State of Grace (23 page)

Blaze’s hands appear over the lip. He half-climbs and I half-lift him over the top. His face is smeared with sweat as he scrambles to his feet. We cross the cold, black rock and run for the treeline as the butterflies circle and angry voices rise up from the lagoon below.

Over the wire with its Shepherd Corporation tags.

Through the straggly trees, towards the moving lights and low rushing sounds of the cars.

Any moment, it’s going to be official. We’ll be out of here. The two of us are going to be free.

Only it doesn’t feel the way I thought it would. There’s so much unfinished. We’ve left way too much behind.

30

A
VOICE CALLS
out, ‘There!’

Light streaks across the ground, bends around the trees, knifes me in the eyes. From beyond the treeline, two figures run straight for me. Their faces are covered, their sungarb stiff and black and heavy. Close by, dogs bark.

Then, a low, clear
pock
sound.

‘Wren!’ Blaze yells.

The warning’s too late. My forehead stings. A cloud of white fills the air around me and I can’t see Blaze anymore. I can’t see anything. My eyes are raw and burning at the same time. Sensation pulses in my head, radiating out and down from that one point on my forehead. Now I’m doubled over, clawing at my eyes and screaming.

‘That’ll do it,’ that same voice says. Heavy hands haul me up. ‘You with us,Viva?’

Whoever he is, he knows my name. As in, my dream name. Not that I can answer him. I can’t even talk. My entire face stings and my lips are numb.

But the voice isn’t bothered, not at all.

‘This way.’

And then I’m walking. Or trying to walk. My arms are heavy and my legs can’t seem to hold me. The figure from beyond the trees, one of them at least, is carrying me now. I hear these moaning, choking sounds from behind me and I figure they must be coming from Blaze. They’re getting quieter the further we go, but I can’t turn to see what’s happening behind me.

I can’t even scratch my face, which feels like it’s crawling with hot, red, biting bugs or something.

A long, low building rises up before us. Doors open and all this white light floods out. Framed in the doorway is a cluster of people in blue sungarb.

Even through stinging eyes I can see their sungarb. They’re these prenormal loose things printed all over with the letter S and a design I’ve seen before.

A long stick with a hook at one end.

Around their necks they’re wearing cords with white rectangles dangling from them.

One leans close to me and I see his rectangle has a picture of a face and underneath that, some words.

Alexander Reynolds. Medical.

‘How many did you fire?’

Behind me, one of the figures from the trees laughs.

‘At her? She only needed one. Cap hit her right between the eyes and she was like …
boom
!’ His hands slam together with a cracking sound. ‘All over.’

‘The guy?’

‘Two.’

Another laugh. ‘Three, tops. He’s a solid unit, that one.’

‘Viva, can you hear me?’ the man with the thing around his neck says. His voice is soft. ‘I’ll look after you now. I’m Alex.’

He takes me from the figure who’s carrying me, muttering, ‘Couldn’t you do anything?’

‘Such as?’

When Alex doesn’t answer, the man carrying me says, ‘It’s safe, right? Non-lethal. Designed especially for the Grace trial.’

Together, we move through the double doors and into the light.

‘Doesn’t make it pleasant,’Alex snaps.

The man mutters something like, ‘I did my best.’

‘Blaze!’ I yell.

But I don’t think it comes out sounding like that. And anyway, it’s too late because the doors swing closed behind us, shutting out the prelight and the figures and Blaze too.

____________________

I’m in a long corridor of light. Everything is stark. Footsteps squeal on gleaming floors. On the walls, a hundred rectangles of colour dazzle me.
Monitors?
I can’t say. I can’t see properly. I can’t even
think
properly.

Where’s Blaze? Where have they taken him?

‘There’s going to be bruising from the impact,’ Alex is saying. ‘The gas will make you disoriented for twenty-four hours at least.’

He doesn’t mention the red-hot insects, my stoppered throat or the tugging feeling behind my eyes, as though someone’s yanking them from the inside.

‘You’re just over here,’ he says as he opens another door and passes into a blue room beyond. Inside I’m semi-aware of a bed and a chair.

Alex helps me to the bed. There are rustles and whooshes as he fills a tiny cup with water and carefully rinses my eyes. He gives me capsules and more water to drink, smoothes something heavy and soft over me.

