My father lay in his big bed, barely making a lump in the blankets. He looked helplessly fragile against the expanse of white sheets, and bruises were already visible on his hollow face.
Ystevan had absent-mindedly healed the burns on the journey home but had shown, how my father had just acquired them notwithstanding, no inclination to do anything more—no circumstance, ever, he’d said, and clearly he meant it. He must’ve acted on pure reflex when he pulled the Duke out of the fire.
Now my father’s chest barely moved as he breathed, and he was unconscious still. I took one bony hand. His fingers were cold. He wasn’t even going to wake up, was he?
The thought was too much. I folded forward silently over the bed and clung to him, tears pouring down my face as sobs shook me. I cried so hard I could barely breathe. Raven quivered against my neck, pawing at me in helpless comfort.
A hand touched my shoulder gently. “Serapia…”
Ystevan. I ignored him.
“Serapia, don’t cry.”
“Don’t cry!” I sobbed. “There’s nothing else I can do, don’t you understand? I’m out of ideas. Lord Vandalis was my last hope and look what came of that! There’s nothing else I can do!” My last words came close to a wail of despair.
I dimly heard the sound of the room door being closed and the key turning in the lock. A slender hand entered my field of vision, placing three things on the bedside table: a pair of spectacles, a pair of stud earrings, and a hair clip.
Blinking, I sat up, wiping tears from my eyes as I looked around. Ystevan’s ears rose to graceful points, his hair fell around his face, that strange shimmering mixture of gold and black, and his gold-green eyes stared solemnly down at me. He looked quite gloriously eldritch.
“I will take the sorcery off,” he informed me. “But you must understand, Serapia, he has virtually no strength left. He is drained. He may not survive the removal, and there is nothing I can do but my best.”
I stared at him in shock, too afraid to hope again. Eventually I bit my lip and nodded gingerly. I watched as he stepped forward and began to run his hands through the air a fraction away from my father’s body, fingers spread and twitching in a gathering movement like a peasant woman carding wool. His eyes bled almost to pure gold.
Although I could see nothing, I could easily imagine him clawing and collecting the sorcery from around my father’s helpless form. It took some time, and he worked steadily, a strange feeling building in the air and especially in my father’s thin hand, which I still held. Eventually I had to lay it gently back on the bed, and yet I could not define what made me unable to go on holding it.
Ystevan’s hands moved away from the Duke now, working together in the air on something that made me think of a cord... He took a good grip and started to pull, and pull, like drawing a bow, and to my shock my father’s body began to bow up from the bed, arching, as if under some great strain.
My heart pounded faster and faster as I watched. It was brutally physical yet so much of it was unseen... Like every battle between good and evil? Strange thought. My skin was crawling with the dread and the strangeness of it...
Ystevan pulled and pulled grimly, apparently no way to soften it, until finally he staggered backwards a couple of steps, quickly regaining his balance, and my father’s body fell back onto the bed and lay still, hair fanning over the pillows. Too still; he was not breathing.
I hunched in on myself, hands clenched, staring at him, willing him to breathe, willing it not to be true... “No, no, no,” I whispered to myself, as if the very force of my words could make it not so.
Ystevan had finished disposing of whatever unholy, invisible thing he had removed from the Duke and now strode quickly to the bedside. He leant over and touched an investigative hand to the Duke’s quiet, still face, laid another over his heart.
Then he flung back the blankets and with equal haste tore the night-shirt open to expose his chest. Unfastening his own coat swiftly, enough to reach his collar, he touched something—a hidden spring?—and one of the largest jewels swung up, allowing him to take a ring from a concealed cavity. It bore a diamond, faceted to a razor-sharp point, and he slid it onto his left forefinger, fitting it in between the knuckles. After a pause to collect himself, he drove the diamond, quick and hard, into the Duke’s chest above the heart.
My trusting stillness broke as my father jerked, drawing in a long breath. But his breathing steadied, and my father and I both settled back onto the bed. Ystevan calmly withdrew the diamond, healing the tiny wound it left with a touch of his finger. He cleaned the ring carefully on a sleeve, making sure no trace of blood remained to stain its purity, then replaced it in its hidden home.
At first, I could only sit and watch my father’s chest moving, up and down, up and down. He lived! He lived.
Oh thank you, thank you, thank you... I felt weak, drained with joy and relief.
After a while I noticed Ystevan, clip, spectacles and earrings back in place, heading for the door. I leapt up and hurried to him. “You’re not leaving?” I questioned anxiously.
“I…I’m sorry, but really, I just want to go home now,” he said softly. He looked tired, but I doubted it was primarily physical.
“Wh…why did you?” I faltered. “Thank you, thank you more than I can ever…but why?”
Ystevan stared at the man asleep in the bed for a long moment.
“I confess, I was standing outside that cellar room for some time before I showed myself,” he said quietly. “And, well, when I said in no circumstances… I have to admit I hadn’t ever conceived of anything like that. When you said before that he wouldn’t do it again…well, of course I didn’t believe you…”
“But you called it immoral before,” I said, wonderingly.
Ystevan looked back at me, his eyes too bright. “Well, perhaps tonight there had been enough death,” he whispered. And after a moment he added, as though he couldn’t help himself, “It could have been me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It could just as easily have been me. Me who wandered away from my friends. Me who…” He shook his head as though to shake his words away. “You are a good, brave girl.” He touched my cheek gently.
