Who Runs the World?

by Virginia Bergin

  The higher we go, the more deserted the place seems until we’re passing hallways so packed with stored junk the rooms cannot possibly be used for guests.

  And still we go higher, until we run out of stairs.

  We stop in a hallway that is different to the others. It is smaller, and free of junk. The carpet – though ancient – is plush and soft underfoot.

  ‘River! Come and look at this!’ says Mason.

  From the tall window at the end of the hall there is the most stunning view of Birmingham: the snowy city laid before us.

  Diamond leans against the glass, her back to the view, studying Mason.

  ‘I don’t know what you are,’ she says.

  Mason looks at me.

  ‘He’s a boy,’ I tell her. It feels like the most gigantic, dangerous confession.

  She gives me the most withering look. ‘I’m a geneticist.’

  ‘You’ve been modified, haven’t you?’ she says to Mason. ‘You’ve been created.’

  Mason shrugs; uncomfortable, angry.

  ‘We just need to find his Mumma,’ I tell her, gripped by a sudden fear that she might be about to call H&R – but she wouldn’t, would she? Why would she bring us all the way up here just to do that?

  ‘I had to see you with my own eyes. So, now I’ve seen you,’ she says. ‘You never came here. You need to get out as quickly as possible and you don’t ever come back. Never speak of this. I’ve destroyed all records. There is no trail. There is no trace. There never would be anyway, but in this case double, triple, quadruple NOTHING. You were never here. Are we?’

  I nod; I feel frightened.

  ‘So you can keep this pretty little diamond,’ she says, holding out Kate’s ring. ‘Payment is refused.’

  I hold out my shaking hand because I don’t know what else to do. She drops the ring into my palm. My palm closes on it. It was – always – a heartbreak of a trade. Too precious.

  ‘What about his Mumma?’ I ask her.

  ‘Every child is our child,’ she says. ‘Even this one.’

  She points at the only door in the hallway.

  ‘She’s in there?’ Mason asks.

  Diamond nods, takes one last look at Mason, turns and trudges back down the stairs.

  I cannot be more shocked than Mason, but I do feel very shocked. I don’t know what I had thought would happen, but somehow it feels as though this moment has come way too fast . . . for me, because this is goodbye. Suddenly I feel I want to do that, to say a proper goodbye to him, but there is no time for that now. No time and no emotional space; he is shaking, again, but not from the cold.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I murmur.

  ‘. . . What if she doesn’t want me?’

  My heart floods with pity. I take him by the hands. ‘She came here for you.’

  He stares back at me from a place I cannot imagine. His hands slip from mine and he approaches the door. He hesitates.

  He knocks.

  ‘Yes?’ calls a voice from inside. An anxious voice.

  Mason opens the door.

  There is a person standing there, in the middle of the room.

  And I look at her – and in her face . . . I see Mason’s.

  ‘My son!’ she whispers.

  In her arms, the boy who doesn’t cry cries.

  It is too private a moment. It feels so wrong that I am there. So there will be no goodbye at all. I turn away.

  The journey seems even longer on the way down. The stairs seem to go on forever. I am crying. I am crying for Mason and all the lost boys. And in my tears I taste the bitterness of the Granmummas.

  CHAPTER 29

  DESCENT

  There is nowhere to hide from Mumma.

  She is there in the lobby of the hotel. She has seen me, I have seen her. There is nowhere to hide and I wouldn’t want to anyway – all I want is the hug her open arms offer.

  ‘River!’ she says softly, cradling me as I sob. ‘What are you doing here? What’s wrong? Darling! What on Earth is wrong?’

  Over her shoulder, I see them: Mason and his Mumma, hurrying into the lobby. They have rushed after me; Mason scanning this way and that, seeking me out until he sees me – and sees Mumma. He looks at me; I look at him . . . and I shake my head. It is the tiniest movement. It is enough. He gives a nod.

  He and his Mumma leave.

  So there was a goodbye, of sorts. There was a goodbye after all.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Mumma says again, less softly now. Easing me away so I face her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say . . . which feels very true somehow. ‘I just want to go home.’

  She eyes me with concern. And puzzlement. And suspicion.

  ‘Really, Mumma, I just want to go home. There’ll be a train and –’

  ‘Is Kate with you?’ she asks.

  She might as well be, I’m thinking. She’s the past, and the past is always with us.

  ‘No. I’m here alone.’

  Now I am. Now I am here alone.

  ‘Has she . . . did Kate send you here?’

  ‘Mumma, I want to go home.’

  My Mumma hugs me. ‘Then you go home,’ she says. She releases me from her embrace. ‘I can’t come with you, I have to be at the Council. I’ll be home tomorrow, then we can talk. Will you be OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I will be OK. When I am home I will be OK.

  ‘River, you have done the right thing,’ Mumma says, after a pause.

  I stare at her – how could she know about Mason and his Mumma? Kate would never have told her. No Granmumma would have told her.

  ‘Your silence has protected everyone,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t understand . . .’

  ‘If you had spoken on record at the Court, it wouldn’t only have been your future at stake, it would be everyone’s future. River, the XYs are being traded for a new satellite. Without communication we are nothing.’

