The Offset

by Calder Szewczak

No one visits the memorials anymore. No one comes to give thanks to the dead.

  Not far from the entrance lies a flagstone bearing a fresh inscription and a name that Miri takes to be that of the newly dead woman. It must have been started as soon as she was nominated, hand-carved with chisel and mallet by one of the Guild of Illuminators. There was a time, Miri knows, when inscriptions were laser-hewn by automasons, but those machines have long since been plundered for parts. Now, standing in the shrine, she thinks she can almost see where the transition was made to human stonecutters. There is a point near towards the end of what was once the nave where the lettering on the flagstones becomes distinctly less regular in every respect: script, size, kerning. Despite these irregularities, every memorial bears precisely the same information. Each records the name of the Offset alongside the name of their surviving partner. Beneath those names is written that of their child and, in rare cases, that of any surviving sibling. Towards the back of the shrine there are even memorial plaques on the walls that list three or four names in that space. The very thought of this makes Miri shudder. How far we’ve come as a society, she thinks. You would never see that now. The crime of having one child is already hard enough to forgive.

  For a moment, Miri struggles to focus on the dead woman’s memorial flagstone, her eyes flicking to the other names carved into every inch of the pillars and walls. When she tips her head back far enough to feel the base of her skull between the tops of her shoulders, she sees that the ceiling is also covered with the names of the Offset and their successors. Some have grown worn and indistinct with age. Some have been all but obliterated by past infestations of the filterweed cracking through the stone with its powerful tendrils.

  Soon, Miri will have a plaque of her own. There is an empty space next to the dead woman’s memorial. She tells herself that is where her own plaque will be and squints, trying to imagine her and her mothers’ names cut into the flagstone. For a moment, she can see just what it will look like: the name “Jac Boltanski” in large letters at the top, her name and Alix’s in smaller letters below. She’s been waiting for it so long that she can hardly believe how close it is.

  Considering this, she brings her thumb to her teeth and gnaws at a tab of dead skin. She rips it away, leaving a raw strip running down the side of the nail, past the cuticle. She dabs at the tender patch with her tongue, relishing the sting of her saliva in the open wound.

  When she shuts her eyes, she sees the dead woman again, thrashing against the constraints of the electric chair, and superimposes Jac’s face onto the image. She thinks of how crowded the square was today and how much busier it will be in two days’ time when it’s Jac’s turn. There can’t be a single person in London who would miss the chance to be present at the historic occasion of Professor Jac Boltanski’s death.

  Finger, thumb, finger, thumb.

  For years after, people will come to see their memorial in the shrine. There seems to be no bounds to the affection the public holds for her mother. Of course, Miri thinks with a stab, they don’t know Jac like she does. Jac might be idolised and admired for her work – they even say she’s saved the world – but the truth is she’s no better than any of the other thoughtless breeders whose names are recorded here; none of them caring one bit about what happens to the children they created, the children they left behind.

  Miri feels a sudden pressure in her bladder. She pulls down her jeans and squats low over the blank stone. In the next moment, a yellow stream of urine – steaming in the chill air of the shrine – hits the floor and pools between her feet, seeping into the porous surface. A healthy quantity splatters onto the dead woman’s memorial as well. Miri straightens. She’s just zipping her jeans when there’s a mechanical hiss and clunk from beyond the shrine door.

  Startled, Miri turns to see a pigsuit stalk in, its pressure-sensitive footpads unexpectedly silent on the stone floor. The machine is in a poor state of repair; the empty gauntlet of one arm tapers to nothing but the frayed ends of loose wires, and the metal carapace is edged with rust and deep grooves where it has been scratched or scuffed in the course of executing its commands. The clear central casing is compromised by a long, jagged crack. In the murky gloom beyond, Miri can just see the pale spots where spores have begun to bloom across the worn foam fittings; the hollow become a rotting cavity.

