She scans the street, half-expecting to find something she will be able to use as a cage to keep the rat contained until they’re done at the clinic, but of course the street is completely empty. She should have gone back for the tub she dropped in the greenhouse when she had the chance. Now there is really only one option.
At least she’s alone. She is all too aware of how foolish her reluctance to release the rat would appear to anyone else, how ridiculous it is to have formed such an attachment to a dumb beast in the space of twenty-four hours. She tells herself that it needs her, that it will be safer with her, but the angry burn mark on its back seems to say otherwise. It was probably managing perfectly fine before she came along. It is, after all, a rat, and rats survive. Of all the creatures, it is the one that has adapted most thoroughly to the perils of a ravaged environment. The brick-lined street might not look like the place to set loose a wild animal, but it is ideal for a rat. Whatever has been done to it, the survival instinct will not have been shorn from its DNA, however trusting it may seem.
Swallowing hard, Miri gently lifts the rat from her shoulder and holds it cupped in both hands. Then she places a rough kiss between its two ears – the end of her nose just brushing the helix of the human ear on its back – and stoops to set it down on the pavement. She straightens. On the cracked flagstone, the rat sits back on its haunches and squeaks loudly, its whiskers twitching.
“Go on,” she says, shooing it with her hand.
The rat doesn’t move.
She nudges it with her boot and it scampers to the side and then stops again, its red eyes peering up at her as if in reproach.
“Go,” she says again, giving it another nudge. This time the rat scrambles up onto the toe, anchoring its tail around her heel. Groaning, Miri stoops to pick it up and carries it further down the street to put it down again. She starts back towards the rusting shutter, but she hasn’t gone far when she hears the click of claws on stone. She turns. The rat is hurrying after her, the spliced ear trembling with the movement.
“Fuck’s sake,” she mutters, brushing an angry tear from her eye. She tries the procedure again, this time taking the rat all the way to the end of the street, but once more the rat chases after her.
She tries a third time, dropping the rat at the street corner and then running back the way she came. As soon as she hears the familiar click, click, click, she stops and spins around.
Grits her teeth.
Aims a hard kick at the rat.
The toe of her boot connects with its side and sends the creature sprawling. Stunned, it sits up, cocking its head to stare at Miri. Then it gives a violent shudder and looks away. For a moment, it stays where it is on the pavement, licking at its paws to cuff its face clean. Then, at last, it turns tail and runs.
Miri watches it go. As it veers course and crosses the street, she notices for the first time the dense patch of filterweed growing from a crack in the base of the wall. The stems are short and thick, heavy with the red leaves that trail down to the pavement. The rat is heading straight for it. As she watches, they seem to shiver and incline further towards the ground.
A shout of warning dies on Miri’s lips. She is frozen in place; unable to move, unable to look away. The rat advances towards the writhing plant.
Time is jagged, it happens fast and slow. The rat scurries across a leaf that lies stretched out on the pavement. As soon as the rat’s claws touch the plant, a few fronds of the filterweed list towards it, lowering with artful menace. The rat does not seem to notice. With a final flash of its long tail, it disappears into the mass of hungry, trembling leaves.
28
The clinic is better equipped than Alix feared it would be, though that isn’t saying much. There is no running water on site, but Alix is pleased to see that someone has rigged up a decent tippy tap. It looks as good to her as any she’s used before, back when she accompanied some of the aid teams on missions to the neighbouring Counties. A heavy plastic canister of water hangs from a simple H-frame. There is a hole to the top of one side with a simple spout attached, and a length of cord has been tied around the base of the spout. The cord hangs down all the way to the floor, where the other end is tied to a short length of wood that looks like a slat from an old bed. Keen to test out the mechanism, Alix places her foot on the piece of wood and gently draws it towards her, causing the plastic canister to tip forwards. When it reaches the right angle, clear water streams from the spout and falls into a large pail on the ground. Alix wonders what happens to the used water, whether it is carried off to the drains, or whether it is boiled, treated and reused.
Fortunately, there is plenty of soap available. Alix takes off her watch and wedding ring – always a wrench – then slides back the foot lever to briefly tilt the canister and moisten her hands with water. Filling one palm with liquid soap, she works it into a lather and begins to cycle methodically through the old routine. Palm to palm, fingers interlaced one way then the other, backs of fingers to opposing palms, thumbs. When she was a student – a lifetime ago now – she and the others had been made to practise handwashing with an oil that could only be seen under a UV light. Under an instructor’s watchful gaze, they would apply the oil, execute the handwashing protocol and then hold their hands under the light to see where the residual oil had not been properly washed off. Alix still remembers the mortification of that first time, of washing her hands meticulously – or so she had thought – and then seeing the glowing stains along the outsides of her palms, the base of her wrists, the insides of her fingers. A few simple adaptations had been sufficient to account for the worst of these, though she soon found that the marks around the cuticles and nailbeds were not so easily dealt with. It had taken a while for Alix to get the hang of it, but in the end she’d perfected the protocol. Now she does it without thinking.
