Hedon

by Jason Werbeloff

  He slunk to the back gate, and glanced around. No Brownies. Yet. He returned to the car, and started the old engine. But as the ancient motor often did in the cool mornings, it turned but didn’t catch. He charged the ignition, and tried again. And again. He heard sirens. And … the Bentley started.

  He backed the car out the drive, and was on his way. But where to? he thought, as the faithful Bentley found the highway. He had friends from his army days who would shelter him in the city if he asked. But as he drove along the road that paralleled the Wall, he looked in his rear-view mirror. Smog shrouded Shangri, gray buildings piercing the dark clouds like errant bones. “Shangri is death,” said a voice at the back of his mind. He heard it clear and red in the dark sunrise. It was his wife’s voice.

  He had to leave.

  He parked the Bentley a few hundred yards from the guard tower. “Milton,” he whispered to the turret atop the Wall for the second time that day. His friend’s pale face smiled down at him. A ladder dropped to the ground.

  As he climbed, his weight steadying the rope, Chokyong’s nose sniffed the stink of a Brownie on the horizon.

  Donys’s ribs sawed into his lungs as he carried Konner toward the old factory. He’d been walking for about half an hour, and the enormous building didn’t appear any larger on the horizon. But the hunger that gnawed at his gut made it hard to tell.

  Konner had said nothing at all. The only sounds emanating from the child were slow rasps as he sucked in the ghetto air. He laid the boy on the sandy ground, and examined him. His temperature was higher, the wound no better. Why would it be? He needed antibiotics. He needed doctors, and a hospital. He took a closer look at the maggot-infested laceration. Gangrene. The boy’s pulse was thready, his breathing shallower.

  The boy was dying.

  People strolled by, winding their way through the maze of shacks. But nobody stopped to help. They hardly glanced down as they stepped around or over the boy.

  The Tax Man wouldn’t have hesitated a moment. He’d shoot the boy with enough morphine to fell a horse, and that would be that. Donys didn’t have any morphine. But he had his hands.

  “I’m sorry, Konner.”

  He placed one hand on the boy’s mouth, and squeezed his nostrils shut with the other. A minute later, the boy’s weak convulsions stopped.

  Donys remembered the way Henry, his father, would read to him at night, the first weeks after they’d brought him home from the adoption agency. The way Henry would place his hand on the Donys’s forehead when he finished. It was a gentle hand, in lieu of a kiss. Now, Donys placed his hand on Konner’s hot forehead. He found a strip of old blanket nearby, and draped it over the boy’s face.

  It was less painful to walk now, without the weight of the boy on his hip. But the hunger that gripped him earlier had returned. Stars glazed his vision, and his heartbeat churned in his ears. He stumbled across a hawker. Grabbed three packets of cashews, and two bottles of water, and thrust a note into the hawker’s hand.

  The edges of his vision lost their black curtains as he ground the cashews into a sticky paste on his tongue. The water was metallic, but sweet. He bought a chocolate bar to give him a sugar boost. Everything felt easier now. The ache in his temple, and what had felt like shards of glass in his chest, abated.

  Now that he could focus on something other than the hunger and the pain, he noticed that everyone that passed was glaring at him. He felt naked. Alien. At first he thought it was the blood that caked his forehead from the beating in the pub last night. But they were eying the back of his head. Of course, he thought, they weren’t accustomed to people with hedometers.

  He passed another hawker, whose stand was garnished with hundreds of Tibetan prayer flags dancing on the north wind. He stood, mesmerized by the sight. It reminded him of the entranceway of the temple at the orphanage, and the pole that stood beside it, green and orange and brown flags fluttering in the wind. He would reach out a disobedient hand as he entered the temple, and when the wind was right, a silken flag would touch his fingertips. He reached out now.

  “Hey!” shouted the hawker, an old woman with a face like broken cheddar. “You touch it, you buy it!”

  “I’ll take a brown one,” he said, paying with a note from his pocket.

  “Three dollar.” The suspicion melted from her face.

  He paid, and counted his remaining money. Thirty-two dollars and change.

