Gemsigns

by Stephanie Saulter

  Student, Eli thought. Too much work, too little money, future uncertain. I can relate. He felt as worn out and vexed as the other man looked. He was muttering angrily, apparently to himself; Eli assumed an earset must be hidden under the shaggy brown hair. Terse notes of complaint in a thick brogue wafted up the carriage to where he was pulling on his own coat. As if suddenly aware of the attention, the passenger glanced up, caught Eli’s eye. Eli flashed a sympathetic smile at the young man, who grimaced and turned away. Eli sighed and stepped onto the platform.

  3

  There was no sign of Zavcka Klist as he headed for the turnstiles. His carriage had been at the back of the train, and he found himself to the rear of a queue of departing passengers shepherded by a scrum of climbcases. He stayed well back, out of their way, and kept a firm grip on his own. Climbcases might be keyed to their owner, programmed to roll independently along and sound an alarm if carried outside the preset radius, but thefts were not unknown. The tablets were tucked inside his now, and Zavcka Klist wasn’t the only person who wouldn’t mind an advance look at his report.

  Several platforms had merged into an apron where departing passengers pushed past him to get to their trains as the arrivals queued up to go through the turnstiles. Eli, lost in thought as he waited his turn to shuffle forward and place his identity pass on the scanner, started at a harsh buzzing from one of the turnstiles. A petite, remarkably pretty woman stood on his side of the barrier, the rejected pass in her hand, as she stared at the flashing light on the machine.

  She looked vaguely familiar, but unlike the sense of almost-recognition he’d had with Zavcka Klist, Eli knew that what he was identifying here was a type, not an individual. It was something about her littleness and delicacy of bone structure, her excessive prettiness and the shyness with which she carried it. She stood out in a way that had become rare since the Syndrome. Even Klist did not exceed the usual height-weight-attractiveness ratios nearly as much as this woman. Yet there was something incoherent about her, some subtle counteraction to her beauty. He was no follower of fashion, but he sensed that something about her appearance was wrong.

  He was struck by her hair. It was shoulder length and stylishly cut, but the dull, matt-black colour was at odds with her modish grooming and fashionable clothes. Eli felt a glimmer of satisfaction at identifying the disguise. He considered whether it was a wig or a dye job, decided on dye. A wig might slip, and besides if this woman had decided to take such a risk she’d have chosen a better wig. No, she’d dyed her hair, poured on layers and layers of light-barring pigments and fixatives to block the telltale gem glow. He wondered what colour it really was. A gentle rose pink maybe, or pale lilac.

  For the briefest moment she raised her eyes to the man who was waiting for her on the other side of the barrier. He looked at least twenty years older, and better at hiding his discomfiture. His hair was receding and grey, and he wore the kind of well-cut, conservative suit that made Eli think of a banker. He had a confident, well-cared-for air. Someone used to money and privilege, universal rights and automatic respect. Definitely not a gem.

  ‘Must be due for renewal,’ the man said, in a voice intended to carry. Although he was looking at the black-haired woman, Eli thought the comment was meant for the turnstile guards. The one on the bodyscanner was watching the woman keenly. Those adjacent to her in the crowd took in her looks and her unease, and edged away. The woman bit her lip as she carefully lowered the pass onto the scanner again. This time a soft, welcoming tone accompanied a steady green light as the barrier gates hissed open. The woman stepped through and prodded her slim climbcase into the luggage scanner.

  Intrigued, Eli sidestepped into the queue for the same turnstile to watch what happened. He was certain the woman was a gem, travelling on a forged – or stolen – norm pass. It was a serious violation, and on the face of it an irrational one. Gem travel had not been restricted since the Declaration – not yet anyway – and she would have been allowed through on her own pass.

  But then she would have been recorded as having arrived in London. He could think of two reasons she might wish to avoid that. One was common to any criminal, gem or norm, who wanted to cover their tracks as they moved from city to city. The other was specific to gems who simply wanted to disappear, fall off the index of the underclass and slip into norm society. If their appearance allowed them to pass, the cleanest break with their old life was to register in a new location under their new identity.

