Paradigm (9781909490406) (14 page)

A
boy
near to Alice bit on his knuckles and she could see tears in his eyes. A girl sat behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. As Alice looked around, she could see other people linking hands, touching palms, holding each other in a quiet calm as the voice of Wallace Wilson continued.

‘We have been unable to make contact with any other outside agency,' he said. ‘We have made attempts both inside and outside this organisation and this country. There are no other facilities like this in the world that can offer the level of resource and protection you will find here. I can't guarantee the quality of the cooking…' he broke off and, open-mouthed, the crowd faced front. Nobody laughed. ‘…But I can guarantee that there will be enough to last us a number of years if we are careful with the resources that we have. But this facility does not run itself. We are going to need you to work in our food production areas, our mineral extraction plant, as teachers, childcare assistants, doctors, counsellors, water purifiers, laundry staff and the like. Many of you will be able to use your existing skills and others will train for new ones. In return you will receive safety, food and a home for your family.'

A red-eyed boy seated midway back stood up.

‘That's all well and great, sir, but I don't have a family. My family are dead and I ain't got a thing in the world to live for.' He was a thin boy with broken glasses taped together with plaster, and the standard oyster-grey trousers and tee-shirt that were issued every few days. Alice loved the way the suits smelled chemically clean and fitted her perfectly.

‘And that is why we will give you something,' said Wallace Wilson, his voice beaming. The man sat down and pressed his fingertips to his forehead. ‘Based on the information you provided us when you arrived, you have been allocated a functional family, one with which you will be able to create a lasting bond. Today, you will be leaving the communal bunk rooms and will be placed into your new individual accommodations in the west and north quarters of this facility.'

‘What if I don't want to?' said the boy, a sullen frown on his face.

‘We are living in a different world now,' said Wilson. ‘We must want to work together, to live together to survive together. Or we all die together. We are not your government, your educators, your law-makers or your providers. You are here by our invitation and we welcome you warmly—but you are not obliged to stay.

You have a unique opportunity to start again and, for those of you who do not feel that this life is for you, we can arrange for your exit from the facility. I will, however, remind you that our highest level with access to the world outside is twenty feet deep in water that has a current toxicity level strong enough to dissolve skin.'

Wilson cleared his throat. ‘The choice is yours.'

L
ily sat
with her back against one of the broad oaks a good way off the pathway in an area so dense with trees that Carter could barely see her face. He moved next to her and sat so that their arms were just touching.

‘You have to forget you have a daughter,' she said. ‘Showing that you care for her, looking for her or trying to do anything for her will ruin your chances of becoming Controller General. The Industry already knows about her and associating with her is going to prove to them that you value your family more than the Community. You have to choose.'

Carter blinked through the darkness. ‘Bearing children is one of the most contributory acts a citizen can do. Surely the twins are an asset. Should I just abandon her?'

‘Yes,' said Lily. ‘Well, not exactly. She's unpredictable, rebellious and she doesn't reflect well upon you. The boy, well, I'm not sure about him yet. But you have to prove yourself, show that you know what's important to the Community.'

Carter felt Lily's hand reach for his. ‘I know this is all pretty confusing,' she continued, ‘but believe me, you're the best person for this. Above all else, you have to trust your instincts and do what you know you need to do. You have people who have sacrificed a lot to put you in the position you are in today, and they expect a great deal from you.'

‘My parents weren't there for
me
,' said Carter. ‘It changes a person.'

‘Sometimes for the better,' said Lily. ‘Look what kind of person you have become without them. You have the whole Community depending on you.' Her mouth was set in a hard line as she spoke and the squareness of her jawline made her look even more determined in the weak light that filtered down through the trees.

‘Why?' said Carter. ‘What happened to make people change so much?'

‘It started about ten years ago—maybe more,' said Lily, letting go of his hand. ‘A group of people got together and started to spend more and more time out near the Barricades—sometimes even after curfew. Their behaviour at work became secretive and they started to come into work tired, unable to be fully productive. When a few people went out there, they had been creating things—useless things. Art, drawings, and they'd even started to make some noisy instruments.'

‘What do you mean?' Carter looked incredulous at how much effort had gone into this rebellion—effort that could have been carefully channelled into sorting out the real dissatisfactions in the Community.

‘I don't get to hear everything,' said Lily. ‘I'm too
Industry
to gain the full confidence of anyone who might be doing something deliberately rebellious—they know I'd have to report them. But even I get to hear some things from my sister, although we don't talk too much and she never names the people she knows. She's been part of a few of the groups but not too recently, not since she became pregnant.'

