Peony ushered Ferrassie over to a threadbare couch with stuffing erupting from tears in the fabric.
‘I think you’ll be exactly the thing for our new show.’ Peony waved her hands around. ‘Sorry about the state of this place. Did Ferdinand explain we’re starting renovations soon?’ She didn’t wait for Ferrassie’s answer. ‘Make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you a drink.’
Ferrassie crushed a brittle piece of couch stuffing between her fingers. She supposed it made sense. Everything outside the cities was bound to be run-down after years of neglect. Peony seemed nice enough. It would all be fine.
Ferdinand and Peony were speaking in low voices in the adjoining kitchen. Something scuttled in a dark corner. Peony returned with a glass of cola. Fizzy drinks were so heavily taxed by LeaderCorp that Ferrassie had never had the chance to try one. The cola sparkled in the light. Tiny bubbles raced to the surface and popped. She took a sip. She’d never tasted anything so sweet. The bubbles burnt her throat and fizzed in her empty belly.
‘Now, Ferdinand and I will get the camera ready for your screen test. Finish your drink and then we’ll start. Nothing more than a formality, you understand? I can tell already you’re going to be ideal.’ Peony walked back to the kitchen.
‘Yeah. Awesome.’ Ferrassie took another sip. The sweetness and fizz were unpleasant and there was a slightly bitter aftertaste.
At least she hadn’t been missing out on anything all these years. She searched for somewhere to empty her glass. She didn’t want to offend the little-brains. Tattered curtains blew in and out of one of the windows. Ferrassie tiptoed over and poured the cola into the dirt.
The place was dodgy. She knew it in her gut. She’d been such a fool. A naive Neandertal. No wonder little-brains had superseded them all those years before. She’d been trying to be some sort of Neo champion and all she’d managed to do was live up to the daft Neo stereotype.
Ferrassie’s breathing calmed and her heart slowed. She yawned. Sugar furred her teeth. She ran her tongue around her mouth. Something was wrong. Her brain struggled to grasp it. Her eyelids drooped. She forced them open and shook her head. This wasn’t the time for a kip. If she moved around she would perk up, but her limbs were too heavy to lift. She closed her eyes for a moment, to give them a rest.
A copper with a scalpel chased her. He wanted to cut out her bones and put them in a museum. He caught her and sliced the back of her neck.
She swam through the murky depths of sleep and opened her eyes to peeling linoleum floor tiles. The back of her neck stung, right where her clone tattoo was. She screamed and scrambled to sit up.
‘She’s awake!’ Ferdinand yelled.
Ferrassie was lying on a table. She got to her knees and clapped a hand over the back of her neck. Through her blurred vision the room looked like a kitchen with a sink, a fridge and cupboards.
‘That’s impossible. I put two tabs in her drink. They never wake up if they’ve had two.’
Ferrassie blinked a few times and her vision sharpened. Ferdinand and Peony stood on opposite sides of the table, gawping. A scalpel dangled from Peony’s fingers.
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no. Please don’t hurt me. I won’t tell anyone. You can let me go.’
Ferdinand glanced at Peony. ‘We were only removing your tattoo. It’s a perk of working with us. You can’t be traced or detected.’
Peony nodded. ‘That’s right, and we didn’t want to cause you any distress, you understand? Why don’t I give you something for the pain and we can finish the procedure?’
The cupboard doors were peeling and hanging off their hinges. Cobweb stalactites fell from the roof. She’d been so daft.
Ferrassie shook her head and tears filled her eyes. ‘No, you’re lying. The Cavemen cast all have tattoos. What do you want with me?’
Peony and Ferdinand exchanged another glance.
‘Calm down and I’ll tell you the truth.’ Peony put the scalpel down.
The truth. Ferrassie wanted the truth to be that she was going to be a famous Neo entertainment star and that she hadn’t been drugged and lied to and she wasn’t about to have her organs harvested, or be raped and finished off, or whatever these freaks wanted to do with her.
