State of Grace

by Hilary Badger

  However, the defence was unable to substantiate these allegations to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court, with Justice Gemmell directing that the jury note the impeccable character witnesses for Father Repton provided by St Joseph’s and the local church authorities.

  Due to the severity of his crime, 17-year-old Beaufort is expected to serve his sentence in a maximum-security adult facility.

  I fold the paper. I open it and refold it a few more times, which it doesn’t remotely need.

  I start to say, ‘Oh my Dot,’ but I stop myself in time, and instead I just say, ‘Oh Blaze. I’m so sorry.’

  He looks away. ‘Not your fault.’

  It isn’t, but that doesn’t stop my cheeks colouring pink the way Blaze’s always do. I guess I thought I had some exclusive claim to misery because of Julius. But the whole time there was Blaze, with his own terrible things going on.

  It’s then I remember yanking Blaze’s sungarb by the lagoon, and going on and on about hooking up. And how he just stood there, all weird and still.

  Did he already remember that man back then? Did he know what happened?

  Because if he did, the way I was acting must have made the whole thing way, way worse.

  ‘You’ve seen it? That … stuff happened?’

  ‘Father Mike was the first thing to break through.’

  I don’t think I can stand hearing anymore. I feel like I’m going to implode or something, just collapse in on myself, knowing how that man must have made Blaze feel.

  Knowing how I must have made him feel.

  All quietly, Blaze says, ‘He said I couldn’t go on surfing trips if I didn’t do what he said. He told me God would get mad. I was so young, I believed him.’

  I want to smother Blaze with sorries then, but I don’t. I figure out that would be more for my benefit than his. So the two of us sit there together. We just absorb it all.

  It’s Blaze who starts talking first. ‘Now you know. I killed someone.’

  You had your reasons. Anyone would, in your position.

  I can think of plenty of things to say but none of them seems quite right. Basically, I just don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it.

  I want us both to forget.

  But Blaze goes on. ‘They couldn’t wait to hand over their youngest violent offender for the Grace trial.’

  He takes the paper and puts it back in his pocket.

  ‘Alex says the police love Lainie Shepherd. Imagine all the criminals on Grace,’ Blaze snaps his fingers. ‘A lot of problems would go away.’

  He starts talking about the helicopter.

  ‘Remember how it suddenly flew off? Lainie basically offered the police a subsidised supply of Grace if they stopped what they were doing: searching for Dennis.’

  Blaze doesn’t have to say anything for me to know what he thinks of this. Why should one person have all that power? How does she know what’s best? Who says she should be the ruler of everything?

  Except I don’t feel like that. I’m not all outraged the way I’m pretty sure Blaze wants me to be.

  All I know is, both of us are hurt. One thing can take that away, so why wouldn’t we use it? We don’t have to worry about the not-so-good parts of Grace anymore. Not after tomorrow.

  ‘Stay,’ I say. ‘We’ll get the new implants and make everything okay again. Let’s be happy.’

  ‘If we leave,’ Blaze shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable, exactly like he was by the pond on completion night, ‘we could be happy anyway.’

  ‘How could we be, with everything we know? Give me one possible way.’

  ‘Bad things happened to us. But that doesn’t mean good things can’t too.’

  He grabs my hand. Then he drops it. He goes for it again, but he ends up pulling away.

  ‘Between the two of us, I think we could … you know …’

  ‘No, actually, I don’t know.’

  Suddenly, I’m all precalm. Mad.

  ‘Because to me it looks like life without Dot is just a whole lot of … I don’t know … grey days, one after the other. Then at the end of it all, guess what? Hooray! We die.’

  Blaze stands, and a folded pile of blue material lands in my lap.

  ‘Alex got you these,’ he says. ‘If you’re coming, put them on and we’ll go. Right now, down this corridor, across the carpark to the side gate. Then we run.’

  I take the material from Blaze and shake it out. It’s a full set of Shepherd clothes, small enough to fit me.