  He thought the latter was more likely in this case. There was something about the woman that seemed inconsistent with a city-hopping professional crook. Her nervousness and her companion both suggested someone unused to this kind of endeavour. He wondered if the man was a lover, a well-heeled gent past his prime but with the means and nous to attract a beautiful companion who would be grateful for the life he could offer. Such cases were not unknown; were not even restricted to the rich. It was very much at odds, he thought, with Zavcka Klist’s analysis.

  The climbcase hissed swiftly through the automatic sensors, and paused rather longer at the visualisation monitor. Eli could see a guard bending down to peer at the screen. He knew this was a waste of time: the chemical sensors and hazard-recognition software were much more perceptive than human faculties. The same was true of the bodyscanners. The guards were really there to deal with the people and luggage that the machines flagged up, not to identify problems themselves. Until a year ago they had had very limited authority to intervene once the equipment had signalled acceptance, but this had been extended as part of the hodgepodge of post-Declaration protocols. Approval by the scanners of papers, person and possessions no longer guaranteed swift passage.

  Which was why Eli wanted to see what would happen if – as he suspected – the woman did not set off the bodyscanner. She stepped up to and through it with a bit more confidence, and stood on the exit mat waiting for the light to turn green. No physical abnormalities then, no strange internal anatomy. The guard glanced at the monitor, then peered around it to give her a long look. Eli thought he was manually overriding the lights to keep her on the mat. He was focused on her hair. She stood perfectly still, barely breathing, still biting her lip, not lifting her eyes from the ground.

  A mistake, that, thought Eli. It would be more natural to glance over at him, see what’s taking so long. He found he was holding his breath too, waiting for the guard to press a button that would make the lights flash red, to stand up and ask the woman to step aside and follow me, please. She seemed resigned to it. He could see her companion draw himself up in readiness.

  Then the lights flashed green and the guard said, ‘Congratulations, madam. Welcome to London.’ The woman did look over at him then, flashed a grateful smile as she stepped off the mat and went to collect her climbcase. She linked arms with the waiting man and they hurried for the exit, climbcase trundling along to keep up.

  Eli was dumbfounded. Congratulations? What for? Sneaking in? It confirmed his conviction that the guard had figured her for a gem. If he had – if he even suspected that a traveller had presented a false identity – he was supposed to pull her out of the queue for further checks. When it was his turn he watched the guard keenly as he slapped his pass down, put his case onto the belt and stepped through the scanner. The lights went green immediately. Eli stayed on the mat. The guard looked up and Eli caught his eye, raised a quizzical eyebrow. The guard looked puzzled, said, ‘Welcome to London, sir,’ as Eli stepped off.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Eli. He paused, leaned confidentially towards the guard. ‘Um … that lady who went through a moment ago. The pretty one in the purple coat.’ The guard’s gaze sharpened. ‘She took some time, didn’t she? I thought the scanner was broken.’ He smiled pleasantly.

  The guard looked at him thoughtfully.

  ‘It can take a little longer than it used to,’ he said. ‘The scanners have to check for so many things now. Can’t be too careful.’ He gave Eli a bland, impersonal smile right back. ‘Sorry to k
eep you waiting.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ Eli grabbed his case and headed out, feeling none the wiser. Had the guard decided to overlook the woman because he felt sorry for gems in general? Or her in particular? She had the kind of vulnerable, fragile beauty that brought out the protective instinct in men. Or had he too clocked her companion, and decided if she was being escorted by that kind of money it would be more trouble than it was worth to get in their way? Maybe he just didn’t want to face the paperwork. Eli grinned at the thought.

  Bureaucracy strikes again. Maybe. Or maybe he was paid off.

  That was an equally plausible explanation. He had a mind to try to catch another glimpse of the couple, and had almost reached the street when someone grabbed his sleeve and shouted.

