by Emma Pullar
‘Come along, my dear.’
Inside the apartment is rich with extravagance, right from the front door. On either side of the hallway, paintings in gilt frames take up every inch of wall space, almost as far as my feet, although I can’t imagine the Morbs can see anything beneath their hover-chairs, even at a distance. I nudge the painting at ankle height with the tip of my high-heel. How useless. Most of the paintings are abstract, block colours of randomness. Some are portraits of real life, not real life as I know it, rather the fakery of Morbihan life.
‘Master Vable and I like you very much,’ says the host mother.
Her hover-chair hums as it glides further away from me.
‘You do?’ I say before I can stop myself. ‘I mean, thank you,’ I whisper like a child who has lost her voice.
‘We do! That piece of theatre you performed at Showcase was most inspired,’ she rasps, ‘for a Skel.’
I bite my lip. Dammit! That was meant to put Morbs off, not inspire them! I reluctantly follow the hover-chair into what must be the lounge. I say ‘must be’ because there isn’t any defining furniture. Sharp lines, golden walls, not a smudge, not a smear, more paintings, jewel-encrusted frames, it’s like the inside of a treasure chest, not that I’ve seen the inside of a treasure chest but grandfather used to tell stories of pirates and this apartment is ripe for a plunder. It’s the vision screen which gives the room away, silent as the stone it’s mounted on. They have one at City Hall but I’ve never seen it working. Mistress Vable takes a deep breath and motions to a couple of small stools next to the only other piece of furniture in the room, a high oval table which sprouts out of the marble floor like a flower. I carefully tuck my dress underneath me and sit down, discreetly rubbing my arms, my skin so cold I’m starting to get goosebumps.
‘The rest of the family will be along momentarily,’ she says, jowls wobbling.
The sound of her artificial organs pumping blood and oxygen around her huge body, reminds me of a fruit fly buzzing high up in an olive tree. I nod politely but continue to stare at the screen on the wall, wondering if it will come to life.
‘Would you like to watch something?’ she asks me, psychotic smile smeared across her face, round cheeks rising over her eyes.
I nod and she taps the arm of her chair. Startled by the booming voices echoing around the room, I almost slip off the stool; the mistress lowers the volume and I push my backside back up onto the seat. The words: ‘Gale One News’ are cast over the top right-hand corner of the screen and a High-Host is sitting in an armchair across from a regal and insane-looking Morb in a hover-chair. The projection plays with my eyes, the background flat yet the two people seem as if they’re in the room with me. I know they’re not, but still, I reach out to touch them. My hand falls through the air, distorting the 3D image. I shuffle forwards on my stool, enough that my head is level with the projected Morb. Amazing. It’s as if they’re sitting at the table with me, but what’s more amazing is the fact that a former Skel and a Morb are chatting like old friends. Like equals.
‘I’ll take your bag to your room,’ Mistress Vable says. I try to protest (no doubt she will snoop through my bag) but I can’t tear my eyes from the spectacle in front of me.
The chair hums as Mistress Vable hovers from the room. I study the projection of the Skel. It’s Delia Gold; red trouser suit, red lips, red nails, gold jewellery, mountain of magenta hair. There’s no mistaking her. When the male Morb on the right speaks, I find out from a caption scrolling across the bottom of the projection that his name is Hatti Bloomfield and he is a professor of science and technology. His name is strangely fitting, for he wears a tall rainbow-flowered top hat on his head. He also wears peculiar lenses that have been made to look like real eyes, which is discernibly creepy, his fake eyes look as if they’re about to pop out of his head, while his trimmed beard has been sprayed with tiny, glittering stars. The conversation between Delia and Hatti includes advances in science and mechanics, research into Morbihan health and crime statistics, or so it says on the right-hand side of the screen, along with the option to choose each topic by pressing the assigned colour on the hover-chair control panel.
‘There is growing concern over the possibility of street gangs and drug dealers spilling into our side of the city.’
The pompous Hatti talks with a plum in his mouth.
‘These criminals must be punished. We can no longer rely on Mutil to clean up the streets. My sources tell me a task force will be assigned to bring in these lawbreakers and serve them justice and not a moment too soon, if you ask me.’