  Pausing in the doorway, the pigsuit turns, panning its body camera from Miri to the dark puddle at her feet. Seeing the desecrated shrine, the pigsuit’s apprehend-and-arrest programming kicks into gear. Before she can think of fleeing, it crosses the stone floor and grabs her by the arm, its articulated digits vice-like across the bruise left from where the boy sought to delay her escape. Even in its dilapidated state, the pigsuit is much stronger than he was and certainly stronger than Miri.

  The pigsuit drags Miri around on the spot, holding her in place with one hand and then pushing the end of its amputated limb to tilt her head upwards, forcing her to look directly into the flat black eye of its camera. Something clicks. The pigsuit chokes out her name.

  – Miriam Ford-Boltanski

  Miri stiffens at the mention. For two years, she has gone by simply Miri Ford. She has wanted nothing more than to remove all association between herself and Jac.

  As much prompted by the insult of this as anything else, Miri draws mucus into the back of her throat with a snort and then spits, propelling a stringy glob of saliva directly at the camera where it splatters against the lens. Then she feels something sharp jab into her arm and everything goes black.

  Miri’s head is spinning. She tries to open her eyes but that only makes it worse, white noise humming at a deafening volume in her ears. She waits for it to subside, lying very still. When she next tries to look around, it’s a little easier – now at least she can squint at her surroundings without the threat of passing out.

  The room where she lies is narrow, barely larger than a cupboard. There are no windows, no kind of ventilation, only a locked door in the opposite wall with a thin band of white light that seeps in around the edges. The air is close and warm. Even though she cannot see out, she has no doubt about where she is, roughly speaking anyway. All the pigsuits come from a south-side hub, a squat depot attached to the city’s only working prison: the Eye. Its cantilevered wheel overlooks the river and, given its enormous size, can be seen from almost anywhere within the city limits, particularly since the skyscrapers were razed. Its stern look can only be avoided by hiding away inside or underground.

  Miri is too dazed to panic. As dire as the situation is, she is dimly aware that it could be worse. At least she’s not in the Eye itself, not in one of the glass pods where the prisoners are usually kept. She must be in some sort of holding cell in the depot, safely stowed away while they work out what to do with her. Sitting up, she feels her head swim again and remembers what happened in the shrine. With slow, sluggish movements, she seeks out the tender spot on her bony arm where the needle punctured her skin and massages it with her hand.

  There’s a muffled squeak and then she feels the scratch of claws against her bare arm. In the next moment, the white rat emerges from her sleeve, the ear on its back marked with ridges from where it has been pressed against the weave of Miri’s jumper. She frowns, wondering if she’s imagining things, but there’s no mistaking it. The rat is definitely there. She supposes vaguely it must have followed her into the shrine and burrowed into her clothes when the pigsuit sedated her. The rat snaps reproachfully at her fingers and then sits back on its haunches to cuff the dirt from its two ears, apparently unharmed by what can only have been a most uncomfortable journey.

  Staring half-dazed about the cell, she notices a few shoots of filterweed rising up through a crack in the floor. The thick crimson stems divide and split into nodes from which sprout broad oval leaves, truncated at the base and with a serrated edge. The leaves are darker than the stalks, a deep bluish-red that makes Miri think of dried blood.

  There’s a flicker of movement. An aph
id flits through the air and settles on one of the leaves, palely green against the deep red of the plant. As she watches, the filterweed does something she’s never seen before: the edges of the leaf shiver and begin to curl up. At first, she thinks that what she’s seeing must be on account of a draught or a trick of the light, or even some side-effect of the tranquiliser that is still making her dizzy and lightheaded. But soon there’s no mistaking it. The leaf is definitely moving, flexing and contracting of its own accord. The aphid senses it too and it startles away from the leaf only to find itself unable to move, caught in a thick, glistening mucus. In the next moment, it disappears from view as the leaf wraps around it to form a narrow, upright pitcher, tightly constricting about the struggling fly. It is some time before the leaf unfurls again. When it does, the aphid is gone. Absorbed. There’s nothing to show what happened but a bright sheen across the leaf.

