Justice (Chapter Eleven)

Chapter Eleven
I couldn’t sleep. The images from Sense’s re-education film flashed through my mind. Every time I shut my eyes, I was confronted with stark footage of shrouded beasts hurling bottles across grim estates, endless queues of ethnic minorities signing on for benefits and wretched homeless shadows mugging the paper-fragile elderly. The pictures had been designed to stick and, it seemed that, for once, Sense had done a good job.
We’d been forced to watch the films for the entire day, at least ten hours, while Fake Finger lingered to ensure our attention didn’t waver. Given what had happed to the willowy boy, that wasn’t likely. By the end, my head was pulsating from hatred and blame; a sensation made worse by the punching howls of the dogs as we were marched back for the evening feeding.
This time, there had been no parade of Reds and Oranges on the dais, no Robert Yanis to bring dread to the back of my throat. It was just our string of worn flesh, our ever-present, low-ranking Reds and the ladles of weak stew splattering down onto the marble table- a brown liquid that immediately surged towards the edges and the floor. The Parasites lapped ever more urgently. And I'd lapped with them.
Cocooned in the hair sheets and blankets, I tried to drift into oblivion. My headache was mercilessly transforming into a migraine and my stomach turned against itself in hunger. From the sound of their breathing, the other girls were asleep; I envied them until it occurred to me that their bodies were probably on the verge of exhaustion, whereas mine was still new to Darkmoor.
It was then that I realised the red drape beside my bed was lifting. Someone was standing over me.
Then, the light voice sent a breath of warmth across my face,
“It’s Imogen. Shhhush - speak quietly. How come you’re…”
She paused mid-sentence, alert and listening. Yet, whatever she’d thought she’d heard failed to materialise.
“How come you’re here?”
“Long story. Didn’t think too highly of Sense, you know? Broke into a building to steal discs. Evidence. Wanted to prove they were worse than people thought. And I got caught. Compound, then here. Lost a friend. She’s here too –but gone Orange now. Still can't believe it. You?”
The night ticked in silence. In the stillness, her delicate voice pattered to my ears.
“I had a baby.”
“What?”
“They took him. I tried to get him back, but…”
She trailed off.
I didn’t know what to say. She looked far too young to be a mother, but I’d heard of younger. She didn’t need to tell me anymore of her story. Since Sense had come to power,any single mother unable to support her child had to suffer seeing them taken into Sense’s care. For additional stigma, Sense christened the girls ‘dumb-mums’. The fathers were never brought to account, most just kept quiet and considered themselves to have had a lucky escape. Sense called it the most effective form of teen contraception yet. The babies were either adopted by respectable, childless married couples, or sent to ‘soft compounds’ where they were trained to become Reds. Maggie had been investigating what really went on in those soft-compounds for some months now and was sure that the number of children going in didn’t match the number coming out.
“I’m sorry. Really sorry. Is he in a ‘soft’?”
“Yeah. How’d you know about that stuff?”
“Well, I know people who want to stop them; they know something’s not right.”
“Who?”
Could I trust her? More to the point, could I trust this room? I knew it was bugged, but I was certain that Sense would know that I was connected to Maggie and Libertarious – no doubt Greg had told them all about it in an effort to gain some new chief local warden promotion – but…
“A group. A group who want to stop what’s happening.”
Again, Imogen was silent, but I could feel her touching the edge of my hair sheet with her fingertips as she contemplated her response.
“I went after him. That’s why I’m here. Held a knife to a Red’s throat and made him take me to the holding station. Never got to see him, Sam, his name was Sam. He was only three months old. They raised an alarm, took me to a compound and brought me here. Said I was young enough to be re-trained.”
“So sorry.”
“Been here just over two weeks. Just so you know, the films don’t get any easier. And tomorrow you could get your ‘one to one’. Whatever you do, make it seem like you’re ready to change. Some girls, girls with mean streaks, they go for their 'one to ones' and they don't come back.”
She paused.
“Next day the dogs weren’t barking when we walked by.”
And with that, I felt the bed shift slightly. She pushed up. A small gust of air signalled her exit as she lifted the drape. Poor girl - to end up here and to know that she was unlikely to ever see her son again.
In that second, I heard something move behind my bed. And then, the wall began to groan.
I twisted around, the hair blanket tangling between my knees, just in time to see the black marble wall sliding into the floor - a sheet-like oil slick.
“Imogen?”
There was no reply. The void behind the wall began to glow – embers into the dark - and I felt my breath catch and hook itself into my gullet. The light became deeper and deeper until it crept to a muddy blood colour.
And then, the silhouette of Fake Finger stood before me, her black outline oscillating in a pool of visceral light.
I shrank back, but not fast enough.
Her hands grasped my face, lifted my chin towards her, pushed my head back and left me a prisoner awaiting the knife. But instead of cutting my jugular, she continued to pull my head upwards until I found my body followed. It was then that I realised she expected me to follow her into the red light.
