The End

Today, the novel ends. Thank you readers for sticking with the story. I hope it has given something to your routines in isolation; I hope it has kept you engaged and you've enjoyed reading/listening; and I hope it has been thought-provoking about the rapidly changing world we live in and where we might be taking it.

If you want to get in touch about the book in any way, I'd be happy to correspond: email askendall@soundofsilencenovel.com

If you prefer to listen, the audio is here too.

Chapter Eleven Nearly Spring 2035 Peter Harrison

The time has come.

I wrote all night. Mostly I wrote about teaching. About everything that I remembered.

Just in case.

I also did something reckless. I posted my writing - all of it - and told Henry where to find it. I had to - just in case.

It was the story about the mother who ran that gave me the idea. I wondered if she had been shut down, or if she still existed, an inactive person, not dead, just paused. Stopped. Not-living, but not gone either. I searched for the name Charis. That might sound ridiculous: how many Charis’ must there be inside? And you can’t search based on locations - that filter died a decade ago. There is only one location now: inside. But Charis is unusual. No one is called just Charis. I am not just Peter. It is not the way people name themselves inside. And so, I took a chance that maybe the sort of person who would have risked leaving SSC behind might actually have called themselves just Charis. And there she was. Charis. Inactive for four years.

And so, she was the safest place I could find. I posted everything I have written to her, in the hope that four years of inactivity would hide my post from anyone who did not know to look for it.

And then I messaged Henry. I did not message Janine. I did not know if I wanted her to read everything I have written. Maybe it was cowardly, but I remembered my dream when I told her everything - face to face. That way I could explain. Maybe a message is more cowardly. I sent a message to Henry randomly embedded in a conversation he was having.

Check out Charis. Collateral. Just in case.

This way, if this meeting does not go well, and if I do not return to my room, then my life may live on. If I fail today, then maybe my words will find their way to the future, and maybe someone, in some time, will use them.

I wait just inside the cafeteria after breakfast. By the time Mary arrives at eight fifty, the room is almost empty.

She looks different again. Maybe more like she did when I first met her. Cold? Resolute? Commanding? I can’t put my finger on it.

‘Good morning, Mary.’ I feel too formal. Why?

‘Good morning, Peter.’

‘Shall we go?’

‘Yes, but before we do, remember what I said yesterday, Peter.’ The Mary from the library returns again, emotion breaking through the control. ‘Promise me, Peter.’

‘Yes, Mary. Of course. But why are you acting like this? What is going on?’ I suddenly wonder if she knows something, like she is my escort to an execution. My execution.

‘Am I safe?’ I say. ‘Are you safe?’

‘Peter, we are never safe. Now, let’s go. It is not far.’

And she begins walking away. She is not going to answer any of my questions. The professional - maybe that is the word - is back as quickly as she went and whatever it is I am unprepared for there is nothing I can do about it now.

Chapter Twelve Late-Winter 2015 Isabella

I didn’t go to second period after my meeting with Mrs Bridges. I kept on crying pretty much through the whole hour. She wanted to call my parents and let me take the rest of the day off, but I said I wanted to stay. I have another free period after break, so I decide to go to the music block and sit on the comfy chairs outside the practice rooms, hoping that it’s quiet and that there are no noisy lower school classes going on.

Before I get there, I go by Mr Harrison’s classroom. He’s not there, but that’s not why I came. I go over to the bookcase and take out my composition book. I think I’m going to write that final piece now. I know he’s not told us to, but it feels like the right time to do it. I think I understand what the point of the project is now.

I take the book and go to the bathroom on my way to the music block. When I look in the mirror I just stare at the tear stained reflection in front of me. My hair is a wild mess and I splash my face to make it less obvious that I’ve been uncontrollably crying.

I make my way to the music block and am grateful that it appears to be quiet. I take my usual seat opposite the picture of the sunset and start to write my final composition. As I start, a soft and melodic tune begins to play from the room next to me. Susan Merriweather must have a free period too, and she’s practising. I ease myself into the comfort of the chair and write.

I told Mrs Bridges about Sarah today.

I go through it again, writing every word of what I said and saw in Mrs Bridges’ office, what I have seen in my dreams on so many nights when the moon is out.

And Mr Harrison said something that makes it hard. He said that it would be cowardly to walk away from a fight.

