Futuretrack 5 (8 page)

I’d never been on the razzle, though I’d considered it. Idris had been a full-time job….

A shutter crashed down in my mind. I wouldn’t think of Idris; Idris had failed, left me, gone. Well, that was Idris’s business; he could get on with it.

“Where y’been?” I asked Sellers.

He didn’t turn his head, but his neck went rigid. He’d heard about Idris… Then he said, “London… cooorr!” making himself turn and mimic satiated lust. Revolting. Sellers with his gold-rimmed spectacles, glinting gold whiskers, and pale green eyes. He wiped a speck of drool off the corner of his mouth. “You ought to try it… their women are
desperate
for it.” He made them sound like zoo animals. Who’d want to mate with zoo animals? I couldn’t stand him being near me.

“You on the 21.00 shift?” Sellers lived in permanent terror of being late. He departed thirty minutes early, buttoning his white coat, except the top two buttons, a nervous look spreading across his face. Anxiety is the cure for lust. … I laughed in disgust—at Sellers and myself.

But there were Sellers’s jeans. Much better made than Unnem jeans, but bleached and frayed to look like them. And there were his Unnem credits, enough for a week. And his unexpired razzle pass.

And the London razzle wagon left the gate every evening at nine.

It was a way out. I wouldn’t have to face the sneers and the plotting … or Laura … or Idris’s unmade bed. I, too, was on the 21.00 shift; they’d be paging me in a minute…

Sellers’s stuff fitted me; just a bit tight across the chest. I wrote him a credit note to pay for everything, dropped it on his bed.

On my way out, I checked my pigeonhole for letters, automatically. Four envelopes. I stuffed them in a pocket and headed for the gate.

I travelled alone; it was Sunday night and raining. The damp crept in, clouding the stainless-steel seat backs. The empty bus leaped on its springs at every bump in the road, jolting air from my lungs. Dreary.

I opened my letters to pass the time. A pay statement; I was getting rich. Too busy looking after Idris to spend it.

Don’t think about Idris.

An advert for cut-price Japanese octaphonic sound. One way of wasting my money, as Idris would’ve said.

Mess bill. They’d take it out of my salary whether I was there or not…

The fourth envelope was also computer typed. But handwriting inside… Idris’s… the old fake… he’s not dead… fool… written before he died. Crafty old sod: put it in my pigeonhole, where no one would think of looking—yet.

The handwriting was big and savage as ever. But splotched with pale, blue blobs… drunken tears.

“I can’t destroy her—you can have her. What has
she
done wrong? Keep an eye on her AM input—they are trying to override her sensors and do for her. …” That much was the Idris I knew. The rest was mad, like graffiti on a lavatory wall, getting bigger and bigger. In several places his pen had gone right through the paper. Just the name Scott-Astbury over and over. Then at the bottom, the words “Kill, kill, kill” scrawled right over Scott-Astbury’s name.

I was very aware that I was running away. I’d never meet Scott-Astbury where I was going. The hair rose on the back of my neck; I waited for Idris’s ballooning rage to hit me.

But no rage came. Either Idris had gone, wherever he was going. Or he no longer minded. Perhaps he was past such things now.

The empty bus bounded on through the night.

The entrance to razzle land didn’t match up to the nods and winks in our dining hall. Extra-high Wire; guard post with Paramils, leashed Alsatian and gas-thrower pointing inward. Techs had been known to return to that gate prematurely, in a hurry and with unwelcome company.

Otherwise, an endless vista of council blocks marched away downhill into the drizzly night. The pale blue nicker of the Box came through every uncurtained window. Unnems only had one TV program, black and white, so every block of windows jumped and flickered simultaneously, like a huge and boring light show.

I gave the Paramils a casual flourish of Sellers’s razzle pass, my thumb half over his photograph. They hardly looked. They were only bothered who came out of that gate, not who went in. They’d examine Sellers’s pass a sight more thoroughly coming back; except I wasn’t coming back. My heart gave two enormous thumps, and I felt alive for the first time since Idris’s heart stopped. Not that there was much to feel alive about. Just boring light shows descending the hill, dank grass and wet roads between.

At first, grass and roads were thick with half-bricks. But halfway down I met a line of machines coming up. Litter-eaters, big as cars, moving low to the ground in caterpillar tracks, silently cramming paper, tins, and bricks into gaping mouths with crablike claws. Their armoured sides were dented and charred.