‘We’re with a Neo rights group. We’re removing your tattoo so you can’t be traced. We’ll take you to a safe house with other Neos who’ve escaped LeaderCorp.’
Ferdinand nodded. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘No … I don’t … I want to go home. Please let me go.’ Ferrassie hugged herself to contain her shaking. She couldn’t believe anything they said. Neo rights. That didn’t make any sense. All she’d wanted was to sing. And they wanted to hurt her. She needed to get away from them and get her mind straight.
‘Calm down and think about what we’re saying. This is a great opportunity for you,’ Ferdinand said.
‘Let me make you a cup of tea and we can talk about it.’ Peony held her hands towards Ferrassie.
‘I … I want to go.’
‘Understood.’ Ferdinand cringed. ‘We won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, but it’s a long way to the city and dangerous through the wilds and then the Demi-Settlements. Let me call a friend of mine who’s heading there tonight.’ Ferdinand did that blank thing that meant he was using IntelliEnhance.
Ferrassie slid off the table. ‘No. Don’t call anyone.’ The last thing she needed was more little-brains who wanted to cut her up. She ran towards the kitchen door.
Peony stood in her way and reached for her. ‘Please, Ferrassie –’
Ferrassie slammed Peony against the wall. She didn’t give a fuck if they reported her for bashing a little-brain – even being hauled into a Neo control van would be better than whatever this was.
‘Hey!’ Ferdinand seized Ferrassie’s shoulder.
An image from a Neo fight flashed into her brain. She clutched Ferdinand’s ears and headbutted him with her powerful brow ridge. Bones cracked and blood spurted from his nose. He collapsed onto the ground holding his mug. Peony shrieked and cowered on the floor.
Ferrassie burst through the front door. They’d better not follow her or she’d mess them up.
Adrenaline and moonlight guided Ferrassie down the dark track and away from the house. She peered over her shoulder every few metres. No one gave chase. At the main road she took cover from the passing trucks in the tangle of vegetation at the side of the road. The grass and weeds grabbed at her, hundreds of tiny fists trying to hold her back.
The cut on her neck throbbed.
She had no idea how she’d get to City 1 or how she’d pass through the wall when she did get there. She’d become a cautionary tale of Neo stupidity.
Further down the road, a sphere of light rallied against the dark: a fuelling station. Ferrassie lowered her eyes from the fluorescent lights and passed the fuel pumps and electric chargers. Two Neo
coppers manned the entrance to the store.
One of the guards stuck his arm out to bar her entry.
‘What’s up?’
He pointed at a sign on the glass sliding door.
‘I can’t read.’
‘It says Sapien Citizens only.’
‘Oh. I’m in a touchy situation and I gotta …’ What did she gotta do? Contact Neo Control? They’d send someone to take her straight to the medical research facility. Contact Amud? Even if he did come across a message from her on the Neo chat board, there was nothing he could do to help her. Contact her boss at the cricket factory? As if he’d care. She was replaceable. And technically she wasn’t even an employee there anymore.
Ferrassie turned from the door, walking slowly and hoping an idea would come to her. What if she went back to Ferdinand and Peony? They’d been scared of her strength. She could force them to take her back to the city. She shook her head. That was her daftest idea yet.
She was screwed.
Her stomach rumbled and a headache pounded behind her temples. The last thing she’d eaten was a Nutri-Shake for breakfast. There were plenty of eats inside the fuelling station and she had some currency on her tattoo. If only they’d let her through the door.
An armoured delivery truck lit her in its headlights. She hurried out of the way, towards the road. She had to keep moving. The boring, predictable everyday schlep of life between the cricket factory and the workers’ barracks didn’t seem so crook anymore. Neos weren’t supposed to have dreams of something better.
‘Hello there,’ a man’s voice called from behind her. She kept walking, assuming he was yakking to someone else.
‘Hello there, Neo-Neandertal woman.’
She turned.
The truck driver – a young Sapien bloke – came towards her, his hands in the air. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’ve never seen a Neo alone out here. I thought you might need some assistance.’ He stood a couple of metres away. ‘Can I contact someone for you? I’m aware these places have a deplorable anti-Neo policy.’
