I discovered when I returned that someone had stolen everything I'd found that day. After that I either hid what I found or kept it on me.
And theft was far from the worst. With no one to watch, there was nothing to prevent a rape or a murder except the few people still encumbered with a conscience. Without laws or police, you relied on your hands and your wits. The Mods neither noticed nor cared what happened; so long as the fence was intact, so long as they got what they wanted, it mattered little to them if we killed or raped each other. Perhaps they reasoned a little natural selection in the camp was a good thing: the surviving inmates would be the best for the job.
For my part, I had no intention of getting murdered for a handful of spark plugs or a broken TV; I liked to believe Mark Henshaw must be worth more than that. To protect myself I carried a weapon at all times. On my second day I found a rusting kitchen knife jammed in a crevice. I armed myself with a length of pipe I could use as a club as well.
As dire as it seemed, however, the threat of murder was only an intermittent menace. I spent most of my time scrabbling for trace metals, treasures embedded in the mud. At least there was never any shortage of tools. Our 21st century ancestors were careless people, and sooner or later they threw away everything they owned. Their most lasting legacies were their landfills, the rubbish that survived them when they themselves were forgotten. At first I used to find humour in the irony and imagine the Mods laughing in their sleeves: they had the new generation sift through their great-grandparents' trash. But that joke grew old fast. Each hour blurred into the next, and every day that passed was the same as the last. I searched for electronics, computer hardware, mobile phones, car parts, anything that might contain zinc, cadmium, GIPTS. The work called for keen eyes and infinite patience, both of which I lack. Often the useful items were scarred or bent beyond recognition, while plastics and shards of glass, on the other hand, were ubiquitous – and utterly useless.
At night I slept wherever I could. On my third day, I found a rotting front-door rug and kept it; it made a better bed than plastic bags. One man uncovered the decaying remains of an entire sofa – who knows how it turned up in a landfill, but its finder didn't waste time pondering its origins; he cleared it off and used it for a bed. The worst nuisance of all was the night-time breeze. Its icy chill stole the warmth from your skin so that by dawn you were freezing cold.
A few weeks after we first arrived I talked to Shelley again.
I'd spoken to her on several occasions after we reached the camp, bt we'd never talked at length as we had on the train. Like everyone else she was concerned chiefly about staying alive. A couple of times I guarded her junk for her while she went to get water, or lent her a hand retrieving some deeply-buried item. And when I saw her approaching me down a gentle slope that afternoon, I immediately assumed she'd come seeking my help. But I was in a sour mood, embittered by a morning of fruitless work. If she wanted my assistance, I decided, she'd have to pay for it this time. Nothing more for free.
"Mark?" she said, shading her eyes from the afternoon glare with
her hand.
"Yes."
She'd grown thinner and her jacket was torn, her hair unkempt, her jeans blotched with crap-coloured stains. It only takes a week of living in a dump to make you look like a wild animal. The really terrible thing is that, when everyone is equally dirty, you forget just how filthy you are. "I was wondering if you could help me with something,” she said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I've found these packs of batteries, dozens of them, only I can see them but I can't get to them. There's a mound of all this other crap on top of it and I can't get it off."
"What kind are they?"
She pursed her lips. "I think they're nickel cadmium. They take that, don't they?”
"They'll take the cadmium. I don't know they'll want the nickel but they'll definitely take it for the cadmium. I got food for something with cadmium just the other day.”
"Wonderful. So'll you help me then?”
"If I get half of them," I said.
"That's not fair. I found them. I'll give you a third."
I shrugged. "Nothing doing. Either half or nothing.”
“Fine,” she huffed.
“You can always get someone else to help you.” I had no qualms. She was just an acquaintance, and at least I was giving her my price up front. "But be careful who you ask. Some people will just take them all. So don't tell just anyone,” I warned her.
"What a lot of crap," she said. Her hoarse voice quavered with anger. “If we humans'd work together we wouldn't have any problems. Instead of that we're betraying each other. That's how they won, back in the war, you know, lots of people didn't fight, these superstitious religious people that thought the Mirks were God's anointed or the people of the Beast or whatever. You were only a kid back then, you wouldn't remember.”
I felt irritated. I hadn't been looking for her, I didn't like her and I didn't want to listen to her berate me about the human species and all the wonderful things we could do if we weren't so bloody stupid. “Listen,” I said caustically. said caI don't give a shit about that. Any of that. So why don't you leave me alone.”
“Listen to you.”
“What were you going to do anyway, light off a chemical bomb under a plant and then they'll all magically die off all at once? The way you talk. You act like you know more than everyone else.”
“The chemical bomb?” She shook her head. “That's rubbish. That was only a story I told everyone on the train. I didn't know if I could trust all those people.”
“Ok then,” I said. “Whatever.”
“No, I mean it. Here. I'm glad you mentioned that. This is good. I haven't told anyone but I need to tell someone. In case I don't make it. I've been meaning to tell you, so I might as well tell you now. But it's incredibly important. It's more important than you or I or any of us here. So you've got to keep it between us.”
“Why me?” I shrugged, rolling over a bundle of rotten newspaper. Beneath it a horde of beetles, worms and other insects scurried for cover from the sun.
“Beggars can't be choosers.”
“Well, thanks. Not very tactful, but that was honest. But ok, really, why?”
“Because I don't trust most of the people here, that's why.”