Carter remembered the name of the baby on the FreeScreen and the security—Angel McDermott. ‘Your sister was the one giving birth?' he said.

‘Yes, she had the baby this morning—it was an attempt to calm her down, bring her back into order. She's been under curfew for the last few months to keep the baby safe. But before that, there was something, a whisper of them making instruments—for musical purposes. And these weren't just children—these were adults, grown men and women making music, singing for pleasure and having night parties.'

Carter turned on her slowly. ‘Parties?'

Lily nodded. ‘They were becoming animals again,' she said. ‘Work levels began to fall and they started to focus on themselves, not on each other and not on our Community. They all thought they were different, individual,
special.
'

‘What happened to them?' Against the night sounds of the path and the sharp smell of trampled nettles, Carter realised he was holding his breath in anticipation. He released it in one long wheeze.

‘It grew slowly. For the first couple of years, only the close families noticed any difference, but gradually, to the mentors, it became more obvious. I referred a few to the Clinicians and there was some medication that could help, but others, I think, were referred for freezing to minimize the spread of the dissidence. Some of them became mad with the sickness and killed themselves.'

Lily looked around. ‘We shouldn't really talk about this,' she said. ‘But I'm going to tell you because you need to know what you're up against. When this whole thing started, one of them climbed out onto the Barricade and was torn to pieces by a pack of wolves on the other side. She had some wild ideas about opening up the Community and breaking down the defences.'

‘That's why the signs are there,' said Carter. ‘The signs at the edges of the Community.

Lily paused. ‘We couldn't even recover the body for disposal. It was at that point that the Industry really had to put in safety mechanisms. They increased the current circulating through the Barricade and put in procedures to stop the gatherings. There's nothing public now but there are always rumours. The most recent one was that your daughter knew something important and that she would try to get a message to you.'

‘Well, she didn't manage it,' said Carter. ‘Not exactly.' And he explained about what had happened at the drop-off point. Lily listened, her eyes filled with fire.

‘Did you report seeing her? And did she talk about a way out? A plan? Anything?'

‘No,' said Carter. ‘She mentioned the Barricades but nothing much else. I didn't think there was anything to report.'

A bird trilled in the trees above them, accompanied by the buzzing of a tiny engine. Carter looked up. It wasn't a bird at all.

‘It's the night drones. They use the energy from personal information cards to find where Community members are. We should go,' said Lily. ‘They're out looking for dissident conversations. Let's work on some tasks.'

T
heir pace was
regular and calm, punctuated with smatterings of small talk that Lily mostly interjected until they got to a clearing in the forest. Carter noticed she was shivering through her damp clothes and he pulled off his jacket and placed it gently over her shoulders.

‘We're going to start with some oration. That's key to gaining people's trust.'

Carter screwed up his face. ‘I'm a great public speaker,' he said confidently. ‘Let's work on something I actually need help with.'

‘You've passed the first test,' said Lily. ‘Not wanting to capitalise on and impress me with your strengths but showing a desire to improveyour weaknesses. But next session we'll need to do some practice on your speaking—you have to be absolutely word-perfect when you address your crowd for the first time. But what do you think you need now?'

Carter nodded. ‘Well, my biggest weakness at the moment is physical and mental strength—from my knowledge of the cryonics process, while my muscles will have been exercised, there's work I need to do to get them back to being fully formed. And as for my memory, I've been replaying a lot of old recollections but I'm still missing things.'

Lily nodded and looked Carter up and down. ‘Good work. Well, the physical I can help with. When it comes to the memories you're on your own. You know, there are some things you may never get back—that's how the process is designed. It strips away what's not needed and leaves the important stuff. That's where you'll struggle over Elizabet. You have a lot of residual memories and relationships that you need to make peace with and, from what I hear, she's working through that very quickly.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You need to complete what's outstanding for you, Carter. You can only be a true and clear leader when you know yourself. Don't be fooled; Elizabet has some demons but she has a strong mentor and some clear direction. She'll just need to know how to follow it. You have a missing daughter, dead parents and a reputation that's going to get you into the wrong hands if you're not careful.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘Just what I say—family can play a big part in selection, Carter, and yours isn't your biggest strength right now. Believe me, I know. But what's important is how you deal with yourself and your decisions.'

‘So you're telling me to face things head on?'

‘I'm telling you to do what you think is right.'