  ‘. . . The deal. That’s the trade deal with China?’

  ‘And the rest of the world.’

  My brain feels as though it is landing, hard, back into a reality it can just about make sense of. A reality that is meaningful to me: ‘. . . The Dreambird . . .’

  ‘We will all help each other. A demonstration of engineering excellence from India. The next time the plane comes here, the visit won’t be such a secret. At the moment we’re all just working out who plays what part in this.

  ‘That means you too, River,’ she says, as I stand there, brain crackling. ‘So go home, do – and take care.’

  I nod. Who plays what part? I am River, and I am going to build satellites.

  ‘Yes, Mumma,’ I tell her. ‘Yes.’

  And I hug her and I kiss her.

  ‘River – what are you doing here?’ she says.

  It feels like my mind just hit the bottom of the stairs and bounced. It went down. It bounced. It went up. It lands in a smush.

  ‘It’s confidential,’ I tell her.

  I walk to the station. Birmingham is a blur around me. Inside my head my mind is also a blur.

  I wait for my train.

  My train arrives.

  My train leaves.

  I am not on it.

  I go back up to the concourse. I stand in line for a turn at a computer. Without communication we are nothing. There is only one person I want to communicate with right now. I just need her voice to quiet the clamour in my head.

  Plat cannot hide her astonishment as my face pops up on PicChat in the middle of a national discussion she’s attending about . . . Tess? That book Plat told me about ages ago – they’re still discussing it?

  ‘Apologies,’ Plat announces to the group. ‘I have to go.’

  She clicks off every face on the screen until we are alone. For a moment, we just look at each other, love in every pixel.

  ‘Why did you abstain from the Court?’ I ask her.

  She leans in to the screen. There won’t be anyone else in the study room with her – of that I’
m sure; no one else has the time or the brain space to worry about once-was literature. She leans in, I know, because she wants us to be close.

  ‘I abstained because I’m just not sure – not sure enough – what the right thing to do is. I’m still not sure. I think, perhaps, that wouldn’t stop me from speaking . . . the whole GM XY trade situation –’

  ‘You know about that?!’

  ‘The Court was told: we’re trading XYs.’

  ‘They were told?!’ I whisper.

  ‘They were told. Of course they were told. People needed to understand how Mason was even here alive in the first place. And then there was the question of how . . . that other XY came to be here. The 150 knows everything – and the 150 decided.’

  ‘149. You didn’t vote.’

  ‘148. Nor did you.’

  ‘I couldn’t, could I? I was asleep.’

  ‘And now you’ve woken up.’

  ‘. . . Plat, please – tell me what to do.’

  ‘. . . Come home.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘I’m not your Mumma – or your Granmumma.’

  ‘I know that!’

  ‘River, some people might be willing to take this issue further, no matter how much trouble it might cause . . . But not like this,’ she says. ‘No one wants this trouble. Not when it involves one of us.’

  ‘And I feel the same way,’ she adds when I have nothing to say. ‘I Agree.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I tell her.

  We stare at each other.

  ‘Then you’d have to speak to the National Council.’

  She knows as well as I do that I could not possibly stand in front of the National Council – in front of the world, because all proceedings are streamed and accessible – and –

  ‘Plat . . .’

  ‘No. I know what you’re going to ask me, and – no – I won’t speak for you. Not even an email. Not even an anonymous email. If this was just – hah! “just”! – a question of starting up a discussion about the XYs, I might be prepared to speak, but it isn’t, is it? It’s about you, River. If you want to put a noose around your neck you’re going to have to do it yourself.’

  ‘. . . And if I did?’ I ask her. ‘If I did speak?’

  ‘One question first?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Is this about love?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Plat!’

  ‘Anything. You said anything.’

  ‘No! I don’t love him!’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Why are you even asking me this?!’

  ‘Because it’s the first thing the Council will think.’

  ‘I don’t see why!’

  ‘Because it’s traditional! It’s once-was! It’s girl-loves-boy! Half the Council are Granmummas – this is what they’ll think! They’ll think the only reason you’re doing this is because you are in love with him.’

  ‘Well, they can think what they like –’

  ‘Plus it’s written in the case report.’

  ‘Someone said that?! Someone said . . .’

  ‘That it is possible you are in love with him.’

  ‘Who said it?! Who said that?! Plat – tell me, or I’ll go and look for myself.’

  ‘You can’t. The case report is locked.’

  ‘No case is ever locked!’

  ‘No case ever involved a situation like this.’

  Those words hit me like the smack of an ash branch in the face.

  ‘River, do you want my advice or not?’

  ‘I want your advice.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are you listening to me?’

  ‘I am sure.’ I breathe, I try to be calm. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I think you should drop this,’ she says. ‘I Agree that this discussion – about the XYs, about everything – needs to happen. It must happen, and I’m fairly sure it will happen soon . . . but this is not the time or the place. If you speak about what has happened, if you speak about killing that man, there will be many, many more consequences than you can possibly imagine. This is about your life and your future, River. Don’t turn it into a cause. A cause that isn’t even yours. Come home, my love.’

