Little Fearless, determined to show some spirit, marched in quickly in front of Bellyache, as if positively eager to meet the Controller, who, outside of the Sunday Gathering, rarely spoke to any of the Y or Z girls directly, leaving it entirely to his lieutenants, the X girls, to communicate his orders.
The room was square and very large, perhaps thirty feet from wall to wall, but there was barely any furniture in it. The Controller sat behind an immense desk attending to a pile of paperwork. He looked thin and washed out, as if he’d been put through the laundry a dozen times and had lost all colour and shape. There was a single wooden chair in front of the desk, smaller and lower than the large, carved one in which the Controller sat. The room itself was clean and tidy, but not in any way pleasant. There were no pictures or decorations other than a large City flag on the wall behind the Controller. This featured a clock, to symbolize the brevity of life and the urgency of struggle; a muscled arm, to symbolize the importance of work; and a single eye, to indicate the all-knowing god of the City, Eidolon. Superimposed on the pupil of the eye was the symbol of the Ten Corporations, a bundle of ten sticks tied together with a piece of string. It was meant, the girls had been taught, to symbolize strength through unity.
Bellyache gestured sharply for Little Fearless to stand next to the low chair, which she did, upright and proud, looking directly at the Controller. Without glancing up, the Controller snapped at Bellyache to leave. And leave she did, sloping and slouching out of there as fast as her hefty legs could carry her, almost slamming the door behind her in her haste.
The Controller was wearing his usual dung-coloured suit and plain grey tie. The few strands of his dishcloth-coloured hair that remained were plastered across his scalp; there was a snowfall of dandruff on his shoulders. Little Fearless felt she could almost smell him – a cross between washing powder and gravy. He wore, as he always did, tinted spectacles that hid his eyes.
He finally looked up from his papers and beckoned for her to sit down. Little Fearless remained bolt upright.
“I’d rather stand if it’s all the same to you,” she said, her voice loud, clear and unfaltering. She didn’t like the fact that sitting down in the chair would make the Controller tower over her, and make her feel even smaller and more helpless than she actually was.
“That’s entirely your choice,” said the Controller, his voice cracked and parchment dry. He returned to his paperwork.
From shadows in the corners of the room, two X girls appeared and came to stand either side of the Controller. The one to the Controller’s left was tossing a coin up in the air repeatedly, catching it in her palm, flicking it over onto the back of her hand and scrutinizing it carefully. This was X1, the head of the X girls, whom all the Y and Z girls called Lady Luck. She had crawled and betrayed and bullied her way to the top, and she was the most powerful and unpleasant of all the Controller’s goons, though you would never have guessed it by looking at her. She had a snub nose as innocent as a baby’s, strawberry-blonde hair, a Cupid’s bow, and apple-pink cheeks. Only her eyes gave her away – they were cold and seemed to reflect no light.
“Would you like a glass of water, perhaps?” asked the Controller.
Little Fearless caught the look of surprise on Lady Luck’s face, and so she decided, just to annoy her, to accept the Controller’s offer.
“X1, go and get the girl a drink of water.”
Resentfully Lady Luck disappeared, leaving the larger, more sinister X girl in the room. She was X17: the Whistler. Tall and pale with cropped jet-black hair, she always had a faint smile on her face, as if laughing at some private, imbecilic joke. It was well known that she was a mindcrip, and one of the most dangerous in the Institute. Her skin was raw and chapped as if she perpetually stood in a freezing wind. Her eyes were not cold, like Lady Luck’s, but blurry and far away. No one had ever heard her speak, only whistle nursery rhymes under her breath.
In the dead air, hissing through X17’s teeth, was the end of a tune. Little Fearless filled in the words silently.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.
Chip, chop, chip, chop…
Lady Luck returned a few moments later with a glass of water. Little Fearless examined the surface, where there was a little gobbet of foam. She felt sure that the X girl had spat in it, and put it down on the Controller’s desk.
“Don’t do that,” said the Controller. “If you’ve changed your mind, give it back to X1 and she’ll get rid of it for you.”
Little Fearless picked up the glass and held it out. With her face showing even more fury, but still silently, Lady Luck retrieved the glass, put it on a windowsill and then took her place once more beside the Controller. She dug a cigarette out of her pocket and lit it. She blew the smoke towards Little Fearless. Little Fearless was vaguely aware of some game being played, but she wasn’t sure of the rules. She remained stock-still and silent as she waited for the situation to unfold.
The Controller kicked back his chair and loosened his tie slightly. “Do you know why you are here?” he said, examining the fingernails on his right hand, which were bitten and rough at the ends.
“Of course I do,” answered Little Fearless immediately. “My mother was wrongly accused of being a fomenter, a terrorist. I never knew my father. So when my mother was taken away, I was sent here to be brainwashed.” Little Fearless only had a vague memory of what had happened the night she was taken away, so she had embellished the memory and now believed her own story.
To her amazement, instead of appearing angry, the Controller laughed – a thin, high-pitched sound, almost like a woman’s laugh – and clapped his hands. Then his face suddenly became stern.