Perhaps it is the habitual familiarity of the procedure or perhaps it is the evocative scent of disinfectant, but as she works through the steps Alix feels a calm conviction taking hold of her. It’s something she hasn’t felt since leaving Great Ormond Street.
I know what I’m doing, she thinks. For the first time, she feels keenly that she is in the right place. She wasn’t sure about accompanying Miri here, but now she’s glad she did. She can help these people, she’s sure of it. And perhaps they can help her.
Miri is beginning to waver. The girl doesn’t know it yet, but Alix can see it as plain as anything. Somewhere along the way, she’s started to suspect that the violence of Miri’s protestations mask the fact that she already knows, deep down, what she must do; what nomination she must make. All Miri needs is a final push in the right direction.
I know what I’m doing, Alix thinks again. I’m in control. She remembers a time when she was as certain of that as she was that tomorrow would come. Now the sentiment is disconcertingly alien. It is little surprise after the last two years, which have been trial enough to puncture the ego of even the most self-assured narcissist. It has become part of the story she tells herself, how all the confidence was knocked – kicked, beaten, pummelled – out of her after her daughter ran away. Now she wonders if that was ever true or whether she simply wanted it to be, whether it was just an excuse to give up. For here it is still, a residue of the self-belief she once took for granted. Alix nurses it tenderly, determined not to let the last of it slip away.
I know what I’m doing. She repeats the words silently until they become a mantra that matches the rhythmic movements of her hands. I know what I’m doing.
She won’t let herself forget it again. Not now. She might not have saved the whole planet, but at least she knows how to save a life.
She is nearly done. Pulling once more on the foot lever, Alix rinses away the lather and dries her hands. Then she steps out into the lower ward and goes to attend her first patient.
29
With the Archivist at her side, Jac goes to collect the items the Facility Manager has placed in the airlock. Everything she requested is there,
all stored neatly in a small silver rucksack. The Facility Manager has thoughtfully tied long tabs of elastic to each of the zips, which makes them much easier to operate while wearing the bulky gloves of her hazmat suit.
“Everything there?” the Archivist asks, his voice tinny and distant on her radio.
“Yes,” she says, yanking the bag out of the airlock and shutting the door. Kneeling, she adds the few things they were able to source from within the nuclear annexe itself, placing the empty capsule into the main pocket of the bag and sliding the pair of microcalipers into the front pouch. Then she tugs the zips shut and swings the whole thing onto her shoulders. She turns to the Archivist.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The NAX command centre is sited deep within the nuclear annexe. For the first time, Jac is truly glad of the Archivist’s assistance, for she’s sure she would get lost in the maze of corridors without him.
Before long, they reach the gaping mouth of a vertical mine shaft, where steel girders descend eighty metres down into the hewn rock. The cargo lift – a narrow platform caged by a metal grille – is ready and waiting for them at the top of the shaft. Passing through the access gate, Jac steps tentatively onto the platform, not quite daring to look down. The Archivist, stopping only to retrieve a key that hangs from a nearby hook, follows close behind.
“You know how to work the lift?” asks Jac.
“Fully licensed operative,” he replies, closing the access gate and stepping up to the control panel. There is a long cord attached to the key and he loops this over the wrist of his hazmat suit before inserting the key into a slot at the bottom of the panel.
“Dead-man’s switch,” he says, in response to Jac’s questioning look. “If I get jolted out of the lift, my body weight will rip out the key and everything will stop. The external controls will reactivate and you can take it from there. Not that you’ll need to, of course.”
Jac nods. It is strange to think that even this small eventuality has been accounted for and protected against. No expense was spared on the project’s infrastructure, not one fail-safe overlooked. And all for what? Perhaps this was always the problem, perhaps they spent so much energy on the small details that they lost sight of the whole: the wood for the trees. And now, for all their care, the project is failing.
The Archivist turns the key and hits a green button. The platform slowly descends, groaning threateningly as it carries them down the mine shaft. As they progress ever further downwards, Jac notices a disconcerting tightness in her left ear, as though it’s been plugged with wadded cotton. Seeing how the Archivist has begun to hinge his jaw open and shut behind his visor, she guesses that he, too, is experiencing the same painful shift in pressure. But neither of them speak of it. Jac waits for the discomfort to slowly abate, and the Archivist eventually falls still.
Finally they reach the bottom of the shaft. The Archivist expertly brings the platform to a stop and waits for Jac to get out before turning back the key and reverting the override. From there, it is a short walk to the command centre.
NAX runs are only made a couple of times every quarter – once to bring new crates of cores from Greenland and once to send the older crates back. The next run isn’t scheduled for a few weeks yet, so when Jac and the Archivist reach the command centre, it is empty.
The motion-sensor lights flicker on automatically when they enter, revealing a room that is wider than it is long with a vast island-bank of computers standing in the centre. These boast a dizzying array of silver switches, buttons and blinking LEDs. Above them, a wide display screen stares blankly down. The far wall is made entirely of thick sheet glass. It overlooks the loading bay of the NAX, currently empty save for the rows of trolleys onto which the crates are stacked when they arrive from Greenland.