I keep on writing this culmination of everything that has happened. I don’t know if anyone will read it. That’s not why I’m writing it. I get as far as Why are we even out there pretending? and then I pause.

I think of Mum.

Dad.

Art.

Merlin.

Then I see her again, bent and twisted in the dark.

Lifeless.

Why do we accept such fragility?

I’m writing again now.

I think about the radio programme from the first day of Sixth Form. I remember the way the musician talked about opportunities for original thought, when he walked from his typewriter to his bookshelf. But what about opportunities for things to break?

I think of #me and the tears begin to well up again.

It was a beautiful sunset and the ducks were the cutest I’d ever seen. But we couldn’t share it.

I feel the weight of my phone in my pocket.

What if I had had a phone when Sarah got stuck?

Maybe we could have called for help and I could have stayed with her.

But I didn’t. I ran away from her. I left her. It was my fault.

Or maybe we would never have been up the tree in the first place.

It would have been safer in our phones.

But I met #me in Shrewsbury and now he has disappeared too.

Why is it cowardly to run away from a fight that was lost before it even began?

If we had never been out there, Sarah would still be here.

How can it be cowardly to save a life?

But if the world values bravery…

Then what is this world to me?

I stand up and move closer to the painting of the sunset. I can hear the beauty of Susan Merriweather playing and I remember the way her mother ruined it last time I heard her play. More beauty ruined by another broken piece. The darkness of the picture and the corridor mean that as I get closer to the framed painting, I can see my reflection in the glass.

I am Sylvia Plath now.

The bell jar just keeps everyone jammed in. We’re all just crashing around in the smallest of spaces and there’s no room to be free. There’s no space to retreat to where you won’t get hit, knocked, broken again. And again. And again.

At least Sarah is free from the jar now.

My hearts breaks again.

I stare at my reflection.

It is not me anymore.

It has not been me for a long time.

I feel the weight of my other self heavy in my pocket. My newer self. My realer self.

But a self that Sarah never knew.

My eyes stare back at me.

Body to body.

Nothing else.

Crack!

I hit the glass of the frame and it smashes to the floor.

I wait.

The music keeps playing.

Another thing broken.

I reach down to take up a shard of the shattered glass.

I run a finger along one edge, lightly. I prick the pointed end.

It is sharp.

It will do.

Another thing broken.

One last break.

I see a single drop of blood drip from the end of my finger where I pricked the point of my dagger.

Frankenstein’s monster ran into oblivion.

Isolde drifted into the mist.

The wanderer above the sea of mist never made it to the peak on the other side.

The lady is drowning in the painting, not floating.

But, The Kiss?

No, he’s strangling her.

I turn the shard of glass over in my right hand and then raise it to my left wrist.

And then…

My pocket vibrates.

The leaden phone lightens.

I put my dagger down and tentatively reach in and pull my other self out.

One notification.

- Arghh, Mum and Dad took us away for the weekend. Strictly no technology. Detox – urgh, so unnecessary, and with no warning!

Another notification.

- Hey, IB, remember those ducks and that sunset?

And then:

- They were so cute and beautiful. IB, just like you.

I sit and stare.

My racing heart calms.

My breathing regulates.

My hands steady.

I stand up and tidy the glass to one side. I look at the picture of the sunset, and this time there is no reflection. The glass is broken and all I see is the painting that was behind it.

I begin to walk away from the music block, from the broken glass, from the shattered reflection, staring into the screen at the three messages from #me.

It wasn’t on purpose.

He’s been away.

He’s back.

Why do we accept such fragility? When there is a safer place to live, why do we continue to risk it all out there?

It is not cowardice, Mr Harrison.

It’s protection.

It’s wisdom.

It’s safe.

And.

I dive back into the new world the way girls used to risk everything in the broken one.

Chapter Thirteen Nearly Spring 2035 Peter Harrison

Mary is correct. It does not take long for us to reach our destination. But it is not a private room we arrive in. We have taken an elevator to the top floor, and rather than open out into another white lit room, we step out onto the roof, which I am surprised to see has been turned into a large and beautiful garden, full of plants, flowers, trees, archways and pathways. It is even more beautiful than the gardens Mary and I explored together.

We step forwards out of the elevator, and there she is. Sat in a chair at a garden table under a canopy of vines, the weak morning light of the early spring sun just beginning to lighten the scene, is Our Leader Day. She looks up from her reading and our eyes meet for the first time since many years before the change.

