The Territory

by Sarah Govett

  ‘How can you seriously stand there and say this crap?’ I shouted back. ‘Do you really think I don’t care what’s happened to Daisy? What they’ve done to my best friend? I mean, really? And you – I’ve always been there for you, always.’

  ‘Not since you’ve met Mr Robot, you’ve haven’t. What’s he’s got, exactly? Do you secretly want to be a freakoid. Is that it? Do you get a kinky sort of thrill as you watch him plug in? Turns you on, does it, Noa?’

  ‘Shut up! Just shut up right now! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Raf’s an amazing guy. A better and smarter person than you’ll ever be.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cos life’s really hard when you upload isn’t it? He’s got enough time to entertain you, does he? Does better than me in tests, does he? What a surprise!’

  ‘He doesn’t even upload!’ The words were out of my mouth before they even registered in my brain. Floating across the air of the classroom. Like poison gas.

  A deathly silence fell. Everyone turned to look at me and then at Raf, whose presence I suddenly became aware of. He must have just come in. I willed Raf to look at me, but he just stared past, expressionless, chewing gum.

  I don’t know when Ms Jones entered the room, but she made herself known with a sudden intake of breath. Like she was hoovering up all the discomfort and fear in the room and feeding off it. Her eyes sparkled dangerously. She’d never liked Raf. She’d marked him out as different. And now she knows why.

  ‘Noa Blake, is this true?’

  I stood immobile, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Noa, answer me truthfully. If you lie, I WILL know and I’ll deduct another five points from your TAA score.’ Everyone sucked in their breath at that. Five points was unheard of. Five points was a death sentence.

  Before I could answer Raf stood up. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I didn’t upload for the last test.’

  ‘And may I ask why?’ Ms Jones’ words were honey-coated venom. ‘Are you above your fellow Childes? It is almost as if you don’t trust the information we are providing you with? Is it that, Rafael? Do you not trust the uploads?’

  Raf was very still and pale but I could see the battle raging inside him. To admit he didn’t trust the uploads would be seen as an attack on the system and mark him out as a Subversive. To say he did trust the uploads would be a direct lie.

  Raf did what was necessary. What I would have done. He lied. ‘My Port’s broken at the moment,’ he muttered. ‘It’s being mended. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear.’ Ms Jones smiled. She’s most dangerous when she’s smiling. ‘Then you won’t mind coming with me to the library for a catch-up upload. To check that you have this year’s material correctly stored.’

  And then she led him out of the room. And that’s when he finally looked at me, his eyes like Mr Patel’s when he had seen the baton rise, when he knew it was too late to run.

  I couldn’t help myself. I followed Ms Jones and Raf to the library. He was half-hidden by a screen but I could still see. See her sit him by a Port. See her bend down to pick up the wire and hand it to Raf. See him with his hand in front of his mouth, almost gagging, before taking it and plugging it in. Then his eyes went all white and he sat and shook for a solid ten minutes until Ms Jones declared, ‘That’s enough,’ and unplugged him. He sat limp. As if the lifeforce had been sucked out of him. Then he took one big breath. Then another. Then another. And with each breath his back became straighter; his head held higher.

  He stood up and started the walk back to the classroom. This time he walked shoulder to shoulder with Ms Jones: her equal rather than her victim.

  I followed, a lame shadow, trying to telepath out a connection. As Raf turned to enter the classroom, he looked at me. Directly in the eye.

  ‘Raf,’ was all I could manage.

  His expression was stone. No spark in his eye. No trace of wolf in his face.

  ‘Out of my way, Norm.’

  Five days to go now. God! This must be what it feels like to be on Death Row. At least there you get to choose a final meal. Mine would definitely not include mucor or any form of algae. And death is quick. Well, used to be. According to Jack’s step-dad, they’re apparently stopping trying criminals and will just dump them in the Wetlands instead. Prisons and courts are a waste of dry land. As if Fish don’t have enough to deal with. What’s worse, Jack’s step-dad mentioned it like it was some great news ’cos it’s his transport company that’ll probably get the contract to do the dumping.