At some point, I guess he leaves. The one thing I notice for sure is the firm click of the door followed by three loud beeps.

____________________

I’m clinging to the escarpment. Underneath the cold rock, my fingernails feel brittle and the skin on my hands is shredded and torn. I’m trying my hardest to climb but I can’t move. I’m stuck to the rock like a creature in a shell. Rocks pummel the escarpment all around me, cracking apart and showering me with dust and stinging pebbles.

I turn to see who’s throwing them and it’s Fern.

‘Stop it!’ I yell.

But she won’t. She’s standing there laughing, Gil’s arm around her.

I swing around again and go on climbing. Someone else is standing on top of the escarpment.

It’s Mum. She’s exhausted, prehappy, crying. ‘I told you not to get involved in this,Viva.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I yell. ‘Can you help me up?’

But Mum only shakes her head, ‘It’s too late.’

As she says this, two tiny figures slip over the edge of the escarpment. Hand in hand, they tumble through the air.

One in red fuzzy sungarb and the other in stripes …

That image fades and then I’m on the beach, standing right where the water meets the sand. Tongues of waves lick my feet and beside me there’s someone digging his toes into the sand.

‘We need to go now,’ says Blaze. And he walks into the sea. Water swirls around his ankles and then his calves and his thighs. He turns.

‘Are you coming or what?’

‘I’m coming,’ I tell him.

Blaze laughs, twists at the hips and opens his arms. ‘Okay, then. Let’s go.’

But it’s like on the rocks by the lagoon. I can’t seem to move.

‘I’m trying,’ I squeak.

Blaze lifts his hand and waves. Hurry up? Goodbye? I can’t tell. The sun is sinking behind him, lighting him up in a haze of gold.

‘Don’t leave me!’

But Blaze is already melting into the sunlight.

____________________

I’m sweating. Inside me, everything is pounding. I try opening my eyes but the lids are all puffed and heavy. The most I can manage is a tiny crack.

I’m in the blue room.

All alone.

Straightaway I think of Blaze. Is he close? How much time has gone by since I saw him last? Since everything happened with Dennis? It could be a moment or it could be hundreds of days. I want to haul myself off the bed, charge through the door and find them both but my limbs feel liquid, my head spongy, my tongue swollen in my mouth.

It’s a while before I even notice there are two people in my room.

Alex and a girl I don’t recognise.

‘When were they exposed?’ the girl asks.

Alex glances at a circular object on the wall.

Clock.

Here, beyond the trees, my head is suddenly filling with new but familiar words.

‘Sixteen hours. Not even. They’ll be feeling ugly still. That’s my professional diagnosis, anyway.’

Ugly.
That’s the exact word for the way my head feels right now. Kind of like it’s going to burst.

The girl’s oval face bunches.

‘But the gas is completely safe –’

‘And specially formulated for the Grace trial,’ Alex chants. ‘I think we can all see how well that’s worked out.’

The girl turns her back. She starts fiddling with a bag, transparent and filled with dark yellow liquid that’s attached to me with a tube.

‘You mean the boy? There was no way to know he would trespass in a restricted area.’

‘They could have amped up the security,’ Alex’s saying. ‘It doesn’t bother you a nine-year-old could get through the gate so easily? It’s almost like they wanted him to.’

An indignant sound comes from the girl’s snub nose.

‘He was a technology nut.’

‘He was a kid posing as his big brother on some hack computer forum. That hardly makes him a genius.’

And suddenly I get it. They’re talking about Dennis.

The girl smoothes her blonde curls. Her lips are the colour of figs. She and Alex are the only things alive in this box of a room with its stale, cool air gushing from the ceiling.

Unless you count me, which right now I don’t.

‘The helicopter didn’t find him. That’s not odd to you?’

Helicopter
, I think. That’s the word, not
hector
.

‘Children go missing. They die. It’s sad but it happens.’ The girl taps the device around her wrist. ‘Don’t you read the news?’

‘I do. I just don’t believe it most of the time.’

The girl sniffs. ‘You sound like one of those Circle people.’

If I ever had a grasp of this conversation, I’ve definitely lost it now.

Circle people
? I have no idea who or what they might be. Alex seems to know though, because there’s a little smile forcing its way onto his face.