  He draped the prayer flag around his neck, hiding the hedometer, and immediately felt at ease. Clothed. Nobody stared at him now as he wound his way through the shanty-town, the old factory looming larger on the horizon. Soon he would find them – Cyan and Anand. And once he called The Tax Man, he could get out of here, and return to the city. That is, he thought, if The Tax Man honored his word. But he shunted that doubt from his mind as quickly as it had appeared. He had no choice but to trust the man. Every few minutes, his hand jerked to the cellphone in his pocket, his only lifeline to Shangri. “10:30”, the screen flashed.

  “How far to the old factory?” he asked a young man cycling past.

  “About an hour’s walk,” the young man shouted without stopping.

  Yes, he wasn’t far now.

  “10:30”, read the ancient analogue clock on the kitchen wall. “You must be hungry,” said Cyan’s mother. “Brunch time.”

  Anand watched her nod. Cyan’s cheeks were pale, almost yellow. He’d never seen a pregnancy before, but it seemed like an unrelenting tide of nausea and hunger. The body warring against itself.

  “What they got you on? The month formula?”

  “Two weeks,” said Cyan.

  “Two weeks! How far along are you?” Cyan’s mother placed a hand on her daughter’s arm.

  “Seven days.”

  “Jesus,” said the old woman.

  She opened the ancient gas fridge, and piled everything she had on the kitchen table. Half a chicken, a bottle of pickles, most of a loaf of bread and some left-over pasta.

  “Don’t you worry girl. We’ll feed you well enough. Hey boy,” she bent her neck in Anand’s direction, “what’s your name?”

  “Anand, ma’am.” He was relieved to be able to speak. The woman had ignored him entirely since they’d stepped inside. He liked the house. This area, close to the old factory, predated the ghetto. The dwellings on this street had face-brick walls, and tin roofs. They felt … homely. Almost warm. Many were painted in shocking colors. The old woman’s home was a bright pink.

  She handed him some notes and coins with arthritic fingers. Anand had never felt money before. The paper was smooth, but dirty. He didn’t like the feel of it on his fingertips. Slightly greasy. As though the past had coalesced on its surface. He wondered whether radioactive particles from the Collapse still lined the notes. He stuffed the money into his pocket hastily. The coins were cool against his leg.

  “Walk a quarter-mile east, and you’ll see the grocery store. Can I leave it to you to choose what to get? Or are you like every other man I’ve known? Couldn’t make more than a sandwich. None of them could.”

  Cyan laughed.

  “No ma’am.” Anand puffed up. “I know how to cook.”

  “That he does,” said Cyan.

  “Well then, stop standing around Annis. Get going. She’ll need the food soon enough.”

  “His name is Anand, Ma.”

  “Not a problem, ma’am.”

  “And stop calling me ma’am,” she growled.

  He was about to open the front-door, when it opened on its own accord.

  “Brann!” shouted a podgy man with boyish cheeks. He caught his breath as he spoke. “Brownie … was at the pub. Looking … looking for Cyan.”

  Brann pushed herself to her feet. Her back hunched as she walked, but there was brimstone in her eyes. If Anand hadn’t been sure before, he was now. No one fucked with Cyan’s mother.

  “What type?”

  Podgy was huffing. “Young ‘un.”

  “Yeah, yeah. But was he a tax ma
n or police?”

  “Not sure. We gave him some trouble last night. He was waving around holo-images of Cyan and some guy. Oh, yeah. It was you.” He squinted at Anand. “We kicked him out on his ass. But I heard he’s on his way here.” Podgy’s cheeks were flushed.

  “Alright, alright,” Brann said. “No need to panic. We’ll sort him out.” She glared at Anand. “Annis, get movin’!”

  “But the Brownie?” asked Anand.

  “I’ve been dealing with Brownies longer than you’d care to know. Get going! Cyan’s hungry. You banged her up. You feed her.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, his cheeks burning. “Uh, sorry.”

  Brann rolled her eyes, and flicked her gnarled wrist. Anand squeezed past Podgy in the doorway, and made his way down the dirt road to the grocery store, coins jangling in his pocket.

