This Broken Land

by H M Sealey

  River sighs. “We’re not going to cross the border, we’re going to cross into the Border.” She pauses. “The thing is, we’ve nothing to bribe the border police with.” Her face creases up with distaste. “I might have to whore myself out to them again.”

  I grab River’s arm and pull her around.

  “Just stop!” I demand. “River, I want to know what’s going on. Whore yourself out? Again? You’ve already crossed the border? In Sex Ed you said you were a virgin. I can’t work out what are lies and what’s the truth any more.”

  River gives me a long look of scorn. “Then go away. Go back to the Rainbow Centre. Tell them I’m heading for the Border because I have no intention of giving them any information through you.” She grins. “Are you confused yet Josh?”

  “Yes.” I tell her truthfully.

  “Good. Because if you are going to betray me then they’ll be confused too.” She peers into my face. “For all I know you’re wearing a second GPS.”

  “I’m not. Gene dug it out.” I touch my bandaged arm. “It still hurts.”

  River nods. “Like Howie’s hurts.”

  I stop and stare at her blankly. “What?”

  “Howie. Oh come on, you don’t think his itchy arm was just a wound? They put a GPS in him too. And he knows it. That’s why I had to dump him.”

  “Hold on. Howard was wearing a GPS?”

  “Yep. He was betraying me. That was why he felt so bad.”

  I stare at River with undisguised horror. “But – what about Gene? What about his church?”

  “What about them?”

  “Churches are illegal. How many people attend?”

  “Seventy, eighty. I don’t know.”

  “Seventy or eighty people? River, what are you playing at?”

  “I’m giving your friends at the Rainbow Centre a distraction. With seventy or eighty Christians to arrest it’ll take them time to work out we aren’t with them.”

  “But you’re betraying your friends.”

  “No, Howie is. He probably told them everything he knows when he was interrogated. It’s why he was ready to kill himself.”

  I don’t know this girl. Right now I don’t even like this girl.

  “I have to go back and warn them.”

  “If you like.” River shrugs as though such a thing is unimportant. “Bye then.”

  “River!”

  River turns slowly, her jaw firm, her eyes colder than frost. “Gene knows, Josh.” She says in a slow, careful tone, the tone she might use to explain a simple fact to someone very stupid. “Okay? Gene knows that Howie’s going to betray him. That’s why he didn’t stop me leaving and why he didn’t object to Howie staying with him. Gene knows the loss of his whole church is a small sacrifice to keep me free.”

  I’m appalled at this. “My God River, you think a lot of yourself.”

  She shrugs with nonchalance that might actually be genuine. “Gene isn’t scared of the authorities Josh, didn’t you realise that when you met him? The man lives in his own little world where it’s just him and God. I wish I had faith like that.”

  “I don’t see how faith will do him any good when his church is raided!”

  “He believes there’s something good worth fighting for, and that death isn’t the end. I see the evil I have to fight, I see it every day when I open my eyes, but I don’t know if I see anything good worth fighting for. I envy Gene. He has peace.”

  “Even though you just left him to be arrested?”

  River seems to consider this question for a few moments. “His choice. If it was me I’d just take Howie out somewhere and kill him.”

  I wince at the callousness in her voice. “I can’t believe you could even think something like that?”

  “Can’t you? NuTru is at war with everyone who doesn’t consider them the perfect standard of all things moral. I don’t think it’s moral to let five-year olds have dangerous operations in hospital to adapt their bodies because they identify as Trans-Species. I don’t think it’s moral to dump hundreds of years worth of guilt on white people because a tiny handful of their ancestors had slaves when every culture had slaves. I don’t think its moral to continually divide people by their sexuality or their skin colour or their gender and keep them divided! And because I won’t capitulate to NuTru’s thinking, I will fight the war they declared. In war you don’t give succour to traitors Josh, you shoot them.”