  I don’t know if it’s possible to cram any more. It seems that I’m now so saturated with facts that everytime I try and put something new in my brain, something I’ve already learnt pops out. Mum keeps on telling me to take a break. But seriously? NO ONE takes a break with two days to go, even if they’ve just lost their boyfriend and their best friend has died. I guess the will to survive is pretty strong.

  Another unwelcome fact from Jack (presumably via his step-dad again): six per cent of students suffer seizures from lack of sleep on one or both of the exam days and four per cent try to kill themselves by shoving styluses up their noses and then ramming their heads down on their desk. Goes straight through the brain. Apparently. I think Jack felt guilty at sharing this choice information when he saw how ready to puke I looked.

  ‘I thought it’d cheer you up,’ he said.

  ‘Denser.’

  ‘What I was trying to say is that’s ten per cent of the competition gone.’

  And I nearly smiled and was actually a bit pleased when I registered this. What sort of sick people have we become?

  Jack studied here tonight. He’s my rock again. Which I guess means I’ve been reduced to a limpet.

  I hated him. Violently hated him after what happened to Raf. But then I realised that it was really just me that I hated. After all, it was me not Jack who’d betrayed Raf. Me that’d effectively killed him and given them an empty body to freakoid up. And Jack was so devastated by what happened. So we just sort of comforted each other. And it feels like the return of a lost limb. It’s nice. An oasis of nice in the middle of a big load of nasty.

  Time studying is also time not thinking about Raf or Daisy. Which is good. Necessary. Or I might start shoving styluses up my nose. Seeing Raf is so hard. And that means every day is so hard as he’s in nearly all my classes. I swear I caught him staring at me in Geography yesterday. Jack was rubbing my back as I had a massive stress knot and Raf’s eyes went all narrow and slity like a wolf that wasn’t sexy but that might actually eat you. I nearly cried there and then like a right loser at the level of hate or contempt he felt for me. Knowing that I was now just a Norm to him. A nobody. And he, even in spite of the upload, was still such a somebody to me.

  Tonight I just want to sleep. No dreams, just oblivion.

  I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was ten. It’s not on our Scribes, but Dad had a really old copy from when he was young. He said I should read it as it was ‘a lesson in amazing bravery’.

  ‘Anne’s bravery?’ I remember asking.

  ‘Yes, that too, but also that of the family that protected her and hid her from the Nazis.’

  And I remember thinking, but surely that’s just what anyone who’s not an evil Jew-murdering Nazi would do, isn’t it?

  We were woken at 1am by the knock at the door. Rap. Once. Pause. Then rap, rap. Twice. Then rap, once, again. Then rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, each knock like a short staccato note. Long pause. Then the whole sequence was repeated again. As my still half-asleep brain began to process what going on, I could feel adrenaline begin to pump around my body in time with the knocks. It was the code. Ella and Aunty Vicki’s emergency code. By the time I had my dressing gown on and was staggering out into the main room, I could hear Mum and Dad arguing.

  ‘Don’t open the door, Rachel,’ Dad was urging. ‘You already know what they want and we can’t. We just can’t.’

  ‘They’re family. We can’t just bolt out family.’

&nbs
p; ‘Rachel, no! Think of Noa. She’s got one more day at home till her exams. She doesn’t need this. You’re putting her at risk too.’

  It was too late, Mum had already pulled back the bolt and opened the door.

  Ella and Aunty Vicki’s faces peered in, almost ghostly white against the black corridor. Something about their faces made me think of twin rabbits. Albino rabbits in the biology lab cage at school.

  Mum ushered them in and then checked and rechecked the corridor for witnesses.

  ‘No one saw us, Rachel,’ Aunty Vicki said. ‘The policeman was patrolling the other end of the street.’

  ‘What about the camera on the ground floor?’ Mum asked Aunty Vicki, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Aunty Vicki held up a hammer and balaclava by way of explanation.

  ‘It’s broken.’

  There was this really long static silence.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ Dad said and sidled off into the kitchen, shooting Mum looks so they could have one of their telepathic conversations.

  ‘Noa, take Ella into your room. Aunty Vicki and I need to talk. Alone.’