I stared at him. He must’ve been referring to what had happened this evening, but really... “I couldn’t possibly let him do it!” I exclaimed. “No matter what happened to me! How could I possibly?”
Ystevan just smiled. “Exactly,” he murmured.
I frowned at him. I couldn’t see that I had done anything exceptional, myself. And as for the terrible thing, unbeknown to him, I had almost done, it had seemed my only option at the time, but... Now I wasn’t so sure. What had my father said? There was never any excuse for sin...
Ystevan’s eyes strayed to the door again and the matter slipped from my mind. “Won’t you stay just a little?”
He shook his head. “I will not. But since there is not the slightest point any elfin attempting to cloak your memories again—every time a memory cloak is applied, it is less effective, you see—you are welcome to visit us again. Since you really are one of the exceptions. As a guardian I have the authority to issue such an invitation.”
My heart leapt—then sank again. My eyes went to my father and I began to shake my head.
Ystevan held up a long-fingered hand. “When your father is quite well, naturally. I do not mean at once.” He drew several little cards from inside his coat and flicked through them. They looked blank, but he seemed to be reading them. Finding the one he wanted, he put the others away and ran his hand over the remaining one. He held it out to me, and several lines of writing appeared upon it. “You may write to me at this address to arrange your visit, when you are free to come. We have an…arrangement with a local farmer.”
I nodded, accepting the card. “When my father is better I would love to come and visit properly.” I could feel my eyes shining at the thought. “I would love to see Haliath again! And you never did show me a dragon!”
He smiled, at that. “I will look forward to it.” He raised his stick in salute, then tilted his head meaningfully towards the bed.
I glanced that way as well, saw that my father was stirring and ran to his side. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of hooves receding down the drive and knew that the he-elf was gone.
~+~
FIVE MONTHS LATER
The steady clop of dinner plate-sized hooves ceased as Velvet reached the mounting block, but I had already slid lightly from Hellion’s back, Raven flapping her wings for balance—rather gleefully—as she clung to my shoulder. I looked up at my father and my chest tightened in delight, as it always had this last month, to see him riding again.
Despite his use of the mounting block, he slid from Velvet’s back energetically enough. Noticing my beaming face, he chuckled and patted the great black horse beside him. “It’s like riding on a sofa,” he told me. Velvet lipped at his hat placidly.
“Cannon proof,” I agreed, tightening my grip on Hellion’s bridle as his teeth strayed towards my elbow and handing him over to the hovering groom.
My father offered me his arm to walk back to the house, and I took it happily. It had taken him a long time to regain his strength, but he was so much better now. He hadn’t exactly been pleased with me when he woke to find himself alive and recovering. To put it mildly. But life was sweet, even if you did not believe you deserved it.
“Post, my lord,” said the butler as we headed for the dining room.
“Thank you.”
“Post, my lady.”
“Oh, good.” Something from the urchin home, no doubt. Maybe an update on baby Felicity, as Father Francis had baptized her. All efforts to trace her mother having failed, I’d employed a wet nurse to care for her and she was not just alive, but thanks to Ystevan, flourishing, and the darling of the home.
As Raven raced down my arm in surely excessive excitement, I accepted an envelope of thick parchment and turned it over. It was addressed in a peculiar, flowing script that I’d only seen once before, on a small card.
“Oh, good!” I gasped, with considerably more feeling. No wonder Raven was excited. I had to admit, the previous elusive behavior of the card-giver had made me wonder if he truly would reply.
“Who’s that from?” asked my father absently, sorting through his own letters, as Raven pawed impatiently at the envelope I held.
“A friend,” I replied, hugging the letter gleefully to my chest.
###
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Corinna Turner
~+~
unSPARKed
1.0
Carol’s scream assaults my ears, even as I’m bringing the gun round… I fire, hitting the raptor in the tail as it darts away… No time to check on Carol, I turn again…the pack matriarch is busy ripping the grille back from Harry’s window…
One gun’s enough, is it, Dad? Really? We have so had it…
IN DARRYL’S WORLD, THE WILDLIFE IS RATHER…
…WILD!
When Darryl’s Dad suddenly remarries, she and her brother Harry are taken completely by surprise. Their new step-mom is a glamorous fashion designer who’s never been outside the city fence in her life.
How will she cope with a life of dinosaur farming? Still, they try to make up their minds to be welcoming.
But first, Darryl’s Dad needs to get his new bride safely to the farm. And things don’t go quite to plan…
“A cross between Jurassic World and Mad Max! I read it 3 times in 2 days!”
- Steven R. McEvoy, Blogger
Keep reading for a SNEAK PEEK of DRIVE!
Or click HERE for the 1st chapter of I AM MARGARET!
The I AM MARGARET Series
Brothers (A Short Prequel Novella)*
1: I Am Margaret*
2: The Three Most Wanted*
3: Liberation*
4: Bane’s Eyes*
5: Margo’s Diary*
6: The Siege of Reginald Hill*
7: A Saint in the Family (Coming Soon)
Someday: A Novella*
1: Tomorrow’s Dead (Coming Soon)
BREACH! (A Prequel)*
1: DRIVE!*
2: A Truly Raptor-ous Welcome
3: PANIC! (Coming Soon)
Elfling*
Mandy Lamb & The Full Moon*
Secrets: Visible & Invisible (I Am Margaret story in anthology)*
Gifts: Visible & Invisible (unSPARKed story in anthology)
Three Last Things or The Hounding of Carl Jarrold, Soulless Assassin* (Coming Soon)
The Raven & The Yew (Coming Soon)
~+~
DARRYL
I knock back my last swig of coffee, slip on my denim jacket, and pause on my way to the gun locker to check my reflection in the hall mirror. Shoulder-length brown hair brushed—and loose, for once—face clean, blue eyes...glum. But this has happened, whether I like it or not, so I might as well make a good first impression.
