Ectopia (6 page)

He steps into his and Mom's room and slams the door.

- You're the scum! I shout against the door.

It's a stupid shout. It's pathetic. I know that much. Stupid to show he's hurt me. Still, I'm young. The world's fucked. Clever's got us nowhere so why not give stupid a run.

 

I join the undertow outside.

- Sorry we just turned up, with no warning, Malik explains - We had to cut you out of textloop. We didn't want Paul crunching the info.

Runt comes running. It takes a minute, then he's got the breath to talk.

- Seems safe, he says - I did the rounds of four houses. No sign of statesquad.

- Looks like you've still got a brother, Malik says – If one of us goes, Bender, if just one of us gets taken, then Paul's meat. Tell him that will you?

We drift off together, down to the end of the street.

That's new. We never drift. We always move in one body. Something's snapped. We don't hold together like we used to.

- Paul's winning, I tell Malik – That talk of statesquad coming for us? It convinced us. We're targets. Look at us. Forget statesquad. If a teensquad finds us like this … if a drekgang finds us … they'll rip us. Runt squawked his news back there and the fire went out. No-one wanted to be safe.

- We wanted to gut Paul, Malik says – The prick.

I start running. Just slow. Malik keeps pace.

- I see it, Mal. Paul, statesquad, flames, the end, I see it all. It's set. You've changed. You're all targets now. The power's leaked out of you.

- What's all this you stuff? It's us, Bender. Not you. Don't say you. It's us.

- You cut me out of textloop.

- We had to. This once. Paul's intercepting your text.

- I don't blame you. I'm just saying. You cut me out. It changes things.

I loosen up. Take longer strides. We've got thirty minutes till teensquad. I've got to run things out of my system before I submit to probe.

Malik shuts up. He keeps pace.

This'll do. Mainbrain on the run.

The undertow's behind us. They're running, but it's not like it was. We're not one body.

They're more like a tail.

0.10

Mom never came in to pull on my tits this morning.

Can't say I miss it.

I get Dad instead. He sits on the bed and strokes a hand round my face.

- Smooth, he says – You've got cheeks as smooth as your ass. Know what I should do? Know what a good father should do? Slash em. Your face and your ass. I should slash em both.

He's got my attention. Not for the words, not for the stink of drink on his breath, I'd have squirmed away from both. But the blade of a cutthroat is poised just below my left eye.

He thinks it through.

- Bender? That what they call you? Bend for em do you, Steven? You've got a girl's face. Girl's eyes. Girlie ways. I watch you move. It's taunting, Steven. You slink about like you're asking for it. I should slash you. Add a few rolls of scar tissue to those cheeks. Your ass too. Even that scum you hang with would think twice about poling you then. It's not cruel Steven. It's kind. Like an oldtime surgeon. Cutting the flesh to save the life.

I watch his eyes. They're close. I see the blood vessels like veins in granite. I keep my own eyes steady so that narrow spot in the center of his can stab home. It's a trick. Dad's proud of how much he can hurt with his eyes. Let him stare without flaring back. Make moon eyes to his sun, so he burns you up. He likes that. Let him win with his eyes.

It hurts inside but there's no blood.

His eyes go milky. They break from mine and glance to the side. He's searching up a memory.

- This razor? he says – It passes down from father to son. Oldest son.

As he says the last bit he looks across to where Paul lies in the other bed. I can't look myself, the razor's got me pinned, but I know little bro's enjoying the show.

- It was my father's. And his. And his. And his.

He pulls the blade from my face and stands up. I sit up and lean against the wall. It's not good to lie down in front of Dad too long. He gets ideas enough without that.

- You like it? he says, and snaps the blade back into its handle.

The blade's silver and smells like he's just polished it. The handle's ivory turned yellow. He lets it drop on the bed.

- It's your life, he says – You make that clear enough. Why should I save you? Cut your own cheeks.

- You're just giving him that? Paul asks from across the room.

- You want it?

- Why not? I'll get on the program. If I don't breed daughters I'll get sons. Steve's the end of the line, Dad. I'm the beginning. Give the razor to me. I'll pass it on.

Dad stares at him till he shuts up. He's having a good morning with his eyes.

