Chapters 5-6

Today, Issy, anxious to hear from # me, remembers a childhood holiday with Sarah. Peter meets Miss Mary Hain for the first time since he nearly fled, and she begins to answers his questions about NewState's plans for the future.

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Chapter Five Late-Winter 2015 Isabella

It’s all dark and I feel like I’m falling. I feel weightless, like I’ll be falling for eternity, but I know I’m not floating, I’m moving down. Although it’s pitch black, I know that I am facing skywards, as if lying down, but falling. And I know that I’m scared. My arms are flailing, trying to catch on to something. A rope, I think, but I can’t see anything. My eyes scan from left to right. They’re frantic. Left, right. Darkness. Left, right. Darkness. And then they fix on something: a pair of eyes – wide, beautiful, petrified. Then thud. All black.

And I wake up, my eyes adjusting to the new darkness of my room.

But those eyes are imprinted in the black. Two eyes. Petrified. And me, flailing all the way down.

We found a cave once, Sarah and me, at the beach in Cornwall where Sarah’s grandmother lived. It really was the most beautiful place in the world. We’d both read Treasure Island and Kidnapped and the Famous Five, so we knew all about smugglers and pirates.

‘Issy, look, can you see that cave opening over there. I think I just saw a boat go in.’

‘Smugglers,’ I said.

‘Let’s get a closer look.’

‘Quick, this way. We’d better hug the dunes, not the shoreline, it’ll keep us out of sight until we get there.’

We run, cautiously looking up every few steps until we reach the opening of the cave.

‘Wait,’ whispers Sarah, pulling at my arm. ‘Shhh, down here.’

She moves behind a big rock and I follow.

‘What is it?’ I whisper.

‘Look.’

We crouch further behind the rock and peer out through a gap where our first rock meets another. We’re sort of under the rocks, or in them now, peering through the gap. We lie down on our fronts and look out, completely hidden, and I see the reason Sarah pulled us out of sight. The boat we saw going in is on its way out.

‘Two men. And look what they’re wearing,’ I say.

‘Yep. All in black. And black hats. Got to be smugglers.’

‘Do you think they were dropping off or collecting?’

‘I don’t know. They weren’t in there long were they? Can’t have been a big load either way. Let’s wait until they’re out of sight and then take a look.’

‘It could be dangerous,’ I say. ‘What if they come back and don’t like seeing us snooping around their cargo?’

‘They won’t come back though – that’s not the point. You never return to the scene of a crime.’

‘If they dropped something off, someone might turn up to collect!’ I say, still unsure. ‘But then, I suppose they wouldn’t come straight away, otherwise they would have just passed the cargo on in person, wouldn’t they?’

‘Exactly.’

‘What d’you think it is, Sarah?’

‘I dunno. Could be treasure.’

‘Could be from India. Or Egypt. Old artefacts left over from the empire. I read that some of the stuff got smuggled out, and there are always rich people living in mansions who want those sorts of antiques and treasures.’

‘I bet it’s exciting, smuggling. I know they’re supposed to be the baddies, but I guess they don’t always have to be mean do they? They’re just selling stuff really. Making a living.’

‘Yeah, like the tinkers and travelling folk.’

‘I reckon.’

‘Right, coast’s clear. Let’s take a look.’

It’s dark and wet in the cave, and we search it high and low. At one point I swear I hear someone coming and we don’t have anywhere to hide except under water. We hold our breath for as long as we can, but when we come up for air the coast is all clear again.

‘D’you think it was someone picking the cargo up?’

‘Either that or it’s hidden too well for us to find. Come on, we’d better get out of here before the tide comes in any more, or else someone does turn up if there’s anything left to smuggle.’

‘Let’s go.’

It’s getting cold now, but we creep back along the dunes anyway – just in case.

Once we’re in the clear Sarah calls out.

‘Race you!’ And she dashes ahead, making her way up the steep pathway through the dunes up to the top of the cliff where the warm cocoa and deep armchairs are waiting for us.

And the world is a beautiful place.

But these daydreams keep making me cry.

It’s been a long holiday. I take out the book about art that Mrs Bridges lent me.

I can’t sleep much now. I keep checking my phone but there’s nothing from #me.

And I keep seeing those eyes in my dreams.

And I hear pianos playing beautiful songs.

And the fairies fly through the trees.

And the rain pours.

And the lightning strikes.

And the thunder booms.

And it always wakes me up.

And my cheeks are always wet.

If I keep my eyes open. If I stay awake. If I shut it out.

But there’s nothing from #me.