“Harry, get down here, we’re going to be late!”
The volume of Dad’s latest bellow up the stairs shows that he means business. Well, I’m ready, at least.
I thought my younger brother had come around to the ‘might as well make a good impression’ viewpoint as well, but there’s still no noise from upstairs. The fact is, when your dad comes back from a routine weekend market and supply trip to the city and announces that he’s got honest-to-God married, and that the woman—sorry, step-mom—will be coming to live with you, three weeks really isn’t enough time to deal with it.
Harry totally lost it. Screamed Lord knows what at Dad, then ran off to the nearest barn. I managed not to do any screaming, but I had to go up and shut myself in the turret for almost an hour, and talk to myself a lot. You know: Dad’s been alone a long time, Darryl; if he’s fallen in love that’s wonderful, isn’t it, Darryl; you want your father to be happy, don’t you, Darryl?
He totally sprung it on us, though. I guess he was so scared Potential Step-Mom—sorry, Carol—would come to her senses and decide that no handsome, propertied man of her own age was worth going and living OutSPARK on some farm. Carol’s a city girl, all right. When I finally managed to go back down and say something about being happy for Dad and try to show some interest in his new bride, he showed me a photo on his phone, and my heart didn’t lift. Just sank even further. Manicured Carol looked like she’d never got within a mile of the city fence in her life, let alone stepped outside it. A less likely farmer’s wife I had never seen.
Dad could tell what I was thinking, of course. Brain not completely scrambled by love. “I know Carol’s no farmer, Darryl my girl,” he told me, “but really, it doesn’t matter, does it? We’ve run the farm by ourselves all this time. She can run her fashion consultancy business from the house—I’m getting a faster Net connection put in. And we’ll run the farm, just as before. And you and Harry will inherit it, Darryl, no question. Carol has her own money.”
I reach the gun locker and place my hand on the scanner. Much as I hated to hear Dad talking about his will, it’s a relief to know the farm is safe. I could put up with a harem of step-moms if I had to, but if someone took the farm from me...
As I take my rifle from the rack I can’t help smiling at the thought of Dad with a harem of Carols. No, not Dad. We’re Catholic, you know. One spouse at a time. Carol’s ‘not religious’, apparently. I hope that won’t matter. Dad did say he thinks she’s ‘open to it’ so that’s something.
I throw my ammunition sash on and check the pouches. Three hold full mags, but since we’ll be travelling unSPARKed... I’ll add the fourth pouch. I put my hand on the scanner to open the ammo box and take a handful of HiPiRs, or Hide Piercing Rounds. Penetrate any hide up to T. rex, these will. Though for T. rex, I really would prefer a bigger gun. Much bigger.
“HARRY!” roars Dad, then heads over to me. “Whoa girl, wait up. Come on, put the rifle away.”
“What?” I turn an incredulous look on him. “We’re going OutSPARK, Dad.”
“Carol’s nervous enough about the trip as it is, let alone living out here. If we turn up looking like Rambo-family, she’s going to freak out. I’ll have my rifle. Leave yours here. Just this once.”
“But why have one rifle when you can have three?” I demand.
“Most people don’t take any weapons when they travel, Darryl.”
“City people. And sometimes when they break down or crash, they get eaten.”
“Come on, Darryl, just this once. It will make Carol feel so much better.”
His pleading tone is too much. I unsling my rifle from my shoulder and put it back in its place. “All right. But we’d better not end up Raptor Food.”
“Of course we won’t.” He sounds downright cheerful with relief.
Footsteps on the stairs. I glance at Harry as I finish slipping the HiPiRs into the mag. No point leaving it half full. Harry’s changed out of the clothes he was wearing for early morning chores. Was he really dragging his feet, or was he agonizing over what to wear? He’s thirteen, three years younger than me, but very fair-minded, and I thought he was finally trying to get into a welcoming frame of mind, this last week. He helped clean the whole house from top to bottom without a word of complaint, anyway.
“You’ve missed breakfast,” says Dad. “Grab something to eat in the truck.”
“I’m not hungry,” mutters Harry. Yeah, definitely freaking out about meeting her, not sulking. He joins me by the locker and takes his rifle from the rack. “How many mags are you taking, Rell?”
“None,” I sigh, putting the now fully loaded mag back in and adding my ammo-sash.
“Huh?”
“Apparently Carol’s nervy and Dad reckons three guns will scare her. So he’s just taking his.”
“What? But why take one gun when you could...”
“You don’t want to traumatize your new step-mom, do you?” says Dad, taking Harry’s rifle firmly from his hands and replacing it, taking his own out, then sealing the locker again. “Come on, in the truck, chop-chop!” He moves to the House Control and taps the usual commands. The light level in the hall plummets as the stainless steel shutters slide over all the windows and lock into place with a reassuring snick.
Heading for the front door, I check the ScreamerBand around my wrist, but the light glows green. Our fence has suffered no power loss; no alarms have been tripped since I came in for breakfast. All secure. I still scan the screens before opening the door—the yard is empty.
