The Resistance

  ‘OK, number please?’

  ‘Let’s see now . . . She’s VA 367.’ The woman didn’t smile at Sheila this time; she just walked over, and pressed a lever which raised Sheila’s legs up into the air, wrenching her down the bed so that she grazed her wrists on the manacles.

  ‘And the number for the retrieval?’

  ‘Oh, twelve.’

  ‘Twelve?’ The man sounded impressed. ‘Not bad. That’s the record so far, isn’t it?’

  The woman nodded. ‘We had an unsuccessful eleven last week.’

  ‘Right, well, let’s make sure this is successful then, shall we?’

  He adjusted the light so that it was shining between Sheila’s legs and pulled up her gown. She was hot and embarrassed, but was unable to move.

  ‘It hurts,’ she managed to say to the woman, who had in her hands several small glass tubes. The woman smiled.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said brightly. ‘This really isn’t that difficult. Just lie still and let the technician get on with the procedure. It will be over soon.’

  Sheila nodded obediently. And then, as she felt something cold and hard jabbing inside her, a bloodcurdling scream filled the room. Sheila only realised a few seconds later that she was making the noise herself. The pain was excruciating, like a knife tearing through her. But it was more than pain. Somewhere, deep inside, her body was crying for something and Sheila didn’t know why or what, but it felt like her cries came from the deepest part of her soul.

  She tried to protest, but the pain shooting through her abdomen made it impossible. Instead, she felt her eyes well up with tears and she prayed that whatever was happening would be over soon, because she knew she couldn’t endure it for much longer. She didn’t want to be a Valuable Asset any more. She just wanted to be Surplus Sheila.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Peter heard his grandfather open another door; he waited for a few seconds, then, tentatively, opened the door he’d been crouching behind. As he crept through, he saw a flash of white light as his grandfather and Hillary disappeared through two double doors. He found himself in an antechamber; on a counter in front of him was a large sink with gowns hanging next to it and a shelf with small plastic bags on it, which, on closer inspection, turned out to contain latex gloves. Quickly, Peter made his way towards the double doors and pushed at one a fraction so he could see into the room; immediately, his eyes opened wide in shock. The room was very large; along the farthest end were five beds, all with girls in them. As he looked at them, he felt a slight nausea rising up inside of him. Their faces were pale, their eyes glassy or closed. Two of them had their legs in the air, held by strange metal contraptions, which Peter found it hard to look at. The girls all looked his age, younger even. Around one were men and women in white coats. At Peter’s end of the room were various machines and three empty beds stacked on top of each other; Peter made sure no one was looking, then ran to the beds and hid behind them.

  From this vantage point, he saw his grandfather turn to Hillary, a smile on his face. ‘The Surplus,’ he said easily. ‘A drain on society. A burden that the planet can’t cope with. Right?’

  Hillary shot an uncomfortable look in the girls’ direction, then looked away quickly. ‘These are Surpluses? Why are they here?’

  ‘My question, Hillary. Answer my question, please.’

  Hillary sighed. ‘They have their uses, some of them. But yes, overall, they are a drain. Richard, why am I here? I want to see the drugs, not these girls.’

  ‘You are here because the Authorities must sanction the means as well as the end,’ Richard said smoothly. ‘Sanction and protect our production lines from prying eyes, from questions, from people who don’t understand science, who don’t realise that every move forward in science requires a . . . a freedom not afforded all disciplines.’

  ‘Freedom? What do you mean?’ Hillary asked.

  ‘What if I was to tell you that Surpluses were the key to the health and wellbeing of mankind?’ Richard said. ‘What if I was to tell you that Surpluses are not a burden, but our saviours? That they are, in fact, not Surpluses at all, but Valuable Assets?’

  Peter strained to listen, scanning the room for a closer hiding place.

  ‘Our saviours? Richard, what are you talking about?’

  ‘We have been so short-sighted, Hillary. We have been viewing Surpluses all wrong – as a burden, as something to be avoided, destroyed, managed. But they’re not a burden. They are our future. Their eggs, their sperm, their organs, their wombs . . . all more valuable than any other natural resource,’ Richard said softly, turning to look at the girls in the beds. As he did so, Peter made a dash for the bench in the centre of the room and crouched down, all his reflexes on full alert.

