I turn right into the blue hallway and run my fingers along the insulated walls. A thin layer of ice collects under my nail, leaving tracks behind, like scooping up ice cream from a tub.
My feet feel the chill more with each step. The temperature penetrates even my heavy boots. I zip my jumpsuit to the top. I’m not appropriately dressed for this spontaneous visit but I’m here now.
As I pass the first doors on my left, marked by semitransparent strips of plastic hanging from the ceiling, I take a glance into the deserted hall. They used to laugh at cryonics pioneers, dismissing it as nothing more than science fiction. That was until it became a necessity. All these millions of women reaching the end of their lives without creating a new generation of females to replace them. Cremating them, burying them: such wasteful practices. Something had to be done.
I push my head inside the first chamber. A graveyard of the future. I try to estimate how many women lie silently inside the seemingly infinite rows of vertical silver tubes in front of me. It’s impossible to tell.
This floor is reserved for deceased women. Women who were frozen after being declared physically dead, in the hope that their cells can be revived at some point in the future and, more importantly, used.
There are other levels for the brave women who volunteer themselves for the process pre-death. The odds of their bodies being more useful in the future are dramatically increased. The downside is obvious, though.
I continue along the hallway. As I turn the corner to my right, another figure is walking towards me, a young man wiping his eyes. I’ve seen him down here before. Slim build, around my age, blond hair poking out of the baseball cap he’s wearing backwards.
We don’t say anything as we pass each other. His eyes are puffy and his cheeks blotched from crying. This place might look like a science lab but there is something spiritual about the atmosphere. Peaceful, even. Like a cemetery – except here the visitors pray that this is not their friend or family member’s final resting place.
As I reach the entrance I’m heading for, I turn back. The young man has gone. I’m alone.
I step through the plastic and shiver as the temperature drops even lower, making the hallway seem warm in comparison. It takes my breath away as my lungs fill with the frozen air. I can feel goosebumps appearing down my arms underneath my uniform.
The lights are kept low to prevent them emitting heat. If science does discover the key to ending the drought of females, this place holds the future, and it has to be well maintained.
My feet do the work without my head having to instruct them. I might not have admitted it to Jackson, but I’ve wandered this path so many times since I was a boy. More often then than now, back when I needed answers, when I required comforting.
Three blocks down I take a right, and count fourteen tanks in. I stop as I reach the fifteenth chrome cylinder. I take a breath and place my hand on the smooth metal. I look left and right to make sure I’m alone before crouching and running my fingers along the bottom of the tank. Suddenly my fingers find the small piece of tape, exactly where I left it. I peel it back, allowing the thing it’s concealing to fall into my hand.
I stand up and hold my palm to the light so I can see the tarnished silver chain and the small cross attached to it. I sigh and rest my head on the tank.
‘Hi, Mum.’
I swipe my hand over the sensor and call for the lift. I’ve been down here for thirty minutes and the cold is starting to make my bones ache. My mind is busy. A few moments with my mother is usually enough to calm me but there’s so much happening right now that even she couldn’t help. The knowledge that Eve is unaware about all of this, yet it all revolves around her, weighs heavily on my shoulders. She deserves to know the truth.
The truth.
What is the truth? Who knows what really happened to her parents? Vivian and the EPO aren’t murderers, but if something more did happen, then my team are right about one thing: my father would know about it.
The lift swishes into place and the doors slide open, but from further down the hall a loud clang echoes around the corner, passes the lift, then disappears behind me.
I’ve never heard such commotion in these peaceful levels before.
I ditch the lift and head in the direction the noise came from, my boots clomping on the surface hidden below the layer of dry ice.
‘For God’s sake, man, you can’t do anything right!’ a deep, gruff voice barks in a whisper from inside the hall ahead of me, as I approach the plastic screening.
I peer through and, ahead, see two men with headlamps operating some sort of machine. On it sits a large cryo-tank with a small dent in its outer surface, distorting the reflection.