  She turns again, shaking with anger. I can see the weight of this war she’s fighting on her shoulders, but I’m not certain hers isn’t a hopeless cause. The Charge of the Light Brigade. River on her white horse challenging heavy artillery.

  I’m not sure there’s a war on at all. I think NuTru won it a long time ago.

  “You paint a very bleak picture River.” I say, painting an even bleaker one inside my head.

  “Whatever you say Josh. I’m crossing the Border and if I have to let ten Border policemen have me however they want before they let me through, then I will. I have a mission Josh.” Her eyes are the eyes of a zealot. “And that comes before anything.”

  “Then why am I still with you? Why do you need me?”

  River stops again, twists around completely and stares at me, dressed in jeans and a vest top with an orange silk scarf draped over her head allowing her eyes to peer out she looks beautiful.

  “I don’t need you Josh. I like you. I’d like to tell you everything but I don’t know if I dare.” For an instant her features soften, but only an instant. “Anyway. Come with me, go away. It’s all the same to me.”

  “I’m coming. Okay. I don’t know where I’d go otherwise. If I lose you I’ll end up back in the Rainbow Centre and it’ll be worse than last time.”

  I fall into step with her, pushing my hands into my pockets to warm my fingers. It gets cold at night.

  “What did they do to you last time?” She asks, and I deliberately give my full attention to a half-destroyed house blocking a smaller road rather than meet her interested gaze.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  She gives me a friendly shove with her elbow. “Tell me.”

  I sigh. I really don’t want to remember this.

  “It was…...decided that I needed…..that I had to join in more with life at the Rainbow Centre, to better appreciate my place there.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I…..I had to become….involved with some classes. Help teachers….demonstrate things…..” Inside me I feel sick and humiliated all over again. Even the memory is disgusting.

  “Classes? What classes.”

  I bite my lip. “Gay sex.” I almost squeak as I say the words. “They were doing a…...practical session. I had to…..help demonstrate various practices. In front of everyone.” The humiliation causes my cheeks to flame.

  “But you’re not gay?”

  “Like that matters any more. It’s considered discriminatory if you don’t show willingness to try everything with everyone.”

  “They really are sick bastards.”

  “Mr. Scott knew how I felt. It was chosen as the punishment most likely to break me. I was told it was therapy, to help me get over my prejudices.” Mr. Scott was so enthusiastic I needed stitches afterwards and spent two weeks barely able to sit down.

  We walk in silence for a while, my mind skittering away from those dreadful memories. The time I was brought back after running was worse than when I first came here, when I was twelve. It was bad then, but I had determination and hope. I lost that. It was dragged out of me as my body was abused in the name of education. I will never forgive them for that. Not ever.

  “The Border’s not far.” River says as we cross what I think was once a riverbed. “There’s barbed wire and sometimes it’s electrified, so we can’t risk climbing. I’m going to use the same crossing going back as I used coming over.

  “You came over from the BSI?”

  “No, I came over from the Border, though I know some people in the
BSI. I’ve helped smuggle quite a few Christians over.”

  “Christians? It’s illegal to be a Christian in the BSI too, isn’t it?” Only there they’re executed rather than just murdered slowly in a Rainbow centre while they have their personalities dissected. The BSI’s method seems cleaner to me.

  River shakes her head. “It’s illegal for a Muslim to become a Christian, that’s apostasy, but there’s actually quite a growing community of Christians. They have to pay extra taxes, but I swear they have more rights over there than here, at least they can keep their children. And the Shariah Council over there doesn’t object too much if they leave the country. Christians have to keep their mouths shut though, evangelising carries the death penalty. But, all things considered, it’s a better place to live. At least Christianity isn’t considered Warped Thinking like it is here.”

  I’m hugely surprised at this but I don’t argue. Besides, I can see the border now, a huge fence, twelve-feet high running in both directions. On this side it sits in darkness, but I can see lights on the other side, lots of them, like old pictures of cities at night.