Pausing to listen as soon as I’ve stepped outside is second nature, I don’t even think about it. But the Hum is there, the soothing sound of our twin fences, of safety. The quiet noises of the livestock in their barns, behind their own steel shutters. Our mammal-stock gets some time out at grass each day, but never while we’re away from home.
I feel naked, though, as I walk around to the pick-up, parked where it won’t cause dead-space in the door cameras. I haven’t been OutSPARK without my own gun since I was old enough to have one. And living what most city-types would erroneously term ‘OutSPARK’ (I mean, what do they think that humming thing is if not an electric fence?) that’s quite a long time, now.
Still, what Carol is doing is a big deal, and there’s no getting away from that. Leaving her nice safe city cocoon to come and live out here. She must be equally in love with Dad. Unless she hasn’t as much money as she’s clearly made out. I hope that’s not it. The thought of Dad giving himself for life to a gold digger. Ugh.
Our farm’s not worth that much, anyway. Who wants to farm, nowadays? It used to be called ‘the good life’, according to my history TuteApp, and loads of people craved it. But that was before the scientists failed to grasp that just because you can do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to actually do it. Dad says mankind got too big for their breeches and the Almighty allowed us to take ourselves down a peg or two.
It’s pretty boring when the older folk start going on about ‘how things used to be’, to be honest. We’re not at the top of the food chain any more, and that’s that. I’ve never known anything different. Even Dad hasn’t.
I get in the front seat—this’ll be Carol’s seat from now on, no doubt—and touch the statue of St Desmond on the dash, murmuring the travelling prayer myself to save time. Dad circles the vehicle, gripping each window grille with both hands and shaking violently, checking the wheel shields, suddenly unhurried. Checks in haste are blank checks for raptors, as the saying goes.
Harry’s piled in, and Dad finally gets in too. He reaches for the ignition and stops. His hands goes towards St Des...
“I’ve said it, Dad.”
“Good girl.” He gives St Des a quick pat anyway, and starts the engine. We barrel off between the barns and out through the empty mammal-stock pastures. Soon the fence looms up ahead. I reach for my ScreamerBand...
“Can I do it?” Harry’s not quite too old to take pleasure in things like that. To be honest, I quite like opening the gates as well. Very dramatic. But...
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Harry presses his button and the inner gate swooshes open. No posturing slowness for modern gates—what use is that if something is chasing you?
Dad drives straight through, then slows to a crawl while Harry shuts the inner gate—swoosh!—and opens the outer one—swoosh! I press the ‘record’ button on our WhatHap Box and say clearly, “William, Darryl, and Harold Franklyn, travelling to Exception City to pick up Carol Franklyn, to return same day. Now officially unSPARKed.”
Although I speak calmly, I feel a shiver of nervous excitement in my gut as I say the word. The knowledge that there’s no longer high voltage steel between you and the nearest pack of hungry raptors will do that to anyone.
Get DRIVE! from your favorite ebook retailer today!
ePub ISBN: 978-1-910806-63-0
ASIN: B07791NWVY
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-910806-83-8
~+~
DON’T MISS
IN MARGO’S WORLD, IF YOU DON’T PASS YOUR SORTING AT 18 YOU ARE RECYCLED.
LITERALLY.
“Great style … like The Hunger Games.”
EOIN COLFER, author of Artemis Fowl
~+~
SORTING
The dragon roared, its jaws so close to Thane’s head that
I waggled the page gently in the air, waiting for my writing to dry. One final, blank double spread remained. Good. I’d made the little book myself.
The ink was dry. I turned to that last page and found the place on the computer printout I was copying from…
he felt his eardrums burst. But the sword had done its work and, eviscerated, the beast began to topple.
Thane rolled frantically to his feet and ran. The huge body obliterated where he’d been lying, but Thane wasn’t interested in that. He kept right on running to where Marigold was struggling to free herself.
“That’s the last time I go riding without my spurs!” she told him. “I could’ve cut my way out of here by now…”
Thane ignored her grumbles. He couldn’t hear properly anyway. He whipped out a dagger and freed her. “Marigold?” He could hardly hear himself. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine. At least I had my rosary.”
Thane thought of all the things he wanted to say to her. The way he felt about her, he wanted to do everything just right. Could he get down on one knee without losing his balance and would he be able to hear what she said in reply…?
Then Marigold’s arms wrapped around him like vines around their supporting tree. And when she kissed him, he knew the answer to all his questions was a heartfelt,
‘Yes.’
I wrote the last word with great care and put the lid on the pen. All done. I smiled as I pictured Bane reading the tale. Where are the slain dragons? Where are the rescued maidens? he would complain after reading my stories. Just this once, in this tale just for him, there were all the dragons he could desire. But only one maiden.
A funny way to declare your love, but I couldn’t leave it unsaid. And if I did pass my Sorting…well, we were both eighteen, we’d be leaving school at the end of the year and would be free to register, so perhaps it was time we were finally honest with each other.
Picking up the printout of the story, I ripped it into small pieces and threw it in the bin, then closed the handwritten book, slipping it into the waterproof pouch I’d made for it. On my aged—but no less loved for that—laptop, I called up the file and pressed ‘delete’. Bane’s story was his alone.