‘Who’s there?’ the other man calls, noticing my head popping through the sheets.
I step inside. The men drop their tools and salute me the moment they see the badge on my uniform.
‘Sorry, sir. We didn’t realize we weren’t alone down here,’ the gruff one says, obviously nervous at my presence.
As one of only six pilots who have direct contact with Eve, I have a certain amount of fame within this place. My badge proudly displays the emblem of the Dome and the large letter H informs any observers that I am one of the elite. It never fails to cause a reaction among the lower levels.
‘It’s okay. At ease,’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Got a fresh one,’ Gruff chirps, nodding at the cryo-tank on their machine. ‘Just installing her.’
With all the high-tech science that surrounds me, I’m amazed that the installation of preserved humans is left to the likes of these two. ‘I see. And are you concerned about the damage?’ I ask, pointing to the fist-sized dent.
‘Nah, these things are practically bomb-proof. That little thing isn’t doing her no harm.’ His skinny colleague chortles. ‘She had worse bumps out there at any rate. She’ll be happy to be in here.’
‘How do you mean?’ I ask, intrigued by his comment.
‘The old birds, they haven’t got nothing out there. These tubs are the only ticket inside this Tower. It’s why they all sign up so willingly,’ he explains. ‘There aren’t no jobs for them upstairs,’ he says, flicking his finger at the Dome on my uniform. ‘So, unless they come in one of these, them gates outside remain closed.’
‘I see.’ I nod. ‘Well, continue with a little more care, if you don’t mind. It’s the future inside these tanks.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Skinny says, and they start hoisting the tank on to the red lifting machine once again. I walk away, occasionally glancing back as they slot the silver tube into position, connecting the hoses that regulate its internal temperature.
I return to the lift and step inside the next that arrives.
‘Where to, Mr Wells? ’ it asks me again.
I roll my eyes at hearing my father’s name, but it triggers an idea. I place a hand on my chest, feeling my mother’s cross hanging beneath my jumpsuit. Something stopped me placing it back below her tank this time. I needed her with me.
‘Dr Wells’s office,’ I say.
Retina scan.
‘Would you require any music for – ’
‘No.’
The doors close and the lift ascends.
31
Eve
I’ve been sitting behind open books, staring into the air in front of my face for hours. Not reading. Not writing. Sometimes not even listening. I’ve been present and absent at the same time. English, French, Spanish and biology, it’s all gone by in a hazy blur of nothing.
At lunchtime I sit in the middle of my allotment and do nothing but pretend I can see the flowers bloom and flourish before my eyes – my mind speeding up their lengthy process of development. Mother Kimberley comes to offer me food – a sandwich, I think – but I decline. I say decline, but really I just ignore her while my eyes remain fixed on the tightly closed bud of a rose. She soon sighs heavily and leaves me to it.
Sitting in mathematics with Mother Juliet
and I-concur Holly, I haven’t a clue what puzzle they’re trying to solve, their voices nothing more than buzzing to my ears. Even if I wanted to, I’d be unable to make out the words they’re exchanging or give them any meaning. They wash over me. They are unimportant and futile, given the turn my life has taken lately. I don’t understand why they want me to learn all this nonsense anyway, or where they expect me to put Pythagoras’ Theorem to practical use.
I’ve always known there was a plan for my life, a scheduled set of events to be followed to ensure the desired outcome, but ever since that plan came into action with Potential Number One, Connor, my life has started to unravel more than I could ever have feared or predicted. I feel as if everything I ever knew will never be the same again, or that everything I thought I knew I never did.
A large part of that stemmed from the death of Mother Nina, but recent events have forced things to spiral even further away from my past beliefs and ideals. I don’t feel like the girl I was the day I turned sixteen, or when I met Connor. I don’t even feel like the girl who helplessly watched her friend be murdered or who kissed her virtual lover.
I’m starting to discover who I really am or what I could be. I’ve always thought of myself becoming good enough to fulfil their version of who I should be, but now I don’t know if their opinions really matter.
