Special

by Georgia Blain

  She stood up and walked over to the sitting-room window. The curtains were drawn back to let in the late-afternoon light, the burnt gold honeying the last of the day with a fleeting intensity. I presumed she was about sixty, though it was difficult to tell. If she were that old, we would be her last Lotto Girls. The intake below us were cared for by Miss Elizabeth, a younger housemother. The next intake would come as we finished at school, and Miss Margaret would be too old to see them through. I wondered what would happen to her. Did she have somewhere to go after Halston?

  We knew nothing about her other than what she had just told us. But then we had never really been interested in whether she had any life outside her role as housemother. Miss Margaret existed solely for us. That was her gift – making us feel special and loved.

  Turning around, Miss Margaret looked at each of us in turn. ‘There were discussions about whether Ivy’s testing should also be extended to the three of you.’

  ‘Why?’ Wren asked.

  ‘I suppose they were anxious that something had gone wrong and that a more extensive investigation was needed.’ Miss Margaret sat down again. ‘It’s not going to happen, not in the immediate future,’ she assured us. ‘You all received excellent reports from your tutors, so the Board saw no need to act at this stage.’

  I leant forward. ‘Then why are you telling us this?’

  ‘Excellent question.’ Miss Margaret nodded at me. ‘I am telling you because I want you to be aware that you may be observed a little more closely than usual. I know you will all be on your best behaviour. I know you do not want them to think that Lotto Girls are anything less than worthy.’

  She turned on the lamp next to the sofa and began to gather our teacups onto the tray. The meeting was over and we were expected to leave, to return to our own studies before we would meet again for dinner, followed by the Discussion Hour in her room.

  As we stood to go, Lark was the only one who remembered Ivy. ‘What will happen to her?’ she asked. ‘If she doesn’t pass their tests?’

  Miss Margaret smiled, her hands poised on the edge of the tray. ‘She will be fine.’

  Over the years, I spent many afternoons with Marcus. The only other students who went to the greenhouses and plots were those learning about the history of biology. Marcus and the other gardeners were not teachers but they did give demonstrations when required. Other than that, their main role was to keep the gardens growing and beautiful. Very little of the food that was produced ended up on our plates, but Marcus would always encourage me to try a little of what they grew: herbs, fruits, salad greens. Sometimes I just rubbed the leaves between the palms of my hands to smell them – the licorice of tarragon, the sweetness of sage.

  I went down there as soon as we left Miss Margaret. It was almost dark and Marcus was finishing up for the day.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, sensing my mood in the way he so often did.

  I nodded and told him there was no need for him to stay, I could come back tomorrow, but he ushered me in.

  ‘I’ve been saving this for you,’ he said. It was a salad made from the leftover harvest. ‘And I have real olive oil to dress it.’

  It was delicious; peppery and sharp, very different to the greens I’d had for lunch. I ran my fingers around the plate, licking the last of the oil.

  ‘What happens to us if we fail?’ I was hesitant in asking him the question, and he took a moment before he responded.

  ‘What do you mean by “fail”?’

  ‘If I’m no good at communicating, or Lark can’t sing in tune or compose, or Ivy isn’t …’ I shifted in my seat. ‘Do we just go back to our homes and live ordinary lives?’

  His gaze was keen. ‘What’s brought this on?’

  He listened as I told him what had happened earlier, interrupting me several times to clarify details of Ivy’s outburst and Miss Margaret’s talk with us. Normally a calm man who let others speak at their own pace, Marcus’s response surprised me.

  ‘Margaret seemed certain you wouldn’t be tested.’

  I wasn’t sure if this was a statement or a question, so I nodded. ‘They wouldn’t, would they?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said quickly. ‘And if they did, what would they find? That you’re a special young woman.’

  ‘And if I’m not?’

  He ruffled my hair. ‘Aside from these tangles, you seem to be an exemplary Lotto Girl.’ He told me it was time I got back. It would be dinner soon. ‘You mustn’t worry,’ he added. ‘I’m sure your friend will be fine.’