  “Well.” River pauses on the old road, a road that’s being invaded by a tangle of weeds pushing themselves up through the broken concrete. “There it is.”

  “And you’ve been there?”

  “I’ve been everywhere. I got a lot of Christian families into the BSI from the Refugee camps further south.” She says this proudly. “They ran from the Euro-Islamic war thinking they’d find safety here. They escaped the gun wielding extremists, but wound up in a place where Christians have their kids removed.”

  I didn’t think about that.

  “The director said they’d found you teaching Christianity in the camps.”

  “Not quite, but NuTru were pretty keen to get kids out of the camps and have them adopted, you know how bad birth rates have been for the last decade. NuTru were pretty pissed to lose kids they could take legitimately from Christian parents.” She rubs her cold arms with her hands. “Anyway, come on.”

  We follow the fence until we reach a small building with a flat roof and a tall, metal gate. The gate is locked but a narrow road passes through. There are lights here, and a sign saying no unauthorised visitors past this point in both English and what I think is Arabic.

  River turns to me. “Wait here for me.” She commands. “Let me talk to them.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “Is anything safe? If I need you, I’ll call. Try to relax Josh. And try to trust me.”

  “River, you’ve done absolutely nothing to induce me to trust you.”

  “Good point.”

  And she turns and darts away, her feet soft on the scrubby grass, her slim form illuminated by the moon. I watch as she hammers on the door to the building and I see the beam of light as the door opens, then closes again, taking River away into who-knows-what sort of danger.

  ~

  Elsie

  I wake up because someone slaps my face repeatedly. I try to give a sort of wriggle to escape but my body feels heavy and I just want to go back to sleep.

  “Wake up girl. Come on.”

  Someone slaps me again, harder, and I give a croaky moan. My voice sounds weird and my mouth feels dry. Am I ill? Is that why everything sounds fuzzy?

  Finally I open my eyes to find myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. A face hovers above mine, gazing down.

  “Finally.” Kit Summerday sounds annoyed. Should I apologise? “Get up.”

  “Leave me alone.” I mumble before screwing up my eyes, trying to remember where I am.

  Then it all comes back in a flood of memories and I sit up sharply, my head spinning.

  “I’m dead!”

  “You’re clearly not dead.”

  “I took the Assisted Suicide drugs.” I touch my face with my fingertips. “I’m dead.”

  Kit sighs as if I’m a very stupid child. “You’re not dead.” He repeats.

  I stare around. I’m in a cold room, a room with stark, concrete walls and no windows. This isn’t a hospital, unless it’s the mortuary.

  That macabre thought isn’t eased when I gaze around and realise I’m half in, half out of a large, grey bag, body-sized, and that all around me there are other bags. Full bags.

  I stare at Kit in panic. “Dead bodies!”

  He shakes his head. “I suspect they’re about as dead as you are.”

  I shudder and wriggle out of the bag, kicking it away with my bare feet. I’m only wearing what looks like an oversized, white tee-shirt. What on earth’s happening. I look to Kit for answers.

  “What’s going on?”

  Kit sighs again and crouches down.

  “You took the Assisted Suicide drugs.”

  “I know. I remember.”

  “When I came back to the hospital to speak to you, the doctors told me you’d chosen Assisted Suicide. I was fairly angry.”

  “I had the right to kill myself.” This all seems academic though, since I’m alive.

  “Not when you’re part of a police investigation you didn’t. Still I tore a strip off the doctor who allowed it.”

  I bet he did.

  “He had no right to give you the AS drugs. Not when I need you. My sister has Howard Steele for questioning you see Elsie, so I need you.”

  “Your….your sister?” Am I dreaming. What’s his sister got to do with this?

  “She’s the director of one of the Rainbow Centres, and she never lets me forget it. That’s big sisters for you I suppose.”

  “I think….. I think I had a brother once.” For an instant I can see his face, grinning, lopsided, happy. “I think he might be in a Rainbow Centre.”