Chapter Six Winter 2035 Peter Harrison

It is the beginning of the third week since I last saw Mary when I find a note under my door inviting me to meet.

We are going to meet in the garden after dinner, and I fear the beauty of the place and the romance of our past there.

In the build-up to the evening I think a lot, and the thoughts continue to confuse me. I stay in my room during the afternoon until the in-between time when I creep into the empty rec room and sit deeply in an old armchair. I close my eyes and allow my mind to wander through the last five months. My thoughts run slowly until two weeks ago when the day of Brave New World and NewStateFriends runs at a hundred miles an hour. Once it is over, I play through my plans for the future slowly, mulling them over, following them in different directions, different possibilities, different branches, different versions of events.

But no matter which branch I follow, Janine is always at the end. I will her to be. She has to be.

I continue in my half sleep to dream about the future beyond the door at the end of the corridor, until it is time to eat.

I sit with colleagues at dinner and talk about our day’s work and joke about the mind-numbing manipulative mush we’ve exhausted our creative faculties making for the masses today. But throughout it all I keep the barrier between what I say, and what I think and feel firmly in place, until it is time to say see you tomorrow. Tonight, I will not attend the nineteen-hundred-hour screening, for I have a date with Mary Hain.

I go straight from the cafeteria, along the long winding white lit corridors to the doorway to the garden. As I take the last bend, I think of my dreams. Yes, this is the start of that, I think.

I reach out to push the door, and as it opens I am Lucy Pevensie opening a gateway into a magical world of possibility. The lightness behind me is swallowed by the darkness outside. I step over the threshold and see ahead, humming warmly amidst the pleasant darkness of the real night, softly lit lights forming a protective canopy under a tree, lightly illuminating a table and two chairs, upon one of which sits the angelic presence of Mary. She looks up and memories of a painting, a whizzing cyclist and romance fill my mind, and I feel all resolve begin to melt away.

She looks up from the book she is reading and her face falls under the light. She looks so pure. She gives me a warm smile and stands up.

‘Peter.’ She smiles again and opens her arms: our reunion.

Thinking that I must have the face of a rabbit caught in headlights, I step forwards and embrace her. We do not kiss, but linger in one another’s arms, and as I pull away I feel the softness of her hair brushing against my cheek and smell a wash of spring.

We sit down, and she reaches her hands out to take mine in the middle of the table. She hunches forwards.

‘Oh, Peter, I have missed you.’

She is not Miss Mary Hain - not a highly ranked member of the NewState leadership. She is a woman looking at a man, with wide eyes and a warm smile. I feel her pulse against my hand, and it is not hard to play my part. Not hard at all.

‘Mary, I am sorry it has been so long. I have missed you too.’ I smile and look into her eyes. ‘But, Mary, you have to understand that it is still hard for me. There is still so much I do not know or understand and sometimes, well, the truth can be overwhelming. Sometimes, I am still the man crouching in the corner of his solitary room, lost.’

‘I understand, Peter. That is why your induction has been so long. I think I thought that our relationship, our affection, was enough to make the whole world clearer for you, but I know that was silly; and, Peter, I am sorry for that last conversation. I was all Miss Mary Hain, explaining the world to an employee. You must have hated me.’

And here we are: lovers in a secret garden making amends.

And we are, but, I must remember, we also are not.

Our conversation continues, and then Mary gives me the in I need, the one I did not think I would be able to orchestrate for some time.

‘So, Peter, you need to know everything. Or, at least, you need your questions to be answered. I will answer them. I promise. Ask them tonight, now, here, and I will tell you the truth, starting with the note you found in the book in my room’

‘Brave New World?’

‘Yes, Peter. You see, the note did mean something. In fact, it meant quite a lot. You remember the NewStateAnnualAddress?’ She pauses.

‘Yes, of course. What about it?’

‘Well, at it, Our Leader Day mentioned the next phase of NewState. She mentioned the end of rotation.’ She pauses again, letting the direction of the conversation sink in.

‘Yes, that is something I didn’t understand.’

‘Well, it’s all about what the people want. Rotation is the greatest burden to a consumer of SSC. It draws them out and reminds them of the old world. The people want no reminders of the old world, even those to do with tiresome chores. But not all of rotation is a tiresome chore. It is tiresome, yes, but it draws upon something strong in human nature. Something strong enough to challenge their full integration into a solitary world.’

‘Children,’ I say, reminded of a conversation some months ago with men with beards.

‘Exactly, the desire to parent a child of your own, to raise them, to see your eyes in theirs. This is the last great connection we have to our physical bodies, and, therefore, it is the last great tie to the old world.’

‘But unless we want to make ourselves extinct in a hundred years, how can it be severed?’