“Do you remember your mother?” he asked.
“I remember her,” said Little Fearless bitterly. “I remember how brave she was, and how strong. And how much she loved me.”
She realized to her shame that tears were streaming down her cheeks and there was a smirk of satisfaction on Lady Luck’s face. Immediately she wiped them away and, almost as an act of defiance, sat down, crossing her legs insolently.
“Make yourself comfortable. Then we can get down to discussing why you’re in this office. And then—”
Little Fearless interrupted him. “Why am I here? Why am I being punished? You asked if anyone had any questions, and I asked some questions, that’s all.”
The Controller’s face darkened. Lady Luck and the Whistler glanced at one another and leaned forward like attack dogs straining at the leash. When the Controller spoke again his voice was softer but somehow more threatening than before.
“Do not interrupt me. One of the reasons you are in this institution is because you do not possess respect. Freedom requires responsibility, and that is what you are here to learn. You are here to learn about rules. Rules are there for a purpose. Do you believe that, my girl?”
“I don’t know,” said Little Fearless neutrally, trying not to be dishonest, but also trying hard not to provoke the Controller any further.
“Well, they are,” he snapped, leaning forward in his chair earnestly. “They hold everything together. Without rules there would be no order. There would only be freedom. And when everyone has freedom, no one has freedom.”
“But some rules are so unfair,” said Little Fearless quietly.
The Controller gave a dry, bitter laugh. “Of course they’re unfair. That can’t be helped. The point is, the worst thing in the world is not unfairness. Do you know what is?”
“Cruelty?” said Little Fearless innocently.
“No,” replied the Controller evenly. “It is chaos. And since the war started, we have been constantly under the threat of chaos. Rules may be fair, or they may be unfair. Frequently they are unfair. But it doesn’t matter. They keep disorder at bay. So we have to believe in them. Or, if we don’t believe in them, at least pretend to believe in them, for the benefit of the common good.”
He moved his tinted glasses back and forth on the bridge of his nose, fidgeting with the hinges. Little Fearless squinted through the gloom to try to catch a glimpse of his eyes, but it was impossible.
“Where is my mother?” she asked defiantly.
The Controller sighed and began doodling idly on a piece of paper. “We’ll come to your mother in a moment. Let’s talk about your behaviour first, shall we, Z73?”
“Y73, actually,” said Little Fearless.
Now Lady Luck spoke for the first time. Her voice was musical but hollow, like a penny whistle played through a tinny radio.
“That was before you disappointed the Controller. You are now a Z girl.” And with that, Lady Luck moved round to the front of the desk, reached down and roughly ripped off the cloth Y that had been sewn onto her jacket. She then unlocked Little Fearless’s steel identity bracelet and replaced it with a brass one with Z73 carved into it.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Little Fearless said in a voice that barely concealed her frustration. “You asked if there were any questions and I—”
“You are not being punished for asking questions,” said the Controller. “You are being punished for telling lies.”
Now Little Fearless felt angry. She prided herself on her honesty. “What lies?”
“Or perhaps,” said the Controller, “it would be better to call them stories. Because that is how you dress your lies up, isn’t it?”
Little Fearless was well known as being the best storyteller at the Institute. With no toys and few books, and little time for exercise or games, storytelling was one of the last entertainments the girls were allowed. Crowds would gather around Little Fearless whenever she told a story. So vivid and mesmerizing was her delivery, even the X girls would stop to listen.
The Controller gave a hollow chuckle. “Of course, I don’t care if you make up harmless tales. But the ones you’ve been telling could upset and disturb many of the sensitive and troubled children we have in this institution. Especially your tallest tale about how your families are looking for you, and are all going to come and get you one day.”
Little Fearless stared at the Controller defiantly. The stories she told made all the girls who heard them feel better, and stronger, and more optimistic. The one about how their families were going to rescue them one day was the most popular story of all.
“But that’s not a story,” she responded. “That’s as true as anything.”
“I’m afraid,” said the Controller, “that really doesn’t mean very much nowadays.”
“I don’t care what you say,” insisted Little Fearless. “My mother will come and find me, as soon as she is free.”
“Yes, well. That brings us to the main reason for your coming here today.” He looked up at Lady Luck and then the Whistler. “Could you excuse us for a moment, please. I have something I need to discuss with Z73 in private.”
Sullenly Lady Luck and the Whistler marched out into the anteroom. The Controller looked back at Little Fearless.
Something in his face gave Little Fearless a feeling that she had never had before. She felt empty and clammy. Behind this feeling was a little black thought, like a distressed bird fluttering under the surface of her mind, just out of reach.
For one of the few times in her life, Little Fearless felt afraid.
“You’re a clever little number,” said the Controller. “Clever enough to be a Y again one day, or even an X. Perhaps the highest X of all.”
“I don’t want to be an X girl,” said Little Fearless quietly. “They’re bullies and thugs.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad. They only do what is necessary. If they didn’t do it, someone else would have to. Besides…” The Controller paused as if weighing something in his mind. “Besides, they at least have some sort of future,” he said finally.
“What do you mean?” said Little Fearless sharply.