  Ella followed me, head lowered. She sat, hands clutching ankles, a foetal ball at the bottom of my bed. And slowly the story spilled out.

  Ella was going to fail. She was sure of it. Aunty Vicki had decided to risk the week’s rations and keep her out of school on Friday to sit four past papers. She’d got 32 per cent in Maths, 51 per cent in Biology, 37 per cent in Physics and 43 per cent in Geography. There was no way she’d make 70 per cent on the following Saturday. Even if she aced the other subjects. Just no way. Aunty Vicki had made the decision as they’d gone through the mark schemes together, Ella’s face a mess of mascara-coated tears. She wasn’t going to give away her daughter without a fight. Stand by and watch her pack her last suitcase. Let them take her to the Waiting Place. Pile her into one of the ‘resettlement’ buses to be taken off to die. She’d go with her if it came to it. But they’d run first.

  It had taken them three days to get here. Travelling by night. Crawling along ditches, sleeping in skips. Ella’s left heel was a mass of weeping blisters. No one should have noticed their disappearance yet. No one tended to run before the exams. I mean, if there was the minutest chance you’d pass, you wouldn’t, would you? Running itself is an ‘Act of Opposition’ and fugitives ALWAYS got caught, well Norms anyway.

  ‘Mum was thinking we could hide here,’ Ella continued. ‘They probably wouldn’t check, would they? I mean with your mum working for the Ministry and everything. And then we could go and live in the Arable Lands or hide out in the Solar Fields or something. That Archie guy managed to get by for a year before he was caught and he was basically the stupidest guy ever.’

  I just sat there like a denser. A mute denser. I wanted to say, ‘Yes stay.’ I wanted to say, ‘You can hide in my wardrobe. We’ll feed you. We’ll protect you. You’re family.’ But my throat wouldn’t release the words. And all I was really thinking was my wardrobe’s tiny and if you stay they’ll come looking and they’ll find you and then we’ll all die and I really, really don’t want to die.

  Suddenly we heard shouting from the main room and the sound of things smashing over and over. Ella and I ran to open my door and saw Dad grabbing Aunty Vicki by the wrists as she brandished the hammer at Mum, who was surrounded by a sea of broken mugs and furniture.

  All three turned to look at us.

  Aunty Vicki spoke first.

  ‘OK we’re going. We’re going. Ella, get your things. The plan’s changed.’

  Ella’s face was fear itself. Her whole body seemed to crumple. ‘But…’ she began to stutter.

  ‘There’s no time,’ Aunty Vicki continued. ‘We’ll be OK, sweetheart. I’ll protect you, baby,’ and then her voice broke and she roughly pushed tears away.

  Tears streamed down Mum’s face too as she shut the door behind them.

  ‘They’re not staying then?’ I said, just to say something.

  ‘No … they’re not.’ And then she said, ‘Oh God, I love you, Noa-bean,’ just like she used to when she tucked me up in bed when I was really small.

  Then I started crying too. Crying because of what was going to happen to Ella and Aunty Vicki. Crying because I was so relieved that we weren’t going to risk hiding them. And crying because I felt so guilty at how selfish I am.

  I would have killed Anne Frank.

  So many lasts in just one day.

  Last weekend.

  Last day of walking down the streets, hand in hand with Jack.

  Potentially last dinner at home. EVER EVER EVER.

  Dinner was awful. Truly awful. Mum and Dad were trying so hard to be fun and to ignore what was going to happen tomorrow and what had happened last night that they were like weird wind-up clowns or people in some freaky horror or body-swap film. Mum must have used up about five days’ rations to prepare a feast, but it kept on just getting stuck in my throat and I had to choke every mouthful down. It might as well have been mucor. I don’t know what they’re going to eat for the rest of the week. And they kept talking about plans for the rest of the year and for next year and the year after. As if by repeatedly denying even the possibility that I’d get sent away that’d somehow stop it happening. Like a magic mantra or something.

  I broke halfway through pudding. Dad was talking about going on this big family trip to the Woods for my sixteenth birthday and I just stood up and screamed, ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ and ran to my room.