‘You know a lot of them, do you? You hang out together all the time, I bet.’

‘You work here, Alex. You take Lainie Shepherd’s money, which is a whole lot more than most intern salaries. That makes you part of the Grace project.’

‘One of Dot’s disciples, you could say.’

There’s a silence, which isn’t actually silent since it’s filled with all these beeps and hums from the equipment in the room.

‘Think they’ll take Grace to market?’Alex asks.

‘With these results? Of course.’

‘You count this as a good result?’

‘It was a trial. No-one projected one hundred per cent efficacy. Hiccups are part of developing any new medication.’

‘Hiccups. That’s one word for it.’

From underneath my swollen lids I see Alex hold up his right hand and tap each finger in sequence.

‘Side-effects including everything from blurred vision to suicidal ideation. Two non-responders. One hyper-responder who, stop me if I’m getting the details wrong, attempted rape then stabbed a child.’

‘You’d scrap the entire concept of Delusion Onset Therapy for a few statistical aberrations?’

The girl’s head is still except for the smallest quiver of her curls.

‘Grace is going to be a game-changer,’ she says. ‘There’s plenty of depressed and anxious people out there, people searching for meaning. And the world’s ready for an update on the beardy old man in sandals model.’

‘Grace is going to be a game-changer for Lainie Shepherd’s bank balance, so who cares about a few
hiccups
?’

But the girl isn’t letting Alex get away with that.

‘The Grace implant is near-perfect. You know that. If you exclude trial participants with unusual blips in their gene sequence, this is a flawless example of a drug-induced delusion. Participants even formed delusional memories, Alex.’

Alex steps towards my blue-sheeted bed.

‘Let’s check in with our trial participant over here.’

It’s like he knows I can hear him. Through flickering eyelids, I see he’s consulting the white thing strapped around my wrist.

‘Viva, a.k.a Participant F37, Clinical Trial 1 of 2018,’ he says. ‘The Shepherd Corporation values your feedback. How’s Delusion Onset Therapy working out for you? Not so great, hey? Unexplained memories coming back? Check. Thoughts about killing yourself? Check. Unwanted sexual contact? Check. Bad luck your particular set of genes were less than compatible with our wonderful product.’

‘She’s going to be fine,’ the girl says firmly. ‘The lab’s already developed a new implant for both non-responders. They’ll reenter the trial at Phase 2 to confirm it’s safe.’

Another non-responder? It has to be Blaze.

She checks the clock. ‘Let’s just get on with this check-up.’

Alex shakes his head. He sticks his hand into his pocket. ‘I need a cigarette first.’

‘You’re not meant to –’

‘What, you’re going to tell on me?’

The curly haired girl doesn’t seem to be listening to Alex’s scoffing. If she is, she isn’t responding. She just opens up one of my eyelids with a thumb, shines a light into my eye and makes a note of what she sees.

‘Religion is the opiate of the masses,’ Alex says. ‘Heard that?’ ‘Everyone’s heard that,’ the girl snaps.

‘Lainie Shepherd was just the first one to use it as a marketing idea.’

The girl drops her little light with a clatter. ‘Maybe she’s one of the few people who knows the
whole
quote.’

She studies Alex, kind of challenging him to tell her what it is. When he doesn’t, she gives this long, laboured sigh, like the whole thing is just so simple she can’t believe Alex doesn’t know.

‘Marx also said, “religion is the heart of a heartless world”. Believing gives people something to hope for, even he could see that.’

‘That’s Lainie,’ says Alex. ‘Sprinkling her magical hope dust wherever she goes.’

31

T
HIS TIME WHEN
I wake, my eyes open almost the entire way. The blue room is a whole lot less swimmy. I’d even say I felt more like me, if I knew exactly who
me
was. I mean, am I Wren,Viva or someone in-between?

Did Dot create me? If she didn’t, how did I get here? Wherever
here
is.

Then my door opens. Someone’s coming into my room.

Blaze? I imagine he’s found me somehow. Then he knows where we are and how to get out.

But instead of Blaze, there’s a man standing in the doorway with his hands on a kind of wheeled chair. He’s all dressed in blue, just like Alex and that girl were, with the same rectangle on a cord around his neck. But this guy has hair on his chin, covered by a sort of puffy, gauzy mesh.