  I bow my head.

  ‘But I think it is my cause,’ I tell her. ‘I think . . . perhaps . . . it’s everyone’s cause.’

  She is silent; I look up at the screen. There is Plat, staring back at me.

  ‘Then good luck,’ she whispers, and cuts the call.

  We don’t do that. We don’t wish each other luck. It’s a Granmumma thing.

  CHAPTER 30

  WORDS

  I remember this place so well from when we came here as a school; Plat so excited – and me, too, briefly, because I’d never been in a building like it. The National Council is an old place that was not left to crumble – like the Houses of Parliament in London – but adapted to be energy-efficient. I was less excited about the politics. I mean, I knew it was important . . . but . . . you vote for people you trust, don’t you? And you know what decisions they’re going to make because we, the 150 voters, know exactly what is going on . . . or we could do, if we wanted to. Plat likes to; I’ve never taken that much interest. Everything is online if you care to look, and everything is discussed, if you care to listen. My brain has been so full of my own future I haven’t wanted to listen and think about issues that don’t concern me. Why would I? That’s what representation is for, isn’t it? Same as how I wouldn’t expect anyone who climbed on board a plane I’d built to be worrying about how I’d built it. People are trusted to do their jobs.

  In the once-was, Kate says, no one trusted the people who were supposed to represent them.

  There is a lift, I see, to enable access. I take the stairs. I push open the first door off those stairs. The first balcony is crowded – and feels way too close to the auditorium; I can see the National Council. The 150 of all our 150s: our National Representatives. I can see the bank of screens on which Mummas who are too busy to be here in person can join the debate – and so many Granmummas too, the ones who are just too old or too sick to come here. Though I remember the spectacle from years ago, I am still dazzled by it – though not so dazzled my eyes don’t immediately see her: my Mumma.

  She’s here, sitting, deep in thought, on a raised platform among the Representatives who have been able to attend in person. Their chairs form a semi-circle – the idea being, Yaz told us on the school visit, that we, the people in the auditorium, are the other half of that circle.

  I go up higher. I walk up and up and up until – the last door I shove open . . . it’s a fire escape, I suppose. This last door leads onto nothing but slopes of snow; a crazy roof landscape of angles and icicles, turbines still in the low grey of this winter day, cowls of heat-return funnels stood before me: faceless howl-mouthed giants with dripping icicle hoods.

  And I stand there for a moment, just breathing.

  For the first time in my life, I feel truly alone.

  I go back down – to the seats at the end of the highest balcony. There is no one much else around up here, and no chance that I will be spotted, lurking in the darkness.

  The Council is in discussion: how to manage the crash-risk from dying satellites.

  I should be interested. I am interested. It would be a very good thing to lose myself in this discussion. This important discussion. It is important; so many things are. Crystal-Rose. Healthcare. Fish. Comms.

  No one – except Plat – knows I am here. No one but me has put me here. No one – but me? – is thinking I should speak . . . so I don’t have to.

  And I know I don’t want to.

  Up here, I am so removed from everything . . . except the Global Agreements.

  They are written in extravagant gold lettering above the bank of screens. They are written so high above the proceedings below, it is as though they are speaking directly to me.

  I clo
se my eyes to them. It is no use. I know them by heart, the Agreements that, after grief and decades of struggle, the world decided upon:

  The Earth comes first.

  Every child is our child.

  We reject all forms of violence.

  We will all help each other.

  Knowledge must be shared.

  We agree that we need to agree.

  Everyone has the right to be listened to.

  I have grown up with them. We Teens, we quote them – even the Littler Ones do – but usually only when we do not like what is happening to us. It’s so useful to have them to point to when you want to object to something. These Agreements . . . they are so deeply a part of my life I have never had to truly think about them, any more than I ever had to think about what a ‘girl’ is supposed to be like – or a boy.

  It does seem to me that every single one of the Agreements was broken after Mason arrived. Even The Earth comes first went down the plughole with gallons of hot water and endlessly stoked fires. He had never heard of these Agreements. He had never heard of them because he and his kind played no part in deciding them. And a thought more terrible than all those: they do not apply to him.

  In my mind’s eye, he is here with me now.

  ‘Wow,’ I imagine him saying. ‘Those are the rules?’

  ‘They’re not rules,’ I say out loud, opening my eyes to the empty seats around me . . . realising I have, in fact, always thought of them that way. ‘They’re Agreements . . . they’re more like . . . things to aim for.’

  We are brought up to think we are part of everything. That power – decisions – belong to everyone.

  Everyone has the right to be listened to.

  I’ve never thought about what that means. I’d thought it meant people should feel free to say what they think – yes – but that others must listen to them.

  What about the voices that are not heard? How can people listen to them?

  I stand up on my feet.

  My heart is in my mouth.

  ‘My name is River,’ I shout.

  The National Council – the faces on the screens, the Representatives – the Mummas and the Granmummas and the Teens who have come to witness our democracy in action . . . all of them look to see who has disrupted the proceedings.