  A few minutes later, Mum tapped at my door and sheepishly shuffled in.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ I whispered, peeping out from under my duvet.

  ‘No, we’re sorry, baby. We just wanted you to have a nice evening. To feel that everything was normal and will be normal.’

  ‘But it’s not normal, is it, Mum? It couldn’t exactly be further from normal. Daisy’s dead, Raf’s a freakoid, Ella and Aunty Vicki are no doubt already being hunted down by the police and I’m probably going to fail the TAA and get sent off to die and never see you and Dad again.’ Huge sobs just seemed to burst out of my body without my brain even sending signals.

  ‘Stop right there,’ Mum said, her voice comfort with a steel core. ‘You are my brilliant daughter. You will sail through these exams.’

  ‘But I might not, Mum. Please, just for once, acknowledge that I might not.’

  She took a deep breath and exhaled. I knew how much these words would cost her.

  ‘OK. Suppose these examiners are morons.’ Mum never says morons. ‘Suppose you do fail. Dad and I are coming with you. We’ll be sitting next to you on the bus and sleeping next to you in the shelter we’ll build with you there.’

  I almost smiled at the idea of Mum and Dad building a shelter. They’re both beyond useless at DIY.

  ‘But you shouldn’t die too.’

  ‘We won’t die. The Blakes are survivors. And if you’re not here, Noa, there’s nothing left for us in the Territory anyway.’

  Then she helped me pack.

  On my bed’s my bag. Still quite slim, innocuous looking. On the top’s the massively anal sheet specifying exactly what I’m supposed to take, the Ministry’s crappy symbol at the top.

  ‘Revision aids;

  7 pairs of undergarments;

  2 pairs of trousers;

  4 tops/shirts;

  2 jumpers;

  1 pair of shoes (waterproof)

  Sufficient to provide for the two Exam Days and the Waiting Place.’

  The bus pulled up at the stop three minutes early. Everyone was already there, waiting; a crocodile of students, parents and suitcases lining the grey pavement. It had just started to rain. Eyelashes blinked away raindrops and tears as we boarded, one by one, Ms Jones grimly ticking off names on her tightly clasped clipboard. Even the freakoids looked slightly freaked out as if some human feelings were finally surfacing.

  You could tell a lot about families by how they said goodbye and good luck. Hugo’s mum gave Hugo a cold peck
on the cheek and his dad gave him a clipped handshake. I guess they knew there was no way that Hugo wasn’t coming back, so why waste emotion? Raf’s mum gave him a huge hug; his dad hadn’t even bothered to show. I knew how much that would bother him. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe new robotic Raf wouldn’t even care anymore. In any event, he avoided me, as usual, even after I swear I saw his mum point me out. Jack’s mum rubbed Jack’s head into her chest, which might have looked really affectionate, if massively inappropriate, but was really just to draw more attention to her saggy cleavage and to make sure her carefully applied and over-bright lipstick didn’t smudge.

  Mum and Dad were the best. They were sandwiched either side of me, stroking my hair, singing stupid songs, including the classic, ‘Noa, Noa, Noa Blake’ to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Normally I would have found this the most cringeworthy thing ever. But this morning I kind of liked it and willed them not to stop.

  Finally it was my turn to board. The driver took my suitcase and threw it into the hold. I dragged myself up the five steps, my legs like lead weights. Jack had saved me a seat towards the back and I burrowed in next to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered. It was the sort of morning that everyone was speaking at half volume.

  ‘No probs. Couldn’t have you sitting at the front like a loser.’

  I punched Jack in the arm and he grinned. His grin was ACE. Then he dove into his rucksack and produced his Scribe and his headphones to share.

  I looked around to check Ms Jones was still busy at the front and then produced my discman. He laughed at me as if I’d pulled out some sort of museum exhibit.

  ‘Shut up,’ I hissed. ‘I know it looks ridiculous but the music’s good. Different. I wanted you to listen to it.’

  ‘You’re making this up, Noa.’

  ‘Just listen, but make sure no one sees.’

  Jack laughed again and said that no one would care what we were listening to now. Everyone knew this was probably a one-way trip. My mood dropped even lower, if possible.