  ‘Wombs?’ Hillary said uncertainly. ‘What’s so great about their wombs? Richard, you are making no sense. Fertility is a weakness. Creating new life is a sin.’

  Peter’s grandfather licked his lips and gestured towards the row of beds.

  ‘Think of them as incubators. Incubators that can grow state-of-the-art embryonic stem cells,’ he said reverently.

  ‘Embryonic? You mean . . .’

  ‘I mean, embryos. Ten at a time. We’re hoping to get up to twelve today. Eventually the sky’s the limit.’

  ‘And you’re making them? Here?’ Hillary gasped.

  ‘It’s not that radical, Hillary. Remember IVF, or was that before your time? You take an egg, you fertilise it, you put it in the womb. Only we do four, five, ten, twenty. We let them take hold, let them grow, then we harvest them – and the cells, Hillary, the cells can do anything. Take a precursor stem cell and subject it to the Longevity formula, and the results are . . . well, they’re beautiful. Astounding. Revolutionary. Two weeks is all it takes, Hillary. Two weeks from fertilisation.’

  Hillary looked up at him in wonderment.

  ‘But the supply,’ she said, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. ‘The supply’s not high enough. Not to supply the country, let alone the world. There aren’t enough Surpluses. It’s not sustainable.’

  Peter’s grandfather laughed. ‘Of course it’s sustainable. We just have to make sure we control the supply.’

  ‘But how? There’s no guarantee . . .’

  ‘No guarantee?’ Peter’s grandfather smiled, and shook his head. Then he lowered his voice. ‘You and the Authorities know full well that Surpluses have been used for new ingredients for years – blood donation, bone marrow, stem cells. We’ve always needed a certain level of supply of Surpluses for medical research, and certain departments within the Authorities have been most . . . sympathetic. But until now, it’s been low level – a few faulty birth-control implants here and there ensured an adequate supply. All I’m saying now is that we need to crank it up. We need more young flesh, more Valuable Assets. Officially.’

  Peter felt himself go numb as he remembered the comings and goings of strange doctors at Grange Hall, always at night-time, always in Solitary, the underground cells used for punishment, and it was all he could do to breathe in and out. There was nothing pure about Longevity.

  ‘The Authorities . . . you mean, we sanctioned the creation of Surpluses?’ Hillary’s mouth was open in shock.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Peter’s grandfather asked, his tone surprised. ‘I thought you’d read Adrian’s notes. He gave us special dispensation. And now we need to plant more. We need large numbers. Surplus farms. They are our lifeblood, Hillary. The potential is unending.’

  Hillary couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the girls. ‘There are channels, Richard. You’d be breaking protocols and regulations . . .’

  ‘Protocols and regulations that will be swept aside when people understand what the drugs can do. Protocols and regulations that are outdated, that belong to another time. This is progress. This is the future.’

  Hillary was silent for a few moments, then she looked back at the row of beds.

  ‘This girl here,’ she said, pointing to the gir
l clamped to the bed. ‘What’s happening to her?’

  ‘Ah, well, she’s at the most exciting stage of the process. Our first twelve, I believe. Twelve embryos, about two weeks old, are being extracted. Twelve embryos with enough stem cells to provide London and the Home Counties with Longevity+ for three months.’

  ‘You mean she’s pregnant?’

  ‘Pregnant as a sow,’ he confirmed. ‘Unfortunately we’ve yet to bypass the side effects of pregnancy.’ He grinned at Hillary. ‘Nothing like a ward full of girls feeling sick, tired, wailing and getting upset over nothing to get the nurses demanding pay rises. Still, we’re working on it. If it didn’t compromise the quality of the embryos, we’d keep them unconscious all the way through.’

  ‘And what will happen to her . . . afterwards?’

  ‘Afterwards?’ Richard looked at her uncertainly.