  ‘There’s this group, the Circle. Alex’s a member, that’s the only reason he works here. There’s more of them too, here and outside. They want to stop Grace launching Phase 2 of the trial.’

  He pauses. ‘They might even help us find Dennis.’

  I’m kind of stroking the unfamiliar fabric in my hand, thinking about Julius and Dennis and everyone else. But the fabric feels stiff compared to the soft, colourful silk I’m used to wearing. Too stiff to ever imagine putting it on.

  ‘Millions of people are going to buy this drug, you know.’

  Blaze corrects himself. ‘Millions of consumers.’

  ‘Who’ll end up feeling a whole lot better about themselves than they ever did before.’

  Blaze shifts his weight. ‘I get it. You’re not coming. You won’t even try.’

  He reaches out again but before he touches me he lets his arms fall back down by his sides. Everything inside me tightens. My chest feels too small for my heart.

  Blaze turns, opens the door and closes it behind him. He doesn’t shut it properly, I notice. Just leaves it resting closed.

  Sit down, I tell myself. Even better, lie down and close your eyes. Think about Dot and happiness and newfruit and swimming and fun. Think about how you’ve been chosen to do Dot’s work.

  And I try, I really do. I even hum ‘We Belong 2 Dot’ while I’m lying there. It’s just there’s a part of me that wants to take another look at Blaze. You know, one last time.

  So I get up, go to the door and push it open. It makes that wheezing sound. Outside there’s the long, bright corridor.

  The screens on the walls are still flashing. All the doors are closed. Is Dennis behind one of them? Are all the others?

  I notice there’s a rounded thing further along the corridor.

  Desk.

  There are two women behind it and a bank of smaller screens showing pictures of the building we’re in. I figure they’re meant to be keeping watch. But what they’re actually doing is showing each other the devices around their wrists.

  ‘This is him with his soccer team. They didn’t win a game all season. Do you know, I don’t think he even noticed? He loves it that much.’

  ‘What a sweetheart. Do you go to the matches?’

  ‘Do I go? I’m the biggest soccer tragic granny there is!’

  The women break into laughter, which is when Blaze goes past the desk. He has his head turned away, just enough so it isn’t easy to tell who he is but not so much that it’s obvious he’s trying to not to get noticed.

  All the women do is glance up at him then they’re right back to their conversation.

  In all that bright, shiny whiteness it isn’t long before Blaze turns into just a tall, solid shape in the distance.

  I keep on watching until he reaches the double doors leading to the outside. I’m pretty sure I even hear the bleep as he swipes Alex’s pass. Then the doors open and Blaze disappears through them.

  That leaves me with nothing to do except shut my own door. This time it clicks closed properly.

  34

  DURING THE NIGHT, someone delivers a brand new Books of Dot unit and a folded sungarb for me to wear during the procedure. The sungarb’s the bright, shimmering blue-green of a Shepherd butterfly’s wings. All over it are teeny-tiny coral beads in a starburst pattern. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, easily the dotliest sungarb ever created.

  That must be why I end up bawling when I put it on. In relief, probably. Happines
s.

  The entire morning there’s people checking me over and others with papers to sign. I’m told Shepherd’s been in touch with my mum to let her know what’s going on.

  No-one tells me what she said, but I can guess. She didn’t approve of it the first time around so why would she the second? She thought counselling could fix me. As if. Mum has no idea what it’s like to live with what I did.

  The next visitor is Alex. When he blips open my door and comes into the room, I see he’s holding a tiny clear cup with two capsules inside.

  ‘Something to help you relax,’ he says as he offers me the cup.

  But he yanks it away when I reach out for it.

  ‘Not that you need it. It’s all blue skies and dotliness ahead of you now. No reason to be uptight.’

  Alex’s pass is swinging around his neck, where it should be. I guess that means Blaze made it out.

  ‘Have you heard from him?’

  ‘You should forget about all that.’

  ‘Is he okay though? Just tell me.’

  ‘We both are,’Alex says. ‘So far. But they’re investigating.’

  Alex digs in his pocket and comes out with a rectangular box. He taps out a cigarette and puts it in his mouth. Then he takes a smaller box, which slides open.