When she speaks, the voice brings back a flood of memories.

‘Hello, Mr Harrison.’

‘Hello, Isabella.’

I move forward, stepping towards my old student sat at a garden table like she used to step towards me sat at my teacher’s desk.

But before anything else is spoken, Mary steps in front of me.

‘Wait, Peter.’

And then she does something I cannot explain.

She draws a gun and points it directly at Our Leader Day - at Isabella.

And Our Leader Day does not even flinch.

‘You do not have to point that gun at me,’ says the NewState leader, and she does not sound cold. She sounds like she always did: kind, a little fragile, but kind and thoughtful. ‘It seems my plans for a nice discussion will have to wait, Peter. Mary has a gun, and I fear that she would like to set the agenda now.’ She looks at Mary, and then at me. ‘It has been a long time, Mr Harrison.

‘Mary, would it be appropriate if we were to all sit down. By all means continue to point the gun at me, but I think we would all be more comfortable if we sat down.’ It is almost ridiculous: here I am, finally confronted with the leader I have been longing to see, with the student who has plagued my conscience for years, and Mary, one of her right-hand people, is pointing a gun at her, and she is acting like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

‘Mary,’ I say. ‘What is going on?’

Isabella motions for us to sit down again. I decide to move forward, past Mary, past the gun. I draw a chair and sit down just three feet across the table from the leader of NewState, and I see her properly for the first time. The eyes - the eyes never change.

Mary moves to the side, continuing to stand, continuing to point the gun.

‘Affection is not always a weakness, Mary.’

Mary says nothing.

‘Mary, I know you lost sight of our plan a long time ago.’ I look quizzically from one to the other.

‘I’m sorry it had to be that way.’ She directs her speech at me, a student apologising to her teacher. She is still so sweet. Here, in her private space, she is not the commanding leader we have come to know as the face of NewState.

‘I’m sorry we had to deceive you, but Mary was supposed to get to know you. It was the whole reason you were here.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, too curious, all other agendas leaving my brain as I stand in front of my old student.

‘It proves everything though. It really does. Everything out there,’ she indicates the world beyond the garden. ‘It was always riddled with secrecy, lies, disappointment. You were brought here to lead us to those who resist the safety of our world. Mary was supposed to get to know you intimately, eventually to allow you to persuade each other that this,’ she indicates the building this time, ‘our world was corrupt, and then you were supposed to flee together and lead her to the people hiding outside.’ I think about that first conversation, at NewStateSolarFarmOne, when Mary whispered such sweet sedition for the first time.

‘But,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t in league with anyone from the outside. I didn’t know there was anyone out there.’ I mean, ‘I don’t know that there is anyone out there. Are you telling me there are people who live outside?’ I pretend that what Mary told me yesterday did not happen. I need information.

‘Yes, and we had supposed that you were in contact with them. You weren’t the only person who behaved suspiciously online – the times you logged in, the gaps, the things you watched, the amount you shared – but when I saw your name on one of the lists brought to me, I thought you had to be our best shot at finding them, that you would surely be part of it.’ She is not accusing me, she speaks softly, almost resignedly, almost as if she is thinking and the words just happen to be uttering themselves out loud too. I see the seventeen-year-old Isabella, and not for the first time, my heart breaks.

‘You know, you really were the best teacher I ever had. I used to love your lessons. They were the only ones that always kept me out. The big ideas. The epic stories. The philosophy. And when I saw your name, I thought back to the other things you tried to teach me, when you set those extra essays. I knew you meant well, and I was so grateful for it – I really was. However much we disagreed in the end, I really was so grateful.

‘So, when I saw your name, I remembered all those lessons you taught me, the Pause Tech group I tried to pretend you didn’t run, and I felt sure that if anyone was working against us, it would be you.’

‘But I wasn’t. I’m not. You were wrong. I was here, and I was nearly drawn in. Mary and I never discussed leaving. I was going to stay. You nearly convinced me.’ The irony is not lost on me. Looking at Isabella now, she could be a teacher.

‘Peter,’ says Mary, and I turn to her. She is still holding the gun, but I had almost forgotten she was here. Her eyes are pleading at me, apologising. ‘Peter, remember what I said.’ Her eyes are filled with tears again.

