The Offset

by Calder Szewczak

  “You’re OK,” the porter says again, more urgently this time, as though insisting on the point will make it true. “Whereabouts do you live? Come far?”

  Alix puffs and pants as the porter steers her up the steps, still dressed in her pyjamas and clutching a heavily saturated towel between her legs. This baby is certainly in a hurry, taking Jac and Alix unawares in the middle of the night and three weeks early.

  For half an hour, Jac had sat with Alix in the living room and timed her contractions. “They’re coming every minute now,” Jac had said in dismay. “They’re not supposed to come this fast yet.” It was then that Jac put in a frantic call to the hospital. The woman on the other end informed her that they needed to come in now and Jac had rushed to call the cab, knowing it was all her fault, blaming herself for everything.

  Now at the steps to the hospital, Jac hurries to catch up with Alix and the porter. She throws a protective arm around her wife’s shoulders and wrests her from the porter’s hold.

  “I’ve got her, thanks.”

  The porter shrugs and lets Alix go, moving on ahead to open the doors.

  Suddenly racked by another contraction, Alix falters on the steps. At exactly that moment, the cordon breaks. The crowd surges forward, a lone man streaking out ahead of the pack.

  “Reproduction kills!” he yells, fiddling to unscrew something in his grip.

  Instinctively, Jac steps forward, shielding Alix with her body. Just in time. The man uncaps the bottle and lobs it at her, dousing her in a thick, sticky liquid. “Blood on your hands, Earth traitor!”

  The porter takes two swift paces and grabs Alix, pulling her up the remaining steps and whisking her through the door. Jac tears up the steps behind them, gaining the safety of the foyer with only seconds to spare. The doors zip shut. As they do, a platoon of pigsuits arrive, fibre-cartridge shotguns cocked. The Activists scatter at once.

  When Jac finally turns her back on the chaos and seeks out her wife, she finds that Alix has disappeared. A set of double doors to her left are marked “MATERNITY”. Trainers squeaking on the pristine floors, Jac makes to barge through them, only to be stopped by a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “You have to wait here,” says the porter, pointing towards a line of plastic chairs. “You can’t come in.”

  Jac stares at them in disbelief. “What do you mean, I can’t come in? We were promised…”

  The porter is firm. “The head doctor won’t allow it.”

  “There’s been some sort of mistake,” says Jac, shaking her head and making to push past them towards the doors and through to Alix. The porter’s hand – still on her shoulder – presses down painfully, halting her progress.

  “You can’t come in,” they say again.

  “But we were given special permission!” Jac is shouting now, helpless in her anger. She shrugs the porter’s hand off her shoulder but doesn’t move to pass them.

  “The head doctor’s insistent: one rule for all.”

  Jac glares but the porter’s face is set and their word is final. Looking past them, she stares longingly at the double doors. Her hands ball into fists as angry tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes. She should’ve known this would happen; Alix had told her it would. There hadn’t been any special permission, of course, but she had been convinced an exception would be made for her. It usually was, given her standing. But not now. Now she must suffer the same fear and indignity as every other non-birthing parent: to sit alone and wait.

  The porter, taking her more gently by the arm, guides her into one of the plastic chairs. Perhaps sensing that Jac isn’t going to make another run for the door – which is, in any case, locked – they disappear for a moment and return clutching a mop. Jac looks at it questioningly and then, following the porter’s eyes, sees that she has trailed a line of dark, heavy liquid across the reception floor. Remembering the incident outside, she looks down at her soaked clothes in surprise.

  “It’s only molasses,” the porter explains, dragging the mop across the floor. “Stains worse than real blood though.”

  Jac nods, not trusting herself to speak or to ask the questions hammering in her throat. Is Alix alright? Is the baby? What’s happening? Will someone come and tell me what’s going on? It’s impossible to know. No one speaks about what happens on maternity wards. No one complains. It is shameful enough, having a child in the first place, and there’s nothing like guilt to hold the tongue. She turns her eyes back to the double doors, wishing she could see through them, wishing she could be with her wife.