‘Brave New World,’ she says, pausing between each word. And it hits me.

‘Surely not. Is the science ready?’

‘The desire for it to be so has brought our scientists within an inch of making it so, and we have no doubt that they will soon stretch that final distance to total discovery. The plan is to engineer people who are, like in Brave New World, designed only for their station in life. And so, NewState will build a host of people to complete the remaining manual jobs in rotation and even to complete the task of raising children before they are old enough to enter inside alone.’

‘But how? Are we talking about test tube babies, genetically engineered to be intelligent enough to raise children, but lobotomised enough to want nothing else for themselves? That’s crazy. I mean, just the science is crazy?’ I do not say this with agitation. I remember that I am under cover. I say it carefully, with a sort of disbelieving shock.

‘Nearly, Peter. You’re almost right. Time and resources were put into this idea, but they were beaten by another department. These new people will not be biological: they will be artificial.’

‘Robots?’

‘Yes, artificial intelligence.’

The conversation pauses for a moment. I am stunned, though the information is hardly surprising – neither the motivation nor the technology surprise me – but, however likely or plausible something is, when it happens, it can still upset you to the core.

‘But what about the children they raise? Will that continue as normal - biologically. I mean, I know we already just donate sperm, but women still have ChildBearing rotation; there’s still a connection?’

‘Ah, now that was one for the biologists to crack first. Test tube babies. It is not so surprising is it? Donate the sperm, donate the eggs, and leave the rest to the labs. Once we have no contact with children, through childbearing or child development, the belief is that the impulse to have that contact will disappear. People will simply donate their DNA for the survival of the race, for the continuation of people to live inside and share with those already there, but they will not care that their role in the process has diminished: the genes desiring procreation will persist, but the need to be physically involved in their dissemination will not.’

This is a lot to process in one go. Could this really be the sort of world we want to live in, divorced from almost every physical aspect of our lives? But I suppose being divorced from the physical world is not the goal itself: for the everyday person the goal is to simply enjoy every moment to its full. Why embrace a physical reality when a virtual one offers so much more instant gratification?

In order to process the information, she has given me and not reveal my disgust, I imagine what I will write about in my defiance when I get to this moment.

You never solve a problem by running from it. We cannot allow ourselves to believe that this is right. People need to be given an alternative. They need the chance to hear the arguments, to at least reassess their position. They’ve been starved of the real world for so long, they’ve forgotten what it feels like, how beautiful it is, how intoxicating it is to breathe real air, to feel the warmth of real sunlight on your naked skin. They’ve left the world for so long that the anxieties they felt before will have grown a thousand times stronger. The longer this goes on the harder it will be to persuade even someone of my generation to come back. And once the connection between parent and child is fully severed, not even love will be strong enough to save us.

As I’m thinking this through, another thought occurs to me, and I have to ask it.

‘What happens to people who get sick? Is NewState medicine really good enough to save us from everything? I mean, I understand that our prescription food and exercise keep us healthy and our isolation keeps us free from catching bugs, but what about inherited diseases, what about degenerative diseases, what about cancer? Can we really cure cancer with a pill?’

‘Well, Peter, that is a complicated question, with a complicated answer. Yes, NewStateBodyScans really are very effective. They scan for everything and are programmed to highlight any anomaly. Medicine really is very good, and it is distributed, taken and people are almost always cured. But, like you say, sometimes things just happen, and are so bad that they cannot be fixed. For these people we have palliative care. They are taken away, yes to die, but they are taken into comfort.’ This is interesting news. Again, perhaps it is obvious, but it reveals much about NewState.

‘So, why isn’t this promoted. I mean, medicine is promoted and praised, but why not palliative care. Surely that would be worthy of scoring brownie points with the masses too.’ I hope I do not sound too ironical.

‘Perhaps, but it would also disrupt the balance of SSC. People do not want reminders of their physical frailty. Even the possibility of being one of the few who are incurable is a fear and anxiety the people need - want, Peter, they want - to be spared from. And, like automation and NewStateFriends we step in to spare them the pain. So, sometimes, people are sent placebos for non-existent diseases, to reinforce faith in the system. Oh, Peter, please, do not look like that.’ It was involuntary. What is she saying? ‘The point is, Peter, that sometimes people are told they need to take a drug, in full knowledge that it has a one hundred percent success rate, so it is a win-win situation. They have enough faith in NewState not to worry, and the process reinforces itself, and reinforces people’s faith in us. Peter, it is not as if we are injecting them with diseases, making them suffer, and then curing them to prove the power of our medicine.’