‘Mary failed in her mission,’ says Isabella. ‘She failed because she began to fall in love with you. She began to believe you would stay with her, and so, apart from the books that were supposed to look like sedition, she never did anything to suggest she wanted to leave too. Rather than draw you closer to her by sharing your views, she drew you closer to her as you began to share hers. But it must hurt all the same, mustn’t it – knowing she was a spy?’ Again, she is not goading. She is asking, musing, thinking.

‘Peter.’ It is Mary speaking again. ‘Peter, it was more than that. She’s right, Peter. Everything she says is true, but there’s more too. That’s not how it is now. Peter, I did believe everything about this place. I did believe in the balance of it - the harmony. But not now. Not since you found the note in Brave New World. Not since I saw the disgust on your face. Not since I realised how much I would lose if you hated me - if you didn’t want to be with me. Then it was real, Peter. And you did that. Loving you made me realise that all of this is wrong. I began to see myself as the enemy. I began to hate myself for trying to convince you. It all happened so suddenly, like a light inside me just switched on; in a moment everything shifted. That’s when we started to go further, beyond the walls. That’s when I started to reveal more. I didn’t want you to think that everything else we do here was secret anymore. I didn’t want to manipulate you anymore.

‘But it wasn’t an act to make you think I was like you, so you would take me outside and lead me to the outsiders. No. Even though that was the plan, Peter - for you to think I was like you, that you could trust me because I was like you - my reasons changed. I wasn’t taking you to the meadows because I had to, because I was acting; I was taking you there because it made me feel alive to be there. I wasn’t acting anymore, Peter. And now I can prove it.’ She looks towards the gun. ‘I couldn’t tell you, Peter, about this, but you - your love, or loving you - made me know what I needed to do. And when she said she wanted to meet you, I couldn’t risk her influence on you. I know who you are to her, Peter, and I couldn’t risk letting her pull you in, away from me, from the end of NewState. I couldn’t be sure that you would be willing to walk in here with a gun and point it at your old student. I’m sorry, Peter. I wasn’t acting, not in the end.’

And I believe her. She pleads with her eyes, but she doesn’t have to. I believe her. I smile at her. Whatever else has happened, is happening, will happen, it doesn’t change that she means what she says and feels what she feels. Nothing changes that connection. She has nothing to apologise for. We played the same roles: the cautious spy, the honest victim, the confused actor.

‘I know, Mary. I believe you. It doesn’t matter. None of the deception matters.’

‘But it does matter.’ Isabella re-joins the conversations. ‘It does matter doesn’t it. The real-world hurts,’ she says, and there is emotion creeping into her voice now. ‘It always did. It hurt in ways that our new world cannot, and you never understood that, did you Peter, Mr Harrison? And after that assembly, where you took apart everything that was keeping me together, that hurt. That hurt so much I nearly... I smashed the glass and I was so close to...’

‘I never meant to make you feel like that.’ My mind leaves Mary and the gun and puts together what she is saying. I remember the assembly. I remember meeting her eyes outside the school counsellor's office. I remember thinking she was breaking, but never knowing what I could really do to help fix her. I tried. But I pushed her further away.

‘But then something saved me. And it wasn’t something out there. It was something inside, something safe, something that had almost been destroyed by only the briefest exposure to the outside world.’

‘But just because something is safe, doesn’t make it right. Isabella, you have to see that.’ It feels strange to use her name, her real name.

‘That is not my name. It hasn’t been my name for a long time. That was when I knew,’ she goes on, taking up the story of her past again. ‘That was when I really knew that all the fear, all the pain, all the suffering out there wasn’t worth it. All the death... it didn’t need to happen.’

‘Sarah,’ I mutter. ‘I know, but –’

‘DON’T SAY HER NAME.’ For a moment Isabella tenses. She looks fraught, like she might break or explode. And then, a deep breath, her hands relax, her brow unfurrows, and she composes herself. She says, calmly,

‘We have saved the world from its flaws. NewState is safe, and the people never have to suffer in the way we suffered on the outside: children too scared to go to school, adults afraid to go into crowded places in case it became the next terrorist target. None of these things can happen inside. Everyone is safe. And with NewStateReality moving forward the safety and the happiness is only increasing.’

‘But that’s not why people accepted NewState, not really,’ I argue, all thoughts of calculated chess moves long gone. This is it - the single argument to change humanity. And that gun will keep my audience captive. Finally, the truth. ‘They didn’t adopt SSC out of fear; they’re addicted, all of them, obsessed.’

