The Territory (3 page)

Daisy seemed to withdraw into herself a bit. ‘Mine would stay,’ she said eventually. ‘They’d choose Logan.’ I tried to reassure her and banged on about it never coming to that anyway, I mean her average test scores are kind of OK at the moment. But I know she’s right. There’s no way her mum, with her perfectly coiffed hair and diary crammed full of coffee mornings, would pack up and move to a malarial swampland. Not for her child. Well, certainly not for her daughter.

Some evenings can be boring, but this evening was the WORST.

Mum had been invited round to her boss’ for dinner and me and Dad had to go too. Which is ridiculous really – surely the only thing that matters is whether Mum is good at her job (which she is) not whether Dad and I can scrub up well and make polite conversation (which we can’t – or at least I can’t – Dad’s better at being phoney polite. He’s a lawyer, he has to be.) Anyway, we had to be there for 6pm, which is massively early, so they could have pre-dinner drinks while I hung out with their freakoid son, Charles. And you can tell by the fact that he calls himself Charles, rather than Charlie, what great fun he is.

Their house is in the Western Suburbs, pretty close to the Laboratory and to People’s Park. Not that they’d hang out there. They are far too snobby to mix with the common people. Their house is properly massive. A huge black front door that screams ‘money’ leads into an enormous hallway, with its own fan. And I thought there was supposed to be a lack of space. I know, great idea – let’s ship some fifteen-year-old Norms off to die so that the Brooks have enough space for their coats.

I remember talking to Dad about this stuff ages ago. ’Cos nearly everyone we know has a similar sort of apartment. A SMALL similar sort of apartment. Just big enough for a kitchen, separate lounge, and two bedrooms. Enough space for parents and up to two kids. Not that anyone’s going to have more than two. If they’re Norms you’re pretty lucky if one passes. Two pass – you’ve seriously lucked out. Three – no way. And if you go the freakoid route, well, they’re massively expensive to make. Anyway, I’d ranted at Dad about how unfair it was that some people have massive apartments and houses while everyone else is squashed in, and how surely it’d be better to turn the massive apartments and houses into smaller ones so that more people could live in the Territory and more lives could be saved. And then, while we’re thinking about it, why not build over all the People’s Parks (there must be at least five if each city’s got one) and come to think of it, the Woods as well? I guess we’d need to keep the Solar Fields for Energy, but we could probably shrink the Arable Lands a bit more if we just built a few more macro plants or Synthmeat factories. We could let thousands and thousands more people stay, rather than drastically cut the few millions we have.

But Dad said it was all based on research. The neeks decided that we need the Woods to suck up more CO
2
and reduce winter flooding (and so Ministry bigwigs and richer people can go on holiday or for a nice stroll) and we’re only just managing to feed the population as it is.

Also, the whole Ministry is based on the idea that in order for the Territory to survive as sea levels keep going up, the greatest minds have to be motivated to work as hard as possible. To come up with new inventions, new energy resources, new ways of making food. New ways of cooling the planet.

But, I said, pretty densely I guess, surely everyone works really hard to make life better for everyone anyway, don’t they?

Dad did a sort of sad smile. Apparently, the good of the Territory isn’t concrete enough of a thing to motivate people. The studies showed that people work hardest if (1) they’ve got space to exercise and relax; and (2) they’re going to ‘gain materially’: get money and stuff. Basically they work hardest if they think that there’s a chance they’ll get to live in a bigger, better house than everyone else and go on holiday. People don’t actually care that much about improving the lives of people they don’t know. Equality doesn’t work. Humans are rubbish.

Anyway, back to the evening. As soon as we got there, I was ushered into Charles’ room. ‘Oooooh,’ Daisy would say as she so wants me to get a boyfriend, probably even a freakoid. But Charles is seriously not ‘Oooooh’; he’s ‘Urrrgghggh’. Short and stocky with a flat, piggy nose. Charles is in the same year as us at Hollets but in Mr Rice’s class. The idea was that we would both do our homework and then chat. As if we’d have anything to talk about. Mum’s boss’ wife (Jane the Pain) then looked fake-worried and said there was only one Port so we’d have to take it in turns. I said that wouldn’t be necessary as I was a Norm and she did a phoney little laugh and said, ‘Oh yes, of course, silly me. Good for you,’ as if she didn’t already know and as if I were some sort of charity case.

‘Doing homework’ with Charles made me really, really angry. We’ve got a Geography test tomorrow so had to cram the whole of the stagnant water and malaria topic – four whole weeks’ worth of notes. I was there, staring at my Scribe, making flashcards and reading and re-reading while Charles went to his Port.

This was the first time I’ve really watched someone upload. I mean, there are obviously Ports in the school library, but there are screens in the way, and I don’t have any freakoid friends.

Charles switched his Port on. He took the Port’s lead, drew it around his neck and quickly plugged it into his Node. He didn’t need to even look in the mirror to find the hole, he’d done it so many times.

He pressed the ‘upload’ icon. There was a pause and then his body went all limp. His eyes rolled upwards and to the right until they looked like white discs and his arms started to twitch. Slowly at first, rhythmically, and then faster until it seemed like he was having some kind of controlled fit. The whole thing only lasted about two minutes and then his eyes returned to normal, his body stiffened and he unplugged.