- Bring the razor downstairs, he tells me – Show your mother. She'll be pleased. She was worried we had nothing to give you.

- She's downstairs already?

- She got up in the night. She's been making you a picnic. A family picnic for you and Karen. That's why I came up. To call you down.

He makes to leave the room but stops by the door.

- By the way, he says – Happy birthday.

 

A sheet of blue plastic covers the patch of dead garden outside the back door. Wedges of tomato inside thick slices of bread make up the plate of sandwiches. Five plastic tumblers are full of lemonade. A cake is in the middle. It's round and much of its top has collapsed into a hole. White icing is running down the sides and onto the plate. Seventeen tiny candles are stuck in round the edge.

The others are in place. Dad on the left, Paul on the right, and Mom facing the kitchen door. She's lowered herself to a cushion, her legs stuck out in front.

Karen and me wait inside till the candles are lit, then Mom calls. This is our big entrance. We're the birthday twins.

Mom claps in delight when we come through the door. Her spongy hands don't make much sound. She's wearing her favorite drapes, white cotton splashed with orange poppies, her toenails a matching shade. Karen must have painted em. Mom's worked hard. The scraps on the table are a feast. Her family's all around her on a special day. For Mom, this is as good as life gets. Her eyeliner streaks tears of joy.

It's a toss-up between heartbreaking and pitiful.

- Happy Birthday To You! Mom sings.

The others open their mouths but no sound comes out. Mom carries on to the end. She's heavy but her voice is light. She's never minded singing on her own. It must be a wonder that a bit of her, that voice of hers, can still float so easily.

We kneel down. I blow out the left side of the candles, Karen the right. Some sugar icing blows off the cake and onto the blue plastic. That's OK. There's more left. The icing's as thick as my thumb.

A knife waits on the edge of the cake plate.

- Cut and make a wish, Mom says – Don't tell us. Keep it secret so it'll come true.

Karen and me share a grip on the knife. It slips through the icing then I press down hard to cut through the cake to the plate.

- Make this my last birthday picnic ever, I wish.

We leave the knife in the cake. No-one wants to eat a slice. We each pick up a sandwich to keep our mouths busy.

- Look! Paul says.

Bread and tomato skin foam out of his mouth but no-one complains. We look to where he's pointing. We don't look in the sky much as a rule. The sky is a smudge of blue and grey burnt by the sun that starts at dawn and ends at dusk with only insects to fly across it. It's not much to look at.

This is different.

- A whirlwind? Dad says.

It has that shape, a long cone with twists, but the point of it is dark and high above the earth like a copter. The darkness of the tip fades through grey and brown as its tail broadens.

- It's electric? Dad says – An electric storm?

He says that coz the thing hums, more low than high. It's not a clean note, more like lots of sounds glued together.

Paul glugs.

He likes to have the answer to things. He's beaten us to it again. The explanation of the whirlwind in the sky is coming out of his mouth. The mouth's still full and open. Pulped bread and tomato lies in a mound on his tongue, and it's moving. The white and the red of the food show through a shifting wash of black.

His mouth is filled with flies.

Outriders.

We've seen em onscreen. Outriders come first, landing on anything with life in it. Then the screen goes dark. The swarm arrives. It encrusts the camera lens on landing, and everything else.

I look down.

The birthday cake isn't white any more. It's black. Flies have even filled the hole, mounting each other to give the cake an even top.

The hum is loud now. I look up. The sky is gone. The cone is passing overhead, its tail dropping like exhaust.

- Inside! Dad yells.

He's long legged. In three strides he's at the back door. It swings open and slams closed. His face peers out through the glass, waving at us to hurry, then fades to nothing as more of the swarm drops in.

Paul is choking. He grabs hold of my leg, crawling toward the house, and passes out of sight in the insect fog. I hear him knock. The door opens, then slams closed again.

Karen's not running. She's kneeling in front of Mom.

I open my mouth to shout at em both, get em moving. Flies stream in and coat the roof of my mouth. I feel em crawl down my throat.

No shouting.

Karen's sweeping Mom's face with her hands. There's no point. Mom's not looking. Her eyes are closed. Karen's must be too. I watch for a moment. It's like skimming your hand through water. The insects flow over Karen's skin, coating the hand and fingers, and cover Mom's face again the instant the sweeping's past.