  “Older brother or younger?”

  “Older I think. I don’t quite remember.”

  “Kat’s eleven years older than me. She was a bitch even then.”

  I’m surprised to hear him describe any woman as a bitch. Misogynistic language is treated as a Hate Crime.

  I rub my head, everything aches. Kit carries on chatting, just as if we’re sitting in a café or something normal.

  “Kat’s desperate to close down Family Matters, she wants to be the one to root them out. Especially since she knows it’s my investigation. She’s still trying to prove her superiority. Even thirty years later.” He gazes at me without any sort of humour. “But I have you and she doesn’t. You might be the only chance I have to get one up on my sister.”

  I’m not sure I like being a pawn in a war with his sister. “But where am I?” I ask. And why are there bodies everywhere.

  “I’m getting to that.” He says in an irritated voice. “I went to the mortuary to examine your body, see if you were carrying anything pertinent to my investigation.”

  He slips his hand into his pocket and draws out Gran’s locket. “Like this.”

  “That was Gran’s!” I try to grab it from his hand but he pulls away.

  “I thought it might be, Maybe you can tell me what the code means.”

  “What code? There was just a piece of paper saying I could trust my family.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s a code written on the back of the photos. A string of numbers.”

  “You took the pictures out? That’s my family! It’s all I have left of them You had no right to touch it!” People like him took them away from me, people like him desecrate family.

  “Hey, you were dead. You didn’t need it any more.”

  “Give me the locket.” Again I try to snatch it but he’s too quick.

  “Anyway.” Kit clasps it in his fist and pushes it back into his pocket. “I was in the room, examining the locket, when I heard voices. I realised it might look a little macabre, taking the jewellery from a corpse, so I hid behind a curtain.”

  “Please give it back.”

  “Later. Listen to me. The locket’s not important.” I look into his eyes and I realise he hasn’t the slightest shed of shame. Clearly nothing is important do him beyond his own wants.

&n
bsp; “Go on.”

  “Two men came into the room. I heard them talking.”

  “What did they say?”

  Kit pauses for a moment, I wonder if he’s trying to remember.

  “The first read out your details and, I think, checked your name off a list. I was curious so I peered around the curtain – it was only one of those used to divide the room to offer privacy, though I suppose the dead don’t need privacy.”

  “Then what happened?” This is peculiar, like listening in after your own death.

  “One of them, a doctor judging by his clothing, injected you with something. Then leaned over you and checked your pulse. “She should come round soon.” He said. The other man,” Kit gives a sudden grin at the memory. “He admired …...certain aspects of your anatomy and said it was as well you’d been chosen, since your death would be a waste.”

  “Chosen?”

  “Put her in one of the marked bags. The doctor said, we’ll have about three hours until she wakes up. Get her in with the others, hurry.”

  I no longer care about the locket, I simply stare at Kit.

  “I can only surmise,” Kit says, standing up and stretching, “that you were not given Assisted Suicide drugs.” He gazes around the room. “And nor were any of these people.”

  “Where are we?”

  “At a guess? I have no idea. We travelled for about an hour with several stops, but I didn’t see where we were going.” He kicks another of the body bags with his toe. “There’s not a lot of visibility in one of those things.”

  “You were in a bodybag too?”

  He dusts his jacket down. “I was interested, they took you into a room with several others all zipped up. I decided if I posed as just another body, they might take me with you. And they did.”

  I climb to my feet. “But where are we?”

  “That’s what I want to know. Elsie, now your grandmother’s dead I need you, so I have no intention of just leaving you here.”

  I give him a grudging nod. “Thanks I suppose.”

  Kit gazed around at the other bodies. “But I’d like to know what’s going on and why you weren’t given the right drugs.”

  He turns suddenly, a sharp movement, like a cat pricking up its ears, and scrutinises the door. It’s not a nice door, there’s a grill in the middle, like a prison.