My fists clench at his words, anger boiling my blood. You Morbs made the streets dirty with crime, you and Central. You divided the city. You are responsible for the creation of Mutil, Slum Lords, Gangs, Glory Runners, and Glo-Girls! The Morbihan cannot survive without Skels, Central would never function without us either but do they treat us well? If there’s a rise in street crime, it’s your fault! Surely you idiots know that! It takes all my mental strength to stop my voice from firing at the screen. If they do know, they’re playing dumb because Delia continues to prattle on about the need for more control over the wild races; the city rats and the savages. There must be tighter control on these ‘degenerates’, she says. Race traitor!
My gaze is drawn to a servant who skulks across the room, head down. She does not speak. Like the guard, her brown lips are sealed with imaginary glue. My eyes follow the girl’s movements. She snatches a look at me, dark eyes stabbing me with jealousy. She is as thin as I am and dressed in a black maid’s uniform, complete with bowler hat, which looks to have been forced down on her head, a bush of tight curls bunched up beneath it. Her bony hips are covered by a long pinny but she cannot hide the sharp lines of her clavicle. Morbs are both delighted and disgusted by us. To them, our brown skin is beautiful but we are essentially ugly. Everything about us screams poverty: our dry sun-damaged hair, our chipped teeth and protruding bones. Workers reek of poverty and poverty is ugly in the eyes of a Morb.
The maid places a tray of food on the table and backs out of the room. I reach for a tub and lift the corner of the nearest lid, inside is a brownish green mince. The same gloop we make at the factory. Revolting. I can’t believe they eat this stuff. I turn my attention back to the vision screen and Delia.
‘Now, I must ask you about a sensitive subject, this rumoured “cure”. Is it true a scientist, who remains anonymous for legal reasons, has created a miracle serum that he claims will halt the genetic weight gain?’
Delia leans forward to give Hatti her undivided attention. I do the same, my eyes transfixed on Hatti’s huge painted lips.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint but the rumoured “cure” is just that, a rumour. I’m told the scientist in question was experimenting on a cloned rat. At first it seemed to be losing weight but then it died. Not a cure, I’m afraid. Serum 574 turned out to be deadly and every batch has been destroyed.’
I shiver, as if the tip of a feather has been stroked down my spine. I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. A scientist was working on a cure for the Morbihan condition. Working on a serum to stop their obesity? Delia’s chirpy voice interrupts my train of thought.
‘Quite … thank you for clearing that up …’
Mistress Vable hovers in front of the screen, distorting the projection and blocking my view. Not thinking, I lean to one side to look round the enormous hover-chair. She shifts her chair into my line of sight and smiles smugly, silencing the voices coming from behind her with a push of a button.
‘That’s enough of that.’
I nod, but really, I want to spit in her face. I was watching that!
‘You may begin. We can’t have you wasting away.’ She lifts her hand in an open palm gesture towards the tray. I try not to look horrified. I hope she doesn’t expect me to eat that slop. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to wait; hosts often eat before their masters.’
I reach out, hand shaking and it’s then I notice a lone tu
b labelled ‘Host’. I snatch up the tub and rip off the lid. Fruit salad. Thank the Dark Angel. The sweet smell is intoxicating. I plunge the spoon in deep, ready to shovel the fruit into my mouth … she’s watching me. I delicately lift a helping of grapefruit, strawberries, and orange segments to my lips, push the spoon through them and then chew politely with my mouth closed. The tart flavours dance across my tongue. I eat slowly, trying not to gobble. I don’t want to slop berries down the front of my pretty pink dress. Berry stains would surely ruin it, which would be an awful shame. Not.
I scoop every last piece of fruit from the tub and replace it on the tray. My bony backside aches. I fidget, unable to get comfortable on the hard stool. I’m not used to sitting for so long, unlike the Morbs who are bound to their hover-chairs.
‘Good afternoon, Ms Skyla.’