‘Yes, they were. And they still are. And NewState created a structure in which people could have more of what they wanted, and less of what they didn’t. They do not have to work in a job they hate or in a world that rejects them.’

‘But not everyone was rejected, Isabella. You were not rejected. You had everything going for you.’

‘This is not about me,’ she says, still calm, measured – balanced, likeable. ‘And I used what I had to help make all of this, so no one would have to suffer any more, and everyone can live the way they want to all of the time.’

‘But what about love? Human connection? Physical intimacy?’

‘We do not need to be physical in order to be intimate. Surely, without the cheap constraints of superficiality, love is stronger, fairer.’

‘But that is not what people have inside. They’ve forgotten how to connect properly. They go from one place to the next, consuming. It’s gluttony. It’s addiction.’

‘And sharing.’

‘Yes, but they share for themselves. It’s fleeting, transactional. It’s all for popularity and self-esteem.’

‘And what is wrong with a world where people have self-esteem? If the people choose not to form close relationships it is because they do not want to. Who are we to say they have to?’

‘But they’re not given a choice. There is no voice out there offering them anything different. We all know it’s not allowed. EEOs. That’s what they represent. The suppression of free speech. The suppression of freedom.’

‘No, we are philosopher kings, Mr Harrison. We do not steal freedom; we take away a slice of liberty to ensure it. Every society in history has done that. You taught me that.’ I remember.

‘But that’s a manipulation. The people are so hooked on what you give them that the antidote takes time. If you put the antidote out there, people would take it. It would just take time. Everything worthwhile takes time. Do you remember the composition books I gave your class? Things change over time, and that’s ok; not everything has to stay the same.’

‘But you are just agreeing with me. You are saying that people do not always know what is good for them. So, should we take away their consumption and replace it with something you value? That is no more democracy that what we have now. I do remember my composition book.’ She pauses, and I see her, seventeen again, scribbling furiously into her little notebook, oblivious to the world around her. ‘And the smell of coffee. Funny, I always remembered the smell of coffee.’ She has drifted away somewhere, but with a sudden motion, she returns to the present.

‘Mr Harrison, do you remember the Nazi experiment you told us about – the one about conformity, and how it is so easy to get so caught up in a collective identity that you forget to be human? I remember it, and what we have done here is not that – you mustn’t think it is that. What we have done is the opposite. We have created a collective at peace with itself, a collective in which everyone can be themselves and no-one is rejected.’

‘I want people to have a choice, Isabella. Some of the things that are worst for us are able to suck us in; that’s one of the reasons we consider them to be bad for us. That doesn’t mean that we’ve chosen them – not really. And even if we have, sometimes it’s nice to give people advice – let them learn from your wisdom.’

‘And that is exactly what NewState does. We have learned from the entirety of human history that mankind suffers. And we have taken away the variables that cause that suffering. In our world, the evil impulses that used to be triggered, are not triggered any more. This is a utopia. It is a haven from ourselves. In here, we will become something new, something better.’

‘We’re not becoming something better. We’re becoming something worse – limited. Our tastes are being driven so reductively that we’re losing our intelligence.’

‘No, Peter. We,’ she indicates the building again. ‘We are not. And that is the brilliant reciprocity of this world: those who choose it, have it, and those who don’t, make it. There are two worlds and they work for everyone.’

‘But not for me.’

‘That is because you refuse to understand.’

‘That is because the people inside are not given enough of a chance. They are not exposed to the outside in order to know if they want it or not. They know only what they have been led into. That is not a fair choice.’

‘We provide opportunities for intelligent minds identified in NewStateEducation to work at NewState. And if, when they are here, they decide that it is not to their liking, then they are free to go back inside and live the rest of their lives the way they want to.’

‘But it’s not just intelligent, academic minds that could choose something else.’

‘They are the only ones that the data indicates might be dissatisfied with the inside, and, as I have said, we do not force them to live there.’

‘But they can’t live outside. There is no third option. You said it yourself, you were trying to track the outsiders down. You thought I might be one of them.’

‘We wanted to track them down to reintegrate them into the system, to stop them from getting carried away and doing something stupid. And the gun Mary is pointing at me now proves that I am right.’

‘And what if they still refused. What then?’

‘Humankind have always detained people who posed a threat to civilised society.’

