CHILDREN OF THE THUNDER

by John Brunner

  Which is how come I wound up at this “progressive” school in the back of beyond, called Mappleby House.

  But I like it a lot better than any school I was at before, I must admit. Mainly here you do what you want so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else. There are some great teachers who honestly seem to love kids. Before I got here I didn’t know how much fun you can have finding things out. Sometimes I get terribly angry with the teachers I used to have who didn’t care about anything except forcing you to come up with the approved answer.

  I’m wandering off the point.

  I was going to say: I know how old I am—fourteen next birthday—and I recognize my face when I see it in the mirror, the usual black hair and brown eyes and rather olivey skin as though there’s some kind of Middle Eastern ancestry in there… I often stare at myself for ages and ages trying to see what someone else would notice on looking at me for the first time. I can’t work it out, any more than I can decide whether I’m pretty. I hope I am—I mean naturally. I hate the idea of smothering my face in gunk the way some of the older girls do, just to make a better impression on some bocky boy.

  No, the reason I don’t know who I am any more is because I’ve changed. Inside. I remember when it happened, but I don’t know why. And I’m scared. It went this way.

  Mappleby used to be a big country house, not exactly a stately home—it’s only Victorian—but it has this huge garden and lots of nice private corners among laurel hedges and the place most of us like, especially in summer, is where one of the walks runs down to a bend in the river. It’s quite shallow there, so you can bathe if you want, but the other bank doesn’t belong to us and sometimes you get the local yobs coming to stare and even trying to chat us up—long range at the tops of their voices. They can’t actually get across to us because there’s a sort of weird thing made of wire mesh, that we call the Palisade, and anyway the water’s a bit murky and we have a proper swimming pool as well. But it’s great for sunbathing, and since Mappleby was founded back in the twenties when there was this terrific craze for Freikörperkultur (I think that’s right) you don’t even have to wear a thong if you don’t want to.

  Of course we’re all encouraged to be terribly natural and healthy about our bodies and boys and girls share the same dormitory and go to the showers together and all the rest of it, but I like that, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the cooking is kind of bocky I’d say the whole setup was featly, except of course it scandalizes the natives who practically make an industry out of being offended.

  A moment back I said the yobs can’t get over to us, only stare from the other bank beyond the wire. But that’s not absolutely true. One of them did manage it.

  I was exactly midway between two periods. I started young, like my mother apparently. Luckily I don’t have a bad time before I bleed—no PMT or whatever they call it, and no cramps—but around the middle of the month I do get incredibly frustrated. So I was feeling in a particularly bocky mood even though it was fine and sunny, so I went off by myself to the river with a couple of books I wanted to finish. But it got so hot I had to peel off and I was still sweating so I went in for a dip. I’d noticed a gang of natives on the other bank but I didn’t give a tinker’s toss for them. I lost count years ago how many people have seen me in the nude. Then… Oh, I suppose one of them must have boasted to his mates that he could get to me, because he stripped off—not completely, he kept his underpants on—and jumped in and swam to the Palisade. It’s sort of curved at the top in a way that’s supposed to make it impossible to climb over, and the water’s at its deepest there so there isn’t any footing, and trying to support your weight on fingers and toes while you scramble up must be terribly painful. Like climbing chickenwire, see what I mean?

  Except as I found out afterward this particular native, who was nineteen, was on leave from the Commandos where they’d put him through what’s supposed to be the toughest assault course in NATO, and he was on my side before I knew what was happening, while his pals on the far bank clapped and cheered.

  “Didn’t think I could make it, did you?” he said as he found his footing and started to push through the water toward me. “Just because it was never done before! Well, for that I think I deserve a kiss, don’t you? And maybe a bit more than just a kiss!”

  I was absolutely stunned. I thought I was going to pass out. I mean, they say I’m well-developed for my age, but that doesn’t mean I could face up to a hunk like him with muscles growing out of his muscles. I can still see his grin. He was sunburned, so there were kind of red patches on his cheeks, and he had practically no hair. I mean on his head. His chest was like a bocky doormat, and lower down—well, the word isn’t even thicket!

  It wasn’t the idea of being kissed. I must make that clear. I mean, it happens a lot at my school. It’s natural, isn’t it? And lots more than just kissing, too. But we get properly taught about pregnancy and AIDS and all that kind of thing, and in any case it’s no very big thing except perhaps among the oldest of the kids. One of the teachers I like best showed me this book by someone—I think he’s American only he’s got this German name: Bet-something, is it?—he found the same sort of situation among kids on an Israeli kibbutz, who because they grew up together acted toward each other like brothers and sisters. I know a lot of brothers and sisters do do things with each other, but—

  Look, this isn’t a defense of the way things are at Mappleby, okay? I was trying to explain what scared me. It was the way he took it for granted that because he’d proved he was a Big Strong Man I was instantly going to lie down and spread my legs. Pardon my crudity, but it’s not half as crude as what I could read on his face like plain English.