The pouch went into my bag as I checked its contents again. Clothes, underwear, sewing things, my precious bookReader—filled to capacity—and what little else was permitted. No laptop, alas, and no rosary beads for Margaret in this all too real world. I touched the waterproof pouch—must warn Bane not to show the story around. A dangerous word had slipped in there, near the end. A little bit of myself.
The contents of the bag were all present and correct, as they’d been since last night. Zipping it up, I stood for a moment, looking around. This had been my room since I was born and how I wanted to believe I’d be back here this evening, unpacking my bag again. But I’d never been very good at fairy tales. Happy Ever After didn’t happen in real life. Not while you were alive.
I kicked at my long purple skirt for a moment, then picked up my jacket and slipped it on. Sorting day was a home clothes day. No need for school uniform at the Facility. I was packed and ready—packed, anyway—and couldn’t delay any longer. I put my bag over my shoulder and headed downstairs.
My parents were waiting in the hall. I almost wished they weren’t. That they were off with Kyle—gone.
Mum’s face was so pale. “Margo, you can’t seriously intend to go today.” Her voice was hoarse with desperation. “You know the chances of…of…”
“I know the chances of me passing are very small.” With great effort I kept my voice from shaking. “But you know why I have to go.”
“It’s not too late…” Bleak hopelessness in Dad’s voice. “The Underground would hide you…”
I had to get out of there. I had to get out before they wore down my resolve.
“It’s too late to teach me to be selfish now,” I snapped, switching automatically from Latin to English as I opened the front door and stepped out onto the step.
“Margo…”
I turned to meet Mum’s embrace and I wanted to cling to her like a little girl, except that was how she was clinging to me. I stroked her hair and tried to comfort her. “It’ll be all right, Mum, really,” I whispered. “I might even pass, you know.”
She released me at last, stepped back, mopping her eyes—trying to be strong for me. “Of course. You may pass. Keep the faith, darling.” Her voice shook; right here, right now, she could hardly get the familiar words out.
“Keep the faith,” said Dad, and his voice shook too.
I cupped my hand and made the Fish with finger and thumb, behind my bag so the neighbors couldn’t see. “Keep the faith.” It came out like an order. I blushed, smiled apologetically, took one last look at their faces and hurried down the steps.
The EuroBloc Genetics Department inspectors were waiting at the school gates to check off our names. I joined the line, looking into the boys’ schoolyard for Bane. A hotel car pulled up and a white-faced woman helped a tall boy from the back seat—who was he? His hair was like autumn leaves… Oh. He held a long thin white cane with a soft ball on one end. Blind. My insides clenched in sympathy. What must it be like to have no hope at all?
“Name?” demanded the inspector on the boys’ gate.
“Jonathan Revan,” said the boy in a very cold, collected voice. “And wouldn’t it be an awful lot simpler if my parents just dropped me at the Facility?”
The inspector looked furious as everyone sniggered their appreciation at this show of courage.
“Name?” It was my turn. The blind boy was passing through the gates, his shoulders hunched now, as though to block the sound of the woman’s weeping. A man was shepherding her back to the car.
“Margaret Verrall.”
The woman marked off my name and jerked the pen towards the girls’ yard. “In.”
Inside, I headed straight for the wall between the schoolyards. Bane was there, his matte black hair waving slightly in the breeze. His mother used to keep it short, to hide its strangeness, but that’d only lasted ‘til he was fast enough to outrun her. The inspector on the boys’ gate was shooting a suspicious glance at him.
“Looking forward to being an adult?” Bane asked savagely, watching Jonathan Revan picking his way across the schoolyard, his stick waving sinuously in front of him. Something clicked.
“That’s your friend from out at Little Hazleton, isn’t it? The preKnown, who’s never had to come to school?”
“Yeah.” Bane’s face was grim.
“Did you hear what he said to the inspector? He’s got some nerve.”
“He’s got that, all right. Shame he can’t see a thing.”
“He’d have to see considerably more than a thing to pass.”
“Yeah.” Bane kicked the wall, scuffing his boots. “Yeah, well, I always knew there was nothing doing.”
“It was nice of you to be friends with him.”
Bane looked embarrassed and kicked the wall even harder. “Well, he’s got a brain the size of the EuroBloc main server. He’d have been bored out of his mind with only the other preKnowns to talk to.”
Oh no, perhaps I flattered myself, but...if Bane was preoccupied with Jonathan Revan...he really hadn’t realized I was in danger! Although I’d always tried so hard not to let him figure it out part of me had assumed he knew by now. I mean, how could he not have realized? We’d known each other since, well, forever. He’d always been there, along with Mum and Dad, Kyle, Uncle Peter…
“Bane, I need to talk to you.”
He looked around, his brown eyes surprised. He sat on the wall and rested his elbows on the railings. “Now? Not… after our Sorting?”
Were his thoughts running along the same lines as mine earlier? I sat down as well, which brought our faces very close. “Bane…it may not be very easy to talk…after.”
His eyes narrowed. “What d’you mean?”
“Bane…” There was no easy way to say this. “Bane, I probably won’t pass.”
His face froze into incredulous disbelief—he really hadn’t realized. He’d thought me Safe. Bane, I’m so sorry.
“You…of course you’ll pass! You’re as smart as Jon, you can keep the whole class spellbound, hanging on your every word…”
“But I can’t do math to save my life.”
There was a long, sick silence.
“Probably literally,” I added, quite unnecessarily.