  For the first time, she notices a large print tacked to the left of the doors, all soft tones and pastel colours. It catches her eye because she recognises the scene it depicts. The Assyrian King Sennacherib cowers outside a temple at the feet of his son, who stands over him with raised sword, animated with a righteous fury, long robes buffeted by the Iraqi desert wind. Jac looks upon the all-too-familiar scene for a long time; long after the porter has finished cleaning the floor and disappeared, leaving her alone in the reception, sticky and cold.

  Her attention snaps when the double doors suddenly open, revealing a harassed-looking doctor dressed head-to-foot in green scrubs. “I’m so sorry!” she says, voice full of regret. “The porter didn’t know who you were. Please, come through – she’s about to arrive…”

  Hours later, looking out of the tall Warren windows and cradling a tiny, red-faced Miri in her arms, Jac swears to do all she can to protect her family and make the world safe for them: the woman she loves more than life and the precious little girl they have created together. And why not? Jac has never yet come across a problem she could not solve, a task she could not complete. She does not know yet that one day, sooner than is fair, she will learn what it means to come up short. To be found wanting. To fail.

  24

  Her voice gruff over the microphone, Jac explains her theory in a few short words to the Archivist. The trees are dying, and someone’s interfering with the records to hide the fact, to hide that the project is failing. That the project has failed. The Archivist looks entirely taken aback, the energy sapping away from him. Had he not seen the evidence with his own eyes, she knows he wouldn’t believe her.

  “But… the Global Average…” he stammers. “I checked this week. Global CO2 levels are only 500 ppm. If the trees were dying, it would be higher.”

  “I know, I checked yesterday. But perhaps the carbon levels are no more to be believed than the measurements listed for the sample cores. We have the evidence, right in front of us. Someone must be interfering. I could be wrong… I hope I am… but if not, then the trees in the ARZ won’t live long enough to prevent the onset of the overheating event.” She falls silent, thinking of the wasted years she could have spent trying to come up with another solution. It’s too late now. Much too late.

  The Archivist considers what she has just said. “Who would do something like that? Who would want to interfere with the project’s results?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits. “Someone who wants everyone to think that it’s still working.”

  “If you’re right–”

  “I am right.”

  “If you’re right, then what?”

  “We’ll all die.” She lets the words float in the air for a breath. Then they take physical form and hang heavy around her neck, a noose she’s tied for the world. “And it will happen sooner rather than later. Maybe only a few years from now. We’ll burn up in the heat and suffocate on the carbon.” Even if the project had worked, not everyone was saved anyway. She thinks of the disease, famine and war that has plagued the Federated Counties for years and all the lives that have been lost already. At least now it’s fair. Everyone – the whole species – is going to be Offset.

  As soon as she thinks this, Jac’s heart convulses painfully. Miri. Getting used to the prospect of her own premature death is one thing, but Miri’s? Whatever her problems with the girl, she never meant for this. Miri isn’t supposed to die. She and Al
ix would never have brought her into the world if they hadn’t believed there’d still be one around for her to grow old in.

  It took her months to convince Alix that having a child would be alright, that the project would make all the difference, that she was doing everything she could to make the planet safe for her. Years later, Alix joked that it really had worked out for the best, that Jac would never have got the Borlaug directorship if it hadn’t been for their little Miri acting as incontrovertible proof of Jac’s confidence in the project. Jac had laughed at that – Alix knew as well as she did that she’d taken the directorship because of Miri, not the other way around.

  It seems so distant to her now. All the years Jac has spent breaking her back on Project Salix are as good as useless and every Offset is rendered null. The world is going to end and there’s nothing she can do about it.

  “My daughter,” she croaks to the Archivist. “I’ve failed her.”

  For once, he has no retort for her. His only expression behind the visor is wordless despair. For all his dislike of Jac, he never once doubted the project. Now that faith is crashing down around him.