And, without warning, Lily slipped through the clearing and towards the deep thickness of the forest.

‘Next test,' she said. ‘We run a circuit of the wood to strengthen your muscles.'

Carter pushed on his heels and began to run, the tendons in his ankles pulling hard as the adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream. Lily was fast and the pain in Carter's chest was overwhelming as he pushed forwards after her. They darted through the dimly lit treeline, him following the crunching of twigs ahead and the swiftness of the air trail she left behind her. For what seemed like hours they ran, until he could no longer hear her and, as he slowed, he careered into her back, knocking them both to the floor. They rolled between the trees until they came to a stop on a patch of damp grass.

‘What the...?' started Carter.

‘Next lesson,' Lily smiled in the darkness as they lay amongst the leaves. ‘Be vigilant. Always.'

There was a rush and a whirl of twigs as Carter disappeared into the darkness.

‘Something you'd do well to remember,' he shouted behind him as he darted around the wood, re-circuiting the path they'd followed, slowing his pace a little until Lily came up behind him again. He forced himself to move faster until he felt his legs grow stronger, pulsing with energy.

‘You're getting there,' she said. ‘But there's more to this than being able to run fast, you know.'

T
hey slowed
down to a halt near a small group of thin trees that led out onto a bare patch of balding grass.

‘So what's next?' said Carter, ‘I want to keep going.'

Lily pulled her card out of her pocket. It glowed with a bright orange pulse.

‘Well, there's a level three storm due in around ten minutes. We can either circle back to the Community or you can take this opportunity to build a shelter that will withstand the rain—creating from what you have here. When you next meet with Chess, you could be asked to make anything, do anything. But a shelter is always a practical favourite of the assessors. I'll give you eight minutes.'

Carter looked around. They had stopped in a clearing with little loose foliage or branches and already he could feel the soft patter of rain. In the distance was the growl of thunder.

‘The Storms can come at any time,' said Lily. ‘You can't always guarantee safe distance or that the predictions are correct.'

Carter looked upwards at the sky. ‘There's dark cloud coverage,' he said, remembering his meteorological lessons at the Academy. ‘The rain will be longer, but lighter than a level three or four storm. Underground shelter is out—it will fill with water in no time. There's a chance of lightening so tree shelter won't work. The right choice is stone with twig-work.'

He looked around. To the left of the clearing where the old village used to be were the crumbled foundations of an old farmhouse. Sizing up the oddments of stone, he began to lift and pull them into position, grinding the edges quickly so that they fitted together neatly, packing the edges with mud that he rolled and shaped with the rain. By the time he was ten years old, he'd been the fastest and most effective shelter builder in the Academy, but years of inactivity made his fingers fumble a little as he turned over the last remnants of stone. The shelter was now waist-high but still it had no roof. The rain continued to get harder.

‘You can still run,' said Lily.

Carter rubbed the sweat and rain from his eyes. ‘I never run,' he said. ‘Ever.'

O
ne of the
first things he had learned in the Academy had been how to recognise things that were out of place—anything from the old world that didn't belong anymore. In the early days, when the first of the Scouts came back above ground, they disposed of everything that would remind people of the mess that had been made of the world. But clearing a whole civilisation took time and, even when Carter was young, there had been things still buried, things left behind.

‘Report everything,' Professor Mendoza had told the class. ‘Report it to me and I will make sure that it is disposed of properly. For everything you find and turn in, you earn special credits. Keep anything and you will be punished.'

He had learned to visually identify every uneven bump and lump in the ground where something seemed unusual or out of place, and as his fingers moulded mud carefully into the gaps in the stone, he scanned the edges of the clearing. To the far side, the natural cadence of the land undulated softly. Balls of ice started to fall all around him.

‘You have about five minutes,' said Lily hiding herself behind a curved rock. ‘Remember, this could be a decision between life and death if the Storm were stronger.'

Carter let his eyes glide across the landscape. To the other side of the clearing, a rock jutted out from one side of a tree, covered in thick green moss.

‘There,' he said and ran out through what had become sheets of tiny balls of hail. Scraping his hands underneath the tree roots, he pulled at the thin rock. It came away in his hands easily—not a rock at all but a large piece of metal from long ago. As he raced back to his part-built shelter, the ice pounded his temples, slapping against his eyes. He fixed the makeshift roof on top with some stones and flung himself inside the shelter, listening to the pounding of the ice above him. Within seconds Lily was behind him and inside the tiny stone structure, smiling.