Ferrassie, certain the bloke had been sent by Ferdinand and Peony to grab her, ran towards the darkness beyond the fuelling station. She was looking back over her shoulder at the truck when she collided with something. Arms went around her.
‘Oof.’ All the air in her chest rushed out through her mouth.
‘Where you running to, clone?’
A bear of a bloke held her. He didn’t have the smooth, neat features of a Citizen. He had coarse black hair all over his mug and his clothes were ragged and faded. He pushed her away from him, keeping a firm grip on one of her wrists. She froze as two other blokes and a lady put down their water containers and pulled steel bars out of their backpacks.
Ferrassie looked from person to person. Not a single one of them seemed friendly. Behind them the night was pure black.
‘Where did you come from?’ the bloke holding her wrists asked.
‘I’m … I’m from City 1. I was tricked out here.’
‘Bullcrap. You’re from the free-Neo camp, aren’t ya?’
‘No. I got no idea what you’re yakking about.’
‘Tell us where it is.’ The four of them surrounded her.
‘Help!’ Ferrassie twisted towards the Neo guards at the fuelling station. They kept their focus forward.
‘Bring her with us. We’ll make her squeal,’ the lady said.
‘No, no, no. Let me go.’
A loud bang sounded over their heads. A screeching flock
of birds exploded from a nearby tree. Her captors recoiled and moved away. Ferrassie scrambled back. The birds’ cries faded into the distance.
‘I would advise you to leave the woman alone and go about your business.’ The driver of the armoured truck stood in the light of the fuelling station, holding a handgun.
‘Bloody Citizens think they’re in charge of everything, even out here,’ one of the blokes said.
‘Leave off. She’s not worth it. She doesn’t even know anything,’ the lady said.
The group trudged off into the darkness, torch beams marking their progress through the long grass.
‘You Citizens’ll get what’s coming to you soon. Very soon,’ one of the blokes yelled over his shoulder.
Ferrassie crouched on the ground, shaking.
The driver squatted in front of her. ‘Please let me help you. It’s dangerous for you out here. Where there’s a handful of Rewilders you’ll find hundreds more hiding in the shadows like cockroaches.’
‘Did they send you to get me?’
‘Who?’ The driver frowned.
‘Peony and Ferdinand.’
‘No. Who are they? Do you want me to call them for you?’
‘No.’ Ferrassie bit her lip. Could she trust him? She had nowhere to go and she didn’t seem to have any other allies. Littlebrains always wanted something though. They were the most selfish species on earth.
‘I’m en route to City 1. Where are you from?’
Ferrassie sighed. ‘City 1.’ Suddenly nothing seemed more appealing than her own bed in the workers’ barracks.
‘I can take you. I’m not trying to trick you. I can show you my ID and work order.’ The driver pulled an OmniScreen out of his pocket and pulled up the details, with no idea Ferrassie couldn’t read. ‘My name’s Lars.’
Ferrassie checked out the dark road and looked back to the unwelcoming light of the refuelling station. What other choice did she have?
‘Why would you help me?’ If she understood what was in it for him, she’d feel safer taking up his offer.
Lars frowned and pushed his blue-black fringe out of his eyes. ‘You need a reason to trust me?’
Ferrassie nodded.
‘I understand.’ He pinched his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I only want to help. I’d like to think someone would help me if I was in need. The whole karma thing.’
She didn’t know what the whole karma thing meant. Still, he seemed sincere, and there was something kind about his blue eyes. On the other hand, she’d already proved that when it came to judging character she couldn’t tell her arse from her elbow.
‘How about I let you hold the gun?’ He held the handgun out to her, grip first.
She took it. It was the best she was going to get.
While Lars refuelled, Ferrassie waited in the truck, the weapon cradled in her lap. She wouldn’t need it to overpower a puny little-brain like him, but it made her feel safer that any power he had access to was in her hands. He brought back a soy mince pie and a nutrient water and handed them to her.