I chose two further apart than the others, to walk between. They sensed me, for they paused in their eating, turning slightly inward. Then they sensed I was too tall to be litter or too alive; it was enough to snap their electrical relays over and send them on their way. Too close for comfort; their battered metal hides were electrified to knock out vandals. Suppose one of their relays had been defective? Would my electrocuted body count as litter? To be stuffed in with the bricks and cans and regurgitated straight into the heat-exchange furnace in the morning?

I was halfway down before I saw where I was heading. The totally cleared area behind the litter-eaters had fallen away. Tomorrow’s litter was building up, though I’d seen no one. I was heading for a noise that came and went, as I twisted through the council blocks, like the beating of a huge heart; for a pink flashing in the sky, punctuated with yellow and blue.

It was against this flashing light I saw my first Unnem, his footsteps already muffled by the giant heartbeat. Luckily, he was walking away from me. I overtook him, studying him carefully. Male; no female could be so ugly. Shoulders hunched; head thrust forward like a tortoise, shining, cropped as a cannonball. Arms never still, joggling and waving like a bird that cannot fly. Knees bent, and outward-turned feet scraping and flopping and quarrelling with the ground.

Something warned me to mimic him; that he wasn’t an odd freak. I practiced humping my shoulders and dragging my feet; I couldn’t face the ridiculous arm movements. When I was about five yards behind, he stopped and turned.

“What yer following me fer?” Voice ugly and forced as the body. Quick as lightning, I mimicked, “What yer walking in front of me fer?”

“I’ll smash yer.” The creature raised a fist holding something.

“Try it.” I walked straight at him; he was smaller than me.

“Lob off, lobo!” But his challenge was over; he crabbed sideways out of range and I passed at my new ridiculous gait.

Ten yards on, something made me look back. In time to see a brick coming straight at my head. I dodged; then found my foe had vanished. Only from the top of a steep grass slope came a faint repeat, “Lob off, lobo.” The voice sounded female, now it was safe.

I wiped my brow. If this was a ritual exchange of greeting, it was a miracle so many razzling Techs survived; except Techs learn new techniques quickly.

By now I could see the source of light and sound. Three geodesic domes loomed above the blocks of flats like triple rising suns. A random light show boiled across their surface, marbled pink, yellow, blue like the heart of an erupting volcano. The great heartbeat was the distant sound of music; a dozen sorts of music quarrelling savagely, rising occasionally to an unplanned crescendo. Amplified human voices, bells ringing, buzzers sounding;

already too loud for comfort. Above the domes, a flashing neon said:

LABOUR EXCHANGE

As I entered the final street, light and sound hit me like a fist; sent me ducking back round the corner into the shadows. I fumbled in the top pocket of my denims. I’d found a pair of Polaroid sunglasses there, nearly thrown them away, thinking them some ridiculous pose of Sellers’s.

I knew better now. But suppose real Unnems were used to the light and noise? The glasses would make me stick out like a sore thumb. … I lingered, behind some garbage skips. Somebody was already there, somebody soft, small, and timid. Somebody snuggled up to me confidingly.

“I’m scared. Are you scared?” A girl’s voice, nervous and light. An Est voice…

“What are you doing here?”

“Pushed through the Wire, a year ago. God, it’s awful, isn’t it?”

“How’ve you survived?”

“Hiding, mainly.” She snuggled tighter. “Will you look after me?” Her hands dived through the top of my denim jacket, roved across my chest. “Hey… big muscles.
Will
you look after me?”

I hesitated. She was the last thing I needed.

“I was at school on the Island. Were you?” Her hands were roving further. Exciting little hands, if only I hadn’t been so tense, if my teeth hadn’t still ached. Still, soothing…

“I know somewhere dark and safe,” she whispered. “I’ve got some Coke … no one’ll find us.” Her hands, busier than ever, were roaming across my backside.

“You’re tired… come on, I’ll look after you. Till you get used to it. …” Her hands were really very clever. If only Sellers’s jeans hadn’t been a bit too tight, so that I felt her reach into the pocket with my Unnem credits…

Her wrist was tiny; I was frightened I’d break it.

“All right,” she said. “Yes, I am a pickpocket.”