  Donys had settled into a rhythm. He shuffled with his left foot, stepped with his right. The grinding of his ribs against his left hip wasn’t nearly as bad that way.

  He was feeling almost cheerful. Only minutes away now, the factory loomed against the backdrop of the shacks. “Looking for Cyan Rustikov,” he said to strangers he passed. At first nobody was willing to say anything, but he learned that a coin in his hand caused tongues to wag.

  “Three streets down, turn left. Pink house about a hundred yards further,” said a woman who shuffled with much the same gait as his. He threw a dollar in the dirt at her feet, and she fell over trying to pick it up. He chuckled.

  Five minutes later, he spotted the pink house. He tried to walk past without looking too closely. All he needed was sight of Cyan or Anand, and he’d call The Tax Man. He touched the cellphone in his pocket.

  He circled round the block, and approached the little house from the side. This was kind of exciting, he thought. Maybe he should apply to the Tax Bureau when this was all over. He found a window, and by degrees, raised his eyes to peer inside. A single bed neatly made with a frilly cotton bedspread greeted him. Nobody was in the room. A single crack travelled diagonally across the window, but the glass was clean. His nose left a smudge when he lowered his head.

  He crept to the back of the house, and round the other side. He was about to inspect another room, when he felt a blow to his head. The same fucking temple as last night, Donys had time to think, before he hit the ground. And before he lost consciousness, he saw a pair of liver-spotted legs standing over him.

  “I won’t,” said a woman’s voice.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do. But what other option do we have?” said a man.

  “There’s been enough death already.” The woman’s voice sounded tired.

  Donys unglued his eyelids. Shards of light sliced his retinas. He groaned. His brain felt as if it had been pulled through a strainer.

  “He’s waking. If you don’t want to kill him, what do you want to do with him? Keep him tied up in your mom’s kitchen forever?”

  “Hey!” shouted another voice. A woman’s voice. He felt a slap across his cheek, hot and sharp. His eyes snapped open.

  A blurry face coalesced before him. Either the face was very close, or his eyes were out of focus. All he saw were wrinkles, deep and crevassed. The wrinkles moved.

  “What’s your name, Brownie?”

  His jaw cracked and clicked as he mouth worked. “Donys.”

  “What’re you doing here, boy?” His eyes zoomed out, and he saw the rest of the old woman’s face. Her lips were pursed into a permanent frown that would have looked seductive on a woman fifty years younger. He tried to scan the room, to see who else was standing around him, but the old woman’s fiery eyes held him.

  “Looking for two Breeders. Anand Nair and Cyan Rustikov.”

  The hand was hard and bony as it slapped him a second time. “Careful what you call my people.” Her voice sounded as though it were dragging over coals.

  Donys felt a flash of rage rise and disappear. He tried to move his hands, pull them free, but his wrists were bound, fingers numb. His nose crumpled in defiance, as he scowled at the old woman.

  “What are we going to do with him?” said the man’s voice again.

  Donys swiveled his neck to see a young man leaning against an ancient anthracite stove. He knew those high, carved cheekbones. It was Anand. The whore from BIGS. Donys cleared his throat. Spat on the old woman’s feet.

  “Serviceman,” he said, “The Tax Man is looking for you.”

  The old woman glanced at Anand, and then at the woman standing beside him. He recognised Cyan from the holo-image. Anand said nothing. Donys felt a shift in the room. He knew how it felt to hold power over someone. He bathed in the feeling every day on his job as a paramedic. He held the needles that would save or kill his patients.

  “I’ve had you, serviceman. Fucked you every way a whore can be fucked.” A smirk spread over Donys’s lips. It cracked the dried blood around his eyes.

  The old woman stared at Cyan, who stared at Anand, who stared at the ground. “You chose a serviceman?” said the old woman softly. “You won the lottery for Christ’s sake. Wasn’t Gemini enough for you?”

  “He’s more than a serviceman,” said Cyan, but she couldn’t meet the old woman’s gaze. Anand’s cheeks were crimson, as he kissed the mother of his child.