  As I left I wondered whether he was reassuring himself or me.

  I wake early in the mornings. Through my window I can see a small sliver of sky, like weak tea, yellowing as the day gains strength. In the courtyard, families boil their water rations, the youngest and the strongest eating first so they can queue for work. The elderly and the sick stay behind, relying on the charity of others for a meal or, in the case of the more enterprising residents, selling their skills – whether it be cooking, child-minding, clothing repairs or trading data in the queues.

  Chimo warms flatbread on a piece of iron. He hoards this precious piece of metal, along with his wok, locking both in his room when he goes to work. He lives on the ground floor. I haven’t been inside but I know which one it is. Small, dark and windowless, it only receives light and air if he keeps the door open, running the risk of having his few belongings stolen in the night. He only sleeps inside when the worst of the monsoons come, relentless and terrifying, if my one experience of that season is anything to go by.

  Lately, he has taken to making me a piece of bread, handing it to me as I come down from my room. I share what I have, sometimes FruitShapes, reject RiceGreens or ProteinPacks. I open a FishMeal packet to throw in the wok and let out a gasp of laughter.

  Sala looks at me. ‘What’s so funny?’

  It is so unlike the version we used to eat at Halston – the colour and texture completely wrong – but I can’t tell her this, so I just shake my head. ‘Nothing,’ I reply, and then I smile again, the tears coming as I sit on the ground, legs weak, telling her and Chimo I am fine.

  It is Sala who leans down and puts her hand on my forehead. ‘You’re hot,’ she says, her calloused palm cool against my skin.

  ‘It is hot,’ I mumble, and it is – it always is. Thick, choking heat that seeps through your pores and into your lungs, making each breath hard work.

  Chimo hands me a sip of water, watching me as I drink. I try to stand, holding the cup out towards him, but I’m unsteady. He reaches down, his smooth brown arm offering me support.

  ‘You’ve lasted a long time not getting sick,’ he tells me. ‘Most datawipes fall apart in the first month, and if not then, definitely in their first monsoon season. It’s almost been a year for you, but it still looks like acclimatisation sickness.’

  I’m about to protest when a wave of nausea hits me and I bend over, before sinking to the ground again.

  ‘I’ll take you to your room,’ he offers.

  I shake my head, the thought of that closed space only making me feel more ill.

  He leads me over to where he has strung up a hammock. Helping me in, he leans close enough for me to smell the lemon sharpness of his sweat and see the fine hairs on his forearms. I know it’s the fever speaking, but I want to draw him close, to tell him to hold me, to keep me safe. I open my mouth to speak but the effort of forming words is too much.

  He smiles at me, wiping my hair off my forehead with a tenderness that almost makes me cry.

  In his other hand he has a vial of BioPerfect Fever-Relief. I wonder where he got it from. I try to read the date on the side but the print is too small.

  He hesitates as he holds it out. It must be the only one he has. And then he relents. ‘Take it,’ he urges. ‘The fever will go and you will want to sleep.’

  I swallow it greedily.

  He puts a small bottle of water under my arm. ‘Drink it when you need to. We’ll be back th
is evening.’

  I remember him leaning over me. I remember touching the side of his face, his skin silky beneath the heat of my fingers. I remember thanking him, and then he is gone.

  When I wake I feel as though I have been out on the ocean, watching all that I know become fainter, tiny specks bobbing and disappearing as I drift in and out of sleep. I wake again in the full heat of the afternoon, my body cooler now, my head light and clear. Lying in the sway of the canvas sling, I stare at the sky, the images and messages floating in and out of my vision. I wonder whether the swooping bird is my own mediastream – the one I made just before I left Halston – a small child trying to copy the flow of its movements, laughing as she fails, a smile of complete contentment on her face, the world around her so far from the world I now live in. I was so naïve, believing in each broadcast I made. The beauty was real to me and I’d loved it for what it was, no more, no less, never thinking of the fact that I was selling something that was impossible for most people.