  Matches.

  Alex takes one out, strikes it and a flame flares on the end. There’s no window in the room, naturally, so he fiddles with a switch on the wall, until the duct in the roof starts humming louder than before.

  Alex lights his cigarette, closes his eyes and inhales.

  ‘These’ll kill me before Lainie Shepherd can.’

  He holds out the pack. ‘You want?’

  I shake my head. The last time I smoked a cigarette was the night Julius …

  ‘C’mon. When else will you get the chance to do something bad?’

  Alex pushes the pack closer and I end up taking one. He hands me the matches and I light up, watching the duct suck the smoke up to the ceiling. I turn the matchbox over in my hand, squeezing it until the cardboard goes limp.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  I nod.

  ‘Because you don’t look it.’

  I guess he’s talking about the way my eyes are all red and puffy, my skin pasty-pale. Kind of an inevitable side-effect of lying awake all night thinking about Julius and Mum and Dennis, but mostly about that figure disappearing down the corridor.

  ‘You’re smart enough to figure things out yourself, you know. You don’t need Lainie Shepherd telling you how to live.’

  ‘That happens to be exactly what I need.’

  ‘Dot isn’t the only one who’ll love you, you know. No matter what happened before the Grace trial.’

  I guess I scowl at him.

  ‘I can name at least one real person who does. He just hasn’t worked out how to say it.’

  I inhale again and blow out smoke.

  Blaze. Did he say something? Were there things Blaze could tell Alex that he couldn’t say to me, because of everything that happened to him?

  ‘Just say I wasn’t sure. Isn’t it too late anyway?’

  ‘Nothing’s decided until the implant’s under your skin. There are steps you could take. Not easy ones, but there are always steps.’

  Alex grinds out his cigarette on my breakfast plate, full of uneaten, congealing eggs.

  ‘There’s ways you can be useful too. You don’t know this, but the Circle has –’

  But I don’t want to hear. I stub my own cigarette out as I hear the door opening. Just in time, Alex clamps the warming cover over the ash-covered plate and says, ‘Marion,’ as a nurse comes in.

  He sounds all cheery, almost as upbeat as Marion does when she says to me, ‘So, the big day!’

  ‘I’ve administered the medication,’ Alex tells Marion, which he hasn’t. The empty cup’s on the wheeled table in front of us, but I’m pretty sure the capsules are in Alex’s pocket. ‘Over to you now.’

  ‘Ready, honey?’ Marion asks. Her stomach strains at her Shepherd uniform. The crook-patterned fabric buckles over her thighs. Under the name on her pass there’s a round yellow sticker of a smiling face.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Let’s go change your life!’

  ____________________

  I’m lying face down with my eyes closed. Marion sweeps my hair to one side.

  ‘Hold still.’

  She takes a marker and I feel its cool tip draw a little line on my skin.

  ‘The new implant will go right above the old one,’ she explains. ‘Closer to your brain. That’s the technical reason, I’m sure.’

  I hear her tearing something and straight after that there’s a cold, wet swipe across my neck.

  ‘The swab numbs the area. You can hop up now.’

  I lift my face, all red and wrinkled from where it’s been pressing into the sheet. Marion brushes a few strands of hair out of my eyes for me.

  ‘You seem nervous, honey.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You probably don’t recall the last time. It’s painless, I promise.

  No worse than a little nick with a kitchen knife. And after that? Well, you’d know better than me. No feeling blue. No fat days. No getting lonely. No broken hearts.’

  Marion sighs, ‘One perfect day after the next.’

  There’s a stool on the floor by the bed. Marion helps me down it. At the bottom, she holds onto me like she thinks I’ll collapse if she doesn’t.

  ‘I might even sign up myself, when it comes onto the market.’

  She swipes the air with her hand. ‘What am I saying? My kids would have ten heart attacks each. They’re dysfunctional when I’m not there. Oh well, nice to be needed, I suppose.’

  She steps towards the door. ‘I’d say they’re ready for us out there.’