Though Jac has spent little time in the command centre, she knows how it operates in almost forensic detail. Being one of the most significant elements of the project, Jac has studied and discussed the repurposed section of the NAX a thousand times: in meetings, at the Borlaug, in interviews and conferences. There hasn’t been much call for that sort of thing in recent years, but the knowledge is fresh in her mind as ever. The first thing she does is switch on the display screen, firing up a map of the pipeline, a complicated network of neon lines. Most of the routes it shows are no longer operational. When the Borlaug took over the defunct system, it could only afford to repurpose the Greenland-Inbhir Nis pipeline, but there was a time when it had been possible to travel almost anywhere in the world using the NAX.
The map is annotated with data from the signallers and controllers that are built into the cargo pipe itself. Jac scans through the information but everything is as expected; there’s nothing to point to any faults in the pipeline or any operational errors. At least whoever’s interfering with the Borlaug’s digital records doesn’t seem to have breached the NAX’s automated systems. Effortlessly, Jac manipulates the controls to call one of the pressurised cargo pods into the loading bay.
In a moment, one of the pods glides into view on a levitating chassis of structural aluminium that houses the pod’s propulsion system and magnets. Despite its large size – nearly nine metres long and three wide – it is a thing of sleek beauty. Shaped like a bullet, its black carbon fibre aeroshell, lightweight and strong, has been polished to a high gloss. The letters “NAX” are picked out in electric blue at the tail.
At the press of a button, the pod’s hatch door slides open. Jac turns to the Archivist, painfully aware of how much she has already asked of him today. She’s known all along, of course, that there’s no way for her to get to Greenland without someone else to stay in the command centre and remotely operate the pod, but she has not yet mentioned it to the Archivist.
“Feeling up to running this thing?”
Slowly, he nods. “If you show me what to do.”
“It’s simple enough,” says Jac. She walks him through a list of instructions.
At every step, he repeats the instruction back to her over the radio, making it clear that he’s understood. Jac finds herself trusting him in a way she never expected would be possible. For all his deep-seated dislike of her, it is clear to her now that he takes the project as seriously as she does. And she knows the NAX. If he follows her instructions exactly – and based on everything she knows of the Archivist, he will – then it will go off without a hitch.
Taking a deep breath, she grips the strap of her rucksack and heads down to the loading bay. The pod is even more impressive from up close. She tries to think what makes it so appealing to the eye and then she has it. It looks new. Even in the high-tech areas of the Borlaug, she is used to working with equipment that bears the hallmarks of age: missing or broken parts, cracks, grime, rust. By contrast, after decades of use, there isn’t so much as a scratch on the NAX pod.
As she clambers through the hatch, she turns back to look across the loading bay and up through the window of the command centre. The Archivist is staring down at her from the central bank of computers, his hand hovering over the door release. She’s still in range of his radio.
“I have another favour to ask.”
“What?”
“I need someone to call my wife. Her number will be on file. Tell her… tell her where I’ve gone. And my daughter…” she trails off. There are a thousand things she wants to say to Miri, that she wants the girl to know, though right now she’s struggling to clearly express a single one of them even to herself. “Alix will know what to tell her,” she says at last. “She always does.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you,” she says, surprised to find she really means it. “For everything.” Then she steps through into the pod.
Unfortunately, the Borlaug never recommissioned any of the old passenger pods. If they had, she would have summoned one of those instead, and enjoyed the journey in the comfort of a cushioned chair. As it is, the inside of the pod is stripped bare, its hollow belly devoid of an
y distinguishing features save for a shallow recess in the floor that allows for sample crates to be held securely in place. Setting down her rucksack, Jac lies down flat, careful not to damage her hazmat suit. She radios through to the Archivist.
“Good to go.”
“Copy that. Good luck, Jac.”
She braces herself and the hatch lowers shut, throwing her into blackness. There’s a crackle of interference in her earpiece that she registers with disquiet. In just a few minutes, her radio will be out of range for good – she’ll be completely alone.
The pod rockets forward, casting out towards the sea.
30
When she returns to the clinic, Miri doesn’t tell anyone what happened to the rat. Alix is already hard at work tending to patients and everyone else has enough to deal with, from the overstretched staff to the sick patients silently awaiting aid.
As she crosses the lower ward, she passes the Medic who is rushing in the opposite direction with a cardboard kidney dish. Noticing the absence of the rat, xe gives an approving nod as xe passes.
“Don’t forget to wash your hands,” xe shouts over xyr shoulder.
Miri does so, methodically soaping between her fingers and all the way up to the elbow, suppressing something big and black that is threatening to engulf her.
Moving quickly to dispel it, she goes to help Alix. She is sitting with a young woman who has straight black hair and a haunted expression. She stares listlessly up at the ceiling and barely speaks when Alix asks her a few routine questions. Glancing at the notes, Alix tells the woman that she needs to check her bandages and then carefully pulls back the sheets. Beneath them, the woman is half-naked, a thick strip of white gauze bound around her abdomen.
In a low voice, Alix tells Miri what supplies she needs and Miri scrambles over to where they are kept, returning a few moments later with her arms full. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Alix unwraps the gauze with deft gentle movements and then casts an appraising eye over the wounds beneath.
The Offset Page 17