  As I let my gaze wander across the courtyard and out to the street, I see her again. Sitting up, I swing my legs onto the ground. Unsteady, my hands reach out in front of me, wanting to touch her.

  ‘Lark.’

  I whisper her name, oblivious to the stares of people returning from their shifts as I stumble towards the gates. I see her, just outside, reflected on the building opposite, a child in the river, her mouth open, ready to sing with all the sweetness I remember. And then I say her name again.

  It’s Chimo who stops me. With his hand on my hip, he turns me gently back towards the courtyard, laughing as he asks how I managed to get back before him. ‘I know you left the facility at the same time as us,’ he says too loudly, and he looks me up and down. ‘It’s because you didn’t buy any food,’ he tells me. ‘And you didn’t work as hard as I did. I cleared twenty kilos of sorting today,’ he boasts. ‘I saw you – only fifteen kilos. And you call yourself a professional.’

  I have no idea what he is talking about. I wonder whether the fever has taken hold again. Perhaps I am delusional and none of this exists.

  But his grip on my arm is firm and his voice is sudden and swift in my ear. ‘You were at work today,’ he hisses.

  ‘It’s not just the weight of rubbish,’ I tell him. ‘It’s the amount. I was on bottle caps – so many you wouldn’t believe.’

  I can see a flicker of approval in his eyes as he banters back to me, before turning to the group nearest to us in the compound and asking for their verdict.

  ‘She says she’s a better sorter than I am,’ he laughs. ‘She thinks her experience at ReCorp Facility 591 makes her superior to us. She may have been there for years, but we all know that the workers there are hopeless. Who saw us today?’ he asks.

  A couple of teenagers put up their hands.

  People see whatever is suggested to them.

  ‘591 workers are weak,’ one of the kids calls out. ‘We are superior.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Chimo tells him. ‘She might have years and years at 591 but she’s still slower.’

  It’s not until we are under the awning, away from the crush of people, that he suggests I go to my room. ‘I’ll see you there soon,’ he whispers.

  I hear him on the landing moments later, his knock on the door quiet.

  He looks at me with concern and asks whether the fever has gone, pressing his hand on my forehead to check. ‘The medicine should keep it away for a few days, for as long as the acclimatisation has hold. It’s strange it didn’t strike you ’til now.’

  I don’t tell him that we were dosed up by Miss Margaret before we left, each of us armed with a packet of BioPerfect meds that would be the envy of anyone here. ‘These should stave off the worst effects of the change,’ she had told us. ‘People usually get a secondary dose after their first year but it’s considerably milder than the first, so if you have run out of meds by then you’ll be okay.’ She had looked at us and seen the alarm on our faces. ‘Not that you’ll be there for that long.’

  Without the meds, I may not have survived the transition from Halston. Such an extreme datawipe as the one I’d endured would have killed many. I have to remind myself of this as I face Chimo now. I am strong. If I hold on, they will come and get me and it will be all right.

  ‘Why’d you do that down there? Why did you pretend I was at work?’ I ask him.

  He looks around my room, his eyes resting on the chair. I watch as he wanders over, running his fingers down the green velvet, letting his touch drift to the pale satin. He turns to where I’ve finished a box, the frame laid out to resemble the walls of our unit at PureAqua, the little furniture we owned small in those tiny replica rooms. He bends to pick it up but I stop him, wanting an answer.

  ‘I was protecting you.’ He speaks softly, looking at me now.

  ‘I don’t need protecting,’ I tell him.

  ‘There were visitors at the facility. There have been visitors to most of the facilities.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They’ve been asking questions, wanting to know about all the datawipes – who’s been suffering acclimatisation, particularly those who are getting the second dose. Not that you have had the first one.’ He waits for me to protest my innocence. ‘And then there was that name you called out.’

  I stiffen slightly.