‘Test me on something,’ he commanded.

‘What percentage of people in the Wetlands die from malaria?’ I asked.

‘Eighty-four per cent,’ he fired back.

I nodded.

‘Great – always like to check the upload worked,’ he said smugly and then opened up a comic on his Scribe.

Jane the Pain put her head round the door at 7pm to ‘see how we were doing’. She congratulated Charles for having finished his homework (yeah right – well done for sitting still and twitching for two minutes) and looked at me with pity again, as if I were some sort of special case denser for still studying.

When I got home I shut myself in the bathroom and used Dad’s shaving mirror to look at the back of my neck. There are the bumps of the vertebrae, some downy fair hair and three moles. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have two holes there instead. Plugging a lead into your body. Would it be uncomfortable? Would it get hot when the electricity flowed? It just seems so sick. I feel ill if I do something as supposedly harmless as use my fingernail to clean inside my ears. I always visualise it getting stuck or my hand somehow slipping and it accidentally getting rammed into my brain.

One of my moles seems a bit raised. I hope it doesn’t grow a hair. Ms Jones has a hairy mole on the left side of her face, just under her ear, and it’s reek.

History is just a massive bunch of lies.

It was the twenty-third Anniversary of the Territory today so normal lessons were suspended and we just did History all day.

It kicked off, as it always does, with a ridiculously long assembly. We had to sing the anthem and listen to Mr Daniels droning on about strength in adversity and the birth of our ‘Glorious Territory’ blah de blah de blah. I’m surprised they didn’t make us wave flags or something equally malc.

I can recite the official version of
f
by heart I’ve heard it so many times. Daisy can too. We once paraded around her bedroom wearing sheets tied round our necks reciting it in loud voices. Thinking back now I’m not sure what the sheets were for. Some kind of superhero cape? ‘Territory Man to the Rescue!’

Anyway here it goes:

‘After the Great Floods, over half of the world’s land mass, including that of Old Britain was under saltwater. The south of Old Britain was submerged and the flooded eastern areas, now known as the Wetlands, became uninhabitable. The soil was saturated with salt so no crops could grow and any remaining freshwater became a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitoes. Everyone in Old Britain moved to the central dry land now known as the Territory, but there wasn’t enough land to support and feed the existing population. These were the Dark Days. War and famine raged. Then came a new era of peace. The new government, the Ministry, recognised that limited space requires limited numbers. It was imperative for the survival of mankind that the best minds stay in the Territory. Therefore on 1
June 2036 the Fence was built and it was determined that all future children sit a Territorial Allocation Assessment in the summer of their fifteenth year. Those that pass may remain in the Territory, but those that fail will be detained and resettled in the Wetlands. The test is fair as it applies equally to all children regardless of colour, background or creed.’

Then the whole assembly has to join in: ‘Limited space requires limited numbers. Difficult situations require difficult decisions.’

I made sure I was sitting next to Jack and Daisy. Us Norms have to stick together on Territory Day, just to make sure none of us reacts. Which is hard. Very hard.

This is what they never say in Assembly:

It’s massively unfair that the adults didn’t have to sit the TAA. Do you really think they would have voted for it if they had? And now it’s too late. ’Cos no one gets to vote anymore. And to start with, the TAA supposedly wasn’t that hard. Now, ’cos sea levels are still rising faster than anyone thought, it’s massively hard and they’re using it to get rid of loads of us. And after the invention of the Childe procedure, how can anyone claim the TAA is fair? I mean only one freakoid has failed in the past three years. Only one! And he was a real-life denser. But thousands of Norms get shipped off every year. And they bang on as if everyone loves (or as Daisy would say
luuuuurrrrrvvves
) the Territory. But then why are there so many police and cameras everywhere? Why did they ban the internet and mobiles for non-Ministry people as soon as they were properly in power? They also keep pretty schtum about the Opposition that Jack’s dad belongs to. Sorry
belonged
to. Before they labelled him a Subversive and shot him.

Class-time was next and Ms Jones was out to provoke us. She hates us Norms more than any other teacher in the school. It’s because her sister was killed in an Opposition rally that got out of hand. The rally was supposed to be a peaceful protest against the TAA and its bias against Norms, but something went wrong. One hundred and twenty-six people were trampled to death. That’s when they banned the Opposition. I know it was a terrible thing to happen and I get why Ms Jones has anger in her, but it’s also pretty pathetic that she tries to take it out on us, just because we’re easy targets.

The whole class had to sit in a circle. A circle! I mean I haven’t sat in a circle since I was five! We had to go round and say something about the Territory that we were grateful for.

‘I’ll start,’ she chirped like some sort of evil bird. ‘I’m grateful to the Territory for providing a safe haven for humanity after the Great Flood.’

I clenched Jack’s hand to stop myself from reacting.

Freddie, a lame nobody freakoid, went next. ‘I’m grateful for the mosquito grids so we don’t all get malaria.’ Well good for you, Freddie. What about the Fish? Do you think they’re grateful too?