As always, she almost convinces me with her reasoning, but, unlike before, I do not want to be convinced, and so I keep what she has told me at a distance. My rebuttal now is simple: the whole thing is yet another part of a deeper evil - I do not believe we can shelter ourselves from a storm by pretending it is not there. As with everything that helps us to grow, we have to face our fears and know that we can control them. This facade is just another act of cowardice. I have more faith in myself, and I would rather fall in the face of reality, than be mollycoddled into dumb ignorance. I would rather die young and free, than live forever in chains.

I say none of this. The warm lights continue to hold us in this beautiful bubble. After a long pause she asks eagerly,

‘Peter, do you understand?’ I pause a moment longer.

‘Yes, I think I do. Or, at least, I think I will. Mary, I have to be honest, it is still a lot to process, but I want you to know that I will process it, that I want to process it.’ I smile and look into her eyes again. I squeeze her hand and she squeezes back.

Enough answers for tonight. I look around us at our beautiful haven in the dark.

‘This is beautiful, Mary. I love this garden.’

‘Oh good. We must come here again. We have spent so many wonderful evenings here. And now, before we go, I have a present for you.’

She reaches under her chair and picks something up. It is a book. She hands it to me.

‘It’s Blake. Songs of Innocence and Experience. I don’t know if you like poetry, but I really like this.’

O Earth return… I remember where those words are echoing from.

‘Yes, of course. Well, not everything, but this, I remember something about this. Thank you, Mary, I think I’ll like it.’ Inside I breathe a great sigh of relief: in handing me this book she does not know how much she has just helped me to stay my course.

‘And, Peter, you don’t have to wait for me to give you books anymore. There is a library. I’ll show you soon. I would have shown you earlier but at the beginning we didn’t want you to be overwhelmed with access to all of the stories of the past, and more recently, well, I sort of didn’t want to give up our little book club.’ As she says this she looks away.

She is just a woman, sitting with a man, feeling shy. A library!

I take her hand again.

‘Me too. Thank you, Mary. Thank you for telling me the truth tonight. It will make things better. I think it will make them a lot better.’

And then we do kiss. And in the moment, she really is just a woman.

But she is also not. She is Miss Mary Hain, and I must not be sure of anything.

I write about tonight whilst it is fresh in my mind, and it is not just an entry into the growing record of my life but a way to process the events of the evening in which my mind wanders far beyond the reaches of what has happened.

As I walked back to my room, I followed one particular branch that I left un-traversed below me. Along it I followed through with my plan to escape and I left NewState behind me. I jumped out of the window, climbed the fence, using my duvet as protection from the reel of barbed wire on top. I rolled over the wire, fell and plummeted to the hard earth. I regained by breath and travelled through the cold night.

As I moved along one Georgian crescent, it began to snow and though I was freezing to the core, I felt infinite for the first time in a long time. I reached the city library. I was the last to arrive and when I did we were all overcome with tears and joy. It turned out that they were planning an escape into the wild. They invited me to run hoping that I would come.

We left that night in the snow. We creeped through the city, avoiding the EEOs and soon we raced across the fields, past the hill in the middle of a plane and beyond into the woods. We didn’t stop all night, and barely rested before moving along again in the day.

We had no real plan. But there was always a distant sort of hope that somewhere out there were others like us, others who had already run away. It was nothing more than a wishful dream that we had all thought about so much we had turned it into our own myth of the modern age, but we held on to it all the same, and deep down we all knew that this was the only thing that really kept us going.

We travelled for days, putting as much distance between us and NewStateHeadQuarters as we could, and avoiding other towns and cities. We saw no-one. After a time, one of us said, ‘Well, if we don’t find anyone soon, we’ll just have to start the Outsiders ourselves. Then other people will find us.’

And that thought sustained us even more than the hope that we would find Outsiders already out there. But then, as it happened, one night, as we began our second week huddled around a fire deep in the heart of a forgotten forest, someone approached us. He questioned us, and we questioned him: was he a trick? Were we? His name was Jared. He was agile, fit and fast. He had a beard and green eyes that pierced through the superficiality of the world we were fleeing.

Eventually, all tests passed, Jared was our guide and we joined them: a real group of outsiders.

They were explorers, adventurers, naturalists - the sort of people who could survive in the wild. Of course they were: who would be more likely to flee the confines of our solitary confinement (and survive) than these sorts of people.

We settled in, found our place. We contributed. We survived. We thrived.

And…

I stop writing as my eyes tire. I close my defiance down and climb into bed, half in my room and already half in a dream where I am Robin Hood in a community of refugees. We call ourselves the Outsiders.