  ‘What was it?’

  I don’t reply.

  ‘Lark?’

  I tell him there was no name. The fever made me garble. ‘I don’t understand,’ I say, swiftly moving away from my mention of her. ‘Datawipes are easy to find. You just check the data, see who’s been moved, where and when. They don’t need to go around asking questions. Besides,’ I add, ‘you said it yourself – if I were a datawipe I would have been sick a lot sooner and I would have been a lot worse.’

  Even in the dim remnants of the late afternoon I can see his features, the fine line of his mouth, his high cheekbones as he stops perfectly still only half a foot from me.

  ‘Datawipes aren’t always official. People are datawiped through the sieves.’ He steps towards me. ‘It happens all the time. Just look around us.’ He gestures to the window. ‘This is the place where you come to hide, where no one asks questions.’

  I can hear the sound of children shouting and playing, of meals being prepared. A fight breaks out below, a woman screams and then a man’s voice cuts over the argument, telling her to run. Across the sky there is the constant flash of images rolling over one another.

  ‘If you need to escape or disappear,’ he says, reaching for my hand, ‘you end up here.’

  In the closeness of my room, he is too near. I step back, leaning against the bars of the window. I breathe in slowly, assessing him. My head is too clouded for this.

  ‘Why should I trust you?’ I say eventually.

  He takes another step forward.

  ‘Tell me,’ I insist, and he stops. He motions for me to sit in the chair but I remain standing, pretending that I’m more steady on my feet than I feel, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘Lewis.’

  His reply is not what I expected. I stand there, rooted to the ground, trying not to betray how shaken I am. I have not heard my brother’s name in years.

  Although my parents worked for PureAqua, we lived in a compound that wasn’t much better than the one I’m in at ReCorp. Their work was lowly and we only ever had just enough data to get by.

  I was acutely aware of our poverty from the moment I arrived at Halston. I rarely spoke of home, not wanting the other girls to know where I came from. None of us went back to visit our families until the end of junior school – we were told that it would be disruptive and detrimental to our development. When the time came for us to return to our parents, Lark was on a highwire of excitement. I was dreading it.

  As soon as I arrived at the compound, heavily suited to protect me from the unregulated climate, the dirt and chaos appalled me. I complained about everything during the day and cried for my life at Halst
on each night.

  My brother looked at me with loathing. His hair was long, hiding the tiny earring he wore – a blood-red droplet. It was a mark of protest against PureAqua, worn by the tougher kids in the compound. ‘If it’s not good enough for you, then don’t stay here,’ he hissed. ‘Miss Special.’

  I didn’t flinch. ‘I would rather be Miss Special than Mr Ordinary.’ I glanced down at his homework and rolled my eyes. ‘You are so slow,’ I said, taking his mobie and answering each question without thought.

  He regarded me with disdain. ‘So?’

  I glared at him, arms folded. ‘So, what?’

  ‘So you’re special – so what? It’s not like you did anything to be the way you are. It was a lotto. It was just chance. That doesn’t make you better than me.’

  I seized his mobie again and wiped all his work, declaring that I hated him and I hated home, in the same breath ashamed at how juvenile I was being, how very similar my behaviour was to Ivy’s tantrums.

  It was the last time I went home. Yet, on my first night in this compound, it was that small apartment at PureAqua that played on my mind. Perhaps it was the similarity between the two places, a strong enough pull to make me think of my childhood home for the first time with longing. I recalled our sleeping mats on the floor, all of us in the one small room, the window open to the night. I remembered our living area with a simple gas burner, and the sink and taps my father had managed to scrounge – additions of which he was proud. My mother would string up a curtain so that we could wash in private, a luxury I knew others didn’t have.

  I had been told not to contact anyone.

  ‘Everyone you know will be monitored,’ Miss Margaret had said. ‘And although you will disappear this evening, you won’t know if one of you has been unearthed. So, do not try to find each other. We will find you.’