  Before Miri can investigate further, the cell door swings open. Fearing the rat will starve if she leaves it behind in the cell, she tries to lunge forward and scoop it up, but it’s as though her hands belong to someone else and they fall inches short. The rat, seeming to sense her intentions, burrows into her jumper and nestles there against her skin. Holding the warm lump to her chest, Miri pushes herself to her feet with an enormous effort. The room lurches dangerously around her so she steadies herself against the wall. Lightheaded, she squints dazedly towards the open door and sees the bulky silhouette of a pigsuit. Beside it stands a familiar figure, one she hasn’t seen in almost two years.

  “Mum?” she says – or tries to say. Her lips slide numbly over the word and make no sound.

  For a moment, Alix hovers uncertainly by the pigsuit and then, in two quick strides, she crosses the cell and folds Miri into a fierce hug. Miri hangs limply in her arms, unable to respond. Perhaps it’s better that way, better that she doesn’t have to decide whether to return the embrace or push her mother aside.

  “You’re being let off with a warning,” Alix murmurs into her hair. “I’ll explain later.”

  Miri allows one of her arms to be pulled across her mother’s shoulders and then, when she feels Alix’s arm snake about her waist, she leans heavily onto her. In this position, she is half-supported, half-carried from the holding cell.

  Beyond it is a room lit by harsh strip bulbs and bare of all furnishing save for a single row of chairs lined against one wall. They serve as the sole concession to the idea that the occasional human visitor might need to be accommodated. That and a lone, faded poster bearing the lines of the Global Constitution, its long list of amendments dwarfing the brief bill itself that gives only the universal tenet: for every birth, a death. Otherwise, the only distinguishing features are the pigsuits themselves. Most stand arrayed together in neat rows as though waiting to be switched on, only the occasional flashing light or mechanical whirr betraying the fact that they are already powered up. Many of these, Miri notices as the room swims around her, bear deep gashes that have been hastily soldered over or covered with strips of scrap metal. A short way off, two pigsuits are busy cannibalising a third with violent precision, stripping the vacant exoskeleton for working parts.

  The pigsuits ignore Miri and her mother as they make their halting way across the floor. After several minutes of panting and heaving, they stumble together through a set of double doors and out into the cool of what is now night. Together, they continue in silence for a few more feet and then Alix stops and turns her face upwards.

  Head spinning, Miri follows her gaze. She sees the squat prefabricated depot they have just left. It is completely windowless, so neither the pigsuits nor the holding cells therein can be seen from the outside. Above it rises the Eye. She’s never been this close to it before, close enough to see into the glass pods that are riveted to the edge of the rusting white wheel at regular intervals. Not all of the pods are occupied, but those that are have been filled to two or three times above capacity. There is so little space that the prisoners within can neither sit nor lie down, their bodies pressed tight against one another between the curving walls of the pod. Miri wonders how they sleep. How they breathe. She feels a tightness in her chest and tries to jerk her hands closer to press together finger and thumb but her arms barely move.

  In one pod, glass speckled with condensation, there are no discernible shapes of people or their distinct parts at all, but only a thick fluid putrefaction. As the wheel sways gently in the wind, a shuddering ripple passes across the surface of the viscous matter and a few blunt knuckles of bone emerge. Miri turns away. The Eye is a prison, its inmates either eventually released or taken away to be executed and buried. At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Perhaps the pigsuits’ deterioration is even worse than she guessed.

  “That could have been you.” Alix’s voice trembles as she speaks, her gaze still trained on the Eye. Not knowing what to say, Miri inclines her neck so that her head rests briefly against Alix’s. As she does, she catches the scent of Alix’s perfume, which jolts her. She hasn’t thought of it in two years, but it’s just like she remembers: wild rose and poppy.

  “Come on,” Alix says at last. “It’s time we got you home.”

  04

  It’s late when the train pulls into Inbhir Nis, too late to go directly to the testing facility. Jac has a room booked in one of the boarding houses by the station. It’s run-down and spartan, but perfectly clean. She goes to check in, greeting the sullen, doe-eyed girl behind the desk with a terse smile.

  “The kitchen is closed,” says the girl. “Though we can probably find something if you’re hungry. It’ll cost extra, mind.”

  This last is said with a deep reluctance that, Jac suspects, is restrained only by the respect due to her being a customer of standing.