  ‘Eli! Eli! Bloody hell, man, have you gone deaf?’

  He swung around, looked into a round, red face a bit below his own.

  ‘Rob? Good lord. Sorry, I was miles away.’ He looked ahead to the doors. No chance of catching up, they’d be long gone by now. He looked back at Robert Trench: old friend, classmate, colleague. They shook hands.

  ‘Good to see you. What are you doing here? Not heading north surely?’

  ‘The week of the Conference? No, I’m meeting you. Or trying to. Where were you tearing off to?’

  ‘Nowhere. Thought I saw something interesting. Not important.’ Eli collected himself. ‘You’re here for me? Thanks. I didn’t know I was being met. Why?’

  *

  Rob was steering them away from the entrance to the Underground, which Eli would normally have taken, and towards the car park. He kept glancing around, a bit nervously, Eli thought.

  ‘I couldn’t get you on your ‘set and you weren’t responding to messages …’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Forgot it was off.’ Eli flicked his earset back to standby. ‘Press calls have been driving me crazy, I wanted to get some work done. But then I had to let the tablets go down as well.’

  They were clear of the station crowd now, and he finally released the climbcase, letting it roll along beside him. Rob frowned at it.

  ‘You been holding on to that for a reason?’

  ‘I was approached. On the train,’ Eli said. ‘Made me nervous …’

  *

  He stopped. Rob had rocked back on his heels, looking at the ceiling, sucking air in through his teeth. It was an old gesture, something he did when upset.

  ‘On the train. Fucking figures. What happened—? Wait. Tell me in the car.’ He opened the storage hatch and Eli prodded the climbcase in. ‘I was trying to get hold of you to warn you, because we thought you were going to be met here, when you arrived.’

  Eli mulled this over as they got in. Once they had pulled away into traffic he asked, ‘Who did you think was going to meet me at the station? Because you won’t believe who pitched up on public transport.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You first.’

  ‘Well, word got around about the bloke you chucked out yesterday. Our head of events was at a Conference planning meeting this morning at which some of the gemtechs were also present, and she let it be known she didn’t think much of them for constantly trying to pressure the one person whose job it is to provide a purely empirical analysis. Lots of snickers of course, but the Bel’Natur rep said he was sure that there’d be no more misunderstandings by the time Dr Walker got to St Pancras. Something about it bugged her, and then we couldn’t reach you, so I thought someone might try to pull some sort of a stunt at the station.’

  Rob paused for breath. Eli grinned at him.

  ‘So you came to rescue me? Thanks. I’m starting to feel properly important.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, and for fuck’s sake don’t underestimate them, Eli. The shit is really hitting the fan this week. The gemtechs are petrified that your report might knock them back even harder than they’ve been knocked back already. Gempro are really hacked off they’re not kings of the world any more; they just haven’t been able to stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to figure out what to do about it. Recombin were set to take the lead in human gemtech until a couple of years ago, and they still cannot believe that business is gone forever. And then there’s Bel’Natur. They’ve played it quietest and cleverest so far, but the rumour is they’re planning to present some sort of proposal, which they would no doubt like you to endorse. Don’t ask me what, they’re keeping their cards very close to their chest.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘They sent someone?’

  ‘Zavcka Klist.’

  Rob stared at him. ‘No. No way.’

  ‘I’m telling you.’

  ‘That’s … bloody hell. Are you serious? What did she say?’

  Eli sighed, stretched his legs as far as he could in the compact passenger seat, and told him more or less how the conversation had gone. Rob listened intently.

  ‘So they’ve got some kind of solution that gets the gems back to work.’

  Eli nodded.

  ‘And cements the segregation between them and us.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Sounds like the good old days.’ Rob’s voice dripped sarcasm.

  ‘Doesn’t it just. But it won’t be anything that crude. That’s what Recombin want, to erase the Declaration and just turn back the clock. It’ll never happen. Bel’Natur are smarter.’ Eli paused. ‘She’s smarter. She was all about moving forward. Gemtechs should work for the good of society, gemtechs understand gems best, gems need structure and guidance.’