Bane remained silent. He saw the danger now. You only had to fail one single test. He looked at me at last and there was something strange in his eyes, something it took me a moment to recognize. Fear.
“Is it really that bad, your math?”
“It’s almost non-existent,” I said as gently as I could. “I have severe numerical dyslexia, you know that.”
“I didn’t realize. I just never…” There was guilt in his eyes, now; guilt that he’d gone through life so happy and confident in his physical and mental perfection that he’d never noticed the shadow hanging over me. “Didn’t Fa… your Uncle Peter…teach you enough?”
“Uncle Peter managed to teach me more than anyone else ever has, but I’m actually not sure it’s possible to teach me enough.”
“I just never thought…”
“Of course you didn’t think about it. Who thinks about Sorting unnecessarily? Anyway, this is for you.” I put the pouch into his hand. “Don’t let anyone see it until you’ve read it; I don’t think you’ll want to flash it around.”
His knuckles whitened around it. “Margo, what are you doing here? If you think you’re going to fail! Go, go now, I’ll climb over and distract the inspector; the Underground will hide you…”
“Bane, stop, stop! I can’t miss my Sorting, don’t you understand? There was never any way I was going to get out of it—no one’s allowed to leave the department with preSort age children and after today I’ll show up as a SortEvader on every system in the EuroBloc…”
“So go underground!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “You of all people could do that in an instant!”
“Yes, Bane, I could. And never mind spending the rest of my life running, can’t you see why I, of all people, cannot run?”
He slammed his fist into the wall and blood sprung up on his knuckles. “This is because of the Underground stuff, isn’t it? Your family are in too deep.”
“Bane…” I captured his hand before he could injure it any more. “You know the only way the sanctuary will stay hidden is if the house isn’t searched and if I run, what’s the first thing they’ll do?”
“Search your house.”
“Search my house. Arrest my parents. Lay a trap for the next Underground members who come calling. Catch the priests when they come. You know what they do to the priests?”
“I know.” His voice was so quiet I could hardly hear him.
“And you want that to happen to Uncle Peter? Cousin Mark? How can you suggest I run?”
He said nothing. Finally he muttered, “I wish you’d given this stuff up years ago…”
Bane had never understood my faith; he knew it would probably get me killed one day. He’d tried his hardest to talk me out of it before my sixteenth birthday, oh, how he’d tried. But he accepted it. He might not understand the faith angle, but getting killed doing something to wind up the EuroGov was right up his street.
The school bell began to ring and he looked up again, capturing my eyes. “I suppose then you wouldn’t have been you,” he murmured. “Look, if you don’t pass…” his voice grew firmer, “if you don’t pass, I’ll have to see what I can do about it. Because...well…I’ve been counting on marrying you for a very long time, now, and I’ve no intention of letting anything stop me!”
My heart pounded—joy, but no surprise. How we felt about each other had been an unspoken secret for years. “Anything, such as the entire EuroBloc Genetics Department? Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Bane.”
He didn’t answer. He just slipped an arm through the railings and snagged me, his lips coming down on mine. My arms slid through the railings, around his strong back, my lips melted against his and suddenly the world was a beautiful, beautiful place and this was the best day of my life.
We didn’t break apart until the bell stopped ringing.
“Well,” I whispered, looking into his brown eyes, “now I can be dismantled happily, anyway.”
His face twisted in anguish. “Don’t say that!” He kissed me again, fiercely. “Don’t worry…” His hands cupped my face and his eyes glinted. “Whatever happens, don’t worry. I love you and I will not leave you there, you understand?”
Planting one last kiss on my forehead, he swung his bag onto his shoulder and sprinted across the schoolyard, the pouch still clasped in his hand. I watched him go, then picked up my own bag and followed the last stragglers through the girls’ door.
The classroom was unusually quiet, bags and small cases cluttering the aisles. Taking my place quickly, I glanced around. There were only two preKnowns in the class. Harriet looked sick and resigned, but Sarah didn’t understand about her Sorting or the Facility or anything as complex as that. The known Borderlines were every shade of pale. The Safe looked sober but a little excited. The preSorting ban on copulation would be gone tomorrow. No doubt the usual orgy would ensue.
Bane’s last words stuck in my mind. I knew that glint in his eye. I should’ve urged him much more strenuously not to do anything rash. Not to put himself in danger. Now it was too late.
“I saw you and Bane,” giggled Sue, beside me. “Jumping the gun a little, aren’t you?”
“As if you haven’t done any gun jumping yourself,” I murmured. Sue just giggled even harder.
“Margy…? Margy…?”
“Hi, Sarah. Have you got your bag?”
Sarah nodded and patted the shabby bag beside her.
“They explained to you, right? That you’ll be going on a sleep-over?”
Sarah nodded, beaming, and pointed at me. “Margy come too?”
“Perhaps. Only the most special children will be going, you know.”
Sarah laughed happily. I swallowed bile and tried not to curse the stupid driver who’d knocked her down all those years ago and left her like this. Tried not to curse her parents, who’d put her into care, sued the driver for his Child Permittance so they could replace her, and promptly moved away.
“Children…” The deputy headmistress. She waited for quiet. “This is the last time I will address you as such. This is a very special day for you all. After your Sorting, you will be legally adults.”
Except those of us who would scarcely any longer count as human. She didn’t mention that bit.