  And that was when I stopped being scared. That was when I stopped knowing who I am. Because being scared was more like the me I was used to. Only…

  Only all of a sudden I wasn’t afraid any more. I was angry. I was—

  All right. It probably sounds too fancy, too like something I picked up from a book, but I don’t know any better way to express it. I was suddenly possessed, by ice-cold rage that showed me precisely what I had to do. I felt myself smiling as he reached out toward me, and instead of pushing his hands away I met them with mine, locking my small fingers with his big thick ones. This surprised him long enough for me to say, “I’m a virgin, you know. I’m not even thirteen yet.”

  He blinked water out of his eyes; it was trickling down from what little hair he had on his scalp. Then he grinned again.

  “You can’t fool me like that! I know about this school of yours! I know what you get up to! Running about starkers—like you right this minute! Boys as well as girls!”

  I was gradually luring him backward into the shallows, so my breasts appeared above the water, provoking another outburst of cheering from his mates. His eyes fastened on them hungrily. Next moment it would probably be his mouth, but that wasn’t the idea. I said, and something made my tone cajoling and seductive, “All right. But…”

  “But what?”

  “I want you to go down on me first. Know what I mean?”

  “What do you think I bloody am? A virgin like you? ‘Course I know what you mean!”

  “Then go ahead,” I said. “And if you make me come by doing it, I’ll make you come the same way.”

  His grin became enormous, stretching those red-blotched cheeks until I thought he’d sprain the muscles of his mouth—and he did exactly as I’d told him to.

  Under a foot of water.

  It was as though he simply forgot he couldn’t breathe the stuff! I felt his tongue on my belly, then around my pubic hairs, and then among them. Then, when I was sure he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, he simply didn’t come up. He stopped moving, and all of a sudden he was drifting away, all limp, like a wet rag-doll.

  After that it gets confused. The next thing I remember is stumbling out on the bank and grabbing my clothes and my books and racing toward the school. I looked back once, and there wasn’t any sign
of him. By the time they found him against the Palisade, carried there by the current—still underwater—he was dead.

  There was an inquest, of course. I said I didn’t mind being called as a witness, and stood up in front of the coroner and answered her questions as calmly as I could, saying I knew about rape and felt I was fortunate to have been spared so terrible an ordeal, though I had been very frightened. The coroner was a woman doctor. She congratulated me on my lucky escape. The surgeon who carried out the postmortem said death was due to drowning but he’d also discovered some kind of weakness in the growser’s heart in spite of him being a Commando and supposed to be perfectly fit. The jury brought in a verdict of misadventure. The local paper said it served the bastard right, or words to that effect, and called for reassessment of the educational system at Mappleby on the grounds that it could produce a pupil not yet thirteen who could display such presence of mind when assaulted by a would-be rapist. I don’t know if you remember, but according to the news half a dozen girls my age had been raped and killed in the previous few months.

  After which, of course, my mum and dad—my dads, I suppose I mean, because Doug turned up for the inquest, too—and the staff of the school all said I was wonderful and marvelous and so did the other kids and lots of them wanted all of a sudden to be best friends with me.

  But who are they making friends with? I don’t know! I can’t believe I’m me any longer! You see, I committed a murder in public view! All the growser’s mates were watching, like I told you—five or six of them, there must have been. And I got away with it!

  I don’t think I want to be me any more!

  If they go on pestering me, I’m afraid I’ll do the same again. I could. I know I could.

  I don’t want to! Do you hear me? I don’t want to!

  Please help. Somebody. Please help…

  You’re watching TV Plus. Now for Newsframe.

  A group of American terrorists, one of the so-called. “Rambo squads,” has claimed responsibility for the bomb that destroyed the headquarters of the West German Green Party. Eight people are known to have lost their lives, and nine others are in hospital.

  Here in Britain, four self-confessed supporters of General Thrower have been remanded on bail after setting fire to shops owned by Chinese and Pakistanis. At the hearing the magistrate said patriotism had its limits, but shouts from the public area of the court…

  Peter Levin’s appearance on TV Plus with the government spokesman had transformed his life.

  Above all, he had a new home, in a block built on what had been the playground of a school until emigration from Inner London dramatically cut its population—and exported the problems of drugs and crime to provincial towns that hitherto had been relatively peaceful. He still had only three rooms but all were bigger, and instead of being under the leaves they were at street level in a better area. The kitchen was three times the size and the bathroom boasted a proper tub. Also there was off-street parking. He still could not afford a car, but there was a chance TV Plus might soon allot him one on the company.

  Of course, the price was horrendous—but nothing compared to what people were paying in Manhattan or Tokyo. So the moment he set eyes on it, he said, “I’ll take it.” And moved in ASAP to forestall squatters.

  After the removal crew had left he poured himself a shot of Scotch, humming a cheerful tune despite the fact that the evening was unseasonably cool and wet. Seemingly autumn had decided to visit Britain ahead of time this year. Passing his desk, to check that his gear was correctly connected, he hit an email code on his computer: that of Harry Shay out in California, whom he’d been meaning to contact for ages. Even if over there people weren’t out of bed yet he could leave a message—

  What?

  The screen was flashing at him: No such code.