‘And there it is,’ I say. ‘Dig deep enough, think long enough about anything NewState says or does and you always find it. You’re talking about classifying outsiders as criminals because they don’t agree with you. That’s one thing for terrorists and murderers, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about normal people, people like me, people who just want a choice, and who believe that everyone should have that same choice, un-coerced.’

‘We detained terrorists because they posed a threat, and, in the same way, these outsiders must be detained.’

‘But they’re not murderers. They’re not rapists. They’re just free thinkers.’

‘They do not have to be murderers or rapists. That is what made someone a criminal in the old world. A new world has new parameters, and new classifications.’

‘That’s fascism.’

‘No, it’s protection.’

‘NewState severs people from their physical impulses, from their bodies.’

‘And that is the most beautiful thing about it. Can’t you imagine how much better the world would be without these flaws? If our minds could only exist independently inside, then we would not have these heinous flaws that cause us to suffer so miserably.’

‘So, you’re advocating some sort of spiritual ascension you mean, into another plane of existence?’

‘You make it sound insane. It is not. It is a question of science and an aspiration that represents what we value most.’

The immortal man.

‘What you value most.’

‘What the people value most.’

‘What the people who voted for NewState a decade ago value most. I did not vote for NewState.’

‘Majority rules. There is no escaping that. It may be flawed, but what’s that old saying? ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’’

‘But you can’t convict people of thought crime. You can’t call outsiders criminals.’

‘They won’t be badly treated. They just can’t be allowed to disrupt the peace and safety of the people. It is a necessary step to ensure the continuation of something that brings so much peace and happiness to so many. There is no crime. There is no hate. There are no lonely souls. This is only a great good. I truly wish that you could see that. Now, what is your plan, Mary?’ She shifts her focus. ‘Why have you brought Peter here with a gun? Are you going to assassinate me?’ Still so calm. So delicate.

I answer for Mary, taking over. ‘That is the thing you never understood: in all your study and all your rhetoric, I wish I could have made you see that one point. Perhaps if I had, if someone had, then we wouldn’t be in this mess now.’

‘It is not a mess, Peter.’

‘Peter,’ says Mary. ‘I will do it. We can start everything again.’ But I continue.

‘It is a mess. It is a mess because you went about solving the world’s problems in the wrong way. You saw anxieties rise, fear and danger increase, and you ran from it. You never stopped to wonder what was really causing the problems. And you never solve a problem by covering it up. You haven’t solved our flaws, you’ve just pretended they’re not there by making everyone run away from them.’

‘But they are gone.’ I think of her outside Mrs Bridges’ office again. I think of a story I heard. A story about a girl who fell out of a tree in a storm.

‘No, they’re not. They’re still there. If it wasn’t for your ‘creative writers’ you’d see it.’

‘But we have ‘creative writers’. That is the difference.’

‘But it’s not real. It’s not truth. It can’t last. The people deserve more. We need the chance to fail, or we’ll never feel good about anything we do.’

‘The necessity of suffering?’ she says with surprise. ‘I never thought I’d here that sort of argument from you.’

‘No, that’s not what I mean. I’m not talking about the contradictions of malaria or cancer: NewState is not a god. I’m talking about human interaction and the joy of growing and learning and sharing. I’m talking about butterflies in your stomach and tears in your eyes. If the world was becoming emotionally fragile, it needed building up, not mollycoddling down.’

‘It needed protection. It needs protection.’

‘And what about children?’ I become aware of Mary again. ‘Mary, I know it must seem strange, but before I came here, before I started, in the old world, well, I had a wife, I still do, and I dreamed last night that she was five months pregnant, and, well, that means something. I am sorry, Mary, but it does mean something.’

It feels like another confession. She doesn’t say anything, but then, after a pause, she smiles. I think she may understand. Maybe Isabella won’t hear me, but Mary has, and others like her, maybe they will. I smile back.

‘Isabella, the idea that I could still one day be a father scares me more than anything in the world, but it also makes me happier than anything in the world too.’

She doesn’t say anything for a moment. She sits perfectly still; her eyes are wide in thought.

‘Peter.’ It is Mary who speaks, softly. I look at her. Her tears are still damp on her cheeks. ‘Peter, take the gun.’ And she places in my hand. ‘You decide. I am just happy to have loved again. I understand it now; listening to you, I understand. Sometimes the hardest place to see something is when you are right inside it. But I know now that it doesn’t matter what happens to me, because I have known something more real than anything my whole life at NewState offered me. And nothing that NewState offers could possibly matter anymore.’