“Now, do your best, all of you. Doctor Vidran is here from the EGD to oversee your Sorting. Over to you, Doctor Vidran…”
Doctor Vidran gave a long and horrible speech about the numerous benefits Sorting brought to the human race. By the time he’d finished I was battling a powerful urge to go up and shove his laser pointer down his throat. I managed to stay in my seat and concentrated on trying to love this misguided specimen of humanity, to forgive him his part in what was probably going to happen to me. It was very difficult.
“…A few of you will of course have to be reAssigned, and it is important that we always remember the immense contribution the reAssigned make, in their own way...”
Finally he shut up and bade us turn our attention to our flickery desk screens for the Intellectual Tests. My happiness at his silence took me through Esperanto, English, Geography, History, ComputerScience, Biology, Chemistry and Physics without hitch, but then came Math.
I tried. I really, really tried. I tried until I thought my brain would explode and then I thought about Bane and my parents and I tried some more. But it was no good. No motivation on earth could enable me to do most of those sums without a calculator. I’d failed.
The knowledge was a cold, hard certainty in the pit of my stomach all the way through the Physical Tests after a silent, supervised lunch. I passed all those, of course. Sight, Hearing, Physiognomy and so on, all well within the acceptable levels. What about Jonathan Revan, a preKnown if ever there was one? Smart, Bane said, really smart, and Bane was pretty bright himself. Much good it’d do Jonathan. Much good it’d do me.
We filed into the gym when it was all over, sitting on benches along the wall. Bane guided Jonathan Revan to a free spot over on the boys’ side. In the hall through the double doors the rest of the school fidgeted and chatted. Once the end of semester assembly was over, they were free for four whole weeks.
Free. Would I ever be free again?
I’d soon know. One of the inspectors was wedging the doors open as the headmaster took his place on the stage. His voice echoed into the gym. “And now we must congratulate our New Adults! Put your hands together, everyone!”
Dutiful clapping from the hall. Doctor Vidran stood by the door, clipboard in hand, and began to read names. A boy. A girl. A boy. A girl. Sorry, a young man, a young woman. Each New Adult got up and went through to take their seat in the hall. Was there a pattern…? No, randomized. Impossible to know if they’d passed your name or not.
My stomach churned wildly now. Swallowing hard, I stared across the gym at Bane. Jonathan sat beside him, looking cool as a cucumber, if a little determinedly so. He wasn’t in any suspense. Bane stared back at me, his face grim and his eyes fierce. I drank in the harsh lines of his face, trying to carve every beloved detail into my mind.
“They might call my name,” Caroline was whispering to Harriet. “They might. It’s still possible. Still possible…”
Over half the class had gone through.
Still possible, still possible, they might, they might call my name… My mind took up Caroline’s litany, and my desperate longing came close to an ache.
“Blake Marsden.”
A knot of anxiety inside me loosened abruptly—immediately replaced by a more selfish pain. Bane glared at Doctor Vidran and didn’t move from his seat. Red-faced, the deputy headmistress murmured in Doctor Vidran’s ear.
Doctor Vidran looked exasperated. “Blake Marsden, known as Bane Marsden.”
Clearly the best Bane was going to get. He gripped Jonathan’s shoulder and muttered something, probably bye. Jonathan found Bane’s hand and squeezed and said something back. Something like thanks for everything.
Bane shrugged this off and got up as the impatient inspectors approached him. No…don’t go, please… Yes! He was heading straight for me—but the inspectors cut him off.
“Come on…Bane, is it? Congratulations, through you go…” Bane resisted being herded and the inspector’s voice took on a definite warning note. “Now, you’re an adult, it’s your big day, don’t spoil it.”
“I just want to speak to…”
They caught his arms. He wrenched, trying to pull free, but they were strong men and there were two of them.
“You know no contact is allowed at this point. I’m sure your girlfriend will be through in a moment.”
“Fiancée,” snarled Bane, and warmth exploded in my stomach, chasing a little of the chill fear from my body. He’d read my story already.
“If, of course, your fiancée,” Doctor Vidran sneered the un-PC word from over by the door, “is a perfect specimen. If not, you’re better off without her, aren’t you?”
Bane’s nostrils flared, his jaw went rigid and his knuckles clenched until I thought his bones would pop from his skin. Shoulders shaking, he allowed the inspectors to bundle him across the gym towards Doctor Vidran. Uh oh…
But by the time they reached the doors he’d got sufficient hold of himself he just stopped and looked back at me instead of driving his fist into Doctor Vidran’s smug face. He seemed a long way away. But he’d never been going to reach me, had he?
“Love you…” he mouthed.
“Love you…” I mouthed back, my throat too tight for actual words.
Then a third inspector joined the other two and they shoved him through into the hall. And he was gone.
Gone. I might never see him again. I swallowed hard and clenched my fists, fighting a foolish frantic urge to rush across the gym after him.
“Really,” one inspector was tutting, “we don’t usually have to drag them that way!”
“Going to end up on a gurney, that one,” apologized the deputy headmistress, “So sorry about that…”
Doctor Vidran dismissed Bane with a wave of his pen and went on with the list.
“They might…” whispered Caroline, “they might…”
They might…they might…I might be joining Bane. I might… Please…
But they didn’t. Doctor Vidran stopped reading, straightened the pages on his clipboard and glanced at the other inspectors. “Take them away,” he ordered.
He and the deputy headmistress swung round and went into the hall as though those of us left had ceased to exist. As we kind of had. The only decent thing to do about reAssignees was to forget them. Everyone knew that.