“And you trust me,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes. I do. I know people, I can tell.”
“All right, then.” I shrugged. “What do you want to tell me.”
She squatted close to me. She probably stank pretty badly at that point, but by then we all did, and the odour was so familiar I barely noticed it. She spoke in a low murmur like an insect's drone, nearly inaudible beneath the wind. “First you've got to promise me something. You can't tell anyone. No one. Not if I'm alive, not if I'm dead.”
“All right. I promise,” I said, wondering what she'd dreamed up that could merit such an elaborate preamble. Probably she was exaggerating her own importance – a bad habit common among us hapless humans. I wasn't about to hold my breath. Really I wished she'd just spit it out and leave me alone so I could get back to work.
“It wasn't a chemical bomb we were working on at all. We got arrested because we had the supplies to make a chemical bomb. But that's not what we were doing.”
“So what were you making?”
“Another kind of weapon. The same kind of weapon they've used on us. Three of us were scientists, back before the Mods shut down all the universities; the other was my husband, he used to work with nanocomputers.” It surprised me to imagine thistocky woman in stained jeans as a biologist or a professor – I couldn't reconstruct the image in my mind.
“So what were you going to do.”
“I'm getting to that. The Mirks have one more chromosome than we do – an artificial chromosome – which is why they can't interbreed with us. That's why they're a separate species.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Now most forms of life have only 4 bases or letters in their genetic codes, A, C, G, and T. In the early 21st century scientists discovered how to make artificial bases and incorporate those into DNA. That way they could write DNA that would code for proteins containing unnatural amino acids. The Mirks have 6 bases in their DNA, and their genome codes for lots of novel proteins that don't ordinarily exist in nature. That makes their biochemistry extraordinarily complex by our standards. You probably know some of the advantages they have already – they're more intelligent, they have better memory, they have greater strength and stamina, their metabolism is more efficient and all that. But there's a couple disadvantages as well.”
“Such as.”
“Well, for example, if your cells use unnatural amino acids, you have to include those in your diet. That's a minor disadvantage. A higher rate of metabolism also has drawbacks. That's a disadvantage they've managed to overcome. But the major disadvantage is that these modifications create a potential target. It's possible to design viruses that can only replicate in cells with certain proteins or pathways. That's been used for well over a century to treat cancer, and the Mirks used that knowledge during the war to design bioweapons to kill us. So if we could design a virus that can only replicate in cells with unnatural proteins that their cells produce and our cells lack – we'd be turning their own game back on them. We'd have a virus that would infect them and not us.”
“And that's what you've done then.”
“We think so, yes. We didn't want to spring the trap just yet, there were some other things we wanted to do, but the virus is about as perfect as it'll get. The real beauty of it is that it can elude the immune system for awhile, it carries a protein normal cells make to protect themselves from the immune reaction. And it's taken us forever because we had to do everything in secret. We started this before the war, because we saw if we didn't do anything they'd take over, we saw how things were going. When the war started we had to hide our equipment and lie low. We managed it and we kept on working in secret. It's been my life's work, really. Taken us nearly twenty years.”
“Twenty years.” I paused a moment, startled into silence. All those years I'd spent growing up, staying alive, thinking only of myself and the people I knew, assuming the Mods were inevitable. Probably there were other people like Shelley too, but she was the first of her kind I'd ever met. A breed I'd believed extinct. The bioweapons of the Species War massacred the most intelligent of us; somehow she and her associates escaped, a saving flaw granted them immunity. “I'm surprised they never caught you in all that ti” I said.
“They're not as omnipotent as everyone thinks they are. It's just common sense. They can't watch everyone all the time, can they?”
“But so all your work's wasted,” I said slowly.
“It's not wasted. That's the thing.”
“What?” I said. “I don't understand. They've arrested you. They know all about it.”
“They don't. They didn't catch us because of the project, they caught us because – we were stockpiling weapons, you know, to use after we'd unleashed the virus. We got this other
fellow to help us, he wasn't careful enough and it turned into a total cock-up. Three of us were shot when they came for us, one of us – my husband - went underground, down the subway. I managed to hide all our stuff, and after that they got me. Picked me up in North London.”
“So now they know all about it. About what you were working on.”
“I don't think so. Like I said. I'm the only one they caught, I think. But the problem is that my husband doesn't know where I hid our work. Only I know that. And now I can't get back.”
“Didn't they use the mindscan on you?”
“Oh, they did. But I know a way to fool the mind-scanner. They didn't get anything from me.”
“You think so,” I said dubiously.
“I do. It's very difficult, but you can do it if you practice long enough. It's just basic psychology.” She glanced over her shoulder then back at me again. “Let's say I tell you not to think about a yellow lion. To imagine anything in the world except a yellow lion. What's the first thing you think of?”
“A yellow lion.”
She nodded. “The only way not to think about something is to concentrate on something else. Now the mindscan monitors the electrical impulses in your brain and decodes them. It's really accurate at reading anything that you think. But it can only read the things that you think. You've got to be so focused that no matter what questions they ask you, you keep on concentrating on the same thing, you know, hold a particular object or an image in your mind, then that's all the mindscan will see. You can't let your thoughts wander for even a single second. As soon as you do, they know. And you can't just think about something like a brick wall, because then they'll know you're trying to fool you, so they'll drug you.”
“So what did you do?”
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