A husky voice that must belong to Master Vable drifts through the lounge, followed by the faint hum of his hover-chair. Out of the corner of my eye I see Master Vable’s thick finger press a button upon his chair and the blinds slowly start to open, allowing orange sun to tiger-stripe the marble floor.
I slide gracefully off my stool, (as gracefully as I can) and totter, clumsy on my high-heels towards Master Vable, who has stationed his hover-chair in front of the huge window, which is actually an entire wall of glass. The blinds slowly fold away, giving me full access to the magnificent view. The sun drops a copper blanket over the mountain range and brushes the silver Morb apartments with diamonds.
I can see my block. I mean, the block I used to live in, in my one-person box. The mass of dark buildings seems far away. The blocks of cubes are half the size of the sleek Morb skyscrapers and all the buildings in the city are dwarfed by The Spiral, the glory of Gale City, as Central call it. The glass ball atop a long silver pole, sparkles like the most ostentatious jewel in the crown but I’ve heard the stories, I know its secrets. On the outside, it shines like a glorious ripe fruit but on the inside, it’s a maggot infested apple, rotten to the core. The Spiral is filled with selfish people making selfish decisions. I find it laughable that they call the Central nerve centre the ‘glory’ of Gale City, they mean it as something divine but I think of it as the highly addictive drug, a destroyer of lives. I hear a rattling back breath beside me. I forgot to speak when spoken to. I smooth down my dress and side-step closer to the hover-chair.
‘Nice to meet you, Master Vable,’ I say sweetly, and I kind of mean it.
Strangely, I instantly warm to the master’s kind face. He smiles at me and deep lines draw down his drooping cheeks. I turn back to the view and silently stare through the glass, tracing the path of the city wall with my eyes. I feel his dark-blue lenses trace my profile. I glance sideways again but Master Vable’s huge head faces the window.
‘Do you know why we have the wall, Skyla?’ Master Vable asks.
I flinch at being asked a question. I don’t like questions when I’m likely to give a non-Morbihan answer, which is probably wrong. I think for a moment and then look up into his mechanical eyes. Unlike the host mother’s, his eyes are comforting, even though they’re metal lenses; they’re somehow trustworthy. The master’s weathered face hints that he is much older than his link, Mistress Vable. Morb faces don’t age quickly, lines and wrinkles only start to form around the age of sixty. Skels age at different rates and Mutil always look like they have one foot in the grave. I clear my throat.
‘To keep us from leaving … master?’ I answer.
‘To keep us safe,’ he replies.
‘Safe from what?’ I ask. ‘Sand?’
I cover my mouth with my hand. Crap! I hope he doesn’t take offence at the sarcasm in my voice.
‘Safe from ourselves,’ he rasps, unfazed by my lack of manners. He draws in a rattling breath. ‘Many Skels, and even young Morbihan, have been struck with the desire to scale the wall. It is folly, not freedom. Even those who are permitted to explore for scientific research,’ he draws another breath, ‘who are carefully instructed, sometimes don’t come back.’
‘Some people don’t want to come back.’ I say, without thinking.
‘Suicide is never a solution.’ He says, shutters blinking at me.
Maybe not for you, I think, other people’s lives are hard, their minds tortured, how can a Morb relate to that? He can’t. Look at him, look how fat he is. He’ll never know starvation, that stomach pain when the body tries to eat itself. The fear of Runners and gangs breaking in at night and stealing what little you have. The fear of being raped or killed. Sleeping with one hand under the pillow, grasping a knife. Master Vable goes back to staring out of the window in silence. I try to speak, my mind and mouth struggling to form words, words that won’t get me into trouble, that is.
‘Master, I …’
‘The system can work for you too, Skyla.’
Oh no, he senses I don’t want to be here. Even though life as a Skel is no picnic, I think he can tell I don’t want to live here; dressed like this, preparing to be impregnated, or rather, have his sperm and her eggs mixed together in some lab then inserted into my womb. Why don’t they invent an artificial incubator? They can invent artificial organs but not a womb. I stare at my master’s bulbous head, neck hidden under a mound of folds. Does he truly believe the system can work for me? I’d like to think I’m here because the desert would kill me and that I’m better off being a host, but the system doesn’t work and Morbs are everything I hate and if Master Vable believes the lies on the vision screen, then I have no business believing a word he says.