  It is, perhaps, his silent horror that stops her spinning out and instead spurs her to action. With so little time left, she needs to make sure that every second counts. There is only one thing that she can do now that could possibly help: she has to confirm that the carbon dioxide levels are much higher than everyone believes. If she can get that evidence, then she can tell the world. She owes it to her staff and, yes, even to the Archivist; to everyone who had entrusted the future to her. Above all else, she owes it to Miri. But there is only one place she can get the proof she needs.

  Greenland.

  For many years, the Global Monitoring Division measured global carbon dioxide levels at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Island of Hawaii. But, as global temperatures rose, the island and its neighbours became ravaged by dengue fever, and extreme drought was followed by periods of catastrophic flooding. Then the devastation of widespread poverty, brought about by the near total collapse of the Hawaiian tourist industry as a consequence of the Bogotá Accord placing a global ban on air travel, broke down what was left of the place. Eventually, the entire archipelago declared itself officially isolated. The Mauna Loa Observatory was rendered defunct.

  The global carbon dioxide monitoring station was relocated. Numerous regions were suggested and then rejected for any number of reasons that made them unsuitable: increased air pollution, unstable and untrustworthy local governments, the risk of looting and destruction of expensive technical equipment, and so on. Finally, the Global Monitoring Division hit upon the Gunnbjørn Mountain in Greenland. As the highest spot north of the Arctic circle, it was free of risk of human interference due to the exclusion zone that had been put in place after the Kvanefjeld disaster. It was also in a newly snow-free, windy and clement spot and was, as such, determined to be the safest place where accurate global carbon dioxide levels could be recorded.

  Now the station sits high above the Project Salix trees and, as with all elements of the industrious work conducted in Greenland, it is operated remotely. The Borlaug charges a healthy monthly sum for the use of its on-site infrastructure and relations between the two London-based institutes are kept necessarily smooth.

  In a flash, Jac sees what must be done. She needs proof that the global carbon levels are far higher than they should be – proof that they cannot trust the numbers on which their parables of planetary restoration are founded. Getting it will mean putting her life on the line. But her life’s been on the line since the day Miri was born.

  To get her proof, she must climb the Gunnbjørn Mountain and record the level of carbon dioxide at the station using an analogue method. Easier said than done, she thinks, folding her arms across her chest. Quite apart from the problem of actually getting there, she doesn’t have any of the right tools to take the measurement. Although… she shifts her weight from foot to foot as the idea forms. There must be test kits somewhere in the facility that would be quick and simple to use.

  What else would she need? Jac shifts her weight again, rocking gently from side to side. She’ll have to bring back tangible evidence, something from Greenland that can be used to independently verify the levels of carbon dioxide. A soil sample should do the trick. Because of the radioactive isotopes present in Greenland and in Greenland only, a sample can be unequivocally assigned to that spot. To that end, she’ll need to take a hermetically sealed, radiation-shielded canister to bring the soil back – for which one of the spare capsules should serve adequately.

  If she’s right and returns safely with the soil, she’ll need to lean on her pool of contacts to arrange a conference and announce the findings, offering the sample for independent analysis, but that can be dealt with later. Once the results are confirmed, there’s no saying what will happen next. Maybe there’ll be an expedition to Greenland. Perhaps they’ll be able to unmask whoever it is who has been doctoring the records.

  As plans go, Jac knows it leaves much to be desired but she has little alternative. There is, however, one insurmountable issue. Getting to Greenland.

  At last, she falls still and then, with an effort, she turns to the Archivist and, reluctantly, explains her idea. Although she braces herself for an excoriating reply, to her surprise, it never comes. He stares blankly at her for a moment as if unable to believe his ears and then glances down at the floor.

  “What about the NAX?”

  As soon as he says it, Jac wonders why she hasn’t thought of it before. The pneumatic cargo pipe runs beneath the sea all the way from Alba to Greenland. If she stows away on a departing pod, she can be there within three hours. Then she can ride the cable car up to the station, take the measurement and wait for a pod back. She will only be on radioactive soil for a matter of hours.