Insects march across my eyeballs.

I screw my own eyes shut.

They're in my nose. One breath and they stuff my nostrils.

I grab Karen. Grope for Mom's right arm and direct Karen to it. Karen's smart. She catches on. I grab Mom's left arm and we pull.

It's like the insects are behind her, giving her flight. One tug and Mom rises on her straight legs and is on her feet. We move with her. I tread through the cake as we race on. Insects squelch and crunch under my bare feet. We collide with the door. It opens and we squeeze Mom through, then follow.

Dad slams it after us.

- Idiots, he says. He's slashing at the air with a towel – You were too slow. You've brought em in with you.

Karen grabs the towel from him, wipes her own head clear so she can see, then starts clearing Mom. She presses hard so some insects squash against Mom's skin and hair. Others fly and crawl away.

Mom wipes her hands clean against each other, then reaches up a finger to pick her nose. It comes out of the nostril black.

Karen gives in. She stares at Mom's finger then lets her hand drop to her sides. She stands still and cries. Mom opens her arms, steps forward, and hugs her daughter close.

The bodies of the two women tremble together.

I think we all feel cold.

0.11

Dad points Mom's face at the screen and clicks through the family album.

- Look! You're smiling! he says – That was a happy day!

I take a look.

- You think Mom's cracked? I ask him.

- Shut it, Steven. We're looking for happy times, your Mom and me. That's got nothing to do with you.

- Great, Dad, I tell him – The first happy time you come up with is a lie. That's not a picture of Mom. It's Karen.

- What's that? Dad asks, and touches the screen.

It's part of the background to the picture.

- The sea.

- You ever been to the sea?

- Course not. They wired it off years ago. That doesn't mean I don't know what it looks like.

- You know so much. You tell me this is a picture of Karen. So tell me how come she's standing on a beach? Out in the open? Full grown? In a bikini? How long would a girl last in the open dressed like that? She wouldn't be smiling. She wouldn't be innocent. She'd be stripped and raped and left as a carcass on the sand.

- It's digitally remastered, I try - Karen's head on a pin-up's body transposed to some beach setting.

Dad smirks.

I hate that.

When he knows he's right, 100% right, he won't even argue. Just smirks.

- Imagine that, Alison, he says to Mom - Your own son mistakes you for his sister. You see it? That same red hair. Same cheekbones. Same teeth. You're trim but not skinny, the pair of you. Same full breasts. Amazing how those tiny green straps held em in place. It's you, love. Take a look. This is you. My flaming beauty.

Mom doesn't look. She's facing the right way but she takes nothing in. Dad watches as her top lip trembles though. He's stirred her. Something's happening.

Her mouth opens.

Then a song comes out. It's a different tune to normal. It's got highs and lows and pauses and it's not bouncy. More like one of those German songs she used to sing.

Angels have wings
And so do flies
They pour in through my nose
And out through my eyes

- Stop it, Alison, Dad says – Talk sense.

God's in the details
The little one said
As roaches and dragonflies
Streamed from her head

- I'll call em, Dad threatens – Call the authorities and certify.

With bugs up my nostrils
And ants for a brain
I feel great comfort
I am quite sane

- Snap out of it, Alison. We've cleaned up. The swarm's gone. You weren't the only one, you know. We all got mobbed. You got first shot of the bathwater. Karen scrubbed you. You're clean. They're gone. No more insects, Alison. No more insect songs, OK? It's over.

My bones creak like crickets
I've got praying mantis knees
My hair grows in thickets
That hum with wild bees

Mom's alert now. Her eyes start moving about the room, looking into the high corners. She hears her own voice. Now she wants sight of it.

Butterflies mate
Inside my throat
I open my mouth
And out they float

Dad's eyes water. He lifts his specs and wipes em with his hand. That's it. Mom's wrung a drop of emotion out of him. Now he's dry as bone. He puts on the headset, flicks down the mike, and types in the security number.

- Statesquad, he says, when the system answers. He gives Mom's details.

Name.

Address.

Age.

Number

- No longer certifiable for family use, he says.

The screen goes blank. Mom sings another verse.