  ‘Will she blab? We can’t have the girls talking.’ Peter felt a chill inside him; even from where he was hiding he could see the steely glint in Hillary’s eye. Any hope that she might be outraged by what she was seeing was immediately dashed.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Richard said, looking relieved. ‘No, she won’t be able to blab. To start with, each girl has a good fifteen years of production ahead of her, I’d say. After that, who knows.’

  ‘Who knows? Richard, don’t give me platitudes. What will happen to the girls when they are no longer Valuable? We can’t keep creating Surpluses if they’re going to become Burdens later on.’

  ‘Burdens? Oh, they won’t be Burdens,’ Richard said, smiling lightly. ‘They’ll just become Valuable in other ways. We need live bodies for experiments, to test our drugs, so that’s one possibility. Organs are still needed to hone our organ-growth techniques; blood is also an important resource. There are many wonderful things to be harvested from the human body, Hillary. The possibilities are endless.’

  ‘It’s incredible,’ Hillary breathed. ‘Who’d have thought Surpluses could be so useful?’

  Slowly, Peter allowed his eyes to travel to where the girl lay. He felt numb, felt like his skin was too tight on his body, too close. He’d actually thought that Longevity was beautiful. But there was nothing good about Pincent Pharma. It was evil. More evil than he’d ever imagined, and he felt sick at the thought that he’d come so close to signing up to its cause.

  He had to get out, he realised. He had to tell Pip, had to get help. Tentatively, he began to stand up, rubbing his legs, which felt stiff from crouching, and looking for his opportunity to run to the door, hoping that everyone’s attention would be on the girl at the end of the row, the girl who was being operated on. Aghast, he stared as a man in a lab coat thrust a metal implement inside her. The girl let out another blood-curdling scream, disturbing the man carrying out the operation.

  ‘I think we’ll have to sedate this one,’ the doctor said. ‘Inject her. Do it quickly.’

  The girl lifted her head and continued to scream, a sound that came from the depths of despair, a guttural cry for help. And then Peter realised she was looking over at him, and he frowned, because he knew her. It was Surplus Sheila, from Grange Hall, and she’d seen him.

  ‘Surplus Peter!’ she screamed, just before the nurse stuck a needle into her arm. ‘Peter. Help me. Please . . .’

  Peter ducked down, but it was too late. His grandfather swung round and scanned the room wildly.

  Hillary looked around anxiously. ‘Surplus Peter? Not Surplus P— Not your . . .’

  ‘Peter,’ said his grandfather slowly, ‘if you are in here, you are going to wish with all your heart that you were not.’ Then he took out his phone and dialled a number. ‘It’s me,’ he barked. ‘I need armed guards in Unit X. Right away.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jude had lost Pip. He had passed straight by the Security Centre, through the door at the end of the corridor, and Jude hadn’t been able to find the relevant camera view. His breathing was returning to normal, though; at first, he’d found himself worrying that perhaps Pip had come for him, that his warning not to fly too close to the sun was a serious one. But then he’d kicked himself; Pip had no reason to follow Jude around. He’d have far bigger fish to fry. But what were they? Had he come for Peter?

  Jude returned to his search, anxiously, flicking through the camera system. It took him a while, but eventually he found her. His princess. His red-haired beauty.

  A red-haired Surplus, he suddenly realised, noticing the Embedded Time on her fragile wrist. He’d been brought up to despise Surpluses, to see them as vermin, a threat to civilisation, a threat to Legal people like him. But then he’d found out how close he had come to being Surplus himself; it was because of Jude that Peter had been a Surplus. His tutor had once told him about the old religion called Christianity, about the concept of Original Sin – a barbaric idea, his tutor had scoffed. But Jude understood Original Sin perfectly. Lately he’d begun to think it summed him up.

  He stared at the girl, wondering what her own story was, imagining what it would be like to talk to her, to have her listen to him, to share their stories and their dreams. Why was she there, he wondered? Was she ill? Perhaps he could take care of her. Perhaps she could take care of him too.