  Rob had programmed in their destination and let the car go to autopilot. He was gazing out of the window, pensive.

  ‘The thing is – and you know how much I hate to say this – but it’s going to be tough to argue with that. A lot of gems do have jobs, of course – some businesses can hardly operate without them – and their labour is cheaper now that the gemtechs are out of the loop. But most of them are still completely dependent on the state or their friends for support. No one really understands how this brave new post-Declaration world is supposed to work. Norms are scared it’s going to mean them paying a lot more taxes.’

  ‘You deal with both sides. What do people want? What do the politicians expect to get out of the Conference?’

  ‘Well.’ Robert Trench took a moment to organise his thoughts. ‘Even those who weren’t wild about the changes are resigned now to gems being designated an artificial subspecies with rights and protections and so forth, but everyone wants clarity on how the Declaration should be applied. Most are open to the idea of autonomous housing estates or even villages, but they’re less sure about, shall we say, more personal mixing. The truth is a lot of norms, especially young people, get a kick out of being around gems. They’ve added a lot of colour to daily life, no pun intended. But the rest want to know where they stand, how they’re supposed to behave, what kinds of separations should be established. It’s been twelve thousand years since there was more than one strand to the human race, and no one knows what the rules should be.’

  ‘And the gems?’

  Rob looked at him, eyebrows raised. ‘You’re asking me?’

  ‘I’m an academic. I have reams of data and I know what it tells me, but I want to know what you think.’

  ‘I think the gems want clarity too. They’ve got used to this new way of life really quickly, but the ones who are most clued up realise that it’s just a transitional stage, and they’re worried about what happens next. Bracing themselves for the backlash, almost. One of the things that strikes me is how good they are at sticking together. Ninety per cent of the gems in London live in the Squats, they take care of their own with some help from social services, and they don’t come out any more than they have to. I don’t think most norms appreciate how much resentment there is. The gems know now just how different their lives were to ours, and how much money the gemtechs used to make off them, and how long we stood by and let it happen, and it pisses them off. Understandably.’

  ‘So you don’t think they want to
integrate.’

  Rob turned bodily around in his seat and fixed Eli with a long, thoughtful look.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. It varies. Some have assimilated really well – which not all norms, or gems for that matter, are happy about – and I think many others would like to. But again, we don’t always realise how alien we are to someone who’s only ever known the inside of gemtech crèches and dorms. And the barriers are even greater on our side, because we find them too alien. We struggle with their diversity. Not everyone obviously.’ He waved vaguely at himself and Eli, then swept a hand to take in the world outside the car. ‘But many people. Most.’

  ‘So you’ve got a norm public who resent the cost of maintaining a non-working gem population, gems who resent the fact that enormous wealth was generated off them with neither consent nor compensation, and people on both sides who find the other weird and scary.’

  ‘That’s it in a nutshell. And the resentment is starting to boil over.’

  ‘I’ve seen the newstreams,’ said Eli quietly. ‘The harassment is increasing.’

  ‘It is. It’s really picked up the past couple of weeks, and it’s not just name-calling and a couple of shoves any more. It’s horrible because many of the gems are so passive, they’ve no idea what they’ve done wrong; half the time they haven’t done anything wrong except cross the path of some yobbo who thinks whatever problem he’s got is their fault. For which they get the crap beaten out of them. But sometimes they fight back.’ Rob drew a deep breath. ‘Occasionally they even start it. And you know what that means.’

  Eli did, had been among the first to understand the correlation. A gem who was prepared to fight was one who hadn’t had all aggressive tendencies engineered away. Combat capability was intrinsic to a number of core evolutionary characteristics, including the instinct for self-preservation and the stamina required for tough, dangerous physical activity. So gems who were up for a brawl were often strong and fast and pain-resistant. But not always smart.