“I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions,” replied the Controller, gazing at her intensely. “I am not at liberty to tell you everything about the Institute or how it operates. But take it from me. Working as an X girl can have its compensations in the long term. You would be foolish to deny yourself that opportunity. And if you think the X girls are thugs and bullies, then you would have a chance to make them better.”
“Are you going to promote me?” said Little Fearless sarcastically. “You’ve only just made me a Z girl.”
The Controller continued to look at her levelly. “Your future is up to you. But if you want to become someone, if you want to be a Cityzen again, you have to behave yourself. Plenty of the girls seem to manage it well enough.”
He regarded Little Fearless through the lenses of his tinted glasses. When he spoke again it was almost pleadingly. “Why can’t you follow the rules? Just for a few years. You won’t be in here for ever. And you could go far.”
“I’m quite happy as I am, thank you very much,” retorted Little Fearless. “Can I go now?”
“Not quite yet,” said the Controller. “Answer me this, please. Will you give me your word that you will stop telling all these foolish stories about your families?”
“If the people in the City knew the real truth about this place,” said Little Fearless, “you know they would tear down the walls. That will happen, sooner or later. My mother…”
She paused. Something made her hesitate. Before she could carry on, the Controller spoke.
“Your mother is not going to come and get you, Z73.”
“She is,” argued Little Fearless defiantly. “As soon as they release her.”
A strange expression passed across the Controller’s face. It made him look unfathomably sad. Little Fearless felt uncomfortable, because she realized that she actually felt sorry for him – and that made it harder to hate him.
After a few seconds, he spoke again. The words seemed to travel in slow motion across the air between them.
“Your mother is not going to come and get you.” The Controller, who had risen from his chair and begun pacing the room, rested his dry, papery hand on Little Fearless’s shoulder. “Because your mother is dead.”
Little Fearless felt the weight of the Controller’s hand lift from her shoulder. His words echoed in her head. They seemed meaningless, like the distant cry of a wild animal.
Then she felt a strange sensation. It was not grief – or even surprise. It was as if some part of her that had been ghostly and insubstantial had suddenly become firm and solid.
Because at that moment, Little Fearless realized that she had always known her mother was dead. She did not know how she knew, but she did. And she had grieved for her mother already, and for years. Now these words of the Controller’s, instead of crushing her, seemed to free her.
“I know,” said Little Fearless in a quiet, unshakeable voice. “I have always known.”
“Have you no heart? Do you not care?” wondered the Controller, clearly astonished at her remarkable self-possession.
“I care,” she said evenly. “And thank you. Thank you for taking my head out of my clouds of confusion. For now I realize it was the confusion that was hurting me more than anything. But if you think by using cruel facts as hammers you will break my spirit, you are wasting your time. For my mother’s – my dead mother’s – sake, I will survive and I will be strong. And you will never – never – turn me into your creature, Controller, for all your heartlessness.”
Little Fearless suddenly saw a terrifying anger in the Controller’s face, so intense that she feared he would attack her. Then he gathered himself, sighed, and returned to his chair. Pressing a button on his desk, he summoned the two X girls back into the room.
As soon as Lady Luck and the Whistler entered, the Controller’s face went completely blank once more. As if a switch had been thrown, he returned to his normal self: dried out, emotionless, with no guts or juice. He went back to scribbling on bits of paper. Little Fearless assumed that this meant the meeting was over. She now awaited her punishment for dari
ng to defy the Controller once again, even after he had used his cruellest weapon.
“Should we punish her, X1?” asked the Controller, without looking up from his desk. Lady Luck and the Whistler had taken up their previous positions beside his chair. Lazily, as if nothing mattered, Lady Luck tossed her coin. The other girls called her Lady Luck because she used that silver coin to decide nearly everything. Whom to punish, what kind of punishment to give them, what she was going to eat, even whether to take revenge on someone who had offended her.
“Heads, she can join the rats in the Discipline Block for a week,” said the X girl with eyes cold as stones.
The coin rose in the air in a perfect arc then fell on the back of her hand. She showed it to the Controller without a word. The Controller inspected the coin, paused, then waved his hand towards the door.
“You may go, Z73.”
Her luck had held out. She was not to be punished further.
“Lucky lucky. But everyone’s luck runs out sooner or later, Z73,” warned Lady Luck.
Little Fearless turned and walked out of the room into the antechamber, where Bellyache, sour-faced and impatient to leave, was waiting for her.
The Vision of Stargazer
Death to the City Boss!
Death to the Democrenes!
Death to the Ten Corporations!
Oroborous, from The Seven
Sayings of Oroborous*
*The Seven Sayings of Oroborous is currently on the list of books designated Samizdat (forbidden) by the City and the Ten Corporations. Possession of this book by unauthorized Cityzens is punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment.
Later that day, Stargazer returned to her bunk in Hall Seven of the Living Block to find Little Fearless staring at a photograph in a golden locket that hung around her neck. She had not expected to find her there.
“Little Fearless. You’re here! I’m so happy. I thought they would throw you in the Discipline Block.” She hugged her friend.