I was still wearing my overalls so there was no need to dress. She cuffed me to a black belt pinched around her tiny waist and we moved. The passageway was narrow and seemed to slope upwards. I struggled to keep up as her long, spider-like legs ate up the uneven floor in effortless strides. The bloody light bathed us both, seeping into her orange overalls and the jagged, black marble walls.
Perhaps what Imogen had said was true, perhaps she had lost her baby. But maybe it was all a ploy. Perhaps I was suffering the consequences.
Eventually, the passageway ended and we came into a large room; I had little doubt that we were in the cube. The blue wall lights, the same I’d seen in the hall, merged with the red from the tunnel to spin a purple vapour. It was only then that I pieced together what had happened. So obvious really – the tunnel had to be the linking arm from the cube out to our tower and all the time the entrance point had been directly behind my bed.
Fake Finger continued to stride ahead, down one wide, black corridor, then another. I felt submerged in a complex of black veins and the air smelt animal-wet, vaguely chemical. We walked on.
Without warning, she halted outside a crystal door – Sense’s fist expertly carved in relief. Through the translucent surface, I could see the outline of who had sent for me.
Fake Finger opened the door, released me, gestured for me to enter, turned and walked away.
I crossed the threshold and waited for direction.
Shannon’s tiny body was perched on a cumbersome, marble throne, the back of which rose into a giant fist arching over her head. The rest of the vast room was empty except for a large CCTV camera hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
Her liquid, blue eyes found mine.
“Sit.”
She pointed at the floor in front of her feet, feet encased in small, orange shoes. I sat.
She looked down at me and began.
“Clara, I think it’s time we sorted a few things out, don’t you? I think you need to realise that things have changed. Let me give you some advice. You really need to start listening to me if you’re going to stand a chance of moving on and getting out of here.”
The voice, no, the tone, it wasn’t Shannon’s any more – even the words were screamingly fraudulent. Her small hand emerged from her orange sleeve. Slowly, she tapped her perfectly proportioned, delicately crafted prosthetic finger against the black arm of her chair.
So, now she had all the trimmings, right?
“Clara, listen. You, well, you and Maggie actually, you need to stop. You need to stop banging your head against the wall. I know that what happened to your Dad was terrible for you, but let’s face it, he had broken the rules, stepped out of line – and I know that’s hard for you to take, but it’s the truth. He was a rebel against Sense; he was in league with Maggie’s father, even reporting to him and...”
These weren’t her words.
“I know he was. Why are you telling me what I already know?”
Shannon’s finger paused.
“Then, you must take responsibility for what has happened. You must take responsibility for his links to Libertarious and for how he met his end.”
Was this an act for the camera?
I couldn’t let her dictate the conversation in this way – that was not how we worked.
“So, how did you go Orange Shannon? I mean, one minute you’re in a compound being tortured and the next you’re working your way up through the ranks and you’re sitting three seats away from Robert Yanis. That’s a pretty fast promotion.”
She straightened in her throne.
“I decided I was fed up of being on the losing team Clara. They cut my finger off. They made me watch while they did it. It took a long time. They beat me black and blue. But they gave me a choice. A chance to succeed.”
“What, as a feared, sick, twisted Orange?”
She ignored the insult.
“Let’s just say I gave them some information that they found very useful and the tables turned…”
And before I could even process the reaction, I grabbed both of her match-stick legs and yanked. She was dethroned. I pinned her arms down with my knees and, through gritted teeth, spat in her ear,
“You bitch! You sold out Maggie, didn’t you? You God damn bitch, you told them where she was!”
Shannon wriggled and fought, but her orange overalls hadn’t made her any stronger physically. I pressed down even harder into her arms, feeling her tendons yielding to my knee caps.
Her voice rose in pitch; the controlled façade broken.
“Yes. So what? She was never my friend. Neither of you were ever my real friends!”
With her admission my rage abated. Attacking her, killing her even, wouldn’t help Maggie now. I just had to hope that when we didn’t check in after our capture in London, she’d moved to another location.
I rolled off Shannon just as two Reds stormed into the room.
Shannon dismissed them with a nod of annoyance, rubbed her wounded arms and settled herself back on her throne.
“How could you do something like that to Maggie?”
“Because I’m fed up of being on the wrong side, Clara.”
“Anything else you want to tell me? While we’re here?”
“Yes actually. Take this as a final favour. Just so you know, we can hear everything you say in the tower. If you want to stand a chance of getting cleared in your ‘one to one’ by your assessor, I’d bloody well suggest that you stop spreading the word about Libertarious around the other parasites, OK? You need to pass: there are no more second chances here. I need to wan you.”
She adjusted her thin, blonde pony-tail.
“Don’t do me any favours. Warn me about what?”
“Clara…”
“What? Do you want me to thank you?”
And then she seemed to register me for the first time and she paused.
“You need to know. It’s… your assessor. It’s Robert Yanis. Robert Yanis is going to be your assessor.”
That couldn’t be.
“And he asked for you especially. You’ll be seeing him tomorrow - probably.”
If true, this was incomprehensible.
What on earth would a man like Robert Yanis, one of the most dangerous and powerful men in the whole organisation want with me?
My eyes asked the question; Shannon's shrug gave no answers.