“You weren’t at school on the Island at all.” That lie seemed worse than stealing my money.

“Oh, but I was. Shall I quote some Virgil?
Daedalus, ut Jama es, Jugens Minoa regna
…” The Latin flowed on and on, almost inaudible but totally accurate. Then she said, “I was deputy Head Girl.”

“Thieving.”

“Wait till you’ve been here three months.”

“You didn’t have to steal.”

“Look, I can’t sing, so Futuretrack One’s out. And imagine me trying to fight! I tried Futuretrack Three, but those pin tables nearly stoned me out of my mind.”

“Futuretracks are… jobs?”

“The only ways of staying alive there are. And I’m too small for motorbikes and I’m not going on
Six.”

“What’s that?”

I felt the disgust in her shrug. “Look, I meant what I said. I’m a good pickpocket, the best of Futuretrack Four, but I need looking after. I steal a lot of credits, but I’m known. I’m usually robbed on the way home. I’ve got a really snug hole. I’d make it worth your while. With your muscles …”

“No, thanks,” I said. It was all too sudden. “I’ve got to look around first. I haven’t even seen your face.”

“You won’t now.” She slipped from my hand like a young eel. But she lingered on the corner, so I saw her silhouette.

“Do you want a few credits?” I asked.

“They’d only take them off me.” Then she was gone.

A straggle of Unnems passed in single file, shouting in unison and not a sound to be heard above the cacophony. Four were wearing Polaroids; they couldn’t all be razzling Techs. I put my Polaroids on; found my pay slip, chewed up bits, and stuffed them into my ears. Suddenly deaf, I plunged in.

The chewed paper helped, up to the swing doors. Beyond, the noise was as bad as ever. I could feel my eardrums pulsing, like someone was pressing their thumbs in; could feel the chewed paper moving…

Mustn’t stand still; I was attracting glances.

The dome was so full of fag smoke it was like walking through a stinking autumn mist. The far end was invisible, apart from patterns of winking lights. That was the awful thing: too much light yet somehow not enough. No steady light you could read by.

Fading into the haze, bank upon bank of machines with figures crouching over them, endlessly pulling handles. A factory? But what were they
making?
Levers were pulled, lights flared, there were fake electronic explosions, buzzes, whinings, bleepings, the sound of cars driven fast and badly. But nothing emerged from the machines.

As I watched, one crouching figure stopped his compulsive lever-pulling and began to beat on his machine with his fists. Rocking it on its foundations so the bolts that held it to the floor began to lift. I stepped forward, appalled at seeing a machine so abused.

The machine emitted a high-pitched shriek. Two white-coated men ran up, plunged a syringe into the guy’s backside through his thin denims. He gently collapsed. A third white-coat pulled up a long tube on wheels. They slotted the inert body into the tube and wheeled it away.

The rhythm of the other workers never faltered. Only the black man next door raised his head; shrugged and went back to his handle. I went across to him. “What happened?”

Shrug.

“Where they taking him?”

The black man wriggled his broad shoulders, like I was an annoying fly. I turned to the abandoned machine.

“Mind out!” I was pushed aside by another white-coat, who bent to the floor with an electric screwdriver, tightened up the bolts that held the machine down. He checked it with a vigorous tug to see if it was stable and departed, saying, “Carry on.”

The glass top of the machine was a glowing mass of Supermen, rockets, atomic explosions, all very badly drawn; and a series of numbers ranging from one thousand to one trillion. I pulled the handle at the side; nothing happened.

“Putcher money in, lobo,” shouted the black man, never taking his eyes off his own machine.

I pulled out one of Sellers’s Unnem credits and put it in the now obvious slot. Pulled the lever. A coloured light danced an intricate pattern round the crude screen and died. I saw I’d scored a trillion. Was that good? I pulled the lever a second time, in exactly the same way. Techs are trained to perform exactly the same movement, over and over again.

I scored a trillion six times. The machine put up a green metal flag, burped at me repeatedly, and dropped ten Unnem credits into a tray by my knee.

“Jammy sod,” said the black man.

To cover my confusion, I put another credit in the slot and pulled the lever again. Nothing happened.

“Push your flag down, lobo,” shouted the black. “Where you been all your life—down on the farm?”

How did he know what I was doing, when he never broke his own frantic rhythm?