  “I don’t want anything to eat,” she replies. “But I could use a drink.”

  After a brief negotiation, Jac slips a few notes across the desk and retires to her room – a shabby affair with the only notable feature being the heavy, cloying scent of cheap disinfectant – and is rewarded half an hour later by a light knock on the door.

  It’s the same girl as before, carrying a green bottle the length of her forearm. The glass is poor in quality, the walls of the bottle thick and uneven, and dotted with bubbles of trapped air. Jac is used to finer things, but no matter; it’s only the bottle’s contents that concern her. In the dim light of the hall she can see that it is half full of a fizzing golden liquor. Local homebrew.

  “It’s all there is,” says the girl.

  Taking the bottle, Jac hands her another note and dismisses her with a curt nod.

  The girl, however, lingers. She has bunched up her lank hair into an untidy knot on the top of her head and is wearing a fresh layer of heavy makeup.

  “Maybe you’d like some company for the night?” she asks in a tone more optimistic than alluring.

  Jac groans inwardly. Despite the girl’s crude attempt to hide it, she is plainly too young to have even made her Offset. Jac wants to ask: Where are your parents? But she knows better than to pry into the lives of Albans, and instead shakes her head.

  “No, thank you.”

  It comes out rather more curtly than intended and the girl looks hurt by the cold dismissal. As she begins to turn away, Jac is gripped with the sudden desire to give her something.

  “Hang on a second…”

  Jac disappears back into her room, carefully placing the bottle on the nightstand before rummaging through her bag. The girl shifts into the doorway and watches Jac with curiosity, unsure whether or not she should come in any further. Jac takes out an old, dog-eared photo. It is a commemorative shot of her shaking hands with the Chief Scientific Officer of Éire – taken long before the hostilities, of course. Taking a pen, she signs the bottom of the photo. Warmest wishes, Jac Boltanski.

  Gesturing for the girl to come and take it from her, Jac says, “Please, I want you to have this.”

  The girl crosses the room and takes the photo from Jac’s hand.
Her eyes rake the image – uncomprehending of its political content, perhaps even unable to read the writing, but certainly recognising a much younger-looking Jac. Even she knows the value of a signed photo of Professor Jac Boltanski. With a keen smirk, she leaves the room.

  Jac passes into the girl’s wake and pulls the door closed behind her, making sure to double-bolt it. Then, returning to the nightstand, she yanks the rubber stopper from the bottle and takes a generous swig. And another. The liquor is unexpectedly strong and burns the back of her throat when she swallows. After a moment, she feels a slow warmth spread across her face and shoulders. With a deep exhalation, she sets the bottle down and reclines on the hard, narrow bed.

  No sooner has she done so than her phone begins to vibrate. She takes it out from her pocket. It is small and compact, fitting neatly into the palm of her hand. The phone she normally uses for work is twice the size of this one and capable of doing a great deal more than simply receiving calls and text messages, but she knows she’s taking a risk carrying around even this pared-back version. Phones are rare enough in London. Out here, just having such a device on her person makes her a target.

  She sees her wife’s number on the screen and answers in a low murmur. “Alix?”

  At first, Alix says nothing. Jac can hear only her breath, distant and faint on the crackling line. Then, eventually, a sigh. “Miri’s back.”

  For a moment, it is as though everything has stopped: her heart lies still in her chest, her lungs freeze and become two scrunched-up plastic bags. Even the synapses in her brain seem to come to a halt. There is no thought in her head, not one, just Alix’s words ringing in her ears over and over.

  Finally, the lights crackle back on and she returns to herself. Jac clenches and unclenches her jaw. “What happened?” she asks.

  She listens attentively while Alix explains about being summoned to the Eye to find their daughter in a holding cell after having apparently desecrated a shrine. “She’s been let off with a warning, though,” says Alix, who then tells her about the tranquilisers. “The dose was too high – a malfunction, is my guess. You know what the pigsuits are like these days. That’s probably why she’s been let off so lightly. But she’s in a bad way. I had to bring her back here. She’s sleeping it off now.”