‘So,’ says Isabella. And once more, I see her, student again. ‘What are you going to do? Shoot me. Run? Send the world your composition?’

My face reveals my surprise.

‘Yes, Peter, of course we know about your writing project. And we know where you sent it. We were monitoring you the whole time. Even before Mary got too close we had more than her eyes on you. We thought you would lead us to the outsiders, so we followed your every move.’

‘Yes,' I say. 'If I could send it to everyone, and they could just know it existed, even for a minute, and they only read the first paragraph, that would be the start of everything changing.’

Still calm, Isabella asks, ‘But how? How could a fleeting reference to your private thoughts ever change the world? You are an interesting man, Mr Harrison, but that is more than anyone can hope for, isn’t it? It would be taken down and your ideas would be lost again forever. Unremembered.’

‘That’s just it, Isabella. I wouldn’t be going for a wholesale coup. They don’t work. And my writing would be proof that yours won’t always work either. It would be a start. It would be the genesis of everything that is to come: the questions, the memories, and, if only for a minute, the awakening of millions of bodies to the world they had almost forgotten. Memories. That is all we need. A triggering of memories.’

‘Between a typewriter and a bookshelf...’ She says it under her breath, drifting away again, as I begin to step backwards towards the elevator door, now pointing the gun at her. And then she looks up,

‘So, you are not going to shoot me?’ Mary gets up and begins to follow me.

‘I could never do that, Isabella. Hope to change you – that is all I can do – ask you to remember who you were before you were scared, before life crushed you and the internet seduced you with its walls of protective anonymity. I am sorry that I failed you as a teacher all those years ago. But there is still hope, Isabella. You can always face the dark. And if you don’t turn on the light, eventually – slowly – you’ll find yourself walking into it.’

I’m almost at the elevator now, Mary still a few meters away, between me and Isabella. I have said all I can say. I do not know what will happen next.

‘You will achieve nothing. No one wants what you’re offering. Socially Safe Communion. That is what people want. That is what they need.’

‘Truth. And a choice. That is what people need.’ And then, as I continue to walk away, still facing Isabella:

‘O Earth O Earth return!

Arise from out the dewy grass;

Night is worn,

And the morn

Rises from the slumberous mass.

Turn away no more:

Why wilt thou turn away

The starry floor

The watry shore

Is giv’n thee till the break of day.’

I feel my sunrise pendant against my chest.

Then I look from Isabella to Mary and back again and the world stops.

And I skip to the end that may never come…

Epilogue The end that may never come Peter Harrison

Two years later. I have broken in. I am in the roof garden again. Just me and Isabella. The same conversation, but this time I am the distraction. There are others below. A sound bleeps from the laptop in front of Isabella.

Downstairs, in the control room, the others have succeeded. They got in, held the control room at gunpoint, programmed the message and then locked the computers before they shut the door behind them, smashed the entry panel and ran for safety.

I move forward, Isabella is staring at the laptop in front of her. The following message covers the entire screen and fills every screen in NewState.

People of NewState.

This is an official announcement.

It has been confirmed by scientists at NSHQ that the people are suffering from limited exposure to sunlight.

Henceforth at 8am each day, your screens will display this message, and you are directed to step outside of your building for ten minutes.

Please do not worry.

Go now.

SSC

And I step backwards into the elevator, press the button for the ground floor, and watch the face of my old student disappear behind the doors.

I am running down a long, white lit corridor. I can hear footsteps in the distance behind me. The message has gone out. The EEOs are pursuing me. If all has gone as planned, the others will escape, and at the end of this corridor I will break through the door, cross the twenty metres or so of grass surrounding the building and duck through the hole in the fence that has been cut to set me free.

My heart is pounding and my pulse races as I approach the final bend. Sweat drips down my face and I feel the saltiness on my tongue, my mouth wide and smiling in delight as I crash around the final bend and see the exit ahead of me. Though I can hear their regimented feet growing louder, I do not think my pursuers are near enough to catch me.

I run towards Janine. Towards our child. Towards our future.

I am almost close enough to touch the door now.

I reach out.

Push.

Collide.

Tumble out.

And all across the nation, people are waking up under the rising sun.

Oh, but maybe that is a future for some other people in some other time.

In reality, the elevator door will open and Mary and I will be taken to a dark room with flashing lights