One of the inspectors took the wedges from under the doors and closed them. Turned the key, locking us apart.
My head rang. I’d thought I’d known, I’d thought I’d been quite certain, but still the knowledge hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water, echoing in my head. Margaret Verrall. My name. They’d not called it. The last tiny flame of hope died inside me and it was more painful than I’d expected.
One of the boys on the bench opposite—Andrew Plateley—started crying in big, shuddering gasps, like he couldn’t quite believe it. Harriet was hugging Caroline and Sarah was tugging her sleeve and asking what was wrong. My limbs felt heavy and numb, like they weren’t part of me.
Doctor Vidran’s voice came to us from the hall, just audible. “Congratulations, adults! What a day for you all! You are now free to apply for breeding registration, providing your gene scans are found to be compatible. I imagine your head teacher would prefer you to wait until after your exams next semester, though!”
The school laughed half-heartedly, busy sneaking involuntary glances to see who was left in the gym—until an Inspector yanked the blinds down over the door windows. Everyone would be glad to have us out of sight so they could start celebrating.
“After successful registration,” the Doctor’s cheerful voice went on, “you may have your contraceptive implants temporarily removed. The current child permittance is one child per person, so each couple may have two. Additional child permittances can be bought; the price set by the EGD is currently three hundred thousand Eurons, so I don’t imagine any of you need to worry about that.”
More nervous laughter from the hall. Normal life was through there. Exams, jobs, registering, having children, growing old with Bane…but I wasn’t in there with him. I was out here. My stomach fluttered sickly.
“ReAssignees, up you get, pick up your bags,” ordered one of the inspectors.
I got to my feet slowly and picked up my bag with shaking hands. Why did I feel so shocked? Had some deluded part of me believed this couldn’t really happen? Around me everyone moved as though in a daze, except Andrew Plateley who just sat, rocking to and fro, sobbing. Jonathan said something quietly to him but he didn’t seem to hear.
The inspector shook Andrew’s shoulder, saying loudly, “Up.” He pointed to the external doors at the other end of the gym but Andrew leapt to his feet and bolted for the hall. He yanked at the doors with all his strength, sobbing, but they just rattled slightly under his assault and remained solidly closed. The inspectors grabbed him and began to drag him away, kicking and screaming. There was a sudden, suffocating silence from beyond those doors, as everyone tried not to hear his terror.
Doctor Vidran’s voice rushed on, falsely light-hearted, “And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that you can only register with a person of your own ethnicity. Genetic mixes are, of course, not tolerated and all such offspring will be destroyed. And as you know, all unregistered children automatically count as reAssignees from birth, but I’m sure you’re all going to register correctly so none of you need to worry about anything like that.”
They’d got Andrew outside and the inspectors were urging the rest of us after him. It seemed a terribly long way, my bag seemed to weigh a very great deal and I still felt sick. I swallowed again, my hand curving briefly, unseen, into the Fish. Be strong.
“And that’s all from me, though your headmaster has kindly invited me to stay for your end of semester presentations. Once again, congratulations! Let’s hear it for Salperton’s New Adults!”
The school whooped and cheered heartily behind us. A wave of crazy, reality-defying desperation swept over me—this must be how Andrew had felt. As though, if I could just get into that hall, I’d have the rest of my life ahead of me too…
Reality waited outside in the form of a little EGD minibus. Imagine a police riot van that mated with a tank. Reinforced metal all over, with grilles over the windows. Reaching the hall would achieve precisely nothing. So get a grip, Margo.
I steadied Sarah as she scrambled into the minibus and passed my bag up to her. She busied herself lifting my bag and hers onto the overhead luggage racks, beaming with pride at her initiative.
“Thanks, Sarah.” A soft white ball wandered into my vision—there was Jonathan Revan, the last left to get in after me. I almost offered help, then thought better of it. “Jonathan, isn’t it? Just give a shout if you want a hand.”
“Thanks, Margaret.” His eyes stared rather eerily into the minibus. Or rather, through the minibus, for they focused not at all. “I’m fine.”
His stick came to rest against the bus’s bumper and his other hand reached out, tracing the shape of the seats on each side, then checking for obstructions at head height. Just as the EGD inspectors moved to shove him in, he stepped up into the bus with surprising grace. I climbed in after him just as the school fire alarms went off, the sound immediately muffled by the inspectors slamming the doors behind me.
“Bag?” Sarah was saying to Jonathan, holding out her hand.
“Sorry?”
“Bag,” I told him. “Would you like her to put your bag up?”
“Oh. Yes, thank you. What’s your name?”
“Sarah.”
“Sarah. Thanks.”
Bet he wouldn’t have let me put his bag up for him! Sarah sat down beside Harriet, so I took a seat next to Jonathan. The first pupils were spilling out into the schoolyards and I craned my neck to try and catch a glimpse of Bane. A last glimpse.
“Any guesses who set that off?” said Jonathan dryly.
“Don’t know how he’d have done it, but yeah, I bet he did.”
The minibus began to move, heading for the gates, and I twisted to look out the rear window, through the bars. Nothing…
We pulled onto the road and finally there he was, streaking across the schoolyard to skid to a halt in front of the gates just as they slid closed. Bane gripped them as though he wanted to shake them, rip them off their hinges or throw them open…
The minibus went around a corner and he was gone.
***+***