At night my belly
Becomes a moon
It attracts the moths
They'll fill me soon

On the screen an eagle takes flight from a mountaintop. It's the symbol of statesquad. Their response follows. It's no debate. Dad's certified her as useless, so statesquad's obliged to take her in. They've sent a collection time and list of legal terms that form the access agreement. Dad codes in his acceptance without reading the details.

- It's for the best, Dad says, and strokes Mom's head - I'll tell Karen to pack your things. We've got till tomorrow to have you ready.

So this is Mom's last day at home. Give it two shakes, the day'll turn into a family occasion.

I head out the door.

 

I should name em. All the bits of us that make teensquad run.

There are 24 of us. Malik, Runt and me, the three I've named already, plus 21.

Mug, face squashed since birth, so no-one knows he's smiling.

Flint, solid and flashy, first to strike.

Scud, not subtle but effective. Deploying him's like flinging a hammer.

Ozie, short for ozone, as round as a boy can get on veggies, farts are his biggest weapon.

Skink. A slight thing, stands still, studies, blinks slow then darts.

Furbo, olive skin and dark eyes. A schemer.

Skel, grey eyes on a stick, skin on bone. He rattles in the wind.

Ant, wire haired, black, pinched waist, big head, just like an ant. Knock him down, he won't stay down.

Soo, good old Soo. He's got a chiselhead, 200 solid pounds, no fat, muscle for brain.

Kes, beaked nose, flopping fringe, flaps his arms to show he's keen, runs and dives at the smell of blood.

Mulch. His jaw droops, his mouth gapes, his bug eyes look small even when they stare. He hangs out in the middle of whatever's going on.

Pint's the same size as Runt but only half the speed on a short dash.

Jok. Black hair, blue eyes, high cheeks, wide shoulders. He's a poser, or maybe just good to look at.

Roach's eyes look two ways at once. His legs bend at angles when he runs.

Toast goes pink and sweats at runspeed. The skin flakes when he stops and dries out. He rasps it loose with his hand, and goes white again.

Melba's blond. If you want a kid sister, he's as close as you'll get. His voice won't break and his sweat smells sweet. The air's cool when you run behind him.

Zeb just is. His head nods or shakes, both of em slow, but he never speaks. His head's shaved. You can watch the pulse beat in his thick brow.

Saf knows nothing or everything, fuck knows which. He's browner than Malik, close to real dark, runs with long strides and talks in long words.

Parch is bloodless. His eyes are bruised, his skin is white, his body's stooped, his elbows are knots. He could run through walls and not slow down.

Rasp can lick his nose with his tongue. That's his best feature. His ginger hair grows in tufts. His nose runs as well as he does.

Dome's head is shaved and shiny, his cheeks are fat with smiles. He's our secret weapon. There's nothing upsets people like a smiler does.

That's my teensquad.

 

I get to teensquad depot early, check available quadrants onscreen, and click on the farthest. That quadrant shows the perimeter roads of Cromozone. It's available for duty. I punch in our code to accept the quadrant for our teensquad, then wait for the others to turn up.

- We've got to shake loose, I tell em as they come in. Cromozone and its perimeter flashes onscreen. They don't know I selected it. It doesn't matter. All duties are the same. – We get to kick town dust and hit the country a bit.

The others nod, strip down from their clads, and pull on the uniforms. Yesterday's swarm got to each of us in some way. We need action. We need a good run.

- Tell me about running, I say to Malik, coz it's clear we're all eager for it – When we've not been running, I feel lousy. When I feel lousy, running helps. Is running like a cure for life? An antidote?

- It's a condition, he answers – Like living and dying.

He's right. The first strides, the first blocks, and I feel it. We're coming back to health. Coming back into the ultimate. Coming back into condition.

That's the way with running. Forget it and the whole world falls apart. Run and you're back online.

 

Teensquad has maxims. They're not rules. They're just things we've noticed between us.

One squad, twenty-four breaths.

We're on our own. That's the meaning of that maxim number one. We're on our own but that's no small thing. Twenty-four breaths is a turbo charge.

Don't dumb down, wise up.