Our moment alone is broken by voices coming from the hallway. The light hum of multiple hover-chairs is accompanied by something I did not expect; footsteps.
‘Bunce, you know we haven’t any facilities for you h-here,’ Mistress Vable stammers. ‘Did you not go before you left home?’
‘I did but I have to go again, can’t I use the staff toilet?’ says a young male voice, his tone notably higher than the others.
‘Certainly not! You will go all the way home and come back again,’ shouts a stern, decrepit old Morb, as her chair glides into the room. Her face is heavily made-up, like an oversized, retired Glo-Girl; large painted lips taking up most of her face, her body sparkle-covered – a jiggling pudding in a hovering bowl. She’s followed by Mistress Vable and a stocky young man with sandy blond hair. Behind him, an elderly male hovers through the wide doorway, his head lolling to one side. He looks dead. His large chest rises and falls, he’s asleep. How can he be sleeping? He’ll crash his hover-chair.
‘Not wanting to sound crude, Mother, but I can’t hold it that long,’ says the young, upwardly mobile Morb. He faces Mistress Vable, but his eyes settle on me. ‘Anyway, why haven’t you installed a toilet for the baby yet?’
‘Because we don’t need one yet!’ Roars Mistress Vable. ‘Honestly, it’s so disgusting and unhygienic. I’m putting it off as long as possible. I don’t know why we can’t hook them up to chairs as soon as they’re old enough, better still, baby chairs, toilet training is such a waste of time.’
‘Learning to crawl and walk is a big part of brain development.’ Bunce says, crossing his arms like a head boy schooling his class mates.
‘Our brains develop significantly through puberty, little brother,’ Mistress Vable hisses, ‘we are not like Skels and we need not develop the same way,’ sharp intake of breath, ‘that is why we do not have the urge to make babies, all our biological urges are channelled into achievement and advancement.
Bunce opens his mouth, ‘But …’
Bunce’s makeup-slavered mother talks over him. ‘We grow our brains, not babies, that is best left to the brainless …’
‘Ahem.’
Master Vable clears his throat and the family immediately stop bickering. I stand tall, and clasp my hands together in front of me like a good dolly.
‘Bunce …’ says Master Vable softly. ‘Please show our lovely host where the servant toilet is. You can use it just this once.’
The older Morb
opens her big fish lips to protest but Master Vable raises his hand, the skin around his arm hanging like limp lettuce.
‘Just this once,’ he repeats. ‘Bunce will have no need for it soon enough.’
‘Fine,’ huffs Mistress Vable, beckoning me with her ring-laden fingers.
I move at once. She takes my bony hand; her plump fingers feel like the cuts of meat I throw into the grinder, except they’re warm.
‘Bunce will show you to the …’ she stops and swallows, as if mouldy bread is stuck in her throat, ‘… staff facilities. Do hurry back, my little brother has a tendency to flounder.’
I smile sweetly, nod, and gently pull my fingers from her porky hand. I sicken myself. Why am I doing this? I should slash the wires hooking the foul beast up to her life support and run for my freedom. I don’t know why I don’t. I’ve stabbed people worthier of life than this woman. Maybe I do what she says because deep down, even though I’m not scared to die, I actually want to keep on living or maybe it’s simply because I don’t have my knife. It was confiscated by the dresser before she violated me with glitter and silk.
The young Morb called Bunce locks me with a laser stare, like I’m a wild animal loose in his sister’s lounge. His eyes haven’t moved from me since he stepped into the room; his gaze penetrating and curious. Maybe he’s mirroring my expression. I’ve never seen a young Morbihan before. Apart from the freakishly pale skin, he looks almost normal.
He moves towards the door without saying a word. I follow. Outside the apartment, Bunce stops and stares at me expectantly. I raise my eyebrows. He doesn’t move. Does he need winding up or something? Mechanical parts already inserted? After a minute of uncomfortable silence, I risk speaking.
‘You lead the way.’