  Not taking his eyes off her, he pressed a button to zoom in. But as her face filled the screen, he realised with a jolt that she was awake. Her eyes seemed to be staring right at him – beautiful, expressive eyes that looked terrified, dark with horror. As he felt his muscles tighten, he trained the camera back to see what was causing her distress, to understand the tears in her eyes. There were doctors and nurses round her, doing things to her – things that made Jude shudder. And then he felt a prickle at the back of his neck as he saw three other figures. He recognised the man immediately – it was Richard Pincent, the man whose face was plastered on every piece of Longevity advertising, who was regularly on the news, in the papers. There was a woman too; he didn’t recognise her. But he did recognise Peter. Recognised those darting eyes, those clenched fists. The girl was screaming now, her mouth wide open, her face red with anger; her legs, he could see now, were in some sort of strange manacles.

  ‘Up there. He’s in the ceiling.’ Jude started slightly; the voice came from below, in the Security Centre. He could hear a ladder being dragged along the floor. Any minute now, the air vent a few feet away from him would open up and he’d be caught.

  Desperately, his eyes glued to the tiny screen, Jude forced himself to disconnect it from the mainframe and the image of the girl disappeared. He shoved his mini-com back in his pocket, took a deep breath and crawled as quickly as he could towards the lift shaft.

  Peter had come out of his hiding place immediately, his eyes fixed on his grandfather; there was no point in doing anything else. ‘What are you doing to Sheila?’ he seethed. He wasn’t scared; he was angry, white with hatred, bitterness coursing through his veins. His voice was low, measured. He would not allow his anger to weaken him in any way. ‘What’s happening to her?’

  Richard Pincent stared at him; he was shaking with rage.

  ‘How? How did you get here? No one knows. No one . . .’

  ‘I followed you. It wasn’t exactly hard.’

  ‘You followed us?’ He walked over to Peter and grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘You followed us? How dare you? You cheap little spy.’

  Peter shook him off; Richard grabbed him again, this time with more force.

  ‘What are you going to do with him?’ Hillary asked anxiously. ‘What if he tells someone what he’s seen?’

  ‘He won’t tell anyone anything,’ Richard said darkly. ‘The guards will be here any moment; they’ll see to that.’

  ‘’You going to chain me up, too?’ Peter asked, through gritted teeth. ‘Turn me into a Useful resource? You make me sick. You are sick. Sick in the head.’

  ‘Enough!’ His grandfather swung a blow at him, catching him on the head and knocking him to the floor.

  Peter pulled himself up, his face defiant, and looked at Hill
ary. ‘And you condone this? The Authorities are happy, are they?’

  Hillary looked at him uncomfortably. ‘All Pincent Pharma’s processes will continue to be reviewed and checked by an appropriate department,’ she said, moving away from Peter apprehensively. ‘Naturally there are standards and we need to ensure that we are meeting our aims and objectives . . .’

  ‘Objectives,’ Peter said. ‘Of course. Got to meet those, haven’t you?’

  As he spoke, the door opened and two guards appeared.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Richard asked angrily, motioning for them to grab Peter; they ran towards him and handcuffed his hands behind his back.

  One of the guards looked up. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s the power cut. Looks like it was sabotage, not a system failure. We’re heightening security.’

  ‘Sabotage? You mean the Underground?’ Hillary asked fretfully.

  Richard turned to Peter. ‘Have you got anything to do with this?’ he asked icily.

  Peter shook his head. ‘I wish I did,’ he muttered.

  ‘Take him,’ Richard said to the guards. ‘Lock him up downstairs in one of the storerooms behind reception.’

  They pulled Peter towards the door; as he tried to break free, one of them hit him around the head.

  ‘Wait!’ Hillary called out, halting the guards in their tracks. ‘The press conference. We need him to appear at the press conference.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said tightly. ‘He’ll sign as arranged.’

  Peter shot him a look of disgust. ‘You think I’m going to sign the Declaration now? Not in a million years. I’m glad the Underground sabotaged your energy supply. I hope they blow this place up.’

  ‘Of course you’ll sign,’ Richard said. ‘And you’ll smile for the journalists, too. After all, if you don’t, your little friend Anna will pay the consequences.’

  ‘Anna?’ Peter glared at him. ‘You leave Anna out of this.’