  ____________________

  Lainie Shepherd’s curved office has been redecorated for the procedure. The table and golden chair are gone. In their place are planters overflowing with newfruit blossoms. The screens have been rolled away too, revealing windows made of little panes of coloured glass. There’s a design to them, abstract I guess you’d called it. Shepherds’ crooks with newfruit twined around.

  On the far wall there’s a massive silky banner with Dot’s cleverly designed face. Underneath the banner is a raised platform, and that’s where Lainie Shepherd stands in her black clothes, her blue diamond crook swinging at her chest. Her smile is serene and warm and welcoming. Next to her is a woman in that same blue crook-patterned sungarb, only she’s wearing gloves, a face mask and mesh covering her hair.

  On a little stand between Lainie and her assistant, there’s a tray with a cardboard box and a scalpel, which looks like a miniature version of the coconut knife.

  Between all that and me stretch rows and rows of chairs. Every one of them is full and every person sitting there is dressed in blue. When the double doors click closed and I walk into the room with Marion holding onto my arm, all the heads turn.

  The people smile and nod at me, as though right now is the most wonderful moment in creation and they’re all so thrilled to be here.

  I recognise the girl with the curly blonde hair and fig-coloured lips.

  Alex is there too. I actually spot him first, since he’s looking at the floor. Out of everyone there, he’s the only one without a smile plastered on.

  ‘Here she is,’ says Lainie Shepherd. ‘Our chosen one!’

  Between the chairs there’s a curving aisle down the middle of the room and that’s where Marion guides me. Behind us, a cluster of people has stepped in front of the doors. In their hands, those black objects again, the ones that shot out the white clouds of gas.

  Guns.

  As I walk down the aisle, no-one says anything. Not to each other and not to me. They just stare and stare at me until I get to the little platform, which is when Lainie Shepherd says, ‘Would you please kneel?’

  So I do. The carpet feels soft underneath my bare
knees. Then Lainie begins to talk. How fortunate I am, just like everyone else at the Shepherd Corporation.

  How wonderful it is to be part of Phase 2 of the Grace project, destined to bring hope to so many children as they grow, to give ordinary people the love they crave, unconditionally. After a while, I notice my knees beginning to itch and then to ache.

  So when Lainie says, ‘Viva, are you ready to accept Dot as your creator?’ I just blurt out ‘Yes’ in this get-on-with-it way.

  It doesn’t matter what Alex says. It’s not like I could say no, even if I had changed my mind.

  ‘Wonderful,’ says Lainie Shepherd.

  With a soft hand, she brushes my hair to either side of my neck. I feel the pink shells of her fingernails on my skin. There’s this little tink sound as Lainie’s assistant takes her knife from the tray. A click, a rustle and a tear as the assistant opens the box and takes out the implant.

  My implant, the strongest ever created. The implant that’s going to override my doubting genes and make me feel loved forever.

  ‘Just a small nick,’ the assistant murmurs and I feel the blade against my skin.

  The cut doesn’t even hurt because everything’s numb, inside my body as well as out. Then the assistant’s fingers close around my neck, holding everything steady to make sure the implant slides into the exact right place.

  There’s this suspended feeling, like me and everyone else in the room are holding our breaths until it’s in and I’m reborn.

  So when the doors at the back of the room shake, everyone exhales at the same time. In the rush of air that follows, I lift my head. The doors are open. There’s a whole other group of guards standing there. Naturally, they have guns too.

  ‘Room for another?’ one of the guards says.

  From behind him comes another person. His Shepherd sungarb is damp and dirty. His long hair is gone, hacked off in uneven chunks. But it’s obviously him.

  It’s Blaze.

  ‘Found him trying to get back in. Changed his mind he says. Didn’t want to leave the other one behind.’

  Everyone spins to look at me. With my head raised, I feel drips run down the back of my neck. There’s a lot of blood from one little nick.

  ‘Touching,’ says Lainie Shepherd as the guards lead Blaze to the front of the room. ‘Really, it’s quite beautiful.’