  The old woman sighed. An unending, pained exhalation.

  She returned her attention to Donys. “Now what are we going to do with you?” She folded her slender arms across her chest. Her eyes bored through him as she considered him. His smile faded. Anand and Cyan said nothing.

  She walked round him. Behind him. He tried to crane his neck to see what she was doing, but the ropes wouldn’t allow it.

  “Help me with him,” said the old woman. Anand and Cyan stood on either side of the chair. “Hold his head still.”

  “What’re you going to do?” asked Anand. His hand was trembling against Donys’s ear.

  “What needs doing,” the old woman said, as her fingers tapped on the screen of his hedometer. Through his skull, Donys heard the screech of metal against glass. He fought to jerk his head free, but four hands clamped around his jaw and cranium. He strained, and pushed this way and that, but he couldn’t move.

  “Last screw.”

  She was opening him up, her arthritic fingers fiddling with the wires of his life. He shivered, and fought the hands that clamped him.

  “How many memories should we remove? How far back should we take him?” the old woman asked after a minute.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  “A week? A year?”

  “Maybe start with a week,” said Cyan.

  “Don’t,” Donys whimpered.

  He felt the old woman adjusting dials in his brain. “Aha! That’ll do it.”

  *

  Donys was standing in his bedroom, thick-pile carpet between his toes. He flexed his biceps, first his left, then his right, watching the image in the mirror shift. He would fuck himself if he could, he thought, giggling. He tensed his stomach, watched the muscles flow and coalesce beneath his golden skin.

  *

  He was sitting in a kitchen with a green linoleum floor. His head hurt. Oh, Kwan-yin it hurt. His hands were tied behind his back, and with each breath, his chest crackled and popped.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Donys yelled. Hands gripped his head in an immovable vise. He panicked, tried to jostle free. But the hands held him fast. His heart shouted behind his broken ribs. Where was he? He was in his bedroom, just a moment ago, fresh out the shower.

  “Take him back further,” a man’s voice said. “Much further.”

  “Let’s try a year,” said a woman from behind him. What was going on? “And, there …”

  *

  A body lay on the road, bleeding out. It was only his second week at work, but he was doing well. Damned well, he thought. “I’ve got the head!” he called, before Florence left the driver’s seat of the ambulance. Fucking dyke, he thought. Buzz-cut hair and biceps bigger than his thi
ghs.

  “What’s his pressure?”

  Florence opened her mouth to respond, but the road shivered, the tarmac crumbling around them. The buildings shook out of focus, their white facades cracking…

  *

  He opened his eyes, and a young woman with the blackest hair he’d ever seen was staring at him. The long, vertical buildings he’d been looking at just a moment ago were now grout lines behind her head. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  His left temple hurt, and his hands wouldn’t budge. “Was there an earthquake?” he asked. “Where am I?” He tried to move again, but every bone was laden with inertia. He must have been caught in it. The earthquake. Maybe paralyzed. He was probably in the ER.

  She narrowed her eyes. “An earthquake?”

  “I felt it. It tore the roads apart. Looked like the buildings were going to collapse, it was so bad,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and looked to someone behind him. “He’s delusional. Take him back further. We can’t leave him like this. Try ten years.”

  “What’s happening to me?” Donys asked.

  “Shhh, you’ll feel better in a moment. Try not to move.” He felt fingers at the nape of his neck. “What are you doing?”

  “Okay, there we are …”

  *

  “Well he’s your son!” squawked Evelynn. Her voice carried up the kitchen chimney, up into his room. Donys could hear every word his parents were saying. About him. He wished he couldn’t. He didn’t like to call them his parents. They weren’t really. He’d never met his parents. Or at least, he couldn’t remember them.

  “I know that,” said Henry. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Yes, you will. Honestly, I don’t know why you wanted to get him.”

  “You wanted one too.”

  “I didn’t know he’d be so difficult. Do you think,” her voice lowered, but he could still make it out, “do you think we could return him?”

  Donys jabbed his fingers in his ears. Scrunched up his face to stop the tears. He shut his eyes. And when he opened them …