  Had he mis-hit the number? He tried again, more slowly, with the same result.

  Professional reflexes made the nape of his neck tingle. Setting aside his glass, he dropped into his working chair and tried the only other address he had for Harry, that of his company Shaytronix, which should at least have a machine on line.

  No such code.

  “This is ridiculous!” Peter said aloud. He remembered Harry Shay from his early days with Continuum. The guy had been one of the most successful British software entrepreneurs—not a programmer himself, but brilliant at putting commercial firms in touch with experts who could tailor existing systems to meet their special requirements, and a positive genius at collecting commission fees. Granted, a shadow had fallen over his last months in Britain, some suspicion that he had diverted funds belonging to his customers for his own benefit… But nothing had ever been proved, and he had done the accepted thing by marching off to California as it were with drums and trumpets, announcing that he was forced to emigrate because the fools in charge at home had no understanding of modern business.

  True enough, in Peter’s view. If any of Britain’s major corporations were to be run as inefficiently as its government, they’d be bankrupt within months…

  Half-noticed in the background, but with the sound loud enough to furnish a distraction, the TV was reporting from Chicago, where flooding was driving thousands of people from their homes. Angrily he pressed the remote control and left its images to mop and mow in silence while he searched for the reason why the code for Shaytronix wasn’t valid any more.

  But this time, when he entered the correct digits, he saw on his screen: Normal routing not available. That was a message he had never encountered before. He sat back, frowning, and took a sip of his whisky. Then, even as he poised his fingers to try again, realization dawned and he turned in dismay to the TV.

  By then the report from Chicago was over, and there were scenes of Brazilian refugees, the Indians who according to their country’s government did not exist in Grand Carajas, bellies bloated with pellagra under a skim of reddish-yellow dust, too listless even to brush away the flies that came to sup the moisture from their eyes.

  Grief, not another bocky mess in South America!

  But the glimpse he had had earlier was enough to remind him of something he already knew but had overlooked. The main clearing-house for the email networks he was accustomed to using was at the University of Chicago…

  Among the goodies he had awarded himself when he moved from his former home was a short-range timeshifter, a recorder that monitored sixteen pre-set TV channels on an endless-loop tape, so he could review anything of interest within twenty-four hours, whereafter the data were wiped. Now he needed that Chicago report, and in a hurry!

  A few oath-ridden minutes later he got the hang of the instructions, and was able to watch exactly what he was afraid of. It was no news that the Great Lakes were returning to the level that had obtained before the city was founded; right now, however, a northerly wind was whipping water over Lake Shore Drive and into basements, cellars, underground garages… There were shots of drowning cars. Some that were unusually airtight with their windows closed bobbed around on the surface for a little, but then—through the exhaust pipe, maybe—the water claimed them, and they burped and sank amid a string of bubbles.

  Peter had visited Chicago. He knew where the computers were housed that relayed his messages—this having become a valuable commercial service for the university when Federal subsidies grew scarce. They were in concrete rooms below ground level, designed to keep out terrorists.

  But more than likely not designed to keep out water.

  For the first time since his late teens when he stopped worrying about nuclear war on the prevalent grounds that it hadn’t happened yet, he felt an overwhelming sense of the frailty of civilization. Chicago might be thousands of miles from London, yet a day or two ago he could have contacted a hundred friends there at the touch of a key. Now, though, thanks to a freak storm…

  But there must be alternative routings! Why had they not been automatically invoked? He checked, and to his dismay found the machines had outguessed him. There was a ni
l response by any route whether surface or satellite from any of the Shays’ codes. Why in the world…?

  Peter had been vaguely wondering what his new neighbors were like. Now, reminded of the insecurity of life in any great city, he decided that one of his first steps must be to join the Neighborhood Watch; he’d seen stickers in nearby windows, although not as many as around his former home. He was filing a memo to attend to the matter in the morning when the doorbell rang.

  For a moment he forgot that his new affluence had also supplied a closed-circuit TV camera above his front door. Jumping up, he was halfway to the streetward window before the point struck him. When he recalled where he had sited the monitor, he was taken aback at what it showed. For, stepping back from the threshold, gazing around as though wary of a trap, there was a policewoman.

  A woman? Alone? Not wearing armor?

  With vast effort he cancelled his reflex responses. Of course: this was a different area. Maybe she had simply heard that a new resident had arrived in the street and wanted to make sure that everything was okay.

  Except, of course, that any finger of the Bill…

  Yes. She might have come to warn him to stop attacking the government in public, though that sort of duty would normally be entrusted to someone in plain clothes. Alternatively, she could be the area intelligence officer, following up a tip from one of her informants with a view to filing data about him on PNC, the Police National Computer.

  In either case it behoved Peter to answer the door in a hurry and be terribly polite. Memory of Claudia Morris stirred for the first time in weeks as he recalled his bitter reference to the computer that under his name had stored a mass of data concerning someone else. Long ago he had striven to have it altered, only to be met with harsh rebuff: “You shouldn’t know about that file—shut up or I’ll nick you for a breach of the Official Secrets Act!”