In my empowered mental state, I sit thinking about many things. At some point I linger on the wonder of that kiss and how my first experience of a true connection was literally unplugged. It doesn’t surprise me that I have returned to thinking of Holly and how much I miss Bram. That relationship was one of many catalysts that have spurred my change in drive.
I wonder what he’s doing and if he’s thinking about me at all. My every fibre tells me he is. He must be. I can’t be imagining the spark between us. It’s beyond anything I could’ve fabricated.
I haven’t found myself thinking of food, not in the same way as I did before. I don’t think of the fruit salad I’d like to eat or the milkshake I’d like to slurp. Now I think of how my body feels, after almost two full foodless days. I’m getting used to the hollow sensation in my stomach. I’d even say I like it. It shows I’m taking control of my body and moving their claim to it from their grasp. That I can make myself so light-headed and weak shows I have power over it and I like that feeling.
‘I’m talking to you, Eve. Look at me.’
Her harsh voice snaps my focus back into the room. I’m not sure when she arrived to tower over me, but her presence has caused Mother Juliet to cower in the corner of the room and I-concur Holly to disappear. I do hope they let her leave through the door – otherwise they’re being really slack on this whole technology versus reality thing.
Slowly I trail my eyes up Vivian’s crease-free white blouse and force myself to look her square in the eye.
I’m not scared , my inner voice yells at her. I’m not scared of you.
Her eyes widen expectantly, as though she’s heard my head’s whisperings and is daring me to voice them, to cave from my chosen stance of deadly silence.
I squint at her in an uncharacteristically challenging manner, telling her I’m not going to budge, that I’m prepared to stay mute, despondent and wither away. That their one chance of survival is on the verge of collapse.
‘Are you done?’ she asks in a belittling tone, the sort I’m used to hearing from her. ‘You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to move on and stop sulking.’
My unblinking eyes just stay on her.
‘What is it you want?’
A silence lingers. I know she’s asking me this question so that I show weakness – not just for her own pride but for the sake of everyone else. For them to turn me into a starved mute is one thing, but it says something quite different to anyone watching if I’m acting of my own accord. I imagine my reluctance to submit doesn’t send out the image of hope they need me for.
She needs me to talk. Two days ago I wanted to. I wanted to ask her about Bram and figure out a way we could go about making him my Potential, my one. But her actions have shown me the answer to that. They do not care about me or my happiness. Their only wish is for me to comply with their orders and beliefs.
‘Do you really think we care if you don’t talk?’ she asks, as though she’s reading my mind. ‘We don’t. But you must give your body what it needs. That is not optional.’
Suddenly I’m looking down on me, rather than being me. The sight of Vivian leaning over my frame in such a threatening manner causes a smile to bubble on to my face. The very fact she needs to use these intimidating tactics to suppress me shows I have more power than I thought. Her words, her physicality – it’s all empty threats. After all, what can she really do to me now?
I raise an eyebrow at her.
‘Oh, really?’ She laughs, her face tightening in surprise before her arms reach up and beckon towards the classroom door. ‘Mothers.’
Mothers Tabia, Kimberley and Kadi walk in sheepishly, looking down at whatever is in their hands. None looks happy. They seem apprehensive and miserable.
‘Either you eat or I’ll instruct the Mothers to place this tube down your throat and force-feed you, like a goose.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ I find myself saying, despite my desire to remain quiet. I can’t believe she’d be so barbaric.
My confidence dissipates as quickly as it formed.
‘Wouldn’t I?’ she asks, her face cold and stern. ‘Of course, I could just inject sufficient vitamins to keep you alive. I think you’ve forgotten how clever we are here,’ she adds menacingly, not even flinching as Mother Kadi drops the tray and equipment on the floor with a bang and scrabbles on her knees to collect it.