‘You looked hungry.’
Ferrassie held the warm pie in her hands. ‘Ta.’
They drove along in silence for a while. The stars were much brighter without the corruption of the city lights. She gulped the water. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was.
Lars cleared his throat. ‘Do you mind me asking how you got out here?’
The story tumbled out of her.
Lars shook his head. ‘You were wise to run. Odds are they were organ harvesters.’
‘What about these free-Neos everyone keeps yakking about?’
‘There are rumours,’ Lars said. ‘I’ve done some work with Neo rights groups myself and everyone is very hush-hush on the subject. I do believe they exist out there somewhere.’
‘Do you think Ferdinand and Peony could really be with something like that?’
‘I doubt it.’ Lars bit his bottom lip. ‘They wouldn’t go around lying to unsuspecting Neos to get them out there. I don’t think that’s how they operate.’
Ferrassie nodded. That made sense.
‘So tell me about yourself, Ferrassie.’
The road slid quietly beneath the truck tyres. They could only see as far as the headlights reached.
‘I was cloned, I grew up in the cloning orphanage and I was sent to City 1 to work in the cricket factory. Not much else to it.’
‘I’m sure you’re far more interesting than that.’
Ferrassie shrugged. She could add that she loved Keeping Up with the Cavemen and singing and lemon was her favourite flavour of nutrient water. Except little-brains were never interested in seeing Neos as real people.
‘What about you?’
‘I’d rather talk about you, but fair enough. My friends often tell me I’m too nosy. Let’s see. I’m twenty. Born in City 1. I aspired to be a game designer, but that’s a very competitive profession. My parents sponsored the download of an exorbitantly priced and extremely boring corporate education package and then insisted I find suitable and extremely boring employment. So I flew the coop, found a cheap and cheerful apartment in the warehouse district and started driving trucks. And here I am. An aimless disappointment.’ Lars flashed a grin at her. ‘I’m also a paleoarchaeology enthusiast, particularly when it comes to Neandertals.’
Ferrassie smiled. ‘You couldn’t possibly know more about the Neandertals than I do.’
They spent the rest of the trip discussing the extinct humans. Lars didn’t make blank IntelliEnhance mug even once. He focused on her and the road. They were debating the evidence for Neandertal knowledge of medicinal plants when the green glow of the city appeared, surrounded by the orange dashes of fires and lamps in the Demi-slums.
Ferrassie’s chest tightened. Ferdinand had done something with her clone number. Would she be allowed into the city or would they send her back to him? Did he own her now?
‘I’ve enjoyed our conversation, Ferrassie. You’re more interesting than a lot of Sapiens I’ve met.’ Lars cleared his throat and glanced at her before returning his focus to the road. ‘I’d like to keep in touch. Would that be all right with you?’
Ferrassie blinked. ‘Seriously?’
‘Absolutely. I don’t joke about this sort of thing.’
A blush crept up Ferrassie’s neck. ‘I’d like that.’
Lars stopped the truck by a square building made of grey bricks, right where the abandoned suburbs met the Demi-slums.
‘What’s going on?’ Ferrassie’s fingers closed over the cool metal of the handgun.
‘Making a small pick-up. Nothing to worry about.’ He tapped the dash and the rear doors of the truck hissed open. Soft shuffling and stomping noises came from the cargo trailer and then they heard the slap of a hand on the wall behind the cab.
‘All right. Ready to go.’ Lars tapped the dash again. The rear doors of the truck thumped closed and the truck accelerated towards the wall. ‘Just a way I have of making a bit on the side to help pay back my parents for my useless education.’
Lars glanced over at her. ‘We’ll need to stow the firearm before entering the city. Do you mind putting it in the compartment in front of you?’
Ferrassie gripped the gun tightly.
‘I haven’t got anything else I can offer you. You just have to trust me.’
She leaned forward and stowed the gun. Maybe not all little-brains were after something. And she didn’t know how to use it anyway.