We cover all the bases. When it's time to strike, don't analyze. Strike. When it's time to analyze, don't slash out, think it through. Every individual's got weaknesses. Together we have no weaknesses. Quick, bright, paranoid, reckless, dumb, sazzy, heavy, brutal, gentle, kind, savage, charming, demented, they're all qualities. We've got em all. When each one of us takes over at the right time, that's wising up.

One breaks, all break.

We've got to act together. Teensquad is like one body. If your foot starts doing its own thing, going its own way, it doesn't matter how good the rest of you feels, you're fucked.

Same formation, different shapes.

We run like a river in a dry land. We adapt to what we meet, we cut new channels, but we stay a river. We shift our shape but we stay
together.

Direction gets you there.

Direction's the key, not the destination. If we keep moving, if we run as one steady and surging body, who gives a fuck where we end up. We're
it.
We're supreme.

More hate, less speed.

Life's crap. The planet's fucked. People are sick. That all goes when we're running. Let hate in and strength leaks out. Life's crap, we're great. We've got to love what we are. Running on love makes us deadly.

Deal with what's in front of you.

The seas are winning. They're rising. They're chewing the edges off land and swallowing em down. They don't think about it. They just go on and on. Waves roll across oceans. The best waves die with a crash on the land. As they die, they win. That's the best we can be. A wave powering toward a crash.

They're good maxims. We fixed em on qual.

Off qual, maxims like that, they fuck your head in. There's no sense in em. I've just tried to explain em. It's made my head hurt.

On qual, they light up the world.

We wait as we run. Then it comes. It's a group thing. One moment it's effort, our bodies thumping down heavy on empty streets. Then the switch happens. Zing. The change. We're not
on
the street. We
are
the street. Zing, just that switch, and an animal's born. Twenty-three times bigger than any one of us, this animal's made up of every one of us. Inside a power like that, we surge. It's a qual thing without qual. It's running. The trip of animal running.

Soo's thick skull, Malik's dark golden thighs, Roach's roving eyes, Dome's smiles, Rasp's tongue, my brain, every bit of each of us is part of one beast.

It's a roar.

 

Dad says not everything's bad. Not everything's worse. Big-bellied planes don't shake the house like they did. One passed overhead as they tugged me out of Mom's womb. It's one of his favorite stories. He tells it like a sick joke.

It's the boy, Alison, that's what I said, he says, and goes on – Then I shouted it coz the plane overhead was so loud. IT'S THE BOY! Karen was lying stunned and bloody in the corner, she got to be beautiful but you wouldn't have guessed it then, and your Mom managed a laugh so loud you could hear it as the plane came in to land. We'd had the scan so we knew you were a boy and we were so pig ignorant that made us happy. Imagine that. We were happy to have you. Happy you made it through safe.

He laughs his inward laugh, sucking the air in like he's choking.

No-one laughed for Paul. Mom roared as loud as an airplane but that was with pain and the skies were empty by then. Planes were one of the first things they stopped. They carried viruses. They poisoned the air. And nowhere was worth flying to. Everywhere was fucked.

Dad still calls Cromozone by its old name when he's lickered up. Heathrow, he calls it. It was an airport. The biggest in the world.

Heathrow. They think they mean something when they say it. They think they're conjuring something up into existence just by using the name. They're not. They're lying. The meaning's dead. All their words, all their memories, are lies. All their meaning is dead.

 

Cromozone wasn't there when planes flew. The towers are too big. You didn't build big towers on airports. Now we don't need airports. We need Cromozone.

The Towers are black. Three of em stand in the empty land inside the ring of fence. They're big but their shadows are bigger. The shadows move around and nearly touch the town but not quite. Things that big, as big as the Towers, they pull you in like a planet. At night, when the electric's off, I lie in bed and hear the place humming. I ran out there one night, on my own. The place is white like the moon in its halogen glow.

That's where we're running.

The motto over teensquad depot's door says SAVING STREETS FOR THE NEW WORLD ORDER.

We're sixteen, seventeen. We're the new world. It's our order. Nothing worth having is kept behind a fence. We're it. We're now.

I think that sometimes.

I think it now, as I speak this.

On teensquad I forget it. My brain's on limb control. I'm thinking with Mulch's lungs, Saf's liver, Pint's guts. We're one heart racing. Everything we want is through that fence. We're here to keep it safe.