‘You don’t have to eat to stay alive, Eve,’ Vivian snarls. ‘In reality you can keep starving yourself for as long as you like. But, and this is a firm but, it goes deeper than that. How many times are you going to defy me? How many times are you going to step out of line and cause a minor blip in our plans? Because that’s all they are. Minor blips.’
She pauses, giving me time to reply.
I don’t.
‘If you will not cooperate, lessons will have to be taught,’ she threatens.
‘There has to be another way,’ mutters Mother Tabia, who is clearly distressed.
‘She means no harm,’ Mother Kimberley pleads into her hands, unable to watch.
‘She’s just young,’ adds Mother Kadi, once she’s finally back on her feet.
‘Silence,’ Vivian barks, irritated that those beneath her are questioning her methods.
‘We mean no disrespect, Miss Silva,’ squeaks Mother Tabia. All three stand a little straighter and bow their heads to her.
Vivian looks at them, then back at me. ‘I will give you one last chance to eat,’ she says coolly. ‘Or these ladies will force a banquet of nutrients into your gullet and do so repeatedly until you cooperate. Understand?’
I’m aware of a sob escaping one of the Mothers.
‘And don’t think they won’t. If any of them refuses to follow my orders, I’ll be forced to evict her from the building.’ Her low, venomous tone leaves us in no doubt of her serious intent. It’s a warning to us all. ‘I’m not here to make friends, Eve. I’d be happy to have you tied to a bed and force-fed for the rest of time. At least then I wouldn’t have to put up with this rebellious, selfish nonsense.’
I lower my eyes to my lap and note how tightly my hands are clenching each other, helping me keep my nerve.
‘Very soon we’ll be at the point of retraction, a step closer to achieving our race’s survival. Play your part, Eve. Do. Your. Duty.’ Her voice is slow and punchy, but barely above a growl. It’s scarier than when she shouts at me. It’s more calculated and manipulative, more than empty threats.
My body curls and shrinks as her words keep coming.
‘The public are on your side, but fail to deliver and that’ll quickly change. You gave them hope once, but they will act in the most vulgar and crude wa
ys if what they live and fight for is taken away. I’d hate them to learn it was your selfish actions that caused humanity’s demise. They wouldn’t think so much of their precious Eve if they heard she was uncooperative and not looking after herself. And if you’re not doing as we ask, you’re of no use to us here. We’d continue looking at other alternatives and send you out there. Alone.’ Something outside must catch her attention as she looks over her shoulder and listens before turning back to me and continuing. ‘But I’m sure it won’t come to that. I’ve raised you to have more sense.’
She inhales a lungful of air as though wanting to say more, but instead she walks out of the classroom door.
I breathe a sigh of relief and feel my head spin. The last thing I’m aware of is Mother Kimberley wailing before the world goes black and I fall on to the cold tiles of the floor beneath me.
32
Bram
‘He’s unavailable.’ My father’s assistant, Woo, says while picking her pristine holographic teeth with her holographic thumbnail, barely looking at me from her perch behind the solid steel desk.
‘Tell him it’s me and that it’s important,’ I say, not in any mood to be messed with. I’ve never understood why my father programmed such a difficult assistant.
Woo looks at me through her small grey eyes with resentment, like I’m an ant at a picnic. Perhaps she’s just programmed to dislike me. ‘Look, Bram, he’s busy and said he doesn’t want to be disturbed. Okay?’ she says, as if I’m still that ten-year-old kid wanting my father to fix my broken toy aeroplane. One of the downsides of growing up in the same place, surrounded by the same people, is that to some I’m still just the boss’s kid. Even to holograms, it seems.
‘Now, I’ve got important work to be getting on with.’ Her eyes return to whatever trash she’s programmed to simulate reading.
‘Tell him I’ve been down with Mum,’ I say, and instantly Woo’s face changes. She sighs. I knew that’d get her attention. Dad hates me visiting Mum. He knows it’s where I go when my mind is troubled, when I have questions. Funny how the dead sometimes have more answers than the living. Tonight, though, I’m hoping that’s not the case.