  As if reading her mind, the Archivist makes a feeble protest. “That level of exposure… you won’t survive.”

  “I might not,” says Jac. “But these suits are the best protection available and if I’m not in Greenland for long, maybe it won’t be too bad. At the very least, I’ll be able to get back before the effects set in. Then I can spread the word. Whatever comes after that… it doesn’t matter. If I’m right, we’ll all be dead before long anyway.”

  “You’re mad,” he mutters just loud enough for his mic to pick up his words. Then he steels himself and looks her squarely in the eye. “What do you need me to do?”

  25

  With her glasses perched on the end of her nose, Alix is peering at a beer-stained menu. “If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’ll fade away.”

  Miri looks at her mother. Alix appears to be in good health and is evidently well-nourished. It has only been a few hours since breakfast; she is nowhere close to fading away. But Alix is not accustomed to going without. Miri remembers well what it was like when she first left home, how her hunger almost consumed her. Eventually, her stomach adjusted to the more restricted diet, but for a couple of weeks there was a deep ache in her belly that was all she could think about.

  When she finally got used to it, there were a miraculous few days when she marvelled at how little she could consume and still survive. She wondered if that was how the human body was designed to really live, on the spare and intermittent diet of the forager. It instilled in her a secret pride for her new, hard-won stoicism. But that didn’t last long.

  Her body quickly began to show the toll malnourishment was taking: her hair thinned, sores appeared on her face and chest, her stomach became painful and bloated. She started spending most of her time just trying to get warm, even when everyone else was complaining about the sweltering heat. Although it’s what her body needs most, eating now seems to cause as many problems as not, making her nauseous or turning her guts to liquid or leaving her doubled over in intense pain.

  She knows she’s sick and needs help but mostly she just tries not to think about it. That’s easy enough when you’re on your own with no one
paying attention to what you put into your mouth. Now she has to contend with Alix’s needs as well. After what her mother has confessed about her reasons for leaving the hospital, she’s not inclined to argue.

  Seeing her hesitation, Alix reaches across the table and squeezes her arm. “You need to eat, Miri. Don’t look at me like that. I’ve had patients like you before. You’ve been hungry for so long that you can’t see the coping strategies you’ve invented are part of the problem. Tell me eating something this morning didn’t make you feel better.”

  Miri is about to tell her no, actually, it didn’t, but then she stops. Since the initial wave of nausea subsided, she has been feeling better than usual. She isn’t shivering with cold anymore, and her usual aches and pains haven’t been bothering her quite so much. And her head is certainly a lot clearer now; it has been ever since she woke up.

  “Alright,” she says at last.

  Calmer after her resistance that morning, she lets Alix order for her. When the bowl of soup arrives, Miri obediently picks it up and raises it to her lips. The soup, little more than a thin broth, is warm and palatable, laced through with a rich seam of salt and oil. It contains a few chewy grains of some pulse or other – unidentifiable after being freeze-dried and rehydrated – and Miri has to pause every so often to mash these between her teeth. She drinks until the bowl is empty and then wipes the oil from her lips with the back of her hand. Alix smiles at her from across her own half-eaten dish of fried lacewing rice.

  When Alix sets off down the street that leads back to the Warren, Miri hangs back. Her appointment is fast approaching. The Celt is expecting her. Realising that Miri is not with her, Alix stops and turns, her eyes questioning.

  “Are you alright?”

  Miri nods then moistens her dry lips with her tongue. “I need to go to Soho.”

  A look of consternation crosses Alix’s face. Miri’s not surprised. Soho has a reputation as a rough area. Growing up, she was warned never to venture into the tenements there alone – advice that she obediently followed until she left home. She’s not sure if her mother has ever set foot in the place. But that doesn’t stop her from asking if she wants to come with her. She has an idea that Alix might find the trip worthwhile.